Life In The Great Midwest

Hester. Prynned.

2008-07-25T07:17:00.023-05:00

It’s that time of year again. The visible signs are everywhere.

Let's see. Back-To-School advertising appears, Menards puts those gaudy outdoor Halloween decorations up for sale, images of hurricanes show up on the national doppler weather radar map and NFL players hold out for more money.

Yep, it’s late July alright.

Devin Hester, the sensational kick return specialist for the Bears decided that he needs more money. His paltry $650,000 a year contract is no where in line with his talent, contributions and potential. He is the latest Bear training camp holdout who is under contract to play. To me he is definitely worth a lot more. But he did sign a contract so there's no sympathy from me. You can find sympathy in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.

Just take a look at his ride. A Chevy Impala? It may be pimped out but shouldn’t that be a Cadiallac Esarape or an exotic Italian race car like the one Lance Briggs trashed last year at 2am and then took off to avoid the dreaded breathalyzer test?? Hester's homeys in Miami must be laughing out loud at this sad chump. A ride like that suits an Englewood crack dealer just fine but an NFL Superstar?

C'mon! With $650,000 per year he can't do better than that? Maybe he is buying a firearm collection like Tank Johnson. Maybe he spends it clubbing with bitches and ho's and gambling boats. Maybe he bought his own boat just like Cedric Benson did.

No wonder he’s a no-show at training camp in Bearbonais. He’s embarrassed to park that ride in the team parking lot next to tricked-out Hummers and exotic italian jobs.

Dan Pompei is a sports journalist and a damn good one. He covers the NFL for The Chicago Tribune. This morning while reading his latest I was shaking my head up and down.

YES! Make Hester trade bait while his value is high. What do you think, Dev?

Here is Dan’s idea and I agree with him 100%.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/cs-080724-dan-pompei-devin-hester,0,129102.column

With Hester the Bears may go 8-8 to bear-ly miss a wild card spot. Without Hester the Bears should go 6-10 to miss the post season for sure. And I am being generous here.

If Bears management is smart this is exactly what they will do. But then again, the current Bear administration’s sense of judgment in compiling a winning roster is about as good as O’Bama’s judgement in selecting ministers, terrorist buddies, real estate partners and eventually a cabinet. (Wretch).

Some NFL owners with fat wallets and inflated egos would love to have Hester. Some would benefit immediately to have this weapon.

Now compare Dan’s idea with the one published yeaterday in The Chicago Slum-Times by Jay Mariotti. Old baloney brain says to pay the man.

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/mariotti/1072152,mariotti072408.article

Jay Mariotti is the worst Chicago sports writer of all time. He cannot carry Dan Pompei’s jock. This is just another example of Jay's observational ineptitude.

Sweep Completed!

2008-07-25T05:21:00.002-05:00

All Star left fielder Ryan Braun watches the ball in the ninth inning yesterday in St. Louis. As Bob Uecker would say - "Get up, get outta here, GONE".
And the Crew complete the four game sweep of the Cardinals in St. Louis. Glorious! Three this weekend with the Astros, then four with the hated Cubs. All we have to do is split those four with the Cubs and we are on our way.

River North Black and White

2008-07-24T22:34:00.000-05:00

Here is a moon peeking up over construction in black and white. The moon was so bright it was a big blob in color. It is great how the moon arcs across the sky silhouetted by the various buildings.

HOT!!!!

2008-07-24T06:28:00.002-05:00

Who is the hottest team in all of baseball right now? Well that would be none other than the Milwaukee Brewers, now only one game behind the most hated Chicago Cubs in the NL Central. CC Sabathia tossed a beautiful complete game shutout yesterday, for the Crew's third win in a row against the Cardinals, and today we go for the four game sweep. That is Sabathia's third straight complete game, a feat almost unheard of in modern baseball. The Cubs better look out, it is only a matter of time.

And the series at Miller Park between the Cubs and Crew July 28-31 will be HUGE. Four big games. All the Crew needs is a split and we are on our way. I went to the Brewers site and the only tickets available for the Monday game are standing room. That place will be rocking.

Proper Nutrition

2008-07-23T05:50:00.002-05:00

This post is a long one about my fitness regimen and how I have needed to change my intake of food to supplement it. I understand if you don't find this interesting, so stop here if you would rather not hear a long and drawn out (and sometimes mildly scientific) discussion of fitness and food.

With summer arriving, it has been hot at the gym. My instructor never turns on the A/C in there - he is old school that way. That is fine with me, but it makes me sweat even more than I already do. My workout schedule on a weekly basis now looks like this.

Monday - one hour strength circuit training, one hour muay thai class, one hour of pad holding for fighters (this is more tiring than you might think) or body boxing with fighters if there is an odd number
Tuesday - off day
Wednesday - same regimen as Monday
Thursday - off day
Friday - off day or optional light five mile run (all miles under 10 minutes)
Saturday - one hour muay thai class, optional light bike ride in summer (20 miles or less)
Sunday - long bike ride in summer, always over 50 miles, sometimes hill work. In winter, treadmill for 5 miles (all miles under 8 minutes) and light muay thai workout

As you can see, in summer I am churning and burning the calories. I always sweat a lot in my workouts, and the level of sweat is increased the hotter it gets. I noticed on Monday after an extremely active weekend that my weight was pushing below 170. I also was feeling ragged - looked like a million bucks, but this situation isn't good. Several people have told me (most importantly, the wife) that I need to stop losing weight and they are right. I think 175-180 is a good weight for me. The only thing is that I am eating everything in sight and still losing the battle. After thinking about this for a while I figured out that my workouts are so intense that I am basically eating myself internally. This is a hard realization to come to for a guy who has been overweight almost all of his life, but it is true. I simply can't eat enough food to give me what I need in my current regimen. I decided to talk to my muay thai instructor. He recommended I talk to the person who sells him his supplements and I did. It was quite revealing.

