This Tool's Life

Bread a French Man Might Be Proud Of

2011-12-18T16:36:00.000-08:00

A delicious loaf of French bread laden with marinated green olives and minced garlic. Magnificent.

I worked for a semester with a native Frenchman. Actually, we became friends and even shared a hotel room for several days during a scientific conference. He always made fun of American bread, and usually I agreed with him. One time I brought him a Baguette from a baker in SLC that I thought was wonderful, but even that didn't quite meet his raised bar for bread. One of my last meetings with him was when he had returned from a trip to Paris, he had purchased a loaf from a real Paris bakery on his way to the airport, carefully wrapped it, and guarded it all the way back to Utah for me. It truly was a work of art. Unfortunately, the dry cabin air in the overhead bins had not been kind to the bread as it flew the great northern route over greenland, so what I tasted still wasn't true French bread... just its freeze dried shadow.

That said, over the past year or so I have been trying different bread recipes and have settled on a very easy method using a stand mixer that produces great tasting bread.

Ingredients:

1 and 1/4 cups hot tap water
2 tsp fresh dry yeast
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
Approximately 3 cups bread flour

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400 F.

I vary the amount of hot water between 1 and 1.25 cups depending on how big I want my loaf (or pizza crust) to be. I use hot water straight from the tap, after I have waited for it to get as hot as it will get. I don't usually measure the temperature, but I have before and our hot water is 135 degrees. Add the hot water to the mixer bowl, immediately followed by the yeast. Mix the yeast in a bit, and let it sit for a minute or two to get rehydrated. Add the sugar, mix, at let sit for a minute or so to get the yeast going. Then, add the salt and mix. A little more yeast can be added for faster rising dough.

Most bread recipes give very exact measurements, and this is great, but it is kind of pointless unless you use a good scale to weight your flour and have already adapted the recipe to your location. I think it is far better to undershoot on the flour, then add a little bit more at a time until the dough is the right consistency. It might take a couple of times to figure out what the right consistency looks like. The nice part is that bread that is made with a small imbalance of flour still usually tastes great. The right consistency is more wet than you might imagine, but the dough should be pulling away from the bowl as it is mixed. Just add flour a little at a time, if you add a tad too much I wouldn't go back trying to fix it with more water... just move on.

The dough, doubled in size before kneading.

A word about flour: if you want good tasting bread, the type of flour you buy is critical. I have found that nothing beats FRESH flour made specifically for baking bread. I have used lots of different flours by now, and the multi purpose flours were very disappointing. Blue Bird flour was the worst. Gold medal better for bread was okay, Lehi Roller Mills artisan bread flour was really good, and Red Rose bread flour has been the best. I have used expired better for bread flour given to me by my in-laws with disastrous results.

Mix the dough for a few minutes before you add the extra four to bring the dough up to the right consistency. I do this in my Kitchen Aid on speed one for about 4-5 minutes while the dough is still wet enough to stick to the walls of the bowl. Then I add flour at 1/4 cup at time, waiting for it to fully mix in between doses, until it is right. After all the flour is added, include some aromatic ingredients if desired (the dough pictured above has some chopped green olives and minced garlic).

Grease your hands and pull the dough out of the bowl and form it into a ball. This is best done by holding the dough with both of your hands, palms facing up, and poking the dough with your fingers up through the bottom. Grease the mixing bowl, replace the dough, and cover to let it rise. If you are in a hurry, the dough can rise in as little as 30 minutes in a sink full of hot water. I let mine sit at room temperature for about 3 hours (while we are gone to church). I have found that the slower you let it rise, the more flavorful the dough becomes. In the refrigerator overnight produces great results. But, about half the time I make bread I let it rise for an hour.

Flour your counter top and overturn the bowl of risen dough so that it falls onto the flour. If you knead the dough, it redistributes the sugar for the yeast to eat and expels the carbon dioxide inhibiting activity so that the dough can rise better. But, it makes the dough very elastic (it shrinks back after you stretch it out). I kneed my dough sparingly, by folding it and squishing it about 10 times. If I am miking a loaf of bread, I don't care if it is elastic. If I am making pizza, I wait a few minutes after kneading to let the dough relax so that I can form it easier. Form the dough into a loaf shape in a way that stretches the dough as you shape it. Stretch it so that the skin of the loaf is tight, but not ripping. You can stretch the skin of a baguette by pushing the loaf across the counter, making sure to leave your hands firm on the counter.

The dough rolled out before proofing.

Place to dough on/in your pan and let it proof for a few minutes. I have had better luck with short proofing times, say 10-20 minutes. Cut slits on the top of the dough with a very sharp knife, to allow the loaf to expand while baking without ripping. Place the loaf in the oven, fully preheated to 400 F, and spill some water in a pan in the bottom to produce steam during the first minute or so of baking. Steaming the dough at the beginning is well worth the small amount of extra effort. Bake for about 20-25 minutes (the loaf should sound hollow when you thump it with your thumb), and cool for a few minutes before cutting into it.

The Depot Grill in Cedar City, UT: A Mixed-Bag Attempt at Fine Dining

2011-11-13T20:44:00.000-08:00

http://depotgrillrestaurant.com/
The Depot Grill in Cedar City recently arrived advertised as "your first stop for savory steaks, and the finest seafood," with a chef that is "world renowned" delivering the "best food Cedar City has to offer."

My wife and I were excited to try them on our anniversary, the one day of the year that we splurge ordering whatever we want at a fancy place. According to the accounts of the locals, the best place to eat in Cedar has been Milts or Rusty's up the canyon, but The Depot Grill is finally an alternative.

I put on a nice shirt, and my wife a new dress I bought her. We were struck by the contrast of strong points and short comings. First, the strong points.

The Depot Grill has great ambiance. We entered to soft theme music, dim lighting, and fine artwork. The staff was young and inexperienced, but desperately trying to be professional (which was cute). I ordered the filet mignon with a port reduction, roasted red potatoes, and vegetables. My wife got grilled halibut with a blueberry sauce, on a potato cake which appears to already be removed from their online menu.

Actually, I believe that there is a great chef in the kitchen here, the sauces were awesome.

The Filet Mignon

Unfortunately, the great sauces and ambiance are where the pluses end. I paid $27 for my entree. I am willing to pay that price for a great steak dinner once a year, which I expect to be amazing. The cut of steak was great, as was the sauce, but overall the flavor was lacking. The roasted potatoes tasted as if they were several hours old, cooked from frozen, and overwhelmed with pepper. They looked as if they had come from the bottom of an old stock pot. In a word, terrible. The vegetables were advertised on the menu as seasonal, but came out suspiciously looking and tasting as if they came from a large bag in their deep freeze. The presentation of my plate as a whole was very poor, looking like everything had just been sort of piled up on there.

The grilled Halibut with blueberry sauce. Interestingly, the attractive side of the fish was turned downwards.

The experience of food, like people, is largely swayed by a first impression. The Halibut was a distraught, chaotic, confused man with a worn out collar. He had once been great, but frozen, and dragged through the mud. Some true character remains, but is masked by his ugly shell. However, this man had shampooed his hair with a blueberry sauce and was sitting on a lovely potato cake that was delicious.

The bread pudding (front) and creme brulee (back).

We had heard that a particular dessert they serve at the Depot was especially delicious: the whiskey sauce bread pudding. We ordered this along with creme brulee. While the deserts both looked lovely, the bread pudding did not live up to its reputation, it was dry (if you can believe that). The creme brulee was near perfect, topped with fresh berries, and possessing a divinely smooth interior, but the top was over torched giving it the flavor of burnt sugar rather than sweet caramel.

In summary, The Depot Grill is probably the best dining Cedar City has to offer, though unfortunately this isn't saying a lot.

Review, Carmignani's Cedar City, UT

2011-10-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

How I felt after eating at Carmignani's in Cedar City.

Carmignani's is a recent addition to the restaurant scene in Cedar City, Utah. Advertised as Italian/American, my family and I were excited to try a new place. Generally, when restaurants first open the crew is excited and well-trained and the food is excellent. Not at Carmignani's! They truly broke the mold.

We entered the restaurant at 12:30 in the afternoon, and were the only customers there. A bad omen. The place was FREEZING, the workers were visibly cold. Clearly the move of a manager trying to pinch pennies by turning off the heat. The workers were just hanging around a table reading the paper. The decor was early 90s.

I could have railed on this eatery without ever eating there, just walking in was unpleasant.

We order soup, salad, a hamburger, fries, garlic bread and a Diet Coke. But wait, their soda machine is out of order, all they have is lemonade. Dang, I guess we'll all just have water while we wait a good 30 minutes for our food in a deserted restaurant that would better be used as a meat locker.

I look over at the cook. He looks new, brand new... as in never cooked before new. And, he has the sniffles. And, he isn't wearing gloves, And, he keeps wiping his nose with his hands. Gahhhh!

Our food comes out. The hamburger isn't really a hamburger, but an oblate spheroid shaped piece of ground beef, about an inch thick and a little over an inch in diameter. Really, it was the shape and size of a semi-squashed meat ball. Actually, I would have preferred a meatball on a bun because meatballs usually have some flavor. The patty was straight ground beef, no spices, not really formed into a patty, very small, and formed by a cook with a runny nose. I marvel that a hamburger could be screwed up so bad. Even though my wife and I were starving, we could only choke down a couple bites.

I look over at the garlic bread. Finally, something impossible to ruin! You could drench old 3.5" floppy disks in garlic butter and it would taste good. That is, unless it was stale. In that case it would be gross. How can Carmignani's serve nasty stale garlic bread at 12:30 in the afternoon? If it had been frozen, like what we buy from Wal-Mart, and heated then it would have tasted pretty good. I like Pepperage Farm's garlic bread. This was far worse than from frozen, this was like poorly made two days ago, frozen improperly, and reheated to the most unpleasant texture between bread in dirty water and a crouton.

We entered Carmignani's starving, we left Carmignani's starving and cold and worried about our health. In short: it was a complete crap-shoot, akin to dining with the Donner party. It was so bad, I have taken the great effort to get them added to Urban Spoon, my favorite restaurant review website, just so that I could warn people not to go there.

On Personal Fulfillment in Family

2011-10-09T12:49:00.000-07:00

I have been struggling lately. Ever since I took AP Chemistry from Mr. Mullen in high school, I have wanted to be a chemistry teacher. Mullen had such an impact on my life! He turned me on to science, he answered my questions, I developed a keen appreciation for rational thought. I thought, if I become a teacher I could have that same impact on many different students, I could help create a generation of less ignorant, more tolerant, more thoughtful people.

Recently, the opportunity to teach suddenly popped up. It was completely unexpected, very short notice, and very inconvenient. I haven't finished my doctoral thesis, and the university I am working for expects me to rework their physical chemistry class and labs. This means making lecture notes for a book I didn't choose, that I have never used before, to teach a class I have never taught before (and all that entails), while also finding the equipment for a lab, writing a laboratory manual, and writing my thesis. On top of this, I also teach physics and gen-chem labs. This level of work load is mind-numbing insanity, and I have been progressively getting more and more depressed. What if teaching isn't right for me at all? What if my God-given talent would be better applied someplace else, like doing research in Germany? Maybe I should go to Alabama where I can be near one of my few friends and do work for the DOD. These decisions are complex, with my needs and wants entangled with my family's. I want to have impact, I want to do good for mankind, and I want to maintain a happy life with my family.

Last night I noticed my wife had put out a new picture in a little black frame. It is of me sitting on my motorcycle with my daughter. I stared at my daughter's face for a long time, and tears welled up in my eyes. My daughter is happy, truly happy. For her to be so happy just sitting with me on my bike, she must love me. One way or another, I must be doing a good job as a father. I am a good dad, I thought. Suddenly, the worry about my workload and my uncertainty about the future disappeared. I am a good father. I may not be having an impact on mankind, but I am having a huge impact on the life of my child. My thesis, and class, and research, and future opportunities all pale in comparison. I will do my best on all of that, and let come what may... but so long as I am with my kids, loving them, raising them the best I can, then my life is full enough.

I went up stairs in my pajamas, quietly entered my daughter's room, and climbed up into the top bunk where she sleeps. "Do you want to have a sleep over?" I asked. "Sure daddy." And I slept better than I have in a long time.

Review, Basila's in Saint George, Utah

2011-09-14T20:45:00.000-07:00

My son, still excited from yelling "oppa" when our cheese was lit on fire.

Recently my family and I transitioned away from the city to a small town near Saint George, Utah. Unfortunately, we never really appreciated the variety and quality of restaurants the city has to offer until we left. Now, we yearn for the tasty ethnic food we used to so often enjoy.

Saint George isn't exactly known for fine dining. When I ask people for advice on a good place to eat they usually give me a painful sigh, and say Applebee's. We have sniffed around and tried a few places, much to our disappointment. Everything here is just so... medium quality.

Then, we tried Basila's. At first I was dismayed by the help wanted ad in the front door, and the restaurant was empty at noon. But, after getting through the front door, we were pleasantly surprised at every turn. This is a cosy place, tactfully decorated, with good service. The waitress was was great with our kids.

We ordered the flaming cheese, a gyro, and mac and cheese for the kids. The cheese was everything I expected: a fried block of cheese, doused in alcohol, and flambeed in front of us as we all yelled "Oppa!" The taste rivaled my memory of flaming cheese from a fancy Greek restaurant we at at in Anne arbor.

It is hard to imagine improving on a dish as classic as the gyro, yet these people managed. It has the classic meat, home-made cucumber sauce, and pita but was spiced up with feta and tomatoes. Mediterranean potato salad was served on the side, as a welcome alternative to fries.

Was this the best Mediterranean food I have ever eaten? No, there have been big city places with beef shawarma and fresh humus that rival this place. Is this the best restaurant that we have eaten at in 100 mile radius? Absolutely! Would I heartily recommend it? You bet. After eating, I had a nice chat with the owner, who seemed to be a genuinely great guy, friendly, and helpful giving me the inside scoop on all the eats in the area.

Check out their site: http://basilas.webs.com/

An Exploding Life

2011-08-10T23:14:00.000-07:00

I ride out under a full moon. Sleepless, I decide to enjoy one of my favorite routes along the boulevard, looking down at the stars dotting the valley floor. At one place I stop, where the road hugs the very edge of the mountain, I move on for fear of tarantulas and rattlesnakes that I am told inhabit the area. A few more minutes pass and again I stop at a business complex near the mouth of the canyon, the very place where I was screwed out of spa treatments I bought for my wife. They went out of business shortly after I paid. After sitting for a moment, smelling hot oil from my motorcycle and listening to crickets sing in time to the pings of my cooling bike, I get spooked by a police officer pulling in to the parking lot so I roll away.

Finally, I settle at a familiar place: a hole in the wall eatery that my buddies and I frequent, well, used to frequent before my life exploded. Just a couple weeks ago, I was lazily living day in and day out in my regular routine. Sure, I had plans for the future, but these were still far enough in the future that I could put off thinking about them. I was casually procrastinating writing about a lengthy list of topics, because I thought that I would be getting less busy rather than more.

The observations my wife and I made on our trip to the Czech Republic and East Germany, how after nearly 30 years the memory of communism pervades their way of life. A review of "Geisha: A Life," how it was fascinating not for the story she told but how the way she told it unwittingly spoke volumes about the author. What validation in the scientific community feels like through peer-reviewed publication of my research, the sense of relief and satisfaction I felt finally getting my own work accepted. My personal conversion to the Mormon church, why I believe what I do, and how that meshes with my perception of science.

Instead of writing, I procrastinated long enough that my life got extremely busy. Now I sit under the flickering lights outside of the Wing Coop, taking advantage of my insomnia to squeak out a few lines in what feels like the last chance I may get in a while.

There are big changes in my life right now, my way of life is changing almost as dramatically as when I got married or had children. I have a real job. We are moving across the state so that I can do some very adult sounding work, never mind that I feel like a kid. I will change my wardrobe completely. And, I will act the part of a confident professional, even though I feel lost and very small.

It turns out that graduate school has been a very big part of my life. The relationships I have had with my boss and coworkers have dramatically shaped who I am. Cleaning out my office was painful. I have been a student K-12, then 4 years of college, and another 4 of graduate school… 20 solid years of learning. Now I will make a complete reversal and start teaching. Though class starts in two weeks, I still don’t know what classes I will teach for certain. I haven’t finished my thesis. Day after tomorrow I am driving a packed U-Haul truck 300 miles to an apartment that I only saw for a few brief minutes before I agreed to the lease. My whole life is up in the air, dynamic, expanding, violent, but awesome. My life has exploded.

Assassin Nearly Detected During Free Food Recon

2011-03-31T17:26:00.000-07:00

Assassin contemplating his productive career.

Breaking News: 241 ACS National Conference in Anaheim

Assassin was nearly detected during a covert operation to obtain free food at a "Lawyers in Chemistry" luncheon at the 241st national conference of the American Chemical Society. A close official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the event, said that the assassin apparently thought that the luncheon was for attendees of a C&EN webinar. "It was only after he sat down and began eating that it was realized that the event wasn't for any webinar, it was a $40 ticketed event for lawyers in chemistry," the source said.

"I should have been more suspicious of the small size of the lunch party," Assassin said over a secure line.

Everything became crystal-clear, however, when the leader of the party sat next to the assassin and laid his ticket on the table - which clearly stated that the lunch was for people who had paid and were lawyers. Eyes on the table, the Assassin tried to finish his food as quickly as possible.

"I just wanted to get out of there. Once I saw that the lunch was $40 dollars, I ate as fast as I could. The whole time these lawyers were talking about patent law and switching jobs."

The situation rapidly became critical when the head lawyer decided to have everybody at the table introduce themselves along with the law firm they worked for.

"When they started to go around the table giving a short history of their law careers, I knew I had to get the hell out of there immediately before my cover was blown completely. So, when it was my turn to talk, I pretended to be receiving an important phone call. I politely excused myself from the table and stepped outside with a law-school-trained urgency."

Other sources close to the assassin corroborate his story, but noted that - with the attitude of a true professional - he didn't slack from his free food mission. The assassin was later seen at division of chemical information dinner, among other events.

Mission Totally Possible: Eating for Free at ACS

2011-03-27T20:54:00.000-07:00

The 241st National ACS meeting, Anaheim, California, USA

ACS Publications ice sculpture.

Why do budding scientist from all over the nation - and world - come together twice a year to meet at the American Chemical Society's largest meetings? To look good in front of other scientists? To get a break from the daily research grind at the taxpayer's (through government grants) expense? Or, is it to share the Anaheim convention center with swarms of extremely loud tween-age cheerleaders-to-be at cheer leading camp?

Last time I attended an ACS meeting I kept myself busy by taking candid photos of people unaware with my cell phone. This time, after spending $4 this morning for a yogurt and muffin, my coworker and I decided to align my goals more with who I am as a professional and try to subsist for the 4 days of conference on entirely free food. I pored through the ACS technical program looking for events, receptions, luncheons, and awards ceremonies that might have food and logged the details in my iPod.

So far I have been pleasantly surprised. I found a breakfast for a board planning meeting that was getting over. Apparently board members don't have much of an appetite, the southwest potatoes, scrambled eggs, tacos, and kielbasa was hardly touched. This meeting must have been for some important people because the orange juice was not from concentrate.

For lunch, we attended the 50th anniversary luncheon for the ACS publication "Biochemistry." This was really nice. We sat down at large round tables covered with a fine golden table cloth and a very large mirrored tiered turn-table with our appetizers: fresh hummus, pita chips, pasta, and a chopped salad. The hot entrees (salmon, grilled farm-range chicken with balsamic sauce, and rice with mushrooms) were served to us by smiling service. "Biochemistry" had ordered special custom bottles of Jone's soda with their 50th anniversary cover on the label. Finally, we were each served a giant piece of a cake also decorated with their anniversary cover.

Dinner tonight was the best though. This was another ACS publication reception. There was a live jazz band, giant ice sculpture of the ACS logo, free alcohol (which my coworker appreciated much more than I), fresh grilled sliders, and... and... wait for it... AN EXOTIC CHEESE BAR. Literally giant whole wheels of Brie, Humboldt Fog, authentic blue cheeses, and many others complete with a selection of crackers and French bread. I was in heaven. Science has never been cooler than a cheese bar.

ACS, thank you.

Stinky Indian Hot Springs Utah

2011-03-07T22:17:00.000-08:00

Two of three hot water pools at Stinky Indian Hot Springs. The ~105 F water reeks of sulfur and has algae growing in it. Still, this place is close to my heart.

This last Sunday my wife and I decided to take the kids out to one of my old teenage haunts. Old Indian Hot Springs, otherwise known as Stinky Hot Springs, was a place my friends and I would decide to go on a whim late at night. Before Sunday I had never even been there in the day time.

I warned Katie it was stinky and probably dirty, but she didn't care and a stinky dirty time sounded particularly suited to my three year old who is going through a stinky dirty loving phase herself.

Map to Stinky Indian Hot Springs from exit 365, near Brigham City and Tremonton in Northern Utah. The route passes through Corinne and a past a very large Wal-Mart distribution center.

Stinky Indian Hot Springs is located 9.6 miles west of exit 365 in northern Utah (near Brigham City). Hot water is channeled through pipes from the spring across the road and split into three cement tubs. The relative temperature of the tubs can be adjusted by changing the amount of flow into each. The tubs are just off the road on a farmer's property, but are not blocked by any gate and a sign reads "Use at own risk."

Primitive screens made from tarps, plywood, and old rebar add an extra level of privacy for those people wishing to swim in the... er, people who don't want everyone gawking at them in their swimming suits.

The place truly lives up to it's name, with a pungency rivaled only by the sulfur pots of yellowstone. The hydrogen sulfide and other organosulfide fumes will permeate the skin resulting in an enduring presence that remains even after washing. I won't lie, it is literally a trashy place what with all the teenagers visiting it late at night. It isn't uncommon to encounter garbage around the cement pools, which collects heavily downstream from them. But, the water is nice and hot, the location is far enough from civilization that you feel you have a measure of privacy even though the spring is just off the road, and it is free.

