Three Old Dogs Minus One

We buried Corky yesterday, he died just after noon in his sleep. Corky was an old schnauzer dog, how old, no one really knows. Our estimate was 16 but that could have been off by as much as two or three years. The first thing that any of us know about Corky was that he showed up at Mrs. Taylor's house in the Memphis TN. area. He was already a grown dog at that time. No owners ever came to claim him so Mrs. Taylor took him in. Mrs. Taylor was a customer of my uncle who was a veterinarian in the Memphis area at that time. When she got too old to care for Corky, she asked my uncle to find him a home. My folks had recently lost their schnauzer dog Buck to cancer so my uncle offered them Corky. At first my dad was reluctant but my mom said they would take him and she would take care of him. My dad had loved Buck and I think he did not feel like another dog could ever take his place. Soon, Corky had won him over. I'm am pretty sure that he loved Corky as much as Buck and quite possibly more. One of his favorite expression when he was talking about Corky was "That little boy, he's a little man."

My dad had a stroke in 2001 followed by several other strokes that eventually left him bed ridden. He passed away in July of 2002. By that time, my mom had taken over as Corky's caretaker. She had an accident in November of 2002 and died, and Corky came to stay with me. He was still young enough when he came to live with me that he could do all the things dogs do. He barked, jumped on the furniture and played with toys. The subsequent years since 2002 had taken their toll. By the time he passed away yesterday, he was blind, deaf, stiff with arthritis and slept most of the time. I know some folks would have had him put to sleep a long time ago but with all his problems, he never gave any indications that he was suffering. Up until the last month, he had maintained a fairly steady routine of eating and sleeping and he would still nozzle up to you when you rubbed him between his ears. On his last vet checkup in November, his doctor was concerned with his weight loss. I tried changing his diet and feeding him more but he just didn't seem to have a good appetite. Also over the years he had developed several food allergies and was limited in what kinds of food he could eat. I did manage to get him to gain back a couple of pounds but after that he just went down hill. He had a good day Monday, the best day he had had in the last six months but then Tuesday morning, he just wanted to sleep. I got him up and he drank some water and then went right back to sleep. His breathing was shallow and slow. Just after noon he stopped breathing completely. Linda and I took him down to Slickhill and buried him with the other dogs and cats. He will be missed.

35 Inconvenient Truths

If you are like me and have always found man-made climate change a bit implausible then you should find the paper 35 Inconvenient Truths by Lord Christopher Monckton very interesting.

Or if you are someone who has been convinced that man-made climate change is real, you should find 35 Inconvenient Truths very enlightening.

And finally, if you are among that group of people who see man-made climate change as the basis of a new age religion then don't waste your time reading 35 Inconvenient Truths . You will just think it blasphemous.

Is Nullification Our Last Best Hope?

In this article Michael Boldin talks about various states using nullification to fight over reaching federal laws. Has our societal pendulum finally begun to swing back in the direction of sanity?

Telling It Like It Is

This lady tells it like it is:

Alabama Poutine

Last year, when I drove the Alaska Highway to Alaska and back, I spent several days in Canada. I had been to Canada one other time in my life in 1962, but that was just to Kenora, Ontario and I didn't remember all that much about it, besides, a lot has changed everywhere since 1962 so I really did not know what to expect.

I found that Canada is an interesting country with interesting people. They may share a continent with us, but they certainly have their own culture. Virtually everywhere I went, the people were very nice and fairly laid back. In a lot of ways, they reminded me of folks from the southeastern USA.

Every since I got back from my trip, I have been kind of keeping up with Canada. I've been watching CBC newscasts via internet, reading articles about Canada and things Canadian in the Wikipedia and this year I even listened to the Grey Cup. I have learned alot and come across some interesting things. Recently I discovered a uniquely Canadian food, poutine. For those of you that are like I was and have never heard of poutine, it is a dish that was developed in the province of Quebec and seems to have spread throughout Canada. Basically it is fried potatoes sprinkled with fresh cheese curd and topped with gravy.

Now no one likes fried potatoes any better than I do and gravy is a staple in my household, but cheese curd? If anybody makes cheese in Alabama, I don't know about it. Fortunately my daughter is a cheese guru so I called her up out in Texas and asked her where I might get some fresh cheese curd. She said that the closest place that she knew of to me was Sweetwater Tennessee but that I could probably get the same general effect from fresh mozzarella and that I should be able to find that at the Publix down the street. Sure enough I went to Publix and there was the fresh mozzarella, See, I told you she was a cheese guru.

