10:33 – I’m processing science kits for shipment while Barbara vacuums. She also gave me a haircut this morning.
Yesterday, we were discussing our next Costco run. Later, out of the blue, Barbara said she didn’t think we needed any more corn. At first, I thought she meant corn meal, but she was talking about canned corn. Independently, she said it made sense to her to buy only what we eat, and we don’t eat a lot of vegetables. We eat mostly meat with rice, pasta, egg noodles, potatoes, or whatever. She also said it was fine with her to buy more spaghetti sauce, applesauce, canned mushroom soup, oats, and other things that we use regularly. Sound advice.
With the exception of egg noodles, which are a pain in the butt to store because of their bulk, I plan to buy more of all of the stuff she mentioned. I did have canned mushrooms on my list, and I may buy a few cans, but I’m not going to stock up big-time on them. Barbara is indifferent to them, I don’t really much care whether we use them in casseroles and so on or not, Al actively dislikes them, and Barbara said she thought Frances dislikes them as well. So why store a lot of them?
.
Egg noodles are properly stored as the ingredients needed to make them. Which would be powdered eggs and flour. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but so is making bread.
Canned shrooms? Yuk. There aren’t too many canned veggies we find palatable. Off the top of my head: beets and baby peas and that’s about it.
Mrs. OFD is big on pasta and tomato sauce and I’m indifferent. We both like rice and couscous most meats and poultry; if it’s seafood/fish, it has to be super fresh for her, like same day outta the wotta.
Hunger may impact our likes and dislikes and indifference, however.
Supposed to get heavy rain again today with a flash flood warning until 8PM for the whole AO and beyond, but right now it’s partly sunny and very windy. Wife off to have lunch with very old friends from her NYC days back when she worked as an admitting nurse at lovely Bellevue. I’m on house cleaning details for now.
Canned mushrooms are vile, but frozen aren’t bad. I buy a lot when they’re on sale at the grocery store, slice them about 1/8″ thick, and freeze in single layer on cookie sheets. Bag them up when they’re hard. They aren’t really fit for putting in a fresh salad, but they’re great for throwing in stews.
That has been my experience. And it wasn’t even starvation-level hunger, merely missing a meal. Amazing how self-righteous claims that “I can only eat fresh-cooked food” or “I eat only cruelty-free meat” go by the wayside when the stomach rumbles.
Me, I grew up poor. You ate what was set before you because there wasn’t anything else. Not to say there aren’t foods I don’t like*, but I’ll eat them if someone else serves them to me.
* eg, mayonnaise. Why it ever occurred to someone to take earwax and dirty dishwater and cook it down until it had the consistency of pus is beyond me. And why someone then ate that mess is mind boggling.
I kinda like a little mayo on my sammiches and also use it as the base for various sauces and condiments.
My gag-reflex gets triggered by curry. Can’t stand the smell. Also really do not care for cilantro, which tastes like licorice to me.
MrsAtoz throws cilantro in everything being Mex. Also a “sauce” person. That includes ketchup, mayo, mustard and any liquidy thing you can dip in. My own dislike is ketchup. I don’t know why. I’ll eat tomatoes on a burger, but not ketchup. I’m the only one in the family who doesn’t like ketchup.
I do stock a few of what I think of as “ingredients.” Canned mushrooms, some soups, canned tomato and paste, they aren’t things you eat by themselves but they are included in a lot of things you make from storage food.
That said, I often buy a few cans of something weird or ethnic so we’ll have a change of pace if food fatigue sets in. There are lots of things we don’t normally eat, and some of them will be a boon if things really go pear shaped.
I’ve got canned cake for example. The Brits have a couple of kinds of sponge cake in cans. I’ve got some weird asian fruits. I’ve got beans in styles we don’t normally eat. If it is cheap, or goes on sale, I’ll pick up a few cans.
nick
I don’t care for condiments at all. I’ll eat them if I need to, but can’t figure out why they’re “needed”. If you start with good ingredients and cook them properly, the bun and meat and fresh vegetables have plenty of flavor and moisture.
I feel that way about a good steak. If I’m looking for steak sauce, the steak is lacking something.
Condiments do complement or supplement the flavor. I like dogs with a little bite, so mustard. My children prefer a little sweeter, so ketchup.
