APT518.net

Kids, got'em. Books, read'em. Bacon, Om Nom Nom.

PICTURES PICTURES PICTURES
2010/04/01,20:39

Along with the belated birthdays, I'm also quite tardy posting new pictures. Just in time for Easter, I'm posting whole batches of new pictures, going back to Will's first bowling trip in January. Here's a list of links to the new pictures: 

 

 

No Foolin': Happy Birthday Ella
2010/04/01,18:58

We celebrated Ella's Birthday today. Presents, cake, pictures and Will got a hair cut. 

Ella enjoyed her day, wanted to say Thank you to everyone for her presents:

 

Happy (Belated) Birthdays
2010/03/30,07:14

March was a big month for birthdays, and I forgot to mention any of them until now. So with little fan fare and my appologies for not doing this sooner, here's the list. 

 

  • Tara Bland (3/3)
  • Will Walters (3/9)
  • Grandma Bettie (3/20) 
  • Erin Rouke (3/30)
  • Uncle Dan (3/30)
And while I wasn't there to sing Happy Birthday to your personally, here's something just as special. 
 
 

 

Mounds Pancakes
2010/03/28,14:47

Will, Ella and I let Mommy sleep this morning. Learning from our past experiment with Banana Coconut waffles, we sprung forth a new adventure, named above. Our recipe went something like this: 

 

  • 2 cups Bisquick 
  • 3/4 cup Milk
  • chocolate chips (added individually to each pancake)
  • toasted shredded coconut* (added individually to each pancake)
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 bananas**
 Then, it's just pancakes as usual. Place batter on a warm skillet, add ingredients as you feel necessary. I recommend adding the chocolate chips BEFORE the coconut. Flip once, and viola. Pancakes. And if you haven't yet got your fill of coconut, sprinkle some on your pancakes after buttering and syruping.  
 
*   I toasted my own shedded coconut, just spread out the coconut on a cookie sheet and heat at 350 for 15-20 minutes. Once the edges start turning golden brown, remove from oven and mix together.  
** I know Mounds doesn't have bananas, but I like bananas so we added them in too. 
 
The whole Walters clan enjoyed these for breakfast.  

 

Valley of the Moon Zinfandel and Tanzania Peaberry Coffee
2010/03/27,13:42

Kirsten and I made some pasta for dinner last night. We added some ground sausage and wine to some La Rossa's pasta sauce and set it to simmer while we boiled the water for pasta. For the wine, we opened a bottle of 2004 Valley of the Moon Zinfandel. Kirsten and I had toured this winery during a trip to Sonoma a couple years ago, and while we enjoyed the wine, we definitely enjoyed some other wines even more. This was the only bottle we purchased from this winery on that trip; and after the first couple sips the memories of mediocrity came flooding back. While certainly not a bad wine, it wasn't a great wine either. It was better than the Northern Vines, but not as good as the Doobie Red. In fact, the more time that goes by, the more I wish I had bought more of that particular wine. 

 

 

 

 

 

Tragity struck the Walters house on Thursday when I ran out of coffee. So, a trip to may favorite new (and some would say inconveniently located) coffee shop, J & S Bean Factory. Don't let the silly name fool you, they are serious bean heads. They purchase the raw beans from co-ops, farmers, or ethical resellers and roast the beans on site. K stopped by on the way home, and picked up a pound of Tanzanian Peaberry. I brewed my first pot this morning, and let me tell you, those are some delicious beans. LIght, fruity and strongly caffeinated. Makes a great start to a saturday, or any morning really. 

 


 

I watched the Michigan State Spartans beat the Northern Iowa Panthers last night. I thought UNI put up a good first half against MSU, but the second half MSU did everything that it needed to, and UNI couldn't make a basket to save it's season. I saw a stat near the end of the game that said UNI didn't score a field goal in the final 10 minutes. It's hard to win basketball games if you can't put the ball in the basket. Congrats to UNI on a great season.They exceeded all expectation. 
Big Sky Brewing Company: Buckin' Monk Tripel Ale
2010/03/24,20:24

There is a reason this beer comes in only 750 ml bottles and a cork; this beer has some serious carbonation. And not in a bad way. I popped the cork, and began to poor into a standard pint glass, and immediately it began to foam. In fact the first pour was nothing but foam. To empty the bottle into two pint glasses, it took about 20 minutes, but it was definately worth the wait. 

