Real Bakers use Butter so there is no Margarine for error.

 I mean while we are quoting this kind of pithy thing, I usually say "Real Jeeps have two doors" but that isn't funny, is it.

Doesn't matter, I have my duck.


I can remember doing a year's worth of algebra in high school in three months because I was bored.  So the basis of this is in math(s).  Lots of math(s).





 Four friends were catching up over drinks at the annual Big Conference for Mathematics.

The conversation eventually got around to their significant others. Artie said, “When we got together at last year’s conference I was dating Katie, but she became so integral to my life that we’re now in a civil union.”

Bob said, “My relationship with Betty is almost perfect. But since we’re both in the prime of our lives there’s no rush to tie the knot.”

Chuck added, “I wish I were as lucky as you two. I told you that last year Melba was kind of odd, but she’s become so irrational that we’re dividing our things and splitting up.” The others nodded their heads in sympathy because partitioning is often difficult.

Dave then chimed in, “Your love lives are so complex. No issues at all between Annie and me.” After an awkward silence Artie sighed and said, “Dave, that’s because she’s imaginary.”

Thank you for contacting the Abyss. Your scream is very important to us!

I am not particularly comfortable with hunting.  I prefer to leave deer in the forest and not wrecking my Jeep.  Once I was inline skating in Valley Forge National Park on the Schuylkill River Trail and there was a large buck standing right there on the trail.  He seemed as amused by me as I was of him.  So I started skating.  He decided that he'd come along for the ride for a while and trotted along side me until I came to a clearing. 

Pennsylvania is like that.  It was after rutting season so I didn't give it a second thought but ... well yes, it was foolhardy.




 Hunting trip

Three firefighters, – a rookie, a captain and a chief – went on a hunting trip. After their first night, the weather was miserable and they hadn't seen any deer all day.

Finally they came across an old shack and went inside to play poker.

After losing a couple of hands the rookie threw down his cards and said “I’m going out to get me a deer."

Fifteen minutes later the rookie came back with a four point buck. The captain asked, "How did you manage that?"

The rookie replied, "I walked out fifty feet, followed some tracks and shot this buck."

The captain then said, "I've had enough of this. I’m going to get my deer."

He came back a half hour later with a 6 point buck. The chief asked, "How did you manage that?"

The captain replied, "I walked out a hundred feet or so, followed some tracks and shot this buck."

The chief. not wanting to be outdone, said, "I'm out of here, I'm going to bag the biggest buck of the day."

He came back an hour later, all mangled and bloody.

The rookie asked, "What happened to you?"

The chief replied, "I walked out five hundred feet, followed some tracks and got hit by a TRAIN!”

Begging Dog, Carbo-loading, and Avoiding Runner's Trots

I live a rather regimented life.  

I have been working out steadily since I became of legal age, and now that I have retired rather early, workouts are a great way to keep sane.

By workouts, I mean endurance workouts.  Two hours of (relatively) high speed on a bike or inline skates.  Mind you, according to my heart monitor and sports watch, an hour on skates is worth an hour and a half on a bike.

Just in case you are keeping score, and I do keep score.  I have a Career Goal of skating the equivalent of once around the world at the equator.  That's another 360 miles by my estimates.

So after all these years of "suiting up" and "getting to the park", I have a routine.  It really is a collection of routines since it depends on which sport, what the weather is, and what I feel like doing that day.

Since I can easily burn more than 2000 calories in one go, I have to fuel up before I go.  In the case of this particular morning, I am making oatmeal.  It is (still) fairly cheap, and I can get bulk amounts of it delivered to the door.

The problem with oatmeal is that while there is protein per serving, it is low for my needs.  1g protein per Kg of ideal body weight - or in my case that's 88g per day.  I have to pack more into that bowl, but I have to do so in a low fat way.

If you don't go low fat before an endurance workout, you had better make sure that you can get to the rest stop when you need it.  The body will process the fat in your meal in an unfortunate way, and your guts will need that toilet and insist that you go NOW.  

