My 36th Year

Well, I'm now twice as old as a high schooler. That's pretty old. Feels pretty old any way. I'm quite happy with what I did last year. Among other things, I learned to juggle and play the violin. One mental skill, one physical skill. Neither one of them particularly useful in any meaningful way, but both of them fun.

I need to be better at this.

I've been wondering if that was my mid life crisis. An affirmation that I can still accomplish a task that is usually accomplished by a much younger person. If that's what it is then I'm ok with it, and I think I should continue crisising. What do do this year? About a month ago I started working on doing handstands with the idea that I can eventually work up to a free standing hand stand push-up. Since I can't yet hold a handstand for more than about 5 seconds, that seems like a pretty good road to continue down for the year. What's more useless than a handstand push-up?
I'll tell you what, clocks. Not that clocks aren't useful, but building a clock, that can't be a functional use of time. And I'm not talking about building a cabinet and putting a movement inside. No, I want to build the movement, from scratch, from wood. I'm thinking of starting by asking for a pre-cut kit for Christmas and assembling it to get a feel for what's involved. There's lots of gears and the pendulum and the escapement and a lot of stuff that I've read about, but I think I need to handle to really wrap my mind around it. Then I need to figure out how to actually do the work myself, to cut and shape the gears by hand and assemble it into a working clock. That sounds like a task that I can really immerse myself in.
Stay tuned to watch a very small mid life crisis unfold.

Kleen Kanteen Steel Pint Review

Hot or cold, perfection in a cup.

Kleen Kanteen has solved all of my dad related drinking problems. That sounds bad. They have produced a cup that solves the problems I had with cups for me and my kids. Those two problems were as follows:
1. I hate plastic. It makes things taste funny and feels terrible agianst my mouth.
2. My kids break evertything that isn't plastic. Glass has a terrifyingly short life around here.
Kleen Kanteen has solved both of those problems with their new Steel Pint. The cups are 16 oz which is a perfect size for basically everything, adult or child. They are indestructible. They're stainless steel so they don't change the taste of anything and they feel good against my tender lips. I love them so much. They're not absolutely perfect. These cups conduct heat quickly so they sweat a lot when you have a cold drink in them. Because they conduct heat well you need to be careful with hot beverages, though Kleen Kanteen doesn't explicitly say this, you can burn your lips or hands pretty easy if your coffee is hot and you're not careful. I do like to drink coffee out of them though. I don't understand people who like really hot coffee. You can't drink it until it cools down so what's the point? Coffee cools down quickly in these cups and you can easily check the temperature with your hand. If you can touch it, you can drink it. I drink coffee fast when it's at the right temperature so these cups are perfect for my type of coffee drinking. They're actually perfect for everything.
These cups rule and every dad should get a set for Christmas. In fact, I need more, so all my readers can keep that in mind when they go shopping for me.

Short post today, sorry about that. I'm between coats of paint in the bathroom and my in-laws are coming tomorrow. That's right, I'm painting the bathroom the day before my in-laws come. I'm an idiot.

Throwing Toddlers

Every dad has a version of this game. It ranges from the quick pick up to literally, well, throwing. I'm the kind of guy who regularly drops things, so I never went for a full release myself. I've watched my brother pitch his kids frighteningly high into the air and catch them without a worry. Of course, whereas he played baseball in high school, when I played T-ball I played left field. Even then I had to wear a batting helmet as a fielder because twice, not once, but twice, I went to catch a fly ball only to miss it and have it hit me in the head. The coaches were quite worried about me and though the helmet would reduce the likelihood of a lawsuit. Anyway, I was smart enough to not actually throw my kids. Just a quick jump, a yank on the arms, and a flight onto the big puffy couch. They'd do it for hours until my arms were sore.
They finally got too big to throw around in the house and for a few years we were limited to spinning and airplanes and other versions of rotation based silliness. This summer though my older son finally learned to swim well enough that we could start all over again with pitching him in the water. I'm not throwing him off a dock or anything crazy like that. I have him stand in my cupped hands and I throw him like a Scotsman throwing a caber at the Highland Games. I'm less concerned about hurting them in the water than I ever was on the couch. I was always just a bit nervous about the possibility of having to explain why my two year old had hit the ceiling and needed medical attention. With water all I have to worry about is drowning, and that's....better?

