Monday, November 10, 2014
11.10.2014
Just changed the title of the blog and hope to get back to posting more. "More" meaning "at all." I recently moved from Catawba, Virginia, to Strawberry Plains, Tennessee. I'm living on a farm, and working for now as a substitute teacher in the Knox County School System. In the spring, I'll teach a course at Carson Newman University, on critical thinking and philosophy, so you'll be hearing more about that. I am now assembling materials for the course, which will become a book on critical thinking. The book I have used in the past, written by a great professor at UT, John Nolt, is now out of print and is quite old, so I am going to take some of the great things I learned from that book and add many of my ideas to it. I've written some already, and write as I get inspiration. Soon, I'll pull what I have together, think of what topics need to be covered, and in general be more systematic about it all.
In the past month and a half, I have let down on my fitness routine, and am vowing now to get back to it. When I got to Knoxville (area, I mean; Strawberry Plains to be exact), I ran a 5K and did ok. I ran some hills on the farm pretty regularly and need to get back to that. I was also biking about 20 miles on Sunday afternoons. Soon it will be too cold to bike (I admit to being a fair weather biker of the first order), but I can do it for a while longer. I am now official enough to use the gym at Carson Newman, which is small, cramped, with very old equipment, but it is free. It is about the same distance to it as it would be to a gym in Knoxville, which is nice (a Gold's Gym) but does cost. If I can avoid that for now, I will. But I DO need to get going to Carson Newman. We'll see if I can make that work. It'll be easier after the first of the year when I will have to be there 2 days a week, but until then, need to get going.
Hiking is another part of my fitness routine. There is a GREAT hike very nearby, at House Mountain. I did it recently and it took me an hour an 45 min to do the whole loop. The uphill part is quite steep, and it would do me and my heart well to do this as often as I can before it snows. As out of shape as I am, I did the steep first part with only three short breaks to catch my breath. Then I ran a good part of the way back, the more or less downhill part. Reminder: get boots fixed.
I also need to get back to playing more, musically. I've been mainly doing ukulele, teaching some people at Carson Newman to play it. I need, tonight, to study some chord melody Christmas songs I want the group to try. We've been mainly strumming, and this would be a nice advance. But I need to learn a couple tonight. I need to get new strings for Mandolin #2, which will be dedicated to an open tuning. I started a Facebook group, Exploring Blues Mandolin, which has over a couple hundred members now, and a guy recently posted some stuff, including videos, of playing the &*%$%^$% mandolin in open tuning. I say "%&^$^&%*&^&*(," because I was hoping not to "have to" complicate my life with open tunings on mandolin. You might say, well, just don't do it, but to me, this idea of open tunings is like laying heroin in front of a heroin addict. I can't not do it. If it weren't possible (or, I should say, feasible) to do it, great. If it is, and the instructions for doing so are right there in front of me, well, I'm screwed. I have to do it. Reminder: I also need to get a '2016' battery for my tuner. Mild but firm complaint: Why do they sell these batteries in packets of 2 or 3? I bought a packet of 2 sometime back, now one is used up, and (of course) I can't find the 2nd one. I remember putting it somewhere, thinking, If I put it here, I'll have it when I need it! Nope. That answers the question, why do they sell these in packets of 2 or 3?
I have some new FB friends here in town who I haven't met in person. They were recommended to me by my new friend Chris Arnold, who I have met, for a beer a couple of times. I was having a good political discussion with one of these FB friends, and was sent a friend request by a guy who said he liked my posts. I went to his FB page, and he's a musician. But not only a musician, but the owner of a music store in downtown Knoxville! And we are on the same team politically! What could be cooler? I'm going to try to get by there this afternoon to buy my strings there. He told me about a music jam that happens on Monday nights downtown, a place called Suttree's. I don't have to get up early tomorrow, so I might try to make it by there.
I stocked up recently on good food. It's easy just to be lazy and eat what my parents do, but it isn't overall good for me. I need to do more cooking, and have no excuse now. Tonight I want to make a Thai dish, with the tofu, some potatoes and sweet potatoes, coconut milk and some green curry paste I bought at an Asian market yesterday. Mmmm. I need to soak some red beans so I can also do my Indian rajma, which is on this site.
I harvested all the remaining parsley from my herb garden. I also transplanted the basil plant to a pot and moved it indoors. I don't know that it will make it, but it doesn't hurt to try. I have LOTS of parsley, more than can be used before it goes bad, so I "process" it in the following way. I learned this from a French chef when I worked one summer many years ago at a nice restaurant in Knoxville. You take the parsley and chop it very very fine. This is very labor intensive and takes time. It would make sense to do this in a food processor, but he told me that the food processor just pulverizes it, way too small. That makes sense. Then you take the chopped parsley and put it in a kitchen towel. Run cold water over it, squeezing out the excess water. At first, the water runs very green, then less so over time. You squeeze all the water out, wringing the towel very hard. I lay the tiny parsley bits out on a baking sheet to dry out. When they are very dry, you have tiny flakes of very tasty parsley, looking like but much better than dried parsley you would by in a store. I've done about half of the parsley I harvested, and have maybe enough for three or four spice jars full. That French chef would have it out in the kitchen in a big bowl, and sprinkle it liberally over everything that went out of the kitchen. He was funny guy, didn't work at the restaurant for long. He would literally scream at the top of his lungs, in French, at the waitresses and other kitchen staff, except, for some reason, at me. He would be in the middle of screaming at someone, who would be in tears, then break it off to show me how to do something. Go figure.
