Edit Pages - A New Wrinkle

I didn't get an update e-mail from my other blog about the new Edit Pages tab that popped up in the display bar. It's highlighted in orange.

Clicking on it by mistake lead to the discovery that I can add up to 10 pages to the blog. An "about me" page was the example, but my first thought was to create a page for the copyright notice and the privacy policy, and get them out of the sidebar. The sidebar is getting crowded with stuff and I'd personally like to get a little more space for maybe one more advertisement. Of course, we're not talking about this blog, since I've not lit up ads over here yet.

Since I am talking about my other blog, which is currently under scrutiny from the reading public, I'd like to make sure that everything works properly. I'll do the job here first, make sure it works, and then take that new knowledge in hand and make the proper edits in one fell-swoop.

I have also found a workaround for the bug in the editor that causes hard returns to expand each time you come back to edit. The solution is to use the Post Options and set the publication of the post at a future time and/or date, and hit the Publish Post button afterward. This will change your status from Draft to Scheduled, and when you come back to edit your post, it will finally be WYSIWYG - and when you hit a hard return in the editor, it will automatically give you the blank line between paragraphs that I am accustomed to. I've already talked about the fact that the indent has been replaced by the blank line in Electronic writing.

So, I used Tabbed Browsing to open the Edit Pages dialog in another browser tab, letting me switch from one to the other. The options are fairly intuitive, and you're just creating what amounts to a permanent post entry. It will have a title, which will be used to create the URL for the page. It will have the format of:

http://YourBlogName.blogspot.com/p/TheOriginaNameOfThePage.html

You will then be asked if you want the gadget to be a bar below the header, or if it should be in the side bar. This can be changed later. I chose to have it below the title. Since my original name for the page was "Privacy/Legal/©opyright" it ended up as "privacylegalopyright" and stayed that way even after I changed the name of the page to "Legal" just to make it fit in the under-bar gadget.

It is like editing any other post, except that it forces you to use the new editor. You can get in and tinker with the html directly if you need to, and since I use an e-mail obfuscator, I do have to get into the html. For those of you that are wondering what and why and e-mail address needs to be obfuscated, visit the link and ponder that a machine can craw the web and look for things like a "mailto:" directive that says that "an e-mail address follows" and then harvest the address.

The obfuscator will take the entire mailto: directive and turn it into a random hodgepodge of escaped ASCII codes that every browser interprets immediately, giving you clear text. Because the bot acts on the stream of HTML code directly, not the browser output, the harvesting bot will never see a "mailto:" directive to harvest. Of course, if you've taken compiler design, you can make a smarter bot, but with those skills, you're not likely to be living life as a spammer.

So, the returning reader will discover that there are "Home" and "Legal" buttons under the title now. I will probably move the Coffee Break Blogs section from the sidebar to a "Links" page, which will have sections for various links. I think that it will make a cleaner looking blog, and should reduce the bounce rate by giving readers some place to click on, once in a while.

I've already removed the Copyright Notice and Privacy Policy display gadgets from the side bar. I already like the idea that the privacy policy is now no longer out in plain sight. I'll be making these changes, and another more important one, to the daily blog, real soon now. Because I know what to expect, it will be real clean and real neat.

/grin

A Slice of Perspective with Guile and Cheese

Take a close look. I told you I was not done with Pizza.

That's yummy melted cheese and a slice of Pepperoni. It's even crispy from the heat.

Melted cheese of different kinds, an Italian blend and Fontinella.

Look close, and you can see that it's Turkey Pepperoni. The sauce can be just about anything, but if you're near a Trader Joe's, get a jar of their Pizza Sauce.

Yea, did you look below the Pepperoni? Did you think this was just going to be any normal pizza? No, I had a single tri-lobe Manzano Pepper, that I took the top and bottom off of, and knocked the seeds out of the middle. Then I sliced it like a bell pepper, and divided it along the septa to make rings of heavenly capsicum goodness. The center is the hottest part. The top and bottom can be sliced and passed out to your guests to build confidence.

