Codecademy presents Code Year

Daisy found this year-long course on writing Javascript a few weeks ago made by Codecademy, and I’m now almost completely up to date on the lessons. Every week Codecademy releases a new set of lessons that continuously build on one another and, with some patience, culminate in a number of projects ranging from a taxi fare calculator to a fully scripted game of blackjack. 

I’ve only done some very minor scripting in school with a 3D modelling program called Rhino, so my ease with the Codecademy program should be a sign that anyone with basic knowledge of programming languages or logic won’t have any issues at all.

Bully Boy Rum

Born here in Boston, this smooth white rum is a long way from its Caribbean roots, geographically speaking, but the Bully Boy Distillers hit the mark on crafting a delicious, drinkable liquor. This weekend, we made tropical smoothies with strawberries, kiwi, and a healthy shot of Bully Boy. I would like to think I know how to mix a bourbon drink, but I really have to give Daisy all the credit when it comes to rum.

Because it has such an intense creaminess, I could see it being great as buttered rum or with just a dash of pineapple juice. On top of being perfectly sweetened, it just looks so good sitting on the bar with its minimal design and hand numbered label. Bully Boy also gets some big bonus points for the gorgeous wood stopper. Someday, I want to live at a bar where screw-tops have become a thing of the past and are all but forgotten about.

Here’s to you, Bottle 400 of Batch 11.

Pinterest

I’m constantly feeling behind on the times. Daisy has had a Pinterest account for a couple months now and has been telling me constantly that I should sign up. My usual impenetrable aversion to joining yet another social media site was eventually worn down enough to crumble.

Actually, now that I’ve been playing around with the tools and exploring the community a bit more, it’s kind of exciting. Daisy sees it as a great way to catalog inspiration on the go which is definitely the case, but I’m also starting to see it as a new, powerful tool for the Amateur Curator which I think is something we all have a part of in ourselves. Never willing to give up my overall hermetic lifestyle, I’ll be sure to upload a lot of original work to round out the collections.

Check out the things I like to look at: http://pinterest.com/watchmyslippers/

BLDGBLOG Film Fest: Breaking Out and Breaking In

Geoff Manaugh from BLDGBLOG is challenging readers to embark on a 4-month exploration of prison break and bank heist films. The well-curated schedule includes a broad range of sub-genres and missing links, including unusual guests like Cube and The Truman Show alongside The Italian Job and other classics.

The structure is also one I can easily get behind. After viewing these films anywhere in the world from the comfort of your couch, tune in to BLDGBLOG over the next couple days to post thoughts and meditations on the themes (bonus points for relating them to Architecture?). It’s relaxed, yet driven. Unfortunately I got on this wagon a bit late, but I’m going to have to run down to Movieworks to get a copy of Cool Hand Luke for Monday before the rest of Brookline figures it out.

New Wood 1

One might assume from silence that nothing is happening, but I’ve actually been quite busy. For those of you that have never worked retail, let me be the first to inform you that the Holiday Season can be hell for most of us. In particular, dealing with the hopes and dreams of small children can be a bit tiring. Besides barely having time to relax, I had a great Christmas and New Years. I’m really enjoying married life. It does feel different; in great ways.

As a new man of the house, I think I’m instinctively prone to home improvement. It can be frustrating to be a renter at times though. Daisy and I are planning to stay in this place for at least a while longer, so I don’t feel like my efforts to spruce up the apartment are wasted in any way. There’s no reason whatsoever to put off having a nice place to live even if you know it’s not forever.

Sometime between Christmas and our recent trip to Providence RI, we made it down to Ikea for a couple things. They gave us a gift card for buying our couch, so it was pretty much free. Plus if you’re headed down to Stoughton, you might as well stop by Michael’s, seeing as it’s the only one within 30 miles of the city. Plus: another gift card. I digress. One of the little things I picked up at Ikea was a raw shelf. I ended up doing a couple things with it, but not really what the Swedes intended.

We have a small prep station in our kitchen, set up in a little nook next to the fridge. We just picked up one of those simple painted metal shelving units you can find at any hardware store to fill the space. With the top shelf set at a nice prep-work height, it has worked out pretty well for us, but until topping the whole thing off with this lightly finished slab, it didn’t feel complete.

Some of the leftover shelf ended up in the living room. Treated with mineral oil, I no longer have to worry about wine stains marring my well tended bar.

I’m learning a lot about the wonders of mineral oil, but more on that later.