Mayo is oil, egg yolk, and an acid like lemon juice or (less common) vinegar. No cooking involved. Properly made, it’s good on turkey sandwiches. Originally used on fish.
That’s what they told you, huh?
It’s better if you make it yourself but in a pinch Hellman’s or Cain’s will do. And excellent on REAL turkey sammiches, with a bit of stuffing and cranberry sauce. REAL cranberry sauce you make yourself, but again, in a pinch, Ocean Spray will do nicely. I usually kick the mayo up a couple of notches, though, with garlic, Frank’s Hot Sauce, etc.
Mos def whatever your favorite mustard is on hot dawgs, kielbasa, etc.
We’re not big on ketchup here and will alternatively use A1 or chili sauce. Or make our own.
About to do citrus grilled chicken w/rice, and tomatoes from our tiny raised bed gahden.
earwax and dirty dishwater and cook it down until it had the consistency of pus
Which begs the question as to how one would know how that combination looks, or tastes.
Same thing with people that say some disaster “looks like a war zone”. How do they really know when the closest they have been to war is the Walmart door opening on Black Friday. Until you have experienced something you really have no idea to what it is you are comparing.
… I don’t like to talk about it.
I’ve never been in a warzone, but I’ve seen tons of images, film, video, etc. Everything but the smell.
Which is a non-trivial part of the experience. I had a flashback a year or so ago of coming across a pile of week-dead bodies. Not pleasant, at the time or in the flashback.
(Wanna know what triggered it? Several of my coworkers did not buy into the American habit of bathing daily. One, in fact, did not bathe at all, for religious reasons, except back home in some sacred spring or something. Yah, I was glad when that contract ended.)
Apart from the lack of smell, don’t overestimate the ability of TV and movies to convey the experience. I don’t care how loud they turned up the volume in the theater, being caught in an artillery barrage was nothing like watching any war movie I’ve ever seen. (It was only the once, and friendly fire, and we never did find out if we were in the wrong place or if they were shelling the wrong place, or even who the hell was shelling us. We got away with no injuries and not too much equipment loss or damage, so call it a win.)
There’s also the emotional impact. Detached though I am, I found that being in a place that got shot up, knowing that a civilian population was made an example of, hit the hell out of me. Hollywood, with all of its special effects and big budget sets, has made everything you see in movies suspect, and that applies to documentaries, too. Yah, sure, you can tell yourself that this really happened in Stalingrad 75 years ago, but part of your brain is also saying, I saw more realistic CGI just last week. If you’re there on site and you see the kicked-in doors and the rest of the damage, there’s no errant “this is a shoe-in for the special effects award” thought.
There is a difference between a mediated experience and one that is direct.
I guess technically you could say ‘it looks like the pictures I’ve seen of a warzone’.
I can only add my experiences during the Rodney King riots. It’s one thing to see flames in the darkness on your TV, 6 inches high. It’s something else entirely to look out the door and see houses burning as the smoke blows in your face. NOTHING smells like a house fire. Or to drive past smoking stinking holes in the ground where there were businesses you passed every day. The smells really get into your head.
nick
[snip] It was only the once, and friendly fire, [snip]
To quote my dad, and a lot of other GIs, friendly fire isn’t.
Until these governors get serious and stop handcuffing the National Guard and Police and put out a serious Marshall Law edict where rioters, looters, and arsonists are shot on sight this crap is going to continue:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OFFICER_INVOLVED_SHOOTING_MILWAUKEE_THE_LATEST
Anybody ever hear of “guilt by association”? I’m sure you have, just like “you are known by the friends you keep”. For a pastor to be marching and sympathizing with these cretins means they are just as stupid and “ignant” as well as being a disgrace to their collar.
WRT the hell of battle: I smelled and heard enough during the riots of the 60s in Chicago and at the University of Illinois (Champaign/Urbana Campus). So I’ll admit it, I joined the Navy and the Submarine Service to avoid the up close and personal aspects of the war in SEA. I did see my share of casualties though as not all of the Seals that we recovered from their missions came back intact. I did my share of assisting “Doc” as did everyone else on board as it was “all hands on deck” and “all ahead flank” when we got them all back on board.
