I am an avid coffee drinker (see description about college student somewhere else on site) and thought it would be cool to write about how I make my perfect cup of coffee. I would have to say that I am becoming (or already am) a coffee snob. In terms of my coffee knowledge and the fineness of my palette I would place myself in the novice to intermediate category. I love coffee! It is the only thing at 2 am that will do the job right so I can finish studying, then get up at 6 am and drink another cup in the morning to go to school for that test or project. It is also the ultimate relaxing drink for me. I just love to have a nice cup of coffee.

There is one thing about drinking coffee that is extremely important to note. The quality of how good the coffee tastes is completely dependent upon a person’s preferences. For a long time I wanted to be the best at identifying good coffee, which made me focus on other people’s perceptions of what made coffee great. I started to realize that it didn’t really matter what anyone else said about the perfect cup of coffee; the only thing that mattered was how my taste buds liked the coffee. So, I may cringe at the thought of drinking a cup of instant Folgers, but someone else has a paradise in it. This is extremely important to remember when developing a coffee palette. Now, of course one can train their taste buds to upgrade from instant Folgers and taste the real liquid goodness, but I understand.

With that said, on to how I make my perfect cup of coffee.

Important things you must have to create my perfect cup of coffee:

1. Beans: must be whole bean and ground shortly before you brew your coffee. I usually go with a straight version, of which my favorite types are Guatemala, Sumatra, and Tanzanian Pea Berry. Also, I like my beans a little bit more darkly roasted, but I have still yet to test out the full palette. I go to a roaster that does a great job. Here is a plug for her: Moon’s Coffee and Tea http://www.thuntek.net/coffeemoons/moonsite.html. She roasts her beans on the Vienna to Full French Roast style. If you don’t know what that means, maybe I should create a post about the roasting levels. I do believe at a certain point beans can be roasted too far and lose the flavor of the regional components of the coffee. So, I like the darker roasts, but also enjoy the lighter ones for different reasons. Audrey likes the darkly roasted ones! (Audrey to chime in here: she particularly likes Tanzanian Peaberry, but any coffee that can “put hair on your chest” is good.)
2. Beans should also be of the pure variety, meaning freshly roasted. The beans should be no older than 2-3 weeks. (I do drink coffee from older beans, but these beans will create a lesser coffee.) If you buy beans at a grocery store, they might not be as fresh.
3. A good burr grinder: I have a Capresso medium quality grinder. You must have a burr grinder to produce evenly ground beans!
4. French press: I use an 8 cup Bodum.
5. Purified Water.

To make the perfect cup (standard 16oz-ish mug of coffee):

1. Boil the water: I have an electric water kettle dealio that does a great job.
2. As the water is boiling put about 3 scoops (from a 6oz scooper) of whole beans into the coffee grinder.
   1. Note: I use less than the standard “Starbucks” amount because I like to taste the flavors in my coffee when its done. Now, some people like the hard Starbucks style, go ahead, but I like to drink my coffee black allowing me to sample the full flavor palette of the coffee. If the coffee is too bitter to drink black, it becomes freakin’ gross, and I don’t know if I have ever enjoyed a cup of black Starbucks coffee. I always end up needing cream and sugar to make it taste okay.
      
3. Grind the beans at the coarsest grind possible. You do this because the coarser the beans are the less particles you get in your beverage at the end, and because the beans are soaking in the water getting more flavor out of the beans than a standard drip coffee maker.
4. Once the water is boiling: pour the ground beans into the french press.
5. Pour the water into the french press. There is an art to this as well, and some people pour better than others. I don’t know what causes the goodness or the badness so I won’t comment on the perfect way to pour. Fill it up half way if you are using the 8 cup Bodum. This makes about 4 standard cups.
6. Start a timer for 4 minutes and 33 seconds.
7. When timer is done SLOWLY press down the plunger on the french press.
8. Pour into your favorite mug (the coolness of the mug can make a difference if it is your comfort drink) and enjoy!

There you have my way of creating the best cup of coffee. I’m sure there are over a billion ways to achieve this, but hopefully this will help you on your coffee journey.

Let me know how you make your perfect cup in the comments.

–nathan

I have had almost 10 days with my beloved Blackberry and I thought it would be a good idea to cover some of the stuff I’ve learned.

