What's on TV?

The fall season of TV has been upon us for a couple of months now; what's everyone been watching?

In the area of shows that premiered this season I've been watching Knight Rider (I love the new KIT Mustang!), The Mentalist (like a serious version of Physc), Fringe, Life on Mars, Caruso, Worst, Week, Gary Unmarried, Sanctuary, and 11th hour.

I've also been enjoying the new season of Dirty Sexy Money, Bones, Two and a Half men, How I met your Mother, Samantha Who?, Ugly Betty, House, Little People Big World, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Stargate Atlantis, Chuck, Heroes, The Simpsons, King of the Hill and Family Guy. My food network choices include Diners Drive-ins and Dives, Grill It, Iron Chef America, Dinner Impossible, Unwrapped, Thrown down, The Secret Life of..., and Good Eats.

I also watch selected episodes of the following in syndication: Scrubs, Bewitched, Stargate SG-1, Walker Texas Ranger, Married with Children, The X-Files, Star Trek (all the series), Charmed, Angel, the original Knight Rider, Night Court, The Bill Cosby Show, Sabrina the teenage Witch plus earlier episodes of many of the new series listed above as they have been on for years.

AND coming soon to a TV near you the kids and I are eagerly awaiting new seasons of Scrubs (moving to ABC from NBC), Monk, and Physc in January!

I'm sure I've missed shows in all three categories above but remember this is my lunch break at work and I am doing this from memory!

On the surface it may seem like I watch too much TV! Oh well, I have free time particularly when the kids are at their Mom's house though the three of us watch quite a few of these shows together. When my son Chris comes to visit his dad he and I watch a subset of these.

I used to have my major creative outlet making computer screen savers. In particular the Christmas one each year. Sadly since the divorce I find even four Christmases later I am still lacking the passion it takes to do this. In the past I would start the Christmas one right after Halloween and work on it nights and weekends instead of TV viewing. I did do one for the second Christmas after the divorce which turned out well, but, it was a labor to do and not really fun, so, until that feeling comes back....TV it is!

I must admit though between work I do at home, video games, computer time, taking care of the house and kids on my weeks, it can be quite a challenge, one that I am up for however! Thank goodness the DVR records up to 130 hours of programming and now that AT&T has enabled the Whole House DVR function I can watch recorded TV in my bedroom. The kids can watch recorded content in the family room too.

Video of the DayHarmonica Virtuoso at Carnegie Hall

You have to watch this whole clip, it is simply amazing what this guy can do with his Harmonica!! Incredible! A bit of culture here on me blog!!

Gas Prices Going Down

Over the past weeks gas prices have been falling. I was shocked this weekend that they fell below $2.00/gallon for the first time in what seems like ages.

This begs the question, why did they have to go up at all? You hear all kind of weasel speak about supply shortages, OPEC, etc. but if gas can be less than half the price it was earlier this year when it went above $4/gallon. I challenge our legislators to keep the prices reasonable going forward!

Of course this could all be a move by OPEC and the oil companies to stall and delay the wave of alternative energy initiatives that people had been talking about since the higher gas/oil prices. Let's hope they are not lulled into a false sense of security by these low prices and continue to explore alternative methods of energy.

I wonder if this means lower costs over the winter for heating as well. While I use natural gas, if heating oil prices fall steeply the gas rates may go down too in an effort to retain customers.

On the one hand this would be great, on the other hand I have to wonder just what is behind this.

Some Ramblings

Danielle got her Internet back after two weeks of no access. I gave her one of my older laptops and have K9 Web Protection and VNC server loaded on it.

The k9 Protection blocks content and records all access and the VNC server let's her mom or I instantly connect to her screen and see exactly what she is doing without her knowing it (though she knows we can now do this).

She has no IM client and knows if there is another infraction she'll lose the Internet for a month next time.

She has been so much better since she lost unlimited, unrestricted Internet, happier, doing more in her arts and crafts, reading more, spending more time with the X and I, it is simply amazing, and I am hoping she sees that the people she was spending time with online that she did not know were a negative influence on her.

Around my house last weekend I continued cleaning things up and emptied my entire bedroom closet, and in a few I am off to Lowes to get a closet organizer for the bedroom downstairs that Tails uses at night so I can better utilize that storage space. Next on the target is the front hall closet and then the kids closets.

Last Sunday I also made Chicken Parmesan and it came out killer, I used a slightly different recipe and of course I made homemade sauce for it as well. There was enough for leftovers for two nights!

The door at the bottom of the basement steps is now in place and primed, it just needs a final coat of paint.

The weather, which had been slowly creeping up since a couple of days before Halloween (it hit low 69's here for that) hit a peak of 70's Thursday, 70 Friday, and then overnight into this weekend temperatures plummeted, being in the 40's and 50's during the day and 30's at night.

And, I saw the dreaded first snowflakes of the season Saturday and some more today, but, it's still not cold enough for any accumulations.

Speaking of Halloween I bought candy and did not have a single visitor so down the street from me I saw scattered traffic, I guess no one wanted to brave the house at the end of the road! The kids were pleased as they had plenty of candy all week, and neither of them went out trick or treating this year. I miss the years walking them around the neighborhoods. Even the X has little traffic and her development has many children.

Scott is in his second week of his part time job and doing well! He has been told if he keeps up his performance he will be promoted at the end of his probation! I was most pleased to hear this, and they gave him a $10 merchandise card as a bonus for his hard work.

I think that's about it here in the Midwest....the kids are at their Mom's this weekend and the house is way too quiet! I hate the weekends without the kids.

Video of the DayChuck Norris Sings Meatloaf

This is so very, very, wrong!

Video of the DayDiet Mountain DewFeaturing Chuck Norris

Here's the longer one minute version of one of my favorite Diet Mountain Dew Commercials!

Video of the DayWill it Blend?Featuring Chuck Norris

Suitable for all ages. The Will it Blend web sites uses their industrial grade blenders to blend a variety of objects, from iPhones to...well........ Chuck Norris!

Kids, Money Burning Hole in Pocket, etc.

Kids:
Last Thursday it came to my attention Danielle was abusing her internet privileges. To make a long story short (she had been warned the day before about disobedience and breaking of the rules) I ended up taking away her internet access.

There was a brief cold spell so to speak, but after she began talking to me again she seemed to be in a much better frame of mind. Saturday she helped me break down my roll top desk and move it downstairs (my back loved that). Even broken into three major sections which comprise the roll top assembly itself, the slab on top of the desk, and the bottom section with drawers, it is heavy and bulky to move.

She also helped me carry the drawers and do lots of other work arranging and carting things around.

She spent more time with me over that four day period when she lost her internet access and Monday night when she went to her Mom's than she has in ages. We're evaluating ways to give her back some internet access though this will involve adding monitoring and filtering software to her PC, I'll post when applicable on this.

Scott has landed a part time Job at Meijer, a large chain out in this area, they are a combination of a department store and a food store rolled into one. He had 3.5 hours of initial training last night and has computer training today, and will probably start this weekend or sooner. He is very pleased because he has been looking for a job for quite awhile. Unlike my older son who, like his dad procrastinated, Scott made a genuine effort to get a part time job at age 16, and I am very proud of him.

I was really touched last night when he stopped in around 7:30 PM to watch a Scrubs with me since he had not seen me after school as he usually does. That really made my day!

Scott was also happy that I gave him my old TV from my bedroom, even though I also made him clean his room before he could set it up in there. While he has no TV connection, it allows him to play video games in his room.

I took the kids to Hobby Lobby over the weekend as well as Danielle,with a renewed interest in drawing and such, needed some new markers. They were also having a 50% off sale on all storage boxes, so I got us each a retro mock up storage box, and on a trip back Monday where we sadly realized that sale was over, I got them each another small sale item. A large clear fuax diamond for Scott because it looks like one of the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic, and another retro storage container for Daniele, who wants to redecorate her room.

