The Cold Water Kid

Today is day ten with no hot water. The 4th of Julius I took a cold shower, but that is not recommended using water coming from 120 feet down in the ground. Contrary to fiction, there is not enough friction to warm it as it travels through the pipes. My frozen fannie disputes the notion of geothermal heating.

The infamous Whirlpool gas-fired water heater with its cheap stamped steel burner quit functioning on the 3rd. The gas bill for June was higher than normal (well, we did have a June that was colder than normal, Mr. Gore, but that is beside the point). There is no rust on the unit. Jesse's analysis is that the stress of heating and cooling produced metal fatigue in the stamping, and the spreader that was supposed to direct the flame upward broke loose and directed the flame in directions it was not meant to go. This probably kept the heater going long after it was supposed to shut off, and, I suspect, destroyed the thermocouple, since the igniter works and the pilot ignites but will not stay lit.











The heater was Matt's present to us just before Jim & Maria arrived from Loosie-anner in November 2006. As can be seen from the label, it has a 6 year parts warranty. So Matt called the 1-877 number the night of the 3rd and was told a replacement would arrive here in about 5 business days. He is not happy that we are still heating water on the stove to take our baths.

Coming a week after Mike had to replace the drive coupler on his Whirlpool washer -- the same part we replaced on ours about a year ago -- it just does not look good for the Whirlpool brand name around here.

I'm Cheap II

Way back on March 28th I let slip a little blurb about Tyvek sleeves for credit cards. Gather 'round kiddies, and Grandpa Jim will lead you in crafts class. Since this is an outgrowth of Cheapology, we will start with the scrounge movement. Ever get a nice envelope (from some company trying to sell you something) that has a sort of "woven" feel to it? That was probably Tyvek. Here is an example:



We cut a strip out of it just about the width of the card



(HA! and you thought I was going to post something with credit card numbers? HA! Its my genuine Old Geezer Membership Card!) and long enough to wrap around generously.


Then we fold a flap up at the bottom



and around back we mark it



for cutting.



Then we fold it backwards and mark the glue limit line, which we will stay back from about 1/16" so as not to glue the sleeve to the card...



We apply rubber cement to the outside of the short flap and the inside of the long flap, and when it has dried we set the card on the Tyvek and fold the short flap up



and the long flap down



and rub hard to seal the two glued pieces together.



The sleeve is just a bit longer than the card (by design, friend, by design)



and we trim to fit, cutting convexly so as to provide a grip wherewith to draw the card forth.



We have now protected our card from the nameless dangers that lurk in a wallet stowed perilously close to the human rear. There is also a utilitarian benefit. Protected by the Tyvek, the magnetic strip will not be damaged, and anything printed on, like photos or bar codes, will be safe from scuffing.



Cheap, huh?

The Illegal One Has an Idea

The system is down here at work, so I'm grabbing a quick opportunity to post.

What if gummint workers were required to pay into Social Security. "Whazzat?", you say. Yep. Congresscritters and all other forms of gummint life pay into separate gummint pension plans. What if they had to live like the peasants, and pay into Social Security? Maybe Social Security would be more viable? Maybe the Congresscritters would be more serious about how they treat it?

It IS a tax, you know -- FICA. Why should gummint people be exempt from a tax?

Of course, I'm not running for Congress, and even if I got there, there would be nothing I could do about the situation except make speeches for C-SPAN.

Happy Bees Are Here Again...

Had to go visit the livestock and see how they were doing. Earlier, the air in front of the super was thick with arriving and departing flights. These gals have super air traffic control.


Here we see them on the runway and parked in the hanger for the evening. Just a little traffic left. Some of the girls go out for an evening adventure, but they are back before dark.

I think they have accepted their new home. When I opened the top to check on the feeder, only a couple flew up. The rest were busy doing bee things.


Well fed bees are happy bees, I guess. Notice the level of the syrup. It was full to the top yesterday evening. You have to wonder how many thousands of miles a little feeder adds to their lifespans. Looks like one jar a week will likely keep them flush. Silly autofocus couldn't make up its mind what was important.

Settin' Back An' Bein' Cool

It looks as though the swarm has accepted their new home. I went in this evening, (smoking, of course) and they hardly flew up. I added a deep super, with only two frames along each of the sides and the center clear, set a a pair of 3/8" high blocks crossway on the top bars of the super below, and put in a feeder jar with 50-50 sugar syrup. That should make them happier. Then I removed the entry reducer and added a ventilated top cover.

Now to let my female slaves go to work!!

Hived a Swarm

Young Matt comes home a little after 11PM and says the neighbor told him earlier in the day that a swarm of bees was hanging in a bush at the back of their lot. We go out and look -- certainment, bees. Beautiful bees. Tight cluster, but big. Only 3 feet off the ground. I staple a super onto a bottom board, insert a reducer, and off we go. Matt stands back about 20 feet and plays the light on the swarm. I hold up the super, letting the bottom of the swarm touch the top bars of the frames, and give the branch a yank.

Bulls-eye! Almost the whole swarm drops on top of the bars, and after a moment or two, starts to disappear between the frames. Queenie must have headed for the innards. I scoop up a few of the fallen bees, brush most of the ones on the lip of the super onto the bars, and pop on a top cover. My gauntlet blocks the reducer entry. I start carrying it to its spot. Bees are heavier than you think.

Then it starts to happen. I feel movement inside my jeans. Soon there is a burning sensation. Then another. Then another. Smart aleck Matt. Tells me I should have tied off my cuffs.

