I have been living in absolute hell for the past week and a half. And in regular hell for a month before that. But the avalanche of woes is getting under control. Finally. A little bit.
Mom’s rehab stay at the nursing home got cut by Medicare. We appealed. We lost. We appealed again. We lost again. According to them, she is fit and hearty, because their standards are something like, “not dead yet, therefore just fine”. So I worked my ass off trying to find a care home for her. Found a memory care place not far from their house. It’s newer, very clean, great reputation, and it’s only for memory care. Costs a little less than the fancy nancy places I’ve seen in the area, but it’s still a damn fortune. So we can afford tto keep her there about a year, maybe a little more. No choice other than home care after that, assuming she lives that long. Both the dementia and the physical wasting really came on strong this Spring.
Uncle Mike died. He was sick a long time. He looked awful at Christmas. Viewing is tonight, 130 miles away. Funeral is early tomorrow morning, 110 miles away in a different direction. I have put 2500 miles on my car going back and forth so many times to my mom’s place and her nursing home. I’m run down from all the driving, in addition to everything else. Sorry Mike. We love ya, we’ll miss you, sorry you went so soon.
I have done a ton of cleaning at her house, and that barely scratches the surface. I was up there for 6 days an nights. My guess is that there are 3 30 yard dumpsters worth of nice crap, old papers, and semi-antiques to get rid of. Upstairs room and the basement are packed to the gills. And I’m the only one who can do the work.
Opened the windows at her house to get some fresh air in. The bottom of a front window fell out. Carpenter ants. Every one of them. And worn out seals on all the glass. So we had to get 10 new windows for the downstairs, pretty much an emergency. We put in high quality windows during the renovation, but that was 30 years ago. $12K right there. I’m duct taping them together and the windows are ordered and the work will start in June.
Our fridge at home is dying. Or dying again? Freezer works, fridge is room temperature. This usually means a clogged drain line, which is a real pain to defrost and clean out. Or it could be either of the temperature sensor switches that control the defrost. Anyway, the big black beast is 26 years old, so maybe the best approach is to get a new one at this point. Multi door, french door, whatever. We built the kitchen remodel with a water line for an ice machine, but not sure if we really want one. We’re not the kind of people who use ice much. So one more big fat expense. We bought a little mini-fridge to save our cold stuff, and we’re trying to eat down the frozen things still in the old fridge. But we’re still going to lose a fair amount of food. There’s just no room for it.
Just paid my car insurance. The bill has gone up 28% in the past year. OUCH. FJB, F all the crazy ass government policies that are destroying the country and bringing runaway inflation with it. Top to bottom wrong on everything, and this is all done on purpose. WTF.
Sure would be nice to get meniscus replacement surgery on at least one knee, but it’s a 3 month recovery, and I just have too darn many demands on my time. I’m the doer, the problem solver, the worker. For everyone else. Nothing for me. Oh well.
All the stress and mess got to me and I’ve gone back to smoking again. I had quit, again, for about 8 weeks. I can quit again. But not right now. I will try to limit myself to 1 every few hours. Holy crap, a pack of smokes is $14 in New York with all the taxes added in.
OTOH, I bowled a 552 series at Wednesday league in the semi-finals, and we took all 7. That puts us up against a real ringer team for the finals, so even with 86 pins handicap coming our way, we’d all better be focused every single throw. We’re in the middle of the pack, and if we tromp next week we’ll be in the upper part of the middle. Might make about $25 more each in prize money if we do. With my knees and arthritic thumb I don’t know if I’ll bowl after this year. It’s the one activity in my life I live for. So take it away from me. Thanks.
WTH, I was going up to the home tomorrow anyway. Might as well spend the time there filling out forms and stuff.
The cynical take is that our taxes have been far too high since 2015 at least.
Ok, so the 3 of us got together and tried to do a birthday get together for mom. We got big helium balloons, and a nice card, and made some positive inspirational message banners and signs to hang around her room, some with our photos and names on them, brought her some simple little gifts of chocolate and caramel popcorn, got her laundry squared away finally. And sadly, she was in bed, and was hardly in her head that day. She did know that Sunday was her actual birthday, so that was good. I’d seen her the day before and she was a touch out of it, sitting in her travel chair in the common area singing quietly to her lunch until I sat down and said hi, at which point she was able to focus on me, at the mental cost of being able to use a fork. 4 days before that I’d visited and we had a good conversation, and she could read things and hold a coffee cup on her own. So the dementia comes and goes, or something.
So I got some pizza yesterday. Looked at the online menu and it says that credit card orders get a 4% surcharge. And I had a couple fives and ones and a $100 bill in my wallet. So I drove down to get the pie; the bill was $26.98. I gave the young girl $107 cash. She had no idea what to do and tried to give me the $7 back. I told her to just enter the money I’d given her, you’ll see what happens. Surprise!! My change was 4 $20s and 2 pennies. Told her I used to be a cashier when I was her age, and once you learn how to make change and what cash going in makes minimal change coming out you never forget. But, like, OMG; the register does the math for you.
Trying to put together a little thing for mom’s 89th birthday Sunday. Some balloons, a couple of cards, a door sign and a banner or two. Nothing extreme. Just to let her know we remembered her day and that we’re always there in spirit if not always in person.
And of course, we can only go up there the day before, early afternoon, and we can’t stay all day. Which is probably for the best, as she tires out pretty quickly.
I wasn’t there Easter Sunday, I was at the wifely’s dad’s house. We had a deep discussion about my mom, and they gave me some very good advice and a new perspective. So I’m far more settled than I was before. Cleaning up and cleaning out the house is still going to be a gigantic undertaking, but we’ve got a plan and have found at least one trusted person who can come and help with some of the cleaning.
We got whupped 2-5 both on Wednesday and Friday league this week, as everyone else but us suddenly remembers how to bowl in the last few weeks, making their tactical push towards the front of the pack. We got utterly smeared last night at “starter league” in which a family team flattened us. 20-something daughter threw a 619 series after totally coasting in game 3, shaving loads of points. Her guy, the SIL, with his 209 average, threw a 770 series and he was coasting in the 3rd game too. So he was almost 150 over average for the night. Dad is their anchor and bowled great the first 2 and then coasted in g3 to come out in the 650s. Mom is on the team to keep their handicap down, but even she was well over her 110 average in the first 2 games. Only reason we won g3 is because I was 15 over and our anchor pulled a 256 from somewhere and finished off the last 3 frames with X X XXX to put 90 pins up.
I don’t want to be in a “starter” league with bowlers who can hit an 800 series and coast to a 770. I guarantee you he now has the high series for the entire season. Go find a hardcore league. Problem is, any league will take anybody who shows up and pays. It’s a business, and there aren’t all that many league bowlers left. I know plenty of guys who are in 3 or 4 leagues. I’m in 2 and I’m not all that good. Wifely too.
We’re off to visit the nursing home again. I want to go, but I really don’t want to go. It’s hard and painful and heartbreaking to deal with, and I’m always a little afraid of what I’m going to find. But I go anyway, and sometimes we go together, because no one else is.
Too many residents in these places have been parked and deliberately forgotten about. The nursing home is 96 beds; in the log book the other day there were 5 visitors, and 3 were reps there on business. So just 2 people there to visit the patients.
Well, eventually we got some room aides to come, they got her off the toilet where she wasn’t supposed to be, got her cleaned up and got a new diaper on her, and got her over to her new bed which is super low to the floor. They don’t restrain the patients there, either physically or through drugs, so they laid out some giant soft mats on the floor in case she throws herself off the bed. Again. I got her oxygen line set up, got her her stuffed red panda, and talked her down and got her calm. We dimmed the lights and she was going to nap, so it was time for us to go.
We left the place and felt like screaming. And had ourselves a good stiff drink when we finally got back home.
Her symptoms are classic. The repeating everything you say to her without understanding it, her talking about shreds of memory from her deep past combined with other shreds to form ideas of things that never happened that she talks on and on about, her repeating the same things over and over and over, and her instant emotional shifts. I don’t know who is in my mother’s mind but the real her gets out less and less. And that’s so painful to witness. To say nothing of her body just wasting away, even if she is eating pretty well lately. Ok, she can’t usually handle cutlery, or a plastic glass or a mug, so I sat and fed her little spoons of her lunch and sips of the things she had to drink. And she kept trying to eat the napkin again.
