Sunday June 11, 2006 6:50 am Lethbridge Alberta

A. Morning Musings

6:50 am The temperature is + 8 C with a high forecast of + 18.

I think the Toyota needs some new tires. Also, I need to have a look at the jack mechanism on the Ford truck. If I had a flat tire, I wouldn't know how to jack the truck up. It might make sense to look at this for the Toyota as well.

B. Plan

Immediate
Chores	Fix external thermometer	.5 hr
	Apply parging to front basement wall	2 hr
	Buy sand and lay on foundation	4 hr
	Buy patio bricks and install	6 hr
	Take Toyota in for maintenance & new tires
Health	Walk & exercise	1 hr
Literature	Continue reading "A Dream of Eagles: The Singing Sword"	1 hr
Mathematics	Gardner "The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles"	1 hr
Food	Use wok to make my first meal
Later
Chores	Take 5th wheel in for maintenance	2 hr
	Investigate water softeners for home	2 hr
History	Continue reading "Citizens"	1 hr
Technology	Read manual for cell phone	1 hr
Technology	digital photography
Mathematics	Larson "Calculus"
History	Watson "Ideas"
Model Trains	Add blue backdrop to layout
	Draw detailed layout and indicate wiring for DCC	2 hr
	Show wiring diagram to people at Trains & Such
	Review layout for under the table turnouts
	Wire lower mainline track for a power block
	Fasten lower mainline track to layout

C. Actual/Notes

Previous	Food 3	Next
Food Chronology
10:40 am I am planning to use the wok for the first time as I make Sweetcorn and chicken soup for lunch. This is the first recipe in the pamphlet that came with the wok. I then found a second recipe for the same soup in "A Flash in the Pan", a book I bought in Australia on our last trip. The latter recipe is much more elaborate, and has more appeal to me. I am still in the early stages of learning the jargon. Thank goodness I have someone in the house that I can ask. It turns out that cornflour is called corn starch in our country. And groundnut oil is an alternative name for peanut oil which I have already decided I will substitute with canola oil. The two main differences between the recipes are that the pamphlet simply uses a chicken breast while the Aussie book marinates the chicken in a sauce containing soy sauce, rice wine (aka sake), corn starch, sesame oil and ground pepper. This sounds like an improvement to me. The second difference is that it uses 2 whole eggs that are beaten while the pamphlet uses 4 egg whites. Once again, I prefer the Aussie book. One of the advantages of the pamphlet is that it gives the actual setting for the heat element (a number between 1 (low) and 14 plus "high sear". This is likely a good idea for me at the beginning until I develop a sense of the heat for the various settings. Comparing the two books, it appears that "simmer" is equivalent to "2". Now to wait until noon. 11:00 am 8:10 PM We decided to have the soup for dinner instead of lunch. I enjoyed preparing the ingredients and was impressed with how hot the wok got when it was on the "high sear" setting. I made one fairly serious mistake while beginning the actual cooking. I had the wok heated to a high temperature and then added a couple of tablespoons of canola oil. I swirled it around the surface with a teflon spatula and made sure the entire surface was coated with the hot oil. So far so good. The next step said to add the corn and the chicken broth. I began with the broth. Big mistake! As soon as the broth hit the oil at the bottom of the wok it splattered violently over the entire cupboard. I was lucky to not get burned. I then added the corn and this covered up the oil so there was no more splattering when I added the broth. After that everything proceeded smoothly. The entire mixture came to a boil in just a couple of minutes. The chicken cooked almost as soon as it hit the hot broth and the entire soup was ready in less than 5 minutes. I would rate the soup as only fair. It was good and I had a second bowl, but it was not anything special. I doubt I will make this again in the near future. But it was an excellent beginning to learning to use the wok. 8:20 PM

8:20 PM I have found time through the day to put in a good hour of reading "A Dream of Eagles: The Singing Sword".

Previous	Model Trains 7	Next
Model Trains Chronology
8:25 PM I put in a hour early this morning and another hour this evening. I have now a schematic drawing of both my upper and lower level mainlines. I also placed two sections of blue sky cardboard against the east wall. It looks like this will work just fine. I hope to show my diagrams to someone at Trains and Such in Calgary tomorrow. I want to discuss the wiring for DCC and continue to compare the Digitrax equipment with the MRC equipment. At the moment I think I need one power pack and two boosters (unless the power pack counts as one booster?) as well as 2 automatic reversing boosters (one for each reversing loop). I still need to understand what other attachments are available. For example, one for handling turnouts, one for sensing if a section of track is occupied. I also want to compare the hand controls for Digitrax and MRC. I sense that the MRC control is more intuitive. But I am not sure about the relative features of the complete package for each.

D. Reflection