Chris Martin

  • 2023 W7

    § Here we are, mid-February, with temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s all week, where every year I find myself momentarily convinced we are finished with Winter. This has, at least so far, been a strikingly mild winter, though; I am pretty sure I have only needed to shovel my driveway once. We will see how long this lasts.

    § I started watching Narcos on Netflix. Overall, I think it has been a worthwhile watch. At first, I was thrown off by the format of show, with Scoot McNairy narrating various scenes. Now, though, especially as more and more of each episode is Spanish-language, I kind of appreciate having a narrator there that can recap important things I may have missed.

    § I have been thinking about joining a CSA (community supported agriculture) this spring. I’ve always liked the idea of them but I have never gotten around to actually signing up for one. I think, especially now that I’ve been cooking more frequently, it might be a good time to try it out. It would mean I will have to be more mindful when planning my garden this year, though. In previous years I always found myself getting overwhelmed with certain items — tomatoes, squash, peppers — sometime around mid-summer. My hope is that the CSA would provide variety, not more of the same.

    On a related note, I visited a local meat and dairy group share this week. The prices there for some items, most notably eggs, were actually lower than comparable items at my normal grocery store. Plus, it always feels good to support a (very) small local business.

    § I overheard one of my fifth graders say: “Sometimes block coding is hard because it is easy… Like, it’s simple but difficult.” Yup, I couldn’t agree more. I still need to find a good on-ramp to text-based programming for my more advanced students.

    I did let a few students experiment with the Circuit Playground board this week. They seemed to have fun. The biggest challenge I have found, so far, is that uploading code onto the device is a bit of a pain. Regardless, I am excited to start developing some projects that incorporate them.

    § Links

    § Recipes

  • 2023 W6

    § I got a couple of new smart home devices this week, mostly because of some leftover Amazon credit. First, the Eve Room. Temperature and humidity monitoring is cool but what I was really interested in was the indoor air quality sensor. I completely anticipated being freaked out by how bad my air quality is. Especially since, throughout the winter, we keep our windows closed most of the time. To my complete surprise, however, our air quality is pretty good! Sure, there is a noticeable spike in VOCs when I am cooking dinner but it quickly settles back down to a reasonable level. While this whole experience has all been a bit anti-climactic, it’s all good news, I suppose.

    I also got an Eve Motion sensor and set it up to automatically turn on the lights whenever I enter my back door entryway. This was more convenient then I was expecting and now I am trying to scope out other locations in my house where a motion sensor would be a useful addition.

    § Thanks to remembering there is an easy mode, I finally finished the Last of Us video game. I thought it was good but not amazing. There were a few stand out scenes, though, my favorite probably being Ellie hunting a deer in a snow covered forest.

    § I started messing around with the Adafruit Circuit Playground — it is a fun little microcontroller! It has a bunch of good stuff built-in: buttons, sensors, RGB LEDs, a speaker and microphone, etc; most importantly, though, it has pins so you can hook up your own standard input and output components.

    You are supposed to be able to be able to program it using the Arduino IDE, however I have not been able to get that to work yet. The main coding interface is a browser-based MakeCode environment with its own cute little simulated Circuit Playground device. I, as usual, quickly got frustrated with the limitations inherent to block coding before I realized that you can freely switch between vanilla JavaScript and blocks in MakeCode — that has been a really nice feature, in practice.

    I think I’m going to try integrating these into some of my classes soon. I feel like they have the potential to be a great stepping stone before starting with Arduinos.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Gluten free empanadas
      • I tried making these with my leftover carnitas. Honestly, my expectations weren’t high to begin with. Flaky, light gluten free baking is really difficult. With that said, this really didn’t work out well. They were mostly just dry and crumbly. It was worth a try though!
    • Japanese cheesecake
      • This was a disaster, aesthetically speaking; it instantly fell apart as soon as I took it out of the oven. It tasted great, though! Plus, it used up a ton of quail eggs that have been piling up throughout the past couple of weeks.

  • 2023 W5

    § This week I came down with one of the minor illnesses that plagues all elementary schools. My typical strategy is to power through it with zinc, DayQuil, and Fisherman’s Friend cough drops. This time, though, I faced an additional challenge: parent-teacher conferences. Thirty-eight parent teacher-conferences.

    All things considered, it went better than I expected. I have a better understanding of my students as individuals than I had during my first round of conferences which meant much less stress and preparation on my part.

