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October 24, 2006

Camping Trip Revised

Kathryn and I took off for the Ozarks this weekend with a bowie knife, a two liter of mountain dew, a bag of raw potatoes and a sheet of dirty canvas. We got to the campground, and finding it full, we scaled a cliff, and hiked into bear country, where I built a fire by rubbing together two small trees that I uprooted with my bare hands, hacking limbs from it with the bowie knife. It was at this point that the inevitable happened: the sheer strength exhibited by my display of manliness caused my shirt to burst apart into tiny shreds. Sweat poured down my hairy chest and I howled savagely like a wild beast, scaring away the twelve advancing grizzly bears. After I had a roaring blaze, I waited patiently. Sure enough, off in the distance I spied a wolf, which I pounced on from a crouched position and clamped my jaws around its neck, ripping out its jugular.

The next day, we encountered a rabid Ozarkian named Clem. He was guarding a pile of firewood with a bloody battle ax. I offered to trade a wolf skin for some. He promptly and fiercely sprang on me. I knocked the axe out of his hands, but he caught me with a wicked roundhouse to the face. I jumped on his back and dragged him to the ground... after which it's all kind of a blur. The next thing I clearly remember, I was standing over a ravine with a handful of teeth and a mouthful of hair. I weaved the hair into a new shirt, and ground the teeth to dust in my hand, then used the dust to bake a three tier cake over the fire.

Camping Trip

In an effort to spice the page up a bit, let me describe my weekend. After work on Friday, Kathryn and I loaded up the car and headed into the Ozarks for a camping trip. But when we got to our destination a little after 7:00 pm, the campground was full. So we drove twenty minutes to the nearest town and got a hotel room. A tiny, over-priced, smoking room with stained towels, cool air coming out of the heater and ill-fitting sheets that kept slipping off the bed. It still turned out to be a fun evening, as we wondered around town sipping hot chocolate and listening to several impromptu folk music groups playing. Is this getting to ho-hum already?

Saturday we did get a spot at the campsite next to what appeared to be a young Jewish boy, but later turned out to be an old woman of undeterminable religion. We purchased a bundle of firewood from a nice country gentlemen with the thickest Ozarkian accent I’ve ever encountered. Later in the day, I tried to jump a several-foot gap that had been cut into a hill for a stairway. I cleared the gap but landed wrong and fell down hard, pulling a grown muscle and bruising a shoulder. I could go on about the weekend, but the rest is basically more of the domestic bliss that has already been panned.

October 16, 2006

The Great Pasty Bake Off

Saturday afternoon, Kathryn and I made pasties. Lots and lots of pasties. I had to triple the dough recipe in order to have enough for all the filling we ended up with. But about two dozen single serving pasties and one pie style pasty later, the kitchen smelled yummy and our bellies were bursting with meat and vegetable filled, flakey doughy goodness. Saturday through today, they’re serving as dinner, breakfast, dinner, lunch and dinner.

In other news, tomorrow night I go see David Sedaris. Jealous? I know you are.

October 10, 2006

Fun with wiki

I’m a big fan of wikipedia. When I don’t have anything to do, sometimes I just navigate over to wiki and punch the Random Article button a few times. It’s amazing what can come up. Equally amazing is the search feature when you try and look up Gizzard City. The top results were:

• Marine life of New York Harbor
• Cuisine of the Midwestern United States
• Crane (bird)
• Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath
• Howard Cosell
• French cuisine

I’m not sure which is stranger, the video game or Howard Cosell… or how they both ranked above French Cuisine.

October 02, 2006

Germania

Answer:

The Bible Belt
Baptist vs Methodist Theology
The Dead Rising Plot

Question:

Topics that are nearly impossible to discuss through a language barrier. Last week was full of 12 and 13 hour days, spent with a large group of Germans that had come here to discuss and create new material. Aside from the all day meetings, I also ate breakfast, lunch and dinner with the group, which created plenty of time for non-work related chit chat. Interestingly, one topic that was easy to discuss was the importance of alcohol while watching NASCAR, Golf or Baseball.