Chocolate and Bacon — Two Great Tastes that Taste Great Together

August 24, 2010 at 1:39 pm (Uncategorized)

I love dark chocolate. I also love bacon It’s more fat than meat and has a flavor that is hard to copy. When I discovered that someone had put the two best foods in the world into one product, I just had to try it. My first taste of bacon chocolate came at ApolloCon 2008, where I was coordinating the charity auction. I was in the hospitality suite and Valerie Villareal had a plate with leftovers from achocolate tasting which she had hosted. She said she had various things, chocolate with lavender, chocolate with cacao nibs–and chocolate with bacon.

My ears perked up. The idea sounded so wrong and so right at the same time. I asked if I could have a bit and she gave me about a quarter ounce. It was wonderful. I knew I had to have more.

Flash forward to 2010. The ApolloCon conference committee was holding it’s final meeting for the 2010 conference at Central Market. My husband, Jonathan, is also on the committee, so we drove in together. On the way, I mention to him that I wondered if Central market carried bacon chocolate bars.

The meeting ended at 3:30 and our dinner invitation for Buca di Beppo was at 5:00, so Jonathan and I decided to hang out at Central Market. He excused himself to go downstairs and purchase water, but came back with a bacon chocolate bar. It was a Mo’s Dark Bacon Bar by Vosges.

I put it into my portfolio for later. And thought about what would be a good beverage to have while consuming it. It would have to be something that would complement the chocolate, not detract from it. The number one answer? A vanilla milkshake from Ritter’s Frozen Custard.

Once my children were safely at school, I ventured to Ritter’s to get the shake. When I arrived, I saw that one of the daily flavors was red raspberry. I like raspberries and chocolate–my favorite Godiva is a raspberry truffle–so I got a large raspberry shake as well as a large vanilla shake. Although it was tempting, I didn’t even put the straws in till I got home. I wanted the full experience.

Back at home, I went to my office, which is really a closet with fluorescent lighting and a table. I put everything down and got out the chocolate bar. According to the box, it’s 3oz. The bar itself is scored into eight pieces. I broke off two, separated them and took a bite. The flavors were better than I remembered. I had forgotten how salty it was–it turns out the salt flavor comes from alderwood-smoked salt. But it is so *right* to have the bacon be the sweet note in the dark chocolate. I’m more a gourmand than gourmet so I don’t know if it’s the applewood smoke on the bacon or the cure, but the crispy little bits were better to me than any fruit or nut or other inclusion I’ve ever had in a chocolate bar.

The chocolate itself is your basic 62% cacao and definitely good quality dark chocolate. The bacon tasted fresh, not like the “bacon pieces” you get at the grocery store in the salad department that taste preserved. And the salt was, as I said, salty. It turns out the sour of the raspberry was wrong, but the vanilla was *so* right. Water wasn’t bad when the vanilla ran out.

Savored, the bar lasted two days. But I could see devouring one at a sitting. This is a wonderful combination. Bacon and dark chocolate really do taste great together.

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Gotta love it!

August 14, 2009 at 3:45 pm (Uncategorized)

I have a new G1 phone. And I am in love. Let me tell you why…

Shopping: I have a wiki at home. Well, not me personally, wikis are intended to be shared. On this wiki I keep my grocery list, my recipe list and stuff like that. The idea is if I want to go shopping, I update the wiki then print out a shopping list.

Not anymore. I create the list and go to the store and use my phone to access it. And people can update the list in case I forgot something. I just need to refresh it to see the new list.

Cooking: I already mentioned I have my recipes on the wiki. This means I don’t need to print out my recipes either. And, if I happen to be shopping and find something on sale, I can see what other ingredients I need to complete a recipe.

Recreation: I play games on my phone. My favorite right now is Coloroid which is a colorblock game. I also have cribbage and klondike solitaire. I also listen to music. Especially when I’m driving or cooking. I love how I can have my phone play music and show me the recipe at the same time.

