Last Friday, our project manager organised lunch at a restaurant. I had to choose something from the menu. Well, I was not going to have a salad, again. I chose grill chicken with so and so. What I end up having was some Macaroni pasta with small bits of chicken and white sauce and some herbs. The chicken tasted more like roast chicken rather than grilled chicken. I could have made the same at home by buying a roast chicken, a pot of pasta sauce, and pasta at the supermarket.
I fixed the air flow through the door problem by installing draught excluders. Coming from a tropical country I did not know what those were. Any way I know now. I borrowed a book called “Maintaining your home” from the library. I have got to start buying some basic tools now.
Yesterday I watched “Oil Storm” and found it was very interesting. Well, the US said they are not going to sign any agreement on the reduction of Carbon dioxide because they need to put the economy of their country first. I don’t see how the figures of their economy is going to add up if their country is going to be hit more than once by super strong hurricanes every year from now on.
Kerry Emanuel, an expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has tracked hurricanes over five decades and found that they are getting stronger and lasting longer.
Finally, I am doing my bit in beating the petrol price rise. I went to work on my bicycle this morning. The weather was great and it took me 35 min to ride 10km.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Keyboard layout creator
Have any of you wished their keyboard layout were different? Like the position of the “A” was somewhere else, or wonder what it would be like using Dvorak Keyboard layout. Well I have found that Microsoft offers a free software that allows you to do that. It’s called Miscrosoft Keyboard layout creator. I downloaded it and started to “improve” on the default keyboard layout. It is also possible to reposition keys of a keyboard by removing it and putting it elsewhere.
I did change the location of some keys to experiment. I had to give up the experiment because not only my mind does not like the idea of having to press at a different place for a character. It made typing very slow, but worse of all it also gave me pain in my wrist, and a headache.
I did change the location of some keys to experiment. I had to give up the experiment because not only my mind does not like the idea of having to press at a different place for a character. It made typing very slow, but worse of all it also gave me pain in my wrist, and a headache.
Soymilk Maker
Spring is almost here, and people are starting be more health conscious, and coincidentally lots of the health clubs and products are starting put out their advertisement.
My wife, like most women, every now and then reads something and gets very excited about certain products. This time it is about the goodness of eating soy products. So we end up buying a soymilk maker.
The soymilk maker cost $169. 1 Kg of Soy bean cost about $6. 100 g of soy make 1.5 lt of soymilk. So 6/10/1.5 = $0.40, 40 cents of soy bean to make 1 litre of soymilk. I will add another 15 c for the water, electricity and cleaning cost. So 55 c for 1 litre of soymilk.
1 lt of commercial soymilk cost about $1.8, so the saving is about 1.8 – 0.55 = $1.25 per litre. To recoup the price of the soymilk maker I need to make 169/1.25 = 135 litres.
The taste of the home soymilk is not too bad, it just lack the extra vanillin flavour, the preservative and the sugar.
Then my wife tried to make tofu, it took 4 hrs to make 400 g of tofu, and you can buy 400 g of tofu for about $2.50 to $3.00. I think it is not worthwhile to make home tofu, unless we have too much time. The amount of effort is too much for the little gain.
Now I am interested to add spices/flavour to the soymilk, eg. Almond, vanilla, oriental spices. Does anybody have any suggestion about how to make the soymilk taste better?
My wife, like most women, every now and then reads something and gets very excited about certain products. This time it is about the goodness of eating soy products. So we end up buying a soymilk maker.
The soymilk maker cost $169. 1 Kg of Soy bean cost about $6. 100 g of soy make 1.5 lt of soymilk. So 6/10/1.5 = $0.40, 40 cents of soy bean to make 1 litre of soymilk. I will add another 15 c for the water, electricity and cleaning cost. So 55 c for 1 litre of soymilk.
1 lt of commercial soymilk cost about $1.8, so the saving is about 1.8 – 0.55 = $1.25 per litre. To recoup the price of the soymilk maker I need to make 169/1.25 = 135 litres.
The taste of the home soymilk is not too bad, it just lack the extra vanillin flavour, the preservative and the sugar.
Then my wife tried to make tofu, it took 4 hrs to make 400 g of tofu, and you can buy 400 g of tofu for about $2.50 to $3.00. I think it is not worthwhile to make home tofu, unless we have too much time. The amount of effort is too much for the little gain.
Now I am interested to add spices/flavour to the soymilk, eg. Almond, vanilla, oriental spices. Does anybody have any suggestion about how to make the soymilk taste better?
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
How does one stop cold air from getting in through a close door?
I have discovered that a reason why my house is not keeping the heat in is because cold air is getting in through the slit between main door and its doorframe while it’s closed. This became obvious on a windy day like yesterday. Now I need to find a way to stop the air from flowing through a close door. Does anybody have a suggestion?
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