Food Review - Hilary's Veggie Burger

I have had to try a lot of different foods over the past year and change, thanks to my kidney problems. One thing I have been meaning to do for a long time is reduce the amount of meat in my diet. However, I love burgers. So hubby and I decided to try some veggie burgers. I enjoyed the Impossible Burgers and Boca Burgers are okay, but when Eric went shopping this last week he found a couple of brands we haven't tried, and picked them up.

Hilary's Veggie Burgers are a little different than other veggie burgers I've tried in that they didn't seem to make any effort to taste like beef or duplicate the mouth feel of eating a ground beef burger. This is not a bad thing. I found I very much enjoyed the burger despite it not bearing any resemblance to a beef burger. If anything, it seemed more like a chicken burger, but without that awful chicken taste. This is a burger that will compliment the other stuff you put on the buns - the sauces/tomatoes/lettuce/pickles/onions - and still deliver enough to satisfy the stomach.

The only problem with it, that I could see, is a fairly high sodium content. That means it can only be a "sometimes" treat for me.

This one gets a thumbs up from me. I would enjoy having it again.

Justice League at Home, finishing up

It took us quite some time before we were able to finish off the stuff in the box, as we needed to wait for a night Eric could try to make the souffle. But we managed it and the results were great. I really liked the souffle, and would certainly like to try that dish again some time.

Eric asked for my assistance in making it, so it was the one dish that both of us put work into. We followed the instructions on the website closely, and prepared two extra ramekins - good thing we did. There was enough batter for three of them. We started, however, by making the dish as suggested in the special Superman collector ramekin. And, frankly, it turned out gorgeous.

Not only did it look good, it tasted fantastic as well. We made up the extra batter into the other two ramekins and had seconds. It was delicious. We also brewed up "Element X" - the Cyborg themed energy drink.

My diet restrictions meant I wasn't able to drink much of it, which was fine. It wasn't really very good. It had the taste of artificial sweetener. The last thing in the box was the Batman themed chocolates.

Ours got a little dusky thanks to the heat, but they were excellent chocolates. Very yummy and a nice finish to the meals. We ended up having them with the marshmellows:

The box itself had an interactive feature, where you aim your camera at it and you see the box change color slightly, glow, and have a beam shoot up from it. Then the logos of the heroes float above the box (on your phone screen) and you can select them to view character bios.

The box also included some beverages that Eric and I don't drink, but I have plans to let other people give those a try (and return the collectible cans to me) so we'll get an independent opinion on them:

Justice League at Home, second meal

The fish dish in the Mother Box is pretty small. Unlike the burger, it didn't feel like a full meal by itself. So we went ahead and made some veggies to go with it, and then we also added the Chocos as an appetizer/desert.

In the DC Universe, the Martian Manhunter's favorite cookie is the "Choco", which is apparently their universe's equivalent of an Oreo or other sandwich cookie. In the Mother Box meal, the Choco is a jalapeño, salsa and cheese cookie. To be sure, I wasn't positive I would like it, since I do not handle any hot-spicy foods well at all. We ate ours before digging into the fish, and I have to say I thought it was pretty bland. Thought. It came back later with a mild kick - very tolerable, but a definite surprise.

The fish dish, called "The Trench", was pretty straightforward. There was a potato "chip" patty that had to be cooked first, then we added the chunks of cod piled on top and baked it a bit longer. It was finished by topping it with the dressing and some crunchy bits. It was easy enough, although difficult to tell when the potato was actually fully cooked. The package came with a "sardine tin" to cook the dish in. Eric did the oven work, and I topped the dish when it came out, before we posed it for a quick photo.

It was very tasty. The dressing had a little bite to it, and the crunchy bits were a very good addition. The potato chips cooked up well enough and blended nicely with the cod. It was a bit messy to serve - not in the comfortably messy Big Belly Burger way - but it tasted lovely. As a full meal it worked nicely.

This leaves us with the Superman Souffle, the Batman Chocolates, and the Cyborg Energy Drink. As the souffle is a little complicated, we're not sure exactly when we'll make it. I also hope to do some more photos and screen caps of the Mother Box AR stuff, so you can get an idea of what it is like.

Justice League At Home

So, back in February, hubby-Eric and I decided to splurge on a very special meal box: Wonderland at Home Justice League Mother Box. It was quite a splurge for us, a lot more than we usually spend on a single thing - but both of us are big Justice League fans, and this felt like a one-of-a-kind experience.

To make the most of it, we planned to have it for Memorial Day weekend. We requested delivery on the Friday before Memorial Day to give us a three day weekend to fully enjoy the experience - and give us plenty of time to put the meals together. Yeah, we watched the movie LONG before we got the box, but we still figured it would be a delightful experience. Right?

Fast forward to May 28th, the day we were supposed to get the package. We waited all day... nothing. Finally I emailed the company, and got an automated response with another email to contact if I considered it an emergency. So I wrote to the other email. No response that night, but the next morning I got a response - for some reason our overnight delivery had been changed to 2nd day and, due to the long weekend, wasn't going to arrive until Tuesday. After many emails back and forth, I was told to toss out the cold food when we got the package because after a weekend in a hot shipping box they weren't worth the risk of eating. And I was told I would get a replacement cold box and a gift card as quickly as possible.

So our Memorial Day plans were pretty much dashed. It happens, I get it. I'm not happy about it, but I get it.

Tuesday, the box arrived. The box itself is really neat, a very cool Mother Box with a magnetic lid. All the food was packed inside, with the cold food in an insulated container inside another box, just to be sure. When we opened the cold box, one of the sauce containers had exploded all over. While the food was vacuum-packed, it was also disturbingly warm. The temperatures in our area were pretty high, and the cold packs just couldn't compete. In addition, the bread and chocolates were less than ideal after a weekend in a hot box.

