I Have Strawberries!

This spring I decided to grow some things that I could later eat. In the past I've successfully grown tomatoes, but then I found out that tomato plants had to be replanted every year and that kind of turned me off to growing them again. I've also semi-successfully grown basil in the past; it took a few attempts but I had a good bit going last fall. I completely failed at trying to grow a raspberry bush in a 5 gallon bucket.

So this spring I decided that I wanted to grow some things that we easy and that I wouldn't have to replant next year. In end I went with basil, cilantro, and strawberries. Since we had a strangely cold spring I had to start my growing indoors. I grew the basil and cilantro from seeds and the strawberry from what appeared to be just roots. The basil and cilantro did really well inside but the strawberries never took off; I'm not convinced that I didn't plant them upside down.

When it finally got consistently warmer outside I put the basil and cilantro on the front steps and eventually planted new strawberries - this time from actual plants. The basil didn't last long, I guess that's what happens when they don't get watered. The cilantro is doing pretty well even though it was touch and go there for a while. The strawberries are doing amazing! I even have a beautiful red one that should be ready to be eaten in a few days (though I won't be able to eat it because I'll be out of town).

I chose strawberries because I read that they are pretty hardy and that they can last about 3 years, even through harsh winters. Since I hate replanting stuff every year and since I'm not great at remembering to water things, they seemed perfect. Hopefully we'll continue to get along nicely through the summer and the next few year.

Recipe: Oven Pancakes

The recipe for Oven Pancakes comes courtesy of Stickboy, CJ's friend who lives in Sweden. Apparently CJ and Stickboy email pretty much every day, it is precious, and on one of those days Stickboy shared a recipe, so CJ tried it, and it was really good. Stickboy shared said recipe using the metric system, so we had to do some conversions but I think it turned out great.

Ingredients:
Bacon*
1 egg
2/5 cup flour*
4/5 cup milk*
salt

*No amount of bacon was included so I guess everyone is free to add as much as they'd like. The conversions came to fifths of cups, which is strange, so CJ rounded to fourths of cups.

Instructions:
Cook the bacon, set aside. Mix together the egg, flour, milk and salt. Add bacon. Pour into a greased baking dish (an 8 x 8 worked really well for us). Bake at 435 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes or until the outside is brown while the inside is still moist. Top with jam. Serves 2 - 3.


CJ and I love these. They are really easy to make and are really good. We've topped with strawberry, grape, raspberry, and apricot jam as well as almond butter and it seems as though you really can't go wrong.

Here is the nutritional information assuming 4 strips of bacon were added and it makes 2 servings. This does not include jam or other toppings. It is a safe bet to assume that every tablespoon of jam has about 50 calories, a ton of sugar, and not much else.

Dishonest Companies

I would like to start this post off in one way but I don't think that would be wise, so I'm going to skip that part and move on to two experiences CJ and I have had with dishonest companies.

Story 1. Back in January, just after CJ and I purchased our house, we bought a refrigerator. CJ had heard good things about Samsung refrigerators so we decided to take a look. Best Buy sells Samsung fridges and CJ shops for video game stuff at Best Buy all the time so we looked there. We found one that we both liked, black to match the other appliances in our kitchen, but we didn't buy right then because we hadn't closed on the house.

A few days (maybe a week) later, Mom and I were painting the inside of CJ and mine's bran-spankin-new house when CJ was getting really bored (he doesn't paint, but he is pretty good at taping) so I sent him out to purchase the refrigerator. He wasn't gone long, he went straight to the Best Buy in West Jordan at Jordan Landing, knew exactly which refrigerator to purchase, purchased (he got it on sale and ended up with an extra 5% off as well!), and got out of there. He was told that it would be delivered the following Thursday and we'd receive a call on Wednesday to schedule a more exact time for delivery.

We never received a call on Wednesday so I stayed at the new house all day Thursday which meant all I could do on the day I took off was paint and sit around and wait when I had planned on doing some packing at the apartment and moving some things between places. No one came on Thursday to deliver the refrigerator.

On his way home from work on Friday, CJ stopped by the Best Buy to ask what was up. He was told a number of things but the people at Best Buy settled on the refrigerator was discontinued and they could sell him the stainless steal version but he'd have to pay extra for the upgrade. This was not satisfactory to CJ or myself and he refused but offered to take the stainless steal at no extra cost for the inconvenience of being sold a refrigerator that was discontinued, the inconvenience of not having a refrigerator delivered when we were told it would be delivered, the inconvenience of having to go found out why the fridge wasn't delivered instead of Best Buy contacting us to tell us that they wouldn't be delivering the product we already paid them for, and the inconvenience of sitting around waiting for a product we already paid for to be delivered.. Best Buy didn't seem to think that there was anything wrong with them selling a refrigerator that had been discontinued and CJ left after several hours in the store trying to work things out.

