I read an article the other day that said that the body uses 120 calories to process a 12 oz glass of ice water. So for every glass of ice water that you drink, you burn up 120 calories. So, I wondered if that would also work for ice cold beer? Think of it this way, if a 12 oz can of ice cold beer has 120 calories and you body burns up 120 calories on the beer, then you net calorie gain is 0. And while you aren’t losing any weight, you could drink beer all night and not gain any weight. It must be the pretzels that cause the weight gain.

I saw a news clip on TV the other night. Some brewery claimed that since beer is 90% water, they have figured out how to make beer with 50% less water. So, does that mean that their 12 oz beer only contains 6 oz of beer? That would explain 50% less water.

Less filling, half the calories.

I noticed that the ? store on main street doesn’t seem to have much activity lately. In fact, it looks like it is closed. ( I call it the ? store because it was open for several weeks before they bothered to put up a sign.) It has been a couple of weeks since the open sign has been lit and there are no vehicles outside. This would lead me to believe that it has closed.

I an not sure just exactly what they sold at that place. They indicate that they sold wholesale lumber but it is hard to say. I was always going to stop in and check out the place. Oh well.

I suspect that they didn’t have a business plan before they opened. Or, at least if they did, it must have been a strange one. They seemed to keep strange hours. Sometimes they were open on Sundays and they always seemed to be closed on Saturdays.

I alway wonder about retail stores that are closed on Saturdays. Must be they figure that they don’t do enough business on Saturdays to warrant staying open or they must do enough business M-F that they don’t need to stay opened on Saturdays.

Go figure.

When I first started working for the state, we set up a couple of microwave communications links to remote locations. Since these links required the placement of dishes and electronics on the roofs of the buildings, service work occasionally needed to be done up on the roofs of these building.

Now, getting out on to the roofs of these buildings was a fairly simple task as they all had regular doors that provided easy access. Unfortunately, getting back off of the roof could be a challenge since the doors had locks on them just like any other outside building door. If you did not remember to prop open the door, you might find yourself locked out.

The state was not staffed for servicing the microwaves and consequently had a service contract with GTE. And, whenever we had a problem with one of the units, we would call GTE and they would come out and service it.

All of this worked fine until one day when the GTE serviceman forgot to prop open the roof door. As he was packing up his tools, he noticed that the roof door was shut. His worst fears were confirmed when he put his hand on the knob and discovered that it was indeed locked.

Sizing up the situation, he noticed that the hinges for the door were on the outside of the door. Grabbing his screwdriver, he began removing the screws to the hinges. As he was removing the last screw, which was on the bottom of the door, his screwdriver broke.

Unable to remove that last screw, he was now faced with the humiliation of having to call for help. Going over to the edge of the building, he began to holler at the people down below.

Since he was 5 stories off the ground and since the lawn was being mowed at the time, he had a difficult time calling for help. But, after about an hour, he got someones attention. They, in turn, notified the building manager, who quickly made his way to the roof.

Now, the building manager was not aware of the removed hinge screws so when he reached the access door he gave the knob a twist and pushed the door open. Without its hinges for guidance, the door careened wildly to one side and then dropped on to the roof ripping loose the remaining screw.

The building manager, both stunned and surprised, stood there staring at the door and wondering what had happened. The GTE serviceman was waiting at the door so when it popped open he thanked the building manger and made a hasty exit.

I heard on the news that a university did a study on the NBA and concluded that there were more fouls called against black men than white men. I can’t imagine why that is. Could it be that there are more black men playing basketball than white men? Hello? What next? There are more black men in Africa? How much did you get paid for your study?

It was early, on a Sunday evening. Daughter Rachel was in the basement lying on the floor and talking to her friends on the telephone. Kathy and I were watching TV in the living room.

Suddenly, we heard a terrified scream from the basement. A few seconds later, there was a second scream. Then we heard frantic foot steps on the stairs. Moments later, Rachel appeared with tears streaming down her cheeks and lower lip quivering.

When we asked what was wrong, she said that she was lying on the floor talking to her friends when the cushions on the sofa started to lift themselves up. She screamed, dropped the phone and headed for the stairs.

As she was making her way out of the basement, her puppet stood up by itself and started dancing. She screamed again and headed on up the stairs.

After she calmed down, we went back down to the basement and inspected the site. The puppet was lying on a storage chest. The phone was still lying on the floor, right where she left it. And, the cushions on the sofa were back in place.