I feel hollow inside. As if grief and exhaustion and my frustration about how things ever got to be this bad (the trail goes back to 1995 at least) have just eviscerated me and I’m nothing much more than a shell at this point.
Nothing major to report on mom’s condition. She is still in the nursing home and comfortable. She is eating well and can mostly feed herself. I think she can even hold a cup. She is getting some rehab physical therapy; I was at her first session and they were training her to go from a chair to her walker, walk about a bit, and from her walker back to a chair. They had her do some leg exercises with light ankle weights on. Given that she was lying in a hospital bed for 13 days and then in bed at the home another 2, I was impressed - verklempt! - to see her putting about in the hallways with the walker. The PT lady got her set up with an oxygen concentrator in her room, and a portable tank for when she’s doing PT. This keeps her O2 at or above 94%, which is good and helps keep her mind sharp. Or what’s left of it. The dementia is pretty strong. 91% is not enough for mental clarity; I know this, having O2 at home on my BiPap. 91 will keep you alive, but it’s borderline. She was reading 97% the last time I had her at her doctor, but those little finger meters aren’t the most accurate things. One will read high, one will read low, and if your fingernails are too long they won’t read at all.
I dusted off a really nice stuffed animal I bought her 30 years ago and took it to her, so she has a bed kitty critter to play with and hold. Actually it’s a Chinese red panda, life size and soft. So she can pet it and hug it and squeeze it, which will help her hands. PT is only for her legs, with encouragement to stand up straighter. Hand work counts as occupational therapy so it isn’t covered. Go figure.
We went to Walmart and bought her some inexpensive new clothes, so she has a couple outfits that are fresh and colorful. And I got her some low elastic socks to wear under her shoes, and we found the shoes. This is progress, believe it or not.
We’re heading up there tomorrow for a visit, and maybe I can talk to the PT lady to see what the goalposts are and what their time windows are as well. As long as she is making progress she can stay there. Otherwise it’s home Hospice with aides coming by. We’re getting set up for that at her house but it’s going to take quite a bit of work to clear space for a bed in the living room and get things cleaned up and thinned out. So we’ll have a visit, probably do a video Google Meet call with my brother via wifely’s tablet so mom can easily see my sibling at home. He’s wheelchair bound and has become weaker himself, so getting him out the door and into and out of a vehicle might be more challenge than it’s worth. We’ve got Meet set up but will test it with my brother before heading to the nursing home. The tablet has a stand so she doesn’t have to hold it or even touch it. And I want to find a good position for his cellphone so his face is fully visible and the phone doesn’t move around.
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Yeah, so that’s my life lately. Knee pain still gets me, I’m still trying to bowl. We lost 2-5 Wednesday night, but won 5-2 Friday night. I threw pretty well, and managed a 203 in Game 3. Happy me. I’m going to have to bowl in shorts, as the damn knee braces need precise placement and constant adjustment. They go on tight, then my legs get compressed, so they shift to a bad position, OW OW OW. And the clasps pop out far too often. Try managing that under blue jeans. Not easy.
Mom is now in a nursing home experiencing the gentle wonders of palliative care. Palliative care means making someone comfortable. It’s the term the medical community uses when they don’t want to say “hospice”, but the two are synonymous. And hospice is letting people die in moderate amounts of peace and comfort. And that’s where we are now.
The hospital cured her of the bacterial illness she had. Another UTI. A urinary tract infection can mimic the symptoms of dementia or make existing dementia seem worse. And boy does it ever. So after a week with the IV in her arms delivering medicine and other good things, her mind came back to some extent. I was able to have a good visit with her and we could talk. OK, I did most of the talking, but she could follow what what being said and put in a germane comment now and then, or mention some related memory or something like that.
So after a week of mental anguish, several different approaches, and countless phone calls all over, the insurance company approved the decision that they had just refused a few days before, and she has been transferred to a nursing home. I was there when she was brought in, I was there to visit 2 days later, and I’m going back today. Ok, some visit will be done, I’ve a couple little presents for her just for fun, we’ll talk a little and just share the love.
And then I have a meeting with the social services director, where we have to work out “forward planning”, which is going to come down to “keep her dry and clean and change her diaper a couple times a day, feed her if she’ll eat, and let nature take it’s course.” This is going to break my soul because it feels like I’ll be signing her death warrant. I’ll be sentencing my mother to die. Murder by decree. But the truth is death is already very close; every time the phone rings my thought is that it’s The Call, and I’ve had that trepidation since July or thereabouts.
It breaks my heart to say it, but she has just wasted away to little more than skin and bones. Her body has no muscle left. She looks one of those concentration camp pictures from WWII. Well, almost. I’m certain she weighs no more than 100lb, this woman who once stood 5’7” and a slender but comfortable 135. It stuns me how fast this all came about. A year ago on her birthday we were walking around the yard and she was noticing all the plants and trees and what needed to be done and what her yard guy could manage and so on. Even last Fall she could still walk around the house, go up and down the stairs, do some cooking and laundry, and live a fairly normal life considering she was a shut in.
And when it’s over, then I have to deal with my brother, her partner in crime. Him in his wheelchair and his issues. The house is a filthy nearly-hoarder pile of stuff. They could always buy more stuff, more furniture, more doo-dads, but nothing ever got thrown away. It a;; has to go. Easily 16 pieces of furniture, and 3 big dumpsters of clothes, and old stuff. Anybody want an electric warming tray from 1968? It still works. How about a 1981 bread machine? I would like to keep most of the tools, and the compound miter saw. But the Shopsmith Mark V and all it’s accessories (millions of them) has to go. Have to find a buyer who can come and take it apart and get it out of the house.
Then we have to sell the house, and assuming he’s still alive, which is not a guarantee giving his half a dozen major comorbidities, we will have to also sell our condo and move up to Warren County NJ or across the river into PA in the Bangor area. Find some place for the 3 of us, and live simple.
She was taken to the hospital an hour ago. Do not know what they can do, cannot get clear take from my brother’s texts. She cannot come back to the house at this point, he cannot care for her. Apparently her condition has deteriorated significantly since I was there Monday, and it was pretty bad then; much worse than when I was there 2 weeks before that. And it wasn’t good then either.
But he still isn’t willing to say that a home health aide won’t be enough. So what can I do?
My mother is dying. This is a terrible thing to say, and a difficult and painful thing to accept. But it’s true nonetheless. While her physical health is pretty good, her mental health gets worse almost every day, and her body follows along with it. As of this week she can hardly walk. She doesn’t have the strength to stand up from a chair or the couch even with the assistance of a walker to hold on to. She can’t dress herself, or undress herself, or do much of any personal hygiene. She’s pretty much lost all bladder control. Sometimes she can talk and sometimes she can’t, as the dementia ravages her mind. And she’s barely eating. She can’t manage a knife, fork, or spoon; she can barely manage a small cup. Even though the doctor got her appetite stimulant pills, she continues to lose weight. I took her to her doctor yesterday. She’s lost another 5 pounds since 2 weeks ago. There really isn’t anything that can be done. He’s putting us in touch with county hospice, who can do some kind of at-home assessment and give her some palliative care in the time she has left.
She’s lost the will to live, she’s lost the will to eat. Her mind is deteriorating at an alarming rate. 3 months ago she could walk around inside the house and follow most conversations; 5 months ago she could walk around out in the yard. She could carry on conversations and even do some light cooking and housework, and was at least a bit aware of the news and the outside world. 4 years ago she was driving, and was as sharp as she ever was. 3 weeks ago she could control her feet and legs enough to get in and out of my car, although she hasn’t been able to figure the seat belt for some time now. Yesterday getting her out the door, in and then out of the car, and up the elevator to her doctor was nearly impossible.
She will be 89 on April 7. I really don’t have much faith she’ll make it that long.
I cried and cried for hours when we got home last night. But there’s nothing that can be done. My brother lives with her, and will try to get her to eat and stay reasonably clean and fresh. And that’s it.
