New lights in the Kitchen

Ever since we moved in, the light level over the sink has been terrible. Well, that's the excuse we use for rarely doing the washing-up! Now that it's getting darker in the evenings, the problem is only worsening. A couple of weekends ago we took a trip to Lowe's to find some kind of light fixture that might improve our situation. I measured the length of wire we would need to reach a socket, and we had fairly clear criteria in mind: We must be able to turn it on and off easily while standing at the sink; it must cast enough light from the ceiling to give us a bright working environment; and we needed to install it without causing too much damage to the (rental) house - so no chasing the walls to tap into the house's wiring.

For once we found the required department of the home improvement store right away. Usually it is a painful process just to get yourself in the vicinity of whatever you're looking for, but the lighting dept. was pretty obvious! However, we weren't having much luck meeting our expectations for a kitchen light. The under-counter lights seemed like the right idea, but they were rather dim and we would need to extend the cord and have some kind of switch...wait - they have those extension cords with switches on, don't they?
After a good half-hour of attempting to cobble together a neat solution with components we thought a good electrics dept ought to have, we finally sought out a store employee for some further advice. We were politely pointed in the direction of a retired electrician, who was more than happy to wonder around the aisles, pulling a plethora of products from the shelves and offering a variety of solutions that still didn't quite sound like they would work out how we'd planned. Sadly, despite his enthusiastic support, we left empty handed, planning to re-evaluate the possibilities rather than take an arm-load of goodies home and rig up a bodge job.
It happened that Kristal's parents came to visit over the weekend, and we were discussing the conundrum with her Dad. As usually seems to happen, it wasn't long before he recalled that he had just what we needed back home in a shed somewhere, and he'd be happy to take a look for it and send it along to us. Thus on Tuesday, the perfect little light bar arrives, with two spots that take regular bulbs. I scrounged a couple of screws from my toolbox that seemed made for the job at hand, and had it installed in minutes. The only problem was turning the lights on and off, without having to take the plug out every time. I headed back to the hardware store for a clicker-wheel switch.

Now, I done a fair amount of tinkering with British electrics (yes, I was one of those kids who took everything apart), so I assumed it'd be plain sailing to fit a simple in-line switch. As it turns out, I had no clue what I was meant to do with this tiny thing. The answer, of course, was to find one in the house that was already assembled, dismantle it and see how it goes back together. Apparently, the neutral wire runs straight through the switch housing, and just the live gets cut, the blunt ends kinda wedged in. When you reassemble the housing, copper spikes piece the sheathing on the cut ends of the live wire to complete the connection through the clicker wheel. I was rather impressed with the simple elegance of it, as I had planned to have to strip wire-ends and insert them into impossibly fiddly connectors.

Anyway, it you want to see some photos, head over to my flickr page. Mostly we are re-enacting for the camera, but you get the idea. It really brightens up the place a lot, and does it neatly and safely, which is soothing to my ever-so-slightly-OCD-tendencies. In fact, the two 15W energy saving (60W equivalent) bulbs are so bright I've had to point them at the ceiling!

Thanks Don!

Herbs (the 'H' is Silent)

Herbs 003, originally uploaded by evens.john.

The 'erbs needs to be rescued from the front bed last week. Grass and weeds had completely choked them, but once they were dug out I was please to find that they were all in pretty good shape. Once we had them safely transferred to one of the square gardens, I dug out the remaining sunflower stumps, pulled the weeds and put some mulch down. Hopefully we can get a few bulbs in there for the spring.

Coffee Table

Coffee Table, originally uploaded by evens.john.

I believe in enriching my stay in the USA by partaking in activities enjoyed by the everyday American. This weekend I experienced another all-American, down-home, good-ole-boy pastime; browsing yard sales. I've been on the lookout for a coffee table on Craigslist for several weeks, but none of my enquiries were ripening into deals. We wanted a simple wooden table, and it seemed mostly likely that we find one sitting out on someone's front yard on a Saturday morning. I tried to be authentic as possible, so I donned sweatpants and climbed into the truck. However, to avoid buying a ton of crap, we would crawl by each yard, and if no coffee table was apparent, keep on moving! I had a list of about six sales, and the addresses, but we quickly put the list aside and just followed the signs as we saw them. Yard sales are everywhere! We probably drove past five or six spots, all tucked away in cute neighborhoods that we would never have any other reason to visit. Despite having no luck finding our desired item, we were having a lot of fun. Finally we found what we we looking for, and picked up a coffee table and side table for the princely sum of twenty bucks. The worst did almost happen when a little person started grilling us about dog ownership, and began suggesting several other items we might like to take off his hands. Luckily, we managed to avoid both admitting we don't own a dog without breaking the facade of all-Americanism, and buying more random household goods.

