Growing older, growing up

Well kiddies, it was Big B’s birthday recently and he took a trip with his little lady up to the green mountain state. Since it’s a little bit of a pain to tote around wrapped gifts, we opened them a few days early and went up sans gifts. The gift for the actual day was a round of golf at the #1 rated course in all of Vermont. I think I did fairly well, despite stumbling out of the gate. I’d like a chance to play it again if only because I’d make sure I practiced a little before the actual tee time. The rest of the trip was excellent, with a fly fishing lesson and some hiking mixed in there. M and I were younger than most of the other people we saw (again) and while we lacked a Range Rover, we did have a Subaru, which lent us some serious Vermont street cred. I think we will definitely be back at some point. After we got back, I received a most excellent gift from M’s family – a Blu-Ray DVD player. Now I know I might have boasted earlier here about not having cable or electricity or something along those lines. The TV we own is 10 years old and was the first big thing I bought with a credit card, which coincidentally was also my first brush with monthly payments that I didn’t enjoy paying and other various scary financial landmines I tiptoes around before the millennium. I am admittedly envious of even luddite family members with high-def and surround sound setups. The thing is, we really needed a DVD player. Since the dvd player we moved to the house with broke, we had been using a Playstation2 as a dvd player. That is, until the controller broke and we were unable to use it. We were really in the dark ages. We even bought a puzzle in Vermont so we’d have something to do when we got back home. (The puzzle is a work in progress). So now we have a Blu-Ray player and an old school TV. Someone pointed out to me that in the past, I might have freaked out about a gift like that. There was a stage in my life where any gift that required me to do something was immediately a crapola gift. Even worse, it would provoke an almost angry response. I liked having no stuff, being able to pack up and go in a moment’s notice. Not that I had any reason to, but anything that required assembly or transport was not likely to make it with me on my next move. So here was a gift that would most likely necessitate a new TV purchase. I say most likely because what’s the point of having this super high def player with a low def TV? And if you get the nice TV, why watch bad programming when there’s HD programming out there, which means… a cable package? I’m not sure about that yet. Until they stop broadcasting NFL games on the old fuzzy pixels, I don’t know if we need to switch. The point is, I got older and I got a gift that might at one time riled me up a bit, but this was a nice surprise. We’ve scoped out a few new TV’s but until the old one has an ‘accident’ I don’t know if there’s a need just yet.

Are you ready?

For some footballllll!!! yeah the Patriots were on last night. Granted, it was only a preseason game, but it's good to see the season starting again. Unfortunately, this means summer is coming to an end. It's taken a solid 11 years since I stopped having a summer vacation period to realize that the school break for summer isn't really that long. I remember lazing about for what seemed like months and then begrudgingly heading back to see friends that had suddently gotten huge and were full of stories of summer adventures. Now? This summer has flown by. I don't see why kids need a whole new 'back to school' wardrobe for 10 weeks off. The more I think about it, summer vacation is ridiculous. I understand the old school famrers needed their hands to help with the crops, but I see a lot of tubby non-farmers wandering around, forgetting what they learned and trying to look tough. I'm sorry in advance, but M and I have some un-fun plans for our summer kids. Tough nuts sonny.

Summer also means a little bit of cooking outdoors and enjoying the longer days. It stopped raining for the last part of July and first part of August, and while I haven't been able to do any super-long smoke cooking, I have done some nice burgers, corn, and even a steak or two. There's still plenty of time.

