Indiana Jones Crystal Skul, Yada Yada

A good movie. As I was watching it I was thinking about the concept of "Camp." It is campy. It is funny, it has some unbelievable situations that the old guy, Harrison Ford gets out of. There is even an illusion to Sean Connery.

The stunt work and the special effects are exceptional. It is not believable, but you leave that at the door for every Indy Jones movie. This one stands out among the best. The music score will have you humming the latest variation of the theme as you leave.

The movie is cast in the 50's instead of the 30's nd 40's of previous Indy additions. Those wicked Russians are the bad folks as well as the FBI in this addition. The ufo piece is covered here. The old romance is there. The new kid on the block plays a credible young Marlon Brando or James Dean role.

The temple has some surprises, and watch for the ants.. oh my the ants...

Get out and watch this movie if you can..

: ) Pat

Referrence Every Time

Every time that I want to link to another page I have to look it up in the book. Somehow this piece of HTML code eludes my permanent memory,

A H REF="http://www.site.com/directory/page.html>label text If order for this entry to to link to site.com I had to put a space between the H and the REF. It has to be done exactly like that or you have some difficulty. It won't link or it will link put not go to the right spot. My most common mistake is to leave off one of the quotation marks.

At least I should be happy that I still have a book that I can put my hands on that will lead me to this kind of code precision.

Its warming up in Merced again. We were in the mid 80's today. It is very comfortable overall. It is right on the border for needing a tee shirt under the top shirt or not. I am long past needing a jacket for the 5:15 walk. Today the walk was a little longer. Tom tries to do 4 miles on weekend walks. Mine is a little more than 2 miles. A stop in Starbucks for a double short dry cap in a "here" cup with a splenda packet makes the walk about 45 minutes in length.

I made scalloped potatoes on Thurday. They had an encore on Friday night with some ham slices and fresh cut tomatoes.

Have a great weekend!

Pat

Linzi and her Blog

My daughter Linzi has taken up blogging too. She has enjoyed Kelly and my blogs and has started her own. she has some photos from last weekend's escapades.


You can set your browser to the following address by cutting and pasting : http://brownielinzi.blogspot.com/ or you can follow the link at the bottom of this page.where it will always be, or select this link in this blog entry to take you right there! Linzi's Blog Link

She is just learning the ins and outs of this. It is a fun way to communicate.

Way to go Linzi!

: ) Pat

Potstickers for Dinner

Last night we had a pretty simple dinner,

Pot stickers from Costco, rice. and broccoli, steamed from the microwave.

Overall Sue thought is was a good weeknight meal. The little rice cooker can barely do three cups of rice. It took the longest to cook. The broccoli, took 3.5 minutes in the microwave.. my new microwave will burn water in 4 minutes (just kidding). The potstickers take 8 minutes after the initial browning.

Sue loves the vinegar so the table had to have vinegar for the brocolli, and soy sauce for the pot stickers.

This meal left me some time for grocery shopping at Costco. I got some really cool rainier cherries from Hanford. Dad said that he had some great ones that he shared with my sister MSB. He got about the same about that I bought... 2 pounds.

Costco is back selling bananas here. They changed vendors. The bananas are Del Monte instead of Bonita.

Sue is pretty hooked on the frozen latte at Costco. I get 6 at a time from their frozen drink machine. When we get home she pours them into smaller cups and we put them into the freezer for her snacks. She poured her own smaller cups last night when I got home.

: ) Pat

Thousand acres

I read the book, last night I saw the movie. Its on DVD.

The movie stars Michelle Peiffer, Jessica Lange, Jason Robards, Jennifer Leigh,Colin Fith, and Keith Cardine. The movie fallows the novel. The novel follows the plot line of Hamlet. The novel, Thousand Acres, won the pulitzer prize in 1992 for its author, Jane Smiley.

The setting is Kansas. The story has some revealed secrets, a forbidden romance or two and a ssnse of greed versus sensibility, and conflict. The farm life depicted could have happened in Merced. or Eastern Colorado, or anywhere there are family farms.

The questions in this movie are pretty profound. When does the family business change hands? What happens if there are no hands for it to change to? What does a farmer do when they retire? Does damage in the past constitute entitlement in the future. The women in this movie play more than stereotypical farm women. They play out the tragedy, There is no happy ending for any of the characters in this story.

The flavor of the novel is captured accurately by this movie. If you have time and inclination, read the book. Without each, the movie will suffice. The movie stands on its own as good drama. These actresses are great actresses not just pretty faces.

