February 4, 2014

Snow Day: Day One. Today kind of felt like a weekend, with a lot of snow outside. Throughout the day I monitored the snowfall outside my window, gauging it by the amount piling up on the front porch rails. When I woke up there was about two inches and at the time of writing this, there looks to be about six inches. This is not surprising because the snow was non-stop all day. Most of the time it looked like powder sugar coming down but occasionally the snowflakes got a bit bigger and came down with a bit for vigor.

On this side of my window, I didn't really do much. Treating my day like a typical Sunday. I played some BF4, watched some YouTube videos, watched some TV, and other things. Kind of disappointing really. Such is life.

I bought eggs yesterday because I wanted to start adding those into my salads. And today I hard boiled eggs for the first time ever. I have eaten quite a few in my day but have never had the opportunity, or need, to actually make them. Until now. And I totally nailed it. At least one of them anyway, the other five are still shelled. I left them out for a little bit on the counter before putting them in a pot with what I wanted to be cold water but it was apparently my first time using the sink because I couldn't remember which way was cold and ended up with some hot water, and then cold, so it was average water coming about an inch over the top of the eggs. I covered the pot, brought it to a reasonable boil, removed it from the heat, and left it covered for about thirteen minutes, before digging the eggs out and putting them in a bowl of ice water. Hours later when it was time for dinner, and the salad I was having with it, I peeled one of the eggs, relatively successfully, and when I cut into it, the yolk was a bright yellow and perfect. Kind of makes me wish I made more than six because I'll probably screw it up the next time.

While I was waiting for the eggs to come to a boil I also rinsed off some Brussels sprouts. The first time I made them they were good but a bit soggy, and I figured they were either cooked too long or maybe still a little wet from being rinsed off. So I got an early start to give them plenty of time to dry, as well as patting them dry with a paper towel. When it came time to cook them I mixed everything together in a bowl, making sure to use less seasoning than the first time when I used way too much, and I roasted them for a shorter period of time. They turned out better this time around. I think I could still cook them for a bit less time but they were pretty delicious.

Tonight, amongst other things, I watched a live debate between Bill Nye and a leading Creationist. It made me glad to believe in science. I have nothing against religion, when it isn't used as an excuse to hate and oppress and kill people, but there is something about Creationism that I find scary. It was just so strange seeing this guy debate his view that seems to be so contrary to common sense. He basically took the view of Occam's razor, that the simplest answer must be the only answer. Rather than try to figure out why stuff exists and how it came to be, just say God made it and move on. That just seems sad. Life and existence is so much more interesting than that explanation. And it is strange seeing someone so convinced that the Earth is so young. Honestly, I can't comprehend a 10,000 year old Earth any better than I can one that is billions of years old, but 10,000 years is way too short a timespan for all the things that have happened in our history. That and all the other things the only make sense if you ignore all the artifacts and other things discovered by science. In the end I could find out that I'm wrong about everything and religion is the answer, but for the time being, my common sense leans toward tangible evidence, not a book compiled a long time ago using passed down stories.

Tomorrow will be Snow Day: Day Two. And hopefully, for the sake of my paycheck, it won't become a trilogy. At some point I will need to go out and unbury my car. My forearms still kind of hurt from all the sweeping I did the other day to unbury my car so I'm not looking forward to that. Today I think one of the neighbors came and shoveled a path on our front porch to the door. It was very random, and in the end it was also pointless because a few hours later there was no evidence that it had even occurred. And maybe it didn't actually happened and it was all a figment of my imagination?