MEK’s Neighborhood

Seriously Reduced fat banana muffins with tea.

One, two, three

I used the Post Punk Kitchen's recipe (for banana bread) with some changes, replacing all the oil with apple sauce and halving the sugar. I also replaced half of the all purpose flour with fine-ground durum flour (the chapati flour available in Indian stores.) The muffins turned out very moist, sweet, and all around Delicious.

Dry Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour + 1 cup durum flour (or use 2 cups all purpose flour)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/4 tsp chai masala ( a combo of cloves and cardamom)

Wet Ingredients:

1/2 cup applesauce (This is in lieu of fat, you can replace some or all with butter/margarine)
2 tbsp molasses
1/4 cup sugar
3 well mashed medium bananas (or two large ones)

What to do:

- Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Grease a 9 x 4 bread pan or a 12 cup regular sized muffin pan.
- Whisk all the wet ingredients together in a large bowl.
- Sift all the dry ingredients together and add them to the wet.
- Mix with a wooden spoon until just combined. Pour into the greased pan.
- For the muffins, bake for 23-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the muffin comes out clean.
- For bread, bake for 50-60 minutes, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Cool for ten minutes.

Eat Me

* Makes 10 muffins- per muffin, 160 cals, 0.3 gm fat, 36.6 gm carbs, 4 gm protein, 1.8 gm fiber.

Happy Fireworks, folks!!!

 

I love my fur babies. They are like my children. I ESPECIALLY love Fatso. We've had this big furball of a cat since he was born and he is just so sweet and loving, he has a very special place in my heart reserved JUST for him.Although he can be very sweet and loving, he also commands a certain amount of respect. Fatso does not tolerate things such as being restrained or even being held or fooled with for too long. He ESPECIALLY doesn't like anyone venturing into areas such as his haunches or his tail when brushing him. I'll openly admit it: I'm afraid of Fatso! Although fat, his reaction time is akin to a Jaguar and I'm NOT kidding! He has hurt me many times over the years so I have learned to be respectful and careful! Fatso is a Maine Coon aka FURBALL! He has long, long hair and it is EVERYWHERE in my house. I try to brush him regularly, but he doesn't tolerate it well and he absolutely will not allow me to brush the areas that REALLY need it! This has resulted in some knots on Fatso's chest and down in his 'neutered but still somewhat manly area'.

Michael is much braver and stronger than me (and tolerates pain much better also)! So I told him last week I couldn't take cleaning up the hair any longer and I was concerned about the knots and I wanted him to buy a shaver and come shave the knots off of Fatso and give him a bath.

Well Michael and Alyssa arrived last night with a brand new trimmer and a whole bunch of good intentions! Alyssa, being the intelectual girl that she is wants to follow the instructions that come with the trimmer and some other techniques that she's heard of from pet groomers. She's even brought him a special treat to give him after the procedure is over so he will 'associate the shaver with a treat'. Yeah right! She doesn't realize that there is no instruction booklet written on how to deal with Fatso! She soon learns this though....

So they spread a blanket out on the couch and Alyssa starts shaving his sides while Michael holds him. So far, so good. Then about 10 seconds later Fatso begins to buck and resist like a Red Bull!

Shavingfatso

After a couple of minutes Fatso is spitting everywhere, Michael can't even hold him. So they let him go. Fatso is MADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!  After a couple more attempts Michael is about ready to give up as he is bleeding from several nice cuts on his arms. Alyssa has more ideas though: She says we should try putting something over his head to keep him calm and to put socks on his legs so he can't claw Michael. She went out to her car and got the bag from a bottle of Crown Royal and I went and got 2 old pairs of socks. She put the bag over Fatso's head and pulled the drawstring just a bit to keep it on. Then, with Michael holding him, tried to put the little booties on all four of his feet. I was laughing so hard I forgot to take a picture but it was quite hilarious! Fatso must have worked with Houdini in another life because before they could even get 2 of the booties on him he somehow removed that bag from his head, removed the booties from his feet, spit, scratched and clawed and catapulted his entire body out of Michael's grip! He was all bowed up looking at all of us like "WHAT THE HELL ARE Y'ALL TRYING TO DO TO ME?" Bob is freaking out because he doesn't understand what is going on. Heidi doesn't care because she's rekindled her relationship with Hailey.

Haileyheidi

So, the saga continues....

Although they have removed a sizeable amount of hair with the trimmer, they have still only touched the tip of the iceburg and haven't even ventured to his underbelly (I can already see that that is NOT going to happen, Fatso is just NOT going to have it and all the brute force Michael has cannot even restrain him). Finally they decide to try cutting off some hair with scissors. Fatso is a little bit more agreeable to this but still it's not very long before he rebels.

Finally, Michael is ready to concede defeat and asks me to call a groomer and get a price. He takes Fatso upstairs to give him a much needed bath.

Fatsoafterbath

Fatsoafterbath3

Fatsoafterbath2

Poor Baby! So now he has a haircut that looks like he did it himself, but at least he's clean.

I'm calling a groomer tomorrow.

Vidéo commandé par Greenpeace, un petit montage ou nos différents hommes politiques, depuis 30 ans, nous promettent l'Action, des mesures vers Les Economies d'Energies.
La politique ou l'art de l'immobilisme!

