Obviously the most important part of breakfast is coffee. I’m partial to espresso, which can be made easily enough in a portable stovetop macchinetta, or moka pot, usually referred to after the most popular brand as a Bialetti. I have three of them. The one thing to know about them is if you overfill the filter with grounds, it will turn out bitter. No, it’s not supposed to be bitter! The other thing to remember is, “boiled coffee is spoiled coffee.”
Coffee labeled as “espresso roast” is basically a marketing tool aimed at stupid people. It just means a dark roast of coffee, in the same sense that espresso brown is a dark brown. There’s no such thing as an espresso bean. Espresso is simply a method of making strong coffee by forcing steam through finely ground coffee beans. Further, dark roast basically means burnt. I prefer medium roast for all my coffee, including espresso.
I went for many years without a coffee grinder. In Portland, I got used to grinding it in the store, but when I left, I found that states in the south and Midwest set their in-store grinders so that even the espresso setting is too coarse of a grind, unless you like weak coffee. I just have the normal old cylindrical-shaped grinder, which works great as long as it’s held and shaken while using. Ground coffee loses its flavor after about a week.
Bottled orange juice has that same bitterness that overripe oranges have. I don’t know how anybody drinks it. If you want orange juice, it is so much better to get oranges and squeeze them instead. Lately, however, I’ve been drinking a fair amount of Spicy V8.
One endearing memory as a kid was being able to pick a grapefruit off the tree in my grandpa’s backyard, cut it up with this bent-tipped, serrated knife and spooning it out. Some people poured sugar on top, but I’ve always preferred things on the sour, tangy side. Grapefruit is as under-rated as a breakfast food as it is over-rated as a cocktail ingredient. It certainly beats the shorts off of all those suger-laden cereals out there. Growing up, my favorite cereal was microwaved Grape-Nuts. I must have been one weird kid. That stuff is disgusting. Today, my favorite breakfast includes bread and runny eggs.
Some people don’t like runny yolks. I can empathize; it is kind of a weird taste. One prop for yolks is that it’s the best source of vitamin D besides the sun. If you insist on scrambling them, you need to beat them with a splash of milk or cream to make them nice and fluffy. I don’t drink milk, but I sometimes purchase heavy cream, and it seems to work better than milk for anything I’d be using it for.
Make sure when purchasing eggs, they are AA Grade (so the yolks are firm) and cage-free (so you can retain some grasp on humanity).
I’ve always been a big fan off Eggs Florentine. It’s like Eggs Benedict except uses spinach instead of bacon. My all-time favorite place to get this was a little breakfast joint near the Berkeley/San Pablo border in the East Bay. The problem with this as a staple for breakfast, besides the fact that it’s pretty rich, is that Hollandaise sauce is a pain to make.
Poached eggs, the other main ingredient in the dish, are NOT difficult, and yet I’ve been so frustrated by them being ruined at restaurant after restaurant that I now kindly inform the server beforehand that if the yolks aren’t runny I will be returning them. Blame it on The Last Detail (1973). Here’s how to poach an egg: fill a saucepan with about 3-4 inches of water, a pinch of salt and a healthy splash of white wine vinegar. Bring to boil and then reduce to just under and keep it there. Don’t break the egg directly into the water. Instead, drop it into a little bowl, glass or coffee mug first (I'll admit, I use an old-fashioned glass). That way, when you add it to the water, instead of a stringy mess all over the place, the albumen will be surrounding the yolk. While cooking, some white frothy-looking stuff might float to the top. If there’s too much, that probably means you didn’t add enough vinegar, but you’ll want to scoop it out before it encourages the water to return to a hard boil. There should be some bubbling and movement going on in the pan. If you’re eggs are just sunk to the bottom of it, turn up the heat! After 3 minutes, the egg will be ready to retrieve with a slotted spoon. Remove excess water before plating. I usually cook two at a time.
The dish I more often make with poached eggs is Huevos Rancheros. Warm a corn tortilla to place under the poached egg, cover the egg with cheddar cheese if you want and top with a sauté of onion, jalapeno, tomato, cilantro (unless you have that genetic trait that makes it taste like soap) and seasonings; in other words, pretty much the same as pico de gallo but not raw. Add avocado slices on top.
Sometimes I’m too lazy for any sautéing. In that case, I’ll just throw some Chulula on the egg. My explanation to restaurant servers who don’t know is that it’s like Tabasco only way better. Tabasco as is far too vinegary. I’ll also settle for Tapatio or Tamazula. If I’m in Portland, I’ll likely use Secret Aardvark sauce instead. I’m not picky. Paprika is also tasty on poached eggs.
Rachel and I went on a breakfast date every Saturday morning for the two years we dated. This experience taught me that there are few to no good breakfast joints in Portland. We returned most to Paradox Café, across from the Tao of Tea (highly recommended) on Belmont.
My favorite breakfast during that time, however, was enjoyed at what I assume, by the fact that they were using writing that looked like what I’ve seen in Ingmar Bergman movies, was a Swedish place. It existed for a very brief time circa 2006 on Clinton St., on that block near 16th where that row of shops are, but it had already closed by the time I tried to visit a second time. Portland sucks like that.
At that restaurant, I ordered something I’d never had before- a soft boiled egg. I did understand the premise, however, which was more than could be said of the table next to us that ordered the same thing then complained that the yolk was runny.
