Dinner Tonight!

Here is what we had for dinner tonight.  Oh noes!  It's gone!


Click the image to see what it looked like before I got to it.

Yes, I know it's a different plate.  Grant me some artistic license.  I already ATE it!  The "before" is the cook's, who just got to sit down!

• Home-made tortillas
• Queso fresco
• Sauce made with tomato paste
• A hint of chopped onion.

Not UPS...

Behold the power of Senna!

Not A Shooting Star

We went out last night to the store, but before we got into the car we stood around awaitin' for the International Space Station to pass over, which it did, right on schedule.  Reminded me of when we used to sit out in the yard waiting for DOVE to pass over.

Mostly What We Had For Dinner Last Night

Well, I finished off the fricassee of peanut. Here goes the last of it!



Last night we had home-made tortillas made into enchiladas.






We got a tortilla press at Pancho Villa's Farmers Market, if you can believe it.



And so we have the press in action in these two photos!



And the results of her labors!  (I washed the dishes)

What I Had To Eat Tonight

I thought all my food posts would go into Burnt Pizza, but apparently they are not.

TONIGHT'S MENU

• Homemade tortillas
• Black beans (cooked in crockpot all night)
• Queso Fresco
• Avocados sliced
• Tomatoes sliced 

Looks somewhat odd in the photo (the flash?), tastes of heaven!

My daughter brought me this from her "vacation" in TJ!



"Fricassee", I find, has been described as "halfway between a saute and a stew"(Mastering The Art Of French Cooking Wikipedia article.), so this is a sort of peanut stew?  Or maybe peanut brittle! With more peanuts, less brittle?  Eleven grams of saturated fat, twenty five grams of carbohydrates.  Yum, I'm sure!

Words

I was looking at the Building The Funicular page on the Cliffhanger (model railroad) website and ran across the this phrase (italics mine) "The next step was to convert the track to baulkway which is typical of funiculars."  What the heck is a baulkway?  

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary says a balk (baulk being a British variant of balk) is "a ridge of land left unplowed as a dividing line or through carelessness."  The Wikepedia article Red Moss, Greater Manchester, says "Baulkways, strips of higher land..."  So it might seem that baulkway is another, possibly British, word for roadbed.  Although there were only sixty-seven hits on Google!

Geocaching Terms

POR may stand for Pretty Obvious Rock.

Sunday And Other Days

I took the morning off and went down to the bay to feed the jetty kitties some canned cat food we had left over from when there was a cat here.

And also a little geocaching along the bike path.

But first, I saw a splash in the water. I saw a fin!!  Was it a porpoise, or a shark? Of course, I did not have the camera with me, so I ran (walked quickly) back to the vehicle to get it.  Took this pic, which clearly shows another disturbance in the water where there was a fin a second ago.  I swear!



Here are the kitties eating breakfast.



 That grounding wire ain't gonna work too good.

 

No, I don't know what that picture is, it was just laying there.  There was another one on the pole.

I found four of the five caches I looked for, including three that I had DNFed on previously.  Walked about 3.93 miles, according to Google Map Pedometer.

Over there under that bridge is where my mother dropped me off (on her way to work) so I could hitchhike downtown to the recruiting center to catch a bus to LA for my Army physical.  I THINK it was the physical.  Maybe it was just testing.  Anyway, it was ARMY stuff!



And that winds up Sunday.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Introducing our new fish, Turko.

Last Night's Dinner

Dinner last night:



Dinner the other night (Opens in new window)

A Cacheing We Will Go

I got an email the other day from a fellow geocacher who offered to lead a group to find a certain difficult cache.  I think the three of us who hadn't found the cache yet had been there at least twice.  I know that I have been there at least three times. There ended up being five of us who started out on Saturday morning on the quest. 

I took this picture of this plant growing in a crack while I was resting up after finding the cache.  I used the tele lens as I was about thirty feet away.



Here are four of us, I am on the right.



Same location, but I took this one.  Resting up after finding the cache.



View from where we wuz.   Cache is about thirty feet to the left of center, and down!




