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My Second Recipe

2012-01-22T05:50:00.000-08:00

I've been making my own black bean dip for a few years and finally got around to writing it down. I think it's much tastier than store-bought bean dips, less salty, spicier, and much healthier. It's in the Recipes section and linked below for convenience. Let me know what you think.

Craig's Black Bean Dip Recipe (49KB)

Workbench Addition

2012-01-10T16:26:00.000-08:00

A couple days ago I decided I wanted to run power to my workbench so I got an old 15A extension cord and plugged it into the ceiling outlet (e.g. for garage door opener) and held it against the beam running along the ceiling with RG-6 cable clips. I ran it down to my workbench and mounted the duplex outlet box to the leftmost leg. I then drilled through the back of the leg, ran the wiring in, wired the outlet and mounted everything. Then I went back and cut the power cable where it leaves the wall and goes to the workbench, added a female hospital plug to one end and a male to the other so I could disconnect the workbench to move it without having to go to the ceiling to unplug the cord. Looks nice and works great. I like it.

Craig's M1A1 Workbench Build Plans

2012-01-02T06:25:00.000-08:00

I built my workbench a couple weeks ago and finally finished my build plans to share with everyone. The workbench cost about $120 to make and is build like a tank (thus the title "M1A1"). Feel free to distribute the plans but please credit or cite me. I have provide the Google Sketchup file but I need to clean it up a bit to make it easier to digest. Enjoy!

Craig's M1A1 Workbench Build Plans (325KB)

Finished reading Bible (for first time)

2011-12-29T11:20:00.000-08:00

I am happy to post that I finished reading the entire Bible today. I finished three days earlier than planned so I could beat Min-Ah who was also reading.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-22T16:54:00.000-08:00

With the non-stop anti Christian barrage we've been enduring the last few years, let's go out of our way to say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Hanukkah" to each other. Our beliefs are what makes America strong and if they take that from us what's next? Show everyone this time of year isn't about gifts but about being kind and appreciating whatever we have. Merry Christmas!

Tira the Cave Dog

2011-12-03T11:03:00.000-08:00

A few days ago we got Tira a "Gigantic Smoked Bone." Here's a picture of her with it...we didn't see her for a few hours as she gobbled it and rolled on it. Check out this and other photos of her in Tira's Photo Gallery.

The Nutcracker

2011-11-30T15:35:00.000-08:00

This year we're finally going to go see The Nutcracker. We got a deal where I get in for free and Min-Ah gets 20% off so we couldn't resist. Plus it's only a few minutes from home. Should be a good time...

Tira the Hunter

2011-11-17T14:29:00.000-08:00

Tira caught another bird. Here's the new tally:

            Birds       Bugs       Gophers       Lizards       Moles       Squirrels       Skunks     
          11       Lots       3       1       2       6       1

Squirrel!

2011-10-12T16:20:00.000-07:00

A month ago I built a squirrel feeder that used a one gallon pickle jar to hold the squirrel food (I use unsalted roasted peanuts). We had no squirrels at all the first month then a couple days ago we had our first squirrel. Tira loves squirrels and she just camps in the backyard, rain or shine, and watches for it to return. She'll be in the yard for hours on end, will forget about dinner, and runs around like a crazy girl. This is the best "diet" plan we've found and hope she likes it...

Squirrel feeder plans (774KB)

Tira Tried to Trick Us

2011-04-02T04:40:00.000-07:00

Every morning we go through the same routine: we wake up, Tira gets excited, runs downstairs, and waits by the door to go outside. Then she runs out, pees, and runs back in to eat. Recently I noticed she pees really fast so I watched her run fast as she can to the deck stairs, pause, then run back inside. She thought she could fake us out, make us think she peed, then eat her breakfast even sooner. I caught her do that a few mornings in a row so pointed to the yard and told her to go potty, she did, and that fixed that. I wonder what other things she's figured out how she's tricking us...

Reading the Bible (finally, eh?)

2011-02-20T17:00:00.000-08:00

A couple days ago I started a 365 day Bible reading plan using YouVersion's free site. I had been skimming some sections on my iPod Touch using their great Bible program (and all the free translations).

Who Taught Tira That

2010-08-30T16:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was in the backyard with Tira when I noticed a leaf bug on the screen on our deck. It was about five feet up. I called Tira over to show her the new bug and when she saw it she put her front feet up on the railing and swatted the screen twice gently with her paw to get the bug to move. When she did it took off and fly into the yard where she went off to chase it.

She just thought of doing that all by herself. She does little things like that all the time. Another example is when she was little we taught her to go potty in the yard. When she grew up a bit she had to go potty but we weren't paying attention so she rustled the vertical blinds by the back door and looked at us. We'd let her out but she figured that out by herself. She does that all the time now so we don't have to worry about her but recently she'd sometimes rattle the blinds then go to her food bag to try to get a snack. That didn't get her much food but it's nice to see her thinking things through.

