Pondering MPG

So, here in the States, we calculate the efficiency of our car by miles per gallon. The more ground we cover per gallon, the happier we are. Naturally this means we get the best of our car on long road trips where acceleration isn't necessary and we can maintain a speed.

This means that city driving, which involves a great deal of time idling, is viewed as inefficient driving. I got to wondering yesterday if we would look at the whole situation differently if we changed the unit miles into minutes.

I could be like, "Oh yeah, my car gets 30 minutes to a gallon" (if my math is right, this is decent fuel efficiency--the increments don't seem to be too far off mileage).

It might even the fuel efficiency playing field--it might not. Measuring fuel efficiency in minutes would eliminate the view that idling time is wasted gas, but all the acceleration of city drivers would still impact the amount of time they get out of their gas tank. I just wonder. I might have to start tracking the time I spend in my car and evaluating my minutes per gallon.

In truth, I think my car gets about 27 minutes per gallon (right about the same mileage it gets). My daily commute is in town, but I drive at least one 500 mile road trip each month. Instead of averaging it all together, I should track a period of time that is in town only and then track highway time. 'Twould be interesting.

Creating Graphic Resumes

I started working on a graphic resume to have handy for the impending job hunt I will be on. Here is a tiny jpeg version of it. Tis pretty nifty. I'm making more for my friends Rachelle and Adriane too. With individualized color and layout. I need to get working on my website. Blergh.  

Oh...I made if with Adobe InDesign if you're wondering. It's a pricy piece of software, but I LOVE it! I do not know what I would do without my Adobe Creative Suite. Paired with that collection of software, I am an unstoppable force. It's the best investment I ever made. Too bad I cannot afford an upgrade. I'd also like Framemaker for the next jump in my professional life. Need more money!

Tutoring Days 2-4

So I've tutored 3 more times, and I love these ladies, but I'm worried I'm losing them because I hadn't quite figured out their old system, and they have 2 years of this and a previous tutor that they loved. I think I'm flopping in comparison because I don't know what the expectations are.

After reading a million blogs and things from ESL tutors, I decided to go with 1984 for a book to read. The ladies weren't giving me a lot of direction. It's a HUGE leap for them. Maybe too much. M seems like it might be crossing the line into frustrating read. C seems to be excited about it. I don't know about D. She wasn't there on Thursday.

I do have a better plan to make this work. C, now that I finally met her, was able to answer questions about how things worked before so that I have a better idea of what is a reasonable expectation for what to cover in a class.

Game on. Don't let me screw this up. Failing at this sort of throws a kink in my librarian plans. Although, I think I could very effectively be a coordinator of these sort of things. I'm organized, smart, and efficient. I could be the force behind the tutors. That would be great, but how would I ever get such a job without acting as tutor? Blergh.

Tutoring Day 1

So communication about tutoring yesterday (Tuesday) was a flop. The previous tutor called the group and let them know we'd be meeting, but I forgot to send a reminder, and then when I did, I think I sent it to the wrong numbers (I have 2 sets). End result--no one showed up.

D forgot her book, and she lives far away, so she didn't make it. I still haven't heard from C. M remembered after I sent a text, so she showed up late, and then we had an awesome time.

Of the three, M's English is the poorest, although I think it's still good. She has no problem just taking off in Spanish, and it was fun because even though I missed most of what she was saying, I caught an enjoyable amount with the help of the limited Spanish knowledge I have and with my French. She's hilarious and I like her a lot. It will be a good opportunity for me to build my Spanish while I help others with English.

I feel a lot better about this tutoring thing having met M. She's outgoing and out-spoken, and it's good for me because I can be a bit shy. D is also shy, so I think between the two of us, tutoring wouldn't be that productive without M to draw us out. She's just awesome.

We have a textbook and workbooks to go through, and they're helpful for building vocabularly and practicing elements of grammar, but I kind of think this group is ready to step up. I might ask them if they want to do the textbook one day a week and the other day we can work our way through a novel and talk about it. D wants to work on her writing, and M told me she likes to write as a hobby, so we could write responses, and perhaps do some creative writing too.

I'm excited.

Been Reading a Bit Lately

I read all of Dune, finally! Check off most important sci-fi reading to do off my list.