The company rep replaced the bread, marshmellows, chocolates and the cold box and sent a gift card that basically covered the shipping and tax on the original order. However, she made a mistake when she sent the replacement, and tried to time it for the next weekend. But we live out in the boonies and the major shipping companies do not deliver overnight to our address on Saturday or Sunday, and she tried to send it to us to arrive on Saturday. By the time she understood the issue, it was too late and we had to wait until yesterday (Tuesday, June 8th) to actually get our replacement. That's more than a week after the Friday we expected it to arrive.

To be honest, I'm still a little put out. It was supposed to be a special treat. We still don't know why it didn't arrive on the Friday we were supposed to get it. And while a gift card is nice, the whole thing still feels like a let-down because we aren't going to be able to enjoy the meal as it was planned, and have to make the bits piecemeal as we have time.

Okay, enough with the grumping. Here's the good bits... the box has a number of dishes and some collectable items. The three "meal" items are a Big Belly Burger, a fish dish called "The Trench" and a Souffle with a collectable Superman Ramekin. Other items include Wonder Woman themed marshmellows, Batman themed chocolates, Martian Manhunter themed appetizers and three drinks: beer, cold-brewed coffee and an energy drink.

With limited time and energy, Eric and I decided to try the Big Belly Burger last night, and save the other two items that need cooking for later. So we pulled up the cooking instructions on the website, watched a little video and then Eric jumped in to make the burgers, which came with the patties, buns, two types of sauces (marked as being Condiment King brand!) and rosti patties (basically fancy hash browns). We layered the burgers as suggested in the directions: lower bun, burger sauce, rosti, beef patties, cheese sauce, any other toppings we add, top bun. Then we served them up with some chocolate milk (since neither of us drink beer or coffee and we didn't feel like dealing with energy drink) and chowed down.

So, I'm still annoyed at the delays, right? BUT... Oh that was good. It was really good. I mean, just delightfully good. The sauces were close to perfect, and the beef and rosti worked really well together. It was MESSY, but it was that lovely messy that makes your mouth water. And, wonderfully, there's enough sauce left over for a couple more burgers in the near future. And I plan on keeping the condiment containers, which amuse me because of the branding. We also are saving the burger boxes, which look like fast food containers from Big Belly Burgers, a fictional fast food chain in the DC Universe.

For dessert we had the Ancient Themysciran Fire marshmellows. We didn't follow the instructions closely, which tell you to light a scent stick (included) and listen to a clip from the movie available on the virtual aspect of the box (more on that in a second) and then eat the marshmellows in zen contemplation. We just ate 'em. They were tasty.

We have a lot of the box to still work through, including the fish and souffle, the chocos and the chocolates. In addition, I haven't played with the virtual aspects of the box yet. You see, there's a special virtual reality experience. You go to a special website then point your phone at the Mother Box and... things happen...

But I think I'll do a little more about that later, once I've had time to maybe take a couple of screen shots that actually show some tiny bit of the action, so you have a glimpse at the genius and effort that went into this special meal. We will be giving the beer to some beer drinkers we know and asking for their opinions (and the cans back, since they will be collector items for us) and the coffee to a coffee connoisseur for the same treatment. Which leaves us with the Chocos (Martian Manhunter appetizers), the Trench, Batman chocolates, Souffle and energy drink to make and consume over the next few days. We hope. Updates as they happen.

Some Photos

Sidewalk art I captured on the Fourth of July.

The feedback board at the restaurant Eric and I ate lunch at today.

My first ever doughnut from Top Pot.

Eric's doughnut, with a bite already gone before I could get the phone out.

Having Fun on Facebook....

After watching a very strange interview on MSNBC last night (I usually watch the last bit of "All In" then Rachel Maddow, and nothing else on that channel) I was amused to find out that Taco Trucks on Every Corner had become a meme overnight. This is my favorite:

I said Eric and I planned to have tacos on Election Day, and someone suggested I create an event for it. So I created Election Day Taco Tuesday. Eric and I tend to follow through when we make menu plans like this, so we'll definitely be figuring out how to have tacos of some sort on Election Day. If you want to join in the fun, post photos of your Election Day meals in the group.

Linkdump!

Did flails even exist?

Here's another article about albinos in Africa. Depressing read, but important, I think.

Atlas Obscura, which has become a favorite destination but threatens to overwhelm with too many articles, had a fun story about a nuclear bomb that was dropped on South Carolina.

So, are there no secret hidden chambers off King Tutankhamun's tomb, or is Egypt suppressing the truth? I don't know, but I'm curious to see how it turns out.

MetaFilter has a history of Looney pyramids. These come from the same guy who created Fluxx.

It seems to me that if police are scared to beat people up because of viral videos, then that should be considered a good thing.

Ever wondered why it's called "drop candy"? Well MetaFilter has a link to a video that explains it (5 minutes in!). I'd love to try the nector candy, but I'm not a huge drop candy fan and I'm broke, so I'll just share it instead.

A story linked on Slashdot says Apple doesn't know why its online streaming service is deleting people's files.

Transgender folks are, sadly, able to tell us about our biases.

DC Comics honors Darwyn Cooke.

Let's finish with Simon's Cat:

Linkdump for Wednesday

Canada is burning. Well, one town. But it's a scary type of burning.

Honestly? I'm really wishing lab-grown meat would happen more quickly. I would be delighted to switch to food grown this way. It would save water, save land, not hurt animals and still satisfy our carnivore side... if it all pans out. I hope it does.

Metafilter has a frightening story: one person moving out of New Jersey put the state's budget at risk. In other words, the super-rich are so rich that they can devastate a region just by leaving. I don't mind people getting rich, but this is obscene.