 It's likely that there will only be 3000 blog posts about this beer, as it was a Limited Edition. And I know that it's a limited edition because it's hand numbered on the back "1459 of 3000". If you see a bootle of this in the store, buy it. It's THAT good. Once the foam settles, you are in for a treat as the sweet malts and barley give this beer an almost candy flavor but with a nice alcohol finish to remind you that this is a strong beer (10% Ach/Vol).  

You may be thinking, Big Sky, haven't I seen that name around before? In fact you have. These are the same people that bring you wonderfully mass-produced bottles of Moose Drool, Trout Slayer and Slow Elk. This beer is not of that ilk. It's a beautifully crafted beer that makes the mouth sing for joy and thanks you for not giving in an buying PBR. 

Four Firkins still had at least a couple of these on the shelf last week, I'm hoping we can be lucky enough to find one more.

 

Sports and Coffee
2010/03/24,07:55

Big shout out to by UNI Panthers for knocking off number one seeded Kansas over the weekend. Since ESPN, CBS, NCAA.com and even David Letterman have all had their chance to praise the Panthers, I'll save my words for more interesting topics. 

MLS 2010 season was saved from a stupid players strike. An agreement for a 5 year collective bargaining agreement was signed last week. I'm glad this got done sooner than later. ESPN has more details here.

 

Caribou Coffee has changed their look. For the most part, it's pretty much same-old, same-old. Caribou used to have a policy that would allow for $0.50 refills on a cup of coffee after you purchased your first one at full price. THis policy has been dropped, and instead you have to pay FULL price for any refill. Combine that with the fact that they raised the price of a large cup of coffee by $0.45 and it leaves me paying significantly more for my daily dose of caffeine. I like Caribou, but paying more than $2.00 is for a cup of their coffee, when I can go to Dunn Brothers or StarBucks for 7/8th the price, isn't worth my time. 

 

Caribou, I used to love you. Now, you are dead to me. I cancelled the refill card I've had for the last 7 years. Breaking up is hard, but the Dunn Brothers are my new mistress(es). 

 

Wine, wine and more wine
2010/03/22,20:41

Over the weekend, Kirsten and I took the kids to Stillwater, MN. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and they have a nice park for Will (and maybe Ella) to play in and lots of interesting shops downtown. Instead, the park had not yet opened for the season (a gated park?! WTF!). So we took a walk through the town and along the sandbag dike by the river; it's flood season in MN. We stopped by Northern Vines and decided to split a quick tasting (a normal tasting is 10 samples). Kirsten tasted the Whites and I took on the Reds. To be honest,  I wanted to like the wines, I did. But even after 5 samples, they seemed shallow. Good color, nice legs, but tasted like water. It tasting was a good expereince, but I don't know if it's the grapes, or the steel barrel aging process, but these wines had no depth of flavor, at all, period. We did end up taking home an Octoberfest White and a dessert wine. But not much to write home about. 

As a stark contrast to the shallow wines, we opened a bottle of 2004 Doobie Red from the B.R. Cohn Winery . Wow, now THIS is a wine with depth. Perhaps it was just the contrast of this wine compared to the other's I'd just tasted, but wow. In all likelyhood, it's not fair to compare a California wine and a Minnesota wine. But considering you can buy either off the shelf in the grocery store, both are easily accessible, and thus worthy of comparison.  In case you were wondering about the name, B.R. Cohn was a member of the Doobie Brothers. And the bottle we opened was signed by Mr. Cohn. 

We received our quarterly shipment of wine from Moon Mountain.  With this shipment we recieved a 2007 Malbec and a 2007 Merlot. While these bottles are sure to be enjoyed, they may be enjoyed before they get the chance to age for very long in our 'cellar'. And by 'cellar' I mean the bottom of our pantry. And in case you were looking for one, Moon Mountain has one of the best Port wines I've ever tasted. A case of that would not last long in our house. 

