AMERICAN VERSION OF TOP GEAR PREMIERE......

James May

 Jeremy Clarkson

Richard Hammond

...On the HISTORY channel for crying out loud!  11-22-10 first show. I stumbled across it this past weekend and decided to watch.  It was MIND NUMBING.  The original hosts for the BBC version are pictured above.  The chemistry between these three men is wonderfully funny.

The American hosts are so forgettable I didn't even bother to get their names but they could easily be replaced by Jay Leno (Who didn't want the job), Drew Cary and Jack Black.  The three amigos raced Lambo's and they went very fast.  Unless you are actually IN the car, there is not much of a thrill watching unless you are expecting a crash.  The British hosts have completely done away with stiff upper lips and chortle, bellow, scream all while going 0 to 60 in 3.2 seconds.  I didn't even know what flappy paddle gears were until I watched THE ORIGINAL.  Hey History Channel...you need to do some thinking about this show.  I VASTLY prefer ENDLESS RERUNS of the ORIGINAL TOP GEAR.  Rule Britannia!

BLACK FRIDAY AND...SUSHI

We puttered around Friday morning and did not even leave the house until well after noon.   We headed for Freddy's.  The parking lot was fullish but inside the store, the only semi-mob we saw shopping was in electronics.  We picked up a few items, went to the grocery section and got a few more items.  I was low on spices, pepper, cinnamon and celery seed.  Half OFF!  I was vastly pleased. We escaped Freddy's with a minimum of fuss.  The lady at the check out stand looked at my four cans of sweetened condensed milk and asked if I was sure those were what I wanted  as she gets exchanges all the time for the evaporated milk. I said yes and told her I was going to put them in my crock pot and make cajeta.     She wanted to know more details so I told her. I thin more cajeta will be made soon. 





Also, since we were in town, we decided to check out the Japanese restaurant I had mentioned on a previous trip.  It is located across highway 101 from the Mill Casino.  Welcome to Momiji's!!

They do indeed serve a very nice variety of sushi including salmon and fresh local product.  Husband and I are not very adventurous so we ordered green tea, Teriyaki bento box and Teriyaki chicken.  Both very good.  They do have fried eel on their menu and I might try that next time.  Husband rated the bathroom at a 6, points off for skimpy paper products. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Busy week, we received our turkey certificates on Monday so I didn't actually start thawing the bird until after 4 pm.  Alton Brown knows of which he speaks when he recommended the cold water thawing method, cover bird, change cold water every 4 hours, should thaw at a rate of 1 pound every six hours?  If I remember correctly.  Anyway nice thawing had set in by Tuesday, evening so I rinsed off the bird and package, plopped it on a plate and left it in the fridge.  Tuesday evening I made pumpkin pie, Wednesday evening I made cranberry relish jello salad.  Thursday, I got out the frozen rolls, oiled them put two each in the muffin tin and allowed them to double in size before baking (4 hours or so).  I made fairly standard dressing except for the grilled Brussels sprouts and layer of spuds.  I baked the butter nut squash same time as the dressing.

When that came out I prepared the turkey and it cooked in 2 1/2 hours.  While the turkey rested the rolls went in.  I noticed that there were no drippings from  the turkey so we went without gravy.

Dinner is served!  Yummy.

As I deboned the remainder of the turkey more and more juice gathered in the bottom of the pan,  by the time I was done there was a nice collection of drippings so I made creamy gravy and poured it over the boned turkey that went in the fridge disguised as left overs.

It was all over by 4 pm, nothing left but turkey bones in the stock pot busily simmering away.  Oh boy good left overs for lunch bucket.

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY THAT MEANS ITS MRI DAY.

Here is where the MRI van is parking now.  That sucker takes up all of the doctor's parking, who have all moved six spaces to the right and so on.  At least it a shorter trip for the patients.

This is where the MRI van used to park, you should have seen the driver winkle that thing into this spot with very little clearance.

And since we are so close, lets take a peek around the corner to the very skinny access to the back of the hospital were Orange Hitachi man is loading trash into the dump truck. 

Weather remains below average temp for this time of year in this area, saw several snow sprinkles today.  Tonight I make cranberry, orange, walnut, celery, black cherry jello salad.  Yummy!

SNOW DAY!!

Today it snowed, it began about 6 am.  I looked up and the moon was gorgeous.

This is the first time it has snowed before Thanksgiving in over 25 years.  We love to break records.  The snow fell heavily, slowly, majestically.  Then the Orange Hitachi machine started moving piles of trash.