On a lighter note, Metafilter finds a jewelry ad to be The Greatest & Most Enigmatic 2-Minute Horror Suspense Film of Our Time. It's... wow. I think it is truly impressive that an ad featuring Gwyneth Paltrow could have so many continuity errors that it inspires crazy theories.

Having recently read a book on the history of Hawaii (I really should review it), this article makes perfect sense in a pathetic way. Yes, people really were that racist and greedy.

Students are now exempt from stringent FAA standards regarding flying drones. I still want a little drone to use inside the house.

Comic book writer Peter David writes about his weight loss battle.

And in other comics, Previews seems to indicate that Rebirth is a reboot after all. I guess I don't mind having my comics rebooted every 20 years, but every five years or so is getting tiresome.

A Food Adventure in San Diego

Eric and I usually rush home after conventions to get back to work. This year, after I got very sick right after Anglicon, we planned a little better and decided to fly back on Monday. We will probably head back over the mountains on Tuesday, then I'll have an entire day to rest and decompress before going back to work. Hopefully this will prevent me from coming down with "con crud" or any other problem, particularly those related to traveling.

However, this did leave us with a dilemma. The convention hotel this year has extremely limited food options, and frankly, every food choice is either overpriced or crappy, and often both. So for dinner Sunday night we decided to have a food adventure. We've been watching Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives for awhile and Eric has wanted to try Hodad's after seeing it on the show. We made an attempt last year, but the timing didn't work out (and I was too exhausted after the kayak trip). So this year we brought along Karyl, Eric's co-author and the co-chair of next year's Oz con, and made the attempt again.

Eric worked out that the 120 bus line would take us to the restaurant. After assuring us it would drop us off right in front of the place, we headed out from the Town and Country to the transit center that's basically across the street. I was a little nervous, because I haven't been feeling well when I walk and Karyl is walking with a cane, but hey, it was a fairly short walk to the bus stop and a friendly native told us which stop we needed to be at.

The bus was on time and we hopped on and rode downtown, watching the San Diegans in their native habitat and discussing next year's Oz convention. We got to a stop on Fourth Street and everyone else got off... then the driver said, "This is the end of the line." Uh-oh. We asked where Broadway was from there, and she pointed us two blocks down. Then we asked where Hodad's was... she said "Tenth street, to the left." *sigh*

There was no point to going back, and there weren't any transfers for the bus fare, so it was a nice long walk. It was unpleasant, and I got grumpier and grumpier as I walked. I wanted to get a swim in before going to bed, and the later we were at dinner, the less likely it was I would get my swim due to exhaustion/darkness/cold. Thus when we arrived at Hodad's and got in the outdoor line, I was in a foul mood.

A sign! I see a sign!

The line was not too long. We were second or third, it was hard to tell, behind either a very large group or two slightly less large groups. I think it was two. I was grateful for the chance to rest against a wall, but it was hot out in the sunlight and I wasn't happy to have had to walk. I gave Eric a bit of a hard time for his bus route reading skills, and he was grumpy about the wait. But Guy Fieri claimed this is the best hamburger in the nation, so I was willing to wait to try it.

Finally a waiter dressed as a hipster or a surfer, not sure which, brought us in to sit at a booth that the group in front of us couldn't fit at, and we got a chance to look at the funky interior of the place.

Interior, restaurant... is it a diner? A drive-in? A dive?

Not a lot of space in this restaurant. No wonder there was a line.

The wall next to us was covered in license plates and stickers, and the seats were covered in "Hodad's" stickers as well. The music was playing a little too loud for easy conversation, but there were a lot of families and loud noises, so it was just overall a loud place. We had a quick look at our menus and the server came over almost immediately. Fortunately, we made up our minds quick and so he took our order right away. Eric and I both ordered single bacon cheeseburgers, me with onion rings and him with fries. We also got chocolate malts to drink.

The server got our water quickly, which was good because both Karyl and I needed the water after the walk. It took longer for the malts to arrive, but when they did... whoa. I wish I'd stopped to snap a photo of them, they were something else entirely. Some restaurants give you the mixing container with your shake or malt... this place served the malt in the mixing container, garnished with a giant chunk of chocolate ice cream. In fact, we had to get to work eating them quickly before they made a huge mess of the table. And even so, we got a lot of chocolate on the table.

While we were still in shock over the size and quality of the malts, the food came. I looked upon my burger in despair, for I wasn't at all sure how I could possibly fit my mouth around all the stacked levels. I tried, and got most of the taste in my first nibble. Oh man oh man. It was really very good. I'm not convinced it is the best burger I've ever had, but it was close. The onion rings were perfect. Between the burger and the rings, I was extremely satisfied with the food. (Edited to add: Both Eric and I were glad we hadn't gone for the doubles. I almost wished I'd opted for a "mini")

I was less satisfied with the service. The lax dress code is clearly a quirk of the place, but I would have liked some better indication of who was a server and who was the customer. It was hard to tell at times. In addition, the servers weren't exactly attentive to what was happening at the table. We had a split ticket, but Eric and I got our bill before Karyl. Then when we put the money on the table, they didn't notice it until we waved to get their attention. Not a deal-breaker, but definitely not what we're used to at restaurants. The food pretty much made up for it. I would definitely go there again to try something else.

After finishing, we waddled out of the place and back down to see if we could find and catch the same bus back to the Town and Country. There were spots of activity, but other places were kind of quiet. I did enjoy the sidewalk advertisements, and snapped photos of some of them. I'll put those after the cut.

What a great place for a bus stop!

Fortunately, Karyl had noticed that Fourth Street was a one way, so we went up Fifth Street to look for the 120. We found the bus stop in front of the House of Blues, and enjoyed a high police presence, several shouty homeless people and a guy handing out free tickets to a battle of the bands. Eventually the bus came, although we looked at the possibility of trying Uber to get back in case the bus didn't run where we expected it to run. I'm afraid I was getting a little paranoid about the buses by then.

