a few things of note

1. Our hero cut chunks out of two fingers yesterday while trying to slice some galangala. I think that’s what he called it, but google had no pics to share with you. It looks a little like fat ginger with rings. Anyways, he may be absent from his blog since yesterday he could only moan about how little he could do with only 8 operable fingers, and then dribbled blood about the house.

(tim: it’s that goddam galangal, see image on right.)

2. We saw a wonderful play last weekend — Dead Man’s Cell Phone at the Tony award-winning Steppenwolf. Lots of great scene changes and creative uses of light and props, which capped off great acting — including acting drunk! Laura’s mom tipped us off to this little treasure, the Saints — a volunteer usher org that allows you to see plays all around chicago fo’ free!

3. We’re headed to Seattle tomorrow! Our hero is being honored for stellar dissertation-writing and we are all proud. We hope to see you there! And, we hope to have some nice pics to color this increasingly bland site. If our hero is too gimpy to take some, perhaps he can flash his pearly smile once or twice.

 

recovering

Last night was a good time. We ended up driving for what seemed like hours to get to this little all-night Korean restaurant, Hai Woon Dae that had gotten good reviews. Andrea decided against reason to take the long route from the Kennedy to some city streets…or maybe it was her Asian radar leading her to Lawerence street in Albany Park where there were a ton of Korean restaurants, bakeries, churches, and things. We scuttled up California street to Hai Woon Dae and were not dissapointed: the place is similar to most Korean BBQ joints, but better, with actual coal-fired tabletop grilling and 15 (!) types of banchan. Had we known that there was going to be enough food for us with just the banchan, we wouldn’t have ordered three entrees.

Stumbling out afterward, in a full blown meat-sweat (thx) we drove dropped in Cary’s, a little bar on the eastside of Devon where the air was literally thick with the smell of curry. Cary’s has several things going for it: (1) Free pool with a good table and cues (2) Real dart boards (3) No tv’s/fratty boys (4) good, plentiful beer (5) What looked like a homemade jukebox, ala the Monkey (7) Live country music, which goes down nice after a few (6) hand’s down, the friendliest set of regulars in Chicago (Fabian, Don, Geraldo, Valter!). I got a $4 Hoegaarden that got poured into what appeared to be a half-gallon juice glass that required two hands and a lemon.  Carefully signing up for pool led to one of the regs (Fabian ‘natch) yelling out something like, ‘Hey everyone, it’s Tim and his white man’s 40′. Two hours of pool and trash talking later and I wish Cary’s was closer to home.

 

the immortal Lester

Quick reason here.

(love the graphic that comes with the article)

 

pickles!

I had a craving for pickles, which probably had something to do with the 5 or so Chicago dogs I had over the weekend. I’ll have to make some sport peppers next. This just a batch of koshers with my version of pickling spices (mustard, coriander, bay leaves, sichuan pepper, regular pepper) in addition to the usual suspects. I don’t know why I don’t make these more often since it only takes about 5 minutes to prepare.

_{and yes A, I know my ambitious photography got just a wee bit saturated.}

 

here goes nothing

Don’t have too much to report, but mom threatened to cancel her rss feed of this l’il website, so here comes a somewhat dryheaved post.  Having fun at the users meeting and its making me nostalgic for good ole’ IXS.  I won an award for my thesis, so Andrea and I will be in Seattle in about a week to pick it up.  I found some pictures on Andrea’s camera, including a page of ‘notes’ from the spring MRS meeting.

The Duh comment was for an xmcd talk at MRS where the presenter showed that people had forgotten to include single crystal effects and had mistakenly interpreted them in the dichroism.

There was also a picture of me with Lester.  I might be sporting my new contacts, but I’m not sure when it was taken (these actually comfortable and has improved my vision!)

…and here’s a gratuitous food photo of Andrea’s baklava.  Andrea wanted to comment on this photo so here goes:

Actually, what I really wanted to talk about was the horrid odor emanating from the apartment below us.  I made Tim call the often-absent apartment manager to report it, but just got his voicemail.  Meanwhile, Mr. 1E is probably decomposing beneath our very feet!  Imagine!  Yeah, and I made a sorry excuse for baklava the other day.  Mine’s called pile-of-sugar-on-buttered-phyllo.  It’s a little more like candy.  Okay, so I guess it’s perfect.  Here’s Tim:

Okaaaaay…well, I liked the baklava just fine.  It was purdy too:

 

Overheard in the living room:

Oh no, I think it’s the megablast! (TM) Oh good, it is the liquidmetal (TM).

-Our hero, in response to briefly thinking his new racquetball racket was the previous year’s model.

UPDATE: the megablast is the 2004 model.