While you're using the back of a spoon to spread sauce across your crust, which is a Boboli Round in this case, gently smile as you chew on one of the top or bottom pieces. Note that it will be a gentle warm if the center of the pepper is extremely hot. If your sample is more like a bell pepper, then you've got a dud. I like to put the cheese in the middle and push it out. On large pizzas, however, a ring of cheese is much better.

Yes, this is a small Boboli. I bought a two-pack, and this was the second one. The first was identical to this in construction, except that used I pesto sauce instead of pizza sauce. Some people I know cringe at the idea of a green pizza. It's all in the degree of sauce you put on. You have to understand the power of your layers. Pesto is very strong. Go light. Note that there are no peppers in the center of the pizza. This is very important.

If there is any one piece of advice I can give to any pizza maker, it is to keep the toppings away from the center. This is pizza will fit on a 10" dinner plate when done, so I'm already crowding the center with cheese alone.

Now a thin layer of low-fat cheddar cheese. Try to keep the sheen down if you can. Less oil is better. It's not a car.

That's too much Pepperoni for a normal pizza. This is the decepticon layer. I particularly like the endless layering of the inner ring. It will make it easier to cut this pizza. Turkey Pepperoni is more forgiving of overpopulation because it has 70% less fat than regular Pepperoni. The bag says so.

The oil level in full-flavor Pepperoni is so high that you must reduce the population level. I am sure that Domino's knew this, because their 'roni was very dry. It was the Salami that was the real greaseball on the makeline.

Here I've upped the ante' with Parmesan and other fine cheeses as a topping to further entice my guests.

Perched atop the center of a blistering hot Pizza Stone, the crumbled bits of Fontinella are melting as the convection of the closed BBQ cooks the pizza from the top down. The heat from the stone is working to crisp the crust, and the crust does it's thing. Sometimes it bubbles and needs to be popped. You just don't want to make carbon out of it.


If everything goes well, and you keep your items out of the center of the pizza like a good itemizer, then you can cut your finished pizza into nice small thin slices with distinct fine points.

Yes, this Attack Formation is ready to commit sensory assault on your guests. If you've been lucky enough to get to the pepperoni stage before they visit the assembly line, then there is a good chance that they will never even see the peppers until its far too late. Take a look at the first three shots and see if any kind of dangerous hot pepper is visible.

I can report that I safely consumed this pizza with no ill effects or losses of friendship. As point of fact, the experiments have continued on the searing hot pizza stone of goodness that often warms the evening air on the rooftop deck. Several of my neighbors have been enticed by the aroma for freshly baked and risen dough, melted cheese and a variety of sauces. Not all of the pizzas have Monzano Peppers, but the majority do, and I like these the best.

And now, so do my Neighbors.

Making Netprints Visible

Perhaps you've returned to this site for another Domino's Pizza story. Perhaps this is your first visit to this Blog, ever. I really does not matter why you came, but I would like to make sure you come back. From a personal perspective, I would like to think that my random mutterings and witty writing style (if you can call it that) are enough of a reason to keep coming back on a regular basis. But how can I tell that I'm accomplishing the goal?

First, if you have not read the Privacy Policy, which is displayed in the administrative column of this blog (to the right on the current template), you might want to read it. It tells you that I might cause a cookie to be put on your machine, to help serve and track which advertisements you click on. Advertisements? What Advertisements?

If you read closely, I used the wiggle word "might" in the opening statement. Since I currently have an advertising supported blog, with an AdSense account, It's not too hard to add this blog to it, once it's approved by the Google content police. If you want to keep your ads, you'd better keep away from certain things - and with the audience that I know exists, I don't consider the Internet or the Blogosphere a place where it is safe to let-loose with the four-letter Anglo-Saxon set of colorful words, or anything that is strictly HBO fare.

