Hot enough for ya?

I keep my pulse on the weather and traffic conditions of northern California. No, I don't live there anymore. But my local public radio affiliate, WABE, sucks. They only play news and talk programming for six or seven hours a day, and I can't hang with harpsichord concertos from 9am-3pm. And what public radio station, when it's the only broadcast station in town, plays opera and classical from 1p-5pm on SATURDAYS? Never given them a cent, never will as long as their crappy programming continues.

I stream public radio from various other cities throughout the day, including, almost daily, from KQED. As a result, I listen to traffic and weather conditions for the bay area and Sacramento pretty much daily, and often know more about them than I do conditions in Atlanta (and I suspect I often know more than my family and friends who live in northern California.)


Which is a long way of introducing this graphic from weatherbug.com... I wanted to see what yesterday's temperatures of record had been for San Francisco and the east bay. Now, gentle readers (hot readers) I ask you: have you ever seen an angrier temperature map? Looks like a massive explosion occurred in Los Angeles and is spewing the fires of hell as far as the northern Rockies and Great Plains. (A scenario that Mike Davis might be able to imagine in one of my favorite books.)

Mexico, though, is apparently experiencing subzero temps, with a few coastal temps of 50.

Food food porn porn!

Another installment from 1,000 Vegan Recipes: J and I wanted to cook together, and as we'd spent much of the day cleaning, we wanted to use up stuff that we already had on hand. So we picked a couple things: the vegetable paella from page 320 of 1,000 Vegan Recipes, and the chile rellenos from page 234 of 500 Vegan Recipes.

I'm also pleased to file another report for A and A2 that both recipes include COOKED MUSHROOMS, and ONIONS!

First, the vegetable paella:

Pretty good looking set of prepped ingredients, if I do say so myself: clockwise from bottom left, marinated artichoke hearts, celery, carrots, red ONIONS, MUSHROOMS, garlic, and red bell peppers in the center.

We ignored some of the directions about what stuff to cook first and what to add later.

Let's see those ONIONS and MUSHROOMS! WOO WOO!

Getting the artichoke hearts in.

Mix it all up.

With kidney beans, the red bell pepper, garlic, and vegetable broth.

All mixed up, about to add the rice:

Rice added, and now just cooking it down.

All bun! All bun!

Since it never hurts to totally massacre your previously clean and organized kitchen, we decided to make the chile rellenos simultaneously. Unfortunately, with multiple pans now in the fire, I didn't get step by step prep shots, including roasting, stemming, and seeding three poblanos and three anaheims, and mixing tofutti with soyrizo for the stuffing.

Nevertheless, moving on to some really damn oily looking pan frying.

Those look the same, right?

Looking good. Try to ignore the oil here,

and here.

This more well done one was for me. The streaky orange-ish stuff is the tofutti & soyrizo mixture.

Plated, with the paella, fresh cilantro, and soy sour cream. Yep, folks: we were living large.

And since I had some leftover red peppers, batter, and hot oil, I fried some delicious red peppers rings.

Unfortunately, the fried red pepper ring (upper right part of the plate) doesn't photograph anywhere near as delicious as it tastes.

Rest easy, A and A2: I'll curb, however temporarily, my mushroom-y and onion-y ways when you come visit. And since they will be my pillows your heads are resting on, I assure you there won't be any surprises under them.

Of crappy carbon footprints & carbon offsets

This is for 2010, both flown and upcoming. In the next two months, I'll be on three continents, and fly 42049 miles. Ugh.

Yes, we do carbon offsetting: through donations to nonprofits we select, since we don't really trust the big corporate carbon offset programs. For example, Delta, the airline I fly most, has partnered with some random organization called The Conservation Fund for its carbon offset program. Now, I know about a lot of environmental groups, but had never heard of TCF. So I went to their website, and found out more about TCF, who proudly states that they have "no environmental agenda":

How does an organization with no membership, no environmental agenda and no charitable endowment consistently get good conservation done?

Partnership.

At The Conservation Fund, we help our partners—government, community and business—fulfill their conservation goals. We provide real estate skills, infrastructure planning, bridge financing, community development and other tools to achieve these goals.

Ummm, yeah: I actually want my carbon offset to go to a group that DOES have an environmental agenda. So we gave ours last tax year to the Fund for Wild Nature. They have a mission I can get behind:

The Fund for Wild Nature provides small grants to small groups who get things done. Our Board of Directors is comprised of lifelong environmental activists who know which steps are needed to protect and restore our planet, and which strategies and tactics will work.

