brandon martinez

Coffee Drinks Illustrated

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:00:51 -0500

An oldie, but a goodie, Coffee Drinks Illustrated by Lokesh Dhakar, is a great illustrated guide for the different types of coffee drinks.

My personal favorites are the caffé mocha and the caffé latte (though, I do tweak them a bit):

Check out the whole post to see the various preparation methods: Coffee Drinks Illustrated by Lokesh Dhakar.

Original Article

Lightroom 2 Technique: Staying Organized with Keywords

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:00:00 -0500

I’ve been doing a lot of digital cleanup and reorganization as of late: sorting, deleting, and something I’ve been slacking on a bit too much, keywording photos.

This post, Lightroom 2 Technique: Staying Organized with Controlled Vocabulary by Eric Scouten, made quite a few excellent points on keeping you Lightroom library clean. One thing that I really liked was his suggestion for bottom-sinking tags:

The solution, for me, was to place all of my keywords under top-level category headers, as shown here:

[…] There’s nothing special about the «» characters, except that they cause the keyword to sink to the bottom of the list on Mac. […] I’m unlikely to use them otherwise, so they stand out for me. You could just as easily use _, $, regular old angle brackets .

He makes a few other good points, so be sure to read the whole post: Lightroom 2 Technique: Staying Organized with Controlled Vocabulary

Original Article

Super Wings 2012

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:31:46 -0500

As is becoming tradition, I made some of my world-famous chicken wings for Super Bowl XLVI:

There are only two main differences from last year’s: I used whole-wings this time (and had to cut them myself), and I made this new pre-bake seasoning:

It’s really simple:

Kosher Salt
Pepper
Chili Powder
Garlic Powder

All to taste, of course. Sprinkle it lightly on the wings before you bake them, and after you flip them to bake the second side. Adds a nice, salty-and-spicy punch to the wing.

Another great year of wings accomplished.

Original Article

Coffee Lover's Site of the Day: Brew Methods

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:00:01 -0500

I found this website the other whilst looking for information on the AeroPress: Brew Methods.

Essentially, it’s a directory of several different brewing methods, pointing to articles, videos, and more. If you love coffee, it’s definitely a site to checkout.

Original Article

Structuring Unit Tests

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:00:18 -0500

One of the most troubling parts of unit testing, to me, is keeping things organized. For the past year, I’ve been managing my tests like this:

Every class has a tester class; for example, MyClass would have MyClassTests
In MyClassTests, multiple test methods would be setup to test each of the methods in MyClass
Test names would be in this format: MethodName_Scenario_ReturnValue

Tests for large classes would get out of control! There could be several test methods for a single method on the original class. Imagine a tester class if the original class had 20 methods.

However, thanks to this excellent tip from Phil Haack, this situation can be cleaned up and put into an easier to manage form.

By structuring your unit test classes to contain nested classes, each designated to test a single function, you can have a set of tests look like this:

For a further explanation, I would highly recommend reading Phil’s post: Structuring Unit Tests. I’m going to be trying this out with my testing environment (I use nunit) over the next few weeks.

Original Article

A “Happy Snap” Lightroom Workflow

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:00:36 -0500

I had planned on writing up my Lightroom workflow at some point, but it looks like someone beat me to it. This is an awesome post that follows a very similar Lightroom workflow to mine. Here are the main steps (the post elaborates on each one):

Determine a plan of attack

Download the images

Eliminating the duds

Sorting the usable images

Create a Collection

Apply initial processing to the images

Process in the Develop module

Make one off fixes

Export and burn

There really are only a few things that I do differently, and I tend to bounce around those steps a lot. However, it’s still an excellent post, and very comparable to what I do. Read the whole post here: A “Happy Snap” Lightroom Workflow.

Original Article

The Upside Down Aeropress

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:00:33 -0500

I recently picked up an AeroPress, and I thought I’d do some additional research on how other people are using it. This video shows an additional technique, where you essentially do your brewing upside down.

