Easy smoked foods

Disposable smoking set

Smoked Food

In my blog in Japanese, there are a several article to talked about smoked food.   Smoked food is delicious and I like it very much.  So that I tried to smoke by myself with a couple methods before.  It is easy to get real smoker in Home Depo / Lowes here in the US.   Also, a charcoal BBQ grill can be used for smoking foods.

However, one of headache is cleaning smoker.  After a several smoking, a smoker is getting dirty and not easy to clean.   I guess it is probably OK not to clean it well.  However, the smell is not good and we get a better result with cleaner smoker.

Easy Smoker!

I really like outdoor activities, especially running, climbing, hiking, camping and others.  However I got stress fracture on my left leg in the end of 2012 due to over training.  So that I could not do a lot of outdoor activities last year.  I spent a lot of time for smoking food last year.  One of a good invention is that I found a good way to make a simple smoker with aluminum trays.

I named it as "Easy smoker".  A grate thing for this, we can dispose trays once they are getting dirty.  We do not worry about cleaning.  The initial cost for one set of Easy Smoker is about 20 ~ 30 US$.  Most of stuff can be used many times.

Easy process!

To make smoked food in an original way, it is typically taking for a long time for smoking.   This is another reason, many people usually do not smoke by themselves.  However, it will get a nice smell and taste with very short smoking.
I tried to simplify the process to get a similar result.  For cooked food such as boiled egg, we just need to smoke 30 minutes to 1 hour.  Then it would be good enough to get a nice taste.  For meat and seafood, with combining a other heating method, we do not have to smoke for a long time.  We can use conventional oven or pre-cooking before smoking.

It is not really traditional smoked food.  But it is good enough to enjoy smoked flavor and taste.

I will write English version of introduction of smoked food in this blog that I already wrote in Japanese! 
 

School district

As I mentioned that we moved to Dublin from Pleasanton.  We knew many people who moved out from Pleasanton stay in the same school.  We thought we just need to tell the school we moved.  However the formal process is different.  We did not know this.  When we told the new address in Dublin, we were told that we need to go through a formal process and there could be a chance the request would be rejected.

The formal process is:

• Need to submit inter & intra district transfer request to Dublin unified school district first.  To submit the request, it requires some other documents such as report card.
• Once Dublin school district approves the request, the the form will be sent to Pleasanton school district.
• The board of Pleasanton unified school district reviews the request and will make final decision the request is accepted or not.  According to the district, there is a chance to reject the request.

In our case, we were still Pleasanton resident when enroll the new school year.  Therefore, our kids were able to go to the same school.  However, we moved to Dublin in the end of September.  Then, we need to go through the process above.   Since our kids were already in the school and we got an approval from the Pleasanton unified school district.  The process took more than one month and we did not know if the kids can stay or not.  It might be different if the moving is before the enrollment. 

I checked some people who could be a similar situation.  However, it seems they did not go through the process and they are just stay the school, probably without notifying their moving to the school.

When people move to the other school district, it might be better to check what needs to be done before moving.  Then everything could be smooth.  In our case, we did not know what needs to be done in advance and we needed to solve such process one by one.

I just want to share our experience in this blog!!

Christmas is coming!

Christmas tree in our home

 This year was really busy year for our family.   We did not really plan to move to other place early this year.  However, we took a look at some homes in April.  After checking the past sales price our old neighborhood, we decided to sell our previous residence and buy a bigger house.

 After the decision, it was sold in a very short time.  However, it was hard time to buy a house due to very hot real estate market.   We took a look at more than a few hundred houses and finally we bought one we really like.  That was a really big event for our family this year.

  Since we moved into a little bigger house and we bought a bigger Christmas tree this year.  This is not a real tree, but kids are very happy with the tree.  Kids spent their time for the decoration.   It looks nice especially balloon arts on the right side of the tree.  They made "Candies" with red/white balloons and they look really nice!  They really like bigger tree and waiting for Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Lovejoy comet 2013

Lovejoy comet (C/2013 R1) in the yellow circle on the left lower corner.

The end of 2013, there are a few comets near solar system.  Last week, many photos for ISON comet (C/2012 S1) were posted on the internet.    It can be observed without telescope starting from early November 2013.   I also tried to find it last weekend, but it was too late to see before passing the sun.  Since the location was getting lower and the east sky is getting brighter due to sun rise.   The last chance will be after passing sun, that will be early December.  I hope I still have a chance to see it.

