Chili Cook-off and Aikido???

I had something else clever to write about, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was.

This past Sunday was the neighborhood Chili cook-off. I was determined to make a good showing, but I really didn't know which recipe would be different enough from what everyone else would bring. Susan told me about Nigella's Chocolate Chip Chili (link). I was a little iffy on it at first but after reading the recipe a few times I warmed up to it. If we had a charged camera battery there would be a picture, but it did look a lot like the picture from the link above. I did make a few modifications to the recipe, because I like to personalize all of my dishes. :D Modifications: substitute one of the kidney bean cans with a black beans, instead of 1 tsp red pepper flakes I used 1/2 tsp of habanero pepper flakes (from my old garden), I deveined the fresh red pepper in addition to deseeding (that was a mistake, I lost a lot of heat that the habs didn't backfill - dammit). Anyway I thought it had great flavor after 3 hours in the oven (I love my oven). Susan found a 5Qt crock pot for $15 (now that's love), that I poured all of the goodness into and took it to the cook-off.

There were about 10 entries of varying quality. I believe I tried them all and could honestly say that mine was the best. There were no duplicates, which I found very interesting: Cincy, NY, Texas, Scottish (it really missed the mark of all of the entries - you don't just pour a bottle of chili power over meat and call it Chili), vegetarian, etc. With 40+ people at the party there was obviously something for everyone, because each chili got at least 2 votes. I've always had a hard time voting for my own entry so I voted for the vegetarian chili - because I thought it was the bravest entry. So you can guess what happened, right? There was a 3 way tie for first: mine and 2 others (I can't remember which ones). If I had just voted for myself I would have won outright, lol. I sent Susan up to get the award: a Christmas candle; no idea what the others got.

Last night I decided to give one of the local Aikido dojos a go to see what it was like. I had observed one of the classes and was less than super impressed, but its always hard to tell until you actually get on the mat. I was not disappointed in my original appraisal. I don't know exactly what they were doing, but it wasn't any aikido that I had ever seen/done before. I'm not sure what it was to be honest - the teaching instructor (not the head sensei) said they were "big circle, but linear". Really? Because it looks like it was "run into each other and don't bother with joint control aikido". My spider senses were lit-up when I was at the front desk signing up and the discussion turned to one of the students tearing an ACL while practicing. They all agreed that they had never heard of that before - hmmmmmm, I have - none of it first hand, but it always had to do with careless or cruel instructors (two sides of the same coin, IMHO). I do know how they could help most of their problems (funny they didn't ask, though :P); how about start having people learn techniques from kihon (static) instead of everything from ki no nagare. Hmmmm? The instructor kept saying everyone was clashing, so what would be a cure for that? More of the same? Yep. AHHHHH! (Which reminds me - its a lonely existence when you are the only one kiai-ing) Looks like I'll be shelving that hobby for the foreseeable future, but with beekeeping, cycling, kayaking, and cooking; it would have been tough to fit it all in anyway.

Speaking of cooking, I've just started reading Julia Child's My life in France. I am completely devouring the book during all of my free time (and Susan's for translating the French for me - otherwise I have to find an online translator, which isn't as good). Its more of an interactive exercise because of the translation issues and looking up the regions, wines, food terms I don't know, etc. Susan and I have talked about doing a bike tour of France this spring and I am really looking forward to it.

Making Room for Turkey Ride/Race

Ok so I'm touch late on getting this one out. Its been over a week since the ride and it is beginning to fade a little bit. But here we go. I really (ok, not too really) wanted to ride the 50 miler instead of the 25, but because we were going to visit some of the wife's family later in the day - I just did the 25. This was the inaugural ride and they had a few things together, but not the start time. It started at 10:30 for crying out loud.

It did have many things together like the support goldwings and police at the major intersections (Wake Sheriffs, Durham Sheriffs, Morrisville Town and others , sorry the memory is the second thing to go). The SGA vehicles though did not actually have any supplies for fixing flats or pumping up tires, which is a bit puzzling. The police on the other hand I thought did a great job and were very supportive. In the one bit of unfortunate happenings - a vehicle decided to go around the police and not obey the lawful commands given them and struck a cyclist in the race. The driver was apprehended and cited (unfortunately he/she was not tasered into a non-thoughtless SOB). The cyclist only sustained a knee injury and was released from the ER and told to stay off of it for a bit.

