I'm Always Mentally on Vacation: April 2011

San Francisco

I am in San Francisco in a strange hotel called "W" where everyone is very openly gay, and concerned about the environment and it seems to make them very angry. Poor lot.

The hotel is very contemporary and resembles the starship Enterprise. I never could figure out how to turn off all the lights so I slept with pillow over my head.

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Location:3rd St,San Francisco,United States

Duke Hunnicutt Poultry Institute

Go to Google Maps and then look up Duke Hunnicutt Poultry Institute. Yep it is officially on Google Maps. Pretty spiffy, eh?

We have 16 more chicks in the garage that are one month old. 26 hens in all.

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New Tailgate Menu Items and an Open Letter to the Carolina Panthers

New this year to the tailgate menu will be an optional fried egg on all hamburgers. I swear it is delicious. Just flop it on up there with a soft yoke and enjoy. Farm fresh eggs will be provided by me.

Also I will definitely be spinning some chickens via the Weber Rotisserie. I think I can fit three small hens on one stick. They come roasted to perfection in about 90 minutes plus rest time. Red potatoes will be the side.

The Panthers will apparently be horrible this year having after seeing the toughest schedule in the league announced a week ago and obviously by the opinion of the NFL for giving us all 1PM start times.

And so with season still months away I would like to offer some basic tweaks to what happens inside the bowl of Bank of America Stadium. Management….you need to step up the NFL experience. If the game is going to be bad then you need to step up the entertainment.

Please put the Carolina Panther logo in the center of the playing field. This is our house, not the NFL’s house. Ditch the NFL logo centerfield.

Document our achievements inside the bowl. Put up some banners proclaiming we have been good in the past with conference and division championships. Fly them proudly.

For Gods sake do something better when we score. How about some fireworks? Get rid of the sissy guys with the flags running across the field.

Retire the cartoon Sir Purr mascot. This isn’t Six Flags or Disney Land and it is embarrassing.

Allow patrons to remove their shirts and paint their chests. Seriously.

Please get some new music during time outs. Report league scores while you advertise on the HD screens.

Boost 3G coverage in the bowl so we can check scores ourselves in the bowl.

Let the top cats cheerleaders be a little sexier. Please.

Get a new PA announcer. Get a new play by play guy on the radio. They are both milk toast.

Take a chance and hire a bad guy. It sells seats. Draft Cam Newton.

Доброе утро

Я проснулся сегодня утром и почувствовал, как русский.

Может быть, я посетит Россию в один прекрасный день. Думаю, я должен идти вразгар зимы пить в культуре. И может быть, я должен научиться, как водка тоже.

Я мог бы начать с аквалангом Черного моря, а затем проходят через Урал в Москву. Затем на несколько других направлениях восток.

Это было бы весело.

Then and Now

As a frequent stalker of St Croix I notice change. Here is five years of neglect at the board walk. Only once a coat of yellow paint has been applied. The rest is rotting in the elements.

Some Time in 1968

wReg Burger? Or wReginald Burger?

Yesterday Gigi bought some fresh ground beef and some sesame seed hamburger buns. Naturally I was tossing around some mental foreplay about the upcoming burgers when an idea came to mind.

How would a big old burger be with a fried egg on top? My bet is wonderful so I Googled it and an egg on a burger are more common than I thought.

This weekend I will attempt an egg and burger along with homemade sourdough that should pair well with the boneless leg of lamb I am spinning Sunday.

Give, Give, Give

I am all about giving so when a buddy called and asked if I like boobies I said yes. Today we played in the Breast Cancer fund raiser and one of the sponsors was Hooters.

It is a great world.

Sour Dough Bread

I love good “sour” sour dough bread. There is one grocery chain in town that has pretty good sour dough twang to their bread. That chain locally is Harris Teeter.

When ever I visit San Francisco I buy and eat sour dough bread because San Francisco is the Napa Valley of bread. Fortunately Napa Valley is nearby and sour dough bread goes so well with wine.

Bread and wine is what the Lord ate at The Last Supper and I can understand the selection quite well.

