June 19th 2009

Didn't do much today, I was still sore as heck from my workout Wednesday. I haven't been to the gym in a couple months but got back into swimming last week. Wednesday, I worked out on the weight machines before swimming 500 yards (usually I do one or the other). Thursday I felt "good" sore. Friday, I felt, "you over did it" sore. Should be okay, I don't think any ligaments are pulled. I'll go back Saturday and keep it "Swim only".

I generally only swim 500 yards as fast as I can during a swim session. This only takes about 15 minutes, I would swim longer, but I get bored (try pacing up and down a football field for 15 minutes). So I decided to buy an underwater MP3 player. Hell, I needed a birthday present anyway. From what I hear, swimmers that use these tend to stay in the pool much much longer. When it comes in I'll give the "SwmP3" a full review.

I drove my latest classic bike around town, an 82' CB900 Custom, this bike is in excellent condition and gets stares werever it goes. I ran into a guy at the gas station who had a 72' Kawasake 750 Triple, which is a very rare machine. The Triple was a very fast bike, with 3 cylinders, low weight, two stroke, most of these no longer exist. The bikes frame was too weak for the engine, and the braking wasn't very good. Most Kawasaki Triples wound up wrapped around trees, it seems. The one I saw on Friday looked brand new. I got talking with the man "Olaf" and he told me how he took every part off the bike and either replaced or rebuilt each part. He claims bikes like that, in that condition sell for $10,000, which I believe.

He stopped by the house to see my old KZ 650 and was quite impressed by the condition. He even gave me tips on the carb work that I planned on doing to get her running as it should. Turns out that two of the man's daughters took my jewelry class last year and we would up talking for 30 minutes.

I spent the rest of the evening reading and hanging out with Freddy and the Llama (Sue).

June 18th 2009

It's been a month since I blogged my brothers and sisters. I must confess the daily guilt that this involves since I know that at least 5 souls were keeping up with this.

The school year ended, and as many know, the last month requires all one's mental faculties. I Screwed up and told my dad to book his trip to my house on Friday, June 4th, but, Friday, June 5th was my last day of school and also the day that I made the limo arrangements. So when I got the call on the 4th with dad asking how he could make the 80 miles from the airport, to my house, I had to tell him to get a cab. The cab driver agreed to make the trip for 120 dollars, but dad got charged 180 and he wasn't too happy. In fact: He refused to pay. I interceded and refused to get sucked in to this, since all the cabbie had to to was show the meter to the police, and we would have no case. Getting tossed in jail for theft of services is no way to start a vacation.

Dad just left a few days ago, after enduring 10 days of my hospitality. We had a good time for the most part. Of course it rained most every day, and the tempuratures on the front porch, where we spent much time, was in the mid 40's to mid 60's. Dad brought light shorts and T-shirts for the trip, saving his one pair of long pants for the plane flight. This was a bit of a problem so I had to constantly throw blankets, panchos, hats, my coats, in order to keep him from getting pneumonia or something. We hung out for 10 days mainly talking, going to local restaurants, discussing chess, and we drove the truck into the cold mountains a couple times.

Since he left on Monday, I have been cleaning the place a bit, working in my classroom, riding my new motorcycle (more on that later), and trying to make plans for the rest of the summer.
The llama (Sue), is becoming quite tame, she actually eats from my bare hand now. She has my back yard looking like a putting green, since no hay is available I've been giving her a quart or more of llama feed daily.


Logans job requires him to work very long hours, which he enjoys, since they fired the other dishwashers, and he gets much praise and glory from his managers! They raised his pay much higher than minimum raise in appreciation for his good attitude and tough work ethic. I am quite proud.

Tonight, I made a new dish: "Salmon Florentine" which isn't much precident for. I combined various ideas from simular recipees and came up with one that was nice.

"Salmon Florentine"

Ingredients:
One pound of Salmon fillet cut in two pieces
Four cups raw spinach
1/2 cup of cream
1/2 cup of mild cheese (ricotta, parmesan, feta, whatever you got handy will work)
small onion
2 garlic cloves
splash of white wine
1 tablespoon olive oil or more if you like it
Spices (I used lemon pepper, italian herb mix, habanero tobasco sauce, black pepper and salt
Just spice it how you like it, remember to taste a lot in order to monitor the flavor levels.)
1/3 lb dry macoroni shells
butter
One small fresh tomato (sundried tomatoes would work well)



Wash and dry the salmon with paper towels then soak the fillets in an oven pan coated in olive oil. Cover the fish front and back with the lemon pepper, black pepper, italian herbs( rub this in well, or the wine will wash it away). Drench fish in wine, then spoon excess oil on top.

Let marinate for as long as you can stand it! The longer the better.

Place some fresh tomato slices under the fish.

Cut up spinach and onions into little pieces then boil in salted water till tender. Drain then mix in some cheese, butter, and cream. Add black pepper. Saute all this until reduced. Spoon the mixture on the top of the fish then dump the rest of the liquid on.

Immediately clean the feckin' sauce pan or you will have to throw it away (scorched cheese syndrome).


Put oven pan into the oven for 375 degrees for 25 minutes.


Cook your shells. I used 1/3 lb and it was enough. Be sure to add a bit of butter after draining.

When fish is out of the oven put tomato/fish/spinach fillet on top of a bed of pasta shells. Spoon the excess juice from the pan onto the fish and pasta.

This was great!


Night all, I'll try to write way more often. As usual; no commitments, since I can't keep schedules too well.

May 18th 2009

School is so close to being out that they can taste it. The Seniors did an incredible Senior Prank last week. 5 or 6 guys broke in the school, and led 5 live sheep onto the third floor of the building. Sheep are much easier to lead upstairs than downstairs. These kids are smart. They also attached the address of the farm that they "borrowed" the sheep from! The note read take these sheep back to "This Address".

The police are on this one.

Mainly because of the dead skunk they left behind some vending machines.

Amazing that these kids commited two felonies in "their senior prank". Thats dedication!


This past weekend was a good one; nice weather, got the old Kawasaki KZ650's carburators on!
First time I attempted a bike repair that hairy, but in retrospect: It really isn't that hard of an operation. And when the engine fired up and purred as sweetly as I ever heard one of my bikes hummm, I was a happy man.

I made an interesting mixed seafood chowder on Saturday. I had bought a couple pounds of "mixed seafood" at the store, let it swim in fresh lemon Juice for a few hours, fried a mixture of onions, garlic, jalapenos, and celery w/herbs, until it was almost a paste (we want to keep the chowder as "bisque-like" as possible). Use lots of butter. Add a few tablespoons of flour at this point. Then I halfway fried a few chopped up Yukon Gold potatoes (the yellow ones), and added a quart of creme, a pint of water, two bay leaves, and another 1/2 stick of butter to this

Let simmer nearly on warm for the next hour or so. Dump the "mixed seafood" and a can of minced clams, into the mix. And coldly simmer for another 15 minutes or as long as you want to. Yes I tend to oversimmer, and yes the squid was like eating plastic but it sure was good plastic. This was some tasty stuff. The mixed seafood contained: squid slices, baby octopi, little green mussels, imatation crab leg meat (made from pollock) and some sort of fish. Be sure to taste your cooking alot and add the necessary, lemon/wine/tobasco/salt, as your tongue tells you. This is the key to good cooking, you got to taste it at least 5 times before you know its right. And don't go sticking the spoon, you licked on, back in the pot, or no one but you, will want to eat it!

The house smelled of the Atlantic by the time this stuff was done. Yes it broke my mediterrean diet but I'll get back to it. I had to celebrate since this weekend was so great.

April 22nd - May 10th

I need'nt tell you how hectic it is this time of year. In the past 3 weeks I have been working hard, fighting with my blood pressure, trying to stick to the Mediterranean diet (doing ok, but eating way too much bread), and working on cars, motorcycles, and bicycles.