Original Article

The AeroPress

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:20:18 -0500

After being persuaded by Marco Arment’s constant praise, I have finally ordered an AeroPress.

There’s not much to say here, except that I totally agree with him: it makes some of the best coffee I’ve ever had. I’ve been using it for the past few days in place of my percolator[footnote]1[/footnote], and both Joy and I love the quality of coffee that it makes. I do, however, need to pickup some local, high-quality beans to see this at its optimum.

Some additional info from the manufacturer:

Smoothest: Using the ideal water temperature and gentle air pressure brewing yields rich flavor with lower acidity and without bitterness.

Richest: Total immersion brewing results in uniform extraction of the ultimate in full coffee flavor. Other coffee makers drip hot water on bed of grounds, over extracting at the center and under extracting at the edge.

Purest: Micro filtered for grit free coffee â unlike other press-type coffee makers.

Fastest: One minute from start to enjoy. The actual press time takes only 20 seconds.

[footnote name=”1”]Will this replace my percolator? No. If I want to make a lot of good coffee, that will still be my method of choice.[/footnote]

Original Article

Grilled Pork Sirloin with Risotto

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:22:48 -0500

Dinner tonight: grilled pork sirloin, garlic and onion risotto, and French-cut green beans, with a slice of artisan Focaccia bread. We had some left over Arborio rice from a seafood party last night, so I thought I would try my hand at it. Overall, it turned out nicely.

Nothing too fancy here, just really tasty. Pork was covered in Badia then grilled, risotto was done “by the box,” and the beans were cooked in butter with some salt and pepper. Sometimes simple is the best.

Original Article

Capturing the Master Chief

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:00:41 -0500

I’ve been experimenting with the new light set I purchased: portraits, candid room shots, food, and so on. Last night’s experiment: action figures.

Here’s the final result:

And here’s the setup:

Basically, I had the two AlienBees setup at a 45° angle from the center, set to low power, and pointed down at the subject. From there, it was adjusting the composition in-camera, and making sure settings lined up.

Overall, I think the photo turned out great. I think my only complaint is that I wish the scenery wasn’t so boring.

Original Article

Awesome Coffee Maker: The Balancing Siphon

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:00:16 -0500

This is one of the coolest coffee makers I’ve ever seen. It looks like a bit of work to setup, but it’s fun to watch. I wonder how the coffee tastes…

via Balancing Siphon - YouTube.

Original Article

A Quick Review: The AlienBees Setup

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 01:00:01 -0500

As I’ve mentioned several times over the past week, I purchased a set of AlienBees strobes. I just wanted to give a quick review on them.

Setup: the lights, stands, and umbrellas were all extremely easy to setup. I probably didn’t even need to read the instructions (but I did anyway just to be safe).
Build Quality: these lights seem like they are very well put together. The weight is appropriate, the shell seems very sturdy and durable, and the controls in the back are very usable. As for the stands and umbrellas, they too have a great build quality: not flimsy at all, and sit and hold their positions very well.
Usage: After using the set for a few days, I can say I’m very happy and very impressed with the results I’m getting. Considering this is my first go at using off-camera, studio-style strobes, the images I’m getting are excellent (see the sample below).
Flexibility: I’ve been playing with multiple setups; two front lights spread at 30°, two lights spread at 180°, one front-camera-right and one background camera-left, etc. I feel that, for a beginner, two strobes is the perfect number to have.

Here’s an example of one of the many setups I’ve tried; sorry for the poor quality, the panorama app I used didn’t stitch very well:

One of the photos captured using the above setup:

Here’s an example using the lights in front, camera-left and camera-right at approximately 30°:

Like I said, I’m very happy with the results thus far. I feel like all that’s left is practice, research, and more learning. I can only hope my photos keep improving, and thanks to the new AlienBees setup, I don’t think that will be a problem.

