Ben Benner’s Blog

I think that there are some songs that I like from the 1970s, but the title of this post is in reference to my Netflix ‘Watch Instantly’ queue. I have been loading my queue with Doctor Who, a series near and dear to my heart.

I have mainly been focusing on the Tom Baker years, which were filmed between 1974-1981. I am not entirely sure why some of them are available via streaming and some are not. I mean, it seems like everything that old should be available, but who knows, maybe someone’s estate is refusing to allow the content to be streamed due to royalties or something.

I have found that I need to have the TV on in the background when I am coding at home. There are times when I prefer to just have music, but it is just not the same. I have been trying to figure it out, I know that I am more productive without TV, but only from the standpoint of me not occasionally looking up at the screen. Without some sort of  background noise, I cannot focus.

When I am here at the office, I find that the listening to music is the perfect thing. But when I am at home, I prefer the TV. Not sure what it is, but unless Gina is home, then listening to music and coding just feels, I don’t know how else to put it but, lonely.

Anyway, the streaming quality of Netflix on the (xbox) 360 is superb.

In terms of this weekend though, it was not just coding and watching Doctor Who. I also had to clean-up the kitchen. As usual, I started falling back into my bachelor tendencies and not cleaning up all of the dishes I had used the day before. After that was done, it came time to mop up. I want to try and make sure that the house is clean for when Gina returns for Florida.

Let it be known that little dogs, have little bladders. And that while I do take them outside regularly (or leave the dog door open, provided the neighbor dog is inside), they occasionally make a mess. I had spot cleaned these messes, but it was time to mop the floor. I mopped, the kitchen, dining room and the living room. One of the benefits of having mostly tile, is that provided your back is strong, cleanup is easy.

I also did what Gina would normally start doing on a Sunday, dog laundry. Our dogs have an assortment of dog beds (many of which have been recently constructed by Gina herself), blankets, sweaters/shirts and what not. I am thinking that tomorrow night (because I will be too sore from Camp Gladiator tonight) the dogs will be getting bathes.

Another thing I did was cook dinner. Yup, amazing feat right?

I bring this particular cooking experience up, because I tried out a couple of new things.

1. I used our small Dutch Oven for the first time, I think Gina might have used it before, but I myself, had not. My in-laws have been giving us Le Creueset for Christmas the last couple of years.

2. I braised some beef short ribs. Never done that before. We buy them all the time to feed to the dogs, I had bought two packs of them and decided that I would cook and eat the second set myself.

3. I followed the recipe that came on the meat packaging. I think the recipe on the meat packaging is fairly universal and not just HEB. But they usually have some sort of recipe / cooking instructions on the sticker that tells you the price and weight. I followed the recipe and it turned out OK. In retrospect, I should have tasted the sauce/gravy that I made out of the broth before applying it to the meat, it could have used a little bit of salt.

I took the meat off the ribs, which was not a hard feat at all, they had cooked long enough that it fell off the bones. The carrots that I had put into the dutch oven with them turned out great. To be honest, it was kind of like pot-roast, but with short ribs.

I never remember how long to cook the Brussels sprouts for, so I had to call Gina. Afterward, when everything was plated up, I sent Gina a picture of what I had made. I opted not to put it up on Twitter, maybe I will post it up here later.

Unfortunately, the whole cleaning the kitchen, dog laundry, etc cost me a few more hours than I had wanted to, as I didn’t complete all of the coding that I had been planning to do this weekend. But I did manage to get a significant portion of what I am working on done. To which, there were a number of things that I was not familiar with how to make the framework do what I wanted to, but after a few hits with the sonic screwdriver, everything started to work just fine.

I hope to be able to do some more coding after I get done with Camp Gladiator. But, honestly I will likely end up eating dinner, taking a hot bath and passing out.

Back to the grind.

Laterz

bdbenner XBox360, coding, tv cleaning, coding, doctor who, Dogs, netflix, xbox

Just a quick update.

The 4th of the July part over at the Wights (which was also a surprise 40th birthday part for Tim “Timmy” Wight) was really great. They had a keg of Labatt’s tons of good food, including this buffalo chicken dip that my father-in-law created. I will have to snag the recipe from him, but let me just not that it includes one whole bottle of Frank’s Red Hot sauce (12oz size I think).

I fell asleep on the couch watching The Soprano’s and when I awoke to the 4am infomercials I decided it was time to crawl into bed. I managed not to wake Gina.

While I slept, Gina and her parents made a run into one of the nearby cities, Gaylord, there they hit Meijer’s and Wal-Mart. I sort of remembered telling Gina to pick up some flour and what not but overall I didn’t remember too much of the conversation that we had.

