The Culinary Post

Culinary comment number one: Once in a while as I'm preparing a meal I'll see it on the stove or plate and think, 'wow, that looks good enough to be in a cook book.' So this time I took a picture.
I guess I am sometimes bored on Sunday afternoons.

And it tasted great, especially over the basmati rice (not pictured).

Culinary comment number 2:Yesterday evening's trip to Kroger was timed poorly. Never go grocery shopping when you are craving junk. The cart gets filled with salt and sweets that are best avoided. Still, it led to an interesting discovery.

The Tostitos brand queso is, in my opinion, sub par. I buy it from time to time, but only because of good product placement and my distinctly American weakness for cheese and corn chips.

Last night I bought both the queso and the Tostitos creamy spinach dip. The spinach dip is mediocre, at best. But the queso and spinach dip mixed together is fantastic. It has now passed the test two nights in a row, so I'll recommend it.
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Softball Doubleheader
Game 1: We won 18-3.
Game 2: We lost 19-18. Our first loss, and my first league loss apart from our inexplicable Wednesday night losing streak.
It was an interesting game capped by a very interesting finish. We had runners on first and second, one out, down a run in the bottom of the seventh when our batter was ejected for arguing a strike call on a pitch that hit the plate. The third base coach replaced him. He was stuck in a lousy spot- not loose, and stepping in with a 2-2 count and the game on the line- and he grounded into a double-play. Darn.
I don't usually blame an umpire for a loss, but this time I will. He made a lousy call and he compounded it by tossing a player who had a reasonable complaint and did not go overboard with his remonstrations. Our guy had his say and was done complaining but the umpire egged him on, which is inexcusable to me.

School Zones

Update first: we won Sunday, 9-7. We won tonight 16-0. So my team has yet to lose in the Sunday night league, the Yogis are undefeated on Tuesdays, and we've lost four in a row on Wednesdays. Interesting, because all three leagues are of approximately the same quality. We just find a way to lose on Wednesdays.

Before tonight's game I got a chance to review the season's stats, which were tabulated sometime this week. The main reason was just to review how much playing time everyone had received, but all the stats were there.

My numbers were way down, which I already knew. But I also noticed that both my fellow board members had suffered a significant drop as well. That was interesting, and it didn't take me long to realize there was a connection.

Until this year, all three of us just showed up, got ready to play, and played. This year we spend most of our pre-game time fretting over who has not arrived, who needs to get in, who can play what position, etc. We spend very little time thinking about our own games. The time I used to spend swinging a bat and more or less thinking about the upcoming game is now spent making out a lineup, or worse, on the cell phone tracking down late arrivals.

It shows in the stats. I feel better realizing that, but I'm still not sure how to overcome it.

Ha Ha

I can't help being amused. Churchill Downs built this big new casino, er, clubhouse, which is wired to the hilt and all ready for slots and video gaming, and they can't get the go ahead. Ha ha.

"No, I do not know what Schadenfreude is. Please tell me, because I'm dying to know."

-Homer Simpson

I don't like being happy about it, but I am. I think I'm a typical Louisvillian who is proud of the Downs and has a proprietary feeling about it. I want the track to succeed. I see it as more than just a business.
But Churchill management certainly does not see it that way. So screw them.

I'm befuddled by the lack of moral consistency, anyway. I always have been.
The state says it's okay to bet on horse racing and buy (state-monopolized) lottery tickets (and play bingo as long as you don't smoke), but all other forms of gambling are illegal.

And that will apparently remain the law, even though the governor and a sizeable faction of the representatives tried to adjust it to "a couple of other forms of gambling are okay, as long as it's done at a racetrack and some of the proceeds go to promoting horse racing."

I obviously have no problem at all with legalized gambling, but I also have no serious beef with people who believe it's immoral and should be against the law. I'm just confused by the state-sanctioned argument that a few arbitrary forms of gaming are okay and the rest are not.

Koi

My alarm sounded and I stumbled to the bathroom, still not even close to fully awake. I reached past the curtain and turned the shower water on, let it run for a bit, and then stepped in.