: ) Pat

Giving you a Chance to Receive

We had a chance at the table to discuss the apparent "lets walk our daughters to Starbucks" encounter this memorial day. Tom happened to be walking with his daughter Amy and I was walking with Heather to Starbucks. I made the mistake of saying.. wasn't it nice to take our daughters out to coffee. I was corrected, she took me out.

I asked, who paid? (mistake)

He said that she did. Why would you have any problem with that?

I said that I naturally assumed that her father would pay?

No he did not pay.

He then went into the theology that we need to have opportunities for people to pay and that if he would pay then it would deprive her of the opportunity to give the gift. And of course the giver gets more than the receiver.

Sadly this is where we differ in our philosophies. I have no problem with people helping me out. Especially if they are willing and there is a great disparity of income between us.

Even as a parent helping out a daughter. The income gap does not even have to come in to play.

It is just a nice thing to do with your daughter. Papa should pay.

I suppose that what we once thought about Tom being conservative or frugal or tight was instead the enactment of this philosophy. And now that makes perfect sense with his philosophy.

So of course not to leave this issue alone.. Ron and I had to extrapolate it into other examples of the conversation. I would have.. but that would have taken the opportunity for giving away from a given situation. etc.

So Ron charged me a dollar for every time we applied this philosophy.. I was down two bucks on the table when he came back with one too. I took one of my dollars off the table.

Comments.. I would hate to have you not have a chance to respond.. so have some fun with this one in the comments..

: ) pat

Life at Frey's

A substitute teacher at the high school once gave us some insight on working for the electronic and convenience story called Frey's.

We were remembering today what he said when employees met with an impossible customer. The noted on the public address system that a customer had an Id ten Tea error. If you write out the equivalent for the ten and the T. You can see that they were identifying their particular client with a label. So now the lunch time group has a long stand way to identify ideas off topic..

Pat

Pink and Lavender skies

The sunrise this morning was delicate. The lavender skies were highlighted by pastel pink clouds. The big clouds that brought rain and very cool weather last weekend are gone. We are expecting a high of only 78 today. It is almost Heather weather. She hates to come over to the valley when it is hot.

Today is the last scheduled day for the seniors. They will be consumed by Disneyland trips and graduation practices between now through next Thursday.

We are all looking forward to the end of school. Its been a long and difficult year.
This is day that I big a cake to each of my classes with the names of the graduates on them. I have two graduates at Merced High and one at Golden Valley. When school life gets tough during the year, I use the imagery of this celebration to remind them to keep their eyes on the goal. Most students move out of my classes after the sophomore year so that they may pursue work related training. Some of my students train to work for retirement homes. Others work to learn food preparation in fast food settings. Some learn custodial skills.

At Golden Valley there is a walk off ceremony where the seniors shake hands with the teachers on the way home. We line up gauntlet style (its sad to characterize it that way) and cheer the graduates on. Lockers were cleaned up yesterday. We will continue to teach toward final exams with the rest of the class. It will be hard to maintain their interest.

Have a great day.. Pat

300 posts 4000 reads

Your readership makes this possible.

This weekend this blog reached its 4000 look. Last night and my last entry represents 300 glimpses of my head. What an idea.

There are rumors that other people in my world are going to start a blog of their own. This is great.

As you have guessed, this blog contains no photos. This is somewhat disheartening for some of my readers. It makes for an easier read for the people with Iphones.

There are some advantages to a word only blog.

The expectations for a photo of everything makes the words and the interest different.

From the writer's view point the time needed is saved (searching for the photo, making sure that it is the right size, that it tells the story and not too much of the story.

A photo deprived blog allows for more inclusion of past experiences where photos are not available.

It maintains a level of privacy.

People who read novels no not need photos.

Anyway.. thanks to my loyal readers.

Love Pat

Acacia back blogging

Its great to see Acacia back blogging again.

She has had a real time of it in San Diego. She is going to UC San Diego this year. She has been battling a stomach issue for most of the time.

I am so glad to see that she is back blogging with her recommendation of skull candy earphones for the IPod. Check out her blog from the links at the bottom of this blog. We have all been thinking about her and hoping that she will get better. Its hard to be away from family and also be sick.

Take care Acacia.. hope you are totally cured soon.

Love Uncle Pat

To Dublin and return

I took Heather back to Dublin to catch BART. Her cat Tyrone is welcome on BART but not on Amtrak. Me driving to Dublin and her catching and returning to Dublin is about equal time. I just arrived at home and she texted mom telling her that she had arrived.

It is so much fun to have the girls home.