I set the super down, and head for the house. Matt is trailing behind with the light. He should not have walked past the super. He gets to the bottom of the hill and complains bees are all over him. Not many, really, maybe 2 dozen. I understand, though. It can feel like a lot more. I tell him to turn off the light and stand still, then get a rag and go to him and start brushing them off. Soon he is clean. Me, not so easy.

So, we killed a few, we lost a few, but I figure between 40,000 - 50,000 went into their new home. I had some drawn comb in the super; maybe they will stay. I hope so. Just be careful where you walk in our yard for the next few days. Those ladies were not happy.

Michelle will be coming home from work in a short while. I hope things are calmed down on the deck by then. I'm going to sleep. Its after midnight and I have to be on the road to Columbus at 5:45.

WhatIfI?

So yesterday I slipped the clutch on my mind and let it free-wheel, and with Demogogic Party politics in the news, I began to fantasize. What if someone were to illegally run for Congress? Well, why not. They could be an Official Illegal Congressman. To get there would require violating election law and getting elected anyway.

The political parties have a lock on the US electoral system, except at the grassroots level. If a person wants to run for President, and is not the annointed cherub of his party, he is out of luck. You just ain't gonna make it as a write-in. It takes money, and money has to be accounted for to the Elections Police. Same thing for the office of Senator or Congressor. (I just made that one up, but you have to admit, it makes sense in a gender-neutral world, and follows general grammatical structure.) Now that Obama has finished (or nearly so) his jihad against Hilary and is ready to take the battle to Gentleman Johnny, it may not be politic to mention McCain-Feingold, but that law and other FEC regulations make a home-brewed, roll-your-own candidacy very difficult.

Nevertheless, I Have A Dream. A real nightstallion. So this guy runs for Congress in the 13th Ohio District as a write-in. In order for the votes to count (if he actually got any) he would have to file as a write-in candidate with the Boards of Elections in Summit, Medina, and Lorain Counties. That must be done by September 3 of this year. What if, until that time, he were not officially running for anything? What if an Internet campaign were waged, with no political committee -- just a bunch of wild mushrooms posting "Vote for The Illegal One" posts everywhere? Sig files that said, "Vote for The Illegal One". Handmade posters tacked up all over the district, unorganized (heh, heh) and officially unrecognized, saying "Vote for The Illegal One". "I'm The Illegal One, and I didn't approve of this message, but I'm not going to stop anyone from saying what they think".

Yes, I know the name of The Illegal One would have to be inserted in that space to be effective, but what if, come election day 2008, The Illegal One took the seat as a write-in candidate? Would that not tie some shorts and panties in knots in Washington?

And what could be done about a person who said repeatedly, "If you elect me to Congress, this is what I will not do", if he were not an official candidate until September 3? Could he be arrested or fined for campaigning illegally, if he were not officially a candidate? And what if he did not have any election expenses (think grassroots, unorganized, etc.) to report? Could he be jailed for violating campaign finance reform laws due to the fact that he did not have any campaign finances?

I generally eat oatmeal in the morning. Just think what the nightstallions would be like if I had oatmeal nightcaps.

And no, I have never smoked marijuana, even if I was exposed to marijuana smoke from students in the restroom next to my classroom. (And you wondered where some of your teachers got those silly grins -- it was an occupational hazard.)

Now here's a thought. Maybe its the apples. Do nightstallions like apples?

Oh, and before I'm done, a plug. Visit NorthernLightsWool.com sometime. But not too soon, because we haven't put a page there yet.

crack...crack-crack...

The group of three was about 1-1/2" low and 1-1/2" to the right at 20 yards. It was the first time I had pulled that trigger in over 35 years. The pull was a bit heavier and the muzzle blast was louder than I remembered, but the feel was really nice. My Nylon 66 was functional again.

I had given it to my brother the year after I married. And I had missed it many times in the intervening years. It had been substituted for by a CIL single-shot (that put many a spruce grouse in the pot in Beauval, and turned many a gopher into hawk-food in Nisku) that I left with Nathan when we returned to the US in 1986. But it had never been forgotten.

It was my first gun. I had never had a BB gun of my own. I was 17; the year was 1965, and I had discovered that if you could get a postal mail order check, you could send away for stuff in catalogues. The year before I had almost bought a nice little Cooey -- almost identical to the CIL I bought years later in Meadow Lake -- while shopping in Amherstburg, but Cousin Jerry warned me that I would not get it across the border.

The Nylon 66 was offered for $49.95 in the J. C. Penney catalog. I had seen the ads in Outdoor Life and Field & Stream; the pictures of the piles of over 100,000 wooden blocks that had been thrown into the air and hit without a miss or misfire were impressive. They also offered a Nylon 76 (lever-action) for ten dollars more, but I had my heart set on the Nylon 66. For an additional $4.99, Penney's threw in a 4 X 20 Tasco scope. I sent away for the package.

Granny (she wasn't called that in those days, kiddies) was not thrilled. I came home from school one day and she announced that the mailman had brought a package. (The US Post Office was once a full-service organization, delivering guns, baby chickens, and bees, but that was in the days when the US was a free country.)

I was thrilled. I took the Nylon 66 to show Andy Wineberg, we made sure it was properly sighted in, and the rifle became my constant companion on my hikes. I carried it openly, down the road, over the fields, through the woods -- everywhere. Don't try that today, kiddies, because some Nervous Nellie will call the police, you will be arrested for inciting panic, and you may join the list of domestic terrorists. Remember, this was all in the days when the US was still a free country.

The Nylon 66 had an incredible rate of fire. The 14 shot magazine could be emptied in 3-4 seconds (depending on how fast your finger was) and I was once accused of having a machine gun. There was some question (a very pertinent question) with regard to the virtue of throwing that much lead downrange so quickly, since it is almost impossible to keep a semi-auto on target in rapid fire; the twitch of the finger always throws the piece to the side a bit. We did it a couple of times just for the thrill of it, but for the most part, in practice, the rifle functioned as an auto-loading single shot. In fact, the only way to achieve semi-auto functioning was to use .22 LR cartridges (some people looked down on the 66, because there were other .22 semi-autos that would function with Longs or Shorts). I typically loaded with Longs and used the gun as a single-shot. LRs were reserved for groundhogs, and the rest of the time we were generally just plinking.

When John moved to California, he was cleaning out his barn, and the Nylon 66 was in the junk pile. When I asked him about it, he said it was broken, and that if I wanted it back, I could have it. When I got it home, Jesse and I tore it down, and, sure enough, the firing pin had been snapped.

I was going to machine a new firing pin, but doing so without a Federal Firearms License is a felony, so I ordered one instead. It came last week. The firing pin of the Nylon 66 is a flat steel stamping that slides in a groove in the bolt. It is restrained by a small crosspin through a slot. The pin had been broken at the slot. There is no side pressure on the pin, and riding in the bolt as it does, there is little reason for the pin to break. Further examination showed that attempts (unsuccessful ones, thankfully) had been made to alter the rifle to fully automatic status; there were machining marks and broken plastic on the trigger itself. This may explain the harder than normal initial trigger pull now, and I will probably be ordering a new trigger for it, and a new safety. (When we were cleaning it, we tore it all the way down, and the safety had been bent. It is functional, but has stress cracks.)

Thursday night, Jesse and I completely stripped the rifle and gave it what appeared to be its first thorough cleaning since it left my hands. We scraped and polished and oiled. Everything. I also discovered the firing pin retractor spring was missing, an apparent casualty of the amateur gunsmith; I will be ordering a replacement when I order a new trigger and safety lever.

We put it back together, and the action worked smoothly. A time-tested design, the Nylon 66 has been out of production since 1989 (although a Brazilian edition, that did not use the DuPont Zytel stock material, continued to be made and was sold in the US for a while). Jesse has a Remington 552 Viper, which briefly replaced the Nylon 66 and has a very similar bolt and hammer design, but the 66 is a classic. I'm happy as a clam in a mudhole that mine is now functional again.

Climate According to NOAA

I'm glad Big Al invented the internet. That makes it easy to find interesting facts. Maybe Al sometimes wishes that the internet would go away. NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) keeps track of the country's weather. Guess what? The facts are being stubborn; they have sort of slid in to the Global Warming Denier Camp.

Lessee, now -- some graphs of temperature trends in the US of A since 1998 (that was a good year for Al, since he was still almost the President of the United States, just a heartbeat behind Slick Willie) can be found on the NOAA website. Lessee what they show...genuine stolen government images of mean temperatures for every month, every quarter, and annually, since 1998.

JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJuneJuly
August
SeptemberOctober
November
December
WinterSpring
Summer
Fall
Annually


Anybody want to buy some carbon credits? Snake oil, anyone?

I wonder what the next ten years will look like, as we run through Sunspot Cycle 24? (If it ever gets up and gets going!!)

Makes Sense to Me (Oh Yeah)

So Junior says to me that there is a networkable HP Color Laser printer for sale at Sam's for $198 and it comes with cartridges and will print 2000 pages which is cheaper than ink for his inkjet and I go check it out and for sure he is right but the little details are the most interesting because replacement toner cartridges in black yellow cyan and magenta cost just a hair under $300 so using a little math and some common sense you would buy the printer for $200 bucks and print the 2000 pages then save $100 by throwing the old printer away and buying a new one instead of buying refills and all I have to say is I want a chance to check out the USB/ethernet interface on the printer since there is a possibility I could patch it into my Laserjet 2100M and make it run faster and oh yeah I would want the 16 meg sims out of it as well just for curiositys sake and Im glad you enjoyed this information because look at all the punctuation I saved by not using it those keys on my keyboard might last longer now

My Kind of News

Coffee Keeps Fossils Sane

Soon we will hear from Michelle, who will have invented an IV drip for just this kind of medication. We will also soon see the government require that Starbucks clerks have pharmacy degrees, and people with unlicensed coffee-makers will be jailed for having drug paraphernalia. This is part of the pan to require prescriptions for grocery shoppers; it is somewhere in the fine print of the National Health Care Plan. I think...

Oh. It's April 3rd. Sorry.

It Is No Secret...

Some people think the internet is a safe place to hang out. They forget that way back when, in the early days of the telephone, people had party lines. If somebody received a call, there was a good chance that one or more of the neighbors that shared the line would be listening in. You simply did not share the intimate details of your life over the phone.

Private lines, and privacy laws, sort of changed that. People, especially in the US of A, grew accustomed to the idea that without a court order, people other could not listen in to your phone conversation.

