At Last...

An honest liberal:

I DON'T SUPPORT our troops....
- Joel Stein, L.A. Times

We know, Joel. And as much as I loathe you for saying so, I have to give you props for admitting what your fellow moonbats won't.

Thanks for the Memory to Blogfather Rusty.

The Worst of Times, The Best of Times

This past weekend was chaotic. We had to leave Springfield at 11 PM Saturday night to respond to a family emergency in Portland. Didn't get home until 9:30 last night. Yesterday's posts were from my SIL's place in Portland.

It's interesting that it should occur on Saturday, since that was the one year anniversary of the day The Feared Redhead's water broke -- 6 weeks ahead of schedule. thus began the two most eventful weeks of my life, full of fear and sadness and frustrations and eventually joy and pride beyond my feeble attempts to describe it. What started with the worst night of my life ended in one of the best -- the birth of my son.

And through it all, my Sister In Law put her life on hold to come down here and help out while TFR was in the hospital, awaiting the arrival of The Lad. Despite the far less pleasant circumstances this weekend, I'm glad I could do the same for her in return.

Major League

Thanks for the Memory to Sailor Republica.

It looks like my candidate for governor, Jason Atkinson, has finally received national attention and national support. Go give it a read.

St. Filibert Bless Us

I'm probably a bit biased since they grow here, but all my life, my favorite nut has always been the filbert. That's what most Oregonians call hazelnut. It's an older European word for the nut, named so because they're harvested close to the same time of the year as St. Filibert's Day. Oregon is the nation's top producer of the nut, growing about 99% of the US crop. In fact, I live about a mile from the nation's oldest commercial filbert orchard, Doris Ranch. Worldwide, the top producer is Turkey, but the Oregon crop gives them competition. In recent years, we've had a problem with Eastern Filbert Blight, a fungal infection that came from the east coast (thanks ever so much) and for which there is currently no solution except the destruction of the infected orchard. Let's hope we get a handle on it.

One of the things I've grown to appreciate about filberts is their versatility. Their rich, mild flavor goes equally well with sweet or savory foods. I've used them in desserts, in salads, in main courses, and of course, they're popular as a flavoring for coffee.


It's been a while since I blogged on any new recipes, mostly because life has been too hectic for me to experiment with any. But this weekend, I tried two new ones, both of which went over well. Both used filberts. They neet some tweaking before I consider them ready to post here, but I intend to try them both again as soon as possible. One was a pork medallion recipe using a grannysmith apple and filbert stuffing, the other was crab ravioli with a filbert pesto. The medallions were perfect, but I'd like to work on a reduction sauce for them next time. The pesto was also almost perfect, but the ravioli needed something -- mainly something to mic the crab meat with to make it hold together while scooping it onto the ravioli dough.

So for those of you who enjoy my recipes, sit tight -- I'll get more to you ASAP.

Who's Your Daddy?

Blogfather Rusty and his Jawa Report assist in the capture of a suspected Terrorist!

I'm so proud!

That Time of Year

Dungeness season...


Mmmmmm....

Recipe Blegging

That's right, blegging, not blogging. I'm looking for suggestions and help with preparing a specific dish.

As part of a renewed effort to lose weight and be healthier, and in addition to eating smaller portions and less red meat, The Feared Redhead and I are trying to use as many organic foods and organinc or free range meat as possible in our diets. That's easy to accomplish here in Eugene/Springfield, as we have a local chain of grocery stores (Market of Choice) that fall somewhere in the gray area between a regular grocery store and a health food store, and thery have an excellent meat department for such things (wild salmon and steelhead, free range meat, including buffalo, etc.). Yesterday while I was in the store, I noticed a sausage that intrigued me. It's a raw sausage, in natural casing, made from cranberries and free range lamb. The links are fairly long. like kielbasa or linguica. I'd like to try my hand at it, but I'm stumped for a good recipe. I'll try to think of something, but any suggestions would be appreciated.

No Bad Hair-esy Day for Me!

Thanks for the Memory to Samantha at Uncle Sam's Cabin.

You scored as Chalcedon compliant. You are Chalcedon compliant. Congratulations, you're not a heretic. You believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man and like us in every respect, apart from sin. Officially approved in 451. Chalcedon compliant 100% Pelagianism 58% Nestorianism 50% Apollanarian 33% Modalism 33% Adoptionist 33% Monophysitism 33% Socinianism 0% Monarchianism 0% Arianism 0% Docetism 0% Gnosticism 0% Donatism 0% Albigensianism 0% Are you a heretic? created with QuizFarm.com

The Power of Uff Da Compels You

Thanks for the Memory to Ace of Spades HQ.

