Food Werx, Vol 2 - butter

So, I have been reading a great deal on nutrition, exercise, endocrinology, plate tectonics, physiology, etc, over the past year or so...

As evidenced by Vol 1, I am trying to make some things at home. We are digging around the back yard, so we can have a good selection of veggies from now on. We're going to plant peppers, zucchini, asparagus, basically, anything that tastes good.

But I am also having fun at home making things from scratch.

Nicole and I both love to cook, so why not?

There will be a blog post coming soon about the health value in milk, both the pros and cons. But in the meantime, we have a good supplier nearby of raw milk, and it is utterly delicious! (like I could resist that!) Nicole thought it tasted a little strange, but it is milk even more the way that I remember it.

So, with that, I decided to have some fun, hence this post. :)

So, I tried my hand at making butter. It is ridiculously easy. I skimmed the heavy cream off the top of our milk (Who here is old enough to remember milk being delivered in bottles to your house, raise your hands!)

Here is a good picture of the milk separated.

This is the way to actually make SKIM milk. It was called that because all the milk fat was 'skimmed' off of the top of the milk once the cream had settled to the top. It is really 'skimmed milk.'

an aside--A problem that I will discuss in my post on milk, is that modern skim milk is mostly made from powdered milk, especially with the big manufacturers. Powdered milk has oxidized cholesterol in it, and oxidization is something we really need to prevent in our bodies.

I set it aside so it could get closer to room temperature; some websites say to do that, others say to simply start with cold cream, you just need to agitate it longer.

So I poured the top cream into a jar with a lid, and then started shaking it. Pretty vigorously, too, at least at the start.

After about 8-10 minutes, I had non-sweetened whipped cream. I could feel the difference in the jar in the way it was no longer sloshing about. I continued shaking the jar, occasionally hitting it against my opposite hand, to loosen the more solider mass inside.

After another 10 minutes or so of this, I had a ball forming inside, and I could feel in the shaking that the liquid had separated, so now I just needed to finish it off, almost there.

20 minutes from when I started, I had it. Butter. Sweet cream butter. The leftover milk is buttermilk, perfect for pancakes, etc... mmmmmm.....

Is it better? It is very light and smooth, and it has all the milk fat that it should. We'll see how it goes.

The real judges will be Thomas and Nicole. It was quick and simple. There is no real reason to do it yourself, except just simply to do it yourself.

Enjoy!!

MMmmmm... Food Werx Vol. 1

Hi all! (all both of you!)

So, I had been thinking about nutritional profiles (see, it's not all about flying anymore!) and peanuts.

Peanuts, properly, are legumes, like beans, etc. Somewhere in here I am sure is part of the source for peanut allergies that are not nut allergies in general, but since I am behind in my reading and have not yet got to that chapter, I will leave off that for now.

So, I rather like the nutrition of cashews versus peanuts, especially the Vitamin K in cashews. So, since I love peanut butter, why not try to make my own cashew butter? I happened to buy some cashews for munching, and I was not out of them yet!

So, I read up a little bit, and found that a good first step is to 'dry roast' the cashews. This can be accomplished a couple of different ways at home, but the simplest is to toss them into a pan and heat them

up, so that they release their oils more freely. Easy way to tell, is the rom starts smelling like roasted nuts. Simple, eh? On the right is a photo of the action--

I did not have a large bunch of nuts to start with, though. Most of what I had read said that they will reduce in volume by about 75%, so you need to start with a fairly large amount. The

problem that you would run into is that there is not enough oil for them to start sticking together once they are blended, so mostly you would

have powdered nuts. I am sure there is a critical point for that, and I am also sure I was below it in volume!

So, with the smell of roasted cashews

filling the kitchen, I popped them into my trusty (and almost 20 year old) blender. They did not take up a great deal of room, and I was pretty sure that was a bad sign.

So I blended... and blended... and finally, I had a fine cashew-y powder. Ok, that was not great, but maybe I could still make it into something. That is when I remembered about there not being enough oil for them to coagulate into 'butter.' Well, what better to use, then butter? I spooned about 1/4 Tablespoon of butter in, and it all came together nicely. Not the best, but still, it was better than trying to spread cashew powder into a sandwich!

Results--

This was the cashew butter right as it came out of the blender. A little grainy, but I think if I used a real food processor, I could get rid of most of the grainy-ness, and I certainly want to incorporate more 'chunks' of cashews, so I will reserve some crushed pieces to add in after the pureeing.

Here is the final result from volume. The jar at the left was about 3/4 full of cashews, and that tiny amount is what they made. I knew it would reduce, but come on!!