What people do not realize about the internet is that it is not a private place. There is a good chance that every email you have ever sent is in storage on somebody's hard drive, somewhere. Not too long ago, I retrieved a long lost blurb that I sent out when my email address was still a freenet address. Internet packets bounce from node to node, server to server, until they are delivered. At each node, there is the possibility that the mail can be read. Even encrypted mail can be read with the right cracker working on it.

There are also web crawlers -- spyware programs -- that live on the net, picking up and tracking down keywords which are then sold to advertisers who can target people that mention items in email or in blogs.

Yesterday I posted about my buying "new rechargeable batteries for the camera". My blog also references, occasionally, real estate topics. This morning my spamblocker at Earthlink caught this one :

• SpamSummarySuspectMessage


• Date="03/29/2008"


• Sender="Robert Gibbs" "rgarrison@intouchhometours.com"


• Subject="Things to consider when buying a new camera for Real Estate photos"


• UID="1jFC3F6qs3Nl34e1"

Of course, the sender name is bogus. If you do a whois :

Whois has started ...


"Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information.

No match for "RGARRISON@INTOUCHHOMETOURS.COM".

Last update of whois database: Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:13:38 UTC"

and a traceroute gives :

"Traceroute has started ...

traceroute: Warning: rgarrison@intouchhometours.com has multiple addresses; using 209.86.66.90 traceroute to rgarrison@intouchhometours.com (209.86.66.90), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets

1 192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1) 2.046 ms 0.484 ms 0.478 ms
2 * * *
3 * * *
4 * * *
5 * * *
6 * * *
7 * * *
8 * * *
9 * * *
10 * * *
11 * * *
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *
16 * * *"
(I stopped at this point; it made no sense to keep hunting.)

It isn't really just a coincidence. I have had people from half-way around the world post comments about something that I have written. The web crawlers parsed my post, fed it into the syndicated feeds, and, behold -- someone I never met, or possibly never intended to have read my stuff, gets a copy and responds.

When people post family pictures on the internet, they are posting for the whole world to see. When they talk about family secrets, those items are then public information. If you want to tell someone something, and don't want anyone else listening in on the world wide party line, write them a letter and hand deliver it. Once they have read it, burn it and grind up the ashes. And do it where the EPA can't see you.

BTW -- I intend to turn on as many electrical devices as I can today. In your face, Earth worshippers!!

I'm Cheap

I was at Wal-Mart this morning to pick up some potting soil and oil for the ZX2 and took a look around the electronics section because I decided at the itch of a nose to buy new rechargeable batteries for the camera. Whilst there, I looked at CD labeling stuff, and also disk envelopes. I have cases for the critters, but I want to save those for stuff that really needs to be archived on a shelf, where the disks might be used from time to time. Other archive material only needs a sleeve, since it will get stuck on a shelf and forgotten unless something drastic occurs, like a need to format a drive.

It was almost $5 for a pack of 100 sleeves. I sez to myself, wait a minute, Horace, you also need to make some new Tyvek sleeves for your credit cards. Why not buy some rubber cement for $1.97 and kill two turkeys with one golf ball?

Ha! and you though I was sane?

So anyway, I designed a disk sleeve (copied the measurements from one that had an iBook install disk) and printed it out.


Then I cut it out, folded the flaps, and applied the rubber cement.


If you apply the rubber cement to both surfaces and let it dry before you press it together, it makes a permanent bond. You can rub off any excess afterwards.


And, to save you some work, you can get the .pdf pattern from:

Disk Envelope Template

and print it out. Might have to set your margins to zero, but I didn't.

I may be cheap, but I like to delude myself with thoughts of generosity!

OHIO is NOT Macintosh friendly!!

Ever since the Democrats took control of the State of Ohio after the 2006 elections, strange things began to happen on official websites. Macintosh computers using the Safari browser could no longer access government documents. I first noticed this at the Department of Commerce website last year, when I had to switch to the PC and IE 6 to get my licensing information. Then, this year, while trying to access the tax forms, I got this:

Pretty cute, isn't it? Most of the text is missing. There is no way you can fill out that form. Even opening it in Acrobat 7.0.5, which they say is required, does not allow you fill out the form on-line, since the only way it will properly open is if you download the .pdf. Then, if you fill it out, you cannot file it on-line.

If the government said that you could only drive on the highway if you used a Ford product, people would scream that their rights were being violated. This is the same kind of thing -- government saying, "Use this commercial product or else."

At first I was going to say something about Bill Gates having bought all the Ohio Democrat politicians. Then I went to Apple's website and found that other people were having the same problems, some of them on Federal websites. It turns out that Apple adheres strictly to the published web standards for browsers. Microsoft does not (that was always a problem, because years ago, way back when IE first came out, MS tried to knock Netscape out of the market by deliberately breaking the rules). The Open Source people who are responsible for Firefox simply make sure that if a site breaks the rules, the browser can use the corrupt site anyway. Apple tends to stick as closely as possible to the standards since opening any little loopholes can let nasty unwanted intruders in; Safari has fewer viruses than Firefox which has fewer viruses than IE. Apple says it is not a conspiracy; it is simply laziness on the part of website developers who learned to code with IE and never bothered to think that standards mattered.

So I think it will be a real hoot in another year or so when all of a sudden, these IE-specific websites will no longer work. Yep, you heard that correctly. It seems that Billy Gates himself has made the pronouncement that the next upgrade of IE will stick strictly to the published web standards. There will be some howls of outrage when all those non-standard websites will have to be rewritten, but the power of the marketplace, with the growing number of people switching to Safari and Firefox, is forcing MS to change the way they do business. And, as has been the MS custom, if you don't like it, they will throw you under the train. And charge you for it in the bargain.