There’s not much difference between a soft-boiled egg and a poached egg, except you can eat the soft-boiled egg right out of the shell. Here’s how it’s done: bring 3-4 inches of water to a boil, then reduce the same as when making a poached egg. Gently place the entire egg into the water with a slotted spoon and set a timer for 5 minutes. If the egg floats, that means it is rotten; throw it out and try again. While in the water, there should be some bubbles coming to the surface from under the egg. Every stove is a little different, so there’s a learning curve of where the dial should be whenever using an unfamiliar one. A smaller egg will cook faster than a bigger one, but between 4 ½ and 5 minutes is the typical time it takes to get the white hard while keeping the yolk runny. Scoop the egg out of the water, set it in a wide-rimmed shot glass (or egg cup if you have one), cross your fingers and slice the top off with a butter knife.
At that restaurant, the soft-boiled egg was served with bread slices, a cheese similar to fontina and a soft block that I didn’t immediately realize wasn’t a soft cheese but butter. Butter is delicious! Especially when it’s room temperature. I use a lot of butter, and have seldom had a problem with a stick of butter in a butter dish on a counter going bad. If it does go bad, it turns dark yellow and slimy. I tend to want things in their most unadulterated form, so that it gives me the most flexibility and control over preparation. For that reason, I prefer unsalted butter. I already own both fine and coarse varieties of sea salt, so I can add it if desired. (Following the same logic, I also insist on peanut butter without added sugar and unflavored tortilla chips.)
I also prefer well-buttered bread to toast, unless I’m for some reason forced to eat that unnaturally square-shaped mushy stuff. It saddens me to see anybody shopping in the mushy bread aisle of a grocery store. Either find a decent bakery or learn how to make bread. My breads of choice are rye and pumpernickel with the occasional sourdough.
Some morning, while eating my poached egg with buttered bread and salted avocado slices on the side, I should take a picture. But there's not much time to waste before piling the egg and avocado on the bread and consuming it- cold soft-boiled eggs are disgusting.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Top 10 of 2011
(in somewhat chronological order):
1. Spending day alone in Coralville
2. Buying bird cage w/ Kate & Jason
3. Losing board games at Chant & Risa’s
4. Getting new truck on last day of crappy job
5. Watching Barca beat ManU at The Londoner
6. Carolyn! (Better than the other nine combined)
7. Tats w/ Josh Fields
8. Disc golf at Wildcat Bluff
9. Time spent w/ Bryan & Danny
10. Cioppino at Moss Landing
Most unbelievable event:
World Series Game 6
Low points:
1. Barca losing Copa Del Rey to Real Madrid
2. Buster Posey getting injured
A lot of other great memories come to mind, but I'm trying to be summary.
1. Spending day alone in Coralville
2. Buying bird cage w/ Kate & Jason
3. Losing board games at Chant & Risa’s
4. Getting new truck on last day of crappy job
5. Watching Barca beat ManU at The Londoner
6. Carolyn! (Better than the other nine combined)
7. Tats w/ Josh Fields
8. Disc golf at Wildcat Bluff
9. Time spent w/ Bryan & Danny
10. Cioppino at Moss Landing
Most unbelievable event:
World Series Game 6
Low points:
1. Barca losing Copa Del Rey to Real Madrid
2. Buster Posey getting injured
A lot of other great memories come to mind, but I'm trying to be summary.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Disc Golf Review, Part 3: Disc Dyeing
The first disc I bought on the internet was a DGA Rogue in clear sparkle plastic. It didn’t take long to realize I had made a flawed decision- the thing was so hard to find I quickly became gun-shy about throwing it. I replaced it with a bright pink Discraft Surge that I lost soon after in a blackberry thicket. Such is life.
I intended to continue to avoid clear plastics, but when I wanted to buy a Latitude 64 disc I could only find clear ones in the weights I wanted. I perused the Latitude 64 thread on the forum at www.discgolfreview.com (DGR) to see if this had been addressed. It had; the recommended solution was to simply dye the disc another color yourself.
One of the topics on the DGR forum is Disc Artwork. I don’t consider myself much of an artist, but I figured I’d peruse it to learn enough to make clear discs visible. The post entitled ACID’S DYE TUTORIAL is very useful. Turns out, all you have to do is dilute powdered RIT with water, slightly heat it in an old skillet that you never intend on cooking with again, float the disc on top until it’s the desired darkness and quickly rinse with cold water. My girlfriend gave me a packet of navy Blue RIT dye. I also asked her if she knew what contact paper was, and she reached into a closet and produced a roll.
I figured I might as well put a design on the disc, so while the diluted dye was warming, I cut a few random stripes out of the contact paper and stuck them to the disc, which reminded me of clouds, so I developed them into a scene of sky and water with a ship in the distance. Although it ended up more purple than blue, I thought it turned out pretty good:
(The double-image effect was caused by the shadow cast on the countertop it was sitting on when I took the photo.)
I have since dyed dozens of discs. It is very satisfying to personalize your discs, and not unlike giving them tattoos. When I dyed the San Francisco logo on an orange Z Avenger, I realized the disc became immediately more visible for the same reason why, in a crowd of people, a person displaying a shirt referencing your favorite team, hometown, etc. will stand out. Our eyes are wired to latch onto symbols with meaning.