Since I did not have a chance to see ISON comet last weekend, I tried to find another comet called "Lovejoy comet (C/2013 R1)" last 2 days.  It is near, east side of Ursa Major constellation.   In a town, it might be hard to find out without telescope.  However, if you have a little nice digital camera, you may be able to find out on a photo.

You may find it on the north sky near Ursa Major before sun rise some time around 4am ~ 5pm.  It will continue to toward north side. 

I will continue to watch the both comets next a few days.

Laundry washer installation

Laundry washer installation

We moved the current house the end of September this year, 2013.   Since the previous owner took laundry washer and dryer, we bought new one from Sears.

This moving was a lot of problems for appointments for delivery / installations.  This laundry stuff delivery installation was one of them.

Delivery:

Originally, we expected to have the washer and dryer before we moved in.  We bought them about 2 weeks before the actual moving in date and arrange their delivery.  We supposed to get a phone call to get 2 hours time window for the delivery a day before the delivery day, however, we did not get it.

We called Sears customer service number, it was busy day and we had to wait close to 30 minutes to get an operator.   It seemed the arrangement was really messed up and the call drops in the middle of the conversation and started over again a couple times.  Then, the first delivery was only washer and we needed to wait for the dryer another several days.

That was a story for the delivery.

Problems:

Anyway, we got the washer and dryer a few days after we moved in.   However, my wife found that a thing that closes after washing is always hot even if we set "cold".  We tried to check the water line connection, but it was too close to wall and it was not easy to read the characters on the back of the washer.  So that we just using the user's manual to check the hot / cold water location and we thought they were all right.

After a couple weeks, some of closes for my wife were sensitive and we tried to check the water line connection again.  This time, I used a digital camera to take some shot to read the characters on the back.  Finally we found that the water line connections were reversed.

Correction

I tried to loose the water connection just by hand, but it was too tight and I could not disconnect the water lines.  I did not want to damage the washer and tried to Sears to correct the installation.
So that I called the customer service again.

This time was really worse.   First of all, the call was transfer to the other department again and again more than a several times.  Also, the call dropped a couple times and started over again.  The problem is they did not have any record what we talked in my account.  Therefore, I had to explain the same thing again and again.  Finally one operator helped to arrange a service but it was about 2 weeks away.  I said we could not wait such long for the simple correction and I tried to push him to get it done earlier.  The person really helped to get a person who was actually scheduling the service, then she would give us a better day, but she needed to call me back after the arrangement.  She told me I would get a call with detail time slot within 48 hours and the call was hung up.  But I did not any thing.

I called the customer service again and it was the same the call was transferred again and again.  But it seemed there was no record for the arrangement.  But the last person arranged it a Friday in the same week.   A day before, I supposed to get  a phone call for the 2 hours time slot.  But I did not get it again.  The person gave me a phone number, I called that number, but the operator told me there was no record for the service.  Then asking to call a local store.  I called the local store but it was before the business hour and the call was transferred back to the central customer service again and actually no body helped me to arrange the correction service.

I was really frustrated and I did not want to go through such long customer call process again.  It took really long time and it does not help anything.  It is really wasting my time.  I decided to correct by myself.  I used a tool to loose the connection and swap the hot / cold water line.  It was done within 10 minutes.

That is the story for this installation.  I could not really believe what happened to us.  The professional people who deliver the washer and dryer could not install them correctly.  It was really simple mistake.  Then, the customer service is really bad.  They told me that there is no reference number or case number to check the record later.   They just gave us not right phone number for the service.  The call was always transferred to the other department.  Then, the call could drop in the middle.  Even I asked a number in case the call was dropped did not work.

This time, it was not really complicated thing and I could take care of it by myself.  But if I could not handle the case, I am not sure what I need to do.......

This is not only thing, but also I had a very bad experience with Comcast as well........

A good thing is everything fixed now and I do not have to worry about anything for now.....  But I do not want to go through such things again.   

Little Lakes Valley Hiking

Little Lakes Valley Hiking

Long Lake

Last weekend, August 17, 2013, we went hiking to Little Lakes Valley.  This is really nice area for family hiking.

Little Lakes Valley is located a little northern part of Bishop CA near CA395.  It is about 250mils away, 5~6 hours drive from San Francisco Bay area.  We drove Yosemite National park along CA120.  Yosemite itself is really beautiful nice area.  But it was really crowed in summer time.

