Congratulations Episcopalian Brethren!

(Special Shoutout to Zanne)

The Episcopalian Church has recently taken a bold move, by electing and installing Katharine Jefferts-Schori as it's new presiding Bishop.

Bishop Jefferts-Schori is the first female Presiding Bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

I wish her peace, wisdom, and strength as she deals with all of the issues facing the their denomination and the wider Church.

Gunfighter's Rules, Explained (Part III)

7. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.

In other words, the important thing is winning the fight... all the rest is extraneous BS.

8. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating, reloading, and running.

Movement is important, because a stationary target is one hell of a lot easier to hit.

Even if you are alone in the fight... you should be communicating with somebody... anybody, that can help you or help you call for back up. Failing that, communicate with your opponent with a storm of copper-jacketed lead.

The reloading aspect speaks for itself... and running? Oh, yeah! Trust me, running is a good thing to do if you can. A gunfight is a bad place!

My Layers

Thank you, Betty

LAYER ONE: ON THE OUTSIDE.

Birth date: December, 1963
Current status: Heavily armed
Eye colour: Brown
Hair colour: Black
Righty or Lefty: Lefty
Zodiac Sign: Saggitarius

Layer Two: On The Inside

your fears: heights and dying alone
Your weaknesses: good beer and good books
Your perfect pizza: A “Joe’s Special”, from Joe’s pizzeria, in Vauxhall, New Jersey… Oh the humanity!

LAYER THREE: YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW.

Your thoughts first waking up: Whats on the schedule today?
Your bedtime: Around 11
Your most missed memory: Walking my dogs

LAYER FOUR: YOUR PICK.

Pepsi or Coke: Coke
McDonald's or Burger King: McDonald’s
Single or group dates: Single
Adidas or Nike: Nike (prefer New Balance, though)
Lipton tea or Nestea: Lipton tea
Chocolate or vanilla: Vanilla
Cappuccino or coffee: Coffee


LAYER FIVE: DO YOU?

Smoke: No
Curse: More than I should
Take a shower: Yes, but what an odd question
Have a crush: Nope
Think you've been in love: Oh yeah!
Want to get married: Done
Believe in yourself: Yes
Think you're a health-freak: Not at all

LAYER SIX: IN THE PAST MONTH.

Drank alcohol: Yes.
Gone to the mall: Yes.
Been on stage: No
Eaten sushi: No
Dyed your hair: No

LAYER SEVEN: HAVE YOU EVER?

Played a stripping game: No
Changed who you were to fit in: No… to hell with trying to fit in.

LAYER EIGHT: AGE YOU'RE HOPING TO.

Get married: Been married for nearly 13 years
When Do You Hope To Retire: 58

LAYER NINE: IN A GIRL

Best eye colour: Susan's Eyes
Best hair colour: Susan's Hair Colour
Short or long hair: However long Susan's hair is after a visit to the Salon


LAYER TEN: WHAT WERE YOU DOING

1 minute ago: Beefing about the leadership of my agency
1 hour ago: Driving to work
4.5 hours ago: It was 0215... I was asleep.
1 month ago: Pretty much what I am doing now, but in warmer weather
1 year ago: Pretty much what I am doing now, but without a blog.

LAYER ELEVEN: FINISH THE SENTENCE

I love: My girls
I feel: Great
I hate: George W. Bush (no... REALLY)
I miss: my dogs
I need: some time off

It's Friday. Tag!

I got this from my pal Anali's blog. She told me to consider myself tagged, and since I have to teach a class shortly, and have little time for weighty thoughts, I thought I would give this a go.

Please list 8-10 things about your childhood (from 1 to 12 years of age) that you miss, then the same number of things that you don't miss.

Have fun, kids.


Things I liked about childhood that I miss

1. The excitement of Saturday morning cartoons.

2. Learning to swim at the Union (NJ) Boys Club.

3. Playing water polo.

4. Watching Star Trek reruns after swimming and playing water polo.

5. Watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos on PBS every Saturday afternoon before dinner.

6. Being a Boy Scout (I would have been an Eagle Scout, but...).

7. Riding our sleds at a local country club golf course in the winter.

8. My first real crush (a girl named Cheryl whose mother thought I was really cute).

9. Michael & Brian's hot mom! (she wore tube tops and short-shorts... it was the 70's, ok?)

10. Beating the crap out of other people at Scrabble!


Things I disliked about childhood

1. Living with a single parent with addictions.

2. My 4th grade teacher (Rhoda Kaplan) for torturing me through math. She refused to believe that I just didn't understand some of the things she was talking about... the old bitch! I have scars, can you tell?

3. Being picked on for being fat.

4. Being picked on because I read a lot (they called me "Professor").

5. Being picked on because I didn't talk "black".

6. Being picked on for being a social misfit.

7. My disturbed brother.

8. Being poor.

9. Going to choir rehearsal.

10. Sharing a room with the aforementioned disturbed brother.

These are my lists. Anyone who would like to do the lists too, consider yourself tagged!

Hallowe'en

Hallowe'en was fun... and I don't even like Hallowe'en.

Olivia, Who was very cute,

,

scored a ton of candy, some of which, I am obliged as a good father, to eat myself.

You might be asking yourself, "hey GF, whats up with the kabuki makeup?" Well, it goes like this: My daughter sees the "Asian Princess" costume at Target, and swoons. She said she had to be the Asian Princess ("but NOT Mulan, daddy!").

So we get her the costume, but somehwere in between the costume and Hallowe'en, the makeup became part of the deal. So we have Princess Wen Ching (NOT wenching, mind you), complete with Geisha makeup. Since she is only 7, we didn't have to worry too much about the reality of the Geisha.

