Chicken Alfredo Pizza

This will make enough for several pizzas with sufficient leftover for pasta.

8 oz cream cheese, cubed
3/4 C Parmesan cheese, grated
1/2 C butter
1 C milk (more as needed)
Garlic to taste

Mix cream and Parmesan cheese, butter, milk and garlic in a saucepan

Chicken, grilled and cubed
Feta cheese, crumbled
mozzarella cheese, shredded
green onion, sliced
pizza crust

Chicken Noodle Soup (Turkey Noodle).

This is my mom in law's recipe.
1 whole chicken
1 C diced celery
1 C diced onion
2 chicken bullion cubes
Poultry seasoning to taste
Sage to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
2-3 T cornstarch mixed in 1/4 C cold water

Boil chicken, debone and dice. Cook celery, onions, and bullion in the chicken broth. Put desired quantity of chicken (turkey after Thanksgiving) in the soup and season to taste.

Noodles:
2 eggs
1/4 C water
1/2 tsp salt
Flour

Whisk eggs, water and salt. Add flour to make a medium stiff dough. Roll as thin as possible on a floured surface. Sprinkle dough with flour. Fold over/roll over like a thin jelly roll. Cut into slices. Unroll sliced and drop in boiling soup. Cooks in 2 minutes.

Still here

9/11 is an ominous date. I remember thinking about the significance of that date when I found out that was the date of round two (out of three) for my boards. On 9/11/01, I was teaching high school and I remember watching the news before I left for school. Watching jets fly into the twin towers. Most of you were at work and school when you found out, but Hawaii is 6 hours behind us. (In the summer, no daylight savings.) So, it happened before we got up. I remember how surreal it felt. How shook up all my students were.

Eight years later it was a traumatic time to my family. Not emotionally traumatic to me, but very much so for my wife.

I remember finishing written boards. I finished early so I had all afternoon off. I came home and talked Jess into having a celebratory bike ride. What better way to celebrate a brief respite from months of studying. There was no way we could find a sitter on a Friday afternoon. So, we decided to do intervals and take turns watching Maggie. We drove up to heartbreak hill. It is short, about a mile. But steep. The last half is steep, I believe 12% grade. (It climbs .12 miles, 633ft, for every mile.)

Jess did the first climb. Maggie and I accompanied her during the less easier first half with Maggie in our kangaroo seat. We went back to the truck and we played in the dirt. When Jess came back, it was my turn. The last thing I remember was clicking into my pedals.

Jess started to worry because I was taking longer to return than expected. According to the accident scene I was descending. There are no hairpin corners, it is nearly straight. I was probably going fast. A passing motorist saw my bike and came over to investigate and see if a biker was in trouble, and sure enough. He called 911. Jess saw the ambulance and put Maggie in truck and came up. What I have gone through in no way compares with what my family went through. Not knowing if I would live or die. Not knowing if I would be a permanent nursing home resident. It was hard for Jess. It was hard for Krehl and the rest of my family. Blaine died July 7, 2004, so it was kind of close to home.

The anniversary of my accident fell on a Saturday this year. Being a little crazy I wanted a way to say, "I'm Still Here." I am blessed that Jess was OK with me doing a bike ride on this ominous date.

I thought about Latoja (Logan to Jackson Hole). In the end I decided to do 100 miles not 200. The Enchanted Circle is a ride I have wanted to do for a while. It is a beautiful route. It feels like southern Colorado. Mount Wheeler, the tallest peak in New Mexico 13,140 ft, and the Taos ski hill are right in the center of the loop.

Red river is the little green pushpin at the top of the circle. We went counterclockwise. All the climbs were fun. It was fun to pass the crazies that zipped by me on the descents. As you probably would have guessed. I go much slower on the downhills.

It was so beautiful and a fun ride. The last climb was the highest topping out at 9,800 feet. And you already have 85 miles on the legs.

My bike has a ride time of 6 hours 8 min.

I did not expect a century to be a spiritual experience, I had a powerful feeling of gratitude during one of my descents. I was thankful that it was part of God's plan for me to stay here to try to raise Maggie well and be a good husband.

