The punchline comes first. How do you know that a comedian is a time traveler?

Seemed like the proper one liner to use for the last post of a year.

And speaking of being timely, I was sent this particular little story a bunch of times since Thanksgiving and maybe it's a good time to use this one too.


A burglar breaks into a house. He begins to search the home for valuables when hears a quiet voice say
“Jesus is watching you” he dismisses it as paranoia and carries on with his crime. 

He hears the voice again “Jesus is watching you”.
He’s knows this time it’s not in his head so he looks around the room and sees a parrot in the corner.

He walks over to the parrot and it repeats one more time “Jesus is watching you”.
The burglar says to the parrot. “Is your name Jesus?”
“No it’s Moses” the parrot replied.

The burglar laughs and says “Who names a parrot Moses?” and
the parrot says “The same person who named the Rottweiler Jesus”

Looking Really Closely At Zinnia With A Macro Lens

You know, being under a cloud deck for a week is really annoying.  It is especially annoying when you are in a place called the Sunshine State but I am certain there are other places that feel the same.

In fact, it’s December 27 as I write this.  It is supposed to be the Dry Season.  I expect no rain for months.   Weather has been somewhat upside down this year so we’ll just ignore all that wet and dry stuff.

I am certain that places in England, Ireland, and the Pacific Northwest are rolling their eyes at this thing I am missing.   Sunshine indeed.

I may even have to put on some sunblock next time I go for a skate this week in the park.  It may be Winter for most, but here, we’ll see the 80s before long.  U have a bunch of rather nice tan lines from my watch, cycle shorts, skating T shirts from last week’s workouts.

Grey skies or not, the color palate here is typically green.  In a State named after Flowers, you have to have a lot of green plants to make the blooms.

I have always grown plants.  They entertain me.   I enjoy watching them grow.  There are pots everywhere on the property under drip-feed irrigation to make it easier and more ecologically friendly to engage in this obsession.   For the most part they are green – Basil for the salad stays green until it goes “to seed” then it puts out tiny flowers of white tinged with lavender.   

That’s one for the future.  My cheap little clip on Macro Zoom lens that magnifies things by about 22 times will help there.  

For now, I have been enjoying my Zinnia.  I have grown these all my life.  When I was a child in New Jersey, I’d harvest the blooms each year and replant in spring.  Here, it has not gotten cold enough for me to worry about them freezing because I am 8 miles (13KM) from the southernmost freeze line in Boca Raton.   Clint Moore Road if you’re keeping a record.

I’m bothered that I am only getting two colors, Brilliant Orange and a Riotous Pink, so I will keep planting them hoping that one or more of the other dozens of colors will leak in.  

I have a bag full of interesting seeds I have collected here and there, and thought that this would be a great time for me to plant them.  I had Mint, Milkweed, Salvia, and yes some more of those Zinnia seeds.  Since I have plenty of seed heads, I can make plenty of flowers.

You know, I have this pot that I started with all those seeds and the only thing I got so far was one single orange Zinnia.  

Yes, they look pretty, but I really did want some Mint Tea when I planted this stuff.

Oh well, back to the seed store in January.  The Peppers did not come up either so I will have to try again!  

Besides, someone gave me as a White Elephant a box that says it’s a Psychedelic Garden.  Root vegetable seeds and pots.  Radishes, Beets, Carrots, Zucchini, and Cucumber I believe.  In Pots.  It seems implausible but let’s see what we get!

Happy Holidays, Whichever you choose!

Cold Holidays to you too!  I just got back from the first one mile walk with Rack the McNab SuperDog (TM) in what passes for the frozen tundra of South Florida.  Sipping over creamed Coffee in the big green rocker watching the palm trees sway in the winds off the ocean here.

So no matter which holiday you celebrate,
Happy Kwanzaa
Happy Hanukkah (Facebook Spelling, I apologize),
Happy Christmas (As the British say),
Or even Happy Festivus for the Rest of Us!

Enjoy your festive season from me shivering in South Florida, to you wherever you are in the world.

I'll recycle that old picture I made up years ago for the link above, I still haven't had my coffee yet!

What do you call a four man rock group that doesn't sing? Mount Rushmore

So here in the depths of a Bomb Cyclone, where every state in the "Lower 48" has freezing temperatures (not completely uncommon, truth be told) here's a wee little Once Upon A Time kind of Story to warm your heart.


A moral tale

Once upon a time, in the depths of a swamp, there lived a man who had a beautiful daughter that he loved dearly. He knew that she would soon be of marrying age and he was determined to protect her from all suitors who may not be worthy of her hand.

The first suitor to come knocking on the man's door was a young prince, who was known throughout the land for his charm and good looks. However, the man was not fooled by the prince's charms and he knew that the prince was only interested in his daughter for her beauty and not for her heart.

So the man politely but firmly turned the prince away, warning him that the swamp was treacherous and that only a fool would attempt to traverse it. The prince, wisely realizing that he was no match for the swamp and the man's determination, quickly retreated.

Next, a wealthy merchant came along, offering the man a fortune for his daughter's hand in marriage. But the man knew that money could not buy true love and he again turned the merchant away, telling him that the swamp was not for the faint of heart and that only a brave and worthy suitor could hope to reach his daughter.

As the years went by, many more suitors came and went, all of them failing to navigate the swamp and the man's formidable defenses. But finally, a man came along with a large truck equipped with massive tires that could easily navigate the muddy terrain.

This man, however, was not deterred by the hazards of the swamp or the man's fierce protectiveness. He was a foolhardy adventurer and he was determined to win the hand of the man's beautiful daughter.

Despite the man's warnings and obstacles, the foolhardy suitor managed to reach the daughter's side and she, impressed by his bravery and tenacity, fell in love with him.

And so, the man was forced to reluctantly accept the foolhardy suitor as his son-in-law, knowing that he had finally met his match.

The moral of the story? Treads rush in where wise men fear to fool.

The Macro World of a Wet Backyard Mango Tree

 After a long walk, and a long think, I got home.  I have many long walks, actually four a day minimum, and as a result I am lucky enough to have a lot of time to think.

Truth be told, the mind wanders when I bike or skate since I stopped listening to music when I go forward.  Since I'm typically on a public trail, it is for the best.

I had gotten home thinking about what to write, and frankly most days I sit at a keyboard and a blank screen and unless I prepared something, I "Wing It".

Creativity is that way.  You do your best work when you are allowed to be unconstrained by conventionality.

Getting home just as the 8AM Zone 3 watering happened allowed me to go out and inspect the gardens.  In the middle of the yard there is a Mango Tree that I am very happy to have.  It's its own world and has fed me many times of some wonderful fruit.  Trust me, if you have not had a fresh mango that just has dropped to the ground, you are missing a treat.  That can be said of any fruit you enjoy as well, I am sure.

I got out there and the world was still drying off.  Shades of green sprayed with water tend to take a while to shake things off.  The overnight rains gave everything a good strong soak.  I am still waiting for things to dry enough to go out for a workout as it is.

But under a dark green leaf was an eye looking back at me.  Or so my own eye thought.  It turned out to be a water drop reflecting the scene from behind in miniature.

"I really need my macro lens" I said to Rack the McNab SuperDog (TM) and went back into the house to prepare.

Now that macro is not a really good one.  22 times magnification that clips onto the back of a smartphone camera.  But it gave me a view into a world at miniature.  I could see where things were hazy before.

