Page 24 of 51

Me and My Bike

July 14, 2008 / Jim

I got a note a few months ago from someone who saw my Oakland, California skyline photo and wanted to use it on a website for bicycle advocacy (http://walkoaklandbikeoakland.org/). They were so polite, how could I say no? Besides, I was flattered.

It was taken in February 1996 overlooking Lake Merritt from the upper balcony of 407 Wayne Ave. Now that I’ve checked out their website, I’m inspired to put in my two cents advocating bicycling. I’ve been commuting and running errands on my bicycle for 24 years or so.

I know it’s an old story, the story of me and my bike, but it bears mentioning again. While I could say that I’m being eco-friendly, I really just love getting out in the morning on my bike. Here are some tips for staying in shape, helping the environment, and saving some money.

Get yourself a nice comfortable cheap city commute bike. You can pick up some great end of the season deals right now for as little as $350 (http://performancebike.com. Or check out your local bike shop). That’s a nice entry level bike with all the fixin’s. The key is to not get sucked into the "high end." High end is just a synonym for light and expensive. A lot of times the cheaper componant, wheel-set, shifter, brake, etc, is much stronger and more durable. It just weighs more. This is not a problem however, because we don’t care about a few grams of extra weight, as we are not Olympic class racers. Besides, if you want your bike to weigh less, it’s probably a better idea to drop some pounds yourself first, huh? So buy cheap and tough, not expensive and light. Got it?
As I’ve said before, I have some Rob Beckman bags and a Bruce Gordon rack (great stuff – both) that mount on the back of my bicycle. They’ve served me well for at least 10 years and make grocery shopping a breeze. I head out every morning for a short but hilly ride that takes 40 minutes. On my way home, I stop at a local grocery store and buy the days’ items. There are six of us – two parents and four kids – and I’m able to accomplish nearly all the grocery shopping by doing it daily on my bike. There’s a lot of satisfacion in that, let me tell you.
The last point is of course the gas savings angle. I’ve estimated that I save maybe $6/week in gas doing this (10 miles at 20 mpg 3 times a week with $4/gal – I wouldn’t head out every day if I was driving). With the prices of gas as high as they are, the monetary gains start to actually impact. Think about it for a second; that’s $312 a year in gas savings. That’s the purchase price of a nice Trek or Giant aluminum bike, and it pays for itself in the first year AND you can pocket your gym membership. You’re getting a great aerobic low impact workout for free. How many more reasons do you need to get on a bicycle for your daily errands? Commute to work? Commute to store? Fun on weekends? Win! Win! and Win!
Last point: ignore the little bike shop snobs with their shaved legs and snotty attitudes. They don’t truly love what they do. True love doesn’t judge, it says, "Cool, let’s go for a ride."

HDR Photo Forays

July 10, 2008 / Jim

I’ve been messing around with Qtpfsgui, a High Dynamic Range (HDR) photo tool for Linux, Mac, and Windows. There are number of processes that one can invoke to increase the dynamic range of photos from RAW captures or multiple tripod exposures, but first, an example.

This was taken at dusk at a hotel pool in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico. Very scary sky.

The basic concept is that your camera can’t really capture a bright sky with a dark landscape. Set the exposure for your land, and the sky is washed out. Lower your exposure for the sky, and the land comes out too dark. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could combine the two and fudge the photo to look more like your eye sees it? The best way is with a tripod and multiple exposures with different settings, but I’m lazy and I want results NOW.

If you’re shooting RAW in your digital camera, you can capture a little bit more dynamic range than what you see when you export it to a jpg. Try using an HDR tool to pull out a little more dynamic range or, in my case, heavily process it to give you that funky black velvet painting effect. Meh, whatever floats your boat. A lot of people seem to like these images. ‘Course people seem to loathe them too.

The original photo looks like this:

It’s a nice photo, but the first one is quite dramatic, no?

Here’s another dramatic shot of the Mississippi and Missouri River confluence, shot on a cold day in December from the Missouri side.

May You Live in Interesting Times

July 3, 2008 / Jim

Me: I just thought of something. Where did the word guapo come from? Do you think it’s a word from indigenous peoples in the Caribbean?

I was noticing that the gua (Gooah) diphthong sound is associated with the language of the Taino peoples of the Caribbean. A good many of these words, guanábana (fruit), Guánica, Guaynabo, (places), guayaba (another fruit – guava), etc, are all indigenous and you can see their origins from the gua sound.

