Mindful Musings

Jennifer has been really really busy in preparing for her pharmacy certification and I have been missing the chances to cook for her. Here are some of the foods and recipes that we like to put together and really enjoy. I figured I would put them in once place and some people might benefit from our adventures:

• Chicken Yakhni – Mild Chicken curry from the Kashmir region of India which is very cinnamony and fragrant, yet deliciously light for the discerning palate. Good with fragrant Basmati Rice.


• Chicken Marsala


• Butter Chicken – Jennifer’s favourite. This is a tomato laden, slightly rich dish which can be cooked to creamy perfection by the most novice cook. Perfect with a little pita bread.


• Beef Biryani – A fragrant and often mild colored rice dish from the heart of India. This is a one pot dish that can be cooked very easily and is a complete meal in and of itself. Any kind of meat can be used (not limited to beef) and there are a myriad of spice packets available that make this dish a very easy one to put together. The secret of having a delicious biryani is to cook at relatively low heat for hours.


• Swordfish steaks – This fish, though exotic, is very very non-fishy. The meat is flaky and yet moist, very flavorful and very easy to cook. Just make sure there are no dark meats hiding inside the steaks, heat up some butter and garlic peices in a pan and lightly brown on both sides. This is great with rice, any kind of bread and works well with slightly flavorful vegetables such as asparagus or broccoli. Make sure the meat is seared rather than baked to retain the soft flaky texture. Quick, easy and very delicious.


• Chicken Tandoori – This is one of my favorite dishes. Invest in a nice clay pot that can be oven baked and a nice box of tandoori spices. Available at Meijer and other stores, the spices can be used as liberally or as delicately as you would like. Just marinate overnight in the refrigirator, put into the clay pot and bake at low heat for a long time. Again, the secret is the length of time the meat is cooked and the heat.

These are some of the recipes that we use almost everyday. I will try to provide links to the recipes as soon as I find some time this weekend. In the meantime, Google them and enjoy!

I would like to wish Jennifer good luck and hope some of my well wishers will do the same. She is off to take the pharmacy certification tests this week. This is the culmination of six years worth of advanced chemistry and clinical pharmacology that Jennifer has had to endure. She is a very intelligent person who has had very little trouble in working hard on keeping up with and doing well in her college education.

She has been steadily increasing her study times in recent months and after this is over, we have made plans to take a day off and go to Put-In-Bay for fun and frolic. It should be fun.

I wish her all the best in her two days of trial and know that she will pass with flying colors (well, she doesnt need the flying colors to pass, but it wouldnt hurt).

I love you, honey!

Just in case you haven’t figured it out yet, this is my office cubicle.

Following Lisa’s post on the same topic, I would like to go through my choices.

My favourite cities in the entire world (which I have visited and thus can express an opinion about) in no particular order:
Chicago, IL
Boston, MA
Seattle, WA
Paris, France
London, England
Wooster, OH
Calcutta, India

and strangely,
Toledo, OH

However, if you asked me which city I would like to live in if I had no other care in the world and could afford everything I wanted, I would want to live in a city with nice long beaches and lots of sunshine (warm, in other words). Crystal clear blue water, fast bikes and boats, exotic and abundant marine life, white sand, bright sun, dogs allowed on the beach, lots of room to fly my remote control airplanes and a broadband internet connection. There would, of course, have to be a working pharmacy and lots of cheap shopping there for Jennifer, and lots of foliage for my parents to enjoy taking care of. This reminds me of the “happy thoughts” of Happy Gilmore. Ahh, the dreams of a paradise. I feel better already

So where would you live if you had the choice of going anywhere in the world? Did your daydream make the day a little brighter? If it did, like it did mine, pass the meme along.

I know that most Indians will know what I am talking about but most others will be a little lost. Ghee is clarified butter. It is used in all kinds of Indian cooking, especially in the sweet meats. It has a very distinctive flavor and is delicious with piping hot rice and a pinch of salt. It adds a nice aroma to most curry dishes and meat becomes more flavorful. It is one of the most sought after ingredients of a good Indian meal. Now that we have that established, where do we get it? Most Indian grocery stores will carry some form of ghee and so will some of the more inclusive department stores such as Meijer. However, ghee is traditionally very expensive. There are a couple of very simple ways to make it at home.

Method 1: Buy some unsalted butter. Unsalted is best because it prevents the flavor of salt from tainting the flavor of the ghee. Heat it in the microwave in a pot (microwave safe of course) till it melts. Let it sit for a few after it has melted. This will force the milk solids to settle to the bottom. Grab some cheese cloth and dampen it with some water. Then carefully strain the melted butter onto the cloth, making sure none of the milk solids are transferred. Get rid of the milk solids. Thats it.

