July 12th 2009

Sunday.

Got up at a decent time (11:00 A.M.) and headed straight to the pool with no breakfast. Drank a small mango smoothy for energy, which did kick in after the 15th lap or so. Kept it to 20 laps, to avoid overdoing it, I also want to swim again tomorrow. But 1000 yards is over 1/2 mile so I am happy with the work out. After laying in the sun for 20 minutes, and the jacuzzi for another 10 minutes, I drove to the grocery store.

I saw a food show on the travel channel the other day, and noticed that there were many noodle stalls in the Orient that specialized in nothing but ramen style soups. There are also many places in Hawaii and other American cities with the same concept.

There are many kinds of noodles made across the Orient, from buckwheat, soybean, rice, seaweed, and many others. The kind I'm talking about are the instant Ramen noodles you can buy at the grocery store for around 20 cents a pack or less. It is an instant wheat based noodle package that includes a flavor pack which is sort of like chicken bullion. They also make pork, beef, veggie, and seafood flavors just to name a few. Many poor college students live off this stuff. The only problem is that packaged Ramen contains little nutrition and a buttload of salt and MSG. Very little protein, vitamins or minerals can be found in commercial Ramen, but there still is some.

At the store I went through all the possible ingredients (and there are many of them), that could be used to make some hearty Ramen which could serve for a meal. Sounds easy right? Think of a combination of three to six ingredients, that taste great when mixed together, and can be made in one pot. (I added the one pot requirement, because Logan hates it when I shit up all the dishes, and I plan to bring a "Hotpot by Rival" to cook with when I go on vacation).

After racking my brain for the perfect ingredients, and hanging around the produce aisle way too long, I decided on a mixture of shredded cabbage, green onions, fresh cremona mushrooms, tofu, and egg. Look at all the protein, vitamins, and minerals in that combo. Of course this all will be combined with fresh ginger and garlic. I have been thinking about how to do this for several days, and have even scouted the internet for simular Ramen recipes, but this one is unique, and only uses one pot.

This serves one for a full meal with leftovers:

Al's Taoist Divine Inspiration Soup.

2 green onions finely chopped,
1/3 container of firm tofu (4 oz).
5 quarter sized mushrooms (any kind is ok...they all have potassium)
one small handful of shredded coleslaw mix (cabbage and carrots) I dont own a grater.
1 large egg
one thumbnail sized chunk of fresh ginger or more if desired (chop it fine)
two normal sized cloves of finely chopped garlic.

3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar (any vinegar would probably work)
2 tablespoons of honey (or sugar)
soy sauce to taste
Srichaca hot sauce (red pepper oil, crushed red peppers, cayenne pepper) will all work fine..
I like the Srichaca (sp?), since it burned off all my hair a long time ago. It's Vietnamese and deadly hot.

One seventeen cent package of Nissen Ramen noodles, chicken flavor. (or any flavor really)
Few drops of sesame oil (a little goes a long way) tahini works too. Actually feel free to omit this it's not as important as the other stuff.

Marinate the tofu for a few minutes in a bit of soy sauce.
Spray some oil in the bottom of the saucepan, heat to medium, fry the onions, ginger and garlic for a couple minutes, add the tofu for a little while frying on both sides to lock in the flavor.
Add the, sliced mushrooms, and a small handful of cabbage (this is not really a cabbage main dish so take it easy!). Stir a bit.

Since I used the "Rival Hot Pot" it was tough to fry in oil since the metal part on the bottom (the heating element) is about the size of a silver dollar, but I managed by pouring a little water over the cabbage, in order to steam it. THIS THING HEATS WATER FASTER THAN A MICROWAVE SO BE CAREFUL. BUT GO OUT AND BUY ONE FOR 13 BUCKS. THEY ARE GREAT! I fryed on the lowest setting... and used a dab of oil since the Rival company said to not fry in this thing. It's ok as long as you keep it low and fry on the small metal element.

The frying should be pretty light so don't screw up and carmelize anything. The steaming really helped get everything done as much as the initial frying.

Once all the ingredients are fry then steamed, add the vinegar (stir), add a couple shakes of soy (you can add more later), then put in the honey (to balance out the vinegar), and stir a little. Turn the heat down to simmer, add three cups of water, and stir once more, add the ramen flavor packet (not the noodles) and stir once more.
(Cover for 10 minutes. Go have a beer or check your e-mail.)

Turn the heat up till boiling, and add a brick of Ramen noodles (break it in half first), while stirring noodles add the pre-beaten egg, then immediately turn down to simmer. This should only be boiling for a short time, like 30 seconds. Add in some hot sauce, more soy sauce to taste, and finish each bowl with a few drops of sesame oil.

