The Sword of Damocles, Sort of.

I have a recurring dream that I am still enrolled in college. The semester is winding down and finals are fast approaching. In my dream, I have just realized that I have enrolled in a class but have not been attending that class for some time. I think the class might have been today or perhaps yesterday, but I'm not really sure.

The problem is that I can't remember the name of the class.

I rack my brain to remember with no success. It's usually one of those necessary evils like Bible something, or college algebra, or philosophy. I just stopped going, but I didn't drop it and I'm worried about failing.

I've had this dream dozens of times. I've been out of college for twelve years but I'm still worried about unknown assignments hanging over my head.

Today when I had this dream while attempting to nap, I hit upon a solution. I should carry a small notebook to write down all of my assignments. When I complete an assignment, I just make a little check next to the entry. Now I never need to forget about missing an assignment or forgetting a class.

Why couldn't I have figured that out 17 years ago when it might have done me some good?

Postscript:

I just got a letter that my student loan has been paid in full. Now maybe the dreams will stop.

Time for a Road Trip?

According to the Fast Food Maven Blog at the Orange County Register the Washington City, Utah In-N-Out Burger is now open.

It's about 362 miles up there. That's a long day of driving (there and back) but it's doable.

Anyone?

Let Me Tell You About Something that Changed My Life

About three years ago, Tabitha and I decided that something was missing in our lives. Oh sure, things were going just fine. We were happy and healthy. We had a beautiful daughter and a lovely home. We just wanted more. We wanted to get the most out of... our carpet.

We put the old Hoover out to pasture and dropped five medium on a Dyson Animal. It was amazing. It was quiet. It was bagless. It was purple. It sucked more dirt out of the carpet than I thought possible. And all the suckings spin around in the chamber when you're vacuuming. It's like a psychedelic dirt show.

I know that some say there are better vacuums out there. I don't care. When you buy a Dyson, you're not just getting a super-sweet vacuum, you're joining a community. A community of cool, hip vacuumers. Most of the people we know have Dysons now. It just kind of happened. Electrolux owners don't seem as interesting now.

The accessories can be a little fiddly and difficult. There are a couple of attachments that I have no idea how to use. Aidan pretends they are space-ships. This doesn't dampen my enthusiasm for the Dyson one bit. I love this vacuum.

I saw the Dyson Root handheld vacuum at Target the other day. Someday.

Collecting

My wife, Tabitha, is an artist and collector. She collects items for use in future art projects. Unfortunately I keep her so busy with her job and the children that she has little time to actually work on her projects so the clutter builds up.

For years she collected her old beauty products. She had dozens of bottles of lotion, cleanser, and make-up. And then one day she did this:

She emptied all of the bottles into this jar. It is called "Beauty." I was concerned that we would start a chemical reaction but our house hasn't burned down yet. It was originally a congealed mess with the fat more evenly distributed. As time has passed the layers have become more defined.

Her latest collection is milk cartons. She is actually using them for a ceramics project with her students. In the meantime, we have been tripping over milk cartons. They are going to school tomorrow. And yes, Aidan is lactose intolerant.

For a while now I have been saving bottle caps. I'm not sure what she is going to do with them. I'm just saving them. This one is tough for me - open a Guinness, drink it, don't throw away the cap. I am a regular patron of the arts.

We have stacks of magazines around the house. She saves those to use in projects at school. In the garage, there are two plastic bins filled with old insulin syringes and empty bottles of insulin. That is going to be a really cool piece.

I can't blame her for all the clutter around the house. I'm pretty lax when it comes to putting clean laundry away. The kids are no help either. As soon as we put their toys away, they pull them back out. As I sit at the computer writing this, I see stacks of paper shoved into little nooks. This is my filing system. It's no wonder I have trouble finding things.

In spite of the clutter, I wouldn't trade my artist for anyone in the world.

It's 9:39 PM...

... and we're back home. I was apparently hallucinating at 3:19 this afternoon. Shortly after that I stopped obsessing about food.

At 5:20 we dropped the kids off at Grandma's house and went to the homeless shelter. We fed about 120 men and women. Tabitha scooped out 3 big tubs of ice cream and I made sure no one ran out of cherry cola. It was a good time.

I broke the fast at 7:30 tonight when we went to Tortilla Grille for Taco Tuesday after we finished at the shelter. I was hungry but I could have gone longer. The salsa did taste really good though.

I really appreciate the experience of fasting. I will definitely do it again. I will also help feed the homeless again. Fasting and feeding are two sides of the same coin.

It's 3:19 PM...

... and I've decided I'm ruggedly handsome.

It's 2:15 PM...

... and I'm still thinking about food. This is harder than I thought. It's only been since 7:00 AM when I last ate.

Did You Hear Something?

It must be my stomach. One of my many problems is that I constantly think about food. When I'm eating breakfast I'm thinking about what I'm going to have for lunch. When I eat lunch, I think about a snack. You get the picture.

