This week my moms side of the family is having a reunion in Manzanita, Oregon. The first day was Wednesday, with everyone arriving at different times. My parents and I arrived first, followed shortly by Harvey, Kim, Haylee, and Riley.
We all bundled into my car and headed down to the beach. The weather and the sand were terrific.
The water was, as is typical in Oregon, very cold.
Riley and Haylee searched the beach for shells and sand dollars, unfortunately they were only able to find pieces of sand dollars and cracked shells. Riley seemed excited regardless.
We saw a bunch of these little creatures. They were hopping around the sand and then whenever one of us got close they were pretend to be dead.... which was an effective strategy, since it did keep us from eating them. After getting back, we looked them up and discovered them to be Sand Fleas.
Here is a picture of my cousin Haylee, Aunt Kim, Mom, and cousin Riley.
After a while, Riley claimed that his hands were cold, so he buried them in sand to warm them up.... He also claimed that it worked, though it did require doing it several times during the walk back to the car.
Here is a picture of the house that we are staying in. It is an old school house that has been renovated so that people can sleep and cook and stuff.
By the time we got back from the beach, Margo, Scott, Kyle, and Claire had arrived. and my dad started up the grill to make burgers for dinner.
After dinner, the kids and I went down to the beach, where they played beach soccer while I reffed. Haylee excelled while Riley clearly had the most ground covered.
Here is a picture of the beach and the reflection near sunset.
Here is a look back at Manzanita from near the water.
When we got back, we started the fire pit up so that we could make smores.
Here is the haul that Riley found at the beach. We ended up putting a piece of sand dollar in the fire. It proceeded to burn up.
Here is Riley's summary of the first day:
It was fun, I caught a lot of sea shells with Chris. I played soccer and it was Fun!
This Saturday (6/29) I took a trip to Dallas with one of my roommates and two friends from work. The plan was to first go to Medieval Times, which is sort of a show where they do jousting and medieval stuff. I don't quite know how to succinctly explain it. Hopefully this post will make it more clear.
It was a bit of a drive, but we arrived in perfect time and we got there about 15 minutes before the show, which wasn't bad at all. We walked up to the "castle" and prepared ourselves for the excitement to come!
Luckily we were invited guests or we might never have been able to cross the dangerous moat which was filled with several vicious koi fish.
Once we got in they took two pictures that they would later try to sell to us for $20. The first picture was just us with the falconer. The second picture they dressed us all up in costumes and gave us weapons and shields. For some reason I got chosen as the king, so I got a crown. It was kind of a strange process. They called us all lords. It was m'lord this and m'lord that. I guess that it was just all to stay in character. We decided to buy a bottle of wine and the guy who took the credit card tried acting like the card reader was magic. It was.... interesting.
Anyway, then we got in and checked out the lobby area. The King was lounging on his throne, as shown below. There were also places to buy souvenirs and drinks, but the drinks were kind of insane. To get a beer or mixed beverage you had to buy it to keep the cup, which meant that the cheapest drink was like $16. I suppose then you got to keep the cup.... but it seemed like a really big waste of money. The bottle of wine for $20 actually seemed like a great deal in comparison. The wine wasn't amazing, but it was almost as much as one glass of beer.
The highlight might have been the horses stable where we discovered that there was a white horse that was called... blacky! I just thought that was pretty funny.
Everyone got little crowns, (which looked like Burger King Crowns), that signified both where they were sitting and the knight that they would root for. We got assigned the yellow crowns, so we sat down and settled in. Here the other guys in our seats with the crowns.
I took a panoramajama of the arena. We were at the far end, which meant that we were the farthest away from the king and princess.
If you would like to view the panorama in an interactive viewer you can use the link below: Arena Panorama
Our first course was tomato bisque soup, which was served in a little bowl with a handle. This is due to the fact that we are not allowed to use utensils! We also had a choice of drinks, which was either coke or unsweetened ice tea. I didn't want either..... I didn't ask about water, but I just stuck with the wine.
Soon our knight came out, as shown below. He was a young knight, but he seemed pretty competent, but he also seemed a bit temperamental. He always seemed disappointed at the other knights. After some wine it was pretty easy to root for him.
Once all the knights came out, there were six in total, the king and all the servers came out and marched around and we got a little speech welcoming us and telling us who people were, like the captain of the guards and the Master of the Horses.
Everyone left the arena and the king went up to his throne and gave a bit more of a speech. Then we got a little show with horses doing some tricks. It was ok, I wasn't sure if the moves were all that amazing, since I don't know a lot about horses.
Then the falconer came out! This might have been the coolest part, the falconer sent the falcon flying out over the crowd, and it was really close to us. I tried to gt a picture of the falcon flying, but it was too fast. So here is a picture of the guy standing with his falcon.
Then we got course number two, which was a very large piece of chicken!