My wife, my two kids, and I stayed there for about an hour in the pouring rain, until my 14 month old started drinking the water. Depending on your perspective, this is either a stinky, trashy, filthy place where reckless kids come to do heaven knows what... or it is one of the last free places to get a soak in a natural mineral bath the old fashioned way. I tend to lean towards the latter.

New Flavor Chinese Restaurant Review

2011-03-02T22:33:00.000-08:00

Sweet and sour chicken from New Flavor

Katie went up to her mom's to do some crafting over the weekend leaving me home with my 1 year old wingman Atticus. As 5 pm came around I realized I didn't have a clue what to do for dinner so I decided to take a leap of faith and try a Chinese place that has been diligently sending menus over the past year advertising "Grand Opening." I noticed that Urbanspoon didn't have a review for them yet, so I thought I would take a shot at it.

New Flavor Chinese. If you had to pick a name that screams low-budget take out, wouldn't that be it? But, this review isn't about the name - it is about the New Flavor experience. I started by looking for their menu, because I had always thrown out the ones from the mail. A Google search yielded nothing. There is no online menu for New Flavor. I ended up having them walk me through their specials over the phone.

Atticus and I ordered the sweet and sour chicken to share. We were told our food would take 45 minutes to arrive, but were pleasantly surprised that it was much faster than that. Our meal came with white rice, fried rice, an egg roll, and a fortune cookie for a total cost of $11.

Presentation of delivered meal. The fried rice is stacked on top of some white rice.

I was pleased that the entree came in a plastic tray rather than crammed into a paper container. Overall, the quality of the food was a step up from regular budget take-out or delivery. Our chicken came with large pieces of cooked pineapple, carrots, and peppers. The sauce tasted better than sweet and sour from the grocery store deli... not homemade of course, but still a step up. Some of the chicken was tough, which is typical of frozen then fried then sat around, but it didn't bother me. The rice and egg roll were average.
New Flavor Chinese: 801-467-1198.

Menu Images

Advice for Science Fair Participants

2011-02-25T16:28:00.000-08:00

Today I acted as a judge for the AMES science fair. Judging a science fair is almost always a fun experience, seeing the creativity and nervousness and awkwardness of the participants. And today, like in the past, I found myself wishing I could be more candid with the students I was judging and tell them straight up what wins over a science fair judge's heart.

Rule Number 1: Come up with your own project

A judge can immediately tell if an idea is a students own - or their mentor's. For example, today I judged one project titled "A Bamboo Roller Coaster?" and another called "Detection of Single Tethered Mutated DNA Using a Nano-Pore." The Nano-Pore project involved using an analytical method recently pioneered at the University of Utah, in which a lipid bilayer is assembled over the extremely small opening at the tip of a polished glass electrode. A single protein ion channel is introduced into the lipid bilayer. Current can be carefully measured as ions pass through this nano channel, allowing for the measurement of anything the right size and composition to partially block the ion channel and alter the electric current. The nano-pore method is definitely not the idea of a junior in high school. This student worked very hard at his project, and will be rewarded with scientific publications before he enters college... but he is a monkey doing exactly what his advisor tells him, under close supervision of a graduate student.

On the other hand, there are projects like the nice fellow from Montana who tested how different fin shapes on his arrows alter the way they fly in the wind. He designed a meaningful experiment using a series of fans at constant velocity and mechanical bow puller to test different fins. I loved that project.

Rule Number 2: Know the BASICS of your project

There is a subset of science fair participants that think that using a lot of jargon will be impressive to the judges, but then they fail to grasp the basic principle of their question or experiment. For example, today a student conducted a series of measurements repeated 4 times, then at a later date repeated the same measurements again repeated 4 times getting dramatically different results. From these two sets of data, she picked data points for her final result based on the "standard deviation" of each point. I won't go into details, but she was fundamentally misusing standard deviation, and combining data points piecewise from very different data sets to create a graph that looked the way she wanted. When I gently approached her about this, it became clear that she had no idea what standard deviation was even though she so heavily relied on it.

Rule Number 3: Be willing to accept the outcome of your experiments

Sometimes, your experiments support your hypothesis and other times it doesn't. If, after all your experiments, you discover that your idea was hair-brained after all, then don't be shy to admit it! I have so much respect for the student who comes up with a hypothesis, tests it, finds out it was a bad idea, and then learns from it. There was a project titled "the addictive effects of high-fructose corn syrup," and hypothesized that butterflies drinking HFCS would drink more than identical butterflies drinking regular sugar water. It was also thought that the HFCS butterflies would be more hyperactive and have a shorter lifespan. The result? There was absolutely no detectable difference in the two groups of butterflies. The presenter came right out and made a point of it.

Install Bootcamp 3.1 on Non-Supported Mac

2011-02-18T21:46:00.000-08:00

I recently was tasked with setting up a coworkers computer to dual-boot Windows 7 Pro and Mac OS 10.5.5 using Bootcamp on her early 2009 aluminum unibody MacBook. Everything went fine up to the point where the Bootcamp drivers are to be installed on the Windows 7 OS.

First, when I set up the partitions from OS 10.5.5 through Bootcamp assistant there was no prompt to download the Windows support software (like there was when I installed Bootcamp on my MacBook Air).

I had a copy of Bootcamp 3.1 saved from a previous installation, but when I tried to run the setup file I received an error "Bootcamp x64 is not supported on this computer model." I knew there was an earlier version of Bootcamp 2.1 - that perhaps I could update from - on her Mac OS installation DVD, so I tried that and got a similar error.

To get Bootcamp 2.1 to install on her unsupported Mac, I navigated through the OS 10.5.5 DVD to Bootcamp and Drivers and Apple where the Bootcamp64.msi installer file is. By right-clicking (using a USB mouse since the trackpad drivers were not yet installed), and selecting "Troubleshoot Compatibility" I was able to get it to run.

However, Apple Software Update wouldn't update to the latest version of Bootcamp, and the available update installer from Apple's website required at least Bootcamp 3.0. This is a problem because some of the recent Windows 7 updates cause Windows to crash with the BSOD under the older versions of Bootcamp (a problem caused by some incompatibility with the trackpad driver in earlier Bootcamps and new Windows updates).

So, here is how to get the Bootcamp 3.1 installer to run in Windows 7 on an "unsupported" Macbook:

Make a back-up copy of the "Windows Support" folder. Download the Orca MSI editor HERE and install.

Open up Orca, click the open folder icon and navigate to the Bootcamp64.msi file located in WindowsSupport/Boot Camp/Drivers/Apple. Select the "Launch Condition" table from the left hand column as shown below.

This table lists the conditions that would normally prevent Bootcamp64.msi from installing. You may remove the condition preventing you from installing by right-clicking the corresponding table entry and selecting "drop row." In my case, I dropped the "VersionNT>=600" and "SYSTEMMODELNAME=... " rows because those lead to the error messages that I was receiving when the install failed. Save the new MSI, and install! Make sure that you execute the file as an administrator, and remember you may still have to right-click the bootcamp64.msi file and select "Troubleshoot Compatibility" to get it to work. My coworker has been using Windows 7 on her Macbook under this setup for days now with no complaints!

Note: I did this with Bootcamp 3.1, then manually updated to Bootcamp 3.2 using the install package downloaded from Apple's support site without any problems. The Apple Software Update utility didn't seem to want to update Bootcamp automatically... but then again I had installed an old version of the update software so it may be because of that.

Windows 7 Performance on MacBook Air

2011-02-05T13:42:00.000-08:00

Results of Windows Experience Assessment

So you are considering purchasing a 11 inch MacBook Air, and are curious what Windows 7 performance would be like on Mac hardware. After some research I discovered that many people have successfully installed Windows 7 on their MacBook Air, but not written about performance. This article aims to fill that gap. As I write this I am on a freshly installed Windows 7 Pro, installed via USB, running on a 11 inch MacBook Air with 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 128 GB solid state hard drive. The installation was a snap following these instructions. However, I ran into a problem later that was ultimately due to the install via USB... so I would recommend installing with the DVD and a portable optical drive.

There have been some reports of Windows 7 crashing after installing updates due to the track-pad drivers. This happened to me before I updated bootcamp in Windows using the Apple Software update utility. I figured I wouldn't need to update since the windows support drivers were downloaded right before, but I was wrong. After updating bootcamp, everything has run fine. Actually, because the DDR3 RAM and solid-state drive are so much faster than my desktop things have been feeling better than fine.

The Macbook Air drivers allow all the special function keys to work (i.e. brightness, volume, etc) and allows several multi-touch track-pad functions (double-tap for right click, two fingers for scrolling, etc). I hooked up a projector, and running dual screen was no problem in Windows 7.

Global performance determined using PC Wizard 2010, compared to a system with similar processor.

Things like browsing the internet and opening files are lighting fast. I am sure that with the slow processor I will notice a deficiency somewhere, I just haven't yet needed to use this ultra-portable machine for anything too processor heavy yet. After all, that is what the 6-core i7 extreme at work is for.

On the Mac side, I couldn't be happier. All the things that make a Mac nice are there: the simplicity, the aesthetics, the functionality. I may be revealing my ignorance here, but I didn't realize that Mac natively supports a BASH terminal, which is nice. No need to use PuTTY and PSCP in the Windows command terminal.

If you are considering a Macbook Air, but are concerned about being able to use Windows for your non-Mac compatible programs, don't worry. The installation and performance are seamless. I couldn't be happier with mine.

Basic White Bread with Preferment

2011-01-29T20:08:00.000-08:00

Two split-top white loaves

This basic white bread recipe using a preferment, or poolish, is the culmination of several experiments over the past month. After reading a book on bread science and getting advice from the author as well as my dad, I can say that I am satisfied with my bread. This recipe is simple, with only 5 ingredients - one of which is optional. Most of the evolution of the recipe over the 8 experiments was in my technique. See the previous experiments here:

Experiment 3 - First Time With a Poolish
Experiment 4 - Poolish and Simplified Recipe
Experiment 5 - Poolish, Improved Recipe, and Improved Flour
Experiment 6 - Improved Kneading and Proofing
Experiment 7 - Different Poolish Adaptation

Preferment

2 c warm water
3 c flour
1 tsp yeast

Add the yeast to warm water and allow to sit for a few minutes. Add the flour and mix into a smooth thick batter. Cover and allow to ferment. If I plan to use the preferment in 24 hours, I put it in the refrigerator overnight. If I am making it in the morning to use in the evening, I let it sit at room temperature. If I plan on using it in a few hours, I put the covered bowl in my sink full of hot water. When the preferment is done it should have doubled or tripled in size and smell fruity.

Dough

All of preferment
2 tsp salt
2 Tbs sugar (optional)
3 1/2 to 4 c flour (spooned into measuring cup)

Mix the salt and sugar in first, then add about 2 cups of the flour. I spoon my flour in to make consistent measurements, if you scoop your flour you will likely need less. At this point the dough is too wet to form a ball; dough hook should be moving through the dough. Let it mix at this stage for a few minutes, because this is working the dough really well. Add the remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough cleans the bowl and is slightly sticky.

I let the dough rise covered in the KitchenAid bowl in my sink full of hot water for about 45 minutes or until doubled in size. To punch the dough down, I put the dough on a floured surface and slap it flat with my hand. If you want bread with evenly sized small holes, you can kneed the dough at this point for a few minutes. I like my bread with larger holes so I just fold it in half a few times. To shape the dough after folding, push your fingers up through the bottom SLOWLY until the top surface of the dough ball feels tight but does not rip. If you do this without rotating the dough, you should end up with the right shape. Place the dough in a bread pan, cover, and proof until the dough about as big as you want your loaf to be. Be careful not to go too long, as the dough could collapse.

Preheat the oven to 400 F and put a sauce pan of water in the bottom. Just before baking your dough, score the top with a very sharp knife and spray lightly with water (or, dip your hands in water and gently coat the dough). After 15 minutes of baking, remove the water pan and bake for 5 or 10 more (or until the crust is as dark as you like). Place on a wire rack to cool so that the bottom doesn't get soggy, and allow to cool completely before storing in any air tight container.

The crumb, notice the unevenly sized holes.

Size and crumb comparison with Wonder bread. Mine is a bit bigger, tastes much better, and only has 5 ingredients compared to Wonder bread's 20+

Review: Bread Science, the Chemistry and Craft of Making Bread

2011-01-25T18:25:00.000-08:00

So, you have reached the point in your life where you have started practicing the things you thought you would never do that you saw your mother and grandmother do: mending cloths, fussing over leftovers, and baking bread. The problem is your grandmother was taught how to make bread through the memorized techniques passed from parent to child across generations by word of mouth, and your mother didn't care to learn too carefully because she got caught up in the conveniences of modern society, what with bread that lasts for weeks on the store shelf and bread makers and frozen Rhodes dough. The chain of knowledge is broken.

Well, there is redemption. I have begun baking bread out of the keen old-fashioned interest of saving money and eating more simply. The KitchenAid stand mixer was a catalyst; I don't feel too bad using it considering that I have watched my grandmother use her's since I can remember. I first started experimenting with the recipe included in the KitchenAid cookbook. Everything was very technical, water 105-115 degrees as measured by a good thermometer, precise mixing for x amount of minutes, scrape bowl, precise mixing for x many more minutes, and on and on. I followed the recipe exactly, and in the end got a pretty good loaf of bread, but I didn't care for the flavor and I didn't feel like it was mine.

I started experimenting on my own, starting with the most simple recipe I could find, and I started reading Bread Science.

Bread Science is a genuine explanation of how and why things happen as you make bread, along with practical instructions. It turns out, like most things in life, when it comes to making bread - knowledge is power. The book is organized like a reference book, but written in logical order so that reading it cover to cover makes sense. Chapter 1 covers bread basics: water, flour, yeast, and salt. Chapter 2 goes hardcore into bread science, giving a detailed summary of the current state of knowledge on many of the processes happening in bread as it is made. By hardcore I mean, when talking about fermentation you get into the Krebs cycle and when talking about the structure of gluten you are get a healthy dose of protein bonding. At first I was a little bit turned off by the detail, but then I realized that you can't expect somebody lacking in chemistry to understand the structure of gluten without knowing what a protein is, and you can't know what a protein is without knowing about amino acids and the ways they bond with each other. I see chapter 2 as optional extra detail, meant to be referred to when curious about something specific. Chapters 3-7 treat the different steps of bread making practically, as if Emily was right there walking you through your first batch of bread. Finally, chapter 8 contains 5 recipes, troubleshooting, and other bread tips.

My only criticism is small and stylistic: the diagrams, which are hand drawn with cute girl handwriting. I feel that they distract the reader from how professional the book is. This is a meticulously researched and well written piece of bread literature. The amateur figures gave me the impression of a truck-stop bumper sticker pasted on a beautiful new sports car, just not as professional as the rest of the book.

I can't recommend this book enough if you, like me, want to make great bread and know why it turned out great. This isn't a recipe book to blindly follow. Rather, the philosophy here seems to be "teach a man the craft of making bread, and you have fed him for a lifetime." The recipes included are very basic, intended to be adapted and expanded upon by the bread maker. Rather than give you a laundry list of specific bread making parameters, like that the temperature has to be exactly 105-115, she teaches what you need to know to make your own judgement. Both my father and I have both read this book, and have found satisfaction in understanding and eating better bread. When I told my dad I was going to write this review, he said "well, you let that author know that since I read her book, I can honestly say for the first time that I make better bread than my mom."

Bread Science, the Chemistry and Craft of Making Bread by Emily Buehler is available for sale from Two Blue Books, the author's website. You can download a lengthy excerpt here.

Killer Pizza Recipe

2011-01-21T20:22:00.000-08:00

Tonight's hand-tossed pizza.

Okay, I think and talk about pizza a lot. And, I have already covered the topic of at-home pizza making before (although in an offensive way). I should probably just stop.

I can't. The pizza I made tonight was satisfactory to even the most delicate foreign palette. My wife told our Korean friends that I used to work at a pizza joint. They excitedly asked if I hand toss my dough, to which I replied in the affirmative, and before I knew it my wife had volunteered me to demonstrate the process for them to watch. Talk about pressure, I have never had to toss in front of a camera before (I'll include the video here if they ever send it to me). Luckily I didn't tear the dough or smack it against the ceiling. Here's the recipe.

Dough
1 c warm water
2 tsp active dry yeast
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 Tbs olive oil
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups flour

Mix the yeast with warm water and let sit long enough for the yeast to dissolve completely. Mix in all the other ingredients before adding any flour. Add the flour while mixing 1/2 cup at a time until the dough gets close to being able to clean the bowl, then add it a spoonful at a time. You want the down to not be sticking to the bowl, and be able to be pulled into a window - but still be as wet as possible.

Oil a bowl and your hands. Shape the dough into a ball by holding it with both hands and pushing up into the dough with your fingers several times. Don't do this so much that the dough gets all ripped up, just enough so that the surface feels tight. Place the dough in the bowl, cover, and let rise for 30 minutes. Punch the dough down, fold, and let rise another 15 minutes or so. Place the dough ball on a floured surface and slap it flat with your hand into a circle. You can stretch the circle larger by holding an edge and letting gravity do the work by moving your hands around the circumference, or you can put the circle on the BACK of your hands and toss in the air with a spin. Both work. Put the dough on your cooking surface (I prefer a screen) and work around the edges until it fits just right.

A good pizza starts with good ingredients. I recommend spicy cappacola, marinated kalamata olives, fresh romano tomatoes, basil, and fresh shredded romano cheese.

I basted the crust of this pizza with butter, then sprinkled it with a small amount of garlic salt and oregano. Pour your sauce (I like Chef Boyardee) in the center of the pie and spread with the back side of a large spoon.

Okay now for the toppings. I am picky about these. I always start with a thin layer of shredded romano, then maybe a small amount of cheddar or mozzarella. By thin layer, I mean lightly sprinkled so that you can still see the sauce. Next, on one half I put spicy cappacola, chardonnay marinated kalamata olives, and creamy havarti. The other half was fresh basil, tomatoes, and the havarti. Gut the tomatoes first.

The assembled pie ready for the blazing hot oven.

Bake your pizza as hot as you can for your cooking surface and pizza thickness. On a cookie sheet this is probably 425 F, on a screen 500-600 F, on a stone you can go up to around 800 F. Since the dough on this pizza was thick, I cooked it at about 550 F for about 10 minutes. Commercial pizza ovens cook pizza for about 6 minutes at 600-650, a really good brick oven pizza will cook in about 90 seconds.

For the first 5 minutes, include a pan of boiling water on the bottom of your oven. This helps the crust and dough be chewier, and gives a browner color. Remove the water after 5 minutes so that crust will be crispy on the outside.

I am the baker, I bake the cakes. Make no mistake, I like to bake.

Experiments in Bread Making, Trial 7

2011-01-20T19:11:00.000-08:00

The loaf on the left was had less dough, and had risen less.
Yet, with the scored top it turned out bigger.

See the previous experiments:
Experiment 3 - First Time With a Poolish
Experiment 4 - Poolish and Simplified Recipe
Experiment 5 - Poolish, Improved Recipe, and Improved Flour
Experiment 6 - Improved Kneading and Proofing

In experiment 6 I kneaded the bread until it was ready according to the window test, not some arbitrary amount of time. The strength of the dough is tested by trying to pull it into a thin and uniform "window," if all is well you should be able to easily see light through it. I also proofed the bread until it was ready according to the "poke it and see" test, which involves, uh, poking it and seeing if you leave a dent. The loaves turned out big enough, and had a great flavor, but I was still frustrated by the fact that they don't expand in the oven.

I read "Bread science, the chemistry and craft of making bread" and realized that the way I have been adapting my recipe to use a poolish wasn't quite right. I also realized that all along I have been mistakenly calling it a pooling instead of a poolish.

Experiment 7 has the important improvement of adapting the recipe to use a poolish according to the books instructions (the only change was in the amount of yeast). I also extended myself a bit a purchased two 99 cent tupperware containers to let my loaves rise in.

A really good smelling poolish.

Poolish:
2 c warm water
1/4 tsp yeast
2 1/2 c flour

Mix the poolish until it's a smooth batter, cover, and refrigerate overnight. I found that very little fermenting had been going on over night, so I sat the poolish out at room temperature until it was used in the afternoon. You can tell when a poolish is ready by how much it has grown in size (2-3 times) and by how good it smells. Seriously, one sniff of a good poolish and you'll never go back.

Dough with what I think is the right amount of flour.
See how it cleans the bowl?

Bread Dough
All of your poolish
2 tsp salt
4 Tbs sugar
2 1/2 tsp yeast
3 1/2 c flour

Mix the first ingredients up really well before adding the flour, which should be added 1/2 cup at a time. Really, the amounts here (except for maybe the salt) are flexible. I usually just keep on adding flour 1/2 cup at a time until the dough cleans the bowl. Then, I knead it for 3 minutes, I turn it, then knead it for 3 more minutes.

Dough that is passing the "poke and see" test.

Cover the dough and let rise until your finger leaves a soft indent in the dough (about 1 hour). Put a little flour down on you counter top, dump the dough out, flour your hands, and slap the dough down. Really, just slap it! Fold the dough in half and press from different directions a few times. Shape into a cylinder. I tightened the outside of the dough cylinder by pushing it along the table in such a way that the dough sort of rolls in on itself. Let the loaves rise, covered, until as big as you want 'em. I scored the top of one of the loaves to see if it made a difference in size.

A poor fool's proofing box.

Notice how much smaller the left loaf was, it turned out as big as
the right one because I scored it.

I would say that this bread experiment was like taking a step sideways. No real improvement, just a tad different. I thought that the flavor was a bit yeasty tasting, Katie loved it. We ate one loaf within a few hours of baking, the other loaf went into a tupperware container for a day and a half... BIG MISTAKE! The bread came out of the container tasting very bad! Unbearable. So I left it out for a few hours while I was deciding what to do. And, amazingly, after slicing it up and letting it air out for a while the bad taste went away. I was literally would wave my slice of bread in the air and it would taste better. I think that with my long-fermenting poolish, I build up quite a collection of volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) in the dough. Some of them turn into delicious flavor molecules, other are just driven off while baking and cooling. I think I trapped some bad ones with the bread in the tupperware container... ones that escaped from the hot bread that we sliced up right away. I don't know if I will make this exact recipe again. No real improvement and more yeast taste.

