8×10Gallery.com

Archive for November, 2009

Thanksgiving was very tasty. The turkey was done in no time and the jalapeno bread was smashing; so much so I ended up making two loaves of it!

I would be lying if I said I didn’t wildly indulge in turkey and mashed potatoes. It was all quite decadent I assure you.

Then someone thought it would be a good idea to watch A Christmas Story. That’s about when I passed out. That movie has never really done anything for me. It’s funny the first time around, but while the lamp in the window and the bunny suit make me smirk the rest of it doesn’t hold my attention anymore. I let the turkey coma have its way with me on that one.

There are so many chores to do; we still have to clean out the room where we plan to put the tree. That alone is going to take a few hours work. I think that will have to wait for Saturday since Friday is going to be my online shopping day. It looks like there will be plenty of online deals and there is no way you’re going to get me in a store to stand in line and jockey for position over some low priced piece of crap. I will be sitting in the comfort of my living room blazing through checkouts at the speed of the web.

By the way, here’s the recipe for the jalapeno bread in case you want to make it yourself.

Original Recipe Yield 1 -1 1/2 pound loaf

Ingredients

• 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• 6 tablespoons fresh chopped jalapeno peppers
• 3 cups bread flour
• 1/2 tablespoon active dry yeast

Directions

1. Add ingredients according to the bread machine manufacturer’s directions.
2. Set your machine on regular basic bread.

I spent all that damn money on the oven and now I’m not even using it. As I predicted the turkey is in the roaster simmering along. It seemed the easier and more practical way of doing things, plus it leaves the oven open for all sorts of other goodies. I think some desserts and casseroles will make their way inside there before the day is out.

I’ve also got my bread machine mojo working. I’m trying my hand at a jalapeno loaf. My first attempt didn’t go so well, but this one is shaping up to be a winner.

I’m still furious about my drives failing, but I’ll have to put that aside for now. Cooking turkey makes everything better.

I remember this tool from several years ago and quite frankly it’s something that should be built directly into Windows. It’s a multi-threaded file copy program that can efficiently handle thousands of files and poor connections. The main thing is that it won’t get stuck on a single big file while other, smaller files are waiting to be copied.

Right now I’m using it to copy 250+GB of pictures to a secondary location. Using normal Windows it would copy one file at a time. With RichCopy it copies three at a time. It’s moving right along to try and make sure I don’t lose any more information because of the chaos Western Digital has caused.

If you haven’t looked into RichCopy it’s worth investigating. It’s a free tool that can speed up the copy process and be used as a sync tool as well since it does a file compare before taking action. Plus, it’s free. Again, this should be part of Windows and ironically it’s written by Microsoft, or at least a developer within Microsoft.

If you want to learn more you can read the article about it here:
Utility Spotlight – RichCopy
Or if you want to go for broke and just download it, click here:

RichCopy is a free utility that comes to us from Ken Tamaru of Microsoft. The tool was first developed in 2001 and has been updated regularly to keep pace with evolving needs. Trust me when I tell you, this is the answer to all your file copying needs. What you’ll find most striking the first time you take RichCopy out for a spin is that it’s a multithreaded copying tool. That means that rather than copying one file at a time in serial order, RichCopy can open multiple threads simultaneously, allowing many files to be copied in parallel and cutting the total time required to complete the operation several times over. You can also pause and resume file copy operations, so if you lose network connectivity at any point, you can just pick up where you left off.