As soon as they got back it was time for breakfast, Tom (my father-in-law) started cooking bacon, eggs and hashbrowns. My mother-in-law, Brenda’s laptop needed the drivers for the Belkin wireless adapter that is part of the DIY wi-fi extender kit that I have left up here. I booted up my laptop, which I must not have shut-off properly as the battery was completely drained, and downloaded the drivers.

I transferred the drivers to her laptop via my handy Jaduka branded USB memstick. After getting her online, I sat down and scarfed up breakfast.

I don’t remember how much time went by, but I mentioned to Gina that I needed a couple more things. A few minutes later we were in the Vibe and heading to Gaylord. Gina took the backroads and got us there much quicker than the 52 minutes that Google Maps had predicted.

We did the bulk of our shopping at Wal-Mart, given that Gina had already scoped out both Meijers and Wal-Mart earlier that day. However, Wal-Mart did not have my PBR, Pabst Blue Ribbon. I know it is an old-man beer, but I just really like the taste it gives the chicken that I marinate in it. Furthermore, I have started to like the taste.

It was a little weird having to pay ‘deposit’ again, so the 30 pack of beer cost an extra $3.00, the nice part of that though is you get back $0.10/can.

A batch of caraway-rye is sitting there rising, at least another hour before it can go into the fridge. I needed to boot up the laptop to figure out how much chicken broth goes into the dog treats, I promised Curly and Killer I would make a batch while I am here. Therefore, I figured i would do a quick blog post before turning the machine off.

Time to make the dog treats.

Laterz

bdbenner baking, vacation baking, beer, Dogs, shopping, vacation

I hope that everyone is having a Merry X-mas.

I helped the dogs, rabbits and bird make X-mas cards for Gina. The dogs got her a Starbucks gift card and the rabbits and bird got her an iTunes card. Lula wanted to get Gina a new car, but well Lula is a dog and in these tight economic times she just couldn’t get a loan. I mean, one of these days soon Lula’s modeling career will take off and she will be able to get herself the personal chef she has always been wanting.

Gina got me some clothes (which was cool, cuz I picked them out), she also got me CronoTrigger for the DS-Lite, and she got me a really swanky beard trimmer (my last one broke). Gina and I got t-shirts from my in-laws, Gina’s says that “Everyone loves an Italian girl.” Mine says “Italian, by marriage only.”

I also got a micro-copter (which is proving to be challenge to fly, but one I am sure I will master). Gina got a bracelet.

I got Gina an Apple AirportExpress, so that when she travels she will always be able to have wifi at the hotel. I also got her the latest book by the lady that writes the Harry Potter books, JK Rowling, I believe the title is “The Tales of the Beetle Bard”. It is a small book, I think she will likely finish it in a day (if she reads it straight through).

We were going to see “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” with Jeremy and Nichole. However, it would appear that the movie was TOO popular. For almost evey X-mas for the last 10-15 years I have seen a movie. But both Gina and myself cannot ever remember the theatre being as busy as the Cinemark on 1431 was this afternoon. Jeremy and Nichole got there earlier than us and managed to get tickets, whereas Gina and I didn’t get there in time. I called Jeremy when we got there, to see if they were already in the theatre or if they were in one of the various lines that were outside the theatre (one of which looked like it might have been coming from inside the building.

He said that they were inside already and that it was pretty full. I stood in line to buy tickets and overheard someone say with amazement “It is sold out.” I didn’t catch what movie they were referring to, when I got up to the kiosk myself, I saw the “Sold Out” label on the picture of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”

I feel  bad that we were not able to catch the flick with Jeremy and Nichole. Hopefully, it is a good one. Tomorrow night Jeremy and I are going to see “The Spirit”, I am going to see if John can go tomorrow night. I think I will make sure we are there extra early, which should be easy since Jeremy and I are both taking the day off.

On a side note, it actually turned out to be a good thing that Gina and I didn’t get into the movie. Our “Rival 20 Quart (Electric) Roaster Oven” is amazing, it cooked the turkey to our amazement in about 1.5 hours. I mean it seems impossible to believe, but we reviewed various different websites to verify the necessary cooking time and temperatures (and to see if we could figure out the best place to put the meat temp probe).

The movie lasts almost 3 hours. This would have ultimately have meant that the turkey would have been way overdone.

Gina’s dad had told her earlier today that the roaster would could the turkey quickly, but he didn’t say it was going to cook it that quickly. I mean we had put the probe in about 1 hour in and it was already registering at 161 degrees.

Well, Gina just started cutting the turkey, so it is time to go.

Laterz

bdbenner Dogs, Personal, Uncategorized, food Cooking, Dogs, gifts, movies, pets, turkey, xmas

Or at least she thinks she is.

I cannot think of living without a dog in my life, particularly a dog like Emma Lou (aka Lula). She actually brings a smile to my face, just by sitting on my lap. Even when she is being naughty I still love her, though there are times when I am really tired that I wish she would just go back to bed rather than need to go and get a drink at 4am or scratch at the door to go outside.