Experiments in Bread Making, Trial 6

2011-01-16T14:10:00.000-08:00

See the previous experiments:
Experiment 3 - First Time With a Poolish
Experiment 4 - Poolish and Simplified Recipe
Experiment 5 - Poolish, Improved Simple Recipe, and Improved Flour

Experiment 5 resulted in a loaf of bread that had great flavor, was bigger than 4, but still a tad too small. I realized that we weren't kneading the dough enough, and thought that might be part of the problem. The following recipe is adapted from the Lehi Roller Mills package, doubled, to allow for a poolish. This time, I kept the whole process in the KitchenAid bowl.

2 c warm water
1 tsp yeast
2 1/2 c flour

Mix well with hands, cover, and ferment overnight in refrigerator.

Poolish after 24 hours.

Mix in:
2 tsp salt
4 tbs sugar
3 1/2 c flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until dough cleans the bowl and is sticky. Kneed/mix the dough on speed 1 for about 10 minutes, stopping to turn the dough as necessary. When the dough is properly kneaded, you should be able to pull it into a thin even layer, thin enough for light to shine through without it ripping.

Dough, immediately following "kneading"

Cover, and rise in a warm place until dough is soft enough to leave an indent when you press on it with your finger, about 1 hr. Knead in KitchenAid, at speed 1, for about 60 seconds. This punches down the dough, releasing the trapped gas, and redistributes the starch and sugar in the dough so that the yeast has a fresh supply of food.

Dough, after rising for 1 hour.

Shape, cover, and let rise in a warm place. One loaf was rolled with roasted garlic and rosemary.

To bake, first steam the dough by having a pan of water in the bottom of your 350 F preheated oven. Steaming allows for better expansion on baking, and a browner crust. Remove the water after 15 minutes of baking time. This bread was baked at 350 F for 25 minutes.

My loaf, right, stuck to the bowl I had covered it with... resulting
in the grotesque partially deflated thing you see here

These loafs again tasted fantastic (especially the garlic/rosemary), and again didn't expand much at all in the oven. On the garlic loaf, we didn't score the top deep enough. The regular loaf wasn't scored at all. But, I don't think that is the cause of faulty oven expansion. My official prognosis, after reading a book on bread science, is that my poolish adaptation is bad. Either I need to add less yeast to the poolish, and more yeast when I mix the poolish with the other ingredients OR the amount of yeast is fine... but they run out of food by the time the second rise is complete.

"Bread Science, the chemistry and craft of making bread" by Emily Buehler is a fantastic read if you, like me, are wanting to both learn how to make bread and the science behind why you make it that way. I plan on writing a review in the upcoming weeks. In the mean time, I plan on trying out some of the techniques I read about in experiment 7.

Experiments in Bread Making, Trial 5

2011-01-14T20:16:00.000-08:00

See the previous experiments here:
Break Making Experiment 3
Bread Making Experiment 4

The result of experiment 4 was a bread loaf that was chewy and had a good flavor, but was too small. I went out to shop for flour and noticed that Lehi Roller Mills Artesian Bread flour was on sale at the Harmon's case lot sale so I bought 16 pounds.

For experiment 5, I followed the recipe for basic white bread on the Lehi Roller Mill's bag which is essentially what I had arrived at in experiment 4, except it didn't use a poolish (or preferment) and it included sugar. I use a poolish because in my experience it makes bread have a more complex flavor and chewy texture, it saves yeast, and all the good bread bakers seem to do it.

Lehi Roller Mills basic white bread recipe, adapted to use a poolish

1 1/8 C warm water
1/2 tsp yeast
1 3/8 C flour

Mix poolish ingredients together by hand, cover, and let ferment in the refrigerator for 24 hours.

Add 1 tsp salt and 2 Tbs sugar, mix well.

Add 1 1/2 C of flour, 1/2 C at a time, while mixing at speed 2. Let mix for 3 minutes, turn dough, and let mix for 3 more minutes adding additional flour as necessary. Dough should clean bowl and be sticky.

Put dough in a greased bowl, turning to coat, and let rise until double in size, about an hour. Punch down dough, kneed with flour, and shape into loaf. Place in a greased bread pan, cover, and let rise until dough is 1 inch above the edge of pan.

Bake at 350 F for about 35 minutes.

This turned out to be the best tasting loaf yet, chewy and tasty! Still, not as big as I would have liked... but close. Katie replicated what I did with this same recipe, except she doubled it and made a French loaf, a regular loaf, and a little roll.

Experiments in Bread Making, Trial 4

2011-01-10T20:32:00.000-08:00

Experiment 3 resulted in a bread that had mediocre flavor, and a delicate texture. What I wanted was a chewy texture and a flavor that closer resembled a French baguette. I figured that the flavor I didn't like probably came form the butter and milk. I changed the recipe up a lot this time, which isn't very scientific because it is impossible to know what results come from what changes. But, I figure I am more in the exploratory stage of this bread making research, so I don't mind. See experiment 3 here. The changes in experiment 4 are: poolish refrigerated overnight, dough mixed cold, dough mixed 2X as long, no butter, no milk, add sugar, less flour, cooked in humid oven, and I basted water on the dough surface with the second rise.

Poolish
1 1/2 C warm water
2 C Gold Medal Better for Bread Flour
1 tsp active dry yeast

Mix ingredients with hands until poolish is the consistency of thick batter with no lumps. Pour into a container with plenty of room, because batter will double or triple in volume. Let ferment in the refrigerator overnight before adding:

2 tsp salt
2 Tbs sugar

Mix for 2 minutes.

Add flour, 1/2 C at a time, until dough cleans bowl and is slightly sticky (about 2 cups). Kneed for about 4 minutes on speed 1 in mixer, turn dough over, and kneed for another 4 minutes. Place dough ball in a greased bowl, turning over to coat. Cover and let rise until double in size, about 1 hour in a warm place.

Flatten, pull into a rectangle, and shape as desired. Baste with water, cover, and let dough rise until doubled. Bake at 350 F for ~30 minutes, with pan of water in the oven to increase humidity. Brush crust lightly with egg white, and bake for another 5 minutes.

Outcome
The bread was chewy, and had a good flavor. BUT, cutting out the 1/2 C milk, 3 Tbs butter, and 1 1/2 C of flour meant that there was a lot less dough. I divided it in half so that we could make a cinnamon loaf, and the results was that both loafs were way too small. Next time: similar recipe but with more dough.

Review, Layla Mediterranean Restaurant

2011-01-08T20:25:00.000-08:00

For years Layla (see site here) has been a family owned restaurant specializing in Italian food, with a reputation focused on mediocrity. Only recently, with the kids in the family now grown and wanting to get involved, did they revamp the whole thing and draw closer to their roots specializing in middle easter cuisine. And, I think, the change was a good one.

The atmosphere had the mark of professional design, with wall sized mirrors maximizing the sense of space in an otherwise small eating area along with tasteful modern/urban lighting.

Katie and I both ordered our go-to dishes for Mediterranean restaurants "from the grill:" chicken shawarma and kafta (both $8). We also ordered a side of the zaatar herb flatbread ($5) as recommended by our waitress (who was excellent, along with the rest of the staff).

Before our appetizer arrived, we were each presented with a plain white dinner roll and foil wrapped tablet of butter. Nice, but not Mediterranean. We both thought that flatbread would have been much more appropriate, which arrived as our ordered appetizer. This particular appetizer, the zaatar, consisted of a pita warmed with a thick layer of dry spices on top. It was good, but very dry. I would improve it by drizzling it with olive oil, or offering it with a cup of their tahini sauce for dipping.

The entrées came served in a lavash wrap (a bread not much thicker than a tortilla), with pickled turnips and a mix of fresh tomatoes and greens. Both were very satisfying, well portioned, and well presented. I would say they hit the nail square on the head with the mix of flavors.

We decided to try a "bird's nest" baklava ($3), rose ice cream, and pistachio ice cream (both $1.50) for dessert even though we were both full and satisfied. The baklava was cut open to make a nest of sorts, and filled with candied pistachios. It was just the right size and had the perfect balance of chewy and crunchy... awesome. Katie somewhat liked the rose ice cream which she said was a good palate cleanser, refreshing, and different. I thought it was like spraying rose scented perfume in my mouth chasing it down with a shot of liquid soap. My reaction was so bad Katie had to tell me to behave. I did enjoy the pistachio ice cream.

Overall it was a positive experience. We would definitely go there again. The food was well priced, hot, and tasty. We even got a personal visit from the owner to make sure we were satisfied.

Experiments in Bread Making, Trial 3

2011-01-04T21:17:00.000-08:00

Since Katie and I got a Kitchenaid for Christmas we have been experimenting with making our own bread. Experiment 1 followed the recipe in the KitchenAid book for basic white bread exactly as shown here, using a digital thermometer and everything. This bread turned out to be just good basic white bread. Very consistent small holes throughout the bread and not at all chewy in texture - like Wonderbread.

Experiment 2 had more butter than the basic recipe called for and we also worked in some olive oil as we kneaded the bread. Half of the batch this time went to make a loaf of cinnamon bread that turned out excellent (we made awesome french toast with it). The other half didn't rise to it's full potential and ended up being a little dense.

Since that time I have come to read about bread science online and have decided to take on a more rigorous approach in our bread experiments. For example see this excellent excerpt on bread chemistry, this fine tutorial on artisan breads, and this pizza fanatics blog.

Experiment 3

Make a poolish: Mix 1-1/2 cups warm water with 2 cups flour. Next add two teaspoons of active dry yeast, mixing until very smooth like pancake batter. Cover and let sit for about 30 minutes or until doubled in size as shown below.

Add 1/2 cup skim milk and 3 Tbs melted butter, mix. Add 3-1/2 cups flour 1/2 cup at a time while mixing. Knead with dough hook on speed two for 3 minutes. Cover and let sit at room temperature for 15 minutes to autolyse. Add 2 tsp of salt and knead at speed two for 3 minutes.

Put in greased bowl turning dough ball to coat. Cover and let rise until double about 35 minutes as shown below.

Punch down by gently pressing the dough. Knead 3 or 4 times. Separate dough into 2 pieces, one for cinnamon load and one for regular loaf. Notice the large air bubbles in the cut dough.

Knead each half 3 or 4 times and shape into a loaf. Place in greased pan, cover, and let rise until double in size about and hour. Bake at 375 for 28 minutes. The crust didn't turn out as dark as we wanted so it might be better to bake the loaves at a higher temperature or for a few minutes longer.

Notice the crumb. The air holes are slightly larger and more irregular in size... this is good, or rather better.

Epic Dos Games To Revisit: Ultima Underworld the Stygian Abyss

2011-01-03T09:47:00.000-08:00

If you haven't played, and beaten, Ultima Underworld the Stygian Abyss... the time is now. This is truly an epic game, frequently cited as "the first first-person perspective role playing game with 3D graphics" that shaped the future of gaming.

I dusted this baby off the other day, and took a long walk down memory lane playing it. I am still surprised at how cool it is, especially for 1992. You choose from a palate of different characters with specialized abilities, then add an emphasis of your own. As you play, you can improve your character and collect better weapons.
If you were playing this game for the first time, without any help from online walk-throughs, it would be difficult to beat... you would have to pay close attention to detail, take notes, and save your game often. I feel that all should play it. At the end of the game, following the closing sequence, you are congratulated for beating it by the game authors and are invited to call them so they can congratulate you in person.

In an effort to spread the joy to as many people as possible, I have included links to the files necessary to play as well as my own installation instructions.

You will need: DosBox and the Ultima Underworld Zip. Note: this has been tested and works on Windows 7 64-bit, XP 32-bit, and Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (though with different installation instructions of course).

Download DOSBox 0.74 (for Windows) HERE

Download Ultima Underworld Stygian Abyss.ZIP HERE

Installation Instructions:
In Windows-

Install DOSbox
Create a directory for all your DOS games on your C: drive with an easy to remember name like dosgames
Within the dosgames folder, I would create a folder for Ultima Underworld with a name like UW
Unzip the contents of the Ultima Underworld ZIP to the folder you made in the dosgames file
Run DOSbox

In DOSbox environment-

You must mount the dosgames folder you created as your virtual C: drive. Type (without the quotes) "mount c c:\dosgames"
Change from the Z: drive to your C: drive by typing "c:"
Change to the folder you created for Ultima Underworld by typing "cd UW"
Your screen should look like this

Type "install" and go through the prompts. I would select sound blaster pro for the sound effects and voice, and opt for the animated scenes.
In C:\UW> type "UW" to play!

Configure DOSbox-

You might enjoy the game more if you tweak DOSbox a little. First, you can make DOSbox automatically mount your folder and change to the C: drive when you start the program. To do that, edit the dosbox-0.74.conf file by navigating to where DOSbox is installed and clicking on the DOSbox 0.74 options batch file (or go the where DOSbox is in the start menu, there is a shortcut to under options).

There is a section at the very end of the file for automatically executing commands. In this section, add the lines that you would normally have to type each time.

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
# You can put your MOUNT lines here.
mount c c:\dosgames
c:
cd UW
UW

You might also benefit from speeding up DOSbox and changing the video output. Go to the part of the file that says:

[cpu]

# core: CPU Core used in emulation. auto will switch to dynamic if available and appropriate.

# Possible values: auto, dynamic, normal, simple.

# cputype: CPU Type used in emulation. auto is the fastest choice.

# Possible values: auto, 386, 386_slow, 486_slow, pentium_slow, 386_prefetch.

# cycles: Amount of instructions DOSBox tries to emulate each millisecond.

# Setting this value too high results in sound dropouts and lags.

# Cycles can be set in 3 ways:

# 'auto' tries to guess what a game needs.

# It usually works, but can fail for certain games.

# 'fixed #number' will set a fixed amount of cycles. This is what you usually need if 'auto' fails.

# (Example: fixed 4000).

# 'max' will allocate as much cycles as your computer is able to handle.

# Possible values: auto, fixed, max.

# cycleup: Amount of cycles to decrease/increase with keycombo.(CTRL-F11/CTRL-F12)

# cycledown: Setting it lower than 100 will be a percentage.

core=auto

cputype=auto

cycles=auto

cycleup=10

cycledown=20

Change the cycles to max.

Go to the part of the file that says

[sdl]

# fullscreen: Start dosbox directly in fullscreen. (Press ALT-Enter to go back)

# fulldouble: Use double buffering in fullscreen. It can reduce screen flickering, but it can also result in a slow DOSBox.

# fullresolution: What resolution to use for fullscreen: original or fixed size (e.g. 1024x768).

# Using your monitor's native resolution with aspect=true might give the best results.

# If you end up with small window on a large screen, try an output different from surface.

# windowresolution: Scale the window to this size IF the output device supports hardware scaling.

# (output=surface does not!)

# output: What video system to use for output.

# Possible values: surface, overlay, opengl, openglnb, ddraw.

# autolock: Mouse will automatically lock, if you click on the screen. (Press CTRL-F10 to unlock)

# sensitivity: Mouse sensitivity.

# waitonerror: Wait before closing the console if dosbox has an error.

# priority: Priority levels for dosbox. Second entry behind the comma is for when dosbox is not focused/minimized.

# pause is only valid for the second entry.

# Possible values: lowest, lower, normal, higher, highest, pause.

# mapperfile: File used to load/save the key/event mappings from. Resetmapper only works with the defaul value.

# usescancodes: Avoid usage of symkeys, might not work on all operating systems.

fullscreen=false

fulldouble=false

fullresolution=original

windowresolution=original

output=surface

autolock=true

sensitivity=100

waitonerror=true

priority=higher,normal

mapperfile=mapper-0.74.map

usescancodes=true

Change output to opengl.

ENJOY PLAYING ONE OF THE GREATEST CLASSIC GAMES OF ALL TIME!

Worlds within Worlds - Guess the Close Up

2010-12-27T20:51:00.000-08:00

See if you can guess what this is. It ranges from impossible to guess to obvious as I zoom out. The person who figures out what it is first gets, er, one of these.

Wait for it....

Wait for it...

If you are sufficiently clever you may now know what it is. Any early ideas?

Wait for it...

Now a little bit more zoomed out...

And as far zoomed out as I can go on the SEM...

Diversity of Experience

2010-12-12T12:31:00.000-08:00

Some think that devoutness to religion limits the diversity of life experiences. If you feel that way, I don't think you've really explored the consequences of riotous living. I say that being true to a challenging religion opens future doors allowing for a life of stable finances, family, and friends. These things afford far greater diversity of life experience than smoking that joint, or stealing that money, or having that lover on the side.

When I get old I want to have the experience of knowing that my old age is comfortable because I saved money, knowing my grandchildren love me, knowing that my children are comfortable with their children around me, knowing that I wont have to die alone. It is worth it.

6 Things to Teach Your Child With an Advent Calendar

2010-12-11T10:32:00.000-08:00

My wife and I get our daughter her own advent calendar that she gets to take the chocolates out of each morning. After a few days of pulling open those little paper doors, I realized that this calendar is an effective tool to teach my three year old daughter lots of things. It is a learning experience that comes with a reward, chocolate. Here are some things you can teach your little one with an advent calendar:

Discipline or will power. It is hard to not go right ahead and eat all off the chocolates at once, but making yourself wait to have just one each day teaches that you don't have to indulge all of your impulses right away. Sometimes it is good to wait.
A sense of time. If you let your child eat just one of these a day, it gives them a sense of just how long a day is. It also teaches them that there is always tomorrow for another chance at chocolate. It also gives them a sense of about how long a month is too.
Counting numbers 1-24.
Recognizing and finding numbers. We draw the number corresponding to the days chocolate and let our daughter find it.
A sense of what a responsible diet it like. Candy is nice, but is best when eaten sparingly.
Fine motor skills.

Santa Flies Helicopters

2010-12-03T16:26:00.000-08:00

The following post is sponsored by CSN stores, a collection of over 200 online outlets offering everything from cookware, toys, to furniture like counter height stools.

Well, it is official. Santa's cover is blown. The pre-diabetic Americanized holiday symbol of excessive spending does not fly a fancy sleigh pulled by reindeer. Nor is he particularly jolly. In my pre-christmas party interview with him, he remarked how cool it would be to create a video game called "Santa's Slay" that revolved around a disgruntled Santa butchering his enemies.

This Tool's Life: So, Santa, first of all let me just say what an honor it is to be here with you and, um, on behalf of all my readers thank you for doing this interview.

Santa: Your welcome. And please, call me Scott.

This Tool's Life: Well, let's get right into things. Your agent recently posted an update to your fan page that through this next holiday season and onward you would be "refocusing your personal image."

Santa: Yeah, I told Kara to write that because there has been a lot of misconception about who I am and what I am about. Several hundred years of folklore followed up by the commercialization and branding of my image has led people to believe that I am some sort of all-knowing saint. People think that I can see them all the time, even in the shower... or during an embarrassing medical procedure. Children think that if they ask me for toys I will have an army of elves manufacture them, then come to their house to hand deliver the package. It should be clear that I don't do this. Every Christmas morning kids open presents from Santa that have "made in China" written on the box. Why would I write that?

This Tool's Life: So, it is this misunderstanding that you are trying to correct?

Santa: That's right. The harsh reality is that I am not fat, jolly, all seeing (though I would like this ability sometimes), or currently residing at the North Pole. What corporate America has made me out to be is just ridiculous.

This Tool's Life: About the North Pole, there has been some debate on the discussion boards about your workshop's exact location, your manufacturing capabilities, if you have to pay tariffs-

Santa: Stop. Please. This is exactly the crap I am trying to stop. I don't live at the North Pole, I live in a small town north of Salt Lake City. Somehow I just keep on getting asked to do this stuff. I don't want to play Santa at ward parties, I want to quietly work my day job in peace. I really don't know why people associate me so closely with this fantasy image of a rosy-cheeked grandpa. I am 28. I have a tattoo of a guitar covering my birthmark. My hair is strawberry-blond. Why are you asking me these questions?

This Tool's Life: Let's get back to your day job, managing the elves.

Santa: Would you like to hear a joke I tell to the elves?

This Tool's Life: Sure.

Santa: Knock, knock.

This Tool's Life: Who's there?

Santa: Go cuss yourself.

This Tools Life: -

Santa: Again, with the elves. You are just buttering me up to ask me to do this again. My day job isn't managing elves, I work in shipping and receiving. But that isn't really even my day job, really I am a pilot- Not what you are thinking... HELICOPTERS. It's just what with the economy the right job has been hard to come by. Maybe we should move away from this little game of "let's ask Scott to be Santa, he's done it before." I know the reason you ask me is because you get some sick satisfaction from seeing me so uncomfortable. Maybe you think I secretly like it. I don't. Maybe you just want to hang out. We hang out all the time anyways. Please, this has to stop. Are you listening to me?

This Tool's Life: Let's move on. Cookies. What are your favorites?

Martha Stewart Living, Issue 205, Dec 2010 Photoshop Mayhem

2010-11-18T20:26:00.000-08:00

Martha Stewart Living magazine usually features a lovely image of the magazine namesake gracing the cover. On special occasions, the magazine comes with three - yes three - covers charmingly setting this periodical apart as one of the most ridiculous of all time. Issue 205 is no exception, being the 2010 Christmas issue, it too has three covers: a "picture" of Martha, an array of boxes with tags, and a similar array of cookies.

It is the first cover I wish to draw attention to. Notice how young and smooth Martha looks, not too bad for a 69 year old ex-convict.

Something looks iffy about Martha in this cover... I have the sneaky suspicion that she wasn't actually posing in front of a white door with a wreath. And, she looks so young! How do you do it Martha? What special secret of youth do you have? Maybe you were born with it, maybe it's Maybelline. Let's take a closer look.