I am going to San Francisco again next week and rest assured I’ll load up on some sour dough bread. They even bake it at the airport in San Francisco and it is good there too.

But I have decided to tame my long term jonesing by making my own sour dough starter.

So far I am into this starter about 4 days and the wild yeast is bubbling and the smells are good.

Of course you will be the first to see when the first loaf comes rolling out of the oven.

Blackberry

Pork?

Yesterday while I worked at planting flowers around the deck I had this 6 pound Boston Butt turning on the grill.

After 4 hours of turning the roast came out caramelized to perfection and moist in the middle.

Flower Child

It is that time of year in Piedmont North Carolina, between Freeze and Staggering heat when one plants flowers. Tanner and I made this trip this beautiful morning in the Jeep. Later we picked up a marvelous Boston Butt on sale and it is sitting on the rotisserie while I plant flowers and sip a cold beer.

This evening we will dine outside among the flowers.

BTW...anyone see Tanner in this picture?

BSBSS

Yesterday I hosted a meeting of the Bull Shitting Bourbon Sipping Society (BSBSS) of Lockwood Folly.

This group meets weekly on Friday afternoon at a client’s home in Lockwood Folly, NC (love the name) and the clients name believe it or not is Reggie. His home is next to the club house and on the golf course.

The rules are simple….one person each week brings bourbon, any bourbon and pours, then hides the bottle. Everyone in attendance throws a $5 in a box to offset the cost of Makers Mark which is the house bourbon.

I made a toast which is my usual….”To us…and those who want to be like us.”

Everyone tasted and rated my bourbon very high. Turns out that it was one of the best they had ever sampled. After everyone judged I revealed my choice.

I brought Prichard's Double Barreled Bourbon Whiskey at a cost of about $50 a bottle.

We then polished off a gallon of Makers Mark and headed off to dinner for some steaks and ribs.

What a fun evening.

Silent B

I am in the wilds of Raleigh, NC headed to Durham (Derm) to visit mom this morning only to head to the coast this afternoon to host bourbon tasting at a country club.

Then back home in the AM for the weekend which promises to be a wash out weather wise.

So I guess I’ll do some housework and watch baseball. I can’t believe I am watching and liking the game.

Sometime in the middle of the night I got to thinking about the silent “b” in numb. Then I thought about it with wReggieb. Two silent letters?

Stop Poking Please

I really get annoyed with people when the poke me when they are talking. It is a very irritating habit some people have.

I have three friends that poke when they talk and I find myself avoiding them.

One of them pokes my thigh and it is especially annoying because I don’t have much feeling in my thighs so I get a confused sensory perception when my thigh is touched.

Happy 50th Dody

Happy 50^th birthday to my childhood pet Dody. She was a Border Collie mix.

Dody was my constant companion for 16 years. She followed me everywhere I went, playing, and school, everywhere.

Dody and my father were best of friends when I wasn’t around.

I got her at age five after my father felt sorry for me for trying to get my cat to act like a dog. We parted when I went off to college.

Dody was another great role model in my life.

Nation begins 150th anniversary of Civil War

(AP) – 2 hours ago

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Cannons will boom in the wee hours around Charleston Harbor, recreating the bombardment of Fort Sumter that plunged the nation into the Civil War on April 12, 1861.

The South Carolina ceremony Tuesday begins the four-year national commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the nation's bloodiest war.

Around 4 a.m. Tuesday, a single beam of light was aimed skyward from Fort Sumter. Then about half-hour later — around the time of the first shots of the war — the beam split into two beams, signifying a nation torn in two.

The war resulted in more than 600,000 deaths, although during the bombardment of Sumter only a Confederate officer's horse was killed.

Union troops in the fort surrendered after absorbing 36 hours of Confederate shells.

The basket on top is painted gray and I think I like it. A little cleaning here and there and he shines like a new penny.

I came up with a darn good cheat too….the black plastic fenders have black shoe polish on them. Nice Jeep hack if I say so myself.

Da Weekend

The weekend was filled with chores and watching the Masters.

