What am I doing New Years Eve?

This evening, I sat out in the shop watching LSU clobber GA Tech in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl (very boring after the 1st qtr) ... Reading a Dee Henderson book "Truth Seeker" ... while channel hopping between football, J-Lo in Maid in Manhattan, and Will Ferrell in Elf. We don't have cable TV in the house. Scratch your head and figure that one out ... meanwhile, Presley, our neighbor's mutt, had found a warm piece of carpet to sleep on and had no intention of leaving the workshop. Can't blame him ... the weather is doing a nosedive to 32 degrees ... which is why I had my insulated boots and winter coat on (with a warm windproof hood). About 9 p.m. some of the neighbors shot off fireworks ... and a couple others shot their guns ... But it's been real quiet since then. Our town is only 2 houses deep ... everything behind them is farms. I'll eat a few chocolate chip cookies and go to bed about 11:30 p.m. There are more football games to watch tomorrow. My wife is playing scrabble on the computer and managed to get 64 pts for playing "za". Triple letter, triple word score ... the computer flashed "You Won!" on the screen.

We are whooping it up with a bag of Gummi SourMix candy. And I still have a chocolate covered marzipan bar in my Christmas stocking. We are just really living it up tonight. (not)

Not Spring Yet?

Winter "officially" started on December 22nd ...

These flowers are blooming out front by the tree ...

There are a lot of plants out there that have felt such warm weather that they thought it was time to bloom.  Does this mean the fruit & nut trees will blossom and then the blossoms will be killed by freezing cold ... so there will be no harvest this next fall?

Red Onion Pecan Bread

Made some Red Onion/Pecan Bread yesterday.
We have a Sunbeam breadmaker machine which my wife requested for her birthday a couple of years ago. AND, she stipulated that I had to make the bread ...
So this last week she has been saying that "we" need to make some Red Onion/Pecan Bread. "We" (keemosabeh) means me. If you enlarge the foto, you can see the faded red onion pieces as well as the chopped pecan nut pieces. Instead of visiting the store, I picked up some pecans from the yard and spent half an hour cracking and shelling them. Then I put them in the mechanical food processor and cranked it about 10 times to chop the nuts. This recipe makes a 1.5 lb loaf.

Pecan & Red Onion Bread

1 package yeast (I used 2 tsp)
3 cups bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup plus 1 Tablespoon warm milk
1/4 cup butter (melted)
1/2 cup chopped fresh red onion
3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

combine all ingredients in order given
(reverse that order for a bread machine)
use white bread setting

Well, that is the recipe ... and then there is reality ...

I was a little heavy-handed on both the red onion and the pecans ...

When the bread machine started twirling to mix everything, I noticed a few small balls of "dough" and a lot of granulated dry stuff sitting in the corners and on the sides ... so I grabbed a cup, loaded it with water, and headed for the bread machine ... I added a little water around the edges and pushed everything down and towards the center with my spatula ... while the machine was mixing. I'd add a little more water (sparingly), then push with the spatula ... eventually it all kind of glomped together to make a dough ball, while I was mashing down in the center to spread it out to catch any dry stuff ... until it looked a bit more than dry, not quite wet & sticky, but seemingly holding together. At this point I closed the lid on the bread machine and walked away. (adding too much water makes it rise really high and then fall down in the center) Either it would work or it wouldn't ... And I wouldn't know for sure until the beeper went off at the end.

In this case, it came out really good ... light and fluffy ... very flavorful.
While still warm, we cut the top off and slathered it with butter. YUM!

Boxing Day ...

Patient father with daughters

Today was "boxing day" ... the day after Christmas.

The day on which we got together with 3 of our children and their families.
Lots of pizza!!

There were grandchildren playing all over the place!

And the adults had a wonderful time ... mostly talking.

Part of this evening's entertainment was a sumo wrestling contest ...
a LOT of fun was had by all!
Due to recovering from a torn hamstring ... I did NOT participate.