I'm trying to be gentle with the descriptions here for "All Audiences" but if you do get too much fat in your meal, you will have a "Blow-Out".

Nutrition is important in life.  I'll just leave that here.

Anyway, so I go into the kitchen for my pre-athletics carbo-load right after the dog walk.  If I time it right, I can get to the park, get the workout in, and get back to the house in time for lunch.  Then I can have whatever I want and not worry about whether someone else is in the park's lavatory when I need it.

Reach for the bowl and the gram scale.  Yes, I have a collection of electronic scales, why would you expect anything less?  Placing the bowl on the scale, I spoon out 41g (1.4 oz) of oats.  14g (half tablespoon, half ounce) of Peanut Butter.

I'm chancing that peanut butter.  It's higher fat than I should be having before 2 hours on the bike but I can do it, just.

Now 20g of homemade jelly.  I'm at the end of last year's mango jelly so I will shift to the store bought until I can harvest and make more.  Cherry Jelly is a nice change of pace, isn't it?

80g of milk on top, and microwave the lot.

At this time I have to reach into the refrigerator and that is when I hear Rack the McNab SuperDog (TM) Stand, Stretch, and Shake.

I get the yogurt out of the refrigerator and begin to spoon 100g of unsweetened yogurt on top.  That gives me a total of about 25g of protein and with the two bananas I had earlier, I'm at my minimum of 600 calories for breakfast.

Don't want to be too full do I?

I turn around and notice I have two brown eyed lasers pointed at me.  Rack wants his share of yogurt.

I have to ask, What is it about yogurt and peanut butter that dogs love?  I mean chill, dog, chill!

He steps into the kitchen.  "Hi Rack, I know what you want!".

I get wags.  I get dog smiles.

I finish spooning my own yogurt, and get a tablespoon of the stuff for the dog.  He's older and is on a protein restricted diet for his kidney health.  He's almost 14 years old and he won't be around too many more years.  I am at better than competent at making recipes and nutrition, so I am aggressively managing his diet as well as mine.

Walking over to his bowl he is crowding me out.  I whack the spoon on the side of the bowl to give him some of the white sticky goo that he so wants, and he is already muzzle in to the bowl.  He only does this for Yogurt!  He doesn't even do this for his normal food.

Luckily he "isn't a Lab" so I can keep food on the counter.  

Weirdly, at his age, he is having "Selective Hearing Problems".  Some days he is deaf.  Others he can hear a pin drop.  Or more specifically, he can hear the click of pealing back the lid on the yogurt container.  From the living room.  Behind the cushions and the chairs.  Over the clocks and fans in the house.

Get it?  It's kind of loud in this place and his hearing is not the best.

So with an old dog, I am trying to rush my way out to the air park.  I need to go do large lazy circles around a giant gas bag and avoid obstacles.  It's where the Goodyear Blimp is headquartered here and there is a 4.5 mile course that calls my name.

As soon as I finish my "Peanut Butter and Jelly Oatmeal" I'll grab the mid workout snacks to try to defeat The Wall, and I'll be on my way.

Rack has gotten his fill of yogurt and walked to his station in front of the door so he can watch over the world.

Me?  I'll get my fill of the oatmeal, and get on my way.

Oh and "On Yer Left!".  Keep right, except to pass!  Thankyouverymuch!

I started a band called ‘Duvet.’ All we play are covers.

I am extremely active.  For my age bracket I am well over two standard deviations more active than I really should be.  I'm sitting here sipping a rather excellent Guatemalan coffee I roasted so I can have a caffeine boost to do a marathon on the bike in 24 MPH peak winds.

But Pro Sports I simply do not get.  It isn't sports, it is entertainment.  I get that but sitting in a hot sweaty stadium for three hours and paying for the opportunity to do so? 

No thank you.

But these guys?





   Bob & John love playing baseball, Bob is a catcher & John is a pitcher one day they have the following conversation:

Bob says, “I was just wondering if there is baseball in Heaven.”

