Potty talk

Today four little girls were packed in my master bathroom water closet, buzzing and giggling with excitement as they negotiated taking turns. Four of them! In a toilet closet. What could possibly be so exciting?

Two months ago Lucas and I were walking through Costco. Lucas spotted something unusual and asked what it was. I read the label and explained that this particular toilet seat had a heated seat and a bidet with warm water. After explaining what a bidet is used for, he paused thoughtfully and then replied, “I want that!”

The seeds for Lucas’ desire were sown back in March when the only parent willing to wipe his bottom went back to work. Wiping ones own bottom is apparently a skill learned reluctantly. Both kids found the barbaric practice of using dry paper to smear moist excrement around their little anuses to be disgusting. I agree, but wiping three bottoms is 3 times as disgusting. Our compromise was to provide them with moist flushable wipes. I also showed them how to use a hand mirror to check if more wiping was needed. Two issues have persisted: clogged toilets and frequent requests from both kids to “check or wipe.”

Amusingly, when I declined to wipe them, and later declined requests to check, they began to provide those services to each other. I was confident that in the course of time, they would find no willing participants. Wiping each other lasted but a couple weeks. Months later, threats and coercion were required (If you don’t, I won’t!) for checks. It was in that environment that Lucas spotted that fancy toilet seat at Costco.

Thus inspired, on Christmas eve, Santa went through the house and added bidets to every toilet. The “check or wipe” pleas are no more. We haven’t had a plugged toilet in a week. I am fond of the hygienic practice, and the novel little contraptions are very amusing to visitors. Even grandpa’s bidet “is starting to get along” with him.

Form 1120S Schedule K-1 Worksheet

After my corporation bought back some stock certificates, the method I used to calculate Item F, “Shareholder’s percentage of stock ownership for tax year,” became more complex. Neither Google nor WolframAlpha led me to an equation so I set about creating a spreadsheet to simplify the problem.

The IRS instructions for form 1120S Schedule K-1, Line F, describe the method to use thusly:

Each shareholder’s pro rata share items are figured separately for each period on a daily basis, based on the percentage of stock held by the shareholder on each day.

…..

If there was a change in shareholders or in the relative interest in stock the shareholders owned during the tax year, figure the percentage as follows.
• Each shareholder’s percentage of ownership is weighted for the number of days in the tax year that stock was owned. For example, A and B each held 50% for half the tax year and A, B, and C held 40%, 40%, and 20%, respectively, for the remaining half of the tax year. The percentage of ownership for the year for A, B, and C is figured as presented in the illustration and is then entered in item F.

IRS Form 1120S Schedule K-1 Item F table

I built myself a spreadsheet to calculate Item F correctly in the simple and complex cases. My spreadsheet implements the IRS described method without requiring the preparer to manually perform all the interim calculations. The only required inputs are the quantify of shares held by each shareholder and the number of days they were held.

Without any alteration, it supports up to 4 changes in shareholders and there’s no limit to the number of shareholders. I just plop in the raw numbers from the Stock Transfer Ledger and the spreadsheet does the rest.

I post it in Numbers and Excel formats, hoping that others will find it useful as well.

1120S_Schedule_K-1_Worksheet.xls

1120S_Schedule_K-1_Worksheet.numbers

Translation of Texas “representation”

This week in Washington, the House passed the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act (H.R. 1633) to ease the federal regulatory burden on farmers, ranchers and rural businesses in order to restore confidence and create jobs.

Barack Obama and the big bad gubberment are taking away jobs from red-blooded Americans! Never mind that farmers and ranch owners will not pay a living wage so long as they can hire illegal aliens for a fraction of the cost of an American.

I was proud to vote for this bill, yet another jobs bill put forth by House Republicans to empower small business owners and eliminate burdensome Washington regulations that prevent job creation and hinder economic growth. This bill prevents the EPA from issuing new dust regulations. Additionally, it gives states the flexibility to address any rural dust issues rather than the federal government.

For political reasons, I’m obstructing Obama’s attempts to create jobs for US citizens through infrastructure investment. For other political reasons (big farmers write big campaign donation checks!), I support job creation for illegal aliens because that’s good for my contributors.

We hear a lot about the need to protect our air quality and the need to ensure clean air for future generations. As the grandson of a farmer, I know the value and importance agriculture producers place on protecting the soil and water they use to grow quality food to feed the country. I would argue there are no greater stewards of the land than farmers, and that additional rules on these hard-working Americans to regulate rural dust are not only unnecessary, they can be detrimental.