 

sad days for basic science

Sobering article on Argonne in business week’s Chicago supplement. (p. 38-39)

(although it’s a lot prettier here than that picture would make you think)

I recall Obama that threw out the idea of a Manhattan project for alternative energy in the last debate, but it seemed a little like a soundbite. In it’s day, the Manhattan project was so big that more money was spent funding it was larger than the entire US auto industry, so I’m really skeptical that taxpayers would be willing to front an initiative similar in scope. After watching last night’s fluffy Nova with Tom and Ray, I’m further convinced that $5/gal gas will given rise to a cultural shift (smaller cars with less horsepower, more hybrids, less traveling for goods) than increased governmental funding for BES that could lead to a more revolutionary change in transportation. That would certainly be a nice shift in public sentiment, but does seem as revolutionary as something like the New Deal. Still, that’s the thing I like about Obama: that he strikes me as someone who thinks about bigger solutions rather than the standard Democratic bandaid-science-funding, i.e. short cycle applicative grants. (fwiw, I’m extremely liberal).

Ok, I should be working on my research (loosely related to alternative energy, actually), rather than ranting about this stuff. I’ll put up some pictures of my bike ride to work later if they came out ok.

 

el nuevo mundo: cicero

Between the church of 4-shizzle (seriously), a pinata store, and several check-cashing and liquor stores (conveniently located next to each other), there’s a nice carneceria named el nuevo mundo a couple blocks from our house. It’s pretty small, but has a halfway (ok, quarterway) decent produce section and a nice deli where they make their own salsas, sausages, and pickled vegetables. I saw them making a batch of garlicy, orange tomatillo salsa today and asked how much it was. The guy behind the counter smiled and told me it’s spicy. I told him I like spicy. He smiled again and got one of those styrofoam containers used for packaging meat, put a handful of in-house pork rinds that he had been eating and dumped a ladleful of the hot stuff on top. I am now addicted to pork rinds and tomatillo salsa, which is a shame since I had been trying to get in shape after hiding in my apartment all winter. Tonight we had some terrific mahi tacos with avocado, pickled onions, that salsa, lettuce, some Mexican sour cream (waay different, more like thick buttermilk), a couple Bohemias, and some really fresh corn tortillas made about a mile away. Dare I say, better than any Mexican food I ever had in Seattle. I’m already looking forward tomorrow night’s sup: the pork chops in a green mole chock full of pumpkin seeds.

 

busy, but alive

Ok, I guess between counting photons and keeping up with Andrea I’ve been kind of busy. But I’m still a tad obsessed with food. One thing we found in a crappy Mexican place in Cicero was an incredibly refreshing drink: cucumber lemonade. It was decent there, despite the fact that they used some fake lemonade to begin with…so I did it at casa del tim with real lemons and a real cucumber. It might look and sound a little weird, but it’s worth checking out. I think it would be pretty good spiked too. UPDATE: be sure to skin that cucumber–it takes a while to blend that shit up.

Last night I played with scallops for the first time in a while. They were pretty good–seared in brown butter [sort of accidental] and then deglazed with half a grapefruit and a little dijon. I’ve become quite a fan of the citrus reductions these days. That’s some roasted asparagus and 2/4 of a garlic dill latke.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Andrea has been challenging the iron chef of this apartment with some pretty awesome food lately. Tonight’s theme ingredient: chicken thighs!!! ! She made a kickin’ chicken dumpling soup that would’ve blown my stuffed chicken parmegianna almondinianna saffronium infused pomegranate reduction hoohah right out of kitchen stadium. (had I attempted such a dish). Ok, I’m done being silly. FYI: I’ve started biking to the lab since it’s nice out. 24 miles, sukaz.

 

friendly takeover

Due to the inattention this blog has been getting from our flaxen-haired hero, I will interject from time to time to make sure that you, the fair reader, is properly apprised of our Tim’s activities. Where shall I begin? Shall we talk about the dos-carnes-fajitas with cucumber lemonade that Tim prepared last night? Or, the near-identity theft that befell our hero until the bank error in his favor, collect $1000 (oh wait, that was his) was discovered?

Let’s go a little further back to a few weekends ago, when we ventured to Tennessee. Why go to that god-worshipped-yet-foresaken land, you ask? I ask my parents that very question almost daily as an adult looking back on an embittered childhood, to which they mumble something about a pension and food. Turns out, my dear Amy was getting married to Brian, which warranted a trip to the country of rolling hills and pudgy bellies. Tim caught up on his sweettea drinking and grits eating. Here’s a shot of me with Susan and Jennie with our Amy, taken by Tova, the wedding photographer:

The second picture features Tim’s mom and sister who both happened to converge upon Chicago this past weekend because of two separate and very different conferences. Those stories are not really mine to share. Going through old pictures of our Tim brings hearty laughter to many, especially remembering the “fancy clothes period” where our Tim insisted on wearing sweater vests around the streets of St. Peter.

Otherwise, our hero has been in good spirits. In this update, it would be remiss of me not to mention our hero’s new workout regimen guided by his new personal Y trainer, “Tracy.” Previously, I often found him red-faced and grunting at the sit-up machine trying to build the biggest stomach muscle ever by piling on the most weights. Hopefully, some professional guidance will help direct his efforts more productively.