You've seen this before

"We don't allow faster than light neutrinos in here," said the bartender. A neutrino walks into a bar.

Beer Bread Recipie

This is easy and quick.

3 Cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3 Tbs white sugar
1 12 oz can beer


Mix dry. Add beer. Bake @ 350 for 50-60 min.

Also a great way to dispose of excess beer that you might have. Say, if someone saw a great deal on lemonade beer that combined the worst aspects of both.

Minneapolis - St. Paul

Ten hour round trip for a two and one-half hour field trip. The math doesn't work out logically, but the Kid loved the science museum.  He also loved the roller coasters at the former Camp Snoopy at Mall of America.  I remain convinced that roller coasters are best after-the-fact and not during.

Best part - watching the Kid manipulate the wave pool controls to adjust the bottom, frequency and size and watch the waves change shape, when they broke on the 'beach' and so on.  He went at this for a real long time.


And there is news on the dinosaur front!  Sauropods, when I was a child, lived in swamps because their enormous bulk would collapse on land.  This seemed an unlikely survival strategy but whatever. 

Sometime between 'when I was a child' and 'now' Learned Scientists changed their minds.  Sauropods are now nimble critters, bounding across the landscape like gazelle.  I'd like to see Martin Perkins capture one in a net - boy that would make a keen Wild Kingdom episode, hunh? 

Diplodocus could even use his tail like a bull-whip and slap the carnivores around like Billy Sunday whacking drunks in a saloon.

Compare and Contrast

Via.

Why I Like Living in the 21st Century Part N

Modern Dentistry.

Any era before now I'd be looking at years of grumpy misery as my gums recede in the face of plaque and bacteria and my teeth fall out, one by one.  In the end I'm drinking warm water and most of my calories come from oatmeal.

Now?  I get a dose of Novocaine, the nice lady works away for ninety minutes with an ultrasound, some minty red goop, and some mintier goop and with good luck in a few months the situation [1] stabilizes.

And you get teevee while you're tipped back, mouth open.  Can't beat that with a stick.

[1] It's my own dumb fault, of course: genetics and parents who took me to the dentist on a regular schedule gave me a good set of teeth.  Then, after the Navy stopped ordering me to the dentist annually, I just stopped going.  Don't do that.

Make the Call

Act like everyone else.  Are your papers in ordnung, serf?  When it comes to making our public spaces safe .. we're all in this together. 

Make the Call - Civilian (YouTube).

Where one can find this in the original German?

Reasons why I like my job.

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That one is just cute as a basket of puppies.

There is only fairness

President Obama is open about it now. There are no property rights. There is only “fairness”; the Constitution means nothing, liberty is not important; we must be ‘fair’ and that means that those who now pay most of the taxes already now get to pay even more because the government must continue to grow at 7% exponential. Forever.

J.E. Pournelle September 20, 2011

How much for that doggie in the window?

The F-35 - one expensive machine.

The air force insists that it is $65 million each, while the Department
of Defense says when all costs are included; it will be more like $111
million each.

$111 million will buy
 

• 222 MRAPs. 
• 37 Stykers.
• 1.2 million cases of MREs.
• A deployed company of grunts for a year.

That better one gawd-damned good airplane.  I mean it better poop gold bricks, whistle 'Dixie' and blow up bad guys for that much cash.

Via.

A gremlin minute?

Got a cookbook at the used book store, printed in 1966: "Uncle John's Original Bread Book" [1]

For St. Patrick's Day Oatmeal Bread we have ...

Spoon mixture into large greased bread pan and bake in 350° F. oven for 70 gremlin minutes;

What in the Wide World of Sports is a gremlin minute?

[1] By John Rahn Braue, copyright 1961.

An elephant is faithful—one hundred per cent

The text of 'Horton Hatches The Egg'.

So the next time I need to read my grandson to sleep, and don't have the book handy, I won't have to rely on memory.

RIP

I've been to funerals. Some in funeral homes with the charm of a school cafeteria. Even the nice ones are just places where you can say a few words, a prayer or two and you're done. The best you can say about them is that they're better than nothing.


Dad's memorial was at the lake, at the yacht club where he'd spent so much time. Where I spent a lot of my childhood, come to that.



I can't think of a better place for a memorial than a place the deceased loved to be at, where his presence is so close


The priest said

When Bill died he left his boat tied to the rigging dock. It took six of us an hour and a truck to haul his boat out of the water. Bill could do it in five minutes, alone, with a Mercedes.

And

Every one of us here has had a moment when Bill would wander over to what we were doing, offer some advice. And his way was always right, and easy.

And

In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our brother Bill, and we commit his body to the deep.

And we did. And it was good.


Later I'm driving home. In deep night of the Iowa countryside, behind the wheel of a truck just a little bit younger than I am. V8 motor throwing noise into the night and heat into the cab. My youngest is in the middle of the bench seat, his head leaning gently against my arm, sleeping.

With my youngest dozing at my side, I felt him one more time. Then he slipped away.


Rest in Peace, Dad.

Got a good motor and she does scoot right along

This is sitting in my driveway, now.

A 1975 Chevrolet K10 Silverado.

Real 1970s technology inside: Bench seat. Wing windows. Prominent ashtray. No cup holders.

Drive this for very long I'll be taking up manly 1970s habits like smoking, disco, and terrible country music.

Little Dog - Big Bone

This is a Happy Dog

Pixie, a Toy Fox Terrier, with a rib.