Product review...kind of...

This past week I have been visited by one of the minor plagues, the common cold.  I worked part of Monday, part of Tuesday, Part of Wednesday, missed Thursday, worked part of Friday.  During this time I suffered the usual symptoms; migrating sore throat, migrating nasal congestion, migrating cough, migrating lung congestion. I had a PE teacher years ago give a student a hard time about her absence excuse from school, apparently her mother had written"Please excuse little Bunulla from school as she had a chest cold and a head cold".  The PE teacher yelped, "That's not possible to have a chest cold and head cold at the same time".  I got information for you, teach...yeah you can.  

Any way I dosed myself with the usual Alka Seltzer cold relief, some expectorant cough syrup, some sore throat lozenges...nuthin.   I finally purchased a box of Mucinex. First of all the commercials are one of the the MOST DISGUSTING COMMERCIALS on air...ever.  Well except for a certain nameless drippy cat food commercial from the 70's.  ANYway...I decided to gulp one down.  The first thing I noticed upon said gulping was INSTANT DEHYDRATION.  I could breath, thank you.  I needed to drink LOTS of water.

The active ingredient for each pill is 600 mgs of Guaifenesin...that's it!  So go google Guaifenesin and purchase that, same effect and you will not have supported the industry that created the gawdawful commercial.  Oh yeah, wear the blue mask, it won't protect anyone from the virus but it looks like you are trying and everyone will feel better and actually rebreathing your own air will keep you a little hydrated.

Cooking with ready made ingredients.

First of all these are not cinnamon rolls, those are stuffed biscuits.  Stuff with mushroom, sweet Italian sausage, shallots, 4 ounces of cream cheese and either Parsley or Cilantro.  If the left over herbs have turned all black on the cut edges, it is Cilantro.  I also made stuffed Portabello mushrooms using the same filling, popped in a 350 degree oven for approximately 30 minutes, I left the biscuits in longer than the package recommended 13 to 17 minutes, as I wanted them golden, brown and delicious.  And they were.  Husband actually preferred the mushrooms they were meatier.  This from the bread eating member of the family.

So next topic;   I used a new to me product the other night,  you have seen the commercial; a young couple are in the kitchen and a man appears outside their patio door, he comes in, the husband mutters, "Chris Angel?".  He says, come and put a package of microwave popcorn in the microwave, hits the popcorn button, gives a one eyed grimace, and the machine goes "ding".  He pulls out the popcorn and asks, "Do you know what this is?", The man says, "Its a bag of Orville Redenbacher popcorn.",  Chris Angel says, "Do you know what THIS is?" and swiftly dramatically pulls the top off the bag of popcorn.  The wife exclaims in an excited voice, "It's not a bag it's a bowl! How did you do that!?"

At that point I must interject MY experience with Orville's bowl in a bag concept.  I put my bag of microwave pop corn in the microwave, set the timer for 2 minutes and 15 seconds and waited.
Took out the bag, grasped the lid of the "bowl" and gently tugged, nuthin',  tugged a little harder, tugged VERY hard.  Got out a knife, to cut gently into the membrane, pretty tough, cut sharply into the membrane, still nuthin'.  I had visions of Norman Bates going at it with a very sharp knife..Shriek! Shriek! Shriek! Got out my KITCHEN SHEARS, and finally managed to snip a very raggedy hole in the container.  I poured the bowl of rapidly cooling popcorn into a REAL bowl and declared myself the winner!  There was no instant sleight of hand removal of the lid from the bowl, there was no magic.  But the rapidly cooling popcorn was tasty. 

BOOK REPORT..real book...real report

I was encouraged to read this book, "At Home" By Bill Bryson.

Subtitled "A short history of private life".  Mr.Bryson has written about life in a Church of England Vicarage in which he lived for a period of time.  He decided that he could write a history merely from the rooms of the house...and the garden.  So far I am up to the garden.  Capability Brown gets mentioned.

This book has been described as a good conversation.  I agree and I'm not through reading the thing.

So far my favorite excerpt is from the study and I quote exactly:

At times in the past attempts have been made to capitalize on bat's special qualities.  In the Second World War, the American military invested a great deal of time and money in an extraordinary plan to arm bats with tiny incendiary bombs and to release them in vast numbers -- as many as a million at a time -- from planes over Japan.  The idea was that the bats would roost in eaves and roof spaces, and that soon afterward tiny detonators on timers would go off and they would burst into flames, causing hundreds and thousands of fires.