Method 2: A more refined method is to actually boil the butter till the solids seperate and then perform the same straining as above. The dampening of the cloth will make sure less of the butter gets absorbed by the cloth.

Enjoy a nice aromatic and delicious (albeit somewhat unhealthy) meal with your ghee!

Ever since I started this new job, I have been trying very hard to get back into the routine of working 8 hours a day and then getting back home to fulfilling my responsabilities as a son and a boyfriend. It has been a lot of fun and a lot of hard work. Here are some of my observations:

• Vitamins are a Godsend! They make a huge difference to your energy levels and your well being (especially on Mondays). I take the stuff with Ginseng and other herbs in it and I would recommend a good bottle of vitamins to counteract the effects of mundane office life.


• Work productivity goes in crests and troughs. I notice that my productivity is at a low point early in the morning, increases with the day till lunch time, drops off right before lunch, is at a low and rising after lunch, at a peak during mid afternoon and wanes off very quickly towards the end of the day. I think the week has very similar troughs as well, with Thursday (strangely) being the most productive.


• If you work in front of a computer, then posture and ergonomics DO matter. A nice keyboard with a proper handrest along with a nice mouse help a bunch to reduce stress levels and a nice chair back (or compnesated with an extra lumbar support dealie from Office Max) makes a difference. I feel the effects quite succintly because of my bad back and my inherent fidgetiness. If I am more comfortable in a position, I stay in that position longer, thus increasing concentration levels and thus productivity.


• Fluids are an extremely necessary part of office life, be it in the form of coffee, soft drinks or iced (or otherwise) tea. They keep your mind slightly distracted, give your mouth something to think about and they make you pee, another way to get out and shake it off. Crass, I know, but effective.


• A personal music player is another gift from the Gods. If you want to get away from the din of office life or just away from slamming doors and coworkers yelling at each other through their cubicles, a nice set of headphones and some good music hits the right spot. Music helps me concentrate and be distracted at the same time. My parents never quite understood how Dave Matthews was helping me solve Calculus problems, but he does.


• Another little electronic trick that is extremely useful is the changeable ringtone feature of office phones. I love the way I can tweak mine just right so I know that my phone is ringing, even in the next room, even through my headphones. I dont have to worry about missing that important call from Jennifer anymore.

This is the first installment 0f my “Office Space” schpeil, look forward to the second one soon.

Jennifer and I went to Beth’s wedding over the weekend. It was a very nice experience. I was a little apprehensive at first because I was half expecting my ex to be there. She was not there to irritate me and the evening turned out to be very nice. I got to meet Carrie, Becky, Burger, Andrew, Jenny and Cheryl again after a very long time. Craig was supposed to have been there, but I guess he had transportation issues; Beth really missed him.
The wedding party was small and very nicely executed. Beth was just very very happy and I wish her all the love and luck in the world. She is a wonderful girl and a very good friend.

For those of you interested, the pictures are posted at http://mindfulmusings.net/testpict

In other news, I have been so incredibly caught up in the new job and so very tired when I get home that I have ignored everything outside of work and family. I am trying to get back into the groove and hope to get some of the To-Do items taken care of. (UploadBin is Numer Uno)

To add some fuel to the fire I started with the switch from Gmail, let me ask the vox populii this…what does the versioning of “beta” mean for software and what to expect from it?

Just because a service is beta DOES NOT mean that it can be of really poor quality nor does it mean that it is all right for the service (or the product) to break everything. Just because I term my software beta, it should not fail to load every three hours. Beta, to me, means “might have some issues, most of which have been resolved”. If it is at the point of “might break at every mouse click”, it should be termed alpha or pre-alpha.

Have we gotten away from writing good code and providing honest services to jump on the early release bandwagon? Or am I just too critical and demanding?

Until further notice, I am reverting my primary email back to dinki at mac.com, in other words, if you need to contact me, please use dinki at mac.com
The GMail service is simply annoying. It is up only at non-peak times and is inaccessible during peak hours, when I use it the most. The most important feature that ANY email service can provide is access to their system which GMail lacks at this time, thus making it a terrible service no matter what the other benefits are.

Switching completely to GMail was a mistake. Sorry for any inconvenience.

I had set out to purchase a large capacity MP3 player at the beginning of the summer. The reasons for my purchase are numerous and I know for a fact that I would get a lot of use out of it. I was looking for a very specific product and wanted to spend a bit of time and allocated a considerable amount of money for the purchase. However, I was not going to spend the money only to hate it in the near future. Here is the culmination of my research.

There are quite a few large capacity MP3 players out there and peoples’ opinions about them range from in between rave for most iPod players to disdain for some of the other products. I will try to go through some of the benefits, failures and then the ratings for each of the products along with the price ranges for them.

