Ca-Joh

Friday, March 12, 2010

F2: Happy Birthday F2

Welcome again to Friday's Feast¹. Today I'll be talking about how Friday's Feast has changed over the past year.

Participants in this weeks Feast are as follows:

M²I @ Ca-Joh
Here's a Birthday Cake Recipe to help celebrate.

A little bit over a year ago, I decided I would like to have a recurring feature post. In it I would give food related topics for people to link up with. So I came up with Friday's Feast. As far as I know I have not changed the rules too much since I first conceived the idea. Here is a snip-it from that first post:

Some of you may have heard me mention that I would like to develop my own recurring feature post. Well… here is my attempt at doing something on a regular basis and having everybody join in the fun. I call this feature: "Friday's Feast".

The whole idea behind Friday's Feast is to promote all things food. The way that you can join in the feast is as follows:

Every Friday I will post a topic for the following weeks post. If you want to participate in that next week's Feast, just leave a comment and be sure to include a direct link to your post. I will then gather up the links and put them in that next post. The best part of this is that you can leave a comment at any time (even after the next week's post has been posted)— as well as linking to any post that you have written (even if it was from long ago, or in the future).

Some broad topics that I have thought of are:

Celebrity chefs
Cooking disasters
Cooking shows
Favorite and/or not so favorite foods
Food allergies
Food commercials you love and/or hate
Food facts
Product placement
Recipes
Restaurant reviews
Stories about eating

… and the list goes on and on. Hopefully that will give you some idea as to the kinds of topics we will cover. I always welcome more ideas, so leave a comment to let me know if there is any other topic that you would like to use.

Originally I used Mr. Linky to capture who was participating, but sometime around May they were experiencing technical difficulty so I abandoned that and used the current method of participating which is to leave a comment with a link to your post.

Around October I started to use monthly themes. I'm thinking that this may be easier for participants to remember— as well as make it easier for me to come up with themes. Here is what I have for my monthly themes:

Month	Theme
January	Warm Dishes to beat the cold
February	Valentines' Day, Love
March	St. Patrick's Day, St. Joseph's Day, Green, Italy
April	Easter, Spring
May
June	Weddings
July	4th of July, Summer
August	Dog Days
September	School
October	Halloween
November	Thanksgiving
December	Christmas, Hanukkah

As you can tell, I don't have anything for May. I am sure that I can fill these months out better too. Feel free to suggest themes that go along with the various months so I can add them in.

Now that Friday's Feast has reached a year old, I am hoping that more people will participate. I am really struggling with how to promote this feature. I have heard a lot of people say they like this feature, but I haven't gotten too many people participating from week to week. I don't want to stop if people like this, but I would like this to be a participation style post where people join in the feast.

This month is March— which means Saint Patrick's Day. I also hear that next Friday is St. Joseph's day. I'm looking for posts that relate to this festive time. Ways to interpret this topic include…

"Goin' Green"— foods that are (or can be) green.
What Irish foods do you serve on Saint Patrick's Day?
Why on earth would they dye the beer green… does it make it more potent?
St. Joseph is Italian… Any Italian dishes or traditions you want to share?

So… if you have anything that relates to this topic, be sure to leave a comment and include the URL so I can include you in next weeks feast. Even if you have already posted on this topic in the past— your links are always welcome.

¹ If you don't know what Friday's Feast is all about, please read the Friday's Feast page for a more detailed explanation. If you want to join in on the feast— be sure to leave a comment and include the URL to your post so I and others can know of your contribution. Also, if you want to see a particular topic— feel free to suggest it as well (I'm always looking for new inspirations).

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

What worth is the world to myself

I forget what I was going through when I wrote this poem, but I do find that it seems to sum up the feelings one gets when you find things come to you way too easily.

What worth is the world to myself
if I have found the wonders of great wealth.

My riches they give not to me
but only restrict and make me not see.

So why have it all and never have none
and think that you've won one more on the shelf.

86'

I have used the phrase "Why have it all— when you can have none". I typically use that phrase to show humbleness. So often we strive to have it all. If we ever have it all we believe that everything is ours for the taking and never consider the consequence of our actions in getting it all. If you have it all do you really have it all— or is there just one more thing that you want?

