We are planning our Black Friday strategy, but so far only Ace Hardware and K-Mart ads have been found on the BF sites.
We are going to a bar and grill this after to watch the Bears game. We have a seen a sign that says they have a free half-time buffet on Bears' game day so we thought we would give it a try.
Sheri is back on-call this morning for the next week, so we might have to leave the bar early.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Saturday, October 28, 2006
My boss's boss had a house party after work tonight. Sheri picked me up at work and we drove there together. We were one of the first ones there and we stood around a huge (10 feet by 3 feet?) table in the middle of their kitchen and watched them prepare all of the food.
He is very Italian and most of the food for the evening was Italian. For sides they had a huge salad with a simple balsamic vinegar, oil, and sugar dressing. There was a huge bowl of very good mushroom risotto. The main course was fabulous homemade pizzas. He only made one of each kind so if there was one you particularly liked you had to grab fast. I got full before he stopped making pizzas though.
The first one he lightly brushed a par-baked pizza shell with melted garlic butter, and then layered it with sliced Roma tomatoes. Then he put a layer of fresh-off-the-stem basil leaves, and finally covered all of that with sliced fresh mozzarella.
He also had what looked like between a 5 and 10 pound brick of regular mozzarella that he grated as he needed it. It was some of the best mozzarella I have ever had. I need to ask him where he gets it.
I forget the combinations of the rest of the pizzas, but some of the ingredients were fresh chopped spinach, chicken, caramelized onions and peppers, gorgonzola cheese, artichoke hearts, fresh mushrooms, Italian sausage and prosciutto. I think I am missing at least a couple of ingredients but you get the idea of what kind of pizzas he was making.
He had a lot of good bottles of wine but I stayed with Diet Coke. Sheri had a couple glasses and I took sips.
He had a huge awesome dog that weighed 128 pounds. I never heard of the breed: a bouvier. Soft curly hair. Nice personality. Playful.
We got there at 5 PM and left at 7 PM. We stopped back at my work to pick up my car and then drove home. On the way home Sheri went through the 40 or so work pages she received while we were at the party. When we got home she immediately logged into work and dialed-in to the bridge call, and has been working ever since. It is almost 2 AM Saturday morning and it sounds like they are still going strong. I just made her some strong black coffee to keep her going. I am staying up so we are both on the same schedule for the weekend.
An hour or two ago her bosses' boss gave her an awesome compliment. He said "he hears nothing but good things" about her, and to please stick through this crazy time. He said after they hire two more people and stabilize the environment she won't have these marathon weeks and will only be on call every fourth week. Nice.
Not too many plans this weekend; Buckeyes game tomorrow and the Bears on Sunday. There is a good restaurant/bar at a local municipal golf course that has a sign out front that says they have a free buffet every time the Bears play. We are going to see what that is all about.
Someday? Soon? I have already downloaded the 200 page instruction manual and pretty much read it cover to cover.
He is very Italian and most of the food for the evening was Italian. For sides they had a huge salad with a simple balsamic vinegar, oil, and sugar dressing. There was a huge bowl of very good mushroom risotto. The main course was fabulous homemade pizzas. He only made one of each kind so if there was one you particularly liked you had to grab fast. I got full before he stopped making pizzas though.
The first one he lightly brushed a par-baked pizza shell with melted garlic butter, and then layered it with sliced Roma tomatoes. Then he put a layer of fresh-off-the-stem basil leaves, and finally covered all of that with sliced fresh mozzarella.
He also had what looked like between a 5 and 10 pound brick of regular mozzarella that he grated as he needed it. It was some of the best mozzarella I have ever had. I need to ask him where he gets it.
I forget the combinations of the rest of the pizzas, but some of the ingredients were fresh chopped spinach, chicken, caramelized onions and peppers, gorgonzola cheese, artichoke hearts, fresh mushrooms, Italian sausage and prosciutto. I think I am missing at least a couple of ingredients but you get the idea of what kind of pizzas he was making.
He had a lot of good bottles of wine but I stayed with Diet Coke. Sheri had a couple glasses and I took sips.
He had a huge awesome dog that weighed 128 pounds. I never heard of the breed: a bouvier. Soft curly hair. Nice personality. Playful.