So, I've already eaten all of it, and I will just have to try again!

Next up-- Make my own yogurt! (most likely from our raw milk source, the people at Golden Guernsey Dairy. Mmmmmm.... raw milk is good!)

oh, expect a longish rant on our fine state not allowing raw milk producers to advertise (see, I told you it wouldn't be all about flying!)

Cheers!

Scott

Thoughts

Hi All!

So, I am thinking of expanding the blog beyond aviation, etc. I have spent quite a bit of time reading some health blogs, and then going to the sources and reading the original materiel. A few people have asked me questions about some of this, and I am thinking of taking this well beyond aviation, into other areas I am interested in.

I'd include links that I thought were interesting, video, etc....

I guess I am interested in too many things, so I need to expand! (everything but my waistline!)

Cheerio!

Scott

Vacancy/Displacement

To answer some questions,

A friend of mine needed a laymen's explanation for what this 'bid' thing is.

We 'bid' for our positions as pilots based on our seniority, from date of hire. Generally, in order of preference, you want;

Seat (Captain or First Officer)

Domicile (City your flying is based out of)

Equipment (Which airplane you fly. Only 1 at a time (i.e. 737, DC-10))

Your Domicile can govern which equipment you fly. Chicago (ORD) for Eagle has 2 'types' of aircraft, one made by Bombardier, the CRJ-700, and the one that I fly, made by Embraer, Of which there are 3 variations, that one has the prettiest picture. (The variations are mostly # of seats. They all fly the same (bwaahahahahha.... kof kof... sorry... pilot joke.)

It takes a good two months of training to get checked out on another place, so usually, once you are in a specific aircraft, you do not trade around too often. They even make sure there is little incentive to do that, placing limits on how often we can change, making it 'non-reversible' (such as pilots who have transitioned to the CRJ cannot (with a few exceptions) go to the EMB,) and in the case of First Officers (FOs,) not increasing their pay with a different, larger aircraft.

Domicile does get tricky. They have shifted the CRJs around the system a few times, but generally they have been at DFW or ORD. Now we have them on the East Coast, too. But, if you want to fly it, there is no domicile (or base) in LAX, so anyone there would have to commute.

Seat, of course, is the big thing. Captain is where it is at. Pay is quite a bit more (there is an old saw about FOs getting paid for what they do, CAs getting paid for what they know.) The CA sets the tone of the trip, from start to finish. As an FO, you are constantly wondering "Who is the asshole that I am stuck flying with?" As a CA, you're the asshole! If you are outside aviation, it is really difficult to stress how the 'vibe' that a CA has on the flight deck effects simple things, like just the pleasure of our job. We have an awesome (full of awe) job (every seat is a window seat, Miami in winter, Ottawa in June, etc) and simply flying with a decent CA makes life nice. Flying with a real tool of a CA can make your life miserable, and we have a number of pilots that FOs simply refuse to fly with, mostly because they are not personable (I'm being charitable) in the cockpit.

There are trade-offs in here. In my own instance, I could have taken the upgrade to CA a few months earlier, but I would have had to commute to be based out of LaGuardia, because that was the only place open at the time for lowest seniority CAs. I traded the wild increase in $$ for better scheduling (based on my seniority as an FO,) and not having to fly to f-ing LGA every time I had to go to work. Not what I wanted to be doing with a new son.

Of course, some people commute nearly their entire careers. This is the airline/aviation world that we live in. I have friends who, for instance, 'commute' from all over California to ORD to fly. ORD is a lower seniority base, the scheduling makes life easier on them. It can actually be easier (I know people who do this, too,) to commute from Orlando to Chicago, rather than Miami. The schedules might be really bad for commuting in another city that is closer, so you fly further to make your life easier.

At any rate, there are surely dozens of ins and outs with regards to scheduling/domicile/equip, what the heck is a Vac/Disp bid?

Vacancy (open positions in Seat/Domicile/Equip)/Displacement (reducing other positions)

Vacancy

Every month or so, the company offers up a vacancy bid, saying "X number of seats are open for bid in position/base." So it would read something like "25 OCE START/XFR 12MAY12," Which you would read as 25 Chicago (ORD) Captain Embraer positions open, start training or transfer from current domicile date of 12 May 2012. There are a few ways they can make it look, but that is the basics.

