Today is National Celiac Awareness Day, so let's all be aware of Celiac Disease. If you're pooping your brains out, you may want to consider going to the doctor and get tested. It's also good to be aware that some people can't eat gluten, so don't be a dick about it. :) Meanwhile, go check out my LAST blog article and COMMENT. Thanks!
P.F. Changs has some recipes for us gluten-free Chinese food eaters. Happy day to us! Check them out here: http://www.pfchangs.com/chefscorner/
Monday, September 13, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Boulder Wildfire
Please note, I have no new news regarding the wildfire. If you reached this page via google, this is simply my personal account of an event taking place in my town. I feel awful for the people directly affected by the wildfire, am thankful for all of the firemen and other people keeping us safe, and wish I could do something to help.
Last Saturday, Labor Day weekend, six of us and one dog headed to Rainbow Lakes in the Indian Peaks to go backpacking for one night. We packed up our gear and despite the last-minuteness of the trip, the only thing I forgot was a raincoat. We arrived at the trail head around 1:00 in the afternoon and hiked in along an easy trail with several beautiful lakes. Our organizer had gotten our permit as well as directions on where to stay that night, so we went off trail with a hand-held GPS, compass, and men with amazing senses of direction.
While hiking off trail we all started to realize how dry everything was. The downed trees that we climbed over just disintegrated under our feet. Pine needles were everywhere, and with the exception of a small creek, the whole place was just brutally dry. After lots of bushwhacking and climbing through boulder fields with full packs, we finally found our destination, a cute meadow with two small ponds. We set up camp, the boys fly fished for a bit in the ponds with no luck (I insist there weren't actually fish in the ponds), and eventually started dinner. We used our backpacking stoves and were careful to keep things out in the open because our permit very specifically told us not to start a campfire. There was evidence that the campers before us had not followed this rule because we found several fire pits near our camp. We enjoyed clear skies, a moonless night, and therefore, an amazing display of stars. We roped up all of our smelly food/toiletries and hung them on trees away from our camp, just in case a bear might wander by. Finally, we went to sleep. I was wearing several layers of clothing, expecting the temperature to drop, but instead, the winds picked up. I have no way of knowing how strong the winds were that night, but gusty winds inside a tent are never comfortable. Back in May we had a similar night, but in the desert of Utah. We were all thankful that at least this time, there wasn't sand falling on our faces all night. I had a hard time sleeping and woke up at one point thirsty, sweating, and concerned that I had heard an animal outside sniffing. Dave calmed me down, assured me there was no bear, and I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning in the tent because of the wind.
The next day we hiked to a very high ridge right next to the Arapaho Glacier and three beautiful lakes, which are off limits due to them containing our city's water.
From this ridge, looking east, we could see the city of Boulder in the distance and the plains behind. We ate lunch and hiked down to our camp where our backpacks awaited us.
We hiked out through the dry brush again and fly fished some more at one of the more popular lakes. Somewhere along the line I must have set down Dave's trekking poles, because when I got to the end, I no longer had them with me. Oops! (First the ipod, now the trekking poles? I'm really going for girlfriend of the year here.) We enjoyed a beer (cider) at the trail head, then headed home to Boulder, exhausted from the hike and not sleeping much the night before.
Monday morning Dave and I wandered out to the garage to put our backpacking supplies away. Dave was opening the garage and looked at me and his eyes wandered to the sky. I don't remember the exact words out of his mouth, but I turned and was shocked by what I saw. Through my sunglasses was what looked like a cloud made out of the dirtiest cloud condensation nuclei known to man. I quickly realized that this was a smoke plume. It was so huge, so brown, and so close to us that I ran mountain ward for a closer look at the situation. From my view, which is quite close to the foothills/flatirons, pictured below, the fire source looked too close for comfort. (I'd later learn that my point of view distorted things and I was one canyon off when describing to Dave where it was coming from.) We learned quickly that there was a massive fire burning between Boulder Canyon, the canyon we had just taken home the night before, and Lefthand canyon, further north. It started around 10:00am that day, Labor Day. Dave is very familiar with this area due to his road biking through these canyons over the past several years and quickly explained to me what I was really looking at. The winds that had kept me awake all night on Saturday were still howling and caused the fire to spread very quickly. Of course the ample amounts of dry fuel in the area didn't hurt matters either. Thus far, there is no confirmed cause of the fire.