This morning I decided to go on a short fast. This is for a few reasons. First, I've never done it before. Second, I need the discipline of doing it. I'm a prisoner of my appetite. Lastly, we are helping our little church feed the homeless tonight. It would be good for me to know what it would be like to be hungry.

Now I need to stay out of the kitchen. On the counter rest the brownies I made on Sunday. In the corner is the chocolate from Valentines Day. In the fridge, my cheese calls for me.

I'll keep you posted.

Darn You Gillette

So there I was with my three-bladed Gillette Mach 3 razor. What a great razor. It shaved close with minimal irritation. Who could want anything more?

And then I see the Gillette Fusion at the store. Five blades! Are you kidding me. Who needs five blades. Three blades are plenty.

One day I get the mail and find that Gillette has sent me a free Fusion razor. Uh oh. I know how this works. First they give you a little taste, and then when you're hooked, BAM!

Like a sucker I used the Fusion.

Wow. Where have you been all my life, Gillette Fusion. It glided across my face like a bobsled on an icy run. Short beard, long beard. It made no difference. It even had that little blade on the back to get those hard to reach areas.

But there was a catch. There's always a catch.

I went to Target today to buy replacement cartridges. $12.49 for a package of four! Three dollars a piece. I had to tap into my equity line of credit to complete the purchase.

At least they last for a while. The Mach 3 blades only lasted a week before they started to irritate. They seemed to have a sweet spot of only three shaves. The Fusion blades last for at least three weeks. They shave great from first shave to the second to last shave.

Because they are so expensive I try to use them only every other day.

Civilization will Finally Reach Utah

The OC Register's Fast Food Blog reports that In-N-Out will be opening a store in Washington City, Utah in the late spring. Utah residents won't have to drive to Las Vegas for their Double Doubles.

It also gives those who frequently drive I-15 (to, say, Montana) another excellent dining option. Now if only we could get In-N-Out to put stores in Cedar City, Beaver, Scipio, and Nephi (got to stay within 500 miles of Baldwin Park).

Utah will never have as many In-N-Out stores as Mormon churches but it's a start.

Success

It came out very nicely. You can taste just a hint of molasses.

TimB's Bakery Round Two

I'm baking another loaf today. This time I am trying oatmeal bread. I used the white bread recipe from the Kitchen Aid book as an outline again. I used bread flour, Scottish oatmeal, and molasses instead of white sugar. It's in the oven for the first raise right now. I hope it turns out well.

Mmmmm! VIII

About four years ago I became obsessed with baking bread. I've always been obsessed with bread but I hadn't really tried to bake it. Every week for about a month I baked a couple of loaves. I was getting pretty good at it until I made a loaf of oatmeal bread and forgot to put in the salt. It was not very good; actually it was horrible. It is amazing how a little salt can change a loaf of bread from a bland lump to a tasty treat.

For Christmas three years ago I got a Kitchen Aid Mixer, the kind with a bread hook for kneading dough. You might think that I immediately whipped up a loaf of yeasty, crusty bread. You would be wrong. I used the mixer to make pancakes but mostly it just sat on the counter next to the coffee maker. Tabitha used it quite a bit but I didn't.

Last weekend I got a bee in my bonnet. I have bread flour, whole wheat flour, and oat flour. I had the raw materials for making bread. I found a few recipes for bread but most use all-purpose flour. I prefer bread flour because it has more gluten, making the bread less crumbly. I was stressing about the flour.

And then I thought, "It's just bread. If you have the flour, yeast, liquid, salt and sugar it's going to be fine." So I modified a recipe from the Kitchen Aid recipe book. I used bread flour instead of all-purpose. I used brown sugar instead of white. I incorporated some whole-wheat flour instead of just using white. You know what? It turned out just fine.

Actually, it's probably the best bread I have yet baked. It tastes good, it has a nice crust, and it smells awesome. Abigail, who doesn't normally like crust said, "Daddy, I love this crust." The reviews are in and critics agree - the bread rules.

One thing is kind of weird though. I love cheese and I love bread. I love to eat cheese while eating bread. But I don't like cheese bread. Go figure.

Good Grief! Not Another Post About Cheese!?!

Cheese, glorious cheese. As many of you may know, I like cheese. I've stumbled across two that are now among my favorites. The first is Kerrygold Dubliner from Ireland. And then this summer I was introduced to Beecher's Flagship.

Kerrygold Dubliner travels all the way from Ireland to my supermarket. I don't know how they do it, but you can find it at your finer grocery stores. My sister, Judy, has even found it in 2 pound blocks at Costco. While a little more expensive than the store brands it is still relatively affordable.

It is yummy. Dubliner has a creamy white color with a texture similar to an aged cheddar (hard and crumbly). It tastes of grass, oak, parsnips, and sour coffee. I'm just kidding. It has a mild nutty flavor. Judy says it melts really well over pasta but I have not tried it that way yet.

The second cheese is from Beecher's, a Seattle cheesemonger in Pike's Place Market just down the way from the original Starbucks. Beecher's actually make cheese in their store. If you go at the right time you can watch through a big window as they turn milk into heaven .