Dear Tampon Company

Dear Tampon Company,
 I'm a stay at home dad. I do all of the shopping. That means that I buy tampons when more tampons are needed. I don't have a problem with this. I don't pick them up last so I don't have to worry about people seeing them in my cart. I don't hide them under other things in the cart or on the checkout belt. I don't go through the self check to avoid embarrassment. In fact, I'm not embarrassed buying them. I'm a husband who has a wife that isn't pregnant. This is how the world works. In fact I think it's probably more embarrassing for women to buy tampons. When I buy them it doesn't indicate anything at all about me except for the fact that I'm a caring modern open minded guy. Tampons in my cart say I'm awesome. Tampons in a girl's cart just let guys know that it's probably not a great time to ask for her phone number. That's got to be worse.

NO! Bad tampon company!

So I don't have a problem buying tampons. What I do have a problem with is new packaging. I'm sent to the store with a very specific note on what to buy. That's what I buy. Deviating from this list would be bad. Or it could be bad, I don't even know. I don't have the knowledge to be able to figure out if there is something else on that huge shelf of options that would work just as well as what I've been sent to get. So when you change your packaging Tampon Companies, it's bad. All of a sudden, I can't find what I need to find. That characteristic box, the one that I know, the one that I can grab without even stopping the cart as I breeze through the isle where man seldom walks, isn't there. It's just not there. Now I have to stop and start reading the boxes. I have to sort out the supers from the regulars from the multi-packs from the slenders from the sports from the unscented from the fresh scents from everything else. And that's assuming that you haven't changed the boxes so much that I can't even find your brand any more. So basically, I'm standing there contemplating which tampons to buy. I'm not equipped for this. I have women walking by giving me very very nervous looks. What am I doing? Do I think my wife needs something else? Who can think that about their wife? How would they know? How can any man think he knows these things? Bastard! I feel like I need to make a joke about my allergies. Lots of pollen lately, hard to sleep without waking up at night to blow my nose, trying to decide if regulars will take care of it or if I need supers. Ha Ha! It's not embarrassing buying tampons, but it is embarrassing shopping for them. And it's not like I can just abandon the mission, this is not the week to tell my wife that I can't accomplish a simple task. Making her unhappy with me would be very bad.
So, Tampon Companies, stop it. Please pick a design and stick with it. I'm thinking that if you just keep the same packaging for the next 25 years or so, I'll be in the clear.

Thank you,
Tampon Buying Husband


Books this week -
The Kingdom Fungi, Steven L. Stephenson
A Canticle for Leibowitz,
Fungi was an awesome book but sooooo hard to read. It bills itself as and introduction to the kingdom of fungi, but it's written more like an introductory text book. Books like this should really not be written by an expert, or they should be co-written with an expert at the most. Buried in all of the technical aspects and termonology were some amazing facts. There is a fungus that grows on the poop of herbivores. This fungus passes through the animal unharmed and then grows and fruits on the pile. The fruits are a little pressure chamber that shoots spores up to 6 feet which is pretty amazing, and they can aim the spores at the brightest light source thereby making sure they shoot at an opening in the plant cover to get maximum distance, but there's more. The spores have a sticky side to stick to plants and the other side is hydrophobic (water hating) so if it lands on a dewy leaf, it will flip itself sticky side down which increases the chance that another herbovore will eat it and start the cycle over again. But wait, there's even more! There is a parasitic nematode that preys on herbavores that has figured out how to climb out of the poop and up the stalk and hitch a ride on the shooting spores so that it can increase it's chances of being eaten as well. Amazing stuff. Trudging through the book is a battle of painful confusion and moments of amazing clarity of writing that reveal a lot about the world of fungus and lichen and all sorts of stuff. Worth it if you can stand it.
Leibowitz is a pretty ok book. Initially set 600 years after a nuclear holocaust it reveals a world that has been purged of literacy and learning. The only books and reading that have survived are in a monastery in the desert well guarded by Catholic monks. It covers the initial mystery of these texts, the scientific leaps 800 years later when the information is finally decoded and used, and the eventual destruction of man again 800 years after that. Religion and learning and human nature in a post apocalyptic world with a little too much Latin mixed in for my taste. Not the best post apocalyptic fiction, but pretty good.

Yogurt - Hippie Merit Badge

I always think of yogurt making as a very hippie endevour. I'm not sure why. If I were to think about the popular culture of yogurt, (ha, culture of yogurt) in advertising at least, I'd have to think that yogurt is more of a women who can't poop thing than a hippie thing. That's not how I want to think of yogurt though, I'd much rather relate it to hippies.
So, why make yogurt? If you don't eat a lot of yogurt, don't. If you do, then check out the economics. I eat about two quarts of yogurt a week. Dannon plain yogurt is $2.34 per quart. A gallon of milk is $3.45. Since milk is the only ingredient in yogurt, I can compare them directly. Yogurt would cost me $4.68 a week, making yogurt costs me $1.73 a week. Lets say I eat it 50 weeks a year, that's a savings of $147.50. Ok, it's not that much, but it's better than a poke in the head with a sharp stick. On to making yougurt.