Money Burning a Hole in my Pocket:
We have an update here; as you know I had around $350 from a payroll adjustment that I was going to spend on either a new case and video card for the HTPC or an HD TV for the bedroom. After shopping around I decided to wait until Black Friday because prices were just not god enough; for the $350 I could barley get a 19" HD TV for the bedroom.

I was on edelaino.com, one of those deal of the moment sits and i found a special on a 22" HD LCD PC Monitor with an HDMI port for $199. Since the TV box in the bedroom has an HDMI output I realized I really did not need an HD TV, I just needed an HD display, so, I snagged it up and it looks fantastic! It even has built in speakers.

While this was all well and good it caused quite the ripple effect, and the move of the roll top desk to the basement was part of this. My 'master bedroom' is very small. I have a king size bed on one wall and opposite that wall was the roll top desk with the dresser next to it. There was barely enough room to go into the bathroom with the dresser where it was.

Scott, as noted above, was very pleased with the ripple that caused the old TV to end up in his room!

To optimize placement of the HD Display I tried several rearrangements of the room, all were OK but none were ones I could live with, I even thought of flipping the bed around 180 degrees and mounting the HD display on the wall, the only thing that stopped me is since the head of the bed currently is wedged in a small space because the door into the bedroom protrudes into the room and than falls back about a 2 feet, if I turned the bed around it would be very difficult to tuck in the covers and such. With the head of the bed in there is is doable, just.

SO I decided to remove the roll top desk and center the dresser directly across from it with the HD display there.

Sadly, more ripple effect was about to happen! For those who remember this post from January, I had bought a nice four drawer file cabinet. I am the first to admit I procrastinate, and, while I had built the cabinet back in January as of this past weekend it had a mountain (well, almost 2 feet!) of paperwork stacked on top of it that needed to be filed away.

Since the drawers had to be removed from the roll top desk, and all paperwork and other items be removed from under the roll top itself, I easily ended up with another 2 foot tall pile of paperwork. I spent Saturday afternoon, and later Saturday night until 2 AM Sunday morning, sorting and throwing out items that could be trashed and shredding sensitive items that were no longer needed. What was left was filed away in individually labeled pendaflex file folders in the new cabinet.

Now, whenever something needs o be filed it is a joy rather than a chore, I just put it in the appropriate folder! The file drawers in the old roll top desk, now reassembled down in my basement office are delegated for historical storage. Right now they hold tax returns and other archival information.

It is way, way, cool! Yes, I should have done this ages ago, I now have an easily maintainable filing system, a bed room that seems somewhat bigger, and HD TV in the bedroom.

Kid Moment of the Day!

I call today's Kid moment of the Day! "What planet is my son on???"

So, last night around 8 PM I was shopping at Forest Hills Foods. I heard a bunch of voices a couple of aisles over but though nothing of it. I turned into the main aisle that runs the whole width of the store and there at the other end approaching my with two of his friends is my 19 year old son Chris. He's looking in my direction the whole time we are approaching each other but as we got closer and finally passed he did not even notice me. I whirled around and smacked him on his back and, quite startled, he turned around to see who had hit him.

I waved, smiled, and he said "Oh Hi Dad!" and went on his way.

I just thought it was funny, I wonder of there had been fire, or broken glass, or a slavering dog in his path would he have seen them???

Happy Haunted Halloween

Halloween is on the horizon and a few years back I made an excellent Halloween Screen Saver for Windows PC's. This will run on Windows 2000 and up through Vista. A screen shot, without animation of course, is shown below. Note the lights flicker in a ghostly manner and there are many animations and animated characters, It is, one of my best creations. There is also spooky music.

So, look at the picture below and if it seems interesting you can snag a copy here. Of course you can click the picture below for a larger copy in a new window.

Kid moment of the day!

The X is traveling this week; she has business in California. I know like myself she misses the kids when traveling, so, I sent her this kids moment and then decided it would make a good subject for a post today and possible future posts where circumstances permit it.

So, today's entry is entitled "Scott learns his car has a rear window defroster!"

I was running late this morning and looking out my bathroom window I watched Scott laboriously scraping the frost off his windows (Yes it was that cold here overnight). I was pleased to see this time he had started his car, since last time I noticed this he had it off and complained that the moisture on his windshield did not dissipate until he was nearly at school.

I was going to return to my morning routine when I saw him move to the back of the car and he then began doing this on the rear window. I ran outside and asked didn't his car have rear window defroster? He replied he did not know. I looked on his instrument panel and quickly found the button and amazed him with this discovery!

I wonder if he's found the brakes yet.......

And that concludes today's "Kid moment of the day!"

Technology Tales of Terror!Vista SP1 Update Update!

I thought it was time to post an update to my Vista SP1 Update; hence what looks like the grammatically incorrect post title. Not that I am professing to know anything about grammar!

Anyway, to make a long story short including having to escalate my original ticket to management at Microsoft because nothing was happening for days, steps they had me try that I knew could not work, causing me to doubt the technical ability of those who were helping me, and other back and fourths, Microsoft has agreed to send me a new set of Vista media free of charge!

That saves me about $40 and is all I wanted as an outcome to this incident; now worst case I can do a clean reinstall of Vista which would be excellent! I feel vindicated because it was the incredibly poor performance of Vista that caused me not to archive my media iso files and burn them to DVD after I got fed up with the inability of Vista to boot or do any task in a timely manner.

I shall post again on this subject when the media arrived! Of course, there is always the possibility that even a clean Vista Ultimate SP1 installation will run like a slug on a cold day, but, I feel my tenacious nature has been validated and one way or another I will have taken this incident from start to completion. Even though my original estimate was for a Sunday afternoon or work and now it's dragged into two weeks.....we shall have some form of resolution!!

And, most importantly perhaps Vista will be my bey-atch after all is said and done!

The Ramon JournalsHomemade Ramon Chicken Noodle Soup!

Here's a twist on the Ramon Journal entries, in spite of my back bothering me yesterday I decided to make homemade Ramon chicken noodle soup as the local store had the plain Ramon noodles in stock. I read the seasoning package from one of the packaged ones the kids like so much and bought the spices I was missing.

I contacted a large batch and was very successful on my first attempt! So much so that Scott said he liked mine better and with Danielle it was a tie. Not bad for the first attempt! I myself thought it was delicious, so much better than the packaged variety and so much healthier particularly in the sodium department!

Alas! For you, my dear readers, I am sad to say that there will be no recipe at this time! In true chef's fashion I did not measure any of the ingredients but will do so on the next batch!

Perhaps I will do that this coming weekend as I have the kids extra days this week as the X leaves for California tomorrow on business and won't be back until next week.

Money Buring a Hole in My PocketPart Two

Saturday while the kids and I were out and about doing some errands and getting lunch I priced some TV's locally. From my research and what I found locally, along with the fact that the video card I want right now is about $50 over budget (due to the extra chip for HD Audio Processing), I have decided to postpone this decision until black Friday. While I have no intention of getting up at 2AM to go stand in some ungodly line somewhere to snag the deal I want, many companies offer suitable discounts online during the day.

I am hopeful this would allow me to meet budget on which option I choose, or perhaps even a new one as it's over a month until Black Friday and that money, while not causing my pants to catch on fire, certainly is making known to me its burning desire to be spent!

Money Buring a Hole in My Pocket

I've often heard the phrase regarding 'money burning a hole' in someone's pocket and I am sure you have too.

Come on now! Unless someone put some coins that they heated up to the point that the metal was glowing into their pockets, or put in a wad of flaming bills, it just is not going to happen!

HOWEVER I can understand the intent of the phrase, as I have $350 unexpected dollars available to me since there was a payroll error in my favor regarding an increase I got a few months back that never made it into my paycheck. By my logic, since I was not getting any less money that was just paid to me, and I paid all bills due these past months, this is 'free' money meaning I can just blow it on something! While the money is not burning a hole in my pocket though the thought of spending it is almost overpowering!

