In The Kitchen – Parmesan Baked Cod

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In The Kitchen – Parmesan Baked Cod

   While I finish putting together the next technical Blog, Amateur Radio Nets And How To Use Them.  I thought I would follow up our restaurant review with an easy recipient for your own kitchen!  I do not like a lot of seafood, but cod fish is one of my favorites!  A great texture and mild flavor goes well with many sauces and side dishes.  Let’s get in the kitchen, and put together a dinner your family or guests will love!

 Ingredients – (for 2)

1lb Fresh (or Frozen Cod Fillets).
3 ½ Tbsp. Mayonnaise.
2 ¾ Tbsp. freshly grated parmesan cheese. (*I use the food processor attachment for the Bosch Universal Mixer to grate the parmesan cheese.).
1 Tbsp. Fresh chopped Parsly ( I cheated and used dried.).
1 Tbsp. Fresh chopped Basil ( I again cheated and used dried.).
1 cloves garlic grated
Salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions –

Preheat the oven to 450 F.
Grate the parmesan cheese (Here I am using the food processor with the grater attachment of the Bosch Universal Mixer.).

Pat the cod fillets dry with a paper towel and place in a on a prepared baking sheet or baking pan. (I used non stick spray, but you can also use butter, or parchment paper to prevent the fish from sticking to the baking sheet/pan.).
In a small bowl, stir the mayonnaise together with the cheese, fresh herbs, garlic, salt, and pepper until combined.
Spread over the top of the fillets.

Bake 10 – 12 minutes or until the fish starts looking opaque and flakes easily with a fork.
Switch oven to broiler and brown the tops of the fish until lightly golden, (About 1-2 minutes, but watch it carefully so you do not burn the parmesan topping.).

This dish goes will with rice pilaf (Shown here) or mashed potatoes, and vegetables.  (String green beans with almonds pictured here.).

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BOSCH Universal Plus Kitchen Mixer (Wire Whips, Dough Hook & NutriMill Dough Hook Extender Bundle).

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Pensacola Restaurant Review – Miguel’s Mexican Restaurant

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Pensacola Restaurant Review – Miguel’s Mexican Restaurant

  Happy Sunday everyone!  Well, I figured I would follow up my previous Florida Restaurant Review with a restaurant that is actually located in Pensacola!  It seems that most of the best restaurants are found by accident.  Miquel’s Mexican Restaurant is no exception to this rule.  Sitting at home one night with hunger pangs I was looking through Door Dash and came across Miguel’s, which stood out to me because of the family owned chain of Mexican Restaurant’s in San Diego with almost the same name, “Miguel’s Mexican Cantina”.  So, taking the plunge I decided to order.

  I was glad I did!  The food was awesome, in fact it reminded me of my families staple Mexican restaurant that every member of our family grew up with, Nati’s (See the blog HERE). The food was so good that I just had to try it out in person! 

 

You always have to have chips and salsa when going to a Mexican Resturant!  (Refreshing since a lot of Korean Mexican Restaurants they did not automatically come with a meal, you had to order them).  You have a choice of salsa, white or yellow queso.  I chose the yellow queso, which was excellent!

  I ordered a small Naco’s Grande as an appetizer. 

  For my main course I ordered a large beef Puff Taco, which is made with a “puff shell”, which reminded me of a Chalupa shell.  Covered in enchilada sauce and cheese!  The taco shell is oh so soft and the taco flavorful.  Being topped with sauce is what reminds me so much about Nati’s.

  Following the Puff Taco, I also ordered a beef burrito, which comes with beans and rice, and again topped with enchilada sauce, and cheese.  What shocked me, is Miguel’s is one of the few (maybe the only) restaurant that makes their refried beans almost exactly like Nati’s!

 

  To the surprise of the entire resturant staff I was able to finnish the meal all by myself and I enjoyed the dinner so much more actually going to the restaurant in person!  Even more shocking than finally finding a twin of Nati’s was the price of the bill! 

  The entire meal came out to be around $39 dollars!  I can spend almost that much going in person to McDonald’s these days and spending well over that if delivered by DoorDash! 

  Miguel’s Mexican Restaurant will definitely get return business from me, and I highly recommend it to our visitors.

Hours –

Tuesday 11am – 9pm
Wed-Thurs 11am – 4pm
Friday 11am – 9pm
Saturday 11am – 4pm
Sunday & Monday – Closed
Bingo every other Thursday: 7pm

Mappable Address –

6560 Pensacola Blvd
Pensacola, Fl. 32505

Website –

https://miguelsmexicanpensacola.com/

Facebook-

https://www.facebook.com/MiguelsMexicanRestaurantPensacolablvd

Phone # –

850-944-4778

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In The Kitchen – Grilled Burgundy Tri Tip (Cardiff Crack)

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  In The Kitchen – Grilled Burgundy Tri Tip (Cardiff Crack)

 

  Who doesn’t like a good grilled steak?  I had tried preparing and grilling this once before on my last road trip in Korea.  However, it ended up slightly overcooked.  Though the recipe had potential.  The recipe comes from Seaside Market in Cardiff California.  I decided to give it another go, with great results! If you are looking for a good first indirect heat recipe I highly recommend giving this Burgundy Tri-Trip a try!

 Ingredients:

3 -5 lb Tri-Tip or substitute with a sirloin roast (I used Picahna).  If you plan ahead you can order form https://wildforkfoods.com/  which is where I will try to get mine next time.
2 Cups Pinot Noir
¼ Cup olive oil
½ cup low sodium tamari
2 tsp Maggi sauce
3 tsp Honey
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbl cracked black pepper

Preparation –

Trim the tri-tip of excess fat ( The picahna had a large fat cap. ).
Add all of the marinade ingredients into a zip lock bag with the tri-tip.
Press out as much air as possible.
Seal the plastic bag and place in the refrigerator for a preferably  for 24 hours, a minimum of 3.

