Turkey Goodness

Hello everyone.

As we wrap up November 2011, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that this past October marked five years of me doing this blog. Yay!

Of course, I probably should have mentioned that last month when it was actually five years to the day, not today. What's the point in celebrating a five year, one month, and two day anniversary?

But I didn't realize I'd passed the five year milestone until a couple days ago. I have a hard enough time remembering my own birthday, let alone my blog's birthday, so cut me some slack.

I've been teaching myself HTML and CSS lately. I'm also planning on learning Javascript and some other computer languages, programs, and/or software in the near future. I have an idea for a website that I'm going to try to build myself, either from scratch or by customizing a template. I had been thinking about trying to find someone to build the site for me, but then I just thought, "Why can't I build it myself?" I already have some basic HTML experience from this blog, from our photo site, and from other projects, and I'm fairly intelligent, so why not learn how to do it myself?

But I'm quickly discovering that this sort of stuff is incredibly tedious to study. It's not terribly difficult--it's just all right-brain stuff. Or is it left brain? I always confuse the two. What I'm trying to say is that it's all logical stuff. So I find myself walking around with a headache most of the time. Maybe it's just a tumor and completely unrelated to the HTML and CSS language stuff. Or not.

I think it will be much easier once I start playing around with the language instead of just studying it. I'm probably going to fool around with the colors and fonts and formatting right here on this blog. I won't make any big changes (at least not on purpose) because after five years, I'm used to this layout the way it is. But I used the stock Blogger template when I first started this blog, and I'm really bored with it. So I'll probably change the colors at the very least.

The new project won't have much to do with what I do here, so I plan on continuing with this blog. Although, the new project will kinda involve Tucker. Stay tuned.

Thanksgiving News

Well, the turkey we made seemed to be a hit because Cathy and I sure got lots of compliments. I think if we're going to do it again, barbecuing is definitely the way to go. Here's what we did:

We started with an 18 pound turkey. I didn't want one that big, but it was the smallest one we found. Also, full disclosure: I broke one of my rules and didn't get a sustainably-raised turkey, mainly because a sustainably-raise turkey would've cost around $100 and required a drive to Spokane. So we caved and went to the local Safeway instead.

Here's how we prepared it. We thawed it in the beer fridge for a few days prior to Thanksgiving. By Thursday morning it still hadn't thawed all the way, so we soaked it in cold water in the sink for a half hour or so. Meanwhile, we:

• Cored two apples and cut them into chunks
• Peeled two Mandarin oranges and split them into segments
• Diced a couple stalks of celery 
• Diced an onion
• Peeled several (don't remember how many) cloves of garlic and cut them in half.

We mixed all those ingredients with some fresh sage and stuffed it into the cavity.  Then we coated the turkey skin with melted butter.  Finally, we put the stuffed bird in a roasting pan and put the neck, giblets, and extra stuffing in the pan around the turkey, and added a cup or so (didn't measure) of white wine to the pan.

For the barbecue, I started a chimney of "real wood" charcoal (in Eugene I used to get mesquite charcoal, but the closest I can find here is "real wood"--it doesn't say what kind).  When the coals were ready, I dumped them in the barbecue and put the turkey pan on the grill.  It barely fit under my Weber barbecue lid.  I started a second chimney, and when that was ready, I added it to the first, along with some mesquite chips that had been soaking in water.

From then on, we checked the barbecue every once in a while to baste the turkey and see how things were going.  Incidentally, we couldn't find a turkey baster (though I'm sure we have one somewhere in the house), so Cathy went to Safeway to buy one, and of course they were all sold out.  All they had was one meat injector, which she picked up.  It actually worked better than a baster because we could baste with it and inject juice into the turkey.

A couple hours in, I added a third chimney of charcoal, and that was all I needed in total.

About four hours or so after we started, it was done.  Here's what it looked like:

Not bad, eh?

We also made slow cooker stuffing and garlicky mashed potatoes.  My sister made sweet potatoes, homemade bread, and a couple desserts, while my nephew's wife (my niece-in-law?) made salad and another dessert, and my niece brought drinks and deviled eggs.  Everything was fantastic (except the deviled eggs, which I think are always disgusting, so I didn't have any, though other people said they were good).

In short, it was a success.

It was also lots of fun to hang out with the family.  Even though we live within an hour or two of each of them, we don't get to see them very much, mainly because they live an hour or two away.