Then I read this awful (okay it wasn't that bad) mystery novel my boss loaned me: Deep, and Dark, and Deadly, I believe it was called. It was a YA book. I'm sure lots of people like it. I was intriqued at moments, and I wasn't bored reading it. I just often found myself thinking "that dialogue is a plot device." I don't like to feel so blatantly directed by dialogue and action in a story. It should seem subtle and natural, and I really found a lot of moments in that book unnatural...and it had nothing to do with the supernatural element to the tale.

I'm currently reading Eragon. My friend Jamie recommended it to me like a thousand times, and I'm just getting to it now. I wouldn't say it's an amazing story. I'm not in love with the characters, but I'm definitely hooked. There's something there, although at times I find the description a bit over the top. I'd say it's my favorite read of the summer since I finished Rick Riordan's The Throne of Fire. It's good to geek out and read nerdy dragon stories. My thirteen-year-old self would be happy with my adult me for this reading choice.

I don't know what I will read after this. So many choices. Perhaps another sci-fi. I didn't love The Female Man, but I liked how it got me thinking. I want to do some intense mind-bloggling thinking.

Day of Yum, Part 2

I finally got to eat some of my tasty treats!

The Chargrilled Yellow Bell Pepper soup is good, even chilled, but I think the flavor comes out better when it's warm. I would not put the gremolatta on a warm version. It would taste too lemony. The gremolatta is very good on the chilled version though.

While the base for the coffee ice cream was super tasty, the coffee flavor is almost imperceptible in the frozen and churned finished product. What I have in my freezer tastes more like vanilla with heath bar. In the future, I will double or triple the instant coffee and espresso. I may even try to stir a little instant coffee into what I have to sharpen the coffee flavor.

To go along with my chilled bell pepper soup for dinner, I made a little venison (butterfly cut--not sure of much more). I had planned to eat this Saturday, so I pulled it out of the freezer, threw it in a tupperware with coffee, beer (a dark lager), molasses, soy sauce, lime juice, garlic, and maybe a hint of cayenne pepper. I can't fully remember, and I definitely didn't measure. Then I threw it all in a skillet on med-high, and flipped the meet quite a few times to keep it juicy. The end product smelled like heaven and tasted like it too. The tang of the venison came through too, so it wasn't lost in two days of intense marinade. Heavenly. I am so excited by how good it was. I can't wait to eat the leftovers over the next couple days.

Yum, yum, yum. I'm going to have a beer while I bake my red velvet cake, and then I will indulge in some ice cream. Ciao!

Day of Yum!

Today I went a bit crazy in the kitchen. Both sinks are full of pots and pans, the stop top is bearing the burden of the ones that won't fit in the sink, but it was successful.

I prepped the base for my coffee heath bar ice cream. I'll pick up ice after work tomorrow and finish it up. I did taste the base, and it's heavenly!

Then I made the zucchini cornbread. Amazing! It does have a very buttery flavor, so you could cut the butter a bit. I did add parsley as some reviewers suggested. Yum, yum, yum.

Last, but not least, I made a Chargrilled Yellow Bell Pepper Soup. It's a chilled soup, so I can't indulge untile tomorrow on this treat either, but the bit I licked off the spatula was very tasty. My taste test was also suggestive that this would be good warm too. It actually tasted a bit like a soup I had at Harry's once.

Since there's no link to the soup, here's what I did.

1. Halved and de-seeded 3 yellow bell peppers.
2. Broiled them until the oustide was blacked.
3. Wrapped the peppers in a damp cool cloth and let them cool.
4. Pelled off their skins.
5. Then I finely chopped the following:
• the 3 bell peppers
• 1 very small potato
• 1 very small onion
• 1 smaller carrot
6. In a medium/large saucepan, I heated 3 tablespoons olive oil on medium heat.
7. Then I tossed in a teaspoon of minced garlic and my chopped onion and cooked for 5 minutes.
8. Threw in the peppers, carrots, and potato, some salt & pepper, and cooked for 5 minutes.
9. Poured in 4 cups of vegetable stock and brought to a boil.
10. Lowered the temp and let it all simmer for 10 minutes.
11. Pureed it in my happy blender.
12. Strained it into a large bowl, and placed in a nice cool space in from fridge to chill.

It needs a mimimum of 2 hours to chill, so I haven't eaten it yet. When I do eat it, I will put Gremolata on top (mix of 3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley, 1 lemon's worth of zest, and 1 garlic clove diced up).

This soup will go very well with my zucchini bread.

Tomorrow, I will endeavor to conquer red velvet cake. I did buy all the ingredients for it today.