Let us being with the volvo: She stopped running back in December for no apparent reason, I had her towed to the garage and the moron who worked there claimed it was merely a bad battery. I told him he was wrong, that yes the battery was weak, but the car still runs bad when it is fully charged. He claimed to have driven it around with a new battery in it and that it ran great! So I bought a new battery, drove the car home in the snow, and the car did run great..... for about five minutes. Luckily I made it home, and allowed snow to bury it for the next three months.

With all this new-found energy (due to my diet), I recently got on a British Volvo forum website and stated my woes regarding the car running like shit. After being talked down to, like only the British can, one good chap was kind enough to suggest I buy an OBD2 code reader. I purchased one and 5 different malfunction codes showed up. After talking to the Brits about them, another helpful soul suggested I replace the coolant sensor, and another Brit, even showed me pictures and full instructions on how to change it! It wasn't easy, and required special tools and an internet purchase of the offending sensor (gawd! Volvo parts aren't cheap), the car was running better, but after 10 minutes, it would start missing, and dieing.

So back to the OBD2 code reader, which only produced one code. Code 102... 102 means "defective Massive Air Flow sensor or the MAF as the Brits call it. The MAF, which I've never heard of, is a sensor that tells the computer, how much air is entering the intake manifold. Price for a new MAF? $150 bucks! For a Bloody Electronic part! (wow, I'm starting to talk like the Brits). So I looked up info on how to clean the old MAF, but no luck getting the old girl to work, so I took someones advice and unplugged the damned thing. Car runs perfect now! I still need to replace the MAF because the exhaust smells funky, but the Brits say I can drive it a couple hundred miles before the spark plugs and the catalytic converter start to suffer.

Now with all this vast energy and nice weather, I managed to get the Chinese dirt bike flat tire fixed, which is quite a chore, since you have to let the tire soften in a tub of hot water in order to cram it back on the rim.

Having done that, I noticed that the front axle was lacking a spacer, which prevents the brake locking up and tossing yours truly, all over the traffic filled streets. I got on another forum, called Chinariders.net and asked where to find such a spacer. The Americans, who were more friendly than the Brits, but not quite as educated or something. Most advice was: take the measurements of the spacer, then go to your machine shop and have them use such and such pipe. Well since I have no idea what the measurements of the spacer were (since I didn't have the part), I did take one Yankees advice and bought the spacer off EBAY, from a guy who was dismantling his Chinese bike and selling the parts. I like Chinese bikes, but getting parts for them is not easy. The spacer came in the mail and was a little to wide, but I crammed it in and now it works fine.

Notice in the photo, you see the two motorized vehicles I just fixed? The third vehicle, is what I have been using for the past month. Thats right, the bicycle. It has never failed me in the 8 years I've owned it....until yesterday. The wheel, subject to carrying a massive weightload just seemed to have given up yesterday. Now it is too warped to drive. After 8 years, thousands of miles, carrying me, groceries, laundry, suffering from a few wrecks, being moved to four different residences, being left buried in the snow all last winter: The old wheel was too tired (get the pun?). Seriously: If I were only allowed one vehicle, I would choose the bicycle.

My street bike: I also have a 78 Kawasaki KZ-650 road bike, which was running badly and leaking gas for the past couple years. I bought a replacement set of Carburators for it two years ago, from my friend Chuck, who had it for at least 5 years wrapped in plastic and stuffed in a box, like a mummy. I got on the internet, to the "KZ riders" site, and checked out "How to replace the Carburator set (this bike has FOUR carburators!) it looks complicated as hell, so I am in the middle of doing this. The other two pictures are of the now carburatorless (that can't be a word)bike and the new and old carburators. The new (actually rebuilt) carbs, have been entombed in a box for many years, and I fear that the linkages are way too stiff, but after soaking it in WD 40 for a couple days, I will try to install them tonight.

The last two photos are of my new pet LLama; "Sue" is what I call her, and a shot of Freddy from our camping trip 6 weeks ago. Sue and Freddy seem to get along quite well. Sue is the prettiest Llama and has a pleasant disposition. But keep in mind: Llama are quite independent and act like cats, which makes them tough to train. I have gained enough trust where she'll take food from my hand, and hopefully soon I'll be able to grab her halter and begin leading her around. Eventually, I want to take her and Freddy on camping trips, while she carries my backpack.

Thats it for now, lets hope I can keep up with the writing a little better, but I'm not making any promises. I appreciate all of you readers out there. Now it is after 5:00 and I am at school, so off to work on the bike and work on dinner. Grilled steak Melanese (low fat, thin cut, mexican beef), with grilled tomatos and plantain.

April 22, 2009

No pointless meetings this morning. I went to the meeting places, but there really is nothing we needed to meet for. I find most meetings to be stupid and unproductive. We meet just to justify that we all "met"....

Brought 3 baby rats to school today, because my monitor lizard "Bennie" was needing some food. These are rats raised by my rat, so I really didn't want to watch the killing, nor did I want them all to die. So I gave the pick of the little to some little kid with a criminal record, in order to give him a pet to bond with. The student, loved the baby rat, and I am confident that he will give him a good home. The other two rats got fed to the lizard, which is a big hungry "Savannah Monitor Lizard" from north Africa. This lizard is big and quite mean. I accepted it for free because it's owners were moving and appeared to be sick of it. Try owning a 5 pound lizard that hates all humanity, but requires poor live rats every two days for sustanance. Every time I try to handle him he goes ballistic and we have a major battle before I can subdue him. I just leave the lizard "Benny" alone. I hope I can find him a new home. I would rather have a nice python to occupy his cage, but as we all know. The lizard needs a new good home first. My students get a charge out of "Benny" the nasty lizard. I am tired of his crap, maybe I'll just make him a house pet in my house. Fifteen years ago, I had another surly lizard just like Bennie, like Bennie he was mean, but he was toilet trained. I put a piece of newspaper by my toilet and the lizard went to the same spot every time. He hated us, but he traveled around the house at will and was a pretty good mouse chaser.


After school, I slept for two hours then went to watch the JV Baseball game. I haven't seen a baseball game since I used to watch the Texas Rangers many years ago. It sure was fun watching kids play the game, and the seats were much better. Our school had a 3 run lead, when I left it; I was on my bicycle with shorts and a t-shirt when a cold front moved in. I know I discuss the weather here alot, but it is amazing. We rarely have storms and lightning like Texas, but the weather frequently changes from warm to cold. Today was 75 degrees, tomorrow will be in the 30's.

I spent the rest of the evening with the grill loaded with hot dogs, plaintains, and an open can of chile. I discovered that if you bake cheap hot dogs, then put chili on them, you can't tell that you are eating an inferior hot dog. I can buy an 8 pack of the cheap brand for 1.50, where the good brand is nearly 5 dollars. Rather than grilling for 15 minutes that I do with the good hotdogs, I bake the cheap ones for 45 minutes, so all the cartilage, intestine rinds, chicken feet, and whatnot, seem to render out to make some pretty good meat. But be sure to put chili on them to replace the meat that they lack. Then serve with mustard, cheese, and tabasco, in order to kill that "chittlin'" flavor. We eat the heck out of grilled hotdogs this way.

Spent the rest of the evening playing with Freddy, and he caught the ball a few times before acting like the big fat guy that no one wants to pick to be on his team, back in elementary school.

April 21, 2009

After eating a nice dinner of funky greens, basmanti rice, and swordfish, I polished it all off with a yummy desert of chopped fresh stawberries and canned condensed milk with special dark sugar from Maui (Sugar in the Raw). This was exceptional. Strawberries are in season now, so I plan to eat a lot of them until California's strawberry crop slows down. Damn I feel healthy after this dinner!