My favored tree was growing happily.  Putting out buds in the December Morning.  I'm thinking it will be an early fruiting season since the big trees nearby already had an inflorescence, but I could be wrong.

Walking around my world in miniature, I wandered into a web.  A Crab Spider.  We have many of these creatures near us here in South Florida.  They are small spiders, about the size of your smallest finger nail.  Multiple colors and really not harmful at all.   They can bite but their fangs are too small to do any damage to you or I.

But they are fascinating to watch if you are willing to take the time and slow down to nature's pace.

What did one hat say to the other? You stay here, I'll go on a head...

Here's one for the holidays! 

The Angel on the Christmas Tree

Not long ago and far away, Santa was getting ready for his annual trip. But there were problems everywhere. Four of his elves got sick, and the trainee elves did not produce the toys as fast as the regular ones so Santa was beginning to feel the pressure of being behind schedule.

Then Mrs. Claus told Santa that her mom was coming to visit. This stressed Santa even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two had jumped the fence and were out, heaven knows where. More Stress.

Then when he began to load the sleigh one of the boards cracked and the toy bag fell to the ground and scattered the toys. So frustrated, Santa went into the house for a cup of coffee and a shot of whiskey. When he went to the cupboard, he found the elves had hid the liquor and there was nothing to drink.

In his frustration, he dropped the coffee pot and it broke into hundreds of little pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found that mice had eaten the straw it was made from.

Just then the doorbell rang and Santa cussed on his way to the door. He opened the door and there was a little angel with a great big Christmas tree.

The angel said: "Where would you like to put this tree Santa?"

And that my friend, is how the little angel came to be on top of the Christmas tree.

How do you keep a turkey in suspense? I’ll tell you later.

Three shorter little stories in a row.  Why?  Because I am feeling a little generous!



Mike stopped by the bar and ran into his friend Jack.

"I've been taking evening classes at the university," Mike told Jack, "and I'm learning so much."
"Who is Hobbes? Who is Mill? Who is Bentham?," Mike asked Jack.

Jack replied, "I gotta admit I don't know any of them." "But do you know who Richardson is?" Jack asked Mike.
Despite everything he'd learned in his classes, Mike was stumped and admitted that to Jack.
"Well you should," Jack said. "He's the guy who's been visiting your wife every time you head off to class."

A lawyer was interviewing a doctor about the death of a patient

"When you examined the patient, did you check his pulse?" asked the lawyer.
"I didn't" said the doctor.

"And did you listen for a heartbeat?" said the lawyer.
"No, I did not" the doctor said.

"So in other words" the lawyer said "When you signed the death certificate you had NOT taken adequate steps to confirm he was dead."
"Well, let me put it this way," said the doctor- "At that point, the man's brain was in a jar on my desk. But for all I know I guess he could've been out practicing law somewhere!"





A grandfather and granddaughter were sitting and talking when the young girl asked, "Did God make you, Grandpa?"
"Yes, God made me," the grandfather answered.

A few minutes later, the little girl asked him, "Did God make me too?"
"Yes, He did," the older man answered.

For a few minutes, the little girl seemed to be studying her grandpa, as well as her own reflection in the mirror, while her grandfather wondered what was running through her mind. At last she spoke up.
"You know, Grandpa," she said, "God's doing a lot better job lately."

According to Rack the McNab Dog, Every Cyclist is Me

I should not be such a booster of the McNab dog.  Especially in an Internationally read Blog.  However, I'm constantly amazed by my own boy Rack the McNab SuperDog (TM).

You see, He's an amazingly intelligent creature.  He just does not get everything right all the time.

In this case, he's decided everyone on a bicycle is me.  Whether it is me or not, it's me.  Until that cyclist gets close enough to disabuse him of that belief, of course.

Once someone was walking Rack because I was training.  I have a very aggressive workout schedule who is not a professional athlete.  I walk average 4 miles a day.  Let's call that 28 miles a week.  Add to that another three cardio workouts, minimum of 1000 calories each.  I say it that way because when my inline skates are broken in, my preferred workouts are upwards of two times 30 miles a workout on skates, another two times 20 miles workout on the Bicycle.

That Bicycle workout is getting longer over the months as well.

All that cardio has a habit of feeding into itself so you truly need to keep all that going.  My "support team" knows that I am much easier to get along with if I am resting up from a workout, so one of the walks will get done by a friend occasionally if I am out carving a groove in the bike lane near my house.

Back and Forth, back and forth, North and South.

I find that while some people would find all this repetitive, I don't.  In fact, I have a habit of zoning out and forgetting that I am actually out there zooming along - at a heart rate average over 155 bpm.   I quoted all of this "biometric stuff" to my doctor when he suggested that I was getting near the age where I would be taking a stress test and he replied "we won't be doing a test, you just gave me the results".  Former (US) football player types make good doctors for sports inclined people.

The first time I had Rack out with my friends, I called to him and rolled to a stop to tell him that he was a Good Boy, of course.  That was all it took and he was imprinted on my bike, and on every other one who rides past.

Watch your neighborhood, you have more cyclists around you than you would expect.  Rack now wags his tail at every one.

I can't bring him along for a run.  My workouts are hovering around 21 miles, at speeds as fast as 24mph, and dogs are decidedly sprinters.  So he gets his four long walks and so do my support people.

Friends don't let Furry Friends stay at home, when everyone needs a walk.

He gets home and watches the door for me to return, but every cyclist he is passed by he expects to be me even when he's ahead of me.

Weird kid, isn't he?

Now the Skating?  I'm out for a couple hours training.  Crazy hours in summer, I have to get there at sunrise so Rack gets walked, and waits at that door until I come home.

There's no way he could handle 30 miles so I get my own time by myself doing my sport.  Those new full ceramic bearings are really sweet, but having Rack at the door, it's sweeter.

Mom is complaining about the cost to pump up her tires at the garage. Well, that's inflation for you!

The moral of this story is No Good Deed Goes Unpunished!

 

 

 There was a man who worked for the Post Office whose job was to process all the mail with illegible addresses…

One day, a letter came addressed in shaky handwriting to God with no actual address. He thought he should open it to see what it was about. The letter read:

“Dear God,

I am an 83-year-old widow, living on a very small pension. Yesterday someone stole my purse. It had $100 in it, which was all the money I had until my next pension payment. Next Sunday is Christmas, and I had invited two of my friends over for dinner. Without that money, I have nothing to buy food with, have no family to turn to, and you are my only hope. Can you please help me?

Sincerely, Edna”

The postal worker was touched. He showed the letter to all the other workers. Each one dug into his or her wallet and came up with a few dollars. By the time he made the rounds, he had collected $96, which they put into an envelope and sent to the woman.

The rest of the day, all the workers felt a warm glow thinking of Edna and the dinner she would be able to share with her friends. Christmas came and went. A few days later, another letter came from the same old lady to God.

All the workers gathered around while the letter was opened. It read:

“Dear God,

How can I ever thank you enough for what you did for me? Because of your gift of love, I was able to fix a glorious dinner for my friends. We had a very nice day and I told my friends about your wonderful gift. By the way, there was $4 missing. I think it might have been those bastards at the post office.

Sincerely, Edna”

Did you hear about the guy who lost his hearing aid? WHAT?!?!

 Huh?  Sounds like me following someone on a dog walk and trying to continue a conversation!

Sugar tongs

A mother from Brooklyn decides to pop in on her son Michael to see his new Manhattan apartment. When she gets there she's shocked to learn that her son has a female roommate.

Her son assures her that there is nothing going on between him and his roommate, that they have separate bedrooms, that Manhattan apartments are very expensive and that he needed a roommate to afford the place and that Maria was the only one who answered his ad.

The next day Maria said to Michael, "Michael, I can't seem to find my silver sugar tongs. They are a family heirloom. We used them when we served tea to your mother and nobody has been here since. Now, I'm not saying she took them and I'm not saying she didn't, but can you please call her and subtly ask?"

So Michael calls his mother, saying, "Ma, Maria's sugar tongs are missing and you were the only one in the apartment. Now, I'm not saying you did and I'm not saying you didn't, but could you have taken them accidentally?"

The mother replies, "Michael, you're my son and I love you, and I want to believe what you tell me. You say there is nothing going on between you and your roommate. Now, I'm not saying I believe you and I'm not saying that I don't, but if she was sleeping in her own bed you wouldn't be asking me where the sugar tongs are."

Croton Flower and Propagating Croton

I was talking with a neighbor and got a complement.  "Your yard looks so nice!"

We were talking about placement and variety of plants here, and I said "You know, everything I have a lot of I propagated myself."  After getting a semi-blank stare, "It's all from either seeds or cuttings."

The property was planted well by the prior owner, and we liked what we saw.  So when we settled in, I took the attitude that I would figure out what grows, what works, and what I can make more of.   I have a row of pots in the back by the pool in the sun that has all sorts of cuttings in it.  That row is on "drip feed irrigation" which gets a blast of water for only 10 minutes a day, and it is legal even under water restrictions in South Florida.

All by design.

If you are moving into a place where you can garden on your own and wonder what you can grow, look at your neighbors, and take a general view of what they have.   If you like the stuff, plant it.

When I lived in Horsham, PA, I liked the Rose of Sharon that someone had about a mile away that I saw during my walk, so I grabbed a few seeds.  That Rose of Sharon grew, bloomed, and was planted when I got my own house 10 years later in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, PA.

Here I did the same thing with all sorts of things.  Dracena, Screw Palms, Mango (of course), and Podocarpus.  Mango from seed, the rest from cuttings.

But everything here was only green with no color.  I introduced that with Croton.  Now if you are above the freeze line, Zone 8 or so, you really only know Croton as a house plant.  It was a house plant that was a plot point in a British Sitcom called the "IT Crowd" where they brought a palm sized plant I would use as a cutting in their dank basement office and then went back to "Switching things on and off again".

Here, it's everywhere.  It grows fairly slowly even under ideal conditions.

To propagate the stuff from cuttings, you take a hand to arm sized piece cut on a bias, remove the lower leaves, dip in rooting hormone, and place in wet soil.  6 weeks later it should be growing.  I get about 90% success rate.

I have two different sets of the stuff growing in the nursery pots right now because I started them on different months.  They will go in the ground a month from now, minimum.

But the strangest thing I have ever seen is a Croton Flower.  They are tiny things, only about the size of a child's smallest fingernail.  Of all things, this is on one of my original plants that I have butchered and am ignoring to let it recover.  It's little more than a stick with a few leaves and must really like where it is at.

Since I am trying to fill in the front gardens with Croton, I harvest the plants, make cuttings and limit myself to when the plants get waist high.  

For now, that seems to be once every two months, but I have time.

Besides, I still have a podocarpus plant that is chest high that needs to go in when one of the existing plants thins out.

I did say our landscapers are overly aggressive around my plants, didn't I?

The bottom line is that if you see something you like, try to propagate it.  When Lisa across the street was fighting off the cancer that eventually took her, she planted a bottle brush tree.  It's supposed to be able to be propagated but I have had no luck. 

I know, if I don't have luck with it, who knows what I am doing wrong.

But I want some cuttings from Her Tree, so I took some seed and dropped it in my pot with the Basil.  I will look after that every time I make pizza.  Just like Lisa looked after everyone else.

What do bent lines and war torn countries have in common? Crooked Rulers.

 There's just something appropriate there!  Jus' sayin'!

On the other hand, I'm going out to wear some rubber off my tires on the bike in a bit.  Or as I tell people about all three of my sports "I'm in competition with yesterday.  How about you?"

A guy who was born with no arms goes to the doctor one day and the doc says, ‘I have bad news, you are terminally ill and you only have one month left to live.”

The man was a absolutely despondent - but as he walked out of his doctors office, he looked up at the monastery atop the hill near town and thought to himself, I have always wanted to ring the bells in the monastery tower - if I don’t do it now, it will never happen.

So he walks up the path to the monastery and, using his head, ‘knock knock knock’, bangs on the door. A few moments later, a portly monk answers the door and asks how he may be of assistance. The man with no arms explains his plight and asks if there is any way that the monk can help.

The monk pauses, then looks at his watch, looks back at the man - focusing on his lack of arms - and says, ”well, I don’t know how you would do it, but it is almost time to ring the bells so I will give you a shot.”

The man is overwhelmed with joy and can’t stop thanking the monk as the monk leads him to the bell tower, slowly waddling across the yard and up the long spiral staircase to the bell tower. They reach the bell tower with just minutes to spare. The skeptical monk looks at his watch, and when the hour strikes twelves, he says , ‘ tis time to ring the bell, my son’.

Expecting the young man to grab the rope in his teeth in his attempt to ring the bell, the monk is stunned when instead the man leans forward and runs full speed into the bell. And ring the bell the young man did. When he made contact, the bell let out the most glorious ring - a sound so beautiful that the monk was brought to tears. And as the bell rang, it slowly swung backwards from the force of the impact before swinging back. But when it did swing back, it squarely struck the young man, sending him flying out the window and down to the sidewalk just outside of the monastery.

The chubby monk waddled down the stairs as fast as he could - which wasn’t very fast - and when he finally gets around to the side of the monastery where the man had fallen, a passing police officer had already arrived and covered the corpse with a blanket. When he saw the monk running up in a flustered state, he just assumed that the monk knew the victim, so he pulled back the blanket and said, ‘I am sorry to ask this brother, but do you know this man.’

The monk paused for a moment as he looked down at the newly deceased before he said, “Well, I don’t know his name, but his face sure does ring a bell.”

Mafia have boiled a man to death in a industrial pasta cooker. Police are still trying to al dentefy the victim.

I think this line was from Fried Green Tomatoes and came to mind when I read this particular gem but "Intelligence, and Insurance beats Youth and Beauty every time".



An old man calls his son and says, "Listen, your mother and I are getting divorced. Forty-five years of misery is enough."

"Dad, what are you talking about?" the son screams.

“We can't stand the sight of each other any longer,” he says. "I'm sick of her face, and I'm sick of talking about this, so call your sister and tell her," and he hangs up.

Now, the son is worried. He calls his sister. She says, "Like hell they’re getting divorced!" She calls their father immediately. "You’re not getting divorced! Don't do another thing. The two of us are flying home tomorrow to talk about this. Until then, don't call a lawyer, don't file a paper. DO YOU HEAR ME?” She hangs up the phone.

The old man turns to his wife and says, "Okay, they’re both coming for Christmas and paying their own airfares.

How Shipping Boxes Taught My Old Dog A New Trick

I am not completely convinced that internet shopping is better than going to a mall or a local store, but I do know Rack prefers it.

When we get things delivered, they have to be inspected by Mr. Dog.  Everything brought into the house gets a thorough sniff.  I have to blame Chewy.com for this particular quirk.  

