Day The Earth Stood Still In My Dungeon

All Work And No Play Makes Jack Virgil A Dull Boy...


Just in case anyone needs me...

...you only have to come over to the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River and look down into my shop...following the trail of dust and fumes and cursing while I watch CNN.

Be back when I have another four valves put back together Y'all.

And have a LOVELY Day...If you will...

Somebody "Chop Sueyed" My Personal "Feng Shui"

Where's All Of My Spare Time Gone?


I don't know Ladies and Gentlemen...

I may have to call the "authorities" or an "expert" or something.

This week has started out even busier than last week did, and in spite of loafing around the later part of last week and the weekend trying to shake some sort of "creeping crud" that had taken hold of my spine, now I find myself WaaaaaAAAAAAyyyyyyYYYY behind in my duties.

I hope that you'll understand if the posting here is light and/or sporadic this week as valves fly apart and back together and into boxes.

Of course I reserve the right to see something on TV or in the newspaper and, after my eyeballs refocus after returning from being rolled into the back of my skull, explode here onto the pages of your computer screen so you should keep the Windex and paper towels handy I guess.

Latest Owl Gore Anti-Global Warming Scheme

Probably Taxpayer Funded...


Before...




After...



Next time you even THINK about agreeing with 99% of the crap delivered by the sniveling, booger eating, treehugging, eco-friendly greenie-weenies...

You know...

Stuff like being made to drive a car the sized of a Breadbox that gets 100 MPG...

And letting them turn off all of your new Fluorescent, mercury filled, light bulbs about 22 hours each day because all of the Coal Fired Power Plants and Nuclear Plants have been outlawed by the government...and they've torn down all of the Hydroelectric Dams so the Salmon can swim back up rivers.

...and their beloved "Green" solar farms and the wind farms can't keep up except for about two hours a day...

When you and your family are living through all of that and more, just remember what one FREAKING VOLCANO did to Air Travel in Europe and in Asia this past week.

Capiche?


(and yes, that's yet another original concept from my gigantic yet warped brain, rendered for your enjoyment with my Photoshop skills.)

Looking Off My Deck This Weekend

Pretty Yet Steep...

Mancamp Blackmail Evidence

AKA The Old Farts Drinking Beer Association...

Traveling In Internet Hell

Thus The Reason For No Recent Posting...


More later...



...It's later now, and I'm a little under the weather suddenly and I've had a long couple of days traveling and visiting with people I've known for somewhere between 29 years (an old Architect employer/friend) and some others I went to grade school thru High School back in Alabama starting about 45 years ago.

The place we're staying here in the Bent Tree Resort in the North Georgia mountains had four deer standing virtually in our front yard as we entered the driveway and we had to wait for them to wander out of the roadway in broad daylight so we could enter the driveway.

We're here to attend my first "Mancamp" (actually the fourth annual for most of the rest of the group) and they made an exception to allow me to bring Pat and little Missy the Turbo Pup as long as they had separate accommodations for the three day/two night event.

I just rented our own house for the weekend, which was no problem because the house that one of my classmates owns nearby has seven guys sleeping in a three bedroom house (read that there's people sleeping on the floor and on the sofa...etc.)

Meanwhile I have two bedrooms and three beds and two sofas for two adults and one Turbo Pup. I offered to let someone come over and use the extra bedroom but they all wanted to hang around and drink and tell lies all night...so go figure.

The vistas and views are absolutely stunning from our back deck...there's mountains and a blue colored lake. I'll take some photos and post them tomorrow after the sun rises.

I have the official Mancamp title of "Chief Creek Watcher" because during this visit I'm designing a repair support system for an existing concrete patio extending out over a beautiful mountain Stream/Creek along the back property line. The support footings have been eroded and the concrete is sagging and I'm planning on putting in a giant wooden beam and "jacking that sucker back up.

So any way, it's time for me to get a little sleep because I'm cooking a Brunch consisting of pancakes and eggs and sasausage for seven hungry men and Pat and the Turbo Pup about 10:30 tomorrow, and I'm doing two of my soon to be fameous Rogers' signature Pizzas tomorrow night.

Yall have a LOVELY weekend...

More Crap What Pisses Me Off

Charging Extra For WiFi?


I'm sorry, but I don't think that there's hardly a day that goes by these days when I somehow have to subdue the inner urge to rip the arm off of someone I meet in public and proceed to beat them to death with it...

Why?

Because they're so obsequious purple and clairvoyant annoying or just basically STUPID...judging from the behavior I've been forced to endure in the fifteen minutes or half day proceeding the removal of their limb and fatal bludgeoning.

I guess that you can just attribute it to the process of me getting old.

Which is better than the alternative I guess...

Some out there would suggest it's a textbook case of being a Mean Old White Male Caucasian Asshole (or MOWMCA...for short.)

Whatever...I didn't aspire to the condition, but I suffer from a severe case of it none the less.

Believe me, I try to be patient...

But..,

These days it seems that the only certified solution that doesn't involve legal or medical professionals is for me to just stay home most of the time and then when I have to go out to carefully plan where I go and when I get there.

Thus travel on major holidays like Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day are permanently on my personal "no fly list" and if it weren't for family considerations Thanksgiving and Christmas would be spent in my basement pounding on the laptop and/or watching reruns of Mike Rowe's "Dirty Jobs."

Take this week's trip to Atlanta, for instance...

I don't want to directly offend anyone with this posting, but just let me say that I've seen more stupid behavior in the process of going down there and back in the past 72 hours--mainly from people of other races than my own--than I've seen in the past TWO YEARS.

And what scares me most it that some of these people VOTE.

Let's just leave that at that...

But then again what really got me pissed off was when I arrived at my Hotel...the brand of which is part of the HILTON--as in Paris Hilton--Chain...and found out the their Internet teaser rate did not include Internet.

Isn't selling room and boarding on the Internet without including Internet access a major Oxymoron?

Want Internet?

That costs an extra $9.95 per day?

WTF?

Answer me this...

What hotel, in the middle of a major metropolitan area, in the year 2010, doesn't include "free" WiFi Internet service in their pricing?

Just like when they leave out the price of taxes and surcharges and service fees on your cell phone pricing...why not just "cut to the chase" and tell me what I'm going to PAY IN TOTAL rather than teasing me with prices I will never spend a single night paying.

Don't force the desk clerk to look me in the eye and tell me while I'm standing there with a 25 pound bag full of cameras and 17" HP 250 GB hard drive computer that they're going to make me jack around once I get to my room "logging in" and authorizing extra charges to my credit card while their stupid system locks up and reboots and re-hashes and re-regurgitates and generally just makes me crazy.

Seriously...the building was full of BUSINESS TRAVELERS.

People with two and three cell phones and I gauran-damn-tee you every single one of them had a computer attached to their hip or their forehead or their thigh and the whole concept of charging EXTRA...instead of just putting Internet service in the basic room fee, was in my considered Redneck opinion...

S T U P I D

and unethical because they charged by the day and I would have stayed at another hotel if they told me that up front, even though the law firm/insurance company that hired me is paying the bill.

It's just the "principle" I'm objecting to, something that school "Principals" apparently stopped teaching about thirty years ago

And there you have it Ladies and Gentlemen, my agreement with the theory that more money is stolen by people wearing a suit and tie than are taken each day by the ones employing crow bar and wearing a ski mask.

