Goodbye, old friend

October 12, 1996 - September 2, 2011

On Sourdough Bread and Keeping Starters

On a family visit to Alabama a couple years ago, I came across a bubbling container of goo on my Uncle's kitchen counter. I asked him what it was and he said it was his Sourdough Starter. That sounded neat to me, so we ended up talking about it for a while. He gave me instructions for making my own once returning to Raleigh. "You see, Dothan Alabama starter will taste different from Raleigh NC starter because of the different wild yeasts in the air", etc. This appealed to my civic pride. And having not baked bread in quite a while, what better way to get back into it than with a biochem project!

Fast forward a few months. I didn't buy his simple explanation for making my own starter, so I looked online and came across the Holy Grail of information on all subjects Sourdough: Sourdough Home!! This site is great and has all the necessary information to create your own starter (or locations where you can buy it mail order...some of the strains are over a hundred years old!), recipes, general baking advice and more. I created my starter with whole grain wheat from the Northwest (freshly milled into flour by a coworker), so even though it was technically "made" in Raleigh, the natural wild yeasts originated from either Colorado or Canada (the supplier was unable to be more specific). So much for "Raleigh Yeast". Oh, I tried and failed to make a starter using expensive store-bought flour. Don't waste your time.

The process of making a starter is tedious and time consuming. In other words, right up my alley! I loved watching it progress from a flour/water mix that just sat there to an active, bubbling creation that I now refer to as my 2nd child (Krusty the Dog being the 1st). On his website, Mike says the best way to get a starter you KNOW will get the job done is to order one. But if you're like me and you want a sense of accomplishment and ownership to go along with your starter, give it a shot: make your own!

Today I made another batch of bread and it's great. Again. The stuff will rise like a champ and all it asks in return is to be fed once a month and kept refrigerated. Not bad! (You can keep them at room temp, but will need to feed them twice a day). Sometimes I take it out of the fridge, crack it open and just smell it. YUM. That cake-batter consistency just drives me crazy.

Before I get to rambling too much, the following serves as a condensed, localized area of information for anyone I've ever given starter to, or who I may give it to in the future:

1. Keep it in the fridge in a glass or plastic container with a loose fitting lid. I use a mason jar. As the yeasts eat the flour, CO2 is created and you don't want an explosion on your hands.
2. Feed it every 30 days: weigh the amount of starter you have and divide by 2. Mix that much bread flour and that much water together and into your starter. If you thought, "Won't that make it double in size every with every feeding?", you are correct. Proceed accordingly. Wait about a week after feeding before using.
3. The gross looking layer of liquid on top of the starter is called "hooch" and is perfectly normal. Stir it back in or dump it. It smells sort of like alcohol!
4. I prefer the "San Francisco Style Sourdough Bread" recipe. Some tweaks I have developed are:

• Start at night for fresh bread at dinner the next day.
• Once dough is kneaded and separated, place in PAM'd bread pans and wrap with Saran (keeps them moist). Place in oven overnight with the light off.
• In the morning, punch bread down. Place back in oven with light on, unwrapped. The light gives it just enough warmth to kick it into high gear for the final rise.
• By 2pm, it should be ready to bake.

In closing: if you like bread and don't hate America, let me know and I'll give you some starter to try out.

Oh, Raleigh...

Raleigh is Smart!!

Raleigh is "Celebratory" and "Unexpected"!

"Unexpected" + "Celebratory" = "Unexpected Celebration" which can only mean one thing: "Surprise Party!!"

i appreciate the sentiment, but you will need to try harder in the future to keep such things more "Unexpected". here are some tips:

1. don't advertise my surprise party on a building 20 feet from where i work
2. change your signage from "Smart" and "Unexpected" to "Inconsiderate" and "Predictable". that will lower my expectations and prevent smarmy posts like this one.
3. i like 1/2 Chocolate and 1/2 White sheet cake with cream cheese icing. the darker the accent colors the better, b/c who doesn't like it when their teeth and tongue turn blue??
4. check with my wife for availability.

