Alex Gordon's Blog, page 3

Feels like I just posted a few days ago

Time flies. Stuff happens.

Could see snow later this week. But at present it’s rainy and unseasonably warm—okay, 50s counts as warm in November—and there are still a few bits of summer brightness remaining.

Rewatching some of the Marvel movies. Last night was Civil War. Tonight, Infinity War. That probably means Endgame tomorrow night even though I am still torqued about parts of it, said this charter member of The Wrong Avenger Died on Vormir club. But I also love parts of it…the opening scenes with Tony and Nebula…any scene with Tony and his daughter Morgan…the short scene in which Nat, Bruce, and Tony are lying on the conference table spitballing. And yeah, the final battle.

“On your left.”

 

Muffin Time

Banana chocolate chip.

They were a needed thing.

muffins!

I used my favorite banana bread recipe with the baking time adjusted for muffins—I started checking at 20 minutes instead of 55 or 60. Toothpicks emerged clean at 25 minutes. Baking temp was 350F (175C)  on the convection bake setting, which is equivalent to 375F (190C) regular.

A few changes were made. I added a half-teaspoon or so of instant espresso because I’ve read that coffee boosts other tropical flavors in addition to chocolate—maybe it helped but in any case it wasn’t enough to lend a coffee flavor. Instead of all-purpose flour, I used King Arthur white whole wheat, and further substituted 1/4 cup of the flour with 1/4 cup wheat bran for a nutty taste. Oh, and I cut back the sugar from 3/4 cup to 1/2 cup. Don’t miss it a bit.

Good muffins.

There and back again

A week ago at this time, I was slowly fading, packing, gearing up for the 10+ hour drive home. Now WFC is well in the rearview, and I’m really glad I attended. I came home with art and books spent time with friends old and new.

This is one of my favorite photos of the trip. I took it during the Maid of the Mist ride at the point when we just entered the crash and roil of the Horseshoe Falls. I wasn’t sure how this and other photos would come out because I was facing the sun and getting hit with mist and splash and pretty much snapping blindly. I think it looks SFnal and a little eerie.

sun and mist

WFC2024

WFC, I AM HERE!

::pauses to pop an ibuprofen::

I split the drive over two days, which I think was a good move. I was beat by the time I made the crossing at Port Huron (So. Many. Semis.) and was so happy to spot the usual cluster of hotels just on the Canadian side.

Note: this morning’s breakfast was one of the best hotel breakfasts I have ever had. The simple stuff is really easy to mess up and no mess-ups here. I mentioned it at the front desk and learned their chef has been there 25 years. I got the impression they’ve heard good things about her before.

 

That’s peameal bacon, which is very good stuff

Anyway, the Sheraton FP Edward Sarnia. Good Classic Breakfast.

Back to the drive. Good stuff: fall colors. If the trees in Michigan and Western Ontario haven’t reached full color yet, they’re close. Last night’s moon—not yet full but still huge. The biggest rainbow I have ever seen, a sky-spanning arc between Lansing and Flint. Brilliant red. I could even detect violet.

Bad stuff: the three crashes along the way. I didn’t see them, but they all happened on two-lane highways and the delays were significant. Today’s must’ve been really bad because a semi was involved and it was a wreck–the left front was stove in and the tire was shredded. I assume another semi was involved because of the extent of the damage, but it must’ve been towed by the time I reached the accident site.

More good stuff: first person I ran into at the hotel was Scott Zrubek, who I have not seen in years. He’s running the Art Show and I am looking forward to stopping by.

Tonight I need to time the story I am reading tomorrow, an SF horror piece entitled “Don’t You Love Me Anymore, Marie?” Not sure if I can finish it in 30 minutes (more like 25 with intro etc), so I need to determine a good stopping point. And I’ll see if I can register.

Northern Lights!

I may have seen mention of the current northern lights display. I did see the map showing the likely sightings area, and noted that my part of Illinois was just outside of it. But I had already experienced a few disappointments and didn’t think about trying to spot them again.