...

The Fund for Wild Nature invests in cutting-edge grassroots organizations and innovative conservation efforts that meet emerging needs for protecting biodiversity and wilderness.

Uncle Ted epilogue, Or: round and round...

It wasn't widely reported, but: did y'all catch that plane which crashed not only included disgraced former US senator Ted Stevens, and former NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe, but also two DC lobbyists, and a GCI executive? Oh, and the plane was owned by GCI, all of the passengers except the GCI exec were guests of GCI, and they were going to be staying at a GCI owned lodge. Oh, and O'Keefe is now chief executive of EADS North America, which is the US holding company for EADS, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company N.V., the world's second largest aerospace and military contractor, which, among other things, has an active proposal in to build the US Air Force's new aerial refueling tanker? They make missiles and other stuff, too.

Now, of course, there is nothing obviously illegal or unethical about a former senator and a former NASA administrator turned plane and missile making CEO going fishing with a couple lobbyists and a telecom executive, with GCI footing the bill, but it does indicate that Stevens has his hand in the proverbial cookie jar until the very end.

(Why in the hell does GCI own a fishing lodge and a plane to get there, anyway? And is that why my cable modem and phone service in Anchorage was so expensive?)

And oh, yes, the canonizing and lionizing did occur, though the newsmedia was surprisingly on the ball about mentioning Stevens' felony convictions. At least once on NPR, a host (Neil Conan?) corrected a caller when they said Stevens was "acquitted" which he wasn't (he was convicted, but the prosecutors were overzealous [Editor's note: saaaay WHAAAAAT? Overzealous prosecutors?!?! Madness!] and the convictions were dropped, and not re-filed. I also found this wrapup of the discussion in which Ron Elving and Neil Conan were discussing the extensive corruption of Stevens, Dan Rostenkowski, Rod Blagojevich, and Charlie Rangel quite amusing:

===
Talk of the Nation, Political Junkie, August 11, 2010:

...
CONAN: Dan Rostenkowski later served time in federal prison and later said: I know my obituary will always say: Dan Rostenkowski: Felon. Do you think he's right?

ELVING: Well, of course, he did actually get a presidential pardon in 2000 before he left office. Bill Clinton pardoned him. But, yes, of course, in the same sense that there's a taint on Ted Stevens because of that last final trial, there was also always, and always will be, a taint on Dan Rostenkowski's record because of that conviction.

CONAN: And interestingly, we have to note that Dan Rostenkowski's seat, lost in 1994 to a Republican, but then he was succeeded in that seat by a Democrat who later became governor of the state of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich.

ELVING: And we are waiting, even this afternoon, the results of his trial on corruption charges back in Illinois, and we'll wait to see what may happen to him and his brother. The jury is apparently coming back to talk to the judge this afternoon.

CONAN: And eventually, Dan Rostenskowski seceded as Ways and Means Committee chairman by Charlie Rangel. It all goes around and round.

Dinner. Yum. Good.

Except for the tofu, all garden fresh.

Food porn! Oh, and some other stuff

I spent much of a quiet day here in West Virginia doing projects, which other folks don't have the time or energy for. I installed a dumpstered coffee maker, fixed up some shelves which people have been using for a ladder to get to a top bunk bed, and built a ladder which is actually a ladder.

This was dinner, which was actually largely leftovers from breakfast: tofu, onions, and fresh tomatoes and basil from the gardens (which I've been doing a lot of work on lately.)

Here is the ladder building project. It's always a good idea to drink thin crappy beer when using a circular saw.

Here is the ladder installed on the bed. A little bit half assed. But only a little.

They don't mean this. Well, sometimes they do (when people are on house arrest.) But currently it's basically ironic. It could say "no good alcohol beyond this point" and be more accurate. Yes, Yuengling is actually the best thing we have available without driving 45 minutes. Blech!

Current accommodations

It's Saturday, must be West Virginia.

I'm sleeping on the lower platform, near the chair. I spent about a half hour fixing up the ladder. Seems like current accommodations might be becoming a theme, if you call three posts a theme.

On which note, how come none of my loyal readers informed me that that last post I linked to didn't make any damn sense, as the image didn't upload correctly? C'mon, people: it takes a village. Or at least a hippie squat in the woods.

