Stu's Rusty Bucket

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Mandolin

I got a new mandolin on the weekend (thanks Nan-nan!), to replace the one I had that didnt quite work. The previous one had some frets inlaid really deeply to the point you couldnt hit some notes without the strings hitting other frets, no matter how high the bridge was set, it was a cheap mando, unfortunately this time, was not even suitable for learning on.

The new one is a Ibanez M511SBS, all solid woods, no ply or such, and yes, I checked all the frets, this one is good to go. Now I just have to get back up to speed and start learning again. You can see Joy’s Alvarez MD90 in the background.
I do need to tighten the nut on the armrest but apart from that…

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Szechuan Chicken

So I went looking for a szechuan chicken recipie online… I googled, as you do, and started hitting the top 20 or so links. I even hit the first 10 links at places like cooks.com…

NONE used szechuan peppercorns. They all just listed generic garbage like chili peppers or “cayenne pepper” to taste. ugh.

There is a tonne of “10 minute” recipes out there too. Most seem to think rice wine / vinegar is all you need. One of the top links is even a Betty Crocker recipe whose secret ingrediant is… ”bag (1 lb 5 oz) Green Giant® Create A Meal!® frozen szechuan stir fry meal starter”. Thats just pure awesomeness. Another mix recreated the zing of Szechuan Chicken with powdered mustard and texas pete hot sauce!

I also learnt some new things.

- Chinese pea pods = snow peas.
- Szechuan Chili oil recreates any meal prefixed by Szechuan, aka Szechuan {insert favourite food type here}
- Barbecue sauce makes for great “authentic” recipe’s.

The top rated recipezaar “Szechuan Chicken” recipe is basically nothing but rice wine vinegar and has from 13 reviews 4 and 9/10ths out of 5 stars… ridiculous.

No wonder you cant find good Chinese food in America.

I did end up finding a proper recipe which included Tien Tsin Chinese Chile Pepper, Szechuan Peppercorns and Arrowroot Powder… at The Spice House which is a online seller of exotic spices… So of course they need something to showcase szechuan peppercorns!

If Joy wouldn’t kill me because we are in a “no spending” mode, I’d love to spring for some unground peppercorns and the other two aforementioned spices.....

Monday, March 31, 2008

Financial Meltdown

I read this article on CNN Careers vanish after subprime ‘free fall’, its a wonderful tale of woe of the family of Kent and Mysti Cope who live in the so impoverished Orange County in California.

Lets take some quotes.....

He has been out of work since August when he was laid off

OK, He lost his job and has not found one in… 7 or 8 months.....

Today, they’re trying to get by on his unemployment benefits of about $450 a week, which covers only about an eighth of the basic payments they owe every month.

For Mysti, 37, all her efforts to find work since she lost her job last May have been futile.

His wife has no job either… and hasn’t had one for 11 months…

Their home equity line, mortgage, health and life insurance premiums alone cost about $10,000 a month. Still, they are trying to hang onto what they call their dream home with a view of the Pacific Ocean

Awesome! Keeping the dream alive, a mansion on the coast…

“We’ve used up most of our reserves, cashed in her 401K,” said Kent. “We’re going Mach 1 into a wall. When we run into it, then we’ve got to decide what to do next.”

This is the “we have no plan going forward” routine, also known as “we are waiting for something magical to happen and money to fall into our laps!!”

And they’ve made cutbacks: trading in Kent’s Corvette for a Suburban and getting rid of the gardener,

Awesome, they switched from a gas guzzling corvette to a.. gas guzzling huge ass SUV!

Since he lost his job, Kent has gotten a real estate license and is trying to start a business selling the rapidly increasing inventory of foreclosed homes in Orange County, Calif. Mysti is trying to build an online business selling jewelry and beachwear, some of which she designs herself.

