Monday

This may or may not work tonight. I think the internet is up, but email here at the office is down, so what does that do to the blog? I think it will be OK, but the gremlins are at work in my space.

We did end up doing a little FFF last night at my place. I cooked a whole chicken on my outside grill using the metal cone/platter device that 2 had given me for Father's Day. The result was good (but not great BBQ) and it was a little extra work to clean. I had put some lemon-pepper sauce (purchased, not home-made) in the interior base of the cone for flavoring, but I think the sause that I brushed on the outside actually added more taste to the meat. It was a five pound chicken and it took a little over an hour to cook. On the positive side, you don't have to worry about turning the pieces as I have to do when cooking chicken halves.

By the way, Aunt Martha was the one who introduced me to the original lemon-pepper sauce for the bar-b-que. I really can't remember whether it was when I visited there during college breaks, or after getting out of the AF when I lived there for a couple of months before starting grad school in IC. She would make it from scratch. Given all the over-the-counter stuff now on the shelves at the grocery store, we should have spoolled up the processing plant back then and maybe the success of the apple sauce in Baby Boom could have been us!

3 handled the salad. Two bags from Hy-Vee, dressing included. In my sauce pans. Scalloped potatos. We were just missing 1 and a little Triv to make it a perfect evening.

3 is helping me out at the office this week. I have a couple of special projects that will help us tidy up some files before year end. I'm letting her work off her cell phone indebtedness.

I was glad to see the NBA come out with some pretty harsh penalties for the mess in MSG on Saturday night. I suppose the players union will come out and appeal the suspensions as too severe. The players may have great athletic talent, but taken as a group, I could absolutely get along just fine without the league. And I love basketball.

Looks like the climbers on Mt. Hood lost out to Mother Nature. The National Geographic Channel was running a show over the weekend about groups climbing Mt. Everest. Scarey stuff. You get that high up, and things can go bad quickly and people die. The commentator said that something like 80% of the deaths occur on the way down the hill. I suppose that so much energy is expended to get to the top that small crises on the way down just get out of control. It looked like they was a human traffic jam on the mountain at the time of the filming of the segments that I watched. More people tuned in to the sport/adventure because of the Information Age. If you have the money, you can probably find a guide to take you there.

My 6th Day of Christmas memory brings up another element of my grade school age youth. If you look at my annual school picture from each year (disregarding the butch haircut and the buck teeth), I always had on that year's sweater from Christmas. Some things never change: I still like getting sweaters for Christmas...:)

Hope Matt and 1 get through these tough next few days. We're thinking of you.

Be careful out there.