Journal Writing Month: Day 1

inspiration #1 from http://najowrimo.wordpress.com/

Soaring through the air, the wind in my hair. Ups and downs. Whoops and shouts. Grimaces and grins. I ride the roller coaster of my new life's journey.

-tia

Friday at the beach

I know that I have been absent and haven’t posted a darned thing and I am a total slacker.  I know that.  I will work hard in the next few weeks to fix that.  Since I am not always consistent, you can always subscribe to the blog and it will email you when a new post arrives.

I wanted to make sure my vaycay to SoCal included a trip to the beach to play in the waves with my nephews and niece.  I absolutely love those kids.  Each one is such an individual spirit, they have been since they were very little.  I get to spoil them rotten and a visit from Aunt Traci is always a hit.  Well, I got my wish!  I didn’t bring my Nikon to the beach (too much sand) but I did use my little compact camera.  I think I snapped a couple of good photos.  You can see all of the pics on my Tiaphoto Photography site.  On the site you can see all of the pics (this blog entry only has a few) and you can see high-resolution images if you wanted them.  Enjoy a day playing in the Pacific Ocean with us!

We packed our food and swimsuits and headed off to Huntington Beach.  I had a truly great and memorable time.  I bought the kids new boogie boards and we hit the waves. There were some gnarly rip tides and the life guard asked us to stay in the first two sets of waves.  He had 18 rescues that day.  I could tell it was a bit harsh once I felt the surf and I kept a close eye on the kids.  Even the smaller waves were very fun and you could easily catch and ride a wave for about twenty feet to shore. We played in the water for hours and didn’t get out of the waves until sunset when the life guards kicked everyone out of the water.  Sydney was a total doll and camped out with all our gear and snapped a few photos too.  She wasn’t feeling 100%.  What a bummer.  She would have had a lot of fun.  Next time!

Here we are all at the beach.  We just arrived and the kids bolted straight to the shore to play in the sand.  I have 3 nephews (ZMan, Kenz & DrJ) and one niece (MissD).

ZMan had to bury DrJ and was “making him into a mermaid” which must include really bodacious ta tas.  They were both giggling like crazy.  Why are b00bs so funny to boys?  Oh wait.  Nevermind.  ;-)

I stayed close to the youngest two (9 and 11) and we really enjoyed playing on the boogie boards.  I taught my nephew DrJ how to tell which were the best waves for riding versus skipping.  He may have drank about a gallon of salt water before he got the hang of jumping to the top of the wave to ride it instead of letting it crash onto the top of him.  He got pretty good after a couple of hours.

My older nephews Kenz and ZMan were naturals.  They had a great time and bugged me to take them back to the beach in a couple of days.  Unfortunately we couldn’t swing it, but I want to go back soon!

  

Here’s my niece MissD bringing it home on a nice little wave.  We found a really cool sand sculpture of a turtle on the beach near our blankets.

ZMan had fun in the water. He wanted to go out to ride the back set of waves. I was concerned about the rip tides and asked him not to. He was really great and stayed in where he could keep an extra eye on his smaller brothers and sister.  Kenz was having fun buried up to his waist in the shore.  What a clown.  He has decided he wants long hair like Uncle Brooke. I sure love that kid.

The sunset just got better and better as the evening went on. I really wished I had my good camera to get the some really fabulous hi-definition shots, but these turned out pretty good.

Syd took a picture of MissD, Me and DrJ as we returned from the waves at sunset.  I have a special message if you look closely enough.  I was sooo happy.  I had a great time.  We stayed until the last hint of the sunset faded from view.  It was absolutely marvelous.

Thanks for spending a day at the Pacific with me and Syd and our favorite kids.  :-)

Dude, Where's My Star Trek

This post is penned by a guest writer. It's Brooke! He sent a letter ranting about the new Star Trek Movie that was so funny I had to share. It will give away many plot points, so don't read it until you have watched the movie. By the way, my sweetie is the best in the whole world. He makes me laugh so much my face hurts. Enjoy -- Traci

*******************************************************************************************************
******WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD***DO NOT READ IF YOU PLAN TO SEE THE MOVIE*******
*******************************************************************************************************

Here are my complaints and various things brought up by Traci and Andy as well during rant-associated discussions. Basically, it was miracle of implausibility stacked upon miracle of stupidity. They might as well have had the Easter Bunny and Santa show up as important characters. (OK, it's not as bad as Star Wars Episode I: The Reaming, so that was an exaggeration.)

I hated the boy-Kirk scene. Retarded, and not even needed for plot aspects. (Are there grand canyons in Iowa anyway? -- but that is just a minor annoyance compared to the rest of the scene.) I consider it a swell shout out to all the boy-Anakin scenes in Star Wars.

Kirk's dad a starship captain, in charge at a critical moment while Kirk's mom, also on the ship, is at the exact moment of birth? Cool!

