I am // the me // you know // there is // no substitute

More apartment pics

2009-08-13T19:34:47Z

Today a friend came over and drilled the holes for the guest bathroom mirror / light and the bits in the kitchen as seen below.

Disclaimer: He is neither angry nor a hippo. But he looks like one.

schmitt @ 2009-08-09T12:32:00

2009-08-09T10:38:45Z

I spent Friday evening & half of Saturday putting up the cat net on the balcony. Also, a horse photo.

How pretty and smooth his forehead looks there... a couple weeks ago he got stung all over his forehead, it swelled up & then scabbed & peeled and now he is half bald. Stung him right through his fly mask. I think it was honeybees as he'd just been moved to the pasture next to the beehives.

schmitt @ 2009-05-23T00:12:00

2009-05-22T22:13:09Z

Darlins, my friend Clay needs you to vote for him so he can get a super cool job:

http://www.areallygoodejob.com/video-view.aspx?vid=bnSrYIyfXBc

please? He is a sweetheart!

schmitt @ 2009-05-16T21:50:00

2009-05-16T19:50:41Z

We got the awesome apartment, I am totally excited :D

schmitt @ 2009-05-09T11:34:00

2009-05-09T09:35:07Z

http://mom-sourcing.co.in/

Baaaaahahahahahahahahaha.

schmitt @ 2009-04-27T23:27:00

2009-04-27T21:28:31Z

Friday we checked into our hotel and around 6 PM started off by going to the big department store KaDeWe which has a famous floor that is all gourmet. It was enormous, several times we thought we were back where we started but weren't anywhere near us. The unfair thing was, they had two separate chocolate departments. We resisted buying anything in the first, but the second got us! Everything else was very tempting but also kind of heavy to lug back. We had dinner at an Indian place and went to bed early to prepare for Saturday.

We'd wanted to start Saturday off with a tour of the Berlin Underworld but had to go back to the hotel for Andie's wallet and so missed the first tour and they only go every two hours. So instead we went to Checkpoint Charlie and to the museum there. The museum was started sometime before the wall came down & a lot of the displays hadn't been updated; it was strange to read a display about faking diplomatic passports with a note at the bottom: "We are only revealing this information because they are onto this scheme and it is no longer safe to try it - please advise others against attempting it."

Then we were planning to walk from Alexanderplatz down the main boulevard to the Brandenburg Gate, but were looking for somewhere to eat before that, and stumbled into the Nikolai quarter, which was a peaceful pedestrian area, and found a restaurant specializing in potato dishes. We found out later that the Nikolai quarter, which looks old, was totally razed in the war and rebuilt for historical accuracy, like many other buildings in Berlin - they're trying to raise funding to rebuild the emperor's palace now. We also found out later that the huge park in the middle of Berlin was at one point also razed and they planted the whole thing with potatoes. Not sure when that was.

After we reached the Brandenburg Gate, which was lovely with the late afternoon sun on it, we walked around the Reichstag, missed the next Berlin underground tour as well, and then went for a boat tour on the Spree. It's a tiny river (Berlin has over 600 bridges) and most of the bridges had their names tiled on the underside. There wasn't much clearance - our boat had a warning not to stand up while going under. It was such a relief to sit down and have a drink and listen to the tour after walking all afternoon. I'm glad my German is acceptable now - the English tour translations leave out all the jokes.

We were still exhausted afterwards and found a sunny green riverbank to sit on. There were people grilling next to us and some teens plinking around on a guitar, really a nice atmosphere. It was just getting towards dusk when we left and we weren't hungry yet (because we stopped at Haagen Dazs in between! Delicious) so we went back to the Reichstag to go inside and up on top. It's stunning - the building was rebuilt with historical accuracy except for the glass cupola, which is just beautiful, especially at night; it's got a mirrored cone hanging down inside it, which from outside looks neat, and from the inside reflects right down to the parliament seats. Must be interesting when there are politicians down there! The cupola has ramps that spiral all the way up, and the top has an aperture open to the sky.

Then we were hungry, and went to the Hackischer Höfe, which are a bunch of interconnected courtyards that have been fancied up, with restaurants, theaters, etc now in the buildings. The courtyard house walls are tiled and colorful and lit up. We had lasagna sitting outside at an Italian restaurant there, then since it was only 11 PM we went up the TV tower (second highest in Eurpoe), which was definitely cool but I think would have been more interesting in the daytime.