Golf - Last weekend I got to play at the local course and hit them pretty well. I got to play with a 14 year old who's dad spent $350 for the summer so he could drop this kid off in the morning and pick him up at night. He played at least 18 holes, sometimes 36 holes a day. This is a great idea! This is a pretty cheap way to ditch the kid for the day, and if they get great at golf, college is paid for. If they're really good, you can cash out the 401k and get a boat and start collecting an allowance. Or something like that. Anyway, this kid was good. Not quite pro material, but he has some growing to do. When I got home, M was not interested in dinner, so I fended for myself. I have this bag of chipotle peppers that I try to incorporate into meals without burning M's mouth out. They have a nice smoky flavor and a little bit of heat. They'd have more heat, but I usually cut out the seeds and ribs since that's where all the heat is. Right in the middle of my cooking, I started to feel a slight burning sensation around my groin area. It started like an itch or something, but gradually gained intensity, finally making it hard to move or breathe. I was standing in the kitchen, food on the stove, and I wanted to tear my clothes off and hose myself down. I'm not a sailor. I don't frequent houses of ill repute. What's with the sudden fire down below? Turns out at some point in the middle of my cooking, I had to use the bathroom. Who thinks to wash their hands BEFORE they go in there? If you're cutting hot peppers, maybe that's a good idea? I wasn't going to touch my eyes or nose, I had enough sense for that. The peppers were a good 20 minutes beforethe bathroom. Who knew they carried on for so long?About 30 minutes later things returned to normal. Not the best way to enjoy your dinner, but it was not dull.

Nuts, Flowers and a Crazy Pink Lady

HowdareyouignoremewhodoyouthinkyouareLookatmewhenIamtalkingIcannotbeleiveblahblahblah!!!! This is what I heard coming from a car while I was walking through the commuter rail parking lot this morning. As the car got closer, the ranting got louder. People turned and looked. I saw a green Ford Explorer with an indifferent looking man driving and the screamer in a pink shirt sitting next to him. The sound went quiet as I walked away and then got louder as the truck pulled up and let this individual out. She seemed normal enough, but clearly had some anger issues. I don’t know if the guy deserved it or not, but it made my day? Why? Because I knew, whatever else happened, my day was starting better than his was and would probably end better as well. So thank you, O lady in pink, for making my morning a little brighter with your howl at the moon insanity.

I’ve been sort of busy lately. With all my recent book purchases, I started to go back to olden forms of entertainment. So far my selections merit about a B-minus. I have another monster sitting in my bag that I’ve been a little unwilling to start. I haven’t read this much consecutively in a long time, at least since I was being forced to read for school or something. There have been some big family doings as well. Not so much for M and myself, but the extended family counts, too. I am an uncle to a baby girl now. M and I went to visit her and the happy parents last weekend. Seems at this stage it’s a lot of sleeping, eating, crying and diaper changing. Not a bad existence. M and I also headed out to Martha’s Vineyard for the passing of her Grandmother. This of course stirred up feelings about the beginning / end circle of life thing. I guess this is what happens when you’re 30-plus. In another ten years these events will happen more often until I freak out and buy a morotcycle or 1965 Shelby Cobra to soothe my anxieties.

This picture here is of my new bags of nuts. Sick of paying ridiculous per pound prices, even at Trader Joe’s, I went in on a wholesale bundle with a guy here at work. That’s 10 lbs of almonds you’re looking at. I’ve been happily munching them for a few weeks now.

So far it’s been a pretty bad summer for the grill. An extraordinarily wet June and July made extended cookout sessions impossible. We’ve had some nice weekends here and there, but we’ve also been out and about a little bit. The rain has had some upside, though. The plants we put in are growing like crazy. I don’t do anything more than knock bugs off them and sprinkle some miracle-gro on things occasionally and check out these flowers. The front of the condo smells like a florist shop. The added bonus is that since we don’t get the same sun as other people, our flowers are just blooming now, and everyone else’s are long shed and gone. We received a basil plant as a gift not so long ago and it has to be 30 inches tall at this point. We’ve been trying to eat as much basil as possible and this thing only grows faster. Can’t complain about that.

Pick a car, any car

The Answer is:

Isuzu Truck Needs New Head Gasket.Stick Shift Nice lil truck gets you around from place to plase… 1984 Mazda RX7 - NO TITLE ,CAR IS RUNNING ,IT WAS GIVE IT TO ME AS PART OF DEBT FOR MY MECHANIC ,STANDARD TRANSMISSION NO OIL LEAKS GOOD FOR PARTS … ’87 Lincoln Town Car - Vehicle does have some appearance blemishes such as fading paint, and a few dings here and there. No major cosmectic damage. In good shape for a 87. The final thing that I can think of is that the driver side door does not open from the outside…

The question is: What kind of car can you get in Las Vegas for under a thousand bucks?