Lindsay and I made strawberry jam this weekend. We made it indoors for the first time.We bought our berries at our favorite Hmong outlet. The berries were not as sweet as usual,which played into our jam strategy. There were pretty dusty too, due to the strong winds we had earlier this last week. With a dunk in the water the grit came off. We bought a full flat and a half. We used basically one flat for the jam.

All of our tools are still scattered in boxes in storage and other places like the garage. The outdoor gas stove is not yet in commission.

We stumbled ahead without a perfect set up. One thing that was was missing that is very essential is a jar clamp. It is used to pick up the jars and put them in the boiling water. It is also needed to get them out. After a little trial and error and a minor injury, (I hope) we started using a Chinesse copper fry scooper to get the half pint jars out of the water. Things got a little exciting around the burners too. I was cooking the jam in a stainless steel pot instead of a big aluminum pot which would allow more careful control of the heat. We had a boil over.. eegads. Everything came off pretty easily.. so no harm done. The aluminum pot was cooking up the water for the sterilization and the 10 minutes under boiling water each jar received.

We ended up with a two cases of half pint strawberry jam (24) plus alot more that never found a jar.. at least not yet. It will be refrige jam.

Hope you had fun this holiday weekend.

Pat

LInzi home Heather Stays

Last night at 9pm Linzi hit the Amtrak for home. Heather is staying over. This morning Heather and I woke up and headed for Starbucks.

My coffee was just a little below standards.. too much coffee and too little foam. The foam on it was very airy and didn't look at all like marshmallow. The manager came by and asked me if my coffee was okay. I said no.. she took a look at it and said that she would replace it after she washed her hands. She picked up mine on the way back and returned a perfect one to me.

I thought to myself, someone is in for a little inservice.

Tom and Amy (Tom's daughter) showed up at Starbucks too this morning. I got him to tell Amy about the photo assignment he had with AP embeded in the Iraq conflict (long running joke) with Karen (a fellow teacher).

I made a huge batch of chicken morengo for this weekend. This morning, after 14 servings we reached the last of it. It was an all out hit. I made a homemade polenta (Italian cornmeal) along with it. The polenta was a huge hit too. It mixed up quite well. The first night with the morengo I mixed up and cooked one cup of polenta. The next night it came with two cups. I added a cube of butter and a handful of grated Romano cheese) Heather said that she might like some with syrup in the morning. This totally grossed out Sue. We had it with the last of chicken and the polenta this morning. Even Lucy, the calico cat enjoyed some.

The morengo recipe this weekend started with two chickens from costco. The had them going for 90 cents a pound. In the grocery store I was paying 9 dollars for a Foster Farm Chicken. At Costco I bought two for 11 dollars.

On Thursday I has cooking chicken on 3 of the 6 burners of the new stove. Two cans of Italian chopped tomatoes and one of tomato sauce were the basis for the morengo sauce. The chicken was skinned and browned with a tablespoon of olive oil in each pan. Four small garlic cloves added flavor to the browning chicken. Each pan was seasoned with freshly ground pepper. The pans were deglazed with the juice of the tomato products. Covered and simmered they were also sprinkled with oregano and basil (dried). At the end of the cooking process, when the meat is starting to separate from the bone, I added two cans of pitted olives and a 3 cans of canned olives, (yes I know I could have used fresh).

Our first meal is usually with the bones on. (The chicken breasts have been boned and split previously). The breast meat in a fresh Foster Farm chicken is absolutely huge.

After the dinner on Thursday, Sue and I removed the chicken from the bone and stored it with the saucein the Glad containers. When a meal was needed I removed the sauce and the chicken from the containers and added a little water. Within minutes we had chicken dinner.. that the kids were raving about. The polenta wasn't bad either.

Love
Pat

Fun at the Apple Store Fresno

Apple has a new store in Fresno. This was great since my computer went completely dead on Thursday morning.

Yes you know the signs. Strange things started to happen. I sent the computer to download a music track or rather a series of them. When I returned the computer had completely shut itself off. It was dead as a doornail. I had to start it up from the on off switch behind my 20 inch IMac. It had not only gone to sleep but it had switched off.

I had also noticed that my computer had been running a little hot recently. A G5 gets hot more quickly than a G4(Apple processors). A second set of fans kick into action The fans for a G5 really make a racket when they perceive hot conditions under the hood. This was happening more often.

On Thursday morning the IMac could not be raised out of its slumber. It could not be started from its button. Nada. If you cannot get anything to happen.. its got to be the power supply.

On Saturday it was confirmed ...powersupply.

