I, Curtis

Category: Hobbies

  • Maintaining Old Boots

    There is something quite pleasing about oiling and dressing an old pair of boots. I have an old pair of CAT work boots that I have hidden away in a closet for way too long. They were in pretty bad shape when I pulled them out earlier. Some spots were dark brown (almost black) and some appeared to be fading to a light tan, from varied wear (jeans protecting part, scrapes on the toes, etc). There is a quite rewarding feeling that goes along with taking off the old finish (using oils, warm water and towels) and the putting on a new finish (with boot dressing).

    This pair of boots confused me at first. With most of my boots, I clean them (with a little water, brushes and occasionally some shoe cleaning spray) and then apply either dressing, bee oil or polish. These boots feel under the category of boot dressing (polish is for shiny black boots and the oil is for porous leathers). The boots became sticky when I tried applying the dressing (odd reaction for a boot), so I wiped it off and cleaned the area with water. The water didn’t seam to do anything, but strangely, a dry towel and a little bit of sesame oil (not an oil I usually use on boots) worked beautifully, it removed whatever it was on the boot finish and allowed me to put down the dressing.

    Now the boots are a consistent medium brown color with a low shine,  as they are supposed to have. They are also water protected by the dressing.

  • Wad Author

    A few weeks ago I mentioned Doom Builder as a WAD editing utility for Doom maps, but after much unsuccessful attempting to work on WADs, both creating my own maps and editing existing maps, as well as crashing of the utility, I went back diving for a new tool. I came up with Wad Author, which is a much stronger tool. The only problem I have had with WadAuthor so far is that is has no visible way to search for an element in the map, so I still have Doom builder installed for that (more of a cheat some days than an editor).

    wadauth

     

    I have only edited WADs in Wad Author, but it seems like it would be easier to build new Wads in as well.

  • Recipes Make No Sense

    What is a cup of flour? Densly packed or lightly packed? Perhaps sifted? Volume is no way to measure things like flour, or grated carrot for that matter. So many things in cooking involve air, it is nearly impossible to measure by volume and have the correct amount. Kitchen scales are more likely to be in use in modern times, so perhaps we should change the way we write recipes to reflect this and only measure fluids by volume.
    I have been using Cooks.com recently and have discovered that as a culinary society, we are seriously lacking a standard protocol for writing recipes. There are academic definitions for things like chop, mince, slice, etc, but recipes almost never uniformly use one that they intend to use. Cooking has always been a very informal thing and recipes have been used by cooks as ways to share instructions with each other, usually people who have a clue how the person speaks and thinks, but in the sense of broader sharing, there needs to be some sort of protocol or agreement.
    Also, what is with people and getting recipes almost finished, but neglecting to include the actual cooking instructions for stuff? I hate having to guess tempertures and times (moreso temps, I can gauge time).

  • Toy of the Day: Doom Builder

    Having played Doom almost nightly for over a year now, Chris and I are quickly depleting the maps available to play. Based on my own interests as well as that feeling of running out of an exhaustible resource I am looking at the option of building some WADs (a collection of 32 maps/levels) of my own. I have found myself being fascinated by some of the things that people have created. I am presently trying out “Doom Builder”, but I am finding it less than intuitive to use, so I may consider going for something else. Below is that a map looks like when designed in Doom Builder.

    I am presently having a lot of trouble getting doors to work, other than that, everything else seems to be going pretty easy, including transporters.

    Untitled

  • Caramel Nut Spice Cake

    DSC_1575

    DSC_1577

    My grandfather’s birthday was yesterday. Chris and I baked a  cake for him.

  • Majestic Redwood

    DSCF9257-1

    Okay, so they aren’t quite that majestic yet, but they are working on it, give them another hundred years or so…

    Then again, Bonsai is quicker with them, maybe they will settle for cute and not majestic?

  • Biscuit Perfection

    I finally managed to make biscuits that were light, soft, and don’t crumble when you touch them. I’ve been trying for weeks and kept getting closer, but always had some problem or another, but now I think I have figured it out. Its all in the way you integrate the shortning.

  • Lifetime of an AeroGarden

    I have had my AeroGarden tomatoes going for several months now. Over a month ago I ran out of nutrient tablets, but a strange thing has happened. Since running out of nutrient tablets the tomatoes are growing better and producing more than they did when the plants were being actively fed. This is making me curious as to how exactly the nutrients work, and if the “refill” nutrients are ever really required.

  • Hot and Yeasty

    Lately I’ve been having fun with a new ingredient in the kitchen…yeast. I have never really tried making breads before recently, I’ve always been told that making bread is hard, and that it is difficult to get them right. I have since discovered that while my mother does not seem to posses the bread making talent, I do. I have recently been  making a wide variety of breads (sticky buns, apple cinnamon bread, braided bread, yeast rolls). I am almost as fascinated with making yeasty breads as I am with working with clay.

    Lately something has been puzzling me a bit though… the difference between “dry active yeast” and “quick rise yeast”. It is almost an endless wait for normal yeast (active dry) to do its work, but there is almost no wait with the quick rise. A recipe I made last night requires about 2 hours to rise (first proofing, then shaped rise) but when substituting in quick rise, it took 10 minutes for the first proof, and then only about 20 minutes for the shaped rise (only had 20 minutes to let it rise is how I found out), but the recipe ended up being almost the same as with the 2 hour wait. The texture was a little different, but the bread was perfectly leavened. Yeast, its amazing stuff 🙂

  • Sequoia Arrived

    In the shortest Back Order of my life, my Sequoia seeds have arrived 🙂