We started at nearly 6 P.M. at the home of her babysitter, Robin, who was sitting on her front steps (The weather was perfect... middle to low 60's) when we arrived. Robin gave Olivia some candy and some glow-stick bracelets, and told us to return later for pizza and beer, which we would do about 40 minutes later.

We made the circuit on Robin's street, and up and down another two and a half not-very-long streets. By this time, my little princess Wen Ching was getting tired, so we finshed up (with me holding the bag, literally, of candy)and headed back to Robin's house for pizza.

As we were leaving Robin's house (around 8 P.M.) we saw parents that were Trick-Or-Treating with their children while driving behind as their kids walked the sidewalks.

What is that all about? Driving? How about getting out of the car and walking you lazy sods!

Olivia had a great time, and still, three days later, hasn't even looked at her candy.

Trying A New Recipe

I have a rather new blog pal. Her name is Vasilisa. She lives in or near Toronto, Ontario... thats Canada for the geographically challenged folks.

Vasilisa likes to share with her readers the things that she cooks. Recently, she posted a recipe for fishcakes. I like fishcakes, so I decided to give her recipe a go. Here are the results:

I decided to modify her recipe just a bit, as I love my spice rack too much not to include lots of things when I cook. Please note that I can be... experimental at times.

To her recipe, I added the following:

1 Tsp of Biriyani paste
5 baby carrots (raw, finely chopped)
1/2 Tsp. Dill paste
1/2 Tsp. Garlic paste
3 slices (pizza size) pepperoni
1 Tsp. Sweet & Spicy mustard
1 Tsp. Ranch dressing (substituted for the mayo... I detest mayo)
1/2 Tsp of Kosher salt

All of which went into the food processor with her other ingredients (I used Tilapia, by the way... 5 fillets).

After appropriate processing, I added a bit more flour and a wee bit of sherry (while I had a glass, myself. Please note that I don't use cooking sherry. If I did, I couldn't have a drink of my own while I cooked.)

The processed reults looked a bit like this:



I formed little balls out of the mixture and then made patties out of them, before placing them in the hot oil (seasoned wok oil with a dash of olive oil). They smelled geat while they cooked and looked even better:



I decided to serve some sort of pasta with the fish cakes, so in the interest of time, I threw together one of those Lipton pasta (in a bag) dishes.

Here are my results!:



And oh, were they good! I may have to tweak a bit, but they were great!


Take that, Rachael Ray.

Emasculating American Boys

We have a growing problem in America. A problem that I believe will become a potential catastrophe unless current trends are reversed.

The problem that I am referring to is the emasculating of American boys. You might be asking what I mean by that, and my answer is simply this: American dads are too disengaged in the raising of their children, in this particular instance, their sons, leaving their wives to teach boys how to become men.

It is my humble opinion, that women can't really teach their sons to be men, especially if they spend a lot of time, as many women do, attempting to neuter their sons, or worse, make girls out of them.

Don't get me wrong. Boys have lots to learn from women, but only dad can teach them how to treat a woman properly. Only a dad (a good dad) can teach a boy (mostly by example) how to treat a lady. A woman can't really teach a boy how to be a gentleman... he will have to be taught these things by a man (or a book and lots of episodes of Star Trek, in my case).

Maybe this isn't happening everywhere, but I see what I see. When I go to pick up my 7 year old daughter from school, I see swarms of moms (I'm joined by a scattering of dads) chasing after their boys and re-zipping their jackets, and putting their hats on their heads, telling them not to run, telling them to be quiet, not to push, not to shove, admonishing them about fighting, etc... On the surface, most of you reading this will say: "So? whats wrong with those things?" Well, usually, nothing is wrong with those things. The problem is that when taken to extremes in "minivan-mom America", we wind up with grown men that depend too much on their mothers (and later, wives), men that don't know how to be fathers to their sons, men that are passive, men that don't know how to head a family, men that won't/can't fight. In short, we raise our boys to become Alan Alda. Don't get me wrong here, I think Alan Alda is a brilliant actor... I particularly enjoyed him in "Same Time, Next Year" which remains one of my favorite movies.

Let me ask you something: How many of you know any men that have NEVER been in a fistfight? I know several, and it makes me ill.

Now, I know what you are thinking: "Did he fire five rounds or six?" (No, you probably aren't really thinking that, but big points for getting the movie reference). What you might be thinking is: "Do you have to have fights to be a man?" The answer is no... but only a qualified no. You needn't be a brawler to be a man. You needn't be a loud, pushy, or swaggering oaf to be a man. However, a man SHOULD be able to fight... how else will he protect his family when forced to? A man should be assertive. Not pushy, but assertive. A man should be strong.

When I train new agents these days, I always ask: "Who here has never been punched in the face... hard?" You'd be surprised at the number. When we finally get around to giving them a good whack to the head/face, you'd be amazed at how many curl up and quit.

If current trends keep up, one of these days, these girly-men will be the only ones left.

We'll be in big trouble then.

So, what is the answer? There are two, and here they are:

Men: Raise your sons. Teach them to be strong, teach them to tell the truth, teach them that courage and bravado aren't the same thing. Teach them to stand up for those that are weaker than they are. Teach them that fighting isn't wrong when you are fighting for the right reasons, teach them that women must be treated with respect and that they must treat other men with respect or you will get none in return. Teach them to be committed. Show them these things, by your own example, and we won't have to worry about having Marvin Milktoast in the White House... or running the Army. Most importantly dads... YOU HAVE TO BE PRESENT IN YOUR SON'S LIFE!

Ladies: Here is what you can do: I know that so many women are the primary caregivers for our children, but you MUST make an effort to make sure that your boys are allowed to be boys. We aren't as far from our hunter/gatherer forebears as we'd like to believe, and boys still need to be rough in order to be tough and strong later in life. Don't coddle it out of them... it will serve them poorly later in life.