Studio711.com – Ben Martens

First Ski Day of 2010-11

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, I headed up to Mt. Baker with AndyM and LorenzP. If I didn’t have people to go with, I don’t know that I could have crawled out of bed when my alarm went off at 4:30am. It’s about 3.5 hours from my house so I don’t get up there very often. However, they have the most open terrain in the area right now so that was our destination.

The forecast called for 1-2 feet of snow overnight on Thursday but that never really materialized. I was pleasantly surprised by the coverage of the runs though. I left my rock skis at home and wasn’t disappointed. We didn’t venture off the groomed runs very much though because there were still a lot of rocks, trees and stumps poking through the snow. It will take another 3-4 feet of snow to open up those areas.

We only did about 10,000 vertical feet (roughly half of a normal day for me) but my legs were burning at the end. I guess I haven’t used a lot of those muscles in a while. Thankfully nobody ended up with injuries on the first day of the season.

All in all I spent as much time on the road as I did on the hill, but it was still good to get out there and make some turns. It was also fun to ski with these guys for the first time. We all skied at roughly the same speed so hopefully we can team up again. With no wedding to plan this year, I’m looking forward to hitting the slopes a bit more than I did last year.

benmartens December 2, 2010 Skiing

Christmas Decorations

Our house now looks like Christmas is approaching. Tyla was able to really do a nice job with a bunch of the decorations that she had. A tree with some ornaments was as far as I ever got on my own, so it’s nice to have her added touch.

As we were joining our ornament piles for the first time, we realized that we already have a nice little collection of ornaments that we’ve bought together. I thought it would make for a good post (and a good reminder for when we’ve forgotten the stories down the road.)

The first fall/winter that we were dating we went ice skating in Bellevue. Later that Christmas season, we were in Leavenworth and picked up this ornament in one of the shops. Even ~5 months into the relationship, I guess we knew it was going somewhere.
We picked up this sled that says “Whistler, Canada” up in Whistler after we got engaged.
A little version of our cruise ship hangs from the tree to remind us of our honeymoon. My only complaint is that they placed the string in the wrong spot so it looks like the ship is trying to take off.
The most recent addition to our collection is a Hallmark keepsake ornament that says “Our first Christmas together” and has a 2010 tag on it.

An ornament can bring back a lot of memories and these four bring back a flood of them for me!

benmartens November 29, 2010 Commentary

Ski Season is Here

It’s not even Thanksgiving but it feels like winter here in Seattle. Because of the proximity of the Puget Sound, we rarely get much below 40 degrees, but highs today and tomorrow will struggle to reach 30. The TV weathermen have been building hype around snow which whips everyone into a frenzy, but anyone who looks at the maps will see that the chances are very very low for any snow to stick unless you’re in Bellingham, in the foothills, or down south.

The good news is that all this cold weather has meant snow in the mountains. The resorts are slowing coming out of hibernation. Whistler opened on Friday. Crystal opened a couple lifts on Friday as well but they are usually willing to open with very little snow. I’ve heard reports of a lot of rocks in the snow there. Mt. Baker is almost 100% open. They have quite a bit more snow up there which is usually the case. Stevens Pass needs another good dump (realistically Crystal does too) and Snoqualmie will be the last to open because of their lower elevation.

It’s fun to see the ski season spinning up! I’m hoping to get out over Thanksgiving break for some warm up runs. The skiing doesn’t get really good off the trails until we have ~5 feet on the ground so it will take a couple more good storms to get us there. Usually by Christmas you can ski anywhere you want without too much fear of destroying your gear.

Viva la Nina!

benmartens November 22, 2010 Skiing

CascadeSkier Windows Phone 7 App

Three years ago, I wrote a mildly successful Windows sidebar gadget (~6000 users) that shows local temperatures, 24 hour snowfall and total snowfall for all the local resorts. There are other data sources like that, but what sets this apart is that the data is updated hourly thanks to live feeds from the Northwest Avalanche Center. (Thanks again to the NWAC for letting me use their data!) While displaying all that data, the gadget cycles through web cam feeds from each resort. At the bottom of the gadget is a quick news line to keep people informed of local snow news. Version 4.0 just hit the Windows Live gallery yesterday so feel free to download it for free and try it out. If you want more details, check out gadget.studio711.com.

