Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Edmonds Marina Beach Park

Tyla and Elijah found Edmonds Marina Beach Park and they were both very excited about it. Elijah particularly loved it because the park features:

  1. Train tracks that run by the park
  2. A nice playground
  3. A beach
  4. Ferries
  5. Fork lifts moving boats around

The fork lifts probably trumped all the rest. They store quite a few boats on racks on land and then forklifts put them in the water. It’s quite a process and Elijah can watch them for a long time without getting bored.

One Saturday a few weeks ago, I went along with them to check out the park. I think it’s going to be a regular spot for us. The park really is beautiful and there are a lot of things for Elijah to enjoy.

edmondsmarina1 edmondsmarina2 edmondsmarina3

benmartens September 1, 2015 Family, Travel

Comcast Bill

comcasticI’ve been a Comcast customer for the last 13 years, and honestly I complain, but for the past few years, the internet and TV connections have been almost rock solid. That’s good. The price increases on the other hand, are not.

In December of 2013, we dropped to a lower TV package and we saved $40/month with no contract*. In the 20 months since then, our price went up 15% for exactly the same service. Give me a break.

I complained about it on Twitter and got a reply from the @ComcastCares service account. I’ve talked to them before without much luck, but this time it was great. They dropped our bill to ~$55/month without changing our service or requiring a contract. That’s awesome! I hate that their business model requires good customers to whine to get lower prices, but whatever.

* Why is no contract important to me? I feel like we’re at the tail end of having any TV package at all. We only record about a dozen series per year and they’re all available online either for free or for purchase. If I didn’t host football parties here, I think I would have already dropped cable TV. But when we have all those people over to watch a game, Comcast is still the most reliable way for me to display it. We can’t get over the air because of all the hills/trees, and the online streaming options aren’t stable enough yet.

benmartens August 31, 2015 Commentary

Software Toolkit

toolsIt’s been a few weeks since I last wiped my computer and started with a fresh install. When I do this, I only install software as I need it, so at this point, if I have something on my machine, it’s because I use it pretty regularly. I thought it might be interesting to share the list as a bit of a recommendation/tip post. I’ll leave out specific apps for my printer, scanner, etc.

  • 7-Zip
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements 10
  • Adobo Photoshop Lightroom 3.6
  • Adobe Premiere Elements 12
  • Foxit Reader
  • Google Chrome
  • HandBrake
  • LastPass
  • Microsoft Azure SDK v2.7
  • Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013
  • Microsoft Power Query for Excel
  • Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio
  • Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2013
  • MySQL Workbench
  • Notepad++
  • Python 2.7.6
  • SketchUp 2015
  • VLC media player
benmartens August 28, 2015 Geek

Windows 10 Photo Viewer

WindowsPhotoViewerI’m not a fan of the new photo viewer in Windows 10. Specifically I have troubles rapidly flipping through a bunch of files in a folder and I’ve seen some stuff online showing it’s poor rendering capabilities. The old Windows photo viewer was simple and perfect. Why change?

The good news is that you can get it back, but it requires a few registry edits. I’m not going to explain how that works. Ask a geek in your life to help you out if you don’t know. It’s not generally something you should ever do. That being said, here are your instructions: http://www.tenforums.com/software-apps/8550-unable-replace-photos-app-photo-viewer-default-10240-a-2.html?s=30e1f367ee6f758b05431dc82f25b765

Once that’s done, right click on a JPG and choose Open With. Select the old Windows Photo Viewer and check the box to always open with that app.

benmartens August 27, 2015 Geek

Meat Week – Hot Dogs

meatweekhotdogsElijah had hot dogs at the church VBS picnic and ever since then, he has been asking us to make hot dogs. So I swung by the butcher and picked up some all beef hotdogs. There’s not much to say about grilling hot dogs, but Elijah was happy.

This also brought our “grill week” to a conclusion. For 28 days, we only cooked dinner using the grill. It was a delicious month!

benmartens August 26, 2015 Food

New National Wilderness In Idaho

sawtoothnationalrecreationYou may have seen the news about Obama recently creating a new wilderness area in Idaho. Since I’m not a rancher in the area who would rather use the land for something else, I’m happy to see more land set aside. Coming from the eastern half of the US, it still amazes me how much of the Pacific Northwest is federal (or state) protected land. It sure creates a nice recreational area!

