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.