January 2006 Archives

This bike rack was my big present this past Christmas, and I've already used the heck out of it. My schedule doesn't afford the former morning jogs I was able to take, and central standard time doesn't allow me daylight rides after I get home. So I often take my bike to work and ride it during my lunchbreak on a stretch of the 13 or so miles of paved bike trails that weave through the city I work in. It's nice to be on a bike again so often. It's a way to burn off steam, get some good exercise and reconnect in a way to my childhood. It also lends my car some Trail Cred. Or at least City Bike Path Cred.

The bike itself is one I bought after graduating from college, which makes it 10 years old this year. It has been ridden on hardpacked sandy beaches, on mud and gravel country roads and in the urban and suburban jungles. I have even done some hardcore off-roading, but my body couldn't cash the checks such rides were writing. I put it into the local bike shop for a tuneup last week, and will pick it up today and enjoy the fruit of their labors. Sure, I'd love a new bike, but why? With a new set of city tires to make pavement rollin' a bit easier, it will be good to go for many more years.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that we're not raising a boy, we're raising a man. And contrary to popular practice, real men need to know how to do laundry, cook, clean and change diapers (today being my weekday off, that last one is all me today). Real men should also be tough, resourceful, adaptable and calm under pressure. Real men are also not afraid to tell the special people in their lives – including and especially their women who yearn to hear it – that they love them. How many real men are there? Are all the good ones taken? Are real men born or built over time? I don't pretend to know and, well, real men are sometimes vague, sometimes sentimental and sometimes without a clue.

Real men also like to eat, so please submit a favorite breakfast recipe for my Breakfast Project, now in progress!

Hey, let's do it again (or for the first time, newbies). Submit your favorite breakfast, breakfast recipe, breakfast for dinner or grab-it-gotta-get-goin'-in-the-mornin' thang. I will compile them and concoct a cookbook similar to my coupla-years-ago Dinner Project, which comprises many tasty recipes submitted by wonderful wonderful Internet people.

Here is The 2003 Dinner Project Cookbook in PDF Form (Fellow Mac users can control-click to download; PC users, I don't do Windows but you can prolly still do a right-click or something).

I'll keep the project open (and remind you, dear hearts, from time to time) until I've got at least 25 viable suggestions for the cookbook. That could take a long time, friends, as the site is much less traveled than it was before. Please, if you are inclined, spread the word via your blog. Link to me! This may also be a good time for any lurkers out there to de-lurk, make yourselves known and spread the breakfast love. Together we can make breakfast better!

On that note, have you seen the Jimmy Dean commercials featuring the sun? Probably my favorite commercials out there right now. Brilliant!

I had a delicious breakfast of "homemade" chicken biscuits this morning. The biscuits were some of those Pillsbury ready-to-bake frozen ones, and the chicken was left over from a steakhouse kids' meal that the Cutlet didn't touch. Lest you believe I'm stealing food from my son's mouth, lemme tell you he has some other leftover chicken in there he needs to eat.

What's a chicken biscuit? Aha! The answer is in the question, although it may also include butter, jelly or some other sauce. For those on the go, I highly recommend Chick-Fil-A's chicken biscuits. There are a few McDonald's around here that also sell them in the morning, but I haven't tried them.

I didn't grow up with chicken biscuits, though. As for the southern cooking that raised me, I can point to fried corn bread, North Carolina-style pulled pork barbecue with vinegar-based sauce and "greens," which could include all sorts of things depending on my grandmother's mood. My other granny lived on an island, so I grew up around steamed oysters, broiled fish, crab legs and boiled shrimp. I come from a strong foundation of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Tell me about some of the things you like to eat, even if they aren't special to your region. Maybe it's time for another "Dinner Project."

We sold our old stereo today. The Petite Filet listed it on a bulletin board at work only yesterday, and it got snatched up like hot-buttered lobster on a free Vegas buffet.

I was cleaning it up before loading it into her truck last night and realized how well-preserved it was (for a fossil). My parents got it by opening a bank account after we moved to Texas, which should tell you two things: 1) the stereo is really old and 2) banks rarely give out stuff any more just for opening an account – unless you pay all your bills automatically and set up two direct-deposits. Even better? My parents got a television as part of the deal as well.