Anyway, with an 18 pound turkey, even though we insisted that our family take some with them (they didn't seem to mind too much), we still had lots of leftovers.  Over the weekend I made a batch of my "award-winning" chili, substituting leftover turkey for the beef, but keeping the pork.  It was an all-white-meat chili.  I still plan on posting the chili recipe here at some point, I promise.

Cathy also made a damn good stock out of the turkey carcass plus some onion, celery, and seasonings.  Then she used some of the stock to make turkey noodle soup.  We also had turkey tacos.  And turkey sandwiches.  So many turkey sandwiches.

Fortunately, all the turkey is now either gone or is in soup or chili in the freezer.  I think I've had enough for a while.

And Now, A Musical Interlude

After posting a Tortoise video in my last blog, I realized this is the video I should've posted instead. It's not that the music is any better here than in the live video--it's just that this video is a lot of fun, especially for someone into photography like I am. Here it is:



Reading Materials

This one is going to be a long one.  Cue the obligatory "That's what she said" joke...

• Matt Taibbi talks about the UC Davis pepper spraying
• Naomi Wolf has "the shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy" 
• Joshua Holland says Naomi Wolf is full of shit
• Right-libertarian Ron Paul consultant Lew Rockwell criticizes conservatives who sided with the UC Davis police
• An open email about Occupy Austin by anthropologist and anarchist David Graeber 
• Even Martha Stewart has a sense of humor
• Five ways our generation ruined the OWS generation
• The ten stupidest objections to OWS
• Right-wing website reporters were beaten by NYPD, then helped by Occupy Wall Street protesters
• Occupy Eugene protesters targeted Wal-Mart on Black Friday
• In other Wal-Mart news: an older customer put a video game in his waistband to free up his hands.  In response cops slammed him to the floor, leaving him bloody and unconscious
• And to complete the Wal-Mart trifecta: if the cops don't injure you, your fellow customers will
• South Carolina cops killed a man with a Taser because he wouldn't stop his bicycle when they called to him.  The man was deaf and mentally handicapped.  The cops were there in the first place because someone reported seeing a man fall off his bike.  Standard procedure?
• An Ohio woman was assaulted, and the cops end up taking the victim to jail, forcibly strip searching her (some of the cops were male) while someone videotaped it, and then leaving her nude in her cell for hours.  Standard procedure?
• Miami cops caught on tape laughing about shooting an unarmed protester in the face.  Standard procedure?
• The militarization of the police continues
• Three for the price of one: Teenage high school student said Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback "sucked" on Twitter and was forced by principal to apologize after Brownback's office complained; student rightly refused; then Brownback ended up apologizing for sucking so bad.  See?  Sometimes news stories have a happy ending.
• Thanks to the Bush tax cuts, the average top 1% will get a tax cut that's worth more than the total income of the average bottom 99%
• Speaking of Bush, he cancelled a trip to Switzerland over fears he'd get arrested for engaging in torture.  Now if they'd only apply the same standard to Obama...
• You can't even count on "respectable" publications like Time if you want to be informed
• You can't even count on "respectable" TV networks like The Discovery Channel if you want to be informed
• No, it's not 1950, but sometimes it seems like it is.  A Kentucky church banned interracial couples.
• As if it's not strange enough that an Amish clan goes around cutting the hair and beards of other Amish people, the clan leader's name is "Mullet."  If this were an Onion story proposal, it would be rejected as too far-fetched.
• Tee-hee
• The benefits of being a polar bear zookeeper

In Closing

Do me a favor, drop by check out my friend Erin's new website, Cross Sectional Views. She's a great writer, and her posts are insightful and always worth a read.

Now here it is, your moment of Tucker (taken last August):

Rob

Camping, Pavement, and Taxes, Oh My

Hello everyone.

I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing on a beautiful, sunny August morning than blogging. Actually, I can think of lots of things. But here we are, so let's get started.

Personal (with a little food and beer talk thrown in)

We had a fun time camping last night. A few months ago, we picked up a huge new tent to replace our old one, which had taken quite a bit of abuse when we went on our huge, five-week long mega trip. If you click on our photo website, OutTherePhotography.com, you can read all about the trip, and, of course, take a look at some of the many photos we took along the way. Anyway, we had been excited about trying out the new tent, but most of the summer so far has been spent traveling to writing conferences, art shows, friends' graduations, etc., that we just haven't had the chance (or haven't made time) to go camping. We finally made it happen last night.