My extended warranty had expired on April 15th. So I suspect that it knew when to breakdown...

I made an appointment with the genius bar in Fresno for Saturday the 11th at 11:00. We made it down to Fashion Fair Mall just in time. I wasn't quite sure where it was in the mall, but we looked it up in the directory.

The genius bar was waiting for me. The genius bar member said that he would check it our in the back. He took it off my hands and headed it to the back. He returned and said that it was indeed a power supply. He typed in my serial code and confirmed that I would have to pay.

225 and half an hour.. and we were good to go.

We all ate at the spaghetti factory. Sue had a chance to run through a goodwill we passed along the way. I found a huge solid oak coffee table that I will refinish for 5 bucks.

It was nice and overcast all day, which pleased Heather with her bay area weather requirements. Sean is in Hollywood this weekend playing and judging at a huge international Magic convention.

He was undefeated in his first rounds and came in fourth in later rounds. He is having a great time.

Last night, the girls broke open the Karoki abilities of the Wii. With a couple of microphones we plugged in, we were able to sing up the songs we knew.. and sing along with songs we really don't know too.. what fun. American Idol.. will never be the same again..

I picked up another wheel at Best Buy so that we can play dueling Mario Cart. I am still not that good at it.. don't over steer.

Love
Pat

Memorial Day-Decoration Day

Its raining in Merced this morning. The girls are all over to see us.

Grandma Nelly used to call this weekend Decoration weekend. That generation understood the sacrifices that the country had made of its most talented young men and women to the protection of the United States. Many of them killed in conflicts we had away from our homeland. Through the draft, many were not choosing to be a part of the effort, yet their country called them up to serve. When this county was in need of a huge military, many enlisted and served proudly. Many survived and became our teachers, doctors, and university professors. The GI bill contributed to our national greatness.

It is hard for me on this memorial day to understand how the Republican Party of the United States can stand against fully funding the GI benefit. It seems to me that the brave men and women that fought for this country deserve the fulfillment of the GI bill to further their education and to strengthen our country with their expertise.

Today we are at war. We have veterans that come home from battle to go to school and cannot because the GI bill is not strong enough to support them. We have them coming home and going to school with multiple part time jobs to support the American dream of a college education.

Today congress should remember the strength of the original GI bill and pass a modern day one that will help our service men and women become the powerful middle class that this nation relies.

Just my opinion... Pat

Shout out to Cammie

The John Legend CD's the Cammie made for me finally surfaced and are proudly playing on my computer. He is quite a performer.. plays the piano with some solid RnB backup. It moves right along.

The emusic account with its 90 downloads saw some Liza Minelli action this week. I had downloaded some Frank Sinatra duets including the hard to find theme from New York. I was wondering why it was so difficult to find in digital form. It seems that the original was recorded my Liza. The songwriters were not all that happy with Frank's "A number one" addition to the lyrics. I am reasoning that is why New York New York, one of Sinatra's theme songs was not readily available in digital form.

Also in the download list from e-music was an album from a European clarinet instrumentalist, Acker Bilk. I was looking for a straight forward version of "Stranger on the Shore," a 60's standard instrumental. What is interesting is that he actually composed the song "Stranger on the Shore" for a British Tv Show. He made it to the top charts in the US with this song in 1962.

A more jazz version of "Stranger on the Shore" was also downloaded from emusic by the jazz group Ambrose Seelos Orchestre Klarinette. Its clearly a German jazz band playing American pop favorites, Stranger on the Shore, Unchained Melody, Blue Bayou,and If you leave me now.

Happy music listening.. and thanks again to Cammie for sharing and delivering!

Pat

Tiger and T Sport Drink

Okay.. Kelly said that I didn't even mention Gatoraide in my blog about branding and advertisement. Lets be honest. Raise your hand if you knew that Tiger's drink is Gatoraide?

There are so many types of Gatoraide right now its hard to keep track. During my bout with cellulites I was drinking Propel because it was lower in calories than Gatoraide. Do you think the Tiger is going to put extra sugar in his body to club the 18 holes he will compete in soon? My knowledge is not accurate. What happens if there is no Tiger on the 5th hole? What if it is just plain green gatoraide? Will he only drink the red version on the final day? Just like he only wears a red nike shirt on the finaly day. Hey there is something to look for the next time you watch golf? Or do you snooze through golf like most people do until the last 5 holes on the last day?