I've had it for a few years, having sold my even older stereo, one I got when I was 7 years old. It had a record player, AM/FM stereo tuner and ... drumroll please ... an 8-track player. For you kids out there, 8-tracks were the honking cassette-like things that were precursors to the more typical four-track cassettes (now considered dinsoaurs among MP3s; even pre-recorded CDs are probably on their way out).

Everything works on it, but we decided it was just too big. We had put it upstairs in what is now becoming the Cutlet's playroom. Every so often I'd go up there and spin a few platters (vinyl record albums for you tots). But I am an iPod devotee now. Can't take the vinyl with me in the car or on a jog, after all! But I'd like to buy one of those smaller vintage-looking record players that sneaks a CD player in, too, to keep in tune with my old record collection. There is a warmth in the black grooves that doesn't seem to exist in this digital age. Kind of like hand-writing lends a feeling that typed, electronic words can't touch.

Hey, don't make fun of the plaid ottoman!

Yeah, you'd think after two Monday holidays (in observance of Christmas and New Year's Day) that I'd be calm and collected about putting out the paper in a short week. Well, I am. Sort of. I never know how many pages I'm going to have until the last minute, and then for some reason those pages seem to suck up all the stuff we've been working on all too quickly. But that's too much work talk. My bloggy minions, I know you come here to escape work, although the trip is all too fleeting.

Here are a few thoughts:
• Yoga is hot. At least to watch.
• Playgrounds are fun.
• I need a vacation.
• My new nickname should be "Home Chicken."
• I saw a dog on TV that I almost wanted. Still grieving for Gypsy, though.
• Sandboxes rock.
• Applying for new jobs is thrilling, despite the long odds of a reply.
• I'd rather be riding my bicycle.
• Pudding is fun, and nutritious.
• I wish it would rain.
• I put the "free" in freelance!
• The Cutlet's feet can smell worse than any feet I've ever smelled.
• Trix are for squids.
• Later.

We delved head-on into one of the three Rachel Ray cookbooks we got for Christmas. Both recipes have turned out pretty well, despite a few missing ingredients and my lament that the first one was in no way a 30-Minute Meal. After all, I had to zest a freakin' orange. And then juice what was left of the orange (by hand, because we don't normally juice things around these parts). It was at least a 60-Minute Meal, and by then I wasn't up to eating it.

We shop for most of our foodstuffs (or, alternately, "food") at Wal-Mart, but buy meat, fruit, vegetables, yogurt and Weird Things at Gourmet Store No. 2. I'll name this paragraph The Great Capers Caper, because we weren't anywhere near GSN2 when we needed "capers," and I'm still not sure what they are. Wal-Mart apparently doesn't normally stock "capers," so our second meal was made without them despite the recipe calling for "capers." Tastes pretty good, but I felt like saying, "Needs capers" when I tried it.

GSN2 carries some whack produce. The stuff we buy is normally really good, if it is in fact "normal" stuff. It was the Petite Filet's decision to bring home a Morros variety of orange, or "Blood Orange." It was supposed to be a cross between an orange and a raspberry. It was orange on the outside, bloody red on the inside. It also didn't taste all that good. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream about integration and equality, he wasn't talkin' about produce! Let us keep the berries and citrus separate (but, of course, equal).

It was about 80 degrees here yesterday. Sunny and a bit windy. This isn't normal, but after more than 20 years of living in this part of the world I've learned that "normal" is a joke. Especially when talking about the weather (but sometimes about large hairstyles or wearing of Western wear at inappropriate occasions).

We had an ice storm earlier this year, but that was between bouts of upper-70s temps in early December. We are living in severe drought conditions that have burned up acres of property (including homes) and closed many of our lakes to boats. I say La Niña or El Niño or whoever is causing this woe should be sent to his or her respective room for bad behavior. A spanking might also be in order. I got an outdoor thermometer this Christmas, but it's telltale hand hasn't moved much from between 60 and 80 during the days.

It's always like this to some degree, at least the rollercoaster winters and springs we have. I guess it sort of makes up for a sweltering summer that so often spills all over our autumn. At least it keeps our entire wardrobes in circulation. The bad thing is that lately, that box of hot chocolate in the kitchen cabinet has been neglected.

