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Eugene, Oregon, police complain about a lack of time for revenue enhancement traffic enforcement.
“It’s totally frustrating,” said Barab, a five-year veteran of the police department’s patrol division.
“Traffic (enforcement) is what I love to do, but it seems like I don’t have many opportunities anymore,” she said. “Normally, as soon as we hit the streets we have calls stacked up waiting for us.
Personally, I’m glad the Eugene PD officers don’t have the time to spend an entire shift harassing drivers. Now only if it lacked the time to taser protesters…
Also related… officers maybe afraid of “unfair scrutiny.” Ha.
I’m off to the Garden State for three days. Even if you don’t admit it, I know that deep down, you’re all jealous.
I love it. Embued with new meaning today, I think.
Updated every Monday, Craig Damrauer offers up little mathematical gems such as:
pirate = thief + boat + bandana - leg
and
cleanliness = godliness -1
Brilliant.
A project meeting in Portland the week before last gave me occasion to visit Voodoo Doughnut, a place an acquaintance had mentioned in a discussion of the wonders of bacon.
Backing up… bacon is something of a hallowed meat in my circle of friends. Bacon is to food what black is to fashion—we’re almost certain there is very little in the culinary world that couldn’t be complimented by the addition of bacon. Perhaps some desserts are off limits, but even that’s subject to interpretation: I’ve recently picked up a cookbook that has several dessert recipes containing bacon. So when I heard that Voodoo Doughnuts offers a bacon maple bar—and just happened to be within 10 blocks of the building where I was heading for my meeting—I felt compelled to investigate.
I’ll start off by saying I’m not typically a fan of maple flavor. Syrup on pancakes or french toast is fine, but it’s not a staple of mine. But bacon tipped the scales in favor of trying this particular maple confection.
To say it outright, this doughnut is nothing short of brilliant. It offers just the right balance of the sweet maple and smokey bacon, with the added bonus of crunchy texture to contrast the relative softness of the maple bar itself. My only suggestion is that it should be topped with a little more bacon. If I remember correctly, mine had just two or three half-strips of bacon on it, insufficient for complete maple bar coverage. I’d suggest slightly thicker bacon, too, but that might make storage problematic and biting into the bacon more difficult. The very thin, very crispy bacon they use ensures that it breaks off in single bites, rather than having to tear at it lest the entire bacon strip come off in one bite.
I may find myself in Portland again in a month or so, and if I do, I’m swinging by to get a bacon maple bar and try another of their strangely enticing bakery offerings.
Been meaning to do this for awhile - the blog needed a new look. I’m still tweaking things, so if you notice something amiss, please let me know.
Seemed like the header images were taking too long to load, so I decreased their image quality a bit this morning. Hope that helps for you people who are still on dialup (dear god, DIALUP?) or stand the chance of getting FAPped by your service provider.
Life is calming down a bit. I find myself more interested in DOING and less interested in TALKING ABOUT IT. I’m making an effort to learn how to bake bread, I’ve taken up knitting again, and in general I find myself imbued with a desire to get my life in order.
On the bread making front, I had the pleasure of taking a class on no-knead bread and pizza dough from the Seattle Free School last week. For the uninitiated, the Seattle Free School has no defined location or membership; it is simply a forum for matching those who wish to teach a class for those who wish to learn. Generally it involves a demonstration, unless the course specifically says to bring certain materials. Last year I signed up for their basic automotive repair and maintenance course (which was so popular the class had a waiting list), but suffered a disappointment and had to back out when I remembered I was going to be out of town that particular weekend.
Anyway, this particular course involved a demonstration of the NY Times‘ food writer Mark Bittman’s article on a no-knead bread recipe, which can also be used for homemade pizza dough. (Follow the link - there’s even a video of the process.) Surprisingly, the recipe is VERY simple and relies heavily on time instead of muscle.
The course instructor made the dough for us, gave us his tips for things he’s found that work well or not so well in making this bread. It was a fairly enjoyable experience, and I’m on the lookout for more courses of interest in the future (cheese making and a repeat automotive course are high on my list).
This weekend I attempted the recipe at home for my first homemade pizza (1/2 a recipe will yield about the right amount of dough for a ten-inch pizza). I used two cups unbleached white flour and one cup wheat, but I think 1 5/8 cups of water is too much for the recipe to be used as pizza dough. No matter how much flour I used to keep the dough from sticking to both me and the cutting board, it made a glue-like sticky mess. As I didn’t plan on making my own sauce, I used canned tomato sauce and sprinkled it with fresh crushed garlic and a little dried oregano and basil, which yielded a tasty base for my pizza. Fresh spinach leaves, diced onion and mozzarella were my toppings.
Despite the initial troubles with the dough, the end result was a lovely-looking pizza that tasted as good as any pizza I’ve paid for, and the beauty is that the dough can be stored up to a week in the fridge for later use.
