"I only want the food bowl if you're eating out of it."

My dog is a butthead.

We have pea plants!
and leeks. and about 2 carrots. the raspberry is probably dead.

The sourdough was really good! I think it overrose (and in only 8 hours, not the 12-15 listed in the recipe) but it still made awesome sandwiches.

Since we went through that so fast, I then modified his whole wheat recipe to make more normal sandwich bread using the starter to rise. (Mods: used veg oil instead of olive, only 1.5 cups whole wheat, the rest all purpose. ) It rose fine and has great texture, but something about the taste seems off to me. I switched the starter back to whole wheat flour (it was on all purpose for the 5 days between making sourdough and making regular bread) and I think I'll add some dry milk to the next batch. (and maybe up the whole wheat to 2 cups total.)

Good research meeting with my advisor. The only problem is that we have such good meetings and I have so much to do afterwards that I feel like I won't be ready to meet again for months!

baking, hiking, being bad at algebra

Just out of the oven! Sourdough from my very own, week-old starter. It definitely rose, so the starter can't be too bad... we'll know more when we actually taste it. The starter smells a LOT better than it did earlier in the week.

After 4 years in Colorado, we finally saw one of the not-too-far tourist attractions: Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.Of course, this was only accomplished because friends from much much further away were going and let us tag along. It was fantastic to see you guys - and I find all hikes a lot more interesting with good company.

and the algebra.. well. I just have to force myself to take it slow. and use a calculator when adding and subtracting two digit numbers. It's pitiful, but if I just hurry through my game theory homework, it takes me many many tries to solve very simple algebra problems correctly.

I bet you're sick of hearing about school

So for now, let's just note that Game Theory started and it hurts my head.

Today I theoretically started a sourdough starter. I'm following these instructions. Wish me luck and I'll keep you updated.

I'm also planning on trying Khachapuri, also known as cheese pie. We will use whatever random cheese we have on hand, because we're cheap and like things to be easy.

We finished planting the garden: garlic, leeks, carrots, leeks, different carrots, peas, soybeans. I'll post a picture when more of it has sprouted.

Last weekend, I went to a judo tournament and watched and took photos. I did feel kind of left out for not competing, but I'm glad I saw one before I tried to. I'm still taken aback by all the yelling and instructions from the sideline. And now I have a valid reason to get a new camera: I ran out of battery before I ran out of picture space, and it really didn't pick up good enough quality on the shots I did get. (Though it's hard to get a good shot of two people in white pjs rolling around.)

What new things did you try this week?

sick

I have some kind of summer head cold. Since Monday I've been snotty with occasional sore throat extra. I thought I was almost better Wednesday, but the snot returned with a vengeance. Bah.

So I've been muddling through with a head that doesn't quite work for a week. Not bad enough to take a sick day, so I'm still doing my share of pretending to be a java developer (you know what sucks? convincing java to accept a self-signed ssl certificate) and critiquing slide decks.

Summer school starts next week. I owe my econ collaborators some work soon. I set up research meetings with my advisor. I wish I was raring to go, but I think I at least have most of my ducks in a row.