Ah, you say. I've got you pegged, Mr. Blog Editor, you're here to earn advertising revenue.
I would not be able to disagree. I've seen the advertisements from Google "If you can Blog, you can Earn" and others like it. I have also read and reviewed a number of successful blogs, with lots of followers, comments, and a vibrant and living community. Yes, I created a blog because I believed that it was a marketable idea, and that means marketable on multiple fronts.


Of course, I did not know what markets my blog would appeal to until I got some kind of feedback. Like many other bloggers, my personal friends were happy to tell me what they think, and I took that feedback and stowed it. I keep looking for more of an indication as to the correct target market. After discovering a site that featured regularly updated fiction, I realized that I had created a daily blogfic that was worth listing, just because there were so few dailys out there. Generally, you're getting paid if you blog every day. Not me. Not yet.


Feedback in the form of a comment is great, but it's not all of the feedback that is out there. Just the fact that people other than I were visiting my blog would be enough. If people like it, they will come back for more, so page impressions would give me a nice counter to see. I thought of putting up a hit counter, like a little odometer, but thought better of it. It seems to be more like bragging than anything else, and my blog was not appropriate for a counter.


Then I got feedback. One of the fiction sites that I listed on had a couple of votes. 3 and 3.5 stars out of five. At least they did not give it the one-star-of-death. Plus, I am still writing. One reader also wrote a review, with feedback that I was able to use. Rather than just comply, making it easier for passersby, I used that same material as the seed for a marketing campaign.


I've been investing a good chunk of personal time on the task of pumping up the reader-base, and if you count visitors to the site as success, then I have had fantastic success. How many of those readers convert to regular readership, only time will tell. However, just like I crave feedback, I have come to realize that my readers might like some feedback as well.


Since the current campaign is via direct-mail, and I hand address each piece and pay proper full price postage, with a stamp, it's about as personal a request as I could ever make. The genius is the fact that it is a post-card, which means it's safe. It can't hold anything, like a suspicious white powder, and can't languish unopened, just with one face down. As soon as you uncover it, you recognize it. It's cheap. It's effective, and it's useful when reading the blog too.


So, here's the reverse-reward feedback. I hope it results in improved retention, as I have not had follow-on hits from the initial target states. Since you're not completely anonymous on the Internet, and are quite traceable, I've loaded my blog template with Google Analytics tracking code. Once you have an Analytics account, you can track multiple websites, with resolution as fine as the city in which the traffic originated. Every time a visit occurs from a new city, it will be added to the top of the list that now appears at the bottom of the blog.


Anyone who sees that list, is highly likely to see if their city is already named. If they come back, they will see new cities at the top. While this is a low-tech version of the "hits across the world" maps that feature pins or flags, I like it better for the following reasons.

1. I don't need another map of the English speaking world
2. 200 pixels is too small for a reasonable map anyway
3. the list is in order, most recent first, honoring those that came before
4. I can turn text into hyperlinks, and could get paid to do so
5. It's much more personal that a number on a counter
6. It probably loads faster than a graphic that needs a database of points.
7. It's trivial to update frequently.
8. It's only on the website.

This is February's twist on the marketing campaign. It also reveals that other people are interested in the blog, since the list is currently more than will fit on any reasonable screen size, but not so long that it prints on more than a single page. Being the beginning of the month, it is a good time to make such a change. I'll let you know how thing go with the marketing and the quest for readership. In the mean time, please rest assured that I am nowhere near done with Pizza.

The Free Pizza Perk

Learning to pound pizza dough is as close to a fast-food job as I got. Of course, there are those that will debate me on pizza as fast-food, but considering the quantity of it that I consumed while working for Domino's, there is a pretty good chance that it is one of the reasons that a Doctor suggested that I steer clear of gluten, wheat and dairy. Let's just say that with a request like that, it's pretty easy to see why I had high blood-pressure until I changed Doctors.