Auntie J and two nieces compare heights.

Auntie is in her early 20's ...

the nieces are half as old

Brice shows off his headstand.

Very stable and well balanced.

Cian avoiding the camera

Granddaughter with MP3 player ...

just like 1001 other kids this year.

Talia and Mom

Happy ...

French Onion Soup

First take a LARGE onion and slice it across so you get all those rings and things ... then separate them into individual rings. Here they are being sautéed in butter (until brown = best flavor) and the drippings left from frying a couple of steaks.

Here, 4 cups of water have been added ... along with 3 beef bullion cubes (or 3 chicken & herb) ... and cooked to taste.

The onion soup from the frying pan has been placed in 2 large bowls. 2 Slices of French bread have been toasted and placed on top of each bowl.

Shredded mozzarella (or cojack) & cheddar cheese are sprinkled on top. At this point you can put it in the oven and heat it until the cheese melts and it's toasty on top (provided your bowls don't melt) ... We simply put each bowl into the microwave for a minute. Then sat back with a soup spoon and enjoyed!!

Rare Find ...

This product is "the bomb!" and can be purchased at World Market.
It's only abt $5 ... a better deal than Nutella.
The only problem is they don't always purchase from the same supplier ...
most of the stores are now filled with a similar product made in Holland.
But the Holland stuff tastes like washed-out milk chocolate ...
short on both hazelnuss and cocao.
SO, I dug ... pulling out bottle after bottle ... until way in the back I was rewarded with two bottles of this luscious product from Belgium. YES!!

Which of course I will keep entirely to myself ... savoring
each half teaspoon full.
( doling a little to my wife ...
to keep her tablespoon away from the bottle)
How can anybody just wolf this down like mashed potatoes?!

IN OTHER NEWS: the boxes for our children are just about finished
and I bought a nice bottle of Geritol for my aging sister ...
it's cherry flavored ... and will go well with the lavender hair rinse.
I think she submitted paperwork to get one of those
run-around scooter chairs? And is very fond of Senior Citizen lunches.
:-p

Foggy Lately

It's been foggy the last couple of days ...
But the temperature did get up to 77 F.
Since Dothan is known for the Peanut Festival ...
There are all these variously painted peanuts around town.
This one is on N. Oates St.
thought he was cute.

Finally Decorating

We didn't feel like getting too carried away this year ...
so we took the books off the shelf and put up Christmas decorations.
See the cute little metal tree adorned with bells ...
We had wanted to go visit a few family members for Christmas ...
But after a few phone calls yesterday, we canceled that idea.
We discovered more important things that we could do for family members.

Kubuntu 8.04.1 disk

I was stumbling around the net looking for a Hackintosh image that might work to turn a cheap PC laptop into a Mac ... and came across this Kubuntu OS file  <--- {click on the colored text to the left and it will take you to the webpage} (OS = Operating System = something that runs your computer ... kinda like Windows XP).  I chose Kubuntu 8.04 for a Standard Personal Computer.  (the 8.1 is too new and probably has glitches)  It took awhile to download ... GA Tech wouldn't let me get it from their server ... UC Santa Barbara took nearly 2 hours (a 692 MB file) ... but the National Weather Service only takes 30 minutes.  While still on my Mac, I burned that image to a CD.  It doesn't do anything for my Mac, but when I boot up (turn on) my wife's Windows XP computer with this disk sitting in the "cup tray" ... CD Rom drive ... it starts up and lets me run her computer in LINUX Kubuntu operating system (without changing her OS ... she would NOT be happy if I did so ...).  I even went surfing on the internet.