Scoop out noodles, egg, cabbage, tofu and mushrooms, and pour on some broth. Eat with chopsticks and drink the liquid from the bowl. I had two bowls and I am totally full. The myriad of oriental flavors were completely intertwined and perfect in a way that I can't really describe. Divine is the only thing that describes it.

This was the best oriental soup that I have ever tasted. I will eat this once a day!

The entire meal was less than a dollar, and I still have 1/2 a bowl left. And no being tired from eating a giant plate of meat or carb based food. This is a break through for our families daily diet.

Once the tofu is gone, I plan to make this with a seafood base, since there are so many places I can take this recipe. I could start a small restaurant selling nothing but this dish and a few spring rolls.



After lunch, I had enough energy left to clean the entire house including the dog. Logan helped me quite a bit, we really are a good team. The dog is now walking around all "butt hurt" since he has never had a bath before, we turned several shades of white in the bathing process. Next time I'll probably pay someone else to do it. The tap water here is cold as hell, and the dog appears to be emotionally disturbed from the experience.

Been a great day for me. Probably not so much for Logan and the dog, but the house is clean including the refrigerator, and my dog smells a hell of a lot better.

Lao Tzu says: Make a pot out of clay, but it is the space within that makes it useful.

July 9th 2009

I had two days of working on my old Volvo (I really dislike mechanical work). I sold the Volvo a month ago to my friend Hamin. Hamin is a very kind old Persian man who owns the sandwich shop near my school, and is my oldest friend here in Logan. I sold him the Volvo for $4000 but told him I would replace the heater coil for an additional $500. Lucky me... I tryed to persuade him to take it to the shop, since I am way to big to be crawling under neath the dashboard of a foreign car, but since I read the online instructions, I knew I could do it.

After spending 6 hours yesterday on my knees, squeezing my large body into mind boggleing contortions, and smashing my knees onto a gravel driveway, I managed to get the heater core loose, the antifreeze out of the coolant system, but was blocked by a large feckin' amplifier and bracket that was not in any of the internet pictures I looked at.

I woke up this morning kneesore and a bit disgusted, that I was nearly done with the operation, but failed to get the new heater core installed. I dreaded going out in the heat of the day to work on the car, so I had a couple beers at Logans job site, in order for the sun to go down a little. When I got home, Hamin shows up with this 19 year old kid who was supposed to be a decent mechanic. With this kid to assist me, we managed to get the amplifier out and the old heater core. Has was so proficient and had no problem fitting under the dashboard, I offered to split my mechanic fee 50 50 with him.

It only took 1 1/2 hours to get the Volvo back together. Hamin saved hundreds of dollars, the kid made $166 for his hour and a half labor, and I made $166 dollars for my 8 hours of labor, which is still pretty good money. The rest of the $500 goes toward the parts, which I'll get reembursed for. Thank god all that is over.

July 7th 2009

Not much to report. I've blown off the original idea of this blog, "to live in a truck camper", after having spent many hours in the "camper". It's a great place to hang out in the winter, when tired of being in the house, but I have not camped in there this summer at all....yet.
I do plan to retire in an RV at some point in my life, but living in a truck camper would be tough to do full time. I could do it if necessary, but it would surely be a suckfull existance.

I did buy Logan and I some backpacks, a camp stove, a tent, and he is wanting to camp as soon as his work lets up a little. Logan is still doing well at his job, his boss and coworkers have nothing but good things to say about him. I have nothing but good things to say about him as well. We will camp, when the time comes. I will probably be camping in another state very soon.

I have been quite the swimmer since I got the underwater MP3 player, I swam a mile (35 laps) last week, and apparently overdid it. I felt sharp pains in my clavical bones, and in my right rotater cuff. No big deal, I waited three days and held it down to 750 yards (15 laps), then did a follow up swim of 15 laps, three days later (today), with no pain whatsoever. I plan to do another mile tomorrow, if all goes well. Damn, my upper body is getting WIDE and I can only pinch 2 inches of flab at my midsection. I love the water and swimming so much, I love fish, the ocean, sailing, and body surfing . So I made a decision....