Sunday we went to the gardens at the Charlotte Palace - would have liked to go inside but we were running short of time and had heard that the gardens were really nifty. They kind of were. The inner section was very manicured and looks really awesome from above (we passed by it on a train) but not so interesting close up. The outer section is left very natural and that was more to our liking. It also borders the river on one side, and has a lake and some streams, lots of ducks, including two pairs of these adorable guys: http://www.surfbirds.com/cgi-bin/gallery/search2.cgi?species=Mandarin+Duck and some http://www.surfbirds.com/cgi-bin/gallery/search2.cgi?species=Tufted+Duck as well as a swan and lots of mallard types.

And then we did finally get to our tour of the Berlin Underworld and it was disappointing. Interesting, but creepy as anything, and I had hoped for lots more stuff about subways (as Berlin had I believe the first German subway system) and lots less stuff about Cold War bunkers, which let's face it is totally depressing when you are looking at a bunker for 3000 people, are told that there were bunkers for a total of 30,000 people, and the population of Berlin is 3.4 million. But we did get to see forty year old SPAM.

Ice cream at the railway station - five hours traveling - home! Kitties were still alive.

Since it was gorgeous weather the whole weekend we didn't make any attempt to visit any of the big museums, we'll plan a separate trip for that in the late fall or winter sometime. Funnily Berlin feels much older than, say, Düsseldorf, in part because of the subway stops, which are legitimately old and quite neat, as well as the old subway trains still in use, but also the reconstructed buildings and small things like the font on the street signs. I can't imagine wanting to go in the really hot, touristy time of the year - our weekend was perfect in that regard. Everything is open late, the public transport runs almost continuously and also late into the night. It's too big for me, but I could see living there, easily. The city was well-greened, lots of trees and parks and playgrounds.

schmitt @ 2009-04-12T13:29:00

2009-04-12T11:39:35Z

It's spring! Yesterday we had the warmest day to date this year & I wore a T-shirt out riding.

Unfortunately I wasn't the only one celebrating the nice weather.

So Sonja and I are riding along and we turn a corner to cross a drainage ditch beyond which lies one of our favorite gallop stretches: long, grassy, and secluded enough that there's very rarely dog walkers or other such people on it.

Also secluded enough that there, about twenty feet away, is a naked dude sunbathing. So the ponies stop dead in their tracks to stare at the unusual large pink thing right next to their gallop path; Sonja and I also stare at dude, who is face down and appears to be sleeping, and discuss whether we should turn around, or go past him.

I'm all for galloping past and waking him up with the dirt thrown from under our hooves, but Sonja's on a borrowed horse who is kind of an idiot, and is doubtful about the wisdom of such. As I am trying to persuade her, dude wakes up, lifts one foot in the air and BAM, at the sudden movement the ponies both freak the hell out, whirl around and attempt to bolt hell-for-leather away!

So we went the other way.

schmitt @ 2009-03-28T21:33:00

2009-03-28T20:35:45Z

Mounted policemen exhibition from 2007

They take their coats off. Then they put their coats back on. Then they take their saddles off. Oh yes, and they're going over jumps the whole time.

om nom nom

2009-02-26T21:30:25Z

More wee pork chops today - I breaded this batch with whatever the gritty flour for breading is called in English. Spices in the breading were s&p, rosemary, and a nice dash of cayenne pepper; to go with it I did a simple thick white sauce with 2/3 goose grease and 1/3 butter, spices just salt and sage. When my pork was cooked I scrambled the half an egg left from the breading in the same pan. Ate the lot with mountain cranberry preserves (the sort with wee berries in) which was especially tasty with the egg.

schmitt @ 2009-02-17T21:27:00

2009-02-17T20:27:06Z

Today is mini pork chop sandwiches, on ciabatta bread, topped with Edamer cheese and a spoonful of applesauce cooked down with sage, rosemary, pepper, a little bit of butter, and milk.

OMG tasty. And it took less than 20 minutes.

