BenPositive

Bachelor Chow BCx02

Jun 2, 2007
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This is belated reporting on my part, but nonetheless, here it is...

1 Package (12 oz) Veggie Crumbles (veggie ground beef substitute AKA TVP)

1 Can Black Beans (15 oz)

1 Package (16 oz) Frozen Corn

1 Can Black Olives (sliced, 3.8 oz)

1 Can Diced Tomato (14.5 oz)

1 Can Tomato Paste (6 oz)

Many Cloves of Garlic, coarsely choped

Leftover Chopped Green Pepper and Onion

Marjoram (dried)

Oregano (dried)

Fennel

Basil (dried)

Red Pepper Flakes

Chili Pepper

Olive Oil (say it with me, "ee vee oh oh." I know you want to)

In a large pot saute the peppers and onion in a little olive oil. Add the garlic after a bit and then everything except the black olives and spices. While heating add the spices and then, when close to done, the black olives. Served in small dabs on small corn tortillas, but probably better just on its own.

Approx Cost per Meal: $2.25

Approx Time to Prepare: 17 minutes

Edible: Yes

Taste Rating (0-10): 3 on corn tortillas the first night, 7 alone when reheated

BCx01 Report

Apr 23, 2007
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Approx Cost per Meal: $3.45

Approx Time to Prepare: 8 minutes

Edible: Yes

Taste Rating (0-10): 6.5

Bachelor Chow BCx01 (Florentine)

Apr 19, 2007
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1 Package (12 oz) Veggie Crumbles (veggie ground beef substitute AKA TVP)

2 Cans Black Beans (?? oz)

1 Package Frozen Chopped Spinach

1 Can Black Olives (sliced)

Black Pepper

Cayenne Pepper

Chili Pepper

Cumin

Garlic (used powdered this time, should use fresh chopped)

Paprika

Red Pepper Flakes

Salt (just a little)

Heat and serve on soft taco sized tortillas with salsa or other sauce.

License Update

Apr 13, 2007
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I'm very surprised at how quickly this has resolved itself. That is, resolved itself to a level that I can finaly let go of... I will just assume that the 7 character blue Michigan plates switched fonts to add a space between the letters and numbers at the beginning of a sequence of numbers. There is a good change that is not correct, but it is close enough. With that decided, AFP series of plates are the older non-spaced style and AFQ plates have the space. The end.

Michigan Plates

Apr 9, 2007
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The earliest form of Michigan license plate that I remember, although aparently during the first several years of my life a different plate did exists, is the plain blue plate with three numbers a space and three letters. According to this interesting web page, that format of plate was introduced in 1983. In 1993 the format was switched to three letters first followed by three numbers, which is what I've had on my own cars. In 2005 I guess they ran out of combinations and switched to three letters followed by four numbers, for the first time going to 7 characters for MI plates.

Since the first of this year there is a new "plain" MI plate. The format remains the same, but now only the very top is white on blue, and most of the plate is white. I'm sad to see the all blue plates go, but it's not the first complete change and it probably won't be the last. It does mean when my renewal comes through any day now I'll have a whole new license number to remember.

Back to the blue plates with 7 characters, though. When those were first introduced, the three letters and four numbers were run together with no space. At some point, though, the font and/or font size was changed to allow for space between the letters and numbers. I've been trying, through casual observation, to determine when this change occured, and I'm getting close. I've known for a while that AHH plates have the space and AB- plates do not. Recently I think I saw an AF-something plate with the space, which narrowed it down to A plus C, D or E being the switching point (or so I thought). Today, though, in a major breakthrough, I found an AFC plate without the space. That puts the change during the AF- series, although I'm not sure exactly where, yet.

If that's too heavy, the most important license plate news of the day is I saw my first BEN series plate (which is on the new mostly white plates). This should be the first of many, as theoretically there are up to 10,000 such plates. Unfortunately, I renewed too late to get a BEN plate of my own, but that would have been fun.

Things to Know, Vol. 1

Apr 4, 2007
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No burrito today.
Messed with formatting for some content on the DCC website - hope no one minds.
Might get a haircut soon.

Iced Trees with Sunbolt

Burrito Journey

Apr 3, 2007
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I recently made the obvious observation that there are enough stores selling burritos around Ann Arbor to have a different burrito every day for weeks, months, maybe even years. To that end, I've had a burrito for lunch each day for the last 7 work days without visiting the same restaurant twice. The following is my in-progress report on all things burrito.

Day 1 - Chipotle

Chipotle has a special place in my memory. An earlier incarnation of this chain was the first burrito-specific food place I ever went to. When you're young and in love and in Cincinatti, and you come accross a place serving large tasty burritos, it sticks in your memory years later. Recently Chipotle opened a store in Ann Arbor which seems to be doing quite well.

I enjoy Chipotle's burrito offerings because they have carnitas as a choice of meat and the hot salsa is good and unique. Adding guacamole is tasty but a bit pricey. My burrito on this day was carnitas with black beans, hot salsa, cheese, no sour cream, but with chips and guacamole on the side.

Day 2 - Moe's

Moe's has been my ongoing favorite. It's a rare week that I don't get to Moe's for lunch at least once. That's a habit that started before Chipotle opened in town, so we'll see what happens in the future. Moe's is also the only burrito place I've ever branched out at and gotten a non-burrito main meal.

My burrito on this day was a Triple Lindy with black beans and steak. That means it has salsa, cheese, and guacamole added. I also added jalapeños which I do to just about everything I ever order at Moe's. I like that they have a burrito with guacamole standard and I like the large selection of additional fillings you can add for free. The standard salsa is nothing special, but it's the only place that serves chips standard and has a salsa bar. The hard rock sauce at the salsa bar is good. Also at Moe's I like their sweet tea, but on many occasions they seem to have forgotten the sweet part.