However, we got back safely. The only odd thing was a very giggly girl sitting in the seat behind me. She started giggling and I glanced back at her and she giggled more when she saw me look, then is escalated into a beautiful evil cackle that was hilarious but loud and slightly frightening. She and her mother, who was talking on her cell phone the entire time, got off before we got on the freeway back to the hotel.

After returning to the hotel, despite the fact that it was getting dark, I got my swim in. It was somewhat cooler than I'd hoped so I didn't stay in long, but oh man it felt so good to swim again. I really need to find a way to swim regularly at home. I know the racquetball club has a swimming pool. However, before I do that I need to get a new swimming suit. I nearly lost mine while swimming a couple of times because it's slightly too large for me. The shoulder straps kept falling off.

After my swim we retired to our room, which is finally beginning to not be as damp and clammy, and I wrote up the final convention report and then this post. I'll schedule it for the morning in case I have any thoughts I want to add at the last minute... and so to bed.

Goin' Bananas

When I was taking Art History in college, the professor said that you can count on two stories coming up in the media every few years. The first would be about the Leaning Tower of Pisa and how it's threatened by the lean. The second would be that some art historian has discovered the identity of Mona Lisa.

Another common news story, one that appears every few years, is that something is threatening bananas.

The truth, as stated in the article, is that there are a lot of different varieties of bananas, but the current most common one, the Cavendish, is definitely being regularly threatened with extinction by nasty fungi and viruses. It happened once before, when the Gros Michel nearly died out completely. The problem is that bananas are essentially clones. In fact, bananas are one of the first genetically modified food.

The minions are going to be really sad if the bananas all die off.

In any case, Snopes has a positive outlook on the future of the banana. This is despite the persistance of Panama disease and problems with the industry itself. In any case, bananas ought to be around for a long time, in one form or another. Who knows, we might even get Gros Michel back some day.

Aside: I'd really like to have a taste test with a Gros Michel and Cavendish, side-by-side, just to find out what the differences are.

The Week in Review

Comics Screw-up

Let's start this week's review with something that happened the week before. I get my comics via mail order from DCBS, since there are no comic shops within an easy drive from here. As with any mail order service that a person uses monthly for going on seven years, there are small problems here and there. The company has always done its best to solve them quickly. With one exception. That's the Halloween fiasco. That was a combination of truly bad luck mixed with misunderstanding and lack of communication that resulted in me being short of mini-comics for Halloween.

Unfortunately, not all the stuff from that was settled, as I learned last week... apparently a note had been left in my account to ship my comics via USPS flat rate boxes at a higher price. I did not request it... it was part of the mess to try get the Halloween comics to me in time. The note should have been erased after the Halloween comics were sent, but wasn't. Oops. This meant I was getting my comics faster, but I didn't know why. I have checked the shipping costs, and apparently they haven't actually been charging me extra. I just assumed the change had something to do with the company moving, which was the main excuse/explanation I got for the Halloween fiasco.

I learned that this wasn't the case when I got a note telling me my order wouldn't fit in a flat rate box and they were going to charge me $x more for a larger box at the same speed. That got my attention, I asked what was going on, and they sorted it out on their end. Whew. Very strange. But not the end. No. I got a my comics just fine as usual, then I got a second box. It was clearly addressed to me, the label had my name and everything. But when I opened it, there was another person's name on the packing list. I quickly notified DCBS, who had me check and make sure none of the order was mine (no, I'm pretty sure it wasn't) and then emailed a label to send the box to the right person.

Unfortunately, the local mailing place couldn't print out the label from the barcode in the email (like the email claimed they could), so I had to find a printer to get it printed (my computer isn't hooked up to a printer), which meant it took me an extra day to send it due to timing issues. I got it sent as quickly as possible, but I still feel bad for the guy who was waiting for his comics because they accidentally got sent to someone else. To that guy, I'm sorry it took me an extra day. I know how annoying it can be to wait for comics.

Relay for Life Weekend

Last weekend was the Relay for Life here in the Lower Valley. Eric and I made an appearance, but didn't spend much time there because Eric was coming down with a cold and I didn't want to make him more sick. In addition, my attempt to walk was foiled as I tired far too quickly. I need to get out and exercise, but I need some proper motivation... a destination for walking. I need to think about this. There must be some way to fit it in. I can't allow myself to get sick after two laps.

I slept in on Sunday and thought Eric had too. I later learned he got up and insomnia'd for a bit before going back to bed before I woke up. Poor guy. He definitely was feeling sick. When I got up I played with Inky, who had been shut out of the bedroom for most of the morning. He finally got enough of me that he was no longer upset at being locked out from his humans. Then I got online and tried to utterly blank myself from reality for a few hours.

Weekday Blues

Monday was tough. Not as bad as Friday, oddly enough, but still difficult. We're all having trouble adjusting to the new schedule. My work wasn't hard: the coach came through with detailed notes (thank you Scott!) and my other assignments were minor. I attempted to salvage the dairy section story I'd written with much distraction on Friday, but it was pathetic. I decided to sleep on it because it was so bad I couldn't bear to face it. Instead, I worked on other assignments, getting things done. There were some last-minute assignment changes due to Julia's new status as a council woman designate, although she won't take office until January 1st. The editor is still working out how to deal with the situation. Yay.

It was strange heading home at 3:30pm instead of later. Poor Eric was fast asleep on the couch, having succumbed to his cold. I let him sleep and played with Inkwell, who wasn't sure whether or not to play "Dr. Inkwell" with Eric. We had a quiet night, although it was WAY too hot in the house. I left windows open to try to get some air flow, and it helped. It cooled down a lot overnight as the predicted storm finally started to move into the area.

