The Abyss

When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you

-Friedrich Nietzsche

It’s certainly been a while since I last blogged.  In fact, I’ve likely convinced most of my friends that I’m dead.  Time certainly gets away from me in the worst way and I haven’t been out for a game of cards (or any other game) in quite a while.  In fact, socialisation has been at a very minimum the last while since I started working in my group at my employer.  I’m not sure why but it’s been rather hard to push myself to go out and have some fun.  It’s like it’s difficult to have fun; I not quite sure where that is coming from but I’m not liking it at all.

 

For anyone reading, I do plan on attending ‘the draft’.  I must have some fun soon or I’m going to go postal.

So, what prompted this uncharacteristic blog entry and why did I want to call an end to what might be the longest quiet streak in the blogsphere?  Well I had to repair my toilet and it turned into a small and laughable mess.  What was originally a small adjustment to the ballcock refill assembly turned into water spraying all over in a force not felt in a long time.  I was, of course, lent over the water tank and got the full brunt of the jet in my face.  The walls and ceiling are of course now dripping from the spectacular fountain or rather power spray of the water supply.

After toweling down, I spend another hour wasting my time trying to reassemble the assembly with a part missing.  A crutial washer had fallen off into the tank and I failed to notice it.  So with only one washer and a plastic float I tried what must have been all 16 combinations of positions, directions etc twice only to have the refill mechanism fail over and over.  Each failure bringing my moisture level higher and higher as I tried turning on the water supply to test the futile assembly.

I do have multiple washrooms, so like any good engineer, I went to examine a working model for reference.  Now I couldn’t disassembly the ballcock in another toilet as I wasn’t confident I could reassemble it since that was my current dilemma.  I poked and prodded at the reference assembly and sighed as nothing seemed any different from mine.  I couldn’t justify taking apart the working version as two non-functional toilets is much worse than one.

Returning to carcass of my current victim I had a moment of disgust.  I hung my head in shame and did a long stare into the empty tank.  I looked down hopelessly at the bottom of the empty reservoir and noticed a washer at the bottom hidden away under the flush plunger.  I was both excited and extraordinarily angry at myself for being so obtuse.  I rescued the black rubber circle and quickly fixed the assembly properly with the two washers.  Mercifully, the final test provided no extra water spray for my wifes enjoyment.

It certainly is laughable now.  Just standing there in the bathroom soaked from getting blasted by the toilet from a bad assembly rebuild is enough material to keep my wife laughing for another month or so. 

Ah domestic bliss!

Am I ‘it’ ?

So… 6 random things.  6 – the number of the beast.  Without further delay, the list:

 

1. I like meat.

2. I like meat.

3. I like meat.

4. I like meat.

5. I like meat.

6. I like meat.

 

Yes, that’s right – even random selection includes clusters of commonality, deal with it.

Gearing up for summer

Summer is almost upon us and I’ve presumptively taken steps to ensure we are well kitted out.  My wife and I have been looking into getting a food processor as she’s been cooking a lot more and it would make many things much easier to make.  I came across an appliance store on-line that sold the Cuisinart 14cup food processor for a much lower price than most stores here in Ottawa (or others on-line).  After ordering it Monday, it was already here on Tuesday… incredible delivery!  I even got the delivery free using Visa.

It’s a nice piece of kit with an absolutely horrible DVD on how to use it.  The manual is a much more exciting read, so that should tell you how well directed the DVD is.

 

The next interesting item I recently aquired was a new BBQ book from my favourite magazine publisher Cook’s magazine.  This new book called The Cook’s Illustrated Guide to Grilling and Barbecue and is an impressive tome of knowledge and recipes.  I really like these publishers for two reasons; one is that they have zero ads in their magazine and the other is they take a systematic approach to figuring out recipes and how to improvement.  They explain how certain things work and other don’t which give you good information to use in your everyday cooking.  I recommend both the book and magazine to anyone who likes to understand basic principles behind cooking you can use each day as well as good recipe ideas making great food (dinners etc).

 

I’m looking forward to a great summer!

Bottles of fun

I try to be a reasonable fellow and not get too caught up in sensationalism or fear.  It’s sometimes more of a challenge today with the media, special interest groups and of course the Internet (more a venue for the first two but I digress).

Of particular interest to myself is the recent debate over BPA and polycarbonate plastics used in storage.  While using them for non-food related storage is no problem there have been studies showing that BPA (a chemical used in the production of polycarbonate plastic) leaches into the food or liquid contained within.  Both the chemical companies and the tree huggers agree on this point – it is possible for a release of BPA into the contained food, but the amount and the nature of this leakage is the centre of the debate.