Once upon a time, long long ago, I think today was known as the calends. Because it’s the end of the calendar. A free extra day. Because the “modern” calendar the West has been using since the Roman Empire is slow by around 6 hours a year, so every 4 years we add an entire day to mostly square things up again. And in general, that’s accurate enough. Ok sure, some bloodthirsty seriously anal Central American culture figured out a truly accurate system hundreds of years ago, but moving great big stone rings around was a pain, not to mention the constant upkeep on all those weird-ass looking carvings. And the buckets of blood. The lakes of blood. Um, no, I’ll keep my Timex, and we’ll add a day every once in a while. Much easier
Personally I think the entire world should just take today off. No work, no wars, no shopping. Have a drink or 3 and go back to bed. I dare say we could all use a day like that far more often than once every 4 years.
Autolyse, or autolysis, is the term applied to the way flour breaks down when wet. Without any yeast or any heat, damp flour will soften up and start to form glutens. This is a good thing. About an hour is long enough.
A poolish is a “pre ferment”, in which a little bit of commercial yeast is added to a good amount of some very wet flour and left alone for half a day or so. Not only does it use less yeast, it creates lots of flavor, as the little flour bacteria start to breed. It’s kind of halfway to being sourdough, but with supplied yeasts, instead of what occurs naturally on the wheat in the field. A poolish is very wet, often 100% hydration.
Hydratian level is the amount of liquid in a dough, expressed as a mass percentage of the total amount of flour in a recipe. So 100% hydration would have a certain weight of flour, and the same weight of water. 50% hydration means the water weight is half that of the flour weight. Another kind of preferment, called a “biga” often uses 50% hydration. Bigas can be harder to work with because they are very stiff, but they are also rather forgiving time-wise to their peak yeastiness, whereas poolish is pretty close to flour soup but the yeast peak is a more narrow time window.
A New York style pizza dough needs to be a bit firmer than a Neopolitan dough, but also not brittle; a NYC street slice is a long thing, and everyone folds it in half lengthwise so the toppings don’t drip off.
then put 300 grams of the mixed flour in your mixer bowl. Set the remaining 162gm mixed flour aside.
To the mixing bowl add 270 grams of warm water. 270/300 = 90% hydration, so this will be pretty soft. You don’t knead here, just mix it up. Rough mix is ok; you can do this with bare hands or a wooden spoon or the beater in your stand mixer.
Cover the bowl and let it sit for an hour. It’s just flour and water.
Next, dissolve 1/4 teaspoon of instant yeast in 30ml of water, which is 1 fluid ounce. A good excuse to get out your cocktail jigger! Add this to the autolysed wet flour, then use the mixer to thoroughly mix in the yeast water. Cover, and leave it in the bowl on the counter for about 12-14 hours. When the poolish is ripe you will see plenty of little moon crater bubbles on top.
To the remaining flour, add an mix in 12 grams of salt, 1 teaspoon of instant yeast, 2 teaspoons of white sugar. Pour this onto the poolish along with 2 teaspoons of Extra Virgin Olive oil. Mix on low speed for a minute or two, then knead on speed 2 for only 3 minutes. This slack dough will not require much kneading at all!
Now cover it up, leave it on the counter for 90 minutes, then into the fridge for at least 8 hours ... 2 or 3 days is fine; the longer it’s in there the better the flavors you’ll get.
When it’s time to make some pizza, dip both hands in plain all purpose flour, and carve off about half the dough, and work it. The flour on your hands will dry things out just a bit (it might take 2 dips in the flour) and leave you with a very soft dough you can play Pizza Guy with to your heart’s content. You can stretch this stuff out and out and out, to the point where you can easily see light through it. Windowpane!
I have been very sick for 3 weeks now. A few days into the huge doses of Augmentin and the Prednisone, along with a ton of vitamins and some Mucinex tablets, and I might be turning a corner. Might. Not quite as much coughing, nose running much less.
The initial positive reaction was just initial; it’s still a fight and it doesn’t always go my way. but I’m doing everything I know how to do.
Sorry, that’s about all I have.
Ok, I tried making pizza dough yesterday. And then found out later that there is a tremendous difference between a Neopolitian dough that’s designed to bake up in a minute in a 1000 degree oven, and the more or less New York style dough that will do well in a typical home oven which tops at at perhaps 550 degrees.
And all that other baker stuff ... use a biga, use a poolish, do an autolyse, do a chilled 72 hour ferment ... oh gak, a bit more than I could handle. But that was yesterday. Today I feel up to experimenting with a small amount of flour and water, enough to make one decent sized pizza when all is said and done.
I might do some kind of beef and bean burrito thing for dinner. Keep it fairly small. Not sure what kind of cheese we have or how much. Beans and chiles, no problem there!
Another week of light posting. Another week of being sick. Ok, I finally broke down and went to the local clinic. The extremely young woman PA set me up with some strong antibiotic and a heft 12 day dose of prednisone. Both prescriptions together cost me $2.26. Got home, took the first dose of each, and within an hour my nose is not running and I am not coughing and my chest is not congested. Son. of a. Gun.
[ sorry, snipping off old posts as needed ]
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Bowled over average all 3 games Wednesday night and Friday Night. We got smeared all 3 on Wed, and we cruised to an easy win all 3 on Friday. Go figure.
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February 12, 2024
Superbowl leftovers ... we had too many wings ... so ...
Halfway To Hell chipotle wing sauce
Chipotle chilis are dried mature jalapeno peppers, smoked. The morita chipotles are leathery and moderately smoky. The meco chipotles are bone dry and super smoky. Arbol chilis have a lighter smoky flavor and a good kick of heat. This is not a murder_death_kill hot sauce, but it is pretty zippy. And it’s quite smoky. Sure, you could just throw in a few tablespoons of chipotle powder and some smoky hot paprika. Seriously? The flavor is many many times richer when you use fresh chilis. Even dried ones.
In a small pot, boil 1 1/2 cup water
add
8 arbol chilis
4 chipotle meco chilis
4 chipotle morita chilis
You may need to use a small bowl or saucer to weigh the chilis down to keep them under the water.
Simmer for 10 minutes then remove the arbols. Simmer for 5 more minutes and remove the moritas. Turn off the heat. Remove the mecos when you are finished processing the others; they should be rehydrated enough at this point. Throw away the water, even though it smells like a campfire.
To process: lay the chilis out on a cutting board by the sink. Using a sharp pair or scissors or a very sharp pointy little knife, cut the stem ends off then cut open one long side of each pepper. Rinse the seeds and the pith out under gently running water. Use the scissors to cut each pepper in strips, then cut a pile of strips into small chunks. Put these in a Magic Bullet or other small blender and pulse into mash. Set aside. Now wash your hands with dish detergent. Twice. At least.
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In a medium pot, gently melt a stick of butter
Then add:
1/2 cup Crystal hot sauce
1/2 cup Frank’s hot sauce
6 - 8 shakes of Tabasco
1-2 Tbl Worchestershire sauce
all of the chili mash
a nice squirt of ketchup, about 2Tb
Stir and simmer this for 10 minutes until it reduces somewhat. Taste test, add more Frank’s, more Tabasco as needed. You might want to add a squirt of lime juice or two, and maybe a nice dollop of honey. A splash of soy sauce if you must make it salty.
There is enough here to coat about 3 dozen wings, given that most wings these days are smaller than you expected.
Naturally, you dedicated fire eaters can amp this up as hot as you want it. As made, this is plenty hot enough for “normal” people who like it plenty hot and spicy.
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Chiefs Win Superbowl In Overtime
I got my annual football game in last night. I like football but I’m not a huge fan of either conference or any particular team, and the annual changes in the rules annoys me.
That said, yesterday’s Big Game was kind of odd. The first two quarters were rather lackluster, and error filled. At one point, after yet another “oops, forgot to hang onto the ball” moment, I texted a friend that the game was a comedy of errors. So the first half was more angst than excitement. Things got better in the next THREE quarters; the 4th was pretty good and the semi-sorta-sudden-death overtime quarter was definitely worth watching.
There were an awful lot of injuries too, about 8 players left the game I think. And this is from playing in a nice warm roofed stadium on real grass.
Way too many camera moments of Taylor Swift, although her curvy buddy in the white tank top and the curly blonde hair was totally nice to look at. Gee, really? That was actress Blake Lively.
