update your nightmares

We finally bought a chef's knife. Ended up ordering one from Shinichi Watanabe, the Kaibou (as it was sized and shaped most like the chef's knives I am used to). Construction is typical japanese, with a very very hard high-carbon steel sandwiched between two layers of "wrought iron" (mild steel). The style of finish is kuro-uchi, which means hammer-finish. A somewhat crude look, but a really well-balanced and nice piece of cutlery. Right now it's sitting on a little shrine on the towel it came with. It's sharp like the beast, able to cut thin slices of paper unsupported.

The japanese have hundreds of very specific knives for different tasks, almost all of them much smaller than the one I bought. When it comes down to it, though, I'm a brute-force-fits all kind of man, so I got what I loved: a huge knife.

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Today I make:
- lye pretzels
- a goat wat
- some italian bread.

We had brunch with some friends of Marissas at a place run by the people that run Le Pichet. Mom, if you're reading this, Uncle David would be proud. I managed to get the check and pay it from the inside seats of a table against the wall without getting up and unnoticed by the couple sitting across us, towards the waitress. Marissa was supposed to "go to the bathroom" and accomplish the mission, but could not tear herself away from her roasted eggs and chocolate baguette long enough to do so before the food was gone. I'd tell you my game plan for next time, but they may read this eventually.

***

I haven't been writing about my job (and therefore haven't been writing) because it sounds somewhat interesting, but isn't, really.

I spend a lot of time doing a lot of math and working out there on the plane solving problems, but nobody wants to hear about how I managed to get a spline curve fit for some stubborn data in excel and can solve joint analysis problems a little faster now. It's not a good story.

Suffice to say I love my job and I really like almost all of the people I've met. I just love talking about all the other stuff I do, because it's cooler.