More of my hot dog.

More of my hot dog.

Had to cut our walk short today. At 1.5 miles he started losing speed and walking behind me. By the time we got home we only clocked 2.3 miles. He wasn't drinking water when we got home and he wasn't really into his favorite ice cubes, so decided to break out the kiddy pool. The relieved look in his eyes as he settled into the cool water was priceless. He's a sprinter, not a marathoner.

You have to make sure to watch this one with the sound on:

Mitch's new parka/rain coat

I just got back from taking Mitch for a walk. I was looking at my phone when I heard a woman calling to me from a few houses back. Great. I thought while I was distracted on my phone Mitch dropped a stealth poop and she was going to yell at me for not picking it up. Nope. She had a 12.5 year old greyhound that died this January and wanted to know if Mitch would like his parka. Except for a few hairs it looks like it has never been worn. It has a nice waterproof shell which will be nice when I have to send him out in the rain.

I tried the free month of Netflix when I was home with my broken arm and didn’t really intend to continue after the free month, but now I'm hooked.

The streaming is much cooler than I thought it would be. I have 61 movies in my streaming queue and 27 in my DVD queue. The only DVD's I've watched so far have been from the Dexter TV series. I'm halfway though season 4 so far.

The streaming is $8 per month. I added the 1 DVD out at a time plan for and extra $2 per month. To get Blu-ray disks costs an extra $2 per month so I added that too for a grand total of $12 per month.

This is my arm 6 weeks after the break. Doctor said it is doing great, but don't lift up anything more than 5 pounds.

Click the pictures to embiggen.

Nothing says I love you like murder and mayhem.

Giving baking my bacon a try instead of frying for my spinach salad.

Bocce ball Christmas party and all the Bell's Two Hearted Ale I can drink!

I have a big pot of beef stew on the stove to keep me and the house warm through the snow storm today.

First snow of the season.

Last week Meijer had a great deal on pork short ribs so I got 8.5 pounds to smoke. Last night I mixed up the following rub and applied it so it could sit overnight:

3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup paprika
1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup garlic powder
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
2 tablespoons ground ginger powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 teaspoons rosemary powder

I didn't have any brown sugar so I just used all white sugar.

I am getting ready to start the smoker. I was up and ready to go at 7:30 am, but the outside temperature was about 31 degrees and thought I might have a problem keeping the temperature up, so I decided to wait until it warmed up a bit. I took the ribs out of the fridge to bring up to room temp.

After that I plan on doing various chores while I babysit the ribs which include some more yard work and laundry.

I have the A Christmas Story DVD on for background ambience.

I got a whole-house humidifier when I got my new furnace. The humidifier has an outside temperature probe and sets the inside humidity based on the outside temperature.

Supposedly this will prevent the condensation that occurs and can cause mold and drywall damage when you forget to set the correct humidity level manually.

These are the levels that are programmed into the unit:

Outside Temp/Inside Humidity
40° / 45%
30° / 40%
20° / 35%
10° / 30%
0° / 25%
-10° / 20%
-20° / 15%

I can't wait until we start getting some consistent below-freezing temperatures to see how the system performs.

Going on the first pheasant hunt of the season tomorrow morning. I think whatever I bring home tomorrow I'll toss into the smoker with the ribs I am going to smoke on Sunday.

My awesome chopped pork sandwich I had for dinner tonight. I reheated it in a foil pouch in the toaster oven at 325 degrees for 15 minutes. Perfect.

The turkey has just a couple more degrees to go. I haven't checked the poem's temperature yet.