 Grilling Directions –

When it is time to grill, set your grill up for indirect heat, and preheat the grill to 250 deg. F.
Place the tri-tip on the indirect heat side, and grill until the internal temperature reaches 120 def F (approx. 1 – 2-hours.).  It took me 1 hour.
Move the tri-tip to the direct heat side, and grill until the you get a nice char, and the internal temp reaches 130 deg F.
Remove the tri-tip from the grill, lightly cover with foil and let rest 15 – 20 minutes. temp should be 135 – 140 deg F for medium rare.

Cut against the grain and serve!

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Looking Back On Korea – Dark Side Of Seoul Tour.

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Every Country Has A Past, Every City Has A Story

Get Spooked On The Dark Side Of Seoul Tour

  It was a dark and stormy night, the wind howled, and the full moon shown through the gathering storm clouds, clearly illuminating the group of huddled tourists on the bustling streets of Seoul.  The seasoned guide explains to his charges that a famous psychologist theorized that we create ghost stories and legends to give voice to our deepest fears.  Most of us, either at a sleep over with our close friends or classmates or around a campfire at summer camp have gleefully told stories that would make the hair stand up on the necks of our listeners.  Every culture has their haunted locations, ghost stories, and urban myths.  The Dark Side Of Seoul Tour will take you on a leisurely guided walking tour exploring Korea’s seedy, sometimes turbulent past and the history and legend deeply embedded in these areas of Seoul and Korea.  The bloodied past, sordid tales of political intrigue, sex, and jealousy hidden by the march of time, just waiting to be uncovered and if only briefly brought back into consciousness.

 

 Without spoiling the tour let’s take a look at some of Korea’s spooky past that at one time or another covered on Brent’s World, and you would never know a deeper story existed.

 

  Let us start with Cheonggyecheon stream, which every year hosts the Seoul Internal Lantern Festival <Click HERE to view!>,  and used to be one of the city’s main sewer canals.  In Seoul, you will hear a lot about the Joseon Dynasty.  King Yi Seong Gye had 2 queens. One from Jeonju, and one from Seoul.  The King was madly in love with the 2nd Queen.  Queen Sindeok.   The sons of the Queen from Jeonju were never happy that their father was more enamored with Queen Sindeok then their own mother.  This lead to Queen Sindeok wanting to promote her own sons to be heir to the throne of Korea.  Queen Sindeok suddenly became ill and passed away.  This lead to one group of sons plotting to kill the other, and when the King found out (As Kings often do of such things.), he was so heartbroken he abdicated the throne and gave it to his oldest son from oldest heir on the Jeonju side.  Shortly after this a massive flood hit Seoul and took out the Gwangtonggyo bridge.  One of the main roads crossing the stream.  In a way of showing disdain for the late Queen Sindeok, and flexing his nuts to his half-brothers he decided to reuild the bridge not only using the stones from Queen Sindeok’s tomb, but moving the entire tomb, and reburying the queen upside down, the ultimate disrespect in Korean burial!

 

The Dead Virgin And The Day The Fish Stopped Biting.

  Way back in 2014, on our trip to Seokcho, we stopped at an interesting attraction called Haesadang park, or colloquially Penis park, so named because this cliffside park is literally strewn with these carved wood and stone penis sculptures.   As stated in the blog < Click here to view > and paraphrased here, this blatant display of sexuality is very unusual for a usually very traditional Korean society.  What exactly is the story behind these strange sculptures that fill this town?

  A long time ago in a small fishing village in Korea, a maiden went down to the sea on her wedding day and was swept away and drowned.  Her unsettled spirit being upset that she was not able to consummate her marriage with her husband cursed the ocean around the village and the fisherman were unable to catch any fish!  Faced with famine, the fishermen came up with a plan!  Each of the adult village men all went down to the sea, whipped out their manhood and depending on who is telling the story either had one large circle jerk casting their seed to the ocean, or they all urinated.  Take your pick.  Regardless, this appeased the virgin and the catch rate returned to normal.  So, these statues were built to continue to make the virgin happy thus sustaining the village.

Saenamteo – The Catholic Martyrs Shrine, the day the Han turned red with blood.

  Saenamteo was a military training ground outside the city walls of Seoul near the Han river, it was famously used as an execution ground for political prisons.  Most famously Catholic priests, missionaries, and followers.  The Christian religion was seen as a contradictory belief system to the reverence of confusion beliefs and more importantly the rule of the Joseon Kings, after all you should honor your King and Queen before honoring your father and mother!  On a day of torture and execution it was said that the Han River would run red with blood.  In the 1980’s the church of Saenamteo and martyrs’ shrine was built, the unique feature being that the building is constructed using traditional Korean architecture.  If you are interested in visiting Saenamteo, read my blog by clicking HERE.

  The Dark Side Of Seoul tour was a real interesting tour for Mi Jung and myself, although we had been to most of the areas talked about on the tour, it was really nice to get an idea of the history of those areas.  I would definitely recommend the tour as a first stop to tourists, and new arrivals to Korea as it is a great overview on what to come back and explorer.

 Reservations can be made online by clicking HERE, there are 2 tours offered, a 2 hour or 3 hour tour (Don’t worry, there are no boat rides!).
You will be contacted by your guide with the final instructions after booking.

There are 2 meeting points. 

Anguk Station Exit 2, Gahoe-dong, Seoul, South Korea
Seodaemun Station, Chunghyeon-dong, Seoul, South Korea

If you take this tour, please come back and discuss in the comments section, or the forum!

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Looking Back On Korea – Penis Park

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Looking Back On Korea – Penis Park

  One of the contrasts of Korea that I don’t think I will ever get used to, is what is usually a very rigid conservative culture and the sometimes brazen display of sexuality.  In that regard I am not talking about finding a late night tv program where they blur out a cigarette or a knife with blood in one scene, while showing full frontal nudity in the next.  Or the young adult’s women’s clothing style of wearing some of the shortest miniskirts you have ever seen, even in the dead of winter (You will see women in think fur coats, winter gloves and hats while wearing nylons and a mini skirt.)  Think Nanook’s wife with a G-String, or ordering 2 double cheese burgers and a diet coke. 