These are real life ads from Las Vegas Craigslist. There are many, many more. Shady vans, rusty pickups, leaky convertibles, ‘project cars’ and econoboxes. Come one, come all. Step right up and get them while they’re hot.

Why am I looking at used car ads on Craigslist? We’re considering a driving tour of the American West. Rental car companies no hablas one-way rentals of several thousand miles. Well, they do, but they make it several thousand dollars worth of unpleasant. I considered putting the Subie on a truck and basically mailing it to Las Vegas and then mailing it back from Wyoming. That’s only going to cost a couple thousand, but there aren’t any guarantees about when it will show up, only vague 2 day windows. I’m not too excited about that. In my brainstorm, I remembered some friends from Germany who wanted to do a cross country drive. They bought a beater station wagon and cruised all over the place and ditched it when they got to the west coast. This sounded like a plan to me. Buy a hunk of junk in Vegas (700-1000), register and insure it (~300), drive it for two weeks and then sell it for gas money in Wyoming.. or something like that. Or even drive it to a junkyard and donate it. Who cares what you do with it? These are all possibilities.

Another possibility is breaking down in the middle of the June desert in nowhere Utah and waiting for a part for your 1984 Mazda to appear. While I’m not crazy about that idea, I have to admit it can (and probably would) happen. I’ve been in enough high mileage used car specials to know that the end is always near with these things. Not sure if I’m ready to get back on that horse just yet…

Books

When I was in elementary school, we used to get these flyers. They were cheapo newsprint in bright colors. It was a book catalogue for kids. It was broken up by genre or interest. It was pseudo mail order. You gave your money to the teacher, who placed the order. A few weeks later, the books were distributed. I was never deprived of books. Yard sales were gold mines of ‘choose your own adventure’, ‘encyclopedia brown’, the golden book encyclopedia, super facts, and other classics. I had more books than I could ever read. But the marketing worked on me. I yearned to get the books advertised in the flyer. I wanted a Garfield book. I wanted an action book. Eventually, sometime around 4th grade, I begged and wheedled enough to get a few books’ worth of cash out of mom and dad and I placed my order. A few weeks later I opened up my books and got a huge dose of disappointment. Garfield wasn’t funny. The ‘action’ book was short and particularly devoid of action. I’d been duped by marketing and the burn still shows scars. For the 4th of July, M and I headed down to the Cape for some Sun and RnR, and maybe get a book or two. The local library does an annual book sale where they give away the previous years’ donations. I shouldn’t say give away, because money changes hands, but it’s basically giving the books away. Last time we were there it was held in a small 2 floor building. It was raining, humid and amazingly crowded. Lusty bookworms stacked armloads of pulp mysteries and nebbish old men pored over technical manuals from 30 years ago. It was a madhouse. I dreaded going back. This year, however, it was outdoors, under tents and sun. There was plenty of room and the old book mildew stench passed with each breezy gust. The tables are loosely sorted by genre or paperback/hardcover. As I pored over the titles, it dawned on me. The flyers from 4th grade. They must still exist somewhere, because these tables were covered in all the same questionable books, albeit geared towards adults. I cannot count the number of books that I loved that I have re-read. Why? Because I never do it. I can, however remember how many books I have loved that I tossed away: zero. So what books are tossed away, literary driftwood to wash ashore in a new shelf and get new life? From the looks of it, every John Grisham book ever written. Ditto Tom Clancy, Jonathan Kellerman, Dick Francis, Clive Cussler and Michael Crichton. I can’t say I’m surprised. I admit, The Firm was decent. A new author, a new genre, a great beach read. Then I read his next book, it was also about a well intentioned lawyer in a bind, with no one to trust, escaping by his wits. The next book seemed like ti was headed that way, and I stopped. Tom Clancy –favorite author of my young adulthood. Writing about the big bad Russians, dashing CIA agents and shady covert operatives. 900 page monsters jammed with ‘sensitive’ information on the latest weapons and tactics. He made spycraft seem interesting. The he started writing about the president shooting down missiles and blowing up the superbowl… his grasp of reality gave way to the need to sell books and I can tell people lost interest. The tables were filled with most of his later works. Fans of early Jack Ryan suckered into buying co-authored Op-center novelettes and snoozy China what-if scenarios. Jonathan Kellerman and Clive Cussler, I can’t say much here. Never read anything by you. Dick Francis supposedly writes ‘funny’ detective stories, always centered around horse racing, or so it seems by the cover art. I tried one of these once and couldn’t deal with it. Michael Crichton, R.I.P, was another great author of my youth. I remember getting Rising Sun from the pay section of the library. You actually had to rent the in-demand titles at one time, maybe you still do. Anyway, I read it in one night. Jurassic Park, Disclosure, Andromeda Strain, even Congo. Excellent. Somewhere around 1994 he lost his fastball and I sort of gave up. I did rip through State of Fear in an airport, to see if he still had it, but not really. Now I know this all sounds harsh. I’m not doing hatchet jobs on anyone here. Maybe I should be giving these guys credit for selling such an insane number of books that people are just giving them away. After all, I would much rather have a table full of my books at a used book sale than none of my books. I vent my frustration here because the books I like weren’t there, or at least as much as I had hoped. Carl Hiassen – I love these airport bookshelf staples. There were a total of three Hiassen books for sale under the tents, and I’d read both titles. I managed to find a Tom Wolfe book, a John Irving, maybe some others. I even found an older Gary Larson collection of Far Side comics. I can’t say I loved The Far Side. I will say that I love The Far Side, present tense. Ten or more years after he retired, it’s still laugh out loud funny. I never realized how sick and demented his humor was. One Gary Larson book tossed in with piles of Garfield collections. I told you that cat was never funny.

