Check out the FedEx tracking image above. We paid extra for two-day shipping, but I guess two actually means four when shipping to Alaska. The funny part is that the package went from China to Anchorage (less than a two hours by air from Fairbanks), but instead of being delivered on the 21st, it went all the way to Indianapolis, and then back (!) to Anchorage for delivery in Fairbanks today. Cost: three days and an additional 7,528 miles traveled.

When I saw that the game on Sunday Night Baseball was yet another Yankees and Red Sox matchup I complained to Andrea about how often the major media outlets show this particular matchup. It was the game on Fox Saturday Baseball this week, and guess what? It's the game on Fox Saturday Baseball next week too. Haven't we all seen enough Derek Jeter?^* It seems like three quarters of the games I can watch on TV or listen to on the radio are Yankees / Red Sox, Cubs / Cardinals or Giants / Dodgers games. What about everyone else? It might be fun to see all the young talent in Tampa or Miami, or see a game televised from the new ballpark in Pittsburg. I'm a Giants and A's fan, but I still like to see the rest of the league play once and awhile.

Baseball is baseball, though, so I grudgingly listened to yesterday's game. And what a game it turned out to be! One of the great things about baseball between any two teams is that there's always something interesting going on, and in last night's game the Red Sox hit four consecutive home runs off the same pitcher. That's only the fifth time in Major League history that a team has hit four in a row (last year's Dodgers did it in a late inning comeback), and only the second time in history it's been done against the same pitcher.

And even better than that, it was a tight game featuring the Japanese phenomenon Dice-K Matsuzaka (he didn't pitch very well, but got the win), and ended in the top of the ninth with the go-ahead run at the plate in the form of Alex Rodriguez striking out to Jonathan Papelbon.

^*Yes!

Yesterday we got rid of some of our electronic waste. Interior Alaska Green Star has an annual recycling program so that all this stuff can get disposed of properly instead of winding up in the landfill, or on it's way to third world countries. Andrea volunteered at yesterday's event and dumped off two of our old computers, three CRT monitors, a printer, a VCR, cordless telephone, DVD player and a CD player. The total cost was $75.

Some of the people who showed up didn't know there was a charge, and at least one guy who wound up leaving said, "Why should I pay when it's free to go across the street and throw it in the dumpster?" I have no doubt that's where his electronic waste wound up; on it's way to the landfill, right next to the Tanana River. According to the Wikipedia article, e-waste represents only 2% of the garbage in our landfills, but is responsible for 70% of overall toxic waste. That's a pretty big externality, totally unrepresented in the low cost of these items.

I'm glad these recycling programs exist, but I also wish there was a way to encourage electronics manufacturers to make products that were designed for longevity rather than low cost. Some of the things we got rid of were simply obsolete (why keep a seperate CD player when our current combination VCR & DVD player can also play CDs?), but the majority were broken and because replacements are so cheap, it didn't make sense to repair them. All those low prices we're paying for our stuff today may turn into a pretty big cleanup bill in the future, whether we're paying it or not.

Someone on Metafilter wanted to know if anyone had a recipe for a good whole grain cereal to make with a grain grinder. I didn't want to fork over $5 to help them out, so I'll post this and hope they happen across it. As I've mentioned in the past, I have a Family Grain Mill. After a few months of using it I've decided it's an OK mill, but awfully slow because it takes two passes to make acceptable flour, and it seems a bit flimsy to me. I doubt it's going to outlive me like a Country Living mill will.

Anyway, I've been refining my cereal recipe for the past couple months, and the best recipe so far is 2 parts oat groats, 2 parts wheat, 2 parts yellow corn (maize), 2 parts rice (I'm using Jasmine, but a cheaper long grain rice would probably be just as good), 1 part rye, and one part amaranth (quinoa would also work). Everything except the amaranth is run through the grinder to produce a fairly fine meal. I set my mill on 2, but you will need to experiment with your mill and your preferences. After grinding, add the amaranth and mix. The amaranth (or quinoa) is added to complete the set of amino acids, especially lysine, which is in a low concentration in the other grains. The rye is probably not necessary, but the other ingredients add good flavors and textures that I think are important.

To make my morning breakfast I mix 1/3 cup of grains with 1 1/2 cups of water and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat, cover, and let it sit overnight. In the morning I add a bit of butter and heat it back up again. On our new stove I have to be pretty careful to quickly lower the heat so I don't cook it to the bottom of the pot in the morning. Once it's hot, pour on a bit of milk and some bananas, sugar, maple syrup or honey and eat. I've also made it from start to finish in the morning, but it's a lot harder to cook it long enough without it burning onto the bottom of the pot. The overnight method is very easy, quick, and it always works.

When you make food yourself like this, it's hard to tell what nutrients will be in it because the nutrition data in the USDA database are for uncooked grains, and they don't provide guidelines for what might be lost by cooking the grains. For what it's worth, my daily breakfast (1/3 cup of grain, 1/2 cup of milk, 1 tsp of sugar and 1 tsp of butter) adds up to:

There's also a surprising amount of the basic nutrients, but I don't have time to list them all. And without knowing how they're affected by cooking, I'm not sure how helpful it'd really be anyway.

Spring in Fairbanks is often a long, muddy season but this year we got less than a third of the snowfall we normally get and early spring was remarkably cold. So on April first, when the temperatures suddenly rose above freezing, it was like the springtime switch had been thrown, toggling us from winter to summer. Ten days later and the roads are dry and clear, the dog yard is more than half melted out, most of the snow on the roof has turned to water and run down the gutters, and even our driveway isn't too bad.

That also means that it's summertime for the dogs, so they've got to find other ways to occupy themselves since they're not training or racing three or four times a week. As you can see on the right, Kiva and Buddy^* have already started their grueling schedule of non-stop sleeping, broken by occasional bursts of activity around dinnertime, and periodically racing around the dog yard after Piper when she plays keep-away with a stick.

As for us, it's time to start replenishing the firewood supply with five or six trips to the woodcutting area, making repairs to the exterior of our house, and getting our garden going. This year's garden will hopefully contain lots of cabbage, beets, potatoes, and maybe some leaf lettuce and broccoli.

^*The orange spot on Buddy is a bit of paint from one of the races.