Monday night at 3:14AM I woke up in a panic. I had been dreaming about a fire and when I came to my senses, I quickly realized why: our entire condo was filled with the deep, dark smell of thick smoke. The smell was very intense and I was concerned that I would have breathing problems from it. Of course we both have healthy lungs/hearts, so my concerns were unfounded. I popped out of bed and began shutting all of the windows. (With no air conditioning, we learned to cool our place down nightly.) The smell was unbearable. I was able to wake up Dave (this is rare, he is such a heavy sleeper, but I think he could sense my panic) and he explained to me how to turn on the filtering settings on each of his fancy fans. I decided just to focus on the bedroom and hope that the rest of the house would slowly filter as well. I hadn't bothered to go online to see if there were new updates and just hoped that if I was going to be evacuated, that someone would knock loudly enough for me to hear them over the buzzing fans. I woke up for school the next morning to find that the fans had worked. However, the smell outside was just awful! The whole city was sitting in a brown cloud due to an inversion, which just happened to be the topic of my classes that day.
That same night, this amazing time lapse video was taken from Flagstaff Mountain, just up the road from us.
Fire from Flagstaff
Wednesday I returned from work to find it was pouring rain in Boulder and after running to the grocery store, this beautiful display of nature showed itself not briefly, but for at least a half an hour. Had the fire area received the pouring rain? Probably not as much as we got at my place, unfortunately.
Thursday I was searching for more material on the fire for teaching purposes and found that a Red Flag Warning was going into effect for the fire area and Boulder. This meant that a windstorm was on the way. Sure enough, it kicked in last night and just roared outside. Weather observations claim 30mph gusts up by me. Warnings went out to the city of Boulder: if you live west of Broadway, it's possible that you may need to evacuate, should the fire expand eastward. The city cut the grass and cleared brush as an attempt to create a barrier against the possible inferno. Now, I live south of town and knew that this didn't affect me, but nonetheless, it got me thinking, what would I do if I had minutes to evacuate in the middle of the night? I went online and found some great links with checkoff lists for fire evacuation, should you have time to prepare. A few things stuck me as good thinking: turn on your lights so firemen can see your place at night, put propane tanks in plain view away from structures, fill up pails and garbage cans with water, and have your hose out in plain view for firemen. Of course it also suggested which belongings to take with you. A few hours later they clarified the area for possible evacuation and it no longer included my place, which eased my anxiety a bit.
We woke up this morning to find that the wind storm had not caused the fire to spread and the city was safe. Winds will continue to gust today, although weaker, and winds will become northwesterly any minute, making us, for the first time since it started that I know of, downwind of the fire. Several evacuees were allowed to return to their homes this morning, but the fire still burns, only 30% contained. 169 homes destroyed, others damaged, and nearly 7,000 acres burned/burning. Included in this are a few of my colleagues/friends who were either evacuated all week or are waiting in limbo to find out if their house, right in the center of the burn area, was lost. My heart goes out to them.
The planes continue to fly overhead on their way from the airport southeast of us to the fire northwest of us to drop flame retardant on the fire. This map shows the evacuation area in red, and current fire perimeter in orange. The red spots include the reported damaged structures (burned homes, mostly). We were camping just above the word "Legend" on the left of the map. We live in the bottom right near where it says "Table Mesa" on a little orange road. The evacuation for the upper right area of this map has been lifted since it was made. The concentration of roads in the center right is the city of Boulder, the northwest portion of which was under warning for a possible evacuation last night.