E-Mail: My phone notifies me when I have e-mail. So instead of keeping tabs open on my browser, I just have my phone sitting near me.

Instant Messaging: I don’t use my phone for IM very much because if I’m away from my computer I’m usually too busy to do IM anyway. But it’s a reasonable interface.

Phone: I mentioned it was a phone, right? Never dropped a call. And texting works great with the keyboard. I like how texts to/from a number are displayed as conversation.

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Being true to myself

July 22, 2009 at 6:14 am (Baseball, Writing)

Shakespeare said it and so did a lot of other people in different ways. You need to be true to yourself.

For the last while, about a year, I’ve been trying to expunge or at least contain a part of me that I wasn’t getting a lot of positive feedback about. That’s my baseball versification. I like baseball and I like writing poems and ditties and songs about baseball and ballplayers. I’ve done this on a regular basis since 2002 and most of the people around me tolerated it as an eccentricity and never really talked about about it.

I found the filk community on rec.music.filk to be less than hospitable, though in person, filkers are gracious and will listen to baseball filk, too. But for the most part, I had the impression that I was burdening people when I wanted to share something with them.

Well, all that has changed. On first and third Tuesdays, I attend a writer’s group out here in Katy and we typically share what we’re working on. I had shown a poem of mine to an online friend who said it was very good so I took that and a revision of something I’d done before on Joe Jackson with me to the meeting. I also brought chapters of a book I’m working on. My idea was to let the group decide what to hear and they picked poetry.

I passed around the poetry and read them both and got a shock. No one wanted me to change a rhyme or add something or take something out. Instead, we talked about possible markets and marketing strategies.

I sat there, pretty much speechless, listening to people tell me how good my ditties are. And they wanted more. As part of the two marketing strategies, i should work on more poems about players as well as more of the “voices of baseball” set. I don’t think anyone has ever told me before that I should write *more* baseball stuff. It was a revelation, a confirmation and a validation.

So look out world, I’m about to write more baseball verse.

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Spilling my blood

July 4, 2009 at 1:27 am (Blood Donation)

I went to the Blood Center on Thursday. Actually it’s the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center and it’s the donor center in Katy.

I arrived there before my appointment and was taken back to the little room. There they measured my temperature, iron level, pulse and blood pressure. Then I got to answer The Questions. Questions about my sexual history and about my geographical history. My medical history too, including whether I’d gotten a tattoo or piercing in the last 12 months and have I ever been pregnant. Some of the questions make sense, but I’m not sure about the pregnancy one.

Okay, so far so good. They asked me what size t-shirt I wear and gave me a shirt for KKRW’s drive. Then I went into the room where they actually take the blood. They asked me which arm, and I said, “Either,” because the veins in both my arms are good. Instead of an elastic tourniquet, they used a blood pressure cuff inflated to serious tightness.

The phlebotomist marked my arm where she would stick me and had me periodically squeeze a brain-shaped(!) stress ball. She told me to squeeze and hold while she stuck me. Then she walked away for a minute. She came back to check something and it wasn’t right. Now, she didn’t say anything, just got the supervisor. They moved the needle around a bit in my arm but apparently, I’d clotted at the site and so the blood was flowing sluggishly. (They wanted me to keep squeezing and unsqueezing the brain because it made *some* difference–but not enough.)

So they unhooked me, wrapped me up and told me I could try again in 48 hours. Apparently the rules say you can’t stick the other side if one side fails. I’ve donated blood for years now and this is the first time this has happened to me. I have been deferred before though, for not having high enough iron.

I know people who can’t donate blood for one reason or another. One of my friends says he’s scared of the needle. Well, you have to have a heart rate below 100 to be considered fit and if you’re being afraid, your number will probably be higher. I know it’s not too tough to bring my heart rate up at the gym in the morning when I’m hardly awake. If the idea of having a needle in your arm stresses you out, then don’t.

