Anoopy

High Stress Flying

When I'm flying by myself (meaning not with my instructor or on a check ride or something) I feel quite calm and at ease. I could stay up there forever if I weren't being charged 200 bucks an hour for the privilege (and you know, bathroom breaks).

And yet this is what my Oura Ring shows for my stress level:

That spike is when I was flying -- doing some low altitude maneuvering work around Leslie Salts (just to the West of Fremont) then shooting some takeoffs and landings at Livermore. I was at most 3000 feet up so I don't think this would be due to some Oxygen thing.

Foreflight and Oura both have APIs so maybe I can use some of my computer programming skills to match up stress and heart rate levels with takeoffs and landings.

Strava March 100km Challenge

I guess I'm as prone to gamification as the next guy. I joined the Strava March 100km challenge midway through the month having run just a few days in the first half of the month, and I really really wanted to finish the challenge so I was pulling stuff like this towards the end:

That's more than one Bay to Breakers length around Palo Alto Airport, all so that I could get above the 100km mark just before the calendar turned to April!

Triple Layer Chocolate Cake

I made a triple layer chocolate cake for a friend's birthday cake the other day and I learned the hard way about one major pitfall of such an arrangement when the top two layers slid off the bottom layer while in transit (or to be specific, while I was stopping off at IBU to pick up some beers).

I managed to nudge it back mostly into its original triple stack formation, but it was still quite messy because the cake has a super soft and moist crumb (which remained in that very state for many days to come!)

I'm definitely making this cake again as it's a chcocolate lover's delight (and I be a chocolate lover) but I think I'll take more care to make sure I have even middle layers of frosting o there's no sliding at beer stops.

Original recipe from Hummingbird High.

Teaching My Niece to be a Collaborative Human Possibly?

This is the madness that emerged when my niece and I took turns adding Magna-tiles to a house we were building and this time for the first time I called her out on that bullshit she pulls where she breaks the rule and starts telling me to put my tiles in certain spots.

I HOPE I'm teaching her to be collaborative and accepting of other people's ideas.

But I'm no child psychologist so maybe this is actually how you teach someone to not be collaborative and accepting of other people's ideas!

We'll find out in 10 years!

Is this a woman's watch?

I've decided to wear a watch in order continue my belated journey towards "stylish man" phase. My friend offered to give me his Citizen watch -- or specifically, the Citizen watch his wife had tried to give to her former boyfriend but somehow it ended up back with her.

I can't wear this free watch (which is the exact color I want!) for two reasons.

First, my adorable little back wrist hairs get stuck in the band and it annoys me too much. So leather strap it is. I actually think this will look good since my earring is black and my Oura is silver so having something not fully silver may be nice.

Reason number 2: I SWEAR THIS IS A WOMAN'S WATCH!!! Isn't it? It's so small and dainty. It must be a woman's watch!

I will get confirmation when I buy what I'm sure is the man's version along with a leather strsap.

Calabrian Chicken with Croutons and Cooling Salad

The chicken was good... the salad was great... the croutons... other worldly!

They're nice and crisp on the outside and full of chicken cooking juices and fat on the inside. And they somehow retain those properties the next day!

The crunchy salad is also real good in much part due to the buttermilk dressing. I've made this many times already and have expanded it into a main with some tuna and cherry tomatoes.

Another keeper from Carla!

Chicken Gunk Snack

When (if?) I die, I want to be known as 1) the guy who loved but was never loved back, 2) the guy who invented the Chicken Gunk Snack, 3) also maybe the guy who sucks at naming snacks.

Take all your leftover chicken parts -- backs, necks, wingtips, skin, whatever you have. Add them to a container and keep them in the freezer until you've accumulated a certain amount. One day, dump the frozen block of chicken parts into a pressure cooker, fill it with water, and pressure cook for 40 minutes or so for one of the best chicken broths that you've ever made (pro tip -- once uncovered, let it simmer over a low flame for a few hours so you get double concentrated chicken broth for much more economical freezer storage!)

Now... what to do with all the spent chicken parts? Throw 'em away? No no no! Turn them into your new favorite beer snack! Tear the remaining meat off, keeping some of the smaller bones since they're actually totally edible and incredibly nutritious (even the larger bones are probably edible, but maybe not so pleasant). Cover it in lots of chicken bouillon powder to restore essential chickeniness, then broil until crispy and overcooked.

Salty, crispy, meaty -- served in these pics with some Green Goddess Sauce (spinach, cilantro and parsley, nutritional yeast and lemon juice blended together in a high power blender).

I don't know if I'm the first person to do this... but I always look forward to this little snack when I make my chicken broth.

My Airport

I want to frame a pic of Palo Alto Airport (in the middle of the pic above just behind the green golf course) from the traffic pattern around the airport... but I don't think it's wise for me to actually take a picture when I'm in the pattern since I'm supposed to be paying attention so that I don't crash into another plane or lose control of the plane and crash into the ground. So I'm going to have to for the time-being live with pics like this from a few miles away over SLAC / Stanford Dish and maybe once I get my license I can convince someone to go up with me, open up the window, and take a pic (because the windows on a Cessna 172S can be opened right on up to the plane's never exceed max speed 160kts).

Chocolate Chip Oreo Cookie Cookie

One of my coworkers made chocolate chip oreo cookie cookies and they were great so I had to make something similar for this week's nephew sleepover desert and I found this most excellent recipe from Stephanie's Sweet Treats. Oreo dirt, Oreo pieces, and chocolate chips on the inside, then after the baking you stick more chocolate chips and Oreo pieces into the still gooey top and sprinkle on more Oreo dirt. Plus they're massive cookies and retain their shape and thickness well if you freeze them for a bit before the oven.

Served here warm with the French Honeycomb ice cream that I found on sale at Whole Foods.