I think the refs did a good job. They flagged the obvious fouls, but generally stayed out of the way, and didn’t try to “balance” the game with questionable calls. Well done.
Kudos to the kickers! Two longest field goal records were made last night, the first a very impressive 55 yards from the Niners’ Moody, only to be broken a while later with a 57 yarder by KC’s Butker. Moody had another good one of 53 yards too. The thing is, in the dead air of the Las Vegas closed stadium these guys put the ball easily 20 feet over the goal posts. Which makes me think that a 70 yard field goal is not impossible.
In the end, the nail biting final end, with just 13 seconds left on the OT clock, the Chiefs pulled ahead by getting an actual touchdown, which ended the game under this year’s new sorta-sudden-death overtime rule.
So the Chiefs earned back to back Superbowl titles, and got 3 wins in 5 years. The first of those wins was when they beat the 49ers in 2020. And if they get rid of fumble fingers Pacheco maybe they take the Bowl again next year too.
Most of the ads were pretty stupid. The worst one was the campaign ad for Kennedy, trying desperately to make itself look like an early 1960s spot for his more famous progenitor. It looked like it had a $99.99 budget. The Budweiser ad seemed almost phoned in, but at least they got the Clydesdales out again. Because tradition. Was I the only one who resented the Pfizer ad and sponsorship? Go the hell away, you evil murderers.
A link to a decent re-cap.
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February 10, 2024
I’ve been sick. Got the cold going around. But I’m getting better. I think.
We lost all 7 in Friday bowling league. We were simply outrolled by the team that almost always wins the league. I rolled 2 good games, a 215 and a 186, but died in game 2 with a 124.
Ok, time to go grocery shopping, get beer, get gas. then back to bed? No, I have to make bread. Crap.
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February 5, 2024
The beast is in the house!
Kneading multiple loaves of heavy bread dough is more than my KitchenAid 5 quart Artisan can handle. And I’m tired of replacing parts. So I found a factory refurbished Professional 600 6 quart model and bought it. It’s much sturdier and heavier, has a larger bowl and a motor nearly twice as powerful. It weighs about 10lbs more too, on a wider base. KA’s refurb price was 1/3 less than a new one costs retail, same warranty. This baby ain’t gonna rock and roll and throw the bowl like little “Arty” does. Somehow the thing looks like some droid or war machine from Star Wars to us, so she instantly named our new mixer “C 3 P Dough”.
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February 3, 2024
Bowling Blogging Friday Night Edition
I was Mr. Consistency Friday night. I have a 176 average there, and rolled 183, 183, 176 to come out slightly over average for the night. Considering I’m wearing 2 or 3 sets of braces, and that my thumb is insanely painful and not reliable, I consider that a success. We only got one game, losing 2-5, but not really my fault. OTOH, they were bowling pretty well. Yeah, but most of my team was well under average in at least 2 games of the 3.
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I got a phone call from Vilmar today. First time I’ve ever actually talked to him. He’s still recovering from his surgery but there was more damage than anticipated. Or should I say that the non-cancerous brain tumor was bigger than they thought. So he’s getting by, but it is not easy. Pretty much house bound, can’t type, hard to read, hard to do just about anything. He has plenty of food and the guy is super organized, with 30 days of pre-cooked meals in the freezer/fridge in individual portions, and another 60 days worth in the freezer out in the garage.
Pray for Vilmar, he needs whatever help he can get.
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February 1, 2024
And around we go again ... another young attractive female teacher doing the frisky with students hardly 10 years younger than herself, before and after marrying her babyfaced boyfriend. A marriage that lasted about a month.
A newlywed Iowa school teacher has admitted sexually abusing students as young as 13 — leaving her facing up to 33 years in prison after already losing her job and short-lived marriage.
Cassidy Kraus, 24, a teacher at IKM Manning School, got hitched in July — just for new husband Zachary to file for divorce on August 28 when the abuse against at least three boys first emerged, according to Fox News.
Three days before the divorce filing, the teacher tendered her resignation to avoid getting fired, school officials said.
She pleaded guilty Monday to one count of third-degree sexual abuse, two counts of lascivious acts with a child and three counts of dissemination and exhibition of obscene materials to minors, KTIV reported.
The charges were for sexually abusing and sending obscene Snapchat messages to at least three boys between the ages of 13 and 14.
Kraus “knowingly disseminat[ed] obscene material” via Snapchat to one boy between January and May 2022, and to the two others between January and June 2023 — the latter just before her marriage, Law&Crime reported, citing a Carroll County criminal complaint.
More links here and here.
Ok, so she’s 24 now. And she was sending naughty pics to her students 18 months ago. Which means she was probably 22 then. Which means she was straight out of college, ink still wet on the diploma, was given a job teaching kids barely 10 years younger than herself, and almost instantly got into some raunchy flirtatious photo swapping on social media. With boys who were just hitting puberty. I keep hearing that the schools are desperate for teachers, but in my day there was no way such a young woman would be assigned any students beyond 3rd grade for the first 5 or 7 years of her teaching career.
I do not understand this kind of thing. Is there some kind of sexual allure in dorky boys trying to deal with their first erections? Does the “coltish” thing work for women too, the way that some guys find a certain degree of charm in 11-14 year old girls who hit that pubescent growth spurt. And by charm I do not mean sexual allure or desire. Just awareness of the beauty of a flower beginning to bloom. Was she driven to teach them more than what was in the syllabus? Where is this coming from, and it’s pretty damn common these days. I couldn’t get dates with 20 year old girls when I was 18 because I was so much younger and they were so worldly and mature. Yeah right. And like every female 14 and older, they were only interested in older guys, especially if they were tall, had good hair, some kind of job and a reliable and possibly cool car. But these days it’s like a certain kind of female is out there collecting “V cards” as fast as she can, and reveling in it. And they’re all married already.
I can sort of understand the comments at the news sites; the kind of aura that an attractive 22 year old woman exudes would have been utterly hypnotic to a 13 year old boy. Slack jawed unblinking mindless confusing desire. And the comments reflect that; nobody believes these boys are damaged or victims in the slightest. No, they have a mind blowing memory that will become their favorite fantasy for the rest of their lives. And yet as a society we continue to swallow the canard that girls the same age are fragile little innocent flowers so easily damaged ... yeah sure. Have you seen what tweener girls look like these days? 13 going on 24, can’t get there fast enough, and frantically eager to get busy getting busy. They’re walking hormone bombs ready to explode, just like the boys are.
And you know what’s going to happen too ... she’ll get the “too pretty for jail” treatment, maybe get 2 years at county, out in 6 months with 5 years probation, probably not have to register as a offender, change her name and hair color, and start her life all over again.
The ex husband? For the next year or two he’s going to be a laughingstock, but that too will pass. Especially if he moves cross country, changes his look, and never comes back.
Instapundit is always running this kind of news under the “Teach Women Not To Rape” banner ... and nobody wants to admit that maybe this kind of predatory female thing has been going on a damn long time, half a century or longer than the “where did this new thing come from?” narrative the media runs with.
I just don’t have the answers, and I’m not even sure of the questions. Just like a 13 year old boy I guess.
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Back in the 60s the leftists had a good time poking fun at patriotic Americans who pointed out that many new social trends were “commie plots”. Oh those silly stiffnecked fuddy duddies. Turns out ... no kidding ... they were pretty much right. Duh.
You want to read this; an excerpt from a well researched book that’s about to hit the market. It’s a long read, but connects dots you forgot even existed from way back then to all the degenerate lunacy going on now.
Front Page Magazine’s post on White Privilege
On December 26, 1969, in Flint Michigan, roughly 300 college students – almost exclusively white – gathered in a run-down dance hall called the Giant Ballroom. The ballroom was located in the heart of one of Flint’s black neighborhoods, and also one of its most violent. A bullet hole in the front door marked the spot where, the night before, a disgruntled patron had fired a shotgun into the hall inadvertently killing a black customer who was there to celebrate Christmas, and was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.[1]
The attendees were members or alumni of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the largest radical movement on university campuses during the 1960s. They had come to attend the last “National Council” meeting of SDS.