Don't get me wrong, I still like pizza. It should be a mandatory food group all it's own. Required Eating as far as I am concerned. Yet, as much as I may not have liked my former Doctor's advice, it's actually pretty good advice. When I did make an effort to cut down on wheat consumption, I noticed a difference. I switched from regular pasta to rice noodles, and learned to make all sorts of interesting dishes. All of them were fantastic, provided that I took the time to make the effort. But none of them were pizza. I was trained to make pizza. I love pizza.

Now, is Domino's Pizza, Fast Food? Well, it all depends on what you order. Get a pizza with lite sauce and lite cheese, and every vegetable on the menu, and you've got a pretty healthy pizza. Switch it over to a cholesterol fest that needs 3 paper plates just to keep your jeans clean (as if you care) as the oils from the cheese and sausages drip through the cuts, soak the crust, and make you wonder if there is a spill containment kit handy. Seriously, we're talking about a pizza so oily that it completely soaks through the box and makes a red pepperoni oil-slick on the counter. You order it, we'll make it. For the 2C3P2L (*), I suggest the thick crust, but if you want regular or thin, well, you're the customer. We don't deliver napkins.

I also got to sample a number of different pizzas. There was a ritual pizza that was known as the "Crew Pie." On a busy night, there would be an lull when there were no phones ringing, and all of the drivers were out of the store. Just the crew and the manager. Since I was working inside detail, and got to anchor the makeline once in a while, I got a chance to make a crew pie. The manager gave me a few guidelines, but basically, you could make a free pizza. The food costs were going to support a little good will. Besides, I was a college student. I was hungry.

As I whipped out a masterpiece of pizza perfection, the phone rang. One of the girls grabbed it on the start of the second ring, and took the order. I put the pizza on the slow-moving belt of the CTX oven for it's 4 minute and 54 second trip to golden crispy goodness. Then another phone rang and a returning driver pounced on it as I lumbered over to the dough station to grab the tag that was just about done being written.

By the end of the next wave of the rush, two or three drivers were still in the back. One munching on a piece of crust, and the other folding a stack of boxes. I glanced at the end of the sink where we always put the crew pie, looking for the box. No Box. In the trash, a box without a label, and cut marks. Empty. I was a college student, and I was still hungry. I managed a polite chat with the manager, and he looked up with a sheepish grin which broke into a smile.

"Do like Anchovies?"

I shook my head. I could barely handle touching those slimy things when they were fresh from the can, and if they had been in a half-gallon container for a week, forget it. You just tossed then entire container, since it was useless for anything, including a new can of 'chovies. Eat Them? No.

"Well, then you'd better learn to like Jalapenos then."

Great. Sliced Pickled Jalapenos with the seeds, and the middle. I had a choice. Stinky Fish or Hot Peppers. Not something safe and sane like an Italian Pepperoncini, no, it had to be Jalapenos. Curse the Spanish for having been here first. Jalapenos. So, in my frustration, I walked over to the makeline, and selected a pristine wheel of Jalapeno. It looked so nice, and it started out so tangy that I thought it might be a joke.

I chewed. I coughed. I chewed and swallowed. I burned. I had a pizza to make. My eyes watered. I almost ripped the dough-skin. The sauce nearly hit the edge of the pizza. I was shaking so hard that the cheese left my hands effortlessly and fell correctly, and I hardly noticed from the pain in my mouth and throat.

The anguish started to subside. I managed to finish making the pizza and snag a slice of Salami in the process. Perhaps I would be able to taste it. All I could hope was that the manager was not looking at the time. From his desk, through one-way glass, he could look straight down the makeline and watch the pizzas move toward his window, make a right turn, and go into the oven. He was also on the lookout for hand-to-mouth moves.

The next day, I made it a point to discretely interview and recall what toppings people hated the most, and my manager was correct. Anchivies and Japaneno were at the top of the list, as was Pineappple. As one of the most expensive items on the makeline, it was discouraged on crew pies, but could appear, sparingly, on half. Essentially, it was a 1/4 portion. In my case, it was a necessity.

