the credenza part 2 - this wood is all good

once the designs were finalized (roughly), things started in motion. i submitted my designs to the board for review. with a bit of back and forth, plans were approved for sign off by the chief himself.

(you can see the rigorous review process in action)

keep in mind, this is still to be a ttt (turntable table), however the final design allowed it to function anywhere from a buffet, to an entertainment center, to a bar. the best design maximises versatility while compromising nothing for the original design intent, so we hope.

a few pics of said turntables may be in order, so here they are.

the first step was to buy wood. normally a lumber yard is visited, where wood can cost upwards of $10 per board foot!! wood is sold by volume, and wood is measured length x width x height to calculate the number of board feet. one board foot is 12 inches x 12 inches x 1 inch.  this project used approximately 30 board feet of wood.

we didn't go to a lumber yard for our lumber.  my dad knew a guy who knew a guy. the guy is a carpenter, contractor, lumber guru, and part time tree trimmer.  when trees fall in the windy night, this guy's company comes and removes that tree. then he has the tree cut up into rough lumber, and he sells it for $2 per board foot!!!! not only is that a smokin' deal, this wood is local and grew up in southern california just like me. this is opposed to most woods that are grown far away and shipped to the states, we're being green too.

you never know what he'll have, heck, he never knows what he'll have.

we walked away with mulberry, canary, and chinese elm. the mulberry is painted purple at the top edges, the chinese elm has black paint, and the canary is those few boards to the left that are very pink.

i decided that the ttt would be made out of mulberry (well, the frame would be).

buying wood like this requires a large machine called a joiner. since the boards have no perfect sides, and is roughly cut, a joiner will clean the wood perfectly on two sides giving a sharp 90 degree angle where the fresh sides meet. from there you can measure and cut pieces perfectly.

dad just bought a joiner, so we were stoked to get some rough wood for cheap and clean it up ourselves. the joiner is not a small machine, so there was a complete shop reorganization that had to occur before hand.

link to part 3 - front face and top frame.

the credenza part 1 - it starts with an idea

in april of 2011 i started sketching plans to build a table for my turntables, the turntable table. i called it the ttt, and sketched a few different ideas.  i started with online browsing. searching for "the perfect dj table", "dj stand", "dj furniture". i was looking for inspiration and ideas i could build off of.

my largest inspiration for this project was my dad. he had made a counter height kitchen table using solid cherry wood and some remnant granite from a recent kitchen remodel.  he used two strips of granite, inlay into a cherry frame. the pic below shows the granite counter top (with a rather delicious lamb lunch).

here's dad's counter height kitchen table

another table shot with a small hookah on top

 

i found a bit of inspiration from stores as well, like these pieces from crate and barrel. the idea to use wood and stone together had been decided. next up was the toughest decisions, the design!  deciding what types of doors, shelves, and surfaces would i want. the overall dimensions were somewhat decided based on simple ergonomics, it was the design and aesthetic that really took some decision making.

i liked the overhanging top of this piece. the shelf that sits not too far below the top was also an idea inspired by this piece.

 these little guys showed the wood and stone harmony pretty well, without the inlay technique. i pondered simply gluing the stone to the wood frame like these in some early designs.

from this research i started sketching my own ideas. here's a few rough ones.

notice how one design has two pieces of stone, doors, and only two shelves. the next drawing has three exposed shelves and one piece of granite big enough to cover the entire top. i have about 15 pages of drawings, ideas, dimensions, and notes. the earliest date back to april of 2011.

link to part 2 - this wood is all good.

the gift giving secret

there's a technique to giving gifts, and i'm not talking about those 'just because' gifts. you have been there, it's so-and-so's birthday, christmas, anniversary, etc. and your window of time is now or never to get a gift. the only problem is that you have no idea what to give this person.

instinctually, the first thing you think to yourself is "what do they like" which is a great start. step one is to make a list of all things that the gift recipient is interested in. now here's the twist, this list you've created is the list of things not to give your gift recipient.

that's right. don't get them what they are interested in.  do not buy audio equipment for the audio lover, clothes for the shopper, computer stuff for the geek, music for the musician. you won't win.

let's pretend that your task is to buy a present for a guy who's a huge sneaker collector.  knowing what's hot, what's about to come out, even the companies that are currently 'in' is quite the task for you to find out. then, you have to find out what are your gift receiving sneaker collectors opinion on these companies, styles, and other sneaker industry things. he's surfing sneaker blogs, posting on sneaker forums, and talking about sneakers to his sneaker friends every day. even buying accessories for his sneaker interest land you with a higher percentage of giving a dud gift because you just don't know. if you were to buy him something sneakers, he'll open them and give you that "thanks grandma, i love this sweater" smile.