The organization’s recently elected leaders, who called themselves the “Weathermen” were billing the event as a “National War Council.” The name was not rhetorical. Their intention was to transform SDS into an underground terrorist army whose mission was to be an “enemy within,” taking up arms against America, in behalf of the non-white peoples of the world whom America allegedly oppressed. They intended to play a key role in the struggle to defeat the global empire of U.S. imperialism, and replace it with a communist state.
Columbia graduate, Mark Rudd, the National Secretary of SDS, described the venue of the gathering in his memoir Underground: My Life With SDS and the Weathermen. “The Detroit collective had decorated the ballroom unlike any other dance hall I’d ever seen. A six-foot cardboard machine gun suspended over the stage set the tone, as did psychedelic portraits of our heroes Fidel, Che, Ho Chi Minh, Lenin, Mao, Malcolm X, and Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers.”[2] Cleaver had earned his spot by breaking with the Panther leadership over his call for a shooting war against America starting immediately.
The evening’s speeches began with Weatherman’s queen bee, Bernardine Dohrn issuing a signature call to arms. Dohrn mounted the platform wearing a brown mini-jumpsuit and thigh-high Italian leather boots causing a stir among the tie-dyed, blue jeaned Weather army sitting at her feet. Referring to the date on which the Weathermen had staged a three-day riot in Chicago billed as the “Days of Rage” specifically targeting police, she said “Since October 11th we’ve been wimpy….
So the commies have been at their game for over 50 years ... and today the top Democrats use those 1960s talking points nearly word for word.
I did post on the Indivisible organization didn’t I? They’re everywhere, they have huge amounts of dark funding, they own loads of politicians and media figures, they set the talking points, and every connected D parrots them back immediately. And it’s all one great big commie plot.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Indivisible+organization#ip=1
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Some almost local news. Manville is about 30 miles away, down Rt287 to the Somerset area.
Nothing more to say; the post title does it all: Manville home vandalized with pepperoni. Man, is that Joisey, or what? Eh!!
(my Italian neighbor reminds me that pepperoni isn’t Italian, it’s an American sausage, so this could be a counter-racist act of revenge. )
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Not sure how it happened, but I had one day earlier this week that was pain free. No, I didn’t go for a run or do any high impact aerobics. I just moved around pretty much normally. It was really nice.
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BowlingBlogging!
My average in the Wednesday night league took a huge hit when my knees went south. Not so much my Friday league, as I was a little smarter and took more time off. So on Fridays I carry a 176 average, and was running a 156 in the Wednesday league. I’ve done pretty well in both the past few weeks, so my Wednesday numbers are up to 160. I threw a 526 there this week, which is a 175 average. So pretty much normal. Sadly, we were playing a pretty hot team, and my series was the low one, by 37 pins. Most of the rest of the guys rolled in the mid 600s to mid 700s. And this isn’t really a hard core league. We did win all 7 points though, which brings the team stats back almost to 50% wins. Mid pack. Tough crowd but we have fun.
I have no idea where we are in the standings for Friday league. I never look. We might be doing pretty well.
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January 27, 2024
Fox News Online Sinking Into Pathetic Obscurity Faster Than Their TV Channel
Figured I’d check the news this morning. Went over to my old standby FoxNews. Lead story is that leftist garbage “fact checker” site Snopes has been forced to change it’s opinion about Biden wearing a hardhat backwards. Seriously? There’s a picture. And anyone who has ever worn, or even seen a real hardhat, knows that the strap goes across the back. Duh. But Fox goes downhill from there. Yes, it’s possible! Next story up is about the big debate online at Reddit over whether customers checking out at Costco should put their membership card on the divider between the orders, or hold it up for the cashier to scan. THIS IS NEWS.
Goodbye Fox, game over. It was fun while it lasted, but it’s been over for several years now. Gutfield is the only thing on their channel worth watching, barely. And they haven’t covered much in the way of regular news in a very long time anyway.
Sad.
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January 27, 2024
Crap, has it been a week since my last anemic post? Sorry. My sorry ass life continues, a daily constant battle with pain. It saps my will to do anything. Sometimes I hope that I go to sleep and just don’t wake up. I spend most of my time alone anyway, and there is very little I can do at this point. What am I living for? And yet I plod on.
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I want to get excited about Texas Governor Abbot’s stand against FJB’s treasonous border policy and the turncoat commie pussy Supreme Court’s inept judgements.
At this point 25 state governors, all Republicans, have signed letters of support ... that’s probably all of them. But is this just more bullshit empty virtue signalling? I fear that it is.
The time to close the border was when Reagan was President. He cut that amnesty deal and the left wing Congress stabbed him in the back. The only right response would have been to immediately build a wall along the Mexican border, from the Pacific to the Gulf, and execute another Operation Wetback like Eisenhower did, along with shutting down all immigration and asylum for the next 25 years. But that didn’t happen.
And now this incontinent mumbling moron sock puppet pedophile is occupying the White House.
There are probably 50 or 60 millions illegals in our country. We don’t owe them shit. All benefits should be cut off immediately, including healthcare and education. And then march them out of the country at the point of a bayonet. Oh the libs will scream and cry and protest!! And when a couple hundred of them get shot down in the streets and their bodies left there to rot, they’ll STFU in a flash. We are in a period of lawlessness, at the end of our civilization. So laws no longer apply. Which means anyone with power and organization can do anything. Great, let’s clean house. Revoke all the visas while we’re at it. Dismantle 99% of the government. Flush the entire education system down the toilet and start over, with not a lib, commie, trans, or leftist in the system. Sure, we’ll suffer for a while. But look at all the job openings created for all the deadbeats and former government workers ... if they can toe the American line. If not, well, too bad. No work means no food and they can all go to hell and starve as well.
Yeah, I’m evil today. I’m just beyond fed up with everything, top to bottom.
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January 20, 2024
It’s cold as all get out, temps hovering just over 10°F and the wind is blowing, giving a wind chill of about ... nothing. Zero. So naturally, in an attempt to survive, it’s time to bake something good.
I made Brownies Embers from scratch
It was pretty easy, and I did it entirely by hand. No mixer, no whisk, just a spoon. Ok I weighed out the flour, but I don’t even think about baking without my sweet little Oxo digital kitchen scale. So I looked around the kitchen and found a bit of this and a bit of that, and had my little AhA! moment. Time to make brownies.
Get all the ingredients out ahead of time an hour or two in advance. This gives the butter a chance to soften and the eggs to come up to room temperature.
1 stick of butter
1 4oz block of baker’s chocolate. Ignore the date code if it’s within a couple years and the package is unopened. The stuff lasts forever if kept somewhere cool and dark, like in a kitchen cabinet
2 cups of white sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 cup of all-purpose flour
1 cup of crushed walnuts or pecans (smell them to make sure they haven’t gone rancid. I only had 1/3 cup, so use what you’ve got)
Start the oven, set to 350°F. Take a 9x13 glass baking dish and really big piece of tin foil, and make a liner with the foil that sticks out a couple inches over the baking dish. Give it a good spray with Pam, or go to town with some Crisco. Set aside for now.
Put the block of baker’s chocolate - 4oz is the whole package - in a plastic bag, seal it, and whack it on the counter a few times to break the bar into a couple dozen chunks.
In a medium double boiler ( I used a DRY 2 quart steel mixing bowl over a 4 quart pot with perhaps a quart of water simmering in it) put the butter in and let it start melting. After a minute or two, dump in the chocolate. Stir things around constantly until the chocolate has melted and combined with the melted butter. Set this aside to cool for a bit. Don’t put it outside to freeze, or even put it in the fridge. Just set it aside. In 5 or 10 minutes it will be room temperature.
Stir in the vanilla. I use the spendy double strength Bourbon vanilla, so don’t be cheap with the 2 teaspoonsful.
Add the 4 eggs. I suggest cracking them all in a cereal bowl first, just in case any shell bits get in and need removing. Take a fork and whisk them up. Pour this into the cooled mixing bowl, and mix until it’s all combined smoothly.
Dump in the sugar, and stir until smooth. You get something a bit more liquid than toothpaste, but not runny.
Dump in the nuts, stir, then dump in the flour. Stir until smooth, making sure to get any flour stuck to the side of the bowl.
Pour the batter into the foil lined baking dish. Use a spatula to get every last bit of batter. You might need to spread the batter around the baking dish with the spatula.