Make sure you mow your lawn first and then... Pass me a giant Diet Coke so that I can make it past the 7th inning... Ha

Pat

Big Brown 2

One of the tests in adolescent speech and language asks the client for reasons on why some things being named. Why is Draino a good name for a cleaning product? Greyhound a good name for a bus company? After the Pinkness race, Why is Big Brown a good name for a race horse? If you said the horse is big and brown, you would only be partially right.

The horse Big Brown, was named after the major supporter of a trucking firm in New Jersy that supplied UPS with their trucks. Because UPS was such a good customer the owner of the company when he was looking for a name for his 3.5 million dollar horse. He named him Big Brown,

Big Brown is another name for UPS. UPS is using it in its advertisements. What his Big Brown done for you today?

There is potential that horse racing may be getting to the place that Nascar is with its little logos all over the uniforms of the drivers and certainly all over the cars.
In this case the advertisement is embeded into the horse's name.

I am sure that corporate UPS would be happy that a horse named after them won two legs of the triple crown. They are not sponsors like they are in Nascar... but they could be. It may be how they are going to survive as a sport with fewer venues down the road.

I read somewhere that each of those sponsors of Nascar cars has to pay a certain amount of dollars for each time their logo is seen on TV. There is one to ask Bonnie.. Kelly's friend who is a Nascar fan.

Some sports have worked hard to keep this part out of their sport. You would think that golf would lead the way since there is instance of quiet during most of the event and it is a sedate sport. That is not the case. Every golfer has a bag that carries the sponsorship name upon it. The golf hat is emblazon with corporate logos. They even allow corporate folks to pay to play along with the pros in the Pro Am tournaments. When you go to see the Pro Am at Pebble Beach, there are celebrities, and corporate hot shots that pony up big cash to play along with a pro. They are basically unknown to the outside world. At events like the US Open there are only certain apparel companies allowed to hawk their goods at the event. But to their credit is not exclusive rights of just one company.

Corporate sponsorship shows up in the movies as well. Every time an Apple logo shows up on a computer in the movie Apple pays for its exposure, as well as General Mills for Cherrios and other identifiable corporate products.

So do you think that corporate identity interrupting the continuity of the storyline or the sporting event is acceptable? Should they have to replace the cereal box on the movie set with a generic label? Is it all right in sports?

It must be effective. I can name at least three Tiger Woods sponsors, his beverage, Buick, and Nike. Will that make me want to buy those products? I don't think so.

Back to the original idea. When you hear the phrase "Big Brown," do you think UPS? I didn't so it was lost of me. Now that I know, it isn't.

Go Big Brown, win the triple crown.

Happy Sunday.. Pat

Big Brown 5 time winner

I watched the second leg of the Triple Crown today. Heavily favored Big Brown won going away. On the last straight away, the jokey let her run and it looked like he shifted into another gear and left the rest of the field in the dust. There is a good chance there will be a triple crown winner this year. He looks good. The coverage on ESPn and NBC was often overlapping.
Here was plenty of Space Program talk. I call it this because when there was a NASA mission the whole country was put on hold and we hung on every word that came out of the mouth of mission control. There were however, great periods of time where the commentator would have nothing to report and they had dead time to fill on the air. This often happens at horse races where bettors have to get their bets in for the next race. It also happens in presidential party conventions where the next speaker has yet to be introduced. We will have a ton of that happening this summer. We will not see this happening in the Olympic venues as there is always some splinter sport that we will need to watch. So bring on the fencing, the trap shooting and the archery. Golf coverage on TV should have the same issue, It doesn't because it is following the progress of other golfers on the course at the same time the leaders are playing at the end. The golfers need to walk up to where the ball has been hit. Usually the winners in a golf tournament are in the last group or the next to the last group to play on the last day of the contest.

Today we had the equivalent of a Central Valley rainy Summer day. No one was out because the heat was too extreme. Daytime temps reached 104 for the second day in a row. Our air kept us a comfortable 79 without too much effort. I was glad that I get the lawn mowed this morning. The trees got a solid drink of water too.

Take care
Pat

Jenga

Jenga came to class this Friday. The students in my class are always expecting something interesting on Friday. They have been conditioned to reward movies on Friday. There is no such thing as a reward movie in my class.. Boy that sounds harsh. I use movies to teach and reinforce literary ideas. It is the non reader or the poor reader's connection to things like climax, flashback, flashforward, character building, plot prediction, and build up.

Today instead of the worm. A huge worm drawn upon the board,where I play, million dollar question, there was the Jenga set. Jenga is a game with tiny cedar planks. They are arranged in uniform groups of three, crosswise in every layer to the one below it.