A bit of a sanding, and a lick of stain, and we have a rather fetching set of rustic looking tables!

You Can't Take it With You

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. As I've often said about blogging: Either nothing interesting is happening or I'm so busy with blog-worthy activities that there is no time to write. I now have a backlog of recent events to publish on the web, beginning here with a trip to the playhouse.

You can blame 250+ cable channels for the fact that young people don't go out to see plays anymore. I can't say that I'll go out of my way in search of amateur dramatics, but there's something about the words 'free tickets' that piques my interest. So my Grandparents had a couple of spare tickets to a play. On an army base. The driver would be here at seven. Were we interested?

I stared the gift-horse straight in the face - and blinked first. How bad could it possibly be? The details were hazy, but would you believe it was the best offer we had for our Friday night! Thus we departed for Fort Lee (just outside Petersburg) to see the local Morale Welfare and Recreation Theater Company, and their production of Hart and Kaufman's You Can't Take it With You.

Perhaps to continue the theme of having absolutely no idea what we were getting ourselves in for, we took our seats without picking up a programme. I detest programmes, and the way everyone sits there with their noses stuck in them until the curtain goes up. A glance around the auditorium confirmed that we were easily the youngest members of the audience (with the exception of another couple just a few rows away, who turned out to be friends of ours!). Minutes into the play we began to wish we had the programme. What the blazes was this foolishness all about? The jokes were so awkward it was like it had been written in the 1930s or something!

OK, it turns out it was written in the '30s. How was I to know?! However, by the intermission we were still none the wiser. A whole family of insane characters had been introduced, followed by more characters, then more...the doorbell would ring every two minutes, and here would be some other acquaintance, stopping by to add to the confusion. We took heart from discovering that the more seasoned theater-goers accompanying us were jest as baffled. Refreshments were definitely called for, and the army clearly knew how to make you feel welcome. Wine was $1.50 a glass! Perhaps a swift drink would bring the insanity into focus.

The second half got rolling, and pieces started falling into place. The daughter of this free-thinking family was engaged to the son of a high-flying Wall Street Banker. Could the two families ever see eye-to-eye? Probably not, is the answer, especially after the Feds burst in a cart the entire cast off to Jail for the night! I predicted that the play would conclude with a philosophical monologue by the Grandpa, but instead we were treated to a dialogue between the Grandpa and the Wall Street Banker, with interjections from a house-guest who happened to be the cousin of the deposed Russian Tsar (and cafe waitress)! It probably spoke louder in it's time, but had an uncanny resonance considering the current turmoil on Wall St. Most importantly, it turned out to be warmly entertaining, and executed with a genuine enthusiasm that tends to exude from amateur groups. My favorite part was probably when the Russian dance instructor informs the Wall Street man that he has the perfect build for wrestling, then immediately leaps across the the room, tackles the unsuspecting banker and pins him to the floor to prove his point. Physical comedy is timeless!

A day by the river

Since my cycling adventurer turned out to be brief, we had time for some riparian recreation. I had seen on the news that river levels had recovered enough for Richmond to lift compulsory water usage restrictions, so it seemed fair to assume the stream may be running at a more refreshing temperature ("bath water" best describes recent conditions). We headed down to our exclusive lot on Riverside Drive hoping to paddle out to some rocks and take a dip. To our surprise we were met with 6 ft river levels, which made for tough canoeing and scarce rocks to alight on. So once again my best laid plan went agley.
The occasion was still pleasant enough. After a liberating bathe in something resembling beef stew we sat in the shade of a tree a reviewed high literature (Personally I'm reading an easy-going novel about a circus animal keeper).

Hitting the trails

It's a holiday weekend so I finally have some time to do whatever I please. With that in mind I dug my neglected mountain bike out of the shed and hit buttermilk trail. I lasted about 30 minutes before the humidity got the better of me! That was already enough time for me to take a small tumble. Hey, I'd drawn blood so could chalk it up as a successful ride - no need to continue!
It was like riding in a rainforest out there. The recent rain hadn't made the ground too muddy, but every root was slick with moisture. I am horribly out of practice, and frankly not as fit as I thought I was. Somehow I just couldn't find any momentum. In a brave effort at mind-over-body I attacked a relatively smooth uphill section, arriving at the top gasping for air and melting with sweat. My body signaled a surrender, so I emptied a bottle of water over my head and took the road route back to the truck.
This being my third summer I had believed that I had acclimatized to the heat and humidity. In fact I had just learned to take it easy. While I was sitting on a rock, two thirty-something ladies came past me, looking as right as rain. They kept a steady pace, and knew when the terrain was beyond them, calmly dismounting until they could ride again.
Still, fall is almost upon us (we had a preview for most of last week) and the weather will be more to my liking. Until then, I'm sticking to yoga!