Whew!! At Last!!

Now to finish the handrails...

Them's the Brakes

Spent part of yesterday replacing the front brake pads on the ZX2. It was the first time I had ever worked on sliding-pin calipers, and I don't have a manual for that car. So, like any good cou-rouge, I bought the pads, studied the layout, and dug in to the repair.

Let me say this. I could not find any good, free how-to manuals for that repair on the web. Maybe it's just me, and my search efforts were lame. However, I did take lots of pictures as I went, documented my errors, and plan to build a Powerpoint presentation of my efforts. Anybody with a later Escort or Tracer should find that useful; the total repair cost was about $30 and, once you have an idea how to proceed with confidence, takes less than a half hour per side.

It was a bit of an adventure. There was one potentially serious flub -- I destroyed a retaining spring on the first side I worked on -- when I attempted to fix the spring by creating a replacement part with some spring wire. That repair was superceded by the discovery on the second wheel that an even more critical spring had broken in use, and I had to run out and buy a new spring set for the calipers. It actually allowed me to comment on how to replace the caliper springs without removing the caliper from the car.

The nicest part of the whole exercise was this, though. For the first time in many, many years, I was able to work on my car inside my garage. It is starting to feel like the house has finally been put back together again.

Let's Hear It for "Miklovic"

Found this in my email this morning:

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

From: miklovic
To: jimhrubik@earthlink.net
Subject: [The Sayings of Grandpa Jim] New comment on Who's the Funny Man?.
Date: Feb 28, 2008 4:19 PM
miklovic has left a new comment on your post "Who's the Funny Man?":

Iam a member of Miklovic family that has theirs roots in Hlozany. One of my grandfathers relatives lives Hlozany in 1930 and immigrate to Canada. Now I am trying to get to contact with Miklovic family from Canada if you could help me.

Posted by miklovic to The Sayings of Grandpa Jim at 4:19 PM

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

Unfortunately, I don't have much information on Uncle John's family, and I can't very well ask him since he's dead. Maybe Grannie Annie can fill in some details. And ... "miklovic" did not leave an email address, and has nothing besides his name in his Blogger profile.

Crustmasters INC

OK, put this together with Tuzia Tootle's fresh-ground whole wheat flour. Let is raise over warm water 1-1/2 hours, then rolled into loaves and let it raise to double (again over warm water).

• 2 tbsp dry yeast


• 2 cups water


• 1/2 cup milk


• 1/4 cup sugar


• 2 tsp salt


• 6-1/2 cups flour

Baked 30 minutes at 375.

Taste test when it cools, but the crust sounds OK when it is thumped. Loaves about 4" high out of a 4-1/2 x 11 pan.

Time for Survival Camp

I see that my ordinary readers are somewhat weak-stomached, or else afraid that I might ask them whether they had actually tried their recipes. I have not tried any of these. I did have an episode of brain flatulence in which I decided I should run a little "survival camp" for my grandkids. They can learn to make fire by rubbing sticks together like I did when I was a kid. Maybe the graduation present from survival camp could be a Grandpa-built survival knife?

Anyway, found these little blurbs. For the squeamish, bug eating is Biblical. I really am not interested in an all-insect diet; I will leave that to the bats and shrews. I did find a place that said the best way to prepare grasshoppers was to kill them (freezing or heating them up, either works), break off the wings and big jumping legs, grab the head and remove it with the thorax shield and whatever insides come out (sort of like cleaning crayfish, but from the opposite end) to remove the crunchiest, stick-in-the-teeth stuff, and then cook. Maybe grilled? Cooking of bugs is recommended, since they can carry parasites. Eating raw is OK according to the experts (!!!) but is not the best practice.

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

Grasshopper Fritters

¾ C. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
¾ C. milk
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 C. grasshoppers
Sift flour, baking powder and salt together into a bowl. Slowly add milk and beat until smooth. Add egg and beat well. Pluck off grasshopper wings and legs, heads optional. Dip insects in egg batter and deep fry. Salt and serve.

(from http://entweb.clemson.edu/k12/recipes.htm)

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

How to Prepare Insects for Cooking

Those who are accustomed to eating animals probably know that most animals must be killed, cleaned, and cooked before one can eat them. The case is similar with insects. While there are many people in other countries who prefer to eat insects live and raw, and while it is true that you could probably get the most nutrients that way, I prefer food that won't crawl off my plate. I have tried eating live ants and mealworms, and in fact present a "recipe" for live insect consumption below; however, I would advise that beginning insect eaters start with cooked insects.

To prepare a batch of crickets or mealworms:

Take the desired quantity of live insects, rinse them off and then pat them dry. This procedure is easy to do with mealworms, but fairly hard to do with crickets. To do so with crickets, pour them all into a colander and cover it quickly with a piece of wire screening or cheesecloth. Rinse them, then dry them by shaking the colander until all the water drains. Then put the crickets or mealworms in a plastic bag and put them in the freezer until they are dead but not frozen. Fifteen minutes or so should be sufficient. Then take them out and rinse them again. You don't really have to clean mealworms, though if you want, you can chop off their heads. Cricket's heads, hind legs, and wing cases can be removed according to personal preference; I like doing so, since cricket legs tend to get stuck in your teeth. You are now ready to use the insects in all kinds of culinary treats!

