Snow

The weather geeks are forecasting a bunch of snow in Oklahoma beginning later tonite and tomorrow morning.  Up to 14 inches possible in Stillwater.  The storm dumps snow here and then moves northeast to dump more in the areas where Karen and Sandra probably already have a bunch of snow.  I guess hell is freezing over or something.  It was 78 degrees on Saturday.  The high will be around 15 tomorrow and Wednesday.  That's just crazy. 

Debbie and I were married on Feb 3, 1978.  It snowed that week.  I remember someone, probably Dan Mathis, tossing snowballs at us as we left the church after the wedding.  Guess what?  We'll have snow on the ground for our anniversary this coming Thursday.  Why does that matter?  Well, it doesn't really.  I just thought of it.  hee hee.

Have a great day and hope you have a warm place to ride out the storm.

Cool stuff

Eating lunch and surfing the www.  Found some interesting photos.

Something old.  Crumbling church somewhere in the world.

Something new.  Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  Tallest buildings in the world until 2004.  The total height of the building is 1483 feet from the ground to the top of the needles.  The World Trade Center towers were about 1365 feet tall. 

I have no idea what this is, but it is cool.

Glen Canyon, Utah.

Double O Arch in The Arches National Park, Utah.

Arch somewhere near the ocean. 

Cool place for lunch.

Warm afternoon spot.

Cold afternoon spot.

I can do without the ice in my drink, fella.

Wow.

Volcano somewhere in the Pacific.  Hawaii perhaps.  Another Wow.

Just cuz I like rhinos.

The Mob

A bunch of mob members were arrested yesterday by the FBI.  The radio morning show that Debbie and I listen to on the way to work was discussing the arrests because of the mob members' nicknames.  The radio show hosts found a website of some kind and was able to generate a nickname for hosts and anyone who called into the radio station.  Sooooo, I hadda find a website and do the same thing for our family.  hee hee hee. 

I used The Sopranos - Mob Names website to create the following:

Roy "The Toweler"
Debbie "The Blossom"
Tara "Twinkle Toes"
John "Hair Lip"  (sorry, Oliver.  That's what it came up with)
Megan "Lonely Guy"
Kelsey "Cedar Teeth"
Evie "The Xerox"
Maggie "The Ox"
Oliver "The Toucher"

I used the mob name generator website to create the following:

Roy "The Vampire"
Debbie "The Tiger"
Tara "The Undertaker"
John "The Yak"
Megan "No Thumbs"
Kelsey "The Blossom"
Evie "Danger Prone"
Maggie "The Venetian"
Oliver "The Mannequin"

That was fun and a totally unproductive way to start the morning.  Fuhgetaboutit.

Autocorrect

I saw this website referenced on another website during lunch today.  I had no idea what it was, so checked it out.  It's hilarious.  I don't know if all of the things on this site are true, but they certainly are funny.  Those of you with an i-phone probably know what it all means because it might have happened to you.  I guess the "autocorrect" feature is like the predictive text?  Dunno.  Autocorrect must try to guess what you are trying to text and inserts a word so you can text faster.  Apparently, autocorrect does not always pick the proper word.  Check it out.  It's a hoot.

Damn you, autocorrect.

Disney Trip

I was erasing old files from my work computer and found a bunch of pdfs that I made showing the locations of Targets, Wal-Marts, K-Marts and gas stations along the route between Greenville and Orlando for our 2008 trip to Disney World.  Kinda funny.

The Year You Were Born

Check out this link to see what happened your birth year.  what happened in my birth year
This is for me:

In 1959, the world was a different place.

There was no Google yet. Or Yahoo. Or Jimtraber.net, for that matter.

In 1959, the year of your birth, the top selling movie was Ben-Hur. People buying the popcorn in the cinema lobby had glazing eyes when looking at the poster.

Remember, that was before there were DVDs. Heck, even before there was VHS. People were indeed watching movies in the cinema, and not downloading them online. Imagine the packed seats, the laughter, the excitement, the novelty. And mostly all of that without 3D computer effects.


Do you know who won the Oscars that year? The academy award for the best movie went to Ben-Hur. The Oscar for best foreign movie that year went to Black Orpheus. The top actor was Charlton Heston for his role as Judah Ben-Hur in Ben-Hur. The top actress was Simone Signoret for her role as Alice Aisgill in Room at the Top. The best director? William Wyler for Ben-Hur.


