The private sector has been in the space race for a few years now. The prize for the first commercial, non-governmental vehicle that made it to space was awarded. And now they are getting ready to unveil the start of the next phase, paid passengers. Virgin Galactic will be unveiling the first half of their attempt for commercial traffic in space. The well named Mothership will be displayed by the company that developed it.

Right now the price for a 5 minute space ride is well out of my budget, but this is hopefully the first step to more and less expensive rides into space. My wife’s great grandmother lived to be 104 years old. She was around (and remembered) when automobiles started to take over the roads, she was around for the first airplanes. She couldn’t afford to ride a plane when passenger travel was first introduced, but when she was in her nineties, she was able to buy a ticket and enter a plane, travel to California to see her sister. Maybe when I am in my nineties, I’ll be able to do something like that and travel in space. I hope it is sooner.

When I sign in to my google account, on igoogle they ave a neat little gadget that gives you links to 1 or more wikiHow articles. Today’s was how to separate an Egg. Very informative article on this somewhat delicate procedure. Now a few years ago I wrote a little post on how to crack eggs one handed. I can’t recall were I put it so I will have to enter it by memory — This is a slightly humorous post, and it may or may not be funny to you. So now that the disclaimer is out of the way, on to breaking eggs one handed.

We’ve all seen in the cooking shows, on movies, or TV where someone is making eggs and cracking them, dropping the egg in the bowl, or skillet and then discarding the egg shell. I’ve tried this many times only to discover that the eggshell is calmly sinking in my bowl of eggs. these could be large pieces of egg shell, or the smaller bits that you only find when eating the finished product. So I always thought that there should be some sort of lessons on the art of cracking the egg 1 handed.

So here goes.

1) It all starts with the egg. Make sure that the egg fits your hand comfortably. If you have small hands, you don’t want to try cracking the Grade A super-duper large eggs with one hand. This will just make a mess. You should grip the small end of the egg with your index and middle finger. Use both, you don’t want to give the egg the finger do you? Grasp the larger end of the egg between your palm and thumb.

2) Make sure your thumb is positioned toward the end of the egg. Give the egg a sharp tap on the side of the bowl you are using to deposit the eggs. You may want to start using a bowl that you will be putting the egg shells in, sometimes this stage will cause shell fragments to drop in the bowl. With practice this is not usually a problem.

3) Pull the egg apart by expanding and slightly straightening out your fingers. Make sure you are holding the egg over the bowl at this point, it may come apart on your first try. If your egg isn’t opening, hit it again.

4) Open the egg just enough to allow the egg to drop through the expanded opening. This allows you to keep a good grip on the egg shell. Do not shake the egg to get everything out until you get comfortable holding the egg in this manner. Shaking the egg shell may cause shell fragments to fly all over the place (take cover when shell fragments are flying).

5) Dispose of empty shell and try it again. Practice, practice practice.

6) What to do with all those eggs? I would suggest in the early stages of your practicing, that you will want to stick with things like egg sandwiches on Melba Toast, Brownies with nuts, Cookies with nuts, Cakes with nuts, and any other egg dish you can think of that also contains explainable crunchies. Can’t be wasting those eggs just because you couldn’t dig out all the shell fragments can you?

Now, the question is, should I post this to wikiHow?

Tollbooth.

The current wonderful production by the WCCT children’s workshop, is the Phantom Tollbooth”. Performed entirely by young people between the ages of 7 and 17, this little production is quite charming. While it is the culmination of 1 month of hard work by children and parents alike, the show is not the whole story. The children learn a little bit about the workings of live stage productions (Yes, things go wrong… more on that later) both on and off stage. They get to work at finding some of their own props, costumes. They help build (sometimes) and paint the set. Most of the kids I talked to think it is a great experience and many come out year after year.

They find out, year after year, that sometimes people forget their lines, and someone else needs to do something to help out (Good life advice there too). They find out that sometimes the props they need aren’t there, and they have to improvise something (sometimes this works, other times it doesn’t–sounds like real life again doesn’t it?). The find that sometimes things break, and you have to get along without it for a while (More life lessons..). It looks like in a one month period of time, they learn a lot about the theater, and even more about life. Most of them don’t realize they are learning anything but their lines. Good for them and their futures.

I should have written this sooner, so some of the background readers would have had a chance to see this show. Tomorrow is the last show, and I’m not sure how many seats are left.

I wouldn’t be a father if I didn’t say the best Humbug I ever saw was the one portrayed by my youngest. Not so young anymore, this is her final Childrens’ theater workshop. Now she will have to earn her roles if she decides to stay active in Community Theater.

Yes, death is an interest of mine. Years ago, when I got married, there were many deaths among family and friends. There were so many deaths, my wife and I joked about our marriage ending the same way. Unfortunately, we were correct. Many deaths in a few short years, with hers as the final death in the line. So yes, I have a morbid interest in death.

My interest this evening is Cryonics or the freezing of human or animal bodies with the “possibility” of bringing them back to life.

Why? Currently there is no known reversal method, so why do it now. It costs a lot of money to keep a body/head in a ‘suspended’ state, and there is no and may never be a reversal method. Sound like someone is playing with the emotions of people near death, or their families.

Even if there ever is a reversal process in the next 50 to 100 years, why would anyone want to revive the “dead” people? There are complaints of over population now, do we really want to have an alternative way to put more bodies on the planet. We do well enough now with the usual approach (having babies — explanation for those who weren’t sure what method is used). I can’t see that happening, unless they want something.

How will you fit in? The future will be different than life now, how will you cope? 25 years ago, personal computers were in their infancy. Now just about everyone has one. What changes will occur in the next 25 years? Next 50? Next 100? 200? If you are having trouble with text messaging on a cell phone, or wonder about all these people with things hanging out of their ears, will you be able to cope with things going on around you in the future?

And the real thing I wonder about is what is the ego of a person who wants to be frozen and thawed later. I’m not saying anything about family decisions (later…), but about a persons desire to put off death to be cured at a later date. Is anyone really that important?

And about a family that decides to keep one of their relatives, do they love/need the person so much to try to keep them around, or is it a comfort that just maybe? I could never see doing this for myself or for someone I care about. I think there would be too much anguish on both sides if and/or when the body can be thawed.

And I haven’t even touched on any religious aspects of this. I think that may be the start of a different post. Many things I would have to wrap my mind around for that…

I really thought I’ve seen a lot on the web, but I never thought I would see this.

Just for your information, I was looking up which albums Longer by Dan Fogelberg” was included in. I really didn’t expect to see a video of an old LP playing. I have a number of Fogelberg’s CD, and a few old LPs. It is just that now I don’t have anyway to play the LPs… I haven’t watched one on a turntable for years…

I need to find the tape of my wedding, my ‘little’ sister sang Longer for us.

Ok, I like playing the part of the villain. I like talking about murder and mayhem. I’m not really like that at all. Really!!

But I just read a news article where apparently someone was just like that. I guess that if I ever really committed a crime, the last part I would want on stage is a character who commits the same crime.

I think I may follow this story, if I can. I can see bits of it a the basis for a play.. Sick sense of humor, true…

Laughter is a connection between all humans. We all laugh. And it appears that we have been laughing at the same types of things for years and years.. I found this list of the ten oldest jokes. Some were funny, some not so funny. I haven’t toured the whole site so I don’t know how kid friendly it is, but that page was OK.

It does remind me of a story I read years ago. A scientist was studying humor and came to the conclusion that it was part of an extra-terrestrial project. I just can’t remember who wrote the story or where/when I found it. The conclusions in that story were a bit different than the oldest jokes though… I’ll have to find it know and share the author/story title.

Ok, there is a war on drugs, a war on terror, a war on wars, but now awar on beer pong.

I never really heard of this game until I was with some young people just after my daughter’s wedding last summer. I never really saw much point to the game, and it seemed to me that the people playing were drinking just as much beer while playing the game as they were forced to by the other team making a point. Not much to the game at all.

But it was going to be released for the Wii and all heck breaks loose. I can see why you wouldn’t want to condone the game, but it isn’t any worse than some of the other games out there. Judge it with you Dollars folks. If you don’t like it don’t buy it. Bad products will fade away in time. Drawing it to our attention in the news is just free advertising. I didn’t see it there, but I wonder if beer pong spread anymore after the announcement of the beer pong fight…

Oh well…

Anyone care to join me the the Star Trek drinking game. 😉

This blog does not condone the use/abuse of alcohol. Please remember don’t drink and drive. Alcohol should only be used by adults over the age of 21.

IF you don’t like anything you read here, you can just ignore it. It may just go away on its own.

… and other food stuffs. I mentioned IHOP in the previous post. It was always a favorite place to stop when the girls were much younger. Especially on Sundays. Sundays used to be “Kids eat free” day. Now, you had to buy 1 adult meal for each free child’s meal, but any amount we could save would be a good thing. Things like this made going to IHOP the same cost as going to a fast food place. We were waited on too. Many other restaurants also offered the same type of deal. It was a great way to be able to have a good meal for a very reasonable cost.

Anyway, my lovely wife really liked IHOP . A favorite of hers were the blueberry waffles or pancakes. Topped with more blueberry syrup. I preferred the boysenberry. What got me was the last time I was in a IHOP, they didn’t have the boysenberry syrup. They also didn’t bring the Hot maple flavored syrup to the table. The four flavors of syrup at the table were Maple, Walnut, Strawberry and Blueberry. I missed the boysenberry and the hot syrup. I’m not sure if this was a local restaurant thing, it now covers all IHOPs

And that brings me to another pancake house, Perkins. In my younger days, my friends and I would spend many hours in that establishment. As long as we kept the blueberry pancakes away from Bill, everything was fine. Bill hated anything to do with blueberries.. And we loved teasing him about it too. That Perkins Restaurant is closed now, and it looks as though I would have to travel many a mile out of my usual range to get to one. Maybe on some cross country trip, I’ll have to find one on the way, just to relive old memories.

You’d think that these three foods would be easy to serve for a meal. Not so fast in these times. You can get all three in the frozen food section, but outside of toaster waffles, I don’t care for any of them. Pancakes should be easy, but there are different recipes for these and some the girls like, and others they don’t. You have your Bisquick pancakes, blueberry pancakes, Buckwheat pancakes, corn fritters, apple fritters, and so on. We generally stick to our tried and true recipe. I guess I should copy that out of the cookbook before in falls completely apart.

Waffles, well you have to have a special device (the waffle iron) to make them, or just buy the frozen toaster waffles. I said I like the toaster waffles, but I do like the home made better. Then you could always get a Belgian waffle iron if you want waffles with deeper pockets/holes. Do you want round or square waffles? Hmmm, seems like you can have as many choices as the pancakes.

But french toast, I grew up with one and only one type of French toast. Mom would either cook it on the griddle or she could bake it in the oven. Both ways, the french toast tasted exactly the same. Then I got married, my lovely wife’s family had a different version of french toast. It was a heavy batter dip, compared to the Egg and milk dip used by my family. It was tasty, but very, very filling. I found it was cheap to make too. So my little family grew up with my wife’s family recipe for french toast. Now they don’t care for the kind I grew up with (tastes too much like egg!!). Oh well, they are getting older now, and soon I’ll be able to make it the way I want. Or better yet, go to IHOP and order the stuffed french toast. Good eating, and now I’m hungry.

No toaster waffles, so I guess I can wait till morning…