katie

Here is some matcha ice cream I made with my folks last weekend, since I had some old leftover Koyamaen matcha around. We used Alan's recipe and froze it in my parents' classic hand-crank ice cream maker, and we learned a few lessons along the way. First, breaking up the ice into smaller pieces makes the cranking easier, since larger pieces jam between the outer wall and the rotating can. Second, if you've got a large-capacity maker, for the same amount of time, effort, ice, and rock salt, you can make five quarts of ice cream just as easily as you can make one. Since ice cream is yummy, you should make five quarts. :)

This week at work we've been bringing in our high school yearbooks and chuckling at each others' dorky pasts. One of my co-workers pointed out that, according to my yearbook, I was in the astronomy club my sophomore through senior years and was president my senior year. But although I have always been interested in astronomy, I have no recollection of there being an astronomy club in my high school, much less of leading it. Meetings, events, equipment, a faculty advisor? My memory comes up blank. Huh.

Mood: pleased

I've ridden my bicycle 120.4 miles (194 km) this week. I'm pretty sure that's more mileage than it has seen in the previous two decades I've owned it.

Last autumn elwing2000 convinced me to sign up with her for a May 10-13 women-only beginner-level bicycling tour on Maryland's eastern shore. It sounded like fun, and I'd have plenty of time to train, so I agreed. My bike is a ten-speed Schwinn Woodlands hybrid-style, not an ideal road bike, but acceptable. In preparation I picked up a rear rack and bag so I could carry things like a windbreaker, camera, binoculars, and snacks; a handlebar mount for my GPS receiver; a couple of jerseys and an extra pair of cycling shorts; and a new gel saddle, cycling socks, and water bottle clamp thanks to my brother and sister-in-law's Christmastime generosity.

They say around here there are only two seasons: winter and summer, and in the weeks leading up to the cycling tour, that truism held. It went from cold to sweltering to raining for nearly two weeks straight. This is my way of excusing the fact that I didn't train nearly as much as I should have. My parents introduced me to the BWI Trail when they visited, and I rode it another time on my own in spite of a forecast chance of thunderstorms, but that was about it. In desperation at the continuous rain outdoors, I borrowed a trainer setup from seelevarcuzzo a week before the tour (thanks!). Miraculously, though, the weather forecast for the tour itself was looking perfectly mild and rain-free.

elwing2000 and I drove to Easton mid-day Sunday, checked in at the inn, met the other riders, and embarked on our first group ride, a leisurely backroads ride to Unionville and back (18.3 miles / 29 kilometers). This was my first time riding on "real" roads. I knew the guidelines, but I'd never done it before, so riding through (green) traffic lights, using hand signals, and taking up my share of a lane all came as a revelation. The drivers in that area seem to be used to bicyclists and are refreshingly deferential.

Monday's weather was, in an unpleasant surprise, cool and rainy. Still, we rode, this time starting at the visitors' center of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. My bike's stubby off-road tires were not an advantage when we encountered a muddy, unpaved patch of Wildlife Drive. While others' slick tires rode right over the terrain, my tires gripped it and flung it over my bike and over me. It was a mess. Adding the obvious speed advantage of road bikes, I came away from this trip with some serious bike envy. :)

Despite the rain, I rode 36.9 miles (59 kilometers) that day, my longest ride to date. Unfortunately, it seems my GPS reciever, a Garmin eTrex Legend, was not as water-resistant as I thought. Ever since I changed its batteries on Monday, it hasn't been able to power on.

Tuesday's weather was back to nice for our St. Michael's Ferry Ride. We rode from Easton down to Oxford, where we caught the Oxford–Bellevue Ferry across the Tred Avon River. From there, we rode up to St. Michael's for lunch at the iconic Crab Claw Restaurant. I feasted on lump crabmeat cocktail and steamed oysters. I was surprised to see "Chesapeake Bay Oysters" on the menu in a non-"R" month, but they turned out to be decent-sized and tasty. From the large second-floor window we had a view of, among other things, the Schooner Sultana, the same vessel in which elwing2000, her husband, and I sailed across the bay last May.

Some of the other bicyclists pedaled back to Easton after lunch, but my legs were exhausted by the 33.5 miles (54 kilometers) before lunch. I poked about St. Michael's a little, enjoying an ice cream cone and a stop inside the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum's gift shop. Alas, I didn't have time to re-visit the museum itself before it was time to hop on the sag wagon for a lift back to Easton.

Wednesday morning's 20.7-mile (33-kilometer) ride took us north of Easton, by a historic Little Red Schoolhouse. One thing on this ride that piqued our curiosity, amidst the open farmland, was an incongruously long, high, opaque fence along a property on one side of Old Cordova Road. Research farm? Nudist colony?