Anyway, I brought the mozzarella home and diced up some of it to about the size of the cheese curd that I had seen in a picture of poutine on a web page. I put some frozen french fries in the oven to cook and set about to make some gravy. Now you probably noticed the title is "Alabama Poutine." There is a reason for that. In addition to using mozzarella instead of cheese curd, I intended to use gravy of my own design. Many of the webpages that discuss poutine mention using canned gravy. I had a different idea. I was gonna use home made tomato gravy. So I put a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of flour in my little cast iron skillet and started to stir. Fifteen minutes later I had a fine little roux. To that I added about 2/3 cup of beef broth and 2 tablespoons of chipped up tomatoes. I let the gravy simmer while I retrieved the french fries from the oven and sprinkled them with the chopped up mozzarella. Next I spooned some of the tomato gravy over them. Voilà, Alabama Poutine. Not a bad dish. I went back for a second helping.

Sending A Message

I like to think of myself as a fairly easy going guy. I am sure that there are those that would disagree with me being easy going, especially if they knew me several years ago and have not been around me lately. As I get older, things that used to wind me up tight not longer have the same affect. There are a lot of things in this country that I find distasteful and many that I find troubling but I try to remain philosophical and if it does not affect me directly, I attempt to let it slide.

But, there is one thing that will put my piss in a boil faster than a match will light a open container of gasoline. I hate, loath and despise the expression "sending a message." Everywhere you turn, there is some jackass talking about doing something to "send a message" or not doing something because it "sends the wrong message." What the hell does that mean anyway, send a message? What do I care what message something sends. We need to make decisions in this country on the basis of right or wrong, not what kind of damn message it sends. Of course, therein lies part of the problem. We long ago got away from considering what is right and wrong. Now we worry about what is legal and what is illegal. Well I can tell you one thing; right trumps legal every time. If what you are doing is wrong, but legal, sooner or later its gonna come back to bite you in the ass regardless of the message you are sending.

This really is incredible

I know that this woman is very well organized and obviously she spends a lot of preparation time, but her results really do knock my socks off

Mrs. Head's English Class

When I was in high school, we had an English teacher named Mrs Head. Her husband was my eighth grade math teacher and later on the High School Principal. They were great folks.

Earlier today I read this article on CBS.com about a screw up the Texas Legislature made back in 2005. Seems that in an effort to make gay marriages illegal, they enacted a law that contained the following wording: "This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

If the Legislators in Texas had been in Mrs Head's English class, they would have realized that dog won't hunt. Every one has their pet peeves and Mrs Head's was statements that said things like "There is no Candy Bar like a Milky Way." When she heard something like that she would say, NO! There is no OTHER candy bar like a Milky way. To say that there is no candy bar like a Milky Way means that a Milky Way is not a candy bar, if it was, then there would be a candy bar like a Milky Way. Since marriage is a legal status that is identical to marriage, the ole boys in Texas done outlawed marriage, which come to think of it might be a problem solver in itself.

A Sick Parody of A Real Country

I know that there is a lot of good left in this country, in spite of what you see on reality tv and read in the papers and in the online press. I do my best to avoid all that crap and to keep a positive outlook, but then something like this pops up and I just throw up my hands and say enough.

In case the link is broken when you read this, it points to a story on CBSnew.com. The bottom line is that a mother in a "small Arkansas town" could not get her 10 year old daughter to take a shower so she called the cops. The cop tried to get the girl to settle down and she kicked the cop in the nuts so he tasered her. The whole story is soooo wrong on soooo many levels that I feel dirty just repeating it. (1) What kind of mother can't make a 10 year old kid take a shower? (2) What kind of dumbass calls the cops to make a kid take a shower? (3) What kind of cop can't control a 10 year old girl without tasering her? I hope that we find out later on that this is some kind of sick ass hoax. If not, and if this kind of stuff is going on, we have devolved into a sick parody of a real country.

Bingo

Back when I was an elementary school student (1953 - 1958) we used to have a Halloween Party at my school. Back then, you could still have Halloween parties, you did not have to call them Fall Festivals and everyone could go, even the kids that went to the local Baptist church. About the same time every year, if I remember correctly it was usually after Halloween but before Thanksgiving, we had a Bingo party. Everyone could play. I remember the excitement I experienced the first time I bingoed. I won a Lane cake, a real Lane cake made with real Bourbon whiskey. I know it was because I still remember the lady that made it coming up and telling my mama how much she used. Fast forward to today and show me the elementary school in Central Alabama where you can go and play bingo and win a real Lane cake, especially if you are a student at that school.