Day 3 - Qdoba

Qdoba was the start, to me at least, of the Ann Arbor burrito revival. These days, there's not a lot that stands out about Qdoba, but for a while it was new and exciting to have a burrito place in Ann Arbor. I still like Qdoba because of some of their sauces they offer. They're the only place that has mole and they also have a pesto-variation. My day 3 burrito was chicken mole with black beans with the extra hot salsa.

Day 4 - BTB Burrito

Formerly Big Ten Burrito, there are two BTB shops around town. Both are tiny store fronts, but they have a nice menu. I had planned to have a half-and-half burrito with chicken and steak, but they were out of steak so I just had a chicken deluxe burrito. I forget exactly what deluxe adds. The good thing about BTB is that it's good food for a bit less money than the other places around.

Day 5 - Burrito Joint

For two years I lived just down the street from Burrito Joint, only at that time it was just Mr. Pizza. Had it been a Burrito Joint at that time I probably would have been there every day. However, this was the first time I had ever been to Burrito Joint as a burrito joint.

Burrito Joint has a few unique offerings, and they are the only place right now with chorizo as a possible filling. I had a Jimmy's Burrito which is less beans and rice, chorizo and steak, plus jalepeños and hot sauce. It was quite good, although the chorizo was alarmingly bright red which is not normal in my limited experience cooking chorizo. There are a number of other interesting choices, so I will have to try some more before seeing how Burrito Joint fits in to my local burrito rankings.

Day 6 - Panchero's

I wrote above that Qdoba was my personal Ann Arbor burrito revival and the only game in town for a while, but truthfully Panchero's has been there all along. I don't normally consider Panchero's because of it's location down town which can be inconvenient to get to with respect to parking. However, for this burrito journey I am on, it only seemed fair to give them a try.

The main feature of Panchero's is fresh made tortillas. Whereas the other places steam a pre-made tortilla, Panchero's has a bunch of dough balls sitting around that they flatten and then grill when you order. The burrito I had this day was with black beans and pork (not really carnitas, more like grilled pork pieces) with cheese and hot salsa. The fresh made tortilla was good, although it had a certain chewy-ness to it that made we wonder if it shouldn't have been grilled just a bit longer. This was a good burrito to be sure, but like Burrito Joint I'll have to try it again to see if it outranks any of my usual burrito destinations.

Day 7 - Tio's

With Tio's I'm starting to stray from what I would consider a burrito show, but they are an Ann Arbor institution and do sell burritos, so to Tio's I went. My history with Tio's goes back to high school, which was just a block or two away with an open campus lunch policy. I don't get to Tio's much lately, but they were a mainstay of a large portion of my growing up life. They have good milkshakes, too.

I had a chicken burrito, dry, not wet, with extra hot salsa on the side. A Tio's burrito is not a finger food like all the other burritos I've had so far in this experiment. The burrito, though, is very good. The chicken is shredded instead of chunked, and the insides include gooey refried beans and cheese. The extra hot salsa at Tio's is also the best of any of these places.

After 7 days of burritos, my favorites remain Chipotle and Moe's, but each place I've visited has given me reasons to return again (and again). Will tomorrow bring more burrito or have all burrito resources been used up? Tune in next time to find out...

Post Birthday Updates

Feb 23, 2007
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A few days ago I had a birthday, which I enjoyed. Birthday's for me have been kind of low key for many years now, but they don't make me sad or anything like that. Unrelated to the birthday, this week has been a stressful one at work with many things seeming to unravel. I almost started today feeling very overwhelmed and out of control, but somehow I switched from that point of view to being upbeat about solving problems and getting things taken care of. How very positive of me.

This weekend is the annual Mixed International bonpsiel at the curling club, which should be a bit of fun. My mom, sister, and Athena are headed back to New Orleans to work, which is great. I was tempted to go, but just couldn't bring myself to do it. Because of that, though, Samantha the dog will be staying with me through next week and I'm looking forward to it.

Samantha AKA Sammy

Recently I made some purchases I am happy with: a paper shredder and a robot.

Not Quite The Curling News

Jan 23, 2007
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This past weekend was the regional playdowns for what is known as the Club Nationals for curling. The Detroit Curling Club is in the Great Lakes Curling Associate and the GLCA regional playdowns were held at that very same club. Myself and three other gentlemen entered the competition ranked 7 out of 7 and then 6 out of 6 after one team dropped out. Our first match was against the top ranked team out of Midland, and we pulled out a win. Following that we took on one of the best teams from Detroit and also managed to hang on to the lead, although it pretty much came down to the very end. Those two matches were on Friday, and then bright and early Saturday morning we played a team out of Columbus. We got off to an incredibly bad start and were down 8 to 1 by mid-game. Following the 5th end break we managed to pull together a fast and furious rally. We brought it to within 3 points coming home in the 10th end with the hammer and took those desperately needed 3 forcing an 11th end. The 11th end was a bit messy, but with many rocks in play and out in front of the house, the last shot came down to a tough in-off for our opponents and with that miss we kept our undefeated status. The next came of Saturday did not work out so well and we were blown-out by the Detroit team that would eventually take first place and go on to the national competition in St. Paul. Our very last game was also a defeat, but again we pushed it to an extra end. Our final 3 and 2 record put us as the runner-up in the competition and was quite a delightful outcome.

I'm not sure what will happen to our team in the future, but we seem to work well together. I think good things are in store for us, though.