Thanks!!

Glasses!

one of the best things about life is turning 40. i should know: it happened to me just 3 months and some change ago. it's been everything i could have imagined and more...with one exception: i still don't need glasses!

i've been cursed with "good enough to not need glasses" vision my whole life. everyone says "you'll need them one day", but my patience is wearing thin. and if i'm honest about it, i'm a little bummed. all you bespectacled folks out there, yucking it up with your glasses. it's not fair.

i refuse to wait for the blessed day in which i have Andrea drive me to the Lens Crafter's (i won't be able to drive myself, duh. i'll need glasses!). preparation is important to me, so i've been "test driving" my friends' glasses to see which frames best suit me. except for the migraines, it's been a lot of fun. and it's resulted in an awesome short list.

i have my favorite, Andrea has her favorite, but i thought i'd put it to you, my loyal readership, to let me know what YOU think. plus, this way i'll know exactly who is (and ISN'T) reading my annual blog post.

without delay, here are the new me's:

#1

#2

#3

#4

remember, all of these glasses are owned by someone you probably know who is also married, so no "#2 looks stupid" or "#4 is HAWT!", etc. thank you.

leave your choice in the comments and i'll tally them up and take the results to the Optometrist sometime in the (hopefully near) future.

What's up with that sore on your kid's face?

below is an email i sent to family members updating them on my son's recent battle with a "skin infection" next to his eye. i may add pics later, but they are not for the faint of heart:

*********************************************************

hey y'all. figured it would be easier to shotgun this info out all at once: Oscar is fine. a quick timeline of events:

• Monday, February 14th, he banged his head right next to his left eye. it was nothing remarkable and barely even broke the skin. this is at least a tri-weekly occurrence.
• by Saturday the 19th, it had gotten worse, instead of better, although it still wasn't "bad". just a little red dot that wasn't there before.
• by Monday the 21st, it looked terrible and i suggested Andrea take him to the Pediatrician Tuesday, which she did.
• the idiot doctor who saw him Tuesday (22nd) decided to give him a powerful antibiotic shot that is relatively useless at fighting skin infections (so my sources tell me).
• Wednesday (23rd), it was still bad so Andrea took him back and they put him on an oral antibiotic.
• we had planned on taking a long weekend at the beach, but with his eye the way it was, i sent Andrea without us (she was attending a blog conference). this was Thursday the 24th.
• his eye looked horrible and other little sores popped up around the main one. i made an appointment for Friday morning to see a 3rd doctor.
• Friday the 25th, his primary doctor saw his eye and made arrangements to have him go to the hospital to start taking IV antibiotics, since as he put it, "we don't have the upper hand here". the close proximity to his eye and the fact that it wasn't responding to the other medicine concerned him and the IV stuff was going to knock it out. we were all afraid it was a MRSA infection, which would suck. he took a culture off the sore and sent it off to the lab. i called Andrea and she left right away to make the 3 hour trip home. Monica left work and came to the hospital to be with us, which was a life saver. when Andrea showed up to relieve her, she then swung by the house and picked up Krusty to keep him overnight. they started Oscar's IV and gave him 30 minutes worth of medicine every 8 hours for 24 hours. yay.
• Saturday morning, the 26th, his eye wasn't noticeably better, but they sent us home anyway. still no word on the culture. our Pediatrician called to check on us and assumed since we had been discharged that the infection was all but gone. he asked how it looked and Andrea mentioned it wasn't all that different, aside from less puffiness. he was alarmed at this and told us to come in Sunday to see him again.
• Sunday, the 27th...almost 2 weeks to the day after this whole thing began...he and Andrea wondered if it wasn't bacterial at all, but viral. Andrea and her family are susceptible to cold sores, which as you know is just a form of the herpes virus. Dr. Bo took a viral culture and sent it off, and to be on the safe side, started Oscar on an antiviral medicine. **Edit - He also made an appt. for Oscar to see a Pediatric Ophthalmologist on Monday**
• Monday, nothing to report. **Edit - Ped. Ophthalmologist agreed it looked like it may be viral, and that if so, it would be almost unprecedented**
• Tuesday, March 1st, Dr. Bo called and told Andrea the viral culture came back positive.