Original Article

OS X Lion Two Finger Double Tap on Dock Icons

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 08:00:11 -0500

Awesome little tip for Mission Control in OS X Lion: if you have a Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad, double tap on a Dock icon with two fingers. Neat!

Lion’s two finger double tap on a Dock Icon is pretty cool, don’t remember ever reading about it.

— Paul Haddad (@tapbot_paul) December 27, 2011

Original Article

A Creative Use For Flash Triggers

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:00:34 -0500

This is an awesome technique if you have a “bulb” mode on your camera and some strobes at your disposal.

via A Creative Use For Flash Triggers - YouTube.

Original Article

Pulled Pork Under Pressure

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 21:39:09 -0500

I’ve been thinking about using my pressure cooker, since it’s been quite a while, and Joy happened to buy some pork butt a few days ago; so I thought, what better than pulled pork?

Overall, this was super-easy to make:

The Meat

Here’s my initial prep (the marinating):

Take approximately 3 lbs of pork butt and cover it with a healthy layer of freshly ground sea salt on both sides.
Add any seasonings you desire. I did a light layer of freshly ground pepper, and, of course, a very thick covering of Badia. I put this on both sides as well.
Add a light coating of lime juice followed by a light coating of olive oil.
Marinate for as long as you’d like; I let mine sit an hour-and-a-half. I’m sure overnight would be excellent.

After you’re done letting it sit, it’s time to get the pressure cooker out.

Melt a stick of butter in the bottom of your pressure cooker (I did this on high).
Throw in the pork butt and brown both sides.
While you’re waiting for the browning to finish, chop up some onions and mince some garlic. Throw them in.
Once the pork butt is browned, take the cooker off the heat and fill it with water. You’ll want to fill it approximately an inch or so above the pork butt (at the minimum, enough to cover the meat completely).
Throw in one or two chicken bouillon cubes.
Put the pressure cooker back on the stove, close it up, and leave it on high.
Set a timer for 45 – 60 minutes (I guessed).
Once the cooker starts to dance, bring the heat down to medium-high.
Wait until the timer is up.
Take the cooker off the stove, set it in the sink. Slowly release steam, then start running cold water over the pot until you’re able to open it.
Take the meat out; cut it in the center (or wherever the thickest part is) to ensure doneness.
Cut the meat down and shred into a bowl.

I’d also highly recommend saving the stock for…

The Sauces

There were two main sauces I used here. One is a barbecue sauce (I used a Bullseye Kansas City sauce), and the other is a gravy made from the leftover meat stock. Here’s a quick rundown of the gravy:

Strain some of the leftover stock into a pan.
I added some additional salt and seasoning to taste.
Cook it over a medium-high heat.
Put cornstarch and cold water into a bowl/measuring cup (follow the directions on the cornstarch). Slowly mix this in to create the gravy.
Cook and mix to your desired thickness.

Once the gravy was done, I took a half-cup or so and poured it into the meat to make it extra flavorful and juicy.

The Other Stuff

A few extras to bring to the table:

Coleslaw: I love coleslaw on these types of sandwiches (I love it in general, too). It’s excellent as a side, too.
A bun of some sort. We went with a sub-bun-style pretzel roll; it’s a bit thicker, but it was super-soft and went really well with it.

Serve!

This is how I prefer to eat this dish:

Put down your pretzel (or other) bun, split it open.
Add a layer of the pulled pork.
Add a layer of coleslaw.
Top with a line of your barbecue sauce, gravy, or both.
Knife-and-fork it.

Enjoy!

And as a note, as with all of my recipes, this is give or take.

Original Article

Cuban Lime Pork Steak Over Spanish Rice

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 08:00:47 -0500

I posted this to reddit a few weeks ago (and on Facebook a few weeks before that), but I thought that it deserved a spot on here now that I have a food section.

Here’s the recipe (give or take):

The Rice

I followed this for the basis: Mexican Rice @ About.com.