On The Road Again

Get Me Out Of Here....


OK...I proved I could do it again.

What, you might ask?

Spending three days and two nights in Atlanta.

I'll be back home to the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River by dinner time tonight.

I'm ready to see my girls...

Live From Atlanta

Dead Actually...


As announced, I'm in Atlanta doing Forensic Injuneering Today--thus the lack of posting due to travel Sunday, a dinner meeting Sunday night, and the morning spent standing around with a hard hat and safety glasses looking at wierd stuff with pipes and wires hooked to it.

I'm tired, having missed my nap, so I think I'll go now and take one.

More later

Sophomore Machine Design Class Lecture At Georgia Tech

After The Fraternity Party EVERYTHING Sounded Like This...





(I forgot to mention that I'm still working on the "Rogers Turbosonic Pulse Doppler Laser Nippleometer"...a device which can measure the ambient temperature by reflecting a highly columated beam of high intensity light off of random women's breasts...)


Heh...



Thanks Rodge

While I'm Thinking About It

Picture Me Giving The Middle Finger To the IRS...


I spent the ENTIRE DAY FRIDAY, after spending parts of several other days in the past couple of months, finishing our personal and business tax returns.

The gift that keeps on giving...starting a Tennessee Corporation...and electing "Sub chapter S" Tax status...continues to make me crazy with Federal and State forms and filings and other crap in spite of the fact that...

The company operated at a nearly $6,000 deficit in 2009, and we didn't hire and directly pay any employees in the calendar year.

Yet the State of Tennessee and the Imperial Federal Government of the By God United States of 'Merica demands that I pay things like a $100 "Franchise Tax" (although I don't have a Franchise) and file forms like 940 and 941 telling them that I don't owe unemployment tax and I didn't pay wages so I don't owe FICA and FUTA taxes and so on.

If the government assholes would get the hell out of everyone's way and stop acting like we work for them as slaves and that every dollar we earn is their money until we can prove otherwise I say things would improve a lot faster in the economy...without STIMULUS PORKULUS...

That will be all...for now...

I'm A Traveling Fool

Busy Month...


OK, get this story.

I have to get to Atlanta on Sunday for an informal meeting with a client Sunday night before a Forensic Engineering investigation in a Chiller Plant Monday, then I come back home to the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River on Tuesday.

No problem.

I've done things like that hundreds of times before.

But then hardly before I can catch my breath and lay around being a bum for a couple of days I have to turn around and head BACK to Atlanta on Thursday afternoon with Pat and the Turbo Pup so she (Pat...not the Turbo Pup) can meet with a hospital client on Friday.

And then late Friday afternoon I'll be bringing two females with me (Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup)to an event in the North Georgia Mountains with a bunch of guys I went to High School with--loosely called "MANCAMP." They're all bunking on the floor and sofas and bedrooms in one house owned by one of the attendees/sponsors, while we'll be residing in luxury in our own 2 bedroom log cabin nearby.

Then there's still the trip to Baltimore to be done in the next week or so and there's another trip to South Carolina for Pat's business...again extending over a weekend with my old College roommate, and when it's all said and done...

...I'd say that our own economy is recovering here at the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River...

in SPITE of the government (which caused me to work all day yesterday finishing TAX FORMS instead of blogging.)

E*Trade Baby Out-takes

I Actually Use TD Ameritrade...But They're Still Cute




Heh...

I'm Ready To Do Stuff Like This

Except They'd End Up Locking ME Up...


For reference purposes, I keep a copy of the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights on my desk in my office. I also have a machine sewn 9' wide American Flag hanging on the wall across from my desk that I look at most of each and every day.

If I had the time and money I'd go back to college and get a degree in US History, except for the fear that I'd end up killing half of my classmates and 99% of my professors in a fit of liberal revisionist homo hetero negro African American commie pinko socialist historical progressive hating rage.

Thus I celebrate guys like this taking the lead in my absence at "town hall" meetings...





All I can say is "Amen"...Brother...people in government are at best uninformed, and in many cases shear IDIOTS...

My Turbo Pup Wants One Of These

Modern Canine Technology




Heh...

Back In The Saddle Atlanta Again

More Broken Stuff...


I've been running around the Turbo Pup Compound this week trying to clean up a bunch of details because I'm heading back down to Atlanta this weekend on another Forensic Injuneering adventure next week.

As my friends and long time readers know, I have somewhat of a love/hate relationship with the city of Atlanta and the "Atlanta Metropolitan Area", having lived there for 24 years beginning in 1977 while attending Georgia Tech and moving north to Smyrna and Marietta and Vinings.

I got to see the little big city go from 1.4 million people up to over 4 million in population, and in the process become something culturally and socially and politically beyond the scope of which I want to deal with on a daily basis.

I moved to Florida and then on to an Island on the Georgia Coast...and now I live here in Tennessee on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River in order to get away from the traffic and noise and confusion associated with the town I at first loved and ended up hating.

But next Monday morning about 10 AM I'll be standing in a boiler room looking at something that broke--and fortunately didn't kill anyone--and possibly visit with a few old friends Sunday and Monday night in the process.

I can hardly wait to get there...and at the same time I can hardly wait to get back home...

The Things Going On In My Basement

When I Don't Have Time To Make My Own Drink


I'm building one of these...




Four valve rebuilds in process...with eight more arriving today, so I have little time to write....Y'all have a LOVELY day...if you will...

(thanks for the link Rodg)

The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life

Remembering Not To Forget...


On this morning on the calendar in 2001 I was waking up in a motel room homeless, with virtually everything I owned either chared black, else sitting within the four walls of that rented space or contained inside the confides of my old Chevy Suburban.

Turns out I still had a Weber Kettle Grill and my old Nissan Maxima were still intact, but everything else looked like this:













The old 1966 house wasn't fancy, but I owned it (stole it for next to nothing out of an estate foreclosure when I needed a place to stay while getting divorced...I know...too much information)

Hey...don't laugh at it...that house had a $4,000 surround sound stereo TV media room in the basement den...you got to have your priorities straight...

I was nearly finished renovating it--new roof, new soffits & fascia and exterior paint, and if it wasn't brick on four sides it would have collapsed because the kitchen and master bedroom crashed into the basement after they put the fire out.

My personal and professional life was about in similar conditions, and so today you can understand why I feel like a good deal of healing has taken place since then--especially when I don't even remember to write about the event until the day after it occurred nine years later.

There's some people out there that still won't speak to me because of things that happened when my spirit was also descending into the depths and catching on fire like my house, but all I can do is say "I'm sorry" and keep on moving forward...

things are just as positive now as they were negative then, and I'm dang sure happy to still be here "after the fire."

On The Seventh Day He Rested He Rented A Lawn Tiller

Beat To Death By A Gasoline Engine...


So I know it's sacrilegious (or possibly semi-sacrilegious)to do yard work on Sunday, but at the risk of earning myself a lightning bolt on Easter Sunday afternoon I got off my butt and went up to Home Depot and brought home a medium sized lawn tiller.

I couldn't stand waiting any longer and with the weather forecast changing from rain on Saturday and Tuesday to sunny and mid eighty's through the rest of the week I felt like I had to get the garden and tomato plots tilled up before the ground set up like concrete.

Since it was 2 PM on Sunday afternoon Home Depot has a policy of letting you keep their rental tools until 9 AM the next morning for the half day rate.