Me: So I am wondering about the word guapo (Spanish for handsome). Could that word have come from the New World? And if so, why would the Spanish people have needed to appropriate it? Wouldn’t it have already existed in their language?

My error is a basic one, as I was to soon find out, but enlightenment is surely a blessing and one of the many benefits of being married to a smart cookie.

Laura: Interesting track of thought, I mean train, or whatever, but remember, "gua" frequently occurs in Spanish in words that are borrowed through commerce and contact that have a "w" sound in the original language. Remember "waffle?" In the Basque Country they called it gofres. Ok, it did not go to GUA but it went to the gutteral "g". Perhaps a better example is the Spanish translation for "wow" is guao or "William" which is Guillermo. Perhaps the Taino people’s spoken word for the town of Guaynabo, was Whai-NA-bo, and the fruit guanábana was Whai-NA-bah-na.

Laura: I don’t know for sure, but some time ago I looked up Taino grammar and vocabulary and I found out that "gua" was a common article like "the", "this," "that." This results in phrases, rather than words being translated or transformed into current taíno words we know today. I think in my research I was able to come up with towns that were descriptive phrases "the settlement by the water," "the area by the big tree." Who knows if the name was an actual taíno name or a common way of referring to an area that became Spanish shorthand for a place and hence a name we know today.

Laura: However, in my limited knowledge of taíno words I can’t say they use a strong consonant sound such as "p." So I would be inclined to say that guapo is NOT of taíno origin. But then where did it come from?

Backyard Camping with the Niños

June 21, 2008 / Jim

We purchased a tent the other day in anticipation of our great camping trip to the island of Vieques for the 4th of July. Being a new tent, I set it up in the backyard as a test. I thought it would be fun to spend the night out there with the kids in a backyard camp out. I started the evening off with a nice meal cooked in my little hibachi; pureed carrots, pork chops, and Laura’s leftover rice dish. Oh boy was it good. Then we piled into our tent.

Note the carrots still lingering in the corners of Javier’s mouth.

The tent is so huge that there are actually spaces to explore inside. We bought an add-on that has a portable shower and changing room. This monstrosity sleeps 10 adults.

Asier is getting more guapo every day.

The theory was sound, but at precisely 7pm, the wind died and I spent the night in a sauna. I hardly slept a wink from the heat, but the kids were out cold… well except for Javier who cried so much we put him in his bed… and Asier who wanted his bed too. Sigh, so in the end, it was just Jaimito, Olaia, and myself.

I think it’ll be much better though when we set this up on the beach in Vieques. There’s always a sea breeze.

I Deserve a Prize

June 18, 2008 / Jim

Jaimito: Daddy, Mommy said I deserve a prize.

Me: Oh really, Jaimito. Why?

Jaimito: Because I picked up.

Me: Oh great, thanks. I picked up too. What do I get?

Jaimito: I don’t know. Ask Mommy.

Sledding in the Tropics

June 12, 2008 / Jim

Growing up, I always looked forward to winter, the snowball fights, fort building, and the sledding. I miss it, but we’ve attempted to recreate a little bit of that fun here in the tropics.

Javier flying down the hill

We call it sledding criollo style. Grab yourself a piece of cardboard, find a nice grassy hill, and away you go. No cold weather gear required. As usual, Javier had the most daredevil bad ideas, but everybody had fun.

Even Asier got into the action.

From Puerto Rico: I Cast My One and Only Vote for Barack Obama

June 1, 2008 / Jim

I don’t think it will make much difference, as Hillary Clinton was heavily favored on the island today. But I considered it an honor to have contributed something to a candidate that I think will transform the US Federal Government into an instrument of the people once again.

Why can’t I vote for him in the general election this fall? It’s stupid, but it’s a Congressional thing. Protectorates are legal gray area… kinda
like DC, but not. We are US Citizens,
technically live in the US, …but NOT. It makes no sense. I could vote if I lived in Europe, but not in Puerto Rico. Yet, if I am born in Puerto Rico, I am a US citizen. I’ll leave you to ponder that.

But first, a short chat with Laura from last night.

"Hey did you see that Barack Obama is resigning his church?" I remarked.

"He did? Wow, I bet black voters aren’t going to be happy about that."

"I don’t know," I said, "I think that they understand he’s doing what he has to do. He’s quiet, he’s not angry, he’s dealing with all this with maturity and grace. It’s probably necessary in order for this whole issue to go away. It’s the mature thing to do. It’s like he has to kowtow to whitey, put his head down and endure indignities in order to achieve the prize of lasting change. Up to now things aren’t so different than they were in the days of slavery. Am I making any sense?"

