It's a diary of my normal life, the 5%. Just posting my replies to the monthly newsletter questions between the family and cousins. Dragon comments are after, "In the record".
So did you ever try a new recipe and it was a
disaster? Yes. The key to sushi is the rice. If the rice is too soggy then the fun of everyone making sushi roll is a flop.
Or
was a first attempt on a recipe a big success? Amazingly, the first
time I did sushi the rice was good. It is important to have a wooden
trough to mix the rice vinegar to the rice to get an even coat on the
rice. The biggest chore with sushi is going out that day to get the
fresh fish to make sushi rolls.
Do you have a favorite cookbook? The internet. It is too easy and fast and the phone can be with me in the kitchen for the recipe.
Do you have a favorite cooking show? Nah. Too many to watch when there are many tool shows to be viewed.
Do you have a favorite dish to make but it takes too long so you don't do it anymore? Sushi. A Thanksgiving meal is easier than getting raw fish at the fish market.
Have you ever been to a
Tree Lighting ceremony? I don't have any recollection or do you know Mom? Was it worth being in a crowd? Probably not. Just another COVID hot spot now.
Due to the increase in power bills, do you plan to cut back on Christmas outdoor decorations or will they be the same? Need to do those LED Xmas lights.
Ever make a Gingerbread house or just go heavy on ginger flavor, cookies, etc?
Interesting. When I was doing the family thing we made one Gingerbread
house with all those sweet candy on it and sugar snow roof top. And no
one ate it much less touched it, though it did last a long time before
we threw it out. Then I suggested that we should make the house out of
chocolate. It was a hit. In fact, we had to do a chocolate house for
each kid to ensure that they had a house to themselves. One issue with
the chocolate houses is that you have to keep them away from a window
because the sunlight coming through is enough to melt the house.
Any special plans for New Year’s Eve? Not really. I have been a good boy and gone nowhere to save money on projects and tools. Also, just another COVID hot spot.

How was your Thanksgiving?
Most excellent! I did three dinners, two in Berkeley and one in Sacto.
I made a side dish of fried green beans with chives and bacon. I got to
carve the turkey, though anyone in the family can do that but they
always suggest that I do that. And more importantly, I borrowed a crock
pot. I put the turkey bones, blood, and small stuff in the pot with
diced up carrots, potatoes, onions, celery, garlic, bay leaves cider and
various other spices. It was an excellent aroma in the flat for a week
where each meal was turkey stew. The broth was also excellent to drink.
So, yay, Thanksgiving was great because I crock potted the turkey stuff
and made a stew. FYI Sacto, you can make your own broth for brown rice
by slowly cooking the turkey bones. See pic of my Turkey day in Sacto.
Trips. Not really. Projects and stuff that annoyed me.
They are: clogged kitchen sink, East side step update (see pic), baby
chain saw and staple gun, the tsunami warning, dropped top, and new
garden patio (see existing versus future drawing).
Let's
get the tsunami out of the way. Back in 2011, the Japan earthquake was a
9.1 and 18 hours later a small tsunami hit the Bay Area. See video here.
Also, from here: "
The worst tsunami to hit the Bay Area was triggered in 1964 by a
magnitude 9.2 earthquake in Alaska, Geist says, that killed 11 people in
Crescent City. That wave rolled in at just under 4 feet and damaged marinas and private boats in Marin County."
What
annoyed me was that the 7.0 earthquake by Crescent City on December 5th
was just a 7, not a 9. A 9 is 1000 times more powerful than a 7. But
the City of Berkeley decided that they should evacuate everyone by the
bay. See pic. I was going to the recycling center off Gilman wondering
what the hell is all the traffic about. Then my music turned off to
allow a tsunami warning to come through. I thought, "We are in a bay.
Nothing is going to happen." So of course, the recycling center was
closed. The tsunami was cancelled in an hour because the earthquake was a
strike-slip fault, not a thrust fault.
The recycling folks never returned to work. That evening Jon told me
that a 9 is necessary for damage by a tsunami. So, the moral of this
adventure is don't panic for a 7.
If any CA person is interested in the new Daylight parking law, that will take effect in January 2025.
Updated
from manual tools to cordless. See pic of staple gun and electric
pruner, a.k.a. Baby chainsaw. I also replaced my Dewalt drill with a Makita. Life is so much
better with Makita tools.I need to get all my tool purchases in before Trump does his tariff thing.
So
plumbers. I don't trust them. They can do things to your house's
plumbing, walk away and you will not find out about it for months or
years later. We have been screwed by plumbers three times now. First
one was a rock in the kids bathroom waste line. Ten years later, I had
to disassemble the cast iron pipes in the basement to get the rock out
that the plumber placed in it. The second one was the plumber unplugging
the pipe and not clearing the pipe. A month later, Ben and I had to buy
a jet and clear the pipe out. Now the third one is the kitchen sink
waste line. It was plugged up finally after me testing it for months
trying to figure out if it is plugged. I was hoping that the plug was in
the u-bend but when it came off it was empty. I realized that we needed
to jet the waste line. What was odd was that I was getting rusty metal
parts out of the pipe. We put the endoscope in to take a look and found a
penny on the cast iron pipe. A penny way inside sitting on the cast
iron pipe. You see, copper touching iron will cause a galvanic reaction
rusting out the iron pipe. We finally cleared the pipe. I am
disappointed that the plumbers would damage the house's plumbing.
I drop PVC primer top. Yes it was quite hilarious when the top slipped
out of my hand down the water drain. See pic. Thank goodness we were
able to retrieve the top by dropping a magnet down the drain line.
In the record, when I dropped the top, I had a slight memory loss as my hand was hit to drop the top. My first thought was, yes it is funny but it will cost me money to replace it. An outside avatar hit my hand that cause me to drop the top.
Later that day, I mentally went to Venus and I interrupted Ibol's class on timelines and found the student who did the top drop. The outrage went like this. "Do you know that will cost me money to replace? How do you plan to pay me back? I suggest you figure that out."
In the record, it became a class project to help me out. Later that day I received an ideal of using a magnet to retrieve the top. Unfortunately, the top was ways down the drain pipe and still needed to be push the top the magnet, which why it took three tries to get the top.
Thanks for reading about my adventures.
Get your flu and COVID vaccine.
Merry Xmas everyone!
Update: