Home Theater Update

It's been a while since I have last posted.  I didn't even realize that is has been about 2 years.  Time sure does fly around  here.  Anyway, I have been keeping busy with regular life and had the opportunity to perform a couple of updates to my home theater.  I have been using a 70" Vizio P series 4k TV for a bit.  While this is a nice TV, it had me yearning for more.  With the progression of home theater technologies, I was missing out on HDR and the higher FPS and bit depth that has become available.

I've kicked off my research adventure.  I wanted to get a larger set (yeah, I know, isn't 70" big enough?) and up my technological capabilities.  I narrowed it down to a few different sets.  The Sony 900E, the Samsung MU8000 and the Samsung Q7F.  Only the MU8000 is available in the larger sizes, while the other 2 maxed out 75".

Out on a whim, Tammy and I decided to stop by Spencer's TV and appliance to see what kind of TV's they had to offer.  They are a local outfit, so I didn't know what to expect from them.  The salesman was nice and he was able to give me quotes right off the bat.  Amazingly, the quotes for the TV's they had (Samsung sets) were all lower than any retail outlet I have seen (even through Amazon affiliates).  What really made up my mind was the fact that they were able to give me a price $400 less than any price I have seen anywhere on the MU8000 82" set.

So a few wrench turns later, a trip to Home Depot to get a new machine screws that had the proper mounting depth for the set...



Of course, it doesn't stop there.  I learned the my 'old' receiver, the Denon 4200 was not able to push the needed bandwidth to support Native 4K output with HDR.  So I looked into upgrading to the Denon 4300.  I ordered it online and much to my surprise, the company was out of the 4300 and they sent me the latest variant (the 4400) for no extra charge!  Talk about customer support!  Electronics Expo, you are definitely deserving of my future support.

A shot to the knee

It's been a while since I have talked about my knees.  The last time around I was having some work done on my right knee to clean up an old meniscus tear.  It was thought that the tear was the cause of the swelling I was having in my knee.  Unfortunately when the Doc was in there cleaning things up, he found extensive degenerative arthritis issues throughout my knee - grade 3 to be exact.

So after I was up and running again after the meniscus cleanup, my swelling never subsided.  We tried hyaluronic acid, which didn't help and we just decided to just monitor the swelling and manage my activity level.

Here we are 3 years later and I'm still on the 'manage my knee' plan.  I went in to see the Doc again today to see if there had been any developments in treating my knee, especially after I overdid my activity a couple of weekends ago and really set off the inflammation.  It has gotten to the point of keeping me up at night due to the level of swelling I have.

Since there is nothing new in the world of treatment (stem cell treatment is still too new for insurance to be accepting of that kind of treatment) we went the route of a cortisone injection.  He took a nice long needle, numbed the point of entry with some cold spray stuff and injected me.

We'll see what it does.  I already feel some relief from the injection, but that is mainly due to the anesthetics that were in the cortisone mixture.  Hopefully it provides me some relief in the near term and lasts a few months.  I can get injections 3 times a year if this proves to be successful.

Love me some brisket

Twice a year, the guys I play volleyball with at work and I put on a 2's tournament to get together and just have a good time.  We always make it a potluck kind of an outing and this past event, I decided to bring a brisket.

I have done a few briskets on the Big Green Egg now, so I would say I'm getting a bit better at it.  I picked up a 9 pound hunk of meat from Costco and went to work.  Tammy was so gracious to help prep the food while I fired up the Egg to save on some time.  This is the first time I've tried to make a brisket with mustard as the base of the rub.  We used a Boar's Head mustard and just slathered the piece of beast before adding the rub.

Got the rub from:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/beef-brisket-rub-1-recipe.html

Which consists of:
2 tablespoons kosher or coarse salt
2 teaspoons coarse black pepper (use fresh cracked pepper)
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon oregano leaves (dried)
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon granulated garlic

Once I got the Egg up to temperature of 225 (using the BBQ Guru of course) I added chunks of soaked Hickory and Apple chips to get a good smoke going. I put the place setter down and on top of that had a foil tray with a couple of chunked yellow onions in a bath of apple cider.  Transfer the meat to the Egg - insert the thermometers (I always use two in case one thermometer location is not as ideal) and let it cook.

This was probably the most consistent cook I have had with the Guru, as it pretty much stuck at 225 with no flare ups and gave a good clean cook for over 12 hours.  Once the meat hit 190, I pulled it off the cooker, wrapped in foil and a couple of towels and threw it in a cooler for transport to the tournament.

I probably let the meat sit for about 2 hours before I opened it up and sliced up little morsels from heaven.  Probably the most tender and moist brisket I have made yet and it was a definite success as there was probably only 2 slices left when the day was over.

The next challenge is going to be beef ribs.

Home Theater adjustments

I've always been into keeping a good entertainment system going to enjoy movies at home.  I've had my tried and true Klipsch RF setup for a while with the floorstanding speakers and furniture to keep things organized.  You kind of get to the point where you are tired of seeing the wires sitting around and the constant work to keep the area clean.  Instead of complaining about it, why not do something about it!

I decided to dive into doing another round of cleanup.  This time following through with the idea of moving all of the components out of the room and into the closet underneath the stairs (yes the Harry Potter closet.)  I picked up the gamut of Klipsch in wall speakers and started to work.  This required a bit of wire moving, cutting holes in walls and things wouldn't be complete with a good cuss word here and there.

I mounted the TV on the wall and fed all the wires to the closet.  I would have to say things turned out pretty well.