One of my Attendings told me he was on Neuroradiology call the Saturday after my accident. So he read many of the brain CTs and MRIs. He told me how blessed I am to still be here. (And this is coming from someone who I did not know was spiritual.)

I am so blessed to still be here with my wife and daughter.

The Shoulder Sync

Another fun Blaine memory.

Krehl Blaine and I were building the middle bottom apartment of 237 the spring and summer of 1999ish. I believe Blaine was a Senior. (There is some guess work on the dates) Blaine was similar in weight to Krehl and I but definitely a little taller. So any overhead wiring was his by default. Krehl and I needed a step ladder or an overturned five gallon bucket to reach high enough to thread wires through the rafters. But Blaine just had to tip toe a little and with that wide wing span of his he could reach over the rafters. (No stepstool or upside-down bucket)

Another fun memory from that summer: We would start early and stay late so we could justify taking off an afternoon or two during the week to drive down to Shelley Idaho. This was one of those record setting runoff years so the Shelly wave was running that spring. The Snake River overflowed its banks and flooded I-15 at one point.

A couple years previous, when I got home from my mission, Sandra sold me her Chevy S-10. It was perfect. It worked great for hauling lumber, doors, and it worked great for hauling kayaks. No rope or tie downs to mess around with, just throw the boats in the back. The only downside was shoulder room. Imagine Krehl, Blaine and I in the front seat of a tiny pickup. This required a couple peculiar group behaviors. I would push in the clutch and tell Blaine what gear I wanted and he would shift. Another idiosyncrasy, my favorite part of this memory, was our shoulders had to be in sync. If Blaine wanted his left shoulder forward, Krehl and I had to put our left shoulders forward. If Blaine put his right shoulder forward, Krehl and I had to put our right shoulders forward. A lot of fun memories of kayaking with that amazing man.

The Churro

I wanted to share a fun Blaine memory. About 18 years ago we had a family California vacation. It was so much fun. Picture a Buick century with six people in it. (For those people who do not have any memories of the Pleistocene, that was a midsize sedan. And today’s midsize is bigger than a midsize sedan from a generation ago.) It was a little crowded with Krehl Blaine and I in the back seat, and this was the 10ish year old Blaine. Not the bigger than me, Blaine. When we picked up Ra in Arizona, Sandra sat between Krehl and I in the back. Blaine sat between Mom and Dad in the front. That Buick did not have a bench seat. They folded up the arm rest and put a pillow over the cup holders. Another reference to an older age, before seat belt laws were equivalent to the stone tablets Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. Several years after this trip, I remember Sandra saying other trying experiences pale in comparison to her Sardine status being squished between two boys in the back of that Buick.

Now imagine a gruff complaint coming from the front seat, “Why are we going to California, I never left anything down there.”

The third fun aspect of the drive was if you wanted something out of the car, you would go and ask Mother for the keys. She would turn her back to you and take out the car keys from her bra. It was a little disconcerting to receive these warm, slightly damp keys in your hands. The next challenge was the challenge of Mothers packing. Nobody can pack a freezer or car trunk as efficiently. You would go to the trunk and take out your bag. If you bag was on top you were golden. If you had to move anything to take you bag out the trunk was not going to close. There was less volume. You just took out a bag. Even with careful attention to detail while repacking, the trunk would not close.

After much trial and tribulation we arrived in California. We went to Disneyland, Knoxberry Farms Park, Universal Studios, and Sea World. We did not buy lunch or treats at any of these parks. We had a bag with sandwiches etc. People used to have more respect for thrift. Today it seems there is more derision and mockery of this value. We did not expect overpriced treats at these parks, but the smell of the Churro’s was overpowering. Blaine asked Mother several times for one these overpriced heart attacks. They are about ¾ inch wide and 8ish inches long. They were probably $5. Imagine paying $5 for a doughnut. That is one expensive cinnamon and sugar coated, deep fried, ticket to heaven. Did I mention the smell, heavenly. After a full day of walking past this scintillating smell, Sandra took mercy on Blaine and gave him the money. As he came back towards us holding his churro in a small square of wax paper, he had the ultimate expression of ecstasy. I have never seen a smile that wide. Suddenly, a seagull swooped down and grabbed the side sticking out of the paper. Now during our week we had already seen seagulls rob many of people eating at the amusement parks. Someone would turn their head to answer a question and these rats with wings would sneak up grab a sandwich inches from that person’s hand. We had not lost any our food prior to Blaine’s loss. We were lucky, but we also watched our food with great diligence.