Many of the users asked if I had plans to make a Windows Phone 7 version of that gadget. I said no at first, but with time and a lot of requests, I changed my mind and decided to give it a shot. Microsoft also really encouraged employees to develop their own applications. I’m sure that’s a large part of why employees are all getting new phones (that and because we’ll make good marketers.) Anyway, I’m proud to say that if you go to the Zune Marketplace and flip through the Sports genre, search for “cascadeskier”, or click this link (with the Zune software installed), you’ll see my app!

The development process was interesting:

  • It costs $99/year to be a developer. Microsoft keeps 30% of the generated revenue. This all covers the cost of identity verification and unlimited application submissions.
  • A very nice suite of development tools is available in a single package. It includes Visual Studio 2010 Express, Expression Blend, and a WP7 emulator.
  • Code is written in Silverlight/WPF. It was my first foray into that world but I’m happy with the end result. Data binding was the most painful part, but after I learned some debugging tricks, that got simpler.
  • The application submission process is very nice. Fill out the form, click upload, wait for them to test it and then it shows up in the marketplace. If you fail the tests, you get a document back detailing exactly what tests you fail. If you clean that up and don’t break anything else, you’ll be in the marketplace. Your app will never be declined without an answer. It sounds simple but it’s a huge plus for developers and a big win over the Apple platform.
  • Updates are super simple. The developer uploads a new binary and the Windows Phone software takes care of the rest. It notifies the user that there is a new version available and points them to the download.

  

I have actually submitted two apps already, but I think the second one will be much less popular. I wrote it mostly for myself. It’s called DiamondStats. It’s a simple app that helps you keep track of your baseball or softball stats. It sound silly but I’m a numbers guy and I’m always thinking about stats while I’m playing rec league softball. (Yes, I know that’s bad. I didn’t do it when I was playing competitively in high school.) Having the app is nice because I can just walk back into the dugout, pop in the numbers and then forget about it. I wrote this for my old phone and then rewrote it for the new platform.

I plan to continue to release updates for the CascadeSkier application. Suggestions are already coming in and some of them have been pretty good. I think the first think I want to do is get rid of the start page where you select from a list of resorts. You should jump automatically to your favorite resort and be able to filter out the ones you don’t care about.

At some point I might port it over to Android, but that’s not real high on my list right now. It will very likely never be on iPhone since I won’t be buying a Mac just to write an app for that phone.

If you download it, please send me your feedback!

[UPDATE] You can view the most up to date information about this app at http://cascadeskier.studio711.com

benmartens November 19, 2010 Gadgets, Geek, Skiing

Creamy Pasta with Sausage and Tomatoes

I was randomly flipping through food.com when I stumbled across this. It turned out to be delicious! The hardest part was finding canned plum tomatoes, but Tyla eventually spotted them on the store shelf.

Ingredients

Cook sausage and crushed red pepper in oiled skillet over medium heat until no longer pink. Add onion and garlic to skillet and cook until onion is tender and sausage is light brown. Add tomatoes, cream and salt. Simmer until mixture thickens slightly (about four minutes.) Cook pasta according to instructions and drain. Add pasta to sauce and cook until pasta is heated through and sauce thickens (about two minutes.) Serve with with parsley and parmesan cheese.

benmartens November 15, 2010 Food

Harry Potter Newspaper

After doing the Halloween video, I decided to give special effects another try. This idea had been floating around in my head for a while and here is the result. It’s not perfect, but I thought it was good enough to share.

If you’re curious, the main effects I used in Premiere Elements 8 were lightning, crop and corner pin. The pinning was almost a frame by frame effort as I manually tracked the movement of the paper. If I had $700 for After Effects I could have used motion tracking and the result would have been much cleaner. I also used a combination of blur and coloring effects to try to match the look of the paper. The strange background in the inset video is the result of using chroma key for a background that wasn’t uniform. I did it as an accident but thought it fit the overall look pretty well.