As an aside, I had a problem with my emotions Monday morning. I was absolutely furious. Raging angry. At nothing. There was no cause, no reason, nothing that the anger was aimed at. It was just pure rage and really hard to hide and subdue, but I managed, and it slowly subsided.

Tuesday felt like I had no time to get ready, despite having gotten up at the same time as the last week. I guess I was just moving more slowly. Once at work I couldn't do my police logs due to lack of information, so I worked on the dairy story. It was much improved after a complete rewrite, although it still was very weak. At least it was improved enough I wasn't ashamed to turn it in.

Breaking News!

Just before deadline, one of the production crew alerted me to a development in the recreational marijuana issue... the city is getting sued. I duly informed the editor and then started to track down the people necessary to find out more. I really really wanted to talk to the lawyer for the plaintiff, because I knew the owner of the marijuana shop would be smart enough to not say anything. Sure enough, when I called him he was willing to confirm that claim against the city had been filed, but nothing else. He also didn't give me the lawyer's name. Grr. Well, it's a public filing, and the public is allowed to ask about such things, so I called the court and asked. An incredibly nice and helpful clerk with a bad cold not only got the lawyer's name, she also gave me the phone number provided on the documents. Now I was cooking with gas! I called the lawyer up and left a message for her, then called the city to find out if they knew they were being sued yet (no, they didn't).

A few brief minutes later the lawyer called, and I got a lesson in legal terms and legal reasoning. I asked a number of clarifying questions, because this is one subject I don't already have a good knowledge of and I don't want to get it wrong. At the end of the call, I felt pretty confident I understood the position the lawyer is taking. I promptly wrote the story up, and we posted it as breaking news on the website. I debated posting it to Facebook, but since that's where the story started... well, we did. Within five minutes we got a comment from the store owner on FB. I believe we not only scooped the other major media in the area, I'm pretty sure we got the story up before the city got served.

The rest of the day wasn't nearly as pleasant, although I managed to get out of the office earlier than I'd planned so I could get a photo. There was a meeting in the afternoon that I attended that was also attended by the mayor and city manager, so I was able to chat with both of them about the lawsuit. Neither was willing to go on the record because they hadn't had time to review the suit yet. That meant we could run the story on Wednesday as it ran on the website. A first for us, to have the print copy out more than 24 hours after we broke the news online.

Black Marks on my Record

Everything sort of fell apart for me on Wednesday. I had bad luck with a couple of sources who didn't provide me with photos in time for my deadlines for Thursday. Since we haven't gone "live" yet with the new schedule (we're technically still testing it out) we're getting "graded" on whether or not we make our deadlines. I got a couple of big black marks. And it kind of hurts, because it was me relying too heavily on someone else and not making back-up plans. Lesson learned. Painfully.

It was muggy-hot on Wednesday afternoon. I walked to city hall for a meeting because I could and because I needed to let off some steam from missed deadlines and other office stress. I still had a vain hope that people would get back to me in time to get stuff in Thursday's paper... didn't happen.

I was probably more grumpy Wednesday night than I needed to be. It was still too hot in the house with no AC and I was depressed (with a small "d") about missing the deadlines. To make matters more annoying, our internet was at a crawl. I restarted my computers and the router, but it was clearly further down the line. I gave up troubleshooting, it just wasn't worth it. But it added to an already grumpy night.

Poor Inky wanted us to turn down the heat. And feed him. Mostly just feed him, but hey, if we could turn down the heat, that would be good too. He was terribly grumpy too, making it two of us. Eric still had his cold, but he managed to hold it together better than Inky or me. I left some of the windows open overnight, and that helped a bit, but it was still very warm and stuffy in the house in the morning.

Because of the missed deadlines, I was at work early on Thursday, hoping to make up for some of my screw-ups. I did my level best, but it wasn't really enough. I was still firmly in the doghouse as of Thursday afternoon. I did figure out that the back of my chair can double as a punching bag in a pinch. I used it quite a bit that day, actually.

My editor took a strange call about wild horses being sent for slaughter, and had me head out to see if I could find said horses. I went to the location indicated and, unless the horses were cleverly disguised as a herd of cows, saw nothing of note. It is a distinct possibility that the horses are kept elsewhere, but there was no simple way to quickly verify the story from the places I am allowed to go. In short, I got sent on a wild horse chase.

In the meantime, a co-worker was frantically trying to get a scoop on another area story. We'd been sitting on the information for some time, knowing something was going to happen, but not knowing exactly what. When it went down, we were alerted, but the people who had promised us information suddenly became unavailable. The reasons for the unavailability seem legit to me, but it doesn't make the timing any better. She eventually got the story online, our second breaking news story in a week.

Lunch on Thursday was at Cactus Juice because the special was grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup and I desperately needed to have a whine session with my co-worker and comfort food sounded like a good way to do it. I was getting near the end of my rope on certain issues, including an unsigned editorial in the paper on Wednesday that I found offensive and, to a degree, petty. It was going to get much worse, but I didn't find that out until Friday morning.

Keeping Cool (and failing)

Thursday afternoon the local AC specialist came and did the necessary cleaning and check of our AC... and we turned it on. Inkwell was delighted. Oh goodness, was he delighted. He found a vent right away and spread out on it to get the best of the cool, dry air. Once the technician was finished and the air spread throughout the house, Inkwell started to bounce around like he hasn't for a couple of weeks. Yeah, it really does make a difference, although the difference in temperature is really only a few degrees. I had my first really good night of sleep in a week Thursday night. Which is good, because I needed it to face Friday.