Do I want to make this again tomorrow, or go have a lot more little sandwiches with just cheese and sauce right now... man, that's a hard decision.

schmitt @ 2009-02-10T22:17:00

2009-02-10T21:17:51Z

Andie had her birthday party Sunday, and I put together a double batch of lasagna. I use this recipe for italian sausage and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Aside from that this is my mom's recipe and it calls for a pound of mozzerella, three cups of ricotta and half a cup of romano or parmesan. So you can imagine the joyous mound of cheeses for a double recipe. Mmmmm.

I had half a tub of ricotta left (oh joyful day) and so far have had herbed ricotta sauce over pork chops, tomato and ricotta sauce over pork chops, and ricotta mixed with brown sugar spread on nut bread. YES PLEASE.

Aside from that work is good, horse is good, life is good. I went to a yoga class today (1 1/2 hours) and it about killed me, but I felt good afterwards. I am hoping tomorrow's aftermath isn't too painful. Yesterday pony and I had a good workout in the ring in the rain and tomorrow I am hoping to finally get a trail ride in although I hear it is supposed to snow / sleet.

For work I am putting together a short refresher on regular expressions after we found 35 lines of code that needed to be one line of regular expression. I can usually get them to work with the least amount of trouble so people keep asking me for help, though I am certainly no expert. I only just finished reading the book about them that we have at work and now I am also trying to optimize all my old ones....

schmitt @ 2009-01-31T21:34:00

2009-01-31T20:34:21Z

What a nice day we've had:

Went to post office to pick up unknown package. Turned out to be the Tamil cookbook that Andie's ex wrote. Definitely looking forward to trying some of that stuff out.

Stopped at the department store on the way back to check out plastic tubs to freeze stuff. Did not see any we liked, but a quality knife block + 5 knives + sharpener was on sale for €40 off! So we bought it and OMG so thrilled.

Stopped at the better grocery store inside the department store and picked up rumpsteaks and salad for dinner.

I went riding and fought with my horse about not ducking into the center of the ring until he stopped being an ass and behaved fairly well the rest of the time. It wasn't horribly cold but the wind was super bitter. Tomorrow I'll take a trail ride.

Came home, did other groceries. Steaks made a great incentive to clean up the kitchen, which was uhm... gross. Then I cooked the steaks & Andie made mashed potatoes. Pretty damn good.

Also tested the new knives by making giant fruit salad for dessert, which is also tasty.

Now I am plumped down for the rest of the evening in front of the computer with a glass of wine that tastes like velvety, sun-warmed red grapes and some chocolate we found on sale.

<3

schmitt @ 2009-01-11T18:33:00

2009-01-11T17:33:46Z

This is Jenny, who joined the household in September and is, more-or-less affectionately, known as Pooper.

ugh

2009-01-08T13:12:35Z

Bleah. I'm at work, no boss in sight, out of things to do that can be done without more information. I have already web surfed. I have a book to read about Typo3, but I am at that stage in a cold where the skin under your nose feels like scales and your brain is fuzzy, and I just read the first page without taking anything in.

Bleeeeeaaaaaah.

schmitt @ 2008-12-29T22:54:00

2008-12-29T21:54:39Z

Christmas was low-key, which was lovely. The 23rd we had some friends of mine from the stable over and baked goodies, Christmas itself was just us and a turkey.

Today I made turkey and gravy. First I made turkey stock by simmering the giblets, the neck, the wingtips, and the um... fleshy tailbone part along with a chopped carrot, two onions and some parsley for an hour. Then strained it, cooled it, and went riding.

I used goose fat for my gravy starter, thickened it with flour and added my stock, rosemary, sage, a bit of salt and pepper. It was a lighter-colored gravy but it tasted fine, so I ignored all the helpful internet hints about adding coffee grounds to color it brown and just threw in my chopped up turkey and made instant mash to go with.

Last week I bought two small pumpkin-like squash, so this week I will be making something with at least one of the two, since it has a soft spot. Probably soup. I think I'll see if I can get close to the same flavor as the butternut squash / granny smith apple / sage soup, since that was some super-tasty soup. Eh, roast it first, see what it tastes like, then decide.

We hit the after-Christmas chocolate sale and went nuts - I bought a bunch of the nice high-quality stuff half-off, because I am too much of a cheapskate to buy chocolate priced at €27,50 a kilogram! I have chocolate-covered macadamia nits sitting here waiting for me, but am finishing my wine first.

