Today was a generally excellent day. While I managed to put a shocking
80 km on my car, it was all to good causes. Got some good pictures
taken while up in the northwest, then it was off into the south to pick
up Teh English Moofin (tm) at Chinook.

While down there, I engaged in a bit of righteous indignation. As I'd
previously posted, I was
going to pick up a kitchen torch today from Williams-Sonoma. The $40
price was pretty good. And what should I discover at the store? It's
$67. Now I'm not at all above spending some coin on things I want and
will use, but that's just too big a discrepancy in price. So I walked
up to the counter and asked them if they could look up the price on it.

$67.

"But," says I,"it's only $40 on your website."

"Ah," says she,"that's the American price."

...

Uh guys? The dollars been virtually par for over a year. Even Chapters
has brought their prices down as a result.

And I said as much to her, and told her it would be cheaper for me to
buy through the site and have it shipped than purchase it locally from
their store.

Hopefully she'll deign to pass that on to the store manager/owner.

So after picking up Teh English Moofin (tm) we headed north again, this
time to the Sears outlet. And what should I find in the attached outlet
mall, but a kitchen torch for $20. SOLD.

I are now the proud owner, and it works great.

After that was a quick run back home to drop the girls off after they'd
pillaged to their hearts content, and then into Kensington for a quick
espresso with Joel and gifted-spirit. From
there it was off to an impromptu dinner with those two notables and
nearly indefatigable madeileen. Some corn on
the cob, potato salad and tasty burgers were the order of the evening,
along with a whole lot of just relaxing and chatting on their deck. I
love hanging with these guys. It's always fun, and that deck is just
made for relaxing. Good times.

And now of course, it's o'late thirty at night, and it's time to spam
all of you with the shenanigans and goings on, along with the
photographic efforts.

Hope everyone else had a great day as well!

Crypto, gettin his chill on.




Chinsu going old school with a feather hat, heh.

Had some spare moments strung together while I was out in the deep deep
deep northwest of Calgary, and took some pictures I'm really happy with.

And in a distinct departure from previous photostreams, I actually went
through these and tossed the ones I wasn't happy with. I suspect I
could weed these down a *bit* more, but not a lot. I think getting it
down to 48 was pretty good though!

These are two I'm particularly happy with, but there are some other
really good shots I think are worth checking out :)

Ya know, it's srsly damned toasty here in Calgary right now.

Dammit, I want to be able to buy my cooking pots like my knives. One at a time, and for the intended purpose!

I got the vast majority of my grocery shopping yesterday, but managed to miss a few key ingredients somehow when I was copying out of the cookbook. So a bit more running about today.

Also probably making a quick stop to William-Sonoma for a small kitchen
torch that I can them abuse tomatoes and creme brulee with :) I was honestly surprised to see it was a mere $40. Considering the price point at that store, I fully expected more so it was a pleasant
surprise.

Also planning on hitting the Latin Festival to meet up with some friends this afternoon around 2:30pm-ish or so. Probably wander around, sample stuff and take pictures.

My morning thus far has gotten off to a wonderfully relaxed pace. Woke up and read and lazed. Made a fresh tasty pot of coffee in the Chemex with the Columbia La Alondra. And of course, I immediately noticed that I had not yet adjusted the grind *right* after I ground it. Gonna knock it down to a finer grind either later today or for tomorrows coffee adventure. It's damned tasty currently, but I know a finer grind will get me even better results. The last 3 pots have been ground at a 32 on the Virtuoso which is appropriate for a french press but a bit on the large side for a filter.

Also gave some loving attention to my growing herb jungle. Topped up the pots with some miracle-gro, and gave them a healthy spritzing to settle it in.

Anyhoo, it's probably time I get out of this robe and actually officially start the day :) Off for the shower and clothes. And maybe more coffee *grin*

As previously noted, I
picked up a Chemex recently. I've now made two pots of coffee with it,
and I'm officially impressed.

All the flavour, and possibly more. It's a cleaner cup of coffee
because of the specific filters, and I'm enjoying the hell out of each
cup.

Good stuff!

I've picked out some recipes from The Food of France and snagged the majority of the ingredients today from the Farmer's Market.

