Happy St. Patricks Day 2011 as best you can · Thursday March 17, 2011 by colin newell
Not entirely sure there is any green in this jacket…
Click on the photo at left for the slightly bigger view – Thanks to British Importers for these fine threads – and even though you have changed your name to the egocentric Philip Nyren Clothing you will always be British Importers.
What do you think? Any green in the jacket? No, me neither.
283 years ago, some guy distantly related to me got out of bed in Cork, Ireland – packed his bags, got on a boat and never looked back. He would turn out to be my great, great, great – several more, great grandfather. Irish? Heck yes. Determined to make a better life in North America. Fingers crossed. Apparently things worked out because he found a mate and part of my family tree branched out.
So I celebrate a little green today.
On St. Patrick’s day 2011 – If you would have told me a few days ago that I would be spending all of my time thinking about Japan and the hazards of the nuclear era, I would have questioned your sanity.
Yet here we are.
The word trifecta would not have been in my dialogue a few days ago either – not being a gambling man.
And yet here we are; Earthquake, Tsunami and meltdown.
Loss of life. Loss of home. Loss of confidence.
Nor would I have looked up the meaning of millicieverts and found it rolling around in my brain after determining how many are OK and how many make you sick – and what life must be like for so many people trapped, homeless and no place to go.
These good people need you now – So do what you can folks. Give to the Red Cross. Help out Japan.
And stay safe.
From Victoria B.C. Canada on the West Coast of North America… I am Colin Newell.
The Baratza Preciso grinder first look - Fall 2010 · Sunday September 19, 2010 by colin newell
Based on our their popular grinder – the Baratza Virtuoso, the Preciso adds extra precision and control to the great basic features of the Virtuoso.
This article on the Baratza Preciso grinder is unfolding as you watch! Watch for changes and additions to this blog over the next week!
Baratza’s coffee diva, Kyra and design engineer Kyle of Baratza were kind enough to entrust me with a sample Preciso for an intense look see – We are in the first few days of play so this article will unfold as this week comes and goes. Check in often!
Photo above right: We were pumped to receive a Preciso to give it the no-holds-barred coffeecrew.com tear-apart and abuse until it bursts review… and there are lots of good things to report!
Like the Virtuoso, the new Preciso retains the 40 grind adjustment steps of the Virtuoso, but a second micro adjustment lever further divides each of the 40 steps into 11 distinct settings. This was a much needed feature for serious espresso enthusiasts because with the Virtuoso’s more limited range of steps, one had to depend on their other skills for nailing the perfect grind and tamp.
Smaller steps (in this case 11 sub-settings for every regular click on the Preciso) means you have more control over your espresso grind, enabling you to pull that perfect shot.
The Preciso retains all the range and durability of the beloved Virtuoso. It really is the ideal grinder for folks who like to mix it up with French press, Aeropress, drip and all the other methods. And if you use a couple of different methods (like I do) it is now way easier to zero in on that sweet spot.
Operationally, the Preciso has the same timer and pulse button that the Virtuoso employs.
We have some photos of the Preciso over here in the photo gallery – more coming too!
The Preciso’s professional grade 40mm conical burrs produce a consistent, fine grind which is critical for all the grind ranges from espresso through French press. I am constantly mixing it up in my lab so the Preciso’s inherent flexibility pays off for stress free grinding batch for batch.
The front mounted pulse On/Off button allows you to grind directly into your espresso brew portafilter and an optional portafilter holder makes dosing a snap. The 60-second timer is perfect for grinding my regular “full batch” for my Newco OCS-8 and OCS-12 drip brewer. The Newco’s and the Preciso are the perfect team – then again, it works well with my collection of French press brewers
The Preciso’s large 8-oz. hopper and a 5-oz. removable anti static ground coffee bin are standard equipment – exactly like the Virtuoso.
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Summer Fun Food and Drink - Techo addiction - Chapter 23 · Monday September 6, 2010 by colin newell
I have a pretty sassy old mom… in her 80’s and as spry as a UVic rabbit dodging a Jack Russell terrier.
Was wowing her with an internet radio that I am testing out. Maybe you have seen them. They look like radios. They pick up a WiFi connection and can spit out 15,000 radio stations.
For most people, it is a 99 channel Universe – especially for those of us who live in urban areas. My wife and I have a digital Shaw cable account that is wrapped with broadband internet. Works pretty well for us. Not always reliable as gravity but I have few complaints about the service. If you pick up the phone and call for help, chances are you are going to speak to some young person in the Victoria area. That speaks volumes for customer service.
Anyway – I am digressing.
My mom goes back to the days of radio. Where there was nothing but radio… and direct dial rotary phones. Where a long distance phone call would cost you bucks based on distance. Unlike today where you can call Mars for about 9 cents a minute.
So she has seen it all. But was immensely impressed with the fact that I could call up a Stereo FM quality radio signal from anywhere on the Planet — via the miracle of the internet of course.
In the space of 5 minutes we were “tuning” in St. Johns Newfoundland, the Vatican, France, the BBC and then back to CBC Radio 1 Victoria.
As my mom also knows, I am a radio guy from a long time ago – at 12 years of age I was building shortwave radios and dabbling in Ham radio. So, through some degree of osmosis, she has soaked in some of this legacy technology.
Fact is, in 2010, we have come to really depend on the leading edge technologies; cell phones, internet, internet phones, iPhones, blackberries, portable PC’s and Macs that depend on a stable broadband connection… that are totally centralized. And where this is a problem is, when there is a power failure, local brown out or, God forbid, a “mass coronal ejection” from the Sun… We could be entirely dead in the water as far as communications are concerned. Under the right conditions we could not even talk across the street – much less connect to a police station or hospital.
Our highways are much like that. Cut one big link and we are screwed.
And do not get me wrong – I am not offering any solutions. Just making an observation.
Like dear old Mom did when she asked…
“This internet radio does not work by itself does it? It is not picking up all these stations out of the air is it? You have another piece of hardware in the home, yes?”
Her words exactly.
My internet and digital connection is a pretty massive and fragile lifeline.
It’s a good thing that I am a licensed ham radio operator capable of helping dig out from a natural disaster and aiding in coordinating communications in the event of…
You get the point.
My advice is: Be prepared with alternatives. An emergency kit is a good start. And a battery powered traditional radio to hear what’s going on.
The rotary dial phone? Sorry. Cannot help you there.
Be safe.
Summer Fun Food Drink and Gear - BING Bots suck - Chapter 20 · Wednesday August 18, 2010 by colin newell
Misfiring Microsoft search bots at BING.com have been hammering my site so much lately I had to put an HTACCESS block on them – not to stop the site being overrun with their crazy spiders… but to save my pocketbook.
Looking at my detailed web logs, it appeared that I was being scanned by “20-30 bots every few seconds”, appearing much like a denial of service attack.
The IP addresses of the bots – Had almost 90,000 hits on my website yesterday – came from 65.55.25.149 – the culprit Microsoft.com in Redmond.
Those people are not only incapable of developing a stable operating system; VISTA or Windows 7… but also, they haven’t a clue about running a search engine.
So guess what?
You’re blocked!
Microsoft gobbled almost 8% of my monthly web bandwidth in one day – thanks a lot folks.
Now piss off.
Colin Newell is a Victoria area resident, food writer, blogger and multimedia engineer – when he is not working at a local University, he is on the hunt for the perfect cup of coffee…
