Ok, so it didn’t take long to pull the trigger…
We are moving over to Site5!
I am going to start the ball rolling as soon as I finish posting this, so there may be some downtime… hopefully not more than a day or two.
Granted, in that case you probably won’t see this, but maybe beforehand 🙂
-Jordan
Oddly enough a weekend at home kept me more tied up than I am when we have a lot on the schedule!
The aforementioned Django/Python site is 80% feature complete, just needing a few more screens fleshed out, and then liberal application of CSS magic.
There will be the fun of getting it deployed to my hosting provider instead of running locally. If I do that right I may manage to render the entire heatherandjordan.com domain inoperable for a few days. On the bright side I am not ready to attempt that part just yet. All the same the site is coming along nicely.
In other news, Heather and I are again facilitating a Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University class. Maybe it makes us strange, but we both really enjoy the chance to share the class with new people! Our first class was just hours prior to my writing this, and we have a great group signed up. I think it’s going to be a really rewarding experience again this year!
-Jordan
It’s probably a bad sign that every time I sit down to write a post now, I have to fight hard against the urge to spend a paragraph explaining why I am so late in getting the post up…
Anyway, remember that pile of butter from before?
We baked it into hundreds of cookies, and then invited friends over to help decorate!
The event quickly demonstrated we could probably use more variety in Christmas themed cookie cutters, and decorating widgets. On the other hand, Christmas cookie accessories more or less match the “only get used once a year” type of thing I have been known to complain about storing (and moving). I could probably make an exception for things cookie related however.
I did make it clear that there were lots of cookies right?
Everyone took home a heaping plate, and we still had enough left over to represent the Nelsons in two cookie exchanges!
The following weekend, Heather and I made a quick trip down to the KC area for a wedding shower. It was a nice shower, and I wound up having some really interesting conversations with a number of the guests. All the same, if you are planning a shower don’t worry about hurting my feelings if you made it girls only. I am perfectly content to entertain myself 🙂
Because we were going to be in the area Sunday, we headed over to Liberty MO. to meet up with some friends and attend their church. In a rare turn of events, we were running way ahead of schedule when we parked the car in Liberty. I had seen a few of these on the way in:
It was a beautiful old neighborhood, so Heather and I both were eager to walk around and explore… if perhaps for different reasons. You will have to indulge a small tangent here so I can comment on the fact that it was a beautiful day, worth noting mostly because I don’t know how many weekends in December lend themselves to walking around outside for fun.
Back to the mysterious silhouette! A few blocks down the road we found a former presidential mansion!
It may be impossible to see in the small picture there, but the plaque explains that this was once the home of Harry S Truman. A few blocks farther and we were in the historic square and downtown area. It would be difficult not to notice the signs of decline creeping into the area, but it was clear that large amounts of energy have been expended to make the square inviting to walk around in. They have historical site markers and plaques explaining the significance of the area at a density unrivaled by any town square we have ever toured.
Near the far end of the square we finally encountered the man himself:
Then it was back across the square, back to the church, and then back to Des Moines!
-Jordan
While it is Sunday afternoon as I write this, the ride happened last weekend.
Heather had some coworkers who were excited to try out some of the more outlying trails around Des Moines. A plan was put together to have everyone meet at one of the trail heads near “the railroad trestle”
Interesting note about the trail head, it features a bar build specifically to cater to the people using the bike trail. It was also next to a s dormant grain elevator, not too shocking given the trail runs down a recently decommissioned rail line.
Speaking of the rail line, let me tell you, if you want a nice easy bike ride the rail right of way is hard to beat.
We had a group of roughly ten people, and rode together down the trail. Nobody seemed to know exactly how far we were going, except to say that it wasn’t that far. Distance wise, we may have covered more miles than everyone considers “not that far,” but as I mentioned before it was a really easy ride so I don’t think anybody expected to arrive at the bridge quite when we did.
I do quibble with the “trestle” description, but it clearly was a rail bridge, and it does provide a rather unique thing to ride over on a bike. We stayed and enjoyed the view for a few minutes, then headed on down the trail to the next town. I don’t quite know why, but I suppose it made for a more complete ride that way?
Before I forget, here is a map of the bridge, if you are interested as to what part of the lake it covers.
After refilling our water bottles at the nice little pit-stop location waiting for us in Woodward, we headed back to the trail head. We completed the day with a quick stop at the Flat Tire bar I mentioned before and headed home.