Before I leave you with a few links to pictures and news on the fire, I ask you this: if you got an evacuation call (reverse 911) and had minutes to grab what you could before you drove off, with each second you take putting you further in danger, what three things would you take with you?
http://inciweb.org/incident/2119/
Live google map
http://www.dailycamera.com/fourmile-canyon-fire/
Last Saturday, Labor Day weekend, six of us and one dog headed to Rainbow Lakes in the Indian Peaks to go backpacking for one night. We packed up our gear and despite the last-minuteness of the trip, the only thing I forgot was a raincoat. We arrived at the trail head around 1:00 in the afternoon and hiked in along an easy trail with several beautiful lakes. Our organizer had gotten our permit as well as directions on where to stay that night, so we went off trail with a hand-held GPS, compass, and men with amazing senses of direction.
While hiking off trail we all started to realize how dry everything was. The downed trees that we climbed over just disintegrated under our feet. Pine needles were everywhere, and with the exception of a small creek, the whole place was just brutally dry. After lots of bushwhacking and climbing through boulder fields with full packs, we finally found our destination, a cute meadow with two small ponds. We set up camp, the boys fly fished for a bit in the ponds with no luck (I insist there weren't actually fish in the ponds), and eventually started dinner. We used our backpacking stoves and were careful to keep things out in the open because our permit very specifically told us not to start a campfire. There was evidence that the campers before us had not followed this rule because we found several fire pits near our camp. We enjoyed clear skies, a moonless night, and therefore, an amazing display of stars. We roped up all of our smelly food/toiletries and hung them on trees away from our camp, just in case a bear might wander by. Finally, we went to sleep. I was wearing several layers of clothing, expecting the temperature to drop, but instead, the winds picked up. I have no way of knowing how strong the winds were that night, but gusty winds inside a tent are never comfortable. Back in May we had a similar night, but in the desert of Utah. We were all thankful that at least this time, there wasn't sand falling on our faces all night. I had a hard time sleeping and woke up at one point thirsty, sweating, and concerned that I had heard an animal outside sniffing. Dave calmed me down, assured me there was no bear, and I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning in the tent because of the wind.The next day we hiked to a very high ridge right next to the Arapaho Glacier and three beautiful lakes, which are off limits due to them containing our city's water.
 |
| Arapaho Glacier with Dave and I enduring gusty winds. |
 |
| Hiking down from the ridge. That's me in orange! The two ponds left-center are in the meadow we camped in. Looking left in the distance is the site of the Fourmile Canyon Wildfire that would start the next day. |
Monday morning Dave and I wandered out to the garage to put our backpacking supplies away. Dave was opening the garage and looked at me and his eyes wandered to the sky. I don't remember the exact words out of his mouth, but I turned and was shocked by what I saw. Through my sunglasses was what looked like a cloud made out of the dirtiest cloud condensation nuclei known to man. I quickly realized that this was a smoke plume. It was so huge, so brown, and so close to us that I ran mountain ward for a closer look at the situation. From my view, which is quite close to the foothills/flatirons, pictured below, the fire source looked too close for comfort. (I'd later learn that my point of view distorted things and I was one canyon off when describing to Dave where it was coming from.) We learned quickly that there was a massive fire burning between Boulder Canyon, the canyon we had just taken home the night before, and Lefthand canyon, further north. It started around 10:00am that day, Labor Day. Dave is very familiar with this area due to his road biking through these canyons over the past several years and quickly explained to me what I was really looking at. The winds that had kept me awake all night on Saturday were still howling and caused the fire to spread very quickly. Of course the ample amounts of dry fuel in the area didn't hurt matters either. Thus far, there is no confirmed cause of the fire.
 |
| View of the smoke plume on Monday from my "backyard." Behind these trees are flatirons. |
 |
| View from Arapahoe Ave going west from Lafayette. |
That same night, this amazing time lapse video was taken from Flagstaff Mountain, just up the road from us.