What got me to thinking about all this was this article I just read on Al.com. There has been a whole lot of talk lately about Bingo in the state of Alabama, accusations made and countered, court cases, news broadcasts, media articles, etc. I have to ask myself, is Bingo or any other kind of gambling really the biggest problem this state has? Does it really deserve the attention it is getting?

I pretty much keep to myself. I don't belong to any local organizations, don't go to any of the churches and my child is long since grown so I don't have any reason to hang around schools, but I do read the occasional paper, overhear conversations in the grocery store or Walmart and sometimes I will talk to folks I'm standing in line with at a fast food restaurant. Based on what I am seeing and hearing, we have a lot of folks in Alabama that are hurting. Times are rough, people are out of work, more adults and children are going hungry. In my humble opinion, the self righteous hypocrites in this state who are so concerned about whether or not someone is going to a Halloween party or playing Bingo on a machine some where could better spend their time addressing the real needs of the state and its people.

Instant Replay

I watch a little Major League Baseball and College Football on TV and listen to a lot of both of them on the radio. I grew up listening to Auburn Football on the radio back when the NCAA or someone limited the number of games a team could appear on TV. Back then I was too young and too poor to go to all the games and the only other option for keeping up with the Tigers was radio. I never was a big MLB fan. I watched some KC Royals games when Bo Jackson played for them but not much else. When I met Linda, she got me hooked on the Atlanta Braves so now I enjoy watching them, but I can still equally enjoy listening to them on the radio. Many folks don't understand how I could enjoy and maybe even prefer radio to TV, but some folks don't understand how I can "stand" those old black and white movies either. When challenged about liking sports on the radio I simply answer that it is a "theater of the mind" thing and move on. I'm telling you this so you will realize that my perspective on TV sports is probably different from yours and maybe from most folks.

So here is my take on Instant Replay. "It sucks, do away with it." The little good that it does when it occasionally gives the officials a chance to "lick the calf over" is more than off set by the problem of a break in the flow of the game. I'm speaking here of football. Games were much more exciting when the teams ran a play and if intervention by the officials was necessary, the call was made, and everyone moved on. Sure a coach or player might voice their disagreement and "lobby" for further consideration later on, but the current play was over and done with. The ruling on the field always stood. Now, with the review process, the flow of the game is disrupted, the veracity of the officiating is immediately called into question and thousands of folks wait while some replay official does his best to try to see what really happened. It gives a herky jerky tone to the games that they did not have in the days before instant review. College football was much better without the Instant Replay and without overtime tie breaking, but don't let me get started on that horror story.

Everything Nice Stove

I follow Greentrust on twitter and the other day he had a link to a Worldstove.com video in one of his tweets. I watched the video demo of the Lucia Stove and was impressed. I went to Worldstove.com's site and quickly saw that the Lucia Stove, even a back pack model, was rather pricely but they had free plans for what they called an EverythingNice stove.

I looked at the plans and decided that it was something I could do. It took me a couple of days to find the right cans and to fit them together but late last week, I had my version of the Everything Nice ready to try. It is not as impressive as the Lucia, but it works very well and cost virtually nothing to make. I used cans I had on hand and my only expense was for a 1/2 counter sink and a 3 inch hole saw to help me in the construction. The stove I made is about 7 1/2 inches tall and approximately 6 3/8 inches in diameter.

This past weekend, I did some experimenting with various fuels that I had available. I was very pleased with how the stove worked. My best results to date has been with the inner can filled to the fill line with shredded papers soaked in about 1/2 cup of used cooking oil. This resulted in a 42 minute burn. The burn was virtually free of visible smoke.

I crafted a ring to allow me to put a pot on top of the stove without extinguishing the fire and this morning I made my first pot of coffee on the stove. It worked great. I think that this Everything Nice stove is going to prove to be an excellent camping companion.

Tilapia

Late last week I watched a video on YouTube of some guy cutting filets off a tilapia. It looked like something I could do so Sunday I went by the local Food$mart and got a couple of whole tilapia. One was 560 grams the other was 428 grams. I fileted the first one Sunday. I battered the filets in cornmeal, salt and black pepper and fried them in olive oil. One thing I didn't do that the guy in the video did was to remove the skin. The fried tilapia filets with skin on had a taste that reminded me of bream.

Today I fileted the smaller tilapia. Again I left the skin on. I blackened these. During the blackening, the skin turned loose. I was able to pull it back with a fork with no damage to the filets. The blackened tilapia filets were very tasty. Maybe not quite so much of a fish taste with the skin removed.