Freddy is getting the hang of catching the tennis ball, he really needs exercise because his rottweiler half is prone to lethergy. This is what makes Freddy and I such a team. His Aussie Shepherd half is inquisitive, bright, and creative. Freddy is also much the non-violent Buddhist. But he also has big muscles, and likes to do the Rotty thing to some extent, and tears up the yard when he feels negected. He is good for running for the ball about 7 or 8 throws. Then he pants profusely until i worry about him having a coronary at age 1.
I'll get both our asses in shape before this summer, I'm already riding the bicycle, and plan to teach him to ride with me on a leash. We both need this. But it is cool to lay around and watch TV all day with Freddy on Sundays, he is a low maintainence dog in the "need to be exercized" catagory.

April 19, 2009

(disclaimer: this picture is not me but the bike is simular)


4:00 A.M. Yes I woke up early this morning. Turns out the corned beef/cabbage I made last night put me to sleep and 9:00 P.M..





Friday afternoon was up to 55 degrees and sunny. I brought out the dirt bike and started her up for the first time in two weeks. The bike started on the second kick and purred like a lion. I tested her out in my back yard and within 5 minutes I had a small practice track.





After my backyard dirt bike riding adventure, I proceeded to clean the back yard up. The yard is about 80 yards long and 40 yards wide. The far back yard is overgrown with brush and low hanging tree branches, and the previous owners left a cornucopia of trash, rotton wood, and many dog toys. All this crap was hidden under the snow from when we first moved here. I piled up much of the wood and tree branches and made a medium sized bon fire. With the radio blaring out ancient hits from Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin, Dean Martin (we have a heck of an oldies station up here), and an excellent view of the sun setting over the top of the not-so-distant "Wellsville" mountain range, combined with the company of "Freddy" the wonder dog, it was an incredible evening. Later that night and a few gin and tonics later, we proceded to slowly cook the best steaks I could find, which I bought earlier at the local Mexican grocery store. The butcher (who is also teaching me Spanish), seasoned the steaks personally. The thin cut, seasoned Mexican steaks, were better than the finest Ribeyes and T-bones. Mexicans know how to cut and season steak! After stoking the fire for 5 hours or more, we finally got most of the wood burned, and the yard is much improved. Freddy and I came inside long after midnight, smelling of smoke, and grilled meat.





Saturday, April 19th; I woke up at 7 AM, woke my son, who had an appointment for Saturday School, and cooked eggs, homemade hashbrowns, toast, and picante sauce. I read the online news for 30 minutes, and went back for another round of well needed sleep.





2PM: Chopped up some onion, cabbage, potato, threw it all in the crockpot with a 2 lb. corned beef brisket and a few seasonings. Turned the pot on high. Then proceeded to assemble the trailer hitch motorcycle I bought last month. After an hour of wrenching and pounding the sections together, I managed to get the thing together. Now I can attach my motorcycle onto the back of my truck, the only problem will be, trying to ramp the bike up high onto the carrier without any help. I really can't imagine doing this alone, since the ramp is steep and the 4 wheel drive F-250 sits up pretty high. It sure would suck being alone in the mountains and having no one to help load this heavy dirt bike. I might have to get a trailer after all. Bummer.





Read a few chapters of James Michener's "Alaska" which is an excellent novel of historical fiction. I was checking my old phone messages and accidently called my friend Lynette, whom I haven't heard from in a while. Nice to hear she's happy and doing well. By this time I was getting quite hungry, since the smell of corned beef and cabbage was wafting throughout the entire house and front porch. While eating the victuals, I was watching people actually going to the Thai restaurant across the street, I couldn't help feel a bit sorry for them, because this corned beef and cabbage is far superior to any Thai food I've ever eaten over there.





By 8 PM I was full and quickly falling asleep, it seems that after 5 days of hard teaching, it takes a couple days to catch up on sleep, so I crashed until 4 AM this morning. Now its after 5 and I am totally awake and ready for todays adventures, whatever they turn out to be.

April 17th, 2009

Friday! Getting back after spring break is always a bitch. Took two days to return to the "up at 6:00 AM" schedule. My students were obnoxious, and I was not too much fun as a teacher. Two of my students were particularly rotten on Monday and Tuesday, so Wednesday; I took them to the mean ceramic's teacher and let him torture them by making new clay from old clay scraps. I'll spare you the details, but the kids came out tired and filthy after the experience. On Thursday the two students were angels.
Combine the above with the fact that it is Income Tax week, and the cold wet storm that raged for 4 days dumping snow and cold rain daily, and the week was pretty "F'D up". Since my back yard was a cold muddy, snowy, mess; poor Freddy was black with mud and couldn't just come inside. We would leave Freddy in the utility room for several hours to dry out every afternoon, before I could brush the mud off of him. Freddy, as you know, is a very intelligent and emotional dog. When left in the utility room he takes it personal and gets all "butt-hurt" about it. I tryed to explain that he is too muddy, but he's still a good dog; however: he still feels like he did something wrong no matter how nice I am.

Thursday was quite a day. I woke up to find out the IRS rejected my tax return, after fixing the error, I learned that I owe $900 in income tax! So I rode my bike to school in the cold rain, lamenting the fact that I would have to make payments to the IRS. Got to school and realized I left my keys at home. I got the janitor to let me in my classroom, thankfully; the kids were well behaved. Since it was a casting day, I had to bust my ass casting 6 molds after school. Then I would have to go to an awards ceremony at 6:00 PM over in Brigham City 30 miles away that evening. I rode my bicycle home in the rainy 35 degree weather, only to discover that I had no keys, so I decided to wait for Logan in the truck camper. Of course the camper was locked (I never lock the camper), so I had to try to find Logan at the school. By the time I got home at 4:00 PM, I crashed for an hour before heading to Brigham city (SHIT! WHAT A DAY!).

I rode with the photo teacher and a few students, up the winding "Sardine Canyon" and made it to the Brigham City museum, in time to be stuck there with nothing to do for 30 minutes before the ceremony even started. After the awards were passed around (my students took first place!), the photo teacher dragged us all to some crappy looking, Mormon owned, Mexican food place.

By this time, all I wanted to do was go home, yet I got to spend an hour and a half, hanging out with the photo teacher and six of his pretentious students, all who thought they were little movers and shakers of the Art world, just because they can manage to click a shutter of a camera. I got stuck sitting across from an anorexic girl who ate nothing but put out negative vibes of tragic angst. The kid beside me looked as if suicide was all he thought about.

Actually the Chinese-American kid, next to "Miss Anorexia", was funny as hell, and the food was surprising good. The walls of the restaurant, were covered with bad Spanish and Mexican art from the 50's, with loads of black velvet and bullfighting scenes. The waitress was quite a charactor with full face paint and surly attitude. She was an absolute riot, cussing at the cook, while flirting with me and the other teacher. For the first time today, I started to lighten up and have some fun.

The drive back through the canyon, seeing the snowy mountains, shrouded with clouds that reflected the light from the distant Logan Metro area, was spectacular.

By the time I got home at 9:30 PM, I was too tired to move. I sat on the front porch with my dog and drank a beer in the cold, wet, night; thinking about how great this busy day turned out to be.

April 13th, 2009

Sorry to have let this blog lapse, it was supposed to be a daily, but this is my busiest time of year now that Spring is finally here. Not sure how much writing I'll do between now and June, this is supposed to be fun, but lately it feels like a burden or obligation. To anyone who still checks this page daily, just stop by every couple weeks or so, if anything eventful happens, I'll post it on here. I plan to resume the daily blog once June gets here. (39 more class days!).