Gathering intelligence as I had, I discovered that the big eater in driver pool had no problem with hot food, but just choked on pineapple. This meant that I had to use pineapple on crew pies, just to keep this guy limited to half of the pizza. My trick was to cross, half the pizza with Jalapenos. This way, there was a quarter of the pie that was both Pineapple and Jalapeno. To keep the drivers from picking off the toppings, I put half of the cheese on top of the toppings.

The top cheese was interesting for a few reasons. First, it was not standard practice, so the pizza was not sellable. It did not meet the standard for construction. It was a deviation. Second, the cheese browned in the presence of Pineapple. Normally, if you slop the Pineapple onto a pizza using the standard technique of middle-out building (and clearing out the middle), you get white cheese. Always. The pineapple juice prevents the cheese from bubbling and browning. It is for this reason that Pineapple was not a corporate item, but was optional at the franchise locations.

There are no rules for the crew pie. Not when I make it. This time, everything went just like before. The lul, the pie, the phone, the mini rush, and the drivers in the back room, one folding boxes, the other pissed. There's one slice left on the open pizza box at the end of the counter. Yellow and green under melted cheese, with other good stuff too. Like pepperoni and black olives, with a smattering of mushrooms. Sometimes it's good to break the rules.



* Double Cheese, Triple Pepperoni and Double Salami

Two Minutes to Pepperoni

I would prefer not to list the reasons for taking a job working for Domino's Pizza at the age of Eighteen. Suffice to say, you do what you have to do, and I met the requirements for a driving position. At the time I had a car that was seat belt exempt, which meant that I could beat my fellow drivers to the door in the hustle. Yes, this was back in the 30 minute days of Domino's, but it was just $3.00 off, not a free pizza.

While I was hanging out in the small waiting area, waiting for a chance to chat with the manager. Frankly, I needed to pick up a second job at the time so I could save up the cash I needed to pay for my first semester in College. You see, I was going to have to enroll, and the Pizza gig might work well, since there was flexibility in the schedule. That, and the fact that getting up at false dawn every morning for my other job was just not going to work.

So I kept myself occupied, and learned the ordering code. I watched the slips move from the order sheet to the make-line and onto the boxes. An organization that is going to deliver pizza in under 30 minutes has to be exactly that: Organized. Expecting them to use all the help they could get, I was surprised to see that each dough skin was prepared by hand. It was final-kneaded and toss-stretched to size by a human dough handler, put on a screen, sauced per the order and passed to the cheese station.

I was there to drive, not make pizza, but, there was the secret desire. I had seen it on Television. I might have even seen a real pizza maker toss dough in the air and catch it. It looks fun, and one day, if things went well, I might even get to learn how to toss a dough. Someday. First, I had to get the delivery job, and be a good employee.

Turned out, all you had to do was have a valid license, insurance, a car, and be Eighteen. Stop next door at the copy shop, slap the items on a xerox, and you're hired. Here's your uniform shirt and hat and name tag. Blue slacks, no blue jeans and tennis shoes. Shower before work and wash your hands if you're in doubt.

It was my home town, and I had learned to drive there. With a big tank of a car, three on the tree and a 216 cu.in. engine, there was not much trouble I was going to get in to. That is, if the breaks work. The beast needed some pumping to get it to a stop, but other than that, pizza delivery wrapped in good old American Iron was a welcome sight. Just don't tap a British Convertible. Even though they were convicted of Insurance Fraud, it meant that I was going to be an inside employee if they would have me. And I knew they would.

During my first six months at Domino's, I had passed my phone test, and was expected to answer phones, take accurate orders, write neatly and post the tags to the make-line and get the other part affixed to the box. I would work later than other drivers, and got taught how to itemize pizzas. I even closed the store with the manager a number of times. I just wanted one thing: A shot at my two-minute pepperoni.