In the year 1959, the time when you arrived on this planet, books were still popularly read on paper, not on digital devices. Trees were felled to get the word out. The number one US bestseller of the time was Exodus by Leon Uris. Oh, that's many years ago. Have you read that book? Have you heard of it?


In 1959... Cultivars of plants named after this date must be named in a modern language, not in Latin. Castro's troops approach Havana. The island of Addu in the Maldives declares independence. Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state. Women in Nepal vote for the first time. The Marx Brothers make their last TV appearance, in The Incredible Jewel Robbery. Import tariffs are lifted in the United Kingdom. Two monkeys, Able and Miss Baker are the first living beings to successfully return to Earth from space aboard the flight Jupiter AM-18. Singapore becomes a self-governing crown colony of Britain with Lee Kuan Yew as Prime Minister. The Central Treaty Organization CENTO is established. The original Mini designed by Sir Alec Issigonis is launched. The first section of England's M1 motorway opens between the present junctions 5 and 18. Three years after its first telecast, MGM's The Wizard of Oz is shown on television for only the second time, but it gains an even larger viewing audience than its first television outing, spurring CBS to make it an annual tradition.


That was the world you were born into. Since then, you and others have changed it.

The Nobel prize for Literature that year went to Salvatore Quasimodo. The Nobel Peace prize went to Philip J. Noel-Baker. The Nobel prize for physics went to Owen Chamberlain and Emilio Gino Segrè from the United States for their discovery of the antiproton. The sensation this created was big. But it didn't stop the planets from spinning, on and on, year by year. Years in which you would grow bigger, older, smarter, and, if you were lucky, sometimes wiser. Years in which you also lost some things. Possessions got misplaced. Memories faded. Friends parted ways. The best friends, you tried to hold on. This is what counts in life, isn't it?


The 1950s were indeed a special decade. The American economy is on the upswing. The cold war betwen the US and the Soviet Union is playing out throughout the whole decade. Anti-communism prevails in the United States and leads to the Red Scare and accompanying Congressional hearings. Africa begins to become decolonized. The Korean war takes place. The Vietnam War starts. The Suez Crisis war is fought on Egyptian territory. Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and others overthrow authorities to create a communist government on Cuba. Funded by the US, reconstructions in Japan continue. In Japan, film maker Akira Kurosawa creates the movies Rashomon and Seven Samurai. The FIFA World Cups are won by Uruguay, then West Germany, then Brazil.


Do you remember the movie that was all the rage when you were 15? Murder on the Orient Express. Do you still remember the songs playing on the radio when you were 15? Maybe it was Rock Me Gently by Andy Kim. Were you in love? Who were you in love with, do you remember?


In 1959, 15 years earlier, a long time ago, the year when you were born, the song Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by The Platters topped the US charts. Do you know the lyrics? Do you know the tune? Sing along.


They asked me how I knew
My true love was true
Oh, I of course replied
Something here inside cannot be denied ...


There's a kid outside, shouting, playing. It doesn't care about time. It doesn't know about time. It shouts and it plays and thinks time is forever. You were once that kid.


When you were 9, the movie Blackbeard's Ghost was playing. When you were 8, there was Doctor Dolittle.

6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... it's 1959. There's TV noise coming from the second floor. Someone turned up the volume way too high. The sun is burning from above. These were different times. The show playing on TV is Bonanza . The sun goes down. Someone switches channels. There's The Bell Telephone Hour on now. That's the world you were born in.

Progress, year after year. Do you wonder where the world is heading towards? The technology available today would have blown your mind in 1959. Do you know what was invented in the year you were born? The Bullet Train.

1959 was a very strange time
A bad year for labor and a good year for wine
Uncle Ike was our American Pal
And nobody talked about the Suez Canal...


That's from the song Post World War Two Blues by Al Stewart.


In 1959, a new character entered the world of comic books: Fritz the Cat. Bang! Boom! But that's just fiction, right? In the real world, in 1959, Bryan Adams was born. And Rosanna Arquette. Nastassja Kinski, too. And you, of course. Everyone an individual. Everyone special. Everyone taking a different path through life.


It's 2011.


The world is a different place.