On to the bits bout the race. It was a very fast race for me (my average is around 14 - 14.5 mph and I was able to do it at 16.4 mph). The miles kept peeling off very quickly and I was able to take some of the downhills at over 35 mph. There was some wind during the last 8 miles or so, but it wasn't too bad. The race was pretty well marked, but still I saw a couple take some detours. It was kind of funny, but they passed me twice without me ever passing them and on a single loop that's kind of impressive. Brad had a similar experience with someone that passed him that didn't follow the route very well. I did finish in the top 10 which made me happy, but since it was recreational no one else knew they were racing me :P.

Susan and I didn't leave the house to meet up with her family until 1 or 1:30, so we didn't get to the zoo until after 3. We were greeted at the North American gate by a very toad-faced critter that I assume is a volunteer worker that has had a very hard life. Based off of my video game experience you have to be evil for a long time to look that hideous, but you can't judge a book by its cover. You have to judge it by its merits. Then the toady opened it mouth and said, "We CLOSE the gate and hour before CLOSING. Come back some other time." We tried offering it live flies and stools, but nothing could prevail on its one true joy of the day. We decided to take our $20 and just walk around the outside and checkout some of the new construction and the arboretum. I am bummed that I didn't get to see the bee exhibit that the NC Zoo just installed, but maybe in the spring will be better in any case. Do toads survive the winter?

We did get caught up to the family and did some catching up since we had not seen some of them in a good long time. It was good see them again, but I doubt I'll be able to eat fried seafood again. I just don't have the taste for it I once did.

November WCBA meeting

Finally actually entering in this entry that has been sitting here for a bit.

It was a cold and rainy night... I would normally prefer to be in PJs in front of the fire place or my xbox (both of which produce enough BTUs to heat a small building), but went to the meeting instead. We got an update on the sales from the State Fair. We sold 26K of honey (3400 pounds and 29000 honey sticks) with a total profit of 11K. In South Park terms it goes like this: Step 1: Get Bees, Step 2: ..., Step 3: Profit. (Where Step 2 = all kinds of work to get good production out of your bees) The math ends up being about $6/lb for the honey (retail), but 2/3 that for wholesale. In other words, find someone to sell your honey to instead of the State Association.

The speakers for this month were a couple that did PermaCulture (Permanent Agriculture) on their farm. It was a very interesting discussion and way of thinking, but not one that I'm willing to go into much detail about or even try it myself. I don't want to spend all of my time thinking about 5 uses for everything on my property.

Bee-haver versus Beekeeper

So if you have bees and they (the bees) have not exactly agreed to the situation; can you still be considered a beekeeper? Saturday is mowing day and the hives are in the yard, ergo the electric mower and the bees are going to meet. I have been delaying mowing for a couple of weeks now to see if it would just mow itself, alas it has not done so. Which leaves me in the position to inform the bees that the orange monster is not there to harm them. Do bees see orange? That may have been the problem - I did not speak to them in terms that they could understand. The large upside-down poppy flower that buzzes really loud is not an interloper come to steal your precious honey.

They were actually pretty well behaved about the mower, but a hundred or so bees came out of both hives to check out what was going on. I was wearing my beekeeping jacket just in case, but it didn't seem necessary. So, like always, I decide to press my luck and take a look-see inside both hives to make sure that they have enough stores to get them through an admittedly mild NC winter. Mary's hive has been working the hardest and was the furthest behind. When I looked in I was very surprised that there was a lot more bees than the last time I looked and I saw a fair amount of capped honey too. I have a lot higher hopes that her hive will make it now. Elizabeth's hive was bursting over with bees and capped honey. I'll have to keep and eye on them in early spring to make sure they don't get too crowded and want to swarm.

In checking I only made one major mistake (I don't even bother with keeping track of minor ones): trying to pop the inner cover off of Elizabeth. They had really glued down the inner cover and I had popped the back two corners and for some reason decided to push the lid forward to break the seal on the front two corners. Well that didn't work. It just shifted the entire hive and made everyone inside a little nervous. I'm there trying to put the cover back on right when about 20-30 guards come out the top at top flight speed and hit me in the netting hard enough to make a slapping noise. There was little I could do, but keep working and try to reassure them that I would only be a minute more and they could go back to doing their thing. Once I got the lids back on everyone went back into the hive a calmed down very quickly. I went over to sit with them a couple of hours later and they were fine. I was kind of worried that they might chase me off if they were still upset, but no such problems.

Habitat for Humanty Bike Ride

On saturday I had my first group ride/race. It was a 31 mile ride from the Durham Bulls Athletic Park through north west Durham. I had been thinking about doing the 62 mile race (there was a 31, 62, and 100 miler options), but since the longest I had ridden for the past 2 months was 8 miles at a clip, I felt 62 was a bit too ambitious :P.