I am sure I will be preparing tilapia both ways in the future, but when I intend to blacken them, I will go ahead and remove the skin to simplify things.

Onion Humor

I love The Onion , they rate right up there with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and South Park as being the most politically incorrect media entities. I just finished reading this onion article and I was laughing my ass off until I remembered some of the things I had read in the comments section on AL.com recently. I reflected for a minute and decided that if the entire country is as overrun with dumb asses as the AL.com forums appear to be, this Onion article could actually happen in the near future.

Smart Folks

I just finished reading this New York Times opinion article. It reminded me of something I heard from an instructor when I was at Auburn.

It was my second time to take Differential Equations (I took several courses twice) and my instructor was a graduate student. He was, by his own account, somewhat lazy. I don't recall him ever giving a real lecture. He preferred instead to assign homework and then have selected students go to the board the next day and work the problems. Since I had taken DE before and had kept copious notes, I had the solution to many if not most of the homework problems. The solutions were easy to copy to the board and we got credit for "working a problem at the board." Often, when students were at the board "working" problems the instructor would broach off on to a non mathematical subject. On one occasion, I remember he was talking about the government. I don't remember the details of what he was saying but I do recall that someone suggested that since he had all the answers, maybe he should be president. His response was that he was an intellectual and that intellectuals should never be president because they would be so certain of the right way to do things that they would be contemptuous of the people and would become dictators.

Seems like the NYT article sort of supports that theory. Although the smart people didn't get to the top of Wall Street, they did get high enough to reek havoc. Maybe we should IQ test everyone and prohibit people above a certain IQ from holding positions of authority or influence in companies or in the government. This would accomplish two things. First, smart, conniving, people would not be allowed into positions where they could disrupt the lives of others. Second, everyone would know that Presidents, Vice Presidents, Managers, Supervisors, etc were kinda slow and they would not pay them too much attention. The world might be a better place.

What Happened to Global Warming?

The BBC asks the question What happened to Global Warming?

Seeing What We Want To See

Last year before the election I was talking to one of my engineer buddies that works at the electrical utility where I used to work. We were talking about the upcoming presidential election and he was telling me that most of the folks in his church were excited to have a black candidate running for president. That may seem strange to you since we are in Alabama, but my buddy is black. Anyway, he is like me, never thinks the same as everyone else thinks and never misses a opportunity to say what he thinks. He told his fellow church members that when he looked at Mr. Obama, he did not see a black man, he saw a politician. I agreed with him at the time and I still do.

A couple of days ago I was talking to someone from North Alabama and the person told me that many of their friends and acquaintances over the age of 65 were up in arms over the governments recommendation that people over 65 be the last to get the H1N1 flu shot. The north Alabama oldies have come to the conclusion that this is the Obama administration's way to kill them off. While it wasn't stated, I suspect that the majority of them are white and republican. My advice to them would be to be glad if the government was trying to kill them. Our government is so inept at everything it does that if it tries to kill you, you may get into the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest living person.

So the black church members in Birmingham looked at Obama and saw the great black hope. The old white republicans in north Alabama look at him and see someone planning eldercide. As I said before, I am like my engineer friend, I look at Obama and see a politician and if I don't listen to what he says, but watch what he does, he is pretty much like the politician that held that office before him.

AL.COM

A couple of times every day, I pull up AL.COM to see if anything interesting is happening around me. If I find an article that interests me, I read it. Then, I usually check out the comments that accompany it. I was born in Alabama and have lived here all my life. I know that some of the best, most polite and smartest people in the world live here, but apparently none of them make comments on AL.COM. For every half way intelligent comment, there are at least ten that are asinine and the flaming that goes on is heart breaking.

I've given it some thought and I believe that the problem is the anonymity in posting. If everyone had to include in their posts their real name and the city where they lived, I expect that a lot of the crap that is posted now wouldn't be.

Time for Plan "B"

According to LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), an estimated 1.3 percent of the US population were drug addicts in 1913 before the Harrison Anti Drug Act was passed. The Harrison Act made drugs like cocaine and marijuana illegal. In 1970, just before President Nixon declared the "War on Drugs" an estimated 1.3 percent of the US population were drug addicts. Today, after fighting the "War on Drugs" for nearly 40 years and spending approximately 1 trillion dollars, approximately 1.3 percent of the US population are drug addicts. I think it is time for Plan "B".

Corky's New Rag Rug