The sports radio dials are juiced. Even non-sports radio is hopping with talk about steroids in baseball.

While waiting for the 6,000 mile checkup on our car today, I learned of Senator Mitchell’s report to Major League Baseball detailing the list of athletes linked positively to steroids and human growth hormones (HGH). I’ve been fascinated and disturbed in an accident scene way since reading Jose Canseco’s book Juiced. I wasted no time downloading the PDF from ESPN and searched through for our local Seattle Mariners and on other names.

The biggest surprise to me was the rocket, Roger Clemens (Update 3:20pm PST: Roger has hired attorney Rusty Hardin and vehemently denies the information in the report), but there were a few other names that raised my eyebrows, particularly other pitchers like Andy Petitte. When Ryan Franklin in Seattle was suspended for steroids, I realized it wasn’t only for homerun hitters, but why would solid pitchers like Clemens need the juice? Really, it was that important for him to stay in the game longer? It couldn’t be about the money with him … or could it?

10 Seattle Mariners juicing
A search for ‘mariners’ revealed 15 results including the following former or current (Update 4:17pm PST: a check of the Mariners active roster doesn’t show any current Mariners players in the 10 below so struck the “or current” part) Seattle Mariners players:

1. David Segui
2. Josias Manzanillo
3. Glenallen Hill
4. Ron Villone (pitcher)
5. Ryan Franklin (pitcher)
6. Todd Williams (pitcher)
7. Fernando Vina
8. David Bell
9. Jose Guillen
10. Ismael Valdez (pitcher)

Wow, 40% pitchers?

Selig responds
On my way back to the office MLB Commissioner Bud Selig was giving a press conference and detailing the three things he announced MLB would be doing right away in response to the Mitchell Report:

1. eliminate the 24 hour notice given to clubs prior to testing/screening.
2. mete out appropriate punishment for each of the players named in the report on a case by case basis
3. work with the player’s union to try and come to agreements on many of the other 20 recommendations made in the Mitchell report.

How will this impact future Hall of Famers?
If they are going to continue to keep Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame (HOF) for gambling, then I don’t think any of these players named should be in the HOF either. It will be interesting to see if that happens.

I continue to be disgusted by this whole issue. A sport I love is being ruined by performance enhancing drugs. This shouldn’t be an issue that is in dispute by the player’s union. They should want the game kept clean. If they do anything differently, I may have to become an MLS fan instead.

Somberly, I’m thinking about “Tuesday’s Gone” by Lynyrd Skynrd:

Train roll on many miles from my home,
See, I’m riding my blues away.
Tuesday, you see, she had to be free
But somehow I’ve got to carry on.

On Sunday December 2, Marc Orchant had a massive heart attack and fell into a coma. Marc fought to return to consciousness for a week, with many bloggers, family and friends praying he would, while local Seattle blogger meetup organizer Anita Rowland had been fighting cancer for years. Marc passed away on Sunday December 9 and last night Anita passed away, Monday December 10.

I’d never had the privilege to meet Marc in person, who hailed from New Mexico, but we had a number of conversations through this wonderful thing we call the internet. He left comments at this blog and would reply when you talked to him through Twitter with direct messages. I think he did that because he wanted to make sure people knew he saw and cared that they were trying to converse with him. That shows the type of good guy Marc was with relative strangers, so it doesn’t surprise me that he was loved by those who were closer to him.

His last message to me was on Saturday, less than 12 hours before his heart attack, a response to his post that he was leaving Facebook over the Beacon issue. For a couple days after his heart attack this post remained atop my Twitter direct message stream:

Truly believed he’d come out of the coma and be loving, laughing and geeking with us here again. Marc died at 50. I’m sure Marc is up there somewhere, if such a glorious place exists enjoying a lifetime of neverending gadget launches and “calling it like he sees it.” Rest in peace.

Anita Rowland, meetup organizer extraordinaire
I did have the privilege of meeting Anita Rowland and her husband Jack William Bell several times in person. The last time I saw Anita was at a conference in Vancouver BC. She called my name and I turned, surprised and smiled. It was then that I learned she had cancer and was trying to beat it back. I’d kept her in my thoughts and was always glad to “see” her online from time to time reminding me that cancer doesn’t always win.

Also saw her several times at various blogger meetups here in Seattle that she organized, although I haven’t attended many event since 2005. Anita was always a friendly and gracious host at these events and her smile was warm and inviting. You can see her standing just above Jake from 8bit Joystick in the picture below wearing a white shirt. This was from one of several Seattle weblogger meetup’s I attended in 2005.