(from http://www.eatbug.com/recipes.htm)

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

Mealworm Fried Rice

Ingredients:

1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. oil
3/4 c. water
1/4 c. chopped onions
4 tsp. soy sauce
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
1 c. minute rice
1 c. cooked mealworms
Directions:

Scramble egg in a saucepan, stirring to break egg into pieces.
Add water, soy sauce, garlic and onions. Bring to a boil.

Stir in rice. Cover; remove from heat and let stand five minutes.

Chocolate Chirpie Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1 12-ounce chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts
1/2 cup dry-roasted crickets
Directions:

Preheat oven to 375. In small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt; set aside. In large bowl, combine butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla; beat until creamy. Beat in eggs. Gradually add flour mixture and insects, mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by rounded measuring teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

(from http://www.ent.iastate.edu/misc/insectsasfood.html)

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

Garlic Butter Fried Grasshoppers

1/4 cup butter
6 cloves garlic, crushed
1 cup cleaned insects*

Melt butter in fry pan. Reduce heat. Sauté garlic in butter for 5 minutes. Add insects. Continue sautéing for 10 - 15
minutes, stirring occasionally. From Orkin

(from http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~cbader/ghprecwithinsects.html#Appetizer)

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

Other reading:

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2160.html

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

That is what people learn to do in college.

Now back to baking bread.

Man Shall Not Live BY Bread Alone ...... and the Government shall regulate it ...

This from FOX News...
U.N. Conference Promotes Insect-Eating for Everyone From Famine Victims to Astronauts
Sunday, February 24, 2008 (AP)

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — Crickets, caterpillars and grubs are high in protein and minerals and could be an important food source during droughts and other emergencies, according to scientists.Water Bugs and Chilis -- YUM!!

"I definitely think they can assist," said German biologist V.B. Meyer-Rochow, who regularly eats insects and wore a T-shirt with a Harlequin longhorn beetle to a U.N.-sponsored conference this month on promoting bugs as a food source.

Three dozen scientists from 15 countries gathered in this northern Thailand city, home to several dozen restaurants serving insects and other bugs. Some of their proposals were more down to earth than others.Ant Egg Omelet -- Quite the delicacy.

A Japanese scientist proposed bug farms on spacecraft to feed astronauts, noting that it would be more practical than raising cows or pigs. Australian, Dutch and American researchers said more restaurants are serving the critters in their countries.Fried bamboo worms. Take a wok on your next Shuttle trip.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates 1,400 species of insects and worms are eaten in almost 90 countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Researchers at the conference detailed how crickets and silk worms are eaten in Thailand, grubs and grasshoppers in Africa and ants in South America.Fried grasshoppers. Is a guard necessary?

"In certain places with certain cultures with a certain level of acceptance, then insects can very well be seen as part of the solution" to hunger, said Patrick Durst, a Bangkok-based senior forestry officer at the FAO.

The challenge, experts said, is organizing unregulated, small bug food operations in many countries so they can supplement the food that aid agencies provide. [my bold/italics] The infrastructure to raise, transport and market bugs is almost nonexistent in most countries.

Prof. Arnold van Huis, a tropical entomologist known as "Mr. Edible Insect" in his native Netherlands, blamed a Western bias against eating insects for the failure of aid agencies to incorporate bugs into their mix.

"They are completely biased," van Huis said. "They really have to change. I would urge other donor organizations to take a different attitude toward this ... It's excellent food. It can be sustainable with precautions."

There are questions about the safety of eating bugs and potential dangers from over-harvesting them, said Durst, who became interested in the practice known scientifically as entomophagy during his years working in Bangkok, where crickets and bamboo worms are sold as food by street vendors.

Tina van den Briel, senior nutritionist at the World Food Program, the U.N. agency that provides food in emergencies, expressed doubt that insects can benefit large, vulnerable populations. Most bugs are seasonal and have a short shelf life, she said.

"They can be a very good complement to the diet," said van den Briel, not a conference participant. "But they do not lend themselves to programs like ours where you transport food over long distances and where you have to store food for a few months."

She suggested a more practical benefit might be adding insects to animal feed or crushing them into a meal powder that could be used to make cookies or cakes.

Meyer-Rochow said aid agencies might even find a way to harvest crop-destroying swarms of locusts and crickets.

"These mass outbreaks could be a valuable food source," he said. "If the technology is available, they could be ground up like a paste and added to the food humans eat."

I can see it coming. Grasshopper guacamole. A special UN Bug Hunting License if you want to kill grasshoppers. A tax on the caterpillars eating your veggies. Laws requiring equitable distribution of bugs. "I-Check" for all bugeaters in Ohio, just to make sure there are no stray emissions when you chomp down.

Recipes, anyone? Send them in!!

Doughn't!

This is a bit disappointing. The mix contained only yeast, water, sugar, salt, and flour, and the bread tastes good. It was baked at 350 for 35 minutes, and the crust is lighter in color.The problem I have with it is that it is too crusty. Maybe the milk helps give it a chewier crust. Next batch will go back to adding milk, and the baking will again be at 375 for 30 minutes. Possibly also drop the flour back to 6-1/2 cups.

Also, this time I did not roll out the dough and roll up the loaves; that is the reason, I think, for the "warty" looking crust.

Ah, well, failures are meant to be eaten. Try hanging that sign anywhere but in a kitchen.

Dough's Up!

Just a few minutes left to punch-down time.

