December 2005

Adventures in Swedish Glögg

Today, after about a year, I'm trying to recreate my Swedish Glögg (spicy wintertime alcohol drink) recipe, as well as provide something for next year when I try to recreate it again. So, here's my recipe. I'll update this after I taste it so I can correct as needed.

Recipe:

• 2 Cups port wine
• 10 cloves
• 10 cardamom seeds (also added some crushed cardamom because I didn't find the seeds in time)
• Crushed orange peel
• Orange peel (since I was eating one at the time)
• Some allspice
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 4 chunks of crystalized ginger

Combine spices and port wine, simmer on a stove for 1 hour. Make sure you turn on the correct burner.

Then, in a separate pan, combine and boil:

• 2 cups of sugar
• 1 quart (4 cups) of water

Add boiling sugar water to the mixture. Then, add:

• 1 quart of vodka (100 proof).

I only had 80 proof vodka and didn't feel like buying another bottle of vodka, so we'll see what happens with this.

Serve warm with raisins and sliced almonds in the bottom of a coffee mug.

To be continued...

Escapepodder on Sourceforge

Created a project on Sourceforge to try to generate a bit more momentum for this project. I'll probably have more details here, though.

Julkalender 2005

Well, that's the end of William and Johanna's Julkalender 2005! It was fun putting it together and learning a lot about podcasting. I'm going to miss it, and don't have plans for any new podcasts now. I don't want to put something together and just be in the bottom of the major podcast hitters. There are tons of tech podcasts, couples podcasts, etc. that I feel that I'd be just another redundant voice in the ether. I'll very likely put another one together next year, but, until then, I'll be just another listener out on the net.

I'm going to keep working on Escapepodder as necessary since I think it's a good tool that is missing today out in the pod-o-sphere. Hopefully we'll see more of that stuff.

Thanks to those who listened!

Escapepodder notes

Here are a few random notes about Escapepodder. Hopefully the search engines will pick up on this entry.

Escapepodder automatically generates an RSS feed for your podcast. All you have to do to run it is set up a configuration (one time only), then copy the mp3 files that you want to have as part of your podcast to that directory, and run escpod. When it runs, an RSS feed is generated with the mp3s that are in that directory as enclosures.

Escapepodder is GPLed code, but includes a Windows binary (command line only). You can just click on the executable to run it. It will exit fairly quickly, and the RSS feed will be ready. The code is written in C. I compile it with DJGPP.

Escapepodder is written in C code, so you may wish to tweak it for your needs. I see it as a sort of companion piece to Bashpodder, a simple, command line piece of code that can easily be scripted. You could write an easy script to copy your mp3 files to a directory, run escpod, then FTP all the mp3 files and the RSS feed to a server.

Music on Podshow

I uploaded some music to the Podsafe Music Network. Here is a link to go check it out.

More Podcasting News

Wow! It seems that someone is listening. Maybe even up to 4 people? And I even got a vote on Podcast Alley! Amazing! Well, the episodes are a bit behind now, but I'll try to post 3 or so a day until I catch up. I'm surprised it's gone so well so far!

Another Podcast Update

Well, I don't have any subscribers to William and Johanna's Julkalender 2005 podcast. Oh well. I didn't really expect anyone to subscribe. If anyone does subscribe, I'll start posting the episodes again (I checked my web server statistics and didn't see any further downloads). I would want anyone who just subscribed to miss anything. Plus, I'm kind of tight on bandwidth. Time to update my bandwidth, I guess.

Merry Christmas

A God Jul och Gott Nytt År till alla svensktalande läsare. And to the English world, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! You can check out our Christmas greetings web page here.

Podcast?

Well, I don't think many people (if anyone) is listening to the Podcast. Of course, I haven't really promoted it. Ah well...it's still fun for me. Unfortunately, I don't have that much bandwidth or disk space on that server, so can't keep them up for a while. I think I need to spend some money or something and upgrade the server. I don't think I want to host the site at home, but, you never know! It's more of a pain here than it would be helpful at this point.

Wolf Sighting?

On our way back from Thanksgiving in Amherstberg, Ontario, we spotted what we thought looked like a wolf. It was definately a doglike animal, about the size of a Fawn, and heading toward a barn in a small local park in a swampy area. We followed it as far as we could, until the road ended by the barn and the trail head. It was grey-black in color, and kind of walked at an angle, with its back legs crossing over (at least that's what it looks like to me). I contacted Fred Johnson at the Chatham office of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, but he said that there were no wolves that far south. It was much larger than a fox, larger than our dog Dixie (who is a german shepherd/samoyed/border collie mix), and larger than any of the coyotes that I have seen. It was pretty thin, but didn't look emaciated.

So if it wasn't a wolf, then what was it?