I know!! Lets get a job selling houses.. that don’t sell in a market that is thrashing around and wallowing in its death throes! Awesome decision there Kent. You go Mysti (Is that her porn actress name or something?), just think how many sea shell necklaces and self designed bikini’s you need to sell to make that 10k minimum a month.

“The media has somewhat tarnished the subprime industry and all the employees, and portrayed them as being dishonest,” she said. “We’re not dishonest. Not everybody was a bad borrower. Not every company was a bad lender.”

Yes yes, its all the fault of the media Mysti, thats why you cant get a job.

Must be tough living in Orange County, CA and needing to make 10k a month to pay your mortgage and health insurance.

They obviously didn’t create any kind of safety net with there 2million+ income (they both had a six figure+ income each)… I mean.. really.. you have a combined two million plus income and you don’t push jack shit into savings and we are supposed to sympathise how tough life is for folks living in Orange County CA?

Cry me a river.

Friday, February 01, 2008

Gillette Tech Square vs Triangular

In a post on shavemyace.com I was very adamant that the geometry of the heads in the Tech series didnt change, but its well know the base plate had two variations, so I decided to take some pics.

(Largs pics after the jump)

The baseplate on the right with the square guard slots is from a British Tech, no date code, the triangular slots is from a 1939 USA Tech
You can see the triangular slots are smaller and come close to the safety bar,

Top of my hand, British Tech, bottom USA 1939 Tech.
A blade installed in the USA tech mostly covers any gap that you can see.

I dont know if you could count one as more aggressive than the other, shave wise.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Fixes to the house

Things I want to do to the house

Basement
- Pull of the half-high wood finish around the basement + repaint that half of the room
- Rehang basement bathroom doors (the bathroom door and the door to the furnace)

Master Bedroom
- Hang joys full length mirror on bathroom door (mirror mastic should be ok)

Master Bathroom
- Rip out plastic shower and tile bathroom + proper shower door
- Put new exhaust/fan/light in bathroom

Hallway Bathroom
- Rip out plastic tub/shower thing + replace with real tub + tile
- Attach overflow pipe (thats currently not!)

Garage
- Replace 80 gallon electric hot water tank with smaller tank or gas tank

Garden
- 4 rows of raised beds with proper soil (about 3ft tall)

Decking
- Sand and refinish front + back deck
- Replace broken plank in back deck

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Ebay Score 1955 Gillette Diplomat

I dropped a bid on what was supposed to be a 1955 Gillette Aristocrat DE razor, I only bid $1 over the current bid and managed to win the auction, so I was a bit surprised. Turns out it was not an Executive but the more rare version called a Diplomat. Its not truly collectable since it didnt come in its original case.

I will probably give it a whirl tonight, rumour via the SMF forum has it that its a more aggresive shaver than a red-tip super speed!! So its going to be very interesting to see what its like since my go-to razor is a 1939 Gillette Tech fat-handle which is supposed to be the mildest of the Gillette razors.

The photo of the head closed shows it needs a bit of polishing but all its gold plating is intact.

Pictures after the jump of the ‘diplomat’

Thursday, January 03, 2008

2008 Resolutions

Some resolutions for 2008, these I hope are more down to earth and attainable type goals.

* Get more vegetables into my diet (this kinda hinges on my wife choosing to eat more than green beans on occasion...)
* Spend more time with my boy
* Finish Fishguts
* Get a few more releases of Cracks and Crevices out and move development along
* Get my traditional razor technique down much more solidly that what it is.
* Ride the bike more

Monday, December 03, 2007

Alexander vs FOOD

We’ve started Alexander on a food regime. We bought a huge butternut squash which I baked and pureed up and froze in icecube trays, we also pureed and froze peas. He seems to like eating the squash more than the peas but he likes to try and wear as much of it as we can get into him. The increase in food and going to real food (he still gets all his formula) has seen an increase in dirty diapers and the smell has gone up a notch :(

We’ve also instituted a sleeping through the night routine, aka we ignore his cries and he eventually goes back to sleep and sleeps through the night. We’ve had some good nights and some bad nights but it seems to be working well, and we think we are over the hump of his 3am feedings. He just manages to pee out his diaper now because he goes for 9 or so hours sleep without a change.

