Gas cook tops are as good as electric cook tops

Most of us are sick of our gas cook tops, it doesn't heat up as quickly as electric stoves.  The truth comes from the BTU rating.  The most powerful/most BTU in the older cook top is about 10,000 to 12,000 BTU,  the new ones are in the 18,000 BTU range.  That's almost twice as powerful as the inferior units.

Some of lesser expensive cook top (less than $600), have the highest burner rated as 11,000 BTU. Once the prices crossed over the $1000 range, the burner rating is in the upward 18,000 BTU, and the 2nd burner rating of 14,000 BTU and the slow heat burner rated at 5,000 btu.

Here are couples that are good for quick stir fry..


GE Appliances Black-on-Black 30'' Built-In Gas Cooktop with Sealed Burners JGP933 800
All-purpose: one 9,500 BTU nat./9,100 LP,High output: one 11,000 BTU nat./10,000 LP,High output: one 15,000 BTU nat./13,000 LP,Low output: one 5,000 BTU nat. /5,000 BTU LP

GE Appliances Stainless Steel w/Black 30'' Built-In Gas Cooktop with Sealed Burners JGP933 900
All-purpose: one 9,500 BTU nat./9,100 LP,High output: one 11,000 BTU nat./10,000 LP,High output: one 15,000 BTU nat./13,000 LP,Low output: one 5,000 BTU nat. /5,000 BTU LP



Electrolux Black 30'' Gas Cooktop EW30GC55G 1000
Low output: one 5,000 BTU nat./4,500 LP,High output: one 14,000 BTU nat./11,000 LP,High output: 18,000 BTU nat./ 16,000 LP,All-purpose: 1-9,500 BTU nat./ 8,000 LP

Electrolux Stainless Steel 30'' Gas Cooktop EW30GC55G 1100
Low output: one 5,000 BTU nat./4,500 LP,High output: one 14,000 BTU nat./11,000 LP,High output: 18,000 BTU nat./ 16,000 LP,All-purpose: 1-9,500 BTU nat./ 8,000 LP


Electrolux Stainless Steel 30'' Gas Cooktop EW30GC60I 1300
Low output: one 5,000 BTU nat./4,500 LP,All-purpose: 2- 9,500 BTU nat./ 8,000LP,High output: one 18,000 BTU nat./16,500 BTU LP,High output: one 12,000/9,500 BTU nat.

Traveling with Credit Cards - and Best Rebate Program

Rebates?
Most credit cards (without annual fee) offer three classes of rebate rates.
1. Gasoline 5%, 4% 3%
2. Travel 3% 2%
3. Restaurant 2% 1%
4. Everything else 1%

There are some 'business credit cards" -offer special rebate rate for office supplies, or something similar to business specific.  Airline credit cards offer - free bag check-in or free airport lounge passes.  But these offers tend to cut-back on the rebates rate on gasoline, travel, restaurant.

Most airline miles or points equates to 1 penny, or same as 1% rebate.  For traveling - the advertising says "double miles' - it is same as 2% rebate.

What is my top choice  (2012, February)
1 American Express Costco Business
  Gasoline 4%, Travel 2%, Restaurant 2%, Everything else 1%



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Need money fast?  Soon after clearing customs, there are ATM machines nearby to dispense local currency.  That works well to get the journey moving.


USAA - one of the very best ATM card (less fee than others)

Capital One - one of the very best credit card with foreign exchange rate (less fees than others)

The Hunt for Red October

Firing solution torpedo?? Firing solution is not about liquid solution/fuel, but it's about the parameters resulting from calculating torpedo travelling path/projection.

Cool HEUER-LAMBELET

Update:  The repair cost was $65 to fix a loose hands and some internal mechanical damages (the repairman said so)

# # # # 

 An on-line auction site offer a knock-off Heuer watch called Heuer-Lambelet. The asking price was $100, but the face dial, wrist bands are pretty than the real McCoy.  It couldn't track time correctly because the hands got stuck with each other, a bit of tapping loosen up the hands.  After 1 1/2 years, the hands were off the pivot pins.  Now what?  Who can fix the knock-off watch?MBELET Chronograph

Driveway, Circular That Is

Having a long driveway making getting out of house difficult.  It's either a way to turn around near the garage, or make a circular driveway to minimize backing up into something, like trees.