Then last night around midnight I was poking around online and spotted a post on either Threads or Bluesky of a NORTHERN LIGHTS SIGHTING ABOVE DOWNTOWN CHICAGO. I figured if the lights could be seen despite all that light pollution, I had a chance. So I grabbed my phone and ventured out into the autumn chill (nights dipping into the 40’s, y’all) and headed out.

Wooded areas. Lots of trees. Streetlights. But I had read that the reason the lights appear so vivid in photographs is because phone cameras detect light that our eyes don’t, so I pointed my phone towards some patches of sky visible through the trees and snapped.

I didn’t see anything. But I looked at the photo and saw those hints of greenish blue.

??

So I walked around until I reached a clear expanse of northern sky and started snapping.

Most of the photos consist of a vast smear of pink which was pretty exciting as far as I was concerned as this is the first time I ever witnessed northern lights in person. However, they honestly weren’t that striking. I don’t have much experience editing photos, but decided to pick the best photo and lighten it.

Northern lights with bonus stars

What I like about this photo is that a few stars in the constellation Auriga the Charioteer showed up clearly. Counterclockwise from the top brightest star, they are Capella, Menkalinan, and Mahasim;. The two faint ones at the top are, I think, Almaaz and Saclateni, also called “The Kids.” This has a really good diagram of the constellation.I wish the clusters had shown up. I also spotted Jupiter, which was the brightest thing in the sky. It photographed like a fuzzball, unfortunately. That’s what usually happens when I try to photograph bright things with the phone camera.In closing, I am calling Kristine’s First Northern Lights Sighting a success. Maybe someday I will witness one of those full-blown displays, but this was fine for a start.

Bonsai Updates

Last month I took my ficus bonsai (his name is Tree because Words Are My Life) to a tropical bonsai class at Chicago Botanic. I was concerned that he needed intensive root pruning, which he had never had before. Instructor, however, seemed to think that he was doing better than I feared. He appeared very healthy but needed more room for roots to expand, which meant getting an even larger pot than the one I had. So, that weekend I stopped by the Midwest Bonsai Exhibit and bought a larger pot. Then I fiddled about for a month, worried about how to proceed, until early September when I decided hell with it, extracted Tree from old pot and flumped him into the new one.

I should add that he should’ve been repotted and had root work done multiple times to this point, but this is Kris’s Learning Tree and so he pays the price.

I didn’t remove much—there’s a brick of old root mass that’s essentially solid and will need to be worked through. Maybe some heavy root that can be sawed away. But for now I just want to get Tree settled in the bigger pot and give him a chance to grow more fine feeder roots. I won’t be attempting any more root pruning until next summer.

I will add that he received many compliments from other class attendees. One person said he was the best-looking tree there.

For comparison purposes, I have included a photo of Tree back in 2008 after I damned near killed him by leaving him out in sub-45F temperatures for way too long. Ficus are tropical, which I did not know at that time.

The original pot was much smaller, maybe 8 inches long x 4 inches wide. The new pot is 14 inches long by about 10 inches wide.

It’s been an educational journey.

 

 

Adventures in Sorbet

On the boil

I’ve always associated sorbets with fruit/citrus flavors since they don’t contain dairy, so I was surprised to learn that a chocolate version existed—I always thought chocolate needed milk/cream or something similar. I hunted around, found this recipe over at Food52, and decided to give it a shot.

The next day—pudding!

It was dead easy. The bittersweet chocolate came in bars that broke into squares and the unsweetened chocolate* came in thin discs, so I didn’t need to chop anything. No corn starch à la Sicilian gelato, so no need to hit a certain temperature—just bring to a boil and count off the time. I used half water/half brewed coffee because the latter boosts chocolate flavor, and a full teaspoon of vanilla instead of a half-teaspoon because come on. I don’t have a regular blender, but my stick blender did a decent job zzz’ing things around.