While it worked great in the Venture Brothers for everyone to know each other and be roommates in college, I didn't like it at all in the Trek movie. Kirk meeting Capn Pike and Uhura and the security guards he meets up with later in a bar in Iowa? Kirk meets up with McCoy on the shuttle?

Kirk is screwing Uhura's roommate? Spock is the designer of the Kobayashi Maru sim? Uhura and Spock are lovers while Spock is her instructor? Cool!

Driving through a black hole puts you back in time instead of crushing you (unless you are the matter of the planet or supernova)? Cool!

A mining ship with a dozen miners on it takes out any number of Federation warships as well as the whole planet of Vulcan? Cool!

Lost communication from Vulcan? Well, it's time to put all cadets onto warships, including in all of the command positions (except maybe captain) and head on out. Guess they didn't have any other staff or past classes at the Academy.

Need to make a black hole to gobble a planet? Well, you need to drill down to the center of the planet rather than just plunk it down anywhere on the planet. Also, as we all know, magma is not a liquid, so it's certainly possible to drill through it to the center of a planet instead of just 1% of the way there.

Make sure your mining drill blocks out all communication and transportation within several light hours of the drill, with the effect apparently spreading faster than the speed of light, so that a ship with warp drive can't blip it on for 15 seconds and be outside the effect.

Are you a captain looking to avert destruction of a planet? Here's what you do. You pick three "combat trained" personnel who raise their hands on the bridge instead of a crew of ueber-trained Navy SEAL or Delta-force types (available in quantity on such a fleet ship), and you leave a newbie in charge of the ship and appoint a guy who smuggled himself onto the ship and isn't even part of its crew as the XO and who is going on the suicide mission anyway (instead of, say, someone who is a competent and trained XO). But hey, Pike liked Kirk's old man -- so why not make him XO of the equivalent of a nuclear aircraft carrier in today's Navy?

Make sure to have a whole series of people leave the bridge and finally delegate command of the fleet's flagship to a 17 year old ensign because I guess there's no one else on board.

If you are Captain Spock, when young dick Kirk is causing problems on the bridge, you throw him off the ship intead of into the brig (which is where you'd put even saboteurs and murderers).

When on a new planet and when the computer says it's dangerous, make sure to go traipsing off toward the nearest base without asking why it's dangerous or instead of trying to see if you can contact the base maybe and get a pickup.

In any movie you make, be sure to have a human outrunning bears, wolves, creatures that can run 40 mph, etc. Make sure to put in the larger creature snagging the 1st creature then losing interest in the larger meatier creature it just caught to chase the little scrawny one. Make sure that also the human is outruning the bigger, even-faster creature.

Make sure the big creature gets a hold of the human and, despite the fact that the bigger creature could lift an automobile, have the human's attempts to scrabble at some rocks and the floor slow down the ability of the giant creature's ability to reel him in.

Scare the giant creature off with a torch.

Run into a cave at random and find, not only is old Spock coincidentally on that planet, on the same continent, but in the same freaking cave you just ran into.

Make sure that a supernova can destroy a planet "unthinkably". Let's see. Even we can predict (by a long, long time) when a star can turn into a super nova, but OK -- let's say we totally forgot. If the star is several light years from a planet, it can go super nova, and it will take several years for the effect to reach the planet. If the star is the planet's own star, it will take a couple of minutes (not enough time to do a damned thing). So, it's either over long before you can do anything about it, or you have years to deal with it, know the timing about as exactly as if you were, say, working out a 6th grade story problem: "A train travelling 40 mph goes from Boston to New York. The train leaves Boston at 9 am.
Boston is 200 miles from New York. Assuming that the train has no stops in between, and assuming that Spock wants to arrive in New York before the train, what is the latest that Spock can arrive in New York?" But then the unthinkable happened -- red matter apparently turned Spock into a moron.

Go to the base and find Scotty! Why not? It's cool! (In fact, have everyone from Star Trek right on the bridge of the Enterprise right on its maiden voyage. Dude!)

Now how do you get back to the Enterprise? Well, just use some mumbo jumbo and the holo deck, oops, I mean the transporter to fix it. Invent transportation back onto the Enterprise -- don't worry about not knowing where the Enterprise is. I guess you envison what the ship looks like in your mind, and the transporter knows what to lock onto, or you can pierce some IFF beacon from your fleet's flagship from the shit station on ice world.

Have Spock (legendary for his logic) decide that, when a whole world is at stake and when he knows as many of the pieces to the puzzle as there are to know, he shouldn't go back and take control. He should instead gamble on a chain of envents (each having a substantial probability of failure), gambling on (1) Kirk being able to provoke young Spock into blowing it, (2) Spock getting removed from command, (3) Kirk being allowed to be in command right after that, and (4) Kirk doing the right thing thereafter.