First off, as I had thought, I am eating myself inside out. Adding the strength training to my other things (which were high cardio to start with) was what pushed me over the edge. After discussing my diet and what I ate with the nutirtion guy, he basically said that I was shorting myself ONE COMPLETE MEAL PER DAY. I knew that I needed to eat more, but not that much. After discussing how the body breaks down food, and the hows an whys of a lot of other things, he came to a few recommendations.

I feel pretty good about these recommendations since I was referred here by my instructor. It is always nice to have a connection.

I still can't believe how far I have come with this fitness thing. When I started riding bike five years or so ago, I weighed around 225. I am now around 170 (that will go up soon) and rock solid. In the end, I will end up eating MORE than I ate before. Pretty weird.

So here is what I am going to try.

Monday and Wednesday heavy workout days:

Breakfast - instant oatmeal
Mid morning - 10-12 oz. yogurt, mixed with one scoop whey protein and a handful of blueberries mixed in
Mid afternoon - one bagel, sliced in half longways, cream cheese on top of each half, with 2-4 oz smoked salmon on top of each half
During strength training workout - Endure mixed in with my water
After workouts - if hungry, banana or other healthy snack

Off days:

Same breakfast
same mid morning snack
for mid afternoon - back off to one half bagel open faced with cream cheese and salmon
normal dinner portions with family at home

I will probably have to back this diet down just a bit in winter, as the bike riding goes down considerably.

So here we have it:

Now a few words about the supplements.

Whey protein - the brand that I bought will give me an additional 23 grams of protein per serving (one scoop in with the yogurt). I am told it is a pretty basic product that many people use. I was also told that many women in particular use this as a meal replacement to lose weight. The scoop is only 120 calories, 20 from fat. But that 23 grams of protein is 45% of your daily requirement if you are on a 2000 calorie diet. Which I am not going to be on. But with my new diet this will help immensely. The only non natural ingredient in the whey protein is sucralose, which is an artificial sweetener to make it palatable.

Endure - this product is a little more exotic than the protein, but is needed to rebuild my muscles after strength training. The guy I spoke with said that the newest research says that you need to start rebuilding your muscles as soon as you are done working out, and that the best way is to ingest this stuff during your workout. He claims that the product will even give me an energy boost during the workout - that remains to be proven. It looks to be basically an amino blend that aids in the recovery of muscles. I don't know a lot about the science behind it, but did a little research on L-Leucine, one of the main ingredients. Looks legit from reading about it here, and here. There are also a bunch of others in there, like L-Valine, L-isoleucine, and others. I am basically going to trust the guy. The product looks to be very popular in certain circles.

Hopefully this new diet and supplements will help me improve my muscle mass and have more energy. And gain weight. I never thought I would have to say that.

Around River North By Night

2008-07-22T20:52:00.000-05:00

River North has a big concentration of furniture stores, tile stores, home stores, and the like. I used to joke that if you had to take a trip in the wilderness and could only shop around here you'd die in about 2 days because there is literally nothing to purchase within 5 miles that is essential for human survival.

Many of the stores, especially in the Merchandise Mart, are paranoid about letting you take pictures, as if it contains state secrets or something. I had a guard tell me to put away my camera while taking a picture of a window display one time. I didn't know that high end furniture and housewares was so cloak and dagger...
This store has some sort of weird kitchen "pod" from the future.
Hastens Beds... they actually sell a sixty thousand dollar bed (although I don't know if it is in stock in the store, since I have never set foot in the place). They have a big show room and a flat screen TV in the window showing a video of how the beds are constructed, by hand. If you check out the link to their site it is pretty racy on the front page, not sure if I understand the connection but I'll take it.
Here is another weird trend... furniture about 2 inches above the floor. This is a very high end place and I can't read the tag so I am sure that you are paying big $ for these couches. Note the weird color patterns, too.

Long Day, Long Night

2008-07-22T06:25:00.003-05:00

Saturday I literally lost five pounds. Let me give you the secret to quick and easy weight loss.

Sweat.

I had Muay Thai "camp", which was a three hour seminar at the gym. We went over a lot of techniques that we hadn't gone over before, and it was great. The only problem was that is was sweltering at the gym, and I could not stop the sweat faucet. Once we began our rounds, it was all over. I wasn't the only one suffering with the sweat rolling into my eyes. There were about 30 people at the seminar, from all around the state.

At the end we were supposed to have sparring rounds, but that was cancelled, as it was far too hot for us to continue. Our technique rounds were pretty laid back, but sparring is always a little more physically demanding, something we really didn't need.

So home I went for chow and a shower, and back to the gym for the fights. They lasted almost 4.5 hours, I think there was something like 22 fights in all. Some were kids, most were novice adults, and we had a few full amateur rules.

Novice is no punching to the head (kicks to the head are OK), no elbows, wearing shinpads and headgear, and 50% contact. Full amateur is everything goes, except elbows, and everyone is wearing shinpads and headgear. There were some wars in the amateur class. I had designs at one point to try getting into the ring someday, but this night has totally convinced me that it isn't in the cards.

I missed a lot of the fighting as I was in back holding pads and warming up fighters. The fighter that I did corner won in a third round knockout, where he delivered a crashing right cross "down the pipe" as we like to say, right on his opponents chin. Awesome!

There was a pretty good crowd there, and a lot of fun was had. Nobody got seriously hurt, but a lot of people were pretty banged up. Ah, fight night - like nothing else.