2 tbsp dry yeast
2-1/2 cups water
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
7 cups flour (it was plenty stiff at this point, so I stopped at 7)

Rolling in the Dough

Bread is one of those interesting chemistry experiments you can eat. Making bread helps keep the house warm on cold winter days. It is also significantly cheaper than buying agglutinated crumb material. So, in the interest of science, and the betterment of my belly, I began experimenting with bread recipes.

The first attempts were with standard recipes from the Betty Crocker Cookbook. I also played with my darling wife's bread recipe. Somehow, I was not altogether pleased -- I like a soft bread, that is chewy and not too crusty. Something that is springy, and doesn't break up into crumbs that easily ...

So I began with the Sweet Roll Dough recipe from Betty & Co. :

2 tbsp dry yeast
1 cup water
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup shortening
6 cups flour

Except that I ended up using about 8 cups of flour. All of the above thoroughly mixed, raised twice, and baked for 30 minutes at 375. The result was edible. Four loaves that were very heavy and cakey. It took almost a week and a half to eat them, with a loaf of store-bought bread thrown into the test period (not everybody is fond of my experimentation).

Next attempt -- 21 February 2008. The first batch was not the best bread in town. Too heavy. Tended toward crumbling. I theorized that the grease and egg were the main culprits. Try number 2 :

2 tbsp dry yeast
2 cups water
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
6-1/2 cups flour

The amount of flour was what was left in the bucket, and I was too lazy to go upstairs and get more. Baked 30 minutes at 375. I figured on kick-starting the yeast with the extra sugar. No eggs, no grease. Rubbed some shortening around the inside of the metal salad bowl I used to raise the dough in, though. The result :Very nice!! Two BIG loaves. (Maybe too big??) Crust is just a bit dark, but the bread is chewy, tender, somewhat sweet, and toasts very well and is not at all crumbly. I like!!

But, those who know me know I am hard to satisfy. Therefore I plan to tweak the recipe just a bit more :

2 tbsp dry yeast
2-1/2 cups water
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
8 cups flour

Above to be baked 35 minutes at 350. Probably a four loaf batch. I figure this recipe will need to be tried tomorrow, because the current batch may not be long for this world.

Ride, Suzuki, Into The Sunset

The prominent Canadian, Dr. David Suzuki, has stated that that politicians who speak out against human-caused global warming should be punished with fines and jail time (Jail politicians who ignore climate science: Suzuki).

"It's an intergenerational crime in the face of all the knowledge and science from over 20 years."

Meanwhile, back at the solar system, (The Sun Also Sets), it seems that there is some concern that we are headed into a prolonged cooling period, possibly like the Little Ice Age of the Maunder Minimum. For history buffs, that was the period in the mid-1600's when the world went through some very cold years; stories about the freezing over of major rivers like the Hudson and the Thames and the Ohio abound. And, about 400-500 years before that was another extended cooling period, which caused the Norsemen to abandon their farming settlements in Greenland and Vinland. (Jah, you t'ink maybe d'ere vass a reason to call d'ere place GREENland?). As the astronomical clock goes, the cuckoo may be about to pop.

There is a good case to be made that atheism is merely a recycled paganism of a sort. The atheist will claim that he does not believe in God, but in actuality, he is his own god (and frequently sees himself "at one with nature"). If he needs a devil, the person who disagrees with him will fit the role well. Of course, the atheist will hotly deny such a charge, especially those most closely entwined in scientism.

There is a difference between science and scientism. Science is an activity; a means of examining the world, forming ideas about how and why things work, testing to see if those ideas are viable, and if so, using those ideas to help predict the outcome of certain activities. Science has been practiced at some level of sophistication throughout human history, and has coexisted with every form of religious belief and practice.

Scientism is a belief system, that all things can be explained and predicted in an orderly manner by the application of science. The phrase "Deo volente" is the greatest taboo in scientism.

It is because of the truly human nature of science that it is naturally attractive to the atheist. In the cloak of scientism (the synthesis of science and atheism), the atheist takes current observations and projects them backwards in time to generate his own creation myths. The practitioner of scientism sees mankind as the apex of evolutionary development, and inheritor of the responsibility for maintenance of the universe (though why this should be so is hard to explain, since he has no one to answer to but himself, and within a century he will be raw material for a new, random evolutionary experiment). Therefore, as an article of faith, he accepts the responsibility for the future of the universe, and, doubting nothing, produces a roadmap for human conduct into the future. As surely as Thor and Zeus and Ra ordered human destiny by their whims, he must also sacrifice to nature in the ordinances of his faith; the sacrifice of a pious practitioner of scientism causes much orderliness. One sect even had as its motto, "Alles in Ordnung". Hence the rabid ferocity of Suzuki, Gore, et al.

On a more practical level, it can be seen that the sacrifices required by the practitioners of scientism are nothing less than the rites necessary to retain power over others. Rush Limbaugh has commented that it is humorous to watch liberals become frantic as they suspect that they are losing their power over others. It is tragic, however, when the practitioners of scientism, whether atheistic or theistic, see their domains crumbling. It is also dangerous. The abortion issue, the debate over embryonic stem cell research, the ethics debate over "assisted suicide"; all illustrate quite aptly the proclivity of the practitioners of scientism to invoke human sacrifice, just as their pagan ancestors, as a necessity for satisfying natural progress.