Once I got to the step of putting in the stock and sauce, I added extra vegetables (green pepper, zucchini) and seasoning (taco and Badia). Also, I had to use a lot more oil than they recommended, and it took a lot longer to get the consistency I wanted. Probably about 45 minutes to cook.

The Meat

A healthy layering of salt and pepper on pork steak, followed up with Badia Complete Seasoning (this stuff is amazing, by the way) and lime juice to cover it all. Threw it on the grill for an hour on low heat (I have an infrared grill, which if you don’t have one, cooks meat to absolute perfection).

The Side Vegetable Salsa

Diced onions and tomatoes, with slices of lime, sprinkled with Badia (it’s that good, really), and a bit of extra lime juice.
I cook to taste, so if you want to make this, you’ll have to improvise a bit.

This is by far one of the best meat dishes I’ve made. I’d recommend anyone to try it.

Enjoy!

Original Article

Lights: Purchased!

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:00:56 -0500

As I mentioned earlier this week, I was looking into getting a home-studio strobe-based lighting setup.

After a lot of great feedback at the digital photography school forum, I tweaked my original plan:

The main differences are:

One B800 and one B400 (opposed to two B800s)
Two heavy duty stands instead of the lightweight
One 51” White PLM and a 51” Soft Silver PLM (instead of the larger soft silver)

My main thought on switching to the B400 + B800 setup is that if I ever want to expand, it’d be easy to throw in another B800 or B1600. It also saved me some money to buy the additional umbrella.

I’ll post again once I get them and have had a chance to experiment.

Original Article

My Camera Gear

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:00:31 -0500

I’ve been meaning to put this together for a while: here’s a listing of all of my camera gear. It has everything I currently have and use, with a short review/summary.

Original Article

A Possible Studio Light Setup

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:00:03 -0500

I’ve been looking into getting a small, semi-portable studio setup. Currently, I have a backdrop stand and a Canon Speedlite 430 EX II. However, I would like to take it to the next level.

After posting a question on reddit, searching the Adorama and Calumet photography supply sites, and reading several forums and reviews, including a great article on Strobist, I’ve landed on an AlienBees setup.

Before getting into the proposed setup, I’d like to address a common question I’ve been asked: “what do I want to use these lights for?” I’d like to use them for a small home-studio setup, primarily for portraits; I’d like it somewhat portable, since I don’t have a lot of room in my house (I’d have to accommodate, then teardown), and on occasion I’d like to take the setup elsewhere. Eventually, I’d also like to use them outdoors (using a power-pack or really long extension cord) for outdoor portraits.

So far, I’ve come up with this:

The Lights

Model: AlienBees B800
Quantity: 2
Price: $279.95/each

The Modifiers

Model: Soft Silver PLM™, 64” with 8mm mounting shaft
Quantity: 1
Price: $49.95/each

I decided only one would be necessary at the moment. I’d like to eventually get a softbox, too.

The Stands

Model: 10-foot General Purpose Light Stand
Quantity: 2
Price: $39.95/each

Connectivity

Model: Speedlite Foot Adapter
Quantity: 1
Price: $15.95/each

From my understanding, I should be able to use my speedlite with this adapter, and use the other AlienBees strobe via the optical trigger.

The Grand Total

The total for all of these:

Order Subtotal: $705.70
Order Discount (for purchasing two flash-units): -$14.58
Shipping: $34.25
—
Grand Total:$725.37

Thoughts/Suggestions/Opinions

Before I make this large of a purchase, I would love some feedback. Please feel free to leave a comment, or contact me directly.

Original Article

So Long, 2011

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 12:00:04 -0500

Overall, 2011 was a great year. Normally, I’d take this opportunity to reflect on all of the things that have happened over the year, but it’s our biggest event that stands over everything else: the birth of of our son.

That event started one of the best chapters in our life: parenthood. Joy and I have had a lot of fun, and some struggles, learning the ins-and-outs of parenthood. We would never change any of it for the world, and only look forward to continuing the growth of our family.

Here’s to 2012 and the many years to come.

Original Article