The tent was awesome. It was a clear enough night to leave the rainfly off, and because the top is almost entirely netting, we were able to look up at the stars when we went to sleep. During our mega trip last year, we did lots of camping, and so we had set ourselves up for sleeping comfort by including a queen-sized air mattress and two extra-large rectangular sleeping bags that we zipped together to make one giant bag. We didn't exactly "rough it" on our trip. Last night we used the same set up, and naturally it worked great.

But it couldn't be a camping trip without food cooked outside, preferably over a fire. In this case we cooked cheese smokies over a campfire. Back in my vegetarian days, I would've gagged over the thought of a cheese smokie (before gagging down my Tofurkey kielbasa), but I've since been converted. This was no Oscar Mayer crap, either. The smokies were locally-made from locally, sustainably, and humanely raised meat, which is the only kind of meat I'll eat.

There was also adequate beer, in this case Session Lager from Full Sail. I've been into "smaller" beers lately, and a few ice-cold lagers around a campfire after a hot August day was perfect.

Did I mention that all this took place in our backyard? Normally, we would go somewhere else for camping, preferably some place with water. But this was Tucker's first camping trip, and in the unlikely event of him freaking out and barking or whining or who knows what, we didn't want it to happen in a campground where other people would get disturbed. Of course, he seemed to have no problem with the concept of sleeping in a tent for the night. He was curled up on the air mattress ready to go for bed before we were. I guess he's saving his freak out for when we actually do go to a campground where there's lots of sleeping people nearby.

And Now, a Musical Interlude

I had a dream last night that Pavement was playing in one on the local bars up here, and I've had this song stuck in my head all day. So without further ado...



Unfair (Music and Lyrics by Pavement)

Down to Santa Rosa and over the bay
Across the grapevine to LA
We got deserts we got trees
We got the hills of Beverly
Let's burn the hills of Beverly

Walk with your credit card in the air
Swing your nunchucks like you just don't care
This is a slow, sick suckin' part of me
This is a slow, sick suckin' part of me
And when I'm sucking kisses, sour

Up to the top of Shasta gulch
To the bottom of the Tahoe Lake
Man made deltas and concrete rivers
The south takes what the north delivers
You film hack, I don't use your pay

Lost in the foothills of Mount Pine
Drinking Euro, say goodnight
to the last psychedelic band
from Sac to Northern Cal
from Sac to Northern Cal

Taylor, neighbor
You're my neighbor
And I need favors
You're my neighbor
You don't need favors
'Cause I'm your neighbor
I'm not your neighbor
You crazy street trash

Politics

An IRS report showed that almost 1,500 millionaires and billionaires paid no income tax in 2009. Why? Because our tax system allows for all sorts of loopholes, and most of these loopholes aren't available to us non-millionaires (or at least not in a way that we can avoid paying income tax altogether), because we usually don't have the ability to donate heavily to charities and don't have sizable foreign investments. This is an example of how our tax system is skewed to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us.

Other examples? Long term capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than regular income, so if you make your living from buying and selling stocks or real estate (other than your home), you pay a lower tax rate than a school teacher or firefighter.

But it's not just income tax. The Social Security Wage Base (cap) is $106,800 for 2010. This means that someone making $106,800 in 2010 will pay the same amount of Social Security tax as someone who brings in $106 million in 2010. Not the same rate--the same dollar amount: $6,621.60.

Property and sales tax tend to also be regressive. Take two hypothetical people: one who made $50,000 last year (we'll call him Jack), and the other $5 million (we'll call her Jill). Property tax is based on property value, and while it's likely Jill's property is worth more than Jack's, it's extremely unlikely that hers is worth 100 times the amount. So a lower percentage of Jill's $5 million in income goes to property tax when compared to Jack. Same with sales tax. Jill is likely to spend more than Jack, but 100 times more? Not likely. It's possible Jill spends more on gas (and thus, gas tax) than Jack, but is she using 100 times as much gas? No way. And on and on.