We got there at 5 PM and left at 7 PM. We stopped back at my work to pick up my car and then drove home. On the way home Sheri went through the 40 or so work pages she received while we were at the party. When we got home she immediately logged into work and dialed-in to the bridge call, and has been working ever since. It is almost 2 AM Saturday morning and it sounds like they are still going strong. I just made her some strong black coffee to keep her going. I am staying up so we are both on the same schedule for the weekend.
An hour or two ago her bosses' boss gave her an awesome compliment. He said "he hears nothing but good things" about her, and to please stick through this crazy time. He said after they hire two more people and stabilize the environment she won't have these marathon weeks and will only be on call every fourth week. Nice.
Not too many plans this weekend; Buckeyes game tomorrow and the Bears on Sunday. There is a good restaurant/bar at a local municipal golf course that has a sign out front that says they have a free buffet every time the Bears play. We are going to see what that is all about.
Someday? Soon? I have already downloaded the 200 page instruction manual and pretty much read it cover to cover.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
I had a meeting in downtown Chicago on Friday at 2:00 PM. The office is on the other side of the Loop from Union Station. There was a train schedule to arrive about 20 minutes before the meeting, but I didn't want to run across the Loop and show up out of breath and sweaty. Especially if the train was five to ten minutes late it would be even worse.
At that time of the day the trains run every two hours, that meant I had to get on a train around 10:30 AM for a 2:00 PM meeting, which meant a fun day for Brad!
I went to my office to do a few things for a couple of hours first thing in the morning before I got on the train. I got into the city around 11:00 AM. I think I wrote here before about my quest for a place like Krema Nuts in Columbus that roasts their nuts fresh daily and locally. I finally found the place. It is called Ricci & Company. I walked from Union Station to the Quincy Street L stop, took the Brown Line around the Loop and got off at the Chicago Street stop. I walked one block east on Superior Street and there it was. A small little store front. As I was walking in three guys were walking out each with an armful of nuts. It was not much to look at inside, just a small little room with a counter to a little office and a counter to the back room. I ordered three pounds of jumbo peanuts, a pound of Spanish peanuts, and a pound of salted blanched almonds. The guy wrote this down on four plastic lined brown paper bags and handed it to another guy. The second guy filled and weighed my bags while I waited. Nothing pre-packaged. I love that! The first guy wrote up an invoice by hand for me and I paid him while my order was being filled. The nuts are delicious. Sweet and crunchy. Lots of flavor. I am going to try and make an effort to go their regularly.
After I got the nuts I got back on the L to the Loop to the area near my meeting. I finally got to go Central Camera after hearing about it for years.
For lunch I walked around the corner and had a great sub at Fontano's.
I wanted to review some documents before the meeting so I walked across the street to DePaul University, got a Diet Coke, ate some peanuts and read some documents for an hour or so. Then I walked to my meeting.
After the meeting we all went to the bar across the street for a few drinks.
That evening I picked up some pizza on my way home and we watched a bad movie.
At that time of the day the trains run every two hours, that meant I had to get on a train around 10:30 AM for a 2:00 PM meeting, which meant a fun day for Brad!
I went to my office to do a few things for a couple of hours first thing in the morning before I got on the train. I got into the city around 11:00 AM. I think I wrote here before about my quest for a place like Krema Nuts in Columbus that roasts their nuts fresh daily and locally. I finally found the place. It is called Ricci & Company. I walked from Union Station to the Quincy Street L stop, took the Brown Line around the Loop and got off at the Chicago Street stop. I walked one block east on Superior Street and there it was. A small little store front. As I was walking in three guys were walking out each with an armful of nuts. It was not much to look at inside, just a small little room with a counter to a little office and a counter to the back room. I ordered three pounds of jumbo peanuts, a pound of Spanish peanuts, and a pound of salted blanched almonds. The guy wrote this down on four plastic lined brown paper bags and handed it to another guy. The second guy filled and weighed my bags while I waited. Nothing pre-packaged. I love that! The first guy wrote up an invoice by hand for me and I paid him while my order was being filled. The nuts are delicious. Sweet and crunchy. Lots of flavor. I am going to try and make an effort to go their regularly.