A limitation on this endeavor is that baseline plastics, such as Innova DX or Pro, don’t hold dye. You can get them to change color, but I’ve not been able to get them dark or vibrant and subtle lines won’t work. The most serendipitous result of an effort to try to dye a plastic was soaking a Gateway Glow Wizard in black dye and having it come out a glorious bronze:
I dyed a couple other Wizards, and quite enjoy how gnarly the silhouette of Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre came out:
I am also partial to the depiction of Albert Ayler’s “Spiritual Unity” album cover:
The logo stamped on most discs when you purchase them is called a “hot stamp.” This can be blotted off with a cotton ball soaked in acetone, which can be found in the paint aisle of a hardware store. At first, I was using fingernail polish, which is diluted acetone, but it doesn’t work at all and I ended up with scratched up discs from trying to force the stamps off. You want to dab the stamp and not attempt to wipe it off, which will cause it to smear all over the disc. You also want to do this over a sink or something, so you don’t end up dripping acetone and stamp dye everywhere. Discraft’s stamps are imprinted deeper into the plastic than Innova’s, resulting in a permanent indentation even after the ink is removed, called a “ghost stamp.” Scratches and the ghost stamp can be seen on this Discraft Glow Stalker that I put Morpheus from Sandman comics onto:
Sometimes, I decide to leave part of the original logo, and put Scotch tape over the part to remain while using the acetone, but this is an imperfect method as the acetone can actually melt off the tape. Here’s one of my favorite discs, where I left “Teebird,” because for some reason seahorse-teebird is funny to me:
Designs are made by covering what you don’t want dyed with contact paper, which is thin vinyl with a sticky-side. It is mostly used on the inside of kitchen and bathroom drawers. In many stores, it is in the same aisle as large plastic storage bins. I recommend the clear kind, as you can see what’s going on underneath it during the process.
Upon removing the contact paper, some residual stickiness is often left behind that is difficult to remove. I’ve tried dish soap, Goo-Gone and WD-40, but have yet to find a solution better than time and obsessive thumb-rubbing.
When starting a new project, the first thing you need to do is decide whether you want the image itself or the remainder of the top of the disc to remain uncolored. It seems obvious, but I’ve messed up and pulled off the wrong half of the vinyl more than once, and now sharpie “keep” on whatever I don’t want dyed. If you want the image dyed, you will need to cover the entire face and wing of the disc with contact paper.
Next, put the design under the contact paper and trace it using sharpies. I use a fat one to fill in large areas to be cut out and a fine one for lines. I found an old light table that is very useful for this task. If more than one color or shade is going to be dyed into the disc, I note this with sharpie, because otherwise I tend to forget what I’m doing later. You are always going to want to dye the darkest color first, especially outlines. Here’s a somewhat complicated design, FC Barcelona’s logo, drawn and labeled:
There is a machine called a plotter that can cut out designs in contact paper, but I’ve never used one. I’ve always cut out the design using a regular X-acto knife, but my girlfriend got me a 360º swivel blade X-acto for Christmas, and I look forward to using it as it should make my life easier, especially when cutting acute curves. It’s sort of like carving a pumpkin, but more delicate: imagine creating shapes by carving only the peel off an apple. The most difficult shape I’ve cut out so far, which I didn’t anticipate, was a Klingon logo. I made the thin black lines by holding two blades together (the disc was originally red), but there’s surely a better method!
According to the rules established by the DGA, it is legal to infuse ink into the disc but illegal to alter a disc in any way using any cutting tool. This means you are technically supposed to cut out the design before sticking the contact paper to the disc. This severely limits the type of designs that can be done, or at least increases the labor involved, requiring any isolated shapes to be individually placed. The vinyl is very thin, and you don’t want to press very hard at all while cutting it, but it is impossible to not make minor scrapes into the disc. If you want to use a disc you’ve cut a design into in a tournament, you have to lie and say you cut it out before you stuck it to the disc.
Every little knife slip will be revealed by the dye. You can fix most mistakes by taping Scotch tape over them. The hardest mistake to fix is moving an edge slightly inward after removing the vinyl. You have to hold the disc at just the right angle under a desk lamp to see the cuts you’ve made, and Scotch tape adds glare and makes this task more difficult. For this reason, you want to lift your blade as infrequently as possible. Unfortunately, you have to lift the non-swiveling X-acto to make sharp turns, as doing otherwise will gouge into the disc. Also, if you slip and cut into vinyl not to be removed, lift the blade and tape over it immediately, and then continue by cutting from the opposite direction so the blade doesn’t follow the same groove.
I remove each section of vinyl using tweezers as soon as I get it cut, assuming of course that section is to be the first if a series of dyeing is to be done. Because the cut lines are so difficult to see, it is easy to forget to remove stuff that’s supposed to be removed. While removing, pull against any portions where edges meet to avoid lifting or ripping the vinyl. This is where bleed it most likely to occur. Double-check that every piece of vinyl has been removed, as sometimes the vinyl tears and leaves behind an unintended portion. I’ve also had removed pieces find their way stuck in some random location back onto the disc instead of in the trash. Here’s the Barca logo disc with the first portion to be dyed removed:
I mix powdered RIT in a glass Ball jar with water so that I can see the color. I made an early mistake of putting the lid on and shaking the mixture, which caused it to froth, and then I had a whole bunch of bubbles to get rid of before I could put the disc into it. I now stir it with a plastic knife. You can store the mixture into the jar after use, however, and it can be re-used indefinitely.
You don’t want the dye to get too hot before floating your disc onto it, as doing so will cause the contact paper to loosen at the edges allowing bleed will occur. I heat the mixture on low for several minutes (if it starts smoking, it’s too hot) then turn off the burner completely before sliding the disc in at a slight angle to provide an exit for any air bubbles, which will create little circles in the finished product. After letting it soak for 5 minutes, I quickly lift to check for loose contact paper, bleed, air bubbles and that the temperature is correct. An annoying problem with ghost stamps to look for is they can create a channel in which the dye can seep under the contact paper.
