When I was much younger we would have family dinners at my Mamaw Ruby’s house. During the summer months there would be a really good desert that I really loved. It was walnut cake. It didn’t have any icing on it but it was SOO good. It’s been years since I’ve had it. The other day I was sitting in my room thinking about how good a piece of it would be.

For a couple of weeks now I’ve been thinking about picking up a wall clock. I’d like to have one so when I’m working on a project for someone in a different time zone I can know what time it is there. I have a Firefox plugin for this, but, it’s much easier to just look up at a clock.

Last night I needed to go and get some water from my Mamaw Ruby’s house. We also needed to take some fish eggs down to my Grandma & Papaw’s house. They eat them, I don’t see how. They don’t look very appetizing. Anyways. Before we went to get water we went ahead and took those eggs down there and they were just getting back from my Mamaw’s house. They were out there going through some of her things. Pulling things of value out, just in case something was to happen to the house. It wouldn’t surprise me if the house is over a hundred years old. It may be younger, but, it’s definitely old!

Back to my point. When my sister and I went into my grandparents house my grandma asked me if I wanted a piece of walnut cake. Also, a few minutes later my grandpa asked me if I needed a clock.

The cake was really good. It wasn’t the same type I remember having when I was younger because it had icing on it. The clock was one they found in my Mamaw Ruby’s house. It was still in the box, never opened. It’s in the shape of a book. On the left side is the clock, in the middle there is a ribbon for a bookmark and then on the right side is a poem:

Don’t Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill, When the funds are low and the debts are high, and you want to smile, but you have to sigh, When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest if you must, but don’t quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns, As everyone of us sometimes learns, And many a failure turns about, When he might have won had he stuck it out; Don’t give up though the pace seems slow, You may succeed with another blow.

Success is failure turned inside out, The silver tint of the clouds of doubt, And you never can tell how close you are, It may be near when it seems so far; So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit, It’s when things seem worse, that you must not quit.

Things like this make you wonder, if not realize that there is something out there watching out for you.

Technorati Tags: god, higher power, religion, clock, cake, mamaw, papaw, grandparents, house, walnut cake

I’m finally able to publish this video now that I’ve got my feed issue straigtened out. There wasn’t really a major issue with it, just had to move all my videos over to my web host since Vimeo doesn’t like for people to directly link to full resolution videos on their servers.

This video is of me making a drink I concocted while I was housesitting for my sister. I also added in clips of me talking about taking a bubble bath. I hope you’ll get a kick out of that part.

If you’re wondering how to make the Crangeberry Tea, which is a recipe I came up with off the top of my head. It consists of blackberries, cranberries, frozen orange juice, ice and sweet tea. Blend it. It’s rather seedy but it was really good, at least I thought it was.

Crangeberry Tea (MP4) (7.64 MB)

Technorati Tags: tea, crangeberry tea, cranberries, blackberries, orange juice, frozen orange juice concentrate, ice, sweet tea, blender, bathtub, fatties, obese

I feel as though I’m walking around like a zombie. Instead of looking for brains I’m looking for a day where I don’t feel extremely exhausted. It’s really annoying to get out of bed tired, do work exhausted but go to bed not tired and ready to do anything.

Some bad news. Not for you. Just aggravating for me. Since Vimeo doesn’t like for people to link directly to full resolution videos on their site anymore, unless the people clicking the link are Vimeo users, I’m going to move all my videos back onto my hosting account. The videos will download slower but my feed will work again and I don’t have to require visitors to set up a Vimeo account to be able to link directly to the full resolution video on Vimeo. It’s aggravating but it will be better, even if the videos download slower.

Some good news. I’m now only needing about $150 to purchase the Mac Mini! YAY! I have so far received $40 in donations and the rest of the money is money that I’ve been scrimping and saving. I’m also waiting on a couple of clients to pay me. Once they do and I save up a little bit more money I’ll be able to buy the Mini. Hopefully. As long as nothing else comes up. I am going to wait until after WWDC before I buy one that way just in case Apple releases a new Mini, which is doubtful but would be very nice (1 GB RAM standard, SuperDrive and a dedicated graphics card, RIIGHT, whatever, DREAM ON), I won’t kick myself in the pants for buying one too soon.

Technorati Tags: apple, mac, mini, wwdc, rumors, upgrades, mini upgrades, vimeo, tired, donations

The other night I made a really good pot of stew. I got a lot of compliments on it. That’s the first time that everyone agreed that it was really good. I froze some of it and as I was getting it out of the freezer to have again for supper tonight I remembered that I had not wrote down how I fixed it, so I thought I had better before I forget it!