A Day On Lake Michigan Part 1

2008-07-20T22:12:00.005-05:00

Today it was my plan to publish an illustrated essay on the fine points of grilling walleye filets. Plans change. And that's a change I can believe in.

Today we went out for perch on Lake Michigan. Damn good thing too. IF we got a limit it would have been perfect. While we failed in quantity we gained in quality. Here is the big one, a 13” super jumbo.

While dragging the boat westbound on I-80 making my way to Pastrick Marina in East Chicago IN at 6:30 am my bro called form the Mik-Lurch bait shop on US 41 near I-80 in Hammond IN, where he was getting our bait. The bite was on at Calumet Harbor just west of the IN-IL state line. At least that was the word at Mik-Lurch. The big perch were finally in they claimed. Their advice was to launch at Hammond Marina on the IN/IL state line instead of launching at Pastrick Marina in East Chicago where the bite was slow. It would also save fuel running west from Pastrick,Marina, about ten miles east. We were going to fish on the IL side with IN licenses.

Oddly, the IL DNR has perch closed in IL waters during July. Why? Conservation? Since Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin DNR don’t close the season in July who the hell knows. Fortunately since Calumet Harbor enjoys a reciprocal agreement between IL and IN DNR we can fish there with IN licenses and take a 15 perch per day per person limit in IL. Let’s go.

We never have done this and it's news to me. Call it my small revenge on the Crook County Pirates. Heh.

Weather was iffy. Forecasts have been screwy lately with rain on days when not predicted and no rain on days when predicted. And the media is convinced that man-made Gorebal warming is sure thing? They are predicting atmospheric conditions a decade out? What a hoax.

On the drive west the sky was blue, the air was dry for July and it looked great. With a south wind for three days it was the perfect set-up for perch on our end of the lake. As I approached the state line with boat in tow low clouds blanketed the lake. While the scene looked grim it never did rain. With a solid cloud cover fishing should be good and I would be able to forsake slopping SPF 40 grease on my skin.

Calumet Harbor is where large ships enter the canal leading to the Port Of Chicago. And we sure saw a lot of large ships coming and going. We headed for the 20+ boats fishing a small area outside the entrance to the canal.

So we hooked up, dropped our minnows and commenced to hackin’. The drift was perfect, a light S – SW wind allowed us to go near shore and blow out slowly, covering a lot of territory to find the schools of perch. We watched many boats anchored nearby hauling in jumbo perch as we passed, slowly drifting by. Frustrating it was.

On one drift the bro suggested anchoring near the other boats who were scoring jumbo perch within sight. Since I was in the wheelhouse my plan was to blow farther off shore just for shits and giggles. Let's fish where they ain't. It paid off. This time.

Pow, Bing! Two jumbo perch hit my offering well beyond the anchored boats.

Two minutes...two super jumbos going 13". Fish on!

The bait-swiping fish were there too. The Round Nose Goby. A shit fish. Good for nothing but trouble in the Great Lakes. Originally from the Caspian Sea these invaders came into the Great Lakes via the dumped water ballast from Russian freighters. Here’s a Goby.

The sun came out around 11am, the wind died and the fish shut down. Been there, done that.

We stayed out until 1pm and our take was 10 fish total, far from the 30 we were allowed. It was a fine day and it was just great to be on the water again.

A Day On Lake Michigan Part 2

2008-07-20T21:57:00.004-05:00

Watching large ships pulling in and out of the Port Of Chicago was interesting. This is a freighter loaded with illegal Mezcicans headed for good paying jobs that Canadians don't want in Quebec.

We kid.

We figured that boat was loaded with midwestern grain headed for an overseas profit.

At one time we watched two tug boats leave the canal and stop offshore not far from our boat. They stayed for almost an hour.

Then a large cargo ship pulled in. This was a real show. The ship was empty judging by how high it sat in the water. Our guess is that it was coming in to haul out more midwestern grain.

As we watched one tug pushed the bow of the ship out, away from the harbor.

The other tug went behind the ship and attached a line. Soon it became obvious that the tugs were going to pull the ship into the canal stern first. They did.

Since we usually fish away from any ports this was a new experience and made for an interesting day on the water.

For the near future, if the bite is in Cal Harbor we'll be back.

A Day On Lake Michigan Part 3

2008-07-20T21:30:00.012-05:00

Here’s the catch. This is our perch rig of choice. The minnow is called a “baby roach”. The drop weight is 3/4 oz and the snell hooks are #4. Cheap rig.

Now, I don’t know for true but there is another type of minnow sold locally called a “golden roach”. It looks nothing like a roach and it comes with silvery scales, no gold at all. They are usually 4-6” long and used for northern pike and largemouth bass. It can make a great ice fishing bait hooked under tip-ups in deep water. I guess these baby roach’s are golden roach adolescents or teenagers. Or something like that. Demographics can be a real bitch.

Anyway….

While our outing for perch on Sunday was not perfect the quality made up for the quantity. Folks, these are super jumbo perch. Two years ago at this time we caught three limits of perch in the 10-14” class, at times hauling in doubles in a morning's trip. When the bite is really hot three limits can be had in an hour, no shit. That’s 45 fish similar to this and we have done it more than once. When the conditions are right and the bite is hot.

Last year the winds were consistently from the north, northwest, northeast or east. That’s a lousy perch wind and ‘07 was not a great year simply because we could not get out often enough due to conditions. When we did the bite was slow.

As of Sunday the ’08 bite is just coming on and we look forward to another two months of hauling in super jumbo perch.

This is the big one for today. 13". Not bad.

There's a perch with shoulders.

Here is how we rate perch.