at long last, we now know the following:

• Oscar had an outbreak of herpes on his face. essentially, a cold sore right next to his eye. this is almost unheard of and threw everybody so much that not only did it delay proper treatment by almost 2 weeks, it had people prescribing super-strong antibiotics that were really hard on his little body for nothing. we spent a night in the hospital for nothing. i could go on and on, but i guess i don't blame them. Mom and Sam couldn't believe it was a virus, either, and i trust them more than these jerkoff's up here...so i will extend a little grace. to the jerkoff's.
• once this heals up (and it is healing), it may never happen again. or if it does, it will hopefully happen in the normal place in the form of a regular old cold sore on his lips.

Through all this, Oscar never acted sick or like he was in any discomfort. but if you see the pictures (and you will when Andrea blogs about it this week), you'll see how disgusting his sore was and how scary it was for us. we/i thought it was a MRSA infection and if you do a google image search for MRSA, you'll see why i was so worried. when the antibiotics didn't help, we thought maybe it was a super strong strain of bacteria that was resistant even to the antibiotics they use for resistant strains of bacteria! we were like, "now what??". we thought maybe his body wasn't responsive to antibiotics. we thought lots of scary things. i got angry that he was going through this and that he would possibly have a big scar on his face for the rest of his life, or that he could go blind in one eye...it's just what parents do, i suppose. but we are very thankful that even though we apparently have weak faith in the face of turmoil, God took care of our little boy and is continuing to do so every day. thank you, God!

thanks to everyone for your concerns. look forward to our next get together.

love,

The Raleigh Updykes

Current Events

Rather than address real issues facing the poor and the crappy inner city schools in their communities, let's send the poor kids to the rich kid schools while simultaneously sending the richies to the poor kid schools! If that doesn't fix everything, it should at least skew "the numbers" enough to make it look like it's fixing everything, right? OR, maybe it will make it so the poor kids get a 'better education' than the richies, giving them an advantage so they can go on to make more money as adults, thereby displacing the richies.

Sounds like a cycle to me.

Hmmmm.

Sincerely,

Lots of people in Wake County, NC

Unseasonable warmth

We've been having some pretty nasty winter weather here in Raleigh. Then, there was this nice patch of warmth that came in for most of this week. Our house doesn't have a lot of natural light, so the plants take a big hit during winter. I count on these opportunities every winter to get them out and soak up some sun (and in the case of the last 2 days: rain) to make it until Spring. What i do NOT count on is looking out the window early in the morning and seeing them getting snowed on:






The last pic is taken from the one above it and enlarged. If I have to do digital magic to make the snow visible it must not have been that bad, right? Yeah, I guess. The important thing is it didn't frost last night while they were out. Had that happened, and had harm befallen even one of the 6 plants pictured, it would've been "Go time" between me and....frost.

New series of posts on the way

my phone doubles as a spur-of-the-moment capturer of memories, i.e., it has a crappy camera built in. i've got pictures on it dating back to the summer and as soon as i get a data cable for it, i'm going to dump them onto my PC and share them with you. it promises to be a lot of fun for me, and i can delete the pictures as i go freeing up much needed space.

here's a taste:

Andrea and I were in Dothan, AL over Thanksgiving visiting my family. Mom offered to watch Oscar one afternoon so we went and caught a matinée (Fantastic Mr. Fox, which we both loved) and did a little shopping. we both think Oscar would enjoy this toy, or one very similar, but they're a bit pricey new. i have never said "you can't put a price on happiness", b/c i can and it is less than $70.

on the way home, Eagle Eye Andrea spotted the toy out in front of a small shop. but this post is not about the toy and whether or not we bought it (we didn't). nor is it about all the great bargains we found in that shop (lots and lots of very inexpensive toys for our boy)...it's about my trip to the bathroom there.