I'm tempted to say that Friday didn't happen. Parts of it I certainly want to erase from my memory. Oh, deadline wasn't tough... my coach got to me in good time and I got the track story written nicely. And even the police logs were fine. I strongly objected to an editorial column we were running and let the editor know I objected. We had a long and somewhat difficult discussion about the ethics of journalism, the professionalism of criticizing co-workers and the necessity of protecting free speech. We ended up having to agree to disagree, but I feel very strongly that running that column was a bad choice for the newspaper. Because I was still on deadline, I didn't have time to confront the publisher about it, which was probably a good thing in retrospect. After reading the column, before I confronted the editor, I used my chair as a punching bag for a bit again. It was just too much to handle. I hope the chair can hold up.

Learning About Irrigation

Right after deadline I went to my first ever irrigation district meeting.

Ok, if you already live in an irrigated area, you probably have a decent grasp of how the irrigation systems work. Water goes into a canal, usually fed by reservoirs or the snowpack or the combination... and the water goes from the large canals to smaller canals to the fields of agriculture where farmers grow plants to feed humans and the other things, like cows and pigs, that go to feed humans.

So far so simple, right? Water in, plants out. Seems clear. But we're talking about an irrigation system that runs practically from the mountains through a couple of counties. Miles and miles of canals. Acres and acres of fields. And there's a water shortage this year. This particular irrigation district has shut off the water to all its farmers for two weeks. The meeting was to decide when to turn the water back on.

I went into the meeting with only the slightest understanding of how the system works beyond the fact that it gets water to farmers. Lucky for me, one of the port commissioners was in the room when I arrived... always good to see a familiar face. After he introduced me to a guy that I'm going to mention further in a moment, Arnold sat next to me and I got "irrigation 101" from him. He was willing to talk freely as long as I didn't quote him in the paper, which made me happy because I really needed to catch up on the subject if I'm going to report on it. My feeling is that my reporting is only ever going to be as good as my understanding of a subject. If I can't comprehend what I'm reporting on, then I can't explain it to other people.

So Arnold and I looked at the handout, which had a table that gave the estimated end date of the watering season depending on when they turned the water back on. What I couldn't understand was why the farmers want the water late in the season instead of early on. The water is needed to get crops started, right? So why was the emphasis on making sure the farmers have water in September?

Arnold, who is a mint farmer, explained that the vast majority of farms in the district have crops that are "permanent" and need to be strengthened at the end of the summer so they have the roots to survive the winter. Mint, hops, and most orchard trees all need water in September or there's a chance the growers will lose the plants... which, because they last more than one year, means they will lose a significant investment. The choice was between a bad harvest this year and losing all their plants. That's not a choice.

Other farmers in the district without permanent plants have decided not to plant this year and are instead leasing their land, and more importantly the water rights that go with the land, to other growers. This means that a farmer who specializes in corn and has to plant new each year might have decided, due to the predicted drought, to not plant. Any choice has risks, but with water in the district being predicted at less than half of normal, not planting actually made more sense for some farmers. Leasing the land means they break even on it instead of potentially losing their crop and taking a major hit.

The result is that every single farmer has had to make tough decisions, but the majority of them want to have water as late in the season as possible, because September tends to be dry and they need the water to keep the plants alive. So when it became clear the drought was going to be nasty, the irrigation district decided to shut off the water early in the season instead of late.

Luckily for the farmers, it started raining as soon as the district turned off the water. The rain helped, a lot. So even the cherry farmers, who were the most worried about the water shut-off, survived. The meeting was to determine if the water would flow again on Monday, or if it would be better to keep the water shut off a little longer.

Now, as an aside, the fellow that Arnold introduced me to when I entered the meeting room was a reporter from the New York Times. Yes, the freakin' New York Times. I thought Arnold was joking. Why would anyone from the Times be interested in Sunnyside? Well, for a lot of reasons. The irrigation district is way bigger than just my town. The drought is a huge concern to people all over. And this decision is emblematic of the problems that the nation is facing due to the drought. I didn't talk with him much, but we exchanged business cards, which I found cool.

Moving back to the meeting, when the board came in I recognized two other people on it, so I felt a little more comfortable. Then they reviewed the problems with starting up the water again along with keeping it shut. The biggest problem with keeping the water off is that the canals are "used to having water" and their panels have started to heave and buckle with the heat due to the lack of water flow. The ditch riders have been frantically running around repairing them, which costs the district more money.

Due to that problem, the board basically said that once the water was back on, turning it off again would be an absolute last resort. They just couldn't afford to do it again.

In addition, the length of the closure is effectively the only control over the length of the season that the district has. They've already reduced the flow of water as far as they can to prevent diminishing returns. The loss of water to evaporation will soon outpace the value of reducing water further. So they've got the absolute minimum flow already... so when the district runs out of water depends on how long they keep the water off. They did point out that if we get "significant rain events" the flow can be reduced, but that's entirely up to Mother Nature.

Add in the variables... the Bureau of Reclamation's most positive estimate for the amount of water the district will get is 44 percent of normal. That's down from 47 percent of normal in the last estimates. And that's the BEST scenario. The low scenario is 40 percent of normal, and that's kind of the one they were paying the most attention to. Luckily, that estimate went up from 38 percent. The worst-case scenario also went up, but a lot of the growers were inclined to look at those numbers and be pessimistic. Better to have more water unexpectedly than to not have enough, I guess.

The cherry farmers, whose were already getting fruit when the water was shut off due to the unseasonably warm spring, were most desperate to get water back. But even they acknowledged that water at the end of the season is more important. At least one farmer said he's basically not going to have a crop at all if the shut-off goes into the first week of June. But at least the rain we've had has really helped.