Ok, into the oven, for 25-28 minutes. Do the classic toothpick test to check doneness; you want the toothpick to come out clean in each of the 8 or so places you stick it in, with just a little darkness on the end. That’s done. If you want crispier brownies, let it cook perhaps 3 more minutes.
Put the dish on a cooling rack and walk away ... all the way to the dishpan, and start cleaning everything.
And that was that, and it came out great, and now the kitchen is nice and warm and the whole house smells great.
Ok, why are you calling these embers? You didn’t burn the heck out of them, did you?
Nope, they came out just right. And the reason for the big chunk of foil is so that the whole thing can be lifted out, put on a plate or cutting board, and sliced into pieces.
(this recipe is from the Joy of Cooking cookbook, where they tell you that they’ve been running this recipe since 1939. )
Ok already, WHY ARE THEY EMBERS????
Because brownies are not just little chocolate fudge bars. They’re also the name of the entry level group of Girl Scouts. Little girls in 2nd or 3rd grade I think. They have their little brown uniform dresses, their brown knee socks, and their little brown beanies. I have no idea what they do, but most of them like it enough to graduate to regular Girl Scouts, where they learn new skills, earn badges, get outdoors and so forth. The uniform changes to green if I remember right.
EMBERS, m’kay??
Up in Canada, the Girl Scouts organization is called Girl Guides. Like the rest of Canada they have gone woke Socialist with a vengeance. So they’re changing the name from Brownies to Embers. Perhaps because embers are even browner than brownies? Or because they’re so much hotter, and that’s an important and necessary way to look at some 8 year old little girls? Maybe, maybe not. But they’re claiming it’s more inclusive, for “racialized” little girls. What. The. Fudge Brownies? Everything the Leftists get their hands on, they destroy. I can’t begin to imagine what new skills (ahem) they’ll be teaching these children now. Team arson to push climate change? Emergency gender reassignment in the forest with just basic kitchen tools and duct tape? Sexual deviance and self-doubts? Self hatred for not being brown yourself under the brown uniform? Ok, I can imagine, and I’m certain they’ll screw it up the same way that Boy Scouts was destroyed here in the USA.
Canada Girl Guides drops ‘Brownies’ name after it’s deemed offensive
The Girl Guides of Canada has renamed the “Brownies” branch - who are now called the “Embers” - after the old name was deemed too racially divisive.
“Embers are full of potential and when they work together, they can ignite a powerful flame!” the Girl Guides of Canada (GGC) tweeted on Wednesday.
The group said in November that the old name had caused “harm” to some minority members, and kept girls from joining.
CEO Jill Zelmanovits says the girls have been very open to the name change.
“After hearing from our girl, youth and adult members, it was resoundingly clear that this was the preferred choice,” Mrs Zelmanovits said in a news release.
“We can’t wait to keep bringing the magic of Girl Guides to girls ages seven and eight, now with the name Embers.”
The decision came after input from current and former members, who said that the previous name “caused harm and was a barrier to belonging for racialised girls and women”.
The release added that applications have increased since November, after the group’s decision to become “more inclusive for their daughters”.
The GGC says that the new name should be used immediately, but it will take until September for it to be fully adopted in merchandise and gear.
The Embers join the other GGC branches, including the Sparks (ages five to six), Guides (ages nine to 11), Pathfinders (ages 12 to 14) and Rangers (ages 15 to 17).
The Brownies were formed in England in 1914 as girls sought their own version of the Scouts.
They were originally called the Rosebuds - a name that did not survive long - and today members earn badges for activities like crime prevention and science investigation.
“This wasn’t just about a name or its origin,” Mrs Zelmanovits added. “This was about the fact that girls experienced racism and felt that they weren’t welcome in Girl Guides.”
Complete and total Bull Shit. Some Canuck Twit Karen must have decided that wearing a brown uniform was cultural appropriation, so it had to go. Or at least the name did.
Sparks and Embers? I think these little kids are going to get burned.
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January 19, 2024
Not a whole lot to say. It’s Winter here, cold and snowy. My knees still hurt. I have to call the body shop who repaired my car, as I think the hatchback hatch has come a little loose. It isn’t falling off, but there’s just too much humidity inside the car, like the seal isn’t making enough contact. And after this last snow there was snow in the channel between the back of the roof and under the lip of the top of the hatch. That’s never happened before. And it turns out that the hatch is at least a little bit adjustable. Ok,Mazda calls that part the liftgate. Same same.
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I was thinking of writing up an essay on chili. Yeah, I made another batch, this one a bit hotter. And I added some chipotles, which are smoked matured jalapeno peppers. One kind is leathery soft and a bit smoky, the other kind is dry as a bone and smells like a campfire. Both need to be rehydrated, then away you go. And what is chili at heart, other than pepper stew? So lots of peppers of lots of different kinds, finding a balance between red and green, bright and deep, zing and zoom. Plus meat and onions and bacon and other stuff.
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We managed to win just one game in Wednesday night bowling. We played a team that was a bit low average, and suddenly they remembered how to bowl. Beat us the first game by 151 pins. Our guy threw a 289 in the second game, and we lost that one by 4. We did win the third game, but we didn’t take wood. I was over average in all 3 games, getting better as the night wore on. It’s our two guys in the middle who didn’t do so good. But the other team was running really hot, so what can you do?
I’ve got my ball in the ball oven, getting it warm and clean for tonight’s league. And I’m doing wash, as I’m tired of wearing the same oversize fleece lined jeans for yet another day. They sure are warm, and the relaxed carpenter cut gives me plenty of room for my knee braces. But it’s getting a bit eeeww, 4 days on the same pair of paints. ‘
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Here is a very nice essay about Robert E Lee. Plenty of references to his writings, his views, his background, and what other people had to say about him, North and South. It goes without saying that the modern drive to cancel him because reasons is totally ass backwards. He was a patriot, a hero, a man of honor and distinction, and perhaps the best general in all of American history. Oh, and he freed the slaves he was in charge of, even though he wasn’t their actual owner. So there.
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January 15, 2024
Hello old blog, I’m back again. Life plods along. Still having the knee issues. Go for an MRI next week, and back to the hand orthopedist as well.
Made another batch of red & green chili which has 6 kinds of chilis in it; I want to find some chipotle meco, which is the smokier version of a dried and smoked mature red jalapeño. And I should find some better smokier bacon for the next batch. Love the smoky flavor. This batch had more reconstituted chilis in it, a dozen each of anchos and guajillos, turned into a paste in the old Magic Bullet mini blender. Gives you a seriously rich flavor, and the chili is so dark red it’s pretty much brown. Heat level is enough for me, spicy without being a spoonful of fire. A pot full makes at least a dozen bowls, so we eat on it for several days.
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Float copper? Unless you’re from northern Michigan you’ve never heard of this, but it’s about the purest naturally occurring copper on earth. And it looks really cool too.
Same topic: Saving the big one.
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Gee whiz, guess those primitive natives and those crazy crystal sniffing moonbeam naturopaths knew a thing or two after all. Willow bark tea, sort of a liquid aspirin, has significant antiviral properties.
In Finland, researchers have recently discovered that willow bark extract, a plant known for yielding various medicinal compounds including the basis for contemporary aspirin, exhibits a wide-ranging antiviral effect in laboratory cell studies.
The extract worked both on enveloped coronaviruses, which cause colds as well as COVID-19, and non-enveloped enteroviruses, which cause infections such as flu and meningitis. There are no clinically approved drugs that work against enteroviruses directly, so this extract could be a future game-changer.
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Gain of Function Bioweapons progress in China: psycho military scientists modify pangolin COVID brain virus to make it infect people. 100% lethal on 4 out of 4 “humanized” mice.
Do they have lampposts and rope in China? Or pikes?
So far (or at least as far as we know...) it’s only been tested on “humanized mice” which have been scientifically altered to have human genes so they can be tortured without having the ability to file lawsuits. And the new virus has killed every last one of those little humanized cheese nibblers, presumably when their brains turn into an inflamed slurry and ooze out through their perfectly circular ears. Which is likely what would happen to 100% of infected humans if the virus escaped, so isn’t it good that Chinese virus labs are so very, very secure except for their open windows, screen doors, and tendency to sell dead animal specimens to wet markets for soup stock?