Last week was spring break. The weather was cold until the latter part of last week, when we finally reached the upper 50's. This allowed me to sit outside and read, which is my favorite thing to do. I read a Grisham novel, and an excellent real life book about someone who survived 76 days floating in a tiny two man life raft across the Atlantic. Then I started rereading the James Michener book "Alaska". Logan and I camped out in Providence Canyon, but really couldn't go over 5700 ft in altitude, due to the huge amount of snow up there. It was still fun making camp, cleaning up after the last campers, who left trash, shell casings, and many live bullets laying around (imagine leaving a live bullet next to a campfire?). The temperature dropped fast after sundown to well below freezing, and Logan (who only brought one blanket) wound up having to sleep in the camper with me. We were cramped but warm, since two grown men and a dog, puts off a substantial amount of heat. This was the first time camping in the Hell Bitch, so I learned a little about what to bring and leave once I start camping on a regular basis.
Once back home, I got the now snowless yard cleaned up, did work on the truck, motorcycle, camper, and managed to cook some interesting meals every night. Steak Milanese with fried plantains, comes to mind. Also cooked fried chicken, ribeye steaks, grilled salmon, nice to have time to do all this.

March 28th thru April 2nd

Saturday the 29th was a nice day. Sun all day long with warm California winds, it made it all the way up to 49 degrees today! I did some grocery shopping and accidently bought a small bottle of tequila since the day felt like I was south of the border. Playing Mexican music inside the kitchen and outside the truck camper, I proceded to cook a Mexican stew while cleaning and doing some outside work on the truck. After 3 or 4 shots of tequila/lime and salt, my work on the truck slowed down significally. I brought out my two antiquated camper jacks from the garage (each one weighing 75 lbs) and proceded to slowly wench up the camper from the bed of the truck. Then I spent a very long time trying to figure out how the metal brackets I found would fit on the truck frame in order to hold the camper tightly onto the truck. Turns out that I would have to completely remove the camper from the truck in order to do this and while I was pondering a better way to achieve this it started pissing down snow, the temperature fell, and my friend Chuck came over, with his wife "Missy" and two dogs. The truck operation would have to wait.
Chuck was on his way to Redlodge, Montana, which is amazing since we just came back from there two months before, but as we know, Chuck loves the Rocky Mountains, and spends all his off work time touring them. I love the Rockies also, but feel I have enough of the Rockies in my own backyard, so feel little need to drive thousands of miles to see the same thing. The local "Wasatch Range" is just as beautiful to me as the Grand Tetons, only less commercial.
We partied all night and jammed out with Logan playing the Bass and/or keyboards, Chuck on indian flute, and I on guitar and vocals. We had fun.

Chuck and crew left promptly the next morning, Logan and I took it easy mainly sleeping the rest of the afternoon.


It snowed like hell all Saturday night and Sunday. Sunday was in the high 20's, which allowed it the snow to stick to the ground. Sunday night it snowed and the truck was stuck in the driveway, so I had to walk to work on Monday morning. Snowed Tuesday and Wednesday as well. This place has been quite the frickin "Winter Wonderland" lately. Damn, I thought it was Spring a couple weeks ago.
This is the week before our "Spring Break" up here and the students can't seem to keep there mind on school work. The ones that actually show up to class need some extra threatening in order to enable them to work on their jewelry.

Tuesday, I gathered nine of my student's best examples of high school jewelry projects, and had it all registered into the Brigham City High School Art show. I had a strong collection and kept my fingers crossed for success. Today I found out that ALL 9 PIECES WERE JURIED INTO THE SHOW! AND THAT 3 OF MY STUDENTS ACTUALLY PLACED! One of my students took First Place in three dimensional Art (Sculpture and Jewelry), and his other piece won "honorable mention". Another one of my students won "Honorable Mention" as well.
The Logan High School Art department as a whole had a really strong showing, easily kicking the ass's of the other schools involved. I am so proud of my kids.

Today, I found out that I was scheduled to return next year as an Art Teacher for this very fine school (although they cut 12 teaching positions due to the economy), it seems that our department is strong enough to make it through all the cuts!

I took the truck out this afternoon with the dog, paid all my bills, paid the temporary motorcycle loan, bought some more truck camping supplies like 5 gallon water bottles, kerosene lamps, propane, kerosene, ect.. and spent the rest of the evening hanging out in the Hell Bitch (my truck camper) with Freddy (my dog). We had a great time! Tomorrow we are going on a field trip to the Weber State College, to see the High School Art Exhibit there, in which a couple of my students have work on display in.

After tomorrow, I have a week off. Hopefully the weather will be kind enough to allow me to do some camping and dirtbike riding.

March 27th 2009

(continued from the previous post). At 5:30 A.M. Freddy starts walking around loudly on the wood floor in the next room. Sounds like he was frantically pacing back and forth, loud enough to wake me up from a deep sleep. I called him over and petting him a few times before falling back to sleep. Freddy goes back to his pacing and then I hear him groan and whine while pacing. I asked him if he needed to go outside. Freddy, who understands English quite well, started jumping on me like he was saying "Damn right I need to go outside! It's about time you understood what I was asking you dumbass!" Freddy had a strange look of eager anticipation of relief while he jumped around excitedly as I walked toward the back door. Freddy bolted out the door like the house was afire and immediately took a 5 minute long piss. He then dissapeared into the back yard beyond the porch light to do the "other" thing.

I thought "Screw going back to bed", I'll enjoy the luxury of having 1 1/2 hours to get ready for work!" Freddy came back inside a few minutes later and was so happy that I was capable of understanding that he really had to go pretty bad. Freddy is one hell of a good dog!

Not being in a hurry in the morning was nice. Wish I could fall asleep at 10:00PM so I could wake at 5:30 every morning. I made some fine Darjeeling tea, had a bit of toast with cream cheese and smoked trout (smoked trout is much cheaper than salmon, if you can find it), listened to the news on the radio, took my time getting ready in the bathroom. Got dressed, then briskly walked to school in the cold sunny morning, feeling like I was on top of the world.

The first couple classes went well, but my 4 1/2 hours sleep the previous night was to haunt me for the rest of the afternoon. The students were lively as they usually are on Friday, while I was dazed but patient as I served out the rest of the day's sentence.

I got home in the blazing 39 degree sunny afternoon. Freddy was very excited to see me as usual, so I nixed my plans to take a nap, played with Freddy, then brought the big red beast out of the garage and started it for the first time in a week. Unfortunately my "beast" is a large dirt bike and I really can't ride it in town. After the bike warmed up I thought up a route to the nearby convenience store riding mainly in parking lots, with bits of sidewalk riding to get from lot to lot. I throttled up the beast and the noise shook the walls of my house as I eased her out of the back yard. I took off carefully, since the bike would prefer to do a "wheelie" if allowed to have it's way, and weaved my way though the buildings and old parking lots, occasionally getting to spray gravel while quickly holding back all it's mind numbing power and glory. I had to leave her running in front of the store, because I didn't want to have to kickstart a semi-warm engine and risk a vapor lock, not to mention that I like hearing the bike go "thump, thump, thump" from inside the store. I flirted with the nice, hot looking, older lady (blond, mid 30's) behind the counter, grabbed my quart of Tecate' beer, and threaded my way home, without driving on the street whatsoever.

Logan came back from a job interview and was dressed pretty nice. Usually he is wearing some form of teenage shirt with writing and at least one skull or devil printed on it. He might just get this job after all. Funny how many teenagers hate to read, but like to wear clothing that require reading.

Spent the rest of the evening, tending to my EBAY auctions, watching TV, and sleeping. Hopefully tomorrow will be warm enough to go fly fishing, bike riding, or something fun. There lurks a mean snow event in the Gulf of Alaska which is heading our way.

March 24th - 26th 2009

March 24th PAYDAY! (or so I thought). Since my account said I had been paid on "Pay Day", I went to buy those things we have been needing, but didn't have the money for. I also paid several bills I have been holding off on.

This week is the opposite of last week with highs in the low 30's and lows around 10 degrees, with snow daily from Monday thru Wednesday, which melts in the afternoon.

