But they are super easy, and really only take, maybe 30 minutes all said and done. So easy, anyone, including those who are not inclined to cook or think they have no cooking abilities could easily make these.

Get your freezer rolls nuked!

First go grab a bag of freezer rolls, and get a few out. Microwave them for about 30 seconds - just enough to thaw them out, but not enough to start them cooking (you may want to grab an extra, sometimes I eat one while I’m cooking).

Once you have them nuked and ready to go, you’ll want to get out some flour and dust off an area. The rolls can kind of be sticky and so the flour helps you roll them out.

Roll that roll out, make it flat!

Once you get it rolled out to something like a 6 inch circle, move it over to a greased pan (hey did I mention you should pre-heat the oven to about 350).

6 inch circles

Now before I go to far, let me make a couple of recommendations, well actually just one. If you like calzones, think ahead. In this case I got 4 rolls out, used 2 for regular pizzas and 2 for a calzone.

I also like BBQ sauce instead of pizza sauce. So you’ll see the pizzas with all my favorites - well some of my favorites, I didn’t have everything I wanted, but hey it’s awesome for a clear out the fridge type thing.

2 Pizzas and a Calzone

So we got some BBQ sauce, pepperoni, ham, mushrooms, oinions, green olives and cheese -the same can be found inside the calzone.

Now, just cook them for about 15 - 20 minutes (the calzone takes a little longer), and VOLIA! Personal Pizzas to your liking!

mmmmmm PIZZA!

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Alright, so I left off with 8 albums. Really I was just having trouble coming up with the last 7 albums, but I think I have that under control now - I think.

The next couple of albums, are more about a person. The music was just part of the soundtrack at that time, but stand out as the most memorable. While the two albums share more than that in common, they were albums that got me through a lot.

Weezer - Blue Album

Weezer - “Blue Album”, I don’t know how many times I actually had to replace this cd - I think at last count I was up to 3 or 4 times, maybe more. But at one point in my life I could sing this entire album word for word.

Just how influential was this album? Ask me what the middle name of one of my kids is - if you guessed Jonas you’d be right. While it may not be powerful in the lyrics department, it was to me - I remember days upon days listening to “The World Has Turned And Left Me Here”, “Say It Ain’t So”, and “Only In Dreams” to eek out my melancholy.

The Rentals - Return of The Rentals

The next album was from a mash up of Weezer members and That Dog members - and was really what brought back the love of the moog.

Even now, when I listen to the songs, I’m still transported back to a time that holds a special place in my heart.

I mean, songs like “Please Let That Be You”, or “My Summer Girl” really applied to someone very close to me. While those days are over and people move on - the songs still remind me of them and what was going on.

I still play the occasional track from both these albums - depending on my mood.

Shelter - Mantra

The next band wasn’t as much about who as it was about what. By that I mean - sure there were emotional attachments to the songs, but it was much more about realization. Before you jump ahead, it wasn’t some spiritual realization - it was more like a realistic awakening to just how bad hypocrisy could be and how easily people pay not attention.

I really did enjoy the music, while it wasn’t as hard and fast as 108 - it was good and it fit right in with what was going on in my life. The mid-ninties was a shifting point for me. This album gave me an illusion as to how I could cope with it.

Songs like “Civilized Man” or “Here We Go” were my anthems - until…

You know, you like a band so what do you do - ya go to a show and see them live. So that’s what I did, and that’s where it went down hill. You know if you read the lyrics to their songs you get the idea of goodness and peace and what not - I mean that’s how I took it. So there I am at the show listening to them, enjoying the message when all of the sudden the singer jumps in the pit boots first and gets all ragey. I just thought that was pretty poor and totally hypocritical - and well pretty much boycotted them ever since.

Integrity - In Contrast of Tomorrow

I think as the epitome of my hard-coreness, well at least of the my most listened hardcore bands had to be Integrity.

Like I said, I’ve pretty well gotten past all my youthful angst these guys sure fed it for a long time. I could get out a lot of rage in a pit - and there were times when it got the best of me, I think now I’d just get run over and killed…lol

It’s funny, you watch video’s of these guys at these shows and it all comes back. All the shows I went to - all the local shows….man some crazy times.