Links

Since I can't seem to write a post without ranting for ten paragraphs, I'll just throw down some links:

Ever know anyone who looks like they're smelling something bad in every picture they're in?

http://happiestpeopleever.tumblr.com/

Ever have the family member who insists on some bizarro phot setup?

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

Ever woke up and weren't sure what happened the night before? (many off color references here - you were warned)

http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/

From all the helpful moms out there:

http://www.postcardsfromyomomma.com/

Lastly, there is a friend of mine who has a pepper sauce company. I'm not linking directly to his site, since I don't want him to trace back and read all about my secret life saving the world.

Do a search for Bella Pepper and check it out. It's good, not tooo hot and from a local guy.

alive and kicking

Amid reports of the inevitable downfall of the printed word, I want to take a moment to call out two fine publications. It’s too little too late for these two, but I want my public support on the record. Best Life (by Men’s Health) and Conde Nast Portfolio both appear to be victims of the bad economy and the internets. Best Life was my first adult (not that kind!) magazine. I found it in the airport and it was always filled with articles about the best of everything. There were usually good, better and best options and reasons for why each was selected. It was a much more reasonable and democratic best-of than say, the Robb Report. There were health articles, money advisors and the occasional fashion advice piece. The really interesting pieces to me were about parenting. I know the best laid plans of parents usually fall apart when the tantrums start, but this was the first magazine that I’d read to cover topics like this. I was going to stockpile ideas so that when the day came, I would already be armed and sail across those perilous waters unharmed. I got Best Life for close to two years before they announced, that the issue I was holding would be my last. Bad times. This followed closely on the heels of the announcement of the closing of my newest favorite magazine, Portfolio. I am not a magnate, nor do I aspire to be. I think I would have turned my nose up at Portfolio a few years ago, but I’ve tuned my tastes a little and I started trying to read things that would make me think a little. I read my first issue on the way to Spain. Then I got another issue and heard they were closing. While the body of work I had to examine was small, I liked it very much. There were pages of minutiae and profiles of interesting people. And it covered some of the finer things in life, which I do aspire to sometimes.