When I got home I checked out my bank statement and found out that "Wells Fargo" makes extra money by giving your deposit a "PENDING" status. This means that WF did get your money from your employer, your money is right there when you check your balance, but it takes a day or two for that money to perhaps: take a shower, get a nights rest, maybe go out for a couple drinks and see a show. After breakfast, your money tells the receptionist to hold all calls and requests because it is "PENDING" for the next day and a half, and that if anyone attempts to get money, to send the sorry bastard a $35 fee for just for asking. My money was on "pending" status for well of a full day before I could use it without being charged. Their "Pending" times are sure getting longer. I just assumed that since the money was in their bank, I should be able to use it. Bad idea for yours truly folks!

Turns out that I tryed to use MY money, which was loafing about in MY bank, and got charged several fees which amounted to $170!!! This my friends, is why Wells Fargo is doing well. They steal from average income and low income people. It's the seeing all that money posted into your account, but getting a hot check fee for trying to use it, that gets me. Why post that the money is in your account before you can use it in the first place?. Other banks I've used would actually put checks on hold, if they arrived one day before you were to get paid. WF does the opposite and worse by dragging out this "Pending" process longer and longer each pay day, and using your own money as BAIT in order to get fees. People warned me about this before I even got the account.

This makes Wells Fargo even worse than Walmart. Walmart makes mistakes which cost you money and aggravation. Wells Fargo, merely steals from the poor, under the guise of fine print on a contract, baits you with a high balance, then rips you off by claiming your money isn't quite ready ("pending") to be used, and fining you $35 each time you try to use your money that is sitting in their frickin' bank! ARRRGGHHHHH...

March 25th, my paycheck was still "Pending" but I had to do some laundry, so I broke out the change jar and found enough quarters to do two loads of mine and Logans laundry. As I mentioned before; I love doing laundry with my son. I will not buy a washer and dryer while he lives in my house. The weather was quite strange. When we left the house it was 35 degrees outside and snowing freely, but the snow would melt as soon as it hit the ground. We went to the laundromat, put our meager two loads in the washer, then drove to McDonalds after scraping up the 2 dollars for 2 double cheese burgers. The McDonalds employee had a look of pity on his face, while sadly watching me count out nickles and dimes to buy Logan and I dinner for the night (meanwhile several grand lays "pending" in my bank account), but we had a good time with it, and the hamburgers were a good after school snack. By then the snow was coming down in big wet snowflakes, that were so waterlogged they kind of looked like domestic turkey's being dropped out of a helicopter or something. We returned to the laundry place and hung out in the camper while watching the freaky snow gather its forces and within a few minutes the ground was covered white with the wet dying snow.

Thursday the 26th was a nice day. My paycheck was finally available. School was great, the sun was out in full force, and the therometer never went above freezing. Quite cold for being 4 days away from April. I made a curried pork chop casserole for dinner, which Freddy enjoyed as much as me. It's nice to have another family member to cook for. Since I got these thick boneless pork chops for $1.49 a pound, Freddy gets served as a dinner guest tonight.

Al's Curried Pork Chops:

Rub curry powder all over your pork chops. Then mix in some soy sauce, some brown sugar, and some tabasco sauce (the amounts are up to you). Marinate as long as you want, then brown the chops in a frying pan, but don't cook em' just yet. Chop up a large onion not too fine but not too chunky and scatter half of the onion across the bottom of the casserole pan. add some olive oil down there as well. Place the pork chops neatly on top of the onions (I used 4 pork chops) then pour the remaining marinade on. Pour a one pound can of Bushes baked beans across the top and down in the spaces between the chops, then top with the other half of chopped onion. Bake in oven at 350 degrees, for 30 mnutes to an hour.

After eating all that Freddy and I slept like babies for nearly the rest of the night.

March 18 - 23, 2009

Not much all at to right about, the weather was great for 4 days. Highs hitting 60 degrees. It's nice to sit in a chair in the back yard and read.

I'm reading "The Appeal", by my favorite Modern author, James Grisham. Reading a great book in a warm afternoon in Cache Valley, hearing the birds and traffic, with the radio playing Frank Sinatra, cold beer in hand, is one of the things I live for.

Been eating lots of steaks, since t-bones/ribeyes/new york strips, were $4.49 a pound. Fresh aspharagus was $1.49! I like to slowly grill a t-bone using only salt and pepper, while sitting outside late at night, then cut small pieces off it while the steak is cooking. This process involves a small charcoal fire, and lasts about an hour. The dog likes it when we eat steak this way, I send him a tough piece every once and a while for which he is grateful for. I love being outside with my small grill at night, when traffic dies, and most of the world is sleeping.

Logan went snowboarding on Friday (no school for students) after spending a night in his friend "Johnnies" cabin in the resort area of Bear Lake, which is near the ski area. Johnnys father is a bishop of the Mormon church, from what I can tell, this has little effect on Logan.

Saturday, Logan and I drove around to find a place to ride my new to me, dirtbike. Although, all the snow was gone from the valley, the snow was much deeper 1000 feet up into the mountains, where we went.
I got the chance to ride the bike a mile before hitting the real deep snow, which caused me to turn around and come back to the truck 10 minutes later. Damn this bike is FAST! The engine roars as it unleashes 50 horsepower to the back tire. I better respect this beast if I wish to live. It is faster than my mom's souped up Infiniti hotrod!

Sunday, nice weather is over. Cold rain, highs in the 30's. Never left the house, but nice to get lots of rest.

Today, there was an inch of snow on the ground. Students all day bitching about the snow which continued to fall slowly all day. This is not a snow event, just an unloved afterthought of a long long winter.
Two more weeks before Spring Break, then 6 weeks until the summer. I can hardly wait.

March 18th, 2009

Had a great day, casted 15 pieces of Jewelry after school, all turned out quite well. I also made great progress carving out a wax figurine of "Quetzalcoatl" (The Aztec Feathered Serpent). I'm going to use the carving for an end cap for the Celtic "Torc" I am making. The Ancient Celtic Chief tans, would wear a twisted, thick, rope made of bronze, silver, or even gold (depending on their wealth), with end caps depicting stylized figures, like falcons, lions, snakes, etc... Mine will have an Aztec Quetzal for one end cap, and the stylized rattle for the other one. I plan to cast the end caps out of silver with sapphires for the eyes. I should be finished in a couple weeks.

Got home at 4 PM, which is late, and fell asleep for TWO HOURS, which is a record after work nap. Fortunately one of the kids next door woke me up by knocking at my door. The kid kicked her ball in my back yard so I went and got it.

Logan and I took Freddy up to Providence canyon to scout out a place to camp this weekend. It was getting dark when we climbed the Hell Bitch to an altitude of 5400 ft, we were the only ones up there, it was like being in another world, with plenty of snow on the ground still.

Freddy was soooo excited, and since no one was around, I turned him loose and let him go exploring, which he ecstatically did. Freddy was running hither and thither, jumping in the icy stream, jumping into snow banks, and paying careful attention to mark every tree in sight. When he would get to far, all I had to do was whistle and he would come running back to me with a huge smile on his face and in his eyes. Logan who was wearing a t-shirt opted to stay in the cab since the air was 15 degrees colder than down in the valley from whence we came. I did have a beer (just one), while waiting on Freddy to get his fill of scenery, Logan had one also (just one). Damn that boy is growing up, he's 18.5 years old now, and enjoys a beer on occasion. I sure hope his thirst for beer never comes close to mine. Although, living up here in the great white north, and since I'm older, I don't care for drinking nearly as much as in the old days. Too much fun stuff to do up here I guess.

March 12th - 17th

After three days of lack of sleep, accompanied by copious amounts of coffee, I became a zombie. I not only couldn't get much sleep I had a massive headache that lasted 5 days. I also ran out of blood pressure medication.

I took Monday the 16th off, got some more blood pressure medication, went swimming, avoided all forms of caffeine, and caught up on some well needed sleep. Tuesday, was much much better and the headache started to go away. It sucks being in tune with the rising and setting of the sun. It does come in handy, because I can usually tell what time it is without using a watch.