After I got the nuts I got back on the L to the Loop to the area near my meeting. I finally got to go Central Camera after hearing about it for years.
For lunch I walked around the corner and had a great sub at Fontano's.
I wanted to review some documents before the meeting so I walked across the street to DePaul University, got a Diet Coke, ate some peanuts and read some documents for an hour or so. Then I walked to my meeting.
After the meeting we all went to the bar across the street for a few drinks.
That evening I picked up some pizza on my way home and we watched a bad movie.
We have had a fun day so far. I got up early and made a pot of chili and then put it in the crock pot to cook the whole day. I did a couple things different this time and they all turned out good. I added about three tablespoons of grape jelly for a little sweetness, and I added some garlic and extra cumin. I think this pot was better than last weeks.
Then we went to Fry's to get Sheri a Bluetooth headset to use with her cell phone for work. We got a Motorola H350. We went there for a Plantronics one they had for $20 because it was on clearance, but they said they sold out at 5 PM the previous night. This one was $50. We didn't go through the normal Brad-research process for this, but she is on her cell phone at least four or five hours a day for work and holding it in the crook of her neck or using the speaker phone was starting to become a pain. Its batteries get recharged via a mini-USB port, so you don't have to carry a charger with you. You can just keep a 12 inch USB cable with you and plug it into your computer when the batteries get low.
After that we took a drive out to the country to look at a dog at the greyhound rescue. The dog had loads of personality and was very playful, but it was a female and I think we really want to hold out for a male. The main reason for me is the size. There are exceptions, but on the average females are between 45 and 65 pounds and males are between 65 and 85 pounds. Another reason for wanting a male is that the females get injected with a lot of growth hormones to give them extra muscle mass. This results in an increase in the risk of cancer in females. The dog we visited today had amazingly defined muscles. It definitely looked like she was pumped up on steroids. Also the staff there today told us female greyhounds are a little more aloof and less affectionate than the males.
Having said all that, the dog we saw today was very sweet. She seemed to be immediately drawn to me. She was led into the room, she sniffed Sheri, and then jumped up on the bench that was next to me and practically dove into my lap. Her are a couple cute pictures.
She was pushing into my chest demanding to be pet.
I was whispering sweet nothings into her ear. I am The Dog Whisperer.
"Please take me home."
It was around noon when we left the rescue and neither of had eaten so far for the day. We found one restaurant but walked out because there was one person waiting tables, seating people, and running the cash register. People were getting grumpy because they had been waiting in line too long to pay their bill, so we thought it would be best if we left.
We ended up eating at a casino buffet. I was pretty good and stayed away from most of the carbs and fried foods. After we were done eating was just sat at our table, drank coffee and watched the gamblers milling around while we talked to each other. We really enjoyed that. When we finally got up we found a couple 5 cent slots next to each other and lost money for about 30 minutes and then left.
We are getting ready to watch a movie and eat some chili.
Then we went to Fry's to get Sheri a Bluetooth headset to use with her cell phone for work. We got a Motorola H350. We went there for a Plantronics one they had for $20 because it was on clearance, but they said they sold out at 5 PM the previous night. This one was $50. We didn't go through the normal Brad-research process for this, but she is on her cell phone at least four or five hours a day for work and holding it in the crook of her neck or using the speaker phone was starting to become a pain. Its batteries get recharged via a mini-USB port, so you don't have to carry a charger with you. You can just keep a 12 inch USB cable with you and plug it into your computer when the batteries get low.After that we took a drive out to the country to look at a dog at the greyhound rescue. The dog had loads of personality and was very playful, but it was a female and I think we really want to hold out for a male. The main reason for me is the size. There are exceptions, but on the average females are between 45 and 65 pounds and males are between 65 and 85 pounds. Another reason for wanting a male is that the females get injected with a lot of growth hormones to give them extra muscle mass. This results in an increase in the risk of cancer in females. The dog we visited today had amazingly defined muscles. It definitely looked like she was pumped up on steroids. Also the staff there today told us female greyhounds are a little more aloof and less affectionate than the males.
Having said all that, the dog we saw today was very sweet. She seemed to be immediately drawn to me. She was led into the room, she sniffed Sheri, and then jumped up on the bench that was next to me and practically dove into my lap. Her are a couple cute pictures.
