I MacGyvered Some Fries Tonight

I thought french fries would be good to accompany supper tonight, so I fired up the oven to about 425 and went to the freezer to pull out the....oh, cr@p! We were out of fries and I didn't want to go to the store for just a bag of frozen fries.

However, I did have several potatoes on hand. And a knife...erg! The one I wanted was in the dishwasher which was barely into the wash cycle.

I pulled an apple corer out of a drawer. It's one of those doohickeys that not only cores the apple, but slices it into wedges at the same time. I found that it also works well on potatoes, with the core being (bonus!) a cylinder of potato. It was much faster than slicing those potatoes into wedges.

Next step - putting the wedges into the baking pan and brushing them with oil. Except I didn't know where the little basting brush was. 

Not a problem! I put the wedges into a zippered plastic storage bag, along with a little grapeseed oil (because that was what we had), closed the bag and shook the heck out of it for about 10 seconds. Voila! Evenly coated potato wedges!

Now I poured them onto the baking pan, sprinkled the wedges with seasoning, popped them in the oven and half an hour later we had the best fried (well... baked) potato wedges we've had in a long time.

Maybe I should write this down, in case I want to do it again.

Oh, wait!  
I just did!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

This day commemorates the activities of the tiny fishing village of Pollo del Mar, which had a cannery, a bakery, and not much else. The people of the town were tired of their diet of fish and bread. One day, however, a crate washed ashore and changed everything. Inside the crate? Five jars of mayonnaise.

The baker sliced loaves of bread and some guy named Charlie mixed the mayo with tuna from the cannery and the community discovered that their food supply would go farther, and was tastier than plain tuna and bread.

Every year the people of Pollo del Mar celebrate the anniversary of when the five jars of mayo washed ashore.

I'm sure there is probably another version of why Cinco de Mayo is celebrated, but I thought this story should be thrown into the mix as well.

*Ding!*

Ahhh... My chimichangas are ready!

The Joke's On Me

This past Saturday, at some point, I twisted my back but didn't think anything about it at the time.

A little bit later I walked up a flight of stairs and things got all sparkly, kinda like what would happen at the onset of a migraine I guess, but I'm not prone to migraines. Again, I thought it was no big deal, and I was probably still a little dehydrated from giving blood earlier in the week and then fasting on Good Friday.

Yesterday (Sunday) I noticed the pain in my back. Also, it would occasionally shoot down my leg while walking.  Yep, I must have pinched a nerve.  Been there, done that, and ibuprofen should work.

This morning the pain is still here and now it hurts even when I'm sitting.  More rest and now a hot pack thrown into the mix.

I had plans for April Fool's pranks for others today - not myself!

Hello World

I'm currently teaching two classes, three days a week at the main OSU campus in Stillwater, OK, and one class on Thursdays at the OSU campus in Tulsa.  Additionally, I pick up extra hours working at a second job.

Both jobs require my focus and attention, and I really don't need extra distractions to divert that attention.  As a result, I set my cell phone to vibrate or off when I'm teaching, working at my other job, or driving to one location or another.

In other words, I've disconnected myself from the electronic tether that seems so ubiquitous these days.  At first, I found it somewhat disconcerting to not being able to be reached or to reach out and check for messages.

I overcame that odd feeling, and I've found that I'm really starting to like escaping that electronic leash, even if it's for a short time.  Actually, I've been extending that time of freedom, because I really like reconnecting to the world - the world that has been around a few billion years before cell phones, the Internet, and the wonderful electronic gadgetry humans have created in such a short period.

I acknowledge that I belong to two worlds - the affinity with nature guy that I've always been, and the gadget-loving guy that I began to turn into probably after seeing my first sci-fi movie.

It's the nature-me that I've enjoyed getting back into touch with.  I can't afford to wander off into the wilderness and live out of a tent, but I can certainly unplug and reconnect with the land, the plants, the birds, the awesome power of nature for awhile each day.

I love it when I grab my backpack, loaded with materials for class, turn off the phone, walk out the door and head toward campus.

Hello world! Thanks for waiting for me.

Third Time's A Charm

   I like to sing.  Unfortunately, I was heavily influenced by parody songs thanks to listening to Dr. Demento when I was young as well as listening to and watching "Weird Al" Yankovic videos.  As a result, I tend to make up words to songs, even though I know the lyrics.

   When I sing with the choir, I've usually had the song drilled into me that I automatically sing the correct words, although I keep the music in front of me in case I'm tempted to goof up.  Choir practice has many times been disrupted by my giggling fits due to me substituting words for what we should be singing.  They haven't kicked me out, although I guess practices would be shorter if I behaved myself.

   A few weeks ago I read, on the Internet where everything is true, that BC Clark, an Oklahoma City jewelry store, was going to be filming people singing their famous (at least to those who grow up in parts of Oklahoma that receives TV and radio broadcasts from OKC) jingle at Penn Square Mall the day after Thanksgiving this year.  Since I was going to be visiting my dad in Edmond, I decided to take the kids to the mall and sing on Friday.

