Another typical spring day in interior Alaska. There have been a lot of bikes out on the roads this weekend and the almost universal comment has been "it's only April!". Not only are the bikes out but also bicycles, RVs, boats, kayaks and canoes. The only thing missing were the leaves and those came out last night. This morning, the hills had a green tint that wasn't there yesterday.
On Sunday afternoon, we went out for lunch and I had the sushi platter. I was really looking forward to this and the restaurant didn't disappoint. The glass has strings of raw beets topped with cucumber and was a strictly a garnish and had no flavor. But it made for a nice presentation.
This morning was warm enough to justify an iced coffee as it was starting to feel too warm. Almost 60°F. I arrived late to the coffee house and most of the regular crowd had already left. I had stayed home as the neighbor was felling trees and asked me to stick around. I took advantage of the time to arrange the garage to make room to store the snow plow. It's now in front of the BMW which was turned sideways. That gave just enough room for the Ural plus some walking space around everything.
Right now (Monday afternoon) I'm trying out my birthday gift from Bridget. A "smart", fuzzy logic rice cooker. I'm not sure how you make a rice cooker smart but I used one while we were renting the townhouse in Kyoto, It did a great job though I had a hard time reading the menu (it was in Japanese). I like that it has a brown rice setting as well as a variety of measuring marks in the pan. We had been using jasmine long grain rice for years but I had picked up some California short grain rice while I was in Barrow and I thought it tasted much better and had a better texture. The cooker has different water settings for short grain white rice and jasmine rice. It even has a setting for baking cakes! I'll need to try that sometime...
No issues or problems with the Ural yet. I've added about 100 ml of oil so far but it's still in the engine break in period. Almost to the 1000 km where I'll need to torque the heads, adjust the valves and change the oil and filter.
You're getting nicer weather than we are. Enjoy it while you can!
ReplyDeleteTrying to enjoy it as much as possible before I need to return to Barrow.
DeleteI love spring, but its not so good for the allergies. We have been having up and down weather, hot & summery and now cool & rainy, very mixed bag.
ReplyDeleteKind of the same here. It was clear then it rained yesterday evening. Now, it looks nice and sunny. Fortunately, allergies have never been a problem that I am aware of...
DeleteReporting 4°C and snow/rain from the Black Forest. I miss spring!
ReplyDeleteI didn't even know that something like a rice cooker exists... leaning something new every day.
We've had rice cookers since back in the '60s so they've been around for a while. But the "smart" ones, not so long.
DeleteThat rice cooker looks pretty swanky. I haven't used one before but I can definitely see the benefits.
ReplyDeleteFunny how this spring is pretty warm compared to what everyone is used to on the west coast. Last Wednesday we had a record high, then on Thursday record rain. This coming Sunday is forecast to be over 80˚. Go figure.
Over 80°F! Too hot to do anything. It's 61° now and feels too warm.
Deletegood to hear the engine rebuild's aftermath is nothing but a well performing engine. kudos!
ReplyDeletefuzzy logic rice cooker?
I think the jury is still out on the reliability of the rebuild. I'm still bothered by the runout of the crankshaft. It should be straight, imho. If the crankshaft isn't straight, I think that it could cause clutch problems like you and Daryl both had.
DeleteAnd who would've thought that a rice cooker would need "fuzzy logic"! For what? Randomly cooked rice?