Soccer Update: MLS Strike
2010/03/15,14:21

I know it's the start of the NCAA Basketball tournament season, but something this stupid can't go unnoticed and written about by me, the 105th person in America that pays attention to these things. 

 It seems that the NFL isn't the only professional sports league that is having problems between 'Labor' and 'Management'. Major League Soccer seems headed for a work stoppage while the players re-negociate a collective bargaining agreement. The most recent publication I could find was from the Huffington Post. 

First of all, if the Huffington Post is the only news outlet regularly following a potential labor strike for MLS, that says that no one really cares about your league anyway. Shouldn't soccer players in the US just be grateful they still have jobs without having move to Europe? The MLS is at least solvent and building stadiums for it's teams. It's growing and dare I say thriving in the face of other leagues that have failed before it. The quickest way to kill any fan base you may have earned is a strike or lockout. No one wins with these situations. Fans stop buying tickets, advertisers stop buying ads, people stop caring. Recovery in the eyes of fans takes years. Just ask the NHL, NFL and MLB. Hockey has never been the same since it's last work stoppage. Everyone remembers how bad the NFL was with scab players. And it took Cal Ripken, Mark McGuire* and Sammy Sosa* to resurrect that MLB after it cancelled the World Series. 

Keep the MLS alive and kicking! No work stoppage in 2010. 

 

* and a lot of steroids.  

Happy Pi Day
2010/03/14,13:37

Today is March 14th, or as math geeks call it, Pi Day as in Π or 3.14159265. So get out and celebrate Pi Day, with a nice slice of pie. If you're feeling extra festive, you can have pi ala mode.  

It is a glorious day outside today. Temperatures are in the low 50s. The sun is out and it feels actually warm. 

I'm also turning comments back on. If it gets too spammy, I may shut them off again.  

Lift Bridge and New Belgium's Lips of Faith
2010/03/13,20:38

It should be noted that K and I don't drink regularly, or heavily. However, we do try to drink interestingly, and then I write up my or our opinion on the beverages we quaff. 

Before a trip to the Lakeville LifeTime Fitness for some swimming, we drove over to our favorite beer store, Four Firkins in St Louis Park. While browsing around the isle (there is only one), we picked out a bottle from the Lips of Faith series brewed by New Belgium Brewing (more on that later). We also bought a Rogue Kells Irish-style Lagar and a Big Sky Brewing Buckin' Monk Tripel Ale. So you can look forward to those reviews. 


Had dinner at Pizza Luce in St Paul this evening. Luce has the second best pizza in the Twin Cities; and third place is not even close. And to wash down said slices, K and I both enjoyed a Lift Bridge Farm Girl Saison. This was sort of a whitewashed unfiltered wheat. Heady, cloudy and light in flavor and a great finish. This is typical for any saison-style beer. We didn't really match our pizza and our beer particularly well. But I enjoyed enough of it before I started my meal that I'm definately going to give this beer a second bottle or perhaps a third bottle, before I finally make up my mind. 

After putting the kids to bed, I cracked open the Biere de Mars. This was the beer from New Belgium that I mentioned earlier.  As they say, it's an "ale brewed with spices" and I believe them. They also say it's an "Orange-hued Ale, Citrusy Lemon Verbena and"...something else. The results of this collision are underwhelming. I taste cloves and orange peel and beer; and that might sound good, but the bitter peel isn't balanced with the other flavors. I also forget I'm drinking beer, which is a little disappointing....because I like beer. As suggested by some other words on the bottle, this is an experimental brew, and I applaud New Belgium's efforts. However, I can't applaud their results.  Better luck next time. 

 

  

Food and Beer and Windfall
2010/03/13,08:56

So I made shredded BBQ chicken for dinner last night. It really wasn't anything THAT spectacular, it was really just surprisingly easy. 