  I am talking about the sexuality that seems to be embedded in Korea’s past, wrapped up in the very folk lore that explains the existence of cities.  Near Samcheok, a place called Haesadang Park, colloquially known as “Penis Park” is a perfect example. 

   I am not sure what aspect of “Penis Park” is the most strange, the collection of carved phallic statues, or the legend and myth surrounding the statues.  The story, set in the remote fishing village of Samcheok, says that a young woman who was just married was down by the shore and was swept out to sea by big wave. 

  Following her death the local fisherman were not able to catch any more fish.  That is until they gathered on a cliff and urinated into the sea, then the catch rate in the village returned to normal.

  This prompted the fishermen to (SORRY!) erect these penis statues to honor the young bride, so that her sprit could rest, and they could catch fish to feed their families.

Welcome to Penis Park!

  The ocean scenery from Haesadang Park cannot be beat!

There is also a diving, and marine museum next to the park,  You can also hike further down into the actual fishing village that still exists, and see how the locals harvest and dry out seaweed, which gets sold as gimbap (Kim-Bop) wrappers.

Interesting that they decided to put boobs on these photo divers (The diver to my right is definitely a man. With MOOBS.

 

  Awaiting the bus to take us back to our hotel in Donghae, I came across this closed school, which the story Mi Jung told about it was almost as interesting as the young virgins death that enticed a bunch of fishermen to whip it out and pee in the sea.  Mi Jung said that in allot of these rural villages, once the children grow up and move away, only the older parents are left and there is no longer a need to keep the schools open.  I had fun walking around taking video of the complex.  It looks like the buildings are still being maintained as a disaster shelter.  I walked around, imagining the students who spent a good deal of their childhood here learning.  Hearing their laughter in my head, while thinking of Bob Dylan’s Forever Young.

[Show thumbnails]
How to get here:

From the Dong Seoul bus terminal buy ticket to Samcheok bus terminal then take bus # 24 to Haesadang. 
The bus runs from 5:30am – 7:20pm, and runs 11 times a day.

I always get confused in the Korean bus terminals, because it seems that each ticket window sells tickets to different destinations.  Arrive early, get a print out of the hangul spelling of your destination, be patient and ask a school kid for help is the best advice. 

Restaurant Review (Gainesville) – Cantina Anejo

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Restaurant Review – Cantina Anejo

Great Mexican Food in Gainesville, Florida

  It has been FOREVER since I have done a proper restaurant review. July of 2023 to be exact!  So, what a great time to also get one of those out of the way as well.  After stopping by Depot Park and the Cade Museum I had worked up quite the appetite.

  Where to go to get a bite to eat was the next question.  It had been a while since I have had real good Mexican food, why not look to see what Gainesville has to offer.  A quick search on Apple Maps directed me to Cantina Anejo in the University area.  Finding the restaurant was easy, finding parking was not.  If you go during peak times, be sure to bring some extra patience with you.

  I arrived at 1230 and was immediately able to get a table, they do have a sidewalk bar area where you can get a quick drink or bite to eat.  I chose to get out of the heat inside the dining room.

  I ordered the Queso and Mexican Chorizo to get started and a Carne Asada Burrito.

The food was filling, and very flavorful.  It made me miss San Diego!
The service was quick and professional, and the restaurant is suitable for small or large groups!

I highly recommend Cantina Anejo when you are in Gainesville.

Searchable phone # and Address –

(352) 781-2050
1680 W University Ave – Ste 10
Gainesville, FL 32601

I hope you enjoyed this week’s Brent’s World Blog!

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On The Road Again – The Lubee Bat Conservancy

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On The Road Again – The Lubee Bat Conservancy

*Disclaimer: This is a private blog with content developed solely by myself!  The opinions expressed here belong solely to me and do not reflect the views of the Lubee Bat Conservancy it’s officers, employee’s, or volunteers..  
  The best precaution against rabies, is if you come across a bat in the wild or in your home,do not disturb, touch, or attempt to relocate the bat but to contact appropriate wildlife experts such as your local animal control!  If you have been scratched or bitten by a bat, confine the bat if possible, so it can be captured for the appropriate tests.  Seek medical care immediately, at the very least you may have to get a tetanus booster.

Okay enough from my battorney!  On to the pre-ramble!

  It is with a mix of joy and dread sitting down to write this blog!  Joy because over the last 3 years I have developed such an adoration and interest in not only the most misunderstood mammals but the only mammal capable of powered flight! Fear because I do not feel even after blogging for 14 years that I have the skill to tackle this blog in such a way that it does itself and the Lubee Bat Conservancy justice.  Once everything is said and done, I may have bitten off more than I can chew!

   So, how did I get interested in bats?  One day, I received a panicked call from Mi Jung, while I am used to receiving ‘urgent” or “panicked” calls about a myriad of computer problems that are stopping her from doing things like day trading.  I was not prepared to for the picture of what the actual problem was

.   “OK!!  Yeah, you can panic about that, but there is nothing I can do, go ahead and call the apartment management and let them take care of it.”  Being the kind and emotionally supportive boyfriend I am.  I began looking for plush bats on Amazon as a reminder of this unique experience in Korea.  Mi Jung did not like the bat, and I was constantly told that I am not a child, nobody likes bats, etc.   Betty became a permeant member  of the house, and it became a game of “elf on a shelf” and moving the bat to different locations of the apartment every morning and concocting life stories about the Batoogies..  Such as Betty being lonely and searching on www.batcupid .com and falling in love with Bruce who eventually came to live with us!

  I find it a bit fun that even though the bats were made with the same style and method, subtle differences seem to give each their own personality.  Bruce’s nephew Baxter (Who also happens to be a Battorney), seems shy and bashful.  Betty and Bruce are teaching Baxter to fly.   Baxter doesn’t look too sure of this flying thing.. 