First, notice how smooth and blurred her skin looks. Second, look at her hair. Her hair is one solid block of blond straight from the salon, with no stray hairs or pieces extending into the background. She doesn't appear 70, or human... she looks like a robot, in a Nintendo game.

See the eyes? They are blurred and lightened on the whites. Nobody's eyes look like that naturally. Especially the corner of her left eye towards her nose. I'll bet that was a dark yellow gray before they touched it up. Trust me, I have messed around in Photoshop trying to make myself look less like a criminal and more like a healthy young man. I did the same thing to myself, with similarly poor results.

The teeth: smoothed to Halloween gag tooth perfection. Around the mouth: smooth as my daughter's Strawberry Shortcake doll. Shape of lips and color: painted to perfection.

Ah, now this is more like it. If you are going to Photoshop somebody into your magazine cover, you should at least choose a sexy person, with good taste in beverages, giant manly muscles, and superior intelligence.

Review: Iron Gate Grill, Logan UT

2010-11-07T18:29:00.000-08:00

My wife and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary this last weekend. My sister-in-law graciously offered to take the kids overnight so that we could stay at the Anniversary Inn together, which was our first night without the kids in over three years. For dinner, we wanted to go to someplace walking distance from the hotel so we headed over to Le Nonne (which I would highly recommend), but they were booked. Iron Gate Grill was just a block further, so we figured that might be the next best thing.

The first thing I noticed about this place was it's awkward layout and decor. You walk through the door to find the kitchen immediately to your right, a flight of stairs to the center, and an empty reservations desk to your left. A few steps further, and you are smacked with overwhelming leopard print carpet up the stairs. Leopard print. I distinctly remember feeling like I was crawling into some seedy Las Vegas joint, not exactly a great first impression. Going up the stairs you pass a beat up leopard statue that looks like it was stolen from a merry-go-round, lit by bright red all plastic chandeliers.

While being seated, we were asked "do you want the sports side or the dinning side?" More awkwardness. Why do they need to treat the different sides like different restaurants? They could have said "would you prefer to sit near televisions?" We choose the dining side, and were led to a booth next to a table with screaming children and overly bright lights. Now I felt like I had been transported from Las Vegas to being interrogated with lights and loud sounds at Guantanamo. Our waitress came quickly, and soon we had their delicious monkey bread with vinegar and olive oil.

They brought out our water in a chilled wine bottle, carefully pouring it into wine glasses for us. As I brought the glass to my mouth, my senses were filled with the rich aromas of Italy. Just like when I occasionally cook with red wine at home. The water reeked of red wine, like they must have quickly rinsed the bottle out before filling it with water. The effect was so strong I couldn't drink it, so I asked for a different bottle. The second was a little better, but was still pretty bad. *Note to owners of Iron Gate Grill: it might be a good idea to really clean these bottles before refilling them! I would rinse 3X with water, then bake the bottles at 500 degrees to cook out any aromas. Stock pile a set of clean bottles, and then stick to them.*

We were given a piece of scrap-booking paper with laser printing and grease stains and were told it was their menu. Not folder or laminate, just paper. My wife and I decided to share an appetizer, main course, and dessert. For the appetizer we ordered the crab stuffed mushrooms (~$8). These little guys were really good. The only thing I would change is the way they were presented with the cocktail sauce in a plastic side cup. A little glass dish or no dish at all would be classier.

For the main course we ordered the Black & Blue Rib Eye ($18), which was blackened in clarified butter then topped with blue cheese. This was just okay. The steak was advertised as 10-12 oz, but I doubt it was that big. It just looked big because it was cut pretty thin. The steak came out in the cast iron skillet it was cooked in literally swimming in oil. Imagine an oval skillet, the steak taking up 3/4 of the area in at least 1/4 inch of oil. When I cook steaks at home, I am pretty picky about the rib eye I choose, and the way I prepare it. In all honesty, the cut of this steak was well below what I buy at Smiths and the preparation was well below what I can do at home. BUT, it was still a rib eye and it was cooked precisely to medium-well as I requested. I bet that this steak came from Sysco frozen individually in an air-tight package, just like the steaks at the places I used to wash dishes at.

Dessert was creme brulee. The pastry chef who prepares the desserts fresh in the morning at this place is good. I have always liked their desserts. But, the knuckle heads in the kitchen toasted the top of the creme brulee incorrectly before serving it to us. It was still good (how could it be bad?) but it could have been better had the top been caramelized. Photo: How Creme Brulee Should Look.

All in all, I would give the Iron Gate Grill at their new Logan location a 5/10. I don't think I would recommend it to a friend. Rather, for food in that price range I would recommend Le Nonne, The Coppermill, The Blue Bird, or The Indian Oven - all of which are a stone throw away from Iron Gate Grill. I liked them well enough when they were located in Providence, I had excellent steak and properly caramelized creme brulee there before... but something changed in the move and it was not good.

See The Iron Gate Grill's website and menu here: www.irongategrill.com

Meal Planner

Review: 12" Emerilware Cast Iron Skillet

2010-10-30T09:26:00.000-07:00

This is another review for a product from CSN stores, a collection of online stores that sell everything from bar stools to toys to cookware. I like CSN stores, not just because they give me free products in exchange for writing product reviews and dropping their links. First, they have a huge selection of housewares (furniture, kitchen appliances, decor, kids stuff). Seriously, I went to look for this skillet and had hundreds of choices. Secondly, as an online business they have a little bit of a different strategy.

They cast a WIDE online net, with hundreds of "store fronts" tied directly to the mother site CSNstores.com and they take their SEO (search engine optimization) seriously. That really is what my relationship with them is about, the quality links that I give them. This is opposed to manufacturing their own. Other sites create a sea of "dummy" blogs and twitter accounts to artificially increase the page rank of their site or to "bump off" negative reviews from the first page of search results. CSNstores doesn't take shortcuts.

You might think that I am producing biased reviews in their favor. Not so. I wouldn't hesitate to bite the hand that feeds me if it is in the name of honest review.

Onto the skillet. 12" is ALOT of cast iron skillet. This thing is big, and very heavy (I think about 6 pounds). It is too heavy for me to lift by the handle with one hand. But, with that weight come durability and even heating. I do wish it came with a lid, as a good 12" lid is hard to come by.

I use this skillet almost everyday for grilled sandwiches, cooking meat, sauteing vegetables. If used correctly it has excellent non-stick properties, plus you can use metal utensils on it without worrying about scratching Teflon. It heats very slowly compared to other skillets, usually about 2 minutes of preheat is required. Since it is all metal, you can braise your meat very hot then pop the whole thing into the oven to finish. This is the best way to prepare steaks at home if you don't have a gas grill. Rub, braise, then broil.

I would buy this skillet again. Though, I doubt if I will ever need to. Heavy metal objects like these don't tend to need to be replaced.

Chicken with Orange Demi-Glace and Spiced Cider Apples

2010-10-14T17:13:00.000-07:00

Ingredients:
1 large sweet potato
1 lb chicken tenders
1 green apple
1 cup demi-glace
1 cup fresh orange juice
4 rounded spoons of brown sugar
1 tbsp butter
~1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
a pinch of cinnamonsoy sauce
corn starch

Wrap sweet potato in foil and bake for 1 hour at 350 F. While it is baking, mix 1 cup fresh orange juice with 1 cup demi-glace and simmer until reduced by half (about 1 hour). When the sauce is close, add a little bit (about a tsp total) of corn starch or flour (make it into a thin paste with water before adding to avoid lumps) to thicken the sauce a bit.
Thaw chicken tenders with a small amount of soy sauce as the orange demi-glace reduces, it's okay if they are not thawed completely. Oil a skillet, and cook chicken over medium-high heat. Chicken sticks at first, then releases, so don't get too excited about turning. I cook mine only turning once after about 5 minute. Add a little bit more soy sauce as you turn them.

Prepare sauce for apples by mixing brown sugar, cinnamon, and vinegar. Cut apple into wedges and peal. Heat butter in skillet and lightly brown apples over medium heat for about 5 minutes, cover when not turning. Pour in sauce, reduce heat, cover, and simmer until sauce has consistency of syrup.

Cut up the cooked sweet potato.

Pour the orange demi-glace over the chicken, and the apples with spiced cider syrup over the sweet potatoes. Serve with fresh bread.

Note: the orange demi-glace would be excellent with red pepper flakes.

Are Foods Prepared With Wine Safe for Breastfeeding Mothers?

2010-10-08T19:58:00.000-07:00

According to Medications and Mothers' Milk (Hale, 2002):

Excess levels [of alcohol] may lead to drowsiness, deep sleep, and decreased linear growth. Maternal blood alcohol levels must attain 300 mg/dl before significant side effects are reported in the infant. Reduction of letdown is apparently dose-dependent and requires alcohol consumption of 1.5 to 1.9 g/kg body weight (see ref 1). Adult metabolism of alcohol is approximately 1 oz in 3 hours, so that mothers who ingest alcohol in moderate amounts can generally return to breastfeeding as soon as they feel neurologically normal.

So what does this mean? A blood alcohol level of 300 mg/dl is equivalent to a BAC (grams per 100 mL) of 0.3%, which is a lot. The BAC legal limit to drive is 0.08%. At 0.3% adults are "Stuporous, able to be aroused only briefly by strong physical stimulus (such as a face slap or deep pinch), deep snoring (see ref 2)." In other words, to have significant effects of the infant, the mother would have to be completely wasted. A 140 lb woman would have to drink 9 shots (1.5 oz. each) of Vodka to get that high.

Moderate drinking is generally defined as 1 shot (40% b.v.), 5 oz of wine (~12% b.v.), or 12 oz of beer(~4% b.v.) (see ref 3). If the amount of alcohol you are consuming is at that level or less, then it is safe to breastfeed. But what if you don't care about drinking? Just how much are you getting when you eat my homemade Demi-Glace? How does this compare with "background" levels of alcohol? By background, I mean all the things we consume that have alcohol that we don't really think about (vanilla extract and other flavors, medicines, mouth wash - about 40 proof). Bread prepared in certain ways has alcohol. It's kind of everywhere.

Lets figure this out with an example. The special sauce I make involves reducing 2 gallons of liquid (including 32 oz of red wine) down to 1 gallon of deliciousness. At the start of the project my wine is 8% alcohol by volume but is diluted to 256 oz making the uncooked mixture 1% by volume. Then, I heat the mixture and boil it until the volume has reduced by half. The amount of alcohol remaining in the pot is easy to estimate as zero, thanks to liquid/vapor thermodynamics. Let me explain.

The boiling/condensation fraction of a binary mixture of water and alcohol is shown above. The graph can be read by looking at a particular fraction of alcohol (say 0.1 mol fraction, which is equal to 26% alcohol by volume) and moving up along the dashed line to where it crosses the first curve. This is the boiling point of the mixture, 360 K or 188 degrees Fahrenheit. If you look horizontally from this point, you come to the vapor composition. For a boiling liquid, with 0.1 mol fraction alcohol, the vapor is 0.42 mol fraction or 70% alcohol. Said in another way, if you boil a mixture that is 26% alcohol the vapor that comes off is 70% alcohol. Or, when you boil something with alcohol in it, the alcohol is preferentially boiled off.

If the mixture I am cooking can be approximated by a mixture between water and alcohol (which I think is reasonable), then we can calculate the actual amounts of alcohol remaining in the pot. I start with 256 oz that is 1% by volume alcohol, I end up with 128 total oz.
The graph above shows how the percent alcohol by volume changes in a boiling pot initially at 256 oz and 1 percent alcohol. As you can see, by the time the volume is reduced by 1/8 over half the total alcohol is gone. By the time to solution is reduced by half, you can say with certainty that the alcohol is reduced to practically zero. And, keep in mind, that we started with something that was 1% alcohol by volume. This uncooked would definitely be safe to consume at a regular serving size for sauce, about 6 oz. It is safe to start with, then alcohol free after cooking.

What about foods that are flambe?

I don't feel the same about foods lit on fire at the table side as I do the boiled sauces. I think they are safe for breastfeeding mothers, because they are usually prepared with about 2 shots worth of liquor but diluted over the food by at least a factor of ten and then the alcohol is reduced by the flambe. But, I doubt more than half of the alcohol is driven off, unless the food is cooked more after being lit on fire, so if you are avoiding any alcohol consumption as a mater of principle this isn't for you. Definitely not alcohol free, still safe.

REFERENCES
1. Effect of different doses of ethanol on the milk-ejecting reflex in lactating women, Cobo E., Am J Obstet Gynecol. 1973 Mar 15;115(6):817-21.

2. Alcohol Intoxication Causes, Symptoms, Treatment. http://www.emedicinehealth.com/alcohol_intoxication/page2_em.htm

3. Alcohol use: If you drink, keep it moderate. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/alcohol/SC00024

The Baby Formula for a Month Challenge

2010-09-30T11:03:00.000-07:00

“If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?”

How stupid that question seems now. My friends and I used to go back and forth with ridiculous questions like that. Right along the lines of “how much would I have to pay you to [something disgusting]?”

$350 is exactly how much you would have to pay me to eat baby formula for a month. I know because I am doing it, right now. Today is day 7. I have learned a lot about my relationship with food through this exercise. But before I go into that, let me put this little experiment in context. I have the worst health insurance on the planet, provided free through the graduate school. The insurance demands that you visit with a nurse before seeing a real doctor, which you need a referral for.

So I went to the nurse because I have been living with some difficulty swallowing that has progressively gotten worse. I finally decided to go in after discovering that I couldn’t get down larger pills. He suggested a barium pill swallow, which turned my poop ghost white for days. The results of the pill swallow showed I have a feline esophagus, so my nurse recommended seeing somebody in GI. The way things worked out, my appointments spanned the period of time when my deductible rolls over, so I had to pay the deductible twice.

Based off of my symptoms and the barium pill swallow, my GI doctor said an upper endoscopy (EGD) with biopsy was in order. But, having just paid my insurance deductible x2, I simply couldn’t afford it. I told her that I was broke, and that I would just live with my condition. Her face lit up a bit, “I might know a way that you can get this scope for free.”

The next thing I know, I am being asked to get 5 EGDs and eat an all liquid hypoallergenic diet for one month. In return, I obviously get the EGD I need, allergy testing, free “food” for a month, and… AND $350! I said “it sounds like pure gold to me.”

The whole process lasts 8 weeks. The first two weeks I took a high dose of omeprazole, and kept a food journal. Then, I had an EGD and two more weeks of regular eating and journaling. The process is repeated over 4 more weeks with my diet consisting of only baby formula.

I should say something about the drug they give me for the EGDs, Versed (midazolam). This is to make me comfortable, and to give me short term anterograde amnesia. It makes me forget the whole procedure and most of the rest of my day. This is the same type of drug they give people before having to perform a horrific emergency surgery that the patient wouldn’t want to remember. It seems like Versed was specifically chosen because of its antegrade amnesia properties, which is strange to me because according to the doctor and nurses I am comfortable throughout the process. What if I am lying there gasping for air, in torture with the sensation of drowning, but I simply don’t remember it? I have asked the nurse if I am comfortable while they shove that piece of machinery down my throat. But why would they tell me I was in agony, if I will never be able to remember if they are telling the truth? There is no way for me to know.

As I said, I am 7 days into the month of baby formula (Elecare, vanilla flavored amino acid based elemental medical formula). The first taste of formula wasn’t too bad. It is kind of like vanilla Slimfast. I thought that the challenge would be eating the same food for every meal every day. Wrong. I am not sick of drinking Elecare, even after having it 4 times a day for the past week. The real battle is coping with all of the habitual things related to eating that I am NOT doing. I have drunk 32-64 oz of Mountain Dew almost every day for years. Missing that cold blast of caffeine and sugar in the morning is hard. I never noticed how much I snack! Several times a day I reach for my bag of smoked almonds and have to hold back. I really miss cooking. You know, caramelizing onions in a black cast iron skillet with mushrooms and a tender New York steak. Browning thin slices of French artisan bread infused with roasted garlic, and topping them off with fire roasted tomatoes. Whenever I make my daughter a peanut butter sandwich I am used to licking the knife, and I am used to popping a few pieces of cereal in my mouth as I pour it for her.

The hardest part of eating baby food for a month is overcoming my emotional connection – the psychological addiction – to using food to cope with stress. I never would have thought that I am an emotional eater, but I am. When I get stressed at work, I look for the comfort of my Mountain Dew bottle. I realize now that it isn’t necessarily the drinking of Mountain Dew that comforts me, but having the cold bottle, knowing it is their waiting for me. Sometimes, before the medical study, I would feel like I was dying for a drink, so I would buy one, and then realize hours later that I hadn’t even opened it. It was just… having it.

I escape into cooking because it is something that I can control, in my crazy life of school and kids and distractions. Now that I am not eating or cooking, I am trying to control my research, which is good because it has started to get bonkers. At the end of the day, this really is my choice. I could have dropped out of the medical study right after my first EGD without ever taking on a month’s worth of baby food. But, I didn’t. I am sticking it out to exercise my will power, to prove to myself I can do something as hard as radically change my diet. Even still, my motivation is deeper than that. Maybe if I can take control of myself long enough to last out this medical study, maybe I can control myself in the other areas of my life that have been so crazy. If I break my addiction to caffeine, maybe I can do anything. It’s about control. Control over myself.

Medical Study From Hell 3 - Prepare for Long Drug Induced Pauses

2010-09-08T08:25:00.000-07:00

Medical Study From Hell 2

2010-09-05T16:12:00.000-07:00

p.s. The patch test didn't seem to work. At all. The day after this video, my back looks like nothing was ever on it, and I KNOW that I am allergic to some of the things she put on there.

What It's Like to be in a Mountain Dew Commercial

2010-09-04T15:26:00.000-07:00

Everything is last minute rush! But, a rush none the less.

At the wardrobe fitting I asked the advertising agence folks, Motive, what I should avoid blogging about. I expected there to be a tight lid on details until after the commercial airs. But, they seemed relaxed about it. They said not to give details about the story board and the closing tag line. The last bit was surprising to me because the tag line for the new diet dew commercial "Diet tastes better on the Mountain" was circling around for weeks before the commercial came out. Whatever.

The director of the commercial, Vincent Laforet, overheard me talking about it and hustled over to interject "blog about working with me!" At first I didn't know quite how to take this remark. Did he, a pulitzer prize winning photographer, esteem my pitiful blogs so highly that he geniunly wanted the publicity? Or, is he savvy with his SEO and just wants another link to http://www.laforetvisuals.com/? Nah, none of my blogs have a page rank greater than 3, his is a 4. Maybe he felt that my interaction with him would be the only thing worth blogging about? I found out later that not only is he brilliant, but a genuinly nice guy - so I doubt he had any selfish motive behind letting a hobby blogger throw his name around. I am sure I will dedicate a post to him in the future.

Overall, my impression of the commercial shoot was very positive. Everything was organized as well as it could be under the circumstances. I was able to connect with a member of the Mountain Dew brand team, which turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. The advertising agency gave us celebrity like respect, the production company (the Joneses) were curtious even when I was stepping on their toes and asking one too many questions.

9 of us "talent" were flown out there coach class, put up for two nights in the Westin Tabor in Denver, given $150 bucks total for incidentals, $200 for shoot day fees, and three meals. In return, I talked my head off about a subject I love, wore everyday cloths, and just acted like myself.

Much more than the material benifit of going, I felt like for a day I was part of a team. I sincerly connected with my fellow Dew comrades (Jones, Buckman, Maska, Kinch). I would hang out with them any time. I connected with the folks at Motive (Matt, Jon, and the rest) and have come to really respect what they do; I would recommend them to any client. Nate and Loretta from Pepsi, it was SO REFRESHING to talk with you. For the first time I felt like I was being listened to, that I was respected and trusted, that the legal-paranoid-brand-wall was down for a while. What ever doubt about the integrety of the Mtn Dew brand I had is long gone.

I'll never forget the dinner we had together at the end, all laughing and toasting, eating until midnight... the absinthe. Honestly, after dinner I felt better than having just been part of a team... I felt like family.

On the Frailty of Life

2010-08-26T12:55:00.000-07:00

Somebody close to me had a heart attack today, right out of the blue. I was crying as I hung up the phone. He'll be okay, but it is a big wake up call. My otherwise healthy mother died at the age of 40 from a rare lung condition. A good friend of mine, in his 20s, suddenly dropped to the floor in a severe seizure during one of our final exams... he had never had any medical problems before. They found a tumor in his brain.

Life is fragile people. It is high time that we actually start living our lives, for God only knows when we might die. Start living your life. TODAY! Sure, you need to plan for the future, and it makes sense to save money and work hard. But don't work too hard that you wouldn't be satisfied with your life experience if you died tomorrow. Plan for your retirement, but also plan that family vacation soon in case retirement never comes. Take a day or two off work to hang with your kids, or your parents, or whoever you love. Quality time doesn't require money.

The gentleman that had a heart attack today had been planning on someday going on a European river cruise with his wife for the past 10 years.

Medical Study From Hell 1

2010-08-25T18:06:00.000-07:00

Medical Study from Hell: part 1. I am participating in a medical study that involves exclusively eating a hypoallergenic elemental liquid diet for 1 month. Why because I need medical care and I am a poor s.o.b. Why do I need medical care? My doctor says I have a cat esophagus. I can see anything out of the ordinary, but check out this video of me swallowing some nasty E-Z Paque.

For whatever reason my "feline esophagus" causes things to get stuck. The first time this ever happened, I was at my good friend's father-in-law's house in California. It was embarrassing. Here's a picture of a pill stuck in there.

Burning Rubber

2010-08-02T07:54:00.000-07:00

I rode out, white knuckled, to the Great Salt Lake Marina with the sun rising to my back. I have put care into my motorcycle. I carefully clean the carburetors. I touch up the paint. I put good fuel in her, and change her oil regularly. Now, she gives back. I turned my music up loud and smiled the whole way, fast out and slow taking the abandoned freeway back. I don't know how I managed before motorcycles.