The family room looks quite a bit bigger now, and I think it's fitting to have a cleaner installation look where there are a bunch of people moving in and out.

Of course, I will never be done with the additions and enhancements that go on in this house.  But I'm pretty happy with the current state.  From streaming all of my movies from my NAS to being 4K ready.  The real task is when we install the Home Theater upstairs!

The BBQ Guru

One of the things that I enjoyed about the Bradley smoker was that it was fairly consistent when it came to the temperature control.  The ability to add smoke via that 'pucks' was also nice, giving a good consistent smoke.

Being that the Big Green Egg is basically a fancy charcoal grill the fire is something that you need to learn to control by adjusting the dampeners and the exhaust.  I was able to mess around with this some when cooking my first pork shoulder on it, then some other easier lower temperature items during the break-in period.  During this time I did quite a bit of research in finding the proper temperature control device to add to the Egg.

There are a few different options out there, from a build your own system (which I would do, but I think I've gotten to the point in which I just don't want to put in the effort to do it) to all out full control of multiple pits and foods.

I ended up with the CyberQ by the BBQ Guru.

It consists of the control unit, a mounting bracket, some food probes and a pit probe.  You need to add a blower and adapter that works with the cooker you are working with.

Now, why did I pick this unit?  It is actually built by the same folks that have the DigiQ, which is the unit that is 'The Big Green Egg" branded.  The main difference though between the DigiQ and the CyberQ is that the CyberQ is WiFi capable, and you can monitor as well as set your needed temperatures remotely - without even having to walk outside.

I've gone through the steps of setting up the unit so it is available on my network.  I could take the next step and port forward the unit so it is available externally, but I haven't found the need to do that yet unless I know that I'm going to be away for an extended period of time while I am smoking something.  For now, the extent of external notification is that I have the email capabilities setup (through gmx.com, which allows for non-smtp connections) to send alerts to me when needed.

Looking forward to using the BGE with this unit though, as it should make for some succulent meaty masterpieces!

The Big Green Egg

I just realized that I never finished my 40th b-day adventure posts.  Since that was almost a year ago, I don't think I'm going to be able to do a total recall of the events of that awesome week.

Instead, I'm going to pick up to a more recent line of 'adventures' starting with a new addition to the Toguchi household. I'm talking about the Big Green Egg.

It all started a couple of months ago when my Bradley Smoker decided to kick the bucket.  The stability of it was in question already, but it finally broke down and the feet basically disintegrated leaving the door to not be able to be proper secured.

This sent me on a mission to find something to replace it.  Of course, given the state of this guy, I needed to find something that was built a little better.  After asking around and some well placed pictures and influence, I opted for the Big Green Egg.  I went with the Large version of the ceramic cooker, which should be plenty big for me and my family.  As long as it can hold briskets, ribs, pork shoulders, etc. It should be perfect.

As I learn more and more about this food contraption, I'm sure you will be seeing more posts in the near future.  Egg On!

October 4th, 2013 – The trip begins

We hit the road in the morning after saying our goodbyes to Briana at home and taking Joshua to school. Breakfast consisted of a sandwich and omelette from Paradise Bakery. The initial portion of the drive really wasn't too bad as there was no traffic leaving the Phoenix area and the trip down I-10 was pretty uneventful. As we approached the Riverside, CA area I started looking at the Brewery map (courtesy of the Pint Labs Brewery Map application I have installed on my phone) to find a good place to have lunch. Unfortunately, the 'search by location' feature of the application would continuously error out with Java IO errors so I couldn't refine my search any. I basically had to rely on the location based services on the phone to locate the breweries that were close to me.

We settled on a burger joint called Eureka. There I enjoyed a couple of beers from Hangar 24, a local brewery of the area. The burgers were very tasty and the service was good as well. It was nice to get off of the road for a bit and have a beer and some tasty beverages.

From there, we turned slightly to the left to head towards Paso Robles. Okay – side discussion. What is the proper way to pronounce 'Paso Robles?' I have always looked at the pronunciation as a spanish type word (pah-soh row-bless). But when we hit the town, we heard (and read) it being stated as pah-soh row-bulls. So which is it?

Instead of taking the 101 and other roads along the coast to head up north, we took I-5 and other highways to reach via state route 46. I've got to say that going that way is not so good on the eyes. Just vast fields of crops and basic desolated land.

Now, we didn't stay in Paso Robles and instead Tammy found a nicely renovated older hotel in Atascadero, called The Carlton Hotel. From check-in to check-out the service was fantastic and the amenities were very good. From the pillow top mattress with the down comforter and pillows to the 4 piece bath with jacuzzi tub. They even let us park in the loading zone of the hotel since they had a deal with local police.

We weren't sure what to eat, so we opted for a local pizza joint (emphasis on local). They served beer there as well (Central Coast Pizza) so it was an OK choice of a place. The pizza was your standard fare, and the experience was generally good until we encountered a bitter owner at the bar that had 'a few words to say' to one of his employees because she couldn't remember the details of what kind of red wines they carried at the establishment. It was close enough to walk there, so we were able to get a little bit of exercise :). Of course, I had to get a Firestone Walker DBA while there.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped by Molly Pitchers. A local brewery that served 4 of their own style brews in a nice relaxing atmosphere. My plan is to try and get a sampler of brews at all of the locations that provide it, and this stop proved to be a good start to that plan. Good place with decent brews, and if in the area again I would stop by for more. No food, but most places I would not expect to have food unless it was a larger more established location.