  While ordering more bats, and coming up with new stories for them, I began to learn more and more about real bats the crucial role they play ecologically and that most of what the average person knows about bats is founded in myth, lore, and superstition.

  There is contradictory evidence regarding bats and zoonotic diseases.  For Instance  one veterinary medicine site lists bats as a main cause of rabies infections in the US, along with fox’s, racoons, and skunks.  The CDC, while listing those animals completely omits bats. Though  the article does list them as being a carrier.

  The Bat World Sanctuary www.batworld.org references a study by the University of Calgary that “bats are not as disease ridden as the stigma suggests.” and that only 1/2 of 1% of ALL bats may contract the disease and those that do are not asymptomatic carriers.  Other animals that humans are more likely to come in contact with are a more likely source.

  It is a current belief that bats are the source of the SARS Covid-19 outbreak from a “wet” food market in Wuhan China.  However, this has not been proven with 100% certainty.  While other theories include the virus was already present in the bat population, but had not undergone the mutation to infect humans but was then passed to the Pangolin where the mutation took place and it was a pangolin that infected patient zero. It could have  also being genetically modified during enhancement of function experiments at the Viral Institute of Wuhan and accidently released.

  Even if bats are a disease vector for specific and rare zoonotic illnesses, for the insectivore population of bats, which make of 70% of all bats, each bat can eat up to 1,200 mosquitos every hour and up to 6,000 to 8,000 insects a night!  Mosquitoes are the primary carriers of Malaria which kills upwards of 608,000 people a year, and Japanese Encephalitis which kill anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 a year!  So, while bats can spread disease they by and large play a bigger role in preventing it.

  Myth: Bats are blind or have terrible eyesight and rely completely on echolocation to find food and make their way in the world.
Well, one of these statements is true, but which one? 

 While bat’s do have smaller eyes as compared to other mammals, they do have sensitive eyes that are capable of seeing in low light!  They do not have sharp color vision because more of the surface area of their retina is made up of cones, vs rods.  It is the rods that give us  color vision, but it is the rods that allow us to see in low light.  Next time you are in a dark room, notice how you are unable to discern color! 

 Around 1000 species of bats use a form of echolocation to hunt for food (both insects and fruit), they will send sounds in the Low Frequency Range (9kHz – 200kHz).    Human hearing range is between 20 Hz – 20kHz).  That most of these sounds mostly occur beyond the range of human hearing is why they are usually referred to as being “ultra sonic” but I am referring to them here in their place in the electromagnetic spectrum and thus low frequency.

  The lower the frequency the larger the object bats will be able to detect, and at a longer range.  Like radio waves, the lower the frequency it takes a larger object to reflect the “signal” as the wavelengths will just move around smaller objects such as insects.  The higher frequency waves travel a shorter distance, are reflected by small objects such as insects and travel faster, so a bat will “see” an object” sooner.

  Bats transmit the signals through their mouth or nose, and receive them through their ears.  An interesting fact that also relates to other manuals including humans, is a muscle in their ears called the Stapedius Muscle that restricts the bones in the middle ear that detect sound from moving when they “speak”. Humans have a similar response when we are speaking or in loud environments. 

Still with me?  We have more myth vs. reality to cover, then we can move on to what I really want to blog about my private tour of the Lubee Bat Conservancy!

Myth: Bat’s are evil creatures, have supernatural powers, and drink human blood!

  The tour guild of the Dark Side Of Seoul Tour quoted an unnamed psychologist saying, “We create ghost stories to voice our darkest fears.”  Chief of those fears is of what happens to our soul after we die, and the battle between good and evil spirits.  Another reason for myth and legend is to give explanation to something that we lack an explanation for.  Interesting is that in the legends in Asia while Vampires exist (Gon Shi) in China and Korea.  They have nothing to do with bats but are their own demon spirit possession that hop on still legs and are more akin to a Zombie. Bats are not evil creatures at all, but a harbinger and sign of luck,and  (unfortunately) fertility  as concoctions using parts of bats, or soups made from bats are use as an aphrodisiac, a cure for infertility, or impotence.

  Western Vampire legends that involve bats were made popular in England by Brom Stroker, and contains elements of early medical / metaphysical science, pharmacology, and Eastern European folk lore!  I was surprise when I read the novel that this may have been one of the earliest medical thrillers (For those of you that like Robin Cook or Michael Creighton.).  Stories of Vampires and Zombie may have started circulating as a way of explaining graves dug up for the purposes of grave robbing either to steal jewelry left on the bodies, or bodies being taken for medical research, which was prevalent at that time.

  While there are bats that feed on the blood of livestock, and very rarely human blood.  Bats feeding on humans is really not a thing! 

Therefore there is no reason that we should be afraid of bats, or want to prophylactically eradicate them as they play a vital role in the ecosystem!

  I had been anxiously awaiting this tour for months!  It almost did not happen for reasons I will not go into here, but Sep 22 Finally arrived.  So after waking up, and a quick shower, it was off to Depot Park to kill a few hours.  I walked around the park for a couple hours taking some selfies and listening to the East Coast Reflector.   Then off we went to the Lubee Bat Conservancy.  It was a nice drive out into the country, and the driveway was easy to find using Apple Maps.

  Here is my first regret as a photographer, as I will have to see if I can get a picture of their main gate when I go back at the end of the month for the Florida Bat Festival.  The large metal gate, and large red sign warning you to not proceed further unless you have a scheduled appointment gave a slight Jurassic Park vibe.  Warning duly noted, but we had a scheduled tour so on we went!  We saw the large red barn that was noted in the directions on our confirmation, labeled The Bat Barn..  There were no signs indicating were we should park, so I just parked behind some cars that were already there and figured I would be asked to move if it was in the wrong spot.