He is also very very close to becoming mobile, I predict we’ll be crawling in under two weeks. That means we need to be more vigilant in vacuuming the house and watching gwyn more closely when he starts to make a beeline to his 100lb puppy dog.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Shaving an overripe peach

AKA Adventures in good of fashioned cut throat razor shaving. Also known as Wet Shaving… or Shaving the old fashioned way. This is part of my effort to add some refinement to my hectic life! Turn shaving into a hobby.

Multi-blade cartridges are expensive and the foamy/gel cans do nothing but dehydrate and create a really poor lather… So I now own a 1940 gillette three piece razor called a Tech. Some artisan soap from Mama Bear and a swath of different brand of blades. (Walmart sell some high-quality blades in a 10pack for $1.54… Yeah thats 15 cents a blade. A blade should last about 10 shaves. Thats 0.015 cents a shave. Mach3 blades charge $10 for a 4 pack. Thats 2.50 per cartridge vs 0.15 for a safety blade. I dont know how many ‘good’ shaves you can get out of a mach3 cartridge but I’m doubting you could get the equivalent of 10 good shaves.

OK, so I didn’t use a peach, and it wasn’t invisible peach fuzz. Earlier this evening I had, caveman like, an inch long beard and 4 inch goatee.

No, no goats were sacrificed at the sink.

I did however sacrifice my inch long beard. My shiny semi-new 1940 gillette tech showed up, so I gave it a sanitize, unwrapped an Israeli crystal and broke out the mama bear Tuscan soap…

First was the hair clippers run all over head + face to remove extraneous beard and get down to it, with a hot shower to open up the pores like windows in summer.

My nicer brush hasnt shown up yet, and it was hard work with the good old burma shave brush from walmart (I couldn’t wait any longer...). I seemed to get a better lather doing it on my face than trying to make it in the bowl. I really think it was down to the brush more so than anything elses fault. Also feel I needed to make it ‘thicker’ but it did the trick.

Well I never!

I didn’t think anything was happening but I looked at the razor and there was all dirty particles on the soap. Something was coming off. Granted it wasnt baby butt smooth and I did go over the same space a couple of times.

My problem area is going to be my jaw line / jaw curve from cheek to underside jaw…

Defiantly pressed too hard in spots but the tech was nice and forgiving thankfully. No burn. One ‘bump’ showed up on my neck but no bleeding or irritation (maybe thats due to the nice nivea balm I put on. imo Nivea make great balm).

So, lessons learned (but maybe not heeded)

- Don’t go over same spot without any lather, this aint no joe sixpack triple blade cartridge with lubricating strip and child proof lock

- Don’t be impatient and think the burma shave brush ‘will do’ (maybe I am being a bit harsh on it).

- When you think nothing is coming off, something really is coming off so don’t press any harder!

- Gillette made really good products long before I was born. They don’t seem to any more.

- I’m tempted to keep touching my face like a kid in the candy store (Apparently this is called facerbating… )

- Will stick with Israeli Crystal blades for the next month until I can get my lathering + basic technique down pat so I know what to expect when I change blades.

- When you take the razor compartment out of its cardboard sale package, they tend not to tell you what they are on the outside! (well for crystal blades anyway).

- I actually remembered to take a before and after shot for posterity (but I wont bother you guys with them here) since removing beard is not a common occurance Cool

- I violated the no-shave-November rule at work! 

- Holding to the angle on the top of the handle is not as easy as it seems and trying to overcome holding it near vertical is hard

- Will have to see how it is in the morning (since I am a night shaver)…

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

New Car

Joys faithful Isuzu Rodeo died.