Tuesday the 17th, I withdrew half of my gold and silver savings from my deposit box and bought a 1999 Honda XR600r, which is a very well made dirt bike, which I will use as a shuttle vehicle for the Hell Bitch (truck and camper), for my journies this summer. This bike won the Baja 1000 many times, and can climb straight up a wall. Now I need a platform hitch so I can attach the bike to Hell Bitch, when Freddy and I go camping. Hopefully Freddy will be good in the camper when I go riding. I can't leave him chained outside because our local mountain range is full of mountain lions, and Freddy could become their lunch!

March 11 2009

(utah state capitol)


Five Degrees this morning. I hated to put the dog out for the day. Funny, I have never seen Freddy in his dog house and I always worry about him, or walk home during my off hour to let him inside to warm up. But every since this past snow event, I noticed a well worn trail of dog tracks leading into his dog house. I guess Freddy knows where to go to get warm.

After writing yesterdays blah blog (I do make a point to keep things honest), I saw an interesting story on Yahoo internet news: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090311/ap_on_re_us/states_of_happiness

Guess which state ranked first in overall happiness? You guessed it! Utah is ranked number 1, with Hawaii and Wyoming second and third.
The deep south didn't fare too well, thank god I got out of that part of the country. Utah is a very happy place indeed.

March 10, 2009

Cold day for March, never got above 25 degrees. The ring that I was making came out bad, due to excess slag in the crucible. Walked home in the snow feeling defeated. I'll just have to make a better ring tomorrow.

Still not adjusted to the daylight savings time so I have been dragging ass all week.

Went to the gym to swim but all the lanes were full at 7:00 PM, usually the pool is empty at that time, I guess I'm not the only one off schedule.
The outdoor jacuzzi happened to be vacant, so I got to sooth my tired muscles from the previous days weight lifting session. Nothing like a hot jacuzzi when the air around you is 20 degrees. Plus the view of the mountains from the jacuzzi was incredible.

Freddy and I drove back home and I managed to heat up the "Koshari" that we ate the day before. As with many things; koshari is better on the second day.

Although I was dead tired, I couldn't get to sleep until 2 AM, I will be dead again tomorrow. It wasn't really a bad day, just not a very good day.

March 9, 2009

Nearly all the snow had melted by Sunday night. My driveway was finally clear of snow and ice, and the BBQ grill has been in use the past two nights. I woke up this morning and there was 8 inches of snow on the ground, by the time I got off work there was 12 to 15 inches. This is the most snow I've ever seen fall in 1/2 a day. The dog loves it even more than Logan and I! Freddy leaps up high in the air and hits the snow with a swan dive then pounces up and down like a ferret trying to catch prairie dogs or something. (check back later for more).


After 20 minutes of shoveling snow in a snowstorm, I had to drive to the utility dept. in order to pay the ole electric bill. I brought my dog Freddie with me (did I tell you how much he loves the snow?). After threading my way through the police station parking lot, in the screaming blizzard, w/o hitting a single police car or cop, I managed to pay my bill!

Then we barely managed to get out and nearly nailed a cop car this time while leaving the parking lot. Some people drive like shit in the snow. Freddy and I didn't want to go back home in this interesting weather so we decided to go to the gym, way up in North Logan. I entered the gym, scheduled a tan, then proceeded to dress for the weight room, since I left my swim skivveys in the snow-buried Volvo, which was inundated by the bloody snow plows during the night. I lifted and worked my legs out mainly, my upper body is strong enough due to all the swimming I do. Tanned for a full 20 minutes and now am looking like a respectable light skinned Mexican!

We drove on home, Freddy still being cool about getting to watch the truck cab for an hour.


Now it's time to make the Koshari, that I bought the ingrediants for a few days ago, before all those steaks made it into my fridge. Here is the recipe that I am making tonight:

by Shirley Elmokadem
Egyptian recipe for Koshari'
I love eating Koshari' when I stay in Egypt. It's made of lentils, macaroni, chick peas and lentils. It's a perfect vegetarian fast food. Try this simple recipe.
Ingredients 1 cup black lentils 1 cup white rice 1 cup of chick peas, (these can be bought in a tin or soak some overnight) 1 cup uncooked macaroni 2 onions 2 tablespoons olive oil 2 cloves garlic, crushed 2 cups tomato sauce Pinch of chilli powder or teaspoon of hot sauce. ( Add according to taste. I like my sauce hot!)
Simmer the lentils and chick peas, (if uncooked), on a low heat for about thirty minutes or until they are tender. Cook the rice and macaroni. Then mix all four together in a large bowl. Fry the onions, ( save some for the topping), and garlic gently in the olive oil. Add the tomato sauce to this mixture and heat until boiling. Then remove from heat. Put the lentil mixture in a dish and cover it with the sauce and onion. Mumtaz!


This is great stuff, many people leave out the chickpeas which I will probably do next time. I used Classico pasta sauce, and put a layer of it between the layers of rice, lentils, and pasta. I also used a lot of cayenne pepper and curry powder with the lentils. Logan ate a ton of this stuff. I'd make it more but it uses a lot of pots and pans, which I don't like to clean.

March 7th and 8th

Saturday, I drove logan to the highway that the ski resort is on. I dropped him off and he hitchhiked the 27 miles to the lifts. It only takes a guy with a snowboard about 3 minutes to capture a ride from fellow snowboarders. Nothing like my younger days hitchiking around Texas and England.

I ate a bagel with lox at Einsteins, and it was pretty good. The bagel and large cup of excellent coffee was about 7 bucks. I could get a cheaper cream cheese and fruit bagel for 3 dollars less. It was my first time at the bagel place, and it looks like a great place to hang out and read the paper for an hour or so. Lots of cool cheap coffeehouses to go to around here. In Texas I mainly hung out in bars, now I do the laundromat/coffeehouse thing. Life is good here.

I drove home and slepped the bagle off for a couple hours then decided to take Freddy with me and run some errands. Some dum ass (me) left the headlights on and the truck would not start. So I put the Volvo's new battery in and had to back up through my snow covered front yard at a good speed so the wheels wouldnt get stuck in the hard crusty snow, in order to avoid the big truck that was now blocking my driveway.

The shop I had the Volvo at a few months ago said that "all the car needed was a new battery and it would run good again". He was mistaken. Freddie and I drove north for a few miles and I stopped for gas and a well needed carwash. My engine died in the carwash, but I managed to get it restarted and after an hour I got it running good enough to crawl out of the gas station and try to make it all the way home. While coasting in neutral, while applying the gas in order to keep the car running, while modulating my speed with the hand-held emergency brake, I was able to cough and slink my way home.

So now I have the Volvo in the street and it really can't run, and a truck in my drive with a flat battery, and my battery charger and extension cord in my other truck, which sits in a field 7 miles away. I was down to the motorcycle for transportation. It got me through the not so warm day.

That night I drank a little tequila and lime, while cooking rib-eyes on the grill at 22 degrees, while watching the star filled sky. Logan caught a late movie, so I ate two 12 oz steaks, which reeked havoc on my too full stomach the entire night. One should only have so much protein I guess.

Sunday,

Logan and I walked to another coffee place (and one of the few places open downtown on Sundays. The singer/guitar player sounded like a bucket of cats in a clothes dryer so we ate outside in the balmy 35 degree weather. No wind as usual, and we never got cold.

Hung out in the house the rest of the day, doing nothing, a little cleaning maybe, till I spent 2 hours making grilled pork chops and my special baked beans.

Bean recipe: chop up an onion into long narrow strips. Spray oil in cooking pot, grill the onions slowly until brown. Add crushed red pepper and a tea spoon of curry powder. Add a can of Bushs origional recipe and pour 4 tablespoons of dijon mustard, and pour a bit of A1 Steak Sauce into the mix. Stir and simmer for an hour. We marinated the pork chops in italian dressing the night before and let it sit in a ziplock bag until ready to grill. Damn good dinner we all agree!