The rhodies just outside the north entrance accumulated about an inch of snow.  The snow cloud circulated around the valley several times, dropping snow hither and yon.  The hospital is at about 135 feet elevation.  One lady said her husband drove to the beach and took pictures of snow coming on the waves.   Weather man says the Arctic Express will move in tonight with temps in the teens, it will be icy in the morning.  I'm so thankful my driver is waiting to take me to work.  Tonight I made enough filling for three pumpkin pies but I only cooked one.  The rest of it are being made into pumpkincicles in the freezer for later. 

TODAY WAS MASSAGE A LITTLE DIRT DAY

The orange Hitachi used the bucket today to move some dirt via dump truck to improve the "logging road" between the clinic and the hospital. 

I showed this picture to April who promptly left to go move her car, not the blue one, the one in front of the blue one.

The weather has really socked in some winter rain, fog, wind.  At one point one of the loggers was in the gully sawing some trashy trees down, it was blowing fairly good, he had a spotter just in case.  What!?  "Help I've fallen and I can't reach my chainsaw!"

ALL THOSE IN FAVOR OF....

Nominating Nadia G of Bitchin' Kitchen to be a judge on Iron Chef America, say "Yo, how you doin'.."

This is a cover of her cook book.  She started out with 5 minute webisodes on the net out of  Montreal and the brave souls at Cooking Channel picked up her shtick, although Italian chicks may not actually use the word "shtick".   I find it helpful to google her shorter episodes especially for the pronunciation ones for terms I ain't never heard way out here in the rural pretty much not Italian Southern Oregon Coast. Her show is an amazing combination of comedy and cooking, completely unique.  She gives acting tips on how to obtain forgiveness and I'm thinking they probably work! Did I mention clothes, Hoo boy!  Makes me wish I actually owned stiletto heels never mind actually wearing them.

MILLION DOLLAR VIEW

This is the parking lot after the majority of the trees were removed and before the orange safety fencing went up.  Actually this will be closer to a 22 million dollar view.  The patients will have this stunning view out their windows only a little higher up.

BEFORE AND AFTER PICTURES

BEFORE

AFTER

The before picture is the parking lot about 7:30 am this morning, before the guy in the Orange Hitachi boom tractor, carefully positioned the bucket on the opposite direction of the fall and jumped down with his chainsaw, checked wind direction, hopped back in the Hitachi and gently nudged the trees over. One right after the other.  Very quick, didn't crush any cars, very professional.  I stood in the lobby and got a little misty.  The view is quite spectacular, we can see clear across the valley to Fat Elk Road.  Next project is set up electric supply for the new spot for the MRI van on Wednesdays, it will take up eight spots of employee parking.  Lots of us are car pooling, I fortunately have a private chauffeure.



The wood pile is getting deeper

I heard one of the nurses explaining to one of the patients some of the timber logged off would be utilized in the new facility.  Hmmm, lemme see if they get those logs to a local lumber mill and get them turned into usable lumbar and get to a lumber kiln they might make it or we can just pretend that the  laminated beams used on the project actually came from here. 

Today the orange Hitachi machine thingy knocked down trees by the clinic just down slope, I took the picture from the edge of the parking lot.  Today it smelled hauntingly of fresh dirt, Christmas trees and diesel, what a combination!  At least a couple of people have expressed an interest in obtaining some dirt from the site.  From the looks of the drop off just outside the northern exit door, we will need every speck of dirt to go there to make a helicopter landing pad. 

BOOK REPORT...

Barbara Metzger wrote this in 1992 and it has been reissued for the season!  Yay!  In 1992 I was living in Barrow, Alaska and I was not reading much in the way of Romance.

The story involves Juneclair Beaumont an orphan who lives with her aunt, Lady Stanton who is a horrible pinch penny and threatened to harm Pansy.  She is essentially a sweet natured, unpaid servant but enough is enough, she packed up, took Pansy and walked away

The hero is Merritt Jordan Earl of St. Cloud.  He is 30, his family is pressuring him to marry.  He is driving his team of chestnuts home and he is robbed.  He continues on his way and finds odd and ends left beside the road all left there by Juneclaire as she had run away from her servitude with Pansy and all of her belongings, which became heavier and heavier the further she walked.  The Earl picked up the discarded belongings and eventually finds Juneclaire.
He offers to take her and her baby up on his horse.  She hands up Pansy to him and he allows as how he has never held a baby....
pig.  From there on the story gets funnier.

My two favorite comments were:

"They had him by the shoat hairs"

and

"Swine, women and song."

You had to read it in context but I laughed out loud.

