I'm a political junkie. I read the blogs, watch that TV, give a bit of coin. But I keep this blog away from that. You can find plenty of other folks on the internets smarter, pithier, and more dedicated than me. The world already has too many blogs dedicated to ranting and whining.

But having said that, I'm not above poking a little fun.

So I've gotten into creating ringtones -- and no, I don't really know why. Here's the most recent from last night's final (thank god!) debate.

Download joe-the-plumber.mp3
Download joe-the-plumber.m4r (iPhone)

You know when there's sandstone on the blog that I've been out to Utah. We've recently returned from a trip out west, mainly hanging around Boulder, UT. I'll yap about the hikes and post photos over the next week or so. Continue reading »

UPDATE (11Sep08): As promised, I think things are back to normal now. Had some issues with the Gallery2 installation, but solved that this morning.

So why the hassle, you might ask.  Since ever, I've run this website on a 'shared host' -- which means that someone else put the software on the server and kept it updated. But since I do this web thing for a living, I thought I should 'man-up' and get a VPS (Virtual Public Server). With a VPS you still share a physical server with other folks, but you get to do pretty much anything within your little part of it.   It's like the difference between an apartment and a condo, with the VPS being the condo. So I've painted the walls and replaced the appliances of my VPS. As always, more to come.

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Hey folks, I'm moving the website to a new server - even as you are looking at it. The bad news is that I'm still working on getting the photo gallery back up. The good news is that's all I can tell that's broken.

I'll update when things are back to normal. Continue reading »

Saturday mornings in the late summer I head to the Courthouse farmers market. There I witness the miracle of fresh tomatoes. For ten months out of the year the stores have these objects labeled as 'tomatoes' which are really just organic versions of plastic fruit - very suitable for display, but lets not try to eat them.

Then for August and September, these 'tomatoes' become transformed into succulent, juicy, heavy, edible food.  And they arrive in such a profusion of colors and shapes.  And every one is tasty.  It's the closest thing to a miracle that my eyes have ever seen.

So in celebration of this year's harvest, I thought I'd share a tomato with you Continue reading »

Here's my first movie, it's about a minute and a half long. Lemme know what you think.

Any recipe that begins, "Take the carcasses from the freezer..." might cause you to think twice about your eating habits. But rest assured, it'll be worth it and won't require much trauma.

I make my own chicken stock. Every month or so I buy a whole chicken and roast it -- good eats, easy prep. After the eating, I place the bones in a gallon freezer bag. And in a few months, I have quite the collection.

When it's time, I take all the bones out and place them on a couple of baking sheet, and send them to a 400? oven until they're all nice and brown. Then the bones go into the pot. But what to do with all the brown crusty goodness stuck to the bottom of the pan? Slap that sheet on the burner, pour on some water, scrape until it dissolves, and add it to the pot with the bones.

Check your fridge to see what vegetable flavors you'd like in there with the bones - I like onions, carrots, celery. Then fill the pot with water until it barely covers what's in it. Bring to boil and simmer for 2 or so hours.

After it cools, stick it in the fridge overnight. Next day skim off the fat from the top, and you're ready to go. Continue reading »

And for the last Scan-o-rama feature, a slide from eighteen years ago to the day. Here are some Independence Day fireworks from 1990.
I hope you've enjoyed Scan-o-rama. I'll have some other features coming soon.

And what would Scan-o-rama be without a fat baby picture. Here's me from 1964. I look to be pleased with my Christmas.