for kilometres

Pumpkin Pecan Pie
(in a way cool apple shaped dish)

1. I can't help the dish you have or may not have... the main important bit is making sure the dish is deep... 'cause you're putting 2 pies in there.

2. Make pie crust. Or buy one. Again, make sure this is enough crust to fit a dish deep enough to jam 2 pies in there.

3. Turn on oven: 350

4. Make pumpkin pie: 1 egg, 1 (generous) cup canned pumpkin (or real pumpkin if you're cool with getting icky up to your elbows in pumpkin goo), 1/3 (lean) cup sugar, generous 1/2 tsp cinnamon, generous 1/4 tsp ginger, generous 1/8 tsp clove (all dry & ground). Stir together and make as first layer in pie crust.

5. Make pecan pie: 2 eggs, 2/3 (lean) cup sugar, 2/3 cup dark corn syrup (yup, that's right), 2 tbsp melted butter, 1 tsp vanilla (I make mine with madagascar vanilla beans in vodka - but you can use imitation, it'll do...), stir very well - make sure eggs are well combined in there. Then stir in a whole bunch of pecans, a minimum of 1 cup. I can't be bothered with the nice neat layering of them on the top in a pretty pattern, plus when they get all coated with the filling it's even better. Pour this layer on top of the pumpkin pie layer.

6. Bake for about an hour - keep your eye out on the crust, it should be golden. The filling should also be starting to come away from the crust at the edge.

7. Cool thoroughly. I mean it! That hot pecan-sugary goodness BURNS!

final Diva bout of the season

For the final bout of our first season, a season that started with 8 eager women in the fall of 2008, and grew to include me (never having been on roller skates in my entire life) in February of 2009, a team that first bouted in April shortly after having purchased pads and helmets and faithfully practiced and grew in skill and membership over the next 9 bouts, 3 scrimmages and 7 months closed out the season with a win - and truly having evolved as a team.

We played the Folsom Prison Bruisers, and they made us work for our win ever step of the way. They also scared the crap out of us (Jack Skellington?):

We were tough and pulled through, below Short Stack gets beat up a little, but that little chica sure did amazing with her jams!

Amazingly enough, photo evidence even has me doing something effective - here I'm the bread on one half of a Canadian-Hippie sandwich, with a somewhat unhappy looking Bruiser (getting bruised) in the middle. Delicious!

These photos only exist because of our fabulous bout photographer of the evening. Below I pose with her nerdy husband.

This photograph exists because of an article in the school newspaper... another one (article that is) should follow this bout too. I'm just goofing around...

dun dune done

Drawing an end to the semester with one final field trip that culminated in my beloved "singing" sand dunes. A few short weeks remain during which time we have our final roller derby bout of the year, American thanksgiving, and final exams. I can nearly taste the freedom!

Past dune visits here and here and here but that's not all of them! Check out NewScientist's video of the dunes here.

Homecoming 2009

Some of you may remember past Homecoming accomplishments, but if not, they can be found here and here. This year's theme was "Renegade Pride", which was a little cryptic to say the least. The Geology Club decided to build something geological that represented the establishment of Kern County (oil industry, naturally) and the Engineers Club decided to build a reproduction of a vintage 1950's (aka "rosette style") float that had been done in the early years of the college.

As the weeks went by, the Geology Club students built and built, and slowly but surely, a cross section from Sierra Nevada to Coast Ranges through the San Joaquin Valley was built, complete with the "Bakersfield Arch", oil derrick, and anticline full of oil. Meanwhile, barely a soul showed up to work on the Engineers Club float, and in the end it was scrapped.

the boys painting the "Renegade Pride" slogan on the arch - we went with:

"Reaching New Heights..." "While Hitting Rock Bottom"

(had to sneak a geology pun in there of course)

The end of the float located at the trailer - as we see strewn across mountain ranges far and wide, it's only appropriate to have some white rocks spelling out our group and year...

The "front" (facing north in schematic geological representation) of the completed float - there's adits in the mountain of course.

The back (facing south in our representation), ultimately there was going to be a rear end in that hole, you know, "rock bottom", for the tour around the track a student just sat there facing in, still a butt, but a more appropriate clothed one.

Making good use of the adit! The headlamps worked really well in there come dark and the actual parade of floats.

No trailer is complete without a license plate, note the message is mirroring the message on the mountain on the other side. Aren't we clever?

Finally, since there was only room on the float for 2 miners and a butt, we had to have petroleum engineers walking alongside to monitor their derrick.

It was pretty funny when a woman from the audience yelled out "I love a man in uniform!"