I have three choices and I'd like everyone's opinion:

Option 1: - My Home Theater PC (HTPC) really needs another video card upgrade. Granted when I did the previous one some months back I knew it was stop gap, but it was very inexpensive. I am limited by the power supply in the HPTC case which is a custom sized job whose form factor does not come in a capacity greater than 250 watts. Most seasoned PC owners will tell you that's not a real lot of power especially if you want to run a high end graphic card. I'll spare you my weeks of lunchtime research but for about $350 I can replace the HTPC case with one that will take a standard PC ATX 500 watt power supply. In addition I can get the video card I want.

Option 2: - Small HDTV for bedroom. Until recently I would never have considered this as I have no HD content for the bedroom TV and the 27" standard definition TV is fine. U-Verse recently upgraded my service with their Whole House DVR. Before this upgrade the only TV you could record or watch recorded content on was the one in the Living room which is of course connected to my 50" HD plasma. This is where all viewing of HD content occurs. Now any of the three TVs in the house can watch recorded content. Some nights I go get into bed, particularly if my back is aching, a good hour before I am ready for sleep and I watch live TV. Now I can do that plus access recorded content which is great and helps me keep ahead of all the shows I record. The caveat here is that I have HD programs recorded (about 30-40% of what I record is in HD) and I simply will not watch that on the standard definition TV in the bedroom. Nor would I drink 50 year old brandy our of a Dixie cup! Come on! There are just some things civilized people will not do! For about $350 I can get an HDTV of similar size to replace the bedroom TV. This also has the benefit of being able to put a second TV downstairs for the kids to use. Now, there will be no contention for the TV when one wants to play video games and the other wants to watch TV. I plan to ask them their opinion of this after work today.

Option 3: The cheapest and simplest alternative to implement; DO NOTHING! However I will still have the nagging feeling about spending the money....nagging always nagging me!!


So, what do you think I should do? Crap! Is my pocket getting warm....or am I just imagining it........

Video of the DayThe Matrix

There are literally hundred of Matrix spoofs out there, but this is one of the best I have ever seen. YouTube took it down so I don't know how long this will last so check it out NOW! Suitable for all ages.

The Matrix Spoof - Metacafe.com

The Weekend

I did not have the kids this weekend, so, the majority of it was spent doing chores around the house, watching TV, playing on the computer.

Friday night my older boy Chris was coming over, we were going to do dinner and watch Ironman which my friend Mike had loaned me. The X called and discovered this and asked if we could all have dinner and she wanted to see the movie too. So we went to Applebee's, Scott drove back to his Mom's house, Danielle retreated to the computer, the the rest of us watched Ironman which we all enjoyed.

Saturday I really did not feel like riding the exercise bike, so since the weather was so nice I decided to take a walk to the store to pickup some items. I decided to take the long router which is about 2 miles. It was a nice day for a walk and I enjoyed it, having not been walking too much this summer .vs. using the exercise bike.

After I returned from the store and made a small pot of pasta sauce with pepperoni and meatballs. After dinner I made a sausage and pepperoni sandwich) I decided to do the walk again which turned out to be a mistake; about halfway through my right foot started hurting and by the time I returned home I had the beginnings of a blister. Sunday my legs hurt as well, a lesson that 7.5 miles on the exercise bike is not as strenuous on the legs as a four mile walk. I think the exercise bike burns up a lot more calories though based on the amount I sweat as opposed to the walk.

The X had some issues with Danielle over the weekend, to simplify she is using IM and texting way too much. We will have to deal with this going forward. I have felt that the X giving her a phone with unlimited text messaging was a major mistake.

Note: I Did NOT touch the Vista Issue this weekend!

Technology Tales of Terror!Two Computer Stories

WARNING: While this post does utilize my unique writing style, and
therefor in my humble opinion it is interesting, it is quite LONG and
delves into technical issues on computers. So, if you like that read on!

if you are looking for a recipe, go away!

Shoo! Scat! Scoot! I have computer issues to deal with!

Still here??? Then, by all means you must read on!

For our less technical visitors who decided to brave this out since no recipe was forthcoming, note that MB and GB used below refer to megabytes and gigabytes.

Not too much been going on worth note except in the realm of computers. Hence my lack of posts, but, since I felt I needed to post something.....on to the technical tales of terror!


Mom's Computer:
On Saturday I ended up going down to Mom;s house to help her with her computer. She was having some issues easily fixed, and one not so easy. The constant crappy performance and effects of using Netzero. Most often evidenced by Internet Explorer displaying the vague dialog that it has encountered an unexpected error and has to close.

Netzero, a company that I really, really, do not like. Not only do you have to pay these miserable people for access, but they provide NO FREE SUPPORT. So, if you are having an issue that is their fault you have to pay to have it fixed!

The best solution is to remove it, but Mom's locked into a yearly agreement. So, in the interim I set her up with a Gmail account and the went to export her Netzero address book so I could import it.

GUESS WHAT! Those nasty folks have NO WAY to export your address nook! I guess they do not want to make it easy. I ended up doing a print the address book which they do provide and copying/pasting the data out of the print preview window. I then reformatted this into a CSV file I could then import into Gmail. So, that was a fun way to spend four hours, but I got some time to chat with Mom and Dad, and I got lunch so that was OK!

Note too that this is also after having Mom's PC at my house for a week for hardware burn in testing, deep cleaning, performance tuning and optimization. We were able to verify the internet worked flawlessly by both Danielle and myself using Mom's PC for two days on my high speed connections without a single Internet Explorer crash or hang.

I spent countless hours on this, and five minutes after Netzero was connected her Internet Explorer started having those issues. I am hopeful that using Gmail will alleviate a good deal of her issues.

Oh! We won't even mention the first call I got when Mom had taken her PC home and the monitor would not come on......no....we just won't!

Finally, did I mention I really, really, hate Netzero??

Now....the preamble into the next story......

Over the past five days I have been trying to embrace Windows Vista. After all, I have a free copy of the ultimate edition which I got for being a Vista Beta tester. I had loaded it on my main PC after the beta in early 2007 and found it to be totally unacceptable. It was the worst resource hog I had ever seen, and was just so slow as to be unusable.

After talking to my good friend (who I do not blame for this!) David a couple of months back who sang the praises of Vista, I decided since Vista SP1 had been recently released, and supposedly this fixed a lot of issues including performance, to update my Vista partition on the home office PC. Having done many service pack upgrades on all versions of windows in the past, major and minor, I figured this for a few hours worth of work......I could not have been more wrong. WHAT A NIGHTMARE IT TURNED OUT TO BE. The Tale is told below:


Day 1 of the Vista Upgrade Experience:
I booted up into the dusty and disused Vista partition and immediately I felt a cold chill! It started with the fact that the network card was no longer being detected by Vista. So, no big deal I booted back into the XP partition (Love XP! Love Dual Boot systems!), looked up the hardware designation of the network device which turned out to be a 3COM 3C940, and went off to the 3COM web site to get the Vista Drivers.

NO JOY here! No mention of this existed anywhere on the 3COM site! I began to google the model number and soon I was led back to the motherboard manufacturer as this was an embedded Ethernet controller. On the Asus web site I entered in my motherboard info and then went for network drivers. NO VISTA ONES!

Further googling was required, a lot of further googling as their were simply no drivers for Vista for this model! I finally found an obscure post from some intelligent person (after many dead ends and downloads of supposedly Vita compatible drivers) who mentioned that even though this is branded 3COM is is really a chip set made by another manufacturer entirely. One I had never heard of!

Armed with this info I was finally able to get a driver and get the Vista OS to see the Internet! After a quick update of the AntiVirus program and Spyware definitions, I set out to install some updates and SP1.

So, after much much chugging, and me already hating the performance of Vista, Windows Update says it has about 60 critical patches to install and about the same of optional patched, updates, etc. It says in needs about 256 megabytes of disk space. The Vista partition has about 1.5 Gigabytes free so I click on OK and go on about my business.