9” is a nice fish. Cleaning them is a pain in the ass but they are tasty and fun. A limit of 8” perch is nothing to complain about. If they’re less than 8”, cleaning them is a pain and frying them is like eating potato chips. But very tasty potato chips they are.

10-12” perch are jumbos. Easier to filet and more meat per cut. Juicy.

12” plus is a super jumbo. We keep walleye this size. Perch this size is unreal. Who knew? One report out of Michigan City IN a month ago was confirmed that a fisherman caught a 16” perch. That’s a trophy!

Here was my day’s take. We keep a few small perch. In case we run out of minnows, a perch gullet makes fine bait. I think of it as bait insurance.

In this photo the two perch on the left are 13” super jumbos.

The four to the right are in the jumbo class.

The others were bait insurance andall but one is edible. By humans. So how about he one on the far right? It was as small as our largest minnows.

The super jumbos are finally in. We’ll be back for more. Soon.

Gulp!

World's Best Bratwurst - The Results

2008-07-19T20:54:00.003-05:00

This is it. No contest.

Since Blogger allows only 5 images this is the results for the post below. (Scroll down)

Tomorrow: My first fresh corn on the cob with grilled walleye.

World’s Best Bratwurst - The Prep

2008-07-19T20:42:00.007-05:00

I’m not too picky when it comes to Bratwurst. Hillshire Farms and Johnsonville deliver a fine mass-produced product. It’s a quick and easy grilled tube steak, much more better than a simple hot dog.

A few packs of these fell into my lap last weekend. These are special. This represents the Holy Grail of bratwurst. I am not worthy.

These are Miesfeld’s Grand Champion Bratwursts. To make a comparison, these brats to Johnsonville are like grocery store steaks to Allen Brothers prime.

The bro was in Koehler Wisco on a holiday trip a few weeks ago. He does that every year. On his return trip he stops at Miesfeld’s Market in Sheboygan to load up the cooler with the best brats on earth.

To the folks at the Wisco State Fair, Miesfeld’s Brats are the best, winning the brat cook-off each year, hence the name “Grand Champion Bratwurst”. The only thing missing would be a personal endorsement from Bret Farve, Brat Starr or Ann Althouse. How about Dan From Madison? Hey Dan, can I get an amen?

These tubes end up as silky, juicy cylinders of tenderness. The spice is perfect and they snap when bit allowing juice to run down your chin in orgasmic gastronomic delight. The texture is smooth with no hint of fat chunks or bone. There are notes of sage with a clean finish but well-balanced with a perfect blend of splendid mild spicyness.

Heh.

Brats can be tossed on the grill and eaten just like hot dogs. That’s for lazy folks who do not appreciate a gourmet brat. It is fine in a pinch but I prefer to enhance my encased meat.

Most important when grilling the best brats is the prep. Here is a trick I learned from a Sheboygan Wisco dude who hipped me into the secret of a well-grilled brat. If you disagree I want to hear about it.

First, melt 1 stick of butter in a skillet

Add a few thick slabs from a huge yellow onion and allow them to sweat in the butter with the help of salt and pepper. Sautee for about fifteen minutes, these onion slabs should be really thick, more than ¼ “.

Deglaze the skillet with two 12 oz cans of beer, bring to a near boil and then pour everything into a pot and heat. Add the brats and allow to simmer for about fifteen minutes but not long enough to fully cook.

DO NOT BOIL!!!

Bring your grill to 500 degrees or better and place brats on to the hot grate. If using a gas grill turn off the center burner and arrange brats in the middle.

Note: On a charcoal grill pile hot coals in the middle and make a circle of brats along the outer edge, away from the direct heat.

Turn down the outer gas burners to low. Cover and wait five minutes.

Turn brats and wait another five.

Add brats to pot with onions, butter and beer.

Apply brats to the bun of your choice and toss on a few onions too. Add coarse mustard or, in my case, some spicy BBQ sauce too.

Around River North By Day

2008-07-19T08:45:00.000-05:00

I saw this advertisement on a local bus stop... and had to laugh when I saws the "Choose Authenticity" slogan on the bottom. I am certain that actual "authentic" Russians don't drink blackberry flavored vodka... likely either the cheapest rotgut available (in a plastic bottle) or something super-expensive for their billionaire robber barons.
Another reason not to own a nice car in the city... you can see the two different piles of smashed glass where someone knocked out car windows while stealing something inside. The term for banged up cars like that is "citified".
Has there ever been an oriental rug store anywhere that wasn't perpetually going out of business? It seems to be a long term trend... or maybe a business model where you claim a big sale and then set up shop elsewhere.

I GOT WOOD

2008-07-19T07:50:00.010-05:00

Most folks in my neighborhood have ceramic logs in a natural gas fed fireplace operated by remote control. Clean. Upscale. Easy. So why do I prefer to take the dirt road when an interstate runs parallel to my destination? If you have to ask you wouldn’t understand anyway.

Many harsh winter days can be turned into a pleasurable, toasty warm experience with a roaring fire in a wood burning fireplace or cast iron stove. Aroma therapy. Visual stimulation. It’s not easy to think of frigid winter day on July 20th. But if you are a “woodie” like me mid-summer means making sure there is enough wood to enjoy while watching October Notre Dame football Saturdays all the way through the Chicago White Sox opening day.

Seasoned hardwood is expensive to buy if you choose that route. A face cord may last a month or so in my fireplace. My season stockpile has to be a whole cord or more. Running out of wood in February is not an option. To understand what a cord of wood is go here:

http://www.woodheat.org/firewood/cord.htm

Last time I bought a face cord of cut, split and stacked hardwood the cost was $145. That was 18 years ago. Now I pay with sweat equity. We call it FREE.