My own boxes come and they are typically only casually looked at.  However Rack is a very smart dog.  He knows what His Things smell like.  I get a powder that gets mixed with water and ground beef and it makes dog food.  It’s considerably safer than anything in a can or a bag from the market, and I do think commercial dog food is garbage, irrespective of the advertised quality of the food.

There is only so much you can do with the "floor sweepings" that go into pet foods after all.

On the other hand, we do get things from Chewy.  Specifically his flea meds.  They come in an iconic box with a blue side and the company is kind enough to toss in a large dog cookie.  He’s a medium dog so so much the better, he gets multiple treats!  

The large bones they toss in the box can be broken up.  I won’t tell him he’s getting half, only that he can enjoy two treats.  He prefers things that way and can go through the ritual of the hunt at least twice.

These boxes do have a dog cookie scent to them by the time they get to my porch here in South Florida.  A Pro Tip – only send chocolate in the coldest part of the winter.  Otherwise, the “cold” days of December being as warm as mid 80s (30C) will melt things down.

I take out of the box what has arrived, and now I have a dog at my feet staring up at me with twin brown laser beam eyes.   A quick flip of the wrist and the cookie pieces are broken and put back into the box.  The box lid is closed without tape by folding and placed on the floor.

The last time that happened he pushed his snout through the middle of the opening of the top  of the box and had it stuck there.   Dog Logic being what it is, he was jumping on his front feet trying to knock this thing off his face and not having the best time of it.  

Bounce Bounce Rattle Rattle Thump!  Shake Shake Shake Shake Shake!
Bounce Bounce Rattle Rattle Thump!  Shake Shake Shake Shake Shake!

Finally after laughing, we take pity on him and take it off his head.  He has not quite gotten the idea that he is actually ALLOWED to put his foot on the box to hold it in place.   Say what you will about him, but Rack the McNab SuperDog(TM) has impeccable manners.

The fun thing of this is now we have a new ritual.  It keeps his mind going and anyone who knows a herding breed dog knows that you truly have to work to keep their mind occupied.  If not, bedlam will ensue.

So toss a cookie in the box and fold the lid back in place.   Should last a minute or two of fun before he gets bored with it and wants to deal with a different shiny object.

What do you call somebody with no body and no nose? Nobody knows.

 This just has to be another Bill.  It really does not sound like something I would do.  But well ya know how these things are, they get "fictionalized".

Still a good story...




A modern day ghost story

Bill was on the side of the road hitch-hiking on a very dark night and in the midst of a fierce rain storm.

The night was rolling on, and no car went by. The storm was so strong he could hardly see a few meters ahead of him.

Suddenly through the swirling rain Bill saw a car slowly coming towards him.  And as it drew level with him, it stopped.

Desperate for shelter and without really thinking about what he was doing, Bill got into the back seat of the car and closed the door.  That was when he realized there was nobody behind the wheel and the engine wasn't even on!

Mysteriously and soundlessly, the car started moving slowly forward. Bill looked at the road and saw a curve approaching.  Now he was scared, and he began to fear for his life.  But just before he reached the curve, a ghostly hand appeared through the window of the car, and turned the steering wheel.

Bill, paralyzed with terror, watched how the hand appeared every time they came to a curve.

When he saw the lights of a pub down the road, Bill gathered all his bravery and strength, jumped out of the car, and ran to to the pub.

Wet and out of breath, he rushed inside and asked for two shots of scotch.  Shaking and half crying, he began telling everybody about the horrible experience he had just been through.  A silence enveloped everybody when they realized he was not drunk, but was for real.

About 10 minutes later, two guys walked into the same pub. They were also wet, and were out of breath. Looking around and seeing Bill sobbing at the bar, one said to the other, "Hey Bruce… that's the idiot who got in the car while we were pushing it."

Never date a radiologist, they will see right through you.

Here in South Florida it's a beautiful day.  The snowbirds have not crashed the party too hard yet, and it's a pure blue sky.  Clear as a bell. 

So why am I hearing some booming?

 

 
An unhappy couple go to a marriage counselor

He tries to work with them, but they absolutely refuse to talk about anything in front of each other. The counselor gets fed up, gets his bass out, and starts playing it.

The couple sit there looking at each other dumbfounded. The counselor keeps playing. After several minutes of this, the couple starts making small talk with each other. Pretty soon they're deep in conversation.

At the end of the hour, the counselor puts down the bass and the couple turn to him, and say “Doctor, that was amazing! We haven't talked like that in years! How did you do it?"

“Ah" says the counselor "people always talk during the bass solo.”

Inline Skating or Cycling and Ceramic Bearings in Sport Equipment or How Some 30 Year Old Advice Is Still True Today

Once upon a time I was having a conversation with Tom.  Tom was on the Inline Skating team in Philadelphia at the time, and Fairmount Park was an amazing place to get in a workout and get tips from others in your sport of choice.

My sport of choice was Inline Skating because I had become too muscular through weightlifting to be able to run the kind of distances my body really wanted.  Inline Skating offered a way to get in that cardio buzz everyone knows and loves without shocking your knees into a powder.  It is non-impact, as long as you don’t fall.

The conversation was about Skate Bearings.  It stuck with me.  You see there were three kinds of bearings available.  There were also different grades of bearings that were more or less processed to be smoother or less smooth.  The smoother the bearing, the faster they would spin.  In those days the top end was something called an ABEC 5 bearing, and today you can find vendors who would sell things like an ABEC 9 bearing – which does not really mean anything since the official scale only goes up to 5.  Marketing garbage.

Anyway, Tom was telling me a few things, at the time a new skater who was starting to get better at this sport than I was when I started.  I was beginning to transition to Distance Skating which was what he did and he noticed.  He also noticed that I blazed through a puddle just before parking on the bridge over the Schuylkill River overlooking Boathouse Row near the Art Museum.

Truly a beautiful spot.

First and foremost, never get your wheels wet.  Never.  Water will displace your lubricating oil or grease, and rust out the steel in the bearings.

Then it was a discussion on the construction of the bearings themselves.  Back in those dark ages, 1995 or so, bearings for the Inline Skater were almost always made of steel.  They would call it “Stainless Steel”, and I think the quotes had to be there because Stainless Steel won’t normally rust.  So if your bearings rusted, they were either garbage or they were not really a high quality Stainless.

There were other materials used but for a mid distance, non Sponsored skater, they were a rare and expensive thing.

Tom spoke of “Ceramic Bearings”, and back then they were what we now call Hybrid Ceramic because “Pure” Ceramic Bearings were almost impossible to source.

Hybrid Ceramic bearings were a world apart from even the best stainless bearings.  They were constructed from an inner ring, outer ring, and 7 ceramic ball bearings set in between usually with a teflon or nylon crown to keep the bearings separated from each other.  These days those expensive high end Stainless bearings are running about a quarter a piece.  $20 for the set if you can find them in bulk.  This is the basis for the attitude from some Currently Sponsored Skaters that it is not worth your time to clean and re-lube your bearings.  But back when a single bearing cost about $5 and a full set of 20 was as much as $100, the old timers were absolutely rigid about keeping things dry and lubed.

These days, a Hybrid Ceramic bearing tended to be made of better quality steel for the two rings that the races were made from in a conventional one.  I had gotten caught in a downpour once and radar told me that it would continue to rain for at least an hour.  I was 2 miles/3 Km from the car so I skated slow and hoped for the best for my Hybrids.  I was lucky.  When I got home, I immediately washed out the set, dried, relubed the bearings and am still able to use them a year later.  They are a little slower than the newer set I tried yesterday but not by much.

But about those “Pure” Ceramic Bearings?  Tom never saw a set.  He got out of the sport before they became available.

At this point, the costs have dropped on “Pure” Ceramic bearings to the point where I could justify getting a full set.  20 bearings for $65 or so on a sale.  My own Sponsorship came and went just after the turn of the century and the collapse of the sport so these are on my own dime.

Pure Ceramic Bearings are where all parts are ceramic.  The outer race and inner race rings are ceramic.  All 7 ball bearings and the crown are ceramic.  White Zirconium Oxide (ZrO2) if you must know, and there are other materials used in this market.  

Pure Ceramic Bearings don’t need lube to keep them going, and you can de-grease them to get rid of the road grit, then run them through the dishwasher (if you can get away with it) so getting caught out 2 miles from the car in a downpour won’t kill them.

They are lighter, but for an Inline Skater that isn’t really important.  But for the most important part, they are more durable, lasting as much as 20 times longer than a steel bearing set.

I finally got my hands on a set and I will say I am impressed.  They glide smoothly and silently, and strangely they sound like a wind chime when you hit them just so on the pavement.  It implies that within the Skate Frame, they’re moving around a bit, but I am still figuring out how to use these things.

Mind you I have to rework my skate boots.  They are brand new, and there’s a spot inside the boot itself that has to be heat-molded to my own ankle geometry.  That’s another story for another day.

But Tom, you were right.  You were always right when it came to Skate Technology, and while I’m still in the sport, and it has changed, you helped me in ways you will never know.

On Yer Left!

Why do most employees get sick on work days? Because of their weekend immune system.

 Hmm... that can be seen a bunch of ways.  Oh well, it's meant to be "silly".

And since we are on bodily functions...

The Polite Way to Pee

During one of her daily classes, a teacher trying to teach good manners, asked her students the following question:

"Michael, if you were on a date having dinner with a nice young lady, how would you tell her that you have to go to the bathroom?"

Michael said: 'Just a minute I have to go pee.'

The teacher responded by saying: 'That would be rude and impolite'

What about you Sherman, how would you say it?'

Sherman said: 'I am sorry, but I really need to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back.'

'That's better, but it's still not very nice to say the word bathroom at the dinner table.

And you, little Johnny, can you use your brain for once and show us your good manners?

Johnny said: 'I would say: Darling, may I please be excused for a moment? I have to shake hands with a very dear friend of mine, whom I hope to introduce to you after dinner.'

The teacher fainted

Little known fact, before the crowbar was invented… Most crows drank at home.

I'm finding my like of absurd and the strange caught my eye this morning.  So let's see, Policemen, Blondes, and Detective work... what can go wrong?

 

 
The 3 detectives

A policeman was interrogating 3 blondes who were training to become detectives. To test their skills in recognizing a suspect, he shows the first blonde a picture for 5 seconds and then hides it. “This is your suspect, how would you recognize him?”

The first blonde answers, “That’s easy, we’ll catch him fast because he only has one eye!”

The policeman says, “Well…uh…that’s because the picture shows his profile.”

Slightly flustered by this ridiculous response, he flashes the picture for 5 seconds at the second blonde and asks her, “This is your suspect, how would you recognize him?”

The second blonde giggles, flips her hair and says, “Ha! He’d be too easy to catch because he only has one ear!”

The policeman angrily responds, “What’s the matter with you two?! Of course only one eye and one ear are SHOWING because it’s a picture of his profile!! Is that the best answer you can come up with?

Extremely frustrated at this point, he shows the picture to the third blonde and in a very testy voice asks, “This is your suspect, how would you recognize him?” He quickly adds” . . . think hard before giving me a stupid answer.”

The blonde looks at the picture intently for a moment and says, “Hmmmm . . . the suspect wears contact lenses.”

The policeman is surprised and speechless because he really doesn’t know himself if the suspect wears contacts or not. “Well, that’s an interesting answer . . . wait here for a few minutes while I check his file and I’ll get back to you on that.”

He leaves the room and goes to his office, checks the suspect’s file in his computer, and comes back with a beaming smile on his face. “Wow! I can’t believe it…it’s TRUE! The suspect does in fact wear contact lenses. Good work! How were you able to make such an astute observation?”

“That’s easy,” the blonde replied. “He can’t wear regular glasses because he only has one eye and one ear!"

How To Test Your Bike Computer Or An Excuse To Get Ice Cream

"I already have one sport, it's mine, I'm "Elite" at it, I don't need another."

"Go Ahead, You already have the bike and you're climbing the walls from the injury..."

It went on from there.  I had finished an inline skate marathon, my fifth, and then broke my collarbone.  Again.  Second time on that one. 

Bad.  Etc.  I'm not going into that.

My doctor, my friends, my Orthopedic Surgeon benched me.  Again.

Into the healing process, I was told by the Ortho, a very good one truth be told, that I can begin to exercise again.

More like "I can see you really want to get started again but no skating ... yet."

A back and forth and he said "See if you can bike".

With admonishments to "Be Careful for crying out loud!" from him, and everyone else, I started to bike. 

Now Back In The Day when I was a sponsored inline skater, the Bikers were a problem, to put it kindly.  They resented anyone on THEIR trail.  Shaddap, ok?  Besides little man-child I'll throw you and that toy you are zooming around into the Schuylkill River...

I'll tone it down, that was a generation ago.   I got the dusty old bike out of the shed, tuned it up as best I could, and got back on the thing.  Oh sure, I did it, but I felt like I "Let Down The Team". 

But I got better at it.  Then I realized I was overpowering the bike.  I got a new bike because the old one was hurting my knees and having gone through sports medicine training and rehab, I surely did not want to do that.  I knew the symptoms intimately.

"Besides, knowing you, you will want to build the thing to fit you."  I was told.

I briefly considered building one from scratch, ordering parts and wrenching them all together.  No, that would be too complex.  The technology of bikes had changed as much as had that of Inline Skating. 

I can give you chapter and verse on why you want a Ceramic 608 bearing on your skates instead of steel, or at least a Hybrid Ceramic, and where both fit in the pecking order.

I could not tell you a bit about how to properly adjust a derailleur, let alone install a front, a back, and route cables.  I had to leave that to the pros.  Here I am six months together and I am still getting things "settled" on that bike.

Complaining about that process got me "You are handy, figure it out, besides, you will want to get some things for the bike anyway, so work up an order."

Yeah well right.  Mirrors, lights, clamps for flashlights, seat, mount for the GoPro, travel bag with more lights, mounts for thermos bottles.  Yes everything was plural.  I had about as much light coming off that bike as I did my old Motorcycle.

Summer I biked.  Too hot to do so after sunrise, this is Florida after all, I basically lit the road up with a Lane Finder light plus twin headlights.  All before dawn.

When I was given the all clear from the Ortho with "Go live your life", I started skating again, but kept the cycling.

My sport watch and heart monitor told me all this cardio was helping my resting heart rate drop into the mid 50s.  Not bad...

As I was riding I wanted to know how fast I was going so I would look at that watch - and veer into traffic lanes. 

I needed a bike computer.  I needed to know my speed while going.  Runkeeper synced up with the sport watch but I know my own athletic prowess well enough to know that when the little man on Runkeeper was telling me that I was biking at 18MPH, and my heart rate was 72, he was wrong about the HR.