Sadly, I guess the pic he took of us down in the "hole" didn't take.  Anyway, after much patient coaxing and instruction two of us were able to overcome our fear of death to make our way down a ledge (of about ten feet) and find the cache.  Actually, getting down wasn't really the problem for me, it was getting back out!  But D. and his son helped us, showing us where to place our feet and such.  It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, strength-wise, but I would have panicked if I had been  on my own.  And been stuck there.  As it was, once I was out of the "hole" I scooted on my behind to relative safety.  One guy was unable to overcome his fear of heights, and decided to try it again another day.  I was almost there myself, I'll tell you!

We mostly split up after that, heading our separate ways to find caches.  I did one more with a couple of them, then I headed back to the truck.  It was very warm and sweat made me quite blind.  I ran across a group in camo fatigues, with big radios, calling out coordinates. I couldn't make out their service, but they had been driving civilian vehicles, on park roads, so they must have had an official gate key.  They had a sentry/spotter up on a little hill in the bushes that I barely noticed. 

Anyway, walking back was a death march, I'll tell you, but I made it.   Driving home I stopped to lend assistance to a fellow stalled on the Fletcher Parkway exit, partially blocking a lane.  He had no cell phone, I had no cell phone, and he had an autistic child in the van that he couldn't leave.  I got a couple of passersby to call the CHP (Thanks, Aaron!).  A couple more guys helped roll the van a little closer to the guard rail.  A motorcyclist stopped and loaned his cell to the driver to call his boss (The ONLY vehicle that stopped! Thanks!!).  I waited an hour but neither the CHP nor the boss showed.  I had to go home at the point as I was getting a little shaky.  My kids passed by there a little later and said a tow truck was helping him.

That is it for Saturday!

Friday The 18th

Mom and her dog, Shogun.



Mom went for a little walk today.



I get my hair cut.

Before:



After:


I finished the shredding of the documents with my new shredder, which I am sure my neighbors enjoyed, and then in the after noon I finished ripping out a goodly portion of the jungle in the backyard, squishing spiders, and filling up the greens bin with ivy and such.

We then had chili for a mid-afternoon snack.  I so wanted to work "après" in that sentence, but, alas.

New Shoes

Bought some new shoes at Target, Thursday.  Because, you know, the old ones STINK so much. And I was going to a party last night.  And, last year's shoes STUNK so much at the party (same place) I was MORTIFIED! But, apparently, I do not wear a twelve. So now my right toe is sore. Are my feet growing?  While my spine shrinks? What madness is this?

Monday Hot Cheese

Did NOT ride to work again today, as it, thankfully, was rainy.  Might have to ride Tuesday, though!




How is THAT for holding the camera reasonbly steady in a low-light situation, eh?

I had at least five patrons ask about the Flaming Hot Cheetos today.



That's about it for now!

On The Shelves

I was going to post the we are probably the only middle school in California with a copy of The Teahouse Of The August Moon on the shelves, but I find we are not even the only middle school in the district to have it!

Friday Saturday Sunday

A foggy Pearl Harbor Day at work.



The bear rides in the backpack.



Saturday afternoon I forced myself to go geocaching, three DNFs, but finally one reluctant Find, two blocks from home.  I coulda walked there!

Sunday I headed out early to a little canyon off Fairmont for my annual DNF on Shiny, but I found another one in the canyon, so it was all right.

There's a spot just north of the interchange of Fairmont and Montezuma where the creek/drain is allowed to surface, where shopping carts go to die.  This ones been there awhile!



There are several abandoned homeless encampments along the creek.  I call this one "Beauty".



That's all for today!

A Rave, A Rant, And An Experiment

Zooomr 7th anniversary re-tooling.  How about bringing back all the images I've uploaded over the years, eh?

One of the orchestra students sent me this invitation to their winter concert.  I am quite overcome.  How can I explain my reluctance (FEAR?) to drive at night?



Someone has been eating PIE in the stacks!!  Found one of these a year ago in nearly the same spot. Guess it's time to clean and inventory that section!



