Goleta Gap Fire, Day 6

La Sumida Nursery in Goleta (near Patterson & Hollister Ave.) emailed me a couple days ago to tell me some miniature African violets I had inquired about earlier had come in. I told them to reserve four of them in assorted colors for me and my housemate, and it wasn't till today (Sunday) that I was able to get my housemate to drive me over there to pick them up.

It turns out the folks at La Sumida were very open to ordering a small set just for me, even though I had only communicated with them via email. I had stopped by earlier to pick up a standard size 4" starter African violet plant along with a special African violet pot, but they didn't realize I was the same person who had emailed the inquiry on the minis. I really like local nurseries; the people are nice and accommodating, and the prices are good for the quality of plant you are getting.

The nursery had ordered 6 plants total, and I decided to buy five of them, while my housemate decided to get 1, so we wiped them out of the special order minis. I'm going to bring 1 mini African violet plant into lab. Hopefully the lab environment will not kill it off, but we'll see.

I also bought a small bag of perlite and African violet potting soil, along with a small bottle of rooting compound/powder. My housemate and I want to try our hands at propagating these mini violets for future housewarming gifts.

Since the skies over Goleta have seemed a bit clearer over where I live (although still pretty bad for asthma sufferers), I became complacent over the problems the Gap fire could still cause.

For instance, my housemate and I drove from La Sumida to the Fairview Center to look for mini pots and saucers, and other gardening tools at the Michael's and the OSH. While at the OSH, the electricity went off two times, once for a short 5 minute period as my housemate and I were still picking through plant saucers, and the second time, for much longer, while my housemate and I WERE BOTH IN THE PROCESS OF CHECKING OUT. I mean, we had the totals and exact change (cash + coins) ready but they couldn't take our money without their computers on.

Once electricity went off this second time, the OSH workers blocked off the entrance to the store and tried to get small backup generators (which they also sold in the store, by the way) running to power checkout lines 1 and 2. My housemate, luckily, was at line 2, so I was able to bundle my order with hers without having to get into the back of the long line. I don't think I received too many ugly looks for "cutting" in; besides, my housemate didn't want to wait the extra 20 minutes or so for me to get through the line.

All the other stores at Fairview Center were in lockdown mode as well. Basically, store workers would round up people to get them to the front of the store, and block people from entering. Workers would try to encourage customers to leave the store with their shopping carts still filled and put into a line, but most customers were willing to go through the hassle of waiting.

Anyway the power outage lasted maybe another 30 minutes after we got back home. Then my housemate decided to make dinner early on our gas stove. That was fortuitous, since power went out AGAIN as she was making dinner. Thank goodness for gas stoves.

Goleta Gap Fire, Day 4

Meh, another day, and more fire, smoke, ash, and soot. My respiratory system is not happy. Since electricity was back on, my housemate (who has a car) and I drove around picking up some things we noted that we had lacked earlier when electricity went out. We have now decided to assume electricity will go out every night until this fire is moderately contained. When we are out of electricity, all the shops also tend to be out as well, so being able to shop becomes a moment-by-moment thing.

First off, we went to Home Depot at the Camino Real Center to look for lanterns- battery or hand-crank, we didn't really care. There were some that ran off 6 volts, and others that were LED-lanterns so they ran off smaller batteries. We decided to hold off, since the selection wasn't great. This turned out to be stupid of us, since everywhere else we went (the nearby Sports Authority, Linens N' Things, and the Fairview Center OSH) was out of lanterns/portable lamps.

After the Home Depot foray, we went to pick up a couple face masks. Direct Relief International (a relief organization, of course) was giving away some N-95-rated face masks at a kiosk set up near the Borders/Camino Real Theater. We were told the masks would probably last around 6 hours / half a work day of continuous use.

I then traipsed off to Linens N' Things to get a hand-crank AM/FM radio, but was told they were all out of them. Damn the online lnt.com telling me that I could pick them up at the store!

My housemate, who had gone on the fruitless trip to Sports Authority for his desired lamp, came out, and then we decided to go to Fairview Center to visit the OSH and Bed, Bath, & Beyond (BBB). At the BBB, I was able to find 3 types of hand-crank radios, all conveniently stocked near the entrance of the store. The one I bought was even on sale at $29.99 (earlier price tags were: $59.99, $39.99) -- it was "Eton" brand, model FR400. There was a $19.99 model (smaller, FM radio only), and a more expensive $39.99 model (made by Life+Gear). I was actually pretty amazed that the BBB still had them in stock.

Later my housemate and I walked over to the OSH, to look for camp lanterns. Well, I went to look for a decent metric combination wrench set, and the housemate made a beeline for the flashlight/lamp/lantern section. But to our dismay, it seemed like that entire area was wiped out of stock. So I paid for my wrench set, and we left.

We noted in passing that the Fairview Center Radio Shack had a sign in the window saying that it was out of radios (the hand-crank ones) and would get some in stock on Saturday (July 5th). Tee-hee.

Instead of going to the nearby Vons for groceries, we decided to go back to the Camino Real Marketplace's Home Depot. That's when we found that their stock of LED camp lanterns had been cleared out in the 1.5 hours or so since we had first seen the lanterns at Home Depot. My housemate, glum but resigned, settled for a heavier, larger, less-efficient camp lantern that ran off a 6V battery.

