I'll be back.

It was just another day at work. I was working on a line crew as an apprentice lineman. We were rebuilding a transmission line outside of Athens, GA. Transmission lines are the electric lines with tall poles and the big wire that are built mostly cross country in the woods.

The whole crew was large, but it was split up into several 4 man crews. Two linemen would do the work on the pole and two men would work on the ground. On a job like this, we did basically the same work on one pole as we did on the next. As a result, we had some competition going with one of the other crews on which a good friend of mine worked. So we didn't waste any time getting up the pole when we got to the next one.

I had only been climbing poles for about a year. I still had the tools I bought at a pawn shop when I first started working. My "hooks" or "climbers" were not well designed and I had to remember to keep my knees away from the pole when I climbed. Otherwise, the gaff on the climbers would kick out of the pole and if you were lucky, you would only get a belly full of splinters. My tool belt was an old style belt that had the hammer loop in the middle of the back. Newer belts were made with the hammer loop over the hip. This was safer belt configuration if you "cutout" or your gaffs kick out of the pole and you fall. The safest way to climb a pole is to "hitch hike". That means you put your safety belt around the pole and lean into the pole and flip your safety belt up the pole as you climb. I had only seen old men climb that way. It was slow and most linemen just held onto the pole with their hands.

My friend on the other crew was an excellent lineman, but neither crew was out working the other that day. As soon as I got to the next pole, I put my tools on and started up the pole. I was about 40 feet up the pole and I remember looking out at the treetops. Then I was falling. As I fell, my body slowly rotated backwards. Then I hit the ground on my back and the breath was knocked out of me as I bounced into the air and landed on my face. I couldn't move and I was in a daze. I could sense a lot of rushing around by my crew mates and they began taking off my tools while someone got in a truck and went for help.

After a while, I heard an ambulance pulling up. They put me on a stretcher and loaded me in the ambulance. The road was a very rough woods road. The ambulance was an old hearse style ambulance. I could feel every bump in the road and acceleration of the ambulance in my back. When we got to the hospital, I remember still being in a daze. As I was pushed down the hall on a gurney, I could see the faces of people I knew leaning over me saying things that I don't remember. Later, I learned that I had fractured 3 vertebrae where my hammer in the middle of my tool belt was. Eventually, I recovered and went back to climbing poles. This time with new climbers and a new tool belt.

Man the Sails!

When I lived in Michigan, I bought a 27 ft Hunter sailboat on eBay. It was in Chicago and I had to have it moved to the Upper Peninsular of Michigan. I worked out an arrangement with a marina to store it in Oconto, MI, which was about 60 miles south of Escanaba where I lived. The boat had to be taken out of the water in October each year because that part of Lake Michigan froze over during the winter. So at the beginning of the summer, I went to Oconto to get the boat and sail it back to Escanaba. I had planned on sailing the boat about 30 miles the first day and finish the trip the next day. The boat had a small diesel auxiliary engine and I motored down the river from the marina out into the bay near Oconto. I was headed straight into the wind, so I had to motor instead of sailing. After a few miles out into the lake, the engine quit running. I raised the sails and sailed off in the direction I didn't want to go. I didn't have the option of returning to the marina under sail. The river was too narrow and shallow to tack. I sailed in that direction for about 6 miles until I reached a point where I could tack and sail past a light house that was jutting out into the lake. With all the tacking I had to do, I was making very little progress. I continued to tack back and forth in the direction I wanted to go. It was getting darker and I decided I needed to find some kind of sheltered water to anchor overnight. By now it was dark and I had not found a suitable place to anchor. Then all of a sudden a storm came out of no where. I put a rope around the tiller to try to hold it on course while I reefed the mainsail. In the process of doing that, the boat came to a sudden halt and the bow dipped down into the water. The boat twisted around broadside to the wind and it laid over on it's side. I was struggling to get to the sheets without being thrown overboard to cut them loose and let the wind out of the sails. I finally managed to do that and realized I had run aground. With the boat at a 45 degree angle and the wind and rain tearing at the sails, it was a nightmare to keep from getting thrown off the boat while I was trying to secure the sails. After getting the sails and the boom secured, I sat in the cockpit with the rain beating furiously against me. I was too exhausted to think at this point. After a few minutes, I decided to abandon the boat. I had a dinghy that I was towing behind the boat. I pulled the dinghy up to the boat and put the boat's anchor in it. I got in the dinghy and rowed out as far as the anchor line would let me. I dropped the anchor over the side to keep the boat from drifting away if the winds changed direction. I then turned the dinghy in the direction of the shore, which was about a quarter of a mile away, and paddled. The waves almost swamped the dinghy a few times, but I finally made it to shore. I threw the dinghy anchor out and waded the rest of the way to shore. I laid on grass by the water. Exhausted, soaked and relieved that I was alive. I looked out at my sailboat in the distance as it was being tossed and battered by the wind and the waves.

