I did not know this but now I haveI learnt ....

Cork bark is “stripped” off the cork oak trees at appropriate intervals without damage to the trees and allows new bark to grow in its place so there is no harm to nature, no trees are cut or destroyed, no disturbance of flora and fauna .

Vastitas Borealis Baby!!!

This image, one of the first captured by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, shows the vast plains of the northern polar region of Mars. The flat landscape is strewn with tiny pebbles and shows polygonal cracking, a pattern seen widely in Martian high latitudes and also observed in permafrost terrains on Earth. The polygonal cracking is believed to have resulted from seasonal freezing and thawing of surface ice. Phoenix touched down on the Red Planet at 4:53 p.m. Pacific Time (7:53 Eastern Time), May 25, 2008, in an arctic region called Vastitas Borealis, at 68 degrees north latitude, 234 degrees east longitude.

New Guy

Thanx for inviting me to view the picture of you and the Swashbucklers from 1983 +/-. That was 25 year ago. Damn you're getting old!!!!!!!

Distorted Self Image

Often, when I am out in public and see someone who has made a poor fashion, hair, or makeup choice, I think to myself: "What was her/his fantasy of the look they created for themselves today?" I was horrified to see some pics that Victor took of me downtown today and wondered the same thing. Serves me right as I was taking a picture of him with the intent to post it here tonight with this thought:
His "winter hat" - as opposed to his summer 'Crocodile Dundee' canvas hat is made of some faux leather material. An 'underwire' runs through the edge of the brim and is forever bent every couple inches at uneven angles, adding a disheveled aire to an already eccentric fashion choice. I was surprised to hear him refer to the hat the other day as his 'Indiana Jones' hat when I thought it was more of a 'Jed Clampett' look. What do you think?

Life is full of choices..................

Life is full of choices. Sometimes we make good choices and sometimes not so good. I got up this morning and fixed some shredded wheat and peeled a banana. A good choice right out of the box I must say. I sat down at the kitchen table and had more choices to make. My options appeared to be: 1. scan the Albertson’s ad for grocery deals; 2. watch the B-52’s on the Today show (which would have meant listening to 20 mins of B.S. and 2 mins of music); 3. flip on the laptop and check the blog.

So I checked the blog and read more of Polvo’s trials and tribulations. I actually laughed out loud several times. I tried to read it to pat but she was busy watching the B-52’s on the tube. I reread it a couple of times and laughed and laughed more each time. It is seldom that I get to laugh this much this early in the day. And I am talking about snort-blowing-milk-shredded wheat-and-bananas-out-my-nose laughs (figuratively speaking) .

Then I went to the office room and left the laptop for patty to read. I heard her laughing from the other room. So this has already been a great day. And we are off for the holiday, get to go see Uncle Wilbur downtown, and there are no apparent signs of dog shit anywhere. Is America great or what?

Can animals be hypnotized?

Can animals be hypnotized, just like humans?—S. Davis, Santa Paula, Calif.

Despite anecdotal reports, no. Human hypnosis is characterized by increased suggestibility and a diminished perception of reality. Animals may be temporarily confused, terrified or reduced to a state of “paralysis” by inappropriate handling or mistreatment, such as swinging them or holding them tightly in an unnatural position. But this isn’t hypnosis; it’s cruelty to animals.

What are the chances...............

Wondering what the chances are that vic would cut his thumb with a steak knife while trying to open a dollar store jigsaw puzzle tonight?

Without even the help of a Ouija board, I learnt the probability is 100%.

Happy Friday!

(Should brush after eating cake!)

Dustin the singing Turkey

Hey, was it just me, or did anyone else hear the story about Dustin the singing Irish Turkey on NPR this morning?

Hmm....

****************
ATLANTA -- A 25-year-old man died from injuries sustained after falling about 150 feet down a stairwell at Turner Field during Wednesday night's game between the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets.

The senior investigator with the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office, Mark Guilbeau, said Thursday that the man who fell was Justin Hayes of Cumming, Ga.

Guilbeau said an autopsy will be done to determine the cause of death.

*****************

I learnt that if you fall from 150 ft and die, that they'll still do an autopsy to determine why you died?

Two wild and crazy guys............

I learnt tonight while checking out some old pics......that I look about the same now as I did back in the day..... .....when I worked in auto parts....around '83....... I was pretty much the babe magnet then......and you can plainly see why.

well, vic, how was it?

Due to tremendous reader demand for the outcome of my chicken recipe experiment (ok ok ok so abbzug was the only one to ask......I know the rest of yall are wanting to know) I am pleased to offer the following :

The master ingredients were bagged (as you recall there were several grandma-free-handed some-of-this-some-of-that measurements involved) and ready for the ice box. I let it marinate for 18 hours, turning it every few hours. I actually woke up and was drawn to the kitchen during the night by strange unexplained forces and flipped it just to make sure it got the correct amount of sauce penetration on each side.

