Pilot's Log

Sagittarius Horoscope for week of December 22, 2011

The Environmental Working Group wrote the Meat Eater's Guide to Climate Change and Health. It concluded that if every American avoided eating cheese and meat one day a week, emissions would be lowered as much as they would be by removing 7.6 million cars from the roads. This is the kind of incremental shift I urge you to specialize in during 2012, Sagittarius -- whether it's in your contribution to alleviating the environmental crisis or your approach to dealing with more personal problems. Commit yourself to making little changes that will add up to major improvements over the long haul.

Earlier in the month my father announced that his physician had recommended that he take up a vegetarian diet and give up cheese and other dairy products in order to get better control on his diabetes. I already have a habit of meatless days (and in fact, I wish I knew the method the U.S. Government used during the World Wars to set Meatless, Wheatless and Sweetless Days on the calendar) tho' I haven't made it so firm and formal.

I'm the token skinny guy in any group these days. Everybody else seems to have a bigger appetite than I do.

Mum finished her re-transcription of her last print-only novel, COME HOME TO LOVE (which may get a new title as Mum hates the old one), today.

I had scanned some old LJ entries of mine over the weekend and so had the idea of buying her some donuts to celebrate. Only, at the supermarket, I realized that with the money on hand I couldn't afford what they offered.

Knowing my folks, on the morrow they'll make their usual Tuesday run to the bakery thrift store and get the week's bread. Maybe they'll also pick up a bag of mini donuts too.

With habit comes predictability.

*) Precious is healed, whole and fully-operational on my desk.

*) Mum has three new spools of thread for her latest quilting project.

*) Knoxville is still there, for the moment.

*) Moonshine likes the Black Keys.

*) Somebody vowed to bake a batch of Monkey Bread.

*) I want to buy or borrow the two latest Battletech Tech Readout Books (3075 & 3085 [+ Supplemental]) sometime very soon.

1) Sent my digital camera to a shop recommended by one of the Asheville gang.

2) Helped a family friend get sound out of her computer and understand Facebook.

3) Dad put the fungus-eaten and rotten picnic table out of its misery today. Smashed it apart with hammers and then threw the pieces into a bonfire.

4) Russell Stover chocolate sauce on Texas Toast nyam gran. :)

FP

*) Remember that neighbor lady for whom we fixed television service over the course of the past year? Well, since then, we've replaced her washing machine, repaired one of her flashlights, put a new stylus in her phonograph...and now Dad has her toaster disassembled on the kitchen table while he figures out why the elements in the middle aren't getting electricity. He asks my opinion and I tell him that I flunked out of electrical repair in college. I tried to look up how old it is on Google and couldn't get an answer.

*) Wrote up a Doomsday Roster for my Billy Joe's Boys army for Flames of War. Basically, this is an all-out shopping list to set limits on how many pieces I could possibly need. The plan is 104 ground vehicle models plus three aircraft models and plenty of figures to represent dismounted vehicle crews and weapons.

I'm in the habit of doing this for any wargame army I invent. Of course, I won't actually NEED all of the materiel above, and can start with only six or seven vehicles and their crew figures, assuming the point cost is fair for other players.

Some of the stuff I want for my army is already included on my Amazon Wishlist.

*) Still waiting for the checks...and the Czechs...and some balances.

(Or should I call it the Estebaño? I'm open for suggestions.)

The handy ingredients: a smidgen of beef from Thursday's roast, soft flour tortilla shells.

The plan: mix some "Stevie" sauce...one-half pizza sauce, one-quarter Alfredo sauce, and the rest unequal measures of two different Steak Sauces. Chop the meat into morsel chunks and toss them into the bowl of sauce, mixing so all the pieces get a good coat. Have Mum grate some Colby Jack cheese. Lay a tortilla shell on new nonstick cookie sheet and put the meat/sauce mixture in the center, then the cheese on top of the meat, then fold the shell into a pocket, pinning it shut (except for a vent hole above the meat and cheese) with toothpicks. Repeat for as many shells as you need (one per person). Bake in the oven set to Bierce Autopilot (350°F for 10 minutes).

Result was quite satisfactory.

Hey.

A couple notes since I last talked about bread here:

1) Sister bought us a new toaster to replace an old one. It can handle Texas Toast. Now all I have to do is nudge the folks into buying the bread more often.

2) We're baking a batch of Monkey Bread, so I thought to look up an old USENET post on the subject and repost it here.

(...) Buddy, it is. In fact, your mention of it is making me a little Jonesy for it right now. Gonna search the archives of Ye Olde 75Mhz Pentium I computer...

Well, I got the Chef of the Monkey Bread right here, so I'm going to reconstruct the recipie here and now. Here goes: ( Monkey Bread )

FP

*) Dad somehow succeeded in getting the lady's analogue channels back the way they were, but still no digital success yet.

*) Another Job Fair in Knoxville--standing room only and just double the number of participating businesses as the last one. I let them have my resume to scan, so it's not totally hopeless, but I don't know if I'm going to bother with any more of these for a while.

*) Yesterday, in Morristown, Moonshine smoked a Mustang GT at a traffic light. Good going!

*) I ate the last of Sunday's Monkey Bread.

*) I'm experimenting again with the idea of home-brew DVD case covers and liner note sheets. I got a 10-pack of slim cases at Big Lots and since I already have a design template, all I'd need would be legal sized paper for printouts. But I want to design more dummies beyond the one I'd done earlier. Perhaps I'll go through my old LJ entry headers for spurious titles and concoct dummies from them.

[Error: unknown template qotd]

I seem to be living on Peanut Butter Sandwiches, Ramen and Pizza.