Bragging Rights

I don't brag on here often, do I? Well, this time we are particularly proud of our hard work (ever though it doesn't look like much). I'm not very familiar with American house-building methods, but the idea seemed to be that boards were nailed over insulation, and then batons nailed over the seams to create a decently weatherproof outer wall. The boards was already been put up and whitewashed, so it was up to us to get some baton-work completed.

I sized up the job at hand, and quickly decided we would need a chop-saw and a nail gun. We had a dodgy hammer (I was convinced the head would come off at any moment, probably as it was bring swung back towards the face), so cheese nails and Skil saw. At least it was something. I was pleased to see that if I should accidentally snag the cord of the saw, I wouldn't be the first.

We began by working out some trim around the window. Peter explained that it would be nice the mimic the trim on the original house, with the horizontals extending 3/4" beyond the uprights. Since we we working with 1x3, our efforts were never going to be elegant, but we were instructed to to whatever we thought best. Once the window was framed we began on the batons under the window. We thought it would be plain sailing, but the boards underneath we not even, and all the batons were warped or bent, and would bounce as you tried to nail, effectively dissipating all the energy you were throwing at the nail! We persevered and achieved what we could before the threat of heat-stroke forced us to go in search of beer.

On the second day we shored up some of our previous work with additional nailing, and worked out some trick angled pieces under the eaves. I'm not going to say it was pretty, but (most of) the them fit snugly, and close to vertical. As for the others...I believe they call it caulk over here...

We may have only got a small corner done, but y'know, there was eating and drinking and catching up to do too! Photos of all are on Flickr

Highland County a year on

Hiking the trail, originally uploaded by evens.john.

Despite our promises to return on a regular basis, it had been a full year since we visited our friends and family in Highland county. Peter kindly invited us for another weekend of physical labour, good food and great views. Oh, and did I mention the delightful company: Blakes, Blanchards, Byrds, Scotts, an the rest of us hangers-on.

We arrived just in time for lunch on Saturday, but were swiftly put to work after a bite to eat. Kristal and I were tasked with adding the batons to the siding on the rear addition. It was hot work in the afternoon sun, and we gradually grew tired of bending nails, our grips on the hammers foiled by sweat. The lure of the creek overcame us.

Back Creek was suffering from a historic low, but the water was still refreshing (and so were the beers). When we got back to the house, preparations for dinner began. Relatives and neighbours soon arrived bearing coolers and trays of beans, potato salad, beets and deserts. Somehow Bob and I were elected for grill duty, and we did our best to cook 24 ears of corn and as many sausages on a small gas grill! Everything turned out pretty good, and the eating was fine as always. Soon the stars were out and it was time to retire to the tent.

On Sunday we grabbed a quick breakfast (more sausage!) and took a hike in the hills at the back of the house. I had a bit of energy left to finish the batoning job, then we packed up and head home.

There is something amazingly relaxing about that part of the world. Despite our hard work and inluxurious accomadation, we returned refreshed and uplifted. I can't imagine why we only make it once a year!

A Real Post about My Family

Here's a lovely portrait of my Mom, Dad and me. It was their last day in the USA, but I daresay we'll be seeing each other often over the next couple of years now that Martha is in Texas.

My Family and the Alpaca Farm

I want to apologise up front to my parents for only including them on my Blog in a post about Alpacas. My Mom and Dad took us to Buck Ridge Farm, where an extremely talkative lady rears alpacas! Located in Powatan, our host certainly made it worth the gas money with a barrage of information not only regarding the docile camelid but also the tax incentives for farming alpacas and other fascinating details. I certainly found it educational, and enjoyed making friends with some soft furry animals (the dogs were as fluffy as everything else)! After extricating ourselves from a potentially never ending conversation (by this point expanding to goats and tomatoes), we headed into Powatan CH for some lunch, then home.

The Tides of Change

Why is it impossible to recreate the first time you experience something?

The weekend was spent relaxing on the beaches of the Outer Banks, NC. The weather was fine: occasionally threatening rain, but only so cloudy as to take the sting off the midday sun and keep temperatures pleasant. The water was refreshingly chilly. We were far from the only cats on the beach, but never had any problem securing a spot for our chairs. We sunbathed, swam, read, ate, drank, and were merry.