How to Make the PERFECT Box Pizza

2010-07-29T06:53:00.000-07:00

Let's face it, you don't know SHIT about cooking pizza. The last time you tried to cook pizza, you burnt the SHIT out of your hand and offended your in-laws. You blackened the walls of your fine home with smoke-a-burning cheese, your wife had to re-dye her hair, you turned your brain all George Foreman from the fumes, and you burnt the SHIT out of your hand.

You probably will never make a good pizza. Preheat your oven to 425.

We're going to start with a Chef Boyardee cheese pizza kit because if you are reading this you are probably a poor fool and LAZY. You don't know what it takes to make your own dough with flour and yeast and shit, that's why we're gonna KEEP IT SIMPLE!

Make the dough as directed, with 2/3 cup warm water per package of mix. Put that water in your mixing bowl and heat it the microwave for 30 seconds. This heats up the bowl because dough, like your lady, you gotta keep cozy. Coat the dough ball with a little bit of oil like you're getting your lady ready for a wrestling match. I know your are an impatient SOB with ADHD, but you have GOT to let this sit! 5 minutes! AT LEAST! And remember, keep this sexy white dough babe WARM.

Have you ever had a hot oil massage? Nah, you're too ghetto and white for that. Well, you're gonna feel like you're GIVING A HOT OIL MASSAGE because it's time to get olive oil all over your hands! But first, wash all that white boy FUNK off-a-yo sweaty palms. I don't want to get all geometrically jargonistic on ya, we are talking pizza not math. You want to form that dough into the shape of a basketball with your hands.

Place the dough ball in the center of a greased cookie sheet. PRESS the ball into a circle with the palms of your hands. This isn't tug-o-war, don't pull that unless you want to look foolish in front of your children again with a crust full of holes. Don't expect it to look as good as mine on the first try, because this takes a bit of practice. Actually don't expect your crust to EVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING, because after you ruin your first one you'll just give up... like you have at everything else in your life. Wash the oil off your hands and sprinkle a bit of garlic salt and oregano around the edge of the crust, it makes it look nice.

Before we move on, take a look around your kitchen. Are you prepared to decorate a pizza? Is your cheese grated and are your toppings cut up? I can't expect you to know about this, since your lazy ass dropped out of the scouting program, but things go a lot smoother when you are prepared. I know your are excited to get sauced but unless you have a $15,000 pizza oven, pizza screens, and are making a completely different recipe you need to pre-bake that crust first. 425 degrees (as measured by an accurate oven thermometer) for 5 minutes.

In some alternate universe where you are successful, your crust would look like mine. It is time for sauce! I actually like the pizza sauce that comes in the Chef Boyardee cheese pizza kit better than just about anything you can buy in the store. You're goal isn't to drown the crust, this is cooking - art - not intelligence collection in the CIA. Spread it around with the backside of a large spoon (and you thought that was only good for corporal family punishment!).

Sprinkle about a fourth of the included "cheese topping" directly over the sauce, then give it a light coat with mozzarella. This is your base, no matter what type of pizza you make you always take it to this same point.

Let's talk about toppings. You may not know this but what toppings you choose are important. Look at you, you're fat and you like pizza. You're momma is fat, and she likes pizza. Problem is, neither of you know how to make good pizza... you're stuck on extra cheese and pepperoni. Bad pizza is disguised as good pizza, but isn't satisfying so you eat too much of it. I don't expect you to have thought of the toppings I use because I have class. Today we are having ham, fire roasted tomatoes marinated in garlic olive oil, and smokey provolone. Another excellent combination is spicy capicola, green olives marinated in wine, and creamy Havarti.

Put those topping on with style! How your food looks before you eat it matters. Good looking food is more satisfying, and the longer you look at your food the slower you eat and the less you eat.

The nice cheese should be last, but don't bury everything! When you are done, you should be able to see parts of all your toppings. You need less than you think.

Cook the pizza as follows: 5 minutes at 425. If you are cooking on a silver pan as I am add 1 minute with the oven turned up to 500 (you wont actually reach that temperature, it just turns the heat on the bottom to brown the crust underneath). Then, BROIL for 2 minutes checking every 30 seconds or so. I am not kidding, check that! There is 60 seconds between perfect and cremated. The goal is to really cook the toppings and to get the cheese bubbly and beginning to brown. The goal is... THIS.

If I were you, I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. Making good pizza is hard. And, as I always say, IF SOMETHING SEEMS HARD JUST DON'T TRY. If you fail the first time, you likely will never succeed so just give up. Fortunately there is still Papa John's.

Satisfaction in Doing

2010-07-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

What is it about just doing something that makes me feel satisfied? This morning I changed the oil on my motorcycle, tensioned and lubed the chain, and cleaned up the outside of my carburetors. Bam! Satisfaction.

Changing the oil on a bike doesn't require any special skill, so my satisfaction isn't derived from feeling like I have some sort of mechanical superiority. It isn't physically hard, so I am not riding the wave of endorphins that come at the conclusion of a workout. An oil change is preventative maintenance, I didn't necessarily improve my machine by doing. I just took care of something that needed to be done.

I did do it correctly. And, I think that there is a particular reward for doing things right. I notice this satisfaction frequently at the completion of a menial task done properly. What is this attraction to quality work?

I think about quality a lot. What does quality mean? How does something or someone get it? Is it only in the eyes of the beholder? I don't know. For whatever reason I have been thinking about quality in furniture, like in a vanity. My furniture frequently fails me, one piece after another. I am thinking about getting a nice vanity and then reviewing it, but then by what criteria? How do I know what the perfect vanity is like if I have never seen or used one? I think for my next review I am going to try a bit harder to get at the real quality of the object.

Sales Incentive Marketing, Bigger is Not Always Better

2010-07-27T08:19:00.000-07:00

They are marketing mercenaries, incentive administrators for hire. Brands, like Mountain Dew, pay them to take on the trouble of running sweepstakes, contests, rebates and the like. Companies like Young America are an intermediary point of contact between the consumer (who enters a contest, or mails in a rebate), and the brand who sponsors the incentive. Of course, the whole point of marketing incentives is to build consumer relationship with a particular brand through the path of interest, interaction, intimacy, and influence. Depending on how well a marketing scheme is executed, a consumer’s relationship to a brand may be strengthened or weakened.
Young America’s corporate website touts their complex structure:

“We’re bigger. And when the stakes are high, that means better. Our massive, expandable promotion infrastructure deploys the largest, most elaborate promotion fulfillment and engagement marketing programs – without compromising accuracy or turn time.”

While Young America’s expandability and years of experience could be appealing to the corporate marketer, large complex organizations often have trouble interacting with the individual because they run many parallel promotions in which thousands of people may be involved. Since consumer relationship is all about particular individuals’ interaction with a brand, it is at this point that damage may be done.

I have recently been involved in a very informal way in the product development and marketing of Mountain Dew White Out through my participation in DEWlabs (a sort of extreme consumer panel). Throughout my time in DEWlabs I have developed a casual relationship with the brand managers (via conference calls, live chats, email and the like). The group is small enough that the brand people can have this type of interaction without a logistical problem. I know a few of the team by name, and can honestly say that I like them.

On the other hand, I also won a prize during a separate marketing campaign in which Mountain Dew was the sponsor and Young America (YA) was the contest administer. With this contest, bigger turned out not to be better. There were several bumps along the way that, were it not for my perspective on the Mountain Dew brand, would have soured me to brand altogether.

In case you happen to be a marketer considering YA, I'll outline my experience for you so you know what you might be getting yourself into. 10 days after winning, I was emailed an affidavit asking for my mailing address that said that after I return it (which I did within hours) I should wait for further information regarding my prize. Further information never came, when I emailed them about it I received a form response “the rules say delivery could take 8-10 weeks” instead of an answer to my question. After I waited 13 weeks without word from YA, I emailed them asking if they had record that I had actually won the prize and if it was coming. A response was received a week later (14 weeks now) that I had failed to give them my shirt size in the affidavit. I kept a copy of the original affidavit and it never asked me for my shirt size. A month after I mailed them my shirt size, I still had not received my prize or word from them regarding it. I emailed YA, the Mountain Dew brand team, and Motive (an awesome Colorado based hybrid agency responsible for actually making the prizes). Motive said that the last they heard from YA, all the prizes had been shipped out. YA said that the prizes were shipping out within the next 2 weeks. After two weeks past I sent YA an email asking to speak with a supervisor. The next day, my prize arrived (22 weeks after I won) but was incomplete. I was to receive a video camera and 9 shirts; only 4 shirts came… all the wrong size, which is odd because YA said that they were waiting for my size to send my prize.

I think I simply slipped through the cracks. I think they sent me the wrong affidavit at the beginning, then when I responded and wasn’t on some list corresponding to the affidavit I was forgotten until I began sending emails. The new affidavit asking for my shirt size was a cover-up to make it look like the error was mine. By this time the majority of the prizes were out (other people said they received theirs, and Motive said YA had shipped them out). Shipping my prize probably required a special order, so it took a couple weeks and they were just out of inventory on the shirts.

In YA’s defense, they do seem to take complaints seriously provided they are loud enough. I wrote a message to the sales team informing them that I planned to write this article about my experience with YA. Within the hour I received a response from Leone Hunter (Vice President, Client Services / Product Manager, Sweepstakes), and later in the day a call. Without admitting any fault, she informed me that YA takes quality of service seriously, and explained the inherent complexity involved in managing a contest. There was a delay in receiving the shirts, and size preference is difficult to coordinate (and not guaranteed). We talked some more and made arrangements to make things right for me personally.

Making things right for me personally turned out to mean receiving a couple of beanies, a belt buckle, some wrist sweat bands, and a vintage looking poster print in the mail with a couple of coupons.

Blood-Alcohol Infographic

2010-07-13T08:10:00.000-07:00

Somebody from phlebotomist.net contacted me about posting this info graphic on This Tool's Life. The graphic is interesting, and I like phlebotomists, so I thought to myself "Self, why not?"

Book Review: The Male Brain

2010-07-05T09:48:00.000-07:00

Whenever I begin to write a book review I am tempted to make a blanket statement like “this may be one of the most important books you read.” Or, “this book is garbage.” In the case of The Male Brain, a bit of qualification in my statement is needed. For me, an introspective male with a strong scientific background and history of bizarre behavior, it was a brilliant introduction to the subject; one of the most important books I’ve read.

For somebody new to neurohormones and their relationship to brain function and ultimately behavior, the force of this book is the understanding of the source of our base desires and inclinations. It helped explain a myriad of my personal feelings and behaviors. And, with an understanding of how environmental variables and personal activities affect neurohormones, I can try to influence the hormones that lead to behaviors that I don’t like. I feel like I have increased my self understanding by an order of magnitude. However, as a book reviewer I tend to focus on a piece of literature’s significance to me personally rather than actually review the book in its own right. Separating myself from the idea embodied by the book, to the delivery, I have mixed feelings.

The Male Brain calls itself “A Breakthrough Understanding of How Men and Boys Think.” Really, the book has very little to do with how men and boys think. Rather it explores some of the reasons why we think the way we do. And, I have a hard time when a book is self-proclaimed as a breakthrough. The “breakthrough understanding” is actually the years of collective research that has shaped the scientific communities’ opinion on the subject, not the author’s. Years from now, if this book has produced a breakthrough in the layman’s understanding of how man and boys think, maybe that statement will be qualified. You might think “oh, cover blurbs are just there to sell books” but in this case you can judge a book by its cover because careless conclusions on small points continue throughout the book.

Brizendine walks the tricky line of trying to please both the general community with readability and the more interested or scholarly reader with copious references. Half of the book is notes and references. While I appreciate a well researched book, the style used here is a bit perplexing to me. Notes and references aren’t annotated within the body of the text because, I presume, all the superscripts would get seriously cumbersome as some sentences have notes following every couple of words. In my opinion, this is a bit too heavy on the notes and referencing. The text should be written clear enough that a note isn’t necessary so frequently. Sure, this might affect the flow of the “doctor-patient” dialog she uses throughout the book but I felt like this formula got old anyways. Don't get me wrong, she does about as decent a job possible of walking the readability-scholarly line. This style is just difficult, and comes with its own set of benefits and downfalls.

Along this same vein, if we wanted to get nit-picky, the way she references is often just plain misleading. For example, there will be casual dialog between her and a patient about, say, the mental bonding that happens between a man and a woman during sex. In the back of the book, the notes will clarify a string of a few words “body and brain in sync” and give a reference to a scientific article. The problem is that scientific articles don’t substantiate casually worded claims in so general a way. As I read her dialog, I thought what I was reading was her opinion on the interpretation of this research, through her voice to her patients, and I am cool with that. But when you reference a casual dialog in which there is loads of personal interpretation with a scholarly article, it makes it seem like your interpretation of the data is proven correct. This confusion is amplified by the fact that sometimes in the text she says “studies by researchers have shown that…” when discussing a topic. This led me to believe that she was referring to scientifically hard information only when prefacing it with “studies…” that is, until I reached the notes in the back that try to sell every other bit of dialog she has as scientifically solid.

In the end, however, the point of a book isn’t in the delivery but in the message. The delivery just has to be good enough to get a reader to attempt and finish a book. I’ve read lots of books with a better delivery, but few that have had a personal message more potentially useful. I am a firm believer that the better we understand ourselves, our partners, our children, our neighbors both next door and across oceans… the better we understand the better our world will be.

Someone's Bike

2010-06-22T21:08:00.001-07:00

Guest Article: by Princess's Mom

“That’s my sister’s bike. Can you tell your daughter not to ride it?” This comment or perhaps the numerous ones like them from kids being kids reminded me that it was time for us to get Princess her very own bike. A bike of her own that she could have just for herself for those not so fun moments when kids just won’t share.

Soon after our young neighbor reclaimed her bike, we got an offer that if we did a review for CSN Stores for a product we would receive the product for free. We didn’t have to look long before we found it: Dora the Explorer bike. We don’t have cable but Princess knows Dora. Who doesn’t know Dora?

The bike came quick (about four days). It was easy to put together even when Princess in excitement would join in to help. The process did include a few components that needed two people for assembly or if you include Princess three.
Princess and her friends were excited to try the bike out but the pedals were not quite within reach. Sitting and scooting are now the method often chosen for mobility but one soon tires of that. The bike mostly lives in the house and waits for the day when princess can reach the pedals.
Final Verdict: I would recommend this bike for any little girl with legs long enough to reach the wheels!

A Checkered Past

2010-06-19T20:02:00.000-07:00

At approximately 12:15 am on June 18th, 2010, Ronnie Lee Gardner was handcuffed and strapped to a black chair surrounded by black sandbags. A man came with a microphone and asked if he had any last words. "I do not. No." Following this brief exchange, a hood was placed over his head and four bullets from rifles pierced the target attached with Velcro to his chest and passed through his heart.

There had, of course, been an almost undying (excuse the pun) train of litigation leading up to Gardner's execution. In a desperate attempt during his final days, defense lawyers argued that important evidence regarding Gardner's checkered past were never brought to trial, that life with out chance of parole was not an option when he was sentenced, and that were he tried again a jury would spare his life.

It is funny how a life gradually turns for the worse. Things almost inevitably begin with bad parenting then are followed by a series a personal mistakes. First it is screaming to get out of going to bed, then it is stealing quarters off of your father's dresser, there is psychological warfare with your siblings, then candy cigarettes and grape-bark cigarettes that you don’t inhale and ones that you do inhale and real cigarettes and real cigarettes without filters and then marijuana. After that you are an outright criminal. There’s the out of wedlock relationships, bizarre love-drug triangles, and before you know it you are murdering someone in a drunken rage.

Things don’t have to turn out that way. I am living proof. I have had a bit of a checkered past myself, and am not – yet – turning pale-skinned inside a prison cell. Though, if I think back the odds are stacked against me. Part of the reason Gardner was denied a stay of execution was because he had waited so long to bring up details of his past. I, on the other hand, am not like Gardner. I am smart. It would be better to bring up my checkered past now, so in case a stay of execution is ever needed I will be able to say “look, it isn’t my fault I did what I did. Just look at my childhood, I wrote about it years ago!”

I wouldn’t dare call my parents bad, but I wouldn’t exactly say that I had a perfect example of upright citizenship to look to either. My mother was a complex chocolate wrapped in shiny foil possessing many layers of bitter and sweet; a delicatessen that you like for the experience, the diversity of sensation, the breadth of flavor, but not necessarily as a desert in its own right. She taught me about what it means to have true charity and faith. And, through the corner of my eye, she taught me how to discretely sneak things out of a department store or restaurant. Yes, mother was a closet kleptomaniac. A few times she was caught too. One story involved her taking some crystal and fine silverware, I only dare repeat it because I heard it from her own mouth as she told her friends. She somehow was at a banquet with some big names in Utah government, a waiter caught her as she was getting into the elevator with the (if my memory serves me correctly) not-yet-governor Huntsman. My mother fumbled around in her purse embarrassed and handed the loot over. Stories like that peppered me during my childhood.

She died at the age of 40, leaving my father a single parent with four children to survive on a public educator salary. Those times were hard, but there were a few perks. I was left a tiny 50cc scooter, a social security stipend of about a hundred dollars a month (which isn’t a lot… but it is loads of money to a kid used to being poor), and all the lack of supervision I could get – a recipe for disaster. As far as the neighbors were concerned my ultimate destiny was definitely the executioner’s chair. Small town folk can be pretty indiscrete. I overheard one around the corner at church “I don’t want my kids playing with those Jorgensen boys! Why, the last time I drove by they were burning their names into the lawn with trails of gasoline.” My father didn’t help. To break up the monotony of single parenthood, he would demonstrate the finer aspects of exploding a 2-liter bottle of dry ice in our back yard, an activity that sent a loudspeaker propaganda signal to the entire town “DON’T PLAY WITH MY KIDS **BOOM** WE’RE DANGEROUS **BOOM**”

Both my mother and father had a relaxed attitude towards nudity when swimming. While I never actually saw my mother swim that way, I heard stories. Often when camping or swimming at night our shorts would come off. It sounds almost creepy now, but it was so natural then. I grew up appreciating that swimming was served best al dente. What I didn’t get was that this was reserved for exclusive situations, exclusive situations being those in which the general non-dysfunctional public couldn’t see you. As a teenager my friends and I would go hot tubing at 10 pm downtown at hotel with an outdoor pool. At first we would bring swimwear that we casually took off after we got into the water. Sometimes we just stripped down and canon-balled in. It became such a frequent occurrence that I would go their by myself after a long day working as a pizza delivery boy. Gradually I stopped packing a swimsuit at all, a bold move looking back, that brings me to my most severe encounter with the law. There I sat in the early evening after work, naked as a jay bird, feeling the bubbles from the jets clean the lint from under my toe nails when “Ahem.” “Oh shit.” I thought as I slowly opened my eyes and turned to see a peace officer staring at me in the water. “Are you staying here?” “How old are you?” “Where is your swimsuit?” “We have had some vandalism down here; do you know anything about that?” I stammered that I didn’t have a clue, though now I wonder if he was referring to the two gallons of bubble bath my friends and I had dumped in there a week before.

I went to see a juvenile judge with my father to determine the sentence for my crime. “It says here you were nude in public while breaking curfew and trespassing,” The judge said. “My dad and I go skinny dipping all the time! He is the one who taught me how to do it!” I exclaimed. “That’s my boy!” Chirped my father, and the two of us shared a Brady Bunch laugh… until we looked over at the judge who was stone cold. “…community service hours… blah, blah, blah… lots of them…” she said. I was thinking about my next adventure, and how convenient it was that I needed to do community service to get out of trouble with the law at the precise time that I also needed to do community service to get my Eagle Scout, two birds (including an eagle) with one stone. Maybe that’s what bent my life in a direction different than Ronnie Lee Gardner’s, the scouting program. Nah.

Guest Article: A Simple Overview of Solar Panels

2010-06-18T05:37:00.000-07:00

By Barbara Young

What is solar power ?

Solar power is radiant energy that's produced by the sun. Every single day the sun radiates, or sends out, an immense quantity of energy. The sun radiates more energy in a second than people have used since the beginning of time!

The energy of the Sun derives from within the sun itself. Like other stars, the sun is really a big ball of gases––mostly hydrogen and helium atoms.

The hydrogen atoms in the sun’s core combine to form helium and generate energy in a process called nuclear fusion.

During nuclear fusion, the sun’s extremely high pressure and temperature cause hydrogen atoms to come apart and their nuclei (the central cores of the atoms) to fuse or combine. Four hydrogen nuclei fuse to become one helium atom. But the helium atom contains less mass compared to four hydrogen atoms that fused. Some matter is lost during nuclear fusion. The lost matter is emitted into space as radiant energy.

It takes millions of years for the energy in the sun’s core to make its way to the solar surface, after which slightly over eight minutes to travel the 93 million miles to earth. The solar energy travels to the earth at a speed of 186,000 miles per second, the velocity of sunshine.

Simply a small percentage of the power radiated from the sun into space strikes the earth, one part in two billion. Yet this amount of energy is enormous. Every day enough energy strikes the united states to provide the nation’s energy needs for one and a half years!

Where does all this energy go?

About 15 percent of the sun’s energy which hits the planet earth is reflected back into space. Another 30 percent is used to evaporate water, which, lifted into the atmosphere, produces rainfall. Solar power is absorbed by plants, the land, and the oceans. The rest could be used to supply our energy needs.

Who invented solar technology ?

Humans have harnessed solar technology for hundreds of years. Since the 7th century B.C., people used simple magnifying glasses to concentrate the light of the sun into beams so hot they'd cause wood to catch fire. More than 100 years ago in France, a scientist used heat from a solar collector to create steam to drive a steam engine. In the beginning of this century, scientists and engineers began researching ways to use solar technology in earnest. One important development was a remarkably efficient solar boiler invented by Charles Greeley Abbott, a united states astrophysicist, in 1936.

The solar water heater came into common use at this time in Florida, California, and the Southwest. The industry started in the early 1920s and was in full swing just before The second world war. This growth lasted prior to the mid-1950s when low-cost natural gas took over as primary fuel for heating American homes.

