Journal Entries
Chilly 14, 2010 - Dontbry - Happy Chinese New Year!
Posted Feb 14, 2010
Gung Hay Fat Choy!
Today starts the year of the White Metal Tiger! The tiger is bold, so this is a good year to start a business venture, such as, opening a chocolate shop. Speaking of which...
Chocolate news: Still no commercial kitchen. I have a new lead on another possible location though, which I need to track down tomorrow. Not to draw people away from h2g2, but I'll be posting more chocolate news and the development of my chocolate business here: http://cocoablossom.blogspot.com
That's it for the chocolate news, now for the weather.
When the Jet Stream is north of us, all the rain clouds blow north, and we get no rain. When the Jet Stream moves south of us, like it did a few weeks ago, then the storms blow right over us, and we get lots of lovely rain.
Regarding the three-year-long drought, not to jinx anything, but it seems to be over. 
So far this winter, we've been getting average rainfall! Yay, we can plant a garden with tomatoes this year!
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Latest reply: Feb 14, 2010
Thing, Festivity 24, 2009 - The Christmas Eve Edition
Posted Dec 24, 2009
A little Christmas tree, with all the decorations, to add to your holiday cheer:
Have a wonderful holiday with those you love, and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
Happy Nerd
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Latest reply: Dec 24, 2009
Poets - Festivity 4, 2009 - the Chocolate Edition
Posted Dec 5, 2009
A friend from Humboldt Co is setting up a specialty bakery, and wanted some help with the chocolate goods. After a couple months of leaving messages for each other, she got ahold of me last weekend, and talked me into sorting out their chocolate goods. I readily accepted her offer to pay me to do something I enjoy doing.
Two days later, I set out early (7am) to arrive at her place in Humboldt by 10am, and started trying to make myself useful. I worked most of four days, and got back last night.
Helping with the chocolate goods turned out to be all about tempering the chocolate, something I'm good at. I also worked on developing a line of vegan chocolate truffles, something I've been meaning to do for ages. Nothing like a looming deadline to inspire me. I'm particularly pleased with the way the vegan chai truffles turned out.
It all went extremely well, and we have talked about making this a long-term arrangement, at least until I can get my commercial kitchen opened closer to home. My assignment once I got home was to sniff out likely places for my commercial chocolate kitchen.
Today I stopped by a commercial realtor to see about leasing a space. There aren't many suitable spaces available, most are too big or couldn't be easily converted into a food handling facility. But there were a few to chase down, and there are also three relatively small commercial properties for sale.
There is one small old house that is zoned commercial. Another was recently a mortuary. The least likely one was some kind of automotive place; I'm not really sure how that can be converted to a commercial kitchen.
In any case, I need to see if my ganache is ready to roll, as I've a few homemade chocolates to make too.
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Latest reply: Dec 5, 2009
Wimpy - Vintage 22, 2009
Posted Sep 22, 2009
Just a quick journal entry to say I've got something in Peer Review. If you are interested, please have a look:
A57478909 - Video Exercising: Choosing and Using Fitness DVDs
HN
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Latest reply: Sep 22, 2009
Wimpy - Sultry 11, 2009
Posted Aug 11, 2009
I've been having a sort of a working, yet unpaid, vacation. 
I went to visit my mom on the 21st of last month. Of course, after a very long drive, just about the first thing one does is use the bathroom, which wasn't working so well.
Mom said she had been trying to get the lodger to snake out the drains for some weeks, but no joy. I opined that it was probably the septic tank, not the drain. After some discussion, we compromised, and in the morning I called around to find a septic tank service that also did drain cleaning.
The soonest the septic service could come out was the following day, so I got busy with a shovel to find the cap. After some digging, I only found a clean-out near the house.
The septic servicemen arrived the following day. Joe Jr was the business owner. His father Joe Sr, used to own the business, but now was a part-time employee, as retirement didn't suit him too well. I pointed to the clean-out, and Joe Jr and Sr used a probe to search for the tank.
After a while Joe decided to start down from the clean-out. After some digging out from the house, they turned it around and started digging toward the house. That's when they found the tank. Yes, you guessed it. It was exactly where it didn't belong, under the house, under the concrete slab.
Now, there are laws. A house can't be sold without the septic tank being certified by a septic service. When my mom bought the place 17 years ago, the realtors (one no longer in business, the other no longer alive) had a septic service (no longer in business) certify the tank. He must have just drawn a pretty, if fanciful, picture, taken his money, and disappeared. It is long past the statute of limitations.
The bedroom that the tank was under had been an addition to the house some 25 years ago. When the tank was installed (in the 50's) it had been in the right place, but the addition had been slapped on top, making the tank inaccessible. And this bedroom became the place where Mom has been putting things she didn't want to deal with right away, for 17 years. She calls it the paper avalanche.
I moved everything out of the room, so that when the septic servicemen arrived on the 27th with a new tank, lines, a back-hoe, and a concrete cutter, they could get right to work. I worked right up to midnight on the 26th. 
Mom and I sorted and sorted - things to save, things to recycle, things to discard, things to donate. The septic service cut a hole through the floor, pumped out the old tank, filled it with slurry, capped it with concrete, cut the lines going into it, ran new lines out into the yard, dug a giant hole, put a new septic tank the correct distance out from the house, and put in new leach lines.
Now, Plan A was to visit my mom for a week, then go to RollerCon, a roller derby convention in Las Vegas, then go home. Clearly I was already on Plan B, if not Plan C. But I still left for RollerCon, 5 days of physical conditioning, seminars and workshops on techniques and the business of roller derby. Great fun and I learned a lot. Then I returned back to Mom's place for more sorting and sorting. I promised to come back and help her some more once I had taken care of some things back home.
Plan D apparently was my car's idea - visiting a mechanic in Las Vegas to replace a burnt out fan motor. Plan E was also my car's idea. While on the way home from my Mom's, my car decided to visit a mechanic in Bakersfield to replace a burst hose. When we were on the last leg of the trip home, my car began misfiring to let me know that Plan F was still coming.
So now I'm home with my husband and cats, my car is languishing in the driveway. The local mechanic has arranged to get all the necessary parts together by the 17th.
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Latest reply: Aug 11, 2009
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