One last post from Cory

Ok, ok, I'm about done for today, and then you can go back to Angie's nice posts.

I've copied all posts from my personal blog (http://coryspot.blogspot.com/) here to our family blog, albeit minus the comments. They show up on the dates they were originally published and can be found by following the coryspot tag, if you really care to find them. Any future posts of the sort I might have posted to that blog will now appear here.

Cory's Spot: Recipe: Swiss Zopf (Braided Bread)

While on my mission in Germany I grew tired of the cheap, boring standbys most missionaries survived on – the equivalents of mac and cheese and ramen noodles – so I learned to cook a few things. In one of my areas there was a Swiss Elder who taught me how to make a Swiss braided bread (called Zopf, German for “braid”). I made if fairly frequently while on my mission and a couple of times right after I got home, but it’s been a few years.

My overdone first attempt

The other day I decided to give it a try, again, but my recipe was a single tiny piece of scratch paper with nothing but the ingredients on it, and they were listed with metric measurements. Luckily a member family gave me a food scale for Christmas one year, so I could figure out the dry ingredients, and our Pyrex liquid measuring cup has metric measurements indicated. I looked up similar recipes online to figure out how hot and how long to bake the bread, and I was off. My first loaf didn’t turn out too great – it baked too long, but I tried again today and it was quite good – I remember now why I used to make it so often. I also took the time to figure out standard equivalents today, so here goes.

Swiss Zopf
• 1 packet dry yeast (2 ¼ t.)
• 3 ¼ c. AP flour (500 g by weight)
• 4 T. butter or margarine, softened (60 g by weight)
• 1 t. salt
• 2 t. sugar
• 2 ¼ c. milk (300 mL metric)

Mix together yeast, flour, salt & sugar. Mix in butter until it is evenly distributed – I find the best way to do this is to simply get in there with my hands and “mush” it into the flour mixture. Heat the milk to just under 130º F (1 minute on full power in my microwave is about perfect) and stir into flour mixture until dough comes together. Turn out onto floured workbench and knead for about 5 minutes or until dough takes on a smooth, elastic texture.

Allow to rise for 30-45 min., or until doubled in size. Place back on floured workbench and divide into two equal pieces. Rolling the first piece of dough between your hands, make a long, snakelike piece of dough that’s about ¾ in. thick and about 3 ft. long. Repeat with the second piece of dough.

Lay one piece of dough out horizontally on the workbench and lay the other vertically so that you have a equilateral cross. Cross the two sides of the horizontal piece over, wrapping that piece around the vertical piece. Next cross the two sides of the vertical piece over. Continue to end of dough, tucking ends under for a nice, finished look.

Here’s the best picture I could find of the braiding process. If anybody is really interested, I can try to get some better pictures of how I do it. It’s also possible to simply divide the dough into three even pieces and do a standard 3-stranded braid, which may be easier to figure out on your own.

Picture: about.ch via swissroots.org

Place your Zopf on a sheet pan in a cold oven and turn to 400 º F. The dough will rise a bit as the oven heats up. Bake for about 35 min, or until GBD. Pull from oven and brush top with butter. Traditionally, you would brush with a beaten egg yolk toward the end of baking, but I prefer the softer crust and the flavor the butter provides.

Cory's Spot: Windows XP: Cool Registry Hack

Today I came across a cool little registry hack that added some functionality to Windows XP that I think I'll use a fair bit.

What this does is add both "Copy To Folder" and "Move To Folder" options to the right-click context menu, next to "Send To." It's an easier way to drop one or two files in a different location.

There are a couple of ways to implement this. The easiest is simply to download this file, right click on it, and choose "Merge." The other option is to follow the original instructions I used - here (from TechRepublic).

Cory's Spot: Renewed dedication attempt

I've been pondering on-and-off for some time now just what I can do to get motivated to post here more frequently. It's been especially difficult since my wife and I have a family blog, which is where the important stuff goes, so that's where a post is going if I have limited time. Two things I want to change about this blog that should make posting easier: first off, instead of focusing primarily on reviews, any little old thing can be posted here. For example, today's other planned post is just a little registry hack for Windows that adds some useful functionality - I almost sent it out in an email to just a couple of people, but figured this would be better. Secondly, I'm going to try to post even just quick, off the cuff, thoughts, instead of feeling like I have to work up a big essay. I don't know how well this will work, but I'll be giving it a try.

