The subject of this post is not carjacking, as in hijacking a car, but rather a jack used to lift up a car when changing a tire. A few weeks ago I stopped to help a man who looked like he was having trouble changing the rear passenger-side tire on his retardedly-large SUV. He looked to be in his mid-30's, was a bit doughy and out of shape, and didn't appear to be able to use his jack with any degree of expediency, probably due to poor physical fitness correlative with his aforementioned appearance, i.e., he didn't just look overweight and out of shape, he was overweight and out of shape.
So I asked if he needed help, and he more or less assented. I began cranking away on the handle of the jack, and the SUV was up in the air a few inches. He removed the tire, pulled out the spare, and then he went to put it on, but the SUV was not high enough. (The flat tire had brought that corner of the vehicle down considerably lower than where it normally sat.) So I cranked away and the SUV lifted up. Then it fell. Oops.
I removed the jack from underneath, tried placing it elsewhere, and began jacking up the SUV again. The SUV started moving again. For some reason, when that corner would lift up, the car would roll forward slightly. It's probably normal, and I had a realization that assuaged my guilty thoughts of having caused his SUV to fall by some action of my own. Why on earth was the jack that came with his SUV smaller than a portable bicycle tire pump? I mean, it was miniscule. I've seen asthma inhalers larger than this thing. The base was about 3 inches by 4 inches. Who on Earth would think that a jack with a base that small would stably hold a behemoth SUV up in the air?
And what, praytell, was the purpose of designing an ultra-small car jack for an SUV with trunk space larger than my bathroom? Just put a real freaking jack in there. It's like worrying that a bucket of paint takes up too much room in a garage. Honestly, when looking at his vehicle, I kept thinking about the Canyonero.
Anyway, Yilin and I went to a nearby tire inflating/changing/repair place about a block away and convinced one of the attendants to bring one of those large jacks that you can't even lift (it has wheels) to help this guy out.* Heck, that's the kind of jack the makers of the SUV should have included in the first place. Seriously, you could have fit half of an auto body shop in the back of this thing it was so large, yet they include the dinkiest car jack ever. Given that the road where he was parked was actually quite flat, I wondered if this jack had ever even been tested in the lab before its inclusion with the vehicle. Typical engineers. ;)
*He didn't want to leave his SUV because it was in the middle of a bus stop, and I wouldn't be surprised if he'd have gotten a ticket if he turned his back, despite the obvious difficulty in driving a vehicle with only three wheels.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
I am the Muffin Man.
This past weekend I woke up early and baked muffins for breakfast. It was a surprise for Yilin, who had been wanting to make muffins for a few days. I ended up making blackberry muffins from the Williams-Sonoma Muffin recipe book that my parents gave us. I had to modify the recipe, since we lacked a few ingredients, so I'll print my version here, which should not violate any copyright laws that I am aware of. (Incidentally, the muffin recipes from this book are really really good, and I highly recommend buying it if you like muffins.)
Blackberry Muffins à la Josh
Topping:
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp unbleached white flour
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup walnuts, finely chopped
Muffins:
2 cups unbleached white flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 large egg, beaten
5 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1 cup 1% milk
2 cups fresh blackberries (or substitute 2 1/2 cups frozen unsweetened blackberries, unthawed)
1. Preheat oven 385°F. Grease 12 standard muffin cups with butter.
2. To prepare the topping, mix sugar, flour, and zest. Add melted butter and stir until crumbly. Add walnuts, mix, and set aside.
3. For the muffins, mix together all the dry ingredients (including the lemon zest, which is moist) in a large bowl. Add the wet ingredients and stir until everything is moist. Do not overstir, and do not worry about lumps. Add the blackberries and gently fold with a non-metal spatula a few times until the berries are more or less evenly distributed. Again, do not overstir, and try not to break the berries.
4. Evenly distribute the batter into the muffin cups (I used large blackberries, so there were about 3 per muffin). Ideally the batter would be just over the top of the cup, but as long as you have half-full muffin cups, it doesn't matter. Evenly distribute the topping (each muffin will get about 1 heaping tablespoon of topping).