It's below-freezing here, which is unusual, especially since it has been for several days running (and the forceast isn't any different). The automatic waterers are turned off at the stable, and I worry that the owner isn't watering the horses as much as I think is necessary; I don't think she waters them again in the evening after she finishes feeding. She doesn't have water buckets in the stalls, or places to hang them, because as I said this is unusual weather; last year we only had one day when the waterers were off. But if the horses don't drink enough, there's an increased risk of colic.

Which meant that I spent half an hour watering the horses after I got done riding in the dark tonight, because everyone was thirsty, not just my boy. (My boy threw a panic attack over the bucket. Idiot. Same bucket that he's been watered with the last five days. Same bucket that he got his back hooves soaked in for weeks on end last year. Durr.)

Andie had to work at 7 am today, and of course we'd been keeping a late schedule so going to bed early was impossible. She went to work on 1 1/2 hours sleep and is now conked out on the couch, snoring gently. Cat #1 is conked out, also on the couch, curled up on top of a pillow; cat #2 is conked out stretched out on top of the radiator; and cat #3 is just hopping up on Andie's blanket where she will undoubtedly conk out. It's enough to make a girl sleepy.

schmitt @ 2008-12-23T12:44:00

2008-12-23T12:19:20Z

It's my last day of work until January 5 and I have very little to do, so here, you can all have a post.

Friday I went to the Christmas market with a co-worker, had a crêpe and a flammkuchen (sort of pizza like, but with a cream sauce, bacon, and onions) and mulled wine to top it off. Tanja bought herself a polished wooden fountain pen - really gorgeous - I may have to treat myself next year. A couple years ago I bought a lovely top for my dad from the same guy, but that's not on the same order of expensive...! Although what I was really drooling over was the miniature clock, less than two inches high, similar to this but in wee. But for €65 :-/

Saturday I was going to go to the Christmas market again with friends from the stable, but it was rainy and miserable, so we hung out at Yvonne's instead and drank mulled wine fortified with amaretto, ate cookies and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and so forth.

Tonight the bunch from the stable are coming over so Sonja can learn how to bake banana bread, we'll also make cookies, eat dinner and prooooobably drink a few drops.

schmitt @ 2008-12-13T03:42:00

2008-12-13T02:42:08Z

Minotaur in a china shop!

schmitt @ 2008-12-12T17:03:00

2008-12-12T16:05:09Z

An explanation of the double-hump curve phenonenmon in programming course results with an aptitude predictor for programming which may actually work - I thought this was totally awesome.

schmitt @ 2008-12-07T20:21:00

2008-12-07T19:21:38Z

This week's work lunch is leek and mushroom pasta with chicken. A bit pricier than most of my homemade work lunches (since most of them don't include meat) but unless you go to the canteen across the way for awful cheap lunch, the next cheapest is a Lebanese chicken wrap for €2.70 so I figure if I come in around that per work lunch, it can't be wrong. The most expensive lunch option is sushi, or the delicious Italian place for around €7 (but so so so good).

I bought three nice big leeks for €1.09 or so and they had cheap mushrooms at 79 cents the punnet, so two of those. Chicken breasts were €2.79 and I think the pasta was under a euro.

I chopped everything, burnt my first round of garlic, re-chopped garlic, put the garlic on to saute again, added salt and pepper, waited a bit. Tossed the leeks and mushrooms in, hoped like heck they would cook down nicely since the big pan was then totally full. Given that, I cooked my chicken separately in a bit of oil, s&p, and a sprinkle of rosemary. I love rosemary. I spiced the vegetables with a good handful of parsely, some basil, and a little bit of chili powder.

When the chicken was done I added it to the veggies, covered the mix and let it continue to cook until the leeks were soft. Meanwhile I boiled my pasta water and made a medium bechamel sauce. When it was done I was a little skeptical about the chances of the final sauce being sauce-y enough because there was so much liquid that came off the veggies, but I added the bechamel and stirred everything up. The result was thin, but definitely a sauce, although an unfortunate grey glue color.

Fortunately when the pasta was done and I mixed it in, the sauce just coated nicely and is the perfect consistency.

It's delicious, I'm going to go have seconds. There is a TON of the stuff, more than adequate for the week.

schmitt @ 2008-11-30T23:00:00

2008-11-30T22:00:32Z

Today I made leftovers/stuff-on-hand stew which came out pretty well.

