Blandishment Blog

Thursday, July 01, 2010

Picture Of The Day 07/01/10

My son Scott shows his superior dexterity by eating a breadstick with one hand while texting with the other!

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Monday, June 28, 2010

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Picture Of The Day 06/27/10

Scott & Danielle, September 1999. This was at Danielle's and my combined birthday party. She would have just turned 5, and Scott would have been seven. And me you ask? Well, I would have been

E** A)):@

[No carrier]

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Picture Of The Day 06/26/10

Scott and one of his projects back in 1999.

Picture Of The Day 06/26/10

Scott, age 7, Christmas 1999

My son Scott will be leaving home on July 7th to go off to college. Each day I will try and post one of him until he leaves.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Picture Of The Day 06/24/10

Picture of my Mustang outside my house taken with my new iPhone 4.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Picture Of The Day 06/22/10

The weather early this morning, right down the road from where I work, and about 2 miles from my house! Guess the kids will start taking the tornado warnings more seriously!

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Picture Of The Day 06/08/10

Sunrise this AM on the way to the office

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Picture Of The Day 06/06/10

Christmas 2000 - Danielle, Age 5, Scott Age 8, and Chris Age 11.
This was the last Christmas in New Jersey before moving to Michigan.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Picture Of The Day 05/26/10

A picture I took of the clientele at a local place here in Grand Rapids

Friday, May 21, 2010

Picture Of The Day 05/21/10

My brother Rick who was visiting from New Jersey, and Scott at Max &
Irma's on Wednesday.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Picture Of The Day 05/18/10

Scott and a very disheveled looking Danielle early one morning in 2000. Danielle would have been 5 and Scott 8. This is one of those rare shots where Danielle was not earing her glasses.

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Picture Of The Day 04/27/10

From holidays past in 2001. Just a cool looking picture I thought when I found it this evening.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

My son Scott looking quite resplendent in one of the many outfits he wore in his high school musical "Zombie Prom". He was most impressive playing the part of Eddie the reporter. I was really impressed by his performance!

Friday, April 23, 2010

Picture Of The Day 04/23/10

Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads!

Picture Of The Day 04/23/10

Captain! There be Tails here!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Picture Of The Day 04/21/10

Sunrise this morning

On the way home from Ada this evening

Friday, April 16, 2010

Picture Of The Day 04/16/10

Sunset Approaches!

Picture Of The Day 04/16/10

While this looks retouched it is not! But Tails sure looks like has elongated front paws here! Reminds of the the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie where Freddy's arms were doing that!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Picture Of The Day 04/13/10

An early evening shot looking west by my house.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Picture Of The Day 04/10/10

A beautiful blue sky with fluffy white clouds.

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Picture Of The Day 03/07/10

Tails and I were feeling a little warped today.

Saturday, April 03, 2010

iPad First Impressions

I've been an iPad owner for just over five hours now. Surprisingly UPS delivered my new iPad at 10 AM. I was very pleased that it came so early. I connected it to my computer hooked up iTunes and then was able to sync my pictures, my applications, and my music to the device.

I then began using the applications that were designed to run on the iPhone versus the iPad. I was quite impressed with the application doubling feature, which fills the iPhone sized applications to almost the full size of the iPad screen.

It was quite a good job of upscaling graphics; I was very impressed.

Next I decided to start playing with some native iPad applications. It was amazing. The look and feel, plus the graphics, and the intuitive interface of the touchscreen controls was an incredible experience.

I set up my Gmail and Hotmail e-mail accounts very quickly; the new mail interface on the iPad is faster and easier then using the iPhone to check your e-mail. Surfing the Internet on the iPad is so much quicker than using the iPhone with the screen being double the size, plus the iPad speed being over three times as fast as my iPhone 3GS I was blown away by how quick pages loaded.

Watching video on the iPad is an enjoyable experience. Once again coupled with the larger screen size and quality of the display, viewing video particularly high definition video is quite the experience.

In closing, I am sure all have much more to say about the iPad as I use it longer. One of the really cool things I enjoyed about this is the fact that this entire blog post was written by speaking into the iPad using one of the three applications. If I had chosen to type it the on-screen keyboard particularly when the iPad is oriented in horizontal mode is almost as good as typing on a physical keyboard.

Sent from my iPad

It's a Geek's Life

I barely slept last night, and arose around 7. I've been following stories and news feeds on the web around the release of the Apple iPad, and this has been interspersed with feverish checking of the UPS tracking of my unit, which, as of 8:03 AM this morning had arrived at my areas local UPS distribution center! I've really got my Geek on this morning!

I told the kids earlier in the week I would not be leaving the house until the iPad was delivered. I pounds a bowl of food for the kitty earlier and there's a box of Pop Tarts, Bread, and sandwich makings if the kids are hungry!

Thursday, April 01, 2010

Recipe - Loaded Healthy Hot Dogs

Today for dinner I made a couple of loaded hot dogs for dinner. They were delicious and about 80 calories each.

For the simple recipe, read on:

Ingredients (along with calories). Makes one hot dog.
Multiply ingredients by number of hot dogs you wish to make.

1 Hebrew National 97% Fat Free Hot Dog 30
1 Slice Aunt Millie's Whole Grain, High Fiber, Low Calorie Bread 35
1/4 cup Refrigerated Sauerkraut 4
1 Refrigerated Dill Pickle Spear 5
2 tbs No Calorie Added Sweet Relish (see below for easy way to make this) 5
Mustard (I used Jalapeno mustard) 0
Crushed Red Pepper Flakes 0
Celery Salt 0

Preparation:

To make the No Calorie Added Sweet Relish get a jar of dill relish which is unsweetened. Add 2 tablespoons of Spelnda sweetener to it.

Lightly toast the bread and broil or pan fry the hot dog. Place the hot dog on the bread with the dill pickle spear next to it. Apply mustard to taste. Top with sauerkraut and relish, then sprinkle to taste with red pepper flakes and celery salt. Enjoy!

I find the refrigerated brands of pickles, sauerkraut, and relish taste far better than the varieties that are not. They cost a little bit more but in my opinion they are well worth it.

Spicy Variation: Instead of Mustard, after the all the ingredients are together sprinkle 1/3 tsp of Splenda or other calorie free sweetener across top of hot dog contents. Then add (to your degree of heat) your favorite gourmet hot sauce. I used some Chile Habanero sauce my friend Rob at work procured for me. It was awesome. Mixing the "heat with sweet" as Bobby Flay often says makes for some excellent flavors!

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Picture Of The Day 03/30/10

I was home sick today from work. I had a fever and sore throat and was feeling really crappy. Tails must have thought it would be amusing to sit by my feet and stare at me for 20 minutes straight. This is what she looked like.