My next book project: The #vanlife …

While I continue my passion project of writing a fictional novel — being under no illusion of it’s profit potential — and because I am best at publishing well researched facts, I am today kicking off a new work of non-fiction. For profit.

Exploiting the nascent trend in folks traveling and living in vans, I can see a couple of potentially profitable opportunities to write about: The setup and lifestyle; provisions and cooking; finding potable water; ablutions; camping and boondocking; first aid and maintenance; domicile and vehicle registration; mail and deliveries on the go; and travel planning, destinations and quests etc.

To that end, I have today concluded the purchase of a van to begin researching my book. A year or two from now, I expect that my personal experiences will have yielded something of value worth writing about …

To follow my #vanlife research in pictures, go here.

Me and my 2017 Diesel 4×4 Sprinter Van …

Managing Apple Watch Alarms Using Siri …

This article will show you how to instruct Siri to set, label, reuse and otherwise manage your Apple Watch alarms …

You probably know how to ask Siri to create alarms on your Apple Watch by saying something like “Hey Siri! Set an alarm for 7.30 am”. Viola! She dutifully sets a generic alarm for 7.30 am. Easy, but she can do much more. Read on.

WARNING: Changing your Yahoo! account password is NOT enough to regain control of your account!

There’s an insidious hack you need to check on immediately — whether a hacker has changed your settings to auto-forward all your email to another address he controls. He doesn’t care whether you’ve changed the password, if all your email is going to be auto-forwarded to him! In fact, he hopes that you regain confidence in your Yahoo! email and continue using it. 

Time Management by email, the easy way!

 

Have you ever received an email that you didn’t want to deal with immediately – but didn’t want to forget about? Defer it! Perhaps you want to forward it to somebody else to do but need to set a deadline and a reminder to follow up that it was done? Delegate it! How about sending yourself a reminder for some future date? Schedule it! All by email, here’s how …

How to find movies to stream on Netflix by very specific genres …

How do you find and add streaming Netflix movies to your “My List” playlist? Most people will either search for a movie by name or select from those promoted or recommended by the site.

If, however, you have a penchant for a particular category there’s a secret URL construct which will “crack” open a treasure chest of movies you may not otherwise have known about. It works like this www.netflix.com.browse/genre/genre# where genre# is a number e.g. 4089, the number for Foreign Cult Movies. This URL will filter for movies tagged only with that specific genre# http://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/4089.

So, where’s the site’s index of genres?

Happy 60th Anniversary to the Arch & Leah!

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, affectionately called The Arch, and his wife Leah celebrated their sixtieth anniversary today. I’ve long admired his jovial, opinionated intervention in South African politics — both before apartheid ended and beyond.

The Arch is patron of Braai Day, what’s not to like and admire about that? 

Where is the Grove of Titans?

 

Spoiler: Skip to the bottom for GPS directions/coordinates …

Please donate to the Redwood Park Conservancy to protect the “Grove of Titans” here. They’re finally going to build the long overdue “elevated plank walkways” proposed in this blog — years ago!

 

In my quest to find and see some giant redwoods I planned a drive down the dusty Howland Hill Road in Jedadiah Smith Redwood State Park: You can take a virtual trip down this dirt road in Google Maps using street view — six miles of a rough, narrow, winding road. Browsing Google Maps, a tantalizing nugget of information came into view: A pin labeled “Grove of Titans”, what was that? More research reveals it to be the site of some of the world’s largest redwoods, exactly what I’d like to find and experience. Where are they?

Yoghurt: The temperature you heat milk to affects how thick it ends up …

These jars of milk, left to right, were heated to 45, 55, 65, 75 and 85°C respectively, prior to being cultured at 45°C for 8 hours. Then a teaspoon of each placed on an incline plane tilted to about 30° for a few seconds to see how far each would run.

Pledge to do good on Mandela Day, in his honor!

Thursday 18th July, 2013 is Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela’s 95th birthday. Please rise to the International Mandela Day’s call to action: Pledge to spend at least 67 minutes of your time making the world we live in a better place, one small step at a time.

I stand by the 4th Amendment against spying …

Do you?

Petition the Long Island Coast Guard to equip themselves for underwater rescues …

Caption: Cousins David Aureliano and Harlie Treanor.

Close family friends lost children in last year’s Fourth of July boating tragedy off Long Island’s North shore. Hailey Treanor, her grandma, aunt and cousins — many of whom were on the boat that capsized — are petitioning the Long Island Coast Guard to equip themselves for underwater rescues.

Although the Coast Guard were on the scene within minutes they were unable to dive into the water to rescue David and Harlie trapped in the cabin. They may have survived if the Coast Guard were equipped with scuba gear and trained divers. It’s a worthy cause that might save lives in the future. Please sign Hailey’s petition here.

Update: July 4th, 2013. According to Newsday*, one year after the tragic accident, the Coast Guard’s lack of equipment and training to effect fast underwater rescues is being addressed. Yay!

*May require registration!

Petition to lower the interest rate on student loans …

Should the biggest banks that nearly destroyed our economy pay less interest on loans from the Federal Government than our students who are the future around whom our recovery will pivot? Elizabeth Warren says “No”, let’s support her …

 

 
Sign the petition here

Lekker & Liquor: Foodie blogger sharpens her snarky pencil for a fun read …

Who knew that a Summer Shrimp & Corn Salad, sans any red meat, could impress us “boneheaded meat lovers”?

Well, I should have!

Should Ryan Ferguson get a new trial?

What if there is no matching physical evidence, no weapon, no connection, no motive, no DNA and the two original eyewitness testimonies, on which the conviction hinged, were recanted — claiming they were made under police and prosecutorial duress?

Should Ryan Ferguson get a new trial?

Experiments in Sous Vide: 66 Hour Ribs …

This started out as a 48 hour experiment but I wasn’t hungry last night, even though this is a pretty small rack of ribs. So I left them in the hot water bath for another 18 hours until lunch today! This speaks to a benefit of sous vide: With most foods, when you’re cooking up near the safety of 60˚C, you have a wide window in which to finish off and serve up a meal — still cooked to perfection.