Remind me

Why did I leave Las Vegas? A view from slow going (mostly stopped) drive home.

Countdown to Christmas

This holiday tie bringing you the artistic stylings of Jerry Garcia. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas.

Rock on.

The Awesome Window

Is no more. R.I.P. Awesome Window. 2010-2010.

The turkey triangle is in place

And now we wait. The probe in the bird needs to reach 161 degrees. {tapping foot}

Oh, this wait is killing me.

4 pounds of...

News and ads. Holy crap today's newspaper is huge.

A bird in the brine is worth two days in the eats

18 pound turkey in a salt/sugar brine...anticipation!

This adventure started last year. I'm a huge fan of Good Eats on FoodTV. Imagine that. A geeks food show topping my list.

Last year, I tried his roasting method minus the brine. OhCountess just wasn't sure about all the salt. We've now watched the episode "Romancing the bird" a good half dozen times.

Well there it is, our 19 pound turkey is taking a brine bath. I know, it's a good 5 pounds heavier then the 14 pounder he uses in the episode, but I've got 14 people coming tomorrow and I'll be damned if I'm doing all this and not getting homemade turkey dumpling soup and a couple of days of turkey sandwiches out of the deal.

I'll let you know how it goes, until then Happy Thanksgiving and Good Eats!

Inbox Zero

This is such a beautiful thing. What's the line on how long I can keep it this way?

Dads say the darnedest things

Until you have I had my own children, I never really realized just how different two siblings could be from each other. OhPrincess2 has a problem, she's picky. When we go to other people's houses and they are providing food, the sometimes feel bad that she won't eat anything. We just tell them that it's OK, she doesn't like food. She doesn't like hamburger unless it's in Hamburger Helper, in spaghetti or in the form of a plain hamburger. Deviate from that and she doesn't like it. Sigh.

OhPrincess1 on the other hand is the complete opposite. She loves to explore new foods and until she tries something, has no opinion. That's not to say there are things she won't eat. There are things like that. She's not a huge fan of really spicy but for the most part, even if it's not her favorite, she'll eat it.

At the ripe old age of 11, she's taken a curiosity to the kitchen. I might have been the same age when I wanted to learn how to cook. My interest mostly came from the fact that I was hungry and if I want food outside of the window of time mom was cooking, I had to do it myself. I grew tired of the quick and easy, what can I say.

This is a quick conversation I had with my oldest daughter this weekend.

Dad: "You know sweetheart, with your love of food and interest in cooking, when you grow up, you should be a chef."

OhPrincess1: "But dad, when I grow up I want to work with animals."

Dad: "Well...."

OhPrincess1: "DAD! I want to work with LIVING animals!"

Dad: "Well...you know lobster is..."

OhPrincess1: "Dad..."

Have a great day!

It's election day people

Let's do this! If you don't vote, I expect you to keep your mouth shut for the remainder of these people's terms. You get what you vote for. Vote for nothing, expect nothing.

Just vote. Make your voice heard.

Some politicians should just avoid debating

In the follow video clip, Christine O'Donnell gets into a Constitutional debate with her opponent. It quickly becomes apparent that she has no idea what's in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. It saddens me deeply to know that people that aspire to our nations leadership, take these documents for granted and just assume they know what's in them.

People need to know whom they are voting for.



This was shared by a poker blogger friend of mine, thisisnotapril. She found the video and shared it Google Reader. Here's a link to Gawker to read more.

Sharing the love of mathematics

I just got off the phone. I know there's a loophole in the "Do Not Call List" legislation that allows companies that you have a business relationship with to still call your home phone a solicit business despite your name being on the list.

My bank, which shall remain nameless here cuz, they are huge, national and have lawyers that can make me wish I had never been born and I just don't have time for that kind of harassment, has shacked up with every home services company to allow them to use their name. My guess is they can't make enough money the old fashioned way (loaning money out at reasonable interest rates using money that collect through savings account with which they share the money from the interest on the loans - I know, old fashioned) and fees, so they are branching out and diluting their brand with every last gimicky home service company. But this rant is digressing...crap.

Anywho. I got this call from a guy. He did an excellent job of reading the first page of the script. I did my usual of waiting for the part where he asks my permission to record the call to avoid any clerical errors (protect their asses from lawsuits from guys like me). At that time I politely tell him I'm not interested. We all know what happens next...right?

Yes, he turns to page 2, they one they are supposed to read when caller says they aren't interested. It's basically the same as page one, only with more emphasis on the no risk part (of course there's risk, I'll forget to cancel, they'll bill me, and then never cancel me...d'oh!) although with this script he ends with, "I can send you the materials to see just how much this can help you."

Sigh. I retort with, "I know this won't help me, I know how to do math." You see, most of the programs are betting you will never use their service and just keep paying a fee that even if you call in for a repair, the lifetime of your payments will be much larger then any bill you submit. Why else would they be in business? You can't make money if you don't take in more then you spend.

