August 21st, 2010

August 21, 2010: Saturday.

Been quite a week as the first week of school usually is no surprises here. Monday, I had to find room to store the three motorcycles which spent the summer in my classroom. Apparently the fire Marshall didn't approve of them since they do contain enough gas to cause quite a fire. So I decided to dig the old 75 Dodge powerwagon "Hellbitch 1" out of my storage shed. Since all the stuff from my old house was stacked up inside the truck, in the truck, on the truck, and on top of the truck, we first had to haul a bunch of junk of of the shed, in order to get enough room to back the truck out. The truck had a dead battery so I had to use a tow strap to pull her out while my trusty assistant "Luiz", did the steering; the near flat back tire made this harder than it should have.

Once we got the "Hell Bitch" illegally parked next to the shed, we managed to stack up all the boxes to the point where 4 motorcycles were able to fit inside the space. I called the local scrap yards and was quoted "$150 if you can get the truck here, $50 if we have to tow it". But since no one wanted to tow it today, I called a scrap yard about 30 miles away, in the middle of the desert, in "Garland Utah".. Haha, now I can only imagine what type of "Garland", one could make out of sagebrush and rattlesnakes, but that is the name of the remote out post. The owner wasn't the brightest candle on the cake either. Not only did he drop all his "t's" (Mou-An, rather than "Mountain", he couldn't seem to get his math right. Since he had no idea what a basic 70's truck weighed, I told him that the places in Logan offered $100 if they towed the truck $150 if I brought it in. So he shrewdly proclaims "Aiiiggght, I will only give you $140 for the truck. (an amount $40 more than the locals were offering) He promises to pick the truck up around 5:30, so Luiz and I settled down for a game of chess for an hour. Luiz learned how to play chess last spring, now he beats me much of the time. Its fun since we talk trash and talk like pissed off ghetto pimps while we play, you really have to be there to understand the humor I'm speaking of, but if you were outside of the door, you would swear that two ghetto pimps were rhyming on each other with guns drawn. We also insult each others "Mamas", in the grand Southern tradition. Good times.... Luiz finished school last year, and remains a trusted friend of mine. Although he helped me for 4 hours he refused to take my money. He remembered how I used to front him free silver, since he had no way to pay for it. These Mexican folks make good friends to have, we are fortunate to have some way up here in the great white north!

yet I digress..

So the Garlander fails to show or call at the allotted time. I call him up and he says he can't seem to find enough cash for the truck. I asked him "How much cash ya got"? trying to sound as ignorant as possible. He says "I got a hunderd". I told him to bring the "hunderd" and a check for the rest. He replies shrewd as hell: "Ok, I will bring the "hunderd", and a check for the other "hunderd and fiffy"! No joke! So he finally pulls in around 7 o'clock, and damned if he didn't pay me the hundred in cash and a check for $150. Since his bank had an office in town, I was there when the bank opened and cashed it the next day.

The rest of the week was hectic but fine. My students are cool as usual, classes are larger, nice to see old friends and students.

My friend Rob shows up Thursday night, we hung out a few hours but I was home by ten. I still managed to stay up until 2 AM, since that is my natural bedtime. I still lectured successfully to all my classes the next day, but then came home and slept for 18 of the next 24 hours. I was behind in sleep.

Mom calls me at 9:30 this morning and we talked for about thirty minutes, I was planning to cook my own breakfast, but since I was awake so early, I went to the ibis, and met up with my friend "Ricky", who was the one who journeyed to South America on his dirt bike this year. Spent a couple hours discussing many subjects, from computers, to his days as Bassist for the band "The Nixons", he even had videos with the band playing "Friday Night Videos", back in the late 80's. "The Nixons" were known nationwide. Rickey still gets royalties from those days, but he says they get smaller every year. Now his main interest is on Fly fishing. He plans to re-teach me how to fly fish one of these days. Ricky is a cool dude, nice to meet a new friend at my age, with an ability to have an interesting conversation with. Saw Logan and his friends up at the Ibis as well. I used to hang out at nights in bars. Hanging out for a few hours in the morning at a coffee shop is much more pleasant. I saw the owner today, an old hippie who was as old as my dad. This old gentleman, has created the coolest place in town, with diverse people of all ages spending a few hours a week there. They do make some brilliant coffee. I purchased a pound of "Highland Grogg", which is my favorite, since Logan and his friends turned me on to it a couple months ago.