On the chemical company side, they hold that the amount is around 3.5 parts per billion.  Now that’s a pretty small number – but it’s also the ‘best’ and comes from new bottles (not re-used) and non-heated in any way.  After they are re-used and scratched, the amount goes up to 28 ppb but this is not confirmed by the chemical companies, not will they ever release information which says heating or reusing the bottle can lead to an almost x8 increase in BPA leaching.  Some studies have show corn oil or ethonal in these bottles pushes that leaching rate to 68ppb, but that is such crap since I can’t think of a reasonable human that would store corn oil or ethonal into a container than re-use it for food purposes… if you wheren’t concerned about the BPA leaching I know I’d be worried about cross contamination which is much more likely to be dangerous.  As you can guess the tree huggers sponsored those studies.

The real question is, is BPA a inert and harmless chemical that passes through the human body?  No, it’s an endocrine disruptor and levels of BPA from  0.1 to 10 ppb are already more than enough to have effects on humans.  What those effects are and their long term consequences mean are still being studied and argued but I think it’s safe to assume it isn’t going to be benign.

Even worse to me though is that BPA is even used to line the cans of food we all use and you know each and every can is heated (for packaging) so there is a very strong possibility some BPA entered the food in the tin can.  I think we all eat food from a tin a lot more than water from those colourful bottles.  Yet rarely doesn’t anyone make a mention of it.

All that aside, every choice we make is a calculated risk.  You can mitigate it with informed choices but at the end you cannot elimiate risk (generally).  I still use a cell phone (studies showing it can cause brain tumors to develop) and eat from non-stick pans (though I tend to use cast iron more and more – which leaches something else… iron but it’s good for you).  I don’t think it will kill me, but I try to avoid what I don’t like when I can.

In adults, I don’t know what the long term affects are of BPA ingestion but I do know there are negative effect to a babies developmental progress.  It’s even enough for our government to get involved and Health Canada to start a ban on the import/export of baby products (bottles etc) containing BPA (and you know how fast government moves)

There is lots and lots of material you can read, but I see it in a much simpler light.

Pro: I save money not re-buying my baby bottles again

Con:

-I could endanger the development of my child and spend a lot more than a hundred dollars with special classes and medical compilications down the road.

-I will have guilt each time I use the BPA bottles, wondering if I’m doing something wrong.

-I will have to listen to every other person that thinks they know more than I, touting off that I shouldn’t kill my baby.

It turns out to be the best $100 bucks I ever spent.  Good nights sleep, no guilt, not danger (yet) and I don’t have to listen to any more people telling me what I already know as a good and informed parent.  I just don’t have the energy to explain that I have been tracking this polycarbonate plastic information ever since we got pregnant.  I don’t panic, nor make rash choices and truth be told I’m not convinced that BPA is all evil.  That said, it’s known to have heightened effects in babies and I’m not willing to find out later.  So I make a choice that isn’t about the fear and more about calculated risks.  I have nothing to loose to move away from those bottles and products so, not a difficult choice to make.

For anyone looking, I found the Bornfree BPA free bottles at Shoppers Drugmart in Kingston (Bayside).  I’d hurry since stores are having big problems keeping them in stock (as with glass or other BPA free products).

Inaugural posting… That time of the year

Welcome to my new spot.  Just trying out a new location to see if things are easy to update or work with.  WordPress seems better than blogspot, so I’m giving it a go.

That said, I spend my weekend doing the thing all despise.  The cleaning of the BBQ.

Yep, cleaning the BBQ is right up there with going to the dentist and doing taxes, the only benefit is tasty food so it’s not as bad as the aforementioned.  My BBQ is now 3+ years old and hasn’t been cleaned since I put it together.  Now outside of ash and blackened ’stuff’ it’s not all that bad, but the real issue was the burner.  As with most BBQs you buy these days the burner is not exactly the high quality part it really should be.

Granted, this part is exposed to the elements, acidic foods, and hot grease as well as blazing temperatures that literally change the metal.  Mine had finally decided to give up the ghost complete with flames out some sides and nothing out others.  This created hots spots of massive flame and cold spots which really means the BBQ can’t cook food safely.

I fight the same feeling most do – at this point you question if you should just get a new BBQ or get replacement parts and invest more money into the existing device.  I’ll admit the allure of a new piece of cooking machinery is enough to make me salivate.  That shiny chrome, that new BBQ smell and the roar of the new models gas combustion belching out massive amounts of heat creating that lovely crust we all adore.