March 6th 2008

Left for the field trip at 7:45 AM headed toward Provo town! As the bus slowly chugged its way up "Sardine Canyon" pass, I noticed on my watch/altimeter that we went from 4200 ft elevation up to 6020 ft at the top of the pass. Cache Valley, were I live was still covered with snow, but after Sardine pass, we careemed down to the giant "Utah Valley" where the snow was pretty much gone. Utah valley from Brigham City (in the North), to Provo (to the south), is about 100 miles of nearly solid citys, towns, and suburbs. Utah Valley contains most of the populus of the entire state. The Great Salt Lake is a few miles to the left of the Northern Utah Valley. Seismologists say that if the next earthquake reaches a magnitude of 7 or more, much of the Great Salt Lake will spill over and flood this valley. The "Wasatch Fault" runs along the East side of the valley, and usually moves every couple thousand years or so. It is currently overdue by a few hundred years.

After 1 1/2 more hours of driving we finally reach the Springville Art Museum where the state-wide high school art competition is being held. My god some of these Utah students are talented and creative. Much of the work is as good or better than College level or even than many professional artists. I guess this is due to the fact that most high school Art students haven't been ruined by having too much Art History crammed down their throats.

The Jewelry display was abyssmal, with my top students pretty much dominating the rest of the jewelry entrys, and the only one that won an award. We have another competition next week, and I'll be able to show off more of my student's work!

Got back home at 3:00 P.M. and was too beat to go anywhere else. Hung around Logan and Freddy the rest of the evening, made some steaks and beans (I forgot to buy potatoes which to me go better with steak), then washed it down with some local "Provo Girl" beer!

Went to bed around 10:00 PM. I plan to wake up early so I can get things done.

March 5th 2009

Nothing too eventful happened on Thursday, March 5th. Finishing on my latest jewelry endeavor, which is a silver ring inlayed with a piece of blue abalone shell. Hope it turns out ok, I'll add a pic next week when completed.

School went great, had to stay after school in order to get ready for tomorrows field trip down to "Springville" which is just past the great town of "Provo" Utah. Provo is the home of Brigham Young University, named for the man who settled Utah in the 1840's. I watched a historical video of the History of Utah, and Young pretty much settled the entire state all by himself. At one point he faced down the entire army of the United States. Brigham had lots of courage, and lots of wives. Anyone willing to put up with more than one wife has my greatest respect.

Went shopping for ingredients to make the national dish of Egypt called "Koshari", which consists of layers of rice, lentles, chickpeas, macoroni, with layers of a spicy tomato sauce and topped with grilled onions. Egyptians eat this meal every day, where are Koshari restaurants and fast food stalls all over the country from what I hear. Hopefully, I will make the trip someday.

So I was shopping for some chickpeas, lentils, and onions, and walked out $120 poorer. Seems that T-bone steaks and rib-eyes were only $4.49 per pound and thick slices of pork loin was $1.99! Combine that with some other stuff I really didn't need, and a $5. grocery trip became quite expensive. Oh well, at least I have enough meat to last until June.

March 4th 2009

Drove the bike to work in a short sleeve shirt today. Man it's getting to be quite the sweat box around here. 45 degrees this morning and the afternoon should be around 55..... Then the shit will hit the fan! We are slated to have three back to back snowstorms, first one hitting tonight. Shouldn't get too cold though with afternoons in the mid 30's.

Went to the Wednesday morning pointless department meeting, it was nice and short. Then I loaded up 5 molds to bake in the old back up kiln and now have to manually adjust the temperature every hour till we reach casting temperature (1350 degrees). The smell of a baking jewelry mold with wax evaporating permeates my classroom as we speak. My broken brand new, state of the art kiln was much nicer. Just set it in the afternoon and it bakes all night on its own, while ramping up the temperature by itself. The ceramics teacher helped me diagnose the problem the good kiln was having, turns out that it is a two dollar on/off toggle switch, which I can replace easily. Next firing will be much nicer.

Gawd this day keeps getting better. The kids were all in positive moods and nearly all of them had jokes up their sleeves. One of my most talented kids couldn't help singing obnoxious songs, which he thought up as he sang them. This particular student seems to do well at everything he does, without being conceited about it. He can draw, write, sing, do math, is athletic as hell, and seems to love everyone. He is funny as anything and all the other students find him most entertaining. I'll just call him Leonardo De Vinci, as he is the most multi-talented kid I've had the good fortune to meet. People like Leonardo, help cut through the daily bullshit, and just seem to infect everyone to enjoy life. I just hope he never realizes his genious and becomes an asshole or something.

After work I went home and cleaned Freddy up to go on a small road trip to the gym. Swimming 500 yards isn't much, but it makes my day and night a happy one. After swimming, and tanning, I made macaroni and tuna for dinner. This is one of the simplest high protein meals one can possibly make. No recipe really, just make your mac and cheese and add tuna, black pepper, a bit of lemon pepper eliminates the tuna funk, and I put in a liberal dose of cayenne pepper, just to piss off Logan!

All the while my perfect dog lays on his kitchen rug and watches every move I make, until he gets to clean out the bowl. Freddy seems to understand English quite well, and is becoming my best friend. He has stopped the bad behavior and follows me closely everywhere I go. It is nice to have his adoration, and I return it by giving him the best life I can possibly offer.

Later we hung out in the camper. He loves to lay down by the heater. Tonight there was a gentle rain landing on the roof of the camper as I listened to the National Public Radio broadcast and had a couple glasses of cheap French wine. The radio stops every hour (battery saving device) and I just listened to the rain, watched the rain drops cutting through the fog on the windows while different colors of car lights entered and left each window at random, and my mind started drifting toward old poems I had written. Here's one:


My love crys out to you.

Across the broad expanse of Western skys it screams!
Borne in the ocean tide and stuck to your rubber soles.

It glistens in the moonlight before it scatters.
On a long and boring day it always returns.

But tonight my love is neverending,

it sings thru the wires and flashing lights
while it calls out to you across the waves
as it flows hither and thither and smashes into you
crashing out good fortune as it thunders out joy and freedom.

The gentle rains continue to fall.
And all is right with the world.

March 2nd and 3rd 2009

I missed a day, must be that either Spring is coming, or I have ran out of things to talk about.

Yesterday was a short day at school. The classes were only 30 minutes long and the school let out at noon. But teachers had to return from 4:30 to 7:00 in order to "Meet the Parents". As usual we had the grill going outside with refreshments, the ceramics teacher had parents making pottery with their kids. Doing this wasn't really possible for the Painting and Photo teachers. But we all had fun anyway. Wound up having the night from hell after I got home. Every time I went to sleep it seemed that something new would drag my tired arse out of bed. First there was the hunt for the cell phone charger (my alarm clock), then 30 minutes later, a smoke detector started beeping every 5 minutes to let me know the battery was old. Imagine, being nearly asleep for an hour while a loud BEEP would sound every 5 minutes. The worst thing about it was that the detector was positioned 10 feet above my head and I had to think about how I was going to reach the bastard! I tried ignoring it for a long time, before getting up and standing on a couch, trying not to fall, while unscrewing the damn thing.

After all that, I was wide awake again until 3 in the morning.

March 3rd: 6 AM!!! Wakey Wakey Time!!!! my alarm cruelly announces. I dragged my tired self out of bed, did the three "S's" and made some mean thick coffee to wash down my eggs and toast.

Leaving to school in a sweltering 40 degrees was odd. Spring apparently has arrived with a vengeance. School went ok (I took a nap during one of my off hours), then I headed home.

