hakbox

Check out Cooke’s Seafood if you are in West Yarmouth! Delicious!

Pictured here: the seafood platter. Comes with: Scallops, clams, shrimp, haddock, fries, and onion rings! Highly recommended, for a family friendly, fast food seafood joint!

Their official web site is here.

Sometime back in the late 90′s, I received a great gift: an ETX-70AT 70mm telescope. I got to use it a few times before it broke. Well, last week (what, I’ve been busy!) I contacted Meade to have it repaired. They informed me the only option was to trade it in for an ETX-80. As I’d like to pick up the hobby again, I went for it. Expect to see some (useless) crappy astro-photography posted soon! Just continuing the tradition of useless information on this great series of tubes we call the Internet.

So far, I’ve picked up quite a few accessories for it:

• 45 degree erecting prism for day-time viewing
• 2x Barlow short focus lens
• 3x Barlow lens
• T adapter for Canon XSi DSLR
• Step ring/adapter for telescope
• AC adapter for Auto-Star controller
• Orion EZ Finder II Site Scope

Not expecting to see anything spectacular, but should be fun anyway.

Update: apparently this telescope comes with a 3x Barlow and 45 degree erecting prism. Looks like I’ll be returning a few things I don’t need.

Well, who knew I’d enjoy a kids show this much. Good stories, wholesome, and even some good humor. Plus the little one likes it too.

Favorite moment: Pig opens a candy shop, and when anyone can’t decide, offers them a free tasting. The kicker is, he tastes the candy himself!

Full episodes on YouTube: http://www.google.com/m/url?client=safari&ei=sFegTfCcBsz7lwfE_MrSAw&hl=en&oe=UTF-8&q=/search?oe%3DUTF-8%26client%3Dsafari%26q%3Dkipper%2Bthe%2Bdog%26hl%3Den%26tbs%3Dvid:1%26tbm%3Dvid&ved=0CBYQ7QkwAA&usg=AFQjCNG_NyHzXwvvb-h_ASpmcw6O3DpXcQ

“Would you like a free tasting? I’ll do the tasting!”

My iPad 2 keeps dropping off the wireless network! Is it my iPad 2? Is it fios’ wireless router? Considering none of the other wireless devices disconnect, it must be the iPad. The weird thing is: It doesn’t disconnect, it just stops working, even though it shows it’s still connected to the wireless network. The only way to fix it? Turn off wireless on the iPad, then turn it back on.

Turns out my iPhone 4 drops off as well. It seems they both have issues with weak wifi signals (30-35% or below).

4/10/2011
As it turns out, some people have evidence the issue is a combination of the iPad 2 and FiOS ActionTech wireless router, my specific router. Pretty frustrating. Will update the post if I figure something out, or someone else does.

If you asked me, 10 years ago, what I would miss most about San Diego, I never would have thought the answer would have been burritos (especially California Burritos). The constantly sunny weather? Nope.. Burritos. Well, it’s virtually impossible to find a decent burrito on the east coast. Some google searches did present some promising recipes for shrimp burritos. With nothing to lose, I tried one listed on AllRecipes.com (http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/shrimp-burritos/Detail.aspx), by SHACKL (http://allrecipes.com/Cook/1277431/Profile.aspx). He / she describes the recipe as follows:

“I worked at a Mexican restaurant that specializes in Baja dishes, and became addicted to this burrito… I moved away, so I had to create my own. The Chipotle Sauce is what makes it oh so yummy!” –SHACKL

The recipe in it’s entirety follows:

Ingredients

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup long-grain white rice
3/4 teaspoon cumin
3/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup canned diced tomatoes

1 (16 ounce) can refried beans
3/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

12 ounces frozen cooked shrimp without tails, thawed
2 teaspoons minced garlic

1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 teaspoons pureed chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

6 (10 inch) flour tortillas, warmed
3 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1/3 cup salsa

Directions

Heat the vegetable oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, and cook until tender, stirring frequently. Stir in rice, and season with cumin and 3/4 teaspoon of garlic salt. Cook and stir until the rice is lightly toasted, about 5 minutes. Pour in the chicken broth and the diced tomatoes. Bring to a boil, then cover and cook over low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, until all of the liquid has been absorbed.

In a small saucepan, stir together the refried beans, 3/4 teaspoon of garlic salt, and black pepper. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally until heated through.

Place shrimp in a bowl, and stir in garlic until shrimp is coated. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat, and coat with cooking spray. Saute shrimp until heated through and lightly browned.
In a small bowl, stir together the yogurt, mayonnaise, and chipotle peppers until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Place about 1/4 cup of cheese onto each warm tortilla. Then place about 1/2 cup of shrimp on the cheese. Top with 1/4 cup of beans, and 1/4 cup of rice. Spread on about a tablespoon of the chipotle sauce, and salsa to taste. Roll up, and serve.

I was at a small liquor store, looking for an inexpensive wine for dinner. I noticed a bottle of red with a bright yellow label: Fortissimo. Well, it’s inexpensive, comes in a huge bottle (or even a 1 gallon jug) and tastes great with everything we’ve had at the dinner table so far. They also make a white wine, named Bellissimo, which I’m looking forward to trying.

Earlier this week, I received my iPad 2G. I held on out getting the first generation iPad. I have an iPhone after all. But, now that I have an iPad, I finally know what I was missing. If you ever wondered if you should get one, just do it!

Just received my S8100 today. I was under the impression the shutter speed would be really fast. It’s not. OK, it’s faster than my SD780, and SX1, but it will never beat my Rebel XT dSLR.

What surprised me, was the quality and sharpness of the images. It definitely beats both the SD780, and SX1 hands-down. Comes pretty close to the sharpness and detail of the Rebel XT as well. That’s impressive.

After having my iPhone 4 for about a month, I was quite disappointed with dropped calls, and battery life.  I would get 4-5 dropped calls in a day.  My battery would last 5-6 hours.  This couldn’t be right.  I called Apple support on more than one occasion, and they informed me of the following:

1. If you restore the phone from  a 3G backup, it is known to have issues, such as dropped calls and shortened battery life.
   Strange, but OK.  The tech. told me to reset the phone, and set it up as a new phone.  But what about all my data in the 100s of apps I use?  No way I was going to do this.
2. You need to reset the phone via settings…
   Really? That didn’t help out one bit.

I was seriously considering returning the phone, that is, until my new case arrived.

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