During the summer, a contest in our local community was held to determine the best burger in town. I was unable to go to that event, and I don’t even remember who won. I understand it will be a large undertaking, but I may be taking my own survey on the local burger scene. Since I really like cheeseburgers, I imagine most of the burgers will have cheese on them.

Let’s eliminate the fast food burgers first, starting with the smaller dollar menu burgers. I’ll have to make a trip to all the fast food joints in the area (Williams County), but I can start with McDonalds.

Recently to save money, McDonalds now have a new burger on the menu. It is called the McDouble. This is a standard double cheeseburger minus one slice of cheese. All this for 30 cents less than the old Double Cheeseburger. 30 cents for 1 slice of precut American processed cheese. Hmmm. Still, the Double Cheeseburger was a memory comfort food for me. Kind of like White Castle sliders only bigger. Not the best burger around, but a taste that remained the same from restaurant to restaurant. Since the introduction of the McDouble, I’ve been able to tell the difference from the restaurant in Bryan and the one in Montpelier and from the time of day it is purchased. I’m not sure what they do different, but it is no longer the comfort food I was used to. Being the cheap person I am, I’m not about to spend 30 cents for a piece of cheese. So I have to find another $1.00 burger to replace my old standby.

I’ll try to keep you posted…

Also on the list, in time for lent, Fast Food Fish sandwiches…. 😉

It seems that taking a few days off from this blog caused a bit of concern from a couple of friends. I know I hit 50 and it is all downhill from there. 😉

For those who desire to know, I have been spending a bit less time on the computer and working on the lines I need for The Lion in Winter. Last Sunday was the first complete rehearsal without books. I was trying to get all my lines in place before then. I had most of them, but had problems with two scenes. I got through the Sunday rehearsal Ok, so by the start of the show I should be very comfortable. Now that is a bit of a concern for me, because I’ve never been this comfortable with my lines this early. Now, I did know most of the lines for one other show I was in, but because of the role, I was never completely comfortable with them. I really feel comfortable with these lines, that is different and a bit of a worry for me. Really, that is a good thing, I never want to be comfortable in a role. The bit of nervousness gives a role its life.

I am also working on a complete list of my 50 most important life moments. It was much harder than I thought. I’ve had so many important things happen in my life, and it has been difficult to put them in some sort of order.

Back to the lines…

happenings my life for the past 50 years. Not that your things aren’t important too, but it is my birthday. 😉

1) 1959 I was born — That made this post possible
2) 1983-1984 I met my future wife and married her
3) 1981 thru 1991 My four daughters were born
4) 2003 My wife of almost 20 years died (not good important, but it did make a big impact)
5) 2000 and 2002 Parents died (see above)
6) 1981 Graduated College (set up for all jobs since then)
7) 1982 First job in computer field
8) 1990 Second job in computer field
9) 1992 3rd and current job in computer field (no longer automotive)
10) 2006 Oldest daughter got married (first “step”-grandchild let’s drop the step, it doesn’t mean anything to me)
11) 2007 2nd daughter got married (2nd and 3rd grandkids)
12) 2008 3rd announces pending wedding
13) 2009 1st daughter announces pending grandkid 🙂
14) … To be continued

I’m not exactly sure what I did, I don’t remember deleting a post, but one I spent a bit of time on is gone. This will hold a place until I find the missing text. Maybe tomorrow.

Original Post Title.

The Last 50 Years.

A show on PBS right now (started 10:00pm Tuesday 10-Feb-2009) is about the translation of the early Christian bible to native tongues. The Catholic Church and many countries made it heresy to translate the bible into the vulgar, but people after reading various “heretical” translations started creating many vulgar translations.

While I knew a lot of the stories and history around this, it gave more of an insight to the lives and deaths of those men who translated the bible. This of course opened the way for people to have a bible at home and allow people to study religion on their own.

Of course not only did this lead to the protestant reformation, but also led to other more radical ideas. Not exactly what the original reformers had in mind, but it did happen.

For more information on the PBS show, see here.

Again a very interesting show.

I’ve often been told practice makes perfect. I’ve also been told that nobody is perfect. Does that mean nobody practices enough?

Well for one 14 year old young man, I guess he practiced enough. A new world record on Guitar Hero. I’m not much of a video game player, (not since Centipede and Q-Bert left the arcades) so I never had a world record. I did have a record for a time on the arcade games. It was a thrill to see your initials whenever you visited the arcade. I wonder how it feels to be all over the news. Must really be a thrill. It was good to see on the local news that he actually plays a few real instruments, but they didn’t say anything about his grades.