It was in my last issue of Portfolio that I read about the founder and CEO of Heartland Express. He’s a self-made billionaire, goes into the office every day and still negotiates the deals. He was diagnosed with cancer too, but that hasn’t seemed to slow him down much. Why am I writing about this? I asked M this weekend if she were a self made billionaire, would she still go to work every day? My take was that if I had worked hard enough and taken the big risks to get myself into the billionaire club, I don’t think I would have a choice but to go to work every day. The sadistic drive it takes to be that successful can’t be turned off suddenly. I don’t see how the rush of sitting on your boat fills that void. I think I understand why these old timey billionaires still burn the midnight oil, long after they need to earn any more.

Which brings me to my point. Prince Harry (Henry Charles Albert David Windsor) recently spent some time in New York City. Instead of tearing up the nightclubs, he did some charity work, paid respects to various memorials and prominent figures and played a little polo. Sponsored by a champagne company and attended by the all the floppy hated people, this polo match even got some national press coverage. During the press coverage, I noticed the winning team was awarded what appeared to be watches as part of the ceremony. At first I thought, why kind of watch do you give a prince? I mean even lesser royalty is usually pretty stacked in the cash department. And even if he weren’t royalty, he’s playing polo. You know, with the horses? There are professional polo players, but I don’t think they make very much. I think it’s one of those sports where you don’t need to pay these guys very much because they don’t need to get paid. You can’t sign up for polo classes down at the local Y. You need stables of animals, caretakers, veterinarians, teachers, safety equipment and lots of open space to run around, not to mention other kids and teams to play against. I don’t recall any pickup polo games starting down at the local park. This is an already wealthy crowd. So for the guys sitting on the horses, what kind of watch DO you wear? Jaeger Le Couture made a watch specifically for polo players, one that could pivot so that the face would face down on your arm, protecting it. A nice feature to be sure, but it was not being handed out at this tournament. After some research, I found my answer… “Adding additional fire to the competitive heat of the Veuve Clicquot Manhattan Classic polo match is the delightful prize that Piaget will bestow upon the victorious team. Winners will leave the podium wearing the Piaget Polo FortyFive.. retailing for.. $11,900” Wow. Just wow. Is that what it takes to add fire to the competitive heat for these guys? I can just picture it now.. “Hey that’s a nice watch”.. “Why thank you. I won it”.. “Oh really, in like a raffle or a poker game or something?”… “Actually it was at the 2009 Veuve Clicquot Manhattan Classic polo match”… “Uhh (searches for guy with champagne tray, hopefully it’s Veuve Clicquot)”.

In other news, I’ve started watching ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ (so far it’s been great). M and I watched ‘Star Trek’ (excellent), and I also just finished ‘Frost/Nixon’ (also highly enjoyable). They have nothing in common and stand in their own spheres. I recommend them all.

Finally, the grilling season has begun. We did a little moo – a couple of fat porterhouses and some self ground steak burgers, a little oink – 6lbs of smokey spicy adobo pork tenderloin, and this weekend we commenced with the cluck – a preposterously good bbq chicken. In past posts, I wrote about sticky ribs that made me feel sorry for all the food that I ever ate afterwards, because it would never live up to those ribs. Every time I think about this chicken, I cry a little inside. I know that no one else (except M) will get to experience this chicken. I know that every chicken I make from here on out will need to be that much juicier, a little smokier, a touch sweeter, a hint spicier and a tad crispier. I made the sauce myself. Not quite the 8 hour cook from fresh tomatoes, but it took an hour or so and a whole lot of dashes and drops to get it right. I think I could get into making different sauces. Too bad they have such a high bar to reach. Even the sweet potatoes I cooked were the best I’d made with a grill. The secret was to double wrap them in foil and put them right in the fire. On Sunday when I went out to the porch to put the cover on the table, I could still smell the chicken from the night before. It made my mouth water then and I’m getting hungry writing this now. Yesterday we ate too much pizza too late in the day to have dinner. Tonight, the fridge will not survive the attempt. I’ll apologize in advance for the pictures I’m about to share. They depict acts that not everyone will be comfortable with. They are definitely NSFW (not safe for work), if only because you will need to leave work immediately and get you some chicken. Only it won’t look like this and you’ll just have to imagine something that tastes good when you eat whatever unfrozen caveman TV dinner you get your hands on to satisfy that delirious craving for smoke, sweet, salt and secret ingredients.

dirty bird...