Anita would leave comments here from time to time as well and the last thing she did was add me as a Twitter friend. The date? Same day of Marc Orchant’s message above: Saturday, December 1, 2007. Probably just a coincidence how both my final interactions with these two good people who passed away involved Twitter, but it’s one of those details I can’t completely shake from my brain this morning.

Jack William Bell posted a heartfelt memorial post for his wife:

Some people shine so brightly they light the way for others; Anita was such a person. Having that light snuffed out so soon is a loss to the world.

To the guy I jammed alongside with at the first Mind Camp, Jack, I’m sorry for your loss. Please know I’m keeping you in my thoughts.

{{{{family and friends of Marc and Anita}}}} Now, time to go hug my family. Do you hear the wind? Tuesday may not be gone as I write or as you read this, but sure feels that way. And the lights are dimmer in life on earth with these two kind, giving souls gone.

The following site keeps drawing me back. Imagine if this was a video game; something like the Wii could probably pull this off.

At the Cinekid Festival in the Netherlands kidscan explore the Funky Forest where they can create a virtual tree and then try to divert water to the tree to make it grow.

Funky Forest uses openFrameworks, a C++ library that is “heading towards a public release.”

The Cinekid Festival is an annual event for kids held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It’s a Film, Television and New Media Festival. Kids only festival? Heck, this looks like something grown up kids could get into.

Party favorites? Synsepalum dulcificum or miracle fruit for short sounds a lot more fun than watermelon to have at next year’s picnic or this year’s NFL bash.

For about an hour after you eat [miracle fruit], everything sour tastes sweet. Within minutes of consuming the berries, guests were devouring lime wedges as if they were candy. Straight lemon juice went down like lemonade, and goat cheese tasted as if it was “covered in powdered sugar,” said one astonished partygoer. A rich stout beer seemed “like a milkshake,” said another.

Break out the Sweet Tarts or super sour candy and give this one a try. Where do you buy miracle fruit? A Google search led me to this post in February.

Fish and aquariums rock. Fish create a serene environment with the sound of the water bubbling and swimming around. If you want to lower your stress level, the sound of water can really help.

I’d buy a gigantic aquarium for our home and office if not for one thing: the work required to clean, feed and maintain the beautiful tanks and pets. This has given me a soft spot for these virtual aquarium screensavers, since no work is required to maintain them. This afternoon I was delighted to see the screen pictured above and wasted no time clicking the Buy Now button for Aquatopia in the Playstation Store.

Check that out. Beautiful picture, especially at 1080p. Now look at it from a little further back.

Aquatopia requires the PS Eye camera that comes with Eye of Judgment. If you move your body or simply your hand in front of the PS Eye camera, the fish react to the movement.

I’m curious if I left Aquatopia running if I could also do the fold@Home project. If that’s not an option, Sony, please tweak the title so it can do both. If I could do that I’d leave Aquatopia running more. Good stuff. The PS3 just keeps getting better and better.

Update 3:00pm PST: After posting I learned that until November 29, the Playstation store is running a special time sensitive deal:

Calling All Cars, fl0w, Pixel Junk Racers and Everyday Shooter are reduced to $4.99 each until November 29th.

Might want to pick these up too when you buy Aquatopia. Only title I haven’t tried is Calling All Cars, but I’ll likely be buying that one before November 29. fl0w is probably the weakest one of the others. The guitar sounds in Everyday Shooter are wild.

Keep looking at the following pictures of the iSeePet360 product (Japanese) and thinking: wouldn’t your dog just tear this thing up?

I’ve seen and had dogs tear through things like strong cables with their teeth that would make the iSeePet360 look like a candy cane. Once your pet realizes this thing is its next meal, how long is it going to take for it to go all Cujo on it?

via walyou:

The ISeePet360 grants you the remote ability to take care of your pet’s feeding habits while away from it! Having another option that would grant us more flexibility and freedom would be great. The ISeePet360 is an advanced dry food feeding bowl that let’s you control the feeding time using your cell phone or PC.

Also comes with a webcam so you can “watch your animal while s/he eats” — really? I understand loving your pets, but do pet owners really want to use a webcam to watch them eat? I understand some legitimate health uses, like if your dog hasn’t been eating, but wouldn’t an empty bowl or plate give you this important information? Do one really need the equivalent of a Slingbox for pets? Maybe they offer a version sans webcam?

I imagine when IPv6 fully arrives and everything has an IP address, we’ll see many more of these type products.