Once a quarter, Dave, the owner, would time people on making Pepperoni Pizzas. If you managed to make a saleable large pepperoni pizza in 120 seconds or less, you got a raise. It meant that you had what it takes to knock out a pizza. There were other factors too, of course. Just to give you the specifics, you had to start with a dough ball, kneed, shape and screen the dough. Put on the correct portion of sauce, and not go over the edges. Apply the correct amount of cheese, no time to use a scale, and then position 49-53 slices of pepperoni symmetrically on the pizza, such that it could be cut properly after cooking.

If you failed, you had to put the pepperoni back and save the skin for the next customer. You also had to wait until the next pay period before you would be eligible to try again, and even then, Dave had to be in a good mood. I had to take apart my first attempt. I was over the 2-minute mark by far. Two weeks later, I turned in a 93 second pizza, and we cooked it. That was, and always will be, the best pepperoni pizza I've ever had.

Manzano Poppers

This is my most ambitious post so far, and I am applying everything I've told you about blogging to bring you a Recipe Blog. Yes, I have seen so many posts that make me hungry, it's time for my revenge. So, here are my blurry pictures that I shot without a viewfinder, and hyper-fast video clip. Note that the formatting is likey to by rather whacked. I am not an HTML expert yet, so please bear with me as I just use the old editor. Without further ado:

Gas Grilled Manzano Poppers

(um, can I get a larger font?)

Above, you will see a montage of the ingredients we're going to use, except for one. Did I mention that I don't have a viewfinder on the camera? I've played with a number of cheeses, and since it is going to melt, you want one that melts well, and sticks together. It also needs enough taste to tell you "cheese" before, well, you encounter the power of the Manzano. For this, I have chosen Fontinella.

Buried as the backdrop, you can make out the premium center cut bacon. Note, don't get thick cut bacon for this. It won't work well. Get the leanest, oddly shaped, center cut bacon. Short strips are OK, and you're not serving these for the bacon anyway. It's really window-dressing to entice your prey please your guests. It also helps to absorb some of the heat from the pepper. Yes, after cooking, peeling and eating just the bacon will lite your fire.

Ingredients

• One or more Manzano Peppers ($13.99/lb@Vons)
• Premium Center Cut Bacon, Regular Cut (not thick)
• Fontinella Cheese (or multi-cheese melty blend)
• Blue Agave Sweetner (or Honey in a bottle)

Since this is a bacon-wrapped desert appetizer you'll need toothpicks to secure the bacon to itself. I strongly suggest Bamboo Toothpicks. Not because they are environmentally correct, and are not made from trees, but because they work better.

Because they are Bamboo, they slide through the bacon (and into the pepper if need be) without grabbing and tearing like a Birch toothpick will. If you can get Bamboo Toothpicks, do so.

Here are the four peppers that we are going to get prepared and grilled. Each pepper will yield between 2 and 4 poppers, depending on how it is segmented. The pepper in the bottom left corner is triple segmented, having three septa. The rest are double septa peppers. You can tell by shining a bright light into the side wall and looking at the ends of the pepper to see what lights up.

For a three-lobed or tri-septa pepper, the goal is to bisect the septum (split the membrane) on each of the three segments. This, of course, takes three cuts. Here are three horrible photos of the three cuts. Look to the stem to see the angle. Note the depth.

The knife I am using is a 12cm paring knife, and it is very sharp.

For double chamber peppers, cut opposite the septa, to make a pair of halves, and once you can see the septa, split the halves into quarters by splitting the septa.

After the third cut, gently pry the segments apart from the bottom. You will need to make sure that all three cuts intersect at the base of the pepper. This is why it looks a little deep. It is.

And you will get three pieces, that are 90% sealed up, and almost resemble apple slices. This may be one of the reasons that "Manzano" has been translated to "Apple." The hottest part of the pepper is right next to the seeds. Preserve this if, if you're lucky, on the stemmed piece. Remember to give the stemmed pepper to a friend, and try not to blush when you do.