As I discussed previously, Congress is eliminating programs designed to help Jack rather than have Jill pay one cent more, despite the fact that across the board, Jack pays a higher percentage of his paycheck on taxes than Jill does. Congress is doing this to help pay down a debt caused by tax cuts that mostly benefited Jill, wars that people in Jack's income bracket are much more likely to fight than Jill's, and rampant unemployment caused by a financial meltdown created by people in Jill's income bracket. I don't know how it could be clearer who Congress works for. Hint: it ain't you or me.

So the next time someone claims we shouldn't tax the wealthy to pay for programs to help poor people or to pay off the debt because "we shouldn't punish job creators," remind them the wealthy are already paying next to nothing, and then ask them just where in the hell are the jobs?

In Closing

On that note, enjoy this sunny August day (assuming it's sunny and/or still August when you read this), and I will see you next time.

Rob

Home Again

Hello everyone!

I'm back from the Willamette Writers Conference, and I'm glad I went. I learned lots of good stuff about the craft of writing fiction. I had been writing pretty much on instinct, and that was going fine, but there's nothing like being able to step back and look at writing from a pragmatic perspective in terms of writing strong sentences, keeping the story moving while creating a setting, focusing on consistency in point-of-view, and avoiding lazy writing. A classic example of lazy writing is, "He walked angrily across the room," as opposed to, "He stomped across the room." I have lots of "walked angrily" in my manuscript, so I'll definitely be going back and making my writing tighter and more descriptive (and better) when I'm revising. I also learned that exclamation points are lazy, and that I should show exclamation with my word choices, not punctuation. My story is loaded with exclamation points, so that's another thing I'll need to work on.

I'm tempted to pepper this blog with tons of exclamation points just to get it out of my system, because blogs aren't bound by the same rules as fiction. But I think it's good to get in the habit of avoiding them in all my writing, so if you love exclamation points, this may no longer be the blog for you. And, no, that doesn't give license for smartass readers to point out in the comments every time I forget and use one, okay?

Personal

Important stuff I very recently learned: Sometimes you have teeter right on the edge of losing something to realize how important it is to you.

The above statement is as cheesy as I ever hope to get here, so if you're into that kind of crap, enjoy it while you can.

Moving on.

Politics

I shut myself off from the political world during my stay in Portland, so I can't comment on anything specific. But it's safe to say violence is happening somewhere, people are dying for no good reason, politicians are making truly outrageous and/or stupid claims, and the ultrawealthy are getting ultrawealthier. And most people feel powerless to do anything about it. Am I right?

Food

If you ever find yourself in Portland, do yourself a favor and head on down to the D Street Noshery on Division and 32nd and pick up some Bulgogi Tacos from KOI Fusion's food RV. Then sit down under the tent and wash your food down with a pint or three from Captured by Porches Brewing Company's beer bus. You'll be glad you did. I was.

I also highly recommend stopping by Genies Cafe on Division and 11th for breakfast. The chorizo scramble is all kinds of amazing.

In Closing

I'm going to wrap things up somewhat early because I'm motivated to get back to writing my book. Until we meet again!

Rob

DW&F: McMenamins and Belgians

Hello everyone!

I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to keep up the Daily Win and FAIL! I've enjoyed doing it, but I've found that there have been other things I've wanted to blog about, but either I couldn't or I had to try to turn it into a Win or FAIL since I'm somewhat committed to this format. I'd still like to try to blog every day, and maybe I'll do an "Occasional Win and FAIL" instead of a daily one. Who knows.

Daily Win and FAIL!

Win: McMenamins

I love McMenamins, and I love that Eugene has three of them. We've recently rediscovered McMenamins East 19th Street Cafe, and treated ourselves to dinner there tonight. They had their Porter on Nitro, which is always a pleasure, and we finished our dinner by sharing a Terminator Stout Milkshake. Win!

FAIL: Belgian Style Ale

I picked up a 6-pack of the latest of the Widmer Brewers' Release series, this being the W '09 Belgian Style Ale. I usually don't like Belgian brews, but I've had great luck with the W '08 and the W '07, so I thought I'd give it a shot. The upshot: I still don't like Belgian brews. But I'll finish this 6-pack, particularly because growing up I was taught to finish whatever I start. FAIL!

Rob

DW&F: Smorgasbord Edition

Hello everyone!

I hope everyone had a great New Year's Eve, and I hope 2009 will kick at least three different types of ass for each of y'all. I'm thinking that the next 365 days has some pretty good potential, but we'll see what happens. My high school principal used to say, "Potential and 50 cents will buy you a can of Coke." We used to make fun of that saying (behind his back, of course). I think he would've had more luck if he used a different saying, such as, "Wish in one hand, crap in the other."