This year I decided to be responsible and TRY to fix my BBQ.  The outside stainless (ha!) steel has tarnished from all the heat and elements, but over all it’s in fine nick.  The inside grills, burner and what is left of the flame tamer is the real issue.  The flame tamer doesn’t exist except for some skeletal remains of carbon.  The burner is, as previously mentioned, in poor and unserviceable condition.  The grill is in ok condition, but I’ve never been overly happy about the performance of it (hard to make those wonderful sear marks).

So off I went to Canadian Tire.  If you’ve ever replaced a BBQ burner you know this game is like cars – somehow the parts of the BBQ are worth more than the whole together.  A new small H burner will set you back 40 bucks and that is for the generic/universal versions.  Just as I passed by the replacement I was eying, I noticed another variant of my H burner replacement.  A cast iron one!  I know the stainless aluminum versions rarely last a year or two before starting to fall apart.  I figured cast iron couldn’t be really that much worse and I know cast iron takes well to heat (I cook with cast iron quite often in the kitchen).  The burner was two dollars more, so I figured it was worthwhile to just try out.  Along it was a new grilling surface of cast iron bars.  Usually you see cast iron grilling surfaces in some higher end BBQs and with good reason.  Cast iron holds heat and recovers from cold meat much better than stainless steel.  These bars are also thicker and heavy so it doesn’t shift around either.  The new grill was $40 bucks, but compared to a new BBQ I figured it was quite justified.

At home I began the surgery.  Remove the old burner and install the new heart.  After removing all the grills etc, I got to the old burner.  It was screwed and bolted down – and the worst part is that the bolts were small and very rusted and corroded from all the elements.  Side note: would manufacturers of BBQs PLEASE PLEASE use galvanized parts… for the love of all that is holy).  I stripped one bold and torn my hand up on sheet metal trying to loosen the others.  I had zero luck getting that blasted burner off.

Now comes the redeeming quality of cheap burners.  I pried it open and broke the spot welds holding the screws and removed the burner.  Next I took my pliers and sheered off the bolted screws and stood in victory over the corpse of the now removed burner.  I quickly sprayed some cleaner and hosed down the inside of my BBQ.  Rusted bits of stuff and carbon came leaking out in a crimson flow.  After letting it dry a little in the open air,  I unpacked the new cast iron burner and installed it without much issue.  I completed the project by installing my new cast iron grilling surface and tested the ignition system.  While the spark plug is supposed to be connected to the burner, I have a generic one so it doesn’t have a spot to screw it down.  I wire wrapped it close to one of the out ports and it should work for now.  I’m sure the ignition system will be the next part to fail anyways so I’m not all that worried.

With my BBQ together again we cooked some burgers to break it in.  The grilling surface exceeded my expectations and produced excellent grill marks and maintained the heat very well.  The new burner spread the heat much better (hard to really not be an improvement) but I think I might need to get a new flame tamer as it acts also as a heat distributor and protects the burner from dripping grease.  I’m not worried as it’s cast iron, but the heat distribution is likely something I’ll want anyways.

Depending how this works out, I’ll be definitely keeping my cast iron grills for my next BBQ (unless it comes with better ones) and that once this one does fall apart on the outside (and it’s unsafe to use) I’ll know what to look for in a better BBQ (I don’t think stainless steel is all that great for outside anyways).

 

Sweet Sweet Mac Lovin’

For my birthday, I received many fantastic presents.  Moby and NIN CDs, nice shirts, a very cool BBC documentary and some great cake and family time!

Because I’m spoiled, I also received a new iMac.

.. it’s now kitted out with 4gigs of RAM.  I’ve never had a computer this powerful nor

 with a screen so large (24″).  It’s fantastic and even Britgal has started learning the ways of the Mac.

I can live in my Mac world, or if I need access for development reasons to Linux/Windows or QNX I have VMware running.  With 4gigs of RAM this computer never touches the hard disk even with VMware  The most impressive part (at least wow factor) is the 24″ display.  It’s massive and I’m having trouble using all the screen real-estate.

Hopefully with a more reliable computer (our old 900mhz pc was slowly going) I’ll have some time to enjoy the computer rather than work on it.

The bonus with this computer is the webcam built in and the photo editing software as we can share more stuff with the grand parents and other family abroad.

 

Shopping, Sushi, Soup and Supplies

Bier Garten and Pig Knuckle

Sights and Sounds of Germany

Operation München Day 4

Status: calm and collected

No pictures today as it was a pretty busy and hectic day (and it’s late) and I’m tired and I have used too many ands.

Some of my co-workers are looking to either go out for dinner tomorrow night or perhaps on Sunday to a Biergarten. It’ll be nice to get outside of the hotel and work for a change and perhaps get to know our co-workers here in Germany.

BTW, the guesses about the last picture in my previous post have been good, but I’ll wait to see what else people come up with. So far no one has guessed.

G’night.