I try to avoid getting too political, but as we run up to a new presidential election, I think this is a good time to point out one silly point of this story. You’ve heard all the stories and read all the headlines. Who is responsible for making this area a protected wilderness? Most people would probably say Obama. And sure, he was the final guy to sign the bill, but what about all of the senators and representatives that voted for this. What about Representative Mike Simpson of Idaho who spent the last 15 years trying to get this to happen? And what about the nameless people down at the city and county level who have been fighting for this too. As I’ve said before, our president’s name gets attached to lots of stuff (both good and bad), but they are rarely to credit or blame for any of it. When you vote in November, you’re voting for the head of our public relations team. So don’t get too excited or too bent out of shape about who wins or loses. Focus that energy around your local city government which really has an impact on your life.

benmartens August 25, 2015 Commentary

Meat Week – Chicken Breasts

meatweekchickenWhen I think of chicken breasts on the grill, I think of dried out meat. After reading a couple articles this summer, our chicken breasts are tasting delicious of the grill. Here are a couple things that are part of my grilling plan:

  • Thin out the chicken breasts. Put them in a bag and pound them to a constant thickness. This makes it possible to grill the whole piece evenly.
  • Marinate! Give it a full 24 hours. If you’re using skinless chicken, don’t put any lemon in the marinade because it will “cook” the outer part of the chicken. You can find plenty of marinade recipes online but I usually just throw stuff in a bag and it’s a little different every time. I usually do something like olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano and minced garlic.
  • Get the grill hot! I put it on the grill at about 500-550 degrees. If you flip it over and it sticks to the grill, you needed to let it wait longer before you flipped it. Your goal is to cook the chicken as quickly as possible (within reason) so that it doesn’t dry out.
benmartens August 24, 2015 Food

Meat Week – Ribs

meatweekribsI’ve only made ribs once in my life and it was one of those prepackaged deals from Safeway. We cooked it in the oven. This time I picked up loin back ribs from the butcher and did them on the grill. Doing them on a gas grill is pretty much the same as doing them in the oven but it worked ok. This meal was probably the dud from the meat week menu. The ribs weren’t terrible but I cooked them too long and they weren’t super awesome. Here’s the recipe/instructions that I used: http://www.food.com/recipe/foolproof-baby-back-ribs-88204

benmartens August 21, 2015 Food

Edge Browser Extensions

microsoft-edge-browserI use Internet Explorer for most of my work and play but sometimes I also fire up Chrome. I love Chrome’s extension model for expanding the capabilities of the browser. I was very excited to hear that Edge (the new Windows 10 browser) is going to be supporting Chrome extensions! I haven’t flipped over to Edge yet because it doesn’t have any extensibility so I can’t run AdBlock or LastPass, but once they enable these extensions, I’ll be able to upgrade to Edge. It’s a great (and ambitious) idea. I hope they can pull it off cleanly.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/microsoft-wants-google-chrome-extensions-to-work-on-edge-with-zero-work-to-do-488282.shtml

benmartens August 20, 2015 Geek

Meat Week – Steak

It’s no surprise that steak ended up on our grill as part of meat week. It’s a staple of grills around the country. One of our favorite steaks to grill is the boneless ribeye from Golden Steer. You may remember that this was the winning cut from our Meat Day.

Grilling these is pretty simple: I get the grill pretty warm (500-550), cook for 2 minutes, rotation 90 degrees and cook for another 2 minutes. Then I flip and after 2 minutes I rotate 90 degrees. That gives me those beautiful crosshatch grill marks on both sides. At that point, the steaks are pretty close to done but I’ll finish them off with a couple more minutes as needed to bring them up to ~130 internally.

The trick with steak (and most meat) is to let it sit out on your counter for 30-60 minutes before you grill it. You want to get it closer to room temperature so that you don’t have to raise the temperature as much when you are grilling. And then when you take the steak off the grill, let it rest for 5-10 minutes before you grill. This will result in a juicier steak (here’s why.)

meatweeksteak

benmartens August 19, 2015 Food