The bike computer arrived and since I wanted it only for my speed, I did not need a connection to the bike itself.  GPS is quite good enough.

Since the bike computer attached to the frame of the bike with neoprene "rubberbands", I disconnected it and told the story to those around me.

It was Sunday, I was going to break training since I had ridden a nice solid 20 miles.  Burned off anything I had for breakfast and lunch, we could do anything we wanted for dinner.

Ice Cream!  For Dinner!  YAY!  Carbs!!!!

Yeah well just not when I have caffeine in me.  I'm intense enough with caffeine and sugar feeding off each other.

We took the little bike computer with us, turned it on and set it on the dashboard.  The car had a digital speedo on the dash, and my computer sitting there.   They weren't perfectly in sync, there was a lag on the bike computer but it proved to me that they were accurate.  Within a few seconds.

Great! 

When we got the ice cream, super premium soft serve with caramel, whipped cream, peanuts, and a cherry on top, the computer sat there and powered down to a rest.   Just as expected after fifteen minutes, it considered it enough time and the display went dark.  I turned it back on just as we were leaving and the workout was still in progress.

So we did a tour of Fort Lauderdale, the industrial area around the Airport, up to the hospital, and through downtown to the house.

I had a winner.  I also figured out that the computer was accurate, enough, for use.

While I am flying up and down the main street in my town, I can glance down and see that the numbers are changing. 

In fact the only quirk I found was that when I peaked over my speed limit I set of 20 mph, the thing beeped at me and told me that I was going 32.4kph.  Doing the math in my head, it's a programming error on their part.  If you select "imperial measurements" everything should be in imperial.  MPH, feet, inches.  Meh.  I can live with it. 

I set the speed limit higher.  The only speed limit I break is when I bike through the school zones.  15mph is about where I cruise when I'm taking it easy.

Better off that I am biking later and that school zone limit is not an issue, huh?

I haven’t slept for 10 days because that would be too long.

 Since I woke up at 445 AM, I thought that would be appropriate, Right?

Smokey the Bear was relaxing in his new house.

He'd just moved to the neighborhood, and was enjoying retirement after years of working for the U.S. Forest Service. He was sitting in his favorite easy chair, reading a particularly engaging book, when the doorbell rang.

Smokey sighed, set the book face down (his sister was always so mad at him for doing this as it ruined the spine, but seeing as this was essentially the latest in a series of airport bestsellers, he didn't feel like he was damaging anything particularly worth saving)(though he had to admit it was pretty compelling, if a bit tawdry) and got up to answer the door.

When he opened it, there was a ram standing there, with a stack of fliers in his arms.

"Hello sir or madam would you like a- OH! It's you! You're Smokey! I love your work!"

"That's quite alright, thank you," Smokey said. "Now what can I do for you, young man?"

"Oh gosh, I'm so flustered," said the ram. "I never expected to see a celebrity on my first day!"

"First day of..." said Smokey.

"Oh! Sorry, yes!" the ram stammered. "My sister and I just opened a new flower shop down the street and I was just handing out these brochures and it would just mean the world to us both if you would take one!"

Smokey looked down at the coupon in the ram's hand, then back up to his face.

"Sorry, kid. I'm not going to take this."

The poor ram was shocked. "You're not?"

"Now, if your sister was here, I'd accept it from her, but not from you."

"Whu– but– I don't understand! Why my sister?"

Smokey got a serious expression on his face and looked the ram dead in the eye.

"Only ewes can present florist fliers."

Soy Milk is just regular Milk introducing itself in Spanish

Ok, so this... reminds me of a T-Shirt.  "20 bucks is 20 bucks".

I cleaned that one up a LOT.  This one not so much, did not have to clean anything but I did laugh out loud when I read it today.

Mike and his wife Sara went to the state fair every year, and every year Mike would say, "Sara, I'd like to ride in that airplane."....


Sara always replied, "I know, Mike, but that airplane ride costs fifty dollars, and fifty dollars is fifty dollars."

One year Mike and Sara went to the fair, and Mike said, "Sara, I'm eighty-five years old. If I don't ride that airplane, I might never get another chance."

Sara replied, "Mike, that airplane ride costs fifty dollars, and fifty dollars is fifty dollars."

The pilot overheard them and said, "Folks, I'll make you a deal. I'll take you both up for a ride. If you can stay quiet for the entire ride and not say one word, I won't charge you; but if you say one word, it's fifty dollars."

Mike and Sara agreed, and up they went. The pilot did all kinds of twists and turns, rolls and dives, but not a word was spoken. He did all his tricks over again but still not a word. When they landed, the pilot turned to Mike and said, "My, my, I did everything I could think of to get you to yell out, but you didn't."

Mike replied, "Well, I was gonna say something when Sara fell out, but fifty dollars is fifty dollars."

Hurricane Nicole Prep, or Bahama Shutters Down Means Weather Is Coming

My own theory of Hurricane Prep is pretty simple.

Do it every day.

No, seriously.  Why keep putting junk piled on the ground in the corner?  Why let your plantings get out of control?   Oh and if you are in an area where the power goes out, get a generator.  FPL Sucks.

When we moved here to South Florida, we knew that this area will get hit.  I sat in my house on top of a Hill in Philadelphia and watched as Katrina inundated New Orleans, as Wilma went across South Florida as a back door storm, and I remember driving over the area that Andrew hit in Homestead in the 90s.

I was driving to the Florida Keys to Key West about six months after the storm hit Homestead.  Really, truly, freaky coming to a stop sign where a stop light should be and seeing the street numbers painted on a street where there were no houses for blocks.

You really don’t want a storm like that hitting you.

It could have.  After moving here, I have been told many times that “Andrew would have hit here if it weren’t for a last minute wobble in the storms track”.

So I put down my shutters on one side of the house.  I also threw Aunt Betty’s plastic furniture into the pool.  When she was closing up her place in Century Village to live back in Noo Yawk on Lawn Guy Lant, she made sure that I took it.  I’ve had it on my porch ever since because it looks good there.  

She made me promise to keep it clean for her and a dip in the pool twice a year does that well.

At this point, on Tuesday, the storm is supposed to make landfall as Hurricane Nicole around Fort Pierce on Wednesday evening.   They are saying that the wind field is extra large and will give us Tropical Storm Force Winds as a result.  It has been a day since I started puttering around on all of this including this blog, and the track has not changed.

I went through that with Hurricane Irma.  It was not a big deal here, 66 MPH winds with 99 MPH gusts.  I sat in this chair that I am writing from and watched the big tree across the street, 30 feet tall, sway in the breezes.

10 meters of Florida Native Tree that needs to be trimmed survived the rain well.

As time went on, we replaced windows with hurricane glass, replaced the roof and brought it up to Code – Miami-Dade code.  The house is a bunker now and we get a preferred rate on our insurance as a result.

If your home is in the cross hairs of this storm, good luck, just go and pick things up since it’s too late to put up a new roof.

But yes, the main thing is really just hoping it hits your neighbor and not you.  I’ll be watching my neighbor because his house is nowhere near as well built as mine.  If his roof ends up anywhere, I hope it is not on mine.

I’ll let you all know how it goes, a Tropical Storm force wind is strong but survivable.   I won’t get worried until I start hearing Category 2 or 3 or that train sound that says there’s a tornado approaching.  Tornadoes are a very different beast as my cousin in Nebraska will tell you.  The first few minutes of the Wizard of Oz before it turns to Technicolor… yeah well different story.

