I decided to make some cupcakes for my 33 wedding anniversary on Saturday, and settled on the recipe that you see in this image.  They were OK, just not as good as I thought they would be.  On the 1 – 10 scale, they were an 8, and only an 8 because the frosting saved them.  I usually make cupcakes, cakes, and other foods from scratch, but this one included a cake mix with additions.  You could tell it was a mix by both the taste and texture.  Of course, I was a bit spoiled after the cupcakes I made for my wife’s work earlier this week.  They were a solid 10++ out of 10, with a moist, dense, rich chocolate cake, and a beautiful chocolate frosting.  

I really need to work on taking pictures of food.  The majority of them are very poor quality (see above!).  Then again, since I went digital and got away from total manual settings, most of my pictures are not that great.  Something to work on in the future I suppose.

I was at the gym on Friday, doing my regular Friday routing, when I think I broke something in my brain!  Or, at least that is how it felt.  After my squats, I was doing my second set of high-rep, low weight straight leg dead lifts (180 pounds), when on rep 12, I felt a sudden very sharp and intense pain on the top right of my head.  I did rep 13, and needed to stop because of the pain.  I was not dizzy, and suffered no other effects or symptoms other than the pain.  I took a minute to recover, and tried to finish my set.  Didn’t happen!  I could not even lift the bar off the floor because of the pain.  I went home (and ate candy).

On Saturday, I went to the gym to finish the routine that I failed to do on Friday.  I did most of it, but quit because the pain returned.   The pain seemed to build the further along I got into a set, and then partially subside when I was done.  After 30 minutes of this, I had had enough, so I hit the sauna.  Weightlifters (exercise induced) headache? 

The whole experience has been unusual, especially since I feel great (though with a very slight head and ear ache) when I am not exercising.  I may go hiking in the mountains today to see what happens next.  Tomorrow I will again venture into the gym and see what happens.  If the pain returns, I will probably see a doctor, who will charge me hundreds of dollars, and tell me I am fine.  Or…….!

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I spent the majority of yesterday installing, configuring, and testing (playing with) Gallery 3 and Coppermine.  After all was done, I have decided to once again use Coppermine for an image gallery for this site.  While I enjoyed many of the features of Gallery 3, and was surprised at the ease of installation as compared to other Gallery releases, in the end Coppermine 1.5.6 was my choice.  Improvements over previous versions include mass image uploads, general configuration of categories and albums, as well as  the ease of changing administrative functions.  Gallery 3 is good, just not as good as Coppermine as a stand alone gallery, in my opinion.  I have loaded some low resolution photos in the gallery for testing.

The forum is also online and has several discussion forums available.  These will change over time, but it is a start. 

Now that everything is up and running, I just need to start writing, but am having a very difficult time doing so.  I have a huge number of ideas (and opinions), it is just difficult typing them out.  I had the same problem in my last class (in my PhD program) and barely made all the writings on time.  I will give it a go this weekend, setting a goal of posting 5 times per week in the blog, and daily in the forum in order to get discussion started.

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Summer vacation is half over and work begins again in 4 weeks.  A summer filled with hiking, biking, wine making, and other activities is coming to a close.  Actually, a summer filled with those planned activities has not, and probably will not, happen.  Of course my most personally important plan, hiking the Chilkoot Trail, seems to also be something that may not happen this summer.

I am not sure what happened this summer, whether it was the weather, the indecisiveness of our future plans in Juneau regarding moving or not, old age, cosmic rays, or something else, but it was very difficult for us to do anything not related to the garden or the gym.  Even getting the house ready to sell has not happened.  Of course, the garden is the best garden we have produced, but still…..

So, today I have promised myself that I will begin hiking with a new plan of hiking the Chilkoot Trail mid-August.  In order to make this happen, it will mean I need to start getting back into hiking shape starting tomorrow, because though I have been going to the gym regularly, there is a huge difference in gym fitness and hiking fitness.  Additionally, whether or not I do the Chilkoot will also depend on if I change jobs or not, so I am not holding my breath.