   We got to the mall without mishap, but trying to find a place to park was horrible. I'm not a Black Friday shopper and I thought that if the parking lot was crowded people would go somewhere else and come back when the parking thinned out.  Nope. There were people parking at the ends of rows, making up their own parking places and making it almost impossible for anything bigger than a Mini-Cooper to get by.  And there were people who decided to jump the curbs and park on the hilly, grassy areas between the parking lot and the street.  And, of course, there were people who lurked about, stalking shoppers walking out to their cars, then planting themselves in the middle of the lane while impatiently waiting for the shoppers to load up and leave.

   I got lucky, as I usually do, by remaining patient. We found a spot that opened up just as we turned down the aisle, and we weren't too far from an entrance into the mall.  It probably took us twenty minutes to find the spot, but we were good to go.

   Once inside the mall, it took about fifteen minutes to find where we needed to be.  Ten minutes of wandering and five minutes more after my kids said, "Hey, Dad, why don't we look at a map of the mall?"

   We got to our destination, signed the release, and waited for our turn to sing.  We knew the song by heart, so we didn't even ask for a run-through.

   The cameras were pointed at us, we were given the signal, and we began to sing a capella.

   As I mentioned at the start of this, part of my misspent youth included listening to song parodies, and I've developed a case of what I've explained to the kids as "Musical Tourette Syndrome."  I know the right words, and I often mean to sing the right words, but I just start singing the wrong words.
  
   Anyway, we were making it through the song all right until we hit the last line and instead of singing "...BC Clark's Anniversary Sale!" I sang "...GC Clark's Anniversary Sale!"

   The kids started laughing.

   The director said, "Let's do another take."

   I said, "Oh dear, did I say 'GC Clark?"

   The director nodded while my kids were trying to supress giggles.

   So we began Take Two. The song is not intended to be sung as rounds, like "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," but the three of us began at three different times, with me singing something completely different.

   "Oops!"

   More giggles.

   "Okay, I'll count you in," said the director.

   And the third time was a charm.

   I don't know if they'll use our correct version for the TV spot this year, but we sure had fun doing it.  

...I wonder if they've ever considered putting together blooper reels?

Whatcha Doin?

   “What did you do today?” was a question my mom asked a lot when I was a kid.

   “Nothing,” was my most frequent reply.

   When I ask my kids the question, and they give me the “Nothing” answer, I follow it up with my reply which goes something like:

   “Nothing?  Really?  Do you know how hard it is to do nothing all day?  There are so many things to do, you probably spent a good deal of energy avoiding doing them just so you could do nothing.”

   I learned, or rather taught myself, that doing nothing is not all that easy.  Even if I slept all day, at least it was something - and would be quite an accomplishment because I’m a daylight person.  If it’s light outside, I’m probably active.

   Reflecting on what I've done all day, although my mom doesn't ask me any more, is really a good brain exercise.  I have a pretty good memory, and I like to keep it in shape.  It comes in handy sometimes - like earlier this week when a good buddy from grade school asked if anybody had some good memories of the summer our 6th grade baseball team went from years of a “Charlie Brown” team to finally making it to the city championship.
  
   I did have a memory to share - a vivid one - of a certain game that ended after four innings.  It was more than just a rain out, it was a baseball-sized hail, lightning-flashing, frog-strangler of a rain out   I can still remember being pelted by hail (fortunately, I got hit by the dime-sized hail and not the bigger stuff, although something of a decent size nearly knocked my ball cap down over my eyes).

   I have lots of memories that I like to share, some of which I include on this blog page.  Some of the stories have been repeated around the table when getting together with family.  I've included some of them in past, and I’ll probably write down more.  There are some family favorites (or maybe it’s my ability to tell the tale) that get repeated often - like the time I thought I was going to have to dig to China, and the various DIY projects with my dad and sister that managed to somehow go awry, injuries that could have been worse, etc.

   But one of the keys to recalling these memories is to occasionally sit back and reflect on what happened.  And to recall the feelings, the colors, the sounds, the smells, the tastes, and anything else of those events.

   So if you see me sometime and it looks like I’m doing nothing, there’s a good chance that my mind is whirling through events - of the day, or possibly of the past.  I’m always up to something - or so I've been told. 

   Can’t argue with that.

There Will Be Blood

   Just a couple of days until I donate some blood to the Oklahoma Blood Institute (OBI).  I took an extra few weeks between donations so I could be in this Fall's Bedlam Blood Drive between OSU and OU. 

   It doesn't take long to give blood.  Plus, there will be Hideaway pizza, other snacky things, t-shirts, and I believe a chance to win tickets to this years OSU-OU Bedlam Football game down in Norman.

   If you live in or around Stillwater, come to Gallagher-Iba Arena or Kerr-Drummond and give up some blood.  You might save a life.  And your blood gets replaced pretty quickly, so why not just do it?