02/16/18 Diary: Building


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2018_02_16_diary

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It was really the panic of how much we have to get done before we leave that probably brought on the escapism of focusing on building a house. Not the first time. Not the last (unless we build a house, in which case we’ll need a new “escapism” method.

16 Comments

  1. War Pig

    Try adding some of the brine from a jar of capers to your ramen broth. Pickle brine should also work but it has the wrong flavor for me. I’m more of a bread & butter pickle guy than a dill guy. I use caper brine in other things as well, like chicken fry batter.

  2. andreas

    Depending where in Canada you will be based – most Canadians live very closely to the U.S. border – there are chains of warehouses on the U.S. side of the border you can send things to that charge very small handling fees. I can recommend Kinek but there are others as well. You can drive/bike over the border, go to the warehouse, pick things up (you may want to discard packing, see below) and go back through customs yourself and declare imports (or not: “sure thing, officer, I came with this laptop and T-Shirt”).

    This is less about begrudging customs to Canada but more about practicability.

    [As an EU citizen is it a bit baffling how unfair NAFTA is to normal people. At least one can have stuff shipped between EU countries as a private consumer without fees or hassles at customs. Ship something to Canada, there are always hassles resulting in extra fees and delays, sometimes for weeks, especially with private mail carriers. Therefore many smaller companies wisely even refuse to ship to Canada to save themselves this trouble. Hence those warehouses who rent out mailboxes]

    1. Christopher Baldwin

      Yeah, I’ve had some HARD times getting into Canada when going for a long stay. I don’t think I’d dare risk leaving and coming back with all my stuff there, let alone bringing in undeclared goods. But for a Canadian, a quick trip over, I could totally see that.

  3. Have you watched the youtube Channel Alex French Guy cooking? He just did a whole series on Ramen, including one on figuring out the both the sauce and the extras. He also figured out how to make the noodles. But I think that’s taking it too far.
    He’s very fun and hyper.

  4. Daktari D

    My wife introduced me to “What’s Up Doc” and it has become one of our family’s all-time favorite movies. SO funny. And we quote from it all the time. Some of our favorites:
    “Come in it’s broken.”
    “There’s a person named Eunice?”
    “Oh, that’s OK. We have … lots of others.”
    “I too have an announcement to make!”
    “I think I read a monograph on that.”

    So much fun!

  5. Scotticus

    Really don’t recommend living in Abiqui, NM unless you’re *really* sure you want to…

    It’s beautiful country (Georgia O’keefe country!), _but not_ the most ‘amenable’ place to live on a semi permanent basis. Even an off grid house will be difficult in the winter…

    Also, if you’re going to do Adobe, it’s best to do it yourself. The bricks aren’t hard to make, just labor intensive. -You should also look up straw bale houses. -and most important!!! If you haven’t seen the earthships in Taos, look them up now! They will totally give you ideas into what/how to do and what/how *not* to do…

    Remember. Large south facing windows pay for themselves…

  6. TB

    You hand-make your own ramen soup? Okay, now you’re just messing with us. And that’s before you’re going to build a house with home-made bricks.

    I’m guessing you’re actually an alien with a lifespan of about sixteen thousand years.

    “Hand me that four-strand camels-hair brush, my dear. I’m going to paint the house.”

    1. andreas

      Surely we’re talking a hand-raised camel. Once the winter pelt has grown in, the hair for the camels-hair brush is ready for harvesting. Now we one can paint the house once we have collected enough berries and chalk for mixing of dyes 😉

    1. Night-Gaunt49

      I agree. Jeremy Brett seemed to embody Doyle’s conception of him. I watched when the series originally ran on my local PBS. First when Vincent Price did the introductions and then the later hand over to Diana Rigg whom he had worked with in the 1960’s. I would like to have all of those with a switch off between intros.

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