She was pushing into my chest demanding to be pet.
I was whispering sweet nothings into her ear. I am The Dog Whisperer.
"Please take me home."
It was around noon when we left the rescue and neither of had eaten so far for the day. We found one restaurant but walked out because there was one person waiting tables, seating people, and running the cash register. People were getting grumpy because they had been waiting in line too long to pay their bill, so we thought it would be best if we left.
We ended up eating at a casino buffet. I was pretty good and stayed away from most of the carbs and fried foods. After we were done eating was just sat at our table, drank coffee and watched the gamblers milling around while we talked to each other. We really enjoyed that. When we finally got up we found a couple 5 cent slots next to each other and lost money for about 30 minutes and then left.
We are getting ready to watch a movie and eat some chili.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
This is very cool (to me at least).
It is all of the animated radar data across the entire United States from the National Weather Service mosaiced into one large animated image. You can see the outline of every county!
The small radar images you usually get on the web always bug me because I always seem to end up wanting to see what is just beyond where the radar data stops. This certainly takes care of that.
It is large, about 2 megabytes, and it is updated about every 10 minutes.
It is all of the animated radar data across the entire United States from the National Weather Service mosaiced into one large animated image. You can see the outline of every county!
The small radar images you usually get on the web always bug me because I always seem to end up wanting to see what is just beyond where the radar data stops. This certainly takes care of that.
It is large, about 2 megabytes, and it is updated about every 10 minutes.
Here is a link to an interactive map for the 2006 Chicago Marathon I made on local.live.com.
You can use it to figure out the best place to watch the race or find out where traffic is going to come to a halt.
I like local.live.com much better than Google Maps. Take a look even if you aren't planning on going to watch.
(There is a pushpin on the map for Ricci Nuts because I wanted to check it out while we were down there, but it turns out they are not open on Sundays.)
You can use it to figure out the best place to watch the race or find out where traffic is going to come to a halt.
I like local.live.com much better than Google Maps. Take a look even if you aren't planning on going to watch.
(There is a pushpin on the map for Ricci Nuts because I wanted to check it out while we were down there, but it turns out they are not open on Sundays.)
Sunday, October 15, 2006
We are mostly weekend-warriors when it comes to cooking. We will buy a bag of onions for something we are cooking, and we might use some onions from the bag for something else down the road, but usually the rest of the bag goes bad before we can use them all.
Because of this we started not keeping onions on hand, but instead would buy a single large Spanish onion for whatever we were making. We eliminated the wasted food problem, but we pay about three times more for the large onions rather than just buying a bag of cooking onions.
Friday night when we were shopping for chili ingredients, the large individual onions were $1 per pound and a three pound bag of small onions was only $1.50. I think one of the large onions is probably a pound if not a little more. A solution to this dawned on me then and I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner: I could chop up an entire bag of onions, put individual portions in zip lock freezer bags and freeze all of them.
Tonight I chopped up all three pounds of them, which was 16 onions, and it resulted in eight cups of chopped onions. I measured one cup into each zip lock bag. Not only will this prevent waste, but it will be much easier when it comes time to use them. Just get a bag from the freezer and dump it into the pot. I also want to do the same thing with green peppers.
After chopping about the third or fourth onion my eyes were burning and watering so bad I could not continue. I took a large box fan and set it on the counter in such a way that the onions were downwind of me and none of the vapors could get to my eyes. It worked perfectly.
Because of this we started not keeping onions on hand, but instead would buy a single large Spanish onion for whatever we were making. We eliminated the wasted food problem, but we pay about three times more for the large onions rather than just buying a bag of cooking onions.
Friday night when we were shopping for chili ingredients, the large individual onions were $1 per pound and a three pound bag of small onions was only $1.50. I think one of the large onions is probably a pound if not a little more. A solution to this dawned on me then and I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner: I could chop up an entire bag of onions, put individual portions in zip lock freezer bags and freeze all of them.
Tonight I chopped up all three pounds of them, which was 16 onions, and it resulted in eight cups of chopped onions. I measured one cup into each zip lock bag. Not only will this prevent waste, but it will be much easier when it comes time to use them. Just get a bag from the freezer and dump it into the pot. I also want to do the same thing with green peppers.