If I do manage to get to the Chilkoot this summer, I have decided to sacrifice weight for comfort.  Over the past two years I have attempted to find a light weight pack that I found comfortable carrying 26 – 30 pounds.  I have tried GoLite, Deuter, Granite Gear, and and REI pack.  So far, none of them compares to my favorite pack, the Osprey Crescent 85 (and the Arc’teryx Bora 95 for winter – it can carry my snowshoes strapped to the sides without issue!).  The Crescent 85 quite heavy at ~7 pounds, and is way too large for 30 pounds of gear, but it it sure comfortable when carrying any weight when compared to the other lightweight packs. 

Oh well, only time will tell what happens with the remainder of the summer and my plans for new plans.

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After a two week vacation, summer has returned to the Juneau area, and it is once again time to make Hiking Bars.  I started making Hiking Bars about four years ago, after continual disappointment with the majority of granola type bars available in stores.  Some of the issues I have are with the ingredients, and some with the price.  So, I searched for and found a good recipe, modified it, and make these for hiking, other outdoor activities, as well as for a quick breakfast or snack when needed. 

The original recipe was found on the backpacker.com forums, though I do not have the link to the exact thread.  As for my modifications; I replaced white flour with whole wheat flour, substituted honey for the brown sugar (there was also honey in the original recipe), I use olive oil rather than vegetable oil, and I have added a lot more dried fruit, nuts, an egg, flax meal and wheat germ, some vanilla, as well as a pinch of nutmeg.  The end result is rather pleasing, and a nice source of energy when on the trail.  Someday, some M&M’s will go in the mixture also…….

The procedure for making the bars is simple.  Mix all dry ingredients, dump the wet ingredients in and mix with a wooden spoon (picture 1).  The most difficult part is spreading the mixture on a pan.  I use a Silpat because it is easy to remove the cooked bars to cool and cut.  The trick to spreading the mixture is to use a thick spatula dipped in water.  The water prevents the mixture from sticking onto the spatula, as long as the spatula is wet.  This method makes for a smooth top to the bars, and adds a bit of needed moisture.  You may notice in picture three, that the mixture is placed on an inverted cookie sheet.  This makes it easy to remove the bars for cooling without breaking them.  Removing the Silpat is east once the bars are cool.  Just hold the edge of the bars, and pull the Silpat from under the bars (or roll one edge of the Silpat under itself until it is removed from the bars. 

Note that I do not spread the mixture to the edge of the Silpat.

Baked at 350 for 30 – 35 minutes, the bars are ready to cool and cut.  I do cut the bars when the mixture is warm, as this helps the bars not break or crumbling when cutting.  The bars are wrapped individually when still slightly warm, and last for about two weeks in a dark cool place.

The bars look darker in the picture than they really are, but I also should have taken them out of the oven at 30 minutes rather than 35 this time.  Oh well, they taste great!

The Recipe:

Please, no comments on the grams and ounces thing.  I did this in order to count the calorie content of the bars, and depending on the vendor of the product used, it came out as grams or ounces.  It does help that I have a good scale though that does both measures. 

A final note:  I do not usually follow this recipe exactly.  I usually add more dried fruit, nuts, and flax meal than noted above. 

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In April, I was notified by Google that my site was a source of malicious code, and that Google was blocking my site from its site searches.  I decided that this was a good time to re-do the site, so I deleted all posts, images, and software from my host.  Basically, I decided to start again, from the beginning.

It has taken me some time to decide in which direction I wanted to take the blog, image gallery, and forum.  Various options came up, such as politics, hiking and other exercise, cooking, politics (and the coming popular uprising), porn, cooking, and others.  Unable to decide on a defined direction, I am of the opinion that this blog, and other site features, will have no direction, and include all of the above mentioned topics and more.  More or less, a blog on what interests me at the time.

In the next few days, I will re-install the image gallery as well as the possible addition of a forum.  I would like to invite readers to email me images of any subject (as long as they are legal!) and I will post those that are interesting for others to view. 

Comments are always welcome, and I hope that you follow the blog, image gallery, and forum as things progress in the future

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