I Miss Okinawa Clouds

One of the things I miss about Okinawa are the clouds. There were just some spectacular views of clouds. So when I saw something close on Sunday I grabbed two pics.

  

Perhaps on our college tour trip next week we'll get to see some more.

This Week's Garden Pics

This weeks garden pics. The fifth and sixth pictures in the slideshow below should be our Bak Choi and Mizuna(perilla) harvest. We have a ton of mizuna.

The corn continues to do fairly well, as does the jalepeno and other peppers. The sun flowers are doing really well if you ask me.

I cleared out most of the mizuna and bak choi and will be planting soy beans, peas, some more lettuce including romaine, iceburg, cabbage, and endive. Adding some more herbs, dill and rosemary in particular. It'll be interesting to see if I can get the rosemary going since I read somewhere that it's hard to grow from seed.

The tomatoes continue to impress.....lots of tomato sauce meals coming up here soon. Yum.

Side Trip for Ice Cream

After visiting Lake Erie, Arisa and I took a side trip on the way home to get some Ice Cream. We stopped by Foster's Homemade Ice Cream on Chardon Road in Willoughby, Ohio.

We got one cone each of butter pecan and maple nut. Really, really good ice cream. Foster's has parking right in front and some picnic tables of which we took fool advantage. We were there right when it was a bright and sunny day.

If you're interested in trying this place out, which I highly recommend, check out the map below

View Foster's Homemade Ice Cream in a larger map

I must say it was a nice time just the two of us.

Visit to Lake Erie

Today, Arisa and I headed out on some errands, one of which was to head over to Rick Case Hyundai to ask a few questions and get another key for the car. So we took a little side trip to see Lake Erie. Other than seeing it from around the Great Lakes Science Center, or driving along the Shoreway, Arisa has never been to Lake Erie. And it's been many, many years for me.

I must say, it's a damn large puddle. Of course, we lived a 5-10 minute walk from the beach in Okinawa (East China Sea), it's been a while since we got this close to a large body of water. I miss the sound of waves.

7/19 This weeks garden pics

Okay, here's the weekly pics of the garden. Focus on the sunflowers, pumpkin and jalapeño.

The pumpkin has been flowering non-stop. We may get a pumpkin or two out of it. Looking forward to trying the jalapeño.

I think last week's title was mistaken. Ah well, not worth changing at this point.

July 12 Garden Pics

I took some pics of the garden today. It's coming along very nicely. I noticed today that of the six garlic cloves I planted, the 6th and final one is actually coming it. 100% success rate on the garlic.

After I took the pictures I went out and harvested some beans, lettuce, mizuna, and bak choi. Quite a bit of it in fact:

I also grabbed some of the seed pods for the Mizuna. Going to see if we can get some seeds for next year(not that I really need them as we still have a lot left over), as well as mixing it with regular mustard seeds to make mustard.

I wonder what's for lunch...ramen with bak choi!? Sounds good to me!

IE7 and Google Spreadsheet Form

Ah, so I was planning on posting a form related to JANO, and happened to be using my laptop from work(kids are using mine right now). The JANO board meetings are open to any member of JANO, but we do need to get some kind of head count since we hold the board meetings at Shuhei in Beachwood.

By happenstance, I am using google docs spreadsheet to create the rsvp form. In IE7. I make the changes and go to take a look at the form and all there is are question marks where text should be. I whip open the same url in Firefox and it renders perfectly. No wonder we've had no rsvps before; they can't read the damn form (the majority of access is via IE). I only have two thoughts:

1. Come on people, use Firefox
2. Why does Microsoft have such a hard problem making a good browser

Unfortunately this time around it's not the browser I don't think. At a minimum, Safari on Windows has the exact same issue as IE7. FWIW, on Linux using FF, Chrome, Konqi, Opera, and Flock all work perfectly. Could it be something about the windows platform? Just maybe?

Nah, couldn't be.

Anyhoo, Google really needs to make these forms html valid. While I will give them it's awful close, there are errors. And they provide you with no way to "tweak" the form, i.e, specify the character set or language. And the place < br> everywhere, particularly places that per the spec are not allowed to be. Granted the idea is that you can easily create a form on the web where the responses are automatically saved in a spreadsheet. If the form become unreadable though, regardless of how easy it is to create it's useless. And all I would need would be able to pick a character set or language for the form and the browsers would render it perfectly, regardless of the operating system and/or browser.

Additionally, it would be really nice if you could create links in the text. I can imagine that may be a security thing though.

So this time around I can only blame another google beta quality service. Not that I'm really complaining since it's all free anyway.

ミントティーとモジータ

昨年、家の前に花の庭にはミントだらけでしたが、今年はありさが凄く頑張って綺麗な花が沢山咲いています。　前にも写真をアップしています。今朝、 Pigs Fly!で「ミントの活用法(募集) 」という投稿を読みました。活用方法を募集していますので、わが家で何を使っているかを簡単に説明します。

A Teenager's Favorite Weekend Activity

Ah, to return to the days of being a teenager....