Snake!

2010-06-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

The other day I finally got around to cutting down a 20ft tall hedge-like tree on the corner of our house. I checked it out for bird nests (the other tree had robin eggs in it so I waited to cut that one down) and saw none so I started sawing it down with an electric chain saw. After I got a few vertical limbs cut down, my dog got Tira got really excited and was looking my way. I went to her and looked around thinking she saw a bird, butterfly, or squirrel but didn't see anything so I went back to the tree to get back to work. The next limb I cut down was a big one and when it hit the ground I saw a 5ft shiny black snake slithering away as fast as it could go. Tira had seen the snake in the tree over my head. I hated to think what would have happened if it had fallen on me when I was cutting the tree down...

I identified the snake as a black rat snake and let it be...not scared of it but I don't like snakes (that's the one thing I have in common with Indiana Jones). The snake picture below isn't the actual snake in our yard...just a snake photo I found that's of the same type as the one we have.

My First Recipe

2010-05-23T16:55:00.000-07:00

I made spaghetti today using my original recipe. It delicious and easy to make, I've make it dozens of times and for some reason decided to write the recipe down to share. Hopefully, someone else will like it as well which may encourage me to write down my other recipes...

Craig's Spaghetti Sauce Recipe (53KB)

Tira's New Trick

2010-05-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Tira showed off a new trick she learned. While looking for birds in a hedge, she figured out that if she stood on her back two leg with her front legs on the bush, leaned backwards, and lunged forward onto the bush (like a bear trying to knock someone out of a tree) she could force any birds hiding inside to fly out. She did this a few times and made quite a few birds leave, almost catching one. Not sure how she figured this out but she's proving to be a smart little hunter.

Tira v. The Bird

2010-04-11T11:40:00.000-07:00

Every morning Tira runs outside to look at and listen to all the birds. Two mornings ago she was so infatuated with the birds chirping she sat under a tree for maybe 30-45 minutes. When she came in Min-Ah screamed and called me. Tira had been pooped on by the birds as she sat under the tree looking for birds. I thought this was really ironic and funny but promptly gave her a quick bath. I doubt Tira cared about the mess on her back...

Tira's Fans

2010-01-30T05:50:00.000-08:00

Tira's only been in Virginia for a week but in that time we've had three people pull their vehicles over (two were driving down the main road) and say how good looking she was and ask about her. She's also had dozens of people stop us on the sidewalk and ask about her. This is while the temperature's hovering near or below freezing...

We need to keep an eye on her and make sure she's not being stalked...

Trapped! The Mike Turner Story

2009-12-29T16:26:00.000-08:00

I had this story buried within my site and I wanted to bring it to light. It's my favorite story taken from Backpacker Magazine. I hope you like it as much as I did. Click on the .pdf icon below to view the story...

Trapped: The Mike Turner Story (143KB)

The Tragedy of the Commons

2009-12-29T16:24:00.000-08:00

This is a reprint of Gerrit Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons which is a classic environmental report on how we all share certain environmental conditions. Click on the .pdf icon below to view the story...

Tragedy of the Commons (86KB)

Quick Story About Socialism

2009-12-28T15:04:00.000-08:00

A coworker sent this to me and I think it’s pretty clever:

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

Still at It

2009-07-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

The other day I noticed a gopher hole near our backyard patio so I stuck a hose in the hole and went inside. You can Tira was very interested and was watching. About five minutes later I looked outside and Tira was gone so I went outside to see what she was up to. She was acting funny and I later saw she had a gopher in her mouth.

Tira and I are now tied with the number of gophers we’ve each caught... I need to read some books on gopher catching so I can regain the throne!

Tira at the Beach

2008-10-18T15:51:00.000-07:00

We took Tira to the beach and let her run wild for the first time. She was running as fast as she could go chasing birds, sniffing things, and just looking around. When I’d call or blow my dog whistle she’d respond and trot in our general direction before returning to us. We were almost done for the day when she saw a bird that she really wanted to catch. She ran after it and kept going and going until she was a long ways away from us. I called, blew the whistle, and tried to get her attention but she was in the zone. Tira may have been over 1/4 mile away when she ran into a couple walking. Luckily, the bird changed direction or flew away and Tira started coming back. All the while I was running after her. When I finally caught her, I hooked her back up to her lead and we played a while longer before going home.

Not sure I’ll do that again but it was fun. A couple of photos of Tira’s beach run are in her photo album.