I'm going to be trying my hand at a blue cheese souffle, petits farcis,
and a potato & leek soup. As the soup is for 6, I think I'll try it as
both a hot soup and a chilled one to see how that works. I suspect the
petits farcis and the souffle are going to be the biggest challenges,
the souffle in particular what with having never made one. Fortunately
I have a friend with souffle dishes I can borrow to prepare it, so if I
get it horribly horribly wrong, I'll only be a little invested ;)

Picked up yet more fresh herbs for the balcony garden - cilantro, silver
thyme, rosemary, fernleaf dill, and a red basil. Also picked up a good
tip for my basil. I thought I just had to pinch off flowers and leaves
to get it to bush out. Apparently the *correct* method is to actually
cut the stem itself when collecting leaves. So basically collecting
from the ends of the various stems, and cutting down near the top of the
next set of leaves.

Nothing like fearlessly acknowledging ones ignorance to gain
knowledge!

I hadn't posted anything yet, and a number of my friends already know
but it's about time I make a more official announcement. Since it's a
bit of a drive to das mountains, the internet will serve as an effective
substitute.

Kim and I are giving things another shot. It's been a few weeks since
the decision was made, and while there haven't been any tectonic changes
to speak of, I think we'll be ok.

So a big thanks to everyone who was there for each of us. It's good to
have friends.

Nothing like a French cookbook to highlight the shortcomings of ones kitchen.

Damn screw in the tire. Now to waste time waiting on a new one *waits*

I am *definitely* tuning in for this one. I'm also very happy that BlackHat has put these webcasts together. I was in on their inaugural launch, and it promises to be a pretty decent resource.

It's all over the news: Dan Kaminsky found a major, fundamental flaw in DNS that renders practically any name server vulnerable. He'll be speaking in depth on this discovery in August at BH USA, but he's agreed to discuss it a few weeks early. Get your best questions ready - the webcast will be live Thursday, July 24 at 1pm PT/4pm ET.

Join Dan Kaminsky, director of penetration testing for IOactive; Jerry Dixon, former director of the National Cyber Security Division at DHS; and other experts to discuss the largest synchronized security update in the history of the Internet. Dan will tell the story behind the discovery, and the process of creating and deploying the fix.

Reserve your place by registering now at http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=114268&s=1&k=638307695FF31ED953EF9EC0DF969C02

I've seen a lot of outraged commentary about this video... and I'm confused as to why there is any outrage at all. Yeah, the kid is 15. So? I was a bit of a troublemaker at 15, and I can assure you I had less friendly questionings than what this kid went through, and that was on Canadian soil. This is probably the politest interrogation in the history of EVAR.

I suspect if these interrogators had been American rather than CSIS agents, we'd be seeing a much more frightening video.

Unbreakable fighting umbrella!

I want one.

Some video of the sheet lightening fun we had the last night of Stampede. This was taken just outside Inglewood, down near the 9th Avenue bridge and right next to the train tracks. Which will be obvious as soon as you click play ;)

It's a frickin conspiracy
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While I haven't yet had a chance to use it yet, I picked up a Chemex
coffeemaker this weekend. Specifically, the CM-3.



I plan on measuring out the actual amount of water for it tonight so I
can nail down the exact bean weight and enjoy a cup or three tomorrow
morning :)

Added a few more herbs to the balcony today as well. Some French
tarragon, English mint and some chives. Hopefully they'll survive the
transplant to larger and nicer pots. I'll be keeping a seriously close
eye on them over the next couple weeks and giving them some quality
attention.

In other self spoiling news, I snagged some new soaps from the Farmer's
Market. Some truly nifty ones in there, like summer lemonade. It
smells GOOD. The Birch/Mint one as well, and also the Moor mud.

While I've been a bit off the radar lately, rest assured I'm alive and
well ;) I've barely even been checking facebook of late, although my
plurk addiction continues apace.

Tonight was an evening for experimentation in the kitchen, and dinner
itself was quite good.

Marinated an organic chicken breast in olive oil, cracked pepper,
blueberries, some basil, and a blackberry vinaigrette. Seared the whole
mess in a frying pan, then made a reduction.

That was served with a four cheese tortellini tossed in a slightly
spiced olive oil.

Fairly simple, and *really* good. I'll be keeping this one.

Also experimenting with sweet potato fries. This is definitely a bit of
a work in progress. I clearly have to learn myself the mandolin skills.
Yikes. Used half of a very unevenly cut sweet potato, tossed it in some
olive oil and sprinkled with cinnamon, hot chilies and some 'mexican
seasoning', then baked for 17 minutes. Kim didn't hate them, but I'm
pretty sure I can do better.

This next batch is going to be boiled for 10 minutes first, then run
through the mandolin. We'll see if that makes cutting them easier for a
more even result.

..and not so much. Apparently 10 minutes was too much. I think the
next round (not tonight!) will be only 6 minutes.

Good god, smells like someone died in our elevators!
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