 

  1. Boil three chicken breasts until completely cooked
  2. chop chicken into large pieces and place into large sauce pan
  3. add one bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce (in this case Arthur Bryant's Sweet Heat) 
  4. Cover and Simmer for about an hour
  5. If simmering for more than an hour, add 8oz of light beer (optional)
Yep, it's that easy. 
 

 

 

K and I found a little bit of extra cash laying around and splurged on two beers normally out of our price range. 
 
The first was an Issaquah Brewery Menage a Frog. Issaquah is part of the Rogue Alliance of Beer; which, from my perspective, means a certain winner. This beer did not disappoint. Menage a Frog is a Belgian-style Tripel ale. Its been my experience that belgians don't have a very long shelf-life if not properly chilled. Finding a domestic brewer that can make a good one is solid gold. This beer has everything you'd expect, lots of foam, flowery scents, and delicious flavor. This is a beer that is perfect early spring beer. It will be hard to drop $17 for another one, but I'll definitely have to think twice before passing one the Frog in the beer isle.
 
The second beer we splurged on was a Danish Barley Wine style Ale. Called Little Korkny Ale from Norrebro Bryghus (or here Shelton Brothers ) this beer packed a flavorful wallop. Bottled in 2006, this was aged and then shipped to America, so it's easy to understand the $25 price tag. I'd hoped that after bring this home, that I wouldn't be pouring my money down the drain after making such an investment into a brewery that I'd never heard of. Again, I was not disappointed. This beer is Rich, carmel-y and strong (12% ABV). And while strong in flavor and alcohol, it was very VERY good. We didn't have sniffers to savor our brew, so we had pint glasses which served us well. If you looking for something a little bit exotic for your next get together, try this beer. But at $1/oz it's likely not to be a regular addition to your fridge. 
 
 

 

New theme as inspired by Will
2010/03/11,21:29

Will told me this morning, as it was pouring down rain outside

I want to live someplace where its spring all the time. Like Austrailia.

 

Hey, remember me
2010/03/11,11:37

Remember back when I had a lot of time and could post all sorts of news and funny things? Yeah, those were the days.  Unfortunately, those days have not returned, but I'm taking a break from my day to bring you, the faithful lookers (i'd call you readers, but there hasn't been much to read) some new content to gaze upon. 

Kid Update

 

  • Will turned 5 years old on Tuesday, but we had the party on Sunday. Would you belive me if I said "Pictures forthcoming"? I wouldn't. But we did take pictures and I'll try to get them up sooner, rather than later. 
  • Will seems to have survived his last bout of illness. Like a last winter storm before spring finally hits, K and I are both prepared for a last blast of something to hit one or both of the kids. 
  • Will got into K-plus (all day kindergarden) next year. K got him registered, and we have orientation scheduled for ...sometime. It's on my calendar. 
  • Ella has starting to think about taking some steps. She can balance on two feet for at least 3 seconds. And she'll lead you to where you want to go, with one finger.
  • Ella's appitite has come back, and she's eat a wide variety of foods. 
  • Ella also has two more top teeth, bringing her total to 6 over all. 

 

Fun Update 

Two videos that must be seen:

 

 

 

 

 

Scott Update 

 

I'm still working, still employed, still alive (despite my lack of blogging). I know it's almost Easter, but maybe I should be blogging for Lent. We'll see. Things have been going well, just busy with life and the blog has suffered. But spring is coming and I'll repent. Long live APT518.net!  

 

Healthy Kids, mostly
2010/02/22,10:12

"Noelle" was replaced by "Poor Elle" while she and Will both contracted some nasty cold. No fevers, but both had lovely coughs and ear infections. Additionally, Ella had and upset tummy, which lead to lots of soiled diapers and a terrible case of diaper rash. After a couple trips to the doctors office, we got some antibiotics, and some 'poop goop' for Ella's bottom. 

After about a week, Noelle and Will are back to their normal selves. Ella's appetite is back. She ate 3 silver dollar pancakes, half a container of yogurt, and a slice of cheese for lunch one day. Ella is actually eating more at meal time than Will is some days (but mostly because Will is just bored). 

 

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