People and world governments remained largely indifferent to the possibilities of solar energy until the oil shortages of the1970s. Today, people use solar power to heat buildings and water and to generate electricity.

How we use solar power today ?

Solar energy is employed in a variety of ways, of course. There are two standard forms of solar energy:

* Solar thermal energy collects the sun's warmth through 1 of 2 means: in water or in an anti-freeze (glycol) mixture.

* Solar photovoltaic energy converts the sun's radiation to usable electricity.

Here are the five most practical and popular techniques solar energy is employed:

1. Small portable solar photovoltaic systems. We see these used everywhere, from calculators to solar garden tools. Portable units can be utilized for everything from RV appliances while single panel systems are used for traffic signs and remote monitoring stations.

2. Solar pool heating. Running water in direct circulation systems through a solar collector is an extremely practical method to heat water for your pool or spa.

3. Thermal glycol energy to heat water. In this method (indirect circulation), glycol is heated by natural sunlight and the heat is then transferred to water in a hot water tank. Using this method of collecting the sun's energy is much more practical now than ever. In areas as far north as Edmonton, Alberta, solar thermal to heat water is economically sound. It can pay for itself in 3 years or less.

4. Integrating solar photovoltaic energy into your home or office power. In most parts of the world, solar photovoltaics is an economically feasible approach to supplement the power of your home. In Japan, photovoltaics are competitive with other forms of power. In the USA, new incentive programs make this form of solar technology ever more viable in many states. A frequent and practical way of integrating solar energy into the power of your home or business is through the usage of building integrated solar photovoltaics.

5. Large independent photovoltaic systems. When you have enough sun power at your site, you may be able to go off grid. It's also possible to integrate or hybridize your solar power system with wind power or other kinds of renewable power to stay 'off the grid.'

How do Photovoltaic panels work ?

Silicon is mounted beneath non-reflective glass to produce photovoltaic panels. These panels collect photons from the sun, converting them into DC electrical energy. The energy created then flows into an inverter. The inverter transforms the energy into basic voltage and AC electrical power.

Solar cells are prepared with particular materials called semiconductors for example silicon, which is presently the most generally used. When light hits the Photovoltaic cell, a specific share of it is absorbed inside the semiconductor material. This means that the energy of the absorbed light is given to the semiconductor.

The energy unfastens the electrons, permitting them to run freely. Pv cells also have one or more electric fields that act to compel electrons unfastened by light absorption to flow in a specific direction. This flow of electrons is a current, and by introducing metal links on the top and bottom of the photovoltaic cell, the current can be drawn to use it externally.

Do you know the benefits and drawbacks of solar energy ?

Solar Pro Arguments

- Heating our homes with oil or natural gas or using electricity from power plants running with coal and oil is a cause of global warming and climate disruption. Solar power, on the contrary, is clean and environmentally-friendly.

- Solar hot-water heaters require little maintenance, and their initial investment could be recovered in just a relatively short time.

- Solar hot-water heaters can work in nearly every climate, even just in very cold ones. You just need to choose the best system for your climate: drainback, thermosyphon, batch-ICS, etc.

- Maintenance costs of solar powered systems are minimal and the warranties large.

- Financial incentives (USA, Canada, European states…) can help to eliminate the cost of the first investment in solar technologies. The U.S. government, for example, offers tax credits for solar systems certified by by the SRCC (Solar Rating and Certification Corporation), which amount to 30 percent of the investment (2009-2016 period).

Solar Cons Arguments

- The initial investment in Solar Hot water heaters or in Photovoltaic Electric Systems is greater than that required by conventional electric and gas heaters systems.

- The payback period of solar PV-electric systems is high, as well as those of solar space heating or solar cooling (only the solar hot water heating payback is short or relatively short).

- Solar water heating do not support a direct in conjunction with radiators (including baseboard ones).

- Some air con (solar space heating and the solar cooling systems) are costly, and rather untested technologies: solar air conditioning isn't, till now, a truly economical option.

- The efficiency of solar powered systems is rather dependent on sunlight resources. It's in colder climates, where heating or electricity needs are higher, that the efficiency is smaller.

Barbara Young writes on Rv Solar Panels in her personal hobby site 12voltsolarpanels.net. Her efforts are related to helping people save energy using solar powered energy to eliminate CO2 emissions and energy dependency.

*Note from the editor: Barbara approached me about writing a guest article regarding solar power for this blog via email. A part of the research in my Ph.D. program has focused on the improvement of solar panels using semiconducting photonic crystals, so I have been introduced to the subject before. I fully expected a botch-up job, however was pleasantly surprised by the accuracy of her article. Some important solar panels were left out (like the new mass producible flexible thin-film solar cells, and the super-high efficiency dye cells), and other things are greatly over simplified... but then, simple is in the title. Thanks Barabara, excellent job! And, look out for photonic crystal solar cells in the future.

Kauai: Nature Photos

2010-05-03T16:45:00.000-07:00

Found this guy on my way up Waimae canyon road

The awesome Waimae canyon look out was foggy, so I photographed this plant instead.

Jeeping up to the Mamalahoa forest reserve.

These waterfalls are at the end of the "Secret Tunnels" hike outlined in The Ultimate Guide to Kauai.

This waterfall, although not that big or impressive has to be one of the least accessible on the island. It was extremely difficult to get to... an all day affair.

Perfect Spring Walk

2010-04-24T20:43:00.001-07:00

Back From the Dead - Ready to Blog!

2010-04-17T16:47:00.001-07:00

It's been a while on here. I normally don't make excuses, but this time it is good. I have simply been swamped doing some promotional work with Mountain Dew as "president" of the White Out flavor nation in DEWlabs. I took that photo above right after a few local stores pre-released White Out. Now that the drink is hitting the market, things are starting to slow down. In my slowed down state I started to browse around CSN stores... actually they are pretty cool. They have EVERYTHING from corner tv stands to whatever you can think of. Considering that my daughter is exactly at Dora the Explorer tricycle age, I figured I would order and review myself one of those!

So that is my first item of business: to review an item from CSN Stores, this adorable Dora the Explorer Tricycle I haven't actually got the thing yet... so you all will have to wait!

Why I Love the New Year

2010-01-08T07:45:00.000-08:00

The furnace is out at work, so I am getting my blogging fix in my icy office before I go home for an unexpected day off.

Just thought I'd share what I like about January. Tax season. I love tax season. Here's why, I gripe alot about how our government spends over a trillion dollars pursuing the ghost of terrorism in Iraq (supposedly selflessly bringing democracy and freedom to them) while at the same time resisting helping the poor in our own country, cutting our own education budgets, and tearing down the unauthorized immigrants here. Seriously, does it make sense to spend so much money 'helping" Iraqis with violence (who not only aren't US citizens, but don't live and work here with us) while the unauthorized immigrants here (who actually live with us and DO contribute to the economy) are desperate for help?

Despite all the things our government does to systematically exploit the middle class for the benefit of rich corporations who lobby and give extravagant amounts of money and gifts to the politicians, they do throw the poor a bone come tax season. It gives me the glimmer of hope for humanity and compassion in our government.

Here's what I mean, consider a poor family of 4. Two parents with two children make a combined income of less than $25,000. They pay zero tax, and get a refund of between $8,000 - $9,000. For some people, like me, their tax return amounts to about a third of their gross annual income. Just one case in which the poorest of the poor, who still work, get a break. And, the people that fit this demographic do need the money... they have childcare expenses and debt (incidental to their being poor) to pay off.

Einstein Travels Through Time to Promote Mountain Dew

2010-01-07T14:56:00.000-08:00

Made this one myself...

What is Proof Anyways? - Part 1

2010-01-03T12:54:00.000-08:00

A few years ago I took an intro to philosophy course taught by a Dr. Harrison Kleiner. I seem to remember that the course was one of two or three that satisfied a certain requirement for graduation. Overall, the class was excellent... except for two things. Dr. Kleiner seemed to leak his personal religious beliefs (Catholicism. See, how would I know if he didn't leak it?) into his classroom which was overwhelmingly Mormon and he had a habit of embarrassing students who disagreed with him. Not surprisingly the philosophy of the very Catholic St. Thomas Aquinas was a significant part of the course. **Disclaimer: Before I continue, I want to make it clear that Dr. Kleiner was an excellent teacher. What I write about him here might sound a bit negative but this is by far the exception. The class was well organized and balanced, Kleiner took the time to discuss topics individually with students, and he endowed me with an interest in philosophy that has kept me learning in the years since his class.** I remember one lecture in particular which set off an interesting chain of events. Dr. Kleiner summarized an argument made by Aquinas:

The second way [of proving God's existence] is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God. (Summa Theologiae Part I, Question 2, Article 3)

The summary began by Dr. Kleiner asking the class if they believed that for every effect there must be a cause, to which the class agreed. He then went on to ask if it were possible for there to be such a thing as an infinite chain of cause and effect (i.e. that our world was caused by something which was caused by something else which was caused by something before that, and on and on). The class debated this, with Kleiner sort of squashing any objections, and finally came to agree that an infinite chain of cause and effect cannot exist. Finally, he said that what we had just discussed was Aquinas's argument for the existence of God. Which argument we had all agreed on, but he said "produces some difficulty for the Mormons."

Of course, the next question was why. Dr. Kleiner explained that the Mormons believe that God the Father was once a man, that there was another God before Him, and another God before that and so on. And, since we had agreed that an infinite chain of cause and effect is impossible and that all effects must have a cause, it must be that either the Mormon's view of God was false or the conclusions we had previously agreed on were in error. The class was now divided. There were those siding with Kleiner's argument and those against it. There were a few brave Mormon students who tried to defend their beliefs that were rapidly shut down.

The whole exchange upset me, not so much because it made me doubt my own beliefs but because the whole thing was so unfair. We, the Mormon students in the class, had no way of defending ourselves against the teacher. This class was called intro to philosophy, it was almost certainly the first course in the subject for the entire class. We simply weren't equipped with the vocabulary or the familiarity with all the types of word-traps philosophers are experts at using to back people into corners. I knew that regardless of who was right, the professor could stump any of us, catch us in our words, and make us look wrong.

Knowing that I couldn't debate Kleiner I e-mailed a few people that probably could, pretty much the entire philosophy department at BYU. In a few days I received an e-mail from the chair of the philosophy department, Dr. Daniel Graham. Here is what he said:

The first thing to notice is that this argument is based on Aristotelian physics, which no one subscribes to today. (For Aristotle there are four causes, or roughly explanatory factors; the efficient cause is the moving factor.) This argument would be a serious challenge to LDS beliefs only if Aristotelian physics were true; but since the time of Newton, if not of Galileo, it has been regarded as obsolete by all experts except a few scholastic philosophers. Second, Aquinas, though he is a great philosopher and a fan of Aristotle, misuses Aristotle here. For according to Aristotle himself, there is no first efficient cause; the universe has always existed and will always exist (with the earth at the center and the sun and planets going around it). Thus there has been an infinite series of efficient causes before now and there will be an infinite series after. Indeed, if Aristotle's physics is right, there is no creator of the universe (Aristotle's God is a "final cause" of all things, a kind of goal of motion, but not a creator or efficient cause in any sense). Aquinas assumes that the world has an efficient cause, but he does not prove that, and of course he could not, using Aristotelian principles. In fact elsewhere he says that the fact that the world was created cannot be proved by reason. So we end up with several problems: (1) this argument is based on an obsolete physical theory; (2) it misuses the physical theory it appeals to; so (3) if the physical theory is true, the argument is unsound, and if the argument is sound, the physical theory it is based on is false.
Aquinas's five arguments for the existence of God are fascinating, but they have problems and you shouldn't let any of them worry you.
What you say about our understanding of God sound pretty good to me. D&C 84:17 identifies the priesthood as that which is without beginning of days or end of years. So, I take it, by achieving the highest office of the priesthood, namely Godhood, one becomes Endless (D&C 19:10).
Daniel W. Graham, Department of Philosophy

I wish I had saved the e-mail request I had sent. I am dying to know what I had said about our understanding of God that sounded pretty good to Dr. Graham. Anyways, after I had studied the argument a bit by collecting and reading documents, interviewing people, and thinking things through I composed a lengthy e-mail to respond to Dr. Kleiner's remarks. The email contained the reply I received from Dr. Graham along with my own thoughts on the matter, an excerpt from a book written by a Catholic priest named Jordan Vadja called Partakers of Divine Nature (which I thought laid out the essentials of Mormon doctrine including the idea that God was once a man in a very unbiased way), and other references. The subject of the email was something like "The Other Side of the Mormon-Aquinas Debate," and the entire message was prefaced with a statement about how there were intelligent arguments against the view Kleiner had portrayed in class and how I thought that the class deserved to hear the arguments at least for the sake of a balanced point of view. I mass sent the e-mail to the entire class - except Dr. Kleiner. After all, like I said before, I knew that regardless of who was right or wrong he could cream me in front of everyone... make me look like a fool. As you might guess, it wasn't long before I was confronted by Kleiner and pulled into a semester long debate on the subject, Mormonism against Catholicism against all the others. While many - including Dr. Kleiner - were passionate, and feigned the pure motive of the pursuit of truth, I knew that the discussion would be in vain. Both sides of the argument firmly believed they were right going into the discussion in the first place. There wasn't an open-mindedness, and there wasn't a trust that philosophical reason would end up pointing to the truth anyways. One day in class Dr. Kleiner said

"You know, I don't think this is very fair. I have visited with several of you in private, and have agreed that if Aquinas can be proven wrong that I will convert and be baptized into Mormonism within the week. However, when I ask the students in my office if they will do the same for me... they refuse."

It is this one remark he made that I have been leading up to. I remember thinking at the time he said that, "Yeah right. What you mean is prove that Aquinas is wrong to YOU, a proof that your own bias makes impossible. A proof that satisfies the Mormon student perfectly, wont satisfy you. And, a proof against Mormonism that satisfies you, that the student can think of absolutely no rebuttal for, may not convince the student even though he is stumped."

Here is my question, and the topic of my next post. If two or more people can prove that mutually exclusive ideas are true, and neither has a response that satisfies the other... then is there a problem? Two mutually exclusive ideas cannot simultaneously be true. Yet, both parties can produce arguments logically sound. The problem must lie in the idea of what it means to prove something. What is proof anyways?

Santa Smokes Hookah and Has Tattoos

2009-12-26T19:43:00.000-08:00

Just feet away from his carcass, the soul of Santa looks upon his dead body. Blood stains his white beard as it trickles onto the snow. Reindeer paw the ground and whine.

"I never thought it would be like this," he says. Santa's eyes have the glaze of a man in shock. "What do I do now?"

Having no recollection of his past life, Santa is born. He is a slight child, the second given to a successful born again Christian businessman and a quite mother. Life for Santa incarnate is typical. He grows up innocent, then looses his innocence. He goes off to college, experiments with life, drugs, and women. After a couple of hard-knocks he straightens up and finishes college. Lacking direction, he just keeps on going to graduate school.

Then, everything changes. He isn't typical anymore. His first semester in graduate school, during a particularly stressful exam, he hears a faint ringing in his ears... there is a shot of blackness, and again he finds himself looking over his body. His fellow students are surrounding his violently shacking body. One boy grabs Santa's jaw to keep him from biting off his tongue. Two of his friends call 911. The instructor looks on as blood leaks from shaking boy's mouth who, for a few moments that seemed like an eternity, stopped breathing and now was struggling for air with heavy raspy breaths. One student says, "that's just how my mom sounded before she died." Santa weeps. Emergency crew take his body to a hospital. An event that sets off a sequence of others leading to the knowledge that he has a brain tumor, the cause of the seizure.

The boy, Santa incarnate, never had much direction in his life - neither a particular desire to do good. Things were different now. His brush with death had brought memories of a life of virtue, dignity, and joy. His habits from the past life began to work on him. His head is cut open, the tumor removed, he wears a beanie to cover up the scar and soft-spot in his skull, and years past. Somehow he becomes friends with a guy with an almost polar opposite lifestyle. Santa now drinks, smokes hookah, sleeps around, gauges his ears, talks like a sailor, and has arms covered with tatoos. His friend and co-student is a practicing Mormon, and does none of those things. No matter.

Santa's friend has a daughter in graduate school and lives in a two room apartment. A strain on a researcher's meager stipend. Then, his friend moves to an apartment with three rooms, his wife quits work, and announces "we're having another baby!" The budget is broken, but only until they get out of graduate school. Immediately after the baby arrives, Santa visits with his Asian girlfriend to drop off a few nice baby gifts. The friend's heart is warmed, but still doesn't know Santa for who he really is. While Santa is visiting, he notices the scarcity of presents under the tree. The Mormon responds, "Yeah with a wife and two kids we can't really afford to have Santa come. Next year our daughter will be old enough to know what Santa is, so we won't be so lucky."

There is a flashback, and Santa knows what to do. He runs to the toy store and buys several nice gifts fit to make a two-and-a-half year old girl squeal, gifts like these aren't cheap. He wraps them and writes "To: Princess, From: Santa." Santa and his girlfriend creep up the steps to drop the gifts off at his friend's door. The plan is to leave them there for his friend to find, so that he can have the pleasure of giving his beautiful daughter a nice Christmas from Santa. The Mormon bursts out the door to take out the trash just as Santa was putting the gifts down. The plan is spoiled. Santa incarnate mumbles "Oh, crap" and explains himself. Santa is exposed, his cover blown. The Mormon thanks his friend for the gifts, shuts the door, and his eyes tear.

"I guess us Mormon's don't have a monopoly on love and the true spirit of Christmas," he says aloud to himself. "I guess you really can't judge a man by the way he looks, or the mistakes that he makes, or what he professes as his religion." The Mormon sits and thinks for a long time. He remembers the times he has judged people on the train, based solely off of their physical appearance. He remembers being cold to people. Then he thinks about the tremendous example his tattooed friend Santa has given him, and decides to be better.

A Moment that Transcends All Other Moments

2009-12-19T19:33:00.000-08:00

The birth of my son. I know, I know, you all have heard teary-eyed stories from adoring parents to the point of nausea. Mothers sit around and cackle over the particulars of their labor and delivery and the odd things their babies did. Eventually, the story is told so many times that it becomes a scripted recitation with pauses in the right places for bursts of laughter and practiced expressions to invoke emotion. That is not my plan here.

What I have to say is simple, and I want to get it out while it is still fresh. The birth of your child is one of those occasions - not unlike Nirvana - of such significance, such emotional depth, such joy approaching infinity that the brief moments of birth seem to contain days of experience. The moment I saw my son for the first time occupies the same amount of memory in my brain as months of my research. The sound of his first cry that brought a flush of red to his face. His eyelids cracking so slightly to let first light into his dark eyes. I sobbed with joy.

Roll your eyes at your monitors if you want. I don't care. The births of my children, my baby girl two and a half years ago and my son just hours ago, were the two most spiritual moments of my life. Moments where I achieved a perfect Zen-like union with my surroundings. Moments where I felt God's love, and understood his plan for us. Siddha. Rapture. Enlightenment. Moments that transcend all other moments.

Milk: Not Fit for Human Consumption

2009-12-18T07:22:00.001-08:00

Milk: A fatty opaque liquid secreted by the mammary organ of a cow, which liquid is stored in the cow's udder cisterns and ducts until time for release by the animal's nipple. After exit from the nipple, this liquid is consumed in a variety of ways from unsterilized, raw, whole milk straight from the cow to sterilized with the fat skimmed off of the top.

Question: What makes us think that cows milk, or milk from any other mammalian species outside of our own, should be consumed in the first place?

There is a class of substances that I feel are not fit for human consumption... this is the class of "What is Gross." What is Gross is subdivided into different groups including, but not limited to, things that are gross as a mater of principle, things that are gross because of the natural use of the substance (as in liver, brains, and reproductive organs), and things that are gross because of where they have been.

Milk is difficult to classify. It is gross as a mater of principle, because human consumption of milk cow milk was not intended by nature. This fact is evident in our biology. After humans are weaned, their ability to digest milk drops to about 10% of it's infant capacity by the time they are 4. Cultures that don't traditionally consume dairy products, such as some South African and Asian cultures, are almost entirely lactose intolerant. Only if an individual is conditioned to lactate beyond the age of weaning is digestion of milk as an adult possible. Another evidence that cross-species milk consumption is unnatural is the fact that humans are the only species that does it. Granted, if we slide milk in front of a kitten they'll drink it. However, I don't see any other animal species existing in a symbiotic relationship with another drinking that animals milk. You don't see sheep suckling from cows, or puppies suckling from sheep, or humans suckling from dogs.

The reason humans don't drink dog milk is because the liquid secreted from a dog's nipple is intended for dogs. Clearly, what the natural use or source of a substance is should be a consideration in whether that substance should be eaten. If a person doesn't object to drinking cows milk, then there should be no objection to ANY type of milk, so long as it is sterilized. I object to cow milk because I definitely would never think of drinking cat's milk, and the exception of an arbitrary animal makes no sense.

Finally, the milk in your glass has been inside the breast tissue of another animal. If you cut open an udder, and looked at the white foam bubbling from the mammary glands and leaking from the ducts you would never think "Mm. That looks good! I think I'll gather that white liquid and sup it up."

Why Mountain Dew is Yellow

2009-12-03T20:27:00.000-08:00

So why is Mountain Dew yellow? I don't mean to ask why the product developers chose yellow 5 to color their drink, but rather why does the dye yellow 5, or tartrazine, make the drink look yellow?

I took some Mountain Dew and put it into a cuvette this afternoon to investigate it's optical properties. First I took a transmission spectrum, which shows how much light of a particular color can pass through DEW relative to a blank sample (water).
This graph shows the percentage of light passed through the sample verses the wavelength (color) of the light. I superimposed the spectrum to show what wavelength corresponds to what color. Our eyes can detect light with a wavelength of about 375 nm to about 750 nm, which is why the spectrum goes black after that in the graph. What the plot above shows is that the dye in Mountain Dew absorbs blue light, leaving green through red behind. Why should a dye called "Yellow 5" absorb blue light? Well, because dyes are typically named after the colors they don't absorb... the colors that you end up seeing.