Why? Because young Spock would get some nebulous positive bonding experience out of being humiliated into losing command and having then to work with young Kirk. That's worth the gamble of a planet, I'd say, even though the odds of that chain of events vs. the odds of old Spock just showing up and doing it all are so much lower.

Have young Kirk start insulting the hell out of the captain on the bridge, have it be allowed to proceed, have it work, then have all the other command staff be fine with this guy then saying, "OK! Now *I'm* the captain."

Have a nifty future-technology ship fly around in space like a bumblebee. Too bad it couldn't be making noises like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as it wobbled all over.

Blast your way out of the air-filled interior of the big mining ship apparently without it causing any trouble of inside air escaping.

Chase down your enemies easily inside a city-sized ship without any sort of scanner.

Go in there as a boarding party with a couple of people instead of boarding party of your Navy SEALs.

Have your ship sitting around 500 meters from an enemy vessel that is going to turn into a black hole. Whoop it up while it turns into a black hole and only when there is a problem decide, "Uh, maybe we should get out of here" only to find . . . d'oh, you are too close.

Jettison your warp cores so that the explosion can get you away from a black hole.

Did I leave out any miracle, rediculous implausibility, or juvenile plot twist that would be right at home in the shlockiest, crappiest of SF movies? I think they hit them all.

Here is one bright spot. This apparently all created a new reality, so someone in the future can go back and make a good movie totally different from this one, ignoring dimension Stupid-B.

I think they should have added more humor and called it "Dude, Where's My Star Trek?"

On a positive note, it is not the worst Star Trek movie. I'm just disappointed that they produced such a POS from so much money and acting talent because the plot was so bad.

-- Brooke

Fresh Pasta to Zazz up Leftover Lamb Gravy

Brooke wanted pasta to go with the leftover leg of lamb "gravy" I made while in Whistler. I felt very lazy but the pantry yielded no good looking pasta options. I dug through the fridge and found that I had fresh eggs available, so I decided to drag out the pasta gear and made some fresh egg noodles. I'm very glad I did. Here's the recipe:

Fresh Egg Noodles
(yields 4 servings)

1 cup semolina flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp kosher salt (or 1/2 tsp table salt)
2 eggs
3-4 tbsp water (depending on dough consistency - I don't typically measure this).

INSTRUCTIONS:
I decided to use my standing mixer with the paddle to mix the dough. It made it really simple and the cleanup was easier than the hand made method.

MIXER METHOD: Measure 1 cup of semolina flour and place in mixer. Then add 1 cup all purpose flour. Add salt and mix for for about 20 seconds. Then crack and add eggs directly into the mixer. Drizzle a little water at a time while the mixer is running on medium speed until the dough just comes together. To test if the dough is ready, stop the mixer after the first two tablespoons of water and grab a handful of dough. Squeeze and see if it holds together, if it is still crumbly, then turn mixer back on and add more water, a tablespoon at a time until the mixture holds together. Then let the mixer beat the pasta for about 1 minute and turn out onto the counter.

HAND MADE METHOD: Measure 1 cup of semolina flour, 1 cup of all-purpose flour, into a mound on your clean kitchen countertop or large cutting board. With your hand, make a well in the middle of the flour mixture until it resembles a large volcano. Crack the eggs into a bowl, add 3 tablespoons of water and 1 tsp. kosher salt and beat well. Pour the egg/water mixture into the well. With your fingers begin to incorporate the flour mixture from the walls of the volcano into the well a little at a time until the dough comes together. Slowly push in the walls of the volcano until all of the flour has been mixed with the egg mixture. Add more water a tablespoon at a time if the dough is too tough, if the dough is too sticky, add more all-purpose flour 1 tbsp at a time until the dough is a texture more like play-do. Knead the dough for about 3 minutes, it should be springy and smooth. Let rest for 10 minutes while you get out your pasta machine and attach it to the counter.  

Roll the pasta according to your pasta machine's directions, but this typically starts by setting the machine to the widest setting, then rolling the dough through for several passes while each time folding the dough like a letter and running it through the machine again. You have to do this about 5 or 6 times on the widest setting to knead the dough and make it more elastic. Then crank the setting up to make thinner sheets until you are satisfied with the thickness.  Once you are at your desired thickness, then run the pasta sheets through the fettuccine cutter.  Gather the pasta up and dust with a small amount of flour so the strands don’t stick together.

Once you have prepped all of the pasta, boil in a big pot of salted water.  Drain after 2-3 minutes and serve.  I used my leftover leg of lamb with tomato gravy.  Mmmmmmm. 

It was good and Brooke was a very happy boy indeed.

:-)

Having Fun in Whistler

Hello to you all. Brooke and I are having a great time in Whistler, BC and wish we had more friends up here with us enjoying the fun. We have had a great time playing in the tube park, skiing, and enjoying some excellent dinners with friends. It's snowing right now and I'm hoping that the conditions will be good for tomorrow.