A little while later they brought out the other courses, which was two potato wedges and one rib. The food was all pretty good. It was a lot of chicken compared to the other stuff, but it was still tasty I suppose. Again, we didn't have any silverware, so we had to use our hands to eat it.
During this we got the main story of the show which was this herald who showed up from the King in the North and demanded the hand of the princess of the North would attack. The King denied him, and the herald left for a while.
Then we got several competitions between the knights. The first was a ring game where the knights rode their horses and tried putting their lances through the ring to catch it. All the knights won, so they all got flowers. They rode to their specific areas and tossed out the flowers to their fans. Our knight almost tossed me a flower.... which was a little strange.... but he didn't Next was a weird lance target game. They rode their horses down the arena and then slammed their lances into a target and got points if it stuck. They all got it to stick, so all the knights won and all got flowers to pass to their areas.
The next competition was a flag came where they passed flags between each other while riding their horses. Again everyone won. The final competition was another kind of ring catching game. This time only the yellow knight and the red and yellow knight won. So I guess that we were in the lead!
Then we got our dessert.... which was basically a McDonald's apple pie, but it was piping hot, so I suppose that makes it better. It wasn't bad, but it was a little cheap.
Then we got to the main event. Jousting! .... Kind of real jousting! Here our knight is all geared up. His squire is exchanging flags to signify... something.
The joust was interesting, though not incredibly realistic. Instead of describing it, I took a video
I didn't realize there were so many videos of this stuff on youtube... but I swear that I took this!
Unfortunately, our knight did not win. He won his joust/fight, then the Red and Yellow knight came out and challenged him to a fight... then he lost that fight, which was a little sad. The Red and Yellow knight went on to win the entire thing.
After that he fought the herald from the King in the North to the "death" to determine if the North would attack. Luckily, the Red and Yellow knight won and the kingdom was saved. I almost wished the bad guy won, since at least that would have been exciting.... then we might have seen a war!
After it was over we headed out to the Rangers game. We were about an hour early, which wasn't too bad. Here is the entrance to the stadium.
Here is Dave in his Reds jersey. He was in enemy territory! I was totally worried that we were going to get attacked! (Not really)
Anyway, we were early, so I decided to walk to see the Dallas Cowboys Stadium (or at least get close to it) Everyone decided to join me, which I kind of felt bad about. The stadium is below, the picture doesn't really do it justice... it is really huge.
Here everyone is walking back to the stadium. We got decent weather, it was only 95 degrees.... the day before it had been 106... so it was a large improvement.
We found our seats, which were in the left field bleachers, and I again took a panorama.
Here is the link to the interactive viewer. Seats Panorama
I also took a picture with everyone.
The picture below is of the best moment of the game, which was the sun going down behind the stadium facade. This happened in the fifth inning, so basically half the game was really really hot. We were basically directly in the sun. I had to take a trip inside to get some ice cream which helped a lot. Luckily they let me bring in the water bottles that I brought. This was very good.... since they sold small water bottles for 4.50 or about a 300% markup. It almost felt criminal based on how hot it was.
The game was fun. I would say the rangers have a great ballpark. They claim to be the loudest ballpark in baseball. But I imagine a lot of parks do that. They had some nice animations for things and some interesting games. The best one was the whataburger contest where the contestants had to toss large foam fries into a fry holder.
In about the 8th inning Kyle and Dave got a boomstick, which was a 2 foot long hot dog.... it was huge. They kept trying to get us to eat it... but I didn't have much appetite after sitting in the sun for most of the game.
The reds won in overtime, which was good for Dave, but not most of the fans. Greg and I were both cheering for the rangers... just because we needed someone to cheer for. I certainly wasn't distraught that they lost.
After that we headed home. It was a good day. Pretty busy, but pretty fun.
One day as I was talking to some friends who were reading the Game of Thrones series on their kindles, I realized that it would be awesome to have a dictionary that was tied into the Kindle and had all the characters and locations built in so that you could look it up.
With the X-Ray stuff that comes with the book there are some details about the characters, but not too much, and there is no information about the locations or maps. In particular, the maps that come with the books look awful on the kindle.
So I decided to try and do something about it.
To do this I first had to determine exactly how to create a dictionary for the kindle. Luckily I found an extremely useful site that detailed exactly how to make a dictionary and provided the software necessary to actually create it. The link with all of the necessary information is Kindle Dictionary.
Second I had to determine where to get the information from. To do this I primarily used the Game of Thrones Wikipedia page, which can be found here. I also supplemented it with my knowledge of the series.
I started by taking the list of characters and then going through them and adding descriptions for them. Since I wanted this to be useful for all readers, not just those that have read all the books I went through a lot of pains to remove all spoilers. In particular I had to remove past tense verbs for characters who were dead and plot points from later books.
I then talked to my friends who were reading the series and added a few more categories that they wanted such as ship names and house information. Finally, I added all the locations and maps for most of them.