Last year I took down two ash trees on the property. Those Emerald Ash Borer critters kilt ‘em both. Instead of waiting for 100’+ trees to fall on the country bunker they had to go down under human control. But first we had to pry Algore and Sheryl Crow away from them.

After allowing the 18” thick, 3-4’ wide trunks to sit a year to dry and cure it was time split and stack. This is hard labor but I like it. Years ago I would split by hand swinging a maul. Like any smart modern male I know the best solution to a laborious problem is…an internal combustion engine. Yep. Assisted with hydraulics a gas powered wood splitter shaves 80% of the labor time but it still ain’t easy.

It took four hours to split two trees worth of wood with a power splitter. By hand figure two days or more. It took me two days for the old body to recover from operating the power splitter. Most logs were over 100 lbs., easily and there were at least three dozen.

Real wood warms you three times, once when you cut it, once when you split it and once again when you burn it.

Last weekend it was time to stack. It was also time to update the wood rack with some horizontal support so for the first time ever I will end up with a tarp covered pile of wood. In January all I have to do is lift the tarp and haul some to the front porch instead of breaking ice clogged logs.

Today the wood rack will be finished and I can go fishing for perch tomorrow. Out on the lake there will be no thoughts of a Midwestern January blizzard. But I will be ready for it.

Think late November. Think football on a cold winter Sunday. Do you know where YOUR Bret Farve will be? I hope he will be sitting by a roaring fire. Watching Aaron Rogers being sacked.

Merry Christmas, ya'll.

Big Bear Hug

2008-07-18T18:28:00.003-05:00

Serious stuff is happening at the gym. Last weekend we sent four fighters to an amateur Muay Thai tournament in Iowa, and we came back with two championship belts and one runner up. Not a bad ratio. There were people from all over the US there.

I have been pushing one of the fighters in particular very hard in workouts to get his full potential. When I found out that he won, it was almost like I won a title belt. I saw him and after he got mobbed by a bunch of others, he spotted me and came over to me and we bear hugged each other. He thanked me for holding pads for him and pushing him to be his best. I almost cried. After we hugged, I yelled FUCKIN' A this is AWESOME. His belt looks great. It will be on display at the gym for a few weeks.

This weekend we have Muay Thai "camp", which is an all day seminar, followed by sparring. People from all around the state will be attending. I look forward to body boxing with many people that day to test my skills. I think I will do well. I plan on doing like I usually do, and letting my opponents punch themselves out, then taking it to them after they are exhausted later in the rounds. Nobody has better cardio at the gym than me. Nobody. And many folks from all around Wisconsin will be there too. I will depend on my cardio to defeat them as well if we are matched up.

After that, I need to go home and shower off and eat, and get right back to the gym for our first ever fight night. We have a bunch of amateur bouts scheduled, and I will be warming up fighters holding pads, and cornering a few. I will not let my fighters lose. No way. Tomorrow will be a long, but very good day.

Linens N Things

2008-07-17T05:25:00.004-05:00

There are a few things in life that are simply not for me to understand or comprehend. For me, one of those things is the concept of linens. In particular, the linens in my bathroom and on my bed. I think I am missing part of my brain, because no matter how many times my wife tells me the rules for the bed and bath stuff, it just Will. Not. Sink. In.

I will never understand which towels are to be used, and *NOT* used in the bathroom. When I go to a friends house, I simply air dry my hands or wipe them on my pants quickly, not wanting to be embarrassed by using the WRONG TOWEL at the guests house. I think it is the wife's job to keep changing the rules. So far from what I have gathered I am allowed to use certain towels, but not others. I think the real tiny ones are for drying your paws, and the big ones are decorative...sometimes...or not. I gave up on trying to figure this out several years ago, and ONLY use the towel that I dry off with after my shower to dry my face off after shaving. I think that the only way I could ever get a grasp on the concept is if my wife posted a diagram on the mirror that looked something like this, with a photo of every towel in the bathroom. Not my bathroom, by the way.

This way, I could refer to the photos and understand which towels I could use, or not use.

Why do we have little bullshit towels all over the house that we are not supposed to use? Are they for gremlins? To ward off evil spells?

Even worse is the bed deal. What the hell is a sham? I had never even heard the word used as a term to describe something pillow related until I started dating.

My wife (like every woman I have ever known) has close to seventy eight pillows on there, most of which are not used. Every evening I have to clearcut a path to the actual place that I lay down and rest through a forest of blooming pillows. In the photo below is my bed, which is pretty unremarkable except for the fact that we have a pillow farm that has sprouted on top. In this photo the one pillow in the far back left of the photo (tan in color) is the one I actually use to sleep with. WTF?
But I didn't post this photo so you could all marvel at my place of rest, I took it for another reason. Since my mind goes into total vapor lock when my wife even begins to talk about the stuff on the bed, taking this photo was a necessity. You see, I have a guest coming over this weekend, and my wife isn't around. She told me to be sure to make the bed before the guest comes over. Oh f*ck! How am I going to remember the proper pillow sequence? There is no way possible that I could remember how to construct the pillow farm to spec, so I took a picture to show me how to put the beast together on Sunday morning before my guest arrives. I had originally thought to just slide into my side and leave hers alone, then copy it on my side on Sunday, but I think taking the photo was a better idea.

I am not going to make the bed until Sunday.

Clown Car

2008-07-16T21:13:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite shows on television is the comedy Reno 911! This show features the Reno sheriff's department in various misadventures, modeled loosely on a "Cops" type premise. The show is improvised and they have a bunch of brief skits each episode, which is great for short attention span people like myself. Here is an article about "real" cops using Reno 911! for a training episode and I also love their stupendously unproductive staff meetings, possibly modeled off the "Hills Street Blues" ones with a thousand curve balls thrown in.

