Jamie Thingelstad Profile Photo

Jamie Thingelstad

Writer of the Weekly Thing. Blogger. Explorer of tech, the open web, AI, and a good escape room. Maybe a podcast? CTO of SPS Commerce, Board Member of MnTech, Former Board Member Minnestar. Minneapolis is home.

2012

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    Participating in SOPA Blackout

    I just added these crontab entries

    0 8 18 1 * /srv/www/maint/sopa/deploy-sopa.sh
0 20 18 1 * /srv/www/maint/sopa/remove-sopa.sh

    On January 18th at midnight all of my personal websites will be going dark to protest the proposed SOPA and PIPA bills being discussed in congress. I’m joining sites like Wikipedia and Reddit in this process. I realize I don’t get a lot of traffic, but I felt it was important to join in. My sites will be in protest display from 8 AM to 8 PM central time.

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    Forty

    Two weeks ago I turned 40. I’ve been wanting to write a “Forty” blog post but each time I think to do it I find myself with little to say. I figure it is time for me to just start writing and see what happens.

    Man in a blue t-shirt leaning toward a chocolate birthday cake with lit candles, with two young children watching behind him at a colorful table indoors.

    I had an absolutely awesome birthday, thanks to my most awesome wife Tammy. She planned a simply great day of fun! We had a great breakfast at Original Pancake House. We had a nice time at the Como Park Conservatory where Mazie took lots of pictures and Tyler was in constant surprise of everything. We came home and Mazie baked a birthday cake for me, with help from Tammy. I had suggested that I would like a vanilla cake with strawberries and whipped cream frosting but she could do what she thought would be good instead. She decided I would like a super chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. 🙂

    I picked dinner and we had Indian food ordered in from India Palace which was delicious. Tammy had planned that we would have a family fire that night with S’mores because I like fires but complain we don’t do them enough. After about an hour a bunch of friends showed up and the S’mores fire turned into a birthday celebration with music, fires and beer. It was awesome and I was completely surprised!

    It was pretty much the best birthday, ever!

    I’ve been asked many, many times “How does it feel?” and I don’t think I have any good answers. Feels the same as yesterday. So, let me see what comes to mind:

    • While I’m sure physical signs of getting older have been appearing for a while, but I seem to be noticing them more. Hair is thinning. A few grey ones. But in general I still think I have my boy like look. 🙂
    • I’m totally smarter now that I’m 40. Or so I think…
    • It’s really rare that I sleep past 7 am. I think that has more to do with kids than being 40.

    See, not much interesting. Tammy had much more to say about being 40. Ask a question in the comments and I’ll see if I have anything more interesting to share about being 40!

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    Enjoyed vegan cooking class at Cooks of Crocus Hill from Robin Asbell tonight! Delicious food and great insights!

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    Lightroom 3.6 was 117MB DMG file.
    Lightroom 4.0b1 is 409MB DMG?
    Yikes.

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    Lightroom 4 Gets Maps!

    I’ve been an avid user of Lightroom since the very first 1.0 beta and for as long as I’ve remembered I’ve wished that there was a tab on the top called “Map” that would allow me to add geographic coordinates to my photos. I didn’t get it in 2.0. I didn’t get it in 3.0. I had pretty much given up, and then look at what is in the brand-new-just-announced Lightroom 4.0 beta! Maps!

    Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 beta Map module showing Minneapolis Minnesota with geotagged food photos in the filmstrip below.

    So awesome! Now I just need to drag 65,117 photos onto a map. 😊 Lightroom 4.0 looks like a great upgrade. The only big feature on my wish list that is still completely absent is face recognition. Maybe 5.0!

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    Birthday Dinner at Heidi's Chef's Table

    I had a big birthday this year and Tammy surprised me with a number of things, including a very cool dinner at Heidi’s at their special Chef’s Table. We got to enjoy 13 individual courses of vegetarian delights! First a few pictures from the evening. It was a great time!

    Three women smile at a restaurant kitchen table with bowls, glasses, and a pink cocktail in hand, an open kitchen behind them. Man in a maroon zip-up sweater holding up a lollipop and smiling in a restaurant kitchen setting. Heidi's Minneapolis tasting menu printed on parchment listing 8 courses including Beet Sorbet, Squash Soup, and Black Truffle Pappadelle Six white plates on a stainless steel kitchen counter each plated with a chocolate mousse quenelle, cream swirl, crumbled topping, and cocoa powder dusting. Large stainless steel pressurized keg secured with a chain against a white tile wall in a restaurant kitchen Seven elegantly plated fine-dining courses on white round plates with black rectangular dishes, green sauce, frisee, and edible flowers, staged on a stainless steel kitchen counter.

    The menu was designed by Chef Stewart Woodman, aka Shefzilla. The service was led by one of the sous chefs. It was great fun to be in the kitchen, although predictably a little hot. 🙂

    Now, to dinner…

    The Bennie

    Elegant plated vegetarian dish on a blue and black oval ceramic plate showing a creamy dome topped with huitlacoche and microgreens on a crisp base

    This is an item that is on Heidi’s normal menu. It is an eggless eggs benedict with huitlacoche, also known as corn smut. It was a very nice start to the meal with great flavors and textures.