Yeah...RIGHT...after only TWO hours of hanging on to the infernal machine I had everything I deemed reasonable busted up and I loaded that sucker back up in the car and tossed it back in the front door of the store and ran as fast as I could in the other direction.

It basically whipped my butt in the process, but working in ten or fifteen minute torture sessions I was able to get a 36' x 10' area and two 8' x 12' areas dug up about 8" deep.

My hand's and forearms have had it, and if 8" isn't deep enough according to the experts, let the experts come over and bring their tiller and they can have at it.

So any way, it's still a little risky to plant certain crops here at the Turbo Pup Compound now because we still have a couple of weeks of frost possible, but I'm tossing a couple of store bought tomato plants into the ground any way and sewing some carrots around their bases for ground cover.

Meanwhile down in the basement I have a bunch of tomato and pepper seeds already germinating and I'm planting some more Herb seeds like Mint in egg cartons that don't have to be out until May today.

I guess it's time now to take a couple more Tylenol and go lay back down on the heating pad.

Y'all have a LOVELY week now...

A Muppet Easter Bunny?

"Don't Stand By Me"





Heh...

Easter

I'm Taking The Day Off...


I hope everyone has a chance to go to church today if they want, visit with family, watch the kids chase around looking for eggs and stuff, and generally take pause to remember all of the people in all of the places in the world who are afraid to practice their religion in public and end the day just happy to have not had a bomb blow up in their front yard or a bullet pass through their bedroom wall.

I know I'm glad to live here, in spite of the idiots in Washington DC, rather than in Europe or Ethiopia or Iran/Iraq.

Little Kids in Afghanistan wouldn't know what to do if their only worry in life was waking up this morning and finding a basket with fake green grass full of colored eggs and candy.

It's too bad so many Godless people here hate the country we've spent over 200 years building...somehow feeling guilty because we've worked hard and have it so good...and do everything they can to tear us down and make us equal to France and England and even Russia.

But since it's Easter I'm going to stop writing now (because I'm probably by and large preaching to the choir) and go back to my first paragraph...

Hope you have a Happy Easter...

Feeding The Masses

Thinking About How Today's Government Would Have Shut Jesus Down...


You do understand that, in spite of not having ADD or ADHD, I wander around all day thinking about a whole bunch of different stuff.

Sometimes I think I should carry a tape recorder because for every good blog I write-other than just diary stuff like "I cooked" or "I'm mad" or "I'm tired" or "I'm busy", I come up with another half dozen good ideas which I promptly forget or otherwise can't remember by the time I wander back in front of the computer.

Seriously, it's gotten to where I actually think in blogger/editorial form.

Something will happen to me or around me or otherwise pop into my mind, and I can outline the subject and think to myself what a great posting it would be and then WHAM something else distracts me and I can't get to the Keyboard before the idea is gone out of my every greying, ever balding head.

And yes...I do actually manage to spend some time away from my computers...I could walk away right now and spend a couple of hours couple of minutes enough seconds to run to the restroom...

Really...

I can...

I CAN...

OK...Just this one time I'll stay here in front of the Keyboard...

BUT I REALLY CAN LIVE FOR A WHOLE DAY WITHOUT LOOKING AT A COMPUTER IF I WANTED TO.

(taking a big breath here Boss...)

So any way, for some reason--probably because yesterday was Good Friday and Sunday is Easter--I was thinking about stuff and while cooking I was thinking about the story of the Loaves and Fishes.

You know...the one told in Matthew 14, verses 13 through 21?

You can get out your bible like I did and read it, or here on the blog I'll just use this good summary from Wikipedia:

According to the Gospels, when Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been killed, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place near Bethsaida.[3]

The crowds followed Jesus on foot from the towns.

When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a remote place, and it's already getting late.

Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food."

Jesus replied, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat."

"We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish," they answered.

"Bring them here to me," he said.

Jesus directed the people to sit down on the grass.

Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.


That's a pretty interesting story, and there is a good deal of speculation as to the exact meaning of the message if you read stuff written by the "biblical scholars," but taking it literally, can you imagine what would happen if Jesus was wandering around here in the United By God States of 'Merica today?

First of all, the local Police Department would probably have arrested him or at least forced the crowd to leave before he was able to perform his miracle because they didn't have a permit for the gathering.

But IF he had the foresight to try to get the disciples to run down and fill out an application and pay the fee, the Zoning Department would most likely have refused to issue a permit because the area was designated D4-Desert and Arid Tundra Areas.

And IF he had managed to get a permit, he'd have had to supply off duty police officers for security and had a bunch of porta-johns delivered to the venue, and issue permits to the street vendors selling the "WWJD" t-shirts and so on...

And then IF the Health Department found out he was serving dinner, they would have come out, made an inspection, and they WOULD HAVE SHUT THE WHOLE THING DOWN...

because the area didn't have potable water, and the kitchen employees didn't have hot water and hand sanitizer to wash their hands when returning from the porta-johns, and they didn't have an OSHA/ASHRAE/ASME approved vent hood system in the kitchen.

(TAKING ANOTHER BIG BREATH HERE...)

You see, ladies and gentlemen, if it were up to our government and the idiots running most of it, the events which are described to have taken place in Matthew 14:13-21 would have never happened.

In fact, in my opinion a good deal of the stuff which happened in the Bible is against the law today.

Water into Wine?

The Federal and State "Revenuers" would come out...Prohibition Style...and arrest him on the spot for illegally making an intoxicating beverage without a license and paying the taxes thereon.

Moses and the Burning Bush?

He would have had to have a burn permit else face a fine.

Parting the Red Sea?

Required by a Federal District Court Judge to have a three year environmental impact study, then PETA and Greenpeace would file endless court protests and the Egyptians would have had free mud bricks and servants today.

Ten Commandments on a Stone Tablet?

Two words...MINING PERMIT ( and see "parting the Sea" above about impact studies and lawsuits...)

Adam and Eve...naked in public.

Just fine in San Francisco, broadcast live on U-Tube, but a little risky here in Eastern Tennessee.

As you can see, I could go on and on and on (Delila cutting hair without a License/permit)and feel free to make up your own examples if you want.

And please understand that I'm not making fun of the bible and the value of the stories it tells and religious beliefs it supports, I'm just pointing out, tongue in cheek, how far things have slid in the past 2010 years in our lives and our freedoms and government.

The Romans and Egyptians and Persians had nothing in their program of oppression and slavery compared to your local city hall and state capital and the likes of Obamarama and Reid and Pelosi...

It seems to me that the honest, hard working, God fearing Conservative Americans today have been delivered like the Israelites into the hands of the Philistines, and that's just a sad state of affairs.

By the way...in a biblical sense...it occurred to me while writing this posting...

2000 years ago, wouldn't it be a "Porta-John the Baptist"?


Heh...

The Mixer Meets It's MatchProduct

Loaves and Fishes...


Here's a look at "Loaf #1" talking things out with it's maker...

Loaf #2 is still in the oven basking at 350 degrees F.

Here's another view of the Tsoureki Loaf with a Dyed Egg in the middle.



By the way, that is in fact a dyed boiled egg in the middle there (along with other experimental eggs there in the bowl in the back.

You can go here and learn how to use water and vinegar and of all things...yellow onion skins...to make a red dye to color eggs. (I'd somehow missed that process in the past 50 years.)