A great few days here in WV: lots of gardening, some home repair, some cooking, and a little waiting around in court to remind myself of what my job ostensibly is. The drive up was boring as hell, though it's nice to have a car here. Actually, it wasn't all boring: in the last hour, I drove through a torrential thunderstorm on the West Virginia Turnpike. One of those storms where your wipers on high barely make a dent.

For my friends

Since I now understand that two of my closest friends whose names start with A detest onions and mushrooms, dinner two nights ago is a call out to both of you, A and A2:

Let's start with some white onions, shall we?

And how about some red onions?

Let's get those red onions up close, yeah?

And let's cook em! (not that raw red onions aren't DELICIOUS, since they are.)

Okay, sure: since you asked, we'll add the white onions to the cooking red onions.

Then toss it all together.

Then caramelize it all. YUM.

Let's cut up some delicious bell peppers: yellow, orange, red, and green.

And hey, how about some more ONIONS?!?

If A2 felt left out so far, here are some MUSHROOMS!

Oh, yum. Let's make a MUSHROOM based curry sauce.

WAIT! MUSHROOMS! YAY!

And if the MUSHROOMS weren't delicious enough, let's add some ONIONS!


And here is the DELICIOUS finished product: an ONION and MUSHROOM vegan curry! WOO WOO WOO!

Bicycling West Virginia with google maps: another cautionary tale

Despite some torrential downpours in Ohio, I made it down to West Virginia fine, and then my difficult relationship with google maps, discussed here, and here, and here, had another flare-up.


Above is part of the "road" I was touring on.

See, I went back to google maps for some more abuse, and she obliged by telling me how to ride my bike from Charleston, WV to Rock Creek, WV. Take a look at this routing, and pay special attention to Location B.

Location B, the intersection of County Rd 77/1, aka Fields Creek Road, and Public Road 77/3 near the tiny town of Winifrede, WV, is important because, in a nutshell, Public Road 77/3 isn't public. Right where that weird little dogleg starts, going east on Fields Creek, there's a guard shack. For a massive mining operation. That is very, very not open to the public. The security guard was pleasant, but there was absolutely no way I was getting in. She recommended that I talk to the people at the top of the hill (continuing east on Fields Creek Road.) But she had never heard of Fields Creek Road, or County 77/1, or Public Road 77/3 (which he guard shack is situated on), nor had the next three people I asked: a coal processing plant worker walking along Fields Creek Road, aka 77/3, nor the trucker driving coal out along Fields Creek Road, aka 77/1, nor the West Virginia Department of Transportation employee driving his pickup along Fields Creek Road, aka 77/1.

(Confidential to the West Virginia Department of Transportation: it'd be kinda neat if your employees knew where in the fuck they were, or at least the name of the road they are driving on, or the names of any of the roads anywhere near it, or maybe just which county they are currently in.)

I was faced with turning around and riding back to Marmet, WV (which is a southern suburb of Charleston, about 20 miles back) or chugging up the dirt hill. In the rain. With minimal cell phone coverage. Of course, I chose to chug up the hill. Hell, yeah: let's do this. I mean, I had food and camping gear, an endless supply of energy, and not a little recklessness.

So I rode, roughly following the blue line from the top of this image, to where I have the cursor and the little circle:


Right about where the cursor/circle are, things got interesting. The road actually ends, notwithstanding the lies, damned lies, and statistics that google maps would have me believe. A guy was driving along in his pickup truck, and was happy to help me out by asking several different neighbors who live in the half a dozen or so houses at the end of the road what the best way was for me to get down to Route 3.

After several conversations, where I learned that rural West Virginians love to give directions, and fortunately, are happy to repeat them over, and over, and over, and over, clearly understanding that my dumb ass has no idea where in the hell I am, I ended up here:

The other option, which was vaguely tempting, was to turn around, go back down the hill to just before the intersection of 77/3 and 77/1, cut across the railroad tracks and through the coal processing plant, and bushwhack through the forest back to 77/3 toward Bloomingrose. Unfortunately, this almost certainly would have required cutting through the part of the mining operation that is active, so it didn't sound all that great.

A neighbor at basically the end of another road directed me past his house and gave me clear directions on how to take the above-pictured dirt road until it turned into an ATV trail, and descend into Kanawha Eagle Coal land. Woot woot!