    Ranch Salad

    Elegant plated salad on a white rectangular dish with microgreens, a small round fruit, butter lettuce cup, purple leaves, and white dressing dots on a beet smear.

    This salad was really fun and surprising. The thing that looked like an olive was actually a dwarf peach with really interesting flavors.

    Beet Sorbet

    Elegant rectangular white plate with three composed vegetarian courses featuring beet, tomato, truffle, and cream elements

    I like beets a lot! It was really cool to have an entire course of beets with all being so different. Their was a beet gel that had great flavor. In the middle of the plate was the beet sorbet, yes, beet sorbet. I wasn’t so sure about the sorbet flavors but it was really fun.

    Potato Sphere

    Elegant fine dining dish on a white plate featuring a smooth white element topped with crispy julienned potato strands and a small red flower, with a pale green pea cream sauce swooped alongside.

    The potato sphere was one of the stranger items and I can’t even imagine how they made it. It was served with a wasabi sauce and the thinnest of shoe string potatoes on top. The potato sphere itself was the smoothest and creamiest potato thing I’ve ever tasted, and then it was prepared in a chemical bath of some sort and topped with an edible flower.

    This was maybe the most intriguing dish to me.

    Squash Soup

    Elegant white bowl with golden butternut squash soup topped with toasted seeds and microgreens, with pink beet powder dusting the rim.

    This soup was delicious. It was crazy smooth with great flavors. I wonder if it was strained or something because it was “more than pureed”. Yum!

    Apple Granité

    A scoop of white ice cream topped with thin mango slices dusted with spice, served in a large white bowl.

    This was the intermezzo in the meal and described as the “tribute to America”, playing off of Apple Pie with a slice of American cheese on top. It had a smear of pine cone honey on top as well. The cheese was heated ever so slightly. I liked it, but Tammy refused to eat it on the basis of not touching American cheese.

    Black Truffle Pappadelle

    Pappardelle pasta in a creamy white sauce with a piece of mushroom, served in a wide-rimmed white bowl on a woven placemat

    This was a delicious pasta course with great truffle flavors. The pasta was incredibly thin and delicate.

    Papaya Salad Pappadam

    Two golden fried pastry parcels topped with frisee lettuce and a pink edible flower on a rectangular black and green ceramic plate.

    I’m not a big fan of pappadam, but this course was really good and I think this is the right way to use pappadam.

    Celery Root & Lentil Crêpe

    Small elegantly plated fine dining course on a large white plate with a pale rolled item, microgreens, and dots of oil

    This dainty course had great flavors. The celery root was subtle but very good. Beautiful on the plate.

    House Made Tofu

    Elegant plated spring roll on a white bowl with golden broth, microgreens, red chili slices, and dusted paprika

    The tofu was likely my favorite course of the evening. Heidi’s makes their own tofu and it is noticeably better than what we typically get at the store. This was delicious and the only thing I would have done is add more peppers to it.

    Cassoulet'

    Dark broth soup with mushrooms and a small bread crouton garnished with red microgreens in a wide white bowl on a woven placemat.

    The final savory course was a delicious cassoulet with giant, tasty lima beans.

    Nitro Mousse

    Chocolate ice cream scoop on a white plate with cream sauce a thin cookie wafer and dustings of cocoa powder and crumbled shortbread

    This mousse is a signature dessert at Heidi’s and they bring out the liquid nitrogen to make it. It was fun to see them making it with the characteristic fog of the liquid nitrogen flowing around the plates. Delicious as well. The peanut powder is the winning touch on this one.

    Sassafras Lollipop

    Heidi's Minneapolis branded paper tube tied with twine next to a wrapped dark chocolate treat on a white surface.

    The final “course” is the sassafras lollipop made by Heidi herself. A lot of people at our table it turns out were not huge fans of sassafras, but it was a nice way to finish the evening with the commemorative menu from the evening attached. A very nice touch!

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    Yama Cold Brew Drip Tower

    A few weeks ago I was discussing various ways of making coffee with Ry4an at the office. He had seen this crazy looking coffee system and sent me a link for it. My instant response was… Gorgeously Finicky!

    Tammy thought the one I sent her a link to was about the ugliest thing she had ever seen, but she found an acceptable looking Yama and got it for me for my birthday from Mazie and Tyler.

    Tall black-framed cold brew drip tower on a granite kitchen island, with glass chambers and a red kettle nearby

    It takes three hours to brew 8 cups of coffee. The resulting coffee is similar to cold press coffee, but with significantly more theater to the production. My first run didn’t come out right. I tried to grind the beans myself and didn’t get the right grind consistency and the water went through far too fast.

    There is much written about ice brewed coffee. CoffeeGeek has a good writeup.

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    Nice!

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