John replies, “I sure hope they do because it would be hell not being able to play it for all eternity!”

“I know right! Tell you what, if one of us dies before the other, then we need to somehow let the other one know if there is.”

“Sounds like a plan!”

Bob dies a few years later in a car crash & a couple of days after that John has a dream where Bob visits him and tells him,

“I have good news & bad news. The good news is that they DO play baseball in Heaven and, man, they have some of the best games! All the legends play, Ruth, Robinson, Gehrig, everybody in the Hall of Fame plays but your skill level doesn’t matter because who cares if we win or lose, we’re just playing a game that we love!”

John says, “That sounds awesome! But what’s the bad news?”

“You’re scheduled to pitch next week.”

I once dated a Magazine Collector. She had Issues.

I suspect it is all about how you see things, right?



Master, Why Am I Not Improving?

A Kung Fu student asks his teacher, "Master, why does my ability not improve? I'm always defeated."

And the master, pensive and forever patient, answers, "My dear pupil, have you seen the gulls flying by the setting sun and their wings seeming like flames?"

"Yes, my master, I have."

"And a waterfall, spilling mightily over the stones without taking anything out of its proper place?"

"Yes, my master, I have witnessed it."

"And the moon, when it touches the calm water to reflect all its enormous beauty?"

"Yes, my master, I have also seen this marvelous phenomenon."

"That is the problem. You keep watching all this instead of training."

Old Style Pizza Sauce - Like Back In The Day, Youse Know?

How about an Old Style Pizza at home?
I mean with a real, (mostly) naturally sweet sauce.  You know from a Pizza Parlor "down the way" that has a giant pot of the sauce perfuming the neighborhood as you get closer to it?

You may not have had one since the 1970s, but this sauce is it.  It's exactly how I remember it.


No this pizza sauce is not Vegan.
It is not Vegetarian.

It can be made either way, but while good, it won't be quite the same.


I take a cue from Mom here, and I get a pound of Stew Beef and brown it in the pot before we start this sauce.  Then add the ingredients to the pot and reduce. 

I have not tried it with meatballs but the flavor will be similar.  Just brown the meatballs and let the sauce cook it.

You will end up with some Braciole once you scoop it out, and if you have some extra sharp Provolone and some Amoroso Rolls, you are now having one of my favorite sandwiches from childhood.  Kaiser or a Hard Roll will work, as will Linguica or a Cuban Roll.

The recipe has Anchovies in it. You can leave that out but I would strongly suggest preparing it as is.  You will want that "Umami Bomb".



Ingredients:

• 1 can San Marzano tomatoes (28 oz)
• Half 24 oz bottle tomato passata (or strained Roma tomatoes)
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• Less then 1/8th red pepper flakes
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• Three anchovies rinsed and patted dry
• 1 Tsp salt

Ingredients at the end:

• 2 Tsp oregano
• Tsp basil
• 1 tsp sugar

Process:

• Process anchovies and can of tomato’s in food processor or blender until smooth.
• Add to pan with passata, salt, pepper and pepper flakes.
• Rinse out tomato can with minimal water and dump water into pan - the object is to get the tomatoes out of the can so you don't have to boil a LOT of water down in reduction.
• Reduce for hours low and slow simmer until thick and will cut with the wooden spoon in the pan.
• After you remove from heat, add oregano, basil and sugar and stir in.  
• Let cool and store.

What do you call a belt made of 100 dollar bills? A Waist of money.

Having done some rather edgy things on my various vehicles in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, I suppose that this is plausible.  I have never had that sort of an encounter with a Deer, but they are more common than stray dogs in parts of that area.



 Motor Bike Accident

While riding my motorbike, I swerved to avoid hitting a deer, lost control and landed in a ditch, severely banging my head.

Dazed and confused I crawled out of the ditch to the edge of the road when a shiny new convertible pulled up with a gorgeous woman who asked, "Are you okay?"

