david's blog

Middle aged men get to have a mid-life crisis where they go and buy something they don't really need but really want - often a car or motorcycle or something.  I, on the other hand, am still far away from that point, so I needed another justification to get something I didn't need.  I figure that since I will live until I'm at least 100, it's about time that I had my quarter life crisis now that I'm 25.

Ever since I was a little kid I've wanted to have a go-kart.  When I was little, I actually designed one, complete with my own clutch.  Combined when my parents wisely refused to give me a weedeater engine to play with and the fact that I had no metal-working experience eventually made me give up the idea.  I'm still sure that my innovative clutch would have worked, though there would have been no idle (just stopped or moving really fast), so when I decided that I wanted a go-kart this time, I actually looked at go-karts that were designed by people who knew what they were doing.

When I was little, go-karts were way out of my price range.  Then, though, a wonderful invention called Craigslist was invented.  After watching the adds I found a go-kart for $150.  After some haggling (actually, the guy was really looking to clean up his garage), I got it for $100.  The go-kart was broken - the frame was rusted through in a couple of places and bent in another place - so I had to fix it.  Luckily, since I last dreamed of a go-kart I have learned a little about working with power tools and working with metal so I was able to get it done with just a few hours of work.  The engine just needed oil and gas, so after lubricating everything and checking everything, my 5 horse power quarter life crisis was running and I took it out in our alley.

Here are some photos:

It will go probably 25-30 miles an hour.  Gau really liked it, too.  He rode it more than anyone else while he was here.

Even Megan got in on the action:

And Harry was probably the most excited.  When someone was driving it he couldn't keep his eyes off of it and I've never seen him so intent on something when I gave him a ride.  His favorite part, though, was when we turned off the engine and just let him stand on the seat and wiggle the steering wheel - he wasn't moving but he was in charge.

So, here's some more bait to lure people out to visit us - if you come we'll let you ride our go-kart.  I know most people live their whole lives without ever feeling like they have to ride a go-kart, but if you are having a quarter-, mid- or even three-quarter-life crisis, come and pay us a visit.

It's been a fun and crazy past month and, as evidenced by our bare July calendar, we have yet to post this month.  I will remedy that this morning and then Megan will more than make up for it when she explains our adventures and our happenings.  Be prepared to be inundated with our exploits...

My brief post will deal with something that I find absolutely fascinating.  Here it is:

This is a bag-a-bug designed to capture Japanese Beetles (also known as a jitterbug).  These little gold and green critters love to eat our garden, so Megan took a trip to Lowes and $6 later she had a plastic bag with a holder and a pheromone capsule that we hung about 30 feet from our garden.  Apparently Japanese beetles absolutely love this little smelly thing so they fly at it and then fall into the bag.  After a day or so they are dead in the bag, but usually they are already covered by their fallen comrades before that happens.  Here's how many we caught in about 10 days.

I hadn't seen this many beetles around our garden before we bought he bag, so I'm assuming we're capturing all the bugs in the area.  If you ever get a Japanese beetle infestation, I highly recommend this plastic bag o' death since I haven't seen a single one eating our garden since we put this bag up.

A father has many responsibilities when it comes to raising a child properly, but this post has nothing to do with those responsibilities.

There reaches a point in each boys life when his father needs to spend some time with him and teach him some of the finer points of life.  In Harry's case, his time came at 8 months.  Specifically, I needed to teach him the art of paintball.  With a little bit of training, Harry has now learned how to shoot a paintball gun.  Sure, he's not quite strong enough to actually pull the trigger, but he knows how to reach for it and he knows how to ask his dad to help him pull it and he sure likes the bang it makes.  He also likes to dress up in preparation for his first trip to the paintball field.  Unfortunately for him, he's still got some time before his dad can convince his mom he's old enough - my goal is 2015.

