Garden girl video

Peaknik has a very nice video available to watch. 

 The only question I have left is how do I find out what channel this show is on?

FGLB

You feeling the pressure?

I sure as hell am.  I got a pressure cooker/canner for Christmas, and I could not be more excited to bust it out and use it. 

In fact, I’m so excited that I know I’ll be using it to cook meals in the very near future.

And look out this summer!  I’m going to be canning everything I can get my hands on.

FGLB

Christmas memories

The last installment of the Groovy Green Christmas is up today.

FGLB

Gift recycling

I have another story up at GG.

Click here.

FGLB

It’s for the rest of us.

Think Christmas has gotten too commercial?

Why not celebrate Festivus?

It’s for the rest of us. (Make sure to check out the picturs of all the festivus poles from around the country. Want your own pole? Click here.)

FGLB

Let me see that blogroll…

There has been a few good posts written lately that I think need more coverage.

Liz at Pocket Farm wrote a nice little piece about consumerism.  (Follow the links to get all the details.)

Ka-bar at Moral Equivalent of War wrote a very sobering piece about the true obligation levels of our federal government.  Just our federal government.  You have to follow the links to get everything out of it.

Steve at Groovy Green wrote a nice article about how to make candles.  A skill that will be more important as energy costs continue to rise in this country.

John Michael Greer at the Archdruid Report has written a very good multiple part piece of a possible world after peak oil and after global warming really kicks into gear.  I’ve linked to his blog but scroll down and start on Christmas Eve 2050 and read upwards for each blog post.  Very good creative writing.

Now, someone out there needs to write something up about how to render lard because that’s something I need to know how to do.

FGLB

Nothing but Nets

You want to make a difference this holiday season, or the next time you need a gift for someone who already has everything?

Make a donation to the Nothing But Nets foundation.

For a simple $10 donation you can save a life.

This group takes the $10 you donate and buys a mosquito net to put over a child’s bed at night.  No mosquito bites, no malaria, no death.  Pretty simple.

For the price of 2 drinks from Starbucks you can save the life of a child.In fact, if you think about how a family can put more than one child under the net you might even be saving more than one child.Pretty damn amazing.

FGLB

Christmas story

I have a Christmas article up at Groovy Green if you want to read it.

FGLB

Tagged

Tuco recently tagged me.  I had hoped to ignore the tagging but I decided to do it after others he tagged answered him.  However, I am not tagging anyone else.  The tags stop here!!  I’m supposed to tell you habits, pet peeves, etc.  That’s all the instruction I have.  So, I’m just going to make this up and I’ll tell you strange things that have happened to me in my life that you may or may not find interesting.

1.) I have a ton of pet peeves.  I think that’s because as I age I get more crotchety.  I’m like a fine wine gone bad.  Right now my biggest pet peeve is cell phones.  It’s a good thing I don’t know Q or I would definitely have some missiles behind my headlights and there would be a lot of charred cars around.  With people in them talking on their phones I’m sure.  

What is it with people walking around stores with the stupid headsets?  Everytime I see them I gather the kids closer to myself because they are obviously not right in the head if they walk through the store talking to themselves, but then I notice the stupid head set.  What is so important that you have to talk to someone on the phone while you are shopping? 

In general I guess I just hate phones.  Ironic for a guy who use to work at a cell phone company and has a generous portion of his financial worth tied up in cell phone stock.

2.) Interesting people I know or things I’ve seen:

•       I have a friend who choose his rental house in college based exclusively on it’s proximity to the bar district.  (A decision that proved quite fruituitous.)  When he moved out of said house 9 years ago the front porch was crumbling apart.  It hasn’t been fixed yet.
•       I have another friend who is deathly afraid of clowns. 
•       I know another guy who used the pickup line “So, you wanna go look at the trailer hitch?” at a party one night.  And it worked fairly well.
•       I’ve seen mostly grown men willingly paddle themselves with wooden paddles.  Seriously.
•       One time I was chased by a cow while taking a shortcut through it’s field.  It was like a bad nightmare where all the hamburgers I had eaten were getting back at me or something.  I wouldn’t want to do that again.  The saddest part is that the cow was catching me when I dove over the fence.  And I lost my buzz.
•       I know another guy who stole some corn out of a farmer’s field one time while visiting Iowa.  He tried to eat it.  Turned out to be seed corn. 

3.) One day in college my girlfriend (now wife) and I were having a discussion about some asinine thing that I can’t remember now.  Probably about me not saying hi to her fast enough or something.  Anyhoo, we were walking down the street discussing said item, heatedly, when a police officer asked us if everything was OK.  Our answer to him was “It’s OK, we’re engaged.”  And we kept walking.  For some reason this worked.  He left us alone.  I haven’t ever figured out why that was the magical answer.  Perhaps the people on Cops should try that the next time they have a domestic dispute.