Flagship is a semi-hard cheese aged for one year. The texture is crumbly but slightly softer than cheddar. It has a nice sharp taste redolent of wind-swept seaside pastures. I don't know what that means, I just made it up. Beecher's will mail you cheese if you send them money or you can do what I did. Give your sister-in-law ten dollars when she goes to Seattle and wait for her to return with eleven dollars worth of cheese. Thanks Elizabeth.

Mmmmm! VII

I love clean sheets. There is nothing better than climbing into bed on a cold night and slipping between freshly laundered sheets.

I rotate between two sets and wash them once a week. I wash the dirty sheets from the hamper and use those to make the bed when they are dry. I put the dirty sheets from the bed in the hamper to be washed the next week. That way I don't have to fold clean sheets.

You might be saying to yourself, "this guy thinks way too much about sheets." Yeah, you're right. I do. Do you have a problem with that? Should I be in the garage building something instead? Well, yeah, I do have that canoe I'm building. Maybe I should stop obsessing about sheets.

I'm going to bed. In my nice fresh, clean sheets. Good night.

Our Time On Earth is Short

When we used to live across the street from the cemetery, I would occasionally take a walk among the tombstones. There were many tombstones from the early part of the 20th century. Tombstones of people who died in the teens, twenties and thirties. One thing that struck me was that these tombstones were rarely visited by anyone, much less family members.

We are known for only about 5 or 6 generations - our grandparents, parents, siblings and friends, children and grandchildren. A few lucky people will know their great-grandparents or great-grandchildren. Our memory will last for only about 100 years.

A few, those who become famous, will be remembered for much longer but they won't ever really be known. We can't talk to Abraham Lincoln's friends, George Washington's soldiers, or Shakespeare's family. Even for those who write, most will just fade away, forgotten in a dusty bin in a library.

My point is that we realistically have a very short time to make an impression on a very small number of people. We can influence people in positive ways or negative ways. I hope that I will have a positive influence on those people I know as my predecessors had a positive influence on me.

I never knew my great-grandfather Howard Malcolm. But I did know his son, Dan Abbott and his grandson, Dean Malcolm. I know from reading Grandpa's memoir that Howard, a Baptist preacher, wanted to serve God. He passed this on to his son, his grandson, to me, and I will pass it on to my children. I hope they will pass it on to their children and grand-children. Each generation must make this faith their own. We won't always agree on everything but we don't have to.

An Amusing Cheese Anecdote

Here is a quote from Grandpa's memoir about some food ordered from Montgomery Ward after World War I:

The second item was a five pound block of cheese. It was wrapped in foil and had a violent orange color. On its wrapper it proclaimed that it was made of sheep's milk, in Belgium. Now my Father would eat almost anything if it was labeled "food," but one taste of this cheese shattered his record! Now, there was a roving greyhound in our neighborhood, which regularly canvassed our back yard for possible snacks. Mother, not knowing what else to do with this "disaster" put it out in the backyard, in the hope that the dog might dispose of it. Which he did: I looked outside the window just in time to see him drag it off to one side, dig a hole, and bury it!

I would say that Belgium is not really known for its cheese. Now if it were chocolate? Mmmmm!

Mmmmm! VI

I love asparagus. It is such a primitive vegetable. It's just a stalk. But when you drizzle a little olive oil over it, add a dash of salt and pepper, and then grill it over some hot coals you have something truly special. I have had some fresh cream of asparagus soup that was really good. Canned asparagus is not so good but the fresh stuff, wow!

I does make your pee smelly though.

Mmmmm! V

I like pancakes. I like whole wheat pancakes, buttermilk pancakes, buckwheat pancakes, and cornmeal pancakes. I don't care for fruit or nuts in my pancakes.


Another thing I don't like is store bought fake maple syrup. I like syrup that has been tapped from a maple tree in some state where they have snow and the people wear plaid woolly caps with ear flaps. I don't like syrup whose primary ingredient is corn syrup. In fact, I don't really like corn syrup at all. I think corn syrup is responsible for obesity, autism, diabetes, tooth decay, moral decay, and idiocy.


I do, however, like homemade fake maple syrup. Place 1 cup white sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, two cups water, and 1 teaspoon maple flavor in a saucepan. Heat until the sugar melts, stirring frequently. Do not boil. Bottle and refrigerate. Pour over your buckwheat pancakes and feel the sugar rush.

It's like eating candy for breakfast.

Mmmmm! IV

French fries.

Take an Idaho Russet, wash and peel it. Slice it and bathe it in hot oil. Drain and salt. Eat and die of coronary artery disease.

French fries are the reason I am not very critical of alcoholics and drug addicts. You see, I have an addiction to french fries. Seriously. Thankfully, french fries are still legal.

When I was younger I tried to go a week without eating french fries. I lasted about three days before I fell off the wagon. Now I don't even try to stop.

I like In-n-Out's fries. They taste like real unadulterated potatoes. But you have to eat them hot. Like when you're in the car driving home from work. The people at In-n-Out look at me with pity when they see me for the third time in a week.

At least I'm eating my vegetables.