CafeChatNoir

Got all the posts ported over through April of 2005. Damn, I’ve written a lot the past 5 years.

Helped little bro w/ replacing light fixtures today and as a result of that, I’ll be calling an electrician to do the ones I need to have done at the townhouse – I’ve managed to really screw up my bad shoulder trying to hold things up while we got them attached into the ceiling.

Watching the President totally hose floor trading at the NYSE at the moment. The White House had repeatedly denied that he would be visiting the NYSE after his speech across the street at Federal Hall, but there you go. The Secret Service folks do not seem pleased with this turn of events. (I hope they are at least grateful that the NYSE floor is an exceptionally secure area to start with.)

I’ve got a friend that could be making a mistake and I’ve done my best to give warning. (Not “you’re an idiot” mistake but a “you’ve got bad information, PLEASE double check it” mistake.) I’ve done what I can and now all I can do is hope that things turn out OK. Frustrating to say the least.

Entry migration is still coming along. Everything that has been brought over so far has been tagged and checked for security. Once everything is in, then there will be some minor cleanup still to do, as anything without a subject is automatically assigned a # for the subject and that has to go. Minor, but mildly annoying. Need to figure out how to convert the archive list to a dropdown cause it’s just too long, and there will likely be some category cleanups as well.

It’s been really interested re-reading everything as I’ve been importing it. I’ve found that when things are going badly, I write a lot more. It’s a little disturbing how things are so different for me now than they were just two years ago. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d be where I am today. Even with all the changes, there are a lot of good reminders of “don’t make that mistake again, dumbass” in the older entries.

Tonight, satay, aka Thai-meat-on-a-stick. It’s usually an appetizer, but screw that, it’s good enough on it’s own for me.

Satay

1# chicken, cut into strips (can also use flank steak)
Marinade:
2t creamy peanut butter
1/2 c. soy sauce
1/2 c. lime juice (lemon can be used, lime is just a little better)
2t curry powder
2 cloves chopped garlic
1t hot pepper sauce (I just use thai chili sauce, could pretty much use any hot sauce)

Combine the marinade ingredients, dump in the chicken, cover and refrigerate overnight (if possible – minimum 2 hours)

Put chicken/steak on skewers, grill on high heat 5 minutes on a side. (Same if using broiler inside.)

I also usually cut up a bunch of big chunks of onion and marinate & grill them along with it.

Sauce – you can get the peanut sauce in most grocery stores anymore, if not, just melt some peanut butter in a small saucepan and gradually add red pepper flakes until it gets to your desired heat level.

The import of the older entries is moving along, if a bit slowly. Have to import, review for security and then tag everything. The tagging is the slowest part, but it will be worth it to have all the entries tagged and be able to pull them all up. (I think LJ’s limit is that it only picks up the last 100 entries on a tag.) At least the more recent items should already be tagged when they come in.

It’s interesting to re-read the older entries – been going through some items from when I was working at a Very Large Farked Up Corporation and a lot of the quotes I am pretty sure came from my brother, as he was also working at a Very Farked Up Corporation at the time as well and was always emailing me assorted pearls of wisdom.

The dishwasher is also now completely fixed, which is a very good thing. The last missing part was the grinder, so now I don’t have to obsess about making sure there isn’t any gunk on the dishes before they go in.

Have already had to contact support @ Laughing Squid over something minor, got a quick response back and I loved the signoff. “support ninja” Classic.

The LJ crossposting seems to be working quite acceptably so far. The import function is a little squirrley at the moment, and I’m not sure if it’s just domain lag or something is actually wrong, as categories are updating instantly, but the posts on the backside are not – so I think it would be best if I stop attempting to import and tag things until I figure out what’s going on.

But – overall, not a bad migration so far.

Well, the site migration is finished, with only a very few minor glitches, for which I am quite grateful. I’m already very impressed with my new host, Laughing Squid – apparently this is how a real domain host is supposed to work – they actually have a decent control panel interface, actual tools that I can use to administer the database, real reports on traffic and such and well, damn, it’s nice.

Now that I’ve gotten the site migration done, I can finish with the LJ-to-WP history migration. That may take a little while, but at least I’ve got the working tools to do it now.

The DNS propagation still isn’t 100%, but by the morning it should all be there.

have been updated – just a waiting game now to see how long it takes to kick over.

So happy to be back in the kitchen. Part of it is just being happy to be in the kitchen, the other part being that I don’t feel like crap anymore so I actually feel like cooking again.

Made lumpia tonight – basically Phillipine eggrolls, but much, much better. Had them the first time when we were overseas, and they’ve always been a favorite of mine. The wrappers are thinner and fry up smoother than eggroll or springroll wrappers and well, they’re just better, you’ll have to trust me on this one. Little labor intensive getting them wrapped up, but worth it.

Lumpia (Phillipine eggrolls)

1# ground pork (can use ground beef, half beef/half pork, or the beef/pork/veal mix usually marked as “meatloaf mix” in stores)
2-3 cloves crushed garlic
1/2 c. chopped onion
1/2 c. minced carrot
1/2 c. chopped green onion
1/2 c. thin sliced cabbage
1 t. ground black pepper
1 t. salt
1 t. garlic powder
1 t. soy sauce
~20-25 lumpia wrappers (hard to find anywhere but an asian market, but worth it)

Brown the beef/pork/whatever, set aside to drain, leaving some of the oil in the pan.

Saute the garlic & onion until tender.

Add the beef/pork back along with all other ingredients. Reduce heat to low, cover and let sit 5-10 minutes. Remove from heat, let cool to the point where you can handle it without burning yourself.

Take a lumpia wrapper, put an oversized teaspoon of the filling in and pretty much just wrap it up like you would a burrito. Seal the edges with water. Once everything is wrapped, fry in hot oil (veg is fine) 1-2 minutes until golden brown.

These can be frozen before they are fried up and will do fine defrosted and fried later. Can also be put in the fridge before frying for a day or two.

Sauce – basically nothing more than a sweetened, thickened soy sauce. I usually toss some soy, brown sugar and cornstarch in a small saucepan and let it go on low heat until it’s the way I want. I’ve not used the recipe below, but it looks like it should work:

1 c. sugar
3 c. water
3T soy sauce
3T cornstarch
1.5 t salt

Melt sugar in saucepan. Make pase of the soy, cornstarch, salt and some of the water, then add the rest of the water and add it all to the sugar. (All over low heat.)

OK, got the go ahead from the new host to start mirroring – downloading everything from the old host at the moment and then get to turn around and upload it to the new side.  If I can get it all done tonight, the domain pointers will be changed tonight.  Only other maintenance will be to create the new db on the new side, run the install and then migrate the handful of actual entries over.

Shouldn’t be too hard.  So, why am I hearing decidedly disastrous notes in the background?

Many thanks to Capital Computer Rentals for getting me hooked up with a laptop on very short notice.  As it turns out, got an email from the new domain host just before I left the house and the account is already up and ready for mirroring, so that lag time I was counting on while the other laptop is in the shop on doesn’t exactly exist – so, at least I can continue the migration.  At the rate things are going, the site migration could very well be done by mid-week – the biggest unknown at this point is how long it will take for the domain pointers to be moved overl, so there is going to be some time where it’s pointing nowhere…  Going to try and see if I can get it to happen overnight so there is as little upheaval as possible.