De mon coté, un peu comme beaucoup, j'ai pris le train en marche et j'essaie de contribuer à économiser l'énergie, à être plus écologique. Par exemple, une entreprise va m'installer, à l'automne, une Pompe à chaleur air/eau en remplacement complète de ma chaudière fioul. L'installation est plutôt couteuse, cependant ce coût peut être amorti sur une courte période (6-7 ans) vu la montée vertigineuse du prix du fioul.
Je trouve, cependant, les pouvoirs publics encore très frileux dans ce domaine. Malgré le crédit d'impôt proposé (mais sans doute remis en question fin 2009), ils n'accompagnent pas encore suffisamment les habitants qui entament cette démarche (sensibilisation, informations, aides financières - pas de prêt à taux bas par ex -).
Je me trompe peut-être, mais c'est l'impression que j'ai ressenti au cours des recherches que j'ai faite ces derniers mois.
 

This morning, I got up bright and early, ate some Cheerios, and headed out to a bus waiting to take me and a bunch of other geeks on a tour of some of the scientific facilities in Boulder, Colorado.

Our first stop was the Boulder branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

First, let me say, Boulder is gorgeous.  I will definitely have to go back when I'm not stuck with a tour group to explore it more thoroughly, but I think I may want to live there.

But back to the NOAA.  We first stopped at the security station outside.  A security officer came onto the bus and said that we were all going to have to get off and go through a metal detector, so anything we didn't want to take through the metal detector we should leave on the bus.  Being the good Americans we are, we didn't question this, but did as we were told.  We were all given temporary name badges, and went through the metal detector, then got back on the bus which took us on to the main building.

Now... since we could leave whatever we wanted on the bus and were given an opportunity to retrieve it before going into the main building, can someone please explain to me what the hell the purpose of the metal detector was?  These people need training on how to design a security checkpoint system, because this ain't it.

Anyway, here's my temporary name badge.

NOAA Name Badge

Yep.  I should have expired... nine minutes ago now.  Maybe they were on Greenwich Mean Time.

Satellite

A half-size prototype of a weather satellite, suspended from the ceiling just inside the door.

Entrance Artwork

Some neat artwork in the lobby.

Pics from the solar observation lab...

Solar Artwork

Some neat artwork on the wall outside the solar lab.

Sample Bottles

The blue and white cylindars are sample bottles full of... well... air.  The NOAA receives 40,000 samples per year from volunteers and organizations around the world, and analyzes them for levels of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen, etc.

This is the lab where actual weather forcasts are accurately made... or not.

NOAA Supercomputers

Just two of the several rows of parallel supercomputers used to model climate change and weather patterns.

Computer simulation only goes so far.  This rather cluttered lab is where actual chemical reactions are tested at various pressures.  When we entered the lab, our tour guide said, several times, "DO NOT STARE INTO THE FLASHING GREEN LASER!"  The first question to be asked by one of my fellow tourists was, while they were looking avidly around the lab, "Where's the laser?"

Current Project

Got all that?

Air Tanks

The air tanks all along the wall are the various types of gasses used in the experiments.  The woman who designed the lab (I can't remember her name right now) won a Nobel prize for discovering the chemical process in which CFCs break down the Ozone.

Okay, I've got a lot more, but it's really late.  More tomorrow.

I wonder how much the US workforce productivity declined this week.

Today was an interesting day.  I woke up this morning feeling today was going to be a great day.  My mgr and his wife went to McDonalds the night before and they gifted me with THREE Kung Fu Panda characters, which he brought to work this morning.  I immediately unwrapped and perched them on the common cube (crate) wall we share.  Four more characters, and the set is complete.

I made reservations for Charlie Palmer next week.  I've read good recommendations on yelp (among other sites) and listened in envy when co-workers praised the various yummy dishes from several visits.  They have set expectations very high, and I would love to be able to agree with them.

After work, I had 1 and 1/3 frozen margaritas and way too many chips at Chuy's.  Luckily, I was reaching full satiation point that I was very nonchalant about the fact that I received the wrong dish.  I asked for chicken enchiladas without cheese, ranchero sauce on top with two servings of rice, and no beans.  Instead, they delivered grilled chicken breast dressed with ranchero sauce, and one serving each of rice and beans.  Chuy's incorrectly delivers my order one out of every 6 or 7 visits, which in most cases, would irritate me, but I like the frozen margaritas, freshly fried thin tortilla chips, and people watching atmosphere too much to swear it off.  And they are always apologetic, and return with my correct order within minutes.

I got home about 20 or so minutes after my wonderful, thorough, and dependable cleaning lady, Gladys left.  I could smell various cleaning products from one end of the house to the other, and I thought it prudent to do a general scan of the state of the house.  She does not disappoint.  If I were a messy, unorganized person, I would easily request her services every other week, but since I make a good faith effort to pick up after myself every few days, if not, then at a minimum I do every Saturday, I've decided to set up a monthly arrangement with her. 

I played on the computer for a bit, read for a bit, and then watched TeeVee before falling asleep for a two plus hour nap.  I woke up refreshed and was attentive enough to sit through a late dinner with DC's parents at Grimaldi's.  Either I was not as hungry as I thought I was, or I have visited frequently enough that I was not impressed, just satisfied with my experience tonight; the service and food were not memorable.

My sleeping schedule for the weekend is thrown off because of the nap earlier and I will probably pay for it tomorrow because I have breakfast plans.