Deftones - Around the Fur

If Integrity was the epitome of my hardcore life, then the Deftones were the epitome of my going to actual concerts. I saw them a number of times in live venues.

It’s funny though, these guys really were short timers in my life - I didn’t really make it past this album - I never got into the White Pony album. But now that I listen to a couple of their songs from this album it reminds me just why I liked them.

Screaming lyrics that almost didn’t match the music behind it - but to me it was beautiful. It expressed to me a classical notion with a hardcore wash.

I really haven’t listened to these guys in a long time - but they may make a come back in one of my play lists.

Led Zeppelin

I don’t think any list would be complete without some mention of Led Zeppelin. While I’ve maintained for years now that I’ve outgrown these guys - I might have a guilty little pleasure in listening to some of my more favorite songs. I’m affraid I couldn’t put just one album down with these guys, it problably is due to listening a lot to the boxed set. Though I did have a number a regular albums.

I really did get into these guys, there’s even a colored pencil of Robert Plant floating out there that I did one year in art class. A lot of good mellow music with the occasional ramped up guitar song to wake you  up and get you going.

I even have one of those crazy “Stairway to Heaven” stories.

We were out skipping school one day in a friend of mine’s car, racing down a dirt road. We were all jamming out to “Stairway to Heaven” when all the sudden he clips the barrowpit on the passenger side, over corrects and the car rolls. While it seemed to us an eternity getting out and getting the car rolled back over. Once he started it back up, Stairway continued to play. Yeah I know, it doesn’t seem like all that crazy of a story and I’m guessing it was more of a “you had to be there” type thing - it’ll always be one of those moments that I remember from a fallen friend.

Face to Face - Don't Turn Away

Another album that made a change, was given to me by a girl who I was seeing. She was a little bit punk and so she wanted to get me more into punk.

I really dug this album, it had a lot of lyrics that matched my life or at least how I felt about myself and my life.

It was catchy enough and led me into a slight punk phase that didn’t stretch past the music - I never dressed like a punk, well I mean not then…

It got me into Rancid, NoFX, and a few other bands that really have dropped off my radar. I may listen to tracks from Face to Face and a couple from Rancid now and again, but not much else.

Moby - Everything is Wrong

The next album wasn’t my first jump into “Techno”, please don’t get me on a technicality because there’s too many terms for sub classed techno music - call it what you want, but leave the argument out.

At the time I was listening to this, I had made some big changes in my life and was finding out what it was like to be alone and on your own.

The one song that has stuck with me since then has got to be “God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters”, it has meant a lot ot me and has been used a number of times in different contexts to put music to my feelings about someone or something.

I’ve been a pretty big fan of Moby since then.

Alright, so this brings me up to 16 albums. Not quite the 20 I had hoped for, but more than 15 at least. I don’t know if this rightly covers all the music that helped shape my life, but it is a good start. It’s got me thinking about all the music I love and now love, which may spawn off into other posts down the road. But for now, I’ll bring this topic to a close As I was grabbing videos, more albums came to mind, so it looks like I’m gonna leave it open for awhile longer. I hope you had memories brought to the surface from music in your past and you post about it.

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Black House, Stephen King And Peter Straub; Harper Collins

Find in a library

Can you see where I’m going here?

As much as I liked the Talisman, and as much as I like Stephen King, this book led me into a false sense of security. I was excited finding a book that was a continuation to one of my favorite books “The Talisman”, and maybe that was my problem. I’ve only recently allowed Stephen King back into my graces due to one of his latest books “Duma Key” (I’ll have to republish my review later), but this book was written back in 2001 in which I was still boycotting his books.

But don’t get me wrong, the book - like a lot of horror movies started off good, in fact I was really enjoying it. I’ve never had a problem with character development, or plot creation - that wasn’t my beef with his later books. It was more of the style had changed and I got to feel more and more like I had been cheated with the story.

At any rate, the book continues a great story. You are introduced into a world of death and macabre - but Jack shows up as a retired police officer from California living in a small Wisconsin town.