If there is bleed or lifting at this point the best solution is to abort the process by rinsing and letting the disc and contact paper cool and dry. Then, squirt Elmer’s school glue under the contact paper in the problem area, wipe off the excess and let it dry overnight before trying again. While putting the FC Barcelona logo on a Discraft Glow Buzzz, the dye bled into the ghost stamp where the bee was on the original design, which I was too lazy to fix until I’d dyed the outline for 20 minutes. Solid black usually takes 30 minutes. In this case, I tried to take advantage of the fact that the black was looking blue in its early stages and removed the section covering what are supposed to be blue stripes and did ten more minutes in black:
I have done several experiments taking advantage of using the same dye but removing portions of the vinyl at different times to create various shades. Again, I number the order in which each area is to be removed to avoid confusion during the process. The color of the disc in progress is hard to judge, because the vinyl covering darkens as well. Upon removing the vinyl at the end, the dyes tend to be darker than you thought. The color spread, from lightest to darkest, is typically 3 to 30 minutes, and you need to anticipate that the first colors in will continue to get darker during the process. I rinse the discs and reheat the dye while removing each level of contact paper. Here are some results:
Doing an outline in black and then removing the vinyl it is surrounding and filling it in with another color looks very nice. Comic books provide a great resource for utilizing this technique, as it is not dissimilar to the process they use of having one person ink and another fill in the color. You can actually make a thin outline simply by dyeing it after cutting but before removing any vinyl, but thicker, bolder outlines look better. Here’s the X-Men character Beast on a disc called Beast:
This is a perfect example of how hard it is to keep track of what stays and what gets removed. There is a glaring gaffe that probably most wouldn’t notice until pointed out. It’s supposed to look like this:
On the Barca logo disc, I could tell right away the stripes were not the color I'd wanted, being more purple than blue, but I worried about them getting black if I left it in too long. This was my first attempt at adding three different dye colors. I glued the vinyl back onto the blue stripes (I had simply saved the sections after removing them) and removed the sections to be dyed red:
For some strange reason, I decided to remove the covers I’d put back on the blue stripes before doing the yellow:
This did not help them look less purple. The most frustrating part, to me, is that upon cleaning the disc I discovered that the bleed from the beginning was exactly the blue I had wanted the stripes to be!
I’m realizing, especially given my level of talent, with disc art it’s prudent to incorporate the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle. Speaking of which, this is more than enough disc golf discussion for awhile….
I intended to continue to avoid clear plastics, but when I wanted to buy a Latitude 64 disc I could only find clear ones in the weights I wanted. I perused the Latitude 64 thread on the forum at www.discgolfreview.com (DGR) to see if this had been addressed. It had; the recommended solution was to simply dye the disc another color yourself.
One of the topics on the DGR forum is Disc Artwork. I don’t consider myself much of an artist, but I figured I’d peruse it to learn enough to make clear discs visible. The post entitled ACID’S DYE TUTORIAL is very useful. Turns out, all you have to do is dilute powdered RIT with water, slightly heat it in an old skillet that you never intend on cooking with again, float the disc on top until it’s the desired darkness and quickly rinse with cold water. My girlfriend gave me a packet of navy Blue RIT dye. I also asked her if she knew what contact paper was, and she reached into a closet and produced a roll.
I figured I might as well put a design on the disc, so while the diluted dye was warming, I cut a few random stripes out of the contact paper and stuck them to the disc, which reminded me of clouds, so I developed them into a scene of sky and water with a ship in the distance. Although it ended up more purple than blue, I thought it turned out pretty good:
(The double-image effect was caused by the shadow cast on the countertop it was sitting on when I took the photo.)
I have since dyed dozens of discs. It is very satisfying to personalize your discs, and not unlike giving them tattoos. When I dyed the San Francisco logo on an orange Z Avenger, I realized the disc became immediately more visible for the same reason why, in a crowd of people, a person displaying a shirt referencing your favorite team, hometown, etc. will stand out. Our eyes are wired to latch onto symbols with meaning.
A limitation on this endeavor is that baseline plastics, such as Innova DX or Pro, don’t hold dye. You can get them to change color, but I’ve not been able to get them dark or vibrant and subtle lines won’t work. The most serendipitous result of an effort to try to dye a plastic was soaking a Gateway Glow Wizard in black dye and having it come out a glorious bronze:
I dyed a couple other Wizards, and quite enjoy how gnarly the silhouette of Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre came out:
I am also partial to the depiction of Albert Ayler’s “Spiritual Unity” album cover:
The logo stamped on most discs when you purchase them is called a “hot stamp.” This can be blotted off with a cotton ball soaked in acetone, which can be found in the paint aisle of a hardware store. At first, I was using fingernail polish, which is diluted acetone, but it doesn’t work at all and I ended up with scratched up discs from trying to force the stamps off. You want to dab the stamp and not attempt to wipe it off, which will cause it to smear all over the disc. You also want to do this over a sink or something, so you don’t end up dripping acetone and stamp dye everywhere. Discraft’s stamps are imprinted deeper into the plastic than Innova’s, resulting in a permanent indentation even after the ink is removed, called a “ghost stamp.” Scratches and the ghost stamp can be seen on this Discraft Glow Stalker that I put Morpheus from Sandman comics onto:
Sometimes, I decide to leave part of the original logo, and put Scotch tape over the part to remain while using the acetone, but this is an imperfect method as the acetone can actually melt off the tape. Here’s one of my favorite discs, where I left “Teebird,” because for some reason seahorse-teebird is funny to me:
Designs are made by covering what you don’t want dyed with contact paper, which is thin vinyl with a sticky-side. It is mostly used on the inside of kitchen and bathroom drawers. In many stores, it is in the same aisle as large plastic storage bins. I recommend the clear kind, as you can see what’s going on underneath it during the process.