Wedding Debrief 2

In my opinion, our wedding day couldn’t have gone better. Despite bumbling a few words during the vows, the ceremony went smoothly and was over in about 15 minutes. The weather was beautiful. In fact it was so nice out that we couldn’t keep people inside dancing; the party spilled out into the field next to the pavilion.  I’m surprised and thankful that the park rangers didn’t make a fuss in the midst of the drunken revelry that continued late into the night in the group campground.

Ross spun some sick records, we ate some veggie burgers, and everything was beautiful.  I just wanted to take the opportunity (I meant to do this a couple days ago on our one month wedding anniversary but my family has been here for Thanksgiving and I haven’t had the time) to post some photos of the set-up from the morning of the wedding and all the work Daisy put in with her ladies to put it all together.

 

Wedding Debrief 1

So, I got back from my honeymoon a couple two weeks ago. Haven’t had a whole lot of time to work on things except for Thank you cards, so my list of projects is quickly growing now that I’m finally allowed to add non-wedding items. The immense undertaking of planning a wedding by ourselves left a lot of extracurricular activities unattended, and now I’m really excited to have the time and energy to pursue them.

Now that we’re through the wedding, I wanted to take a second and post images of our invites. No fancy hand-printing techniques (except the seal stamped on the envelope) on these bad boys, but I still think they’re pretty gorgeous.

Hacking Made Easy

Daisy showed me this new adhesive product last week. Upon opening a packet of Sugru, one finds a substance much like modeling clay. In fact, it comes in a ton of bright colors — or black and white sets for those of us that lean heavily on the monochrome — and is really easy to mold before it has a chance to set. Basically, after applying a piece of Sugru, the substance will set over a 24-period to create an extremely strong bond while retaining most of its elastic nature. It’ll work on nearly any surface and this video in particular shows it off impressively.

I’m not actually much of a hacker (one that repurposes or combines everyday items into something of their own design) but if the dozens of user videos are any kind of evidence, Sugru might turn out to be the biggest thing since duct tape. I’ve seen a solid variety of uses from building custom grips on a camera to repairing broken knives. My only real gripe with Sugru is the price at 18$ for a 12-pack of multi-color of 20$ for a pack of black and white, so I’ll probably stick with super-glue, epoxy, or grout for my home improvement needs.

 

Still. Impressed.

First Chili, and willing it to be chilly

Really meant to post this earlier this week because now it’s 80 degrees in the middle of October, and I feel completely irrelevant. Daisy and I made the first batch of chili for the 2011/12 chilly season. Making chili is one of my favorite fall and winter kitchen activities. For me, it tops making Christmas cookies and Thanksgiving dinner.

This first batch fed us for a dinner and two lunches (chili always gets better for leftovers after its had some time to marinate with the seasonings) for right around $5 worth of ingredients. I’d call that efficient, but that’s not all a good chili can offer. Variety is also key. Even just substituting chili beans for kidney — better yet using both — or cayenne pepper for chili powder can have a drastic effect on the final product. Our first attempt this year had white onion, tomato sauce, red beans, tvp (we’re vegetarians so this helps add some variety to the texture), green pepper, and corn.

You’re going to have to come up with your own suite of spices because I don’t think I could ever remember how much and what we throw in. It just comes down to oral and olfactory instinct. No matter what ends up in it, I love the scent of a simmering pot of chili wafting through the apartment on a frigid winter day.

Harvest Food

Getting out of work by 5 or 6 every night is going to take some getting use to, but one of the best parts of that arrangement will be having the time to cook every night as long as I have the energy after a long day of answer calls and emails. In the past two years, I’ve really began to enjoy cooking more and more, so having this opportunity will be great. Daisy and I started off the week with two fantastic Autumn meals in a row.

Sunday night we roasted a squash to go with some spinach and mushroom pasta that we planned to take in our lunches the next day. I love having squash in the fall for a couple reasons. The first obviously is its price this time of year as a dollar or two worth is more than enough for two. It’s also mindlessly easy to prepare — it can take an hour or so in the oven but doesn’t need to be touched at all while it roasts — and its long, slow cooking makes it perfect for when the days start getting shorter and a chill falls over the kitchen.   This a pretty good photo for a his and hers dinner actually. You may be able to guess that the squash on the left is Daisy’s, with a slab of butter and loaded with brown sugar. Mine has a half-size slice of butter, seasoned salt, ground black pepper, and crushed red cayenne pepper. Sweet and savory, a lot like our personality’s.

Preparing the squash is easy enough: cut it  in half, scoop out the seeds, place seed-side down in a roasting pan with half an inch of water in the bottom, and leave in the oven at around 400 for a while.

And tomorrow: first chili of the season.