My dog was covered in mud again, and I hated to even allow him into the utility room. I napped for another hour and drove my little motorcycle down a busy main street in order to go to the gym. At 55 degrees in the afternoon, riding through traffic without a care in the world tasted like Freedom! My hands didn't even freeze.

Got back home, did some cleaning, hung out with the smelly muddy dog for a few hours, and decided to catch up on my writing. This is where we are right now as I type.

March 1st 2009

Sunday again. Blah. Logan and I did a months worth of laundry at the "Wash Tub" laundromat! Had lunch at Subway, then returned home to clean the house for an hour. Picked up a few pound of dog hair with the vacumn. Spent the rest of the night playing "Mobsters" on the internet with Logan. Thats it. A pretty good Sunday compared to most.

Feb 28 2009

Our two organs. When we moved into the house we had no furniture for the main living room, so we went to the D.I. (deseret industries, a LDS goodwill store) and bought the Baldwin organ in the background for $30. Two weeks later I picked up the 67' Hammond classic for $250.

Logan has been practicing every day and is starting to sound pretty good. I taught him the basics and showed him some neat sounding chord progressions.

Feb 27 2009

Grand Teton in the mist...

Going though the pictures of my recent trip I found this one. It's nice living 200 miles from the Grand Tetons. Friday was fun. Called a few old friends after school, had big T-bone steak dinner, played on the computer with Logan, then went to bed. Nice that my back yard stayed frozen today, so the dog is clean and I don't have to leave him in a room for hours while he drys out.

Feb 26 2009

Another warm day, nearly 40 degrees, the snow depth of my front yard is only about 6 inches of hard crusty icy crap. At least my sidewalk was clear of most of the ice, since I had to unload a carload of Mormon packaged cans of grains, beans, and other stuff. It would suck falling on my ass while carrying 35 pounds of food. After making 5 trips from Mrs. Lloyd's car to my living room, I now have one years supply of food, stored in cans designed to last 30 years or more.


Mrs. Lloyd is a semi-retired Art teacher, who pushes me to stock up on food storage. She works with a group of people from her church and they actually can the grains, suck out all the air, add an oxygen absorption packet, then seal the can. And the prices are quite reasonable. 5 pounds of canned dry pinto beans, with all the air sucked out, for only $4.50. I am really excited to get the onion chips, and oats with this shipment.

I love Mrs. LLoyd, she is very down to earth. She's like the Jewish mother that I never had. She is an incredible artist too. Her oil paintings are wonderful. She also does ceramics, drawings, plays the organ at church, and sings in a top ranked choir at the university. A true genius of the West she is! Of course Judy is a Mormon, like I said, "Mormons rock! Whats nice about her and most Mormons, is that they never preach to me or invite me to their church. She knows I'm a Taoist/Buddhist but it's all good, Judy's love is UNCONDITIONAL.


Nothing too wonderful happened aside from all the food I invested in.


Today was the big championship game for our basketball team. The school gave free bus rides to any student who bought a ticket to the game. The game was 2 hours away from here. So since so many students weren't in their classes, the smarter students that didn't go to the game, ditched school, rather than be stuck in lame ass classes, watching movies and doing nothing.

I know of three kids who got bored, left the school and got busted by the cops for truancy. Well since half the school got "truancy wavers by going to the game" I hope the police go easy on my son and the two other "truants" he was riding around with.

Unfortunately my son was wearing a belt buckle with a real set of brass knuckles attached to the front, and the cops didn't approve of it. The good news is that an 18 year old man, cannot be charged with "truancy"! I can't believe the dumb ass would go out in public with a 10 dollar belt buckle with some Chinese made brass knuckles stuck to the front. Hopefully, this lesson won't be too expensive for him.


Freddy was black from all the mud and had to spend a couple hours in the utility room before I could let him in the kitchen. It's so sad that I have to leave his muddy self in there for so long. He feels that he is being punished or something.
Freddy is quite emotional. I made it up to him by spending the next 3 hours with him in the kitchen, and in the camper: I think he is past it now.

That's about it for today my friends.

Feb 25 2009

Mormons!

Rough day, not enough sleep. Rained in the afternoon, the snow is melting fast, the dog is covered with mud, and everything is bogged down. I miss the cold when all the water was ice or snow and not WATER!

Came home and crashed for a couple hours, then went and sprinted 500 yards in the pool at the health spa. Even laid in the tanning booth again.... (Heather)!
I may be a big, hairy, 280 pounds of man flesh, but I look way nicer when not as white as a corpse! Got to give all these faire Mormon ladies something to fight over....(hehehe).

I like the Mormons quite a bit. They are very family oriented and tend to have many kids. Most LDS (Mormon) children are very happy, loved, and well adjusted compared to children from broken homes. I also learned about the wisdom of food storage from the Mormons.

Hung out in the back of the "Hell Bitch" for a few hours with Freddy. You know the story, this is a happy place to hang out. I plan to stock up the "Hell Bitch" with 6 months supply of food, gas, and bullets, just in case shit hits the fan.

Many Mormons practice advanced food storage techniques and I must admit that I follow the wisdon of this. Lets say disaster happens, like a great depression where there are millions out of work and roving the land looking for food like in the 30's. The ones that are prepared, will have food and enough bullets to hunt with or protect their food supply. Many suburbanites would get invaded by huge mobs of hungry, desparate, inner-city people, and probably get killed or starve. I would merely jump in the Hell Bitch, hide way up in the mountains and ride out the storm.


I am not a survivalist or a gun nut, but the Mormans have been prepared for over a hundred years. Utah has historically a dicey place to carve out a living. Most of the state is a dry desert. In bad years the Mormons would dip in to their food storages and, live through crop failures better than the unprepared. So the tradition still exists strongly today, to hoard food. The main grocery store here has a giant wide aisle dedicated to large cans and barrels of food to stock up with.
85 percent of all American households only have enough food stored away to last for a month. Nearly all Mormon families have at least 6 months of food stored.


I have over 70, 5 pound cans of food staples, including powdered milk, oats, beans, sugar, oil, rice, wheat, and flour. I could last for more than a year with this, plus we have a huge stock of canned soups, veggies and other food.

Many events could cause food unavailability: Natural disaster, nuclear war, oil embargos ect... Storing food should be a top priority for everyone. If the super volcano known as "Yellow Stone" erupts again (it is thousands of years overdue), the resulting amount of volcanic ash, would cool the earth down for 4 or 5 years, and crop failures would be rampant. Hate to seem like a "sky is falling" sounding person, but it is smart to be prepared.

Feb 24 2009

PAYDAY!

With my bills doubling since I moved into this house, I feel the thrill of Payday once again.

It was feckin' 40 degrees this morning with light rain floating down. I can't remember a morning this warm. The downside is that much of the snow is melting in the backyard and Freddy will be quite muddy with I get back home.

Today went well, except that I had to cast 1 1/2 hours after school. It was fine and the casting went great.

I whizzed around town on my dirtbike to run errands in this hot tropical weather, and was most grateful for the beautiful day. Freddy had to spend a couple hours to dry out when I got home at 5:00 PM. Cooked up some porkchops w aspharagus/leek/requeson (mexican cheese) concoction and added way too much chicken bullion, which ruined every thing. Logan and I choked it down while wrapping the salty shit in flour tortillas and eat till we became adverse to futher gastrnomic endeavors.

Spent the rest of the evening listening to classical music over my new-vintage wooden radio from Grundig which occupies much of our tiny kitchen table. When I got bored with that, I watched the "Andy Griffith Show" on TV land for an hour or so.

I love these old sitcoms. Beverly Hillbillies, has the best acting and funny writing. The Brady Bunch disturbs me since I know what most people know about the cast. Now that I am older and much more understanding about kids, families, and schools; Leave it to Beaver is my favorite. The writing is insightful, if not incredible! The writers have child and teenage logic down to a T. Things weren't that different with childrens psyche's in the early 60's then they are now.

Night all..