So they decided to delay the opening, but that's for reading about in my story when it's published. One amusing note is that it was raining heavily when we left the building after the meeting, which I can only take as a good omen for the growers. Pray for rain in the Yakima Valley, people. They really need it.

The End of the Week

After the meeting I headed back to work to write it up and get started on my stories for next Tuesday... yes, I get Monday off. I ran home for lunch, fed the cat, got back to work and got my stories written... then started to work on my last Dairy story, which I had been informed MUST be turned in on Friday. The editor told me my deadline had changed and sent me home at 3 p.m. I almost cried because it's really been a long difficult week.

Once home, Eric said we needed to do shopping. If he'd asked me to come along, I would have objected... but he didn't and I ended up going. It was crowded in the store on a Friday afternoon, and I got slightly stressed from it, but we got what we needed and some chocolate to make up for my week. We even got a pizza for dinner. And then we went home and relaxed, and I even slept for a bit.

This morning I have done nothing of note. I don't want to do anything. I have a very rare three-day weekend and no plans, so I'm just going to rest and let myself recover mentally. I have no idea how bad next week is likely to be, so I want to be as strong as possible for Tuesday morning.

Linkdump

Adam Savage talks about cosplaying. I love this little story.

Check out this comment on Reddit that explains how people find it easier to eat out and why it's often a surprise to folks to find they can eat at home cheaper.

You heard about that woman that got $2 million for spilling McDonalds coffee on herself? Well, here's the real story, which is far more nuanced and reasonable than people who constantly repeat the lie about her getting $2 million. Don't have time to read it? She didn't get $2 million, only enough to cover her very real medical bills caused by third degree burns from coffee that McDonalds knew was too hot, due to hundreds of complaints. And she didn't spill because she was driving, the car was parked and she was a passenger. Read the first comment on the post, as well. I do wonder how often the lie will be repeated before more people say, "um, she didn't get that much money" than say "that's outrageous!"

My feelings on this project are so very mixed I have no idea how to respond to it. I am linking to it for your edification.

Listen to Wikipedia. Nice background sounds, actually, driven by something happening out there in cyberspace.

There's something very, very frightening to me about having calls for boycotts treated as hate speech. Incitement to not buy? How is that "political terror"?

Easy to read parking signs are easy to read. I like 'em.

Soy Sauce

Back before Usagi Yojimbo went on hiatus in 2012, there was a nifty two-parter featuring Usagi coming to the rescue of a man who brewed soy sauce. Thanks to issue #143, I learned a whole lot about how soy sauce is made and some of the "secrets" to its brewing, including the fact that the cultures of mold and bacteria that help the sauce ferment are unique to each company and have developed for a long time, sometimes over centuries.

Usagi gets a lesson in making soy sauce in Usagi Yojimbo #143 (January 2012)

That's why I was very impressed when I read this story about a soy sauce company wiped out by the 2011 tsunami.

RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan -- When the tsunami warning sounded, workers at the two-centuries-old soy sauce maker in northeastern Japan ran up a nearby hill to a shrine for safety, and watched in disbelief as towering waters swallowed their factory.

They all believed the business, started in 1807, and its precious fungal cultures that give soy sauce its unique taste were lost forever. Everyone except for Michihiro Kono, the ninth-generation son of the founding family.

Turns out Kono had taken the cultures of Yagisawa Shoten Co. and given some to medical research. The cultures survived by what could be called an amazing fluke.

The lab was destroyed by the tsunami, but the containers with the cultures were found nearby by its researchers, intact.

The trick with soy sauce, as I learned from Usagi Yojimbo, is that it must sit for two years before it can be sold. Somehow Kono managed to keep the company intact for four years before the first product could ship. He paid the employees while they volunteered in disaster recovery, with help from crowdfunding efforts. And while they aren't a screaming success at the moment, they are coming back.

March of the penguin snacks

Today was a boss-is-gone party at the office, and we went Hawaiian... I made my penguins for the party. Originally I considered ways to make them Hawaiian, but eventually decided against it and just made penguins.

They were a hit, just like last time.

We also had some tunes, played on a classic machine. It was pretty cool. I had some happy flashbacks to when I used to have a turntable and records, and kind of wished I could get a turntable now. There's just something about music played on vinyl.

I enjoyed the 1950s and 60s Hawaiian tunes.

Linkages

Yesterday when I got home from work I immediately went to the bed to take a nap. I woke up six hours later, decided not to eat that late, and stayed up to read a book for a bit. Then I slept again for another five or so hours. Apparently I was tired from the recent stress. Anyway, that's my excuse for no post yesterday...

I want this LEGO set and all the other possibilities on this page, particularly the judge and the zookeeper.

A couple of kids use a webcam on a laptop to take a video of a swirling object in the sky. Lots of possible explanations for it, but it looked pretty cool.

Did men evolve to take punches? The jokes made possible by this study are pretty much endless.

I kind of would like a copy of this book: Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book. Looks interesting.

The original Scooby-Doo had some pretty cool background art.

I like the look of these reflective buttons but I can't really afford to support anything as we go into summer, which is a tight month for us.

I was unaware that Comics & Medicine had a conference, but I think it's pretty cool that it does.

I'm very amused that a commercial for xBox One is accidentally turning people's xBox's on. Ha.

World Cup... in space!

A test case for banning marijuana in Washington has been filed... Wenatchee is being sued, which is better than my town getting sued.

Wrap up on the Tony awards. I still don't understand the hopping thing, not really.

Cleaning out collected links...

Here's some stuff that caught my eye on the 'net recently...

Movie moments made in LEGO form.

Previews has an interview with the creator of a comic book aimed at helping autistic children. I'm not convinced I like the art from the sampling, but the concept sound fascinating.

Want to know more about Game of Thrones? Check out this intense MetaFilter post full of links to lots more information and speculation. Wow.

