Paul Alton MBA

I retired in 2005 and we went south for the winter. The first January we worked at an orphanage in Oaxaca, Mexico. Then we did SOWER projects each January (2007, 2008, 2009) for a couple of years. In 2010 we took January off from SOWER work and did a bus and train trip through Mexico. In January 2011 we took a month off from SOWERS and picked up a burned out motor home in Las Vegas for a ministry in Texas. Then we took a few weeks at Big Bend National Park before returning to Harlingen to repair the motor home. Starting in January 2012 we have been going to Nicaragua for at least the month of January each year. 

As you may have noticed, 2021 has started differently than previous years. So here we are in the frozen north woods. No warm sun, no warm, smiling, friendly people whose idea of personal space is much smaller than ours. Just anti-socially distanced people with masks covering their countenance and with stay-away body language.

We web surf.

We read.

A lot.

We watch the grosbeaks at the bird feeder.

We walk on the days it is warm enough. Each day we walk we bring two pieces of firewood from the north edge of the property.

For Christmas I received a couple of gift certificates. With one gift certificate I bought a wood burning set USA Link and a book Pyrography Basics: Techniques and Exercises for Beginners USA Link. The book has patterns to trace onto the wood using carbon paper. I think to myself “where am I going to find carbon paper these days”. My Dad was an accountant. There was always a thin box of carbon paper with the boxes of letterhead and bond paper next to his typewriter, but I haven’t seen carbon paper for years. Nor a typewriter come to think about it. Fortunately, when I opened the wood burning set it had a piece of carbon paper. I used it to trace a pattern of some wheat onto a scrap 1x4 left over from a drawer making project last month. That worked.

What worked better was the Da Vinci Eye app on my smart phone. You find a picture you like and select it on your phone. Then you place the phone on a water glass to hold it in the same place over your workpiece. You adjust the transparency of the screen and you can see both the picture and your workpiece as you draw the picture in pencil on your workpiece. Then you go to work with your wood burning set. The set worked fine. It has mixed reviews, but I was pleased with the weight of the pen, the heat adjustability and the ease of changing tips. Choosing tips was a little confusing in that the names of tips varies between the set instructions, the book and on-line resources. I muddled through which is one of the traits of an experimental learner. “I wonder what happens if I press this?” Press it and then you know even if maybe you wouldn’t have wanted to. I was happy with the results of pressing forward and in the gallery above there are a couple of pictures of my first efforts. There is no place for a review here because it’s a hobby so there are no customers to satisfy and no need for a feedback loop.

Speaking of reviews. I went looking for a cassette tape to MP3 transcription unit on line. If you spend thousands of dollars you can probably get pretty good results even with music tapes. I started working in industry as a high school student. In a noisy industry with limited or no hearing protection available. So my standards are pretty low on sound quality and my budget is really low. Like maybe forty bucks. I had bought a a device USA Link a few years ago and waited a while to try it. By the time I did try and failed to get reliable results it was too late to send back. This month I bought a replacement USA Link (a different brand) and tried it right away because it had a mixture of both good and bad reviews. If it didn’t work I wanted to find that out while the return for refund window was still open. It’s quirky. If you don’t like fussing with quirky, marginal electronic gadgets don’t bother. I have a couple of hundred old cassette tapes. I dug out a Rubbermaid tub full of cassette tapes. I donated some of the dross, sent the kids’ tapes to Edmonton and started transcribing enough of the keepers to learn how to do it. It has an auto pilot mode I don’t trust to work, but the manual mode works once you understand its quirks and limitations.

It gives marginal audio results. The quality is good enough for spoken tapes to be listened to by somebody with marginal hearing. I used a FAT32 Format USB stick USA Link I bought at the same time. For editing I had to download and learn to use the Audacity sound editor (free on-line). I have now have old sermons by Billy Strachan and others and some favorite motivational tapes I can listen to again. After the first couple of dozen tapes had established functionality I moved onto other projects. I’ll get back. I promise. After the blog is caught up. After taxes are done. Oh. Then it might be nice outside. Well. Maybe next winter. I hope we will be gone south by then, but at least I have something to do if we stay.

As happens every year at this time my birthday rolls around, or the celebration of it does. No churrasco at the Garden Café in Granada, Nicaragua this year. But we did have our second restaurant meal in the year of Covid. In September for our anniversary we did the patio at the Eatery on Main. Not something we’d want to repeat in a Saskatchewan January, but we did pick-up a takeout order of the same items and brought them home to dine. One daughter bought a trial subscription of Amazon Prime so she could get fast free shipping of my birthday gift. According to her you can start a free 30 day trial and cancel it right away so it doesn’t become a permanent subscription fee and they still let you complete the balance of the free trial period. I think she said 30 days, but do your own research, memories are what they are plus things can change. 

Check it out here (Canada) or here (USA). In addition to the shipping benefits they enjoyed a number of streamed movies with their kids.

Tried Keto Two Minute English Muffin recipe a friend sent me. I learned what a ramekin was. I learned that as much as I am not a fan of genuine English muffins I like keto ones even less. Also learned that limp, fake English muffins only purpose in a toaster is to lean into the heating element and start burning. Unplug the toaster before poking around in it. I already knew that. It will be a couple of months before I learn in The Design of Everyday Things how many people a year die from that practice. I also already knew that English muffins didn’t come from England originally. They came from Mr. English’s bakery in NYC. By the way, they don't play well with toasters but you can "toast" them in a frying pan.

Speaking of eating things you may not want to there are snacks made from insect larva available at Amazon. Larvets Sampler Gift Pack- BBQ, Cheddar Cheese, & Mexican Spice2.1g each USA Link Let me know how they taste. Probably not going to willingly gain firsthand knowledge myself. Although I did eat roasted grasshoppers in Mexico. They have heaps of them for sale in the market in Oaxaca. They are presented as appetizers in restaurants with peanuts and slices of lime on the side. They’re not bad unless they are soggy from being too close to the lime slices. Then they are kinda gross.

I hesitate to mention next something at the far extreme of the spectrum from gross. It’s so tasty it’s dangerous.

I bought a book this month. Not new to buy a book. A cookbook. Also not new to do. I have made just one recipe from Ketogenic Fat Bomb Recipes: A Ketogenic Cookbook with 20 Paleo Ketogenic Recipes For Fast Weight Loss USA Link. This recipe is so good I have to ration the results. These treats don’t knock me out of ketosis. They are low carb. But they are so full of fats at their 9 kilocalories per gram that if you don’t limit your intake, your weight loss can stall and maybe even reverse. “Chocolate Almond Fat Bombs” is recipe number five in Ketogenic Fat Bomb Recipes. Using almond butter, coconut oil and cocoa powder as the main ingredients it says it makes 10 to 15 treats. It calls for letting the mixture cool and forming into balls and then “refrigerate to set”.

It didn’t seem like the ball thing would work very well so I went with cupcake papers. The latest batch I have made is a double batch with 51 snacks. If you went with 20 from a double batch you would end up with pucks rather than snacks, but, hey! Go for it! You were warned. 

The recipe calls for stevia. I have used allulose and erithytol for sweetener in this. Both worked. Once the mixture is in the cupcake liners and starting to set up I dust with a little allulose powder and drop an almond into the middle. Great with coffee.

Store in the fridge or freezer. 

Caution: a friend stores his in the freezer and nearly broke a tooth on an almond. I use the fridge but still approach the almonds with caution. I add peppermint extract to some batches. The friend adds shredded coconut to the mix. I don’t particularly like shredded coconut and didn’t add it to Nanaimo bars when I made those back in the day so haven’t tried that variant.