He was only 19 years old.

You will be missed.

These two songs are strangely awesome. Creeping Out Sara is about Tegan and Sara who I happen to like quite a bit. Eddie, Bruce and Paul is about Iron Maiden which I grew up on and still love. Interesting to me that these ended up on the same album.

Which reminds me of the time Serge an I went to go see KISS on their full make-up reunion tour. We parked in my little 1980 Honda Civic at the forum and were consuming our pre-show beers when a van parked right next to us. Who come out of the van? Guttermounth! I was even wearing a Guttermouth shirt. They even wrote a song where they mention the KISS show. Kinda funny.

Back to NOFX, they still got it. I can’t condone what Fat Mike did at SXSW, but I can’t saw that I don’t think it’s funny since I wasn’t one of the ‘victims.’

That’s all for now.

The Jalopnik blog post, if you read it, refereed to the manliest men blah blah blah. In the comments people posted some Grandpa stories. I guess these in mine.

I never met my Dad’s father, he passed away some years before my father moved to the US form Iraq. Yes, *that* Iraq. My Dad grew up in Baghdad, Iraq. As understand it my Grandpa was an older guy and a very large man. Everyone in our family says I have my Granddad’s hands. Apparently he too had huge hands. They lived in a predominately Armenian area of Iraq (being Armenian and all), I don’t really have the details. My Granddad ran a repair shop. You might ask what he repaired, the answer, everything. Your factory assembly line stopped working? He’d work on-site. Your car needed a new muffler? He’d fabricate one. Your toaster stopped working? He’d fix that too. I guess it makes sense. My Dad is his father’s son and I am indeed my father’s son.

I did meet my Mom’s dad. He didn’t speak any English as he was from Guatemala in Central America. I was maybe 5 years old when he came to visit. I remember thinking he smelled weird. He had one arm and would take his dentures out and chase me with them in his hand. It may sound strange but it was fun. He would also pretend he was eating candy and then produce real candy in a little trick.

You might remember from 5 seconds ago that I mentioned my Grandpa had one arm. Well, it wasn’t always like that. He was a foreman for a railroad bridge builder. He was known to run a tight ship. One day he made a bad decision to wipe a bit of cement off of a portable cement mixer. It ripped his arm off. It didn’t cut it off, it ripped and pulled it off. I’m guessing it hurt like hell. Well this wasn’t in some urban setting is was many miles away from a hospital via a dirt road. As story goes he calmed everyone down, had someone get a pickup truck, had another person apply pressure to the wound and told the driver to go faster. He made it to the hospital, the doctors couldn’t believe it, he had lost an incredible amount of blood, but they were able to save him. He continued to work well in to his 60’s. He was a tough man and there wasn’t an OSHA to go check out the job site or a lawyer ready to collect on his behalf. It was simply a hard life lesson. He moved on.

May they rest in peace.

Read it. Enjoy it.

Oh and on a slightly related note, I still love Yoshinoya Beef Bowls, no matter what Patton says.

A few years ago a friend and co-worker of mine brought in some left overs for lunch that he called porcupine balls and they looked tasty. I asked for the recipe and here it is in Greg’s words. He doesn’t claim to have invented it, but he’s who I heard it from.

“Here you go:
1lb ground beef
1/2 cup rice
1 small onion (about tennis ball sized, or smaller) finely diced (the smaller the dice, the easier it is for the meatballs to hold together)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 can Campbell’s tomato soup

Mix all ingredients “except” for soup in a mixing bowl.
Feel free to add more pepper (As I always seem to, probably a tbsp. I like pepper
Form mixture into ping pong / golf ball sized balls.

Pour soup into pressure cooker and mix with one can of water.
Drop meatballs into soup, seal, and pressure cook for 12 minutes.

You will get about 15 meatballs? I think?
And don’t worry about going for super lean beef. The fat tastes goooooood! And it runs off into the soup mixture which is heavenly!”

I hadn’t tried it until now because I didn’t own a pressure cooker. As luck may have it my parents gave me one for my birthday a couple of weeks ago and tonight I made porcupine balls.

Now we’re cooking with gas! … and pressure!

Releasing the pressure at the ‘normal’ rate. The middle setting is the ‘rapid’ pressure release.

Balls! One note, I didn’t use Campbells’ tomato soup. I used Trader Joe’s Tomato Bisque canned soup. Still tasted awesome.

A closer look at the balls still in the pressure cooker.

The ball gets it’s close up!

Give it a try, it’s good. Feel free to experiment too!

Do yourself a favor and watch this fullscreen:

In strange way I hope it helps people realize how hard we (The United States of America) worked to achieve space flight and how hard it really still is. We made it look easy after a while. I assure it is not easy and maybe will never be easy, at least in my life time. I know at the end of the day this is really just an add for an energy drink, but even so, maybe it will inspire the next Joe Kittinger or Felix Baumgartner.

godspeed Felix Baumgartner

Well, much has happened since my last post, but I don’t live in the past. Well, sorta. Let’s re-cap the major changes since last may and move on to a more fruitful amount of blogging here.