As a warning, you’ll get emersed into the story, I did. Even though there might be a bit of missing back story to some things, it works in favor of keeping the book shorter, plus you may not even notice. There also seemed to be an inordinate amount of connection making towards the “Gun Slinger” series, while some may like this - I thought it was a little too blatant.

Then comes the ending. It felt short and rushed, and anticlimactic. I was also a little irratated that he pulls the same trick he pulled at the end of the Gun Slinger series - not that way,  I mean he gives you a warning that you might not like the ending and so maybe you should stop now type thing.

It has some graphic depections of violence and canabalism, child violence and strong language. I give it 4 out of 5 stars - and that’s being generous.

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Sure, it blossomed out of a Facebook meme. Someone me tagged in their list and so that means I have to complete my own list, right?

But I wanted to take more time, and craft a response about than just albums. I wanted to look in and remember the music that took me through the pains and joy of growing up. I will depart I’m afraid from the strict guidelines of only albums - because as I sat and tried to remember everything, it wasn’t always albums, it may have been singles or the bands themselves. I may even pass the 15 number also - but it’ll be alright, it’ll be fun to churn the sediment that was my life…

I’ll be honest, I don’t remember owning any of my own music until high school. I mean I remember music, but just not having my own, it always seemed like I was listening to the radio and that was about it. As I talked to my wife about this, I recalled that I might have made the occasional mixed tape off the radio, but I never owned anything - probably due to lack of funds.

I really think it started back in the early 80’s. I have distinct memories of specific songs, like Europe’s “The Final Countdown”, or Nina’s “99 Red Balloons”.

Summers spent at the pool we’re full of arcade games (Donkey Kong, Centipede) and songs like The Steve Miller Band’s “Abracadabra”, Chicago’s “Hard To Say”, The Clash’s “Rock The Casbah”.

Really it was whatever was on the top 40 stations, and that carried me until high school. Where I really started to come into my own as far as music was concerned. So let’s move onto the records and songs of my turbulent adolescence. I apologize, but the listing will be in no real chronological order…

America - Holiday

I think one of the first albums I use to listen to with some sort of repetition would have been America’s “Holiday”. It just so happened my dad had a lot of hi-fi equipment in the basement, and I would spend hours in their just listening to the various records he had, the one that got the most spin was “Holiday”. Don’t get me wrong, there were jazz albums (I believe some were Quincy Jones), and others, but I remember America the most.

I would crank this up to 11, and just sit in an old rocking chair and close my eyes and let the album take me away. I still dig a lot of songs from America, and occasionally still listen to them.

I know I still didn’t own anything of my own, but that started to change. I had money these days, and I had a walkman and a boom box for my room. My older sister had a lot of music and so I tended to dub her tapes and then listen to them.

The Cure - Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me

She introduced me to a lot of music at first. One of the biggest ones has got to be the Cure’s “Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me”. I think I listened to that album about 11 billionty times.

The Cure helped me progress in my depression, I guess you could say it gave me a better outlet in which I could release me mopiness. But there was more, there was enough angriness to pull that out too. This album also introduced me to love. Not that I had a girlfriend or anything, but it put love into a tangible concept I could understand. Even know when I listen to this album, I’m instantly transported to my youth, but it goes beyond that - it’s still has dedicatable songs that explain my feelings towards the love of my life, like “One More Time”, and “Just Like Heaven”.

I have to admit to this, and this also might explain some of my love towards classic rock. During some of my adolescence I was very into the Vietnam War (I also really dug the Nazi’s from World War II). Luckily, the show “Tour Of Duty” was also airing at this time, and along with an awesome sound track - I had to understand it more and be a part of it. So I started listening to the music of the time.

The Essential Jimi Hendrix Vol1 & Vol2

The next album, though it’s another old performer, the heavy, articulated guitar really opened my eyes to what music could be. It had guitar driven melodies that really expressed the artistic nature that lurked under the skater mohawk I had.

It didn’t hurt that the psychedelic nature of some songs pulled at the hidden hippy that lurked in there too, marked by sepa sacs and tie-dyes.