I had to take a photo of this because one of my favorite terms is "clown car" and this episode featured an actual clown car with the turn key on top. Fantastic! Watch the latest Reno 911! season on Comedy Central you won't regret it...

The Potentate Of Pork.

2008-07-15T20:29:00.006-05:00

The Ancient Order of Non Arabic Mystic Knights of the Prarie will now come to order. My deck is a shrine.

Potentate is an incredible honor to bestow upon myself. If not me then who? Coach Ditka? Alton Brown? Some schlub who wastes a ton of money and time cooking at Memphis or Kansas City Grand Master Cook Offs?

Ever see those shows on The Food Network where they cover a BBQ Championship like a documentary? It must cost well over a thousand bucks to enter and cook in one of those, not to mention the investment in custom cookers towed on a trailer behind a Winnebago. Some are restaurant owners looking for a trophy to help drive traffic into their business. Others are fools looking to attend an expensive party where they work their asses off only to get stiffed by some snarky hilljack judges. Some fun weekend, huh?

I could throw one hell of a weekend party for that price and my guests would be worshiping me, The Potentate of Pork.

All meat is good but pork is uniquely awesome. And it’s cheap. It takes a marinade well, the fat to flesh ratio in some cuts is perfect for slow cooking and those pigs are just so damn cute. For years it has been my passion to perfect the grilling and BBQ’ing of porcine perfection. Shoulder, ribs, tenderloin, jowls, skin, we cook and eat everything but the oink. And the hoofs.

For my children’s high school graduation open house parties did I hire a caterer to drop off a few tins of chewey roast beef swimming in caustic iridescent juice and a few tins of rubber chicken? Did I grill hot dogs, brats and burgers?

HELL NO!

My brother and I roasted whole pigs in a rotisserie cooker I rented form the Hobart Packing Co. They dressed and skewered the pigs and I towed them home along with the rented motorized charcoal rotisserie cooker. It was fired up at 10pm and finished by 11am. I stayed up all night watching over the sacrifice drinking copious amounts of adult beverages too. We carved them up, shredded the meat and served it with different BBQ sauces for the 100 or so guests to choose and enjoy along with generous amounts of sides like fresh roasted corn-on-the-cob, cole slaw and fried potatoes. Midwestern living at it’s best. After roasting the whole pig all cuts taste the same. Ham, bacon, chops it doesn’t matter. Me and the bro ate as much skin as we could handle.

Anyone can grill burgers or a steak with good results. Pork requires a lot of love and extra effort. Pork chops are especially hard to grill without drying them out and ending up with a Florsheim Wing Tip sole mopped with sauce. I made a lot of those until I got hip.

Last week the local grocery was offering whole pork loin for $1.99/lb. What this is (sorry for not taking a photo) about a 10 lb. slab of pure pork lusciousness. About 85% is center-cut pork chops without the bone and 15% pork loin roast, which I use for stir-fry meat. I believe Sam’s Club and Costco offer the same. This is pure meat about 90% lean and no waste so at $1.99/lb is is a huge bargain. Lean is for grilling, not BBQ’ing.

What we do is buy these slabs-o-pork and cut 1 ½ “ slices and bag them in pairs using a vacuum-sealer. The bags get frozen and will be used over the next few months or so but being in the vacuum bags they will keep for up to a year.

Then comes the brine, a pork chop grilling technique I wrote about before. With a little prep time the lowly pork chop can become an incredibly tender, delectable, juicy treat without a lot of mess. I posted the brine recipe and you can look for it if you want to. I may take that post down because it is so good there may come a time when we start an all-pork restaurant franchise and I will need to have a “secret” ingredient. Ever see a food franchise that specializes in pork besides Famous Dave’s? Someone has give Dave some competition. It might as well be me.

Here’s the pork chop bag-o-brine from last Sunday.

Here are the chops ready to be grilled.

This is a sight to behold, especially after a few “Canarbles”*.

I challenge anyone to a grilled pork chop throw-down. Bring it on!

Coach Ditka, Bobby Freaking Flay, anybody, I dare you!

My chops are topps!

*Canarble is a Chicago term for cocktail.

Berwyn Goes on the Offensive

2008-07-15T04:43:00.000-05:00

Right outside my condominium there is a new billboard. Amazingly enough, it is an advertisement for BERWYN Illinois. For long-time Chicago residents, Berwyn is usually known as the home of "Son Of Svengoolie", a long running late night show that ran on UHF (non network stations) where terrible old horror movies would be played with a host in ghoulish makeup with rubber chicken jokes would say that his show is being run out of "Berwyn" and his staff would shout back "Berwyn?" at him. The show was funny and I watched it for a long time growing up.

Another thing that Berwyn was known for was the "car kabob" which was a bunch of old cars junked on a giant spike, which was officially known as the Spindle. Recently it was taken down and carted away, news that made it world wide (see link here).

It is amusing that Berwyn is advertising in Chicago but I guess it makes sense; people in Chicago drive a long way to distant suburbs like Aurora and Berwyn is very close to the city; it is one of the first suburbs when you leave the city limits to the west (it is right next to the affluent Oak Park suburb, and is connected to the "L").

I have to hand it to Berwyn for trying since their location is the best thing that they have going for them, along with their afford ability. At least if they go down they can say they tried to turn around their image.

Madison at Large

2008-07-14T15:42:00.002-05:00

Click any photo to enlarge.