The author has written other witty books, I have a couple and I think collecting more Metzger's will be my next literary project.

Veterans Day at work

The guy above trimmed branches all day long, the pile of logs was considerably higher by the end of the day.

The guy running this machine cleaned up brush, felled a few trees and those small enough, he simply knocked over with the bucket arm.  Then he dragged them down the hill to the guy who was doing the trimming.  Also, there were several tree stumps left in the ground.  He grabbed them with the claw scooper on the end of the boom, pulled them up, daintily shook the dirt off and tossed the stumps on the slash pile, hope they decided not to burn.  Anyway be end of the day quite a bit of the hillside was cleared off. Don't worry there are still plenty of trees back there.  Once that is all taken care of, they will begin to massage dirt.  I think the time has come for husband to begin driving me to work to free up parking.
The first part of the project,which is part of the tree removal going on now, is the parking lot project.   After all the dirt has been rearranged, more parking will be put in which will be a huge help especially when the BIG DIG starts in the front for the foundation.
I'll keep you posted.  Oh and the noise isn't too hideous and the patients are enjoying the activities going on outside their windows.
Me too.

About 2 pm this afternoon ......

Some guys crawled around in the woods surround the hospital,and one  ran his chain saw to cut a path through the trees from the street.    He then drove a machine next to the lawn, one similar to the top middle yellow one only it had metal tread tracks.  He daintily scooped up the various rhododendrons and other bushes and put them all on a blue tarp.



I am hoping the tarp full of bushes will be discretely transplanted somewhere that is not undergoing major building.  It was really cool.

Mmmm November and our Christmas Cactus blooms,

Very pretty pinkish blossoms, lots of buds, very delicate.

Also, we attended a Gratitude Banquet in Bandon Saturday night.
There were about 200 people there, we had lasagna, salad and coffee and dessert.  Oh and baskets of stuff got raffled.

One of the speakers was a woman who talked about her alcoholism and how after years she had a moment of clarity and decided that her  plan to drink for two weeks thinking it would break her drug habit was NOT a good idea.  She attended a meeting.  She kept going back because she knew there was no other help for her.  She has been clean and sober for several years now and she was grateful.  She got a standing O.  You had to be there, it was a pretty darned good speech.

Yesterday I  was watching Bobby Flay's Throw Down.  He was in Texas cooking chicken fried steak and milk gravy.  I couldn't stand it any longer, today I purchased some cube steak that had been nicely tenderized, fried it up and boiled some potatoes and had milk gravy to go over the meat and taters.  Dang that tasted good for supper.  Tasted even better as a late night snack....urp...scuze me.

Thirdly, the weather has been very wet all of a sudden.. what!?  Its Oregon in the fall.  Rained like a cow peeing on a flat rock for an HOUR, then tapered off.  Wear your raincoats when you go out!

BOOK REPORT on the Kindle version. Boy am I still steamed.

The last couple of days have been very educational.  I learned a couple of things.  I was vastly disappointed to learn that my Kindle version of Island In The Sea of Time was lousy with spelling, punctuation and formatting errors.  I actually compiled a list of 38 or so errors.  I then went to Amazon.com and posted a review at the book.  I immediately caught some flack from either the author (!!) or someone else who pointed out that the publishers and author had \no control over the product once it went to the web.  Uh huh...if I had written anything as outstanding as this I would have had my lawyers all over it like ugly on an ape, no disrespect intended to perfectly normal apes.

So then I trudged around in Help at Amazon looking for a complaint department.   No such luck.  So I thought I would try emailing Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon.  He has a great email address jeffb@amazon.com  I doubt he will ever read my email but what the heck.

However as I looked at another book, I noticed at the bottom of the page, a section for reporting to Amazon if you thought there was a formatting problem, a spelling problem, a copyright problem, etc.  Well!! That's more like it!

Ah HAH!  I opened the little window and copy and pasted my list of 38 errors and guess what!?  I'm not the only person who noticed and they spotted several errors that I didn't!!!

I am hoping that the little troll who originally transcribed the book is forced FORCED I TELL YOU to make the corrections and send out revised copies. Yeah......

Oh and the book itself is all about how in 1998 there was an EVENT that caused the Island of Nantucket to disappear from 1998 and reappear 1250BC,  it is a survival story and it just happens that the tall ship The Eagle of the US Coast Guard was on its way to Nantucket when the Event happened.  Now The Eagle and Captain Marian Alston comprise the Nantucket Navy.   Anyway it bugged me that I paid 6.99 for all those electronic errors.  Moron.