Cory's Spot: $0.50 Steak!

For those of you who haven't watched Alton Brown's Good Eats on Food Network, you need to give it a try. Beware, though, AB is a geek at heart, and you'll know it the first time you see one of his teaching aides.

In any case, on a recent rerun of Good Eats, AB took plain old bottom round and a Jaccard meat tenderizer and made his own cube steak for Salisbury Steak and Chicken-Fried Steak and such. I decided I wanted to give this a try, so I bought a nice bottom round roast, cut it into 1/2" slices, Jaccarded the heck out of the slices, and froze it all for future use.

Well...I froze all but one piece. That one piece got seasoned with Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper and drizzled with Worchesterchesterchestershire Sauce and left to marinate for 30 min. or so. While that was getting happy, I preheated my new cast-iron grill pan, and then I introduced the steak and the grill to one another. A few minutes and a flip, a turn, and a flip later (to get the groovy cross-hatch grill marks), my steak was done.

It was just a snack, so I had it on its own - no veggies or tubers to get in the way. Ok...I did pour some A1, but that ended up going to waste - the steak was a bit chewy (What do you expect from $1.48/lb. beef? The Jaccard can only do so much!), but nice and juicy, with a warm pink center and a nice sear on the outside. It didn't need any extra sauce.

Now I know this isn't a recipe, per sé, but it is a mighty tasty way to make use of a very cheap cut of beef. Oh, and cast iron...I won't get started on cast iron right now, but suffice it to say, I haven't used the old stainless steel pots and pans any more then necessary for quite a while now!

Thanks to Travis and Melanie for getting me to give the new Diet Berries and Cream Dr. Pepper a try and to David for the idea of using the mini Santoku as a steak knife.

Cory's Spot: Website: Pandora: www.pandora.com

Like many of my posts in the software and website categories, this one comes only after Pandora has already gotten a fair bit of media attention. Nonetheless, I suspect it's a site many people still haven't heard about, but would enjoy.

Pandora is a web-radio site, but what makes it unique is that you can create a large number of personalized "radio stations," starting with just one song or artist you already know you like. From there, it's possible to suggest other songs to clarify the musical direction you want your station to go, or you can simply rate the songs Pandora suggests with a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down.

For example, I started my first station out by suggesting Dave Matthews Band's The Stone and, after a bit of fine-tuning, I've come up with this station. I'm also experimenting with a couple of other stations to try to establish different stations for different moods, but all with music I like.

I haven't really done it justice with my description here - just give Pandora a try here and see how you like it - it's a good way to get a radio station you like, and a good way to discover new music.

Cory's Spot: Recipe: Cuban Sandwiches

I've fallen out of the habit of posting recipes when I try a new one, which is turning out to be a problem since I don’t otherwise keep track of most of them and I’m starting to forget some of the good ones I’ve tried over the last while. Hopefully these posts will be of use to somebody else, but at least I won’t have to keep a hardcopy of my recipes.

Ingredients:

• 1 loaf French bread
• 1/3 lb. thin-sliced (shaved) ham (Virginia and Black Forest hams are quite tasty)
  
• 4 slices Swiss cheese (that’s Emmenthaler for those who want to get specific)
• Dill pickles (sandwich slices if you have them, hamburger chips will do in a pinch)
• Miracle Whip (or mayonnaise if you must)
• Dijon mustard (honey-mustard is fine, too)
• Butter or margarine

Assembly:

• Cut French bread loaf into fourths and then slice each of those pieces in half, leaving one edge connected.
• Spread one inside side with mustard and the other with Miracle Whip.
• Add ham, cheese, and pickles.
• Close and spread butter on the outside top and bottom.

Cooking:

• Preheat sandwich press (panini grill, George Foreman grill, or waffle iron will work in a pinch).
• Place sandwich in press, close, and apply pressure (you want to squish the sandwich flat).
• Cook for about 10 min. or until crispy and golden brown on the outside (I find it's helpful to put something heavy, such as a couple of cast-iron skillets, on top of the press during cooking so I don't have to hold it the whole time).

