One Man's Trash...

I'm a sucker for garage sales. I usually drag Nicole out of bed way too early Saturday morning just so I can paw through other people's junk. We found all kinds of cool stuff, and we walked away with a few esentials. We bought a tin with penguins on it for Christmas decoration (10 Cents), a Halloween jar ($3), a play tent for my niece and nephew ($2), a croquet set ($5), a few books ($1.50), Scotland Yard board game (50 cents), a vintage Outburst board game (50 cents), 2 puzzles ($1), washer and dryer ($500).

I think my favorite thing we got was a pipe stand with four pipes. Supposable it's circa World War 2, or so they say. We got it for $5. We thought it would look cool on a bookshelf.. The stand almost looks home made. The drawer is made out of 1/4" plywood which had some tear out from a table saw (which indicates an amateur, perhaps). There were also glue marks at the joints, which I wouldn't expect from a professional. I took it home, cleaned it up and it looks great. I wonder who it belonged to. Who made the stand? I wonder if all 4 pipes were his. If he smoked thme on a regular basis. They were pretty well caked. What did he smoke? It's kinda interesting to think about some of those kinds of things. Not that it matters, I guess. It still looks great on my bookshelf.

Hey, that Grill took my Rib!

I'm not sure if you know it or not, but I like to grill during the summer. Last night I decided I'd try to cook ribs. We found a good deal for a rack of spare ribs for $6. How can I pass this up?

I've never done this before, so it was quite an adventure. The problem is, you can't simply go on the internet and find a simple recipe for cooking ribs. This is due to the fact that people who like to cook ribs REALLY like to cook ribs. So all of the recipes you find on the internet take a week to prepare with super complicated rubs and marinades and sauces. You can't find a recipe that says, "cook it for so long and throw some bottled sauce on it and call it good." So I basically had to make it up myself. I don't want to brag or anything, but they were FANTASTIC!

There are two ways people cook ribs. The first is to precook the ribs, then finish it off on the grill. The other way is to slowly cook it on the grill for two plus hours.

Here's how I did it:

First, I decided to precook them the night before, then throw them on the grill when I got home from work the next day. I cut up a whole white onion into wedges and threw them into a deep fry pan. Then I took a whole bulb of garlic and threw in whole pealed cloves (all of them). I cut the rack in half and placed it on top of the onions and garlic. I poured a 24oz can of Bud Light over everything. I covered the pan and simmered it for about an hour and a half.

After I was done cooking, I pulled it out and scraped off any stowaway onions or garlic and let it rest for 10 minutes. After that was done, I put the ribs in a baking dish, and poured an entire bottle of BBQ sauce over it. I took care to brush it over the entire rack of ribs. I covered it and put it into the fridge over night, letting it marinade.

When I got home the next day, I removed the ribs and reserved the leftover sauce. It's a good idea to bring the leftover sauce to a slow boil to kill any bacteria. Then I preheated the grill. Because BBQ sauce burns pretty easily, I made sure to grill it with indirect heat. The best way to do that is to turn off the middle burner on a 3 burner grill Place the ribs over the turned off burner. Make sure to rotate the ribs, flip them over, and of course baste them with the leftover BBQ sauce on a regular basis (about every 5-10 minutes). I cooked them for about 40 minutes. Take them from the grill, let them rest for 10 minutes, then dig on in!

Free Breast Exams!!

Check this guy out. He went door to door in Florida offering free breast exams to women in the neighborhood. He claimed to be a doctor. Of course he was arrested after only two exams. The lady got suspicious when he did her exam without wearing rubber gloves.

I would think that most people would get suspicious when he shows up on the doorstep offering free breast exams, but maybe that's just me.

I Got Wood

Well, I decided to create another blog. We'll see if it sticks or not. I'm calling it Werkstatt von Travis. It's a rough German translation of Workshop of Travis (thanks google translator!). Anyway, I'm trying to get into woodworking and this is a blog chronicaling my journey through this uncharted territory. It might be good for a laugh or a 'What the fark' moment. We'll see. Anyway, check it out. I got a link on the side panel. Add yourself to the frappr. Also, add yourself to this frappr too, while you're at it.

Just a Heads Up

Just so you know. I bought another cigar today. A Partagas Perfecto. There's a very good chance that I'll smoke it on Saturday. Perhaps wash it down with a beer. A bottle of 1554, to be exact (a Brussels style black ale from the New Belgium brewing company...fantastic).