Part of the tragedy of Blaine’s loss was the quantity. The seagull did not just get a bite. The whole churro slide out of the wax paper. This was not a mostly eaten sandwich like we had seen other people lose. This was an uneaten, unbitten, whole tube of sugar coated heaven. We saw Blaine’s countenance fall. He did a couple short hops and pounded the pavement with both feet every hop. He kept repeating, “Stupid Seagull!”

This created a small irony when Blaine got his mission call to San Diego. The home of Sea World and his seagull.

This week while I was retelling the seagull story to Jess for at least the third or fourth time, she read me this from Sea World’s map, “Seagulls in the park can be aggressive. Please do not feed the seagulls or leave small children alone with food. Sea World replaces purchased food stolen or damaged by seagulls.” I wish we had known that 18ish years ago, Blaine could have enjoyed his churro.

Shoes make it safe to climb a ladder

Our peaches are ripe enough for the birds to eat, so we are in a race to get them picked before they disappear. Maggie was helping. It was cute. She would pick three or four peaches and bring them over and dump them into the paper box I brought home from work.

She would pick the low hanging fruit that was Maggie high while I was up on the ladder. At some point she started climbing the ladder. She was on the first rung. I told her that I did not want her to climb the ladder. She seemed to accept this and climbed back off that rung. Then she ran into the house. She ran back out wearing her shoes and started to climb the ladder again. I told her to get off the ladder and she balked. She I climbed down to distract her with all the low hanging fruit. And she started yelling, "shoes... shoes... shoes".

Somehow the shoes permitted her to climb the ladder.

I began pondering her reasoning. And I think I understand. Some afternoons after work, I go running with her in the baby jogger. Before we leave I ask her to get her shoes. Sometime she does and sometimes she doesn't. While we are out running, she will often ask to stop at one of the parks. So, we will include the park in our route. But no shoes, no stop. So, I think she associated how the shoes make the park possible with shoes make it safe to climb the ladder.

No, shoes do not make safe for little girls to climb ladders.

We picked a small fraction of the peaches from our tree and we got about two bushels. I took the most ripe and make three batches of freezer jam. It is really good jam. It brought back fun memories of helping the family peal peaches during canning season. Now I understand why jam tastes so good. One batch of jam uses 6 and 1/2 cups of sugar for 2 and 3/4 cups of diced peaches. I was surprised all that sugar mixed in. And as a small afterthought one adds in some pectin.

I did not get home soon enough from work tonight to get any picked. So the birds are pulling ahead.

Another aside: Mother would bring home a station wagon full of tomatoes. So, we had a fair amount of pealing looming over us. Now, pealing peaches is fun. But tomato's are miserable. If you nick a finger it will sting. Even if you have no cuts, after a while your hands itch and sting. So, we would eat as many tomato sandwiches are we could. We would slice the tomatoes quite thick. And of coarse, grandma style (no top piece of bread). You don't want to waste stomach space on the bread.

All those tomato sandwiches is why I love tomatoes so much.

I am excited as a young boy Christmas morning

One of the projects that started months ago with all my free time was a long board. Jess gave me the wheels several Christmases ago. They are beautiful wheels, 95mm. A little bigger wheel makes the bumps feel a lot smoother. And these wheels are fast.

I have had the birth plywood since undergrad. I had an approximate shape traced. I started building this new longboard a couple months ago. I cut it out. I figured out a way to cut out the wheel recesses.

I didn't finish it because of one the holes in my memory had the location for a truck part (trucks = skateboard axles). I tore my garage apart and racked my memory. And nothing. Then today I found it. I was in the middle of another project and there it was. So, I finally finished my new long board.

Maggie "helped" me work on it and she asked to ride it, so we coasted down the driveway on it.