"Yes," she said becoming animated. "It’s like Jackie Robinson integrating baseball. He had to put up with all kinds of nasty behavior, but he let it roll off. He didn’t fight back, he just quietly went about playing baseball as best he could. He made his "blackness" a non-issue."

"Wow, that’s a great point, so here we are in the 21st century looking at beginnings of a painful integration of US politics. How Barack handles it will set the tone for the future for good or bad." I cracked a grin at the irony of it all. Here’s a man trying to elevate the debate; there’s no blackness or whiteness but justice, honor, and integrity. And all anybody wants to do is to portray him and his "posse" as a bunch of radical angry black militants, and barring that, that he’s a closet Muslim. They’re so desperate to character assassinate him, they even dig up a crackpot white Catholic priest and trot him out on youtube.

I sighed. For now, mainstream America is still scared of the angry black man. They see an animated, angry preacher who happens to be black and it scares them. It’s an old and upsetting dynamic; the politics of fear, same ol’ same ol’. It disgusts both Laura and me. I hope it disgusts you too.

We voted for change today. Please, America, let’s elevate the dialog.

What Has Been Going on Around Here?

May 19, 2008 / Jim

*Crickets chirping*

Been busy, you know, with work – unrewarding, brain-dead, unfun work. I think, and most people have probably noticed for themselves, when one is not fully satisfied with what one is doing, the creative juices don’t flow anywhere. You blame it on being busy, but really, when you’re busy and fulfilled, you seem to have boundless energy for new projects and creative endeavors.

Lately, I’ve been swamped with making websites, programming web-apps, and sys-admin work.

Sigh, but I’m so fed up with making websites… I think I want to take a
sabbatical and run a rickshaw service someplace for a year – get paid a
little bit to run tourists around, get some exercise, and get some
perspective. This computer stuff is really really getting on my nerves. Sometimes I wish the Internet never existed – ssh, don’t tell anyone.

There is some good news, though. This website now runs on a Quad Core 64bit monster machine… well, not really a monster, but better than before. It’s got 8 gigs of RAM, 64 bits, and 4 cores – all in an economical package.

What I really want is dual quad cores on 45nm transistors, with 32 gigs of RAM. That’d be a smokin’ server.

Oh, you know what did make me feel a little bit better a while back? Actually, I hadn’t realized the funk I was in and why, until Barack Obama won the North Carolina Primary and virtually tied in Indiana. I exhaled. Finally. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding all that anxiety. Now, if America doesn’t make another stupid decision in November, I think our long national nightmare can come to a close and we can begin to clean up this mess.

It’s not that I’m looking for a savior. I hope America isn’t looking for someone to be the strong man, lead us to the promised land, and make decisions for our poor widdle overtaxed heads. What we need is to get this monkey off our back, a monkey with the initials George W. Bush… not that I like to name names or anything.

What else? Cooking? Here’s what I’ve been working on recently:

Home grown wild yeast starter

Consists of equal parts flour and water. Let sit out until it smells like beer.
really, that’s it.
Okay, so I had to take a page from Belgian beer brewers and encourage flies and bugs to fall into the mixture. It seems that they carry yeast on their legs to help the fermentation process along. Anyway, after a couple of weeks of dividing and refreshing the starter, it really takes on a good beer-like smell and begins to make decent bread. You have to make bread more frequently than I do for it to get really good, but that’s another story.

Mayonnaise

one clove of garlic
Puerto Rican spices (adobo – a mixture of salt, pepper (black and white), garlic and a bunch of other stuff I’m too lazy to read off the ingredients.
1 cup blended olive oil (extra virgin has too much taste. You want something more innocuous)
1 fresh farm egg
1 tbsp of lemon juice or vinegar
Use an immersion blender to emulsify the product into a mayonnaise consistency.
*Optional: I also blend in two tablespoons of non-fat yogurt. It smooths out the taste and cuts the calories a bit.

Chicago style pizza dough (using said wild yeast)

I totally guesstimate the dough, but here’s the rough procedure.

