I Can't Eat Laying Down

Also Hard To Cook While Horizontal


I'm pleased to report that I finally managed to get up out of bed and off the sofa yesterday long enough to do some work out in my garden.

I also mustered the energy to prune some branches off of our giant Crepe Myrtle Trees and some other stuff along the rear property line which was blocking the sun off a couple of areas I've planted stuff on in the past couple of weeks.

Then I suffered a relapse of lethargy and spent the rest of the afternoon reclining in a deck chair in a pair of denim shorts reading the newspaper, doing the crossword puzzle therein, smoking the first cigar out of a new bundle, and listening to Rush Lindbaugh spray spit on his microphone.

All and all a good afternoon.

As an excuse I offer that I have to enjoy this time being useless while it lasts because I received another shipement of pneumatic valves yesterday afternoon and I have to get at least four of them out the door Thursday or Friday.

So any way...then last night we went out and celebrated Quatro de Mayo at dinner at the local Mexican Restaurant, in order to avoid the crowds associated with the traditional Mexican Cinco de Mayo celebration to be held today.

I've not been in much of a mood to join in celebrating the 5th of May on the calendar ever since my father passed away suddenly on May 5th, 1996.

Today it's hard to believe that I've spent nearly a third of my life without the love and guidance of the greatest man I ever knew.

But I have...somehow.

It hasn't been pretty, but I'm still here regardless...screwing around often times needing a good slap up side the head once in a while or a stern look.

Miss you Dad...

Sunshine And Warm Weather Causes Cures Mental Illness

I Want To Hang Out With Jack Nicholson...


Sorry, but best intentions aside I just couldn't stand it yesterday...letting weather not involving ice falling from the sky pass me by un-utilized.

After looking at the temperature on the wireless backyard weather station display every fifteen minutes, when the temperature reached 65 degrees F I broke down and took the NY Times Crossword outside with a Rolling Rock Beer and another Cigar and wasted another two hours laying like a lizard in a chair on the deck.

I fooled around so much doing that and having a fit of ADD induced home improvement urges--re-hanging the storm door on the carport and completing some more re-wiring in the basement lighting system that I managed to screw up and cook the prototype Boston Butt at 225 instead of 350 degrees F, so after three hours I still had undercooked meat that wasn't wanting to turn loose of the shoulder bone.

I salvaged everything by cutting the meat off the bone, tossing the thick fat sheath from across the bottom into the trash, and then chunking everything up and sliding it back into the oven for another two hours.

After that everything went as expected, except we wanted to eat before 9 PM so I left out a couple cans of Great Northern Beans because they wouldn't have had time to cook down.

Thus we ended up eating great tasting chili that wasn't quite as thick as I like to make it. The beans are supposed to be a background filler...about 25% to 30% of the volume, so the Chicken and Beef Stock made things a little soupy but it was still excellent in my opinion.

No matter, I'm going to bore Pat and the Turbo Pup and our neighbors with rerun portions again tomorrow night after I cook it down some more, and then freeze the balance and go to work transcribing the final formula for 15 gallons.

The recipe works as long as I follow it, and now all we have to do is wait 12 days for the opportunity to torture the taste buds of the judges and the general public with the results of my imagination and efforts.

Otherwise, I wish something interesting would happen in the news (other than some idiot crashing something into something else), and so until then I guess that the only thing else I have to say is...

Regards Y'all...

We're Storming All The Beaches 90 Miles South Of Key West?

Doing What...Looking For Plantains & Cigars?


Crap like this story about the Russians offering to train Cuba's military personnel in "air defense" makes me spew my coffee out my nose this morning."

I'd also bend double laughing if my nostrils weren't stinging and I had to find the paper towels needed to clean off my monitor and desktop.

The Russian and Cuban military will exchange experience in organising tactical air defence and in training officers," Interfax quoted Russian Land Forces spokesman Igor Konashenkov as saying.

The two sides will "discuss the prospect of training Cuban servicemen at the tactical air defence academies and training centres in Russia, using upgraded Russian-made military hardware," Interfax quoted him as saying.

The delegation, led by the chief of Russia's tactical air defence headquarters, Lieutenant General Alexander Maslov, will also look at "ways to strengthen relations between the Russian armed forces and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba," Konashenkov was quoted as saying.

The delegation will be in Cuba from Monday until November 3, Konashenkov was quoted as saying. Reuters could not immediately reach Konashenkov for comment.

In 1962, Cuba became the focus of the deepest crisis of the Cold War after the Soviet Union installed missiles there, prompting a standoff with Washington. The island's government remains hostile to the United States.

In the past few months, Moscow has stepped up contacts with both Cuba and Venezuela, another South American critic of the United States.

Of course the Russians, in spite of their new found "oil wealth", are still basically flying post-end-of-the-cold-war relics like this TU-95MS "Bear" bomber:




Funny thing, but to me this thing looks like it might be better used to chop and puree limes and lemons to to add to a salt rimmed glass full of Tequila.

And another thing...can't the Russians afford to hire anyone with "Weed Eater" experience to clean out the cracks in the concrete tarmac?

Maybe the INS and Mr. Obama could "reach out diplomatically" and send them a few "guest workers" to mow the grass take care of the lawns and grounds...

5 AM Cigar

Simple Pleasures...


There's something to be said for the hours between sunset and sunrise--and not all sinister and bad I would like to add.

Over the past ten or fifteen years I've learned to enjoy the evening hours in a manner different from the times when I was locked into a "normal" 24 hour ritual involving work and play and sleep on a regimented schedule.

