Category: life

where everything else happens

787 First Flight

I am privileged to have witnessed first-hand today a historic moment. Mind you it is a small one in the big scheme of things, but I had the chance to see it, and now I’m sharing it with you.

My office is very close to Boeing Field, and my window is host to all manner of interesting aircraft, as you have seen occasionally. The flight path of Sea-Tac is also behind our building, so there is always something flying by. Today though, was a historic day as something special was set to fly by. Boeing’s new passenger jet, the 787 “Dreamliner” took flight for the first time. I watched it take off from Paine Field in Everett live on the Internet and set my phone’s alarm to remind me to be ready to photograph it 5 hours later when it arrived at Boeing Field a bit before sundown.

The winds were from the south which meant it would land towards my window, not across it. I was preparing to make a run to the post office to mail a few things when Kevin, our Facilities Manager and Civil Air Patrol member informed me that the flight was now scheduled to land much earlier. As I grabbed my camera my phone rang and my friend John, who works on the 787 project at Boeing let me know exactly when it would touch down: 1:22 PM. This meant I had about 12 minutes to go find a spot near the runway to catch it. If it had been a clear day with wind to the north I would have gone to the south end of the runway and been right underneath it as it landed. It was coming from the north though and 12 minutes would be not long enough to get to the far side of the airport and found a spot to park, so I gave up on getting really close shots and drove as fast as I dared to the Museum of Flight, which has a good view of the runway and a large parking lot. Of course EVERY light between my office and the Museum was RED.

I arrived with about 3 minutes to spare, with a large crowd already gathering. I lucked into a parking spot and walked around trying to find a good spot for photos. The air was thick with cold rain (the weather was what cut the first flight short), hovering news helicopters and a pervasive sense of anticipation.

News choppers overhead, people wait for the 787's arrival under the warm friendly umbrella of a retired B-47 Stratojet Strategic Nuclear Bomber.

That white speck under the bomber's nose is the 787's lights as it emerged from the heavy overcast above Seattle.

Zoomed as far as my lens will go. The 787 & chase planes approach out of the gloomy sky. Note the upswept wings.

getting closer.

Just after touchdown. You can see the flexible wings have let down.

The landing was essentially perfect. The plane was smooth and undramatic. By this point it was pretty much taxiing.

Once the landing roll was done and the Dreamliner was essentially just parading, the chase planes flew over.

Does anyone other than me find it ironic that the chase planes for the world's newest jetliner are:…

… a Lockheed design dating from the 1940s?

taxiing down past the Museum of Flight.

The IMAX chopper does a low flyby around the nose as the 787 comes to the turn-around point.

The crowd waves, and the pilot waves back.

A closer look at the Rolls-Royce engine. Interesting cowl shape.

As the 787 heads toward the testing center at the north end of the field, everyone takes a last look at her before heading back to work and out of the rain.

You can see all of my photos, as they were dumped out of my camera, here.

TSA = (*Theatre) Security (*) Administration.

If there was any doubt that TSA is nothing more than security theatre, I present to these two links:

“Do I have the right to refuse this search?” – Interesting reading from somebody who is a trained law enforcement professional.

And…

“Redacted.” – A post by c.g.o reader David Traver Adolphus, where he links to a file that the TSA posted for the public, with black boxes covering the redacted text. However by selecting the text and capy/pasting it elsewhere it becomes readable!

These are the people who are supposed to protect us from terrorists? George Carlin was right.

A (really loud) blast from the past: Some CanAm footage

When I was a little kid growing up in northern Illinois, my dad brought me up to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin a few times to see the Canadian-American Challenge Cup (CanAm) races at Road America. I can not recall which years we attended, and I’m sure it was later in the 60s than the event shown above, which was the series’ first season… but I do have a few vivid memories of the events themselves, notably:

  • The fact that you felt these cars go by more than you saw or heard them.
  • I can recall huge straw bales being used as “safety barriers” around the outside of the course.
  • Jim Hall’s Chaparrals were my favorites. Not only was the big wing really cool (and these videos show well how it worked, or didn’t as the case may be) but it also made his cars easy to spot for my then small size.
  • The big orange McLaren cars always won. My beloved Chaparrals were always the bridesmaid.
  • Most of all, it was really cool to spend time with my Dad, doing something he really enjoyed doing.

