In Praise Of Uppity Women

It was on this day, 89 years ago, that American women finally were able to vote equally with men.
Thanks to the tireless work of the Suffragettes, Congress passed the 19th Amendment on August 18th granting women from the age of 18 years on up the right to vote.
It became a law and was added to the Constitution on August 26th.





And that's your little nugget of history for today!

The New Currency

Man, things still suck economically and there's no improvement on the foreseeable horizon.

In fact, check out this market report on the cost of cigarettes in prison:

Prison Economy Spirals As Price Of Pack Of Cigarettes Exceeds Two Hand Jobs


When will this insanity end?

Zombie Repellant

Check out what about $550 can get you:

It's a Mossberg 500 series JIC (Just In Case) shotgun.

(This one is the "Mariner" version with special coating to prevent corrosion, from salt spray..... or blood splatter!)

These things are wicked cool.

At 18-1/2 inches with a pistol grip and full-on 12-gauge action, these guns will put a serious dent in the undead population.

Just the thing to include in your 'zombie preparedness kit'.

A good review on them can be found here.

Chick Fight

The International Olympic Committee voted to include women's boxing for the 2012 summer Olympics in London on Thursday this week.

This comes as great news to female athletes, and particularly to female boxers, who have struggled for years for legitimacy of their sports and recognition in a male-dominated spectator event.
Inclusion of female boxing to the list of Olympic events in 2012 means that ALL 26 sports will include both male AND female competitors.
While the boxing event won't be as equal to the men's (10 weight classes for men compared to only 3 classes for the women), it's still a good step in the right direction in recognizing women in all sports and giving them a chance to show what they have trained for and are capable of.

Having said that, however, I've seen a couple of women's boxing matches and it can be very brutal.
I don't know if it's because they are out to prove something and try to be more aggressive than their male counterparts, or if it's just that watching women pummel each other just 'seems' more violent.
Either way, we'll all get a chance to see more of it a couple of summer's from now.

In the meantime, we always can watch G.L.O.W. and "foxy boxing" to entertain us.

The Triffids Are Coming!

I have been a fan of carnivorous plants since I was a wee, little lad.

I've grown sundews, Venus Fly Traps, bladderwort, and a few different types of pitcher plants over the many years.

So I heard about a discovery of an entirely new form of carnivorous plant just recently and I was very excited.

It's located in a very remote area of the Phillipines and was named after British naturalist, David Attenborough.

But what I found kind of odd, was that the discovery was announced about the same time that the Perseids Meteor shower is happening.

Very ironic timing, I think.

In the story "Day of the Triffids", it was during a meteor shower that blinded most of the populace that a carnivorous plant started taking over and killing people.

Hmmmm..... coincidence?

So if you notice that your houseplant is suddenly not in the same place that you last saw it.... RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!

Old Skool

You may not know it to look at me, but I actually do have a sense of style and can coordinate an outfit pretty well.
On a day-to-day basis, I tend to just wear whatever's at hand, though.

I've mentioned before that I buy Hotness's clothes for her.
I have a good idea of what looks good on her (colors and prints that she wouldn't normally pick out herself) and she doesn't like to go clothes shopping.
Since I know her sizes, I just do it for her so she can try them on at home.
I've had about a 97% success rate with the clothes I've gotten her. Not too bad.

Anyway, all that aside.
I also get clothes for my niece and my nephew.
Afterall, you can never be too young to be a fashionista.
I'm looking forward to school starting for both of them, so that maybe I can take them 'back-to-school' clothes shopping.

In the meantime, I picked up a nifty new T-shirt for my nephew.
I gotta point him in the right direction of geekology, and nothing says it better than some Old Skool sci-fi.


He's going to be a hit with ladies, I just know it.

(A special thanks goes out to the Maimed Man for his help. That coupon saved me a bundle on my order, dude!)

Money Creek Campground (Follow-up)

Well, our camping trip to Money Creek was nice.

This trip was nick-named the "spouse-less" camping trip, as everybody who went was not joined by their significant other this time. So it was a fairly small group this time around.

Other than the usual (sitting around the camp during the day, and sitting around the campfire at night) there isn't much to tell you about.

G-rod and I carpooled up to the site on Friday after work. We got there around 7:30 p.m. and went right to setting up our tents before it got too dark.

Then we had something to eat and started up a campfire. No s'mores this time, though.

The kids went to bed, which left G-rod, Atul, and myself sitting in the dark and talking.

We would see the lights of cars travelling east & west along Hwy 2, but something caught my eye that didn't seem right. It wasn't moving in a normal fashion.

I turned on my headlamp and saw the head of a young raccoon looking back at me.

We all got up to chase it away, but he didn't seem to be very scared of people. He kind trotted off a short ways and just stared at us.

We picked up everything off the table and made sure the food was secured, then went back to the fire.

We apparently discouraged the little bugger enough that he never came back again.

Saturday was pretty lazy.

G-rod took off to go hike Mt. Index. I stayed back with Atul and the kids as we all went down to the creek to throw rocks for a while.

I discovered that there was natural clay along the bank under the rocks, so we scooped up a bunch to bring back into camp and play with.

We were later joined by some of the other people in our group (and more kids) and that was about the extent of our day.

I played "Cootie" with some some of the kids,

while others went "exploring".

The evening came and we made dinner, then the kids went to bed while the adults stayed up and played a game of "ZOMBIES!!!" in the dark by the glow of a gas lantern.

On Sunday, we all got up and ate breakfast. Then we broke down our tents and packed up to come back home.

Not a very exciting trip but a relaxing and fun one nevertheless.

Here are a few more pics from the weekend:

ZEN peeking out of the tent

The whole gang (minus G-rod who was hiking, and me who took the picture)

Chillaxin'

(check out those hairy legs!)

Chicken & Bacon, What's Not To Love?

I saw this recipe for chicken, bacon & blue cheese sandwiches and thought it sounded yummy.
I just took the basics (meat, cheese, and bread) and made my own.


They were pretty good, but I was stuck with a bunch of leftover chicken afterwards.

I needed to do something with it, so I tried this:
Chicken, bacon & blue cheese grilled open-face sandwiches.


They were even better.

Here's how to make 'em....


1) Get a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store or Costco and pull all the meat off. (You can slice the breast meat, but the dark meat is easier to pull off the bone)

2) In a small bowl mix 3 parts of mayonnaise to 1 part of horseradish, and set aside.

3) If you don't have a toaster over, place your bread (whatever you choose to use) on a cookie sheet and toast one side under the broiler for a couple of minutes. Then take the bread out out and turn the toasted-side down.

On the untoasted side, spread your mayonnaise - horseradish sauce all over the bread.

4) Place sliced cheese (cheddar works well, but I used Monterey Jack) on the mayo sauce.

5) Place the chunks (or slices) of chicken on the cheese and then top with crumbled bacon. (I didn't have any 'fresh' bacon so I used Bacon-bits. It worked just as good)

6) Then sprinkle some blue cheese over all of that and place it back under the broiler for about 3 - 5 minutes until it's done. (You don't want to leave it in too long or it'll burn. You basically just want to melt the cheese and warm up the chicken.



That's it. pretty simple and really quick to make if you already have the ingredients on hand.

Money Money Money.... Creek, that is

Got another camping trip coming up this weekend.

For once, I'm actually all packed and ready to load the car without finishing up at the last minute.

All I have to do tomorrow is put everything in the car before I leave for work and I'm set.

It's all packed into a new storage container that I got last week (which Hotness is excited about, since it means I can keep all my gear together and not spread out everywhere).

We're camping just off Hwy 2 at Money Creek Campground.

G-rod and I checked it out last year to see what it looked like and we thought we'd give it a try this year.

So I'll let you know how the campsite was and how everything went after I get back on Sunday.

Stay tuned.......