I came back to the office later in the evening, close to bed time, to find only 22 of the required patches had been installed and the rest had failed due to lack of space. Vista had eaten all 1.5 GB of free space!

What to do, what to do! I decided to disable hibernation mode which would delete the one gigabyte hiberfile.sys file and give me more free space. In XP this is simply done via the GUI in a couple of places. Not where to do this in vista though and the built in help was useless.

Back to Google! More frenzied searching to find out that the only way to disable hibernation in Vista is via a command line command! I did this, restarted Windows update, and went to bed.


Day 2 of the Vista Upgrade Experience:
So after work I checked the PC, only 10 more updates had been applied! 10! And the gigabyte of space was gone again! 2.5 GB gone to apply updates!! Frenzied cleaning of the file system commenced scouring for temporary files, I cleaned the internet cache, temporary directories, logs not needed. This got me another 200 MB back. Windows Update would consume this like the mint on the pillow at a fine hotel! And you what that does....it makes you want more mints!!!!

So what to do what to do...... Part of me wants to chuck this idea and be done with it! Microsoft just extended end of life support for XP into next year! HOWEVER the tenacious part of me, the part that hates defeat, the part that will not be defeated would have none of this! I would beat this beast as I had beaten many other computer issues in the past! It make takes weeks and in rare cases months but I have always been able to fix any problem with my own systems! I am admin, hear me roar!!!! Vista would be my be-yatch!!

So, I fire up my trusty copy of EASEUS Partition Manager, an AWESOME piece of freeware and look at the partition map for the drive that contains Vista. It has three partitions, the Vista one sandwiched between an old unused partition of 500 MB, and my prized XP partition which has about 5GB free.

Thinking of the facts that many partition managers (let alone a free one) have issues with mixed XP/Vista partitions, partitions on a large volume, which this was, and the fact that resizing partitions always has inherent risks, I command EASEUS to delete the unused partition, shrink the XP one by 500 MB, and Grow the Vista one by another 500 MB. I hit the Apply Changes button, and after the expected message that I must reboot the PC, I headed off to bed. Partitioning takes time!


Day 3 of the Vista Upgrade Experience:
I was very pleased to note after arriving home and rebooting the system that all was well! Another job well done by EASEUS Partition manager, one of the more risky ones I have used it for. XP/Vista partitions were fine and had been sized as expected. I restarted Windows Update and let it churn over the last 10 updates to apply. A couple of hours later I did a remote desktop connection to the XP system from the system I was doing my office work on, and discover the following:

Good News! All the needed updates had been installed!
Bad News! Of the first 2.5 gigabytes of space that had been reallocated to Vista before the partition resizing, NONE had been recovered! I would think most should be and will have to run Vista's dreaded Disk Cleanup tool.

I decided to go for broke and went over all the option updates. Of the 50-something, the majority were language pack files. Out of the remainder I only needed four, and two of these were driver files. The system is booting up now. I will login and the kick off the disk cleaning operation!

Well the built in Disk Cleanup was next to useless, I need something more intelligent because what I envision has happened here is that with the running out of disk space Windows Update got confused and I have multiple versions of files, installation kits, etc. lying about. I will have to look into this further!

I downloaded one trial version of a duplicate file finder; it had a limit of 30 files per operation and since there were thousands of duplicates I went in search of another tool. I found a tool called Duplicate Cleaner which was free, and, after some tweaking of the settings I recovered over 2 gigabytes of file space!

SOOOOOOO.....after all this, all thee updates and patches.......Vista SP1 still has not been installed! It is downloading now........which means the Vista Update Tale of Terror is not over yet......

Looks like we will be going into day 4.....the 2.6 GB of free space is now gone and SP1 was only 94% downloaded!! I downloaded the stand alone SP1 kit which weighs in at about 450 MB. I had it on a different drive than Vista. I looked at the release notes. A minimum of 7 GB free space is needed! If you have a 64 bit installation you need 13 GB!! My current XP partition, fully up to date, with lots of installed programs, is taking up about 5 GB of storage space!

Almost tasting defeat, but refusing to, I launched EASEUS again and shrunk my C drive (used mostly by Vista's boot loader, and my XP partition, and then grew the Vista one to have 7.5 GB of free space. Knowing that was going to be it for the night, I clicked Apply Changes and headed to bed, haunted by visions of failed upgrades that screamed in my head......


Day 4 of the Vista Upgrade Experience:
Thursday - I have a personal day from work and have errands and family business to take care of. I check the PC when I get up, once again EASEUS has done it's work well, and the Vista partition has 7.3 GB of free space. I kick off the upgrade and head off to take care of business. I check in at one point and it is at a screen that says stage 3 of 3 is 100% complete, and warns not to turn off the computer. i continue with what I need to do. Three hours later the same screen is still being displayed, but by the frenzied (perhaps panicked?) flashing of the hard disk light I know Vista has opened a can of Whooop Ass on my hard drive! I wander away and will check back later.

Many hours later (almost 12 from when I started this morning, the same screen remains. The system is responsive in that I can make a remote terminal connection to it, but, like on the physical console the same 100% message is still displayed......I am afraid this must lead into


Day 5 of the Vista Upgrade Experience:
Since this occurred after midnight it is technically day 5. It's over. Upon sitting by the office computer I noticed it was not stuck at this screen, it was periodically rebooting and going from 0 to 100% within a matter of minutes, and then after a few more minutes, rebooting.

Some googling returned the fact that, for all practical purposes, my Vista installation was now boned and I in fact, was Vista's be-yatch who must hang my head in shame and defeat! This is a known issue with Vista SP1 as documented at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949358

Because I had system restore disabled and because I had no vista media (I downloaded it ages back as a thank you from Microsoft for participating in the Vista beta. I then burned it to DVD's which were subsequently destroyed over a year ago when my disgust of Vista's gluttonous nature towards system resources had shown no satiety! So, I can use none of the methods described to fix the issue.

Heck, if I had the original DVD's I would just blow the whole partition and do a clean reinstall. While researching this issue I also discovered that Microsoft is offering free technical support for Vista and Vista SP1 installation issues, so, in an attempt to amuse myself, I opened a support call. On that note I will close this Technological Tale of Terror, which I can always revisit at a later date!

A Picture is worth a thousand words

Look at the following picture....imagine the thousand words....and then check back to see a future post entitled

Technology Tails of Terror! Two Computer Stories

that provides the thousand words and then some!

Something New

In spite of what happened when trying something new as described in my post entitled Chris' Cooking Disaster, I was at Forest Hills Foods just now and they had a sample of a food I had never tried, but heard about countless times, particularly during reruns of Hogan's Heroes:

So, what was this new thing I tried today? Wiener Schnitzel!

One of Colonel Wilhelm Klink's favorite foods on the aforementioned TV show. It was very good! So good in fact that I took a copy of the recipe they had out. I will have to make it one day with some Sauerkraut.

I was surprised that my preconception of it having something to do with hot dogs or sausage was not true; it's always good to learn something new. I am glad I tried and liked it because I must admit my "try something new" philosophy took a beating with last nights kitchen disaster! I can still taste it.......ugggggghh!

Fun Food Facts

I learned something new about food today while watching Dinner: Impossible during my exercise bike ride. I learned that true Sushi chefs spend 3 years learning and practicing how to just make the rice part of Sushi!

Chris' Cooking Disaster

You know I enjoy posting my recipes that pass my own rigorous standards. I will not post an "OK" recipe; in my humble opinion it has to be really good, delicious, fantastic even! I am truly proud of every recipe I post and refuse to hoard them like state secrets. Good food should be available to all!

I am not a master chef, I've not attended any formal cooking classes though one day I would like to. I do think that from cooking since I was around 10 years old that I have some skill in preparing tasty and nutritious food after 40 years experience.