The first thing is that I love this thing. It is currently revolutionising my life. I am an avid reader of Life Hacker, and am all about the getting things done (gtd) lifestyle. I myself am preparing to embark on the crazy journey of being a grad student, which emphasises getting things done on time. The problem with life is that there is always so much to do.

In general I have a lot of trouble tracking my tasks because of a few problems (pre-bberry of course).

1. I don’t always have my pen and paper/organizer with me
2. Writing things down isn’t the only aspect to gtd, after you write it down you have to continually look at the list of tasks and prioritise the list so that you are doing the right thing at any given moment
3. I use several different methods to track gtd life: google calendar, remember the milk, filofax planner, and pieces of paper all over the place. There has been no way to centralise my gtd life tracking
4. There are so many things to get done I never have all the information in one space, so how do I know about that meeting in 15 mins if I didn’t make sure to see it somewhere else

In the past I have pretty much just written some stuff down and remembered what I could. The process was not streamlined at all. The reason why I say this is because the bberry answers all these problems. It does this in sevearl ways, but the primary function is that it allows me to centralize my gtd life. I have on my bberry my list of contacts, calendar, chat clients, internet radio, web browser, task list organizer, and several other things. The centralization of these aspects of my life are leveraged by the fact that the bberry is always with me. So when I’m sitting at school doing some research and I remember that thing that someone asked me to do I can add it into the bberry, give it a due date and priority and see it get into my list of things to do. This has streamlined my gtd process so much.

This leads into the fact that the bberry plugs into google extremely easily. I have my bberry calendar and addresses automatically synced from my google account as soon as there are updates. This allows me to input information into other devices like a desktop in google calendar and know that it will be on my bberry with not work done by me. In addition to google I have Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook applications installed that allow me to easily update each of the sites from my phone, and in the case of Facebook I get updates on my phone whenever I’m contacted by other people.

All of this connectivity has helped my life so much, but there is also a negative to this. When you get information as it is happening you have to learn how to ignore some of it. I am currently learning this process.

List of Basic Useful Applications I’m using now:

• Gtalk
• Gmail
• Facebook
• Slacker Radio
• Opera
• Flickr
• GoogleSync

This list will surely grow as I get more connected and learn how to work this process much more cleanly, but for now it has been an amazing upgrade to my gtd life.

Next steps: learn the shortcuts for the applications on the bberry so I can be faster! Check this out: http://www.bankersball.com/images/Blackberry-Shortcuts.pdf

–nathan

Hello Everyone

Audrey and I are friends with a couple, Chuck and Jenny, that have been entered into a contest by a photographer friend. The contest “Name Your Dream Assignment” for photographers is described as follows:

What is Name Your Dream Assignment?

Name Your Dream Assignment is a contest for photographers of all backgrounds. We’re looking for the most creative, inspiring photo shoot idea out there. The photographer with the winning idea will win $50,000 to bring his or her dream assignment to life.

How will the entries be judged?

From March 3 to April 3, 2009, the ideas will be open to a public vote. The Top 20 ideas with the most “pics” coming out of the vote will then be judged by an expert panel, who will select the winner based on the originality and creativity of the photographer’s idea. The panel will also take into consideration skill and experience.

The dream described by the friend:

Adoption Journey

I’d love to fly to China with my best friend to document the adoption of her baby girl!

My closest friend since high school is adopting a baby from China. I’d love to go with her to document her story, and the process of bringing her new daughter home, as well as the stories of those around her on her journey!!

To vote:

1. Go to http://www.nameyourdreamassignment.com/the-ideas/ellenbensonphoto/adoption-journey/
2. Click “pic it” button as seen in the image:
3. This will direct you to a registration screen
4. Enter you registration information
5. Open the confirmation email
6. Click on the link in the email
7. Go back to the website and clikc “pic it” again
8. Your vote has now been saved.

This has been a tough long process for Chuck and Jenny and it would be a tremendous blessing to see them win, or at least get into the top 20 for further consideration. The voting ends April 3, so please, if you can, go vote for them.

-nathan

Intro

Okay, so this is one of my first meaningful blogging attempts. Well of course the initial HelloWorld post is vital and essential. On to life though. If you didn’t know I’m going to pursue a PhD in computer science starting this fall. At the moment, I am attempting to figure out where I will pursue said degree. The potential candidates are Princeton and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). This blog entry documents my recruiting trip to UIUC.