I like these sandwiches with potato wedges, but salad and chips work as well.

Cory's Spot: My Favorite Early Christmas Gift

Yesterday at work, a good friend gave me the mug on the left - it's a 100 oz. whopper (the smaller one on the right "only" holds 44 oz.)! Actually, he gave me the Pepsi version, but I can't stand Pepsi, not to mention that it just wouldn't be right to advertise the wrong addiction to the world, so I called around town last night and this morning and found a c-store that had the Dew version and was willing to exchange it for me.

I've been sipping on it since about 7:00 this morning, and I've hardly made a dent. Isn't it awesome?!

Cory's Spot: Software: Konfabulator

Another piece of software I tried out and stuck with in recent months is Konfabulator, now from Yahoo (download here). This is even more versatile than Google Desktop, but it also takes up more space, since its plugins, called Widgets, are designed to be pretty, instead of just functional. Because people are actually writing all kinds of really cool Widgets for Konfabulator, instead of just theoretically able to, like with Google Desktop, there are new Widgets showing up all the time, and if you wait long enough, there's likely to be one that will do just what you want it to. Or, you could actually write it yourself (personally, I haven't been ambitious enough to even try, but it's possible).

Like Google Desktop, I don't actually use all the Widgets that come with Konfabulator. I've also added a few I've discovered along the way. I use the basic calendar that comes with Konfabulator, as well as the default weather tool. Many others have come and gone over the past couple of months, but the four add-on Widgets I use are Can'tWait!, a countdown/countup timer I used to count down to and now up from Tyler's birthdate, Trash Bin Deluxe, which I use instead of the Windows default, since it shows how many items are in the recycle bin and how much space they're using, and Lazy Launcher, which allows you to easily find and run programs by name instead of by navigating the Windows Start Menu. For some reason, I can't find the resource meter I'm using anymore, but InfoLabel is also cool, since you could customize it to do the work of both Trash Bin Deluxe and my resource meter.

With two software posts in one day, I'm sure to come off as one heck of a geek, but so be it. Try these two apps out and let me know what you think.

Cory's Spot: Software: Google Desktop

It's once again been much longer than planned since I last posted, but I have some time off of school and work, so here goes.

Sitting on the right-hand side of my desktop is a nifty application from Google called, appropriately, Google Desktop (download here). This comes with several different plugins to provide various bits of information, including weather reports, stock updates, news articles, and RSS feeds, among others. It's also my understanding that 3rd party plugins can be devloped, so possibilities are endless. It also features Google Desktop Search, which scans your hard drives initially for documents, emails, web histories and such and then keeps an eye on things from that point forward. The advantage of this is that you can find information that's come across your desktop much more easily and more comprehensively than is possible with Windows' built-in search function. Google says your desktop results are kept completely private and are invisible to the people and Google, and I believe them.

For me, Google Desktop has proven to be most useful docked to the right-hand side of my screen, but set to auto-hide. Even though I have my desktop resolution set to 1280 x 960, I found that it took up too much space to leave visible at all times, and there's a nifty alert feature that lets you know when a new RSS or news item is available, even if the sidebar is hidden. At the top of the sidebar, I have my RSS feeds, which I pretty much use only for family members' and friends' blogs, so I can easily see when a new post goes up. This feature automatically adds any RSS feeds it finds, so I had to go through and weed out the feeds I didn't want and turn off the auto-find feature after a while. Next I have my news items. If you let it, Google Desktop will customize these based on what you read most. For example, I have a lot of tech articles that show up, along with some health, business, and general interest articles, and no sports articles. The third plugin I use is a nice little notepad. Simply type reminders or whatever here and they're automatically saved. Finally, I have What's Hot and Quick View minimized at the bottom of my sidebar. What's Hot shows what Google thinks are the most popular items on the web and Quick View is similar to Windows' own Recent Documents list, but can be customized to show popular and recently used items, instead of just the latter.

Well, that was much longer than I'd intended to geek on about this particular program, but that's okay, it's a useful program.

