Sushi Thyme

Last night we decided to "experiment" in the kitchen. Some time ago we bought some nori (seaweed for you america-jin) and some sushi rice. You might be able to tell where this is leading. We made some sushi, hooray!
This was our first attempt, so of course there were problems. But we approach sushi with at least two extra disadvantages that may not face other first-time sushi chefs. Number one, we're both white midwesterners. Huge disadvantage. Second, I hate (hate!) vinegar. I can definitely taste it in regular sushi, no matter how light it is. If you've never made sushi, you may not understand why it is important, but un-vinegared sushi is about as sticky as sticky mud.
Our first attempt was our two-roll attempt. We decided to each make our own roll, and use half a sheet of nori each. I put some carrot and zucchini in mine, and Alison's was all avocado. As you might be able to see in the photo, it didn't go well. I overstuffed mine (both with fillings and with rice), and Alison had too much rice. Luckily enough, the rice was so sticky that you could pretty much set a chopstick on top of it and lift it to your mouth. So it was at least easily edible. Further, we don't have a particularly sharp knife, so we kind of mashed our rolls a little bit. I cut mine first, and you may be able to tell that it's a little flat. I did a better job with Alison's.

Attempt number two was a large roll. For this one, Alison put on the rice and we shared filling duties. Then, she rolled it and my job was cutting, which I did slowly and patiently. The results, as you can see, are much better. This roll contained carrot, zucchini, and avocado. The only problem we had was apparently not quite stuffing it fully enough, as you can see a little bit of spiraling in the nori.

The final attempt for the evening was another carrot, zucchini, and avocado large roll (it doesn't take much vegetable to make filling, as we used a single carrot and a very small zucchini for the four rolls, plus an entire avocado somehow). This one we approached the same way, with Alison ricing and filling, and me cutting. We even did a better job with getting the roll almost the correct size, so there is very little spiraling.

I am going to quit school after this semester is over, and become a sushi chef. While I expect to be good at making and rolling sushi, the fact that it was not very good at all may be a larger problem.

Marrow Trek

So a friend of mine from U of A (who now works in the same lab as my wife) is undertaking a 3,000-mile hike from Mexico to Canada along the continental divide. He and a friend are taking their dogs and 4 months off for the project. It's not all fun and games (and bears, and being overjoyed to see a trash can); they are using this hike as a medium for raising money for bone marrow donor awareness. 3,000 miles and they hope to raise $5 per mile, which, according to my high-power computer, adds up to $15,000. They're up to $4.40 per mile, so they don't have a lot left to collect. Please go visit their website and look around, and consider donating. Good cause!

Golf

Sorry there haven't been any posts lately. I've been kind of down. So today the wife and I drove on up to the New Mexico Tech Golf Course. We don't really drive very much in town at all, but we decided not to walk the golf clubs all the way (1.25 miles each way) up to the course. I'll have to figure out a cheap way to put a trailer on my bike for them.
This was our first trip up to this golf course, and only the third time I've ever played. Those who have known me for a long time would probably be pretty surprised to find out that I am golfing, especially Matt, who I'm sure doesn't read this blog anyway (Hi!). We got tired and quit after 13 holes, plus it was already 5:30 anyway.
This being only my third time, I didn't do very well. My scores, and par for each hole:

Hole: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
 Par:  5 4 4 3 5 4 4 4 3  4  4  5  4
Matt: 8 7 7 5 8 9 6 7 7  8  6  8 11

So my total score over 13 holes was 97; extrapolated to 18 holes, I would have shot about 132. And we should keep in mind that I often took two shots off the tee, or tossed a ball from the rough into the fairway (or from out-of-bounds into the fairway, as the case often was). I don't know how much of this was not having Alison's dad or brother-in-law around, or how much of it was the 30-mph wind constantly blowing, or what. I think my score was worse than the last time I went.
It cost us about $30 to play here, which would be really cheap for a good course. The one here is very strange though, with very few sand traps (maybe the 30-mph winds blow all the sand out), lots of water, and more hills than anywhere ever. The last hole we played, the green was 50 feet higher than the rest of the fairway. Crazy.
Here, though, are some pictures of Alison golfing. Hooray! Note in the first picture the beautiful view of the mountains that we cannot access because they're covered with explosives. Note also in the second picture the giant dirt pile on the golf course. These two things pretty much encapsulate Socorro.

Spanish speakers: please punch this man in the face.

(Because I doubt a kick to his shriveled old-man nads would do any good.)
This just in: Newt Gingrich is an adulterous, racist ("ghetto"? Really? What, I wonder, is his opinion on ebonics?) jerk. And yet this guy is receiving serious consideration for a presidential bid in 2008? I thought that David Duke proved conclusively that people of this ilk cannot reach the highest office in the land. Although part of me hopes that Newton will win the primary so that he can get his ass handed to him in the election, most of me doesn't. Who's his running mate going to be, this guy?

On a good-news note, this guy seems pretty awesome. Especially since, despite the obvious fact that his family is stupid rich, he actually wants to help people in developing countries. Word to that.

Let me reiterate!

The Environmental Protection Agency is an Agency whose function is Protecting the Environment.

I am sad. The Tigers lost. However, the Braves won. Bad + Good. The Dbacks will be my own personal rubber match.

Putting the "sup" in "supreme"

The supreme court stood up for the environment today by telling the Environmental Protection Agency to do its job (namely, being an Agency whose function is Protection of the Environment). Notice there is no mention so far of this news on the EPA website.
I guess I haven't been following very closely, since I didn't even know that the EPA was refusing to even regulate tailpipe emissions. The pertinent passage:

Three questions
The court had three questions before it.

* Do states have the right to sue the EPA to challenge its decision?
* Does the Clean Air Act give EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases?
* Does EPA have the discretion not to regulate those emissions?

The court said yes to the first two questions. On the third, it ordered EPA to re-evaluate its contention it has the discretion not to regulate tailpipe emissions. The court said the agency has so far provided a “laundry list” of reasons that include foreign policy considerations.

The majority said the agency must tie its rationale more closely to the Clean Air Act.

“EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change,” Stevens said.

Shockingly, this was an ethics-line vote, as the liberals voted with the majority, and the conservatives voted to dissent. Kennedy made the difference. I love how apparently the EPA was trying to not regulate tailpipe emissions for reasons completely unrelated to the Environment, whose Protection I may remind you this particular Agency is designed for.
Here's my solution: regulatory agencies should be part of the judicial branch rather than the executive branch so that its policies are determined by the law, rather than by the current administration's party. Of course, I'm sure that if the democrats were in power over regulation right now, and presuming that they were doing their job (big presumption!), I'd probably be arguing against that exact change. Oh well.