In the mean time, if you have relatives in Florida, check up with them.  I’d say Saturday will be soon enough.

How Did The Frog Sell A Million Books? Because his story was so ribbiting!

I am with the witch.  I drive a 20 year old Jeep Wrangler and it has a Stick.  Then again, if I hit the powerball, I'm having it converted to Electric.




A witch was flying on her broom when she noticed that all the witches she passed were flying on vacuum cleaners.

She thought to herself, "Am I the only one who still drives a stick?"




A couple goes to an art gallery. They find a picture of a naked women with only her privates covered with leaves.
The wife doesn't like it and moves on but the husband keeps looking.

The wife asks, "What are you waiting for?"
The husband replies, "Autumn."




An old snake is feeling his age.

"Doc, I need something for my eyes...can't see well these days". The Doc fixes him up with a pair of glasses and tells him to return in 2 weeks.

The snake comes back in 2 weeks and tells the doctor he's very depressed.

Doc says, "What's the problem...didn't the glasses help you?"

"The glasses are fine, doc. I just discovered I've been living with a water hose the past 2 years!"

My pet snail lost his shell. He's looking a bit sluggish.

While I am getting frustrated with software that does not do what I think it should, I am feeling generous today.  So today I have a foursome of funnies!

And if you are the programmer who decided that a text box can't be a simple text box any longer, I hate you.



Mom, Why is your hair turning grey?
There was once a naughty little girl who was always getting in trouble and she asked her mother one day "Mom, why is your hair turning grey?"
And her mother replied "Every time you do something bad, I get another grey hair." 

The girl got a puzzled look on her face. A moment later, the girl starts chuckling.

"What's so funny my dear?" her mother asks to which her daughter replied,
"Thinking of Grandma's hair made me realize that you must have been a really bad girl!"



A guy walks into his local bar with two dogs.
"I didn't know you had dogs," the bartender comments.
"They're not my dogs," the guy replies. "They're my sister's."
"Wow, your sisters are ugly," the bartender says.




On my first day of flying lessons, I looked down anxiously and asked my instructor, “What are all these buttons for?”

He said, “Those are to keep your shirt closed.”





At a party, a young wife told to her husband: That’s the fourth time you’ve gone back for cake. Doesn’t it embarrass you?

Husband replied: Why should it? I keep telling them it’s for you.”

Pulled Pork Slow Cooked In The Oven Recipe

Fear not the pork shoulder, gentle soul, for we shall take you for a walk through for some truly excellent food.

I am breaking this recipe into bite sized pieces.  Rub, Brining, and Cooking.  Hopefully to make it easier to prepare.  Basically three separate steps.

You make the rub first to complete the brine recipe.
You brine the meat to make it juicy, up to 48 hours.
And you cook the meat low and slow to make the magic happen!


Ingredients:

1 4-7 pound whole Boston Butt Pork Roast with the layer of fat on the bottom.
Mine did not have the bone-in however that is what most recipes called for.


The Rub:

I have seen a dry rub of spices and sugar used in many recipes.  This seems rather nice, it’s kind of inoffensive.  I have tweaked it from where I found it, basically because I don’t care for heat.  Originally this called for 1 tablespoon of Cayenne, I used ½ Teaspoon.  Mix this up and reserve 3 Tablespoons for the Brine.


Ingredients - Dry Rub:

• 1 Tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 Tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 Tablespoon onion powder
• 1 Tablespoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper – to taste.  Recipes do go up to 1 Tablespoon
• 1 Tablespoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon ground pepper
• 1 Tablespoon paprika
• 1/2 cup brown sugar

Brining:

Pork is an incredibly tender meat when cooked Low and Slow.  This recipe called for a soak in the refrigerator for a minimum of 12 hours.  I gave it 24 hours, simply because I could not fit the timing in.  It’s Tuesday Afternoon and I am writing this as I finish preparing it, the brining started Sunday night!

So maybe the saltiness of the finished meat was partly due to that, but this was some of the most tender pork I ever had.

I do know that making a brine of 2 quarts of water plus ½ cup of salt plus 3 tablespoons of the dry rub spice mix was called for.  Next time though I will twiddle with the salt levels since I just don’t care for the flavor of salty foods.  You decide.  I have seen recommendations to use half the salt I use here.  ¼ cup salt to 2 quarts cold water.  16 parts water to 1 part salt, plus your spice mix.


Ingredients – Brining:

• 1/2 cup salt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 quarts cold water
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 tablespoons dry rub mix

Process - Brining:

Find a pot that is larger than the Pork Shoulder by a comfortable inch all around and at least 3 inches deep.  Add the water to the pot, then the salt, and 3 tablespoons of the Dry Rub to the pot and mix until dissolved.  Place the Pork Shoulder in the pot fat side up.  Put the pot in your refrigerator and give this at least 12 hours to soak.

The Cooking:

Cook until internal temperature reaches 200F. 90C.  I have a temperature probe on my oven, so when 14 hours came to pass I was at 185F.  I turned the oven up from 225 to 250F.  If you have the luxury of time, check your results and adjust.  I have also seen comments that this kind of recipe really should be done in a smoker.

Process – Cooking:

• Remove the meat from your brine and pat dry.
• Rub the spices on the entire Pork Shoulder and place on your baking pan that is 3 inches deep and comfortably an inch larger on all sides.
• Make sure your Pork Shoulder is Fat Side Up.
• Place the Baking Pan and Pork Shoulder in the oven and turn it on to 225F.
• Cook the Pork Shoulder for a minimum of 14 hours – or until the internal temperature of 200F/90C is attained.
• Turn off the oven.
• Leave the Pork Shoulder in the oven until the meat temperature drops to 170F.
• Remove the Fat Cap and discard along with any parts that are purely fat.
• Shred this to your heart’s content.
• Enjoy!
  

The Meat:

I used Pork Shoulder without the bone.  I did not find any real benefit in paying for a soup bone I would never use.


The Results:

I ended up with a pulled pork that was melt in your mouth.  I came home after a workout, the oven was beeping that I was at temperature and immediately I took a small taste.  Then another.  I ended up eating ½ pound of the stuff before I realized that I should stop.

Yeah, it's that good.

For those of you with feelings of paranoia that you are being watched: I want you to know that you are not alone.

Since this first one is a wee bit short, I'll have to put together a two-fer fer ye today.  I liked the first because I'm thinking we're going to need a new vet.  I have a list of them given to me so that won't be too tough.

As for the second, I'd had enough interviews in my life to know that this is simply plausible, and I'll leave it at that!

 
Doctors


A veterinarian was feeling ill and went to see her doctor.

The doctor started to ask her the usual questions, about symptoms, when she interrupted him: “Hey look, I'm a vet -- I don't need to ask my patients these kind of questions: I can tell what's wrong just by looking. Why can't you?”

The doctor nodded, looked her up and down, and immediately wrote out a prescription handed it to her and said, “There you are. Of course, if that doesn't work, we'll have to have you put down."






Job

Two smart, attractive, well-educated young law graduates, Sally and Edith, were competing for a prestigious job.

As part of the job interview each was asked why she wanted the job.

Edith answered that she wanted to work for a firm with a reputation of being concerned with truth and justice.

When it was her turn, Sally simply opened her purse, took out a rather thin wallet and laid it on the senior partner's desk. “I want to fatten it up as fast as possible.” she said.

Sally got the job

A week ago I sent my hearing aid to be repaired. I haven't heard anything since.