Displacement

This is when they are reducing flying or even eliminating positions. Sometimes they enter a market and then decide it was not a good fit, so they change the pilot requirements for that base, etc. This comes in the same format, really. The only problem, is that this is a union job, and you are entitled to displace someone junior to you on the seniority list out of their equipment OR base OR seat, if you are senior to that person and they are the bottom of their list. That's just how it goes. Every system has it's +s and -s...

Eagle is reducing flying, actually, eliminating and entire aircraft from the fleet. The venerable ATR, which has been the workhorse of the Caribbean, Miami, and lately Dallas, is being retired as step #1 of our reductions because of the Nov 30th Chapter 11 filing.

So, the pilots (and F/As are going through the same thing, but they are cross-trained on equipment, so they lose the 'equipment' part of the above part of the post, but not the rest) who fly the ATR are getting dropped into the system, so to speak. They are allowed to basically 're-bid' their positions based upon the fact that what they are now flying is being eliminated. So, some people will elect to go to same seat/different base, different airplane; some will pick going back to FO but staying at the same base (if they have more than 1 airplane type there, which Miami and Dallas do have, but San Juan does not,) and a few other combinations. Because they are shutting down an entire fleet, it is a bit like trying to shove all 18 ozs of a porterhouse steak into your mouth and chew. It is a BIG movement. Lots of people going lots of places, and it will take quite a bit of time to get it all 'digested.'

In addition to that, there are quite a few pilots who have recently upgraded to CA, but will now be knocked back to FO, because more senior CAs will be 'bumping in' above them on their domicile/equipment list. For instance, a CA flying the ATR in San Juan is going to lose that position (no more San Juan base,) so elects to come to ORD as a CA on the EMB. If there is 'no room' (no openings) for him, that does not mean that he cannot bump in, that just means that he will be slotted in based on his seniority and the bottom guy on the list will be bumped back to FO, or to another base.

Eventually, we run out of positions and bases, and that is when furloughs start. After 9/11, if I remember right, I think we layed off 600+ pilots. I know it got very uncomfortably close to me. I was probably within 10 people of 'the street,' as we were laying off in blocks of 100 or so. I know people who were furloughed, then recalled, then furloughed again! (Hi Kim!) Then recalled again, eventually, too.

For the senior FOs, it means their time to Captain is increased (lower pay for longer, but better schedules, for now... plus, they don't get to log PIC (Pilot In Command, or Captain) time. This makes you quite a bit more 'marketable' in the airline world. Captain, after all is God and Goat, and PIC time is the most important flying time as a hiring quantity. 1000 hours of PIC time is the magic number. Doors open for you a little bit easier. OF course, it helps if airlines are hiring, which they are not really doing in any great numbers right now.

For the middle FOs on the list, it means their schedules may get marginally crappier, might lose partial 'Gregorian Calendar' weekends off (airline lingo-- 'weekend' is whatever days your days off fall on. We work in an industry that runs 24/7/365. My 'weekend' has been Tues/Wed sometimes,) or maybe even displaced.

For the bottom FOs, it could mean furlough, being layed off. It most likely will mean that, although not yet. Time will tell.

The Vac/Disp bid (now you know what that means!) was 'run' yesterday and today, and published tonight (well, last night, since it is 0122.) According to an email that I got yesterday, this is the second largest bid Eagle has ever run, second only to the displacement bid after 9/11. You could say this is a Big Deal. It is very disruptive for and to our lives. For 2 years after 9/11, I was displaced first out of ORD and the EMB to BOS and the Saab. Then to New York. Then to Dallas. I transferred to LAX, but that lasted exactly a week (commuting thousands of miles to be #3 from the bottom is a crap sandwich,) back to DFW, and then finally back to ORD.

The whole thing sucks. We have pilots who are perfectly qualified who are losing their positions at the company, positions they have waited on and trained for. Yes, I know it's a bitch all over, but ya see, when we go to another airline (first, they have to be hiring,) you start all over at day #1. Joe the New Guy. Even if you are Direct Entry Captain (hired right into being an asshole,) you are bottom of that respective pay list, and FOs who upgrade who were hired before you get slotted in ahead of you until your seniority catches up. Scheduling will suck for the forseable future. Pay will, too, unless you are very lucky.

As a Captain, the pay is substantially greater. They have not mentioned pay cuts, yet. So, imagine this... Getting moved from CA to FO (only 2 feet, but wow!) will probably (if there are pay cuts,) be about a 65% pay cut (when you factor in OT, etc..) Ouch.

That is the gist of it.

Seniority-wise, for right now, It looks like things are ok for me, but the have not yet announced the plan for aircraft allocation post-Chapter 11 yet. Things could get interesting, and not in the 'I just found that wine is a great hangover cure' way.