Fire from Flagstaff
Wednesday I returned from work to find it was pouring rain in Boulder and after running to the grocery store, this beautiful display of nature showed itself not briefly, but for at least a half an hour. Had the fire area received the pouring rain? Probably not as much as we got at my place, unfortunately. Thursday I was searching for more material on the fire for teaching purposes and found that a Red Flag Warning was going into effect for the fire area and Boulder. This meant that a windstorm was on the way. Sure enough, it kicked in last night and just roared outside. Weather observations claim 30mph gusts up by me. Warnings went out to the city of Boulder: if you live west of Broadway, it's possible that you may need to evacuate, should the fire expand eastward. The city cut the grass and cleared brush as an attempt to create a barrier against the possible inferno. Now, I live south of town and knew that this didn't affect me, but nonetheless, it got me thinking, what would I do if I had minutes to evacuate in the middle of the night? I went online and found some great links with checkoff lists for fire evacuation, should you have time to prepare. A few things stuck me as good thinking: turn on your lights so firemen can see your place at night, put propane tanks in plain view away from structures, fill up pails and garbage cans with water, and have your hose out in plain view for firemen. Of course it also suggested which belongings to take with you. A few hours later they clarified the area for possible evacuation and it no longer included my place, which eased my anxiety a bit.
We woke up this morning to find that the wind storm had not caused the fire to spread and the city was safe. Winds will continue to gust today, although weaker, and winds will become northwesterly any minute, making us, for the first time since it started that I know of, downwind of the fire. Several evacuees were allowed to return to their homes this morning, but the fire still burns, only 30% contained. 169 homes destroyed, others damaged, and nearly 7,000 acres burned/burning. Included in this are a few of my colleagues/friends who were either evacuated all week or are waiting in limbo to find out if their house, right in the center of the burn area, was lost. My heart goes out to them.
 |
| Source: Boulder County: http://www.bouldercounty.org/bocc/FourMileFireWebPerimeter.pdf |
Before I leave you with a few links to pictures and news on the fire, I ask you this: if you got an evacuation call (reverse 911) and had minutes to grab what you could before you drove off, with each second you take putting you further in danger, what three things would you take with you?
http://inciweb.org/incident/2119/
Live google map
http://www.dailycamera.com/fourmile-canyon-fire/
Monday, September 6, 2010
Mexican Caviar
Mexican Caviar is a staple at all of my family's summertime gatherings. It is a sweet bean and pepper salsa served on tortilla chips. Although, we have also thrown it into tacos and fajitas. This stuff is addicting and pretty healthy. I threw together a batch of this for a softball party we attended last weekend. I had made a few substitutions for missing ingredients, but the original recipe is the best!
Mexican Caviar
Ingredients:
1 can pinto beans
1 can black beans
1 can black eyed peas (found near the canned beans)
1 can shoepeg corn (found near the canned corn)
1 can diced/sliced jalapeno peppers
1 bunch green onions
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
Dressing:
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. olive oil
1/2 c. cider vinegar
Directions:
1. Bring cider vinegar, olive oil, and sugar to a boil. Whisk to dissolve the sugar. Remove from heat immediately and let cool to at least room temperature.
2. Pour pinto beans, black beans, and black eyed peas into a colander and rinse.
3. Check out the size of the jalapeno peppers and dice if necessary.
4. Dice green and red pepper.
5. Dice green onion.
6. Toss all ingredients into a large Tupperware bowl with a tight-fitting cover.
7. Add the cooled vinegar dressing and stir.
8. Let this sit over night, or at least for a few hours before serving.
Serve with your favorite corn tortilla chips or Fritos. This will keep for about a week, which is a good thing because it makes a huge batch!
Mexican Caviar
Ingredients:
1 can pinto beans
1 can black beans
1 can black eyed peas (found near the canned beans)
1 can shoepeg corn (found near the canned corn)
1 can diced/sliced jalapeno peppers
1 bunch green onions
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
Dressing:
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. olive oil
1/2 c. cider vinegar
Directions:
1. Bring cider vinegar, olive oil, and sugar to a boil. Whisk to dissolve the sugar. Remove from heat immediately and let cool to at least room temperature.