I’m hoping you have a Texas education and haven’t learned that the very reason we have farmland dust regulations is because the farmers turned the west into a dustbowl in the 1930s.

Yours respectfully,

Jeb Hensarling
Member of Congress

I hope you’re dumb enough to believe everything I just said.

City of Seattle – Home heating fuel costs


City of Seattle – Fuel Costs

Notice the oil and electrical resistance heating systems. Even with a newer 80% efficient oil furnace, the cost of fuel is still more than double the cost of an older natural gas furnace. If I had a house with oil or resistance heat, buying a new gas furnace would be a no brainer. When paying $1,000 extra per year, it doesn’t take long to pay for a more efficient heating system.

But look at that high efficiency heat pump! It costs only $350/yr to heat the house. Because it’s a heat pump, it’s also an air conditioner. By switching to a heat pump,  A/C is included.

Using a heat pump is also the best choice for our environment. Here in Seattle, the vast majority (91% – http://www.seattle.gov/light/FuelMix/) of our electricity is generated from hydro. An electrical powered solution burns almost no fossil fuels and contributes almost zero pollutants to the environment.

If that still isn’t enough reason to choose a heat pump, consider the rapidly declining costs of solar power generation. The installed costs declined from 2009 to 2010 by 17%.  Costs have further declined by 11% in the first half of 2011. Solar now costs less than $6/W installed. Germany and Japan are further ahead, and installed costs there are under $4/W. In a few more years, residential solar will be the cheapest way to purchase energy. Having all electric appliances is preparation for that future.

Olive oil sprayer

Yes Bill, I’m still happy with my Misto M100S olive oil sprayer.

I’ve had the Misto for 5 months. Its utility is such that it justifies being out on the counter at all times. With most of the oils hiding in a cupboard, the sprayer does get lonely. It has only the pourer to keep it company. The Misto is consoled by knowing that unlike the pourer, he has the premium extra virgin olive oil.

I use the sprayer most for roasting veggies. We really like our roast veggies. With the sprayer, I can coat the veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, etc.) with a thin coat of oil, a dash of seasonings, and they become a sought after course. Any time I fire up the oven, I inventory my veggies to see if there’s anything I could be roasting at the same time.

The key to happiness with an olive oil sprayer is to not tell it you have better oils relieve the pressure after every use. With a quick twist of the cap, the air pressure bleeds off. I often do so while holding the bottle with a towel, so I don’t get oily hands. I leave the cap on loosely and put the pump top back on. When I use it, I screw the cap down, pump it up, and spray away.

Misto M100S.

Them’s Biting Words

After a morning of outdoor play, Lucas asked, “Daddy, may I have this snack?”
I glanced at the time, “Whoa, it’s after lunch already. You should be in here gnawing at my legs by now!”

Moments later, I’m in the kitchen making sandwiches and Lucas has lifted my pant leg and is gnawing.

It’s obvious whose sense of humor this child inherited.

Recipe Management

On Sunday afternoons (with the family) and wrapping up on Monday, I plan our meals for the week. Once completed, I post the menu on the fridge. With the menu established, it’s easy to update our shopping list and always get exactly what we need.

What I lacked was a good method for keeping track of recipes. How would I find that amazing recipe for Brazilian Black Beans? Which strawberry cake recipe did I use for Kayla’s last birthday? Which of the 3 blueberry pie recipes from the summer of 2011 did we like the most?

I created a spreadsheet to help me answer those questions. After cooking each recipe, I record our family rating of the recipe in the cookbook margin and/or on the menu. As part of meal planning, I update our spreadsheet with the previous weeks recipe names, sources, dates of preparation, and ratings. Now I have a list with every recipe we’ve eaten. I can sort by date, source, or rating, as well as searching.

Best practices for dehydrating (drying) blueberries

In the past two weeks I have processed 51 pounds (not including the spoils of picking fresh) of blueberries, from 3 batches. The first two batches were from the Henna Blueberry Farm in Fall City, Washington. We picked there on July 23rd and July 30th. The blueberries from the u-pick farm were very early, and mid-season (yes, it’s a very late season this year)! The last batch was big ripe peak season berries from a commercial grower in Oregon, purchased Aug 1st at my local Fred Meyer.

