Posted by Tom Moertel
Thu, 31 May 2007 04:01:00 GMT
Earlier today I received an email from the editor of a
Pennsylvania-based magazine. (I won’t mention the name of the magazine
in case what I’m about to write next amounts to a spoiler.) He asked
if I would allow the magazine to publish one of my photographs of
British soldier
lichen
in an upcoming issue.
Of course, I said yes. (I’m always looking for ways to spread the word
about British soldier lichen.)
My fee? I asked for a free issue of the magazine when it goes to
press. They said it will be in my mailbox.
Cool.
Posted in photography
Tags fun, lichen, me, photography
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Posted by Tom Moertel
Fri, 25 May 2007 21:42:00 GMT
The Kenwood audio-video receiver that forms the core of my
home theater system stopped responding to its remote control. As I
discovered shortly thereafter, having to leave the couch to fiddle
with knobs degrades the “home theater experience.” Clearly, something
had to be done.
I knew the receiver was the culprit because the remote control worked fine
with other components of my system. I figured the IR sensor had gone
bad and did a little Googling for “Kenwood” and “IR sensor” and
“problem”. The results revealed that
many other Kenwood customers had the same
problem.
The cause of the problem, I learned, was that the solder joints which
connect the IR sensor’s leads to the display board eventually fail
because of thermal expansion. That explanation seemed to account for
what I was observing, so I cracked the case in search
of visual confirmation.
First, I found the joints where the IR sensor was connected to the
circuit board. The vertical red line shows where I found them:
Then I examined the joints closely. Sure enough, at least one had completely failed:
The problem confirmed, I moved to the solution phase of the project.
With my soldering iron, I touched-up the joints:
It wasn’t my best work, but it did the job.
Now my receiver is back on speaking terms with its remote control,
and I have returned to the modern world. Life is good
Posted in hardware
Tags hardware, ir, kenwood, receiver, repairs, soldering
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Posted by Tom Moertel
Fri, 18 May 2007 05:21:00 GMT
A strange thing happened to me over the weekend. While traveling, I
stopped at a Sheetz gas station / convenience store in Meadville,
Pennsylvania. This store, I noticed, was serving espresso. Curious,
I ordered a double, my usual test-out-the-new-place order.
When I received my double, I was prepared for the worst. I had
learned the hard way that few coffee houses in the United States can
make a decent espresso. And this Sheetz was not a coffee house.
My grim expectation was only reinforced by what I had in my hand – a
paper coffee cup, feeling ominously heavy. Based on the weight, I
knew the espresso was going to be over-extracted – watery and
probably sour, too.
After I paid and left the store with my Big Cup Of Espresso, I paused
in the sunlight for a closer look. Something wasn’t right. The cup
was one-third full, but the crema actually looked pretty good, unlike
what I would have associated with insanely over-extracted espresso.
When I took a taste, I was surprised again: the espresso was pretty
good. While not what I would call a great shot, it was perfectly
drinkable and better than what I expect from Starbucks.
It was then that I realized that something unusual was going on at
Sheetz. If the espresso I was drinking didn’t look over-extracted, and
if it didn’t taste over-extracted, and yet it did fill one third of a
12-oz. coffee cup, it couldn’t have been a double. It must have been
a quad.
My curiosity piqued, I decided to call Sheetz and ask what was really
in my cup. I ended up talking with John, their coffee specialist, and
he (besides being a nice guy) confirmed that, at Sheetz, a single
serving of espresso is about 2 ounces in volume and is made from 14
grams of coffee. My double serving, then, was made from two 14-gram
pulls, for 28 grams of coffee in total. So I had, indeed, been
drinking what at most coffee houses would have been four shots.
Mystery solved.
Based on my conversation with John, I expect that espresso at Sheetz
is likely to be fairly consistent. I hope, then, that the sample I
tried at the Meadville store is a good predictor of what I can get at
other Sheetz locations. If so, I may have found a solution to the
problem of finding decent espresso when on the road.
Have you tried straight espresso at Sheetz? If so, what did you think?
Update 2007-05-22: On Saturday, 19 May, I tried another sampling
of Sheetz’s espresso, this time at the Grove City, Pennsylvania store.
I ordered a “single” serving, equivalent to a double at most coffee
houses. The preparer, to my disappointment, pulled the shot into a
12-oz. coffee cup and then, to my dismay, poured the shot from the
12-oz. cup into a 2-oz. cup, leaving much of the crema behind
and resulting in a drink that looked damaged. The taste was damaged,
too – slightly watery with a mild sour note.
Thus my second trial of Sheetz’s espresso was disappointing. I can
only hope that my preparer’s two-cup technique was her own, unique
variation on the standard practice at Sheetz. In any case, if you
order a single at Sheetz, play it safe: ask that your shot be pulled
directly into a 2-oz. cup.
Posted in espresso
Tags coffee, espresso, sheetz
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