    § The third episode of Last of Us was great; it was easily my favorite so far. I loved the flashbacks. Nick Offerman as the prepper “survivalist” who thrives after the apocalypse was perfect. I only wish we could spend more time with these characters as it could feel a bit rushed, at times. I am so glad the show runners are taking risks and telling stories that are outside of the video game’s original plot. This has totally renewed my excitement in this show.

    The episode was also strangely reminiscent of the movie I Think We’re Alone Now, which I really enjoyed and still think about from time to time.

    § There is this thing I have started doing recently where, if I am driving and I see anything even remotely interesting, I will take a detour to investigate it. This method has found me some incredible parks and my favorite ice cream shop. Well, as I was heading down MLK Drive on Saturday I saw a greenhouse I had never noticed before. I decided to stop by and check it out. It turns out it was Rockefeller Park Greenhouse — a beautiful, free, city-owned greenhouse. I am going to need to visit it again soon when I have more time to explore.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Beef bulgogi
      • So, so good. I made as a part of a bibimbap and it was easily the best part.
    • Garlic bok choy
      • I am pretty sure this was my first time ever cooking bok choy. This came out fine. Not sure I would make it again, though.
    • Butternut squash curry
      • Delicious. I always add red curry paste too, which I think is essential. Think of the squash as tofu, but better.
    • Pork carnitas
      • I also added the juice from one orange which I’ve seen mentioned in other recipes. I don’t think it really made a difference but it doesn’t matter because it was all still amazing.

  • 2023 W4

    § This was our first truly snowy week of the season. Not cleaning out the garage last fall truly came back to bite me when I couldn’t find an ice scraper as I was rushing off to work in the morning. I resorted to using a broom.

    § We recently passed the halfway point for this school year. I would say that this first year of teaching has been… not as bad as I expected? It is tricky to assess accurately though. Conversations with other teachers led me to set extremely low expectations for this year so it would almost be difficult to not exceed them. I am sure it helps that, at the ages I teach (K-5), the low points have been surprisingly self-contained — i.e. even if Monday is a really difficult day, Tuesday is a fresh start.

    It will be really interesting to look back at this year in the future and see how this current assessment holds up. Maybe it really has been a relatively smooth year. Maybe I have been flying by the seat of my pants this whole time and not allowing myself to realize it. Time will tell.

    § I just realized that apparently I haven’t had a functioning voicemail since switching phone carriers three-ish months ago. It is really a testament to how unimportant phone calls have become over time that it has taken me this long to notice. At the same time, it has revealed a fatal flaw in my practice of never answering calls from unknown numbers under the assumption that anyone attempting to contact me about anything important will always leave a voicemail. Oops.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Pasta with fennel, sausage, and arugula
      • One of my favorite super fast weeknight meals. I typically add kalamata olives and ricotta cheese. Definitely don’t skip the lemon juice.
    • Mushroom risotto
      • I made this on Friday for the first time in at least a year. It was really good! I forgot to add peas and parsley though, which I remembered after the fact are worthwhile additions. I might try adding a little more white wine next time too.

  • 2023 W3

    § I have tried, a couple of times, to play the Last of Us video game but I always bounce off of the video game-y aspects. It’s frustrating, not just because the game sequences can be difficult. If that was the case I wouldn’t feed bad putting the game down. The reason I find it frustrating is because I am actually interested to see how the story resolves and I find the game can be a barrier to that, at times.

    Well, the first episode of the new Last of Us television show was just released last Sunday. I thought it was… pretty good? It is odd because, in a way, I almost think I would like it more if I had never played the game. But maybe that is for the best. I would prefer the series stand on its own rather than rely on any prior knowledge of the game. Overall, I am excited to see more episodes! This is going to be an interesting test to see how integral the interactive aspects of gameplay are to effective storytelling.

    § Following up on the citrus talk last week I tried an oroblanco which is a cross between a pomelo and a grapefruit. The one I bought had a giant pith so, although the fruit itself was the size of a large grapefruit, the actual edible portion was equivalent to an orange.

    In terms of taste I thought it was almost identical to grapefruit. I would rank them all:
    pomelo > grapefruit > orange > oroblanco

    I also tried candying the peel which was pretty good although quite bitter. I wish I had thought to try it when I had the pomelo last week too.