Anyway, I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions, mainly because I tend to break them. But I thought this year I might resolve to be more appreciative of what I have in life. As it stands, I don't spend my time thinking my life sucks or that it would be better if things were different or anything like that. I'm also consciously aware that I'm pretty fortunate in many aspects. But I do have a bad habit of when things are going well, I get used to things going well--to the point that I sometimes expect it. Expecting things to go well is just a recipe for disappointment. So I'm going to try to be more appreciative from now on. We'll see how it goes.

Enough of this blathering on and on about stupid crap that no one cares about except two or three people! Let's get back on track for 2009!

Daily Win and FAIL (Bonus Edition)!

Win: Family and holidays!


We headed up to Sandpoint and my side of the family all gathered at my mom's house on Christmas Eve. Above is my great-niece Angela and the enormous stuffed dog we got her for Christmas, which she, after much soul-searching, contemplation, and deliberation, decided to name, "Wilbur." That's her mom and brother, Micah, to the right in the second photo. Micah is growing so quickly that he's almost a real person now!

This is where not having kids pays off. We can visit our relatives a couple times a year and ooh and aah about how adorable the kids are, but we don't have to worry about feeding and clothing them, changing their diapers, dealing with them if they throw a tantrum in public, worrying about them 24/7, and being completely responsible for them and everything they do for 18 years. When we go to the grocery store and hear a kid screaming twelve aisles away, we can just throw up our arms and say, "Not our problem!" Win!

Oh wait, that wasn't the original point of this "Win," was it? It was about family, and it was great see the North Idaho crew.

After Christmas, we headed west to Cathy's parents' house.

This is Cathy's sister, Christy, and her wanna-be lap dog, Kodi. The two of them flew down from Alaska to Sandpoint (actually Spokane), and if you're a regular reader, you may remember them as being our tour guides during our Alaska expedition last September. It was also great to see them again, as well as Cathy's parents.

It's always a treat to head up north and see the family, and no, I'm not just saying that because a few of them read this blog. Win!

Win: Sledding down my sister's road

My sister, Christine, lives on a road that is appropriately-named Hellroaring Road:


View Larger Map

For some reason, Google Maps calls a different road to the south "Hellroaring Road" and calls my sister's road "National Forest Develop Rd 2431," but they're wrong, and hers is actually Hellroaring Road, I assure you. I think. Anyway, she and her husband, Sam, have a beautiful home that Sam built as well as a yak farm, all of which is located in the satellite photo to the right of the clear-cuts. Hellroaring Road ends (and the sled route begins) right near the upper-right point on the clear-cut area. From there it goes up and to the right, then turns somewhat down and to right, before curving upward again and hitting a big, nasty switchback (where the sledding route ended) just before hitting Pack River Road. Just look at the above satellite/map that I went through all the trouble of posting. It's the main line across the satellite photo!

Though it's hard to tell from the photo, the road is downhill the entire time, sometimes rather steeply (click on the "Ter" button to see a topographic map), and when we were sledding down the hill, it was of course covered with plenty of snow:

Here's my niece, Aurae, and her boyfriend, Noah, as they are flying through the air after hitting the jump that Sam built with his plow at the bottom of the hill just before the big switchback. As if the mile-long sled run wasn't action-packed enough! I'm sure these two will make some chiropractor very happy some day, based on the audible "thud" I heard as they landed on the icy road surface just past the jump, which was then followed by them moaning and groaning in pain (and laughing).

Aside from the vertebrae-compressing Evel Knievel impressions, the sled ride down the hill is always fun, and it's something I look forward to every time we go to Sandpoint in the winter. The best part is that there's a truck waiting at the bottom to drive you back to the top so you can go again. And when you're wet and cold, you can always go inside the house and sit next to the wood stove and sip piping-hot cocoa. Win!

FAIL: Snow in Portland?