The usual yard work and animal care also included the yearly Jeep detailing and a lot of cooking. Friday I grilled salmon and tuna, Saturday and spun a chicken on the grill, and Sunday I gave a shot at homemade pizza. It was all good.

This year I have painted the overhead basket on the Jeep battleship gray. I’ll post a picture when it is remounted.

Sunday as It Should Be

I have negotiated an egg for fresh home grown vegetables swap this summer that should keep me in ripe red juicy summer tomatoes, green peppers, squash most of the growing season.

I was in the mood for breakfast spuds this morning so I boiled up some redskins, sautéed some onions and green peppers and then added the cooked cubed potatoes and they turned out mighty fine.

Then I added some fresh eggs, buttered sourdough toast, fresh coffee and orange juice (extra pulp) and poof! Nirvana.

Tanner Enforcement

Tanner doesn't much like the leaf blower.

The Ride to Work

More fun than riding in the bed of an open pickup truck… too little power to go fast…..peel away the parts at needed….I love my Jeep.

Am I too old for this nonsense? Hell no. Fun is fun no matter what the age.

Shut Her Down

Saturday I had planned to visit Yellowstone and then take a windmill powered bullet train to the Smithsonian. But it looks like the government could shut down over a “few billion dollars” Friday night.

" A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money"? -- Everett Dirksen

The Way I Feel

Old Memories

This is a winter day in my home town of Durham, NC that I would guess the time in the early 1960’s. Obviously good times….the kids have new bicycles and good clothes, the store is a hub of commerce.

One kid’s wagon is in front of the mail box. I too used to have a red Flexible Flyer wagon.

The sign that has Long Meadow Milk was a very familiar brand back then. We called these stores “cow stores”.

The curbs on the street are granite rock. Much of Durham had granite curbing.

Blogging By Candlelight

A big line of thunder storms hit last night and I am waiting for daylight to see any damage. We never lost power but did loose broad band some time in the night.

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Location:Old Camden Rd,Midland,United States

A Good Weekend

I had this long to-do list this weekend which I all but finished with the last chore being done this morning. I even dived in a pool Sunday morning.

Why would I dive in a pool? I guess for the same reason a golfer goes to a driving range or anyone practices their sport. It ain’t real diving but the setup and takedown is real. I am breathing underwater and I get some exercise.

I rotisseried a chicken Saturday that was to die for…. so moist and tender.

I watched two whole baseball games. This is more baseball than I have watched in my entire life. I guess my body is preparing me for no NFL.

Finally The Masters is this week. I am not going this year but will be watching. Do yourself or me a favor and watch some of the tournament this week. There is no other golf event as rich in tradition and southernism.

I love spring.

My Saturday

The finished product....cold beer anyone?

I built this picnic table about 10 years ago with plans off the Internet. I liked it because the plans were free, the table is 8 feet long, and it was simple enough for even me to follow along and build.

But after I built it I became frustrated with the bench and table top. Why so many 2X4s and why such a narrow bench? It hurt my butt and drinks would spill over easily with all the board joints.

Then I thought It would be darn nice to have a big umbrella mounted in the middle but the way it was built wouldn’t allow for a hole in the center.

So I thought….what would Mic do? By God he would build a new one out of African Mahogany and pin stripe it before he applied a mirror gloss finish.

But I decide to add a few new wider boards, reuse what I could and off set the middle support so I could build a center support for an umbrella.

Yes part of that table top are boards that once sat asses. My guests will sit on that side.

All Very True

In Front of My House

The dogwood and redbud are in full bloom. The leaves are getting on with it and my grass needs cutting.

Our house is barely seen in the middle of it all.

Bits and Pieces

My darn computer was not coming on last night so I packed it up, called India (HP) and they will send me out my 5th power brick. This version of a laptop has a really shitty power brick.

I finally got Gigi an iPad 2 yesterday. This piece of technology is outstanding. Truly amazing.

I swore that I would be able to help my mother in law sign on remotely to her Gmail account. After 15 minutes of coaching and instructions by phone I realized that I had as much hope as coaching a chimp in Spanish to cook a gourmet meal.

I'm Always Mentally on Vacation