Yes, sleeping late on the weekends. That was always nice. The funny part about this though was that it was in the middle of the afternoon. So after getting up at 10 or 11, who has the gall to fall asleep on the couch?

Yup, Elly. Great role model she turned out to be for Ken and George....sigh

Easy Ramen Lunch

We had a really simple lunch today, instant Ramen really. We did add something to make it something a little more than a lunch of MSG. And since I didn't actually take pictures of last weeks final product, which I'll post about here in a bit, I have decided to use this for this week's GYO post.

We've been growing Bak Choi and it's been doing really well. In fact, I probably planted a little too much of it. But that means we've been eating a lot of it too which isn't a bad thing. Last week we had this version:

 

Today, we grabbed some Bak Choi from the garden:

 

If you notice some holes in the Bak Choi, that would because we are not using any pesticide nor fertilizer on the garden. I may use them next year, but I wanted to see how we did this year. Clearly we need to thoroughly rinse the the Bak Choi prior to using for anything that goes in my mouth. Then you chop them all up:

 

Actually, prior to chopping them up, we throw some eggs into boiling water to get the soft boiled eggs going. We also follow the instructions for the Maruzen Ramen, which basically consists of boiling the noodles for several minutes, adding the soup mix to the noodles. For five people, we actually use only 4 packets of ramen.

Add a teaspoon of vegetable oil in a wok and stir fry the pak choy until it's soft. Pour the ramen into a soup bowl. We actually have "ramen bowls" which we use, but any soup bowl should do. Add the soft boiled egg and the ｂak choi, and VOILA:

 

Probably the hardest part about the above is getting the soft boiled egg just right. Everything else is dead simple. And makes it a completely different dish from plain old instant ramen. And it takes just a few minutes to make.

Update: corrected Pak Choi to Bak Choi

今日の花写真

今日の花写真集。　

I Lied, Dell Didn't Flip Flop

They didn't flip flop, they just hid it. This page doesn't indicate anything about Ubuntu when you click on of the systems except for the $349 one. Hence, if you click on the Mini 10v on that page, you do not have the option to swap out windows for Ubuntu. Hence I thought that is was no longer an option.

My daughter, concerned that she wasn't going to get her favored Ubuntu netbook did some more digging. And sure enough, it's not that they don't sell it, they just hide it. Well, I guess hiding it isn't even right. It all depends on how you navigate the site. If you go to their laptops page and only select minibooks in the left hand navigation box, you get this page which does show the ubuntu version.

Clearly this is a marketing thing. They don't want to sell ubuntu (or Microsoft doesn't want them to) is one way of looking at it. Based on my experience with Dell I tend to take that view. It's always hard to find linux boxen even though they are there. But more likely, really, is that most consumers would be confused since they don't know what Ubuntu even is.

But here's the thing - the Mini 10v is a Mini 10V and you can customize it to your delight. With the exception of the operating system depending on which one you find first. Wouldn't it just make sense to make the operating system customizable? Or at least a link to the other system? For what it's worth, you can't select windows if you happen to start with the Ubuntu system.

I now remember why this will be this family's first dell ever. It's just too hard to by a non-windows system even though they offer it.

Suffice it to say though, my daughter is relieved that they do sell the Mini 10v with Ubuntu and is excited to get hers.

Dell Does A Flip Flop - Windows Cheaper than Ubuntu Netbook

I'm amazed. A few weeks ago I was looking at getting a netbook from Dell, largely because we get an employee discount. Not much of a discount, but a discount. So I login again today since my daughter wants to buy one. One with Ubuntu on it, not Windows. Her choice, not mine - though if you know me, you'd know Ubuntu would be my choice as well.

When I originally saved my cart (cool little feature there on Dell's site), I had selected a Mini 10v, which came with Ubuntu. And it cost $299. The Windows netbooks were like $50 more. So imagine my suprise when I go back today and the Mini 10v is only available with Windows on it, and the Ubuntu version now costs what the Windows version did previously, $349.

No explanation, no nothing. You just can't order the Mini 10v with Ubuntu on it anymore. You only have the option of Windows XP SP3. Which is surprising to me since we all know that Microsoft has been waffling back and forth as to when XP is going to hit the junk heap.

I would be absolutely fascinated with Dell's explanation of this flip flop. The only change in the configuration is the OS. What made Ubuntu, a free and free of charge OS all of a sudden $50 more expensive than an operating system that costs money?

Maybe I need to go back and consider Asus again. But that will be for my next one. We did order the Mini 10v that was saved in my cart. We'll see what actually shows up.

More Flower Pics

More pics from our garden and yard. Arisa's on a roll here...