What path have you taken?

Foraging the antique stores

Or at least trying to.  Debbie and I went to Tulsa Saturday to check out the antique stores over there.  Man, there ain't much.  We found several listed on the www, but when we travelled to the addresses, the places were closed.  One building was actually a new Walgreens.  The original building was gone.  We found a building at another address, but it was obvious the building has not been used for many years.  Other buildings were empty or had other businesses in them.  We went to Jenks and found several antique stores.  Debbie did not find any jewelry.  I saw a few things that I liked, but the prices were outrageous.  I saw a Firestone sign priced at $2500.  I think the seller had one too many zeros and then it was still too high.  Crazy.  Anyway, got to spend time together and had a good meal at Carinos. 

Pozole recipe

This is the pozole recipe that Debbie cooked on Sunday.  I think the amount of cumin is too much, but that's just me.  The amount of red pepper or cayenne might be alot for some of you.  I made me sweat and is definitely a decongestant, which is the way I like it. hee hee.

1 chopped onion
1 garlic cloves, chopped
1 T. salad oil
1 1/2 lbs of pork chopped into 1/2" cubes
1/2 tsp black pepper, cumin, cayenne, ground cloves (I guess that is 1/2 tsp each, but not sure.  That's how the recipe is written)
3 to 5 cups of chicken broth
2 to 3 cups of hominy (drained)
1 cup canned green chilis
(there is a side note on the recipe card that says "3 cans each" of the three ingredients listed above)

Sautee onions and garlic. Add remaining ingredients.  Simmer until done.  Serve with slice avacado, Monterey Jack cheese and soft tortillas or spoon bread.

I didn't eat the soup with the avacado, cheese or tortillas.  I added crushed red peppers to each bowl of soup as I ate it.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!!

It ended tonite with a bang

Literally.  Fourteen-plus years of accident free driving ended tonite on I35 in Oklahoma City.  The 14+ years is how long I have been driving between Stillwater and OKC.  This was actually the first time I've ever had an accident when I was driving.  Rush hour traffic was moving pretty well when suddenly people started slowing down, then moving, then slowing down again.  We were travelling about 50 or 55 mph when suddenly the vehicles in front of us stopped dead in the road.  I slammed on the brakes and was able to stop before hitting the car in front of us.  The car behind us didn't stop and hit us.  Luckily, not really hard.  In fact, our car does not appear to have any damage other than a scraped up plastic rear bumper.  The other car was damaged.  On the way home, Debbie and I noticed some pops and rattles that we've never heard before.  I opened the trunk and the hinges were kind of tight.  So I know something got tweaked.  Just have to take it to a body shop and get it checked out.

The hit was hard enough to tweek Debbie's back a little.  I feel ok now.  Kinda wonder if I'll be sore in the morning.  None of the airbags deployed on either car, which is wierd.  Woulda thought the other guy's bags would have deployed.  Could have been worse and thankfully no one was seriously injured.

Pozole

There is a Mexican soup that I really like but don't get to eat often.  It is called pozole.  It has pork, hominy, green chilis, red pepper, cumin and some other stuff.  I've mentioned it a few times, especially when we are at Mexican restaurants but most places do not have it.  At least around Oklahoma.  Anyway, Debbie found a recipe for it and made some on Sunday.  Man, it was very, very good.  I looked it up on the internet yesterday during lunch.  This started out to be a good idea since I was enjoying it and wanted to learn more about it.  As with some of my inquisitions, I wish I had just enjoyed the soup without the side order of curiosity.  Anyone remember my blog post about the Brazilian wax?  Well, this was almost as bad but thankfully without the videos.  Anyway, pozole was a ceremonial soup in Central and South America,  mostly from Mexico.  Before the Spaniards showed up, the soup would be made using hominy and spices.  The meat would be the cut-up remains of prisoners captured and sacrificed after a battle.  I read this just as I am chewing up a big piece of pork.  Yuck.  Swallow hard and continue reading... When the Spaniards arrived in the New World and Catholic monks started trying to teach the Native Americans about Christianity, the Native Americans replaced the human meat with pork.  In the article that I read, a Spanish monk said the pork was similar in flavor and texture to the other meat.  Well, ok then.  That is effin' gross.  I finished my soup and very glad the recipe changed way, way, way before Debbie made it.