Ah, hot chocolate. Sweet, tasty Elixir of Warmth and Contentment. I've had some hot chocolate recently, but I had to modify it to fit our current climate here in the Lone Star State.

Texas T-bone's Lukewarm Chocolate

1. Prepare hot chocolate using your favorite method, be it instantly with premade powdered packets, or the long way involving the melting of grated cocoa bits, churning of heavy cream or other such laborous activity.

2. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream into your mug of hot chocolate. If you dare, make it a scoop of chocolate instead. Or rocky road, if that's your thing.

3. If you want to add some depth to the flavor, splash in a little vanilla extract or a tiny bit of rum.

4. Enjoy.

Try not to gag when you read this, but I saw it on a sign today: "A smile increases your face value."

So, the Petite Filet wants a new (or a newer) car. Scratch that; she needs one. But our budget doesn't necessarily support her getting one. She drives our 1998 Dodge Ram pickup, which has three problems: 1) it is old and will eventually need some hefty repairs jut to keep it going 2) it uses a lot of gas, and her drive to work is taking its toll on our Shell card 3) it is incredibly hard to park.

We're going to analyze our finances and see if it would make financial sense to get a more efficient vehicle. If you see our gasoline bill, you'll see there's a chance we might save money by taking on a car payment for something that gets better than 11 mpg. Then we'll have to find something suitable, and she and I are on the same page in wanting something safe, reliable and not entirely boring. I like the Mazda3 sedan if we consider something that small, but there are several of that ilk or a tad bigger that may work as well. I've driven the Mazda and found it to be nicer than the price suggests.

Once we've selected the right vehicle, if it's new we have some flexibility for financing. Own or lease? I've never leased, but if anyone has experience with it, please share your thoughts. Might be a nice change to keep a car 2 or 3 years before problems arise rather than pushing it forward until the wheels fall off. Ultimately, I'd love to bicycle commute (I'd have to work closer and in a job where I don't need a car during the day) and let the PF drive my car to work.

Speaking of bicycles, I've wanted to make a T-shirt for sometime now about them. Maybe I should start a Cafe Press account.

On the front it would have a drawing of a bicycle and the words "No Emissions Vehicle." Then, on the back, it would say, "OK ... Low Emissions Vehicle" and have a picture of a cheeseburger or taco to illustrate the point. Or maybe a stick figure on the bicycle emitting an air biscuit of sorts. Any potential takers? Maybe I could sell a lot of them to help pad the new car fund.

One thing environmental science tends to ignore is that human-produced methane (for that matter, by other animals as well) is probably worse than carbon monoxide produced by all the world's motorized vehicles put together. But then, there many politicians on both sides of the aisle who probably just need to let out a big fart and not be so uptight about everything. Yes ... life should be a real gas. And you can take that to the bank! Or at least to the bike rack.

I wrote about shunning a growing dependence on technology for the simple life, but because that post is no longer visible in my "Heinz 57" recent-posts box, I feel I can move on and forget I wrote it.

I can't help but enjoy the Transpod thingee I got for Christmas that zaps tunes from my iPod to my car's stereo. It's a little too easy to enjoy my new cell phone (it's a slider). Sadly, it doesn't have Bluetooth, so I can't become a robot like other people with wireless headsets.

I've been having daydreams about buying an Apple Airport base, getting a laptop and checking my e-mail from anywhere in the house. I mean, then we could get rid of our computer desk and put the iMac wherever we wanted to as well. There's that other dream of getting a TV we can hang on the wall so we could finally curb our Wal-Mart entertainment center, seeing as our quest for a nice, real-wood version that measures a mere 32 inches wide is just not happening. Does everyone in the world own big honking TVs except for us, stuck in the Stone Age with a mere 27-inch Trinitron (that, I might add, is about 10 years old but works fine)??

Zapped back to reality, I still leave my cell phone – new and shiny it is – usually in the car. So much for indespinsible. I don't see a laptop in my near future (mainly because I demand Apple ... now with Intel inside! ... and the Petite Filet would most likely need a Windows PC ... ick ... for work). That, and we're not rolling in extra dough at the moment. And if we were I'd rather spend that kind of money on a new camera anyhow, if only I could justify it. We don't have cable, and a plasma or LCD TV wouldn't look as chic with rabbit ears duct-taped to the wall above it.