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Tempest Fugit

And then the one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun¹

10 Years… that's a long time. Today I get honored for 10 years of service at my current job. I actually started in January, but it takes a while for them to come up with the names and awards and all. This is the only place where I have worked the longest. Before that I worked in the same place for eight years— but strangely enough who I got my paycheck from changed every three, so it's hard to justify.

My wife finds it interesting how the skills that she picked up from previous jobs seem to help out in her current job. In the job I had for eight years I worked for different vendor companies as a desktop publisher. I used a lot of "Find and Replace" skills to change wording in documents quickly. I find that these skills help me as a programmer when it comes to using Regular Expressions and making bulk find and replace strings to data.

I worked as an archivist for a Pre-press company. Through that job I learned how to organize your files and be able to archive those files you no longer use. I still use a similar folder structure to organize my projects that the pre-press operators used to store their projects they worked on.

I worked as a support technician for a library automation software company. I had to support librarians who used our software over the phone. I have been told by many people that I have very pleasant phone skills and I attribute it to this job.

Looking back on my career path and seeing how each job seems to culminate with the next makes me realize that I have been quite successful in what I do and I look forward to the next 10 years here.

¹ Excerpts from the Pink Floyd song: "Time" from the album Dark Side Of The Moon.

Friday, March 5, 2010

F2: Corned Beef Hash

Welcome again to Friday's Feast¹. Today I'll be sharing a recipe in honor of March and Saint Patrick's Day.

Many times you find that you have left over corned beef from making corned beef and cabbage. Here is something you can do with the left over corned beef:

With inspirations from Mrs. Mackinac

Corned Beef Hash:: 1 Can Corned Beef
Unless you have left over Corned Beef; 2-4 Medium Potatoes; 1 Yellow Onion; Peanut Oil

Remove the corned beef from the can and place in a bowl.
Peel and quarter the potatoes and onions.
Using a meat grinder, grind the corned beef, potatoes, and onions together.
Place enough peanut oil to cover the bottom of an iron skillet.
Heat the skillet.
When the skillet is hot, add the ground mixture to the pan.
Place a lid over the skillet and let the mixture brown for 10 minutes.
Remove the lid and flip the mixture over.
If the mixture is sticky, add more oil
Remove from the skillet and place into a serving dish.
Enjoy.

This month is March— which means Saint Patrick's Day. I'm looking for posts that relate to this festive time. Ways to interpret this topic include…

"Goin' Green"— foods that are (or can be) green.
What Irish foods do you serve on Saint Patrick's Day?
Why on earth would they dye the beer green… does it make it more potent?

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Writer's Workshop: I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane

In honor of Mamma Kat's Writer's Workshop I have decided to tackle Prompt #2:
Tell us about your trip!

Author's Note: Since I have not actually been on a trip in several months and did blog extensively about the last one I was on— I have decided to grab an old journal of mine and describe my first time I flew by myself. Please bear in mind that this was written when I was about 14 years old and my not be constructed very well. All the same— enjoy…

Here I'm sitting on a might be couch (actually) a couple of foam polyurethane with nylon covers sitting on bricks (it looks good though) waiting for a plane to come in about 4:40.

I might as well start from the beginning.

It all started when I stayed up and read The Stand. So far it was a good book even though I only read about "80" pages. Then we all went to the airport. "Wait" go back just a little. Before we started off my dad wouldn't find the checkbook. He looked everywhere, sure he looked right where he found it. He blamed it on the dental things or insurance papers which they were under. When we got there mom and dad were worried about getting to the right place or elevator to the right terminal.

Then we were inside carrying my back-pack got to be tiresome my dad said to carry it on both arms, I refused. Then he told me that it would put more pressure on one strap and it might break, it didn't. At the ticket booth or terminal well my way to the place— I got it the ticket check in. That's it. When we were there my dad was supposed to get a stand-by basis ticket— that is you would get on only if they had the room. Well stand-by tickets weren't working or doing it for five years. My dad had to pay full fare instead of half. He blamed it on one of his bridge partners who so I hear has a problem with her husband or something like that. Well anyway he always has to pass the buck to somebody anyway.

When we got to the terminal gate which was as so written on the ticket holder H-7 his handwriting was fast but we could figure it out well anyway I could because I had the ticket in my hot little hands. On the way to the terminal mom was talking about something it's on the tip of my tongue but I forgot it actually it's about a price slash on round trips dad said only on round trips but mom said he checked it first. Actually the slash is made from a reserved ticketed rather than being it at the luggage check in area.