Over the next several day CJ spent hours (6ish) on the phone with anyone at the Jordan Landing Best Buy location and corporate office that he could get a hold of. It turns out that the refrigerator we were sold had not been discontinued. Apparently, as I understand it, there was a problem at the warehouse where Best Buy keeps their fridges and they were not able to deliver any of that model of refrigerator that was purchased on that day and, we were told, they were not able to contact the customers who purchased those refrigerators to tell them the fridges couldn't be delivered because they didn't have access to that information.

Um, no. You sold the refrigerators, you have information on the sale of the refrigerators, you just aren't willing to man up and take responsibility for your mistake. Typical of so much that goes on in America these days.

We were told that it would still be a while (a week if I recall correctly) before the fridge we ordered could be delivered and we were offered a temporary refrigerator in the mean time. We accepted this offer because we needed somewhere to put our food for the week since our lease was up in a day or so. And that was all Best Buy offered. CJ found this unacceptable considering all the inconveniences listed above plus the inconvenience of having to be around for two deliveries instead of one. When he detailed these inconveniences the Jordan Landing Best Buy manager seemed clue-less as to why we were so inconvenienced (duh, 6 hours on the phone trying sort out your mistakes and lies is a huge inconvenience). In the end we were given another 10%-ish off the price of the refrigerator.

It was quite the process and a very frustrating time for us. The worst part of the whole thing was knowing that people at Best Buy lied to us. They didn't accidentally give us wrong information, they lied and they didn't understand that that was a bad thing. CJ still buys video game stuff there but I will be going to Target instead of Best Buy for my movie, music, and video gaming needs.

Story 2. Back in February, just after CJ and I purchased our house, CJ decided to go with DirecTV for our television, cable, and movie needs (well, wants). The offer at the time for new customers was 3 free months of HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, and Starz. Since CJ had been a customer a while ago he couldn't get this offer. But doing what CJ does best he was able to get the sales guy to give us 6 free months of Starz and Showtime.

Fast forward 3 months later and we are now being billed for Starz and Showtime. CJ calls up DirecTV and all they tell him is that they didn't have an offer like that at the time so they can't give us those channels for free for an additional 3 months. CJ kept trying to explain that that was the offer he was promised by a DirecTV sales person and that since we didn't get it we were lied to and lying to customer to get a sale is not Ok. The customer support guy didn't seem to care. To emphasize: A representative of DirecTV did not care that another representative of the same organization knowingly lied to potential customers just to get a sale. Not ok.

What ended up happening is that we canceled those movie channels, got a credit back for the one month we did pay for those channels and now we have Netflix for our movie needs.

The next step is to send a written letter via snail mail (they didn't have any other options for this kind of resolution) about the situation and try to resolve it that way. I think CJ's plan for that letter is to request we drop our contract with DirecTV with no fee. We figure they lied to us to get us in a contract, therefore we should not have to wait out the contract to drop the service. We'll see how that goes.

Re-usable Shopping Bags

Plastic shopping bags serve a purpose. They are cheap, easy to manufacture, convenient, re-usable as trash bags, and recyclable. The main problems I have with them is they don't biodegrade and if they are not on the top of a landfill they can't photo-degrade, they don't often get recycled, and they can be seen strewn all over the world.

It's that last part that really got me thinking. I just hate driving down the street seeing plastic shopping bags stuck in tree, fences, bushes and sage brush. I decided that I was going to try to not be part of that problem - not because I was throwing my plastic bags out of my window to be carried by the wind to the nearest tree but because I was supporting the problem by using plastic shopping bags.

Plus, most the bags I was using were also advertising where I shopped, which isn't a problem because I don't want people knowing where I shop but because I was a walking billboard that wasn't being paid to be a billboard. In fact, I was paying money to purchase items and be an advertisement; I'm not OK with that. (I also try not to wear cloths that adversise the brand name on them.)

This is when I started doing research on how I could not use plastic shopping bags. I had hear the term "re-usable shopping bag" and my first thought was to just take the plastic bags that I already had laying around (and I had a very large collection) and just re-use them at the checkout. Once I started looking through the bags I had I realized that that wasn't going to work because of the condition that the bags were in; with just one use, the plastic re-usable shopping bags probably were no longer strong enough to carry another load.