As if Jesse Ventura wasn't bad enough:

Satanic vamp for Governor

From: Reuters

From correspondents in Minneapolis

January 13, 2006

MINNEAPOLIS voters, who eight years ago elected a former professional wrestler as their governor, may find a self-proclaimed vampire on the ballot for the office this year.

"Politics is a cut-throat business," said Jonathan "The Impaler" Sharkey, who said he plans to announce his bid for governor on the ticket of the Vampyres, Witches and Pagans Party.

More here.

The Feared Redhead is from Minnesota. I'm just going to file this away so I can show it to her the next time she gives me grief about Oregon weirdness.

A Link About a Link

Thanks for the Memory to Blogfather Rusty at the Jawa Report.

For those that claim there was no Saddam/Terroristm link.

Not that I've ever argued that such a link was the reason, or even the most compelling reason, for the war. Just saying.

Though I Dream in Vain

My best friend Brian (aka known as "Lurch") knows full well that while I'm not the physics nut he is, I do take a passing interest in astrophysics (he's a quantum man) and astronomy. So when he comes across articles that he thinks will be of particular interest to me, he sends them my way.

Today when I got to work, an email from him was waiting for me with a link to the following article:

STARDUST ON FINAL APPROACH FOR LANDING

NASA's Stardust mission return capsule will land Sunday, Jan. 15, at approximately 2:12 a.m. Pacific time (3:12 a.m. Mountain time) on the Utah Test and Training Range. Stardust is completing a 2.88 billion mile round-trip odyssey to capture and return cometary and interstellar dust particles to Earth.

All of which is very cool. And I'm sure that Lurch thought it would be particularly of interest to me because of this:

The Stardust capsule will be visible from parts of Nevada, Utah, California, Idaho and Oregon when it returns on Jan 15 at 2:57 AM MST (09:57 UTC).

(bold added by me)

Unfortunately, the person at NASA who wrote that article either isn't familiar with the Oregon climate, or forgot what time of year he's talking about. I'm sure that east of the Cascades it'll be visible, but on this side of the mountains, the only way anyone in that viewing arc will see it is from a plane. For those of us poor schmucks on the ground, the only thing we'll be watching fall from the sky is a lot of little drops of water.

Oh, well, I still hope we collect some cool data.

Combining Today's Themes and Memes

I went looking and found a quiz:


You are Book, the Shepherd. Your mission is to
bring the Good Word out to the heathens and to
act as a spiritual guide. Your faith can
withstand any logical assault and your hair can
scare even the most hardened soldier.


Which Firefly character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

One More Reason to Appreciate Marrying a Redhead

I can tell (or link to) the best blond joke ever without fear of domestic disharmony.

Michael, There's a Meme Up Ahead!

Thanks for the Memory to the LlamaButchers (Baywatch, huh? Posers).

Knight Rider Hasselhoff You are Knight Rider Hasselhoff. You kick ass, you're dead sexy, AND you are the proud owner (or perhaps life partner) of a talking black Trans-Am. What else could one ask for? Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Parenthood Cliches

Today's cliche is "They grow up too fast!"

Well, yeah, they do. Two weeks from tomorrow will be The Lad's first birthday. And already there's a part of me that misses how tiny, how new he was, how sweetly he lay in my arms. What I DON'T miss is the lack of sleep, and the constant worry that comes with caring for a preemie. And while he's gone from a cuddly bundle to an active, stubborn, wiggly 1-year-old, he's a fun, bright, loving, sweet 1-year-old. I've started calling him my little M-109, because he's now self-propelled and he's definitely an area effect weapon. He has a vocabulary of 3 words (hi, dada, and baba). He's eating solid foods, and likes the flavor of barbecue (that's my boy!). At Christmas time, we had to buy him his first sippy cup.

When he first becam mobile, we weren't sure how he was doing it, because it went on for some time before we actually witnessed it happen -- we were only able to observe the end result. We'd put him in the middle of the Turkish carpet, turn away, and when we'd look back, he'd be at its edge. I suspected tectonic/seismic activity or some sort of wind or other meterological phenomenon, The Feared Redhead was advocating an aliens/levitation theory. Eventually we realized he was scooting. The scoot has evolved into a sort of semi-scoot/semi-crawl, where he puts one leg in front of himself and one behind, with the one behind being in a typical crawl stance (knee to the floor, sole facing backwards), and then uses that leg and his hands to pull himself along.

But now the fact that he's developing so quickly has caused us some concern (beyond the obvious realization that our living space must be rearranged with logistics, not esthetics, in mind). We've seen him begin to make the first halting moves towards standing -- he is able to push up with his hands and get his knees off the floor. But he hasn't actually started crawling yet. And we've read studies that indicate that babies who skip the crawling stage have developmental issues later on -- crawling is supposed to develop all sorts of motor skills. So I'd like to see him crawling soon.