1 cup of warm water
2 packets of quick acting yeast or 1 cup of wild yeast starter if you’re me.
1 cup of corn meal
1 cup of wheat flour (or stone ground wheat or some other blend that you like)
And enough high gluten bread flour until you get dough. You do know what pizza dough should look like right?
1/4 cup of olive oil
I knead the bread (by hand) until it begins to take on a springy elastic like quality. You can just tell. Fold and press, fold and press, fold and press. You’ll be able to tell in about 10 minutes of kneading when it’s ready.
Next you need to let it rise. If you’ve taken the instant yeast route, you’ll have 40 minutes or so to wait before topping and cooking. If you’ve used wild yeast, be prepared to wait most of the afternoon. I typically start in the morning.
Top with your personal pizza sauce recipe (I’ll share at some other time), some sort of meat (Italian sausage?), mushrooms, onions, peppers, cheese etc. and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or so. The top of the cheese should get a hint of gold browning. If you oiled the pizza pan with olive oil or shortening, your crust will be nice and crisp. I love that!

Pancakes

1 3/4 cups of milk (low fat or no fat)
2 heaping tbsp of non-fat yogurt
2 large eggs
3 tbsp of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup corn meal
1 cup wheat flour
and enough cups of regular all purpose flour until the batter is… I don’t know… pancake like… you know what pancake batter is supposed to look like, no?
After you’ve heated up the griddle, add 1/4 cup of vinegar to the mixture. It will foam up increasing the volume a bit so make sure you didn’t use too small of a bowl. Your pancake batter will now be light and fluffy.
*Optional: you can add fruit to this too. I like two grated apples and cinnamon or strawberries and bananas. Top with whipped cream and maple syrup. Yum!

Hey, this turned out to be a pretty long post, huh? I guess my creative juices actually have been flowing.

Popcorn Bowl

April 29, 2008 / Jim

This Christmas, my nephew and his mommy (my sister-in-law) made me the most awesome gift. Check this out, folks:

That is one fine hand-made high quality popcorn receptacle for the containing and the despensing of delicious salty, buttery popped corn. The name carefully lettered on the side is to assure destruction to all who dare touch it.

Only the problem was that I couldn’t get it on the plane, so they had to ship to Puerto Rico. When it finally arrived, we sat down with the kids and said to them that under no circumstances are they to touch the bowl.

This is my pop-corn bowl. No touchie, under pain of death.

Aw, who am I kidding, you should see how the kids react when I make popcorn.

“Daddy,” exclaim the niños, eyes as big as dinner plates, “can we use the ‘Popcorn Bowl’?” It’s like the highlander of popcorn bowls; there can be only one.

Does it makes the popcorn taste better or something. After careful consideration (i.e. eating popcorn) I think it does. It makes popcorn an experience.

Check out those cool little popcorn kernels painted in there. Those are the little fingers of my cute little nephew and his mommy. I am impressed, and it goes to show me that a 4 year old and his mother can outstrip Chinese manufacturing any day.

That is quality “Made in America.”

Epic Happenings in the Primate House

April 5, 2008 / Jim

We have some milestones over here in the O’Malley Gorbea monkeysphere. All the little monkeys are beginning to pull more of their own weight, contributing a fair share to our little settlement here in Puerto Rico.

So here they are, documented by me, your resident big monkey participant observer. All dates are in ISO 8601 format unless otherwise noted. *chuckle*

Jaimito learned to ride his bike yesterday, 2008-04-04, at approximately 5:30 pm on a sunny afternoon. There was a break in the week of rain, the clouds parted, and a clear beautiful cool breezy day ensued. Jaimito took full advantage pedaling all the way from the little hill to the little tree. I’ll get some video of it today and post it.

Javier is potty trained. He’s such a big boy now. Yeay! He decided he no longer wanted to wear a diaper – ever – starting in earnest on 2008-04-01. Yes, that’s right, April Fool’s Day, but this was no joke. Javier was dead serious. He’d flirted with potty training for the better part of a month, but it was the Spider-man underwear that finally got him to go all in, declaring, “I’m Spider-man. I’m the black Spider-man!”

He’s also taken a large step in his language skills. He feels more confident expressing himself and we’re beginning to see more of his sweet personality. His favorite thing recently is throwing his arms around us and declaring, “I love you, Daddy/Mommy/Olaia/Jaimito/Asier.”

I’m potty trained too, but then I guess you could have guessed that. Laura loves this picture. *wink*

Asier can walk. Here’s a video. He just up and decided it one day, 2008-03-13 at precisely 15:17 (that’s because the video has a datestamp, hehe). His brothers and sister were prodding him, standing him up and encouraging him. Soon he was away with his chubby rolly poley butt. See for yourself.

El Gringoqueño