After Wednesday morning's ride, we packed up, checked out of the inn, gathered for lunch, and said our goodbyes. I really enjoyed the support of our guides and fellow riders, and I would certainly consider signing up for another, similar-level cycling tour the next time I have some spare vacation time. Here are all of my photos from the cycling tour.

Today I participated for the first time in Bike-to-Work Day. I joined about a dozen other members of my workplace's bicycling club for the 5.5-mile (9-kilometer) ride to work. As recently as yesterday I wasn't sure I would do it, what with the chance of rain and the steep hills to climb and the car traffic and the logistics of showering and changing at work (when I hadn't prepared by keeping anything like a towel or clothes at work). Maybe it was my feeling of a need to keep this cycling momentum going, or maybe it was knowing that I'd have two of my closer co-workers riding with me, but I went for it, and I'm proud I did. That said, I don't think I'll be biking to work on a regular basis, between the scary drivers around here, strenuousness of the hills between me and work, and inability to carry my laptop on my bike without investing in panniers and a sturdier rear rack. I think I'll stick to riding recreationally on trails and back roads.

( poll with photos behind cut )

Mostly for my own future buying reference, here are three alcoholic beverages I've discovered over the past several months that I like:

• Kim Crawford Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
  
• sparkling wine with Chambord liqueur mixed in
  
• apple lambic
  

This weekend, I spent eleven hours in meetings. Perhaps agreeing to be on the board of directors of both HacDC and Chado Urasenke Tankokai Washington DC Association this coming year was not so smart an idea. I am feeling overwhelmed. It's not so much the meetings themselves that overwhelm me—neither group holds organizational meetings very often—as it is the responsibilities I've accepted. It's making me worry whether I'll have time to do things like read a book, take a walk, or plant a flower. I can only hope I'll look back on this entry as an anomaly, a time when things just happened to pile up, rather than a sign of things to come.

When I saw this poster for Dorkbot Austin (left below), I was struck by the ways it does—and does not—remind me of the LinuxChix logo (right below).



(Artist credit: Joey Lopez for the Dorkbot flyer; Colin Adams for the LinuxChix logo, which is licensed for use under the CC Attribution Share-alike license)

Mood: sad

I've just heard that our longtime family pet Fritz (my parents' since I left home) has died. When he found us—maybe eighteen years ago?—he wasn't quite full-grown, but he was friendly, and he amazed us with his tolerance for riding in cars. There's so much more I could write, but I'm overwhelmed by sadness right now, so I'll just say that we loved him a lot. And we'll miss him a lot.

I spent a relaxing New Year's Day with some friends at Spa World, a fancy but not expensive Korean-style sauna and bathhouse. Those of us who hadn't been there before—myself included—felt some anxiety about the mandatory nudity in the gender-segregated sauna part of the facility. Hanging out naked with our same-gender friends (or family, or strangers for that matter) has not been part of our range of experience. For an American, it's easy to get the message from society that an "imperfect" body should be covered up, not only in public but also in private. Seeing people blissfully ignorant of that message is refreshing. You probably won't be surprised to read that I found the actual experience comfortable and not difficult to get used to.

The "naked area" there isn't just the saunas (steam and dry) but a bade pool, hot and cool tubs, a "sunflower shower", a heat-radiating stone relaxation area, and a corner where you can get an exfoliating scrub. We spent a good while there before returning to the locker room to don our issued loungewear and head to the main, gender-integrated rest area where families were spread out on the heated floor. We got some refreshments from the juice bar before heading into the poultice rooms, which felt a little redundant to me since I'd already used the saunas in the other part of the facility and was skeptical of the therapeutic benefits attributed to the hot, mineral-lined poultice rooms. I tried out most of them, but after a while I'd had enough heat; I did enjoy the one cold poultice room. The place was quite busy yesterday, so I didn't get a chance to have a massage. Between the facility's restaurant, sleeping areas, 24-hour access, and free wi-fi, I could envision coming at a less-crowded time, perhaps with a book, and making an even more leisurely day of it.

• see The Presets live at least once (scheduled for 1 April)
  
• achieve a healthy weight
  
• learn more about micro-controllers at HacDC
  
• make something special for my friends who are getting married in April
  
• go bicycling on the eastern shore with elwing2000
  
• attend Space Mission Challenges for Information Technology in July
  
• dedicate a weekend's time and effort to an entry in the ICFP programming contest
  
• visit Japan (scheduled for October, a group trip similar to the one I took in May 2007)
  
• figure out where to live
  
• finish putting together the archery karakuri ningyō and read Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots so I'm marginally qualified to give a talk on karakuri at Dorkbot DC
  
• make a satellite contact with my amateur radio gear
  
• go on a (beginner-level) kayaking outing with the Chesapeake Paddlers Association