Country Bumpkin

There have been times when I really felt like a country bumpkin. Like the time I thought I would try this new restaurant when I lived in Atlanta. Usually I could go to a restaurant that served food that I had never eaten before and just order off the menu and the waiter would bring it. But this was a little different. This was a Mongolian Barbecue Restaurant. When the waiter seated me, he just pointed to what appeared to be a salad bar and left. He probably knew that I didn't speak Mongolian, so he didn't even give it a try. I got a plate and started picking out the things that looked interesting. There were several different kinds of raw meat and all the vegetables you normally see on a salad bar. I wasn't sure about the raw meat, but I thought "what the heck, I'll give it a try." I went back to my table and started eating. After a few bites of the raw meat, I was thinking that I won't be eating here again. Then I noticed that the other customers were taking their plates to a guy standing by a big grill. He was throwing the plate of food they had picked out at the salad bar on the grill and cooking it. Well of course he was cooking it. I guess I had it confused with a Sushi bar.

I was on a ferry going from the North Carolina mainland to the Outerbanks and I was starving. This was before microwaves. It wouldn't have mattered anyhow, I was a real country bumpkin back then. There was a vending machine with food in it. I put some coins in and got a hamburger. I ate it. As I stood there thinking that it was the worst hamburger I had ever eaten, I saw the oven that I was supposed to cook it in.

On another occasion, I made reservations at a restaurant in Atlanta. In order to get in, I had to make them 3 months in advance. When they told me they only had two seatings each night, I was thinking "no wonder it takes so long to get dinner there." The evening was totally confusing from beginning to end. The meal was served in courses and it seemed like an excruciatingly long time between courses. Besides that, I had never eaten a meal with that many courses. The waiter was extremely pretentious and when I couldn't understand what he meant by "boof", he whispered so that the other customers couldn't hear "beef". Then the ceremony the Sommelier went through with the wine almost put me to sleep. Again my country bumpkiness was showing through and I was growing impatient. When I thought we were through eating, I got up to go look for the cashier so I could pay the bill and get the heck out of there. Well the waiter headed me off at the door with a look as if I was trying to get out without paying. After all the pomp and circumstance, I should have realized there wasn't going to be a cashier.

You would think that I would have made a fool of myself enough, but no not quite. I went to see a play, "Streetcar Named Desire". I was pretty bored with the performance and after what seemed like forever, everyone stood up and applauded. I didn't want to get caught up in the traffic, so I made a beeline for the parking garage. I was the first one to get to my car and thought to myself that we had beat the rush. Then I realized that we were the only ones in the parking garage. It turned out that we left before the play was over.

Reading

As a kid, I hated reading books. In the summertime, the library had a reading program for kids to encourage them to read more books. They had a poster on the wall with all the kids' names and a star beside their names for each book they read. The stars were what they used before they had smiley faces. At the end of the summer, I had one star for the book I checked out at the beginning of the summer and returned at the end of the summer. I never read the book, but I got the star, anyhow. I guess the librarian thought that anyone who would keep a book that long must have read it over and over again.

In college, one of the basic courses was English Literature. We were assigned some classical novels to read. I still had not developed a taste for reading and by then there were ways to get around a lot of the reading that I would have to do. Most people know about Cliffs Notes. Apparently Cliff saw an opportunity to make some money by reading books and condensing them down to a small pamphlet of notes. You could read one of his abbreviated versions of a book and write a report or participate in a discussion with almost the same result as if you had read the book. Unfortunately, I didn't discover Cliffs Notes until my second semester of college. So I had to read the books I was assigned. That turned out to be a good thing, because for the first time in my life, I enjoyed reading books. At least I enjoyed reading classical and other well written books. It was interesting to me how some writers would put words together in ways that I had never heard them used. One particular phrase from the "Mayor of Casterbridge" that always stuck in my mind was "I heard an illegal noise." I still don't know what constitutes an "illegal noise".

As it turns out, Cliffs Notes didn't help me all that much. It seems Cliff didn't enjoy reading engineering books. Maybe one of the reasons I didn't like reading was that I was a miserably slow reader and had mountains of stuff to read. So I found that they had a speed reading course at the college and I could get credit for it. Before I knew it, I was reading 100 pages per minute. The trouble was, I could only process about 100 words per minute. By the time I got to page 100 while reading, my mind was still back on page 1 trying to figure out what I had read. I think all that grits I ate as a kid permanently slowed my mind down. My first math professor in college called me "Mr. Pedestrian Mind". I eventually got through college by spending all my awake time reading.