While I may post recipes, I've rarely talked about my failures and I have mentioned on occasion that a recipe did not turn out as good as I thought it might. In fact, over the weekend I made some stuffed grilled red peppers that I filed with a mixture of broccoli and chicken marinated in olive oil. oregano, and garlic. It was good but not great and needs to be revised before I can consider posting it here. In any event it all gotten eaten and was certainly better than fast food or anything packaged at the store.

Note though that last night's food failure was remarkable enough in the fact that I fed an entire frying pan of a new recipe to the food disposal in the kitchen sink after a single taste! That's how foul it was. Tails had been sitting around meowing and begging so I just took the spoon from the pan and held it out for her to smell. With a loud Meow! she took like a shot off and hid under the couch.....I think she came out hours later.........

With a failure this bad, I just had to blog about it here. I'm human, and with 42 years of cooking experience, as well as many pounds under my belt, I make mistakes. This one was a doozy!

It started out innocently enough; I wanted something using Steak-umms. For those who have never enjoyed them, they are chopped, formed and frozen thin steak slices perfectly suited for a quick and very tasty steak or cheese steak sandwich.

Keeping with my quest for better nutrition I decided to fry up onions and peppers and use those with the Steak-umms so I could stay within my nutrition guidelines. Besides, I have done onions and peppers with Steak-umms before and it is great!!

The biggest thing that set me up for failure here was trying something new, something I am always after the kids about.

SO! I went to Forest Hills Foods in search of onions and peppers. Of course, since some lunatic (cough! cough!) had been buying up Poblano peppers all week long, there were none to be found.

I could have gone with a safe bet of Sweet Red peppers, and kind of made a steak fajita type roll up as I was planning to user tortillas anyway, but oh no! I had to try something new!

There was a pepper type I had not tried before, a bit bigger than the Poblanos and simply labeled Hungarian Peppers. I thought about how much I had been enjoying the Hungarian Paprika I had bought at the start of Poblano Pepper Madness days, and thought these peppers would be worth a try!

So, I went home and in a pan I sauteed onions and these peppers with some of the aforementioned paprika, cumin, and chili powder. I then took three Steak-Umms and broke them into pieces.

I also made an interesting discovery after putting my finger into my mouth, THESE PEPPERS ARE VERY HOT! Not too hot for me mind you on a heat basis, but talk about your staying power! I had a shower last night plus I've washed my hands numerous times after the dinner preparation, I rubbed my eye this morning and the BURNING from the pepper residue was unbelievable! And impressive! Now, for the first time in my life I understand how pepper spray can totally incapacitate a crazed 300 pound attacker!!! If the staying power of these peppers could be put into other products, well............

Anyway, after adding the meat I cooked gently for about 10 minutes and then took a taste to see if the onions were tender. IT WAS HORRIBLE! I did not mind the heat, and once again I must inform you that I have never sauteed and eaten an old sneaker, but, I think I know how a spicy one would taste!

I hesitated only a moment (while quick and easy Steak-umms are NOT cheap) and ended up dumping the entire pan into the disposal. I did notice that this morning the stainless steel sink was unusually shinny, so, at least there was some benefit to this exercise is culinary sabotage! I will NOT be trying these peppers ever again.....besides.....I am sure another load of Poblanos will arrive soon, and there were still a couple of varieties of pepper I had not tried, but still will.

I hate September 28th

This is, and always will be a crappy day of the year for me. It's the anniversary of my Mom's passing and my former Wedding Anniversary, in fact my mom died on our first anniversary. That put a stigma on the day while I was still married. Now at least that's not an issue.

I managed to do my exercise bike ride, and went to the store to get the ingredients for dinner. Just me and Tails, the kids are at their Mom's this weekend.

Tails and I are weathering the day as best we can. I just started pre-heating the oven for dinner, if this recipe works out well it will be posted tomorrow.

Sigh....I really hate this day of the year......... It's even worse this year with my dad gone. I know many people are without their parents, but, it takes some getting used to.

Recipe:Poblano Peppers with Stroganoff Stuffing

I have really been enjoying the Poblano peppers this past week! I picked up another batch at the store yesterday and was trying to decide what to make with them. For some reason I thought of Beef Stroganoff and decided this would make a fine stuffing as shown in the picture below:

Click for a tastier, larger version in a new window!

Ingredients:
1 large sweet onion
12 ounces sliced mushrooms
8 Poblano peppers
2/3 cup light sour cream
1/2 lb 92% lean ground beef
2 tbs Hungarian Paprika
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp sea salt

Preparation:
Chop sweet onion. Spray a large frying pan generously with PAM-type Olive Oil spray and put on medium heat. Add onions and sprinkle with salt. Stir occasionally for five minutes. While onions are cooking, coarsely chop mushrooms. Add mushrooms to pan, remove from heat, spray top with olive oil spray, and add chili powder and paprika. Stir well return to heat, cover pan, and stir occasionally.

While onions and mushrooms are cooking remove stems from peppers, remove seeds, and cut in half. Add ground beef to frying pan, crumbling when adding. Cover pan.

Now's a good time to go pre-heat your outdoor grill. Cook contents of frying pan another five minutes or until onions are tender.

Spray both sides of peppers with butter flavored cooking spray and place skin side up on the grill. Cook for three minutes. Sprinkle with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and remove from grill.

Make sure ground beef is well broken up and remove frying pan from heat. Stir in sour cream, mix well, and leave covered for five minutes.

Spoon mixture into pepper halves and place back on grill for an additional three minutes. Remove from heat and serve.

The Ramon JournalsEntry Number 5

This selection was labeled New 200 Nyang Ramen noodles- Spicy

You can click the product name above to open an order page on the companies web site in a new browser window.

This was the only Ramon selection that came in a bag verses a cup or bowl. For this variety you had to boil water in a pot, then add the noodles, seasoning pack, and dehydrated veggies pack. You then simmer for 4 minutes. The advantage over the bagged Ramon soup is usually cost. Yes, you have to prepare it and wash a pot, but it costs less, usually at least 50% less than the price of a comparable bowl of noodles. 

This was a very tasty bowl of Ramon! Spicy as well, but not overwhelmingly so for our more......sensitive diners out there! The veggies included welsh onion, dried carrot, and dried mushroom.

This item will be re-ordered!

An Unusual Tails Tale

Yesterday Danielle picked up Tails and something must have startled her. She kicked in with her back claws (front is declawed) to get away and left several 6+ inch and smaller scratches on her arm and hand. One hour, half a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and most of a pack of cotton balls later I had it all cleaned up and the bleeding stopped. There was no way band aides were going to handle this mess however! I ended up having to run off to the drug store to get a bottle of liquid skin to cover and protect the injuries. Since it has antiseptic in it, it stings until it dries.  On long scratches like this too it pulls the skin a bit when the affected areas are moved.

Danielle did not like this and suggest I wrap it up in gauze and I explained to her how that would rub in the scratches and  and would have to be changed often and if she though the liquid stuff felt weird the gauze rubbing her scratched skin would feel a lot worse.  The nice thing about this stuff is you put it on int he morning and the evening and you're done with it and it brushes on very quickly.

She got hugs after medicating and Tails got glares, I got her (Danielle, not Tails as I was a bit ticked because it's not like a gunshot went off outside the screen door!) Chinese food for dinner and let her eat on the couch and helped her as her hand and arm were still drying. She even tried some of the stuffed grilled Poblano peppers I made for myself.

Bless Danielle's heart though she took it in stride and was not upset with the cat, though she was not really happy about having to have the stuff applied this morning; it smells like nail polish on steroids.

This morning, while holding her arm over the gale force breeze of my tornado vortex fan in an attempt to speed the liquid skin drying process, she was joking that her friends and teachers thought she might have gone Goth and be scratching herself. I said if the school called me I would say I knew nothing of cat scratches!

"Oh my god she did what to herself! She said the cat did that? We don't even have a cat!!!!"

