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A real bad feeling

August 15, 2011 By 63 Comments
Old man in the Philippines

Today, something happened that made me feel really bad.  The truth is, I don't understand what happened, or why it happened, and that is part of the reason why I feel bad. Over the weekend, I got a notice from the Post Office (it's called "PhilPost" here in the Philippines) that I had a package waiting for me, and I needed to claim it at the main Post Office in Davao.  The PhilPost Office is closed on Saturdays, so, since it's Monday morning, I decided to go down and pick up my package first thing this morning.  I had recently ordered something on eBay, and was looking forward to receiving my purchase, which I was sure was the package … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Davao, Featured, Live in the Philippines, My Thoughts Tagged With: ,

Observations while sitting on the porch

August 15, 2011 By
speedtest

On Saturday afternoon, I was out sitting on the porch with Feyma.  There was activity all around us, but we were just relaxing. Our maids were sweeping up leaves under the trees in the front yard.  There were sure a lot of dead leaves sitting on the ground, since this house had not been occupied for some time, and thus simple maintenance like cleaning up fallen leaves had not been done for quite a while.  I sat there for 15 or 20 minutes just watching as the two maids were sweeping up dead leaves.  The area where they were sweeping is in a raised flower bed that had several big trees and leafy plants.  The rest of the flower bed is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Bob Martin, Davao, Featured, Live in the Philippines Tagged With:

Looks like the first nail is in the coffin

August 6, 2011 By 28 Comments
Suicide is painful to watch

Witnessing death is a painful thing, especially when you are watching the death of a person whom you have held dear for much of your life, or all of your life.  Imagine how it would feel to witness the suicide of such a person.  Even more painful. I feel, though, that in the past few years, that is exactly what I have been experiencing.  Not the suicide of a person, thankfully, but the suicide of a nation, my nation of birth, the USA.  It's painful to watch, but as events have transpired over the past few months, it is what I believe I am watching.  The USA appears to be killing itself, and today, it would seem that the first nail is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, My Thoughts Tagged With: ,

Meeting with a friend

August 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Build your profile

On one of my websites, I have a stable of writers who all contribute to the site.  My rule with these writers is that I want them to submit a minimum of one original article per week.  They can write more than once per week, but once per week is the minimum, uless there are some kind of special circumstances.  I don't pay the people to write on the site. So, you may be asking... if I don't pay people, why do they write for the site?  How can I enforce rules on them like how often they must write?  Well, you see, this site is a high traffic site, with literally thousands of readers each and every day.  The people who write on the site … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Profile Tagged With:

How do you roast?

August 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Pan Roasting

How do you roast your green coffee beans?  I am not looking for the procedure.  I'm not looking for what machine you use.  What I mean is, like, how much do you roast at a time, and how many different varieties of coffee do you roast at a given time? For me, I usually roast about twice per week, sometimes only once per week.  I roast small quantities, usually 1/4 to 1/3 pound of any variety.  If it's a coffee that I have a large stash of, then I will do up to a half pound on a single roast. Why such small batches?  For a couple of reasons: I find it easier to control the roast process when I roast only a very small batch … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Coffee, Featured, Roasting Tagged With:

Banished!

July 26, 2011 By 15 Comments
PNP Patrol Car

My name is Bob Martin.  I have lived on the island of Mindanao for 10 years.  I suppose I have been banished. No, I'm not really banished, but it seems that some people would think that banishment would be the only reason to live in Mindanao.  This morning, as I checked my e-mail, I had a "Google News Alert."  If you don't know what that is, it is a service that Google provides.  In this instance, I signed up with Google that anytime there is a news article with the word "Mindanao" in the article, they send me an e-mail with a link to the article.  So, in this morning's Google News Alert, the alerted me to an article at the Manila … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, My Thoughts Tagged With: , ,

Ugly, but hopefully delicious

July 25, 2011 By 3 Comments
Yirg Roast on March 31, 2009 - Ugly but delicious

Last month, I got my first Ethiopia Yirgacheffe green coffee beans.  Ethiopia is the place where coffee was "invented," so I was looking forward to enjoying some wonderfully delicious coffee. Well, as you know if you read this site, I am pretty new at coffee roasting, and specialty coffee beans in general.  When I roasted the yirg beans, I thought I did an OK job, given that it was only about my 3rd or 4th time to ever roast coffee.  I e-mailed a photo of my roast to my best coffee buddy, Bobby.  Here is a picture of my initial roast: Well, Bobby e-mailed me back and told me that the roast was "ugly."  As I scrutinized the picture, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Roasting Tagged With:

Coffee Roasting 101

July 16, 2011 By 2 Comments
Greens

This morning I roasted some coffee beans.  You may be wondering what I am talking about.  You see, I purchased some green coffee beans, beans which have never been roasted before, and I roasted them in a pot on the stovetop. There are a lot of better ways to roast coffee beans, but I am a bit of a simpleton when it comes to coffee, and I enjoy pan roasting.  You can do a better job with commercial roasting equipment, but pan roasting is fine for me, for now anyway. If you like coffee, but have never roasted your own beans before, you probably don't know what coffee really tastes like.  The coffee you buy in the grocery store was … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Coffee, Featured, Green Beans, Roasting Tagged With: , , , ,

I’m looking for interaction

July 14, 2011 By 8 Comments
If you love blogging, interact with those who love you!

I enjoy interaction. I like to be engaged. These are two of the main things I am looking for when I read blogs in the Internet. There are millions of blogs on the Internet, literally.  A large number of those, though, are sort of on autopilot - posts show up, but beyond that, there really is nothing much more. To me, a blog should be interactive.  You post an article.  If you have a big enough reader base, some of your readers will respond by posting a comment with their thoughts and opinions on the subject that you wrote about.  Should that be the end of things?  In my opinion, no, it should not.  As a blogger, you really … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Blogging, Content, Featured, My Thoughts
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