Cory's Spot: Angela's Political Test Results

Angela decided to take the same test I did, and we were both surprised to see how similar we charted out. It's funny because we both also tested as INFP on the Briggs-Meyer scale.

You are a Social Moderate (56% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (26% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid

Cory's Spot: Politics Test Results

As I was surfing for info on the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica TV series, I came across some random blog showing that particular blogger's results from the OK Cupid Politics Test, as shown below. What the heck, I figured, and I popped on over to try it out. I have to say, I'm quite surprised by the results, and my first inclination is to disagree, but I'm posting it anyway. I will say that I have to agree with Nick at Nick's Daily News in that the Bush of today isn't the Bush of four years ago and I'm much less inclined to support the current incarnation of our good President. Now, I know there's one person in particular who will jump all over the chance to comment on this, but so be it.

You are a Social Moderate (56% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (33% permissive) You are best described as a: Centrist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

Cory's Spot: Website: YouSendIt

http://www.yousendit.com/

I came across this site quite a while ago, but never tried using it until a couple of days ago. Now, for the individual involved in that first test, it really wasn't much of a success, since I screwed up and used a non-standard .zip encoding. For those of you who are less-than-fluent in geekspeak, YouSendIt worked fine, but what I sent was bad.

In any case, what YouSendIt does is allow you to send a file to someone that's bigger than your email file attachment limit (usually 10MB) without having to install any special file-sharing software whatsoever. With YouSendIt, you simply select a file (up to 1GB) on your hard drive and enter the email address(es) of the individual(s) you want the file sent to. If you need to send more than one file, just zip it up using your favorite archive utility and send the .zip file. Once you've sent the file, you're also provided with the download link, so you could send it to other people without having to upload the file again.

Cory's Spot: Software: Google Earth

Last night I was reading through some news stories from various geek web sites and I came across yet another mention of Google Earth and decided to give it a try.

This is one nifty piece of software. For certain areas, it's possible to zoom in to the point that you can see individual people, and for pretty much everywhere it's possible to recognize what you're looking at if you know the layout.

Particularly creepy was the ability to zoom in on my brother-in-law's house in VA to the point that you can see their sandbox (which supposedly came down yesterday). Like MapQuest, it's possible to look up a particular address and to get driving directions, but with an extra degree or two of realism.

Check it out - it's worth at least an hour or two of zooming around the world! Oh, and for those of you with a GPS on your laptop (cough...Dan...cough, cough), there's a Plus version that allows you to see your progress in realtime, overlayed on the aerial photos.

Cory's Spot: Website: Post Secret

http://postsecret.blogspot.com

My sister pointed this site out to me a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say, it's interesting. Although it's hosted by Blogger, it's not really a blog, per se, but more of an art project. The "curator" has people send him homemade post cards through the mail with secrets on them they haven't ever told anybody else. He then picks the ones he most wants to show and posts them to his site, with the intent of someday publishing a book.

I can't really say just what the appeal is, but it's there. Many of the cards are quite artistically assembled, some show no one is really all that strange in the things that we consider our deepest, darkest secrets, and some show that there are people who really are just plain sick and odd.

In any case, give it a look.

Cory's Spot: Movie: Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith

I’ve never been a huge fan of the Star Wars franchise – I don’t own any action figures and I’ve never had a toy lightsaber, and I’ve never camped out for any of the movie premiers. I do however feel that Star Wars is above average sci-fi, with grandiose ideas and believable, yet larger-than-life characters (even when saddled with poor dialogue), and I do own Episodes I and II and the original trilogy boxset, all on DVD (I wasn’t one of those who had to jump to get the VHS releases long before the DVDs were even available).

All that said, I was entirely uncertain as to how I was going to like the latest and supposedly last installment in the series, but since I’d heard good things about the special effects, I figured it’d be worth catching a matinee at a nice stadium-seating theater to get the most out of it. Angie and I were going to watch Mr. & Mrs. Smith at the theater at The Gateway outdoor mall when we were down in Salt Lake, but we realized it wasn’t out yet, so we settled on Episode III.