Contrary to my expectations she was amused by this!

Recipe - Roasted Stuffed Poblano Peppers

Why should I go to bed when there's a recipe to write up??

As the 8 new varieties of Ramon noodles arrived this evening after buying the ingredients below this will probably be the last recipe for awhile; in fact, as my 'dessert' I had one of the smaller Ramon varieties and it was awesome!

In any event this meal turned out really well, and Danielle, who, had no interest in it based on the description was intrigued by the smell after she had her dinner, and ended up eating one of the pepper halves.

Ingredients:
1 large sweet onion
5 Poblano peppers
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 lb 92% lean ground beef
4 slices Kraft fat free cheddar cheese
4 large leaves of fresh basil
2 tsp packaged taco mix (I use Old El Paso)
1/4 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp salt

Preparation:
Chop sweet onion. Spray a large frying pan generously with PAM-type Olive Oil spray and put on medium heat. Add onions and sprinkle with salt. Stir occasionally for five minutes. Turn on outdoor grill for preheating.

While sauteing onion remove stems and cut peppers in half and remove seeds. Add curry powder, basil leaves, and taco mix to frying pan along with ground beef. Cover, and cook another five minutes or until onions are tender.

Make sure ground beef is well broken up and add frozen corn, cooking an additional two minutes. Add cheese slices, turn off heat, and leave covered.

After adding ground beef to pan above, spray both sides of peppers with olive oil spray and place skin side up on the grill. Cook for three minutes. Sprinkle with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and remove from grill.

Stir mixture in frying pan until melted cheese is thoroughly mixed in. Spoon into pepper halves and place back on grill for an additional three minutes. Remove from heat and serve. A dollop of fat free sour cream makes a nice topping but is of course optional!

Not only is this meal healthy and low in fat and calories, it was absolutely delicious!

Recipe - Southwest Cheeseburger Roll Ups

I guess I still have not had my fill of peppers......I offered this to the kids last night and they balked so I made them Ramon from Forest Hills Foods, while I enjoyed this recipe:

Ingredients:
1 Habanero pepper
1 Poblano pepper
1/2 lb 92% lean ground beef
1 clove garlic
1 tsp olive oil
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp Hungarian Paprika
1/2 tsp hot chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
2 slices fat free Kraft Cheddar Cheese
4 Smart & Delicious Tortillas

Preparation:
Cut peppers in half and remove seeds. Those who like more heat can retain the seeds from the Habanero pepper. Reserve half of the Poblano Pepper. Finely dice (I used one of those kitchen helper type chopping tools) remaining peppers and garlic.

In a bowl combine all spices, diced peppers and garlic, and olive oil thoroughly with ground beef. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and put in fridge for at least an hour.

Preheat your outdoor grill. Shape meat mixture into a large rectangular patty about 1/4" thick. Ideally it should be a tiny bit longer than the width of the tortilla. Spray both sides of the remaining Poblano pepper half lightly with olive oil spray and very lightly sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Place meat and pepper (skin side up) on grill and cook three minutes. Flip meat and pepper and top meat with 1.5 slices of the cheese, with the remaining half slice going into the 1/2 Poblano pepper. Grill an additional minute and remove from heat.

Cut meat patty lengthwise into four equal potions and put one in each tortilla. Add whatever additional accompaniments you desire such as diced tomato, lettuce, etc. Enjoy the cheesy pepper on the side! I did and saw it as an excellent alternative to a pickle.

This dish, in spite of the Habanero pepper came in at a medium heat on the commercial scale. Note that's with the seeds removed from the pepper. Keep them in at your own risk.

Beware that this meal gave me an idea for something I may try this evening; stuffed grilled Poblano peppers; if that works out well I will post the recipe.

The Ramon JournalsEntry Number 4

Note: Post updated with correct picture on 9/24

This selection was labeled "YukGaeJang" Spicy Beef Vegetable Ramen Cup Noodle

You can click the product name above to open an order page on the companies web site in a new browser window.

This was the only 'cup of soup' size I had in this order. The taste was similar to the product described in Ramon Journal Entry Number 1, though perhaps not as spicy and a bit less savory. That is not to say in any way that it was not a delicious cup of Ramon as it was. The veggie bits in this variety included Kimchi and green onion.

It was your typical preparation of peeling the lid back partially, dumping in the contents of the seasoning pack, filling to the line with boiling water, covering, and waiting five minutes.

Note that the smaller size is perfect for lunch or a snack, verses the larger ones I've posted (except the bean curd one!) which are perfect for dinner.

This item will be re-ordered!

Posting from the road

This is a test using my mail to directly send a post to my blog!

 

As if you did not have to put up with when I had time to sit at home and post!

 

NOW IT IS EVEN WORSE!

Recipe - Chicken Chorizo Sausage Roll Ups

I've been enjoying the produce at the local store and after Friday night's chili I decided I had to use most of the same spices yet create something different on Saturday. I had some leftover tortillas in the fridge and I decided some type of roll up was in order. Here's what I came up with.

Ingredients:
1 Habanero pepper
2 Poblano peppers
6 ounces (two sausages) Chicken Chorizo sausage
6 "Smart & Delicious" low carb, high fiber tortillas
1 cup Egg Beaters
1 large white onion
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp Hungarian paprika
1 tsp hot chili powder

Preparation:
Spray the bottom of a large frying generously with olive oil spray. Slice onions lengthwise, cut peppers in half, remove seeds. Slice Poblano peppers into strips, about 8-10 slices per pepper and dice the Habanero pepper.

Heat frying pan on medium-low heat and then add onions and peppers sprinkling salt on top. Stir occasionally and when onions just being to brown add last three ingredients above, stir, cover, and reduce heat to low for five minutes.

Remove casing from the sausages and crumble meat. Add to mixture in frying pan leaving uncovered for five minutes before adding Egg Beaters. Cover and cook on very low heat for five minutes. Stir mixture, cover and let rest for five minutes.

Divide between tortillas and top with optional items such as shredded cheese, fat free sour cream, or use what I did, some nice imported hot Mexican taco sauce.

Serves three.

Note this is less spicy than the chili in spite of the use of the Habanero pepper whose heat is mitigated somewhat by the cooking process. I'd rate this a medium on the commercial scale.

Recipe - Three Alarm Chili

I decided to take a break from Ramon posts because last night I made some ground beef chili and it turned out awesome! So good in fact I had to share the recipe! The two types of fresh pepper plus the imported Hungarian paprika give it a unique taste. If you can't find Hungarian paprika at your local store use any good smoked paprika. There are many variations on chili recipes; I hope you enjoy this one!

Ingredients:
1 large white onion chopped
3 Chili peppers chopped
3 Jalapeno peppers chopped
1/4 cup Sambal Oelek
1.25 pounds 92% lean ground beef
1 8 ounce can of tomato sauce
8 cloves garlic
1 small can red kidney beans
1 cup water
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp Hungarian paprika
2 tsp hot chili powder

Note: Once again I must caution you to use GOOD Sambal Oelek; I have tried over a dozen brands and only the Conimex brand has the heat with the subtle tastes of the peppers! The rest are just tasteless heat. Click the link above under the ingredients and rest easy as I have ordered from this place multiple times with no hassles.

Preparation:
Spray the bottom and sides of a four quart sauce pan with olive oil spray. Using the flat edge of a knife crush the garlic enough to remove the skin. Cut peppers in half and remove the seeds if you want three alarm chili, use them if you'd like a three.5 or 4! I removed them in this case.

Using medium-low heat add the onion, pepper, and garlic to the pan and sprinkle salt over the top. Sweat for a few minutes stirring once or twice. Break up the ground beef into the pan and cover for five minutes.

Remove lid and using a large wooden or plastic spoon break up the ground beef. Sprinkle in paprika, cumin, and chili powder and mix well.