I gotta go see the VA “shrink” Tuesday AM down in Burlap in re: my disability filing and PTSD chit so I’ll leave off the “smell of battle” stuff until later this week, if then. Apparently I’m about halfway through the whole damn process, so at this rate, maybe I’ll have a decision sometime before I croak. Which seems to be the plan for us.
I consider my 20 in the Army as “Golden”. Missed Grenada, Panama, Sand and Suck and various other “conflicts”. I was usually in a heavy unit where light was needed (vice versa) or in schools or REMF staff positions. I loved the PinheadAgon, not!
I haven’t seen combat, so I don’t know what it’s like. One day I walked past a house fire on my lunch break, and the house fires I’ve seen before on TV don’t capture it. I didn’t particularly notice the smell. You’re going to laugh at me for saying this, but the fire was hotter than I expected. The house that burned was all wood and very old, dry wood at that.
Dried porcini mushrooms. Keep a long time and can be repacked to denser proportions. Only problem cost. They have a much more intense flavor than fresh so you don’t need a lot, the water used to reconstitute can be used too. Imported ones were the only ones my Italian Grandmother used.
https://www.amazon.com/Mushroom-House-Dried-Porcini-Mushrooms/dp/B00Q2SWZPC/ref=sr_1_9_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1471217454&sr=8-9&keywords=porcini+mushrooms
@dave, likely louder too.
n
Most people don’t expect earthquakes to make noise but they do too.
n
A comment from the Gateway Pundit story about the Milwalkee rioting.
I’ve said pretty much what the Gateway Pundit said and what Fred (on Everything) has said on and off over the years and we got shrieked at as rayciss, of course. Well, how many more tens of trillions should we spend before we give it up as a bad job?
house fires I’ve seen before on TV don’t capture it
I have seen oil well fires on TV and people describe the noise and heat. Thought I knew what it was. About 8 years ago they had a fire about a mile from where I live as the crow flies, a little further by road.
http://www.easttennesseewildflowers.com/gallery/index.php/geology/Copy_of_OS_Fire2
A friend was in the fire department and got me access to the cordoned off area. So I took advantage to get some pictures. The roar was much louder than I expected. A deep thundering roar that you could feel.
I wanted to take some photographs so I asked one of the personnel on-site how close I could get. He said “as close as you want”. I did not realize what he meant until I got within about 100 yards. I could get no closer as the heat was horrible, as hot as I could stand. Between the roar and the heat the fire was just pure evil and much more than I expected.
http://www.raymondthompsonphotography.com/OWF
To see a few of the images. It was intense. Real respect for the chaps that fight those fires.
A comment from the Gateway Pundit story about the Milwalkee rioting.
…
Perhaps it is now time we stop.
This is by no means all of the blacks. I doubt that it is even 50% of them. I went to church this morning with several black people. Good people, hard workers. One of them was our lead song leader. And there are many more whites on welfare than blacks (numerically).
So, what do you want to stop ? Food stamps ? Section 8 ? WIC ? SSI ? All of these programs are nice to have until we go broke.
I blame the government. Too many programs handing out free benefits. And you know how people don’t value stuff that they are getting for free. Until they lose it. And too many immigrants taking entry level jobs.
Actually, I blame minimum wage the most. It used to be that people would go live with someone who needed help but would only get paid room, board, and a pittance. I have no idea how man people used to do this but it was a lot. Now you gotta pay them room, board, minimum wage, overtime, unemployment, etc, etc, etc.
Jerry Pournelle has decried the loss of the ‘board’ jobs too.
Employing illegals and immigrant adults in the entry level jobs leads to high unemployment among teens, a failure to introduce them to the value of work, and mischief for idle hands. Illegal immigrants have pushed blacks out of the low end of the labor market.
And yes, I’d end it all. It’s going to end one way or another, I’d rather it not bankrupt us first.
n
WRT civil rights movement and handouts, LBJ is famous for saying he’d have them voting democrat for generations.
And yes, I’d end it all. It’s going to end one way or another, I’d rather it not bankrupt us first.
Too late. $20 trillion in debt now. And three programs: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, rapidly rising in cost to $2 trillion per year. I have no idea how much food stamps, Obamacare, Section 8, and all the other dozens of welfare programs cost but it is a bunch. Maybe $500 billion per year.