    § Caroline and I took advantage of the long weekend and the warm-ish weather by spending a lot of time exploring the nearby parks, including the only national park in Ohio. I have also been bringing around my long neglected Fujifilm X100f camera. I always seem to forget how drastically better the images are from that camera compared to my phone.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Roasted butternut squash & brussels sprouts with honey-herb dressing
      • I’m a huge fan of roasted brussels sprouts and this was probably my favorite recipe for them yet. There was also the super interesting step of adding baking soda to the vegetables which was entirely new to me: “The baking soda acts as a catalyst and accelerates both caramelization and the Maillard reaction, while also softening the pectin in the squash for a softer, creamier interior.”
    • Dal Makhani
      • Another one of my favorite Indian recipes. This naan recipe was a pretty good addition — even after substituting for gluten free flour.

  • 2023 W2

    § No work next Monday for Martin Luther King Day and then a “work from home” faculty work day on Tuesday. Great. On Wednesday, students will rotate classes for their third quarter which means I’ll be teaching a group of kids I haven’t seen in eight-ish weeks. I expect it will be a nice change of pace.

    § I started watching Three Pines which honestly hasn’t hooked me yet and mostly had the effect of making me want to re-watch Twin Peaks.

    I also saw The Devil’s Hour. I thought it was pretty good and I was super happy to see that it’s a limited series. It turns out, stories are often better when they have a pre-planned beginning, middle, and end. Perhaps the accelerated rate that streaming services are canceling show renewals will encourage this trend to continue.

    Finally, I saw Pearl, Ti West’s prequel to X. I thought it had a fantastic atmosphere. The music was great, the set design had a fascinating quality of period authenticity while at the same time being unsettlingly plastic, even the colors were interesting in a way I can’t exactly place.

    § I swear, at some point in the past ten years autumn disappeared. The Midwest seemingly now transitions from 85 °F to 35 °F overnight. The season must have been more distinct before; whenever asked I would always list it as my favorite! Anyway, there were a few days in the 50s this week which was nice. Although, on balance, we also had like four inches of snow on Friday.

    I’ve noticed that the days getting longer is giving me an unexpected optimism. I am already starting to think about which vegetables I would like to try growing in the spring.

    § Links

    • Analog chess
      • “This is a version of chess where the pieces are not constrained to an 8x8 grid, and instead can move to any position on the board.”
      • See also: Really Bad Chess
    • Giffusion — Create GIFs using Stable Diffusion
      • I tried it out on Google Collab. It was a bunch of fun but the results weren’t especially impressive. I am still super excited for a true generative model for animation.
    • GLM-130B is an open source large language model. However, you should proceed with caution.
    • Q&A against documentation with GPT3 + OpenAI embeddings
      • A method of prompt engineering to easily “fine tune” GPT3 on your own data

    § Recipes

    • Gamja-tang — Korean pork and potato stew
      • Hmm… this recipe was good but 1) it tastes surprisingly similar to Kapusniak while 2) requiring a significantly more involved process to cook. I will probably make it again sometime though!
    • Chana masala
      • One of my favorites. Plus this used a bunch of frozen tomatoes from the garden, freeing up space in the freezer.
    • Not a recipe but I ate a pomelo — the largest citrus fruit — for the first time. I am tempted to say that I think it might be better than grapefruit. Much less bitter and possibly slightly sweater.

  • 2023 W1

    § Back to teaching after two weeks of winter vacation. Although, as always, I wish the vacation was longer, it feels nice to start getting back into my normal routines after the crazy holiday season. Worst case scenario: ten weeks until spring break, twenty-one until summer.

    § I have been listening to the album Distance by the band Erasers a lot after discovering it on James Reeves' list of favorite albums of 2022. Overall, the list is full of great minimal electronic artists that are all new to me. It is going to make the perfect soundtrack for some gray winter days ahead.

    § Longmont Potion Castle 20 was released on Friday. The tracks I have had the opportunity to listen to so far are amazing, as usual.

    § Three of the quails escaped into the garage which made for a real Yakety Sax evening as Caroline and I ran around trying to catch them in makeshift nets.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    Getting back into my work schedule this week meant much less cooking at home. I did at least get the opportunity to make one new-to-me recipe — arroz con pollo.

    Recipe discovery is difficult. I would love to find a personal cooking blog that is not full of SEO spam.

