Gold

Meet Gold.

Santa was a nice Santa this year and brought a puppy for Joshua. She's a Maltipoo (Maltese/Poodle mix) and she's quite the cutie. I'm sure there will be other posts in the future that involve this little one. :)

Yes, I am a smoker

Ever since I was roommates with Ed back in Santa Clara, I have garnered an interest to smoking food. He bought a New Braunfels smoker that had the hot box offset on the side. We have had many a good party with that smoker as the base of the food gorging. I have considered picking up a smoker for myself, but never really got the itch. Until I visited my in-laws in Sierra Vista. They put together a DIY smoker made from clay pots and a hot plate (hehe, I said hot plate) as the heat element. They cooked up some pork shoulder and it was at that point I had to start doing things myself and get some of that goodness in my own house.

I was pointed to some smokers from Traeger that look downright awesome. The downside is that they are a bit pricey. The one I would consider getting was a whopping $900. A bit steep. So I kind of tabled the search until I found the Bradley line of smokers. It's a rather simple setup of a side unit that feeds smoking biscuits onto a small burner and a 500W heating element within a refridgerator like container in which you put the items of food you are smoking. It's kind of like cheating with the automatic feed and the adjustable heating element - but I have had seen and participated in enough of the tending to the hotbox and adding charcoal and wood chips to know that I'm not patient enough to do it manually.

I went ahead and ordered one. $250 through Amazon - you can't beat that. It actually came next day! Of course, I was a bit excited so I put it together, went to Costco and picked up a few racks of baby back ribs. Setup was a breeze, and all I had to do was do a 1 hour pre-season and I was good to go.

After putting together a simple rub made of brown sugar, paprika, salt, black pepper, onion/garlic powder and some cayenne pepper, I coated the ribs and put them into the smoker. I fed a mix of Alder and Hickory biscuits into the smoke generator and sat back and waited. Of course, I frequently checked the temperature and smoke to make sure everything was working as expected first :) After 5 and a half hours, I couldn't take it anymore and we were ready to eat!

How's that for some tasty goodness. The ribs came out very good, especially for the first batch out of the smoker. Over time, things will only improve as the smoker seasons with each use. They weren't 'fall off the bone' tender, but they were very close. There is still a bunch I have to learn about the art of smoking, and now that I have one of my own to mess around with I plan on perfecting the craft and filling up my gut along the way!

A weekend of running... (day 1)

What a crazy weekend.

About a week and a half ago, I got a call from Chris wondering if I could keep my weekend clear.  It turns out he got a call from Zane Lamprey's production to see if he and Paul could be PA/Runners for the Tempe shot of his new show, "Drinking Made Easy."  Zane got picked up by HDNet to put together his new show where he will be traveling around the US visiting local drinking establishments and putting a bit of comedy flair into it.  Also during the filming of this show, he is doing live stage performances at each city he is visiting.  http://www.zanelamprey.com

Well, Paul couldn't make it, so I was able to step in to take his place.  Once that was settled, Chris and I were pretty much in the dark as to what the weekend had in store for us until we received rental car reservations in the mail.  Holy Crap.  We aren't just runners for them, we are driving them to/from their shoot locations!  Not only that, we were asked to run for both the Tempe and the Tucson shoots.

We picked up the rental cars Friday afternoon and just prepared for whatever happened over the next couple of days.   We started nice and early on Saturday morning, when I drove over to Chris's house to pick up the rental van I was driving.  Our rendezvous time was 8:30 at the Marquee Theater in Tempe.  Chris and showed up on time, only to find out that the tour buses had not arrived yet.  After a bit, the busses finally rolled in - quite the site to see those tour buses with Zane and Pleepleus plastered on the front.

The first person to jump out of the buses was Steve McKenna.  He approaches us and says, "Hey I know you guys!  Are you here just to greet us?"  Quite the surprise to him to learn we were working for him for the next 2 days.  :)

Okay, I'm not going to detail every single conversation, that would take me a while.  So I'm going to jump into the various locations we went to.

After introductions and sitting around, the crew was split up to enable us to shoot two separate locations at the same time.  Chris was unit 1 (which had Zane) and they went to Four Peaks Brewery in Tempe.  I drove unit 2 to Desert Highlands for a bark-mitzvah.  Yup, you heard it right.  A bark-mitzvah.  The location was a fancy house with older folks and their dogs.  The main pooch (forgot the name) had a yarmulke on.  The main idea for this shoot was for Marc Ryan to talk to the originator of Brewdog beer, which was a beer made specifically for dogs.  No hops (apparently bad for dogs) and no carbonation.  chicken and beef flavors.  Do I need to say more?  Marc set up various shots including the interview and other comedic gags including the dogs.  It was topped off with the dog of honor jumping into the pool and the owner jumping in after her.