I next moved to canvas bags but the ones I saw in the stores weren't meant to be shopping bags: they were either really big (like a beach tote), really small (like a children's book tote), really expensive ($14 ish), or really ugly (plain canvas).

I knew that some stores sold re-usable shopping bags for pretty cheap but that goes back to the fact that I don't want to do any free advertisement because the inexpensive bags sold by retailers had their store name and/or logo all over them. Plus they weren't exactly convenient for carrying around.

After doing some internet research I found Baggus. The first thing that drew me in about Baggus is that they were really colorful. I love color. The second is that the brand name was not advertised all over the bag (there is a small tag on each that says "Baggu" but it isn't front and center, so I can live with it). The third is that they got cheaper the more you purchased.

I decided to try them out. I purchased the minimum I could at the lowest price (6 for $6.50 each) and they were delivered in about 4 days. I gave one to each of my two room mates and I took the others shopping.

Now, this was several years ago, back before using re-usable shopping bags was very widely practiced. On my first several grocery shopping trips (probably for the first several months) I got really crazy looks from the cashiers, even though they sold re-usable shopping bags, and most wouldn't bag my groceries for me, which was a little infuriating. However, I've found that now that using re-usable bags in more popular, cashiers don't even think twice when I hand them a re-usable bag or when the first item on the counter is a re-usable bag.

Here are some other things I like about Baggus:

• light weight
• fold up small enough that I can fit several in my purse
• washable
• can hold up to 25 - 35 pounds
• have long handles that can be carried via shoulder instead of just carried by hand
• have a huge color variety (I have about 20 - 25 different colors)
• have varied uses (all kinds of shopping, carrying my lunch to work, carrying items to potlucks and other event, moving, gym bag, etc)
• make great gifts

Back when I started purchasing and sing Baggus there was only one size, a little bigger than a regular plastic shopping bag from a grocery store, but now there are three sizes of the original and all kinds of other types of bags.

I'm certainly not in any position to be judging anyone who uses plastic shopping bags, I still do if I forget to bring a Baggu with me, but if you do use plastic shopping bags, please re-use them for other purposes and/or recycle them - most grocery stores have a place to collect plastic bags and most recycling programs accept them.

Book Review: The True Story of Hansel and Gretel

I'm not sure why but this book caught my eye in Costco while CJ was trying to nonchalantly look at video games. I guess I liked the idea of where a fairy tale story could have really come from. So I picked up the book and read the description on the back:


In the last months of the Nazi occupation of Poland, two children are left by their father and stepmother to find safety in a dense forest. Because their real names will reveal their Jewishness, they are renamed "Hansel" and "Gretel". They wander in the woods until they are taken in by Magda, an eccentric and stubborn old woman called "witch: by the nearby villagers. Magda is determined to save them, even as a German officer arrives in the village with his own plans for the children.

A haunting novel of journey and survival, of redemption and memory, The True Story of Hansel and Gretel powerfully depicts how war is experienced by families and especially by children, and tells a resonant, riveting story.


Sounded interesting to me. The book started out interesting then had a slow patch. The beginning definitely wasn't a book that I couldn't put down. However, just over halfway through I got really into it and did have a hard time putting it down. It has everything you expect from a Hansel and Gretel story (Hansel, Gretel, a stepmother, bread crumbs, a witch, and ovens) plus everything you'd expect from a World War II Story. In case you don't read a lot of WWII stories, that means that there are scenes in the book that are very (I really mean very) disturbing. If you can't handle the more disturbing aspects of WWII, then don't read this book.

That said, it was a very interesting book and I quite enjoyed it. I'd like to share one of my favorite quotes. It takes place in the forest. There are a group of 'partisans' doing their best to fight the Nazi's out of Poland; they are a mixed group of Polish, Russian, Christian, and Jew. One member of the group was saying that he no longer believes in God because of everything that is happening. Another member of the group says,


God didn't come down and kill us. I don't see God shooting children and priests. None of us met God beating up Jews and shoving them into railroad cars. This is men doing the murdering. Talk to men about their evil, kill the evil men, but pray to God. You can't expect God to come down and do our living for us. We have to do that ourselves.


I thought there were a couple of great lessons in just that one paragraph.

1. Men make their own decisions, God doesn't make decisions for them.
2. God will help us out but he can't do our living for us.

Overall, I'd recommend this book to anyone who thinks they can handle those more disturbing scenes. If you are in the area and you'd like to borrow it, just let me know.