All in all it ended up being a pretty extensive dictionary and seems to be fairly useful. It certainly isn't perfect, but I think it is a good first start.
I will just go over a little bit about how it works, which is basically just how a Kindle Dictionary works.
If there is a word that you want to know the definition of you simple highlight it, either with your finger or .... other Kindle Device. I have a touch, so I don't know how the other Kindles work. Anyway, you highlight the word and it brings up the beginning of the definition. In the picture below I highlighted Robb and so it brings up the definition for Robb Stark. If you wanted to read the entire definition then you click the full definition button. There are some names with multiple characters, such as Jon. For those I had to make disambiguation pages that have the list of all Jon's and then you can pick the one that you want to read about.
I tried to include locations for all of the maps. The example below shows that. In this case it is just a map of the North that has the information for Widow's Watch on top of it.
The Kindle allows you to increase the size of the images. To do that just click and hold on the image and then the following screen will pop up. You can click the magnifying class to get the image to go full screen.
Which isn't really large... but larger at least.
For places where the map did not fit on the page I added a sentence saying that the map was on the next page.
And that was pretty much that. That was a lot of work boiled into a short description. I finished this In April or May probably and gave it to my friends. I always ask them about feedback and they always have forgotten something they wanted to be added, but in general they seemed to find it useful. So I figured I should share it with the world.
The Dictionary file can be found here: GOTDict.mobi
The README, which is basically what I have written here can be found here: README
All right, it has been a long time since I have posted a recipe, but I finally have some free time, so I shall attack a bit of the back log. I choose this... well mostly because it looked good, and it was another quinoa recipe that I could try out. When I told my friends I made a dish with beets they looked at me incredulously and asked very seriously if I had purchased the beets on my own accord.
I thought it was good though, so I suppose that is all that really matters. Here is the final result:
I managed to slightly burn the skin of the chicken thighs, but I am going to blame the recipe as I shall explain below.
1-1/2 Tbs. cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
Directions
Position a rack 6 inches from the broiler and heat the oven to 450°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with foil.
In a large bowl, toss the chicken thighs with the oil, 1 tsp. salt,
and 1/2 tsp. pepper. Put a rack on the baking sheet and arrange the
chicken thighs skin side up on the rack. Roast until the thighs are
lightly golden and an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest
part without touching the bone registers 165°F, about 20 minutes
Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, bring the cider and honey to a boil
over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer vigorously until
the mixture has reduced to 1/2 cup, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the
heat and whisk in the butter.
Turn the broiler to high, brush the chicken thighs with the cider
glaze, and broil for 1 minute. Brush with more glaze and broil again
until deep golden-brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the chicken from the
oven, brush with more of the glaze, and serve.
Toast the pine nuts in a frying pan over medium heat for 2 minutes,
or until lightly colored and fragrant; remove from the heat and set
aside to cool.
Rinse the quinoa under cold water and drain it in a colander. Add
it to a pot and cover with the water or broth and a pinch of sea salt.
Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat, cover, and simmer for 12 to 14
minutes, or until all of the water or broth is absorbed. Remove from
the heat and keep covered for 5 more minutes. Transfer the quinoa to a
bowl and fluff it with a fork; let cool. Add the beet and toss gently.
The quinoa will take on a nice pink color. Add the tomatoes, onion, and
cheese.
The Process
So cooking the chicken thighs was going to be pretty quick, so I first started on the tabouli. I first toasted the pine nuts so they would be ready.
Then I prepared the beet..... this took... much longer than I was expected. I think next time, I would recommend cutting it in half or in smaller pieces, because cooking a whole large one was very long.
Sprinks came to explore! My water bottle.
So the quinoa was done, I didn't include pictures of that, but I used chicken broth. I would always recommend using broth of some sort when cooking quinoa. Also, if you didn't buy the prewashed kind. Make sure you wash it.
So I cut up the beet into kind of small pieces and then mixed everything together.
Then I added the onion and the feta and the cherry tomatoes.
Mixed it all up and.... it was done!
I think I started the chicken as the quinoa was cooking. I tossed the chicken thighs with oil, salt and pepper and then put them in the baking sheet and put it in the oven to cook.
Then I prepared the glaze. It was pretty simple and was done quickly.
Here is the chicken after getting out of the oven ready to be glazed and broiled
SO..... the recipe said to broil it for 2-3 minutes 6 inches away from the broiler and then glaze again and then broil again. Perhaps I was too close to the broiler... I am not positive... but regardless.... I made a mistake and the skin got just a tad crispy and that was only after about a minute... so... be careful.
And here is the final dish.
Other than the fact that the skin was a little burnt, I thought that this meal was great. The beet was actually really good when mixed with quinoa. It was much better when it was warm. The chicken was good. The skin... was a little crispy, but the glaze helped a lot. All in all it was a good meal, and not too bad in terms of time.