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Like a Phoenix

July 2, 2009 at 2:32 pm (Bring the Heat, Sim Leagues)

Elite Players League. Three words to describe the most incredible online game I’ve ever been a part of. It seems insufficient somehow. For those of you who don’t know about EPL, I’ll try to explain it’s awesomeness. Basically you have a baseball player or two and you role-play them. They are on teams with other players belonging to other people in the league. Most players start in the minors and work their way up, but if you have a good “build” your player might start out on one of the poorer teams. The way you develop your player is by earning upgrade points. One of the ways you can do this is by writing articles about your player. Accounts of games, interviews, blog entries, whatever. These also help with the role-playing aspect. Games are simulated using a simulation engine. Three times each week, league members would gather on AIM while the commish ran the sim and reported the scores for seven days of games.

As I type this, it’s the last day for EPL. The guy who had been commissioner was a victim of the economic times and no longer has a job where he can spend the time it takes to run the league. And there were other things going on, but that’s the major factor. Tonight is the final EPL sim. I don’t care who wins anymore, I just care that it’s over. I’ve been doing it since February of 2006, though the league held it’s inaugural draft nearly four years ago.

But out of the ruins of EPL arises a new league. Bring the Heat. The guy who’s running it is the same guy who is sending EPL off. This will operate the same way as EPL did but it will have minor rules differences and only 8 teams. With 16 teams it became difficult for EPL to keep GMs. Also, members may transfer younger EPL players to the BTH (under 30 as of April 1, 2022 — oh, I should explain that, because the sims are 7 days, we’ve blown by 2009 and gotten way into the future). I have two players who would qualify but one has a “story” that wouldn’t work for being in a new league.

If you’ve never tried something like this and if you like baseball, I encourage you to check it out. It’s different from other kinds of online games in that the community makes it work.

And if you’re a disaffected EPL member, I also urge you to give the league a try. There are bonus upgrade points for recruiting but if you don’t say my name I won’t get them. Don’t say my name. I’d rather have you as a league member than have points.

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Adventures in licensing

June 9, 2009 at 11:57 pm (ApolloCon, Ham Radio, Jonathan, T-Bob)

Well, I passed the test. But somehow I missed the part on the American Radio Relay League site that says, bring your current license to the test. Now, I have my ARRL membership card in my wallet but I never got around to cutting out my license and filing it there.

The VE’s (volunteer examiners) decide I can take the test anyway but that I would need to fax my license to the ARRL volunteer exam coordinator. So we come home (about 25 minutes away) get the license and then go to Jonathan’s office to fax it. Then we head to the ApolloCon meeting (Mark says, “Get a room!” because the more people who book room nights, the more money the con saves on function space) and then home.

Which all means I passed. Jonathan says he was looking over the shoulder of one of the VE’s and that he believes I only got 3 wrong (you’re allowed to miss 9 and still pass). So when I get my new license it will say “General Class” on it.

Now, the reason I didn’t tell anyone before is that I have felt under the weather and it seems I was getting worse as time went on. I don’t want to sound like a whiner but I haven’t even felt like reading. Yesterday I took T-Bob to his friend Pepito’s house in the old neighborhood and I was almost home when I got a call on my cell that he was sick. It’s an hour each way so there went most of yesterday.

In the not-whining department, salsa that “clears your sinuses” really does and I highly recommend it as a home remedy.

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Preparing to be tested

June 6, 2009 at 9:31 am (Ham Radio)

I’ve been reading and studying and taking practice tests for my amateur radio general class license. I’m a technician class now. The cool thing, from my perspective, is that (Morse) code is optional and I’m opting out. Time was you needed to know the code to get the license. I’ll probably learn the code at some point — I’m sure there are good resources for it.

I want to upgrade because I do. Circular logic FTW! No, I met a guy on Facebook who also does radio and who I’d like to talk to. And I just think it’d be cool to not be a rookie anymore.

My call sign is KD5SBI. I’m looking forward to operating in the general bands, once we get the equipment unpacked and set up. I used to have a handheld but it got lost in the move to Katy (I’m sure it’s in a box in the library somewhere).