What remains after Mountain Dew absorbs blue light is everything else... a big block of green, a sliver of yellow, and a big block of red. That doesn't sound like the urine colored soda that I am used to drinking... more like some crazy hippy drink. The yellow color we see is the way our EYES perceive this mixture of colors. Think about your computer monitor, which is made up of little pixels of three different colors red, green, and blue. By mixing these three colors additively (meaning by mixing you add diversity to the colors detected by your eyes as opposed to subtractive mixing which is what you do when you mix paint or crayons), the display can give your eyes the sensation of all the colors of the rainbow. Additive color mixing seems counter intuitive at first, at least to me, because mixing all the colors gives white.

Notice how mixing green and red produce yellow. Lets look at the DEW transmission spectrum again.

We have a big block of green and a big block of red. And, just like the pixels on your T.V. the red and green add together to give...

... yellow! That is how a dye called Yellow 5, which actually only absorbs blue light, colors Mountain Dew the color we've all come to love.

Clouds Over The Atlantic

2009-12-02T09:08:00.001-08:00

I wonder why a sight so unfamiliar as this would seem beautiful to me. Millions of years of evolution have coded me to be attracted to women that would make good mates, places that would make good homes, and my offspring so that I will take good care of them. What codes me to see beauty above the clouds?

McDonalds in Barcellona and What's Wrong with the USA

2009-11-29T19:19:00.001-08:00

I sensed an intangible quality of the people in Spain during my stay there. I liked it, and spent a week trying to put my finger on it. A piece of the puzzle came to me in the Barcellona McDonalds. I have enough experience in US McDonalds that the differences in the two locations were obvious. The golden arches of Barcellona was a two story outfit that was kept immaculately clean. I noticed waiting in line that this place draws a different crowd than ones state side. Excited couples and respectable old people stood in line smiling and talking excitedly. A Big Mac must be a special occasion for them... which struck me as odd because the local food in this place was always approaching perfection. And the guests weren't fat.

We got our food to our second floor table only to realize that we had ordered incorrectly. My brother and I had asked for a number 1 without realizing that the menu number system was totally different. So I walk down stairs with the sandwiches we had ordered by mistake, playing out in my mind the confrontation I was about to have... when a random worker from across the restaurant sees me and practically sprints to me to ask if there was a problem. I explained that I had ordered the wrong thing. "Oh, I am very sorry. We'll get this fixed for you right away!" Within minutes I had hot food in my hands. Our sandwiches were carefully assembled with an eye for presentation.

That's when it struck me that these McDonalds workers care. They care about their job flipping burgers. They care about satisfying the customer. They care to really keep the place clean, and be extra friendly, and solve issues right away. I consider burger-flipping to be a menial job, the type that you do only because you have to, the type of job that you show up to so that you can slack off as much as possible and count the hours down until you can go home. The majority of burger joint workers I bump into in the states seem to share my point of view, which is why I have become used to being treated with lazy disrespect by workers of menial jobs putting in the bare minimum.

As I think back on the menial job workers I noticed in Spain, not one sticks out in my memory as a worker without pride in his job. One morning I watched a street sweeper sing to himself as he cleaned up the walkways of Girona. He methodically cleaned with a big smile and a purpose. He knew he was important, without him the streets would be dirty giving the whole town a bad image. The woman behind the counter at a street side pizza place gave us thoughtful conversation and then called us back from a distance to give us a few cents in change she had forgotten. The cafe workers were careful in preparing our food, even in a rush... they were frustrated that we ordered complicated dishes but still made us the best hot chocolate I've ever had - literally hot melted milk chocolate. Somehow their culture had engender in them the idea that all jobs form an important part of the community as a whole, and they should take pride.

A Chuckwagon and Scout-A-Rama Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T21:20:00.000-08:00

The Salt Lake City based restaurant Chuck-A-Rama gets it's name from a queer combination of the ideas of western style chuckwagon cookin' and the wild directionless frenzy of a Scout-A-Rama. Since the 60s the almost-all-you-can-eat [1] buffet Chuck-A-Rama has been dishing up huge quantities of food they call "homestyle" (a euphemism for void of experience... you come to eat a lot, not for memorably good food or atmosphere).

Seeing that the Dutchess is pregnant to the point of exploding at any moment, we couldn't travel out of town to eat dinner with family this Thanksgiving. Figuring it wouldn't be worth it to cook a big Thanksgiving dinner for our little unit of 3 people, we thought it would be prudent to eat out. Seeing that my daughter has entered a seemingly interminable phase of crying loudly at everything but the prospect of M&Ms, a quiet meal was out of the question. Enter Chuck-A-Rama. Homestyle family cooking? Sounds perfect. We Googled "thanksgiving dinner SLC" and there was an about.com list that said they were open on thanksgiving day, that they serve a special thanksgiving dinner for $10.99 (beverages included!), and that kids eat free. Sounds even better. Homecooking buffet with loads of kids bound to be noisier than my own.

We do some light shopping at Wal-Mart on the way over. At the check out, I can feel my blood-sugar crash making me highly irritable and irrational. As we leave the parking lot my face flushes and soon the Duchess and I are screaming expletives at each other over something so menial that by the time I have violently pulled the car over and stuffed my face with Hostess mini crumb donuts that I knew were hiding in the trunk... I had forgotten what we had gotten upset about.

Chuck-A-Rama has a line out the door. A good sign! Our spirits are up as we wait in line and for our table. Things rapidly turn sour. The special thanksgiving dinner we had read about online is not so special... or fresh... or warm even. That's ok, I can roll with this. We take our daughter princess around to plate up thinking that since this is a buffet with like 100 choices there shouldn't be any problem finding something she'll eat. Wrong. Out of ALL of the items, the only thing she didn't say no to was red Jello. Whatever.

I am next to plate up. I go straight for the turkey, which turned out to be a mechanically separated white meat with juices pressed turkey loaf. You know, like the Carl Budding crap you find sliced in the grocery store for under a buck. For reasons that are complicated to explain, I have an intense feeling of disgust for this particular type of food product. I never eat it. Except, today is Thanksgiving and I want to be a sport and make it nice and make up for my outburst before. All the rest of the fixin's are of the same startlingly low quality.

Mental conditions cross a critical boundary from upset-sane to giddy-pocoloco when Princess starts throwing food and smears chocolate all over her. The Dutchess and I are laughing our asses off. Princess is screaming, and we are getting dirty looks from the quiet Asian family seated next to us. Suddenly, we get embarrassed as we realize that all the people we have poked fun at for coming here, people we have slandered as piggish fat stereotypical Americans, are staring at us and muttering things to their spouses through toothless mouths. I chug the remainder of my oversized fountain drink, poke a final bite of dessert in my mount, and say "lets get the hell out of this place, it's cramping our style."

1. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,595059925,00.html

Primary in the 60s, God's Gift of Water

2009-11-08T08:55:00.000-08:00

Alexa.com Facebook Entry Hacked!

2009-11-07T22:20:00.000-08:00

I was checking out how Facebook.com ranks on Alexa - a well known, prestigious web information company - and found that it has been hacked!

The site title for Facebook.com reads: "I am the person Ramiro dis on the air"

The site description:

About I am the person Ramiro dis on the air (facebook.com): Everyone it's time for me to come out and let you know I am the one who Ramiro dis on the air. Not Crazy Ace. He tell people that Crazy Ace and I am one person. As Ramiro has anyone been calling in and playing the dis. To me I wanted him to see how I felt. All you had to say I don't have slam jam by Crazy Ace but you took it to far. Crazy Ace was trying to make has life a litter better and you just made a fool out out of your radio station. I will not good to your level. I am a better man then that. The only way I will Stop is you bring me to the station and put me on the air and you can tell everyone what a big fool you and your staff was. And then you can say how sorry you are and you will not hurt any one else. That's what real men do. Not the kid game you played.

WOW! This has been up for at least 7 hours now. For comparison, these things usually read like the following (which is for Google):

Site title for Google.com: Google
Site description: Enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Features include PageRank, caching and translation of results, and an option to find similar pages. The company's focus is developing search technology.

Primary in the 60s, Children Picking Up Toys

2009-11-07T08:54:00.000-08:00

Primary in the 60s, Girl and Boy Praying

2009-11-06T08:57:00.000-08:00

Primary in the 60s, Children Playing

2009-11-05T08:53:00.000-08:00

Primary in the 60s, Mama Bird

2009-11-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

Fall is Undecided

2009-11-04T06:46:00.000-08:00

This tree likes showing off its colors in the crisp fall air, but also isn't ready to let go of green summer leaves.

Primary in the 60s, God's Care By Night

2009-11-03T08:59:00.000-08:00

Mtn DEW: p.s. we do care!

2009-10-29T17:47:00.000-07:00

An Anti-Social Inside a Massive Online Social Network Marketing Campaign
As I wrote before, I have been involved in a "consumer panel" (DEWlabs) of sorts with the fine people of Pepsi Co's Mountain Dew marketing and brand team. The brand team was so impressed with my initial zeal for loudly voicing my love for Mountain Dew that they privately asked me to take a lead role in one of their online events and included me on a conference call with their design team. This afternoon I participated in a live chat with the marketing team and a graphic designer that is working on the can design of the new Mountain Dew that is coming this spring.

I have asked one of the head brand team members to answer some interview questions to be published on this blog. They have agreed, and I have sent the questions; but it will probably be weeks before they get back to me. They say this is a very busy time for them.

It has been interesting to see the inside of one of these giant marketing campaigns. I have been picking up on some interesting marketing tactics - more will come on all of this. I plan on writing an expose of sorts on the whole thing.

Here is a question for the masses: do big corporations, like Pepsi Co., really care about the end consumer beyond caring if the consumer is purchasing their product? The whole DEWlabs experience is certainly geared to give the impression that Mountain Dew really cares about us Dew drinkers. At the end of the live chat session, a fellow member thanked the brand team for listening to us users. I quickly chimed in that I agreed adding "since when do corporate big wigs care about the consumer?"

The moderators rapidly shut down the chat session. But, an instant before the window closed, a message flashed from the brand team member I have been in contact with:

"p.s. we do care!"

Primary in the 60s, The Beautiful World

2009-10-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

IKEA, the World's Richest and Least Generous Charity

2009-10-27T18:15:00.000-07:00

Somehow I knew that only a twisted company would sell me cheap furniture that requires hundreds of assembly steps. I was tipped off to an interesting article from The Economist by my favorite magazine Mental Floss. What follows is an excerpt from an article originally published in The Economist in 2006:

FEW tasks are more exasperating than trying to assemble flat-pack furniture from IKEA. But even that is simple compared with piecing together the accounts of the world's largest home-furnishing retailer. Much has been written about IKEA's remarkably effective retail formula. The Economist has investigated the group's no less astonishing finances.

What emerges is an outfit that ingeniously exploits the quirks of different jurisdictions to create a charity, dedicated to a somewhat banal cause, that is not only the world's richest foundation, but is at the moment also one of its least generous. The overall set-up of IKEA minimises tax and disclosure, handsomely rewards the founding Kamprad family and makes IKEA immune to a takeover. And if that seems too good to be true, it is: these arrangements are extremely hard to undo. The benefits from all this ingenuity come at the price of a huge constraint on the successors to Ingvar Kamprad (pictured above), the store's founder, to do with IKEA as they see fit.

Read the rest of the article at The Economist, IKEA: Flat-pack accounting

Ethics vs. Religion in Government

2009-10-23T16:16:00.001-07:00

A reader of my blog posted the following comment the other day. I have read it a few times now, and think it is quite nice. Since I am far too busy right now to post any more than hot one-liners, I thought his essay would make excellent filler... so to speak.

Ethics Vs Religion in Government

It is true that ethics is not a monolithic science of morality. There are numerous different ethical philosophies that contradict and compete with each other regarding what action is most "moral" in a given situation. However, the reason why I feel that ethics has the advantage over religion with regards to moral guidance in politics is that the "underlying belief system" is one that is studied and agreed upon based on some rational thinking.

The most basic underlying belief in ethics seems to be "don't harm others or yourself." This principle makes sense to most people, although, as you correctly pointed out, its application is often far from simple. You cited the example of abortion: does destruction of a fetus constitute harming an "other?" Or does a fetus not qualify for personhood? What about the harm done to the mother, physically and emotionally, by carrying an unwanted child? What about the harm done to her by destroying that child? No easy answers to please everybody here.

Ethics is a moral system based on study, discussion, and rational thinking. Religion is a moral system that usually has answers provided by God, and any study, discussion, and rational thinking that is done is merely to justify or to explain why God's answer is right. This is a more dangerous moral compass for politicians to use, because the foundations of the morality are pretty arbitrary. If you're Mormon, you don't drink coffee. Why? Is it because you think caffeine is a harmful, addictive drug? No, the underlying reason is because GOD SAID SO. That's the same underlying reason for all religious morality. "Thou shalt not kill." Why? Because it's bad to prematurely end the life of another? Well, maybe you do believe that, but ultimately it's because GOD SAID SO.

Don't work on Sundays? What about Saturdays? Don't eat meat on Fridays? Give all you have to the poor? Wear a certain type of clothing? Fast for a month every Spring? Or fast for a day every month? Why do any of these things? Because GOD SAID SO.

The seemingly arbitrary nature of God's laws and commands would make using religion as a political guide paralyzing. If the underlying reasoning behind your moral code is GOD SAID SO, how can you weigh out the more important moral issues from the peripheral ones? Using a Mormon standard, drinking coffee would have to be as illegal as murder since both violate the underlying law of GOD SAID SO.

Yet most people would read this and think, "that's stupid. Even though I am Mormon, I know that murder is worse than drinking coffee." And there you introduce your rational thinking, bringing your own ethical judgment into play. So even within a religious mindset, our beliefs are colored by our own philosophy of ethics. Which leads me back to why ethics is the better political guide - ethics is a more universal approach to morality.

(Copied without permission from Oldbuddysam)

Today, I Resolve

2009-10-21T04:21:00.000-07:00

I have decided I am anti-war because I am pro-soldier. Oil will never be worth the life of my friends or family.

The Republican Platform is God's Plan

2009-10-11T12:21:00.000-07:00

... and that "other" platform is the devil's. It is that simple, and that black and white.

Tell me people, since when is life so well compartmentalized that the world's political beliefs can be put into one of two categories: Republican (good) and Democrat (bad)? I went to a baby blessing this morning (my brother-in-law's). Afterwords I was listening to a conversation between an old retired scholar and somebody else that basically concluded that God's plan, as given by scripture, describes the Republican political platform. They agreed that the Democratic platform sounded startlingly similar to the plan of the adversary.

I was going to say something, but I was a guest in their house and I have learned my lesson about political disagreements within extended family. What I thought was "Holy cow! Here is somebody else wanting to talk about faith and politics, he is reading (and quoting) from the same scriptures I do, but he has come to a conclusion that is almost exactly opposite mine."

I could go on about how the happiest societies in scripture kept everything in common, I could quote scripture regarding the importance of taking care of your fellow man, and I could share God's plan (consecration) for governing the affairs of the early saints... but after listening to that old fart I realize how annoying it can be.

Here is my million dollar question, still unresolved (at least to me): What role should religion (or morals) have in government? The majority of people are religious... should our leaders represent that? Would it be best for our leaders to be completely void of faith? If there IS a place for religion in government how do we decide what values are important?

The Limit of Our Mind's Eye

2009-10-05T20:24:00.000-07:00

What is the most complex thing that you can visualize and manipulate in your minds eye? I have been asking around, and have found responses to be quite variable. Some people have no problem with complex images in 3-dimensions, others can't visualize in 3-d at all. Let's do an exercise to illustrate what I am talking about.

Imagine the following hydrogen molecule. If you can, look it over every which way in your mind. Try to pull the atoms apart. Can you imagine slowly pulling them apart until they split?

Okay, so that is a mental image consisting of two discreet mental objects (spheres). Try the same with the following molecule (water) that consists of three discreet objects.

Now, try with four discreet objects with this nitrate anion.I can easily visualize rotating the previous three molecules in 3-dimensional space. In fact, I seem to be able to visualize and manipulate many different images consisting of up to 4 separate pieces. But, 4 is my limit. When I try to visualize the following square planar molecule, I can only "see" 4 of the objects as I rotate it in my mind. When the molecule is fixed I can visualize them all.

Obviously, our imagination isn't limited to what we can visualize in our minds eye. I can imagine my carburetor (I recently rebuilt a pair of them), and I could probably draw it from memory. But, if I close my eyes I can't "see" all of it. In fact I can only see a small part of it at a time. I can choose what parts of the carb I see, so I know my brain has all the information up there; it just can't handle simulating a visual image of more than a tiny part. So that brings me to a couple of questions (that I don't have the answer to):

What determines the level of visual complexity we can see with our mind's eye?

Do artists, mechanical engineers, architects, etc. generally have an enhanced visualization capability?

Since I can only dynamically process 4 discreet mental objects at a time, and since I know that our brains only process a fraction of visual stimulus from our eyes, does that mean that my brain is only dynamically processing 4 visual objects when I use my regular vision?

Indentical Twin Teeth

2009-09-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

My teeth were finally fixed properly this week by a pair of identical twin endodontists, John and Thomas Van Den Burghe (shown above as children). Everything started a decade ago with roller-skating accident (my teeth, his forehead). If I hadn't had braces, I probably would have lost 'em. Since that time, it has been one problem after another. One time, my #10 broke off on a piece of jerky. This last time, I lost it to a red M&M - there wasn't even a nut in it! The root of my chronic problem was in, well, my roots. They had a bad root canal after the accident that had degenerated.

See those dark patches? Those are basically pus-pockets. They run down the root, to a nasty little pool at the root tip. If you look close at my #10 (the one shown above at the right) you can see where it broke off and later where it chipped and was patched.

This is how my teeth looked immediately following the most recent root canal. It is hard to see but there are four layers in them here: something like zinc oxide at the very tip, a rubber root sealing compound, then a layer of bleach, and finally a temporary filling.

After the red M&M incident, the bleach was taken out and these titanium posts were shoved in as far as they could go. There are posts in the other ones too.

I thought the flamboyantly Mormon Dr. Thomas and John Van Den Burghe of South Town Endodontics did a fine job, as evidenced by the x-rays. The identical twin thing really through me for a loop, since both guys worked on me at different times and I couldn't tell who did/said what. But, they did give me what I think is a good deal. I got the retreat on the root canal, the bleaching, the titanium posts, and the final build-up/filling for a little over $600 a piece. Still, that is about $1900 on teeth that have already had thousands spent on them.

Take-home message: take care of your teeth! A small accident, or a bit of neglect can ballon into an astronomically expensive fiasco.

It Has Happened

2009-09-16T19:06:00.000-07:00

For the first time I know what it feels like. I look at my daughter and get a lump in my throat; I think of all the milestones and funny things she has done, and realize those sweet days are gone forever.

Princess is pooping in the toilet. We started giving her stickers that she can put up on the potty chart all by herself. In two weeks she was holding (literally) out to get a sticker.

Princess is talking. I ask, "how was daycare?" she says "good." When I come home from work, she usually has a story to tell me in short phrases. "A mom." "A ride." "A car." "Feed the ducks." "A bit me!" "Here, here, here."

Princess, for the first time last night, slept in a big-girl bed. She had been climbing out of her crib, so we figured we had better make the change before she injured herself. She lay there in bed last night, looking at us with big sad but excited eyes - like she was leaving for a long trip from home - and nervously said "Night, night."

How to Gain Weight, and KEEP IT ON!

2009-09-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

Chronic weight loss and healthy lifestyle is an epidemic spreading across the US. In spite of children's television programming that encourages kids to sit and watch t.v. for hours and elementary school programs that feed high-calorie lunches to students, children are still getting out and getting fit. While the media isn't entirely to blame, they have played a key role in the problem. We see celebrities rapidly gain weight on television, we see models with bodies digitally edited to put on extra weight not physically possible to the average American. I recently overheard part of a conversation between two college girls at the movie theater "I see Brittany Spears and Jessica Simpson gain weight overnight and I ask myself, 'why can't I do that?'"
Here's the problem: quick-fix diets just don't work in the long run. Rapid-gain diets just aren't sustainable; nobody can eat ONLY fried Twinkies and dark-ale forever. The only real way to consistently gain weight, become more lazy, and get the junkie body you've seen on t.v. - and always wanted - is to institute sustainable changes in your lifestyle. You have to commit to a lifetime of change. Sound hard? It is. But, if you are up to the challenge, if YOU really want to change your life, this article is for you. The few pointers that follow literally saved me from a life doomed by high energy, healthy eating, and physical activity; I know if you follow them, you will be on your way to a totally new you!