Another important thing Harry has recently learned is the importance of pickles.  Sure, they're former cucumbers drenched in a vat of vinegar and salt and then left to swim in their own brine for years on end, but pickles are important people, too.  In fact, if you don't respect your pickles, you're a bad person and you'll never scratch and win anything...ever!  That said, Harry is still in the running to scratch and win because he respects his pickles.  In fact, he respects them so much that he'll literally spend an hour getting to know each one.  I'd like to see you do that.  But, if you're like everyone I've ever met other than Harry, I'm sure you won't - you pickle hater.  You're such a non-respecter of pickles.  One day, it's going to come back and bite you.  Don't say you haven't been warned.

I've always loved to tinker on things and up to now I've spent many hours taking things out of storage (typically closets or under my bed), working on them and then putting them back away.  One thing that I've wanted ever since I can remember was space to work on projects where I could spread out and then leave things setup until I came back to work on them.  When we bought our house, we finally had space, but we still haven't had anywhere to put my projects... until now.

I decided that what we really should get is a long table that would work as a workbench and also could be moved downstairs for a dinner table should large group of people (hint, hint family) ever come and visit us.  I decided that what I really needed to do was to build two tables: one for Megan up in our office where she can put all her scrap booking stuff and one for me in the basement where I can put all my paintball stuff and other projects.  I started with Megan's table which is 2.5'x8'.  Mine will be 3'x8' but I'll have to wait until next weekend to build it.

I initially thought about just putting a board on sawhorses, but then I found a deal on table legs from Harbor Freight (which is one of my favorite stores).  I paid $9 for the legs.

Next, we went to Home Depot and for each table we bought a 4'x8' piece of particle board (~$5.50) and a 4'x8' piece of a masonite-like manufactured wood with a rough side and a smooth side (~7.50).  I also got a few 2"x3"x8' pieces of lumber for support (~$4) and appropriate screws, nuts and washers ($4).  We got the larger boards cut at Home Depot (free) and tied them to the top of our car for the trip home (which went very smoothly with no problems).

Rather than go into all the specifics, I'll show some pictures.  You can also see the handy-dandy work benches I got that made working much easier (thanks Megan).  I put the support braces 4.5" inside the outer edge of the table, reinforced the area where I attached the legs with leftover particle board, and tightened all the bolts until the were driven in and were basically flush with the top of the table.  After the frame was done I put a layer of wood glue all over the top and we attached the masonite sheet and let it dry over night.  To complete the project, we put a layer of electrical tape all around the edge to hide the rough edges and made used thumbtacks to attach it to the table.

After roughly $30 (plus tax), a few hours of work and an encouraging wife, I ended up with the final product that I am quite pleased with.  It's sturdy, easily moved by two people, has foldable legs, and it looks nice.  I may take a hacksaw to the long bolts someday (I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to do when I bought them, so I got long bolts just to be safe), but for now I won't worry about it.  All in all, I figure that with a table cloth we could use it at a wedding.

I was casually sitting at home on a normal Saturday afternoon, working on some homework while  Megan was gone to the store.  All of a sudden, I heard a crash on our front window.  Even though the window didn't break, I thought someone had thrown a rock or something at it.  I glanced out the blinds (they were closed) and didn't see anybody standing outside our house in the process of desecrating our home, so I went out the front door to investigate.

As I walked out on the porch I surprised a hawk which was in the process of claiming it's kill - one of our local blackbirds.  The hawk took off flying with the blackbird hanging upside down beneath the hawk (presumably dead) and I watched it fly across the street and disappear between two houses.  Upon examining the window and the porch I discovered the remnants of the blackbird.  I'm not entirely sure what this is, but my guess it is the partially digested remains of whatever the blackbird was eating before it got surprised.  Also, judging by the angles involved, my guess is the blackbird was sitting on the porch railing and the hawk flew in and grabbed it and the hawk crashed into the window before it could stop or change directions. 

I've seen lots of hawks out here, but this was the first one I've seen near our house.  I was so excited that I've left the blackbird remains on our window as a sort of "I saw a hawk" trophy for myself.