Lastly, my housemate and I stopped off for groceries at the nearby Albertsons. This Albertsons used to be pretty run-down looking, but they remodeled earlier this year (2008) and look good now. The parking lot was packed, and the place was a madhouse of mostly UCSB/Isla Vista residents, looking for junk food, 4th of July provisions, and food provisions in case the fire caused more problems. All the cash registers and self-checkout lines were packed; I must've been waiting in line for 20+ minutes. Let me just say that I have never ever had this experience before at this Albertsons.

Two of my housemates (who are married) have left for Pismo Beach to see the fireworks and get away from the smoke. They also managed to haul away their valuables over several car trips. I can't really do that since my most valuable things are my washer, dryer, and bicycle, and furthermore, I have no car. I guess if the fire hits my side of the 101 Freeway, I'm going to lose my most valuable things. Oh well, the upshot of being a poor grad student is that one does not have many valuables. I guess that is sad for me to note as well.

So now I'm at my apartment, waiting for the electricity to go off again, but that's okay, since I have my batteries and hand-crank radio, my water, and (comic)books to read.

Dutch baby/German pancake recipe try

I recently obtained some Lodge pre-seasoned cast iron skillets due to fears about nonstick ones, and the fact that ones made of other materials (e.g. copper, stainless steel) were out of my price range. One was a 10.25-inch one, the other was 6.5-inch mini one (dimensions measured from top rims). I've cooked various things in the larger one, but I had no clue what to do with the smaller one.

That was until I read about some recipe called "Dutch baby" AKA "German pancake" or "big pancake". I'm sure there are more names/variants across the U.S./web. So I preheated my oven to 425 F, and preheated my mini-skillet on the stove on low heat (or about 2/10 if you have indicators). As I mixed together 2 eggs, 1/4-cup milk, and 1/4 cup flour, I put about 1 Tbsp of butter to melt in the skillet. I think a lot of other recipes normally call for 2-4 Tbsp, but I thought the amount I used would be enough to prevent the batter from sticking to the skillet.

Once the butter had been swished all along the inner surface of the pan and had browned a bit, I added the batter to the hot skillet, and let it cook for a minute on the stove. Then I transferred the hot skillet to the preheated oven, and let it bake for 10-12 minutes.

The first 3-4 minutes, the batter didn't puff up much. Then after that, whoosh!






After 11 minutes of baking, I decided to remove the pancake from the oven and immediately take a picture. The rim of the Dutch baby wasn't really black or so badly burnt as might be inferred from the picture.




You can see how quickly the pancake deflates after being removed from the oven. This picture was taken just 2 minutes after the previous one.




Here's a blurry picture of the Dutch baby, after being plated. I think the traditional toppings are sifted powdered sugar and lemon juice, but I didn't have any lemons and didn't want to wash the sifter so I stuck a tsp of clumped up powdered sugar and some fake maple syrup on top. The end result, despite its rather lacking finish, was still pretty tasty. Maybe next time I'll try to get a lemon, and sift the powdered sugar.

Cookie Baking Fest

So many cookies!

Halloween Pumpkin Carving

Start: carving pumpkins, 5:30 pm start


Carving Halloween Pumpkins: J's ghost in the background, TK scooping out pumpkin innards


All the pumpkin innards from my pumpkin


Uncarved pumpkin, innards carved out


TK starting to transfer his pattern


Ug's pattern, finally transferred to pumpkin surface


Carved pumpkin...2.5 hours later...sheesh!


Ug's blurry no-flash pic of carved pumpkin, lit up with a tea light candle


another blurry pic of the beautiful pirate pumpkin


TK's finished product


Spooky pic of TK's pumpkin, dimly lit from within


Spooky pic of TK's pumpkin, with flash off

San Diego Zoo Side Trip

Oct. 25, 8:44 am:Yay San Diego Zoo...


First stop before pandas, the orangutans


Panda pic 1: mama sleeping on rock


Panda pic 2: 1year old baby sleeping high up in tree


Panda pic 3: 3 year old cub sleeping high up in another tree, but facing the zoo tourist walkway. You know, if the zookeepers wanted to, they could hide away the pandas and place giant stuffed replicas of them in the trees, and none of the zoo goers would be any the wiser...


View from outside panda exhibit: 3 year old cub still sleeping safely in the trees...why don't they fall off when sleeping?


Some primate with the word swamp in its name


Hehe note all the freeloading waterfowl where the more exotic zoo birds are being kept...there's > 15 moochers


What's the difference between a goose and a duck? The sign on this exhibit said red-cheeked something goose...


Reindeer enclosure near the "polar bear plunge" exhibit


Polar bear pic 1: 2 frolicking bears


Polar bear pic 2: they play kinda rough...they were right up against the plastic barrier, right in front of us


Polar bear pic 3: happy bears


oink oink


Takins...from Asia

why do all the deer/antelope/gazelle things stare at us like this?


Red River hogs, and a water buffalo in the back


So this is a male bird of paradise...so what...


How many zebras do you see here? MH and I only saw 2 at first...


Then one zebra walked away from the feed trough to eye us suspiciously


Then another one came by...and that is when we discovered there was still another one feeding at the trough


Another popular exhibit: the giraffes


See the giraffe calf at the far end?


Camel...another animal again eyeing us suspiciously...I guess we're just shady people.