 

The result was a thickish smooth liquid that chilled to a pudding. I honestly don’t believe the churn in my cheap countertop ice cream maker did much good—the sorbet thickened nicely, but softened in the time it took me to scoop it into a freezer container. After a night in the freezer, it hardened up—it has to sit out for a few minutes before I can scoop it. I am seriously tempted to buy a countertop gelato maker with a built-in chiller so that I can let the sorbet churn away for as long as it takes and still stay cold. A little incorporated air would improve matters. Here’s a short video of the churning process: Churning sorbet 

Despite all that, I consider the result a success.

The finished product

It’s essentially pure chocolate—what’s not to like? I’d like to try some enhancement next time, though. A shot of Cointreau or raspberry liqueur. Almond extract and chopped almonds. A swirl of peanut butter.

I was concerned about the use of water as the liquid because I feared lots of crunchy crystals, but I guess there was enough fat in the chocolate to keep things smooth.

*the recipe called for all bittersweet or semisweet, but I had unsweetened on hand and I like a deeper flavor, so I went with it.

I love technology

No, I do. Mostly.

Lately I’ve been catching up on Classic Dr Who on Amazon FreeVee. Every so often they run a commercial for a cleaning product of some sort—I am still not sure whether it’s personal care or a bathroom cleaning product, but I really didn’t care because the music grabbed my attention. Was it written for the commercial or was it a song I could actually buy? The only words I caught were “shake it up,” but when I hunted through Apple Music for songs with that title, I couldn’t find the one I wanted. Recorded the commercial the next time it ran, then wondered what next.

Then I remembered the scene in “Glass Onion” in which Kate Hudson’s character said she would find a song title using Shazam. Downloaded the app, then played the commercial recording. SUCCESS. And I never would’ve been able to find the song otherwise because the snippet in the commercial didn’t contain the title.

So, yea tech! At least for today.

Oh, and the song?  “Cherry” by Chair Model. Not my usual thing. A smooth dance number, but I felt it had a little ’80s lilt to it. I am still an ’80s kid at heart.

Sunday, after the rains

The folks working on the house across the street have two large dumpsters in the driveway now because they’re gutting the inside. A few times a week, I can count on seeing a car or truck stop by and the driver poke through the discards. Right now, looks like one of the usual Sunday guys who drives through the neighborhoods on the day before Garbage Day.

Lord knows I’ve claimed my share of discards over the years, including two pieces of artwork, a framed mirror, a heavy duty garden cart, and several tables. Plants. Baskets.

The Circle of Life, One Person’s Trash edition.

::blink::

This past month has felt like a year and a few days AT THE SAME TIME. Schrödinger Time.

Still immersed in black hole stuff. If you’re in the US and/or subscribe to a US PBS station, I heartily recommend the NOVA Universe Revealed series from 2021, which is available on the PBS app and PBS Passport (and Amazon Prime I think). All the programs are great, but I particularly enjoyed the Black Holes episode. I am also loving the Crash Course podcast series on The Universe hosted by John Green and featuring Dr. Katie Mack. I know there are more such podcasts out there—The Supermassive Podcast from the Royal Astronomical Society is yet another one I’ve been following—and I am enthralled by the weirdness of the universe.

I’ve also finished watching The Acolyte, which I enjoyed. I hope it gets a second season because I really want to see what I expect will be a major blow-up between two main characters. I also excavated the DVD of my favorite version of Pride & Prejudice from the depths of the living room bookcase and binged it. It’s the 1980 BBC version starring Elizabeth Garvie as Lizzie and David Rintoul as Darcy. It was made for TV, so it’s not as lush as the movie versions. But it was my first and I like it best. Garvie shines and I like Rintoul’s portrayal of Darcy as very tightly wrapped. And there’s also Barbara Shelley of Hammer films fame as Aunt Gardiner—she’s a delight.

And now I have writing to get back to, so.