I would ask a question, sometimes of general information. Such as which town is due north of us about 40 miles away that starts with S and is not Sacramento. This was very difficult for my students to reconcile. The answer is Stockton. It could be a situational question. Such as: You car was backup into by another car. Where do you get it fixed? One answer was .. insurance. The person fixing your car is an auto body repair person.

A correct answer allowed them to remove a plank from the pile. The main idea is to remove the plank without the other planks falling.

The main problem with jenga and traveling from class to class, is that it has to be boxed up and absolutely square to fit into the box before it can be moved. This takes a little time. It did get the students who just want to sleep through class this time of the year up and participating.

Have a great weekend
Pat

Cabbage and Sausage

Last night I came home thinking about the cool chicken dish that Kelly made from the paper a couple of years ago. It was from the too hot tamales, a food network show. The recipe is called Cinnamon Chicken. She said it was soooo go but really messy.. and required some serious clean up. I was up for it. I searched through the cookbooks (I have 3) that they wrote and I found it. It required an overnight marinade in a dry sherry. I do not have the sherry.. so it will be saved for another day.

What I had in the refrig. was a flat of mild Italian sausage and a head of cabbage. I also had a hand full of hamburger from last night's naked hamburgers. I chopped up an apple, set the Cuisinart on rough cut and chopped up half the cabbage. The sausage was cut into small pieces and fried with the hamburger in a very large fry pan. The seasoning is worchester sauce and a little pepper.

After the meat was sauteed to past pink, the entire half of cabbage went in on top. The moisture from the meat steams the cabbage and the whole thing becomes a one pan dinner.

Sue really liked it because there was a little hamburger in it and it was not just sausage. She is not a real big sausage fan.

Some apple sauce accompanied the dish.. yum.

Someday soon I will do the cinnamon chicken...

:) Pat

A year of Sunrises

Sunrise hold such promise.

This time of the year it is really cool. Today the wind was not blowing and no coat was needed.

We are slowly getting up to Summer temperatures. Yesterday was pretty windy and overcast in the morning. Today it bright and sunny.

When the overnight temperatures are above 50 degrees the tomato plants grow instead of shiver. Dad says that he has some fine tomato plants growing. He plants them deep and allows for the first roots to be helped by some horizontal growth of the first leaf on the stalk area. They grow into roots instead of leaves.

Lots of pomegranate blossoms this year. I hope we have enough to stay on the shrub to produce fine fruit by this fall.

Have a great Tuesday!

Pat

Apple and memory

Tom found out that Apple will install your memory for free at the genius bar. He had some memory for his wife's computer and some for his laptop as well.

I had thought that they may charge a fee. They did not. He had to pledge the Walmart watch battery pledge, I won't hold Apple responsible for any damage done while installing the memory..yada yada yada.

They guy in Burlingame at the genius bar recommended that Tom not even buy Apple memory because of its high cost.

So there is one thing that Tom could not wait to tell me about. It was one thing that he was sure that I didn't know. He was right. Apple does install the memory for you.. and as he found out in the Apple Sacramento store, for free.

It is usually really easy to put new memory in a desktop model. It can be tricky to put extra memory in a laptop. So it is good to know that Apple will do it for you.

: ) Pat

Big Doings Mothers Day

We had a great Mothers Day in Sacramento.

Sue and I arrived just in time to pick up Heather at the train station in Sacramento. It was so good to see her. She was dressed in Bay Area attire. Considerably warmer than she needed to be. After the coat got doffed, and the comfort arranged (she was concerned about sun exposure in the cap city, we dropped by Heather and Sean's place to pick them up. Temperature was in the mid 80's. To us it was very comfortable.

We were wondering what to do, and even drove out to our favorite thrift shop on Folsom Avenue only to find that it was being torn down. We decided to go out to Ekia in West Sacramento. We had a great hour shopping for goodies for the house and the apartments. Everyone stayed within the time budget and the monetary budget. We had reservations for the fondue place in Sacramento at 4:30. It worked out just right.

We arrived in downtown Sacramento, parked the car in the garage and were waiting at the doorstep at 4:15.

LInzi ordered two packages for our party. Just enough. We had a different selections of a cheese fondue, a great designer like salad, a main entree group and finally a chocolate fondue selection for dessert.

Not only did the girls order up and give some nice gifts to Sue, including a beautiful necklace,they paid for the dinner. This was no small deal as we had two huge lobster tails on one of the selection of entree. What a treat. I am so proud of my girls and their success in life.

