I finally got my replacement power supply this evening, and that fixed the computer! So for me, everything is back on-line and functioning. This is just in time for the trip, which makes several things quite a bit easier. I’ll be sending out our ‘test’ email in the morning, so those of you visiting the blog for the first time will hopefully have some new and interesting posts to look at.
Power Surge Nightmare
Okay, we’re back on-line now. This has been a long and rather hell-ish day. We’re not hurt; we’ve just had our internet and computer dependent worlds knocked about.
Last night, at abut 3:00 am, Harriet was awaken by a loud “pop.” She got up to see if something had fallen downstairs, and when she turned on a light, it burned out with a loud “pop” of its own. She tried one other light, and it popped also. That woke me up, and we realized that something was wrong with the power. I have a voltmeter, and we were seeing 238 V on the outlets (they should be 110 to 120 V). So, I cut all the circuit breakers.
I called Edison, and they had a guy here about 4:30 am. Apparently, you can have a neutral line break in a way that the two phases in the power line can add across the outlets, turning your lines to 2x normal. After some tests, he suspected a tree had broken the line outside the house. A tree crew (contracted by Edison) arrived about 8:30 am and cut some branches away from a power pole, enough to allow access. The Edison crew arrived about 10:30 and began rewiring the section that had been damaged, and by about 12:30 pm we had the power restored.
Then began the inventory of things that have blown out. Oddly, the major appliances and the video electronics are all OK. It’s Harriet’s computer, my computer, the phone recording machine, and a lot of the smaller electronics that are burned out.
We’re in the process of trying to recover. Harriet’s business is completely tied up in that computer. So far, we’ve been able to move the hard drive into another, older machine she has for backup, and now she’s trying to get enough of it functioning so she can work. Steve and Krista have been real champions with helping her get a system working. We owe them, BIG.
I have an older machine that I’ve got running enough to access the internet, hence this update. I can get to my email through the browser, I’m just not able to access the stuff on my main computer. I ordered a new power supply on-line (yay!), so we’re making progress. We’ll see how far along we are before we leave on our trip NEXT MONDAY! Ouch.
The good news is that this didn’t happen while we were gone, and since it appears to have happened out of the residence (and maybe off of our property), Edison has some liability. We’ll be filing claims before we depart.
Hawk At The Beach
Before the big power blow-out, I was working on this post. It’s a bit out of data. Actually, I’ve probably missed several updates, but since this is already on-line, and the pictures are pretty cool, I’ll go ahead and finish it.
A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to catch this hawk as it was hanging out at the cliffs in Santa Barbara. I was taking a walk at Shoreline Park with my camera, and I was able to get a few shots. The bird seemed happy to hang out until I tried to move into a better position. I think it got bored at that point and flew off.
Here’s a close up of the hawk. I was pretty pleased with the detail.
I really appreciate this bird’s patience since I’m
- slow
- not a very good photographer and
- usually oblivious to these sorts of things
But, all in all, it came out rather nicely.
Salami Night at C’est Cheese
Nine different kinds of salami. Now that’s a tasting.
My most favorite food place in all the world, C’est Cheese, had another tasting tonight. But rather than cheese, the tasting was salami. Cured, smoked, dried, salted, and seasoned; thin, thick, narrow, or long; Itallian, Spanish, French; shoulder, belly, ham, or back; but all pork. And all delicious.
One of the things I like most about Kathryn and Michael’s presentations is that they give a lot of information along with a good variety of flavors. So, I have the list with the names of all nine salamis (on which I scribbled my tasting notes), but I’m only going to mention the ones that stand out.
My favorite spiced salami was the chorizo. I’ve eaten a lot of chorizo in my life, and this was the best chorizo I’ve had. Delicious on its own, this would be fabulous cooked in any dish.
I think my favorite non-spicy salami was the Columbus Artisan Finocchiona. It’s an Itallian style salami seasoned with fennel. Very tasty.
The biggest disappointment for me was the Salumi Mole, which was flavored with the spices you’d find in a mexican mole. I don’t think it worked in the salami. It was a lot of heat without the sweetness of a good mole.
The other salamis I enjoyed were: Niman Ranch Napoletani, a small, spicy salami that will sadly be discontinued; Fra’mani Toscano which is flavored with garlic and wine; Salumi Salame with a hint of ginger; and Prosciutto di San Daniele, which isn’t really a salami, but is a very tasty cured ham.
All of these are available at C’est Cheese, and I plan on staying stocked up around here, too.
Dinner with Steve and Krista
Last night we had our neighbors over for dinner. Harriet was highly motivated since we had two live crabs from the Santa Barbara Harbor and Seafood Festival, and she’d sat in on a cooking demonstration at the Santa Barbara Art Festival (both discussed in my last post). So, she made crab cakes.
I’m not a food blogger, so I won’t go into the recipe. But, I am someone who appreciates good food, and I have eaten a fair share of crab cakes. These were, without a doubt, the best crabcakes ever. And I mean they were GOOD! She says she wasn’t happy with the recipe she got from the demo, so she worked it over a bit. And, the crab was obviously very fresh. But all of us stopped after we took our first bites, looked down at the food, and just blurted out how good these were.
We also had a very good salad that was a good counter to the richness of the crab. I think we all ate three of the cakes, and then had to stop because the crab is so rich. Well, that and the fact that there weren’t any left. Restraint is easy when there’s no opportunity. I learned that one from dieting.
Just for completeness’ sake, I will say that we had a great time with Steve & Krista. We are very lucky to have such wonderful neighbors, whom we actually enjoy spending time with. I’d say more about them, but that’s really for Krista’s blog.
And besides, those crab cakes were damn good.