Today I still find myself living basically two days for every one rotation of the Earth.

Further, I find that if you put yourself into the correct state of mind and the right geographic location that you can gain a great deal of satisfaction from the hours when most of the people on the planet huddle inside their homes in their pajamas.

Of course you don't want to be found wandering the streets of Atlanta or LA at 3 AM unless you are a frivolous drunken club patron, a thief, or some form of Vampire, but I know about a few places which are quite nice at that hour.

Blackwater Sound off Key Largo and a couple of little bays near Upper Matecombe Key in Florida come to mind if you have access to the appropriate boat and don't mind enduring the onslaught of mosquitoes which attack every living thing at sunset each evening.

Then there is the coral beach on the northeast shore of Walker's Cay in the Bahama's which provides a landscape at low tide which is almost Lunar in appearance as the sun rises each morning.

The numerous little un-inhabited islands in the Philippines, viewed from the aircraft elevator portal of a Carrier as they slide by in the twilight manage to get the attention of even the most inattentive young midshipman (that would be me...)

The view over the Marsh looking east from St. Simons Island toward the lights of Sea Island provide an excellent venue for forming early morning thoughts and cogitations.

Then there is the near perfect silence (except for the bugs) found on our front porch here on the banks of the mighty Tennessee River--which is were I'm headed this morning with a book and cigar in hand to contemplate my existence and solve a few world problems.

Wish me luck...if you will...

Cigars Versus Cigarettes

I've Got Champagne Taste On A Beer Budget


Over the past ten years I've found myself inadvertently conducting a fairly interesting social experiment, and the results are predictably surprising (as opposed to surprisingly predictable.)

My laboratories are the bars and restaurants of the world, and the control substance is tobacco, something I've only starting smoking in limited quantities in this same time period.

Fortunately I don't have the nicotine addiction gene, so I never picked up the cigarette habit back when I was in college in the 1970's and smoking a 50 cent pack of Marlboro's was cool.

Thank God I never did, what with a pack of Cigs costing nearly FOUR DOLLARS now, and the government stepping in and passing laws telling private businessmen where they can and can't let their patrons consume their addictive drug of choice.

I do, however, enjoy a nice cigar on occasion, although my tobacco habit waxes and wanes with my financial fortunes and the availability of decent Dominican or Nicaraguan products. I have a little humidor that holds a single bundle or box of Cigars, possibly a few more of the smaller ring gauge, and I've found a decent Cigar dealer that is just around the corner from me and will sell me an occasional bundle of unbranded "seconds" for a good price

What kills me is that I, a non-smoker for most of my nearly fifty years, have sat in silence in smoke filled restaurants and night clubs while three quarters of the population puffed their lives away, and now that I elect to fire up a cigar every now and then, people will walk twenty yards across a crowded room to tell me my smoke stinks.

Back in the day, when almost everyone smoked, I'd come home from a "guys night out" shooting pool with the boys and my ex-wife would make me get undressed in the garage because my clothes smelled so badly of cigarette smoke, and now I've got people holding lit cigarettes in their hand bitching at me because I'm smoking a Cigar.

Seriously, I once had a lady walk into a club down in Ft. Lauderdale where I was smoking (she was holding a cigarette) and complain to me and her girlfriends about how cigar smoke made her sick. I had just cut the end off of a TWELVE DOLLAR Davidoff Robusto and fired it up, but out of difference to my vocal co-combustors I extinguished my cigar. Then not thirty seconds later the silly bitch and her entourage decided the place was too crowded and departed to "go somewhere else."

Just Damn...

The Cigar smokers in the crowd will probably agree that smoking a Cigar that has been previously lit is never quite the same as the taste obtained burning one in a single half hour uninterrupted session.

What is it about people that not only causes them to think that one form of carcinogenic vapor and particulate matter is socially more acceptable than another, but makes them come up to a complete stranger and demand that I take my tobacco elsewhere when they puff theirs in front of me and their friends and family 24/7?

After all, I smoke good cigars, not things sold beside convenience store cash registers that smell like vanilla or fruit or a dog turd wrapped in newspaper, and I generally verify that Cigars are acceptable with the management prior to lighting a match.

The King and Prince Hotel located down here on our little island has a humidor in their bar and sells overpriced mishandled Cigars if you really want one, but...

you can't actually SMOKE Cigars inside their establishment--even before Georgia changed the law to end tobacco smoking in restaurants.

A couple of restaurants I frequented in Atlanta had the same queer policy--selling you expensive tobacco that you can't use until you get into your car or arrive home.

Like my affinity for fine vintage Port Wine, I find it interesting to learn about Cigars and their history, and I will appreciate the day when Fidel Castro dies and we finally end the fifty year embargo on Cuba so I can get a real Cuban Cigar for less than $30. (Right now I have to settle for the product of Cuban seed grown somewhere else in the Carribbean.)

I've only smoked something represented as a true Cuban Cigar twice in my life. The first time was on a dive excursion out to Walkers Cay Bahamas back in 1997, and the second time was while enjoying a desert course at the Chicago Chophouse that same year.

Both times I paid $30 for the experience, and the Chophouse threw in a little glass of 1966 vintage Fonseca Porto for an extra thirty bucks.

Thirty dollars or two dollars fifty cents, I'll be damned if I'm putting out any more Cigars for anyone but possibly Pat and my Mother, so just take your allergies and your bad attitude elsewhere.

Me and my bad habits...what can I say?