The Penguin for the location of that truck part got pushed off the iceberg.

The following story is a bit of a digression.

I was the assistant scout master during Medical School. I was telling the boys why I was so crappy with names. I told them our brains are like an iceberg. There is only enough room for a certain number of penguin. If more penguins jump up on one side, other penguins get pushed off the other side. I told them that the penguin for names get pushed off my iceberg by some of my medical school penguins, i.e. pharmacology penguins, etc. Just then I stopped at a red light. I was telling this story, so I was distracted and I treated the red light like a stop sign. There were no cars so I went through this small intersection even though the light was still red. So, a member of the peanut gallery in the back seat pipes up and says, "Did you lose the penguin for Red Lights?"

Hi Ho Hi Ho Its Off to Work I Go

I have been back to work for a little over a month. I love being a Radiologist. The first several days back, I would come home giddy with excitement. There are still a few small holes, but a lot comes back with having to think about it. Like riding a bike.

I am glad that back in January the Neuropsych test said to recover longer. It is better not to lose the confident of my Attendings. So far I think they are happy with my performance. One of them told me I was ready for oral boards in his subspecialty. It was a very nice compliment. But I will not be taking oral boards this spring. Because of my unexpected hiatus it will a year from this spring.

Chicken Enchiladas

1 chopped onion
3 chicken breasts
1 4 oz can of diced green chili peppers (drained)
1 package of cream cheese (softened)
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1 package tortillas
1 can cream of mushroom or chicken
1 8 oz carton sour cream
1 can green chili enchilada sauce
3/4 cup shredded cheese

Saute onions and cook cubed chicken. In a large bowl combine softened cream cheese, cream of chicken/mushroom, sour cream, 3/4 of the enchilada sauce, and cumin. Stir in green chili peppers and cooked chicken and onions.

Cover the bottom of a 9x13 pan with 1/8 of the can of enchilada sauce. Fill tortillas, roll, and place seam side down in the pan. Pour remaining enchilada sauce over pan contents. Sprinkle with cheese. Cover with foil. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes. Remove foil and bake for 5 addition minutes.

Feather Pancakes by Shad Solis

1 egg
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons oil
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix wet ingredients. Add dry ingredients and mix. If possible refrigerate overnight for more fluffy pancakes.

Potato Salad

I experiment with potato salad a lot. It is different every time I make it. I actually looked up a recipe this time. I found a potato salad recipe that uses bacon.

This recipe is for baked potatoes.

3 large baked potatoes, peeled and cubed
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise
8 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 green onions sliced and chopped
shredded cheddar cheese
pepper
celery salt
garlic powder
paprika
parsley

Boring Book Blog Continued

I just finished skimming and reading portions of a pruning book. "Cass Turnbull's Guide to Pruning: What, When..." It was interesting. It kind of opened my eyes to how much I don't know. Another whole body of knowledge that I don't posses. I went a little nuts on our trees a couple months ago and mostly did the right things. It is good to understand a little of why the trees respond the way they do. I am glad I read it it to get a good game plan on future pruning.

It is so nice to have my right hand back.

I went to the Ortho appointment yesterday. And they took off my cast/splint. It felt so nice to move my hand and wrist. My skin felt so tingly and weird. It has only been two weeks, I can't imagine what it would feel like after 6 weeks.

The hand surgeon acted pleased with the radiograph. I don't know what it looked like right after the surgery, two weeks ago. It is difficult to decide if I have been recovering well without some comparison. And I really can't compare with the presurgery radiograph from two months ago, that is comparing apples and oranges. They did not save any of the fluoroscopic images. I wish they had saved a fluoro image or taken a postop x-ray.

(continued ranting) In radiology when we do a hip injection or lumbar puncture, we save a fluoro image to prove our needle was in the right place. It is unfathomable that these surgeons whom I admire would do a procedure and not document that they did it right. If I fall at home and break something they have no proof that it was not that way when they finished.

Anyway, It is so nice to have my right hand back. Two hands for typing is so much faster than moderately bad speech recognition and light speed faster than one handed typing. It is nice be able to eat. Chasing food around my plate with an uncoordinated left hand was entertaining but much slower than a knife and fork.