Use the tip of the very sharp knife to both incise into the pockets and to knock the seeds off of the central spire. Take care to hold the pepper by the outer edges. Use Nitrile or Latex gloves (powder free) if you have sensitive skin. Try NOT to touch the septa (membranes) or central pepper stem with your fingers.
Shake the seeds out of the pockets. Save the seeds for someone with a green thumb. Do not give this person a stemmed popper.


Add a small amount of Blue Agave Sweetener, or a slightly smaller amount of honey. This will add an initial sweet taste to the stuffing and prevent any early pepper pungency that can discourage timid guests. Since Manzano Peppers are up to 10 times hotter than a Jalapeno, a little regulation on the heat does not hurt.

I use grated Fontinella, and since it is fresh and sticky, it works very well in the peppers. This pepper does not have a nice septum covering it up, but it will wrap just the same. As long as the outside arc of skin is more than 90 degrees, you can stuff and wrap it. It may not be the most ideal thing, and much cheese may melt, away, but it will never be a waste.

Careful use of the toothpicks will secure the bacon in place. After the bacon starts to cook and fuse together, the toothpick is not as important. However, if you can get it to survive the grilling process, it makes a somewhat safe handle to manipulate the pepper by.

Cook over Medium-Low heat. Do not let flames encroach. After they begin to cook feel free to pour a lite coat of Agave or Honey, or whatever else you'd like to try. Experiment. After turning, coat again. Watch to make sure you don't have flare-ups do to burning sugar. If you do, move the pepper to a safer area. When in doubt, turn the poppers. I do not think you can turn them too much.

The idea is to slowly cook the bacon all the way around. The cheese will melt, don't worry about that. Some will escape. Grab a toothpick and snag the cheese. Even a small drip of cheese will lite up your life. Don't touch your eye. If you do, you are required to post your results here and tell us what happened.



Now, here's my problem. I can smell these things now. So, I have no choice but to spread the torture. For me, I can go make them. I can do them in the dark with an LED flashlight if have have to. I'm feeling a bit lazy. So, to enjoy the torture, just watch the clip below.

Oh yea. Time for a cautionary note. Capsicum Oil will atomize in the steam and smoke in a closed grill. While a closed grill is optimum for cooking Manzano Poppers, it is a pepper spray bomb waiting to be unleashed. Turn your head away from the grill when you open it. This is a mistake you will make only once, and then, your anxiousness will be tempered by the memory of the pain. Consider yourself warned.

I decided that the poppers needed another coat of Agave. They are basically done at this point.

Now, I turn the heat down to low and place a piece of folded foil on the bun-rack. As the poppers complete their cooking (yes, they are all different) onto the sheet they go for storage. It is sometimes necessary to prop one pepper on another to get the right area to cook. Bacon should be properly cooked, and in this case, just this side of crispy.

That's it. I'm done with this post, and I can not stand it any more. I am just happy that I've still got one of these fourteen poppers left. They will keep for a long time in the fridge, and they are fantastic cold, warm, re-heated on the bun warmer the next day, etc.

Just don't use a microwave.

Treasure Chests and Coffers

Now I get the chance to tinker with a video upload. I've owned a small ball-camera for some time, and have been accumulating some interesting bits of video. While many of the files are much larger than the 100 Megabyte limit for video files here on Blogger, I do have some short clips like this one:

This is all in camera, no editing, and surveillance quality. Note, there is no viewfinder on this camera, so it takes some time and attention to guess at the shot you're getting. Regardless, it's a little movie, akin to the old Super8 movies that the upper middle class of the 70's used.

[Editor's note: after the upload, it was not available for a short while, and now somehow it's 1/2 as long as it orignally was. There are some edits. The gist is still there, and this compression was quite unexpected. Was this done by machine or human?]