Went to the post office, and my three radios were there. I ordered 3 decent sized modern radios from the Internet, and they were here in two days. These are plain AM/FM radios, but are modern and sound exceedingly well. Although a little larger than my expensive camping radio, they appear to be tougher and definitely sound a lot better. My Sangean, had lots of cool features, like 40 station programming, and short wave however; this simpler analog radio, sounds much better, and tunes to stations that the expensive radio can't seem to reach. I bought three of them, so I can give one to my father and another to my son. My son likes listening to the radio, more than those I-pods and crap. The radio is far more exciting than listing to the same old songs in my MP3 or computer libraries. The only time I listen to MP3's are when swimming or bike riding. Otherwise, I prefer the radio. So does my dad and son.

I went home at two, cleaned up a bit, then slept for the next 5 hours... Damn, I was fatigued by this schedule I now have to keep. At 8 PM, I felt like a new man. Got on the bike and went to the local book store in order to find something interesting. I finally scored a copy of "The Godfather", which is impossible to find it seemed. I did pay 9 bucks for it, but I know this is a wise purchase. I've long been wanted to compare the book to the movie, which I've watched a hundred times.

Went to the grocery store around 9 and it was dark by then. I bought the ingredients for another squash casserole which I made the previous night, and ate it in three meals.

Al's toaster oven Squash Casserole:

Take two smaller zucchinis and slice them about 1/6 inch thick. Put a little salt and pepper on the slices, the salt soaks up the bitter tastes like in eggplant. I used just a tiny amount of salt doing this since I am on a low salt diet.

arrange the slices on the bottom of a buttered meat loaf pan.

Take two eggs, a bit of cream (or sour cream), and a cup of diced cheese. (Mozzerella is good, but so is any other cheese). 1/4 cup of olive oil, some Italian seasoning, one cup of bread crumbs, 1/2 cup chopped onions and anything else you personally like for your tastes. I recommend a bit of garlic too.

Mix it all up and dump it on top of the zucchini, then arrange the rest of the zucchini slices on the tip. Then you should put 1/8th cup of the cheese that I forgot to tell you to reserve, and drizzle a bit of olive oil, and more spices on the top. Put this in the toaster over at 350 for about an hour.

Good stuff! Tastes like quiche, with a similar consistency. Tomorrow I might add a small amount of Italian sausage to the mix, but I prefer vegetarian for the most part since this should be all about the squash. Thinking about using Indian spices instead of Italian, all depends on my mood.

I also made a glass of "Doogh" today, which is a refreshing yogurt drink of Persian origin. I had a glass of the stuff at a Persian restaurant in Plano, Tx. this summer and I found it to be quite palatable, and refreshing. Simply add a cup of plain yogurt with a cup of water, add 1/4 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp of pepper and some mint of you have it. I didn't have the mint but the salt and pepper were just fine. They also recommend adding cucumber pulp to the mix to make it more refreshing. I love this stuff, and its good for you if you use the low-fat plain yogurt. Very good on a hot summers day! Try it!

I finished the Puzo book "The last Don", and I finished "The Maltese Falcon" in the past week. Read little of the others, but I am progressing on "Comanche Moon" and even read a bit of the "Upanshads". Reading, while listening to the radio is a fun thing to do, sure beats watching sit-coms for hours each night, or playing Internet games. My phone now has the Internet, which keeps me in touch, but is to much of a pain to waste my time playing games. I can still check my facebook and e-mail, or even surf Wiki or bid on EBAY items.

I hope to write more this next week, but during the week I am either too beat, or lack any new stories that are interesting. I'm just grinding away toward my death in order to get money but that is the way of the world. "The daily Grind". But who knows what will happen this year. Overall, this should be an interesting time, since so much change has occurred since last year. I am fully looking forward, and saving for a long trip to India next summer, and maybe that will help keep me going during the upcoming winter months.