I'm sure you'll be happy to know I have made ample use of the hot tub and heated pool apres the cold day.

I have many more pics and stories to write, but just not today. I am lazy and content.

Ciao for now.

-t

25 Random Things About Me

This posting is a copy of an entry from my Facebook page. Four of my friends made a "25 things" list and tagged me as having to do one as well. It took me a couple of days to write this list, but I think it was worth posting here as well (that and the fact that I haven't made an entry this week). Making the list was especially tough since I have so many friends who are way too clever for their own good and their 25 things lists were marvelous. So without further ado here is my list in no particular (yet seemingly erratic) order.

1. I used to play the oboe, trumpet, viola and saxophone. My times and friends in band are the fondest memories of my childhood and teen years.

2. My grandparents have been married for over 65 years. I was born on their anniversary. They have always been kind and loving to each other, never once raising their voices in anger. I consider them my heroes and my best role model on a great marriage.

3. My partner Brooke and I were together for 10 years before we got married.

4. Every time I had a major move north, there has been a devastating earthquake within 6 months. I will never move to Alaska because of it.

5. The thing I hate most about myself is that I am a horrible procrastinator.

6. Deep down I am either a total pacifist or an axe-wielding Viking berzerker.

7. We always had dogs while I was growing up. When my family lost our house and moved into the crappy ghetto apartment, we had to give our dogs away. It broke my heart and I lost the only souls who would always listen, never judge, and lick my face when I felt bad.

8. I would love to do more nude photography, but am too chicken to ask people to be my models.

9. I love the fact that I am a weirdo, nerd, geek and dork. “Normal” people make me edgy.

10. I have hugged Eddie Palmieri and shaken Stanley Jordan’s magical hand in thanks for the joy their music has given me.

11. I had my picture on the front page of a major newspaper on New Years Day, but I completely forgot about it until my mom showed me the clipping. I have also had my photo in the LA Times.

12. My Mom nicknamed me “SuperBitch” when I was a baby (BTW-I love my mom for this, she is too awesome). She says it was because of the way I would stare down little old ladies who tried disturb me. “What a cute little baybee…oh good heavens.” My brother was the charmer.

13. I think it would be neat to have a time machine, but I wouldn’t use it if you could alter the past.

14. Before I die, I would like to go into space. Orbiting the earth in a space hotel would be good enough for me…and I would like to spend time in zero G.

15. My favorite Sci-Fi TV series I have watched are in this order: Babylon 5, Firefly, Farscape, Star Trek Original, The Prisoner, Star Trek Next Gen. I have not watched Battlestar Galactica yet. I am saving it for 2009.

16. I have way too many ingredients in my pantry, fridge, freezer and spice cupboard. Opening any of the doors may result in food avalanche. You have been warned.

17. I love to cook for friends and family. I consider myself very lucky that others are willing to take time out from their busy schedules to visit me and share my table. I consider this one of life’s greatest pleasures.

18. I love going to Farmer’s Markets and Art Fairs. I would rather spend my money buying local goods direct from the artisan who made or grew them.

19. It never worked out for me to go to college when I was young. I am always nervous that my writing is laden with mistakes in grammar, word choice and syntax. This list is killing me.

20. I wish I understood mathematics and physics in the way that Brooke does. I find the idea that you can describe the universe with math very interesting, but don’t understand how it works.

21. When driving to and from places, I like to take alternate routes, side streets, etc. I have always found the most interesting places this way. I think it is somehow genetic since my Dad does the same thing. In our family it is called “Nerping” as in, “Take the freeway, we don’t have time to go nerping around.”

22. I have always had a really good sense of direction. I am an excellent navigator and know how to properly refold a map.

23. Bubblebaths are the way to go. No ifs ands or buts about it.

24. I’m plagiarizing Julie on this one – “This line reserved for all the things, facts, habits, and goals I’m not willing to post on the internet.”

25. My favorite color is dark green, my favorite ice cream is mint-chip (specifically at 31 flavors), my favorite beer is Mac and Jacks African amber, my favorite sandwich is The Reuben at Zingermann’s Deli in Ann Arbor, MI, my favorite sport to watch is Rally Racing, my favorite sport to play is soccer, my favorite expensive restaurant is Boulevard in San Francisco CA, my favorite cheap lunch place is Meze in Kirkland WA, my favorite hobby is photography, my favorite home-made meal is Honey-Glazed Chipotle Meatloaf with mashed potatoes, my favorite weather has lots of puffy Rene Magritte clouds, my favorite painter is Vincent Van Gogh (especially his later work), my favorite Sci-Fi book is Titan by John Varley, my favorite comic book hero is John Constantine, my favorite sound in the world is Brooke’s whooping laughter.

FIN.