My intent was to consume fresh about half the berries and put the rest away for winter. For fresh consumption, I’ve made a blueberry streusel pie, a blueberry crisp, a summer (mixed) berry crisp, oatmeal crisps with fresh blueberries, and a plain blueberry pie. The streusel pie was a knockout hit.

For preservation, I made 3 quarts of blueberry jam, 6 quarts of blueberry pie filling, and just over 2 quarts of dehydrated blueberries. Making jam (hint: Pomonos pectin) and pie filling (hint: clear-jel) are straight forward, but finding good advice for dehydrating blueberries left a lot of room for interpretation and experimentation.

My research on dehydrating blueberries boiled down to 3 discrete steps:
a) wash the berries
b) break the waxy skin of the berries (slice, puncture, or blanch)
c) dehydrate at 135°

I have found that temperature isn’t terribly important. I made a batch of yogurt and dehydrated some berries at 115° to no ill effect. I’ve gone up to 145° but didn’t like the texture as much. If just drying berries, I use 135°, as my dehydrator manual suggests. I vary the temperature for my convenience, like having a batch finish at 9AM instead of 6AM.

To puncture the skin, I didn’t much like the idea of slicing every blueberry in half, or of poking a hole in every berry so I tried blanching. I varied the blanching time between 30 seconds and two minutes. The results are dehydrated berries, but a less than satisfactory experience.

The blanched berries dry very unevenly. I pulled some off the dehydrator at 12 hours, some at 18, and others after 24 hours. The skin of the blanched berries tends to get dry and crispy before the center gets leathery. So part of the berry is too dry by the time the center gets dry enough. The berries that dried the best were blanched longer, and they also tended to mush and leak juice all over the trays, making for more cleanup. I doubt I will ever blanch and dehydrate blueberries again.

Last night I dried a big batch bananas, as well as a few more trays of blueberries. For comparison, I sliced a batch of blueberries in half, I poked a few with a sharp knife blade, I poked others with a paper clip, still others with a hole poked through both sides of the berry with the paper clip, and finally, a set of berries on the paper clip, shish kebab style.

After dehydrating overnight, the bananas are all dehydrated to perfection. The sliced in half blueberries were also dried to leathery perfection. Not a single sliced or poked berry was even close to leathery, and all were still quite moist. The least dehydrated was the shish kebab berries, since the paper clip plugged the holes.

I would like to find a solution that dehydrates the whole berry while producing sliced-in-half texture and flavor. Until then, slicing in half requires a bit more prep, less mess and cleanup, consistently better results in a lot less dehydration time, and no sorting needed while packaging them.

Mediterranean diet

The following account is an actual conversation between myself and the pharmacist at Walgreens (while picking up a prescription for grandpa).

Matt: “How many prescriptions does the average 70 year old have?”
Pharmacist: “It depends on the person.”

Matt: “The average shouldn’t depend on the person.”
Pharmacist: “Good point. Probably 10 or so.”

Matt: “You said it depends. What then makes the greatest difference in the number of prescriptions a person has?”
Pharmacist: “A mediterranean diet.”

Matt: “Huh?”
Pharmacist: “You know, mostly fresh plants and fruits, whole grains, moderate wine consumption, and regular physical activity.”

Matt: “And how many prescriptions does the mediterranean diet patient have?”
Pharmacist: “4-6. Most everyone else, 10-12.”

Matt: “Hmmm.”

Knife Sharpening

Over the years, I have acquired numerous sharpening and honing devices: whetstones, carbide rods in holders, diamond stones, and more. While the carbide “pull it down the blade” sharpeners work, they do no produce an edge that lasts. Invariably, I keep returning to the whetstone.

But I loathe using the stones, probably because I’m not very good at it. It takes me a half hour per knife to get something resembling that super-sharp factory edge. Because it takes so long, I don’t sharpen them often enough. So I start using the santoku knife instead of the chef knife, and a carving knife instead of a paring knife. Until there’s not a sharp knife left on my magnetic knife bar.

Then, finally, I spend a half day sharpening all my knives. Which I did, last week. And by jove, they are much sharper. But it’s also obvious which ones I didn’t spend enough time on. My chef’s knife no longer glides through raw carrots like it did 15 years ago when it arrived from the Henckel factory. And I lack the sharpening skills to get it there.

I considered hiring a service to sharpen them all, setting the edge for me. Then I could continue touching them up with the stones. But for the same money, I found and purchased a knife sharpener. My review is on Amazon’s site.

[amazon asin=B000TYBWJ0&template=iframe image&chan=default]