EAT MINNEAPOLIS.COM IS BLANK!
I've got to do something quick!
OK, OK. Uh ... Here's a picture.
See, I've climbed to the top of this bridge.
It's like really high.
( Hope Michael appreciates this rescue ).
Here it is past midnight and Paul Simon is singing and aged tobacco is burning and it's like sixty-something degrees with a light breeze and life doesn't get much better than the deck.
I need to get some pictures of the deck, it was the premier selling point of the house, even though it was December when I bought it and I didn't really have any idea of how much I would use it.
Now I'm nature boy - Communing with the Minnesota out of doors. Two outdoor speakers, a few feet of wire, some comfy rocky chairs and a baked-in-stress table and I'm in heaven.
Olive enjoys running around on the roof and catching bugs and stuff. It's family time, too.
But enough about that.
HAROLD AND KUMAR are going to White Castle and, well, I'm looking foward to it.
Well - I'm back from a brief and nice trip to Atlanta.
I have a buncha things to look forward to:
1. Fancy dinner for Keith's birthday (TBA).
2. IKEA is now open in Minneapolis.
3. Bizet's CARMEN on Thursday at Theatre de la Jeune Lune.
4. Cuban Sandwich at Victor's as soon as I can get a day off.
5. Finishing the great book that JSB loaned me.
6. Sleep (where I'm going right now).
Tuesday morning after the anticipated 3 hours of sleep I get to crowd my claustrophobic ass into an uncaring and cramped tube of steel for the two and one-half hours of hell it takes to be in the bosom of my family.
Yes, yes - Chicken & Dumplings, Taco Stand, My Ma & Pa, my niece, Aunts, Uncles, & old, dear friends. And Sonny's. And Krystal chili. And maybe Houstons.
Sleeping on the floor, the smell of Georgia, the humidity, moving the statue to a diagonal, playing the un-tuned piano, wondering what the hell the room that contains it is for. I remember being in that room on Christmas & thanksgiving only. And maybe another time or two.
Grave reduction in cigar consumption, driving a different car, love, breakfast, getting up too early, the comfy chair, bagels, Howard at the microwave (0.47 seconds), a billion memories, television, nostalgia, chicken & dumplings.
I'm making the peach cobbler myself tonight, just in case the chicken & dumplings is an empty fantasy.
I have discovered a new kind of cookie I invinted.
They are called Mystery Cookies, beacause they come out different every time.
Ingreadients
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softend
2 tbsp superfine sugar
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp fresh lavender florets or 1 tsp dried culinary lavender, roughly chopped
(optional)
2 tsp superfine sugar for sparkling
1. Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Mix/stir in the flour and lavender and bring the mixture together in a soft ball. Cover and chill for 15 minutes.
2. Heat the oven to 400F. Put the dough in a soft ball and start pulling off pieces
and squshing them until they are all in little crumbles.
3. Start making little piles of the crumbles on your cookie sheet, place on heavy baking sheet and bake for about 5 minutes, or until golden.
4. Leave the cookies standing for 5 minutes to set up, using a meatal spatula, transfer them carefully from the baking sheet to a wire rack to cool compleatly.
HAVE FUN!!!!!!!
Guests! Ya'll have a fan.
So.
Keep it up!
Dear Sir/Madam,
URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL
I am Mrs. Mariam Abacha, the widow of Sani Abacha,the Late Nigerian
Head of State.
I am presently in distress and under house arrest
while my son Mohammed is undergoing trial in Lagos and
Abuja,though,he has just been recently granted bail under
the condition that my family refunds to the Federal Government, some
amount of money.The government
has frozen the main family accounts and auctioned some of our
properties.
Please do find time to checkout the website about what they think my
husband did,but nobody is perfect and would rule an OPEC country without
consolidating his/her future after office:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1935646.stm
To save the family from total bankruptcy,I have
managed to ship through an undercover courier company,
the sum of US$24, 000,000{twenty four million dollars}, deposited
secretly by my late husband.
The money was disguised to beat the Nigerian Security and
it is currently deposited in a finance company which I will disclose
the name and contacts to you if I get a positive and honest response from
you.I want you to receive the money and pay into your account{not fixed
deposit}for the family
safely.