What looks like Brown Eggs is actually some I took out of the dye when I got impatient...but I got several darker ones by letting things sit for a couple of hours after I took them off the stove.

Now it's time to go pull the second loaf out of the oven, let it cool a little, and deliver it to Papa George...

Regards Y'all

Making Baking Bread

I'm Afraid Of My Mixer...


So three or four years ago I decided that I wanted to add a stand mixer to my arsenal my list of kitchen tools.

Since I make pizza about three times every two weeks, it sounded like a good idea at the time.

Then you know me...I couldn't settle for just "any" stand mixer, I wanted something that bolted to the kitchen cabinet or stood in the floor and made the windows rattle when I turned it on and started mixing something.

Something like this 60 quart model would do nicely, don't you think???

Then upon further consideration, realizing that my kitchen was basically 12 feet x 14 feet, I realized that, since I generally only make one or two pizzas at a time, that unless I wanted to have to wheel the monstrosity out into the carport when we had company or when I actually wanted to COOK something...that I should downsize my aspirations and get something a little more portable.

Then I started looking at the KitchenAid mixers which are in every store except possibly AutoZone and the local Men's Big/Tall Shop, but I wasn't satisfied with the speed selections and the fact that the bowl just sat there on the base and could start spinning around while unattended and fly off into space or something.

Finally I found out about the larger capacity KitchenAid Professional 6 quart model...



(except mine's gunmetal grey...remember it's part of my "arsenal" by default...)

which has more motor horsepower and additional speeds, but more importantly it had a lift stand base that allowed me to lock the mixing bowl onto the unit so when I come back from the basement or restroom after ten minutes my dough is still inside the kitchen rather than sitting out in the back yard with the Robins and Nuthatches pecking at it.

I ordered it on sale, online, with free shipping, and when it arrived and I busted it out of the cardboard and Styrofoam and tossed it up on the counter top, and I'm sorry to report that I've only used it once or twice since.

Why, you might ask?

Because it's too large to only make dough for one pizza!

When I dump 2-1/2 cups of flour and a cup of water and a pack of yeast and some salt and white pepper into the bowl and turn it on, the paddle or dough hook barely touches the mixture.

I think that my mixer laughed and taunted me and said "that's all you got" in "Mixer-ese"

Then I had the brilliant idea to take it off the stand and stir things up by hand, and then remount the bowl on the mixer. When I turned the motor back on the dough hook grabbed my little blob of dough and proceeded to make it slowly crawl up to the top of the hook and ride around in circles like some kind of silly kitchen amusement park ride.

I know that when I use yeast I'm basically "fermenting" my dough...so I might get "drunken" dough in the process, but spinning my dough around getting it "drunken"???

So any way, in a few minutes when my milk finishes "scalding" and my butter finishes melting, I'm going to make another try at using what has been a giant paperweight for the past two years in my kitchen.

I'm tossing together about 6 cups of flour and 6 eggs and a bunch of other stuff and trying to make three or four loaves of Greek Easter Bread.

I'll try to avoid having to repaint the walls or buy new flooring or replace my counter top, or wash flour off of the Turbo Pup in the process.

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

(And I'm REAL glad I didn't buy that 60 quart model else I'd probably need counseling)

APRIL FOOL DAY

Couldn't I Be Considered A Fool Almost Every Day???


Yes...locking up my blog until noon today was my weird Blogger "April Fools" joke for 2010.

Hope you enjoyed it...if you stopped by before noon.

I haven't had time to write anything until now this morning because I've been up working since about 4 AM trying to catch up from my lethargy exhibited earlier in the week.

Yesterday I ended up wallowing in the bed with the newspaper listening to Neal Boortz until about 11 AM and then after a couple of hours working in the yard I dedicated a couple more hours to sitting in the sun on my deck smoking a cigar...getting a little pink on my cheeks (the upper ones, not the lower ones), and enjoying the sound and smell of weed eaters and leaf blowers.

Then early this morning I started feeling guilty and spun into a whirlwind of wearing out my uncallosed hands and fingers cranking on socket head cap screws and risking cancer breathing mineral spirits fumes cleaning parts and putting everything back together.

Later today after washing the grease and lawn chemicals from my hands I'm baking a couple of loaves of Tsoureki...a sweat "Greek Easter Bread" for the Family of a friend here in Knoxtown who's dealing with bringing his dad home from the hospital after his first Chemo treatment last weekend.

Harry's become a good friend and business associate in the past six months and with his old line Greek roots (they have a house here and one in Greece) it's been fun talking about Greek food in between technical conversations.

Any way, his mother has her hand's full taking care of Dad and since I was already going to try my hand at baking the stuff before I found about the illness I figure I'll just double the recipe and drop by tomorrow morning and deliver some.

Time to go package things up in bubble wrap and cardboard and spread some fertilizer...

Y'all have a LOVELY day...If you will...

Sunshine 1...Taxes 0

Summer-like Weather Has Me Mentally Paralyzed...


Well, I looked at my taxes for a minute this morning.

That is, if you can call walking past the stack of files sitting ominously on the Dining Room table as "looking at."

I had to move them out of my office last weekend because I kept piling other stuff up on top of them and sorting them around accidentally and then after losing one or two of them spending a half hour panicking.

I did manage to open up all eight of the giant pneumatic valves in the new batch and didn't find anything surprising, so I'm promising myself I'll buckle down and get four of them torn down, soaked in solvent, rinsed off, and put back together with new o-rings and seals and out of the building tomorrow, BUT...

right now it's time go sit on the deck in the sun with the Turbo Pup and smoke a cigar and yell at make faces at the guy with the leaf blower.

My Lawn As An Excuse?

Anything To Avoid Finishing My Taxes...


I have to finish three tax returns this week...two personal and one Business.

The company's return was pretty much done last month and just needs a final check, and Pat's is done and just needs a final check and signature...not including the small check we'll put in the mail to the IRS.

Mine, unfortunately, is about fifteen pages long and I don't like the answer I got as to the amount I owe--not enough for a penalty/interest situation-- but after doing some more reading I think that I've found some more stuff which with a little creative accounting...wink...wink...could lower the tax bill if I'll take the time to sort through the receipts and document it properly.

Did I mention how much I hate tax forms, tax form instructions, and the IRS in general? Just wait until they start coming to the hospital to check and make sure you have the right government mandated insurance.

Meanwhile, it's supposed to be near 80 degrees F here at the Turbo Pup Compound on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River for the next three or four days, and with the recent rains and warmer weather my lawn, weeds and all, is growing like crazy.

In a fit of well intended lawn improvement shopping last weekend I bought fertilizer and a giant bag of grass seed to do some over seeding and try to crowd the wild onions and clover and Dandelions out of the way.

Our yard guys lawn maintenance technicians have promised to come by and assault my ears with a weed eater and blow grass clippings all over my cars and carport give everything a fresh going over and haul off another giant pile of tree limbs and shrubbery prunings which are green and/or I'm just too lazy to burn.

That's pretty dang lazy when a guy is too lazy to stand in his yard with a beer and watch a fire burn, isn't it?

Sorta like being too drunk to FISH, I guess...

So any way, I have to try to get the minimum done in the yard while at the same time getting the taxes out the door because I'm supposed to be out of town visiting a client next week and I don't want to make taxes a last minute fire drill this year.