Good Friday, Business as Normal

Well, its Good Friday today, and I'm at work. I guess people don't think that Good Friday is a real holiday anymore. It seems Easter is hardly even worth celebrating. Are Christian holidays are slowly disappearing? I guess it's more PC to not give Good Friday off than it is to have it off. Christian holiday put aside, if nothing else, the Easter weekend is a time (like Thanksgiving) where families can get together and be with one another. I would think by that fact alone, Easter weekend would be a bigger deal. Or is families un-PC too?

Return Of The Star Wars Kid

Well, I don't know if you remember this or not. But a year or two back, a highschool kid was made famous by some his classmates. He borrowed a videocamera from the AV department, then proceeded to videotape himself pretending to be a Jedi Master. Unfortunately, he left the tape in the camera which was later found. These kids watched the tape and thought it was hilarious. They doctored it up with some sound and visual fx and posted it on the internet for all to see. This video became HUGE. Unfortunately, the poor kid was tormented everywhere he went. Anyway, the kid's parents filed a lawsuit against the kids who put the tape onto he internet and finally won. He walked away with $351k in damages. It's become a landmark case for 'cyber bullying' as they called it.

The irony is, when the news broke about the results of the lawsuit, it seems everybody tried to redownload it. I know I certainly did. Sites hosting this videos are being pinged to death from downloaders. Many sites already pulled the videos and any reference to the Star Wars Kid. I'm not sure if they are afraid that they will be sued too, or if its because of court order or if it is because they don't want so many people out there messing up their bandwidth.

What seemed like a harmless prank snowballed into something major. I feel bad for the Star Wars Kid, because I do believe he was negatively affected. It's hard to be the butt of a joke. But on the other hand, how were the other kids suppose to know. If I found that video, I'd probably find it funny and probably do the same thing, not thinking of the consequences. I would think it was all in the name of good fun. That's the highschooler's mindset.

I would definitely feel bad if I truly hurt someone and try to rectify the situation as much as I can. But in this day of instant distribution, there's not much you can do. It's so easy to lose control of this monster and it takes on a life of it's own. Even without you prodding it along. Technology is definitely shrinking the world.

The Good Life

Well, it's summertime once again. Which means spending my time on the patio with a cigar and a beer and watching life go by. I am very excited today, because I bought my first cigar of the summer. I went over to Tobacco Row today (just down the block from where I work) and walked into their humidor. Ahhhh....man I missed that. I haven't been in a walk-in humidor in YEARS. It was a beautiful thing. Plus, to top it all off, they expanded their humidor. Now it's about twice as big as it use to be. Maybe a tish bit bigger. Very nice selection. They had a whole slew of new cigar brands I have never tried. I can't decide if I want to branch out a bit or stick to the tried and true from the ol' school days. I'll probably stick to my brands for now.

Someday, when I get better at woodworking, I'm gunna build my own humidor. Just a tiny little one that holds 4 or so cigars. I don't need on of those huge ones. I don't smoke that many cigars. But I wouldn't mind having a small stash of cigars on hand, just in case I feel like enjoying life for an hour or so.

Now I gotta get you guys down here so we can enjoy a cigar on my patio. I'll even throw in a few grilled burgers. You in?

Sick of Netflix!

So I have been a member of Netflix for about 2 years now. Since I moved back to Montana, their service suuuuux. Our distribution house is in Denver. If we mail back our movie on Monday, they won't get around to shipping the movie until Friday. Last time it actually took a week and a half to ship the movie. It should NOT take that long to get to Denver. I figure 2 days to mail, one day to process, and 2 days to ship. I should get it by Friday! When I was in LA, we'd get our Movies in about 3 days. That includes mailing, them processing, and them mailing out our movie and us having it in our hands. It was beautiful. We always had movies to watch for the weekend. Nowadays, I'd be lucky to get 3 movies a month. I've heard others have the same problem. When you are new, your service is awesome. But after awhile, you're service gets progressively worse. They must put you on an "Old User, Bad Service" list or something. I'd quite the service, but they do have obscure titles that you can't get locally. Nicole likes a lot of British TV comedies, and you certainly won't find those in Billings Montana. We might look into Blockbuster. They are getting big enough with the internet rentals, they might have the selection we want now. But we spent so much time putting together our queue list. Blockbuster should put together a way of getting our cue list off Netflix. If they do, I'd switch over now.