If you’re interested in this product, it will only set you back 50,000 Yen, or about $444 USD at conversion rates as of this writing. We don’t have any pets currently, so not applicable for our home. For pet owner readers, would you consider buying one of these? Seriously?

Last we checked in on Michael Jackson was April 2006, when he was about to sell off another 25% of the Beatles library that he owns. Since that time he’s gotten more … white.

Was there some photoshopping happening on the Ebony magazine cover? I know a lot of magazine covers are airbrushed and touched up but did somebody tweak the brightness too? I realize Michael Jackson has some sort of rare skin condition that is making his skin turn white but his fascination (obsession?) with OPTIONAL plastic surgery has literally transformed him into a different person.

Can you recognize the young, handsome Michael Jackson any longer? Now he’s got lips twisted in a Joker-like expression. Jackson really, really needs to stay away from plastic surgery and get back to making music and touring. I’ve heard he’s calling the Vegas area his home these days. If that’s true, why isn’t he out singing in one of the casino showrooms?

Can he sing any more?

Do you eat enough fruit? I don’t. One of my favorite snack foods are those dehydrated granny smith apple chips. You can find them in the grocery store in bags like potato chips, but more healthy.

I decided it would be fun to make some myself. To do that, I learned that you need the following items:

- a Dehydrator (affiliate)

Nesco offers several different dehydrator wattages. The higher the wattage, the shorter the drying time. Wal-mart sells them too if you don’t want to go through somebody online like Amazon. Wal-mart is where we bought the one pictured in this post.

- knife
- some granny smith apples
- some oranges
- a can of pineapple juice (for pre-treating apples)
- zip lock bags or saran wrap
- (optional) sugar

The Nesco dehydrator we bought didn’t require any assembly. Simply open the box and remove the instruction manual and jerky spice bags. I’m not going to cover making jerky in this post, but that’s another common use for a dehydrator.

There are four trays that stack upon each other with the blower inserted at the top and down through a hole in the middle. Whatever you’re dehydrating — fruits, vegetables, flowers — is placed on these trays.

How to pre-treat apples
According to the instructions that came with the dehydrator, most fruits do not require pre-treatment, but ones that oxidize more should be pre-treated. Oxidation is what happens when sliced fruit turns brown.

Apples, pears, peaches and apricots have a longer shelf-life, are more appetizing and higher nutritional value when pre-treated. To pre-treat apples, once sliced immediately put in a holding solution of pineapple juice. Do not keep the apples in the solution longer than an hour. Slice the apples in half and then into 1/4″ or less slices, place them in the solution, wait a few minutes, and then lay out on the trays.

You can also squeeze a few orange or apples and use that juice for a pre-treatment solution. Tip: drink the juice when done pre-treating, it’s good for you.

Oranges
You can optionally peel the orange. Cut the ends off the orange to where there is a small amount of peel and mostly orange on the inside. Then cut the orange in half down the center and cut into 1/4″ or less thick slices and place them in a circular pattern around they trays.

If they are touching they will stick together when dried, so try to leave a tiny bit of space between them. You can mix the orange and apples on the trays.

Notice how the apples appear a bit brownish in the picture below? These were not pre-treated. I wanted to run a test batch that wasn’t pre-treated to see the difference in taste. There is a loss of flavor and vitamins A and C if not pre-treated.

As mentioned above, the dehydration process varies based on the wattage of the dehydrator as well as how full the load is on the trays. The instruction manual provides a range of 6-12 hours for apples and oranges to dehydrate. The first batch I tried took about 8 hours to fully dehydrate three of the four trays.

Optional: you can shake sugar over the fruit before drying. This will make them a bit sweeter. You can also add sugar afterwards. If you’ve ever had the apple chips in a bag, you’ll notice they are sugary. The oranges have enough flavor as is. I prefer the granny smith apples dehydrated to the oranges.

Once done remove the trays and either put on a plate and wrap with saran wrap to keep the air out or put in ziplock bags to store. You can also use tupperware. If any condensation appears on the lid then you didn’t dehydrate the fruit long enough.

Beyond dehydrated snack chips
You can do a lot more with a dehydrator besides fruit snacks like make your own leathery fruit roll-ups, beef jerky and vegetables. If you’re like me and don’t eat enough fruit and enjoy snack foods like potato chips, pretzels, consider dehydrating your own fruit and vegetable chips instead. A healthy alternative.

Got any other dehydrated foods you enjoy that we should try out?