I’ll still occasionally pull out some Jimi, depending on my mood and if I need a bit of a tune out.

Some of my favorites, “Third Stone From The Sun”, “Gloria”, “The Star Spangled Banner”, “Bold As Love”, “Machine Gun”, “House Burning Down”.

Agnostic Front - Cause For Alarm/Victim In Pain

This next album(actually 2) started me down the road of punk/hardcore. It was filled with a lot of local bands, one of which I know is still around - but most are just memories for some.

I could probably give a good reason why I started on this music, but the main point is it gave me an outlet for the anger I felt. I don’t know who turned me onto Agnostic Front, but the quick, screaming songs really fit the bill.

Now that the angst is gone, and strife is past I really don’t listen to much punk or hardcore anymore. There is the rare occasion where I’ll play a track or two, but for the most part it’s more to reminisce then anything.

The Dead Milkmen - Bucky Fellini

This next album was influential more because of the friend who introduced it to me then it actually being musically influential.

Don’t get me wrong, it was exactly what I wanted to hear.

While it was mostly lighthearted in my mind on the subject matter, it still was irreverent and catchy.

If you know the song “Instant Club Hit (You’ll Dance To Anything)”, you get my drift. But I have a lot of good memories tied up these guys and even though I’ve long since lost touch with those friends, the music takes me right back.

Pink Floyd - The Final Cut

Let’s tone it down a little. Go from my hyper angst and irreverence, to times when I needed the pain, and wanted it to last longer then it should. While I might have been a white middle class suburban kid, I needed pain and suffering.

I never really got into early Floyd, and I really didn’t pay much attention to “The Wall”, for some reason this album really grabbed me.

It has, and still is a major player in my life. Even if the reasons have changed, the songs themselves still reach me in specific ways.

This has always been a very visual album to me, the movie that plays in my mind hasn’t really changed much over the years and it still a very comforting album.

Radiohead - The Bends

Radiohead - need I say more? Yes, alright. Well it’s probably no secret how much I love Radiohead. It might even come to surprise the person who introduced me to them that I still listen to them, and it’s still pretty frequently.

I had heard “Creep” before, but the rest of the album never really caught my attention. But after getting to listen to “The Bends” I was hooked.

They have been one of my main support lines for getting through most anything that doesn’t agree with me. Breakups, breakdowns, freakouts - you name it, I was probably listening to this album or one of their later ones.

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dreams

Siamese Dream wasn’t my first introduction to The Smashing Pumpkins, but it was my first album by them.

Like Radiohead, I remember exactly who introduced to this band and it was with the album Gish. But Siamese Dream was the one that put them on my map and lead to a long love affair with them.

While I wasn’t as big of fan as I was to Radiohead, a lot of thier songs worked for me when I needed them and lasted longer then girlfriends or the post break up blues.

There’s still a good chance I play some of their songs, and maybe even listen to an entire album.

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So yesterday I took some time in the early evening to go take some pictures at a local boat launch in some wetlands - kind of in the middle of valley I live in.

It was kind of cold, and I didn’t think about putting my boots on, so my time was shorter then I would have liked (a few inches of snow with leather uppers does not make my feet happy). Plus it kept me from getting to places I would have liked to get to, to take some shots I would have liked too.

Before I show the images, I have to warn you I dig vignetting, a lot! So you’ll notice it in my pictures (how could you not). Some of them felt like b&w and others spoke in color - so that’s how I processed them. I had been switching between my 70-300mm and 50mm, but I think most of the ones I liked came from my 50.

Now on to the photos.

Wetlands - 001

Wetlands - 002

Wetlands - 003

Wetlands - 004

Wetlands - 005

Wetlands - 006

Wetlands - 007

Wetlands - 008

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So how about a brief run through my little collection?

My cameras (happen to be house in a china hutch from 1697)

Starting from left to right we have:

Kodak Retinette IA (1963 - 1967)

Pentax ME super (1977 - 1984)*

Fujica AX-3 (1979-1980’s)

Nikkormat FT (1965-1967)*

Ricohflex IIIB (1951)

Rolleicord V (1954-1957)

The two I marked with asterisks are special to me because they came from my dad. It seems my love of photography came from him, and when he moved into digital he decided he didn’t want his cameras anymore - though before that he had sold most of his dark room equiptment.

