as with many things one avoids doing, it wasn't so difficult as I'd feard

[kareina]

Today I spent rearranging numbers in spreadsheets and looking at graphs. Seven hours worth of playing with graphs and spreadsheets (with frequent short breaks to try to keep my eyesight intact). Ever since my second session with the microprobe here I've been putting off actually processing the data it generates. Why? Because first of all I wasn't certain the settings I needed to use in the program which transforms the microprobe data into mineral cations. I've been fighting with the program and the muscovite results in particular for a while, exchanging frequent emails with my boss trying to work out what settings had been used for the data generated by the phd student years ago who last did experiments on this rock type here. Now that we've got it mostly working, I decided today that I'd go back to the beginning and do over the data processing I'd already done, to be certain that everything is consistent.

Today's effort was enough to:

*create a single spreadsheet containing all of the microprobe data to date
*edit the comment field for each analysis to have a consistent naming practice that includes information as to which microprobe session, which experiment, which bulk composition, what mineral we thought we were analyzing, and if it was the first, second, third, whatever analysis of that mineral for that particular sample.
*sorted the file by mineral
*processed the data for the garnets, added the results to the original file of garnet results from the above mentioned old data
*made lots of graphs to determine which of the garnet analyzes from my microprobe session were "bad" data (usually mixed analyses, identifiable as having either too much or not enough Si or Al due to the electron beam zapping both garnet and whatever is next to it as well)
*deleted the "bad" data from that file. Added in data for the pressure and temperature of the experiment for the new "good" data.
*recorded for each experiment (and each of the two bulk compositions run in each experiment) how many good garnet analyses (if any) I now have (and if zero, recorded how many garnets I attempted to analyze)
*all of the above for the muscovites.
*sent e-mail to my boss with a file set up to graph my results for the muscovite analyses colour-coded per experiment against the original data (which I left as small black circles, there being so many more of them) asking my boss if we have finally got the muscovite settings working (they just might be), or if they need additional tweaking.

Tomorrow I need to repeat all of this for the biotite, chloritoid, and carbonate analyses.

When I wasn't working I

*went for a long walk (which also means I went grocery shopping, choosing a very large supermarket which is a good 35 minute walk away, so that I'd get some exercise. It is a sad fact that living in a city tends to mean that walks=spend money, since it just isn't as pretty as living part way up the side of the mountain (where I go for walks just to admire the view), so I often put off going for a walk until I need something, and then I go get it.)
*emptied my personal and facebook in-boxes again (yay, keeping on top of my correspondence for several days running)
*made some yummy spinach-avacado dip (more or less like guacamole, but with lots of raw spinach added & mixed with an imersion blender to get the spinach chopped fine enough), which I ate with cucumber, yum!
*put the rest of the 500 g bag of spinach & 4 eggs into enough flour to make a pasta dough. This will be tomorrow's lunch (and several days running, no doubt, since clovis_t is unlikely to help me eat a pasta that green. I wish they'd sell 250 g bags of spinach--while spinach does get smaller if you do, well anything, with it, that is still an awful lot of food for one person to eat before it goes bad.
*read some more in a really good book I borrowed from the SCA family that hosts our meetings.
*found contact details for an old friend I knew when I lived in An Tir. Someone had posted to SCA-West that her son just passed away, and I wanted to send her a note saying I was sorry to hear it. In an odd coincidence, her ex-husband, whom I'd met at the SCA 20-year Celebration, had done a comment in facebook on one of my friend's pages earlier today, and recognizing his name, I'd sent him a note. It was only a few hours later that I saw the news of their son's passing. It is odd how sometimes when you encounter someone you haven't thought of in years suddenly they are brought to your attention through multiple venues.

Comments

[madryn-1960.livejournal.com]

When you're done with that book, the one I'm reading might interest you. It's the first in a trilogy about Henry II and Eleanor of Aqu. Caled "When Christ and his saints slept" by Sharon Penman. It starts off with the war between Maude and Stephen and is very historically accurate. No orange carrots yet, although she did make one slip up with a long stemmed rose. No such thing of course in the 12thC.

Can you make pasta without a pasta machine. I'd like to try but don't know how.

I'm surprised Clovis doesn't have scurvy. Have you checked his teeth?

[kareina.livejournal.com]

Yes, easily.

Take some flour, add a dash of salt, and some egg. Roughly 1 egg per 3/4 cup of flour, depending upon A) the humidity levels of the day (and therefore how much moisture the flour starts with) and B) the size of the egg.

Mix together, adding more flour if needed (or a few drops of water if too dry to stick together) till you've got a stiff dough that isn't too sticky.

At this point you've got options. The easiest, and my personal favourite is to have a pot of boiling water or broth or a soup on the stove, take the handful of dough and a butter knife, and cut of small wedges of dough directly into the boiling liquid. I tend to cut slices which are about 7 to 12 mm wide and 20 to 30 mm long. Because of the way I push the chunk of dough for each noodle off of the pile and against the heel of my hand to break it free it winds up being roughly cylinder shaped with the two ends tapering to a point. It doesn't take long to slice all of the dough into the liquid. The noodles are done as soon as they float, which is very, very soon after they hit the boiling water.

Alternatively, you could put the dough onto a floured board and use a rolling pin (or flat-sided bottle) to roll it out to a thin sheet, which can then be sliced into shapes and dropped into boiling liquid. Again, as soon as they float they are cooked.

Or you could roll the dough out, cut rounds, put on a spoon full of filling, fold it in half and seal it and boil the filled noodles. If the filling was pre-cooked or needs no cooking they are done when they float. If the filling needs to be cooked, give them long enough in the boiling water to cook the filling.

If you want spinach pasta, chop some spinach very fine and add it to the dough. Note that since it is very wet it will take much more flour per egg than usual, which will change the texture of the noodles. I would recommend making the plain dough a time or three before experimenting with additions like spinach.

One of the reasons I'm so fond of home-made noodles is how fast they cook. If one wants to eat store-bought dried pasta one needs to wait the amount of time it takes for the water to boil plus 8 to 20 minutes (depending on the type) to boil the noodles soft enough to eat.

If I'm doing a quick batch of buttered noodles I can mix the dough in the amount of time it takes the water to boil, cut them into the pot, and in the time it takes to wash my hands, mixing bowl, spoon, and butter knife they are well cooked (indeed, if using an electric stove, I turn off the heat before I start that washing, as the pot continues to boil for a while). Then I can drain the noodles, put them in a bowl with some butter, spinach, and other veg that doesn't need cooking, add some seeds or nuts, perhaps a dash of spices, and I'm sitting down to eat in less time than it would have taken to boil the dry store-bought stuff. And it tastes ever so much better. Especially when living somewhere with happy chooks laying fresh eggs. (I miss that about Tassie!)

I've heard good things about Penman's books. Alas, it isn't all that easy to find English language books at a reasonable price here. Fortunately, I've still got tons of books I inherited from my step-dad that I haven't read yet, so I don't need to go looking all that often.