Well when we were at the terminal gate and we waited for the plane and learned that it was delayed by the rain and thorms in the area from 11:30-11:50. We also had to check in at gate 9 instead of 7 because that's where the plane came in. When I finally got on the plane and we were ready to take off. But the plane was delayed by the thunder storm and we didn't take off until about 12:10. The people in back of me were very rude as you might say in fact they didn't know they talked alot.

I was alone in the two seats and so was the person in front of me. Well things got worse. I wanted to get some air on me and I saw a button to pull so I pulled it and the waitress came and asked if I needed anything. I said no I don't think so and was very startled until she told me that I pulled the call button. I felt stupid. She left then I wondered when they were going to serve lunch they did in a few moments. They had turkey sandwiches and potato salad with mustard salt and pepper and a tomato. I ate it all. "The potato salad was good" I said to myself even though I hated potato salad. When the stewardess served the drink I had a Sprite she spilled it on my pants and had to go all the way to the front to get an extra napkin. I tried to read the book The Black Marble but it was too distract-full on the plane. I saw what I think was Cairo ILL and the Mississippi river and I knew we were getting close to our destination. When we landed I got up and looked in back of me to see that lady she might be good looking she wasn't at all!

Then I got off the plane and out into the lobby and out of the gate at Memphis airport was pretty good looking I could say and it was small too so I got around it pretty easily but it had it's problems too. I had to find the place where my next flight was to take off at. It was pretty hard. First I saw where the small planes took off and it said restricted do not enter. So I was baffled so I sat down and waited for 4:40 to roll around and I didn't understand anything. So I asked one of the ground crew where the small planes took off and while explaining the situation at the same time. He told me to go to the luggage check in under United Airlines the one the ticket was under and ask about it. So I did and they told me to go downstairs.

Oh yes I almost forgot to tell you about my luggage pickup. I did and from that the fishing pole case was broken in one spot nothing much but the chain.

Well going down there he said to get someone and call this one place, well nobody there I was confused. Disgusted I went back up and asked again. He said to call Memphis Aero and I did, well I tried. I put a dime in the phone and it said that the number was not in service. OK I tried again same response. Then I found out what I was doing wrong. I then dialed the right number and it finally rang about 12 times then a lady answered the phone and I explained and she said they'd send transportation over.

Excellent. So I waited for about 10 minutes and was thinking of calling back but it came and I got in and we went over there and when we did the driver asked some questions about going over there to Mountain Home. I thought he was talking to me but he wasn't he was talking to someone else.

When I finally got inside and I tried to get my ticket checked.

Fortunately/unfortunately that is where it ends. I thought I had more on how I flew in a small plane, but I didn't. I think that getting to where you started is good enough.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

I can't think of a third

My wife and I came up with a game where you list two movie titles with something common between the first two, then announce that you can't think of a third. It is then up to the other participant to determine what is common with the frist two movies and say what the third is.

Here is my challenge to you— the first list is easy, and the second is nearly impossible:

Joe and the Volcano
You've Got Mail
And I can't think of a third…

The man with one Red Shoe
The Burbs
And I can't think of a third…

The problem with that last one is that there really isn't a third. But I will give you a clue as to a way to connect the first list with the second and come up with the bonus third. Both lists have a common actor playing opposite another. If you can figure out which movie has the two opposites playing in the same movie together you have won.

In order to be fair, I am going to turn on Comment Moderation. I will post comments that don't include guesses. Then on Friday I will post all of the guesses (if there are any) and let the winner know they won.

Monday, March 1, 2010

2010 Spaghetti Dinner

If you like spaghetti, the Ravenswood Fellowship United Methodist Church will be hosting their annual spaghetti dinner. All proceeds go to our Honduras project which helps provide education opportunities to Honduran children who typically do not get any education beyond 7th grade. I'm including the information about the event below in case you want to come:

ALL YOU CAN EAT FOR $7.00
Children under 10 $3.00
Meat or vegetarian sauce will be served

Saturday, March 6, 2009
4:30 to 8:00 pm
Ravenswood Fellowship United Methodist Church
4511 N. Hermitage
Chicago, IL

I look forward to seeing you there.