(granted, if you can somehow find out exactly what this person is planning to buy without them knowing, you have struck gold. this is not something that happens the majority of the time so i'm discounting that option.)

step two is to think of things that you are an expert at.  if there is something that is on your list that isn't on their list, then that's where you start to brainstorm ideas. i've got some real life examples here.  my brother loves clothes and shopping for clothes. he'll go to the store and just browse when he has time to do so. given some free time this is the last thing i would ever do, the idea of just hitting up the mall is never anywhere close to an idea when my calendar has an open afternoon. he's the pro, i'm the oblivious one, and when he buys me a jacket, i don't even have to ask if it's what's hip now because i know that he's always in touch with what's hip.

when he opened the apple tv that me and my sister got him for christmas, he had no idea what it did. of course now he uses his apple tv a few times a week. he's not into technology stuff, but i sure am. it was a perfect present.

so let's recap here.
1.) list what the gift recipient is into.
2.) list out things you are interested in, that is not on list one.
3.) start from there brainstorming what to get them.

now there will be a time when this technique doesn't produce anything. and that's when i pull out my emergency step four.

4.) list out things i either always forget to buy, or hate buying.

some examples are towels, bottles of alcohol, and sweets. of course if all else fails go ahead and give the biggest gift cop out, a giftcard.

Deep Fried Pork Belly

I've been trying to perfect a recipe for pork belly for a few months, ever since I went to Taiwan. So last night I picked up some at the whopping price of $2.39/lb

Chopped up half of the pork belly into strips, these 5 strips is about 1/2 a pound worth.

Here I'm using Google docs on my iPad which is sitting on a business card holder as a makeshift iPad stand. The recipe is at the bottom of this post.

Boil the pork belly strips for 10mins.

while that's boiling, time to make the flavoring stuff:
Soy Sauce, 1/4 cup.

Vinegar, 1/4 cup (I didn't have the right kind exactly, but it's asian-y rice vinegar, so that should work)

Ideally rock sugar is used, but I had organic Trader Joe's sugar, so that did the job. 1/4 cup.

I didn't have ginger, so I turned to the western cure for lack of ginger, garlic!

lastly, green onions.

Put everything in a pot, turn on the heat, dissolve the sugar, so it's read when the pork has done 10 mins in the boiling water.

The pork belly has boiled for 10 minutes

Plop the pork belly in the mix, and add water so that the meat is just about covered.

I like to throw in a few eggs to this mix, they suck up the flavor of the mix and the pork.

This simmers for about 2hrs.

A shot of the pork belly after 2 hours in the bath.

Next up, the deep fry. I cut up a small red potato to fry after the pork belly because I'm a sucker for french fries.

Deep frying lasted for about 1 minute. This provided a slight crisp to the exterior of the pork belly. Next time I will try to deep fry for 2-3 minutes and see if I can achieve a more crunchy crisp.

A few shots of the fried pork belly.

I made some rice and veggies to go with my deep fried goodness. The egg didn't hit the frier either, I cooled it in water then peeled it after the 2hr simmer

The first recipe is what I started off with. It's a recipe that I've used to make pork belly previously, which turned out well. The second recipe is what I did here. Instead of browning the pork belly in a fry pan, I wanted to use my new Presto Fry Daddy deep fry bucket.


The pork belly was fantastic. I feared that the amount of sugar used was too much, but the flavor and texture was fantastic. The egg was delicious too!

Chinese Pork Belly

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound raw pork belly
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/8 cup light soy sauce
• 1/8 cup dark soy sauce
• 1/4 cup Chinese rice cooking wine
• 2 ounces Chinese rock sugar
• 1 (1/2 inch) piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
• 4 spring onions, sliced
• 3 eggs

Directions

1. Slice the pork belly into 2-inch wide strips. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and stir in the pork slices; reduce heat to a simmer, and cook the meat for 10 minutes. Remove from the water, and blot dry with paper towels.
2. Heat the vegetable oil over medium-high heat in a large wok, and brown the pork strips well on all sides. Pork will splatter - use a splatter shield for this step.
3. While pork is browning, mix together the light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, rice wine, rock sugar, ginger, and spring onions in a large soup pot or stockpot. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Reduce heat to a gentle simmer, and lay the pork strips into the liquid. Cover, and simmer until the meat is very tender, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Add water as needed to keep the liquid from going completely dry.