My eyes were still not open- I was miserably tired. I found the soap and shampoo with my eyes closed, by memory. I stood under the water and washed but still was not waking up, which surprised me. Normally the shower pops me right to wakefulness.

And as I stood there with my eyes closed, and even though I still felt very, very sleepy, I was incredibly aggravated by the fish that kept swimming into my legs. Every few seconds I felt them bump or brush against me. I cursed the koi but stood there a while longer, then I shifted my feet a little, stepped on another koi and nearly fell, and felt even more aggrieved.

Then I woke up again, this time for real.

So, dream translators, what does it mean if you dream your bathtub is a koi pond?

This began as a comment on Mom's blog but it was too long. So this little tale gets its own post.

Wednesday night's ballgame was interesting. With the scoreboard not working, it was easy to lose track of things. On the field we'd lose track of the score and the inning. It felt like pick-up ballgames did when I was a kid and the game's end was not determined by the number of innings but by when someone's mom called them home.

At one point I found myself recollecting the summertime curfew of 'when the streetlights come on,' though that wouldn't have worked Wednesday because the ballfield lights were as dead as the scoreboard.

As the game headed into extra innings I had a brilliant idea. Mom and Dad were there, so if we got a lead I was going to have Mom yell "Kevin, it's time to come home!" Then I could just look around and say "sorry, my mom is calling me. I gotta go."

Hey, it used to work for Joe Clark.

Unfortunately (mostly because my hitting was not nearly as brilliant as my idea) we never got the lead.

Many months ago, my company renewed our major contract. It was a big deal, especially because it was a 4 year commitment. Displaying all the style and class of most major corporations, the company celebrated by giving us all cheesey red tee shirts that said 'FOUR MORE YEARS!' on the back.

My shirt was quickly deposited in a desk drawer and forgotten until I saw it again today.

My boss is an avid UofL football fan and season-ticket holder. Like many UofL football fans, she wishes Coach Kragthorpe gone. She thinks he's ruining the program.

So I made a little suggestion and donated the shirt, my friend Debbie provided the artistic effort, and then we hung the shirt over the the boss's desk, with "KRAGTHORPE" written jersey-style across the top, above "FOUR MORE YEARS!"

It was nifty. Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera. I should have saved the idea until tomorrow.

She tried very hard to discover who had left her such a thoughtful present, but nobody ratted us out. I said I thought Tom Jurich might have delivered the shirt personally, but I wasn't sure.

Softball bad news/good news

Bad news: another loss, we were still without 4 starters, I hit terribly, terribly, terribly.

Good news: hey, as David Benioff wrote in "City of Thieves," just because there's bad news, that doesn't mean there is good news.

Okay, in this case I think there is good news. I just realized in the last few days that I move, and specifically pivot, like an old man. I'm not in awful shape, thanks to my exercise bike and walking, but I have no back flexibility and lately I have some back pain. (That's the GOOD news?)

That is good news because I realized the reason for it is a desk job, too much time in the recliner, and bad posture when I'm sitting. I can't do much about the amount of time spent sitting at work, but I can improve my posture there. I can stay out of the recliner, and I can work on flexibility.

I think it will pay some dividends, and probably quickly. I hit great on Sundays- the day I don't sit at my desk all day at work, and am usually most active and therefore limber in the evening. Tuesdays and Wednesdays have stunk.

We'll see.

I've had the above picture saved for nearly a year, waiting for a picture of myself to paste in as one of the geniuses- just as Dad suggested. But the few photos I have of myself didn't scan at all well, and I have yet to take any of myself since I got a digital camera.
I grew tired of waiting and plugged in Ralph Wiggum instead.
Oh well. Some day...

In Raleigh, NC, Joseph Carnevale was charged with misdeanor larceny after stealing items from a construction site and creating this barrel monster.
Larceny is bad. The barrel monster is cool.

Last night, after spending all day thinking how nice it was to have three full days off from softball, I got a call to sub tonight. I would very much have liked to rest but I couldn't pass it up.