1. iPod – On top of the list of every MP3 player that is advertised or displayed on review pages is the iPod. Some of the benefits of iPods include:
   

   • Rechargeable Battery with respectable battery life
   
   
   • VERY smooth interface with a wonderful user experience
   
   
   • Mostly very reliable, good hardware
   
   
   • Relatively nice headphones
   
   
   • Coolness factor
   
   

   Some of the weaknesses include:
   

   • No USB connection, an extra purchase
   
   
   • HAVE to use software to upload/download, cannot be a simple hard drive
   
   
   • No FM built in, another extra purchase
   
   
   • Somewhat fragile, too many horror stories of dropped iPods
   
   
   • Priciest of the lot, hands down
   
   

   In spite of all of this, the iPod consistently receives 4-5 stars out of five stars on all reviews. A good product overall, but just lacking enough that I didnt intend to buy it.



2. Creative Labs Jukebox Zen Xtra – This is a reliable and value product which provides a large amount of storage for a small price. Some of the benefits include:
   

   • Very well priced, largest capacity for smallest price
   
   
   • Good equalization and sound quality, lots of sound tricks
   
   
   • Long battery life
   
   
   • Mostly very reliable
   
   
   • USB support
   
   

   Some of the weaknesses include:
   

   • No FM support
   
   
   • Jog wheel is disliked by all, poor button features
   
   
   • Battery cover is strange, case forces you to flip it open when changing songs etc
   
   
   • Poor support
   
   
   • Cannot be used as a hardrive without the included software installed
   
   
   • Warranty is poor
   
   

   This player gets a 3.5-4 out of a possible 5 in every review. A lot of users do not like the quirks in the software, the buttons and the size of the case but like the price and some of the features. I wouldnt buy this because it just lacks the two main features I am looking for. It lacks hard drive capabilities (plug and play) and no built in FM



3. Archos GMini 120 – Simply a bad product, dont even think about it


4. Archos GMini 220 – This one is a worthy contendor with some cool new features and a nice price to boot. Some of the positive features of this product include:
   

   • Compact Flash Card support, useful for digital cameras
   
   
   • Built in FM module, needs extra purchase remote
   
   
   • View pictures in greyscale(this might be a negative attribute
   
   
   • Relatively well priced
   
   
   • Good playlist support
   
   
   • Hard drive emulation, dont need software to transfer files
   
   
   • Very small compared to the iPod
   
   

   Some of the weaknesses include:
   

   • Software still a bit buggy
   
   
   • Need to purchase extras to get FM to work
   
   
   • Greyscale screen is weak
   
   
   • Headphones are crappy
   
   
   • Limited availability
   
   

   This was my first choice for the longest time, but things have changed since then. This product gets a consistent 4 out of 5 in reviews from various sites. It is a good contendor, wish it was available at Best Buy.
   



5. Philips HDD120 – This is another product to stay away from. This will ONLY work with Philips Digital Media Manager software and there are known issues with DRM encoded MP3s as well. It is also expensive. Once I saw a 2-3 ratings in all the reviews, I stopped looking.
   EDIT: Review from a reader:
   

   I just bought a Philips HDD120 and just LOVE it, the remote is so tiny comparing to the iRiver, And the unit is so much prettier then the iRiver, It is so much FASTER with then the ones the dont convert the mp3’s (DDM). Also a BIG plus for me the Philips has a nicer screen and digital in, but I wish you luck with your iRiver (I’ll bet you wouldnt have it for 1 year)

   
   


6. Create Zen Touch – This is a good product though it is very new. I would like to have purchased this, but I do not believe in Version 1.0 of ANY product. Some of the features include FM radio through optional remote control, hard drive emulation, nice playlist support, nice encoding support, good software and sound tools and everything that is good about the Zen Xtra. I was going to wait till this became available, but I have found something better.
   


7. iRiver iHP-120 – This is what I am getting and here are the reasons why:
   

   • Lots of positive reviews from all the sites, a lot of happy customers
   
   
   • Hard drive emulation
   
   
   • FM support built in with included remote, nothing to buy
   
   
   • Voice recorder built in
   
   
   • Encode from FM, on the fly
   
   
   • Relatively well priced
   
   
   • One word, Ogg
   
   
   • Loud volume, small footprint
   
   
   • GREAT battery life as experienced by customers
   
   
   • Leather case included
   
   

   Some of the weaknesses include:
   

   • Awful software for the PC, need to create playlists externally
   
   
   • Complicated interface
   
   

   But none of these deter me much. I will miss the CF interface, but I can add that on at a later time. I LOVE the remote, the price is acceptable and it looks cool. The product seems to be “built to last” and people love it.
   

So there you go. Those are the reasons for my purchase. I am going to get this from BestBuy and will purchase the extra warranty/protection with it. All in all it should put me back about $350 but I think I will like it.

What do YOU own?