Booked a 14 day trip to the Hawaiian Islands, and plan to surf, swim, snorkel, and lay around the beach. I have studied the islands extensively, and know many different things to do while there. I'll probably start writing on a daily basis, once I get there (9 more days!). I plan to see the Pearl Harbor memorial, visit some Buddhist temples, eat at the noodle shops in China Town, go snorkeling in Hamanuma Bay, as well as in Wikiki. My hotel also has a very nice pool, where I can swim as much as I wish. The pool is big enough to get a workout, but the beach is only a couple blocks away.
I really want to fly over to the big Island, and take the tour to the top of Mount Mauna Kea (13000 feet!), but I will have to evaluate finances when I get to that point. There seems to be so much to experience on Oahu, but a cheap 47 dollar flight, will get me to any of the other islands. I invited my son and older daughter to join me, but both have to work and can't seem to get the time off. My younger daughter is finishing up her bachelors degree and will graduate this August!!!! You go ATHENA!

July 4th was pretty cool, I bought some fireworks for the children next door, and hung around with their mama while they had a blast catching things on fire. Their mama and I had fun drinking wine and discussing things. She's a pretty sharp lady and a good neighbor, but my appreciation stops there.... believe me!

Logan and two of my friends bought some little kids junk bicycles, and took over my garage with plans to customize them. I loaned them my tools, and wished them my best. I do hope they learn a bit about bike mechanics while they have fun with their experment.

Made a new recipe yesterday: Slawdogs!

I was researching slaw recipes, and found the KFC recipe to be a good one, but after adding mustard and Tabasco sauce, and reading about how some people actually put slaw on hotdogs instead of saurkraut, I decided to make SLAW DOGS!
I would have preferred potato salad, or baked beans, but slaw is way more healthy.

Take a bag of shredded cabbage/carrot slaw mix (I would do the shredding but lack the equipment). Add 1/2 cup Mayo, 4 tablespoons white vinegar (I used rice vinegar), 1/3 cup unrefined sugar (honey would be better), 1/4 tsp black pepper, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 tablespoons mustard, some tabasco sauce, and whatever else you happen to like in your slaw. (KFC's recipe calls for buttermilk and lemon juice).

*AGAIN: Just taste it. If its to sweet, add some vinegar or lemon. To sour, add some sugar or something. But always taste your cooking often, but don't put that nasty spoon you licked, back in the mix, or my mom will kick your ass!

Let this marinate in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours, hopefully overnight.

Then boil or grill some good all-beef hotdogs. I like to grill stuff, but the boiled dogs seem to taste a little better, boiling tends to leach out all the nitrites and salt. Plus, hotdogs were invented with boiling in mind. I love to spend my time grilling, as a past time, but hotdogs, are much better if you just boil the damned things... Boil the hell out of them for 10 minutes and they'll be just great!

* After trying all the best hotdogs, I vote the Oscar Meyer all beef hotdogs, to be better than Ball Park Franks, and even better than Nathans. (Nathans cost the most, but have no skin (kosher laws), and far too salty. Oscar Meyer is the best value of the three ALL BEEF franks. Don't buy the cheap turkey/chicken/pork mixed crap! Beef Dogs are about 3.50 for a pack of 8 why buy the bottom of the barrel dogs, which are packed with cereal, turkey beaks, chicken asses, and pig snouts????

Buy whatever bun you like, stick the dog in it, and dump 1/4 pound of your slaw onto the dog.
and enjoy. This is one heck of a good meal, with plenty of healthy green veggies, and minimal carbs. I plan to experment with non mayo, vinegar only, slaws this next week. They will be even healthier slaw recipes for you and me. Substituting slaw for potato salad or fries, seems to make sense to me or anyone on a diet regimen. Next time I'll replace the sugar with Splenda.


Thats all for now! Al

June 26th, 2009

(This photo has nothing to do with the subject, but I love this picture. Dad is wearing a Rastaman hat that my daughter made me, and a pancho, that one of my 6th graders brought me from Mexico a few years ago. Dad was cold sitting outside in 50 degree weather.)



Woke up with dog pawing me to go outside. This wasn't like the time he woke me because he had to use the bathroom and was about to explode. He had an alterior motive. I happened to leave the back yard window open and he heard the dogs next door barking. He just knew how to manipulate me to get his wishes. Intelligent dogs are hard to trust and are often full of shit....

The llama communicates too. In the evenings I give her a scoop of llama feed then sit nearby and read while she eats. I have the radio going on while she's eating. When she is finished she stands about 8 feet away and stares at me with her big eyes and begins to moan. Once her moans get louder than the radio I look over and say "hey Sue"; she then starts smacking her lips in an overexaggerated manner. Usually I'll ignore her for 10 or 20 minutes, or tell her to wait, so she doesn't cram too much food down at once, but when I get up and grab the scoop she gets very happy and follows me to the house like a puppy. I make her stop at 2 scoops, since each scoop is 1 quart, and who wants a fat obnoxious llama?