In a first for me lately, I'm sure I pissed off another telemarketer in the past, he responds. "Well fine smart ass." and hangs up.

Good bye to you too. I wonder if he'd turned on the recording, you know, for quality assurance purposes. That's gotta be one for training week.

It's post season baseball people...

Win Twins!!!

Guess what were doing today

Dave Matthews Band Live!

Wish you all were here! Hehe it's a school night too :-)

Introductions are in order - My first real post in forever

Like the gratuitous use of cuteness? I know, it's been a while. Welcome back!

I basically haven't posted anything since like spring. The Awesome Window was cool, but I don't walk past it as much lately and it really wasn't my content. We've had a very busy summer. Also, my 11 year old isn't quite as excited to be the subject of a blog any more. In fact, she hates, so shhh....don't tell her :)

As you might notice, the splash of cuteness across the top there includes something new, something you've never seen posted on the Geek blog. We got a dog. Not just any dog mind you, but a super cool dog. I'd like to introduce you to Kirby, the super dog. He's extra special, not just because he's ours, but because of how he came to us.

We've been looking at puppies for a while. OhPrincess1 has been successfully answering my question about who's gonna clean up the poop for a while. OhPrincess2 still answer it with, "Well, of course, you daddy." Which isn't the answer I'm looking for, but OhCountess we putting lots of pressure as well.

Puppies were proving to be a challenge. We aren't big fans of the puppy mill sources and the small breeders are just so expensive. We also were being very patient. We kept telling the kids that we didn't want to just settle and get any dog, we wanted to get our dog.

One of OhCountess' friends and co-workers is an avid dog person who routinely fosters rescued animals. She called us one day with news, "I have the perfect dog for you guys." We'd heard that before from her, but this time she was adamant. OhCountess decided to go check him out. Her friend said this dog just wasn't doing well at her house. She was fostering several dogs and this little guy was having a hard time fitting in.

He took to her and she asked if we could take him home just to see how he did. Great idea! A trial period for a dog seemed like a good plan. Well, he got to our house and immediately just fit right in. He was back to being playful, and happy. He ven ate...a lot. The girls loved him. It seemed like a match made in heaven, but there was a big catch. We couldn't adopt him, not yet.

The man that found him in a ditch, abandoned, had first dibs. There was also the waiting period to see if his owners would show up looking for him. In this part of the country, seems there's only a 5 day waiting period on abandoned dogs without ID.

So we waited. And waited.

The man that found him said he would probably take him. Our hearts were broken. He was back with OhCountess's friend waiting for him to adopt. He was also back to being a sad dog. Not eating, just sitting there. She asked OhCountess to come see him. He perked right up and just wanted to play. Pure torture. OhPrincess1 cried herself to sleep that night. "Dad, we get so close why do we never get to have a puppy?"

And we waited. But the guy never came in to adopt.

Then word came that his daughter wanted him.

And we waited. His deadline was extended 24 hours. And we waited.

Our friend told us that at 2 PM, if he didn't close the deal, he was available.

And we waited.

At 1:30, OhCountess wanted to know if I would go with her to the adoption place, just in case. Sure. So we went. At 2 PM.

No one came. Kirby was available to the public. By 2:30, Kirby was officially our dog. OhCountess took me back to work and she went to go get him. The kids were thrilled! Since we never had a dog before, we needed lots of supplies which we happily got. We got a little of everything since we didn't know what he'd like. You can't see it on the picture, but he's even got a Minnesota Twins collar, and yes, he's named after a certain baseball player that brought us two World Series Championships...deal with it.

We done lots of other things this summer, but nothing as big or life changing as this. I'm also announcing that I'm on Day 2 Week 1 of the Couch to 5K program. I'll be posting more on that soon but for now I gotta go, so world....I'd like you to meet Kirby. Kirby welcome to our family.

Sunsets on the Mississipp

One thing I've always missed from my hometown were sunsets on the mighty Mississippi River. Just beautiful. I shot this tonight with my iPhone.

The Awesome Window

I've been busy as a beaver all week. On call can be like that. I saw this today walking out to the minivan parked in the ramp. It might be that I'm underwhelmed having played varsity tennis in high school and open countless cans of tennis balls. Awesome was never running out of new tennis balls.

It might also be that I'm a bit negative, sitting here listening to Rollins Band - Liar.

Friday can't get here soon enough.

Sent from my iPhone with the power of Greyskull

The Awesome Window

My kids still love doing this. Unfortunately for the 10 year old, it's probably never gonna happen again.

I guess we have to enjoy it while we can.

Today's awesome: riding on someone else's shoulders when you are a kid.

Sent from my iPhone with the power of Greyskull.

Thursdays on First: with dancing girls

Not what we thought either. They said there would be belly dancing. Lunch with the guys rocked though. Also tried posting video from my iPhone. Did it work?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Awesome Window

Ain't this the truth. Fresh baked cookies rock.