If you don’t like analytics you may opt out. I use them for removing stuff nobody reads mostly.

Pre-warning: Not a single letter of text was generated by AI on this entire website. All typos, confusions, and wtf’s are all mine! YMMV. I cannot say the same for images.

I do a little bit of a lot of things. And some things I do a lot of, depending on when you catch me. I can’t help but be interested in all things. Well, Zydeco may be the exception. I’m not interested in Zydeco. Well, it’s not that bad. I’ll listen to Zydeco.

Non technology interests ahead…

—–BEGIN SELF INDULGENCE—–

Food

A few things I’ve made. Food is great to make because as long as you combine things you like together it will probably be edible. Failing is guaranteed at some point but you can still eat your failures. This is especially true for baking where failure is guaranteed even sooner. When I bake sometimes I feel like I’m getting into an altercation.

It all started with creating a (bad) bacon weave blanket on a turkey.
Buffalo Mac and Cheese Lasagna
Macaroons
Macaroon confidence built Mini-Croissant confidence..
During the cast iron pizza craze of 201-something- Proscuitto pie
Seafood Green Curry…
Porchetta (well that was pretty difficult), and underexposed…
Underexposed Pumpkin-Pecan pie.
Breakfast thing- Hybrid sort of collards, poached eggs, slab bacon, and reggiano in case it was going to try to taste a little too bitter.
Alligator green chili (for a “chili off”). Won most creative!
Homemade Tagliatelle- The first effort was too thick (I didn’t have a $60 pasta machine yet) but I’ve nailed it since. It’s so easy and probably wins the prize for the most cost savings if you just made it at home.
Bing bread (dough+oil). Bing is something you would see at a Chinese food cart. It’s unleavened and really, really easy to make. It’s flaky too!
Flaky deliciousness in sub 5 minutes.
Manicotti Crepes. Thought it creative and pretty good too.
FOS using homemade bread! Decadent…and $30 worth of Emmantaler (I prefer to Gruyere which would probably be $75 worth of cheese)
Black Garlic is really, really good. It’s also really really easy to make. Wrap in tin toil and Dehydrate for ~10 days (whole bulb) at ~135-150f’ish. This is your jam if you love umami. Black Garlic powder is amazing on popcorn.
Zenyatta Frittata (very easily done in a cast iron). Eggs, milk fat/butter fat + whisk + lots of air + what you like. It can also double as a quiche if you time it right.

Wood

I know what I’m not good at but it doesn’t stop me from trying. I wouldn’t let anyone sit in my first 3-4 chairs but I’m pretty cocky now and let others sit in them.

This is a chair I made for my kid. The idea was to use this wood I found from an 1960’s armoire on the street in NOLA but I used that for a table instead. Once I discovered there was a place that sold exotic woods near me it kind of got out of control. (that one piece that doesn’t fit in at all is the armoire piece).
A way-too-big stool. I painted it blue, then didn’t like it. I started sanding it down and starting liking it more. Then I took a torch to it and “distressed” it. “to make look old”
A few years ago I needed to build a work table. The work table I had built before that table suffered from torsion (twisting) which I probably could have solved some other easier way. I chose to build the two diagonally opposing legs at a right angle to the other two legs. Solved the torsion problem!

Gardening

It all started with hot peppers. Specifically, the Red Savina.

Red Savinas used to be pretty hot about 15 years ago. Now they probably don’t even rank as a Superhot anymore. (To me they do)
NOLA deck garden. I’ve been gardening for a long time but trying to get things going in NOLA was a huge challenge. And even after this picture was taken I was having disease problems. It was a constant challenge to keep everything healthy. Feeling defeated, I eventually contacted botanists at LSU and they hooked me up.
One very big leaf of Genovese basil. I don’t have a freakishly small hand either.

Music

I did a stint in music school and although very enjoyable and fun to play with ultra talented people, it wasn’t for me (I had not a concept of what I would do with a degree in Music except get into computers). When I moved to Oakland for a while I worked as an intern in a studio and it was a lot of mind numbing sorting floppy disks for the owners samplers (Akai APC?). ugh. He taught me a lot though. I learned from professionals about mixing and about mics but it was really abbreviated. I recorded a few things for Berkeley bands but I kept it a personal interest. I almost went into audio engineering/mixing/mastering but the internet was far too attractive and more of a sure thing for me. Also a good friend at the time was interning at Atlantic and he was even more excited about into getting into the business and that experience completely turned him off. Before that he was counting hot dog buns at Wawa during the mid shift but at least he got to see the Sun.

I turned music/sound engineering into a hobby like so many other things. I’ve so little time but am trying hard to get back into the studio (aka a room in my house) which is well appointed. I’ve always loved (re)mastering of which I have enough gear to do that fairly well. Unfortunately I have a lot of records I love of which I think their recordings are horrible so I’ve sort of remastered many of those.

Photography

My Father taught the (art side) of Photography, photographers, the history of, and the creative process of capturing images. I grew up with cameras and my Dad was a huge fan of taking photographs but certainly more fascinated by those the blazed the trail. His brother was a collector of cameras and I took in a lot of these over the years.

I started shooting photos when I was a teenager and essentially didn’t slow down until about 3-4 years ago where I got caught up in other things. I own a few digital cameras but have stuck mostly to film because I find the process fascinating as much as the completed image. Those waypoints are fascinating to me. At a point I thought maybe I’d do it professionally but similar to how I ended up filing music, I kept it as a hobby. The fascination with process has always gotten me into trouble as far as more hobbies.

Little Devil’s Stairs, Shenandoah National Park, 2008

—–END SELF INDULGENCE—–