Pickles and Python

Every week I try something new for my Creative Thinking class. It started simple. I brushed my teeth with my left hand. From there I progressed to more serious topics like Thai food. This week I doubled up and tried two new things, homemade pickles and Python programming.

First, the pickles. I had a list of 10 things I wanted to learn/try before the end of the quarter and make my own pickles was number 6 on the list. Lucky for me I was trolling through old Men's Health magazines to clip ads when I found a recipe for not one, but three different types of pickles. Being a big wuss I started with the classic pickle. Boiled up 1.5 cups of vinegar, added 1 tbsp salt, 1 tbsp sugar, 1.5 tbsp pickling spice, 15 peppercorns, 3 cloves of garlic and a dash of crushed red pepper. After 24 hours of marinating in that batch of miracle juice I crunched in to the first spear. Holy Jesus! Why did I wait this long to learn how to do this. Not only do they have a better crunch than store bough, but they taste better, too. I'm definitely doing this again next week and tinkering with the recipe. Sweet and spicy is on the way!

Now for the nerdery. Since our creative brief was for ThinkGeek.com I figured I would get in to the spirit and try my hand at a little programming. There are two free introductory books on Python and it's supposed to be one of the easier languages to pick up so I'm giving it a shot. Four lessons in I'm enjoying the challenge, but not much else. The deeper I dive in to the language the more I have flashbacks to multivariable calculus cram sessions in my dorm. Oh well, at least at the end of this I'll be able to say I gave it a shot.

Next week holds another challenge for something new and I have a few ideas. I'm not going to drop them here, but if it goes according to plan I should have something fun to write about next week.