Over time I have developed a sort of hybrid method of reading. It combines some of the speed reading skills I learned in college and my natural plodding style of reading. If it's boring information I read the first line of the paragraph and skip to the next paragraph until I get to something that is interesting. Then I revert to my plodding style of reading and toil over every word absorbing each of them like a sponge. This is the way I read news and research data. For recreational reading, I discovered audio books several years ago. I guess I should actually call it recreational listening. For someone like me who has an innate curiosity about almost everything, you have to come to terms with reading.

Carolina Bays

I don't know how many of you I've told about this. I've always been interested in history and especially SC history. This includes some things that are almost, but not quite unique to SC. When I moved to Myrtle Beach, I discovered something called Carolina Bays. In all these years, I had never heard of them. Even when I first heard of them, I thought they were just ocean inlets along the coast of SC and NC. After some research, I found that they are not even that kind of bay. In fact, the bays in Carolina Bays refer to the bay trees growing there. Carolina Bays are oval shaped depressions in the earth. They range from small to very large. Some are filled with water and some are not. At the eastern end of the oval there is a sand berm along the edge. If you took a handful of rocks and through them at some sandy ground, you would probably get a formation that is shaped like a Carolina Bay. There are similar formations along the eastern and gulf coasts and they're known by other names in other places. If you look on a Google map of Myrtle Beach while it's in the aerial view mode, you can see the Carolina Bays just north west of the city. Carolina Bays have been studied and while there are theories about them, no one is certain about how they came to be. Someone took a large map and drew lines through the long axis of the ovals and extended the lines until they intersected. The lines apparently intersected somewhere in Ohio. My theory is that a very large meteor exploded over Ohio thousands of years ago and all the pieces landed where all the Carolina Bays type depressions are. Hey, you in the back of the class, wake up!

Flyboys

I remember my first solo flight. This was back in the early 80's. I had about 15 hours of training recorded in my flight book and I landed the plane with my instructor on board at the Stone Mountain Airport after finishing another lesson. He looked at me and said, "Ok, I think you're ready." I said, "Ready for what?" He said,"Your solo." I said, "Let's not rush into this, I think I would be happy if you just keep flying with me." But he wasn't listening, he was just walking back to the hanger. I taxied back out on the runway and gave it full-throttle. I had never been in a plane alone and it handled differently. It accelerated faster and when I got up speed and pulled back on the yoke, it seemed to jump off the runway. It made a lot of difference not having the extra weight of another person in the plane with me.

After that, I decided to buy a plane and then I was flying back and forth to South Carolina from Atlanta to visit the family. After I had enough hours of flying, I went for my license. I flew up to Conway and picked up the Flight Examiner. We started going through the maneuvers and I was winging it (no pun intended). I had not been trained for half the things he wanted me to do. I managed to get through the part where I was flying under-the-hood, which is when you put this contraption on your head that looks like a welding mask and only allows you to see the instruments. Then he killed the engine and told me to land the plane. I was pretty sure he knew what he was doing because I knew I didn't. So the idea is to fly the plane back to the runway with no power and land, which is to simulate this same sort of thing if you have an engine failure. Well, I was to close to the runway and too high. I had never even been trained to do an engine out landing. So I didn't know how to zig-zag to bleed off some airspeed and altitude. When I got to the runway, I was about 200 feet above it and there was no way that I could get it down to make the landing. By the time I got it down to the ground, I would be past the end of the runway and in the trees. At this point I had not touched the throttle. Doing so in my mind would be telling the Examiner I couldn't make the landing, which I couldn't. So rather than allowing the two of us to end up in the trees, the Examiner leaned over and gave it full throttle. I was thinking to myself, you blinked. Because I would have argued that I could have landed it if he had not given it power. So we made another circle of the airport and I landed. He told me I needed to practice the engine out drill and he gave me my license.

Since then, I have had a few more scary moments in a plane. I am licensed for Visual Flight Rules (VFR), which means I can fly when I can see far enough ahead to land. So I've never received any training in backing a plane up. On one of my trips back to Atlanta from SC, I ran into a rain storm. I turned around and went back to an airport I had just passed and landed the plane. I waited for awhile, but the rain just got worst. I called my cousin Dan who lived in Conyers at the time and he came and took me home. Thanks again, Dan.

On that same trip before I got to the storm, my engine just quit running. I fiddled with the throttle and it finally started again. Now fiddling with anything implies you don't know what you're doing and you end up fixing it just out of blind luck. So that correctly describes what happened. I don't know why the engine stopped and I don't know why it started.

On another occasion, I landed my plane at the Walterboro Airport and applied the brakes. When the brakes don't work, it seems like either the car or the plane, whichever you're in, begins to go faster. I don't know if it actually sped up, but I started doing everything you would if that happens in a car. I turned the engine off and looked for a gearshift because panic had set in. By the time I realized none of that would help, I was at the end of the runway. Fortunately, at Walterboro, there is a lot of room at the end of the runway. As I ran off the runway and hit the grass, the plane slowed down enough so that I could make a big u-turn.