As I was going over the cameras, I was trying to get a serial number off the Nikkormat and open the back only to find I had left a roll of film in it. OPPS! Oh well I’ll need to finish off that roll and check if any of the other cameras have old film in it.

I also happened to find another roll of 12o film, well atleast I think it’s a good roll, I can’t for the life of me remember if it’s exposed or not…hahahaha. I guess I’ll need to go buy another roll to know for sure. It may just be that it’s exposed and I never got around to getting it processed because it’s kind of pricey.

I did though find some pictures that took with a couple of the cameras.

A shot up by Tony Grove (ricohflex)

Here’s a shot I took with the Ricohflex IIIB, it doesn’t really do the image justice - but I didn’t want to process it anymore - plus it’s a small size image. I think it was a 4×4 exposure since the bigger exposures were pricey and I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend a lot more money on it - I had already spent a small fortune on getting it in a picture taking state.

New Born Ethan (Pentax ME Super)

This one and the next one were both taken with the Pentax ME Super. This was my first dive into photography and I was going through so much film that it forced me into digital - I was processing like probably ~10 rolls a month or more.

Young Alexander (Pentax ME Super)

After looking through a bunch of film pictures it makes me nostalgic for shooting with my old cameras. I wonder how much film costs these days…

So anyway, back to the new camera I got. The Rolleicord V.

Rolleicord V

It looks a lot like my Ricohflex, and probably functions a lot like it too. I haven’t gotten the instructions for it yet, but it seems simple enough to operate, though I don’t like where they placed the shutter release. On the Ricohflex it’s in a place that feels like it should be there, here it’s a little more akward.

It has some visable leather issues, you can see a bit of it right above the mode selector (basically to the right of my thumb on the face). On my Ricohflex it has a red window you can view through to see your film advance, on this one however it numbered off to the side (right of my thumb slightly higher that silver circle) I don’t know if that’s better or not, but I do remember being unsure a few times of where I was on the roll in my Ricohflex.

Rolleicord through the viewfinder

The viewfinder is just like the Ricohflex, but it does have a bigger magnifier which is nice. Focus seems pretty sharp and after looking inside it looks to be in good condition, so I think this time around I’ll skip taking it in to get cleaned and repaired.

The inside of the Rolleicord

It’s been awhile since I’ve gone shooting with film, and I’ve forgotten a ton of stuff. Luckily, I’m pretty sure I still have my old light meter somewhere around here and just have to familiarize myself with it again. But one of these days I’ll have some images to post.

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Through out the week, it seemed to have gotten better. So I thought it was going away.

Then, this Sunday at about 2:00 am it turned in the most excruciating pain I had ever felt. My back kept spasming at any movement and I finally woke my wife to tell her to take me to the hospital.

Luckily it wasn’t very busy at the hospital, and they were able to get me in pretty quick. As I was sitting on the edge of the bed grasping to a small table to gain that perfect angle of less pain. My wife brought me a cup of water and as soon as I got half of it down - all the blood rushed to my feet. Everything became too bright, my hearing was going and it felt like I need to puke or poop - everything became too much.

I laid on the bed and they put a cold compress on my forehead - just in time.

When the doctor came in asking me all the normal questions and I tried my best to answer them, but really the key words that I got were “kidney stones”, “CT scan”.

All I could think of was how expensive this was gonna be, and all I’ve heard of about Kidney stones is how painful they are - that would explain the severity of pain I had though.

So a nice young man came in and wheeled me into the CT room. Just so you know, you can’t have any pants on in the machine. I really didn’t care, I’ve been exposed before doctors who bring interns in - but it was really painful lifting my butt up to get my pants down past my junk.

It was pretty neat watching the CT scan on the monitor above me, but I gotta tell ya - you ain’t hiding nothing from that machine - I, he, my wife got to see it all. I kept straining to see if I saw anything in my left kidney - I really didn’t see anything that I could tell was of any importance.