Just changed the title of the blog and hope to get back to posting more. "More" meaning "at all." I recently moved from Catawba, Virginia, to Strawberry Plains, Tennessee. I'm living on a farm, and working for now as a substitute teacher in the Knox County School System. In the spring, I'll teach a course at Carson Newman University, on critical thinking and philosophy, so you'll be hearing more about that. I am now assembling materials for the course, which will become a book on critical thinking. The book I have used in the past, written by a great professor at UT, John Nolt, is now out of print and is quite old, so I am going to take some of the great things I learned from that book and add many of my ideas to it. I've written some already, and write as I get inspiration. Soon, I'll pull what I have together, think of what topics need to be covered, and in general be more systematic about it all.
In the past month and a half, I have let down on my fitness routine, and am vowing now to get back to it. When I got to Knoxville (area, I mean; Strawberry Plains to be exact), I ran a 5K and did ok. I ran some hills on the farm pretty regularly and need to get back to that. I was also biking about 20 miles on Sunday afternoons. Soon it will be too cold to bike (I admit to being a fair weather biker of the first order), but I can do it for a while longer. I am now official enough to use the gym at Carson Newman, which is small, cramped, with very old equipment, but it is free. It is about the same distance to it as it would be to a gym in Knoxville, which is nice (a Gold's Gym) but does cost. If I can avoid that for now, I will. But I DO need to get going to Carson Newman. We'll see if I can make that work. It'll be easier after the first of the year when I will have to be there 2 days a week, but until then, need to get going.
Hiking is another part of my fitness routine. There is a GREAT hike very nearby, at House Mountain. I did it recently and it took me an hour an 45 min to do the whole loop. The uphill part is quite steep, and it would do me and my heart well to do this as often as I can before it snows. As out of shape as I am, I did the steep first part with only three short breaks to catch my breath. Then I ran a good part of the way back, the more or less downhill part. Reminder: get boots fixed.
I also need to get back to playing more, musically. I've been mainly doing ukulele, teaching some people at Carson Newman to play it. I need, tonight, to study some chord melody Christmas songs I want the group to try. We've been mainly strumming, and this would be a nice advance. But I need to learn a couple tonight. I need to get new strings for Mandolin #2, which will be dedicated to an open tuning. I started a Facebook group, Exploring Blues Mandolin, which has over a couple hundred members now, and a guy recently posted some stuff, including videos, of playing the &*%$%^$% mandolin in open tuning. I say "%&^$^&%*&^&*(," because I was hoping not to "have to" complicate my life with open tunings on mandolin. You might say, well, just don't do it, but to me, this idea of open tunings is like laying heroin in front of a heroin addict. I can't not do it. If it weren't possible (or, I should say, feasible) to do it, great. If it is, and the instructions for doing so are right there in front of me, well, I'm screwed. I have to do it. Reminder: I also need to get a '2016' battery for my tuner. Mild but firm complaint: Why do they sell these batteries in packets of 2 or 3? I bought a packet of 2 sometime back, now one is used up, and (of course) I can't find the 2nd one. I remember putting it somewhere, thinking, If I put it here, I'll have it when I need it! Nope. That answers the question, why do they sell these in packets of 2 or 3?
I have some new FB friends here in town who I haven't met in person. They were recommended to me by my new friend Chris Arnold, who I have met, for a beer a couple of times. I was having a good political discussion with one of these FB friends, and was sent a friend request by a guy who said he liked my posts. I went to his FB page, and he's a musician. But not only a musician, but the owner of a music store in downtown Knoxville! And we are on the same team politically! What could be cooler? I'm going to try to get by there this afternoon to buy my strings there. He told me about a music jam that happens on Monday nights downtown, a place called Suttree's. I don't have to get up early tomorrow, so I might try to make it by there.
I stocked up recently on good food. It's easy just to be lazy and eat what my parents do, but it isn't overall good for me. I need to do more cooking, and have no excuse now. Tonight I want to make a Thai dish, with the tofu, some potatoes and sweet potatoes, coconut milk and some green curry paste I bought at an Asian market yesterday. Mmmm. I need to soak some red beans so I can also do my Indian rajma, which is on this site.
I harvested all the remaining parsley from my herb garden. I also transplanted the basil plant to a pot and moved it indoors. I don't know that it will make it, but it doesn't hurt to try. I have LOTS of parsley, more than can be used before it goes bad, so I "process" it in the following way. I learned this from a French chef when I worked one summer many years ago at a nice restaurant in Knoxville. You take the parsley and chop it very very fine. This is very labor intensive and takes time. It would make sense to do this in a food processor, but he told me that the food processor just pulverizes it, way too small. That makes sense. Then you take the chopped parsley and put it in a kitchen towel. Run cold water over it, squeezing out the excess water. At first, the water runs very green, then less so over time. You squeeze all the water out, wringing the towel very hard. I lay the tiny parsley bits out on a baking sheet to dry out. When they are very dry, you have tiny flakes of very tasty parsley, looking like but much better than dried parsley you would by in a store. I've done about half of the parsley I harvested, and have maybe enough for three or four spice jars full. That French chef would have it out in the kitchen in a big bowl, and sprinkle it liberally over everything that went out of the kitchen. He was funny guy, didn't work at the restaurant for long. He would literally scream at the top of his lungs, in French, at the waitresses and other kitchen staff, except, for some reason, at me. He would be in the middle of screaming at someone, who would be in tears, then break it off to show me how to do something. Go figure.
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