Heating milk, notice the skin that has formed.

All you need is milk, at least one pot, a thermometer, a heating pad, and some old yogurt. The steps are as follows.
1. Heat milk to 185 degrees in a pot. If you set up a double boiler you're less likely to scorch the milk.
2. Cool the milk back down to 110 degrees.
3. Add 4-5 tbs of yogurt.
4. Keep warm for 4-7 hours with a heating pad on low/medium or in periodically refreshed hot water bath.
5. Stir the dickens out of it and chill.
Easy peasy. You can get a better explanation than I can type here: How To Make Yogurt

Mmmm, that's good. Makes me want to stop showering.

I'll just fill in a few personal observations after making it myself for a while. First thing is that when you heat your milk you have to either stir it constantly or it will form a skin at about 140 degrees. I used to stir it to prevent that, now I just wait until it gets to 185 and skim the skin off. The end result is the same and I can sit and read a book instead of stirring while it warms. Second, they're not kidding about vigorous stirring after it's done. The better you stir it the smoother the final cooled yogurt will be. Lumpy yogurt tastes just fine but it looks like it might kill you. Third, you can control the sour bite your yogurt has by changing the amount of time you let the little bacteria eat your milk. When you make it the first time it's likely to be more sour than just about any yogurt you buy at the store. Keep it warm for less the next time and you can make it more mild.
I eat yogurt plain but my kids don't like it unless there's some sweetness in it. Maple syrup is awesome for this. Honey, jelly, fruit, granola, lots of things to add. It's also the perfect base for frozen yogurt, which I highly recommend.
 So go make some yogurt, and if you do, let me know. I'll send you your very own Hippie Merit Badge. Seriously.

I Walk The Line

Like many kids, my kids are playing sports. Like many parents, I'd like to just show up and watch them and tell them how good then did and go home. I want it to be easy and painless and, like the introvert that I am, I don't want any more forced interaction than are necessary. I have guilt though. Stupid guilt. This comes from the realization that kids sports are run by volunteers. Somebody has to step up organize and coach if these organized sports leagues are going to be possible. If I only had one kid I could probably convince myself that we were a really small load on the system so I didn't really need to help. I have four though. When two of them end up on the same soccer team we're 1/4 of the whole team. My family makes up a significant enough portion of the players that I feel like not giving back is sort of like stealing. Stupid guilt.

I coached little league basketball for two years and simultaneously loved and hated it. For the most part I loved coaching the kids. This was the youngest age group so nobody could really shoot and at least half of them couldn't dribble when we started. By the end of a single season everyone could dribble and pass and had an understanding of what basketball was. They could defend and get open for a pass. Even though I had a terrible win/loss ratio both years, all of my players scored during a game. I was proud of the boys and it was fun. I hated dealing with the parents. Hated it. Most were nice but it only takes a couple that really want to get involved verbally, but not at all with the actual work of coaching, to make the situation miserable. Couple that with other coaches that were poor sports or poor at dealing with children or poor at both and I faced every game with a combination of joy and terror.
When my kids switched to soccer I convinced my wife that it was her time to coach before I got an ulcer or had a nervous breakdown. She's coached for two years and has been spectacular it it. So wonderful in fact that people request to be on the team that she's coaching. She still has a few issues with parents but they are a magnitude or two less than I had in basketball. When she went to her first coaches meeting she did manage to find a way to keep me involved. She volunteered me as the field striper. Once a week I have to head up to the fields and take out my trusty little painting cart and make the lines straight and pretty. I do it when there's nobody there and it's one of the most peaceful and satisfying hours of my week. I've often daydreamed while I'm walking along painting the fields of seeking employment with a NFL team. Then I realize that they're probably a bit more advanced than one guy with a striping cart. They probably have a whole crew and striping robots with GPS and it's probably quite a high pressure job and I don't want any part of that.
As a stay at home day you're going to hear the phrase "You don't work, you can help!" more than a few times over the years. You need resist the urge to choke the person who has been quietly typing at their desk all day while you have been dealing with screaming toddlers for 12 hours. Sometimes, if you look around, you can find a calming, peaceful, lonely, guilt assuaging job like field maintenance.