If I start now doing the final filings certainly in 15 days I can get things out the door and into the mailbox.

OK...maybe not...because I also have to rebuild 12 more pneumatic valves which will take a couple of days at least, depending on what I find when I get inside them.

It's nice being busy again and making more money than I spend every month after bumbling and stumbling around with sporadic Consulting Forensic Injuneering work every month or so.

But it's hard to teach an old dog old Pirate new tricks, so I guess I'll go lay back down and read the newspaper and take a nap...

Regards Y'all.

Capitolism With A Kapitol "K" Capitol "C"

The Ground's Shaking Under My Feet...


Man did I ever have a GREAT day on Monday.

The phone was ringing and I was wheeling and dealing and stuff went out the door at the end of the day with invoices attached.

Politicians just levy taxes when they need money, but I was doing what is historically known as conducting "Business."

Those that know me in real life know that I suffered a catastrophic business blow out in the late 1990's and pretty much mentally parked my ship in the harbor for a few years and elected to do nothing all day.

That is, if you don't count fishing or sitting in a bar bending my elbow or possibly eating and/or cooking.

I was burned out and angry that nine years of hard effort had been wiped out when a couple of my customers decided to go out of business and in the process take me with them by not paying their bills.

For most of the subsequent ten years I pretty much swore out loud that there was no amount of money or circumstance that would cause me to ever again be responsible for turning off and on the lights and handling payroll and shipping and receiving for anything with my name on it.

If you've read this blog for a while, you'll remember that from time to time I did, like this guy...



...consider a number of other employment opportunities including newspaper writer (I actually had an interview), line chef in a four star restaurant (interviewed for that too), and then like Jethro the Brain Surgeon and Fry Cook opportunities which never came along for some reason.

Then slowly but surely things changed in the last year or so, and the old fires re-ignited, and through a convoluted series of events and circumstances today finds me again living life as President of a Corporation--currently with only two employees--but looking at what I believe could be a pretty interesting future here as we go into the second quarter of 2010 at the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

If the damn Democrats and the "across the isle reaching" Republicans would get out of the way and stop stimulating themselves and their constituents with other people's money I believe that the business world could actually develop a good head of steam and put some people back to work in spite of their idiotic efforts in the next year.

My new little company has already "injected" over ten thousand dollars back into the economy, not to mention me and my associate spending almost 1000 hours into the development and production of new custom products and most recently in a totally new rebuild process for a component used on a bunch of multi-million dollar machines both here in the US and in Europe and Asia...something which could be our ticket to not only our survival as a company but some amazing success in the near term.

With the latest PLC panel in route to our New England client and now weekly shipments of rebuilt valves into and out of our impromptu basement "loading dock," and with finally receiving payments and having an at least break even funding situation we're poised to launch into a limited national marketing effort for our products and services.

Of course I, being a professional pirate and beach bum and blogger, still intend to keep a generous portion of my calendar open to the prospect of doing absolutely nothing all day, but when the opportunity presents itself and I feel like getting off my butt and making someone want to give me their money to do something productive, I'll certainly read the fine print and further entertain their offer.

The main thing I've learned a couple of times (which means I didn't really learn it the first time,) is that you have to have enough spare time in life to enjoy the money you're making when you time is not "spare." If you can never leave the office you tend to burn out and burn up your brain and then things get ugly...

I reference 1998 and 1999 in my life as an example.

Maturity and discipline are one thing, but being a slave driver to anyone including myself has long ago been crossed off of my To-Do list.

I'm truly blessed to still be here physically and mentally after the crap I've been through in the past 50 years, and as we go into this Easter week I can't help but want to thank my family and friends for their endurance of my weaknesses and their support in my efforts, and of course the Man upstairs and his Son Jesus Christ who gave all of us our frailties and delivered us from same.

Late Night TV Shopping

I'm Retiring From Working And Blogging Once UPS Gets Here...


I'm excited to report that I made the first of three "three easy payments" tonight...on four different products...for somewhere between $19.99 and $39.99 each.

First I got myself into "Winning in the Cashflow Business" and I'm sitting here on the phone waiting for all of the people out there holding all the underutilized "cash flow notes" to give me a ring.

I'm also busy planning on spending most of this week standing by the mailbox when the phone is not ringing waiting for my checks to arrive.

Then, in anticipation of collecting my first half million dollars in cold hard cash, I bought myself a membership in two hair replacement systems, ordered my free samples of Extenz, and in a last minute fit of vanity I bought the Luminess Air "airbrush" makeup system to make my buttocks and nose look good after I move down to the nudist colony sporting a six foot long penis.

(I'm also seriously thinking of Botoxing my Buttocks...but I have to wait for the "cash flow system" money to come in first)

Is there anyone out there but me that doesn't understand why almost everything sold on TV after about 3 or 4 AM is called a "system?"

There must be some kind of state or federal law or something...or maybe the United Nations has a rule that stupid people only have their money legally stolen from them over the airwaves in return for buying something with the word "System" in the name.

Let me know if you find out because it worries me a great deal, but meanwhile I've got to go now and place an order for "Your Baby Can Read" because I anticipate needing that "system" shortly after the ladies get a look at my new airbrushed, hair covered head and erection lasting longer than four hours.

(Just in case you mis-understand, this late night TV marketing crap makes me crazy when I see it for five seconds let alone five minutes, and I think Comcast should just show me this...

instead of making me endure flipping past the insanity on over half of the channels I'm paying for. Just like junk mail, I think 99.99% of it deserves to go in the garbage unopened.)

While I'm at it, the same goes for Home Shopping Networks.

Dang I'm cranky...time for a nap I guess...

Brunch, Anyone?

Here...do this...


I'm still feeling a little lethargic today--mentally and physically.

Our brunch on this rainy, lazy morning here on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River consisted of scratch made Crepes I tossed together in an unexpected fit of cooking energy.

I make a really good crepe after about a decade of practice....it's not hard really.

Two kinds of crepes actually, and in support of my efforts I have a giant electric griddle which allows me to cook three or four crepes at one time in just a couple of minutes. If I'm cooking for a larger group it even has a warming tray underneath which keeps things ready to go while you produce even a dozen thin little pancakes.

Now I figure that a lot of people are saying to themselves..."Of all things...Virgil..."

CREPES?

Not PANCAKES?

Crepes?

I know...I Know...I KNOW...

You're thinking, like I used to, that somewhere out there it is implyed that "Real Men" don't eat Crepes.

sigh...

You're right, I've heard that too...BUT...

No matter, my answer to that comment is to quote the words of comic Steve Martin...

"Well excuuuuuusssssss Me..."

And all that said, I'm here to tell you that this former "real man" which is today either "less real" or "more real"... depending on your perspective...not only enjoys EATing Crepes, but I have more than a couple of pretty good ideas about the how's and when's and why's gained from my personal experience with cooking Crepes.

For instance, here's what happened at the Turbo Pup Compound this morning.

First of all the crepe batter is easy...I use this when cooking breakfast for two:

1 cup flour
2 eggs, beaten
dash of salt
teaspoon sugar
1 cup milk
(dash of vanilla if you want and are only using sweet fillings/toppings)

Basically you put all of the dry ingredients into a bowl, add the wet ingredients, and then whisk or beat the mixture together until smooth...I use a hand mixer with a whisk attachment.