We also attended other races in the region, notably some open-wheel events such as Indianapolis (just qualifying, not the actual event) and another oval-track race in Wisconsin which I can’t recall the name of right now. But it was always the sports car races such as CanAm that I liked the best. Realizing now that in many ways this was a pivotal time in racing history, I recognize that I am privileged to have witnessed it first-hand, even as a small child.

The list of names involved in this particular race in Las Vegas reads like a “who’s who” of legendary drivers.

A little digging on YouTube turned up an event from ’67 that took place at Road America:

I may have been there, so keep your eyes peeled for a little blond kid on his dad’s shoulders! 😉

Published: Five fallacies of cloud computing

Five fallacies of cloud computing.

My article about cloud computing fallacies was recently published over at Tech Target. The cool part for me has been seeing people reference it in Twitter posts. Big thanks to my college buddy Richard Puig for asking me the question that set me off on this rant. 😉

Unlike past articles I’ve had published there this one does not have a comments sections, so I can’t see the feedback. I’ll have to ping my editor and see what sort of cranky emails he’s been receiving .

The best recipe for leftover turkey! Chuck’s Turkey & Green Chile Enchiladas.

I spent my evening making my (in)famous Turkey & Green Chile Enchiladas.

My college housemate for my Senior year was a cool guy named Mike “Zippy” Pettit. Zip hailed from Roswell, New Mexico (yes, THAT Roswell) and the finest gift he ever gave me was a deep appreciation of the unique cuisine of the Southwest. Green Chile Enchiladas were his thing. His father taught him to make them from scratch, and I picked up the skills to make them as I assisted the process in our modest off-campus house in 1984/85.

Not long after graduation I came up with the weird idea of mixing leftover turkey into the mix, and since 1985 I’ve made batches of Turkey & Green Chile Enchiladas after every holiday. I have a strong suspicion that Sue married me solely for annual access to this delicacy. Sue is, to put it mildly, a horrible cook… She is a fine Attorney but pretty much useless in the kitchen. She can however roast a good bird (something that I’ve never bothered to learn, as she’s always done it.) This year we drove to Central Oregon to visit her family. Such is her love for T&GC-E that she bought a thawed turkey this past Sunday (Scottish Thanksgiving, 50% Off!) after we came back from Oregon, and cooked it Sunday night – JUST so I would make my Enchiladas. I spent yesterday at work, and then taking Christopher down to Olympia to resume classes (he has no class on Monday’s though.) So the T&GC-E-making task waited until tonight.

Here is how to make them. BUT: Please be aware that I am a freestyle cook. I don’t measure anything, ever. If you have to have precise measures to create dinners I’ll be of no help. Instead I cook by process, and intuition. Like a musician who plays by ear rather than reading sheet music I throw things together by feel; even when I’m making something new. I read recipes as procedural suggestion rather than canon, noting the ingredients, and their order of mingling – but rarely if ever their measure. So take this as a “guide” more than a “recipe.”

Buy some mild green chiles. Anchos, Long Greens, Anaheim, Chilacas, Big Jims, Poblanas, New Mexico Greens, etc. If you can’t find them, or don’t want to go through the labor of prepping them you can substitute canned chiles, but trust me, fresh is best as the majority of the flavor comes from the chiles. Tonight I started with half a dozen Poblano, or maybe they were Chilacas (Sue bought them, not me!) I prefer Big Jims or NMs, but any Green Chile will do.

Preparing the Chiles: Place them on a broiling pan and put them in the oven on the top rack, under the broiler. Keep an eye on them. Their skins will blister, and expand off the flesh of the chile. Keep rotating them to put the unfinished parts toward the broiler. If the skin blackens, or cracks, it is OK, just don’t let them get overdone. The goal is to make the skin easy to peel off, not cook the chile itself. I light a candle when I first put them under the broiler to finish the job. Once you’ve rotated all the chiles and they are as uniformly blistered as they can be in the broiler, pull them out, and using some BBQ tongs and the candle hold the few remaining pockets of un-blistered skin over the flame long enough to pop them off. Place the chiles on a plate and toss them in the freezer for about 5 minutes. This rapid cooling further pops the skin off the flesh and makes them easier to handle and peel. Pull them from the freezer and peel the skins completely off the flesh. Throw away the skins. With a sharp knife, slice the chiles longways and flatten them out by cutting the “crown” of them off around the stem. Remove all the seeds and veins. I do the latter by lightly scraping lengthwise with the blade held perpendicular to the inside flesh of the chile. Discard the seeds and veins. Pile up your chiles on a plate.