My website was down during the trip, so I didn’t get to blog while we were there, but I did copy some notes down. Overall it was an amazing trip. I really wanted to capture my feelings as we were on the trip because post trip analysis can easily change perceptions. Nevertheless here is an attempt at my day by day journey through the UIUC Computer Science visit weekend.

Thursday

Tonight was our first night at UIUC . I can say that it turned out to be a big time “WOW!”. Right now it seems as though this will be an extremely hard decision on where to go to grad school. I’m just praying, and believing that the Lord will reveal to both Audrey and I where His purposes lie.

Siebel Center! Man this place is HUGE!

So, UIUC is an amazing school. The Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science (right) is an immaculate building. It was pretty amazing, Okay more than just pretty, I couldn’t imagine getting to work in such a cool building. We started the night by meeting our graduate student guide for the weekend. He walked us from the hotel to the Siebel Center. The first hing I saw upon entering the building was a cool little coffee shop like you would expect to see an airport terminal. A coffee shop in the CS department building?! Next we (audrey and I of course) passed by a wall of huge TV screens and my name was on one of the TVs. It displayed a special welcome to me (my name on the screen). These guys know how to recruit. It was amazing.

The night went on, and I had several awesome conversations and went away with a great overall feeling. Audrey was included in the event as well by the UIUC staff. They had a name tag prepared for her, and she had several conversations with the locals. The people were so nice. They asked her what she was interested in, and she told them she would like to get a master’s degree in English, then they asked her if she would like them to call the English department and set up a meeting for her tomorrow. Wow! Not only did they make me feel like I was wanted, but also helped my wife feel wanted too. These people understand the importance of the wifey!

Of course this is a recruiting trip so it must be kept in mind that all this coolness could potentially be a show, but when discussing the evening with Audrey we both agreed that there was complete genuineness from our hosts. There is definitely a peace here.

I am blogging each night so that I can track how I feel during this process. As of tonight good feelings (great!), but we will see how tomorrow goes. The truth is that the Lord has this thing in His hands and it is going to work out no matter which choice we make (Princeton or UIUC).

Friday

Today was intense! For some reason I was sooooo tired. It was jam packed full of meetings with profs, discussion panels, and a good lunch. I met with several potential advisers and they did a great job of hitting interesting points. I realized that I started off asking the wrong questions to the advisers. I had come prepared with several questions that I though were relevant, it turned out that if one had only 15 minutes with a potential adviser the questions should really be focused on research and the types of skills that are expected from the specific adviser. I figured this out and made a lot more progress as the meetings went on.

For dinner we ate at Jim Gould’s Restraunt, which was very good. I had a steak, and Audrey had… I can’t remember. Oh well… The steak was impressive. I have been spoiled a bit by Todd’s Meat, but this wasn’t too shabby at all. The evening was a great success! After dinner we chose to go back to the hotel to get some rest over going on the scavenger hunt.

Tonight an extreme heaviness came over me. I truly don’t know what it was or from where it came, but the God of the universe revealed Himself to me in a mighty way. I praise the Lord for loving me. I praise you Lord. The day was full of questions and laughs and impressive talks, and my wifey finding that UIUC does in fact have the coveted MFA program. I’m going to be patient and see what the Lord opens up! Yay for Daddy!

Saturday

The day started off way toooo early! I didn’t fall asleep until 4 a.m. Got the good regular 3 hours of sleep! Yay for me. The good thing is that the day wasn’t too hard.

Once I got going the day started with a panel discussion with current grad students. Then more meetings with professors. Professor Sanders and I hit is off really well. It may turn out that I do research with him. We have similar personalities and approaches to research (this is a somewhat faulty statement because I don’t really know what my approach to research is yet… lol). We will see how it plays out. After a few more meetings Audrey and I said goodbye to the school and headed back to good ol’ abq!

Post Analysis

So as we got home we realized that Illinois is an amazing place, and that there really is not one negative about it. It will be really hard to say no to UIUC. The greatest positive about UIUC is the breadth. It is a place that allows students to do so many different types of research, and find suitable advisers. It’s interesting that until I visited I had no idea how elite and amazing UIUC is, and now I have such high esteem for the department. I realized how you really don’t know, or rather can’t say with any certainty how good/bad a place is until you have really experienced it. I beleive that UIUC is most definitely one the elite schools in Computer Science. I’m extremely glad I visited and will have more to talk about soon.

I hope you all enjoy the following pictures from the trip.

[flickrset id="72157614856751462" thumbnail="square" overlay="true" size="medium"]