After chopping about the third or fourth onion my eyes were burning and watering so bad I could not continue. I took a large box fan and set it on the counter in such a way that the onions were downwind of me and none of the vapors could get to my eyes. It worked perfectly.
Friday, October 13, 2006
I have made three pots of chili over the last three weekends. This weekend and last weekend I made the chili on Friday night so it could sit for a day and be better for Saturday and/or Sunday.
The one I made tonight is my best one yet. The first batch I made three weeks ago was from Carol Shelby’s kit. The next weekend I used one pack of regular McCormick's chili seasoning, and one pack of hot, but instead of ground beef I got two pounds of round steak and diced it very very small by hand. I liked the texture using the diced steak gave the chili, but not enough to dice two pounds of steak every time I want to make chili.
Tonight I used a medium hot chili powder from the only place I will buy spices anymore, Penzey's.
Here is how I made tonight's batch:
===
2 pounds lean ground sirloin
1 large onion, finely diced
1 green pepper finely diced
1 tablespoon butter
1 eight ounce can of no salt added tomato sauce
2 cups chicken stock
5 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
3 bay leaves
Brown the ground beef in your chili pot, drain and set aside.
Add the butter and diced onion and green pepper to the pot. Stir to until the butter is melted and the vegetables are evenly coated. Reduce the heat to medium, cover the pot and sweat the vegetables until they are very very soft. Almost mushy. Do not brown them.
Add the chili powder to the vegetables and sauté for a couple minutes. I think cooking the chili powder like this for a bit brings out more of its taste.
Add the ground beef back to the pot and stir.
Add the tomato sauce and chicken stock, cinnamon, cocoa powder and stir well. Cook on medium to medium high for 5 to 10 minutes while stirring frequently to avoid burning.
Put the corn starch and water into a plastic container with an air tight lid and shake vigorously until all of the starch is completely dissolved. Add four or five tablespoons of the hot liquid from the chili to the starch mixture a tablespoon at a time and stir after you add each spoon. This is to slowly increase the temperature of the starch. If you dump the starch directly into the hot chili you risk getting little starch gel balls. Pour the warm starch mixture into the chili pot and stir. This will give your chili a nice smooth texture and body.
Add the bay leaves, reduce the heat to low and cover. Stir occasionally while it simmers for an hour or so.
===
That's it. Do NOT be tempted to add additional tomato products or beans. This is traditional Texas style chili and once you try it you won't go back.
It has almost zero carbohydrates. Very low fat. High protein. Delicious.
We have been getting about three meals per pot for the both of us. Let me know if you give it a try.
The one I made tonight is my best one yet. The first batch I made three weeks ago was from Carol Shelby’s kit. The next weekend I used one pack of regular McCormick's chili seasoning, and one pack of hot, but instead of ground beef I got two pounds of round steak and diced it very very small by hand. I liked the texture using the diced steak gave the chili, but not enough to dice two pounds of steak every time I want to make chili.
Tonight I used a medium hot chili powder from the only place I will buy spices anymore, Penzey's.
Here is how I made tonight's batch:
===
2 pounds lean ground sirloin
1 large onion, finely diced
1 green pepper finely diced
1 tablespoon butter
1 eight ounce can of no salt added tomato sauce
2 cups chicken stock
5 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
3 bay leaves
Brown the ground beef in your chili pot, drain and set aside.
Add the butter and diced onion and green pepper to the pot. Stir to until the butter is melted and the vegetables are evenly coated. Reduce the heat to medium, cover the pot and sweat the vegetables until they are very very soft. Almost mushy. Do not brown them.
Add the chili powder to the vegetables and sauté for a couple minutes. I think cooking the chili powder like this for a bit brings out more of its taste.
Add the ground beef back to the pot and stir.
Add the tomato sauce and chicken stock, cinnamon, cocoa powder and stir well. Cook on medium to medium high for 5 to 10 minutes while stirring frequently to avoid burning.
Put the corn starch and water into a plastic container with an air tight lid and shake vigorously until all of the starch is completely dissolved. Add four or five tablespoons of the hot liquid from the chili to the starch mixture a tablespoon at a time and stir after you add each spoon. This is to slowly increase the temperature of the starch. If you dump the starch directly into the hot chili you risk getting little starch gel balls. Pour the warm starch mixture into the chili pot and stir. This will give your chili a nice smooth texture and body.
Add the bay leaves, reduce the heat to low and cover. Stir occasionally while it simmers for an hour or so.
===
That's it. Do NOT be tempted to add additional tomato products or beans. This is traditional Texas style chili and once you try it you won't go back.
It has almost zero carbohydrates. Very low fat. High protein. Delicious.
We have been getting about three meals per pot for the both of us. Let me know if you give it a try.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Monday, October 09, 2006
Saturday, October 07, 2006
I promised a co-worker that I would proofread her thesis for graduate school this weekend, so Sheri and I are set up at Panera for the morning. It is 60 pages and it is about using GIS to correlate external factors to predict mortality and quality of health in a geographic population.
Sheri has not been able to get her laptop to connect to our wireless router at home, so she is going to see if she can connect to Panera's wireless. If she can't then we can have her IT people look at her laptop to see if there is something in the configuration preventing it. If she can then I have to do some more work on our router. It is weird though because I have been able to connect a bunch of other laptops to our router wirelessly. I don't know why this one is acting differently.
Sheri has not been able to get her laptop to connect to our wireless router at home, so she is going to see if she can connect to Panera's wireless. If she can't then we can have her IT people look at her laptop to see if there is something in the configuration preventing it. If she can then I have to do some more work on our router. It is weird though because I have been able to connect a bunch of other laptops to our router wirelessly. I don't know why this one is acting differently.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Random Stuff Going Through My Head
Sheri has been on-call this weekend after only being on the job for five days! She has spent about 10 hours dedicated to on-call activities this weekend and is on a conference call right now that has been going for almost two hours I think. We were on our way to the apple festival Saturday morning and we had to turn around and head back home to fix a problem. We thought we would be OK if we went out in the morning because problems there seem to happen in the afternoon and evenings. Thing seem to be going well for her there. Enjoys the work. No jerks out to get her. Seems to be catching on to things quickly. She is excited about the potential to work from home most of the time. I don't know if I would want to work from home the majority of the time. I think I would go buggy. It would be nice to do it once a week or when I felt like it, but I would not want it to be my SOP. Personally I would be afraid I would not be able to get out of bed. I need the pressure of needing to appear at my desk to get me going. I also like being able to leave the office behind me at the end of the day. Sheri is wired differently than me and I think it has a better chance of working out for her. I am happy for her.
I had a great doctor visit on Saturday. My blood sugar is finally officially in the non-diabetic range. My hemoglobin A1c was 5.9%. We are going to take dropping the meds slowly. We dropped one and cut another one in half. He wants to hear from me in six to eight weeks to see how my readings are. I thought I put weight on when I came to Chicago five years ago, but I actually showed up here around 260. Dropping those thirty pounds last year made a huge difference. The next time you are at the hardware store look for a 30 pound bag of something and pick it up. That is a lot of extra cells for my system to keep alive.
We are getting closer to filling out the paperwork to get a greyhound.
I am at a loss as to why I never see the Garmin GPS navigator I bought over the summer sold at retail outlets. I have only seen it for sale on the Internet. It goes for just a few dollars over $200. The units that get all the buzz are in the $500 to $1,000 range. If they let people know that they can get the same quality of navigation and route generation as the suckers that pay over $2,000 to have it factory-installed in their cars I think just about everyone would have one. I had these thoughts on Saturday when I was amazed again at how adeptly it was guiding us to and from Long Grove, Illinois for the apple festival.
We could not get Sheri's work-laptop to connect to our wireless router so for now I broke out our 100 foot LAN cable. It can from the office to our bedroom or downstairs to the family room. It is a pain in the butt to walk over for now, but I will spend some time troubleshooting this week.