You will hear lots of tips and tricks in your quest for weight gain. The most important part of the program is your ATTITUDE. Perhaps you have heard "attitude is everything," change that to "rationalization is everything." Learn to rationalize your new piggy lifestyle. "If I get a ride to work, instead of biking, I can spend more time with my wife." "There are children in Africa that don't have access to Taco Bell, it would be shameful for me to waste this opportunity." Remember, we are talking about making a whole new you, and that includes the way you think! You have to get into the lazy mindset.
The two biggest things that lead to weight loss are healthy eating and exercise. Learn to read nutritional labels. Your food selection will play a big part in how successful you are, look for caloric things that you can EAT HIGH VOLUMES of. Chewing a stick of butter just won't work, as this will leave you vomiting - a calorie loss AND a workout. Often, you can substitute fattening foods in the place of healthy ones without sacrificing flavor or selection. Look for things higher in trans-fats and sugar. Go for processed, ready-to-eat foods as these will reduce the amount of physical activity required to eat. At restaurants (and home) pay attention to PORTION SIZE, the more you can eat in a sitting the better. Have somebody drive you to Golden Corral, buffets are great for portion control.
Regular minimization of physical activity can be seem challenging. "Where will I find the time to be so inactive?" Fortunately, there are ways that you can work inactivity into your everyday routine. Whenever presented with the choice of using the elevator or the stairs, take the elevator. Park as close to the entrance of the grocery store as possible. Try to work inefficiently to fill up the work day - and more - squeezing out any chance of physical activity. Rather than travel, or participate in sports, or hike, or WHATEVER watch that activity on t.v. instead. Find ways to play with your children that require little or no movement "kids, why don't you put on a play for me?"
Use the Glycemic Index - which ranks foods effect on blood sugar levels - as a guide to more effective weight gain and possible acquisition of diabetes. Choosing foods with a high glycemic index (GI) number will reduce the amount of long-lasting energy the food gives, leaving you ready to gorge again sooner!
Look for ways to MODIFY A MEAL to make it less healthy. For example, when presented with a salad ADD BACON and SALAD DRESSING. Add whole butter to your toast, whole milk to your cereal, and topping to your popcorn. Ask yourself, "could this be fried?"
Find a weight-gain buddy. Often a friend can provide critical emotional support when times get tough. The best friend to find is one that requires little effort and zero physical interaction, look for chat partners in online gaming communities. Communicating through an avatar gives you the flexibility to control your image to other people, you can make your cartoon character as large as you wish! I have found using a fat avatar motivating.
Finally, don't get discouraged when there are set-backs. We all have weeks where we have to be more active than usual; we all get unwanted weight loss with sickness. But, tomorrow is always a new day, fresh and clean. When setbacks get you down, pick yourself up and start again. Never give up! YOU can do this, I believe in you.

Joseph Heller Confessions

2009-09-04T20:16:00.001-07:00

I flipped through a copy of Something Happened by Joseph Heller at the thrift store today (I noticed it because I am currently reading Catch-22). I saw right away that the previous owner had done some extensive underlining and writing in the margins. I figure this book's last lover was an older woman, deeply depressed, who had an affair with a married man and later got a divorce. Her comments are very personal and sad, so much so I simply had to buy the book and read through them all. What follows is a selection of the most revealing. I give the text she underlines, followed by her comments.

********************************************

I can't face these long weekends anymore and don't know how I survive them. Me too!

I think that maybe in every company today there is always at least one person who is going crazy slowly. Boy, how true!

Nervous breakdowns are more difficult to keep track of than suicides because they are harder to recognize and easier to hush up. (A suicide, after all, is a suicide: there's something final about it. It's the last thing a person does.

... She has not, I think, slept with a married man yet. Good for her. Her grief will start when she does. I know.

Is this really the most I can get from the few years left I have in this one life of mine? Yep! It is the same rut with all of us.

I am often surprised to discover a harder edge to my sarcasms and admonitions than I intended. I wonder if my best friend realizes he is this way (R. V.)

... She felt so lonely at times she turned ice cold and was literally afraid she was freezing to death from the inside... I know what she means, I've experienced it.

... I'm often proud to have her with me. I wonder what it would feel like to be with a man that was proud to be with me.

... She would still be four years older than I am now, short, overweight, and dumpy, probably, and perhaps something of a talkative bore... I wonder if I'm a talkative bore to men, my daughters, and those I think are my friends.

... knew I could have her whenever I wanted to, and didn't have to pay. I'm sick and tired of this! [ripped away]

... pat her softly on the fanny as I pass. Ray is the only man who has ever done this to me. I love it from him. I wonder why my husband never did.

... am silent also with everyone else I know in whom I begin to perceive the first signs of irreversible physical decay approaching infirmity and death. Just like Ray.

Perhaps ... she began to grow old, once I no longer needed her, and she began to need me? I was impatient for her to die. I wonder if my daughters feel this way about me?

I am simply not able to stop myself from saying things to her I know I shouldn't... I was this way to my daughters and I'm so sorry now.

She sits alone in her room for long periods of time doing absolutely nothing but thinking... So do I, until I make myself read.

My voice does have a tendency to get loud whenever I am irritated, frustrated, or attacked. Don't all men? My husband's always did.

Page 138 Boy, this is so true with young people today! It happened in my marriage and caused the break. I am so lonely now. I will always love my daughters and husband, even though they hate me.

You've got me walking on eggs... -just the way it was at my home- I dreaded to go home after work. Why do all marriages end this way - it's so sad - people need love.

I pick them for that, reject them, in fact, in advance, before I even take up with them... This is the only kind of man that ever wants me anymore and I hate it, hate it, hate it!

A man must make a resolution to never reveal anything personal to his wife. And vice versa, my husband always threw things I told him in my face when angry.

********************************************
Well! Reading her comments reminded me how depressed and lonely people can get. This person is(was) a sad bitter woman, just dying for someone to talk to. The take home message, for me, is that I shouldn't take the quality of my life for granted, I should be nice to pretty much everyone (because you never know if they are on edge, as this woman was), and I should never read Something Happened by Heller. It looks to be an effective depression inducer.

Mountain Dew Taste Party

2009-08-31T21:15:00.000-07:00

So Mountain Dew's R&D sent me three silver cans bearing only variant numbers to exercise my experienced Dew drinking taste buds on. I received an e-mail out of the blue asking me if I wanted to participate in DEW labs, I took a brief survey in which I revealed the embarrassing amount of DEW I drink... and I was in.

The three testers out, ready to be critically tasted.

Dad thought: #493 (yellow) had a "clean and refreshing taste," #509 ( pink) was "too sweet for me," and #231 (green) was "not good - too artificial with a bitter aftertaste.

Jess, posing with favorite: Yellow was "too sweet, not enough flavor," pink had a "funny aftertaste" and was "too common," but green was "lemon-lime zingy... love the color." Jess's husband, Jason, said that the yellow was "lacking in flavor," the pink "doesn't deserve the name of Mountain Dew," and the green had "bad color but the taste was okay."

Kara and Scott, posing with favorites: Kara thought that yellow had just "slight lemon" and was "not very flavorful," the pink was "strawberry fanta-ish... pretty good," and the green "tastes like regular Mountain Dew, sort of diet." Scott was the best reviewer of all. He had thoughtful things to say about all the flavors... in the end nothing would compare to the classic DEW. He said that the yellow had "less flavor than the rest, less carbonation, no definitively different flavor. HOWEVER, I could drink a whole bottle of this one." The pink "tastes like strawberry-kiwi Shasta, refreshing but familiar, had an aspartame aftertaste." The green had a "very neon color, apple-ish 'green popsickle' flavor - good flavor balance, refreshing."

Bodie Brower, posing with favorite: thought the yellow was "lemon-limey tasting with a fun color," the pink had a "strawberry taste with a hint of coconut?" and the green "doesn't seem flavorful, smells like one thing, tastes like something else." An astute observation Bodie.

The Duchess posing provocatively with her favorite: the yellow was labeled as "Vault intimidator," the pink as "strawberry kick," and the green as "green otterpop-refreshing."

Finally, my own opinion about the new DEW flavors (one of which - according to DEW labs - will become a permanent flavor in the DEW line):
First, I have to say that I think the notion of pawning off a new soda product onto a devoted consumer demographic is kind of cheap, and I think it weakens the DEW brand. Pepsi might do better by introducing their new flavors independently, rather than tied to DEW. All of these World of Warcraft licensed flavors make the brand seem like an immature sell-out to me. I am a devoted DEW drinker, if these new kiddy flavors are making me like DEW less... then what is happening to less devoted consumers? Anyways.

I thought that the color of the pink and green flavors were too bright, like the drink was to be marketed to toddlers. Reminded me of Bug Juice or something. The flavors of the red and green were also too strong. I think they were probably chosen out of the other flavor candidates as two of the three finalists because they taste-test good (if you are drinking just a sip in a line of samples). The problem is they are so strong you feel sick after drinking just a few ounces... and nobody is going to make a repeat purchase of a drink like that. Right after I tasted the pink I wrote "strawberry blast in my mouth," right after the green I wrote "strong scent, weak flavor, kid color, diet aftertaste." Green was definitely the worst for me. The yellow didn't receive a very good initial reaction from me, "no bite, good color" but I warmed to it with repeated tasting. Now, this is a drink I could put back a 64 ounce mugs worth. Still, it wasn't very different than the original DEW, so maybe that's why I like it.

In the end, I was disappointed with them all. The flavor I disliked the least was the only flavor remotely close to the DEW I love. To make things worse now I ask myself "if the people creating these crappy flavors are the same people who created the flavor I love so much, then maybe the original DEW doesn't deserve the high recognition I have given it for so long. Maybe I have just been fooling myself into thinking the Mountain Dew is delicious all this time. Maybe I have just been a pawn of Mountain Dew marketing teams for all of these years..." Naw, that's crazy talk.

Important Update: It has been over a year and a half since that initial taste test. Over time, since I have gotten to know the Mountain Dew brand - and the people behind it - better my opinion has shifted dramatically. I don't think that introducing new sodas under the Dew name is a sell out, rather it is trying to build on a good thing. Mountain Dew is all about being yourself, carving your own path. These new flavors cater to more specific ideas and lifestyles. Finally, flavor 493 (that I disliked the least) got a make over and became White Out, an opaque bright white colored drink. The uniqueness of the color and name give it a whole new experience, I have babied White Out all the way from that original 493 can to a product that is now selling nation wide. And, I love it now.

On Growing Up

2009-08-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

Just moments ago, I was a pimply adolescent. I would lay on the couch in my father's basement and let my eyes slowly glaze over as I watched an endless stream of fuzzy television. I always had a hard time making friends, so spent my time alone. I longed for another life, one where I was popular and did adult things.

Then, I made a couple friends, got out of my shell a bit, and started having fun. Still, I longed to get older, to be able to drive, to earn and spend money, and be with a girl.

Little did I know!

In the blink of an eye I became a father to a two year old girl that goes supernova in our tiny - but ridiculously overpriced - apartment. I have been with a girl, and I can prove it. I have a pregnant wife and all that entails. I never thought about the pregnancy part when I was a teenager. A two year old, an intimidating pregnant wife, and an equally impressive pile of paper work compete for my attention.

In an effort to provide for my family I have been pressed to get an education and maintain gainful employment, but somehow all the money I make ends up being consumed before I even see it!

I have become a compulsive, anxious, workaholic who skirts any additional responsibility and is relieved when church is canceled for a weekend. I drink unhealthy amounts of Mountain Dew, I eat mint Oreos like it was getting me out of school faster, and I occasionally find myself sitting in a 12 step group.

What the fetch happened? Where is the romantic adult life I saw on television?

A Headphone Plug and Car Keys Lost

2009-08-26T09:09:00.000-07:00

Princess loves to play with my stereo. She loves to insert DVDs half into the tray on the DVD player, and then shove the thing in a far as it will go. She turns the knob on the receiver up to infinity so that our ears are blasted when we put on some music... that is, back when we could put music on.

We used to always play music into the receiver from our computer. Thing is, Princess also loves to repeatedly insert and remove the audio jack from the plug. I told her "Princess, I don't want you to play with that anymore. I am worried it might get broken." Within an hour, while my back was turned, she had somehow BROKEN THE PLUG INSIDE THE JACK. That's right, the plug snapped right at the insulating divider between the left and right channels, leaving the right channel bit entombed forever inside the jack. Now, no audio jack will ever fit inside... the little right channel piece is blocking it.

Princess loves to play with anything that jingles. She loves to pull spoons out of the drawer and hide them. If the remote control is within her reach, she'll hide it. One time, she hid our new DVD player remote in the garbage can. We only figured it out after the garbage man had come. If we have a lapse in consciousness and leave our keys in her reach, she loves too hide those too. This happened just the other day. We literally tore our house apart looking for them (we only have the one car key... copies cost 90 bucks from the dealership). I took all the food out of the fridge. The Duchess dumped out the garbage cans. I emptied drawers. Nothing.

We had to take the bus to our appointments. We walked to the gas station so I could refill my 32 ounce Mountain Dew mug that has been my companion during hard times.

The next day, I went to ride my bicycle to work and found the keys shoved into the gears of my bike. I probably had my face inches from them several times the night before as I was crawling around the house looking. Think! It is the perfect place to camouflage keys, spiky shiny keys amoungs my spiky shiny gears.

Interview: A Muslim's Perspective on America in Iraq

2009-08-24T21:14:00.000-07:00

Faithful readers of my blog know that I am a fan of observing people. What follows today is an interview between myself and a gentleman that I have quietly been observing for over a year. And, I have been impressed. Here is a chap whose example day-in and day-out has seeded a great respect for the faith he represents.

I immediately thought of this guy after I read the response to my post regarding my take on the morality of going to war in the middle east - specifically the comment suggesting that the American Christians and the Middle-East Muslims would never be able to understand each other. His personal history, with chapters as an American, a European, and a Muslim make him the perfect interviewee for the topic at hand.

Q: First of all, tell us a little about yourself
A: I am a German citizen with middle eastern roots, was born and raised in Germany and got to experience two cultures during my childhood, namely the German and the Middle Eastern culture. I have been in the US for almost 5 years now and could claim that I do have an idea about the local Utahn culture. I am fluent in Arabic, English and German and I read a lot. I am Muslim, and very important I am a Muslim by choice. By experiencing different cultures one experiences different religions/beliefs since they are predominantly reflected in cultures (there is a reason why in my opinion one of the nicest people in the US are Utahns). I am a scientist and therefore will not answer in any way through what I learned through books or classes rather than through my experience. Alright, I wish to move on to the coming questions!

Q: I have been investigating different views on the morality of going to war, using Iraq as an example. Based off of what you believe God would have us do, what would have been the best response to 9/11?
A: The answer is simple: investigating! In my opinion it would have been investigating the case! Find out WHO exactly was behind it, find out WHY it happened and find out who is supporting it! Then find a solution within the UN and NATO to adequately respond to these actions. This is the prescribed procedure for all humanities since the revelation of laws to humans. And surprisingly this is the procedure that the West is so proud of. A procedure in which every human being has a right to defend himself and a right to speak out! If I were personally attacked by somebody, I do not go and kill the defendants family or destroy their houses or do the defendant any harm. I will go to an unbiased person and let him judge about us according to the standards in which I am living in. This leads to an INVESTIGATION and then this leads to a CONCLUSION which leads to a just RESPONSE - at least according to the system that we are living in. This unfortunately was never the case back in 2001. WHY this happened was never investigated adequately. It was simply, because Muslims hate the west. Therefore a new enemy was found: Islam and particularly anybody who does not agree with western principles, "you are either with us, or with the terrorist" was the saying said by the president right after the attacks.

Q: Do you think that Al-Qaeda has seriously hurt peoples' perception of the Muslim community? I received an email the other day from a relative that compared the few Nobel prizes won by the large world population of Muslims to the many Nobels won by the comparatively small population of Jews... the bigotry was astounding and embarrassing to see. I actually know one or two people who genuinely seem to associate your religion to terrorism focused on ruining the American way of life. I usually respond to them by saying that every Muslim I personally have known has acted better than most Mormons I know... how would you respond to them?
A: In my opinion, Al-Qaeda itself did not hurt peoples' perception of the Muslim community in the world per se! It is the word "Al-Qaeda" that has been hurting it! But then the word nourishes from the west and spreads fear and terror in the west. Confusing, hey? But, let me explain. Everybody has to sit down and think: who or what is the Al-Qaeda? Undoubtedly it is a terrorist group that wants to destroy the West, right? I agree... this would be the definition I would give as well. But then, how big is Al-Qaeda? Let's put it in numbers? How many members do you think does the organization Al-Qaeda have? You undoubtedly would not find more than 10,000 in the entire world! Yep, I did not forget zeros! Ten thousands... so you can read it in words! Even worse... out of these 10,000 you probably have 9,000 people riding horses, crappy cars, and possessing rusty rifles... so you might think I am exaggerating... but think about it. How equipped are these people, how dangerous are they really? So now think further... the mightiest nation in the world, fears 10,000 camel riders 10,000 miles away? Are you seriously considering them a threat to the nation's security? This is exactly what I mean... people don't fear the organization Al-Qaeda, rather than the word Al-Qaeda that terrorizes people all over the world. Therefore I would not say that the organization hurt peoples' perception towards Muslims... but they undoubtedly started it, which is bad enough. So in essence, you are putting the religion Islam and the organization Al-Qaeda in one phrase... which in my opinion is very bad! 1.2 Billion people suffer from an action that are supported by ten thousand people. This is as if I asked you: justify the action of the American so and so that raped, or killed so and so. You would look at me and say are you crazy? Do you think because mister or miss x did so and so... everybody is so? Right? But here I am, confronted with a question that mentions Al-Qaeda and Islam in the same phrase! How ridiculous!!! Talking about Noble Prizes is childish! If the Noble Prize would truely reflect a human achievement without political influence whatsoever, then ask youself why Mahatma Gandi never received one! But here is a hint of the Islamic achievements in science. Everybody, and I mean everybody! has to learn Algebra! Have you ever asked yourself where it came from or who Al-Gaber was... oooh, now it sounds more Arabic putting it in that twist ;)

Q: One reader has commented that the divide between Americans and middle-eastern Muslims, or even European Muslims, is so great that we will never really understand each other. Do you agree?
A: I don't think so. History has proven that it is possible... and if you visit a local mosque and see that in a little tiny building people from all over the world understand the same principles without explanation, you ask yourself why not on a bigger scale. The answer is clear... too much politics too much power possessed people.

Q: I think that many Americans don't understand the way the outside world feels about us. If it were possible to measure what the average German thought about Americans, what do you think they would say about our government and culture? What do you think the average middle-eastern Muslim would say?
A: European's view: Well the answer about the government depends greatly on who is in power. But I can tell you, that the government suffered a lot from its reputation in the last 8 years. But it gains a lot of reputation now. So let's hope it stays like that. As for the culture, I think a lot of people admire the liberty and freedom in the US. However, people think that it has too much patriotism build in its culture.
A: Middle-Eastern View: They love Obama! I am not kidding! Him going to Egypt before visiting European countries just rocked over there! The fact that his second name is Hussain and the fact that his lineage is Islamic affiliated just does good to them! Middle Eastern there admire the "American Way of Life". If they could, they would all pack their luggage tomorrow and join your culture! So think about it and the perception you guys have that people there want to destroy the West! As proof, look at the Emirates, Saudi-Arabia and so on. They are trying to copy your way of life one-to-one! Just Google how many American universities are opening satellite campuses in Qatar! 5 top universities are opening campuses over there... with the exact same syllabus and the same mentors (http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/420/). But of course the Iraq war did destroy a lot of American reputation... but since Obama you guys are on the fly over there... in general at least!

Q: In response to another reader's comments, do you think that providing aid to Muslims in the middle east post-9/11 really would have been negatively received? Why or why not?
A: No I don't think so. But then it depends on, with what intention this help is based on. Because 9/11 was not supported or organized by the 1.2 Billion minus the ten thousand Muslims. Muslims don't need financial aid... the Arabic countries are one of the richest in the world! It is not aid... it is justice in the world by the most powerful nation that was and still is required.

Q: Now that we are really dug into Iraq, what would be the best thing for America to do?
A: That's a complicated question. And if I knew the answer I would nominate myself for being the Foreign minister :) All I can say is, if I get shot then removing the bullet from my body and recovering from it will be a very very painful process, independent of who shot me! All I hope is, that the surgery takes place soon so people can live in peace, maybe not today or in 10 years. But maybe in 50 years! And I do not only mean Iraqis, I mean US soldiers as well as Iraqi civilians!

Q: Finally, earlier this year you were quoted in the newspaper but your words were cropped and taken out of context. I won't do that to you here! Is there anything you would like to share from your Muslim world across the insurmountable cultural divide to the Christian community?
A: First of all ,thank you for letting me write for your blog! I really appreciate that... maybe President Obama will read this sometime :) and then maybe I will make it to be a member of his administration :) No, seriously thank you! I have a lot to say about what I would love to share, but I don't have that time and you guys are probably bored anyways. But there is one thing I would love to point out: All these questions asked put me in the defendant's position. Isn't it ridiculous that I have to defend my religion? I had to defend, why we are not terrorists, why Al-Qaeda is not representing Islam, why I am a Muslim and to prove that I am not a monster that wants to kill and destroy everybody in my surrounding? Not a single question was asked in which I could just explain how beautiful Islam really is. How I feel being a Muslim from a HUMAN point of view not from Political point of view. Why is it, that everybody is innocent until proven guilty but in the Muslim case it is guilty until proven innocent?

Note: I think my the interviewee makes an excellent point here. I have invited him, if he wishes, to submit an essay for publishing on the blog outlining his feelings on "...just how beautiful Islam really is," and how he feels about "...being a Muslim from a HUMAN point of view." I think that it would be insightful to all of us.

"This Site Has Been Hacked!"

2009-08-20T07:03:00.000-07:00

HAHAHA!!! Foolez, you have b3en hACKeD by tUrkish_BoZZ_311! I own you.

I hAve bin piping all KeyBord from UR compy 4 all deez weeks! M0RM@N $C13NT1$T, UR a BAGBITIng W@NK3R! L@@K at What KEELOG tell$ me:

*************KEELOG v3.2.x*************
HOST IP: 24.132.224.45
Connect... DOHC
Piped?... YES

20_08_2009 08:17:23
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[Window: FireFox - New Tab http://www.pandora.com]
[Window: FireFox - New Tab http://www.theonion.com]
[Window: FireFox: The Onion: Search Box: "Oprah Winfry" *return*]
[Window: FireFox: The Onion: Search Box: "FDA Salmonila" *return*]
[Window: FireFox: The Onion: Search Box: "Boy Scout Free Exams" *return*]
[Window: FireFox: Pandora: Search Box: "India.Arie I am Not my Hair"]

[Open: Thunderbird e-mail client]
[Window: Thunderbird: UN: "lifeasatool" PW: "herb3110" *return*]
[Window: Thunderbird - New Message]
[Window: Thunderbird: New Message: "Hey Dude" *tab* "Hey dude what's up? Do you still want to hit up the Pie for lunch today?" *tab* *return*]
[Close: Thunderbird e-mail client]
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