2. Pour pinto beans, black beans, and black eyed peas into a colander and rinse.
3. Check out the size of the jalapeno peppers and dice if necessary.
4. Dice green and red pepper.
5. Dice green onion.
6. Toss all ingredients into a large Tupperware bowl with a tight-fitting cover.
7. Add the cooled vinegar dressing and stir.8. Let this sit over night, or at least for a few hours before serving.
Serve with your favorite corn tortilla chips or Fritos. This will keep for about a week, which is a good thing because it makes a huge batch!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Update and Mini Caprese Salads
After I returned to Boulder from my trip to Wisconsin on a Saturday
(remember, before Wisconsin, I only had four days in Boulder after my
trip to NJ), Dave left for a Phish concert in Telluride on Sunday with
his buddies. Wednesday he returned to Boulder and Friday his parents
arrived for a last-minute trip to take care of some family stuff. They
were fun and easy house guests and after spending several days with them
and Dave's aunts and cousins, they all left town on Wednesday, my first
day of work. The next day at 7:00 am, Dave left for a wedding in San
Diego. Monday I had my first day of classes and Dave returned that
evening. A week and a half later, things finally feel like they are
settling down. Since we left for NJ on July 15, summer just whizzed
by.
Now my semester has started. I'm teaching four classes, one new, very upper level class and two other subjects that I have taught before. Luckily, amidst my vacationing this summer, I was able to organize and prep the classes I have taught before by revamping my old materials, and I got a start on my new class. This has made my first two weeks of class a breeze. Well, that and the fact that my schedule is infinitely better than the schedules I dealt with last year. (Here, teach a night class, then an early morning class the next day, oh, and it won't be in a subject matter you know anything about, and you have two lab classes, and, by the way, I'll let you know what classes you're teaching 48 hours before the first day of class.) Things are going to start kicking in to gear next week, but for the time being, I'm enjoying everything going as planned.
While
Dave was out of town I had a freak-out moment when I figured my life
was going to go from peaceful to insanity once classes started and I
decided to stock up on the necessities, should I never have time to run
an errand until Thanksgiving. Amidst my errands I found a two-pack of
fresh mozzarella at Costco and a basil plant for sale at Soopers.
These, plus cherry tomatoes from my tub plants, all contributed to
making a fun recipe I saw on another blog-- mini caprese salads!
Just slice two ends off of your cherry tomato, one to make the thing stand up, and the other to clean out a little of the runny insides. Then stuff your cherry tomato with a small piece of fresh mozzarella, top with a slice of basil, fresh cracked pepper, salt, and a drizzle of olive oil. These little guys are cute as hell, but frankly, not worth the work if you're just feeding yourself. In that case, a regular old caprese salad will do the trick. However, I imagine these would be fun to bring to a party as finger food. Sorry friends, I have kept this treat to myself!
.
Now my semester has started. I'm teaching four classes, one new, very upper level class and two other subjects that I have taught before. Luckily, amidst my vacationing this summer, I was able to organize and prep the classes I have taught before by revamping my old materials, and I got a start on my new class. This has made my first two weeks of class a breeze. Well, that and the fact that my schedule is infinitely better than the schedules I dealt with last year. (Here, teach a night class, then an early morning class the next day, oh, and it won't be in a subject matter you know anything about, and you have two lab classes, and, by the way, I'll let you know what classes you're teaching 48 hours before the first day of class.) Things are going to start kicking in to gear next week, but for the time being, I'm enjoying everything going as planned.
While
Dave was out of town I had a freak-out moment when I figured my life
was going to go from peaceful to insanity once classes started and I
decided to stock up on the necessities, should I never have time to run
an errand until Thanksgiving. Amidst my errands I found a two-pack of
fresh mozzarella at Costco and a basil plant for sale at Soopers.
These, plus cherry tomatoes from my tub plants, all contributed to
making a fun recipe I saw on another blog-- mini caprese salads! 
Just slice two ends off of your cherry tomato, one to make the thing stand up, and the other to clean out a little of the runny insides. Then stuff your cherry tomato with a small piece of fresh mozzarella, top with a slice of basil, fresh cracked pepper, salt, and a drizzle of olive oil. These little guys are cute as hell, but frankly, not worth the work if you're just feeding yourself. In that case, a regular old caprese salad will do the trick. However, I imagine these would be fun to bring to a party as finger food. Sorry friends, I have kept this treat to myself!
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