Well it didn’t die as much needed a makeover. We had been having problems with the radiator guzzling fluid, it was coming out of the overflow bottle due to a blockage somewhere (pressure test found nothing and block test on the engine found nothing)… So we put it in to have Merchants check it out. Well I never!

It needed four new tires, we’d done the CV boot and damaged the axle, radiator to be flushed and hoses changed, pressure test + block test.

It was going to cost us over $1,200 to fix (and we had paid out $500 the previous week on the rear bearing). Its only worth $1500!!

So we found ourselves at the Saturn dealership that was doing zero percent finance on 2007 models.

They gave us $1700 for the rodeo (whoo!!) and we got a new car for less than we would have got for a second hand car.

The downside is it is a 5 speed manual transmission on a 2.2 liter engine.

Joy cant drive a manual transmission.

So last night we found ourselves in the church parking lot with me trying to instruct joy in her first lesson which was ok. We learned joy cant keep the revs constant (she pulses the accelerator). Once we learn how to keep the revs constant we will be ok, We did a couple of smooth starts and we stalled a couple of times, which is ok.

In the meantime I am driving it to work. 

Monday, September 17, 2007

Personal Finance

Ive added a slew of personal finance + frugality blogs to my Google Reader and I’m conviced to do a few things tonight.

* I need to get into the attic above the kitchen and see what the insulation is like and really check out the insluation in the other floor of the house.

* Get that plastic gallon milk jug into the three cisterns we have (bricks are bad they can crumble and break down over time...).

* Replace the huge 80gallon electric hot water system with a on-demand hot water system…

OK, So I’m kinda dreaming on the last one but I think it would be totally worth it.

First I need to work out how much the current system costs us and how long it would take to pay off replacing it. Not an easy task.

Then its on-demand electric vs on-demand gas. If we went gas we would have to get a bigger gas tank, but with electric we could just replace the existing tank and screw the new on-demand onto the wall.

I also know there is little to no insulation between the basement and upstairs floors, partly because its a floating ceiling, and partly because of the 10 degree difference in summer and the arctic conditions in the winter

Friday, August 24, 2007

Books I need to read

I’ve got 4 books on my must read list, aka my nightstand right now just begging to be read, Three on Tibet/Buddhism and one on game world design.

TheHeart of the World : A Journey to Tibet’s Lost Paradise
by Ian Baker

How to Practice : The way to a meaningful life
By Dalai Lama

Ethics for a new Millenium
by Dalai Lama

Swords and Circuitry
by Neal Hallford

Friday, July 06, 2007

Colic

So we went to the doctors yesterday and he pronounced Alexander as having colic! AAAAARrgh. That means he cries a lot for no reason, he isnt sick or anything he just.. cries…

sleeping is unbearable. feeding is unbearable.

hopefully he will grow out of it very quickly, its quite upsetting to see his frowny face and little tears and his little ‘dad-make-it-all-better’ cry.

The bets are coming in that he will have red hair, tho I am very for blonde and against ginger but we will see…

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Alexander Kai George

Alexander Kai George, 8lbs 3oz and 22 inches long! Mum and Son both doing just fine. She popped him out naturally with no tearing or stitches like a real trooper (well a trooper who has a epidural!), she did great.

The elderly ladies of the county knit little caps for all the babies that come into the hospital

Thats all of us!

Joy wanted to show off her toenails, they are hand painted not a sticker…

Monday, May 21, 2007

Wabbits

Joy and I went out to do some watering of the garden last night and we spotted a pesky brown wabbit suspiciously near my peas.. so I went over to investigate and he took off, straight through my veggie patch!!

Lil bugger..

Speaking of the veggie patch, it looks like only corn and bush beans are doing any good right now. No extra growth on the peppers, only 5 soya beans sprouted, and I still cant tell if any of the leeks or tomatoes sprouted or not…

sigh…

Something has nibbled on the october beans as well… mm.. Might have to get me an air rifle to keep the bunnies away.