EDIT: And just wait until the interest rates rise and the government cost of servicing the debt doubles or triples. The cost of servicing the debt is $600 billion per year right now.
“I went to church this morning with several black people. Good people, hard workers. One of them was our lead song leader. And there are many more whites on welfare than blacks (numerically).”
We’re not discussing them. And sure, we’ve got a buncha whites on welfare right here in this town. But they don’t riot when the Red Sox lose (or win) or after one of them gets arrested by the local cops (none have been shot by any cops here since the place was settled in the 18th-C). And if they DO get angry and bitter, they still don’t burn down their own businesses and set cars on fire. Neither do the whites on welfare in those cities. Where, incidentally, more whites are shot by police than blacks. Numerically, of course.
Then we can take a look at both black-on-black crime states and black-on-white stats and then reverse them for a yuuuuuuge eye-opening revelation, since the MSM absolutely will not report on this yuuuuuuuuge discrepancy.
@Ray – nice pictures.
I was interested in other pix that you might have, so went to your home page. Errors there, and elsewhere:
Got a ‘forbidden’ at http://www.raymondthompsonphotography.com/ . And a ‘parked’ 404 type page at http://www.raymondthompsonphotography.com/index.htm .
…and your WHOIS shows the domain name is expiring soon (next month).
Need some help with any of this?
I second Mr. Rick’s praise for your photos; effin spectacular, amigo! That’s what I call “hellfire.”
One of my brothers was a volunteer fireman in a small town ages ago, and Mrs. OFD routinely does classes for them around the country. I never had the ballz for that line of work; saw too much of it during my time pounding a beat.
Pax vobiscum, fratres; OFD is hitting the ol’ sackaroni and then back to the errands and grunt work here tomorrow for as long as I can.
Several of my coworkers did not buy into the American habit of bathing daily. One, in fact, did not bathe at all, for religious reasons, except back home in some sacred spring or something.
Lucky you ! I have experienced this also with foreign born programmers. Luckily, their natural smell is usually overwhelmed by their pores extruding jasmine, curry, or whatever their favorite spice is.
I heard Lt Col Dave Grossman speak a number of years ago. He has written extensively on the violence and down turn in our society. He had some things to say about bread and circuses and the FSA that were non-obvious to me then. it boiled down to ‘ya think sh*ts bad now wait until the well runs dry’.
I’m doing a poor job of conveying his ideas.
If you haven’t read any of his works I encourage you to find his site or grab something he has written.
He’s got some pretty useful words and ideas to share, and as I read this board, I see a lot of overlap.
Dave Grossman Killology site
Then we can take a look at both black-on-black crime states and black-on-white stats and then reverse them for a yuuuuuuge eye-opening revelation, since the MSM absolutely will not report on this yuuuuuuuuge discrepancy.
‘Dis be rayciss bleed. ‘Portin’ ya to Obola.
This is by no means all of the blacks. I doubt that it is even 50% of them. I went to church this morning with several black people
I agree as do most here I think. There are plenty of EuroRussian thuggery even in Vegas. So what’s the Dumbocrat libturd philosophy: IMPORT MORE! The new wave of cretins have a lot of WHITEY! looking folks who are here LEGALLY and therefore immediately on the goobermint tit. What else can the gooberment do? If they don’t feed, house, cloth and give them jobs, the life of crime is what’s left. It is absolutely insane. Nearly half the citizens are on welfare of some kind so let’s bring in more poor uneducated, unskilled, young male losers.
Game over, man, game over.
I am frequently surprised by the volume of acoustic instruments. We’ve been attending the live concerts that the Mount Pleasant Cemetery presents during the summer. The instruments are far louder than I would ever listen to at home, or could listen to even if I wanted to. Even a pair of harps were loud not to mention the strings, woodwinds and brass
instruments.
I simply can not imagine what the noise level is in combat. I don’t want to either.
I’ve often wondered why there are so few black owned businesses in black neighbourhoods. All the businesses there are run by (south Asian) Indians, Koreans, Chinese or immigrants from the Middle East. Yet the black communities keep complaining about being ripped off and exploited by all these non-black racists. I’m sure that BLM will sort it all out.
Loud enough to wake the dead, eh?