After that Vegas trip I was told about a possible job opportunity and decided to give it a shot. After a less than stellar interview I wrote it off. Fast forward a month later I was given an offer I couldn’t refuse. So a major job change. Prior to this I moved to a new apartment which is awesome sauce! It’s been just over a year at this apartment and I’m still settling in. I did a bunch of cycling last year only to be thrown for a loop when the fires made the air virtually un-breathable, haven’t done much cycling since, need to get back on that. Other than that I haven’t done nearly enough fishing, but I have done a fair amount of shooting which has been fun. More on that in future blog posts.

The other big thing that kept off my wondertastic blog is fricken Facebook. For a while I posted there regularly, but have come to realize I’d rather post here. I’m sure Facebook has killed more than it’s fair share of personal blogs. Oh well.

On with 2010!!!

A couple weeks ago I visited good old Las Vegas for a wedding. No, not my wedding, but my friend Meg’s cousin’s wedding. Unfortunately for me I also had to try and get some studying in for a calculus exam. Luckily or maybe not so luckily I made plenty of time for fun.

First up on Friday night was some friendly wagering. The Ultimate Fighting Championship was in Columbus, OH and Vegas was taking bets on the 5 main card fights. Having followed the sport since the early days I decided to give my knowledge a test. Keep in mind the last time I did this it didn’t turn out too well. My picks: Jackson, Carwin, Hamill, Maynard, and Brown. $20 per fight for a total bet of $100.

After I placed my bets it was off to the wedding. One thing I love about Vegas weddings is that they are quick! This gets us to the good part fast, the reception. Everything was at the Flamingo and it all turned out great. The reception, more specifically, was at Voga. The food was excellent and a good time was had by all.

Saturday afternoon was spent recovering from Friday night. Meg and I eventually got out and had lunch at Mon Ami Gabi in the Paris hotel. The food was great, but the service slow. After lunch was a quick nap before getting ready to see Penn & Teller at the Rio. We had dinner at Búzios Seafood Restaurant in the Rio where I had a fantastic seared Ahi Tuna.

Meg can hardly contain her excitement for Penn & Teller!

The Penn & Teller show was great and I got to see them perform some new tricks which was great since I’m a huge fan. I’ve seen them at least 7 times, but never took the opportunity get my photo taken with them after the show. This night I decided it was time.

Me and Teller.

Me and Penn.

Penn & Teller really are great with their fans. They come out after every show to sign autographs and take photos with anyone and everyone who wants one until all are taken care of. They have been doing this since the first time I saw them way back in the early 90’s and I’m sure before then.

So those bets I made? 5 for 5! Feel free to go back and look at the stubs and look up the results. What did that net me? I think it was $82.10. Not too bad I should have bet big on Carwin. Maybe next time.

After Devon killed a can of Aqua Net on his fauxhawk we were finally on our way to meet the rest of the Wanksta crew at a local Sports Chalet. From there it was off to Ralphs for BBQing supplies then back to Sport Chalet for grill fuel which they were out of! Seriously, Sport Chalet, out of propane canisters for grills, it was a disgrace. After all that we were finally on out up to the Mill Creek Summit to watch about 10 minutes of 3 hour stage of the Tour of California.

Here are some of us getting set up at Mill Creek Summit.

The Wanksta crew minus our leader who is behind the lens. From left to right; Molly, Danielle, Craig, Brian (Ruben?), Sloan, and behind the camera Devon. Oh and that table … that the famous CRV table that used to come with Honda CRV’s, it’s FANTASTIC!

While we were waiting Molly got a little rambunctious and decided to stuff her mouth full of grapes. Click here for the video goodness.

This little girl put those MASH guys to shame. No brakes, no gears, no pedals, no cranks, and she bombed that hill. Seriously I’m a fan of getting kids on a Skuut as early as possible, I believe they will build balance faster and will be on a real pedal bike sooner with more ability, but that’s just my opinion.

After a CHP officer yelled at someone who was in the road Molly felt compelled to put it down in chalk. “THIS IS A STILL A ROAD”

Devon getting his wanksta on at Mill Creek Summit.

Up close to the signage. It was rubbed and washed away almost completely before the peloton got there.

Molly, Brian, and Sloan do their best to past the time as we wait and wait and wait. I know that sounds boring, but it was a blast!

CHP Charger, VROOM!

The breakaway! Finally, here they come, these guys broke away from the main peloton and were racing to the summit some 100 meters away for King Of the Mountain points (KOM).

The Mavic neutral support car.

The main peleton was several minutes behind the breakaway with Team Astana controlling the pace and protecting race leader Levi Leipheimer.

… there they go … these guys ride FAST UPHILL!!!! Like 20+ MPH … and this after riding for hours … UPHILL …

Here is Tyler Hamilton straggling behind the peloton, but not quick last.

Here is the last little pack at the very back of the field, these guys are essential running neck and neck for last … oh and there is the “Still Postal 4 Lance” guy running up with them.

And that’s all she wrote … about 15 minutes after the “End of Convoy” CHP SUV passed us we were packed up and ready to head home to watch the rest of the race on Versus.

I had to upgrade some stuff here and also mess around with some other junk to get the iPhone Wordpress App to work.

Now assuming all is well this should post and below you should see a photo of a failed hard drive. We’ll see.

Update: As you can see above it posts a thumbnail of the photo that is clickable to see a larger version. Doesn’t look the best, but it works in a pinch. This post update was done via the standard web interface and not on my iPhone.