These people were kind enough to set up a water fountain outside their house for hikers and bikers to fill up with.
View looking east on the Monona Terrace Convention Center.
The Harmony Bar. Good food, good music, and now smoke free like every other bar in Madison. Great place to see a band.
I commonly refer to the old Royster Clark plant as the worlds biggest crackhouse. It is an abandoned fertilizer plant on the east side, off of Cottage Grove Road and Stoughton Road. I see it every day on my way to work. I really root for the east side to improve itself, but it just can't seem to get over the hump. If you enlarge this photo you can see the hawk sitting on the corner of the near building. I am sure there are tons of rats and mice for him to eat here.
The old and the new. An old train sitting next to the Kohl Center, where the Badgers play hockey and hoops. The train used to have stores in it, but when I rode by there were a lot of "for rent" signs up in there. An odd place for a store to be sure.

Green Bay Debacle

2008-07-13T20:24:00.003-05:00

Have you ever seen anything like it? It almost makes the Bears look like a functional football club. I take a stab at it over at the football blog here.

Ah, Darn It

2008-07-13T17:32:00.004-05:00

Click for larger.
Tough weekend. Kid throwing up repeatedly during a visit to grandma's house, and super large thunderstorm at said house to keep us awake at night as well. On top of that, Henry the cat, we found out, had a brain tumor that was causing him pain. He had to be put down.

This was my first cat ever. I really didn't like cats, but agreed to allow one after my kids and wife pleaded to get one. We got him from the humane society. He was with us for less than five years. They said he was around six when we got him. The vets confirm he was not an "old" cat.

What a wonderful guy. He never scratched or bit anyone, just wanted to be cuddled up with the nearest person, and be warm. I really got to like him because he was such a friendly guy. I will miss him.

We will get a kitten for sure after our vacation in August. In the meantime, I will raise a glass of my finest amber to Hanko tonight. Godspeed, friend.

From The Home Office In Valparaiso, IN

2008-07-12T15:00:00.013-05:00

First thing in the morning I check my email. Before the shit, shower and shave ritual it’s time to log in and see if the daily plans need to change. 4:30 am Thursday morning was no different.

My primary business email is through the .mac service provided by Apple. It costs $99 per year and is worth every cent to me. The bill goes into the write-off pile. .mac provides me with my primary business communications. Besides the business email (spam free) service .mac provides me with my business website and a file sharing upload / download server where I am able to exchange large (sometime up to 1gb) image files. It’s similar to an ftp site.

.mac has served me well for three years since I started my own independent graphic design and high-end imaging business. It enabled me to work from home most of the time allowing me to do that virtual office thingy. Like all things Apple, it's insanely great to me.

Thursday morning I was greeted by the dreaded .mac “temporary service disruption” page. This was odd, it has happened only once or twice and never lasted more than a few hours. Throughout the day the same message appeared. Then I remembered, for a few months my .mac landing page had bragged about the new upgrade to come called mobile me.

Clever. The folks at Apple are going to expand the .mac service for no extra charge, in fact they promise to add 10gb of storage space free making the total 20gb. Nice. Also included is the following, from their pitch:

-You might have a Mac at home, a PC at work, and an iPhone or iPod touch. But how do you keep them all in sync? Businesses can use a server like Exchange. For everyone else, there’s MobileMe.

-MobileMe works with the applications you know well. Microsoft Outlook on a PC. Mail, Address Book, and iCal on a Mac. And Mail, Contacts, and Calendar on your iPhone or iPod touch

-Access and manage your email, contacts, calendar, photos, and files at me.com. All with feature-rich web apps so easy to use, you might prefer them to your desktop applications.

More info is here:

http://www.apple.com/mobileme/

Mobile Me promises the equivalent of a corporate IT department for a small business user like myself.

So I'm thinking that they were going through the switch over. OK, but the warning screen told me that the disruption was “scheduled” maintenance. If it was scheduled then why didn’t they warn me with an email? Now I am getting pissed.

Later in the day while watching CNBC there was a feature on the introduction of the new, improved iPhone going on sale Friday. Then it clicked. Since Mobile Me was obviously being upgraded to handle the new iPhone features the servers were taken down. Fine, but my lifeline to the business was down too.

Friday, as I checked my stock portfolio on yahoo finance a news story at the top of the page reported the Apple iPhone meltdown. Seems all those fools waiting in long lines for days were not able to activate their iPhones. The reason given was that the iTunes servers became overloaded and iTunes is where you go to set up and activate your iPhone account. So no .mac all day Friday. Bastards!

Apple stock dropped about $5 per share at closing too. Sure glad I took my profit a few months ago. Over the years, Apple stock has been very, very good to me. It was so predictable to buy before a Mac product intro on speculation and sell at a profit, sometimes within days like the iMac and iPhone intros. Woohoo! If you own some and didn't sell Friday it is going to be a rough ride.

In addition, my career was greatly enhanced by Apple and the MacOS. I am a Photoshop jock by trade. The Adobe CS software line made me a handsome living. I began digital imaging in 1984, when Jobs and Gates were tinkerers. Working on a DEC (Digital Equipment Co) based system loaded with Images ll proprietary software from the New York Institute of Technology I was a pioneer in my business creating digital images before anyone else, something I am very proud of.

Bought my first home computer, an Apple ll in 1989. Since then I have owned seven Apple computers and they were all supercharged with high-end aftermarket goodies too. They really ripped!

Currently I operate top-end Powermac G5 on the desk and a G4 Powermac laptop for the road. My daughter has two Apple computers, a new Intel MacPro laptop and an iMac. That's four Mac's on the premises. We each have an iPod here at the country bunker for a total of three between us.

I am as dedicated as they come to Apple and the MacOS. Can you tell?