For smooth uniform crepes you need to make up your batter mixture and then let it rest in the refrigerator for a half hour or so to allow the air bubbles to come out so you get a good consistency with your cooked crepes.

Then the filling can be almost anything you want, but I usually make mine from a combination of ham and asparagus with slices of cream cheese, then I make up some Knorr Holandaise sauce and toss it on top on the plate after baking the finished crepes for 20 minutes or so in the oven .

Google the details because it's easy and everybody does it basically the same.

Then the other thing which goes good for breakfast is to make some sort of sweet crepe to go with your savory crepes.

Again, using the basic crepe as a wrapper around some slices of cream cheese, this morning I put together a mixture of sliced fresh strawberries and canned pineapple. You dump the pineapple juice into a skillet with the berries and pineapple chunks, saute everything for a few minutes with a quarter stick of butter (and I'm sorry...some BACON grease...don't tell my cardiologist...), then add a tablespoon of sugar, a tablespoon of honey, and a teaspoon of good Balsamic Vinegar to the mixture and cook it down until it thickens like you like it.

Pull the hot baked crepe/cream cheese roll out of the oven and spoon your fruit topping up on top, shake a little powdered sugar over everything if you want, and EAT.

I felt like I'd been somewhere for breakfast when it was all said and done, except there was a sink load of dishes somebody had to do.

Time to start thinking about cooking my soon to be famous "Rustic Greek Pasta" for dinner now...

Feel free to stop by about 7 PM if you happen to be in the neighborhood.

Mental Day Off

Excelling At Doing Not Much Of Anything...


Just in case you didn't notice, I'm pretty sure that I didn't write two dozen words yesterday.

I hardly read any (words) yesterday either, unless you count things like "Stop" and "Go", and "Men's" and Women's" and stuff like that. Single words...or just a few words standing alone all by themselves..phrases shorter than the 26 letters of the alphabet.

(trivial factoid of the day...my name has 26 letters and or spaces in it if you count the comma before III, thereby making it virtually impossible to fill in the blanks on most government forms when they demand that they tell you your "full name.")

Wait a minute...I did go shopping Saturday and had to go through the checkout at the dry cleaners and Home Depot and Kroger and also signed a couple of receipts for lunch and dinner along the way.

Any hoooo....The most significant thing I've learned through the years in "attempting" to develop some skills as a writer is that when it comes to "creative" writing, you can't force it.

Wait...OK...let me modify that theory while the ink is still wet.

You CAN force it, but the results most of the time will allow the stress and strain found in the process to slowly, insidiously ooze out onto your paper or computer screen, and your reader will detect the mental conflict and/or the lack of any real underlying substance in the manuscript and reject it out of hand go find something better to do with their time.

Here in the blog universe, I say that you can see that there's a lot of that (people writing with nothing to write about) going on at any given time, and it's even worse on places like Twitter and Facebook.

I don't consider writing the words "Getting dressed and going outside" or "believe I'll change my underwear and put on clean socks" worth blogging about, but you'll find stuff like that written all the time on Facebook.

And see how I was able to issue both statements here and get away with writing them because I have a larger point to make other than just blithering about freshly laundered underwear and socks?

It's all in the context of the discussion I guess, and making subjects like personal hygiene interesting to total strangers is an art form which escapes most everyone but Martha Stewart or your mother (or possibly your personal physician.)

And now I've attempted it ("it" being trying to make underwear and socks interesting.)

Hah...I got cha...now I've got to stop fooling around on the computer, since I really have nothing to say, and go put on clean socks and underwear and get into the shop and get some work done.

Talk to y'all later...hopefully...

I Made It Through The Week

Without My Head Exploding...


I'm pleased to report that things are generally working out...late but still...

Apparently with age comes a form of supernaturally induced patience, or possibly just a lack of energy to get any more excited about things than I do sometimes.

The words of Shakespeare sort of sum it all up for me... but instead of "Much Ado About Nothing," sometimes around here it's "Nothing About Much Ado."

Have a LOVELY Weekend ...Y'all...

I Bought Two Laptop Batteries...

Highlight Of My Day?


I'm hunkered down in shipping mode getting some stuff out the door today in boxes full of bubble wrap and foam peanuts, so until the pressure is off the words are going to be fairly few and far between here on the blog.

I've got owner's manuals to finish and other minutia to deal with but that's the way it is being in business, in spite of what the late night TV "Infomercials" and the Government tells people.

Bye Bye...

(Oh...I almost forgot...Next Monday I'll have new batteries delivered for two of my three laptops...true wireless computing...a nerds dream...)

Up And Coming Candidate For Governor Gubernatorial Senatorial Candidate

I'd Vote For This Guy If I Lived In Florida...

Marco Rubio, former speaker of the House in Florida, is running for Governor a seat in the US Senate of the state now. Check out his farewell speech, mostly delivered without notes or teleprompter:



I'd vote for that Cuban any day, so stop calling/thinking I'm a racist...

(and who came up with the word...Gubernatorial...Gomer Pyle?)

UPDATE 2:00AM

My title to this posting changed to reflect my Florida friends pointing out Mr. Rubio is running for Senate...not Governor.

My Head's On Fire

My Bank And the Employees Thereof Are Idiots...


Don't ask the details because you'll think I'm making things up.

OK...let's use the words Feckless, Obtuse, and Inane. No bounced checks, finally money available, but they managed to order the wrong checks, without authorization, and mis-spell my company name in the process.

Right now I'm just trying to stay off the 11 PM news having entered the building with a big stick and a bad attitude.

Some people DESERVE to be "unemployed," and I know where one or two of them spend their days right now if any one's interested.

Japanese Loui Armstrong

Funny...But They'd Put ME In Jail For Doing This On Stage In This Country

Slippery Slope...Part MCMVXII

Everybody Needs To Get A Grip...


I've been following this story for the past week or so now:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100320/ap_on_bi_ge/us_wal_mart_racial_comment

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. – A 16-year-old boy who police said made an announcement at Walmart ordering all black people in the southern New Jersey store to leave was charged with harassment and bias intimidation, authorities said Saturday.

The boy, whose name is not being released because he is a juvenile, grabbed one of the courtesy phones at Walmart's Washington Township store Sunday evening and calmly announced: "Attention, Walmart customers: All black people, leave the store now," police said.

The teen was arrested Friday and released to the custody of his parents; police did not know whether he had a lawyer.

"This was an extremely disturbing event on many levels," Gloucester County Prosecutor Sean Dalton said at a news conference. "Any statements like these that can cause harm or grave concern must be addressed as quickly we possibly can."

Dalton said the case would be handled in juvenile court in neighboring Atlantic County, where the boy lives. He would not say whether the boy has a criminal record, citing the teen's age, and would not disclose the teen's race, saying that did not factor into the investigation.

The 16-year-old has been charged with harassment and bias intimidation.


and I've stood it as long as I can stand it remaining silent.

Say that you're a middle aged dumpy, ever greying, ever balding, more than a little off of your fighting weight white dude, and you're walking through a Best Buy or Food City minding your own business.

Then say that suddenly you hear the in-store intercom crackle to life and someone then proceeds to blither out something like "all you angry old Anglo/European/American white bastards need to leave the building right now."

What would you do if you were an angry old Anglo/European/American white bastard?

