Recipes

So my Mom gave me a cookbook that she got from my Grandma the other day and my Wife and I kinda browsed through it to see if we would like anything from it. About an hour later, we finally stopped laughing. I thought I would share some of the more tantalizing treats and funny names they had;

Rum Tum Ditty -tomato soup, milk & cheddar cheese over toast

Golden Rabbit - cheddar cheese soup, tomato soup and milk over toast (sound familiar?)

Creamy Tuna Mold - mmmmmmm! (too many ingreds. to mention)

Creamy Peanut Butter Soup - tomato soup, peanut butter and milk.....WTF?!

For the very advanced cook... Pronto Chili - 1 can condensed chili beef soup, 1/2 can water.

BBQ hamburgers... not one, but two recipes for BBQ Hamburgers...

shape 2 lbs of seasoned ground beef into 8 patties. Brown in butter, add BBQ sauce, simmer

Or, for the outdoor cook, Make patties as in skillet method, place on grill, cook 15 minutes. Wow... I hadn't thought of that!

Thirsty? How about a nice Friskey Sour? beef broth, water and lemon juice serve over ice.

or some Chickety Chick? cream of chicken soup, water and poultry seasoning served warm in mugs.

oooh, how about  a nice glass of Sunbather's Special? condensed beef broth, 1/2 can apple juice and a dash of cinnamon. Served over ice...yummy!

And the winner in the "best name" category.....

Cock-A-Leekie! leeks, butter, chicken vegetable soup, water, 4 to 6 cooked prunes, salt & pepper. Penicillin shot extra.

And now, the most sports talk you'll ever hear from me.

The year, 1998. NFL draft. The top pick came down to two QBs. Peyton Manning, and Ryan Leaf. Anyone who follows football knows who Peyton Manning is, but many may not know who Ryan Leaf is. He is from Great Falls, MT where he led his high school to the state title in '92. He went on to play at Washington state and was a finalist for the Heisman his junior year. It was widely believed that he would do very well in the NFL.

I was living in Great Falls in '98 and the draft was a pretty big deal. The funny thing is, that he was also widely believed to be the world's biggest ASSHOLE. Great Falls is a very small town... pop about 40,000 when I was there, scuttlebut was rampant. So we watched as he was picked up by San Diego. Huge signing bonus and salary. I was not impressed. I hate it when an asshole gets ahead in  life.

Well, we all watched as he failed miserably his first season. Yay! Karma is finally sneaking up on him! Well, his career swirled around and eventually went the way of the turd... down the drain. Conversely, Peyton Manning not only had an exceptional first year... and beyond, but he is also well known for his approachability, enthusiasm and sportsmanship. Hee heeeee... see, good guys do win eventually.

Anyway, what is all this about you ask? I didn't know it because I don't follow football anymore, but it would seem Ryan got himself a job coaching QBs for West Texas A&M. And... lol... got himself suspended for asking a member of the team for painkillers.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/NFL-bust-Ryan-Leaf-placed-on-leave-from-college-?urn=nfl,119970

Got an email today about the job I just interviewed for... no luck.

Let's check out totals shall we?

• applications made: 71
• interviews: 5
• "no thanks" responses besides interview: 18

that's 48 applications that have gone unanswered (+/- 3 or 4, I may be off on my count). I do have 3 recent apps out now that I may get a response on, let's hope.

It's disturbingly frustrating to say the least. Above it all, I am trying so hard to stay positive, but it is becomming difficult. I never thought in a million years I would have to go through this. I had heard of people that had been in a career for 20 years suddenly finding themselves jobless and it lasting for a long time, but always thought I was safe. I guess it was just wishful thinking. It is definately a bad time to be without a job. The economy is spiraling the drain in the shithole so less and less companies are hiring. Unemployment is way up so I have a lot more competition for any job out there. Maybe I should start turning tricks? Do rich women still hire male escorts? I wonder if my wife would mind? Hell, at this point, she may even pimp my ass out!

Big day today

Interview... and I (in an irritatingly high voice) NAILLLLLLLED IT! Working in one of our hospitals' Conference Center. Good gig, although I don't know what they pay... I always hate asking that, I feel like a gold digger. Anyway... hurry up and wait.. they are interviewing this week, and I wouldn't be able to start for 2 or 4 weeks, depending on how long they take to make up their minds... which doesn't matter to me.. take your time... no hurry.

The Old Man arrives

Winter that is... in a fucking dumpload of snow this weekend. the weather all last week was warning of heavy snow for the weekend, up to 19" forecast in town, up to 3 feet in the mountains. As usual, I take weather reports with a grain of salt, especially forecasts that are more than 3 days out. But they hit the nail on the head this time. It started Thursday night right on schedule, and although we didn't see much accumilation Thurs., Fri. or Sat., we woke up to a whole new world Sunday. I guess I picked the wrong night to get tee-totally shitfaced and stay up until 4 am playing Halo3!

My wife woke me up at 8 to show me the 5" branch that had split off of our neighbors' tree and land on their car. All over town branches were down and power was out. Our other neighbors across the street had a huge branch in their driveway, I would estimate the main part at about 4-5" in diameter. Driving down our street is a veritable obstacle course through the downfall. They even released an "emergency only" travel restriction on City streets, Something I have only seen a couple of times in my life. They rarely do that in town, usually it is on the highways.

So, the snow finally starts to lighten up by Sunday afternoon, again, right on schedule, yay weather dude! Parts of the City got 22" of snow accumilation, we got around 12-15" at the deepest parts in the backyard. The ski town an hour south of us got 40".... IN TOWN!

My wife and I decide to get started shoveling late in the afternoon, It's not too bad, the deepest part was right in front of our garage... about 10" deep, but it was very wet and heavy. She started on the sidewalk which didn't have much because of the trees on the boulevard, while I started at the garage. She had finished the sidewalk and was working on the lower part of the driveway when we heard a very large snap. I was around the corner of our house, up by the garage and didn't see the branch fall, but I could see her staring in its' direction in disbelief. I walked up towards her and saw the branch. It fell right across the sidewalk, right where she was not minutes before. A very large branch... large enough that she would have been seriously injured had she still been there. From now on, we are waiting for the snow to melt more before either of us even attempt to shovel under those damn things!

The fun thing about the storm is watching our 8 month old lab/golden retriever/shepard mix puppy play in the back yard. He is such a ham! he runs around like a spaz, then falls to the ground and lays in the snow. then he gets up and plays like he is a bulldozer, pushing his head down in the snow and then plowing it around. The goofball. I included a couple pics below. The weather is supposed to change again this week and hit 65 by the weekend, but that probably won't happen, the good weather news doesn't ever seem to be as accurate.

Goofball:

here is the murderous tree branch on our sidewalk, the main part is a little over 2" in diameter.: