Of course I am being facetious. Risotto has a stigma of being on the menu of fancy restaurants, therefore it has to be complicated or difficult. Not so, and I am going to tell you how. First of all, we have to understand Risotto itself. It is a specific variety of rice that is grown in Italy, not as it is sometimes described as a pasta.
Risotto itself is the name of the dish, you start with Arborio rice. This is part of the confusion. When you go to the store you don’t find anything named risotto and you certainly don’t find it with the pasta noodles. As rice goes, a little goes a long way. I only see it in small packages.
The basic formula is aromatics, Arborio rice, chicken broth and parmesan cheese. Everything after that is optional. I am making shrimp risotto today.
In my opinion, the most important thing with risotto is mis en place. Because technique is really the only thing that makes the dish, everything needs to be prepared and in place so that you can focus on the cooking. It is not like you cannot look away but you better be close and paying attention if you want good risotto. I release the flavor in the shallot.
Put in the rice and brown it up a bit. So far, it is just like Rice-A-Roni. Now, to make risotto, add 1/2 cup of chicken broth and stir it in. Keep the mixture boiling until it is almost gone and repeat. Keep doing this until the rice is cooked. How do you know it is cooked? Taste it. As a guide, this 1 1/2 cup of rice used about 4 cups of liquid.
Proper risotto is slightly al dente, just like pasta. However, my wife prefers that all gone. I am fine either way so I try to go her way. Make it how you like. When the rice is cooked, I added cream and cheese and turned off the heat. I want it to be hot but I don’t want a lot of extra mixing after I add the dairy. That is it, you have made risotto.
End Your Programming Routine: Chef Keith Snow says that risotto is a secret restaurant joke. The patrons think that it is exotic dish that turns out to be premade and reheated rice. Sometimes we get disappointed because when order it, the dish doesn’t deliver as in your head. The nice thing about making at home is that you can make it how you want it. See, it wasn’t hard.
I am going to make an argument today. I stated in December that I am shifting away from alkaline batteries. This move is not to save the planet, while that is an added bonus, but to save my sanity. This is the tactic that every person that is environmentally conscious should use. In order to get people to switch to an ‘eco’ line of thinking, the evidence should be overwhelmingly beneficial, not because it makes them feel morally superior.
For instance, let us look at electric cars. I have yet to see a compelling argument that this is the replacement for gasoline engines. As far as I can tell, electric cars have a niche in the commuter space. It is super convenient to top off your car at home, at night and if you can get a couple hundred miles range then you have probably handled 75% of the suburban use cases. But, any sort of long range trip or extended weekend is a nightmare. Even in southern California, the mecca of EVs it cannot be done without extreme frustration and pucker factor. That alone is enough for me to say that EV technology is not a replacement for gasoline at this time.
When charging takes five minutes, is ubiquitous and the range is 800 miles now you are speaking my language. It is faster than refueling and goes farther now there is a compelling reason to not buy an EV over a gasoline car. Whether I believe the environmental benefits or not, the product is better than the alternative.
The decision of better for the planet is only one of the considerations in each purchase. People make decisions all the time based on many factors. The item fits better, it is in my price range, it is more durable, it is available now are some examples. I can go to any gas station, convenience store, dollar store, box store etc and buy batteries.
The biggest reason I am switching over to rechargeable batteries is the durability. I am sick and tired of opening a battery compartment to find that the battery has leaked out and even sometimes ruining my device. Usually, this is more than an inconvenience but these are things that aren’t really replacible.
My HP calculator that I paid $300 for in 1991 is an example. Sure, the technology is out of date but it still works fine and since I am not doing calculus anymore, I don’t need the capability. It is a sentimental item for me. It was the single largest purchase I made until I was out of the house and in college. My OBDII code reader had the batteries go bad. I paid $450 for that. That is replaceable but why do I want to? My current toner, my weather station, different remote controls, flashlights… the list goes on and on.
As I was writing that list, I was thinking most of those items occurred either in the shop or the basement. This doesn’t mean that every failure has happened in a less than conditioned environment. But a starting point might be to replace the batteries in my tools and things that live outside of heated space.
The failures also mostly happen in infrequently used items. It is probably safe to keep using alkaline batteries if you are frequently using an item. I am trying to take the batteries out when I remember, but sometimes I forget. Or sometimes things get moved without a thought and then the next time I need them, the batteries have exploded.
To date, I have already spent several hundred dollars on rechargeable batteries and I am not even close to having enough. These things are expensive, granted I am not buying the cheapest brand. They are averaging $3-4 a piece whereas at Costco, I can buy an alkaline battery for about $0.50. But, that means that if I go through eight cycles it has paid for itself. The batteries are supposed to have 2000 charge cycles in them. Even to get to eight cycles it will take a long time for them to pay off. But even if I only get 20 cycles, it should more than pay for itself. Best of all, I am not going to have a ruined device.
One last thing about rechargeable batteries. Having a stock of these is valuable if you need them. They can be recharged with solar power or a generator. You are not going to charge an alkaline battery so if you cant get to a store or there are not stores open or no more alkaline batteries, this is a more self-reliant option. This is where I got the idea. My initial experience with Ni-Cad batteries in the 1980s was terrible but I have been convinced that technology has moved a long way in 30+ years.
End Your Programming Routine: It may be that not every alkaline battery needs to be replaced with a rechargeable one. There are some things that I could care less if they get ruined. That being said, I am buying batteries to replace each time the alkaline dies. That is an expensive proposition, but I think it is going to work out economically, ecologically and for the safety of the device.
I am making the case that ambiguity was essential for our survival as a species. I also speak to the role that it has played in my life and specifically my career. I talk about my worries for the human race by removing our exposure to ambiguity and the need to develop logical skills as a result.
The second circle of hell. We have made it past the pagans and into the real torture, I guess. According to the summary that I read, the second circle is the result of carnal sin. Since carnal sin is love, albeit misguided it barely qualifies the worst of things a person could do according to Dante.
I suppose the thing that I don’t totally understand is what exactly is ‘carnal sin’. Before I went looking for a definition, I would understand it to be wanton infidelity. Or, I could have speculated that it was a premarital or an extramarital sexual relationship. All I could really find was the definition of carnal being passion, of the body and that kind of stuff. What I am saying is that I really don’t understand what you have to do to get to the second level of hell.
Interestingly enough there were a few recognizable names here. The first and biggest was Cleopatra. As far as I have heard, she was a was a woman of ‘passion’. That being said, I didn’t know her to be a woman of ill repute. One of the other people that was there was a person named Dido. She was apparently married but fell in love with someone else. She killed herself when he was sentenced to death (actually suicide is a much more severe sin, not sure why she got level 2).
Even if it is simply lust as on another analysis I read, it is not our place question. Do you remember “Thou shalt not covet another man’s wife”? In the most basest of interpretations, coveting another’s wife is a synonym for lusting after another person in the sexual sense, wife or not. But then again, there are lots of things that we consider crimes based on morality. For instance, drugs. However, taking/using drugs had no consideration from Moses in the Ten Commandments.
What I am getting at is that I get it at face value. Carnal sin is worthy of damnation by our morality standards. By the same token, Carnal sin is very subjectively and ambiguously defined. For that reason, I think we should obey the commandments but we should also follow our heart. After all, I don’t believe that God wants us to be miserable. We just have to do it the right way.
I was imagining in this series that I would take a level of hell and relate it to a current event and persons in the public eye. We all know people that fit the definition and maybe we will see them in level 2 of the hell. Bill Clinton comes to mind but probably not Jeffrey Epstein here, maybe Ghislaine Maxwell? I have been doing some thinking though. If a relationship was consenting, is this really a sin? After all there were plenty of polygamist in the Old Testament. I did some quick research on the subject and you find the usual subjects.
The puritanical approach says that polygamy was a means to an end. It was accepted until the new covenant (the coming of Jesus). Just like at the other ritualistic trappings of Judaism, the veil and sacrifice and such, none of that means anything at this point according to Christianity. Arguments are made that the transition from many to one in Judaism is now one on one in Christianity. Therefore the other related bible versus two becoming one or Adam and Eve for instance are pointing to the justification that only one committed relationship is the way to go.
The more that I study psychology and human behavior, I side with the data that supports that the richest, healthiest and most rewarding relationships are one on one. This also conforms with my moral beliefs. However, I cannot succinctly say that what I (and Dante) believe are actually defined as sin. This of course excludes non-consenting adultery as mentioned in the Ten Commandments.
End Your Programming Routine: Truthfully, I didn’t think that I would end up here before I started writing this. I suppose that this puts me more on a philosophical plane rather than a Christian one. If an action hurts another, it is probably worthy of evaluation. But, these are complicated matters that are hard to solve in a single page. Was it consenting and now it is not? What if your heart changes, should two people be bound to a reciprocal, loveless marriage? I am pretty sure that this level is not for the deviant crowd but the consenting one. I am not sure I can get behind that.
I have wanted not just make energy measurements but also to see practical performance this year. This means that I need targets that represents practical or real life situations. Many years ago, I occasionally liked to visit a site called The Box O Truth which seems to be a forum these days. It started out as a guy that would build targets and test different loads against them.
I decided to build my own Box of Truth. Not necessarily to duplicate what already has been done but to satisfy my own curiosity. I built what represents an interior partition wall to see if it will stop air rifle pellets. If not, is there a pellet weight or energy that will be stopped? This is a question of safety, what happens when a projectile hits an interior wall.
There are all kinds of variations that could be built. Instead of two sheets of drywall, I could add sheathing and siding representing an exterior wall. Since my pellet trap has a 3/4″ sheet of plywood for the back, I already know that it cannot penetrate that thickness. But, if I was testing firearms, that might be useful information. You could also build several of these things to represent the penetration of several rooms.
From top left to bottom right is Crossman Copperhead (3.5 ft/lbs), Crossman Piranha (11.6 ft/lbs), Gamo Blue Flame (16 ft/lbs) and H&N Slug HP (12 ft/lbs). The BB was from the Crossman Legacy 1000 at four pumps while the remaining pellets were from the Crossman Optimus. All three pellets penetrated the ‘wall’. The BB did not. I know that because I could feel them embedded in the first layer with no indication of back penetration.
What I have learned is that an errant shot or a deliberate shot into a partition wall offers no safety. While there is never an excuse for negligent discharge, it should give you pause for self defense and where your shots go including a single family dwelling or neighbors in a attached living scenario.
Nothing is ever perfect. This is a test that is basically two layers of drywall. There could be pipes, wires or structure in those walls causing unpredictable results but not in my case. In addition, I put insulation between the walls because I had it laying around from my duct work. Many partition walls have no insulation and there are different types of insulation densities as well. Each one the variables along with luck makes a difference. What is hard to measure is the exact energy or potential harm after the projectile goes through the wall. Just because it penetrates, doesn’t mean it is lethal but it is foolish to assume otherwise.
In the future, I would like to do some more deterministic testing. That means developing a target that shows how energy relates to depth of penetration. There are some homemade ballistic gelatin recipes and techniques that I am interested in investigating. But, I am not quite ready to do that yet.
End Your Programming Routine: Data really means nothing without correlation. Ten ft-lbs versus 20 ft-lbs has no context unless it can be applied to something meaningful. If 20 ft-lbs can go through 1/2″ plywood but 10 cannot, then you have information to be able to make decisions under those variables. My test really didn’t prove anything other than don’t shoot at your walls, but then you shouldn’t be doing that anyway. Really, the next logical step would be to find out how much energy would be required to penetrate both layers.
it is not just the holidays, but the following months has it’s own dread. Because I am a little lazy, all of our bill statements tend to pile up over the year. However, it is this time of year that I choose to file, organize and shred. I do this because it is the beginning of preparation for tax season.
I am certainly not making excuses, I should do it more than once a year. One of the biggest reasons is that filing is inconvenient. Statements, receipts, etc. go into a drawer after they are dealt with. When the drawer is filled, the stack goes upstairs to a pile. That pile grows unchecked until this time of year.
When I sort, I group everything by debtor. Things that are one and done like invoices go directly to the shred pile if significant time has passed and there is no warranty. Each individual stack is organized oldest to newest so that it can be placed into the file and automatically be in order year over year.
Trust me, my recent tax filings have been no picnic. Owing over $10,000 a few years ago was not only a shock but also caused me to evaluate what and how I am doing things. Getting audited was trying for my spare time and my relationship. One of the things that I changed as a result of this was my use of a tax professional. I used to do all of my own returns but that caused so much strife between my marriage that I have finally resigned to pay someone.
Maybe you have never done your own taxes. Or maybe you have never paid for them to be done. Well, there is a dirty little secret if pay someone to do it and that is the majority of the work is gathering and organizing the data to prepare the tax returns. The truth is, preparers just plug in the data as provided. Their fee is for their time and the small amount of liability that they incur by doing so.
Now, my taxes aren’t exactly straight forward but they are not the most complicated. Over the years I have had rents and royalties, LLC and investment complications. So, I have to do things like gather all of my utility bills and sum them for the year so that I can calculate the percentage of the cost that the rental has on the overall bill for deduction purposes.
The simple truth is I have to do this work whether I do the taxes or I have someone else do them. It so happens that I am forced to get organized way earlier when I hand it off whereas I may drag my feet when I am doing it myself. As my filing goes, any bill that is not used in taxes gets evaluated as to how much folder space I have. It really serves no purpose to have five years of bills filed. But when the folder starts getting full, I start culling years past. Those papers all go to the shredding box.
Speaking of shredding, I also eliminate my eighth year of tax forms. This time of year is great because I can sit in front of the TV and shred while playoff football is on. It makes me feel like I can afford to spend the time watching while doing something useful at the same time.
Be prepared, it is amazing the volume of paper after shredding compared to before. It is not clear to me whether I can put it in the recycling bin or not. Sometimes I do but when they dump the bin, there is often a snowstorm of paper bits on the ground. I think the recyclers don’t like it because for that fact.
End Your Programming Routine: Part of why I dread this is it is a big job. It makes things much easier when everything has a place and it is in it. If you are not a consistent organizer, I highly recommend doing it this time of year because it really pays dividends for those other required things in life, like taxes.
As I dream about putting the next duct into the floor joist, I visualize in my head the steps and what obstacles are around. My basement is where everything that has a little bit of use goes to die. The lightbulbs in use are a hodgepodge collection of things that were changed out for aesthetics but still had function. One of those lightbulbs I purchased when I was in college. Specifically 1996-1997.
I lived in a townhouse my senior year. That was built in the 1970s and it had recessed lights in a lot of the building. Most college students swapped the proper floodlight bulb with a regular bulb when they burned out because they were five times cheaper (If they swapped bulbs at all!). I ended up purchasing the correct bulbs before I moved out and like a good preparedness person, I had a spare.
Since I have lived in that townhouse, I have never lived somewhere that had recessed lights requiring that particular style of bulb. This bulb moved from southern Oregon to two apartments in the Portland metro area to our first house in Salem, to South Carolina to where I live now. A couple of years ago, I realized that I was never going to have a proper application for that bulb and so it ended up in the basement. I probably should have donated it to Habitat For Humanity.
It is not like I will run out of mismatched bulbs any time soon. In fact, about fifteen years ago, the city (electric utility) changed all of our bulbs from incandescent to compact fluorescent. When they did that, they left all the bulbs they took out in a plastic bag and gave them back to me. As those CFLs burned out (one of the biggest scams ever), I replaced them with the bulbs that they took out.
I am on the last of those bulbs now. I am very skeptical of the lightbulb environmentalism. We took an inert technology albeit less efficient and replaced it with a high technology, high toxicity product. We saved 50 watts of energy times the number of bulbs and congratulated ourselves when we should have been looking at the social engineering of the problem in the first place. If you want to read about that type of discussion, this is a good start here.
I regret the loss of the incandescent bulb. There were certain applications that really benefited from the inefficiency. An old, rural trick was to plug in a lightbulb in the well house to prevent the pump and line from freezing. You cant do that with CFL or LED bulbs. The next best solution is a space heater. So instead of burning 100 Watts, we are now using 1000 Watts. So, I suppose if the farm house changes all of their lightbulbs to LED, the net difference even with the heater is still lower energy consumption.
But, what do we have to do to make these bulbs and what do you have to do to get rid of them? The old tungsten filament bulbs were simple and safe. When those were replaced with compact fluorescents, those bulbs contained mercury vapor. Once vaporized, these would eventually rain down into surface water and accumulate in aquaculture. Hence, we are advised by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to eat no more than two servings per week. Pregnant women are a no for any exposure. This is a problem caused entirely by our own industrialization and fluorescent light bulbs are a contributor.
There is one facility within a one hour window that accepts fluorescent bulbs. It is open every Tuesday from 12-4 and one Saturday per month. When you get there, enjoy your one hour wait to get to the facility. My point is the disposal effort is extremely impractical. Consequently, I throw them away. And I am a person that puts a lot of effort into recycling. I have a technojunk pile that goes for a specific recycling. I disassemble things to get to there component parts that are trash verses recyling. I reuse materials wherever possible. I even think about the lifecycle of things before I buy them.
LED technology isn’t much better but there are some real advantages to LEDs. The flashlight power and shock resistance is miles better than twenty years ago. I do not hold the same regard for home level bulbs. The materials to make the bulbs come from dubious partners. The components in the bulbs are of toxic makeup. The color of the cheaper bulbs are terrible. At least they don’t kill our environment when they break but they are still supposed to be recycled. Again, they need to go in the technojunk pile.
I can see that I got way off base from where I started. Whenever I see that bulb and think about it, I think about my life in summary. It is amazing to me how long I have had this consumable. As we think about our next phases in life, I have to believe that this is probably the last stop. I suspect that it will be left here when we go to our next house because that time is approaching.
End Your Programming Routine: While the story is cute and anecdotal to me, hopefully the greater lesson in the story is beware of the universal solution. Whether it is vaccines will cure a disease or a new kind of lightbulb will solve climate change. We always, always, always have to consider who is to gain from legislation and policy. The educated consumer/voter is less likely to fall for the false prophet scam. Some things may be problems that don’t need solving and then all of a sudden, new solutions create newer and worse problems.
My first exposure to the internet as it is today was around the mid 1990s. When I think about the power of what it represents I am somewhat in awe. I even relate a story about the relevance and impact today. But, at some point the internet shifted from a repository of any information to a place that people go to feel better about themselves and with that, we are being programmed to keep coming back. As a result, we end up with hollow lives and brittle egos who are now addicted to the notification.
Had I known what I was doing, I would included Canto III last week. It is not considered a level but the crossing into the afterworld. I would call that introductory information but I was relying on another reference to help me get started. Oh well, We get the vestibule or entrance, the crossing and the first level of hell this week.
The vestibule is an interesting concept. According to Dante is is filled with fallen angels that the translator calls Opportunists. These are entities that didn’t pick a side (that is God or the Devil) and therefore were into the game for themselves. Consequently, they are denied entry into the afterworld neither heaven nor hell. They are chased endlessly by bugs as the spirits wish for a place to go.
Level one is also interesting. Last week I mistakenly said Virgil did not have a place. Actually, he is in the first level because He lived before Christ. All pagans are in this level because they were not blessed to have the opportunity to be Christian. It seems like this level isn’t too bad relatively speaking. It is the moaning of restlessness. Apparently there is nothing to do and the realization that this is the best it will ever get.
It is not completely apparent to me, but the translator indicates that this work is not just religious work but also a social and political commentary. Some of the notes related to the verse indicate contemporary figures in hell as well. There is reference to Boniface VII who became pope by manipulation. I would have never understood that without the note from the translator.
This week I am going to talk specifically about the pagans as they are described. Within the text is says that when Christ was crucified most of the previous population was in level one. That being said certain people were removed from hell and went with Christ. These would be people like Moses, Noah, Daniel, etc, the heroes of the old testament.