In June this year, one of my friend visited Little Lakes Valley and she posted really beautiful photos to Facebook.   That is why I really wanted to visit there as well.  This year our family had been very busy for house hunting.  Due to very crazy housing market, we needed to look at open houses almost all weekend since April.  We did not have no time to go hiking this early summer.

Finally,  our offer was accepted mid July and we were getting some time to go camping and hiking.



Location

About 25 miles before Bishop from north side of CA395, Little Lakes Valley is located along Rock Creek Rd from CA395.  The end of the road is called Mosquito Flat where is the trail head of this hiking trail.  The first day we arrived there around 11am.  The parking lot was full and no space to park at the end of the load.
People need to be back a few miles to park their car.  No street parking is allowed due to narrow road.

 Trail head

So that, we gave up to go hiking on the first day and went back to Rock Creek Lake to spend the rest of the day.  Rock Creek Lake is really nice place for kids.  There is a nice creek near parking lot.  Also, nice camp sites near creek and the lake.  Many people were fishing and caught some fish.  Probably reserving a camp site earlier and stay that camp site would be really nice!

 Beautiful sky from Rock Creek Lake

The next morning, we got up earlier and went to the trail head around 8am.  We could park a nice spots at the end of the road.  The trail head elevation is about 3000m from sea level.  (about 9,000FT).  The trail is slowly getting elevation to about 3400m at Morgan Pass.  Due to a little high altitude, we probably need to pay attention for high altitude sickness, especially kids.

 Nice view near trail head!

First Lake, Mack Lake

Marsh Lake

Heart Lake

Long Lake

Around tree line

 

West side from Morgan Pass

East side from Morgan Pass

Along the trail, there are many small lakes and we really enjoyed nice view almost everywhere on the trail.  We have some little kids and they looked they had high altitude sickness, therefore we decided to turn back from Morgan Pass.  The trail is continue to the east side and some of people continue hiking there.

Round trip to Morgan Pass is about 7.5 miles (12km), about 5 hours hiking with kids.  

This is really nice trail, I strongly recommend to the other people!

(End)

Very good mover in San Francisco Bay area!!

  We moved from our previous house to an apartment this Monday.

  We asked a Japanese mover when we moved into the previous house 9 years ago.  Since our son just got 1 year old and it was hard to do the moving by ourselves.  At that time, we looked for movers including local agent.   Most of them are lower cost, but according to my friends, they are cheap, but some of them had experience to damage some stuff, not to start / finish on-time.  Due to those some negative experience and we were picky since we had infant baby.  So that we picked a Japanese mover and it was really good.

  They took their shoes off when they get into inside of the house.  They put some protection into the doors, stares and floors.   Also, they were really speedy and efficient to get it done within a reasonable time.  We were so happy with the agent.

  Based on that good experience, we also looked for the same mover this time, but we could not find.  After some internet search, we found out the person who helped us 9 years ago started own moving company.  Since we had a very good experience with the person, we contacted the company.

   Their service is pretty good.  They came to our previous house to estimate the moving effort / cost and gave us a quote within a few days.  Also, our moving plan had not been finalized at the last minutes and changing address for the new location / date a couple times.  Even though, they could adjust the plan for us.
   Also, when they came to our place for the quote, they gave us a good advice for efficient moving to save some money, such as how / what we can do by ourselves and what would be a point not to disturb their work.  They were very useful and helped us to understand what we could do by ourselves.

  In the moving day, they came to our place on time and very organized what to do.  Their moving process is very efficient and really careful.   Their handling / process to protect house and stuff are very systematic and careful.  I think they are really professional for moving.  We did not have to do anything to moving out.  We just watched and relax.  For moving in, they give us packed box in very good order.  It was very smooth to open them during the moving in.   Majority of stuff had been opened and placed in the right place when they finished.   I felt it was really efficient and we finished it much earlier than we expected.

  This time, we spent a lot of time a day before the moving.  But the next time, we probably will ask more to the mover.  It may be a little more cost, but overall, it will save a lot of our time.

  This Japanese style mover is a bit expensive than typical moving agent local here.  But the end result, it is really worthy.  I really recommend the agent if people look for a good mover.

 Here is the mover information:

 http://www.cn-express.net/
 Cross Nations, Inc.
533 Airport Blvd. Suite 400
Burlingame, CA 94010
Phne 650-373-2112
Fax  650-373-2001
info@cn-express.net
 
If you are looking for a good mover, I strongly recommend this agent!