5. Put them in the oven for about 3 minutes, and then drop the oven temp to 375°F and continue baking. I did this because opening the oven door allows a lot of hot air to escape, and increases the time for the muffins to heat up. We want to blast them a bit and get them up to temp quickly to help them rise properly. (I learned this trick from Alton Brown's nerdy show on the Food Network.) Total baking time should be about 25-30 minutes. I stopped mine at 25 minutes when a little mixed drink umbrella (aka toothpick) came out of a muffin clean. Let cool 10 minutes before removing the muffins from the tray. (I just wrapped a dish towel over the tray and flipped it, unwrapping it and slowly lifting the tray.) Let them cool a few minutes and enjoy!
It's not rocket science, and it isn't difficult. The muffins are interesting because they have these giant berries taking up quite a bit of space. We both enjoyed them a lot, and hopefully you will too!
Blackberry Muffins à la Josh
Topping:
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp unbleached white flour
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup walnuts, finely chopped
Muffins:
2 cups unbleached white flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 large egg, beaten
5 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1 cup 1% milk
2 cups fresh blackberries (or substitute 2 1/2 cups frozen unsweetened blackberries, unthawed)
1. Preheat oven 385°F. Grease 12 standard muffin cups with butter.
2. To prepare the topping, mix sugar, flour, and zest. Add melted butter and stir until crumbly. Add walnuts, mix, and set aside.
3. For the muffins, mix together all the dry ingredients (including the lemon zest, which is moist) in a large bowl. Add the wet ingredients and stir until everything is moist. Do not overstir, and do not worry about lumps. Add the blackberries and gently fold with a non-metal spatula a few times until the berries are more or less evenly distributed. Again, do not overstir, and try not to break the berries.
4. Evenly distribute the batter into the muffin cups (I used large blackberries, so there were about 3 per muffin). Ideally the batter would be just over the top of the cup, but as long as you have half-full muffin cups, it doesn't matter. Evenly distribute the topping (each muffin will get about 1 heaping tablespoon of topping).
5. Put them in the oven for about 3 minutes, and then drop the oven temp to 375°F and continue baking. I did this because opening the oven door allows a lot of hot air to escape, and increases the time for the muffins to heat up. We want to blast them a bit and get them up to temp quickly to help them rise properly. (I learned this trick from Alton Brown's nerdy show on the Food Network.) Total baking time should be about 25-30 minutes. I stopped mine at 25 minutes when a little mixed drink umbrella (aka toothpick) came out of a muffin clean. Let cool 10 minutes before removing the muffins from the tray. (I just wrapped a dish towel over the tray and flipped it, unwrapping it and slowly lifting the tray.) Let them cool a few minutes and enjoy!
It's not rocket science, and it isn't difficult. The muffins are interesting because they have these giant berries taking up quite a bit of space. We both enjoyed them a lot, and hopefully you will too!
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Snow!
Yesterday it snowed for the third or fourth time this winter. Yilin and I did a lot of walking in the morning, as the giant flakes were falling, and it was great. I really miss the snow. Of course, snow in NYC is always interesting, mostly because of the things you witness other people doing.
One observation I've made, that demonstrates New Yorkers' lack of consideration for anyone else, or their own future predicaments, is the way people handle parking on the street if there's a lot of snow. You see, the plows, which are garbage trucks with plow blades on the front, just pack all the snow up against and between the parked cars lining the streets. When the owners of the cars go outside to use their vehicle they typically just get in and pull out of the space. Of course, it is never that easy, because there is an incredible amount of snow in between the cars. Rarely do people attempt to remove any of the snow. Often the cars struggle tremendously, get stuck, etc. And when the car finally pulls out, it leaves behind a packed down icy mess, and a large mound of snow for any other car to overcome in the course of parking in that same space. Nobody uses shovels, nobody cares that anyone else might want to park, and nobody thinks, "Hey, maybe if we just shoveled out around our own cars, it would make parking again much easier."
Yesterday, I didn't see any of that as it wasn't nearly enough snow to warrant plowing. However, I did see some odd things. I saw a man shoveling the sidewalk with a spade. I found that odd, and overly cumbersome, as the blade was 5 inches wide and metal. I saw another guy spreading Kosher salt outside of his restaurant, presumably because he didn't have any regular sidewalk salt.