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The Hallmark of Doom

May 30, 2009 at 3:48 pm (Customer Service, Household, Iker, Jonathan)

We were experiencing problems with our AC and my husband discovered that our electricity provider partnered with some guys named Hallmark. So I discovered they opened at 7am and called them Friday morning at 7:00, 7:03 and 7:06 on my set-to-atomic-time computer clock. The third time was the charm. They agreed to send someone out “between 10 and 2″.

Got a call at 9:24 that they were on their way and they arrived a little before 10. They looked in the attic, in the backyard and at the thermostat and told me the thermostat was bad. They offered to sell me a cheap (excuse me, “basic”) one for $229. Um, no. I called Jonathan to tell him he’d be purchasing and installing a new thermostat. That settled, they went away leaving just a mounting bracket on my hallway wall.

It gets hot in Houston. And in my computer room, where we have 3 servers, a switch and three workstations, it gets hotter. So I went to take Iker to get her last vaccination. Doctors’ offices are usually frigid and I figure we’d be there for awhile.

What I did not figure on was Jonathan coming home early and installing the new thermostat. And calling to tell me the fan wasn’t turning on the AC unit in the back yard. I promised to call when I got home. I called Hallmark and explained the problem. They sent a different someone out. This guy got it done but it cost us a second “diagnostic fee”.

I’ll be talking to them on Monday about getting refunding the first diagnostic fee. The diagnosis was not only wrong, but it cost us the price of a new thermostat as well.

I have yet to mention the excitement. The heat possibly caused our RAID to fail (or maybe it was just coincidence) And that dominoed into other filesystem failures when workstations couldn’t connect to the server for a prolonged period of time.

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He Said / He Said

May 28, 2009 at 8:03 pm (Astros, Baseball, Filk)

You know how you “know” people on the internet? You know only a bit about them that they choose to share. As a filker, I know some people that all I know about them is that they’re filkers, too, or at least they write songs.

Anyway, this matters because I wrote a song. It’s what I do. I cannot help it, nor do I really want to. Anyway, it’s about baseball, which comes as no surprise to anyone reading this blog. This song is not one I’ve published yet so there’s no link. And because of that, I’m going to be a bit vague as to what it’s about. Especially since that’s not pertinent.

What matters here is that I showed it to someone who is familiar with the work I’m parodying. And he didn’t think it scanned well. Okay, I can accept that. I tried to do something that, I dunno, could be sung to the karaoke version of the song.

But I showed it to one of my music friends who is also somewhat familiar with the original piece and he really liked it and said that his only problem was I had “too many” words … what he calls “optional” words that could be left out and assumed. The two opinions don’t quite fit together. I have a case of trying to do contradictory things and I’m not sure how I’ll resolve it. I think, if I can, I’ll get into a discussion of feet and meters with my friend who isn’t satisfied with the scansion.

I did publish a baseball shanty. It’s here. It’s really about Roy but I don’t want to be the one saying the things that I say.

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Smells like pre-teen feet

May 27, 2009 at 7:55 pm (Filk, Jason, Jonathan, T-Bob)

I got a call today to take T-Bob home and wash him. That’s not what they said, they said he had body odor. I went to pick him up and while I didn’t stick my nose in his pits or anything, I could smell his feet. Ew.

So we went to Walgreens and got foot products and, while we were there, got other hygiene products (body spray and shower gel). I powdered his shoes and added “odor-eating” insoles for good measure. The powder cut way down on the smell all by itself. He bathed (I am sure they expected that, so I insisted) and put on a clean shirt and went back to school.

Now, I agree people shouldn’t have smelly feet, but When I Was In School…

***

In other news, I wrote a song for my two best friends in the world, Jonathan and Jason. I really love these guys and they have been there for me, in different ways, for years. I posted it here. The amazing thing about it, from my perspective, is that someone offered to write music for it (It scans to Snowbird, which doesn’t fit the mood). I am overwhelmed. Melody has always been the tough part for me. This is the same someone who semi-regularly performs my pitching shanty. Go, me, go!

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