Tira's First Real Walk

2008-10-13T14:27:00.000-07:00

Today we went on a 1.5 mile walk at Punch Bowl Lake, a fairly well isolated location. As usual, Tira was going nuts chasing all the butterflies. After we got a little ways down the road and away from any chance of traffic, we decided to unhook her from her 26ft leash and let her run wild. I was a little worried she’d forget about us and just chase birds and bugs but Min-Ah wasn’t too concerned. Tira did run like crazy but always kept us in sight. When we called to her she came running back to us. It was obvious she was happy with her tail wagging and her tongue swinging around.

Next week we’re going to take her to the beaches that were just reopened. I hope she’s just as good...I’m bringing the camera this time and the dog whistle.

Can You Beat This?

2008-05-19T15:53:00.000-07:00

Finally broke the 2200 barrier in Wii Tennis.

Tira's First Haircut

2008-05-01T11:36:00.000-07:00

We just gave Tira her first haircut using our new Oster Protege clippers (and a #10 blade, no comb or guard). We literally filled a grocery bag with the hair we clipped off her. She looks totally different and so much better.

Almost Bowled 300 in Wii Bowling

2008-03-09T10:01:00.000-07:00

I went into the tenth frame of Wii Bowling and choked on the second ball. So close...and I've almost done this two times and choked both times...Min-ah's high score is actually 290. of course, I didn't bother taking a picture to prove it :)

New Picnic Table

2008-02-16T20:17:00.000-08:00

Just built two picnic tables, one for us and another for a friend. We think they came out nice, although mine has shims underneath on the braces. Took the two of us about six hours to put two tables together.

Picnic Table Plans (576KB)

New Point & Shoot

2007-06-12T15:43:00.000-07:00

We finally took the plunge and bought ourselves a Canon SD800IS digital point and shoot camera along with a 2GB Sandisk SD memory card. So far we love it.

Photography Gear

2007-02-04T15:44:00.000-08:00

My primary camera body is my Canon EOS 3 which I purchased as an upgrade to my mostly manual Pentax P3n body. I decided on this camera for its comprehensive feature list, features I either thought I needed, or features I knew I needed. It was and probably still is more camera than I actually need.

When looking for lenses, I read and read and didn't want to accept any compromises in quality, so I settled on fixed focal length lenses. The following is a list of my few lenses and my flash:

Canon EF 24mm f/2.8 This is a great wide-angle lens. Useful for landscapes and distorted perspective close-ups.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 Hard to pass this lens by. It cost $65 new and has very sharp optics. Wish it was build a little better (it's all plastic) but I've owned it since 2001 and it hasn't broken.

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro This macro lens is my favorite lens so far. It allows up to 1:1 magnification and has been said to be Canon's sharpest lens under $3000. Focussing is fast, but not necessary since I tweak the focus on close-ups anyways.

Canon 420EX Speedlight This isn't the ideal flash for my EOS 3, but the 550EX (the flash designed for the EOS 3) is a little pricey for what I need and use it for. The 420EX has served me well and I love it.

My Pentax P3n was given to me by my mom and is now my secondary and travel camera. It is built like a tank and helped me learn what all the controls do. It is manual-focussing but has aperture- or shutter-priority modes so it's not 100% manual which is a huge relief. Here are the Pentax lenses and extender I use:

SMC Pentax-A 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5 A very handy and small walk-around lens.

ProSpec 80-200mm f/3.9 lens Never heard of ProSpec but they made this constant aperture zoom lens that is actually very good. I bring this one to the zoos.

Vivatar Automatic Teleconverter 2x This teleconverter is a piece of crap but it does allow me to extend my 80-200mm lens out to 400mm for some decent photos.

I also use a the following miscellaneous gear:

Bogen Manfrotto 3021 BPro Tripod Can't take 400mm or macro photos without a tripod. This is one of the most popular tripods for amateurs and I love it! Simple to set-up, relatively light, and solid.

Bogen Manfrotto 486QR Ball Head I had trouble deciding on a ball head or pan-tilt head but eventually settled on a ball head for it's range of motion. I have no complains about this one. Both the ball head and tripod can support up to 13lbs.

Films and transparencies: Agfa Ulta 100 , Fuji Superia X-Tra 100, 400, 800, Fuji Velvia 100F , Fuji NPH 400, and Fuji NPC 160. I will probably end up using more and more Fuji films simply because the local Wal-Mart uses the Fuji Frontier developer which I've heard great things about.

MacPro computer: 2.66GHz dual dual-core (quad-core) Intel Xeon processor with 3GB FB-DIMM ECC memory. Spectacular computer.

I scan photos and slides with my Canoscan 8400F which I recommend highly.

Notes:

Shopping for lenses is a maddening experience (ask Min-Ah). This information was taken from Photo Zone. The exact information is no longer online, but I printed it to .pdf and it is available at my Photographic Files area for download.