Spent most of yesterday night and a good chunk of today getting the wife’s dad’s new computer up and running. Decided to go with an HP Pavillion d4100 with a dual core AMD 64. Spent an hour or so disassembling his two old computers and moving the hard drives and DVD burner into the new one. Then the rest of the time was spent online downloading about 60 MB or so of software and security updates. Over dial-up. With a modem that kept resetting itself every few minutes until I could get some new drivers downloaded and installed. That was the painful part. The rest of it went fairly smoothly and uneventfully fortunately.
I’m really liking this HP Pavillion we got him. It’s a bit of a monster case, but has plenty of expansion room with 4 5.25″ bays, 2 external 3.5″ bays and 3 internal 3.5″ bays. Tons of room for stuff. Of course filling them all requires an additional IDE card (2 come on the motherboard) or other kind of internal interface. The case is nice and roomy inside, and all the components are easy to get to without having to contort your hands or anything.
About the only thing I’m not pleased with is the stock fan that comes with the CPU cooling system. It’s a variable speed system, so you can hear it whir up and down as the CPU temperature changes. But when it spins up to full speed, boy does it make a racket. It’s louder than both the power supply and main exhaust fan. I don’t expect the dad-in-law to push the system hard enough that it’s much of a bother to him, but if it was my system, the stock fan and cooler would be the first thing to go.
I think he’ll be pleased with the new system. It’s much zippier than the old one, and hopefully it stays that way (as long as he keeps from installing too much junk on it like the old one).
Happy Birthday Nala!
Nala turns 1 year old today! Yay! Since we’re not at home, she can’t celebrate with her other dog buddies at the park today, but we’ll probably take her out tomorrow so she can have a good romp. In the meantime, it’s been lots of fetch and running around at the in-laws place today, which I think she likes just as much.
A good Boxing/Shopping day to you
Hope everybody had a good Christmas yesterday. The house was hopping with friends and family from about noon to 11 PM. With the gifts exchanged and opened just after midnight, people slept in and came by just in time for the feasting to begin. The turkey and mac & cheese looked to be pretty much demolished by the end of the day, but I think there might be a few leftovers to keep us going for a few more days.
Santa must have thought I was a good boy again, because I got a lot of cool stuff off my wishlist that I’m looking forward to playing with or reading.
So now today we’ll be travelling to the in-law’s house to set up the new computer. I’m hoping I’ll be able to get everything going without having to go out to the store, but I have a feeling I’ll probably need to make at least one trip to BestBuy for an IDE card. There’s going to be a few things from his old computers going into the new one, and there’s only 2 IDE channels to work with, which should be just enough for what I need to put in (I hope). It’s only going to be a quick trip, because it’s back to work on Wednesday.
I’m sure Nala will enjoy the trip out there, even if she has to be harrassed by these kids some more.
Nala will be a year old tomorrow. Going to have to plan something fun to do for her birthday!
A frosty morning
It’s not often this area of Charleston gets cold enough to be frosty in the mornings. This is what I woke up to this morning in the back yard.
It’s the closest I’ve gotten to seeing anything resembling snow since we first moved here.
Making stock
There’s nothing like a good savory stock (unctuous as Alton Brown might say) to liven up a soup or gravy. This time of year is when I usually make most of my stocks, because of the abundance of roast critter carcasses left over in the kitchen.
Usually there’s the Canadian Thanksgiving roast turkey or chicken in October. Freeze the carcass from that to make a stock for the US Thanksgiving practice turkey a few weeks later. Then that turkey carcass gets frozen to make the stock for the real US Thanksgiving turkey. Another one frozen for Christmas stock. Finally, the Christmas turkey (and maybe even a ham bone if I’m fast enough) gets frozen for another batch of stock.
People seem to get intimidated by the thought of making their own stock, but it’s really one of the easiest things to make, and takes practically no effort at all. Even less if you use a slow cooker, which is what I make all my stocks in now.
My basic stock recipe is pretty basic, but the great part of it is that it can be spiced up with anything I feel like.
Basic chicken/turkey/beef stock
1 critter carcass (chicken, turkey, whatever you have on hand)
1 large onion coarsely chopped
3 or 4 cloves of garlic (you know what, it’s garlic…just use as much as you feel like)
500 g bag of baby carrots
15 mL peppercorns
15 mL allspice berries
15 mL each of dried thyme, parsley, rosemary, oregano
1 or 2 bay leaves
1 or 2 dried chilis (like it spicy? Add a few more!)
If the bones aren’t cooked already, roasting them in the oven for a while will add more flavour. Toss everything into a large 6 or 8 qt slow cooker. Fill with water to about 1 cm below the top rim. Make sure the bones are fully submerged. Turn the slow cooker to low and leave alone for the next 12-18 hours. Stir once or twice to break up the bones and meat. When the bones are soft and crumbly, your stock is done. Strain through some cheesecloth into a suitable container and enjoy or freeze! Make it into soup, or use it to cook up some ramen noodles instead of using those overly salty flavouring packets they come with.
If you put too much water into the slow cooker, you’ll end up with some spill over, so I usually put a half sheet pan under my slow cooker to catch any spills. Makes cleaning up easier.
Shrimp, crab and lobster shells also make a great stock. Doesn’t take nearly as much cooking time though (just simmer for an hour or so) to get a nice tasty seafood stock.