The Old Home Fill 'er Up and Keep On Truckin' Cafe

*with apologies to Thomas Sowell

I've been making our treadmill go every couple of days, and I've slowly worked my way back up to a five mile an hour pace for a mile and a half or so. I have a long way to go.

While running, I've been watching Discovery's Military Channel. The motivation for the run seems to be proportional to the quality of the programming. The Sunday night showing of Warriors, a Discover/BBC co-production, could have been fatal. I learned that Ghengis Khan killed his brother to take command (I'm not sure how I didn't already know this), and that he had a Scottish accent (who knew?).

I've recently been spotted on Facebook. I initially created an account to track down some old Army buddies. Now I'm weaning myself off of some truly ridiculous apps that I should have known better than to get into. I already have a World of Warcraft addiction which isn't getting fed as often as I'd like.

Speaking of the Army, and other things military: I've seen some military bloggers propose that November 22 be unofficially recognized as V-I (Victory in Iraq) Day. I've been reluctant to engage in this sort of optimism, as even General Petraeus notes that the progress is not "irreversable." But seriously, we have combat troops in theater that haven't fired their weapons in eight months...and progress is never irreversible.

I spent some quality time with my bow tonight. It seems I may have lost the spark. Most of the time my lack of practice showed. I expected that. The few good ends I shot though really didn't motivate me to want to improve though. I think I realize that it would take a not insignificant effort to get back to where I was a year and a half ago: stuck at the plateau of better than average, but not exceptional. Maybe after school and the new house are done, unless I'll be needing to hunt for food.

Well, I have work to do, so enough of my blather. For now.

Happy Birthday Jarheads.

Concerning the rotating housing inspection (City Code sections 512 and 1405), and the proposed Issue 106 mandating home inspections at home-owner's expense at the time of sale, I have one question:

Is the TrueValue hardware store on Mayfield Road your husband's business, or is it jointly owned?

Colonial Game Pie is on the menu for craft day tomorrow. I'm going to make it gluten free so that the Son and Heir© can share in the joy, so I can't guarantee anything, but the duck smells delicious.

Speaking of the boy, he met the Dutch Oven this morning. He turned the corner in the kitchen, looked at it on the floor and said "Whoa! That weally big."

For those who may have missed it, tomorrow is Mole Day.

25 years ago, at 6:20 in the morning, a truck bomb killed 220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel, and 3 Soldiers in Beirut by groups which would become known as Hezbollah. I didn't know that when I turned 10. Now I can't forget it.

Read a handful of interesting books over the past couple of months. I've been waiting anxiously for the next Dresden Files book to come out in paperback, so I figured during the wait I could do worse than read a book recommended by the author, right? Yeah, I wish. So I picked up Ill Wind, first in the Weather Wardens Series, by Rachel Caine, and I hated it. I did finish it, though it finished worse than it started. Take the worst elements of a meteorology textbook and a Harlequin Romance, and you have its strong points.

While in Jamestown last year, I picked up "The Jamestown Project," by Karen Ordhal Kupperman. This was an interesting read in that it presented many minor pieces of trivia concerning the Jamestown colony and the state of English colonization at the time. As a scholarly work it failed in one major regard. Its explicit argument was that Jamestown was the vehicle by which the English learned how to successfully become a colonial power. It goes on to detail the trials of the colony and its inhabitants, but never really provides any information concerning which lessons were taken from the settlement. The argument seems to be that later colonization projects met with greater success, ergo something must have been learned from Jamestown.

I never read classics much as a kid. The closest would probably be Tolkien, Twain, and London. So I thought I'd grab a selection from the B&N Classics shelf and see if I'd been missing anything. Specifically I was looking for "Two Years Before the Mast," but it happened to be sold out, so I picked up a copy of "The Three Musketeers" and "The Art of War" (which I'm not finished with yet, but read chapter four to the Son and Heir© before bed tonight).

I can give no higher praise to Dumas than this: I'll be buying the sequel.