As I looked up, I noticed she was wearing a low-cut blouse with cleavage to die for..., "I'm okay I think," I replied as I pulled myself up to the side of the car to get a closer look."

She said, "Get in and I'll take you home, so I can clean and bandage that nasty scrape on your head."

"That's nice of you," I answered, "but I don't think my wife will like me doing that!"

"Oh, come now, I'm a nurse," she insisted. "I need to see if you have any more scrapes and then treat them properly."

Well, she was pretty and very persuasive. Being sort of shaken and weak, I agreed, but repeated, "I'm sure my wife won't like this."

We arrived at her place just a few miles away and, after a couple of cold beers and the bandaging, I thanked her and said, "I feel a lot better, but I know my wife is going to be upset so I'd better go now."

"Don't be silly!" she said with a smile. "Stay for a while. She won't know anything. By the way, where is she?"

"Still in the ditch with the motorbike, I guess."

If money doesn't grow on trees, why do banks have branches?

Since I am going to a high end restaurant tonight, if we can get reservations, I thought it might be worth a story.

Mai Kai, a one of a kind Polynesian Restaurant.  If I remember to take pics, I'll put them up here later.




  Man goes to a restaurant

The restaurant itself is super high-end, upper class. Waits for a while before he gets his table.

He waves for the waiter and asks for the specials. The waiter says, "We make the best steaks in town". The man is skeptical of the statement, and wants to test the outrageous claim and orders their "Steak".

"It is taking forever for the order to arrive but that is expected for the 'best steak in town'", thinks the man while he smirks.

But it does arrive all fancy, all buttered and saucy with some mashed potatoes and gravy on the side.

He is amazed at the quality of the steak and barely has any thoughts processing. He gobbles up the whole thing in less than 7 minutes and calls the waiter.

"I need to talk to the chef", he says.

The waiter talks to the chef and brings him to the table.

The man goes on and on about how good the steak was and the chef politely nods in acknowledgment.

"This is quite literally the best steak I've had in this town. Well done!"

The chef looks confused and says, "Medium rare".

North American Battle Wagons, or Honey, You Shrunk The Jeep

 I have been driving Jeeps for the majority of my "career".  I have been driving Jeep Wrangler TJ since 1996 without a stop.

This is my second TJ.  They are now getting thin on the ground, so I don't say "Oh Look!  A Parts Car!" as frequently as I did when I saw one. 

I still do the Jeep Wave, and I always would Tread Lightly when I was off road.  I haven't gone off road since moving to Florida in 2006 so he's been a Pavement Prince since then.

The thing is that when I got my first Jeep, a CJ7 back in 1984, I noticed that it was much higher than most cars on the road.  I used to be amused looking down into cars and seeing the goings on in there.

You folks are nuts!  All sorts of things happened!  I was immediately taught that if I could see down, so could the truck drivers in a "Big Rig" so I made sure not to do anything "untowards" in my own cars from that point on.

Then I went back to "regular cars" until my first and second Wranglers.  I noticed that I was above the majority of cars, but not as much as before.  So much so that it was a surprise when I saw someone enjoying the driver of the car ... from the passenger seat.

Wink! Wink! Say No More!

But that visual advantage was disappearing.  As time went on, I became "regular sized" if not a bit small.

Yes, a Jeep Wrangler is "average sized".  No longer, the current Jeep Wranglers have four doors and is just too big.  Bloated for me.

This was beaten home after I stopped at the end of the workout the other day.  Someone parked a wall next to me.  I fail to see why someone needs a full sized pickup truck, GMC Denali, just to get in a workout at a park.

This was the literal illustration of what I heard described as a North American Battle Wagon.  Massive.

I am 6'4" tall.  A Very Fit 193 CM, if my math is correct.  I am used to looking over things.  I tell people that I usually write my initials in the dust of their refrigerator tops when I visit.

I will wait until you check to see if I did.  Then you can clean your fridge top.  It's why mine is a "Counter Depth" and there's no gap at the top.   Saves me from cleaning!