On yet another occasion, I was in my brother Ron's plane. He was flying, which is a much safer thing than flying with me. He is Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) rated, which means he doesn't have to turn around when he comes to a storm. Besides that, he's a much better pilot than me. Anyhow, we were headed for the John's Island Airport when the door next to me popped open. When you're in an airplane flying over a 100 mph and the door within inches of you pops open, your life flashes in front of you. Being the cool dude my brother is, he tells me to close it. Well it turns out that it's impossible to close the door when the plane is flying so I pull it as close to being closed as I can get it. Ron slows the plane down to where it only sounds like a hurricane rather than the tornado it sounded like before. While I'm struggling to keep the door from being ripped off, Ron is grinning and asking me if I'm having fun. I'm sure Ron has a lot more stories of near death experiences than I do.

Myrtle Beach

"The convenience of living in this modern world" he said to Ethel as he sat by the window overlooking the beach, "we don't have to go out and look for them signs no more, there goes another one." Jimbo was talking about one of those long banners trailing behind an airplane as it flew by their hotel. It was advertising a sale at the Eagles Beach Shop. There must be a thousand of those shops in Myrtle Beach. They advertise that they are selling t-shirts with "My Mama went to Myrtle Beach and this is all she brung me!!!" printed on them for $4.99. When you go in the shop looking for it, they say "you see that lady walking out the door? Well, she got the last one, but we got this one for $12.00. How many you want?" But Ethel wasn't paying Jimbo no mind, cause she knew they had some killin' to do.

If I was going to write a book, that would be the first paragraph. Living in Myrtle Beach is a mixed bag. I can look out at the beach and see families having fun and playing in the water, but when I read the paper it tells about a different side of Myrtle Beach. It tells about the corrupt politicians and the ongoing battle between the people who ride motorcycles and those that don't. Then there's the crime. I don't know if there is statistically a lot of crime here or if that's all the Sun News can find to write about. The people who comment on the stories in the online version of the paper call it "Murder Beach". But maybe their perspective is jaded because there sure are a lot of tourists here. Or maybe the tourists just don't read the paper.

We Are What We Eat

I've read a lot of articles about the foods we eat. I get a daily email from "Real Age", which has an overwhelming amount of information about the foods we should eat. Overwhelming is the key word. As a result, I'm also confused about what is healthy eating. I received an email from a friend of mine who wanted to make a point. She invoked her status as a medical professional and told me that my "food experiments" are, this is my word, "crap". She's right. She asked me if I had read a book by Michael Pollan and I haven't. But I have now looked it up on the Internet and at least have the gist of it. In his book, "Food Rules" (not to be read as yeh man, food rules, dude), he lists 64 rules about the kinds of foods we should eat. There is a short article here that tells you about 7 of them. I don't want to over simplify or misstate what Mr. Pollan has written, but he seems to be saying that you can eat almost anything as long as you eat it before it gets to the processors. My friend seemed to be particularly offended by the Ramen noodles that I put in some of my "food experiments". I don't know how they are made or what is in them, but I am pretty sure that if you buried them and they were dug up in a million years, you could still eat them. I think that breaks one of the food rules, "if it won't rot, don't eat it". That reminds me of the comment that I made about letting food "rest". My friend said, and again this is my interpretation of her words, "if it's already rotted, don't eat it".

Thanksgivings Past

Mom sent me an email and said that I should write a story about the time I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for the family and my neighbors cooked some things to help me out. This appears to be a slippery slope to me. What she really wants to know after all these years is did my neighbors actually cook the whole meal and I just took credit for it. I think Mom has a list of things she is suspicious about and if I spill the beans on this Thanksgiving thing, she'll want me to write stories about other things on her list. Well, as my brother Ron would say, "do I look stupid?"

The truth of the matter is that I actually did cook that meal and my neighbors gave me more moral support than anything else. They cooked a couple of dishes and tried to tell me how to cook the rest of it. They weren't completely successful, though. When I started cutting the turkey, I happened to notice there was a bag inside of it. You people who have cooked a turkey are way ahead of me. I don't remember what he said at the time, but Ron probably said "do you look stupid?" more as a statement than a question. Well, how many turkeys have you cooked, Ron?

Did you see that? This writing business is great. At the end of the previous paragraph, I allowed my self to have the last word with Ron. I'm sure he'll notice that. Now if I can just write a story about winning an argument with my brother, Don, my Mt. Everest of personal achievement will have been accomplished. Mom, if you have any suspicions about anything my brothers did, I'll be happy to write the true story about that.

