beef

The first of a few posts from over the weekend. Every Memorial Day Weekend, there is a festival called FolkLife at the Seattle Center. I went down Saturday afternoon for about 4 hours. I listened to some randon music, not really paying attention, mainly sun worship and people watching. The bluegrass guys on the lawn were great. The last stop of the day was the chinese puppet show. The monkey skit was fantastic.

click on photos for larger image

Here are some additional photos from folklife that Scott took.

during the spring, we managed to double the size of our garden. past summers have shown good results and our grass wasn’t in the best of shape – so attack it we did. It involved a little grass killing. I took my handy shovel, cut the sod into squares and then flipped it over. Not the most pleasant task but with about 250 sq ft, it took about 6 hours. we let the grass sit this way for a few weeks hoping to snuff out its life but the grass grew better when it was covered in four inches of soil than when it was exposed to light.

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I must buy this album when it comes out in August.

Willie Nelson goes reggae

It is quite warm today. The average temperature in May is about 64 degrees. Currently, the weather people claim it is 90 degrees outside. It looks like the weekend will have a little more of the same, contrary to previous reports of rain for the weekend

Once again, sack leads and I follow. His post of shouting to the world that he is the future beer butt chicken commander stuck in my mind as I went to the store yesterday afternoon looking for something delicious to grill. I paced back and forth in front of the meat section, trying to find the right piece of meat to cook and eat. My eyes glanced at the chicken section and there was my answer. Whole chickens – $0.49 per pound – limit 2 per day. My mind raced, sack had just completed such an adventure recently, I too am capable of sucj fancy grilling. I snatch the chicken from its precious space on the shelf and sprinted to exit. I threw my money at the cashier and laughed maniacally – Chicken you have met your match!

We rode home in quiet solitude – the chicken and I. No words were exchanged, yet I felt a vibe from the chicken. It somehow knew the unspeakable things I was going to do.

My little birdie was 4.5 lbs. I gently laid it in the pan. Prepared the dry rub (hungarian paprika, dry mustard, salt, and brown sugar). I gently massaged the rub onto the flesh of the chicken. A fresh Miller High Life was cracked open, a few gulps to reach the desired level and then I stuffed the can with rosemary, jalepenos, and garlic cloves. I gently plopped the bird on the can and stood him up for the world to see. I put him in the fridge to sit and think about the choices that had been made in his life as I went oout to prepare the grill.

My grill came with two metal containers that let me isolate the coals so I can get the “indirect” heat. I went with the no pan method and planned to set the chicken right on the grill. the grill was progressing nicely and I brought out the star of the show and placed him gently on the grill. I had doubts as whether or not my lid would fit but to my suprise there was plenty of space left. Here are some action shots of the bird in action.
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Last night I had the entertaining experience of getting into a 5 car pile up on the middle of I-5 during rush hour. Luckily I was recipient of the least amount of damage.

The Circumstances
It was sunny and rainy. Lots of spray was being thrown all around by the various big rigs that were populating the highway.

The Incident
I’m driving along and see this big wall of spray in front of me as it dissipates, I see a couple of cars that have severely reduced their speed. I brake to avoid a collision, which luckily I am able to do. I take a quick look in my rearview mirror and witness the chaos that is going on behind me. I knew at the instant I looked I was going to get hit. The impact came. It wasn’t too bad and I was able to quickly drive my car off to the side of the freeway.

The Result
I exited the vehicle, went to the back expecting the worst. To my surprise the damage was minimal. The back right of my car got clipped – a smashed taillight and the real panel has a small dent. The car behind me had managed to stop but then he got rear ended by another car behind him which pushed his car into mine. Neither of those two were able to drive their cars home. They were both taken to the hospital. One guy had his neck numb up on him and the other had chest pains. I assume the chest pains were a result of slamming against his steering wheel. The guy who hit me managed to lock his keys inside his car when he got out to take a look at the scene. I let him hang out in my car as we were waiting for the copes to show up. It was odd/humorous at the same time. He was chatting on the phone talking about what a fool he felt like for sitting in the car of the guy he hit.