I hung up the phone and it immediately rang. It was Rachel’s friend that she had been talking to prior to the screams. The friend was calling back to see what the screams were all about.

As I have said in the past, I have a love hate relationship with our local Meijer’s (regional grocery chain). Today was one of those annoying days in the store.

First, I went to get some weed and feed. I discovered that there were some bags of it in the store on sale so I picked up a bag. It was as hard as a block of cement so I put it back down. I guess that was why it was on sale. I proceeded outside to the garden section and found what I was looking for.

Next, I needed a ream of computer paper so I headed to the office supply section. No computer paper, nada, zip, all gone. In fact, the only computer supplies that I could find were some blank CDs and I suspect that there days on the shelf are numbered.

I wondered when they took on a whole line of ink cartridges and printer paper if there would be that much demand for it in Lowell. I guess there isn’t because it looks like Meijers is getting out of the printer supply business. Oh well.

My biggest disappointment was in the produce section. First, they had no romaine. They did have some leaf lettuce but it looked like it came from a third world country.

Next, I needed some Delicious apples. Those are one of my favorites because I really like a nice crisp apple. But to my dismay, all they had were Ida Reds. Bah!

Finally, I needed a lime to go with my bottle of gin and my bottle of tonic. With malaria season just around the corner, one can never consume enough tonic. But alas, no limes. A gin and tonic without a lime would be like a BLT without the T. They did have plenty of lemons.

Just out of curiosity, I checked on the supply of artichokes. Sure enough, they were well stocked. I suppose I could start a new trend and put a slice of artichoke in my glass. But, if that trend took off, Meijers would probably run out of those too.

So, todays run to Meijers tells me that they are going out of the computer supply business and apparently out of the produce business. Cascade D&W (local grocery chain for yuppies) here I come. I may get my lime before happy hour starts. 🙂

Last night, we saw a sure sign that winter is over. There was a tree toad climbing on the glass of our dinning room slider. The lights from the dinning room attract flying insects and the flying insects attract the tree toads.

It is quite interesting to watch the toads as they maneuver their way from bottom to top and back down again eating insects as they go. On some nights, they can spend hours climbing the glass.

It is not uncommon to see them on the glass on warm summer nights. I think that this is the first time that we have seen one in April.

Unfortunately for Mr. Toad, someone else, higher up in the food chain, will probably find him to be a tasty little snack.

I was reading an article on line the other day. It seems that a famous Japanese movie star was on a Japanese talk show with her new poodle. Poodles are very rare in Japan so she was quite proud of hers. She commented that the dog was rather strange because it didn’t bark and it didn’t like dog food. It was pointed out to her that she did not have a poodle, she had a lamb.

It seems that some mail order business in England sold her a lamb instead of a poodle. And this business has sold about 2,000 lambs to Japanese people who thought that they were buying poodles.

I wonder if they were house broke?

The first 12 years of our marriage, we cooked on a gas range.  And, Kathy had her share of mishaps mainly from putting plastic bowls over the pilot lights.  The past 22 years, we cooked on an electric range.

While the electric range did not have pilot lights, it had its own share of frustrations.  My biggest complaint was that the burners did not put out enough heat.  This made it very hard to do any sort of stir fry.  Plus, they did not adjust quickly to temperature increases and decreases.

We have now gone back to gas.  We purchased a Frigidaire semi pro range with a stainless steel front and a black enamel top.  It has a 16,000 BTU burner ideal for a wok or boiling large pots of water.  The best that we could do on the electric range was 5,000 BTUs.

This stove is at the high end for Frigidaire in a single fuel class.  They do, of course, have more expensive models in the dual fuel classes but we weren’t interested in dual fuels.

Initially, we were looking at Vikings but didn’t like the way there burners were designed.  Then, we looked at Dacor.  It was a nice stove but just a little too expensive.  And while Dacor included a free weekend cooking school, I wasn’t impressed.  I already know how to cook and I suspect that the cost of the school is included in the price of the stove.  And so, we found the Frigidaire at the right price and the right design.

The other day, I made hollandaise.  I put my pan on the smallest burner at the lowest temperature and it came out perfect.

My stir fry chicken and snow peas wasn’t so successful but that was my fault.  I wanted to see just how much guts were in that 16,000 BTU burner so I put all of my chicken in at the same time.  The oil cooled off and was slow to come back up to temperature.  Ordinarily, I would have cooked the chicken in 6 batches and hope for the best.  Next time, I will try cooking the chicken in two batches.

It will take a little time to readjust to gas but I sure that I will not be disappointed with this stove.