Get out your turkey leftovers. All those bits of dark-meat shrapnel make the best enchiladas as they are impossible to put in a sandwich anyway. Toss them into a food processor along with your chiles. I tend to make it a 60/40 mix of Turkey to Green Chiles. You want the mixture to be granular, but not liquified, so just a few laps around with the “pulse” button will do. Once the big turkey chunks have been cut up and the blade is spinning free, stop the processor and dump the mix into a LARGE bowl. My food processor is small, so it takes me quite a while to work through a big batch of leftovers. Tonight I farmed the task to Nicholas as I started preparing tortillas…

Enchiladas must be made with CORN tortillas. Flour tortillas roll without prep, but making enchiladas with flour tortillas just is not cricket. It is like serving a hamburger on a hot dog bun, or playing ice hockey with a basketball instead of a puck. I buy tortillas at the store, as I’ve never mastered making them myself, so this recipe can’t really be called “scratch”. If you can make your own, my hat is off to you!

To prep your corn tortillas they have to be softened so they’ll roll well. The traditional New Mexico style is to dip them in enchilada sauce. This is best if you are making enchiladas to eat right now, but as this recipe is for making huge batches for freezing, I have found that a light dip in hot oil is best. The tortillas will stay fresh for months in the freezer this way. The sauce dip method will cause the tortillas to disintegrate as they thaw.

Heat some canola or corn oil in a skillet on medium-high. Take your tongs and lower one tortilla at a time into the oil once it is hot. Lightly fry them, about 5-10 seconds per side. DO NOT let them stay in the oil too long. They turn into tostadas very quickly beyond that 10 seconds, or if your oil is too hot. Bubbling is good, burning is not. The idea is to make the tortilla soft and pliable, not make a frisbee. I inevitably make a few stiff ones as I go along, usually if I’m distracted. Once any portion of a tortilla hardens it is useless for enchiladas, so I just cook them all the way and make tasty snacks. 😉 Pile your softly completed tortillas on a plate for later use.

Next soften some cream cheese in a small bowl. I do this in the microwave. You want it like the tortillas: soft and pliable, but not in nuclear meltdown mode. Once soft, start working it into the Turkey & Green Chile mixture along with a bit of Chile Powder, Black Pepper, Ground Cumin, and Salt. Again, tonight I farmed this task off to Nick. He worked the cheese into the mix after I sprinkled the spices in, and I went back to prepping tortillas. You can also mix in a bit of grated Pepper Jack Cheese, Cheddar, etc. (Tonight I did both as we had leftovers from a recent taco night)

Putting it all together!
After the tortillas have cooled enough to handle, gather your mix, the tortillas, and whatever container you’ll freeze the completed enchiladas into (I wrap them in foil in batches of 6 or 8), along with a wooden cutting board. One at a time place a tortilla on the board and scoop about a tablespoon of the T&GE/Cheese/spices mix onto the tortilla and roll it into a tight tube about 1″—1.5″ in diameter. You don’t want big fat blobs, or too skinny a tube, nor do you want the mix forced out the ends. (see photos for one in-process and several completed ones.)

As I said, I make batches of 6—8 enchiladas and freeze them. You can pull them out of the freezer and cook them anytime.

To cook:
Remove from freezer and unwrap. Throw them in a baking dish, cover with favorite enchilada sauce (green is best) and grated cheese of your choice. Bake in 350°F oven for 20-30 minutes. Serve.

In this photo you can also see a mixed drink that I think I invented tonight. It is mostly iced tea, with a shot of bourbon and a half-shot of triple sec. It’s pretty good. I’m not a trained bartender, but I like this one. Let me know if it already exists, and if not, feel free to suggest a name for it!