It was fun, and painful. We won 29-19. I was 2 for 4 with two walks, so that was okay.
I only got two balls hit my way on defense. The first was a rocket that I think I would have knocked down but it hit the bag and bounced 15 feet over my head. The second was a one-hopper that I played perfectly-for a third baseman. It just about broke my shin, then I picked it up, stepped on the bag, and almost turned a nifty third-to-first double play. The batter beat it by a step. I was a little surprised he got down the line so fast because he was about six foot eight inches tall and weighed about 320- which I guess explains why it hurt so much when his line drive hit me.

I like hanging out there on Friday nights- there's a large crowd, good softball, and phenomenal men's volleyball. But I left fairly quickly to go home and ice my leg. Ouch.

Because I'm a nerd who gets a kick out of things like this, I thought I'd share.

While watching an episode of "Angel" on Hulu, I thought I noticed something weird in the middle of a fight scene. I rewound to watch it again and there's a cameraman in the scene.

I picked up some ribs from Famous Dave's for lunch today. While waiting at the carry-out counter I was looking at all the pictures and junk hanging from the walls.

One picture features steaks on a charcoal grill. It's a 1960's scene, with a close-up of an Opie-like boy who is very excited because his steak is about to go on the grill. His June Cleaveresque mother is in the background. It is all very Norman Rockwell. I've never seen Mad Men, but I assume that's the kind of ad they create.

The only problem with the whole scene is that the grill has no grate. The steaks are sitting directly in the charcoal.

Weird. I assume this was done for some advertisement-impact, artistic reason, but I bet those steaks would taste awful.

Jim and I have recently discussed playing one last round at Bellarmine. When we go I'll give you a call, Brian.

Your post got me thinking about the number of times I bicycled over to the golf course as a kid. Then I got to thinking about all the stops that used to be on my daily summer-time itinerary. For some reason, I envision it sort of like one of those stupid Family Circus frames that shows Billy or Jeffy wandering all around the neighborhood.
So here it is. Click to enlarge.


I left out Cherokee Park, which would frequently have been littered with my little black dots. It was omitted both because I grew weary of cartography and because the picture was big enough already. Keeping it well-proportioned would have meant adding quite a lot more.

I hope I don't owe Bil Keane a royalty.
)))
Oh yeah, and speaking of wandering around the neighborhood, here's one more thing:

A few days ago I was driving west on Bardstown Rd, nearing the Gardiner Lane Shopping Center, when I saw a guy wearing a fluorescent tee-shirt and pulling a wheeled suitcase across the street at the Bardstown/Brighton intersection.
I was still a couple of blocks from him when he crossed so I couldn't see him very well, but with that outfit and the suitcase he reminded me a lot of a certain childhood neighbor.
With good reason, as it turns out, because it was him.

Just to Mix It Up A Little...

I'll go with Other, and the softball.

I'm still working my way through the Barney Miller episodes on Hulu. Two nights ago I watched the werewolf episode. It was every bit as funny as I remembered.

The next episode (next on Hulu, anyway. I think there might be a missing episode in between), called "Smog Alert," was one I didn't remember, and I think it was even funnier. The first little segment before the theme song was hysterically funny. Abe Vigoda was terrific before he died.

Huh? Not yet? Oh, okay.

That was such a good show. I wish they had all the episodes, but I guess the last 4 seasons were probably not nearly as good as the first 4 anyway.


We won. I already forgot the score. I want to say 11-3. We started slowly but then hit pretty good.

Mom and Dad still have a perfect record for the season. I have to make sure they come out at tournament time.

It was my first unpleasant pregame as a board member. Most of May we only had 11 or 12 players so filling out the lineup was easy and everybody played plenty. Tonight was the first night we had to sit players that I thought were due more playing time. I'm not going to like this new job much.

On the bright side, next Tuesday we are likely to be very short-handed on outfielders. I'll enjoy the challenge of creatively filling holes a lot more than I like squeezing 15 players into 11 spots.
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11:15 pm update: I almost neglected to note that "Casey At The Bat" was first published 121 years ago Wednesday. I came across that little fact about three weeks ago and was saving it for now, but I was pretty sure I'd forget on the actual anniversary. But I didn't. Good for me.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville— mighty Casey has struck out.