Upon removing the contact paper, some residual stickiness is often left behind that is difficult to remove. I’ve tried dish soap, Goo-Gone and WD-40, but have yet to find a solution better than time and obsessive thumb-rubbing.
When starting a new project, the first thing you need to do is decide whether you want the image itself or the remainder of the top of the disc to remain uncolored. It seems obvious, but I’ve messed up and pulled off the wrong half of the vinyl more than once, and now sharpie “keep” on whatever I don’t want dyed. If you want the image dyed, you will need to cover the entire face and wing of the disc with contact paper.
Next, put the design under the contact paper and trace it using sharpies. I use a fat one to fill in large areas to be cut out and a fine one for lines. I found an old light table that is very useful for this task. If more than one color or shade is going to be dyed into the disc, I note this with sharpie, because otherwise I tend to forget what I’m doing later. You are always going to want to dye the darkest color first, especially outlines. Here’s a somewhat complicated design, FC Barcelona’s logo, drawn and labeled:
There is a machine called a plotter that can cut out designs in contact paper, but I’ve never used one. I’ve always cut out the design using a regular X-acto knife, but my girlfriend got me a 360º swivel blade X-acto for Christmas, and I look forward to using it as it should make my life easier, especially when cutting acute curves. It’s sort of like carving a pumpkin, but more delicate: imagine creating shapes by carving only the peel off an apple. The most difficult shape I’ve cut out so far, which I didn’t anticipate, was a Klingon logo. I made the thin black lines by holding two blades together (the disc was originally red), but there’s surely a better method!
According to the rules established by the DGA, it is legal to infuse ink into the disc but illegal to alter a disc in any way using any cutting tool. This means you are technically supposed to cut out the design before sticking the contact paper to the disc. This severely limits the type of designs that can be done, or at least increases the labor involved, requiring any isolated shapes to be individually placed. The vinyl is very thin, and you don’t want to press very hard at all while cutting it, but it is impossible to not make minor scrapes into the disc. If you want to use a disc you’ve cut a design into in a tournament, you have to lie and say you cut it out before you stuck it to the disc.
Every little knife slip will be revealed by the dye. You can fix most mistakes by taping Scotch tape over them. The hardest mistake to fix is moving an edge slightly inward after removing the vinyl. You have to hold the disc at just the right angle under a desk lamp to see the cuts you’ve made, and Scotch tape adds glare and makes this task more difficult. For this reason, you want to lift your blade as infrequently as possible. Unfortunately, you have to lift the non-swiveling X-acto to make sharp turns, as doing otherwise will gouge into the disc. Also, if you slip and cut into vinyl not to be removed, lift the blade and tape over it immediately, and then continue by cutting from the opposite direction so the blade doesn’t follow the same groove.
I remove each section of vinyl using tweezers as soon as I get it cut, assuming of course that section is to be the first if a series of dyeing is to be done. Because the cut lines are so difficult to see, it is easy to forget to remove stuff that’s supposed to be removed. While removing, pull against any portions where edges meet to avoid lifting or ripping the vinyl. This is where bleed it most likely to occur. Double-check that every piece of vinyl has been removed, as sometimes the vinyl tears and leaves behind an unintended portion. I’ve also had removed pieces find their way stuck in some random location back onto the disc instead of in the trash. Here’s the Barca logo disc with the first portion to be dyed removed:
I mix powdered RIT in a glass Ball jar with water so that I can see the color. I made an early mistake of putting the lid on and shaking the mixture, which caused it to froth, and then I had a whole bunch of bubbles to get rid of before I could put the disc into it. I now stir it with a plastic knife. You can store the mixture into the jar after use, however, and it can be re-used indefinitely.
You don’t want the dye to get too hot before floating your disc onto it, as doing so will cause the contact paper to loosen at the edges allowing bleed will occur. I heat the mixture on low for several minutes (if it starts smoking, it’s too hot) then turn off the burner completely before sliding the disc in at a slight angle to provide an exit for any air bubbles, which will create little circles in the finished product. After letting it soak for 5 minutes, I quickly lift to check for loose contact paper, bleed, air bubbles and that the temperature is correct. An annoying problem with ghost stamps to look for is they can create a channel in which the dye can seep under the contact paper.
If there is bleed or lifting at this point the best solution is to abort the process by rinsing and letting the disc and contact paper cool and dry. Then, squirt Elmer’s school glue under the contact paper in the problem area, wipe off the excess and let it dry overnight before trying again. While putting the FC Barcelona logo on a Discraft Glow Buzzz, the dye bled into the ghost stamp where the bee was on the original design, which I was too lazy to fix until I’d dyed the outline for 20 minutes. Solid black usually takes 30 minutes. In this case, I tried to take advantage of the fact that the black was looking blue in its early stages and removed the section covering what are supposed to be blue stripes and did ten more minutes in black:
I have done several experiments taking advantage of using the same dye but removing portions of the vinyl at different times to create various shades. Again, I number the order in which each area is to be removed to avoid confusion during the process. The color of the disc in progress is hard to judge, because the vinyl covering darkens as well. Upon removing the vinyl at the end, the dyes tend to be darker than you thought. The color spread, from lightest to darkest, is typically 3 to 30 minutes, and you need to anticipate that the first colors in will continue to get darker during the process. I rinse the discs and reheat the dye while removing each level of contact paper. Here are some results:
Doing an outline in black and then removing the vinyl it is surrounding and filling it in with another color looks very nice. Comic books provide a great resource for utilizing this technique, as it is not dissimilar to the process they use of having one person ink and another fill in the color. You can actually make a thin outline simply by dyeing it after cutting but before removing any vinyl, but thicker, bolder outlines look better. Here’s the X-Men character Beast on a disc called Beast:
This is a perfect example of how hard it is to keep track of what stays and what gets removed. There is a glaring gaffe that probably most wouldn’t notice until pointed out. It’s supposed to look like this:
On the Barca logo disc, I could tell right away the stripes were not the color I'd wanted, being more purple than blue, but I worried about them getting black if I left it in too long. This was my first attempt at adding three different dye colors. I glued the vinyl back onto the blue stripes (I had simply saved the sections after removing them) and removed the sections to be dyed red:
For some strange reason, I decided to remove the covers I’d put back on the blue stripes before doing the yellow:
This did not help them look less purple. The most frustrating part, to me, is that upon cleaning the disc I discovered that the bleed from the beginning was exactly the blue I had wanted the stripes to be!
