Never Forget - Sarah Palin

Presidential? Really. Horeseshit. I see signs near trailer parks in New Mexico that say Palin 2012. Good thing she has the non-voting meth vote.

An ode to Green Chile

It's a magic time of year when the word starts to go 'round that the Green Chile harvest is in. I happened to be rolling through Aztec, NM a month ago, and was happy to see a fella with a trailer full of Chiles by the side of the road. He was up from Limitar, NM which is just north of Socorro. He was very proud of the Chile's he had grown, and had samples of the roasted version out for tasting. He didn't need to convince me. As it turns out, his Chile is just short of the nuclear-hot designation, which is just about perfect in my book. Now for the ode:

"Oh fabulous chile, how I love thee. You fill my food with flavor and burn my mouth so happily."

There you go - pure poetry.

Steely Dan gets wacked, Thriller still standing

OK - Can you believe that this happens the day after I post how amped I am for Steely Dan. What a bunch of pricks ;-). Truth - 'Thriller' would funking kill me. I'd rather the whole crowd fart at he same time and pump the sound through the PA. I really don't think thriller will get the nod, but who knows. 'Yes' is still standing strong as is some Bowie, Zappa, and Black Sabbath. Boston's still in there, and that might make me puke a little bit into my mouth before I got over it and rocked.

But what about the Viking Helmet? Certainly it is an omen, a harbinger of the Vikings 'Season of Destiny'.

A Roger Dean interlude, pt 2

Vikes 'Season of Destiny' sullied by naming rights deal.

Check it - some clever dick decided to sell the rights to the flacid Metrodome, and some chump decided to pay to have it called the "Mall of America Field" for the next three years. Really? Maybe more people will go to the mall now. Naming rights are weak.

Phish - gonna play Steely Dan?!?

Check out the modified cover of "Pretzel Logic" as seen on the "Which album will Phish cover in a week" webpage. A sign?!? That would kick 6 sets of asses, almost as much as "Aja", which was the first thing I thought of. It may be a prank, in which case, "Paranoid" or the Yes album would kill. Is it also possible, in addition to being a tip as to which album they will cover in a week, that this is also an omen confirming the Vikes "season of destiny"?!?! I think that it is.

Cider Making, a Durango Fall Tradition

Again this fall, I have taken advantage of the bountiful local apple harvest and brewed up a couple of batches of hard cider. The first is really an apple beer, with 2 galons of actual beer (barely, hops, and agua from the well at Canyonlands N.P.) mixed with juice pressed from local apples. I was short, so I augmented this with some store bought juice from concentrate. It's all good as long as there are no preservatives in it, as this will retard the yeast's activity. The second batch is pure apple juice with some spices mixed in for good measure. I used a English Ale yeast on the first batch, and the White Labs WLP720 Sweet Mead yeast (from a batch of mead that's in the fermentor) in the second. Hopefully, both of these are going to be less tart and acidic than the batches from last year. These have mellowed now, and the saison version has lost most of it's saison-ness, but they are good none-the-less. I'll post the recipe's from this years attempts once I have tasted the product in a few weeks. In celebration of their NFC North dominance this year, the second batch has been named, "(Vikes) Domination Hard Cider". Eat shit, GB!

Check out the painting below, and an accompanying description I found online. Yes indeed, cider making is truly an occasion for a proper fall celebration.

Cider Making - William Sydney Mount (1807-1868)

From W.H. Venable’s Footprints of the Pioneers of the Ohio Valley: A Centennial Sketch (1888):
***
The old-time apple-cutting was an occasion of unbounded mirth. . . . After
the apples were cut, and the cider boiled, the floor was cleared for a
"frolic," technically so-called, and merry were the dancers and loud the
songs with which our fathers and mothers regaled the flying hours. The
fiddler was a man of importance, and when, after midnight, he called the
"Virginia Reel," such shouting, such laughter, such clatter of hilarious
feet upon the sanded puncheon floor, startled the screech-owl out of doors,
and waked the baby from its sweet slumber in the sugar-trough.

Vikes at 6-0, faint of heart, BEWARE!