I have to say, I’m glad I saw it – Episode III is a far better movie both I and II by far, and I found myself getting caught up in the how of the change from a republic to an empire and from Anakin Skywalker, Jedi knight, to Darth Vader, Sith lord. Acting and dialogue are still painfully wooden at times, but it’s enough to get the job done, and the CGI special effects are finally good enough that it’s usually possible to forget just how much of the movie was created on a computer.

All in all, I’d definitely recommend Episode III. Heck, Angie even ended up liking it, and she usually makes fun of me for being interested in anything sci-fi.

Cory's Spot: Recipe: Crispy Potato Wedges

Editor's Note: There's really no graceful way to return from such a lengthy hiatus, so I'm simply going to continue on as if there were no break.

The other day I was craving French fries, but was too lazy to go out and get some, so I thought I'd try making my mom's cheesy potato logs. I couldn't find her recipe among those she's given me, though, and I couldn't get ahold of her, so I decided to turn to Google for help. Turns out there are lots of different recipes involving potato wedges and Parmesan cheese available online, so I printed a couple out and decided to improvise. When it came time to actually throw everything together, one recipe looked best, so I ended up following it almost exactly.

Here it is:

Crispy Potato Wedges

¼ c. olive oil
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper
½ tsp. each dried basil, thyme, and oregano
¼ tsp. paprika

4-6 med. potatoes

¼-½ c. grated Parmesan cheese

• Combine olive oil and seasonings in a bowl. Scrub unpeeled potatoes well. Cut each potato in half lengthwise, then in thirds.
• Coat each slice in the seasoned oil. Spread in a single layer on a greased baking sheet.
• Bake at 450° for 15 minutes. Sprinkle with the cheese. Bake 15 minutes longer.

Since then, I haven't used the recipe at all and just throw in what looks to be a goodly amount of the same ingredients (with the occasional addition of garlic powder), but this is a good starting point. As always, I prefer to use fresh-ground pepper. Although I’ve found that it’s usually best to use actual grated Parmesan instead of the powdery stuff, the powdery stuff works best here. Go figure. I’ve also found it works best to make sure each piece of potato gets the seasonings on it and then to tap it on the edge of the mixing bowl to get rid of excess oil. There’s also no need to use a greased baking sheet – the oil provides plenty of grease! Finally, I like to blot the potatoes off on paper towels before serving with ketchup. Believe it or not, I’m also something of a ketchup snob – Hunt’s is the best, in case you were wondering.

Cory's Spot: The Post This Should Have Been

Editor's Note: This post has become a little exercise in revisionist history - the way it originally appeared was just embarassing since it promised I'd soon return to blogging, which obviously didn't happen. What follows would have been a more accurate statement to make at that time. 4/6/05 8:44pm

I just finished my last final and school is out for the semester! Now if we could just accumulate a bit more snow, I'd love to make it out snowboarding over the break!

Not that I've been a terribly prolific blogger since the inception of Cory's Spot, but I feel a lengthier break coming on. Don't hold your collective breaths or anything, but I'll return sometime.

Cory's Spot: TiVo

If you haven't heard about TiVo specifically or DVR in general, I'm sorry to say, but you're dreadfully behind the times. TiVo is a specific brand of DVR, or digital video recorder, also known as PVR, or personal video recorder, which essentially take the place of a VCR for recording programming from your TV provider and is available for use with anthing from an off-air antenna to cable to satellite.

Since I sold my soul to Convergys some time in the past and work as a customer service representative for DirecTV in their customer installation support department, I've been selling their integrated DirecTV receiver/TiVo units to people for quite some time now, and I'd begun to drool quite heavily over the technology. Well, I finally got my satellite dish installed and activated my service and, liking that, decided to take the next step and purchase one of the basic 40GB models, which allows for up to 35 hours of recording and actually records the digital stream straight from the satellite.

I have to say, I'm in love. Working full time and taking full-time credits at the university (I won't say I'm going to school full-time, because that just wouldn't be true), I had a hard time finding something to watch when I had time, even with 200+ channels to choose from. With my TiVo, I set my favorite shows to record every time they're on and set movies and other shows to record if I think my wife or I will be interested in them, either individually or together. Not only am I catching up on past episodes of Angel, Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis, but my wife gets to watch Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and we've been watching some movies we'd missed in the past or that we simply hadn't seen in some time, and this without happening to catch the show at the right time and happening to have the time the watch the show all the way through.