The Meat:

I used deer tenderloin for the meat in the stew. When we have our deer processed we have them to cut the tenderloin into small pieces. I took the tenderloin and washed it, got all the blood out of it that I could. I then took the meat and put it onto the George Foreman grill. I added salt and pepper to one grill full of meat. The next batch of meat that I put on I put some Montreal Steak Seasoning onto the meat. I would have used it on all of the meat but you really don’t want to overpower the stew with Montreal Steak Seasoning.

The great thing about preparing the meat this way is that it is already thoroughly cooked through so when you add it to your stew pot you’re only adding it so it can absorb the flavors of everything else. This will also allow your meal to be finished a whole lot quicker.

The Stew:

Now obviously you can add as much or as little to a stew as you’d like but these are the ingredients I added:

• 1 onion, diced
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 1 tomato, diced
• 3 cans tomato sauce
• 1 can peas, drained
• 1 can green beans, drained
• 1 can whole kernel corn, drained
• 2 can carrots, drained
• 2 tablespoons tobassco sauce
• 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
• Water

Mix all of those ingredients up in a big stew pot. One of the reasons this meal was quick is because I did not put any potatoes into the stew. The potatoes would have taken a long time to soften up. If you want potatoes but still have a quick meal you might consider using canned potatoes.

You might also want to do the stew before you fix the meat on the grill. This way your stew is already getting cooked while your meat is cooking, which lessens the cooking time. It also allows you to simply add the meat to the stew pot as it finishes cooking on the grill.

I didn’t specify an amount of water I used. I used almost a gallon but not completely. I didn’t want the stew to be too thick but also not too thin. This is one of those things that you just have to decide for yourself with your own eyes. However thick or thin you think the stew should be, adjust your water accordingly. If you add too much water and want to get it thick again, add another can of tomato sauce. Keep tomato sauce on hand, it’s useful in a lot of things in the kitchen. Any brand will do, it’s all the same. The cheaper, the better!

The stew is done once the green peppers have softened and the onions have went somewhat transparent. In my opinion, the stew will get better over the course of a couple of days. If you can’t eat it all in a few days, freeze it like we do. It will last for at least a month in the freezer. It’s really nice to be able to pull it out of the freezer on a night you don’t feel like cooking, throw it into the microwave and have an almost fresh bowl of stew. Fresher than what you’d get from a can.

Technorati Tags: cooking, recipe, stew, venison, deer stew, venison stew, stewpot, southern food

Tortellini is a ring-shaped pasta typically stuffed with (but not limited to) a mix of meat (such as pork loin, prosciutto crudo, or mortadella,) or cheese ([such as cheddar or parmesan]). Originally from the Italian region of Emilia (in particular Bologna and Modena), they are usually served in broth, with cream, ragù, or similar sauce. - From Wikipedia

Although this tortellini is not authentic, according to the Wikipedia entry. It was really good. As you can see from the image above and in the video, I served it with garlic bread, salad and sweet tea to drink. It was really a delicious meal.

I’d like to make a special thank you to Shawno and Justin for their donations. I truly appreciate it. Thank you!

Garlic Mushroom Tortellini (MP4) (52 MB)

So tonight I am back home. I stayed at my sister’s house for the past week, house sitting for her. No that does not mean I was sitting on her house! It’s been such a great week. To be honest with you, I really wish I was still there. It was so very nice to sort of be out on my own. Even though I wasn’t. I guess it really gave me a taste of what it was like. Not really, I didn’t have to pay for anything and there was food there already. So maybe just a tiny slice for tasting. I’m a bit wore out though from all the cleaning. I honestly don’t mind cleaning, I’m domesticated, but, it sure does wear Miss Meltdown out!

I done a whole lot of software reviews this past week. VMware Fusion, Parallels Desktop and Innotek VirtualBox. All three of those are Mac virtualization products. I also wrote a review for Apple Aperture as well as a couple of other things, if you want to read those, read them on my tech blog. I tried to review as much software as I could up there since my sister just got her new Intel iMac. It’s really nice! I really can’t wait to get my new computer. I doubt that I’ll be able to get an iMac, maybe just a Mini. I’ll really miss not having that gorgeous display though. However, the Mini is much more attainable. Oh, btw, I’m getting closer to getting a Mini. Anyways. On with the other things I done this week.

Although I kind of hate when people make posts about what is upcoming, since, they never do turn up, I will say that I did do a lot of videos. I’m not sure how many I will publish.