4.) As a self professed biker (who sadly hasn’t touched a bike for quite some time) I have spent less than $500 total on my bikes.  Including all their maintenance.  Eat your hearts out.  Of course, don’t let your wives read this or you won’t be able to get away with your “biking is expensive” excuse anymore.

5.) One invention that I could live without (other than phones and cars, the obvious ones) would be leaf blowers.  I can’t believe we are so lazy that we can’t spend 30 minutes outside with a rake anymore.  Close seconds to this choice are video game systems, automatic can openers and Barney. 

6.) For one entire school year my friend and I would be standing at the door of our favorite watering hole when it opened at 3PM on Fridays.  (Good thing his house was so close.  See #2 above.)  We would then not move for quite some time.  We always played the same 5 songs when we got there.  Hotel California, Comedown, Too Much, Cumbersome and something we can’t remember now.  And my friend would not use the restroom for at least 4 hours every single time.  At LEAST 4 hours.  He’s a camel or something.

7.) I one time got a B in a class with a score of 93% when my friend got an A with his 78% because we had different teachers with different grading scales for the same class.  After this semester I spent a great deal of time finding the right teachers before I signed up for a class.

    Along those same lines, the only semester in High School I actually studied outside normal school hours I got a 3.8.  (My school rule was that I was only allowed to do school work during school hours.  So, I normally did all my homework in other classes or in study halls and if something didn’t get done it either didn’t get done or was finished up the next day, hurriedly, before class.  I did not take stuff home.  Kind of like a worker who did their job and went home and was content with that.)  The only class I got a B in was pre-calculus.  I think the teacher gave me a B because I use to sit with my girlfriend outside her class by my locker and she didn’t like that for some reason.  Too little too late for it to affect my GPA though.

8.) When I was a bartender in college I use to take bribes to eject songs that were playing on the jukebox.  What can I say?  I’m corruptible.  But I would give the person back their quarter so they weren’t out any money.  I also believe in fairness.  I’m a paradox.  Still am.

    At this same bar I once had to escort a gentleman outside, forcibly.  I felt a little bad about this because he was slightly handicapped, but he hit my waitress with his cane and you just don’t do that.  So I took him down.  I probably shouldn’t have let him drink his pitchers of beer with a straw either.  That was a bad idea.   

9.) My brother and I use to climb the apple tree in our backyard a lot.  One time he got his foot stuck and slipped and was hanging from his stuck foot with his head under him towards the ground.  Being the caring brother I was I proceeded to jump out of the tree (from darn near the top) and pull him out of the tree from the ground.  Somehow I didn’t get hurt, although I left an impression in the ground that was a good 4-5 inches deep where I landed.  I guess it was muddy which probably saved me.

     We also were known to ride our bikes down the concrete pillars of the former church on our block.  These pillars were like little downramps that were about 3 ft high and 3 ft wide with the steps between them and probably about 15 ft long at a downward angle.  If we did it just right we could hook the crank on the bike on the edge of the ramp and flip our bikes over and land on our wheels.  Sometimes.  I don’t know how we didn’t die doing this.  But it was great fun.  We also sometimes just jumped off it towards the busy 4 lane street.  When my mom reads this she will punish me retroactive to that time I think.

     One time my brother and I tried to see how many delicious rolls from AQ Chicken House we could eat.  This is after we had our fill of the normal food provided at the restaurant.  I ate 19 rolls that night.  He ate 21.  I’ve never felt so bad.  I had to lay on the floor of my grandpa’s van on the way home because it hurt too much to sit up.  I don’t like losing to my little brother.

10.) I did a kid’s Algebra homework once for two weeks in exchange for a copy of a music tape I couldn’t buy because I wasn’t old enough.  That guy was in jail the last I had heard.  I sometimes wonder if I started him down a bad path with my barter arrangement.  (I’m assuming he stole the tape to give to me.  I shoulda just helped him with his homework instead of doing it for him.)

FGLB

Gratuitous links

I wanted to share a few links I’ve come across.

Rolling Stone article about factory hog farms.  Don’t read this while eating your bacon for breakfast.  (HT: George)

Matt Damon doing Matthew McConaughey.  The reaction video (his reaction is clear at the end)

In other sad news, this girl claims Jessica Simpson as her inspiration.  No, seriously.  Here’s the video to prove it.  I’m not making light of her health problems, but come on.  If Jessica Simpson is an inspiration to you perhaps you might need to rethink your life a little?  Is it just me?

More great links from George.  A parrot that does more tricks than my dog.  And this guy has the same kind of dance moves my brother does, only my brother doesn’t have the nice looking mustache, yet.

FGLB