I am ready to offer you 20% for assisting me secure this money.Do
contact me immediately with my alternate email address so that I can forward
to you all necessary details.
Endeavour to send your phone and fax numbers for easy
correspondence and respond strictly through my personal
assistant,Mr.Eik Ale for security reasons with:eikallen@yahoo.com.This assistance
wouldn't take much from you,like time or financially,and it is
hitch-free,so far you are sincere to me.
Best regards,
Mrs. Mariam Abacha
AND
Hello,
With this I am seeking a trustworthy, capable and discreet person that can act as a trust on my behalf. In this vain you would hold on my behalf about 10 Million Euros in trust for a still to be determined lenght of time and for this I will pay you a 5% commission of the total fund for your service at the end of this transaction.
Without bothering you with specifics, I am from the Netherlands Antilles that together makes up the Kingdom of Netherlands and the reason for this offer is due fiscal and personal reasons. Note that this offer does/will not in any way infring on any local or international financial regulations of your country. My offer is on the basis of protecting my assets and can only be achieved at this stage through an unrelated third party.
So if you know/think you are good with money and can handle such a large fund, please let me know. The percentage is negotiable and you should be capable and prepared to handle the transaction entirely on your own, with little inputs from my side.
Best regards,
Nelson (curacao@bigpond.com)
Since I'm already going to get rich on the last one - These two are up for grabs to my friends who read this blog.
I was lucky enough to visit this church in Paraíso, CR and witness an extremely strange phenominon. At the front of the church, in front of all the pews, was an enormous crucifix, life-sized or bigger. The church was filled almost entirely with women and they would go all the way to the back of the church and then crawl on their knees in between the pews up to the life-sized statue of Jesus and pray. They were all in tears during this little journey. I couldn't get our guide to explain exactly what was happening there, just that it was 'ritual'.
There you go, Michael.
Hot off the presses and a spectacular end to my week of posts.
Sure, Michael looks like he's a trailer park wife, and I'm missing two teeth, but at least our bowels were still functioning normally.
Happy Independence Day!
In honor of my recent drive through Mason City, Iowa, I thought I'd let Meridith Willson wish ya'll a happy 4th!
I made my first fortune in the stock market with a little company called priceline.com. I was an early E*Trade customer and they had some special deal that if you were an E*Trade customer and a priceline.com customer, you could get in on the IPO. I think the offer price was 6.00 or something. So I got issued 100 shares at 6.00 and the next morning it went public.
I decided to be smart. I knew this stock and the IPO had a lot of buzz so I decided that if I could get 3-times the value, I'd be rich. That night before the market opened for the first day of trading on this stock, I put in a sell order at 18. If, by some miracle, it made it to 18 on the first day, I'd be RICH! I'd have $1800.00 from an investment of only 600.00.
I woke up in the morning and checked my email. I could see that, indeed I was rich. The 'subject line' of the email said, "Your sell order for PCLN at 18 was exicuted". Sweet, eh? TRIPLED my money!!
When I OPENED the email I saw the entire text.
"Your sell order for PCLN at 18 was exicuted at 46.00"
HOLY SHIT! I was rich! It was like hitting a jackpot. $4600.00!!!
Of course, had I kept it for 2 more months, I could have sold it at 150.00 a share.
But that's the story of this picture.
And speaking of flags....
I understand that amid all the controversy over the inclusion of the confederate flag, the State of Georgia had finally taken out the symbol of the confederacy that some found so offensive and they have unveiled the newGeorgia State Flag.
I've got big plans for the holiday weekend and thought a picture of OLD GLORY might be appropriate.
Actually this shot is a "Point of View" assignment from my photography class. The instructor wanted images of everyday objects from an unusual angle.
( I've got to tell you, climbing that tree was a pain in the butt. )
DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY TIP OF THE DAY -
Buy yourself a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0.
( It's $50 at Sam's Club. )
I've had several Pros tell me that, it has everything you'll ever need and doesn't cost several hundred dollars.
I think the Elements "Save for Web" option is worth the 50 bucks, all by itself. This flag pic was originally almost 2meg now it's 38k and still looks very good. The "Save for Web" option is easy to use and great for sending pictures in E-mails.