Before Gina moved in I didn’t have any animals. Now we have ‘The Farm’, four dogs, two rabbits and the bird. For all of those that knew Peanut, she is sorely missed, her raspy little bark was always a sign that the hour was late.

Now back to Lula. Her naughtiness is almost legendary. Like the time she ate an entire baguette. We had bought a baguette at the farmer’s market, and didn’t put it away properly. It was just barely dangling off the edge of the table. Apparently, the baguette was hanging off the edge just enough for Lula to snag it.

Lula had run the baguette through the dog door, which honestly I wish I could have seen her negotiate the long loaf of bread through the dog door. I wonder if she smacked it at least once into the sides with a resounding “thud” or if she was smart enough to drag it length wise through the door on the first try.

Gina and I had not seen Lula in a little while, which is usually the ultimate sign of naughtiness. And when there is naughtiness afoot, one of us immediately checks the backyard. And there it was, a half-eaten baguette (to give her proper credit, she ate somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2). After a couple of minutes of searching, we found Lula, all extra fat and happy. She had plumped up on all that bread.

Then there was the time that she ate that bar of soap from Lush. I was sitting on the couch, and Lula came running up to me. She landed in my lap like she had done a thousand times before, but there was something different. A smell in the air, it smelled sweet and flowery. I asked Gina if she had given her a bath recently, because the flowery smell sort of reminded me of this after bath spray Gina uses on the dogs.

Then I asked Gina if she had mopped the floor, as by that point I had figured out it was a lavender smell. And the last few times Gina mopped she had used a lavender and vinegar solution. Gina answered no on both counts.

That meant that Lula smelled like lavender for some UNKNOWN reason. I started to sniff Lula to determine exactly where the Lavender smell was coming from, it was coming from her mouth. Lula had eaten something that smelled like Lavender!!!

That jogged my memory that I had recently brought home for Gina some soaps from the Lush store in Dallas, one of which was a Shea butter soap scented with lavender. I immediately went into the bedroom to look for the Lush bag and found it sitting on the bed, relatively empty, with no signs of an empty soap bag around.

“To the backyard!!!” (or something very close to that is what I said)

Sure enough, there sat on the ground a plastic bag with little doggie teeth holes in it and the Lush logo stamped on the side. Lula had eaten through the bag and ingested a whole bar of the lavender scented soap.

Gina immediately called poison control and was instructed to take Lula to the Emergency Vet, as there was a fear that Lula could end up with a blockage in her digestive system or worse choke on the soap while attempting to return it the same way it went in.

On the way to the Emergency Vet Lula returned the soap to Gina, all over the front seat of the Vibe (which was still relatively new at the time). Lula didn’t seem any worse for wear after the whole soap episode.

But enough about Lula’s naughtiness. This is supposed to talk about how she like little people.

One thing I would say is, she eats off a fork or spoon rather well.

When she is leaning over the arm of the couch, with her front paws all extended and standing on her hind legs, I can just imagine what she might look like if she was wearing some Osh-Kosh and had pigtails. She likes to be carried over my shoulder (that is when she likes to be carried).

And there are times I think that if she had thumbs she could sit on the couch and work the TV remote if she really wanted to.

She hasn’t done it in a while (I think because I have been going to bed at a more reasonable time these days), but she would sit at the foot of my chair in the office here and grumble when it was time to go to bed. Now curly does a similar thing, but Lula took it a step further, she would stand up and then begin to paw me to signal me it that it is time to go to bed.

Another aspect about her being little people is that she is too smart for her own good. While Curly and Buddy are very good at coming in when they are called, Lula merely looks at you and goes back to what every she was doing. The best is when she looks at you and turns the other way.

Also, she knows when she has done something wrong, yet still does it. That to me makes her more like people than not.

Regardless, I could never think of life without dogs now, especially without my little Lula.

Well, dinner is done.

Laterz

bdbenner Dogs, Emma, Uncategorized Dogs, lula

I just woke up from a short nap to the discussion about how Emma snagged an M&M laced cookie off of someone’s plate up here at the cottage a couple of hours ago.

There was a brief discussion as to whether or not Emma should be forced to return the cookie, you know following the same path it went down. That procedure requires you to feed the dog some hydrogen peroxide.

But given that she is acting perfectly fine and that one time she wolfed down an entire sleeve of those coconut and chocolate cookies (I think they are sometimes called Somoas) and this is just one little Keebler elf cookie, there isn’t really a worry.

I fed her some canned pumpkin, along with everyone else just to make sure that her stomach (and everyone else’s) is OK.

Well, I need to go run some water through my hair and get ready to go to the dinner party.

Laterz

bdbenner Dogs, Emma, travel, vacation cookies, Dogs, pumpkin, summer 2008, travel, vacation, vacation 2008