The fork in the road came the next day when I took the chicken out of the ice box and remembered the weightwatcher base line recipe said to "discard marinade before broiling". I wasn't sure how to discard the sauce. So I dumped the chicken in a colander and tried to decide if I was supposed to scrape the sauce off or just let it drip off and sling it on the pan. (I am out of box wine now and was doing this completely sober which may have something to do with the outcome.) The sauce was pretty thick and didn't just slide off. After watching the colander for about 15 minutes, I decided enough had dripped off and so I put the bird on the pan.

Then I broiled it in the oven on a rack set about 6" to 8" from the heating element. (I can't remember ever broiling any chicken before...so I got nervous when it began to smoke, the smoke alarm went off and patty lay very still on the floor...... and the chicken was beginning to look burned. On our stove the "BROIL" mark on the oven dial is way up past 500 degrees. (I am not sure if this means it really gets over 500 degrees or that it just marks the point that the oven uses the direct overhead heating element.) This is the point in my cooking where I usually call boan for expert advise...but figured what the hell...I waded in this far..so I continued to wing it on my own.

When I had broiled it for about 25 minutes.....turning it every now and again........the outside was crispy black but the inside was done to perfection.......it turned out pretty damn good to me...and Patty even ate some and neither of us got sick or died.

Do you have to rinse your dishes before washing them?

Do I have to rinse my dishes before washing them?

Not usually. Most dishwashers handle the normal food residue left on dishes after eating, if you first scrape the dishes to remove any larger bits of food. But if anything is burned, melted, or stuck to the dishes, rinse and scrape them well, before you put them into the dishwasher.

Leaving some residue is actually best, because the protein in the food reacts with the soap for more-effective cleaning.

food for thought................

I had some chicken I needed to fix today. I started looking to find a different recipe for chicken. You know there seems to be just so many ways you can disguise yard bird. I go to my weight watchers book and find Tandoori-Dijon chicken. Part of the recipe says “refrigerate, turning bag occasionally, at least 2 hours or overnight”. This gets me to thinking that cooking ain’t such an exact science after all. I mean if you can let it sit for any amount of time between 2 hours and 24 hours how exact can it be? Maybe I can make up my own recipe? hmmmmm….. I get the chicken breast and put it in a 2 quart plastic zip lock bag. I begin listening to cooking muse voices in my head…..(or maybe its pink floyd....hard to tell) …adding ingredients and using the weight watcher recipe just for base line data. I start adding plain yogurt, balsamic vinegar, yellow mustard which includes that watery clear liquid that comes out of the mustard bottle because it has been in the ice box for a few weeks and settled and please note I usually squirt that clear jizzum down the disposal instead of putting it on a hot dog bun, low-fat Italian dressing, some ground cumin probably older than my first born, cayenne, black and white pepper (all three just because I have some of each and never use them), some cinnamon that was one of the original items in the recipe because I didn’t want to wander too far off the beaten path, a stick of horse radish root that I bought at a flea market in downtown St. Petersburg and have carried to Colorado and seems to serve no purpose on my spice shelf…..I am guessing I should have grated the root but threw caution to the wind and tossed it in the bag whole…..which reminded me that I didn’t know you could buy a horse radish root when I saw it originally, some Badia seasoning, curry powder, salt, garlic , some habanera sauce, and just a couple of drops of liquid smoke.

I am going to flip this bag over ever few hours as it sits in the ice box overnight. Tomorrow night I plan on slipping it in the oven at 350 for about 30-35 minutes.

I will report on the out come of this tasty concoction from home or the hospital emergency room .

867-5309

I learnt that if I go out to a retirement party after work on Friday
at Old Chicago and 1. drink a few beers ; 2.come home and drink a lot of margaritas while working on a jigsaw puzzle; 3. I will probably do something stupid around midnight; 4. like look up lots of Tommy Tutone videos on YouTube and post one on the blog; 5. and get up real early on Saturday morning and delete it before anyone can see it.

Visions of deer bed danced in my head...............

I haven't even left the house today, yet I have already learnt something new.......I clicked on a blog called The Year in Pictures

( http://pictureyear.blogspot.com/ )

and it had some pictures of "deer beds" by a photographer named Katherine Wolkoff.

It explained that "Deer sleep in beds of deep vegetation they press down with their bodies in order to hide from predators. They never lay down in the same bed twice, but the imprints can remain for several days. What we see in the photographs are swirls of trampled grass, wild flowers, and a shadow outlining the hidden impression of the deer’s body. What we feel is the animal’s spirit, if not something deeper."

I never have heard of deer beds. But it got me thinking about the possibilities of a series of photographs showing various person's bed sheets and covers each day. And the stories they would tell.

PS: and apparently the deer beds were photographed on Block Island!!

The bleeping spanish channel

For the first time ever.....I heard them bleep out some dialog on the Spanish channel tonight. I have often watched this channel (even though I don't speak or understand a word of it ...yet I find myself drawn to it almost everyday). The shows always seem full of laughter and I guess it doesn't hurt that they usually have a few hot looking hooker-like babes on..even the weather or news shows) But I have never seen this bleeping thing before on that channel.

I'm a little neti pot, short and stout..................

Valencia tells us the other day about this thing for cleaning out your sinuses. I am intrigued and visit Whole Food to check them out. I am still in the "gathering base line data" stage (which means I am looking for the cheapest one).

Google or youtube this item if you have never seen it. Have any of yall tried it out?

and to round out the foursome........

While watching the NASA channel tonight I learnt that there are now 4 states of matter instead of 3. I always thought we just had liquid, solid, and gas going on. Now I find out we have a 4th....called plasma. How did I miss this?

Hey you think that hat would fit me?

Polvo's Law of Go figure...

Yesterday I was trying to locate the source of a water leak (ahh... the joys of homeownership) ... I had narrowed it down to our laundry area ... so I scooted out our washer a little ways but I could only pull it out so far without having to disconnect the lines (which I wasn't interested in doing). Subsequently I had to climb onto the dryer, and try to descend behind the washer, wiggling through a cat's cradle of hoses and cords - while also ducking an overhead shelving unit. Once I finally made it back there I realized that I had to piss.... "go figure" I thought to myself.

Reno Centipillar Patrol

( Reverse 911)

oh sweet buddha...

just wanted ya'll (that's southern for 'yous guys') to know, because misery loves company, that we felt another big earthquake last night (big being a relative term, as in compared to those where relatives live, like in colorado, florida, and tejas), and there are at least TWELVE more dead centipillars curled in various twists and swirls on my living room floor! AND to make matters sweeter, my vacuum cleaner is broken, making the body-recovery process very hands-on.

Paradise - Long version

OK Vic, here is what I found...That lady carrying the meat is the singer Tiffany--remember her from the late 80's, her remake of "I think we're alone now" and other forgettable songs. If you watch this longer version video, she is singing more and it helps explain the meat concept...well, not really explain but it does show what her plans were with that hunk of meat. Still doing research as to why she needed to hold a huge hunk of meat...

First of all........

I want to say it's a sad day when the mighty meat has to stoop to doing phone commercials.........it kinda shakes my confidence....to see things like this happen.....like when I hear a Beatles song on a damn TV commercial....or that time they used the Stones to welcome in some Windows release..I think it was XP.....made me want to go back to DOS or switch to Apple.

anyway, the thing that I am wondering about.. what the hell is the lady bringing into the garage in this commercial? It looks like a leg of lamb or something...I want someone to do some research and let me know what's going on with the ham hock!

Reverse 911

I had never heard of reverse 911 calling till last week or so. Seems there were some big forest fires in Colorado and the authorities used reverse 911 to notify the residents in the area. I never knew that capability was out there.

Tokyo, Japan

Have you heard that there are A LOT of people in Tokyo? just wanted you to know....

What I learnt in Japan...

Apparently some people in Tokyo want the heck out of there and are heading east..

They heard there was a great place in Colo Spgs called Conway's Red Top...

side note: this line wrapped around the building, waiting for the 4pm fresh, hot doughnuts...just like in the states...but unlike the states, there is a police officer standing out front controlling the crowd!

GAYted Community

Today I learnet agaiin that she who hesitates....I was working on a new pic for the blog on the customize page when I pulled up the image to change - and I saw RENO! Someone changed as I was changing - "Life moves pretty fast", as Ferris would say. I don't want to mess with Reno, though, so I offer this as a post.

Learnt some other stuff this past week....

Learnt,

While running in the Oklahoma Memorial run I saw some handicap people racing in wheelchairs... I also saw, as stated before, someone in his early 70's, with pretty bad posture I might add. I also saw a blind fellow running who was holding a rope that was tethered to a sighted person's back for guidance. I saw big, small, short and tall out there running - pushing themselves and overcoming great odds. I learnt that if they can do it - anyone can - and if anyone had a valid excuse not to get out there it was them - but they did it anyway.

Ironic,

So I was talking about running with some co-workers in Argentina, and this gal was telling me how bad it was for you, it can hurt your knees, ankles, etc., and how she'd never do that - it's just not good for you. Then she went outside to smoke a cigarette. Just thought that was amusing. Not that I'm judging - just thought it was an interesting series of events.