  I grabbed Old Man Bat, as a comic relief photo stand-in.  Rose and Drac were left in the car and to their own devices.  They decided to go on their own *driving tour.  Drac was pretty nervous asking Rose if he thought this was such a good idea (What if they mistake us for escapee’s?!)..  Rose told Drac not to be silly, they know they don’t teach their bats to drive!  

* There is no driving tour, just thought you needed a laugh after the preramble!

There is great and fun artwork by the parking area.

  Once finished with our selfies, we moved on to the Bat Barn, where Old Man Bat started being defiant right off the bat (sigh, yes that was a bad pun.)….  Old man bat takes after me, because when I told him to get down, he replied “I didn’t climb!  I flew!”

  I soon met up with Brittany, my tour guide for the afternoon, and before going into the bat enclosures, I was shown a couple of baby bats and then one of the two Lubee Bat Conservancy Tortoises.  I thought Brittany was pulling my leg when she warned me that we had to enter the tortoises pen quickly and close the gate or the tortoise would try to exit the pen (The tortoise is allowed to roam free when there is not a tour scheduled).  Everyone knows tortoises are slow.. right?  RIGHT?!!!  WRONG….   That tortoise could MOVE!!!  

Notice the worn spots on the tortoise’s shell? 

  These are actually areas that were filed down due to a fungal infection and once the fungus was filed off, normal over the counter Athletes foot cream was applied.  We also checked out it’s burrow which the tortoise uses for shelter from the heat and if in the wild protection from predators.    

They had to be very careful about ants because the tortoise has no ability to fed off the ants once they attack, and they can infest the shell.  I completely emphasized with the poor guy, before I got control of the ants at my house, they made mince meat out of my hands and feet!

Before going inside the enclosure and going over the ground rules for the tour (You will be provided a copy send to your email when your tour is confied).  I could post them here, but to save space I will just emphasize the main one!  There is NO touching the bats in any shape or form!  Oh, and…  There are live webcams in the enclosures so you might be broadcast on the internet.  I had a chuckle over that, because well, I am a blogger and a big supporter of the right to photograph anyone in public, you will also hear me say a lot. “Turn about is fair play..”.  Brittany asked me to pick 3 “enrichments” (These are either off the shelf  or hand made toys to elicit responses that bats in the  wild need in the wild that would otherwise be suppressed in the enclosures..  Such as being able to retrieve nectar out of a flower,.

or have a response to a startling stimulus, as seen here.  I had to pick the measuring cups being a baker!

I picked the mirror because it reminded me of a picture I posed with Pastel.

Or maybe if the bat does not cast a reflection it was our cue to run!

Vanity wins, but also presents an opportunity for another colony mate! While one bat is posing for a photo, another goes in for a quick snack.. mmmm, Mango! 

Pastel shares another similarity to one of the bats we saw who came to the conservatory missing an eye, and has a cataract in the good eye so was actually blind..  I don’t have a photo but Pastel will stand in.  Pastel lost one of her eyes in a freak back scratcher “accident” (Did I mention that Mi Jung did not like the plush bats?).

Another fun interactive activity on the tour is feeding the fruit eating bats, kabobs.  I was a little nervous I would end up poking the poor fella’s because… wellll,  my depth perception SUCKS!!!!  So I would just hold the skewer in front of me, and let them come to the end of the skewar if they wanted it!

  While I make a conscience effort not to propagate any of the myth’s that bats are evil, however  I did comment that seeing some of the smaller bats scurrying along upside down on the top of the enclosures was “unsettling” in the sense that it is just not something you see everyday, and if you got a 100 so of them to do that down a darkened hallway, it would make for a great scene in or horror movie, or stretch the imagination and a darkened space ship. 

*DISCLAIMER!  This photo was shot with a focal length of 200mm,  I did not get this close to the bat in order to get the picture..

Here are the boys just hangin around.

The 70 minute tour went by so quickly!  Getting the pictures together at home I realized there was so much room for improvement, and so many pictures I would have liked to have taken!  Though it does open up more opportunities to go back for some of the other events, such as the Bat Photo Days.  What would I do differently?  What could I do for more creative pictures?  Could I get by with using a prime lens so I could get a wider aperture?  Could I retake the photos that were shot wide open with a narrower aperture so more of the photo is in focus?  Outside of photography I found digging into the cultural, and mythological aspects of bats fascinating.  Enough that I could fill another 3 blogs!

 One thing is certain, if anything in this blog piqued your interest, the Lubee Bat Conservancy is a great place to get your answers!  The tour was educational, Brittany was an awesome tour guide who was extremely knowledgeable and personable.  Who was able to answer questions ranging from anything you wanted to know about the bats, day to day operations, science, and veterinary medicine!  She even put up with my corny bat jokes! 

  To schedule a tour for your school (In person or virtual), or your own VIP tour for a group of up to 10 people, visit the Lubee Bat Conservancy’s website at https://www.lubee.org/ The cost is $250 and is a donation to the Conservancy. 

  Also!  The conservancy will be holding the 20th Annual Florida Bat Festival! 26 Oct 2024!  This is a great opportunity to come on out support our batty friends eat, drink, and be merry!  For more information please go to https://www.lubee.org/flbatfestival

  While I do not make any commision on any tours or activities you arrange with the Lubee Bat Conservancy, if you do make inquiries or schedule a tour or even after reading this blog, please do let them know you found out about them from catracing.org.  I do wish that the effort that goes into creating content gets back to the organisations I blog about to promote good will.

  Thank you for stopping by Bren’ts World!  Please come back again to read new and exciting content!  If you wish to be notified when new content is posted, please consider registering by going to https://www.catracing.org/hendrb/wp-login.php.

Road Trip! – A Weekend in Gainesville

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Road Trip! – A Weekend in Gainesville

  It is amazing that I had not been on a road trip since Jul of 2023!  That is a lot of time staying around one’s home.  I had been planning to visit the Lubee Bat Conservancy for quite a few months since making reservations for a private VIP tour!  This trip almost did not happen.  However, working the numbers in my head while 8 hours of driving round trip was a slog.  It was entirely possible!