Yilin and I also witnessed something horrifying. We saw some parents out with their young kids, and one of the kids picked up snow off of the sidewalk and started eating it. Mind you, there was no untouched virgin freshly fallen patches of snow anywhere. This was snow that had been shoveled and stepped on, and who knows if any dogs had previously visited that area. (Dog owners in NYC seem to think it's OK to leave dog shit on the sidewalk if there is snow to cover it. There are hidden traps everywhere.) So you can imagine my disgust at witnessing this kid reach down, pick up some tainted snow and eat it! And her parents did nothing! She's probably going to die of viral meningitis, or some other disease carried by rats or pigeons, and the doctors are going to ask her parents if she'd been licking the sidewalks or eating bird feces, and her parents will respond, "No, but we let her eat snow off of the sidewalk! Bwaahhh!"
This morning the snow was mostly gone, as usual. The subway trains, electrical lines, cars, trucks, and buses produce heat, while all of the concrete, blacktop, metal, buildings, and the impenetrable cloud of CO2 surrounding New York trap heat. So snow rarely lasts more than 2 days. I'll just keep praying for snow.
One observation I've made, that demonstrates New Yorkers' lack of consideration for anyone else, or their own future predicaments, is the way people handle parking on the street if there's a lot of snow. You see, the plows, which are garbage trucks with plow blades on the front, just pack all the snow up against and between the parked cars lining the streets. When the owners of the cars go outside to use their vehicle they typically just get in and pull out of the space. Of course, it is never that easy, because there is an incredible amount of snow in between the cars. Rarely do people attempt to remove any of the snow. Often the cars struggle tremendously, get stuck, etc. And when the car finally pulls out, it leaves behind a packed down icy mess, and a large mound of snow for any other car to overcome in the course of parking in that same space. Nobody uses shovels, nobody cares that anyone else might want to park, and nobody thinks, "Hey, maybe if we just shoveled out around our own cars, it would make parking again much easier."
Yesterday, I didn't see any of that as it wasn't nearly enough snow to warrant plowing. However, I did see some odd things. I saw a man shoveling the sidewalk with a spade. I found that odd, and overly cumbersome, as the blade was 5 inches wide and metal. I saw another guy spreading Kosher salt outside of his restaurant, presumably because he didn't have any regular sidewalk salt.
Yilin and I also witnessed something horrifying. We saw some parents out with their young kids, and one of the kids picked up snow off of the sidewalk and started eating it. Mind you, there was no untouched virgin freshly fallen patches of snow anywhere. This was snow that had been shoveled and stepped on, and who knows if any dogs had previously visited that area. (Dog owners in NYC seem to think it's OK to leave dog shit on the sidewalk if there is snow to cover it. There are hidden traps everywhere.) So you can imagine my disgust at witnessing this kid reach down, pick up some tainted snow and eat it! And her parents did nothing! She's probably going to die of viral meningitis, or some other disease carried by rats or pigeons, and the doctors are going to ask her parents if she'd been licking the sidewalks or eating bird feces, and her parents will respond, "No, but we let her eat snow off of the sidewalk! Bwaahhh!"
This morning the snow was mostly gone, as usual. The subway trains, electrical lines, cars, trucks, and buses produce heat, while all of the concrete, blacktop, metal, buildings, and the impenetrable cloud of CO2 surrounding New York trap heat. So snow rarely lasts more than 2 days. I'll just keep praying for snow.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
A Jolly Good St. Valentine's Day to You!
Last week Yilin and I traveled to Montreal for the Chinese New Year. If one were to translate the Chinese lunisolar calendar to a western-style calendar, it is the year 4705. (There is a great Wikipedia page on this incredibly complicated sexagenary calendar system.) We had a great time, and I was excited to actually see snow (this winter it has snowed maybe twice in NYC, but nothing stuck to the ground).
One thing that I really like about Montreal is that it is relatively uncrowded. Well, especially in the winter. You see, in Montreal, you can go to work, do all of your shopping (groceries, medicine, clothes, etc.), and all of your traveling entirely underground. Some people don't even wear coats when they leave their houses in the morning, as they never step foot outside. It's amazing. Me, I love walking around on the sidewalks above ground with almost nobody around. More so when snow is blowing in my face.
