Towel Day
Hey. it's Towel Day!

This is a day set aside for Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy.

Why Towel Day? Well, as Adams himself said in his first book:

A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.


The idea is that fans are supposed to carry around a towel all day. Now, while I liked the books, I'm probably not going to do that, except maybe at home.

Feel free to celebrate Towel Day any way you see fit.

And Then The Bottom Fell Out
It started a couple of weeks ago, and I just had the nerve to admit it today: I have severe writer's block. It's been a scary couple of weeks; I've never experienced this before -- in fact, I haven't said anything to anyone about it until right this minute.

I did a couple of interviews, and got the pictures. And, like I have a hundred times before, I took out my notes and started to compose my articles. These are pretty simple affairs: I call it "fill in the blank" writing.

But for some reason, I couldn't do it. My notes are fine, the people were cool...but for some reason, I can't put it all together. It's like reaching for something that's not there -- and your hand isn't there, either. Scary.

I haven't even answered any e-mail or anything else. I've quit posting on my favorite message boards...I have a half-written letter to my sister...and of course I haven't written much on the blog.

I don't know what's up, but hopefully it's over. I tried to sleep tonight, but all of a sudden had the urge to write all of this. So the words are making sense to me again, and things are flowing.

Tomorrow morning, I will take out my notes one more time and try to write the articles from my notes. If I still can't do it, I'm going to just move onto different interview subjects.

Hopefully, my editors at the paper are still talking to me.

This Made Me Laugh
The folks at Despair.com put out a line of products that poke fun of those motivational posters some employers put up in thier work sites to inspire their workers to go further, do more, and feel good about their crappy jobs.

These posters are more than just sarcastic and cynical, they contain a little wisdom as well. Whoever thought of this really did some homework.

Here are a few of my favorites:

At Bad Day they do similar work, with images from comics. My favorite of these is from the surreal title Flaming Carrot:

Check out these sites if you have a minute. Funny stuff!

Sometimes I Wonder
I'm not a Bush basher. I don't think he's stupid or evil. I don't think he's a great president, but I still think he was better than either of the two guys who challenged him.

But sometimes I wonder. I mean, does he even understand how much damage he's done to his party? does he grasp just how unpopular he is at the moment? Because when I read stuff like:

President Bush suggested Wednesday that he'd like to see his family's White House legacy continue, perhaps with his younger brother Jeb as the chief executive.

The president said Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is well-suited for another office and would make "a great president."

I just have to wonder what is going through his head. By the way, you can read the whole story here.

High School Student Suspended For Singing Song
Found this on Drudge:


It appears that a teacher felt threatened when she overheard a student singing "On Top Of Old Smokey" and then speaking the lyrics to another student.

She was suspended for five days.

Other songs that might have gotten this student suspended:

The Hokey Pokey
Rock A-Bye Baby
Hot For Teacher

On The Stove
Since I have an unexpected day at home, I've decided that I want to do a little cooking. So I'm making Beef Barley Soup. Here's what's in it:

3 quarts of my homemade vegetable broth*.
1 pound of beef, diced, then browned and roasted in the oven for about 25 minutes.
1 1/2 cups carrots, sliced
1/4 onion
1 cup barley

Brown the meat in an oven-proof pan as the oven heats to 375. Put the pan in the oven for about 20-30 minutes.

While the meat cooks, cut up the vegetables and heat up the broth to a simmer.

Once the meat is cooked, deglaze the pan with a cup of broth and combine everything (except the barley) in a crockpot.

After the soup has simmered in the crock pot for about an hour, taste and season the soup. Make sure the crock pot is set on low and let it go for the rest of the day. About an hour before the meal, add the barley.



* My vegetable broth is made with vegetables I have on hand.

Basically, it's a combination of: carrots, celery, peppers, onions, and whatever other veggies are in the refrigerator on the day I make it. I also keep a Ziploc bag in the freezer that I throw in the remnants of veggies I've used or prepared for previous meals.

Sometimes, it contains beets, broccoli, peas, green beans -- whatever's handy. I throw it all in a crock pot and fill the crock with boiling water.

Then it simmers all day. After that, put the crock in the refrigerator to cool overnight.

Then it's double-strained (I use a collander and fine strainer) and I store it in the freezer until I want to use it.

The Work Thing
My plan on working or writing every weekday is working out okay.

Yesterday was a writing day. I finished off an interview that I did over the weekend. I also interviewed someone for the paper.