So far, I'm still the asshole I'm flying with.

Cheers!

Scott

Not Redacted Yet

Hi gang!

Well, I am not anonymous redacted yet. Still more to come in that department.

But here are some interesting things.

I got stuck in London on my way back from Brussels, and had to stay the night.

These seem to be things that might happen all over the world, but really seem to concentrate in London.

I came through immigration with a Gambain woman and her friend (also from Gambia) who were returning to London for their last year of medical school. I've never been to Gambia. I never thought about going to Gambia. These 2 were a hoot! Suddenly vaulted the country onto the map of places I want to visit (my map looks like a globe. I think it is only missing N Korea and Perth Amboy.)

At baggage claim I met a Finn and his Egyptian girlfriend. They met in London a few years ago, and were coming back from visiting his family over the New Year.

At the hotel bar, I helped the Brit bartender and her Indian coworker defend British Ale against a small group of Italians drinking Peroni (British beer v. Italian beer.)

Now, this all might happen at random times, but for this all in the space of a few hours on a single evening, it sounds like London to me!

So the whole reason I went to Brussels, was to go to an "open interview" roadshow type meeting for Qatar Airways. I was to find that they no longer take applications directly at roadshows, but I got some great face time with the HR bunch, and learned a lot about where they have been and where they want to go as a company. I also learned that I fit the profile of who they want to hire into the 777 and 787. They don't get a high percentage of high time applicants, most are in the 1000 hour range (I have just shy of 10K, 1200 is PIC Jet.) I would be the guy they want in the big 'uns. Of course, they make fleet assignments based upon need, and I could just as easily end up in the A320... or the A330, for that matter.

But as my friend George (who is already flying there) told me :"Brother, you're going to be trading Detroit, Peoria, Omaha, and Buffalo, for Shanghai, Moscow, Dar Es Salaam, and Nairobi."

Most of you know that AMR (parent company for AA and AE) declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy at the end of November. Mostly, we are pretty sure, they have made it plain that the reason they have done so is to get out from under their pension obligations. That is a story for another post.

But that leaves those of us who are employees with many many questions.

Did the time I have given to this company go to waste? (5 years, 40 years, whatever.)

What if we are weakened as an employee group by this? ("What doesn't kill me makes me stronger." -- Right. Tell me that after losing 3 limbs. Let's face it... physically, you are not as strong as you were before. OF course, mentally, you might be 100 times stronger, but we're talking about paychecks here.) We could all have our jobs, but take a 25% pay cut? Close a few bases, displace a few people... It has all happened before, this is nothing new.

Delta went into BK 11, and emerged as an international powerhouse. United went in, and we still don't know where they are going to end up. Could go either way.

So what about the red-headed stepchild that is my end of the airline?

Well, we don't know.

The fleet allocation for the near future has to be presented to the Court in a week or so. I don't know the date, and it doesn't matter for this.

If they are cutting back, Eagle will most likely have to cut back.

If they cut back as far as some consulting agencies say they need to, it'll be mass pandemonium. I have heard everything up to parking all the ATRs (in progress right now,) then park the 135s (smallest RJ,) 140s (2nd smallest,) 1/2 the 145s (my plane,) and put the CRJs onto AAs payroll. This would make 9/11 look like a picnic, Eagle-wise. I think we furloughed about 700 pilots after 9/11. Might be closer to 500.. something like that. If they do the above 'worst case' scenario, our 3100 pilots would shrink to 1100, maybe less.

I guess you could call it a bloodbath, as long as you are speaking figuratively. Either way, it would be a nightmare, career-wise.

So, why not opt out for a bit?

Qatar Airways is hiring directly into the Boeing 777. Also, the A320 and A330. They are planning classes for the A350 and B787. Starting pay is very (very) nice compared to what we make as new hires anywhere in the USA. Actually, it is nice compared to anything that is made here.

Of course, it is a different world over there. Qatar is another country, they have their own laws, and ways of life.

Could be quite the adventure.

There are many more things to think about, but we've already taken the first step. Let's see where it leads.

Cheers.

Posting again...

Hey All!

So I have been trying to find ways to post about what is going on at our company. To be honest, I can't find a way to write what I want to say without exposing myself to legal work! (Seriously... we get company emails about this all the time.)

Suffice it to say, that no matter how bad my job gets, I want to keep my job. And my job is not that bad!

Interesting things are a-foot. Many changes are coming.

So, I will be posting from another blog anonymously, and heavily edited. I may call the new blog "Redacted."

Cheers!

Scott