Test End Test   Nothing to see here, move along..
Huh.  Thought the NAME text would show upon mouse over.

My rant for the day is about the television show Two Broke Girls.  It's just one smutty "joke" after another.  Very unfunny, with the usual idiotic laugh track. It makes Two And A Half Men look like the 500 Club, I swear! Why do I watch it? It comes on before Mike & Molly. That's it. My only excuse! M & M, while not the pinnacle of television programming, at least has some funny banter.  One measure of a television program might be if I will watch its repeat.  Seinfeld? Over and over. New Adventures Of Old Christine?  Every lunch, it's my go-to show!  Two And A Half Men? Love it, except when I'm cringing. Two Broke Girls? I think I'll go pull some weeds.

It's Tuesday!

Not much going on lately, so here's a bear that I eventually got in the mail from a far away place.




Big science fair push at work this week, I had just over a hundred visitors sign in the library today.  One of which stole a Nisse I had stuck up on a ceiling light.

Fortunately, there are more of them around...

Seniliating

I was just thinking, some day they're gonna find an elderly man wandering around, on the far edge of senility, with a GPS receiver in his hand, and it's going to be ME!

Here's a nice conduit bend that made me feel better about the world.  Ain't it sweet that they bothered to make the little kick up to the LB?  and the other end has the offset in the box, unlike that other one I mentioned last month.



There don't seem to be any conduit bending jokes out there, so here is an electrician funny:

After an electrician apprentice finished repairing some faulty wiring in an attorney’s home he handed him the the bill. ”Four hundred dollars! For an hour’s work?” cried the attorney, ”That’s ridiculous! Why I’m an attorney and I don’t charge that much.” To which the electrician replied, ”Funny, when I was an attorney I didn’t either!”

Reading a lot this (mostly unpaid) vacation week.  Just finished The Slave Dancer (Paula Fox), and working on The New Space Opera 2 anthology, How To Be An American Housewife (Margaret Dilloway), and The War That Came Early: The Big Switch (Harry Turtledove).

Well, that's about all I have for you today!

Now to think of a title for this post...

Election Day

Well, I voted, how about you?

I don't know what the deal is with other places, but MY polling place had about twenty people marking their ballots, and I only had to wait about thirty seconds in line before it was my turn.  Maybe California is just more organized than some of them other states.  Or maybe it gets busier as more people get off work.

I DO miss have the polling place right across the street, though, now I have to drive a couple of miles to get there!

  Saw an opportunity to get a First To Find geocaching today, so I went for it.  Here's the log I wrote:

Well, how many times can one give up on one cache? I parked at the end of Lake Murray Blvd. and walked down the dirt road to the little bridge, and so up the hill. Having looked at the aerial, I knew it was right on the trail. Didn't bother to put the coordinates into the GPSr. Fired it up at the top of the hill and watched the satellite coordinates progress. Closer and closer. Oh, wait, I'm getting farther away! Which way is north, anyway? I'm sure the trail will turn back. Oh, no, there's a sign, Big Rock Trail. I know THAT is way too far! Turn around, put the coordinates in the GPSr, and follow the arrow. Now it's pointing down the hillside! Is there a trail? No, there is not! Keep walking, I'm getting FARTHER away. Keep looking for a trail. Maybe the coordinates are wrong? Or maybe I've written them down wrong? I've done it before! Keep walking... I think I'm giving up, I must have mussed it. Oh, wait, what's that over there? Looks like a trail. But how to get to it? Keep walking. Well, I can't find it, I'm going home. Keep walking... Oh, THAT looks like it's doable. And it goes in right direction! Yippee, I'm on the right track! Get to the GZ. Of course I can't spot it. Look up and down the trail, do not see nothing. Sit down, eat a granola bar, drink some water. Look some more. Oh, there it is, right on the money!  

Here's a view towards the east from the cache area.



Well, if the goal was to catch my eye, I guess it did.



Bought a new car today.  At Albertsons. Probably the closet I'll ever get to owning one.  Don't I have a Lotus Super Seven model kit out in the workshop?  I ought to build that some day!



That about all I have for today!