Anybody reading really like peeling fruits and vegetables by hand? This is a job destined for machines. When I first spotted Rotato in the store I thought: hey, that looks like a lot easier way of peeling potatoes, fruit and vegetables. And at less than $9 at Wal-mart, it seemed worth a try.

The only assembly required with Rotato is screwing on the handle. Then you position the target fruit or vegatable on the bottom spikes that rotate when you turn the crank. A spike on the top is used to hold the other end in place. Turn and peel. Easy, huh?

Not so fast. We found the razor blade that the instructions warn not to touch becomes hopelessly clogged with peels forcing you to stop the peeling process and very carefully clean off the razory tip. Also Rotato didn’t peel the top or bottom of the granny smith apple tested, only the center portion and left noticeable varying gaps in the peel depth. It was kind of tasty eating the peels of the insides. That might be one handy use for Rotato: peeling thin pieces of the inside of the apple and dehydrating.

I decided to try an orange for Hmmcast #177 (hey, remember those?):

Click To Play Hmmcast #177 video (will load in popup window)
Among the worst $8+ I’ve ever spent on any kitchen utility. I’ll keep peeling by hand, no domo arigato, Mr. Rotato. Grade: F.

Hmmcast #177 downloads
PSP .mp4 (480×272) iPod .mp4 (640×480) Windows .wmv (1480×1080 HD)

Feels like I’m way behind today with over 100 items on my RSS reader and a long to-do list, but I got in and voted early today. Fewest number of people I’ve ever seen at the polls. There were three, including me, at the local polling place (a church). I imagine more and more people are mailing in their votes for convenience but prefer to go to the polls.

As for how I voted? Pretty much across the board voted down every tax increase. I’m feeling taxed to death and tired of the mismanagement of money at the state and federal level. I also voted down all the extended terms for candidates. I prefer shorter terms for people in office over longer ones. There are times — like now — where I wish the President was a one term gig instead of two. Fresh faces needed.

Washington Ref. 67: Insurance companies vs. attorneys
The major issue on the ballot is Washington’s Ref. 67 where the insurance companies in the against camp are saying if passed will raise rates and the lawyers are saying is necessary to prevent insurance companies from not paying fair claims. Being it’s the four year anniversary of my wife and son being hit in the middle of the crosswalk, I can speak from firsthand experience on this issue. Her insurance claim was sizable. Her medical bills alone were in the tens of thousands and the original company which shall remain nameless originally offered less than the amount of medical bills to settle. My wife did consider getting an attorney at one point when things seemed to be at their worst in the claim but didn’t want to pay 30% or more of the settlement to them when she was the one who was being told even after surgery she might have to live the rest of her life with some amount of pain.

When it became clear my wife wasn’t getting better and surgery was imminent the woman who hit her insurance company did the right thing and paid the policy limits. Because the woman wasn’t adequately insured, we still needed to go under our own underinsured motorist coverage to get the rest of the medical bills paid.

Our own insurance company was very fair with my wife’s insurance settlement.

There really was never any negotiating, per se. The adjuster asked my wife what she wanted and she gave them a number. And after reviewing her thick file and realizing that she was still in pain after surgery, they gave her more. I realize there are cases where some people do not receive fair settlements from insurance companies, but that’s never been the case for us. It’s easy to point at the insurance company and say they are some big, evil organization, but the same could be said of big legal firms.

This is why I voted down Washington’s Ref. 67. I don’t need my premiums going up to pay more money out in claims. The insurance companies already get enough of our money and I believe they will treat us fair if/when we should ever need to use their service — as we did with my wife and son being hit in the middle of the crosswalk.

I’m still disappointed that the woman who hit them, and again she didn’t have enough insurance to pay for all the bills, was able to literally walk away without any requirement to pay back the money our insurance company paid us. She lives less than two blocks from our office and has never chosen to stop by and see how my wife was feeling and apologize for her gross negligence. How much does an apology cost? Please forgive me for repeating this complaint I made originally in May of this year.

Enough remembering an ugly incident in time, unless you want to comment on the mysteriousness of the woman’s behavior below, let’s get back to those touch screens.

Did you try touch screen voting today?
At the polls they offered me the option to try the new touch screen and I passed. Extremely unusual for me to pass on using new technology, but in this case I like the old fashioned paper ballots and ink. Perhaps my reservations over using electronic polling aren’t justified? Maybe I should try them next time?

For those readers who voted today, which method did you use to vote? If touch screen voting was an option did you use that? Why not?