There’s pretty much no reason that researchers would want to create such a thing unless it could A) be used as an apocalyptic bioweapon, B) make a lot of money for companies coincidentally selling pangolin brain virus vaccines, or C) beat AI to the punch of killing us all, giving humans quite literally the last laugh.
Which is why we should immediately be taking common sense safety measures including, but not limited to, calling together the world’s leading gain-of-function researchers and, after careful deliberation, displaying their heads on pikes.
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January 7, 2024
A new thing in our area. We didn’t know about it, but we heard lots of people talking about it up in Warren County. A good time was had by all. Maybe we’ll get there next year.
First Annual New Year’s Eve Lentil Drop
HACKETTSTOWN, NJ (Warren County) – Thousands of people decided to ring in the new year in Hackettstown, where a huge crowd enjoyed the first New Year’s Eve Celebration with an M&M’S lentil drop.
The New Year’s Eve celebration included beats from DJ SC3 Entertainment, free giveaways from Atlantic Health System/Hackettstown Medical Center, Centenary University, WRNJ Radio, and Mars Wrigley, TSA Cheerleaders performed from 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., the Centenary Cyclones mascot, an M&M’S character, and activities from participating businesses.
The red M&M’S® lentil is 40″ in diameter and had more than 1,000 LED lights.
Mars Wrigley has been producing iconic M&M’S in Hackettstown since 1958, making it the perfect community partner to help ring in the new year for the town.
“Millions of M&M’S are produced right here in Hackettstown every day,” said Courtney McHugh, Vice President Marketing, M&M’S, Mars Wrigley. “We’re proud to inspire moments of everyday happiness for the Hackettstown community and are thrilled M&M’S can help ring in 2024.”
“It’s very exciting to be able to have our residents and visitors come together to witness the largest M&M ever falling from the sky to ring in the new year,” said Mayor Jerry DiMaio.
Hackettstown is about 10 miles NNE of us, and about 10 miles NE of the bowling alley. It’s the “big city” in our podunk red corner of blue NJ. M&M Mars is a major employer around here, running a massive factory and having corporate operations there. So we know plenty of people who work there. They used to give out sample boxes to the employees, or sell them for cost. I hope they still do. The candy in that colorful box is fresh off the line from that day’s production, unlike the product you buy in your store which may have been warehoused for a couple of years. The fresh chocolate is really very good, much smoother and richer than the age matured stuff.
So a huge crowd went to the event, everyone got their picture taken with Red, there was music and bands and fun all around. Beats freezing to death in NYC after a 2 hour drive, $50 for parking, and getting mugged and thrown up on.
PS: Why is it called a lentil? Because an M&M is actually formed by two molded hemispheres of chocolate, each about a drop’s worth. The two halves are put together, and the uncoated result looks like a lentil bean. So it’s a lentil.
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Bowling Blogging!!
I’m trying to do my leagues again. I went Wednesday night, and threw ok, well over average in the first two games and just a couple under in the third game. We won all 3, so that moves us up a bit in the standings.
I bowled Friday night too, and I finally brought the soft pretzels I’ve been promising people for a while now. We played the team that our former teammate is on, so we were worked up ... and slaughtered them, even though we had to give them 104 pins handicap.
We won all 3 games, each one by more pins than the handicap. Which means our scratch was always more than 210 pins better than theirs. Sweet. I threw great: 212, 198, 211 for a 621 series, which is my best night so far this season in either league. Wore my shorts and my robo-braces and rolled carefully. Lane conditions were a bit slow with no intense back-end action, but they were pretty consistent as well. So it wasn’t the typical “I need a new line and a new ball every 5 frames” we’ve become accustomed to. Thank goodness.
My thumb timing needs some work. I’m coming late out of the ball and not getting enough finger on the ball, so my axis tilt is back to being almost horizontal. I had it perfectly vertical before my joints went on vacation to Hellena Handbasket.
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January 4, 2024
I bowled Tuesday afternoon, just to see if I could. Wore my braces and shorts. Did pretty well. Pain was manageable and not that bad. Went to league Wednesday night, bowled well over average in G1 and G2 and just 7 under in G3. We won all 7.
Had my last visit with the podiatrist today. Ankle looking good, keep doing the foot brace as needed.
Went to the hand orthopedist yesterday, got Xrays ... you have pretty severe arthritis in your thumbs. Yeah, I know. Got the cortical steroid injections, which helped immediately. They probably won’t last long. Go back in 3 weeks.
I’m bowling Friday night too. Making a double batch of pretzels for everyone, because I’ve been promising them a long time and just haven’t been up to making them. It’s a 2 or 3 day recipe, but they come out awesome every time. After 7 years I’m just about out of lye powder, so I ordered a new one. To my amazement, the price hadn’t gone up a cent since the last jug I bought. Wow.
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January 1, 2024
15 Years Late And Chickenshit Anyway
[ Yes, I’ve gone down this road before. And it’s a straight and narrow highway. It just hit me as odd that a conservative leaning website would make this point about a Republican. That’s honest, I’ll grant you that. ]
The American Greatness site put up an essay today saying how Nikki Haley absolutely could not be President or Vice President, as she does not meet the qualifications as written in our Constitution. And they are utterly correct.
Article II, Section 1, stipulates that “No person except a natural born citizen or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
Back in the Age of Reason, The Enlightenment, in 1758 actually, a book based on Natural Law was written by Emmerich de Vattel. It was title The Law Of Nations. Within 2 years it had been translated into English from the original French. Like the writings of John Locke two or three generations earlier, Vattel’s writings had tremendous impact on the political world, and lit a fire in the minds of our Founding Fathers.
Vattel defined citizenship. He modified the existing English concept of Natural Born Subject and thus defined the term Natural Born Citizen. Our Constitution requires the President to be one. Later on the 12th Amendment added that qualification to the Vice President. No other federal office holder or officer has to be an NBC. Problem is, our Constitution assumed that people would understand the concept. Ok, there are 2 to 4 other little problems with that document, but this is the one under discussion.
Under Emmerich de Vattel’s Law of Nations, Citizenship is determined by the father, the mother and the nation. Section 212 of Law Of Nations, defines Natural Born Citizen:
“The Citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they participate equally in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are Citizens”.
A primary concern among Emmerich de Vattel, and the Framers of the United States Constitution, was that the President be completely free of foreign influences. Emmerich de Vattel wrote:
“The Constitution and the laws of a State are rarely attacked from the front. It is against gradual attacks that a nation must stand guard”.
For Emmerich de Vattel, it was of paramount importance that the President be a person whose primary allegiance is to the Sovereign nation. The independence of the nation, and the President, from foreign influence, according to Emmerich de Vattel’s formulation, was key to its proper performance. Emmerich de Vattel maintained that “each sovereign State claims, and actually possesses an absolute independence on all the others”. He continues, “Nations are free and independent of each other, in the same manner as men are naturally free and independent”. Emmerich de Vattel argued as it is important that each Sovereign maintain its independence, “No foreign power has a right to interfere in the internal affairs of other States” (with rare exceptions).
So to be a Natural Born Citizen, you have to be born here (or in other territories or areas owned or controlled by the USA, our embassies, military bases, and probably military ships and airplanes in transit across the oceans), AND your parents have to be citizens AT THE TIME OF YOUR BIRTH.
Ok, over to the essay -
The question of presidential eligibility under the Constitution has been a hot button one, especially in recent years with the controversial campaigns of John McCain, Barack Obama, Ted Cruz, and most recently, Kamala Harris. The controversy arises from the text of the Constitution itself. Article II, Section 1, stipulates that “No person except a natural born citizen or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.” The core issue centers on the meaning of the phrase “natural born citizen.” The Constitution explicitly lays out three requirements to run for president: (i) be at least 35 years old; (ii) have been a resident of the United States for at least 14 years; and (iii) be a natural-born citizen of the United States.
The question of natural born citizenship is crystal clear, though it often gets confused with the more controversial debate surrounding birthright citizenship. From the outset, it should be stressed that the two are entirely different constitutional issues. The question of natural-born citizenship as an eligibility requirement for president is well settled, whereas the issue of birthright citizenship is still up in the air.