My neighbor Daniel said, "It's nice that it boots up and you can surf the web with it ... but will it print???"  I guess there must be some kind of problem doing things like that ... what would I know?  It's always been very simple to run my Mac.  Anyway, I took a USB stick (thumb drive or whatever you want to call it) with some files on it ... including a MS-Office Excel file ... and "hot" plugged it into the computer.  It recognized the "transfer drive" ... opened up a window showing all the pictures on it ... and the Excel file.  I double-clicked the Excel file ... and it took a minute or two for anything to happen ... because it was decompressing and loading another program (temporarily) off of the CD.  When suddenly OpenOffice flashes onto the screen  showing this Excel file ... ready to use it or print.  Using an Excel file in most any other program usually requires A LOT more clicking, adapting, and converting before it is functional.  I clicked on print ... changed it from printing a portrait (vertical) image to a landscape (horizontal) image ... and to only print page 1 ... and it did.  I didn't load any printer drivers or do anything else ... it just sort of snatched it from the dormant Windows files (I think).

Whatever ... it worked just fine.  I closed OpenOffice.  Right-clicked on the transfer drive ... and chose "safely remove."  Then it did ... and I did.  At which point I clicked on the little icon in the lower left corner and selected "log off" ... it popped up another little window giving me some more options ... I selected "shut down" ... and it proceeded to do so.  It reached a point where it slid the "cup holder" (CD Rom tray) open ... said to remove the Kubuntu 8.04.1 disk, close the tray, and press the "enter" key.  Whereupon it completely shutdown.  

My wife was thrilled that her computer started back up in Windows XP with no apparent glitches (other than the normal Windows stuff) ... and life was back to normal.

Now I just need to find an older Windows computer that someone is discarding ... as they upgrade to a new one this Christmas ... so I can load the Kubuntu OS 8.04.1 onto it and play with it.

Been Rainin'

I asked Daniel if he stocked fish in the pond in the front yard.
The whole yard looks like this ...
kind of big on excessive water ... and flood warning signs.
Did I mention the big winds the shook the house in the middle of the night? And the Crack! or Popping sound so loud that my wife and the neighbor both thought a tree had snapped and gone down.
Course somehow or other the cable and high speed internet was knocked out. We went to WalMart in Ozark ... it was closed due to power outage. Some line fried or was knocked out and took half of Ozark with it. Had to turn around and drive 20 miles to the Big City.

"No-Go Day"

The yard is just rolling in water ...
One of those kind of days when you really don't want to go outside.
May as well wear Crocs or plastic shoes ...
and plan to take your shoes off when you get where you are going.
This water is several inches deep.

I believe I mentioned the Christmas tree getting soaked ...
When it stops raining ... we'll dump the bucket.
No apparent progress yet on decorating ...

Winter Moon

The moon was up there in the sky ...
there was a clear space all around it ...
and there was a circular white ring around the clear space.

I couldn't seem to capture the ring ...
so I zoomed out to capture the moon ...
amongst the bare tree branches.

Of the winter night.

Slow start on Christmas Decorating

This is our Christmas tree ... strangely enough, it's still alive
It's been sitting out in the front yard since last Christmas.
Still in the same little pot we bought it in at WalMart last year.
But it kept blowing over, so we set the pot inside this yellow bucket ... then after it rains, we have to go out, take the pot out of the bucket, dump all the water out of the bucket, and let the pot drain.
That's all we've done for the tree ... no idea why it isn't dead.
We have a bag of tiny ornaments for it ... sitting on the dining room table ... maybe they will get together with the tree one of these days ...

Phishing in the Name of Wells Fargo

I received this email today ...

When I clicked on the "sign in to online banking" link

It takes me to the following page that looks very much like the Wells Fargo page ... Except the address is: http://lasvegascasinomania.com/includes/rss-cache/online.wellsfargo/cgi-bin2/session.cgisessargs=9_oEBq3TP8Cht0ld3bwG1REGkrE5tOwk/
NOT
http://www.wellsfargo.com

I did an email reply and received this back:

"A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

Security.WellsFargo.com@host3.ksasun.com

SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO::

host host3.ksasun.com [67.228.164.206]:

550 Unrouteable address"

Note in the image above that the Phishing address is actually someplace in Moscow, Russia.

Be very careful as to what you respond to ...