This is not some generic post about the theory or philosophy of making a cup of coffee, but a specific point-by-point set of instructions on how to make a cup of coffee (ie. espresso) with frothed milk (a la cappucino, latte or flat white) for one or two people. The equipment in use is a Diadema (Junior Plus) La Valentina levetta heat exchanger coffee machine, and the grinder is a Macap M4 doserless grinder.
For the past two months I’ve been busy, unbelievably busy, ridiculously busy. I know how it began, I hope I know how it will end, but what I don’t know is when it will end. It all began with a prompting, I believe from God, to read 1 Peter - the first letter or epistle attributed to Peter in the New Testament. In 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 6 and 7 we read:
My wife, eldest daughter and I had the privilege of attending the Midnight Oil concert in Coffs Harbour on 19th October. In total the Oils played 23 songs and, at the time, I thought a lot came from their albums of the middle period from the early to mid eighties. I thought I’d work it out and let everyone else know, too:
| # | Title | Album | Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| ……….. | ………………………………… | ……………………………….. | ………. |
| 1 | Outside World | 10 to 1 | 1/5 |
| 2 | Only the Strong | 10 to 1 | 2/5 |
| 3 | Stars of Warburton | Blue Sky Mining | 1/3 |
| 4 | Dreamworld | Diesel and Dust | 1/8 |
| 5 | Whoah | Diesel and Dust | 2/8 |
| 6 | Lucky Country | Place Without a Postcard | 1/1 |
| 7 | Section 5 (Bus to Bondi) | Head Injuries | 1/1 |
| 8 | Sell My Soul | Diesel and Dust | 3/8 |
| 9 | When the Generals Talk | Red Sails in the Sunset | 1/3 |
| 10 | Short Memory | 10 to 1 | 3/5 |
| 11 | Treaty | (Yothu Yindi cover) | - |
| 12 | US Forces | 10 to 1 | 4/5 |
| 13 | Kosciusko | Red Sails in the Sunset | 2/3 |
| 14 | No Time for Games | Bird Noises | 1/1 |
| 15 | Put Down That Weapon | Diesel and Dust | 4/8 |
| 16 | Warakurna | Diesel and Dust | 5/8 |
| 17 | Beds Are Burning | Diesel and Dust | 6/8 |
| 18 | Blue Sky Mine | Blue Sky Mining | 2/3 |
| 19 | Forgotten Years | Blue Sky Mining | 3/3 |
| Encore: | |||
| 20 | The Dead Heart | Diesel and Dust | 7/8 |
| 21 | Power and the Passion | 10 to 1 | 5/5 |
| 22 | Sometimes | Diesel and Dust | 8/8 |
| Encore 2: | |||
| 23 | Best of Both Worlds | Red Sails in the Sunset | 3/3 |
I was surprised to discover just how many songs came from Diesel and Dust. The era from Place Without a Postcard to Blue Sky Mining are my favourites and twenty of the twenty three songs came from those albums. Two other songs were from earlier albums which I do quite like, and there was one cover which I also knew. I’m not as familiar with their later material (from Earth and Sun and Moon, Breathe, Redneck Wonderland and Capricornia) and there were no songs from that era!
My search for productivity tools that suit my platforms (linux @ home, windows @ work) and work philosophy (KISS, plain text preferred for transportability, not being locked into a particular tool or suite) continues.
I’m now using TiddlyWiki for general notes - one wiki file for home stuff and another wiki file for work stuff. I use minimal formatting in the tiddlers, but try to make good use of tags so I can track/trace ideas. I was using TiddlyWiki through Firefox but apparently a future release of Firefox (due in a month or two) won’t allow TiddlyWikis to be easily saved. As a result I’m now using Pale Moon browser for my wikis and will probably migrate the majority of my web usage to/through it.
I’ve often been intrigued by the moon. When I was a teenager I had a (very) modest refractor telescope and would spend parts of evenings outside in the cool inviting mosquito bites as I looked at the moon, jupiter, saturn and venus. I could identify a fair proportion of the southern hemisphere night sky (well, that “fair proportion” was probably 5% of what was visible).
But back to the moon: Around 250,000 miles from earth, sufficient to give light at night for at least half of the month, exactly the right relative size and distances from the earth and sun to provide eclipses, powerful enough even though inert to provide tides through gravity.
Over the years I’ve searched for, tried, stopped using, used again, reconsidered, stopped using, considered some more on note-taking/recording/filing systems.
Generally I’ve opted for computer-based systems but have also tried paper-based methods.
The list is probably not complete, and in no particular order:
I would class Treepad, Zim and Cherrytree together in the same forest; to do lists and bullet journals in the same paddock; notebooks (including DIY Planner) as the medium rather than the method; and my brain as the fallback for all of the others.
In Australia at the moment there is much debate about same sex marriage.1
What do I think about same sex marriage? I believe it is not the ideal for society, and I base that on God’s view as I understand His written word, the Bible. It is clear to me that God’s intent for the family is that it comprises a man married to a woman and that children are conceived, born and raised within that context. There is no room for polygamy, for adultery, for homosexuality, for infidelity. Any and all of these are contrary to the ideal God has expressed.
A few months ago I read a brief article on a local news website about personal kanban and how it can help organise aspects of our lives.
I’d only ever heard of kanban within the context of manufacturing environments so was intrigued enough to read the article, buy the book and eventually read the book. As a result I have recently begun to implement personal kanban without my work context. The book, Personal Kanban, is by Jim Benson and Tonianne deMaria Barry and was interesting, engaging and funny.
As I’ve mentioned previously, we got our first “personal computer” back in 1995. It came with an array of pretty amazing software (or so I thought at the time) including Encarta, MS Money and MS Works.
Being fairly keen to put these software workhorses to the plough, I loaded up MS Money and proceeded to track our personal finances using it. The excitement grew thin after a while so MS Money was shelved.
When I was young my parent’s house back onto bushland. This meant that the shortage of neighbours was more than offset by the availability of firewood.
Often on a weekend we would have a barbeque for lunch (generally on a Sunday, Saturday was golf day). Standard fare was steak, sausages, tossed green salad and sauce.
Almost invariably the steak was cooked to within an inch of its life - well, a few feet into death, really. My father had been taught that meat is only cooked when it’s very dark, and consequently fairly tough. Tasty, yes, but equally chewy.