Ok, I’ve known of this cake recipe for a few months, but I never tried making it until tonight. The reason I say it is dangerous is that you can have a decent hot chocolate desert in under five minutes. Any time of the day, your diet can be blown out of the water. So for sharing the guilt. 😉 Don’t skip the chocolate chips….

MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE

4 tablespoons cake flour(that’s plain flour, not self-rising)
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips(optional)
a small splash of vanilla essence
1 coffee mug

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well
Add the egg and mix thoroughly.
Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.
Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla essence, and mix again.

Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The
cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don’t be alarmed!

Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.
EAT! (this can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous).

Year after Year, the Ice fisherman go out onto the Great Lakes in droves. They will drive their jeeps, trucks, ATV and snowmobiles. It was reported on National News outlets that over 100 people were trapped out on the ice when it broke away from shore.

Warmer temperatures, high winds will all contribute to this happening. It was lucky that only one person lost his life. I just wonder why people take go out on the lakes at these times. I even wonder more why they take expensive machinery out on the lake. I can understand the lure of fishing, I’ve done it many times in the past. Me, I liked the summer fishing the best, but then I have another interest that will have me sitting for extended periods in the cold.

I have gone ice fishing in the past, but only on small inland ponds and lakes. I always wanted to make sure the complete lake was frozen. Even on those days, when the wind picked up, you could hear and feel the ice buckle beneath your feet. I can’t even imaging feeling this on a lake where you could end up drifting miles off shore.

Well, anyway they did it again this year, and I’m sure they will do it again next year. I’m very convinced they will, because I heard today on the news, that they were out again today. I’m almost certain that some of the people rescued earlier were back on the ice today. I hope they stay safe.

Trying again to move pictures and other files around to help keep thing in order on my computer.  I’ve never really been much of a picture taker, but with a digital camera it is so easy just to keep clicking away.  I’m still trying to file all of my video files, but they take much longer to move around.   I may have to buy a Blu-Ray writeable drive when the cost of the media comes down.  I really don’t need to keep the videos on the hard drive, but to fit them on DVD’s almost always compresses them and they lose quality. 

Anyway I’ve been spending the evening looking at pictures, giving them better titles, and moving them to specific folders.  Then I can group these together by type of picture and keep better track of them.  I’m still trying to find pictures of our first dog,  and some other pets we’ve had.   

I’ve had some fun, a few tears and I found some pictures I thought I lost.  

So here is something I haven’t posted before.   This is a picture of me and my wife from 2001. Sure wish I knew what we were looking at.

Another political post in two days?   Wow! What is up with that? Just this,  for at least the few months local television stations have been pushing the switch to DTV in Feb 2009.  I purchased my digital converter before any local stations were using any sort of signal strength on the digital side.  On Feb 18 2009, the signals on all the digital channels should have been boosted to a higher level when the old analog signals were shut off.    Our congress, in the infinite wisdom (sarcasm!!!), decided it would be a good idea to delay the switch.   ARRGH!!!!!  The president will probably sign this bill.  ARRRRGH!!!!!!!!

So instead of getting better signal strength on the 18th of February, I’ll be stuck with what I currently get.  I live out in the middle of nowhere (I like that,  so I’m not moving) and I can’t get cable.  I live in the middle of the woods so satalite TV is out, unless I want to cut down some very large and living trees (I don’t).   So I’m stuck with the signal I can get over the air.

I did my part.  I got my new antenna (the old one would have never gotten a good digital signal).  I got my converter box.  I’m just waiting to get all the local channels.  1 station still hasn’t upped their signal to something I can get.  3 others are hit and miss right now.  I can only get 1 station most of the time.  I was hoping to get all of them in the middle of February.   Can I say ARRRGHH!!! again?

I’m really not sure why anyone who watches TV enough to miss it, could miss the fact that digital TV is coming.  It has been forced down our throats over and over again, comercial after comercial ( I was hoping they would stop soon).   Now those will probably continue until some time in June.  All because of a supposed 6.5 million people who aren’t ready for the switch.  My question is: “Where the heck were they for the past 6 months”.  Get your government coupon early we were told.  Get ready for the switch was said.  DTV is coming on Feb 18.    Now we will get those same messages for the next 5 months….  GRRRR…

The Federal Government forced this switch on us years ago.  Saying we had to keep up with the technology.  That started over 10 years ago.  I’m sure that the way technology goes, there could be something better for transmission by now if somebody wanted to develop it.  10 years is a long time for tech stuff.  Don’t ge me wrong, I’m all for the digital TV, but this switch really should have been done a long time ago.  I’m just worried that this will go the way of the metric system.  We’ve all seen how far that went.  So in 50 years will we still have analog TV and Digital TV side by side?   I wouldn’t bet against it.