r e . a l i t y
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My Waffles v1.0
Jul 27th
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
1 3/4 cups milk
6 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
Add each of the wet ingredients to the dry while beating together.
Beat til smooth. I like to let the batter sit for a few minutes while the baking powder
does its thing – you’ll see little bubbles in the batter. I plug the waffle iron in, and set the Cuisinart iron to #4, and wait until it signals that its ready.
Spoon batter onto iron and spread out a bit.
Cook until the signal goes off and serve!
Popularity: 1% [?]
Creating ACU-like digital camo in Photoshop
Jul 19th
Plan on redoing the camo paint on my M101 trailer, and seeing as my Jeep is silver, I thought an urban camouflage would look good. Who knows, if it turns out well enough, I may even repaint the Jeep! ;^)
Digital Camo in Photoshop
- Create a new file in Photoshop. Make it a fair size.
- Set background and foreground color swatches to black and white
- Filter > Render > Clouds. Press CTRL-F until you get a nice balance of dark and light
- Filter > Other > High pass – set radius to 250
- Filter > Brush Strokes > Spatter – set spray radius of 16 and a smoothness of 7 (or whatever looks good to you!)
- Image > Adjustments > Threshold. Adjust the slider to whatever looks good.
- Filter > Pixelate > Mosaic Effect. Set the square size to whatever works best for you.
- Image > Adjusments > Threshold one more time.
- Delete the white (or black, if you prefer)
- I like to rotate the layer approx 45 degrees.
- Duplicate layer. Using Image > Adjustments > Selective Color, to whatever color you like.
- Duplicate the original layer, and do the same thing. Rotate the layers, as well as flip vertical & horizontal to achieve the effect you like. When rotating, use the 90 degree or 180 degree options only for the best effect. Re-arrange the layer orders as well.
Here’s one example of what I came up with using this technique:
Urban camo created in Photoshop CS4
Play with the settings, and layers.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Transcend – great coffee, AND Waffles!
Jul 18th
Well, I finally made it to Transcend Garneau this weekend.
Picked up some coffee, and had a quad shot americano, and a waffle with apple brandy butter.
I think this was probably the tastiest waffle I’ve had anywhere!
It was a pretty tiny waffle though. Next time I’ll order 2, maybe 3. A single serving of the apple brandy butter would still be plenty!
Popularity: 1% [?]
Working on Andreja
Jul 10th
Well, things still aren’t back to normal with the espresso machine, but I think that I’m making progress, albeit slow. My Aeropress is definitely getting a workout.
Chatted with Joe @ CaffeTech earlier today, and have a couple more things to do to get the leaky machine fully operational again.
First and foremost is descaling the grouphead and the boiler. I was mistakingly under the impression that supplying the machine with water from the whole house water softener, that this wouldn’t be necessary.
Then, I’m thinking that I might want to add some insulation or heat protection to some of the wires. The plastic shields around some of the connectors have completely disintegrated from the heat of the boiler.
Found some a great link that should be very helpful as I undertake the descaling – Espresso Passione’s Descaling the Andreja Part 1 and Part 2.
Popularity: 2% [?]
ArcGIS
Jul 7th
ArcGIS is an application from ESRI, made for the iPhone. It sports a fantastic looking interface, and maps are pretty quick to load up. And there are a pile of different map views you can shoose from – including various topographic maps, satellite views, hybrid maps, and more. There’s even a Canada 1:20K Basemap.
ESRI has also built an online application that lets you create your own custom map views
And it’s free!
Get ArcGIS from the iTunes AppStore | ArcGIS Explorer Online
Here are a couple screenshots:
Popularity: 1% [?]