I made a very good batch of chili for the OSU vs Iowa game Saturday night. It was a traditional Texas style chili. What is traditional Texas style chili? No beans and almost no tomato products. I used two pounds of ground beef, but only one 8 ounce can of tomato sauce. The rest of the red color comes from the chili powder. To people that are used to using cans and cans of tomatoes it sounds weird, but those Texans know something about chili. It is also almost totally non-acidic, so it is good for people that get heartburn and indigestion. Contrary to popular belief peppers do not cause heart burn. Think of every peppery dish that you associate with heartburn. It probably has a highly acidic component to it. That is what does it to you. Years ago I was having indigestion so I talked to the doctor about it. He prescribed me an acid reducer and said reduce or eliminate soda, coffee, citrus, etc. I followed up with "and peppers" and he gave me hearty no. He explained what I just mentioned above and then told me how good peppers are for blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. The chili was so good I will probably make another batch very soon. It is already all gone.
I cut the grass this afternoon. Today was gorgeous here.
I am getting urges to buy a toy again. Thoughts of the Canon EOS 30D are in my head again. I have also been thinking about the electronic barometer I wrote about earlier as well as a Nintendo Gamecube. You can pick them up for $100. We are not hardcore gamers and we thought it would be fun every now and then to play some video games on a Friday night rather than watching a movie.
I am crazy about Krema Nuts back in Columbus. They roast their nuts fresh everyday, and I have not been able to find anything like that here in Chicago. I think I may have found something similar to satisfy me thought: Ricci & Company. They are located in the City and on weekends are only open on Saturday until 11:30 AM, so it will be a little inconvenient, but I want to plan a Saturday excursion soon to see how they match up against Krema.
My one gripe with Krema is their peanut butter: it is not salted. Peanut butter needs a little bit of salt. I like natural -peanut butter because it does not have the extra sugar or saturated fats that shelf-stable peanut butters use, but I still like a dash of salt in it. One of these days I am going to send an e-mail to Krema and ask them to make a salted version. They have a five pound bucket they sell for $10. I would go through a few of those year if it was salted.
Something bad just happened on the bridge call, but Sheri didn't do it. Whew!
There is a good chance I am going to try my hand at hunting next season. A friend at work is in the process of getting a new hunting dog (she was just born two weeks ago) and it will be trained and ready by next season. He mentioned taking me out. I have always wanted to try that.
Speaking of delicious birds we are going to see if we can get a fresh (not frozen) turkey in the next couple of weeks from HoKa Turkey Farms. I would like to be able to go out and point to the live bird I want and have them dress it right there, but I am not sure if they operate that way. I just sent them an e-mail asking if they work that way after I typed that last sentence. I will let you know what I hear.
I think I am going to bed soon and leave Sheri downstairs with her bridge call.
I did not ride my bike as much as I wanted to this summer.
We have been talking about replacing all of the carpet downstairs, the front room, family room, and dining room, with a laminate like Pergo. The carpeting is starting to show some wear, and if/when we get a dog it would make cleaning up after wet and dirty paws much easier. When we were at the neighborhood gourmet club kick-off they had their entire downstairs in wood laminate and it looked very nice.
I guess that is about all that was bottled up for now.
Sheri has been on-call this weekend after only being on the job for five days! She has spent about 10 hours dedicated to on-call activities this weekend and is on a conference call right now that has been going for almost two hours I think. We were on our way to the apple festival Saturday morning and we had to turn around and head back home to fix a problem. We thought we would be OK if we went out in the morning because problems there seem to happen in the afternoon and evenings. Thing seem to be going well for her there. Enjoys the work. No jerks out to get her. Seems to be catching on to things quickly. She is excited about the potential to work from home most of the time. I don't know if I would want to work from home the majority of the time. I think I would go buggy. It would be nice to do it once a week or when I felt like it, but I would not want it to be my SOP. Personally I would be afraid I would not be able to get out of bed. I need the pressure of needing to appear at my desk to get me going. I also like being able to leave the office behind me at the end of the day. Sheri is wired differently than me and I think it has a better chance of working out for her. I am happy for her.
I had a great doctor visit on Saturday. My blood sugar is finally officially in the non-diabetic range. My hemoglobin A1c was 5.9%. We are going to take dropping the meds slowly. We dropped one and cut another one in half. He wants to hear from me in six to eight weeks to see how my readings are. I thought I put weight on when I came to Chicago five years ago, but I actually showed up here around 260. Dropping those thirty pounds last year made a huge difference. The next time you are at the hardware store look for a 30 pound bag of something and pick it up. That is a lot of extra cells for my system to keep alive.