    • Cajun sausage and rice skillet
      • An old classic. I had to use some kielbasa that was left over from Kapusniak last week. Easy and quick to make and goes great with cornbread.
    • Arroz con pollo
      • This was good but not quite as good as my favorite Spanish rice recipe. I will definitely incorporate some elements from that recipe if I make this one again. A big positive is that I now have a huge quantity of very versatile leftovers.

  • 2022 W52

    Happy new year!

    § The Pocket Operator has become my newest obsession. I had forgotten how much I enjoy experimenting with little musical toys. Begin the countdown to when I finally give up and buy an OP-1.

    § I got on a serious weird movie kick this week after watching Triangle of Sadness after Alex Cox and Merlin Mann mentioned it on a recent episode of their Do By Friday podcast.

    Triangle of Sadness was alright but I thought The Square, also by Ruben Östlund, was amazing. Although I will admit that some of my enjoyment could be a consequence of going to art school and seeing a lot of hilariously embarrassing aspects of myself in many of the characters.

    After watching the two Östlund movies I inevitably had to see The Lobster, a movie I had been avoiding since seeing The Killing of a Sacred Deer a while back and not enjoying it much at all. I ended up loving The Lobster! It might be that Lanthimos writes such amazingly strange, surreal, uncomfortable dialog that I find it all too disturbing in a horror movie but hilarious in a comedy.

    § Re Triangle of Sadness: this song has been stuck in my heard since seeing the movie.

    § There was an unbelievable pink sunset on Wednesday evening that I was actually able to capture a nice photo of. This is usually the type of situation that I find Apple’s computational photography engine “corrects” for, making it really a difficult subject to photograph.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    The unintentional theme this week was cabbage which is definitely a new favorite vegetable — kimchi, sauerkraut, what’s not to like?

    • Kapusniak, Polish kielbasa and cabbage soup
      • This was one of the best meals I have made in a really long time. Highly recommended. The only thing I will do differently next time is add a liiiitle more chicken broth to thin it out slightly.
      • Also, here is a video of Kenji making this recipe
      • JANUARY 8 UPDATE: I just realized that when I first made this recipe and wrote the above I had accidentally used half of the specified amount of broth — 4 cups instead of 8 cups — which explains a lot! So now I would suggest either using somewhere around 6 cups of broth or letting the whole soup boil down and condense for a while. Still a great recipe.
    • Cabbage Rolls
      • This turned out better than I expected but also was more of a pain than it was worth.
    • Kimchi soup
      • I like spicy foods but this was too spicy for me. It could be the chili flakes I used though. Next time I will either use less chili flakes or a different brand.
    • Thai-style beef with basil and chiles
      • Not too special but pretty good! I made this one to have with the kimchi soup and it was a good sidekick. Caroline really liked it though.

  • 2022 W51

    Remember how last week I mentioned that I successfully got through my final week of classes without getting sick? Well, almost immediately after hitting publish I started coming down with a cold. At least it wasn’t especially bad and I was back to feeling nearly 100% by Wednesday.

    Anyway, this was my first week off this year and, despite the cold, I ended up accomplishing some of the household tasks I have been putting off for far too long. Most notably, painting a wall in my kitchen and deep cleaning the basement floor where it had been stained by cyanotype chemistry.

    Recipes

    • Tajín grilled chicken
      • This was good but would have been better had I used an actual grill instead of the stovetop and broiler. Note to self to try it again next summer.
    • Chile crisp fettuccine alfredo
      • A better combination than I was expecting. I added lemon juice which was a good choice. Next time I make this I will probably try adding ground pork too.
    • Thai carrot and sweet potato soup
      • Eh, this was alright but definitely missing something although I am not sure I can pinpoint what exactly

  • 2022 W50

    This was a strange week, as expected, with lots of student absences due to the flu, RSV, covid, and early vacations. Shockingly, I was able to avoid catching any of the illnesses myself and can now spend these next two weeks catching up on things at home and, I hope, relaxing. This is really my first chance to expirence the perks of a teacher’s schedule and I don’t intend to take it for granted.

    It snowed for the first time this year overnight Friday. The holiday season has truly begun.

  • 2022 W49

    Next week is the last week before winter break, not that I am counting.

    I made some homemade pizza in the outdoor pizza oven on Saturday. For the first time my gluten-free dough tasted the same as my glutenous dough. I hope this means my gluten-free skills are improving and not that I simply don’t know how to cook with gluten anymore. Anyway, the pizza was good and I don’t think I will have many more opprotunites to use the pizza oven until spring.

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