  The plan was to drive up on Friday, see some of the local attractions on Saturday then take the Bat Conservancy tour on Sunday then drive home!

Driving Route to Gainesville

  Preparing for the trip.  I wanted to play radio as much as I could while driving, so I mapped out as well as I could which 2 meter and 70cm repeaters I would be passing along the way.  The programming software for the Yaesu FTM-500DR makes that very easy with its online Repeater Book integration.  I simply compared the cities I would be passing next to on Interstate 10 and 75 with what was in Repeater Book. 

Selected them and imported them in a range of open memory slots.

  Here are is a conversation (known as a CUE-SO  “QSO”) I had with John W4CJB a radio amateur near Defuniak Springs on the WF4X repeater using 2 meters FM.  Hearing everyone’s surprise that I was going to tour a bat conservancy always made me chuckle!

  The radio made the trip go by much faster than it would have otherwise.  Before I knew it I was pulling in to the hotel, where it was time to check in, find a place to eat dinner (Which turned out to be the McDonald’s across the street), take a shower and go to bed!

  Saturday dawned bright and early and I had scheduled an experience flight at the Gainesville airport. 

Here is another QSO I had with Kevin, KE4NVI via the East Coast IRLP Reflector on my way to the airport, discussing the Lubee Bat Conservancy and the University Of Florida Bat Houses.

Unfortunately  the airplane had some technical difficulties that precluded me from being able to go up.  I compliment the companies attention to safety and detail and am glad the problem was discovered on the ground rather than in the air.

  So, I had the entire day to kill and ended up at Depot Park and the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention.  An interactive children’s / science museum named after Dr. James Cade one of the inventors of the sports drink Gatorade.

  They had some interesting exhibits that captured the attention of children and adults alike.

One of my favorite exhibits was this thermal camera exhibit.

Proceeding outside I finally got to lay eyes on an alligator.  Even if I was a captive audience!

I had a lot of fun after finding this hopscotch board laid out on the walking path.

So, I got some walking in, played radio, and got some great pictures!

I then broke for lunch and found a really good Mexican restaurant near the university ( I will post a formal restaurant review after the Bat Conservancy blogs are complete and published..).

  I then became lazy and headed back to the hotel for a quick nap before heading off to the University of Florida Bat Houses.  I had some time, so I set up for some selfies and more ham radio!

  At sunset the bats come out of the houses and begin their search for insects to feed on.  I learned a few things!

  • Bats in bat houses smell! You could definitely tell one was in the air.
  • It was very difficult to capture a clear image of a bag in flight! The low light just would not enable me to use a shutter speed that would enable me to capture a clear image.

After the bat houses, it was back to the hotel, with another dinner from (you guessed it!), McDonald’s and  bed.  Tomorrow was the reason I came to Gainesville, to tour the Lubee Bat Conservancy..

Mappable Addresses:

DEPOT PARK

874 SE 4th St,
Gainesville, FL 32601

Cade Museum

811 South Main Street
Gainesville, FL 32601

Admission Price –
Youth – 5-7 $10.00
Youth – 0-4 FREE
Adult – $15.00
College Student (ID Required)  – $12.50
Senior – $12.50

University Of Florida Bat Houses

Museum Rd, Gainesville, FL 32611 ( I do not have an exact address, but I was able to search for them by the heading on my GPS.

Thank you for visiting Brent’s World!  I hope you are enjoying our adventure.

Please come back to visit for more exciting content, such as touring the Lubee Bat Conservancy in Gainesville.

If you wish to be notified when new content is posted, please consider registering by going to https://www.catracing.org/hendrb/wp-login.php

In The Kitchen – Cooking With Sourdough

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In The Kitchen – Cooking With Sourdough

 

  One of my favorite types of bread’s s sourdough.  I love the drier crumb and slightly bitter taste that comes from the lactobacillus.  A lot of people shy away from using sourdough due to the extra time required to start and maintain a good starter, but once you have a system down the care and feeding become second nature.

  What is a sourdough starter?  Sourdough is a maintained culture of both yeast and lactobacillus bacteria.  The yeast feeds off the starches in your flour, and the lactobacillus bacterium feed off the yeast and keep the yeast growth in check.  The lactobacillus is acidic and gives the resulting dough a tangy sour flavor.  This flavor can be distinctive depending on the region.  Some famously so, such as San Francisco.  This is due to the different strains of yeast and lactobacillus.

  There are two ways you can begin a sourdough starter.  You can start growing a yeast culture with the yeast naturally already in your flour and spores in the air.  Or you can use commercial yeast to get your start going,  your starter will over time acquire more and more natural yeast and take on a flavor of its own.  For the purpose of this blog we will use the commercial yeast assisted method. 

  I will also present 2 Sourdough recopies.  One a Sourdough Honey Wheat stand mixer recipie, which is also commercial yeast assisted.  This makes a great start for those baking with a sourdough starter for the first time!

  I will also provide a recipe for Sourdough Pancakes, which has served me well over the years both at home and while camping! 

  So, without further a-do! Let’s roll up our sleeves and get into it!

Sourdough Starter

One of the key ingredients to any sourdough recipe is a starter.  This is a mixture of flour and water that is used as a culture for your leavening yeast and lactobacillus, that gives it its flavor.  This is an easy method of getting a starter going using commercial baker’s yeast.  I have taken it from Nitty Gritty Books Bread Baking by Lou Siebert Pappas.

Ingredients

2 Cups lukewarm water (110f)
1 pkg. active dry yeast (2-1/4 tsp.)
2 Cups all purpose flour
½ tsp. salt.

  In a medium sized crock, or bowl (I use a large plastic ZipLock container) combine the water and yeast.  Let stand until yeast is dissolved.  About 5 minutes.  Mix in the flour and salt. 