I am fine to type, write, and eat with my right hand. The hand surgeon just does not want me to torque or lift with this hand. They gave me a forearm splint. It was fun to watch the techs at the rehab center make it. They have these sheets of thin plastic board that they cut up and soaked in warm water. While it is warm it is soft and malleable. Once it cools it is as stiff as fiberglass. The splint is nice because it helps me to remember not to use my hand. And it protects my arm from getting bumped etc. I am a little paranoid about somehow screwing up this surgical plate and getting another nonunited fracture. So I still do a lot of things left handed that I am fine to do with my right.

Surgery.

I had surgery Tuesday the 20th. I used to think that I was tough. But, I'm a total wimp. Surgery was at seven in the morning. The remainder of the day was spent under the haze of pain medication.

I really bummed about the arm not healing. They took out the titanium plate, did some rasping/filing/carpentry type work, and put another titanium plate in. Hopefully the second time is the charm.

So now I'm trying to you everything was my left hand. And I am very right hand dominant. The day after surgery I cooked lemon squares. I cracked the eggs one handed and with my left hand. I felt like the cook on M.A.S.H.

How you do you put shampoo in your hair with one hand? You have no idea how much you're putting in. The solution I came up with makes me think I am clever. You lift up your thigh and put on a little dollop. Then you scoop up this dollop and put it on your head. I'm sure smarter people than me have already figured this out or found a better way.

I am learning to get dressed one handed. For church today I buttoned up shirt and tied my tie with my left hand.

It has been fun to figure out how to do all the things that I used to doing with two hands with my uncoordinated left hand. Like hanging up clothes and opening pill bottles.

I hate typing one handed, so I am experimenting with Microsoft's voice recognition. Not as smooth as the voice recognition software at work.

For things that I can't open with one hand, I use my right arm pit and left hand. It has started to become pretty instinctive.

You might have watched a show about a woman with no arms that could type and fill a shopping cart with her toes. I had a similar moment in a small way. I needed to open a three ring binder for my ward clerk duties. The binder would not open just by pushing one of the tabs or trying to spread one of the rings with my left hand. I tried to open one tab with my chin and the other with my left hand. No good. So I used my right great toe and my left hand to push on the tabs and the binder opened right up. I felt very clever. But I was also happy no one was there. One thing that made it easier was having dress shoes without laces.

Buttermilk Syrup

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 tablespoons corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions: In a saucepan, stir together the sugar, buttermilk, butter, corn syrup, and baking soda. Bring to a boil, and cook for 7 minutes. Remove from the heat, and stir in the vanilla.

Buttermilk Waffles

1 and 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix dry ingredients together.

2 eggs
2 cups buttermilk
1/3 cup oil

Beat liquids together in another bowl. Stir into dry ingredients until combined.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

2 chicken breasts
1 cup flour
Ginger powder (To taste, quantity unspecified)
Garlic powder " "


Cut chicken into bite sized pieces. With this recipe you can substitute pork or beef. Beat eggs and milk in a bowl until combined. Mix flour and seasoning on a plate. Jess told me how to maximize the breading. Flour the chicken pieces. Then dip in the egg mixture. Then reflour. Fry in 1/2 in. of oil. Put on a paper towel.

1 can of pineapple, and save 1/2 cup of the pineapple juice for the sauce
1 cup water
3 table spoons lemon juice
1 yellow onion
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
(the recipe did not specify, but add some soy sauce)
2 rounded tablespoons corn starch

Mix the above in a sauce pan. Add corn starch slurry (starch mixed with cold water). Stir and cook until thick. Add onions until caramelized. Add vegetables. We just used a random frozen stir fry vegetable mix. Source recipe describes bell peppers and carrots. Vegetables will thin the sauce a little. Once the vegetables are cooked add the pineapple and chicken.

Serve over rice.

Mt Taylor Quadrathalon

I did the Mt Taylor again yesterday. It was an adventure. I wanted to do it to prove that I was still alive.



I love the prerace energy and adrenaline.

