In Sputnik’s Orbit

When it comes to computers, I’m not exactly a gear head. I built my own from an 8085 chip set as a kid, but these days I just want one that works. I like to get the job done, but I’m also thrifty and I don’t enjoy spending more than I really need to. Throughout the quarantine and for many years before, I’ve been using as my main home computer a cheap HP desktop I bought years ago for my wife when she needed it for a job she no longer has. It did what she needed and what I needed too until I started software development and video editing.

Earlier this summer, I decided if I was going to keep making videos, I needed to spend less time twiddling my thumbs and restarting after crashes. I bought an HP Envy with an Intel I7 processor that’s pretty good but certainly not the best to be had. I immediately doubled the memory, knowing I would need it for editing. This process was made slightly annoying by the machine, with a capacity of up to 32GB in two DIMM modules, coming with two 8GB modules so that in order to use it’s full capacity, you have to replace BOTH instead of just adding one. I don’t know if HP received the giant middle finger I mailed them,

I LOVE Japanese ginger dressing. It’s always been my favorite part of visiting a Hibachi restaurant, and it’s healthy and light. But over the years, attempts to find a bottled substitute have universally failed. Most are like ginger-scented vinegar. They are without exception really, really awful.

So now that I’m the family chef, I decided to make my own, and it turns out it’s really simple:

Like a lot of families, the Hardwick household spent a good part of the 2020 pandemic lock-down re-evaluating and adjusting our lifestyle. For us, a big part of that involved food. Kristina hates to cook and I never learned how, so for most of our adult lives, we’ve eaten far too much frozen or take-out meals. That ended in 2020. I started cooking, at first to take stress off of others and make the most of the foods on hand or readily available, later for health and economy and the too-often neglected in modern life, simple sociability of the evening meal.

I bought a high-quality ceramic coated wok and a Japanese knife of Damascus steel for making stir-fry. I mastered Korean Gyeran-mari (or rolled omelette), and found a new love for ready-made Indian sauces, tofu, and a host of other light and tasty alternatives to the high-fat, high-carb working man’s diet our parents learned on the farm and bequeathed us.

We will never go back. I’ve lost 50 pounds and have developed a striking intolerance for most American convenience food. But of all our improvisations and experiments, none has been as big a hit and made as enduring an impressions as my new go-to lunch, the pandemic taco.

From time to time, I get kind notes from readers favorably comparing my work to the classics of old. I also occasionally get messages asking how you can help promote my work and bring me one step closer to quitting the day job and doing this full time.

Well here’s something…

I’m no Matt Damen, but I did okay with the ladies back in the day–I guess. I was and am a nerd. I grew up in a world of books and ideas. I was that kid in the back of the class with his nose in a book to keep from having to make small talk before class, the kid in the comedy flick who never seems comfortable in his own skin, because at just over 6’1″ and adorned in whatever my mom found on the Blue-Light special, I wasn’t. I towered over the other kids, yet let myself be bullied. I avoided sports…and stayed scrawny. When I reached college with my touring bike and access to a natatorium, that all changed, but it never occurred to me I might be physically imposing until one night in a convenience store when the checkout clerk, unaware that her friend (who had come up to shout through the door and give me shit about my t-shirt) was sleeping with me, shouted her name and flashed the international standard facial semaphore for “are you fucking kidding? He’s gonna kick your ass!”