Author: TechyDad

Keeping History Alive, Part 1: Family Photos

Family, Photos

When it became apparent that my grandmother was going to pass away soon, my mother asked me what items of hers I wanted. I honestly couldn’t think of anything. There wasn’t a single item that I wanted to hold onto to remember her. This wasn’t because I didn’t want to remember her, mind you. It was because no vase, necklace or other bauble seemed to readily bring her to mind.

Instead, an idea popped into my head. Her photos. I wanted her photos. Of course, it would be unfair of me to get all of her photos. However, it seemed equally unfair for the photos to be divided amongst her 2 children and 5 grandchildren. Everyone would get a piece of our history, but not the whole thing. I decided to take it upon myself to scan her photo collection. This way, everyone could get a complete set of photos (scanned) and could get a few originals as well. The collection would be both divided and stay complete at the same time.

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Cooking With TechyDad: Apple Cinnamon Quinoa

Cooking, Food, Photos

As this post goes live, Passover will be winding down to a close. During Passover, cooking can be quite troublesome. First of all, you can’t use any bread products save for Matzoh. So no breadcrumbs, rolls, toast, english muffins, pasta, pitas, etc. In addition, Ashenazi (that’s Jews of Eastern European descent) have a tradition of banning kitniyot, substances such as corn, beans, rice, lentils and peas which historically could be “contaminated” with grains banned during Passover. This means that most of the dishes I’d usually make are impossible to do during Passover.

Last year, I wrote an Ode to Quinoa. Quinoa (being a seed, not a grain) doesn’t count as kitniyot and so is allowed. Last year, I made a Quinoa Pilaf and a Breakfast Quinoa with honey, cinnamon and milk. This year, while getting ready for Passover, I decided to try Apple Cinnamon Quinoa.

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Project New Me: Week #13 or Mid-Passover Weighin #newme

Health, Project New Me, Weight Loss

Weight: 192 lbs (up 2 pounds)

Average Hours of Sleep: N/A

Total Workout Time: 0

Total Calories Burned: 0

Well, it’s the middle of Passover (actually, getting toward the end). Given the complexity of cooking for Passover, I decided not to track points. I figured that, I’d gain weight but I’d try to keep it under control by eating healthy wherever possible. I’ll admit to snacking on more than my fair share of Passover cakes, but those tend to be self-limiting as they don’t taste as good as non-Passover cakes. In any event, my weight gain was only 2 pounds which I’d say was pretty good.

I didn’t keep track of my sleep time either, but I think that I got less than average amount of sleep. Between being up until midnight for the Sedars and being up late cleaning, I didn’t get that much sleep. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get more sleep during the upcoming week.

Aloha Friday: Food Festival

Aloha Friday, Cooking, Food, Religion

This time of year always brings back fond food memories. Since we celebrate Passover, we would have a whole week of eating Matzoh in various forms. Matzoh and cream cheese. Matzoh Pizza (matzoh microwaved with sauce & cheese). Matzoh with schmaltz (rendered chicken fat – tastes like a rich butter) and salt (very unhealthy but oh-so-good). Matzoh Brei (matzoh soaked in water, drained, mixed with eggs and fried like a pancake). Are you sensing a theme here?

Yes, we eat a lot of Matzoh during Passover. It’s pretty much the only “bread” we can eat during the holiday. No rolls, bread, tortillas, pitas, pasta, cereal, or other bread product. In fact, since we’re Ashkenazi, we have more restrictions. No corn (or corn products), beans or rice (among other things).

As you can guess, cooking for Passover can be tricky. Especially when dealing with little kids used to breaded chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese and the like. In years past, we would buy a lot of pre-packaged, frozen foods at great expense. This year, we decided to prepare more fresh foods. Just today, I baked turkey burgers, wrapped them in romaine lettuce leaves and served it with a broccoli/mushroom stir fry in teryaki sauce. (Well, fake teryaki sauce since the real stuff isn’t kosher for Passover.) All in all a delicious, but not too fattening dinner.

My Aloha Friday question for this week is: What meals does this season remind you of? What do you do to eat healthy during holidays?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha Friday by Kailani at An Island Life

Aloha #32

An Afternoon At the CinemaTube

Review, Technology, Television

Last year, I wrote a "Things that make me go *drool*" blog post highlighting some cool tech items I’d love to buy. The backpack and EA Sports Active were bought soon after that post. The Webcam, I bought a few weeks ago. (Well, a different model, but same idea. Review on that coming soon.)

The last item was a Portable Media Enclosure. I didn’t wind up buying this, but I did wind up winning something even better: The Brite-View CinemaTube. (Thanks to Brite-View and Jen from The Dirty Shirt for running the giveaway.) The Brite-View can connect to an external hard drive (which I happened to have an extra of) via USB. It can also connect to your home network and/or the Internet via Ethernet or optional Wi-Fi adapter. I purchased the Wi-Fi adapter and set up the Brite-View.

I’ll admit that my first impressions weren’t all that great. I encountered two big problems. Problem 1 was that the remote had a lag to it. If you pressed a button, you had to wait about 30 seconds before pushing another button. I worked with Brite-View’s customer support and finally realized that the problem was low battery charge in the remote control. Recharging the batteries overnight solved this issue.

The second problem was on the screen where I had to enter my wireless network’s password. The password was longer than the screen allowed and extra characters were added on the end, invisible to the user. This meant that any mistake towards the end was impossible to detect until the network connection failed and the long password had to be entered all over again. This problem was fixed with a firmware update. My takeaway from this is that Brite-View seems to be constantly striving to improve their product with firmware updates. (A good sign as no product is ever perfect.)

Those problems aside, I love the Brite-View. As I said in my "drool" post last year, I hate having to swap out DVDs. First, I need to move the inevitable pile of toys that gather in front of the DVD cabinet’s doors. Then I need to find the correct DVD. Then I need to put it in, keeping the case handy so I’ll be able to put it away when the kids are done with it. Discs can easily get misplaced or lost in the stack of DVDs.

My new system is to convert the DVD to MPEG, store them on the external hard drive and let the Brite-View play them. Even better, the Brite-View allows me to set up video playlists so I can have The Wiggles, followed by 2 Max and Ruby videos and ending with Sesame Street. In other words, I can have hours of kid-entertainment without a single disc to swap. I can also play/view music files or photos or add them to the playlist, but honestly my main use is movie viewing.

In addition, the CinemaTube can stream files from other computers on your home network. Just set up a desktop computer (or laptop, but desktops tend to be more "always on") as a server using TVersity, PlayOn or any similar UPNP media server. I tried TVersity, but want to try out PlayOn for the Netflix streaming capability. I’ll post a review update when I’ve done this, but I’m very excited about this possibility. (We could move the Roku to our bedroom and use the CinemaTube in the living room for Netflix streaming.)

The CinemaTube costs $99.99, or $119.99 for the CinemaTube and USB wireless adapter. At this price, it is well worth it. If I hadn’t won it, I would have gladly paid for the functionality the CinemaTube has provided me.

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