But aside from that, he is the most beautiful little boy I've ever seen. See?





He's a little shy, but once he warms up, he's a flirt, and he's already differentiating between the sexes and devoting his attention to the ladies. He's also amazingly strong, and has on one occasion (unintentionally) made daddy bleed (apparently babies are excellent head-butters). I'm already trying to teach him more words, words that will serve him (and me) well later on: Free Agency, First Round Pick, Signing Bonus....

Ultimately, as much as I miss the newborn stage, I'm having the time of my life getting to know him, seeing his personality develop, interacting with him as a tiny little human being.

And even when he's no longer my baby boy, he'll always be my son.

Shiny

Guess what arrived in the mail from Amazon yesterday?


I've finally got my DVD's, you can't take the sky from me.

Expect reviews to follow within a few days.

UPDATE:
Thanks for the Memory to The LlamaButchers.

A Serenity sequel? The Shininess just keeps getting... well, shinier.

Bumper Sticker Bull S.... Consider the Alliteration

Thanks for the Memory to Russell at Mean Mr. Mustard 2.0.

The bumper sticker I specifically have in mind is the one that says, "Pro Family, Pro Child, Pro Choice."

The next time you see it, remember this quote, directly from the NARAL blog:

I could not be more sick and tired of the intolerable misogynist position that women should (a) suffer horrible emotional debilitation over the supposedly traumatic decision to excise a few parasitic cells from our personal organs..

(bold text added by Russell)

Oh, yeah, that's pro-child.

Commendations

As I alluded to in my entry regarding weird things about myself, I am an addicted gamer, both of RPG's and wargames (particularly sci fi), and in fact belong to an email discussion group for one set of such games. Today one of our group members sent notice that he must unsubscribe because he is redeploying to Iraq. He is a U.S. Army combat engineer. As one who dallies in observing military history (I am by no means a historian, and hesitate to even call myself a 'student'), I have developed a great deal of respect for those in the military whose jobs require not only that they go in harms way, not only that they actually fight, but that they busy themselves with fulfilling duties other than returning fire while in the enemy's sights. At the top of my list is combat medical personnel, but combat engineers come a close second. I thank John for putting himself in harm's way so that I can be free to do things like post to this blog, and I assure him that he and his brethren are in my prayers, and I will commend his care to Our Heavenly Father.

I would also like to commend to you his livejournal blog. It's well written, and if you want to get a glimpse of the way a modern military man thinks, it's insightful. These are the people that stand in the Thin Red Line, the least we can do is try to understand them (since understanding is a component of appreciation).

Besides, how can you not like someone who reads Victor David Hanson? And the essay at VDH linked to is excellent, even if not written by Victor himself.

Some Dreams Come True

A while back I blogged on a dream I had about a revived version of the Camaro. I was checking my visitor stats today, and noticed that the entry was somehow linked to an article on Ford's plans to release a Boss Mustang to compete with the new Dodge Charger and new Chevy Camaro.

What's this, you as? A new Camaro?

I'm glad you asked:




More proof there is a God.

No, Son, it's ok. Those are tears of happiness!

The Spirit (of the Meme) Moves Me

Thanks for the Memory to Smallholder at Naked Villainy. Since he won't tag anyone, I'll tag myself:

UPDATE:
I hadn't completely replaced Smallholder's TV shows with my own. That has been corrected.
UPDATE II:
Ditto on the movies.

FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE
1. Parking Valet
2. Mail Clerk
3. Dishwasher
4. Technical Support agent

FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER
1. The Princess Bride
2. Cold Comfort Farm
3. A Mighty Wind
4. Serenity

FOUR BOOKS YOU COULD READ AGAIN & AGAIN
1. The Killer Angels
2. Lord of the Rings
3. Armour by John Steakley
4. God in the Dock by C.S. Lewis

FOUR CITIES/PLACES YOU'VE LIVED IN
Going backwards chronologically
1. Fort Wayne, Indiana
2. Tenmile, Oregon
3. Filer, Idaho
4. San Diego, California

FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH
1. Firefly
2. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
3. Anything on the Military Channel
4. Good Eats

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION
1. Istanbul, Turkey
2. Yellowstone National Park
3. Lemolo Lake, Oregon
4. San Diego, California

FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY
1. Naked Villainy
2. Darth Apathy
3. The Llama Butchers
4. Ace of Spades HQ

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE FOODS
1. Seafood (almost any)
2. Italian Food
3. Mexican Food
4. Barbecue

FOUR PLACES YOU'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW
1. In a log cabin in Alaska
2. Camping
3. Ireland
4. Portland