The end of the book had an interesting bit highlighting some of the influences the story had in other literature, and movie presentations. It mentioned the 90's version, with Sutherland, Sheen, and Curry, as well as a 70's version and one from the 30's. Only being familiar with the latest, I'm inclined to ask, is there anyone out there that produces movies based on these classics that are, you know, true to the classic? I know it was a long book (700+ pages), but I'd watch that whole story in segments.

Did the Browns just beat a 4-0 team by 21 points?

Can I go back in time to, say, yesterday and bet everything I own on that? Please?

"Contoversial Questions" Meme; stolen from mcb_homis. Lookie, my first LJ meme.

( Indy's Answers )

Heinan's no longer carries sausage casing. Giovani's isn't open tomorrow. Anyone know anyplace else which might carry sausage casings?

As it is, I might have to use commercial knackwurst, as it's supposed to be smoked, and that's an effort the schedule doesn't have time for. But the bratwurst and bockwurst are still a go...

nine years ago today?

I was collecting my DD-214. And then spending twenty two hours in a moving truck.

Good times...

Over eight months after the fact, and to celebrate my newly cleaned Dutch oven, here are the recipes from our supper club.

For the record, these are the recipes as they are in the cookbook, and won't reflect any changes we made for our presentation.

Appetizers

( Cheese Wafers )

( Chowning's Tavern Crabmeat and Artichoke Casserole )

Soup

( Corn Chowder )

Entree

The King's Arms Tavern Colonial Game Pie was a favorite. Included are the recipes for the sauce and pie crust used.

( King's Arms Tavern Colonial Game Pie )

( Christiana Campbell's Tavern Bean and Corn Succotash  )

( Christiana Campbell’s Tavern Sweet Potato Muffins )

Dessert

( Chowning's Tavern Apple Cider Cake  )

( Shields Tavern Coconut Ice Cream  )

The Red Wine Punch has already been posted by stampinmak, and the Chowning's Tavern Root Beer was purchased in Williamsburg, and I don't know if it can be ordered.

Enjoy,
Indy

Back in junior high, during one of our marathon Dungeons and Dragons sessions, something completely random and interesting happened. My high level cleric was randomly summoned by a wizard bent on some mischief, who had apparently mispronounced his casting. Luck was on my side, his binding failed, and Baltus introduced the miscreant to the disciplinary abilities of the +3 Mace of Disruption (which when applied to the side of the head, disrupts spells as well as undead :).

I don't know why getting summoned to jury duty reminded me of that story...does anyone have a mace I can borrow?

Stayed home with the Son and Heir© yesterday. His fever broke sometime Monday, but his thighs were just covered in spots. He's home again today, hopefully he'll be well enough to go back to daycare tomorrow (though I have to admit, staying home with him is a lot of fun; he helped me make pancakes :)

Have a job interview this afternoon. Still haven't come up with a good answer to the question of "Why are you looking to leave your current employer?" I dunno, senior management has their collective heads shoved up each other's asses? Our financial estimator came up with a negative facilities charge rate (yeah, that means we would pay NASA to use our facilities), and our CFO thought it was alright? Anyways...

Awesome news this morning. Just completely awesome.

Take off, to the Great White North.
Take off, it's a beauty way to go...

Well, I managed to get up mostly on time, get bathed, fed, packed lunch, and ready to head to work when the boy woke up. His fever from the weekend didn't break, though it has receded, so we took advantage of our pediatrician's walk-in hour and hurried him in. We had already sort of decided last night that he wasn't going to day care today, but the hand-foot-mouth diagnosis means he won't be going in for most of the week.

Despite going to the doctor's office, I still made it to work before 9:30, and was finishing paperwork from the week before when I get a call informing me that our 1:00 meeting has been moved to 10:00...nice.

So we throw together the system we'd been working on (which worked as various subsystems, but hadn't been integrated yet), and showed the various pieces parts to our NASA COTR. He was sufficiently impressed.

The weirdest part of the day so far? Peacocks. In the parking lot. See:

Today is the 64th anniversary of the Normandy Landings. My old unit (299th Engineers) led the landing at Omaha beach (hence the subject). Technically, Bravo company got separated from the rest of the battalion, and actually ended up leading the assault on Utah beach, so our motto should have been First On Normandy...but the Brigade claimed that one.