The Fighting Sioux

When I'm in my car, I always listen to National Public Radio (NPR). Their discussions are usually interesting. Today I was listening to a debate between leaders of two different groups of Sioux Indians in North Dakota. The athletic teams of the University of North Dakota (UND) are nicknamed the Fighting Sioux. One of the leaders, Mr. Iron, was in favor of UND keeping the nickname. The other leader, Mr. Taken-alive, wanted UND to stop using the nickname. When Mr. Taken-alive was introduced, I couldn't keep my mind on what they were talking about for wondering how he got that name. I'm just glad I already had a last name or I could have been known today as Mr. Don't-take-that-last-biscuit.

The End of the Swamp

This is the rest of the swamp story. We awoke the next morning early and loaded our stuff in the canoe. Not far down the creek we came to that tree I saw the night before that had fallen across the waterway. It looked as if it had been there for quite a while. We laid in the bottom of the canoe and pulled the canoe under the tree. We were covered with spider webs when we got to the other side. Obviously no one had been this way in some time. I was beginning to wonder again if we were going the right way. We continued on as the waterway narrowed. It eventually became a ditch with barely enough water in it to keep the canoe afloat. We moved the canoe along by pushing against the side of the ditch with the paddles. The vegetation was thick and at times blocked the waterway. We encountered dozens of huge spider webs that stretched across the ditch. Finally, the ditch began to get wider and the water deeper. Fish were jumping out of the water. Several of them landed in the boat and we threw them back in the water. Then we came into a river. At last we had found something we could identify on that map. It was the Suwanee River. By this time we were snarling at each other again and in the wide river we were having a problem guiding the canoe again. I just gave up and let the river take us along. At times we were floating down the river sideways. The landing where we were to meet the man to take us back where we started came into sight. We loaded the canoe on his truck and began the 40 mile trip by road back to the other side of the swamp. The silence was thicker than the spider webs we encountered earlier. When we arrived back at our starting point, everyone was talking about the huge alligator that attacked and killed a smaller alligator in the cove where they kept the canoes. If that would have happened the day before, there would be no story to write about. Earlier today, I checked the Okefenokee Swamp website. Apparently they don't allow the public to take the kind of trip we took anymore. They do allow day trips in rented canoes, but they also give a warning. If we have to send a rescue team out for you, you will have to pay the cost of the rescue. I don't think that was even an option when we took the trip. In fact, if we had not found our way out, they would still be charging us rent on the canoe.

More Swamp

In my previous Blog, I was telling you about my trip through the Okefenokee Swamp. My friend and I had arrived at the half way point of the trip. We were tired, frustrated and not in a good mood. The bugs, heat and humidity were constant. The darkness was rapidly approaching. We got our things out of the canoe and put them in the tent. We talked about the days events. At least for me, this was not a fun adventure. The waterways through which we had passed to get to this point were about 15 to 30 feet wide and weren't a problem to navigate, but there was always the question "did we take the right waterway?" Up this point, apparently we had. As I looked in the direction we were to go the next day, I could see trees and limbs that had fallen across the waterway. We were at a camping site, but was it the right camping site. When I say camping site, I'm talking about a small elevated platform only slightly larger than a two-man tent surrounded by swamp. I seriously considered going back the way we came. As we settled in for the night, I took the flashlight and scanned the swamp and waterway. It was a little disconcerting to see red eyes looking back at me. We had the company of several alligators. More later.

I had a request to review the movie "Death at a Funeral". So I watched it last night. It was pretty funny, but as I watched it...it was obviously not the movie I was asked to review. I think I was supposed to be reviewing a movie with Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence. As it turns out there are three movies with the same name. There are two British versions and an American version. The original one, the one that I watched was the first British version made in 2007. Then there is another British version made in 2010 and the American remake with Chris Rock made in 2010.
So for what it's worth, the 2007 version is not MKI friendly and I would give it a 3 star rating.

Alligators, Snakes and Monkeys

The Post and Courier has a story this morning about the TryCharleston event. There seems to be concerns about the swimming part of the event. It takes place in an alligator infested lake. It just doesn't seem to be a good idea from a PR standpoint to call it a half Ironman triathlon when you might come out of the lake as half of an Ironman.

This story brought back memories of of an adventure I had back in the early '80s. A friend of mine and I decided to take a trip through the alligator and snake infested Okefenokee Swamp close to the Georgia-Florida border. We rented a canoe and took enough food for two days. This was the first time that either my friend or I had been in a canoe. We weren't well prepared for this adventure. We had a crude map provided by the park service, but as we paddled our way through the swamp it became increasingly confusing as to which way we should go. There were only a few markers and too many opportunities to go in the wrong direction. The whole trip was supposed to be about 26 miles and take two days. After about 5 miles, I had the same feeling I had on my first and last skydiving trip. It was that feeling that I felt just after I jumped out of the airplane and before the parachute opened...exhilarating nausea. But that's another story. As we ventured further into the swamp, we passed one hungry looking alligator after another. They stared at us as if they were sizing us up for their next meal. Will it be the skinny one in the front or the big one in the back. As the sun was setting, we reached the the small two man tent set up on a small platform in the middle of the swamp. It was a relief to get a break from snarling at each other. That was due mostly from the frustration of my friend continually trying to guide the canoe from the front. I wasn't an expert on canoeing, but after a few miles into the swamp...I could tell that the person in the back of the boat should be the one guiding it. So with great relief, we had made it to the half-way point of the trip. More later.