Well, speaking from the position of having some inside knowledge of the ever growing minority of people with (ever shrinking) testicles looking at things from that perspective, I, personally, would assume that there was some idiot in the store...employee or not...which had gotten ahold of the PA system and two seconds later I'd turn my head and continue on my way looking at USB cables or Micro SD memory cards or possibly for a good deal on boneless chicken breasts.

Then by the grace of God I might actually manage to remember the (non)event long enough to recount it to some of my friends and family...that there was some idiot in a store last week... and I might blog about it, but most likely I'd forget the (non)event long before I had time to call the police and file a report and demand legal action.

Pretty simple, huh?

But TODAY, in the year 2010, in the cracks and crevasses of our once great Republic (not Democracy) if the EXACT same thing happens at WalMart...bastion of government liberal/progressive/socialist and Union Leader hatred (sorry for the redundancy) nation wide...

if the people/persons...the so-called "victims" of the perceived public slight/insult/or otherwise general racially induced commentary... happens to be a member of a Government/societal protected race/class of citizens, the managers and so-called "authorities" are apparently forced to run around like their hair is on fire, conduct an expensive government witch hunt, and in this case manage to find and lock up a 16 year old kid...and after much public indignation and hoopla...proceed to PROSECUTE HIM for something loosely called "harassment and Bias."

What the $#@! is this teaching the American people?

...and who the *$%# are passing these laws in the first place?

Dammit Ladies and Gentlemen, someone--a kid...probably a white male else there'd be no story here...acted in a socially unacceptable and boorish manner, but locking the stupid little bastard up and trying him in juvenile court?

Pluuuuuuuease...

Let the little shit-head finish growing up and let him keep acting this way and doing this kind of ignorant crap, and then let him go to trade school college and find out that he isn't invited to join a fraternity, and when he buys his first trailer moves in to a neighborhood with a clubhouse and home owner's association let him find that he and his wife get left off of all of the Christmas party guest lists, but don't LOCK THE IDIOT UP for picking up a phone and talking for five seconds.

He didn't yell "FIRE" and cause a stampede...

He was just young and stupid and and I guarandamtee you if ANYONE else of any other RACE/GENDER had done the exact same thing there'd be no NEWS STORY here.

Was it WRONG?

Yes...absolutely YES.

But was it CRIMINAL?

You decide for yourself, but you know where I stand here...

Is it just me?

Am I Considered "Anal Retentive" IF...

Things I Spend Time Thinking About All Day


All I want to know is, does anyone but me manage to write down their grocery list in the order in which they generally encounter the goods they wish to purchase, IN ORDER, from MEMORY, based on the layout of the isles in their favorite Grocery Store?

Problem for me is, Kroger has a "Regular Kroger" a mile or two down Kingston Pike from us in one direction, and in the other direction a little ways there's one of their new "Kroger Marketplaces" which...if you haven't seen one, sells stuff like furniture and other home decorating goods along with fighter aircraft and Electrical Power Co-generation Systems and nuclear weapons produced by the Pakistanis and Iranians.

...OK...I made the part about the aircraft and Co-generation and Atomic stuff up...but still...

Then I'm not even going to get into what happens when I make the occasional trip to a Food World doing my shopping or any other purveyor of Foodstuffs from other lands and planets.

I think that while our Congress is busy forcing me next year to go see Dr. Rashee, the local medical practitioner who attended medical school for twenty years at DeVry Institute or Phoenix University while also working as the pool boy/Gigolo at the local country club about my erectile dysfunction, that they could take the time to pass a few laws that will do all of us "Seniors" and "Seniors in Waiting" some good in our lives.

Why not pass a law that says that every single Grocery Store in the United By-God States of 'Merrica shall have exactly the same layout when it comes to finding Beer or Vegetables or Bologna or Baby Food or Feminine Hygiene products?

Is that too much to ask?

If I want to go on an "adventure" I'll go on vacation and hike my way to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa in a "Hover round", or wade the Everglades in a Speedo towing a shopping cart full of dead chickens, or attend a NASCAR race and camp in the infield of the track in an old School bus flying a giant Confederate Flag with a bunch of people who's favorite cheer is "WhooooooHoooo..."

That way I can avoid walking down the isles looking for Asian Hoisine Sauce wasting time only managing to find stuff with Gerber and Massengale on the label.

And while we're talkin''...friend to friend...another thing's bothering me.

Why the heck doesn't the state or federal government...those same bodies responsible for crap like the FCC and the FAA and the E-I-E-I-O and whatever (wait...Old McDonald still handles the E-I-E-I-O part of our government I think...) make every cable company in the continental US--including the satellite companies--do this simple little thing for old men with "remote control amnesia"?

STANDARDIZE THE FREAKING CABLE CHANNELS!!

Is that too much to ask?

Wouldn't it be incredibly simple for everything from... say channel 1 to channel number 69 (or whatever the highest VHF channel is) be actually NUMBERED in each city or cable jurisdiction in the same manner?

Forget having channel #2 be channel #4 and channel number #5 be channel 11, let me poke a button or series of buttons with my thumb and whatever fingers I don't have stuck in some bodily orifice or using to scratch something that's itching and get the results I expect.

Then with these new "digital TV's" and remotes that can access every number ranging from negative to positive infinity, logically place all of the stupid tear jerking Women's channels in a group, and the jock strap sniffing sports freaks sports channels in a group, all of the info nerds stuff and all of the home improvement stuff and everything else in channel groupings so those of us growing ever longer in tooth and shorter in memory can find something while we're up sitting on the toilet watching TV in the restroom reflected off the mirror of some strange motel in a foreign city trying to get over last night's Mexican dinner indiscretions.

I swear to God I can't tell you where anything but Fox News and the weather channel and possibly Food Network is here on my own TV in my own home after living here for nearly TWO YEARS.

But I can go to the Grocery store at Kroger tomorrow, and unless they have remodeled it since last Thursday or Friday, I can buy some stuff which will allow me to cook Asian Baby Back Ribs (already have the ribs) and some spicy Asparagus and some other as yet to be identified side dish and then watch something weird on TV--I don't care what because I can only solve one problem in any given day.

And I'm a bigger man for admitting that problem in the first place, don't you think?

That will be all...for now...

It's Easy To "Cut The Deficit By Half"

When You Quadruple It In Your First Year In Office

You Decide...

Graph stolen from here (and they got it from the Washington Post)

More Random Thoughts And Cogitations

You Don't EVEN Don't Want To Hear/Read What I Really Think...


OK...

Here's a listing of all the reasons that I, as a younger man, would have had a bad weekend this past weekend here at the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

#1. Obama and Reid and Pelosi managed to bribe Stupak "the stupid" and his fellow "pro life" Democratic (non)representatives with an "executive order"...something which can be reversed in the milliseconds of time it takes to sign another "executive order" or reverse by judicial fiat because it's terms aren't reflected in US law...so now everyone living and dead and anywhere in between has guaranteed "healthcare" courtesy of my wallet.

#2 Georgia Tech lost to Ohio State in the NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament.

#3 It started raining before daylight this morning and rained all freaking day on and off and will continue for another two or three days.

But you know what?

I have stuff to do this week professionally which will ultimately get me paid to do it...in SPITE of the the best efforts of certain members of the stupid Imperial Federal Government of the By-God United States of 'Merica's best efforts.