Add tomato sauce and water, stir well. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add kidney beans, stir, cover and simmer gently for 45 minutes. Remove lid and adjust heat to that mixture simmers slowly. Simmer uncovered for 15 minutes or longer until liquid is thickened.

Stir in Sambal Oelek, cover, and simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off heat and let rest covered for 15 minutes. Serve as desired with your favorite toppings such as fat free sour cream, low fat shredded cheddar cheese, etc.

This is a nice spicy chili, maybe not for those who can't tolerate any heat, but not too fiery. it goes down easy and leaves a nice sweat on the forehead after eating! For people with normal taste buds I would rate this between medium and hot for commercially labeled products.

This evening I think I shall make Mexican roll ups featuring Poblano peppers, onions, chicken chorizo sausage, and egg beaters. If it turns out well another recipe may follow, if you would like to see it.

Footnote: I made the roll ups I mentioned above for dinner, and they were great!

The Ramon JournalsEntry Number 3

This selection was labeled Japanese UFO Ramen Bowl Noodle soup

 

You can click the product name above to open an order page on the companies web site in a new browser window.

This is what started me down the entire Ramon trail.  Lili, my x-brother-in-law's wife, gave me one off these to try when we visited New Jersey at the end of August.  I brought it home and made it a week later and it was excellent.

This was the only Ramon sampled thus far that has the seasoning pouch in liquid form;  the rest were all powdered.  In addition, there is an optional pack of .....something....... that look like little tiny balls or seeds.  I added them as well.  The little bits of vegetable in the green variety (mostly cabbage I am thinking) were in with the dried noodles.

It was your typical preparation of peeling the lid back partially and filling to the line with boiling water, covering, and waiting five minutes.

 

Perhaps it is the liquid based seasonings on this, but, thus far having sampled all 8 varieties in the shipment I ordered, this one is my favorite though Entry Number One would be a close second!  The flavor is very rich and pronounced, and while following along with what I call traditional Ramon flavoring, though very rich and pronounced.  I will have to ask Lili what is in that second seasoning pack.....if anyone would know she will.

This item will be re-ordered!

The Ramon Journals Entry Number 2

This selection was labeled Japanese Noodle Bowl with Fried Bean Curd -3.99oz

You can click the product name above to open an order page on the companies web site in a new browser window.

In all my 52 years this has been the worst Ramon I have ever tasted! Perhaps even the worst food! I'll have to ponder that for awhile.....

In addition to the noodles, spices, and some bits of vegetable this had a large sponge-sized piece of fried bean curd in it. Sponge-like indeed! I have never eaten a sponge before, nor have I ever been possessed by the urge to do so!

It's a moot point however,because now I truly believe I know the flavor of a dirty fecund 3 month old wet kitchen sponge! It was terrible! Even the soup and noodles were inedible due to the flavor. This was not just my opinion, but my younger Ramon connoisseurs Scott and Danielle agreed with me.

Usually I enjoy bean turd....uh.....curd....but....not in this case. Thinking about this just now made me queasy!

I have another variety of this soup from the same manufacturer, I am hoping the seasonings will be different! I dread making it! (Note: Turns out I will be eating this in a few minutes!)

Is it needless to say that this item will never, ever be re-ordered!!!

The Ramon JournalsEntry Number 1

This selection was labeled Very spicy Hot ramen noodle bowl.

You can click the product name above to open an order page on the company's web site in a new browser window.

This was the first variety I tried out of the 8 I ordered and it was very, very good! If the rest of them are half this good it will be a most pleasant experience!

The soup was spicy, but in my opinion it did not rate a very spicy as the description indicated, and it was also very flavorful with your typical Ramon broth. Because of the different spices and other ingredients vary by brand and type, the tastes vary, though most share a similar 'base taste'. Where a selection features a notable deviation from this I will mention it.

The tiny bits of veggies included green onion, mushroom, carrot, and red pepper.

Preparation was simple; peel back the lid a third of a way, tear open the spice packet and add to the bowl along with boiling water, reseal the lid and wait. While times for steeping a bowl of noodles varies, I find five minutes works great on all varieties.

All an all an excellent bowl of Ramon!

This item will be re-ordered!

The Ramon Journals Revisited

After getting some comments and e-mails I have decided to go through with the Ramon Journal Posts after all.

So, for each post there will be a picture of the packaging, a link to that particular item on the web page of the company I bought it from, and their name for the product.

Of course there will also be my (half?) witty repartee as well as I review each selection and share my impressions on it.

I may post the first one this afternoon if time permits and there will be eight posts in total. If you read them and like them, please post a comment, as I will be ordering another 8 varieties to sample and will be happy to post reviews of those here as well.

Waiting for the repair man......

Working from home today waiting for the gas company to come look at my refrigerator.

Yes, that's right. The gas company!

Tails, my faithful feline companion, is resting comfortably on the foot rest next to mine, curled up in a ball, washing herself. She will undoubtedly remain positioned near me for the majority of the day. Ahhhhhh!

Update: Tails has moved to my Chest and is purring loudly!!

Day 12 of I have the Kids

As I had mentioned in a previous post about Scott and I being sick, I've had the kids for over a week now as the X has been out of the area working on a project that overran because of manufacturing defects and the rainy weekend.  Last night the kids were supposed to go back to her house after Danielle's birthday dinner.

Evidently there were additional problems at the job site that she heard about via a phone call during dinner, and she decided she had to head back instead of departing early this morning.

So, the kids came back to my house at 9PM last night, and Scott's stomach was bothering him intensely, though, bless his heart, he did make it off to school today even though he still had not fully recovered this morning.  I've had them now for 11 nights and 12 days, the longest I think since the divorce, with the possible exception of that time her company worked down in Florida.

Happy Birthday Danielle!

My 'little girl' turned 14 today!  We'll be taking her to dinner this evening with the X's folks and giving her some presents.

The one plus side of the X's job taking so long is I got to see my girl this morning before she left for school!

Because she's at those teen years where she sometimes has trouble talking to us about certain things I wrote her a long heartfelt letter and emailed it for her to read, reminding her how much we love her and will always be there for her in good times and bad, and other mushy sentiments like that!

Seems like just yesterday I was breaking all land speed records rushing to the hospital for her delivery.  For those of you who do not know the X had MAJOR complications with Danielle's pregnancy.  She spent weeks in a special wing of the hospital with an operating room right by her room.  Danielle was born weeks early and the X ended up with medication induced asthma from all the medications she had to take to get the baby's to mature quicker so she could have  a normal birth.

Every time I see my daughter I realize what a miracle it is to have her!

And yes, I'm very happy too that the X made it through!  We could easily have lost one or both of them!

Sick with Scott

Scott and I have been sick since last week. A bad case of fever, clogged head, congestion, scratchy throat, and noisy cough. With only a single wall between his room and mine sleep has not been easy, particularly with him coughing a lot more than me.

What makes it worse is that the kids were supposed to go home Friday evening for their week with their mom, but the job from hell she's been working in another part of the state went bad because of all the rain we've been having from hurricane Ike over the weekend, so, they will not be going back until this evening. 

It was a rough weekend all I wanted to do was.....nothing! As much as I love my kids I was looking forward to them heading to their Mom's so I could retreat to my bed and stay there.  Since I was having trouble breathing and needing to clear my throat I would stay up in the living room until Scott settled down (evidenced by the cessation of coughing from his room) and then I would head to bed so as not to disturb him.  The idea of making food or cleaning house was just too unreal to even think of!  I ended up ordering out food each night which I will regret when the credit card bill comes in.

Scott and I spent most of the weekend on the couch with him spending some time on the computer.

Today I am feeling somewhat better, past the worst of the symptoms but very weak. So weak in fact that Tails sense this before I left for work and pinned me to the ground until I promised her an extra serving of canned cat food!

Farewell my iPod!