So he wheeled me back to my room where a nice IV of saline solution with a morphine/tordol chaser. They wanted a urine sample, and of course that’s what had gotten me up at 2 in the morning, so I wasn’t feeling like peeing very much - though the CT scan showed I had urine in my bladder.

The morphine was nice, but it didn’t kill the pain completely. I could still feel it, just not so bad.

So by my second bag and 5th and 6th cc of morphine I still didn’t need to pee and there was still a flicker of pain. But the doctor came in with the threat of a catheter - I felt a slight pressure indicating, why yes I could pee.

So I filled up the jug they gave me and a lady came and got it. About 10 minutes later the nurse came by and said there wasn’t enough pee. I was like, WHAT, I totally gave you enough. But it turned out the other lady had already filled up the cup and the nurse only saw what was left.

At about 6:00 am the doctor came back in to let me know that they hadn’t seen anything in my CT scan, and found no blood in my urine.

So I guess that’s a good thing, no stones. But my back still hurt, and still hurts today - though the lortabs and flexeril help considerably.

I have an appointment with a chiropractor tomorrow to see what else it might.

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So it was decided that if they would get along we’d keep her. Which is what happened, in fact she brought out a little more love in our first cat, not a lot, but some.

So we did the honorable thing and took her home, got her cleaned up, spade, updated her on shots and got rid of her ear mites. But unlike our first cat, this one has her some front claws and likes to get at anything standing up to scratch on.

This is where my stinginess comes into play, I saw what PetSmart offered and didn’t much care for prices and quality. I knew we had some carpet pieces and some spare wood, so I went about building my own.

Be aware, like my cooking with recipes, measuring and plans are nothing more than loose guidelines…lol

So the material I used is a piece of MDF, a 8ft 2×4, twine I bought, screws, glue, and of course some carpet. I also have to say, I am not a carpet layer, have never laid carpet and so I cheated - really bad!

The Base

So I started with the MDF and cut it down to something that seemed like the right length for a cat to nap in and also had room for another cat to get that the post. As a side note, I sliced off the rounded edge on the MDF so the 2×4 edges would be flush.

I attached the same length of 2×4 on the the sides, my vision was a three sided base with the scratch post being at the open end.

If you haven’t guessed already, it’s heavy which is a double edged sword. I wanted it sturdy enough not to fall over with the cats, but then it started getting really heavy.

But I pressed on, I added another piece of 2×4 to one end. Now if your as good as I am with cutting and measuring, then you would have ended up with a bit of a gap at the closed end. That’s alright - the carpet will cover up any problems you have at this stage.

The Post

With that done, I moved on to the post. Here I used 2 2×4s nailed together. Yes, you do see a bit of height difference between the two pieces - but that’s easily solved with a Miter saw.

Once I had that all squared up, I sat it aside. I had to think about how I wanted to mount it and how to make it as simple as possible. I mean I could go ahead and mount right now before I put the carpet down, but man, then I’d have to cut a whole into the carpet, or work around that and that sounded like a big ‘ol PITA. Not my cup of tea. So I left it off for the time being and went and grabbed my carpet.

The Carpet

Again, please understand I have no formal training in laying carpet - so I did it how I thought it might work, which is probably not the correct way to do it. But it does look good.

So what I did was, I laid it out on top and started molding it to the shape. Since I wasn’t using those nail strips, I thought I’d use the next best thing, SCREWS! But down worry, I used screws and glue - and a lot of both.

The corners gave me the most trouble because I’ve never been good at knowing how to cut out corners for anything, all those angles and stuff. Any problems, I tried to hide in the folding of the corners and tucking and fluffing of the carpet. By the end you really couldn’t tell that there may have been problems or that screws had been used.

Before I fit the post and got it all together, I added a top shelf to the post. I figured maybe the cats might like to snooze on it (alas it’s turned into a seat the kids get on, though I have caught one of the cats sleeping on it). I just took the leftover end of the MDF, sliced off the round edge and used it. The sad thing was, I carpeted before I screwed it to the base. But what are screws for if you can’t use them - so I screwed through the carpet. You’d never even notice, or feel them.

