Two Zero One Three Out

DeeAnn, Jasper, Tye, and I hope you're all enjoying your winter holidays! Here's the news from Apartment de Snout, where the women are strong, the men are still writing, and all the cats are above average:

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Christmas Greetings

Below please find our traditional year-end family newsletter, which hopefully does not inspire in you the depths of revulsion described by Garfunkel and Oates:


http://vimeo.com/8192170

You are, of course, free to not read it. We'll never know! But seriously, somebody really needs to adopt Lady Grey.



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Happy Boxing Day!

And here's all the news from Apartment de Snout, where the women use PCs, the men use both PCs and Macs, and the cats run Linux in Beowulf clusters.


[ Download PDF - 277 KB ]

   

Have a Holly Jolly Newsletter

[ Download PDF - 444 KB ]

   

I Have a Secret Admirer, Too!

CKL isn't the only special one around here. When we came home yesterday, there was a UPS package addressed to me on our doorstep.

Inside, we found this:



Inside that, were these:



They are delicious.

Thank you, Secret Admirer!

Postcard #42

A very pleasant surprise from my lovely wife DeeAnn, who was pretty sneaky during our visit to the Maryhill Museum of Art a few weeks ago. I love her more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow.

Kickboxing Baby

Earlier today, at dim sum with my sister's eight-month-old daughter:

That's my dad holding Kara while she tries to decide which of the strange new adults (Aunt DeeAnn or Uncle Curtis) she wants to get away from more.

 

Roasted Vegetables

Wow. Has it ever been a long time since I posted a blog entry. This one's a doozy, so brace yourselves. I probably wouldn't be posting now, except that I believe Jeffrey needs a little guidance on how to roast some satisfying and tasty veggies.

Actually, I believe that everyone needs some roast veggies in their cooking repertoire. They are just too versatile: eat them hot, room temperature, or cold; they're a complete dish on their own and make a great supporting player in soups, salads, omelettes, pasta, rice, polenta, hash... and whole lot of other dishes.

This is how I make Roasted Vegetables.

First, gather some supplies. I use

• a cutting board & knife
• a big baking sheeting & stirring implement
• three or more types of veggies
• salt, pepper, oil and something sour.
  

In this case, the veggie role is played by potatoes/onions/red peppers/carrots and the oil/sour role is played by some salad dressing I wanted to use up.
Cut everything up. I like relatively firm potatoes so I cut them larger than everything else. I only used one onion (they were huge) and I stole half of one red pepper to use in chili.

This step is optional, but I like to see how pretty the veggies look together, so I mixed them up.

Pour on the oil/sour mix. I usually use equal parts of oil and a vinegar (or lemon juice), but salad dressing works just fine, too.

Mix well. The veggies need to be thoroughly coated*. The oil coating helps conduct the heat; in effect frying the food in the pan. A few puddles on the bottom of the pan is okay, but the vegetables should not be taking a bath in salad dressing.

Salt & pepper the bejeezus out of the veggies, shake the pan to get a more-or-less single layer, and the veggies are all set for the oven!

Turn the oven to whatever setting gives a temperature of about 450 degrees Fahrenheit. No need to be terribly precise here. Less heat + More time = More heat + Less time (more or less; although the latter will char the edges of the vegetables more.)

This is what the vegetables looked like after 20 minutes. The temperature in my oven is 425 degrees.


This is what the vegetables looked like after another 20 minutes (40 minutes total), and a quick stir to expose a different side of the vegetables to the dry oven air. The temperature in my oven is 475 degrees.

This is what the vegetables looked like after a final 20 minutes (60 minutes total). The temperature in my oven is 450 degrees. I test a potato and declare the dish done.

Sometimes I cook my veggies until the onions are all but black--yummy--but this isn't one of those days. The vegetables are still good: moist and withered, with some tasty crusty** bits along the edges.

I forgot to take a picture of what the veggies looked like on the plate, so you'll just have to imagine that. Sorry! Here's the finished dish:

But, trust me, they are good.



* Vegetables will roast just fine with lot less oil. Just make sure that they are well-coated. I've had a lot of success with a 3/4-full gallon-sized zip top bag with a tablespoon of olive oil and two tablespoons of vinegar or lemon juice. When doing this, it's usually a good idea to grease the bottom of the pan with to help with cleanup.

**Yes, the pan is crusty, too. It seems like cleanup should be intimidating, but it really isn't. Just put water in the warm pan and soak it overnight. A quick pass with the scrubber sponge and the pan'll be ready for the dishwasher.

Happy Boxing Day

Friends and family: If you did not receive a holiday card from us, please accept our profuse apologies for the oversight. Our contact list may be out of date. Send us your home mailing address and we'll make sure you're included next year.

Meanwhile, everyone and their dog can read our exciting 2009 family newsletter (below).



[Download PDF - 306 KB]

SnoutCast #2: Old People

Not only do we talk about old people, DeeAnn and I also talk like old people in this podcast. It's a performance. Like improv! As far as you know.


[ Download mp3 - 53MB ]

00:00 - "Old People" GC prototype (Sean & Crissy)
04:23 - discussion of same
10:55 - the origin of "we're not having fun anymore"
12:13 - getting back to the prototype...
17:39 - inside baseball and randompodcast.com
19:10 - following up on the 10,000 hour rule from Outliers
20:55 - asshats and gaywads (as seen on Daily Show & Colbert Report)
23:30 - we are not experts; doing the math
31:09 - DASH 2 and trying new things
44:23 - "Old People" Clue recorded live (Sean & Lisa and coed astronomy)
56:23 - The End

You can also hear Jasper-cat yelling in the background every now and then.

Music: instrumentals from "Code Monkey," "A Talk with George," "Mandelbrot Set," and "First of May" by Jonathan Coulton

SnoutCast #1: ZombiePortLand

After writing one "GC Musings" blog post in September, it occurred to me that any such discussions should include my lovely wife DeeAnn, who's been an integral part of every Snout Game. She handles the budget, most of the logistics, and many other planning aspects.

As the latest of our various experiments, she has grudgingly agreed to join me in an irregular podcast about games (note lowercase "g"--we will definitely talk about puzzle hunts, but we reserve the right to digress).

Here's the first episode. It's pretty rough, but either we'll get better, or we'll stop:


[ Download mp3 ]

Oh, yeah, it's also 53 freakin' minutes long. Show notes below so you can skip all the boring stuff.

00:50 - We start with the profanity right away.
04:42 - Left 4 Dead 2 (buy from Amazon)
15:35 - Curtis' talk at Ignite Portland 7 (video and slides)
26:39 - Recap of Shinteki Field Trip: Disneyland
50:21 - Happy Thanksgiving! The end.

Music: instrumentals from "Code Monkey," "Baby Got Back," and "Re: Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton

P.S. If you'd like to join our zombie-killing party sometime, we're sparCKL and SoleChen on Xbox Live.