Just a note, that via cable-modem, this 20MB file took a few minutes to upload. The nice thing is that I was able to keep writing while the video was uploaded. Now, the Blogger site is "Processing Video" as I continue to write. Pretty cool. After a little while, I expect that the frame will appear frozen under the Play Icon.

Now, I've never done this before, so we'll see how this goes. Looks finished. Yes, the date in the corner is accurate. Normally, on the 5th of July, the alleys in my beach community are overrun with "canners" that have no compunction from stealing from city owned recycling bins (the blue ones) and from the private refuse company containers that also accept recyclables and separate them at their facility.

After several complaints and gathering some grass-roots support, we got our end of the alley cleaned up, and we no longer have stinking, loud, poorly exhausted vehicles with cigarette smoking, urinating in the alley people rummaging through the cans, climbing in the dumpster and using our shaded parking spaces to crush cans at 0530.

Frankly, it's bad enough that I have to listed to the trash going into the cans in the evening, I prefer not to be awakened early on a Sunday morning loud clinking glass and crushing cans coming out of the bins and into hand held trash bags, that have been harvested from the cans too. Most people are aware that all trash in this city must be bagged before disposal. The canners don't care - they see the empty bag as valuable, and they have emptied the contents just to get one or two redeemable bottles or cans.

After you see the video, you'll know how it got handled. Today, things are not this neat, and we have to get the neighbor to put their single family cans back after they are emptied on Mondays.

Formatting tip: Upload the video, write the text, drag the video down to where you want it, and while it is selected, hit the "center justify" icon to move it to the center of the post window. Grab a corner of the video image to adjust the size. I messed up the aspect ratio, so I had to upload the video a second time. Gaak.

On the second upload, it is at the end of the post, so I will drag it upward to where I want it. I am going to leave it in the default format, since I think my camera is 320x240. Being able to control the magnification and aspect ration would be nice. Yes, you can re-position the video in the post while it is uploading and processing.

On another note, the upload policy was not displayed when the link in the upload dialog box was clicked. I am pretty sure I know what it says, and I am in compliance since I shot the video, own the copyright, and there is nothing obscene. Trashy, yes. Obscene, No.

I shot another short video with the same kind of camera, and donated it to another blogger, since it pertains directly to their blog. Feel free to click the link you just read over and look for it.

Have fun!

Small, Medium and Large

The Mountains of Sierra Vista

I followed my rule, and uploaded the images in reverse, order, selecting small (left), medium (right) and large (center) as my placement options. I put the banner at the top because I know someone who wants a copy. I plan to make a better copy of it. I selected the best 400 pixels, since I know that the Large size is 400 pixels wide.

You have to hit the down arrow to get to the region to the right of the photo below. It appears that I have found the space to the right of the second image. Yes, this is making the final image go downward. The image at the left is a small left placement at 200 pixels wide. The image uploaded was 640 wide, so it got a bit crisper as a result.

This line will be to the left of the medium 320 pixel wide image. This one was also 640 pixels wide, but I did crop out some of the upper and lower portions. From these dawn photos of the desert just west of the 92 Highway in Southern Arizona, there are some elements of beauty to be had, but you have to look close and through the bushes to find it.

I managed to make a few mistakes along the way, one of which was using the delete key to delete forward, which deleted one of the photos that I had uploaded. This may be why the small one is in the middle. They are of dessert, so it really does not make much of a difference what the order is.

By allowing for such a mistake to occur, I can keep the time to a minimum. I did this, and now, I know that the resolutions are 200, 320 and 400 pixels for small, medium and large photographs. Handy information to have, and from the quality of the images I've been able to eek from my security camera, I have to say that the small image looks the best. While the camera shots 640x480 images, they're not the clearest images in the world.

Now that I've tinkered with photos, I have to say I like them allot. It is now going to be a challenge to get photos of the quality that I believe necessary before I really start using them in a blog. Some of the photo blogs out there are very high quality images.