Went to the gym, with my underwater mp3 gear, and swam 1000 yards! Thats 20 times back and fourth in a 50 yard pool. Farther than I've swam in 30 years!!! My old goal was only 500 yards, which I managed to swim for the past year, and it was boring as hell. But with music... 1000 yards is no problem. I'll increase this distance in a week or two. Due to time constraints, I'll have to keep it below 2000 yards, but it is great excercise, and fun now that I got music playing.

Imagine: You are swimming laps in a pool rockin to "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC or "Black dog" by Led Zeppelin??? This was so fun...

When I returned home I grabbed 5 days of emergency laundery and asked my son for some of his dirty laundry. He provided a pair of pants and a shirt. Damn, we haven't done any laundry in 20 days, and he hands me one pair of pants and a shirt. WTF?

With nice looking clean clothes on, I walked over to the restaurant where Logan works. The owner recognized me from the previous day, when I told him I was Logans father he became estastic, bragging about what a cool kids Logan was, and telling what a good job he was doing.
This restaurant is a very nice place, with great food and atmosphere. This was they're second friday to be open and the place was packed, with people waiting in line to eat. They didn't even advertise or have a grand opening.

June 24th, 2009

GOT TO GO HERE TODAY!






Another great day. (but lets revisit last night)

The chicken/red pepper/ corn on the cob party on the porch lasted till 4 in the morning. Three people joined the party which centered around very old and cool music: Logan, Freddy and me. I wouldn't have invited anyone else even if they all could have attended.

This city is so still and peaceful at those late hours; it's tough to imagine that 100,000 people live up in this valley.

I stay up late at night like this quite a bit. It's the quiet time when I can think. It's the time where I can dream of ideas and contemplate/catagorize my many thoughts. I can go though all my favorite subjects mentally w/o even having to open a book. Dream and philosophize about life in the past, present, and future. Allowing myself to stay up late at night is the most luxurious privilege I can think of. This is what I require..., next to oxygen, food, water, beer, and money (and totally in that order). Staying up late is number six on the "requirements for life.

So I woke up around 1:00 PM. Caught up on my computer things I do, took care of the animals, had a cuppa tea. Then drove the huge 900cc beast up to the GYM. The huge bike weighs about 700 pounds and has the power, fury, and sound of a B29 bomber. I love this bike, every time I ride her, it is like a special event or something. I generally prefer the smaller, more nimble enduro dirt bikes for Jaunts like this. But the CB 900 is a snarling beast that is a joy to ride, however more ominous.

Got to the gym and had to lay in the sun like an alligator again for 20 minutes until those damned swimming lessons were over. I really don't mind laying out in the company of beautiful Morman women, while listening to my MP3 player and baking in the sun with my Oakley sunglasses on. I'd rather bask here than in San Tropez. Once the kids got out, I swam the 15 laps (.42 miles) in about 25 minutes, before laying back on the lounge chairs and tanning my backside for a little while. I then took a steam bath and jacuzzi back in the locker room before treating myself to a banana/pineapple/coconut smoothy with "weight loss formula and a vitamen shot.

I felt so much better on the trip home than the trip there. On the way home I stopped off at Best Buy and found a dry land MP3 player for 50 bucks (nothing fancy) but obtained an MP3 case with built in speakers and a small amplifier, so I can play my sound any were I want, with out having to use earphones. I hope the MP3 radio works good, since I prefer the serendipity of the radio, compared to pre-recorded music.

Got home, totally beat from the workout (and the antics of the night before), and took a 2 hour recharge nap. Reawoke around 9 and went out to dinner at the place that Logan works. The Beehive grill just opened two weeks ago, and is like a Chili's, but with a better menu, better beer, and much more class. I wore a button down shirt for this event, since I wanted to look nice for my son. The second I got there I saw two of my students who seemed to be damned glad to see me! The girl kept bragging about how Logan was the best dishwasher in the place!

Since I was alone, I went to the lovely bar area, and ordered a beer and some German sausage/sauerkraut dish, which was top notch! Logan and another student stopped by to welcome me, seems that everyone there was proud of the great place they worked at. I have to admit: This restaurant is the best I've been too in many years. From the looks of the other patrons, I believe that this place will be a hit for many years to come.

I mainly sat at the bar, read the latest Smithsonian Magazine, and slowly ate my food, while listening to the happyness all around. I will go there at least once a week.


Came home and spent the usual hour and a half, sitting with the LLama (Sue) while she eats, she seems to like the company, and hung around Freddy the wonderdog at the same time. They were worried because I was about two hours late.