Today was going to be a working day, but the day labor place had a lot more available people than they had assignments. I left them my name and came home to write up the interview that I did yesterday. So today is a writing day -- unless I get a call.

Tomorrow will be another writing day. I have an interview with a couple who provide foster care services in their home. Tomorrow night starts my seven workdays in a row.

So that's the schedule for the next couple of days.

'Bout Kicked My Butt
The other day, I made a momentous decision. I decided that from now on, when I am on the "off" part of my 7 days on/7 days off schedule at work, I'm going to work every weekday.

I'll be honest: I've been rather lazy with that time off the past few months. So the other day, I went down to a day labor company and signed up.

The plan is, every weekday that I'm not actively writing something for money, I'm going to the day labor place. On Thursday, I dutifully rose at 4:15, took a shower and headed out.

The day labor people suggest you get there at five if you want to work that day.

I got there in plenty of time, and I was given an assignment at a local sawmill. I spent the morning feeding pieces of wood into a saw. In the afternoon, I unloaded pieces that came out of the other end of the saw.

The work was tedious and relentless, but it was rather simple, and I had plenty of time to think and plan. The biggest problem I had other than the sheer physicality of the work -- I'm not used to being moderately active for 8 hours straight -- was the fact that there was a clock on the wall right in my line of vision.

I did my best to avoid looking at the clock, but when it's in your line of sight...you look.

At the end of the shift, I earned $56.36. That's okay; I've done worse jobs for less money. And when you work day labor, you get paid at the end of your shift, which I like a whole lot.

And I enjoy working with wood. I like the smell (except for dogwood, which smells like manure that has been mixed with honey), and even though I was pretty sore, I felt good.

The money didn't even make it all the way home; I stopped at the grocery store and spent $55.

On Friday, I was all set to go back to the sawmill, but decided against it. I had some story ideas, and I even had someone who had agreed to be interviewed for the On The Job article I write for the paper.

But I couldn't find the guy until almost two in the afternoon. He said to come back next week on Wednesday or Thursday. Another subject was out of town for the day.

So I was frustrated. My plan is to work every weekday -- and I had skipped a paying job for writing a story, and I was skunked. And this was only the second day of my Big Plan.

Instead of giving up, I stopped in at a dog grooming place and made an appointment for next week to interview one of the stylists. I also called a church secretary that I know who agreed to an interview on Monday morning.

A family that provides foster care is up for Tuesday. So that means I probably have four or five stories lined up in the next few days.

So that means I don't need to go to the sawmill or any other assignment from the day labor place. This is the deal I made with myself: work every weekday. If I'm not writing, I will go to the day labor.

It's funny just how many ideas just jumped into my head when I had 8 hours of noisy incessant work in front of me.

I'll tell you the truth: that job 'bout kicked my butt. It's also true that I needed it kicked.

Love for Mongo
I'm not talking about Mongo from one of my favorite movies, Blazing Saddles:












Most Patient Wife, Mercurial Girl and I went to a wonderful new restaurant called Mongo's Grill

It's a build your own stir fry, pita and wrap place. You can choose from 9 different kinds of meat, 26 vegetables, and nine different sauces -- as well as a slew of different spices that add heat or flavor (or both) to your meal.

Once you've chosen what you want to eat, you take it to a giant gas grill that looks like this:



And they fry it up for you on the spot.

Mercurial Girl is a very finicky eater, but she really loved it as much as MPW and I did. What I liked the most is that you control what goes in the food.

If you want junk, it's there. If you want healthy stuff, it's there. If you want a little or a lot -- it's up to you. You can make it spicy, mild, meatless or with pork or chicken or beef or seafood.

We had a great time at this place, and if there is something similar where you live, I can't recommend it highly enough. It's good, fresh food, cooked to your specification.

The atmosphere is a bit festive, and the line to select your fixins could be a little slow when the place is busy. But the food was wonderful, and we had a good time.

I can't wait to go back!

A Little Evil, For A Good Cause
Can you guess what this monstrosity is? I'll give you a hint: you can eat it, although I would never do so myself.



It's a lemon. Over at The Sneeze, Steve tells us about his friend with a lemon tree that may just have a personality problem.

You can bit on it at ebay. Steve is also throwing in a coffee mug from The Sneeze.

The cool thing is, Steve and his friend are going to give the proceeds from the sale to charity.

The charity of your choice. So go bid already!