Garden Update: It's alive!

It has been just a few days shy of one month since I planted my garden. Everything is growing and seems to be doing well. The watermelon is a little slower than everything else. I wish the garden got a little more sunlight during the day but at least it doesn't dry out as fast.

Technology: Printers

This might seem like a weird topic but it something that I have noticed even more now that I am out of college. The price of ink is way overpriced!

I am sure HP, Lexmark, Epson, etc don't make very much money on their base printers but they make at least 150% profit on the ink cartridges. I think it is great that I can get a color printer, copier, and scanner all for around $90. But when it costs about $70 to replace the color and black cartridges my wallet runs and hides every time I need to buy ink. I have heard of people refilling their own ink cartridges but it sounds messy and I rather not have the ink leaking inside my printer.

Couple things to think about when buying new printer:

1. How much do replacement ink cartridges cost? This goes for any color or black that it may take. Would it be worth spending more money on a higher price printer to get cheaper ink replacements? Remember the ink cartridges that comes with the new printer are not as full as others you buy separately.
2. If you are printing lots of color pictures it would be well worth your time looking into a printer that splits up the color into cyan, magenta, and yellow.
3. When companies like HP come out with a new printer there is always a new cartridge number to go along with it. Which means every time you get a new printer, which shouldn't happen to often depending how much you print, you have to get a different cartridge number for that printer. I think Kodak has it right where all their printers either take 10 or 30 black and color. I have never had a Kodak printer but that idea makes more sense to me. They also have a ink saving calculator found at the bottom of this page. http://www.kodak.com/global/mul/consumer/printer/en-US/affordable-ink.html

 I'm not endorsing one brand over another but just watch those ink cartridge prices!

Disc Golf

 If you have ever come across a chain linked metal basket with a number on top in a park and wonder what it is used for, you may have stumbled onto a disc golf course.

Disc golf has the same basic goal as golf but only you use special discs instead of golf balls and use your arms to throw them.

As with any sport it takes a little practice and patience. There are different ways to hold and throw the disc.

The great thing about disc golf is beside the start up cost to buy discs it is free to go as many times as you would like. I think you can buy a bundle pack for under $30 which includes a driver, mid range, and a putter.

A great way to get started is to go with someone that already knows how to play the game. They might have a couple extra discs that you can use so you can get a feel for the game before you buy discs.

In the Waterloo/Cedar Falls/Evansdale area you can play at Exchange Park (show to the right, Waterloo), Ghost Town (Valley Park, Cedar Falls), Tourist (Cedar Falls), and Deerwood (Evansdale).

I love playing at Ghost Town for a quick game but I like the challenge at Exchange which is 27 holes.
I hope to play when I am back this weekend!

Recipes: Chicken Quesadilla

What is for dinner tonight? Quesadillas!

Prep Time:   5 Min

Cook Time:    25 Min

Ready In:   30 Min

Ingredients:

• 1 pound skinless boneless chicken breasts
• 2 tbsp of vegetable oil
• Salt and pepper for taste
• Flour tortillas
• 2 tbsp of butter
• 1 package of mozzarella cheese

Optional Ingredients:

• Sour Cream
• Salsa

 Directions:

1. On medium, heat vegetable oil in skillet. Fully cook chicken breasts in skillet to an internal temperature of 165 degree F or until done. Add salt and pepper for taste. 
2. Remove chicken from skillet and chop into cubes or slice into smaller pieces.
3. Heat same pan to about medium-low temperature, lightly butter pan and wipe out excess with paper towel.
4. Place a tortilla in the pan and add desired about of cheese and add chicken and top off with more cheese.
5. Fold the tortilla to half moon and keeping the heat medium to low, brown on both sides. 
6. Repeat steps 3-5 for additional quesadillas

Enjoy!

Garden: Update

Due to the over population of rabbits, squirrels and deer in the area I have put up a fence to ward off the animals. Yes, I believe deer are to blame for my garden being sampled last night. 

I also put bird netting over the top of the fence; you can't really see it in the picture. 

*Thanks to Carolyn, the chicken wire worked out great!
Also on a side note I found a 1945 wheat penny while digging up the ground.

In case anyone didn't read the first post here is the link

Planting a Garden

Yesterday I spent the better part of the afternoon planting a garden with Lisa! The reason it took so was because we had to dig up all the grass and weeds and then loosen the remaining soil. About 20 minutes into this project I gave up and tried to call around to rent rototiller. Of course this is Algona, Iowa and every business closes at noon. After about 4 hours we were finally ready to plant.

We planted:

• Yellow Onions
• Cherry and Super Fantastic Tomatoes
• Green Beans
• Pumpkins
• Watermelon
• Cucumbers
• Green Peppers

 Now all that is left is to defend the garden from rabbits, deer, raccoons and other hungry critters!

Link to garden update

Screen Burn-in

It is time to get back to blogging more often. The topic of today is screen burn-in. I bought my plasma TV back in February of 2011 and I am experiencing burn-in. I see light lines from cable channels that are broadcasted in 4:3 aspect ratio. I also see symbols and lines from some of the video games I play.
I knew the risks when I was buying my TV, so I am not shocked but just surprised it can happen so easily. When I first got my TV I did the following:

1. I used grey bars instead of black when possible on cable TV channels
2. Enabled pixel shifting
3. On my Blu-Ray player, I kept the screen saver and auto-shutdown enabled
4. I also calibrated my display to avoid unnecessary high brightness and contrast levels

After doing some online research on how to reverse screen burn in over the next few days I will be trying the screen burn in repair feature on my TV.  Depending on how long it took to burn in those images, it might take up to 4 times the burn-in time to remove those images. So for an example:

• If you watched the NBA playoffs with a non-transparent scoreboard for a month, 2 hours each day
• 30 days x 2 hours x 4 hours of recovery =  240 hours of recovery time

I will post my results after a few days.