There were so many fun people to talk to. While we were pumping up tires and gearing up our bikes I talked to the people who parked next to me. One was a tectonic Geology Professor from Virginia. This is his research year. The couple who parked on the other side were from South Dakota. Imagine driving two days to do a race. This event is one of kind. There are plenty of triathlons, but I don't know of any other winter mulitsport events. I met a builder from Pagosa Springs in Southern Colorado. He just finished building a house for a cardiac surgeon. This builder is a crazy man. He does endurance mountain bike races. He told me about a 60 mile mountain bike race that has 14,000 feet of climbing. He did not win the lottery for another race down by Tucson, so this was his backup race. I met quite a few Coloradoans. One of the Denverites moved from England 30 years ago. It was fun to hear the accent. Everybody had such interesting stories.

Well my time was only slightly faster than last year, 7 hours 5 min. (Last year was 7:13.) I finished 107 out of 127 male soloists. In my age group (30-34), I was 24th of 26. The winner's time was 3:49. There were a bunch of people in the 5 and 6 hours. There were two soloists that finished just over 9 hours.

The following is a direct result of my nerdiness. So in 7 hours of exercise I burned 5,600 calories. I loved the homemade Reeses peanut butter cups. (see previous post) My average heart rate was 143.

Two of my attendings were there as well. Adam Delu finished 104th with a time of 7 hours. He would have finished faster. He was passing me on the uphill snowshoe and slowed down to talk. We ran 2-3 miles of the downhill run together. I got tired of running and told him to go ahead. I walked the rest of the run. Kevin Williams, another interventionalist, beat half of the other soloists, 62th, with a time of 5:56.

Mt Taylor is 11,300 feet. It was an amazing vista. (View not microsoft operating system.) You could see hundreds of miles away including Albuquerque and Sandia Peak. I stopped and looked around for a while.

The bike portion was a little over 13 miles, you climb 1,800 feet and took 1:16. Last year my bike had a triple chainring (lower gearing). My new bike is a double and I missed those three lowest gears. I had to get out of the saddle (stand up on the peddles) for much of the last mile or two. This might be part of the reason I am sore today.

The run is 5 miles and climbs 1,200 feet. I did the run in 1:20. The run felt a lot better this year.

I climbed another 1,200 feet in 55:10 on the uphill cross country ski.

I climbed 600 feet of uphill snowshoe climb in 40:25.

Total time for the climb was 4:12.

Downhill snowshoe: 19:32

Downhill ski: 39:53 It was funny watching people with very little skiing experience crashing all over the place. You know those lightweight fiberglass fencepost that they push into the snow at ski hills. I saw one poor fellow take out a couple of those. I was passed by two people with Randonnee (alpine touring) skis. They use regular hard alpine ski boots but the bindings pivot like telemark skis. For the downhill they lock the bindings down for better control.

I was feeling better this year. After 2-3 miles I really started to feel it, so I said thanks to Delu for the company and started walking. I finished the downhill run in 1:11. This should be called the down hill walk.

Downhill bike: 41 minutes. I passed a couple of racer once I got down to the valley.

Here is a link to the Mt Taylor Quadrathalon site. They say 42 miles. My GPS says nearly 45 miles.

http://www.mttaylorquad.org/

If you are interested, here is a link to my report from last years race.

http://superstegelmeier.blogspot.com/2009/02/mount-taylor-quadrathlon.html

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup

One of Jess's friends gave her this recipe. I tried one today and fell in love. Although I did just finish a bike ride, I would have eaten anything. I think I should make some for the Mt Taylor Winter Quadrathlon. http://www.mttaylorquad.org/

1 cup melted butter
2 cup graham cracker crumbs
2 cup powdered sugar
1 cup peanut butter

Mix and put in a 9x13 pan.

1 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
4 tablespoons peanut butter

Microwave and spread over crust. Refrigerate until set.

You can make a half sized batch and put it in a 8x8 pan to decrease the damage.

Vanilla Waffles

Jess has a cookbook completely filled with waffle, pancake and other delicious breakfast food recipes. This is one of my favorite ones.