We are getting closer to filling out the paperwork to get a greyhound.
I am at a loss as to why I never see the Garmin GPS navigator I bought over the summer sold at retail outlets. I have only seen it for sale on the Internet. It goes for just a few dollars over $200. The units that get all the buzz are in the $500 to $1,000 range. If they let people know that they can get the same quality of navigation and route generation as the suckers that pay over $2,000 to have it factory-installed in their cars I think just about everyone would have one. I had these thoughts on Saturday when I was amazed again at how adeptly it was guiding us to and from Long Grove, Illinois for the apple festival.
We could not get Sheri's work-laptop to connect to our wireless router so for now I broke out our 100 foot LAN cable. It can from the office to our bedroom or downstairs to the family room. It is a pain in the butt to walk over for now, but I will spend some time troubleshooting this week.
I made a very good batch of chili for the OSU vs Iowa game Saturday night. It was a traditional Texas style chili. What is traditional Texas style chili? No beans and almost no tomato products. I used two pounds of ground beef, but only one 8 ounce can of tomato sauce. The rest of the red color comes from the chili powder. To people that are used to using cans and cans of tomatoes it sounds weird, but those Texans know something about chili. It is also almost totally non-acidic, so it is good for people that get heartburn and indigestion. Contrary to popular belief peppers do not cause heart burn. Think of every peppery dish that you associate with heartburn. It probably has a highly acidic component to it. That is what does it to you. Years ago I was having indigestion so I talked to the doctor about it. He prescribed me an acid reducer and said reduce or eliminate soda, coffee, citrus, etc. I followed up with "and peppers" and he gave me hearty no. He explained what I just mentioned above and then told me how good peppers are for blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. The chili was so good I will probably make another batch very soon. It is already all gone.
I cut the grass this afternoon. Today was gorgeous here.
I am getting urges to buy a toy again. Thoughts of the Canon EOS 30D are in my head again. I have also been thinking about the electronic barometer I wrote about earlier as well as a Nintendo Gamecube. You can pick them up for $100. We are not hardcore gamers and we thought it would be fun every now and then to play some video games on a Friday night rather than watching a movie.
I am crazy about Krema Nuts back in Columbus. They roast their nuts fresh everyday, and I have not been able to find anything like that here in Chicago. I think I may have found something similar to satisfy me thought: Ricci & Company. They are located in the City and on weekends are only open on Saturday until 11:30 AM, so it will be a little inconvenient, but I want to plan a Saturday excursion soon to see how they match up against Krema.
My one gripe with Krema is their peanut butter: it is not salted. Peanut butter needs a little bit of salt. I like natural -peanut butter because it does not have the extra sugar or saturated fats that shelf-stable peanut butters use, but I still like a dash of salt in it. One of these days I am going to send an e-mail to Krema and ask them to make a salted version. They have a five pound bucket they sell for $10. I would go through a few of those year if it was salted.
Something bad just happened on the bridge call, but Sheri didn't do it. Whew!
There is a good chance I am going to try my hand at hunting next season. A friend at work is in the process of getting a new hunting dog (she was just born two weeks ago) and it will be trained and ready by next season. He mentioned taking me out. I have always wanted to try that.
Speaking of delicious birds we are going to see if we can get a fresh (not frozen) turkey in the next couple of weeks from HoKa Turkey Farms. I would like to be able to go out and point to the live bird I want and have them dress it right there, but I am not sure if they operate that way. I just sent them an e-mail asking if they work that way after I typed that last sentence. I will let you know what I hear.
I think I am going to bed soon and leave Sheri downstairs with her bridge call.
I did not ride my bike as much as I wanted to this summer.
We have been talking about replacing all of the carpet downstairs, the front room, family room, and dining room, with a laminate like Pergo. The carpeting is starting to show some wear, and if/when we get a dog it would make cleaning up after wet and dirty paws much easier. When we were at the neighborhood gourmet club kick-off they had their entire downstairs in wood laminate and it looked very nice.
I guess that is about all that was bottled up for now.