うさぎ、＊＊やろう

うさぎ、馬鹿やろう！　といって仕方がないじゃないんですか。　分かっているけど、やっぱ頭が来ますわ。

いや、実は前から小さなうさぎちゃんが何回もバークヤードに発見しています。　しかも、殆ど人間に怖がらないやつなですよ。　子供のうさぎだから可愛いし、ガーデンではなくクローバ(Clover)とか食べていたのであんまり気にしていないのです。でも、こんなにやられると、あいつがピーターラビットと同じ経験させようかなと思っています。　でも、昨夜隣に住んでいる方と話しをしたら、やっぱうさぎではんくグラウンドホグが犯人だと思います。

僕も前に見たことがあって、デカーーーーイやつんですわ。　多分２ー３フィートぐらいの大きさです。　隣の方が一昨日に我が庭にいることを見たそうです。　こういつをどう追い出すかが今の課題です。　もちろん、フェンスを買った方が良いでしょうけど、まず他の手段を使う予定です。　非常にシャイだそうで、風鈴を出しました。これからグラウンドホグが嫌いな石けんとかアモニアとかを使って見ます。

結局、フェンスしかないと気がするけれど、フェンスだって登ることが出来るし、下に掘ることも出来るなので困りますわ。　

Quick Garden Pics

Just a quick update on our backyard garden, which is mostly vegetables.

Grow Your Own

p>今年は、レモンタイムを植えました。　成長ぶりとかはまったく分からないですけど、小さな花が咲き始めているから一応生きているんだな。　今年はハーブが結構植えましたが、他のハーブはどのように使うのかは分かっていますけど、レモンタイムが分からないので、
レシピーをグーグルしました。そうすると、美味しいそうなレモンソベットのレシピーを見つかりました(英語）。　これをやってみようと思っておりますけど、アイスクリーム機会がないので諦めるかもしれません。

そのページを読んだらこのGrow Your Ownというブログイベントを見つかりました。　なんか、このアイディアが非常に面白いなと思って参加しようと思っています。

参加ルールは非常に簡単です。 第一条件として、自分のガーデンの野菜などを使ったレシピーを自分のブログに投稿します。　ようは自分が育ったものをなんらかの形でレシピーで使うことです。 例えば、今月の初め頃に「Garden Report」という記事を書いたのですが、その中でうちのガーデンから収得したレタスとChives(ニイラ？）を使った「生春巻き」を作ったという内容でした。　一応、そのぐらいにレシピーを加えれば、GYOの条件を満たすわけです。 ブログにアップしたら、300x300以内の写真と簡単なブログ紹介をホストにメールします。　ホストは持ち回りに8月中旬まで決まっていて、リストアップされています。　（ホストは自分のブログに全員のブログ内容をまとめて紹介する役割です。　毎回、担当変わるのでそんなに重くならないような仕組みになっています。

JANOでもこのような形式でなんかやっていいかなと思いますね。 　

僕はこのGYOに参加しますけど、　どのレシピーでやるかはありさと相談しないと。。。。

Not Just Vegetables

Okay, just so you don't get the wrong impression. We here at neohawk.org don't do just vegetables. In fact, vegetables are generally my reposonsiblity. Arisa, on the other hand does the flowers. So here are some quick pics:

Update: I finally got some good pics on the one rose flower that's blooming. Bunch more coming in. I added them to the pics below.

The flowers are mostly in the front of the house, while the last three pictures in the above slide show are the side of our driveway in front of the garage. We have a bunch of sunflowers there, some shiso, and other mixed flowers. This side area is actually kind of a collaborative effort. When some of the flowers that I planted in the backyard bloom, I'll grab some picks.

Garden Report

Okay, so the garden is coming along okay. Today, we picked our first radish, grabbed three more strawberries, and picked one head of lettuce. The lettuce is a tad bit early I think, but we wanted to taste it, and I wanted to thin the row out a little bit. Check out the pics below:

 

The last picture in the slide show is a picture of a "Raw Spring Roll". It's made with lettuce, chives, harusame(green been noodle?), pork, shrimp, and egg. You dip it in a korean miso based sauce, i.e., spicy. Of course, the lettuce and chives were from our yard.

m, m, good

Google Connect for Comments

For the time being, nevermind. It didn't work like I thought it would.

I am trying something new on this blog. I am giving Google Connect a go for commenting. I have also added a "social bar" on the right side of the blog, but that was really part of my testing to make sure that Google Connect was working.

This site is powered mostly by Byteflow with some minor code added by me (news and links), and a couple other pieces of Django code/modules. But I wanted to give Google connect a try. With Byteflow, in order to comment you need to register with this site either with an OpenID account or a email address and password. I'm pleased with the OpenID support, but not many people actually know what it is. They do know their google, aim, or yahoo accounts and can use those to register and then comment.

Of course, there actually needs to be somebody reading this blog before any comments are going to happen. But I know I'm talking to myself here in the ether. But I think this may be easier in the long run.

I'll need to tidy up my templates since there is still some stuff left over from the byteflow templates. I'll need to nix those when I get around to it.