A long time ago my dad owned rental property. He bought properties in a black area, and I had a couple of interesting experiences hanging out with him. First, he went into business with a black guy he knew, because the properties were in a black area. Among other things, the black guy told him if they wanted their tenants to really listen, the white guy should do the talking. The other interesting thing was we were sitting in the living room of a nice black family in the neighborhood when one of them said most black folks don’t take care of their houses. I sat there silently because I figured if I said anything it would be impolite. I am not concerned with being Politically Correct. I am concerned with offending people who helped my dad by letting him know about the neighborhood that one of my dad’s properties was in.
so went to your home page. Errors there, and elsewhere
That is by design. There is no home page and never will be any home page. I use the site to post pictures for people and to store files to transfer to people in Germany. I used sub-directories which are not linked from the default landing page. Thus all links point to a specific sub-directory. It is not used for a “web page” in the classical sense. I don’t want search engines indexing the site or making it available for others to view. Most of the images that I put on the site for people to view are not watermarked and I don’t want them stolen. Thus I only give the links to specific people and remove the files in about a week.
domain name is expiring soon
I considered finding another place that can host. I am only paying $22 every three months. What I have is more than enough for my needs for this site. Site is always expiring within three months or shorter until the automatic payment is made, which makes it good for another three months.
Need some help with any of this?
Thanks for the offer. Based on what my needs are what I have works well enough. But I am open to suggestions.
“I used sub-directories which are not linked from the default landing page.”
This is specifically prohibited by my host’s TOS (GoDaddy). I don’t know if they actively look for it, or what they would do, but it’s a consideration.
n
This is specifically prohibited by my host’s TOS (GoDaddy)
I use 1and1 for hosting. Don’t know if such is prohibited. I have had the domain for several years and have been doing what I do with no issues. There is not default landing page such as index.htm. By using sub-directories the site is basically not searchable as nothing can be reached without knowing the name of the sub-directory. For the time being that is exactly how I want it.
Mr. Ray, ever thought of hosting your own server? It seems your simple needs* and your crazy skills would make it easy.
*No reference to your mind.
Regarding hosting: BlueHost/JustHost will host a simple site for about $5/month, although a special first-time signup deal will be cheaper. Domain name renewal should be about $15. I use JustHost for my place (http://bit.ly/2bt2jXC ), and BlueHost for Pournelle’s sites. (Both are owned by the same company, and have similar rates)
You might consider making a one-page home page advertising your business, with perhaps a ‘gallery’ page of sample pictures. (Could put it all on one page.) Maybe an email link for people to contact you.
Many people look for a business’ web page when they are looking for services. Doesn’t have to have sub-pages; the googles will only index the home page if there are no links to other pages there.
You can ask the googles for ‘site:yoursitename.com’ to see if there are any other site pages inadvertently indexed. If so, and they are pages that you don’t want indexed, just rename the pages, and they will drop off the indexes.
You could also use a 404-redirect to redirect 404 pages to your home folder.
All this depends on whether you want to have a web presence for your business. Doesn’t have to be fancy, but if I (as a potential customer) went to your home page now and saw that non-existent page, I’d be concerned about using your services.
Wouldn’t take much to create a ‘landing page’ with basic info for your business. And changing hosts to a yearly plan is not difficult – although some geeky is involved. After creating the site at the new hosting place, a change to the nameservers at your domain registrar is all that is needed. Most hosting places will also be your domain registrar.
Just some thoughts.
I would never own the physical equipment hosting a website. You really want somebody else to host your site. Otherwise, you will spend your days applying patches, fighting off crackers, fixing dead case fans, etc. I pay Pair Networks $300/month to host my websites (I have 7 at the moment) on a dedicated server with a 10 TB/month bandwidth budget. I dont even come close to that as we usually only serve 50 to 100 GB per month.
A long time ago my dad owned rental property. He bought properties in a black area, and I had a couple of interesting experiences hanging out with him. First, he went into business with a black guy he knew, because the properties were in a black area. Among other things, the black guy told him if they wanted their tenants to really listen, the white guy should do the talking. The other interesting thing was we were sitting in the living room of a nice black family in the neighborhood when one of them said most black folks don’t take care of their houses. I sat there silently because I figured if I said anything it would be impolite. I am not concerned with being Politically Correct. I am concerned with offending people who helped my dad by letting him know about the neighborhood that one of my dad’s properties was in.