The Big Clean-Up
Not having my car totaled and no injury had its drawback in the short term. Everybody else had their cars towed away – so they either got a ride to the hospital in an ambulance or left with their respective tow truck driver. I had to sit there the whole time waiting for all the other people to get sorted out. I ended up spending an hour and a half by the side of the road.

Epilogue
I’m going to take the Benz in to the auto body shop across the street at lunch to get a quick estimate. I should get all the information (police report, insurance stuff) about the accident tomorrow in the mail. And then it will be off to talk with the insurance companies for the other parties involved. This will be interesting to see how this works out. With this many people involved I’m sure in will be entertaining/frustrating at the same time. With a relatively small role I played, it should be over quickly.

I’ll post a picture of the intense trauma my tail light went through later today.

Monday Update

I got one estimate so far today. Approximately $1,200 to fix the tail light and quarter panel. The tail light assembly runs $400 new. Ouch.

Bringing it all together.

Google

I’ve been waiting for this. Leave a post if you want a gmail address.

I’ve found an interesting plugin that will allow me to show on my site what I’ve listened to recently called WP-itunes. I was able to get it to work on my sidebar. Scroll down and to the right. That shows the last 10 songs I’ve listened to. I’m also trying to have an archive of the last 50 albums/songs I’ve listed to. However, I don’t really know how to get that to work. I’ve put the function on a static page but that does not work. Any help or assistance would be greatly appreciated. If it works, I’ll even send you a picture of my self. Hee hee.

Update Well. I’ve found this plugin, RunPHP. I’ll have to try it tonight and see if it works. It looks positive. I’ll have to give the picture to myself.

Amazing. Only about four years too late.

Microsoft Notebook: Tabbed browsing set for Internet Explorer

My tank was filled today with 100% biodiesel at Dr. Dan’s Alternative Fuel Werks . Currently, it runs about $0.50 higher than regular diesel but things seem to be expanding and the price shoud drop as time goes along.

I will have to investigate the possibilities of making my own biodiesel. I think that it is more of a long term goal. I need to find some other people to share the labor/startup cost/space issues.

Here is another interesting site with fun facts about biodiesel.

So now, I am constantly hungry driving around, thinking about fried chicken.

I tried upgrading to WordPress 1.5.1. Why? Because they said it was a good idea. Who are they? You know? To say the least, it was disastrous. The instructions made it seem relatively easy. I thought I had uploaded everything and then all I got was an error message when I went to my home page. Well, the one consolation prize was I had at least downloaded and saved everything on my server before. All I had to do was delete everything and upload it back to its original state. I’ll try again soon. For all I know, I was only one file away from having it right.

update sat 11pm i tries it again and it seems to be working like it is supposed to. i’ll hunt around and explore and hope things still work.

when our eyes first met
there were just three sides i bet
i thought something was missing
not just you and me kissing

people cried out
that you should not be without
not quite a floor, a mystical, magical door……

garage door, garage door (x2)
let me enclose you
make your three sides four

the first step i took
was not so beautiful to look
it was used, it was worn
but i bet it kept you warm

inside and out
we carried on and about
the spring had sprung, to simplify, satisfy your……….

garage door, garage door (x2)
let me enclose you
make your three sides four

three years we spent together
through all kinds of weather
but you failed to open
that told me you’re broken

i went to the phone
dialed the number at the tone
placed my order, i’m installing, recalling my…..

garage door, garage door (x2)
let me enclose you
make your three sides four

i have yet to post any pictures of our lovely pugs. we acquired tiberious and delilah from the seattle pug rescue society in may 2004. they are currently 7 years old and are quite the terror. the favorite pastimes include licking their lips, barking at moving objects, and cornering small cats. their goal is nothing short of world domination. here are a few pictures of them in action today eating their greenies.

delilah is in the foreground

delilah

tiberious

and in two short saturdays! the pug gala! where there will be hundreds of pugs parading around. aaaah, the good times. supposedly they are filming a documentary about pugs and the people who own them, that should be interesting.