100 feet long driveway is a bit challenge when there are a fence and trees on both sides.  To complete a driveway, it appears to me that the costs tend to be proportional to the area, not so much of length.

A 150 ft x 10-12 ft driveway come out to be 1700 sq ft of concrete.  At a minimum of  $3.50 a sq ft, that's a $6,000 home improvement project.  It sounded cheap, comparing the the potential car repairs bills on those cars backed into trees.

Rimfire vs Centerfire

Rimfire (older) & Centerfire (newer) are cartridges styles

SMITH & WESSON SIGMA .40 PISTOL (less expensive $300 at local store)

SIG SAUER SP2022 9MM PISTOL ($500 at local store)

KISS

KISS aka keep it simple stupid.

KISS - keep it short and simple

KISS - keep it sweet and simple

KISS - keep it snappy and satisfying

KISS - keep it simple and sweet

KISS - keep it short and sweet

KISS - keep it short and sophisticated

KISS - keep it simple and sophisticated

Liberal vs Conservative, Man vs Woman

Man sees a slight overweight himself - as average,
Woman sees  a normal weight herself as - too fat

In other hand, men tend to be more confident than women, right?

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Charles Krauthammer says

Conservatives see Liberals as "dumb", where as
Liberals see Conservatives as "evil".

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In a parallel argument,
Conservatives believe helping other through individual effort, where as
Liberals sees helping other through collective mean (or tax payer's money)

Dinner for 15

Wagamama - Noodle House in London


Monofuku noodle bar in New York

 
August 2012 - Food - Idea for Masses,

Condiments - spliced mustard green

Grilled - Salmon grilled, Costco

Grilled - Shrimp, marinated and grilled, Costco

Pot roasted - beef chucks


Pasta - angel hair pasta / olive oil, butter and garlic

Rice - chicken broth and basmati rice


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frozen from grocery stores

1 corns

2 peas

3 carrots

 
August 2011 - Dinner for 15
 
Drink
Bottled waters

Regular & Diet Dr. Pepper in 12 oz can

1994 Rioja Reserve (2 bottles)

Starter- Soup:

Chicken soup - Chicken breast, hand threaded  and cubed celery, 

Main course

Saffron flavoured rice, cooked in (1/2 broth, 1/2 water and butter) (15 cups of rice)

Grilled salmon, seasoned with olive oil, salt pepper, serve with lemon. (4 lbs) 

Sauté beef with onion and mushroom (4 lb round eyes, 1-2 sweet onion, 1-2 pkg mushroom)

Stir fried shrimp with snow peas (4 lb shrimp, 1 lb snow pea)

Desert

HEB ice cream served with wafer cookies  

Flour or Cornstarch to Thicken Soups

Flour or Cornstarch? 

Place flour, milk/heavy cream mixture over medium heat to make gravy

or

Use the left over meat juice (fat), brothe and cornstarch solution to make gravy?

Turbo charged gasoline engines

Audi 2.0 liter turbo
211 HP @ 4300
258  FT-LB @ 1500

Subaru 2.5 liter turbo
256 HP @ 5600
258 ft lb @ 2000

Ford Taurus SHO
365 HP @ 5500
350 FT-LB @3500

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Diesel (3.0L MB)
215 HP @ 4000
400 ft-lb @ 1600

American trucks -diesel (6.6L)
390 HP @ 2800
735 ft-lb @ 1600

v10 Chevrolet
360 HP @ 4750
457 ft-lb @ 3250

Slider

Slider (mini burger) --
   form - small
   style - bun/burger
   taste - greasy

Many variation of sliders take the form of substituting meat and add unique toppings other than lettuce and tomatoes.

Simple salad dressing

I use a small glass lid jar and the salad dressing mixer.  It's a bit different from the typical vinegar, olive oil found at the Spanish restaurants, mine dressing will be pre-mixed.

1/3 of red wine vinegar and 2/3 of olive oil, dash of salt and generous amount of pepper. Shake the jar well, and that's simple and as good as store bought salad dressing.