I’m realizing, especially given my level of talent, with disc art it’s prudent to incorporate the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle. Speaking of which, this is more than enough disc golf discussion for awhile….
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Disc Golf Review, Part 2: Technique
Sometime last year, shortly after being shown how to properly grip the disc, I sort of figured out that I could get more distance if I torqued my wrist so that my palm was facing up after the release. Pretty soon, I was throwing the discs so hard and fast that they were turning to the right… or so I thought. I started seeking out more stable discs. While it is true that giving the disc more speed will cause it to lose stability, I wasn’t throwing far enough for that to be the case. My discs were turning because I was giving them OAT (off-axis torque).
I found this out by trolling the forum at discgolfreview.com (DGR). They recommended working out OAT by learning to make your flippiest disc hyzer while throwing it flat. A few days prior, I had wrapped a paper plate in duct tape and thrown it across the room for awhile. It was so unstable, I could whip it across the room spiraling out a counter-clockwise corkscrew. Eventually, my girlfriend got ahold of it and aimed for a plant. Her throw gently hyzered into the pot. This is what I needed to figure out how to do.
Since then, I have graduated to using a large coffee can lid to practice this skill. Besides learning how to refrain from twisting your wrist, a major thing to learn with this exercise is how to reduce wobble, as doing so increases glide, the straightest part of the flight, tremendously. I remember watching my younger sister playing with a toy top as a kid, and she finessed the handle with her little fingers and got the thing to effortlessly spin for a long time. When it finally petered out, I said, “Oh yeah- watch this!” and torqued the top as hard as I could. It flopped around wildly for a few moments and then crashed onto its side.
I had several high speed drivers that all went around the same distance, maxing out at 300 feet. The opinion on the forum was that this was due to reliance on arm strength rather than leg, hip and shoulder whip. This was also extremely familiar. This exact premise is central to a method of drumming called the Moeller technique, which I spent years studying, practicing and teaching. To increase drum speed, you have to learn to relax and whip your limbs instead of counter-productively tensing muscles.
Some of the movements involved in throwing a disc are simply intended to get things in the correct position and alignment to enable maximum efficiency in generating power to the disc, reducing wobble and getting the nose down. As an example- if you pull the disc level across your chest, pointing your elbow at the target, you will not only have the disc aligned to propel it forward instead of up, but also arrive at a position near your right pec where it is actually impossible to use your arm muscles to throw it. This requires you to generate force using your hips, which are much more powerful. The crux of this task is to seamlessly weave these separate tasks into one fluid motion.
I started playing rounds while incorporating various theories and tips found on the “techniques” portion of the disc golf review forum. After about five rounds of this, I had increased my accuracy but my distance was the same. By ten rounds, my distance had potentially increased except the only times I managed to get the nose down were on throws that flew wildly to the right. Halfway through about 15 rounds, after several holes where every throw sailed wildly to the right, I was pretty much relegated to running up and down the concrete pad trying to remember how to let go of the disc.
Back to the drawing board, or in this case, forum. Like most things on the internet, there is more misinformation than anything else on the site. Members give all manner of analogies intended to help visualize the throw of the disc. Some equate it to throwing a hammer or snapping a towel, but I really didn’t find these concepts accurate or helpful. While watching one video, a comparison to dropping the bat head in baseball was made. As an avid baseball fan, I am very familiar with this term.
The plight of former first baseman for the San Francisco Giants J.T. Snow came to mind. He is probably the best fielding first baseman I’ve ever seen, and early in his career he was a decent hitter, too. Then, he lost his hitting mechanics, and the harder he worked at trying to get them back, the worse his hitting became. The Giants used to have a brilliant and knowledgeable hitting coach named Dusty Baker. Unfortunately, he wasn’t their hitting coach but their manager, and he wasn’t as good of a manager. After he left, taking Gene Clines, the Giants’ actual hitting coach, with him, the hitting mechanics of pretty much the entire team fell apart.
While I can’t hit a baseball worth a darn, I have watched enough baseball to knowledgeably critique a swing. It suddenly occurred to me a RHBH disc golf throw is very much like batting lefty. J.T. Snow is a lefty. If a lefty is fouling everything to right, what’s he doing wrong? Either he’s getting out on his front foot or he’s not keeping his hands back. Voila; problem solved.
Another baseball adage that applies to disc golf is to accelerate through the throw. I miss watching that fluid, easy swing of Barry Bonds culminating in the ball appearing to jump off the bat like it had a propulsion system. His swing looked like that television effect created by going from slow-motion to real time. On a drive, the disc should be traveling at its fastest upon release. Rushing the wind-up into the throw is counter-productive.
Much of the time at DGR is spent learning to recognize useless information. One of the few people who reliably knows what he’s talking about is named Blake Takkunen, and one of his helpful articles on the main page of DGR explains the role of the grip on the disc. The first time I skimmed it, I was thrown off by the nuances of two things: the line on the hand to keep the disc edge on and keeping the thumb in front of the forefinger.
This is Blake's illustration, showing to put the disc edge against a line running from between the index and middle finger and the terminus of the wrinkle at the base of the thumb pad. He cryptically remarks that the disc can be above this line. Looking at my grip, I was satisfied that the back edge was on his line and the front edge above it, as that seemed to satisfy his criteria. Also, it seemed impossible to place the disc on the part of the palm between those two fingers while having the forefinger gripped beneath it. I had neglected to consider the elasticity of skin. I now realize he was intending to allow for a higher but parallel line. Simply taking his advice and placing the disc exactly where he says to has been immeasurably useful.
Any discussion of disc grip notes to place the thumb in front of the knuckle of the forefinger. I was putting my thumb as far forward as I could, which was pulling the disc nose up- the exact opposite of what you want to do. All they’re trying to say is put the thumb flat on the disc pointing forward and the forefinger tight around the rim. This should naturally cause the tip of the thumb to be in front of the forefinger knuckle by a few centimeters. I put my thumb’s right side very close to the outside edge of the disc.
For maximum distance, it is crucial to clamp tight to the disc just prior to the release, but not earlier. If you tightly squeeze a fist, you can feel your finger muscles fatigue after barely a second. After that, your arm muscles begin to detrimentally stiffen instead.
As a memory exercise, I compiled a list of reminders to act as a sort of mental checklist, breaking down the major aspects and motions to consider during a drive:
Drive:
1. Grip:
a. palm/pad placement
b. fingers curled
c. thumb
2. Wrist down and cocked
3. On balls of feet, knees bent, spine aligned
4. Set height, nose, hyzer
5. Controlled X-Step through disc location
6. Start lawn mower into right pec
7. Shift hip weight
8. Tighten grip (SNAP)
9. Step through
(Please Note: “Throw as hard as you can” intentionally absent!)
It is excruciatingly difficult to remember all of these things in the second it takes to perform them.
Putting requires less body movement, making it seem simpler to figure out, but perhaps that perception is precisely what makes it difficult. It is tempting to get frustrated over missed putts, with the basket mocking before you, but losing confidence is a death knell. I have found a 5 minute video clinic on YouTube with Cameron Todd and David Feldberg to be most helpful. One day on the course, some random guy, after watching me putt, remarked, “Grab the pole.” This advice has helped reduce popping the disc up as if throwing a free-throw. I made a similar putting reminder list:
Putt:
1. Grip:
a. palm/pad placement
b. fingers fanned
c. thumb
2. Wrist down and cocked
3. On balls of feet, knees bent, spine aligned
4. Target pole
5. Arm straight (elbow not quite locked)
6. Push with legs
7. SNAP from waist
8. Back leg push according to distance
I suppose I may as well make a mid-range list as well:
Mid-Range:
1. Grip:
a. palm/pad placement
b. fingers birdie grip
c. thumb
2. Wrist down and cocked
3. On balls of feet, knees bent, spine aligned
4. Set height, nose, hyzer
5. Step front foot back, pull disc back
6. Step front foot forward, start lawn mower into right pec
7. Shift hip weight
8. Tighten grip (SNAP)
9. Step through
These lists might be too aimed at my strategies and struggles to be of much use for others. In the end, the only way to figure out how to throw a disc is by developing productive habits through repetition and practice, practice, practice.
Check back for Disc Golf Review, Part 3: Disc Dyeing.
I found this out by trolling the forum at discgolfreview.com (DGR). They recommended working out OAT by learning to make your flippiest disc hyzer while throwing it flat. A few days prior, I had wrapped a paper plate in duct tape and thrown it across the room for awhile. It was so unstable, I could whip it across the room spiraling out a counter-clockwise corkscrew. Eventually, my girlfriend got ahold of it and aimed for a plant. Her throw gently hyzered into the pot. This is what I needed to figure out how to do.
Since then, I have graduated to using a large coffee can lid to practice this skill. Besides learning how to refrain from twisting your wrist, a major thing to learn with this exercise is how to reduce wobble, as doing so increases glide, the straightest part of the flight, tremendously. I remember watching my younger sister playing with a toy top as a kid, and she finessed the handle with her little fingers and got the thing to effortlessly spin for a long time. When it finally petered out, I said, “Oh yeah- watch this!” and torqued the top as hard as I could. It flopped around wildly for a few moments and then crashed onto its side.
I had several high speed drivers that all went around the same distance, maxing out at 300 feet. The opinion on the forum was that this was due to reliance on arm strength rather than leg, hip and shoulder whip. This was also extremely familiar. This exact premise is central to a method of drumming called the Moeller technique, which I spent years studying, practicing and teaching. To increase drum speed, you have to learn to relax and whip your limbs instead of counter-productively tensing muscles.
Some of the movements involved in throwing a disc are simply intended to get things in the correct position and alignment to enable maximum efficiency in generating power to the disc, reducing wobble and getting the nose down. As an example- if you pull the disc level across your chest, pointing your elbow at the target, you will not only have the disc aligned to propel it forward instead of up, but also arrive at a position near your right pec where it is actually impossible to use your arm muscles to throw it. This requires you to generate force using your hips, which are much more powerful. The crux of this task is to seamlessly weave these separate tasks into one fluid motion.