Oregano & fresh basil, 4-5 diced peppers, 2 onions, garlic & spring onions roasted at 375° for ~40 minutes with a drizzle of olive oil.

Then pureed leftover broccoli to use as a base, added the roasted veg and a can of tomatoes, some beef broth and lots of water. Added some chopped leftover walnuts and loads of parsley, black pepper, basil, a bit of chili and sharp paprika, salt, etc. Brought it to a boil, added spiral pasta, oats, and millet, let boil until pasta was soft and most water absorbed.

The millet could have cooked a tad longer but since it's just me eating it, I don't care.

schmitt @ 2008-11-15T21:36:00

2008-11-15T20:36:45Z

Today has been soup day - I have been running distressingly low on things to pull out of the freezer and take to work with me on weeks when I am too lazy to figure out lunches for the week ahead on Saturday when we are grocery shopping. Plus, I had a bunch of two week old tomatoes, some even older oranges, a butternut squash and a small pumpkin sitting around taking up space.

I turned the tomatoes into a small pan of roasted red pepper and tomato soup - roast slices of red pepper, onion, chopped garlic & tomatoes until soft. Put in saucepan, barely cover with vegetable broth, add salt, pepper, oregano, basil, and one chopped chili pepper, let simmer a bit, MAGIC PUREE STICK, taste, adjust spices.

Then since we had just bought carrots for something else I nabbed them to turn into carrot-ginger soup which is accentuated with onion, garlic, orange zest + juice, and ginger. That was actually a recipe from the cooking class I took - I used cream instead of coconut milk. Finished off with a big teaspoon of curry powder and it is a lovely spicy soup. (Also uses the MAGIC PUREE STICK!)

Small pumpkin went into a pan with a chopped leek and a sliced onion, simmered until tender with veggie broth to cover + salt + pepper, MAGIC PUREE STICK, added milk, about 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract, and finished with a dash of nutmeg.

I roasted the butternut squash halved and rubbed with brown sugar and sage. Meanwhile chopped + almost browned an onion in some butter, added 2 tbsp honey, one chopped Granny Smith apple, the squash, salt + pepper +more sage and barely covered with water, simmered until tender. MAGIC PUREE STICK, added cream + more sage.

The first two soups are tasty but the last two I am totally digging. This is even better since there is a lot more of the second two soups than the first two! I had a bowl of the pumpkin soup for dinner (with grilled cheddar-bacon-rice sammiches) while the squash was roasting, then finished my squash soup and it was so yum that I am currently eating a small bowl of it, too.

Froze a ziplock full of the first two soups and have a tupperware each of them for lunches this week as well - waiting for the other two to cool but I think I am going to have to either find out where the heck all my tupperware went or buy some more tubs to freeze the rest.

Today was a day that I really appreciated my kitchen herbs! Usually they just sit around getting watered a bit - I used the basil a lot this summer in tomato-mozz salads, but the tomatoes are even more tasteless in winter, so no point in those now. The sage is new and not doing too terribly well so I used dried sage for adjusting after pureeing, not wanting to stress it too much. I need to make mint sauce and fry papadams so the mint feels appreciated - I do have leftover yogurt already so I may do that one day this week.

schmitt @ 2008-11-01T12:17:00

2008-11-01T11:17:43Z

Current pet peeve - the word "natural" in food and beauty products used to construe a fuzzy feeling; see: "It's 98% natural, so it should be gentle" or worse "It's all natural, so it must be good for you."

Hello, have none of you people ever met poison ivy? Foxglove? Nettles?

Durr.

schmitt @ 2008-10-17T08:12:00

2008-10-17T06:12:24Z

XKCD Fans look here

schmitt @ 2008-10-12T03:57:00

2008-10-12T01:57:11Z

if you like physics, even to look at...

Looking through the forum at other people's solutions is almost the best part.

schmitt @ 2008-10-06T20:33:00

2008-10-06T18:34:00Z

" Van Nimwegen also investigated what happened if, during a task his two groups were working on, their computers suddenly crashed.

"The group that used a computer throughout, felt lost instantly and immediately performed badly when completing the task. The second group, who has used only pen and pencil, simply carried on with its work."

Right - so what happened when someone spilled coffee on the paper of the second group, rendering it indecipherable? Surely that was included in the test in the interests of actually making it a fair comparison, no?