A study of the Galileo affair shows that it was not heresy involving the basic tenets of the Roman Catholic church that got him into trouble, but the production of instruments and observations that flatly contradicted the theistic scientism of his day. If it were still acceptable to burn heretics at the stake, would Suzuki be satisfied with fines and jail time?

Persona non Grata

Today I got my come-uppance. Again. Things are very slow, and I have been putting in applications to various and sundry places based on what the job description is and whether I feel it is something I am capable of doing. So far, I have been getting rejections.

As I told Mike this afternoon, I have never gotten a job, that I can recall, without either knowing the people doing the hiring, or being the last person on the list that they could possibly tap. My very first (real) job, as a carry-out and stockboy at Emery's Sparkle Market, I got because Paul Emery knew my folks, and Esther Emich (who basically ran the office) knew me from Sunday School. I was hired by Bert Joyce because he knew me from the time I was a little kid. I was hired by Myers (Patch Rubber) because Uncle Bill ran Patch Rubber and Dad ran the Cement House. I was hired by Akron U (GTA) because Ed Lasher knew me from one of his classes and recommended that I apply for the position in his Educational Resources Center. I was hired by Gary Lubliner at the Norton Radio Shack as a part time salesman because he knew that I knew more about the Color Computer than anybody else in the area at that time -- Radio Shack had refused to hire me earlier because I failed their psychological profile in the application process. I was hired by H&R Block as a part-time tax preparer because the course instructor got to know me, and my cousin Dan was running their computer system. I was hired at REAS because Megan Hall Harbath and Chuck Cather knew me and the sort of work I did; Jim Beatty flat out told me during the interview that he wouldn't even have considered my resume without their recommendation.

I was hired by Midview Local Schools because they were desperate and needed a science teacher with less than a month to go to the beginning of school. Same situation with North Union Local Schools. I was hired by Indian and Northern Affairs because it was only a week until school started and all three of the other applicants had turned the job down after seeing where it was located (and even Violet cried all the way back to Edmonton from Green Lake because Beauval was so far away from civilization). During my second year there, Cliff Samoleski told me that they had broken down and hired me because they had no other options.

I interviewed with quite a few brokers, but only Dave Kaufman would take a chance on me; he knew my background. It took years of trying before Dale Sungy showed up to offer me a chance to complete my experience requirement for state certification, but he was also in need of help and did not have the time to waste on a trainee who had not yet gotten the necessary education and some of the required experience. Besides, for both of them, it was a low risk thing; if I didn't produce, I wouldn't get paid. I am not sure why AMCO hired me, but the risk was low; again, I was paid as a contractor on a per review basis. I was recommended for the MAD appraisal board by Dale, and Joe Harrison remembered me from our days together in ROTC (his first words to me when I answered his phone call -- "Are you the Jim Hrubik who was in the Counterguerrilla Unit at Akron U?")

Every place I have left, I left with people telling me that I had done a good job, and/or writing letters of recommendation and reference. I have lots of those in my files. I have never been let go from a job because of my performance. Today one of those little suspicions jumped out and got my attention.

I filled out an on-line application for part-time work at Lowes. You don't even get a chance to interview if you fail to meet the minimum requirements they check in the on-line questionnaire, not even if you do it inside a Lowes store. So... gotta be honest, right?

Q. (Y/N) Have you ever stolen or shoplifted anything?
A. (Y). When I was about 10 or 11 years old (about 50 years ago!), we used to lift small items from the Ben Franklin store down at Wooster Hawkins. Years later, I looked up the last Ben Franklin in the area to offer to make that right (and the manager thought it was funny that I would do so).

Q. (Multiple Choice) In the last three years, have you violated safety regulations while doing your job?
A. (D - 5 or more times). Actually, I can't count the number of times I walked onto new home construction sites without a hard hat or steel toed boots. I don't always put jackstands under my car when I have to change a tire or the oil, and I rarely wear safety goggles while sawing or drilling.

Q. (Y/N) Do you have a criminal record?
A. (Y). Ah, that surprised you? Remember Matt's science project in 2000? The geese he hatched and raised? I was charged with illegal possession of a wild animal. I plead "No Contest". In front of the game warden, the judge told me I should have performed a public service and killed the geese. He had no choice but to find me guilty. A misdemeanor. I have a criminal record.

Lowes ; "SORRY, BUT YOU DO NOT MEET OUR MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS'.

Well, I will keep applying and sending out my resume. Someday, somebody who knows me will have a need for my skills and the rest won't matter.

Only 5% Guilty...

I really do get a kick out of some of these stories. It gives you a peek into unvarnished human nature.

Small Romanian Town Gets Rich Through eBay Scams



Notice that the thing that draws the victims in is a chance to get around the rules. This is nothing new; the Nigerian 419 scams were around even before there was a World Wide Web -- back in the days of text-only browsers and email.

So I got curious and decided to check out what was going on in the heart of Darkest Africa. (Every now and then I still get a 419 come-on in my SPAM box). Wudjano, there is a site called 419Eater!!

This almost looks like fun to my slightly twisted mind, but I really do have better things to spend my time on. Reading it might be instructive, though for Internet Innocents.

Careful there, kiddies; this may be a job for Superman.

PPhtt...

This just in ...

"Middle school issues ban on intentional flatulence



So I raised my hand and said, "Ms Libby, those boys aren't using deodorant, either".

They Have More Sense t'Other Side of the River?

Hoo, boy!!

West Virginia considers gun lessons for schoolchildren...