If you want Debbie's recipe, let me know and I will post it here.  The recipe with the pork.

Bar Stool Economics

Bar Stool Economics


Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100 and if they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.)

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20."  So drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected.  They would still drink for free.  But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'  They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33.  But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.  So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $50 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before.  And the first four continued to drink for free.  But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "But he got $9!"  "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got nine times more than I!" "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $9 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Mad dash to the end

Just about to finish a mad scramble to complete a project by end of today.  The end of today is 5 p.m.  About 90 minutes before the end of the day, I received an email from the architect to put next Thursday's date on the drawings.  Very unusual since today is the due date and we always put the due date date on the drawings.  So, I call the architect and ask why we deliver today but put next Thursday's date on the drawings.  "Oh, didn't I tell you we don't need the drawings until next week?  The owner requested some changes and we got a few more days."  Um, nope.  Nobody said a word to us.  Especially when I called your office yesterday to find out if the drawings were due first thing this morning or if end of business day was ok.  "Sorry.  Give us sealed and signed drawings next Wednesday."  Dangit.  A sleepless nite for naught.  Well, nice thing is we are FINISHED ANYWAY!!!  Moving on to a different project starting tomorrow.  I have a strange premonition that sometime Tuesday we will receive a request to change something on the project we think we are finished with today. 

Anyway,  have a nice Friday evening.

Alamo Bowl

Debbie's friend, Angie, lives in San Antonio and works for Valero.  Valero is the primary sponsor of the Alamo Bowl, which is the bowl game in which OSU played the University of Arizona on December 29.  Angie called Debbie the week before the game and said she could get tickets, free tickets, to the game if we wanted to go.  Valero was giving tickets to employees and their family or friends.  We said "yes" and went to the game.  Debbie and Angie have been friends since they worked together at Hardee's in Coffeyville many moons ago.  Many moons.  Like almost 30 years worth of moons.  That's alot of moons.  Kinda like a buttload.  Maybe two buttloads.  That's a bunch, ya know.  Angie got tickets for Deb, Kelsey, Megan, Megan's friend Tomas, and me.  Kelsey got the flu on Monday, so she couldn't go.  Debbie,  Megan and I left before daybreak on Wednesday and arrived in San Antonio around 3:30.  We went to Angie's and visited with her husband Chris and their twin daughters, Sarah and Allie.  Chris cooked burgers, hotdogs and brauts on the grill so we had a great dinner before the game.  Angie, Chris, Sarah, Allie, Deb, Megan, Tomas and I arrived at the stadium about 90 minutes before the game started. It was pretty cool that Angie and Chris wore OSU shirts and both of them attended Kansas State.  Chris took our photo in front of the stadium.  Just as he took the photo, both the OSU and Arizona bands almost ran over us as they marched thru the plaza going somewhere. 

Someone yelled at us, "Look out behind you, here comes the band!"  They weren't lying either!

Angie and Debbie

Megan and Tomas.

View of the stadium from our seats.  Turned out that our seats were on the Arizona fans' side of the field.  All the orange clad folks are over there!  Carl, Cindy, Loren and Renee were somewhere near the far corner of the stadium. 

Bet they were checking out a couple of cute fellas milling around taking photos of the stadium...

Sarah, Allie, Megan and Tomas had seats way up in the upper deck area.

Chris and I walked around the stadium and took this photo of the team just before they started warmups.  This is at the opposite corner from our seats.  I didn't know it at the time, but I believe Carl and Cindy were just below me somewhere.

Debbie and Angie are way over there in the opposite corner.

Back at our seats and watching the OSU Cowboy Marching Band coming onto the field.

A huge flag display during the national anthem.

Pregame coin toss at midfield.

Kickoff!

Took this photo just as OSU scored its first touchdown, but I can't find the guy with the ball!

OSU band at halftime.

Megan, Tomas, Sarah and Allie moved down to our section after halftime.  Megan met one of her friends.

Final score, 36-10.

Trophy ceremony.

Coach Gundy on the jumbo screen.

We waited around forever waiting for them to drop the balloons.  Just as we gave up and started toward the stairs, they let 'em go. 

We had a great time with Angie and Chris at the game.  Thanks to both of them for the tickets and the hospitality.