For those who have been reading this blog you know I've mentioned my iPod Touch on a frequent basis; believe it or not I may be selling it and all my iPod equipment in a very attractively-priced 'bundle' to buy one of these:

Click the image below which will open a detailed description in a new web browser. I am just waiting for them to come into local stores so I can do some hands on before making the final decision to purchase one. I figure with what I can get for the old equipment and some Amazon gift certificates I already have, my net out of pocket cost will be around zero!

New Jersey Trip Picture

One of these days I must write up a post of our vacation trip to New Jersey at the end of last month. For now, here's my favorite picture from that journey.

We were at the Cranford Canoe Club with my brother who happens to know the owner. To snap this picture, I had to run across the street (which being a bridge over the river made it more difficult) and then cut through some parks on the riverbank to get to the spot I could snap this before they got out of range. They were moving quite quickly!

Click the picture for the full size image of Scott and Danielle in a canoe.

Thus ends The Ramon Journals

I posted the Ramon Journal entry two days ago, since there are no comments I'll take that to mean no one is interested in that series. 

I guess my idea of what's interesting varies with those who visit, I thought this would be more interesting than my usual ramblings.

The Ramon Journals

Scott and Danielle have been enjoying packages of Ramon Soup from the local grocery store for many months now. Unlike some of their previous food fads it seems to be something that they are going to keep eating for awhile. I like it as well, but, not as much as the two of them.

While we were in New Jersey their aunt Lili made Scott some of her style Ramon which unlike the ones the kids are used to contained herbs and some decent flavor. Scott did not like it as much as his usual bowl of noodles because of this....it was a change over the typical noodles and chicken broth he was used to and Scott does not like change. I, on the other hand, loved it.

She gave me a package totally written in oriental to take home of another variety which I did. I had that early last week and it was just so much better than the ones the kids have been eating. It had little bits of vegetables and herbs in it, and such a rich flavor as well.

So, I decided I wanted more and went online in a effort to find them which I did from an eastern importer. I also found countless other varieties and thus ordered eight different packages to sample.

I hope you can join me on what promises to be a tasty journey!

And so it begins! "The Ramon Journals" will unfold as I, your intrepid taste tester and connoisseur of all things edible share with you my findings of the following 8 Ramon variations.

For a much larger image click on the picture above; do it NOW!

After I had written the above, Danielle and I ended up making three of the eight packages. Originally I figured we would make two, splitting each one, and that would make a serving for each of us. This was not to be the case however!

One of them tasted horrible, and the food disposal ate heavily of it after we each had a taste.

So, which one was that? How were the other two? What three varieties did you sample???

If you hunger for the answers to these questions dear reader, you'll just have to return as I post the reviews for each variety.

Have A Better Birthday With Worms

My 52nd Birthday on Sunday was nothing special , and I had a decent day.

I thank those of you who sent birthday greetings, and well, for those of you who did not....... :)

I arose around 8:30 AM, puttered on the computer for awhile, played cone of the video game I got from Kevin and Lili when we were in New Jersey, and then rode the exercise bike.

After getting cleaned up, Scott and I headed off to McDonald's to get a lite bite since we knew we would not be eating dinner for awhile, and we brought home something for Danielle, who was too involved in teenage drama to come with us.

Around 1:45 PM we headed to the vet with Tails....which means I need to mention that Saturday when Scott was petting tails something white, small, and wriggly ended up on his hand, and, a visual examination of her......uh.......posterior showed an additional worm peaking out! So, we made her the Sunday appointment (which surprised me because heaven help a human who needs to see a doctor on a Sunday!!!)

So, we arrived at the vet, the doctor did a patient history and examination of Tails and a topical medication was applied to her neck behind her head. In two weeks she would be tape worm free. Tails being an indoor cat I was puzzled about this until it was explained that the eggs can be tracked indoors on footwear, and, Tails does love playing with our sneakers and sandals and such. usually though outdoor cats get this from eating infested rodents.

The only downside to us is this medication will stay somewhat moist for days so you have to remember not to pet the cat there.

Anyway, after returning home I watched TV with the kids, and played more of the aforementioned (Dark Sector) video game. Around 4PM the X arrived and we headed over to Texas Roadhouse where the X's parents met us, and I had a marvel opus T-Bone and dessert. Scott and Danielle had their usual prime rib though Danielle shared hers with her mom.

They overcooked the X's Mom's steak and took quite awhile to rectify it, so, instead of the birthday treat of a small bowl of vanilla ice cream they brought out three of their chocolate fudge cake and ice creak desserts for all of us and took the price of the steak off the bill. The X's dad paid for dinner, and her Mom gave me a bottle of spicy Buffalo Wing sauce, a bottle of After Death hot sauce, and a bottle of Bone Sucking sauce which I really liked.

The X gave me one of those motivational books which I promised to read....hey....I love fiction after all!

Scott and Danielle gave me an amazon gift certificate. The X dropped us off back at my house where the rest of the day was spent in TV watching and Game Playing, plus I made some Ramon soup for all of us as a snack later in the evening.

All and all an OK birthday. not great, but, not too bad.

Tails KittyFirst year in Pictures

Last month marked the end of Tails' first year with us! It has been a most enjoyable year for all of us whose lives Tails have affected. We really love our kitty.

Press the play button below to see all 13 pictures; enjoy!

Note you can click on any picture in the album to see them in larger size.

Video of the DayMy Morning Walk

This would not have been my first choice for my morning walk but I must have made a wrong turn somewhere!  Click below to play the video as it is most awe inspiring!

This is the El Caminito del Rey (The King's pathway) is a walkway, now fallen into disrepair, pinned along the steep walls of a narrow gorge in El Chorro, near Álora in Málaga , Spain . The walkway has gone many years without maintenance, and is in a highly deteriorated and dangerous state. It is only one meter in width, and over a 700-meter fall, and over time it has also lost its handrail. Some parts of the walkway have completely collapsed and have been replaced by a beam and a metallic wire on the wall. Many people have lost their lives on the walkway in recent years. After four people died in two accidents in 1999 and 2000, the loca l government closed the entrances. However, adventurous tourists still find their way into the walkway.

Recipe:South of the Border Chicken Nachos

I've been trying really hard before and after vacation to stick to the diabetic dietary requirements. Last night I wanted something good, without exceeding those. I created the following and was quite pleased with the results!

Ingredients:
1 pound frozen boneless skinless chicken breast tenders
1 cup white onion diced
3 tbsp water
1 tbsp crushed garlic (I used jarred here)
1/2 tbsp hot chili powder
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp powdered cumin
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
3 Slices fat free Kraft Cheddar Cheese
6 ounces Tortilla Chips (I used soy chips for less carbs and more protein)
PAM type Olive Oil Spray

Optional for topping:
Fat Free Sour Cream
Taco Sauce
Sambal Olek
Guacamole

Perparation:
Spray a non-stick saucepan with PAM spray. To bottom add water and crushed garlic. Add Frozen Chicken, and spray top lightly with PAM. Sprinkle on chili powder, paprika, cumin, and black pepper. Cover, and and simmer on very low heat for an hour.

Stir contents. At this point chicken should be soft enough (you used tenders, tight?) to break up. Using a wooden or plastic spoon press down on tenders until they break into smaller pieces.

Add chopped onion, cover, and again simmer on low heat for an hour. Remove from heat, add cheese, stir, cover and let sit for several minutes.

Arrange tortilla chips in a single layer on a large platter and then spoon chicken mixture on top. Add whatever else you like at this point such as guacamole, taco sauce, fat free sour cream, etc. I just topped mine sparingly with some Sambal for extra heat!

ENJOY! Serves four as an appetizer or two for dinner.

Birthday Blahs

Feeling kind of bummed with the birthday coming up this Sunday. Birthdays used to be such a fun family thing....now....they are just another day to me. Nothing really to Celebrate here.

Sigh!

That's not the main reason I have not been posting a lot. I had lost my lunch time internet connection but it's abck now so there will be some posts, including a new recipie shortly!