Food Talk

Wow, its certianly been a long time since I've written anything for this. Suffice to say, I've been very busy with my thesis work. I'm going to take just a few minutes here to let everyone who reads this know that I'm doing pretty good. Also, I've been having a lot more fun with cooking lately. My wife and I have put a lot of work into trying some new recipes lately, and in a few cases I have documented these with pictures which I have uploaded to my Photobucket account. Eventually I'll get around to actually posting some of them including Thai Green Curry, Spicy Lentil Soup, and a few others. I'm rather proud of my cooking ability now. I know I'm not a chef by any means, but I can make some good tasting food.

For example, I tried something rather new last night: roasted squash. I've always been a bit shy about trying new vegetables through most of my life. Afterall, veggies are not ussually as tasty as sweets. I cut a butternut squash in half, added some butter and a tiny bit of brown sugar, and roasted it in a pan for about 45 minutes. It was nutty and delicious. I have another squash waiting for me at home, and even though I'm going to have curry with some veggies in it, I'm thinking about roasting the second one to eat with dinner as well.

Also, just checked scores the Basketball scores, and Denver pulled off a win. Woo!

Writing - Day 1

I spent all of today writing the introduction of my thesis. It's taking a long time because I keep having to go back and check my facts, and citations. I'm trying to make sure that everything comes together right the first time through the writing process. This meant that in reality, most of the day was spent looking through all of the papers that I've read previously, and finding the important points in them, and condensing them down into the summary that I need. I think I have all of the papers together again. Tomorrow will hopefully look more productive in terms of things like word count.

Tonight was another taco night. I've got a recipe that I really like down pretty well now. Take about 1 lb of ground beef, brown, and drain grease. Add 1 chopped onion and 1-2 cloves of garlic, diced. Cook for a few minutes until the onion is soft. Add a half can of diced tomatoes, plus enough water to just cover. Season with cumin, chilli powder, and cayenne pepper. Simmer until nearly all the liquid has evaporated. Serve with lettuce, cheese, sour cream, and salsa or hot sauce. Ours tonight was accompanied by sweetcorn and refried beans. Yummy!

Round the world flights

I'm attending a conference this October in Alexandria, Egypt then going home to Colorado to participate in a friends wedding.  This makes booking flights a bit of a weird exercise.  Especially when Expedia.com recommends going from Auckland to Cairo via Los Angeles and New York City.  That was the cheapest flight; somehow cheaper than flying the much shorter distance via Sydney and Dubai.  I guess either way, I'm basically having to fly to the opposite side of the world, but the economics of the whole thing is rather weird.  The good news: I might be able to get the whole trip in at under $2500 per person (that's US dollars).  Still a bit for us on our relatively low income.  May have to beg the parents for a little assistance again.

 

A bit more drawing today.  Revised some drafts according to my supervisors comments yesterday.  I'm pretty much done with that work for now.  Tomorrow I'll start into the writing and get a better idea of what fieldwork that I need to do on Tuesday.  I'm really trying to step up the pace of my work, especially since my supervisors indicated that would be important for me to finish in time.  Time to check the weather and get a feel for whether work next week will be alright.

Committee Meeting

Today was my committee meeting.  Things seem to be going pretty well.  My supervisors think that I'm doing quality work and that my rate of progress is satisfactory.  However, I do think that I will need to ramp things up a bit to get done with the year.  For one thing, I've been told that I should start writing my thesis (or at least the introduction to it) now.  I'll be working on that, as well as a few other things over the next few weeks.  I've got the annual report basicallly done.  I have my application for conferance funding ready to go and will turn it in tomorrow.

 

In my free time, I've been playing through the old Warcraft 3 expansion and having a lot of fun with it.  The bonus level is a bit challenging, and I'll be retrying it tonight.

Fish Feast

I really enjoyed the fish that I prepared last night.  Just got some cod fillets, dusted then in flour, then pan fried them in olive oil.  I do this fairly frequently because its pretty cheap, tasty, and easy.  Served with some fresh green beans and French rolls.  Tonight is going to be a bit of an experiment with pasta, sausage, and ricotta cheese.  The sausage and cheese are leftover from the calzones that we made earlier this week and they need to get used.  I have a meeting with my supervisors this afternoon, so I'm spending most of the morning getting ready for that.