I have to say that a fine beer with my homemade pizza is a treat to me.  

I went through my own teenage and post teen crazy with the stuff, and now just look at alcohol as something I have to schedule in with my normal carbs in my training diet.  Like it isn't worth the effort.

However, I do enjoy a Guinness.

The Guinness Finally Got Him

Old man Murphy had worked down at the Guinness Brewery for years, but one day, he just wasn't paying attention and he tripped on the walkway and fell over into the beer vat and drowned.

The foreman thought it should be his job to inform the widow Murphy of her old man's death. He showed up at the front door and rang the bell.

When she came to the door, he said, "I'm sorry to tell you, but poor old Murphy passed away at work today when he fell into the Guinness vat and drowned. "She wept and covered her face with her apron and after a time, between sobs, she asked, "Tell me, did he suffer much..?"

"I don't think so," said the foreman: "He got out three times to go to the Bathroom

Tender Oat Flour Cream Biscuits

I'm writing this as the biscuits are baking.  

350F Medium Oven.

Check at 27 minutes.
Check at 5 minutes later.
Check again at 5 minutes later.

Finally pulled them at 15 minutes extra.  42 minutes.  Next time use higher temp.

Fret about the timing but enjoy the smell.  Good food takes time.

There has been a fair amount of publicity in the blogosphere about making traditional (Southern) biscuits with mostly oat flour and a wee bit of conventional all purpose flour to add back gluten.  Then their recipe adds back all the bits to make the entire mess "Self Rising".

Fair enough but why?

Simply put it is because there is no gluten in oat flour.  The expected result is that the biscuits will be extra light and fluffy.  These were extremely tender, literally broke apart when I started slicing them with a very sharp knife.

If you have oats for oatmeal, to make oat flour is easy - put the cup of oats in a high powered blender and turn it on until you get the desired result.

So yours truly got the bright idea to substitute ingredients.  I used my cream biscuit recipe which works incredibly well.  Since it is a known quantity, why not play with my food?

My new recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup Oat Flour
• 1 Cup Self Rising Flour
• 1/4 Teaspoon Baking Powder (probably needs more)
  
• 1 1/2 Cup Whipping Cream (or Heavy Cream).

Process:

• Mix until you have a dough.
• Spoon out 2 ounces or 1/4 cup of dough onto parchment
• Bake at 350F in preheated oven
• Check for done at 27 minutes. 
• Add more time as needed - I added 15 minutes total
  

Results?

My batch needed more time. 
First was 5 minutes because the tops were not even tan let alone golden.

Add another 5 minutes and recheck.

And finally pull them 5 minutes later for a total of 42 minutes.

They were incredibly tender.  Very buttery taste with a bit of an oat bread undertone.  These biscuits will be awesome in a bath of sausage gravy.

When I say tender, they did fall apart on the plate.

So Success but I will definitely need to tweak the temperature and add in more Baking Powder - about 1 Teaspoon next time.

Pigs make bad actors. They're all hams.

Since it is Sunday, and a right pretty one too!, I figured that I would use this rather... rude religious story.  Well, rude depending if you live in Utah or are a Gentile.

 

 

Guy goes to the doctor for a checkup and gets bad news. "You've got a rare disease and you've only got 6 months to live" he is told.

The patient is incredulous and tells the doctor he's going to get a second opinion.

He finds another doctor a few days later and after a battery of tests, this doctor gives him the same bad news. Patient is in shock and asks if there's anything he should do.

The doctor pauses a moment and says, "Can I give you some non- medical advice?"

"Sure, anything, Doc. I'm desperate! "

"Are you religious? the doctor asks.

"Not at all," says the patient.

"Well," says the doctor, "I encourage you to join the Mormon church. Go to every service, get involved with every group and small organization you can and completely immerse yourself into that religion. I mean, EVERY aspect of it you can."

The patient perks up and is feeling hopeful. "Will that extend my life?!"

"No," says the doctor, "But it'll be the longest 6 months you've ever had."

What do you call a canine that gossip online? A Dog with a Blog

Reminds me this story that I need to flesh out before I blab about it here.

On the other hand, there was my dear friend David.  David is "gone" now but being from Cheshire England, he had an odd feeling about football (soccer).  He never completely shared it with me but then again, if you knew David, you knew he was rather "reserved" with certain things.  Well that and I just can't stand sitting on a couch watching a two-plus-hour "sports" show.  I'd rather play.

 
The Memory Man

An Englishman was touring the USA on holiday and stopped in a remote bar in the mountains of Nevada. He was chatting to the barman when he spotted an old Indian sitting in the corner. He had tribal gear on, long white plaits, wrinkled face. “Who’s he?” asked the man.
“That’s the Memory Man.” said the barman. “He knows everything. He can remember any fact. Go and try him out.” 

So the man goes over, and thinking he won’t know about English football, asks “Who won the 1980 FA Cup Final?”
“West Ham,” replies the Memory Man.
 

“Who did they beat?”
“Arsenal,” was the reply.
 

“And the score?”
“1-0,” he said.
 

“Who scored the winning goal?”
“Trevor Brooking,” was the old man’s reply.
 

The tourist was bowled over by this and told everyone back in England about the Memory Man when he returned.
 

A few years later he went back to the USA on holiday and tried to find the impressive Memory Man. Eventually he found the bar and sitting in the same seat was the old Indian only this time he was older and more wrinkled.
 

Because he was so impressed, the man decided to greet the Indian in his native tongue. He approached him with the greeting “How”.
The Memory Man replied, “Diving header in the six yard box!!

I Got Yer Beanstalk Right Here, Jack!

I have to keep cooked beans on hand.  I don’t mean occasionally, I mean all the time.  You see Our Dog Rack The McNab Superdog (TM) can’t have a normal dog diet.

In the long run that’s a good thing since I am not prone to losing a loved one who I have known for 12 years due to a food recall where dogs were dying due to kidney failure.   I had that happen once already with Lettie The McBorder SuperDog (TM).  I won’t have that again.

On the other hand, it’s a lot of work and Rack can’t have a list of foods such as Chicken and Grain.  Any of them.  Not even the esoteric ones like quail.  I can feed him beef and do, I have given him pork to uneven results.

That leads to my keeping a recipe that I have made public here on my blog.  I have the cooking down to a science which is good because the recipe only makes three days worth.  Twice a week I make more.

But that also means my freezer is chock full of meta ingredients to go into this.  The Beans I got smart with a couple years ago and stopped getting them in the cans.   I buy bulk kidney beans and cook them in the pressure cooker – instant pot to the normies.

Recipe – 1 hour under pressure, 15 minutes rest, manual release.  3 parts water, 1 part beans, a half teaspoon of baking soda.

But you are told rinse your beans and pick off any of the “floaters”.  Ok, I do.  I also am a veteran gardener.  I toss the extras in the garden and don’t think twice of it.  

I have never gotten anything out of that until this time.  A Week Ago.  Now I have these things coming out of the pots I keep on the front porch.  Those are my nursery pots for Basil right now, some Crotons for display later, and these beans.

I just did not expect them to grow so fast.  Or really at all.

I was told that now I have proven that I have the gardening skills of a Second Grader.  The story was that typically you get a little bean to plant and watch it grow.  I didn’t, I got a sunflower and to this day I truly enjoy them.  Just never beans.

I am amused by the little beanstalks and how quickly they sprouted for some beans that were floaters.

So Rack and Jack will have their beans.  They’re also good in a salad, trust me.