  Cover loosely with cheesecloth (Using the ZipLock container I simply cover with the lid loosely in place.) in a warm location (Preferably 80f).  Each day for 4 days add ½ cup lukewarm water and ½ cup flour (You can discard ½ cup starter if needed before adding additional flour/water.).  At the end of 4 – 6 days, you should start to notice the familiar sour smell associated with sourdough.  You can now use to in a recipe or cover tightly and refrigerate.

  To use after refrigeration,, remove from refrigerator the night before, in the morning once the starter has come to room temperature feed with ½ cup flour and ½ cup lukewarm water.  It should be nice and bubbly and ready for use within an hour.  As you use the starter, replace with equal amounts flour / water.  If you use a cup or more, I like to feed the starter over the period of a couple of days, with ½ cup water / ½ cup flour a day.  Then cover and return to the refrigerator. 

  If you will be unable to care and feed the starter for several weeks, consider placing in the freezer!

Yeast Assisted Whole Wheat Sourdough Sandwich Bread

 One of my go to recipes for a delicious Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread uses commercial yeast in conjunction with our sourdough starter for an extra light and fluffy crumb!  This is a great recipe for lunch, picnic, and camping!  This is a great recipie to start with because you do not need to prepare a sponge the night before.  This recipe was also taken from Nitty Gritty Books Bread Baking by Lou Siebert Pappas.

 

  Ingredients

1 pkg active dry year (2 ¼ tsp)
2 cups unsifted whole wheat flour
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup each mil and water (Luke warm 125f)
¾ cup Sourdough Starter
¼ cup honey
1 tbs. salt
3 tbs. softened butter
1 tsp baking soda

Baking Instructions

Place the yeast, 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup all-purpose flour in a large mixing bowl or stand mixer.  Heat milk and water to 125 degrees F. Add to dry ingredients and stir until blended.  Add the sourdough starter and mix for 5 minutes.  Cover bowl with plastic film wrap. If using a *stand mixer, remove mixing paddles and cover bowl with plastic film wrap. Leave bowl in a warm place for 90 – 120 minutes. 

* I use a Bosch Universal Mixer.  I use the plasic lids on the mixing bowl, and before placing the smaller center lid, cover the hole with the plastic film, and twist the smaller lid on top of the film.  (Do NOT forget to remove your mixing paddles or dough hook!)

Place honey, butter, and soda in the mixer and replace dough hook.  Mix until blended.  Add the remaining cup of whole wheat flour and 1 cup of all-purpose flour and add the salt.  Slowly add the reaming flour until your dough has reached the desired consistency.  The sides of the bowl should be clean, and the dough should not be sticky.  This should take an additional 10 – 15 minutes.

Turn dough out on a lightly floured bread bord and finish kneading until smooth. 

Place dough in a greased bowl, cover with a damp kitchen towel and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size, approx. 90 – 120 minutes.).

Punch down and again turn out on a lightly floured breadboard and knead lightly. Form dough into a ball and cut in half.  Shape each half into a loaf and place into 2 9 x 5in. bread pans.  Cover the pans with the damp kitchen towel and allow to rise until doubled in size, approx. 45 – 60 minutes.

While the bread is rising preheat your oven to 375 degrees F. 

Bake the bread at 375 degrees F for 35 – 40 minutes or until the loaves sound hollow when tapped.

Remove from baking pans and allow to cool before slicing.

Sourdough Pancakes

Let’s switch gears here for a second!  One of my other favorite recipes that uses our sourdough starter is this great recipe for Sourdough Pancakes!  If anyone wants to hazard a guess as to where I got the recipe from, yes..  Nitty Gritty Books Bread Baking by Lou Siebert Pappas!  It really is too bad this book is out of print!  If Nitty Gritty Books is still publishing, perhaps you can write them and ask that they publish it again!  You can find the book on E-Bay and Amazon used if you keep looking!

   This recipe will definitely become a favorite with your family and is great for both home and camping!  A bit of a Brent’s tip here!  If you use it camping, you can separate the recipe (One ZipLock containing the sugar, salt, and soda.  The other bag containing the flour.  I do hope you try these pancakes, you won’t be disappointed!

Ingredients

½ Cup sourdough starter
2 Cups Milk
2 Cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 eggs
2 tbs sugar
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

  The night before: Combine starter, milk and flour in a large mixing bowl.  Mix until blended, cover with plastic wrap and let stand in a warm place 8 hours, or overnight.

  The Next morning: Add eggs, sugar, salt, and soda.  Beat until blended.  Pour batter into 3 inch cakes on a lightly greased hot girdle.  Cook until golden brown on both sides.

If you enjoy our content and wish to support Brent’s World, please consider purchasing the following recommended kitchen products!  All proceeds from Associates programs will be used to keep Brent’s world going and towards getting new content.  

BOSCH Universal Mixer Plus – Purchase from Amazon.com
Bob’s Red Mill WHole Wheat Flour (5lbs). – Ships from Amazon.com
Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Flour (5lbs). – Ships from Amazon.com
Fleischmann’s Active Dry Yeast (4oz Jar). – Ships from Amazon.com

  Thank you for stopping by Brent’s World, for this months edition of “In The Kitchen”. Come back next week for more new and exciting content!

If you wish to be notified when new content is posted, consider registering by clicking HERE!

Technical – It Was DNS! It’s Always DNS

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It was DNS, It’s Always DNS!

What is DNS and how I broke it.

  Last week.  Catracing.org suffered a 24 hour downtime.  This made my WordPress (blog), the phpBB (Forum site, and the Commodore 64 Bulletin Board system running in emulation unable to their users on the internet.  I am fortunate to be able to maintain 98.5% uptime on my self hosted services!  So to me it is a bit deal when something breaks, especially when looking back I am the one who caused the issue! 

  So what happened?  In a nutshell, I broke DNS!.  Through a well intentioned but poorly planned migration from one DNS service provide to another, a simple but catastrophic misunderstanding of a key piece of the top level of DNS, and nor remembering a key password put me at the mercy of waiting on customer support. 