This movie reviewing business is getting complicated. I was calling the movies some family members like "vanilla", but that doesn't seem to be the kind of strict standard that is needed. If you've heard of Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru, then you're on the right track. The standard needed for this category formally known as "vanilla" should be called the MKI standard. If it meets the MKI standard, people with movie tastes like Mom can look at it without fear of being offended. The MKI standard is based on the three monkeys...Mizaru (see no evil), Kikazaru (hear no evil) and Iwazaru (speak no evil). There actually is a fourth monkey...Shizaru (do no evil), but what's that got to do with looking at a movie? I thought about changing the order of the monkeys so that it would be the KIM standard, but I'm not sure my niece would appreciate that.

I have reviewed two movies, "Up" and "Everybody's Fine" that meet the MKI standard. I reviewed another one tonight that also meets the MKI standard. "The Blindside" was a pretty good movie. Sandra Bullock got an Oscar for her performance in that movie. All through the movie I was trying to figure out who the actor was that played Sandra Bullock's husband. In the credits I saw that it was the singer, Tim McGraw. I think that was the first time I saw him without a cowboy hat. I would give this movie 3.5 stars.

Sugarjack

Sugerjack is eligible for Medicare. Happy Birthday Sugarjack. It seems like only yesterday when we rode our bicycles together down the dirt road we lived on. Three of us shared our first bike together, but now the brothers had outgrown the small bike except for Sugarjack. So at Christmas time there were two new larger bikes and the smaller bike looked all new again. Daddy had painted it for Sugarjack. I think looking back on it now, that little painted bike was more special than it seemed at the time.

I watched the movie "Everybody's Fine" last night. It was a real tear jerker. If you like that kind of movie, I would recommend this one. I have seen a lot of Robert DeNiro's movies, but to me he has always played Robert DeNiro playing Robert DeNiro. This is the first movie he has done that I can remember where he took on the role of the character he played. He did a good job and I would give this movie 4 stars and an ok for Mom.

Slow that car down!

An interesting website was sent to me yesterday by Sadie. You can look at it here. The site lists thousands of speed traps around the country. I found a lot of them around Myrtle Beach. The only one I found in Colleton county is near the intersection of Hwy 17 and the Greenpond Hwy. My brother travels that route about 4 times a week. I'm sure it doesn't concern him because he drives slower than my mother. The same with my cousin at Edisto Beach. There are several speed traps in that area, but he doesn't drive fast enough to worry about it. On the other hand, my brother in Mt. Pleasant should memorize the speed traps in that area.

Taxes and Census

It's tax day. The IRS has admitted to being confused and making mistakes with tax returns this year. So I have decided to give them a little more time to figure things out. I filed for an extension. I have actually finished my taxes, but they haven't figured out what they owe me from last year. They need help.

I read where SC was one of the leaders in the percentage of people who had returned the 2010 census forms. I waited patiently for my form to come in the mail. On census day I had not yet received a form. I started trying to find out why. I found out that the Census Bureau doesn't send forms to P.O. Boxes. So with a little more research I found that forms could be obtained at the local library. Now I've been counted. I don't know how many people would go to much trouble to fill out a census form. I've learned the value of the census other than being sure your state gets its share of federal funds. A few years ago, I began to research my family's history. I found that one of the major sources of information for doing research is the US Census. So when my family's descendants research this year's census, they will find that I was living in a P.O. Box in Myrtle Beach, SC.

I do not have any food experiments today, but I can verify the value of my previous post about allowing food to "rest". The corned beef I cooked a few days ago was ok when I cooked it, but now it's delicious.

Murton, Bacon and Hamburger

I found this article in the Charleston Post and Courier this morning. "Murton's walkoff single cuts Power". I have been following the career of Matt Murton for a few years and he fell off the radar. He played for the Chicago Cubs for a while and the last time I heard about him, he was in the Oakland A's organization. As it turns out this Murton is not Matt, but his younger brother Luke. He is playing for the Charleston Riverdogs. Both of the brothers played for Georgia Tech in college and I know about them because they are the sons of my long time best friends' neighbor. My friends, Harold and Davina, live near Atlanta.

This reminds me of the "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" theory. I think it means that everyone is related to some famous person within six relatives. For example, my cousin's cousin's cousin's cousin's cousin's cousin is Luke Murton. In the case of my friend Harold, his last name is one of the most common names, so I think he is related to everyone by two degrees. In my case, even though it seems like I am related to everyone within 2 degrees, it's probably more like eight degrees.