But it wasn't anything like the first time. The first time, OBX felt like a coastal wilderness like I had never experienced back home. I'd had an idea that people escaped to places like this, camping in the dunes and cooking tuna over an open campfire on the beach. Now here was I, feeling a million miles from home and loving it.

So perhaps its not OBX that has changed, but me. And of course if you visit at the end of September, hitting the beach around dinner time, then it's easy to forget that such a majority of the population of the East Coast and beyond (we saw a lot of Quebec plates this time) treat OBX as their Summer playground.

It's heartbreaking to see a beach full of F250's. There's really no reason for it. For an avid fisherman I can see the benefit in him taking his jeep to the surf with all his tackle and bait and supplies for the day. A family on a beach trip need to park the truck in the parking lot, hand the beach chairs to Junior and start walking. The Environmentals are doing what they can to protect the wildlife, but making themselves hugely unpopular in the process. As a chemist all I see is the residue left behind. Hundreds of vehicles carrying material from the roadway onto the sand, laying down a blanket of Carbon monoxide, complex hydrocarbons and trace precious metals. I was always taught that the beach was a vulnerable environment by dint of its nature as a transition from sea to land.

Of course I respect the rights of visitors to recreate on the beach, but as with all things, with rights come responsibility, and little responsibility is being exercised by most of the visitors. What disappoints me is that as the people who have been visiting the area for decades complain about the erosion of their rights, they fail to realize how they have not kept up on their responsibilities to be examples of how to treat the environment with respect, to educate other visitors about the fragility of the beach and it's inhabitants, to exercise a little frugality and not abuse the resources that the barrier islands hold. Having completely ignored these vital roles, now they only have bad things to say of the legislators and civil servants working to do what they didn't do themselves. No, you can't fish from the beach around the inlet, because where the trucks used to be sparsely dotted along the waterline, they are now wing-mirror to wing-mirror. The traffic along the dunes rivals Highway 12. The Oystercatchers and turtles want just a sliver of their home to call their own.

Origami 001

Origami 001, originally uploaded by evens.john.

While in Boston we stopped in some cool shops along Beacon street, including a puzzle and game store. I picked up a book called 3-D Geometric Origami: Modular Polyhedra by Ron Gurkewitz and Bennett Arnstein.

I've managed some simple models that required fewer than 10 pieces, and that start with standard origami squares. Not sure if I'm ready to tackle the 20 piece Triangle Module Dodecahedron yet!

Chocolate Mint Tea

Kristal's Mom gave me a few Chocolate Mint rootings when we were starting our gardens. It has done rather well just outside our front door, so I attempted to make tea today. I took enough stems to give me a loose handful of leaves, and brewed them in just-off-the-boil water for about half an hour. I then diluted it down to double the volume an ended up with about a quart. It's rather nice. It doesn't taste overpoweringly minty. In fact it doesn't taste of much at all at first, but leaves a delightfully refreshing feeling in your mouth!

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July!, originally uploaded by evens.john.

Just got back from an awesome trip to Boston with Kristal, Chris and Rowie for Independence Day. Chris really wanted to make an appearance on my Blog, so here he is!
We:
Took a tour of Richmond

Went Canoeing on the James
Shot handguns at the range

Drove to Boston
Ate Thai food

Heard the Declaration of Independance
Saw the USS Constitution fire a 21 gun salute
Went to the original 'Cheers' bar
Went round the corner to 'Sevens'
Walked down the Esplanade
Played Uno in an Irish Bar
Ate Fried Dough
Watched the Fireworks

Visited the NE Aquarium
Ate Dim Sum in China town
Tried bubble tea
Toured Beacon Street
Ate wood oven baked pizza
Drank in the Replica 'Cheers' bar
Drank some more in a cool bar with live music
Got lost on the way back to the Hostel

Visited the MIT Museum
Visited the Harvard Natural History Museum
Ate all we could eat at Fire and Ice
Sat in a park

Drove back to Richmond
Stopped at the Statue of Liberty

The Photos are on my flickr.

Churrascaria

OK, time for a food post.

Since Kristal and I moved in together we have tried to limit the number of times we eat out each week. The effect of this has been to greatly expand the variety of dishes we prepare at home. Especially with the new grill, we have been dining in style at a fraction of the cost of restaurant fare. While I occasionally miss the popcorn shrimp at Outback, $10 of steak from the grocery store and a bottle of marinade will feed us for dinner and the next day's lunch and taste just as good (if not better). The only establishment we frequent now is our sushi restaurant (where we are considered patrons). We have discovered the secret to getting a lot of food for a small price, and rarely buy alcohol there (the tea is too nice).