Isn't it truly a sad state of affairs these days when a person has to try to succeed in spite of their government, because I'm fairly certain that our founders wrote the US Constitution in a way where it wasn't the government's job--local or state or Federal--to ensure I had a job or income or housing or even "healthcare."

And regarding "healthcare", for a long time in this country it was up to me and my predecessors to hire someone like this lovely guy:

...or this fellow...



...or even this kid...


...or in the end of hope this politically incorrect medical pioneer...



or God forbid this silly man if we as individuals want to take our chances...



and then if and when things went wrong we were responsible for our decision making process and the cost of the services or non-services delivered, and we didn't expect to be able to run screaming to the mayor or the Governor or the President complaining when we grew an extra big toe or something important like our liver or penis fell out or off of our bodies.

Not so today, because we've slowly abdicated the certification/qualification of everything from the guy that installs our toilets and puts shingles on our roof...to the people pulling our teeth and inserting cameras into our anuses, to some sort of Government entity.

And when things go wrong, instead of accepting responsibility for the problem or poor quality of the services and scope of options we're forced to buy, now their solution is to take further control and further limit our control over the maintenance of something as personal and intimate as our own bodies and minds (minds now being screwed with by "Public" government schools.)

And another thing.

Does anyone but me have a problem with them attaching control of "student loans" to a "healthcare bill."

Just wait, within 20 years you won't be able to study anything the Government doesn't like you studying, and learning anything that the Government doesn't want you to learn---things like history and how fecklessly and obtusely government delivers services, and I can see a time when people that the government doesn't like or approve of their thinking and beliefs being prevented from going to college...even if they can afford to pay their own costs and choose their own curriculum.

We're pretty much SCREWED Ladies and Gentlemen, if this thing passes the Senate and is signed into law unless something miraculous doesn't happen in the next year or so.

And instead of "SCREWED", I'd like to use another word, but you know what I mean anyway...

But in spite of all of that, I had a pretty good weekend anyway. I guess that the Official Government Induced Mind Numbing Process (OGIMN for short) is already taking effect.

Here... Do Cook This

I've Got Camels and Desert Palms In My Kitchen...


I might have mentioned previously on this blog (and on my cooking blog The Redneck Gourmet) that I cook some pretty complicated stuff around here sometimes--stuff with detailed formulas like people use making industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

Then other times I like to fly by the seat of my pants and just do a little reading and Internet research and then have a few cocktails and have it out with myself and my spices and refrigerator, almost dirtying up every single pot and pan and dish in my kitchen in the process.

Last night was one of those nights, and Food Network's Alton Brown and Guy Fieri would have ran away screaming if they saw the process and the mixture of stuff I put together, but I think that it came out pretty dang good in the end.

I guess it was sort of like staging my own version of Iron Chef ... Cast Iron Chef Redneck Chef America North Africa, if you know what I mean.

I call the assemblage...Morrocan Pork Tenderloin with Savory Vegetables and Glazed Dried Fruit Compote.

(somebody probably needs to stop by here and slap me for that name, but then when I stick a couple of spoons full of the stuff into your mouth you might just change your mind...)

Here's the deal if you want to try it, and it's really not that hard if you do a little planning and your pallet likes something besides Burger King and Taco Bell Crap.

First things first, if you are cooking northern African/Southern Mediterranean cuisine, you need to go to the store and buy yourself a mixture of spices which when combined will produce something called Ras el Hanout.

Translated, the term "Ras el Hanout" in Arabic means "Head of the Shop" in English, and in spite of our Geo-political differences these days I've been cooking things from everywhere from Turkey to Morocco for two or three years now and find this basic spice blend or variations thereof to work well as a staple seasoning mix in my kitchen.

The history of the blend says that in the days before Railroads and interstate highways and Federal Express that the guys in northern Africa created these blends of exotic spices--with no specific recipe--from the very best herbs and roots and seeds which they had in their shops at any given time.

Thus once you start making it and cooking with it you can make your own "Ras al Hanout" with things you like the flavor of and leave out the things you don't like smelling or tasting.

My Ras el Hanout, which I put together last fall and stored in my spice cabinet in a big glass jar with a shaker top, included ground Cloves, Cinnamon, Paprika, Cumin, Coriander, (Fresh) Nutmeg, and Turmeric. I think that there was some Cayenne pepper in there somewhere also.

Once you have your version of that spice blend in hand, I swear that you can make cardboard or kitty food taste good on a cracker.

It works with pork or chicken or beef or even sea food as far as I can tell, and your imagination is the limit as far as side dishes you can put with it...rice and Couscous or vegetables and so on.

To duplicate my Dinner for Two and one half (including our little Missy the Turbo Pup) last night you'll need:

Two or three 1" thick closely trimmed Pork Tenderloins

Three or Four small new Red Potatoes...washed and quartered or cubed

Three medium carrots...scraped and sliced as you like them

1/2 medium Red Onion, sliced thin

1 cup sliced button mushrooms

1 apple...I prefer Gala or Fuji Pinks

Two Lemons-sliced into 1/8" to 1/4" slices and seeded

Six Dried Medjool Dates

Six Dried Apricots

1/4 cup white wine

1/4 cup port wine (or other red wine)

two or three tablespoons of Peach or Apricot Jam

One and one quarter cups of prepared Couscous

Now as to the preparation of all of the above stuff into a meal fit for a King an Emir, I rubbed the closely trimmed pork tenderloins with the Ras el Hanout on Friday and left them laying covered in the fridge for 24 hours. You need to give them at least two hours if you don't start things the day before.

Then I chunked up a couple of three or four New Red Potatoes and chopped up some fresh carrots and put them in a pot on the stove top to simmer on low for a half hour to an hour...until fork tender.

Meanwhile, I started preheating my oven to 400 degrees, and in my heavy 13" Lodge Cast Iron skillet I crisped four slices of thick bacon, and over on the cutting board I cubed up a Gala apple and sliced and seeded the Lemons in thin slices.

Once you get the bacon done, pull it out on the side on paper towels to drain, then pour out some of the grease and turn up the heat and put the rubbed pork tenderloins in to sear on as many sides as you can stand watching and waiting for.

Once your tenderloins are seared toss them and the cast iron skillet into the oven to finish.

You can pit your dates or let your dinner guests fish the seeds out of their mouth while you watch...and if your dinner company happens to be female...er...um...

Then over in a stainless steel skillet I take some of the bacon grease and a few splashes of canned chicken stock and start a simmering mixture including the Dried Medjool Dates and Dried Apricots, Mushrooms, and Red Onions and as things reduce I add a few lemon slices and pour in the white wine and then a splash of Port wine and then add the apple cubes apricot/peach jam and keep cooking and simmering and stirring and cooking and simmering and stirring and then...

Once you can tell the interior of your pork is up to about 135 to 140 degrees F (I use a digital instant read thermometer), pull it out of the oven...slice it up (or let it rest a few minutes if you can stand it), then plate everything up on your veggies and Couscous.

You know, Couscous, little itty bitty teeny tiny pastas made with 1-1/3 to 1-1/2 cups of boiling chicken stock simmered over some dried Israeli Couscous (or other Couscous you have on hand.)
You can even use rice I guess if you're lazy or just afraid of Couscous...but finally...

In the end...

Smell it, taste it, and then dump it all out of the pots onto your plate and enjoy it...

I'm going to take a nap now because writing about it all makes me tired...

But PLEASE try it when you have the time.

You'll Like it...