There is a reason the Founding Fathers attached the requirement of being a “natural born citizen” to the President (and, with the passage of the Twelfth Amendment, the Vice President) only and no other federal offices. The idea was to elevate the threshold for the highest elected political office of the land; notably, that language is absent in Article I, which stipulates that lawmakers running for the House or Senate need only be “citizens” to qualify. The early debates surrounding the passage of the Constitution add support for the view that the Framers wanted to exclude “the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government,” as John Jay wrote to George Washington in July of 1787.
A central concern for the architects of the nascent American republic was that only the most qualified statesmen be eligible for the country’s highest office. In his Commentaries, Joseph Story elaborated that “it is indispensable… that the president should be a natural born citizen of the United States… [T]he general propriety of the exclusion of foreigners, in common cases, will scarcely be doubted by any sound statesman.” Joseph Story, who enjoyed over a thirty-year reign as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, famously elaborated the principles of the republicanism of Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall well into the mid-nineteenth century. His Commentaries specifically distinguished between natural born and naturalized citizens, the latter of whom were ineligible to run for president, despite qualifying for the privileges of citizenship. This view is supported by the best legal commentary of the day
...
In Nikki Haley’s case, it is well documented that neither one of her parents were citizens, natural born or naturalized, at the time of her birth in 1972. It has been previously reported that a South Carolina-based newspaper included a quote from the Office of Nikki Haley, stating that “her parents were not U.S. citizens at the time of her birth in 1972 and did not become citizens until 1978 and 2003.” Thus, although the parents may have been lawful residents at the time of her birth on South Carolina soil, which may or may not confer her with the privileges of citizenship, it is important to note that she does not qualify for the Constitution’s higher requirement of natural-born citizenship.
And of course, since she does not meet the qualifications to become President, she is ineligible to be Vice President as well. And that’s what the Constitution says.
...
John Eastman has also raised the issue of natural born citizenship in the related context of Kamala Harris’ eligibility to serve as Vice President. In a 2020 Newsweek article, Eastman argued that Harris would only qualify as a constitutionally eligible natural-born citizen if her parents were “lawful permanent residents at the time of her birth.” However, in the case of Harris, if her parents were “merely temporary visitors,” then she patently did not qualify as a natural-born citizen pursuant to Article II, Section 1. The logic of Eastman’s argument is straightforward, and I would maintain does not even need to implicate the Fourteenth Amendment or the outstanding question of birthright citizenship, which might otherwise detract from the fundamental soundness of the constitutional issue.
Kamala Harris was born October 20, 1964. It’s hard to find out when either of her parents became citizens, but they weren’t when she was born. Game over. Period. She is NOT a natural born citizen no matter how much blarney the media spews, and boy did they, in utter lockstep. Which is all you need to know to see that they were pulling the wool over the eyes of the sheep once again.
Funny thing is, Barack Obama is never mentioned in this essay.
You remember him, the guy who was born both in Kenya and Hawaii, the one with the dodgy “certificate of live birth”? The one whose mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, b 11/29/42, gave birth to Barack Hussein Obama II on 8/4/61, when she was 18 years old, and below the threshold of legal adulthood at that time. (which may have disabled her ability to pass on citizenship to her child, especially if not born in the USA). Her husband Barack Hussein Obama Sr, married her on 2/2/61 after she became pregnant and left school. It is entirely possible that she became pregnant at 17, which would have made Barry Sr guilty of statutory rape. He had a wife back in Kenya who he left pregnant. I don’t know if bigamy was legal in Kenya at the time; it certainly wasn’t legal in the USA. As a Kenyan national, the senior Obama also held British citizenship. He was not, and never was, an American citizen. Thus bathhouse Barry was also not a natural born citizen, and was completely ineligible to be President. Twice. And you’re a racist for even reading these words.
But let’s harp on Nikki Haley, instead of demanding the ouster of Kamala Harris and opening the big Obama can of worms. Because dark people are above the law these days. What a crock.
Oh, and just for “fun”, we have had 2 Presidents who were actually ineligible to hold the office, as they were not NBCs. Chester Arthur in 1881 and Barack Obama. As far as I know there has been only 1 Vice President who failed the test ... although Vice Presidents from way back when are usually less than footnotes to history.
Oddly enough, as the Information Age entered it’s full stride, we have had a large number of potential nominees who never passed the NBC test. Not to mention the 8 failed attempts (lead by the D party) to snip out the Natural Born requirement, in the years leading up to 1008..
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Forty five years ago I had a dog that looked a lot like this one. Katie was the best dog ever. True love for both of us from the moment we met. She’s been gone over 30 years. I still miss her.
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December 31, 2023
Happy New Year!!!
I am so glad 2023 is over. What an awful year for me.
Knees still not up to even trying to bowl. Will try again to try again on Tuesday. I hope.
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The comments area was nearly full so I erased them. Sorry. But I read the newest ones first. Start the new year with a fresh comment! And thank you all for sharing your thoughts and opinions. I do appreciate it.
It took almost 3 years to fill up the comment buffer. Maybe if I have better things to post about, I’ll get more comments?
here’s one ... South America is going Evangelical. https://latinarabia.com/christianity/revival-in-latin-america/
and a bunch more that are all related ... our border crisis is largely caused by Venezuela’s commie tyrant Daniel Ortega. Yeah, he’s still the boss down there, still in power since the Reagan era.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/12/anybody_notice_how_nasty_nicaraguas_ortega_regime_has_gotten_since_the_migrant_remittances_started_flowing.html
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/12/blood_boiler_daniel_ortegas_role_in_organizing_the_us_migrant_crisis_is_bigger_than_thought.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/african-asian-migrants-seek-nicaragua-shortcut-to-us-/7418273.html
Ok, this young fella and his old knees are heading upstairs. If I want to watch the balls drop, I’ll take off my pants. Ewww.
See? I did get something done today. Granted, it was supposed to be done Friday afternoon, but whatever.
I had to up the lye concentration 50% as the 7 year old bottle is almost empty, and I swear the crystals lose potency after a while. And this was a long long while! So I ordered another one, and to my surprise, the price had not increased at all since I bought the previous bottle! Amazing.
The taste was just a little strong, but definitely what pretzels should taste like.
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December 27, 2023
My Christmas post seems to have gone missing. Oh well. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. We did the Italian Christmas Eve party at the cousin’s, as always. Definitely felt the passing of the years, as one generation fades away, another generation hits middle age, and all the little kids are now young adults. So the food wasn’t as good or as fancy this time, several faces weren’t there due to medical issues, but there were a good number of really nice looking young women all done up fancy for the holiday. That was nice.
We made it home just before midnight, then went over to her dad’s Christmas afternoon for lunch. I baked pretzels at their place, and everyone was a bit frightened that the things are dipped in drain cleaner before baking. Ok, it’s lye. Sodium hydroxide. And it’s perfectly safe when cooked, as the sodium either evaporates or bonds with any nearby salt ions, and the hydroxide part, OH- just forms water. Hey, better living through chemistry, which none of these people know much about. Oh well.
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I turned on the TV news this morning, to take a look at the world. I managed to watch almost 5 whole seconds before getting annoyed. They’re going on and on about all those deranged radical right wing crazy people sending in death threats and calling for civil war over the gross overreach of the Colorado State Supreme Court, which has decided President Trump is guilty of fomenting revolution or some such garbage. Not a word that the court’s action is one of the most egregious and horrendous instances of judicial activism in our nation’s history, and in several ways. Oh no, it’s Trump, so EVIL, so no rules apply.
So I walked away from the TV and checked the weather on my cell phone. Chilly and rainy. Oh joy.
Ocean City and Cape May County officials have been among the most outspoken critics of Orsted’s plan to build 98 towering wind turbines as part of the controversial Ocean Wind 1 project, which some opponents believe will cause irreparable harm to the shore’s economy and environment.
“It is a terrible project, the worst I’ve ever seen. This project has no redeeming qualities at all,” Barr said.
No redeeming qualities? Well they are getting rid of all those pesky whales. But let’s blame Climate Change instead. ( PS whales have been around 50 million years, so they’ve managed to adapt to every previous climate change. And they have sonar, so they can tell how deep the water is).
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GET ME OUT OF HERE ...
Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
Friday - April 19, 2024 
on 04/19/2024 at 08:23 AM
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