I Love French Fries

One of my favorite foods in the whole world is french fries. I find them nearly irresistible. There is something about a salty, crunchy potato product that makes me salivate. Here are some of my favorites.

Favorite Chain Restaurant French Fries: Chili's. It is nearly impossible for me to let Chili's french fries go uneaten when leaving the restaurant. I'm pretty good at leaving stranger's plates alone but you will never find my plate or CJ's plate have french fries on it when we're leaving. Another chain restaurant with excellent french fries is Ruby River.

Least Favorite Chain Restaurant French Fries: Red Robin. I really don't like Red Robin's fries. In fact, when I go to Red Robin and get a burger, I replace the fries with cantaloupe or salad. Red Robin's fries aren't crispy enough for me and they are so big (in general I don't like steak fries) that the middle is mushy.

Favorite Fast Food French Fries: McDonald's. McDonald's fries have such a distinct and infectious flavor and smell that I can tell when my co-workers have been to McDonald's vs Burger King or Wendy's. They are delicious. I almost hate to admit it but I also like Wienerschnitzel's chili cheese fries. Maybe that's because it is difficult to find chili cheese fries (especially bean-less chili) at fast food places. However, when CJ and I were in the Seattle airport we ate some chili cheese fries from a place there that were amazing.

Favorite Frozen Store-Bought French Fries: Great Value Brand Seasoned French Fries. These are the fries that I probably eat most often because CJ and I can make them at home. They are about the same thickness as Chili's fries and have really good flavor. I love making french fries at home because I can bake them instead of deep-fry them (of course the were lightly deep-fried before being frozen but whatever) and I can put whatever I want or have around on them: ketchup, BBQ sauce, cheese, chili, etc.

Favorite Sweet Potato Fries: Rumbi Island Grill. Rumbi sells a mix of thinly cut regular french fries (which are good but not great) with crinkled sweet potato fries that are amazing. I think sweet potato fries are hard to get right because they usually end up being thick cut and awkwardly mushy in the middle but Rumbi seems to have gotten them right. I especially like dipping them in the teriyaki sauce that comes with the teriyaki flavored Grilled Chicken Sandwhich that I usually get (pictured is Rumbi's Kahuna Burger with Thousand Island sauce and a side of french fries).

What are your favorite french fries?

Pop Quiz: Email Etiquette

1. When you receive an email, how much of it should you read?

a. Just the subject line.
b. The first paragraph.
c. Until I get bored.
d. The whole thing.

2. When you receive an email where the sender requests answers to questions, how many of the questions should you answer?

a. Just the first one.
b. The subject line didn't have any questions so there are no questions to answer.
c. Only the ones I want to answer.
d. All that I can answer and explain why I can't answer the others.

3. True or False: Using all caps (upper-case) means that I really enjoyed writing the email.

4. When replying to an email, what is the difference between Reply and Reply-to-all?

a. Reply means I only read part of the email and Reply-to-all means I read the whole email.
b. There is no difference.
c. My email only has a Reply-to-all.
d. Reply replies to just the sender when Reply-to-all replies to everyone the sender sent the email to.

5. True or False: Email is a casual form of communication so there is no need to spell-check or proof read before sending an email.

Answers:
1. The answer to #1 is obviously d. If someone is going to take the time to send you information in an email, you probably need to read the whole thing.

2. The answer to #2 is most definitely d. People don't ask questions via email just because they like to type. If someone is asking a question, they probably need the answer.

3. #3 is False. Caps (upper-case letters) are used for emphasis. When an entire email, or a section of an email (or any other internet-type of communication) means that you are yelling; it is rude.

4. The answer to #4 is d. If everyone that the email was sent to needs to see your response (like in a collaborate group discussion), use the Reply-to-all. If only the sender needs to see your response (like a request for your address or other personal information), use the Reply option.

5. The answer to #5 is always False. Email can be a casual form of communication but it is still important to proof-read in order to make sure that you are sending exactly what you intend to send to your recipients.

I don't know if there is anything more frustrating when trying to convey information to a person when that person is not paying attention or doesn't seem to care. This can happen with email too.

When trying to communicate in a non-vocal way (text message, email, social networking, etc.), it is important to be clear, thorough, and keep a level tone because the reader of the message can't hear your voice to determine the type of non-vocal communication you are using. For example, sarcasm can be difficult to convey in writing because writing doesn't have the vocal fluctuations that you'd hear when talking to someone using sarcasm.

Please be smart when emailing in both casual and professional settings. Thanks.