Never again. Renting Section 8 property out is horrible. Maybe if the entire home was concrete. Nope, never again.
The last tenants did not throw out their trash for the last two months or so, just bagged it and threw in the corner of the living room (the stack almost touched the ceiling). And the kitchen sink (stuff was moving in there when we went in). I got the heaves several times that week and had to run outside. The people were subhuman. I mean, who cannot take trash bags to the curb ?
I experiment with my Mac mini with a small website. Maintenance is low plus I serve my TeeVee and Mooovies to my Apple TeeVee. Just use an IP address for the web site.
Mr. Ray, ever thought of hosting your own server?
Comcast will not allow me hosting my own server.
You really want somebody else to host your site
Indeed. Too much hassle installing all the software, keeping the system going 24 hours a day, blocking nefarious visitors, etc. Best leave that to people that do it for a living.
You might consider making a one-page home page advertising your business
Good advice which I will consider. My current hosting is $7.50 a month which is not far from the $5.00 that you presented.
I may just put in an index.html page that redirects the person to my Facebook page. Most of my images are posted on FB anyway, especially the sports pictures. I am not real interested in acquiring paid functions at this time in my life. Lot of hassles.
I won’t do a wedding for less than $1,000 and there are a lot of clowns that will do a wedding for $200.00. Client gets what they pay for and that is OK with me. A wedding is a lot of work, lot of hassles, lot of aggravation. A good wedding coverage takes a minimum of about 20 hours with the ceremony, reception and post processing. I refuse to work for less than $50 an hour.
I have a niece’s wedding in March in Texas. Wife said we would do the images for free, grrrrr. That is even more of a hassle than charging. I just want to have fun taking pictures, weddings are generally not fun. Especially when the parents are divorced and remarried. Lot of family dynamics (feuding) that make getting good family groups difficult. Mother and father of the bride that refuse to be in the same picture with each other or the new spouses of their ex-spouse. Grrrrr.
As a woodwind player (bassoon), hearing protection is essential as I previously mentioned. HD video, so you can see the plugs in place (first few minutes is me on cam),
Highlights from The Seville Suite
Woodwinds are invariably in front of brass and percussion in ensembles.
.mg
The volume of electric instruments and amplifiers and microphones probably contributed to my hearing issues over the years, before, during and after my mil-spec service, which involved a chit-load of firearms and explosives. The Who in the old Boston Garden was pretty effin loud, let me tell ya.
Yeah, I think I remember hearing The Who at Boston Garden, and I was standing in Pennsylvania at the time.
With the predominance of in ear monitors and synthesized tube amps, it’s a bit disconcerting how quiet it can be onstage these days. Drummers are often behind plexiglas and they still use floor wedges, but most people who can afford them use in ears. Plenty of evidence of hearing loss in the music industry as a cautionary tale.
The advent of linear arrays in the house PA makes it possible to get better sound with lower SPL in the house too. ‘Course, some audiences want it LOUD.
n
“Yeah, I think I remember hearing The Who at Boston Garden, and I was standing in Pennsylvania at the time.”
You must have also heard the sudden drop in the noise when Keith Moon passed out and fell over his drum set. Concert over fifteen minutes after starting. We all got a rain check (I’ve told this story before here) and they came back a couple of months later and did a four-hour concert with people in Ohio complaining about the noise. Also some fishing trawlers in the north Atlantic bitched.
I’ve heard The Who live. Only thing I’ve ever heard that was louder than shooting an MG-42.
I saw them in ’82 in Chicago. Don’t remember a whole lot…
n
“Don’t remember a whole lot…”
Uh-oh….what were YOU doing then?
The old Boston Gahden was a real trip back in the day; (late 60s and early 70s) very steep audience seats and I seem to recall a narrow venue focused on down to the stage; saw the Stones there, too, when they had Billy Preston with them. We were probably smoking hash in pipes and drinking Jack Daniels. And then driving home afterward twenty miles to Framingham.
Yes, I’ve sometimes led a charmed life, with guardian angels working overtime.
No hash, just contact, and probably green label Jack….
n