1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3 eggs separated
1 cup milk
5 tablespoons melted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Mix the dry ingredients. Mix the egg yolks, milk, butter and vanilla, don't over beat. Beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Gently fold into the egg whites. Do not over mix, it is OK to have a small swirls of egg white.

Gear head

A "gear head" is a term my family has for people obsessed with obtaining toys. I think I qualify in more ways than one. The bike I got a year ago and by the way crashed is a double. Meaning it only has two chain rings, the gears next to the pedals. This replaced the bike that I bought with Jess before we got married. That bike was a triple. (These bike were the cheapest entry level Giant road bike that the bike shop sold.) We put a lot of miles on these bikes. I did the triple bypass ride in Colorado on my Giant. 120 miles. 10,000 feet of climbing. http://www.teamevergreen.org/node/2 I also did the Albuquerque century on it.

So, back to the story. Going from a triple to a double, I lost my three lowest gears. My lowest gear on my triple was the small chain ring 30 teeth and the the biggest gear on my cassette (the gears by the wheel), 25 teeth. Gear ratio 2.3. Gear inches 31.7. Meaning for every turn of the cranks the bike goes 31.7 inches forward. My new bike had a gear ratio of 3.0 and a gear inch of 41.2 with the small chain ring (39 teeth) and the big cassette gear (similar cassette 25 teeth). To get a similar gear ratio on my triple you would have to be in the fourth from the largest gear on the cassette. So, I lost my three lowest gears.

So, my dilemma. I have been toying with the idea of doing Mt. Evans ride this summer. Mt Evan ride is a up one of the fourteen thousand foot peaks in Colorado. Colorado has more than 50 fourteeners, but this one has a paved road all the way to the top. I really think I will miss those three lowest gears. Also Jess and I signed up for the Iron Horse this year. www.ironhorsebicycleclassic.com/citizen_tour It is a ride where you race the train from Durango to Silverton. I would like those gears on this ride as there is probably 5,000 feet of climbing.

Jess was smart. When we were shopping for a bike for her, she insisted on getting a triple. My bike was a deal I found on the Internet, and I figured I could get accustomed to whatever gearing came on it.

Well they make a compact crankset, a double with smaller chainrings, for people who want to climb or are wimps or both. But the price of a new is exorbitant, like $450. I found an incredible deal on a brand new Ultegra compact crank on craigslist for $125. Now my lowest gear has a gear inch of 35.9 inches. This gives me back about one and a half gears. There is a way to get last gear and a half. A cassette with large cog of 28, that is a gear inch of 32 inches.

So, I am a gear head in multiple ways.

German Pancakes

I have no idea if this is an authentic German recipe.

When Jess was young, her and her brothers and sisters would watch through the oven door window with great anticipation to see these pancakes rise.

6 eggs
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cube butter

I mix it in a blender. Beat the eggs. Mix in everything else except the butter. Melt the butter and tilt it around the pan to coat the bottom. Pour in the batter. Bake at 425 for approximately 20 min. My family always eats this with lemon juice and powdered sugar. Jess's family put it in a bowl and puts milk and granulated sugar on it.

Health Insurance

I am so glad that I have good health insurance. I just got a bill for the two weeks at University of New Mexico Hospital, $123k. The rehab hospital was about $10k. For the last several months I have been several bills a week, so I don't have a guess of the total. The bill from UNM is completely covered. If we did not have insurance, I don't know how one could pay a bill like that.

When I had ACL reconstruction, I had 80/20 health insurance. So, I paid 20% of my MRI, ortho clinic visits, and ACL reconstruction surgery. It was doable. I was happy to get a replaced ACL, I had enough to pay the orthopod. I don't have enough to pay 20% of $130+ thousand.

Lemon Squares

This is my older sister Sandra's recipe.
Every time she would come to visit, she would bake something delectable.

Crust:

1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 cubes of butter
2 cups of flour
bake in a 9x13 pan at 350 for 20 min, cool.

Filling
4 eggs, beaten
1 tsp baking powder
2 cup sugar
4 tbsp flour
2/3 cup lemon juice
Bake at 400 for 25 min. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.