The twined Post

I also decided it might be a good time to add the twine to the post. So I started at the top, under the top shelf. I first tried it with glue and found it didn’t work out all that well, so every so often I added a screw in to hold it.

I got about 3 inches from the bottom and wrapped a piece of carpet around it. This not only saved me some twine, but helps in blending it into the base carpet (and I thought I looked good too).

If you look realy close, you might see how much glue I really used. You also might notice the screws - I tried to hide them as best as possible, but they show through.

The Finished Product

So here we are, at the end of this little endeavor. A 40lb cat scratch post. Complete with carpeted pads, twiney scratchy post and top shelf sleeping quarters.

And what do I think about the whole thing? I wish I had a couple hundred bucks to buy one of those cat jungle gym house things…

But what can I say, it was all left over parts, it was basically free except for the twine and screws, and after rubbing cat nip all over it, the cats seem to like it.

If you happen to make one, let me know - I wanna see pictures!

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A friend of mine teaches cooking to Japanese women, and wanted to know if I had any soup recipes. But to be clear, I’m not a big soup fan - there’s only one soup that I like to make and to eat, that is Lemongrass soup. All the others I eat begrudgingly, and they aren’t my recipes - they’ve come from my wife’s family.

Let’s start with my favorite, the Lemongrass soup. There’s a Thai resturant here in Logan, Kamin that we happened to go to one night just to try it out. We both ordered a bowl of Lemongrass soup to see what it was like. I immediately fell in love with it and had to find a recipe that matched what I had had.

I tried a couple of different ones, till I landed on this one. Now remember, I tend to use recipes as loose guidelines, but this one really does come out like I thought it should without too much modification.

COCONUT LEMONGRASS SOUP

Ingredients:
-    2 boneless skinned chicken breasts
-    1 pint of chicken stock
-    About 250 mls of coconut milk
-    8 birdseye chillis (I’m not a fan of chilis and it wasn’t in the first soup I had)
-    2 stalks of lemongrass
-    corriander(cilantro)
-    green onion
-    A piece of ginger or galangal
-    The juice of a lime
-    4 tbsp of fish sauce

Slice the ginger up into really thin strips and cut the stalks off the chillis. Dice the chicken into bitesize cubes and then remove the outerleaves from the lemon grass until you get to the soft bit in the center. Now take a rolling pin or something heavy and batter the lemongrass and give the chillis a beating for good measure.

Place the stock in a pot and start to heat. while it is heating juice your lime. When the stock is starting to get hot, put the lime juice, chillis, lemongrass, ginger and fish sauce in. And bring to the boil.

Once it starts to boil add the chicken and coconut milk, stir and bring it back to boil.
Once boiling, reduce the heat and simmer for about 2 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Keep stiring whilst doing this to avoid a skin forming. Remove the lemongrass.

Additionally, realize that you’ll want to strain this to get rid of the lemongrass and ginger. I tend to leave both in big pieces to make it easy to remove. I also add straw mushrooms into the soup, and at the end throw a little cilantro and green oinion in (you want to retain a green color!). It should be a nice velvety soup with a good lemony flavor.

(I don’t have a credit for this recipe)

BEEF STEW

•    2 lb. Cubed beef stew meat
•    3 Tbsp. oil
•    4 cubes + 2 tsp. beef bouillon crumbled
•    4 cup water (4-6)
•    1 tsp. each rosemary and parsley
•    1/4 tsp. pepper
•    11 medium potatoes
•    4 carrots
•    4 stalks celery
•    1 large onion
•    2-3 Tbsp. cornstarch in 3/4 cup water

Cook meat in oil until brown. Bring bouillon, water, rosemary, parsley, pepper, potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, and cornstarch mixture to a boil. Simmer for 1 hour or more.