In 1999 I met Steve Jobs in person at the San Francisco Macworld Expo through a friend with connections in Cupertino. I attended the huge Apple corporate party on the roof of the Moscone Center where I met Herbie Hancock and Muhammad Ali who were part of the “Think Different” ad campaign. The posters from that campaign are worth upwards of $200 now. I tossed mine years ago and I had them all. Also at Macworld I met and partied with people who I considered true geniuses like Kai Krause and his crew from Meta Creations and the development staff of the QTVR software from Apple. I got a guided tour through the Cupertino corporate HQ as a special guest with three other ad biz power users.

You will take away my Mac only after I perforate your chest with 00 Buck from my short 12ga double side-by-side.

For the past 20 years there has been very few problems between me and the genius from Cupertino.

Now it’s Saturday and still no .mac service. I must have a hundred business emails waiting. Thursday night I had to FedEx a DVD with a project I had been working on because without .mac, there’s no iDisk for the upload.

Steve Jobs? Not only am ready to cut his nuts out right now but I would like to shove that new iPhone up his ass. Sideways.

Well...not really. But I sure am pissed! And the legions of misinformed Mac haters are sure to chortle.

You can bet Jobs is in Cupertino right now cutting the nuts out of anyone and everyone who is behind this debacle.

I will be buying that new iPhone. Maybe in a few weeks :)

Power Myths and the Onion

2008-07-12T06:00:00.001-05:00

THE ONION

I am a long time fan of the Onion... although they traffic in humor, sometimes they really nail an issue right on the head. A recent (fake) article was a post by British Petroleum's (BP) CEO is called "We're Investing So Much In Alternative Fuels, Sometimes We Almost Forget to Pump Oil!" The article is tongue in cheek as the CEO extols all the work that they have done on publicity and various stunts while just rolling in cash from good ol' traditional fossil fuels.

"Wow. So why exactly are people still buying gas, when all the cars in the United States are powered by electric batteries by now? They're not? What?! You're pulling my leg, right? Surely we're not still relying on that dinosaur technology after all the effort we've put into alternative energy sources and forging an inoffensive corporate identity that reflects a new consciousness of global responsibility. Are we?

Man alive! I'm going to write this down in my planner right now, so I don't forget to do it later when I'm all caught up in a discussion about wind power and how to maintain the delicate balance of our beautiful, precious ecosystem. "Still pumping oil, question mark." Well, I'll look into it, if there's even anyone left in this multinational corporate headquarters who's still following that branch of the business.

Wait—the price of oil is what? Over $4 a gallon? No way! Say, we must be making a fortune, huh? How the heck did that happen? Holy cow: Now that I'm looking over these annual revenue figures for the first time, I see that while I was doing all those other things, we made a couple hundred billion bucks!"

COMED AND ILLINOIS

ComEd, the electricity distribution company for Illinois that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the massively profitable Exelon, sends out an environmental disclosure statement in your monthly bill. The statement shows just how much progress has been made overall towards getting off fossil fuels (and nuclear power).

ComEd basically gets power from 2 sources - their own assets, which are mainly nuclear plants owned by Exelon along with some coal and natural gas peaker units, and the (mainly) coal fuel powered Midwest Generation (a subsidiary of Edison International, the holding company for Southern California Edison).

From the statement, you can see that the non 1) nuclear 2) coal 3) natural gas fired plants make up a nominal portion of the total power portfolio - about 1% for biomass and another fraction of a percentage for renewable. For all the talk, 1-2% of the total power comes from these non-traditional sources.

Of course, ComEd always features a variety of politically and environmentally correct themes in their ads, pictures of trees blowing in the wind, kids blowing out dandelions, stuff like that.

Read the Onion and see the truth, instead.

Cross posted at Chicago Boyz

Calling The Bottom

2008-07-11T06:05:00.002-05:00

In financial circles it is common to use the term "Calling the Bottom". What does this mean? It means that when a stock is beat up enough and poised for a rebound, that is the time that you want to buy. The real trick, however, is when something really hits the bottom, or if it has further to fall.

Recently there has been carnage in the financial sector. Bear Stearns had to be rescued by JP Morgan when they collapsed, and Citigroup & Merrill Lynch had huge write offs. This has continued into the quasi-government entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

While the vast majority of my investments are in index funds (or income investments), from time to time I like to think I am a stock picker and will put a negligible amount of my portfolio into this type of work.

I picked four stocks that I figured (maybe wrongly, in hindsight) that might be near the bottom right at the end of 2007, and started this post back in April. My fellow blog-mate Dan has been hounding me to clean up my "draft" posts (he is a blog-neat freak, but that is good for all of us) but I have been leaving it there to age, not like a fine wine, but like a room-temperature PBR, after all. My four stocks were picked based on 1) look, someone has to survive in the long run 2) some entities are "too big to fail" and the government will back them out.

Here were the stocks at the time (end of 2007) and their prices:

1) Citigroup - $29
2) Merrill Lynch - $53
3) Fannie Mae - $40
4) Freddie Mac - $34

Remember, I thought that they were AT THE BOTTOM at the end of 2007... this is when I was going to pick them up.

Well, here we are in mid-2008 (six months or so later) and here are their prices today:

1) Citigroup - $16
2) Merrill Lynch - $29
3) Fannie Mae - $13
4) Freddie Mac - $8

Thus my "bottom fishing" picks went down another 50% - 75% or so from where I thought that they were going to inflect and turn things around...

So maybe it is time for another rule of thumb - I should "call the bottom" and then wait until it drops another 50% or so before I make my move... or just stick to index funds.

Cross posted at Chicago Boyz