This makes our third summer owning bikes, and I have to say they have continued to provide a really great way for Heather and I to get outside together. Tangentially I realized that google maps now lets me show bike trails. It appears that there are a few gaps in the trail network between our house and that bridge… Not to mention the significant distance involved 🙂
I feel like this may not have been the most interesting post ever, but it at least serves the purpose of recording a unique day for us in the summer of 2011 🙂
-Jordan
So before I talk about the book, I have to admit that I remember posting here that I was going to try and do little summary / reviews of books once I finished reading them.
I failed at that plan. There have been a number of things I have read that never made it onto the blog.
Non the less, I finished reading Chasing The Dragon by Jackie Pullenger, and wanted to talk about it here.
I really enjoyed the book! It wasn’t always the most enjoyable read, because the situations she describes are horrifying in many cases. At the same time that was what made the book so exciting to read, was hearing her describe how God was working.
From a practical standpoint, it made it a lot harder to feel sorry for myself about having to sometimes cook food for a bunch of kids at church. I spent a lot of time reflecting on my worldview and relative situation while reading the book, something I don’t typically do… I don’t want to wander too far down that rabbit trail, except to say that it was kind of refreshing.
Going back to the book, it deals with drug addicts within the Walled-City of Hong Kong. It does not in any way sound like a place I would want to be… I find down town Des Moines far too crowded for my tastes. About the time I was finishing the book, a blog I follow had a few Walled-City related items that I found rather interesting.
The first is an old German TV documentary. I will let the linked details fill you in, except to say that most of the commentary that goes with the video is pretty sensationalized, at best, and often directly contradicts situations described in the book. Primarily the idea that “there is no law” because roughly 20% of the book was a Jackie dealing with police and the court system, as they related to people inside the Walled-City.
The other item, also Via io9 is a few pictures, and then some sort of informational / layout drawings. They aren’t quite as interesting as the video, but worth linking I suppose.
So to sum this up, if you haven’t read Chasing The Dragon, and are looking to pickup some nonfiction (something I always think I should be doing more) you should check it out! 🙂
-Jordan
As I mentioned before, our nephew really warrants a picture now and again:
The other item worth mentioning is that after the wedding, I helped Heather remove the bobby pins from her hair. 43 pins later, we were done. I was really tempted to let the count slip by one, because 42 is a much cooler number, but it was 43.
To quote Heather “well, this may explain why my hair didn’t move at all for the past eight hours”
As I write this Heather and I are looking forward to a rare weekend with nothing planned! I hope it is every bit as nice as it sounds right now 🙂
-Jordan
This weekend marks both a beginning and an end.
It is the end of the several month long process I have been working on to become an adult leader with the Boy Scouts of America. The process hasn’t been hard, but has required a fair amount of tenacity. I won’t bore you with the entire process, but figuring out who to get in contact with, actually getting into contact with them, filling out the forms properly, and then waiting for the right training opportunities ate up a surprising chunk of time. I am not 100% done with the training, and it appears it may be some time before I actually am, but I figured I was far enough along in the process to warrant a blog post.
A lot of people I have come into contact with in this process ask “So why are you getting involved?” this question generally comes right after they ask how old my boy is. I hope I haven’t confused anybody with my answer being somewhat different each time. It isn’t that I don’t know it’s just hard to summarize.
For one, my amazing wife was honest enough with me to make it clear that she didn’t want to become a camper, and I would rather camp in a scouting environment than with the guys who consider ‘several cases of beer’ to be essential camping supplies.
Another reason is to just find ways to get involved with the community here. It has been far too easy to just go from home to work and then back again without interacting with anybody. This seems like a great way to learn about the area (I still don’t know where most of the outlying towns are), and meet a broader swath of people.
The final reason is basically that I always figured I would. When you become an Eagle, they remind you that part of your obligation is to give back to scouting. I remember being asked specifically if I were planning to get involved with a troop once I started college. I am sure I said yes, and no doubt meant it, but I just never got around to it. Heather has been a great encouragement in that… I don’t know if I ever would have started this process without her, but I am really proud that I have.
I have actually been mildly involved with the meetings for a month now, and the first camp-out I will go on is mid October.
That reminds me, I should probably make some time to go through my camping gear and see if it is all ready to go… most of it has been packed up for the last ten years 🙂
-Jordan
Well… to be honest, not really hacks, I installed a plugin that (in theory) will seamlessly migrate the RSS feed to the blog through a feedburner feed.