By contrast, in NYC, it doesn't snow very often in the winter. Instead, it rains. This means that the sidewalks are full of people, with no option to walk underground, carrying umbrellas of various diameters. This is not fun. For those of you who haven't experienced it, allow me to explain. Please keep in mind two crucial points: 1) New Yorkers don't pay attention to anyone or anything, and rarely apologize for bumping into people; 2) Umbrellas are wider than people.
Imagine the hustle and bustle that is the typical NYC sidewalk; it's impossible not to brush into people and narrowly avoid bumping into them. Now imagine that every person is armed with an umbrella bearing no less than 8 spikes at its perimeter, and each umbrella is wider than the average person. This means that umbrellas are always bumping into each other. Everyone takes a minimal approach to dodging and avoiding other umbrellas, just like their minimal approach to dodging and avoiding people. However, if you aren't afraid of a little rain and don't carry an umbrella, you had best have reflexes like Jack Burton. Somehow, carrying an umbrella grants you the right of way (at least in New Yorker's minds). I can't tell you how many times I've been poked in the face by other people's umbrellas. My current tactic is to just knock their umbrellas out of the way rather than dodge them. Basically, it's as pleasant as going to the mall during Christmas season.
Don't get me wrong, there are some people who sidestep, move and/or lift their umbrella, or are otherwise conscientious of others on the sidewalk. These people, the minority, are the thoughtful ones. Thankfully, a much smaller minority is the group of people less than 5'4" who (basically) carry 4 foot wide beach umbrellas at the eye level of most people, and barrel down the sidewalk without trying to avoid hitting anyone or anything. However, the absolute smallest minority are those who don't use an umbrella. I fall into the last category. It's only water. And that is my reasoning behind why winter in Montreal is better than winter in NYC.
Have a swell Valentine's Day. Yilin and I will almost certainly be staying in tonight and relaxing.
One thing that I really like about Montreal is that it is relatively uncrowded. Well, especially in the winter. You see, in Montreal, you can go to work, do all of your shopping (groceries, medicine, clothes, etc.), and all of your traveling entirely underground. Some people don't even wear coats when they leave their houses in the morning, as they never step foot outside. It's amazing. Me, I love walking around on the sidewalks above ground with almost nobody around. More so when snow is blowing in my face.
By contrast, in NYC, it doesn't snow very often in the winter. Instead, it rains. This means that the sidewalks are full of people, with no option to walk underground, carrying umbrellas of various diameters. This is not fun. For those of you who haven't experienced it, allow me to explain. Please keep in mind two crucial points: 1) New Yorkers don't pay attention to anyone or anything, and rarely apologize for bumping into people; 2) Umbrellas are wider than people.
Imagine the hustle and bustle that is the typical NYC sidewalk; it's impossible not to brush into people and narrowly avoid bumping into them. Now imagine that every person is armed with an umbrella bearing no less than 8 spikes at its perimeter, and each umbrella is wider than the average person. This means that umbrellas are always bumping into each other. Everyone takes a minimal approach to dodging and avoiding other umbrellas, just like their minimal approach to dodging and avoiding people. However, if you aren't afraid of a little rain and don't carry an umbrella, you had best have reflexes like Jack Burton. Somehow, carrying an umbrella grants you the right of way (at least in New Yorker's minds). I can't tell you how many times I've been poked in the face by other people's umbrellas. My current tactic is to just knock their umbrellas out of the way rather than dodge them. Basically, it's as pleasant as going to the mall during Christmas season.
Don't get me wrong, there are some people who sidestep, move and/or lift their umbrella, or are otherwise conscientious of others on the sidewalk. These people, the minority, are the thoughtful ones. Thankfully, a much smaller minority is the group of people less than 5'4" who (basically) carry 4 foot wide beach umbrellas at the eye level of most people, and barrel down the sidewalk without trying to avoid hitting anyone or anything. However, the absolute smallest minority are those who don't use an umbrella. I fall into the last category. It's only water. And that is my reasoning behind why winter in Montreal is better than winter in NYC.
Have a swell Valentine's Day. Yilin and I will almost certainly be staying in tonight and relaxing.
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