My life is more about Play-Doh lately. The Cutlet got a set for Christmas that has shapes for cutting out the blue, red or green funstuff. He loves it, and it doesn't even require batteries. When I was a kid, I had the Play-Doh Fuzzy Pumper Set that was like a barber shop. There was a comb, some plastic scissors and Play-Doh People with holes in their heads. You could sit them on a barber chair, cram some Play-Doh into the bottom, and crank a handle to push the stuff into hair-like strands on the people's heads. It would shock and amaze my friends.

Yes, I think I'll stick with the simpler life. At least for now.

We are in the middle of converting our over-the-garage "loft" room into a playroom for the Cutlet. Well, and it'll be a playroom for us, too, eventually. I'm painting the walls and ceiling blue (with one wall a darker blue), installing a new light fixture, adding some toy storage, etc. The theme we originally came up with was to build an indoor treehouse. However, it didn't take long to realize that our boy is car crazy. Really, he's nuts about anything with wheels. So we're going with a transportation/garage motif.

The photo below illustrates why we need a new light fixture up there.

If it's original to the house, that means it's a 1964 model. Tastes have changed over the years, because I can't imagine liking this fixture when it was brand new. It was designed with ugly all over it. Even if a beholder finds it beautiful, when on the room actually gets darker. I might try to sell it on e-Bay, however, because I'm under the impression that people will buy anything with a price tag attached. If I say it used to belong to someone famous, or some religious icon emerges from the finish, we could trade it for the college education of the Cutlet's choice.

More aptly, I will probably curb it and let the Garbage Gypsies have it if they want.

The room's other claim-to-fame, which, if we live here long enough will also be curb fodder, is its flooring ...

We can usually tell when the Cutlet is about to start growing. He'll eat and eat and eat, then stop eating for awhile and sleep a lot. After yesterday, I'm waiting for him to fall into deep hybernation and then emerge from his room, hitting his head on the top of the door frame. If we'd had more food in the house, he probably would have eaten it.

The Cutlet's Thursday Menu
Breakfast
• Granola bar
• A piece of processed cheese
• Monster Truck fruit snacks
• A cookie (I caved. Bad Daddy!)
• Some apple juice
• Then he starts asking for a "yogurt bar," which is a granola bar with yogurt on it. Thankfully, we didn't have any.
• I left the room for a few minutes and I hear the refrigerator open. He found the grapes! He ate ALL of the remaining grapes, must have been more than a dozen of them.

Lunch
• An entire apple
• A peanut butter sandwich (he ate the whole thing, including the crust)
• Another cookie (Why stop now?)
• He wanted an orange, but he ate the last one the day before. And I'm talking a huge-gantic navel orange. Just about all of it. By himself.
• He also wanted some more Fruit Snacks, but that's about enough of those already!
• Two cups of milk.

Dinner
• He actually said he wanted some, but lunch was a little later in the day than usual. I think he might have scammed another cookie from his mother (Bad Mommy!) and a ton more milk. I think all he really ate was some corn chips.

The kid just turned 3. We thought we wouldn't have to bar the kitchen until he became a teen-ager. I don't worry about him eating so much, though, because he bounces around from dawn to dusk. He has always been active, preferring to run in circles in the back yard than sit and watch videos (which he also does, but gets up and tears through the house in between them).

Good thing today is pay day and that there's several grocery stores on the way home. I'm starting to feel hungry myself.

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Thank you for your time and consideration in helping us.

With deepest sincerity,
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I've never really understood the draw of Hooters. I mean, yes, I understand that draw of Hooters. But there are millions of other places to get mediocre food, overpriced beer and be subjected to surly waitresses wearing next to nothing. With the last part being its main attraction, I was surprised to drive by our local Hooters and see on the sign that it offers "Hooters to go." Why?

And do any self-respecting men worth their salt want to be lumped in with other Hooters patrons? Is it worth it to sit among horny daytraders*, IT nerds* and pasty pee wee football coaches* for some hot wings? Not for me. I would much rather play Hooters the Home Game, even if that means I've got to cook my own dinner.

*This is not an indictment of all daytraders, IT people, nerds or coaches. Just sayin'! My last experience with Hooters (the restaurant, heh) was in college during a journalism conference in Austin. Me and a buddy actually went to Hooters to sober up. Yeah, we were dumb.