by the time we left the movie theater, i had to go #1 pretty bad, but for whatever reason i chose not to go. maybe i very mistakenly thought we were going straight back and not to Toys-R-Us. well, i sure wasn't going to go there, all the kid germs and what not, so i resigned myself to holding it in. i barely made it back in the car and thought "Finally...we're going home"...when Andrea had me turn into the used toy store.

the first thing i wanted to know when i got in there was directions to the bathroom. the proprietor looked a little flustered and said, "Oh...umm....well, yes we do have a bathroom, but...well...", which did nothing to reassure my bladder. "OK, come all the way around here and go back to the back and then take the 1st right and the bathroom is on the left there". she then very awkwardly broached the "#1 or #2?" topic by saying "i don't think we have any toilet paper back there, but....."

"That won't be necessary", i interrupted.

the bathroom was relatively tough to access. there was barely enough room for me to squeeze through, sideways, due to all the racks of old clothes and broken, discarded toys everywhere. when at last I reached my destination, this is what awaited me:

I was afraid to touch the toilet seat

i don't know what the cleaning stuff was doing in there,

other than collecting dust.

eww

this sums it up

these camera-phones don't do very well capturing unbridled filth, b/c i'm telling you: i needed a shower after stepping in there. i can only imagine what the shower, had there been one, would have looked like.

Dreaming of joining the Army

i joined the Army during my Senior year of High School and enlisted 3 weeks after graduation. for 2 years and 19 weeks, i served as a 16-Romeo, which is Army speak for "Vulcan Crew Member". the Vulcan is a giant, 6-barreled Gatling gun mounted into the chassis of an Armored Personnel Carrier (APC). There is also a towed version. It fires 20mm shells at a rate of roughly 3,000 rounds per minute. its purpose was to shoot down aircraft, but it was outdated even when i was in. Stinger missiles were much more effective at that. helicopters, maybe, but fast movers? no way. if used on people, it would leave an unrecognizable puddle of red stuff. to my knowledge, it is no longer in use in the active duty military.

i spent a year in Korea (89-90) where i was lucky enough to go to the DMZ and see North Korea over the barbed wire. we spent a lot of time in the field preparing for war with the North. lucky it never happened while i was there: we all thought of ourselves as "speed bumps" to the North's unstoppable military machine.

my next duty station was Fort Bliss in El Paso, TX, but i only spent a month or so there and was shipped off to Iraq for the 1st Gulf War.

The last 6 months of my enlistment was spent back in Fort Bliss. i'd say Uncle Sam got his money's worth out of me in the short time i was in. looking back i have no complaints or regrets, however i can't imagine a circumstance that i would re-enlist at this point in my life.

so when i say "dreaming of joining the Army", it's not an aspiration: it is a recurring nightmare i've been having. it's always the same: it's current day and i'm leaving my wife and son to go off and join the Army. i don't know what has happened to lead me to the decision, but the emotions i feel are very real. "i'm almost 40...what am i doing joining the Army again?". "What about Andrea and Oscar? and Krusty? Will i ever see them again?". "Will i be sent to Iraq? Afghanistan? I don't want to die". etc.

thankfully, i'm able to wake up and realize it was all in my head. teary eyed and breathless, i wake Andrea and tell her about it and how thankful i am it wasn't real. but for plenty of people, it's very real. lately i've been thinking about those people: people who are having to leave their wives or husbands and their children to go off to a dangerous place, risking their lives. for what? National Security? whose?

my father was in Vietnam when i was born. he talked about being flown home shortly afterward and spending a week in Ohio. he said the quiet McConnelsville nights messed with his head. that, and the ridiculousness of it all: one day he's in Vietnam flying helicopters, getting shot at and the next night, lying awake in a bed in Ohio. going over to begin with must have been hell for him, leaving a wife, 2 kids and one on the way. imagine thinking "gosh, i may never see my daughters again or never see my son." now imagine having to go back. i don't think i could do it and i don't know how people do it now.

without getting too preachy, i just want to say that we are asking too much of our soldiers. it's not fair to keep sending them out for 12 or 15 month rotations in Iraq or Afghanistan. suicides are up, stateside murders by soldiers are up...we're killing them and it's time to bring them home.