Megan was gone and it was just the boys at home.  Harry got hungry, so I pulled out a new toy - a cup.  Sure, a cup isn't all that exciting, but Harry had never been expected to drink out of one before.  I filled his cup up with warm milk, positioned his hands on the handles, and he knew just what to do.  He was able to drink all he wanted to and he was really good at controlling the cup - pretty good motor skills for a five month old.

On a side note, if you ever want to read something a little bit different, try out my weird and varying thoughts at davidthesteak.blogspot.com.  I put a handy little link on the side so you can always have a quick way to get there.

My life is soon to get less busy.  I took my second to last final today (Criminal Law) and then I have one more on Thursday (Civil Procedure).  Law School has been good so far - not too stressful but always interesting.  Actually, I've had less home work during Law School than I've had since High School.  Maybe I'm not studying enough, but since we only get one test at the end of the semester, I really won't know how I'm doing until grades come out at the end of January.

For Thanksgiving I was in charge of making one side dish and I decided to make something that's a little less than traditional - seafood.  I invented this dish and after telling my mom about it, she requested the recipe. I decided to post it here to share it with everyone.

As with all my recipes, I don't ever measure anything, so my quantities are approximations.

Ingredients:

1 pound shrimp (I used pre-cooked and pre-peeled because it was cheapest, but use whatever)

1 pound scallops (I used bay scallops - once again because it was cheapest)

1/2 a pound fish (I used cod - feel free to use more than 1/2 a pound)

5 celery stalks

1 pound frozen peas

1 can crab meat (the size of a tuna fish can)

1 can baby corn

1 can water chestnuts

1 can bamboo shoots

2 cups milk

1 teaspoon fish sauce

2/3 cup whipping cream

2/3 cup half and half (use all cream or all half and half as desired - I just had some of each on hand)

2 teaspoons paprika

1 tablespoon golden curry powder

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1/2 teaspoon ginger powder

2 teaspoons garlic powder

1 tablespoon soy sauce

salt (to taste)

pepper (to taste)

oil or margarine

chicken bullion cube

Directions:

The secret for lots of oriental dishes (and this definitely has an oriental flavor) is to prepare the different ingredients separately and then put them together at the very end.  That said, you can prepare the following ingredients in any order you like.

Celery - Put the bullion cube in a small pan with about 3 cups of water and turn on medium heat.  Let the bullion dissolve.  Slice the celery into bite-sized pieces and boil in the bullion water until they are soft but still have a little bit of crunch left in them.

Scallops - Put the scallops in a small pan and allow to cook all the way through.  I did this on medium-low heat and just left them while I prepared everything else.  You probably don't need any oil/margarine, but you might want a little bit.

Shrimp - Peel if necessary (I always leave the tails on, but you don't have to).  Cook just like the scallops.

Fish - Cook with a little oil/margarine (I used olive oil) and allow to cook all the way through.  I put a little paprika on mine while it was cooking.  Try to leave it in the oil/margarine until it's completely cooked on one side and flip it only once.  After the fish is cooked, allow to cool and then break it into bite-sized pieces.

Vegetables - Put all the canned vegetables (drain really well before hand) and the frozen peas into a pan and allow to heat evenly on medium heat.  You may need a little tiny bit of water in the bottom of the pan but try to keep things as liquid-free as possible.

Sauce - The sauce takes the longest so you may want to start this first.  Put the milk in a large pot and put it on medium heat.  Add the fish sauce, soy sauce and all the spices (except salt and pepper) and stir until everything is very well dissolved.  Stir in the cream/half and half and the canned crab meat.  Let the pan simmer uncovered until the sauce has thickened to the consistency of a thin gravy.

When all your separate ingredients are prepared, add them all directly to the sauce and stir in.  Add salt and pepper to taste (or, as I do, salt each of the individual ingredients to taste as you are making them).

Serving:

You can serve your Seafood Bonanza anyway you like, but I elected to serve mine in a trazoid bowl with a wooden spoon.  Make sure you serve it soon after it is done because it's a dish best eaten warm.  It is also a great dish to eat over white rice.

Here's a picture of the finished product.