Freddy is proud of his communication skills. Last night, while the grill was on auto pilot I laid down on the couch for a few minutes to watch a tv show and started drifting off to sleep. Freddy, not wanting to miss his share of the food, started whining in a particular way from his carpet in the kitchen. He was so persistant that I woke up, and he indicated that I needed to get back to the grill. When I listened to him he started dancing around like he always does, when he succeeds in communicating something of great importance to me. He way so happy! Had he not intervened, I probably would have slept all night, and both of us would have missed dinner completely. Freddy is a brilliant dog, I will probably be a collie owner forever after owning Freddy.


Logan got home around Midnight and is patiently waiting to use this computer, so I guess I must get off for now.

June 23rd, 2009

Tuesday: I sold my Volvo! Now I can pay income taxes and shit. I can afford to fix up some of my remaining vehicles as well. Talked to Mom and Dad for a while, got some bad news about one of my uncles.

Rode the bike a few miles today; swimming was out of the question.

Logan worked hard again, came home in a great mood as usual. In the mornings he tends to be quiet and somber.

Slow bar-b-qued 6 chick legs with a cut in half red bell pepper (on sale for 50 cents each so I bought more than a few of them), and two water soaked corn on the cob with husks (I had to throw those wet bastards in the middle of the fire). Still doing that now.

Muscles still too sore to swim, but it is a "good sore" and not a bad one. Tomorrow I'll be back and swimming hopefully: My abdominal muscles seem to be very sore, so I will have to check them first. Don't ever want to piss them off!

Nite all, today was a fine day afterall.

AB

June 22nd 2009

Much better day than Sunday. My oldest daughter did call in the morning. I went to school on Monday and seven of my students showed up to make jewelry! I have to come in for aquarium maintanence any way so I hang around for a couple hours and let students use the facility, after all the place really belongs to them. Funny how some of them were asking how my summer was going, I told them that we've really only been out for 2 weeks, and that summer is going well.

I also recieved my SMP3 player!!! So I spent most of my school time making a play list and downloading it. As soon as I got home I ate an orange for energy and headed to the pool. After laying in the sun like an alligator for 30 minutes, I finally got a lane and swam for twice as long as I normally do. Wound up swimming 15 laps instead of 10 which is .42 of a mile! I'll be working out 1/2 mile soon instead of the privious 500 yards which was slightly over a 1/4 mile.
I lost 8 pounds since last monday, and should be shedding more since I'm on a low carb version of the Mediterranean diet. It was so fun to swim with music rocking through your head, I never got bored or tired, but my ligaments told me I was risking pulling one or more of them.

Tonight my friend "Hamin" is stopping by to purchase the Volvo. I hope he doesn't try to negotiate too much on the price, because I need the money for my future truck fund, and my income tax debt.

I just made a well-deserved Martini, and am planning on finishing it, and doing some last minute touches on the Volvo, like charging the AC system...

June 21st 2009

FATHERS DAY!!!!

No calls, no cards, nothing....

June 20th 2009

Went to gym, swam another 500 yards, laid out in the sun. Life is great! Came home and cooked Steak and fried potatoes with bacon. I could only eat the Steak, the potatoes have too many carbs. Logan enjoyed this meal......as did Freddy.

Shot a few games of pool with my good friend "Larry". Larry is an old man who fought in the Vietnam war, he is the only one of noble character that I have met in this pool hall. We broke up a small gang fight last weekend, by telling the two factions that: "We represent the Pinata's!" there will be no fighting on our turf"! Then we pulled the two combatants apart, and steered them to their respective cars. Funny how humor can diffuse a potentially bad situation.
I should have stayed out of it, but then the two groups of youngsters would have probably gone to jail. The "Pinatas" saved their asses!

Larry is a great human being, has lived a long life punctuated with wives, kids, alchoholism, and is one of the most honest decent humans I've met in a long time. I noticed that his pool playing ability increases with the amount of beer that he drinks. He won't drink hard liquor. We never play for real money, but prefer playing for yachts or corporations, wives, or whatever we happen to think up. We got tired of the pool hall tonight, and drank a few more beers on my front porch before Larry went back home. Very few people impress me, since most seem quite selfish. Larry is a poor old man who fought for our country, has worked manual labor for the past 35 years, never has an unkind thought towards anyone, and has achieved what I can only call Sainthood.

Since we both equally dislike this particular pool hall's owner, we are going to ride bicycles every Friday to the nicer pool establishment a mile up the road. I just got to convince the old man to wear a helment.




Larry

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.