A couple of other features that are extremely cool are the ability to pause live TV (for up to 30 minutes) and to rewind back through the past 30 minutes of the show you're watching live, as well as the ability to start watching a show you're recording from the beginning while it continues recording through to the end, even if you start watching after it's already started (as opposed to having to wait until it's over to watch it like you do with a VCR, or even the DVR software I have on my computer). I can also record up to two shows at once, and can even watch a previously recorded show while I'm doing that. I'm telling you, the flexibility is great!

The one thing I wish I'd done differently is spend a bit more and get a unit with a larger hard drive. 35 hours is fine for a couple of first-run shows and a movie or two, but following three different series, one of which is entirely in syndication right now and the other two I've missed a lot of earlier episodes, I find that I sometimes have to watch more than I'd like to in order to not fall behind or run out of space. It's created a sick sort of addiction to TV that's at an entirely different level than I've experienced before. A larger hard drive would simply allow me to build up more of a backlog and then watch when I really have time.

Personally, I think the DirecTV DVR with TiVo is a great unit, especially if you subscribe to DirecTV (and if you're willing to pay for television, DirecTV seems to be pretty much the best option, corporate loyalty aside). Even without DirecTV service though, TiVo sells standalone units that work with pretty much any provider, or other cable and satellite providers have their own units available for sale or rental. One thing the standalone TiVo units support that I wish were available on the DirecTV models is in-home networking to share recordings between a couple of different units (so you can record a show on a TiVo unit in one room and watch in on a TiVo in another room, as opposed to having to record it on each with the DirecTV models if you want to be able to watch it in either location. I believe it's also possible to upload recordings from the standalone units to a PC to watch there or to burn to DVD, but I'm not sure. Of course that kind of functionality can be hacked into the DirecTV units (using the native Lynix OS), but I'm not quite ready to void my warranty.

In any case, I'd best be getting back to that annoying school thing. Oh, and then to watching more TiVo.

Cory's Spot: Tires: Les Schwab

My lovely 17-year-old pickup had tires that were probably half to lots-more-than-half as old as the pickup itself. I kept getting flats, which were luckily manifest in the form of slow leaks, which allowed me to keep pumping more air in at random gas stations until I could get them fixed. In getting these various flats fixed, I always went to Les Schwab and sat around cursing their slowness whilst eating free popcorn and waiting for them to finish. I then went back to driving my pickup with my newly freely repaired tire (because I told them I'd be back to buy tires from them when I finally gave in to the inevitable) until the next incident. OK, so I exaggerate on the frequency of these events (it happened twice – both times to the front right tire) and I left out the fact that second time I actually let the tire go completely flat. I then had to prop it up – on a jack that didn't actually fit under the frame without lifting the pickup up to slide it under – for several days until I decided to take the time to have my spare tire fixed (which also happened to be flat) so that I could put in on and drive my pickup in for new tires. Of course, in order to get them to fix the spare without charging me, I had to tell them I'd be back within a matter of hours to buy all new tires, which I actually did. Turns out my old tires were also really squishy, even when fully inflated, and it's much nicer driving around now – I don't have to fight against the lack of power steering quite so much to turn.

I've also left out the fact that I have a 90-days-same-as-cash account at Les Schwab that I've had to use far too often. First for a new battery for my car, then for four new tires for my car, then for a new battery for my car (less the warranty trade-in value on the old battery), then for two new tires for my car (less the warranty trade-in value on the tire that went flat on the interstate), and lastly for four new tires for my pickup. You'd think I'd be bitter about the battery and the tires that went out before their times, which I am. On the up side, the friendly tire guys at Les Schwab now jump nicely any time I pull in to have a flat fixed for my tires rotated, and I don't have to tell them I'll be sure to buy from them next time just to get the work done for free, because they can see I already bought the current tires from them.

The point to this rambling monologue is that for a non-mechanic with a dinky hand-cranked emergency jack and no jack stands, air compressor, or other handy tools, Les Schwab is a good place for tires.

And yes, I did write this post immediately after the "Mosh" post. Go figure….