Another thing about my friend Harold, he is an excellent cook. I think that's what I should call him. I would have said excellent chef except I think chefs get paid to cook. On the other hand, as you may have read in some of my previous articles, I experiment with food. Here's another experiment. Put a lb. of ground beef in a skillet. When it is about half cooked, add 3-4 cups of fresh mushrooms. I love mushrooms. When the mushrooms have cooked down for a while, add 3 cups of water. Bring it to a boil and add two packages of Ramen noodles. Turn the heat down and let it simmer for about 5 minutes. Then add a family sized can of mushroom soup. Stir all that up and let it simmer for a while. This is kind of a homemade version of hamburger helper.

I reviewed a couple of movies last night. One was "The Closed Book" and the other was "Drool". You will see from these reviews that there is a benefit to reading my reviews. You won't have to go to the video store and waste your time and money on these two dogs. I've done that for you. "The Closed Book" was like a basketball game to me. It only gets interesting in the last few minutes. The main actors were two that I haven't seen in a while...Tom Conti and Darryl Hannah. I would rate this movie at 1.5 stars. With a title like "Drool", you might really get excited about the movie. Don't let your curiosity get the best of you. I've never heard of the actors in this movie except the guy who was dead most of the movie did look familiar. I would give this movie a half star. As a public service, if you've heard of a movie that you might want to see, leave the name of it in the comment section below and I will review it and give you my opinion.

Sweaty Grunt

When I was 17, I went to work for a power line construction company. A crew consisted of a foreman, linemen, apprentices, equipment operators and grunts. The grunts were the entry level jobs and they were called grunts because they did all the heavy lifting and hard work. Grunt was also a derogatory name that the crew members who had "paid their dues" called us. I was a grunt and as a result, I sweated profusely everyday from the hard work. I can remember sweating while working in 8 degree weather one winter in north Georgia. It was the equipment operator's responsibility to fill up a 10 gallon water can with ice and water every morning. On the side of the water can was an attachment to hang a container that dispensed salt tablets. I would take them by the handfuls. Since then salt tablets seem to have disappeared.

I read an article in the Post and Courier this morning that brought these memories back. You can read it here. It caught my eye because it would have been useful to have some BANa when a family member was sick recently and became dehydrated. She eventually had to go to the hospital to recover. The first thing they usually do in such a situation is to administer an IV. In the P&C article a Charleston doctor had a light bulb moment and wondered why there wasn't an IV equivalent that could be taken orally. As a result, he created BANa. This idea of replacing electrolytes has taken a long time to evolve from taking handfuls of salt tablets to the safer Gatorade to BANa. It still has some controversy associated with these electrolyte replacing drinks, so as they say, consult your physician first. It would have been great to have Gatorade when I was a grunt.

More Movies

The movies I reviewed earlier today were as I said "weird". I reviewed 2 more tonight. One fell into the weird category and one in the vanilla category. The weird one was "The Dark Backward". I reviewed it specifically because it was on the top of a list I found of weird movies. There were some notable actors in the movie, but in addition to being weird, it was in the running for the worst movie I've ever seen. It gets "0" stars and I plan to zero it out of my movie files because it was so bad.

There are some folks in my family that like vanilla movies. So in an effort to find a movie that they might like, I tied myself to my chair and forced myself to watch Disney's Up. It's an animated movie that I heard good things about. I think the vanilla lovers might like it because I barely made it through the movie without jumping off the balcony. That's a good sign. If I can momentarily force myself to see the movie from their perspective, I would give it 3.5 stars. So this is one I would recommend to Mom.

Movies

Movie critics seem to have an easy job. I've never found one with whom I completely agree. So if I give you my opinion on a movie, I'm just as likely to have people not agree with me as I don't agree with them. With that bit of logic, I declare myself a MOVIE CRITIC.

I have hundreds of movies that I've never watched, so I will review them for you and maybe there will be one you like. In the 70's I used to go to "art" movie theaters in Atlanta. One of the strangest movies I have ever seen was made by David Lynch. Actually, he's made a lot of strange movies. Remember the tv series "Twin Peaks". But the strangest one was "Eraserhead". I consider myself a logical person and when I see or hear something that doesn't make sense, I get an uneasy feeling. It's sort of like driving down a road that you think you know where it goes and suddenly you find yourself somewhere you didn't expect to be. I remember feeling shocked when the audience started laughing at a scene that was horrifying to me.

Another movie that I saw back in the 70's was the cult movie "Rocky Horror Show". It played at the same theater every night at midnight. The cult following would dress up like characters in the movie and when the actors would say certain memorable lines, the audience would say them in unison with the actors.