I started playing rounds while incorporating various theories and tips found on the “techniques” portion of the disc golf review forum. After about five rounds of this, I had increased my accuracy but my distance was the same. By ten rounds, my distance had potentially increased except the only times I managed to get the nose down were on throws that flew wildly to the right. Halfway through about 15 rounds, after several holes where every throw sailed wildly to the right, I was pretty much relegated to running up and down the concrete pad trying to remember how to let go of the disc.
Back to the drawing board, or in this case, forum. Like most things on the internet, there is more misinformation than anything else on the site. Members give all manner of analogies intended to help visualize the throw of the disc. Some equate it to throwing a hammer or snapping a towel, but I really didn’t find these concepts accurate or helpful. While watching one video, a comparison to dropping the bat head in baseball was made. As an avid baseball fan, I am very familiar with this term.
The plight of former first baseman for the San Francisco Giants J.T. Snow came to mind. He is probably the best fielding first baseman I’ve ever seen, and early in his career he was a decent hitter, too. Then, he lost his hitting mechanics, and the harder he worked at trying to get them back, the worse his hitting became. The Giants used to have a brilliant and knowledgeable hitting coach named Dusty Baker. Unfortunately, he wasn’t their hitting coach but their manager, and he wasn’t as good of a manager. After he left, taking Gene Clines, the Giants’ actual hitting coach, with him, the hitting mechanics of pretty much the entire team fell apart.
While I can’t hit a baseball worth a darn, I have watched enough baseball to knowledgeably critique a swing. It suddenly occurred to me a RHBH disc golf throw is very much like batting lefty. J.T. Snow is a lefty. If a lefty is fouling everything to right, what’s he doing wrong? Either he’s getting out on his front foot or he’s not keeping his hands back. Voila; problem solved.
Another baseball adage that applies to disc golf is to accelerate through the throw. I miss watching that fluid, easy swing of Barry Bonds culminating in the ball appearing to jump off the bat like it had a propulsion system. His swing looked like that television effect created by going from slow-motion to real time. On a drive, the disc should be traveling at its fastest upon release. Rushing the wind-up into the throw is counter-productive.
Much of the time at DGR is spent learning to recognize useless information. One of the few people who reliably knows what he’s talking about is named Blake Takkunen, and one of his helpful articles on the main page of DGR explains the role of the grip on the disc. The first time I skimmed it, I was thrown off by the nuances of two things: the line on the hand to keep the disc edge on and keeping the thumb in front of the forefinger.
This is Blake's illustration, showing to put the disc edge against a line running from between the index and middle finger and the terminus of the wrinkle at the base of the thumb pad. He cryptically remarks that the disc can be above this line. Looking at my grip, I was satisfied that the back edge was on his line and the front edge above it, as that seemed to satisfy his criteria. Also, it seemed impossible to place the disc on the part of the palm between those two fingers while having the forefinger gripped beneath it. I had neglected to consider the elasticity of skin. I now realize he was intending to allow for a higher but parallel line. Simply taking his advice and placing the disc exactly where he says to has been immeasurably useful.
Any discussion of disc grip notes to place the thumb in front of the knuckle of the forefinger. I was putting my thumb as far forward as I could, which was pulling the disc nose up- the exact opposite of what you want to do. All they’re trying to say is put the thumb flat on the disc pointing forward and the forefinger tight around the rim. This should naturally cause the tip of the thumb to be in front of the forefinger knuckle by a few centimeters. I put my thumb’s right side very close to the outside edge of the disc.
For maximum distance, it is crucial to clamp tight to the disc just prior to the release, but not earlier. If you tightly squeeze a fist, you can feel your finger muscles fatigue after barely a second. After that, your arm muscles begin to detrimentally stiffen instead.
As a memory exercise, I compiled a list of reminders to act as a sort of mental checklist, breaking down the major aspects and motions to consider during a drive:
Drive:
1. Grip:
a. palm/pad placement
b. fingers curled
c. thumb
2. Wrist down and cocked
3. On balls of feet, knees bent, spine aligned
4. Set height, nose, hyzer
5. Controlled X-Step through disc location
6. Start lawn mower into right pec
7. Shift hip weight
8. Tighten grip (SNAP)
9. Step through
(Please Note: “Throw as hard as you can” intentionally absent!)
It is excruciatingly difficult to remember all of these things in the second it takes to perform them.
Putting requires less body movement, making it seem simpler to figure out, but perhaps that perception is precisely what makes it difficult. It is tempting to get frustrated over missed putts, with the basket mocking before you, but losing confidence is a death knell. I have found a 5 minute video clinic on YouTube with Cameron Todd and David Feldberg to be most helpful. One day on the course, some random guy, after watching me putt, remarked, “Grab the pole.” This advice has helped reduce popping the disc up as if throwing a free-throw. I made a similar putting reminder list:
Putt:
1. Grip:
a. palm/pad placement
b. fingers fanned
c. thumb
2. Wrist down and cocked
3. On balls of feet, knees bent, spine aligned
4. Target pole
5. Arm straight (elbow not quite locked)
6. Push with legs
7. SNAP from waist
8. Back leg push according to distance
I suppose I may as well make a mid-range list as well:
Mid-Range:
1. Grip:
a. palm/pad placement
b. fingers birdie grip
c. thumb
2. Wrist down and cocked
3. On balls of feet, knees bent, spine aligned
4. Set height, nose, hyzer
5. Step front foot back, pull disc back
6. Step front foot forward, start lawn mower into right pec
7. Shift hip weight
8. Tighten grip (SNAP)
9. Step through
These lists might be too aimed at my strategies and struggles to be of much use for others. In the end, the only way to figure out how to throw a disc is by developing productive habits through repetition and practice, practice, practice.
Check back for Disc Golf Review, Part 3: Disc Dyeing.
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