(credit: Cook Family)

CHEESY POTATOE SOUP

•    3 Tbsp. butter
•    2 chopped carrots
•    2 chopped celery
•    1 small onion
•    1 clove garlic (don’t double garlic)
•    3 Tbsp. flour
•    1/4 tsp. Dry mustard
•    1/4 tsp. Paprika
•    1/4 tsp. Ground pepper
•    2 cups milk
•    2 cups water
•    4 medium potatoes
•    2 chicken flavor bouillon cubes
•    1 1/2 cups cheese
•    4 slices bacon (optional)
•    Chopped chives (optional)

Melt butter. Add carrots, celery, onion, and garlic. Cook until tender. Stir in flour, mustard, paprika, and pepper. Cook 1 minute.
Gradually add milk, water, potatoes and bouillon. Bring to boil; reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer 10 minutes or until tender. Let soup cool until it stops boiling and add cheese and optional items if desired.

(credit: Cook Family)

TACO SOUP

•    1 large can (48 oz.) V8 juice
•    1-2 cans of stewed tomatoes
•    green beans — frozen or canned
•    Corn
•    1 can sliced olives
•    1 can green chiles
•    hamburger mixed with taco seasoning
•    Cheese

Cook hamburger with taco seasoning. Add all ingredients in large pot and bring to a boil. Serve with cheese on top and eat with chips or bread.

(credit: Kim Cook)

Well there you go, 4 soups like I promised. Now, someone please send me a recipe for a super tasty Lobster Bisque!

I appologize for not having any pictures, but like I said I don’t make any soup other than the lemongrass soup and I haven’t made that in a while…

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My job is about 50 miles from my house. That means I get to drive, and I drive a lot (I use to drive about 90 miles each way to work).

Lost in thought last night on my drive home, I started thinking about driving habits I notice. One of them is what I term the “Magnetic Pass” or “Gravitational Pass”. Bear with me here, I’m sure you’ll have encountered this at some point. The conditions have to be right, such as evening driving (it seems to happen the most), less traffic, generally just you and someone ahead of you.

Before I start, let me clear a couple things up. A friend of mine once said “There’s two types of drivers, those who pass and those who get passed”. I have always chose to be a passer, though as I get older I occasionally allow people to pass me. I have been known to drive in my own style - those who have ridden with me know exactly what I mean, and well that’s as much of that as I’d like to go into. While I have my own driving style, I have occasion to be critical of others driving ability. I’ll go further into detail as I go through this series I think.

So let me set the stage for this.

You’re driving along minding your own business - cruising, listening to the radio, or to a book on cd, or what have you. Your speed is the obligatory, but safe 5 miles over the current posted limit. It’s evening, and the suns going down.

Can you visualize that in your head? Let me help out a little…

So, as you can see by my nifty little image, that you’re doing 70mph and you come up to another person in the lane ahead of you. You make you move to pass, so you get into the other lane and approach.

Then you notice it, a slight almost unrecognizable increase of speed from the other driver. You dismiss it at first because you’re not really sure it happened. I mean they know your passing right? Why would they speed up? But as you get closer, it gets more pronounced.

Yup, you’ve just started the “Magnetic Pass” (Mag-pass, or Grav-pass for short), and it can last up to 10 minutes or more depending on you and the other driver.

You can see by the yellow wave pattern that there is a slight connection made, and that the other driver has indeed sped up. This can only be explained by the same principle of what happens to celestial bodies in space when approaching more power bodies - like a comet when it comes closer to a Sun. It picks up the gravitational pull of the larger body.

You can guess what’s going to happen now, right? The closer you get to the car you are passing, the faster it goes.

Until at some point you are neck and neck at the strongest magnetic pull. This can go on for awhile it seems sometimes, till at long last the you start inching ahead breaking the magnetic pull generated when approaching other vehicles. It will usually end as gradually as it started, inch by inch until you are clear only to have it happen again, or another type of occurrence happens, like the rolling block, or the staggered rolling block (I’ll go over these at a later time).

I think in reality what happens is the driver of the other vehicle realizes they are being passed and some deep seated instinct kicks in and subconsciously causes the driver to speed up, racing or beating - winning. Something we picked up from our low brow ancestors, survival of the fittest comes into play and takes over for a minute, until they realize they’re speeding and shut it all down. Though I think the planetary explanation is way more awesome!

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