October 2007 Archives

Happy Halloween everyone! I always look forward to this holiday for the creativity and memories of the great candy loads I got from the nearby apartment complex when I was a kid. We stocked up on candy this year for the ~30 youngsters that came trick-or-treating at our house this year. Now I try to give out handfuls of chocolate bars when I can (remembering the lady who gave 1 piece of bubble gum to us trick-or-treaters every year).

Weather really held out for Halloween night, and work had a great halloween party this year. I even won best pumpkin carving at work with the Chinese Phoenix jack-o-lantern (on the left). The one on the right is a penguin.. it's the Linux Mascot if you must know.

Here's a bumpkin pumpkin:

I had a lame costume (for work) but our favorite dog dressed up for Halloween this year too!

Hope you've recovered from your candy overdose this year, I'm already planning for next year.

Today is Blog Action Day, so I'm posting about environmental things for a change today. One of the ways Debbie and I make a difference is to learn how to make things ourselves. Often we can recycle something into another use with some work, but for food products we have found it gives us a new insight into tastes and often provides a new experience too. It also gives us full choice of ingredients and process, choosing local, farmer's market bought, organic, free-range, low-salt, etc.

Debbie and I love to make our own stuff, and regularly do so.
* We love to cook from scratch on weekends when we have time
* Brett made a batch of tomato chutney and canned it
* Debbie is making soap at home (today!)
* Brett makes home-made (and tasty) beer, hard-cider, and root-beer
* Debbie loves to make pasta with her new stand mixer
* We plant a garden and grow hops at home and enjoy the spoils
* We've made grape-juice and apple cider in NY
* We make ice-cream at home in the summer with our cool kick-ball
* We are going to try making cheese at home next..

It's fun to make things at home, and more environmental!

Of course we've also "contributed" in lots of other environmental ways with household work and daily activities:
* Only have one car, we bike and walk when we can
* Brett works from home 1 day a week to avoid miles in my commute
* Have a programmable thermostat, keep it turned down
* Insulated the walls
* Changed most of the bulbs in the house to CFLs, turn off lights when not in use
* Chosen energy/water saving appliances
* In the remodel, used "green" or environmentally responsible materials when possible including Fuze counters and FSC lumber for our cabinets.

Boy, it's been a whole month since we have updated the blog.. sorry everyone!

The usual work/sleep/party/buy-a-new-laptop routine has kept us busy lately. I love the new laptop because it is a very quiet and powerful replacement for an older desktop computer we kept in the office closet because it was so loud. Now we've got a small closet free again, and a fast computer we can carry around. I avoided Windows Vista intentionally opting for XP instead, but it wasn't easy. Check the small business section for XP systems for most manufacturers, the "home" computers are all Vista. (Even our friends working at Microsoft don't use Vista yet..!)

We had a great trip to the Wallowa mountains in Eastern Oregon for a long weekend by taking 2 days of vacation.We backpacked one night (9 miles each way..!) up to a beautiful alpine lake, then stayed at a nice B&B in Joseph. Lucky for Brett in nearby Enterprise, OR the Terminal Gravity brewpub was a great place to stop in and meet some locals. We also stopped in Walla-Walla on the way back for a quick college and winery visit too.

Here are some pictures from the Wallowa trip, but here's a teaser:

We just got back from a great trip to Albany, save for some airline complications to and from. I ended up in JFK airport for 5 hours on the way to Albany and our flight was canceled on the way back, but we still made it.

In Albany we visited with Debbie's parents, Erica, and Matthew, and enjoyed some great autumn weather. We kept ourselves busy helping Dan with some renovation on a one-room schoolhouse, picking apples and making apple cider, picking and crushing grapes for some fresh grape juice, making applesauce, hiking and visiting a new bridge Dan built.

The photos from the trip are posted here:

 

A great limerick that tickled my funny bone today:

Our lab plans to offer instruction
in thriftier liquor production
the alcohol boils
in old magnet coils
we're calling it "proof by induction"

via Andy's blog

There is a new initiative to encourage discussion of environmental topics on your blog on Oct. 15th. Any bloggers reading this (Andrew, Timmeh, others?) should consider participating.

Hopefully I'll blog about an upcoming organic beer brew-day, up next: Charlie's Oatmeal Stout.