If you don’t know what that is don’t worry about it. I just like to play with addons for the site once in a while, although this one shouldn’t really be visible.
While I am thinking of technical things, have I mentioned Lastpass?
It is a password management tool, that is frankly amazing. I was getting really uncomfortable with the number of passwords I was trying to remember, and getting more and more lazy about using the same password for “unimportant” logins. I knew that was a bad situation but I didn’t really trust a plugin to deal with that kind of thing.
Then the Security Now podcast that I try and keep up with, did an episode on Lastpass. I was really excited. I installed it, really with the idea that I could offer to to Heather as a way to help her beef up her password system. (side note, Heather HATES the Security Now podcast. Her life usually gets more complicated after I learn something new and terrifying on the podcast) So far I love Lastpass, but I don’t know if it is really something Heather is going to put up with. The fiddle-factor seems just a tiny bit too high. Also from what I can tell it would be a little hard to share a computer with the plugin running, unless I suppose you both knew the master password… I am not saying I wouldn’t tell Heather what mine is, I just don’t think she would be crazy about a 15 character password. 🙂
-Jordan
oh! I almost forgot, if you happen to be interested, the plugin I used is here: http://flagrantdisregard.com/feedburner/
And a big hat tip to my sister, who actually told me about this four months ago, and I never got around to setting it up.
I had some time tonight, so I actually made the pie! Just for completeness, I will include the recipe again. If you saw my research post, I should note that this recipe isn’t quite the same as what I posted before. What you see here is what I adapted into.
(modified from this recipe over at all-recipe, and using advice from a commenter)
Ingredients
Directions
That is the recipe, now to actually start:
I made the crust first:
My recipe for the pie crust said to bake for 8-10 minutes. Apparently They were planning on my having rolled the crust out a lot thinner, because I baked this for over 20 minutes! I think it could have gone longer, but I didn’t want to risk burning it. Given that this pie will be served frozen I don’t suppose it matters if the crust is a little soft. The actual recipe calls for Graham Cracker crust, and I am sure that would work fine. Heather is always looking for ways to avoid sugar, and I thought it would be more fun to make a real pie crust, so that’s what I did. (this is also what I did last year)
As the crust was baking, I started on the filling:
I forget how nice a powered mixer can be sometimes, although I am glad the one we have is small. Splenda behaves just like powdered sugar, and can usually be substituted by volume anywhere the sugar is used. Heather kind of turned against it a while back, but if I coat it in enough peanut butter she will still give it a try 🙂
Speaking of peanut butter that was the next step:
As I was in the process of adding the peanut butter, I realized that the recipe I hacked up to get this actually used half a tub of ‘whipped topping’ in the mix. With that in the back of my mind, I started increasing the amount of peanut butter in the measuring cup a little. Once I had one and a half cups I realized there was only about half a cup of peanut butter left in the jar anyway. What you see here could be said to have 100% more peanut butter!!
Here is the point where the long cook time of the crust was starting to be a problem. Despite my having posted a ‘done’ picture of the crust, it was still in the oven when I snapped the picture of the filling all ready to go. I pulled it out a minute later, but I don’t think you should really put the filling into a hot crust. It might be ok, but I was afraid it would make the filling melt into strange layers or something else weird. I ended up putting the crust into the spot that I had cleared out in the freezer, sans-filling for a while so it wouldn’t try to cook the filling.
The finished product:
You could top this with ether low-sugar, or sugar-free whipped-topping before serving, but I think leaving it off makes it easier to sell as low-sugar. 🙂
-Jordan
Heather’s birthday was last week.
Last year, I made a peanut butter pie for her birthday. Heather still, a year later, tells me how amazing that pie was! Due to Independence Day festivities the week of her birthday was a little crowded, so I wasn’t able to make the pie on her birthday this year. The Broadway show “The Jersey Boys” is showing in Des Moines though, and I think Heather was sufficiently overjoyed at going to that show she didn’t miss the pie too much.
I still really want to make one this year, so I started trying to find the recipe I used last year… and after close to an hour of looking I pieced together that I didn’t use a recipe! So in the interest of being able to reproduce the pie again, let me post where I started from, and what modifications I made:
(modified from this recipe over at all-recipe, and using advice from a commenter)
Ingredients
Directions
I haven’t actually made the pie again, but I am comfortable saying this is what I did last year. I will update the post with any adjustments and pictures as soon as I actually get the pie made 🙂
-Jordan
(I kind of stealth-updated this recipe, what you see here is what I actually used)
Nelsons 