Initially, we planned on leaving Eugene the Monday afternoon/evening before Christmas and staying the night in Portland with some friends. To make a long story short, Portland ended up with something like 67 feet of snow, and since they never get snow, the two plows owned by the city and county (one apiece) were not nearly enough to open the roads. Our only route to go east from Portland, I-84, was ostensibly closed between Troutdale and Hood River, so we ended up having to go over Santiam Pass to Redmond on Tuesday morning and didn't get to see anyone in Portland like we'd planned. To make matters worse, our friend who was going to fly into Portland for the holidays and see some other friends in Portland apparently ended up stuck in Seattle, and I don't think any of them got to see each other, either. FAIL!



Win/FAIL: The drive

After leaving Eugene, we crossed Santiam Pass without too much difficulty. Even though the pass got much more snow than I-84, those mountain people are prepared and know how to remove it. We were supposed to chain up to go over the pass, but the road was pretty clear, and I didn't feel like pulling over and getting dirty. So I just pushed on without chains or snow tires, and of course the Subaru handled brilliantly. The Beauty of All-Wheel Drive! Just ask this guy. Win!

After the pass and a quick pit stop in Sisters (the biggest tourist crap trap in Oregon), we turned left in Redmond and headed north up highway 97 toward Biggs. This was Cathy's first time and my second time ever driving this section of the route, so it was interesting to see new stuff but simultaneously annoying that we had no choice but to go that way. We hit I-84 well to the east of the closed area in Biggs (where we learned that the closed part had actually opened that morning and we probably could've gone that route), and the roads weren't as bad as they could've been the rest of the trip. Win!

Here we are traveling through the Gorge. I should probably be paying more attention to my driving than taking pictures, but what can I say? I like to live dangerously!

Unlike most people in Eugene, I learned how to drive in snow, which included my first winter in Michigan in 1991, when I put my 1987 Plymouth Horizon in the same ditch twice--the second time rolling and totaling it. That was a tough lesson to learn, but I learned it, and now I'm for the most part comfortable and confident driving in snow, other than the knowledge that there are lots of other people on the road who don't know what they're doing. Those people frankly scare the crap out of me. Fortunately, they decided not to crash into us. Win!

Anyway, we made it to Sandpoint in a little over 12 hours, which is not bad considering the drive was 568 miles (give or take). Tired and Hungry Win!

The drive back home was a different story. The night before we left, we heard about a "Severe Winter Storm Warning" scheduled for 10 am the day we were supposed to be leaving in North Idaho. No problem, I thought, we'd just be on the road before 8 am and be long gone before it gets nasty.

Wrong!

Apparently, the storm didn't watch the news report we were watching, and didn't realize that it was about three hours early, so it hit just before we left. FAIL!

This is what we ended up dealing with in Spokane. It was snowy, the roads were terrible, there were people going way too fast, there were people going way too slow, and we were hung up in morning rush hour traffic in Spokane. Did I mention that we were stuck in Spokane? FAIL!



We finally made it through the nastiness, and once we turned south on 395, things cleared up, and the sun actually came out a little bit! Win!

From then on it was smooth sailing weather-wise, but because we were behind schedule, we hit evening rush-hour traffic in Portland. FAIL!

Fortunately, we didn't encounter this car or its driver. We did, however, manage to make it home after about 10 hours of driving thanks to my insistence on the three-quick-stop-maximum rule. Win!

Win: New Year's Eve

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with New Year's Eve. On one hand it has all the makings of a great holiday: socializing, celebrating, alcohol, optimism, and hardly any religious leaders presumptuously trying to convince you of its "true meaning." But on the other hand, it never lives up to its expectations. I've had great Fourth of Julys, Memorial and Labor Day weekends, Halloweens, and even Thanksgivings, yet my New Year's Eves usually run the gamut from not bad to downright pitiful, but never great.

However, this one was pretty good, and in many ways it was just what I needed. We spent the evening at some friends' house, and six of us just hung out and played cards. It certainly was no epic night to remember, but it was exactly what I was in the mood to do at the time. I also discovered a new champagne, "Cristalino," which gave me the opportunity to tell anyone who would listen that I brought a bottle of Cristal.... ino. Win!

Win: Tonight's dinner

Cathy made a fantastic dinner tonight, featuring tofu parmigiana, angel hair pasta, and steamed broccoli:

It was delicious. And I appreciated every single bite, which also helped me follow my resolution. Win!

Well, that's it for my deluxe edition of Daily Win and FAIL. Tomorrow, I'll probably be back to the regular version with one Win and one FAIL. But I'll appreciate every word of the blog posting!

So will you.

Rob