Microblog

Made kare raisu, Japanese curry, for lunch, one of the most popular dishes in Japan. It can be traced to early British influences over 100 years ago. Now, a Japanese curry chain is opening restaurants in India.

On my cycle ride, stopped to watch barges being pushed through a gap in a rail bridge across the Mississippi near St. Paul. One span of the bridge, built 1915, had swung open. Unusually, the swing span is pivoted towards one end, requiring counterweights.

Lightning crashed overhead while I had a haircut. When the storm let up, I cycled home with a wet stripe down my back.

This week is the end of the line for incandescent bulbs in our home. Until recently the light quality of G4 LEDs was not good enough. Now, $2.00 1.5 watt G4’s have a high color rendering index. We’ll have 100% LED lighting once I replace two halogens lurk

Cycled through an area of northeast Minneapolis that has always been home to new Americans. Today it’s Latin Americans and Somalis. 100 years ago it was Lebanese, Polish, Finnish, German, Slovak, Russian, and Ukrainian immigrants.

I couldn’t go to Japan this month, so brought Japan to us: tonkotsu ramen. I cooked the Hakata-style cloudy/emulsified broth for 26 hours, saving most for another day. To my gaijin taste buds it was pretty good, I was transported.

Spotted an election sign in the window of an apartment belonging to a Republican in our largely Democratic neighborhood. The property was originally built to serve as a brothel, which just goes to show change is often possible.

Cycled home from a large Asian supermarket with this haul in my pack. I’m learning to make Japanese tonkotsu pork broth, hence the pig trotters, pork neck bones, and chicken carcasses. If all else fails, we have Japanese Kit Kats.

Posted Minimizing Duplicate Pantry Ingredients.

Cycled through a sculpture called “Molecule” near the Molecular and Cellular Biology Building on the University of Minnesota’s East Bank Campus. Learned via Google it doesn’t depict a specific molecule.

Deconstructed (LEGO Technic).

Upgraded to a Webcam that can handle backlighting better–there are windows behind me. Webcams are in short supply and I’m not willing to pay an inflated price, usually double list price. After waiting several months, got this at list directly from Logitech.

Read a poem while pushing my bicycle across a pedestrian bridge spanning sixteen lanes of traffic. Took one line literally, applied it to this week’s weather.

Cycled around southeast Minneapolis looking for public art. This mask of Little Crow, chief of the Mdewakanton Dakota, is on sacred ground in Minnehaha Park. He was murdered by a settler in 1863 while picking raspberries. The Legislature awarded the settler $500.

Lucille van Pelt ambushed me with a “newspaper” outside the building where the Star Tribune is printed. On our “No-News Wednesdays” we carefully avoid all news, including the Star Tribune. Mercifully, Lucy’s news was a little out-of-date.

Bemasked Dwight stayed indoors to pump iron, as I headed out to walk in prematurely Fall weather.