  The ability of being able to come up with a workable plan B prevented me from experiencing an even lengthier downtime.

 

  So let’s take a look at a few things, what is DNS, how did I break it, how did I fix it, and what can I do to prevent or mitigate a similar failure in the future.

How did I break it?

  Upon returning from Korea and becoming an ATT internet customer, SMTP (Port 25) has been blocked both incoming and outgoing.  This is commonly done by internet service providers to combat spam, due to improperly configured email servers.  To get around this and continue running my email server had to subscribe to an SMTP replay service.  One of the other services this company provides is dynamic hostname registration, and providing zone level DNS services, which I have previously been getting from dyndns.org.  I had the bright idea, that if my SMTP relay server will also do dynamic IP and zone level DNS, I can cancel the dyndns services and only pay one company for all 3 services!  Great idea, right?  It would have been, if I had remember all the key processes of DNS name resolution and all of the steps I needed to do to migrate.   

  To compound the problem, I forgot the password to go in and make the changes that would set everything right, but more on that in a second.

What is DNS?

  Let’s take a step back to give a very quick and dirty rundown on what is DNS, you can better understand where my problem lay.  DNS or Domain Name Services is a hierarchical group (A very very large group) of servers that match domain names (google.com, yahoo.com, catracing.org) to their respective ip addresses.  While you and I think in terms of names, computers thing in terms of numbers. A computer really has no idea what google.com is, however it does know it by its Internet Protocol “IP” address 74.125.136.104.   Think of it as a White Pages of the internet.   If you wanted to call Baxter D. Bat, unless you call him all the time, you might not remember that his phone # is (619)555-1212.  So, you took out the phone book, looked up Bat, then found Baxter D, and then had the number you could then call him on the phone.  Keep this analogy of comparing an IP address and a phone number in your head, it will come in handy. 

  For instance, just like a phone number has multiple parts (Area Code)Local Prefix – Subscriber Number.  NOTE:  I am omitting country code for simplicity.  So does a domain name.  Let’s take www.catracing.org for example.  I am going to work this backwards from right to left, because it better feeds in to what I broke, so work with me here.  .org (TLD or Top Level Domain), .catracing (domain), www. (subdomain).

  The Top Level Domain or TLD is the groups IANA breaks down the taxonomy of various internet services.  For instance.

.org = Non Profit Organization
.com = Commercial Organization
.net = Network service provider
.gov = Government Organization.

  In a nutshell, here is what happens when you type www.catracing.org into your web browser and hit return.

  Your IP stack will look to be what the lowest level DNS service is, if you are on a corporate network, and have you own DNS server it will first query this server to ask if it knows who www.catracing.org is.   Most likely it will not, so it will ask the DNS server if it has a forwarder configured.  Let’s say it does, and it is configured for 8.8.8.8 (Googles Name Server).  It goes out and asks the Google Name Server.  Google says, NOPE, so it sends it out to its forwarder, and let’s say it is actually IANA.  It looks in it’s .org TLD, and say’s yup I see catracing.org, and in the domain registration, which was done by name.com, it shows the name server it is registered under is  ns1161.dns.dyn.com.  So the next DNS query is to ns1661.dns.dyn.com.  Do you know who www.catracing.org is?   “Why yes I do, its IP address is 104.57.170.70.  Now the computer knows the ip address, your computer can go there and retrieve the web page.

So,  What happened?

  Now that I have gone over how DNS works, and put the pieces in place that would cause catracing.org to become unavailable for 24 hours, lets go over how it happened.

I painstakingly recreated my DNS zone records on my new service, and used nslookup directed to their servers to make sure everything was resolving correctly.  Which it did.  Calling it good I canceled the service on dyndns.org.

  Several hours later when I was already asleep, catracing.org completely disappeared from the internet!  I did not catch the notification that my blog was unreachable until later in the day.  At first, I thought that the script I wrote to update my ip address did not work, and my IP address had changed.  However while pinging it, I noticed that it wasn’t just the pings to my IP address were coming back unreachable, it was www.catracing.org could not be resolved..   I had forgotten that the top level query, if it needed to do so, would tell whoever was searching for my site, to look on the dyndns.org servers, and I had completely removed my domain records. 

  Okay, no problem, I just need to go update my domain registration with the new DNS servers.  Oh no!  I have not done anything with that account since they spun out of DYNDNS.ORG in 2019!  I don’t remember my password. 

  I know what you are asking yourself, Just ask for a password retrieval..   Simple..  Except…. If you can’t find .catracing.org on the internet.  How will you send the email with the recovery link.  There, right there lay the real crux of the matter!

  I contacted their support, and they could change my registered email address, provided I can prove who I am, and that I am a living person.  No problem!  Sent what they asked me, however.  The address associated with my domain registration was from 2019, and did not match my address that I had moved from twice and was not on my current ID.  So with the site already being down 24 hours, the easiest way would be to re-open the account with DYNDNS.ORG (Which turned out to only be $5 for a month).  Recreate enough of the zone records (The MX record is really the only one I needed), wait potentially 24 – 48 hours worst case (DYNDNS.ORG) had me available within an hour.  Retrieve the password recovery link, then update the DNS information in my domain registration information.  Which is what I ultimately decided to do.

  It took less than an hour to get at least my domain and MX record reestablished, and searchable again on the internet.  I now have until the middle of September to try migrating my outside DNS.  At least this time I have a plan!  Have access to all of the necessary accounts and have time to have a fall back in case it does not work!  All things I should have thought about and had available to me the first time!

  Had this been at work and a critical piece of the business I supported, it would have been embarrassing at best, a resume updating event at worse, but this is one of the reasons I choose to self host!  So I can learn these kinds of lessons at home, and not in an environment where I am playing “Bet Your Job”!

  I hope you enjoyed this week’s blog, I hope you come back next week for more exciting content!  If you wish to be notified when new content is posted, please consider registering by clicking HERE!