When I was really young, I was told that animals would never go to Heaven because they didn’t have a soul. Later, I decided that that was not possible because I didn’t want it to be true I really loved my dog, how could I be denied my dog in heaven? Since then, I have come to modify that belief a little. I am not sure if we will see our pets in the afterworld for our sake. But, they really have no free will so how could they possibly have an afterlife? Maybe reincarnation is a better explanation of animals?
Now that is settled, we as Christians have to look at the Bible in its entirety. Supposedly, Christ is the new covenant of our relationship with God. He has been described as a vengeful god in the Old Testament. That is why he drowned the world in Noah’s time. Aside from particular instances, surely not every single individual besides those mentioned in the old testament lacked the complete requirements for heaven. How is it possible that Moses was in hell until Christ arrived?
I am going to try and not hold that against Dante because I just cannot believe that and be consistent with my beliefs. Supposing that I am somewhat right, there has to be a plan for the people that existed before Christ or out of the earshot of Judaism. What about Asia or the American Natives? Surely we are all God’s people? I can’t believe that they would be condemned to hell by their existence being away from the proximity of the middle east and the ability to communicate across vast distances.
End Your Programming Routine: Next week is Canto V, the second level of hell described as carnal. According to Dante, I suppose it is fortunate that I am a Christian. Otherwise, I would have no chance at heaven. I am not here to take down Dante per se but to analyze and provide commentary on The Divine Comedy. I am sure that we are going to not just be entertained, but also learn something useful for our eventual eternity. I am more than sure we are going to find lots of behaviors to agree on before we are done.
I decided to take MLK day off. Everybody else in my house had it as a holiday and my account had it off too. I really I would be marking time in order to preserve some carry-over time off that I need to spend before April. I really needed the time off, I had been going three long weekends straight without much rest.
One of the projects that I have had on my agenda was to move the HVAC ducts into the floor joist bay. It was part of my space preparation for the wine cellar. But also, every since my I have built my office, it has become an unconscious limbo to get there. I can’t say how many times I have smacked into it because I wasn’t directly focused on where I was walking. Fortunately, it was a flexi-duct.
In total, I think the project took my son and me about five hours to complete. It was mostly spending time together and me teaching. I didn’t necessarily need the help. Without him, it may have taken me an hour or two more but it is something I need to do. The result is phenomenal, I can’t wait to do the next one.
To start out, I stapled the string that runs perpendicular to the joists. The string provides some additional support for the bats in the joist bay. I wanted to do this because I was going to cut the string on the bay that I was removing the insulation and after fifty years, some of the staples are a little dodgy.
Once the insulation was removed I was pleased to see that the joists were 2x10s. Since the entire floor has been done, I have never seen the framing before. This gave me the minimum amount of compression where the duct needed to run between the joist bay and cross beams.
There were a couple of things I didn’t expect. One was that the floor joist had some bridging. Only one of the two members was actually connected. Had I known it was there, I would have only removed insulation to that point and used that to place to begin the decent to the trunk duct. It is something to watch for when I do the next one. I don’t want to be removing a bunch of structural members because it makes my project look better. But since only one has been connected for the last fifty years, I figure the decision was already made and I used the pieces to block the bottom of the joist and provide some additional support.
The second thing I didn’t expect is that I was going to run the duct through the joist space into the future wine cellar space. I didn’t realize that the joists were terminated and that there was a rim joist. I couldn’t exactly cut a 10″ hole in a 2×10 so that meant that I had to re-route the duct through the wall. It is not where I wanted it but I will take solace that it no longer runs through the door way where it has been the entire time I have lived here.
My exploratory work has told me that my initial plan for the wine cellar will have to be modified. I have some structural members that I did not anticipate but that is OK because I can’t be happier with the results of this work. I will figure it out later, when I get there.
End Your Programming Routine: When you do things like this, you wonder why you have lived with them for so long. I spent $50 in materials, some of it I didn’t use but bought because it was icy and I didn’t want to make another trip tot the hardware store. Plus, I have more ducts to do, having some options make sense. Not only does it look better and the space more usable but the feeble lighting does a better job illuminating too.
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