After finishing up the shoot there, we headed out to Giligin's Bar for Steve McKenna's food challenge.  Originally, were were supposed to go the Heart Attack Grill where Steve was supposed to try to finish the quadruple bypass, but that was scrapped for Giligin's where they have a midget bar, tended by Chuy and various food challenges, including the 5 lb tater tot challenge which McKenna was attempting.  :)  After setting up the scene in the bar, they wanted to do a time lapse of Steve's tackle of the tater tots.  Unfortunately, they didn't have a second camera to accomplish that.  They ended up using my point and shoot camera which has 720P capable video capability to do the time lapse.  We taped the camera to a toy basketball hoop and we were set to go.

I gave Ed the heads up of where we were going, so he was there to meet up and enjoy the spectacle of Steve McKenna attempting to eat 5 lbs of tater tots, making tater tot balls, spinning around a pole with tater tots and basically throwing tater tots into the trash.  We were supposed to head to the Salt River for a shoot after this, but it was getting pretty late in the afternoon and with the River closing up at 3:00 pm, there was no way they could make it to the shoot.  As that was scratched, Unit 1 (with Zane) headed to Giligin's to top of the shoot with Steve.  Chris, Ed and myself were placed as extras in the background of the shot so I wouldn't be surprised to see us and Ski Patrol (as Ed introduced himself as to Zane) in a few shots in the episode!

We headed back to the buses so everybody could prep for the show in the evening.  After sitting around for a bit, I was tasked with taking a couple of the camera men to shoot some B-roll footage of the city.  We hit a few sites, including Mill Ave, ASU and downtown PHX for shots of Chase Field and US Airways Center.  We wanted to shoot the sunset skyline of the city, but the location in which we wanted to do it closed at 7 (Papago Park).

After the B-roll shots, the performance was getting primed to start.  Chris and I basically hung around and performed various jobs during the performance.  Mainly we sat backstage and watched the show - which was quite entertaining.  Paul, Shauna, LJ, Tiffany, Ramon and Doug were in the audience and we met up with the a few times during the performance as well.

Once that was done, I took some time to take Paul and LJ home as they were in no shape to be driving.  Arriving back at the venue we finished up packing up the bus and learned how the next day was going to be.  They really wanted to get more B-roll of Phoenix, so I got the task of picking up Gio at 5:00 AM for a sunrise shot before driving down to Tucson.  What time was it at this point?  11:46 PM.  UGH

Faucets suck

I'm over a week into my sabbatical, and after a stupendous week in San Francisco with Tammy it's time to get to work.  First on the list?  The leaking faucet in the master bath.

Typically, I would think you just need to replace the seats and springs within the valve assembly to get this sucker to stop leaking.  Not this time.

Before I could even get to the valve, I had to take off the handle.  Easy enough, right?  WRONG.  The set screw which holds the handle to the valve stem was corroded.  I tried various ways to loosen it up, but ultimately I ended up stripping the damned thing (1/8" hex bolt).  So much for keeping the handle in tact.  Not having the proper tools at my disposal, I had to run to the store and get a screw remover.  That in hand, I tried to get the set screw out.  Doesn't fit in the hole.  Here comes the drill!  I expanded the hole so the removal tool could reach the set screw.  At least something worked right, as the screw removal tool worked like a charm and the set screw came right out.

How that I have removed the handle (and bought a new one, ugly too :)) I was able to get to the valve assembly and take it apart.  Reaching the seats and springs, I replaced those and put everything back together.  Turn back on the water main to test it out and it looks to be working.  Of course, the water runs just fine, but the damned thing is still leaking!!  What next.

I head to Home Depot and get a new valve assembly.  Looks like Delta has changed some of the design, but it fits perfectly in my application.  After greasing up all of the rings and seats, I put everything back together.  I turn the water main back on and viola!  Success!  Now just need to adjust the scald guard setting and put everything back together.  The new handle goes one, looks like crap, but at least works.  I'm sure Tammy is going to want something new soon...

3rd tooth gone

It's been a long time coming for this one. After Josh lost his two bottom teeth, we have been waiting and waiting for the top ones to finally go. They have been wiggling for a while and as you can see in the picture, the gap for his new front tooth is plenty big.

He was watching TV and messing with his tooth. He decided to push it back and.. 'pop' out it goes. Just a small bit of bleeding, and after a good rinse you could definitely see the new tooth coming into place. We were really looking forward for these teeth to come out, as they are basically fake teeth. When Josh was younger, he had significant decay in his front 4 top teeth because of the breathing treatments he had. The dentist had to break down the existing teeth and create new ones for him to use as he grew. Upon closer inspection, you could see that the dentist did an excellent job in making the new teeth, and you could barely make out the original and new material.

Now it's time for Josh to work on his other front tooth :)