Author: Ken Steinhoff

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Debugging my Computer

I have four monitors attached to my computer. The center one is my primary. The left one is secondary, usually with a browser open in it. The right one displays my security cameras, and the fourth, which is somewhat unreliable, stays dark unless I want to display radar data when it’s stormy,

My computer workstation

Computer monitors 12-07-2025

I was concentrating on the center screen while I was editing a bunch of photos. From time to time, I’d glance at the webcam screen to see what was going on around the house.

When I shifted my gaze to the left screen, I saw that my monitor was infected with a bug. A stink bug, no less.

Despite all of the warnings, I quickly dispatched it with a tissue. I gave him a squeeze, but must not have triggered his stink.

First seen in Pennsylvania

The bugs came from Asia, and were first reported in Pennsylvania in the late 1990s, although I’m sure I remember them from when I was a kid. 

They must be hiding from the cold because I spotted three more in various places in the house.

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Shredding – My Guilty Pleasure

It doesn’t take much to amuse me. I bought a shredder to take care of confidential financial documents plus the occasional credit card and even CD. 

I realized that it didn’t really get much use in the basement, so I moved it under the kitchen table where I take a guilty pleasure watching junk mail disappear into its maw, leaving nothing but tiny strips of paper.

Wife Lila the bank teller

Wife Lila took a job as teller at the Hocking Valley bank when we were living in Athens, Ohio. She turned out to be good at it and enjoyed helping her customers. 

Miss Miller was one of her favorites – a tiny little woman who would show up to withdraw a buck or two at a time. She came in all excited to say that she was getting married. Her tip turned into a nice picture package in The Athens Messenger. (Click on the image to make it larger.)

When I went out to visit the newlyweds, I paused on the porch of a battered two-story frame house that had clearly seen better days when I heard a loud THUMP, THUMP THUMP, BANG, and an old tire went rolling out the front door.

Miss Miller was cleaning house.

Getting back to shredders

One nice thing about being a bank teller is that it was never hard for her to find a new job. When we moved to Gastonia, N.C., she hired on at the Carolina State Bank just as it was moving into new facilities.

Spencer, one of her bosses, was a nice guy, but it was good that the bank was housed in a one-story building because I’m not sure his elevator would reach a higher floor.

Right after a huge shredder was uncrated, Spence said, “Let’s see if this thing works.” while plugging it into the wall outlet.

It worked. Unfortunately, the first thing it ate was the instruction manual that had been sitting in the tray.

Lila the Head Teller

Once it became clear that Lila was the one other tellers turned to when they were out of balance, she was promoted to head teller at the Flagship Bank next to the paper. (The bank has since changed its name six or eight times, and the building is buried under The Post’s four-story building.)

She particularly liked working in the drive-in windows. She was probably holding the drawer open for me to insert two forms of ID before cashing my check.

She didn’t play favorites, although she said there was a particular bald-headed fireman who would get her weak in the knees.

That might have been about the time I ditched the combover and went fully chrome on top.

 

 

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Always Check the Rearview Mirror

When I hit Route Z west of Gordonville after visiting in-laws John and Dee Perry, I saw a huge, orange orb getting ready to drop below the horizon. There wasn’t a good place to stop, so I wrote it off.

Instead of turning left onto 25 to go to Cape, though, I went right to see what was happening in Dutchtown. The sun was gone, but I pulled off on a levee road just south of the Diversion Channel when I saw the sky still had some color. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

The water in the foreground is what I thought Dad would call a Bar Pit. It wasn’t until many years later that I learned that it was a BORROW pit, a hole created when dirt was removed to make fills somewhere else.

Other kids counted cows and out-of-state license tags on road trips. Dad had us boys call out “Cut” or “Fill” to identify where the topography had been altered to reduce the road grades between hills and valleys.

Plowed the same ground in 2014

Interestingly enough, I had pulled off in the same place in 2014 (with far more dramatic results).

Super Moon

When I looked into the rearview mirror to back out of the levee road, this guy popped up.

I had learned years ago that it was a waste of time to chase the moon because it would always move faster than you can. This fits into my motto, “Shoot it when you see it before all the magic leaks out.”

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I Used to Rue Roux

The first time I attempted Cajun cooking, Wife Lila said, “Oh, you had to make roux. That’s not always easy.”

Ignorance is bliss. I didn’t know it was hard to make until she told me. That intimidated me after that.

I had a craving the other night and found I had most of the makin’s in the cupboard: sausage, chicken thighs, shrimp, okra, potatoes, carrots, the holy trinity of onions, peppers and celery, plus various spices.

Almost all of the recipes I read started off with “make roux” from butter or oil and flour. They called for whisking the mixture for nearly an hour in some cases. 

Easy dry roux

Then, I found one that let you create dry roux mix that could be stored for future use. It called for a pound of sifted flour poured into a 9×13 baking pan and put in the oven for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.

After the 20 minutes were up, you stirred the mixture, resifted it and put it back into the 400-degree oven for another 20 minutes. It was starting to get a rich, brown color.

One more sifting, and baking, and the roux-to-be had a nice caramel color. I put half a cup of this in my instant pot along with half a cup of oil. It turned a beautiful brown.

The process wasn’t much shorter than doing it the normal way, but it meant that I could be prepping the other ingredients without being a slave to whisking the roux.

Blackstone to the rescue

I had already sautéed my onions, peppers, celery, and garlic, and browned the sausage and thighs on my Blackstone griddle. The 36-inch surface gave me lots of real estate to be able to spread the stuff out. I started with the veggies, then moved them over to a cooler zone while I did the meats.

I put that mix in the Instant Pot with the roux, poured in four cups of chicken broth, some spices, a box of Zatarain gumbo mix (mostly for the rice), and some microwaved baby potatoes. After giving that a good stir, I put a layer of shrimp and frozen okra on top.

I switched the IP to pressure cooking for seven minutes, with a 12-minute natural release after that. I had planned to add fresh mushrooms, but my six-quart pot was already above the max fill line, so I left them out.

It tasted good, and I have enough of the dry roux in a jar so I can duplicate the dish with minimal hassle in the future. 

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