Last night, beyond our wildest expectations, we weren't in a sushi mood. There was nothing to eat in the house save ground beef. Searching the internet was turning up few possibilities for new places to visit, and we ended up driving around Innsbrook in search of a place I thought I saw once...figuring we'd end up a Cheesecake Factory (their extensive menu is bound to have something that tickles our taste buds). In our meandering we came across the Ipenema Grill. It looked....expensive. But for whatever reason our curiosity get the upper hand and we started on a wonderful adventure of meat.

I have no idea what they eat in Brazil. The images that come to mind are beaches, slums and the rain forest. None of those landscapes include a restaurant of any kind. It turns out that the most popular style of dining is the Churrascaria. The service is Rodizio - a kind of all you can eat buffet, in which the meat is circulated on giant skewers by a team a waiters wielding equally huge carving knives. The Prix fixe was reasonable, so we agreed not to bolt for the door...

Before you accept any meat, the practice is to visit the salad bar (also providing side dishes). In hindsight, it is unsurprising that the food has a distinctly Mediterranean flavor; after all, Brazil was colonized by Portuguese, Italians and others, including some of Middle Eastern origin. For whatever reason, it felt slightly Greek, perhaps because of the ubiquity of olives!

On returning to the table, one flips a small acrylic sign from red to green, and the men arrive bearing carnivore heaven. The host mentioned ten type of meat. I tried to keep track, but as the meat-coma set in and my cognitive powers receded, counting to ten became a bridge too far. This is as much as I can dredge from my subconscious: smoked sausage, chicken wrapped in bacon, sirloin, tenderloin, pork ribs, lamb, and the roasted pineapple. All the meat is cooked in a South American barbecue style known as Churrasco, originating with the Gaucho cowboys. As far as I can tell, the key to everything Brazilian is lime juice. Everything was incredibly moist, tender and tasty.

I have to try a local beer whenever I can, and Ipanema offered Xingu. All I'll say is I may never drink another Guinness. Well, of course I will, but every time I do I'll think of Xingu.

New Rubber

The 8000 mile service is complete! I did the oil, filter and plug changes myself, then took it to the shop for new tires. I was thinking about saving up for some pimpin' Metzeler touring rubber, but then found a large chunk of metal embedded in my rear tire and had to accelerate the process. I think the stock tires will do just fine.

Garden Update

Tomato Flower, originally uploaded by evens.john.

We have flowers on our tomatoes and zuccini!

Motorcycle News

I dropped a bike for the first time in my life on Saturday. I had to work in the morning, and was in a rush to get out of there! In my haste I lost my balance backing out of a parking space on a slope. I've always said that I'm the type of person who know when an accident is unavoidable and concentrates on minimizing the consequences. True to my form I made virtually no attempt to keep the bike upright, instead my focus was trained on putting my machine down gently. The outcome? It landed on the clutch lever which bent like so much cheese then snapped neatly in half. No paint damage. No broken mirrors, no scratched mufflers. I was still pretty mad at myself. It was scorchingly hot and I was stripping off my gear as I tried to stand the bike up. In the end I relented and sought help from a petite workmate who in fact made all the difference. After pumping the gas out of the flooded cylinders and carbs I was back on the road. Holding on to the clutch at a red light was agony, but the bike shifted much better having more lever travel.

I picked up some sweet chrome levers off eBay, and fitted they this evening. They look pimpin'! However, I'm now back to rough shifting as the lever hits the bar. I've adjusted the cable as much as I can without the clutch slipping, so I'll just have to see how it goes.

Gas Grill!

To celebrate my being in the USA for two year, Kristal acquired me a gas grill. A work friend of hers had no further use for it, so it came for free. It wasn't in very good shape, so I sanded down all the wood and metal, stained or spray painted as appropriate and generally cleaned it up. The worst job was getting the spider nests out of the gas lines. Apparently no one sells pipe cleaners anymore (people just buy Drano) so I had to buy a 99c wire bristle toilet brush and make a few alterations. After much sweat and bloody knuckles I finally had it clean enough that gas didn't get backed up and create a fireball around the taps!

The weather is awesome for grilling right now. Yesterday was burger night - tonight we had sausages. Maybe tomorrow I'll do chicken kebabs....

Anyone remember the Baywatch episode with the ladybugs?

Last weekend we took a trip to Sandbridge and got attacked by ladybugs. At one point I had three all sitting on my at once. The water was cold, and the sand kept on blasting us, but we had some killer seafood for lunch and I found a cool shell (a fairly intact Conch).
I thought you'd all like to marvel at me doing a Baywatch impression (minus the yellow floaty thing).