Since November of 2005 I have been avoiding television like the plague. Mainly because there are no good shows on it, especially since where I live we can’t get cable, can’t afford satellite so we only get 7 channels on the bunny ears. While I house sitted for my sister, who has the satellite TV, I turned into an HGTV and Food Network junkie. If the TV was on, and it was a whole lot while I was there, those were the only two channels I had on there. I just love watching those shows. Seeing gorgeous homes and watching people cook. I think my favorite show on HGTV was “Divine Design.” I liked it because the host was pregnant and a little quirky, sort of like Molly Wood from CNET.

I suppose that is it for now. Hopefully I can get some videos out soon. Hopefully. I’m not making any promises though!

President Bush does not want to get our troops out of Iraq. OK, I’ll try to tell you something that you didn’t know already, since the fact that he wants to stay in Iraq much longer is obvious, at least to smart people.

The Army plans to spend $284 million this year on armor kits, which also include improved latches and hinges for the heavier doors. The money was in the Iraq spending bill President Bush vetoed last week because it contained a troop-withdrawal timeline.

The quote above comes from a story on USA Today published a day ago. It further proves the point that our President is willing to put the lives of our troops on the line just because he does not even want to talk about a timeline. I think that is pretty sorry.

This occupation of Iraq, and yes, it is an occupation, reminds me so much of Deep Space Nine. On DS9 the Cardassians occupied the Bajoran home planet, Bajor. They occupied it for 50 years. The Cardassians thought the Bajorans didn’t know how to take care of themselves and thought they were doing a favor to them. The Bajorans finally won the war and took their planet back simply because the Cardassians underestimated the Bajoran will for freedom.

How does this occupation of Iraq remind me of Star Trek? Ok, think about it like this, we went in there to help liberate these people from an awful leader. Once we got in there and we took care of the problem we realized that we could occupy the country and take whatever we want all the while pretending to be a good samaritan.

Humvee doors can trap troops

Technorati Tags: iraq, war, bush, douchebag, troops, humvee, usa today, star trek, bajoran, cardassian, george w douche

Last night I made some meatballs that I thought were really good so I thought I’d make sure to get the recipe onto my blog so I wouldn’t lose it! I don’t recall how much of each ingredient that I used, I just kind of added a little bit of this and a little bit of that until I thought it smelled right.

So the first thing I did was took the ground beef, the usual 3lbs that we get on sale at the grocery store, put it into a large bowl. I then added a little bit of soy sauce, chili powder, montreal steak seasoning, barbecue sauce (Jack Daniel’s, spicy original), onion powder, garlic powder and 2 eggs. I think that is all I put into them. If we had onions and green peppers I would have diced those up and added them in, but of course, we didn’t! If you’re wondering, the eggs help keep the meatballs from falling apart.

I mixed everything up with my hands and then rolled out 1-inch balls. I didn’t measure them of course, just estimated. Some of them were about 2 inches. The 3lbs of meat made about 2 & 1/2 plates of meatballs.

Once I had got the meatballs rolled out I put them into the frying pan and fried them until they were done. Rotating them occasionally so that all sides got browned. After each batch, it’s best to clean the junk out of the frying pan. You don’t have to wash it, just scrape all that junk out.

Once I had got them all fried up I put them on paper towels so that the remaining grease could drain. Once I felt they were as un-greasy as they would get, I put them into the croc-pot. Once they were in the croc-pot I poured two cans of mushroom gravy over them. I let them cook for a while to let the flavors soak in.

With the meatballs we had mashed potatoes and a can of peas. It was really good. I am going to have some for my lunch today!

Technorati Tags: recipe, meatballs, mushroom meatballs, food, cooking, culinary, kitchen

Last night Rebecca asked me if I would make a video for her. A video of me running across our field to the “Sound of Music” opening theme song. I told her I would do it as long as she got me the music and as long as it wasn’t raining. Well, she got me the music and I said I’d do it today. Well, a few minutes ago I walked up the hill to the field with camera and tripod in hand, fully intending to do the video. I came around the corner of the field and started walking further up into the field. THEN, all of a sudden right in front of me was a big HUGE black snake darting off into the woods. It was HUGE. It was thick and long. I IMMEDIATELY turned back and headed back for the house. I will not be going back up to that field until winter time! Sorry Rebecca, maybe next winter I’ll re-do the video, but hopefully by then I’ll be living in a city where HOPEFULLY snakes don’t make public appearances!

Ok, I have to calm down. I hope I don’t start breaking out like I did the last time I had an encounter with a snake. They really scare me. Thank God for guns with rat shot!

In this video I show you how I make a really, really good Turkey Club Sandwich. As I sat here and watched this video compress and transcode I wanted to run to the kitchen and make another one. However, I’m really trying not to! I’m on a diet after-all!

Please note: I am not responsible for injuries that come about from the use of a George Foreman Grill, toaster, or knives!

Turkey Club Sandwich (MP4) (33MB)