We dropped Heather off on time for her train going back. We spent a little more time with Linzi and Sean. Sue took a nap and I helped Sean and Linzi set up their brand new Wii. I loaned them my new Mario Cart. Sean had played Mario car before in an eariler version and knew many of the nuances of the special bombs and tactics. I am very much a neophyte at the game and was steering all over the place. The Wii version has many cool tracks in it and with the wireless wheel, it is very sensitive. It was great to see someone who knew what they doing but the wii through its paces. It is still a great console for people that have particularly devoted their lifetime to mastering the video game.

Linzi and I are both looking forward to seeing the arrival of the Wii fit due to come out at the end of the month.

We got Sue up and headed out on the 99 for a two hour drive home. Very little traffic was on the road. We were home by 11:11.

Thanks so much to the girls and Sean for their contributions to a wonderful Mother's day celebration.

Love
Pat

Lin

Big Lots

We now have a new running joke at the lunch table. We were talking about where you can get good buys on things. The usual Ross appeared in the conversation and so did the 99 cent store. One of the female lunch Tots added, "Sometimes you can get lucky at Big Lots."

Of course the group could not let it go. Ron said, "Yes there is a sort of dark corner in the back of Big lots where I could see you could get lucky" Huge laughter and everyone had to add a little spice to that comment. It was to the point where the other female teachers were saying, there is way too much testosterone in this area today.

So the running joke is, "Did you get lucky at Big Lots last night?"

Have a great day.. Pat

Chicken Morengo

I had a chicken that needed to be cooked.

You know that feeling. Every time you buy a chicken or a fish you are fighting the clock to spoilage. The sooner you cook the beast the better it is.

This chicken was purchased and walked home. This makes it even harder to waste the 9 dollar gamble.

Heather says that she always buys the smallest chicken that she can. I tend to follow the other direction and buy the largest chicken in the group. Somewhere in my thinking I think that I am buying more meat and paying for the same amount of bones for both. Of course the is somewhat of a fallacy. I bigger chicken will have bigger bones.. or does it?

The classic chicken recipe for chicken in my house is chicken morengo. It has olives and sometimes mushrooms, but differs from the chicken cacciatore in that it uses chopped tomatoes instead of tomato sauce. I skin the chicken so there is no skin and the flavors infuse the mean as it slowly simmers in the stove.

Last night we opened another of the brown rice packets and cooked along side the chicken dish. The boil in the bag brown rice barely makes it.. but it is okay. I asked Sue what vegetable that she wanted along with it. She choose canned corn her absolute favorite. I really challenge canned corn as a vegetable.. but to her it is.

We have a half a chicken left over for a future meal. It was great.

Love
Pat

Beans and Cornbread

I got a pound of pintos at the grocery store. I soaked them for a a day and a half with very salty water. I washed them carefully this morning. I put them in the crockpot with enough water to cover them and then some. I added a chopped up onion from the food processor and some olive oil. When I returned from work today, the house had the smell of cooking beans.

Some of the beans split because they were cooked at too hot a temperature. A crockpot on low all day will boil the beans. They were very good however.

I made some corn bread and we ate vegetarian tonight. It was a taste combination that I had missed for a long time. The beans were served on top of the cornbread. I also made up some honeybutter. Some of the cornbread was eaten with the honeybutter.

Overall it was a great weeknight meal that took some planning but in the end all it really took was to make up the cornbread. You have to remember to soak the beans overnight in the salt water.

Sue really liked it. She said that it needed a little salt.. can you believe that? She said that it would go great thickened up and served over rice.. There was enough left over for another meal or two.. all on one pound of pintos.

Hope your dinner was great.

Cinco de Mayo and the Two Spanish clubs, Prom?

Early last week a few students of Meccha club on campus wore some sombreros to school. They were immediately confiscated by the VP as part of the no hat policy on campus. This club was also sanctioned because they held a non approved car wash off campus earlier this year. The proceeds.. 400 dollars was confiscated without prejudice by the Student Body Office because of a lack of approval. Their money is spent every year taking is 40+ members to various college campus on Saturdays for conferences of getting into colleges and staying there once you get there.

The other spanish club on campus has had an easier go of it. Sponsored by an administrator this campus is free to do what they wish with their money. It is not connected to a larger body. It is more conservative in nature. Overall they represent a smaller group however. This was the group that was given the nod for the Cinco de Mayo food concession. Of course they had custodial help to set up the chairs... and to top it all off, they were allowed to use the forbidden seized sombreros that had seized been seized by the VP. One of those sombreros had Meccha embroidered all over it. They were not only used as decoration, they were worn by the students of the other organization serving food in line.

Of course it became a hot topic of the lunch group. Along with the report from the prom.