The no-knead result for bread produces a lovely artisan-looking loaf, and for those not inclined to put in the effort of making kneaded bread dough, this would suffice for having fresh or day-old bread with pretty much any meal. But I still want to learn both methods, and I’ll be attempting the Tassajara Bread Book’s basic bread recipe this weekend if I have enough time for it.
Asian Salad (Serves two)
Marinated Meat
- ~1/2 lb of pork loin (chicken, beef, or salmon all work well, too)
- 1/3 C soy sauce
- 1 tbsp fresh grated ginger
Mix soy sauce and ginger in a small bowl. Place meat in a well sealing container. Pour soy sauce mixture over meat and turn meat to coat. Marinate for up to 4 hours.
Dressing
- 2 scallions, thinly sliced, both white & green parts
- 1 tbsp fresh grated ginger
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 1/3 C seasoned rice vinegar
- 1 tbsp olive oil, or more to taste
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- black pepper
Place scallions, ginger, garlic, rice vinegar, olive oil, soy sauce and sesame oil in a small bowl and whisk to mix. Add black pepper to taste. Dressing will keep in fridge for up to 1 week.
Salad
- salad greens, as much as you feel like eating
- soba noodles, cooked, rinsed in cold water, and drained
- other fruits/veggies, sliced (cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, mandarin oranges, bell peppers etc.) as desired
Grill meat until it is done to your liking. Divide salad greens, soba noodles, and other veggies between 2 bowls. Slice the cooked meat and divide between the 2 bowls. Top with dressing to taste.
Yes, I know I’ve been quiet. It’s been a busy couple of months: between a heavy work schedule, work upheaval, and social activities, I just haven’t felt the presence of the muse overlap with a precious few hours of uninterrupted time.
Work has been going well. Really well. But being this busy for this long—I think it started in March or April—is taking its toll, and I’m suffering from a growing amount of burnout.
Plus my groove has been thrown off by the announcement of an impending merger which will be officially concluded on January 2nd. My firm is the larger of the two, which is more comforting, and as time progresses, I’m adjusting and getting more excited about what this will mean for my career and work opportunities. But it’s taken some weeks to feel any excitement at all, after my boss presented the merger in such a way that it sounded more like the company just gained all these employees who are “better” than me and have been hired over me. Medium fish, smaller pond to small fish, very large pond. My carpe diem had seized in a pit of fear of the unknown.
But the more I find my feet again and have conversations with people about my career goals post-merger, the more doors I see opening for me. I’ve been receiving quite a bit of encouragement from my mentors, along with quite a bit of positive commentary as to my professional skills and value. In short, all this adds up to a very, very busy start to 2009, as I’m one of a few people tapped to travel to each of the offices of the other firm, plus I’ll be one of the first to start training on some advanced 3-D modeling software with its own programming interface. In addition, I’m voluntarily taking on the task of integrating the two companies’ graphic standards. And somewhere in there, I’m supposed to give two presentations of a Python-based analysis tool I’ve designed to perform some geostatistical analysis of contaminant models I’ve built.
On the social side, in November I had a blast at two concerts I attended with one of my favorite people. The first, however, made me realize how much I detest standing up for concerts. Hello, age. The second concert, in comparison, was heavenly. It was on the exquisite main stage at the trendy Triple Door here in Seattle, where you have a complete sit-down dining experience while you listen to great music. If only the artist from the first concert would perform at the Triple Door. Now that would be perfection!
I can’t really work up any commentary on the whole economic mess, either. The absolute stupidity and ignorance that precipitated all these financial bailouts causes me nothing but heartburn as I shake my head in disgust. I’m watching a few friends cope with layoffs, but in general this area hasn’t yet been hit as hard as other parts of the country, and I still have many reasons for optimism. I feel pretty blessed in that respect.
I’ve been dining with friends, visiting family, and I have a trip to Montana tentatively scheduled for February. So, yeah, don’t expect posting silence to get any better.
Not that I’m the worst offender here or anything, though.
Naked runners face registering as sex offenders
Twelve of the runners who streaked the Pearl Street Mall on Friday night wearing nothing but pumpkins on their heads will have to register as sex offenders if they are convicted of indecent exposure.
The 10th year of the Naked Pumpkin Run started as usual — with laughter, beer and a whole lot of pumpkin carving. But the nude run, which has grown in recent years to include well over 100 people, ended with police citing 12 of the streakers for indecent exposure, a Class 1 misdemeanor. Police have warned runners in the past that the activity isn’t legal, but this is the first time officers showed up en masse to enforce the law.
Now the ticketed runners, whose names have not yet been released, will have to register as sex offenders — a scarlet letter that could mark their professional and personal lives for years — if the charge of indecent exposure sticks.
Welcome to the witch hunt 2.0. Sex offenders, drug users, and terrorists behind every tree and under every rock.
Good thing the Boulder PD doesn’t have any real crime to pursue.
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