Artists

Four students from Humboldt recently surprised us with individual handmade gifts. We were blown away by the amount of effort that went into their handiwork and by the fact that they were willing to part with these beautiful pieces of artwork. They presented us with two quilts and two pillows for little Quinn.

Nou

Chue

Asho

Nang

A name

No, this isn't the promised entry that was written a week ago. I'm still working on remembering the pictures for that one. Instead, this is just a clarification. It had come to my attention that a link in the sidebar was labeled "Quinn". To avoid confusion, it has been changed to "Ishmael".

The hiatus is over

Or, it has at least been paused.

I (David) have returned to work after fully enjoying my 4 weeks off for Family Medical Leave. Now I am back at the daily grind (and already missing little Quinn) for 4 more weeks. Then begins the second (8 week) leg of leave.

The one, and quite possibly the only, advantage to being back at work is that I now have daily access to a normal internet connection. This not only means that it is again enjoyable to blog, but I also no longer have to go to Metro State to upload photos. There is already a belated entry that has been awaiting my return to 'high-speed', however, in my infant-aged paternal stupor, I managed to forget the photos at home. So it will have to wait until tomorrow. This may be a good thing, as it could allow me more time to catch up on month-old emails and fellow bloggers' blog entries. -- That's right all of you hooligans in our sidebar, don't be surprised to find comments on entries you posted over a month ago.--

Trial and Error

We decided to fire up the grill on Wednesday. We had purchased some quality ground beef for Heather and Dad (Mr. Brier), and we also needed to make a dent in the Boca Burger supply. So the lunch menu was all about burgers.

And since the grill was already going, and since we had also recently purchased a big container of lard, it was of course also time to finally season those cast iron pans. Our regular readers will know that David's first attempt to season in the oven didn't work out so well. So this time it was seasoning over fire.

Well, “over fire” was the first mistake. In fact, there were quite a few lessons learned by making mistakes. Here are a few of them to help you should you want to season cast iron frying pans.

1) Only season over hot coals. Open flames and hot grease are not necessarily the best combination of elements needed for seasoning.

2) The pan(s) should only need a thick coating of grease. If you have extra lard after that, you can always throw it away; there is no need to throw it in the pan thinking that “a little extra to steam off” will be good for the pan.

3) Just do one pan at a time. Even if you can fit more than one pan on the grill, it is still best to do one at a time.

4) Should you decide to ignore lesson three, then at least make sure that the handles of your frying pans don't hang over the outside lip of your grill. A tight fitting lid to your grill may end up saving you a lot of hassle.

5) Safety measures are always a good idea. A fire extinguisher and a phone that can dial 911 are always good to have at the ready.

And for your last good tip, you may want to wait to season your pans until after we've conducted more experiments (using the above guidelines) and posted the results here.

Visitors

Lots of friendly faces have been checking in on the wee little Quinn. Take a look here to see if you're one of the visitors we've managed to capture with the camera. Of course, there are also plenty of other updated Quinn photos here (bookmark 'em and check back often).

Cinco de Mayo ride

After two solid weeks of keeping a close watch on little Quinn, I thought I (David) would take an opportunity today to go for a short ride. For the last month or so I've been increasingly attentive to all of the parks and other green spaces in nearby areas. Quinn currently does not have the luxury of a grandparent who lives on a wooded lake in northern Minnesota like I did. So finding the local outdoor adventure areas will probably be beneficial. I used to know the ins and outs of quite a few local wilderness areas that dad would take us to. But a large portion of those are now vast wastelands of suburban housing. Fortunately, the old East Sider's standby is still here; and better that ever.

While exploring the neighborhood through Google's satellite maps a month or two ago, I had made a mental note that I should spend more time in Battle Creek Park because it appeared that its borders have expanded since dad used to take us there. So on today's outing, I decided to do just that. As a kid, I never had much interest in exploring the plateau area of the park. The caves and ski-jump ruins were usually enough to entertain me for an afternoon. If I did ever inquire about those areas, I'm sure dad dismissed them as ventures on private land because my old maps all show the park to be a fraction of its current size.

But today's maps paint a better picture. Still though, satellites, maps, and other images can't do justice to today's outing. I was so impressed by the park that I felt inspired to buy cross country skis (the park is ideal for “telemarketing” as we used to call it as kids), obtain a mountain bike (or add gears to my BMX), and to dust off my old cartographer's hobby hat. I'm not sure which, if any of these I'll do, but needless to say, the park has potential for learners and thrill seekers (not to mention that it'd be a great destination for one of those group night rides).

Here are a couple more photos from the trip.