  Creating sufficiently tiny bombs and timers required a great deal of experiment and ingenuity, but finally in the spring of 1943 work had progressed sufficiently that a trial was set to take place on Muroc Lake, California.  It would be putting it mildly to say that matters didn't go quite to plan.  Remarkably for an experiment, the bats were fully armed with live bomblets when released.  This proved not to be a good idea.  The bats failed to light on any of the designated targets, but did destroy all the hangars and most of the storage building at the Lake Muroc airport, as well as an army generals car.

Snort, giggle, hardy har har har.....

Justice for all....



I am not normally a heavy metal fan but I googled "And Justice For All" and this is what popped up.  Strange.

Recap of jury duty this week.  My number was called Tuesday evening.  I found some sketchy parking on the jail side of the complex and trudged to the juror room.  The room holds about 90 chairs and every chair was full.  O, joy.  The sign in method was fairly slick, (It was SO slick, I didn't even get a chance to read my  kindle at all), tell them your number, name, get a form to fill out for jury fee and take a seat.  We watched a fairly decent video entitled "Justice For All" and then we were roughly divided into three groups as there were three trials that day.  I went to the court just down the hall and listened to the opening remarks on a case involving reckless endangerment.  The alleged perp was accused of endangering two young boys, 12 and 8 I think.  A firearm was shot, and I was mildly puzzled that this made it to criminal court but again second guessing myself, I figured it was because a firearm was involved.  My assignment for the remainder of my time is to listen to the call in number each week night through the 14th.  O yay. 

VERY BUSY YET SOME MORE

 This week the protective "hallway" came down between the two buildings, we can see much better, more sunshine is let in. This view is towards the old main entrance of the hospital.  The larger opening in the new building is a temporary opening to allow the CT scanner and MRI scanner to go in.  

 This is the view from the main entranced looking South.
Eventually there will a meandering walk way between the two buildings.

This is the view from the extreme edge of the parking lot on the North end of the building.   The blue pickup is parked in the lane that will curve around the building into the top floor entrance of the emergency room.  The lower road where it splits will circle around the new building allowing a complete drive around the entire site once finished.  Those itty bitty trees down there are actually pretty tall, that level has been built up a good 40 feet and the is where the helicopter landing pad will be outlined in white paint.

Jury duty

Hard to believe that I have lived in Coquille for 10 years or better and just this week received a jury duty summons for two weeks in October.  The drill here is call in the number, if your juror number is called, show up for the day, do not wear cologne or perfume. 

I first served on a jury in Marin County, California late 60's, actually got selected for a trial involving a women charged with passing bad checks from someone Else's bank account.   It was quite an elaborate tussle.  Lots of testimony.  I'm sure she is out of jail by now.

Second and third experiences with jury duty was in Alaska. Once you have received two dividend checks from the state you name goes in the jury pool not for a measly two weeks but  FULL QUARTER of each year.  I served on one DUI, one assault,and one mistrial.  That trial was called a mistrial because the prosecutor was reading from something that the officer witness did not have a copy of.  So mistrial.

I served on a Federal trial held in Nome, Alaska.  It was a big deal.  There actually is a Federal Court house in Nome.  I asked when the last Federal trial was held in Nome, um, sixteen years ago.  I was briefly empaneled and excused. 

The very last week that I lived in Barrow, I was called for jury duty.  I was briefly empaneled. Perhaps it was the panic stricken look on my face that got me excused from that one.

So I call call the phone and if my number is called, I will take my fully charged Kindle for a day of reading and observation.  I 

MORE PICTURES OF THE HOSPITAL BUILD

This is the view outside the North exit, they have begun filling in the driveway with truckloads of fine sand, followed by generous application of hundreds of gallons of water.  The larger machines massaged the sand into a semblance of flatness.  I predict the layer will stop about 18 inches short of the top of the wall, in order to provide a barrier.  Gotta keep the ambulance from accidentally going over the edge.  Of course it would also be possible for some civilian to do the same, come around that corner, misjudge the speed and sail right out there....and no bunch of trees to stop the vehicle.

This is the view outside the window in medical records.  They just about have the building buttoned up, got on a layer of wallboard and Tyvek.   When the sun came out it was SO yellow we needed shades and we looked distinctly jaundiced.   We can no longer look over and see the guys taking their lunch break. 

Also brief review of a show on The Science Channel called

"Stuck With Hacket".  Premise is that what can a man do to create civilisation from junk.  Quite a bit actually.  Hacket was stuck in a junk yard next to a desert.  He decided to make a "dirt boat" utilizing obtainium (junk).  He assembled the pieces and parts, discovered he did not have a critical piece to connect the mast to the boat and actually made a mold of to hold molten metal and poured the piece he needed.  He hurt himself several times and finally got to sail his dirt boat, it looked really good and like a lot of fun.  I like this guy.