Deep Fried Chinese Pork Belly

Ingredients

1/2 pound raw pork belly

1/4 cup soy sauce (low sodium)

1/4 cup Chinese rice cooking wine

1/2 cup organic sugar

4-5 cloves of garlic minced

4 spring onions, sliced

3 eggs

Directions

1. Slice the pork belly into 2-inch wide strips. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and stir in the pork slices; reduce heat to a simmer, and cook the meat for 10 minutes. Remove from the water, and blot dry with paper towels.
2. While pork is browning, mix together the soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, garlic, and spring onions in a large soup pot or stockpot.
3. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Reduce heat to a gentle simmer, and lay the pork strips into the liquid. Add eggs to the mixture.
4. Cover, and simmer until the meat is very tender, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Add water as needed to keep the liquid from going completely dry.
5. After 1 1/2 to 2 hours, take pork pieces out of simmer and pat dry. deep fry for 1 min.

rockets and such

my friend wanted to see what kind of rockets i could muster up for a potential tattoo. after a few attempts at drawing them, he realized that permanently having a penis on his arm was not a good idea. i drew these over a year ago, which is wild to me, but the dates don't lie.

weekend update

this weekend we spent some time visiting the chens, hung out with their kids evie and arron. desmond tutu corgi also made an appearance. he was continually attacking the small strawberry patch. he's the only dog that i am friends with on facebook, he is a retired champion showdog.

my latest coffee paraphernalia showed up thanks to amazon.com, and i was able to geek out in the mornings with precise weights, temperatures, grinds, and pours. the scale, thermometer, and hario v60 02 dripper with collector are the new items. i've had the kettle for a while, and love it. that grinder was purchased from a garage sale for $5, it's on the short list to be replaced.

sunday was the big one. dann and i rode from the mission to fort funston. i used my nike running tracking program to document the ride.  unfortunately, my phone ran out of juice just before returning home, but managed to track the majority of our 7 hour excursion.  the app thinks that i ran these distances, so that 3481 calories is incorrect, as half of the time i was sitting on my bike coasting downhill.

Riding my bike for an entire day made me appreciate my $35.00 bike. It has been needing a few upgrades, which i neglected to buy, since it feels like a waste to put $80 worth of brakes into a bike that cost me $35. however, i've decided that the value of the bike is more than what i've paid to acquire it.

scrap-ing

from time to time my family makes fun of me for what used to be my dream job, a garbage man. though, in order to be a garbage man i needed to drive a blue garbage truck. i remember running out to watch the garbage men take the garbage early mornings when i was a kid. they were so cool, swiftly picking up those heavy cans that my parents had to drag to the street corner. then with a press of the leaver, the all powerful garbage truck would compact the trash with amazing force. i remember watching this many times, most of the time while wearing pajamas.

then when i was in elementary school, i'd walk to school with my brother. thursday morning was trash day, and as i walked to school i'd peek into all open trash cans for any gems. i'd find all types of fun things to play with sitting in/on/next to the trash cans on the street. some of the items i remember finding were telescoping antennas, toys, deflated balls, and my biggest prize was a discarded speargun!

if the object was too big to hide in my pocket or backpack i had a special hiding place where i'd hide my morning bounty, it was atop a small hill with trees and bushes located just outside of the school grounds.

i remember my brother, who was two years younger than me, being embarrassed to walk to school with me and my buds because we were trash pickers. when is the last time you heard of the younger brother being embarrassed of the older brother during elementary school? obviously i was onto something. 

today my coworkers and i are headed to SCRAP (Scroungers Center for Reusable Art Parts), we'll most likely be helping organize donations or cleaning up around the non-profit store. a few times a year we do some sort of 1/2 day volunteering, normally at a soup kitchen or food bank. this time we're going somewhere very different.

SCRAP seems like a thrift store that doesn't have the junk that i never pay attention to at thrift stores, mainly clothes. according to the yelp page and their website buttons are sold by the scoop, wood and other materials are priced at the counter with a quick eyeball of the clerk. these guys are who i would have become had my brother not been so embarrassed as to taddle-tale on me when we got home from school almost every thursday that i had been at it again, hoping that i'd somehow stop.

100 miles

i started running at lunchtime a few weeks ago, since i work from home it's a pretty non-intrusive way to sneak a workout in without taking a huge chunk out of my personal time. the goal was to run 2 miles each weekday, and build that into my daily routine.

so far i've been tracking my workouts in 2012, and i've logged 28 workout days. lunchtime running is officially a habit. and recently i've added a weightlifting exercise or two before the run, since 5-6 minutes of abs or arms is all you need to end up pretty darn sore the next day. of my 28 aforementioned workouts, i've had this app for well over 6 months and have used it anytime i run.

today after my run, i noticed that the total number of miles was 0.04 miles shy of 100 total miles, a milestone in my book. it's wild to think that i've run for over 18 1/2 hours, and burned (approximately) 13,400 calories. a day's worth of calories is 2,000 calories, so i've negated almost 7 days worth of caloric intake just by running.

how has this affected my weight, wasteline, and bmi%? not a damn bit. how do i feel, healthy and most of all proud. the feeling of set goal, strive towards goal, and finally achieve goal never gets old. time to set new goals, and start striving. see you at 200 miles!