This involved, more or less: go straight, stay on the ATV trail, and when I get to the gate:

climb down into the ditch (sound familiar?), lift my bike over or around the gate (I chose over), turn left (and make sure you don't turn right, even though you'll think you need to, or you'll just go in a big circle), go down the hill, turn right, and pass by the guard shack.

Guard shack? Oh, hell, yeah! Another guard shack! But he confidently clarified: "the fuckers gotta let you out. They just won't let you in." He was quite pissed about the above-pictured ditch, which the gate picture doesn't really do justice to how deep it is. It was cut by "the fucking company" with a bulldozer to prevent access to the ATV trails he and other locals had been using for decades. He was not pleased. Another of the roads that google maps tried to send me on near there also had a ditch cut into it, and had been allowed to overgrow. (I found out later that the state and counties let these roads go to hell, and then abandon them, to allow Big Coal to buy them and turn them in to private roads.)

This was getting good.

Fortunately, at the crest of the ATV trail, deep in overgrown woods and riddled with poison ivy, I got some cell coverage, and confirmed my directions and location on the map. Google maps thought I should take another route, and get to Joe's Creek, but I was not then on speaking terms with google maps, for obvious reasons, so I decided to ignore it, and go with my friend of "the fuckers gotta let you out" school of thought.

So I do all this, and show up at the guard shack with the road barrier down. On the inside of company land. The security guard looked at me like the bike-riding-Martian I was, and I said "Bet you didn't expect to see me here!" with a big shit-eating grin, doing my best I'm-A-Stupid-Bike-Tourist routine. He sure didn't expect to see me, but he was friendly, and lonely, and wanted to chitchat. So we did for a while, and he gave me some water, and asked a couple times, more apparently out of curiousity than anything else, how I'd arrived there. I answered vaguely, 4x4 trails, blah blah blah. It was true, but I was uninterested in discussing it at any kind of length.

Finally, I rode on, made my way down to WV Route 3 near Orgas, and continued on my way, being passed every couple minutes by overloaded 20 wheel coal trucks:


Google maps and I remain in therapy, and while I'm genuinely trying to make progress, I just don't know. I might might need to quit her.

More bike delivery

Here is another shot from the same set of trips as the charcoal delivery:


It's blurry, but the point comes across. Yes, the boxes were all full of food.

Drive nicely

A nice sign on a nice milk crate, spied in Jamaica Plain, Boston, June 2010:


I'm downloading and processing pictures from the last 2.5 months of traveling now, so more pictures to follow. Woo!

Phew: as amazing, intense, wonderful, difficult, beautiful, and full of fantastic people as the last 2.5 months have been: it's sure nice to visit Atlanta every once in a while, and see J.

Back to West Virginia in five days.

FOOD PORN!

Today's installment of food porn is dedicated to my good friend from Arizona: vegan biscuits and gravy with scrambled tofu and a soy latte from  Watercourse in Denver.

The ride ended well. I finished the 33 miles up and down Fremont Pass, then up to Leadville, and promptly ate about five bags of potato chips. Our team captain and I waited at the finish line for our remaining team members to come in, cheering and clapping for all of the riders as they made their way up one last hill. One of my favorite moments of the weekend came when a six or seven year old was struggling to stay upright (he had just ridden 33 miles with a few thousand feet of elevation gain.) I helped get him going, then walked along behind him. He managed to fall again, so I picked him up, helped him back on his bike, and walked just behind him to the finish line. Seeing him work so hard to finish was just wonderful.

Also during this time, I got to watch and cheer the finish of Team Courage, which is comprised of dozens of disabled children, most of whom receive treatment at Children's Hospital, who the ride benefits. Four on handcycles, many on tandems with family or friends, many on their own bikes, doing something amazing.

Then Richard, Gretchen's dad, who invited me to participate in this amazing ride, made it to the finish, nearly collapsing from exhaustion, but hellbent to finish.

Bad idea

Speaks for itself, right?

Finished

Lovely sky welcoming us to Leadville. A great riding day, only 33 miles, with a maximum speed of 43mph.

I'm really, really happy I did this ride, and definitely hope to do it again next year.

Hopefully below this is a picture at the top of Fremont Pass, elevation 11,318. Phew. The ride down was fast and fun, but with a lot of traffic.

Back to Denver for a couple days, and then a visit to this city called Atlanta before returning to West Virginia.

Leadville

Day 3: looking toward today's finish line. Seems like a good day to ride to the highest incorporated city in the US!