Four couples were caught in public having sex during the travel over to the hornblowers cruise and on the dance floor in San Francisco Bay. Their trip as a group was shortened because of this activity. They felt that since they had paid 200 dollars plus they were entitled to do as they wished on the trip.

Only one administrator was on the 7 buses that left Merced for the Bay area. Chaperones were composed of yard duty supervisors and other classified employees.

We have a group of people that are raised with the idea of self entitlement. It is clearly shown in both of these incidents. One of my lunch friends said that if they were required to supervise such an event he would tell the administrator that assigned him such a duty to go ahead and write him up.. He would not do it.

Hope you had a great Monday : ) Pat

Mario Cart

I captured one of the most sought after games for the Wii. You never know about the hype on one of the games. Specifically, is it made for a neophyte like me or is it primarily designed for the those addicted to the thumb exercise that most video games have.
This one, Mario cart is great for beginners. One of the distinctive features of this game is that it comes with a little driving wheel. The controller sits down into the wheel and constrains your movements to make you move the hand controller horizontally instead of the usual vertical. In this game there is also a change in proprioceptive feel in the wheel. Since it is going through another add on, there is less buzzing.

Mario Cart is a wild road game. There is a chance to compete on line with other mario carters. There is also a time trial segment where you try to best your last time. I opened the Grand Prix section. Players choose a Mario character and select the vehicle. Then there are several very interesting venues your character races through gaining points at the end for placement one through 12. Four races with different animated backgrounds provide an overall rating at the end. Each race is four laps long.

The last time that we had a video game in the house was many years ago. I had acquired an old tv from one of my friends who was upgrading. Its was the classic 32 inch console in a wooden box. the colors were going bad in the tube. It still worked to run the games of the eara. I was persuaded to get a "sega" It was a great game. Sonic the Hedgehog went zipping across the screen, earning points and avoiding downfalls. It had a distinctive sound track that still rings in my head when I think about it.

As we were just beginners, the beginners would "fly" the controller to get the extra leverage (it did not help the game at all). I used to laugh and say "Boy you are really "flying" that game today. As players got more experienced, there was less "flying" and more sophisticated thumb movements occurring during the game play. There was not as much programming done within the games too. After a couple of months, the games lost their interest.

Video games have become much more realistic in their graphics today. Mario still shares some of the components of the soundtrack of the original games. Now, it is acceptable to "fly" your controller as it is needed to do that various moves required to complete the games in the Wii.

Have a great Sunday. Get out and do it.

: ) Pat

One week down

Last week I went back to work. The students were happy to see me.. no. (or at least they were not happy at the prospect of actually having to learn something in their period with me. That is to be expected. They are learning about different types of mechanics.. aircraft, business machine, auto body, general, small appliance, and large appliance mechanics. There is a lot of vertical material that goes along with that too. Aircraft means airplane, general and commercial. Along with commercial, there is all that goes with airline. Then with airline, there is hubs and airports. All of this is new to my students.

I am feeling rally pretty good. On Thursday and Friday I did my short walk in the morning before school. I was a little later than usual for getting started but I was able to complete the one and half mile walk with the stop at Starbucks within the hour that I had alotted.

Yesterday I discovered that there has been a new shipment of Wiis out there. I was wondering through Target and I overheard a clerk telling someone that they had received 16 consoles that day. On Friday afternoon it struck me that Linzi was looking for one. I text messaged her that there were some at Target. She said for me to buy her one. Sue thought there was little chance that they would still have them. When I got to Target, there were three left. So Linzi and Sean have joined the Wii owners of the family.

That evening we went to Walmart. I should have known. They received their shippment, and they had 8 showing in their case. No one had the hot game of the time however, Mario cart. It comes with a little steering wheel and you navigate the road course. I bought a couple of simpler games that have some road course utilities.

Kelly said that many of her girls have been enjoying the fishing game for the Wii time. The ultimate fishing game is named after a fishing lure company, rapula. I have a copy of that and it is a real kick. It is not one of the premium games (costing 49 dollars) but in the second tier.. the 29 dollar group. It have some cool graphics and some fun fishing with some accompanied lack of success. I had fun fishing the upper Sacramento River.. for striped bass and salmon. The irony is there are no Salmon this year in those waters.. and stripped bass are in a different warmer delta zone. Aside from the facts, this game is fun.

I have a ton of stuff to do around the house today. I have already emptied the dishwasher and filled it back again. We had pork shops and brown rice last night with the the all time Sue favorite vegetable, canned green beans.

Have a great day today.

Love
Pat