Recently I watched a couple of newer movies that were a little strange, but not in the same way that "Eraserhead" and "Rocky Horror Show" were strange. "Memento" and "eXistenZ" are both weird movies. These are movies that while watching them you have to keep rethinking what just happened. "eXistenZ" appears to be a movie that was made on a $10 budget. In the scene where they are driving down a road, it looks like the car is sitting in a studio with a screen behind it like old 1930's movies. But with actors like Jude Law and Willem Dafoe, you have to think it's worth watching.

Using a rating system of 1-5 stars, I would give all of these movies 5 stars for weirdness. If you don't like weird or strange movies, don't even watch them. Among the reasons, at least for me, for watching movies is the potential for being weird. Here's a special alert for MOM, don't even think about watching these movies!

Howard, thanks for the corned beef idea. I have already ruined the one I bought Saturday. I'll try your idea when I finish this brisket next year. Now that I think about it, corned beef does go with cabbage.

Thank you for reading my blog. Before you leave, please check out the ads that interest you and I will name my next child after you. Moon Pie is anxious to have a little brother. This is not how I make my living, but it gives me enough change to ward off the panhandlers when I go to Walmart.

Summer

It's 64 degrees outside today. It's a perfect day to be at the beach. There's a bright orange ice cream truck parked at the end of the street next to my building. If he drives another 100 feet, he'll be in the ocean. Music is coming from the truck to let the people on the beach know he's there. The song is Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Except for the song, it sounds like music you would hear coming from a merry-go-round. I wonder if there is some kind of marketing psychology behind playing Christmas music in the summer.

I have a lot of relatives and I may mention them occasionally. Today one of my cousins is getting married. I want to wish him and his bride a long and happy marriage. He doesn't play golf so I don't think his wife has anything to worry about. It's time to tell a secret. My cousin's wife should ask him "how can you get in a wreck when driving down an airport runway in the dark?" This is another thing I suggest you not try at home.

I don't have a food experiment today, but the leftover from yesterday required a serious amount of Texas Pete to make it edible. I did have a good day at the grocery store. I bought 10 pounds of potatoes and a 3 lb. corned beef brisket for $5.48. I think I'll cook the brisket along with a couple of lbs. of potatoes in the slow cooker. This will be another first for me and I'm wondering if I should peel the potatoes. That would break my "too much preparation" rule. I think I'll just throw it all in the cooker and go watch tv.

Fire!!! Fire!!!

I live on the 18th floor of a 23 floor condominium building. The fire alarm has gone off twice so far today and 5 times this month. The first one was an actual fire. The elevators shut down as they were supposed to do and I walked 18 floors down the stairs. When I got to the first floor, I just went to my car and went grocery shopping. Nothing like a fire to get you out of the house to do what you keep putting off. When I got back about an hour later I only had to wait a few minutes to catch the elevator.

Since the actual fire, I haven't really paid much attention to the alarms. I stood at the window and watched the people watching me. They probably don't know I have a highly developed sense of smell and I know nothing is burning. By the way, don't try this at home or anywhere else.

Here's my food experiment for today. I pretty much do all my cooking in a stainless steel frying pan. It's easy to clean. Put a can of salmon in the frying pan (remove the can first). Add two cups of V8 juice, one cup of water and some curry powder. Bring it to a boil and add two packages of semi-crushed Ramen noodles. Turn the stove down to simmer and go watch tv. Don't get to comfortable because it will be ready in about 5 minutes. This is one of those dishes that's better if it's given time to "rest". My nephew taught me about "resting" food. It just seems to help some food. I'm not sure any of you will think that this concoction could get enough "rest".

First Blog

It just occurred to me that I am starting this blog on the same day that Tiger Woods is playing public golf again. In fact, if I keep writing Tiger Woods here, some news outlet may google his name and make me famous. My brother and I do have something in common with Tiger, but I'll keep it a secret until CNN calls.

My intention with this blog is to gradually over time tell the world every secret I know about. That should get some of you on the edge of your seats. On the other hand, I will probably never be told another secret.

I am single and do what a lot of single men do. I cook and eat food in ways that most women would never do. The basic rules for my cooking are; NEVER use a recipe, explore the grocery store for foods that MAY taste interesting if they are combined, don't buy any food that requires a lot of preparation (think can opener) and cook things that require a minimal amount of watching (develop a sense of smell that can detect food that is on the edge of burning).

Here's my food experiment for the day. Go to Walmart and find those little pound cakes that come 8 to the box. Slice one of the cakes in two pieces so that you have two thinner pound cakes. Put some foil on a cookie sheet to avoid another dreaded couple of words to a bachelor....wash dishes. Lay the pound cakes on the cookie sheet with the cut side up. Spray the tops of them with butter flavored cooking spray. Put the cookie sheet in the oven on the top rack. Turn the oven on broil and go watch tv. Well, that's what I do because I have developed the sense of smell needed to keep them from burning. In your case though you may have to keep checking them until they are slightly toasted. Good with coffee.