A little luck never hurts, and the Vikes caught a break last Sunday in the form of a pooched kick from the effeminate leg of Raven's kicker Steven Hauschka. Go Vikes!


In other news, my backup team, Los Bronco's crushed the Chargers on national TV on Monday night in what can only be described as an embarrassing ass-whipping. Not as bad as the 59-0 slaughter that the Pat's laid on Tennessee (could it happen to a nicer bunch of felons?), but enough to shame the powder-blue wearing bolts. This leaves that Broncos and the Vikes at 6-0, with the Sanits and the Colts undefeated at 5-0 as well. Though the lowly pack managed to spank the Lions, the victory was hollow and unfulfilling, as the Lions have won only one game in the last 2.5 seasons. The 29-0 victory was the moral equivalent of beating up the 'special' kid in elementary school. Real nice, pack.

When an emergency at work doesn't competely suck.

Tuesday night I had to head up to the top of Missionary Ridge to check on a radio of mine that had gotten iced up the night before. It was back up, but I wanted to make sure that there had been no physical damage to the cabling or mount, and to hook up a remote power switching unit that had been taken offline. The site is accessed by a five mile jeep trial, and is only passable in the winter by Snocat or Snow Machine. Fortunately, work has a vehicle fit for the road.

About a mile from the top, I ran into this obstacle.

I headed home and then back up with the freshly tuned Husky 55.

Sometimes, these late calls and remote site access requirements don't completly suck!!

A fine piece of Network Engineering if I do say so myself!! Check out this view from the top!

A Roger Dean interlude

MOP & Allen, a critical comparison

The pentagon announced today that it will spend an additional $52mil to speed up the delivery of this little guy, the "MOP" - Massive Ordinance Penetrator. While the 30-ton explosive is, indeed, a force to be reckoned with, I think that they could have saved the $52mil by instead dropping vikes defensive end Jared Allen on fools instead.
Seriously, dropping a raving maniac like Allen on some unsuspecting targets to scare the living shit out of them would carry a huge psychological effect that no bomb, no matter how big the bang, could deliver.
"




Rambo, John J.". Go Vikes!

Vikes, Broncos at 5-0

Week 5 in the NFL, and both the vikes (team of destiny) and my backup team, Los Broncos are sitting pretty at 5-0. Is Orton rocking the throw back porn-stache as well as the throw-back uni?

The Vikes continue to roll like thunder across their opponents. Jared Allen crushed it St. Louis, with a sac/fumble/recovery/TD and a second sack for fumble later i nthe game. The man is a wild animal.

In a possible sign of the apocalypse, the Cincinnati Bengals (proudly sporting the ugliest uniforms in the NFL) are playing football. Wait till they meet the vikes....

Go Vikes!

Late fall in Durango

Falls is quietly slipping by here in Durango. Time to get the saw tuned up for some cutting. The oil pump was clogged up, so my bar & chain were not getting lubed.

Up behind the house. The reds have faded, but the aspen are blazing!


Oktoberfest at Pagosa Brewing with Mitby!

This guy is munching his morning after omelet - thanks schmig!

Idaho!

Here's another pic I found when clearing out my mailbox. This was at Jayme & Colin's up near McCaull. Man - was that fun!

Canyonlands N.P. - October 3, 2009

We hit up the needles district of Canyonlands National Park this past weekend.

Great weather for a hike on Saturday, followed by a cutthroat round of desert croquet back at the campsite.

I think this thing is called the 'dollhouse'. Sure - looks just like one.

We got out on Sunday just before the gale force wind n' rain.

Vikes Domination, pt. 3

In a recent email correspondence, I suggested to old buddy Chad that the vikes squad this year could be accurately compared to the explosive force of the M120 mortar seen below.


His reply is below, and I concur with his assesment.

I feel a more accurate weapon analogue for the vikes performance is the favorite norse sidearm, the atgeir-



Svikult vopn í hetjulegum höndum
heima var er Þorgrímur kom þægur.
Þyrmdi engum, þar var styrkur nægur.

Vikes Domination, pt. 2!

We witnessed the glorious flogging of the witless Pac at local hot-spot J-Bo's. Go Vikes!!