June, July, August, September and October pics are up!!

just check Andrea's blog.

and this video!

Happy Birthday, boy

according to Jewish culture, you're a man now...

Andrea decorated the cake!

traditional "handshake" photo. i have 13 years worth of these.

the streak is over

i've had my beloved Krusty dog for almost 13 years now. his birthday is the 12th of this month and let me tell you: he is SO a Libra.

throughout his youth, i didn't have to concern myself much with trimming his nails b/c he was always running around so much, they wore down naturally. but when i did trim them, i always took great care to keep it above the quick and make it as painless and blood-free as possible.

for nearly 13 years that has been one of the prides of my life. when Oscar was born, i voluntarily took on nail trimming duties, given my impressive track record with the dog. things were going well until he was 5 months old and i chopped off a large hunk of his left index finger right before bedtime. not good. on the positive side, i don't have any stressful records in the back of my mind when doing his nails now. AND i know it's not the end of the world if it happens again.

i've been thinking a lot about Krusty's mortality lately. he has slowed way down, but is still the same happy, loving dog he's always been. only now, the fun needs to involve things that don't require him to hear, run or jump.

today we took a family walk around Lake Johnson. Andrea blogged about taking Krusty and Oscar on the same walk and how hard it was for her to handle them both. i went along this time and let me tell you: she wasn't kidding. Krusty freaked out walking across the bridge again and stopped to pee on everything. but it was great seeing him out in the woods on a beautiful Fall day. it was also a nice treat to veer off the path down to the waters edge and play stick. he enjoyed that. see for yourself.


Happy dog


Glory days

we have hardwoods throughout our house and often times, Andrea and i are in opposite ends. Krusty goes back and forth checking on both of us until we come together in the same room. problem is, he goes back and forth right in front of Oscar's room and with those long nails, sounds like 8 people wearing tap shoes. he has woken the baby on more than one occasion and tonight i figured it was time to cut some dog nails.

as tired as he was from our walk earlier, he was putting up his usual resistance. i'd trim one nail and he'd pull his leg back, as if i had hurt him. Andrea came up with a good idea of giving him a little treat after each nail. he's totally food motivated, and the "painful recoiling" ceased once we were putting food in his belly.

and then it happened: i squeezed my fist to activate the pincher style blades on the clippers and blood started oozing out of the tip of his nail at a frightening rate. i was numb. all i could say was "Oh my God....he's bleeding". Andrea went in the bathroom and got some toilet paper and a Hydrogen Peroxide soaked cotton ball. by the time she got back, the bleeding had stopped, but not before my fingers were covered and my heart was broken. did i mention he never even flinched? again, thanks to Andrea for taking his mind off it. all he wanted to know was "Where's my treat??".


Exhibits A, B and C

we finished his last paw without incident. he and Andrea are in bed now. i'm so thankful i didn't cause him any pain. he's such a great dog and has been my best friend...i don't know what i'll do without him. anyway, he's fine. i just had to get this off my chest.

in other news, my son really looks like Chucky in this picture:

Little Pal

Oscar's my little pal and it makes me sad to listen to this song and imagine singing it to him for real. naturally, i listen to it over and over again. you should, too.

Great site

"MarloweDK", funk bassist of YouTube fame, had his account suspended b/c of his "play along" videos which violated their copyright rules. so he did what anyone would do: made his own YouTube-like sight and uploaded them there, and you can do it to! here's a taste. the run at 2:29 kills, as does the one at 3:26.

May Pics are up!

Oscar - May 2009

T + 16

pics from Wednesday, June 3rd: 16 days after seeding.

what's the worst song a bunch of good musicans can record?

click to find the answer.

T + 10

pics from Thursday, May 28th: 10 days after seeding.

T + 9

pics from Wednesday, May 27th: 9 days after seeding.

T + 8

pics from Tuesday, May 26th: 8 days after seeding.