The weather for it wasn't too bad at all; a steady sprinkle to light rain and very little wind. It was in the 60s and no sun. I didn't need to worry about overheating at all. My biggest fear was crashing and endurance. The crashing part was close only once; going down a very steep hill at almost 37 mph, my back tire got a little loose on me and I had to slow down. The roads didn't have much standing water, but they were very slick.

Riding in a group wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. With 3 races going on and very different skill levels, people got broken up after about 5 miles or so. I started in the 11-13 mph group just because I didn't think I could hang in the 13-15 group. Well I passed all of the people in my group and most of the 13-15 group. My final average was 14.1 mph (not great by any stretch, but better than 3/4 of the 31 mile riders. I thought I would be much further back than that, but the better riders rode in the longer rides. The first group from the 62 miler came in about 5 minutes after I finished the 31; which puts them at around 28 mph in the rain (I could barely hold that down hill).

Friends from work did the race too, but are a good 1 to 2 mph faster than me, which makes a pretty big difference. They said that I finished only a minute or so behind them. I didn't even see them in the beginning of the race, because they started in the 18-20 mph group and I caught up to them at the halfway rest stop (around mile 17). Brad said that they were there about 30 seconds before me, but didn't see me also so they thought I had just wimped out on the race.

It was a lot of fun and I'll probably try to get in some riding before spring, when I expect to do my next race. I am bummed that I didn't do a 50 this year, but hopefully I'll get in a couple next year.

Biking to work

I rode into work yesterday. My bike ride for Habitat for Humanity is Saturday and I've been a little lax. Definition of "lax" - haven't really spent any time on my bike in 3-4 months. I was doing 30+ mile rides there for a while in spring and early summer. Now I'm struggling to keep up a good pace for 10 miles :(.

Raleigh is far more friendly for bikes than Richmond. Here they at least care if there is a hit and run death of a cyclist. But yesterday was very nice in that no one beeped at me or tried to run me off the road. Its the little things that I consider wins. It was the ride home that make me the mot concerned. It was raining and late. We had a 5pm demo and I didn't want to miss it. I didn't leave the office until 5:30 and still had to change and get on the road. Fortunately the ride home is much quicker than the ride in (mostly down hill). With the rain and low visibility, I thought I would have more problems with the other traffic, but it turns out no one is walking during this time - which opens up a nice friendly path - the sidewalk. Normally I would not be a proponent of bikes on sidewalks - too much can go wrong with different speed critters on the same path, but since Raleigh doesn't have bike lanes on every road - you need to do wants require to not risk your life unnecessarily.

I did make it back to the house before it was completely dark - which would have sucked on my last leg, along the community greenway. I was covered in mud though and my back pack took much of the abuse (it also had my MacBook Pro in it - which fortunately did not get wet at all). I am glad that I got the cycle-cross bike instead of a regular road bike. I was able to handle the standing water and mud without too much problems.

Thursdays is supposed to be nice so I'll have to ride then too and I'll have a hope of not dying Saturday. I still haven't ridden in a group. I'm more a solitary person when I'm exercising or playing games. Sure there are times when I'd like to be part of a group, but for the most part I'd rather just rely on myself instead of others. I don't know what to expect when there will be a ton of other cyclists out there with me.

Sugar-Free Honey

I totally forgot my most favorite question of the other night. Anyone that knows me knows that I'm not the best person for hiding my emotions. I do half of my communication through facial expressions.

This woman walks up to the NCBA booth and asks: "Do you have any sugar-free honey?" I'm afraid that I gave her my "are you making fun of me" look. I tell her that no table sugar was added, but that honey is 70% fructose and glucose. There is not much getting around that. She then tells me that she found some sugar-free honey at some store for her mother. At this point I have mostly recovered (but I think it was too late) and said that I'm afraid that we don't have any of that.

I later looked up "sugar-free honey" on da google and found what I expected: imitation honey. This stuff should be condemned by all peoples. The other was this crazy plan by the Indian government to have bees in the middle of Stevia fields and then be fed the leaves instead of sugar-water after the nectar flow. I wish them luck - but I have my doubts. Honey naturally has a low glycemic index, far below sucrose, so why all the fuss.

So in terms of my own learning pains, I put a front boardman feeder on Mary's hive and started quite a storm yesterday at noon. This caused a lot of robbing and fighting . I later read from the local associations newsletter that you should avoid front feeders in the fall for this very reason - doh. The funniest part is this morning when I checked on them - they maybe drank 1/2 cup of it. I'm guessing that all of the fall nectar is far more tempting and the just decided that the 2:1 syrup is just a little too rich.