So, because I was on a leave of absence, and clearing this takes additional time, I may or may not get registered for summer classes, which of course, start on Monday. And because the network will be down over the weekend, I have until today at 5.

It seems the folks at Graduate Studies have no mechanism to see that my advisor had cleared the advising hold for the summer, and ended my leave of absence starting in the fall. Considering what a poor job the university does of sharing information, should I expect my health insurance waiver paperwork to get sent to my mother-in-law's again (everything else comes to my house)?

My brother emails that Indy 4 was cool. He and I have remarkably similar tastes in movies, and that it didn't rank any higher than cool means that it is definitely a DVD choice (for those who believe that I, of all people, should see this in the theatre, I'd like to point out that when I was nicknamed Indy in 1992, I hadn't seen any of the movies yet).

And this from Terry:



on why men shouldn't have action figures...

Most municipalities will claim that they regulate the height of lawns to prevent critters from taking up residence. It's a lie. They do it because all politicians are at heart power-mongers, and they instinctively want to regulate everything.

That being said, the grass in my back lawn is way too high. How high is it? I had intended to mow it Monday, after getting back from the parade, but when I looked out the bathroom window that morning, I saw a small brown spot, about the size of our neighborhood ground hog, but lighter in color. And then it moved, and I could make out the shape of a little deer head.

My grass is tall enough deer feel safe dropping fawns in my yard.

Luckily, momma deer retrieved her spawn this morning. I was worried I'd have to figure out how to dispose of a twenty pound deer corpse. Apparently adult deer don't hang around little ones until they can walk, so as to not attract predators.

And it wouldn't matter how short my grass is, until they pave the Euclid Creek Reservation, there will be critters in my yard.

Remember, Sunday is Geek Pride Day (and the 31st Anniversary of the release of Star Wars: A New Hope). Celebrate all things geeky.

Remember also, Monday is Memorial Day. Honor, if only for a moment, those who didn't make it back. Godspeed PFC Graciano.

At the risk of being poetical, the greatness of our country lies largely on the the shoulders of these two groups of people.

Have a great weekend.

I've had many things on my mind which I felt like posting about, and failed to post on any of them. I'm catching up here:

Throwdown: Haynes vs. Chilton

Ever been in your local auto parts store, looking at the various guides and wondering if they would be any help in your current project? Well, the answer is, gentle reader, no, they won't help a bit.

Of the two leading versions, Haynes and Chilton, I've found Haynes to have better technical content and diagrams. The Chilton guide is slightly better organized, but not so much so that it is superior to the Haynes guides. That being said, both suffer from a similar problem: they don't offer any useful advice for working on your vehicle.

What do I mean by that? After all, I have a '97 Ford Ranger, and the guide says Ford Ranger 1994-2000. It should include my truck right? Well, it does. But my truck is ten years old, with over 100k miles. The one in the book...just rolled off the assembly line. Haynes will tell you how to press out the ball caps on your old u-joints, and put the new ones in, but it doesn't tell you that if you try to press the old ones out with a C-clamp, all you will do is turn it into a parenthesis clamp...because at this point they are cold welded in place. (I eventually hit them with a hammer. A big hammer)

Pull A Part
So now I have a drive shaft with new u-joints. And a bent yoke. Because apparently hitting them with a big hammer is a Bad Idea (R). So I see an ad for a new place in town call Pull A Part. Ever done U-Pick Strawberries? Same idea with cars :)

The lot is on West 130th, just north of 480. You bring your own tools, and pay a buck for entrance to the lot. It took me a half an hour to find a Ranger that still had a drive shaft, but once I did, and got it out, I realized the real benefit. Cost of a drive shaft, with 30 day guarantee and entrance fee? $17. Beat that Auto-Zone.

And now for something completely different

Heh.



From the "Its About Damned Time" Department
Raked the lawn last night. Pulled up all of the leaves that had been there since, oh, say, November. And raking leaves in the dark is fun. I don't have to worry about sunburn...

Of course, now, instead of looking like an over-grown, leaf covered field, our lawn just looks like an overgrown field.