There was no possible way I can see over the top of this truck.  In fact, standing next to it in my sneakers I was eye level with the driver's view.  Luckily the driver was on the trail getting their Beta Endorphins on.

I squeezed past this monster truck and thought to myself that I used to consider the old Toyota 4x4 trucks big when they came out in the late 1980s, and "what on earth!" would I have considered this beast when I was driving a little first generation Honda Accord in College? 

*shudder*

Getting the bike on the rack on the back, chuckling at my bumper sticker which proclaims "I workout because salads are boring", I had to squeeze past this huge beast to get in my now "Little" Jeep Wrangler.  The driver left adequate room but I am not used to not being able to look over the tops of things.  I see more bad haircuts than you may realize.

Driving home on US1, Federal Highway, in Pompano Beach and Fort Lauderdale, there was more.  It was driven home that we love huge trucks here and we are locked in an arms race of keeping up with the neighbor's beast trucks each time we upgrade.

There is a house down the block that the smallest truck that they own is what is now considered a Mid Sized truck, larger than my own Jeep.  It is about the size of a base Ford Truck that would be a Work Truck, stripper, these days.  They have so many trucks on their own suburban lot that it spills over the property line onto the neighbor's on one side, and the other side had put boulders on their side of the property line to stop them from "encroaching".

A bit drastic but I'd do the same.

So I guess my idea of getting a wee little, efficient, car is foolhardy.  I'd be a speed bump to these giant beasts in one of those.  I've done that before and thanks, I'll pass.

What's next?  Large cars are at best impractical, and at worst destroying the environment.  At one point in time, an AMC Gremlin got 18 MPG and they were advertised in the mid 1970s as being a "Fuel Saver".  I have a derivative of the same engine used in many of those cars and the 16 MPG I got in my last tank now is in no way thrifty.

The full sized pickup truck that was a loaner to a friend struggled to get 10 MPG city.  It dwarfed my own Jeep.  I know his driving patterns, he's much less "assertive" than I am on the road.

I don't know that there is a solution here, seeing the way politics are going.  At least with EVs, Hybrids, and Electrification, the efficiency of these things is getting better.  That old first generation, "Mark 1" Honda Accord I had got a reliable 30 MPG which is average in a car, low for a hybrid now.

Anything that small would be missed by one of those massive beasts coming out of a driveway.

Forget getting another Motorcycle.  My typo of "Mortal Cycle" must have been a Freudian slip due to the traffic we have here.  The woman on the scooter on the same trip home yesterday was dwarfed by my own "Little" Jeep, watching her weave in traffic had me terrified for her as she avoided one clueless huge beast after another.

I'm thinking that there really is no room for efficiency and a "tidy" rightsized car on the road any more.  Not here.  That would explain why someone commenting that "Bad Driving Has Become Normalized" makes so much sense to me. 

If they can't see you, you aren't there.

Good luck out there, I have an appointment at 1pm that I have to brave the other idiots on the road.  Trust me, if I can smell your pot smoke, that officer can as well.

And put that damn cellphone away, it's still against the law to use hands on cell phones in most jurisdictions.

As less and less people are buying into religion, Prophets are down!

 Perfect one liner for a sunday, eh?  Here's another one for you!


 
 Too much plastic surgery

In surgery for a heart attack, a middle-aged woman has a vision of God by her bedside. “Will I die?” she asks.

God says, “No. You have 30 more years to live.”

With 30 years to look forward to, she decides to make the best of it.

Since she’s in the hospital, she gets breast implants, liposuction, a tummy tuck, hair transplants, and collagen injections in her lips.

She looks great!

The day she’s discharged, she exits the hospital with a swagger, crosses the street, and is immediately hit by an ambulance and killed.

Up in heaven, she sees God. “You said I had 30 more years to live,” she complains.

“That’s true,” says God.

“So what happened?” she asks.

God shrugs. “I didn’t recognize you.”