Speaking of games, here's a tale of how a guy defeated Dragon's Lair.

Ooooh, a new crater discovered on Mars with landslides in the area and the ability to pin down the date of impact. COOL!

I've never, to the best of my knowledge, had Sizzler cheese toast... but after watching this video I think I'd be willing to try some. The use of parchment/baking paper to keep the bread from sticking while it was frying was interesting.

The sad story of how Will Vinton was ousted from the company he made.

Huh. I didn't expect some of the results on this chart of global morality.

So, driverless cars may have a downside for local governments. The loss of revenue from tickets could be a problem.

Does McDonald's really think giving Ronald a makeover is going to fix what's wrong with their food product?

A design history of triage tag, used by first responders to sort out who needs the most immediate help.

Sugar is Poison

It's becoming increasingly clear that sugar just isn't good for us humans. Last August, National Geographic ran an article about sugar that covers some of the problem.

Columbus planted the New World's first sugarcane in Hispaniola, the site, not coincidentally, of the great slave revolt a few hundred years later. Within decades mills marked the heights in Jamaica and Cuba, where rain forest had been cleared and the native population eliminated by disease or war, or enslaved. The Portuguese created the most effective model, making Brazil into an early boom colony, with more than 100,000 slaves churning out tons of sugar.

As more cane was planted, the price of the product fell. As the price fell, demand increased. Economists call it a virtuous cycle - not a phrase you would use if you happened to be on the wrong side of the equation. In the mid-17th century sugar began to change from a luxury spice, classed with nutmeg and cardamom, to a staple, first for the middle class, then for the poor.

In addition to being tied tightly with the history of slavery, sugar also simply isn't good for humans. For one thing, it tends to be addictive.

The more you tasted, the more you wanted. In 1700 the average Englishman consumed 4 pounds a year. In 1800 the common man ate 18 pounds of sugar. In 1870 that same sweet-toothed bloke was eating 47 pounds annually. Was he satisfied? Of course not! By 1900 he was up to 100 pounds a year. In that span of 30 years, world production of cane and beet sugar exploded from 2.8 million tons a year to 13 million plus. Today the average American consumes 77 pounds of added sugar annually, or more than 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day.

Emphasis added.

The rate of diseases caused by sugar has gone up:

"It seems like every time I study an illness and trace a path to the first cause, I find my way back to sugar."

Richard Johnson, a nephrologist at the University of Colorado Denver, was talking to me in his office in Aurora, Colorado, the Rockies crowding the horizon. He's a big man with eyes that sparkle when he talks. "Why is it that one-third of adults [worldwide] have high blood pressure, when in 1900 only 5 percent had high blood pressure?" he asked. "Why did 153 million people have diabetes in 1980, and now we're up to 347 million? Why are more and more Americans obese? Sugar, we believe, is one of the culprits, if not the major culprit."

As it turns out, more and more studies are showing that sugar itself is toxic to humans. In other words, sugar is slowly but surely killing us. And it's doing it in an insidious way:

Excessive sugar isn't just empty calories; it’s toxic.

"It has nothing to do with its calories," says endocrinologist Robert Lustig of the University of California, San Francisco. "Sugar is a poison by itself when consumed at high doses."

Johnson summed up the conventional wisdom this way: Americans are fat because they eat too much and exercise too little. But they eat too much and exercise too little because they're addicted to sugar, which not only makes them fatter but, after the initial sugar rush, also saps their energy, beaching them on the couch.

Sugar makes you tired, when you are tired you don't exercise. Sugar is addictive. It makes you eat more of it, which makes you more tired. You stop exercising, you run out of energy and eventually you get to the point where you are dying. And what's killing you is sugar, a poison.

And the worst thing about it? Sugar is added to foods that have less fat because we thought it was the FAT that was killing us... and so these high-sugar low-fat foods are just as poisonous, if not more so, than the full fat foods.

If sugar is so bad for us, why do we crave it? The short answer is that an injection of sugar into the bloodstream stimulates the same pleasure centers of the brain that respond to heroin and cocaine.

Apparently humans very efficiently process fructose and we need very very little of it. But now we have unlimited amounts of it, which we don't need and we desperately crave. And that's why we are becoming obese.

The answer is NOT to replace sugar with fake sugar. The answer is to adjust diets to not eat as much sugar. It should be a treat, not the main ingredient in almost every food we eat. It is hard, if not impossible, to avoid high levels of sugars in our foods. But we need to start working on it. As a society. We need to get ourselves off sugar.

Blueberry polenta cake

Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?

This video shows what happened NEXT...

Market Fresh!

Went to the Farmers Market this morning to do a photo page, and realized I really wanted to spend some money there. So when I went home I convinced hubby-Eric to go out with me to lunch.

For a total of $10 we each got two tamales and a drink. Eric had the horchata, and I took a horchata con fresas. I hadn't actually ever tried horchata before, and I was pleasantly surprised. Especially since the horchata con fresas had the exact same shade of color as Pepto-Bismol. Horchata is a rice drink, described to me as "rice pudding as a drink instead of pudding." It's very refreshing. Fresas are strawberries, and it was a darn good drink for a hot day.

Then I got a flat of blueberries, which will be my dessert for lunch for a long time to come.

I'm also going to try to make a blueberry polenta cake using a recipe the newspaper got from a company promoting Oregon blueberries. I plan to try that later today or tomorrow, depending on my level of energy. I'm already feeling very drained from the heat.

Temperatures in the area are expected to get as high as 111°F by Tuesday, and it's also very muggy here. We were hoping that the thunderstorms would break over the area and provide a little relief, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Actually, there's thunderstorms over some areas and those getting hit aren't very happy. We are an agricultural area.

Anyway, it's hot, I'm staying cool. Have fun where you are...