Bread: Sourdough 3

I have a confession to make. Bread was supposed to be the second sourdough post, but I almost killed my starter. I'm not sure what happened, but I went to make a loaf of bread and it just wouldn't rise. I started in in the morning and by 10 that night it has risen just a bit in the bowl. I put it in the bread pan in the fridge overnight and it took the whole next day to properly rise, I baked it right before bed. I had to feed and nurture the starter daily for 3 days to get it going again. Now it's fine, but things were a little touch and go for a while. Anyway, on to bread.

White Sourdough Bread - derived from a variety of recipes, distilled to simplicity.
6 cups white flour
1 3/4 cups water
1 tbs salt
1/2 cup starter (don't forget to keep a bit of starter for the next batch!) or 1/2 tsp yeast

Well developed gluten. And flavor.

Mix the starter, 5 cups flour, the salt and the water together in a bowl and try your best to get them into a ball. Reserve the 6th cup of flour and use it for dusting the counter and adding to the dough to get it the right consistency. I knead the dough by hand, mostly because that way I can really feel when it's ready. You can also use a mixer with a dough hook or theoretically a bread machine. What you're going for is a sticky mass that has come together well enough that it pulls pretty cleanly away from the counter when you're kneading it or away from the side of the bowl with the dough hook. Dough changes as you knead. It's sticky and loose and then not as sticky and firmer as the gluten forms. Resist the urge to add too much flour too early. There are plenty of articles online about kneading dough and what proper dough consistency is. There are also plenty of different opinions about what the final dough will look and feel like. The dough in this recipe is fairly loose for a bread dough (though heavier than my pizza dough) because I bake it in a pan. A loaf that will be baked free on a stone should probably be a bit stiffer to hold it's shape better. I prefer baking in a pan mostly because my kids use the bread for sandwiches and by using a pan I can make sure that those sandwiches fit in a standard lunch bag. You can use a regular glass pan that you bake quick breads in (though you should probably reduce the flour to five cups and the water to 1.5 cups) but I really really like my Pullman Pan. It makes a perfect sized loaf and, for me at least, never sticks. I've sort of gotten off track here. You've now kneaded you dough for 10 minutes or so. Now flop it back into the bowl and cover until it has about doubled in size. I don't know how long this will take for your dough. It might take 4 hours, it might take over night. It depends on how lively your starter is and how warm it is. It's actually cooling down in Texas finally, so I'm letting my first rise happen on the counter over night. From 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. is about 9 hours. That seems to work. I will say that a long rise is necessary for good flavor and gluten development in bread. You can make the recipe here with a whole packet of yeast (2.5 tsp) and it will rise faster and you'll be able to get it baked faster. It won't taste as good as if you use the suggested 1/2 tsp and just wait longer. If you don't believe me, then try it, you'll be a convert. Time is the one ingredient that absolutely cannot be replaced in great bread. Ask any baker, all great breads take time. Now you have to shape the dough or flop it in the pan. I'm the wrong man to talk to about shaping bread, go do a search. I just peel the dough out of the bowl, get it vaguely log shaped and drop it in the bread pan. I'm such a lazy baker. Then take a piece of plastic wrap and lightly butter it and cover the pan. This lets the bread rise to the top of the pan without sticking to the covering. When the bread has about doubled in size in the bread pan, or reached the top, heat the oven to 400 and bake for 40-50 minutes. When you knock on it and it sounds hollow it's probably done.

I think my bread is so pretty that it deserves an outdoor photo.

It will take you a few loaves of bread to get the hang of all of this. It's not hard, but it does require some experience doing it. If you want to be really scientific about it, keep a journal of your baking. Exactly how much went into the loaf, what the dough felt like, how long the rise was (note the temperature in your kitchen) and how long your bake was. After 4-6 loaves you'll have a very good idea what's going on and what you can expect the next time you bake. You should be able to make a wonderful aromatic beautiful loaf of sourdough bread with a little practice. It will put to shame anything you can buy in the grocery store and you probably won't be able to buy anything it's equal anywhere for less than $5-7 a loaf. This is real artisan stuff here. Don't be afraid to pick up a book or two on baking bread from the library. There is also a ton of information about baking online especially from King Arthur Flour. You could also drive my sister insane by hitting her up at The Naked Elm, her bakery and cafe in Blue Mounds Wisconsin. She loves baking and will gladly tell you that I actually suck at baking and set you straight on how it's done.

Go bake some bread. It's one of those things that you need to do to really learn. You can spend all day reading about rock climbing or sailing or riding a motorcycle or baking bread, but when it comes right down to it, you can't really learn about it until you actually do it.