It’s amazing what you can accomplish with a few hours at the computer. We’ve come a long way since the days that we used to sit in the dorm room with multiple VCRs and audio input sources cabled together to attempt to mix videos.

benmartens November 8, 2010 Geek, Projects

Dutch Oven Goulash

The in-laws got me a Dutch oven stand for my birthday and I was excited to give it a shot. The problem is that in my condo, the only place I have to do this is on the deck. Charcoal fires are against the rules but I thought I could get away with it… until I lit the charcoal and realized that that whole complex was going to smell like a campfire and the smoke from my balcony was a dead giveaway. I doused the flames and made dinner on the stove in a regular pot. I do think this would make a good Dutch oven recipe and you can find all the details on this website.

Even though I had to give up my Dutch oven dreaming for the day, it turned out delicious anyway!

Ingredients

  • 2 Tbs. olive oil
  • 1 lb. lean ground beef
  • 1 large yellow onion; diced
  • 1 large green bell pepper; diced
  • 2 cloves garlic; minced
  • 1 1/2 cups frozen whole kernel corn
  • 1 cup fresh mushrooms; sliced
  • 3 cups grated cheddar cheese
  • 1/2 cup olives; sliced
  • 2 cans tomato soup
  • 2 1/2 soup cans water
  • 2 1/2 tsp. paprika
  • 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
  • 2 tsp. salt
  • 12 oz. bag pasta shells

Brown ground beef using 2 Tbs. olive oil in large pot. When beef has been browned, drain and then add onion, bell pepper, mushrooms, and garlic. Saute until vegetables are tender. Add corn, olives, tomato soup, hot water, paprika, cayenne pepper, and salt. Stir to mix well. Bring contents to a boil then stir in pasta shells.

Place lid on pot and cook for 25 minutes. Sprinkle cheese over top and cook for an additional 10 minutes until cheese is melted.

Serves: 6-8

I served it with some pumpkin bread that I made earlier in the day. Whip cream always tastes good on that, and it tastes even better when you make a design with the whip cream.

benmartens October 27, 2010 Food

Windows Mobile Podcast Player

I have bad news. My 120GB Zune died. The original 30GB is still alive and well but Tyla uses that. My Zune got daily use in my car. I had all my music on there and I mostly used it to play the many podcasts that I listen to (TWiT, Car Talk, Home Theater Geeks, Windows Weekly, and Preston and Steve.)

I decided to use my phone (HTC Touch Pro 2) until I can get a new Windows 7 Phone which will double as my new Zune. The only problem with using Windows Mobile 6.5 as a podcast player is that the media player app doesn’t save your position when you stop listening. This is critical for podcasts which span multiple drives to work.

I fired up Visual Studio and started coding an app to do this. It’s a bit tricky to keep the phone from locking, but I got it all working. The UI is nothing fancy but I’ve been using it for a few weeks and it works quite well!

If you’re interested in running the app on your phone or getting the source code, it’s all available at http://podcastplayer.codeplex.com/ for free.

benmartens October 19, 2010 Geek, Projects

Mexican Chicken Soup

Mom sent me this recipe from Taste of Home. It’s a slow cooker soup recipe and it’s delicious!

Ingredients

  • 1-1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
  • 2 teaspoons canola oil
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1 envelope reduced-sodium taco seasoning
  • 1 can (32 ounces) V8 juice
  • 1 jar (16 ounces) salsa
  • 1 can (15 ounces) black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 package (10 ounces) frozen corn, thawed
  • 6 tablespoons reduced-fat cheddar cheese
  • 6 tablespoons reduced-fat sour cream
  • 2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro

In a large nonstick skillet, sauté chicken in oil until no longer pink. Add water and taco seasoning; simmer, uncovered, until chicken is well coated. Transfer to a 5-qt. slow cooker. Stir in the V8 juice, salsa, beans and corn. Cover and cook on low for 3-4 hours or until heated through. Serve with cheese, sour cream and cilantro. Yield: 6 servings.

We left the beans out and increased the corn and chicken. I was a bit leery about the V8 but it all turned out delicious!

benmartens October 18, 2010 Food

Taco Seasoning

What is in those magic packets of taco seasoning that you get in the store? It’s probably stuff that you already have in your spice cabinet. I’ve started making my own and I love it because I can tweak the balance to be just what I want. I make up enough for three or four times and keep it in the cabinet. Here’s the basic recipe but you should adjust it to your liking.

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon chili powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1/2 teaspoon paprika
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper

via AllRecipes.com

benmartens October 13, 2010 Food