Turkey Sandwiches

I really like Turkey Sandwiches after Thanksgiving.  I think a lot of it has to do with the way I make them and the memories associated with that.  I make my Turkey Sandwiches the same way my Grandma did.
You start with one piece of Wonder Bread (and only Wonder Bread), with butter and another with mayonnaise.  The butter side gets cranberry sauce and the mayo side gets the Turkey and a piece of lettuce is placed between the two sides.
How do you like Turkey Sandwiches?

Opposable Thumbs

I quite like my thumb and truly realize why we are better than monkeys and apes because we have an opposable thumb. In order to help my wife make the mushroom gravy, I was finely chopping 12 shallots. About mid-way though the 12, I chopped my left thumb, right across the thumbnail and side of my thumb. I yelled some expletives (some I didn't even remember saying, Heather has since informed me), applied direct pressure and went to bandage myself up.
A quick wrap with gauze and a secure taping (entirely covering it, which is hard to do with only one hand) and I was back to chopping shallots. Well, I did wash the knife first.
Having my thumb all wrapped up made it more challenging to continue chopping, pick things up and open containers. Imagine my chagrin when I realized how important my left thumb was to unbuttoning my pants when I had to go to the bathroom. I've also learned that my left thumb is important to the way I tie my shoe laces (I end up wrapping one of the loops around my left thumb in order to tie them tightly). I almost asked my 6 year old daughter to tie my shoes for me.
I've also wondered how many emergency room visits occur on these big cooking holidays for sliced fingers.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and keep your thumbs out from underneath your knives. Especially if they are recently sharpened!

Kids these days

I am writing this from the Fall City library and it is funny. The same reason that I am here brings several of the youth of Fall City - the internet connected computers. Today, I went on a MINI road trip and the end destination was Fall City to meet my family for an event at the library.

As I got here early and needed to do some work, I just went in to the library, logged in and went to work. But there were also a bunch of kids here, ostensibly doing homework.

But they too, were drawn to the computers. Instant messaging was providing them a great deal of entertainment and chatting about who had asked who out and who grabbed who's butt. They were fooling around, laughing, knocking each other's heads together.

As I was sitting here watching kids be kids, all I could think of was how this would drive my mom crazy.

You are a hero until you drop the F bomb at the dinner table

Today I went to lunch with a high school friend of mine, Captain Dave Carrico. He just returned from being deployed for a year in Iraq. It was great to catch up with him, hear about his experiences in Iraq and just get another person's out look on life in general. We just chatted for about a two hours over lunch at a pizza place south of Fort Lewis. It was really cool.
The military has changed so much since I have gotten out, but at the same time, so much has stayed the same. They are making such great use of technology to keep American son's and daughter's alive. But no matter what, it still requires soldiers on the ground in order to accomplish the mission.
It strange listening to him talk - his speech patterns were so military and he was ending his period of active duty to go back to a cubicle in some tech company. Things that are so commonplace in the military (ending phone calls with "Out", the F bomb as an adjective, the 24 hour clock) that aren't used in the civilian world were a now a part of Dave. In fact, the title of this posting comes from some briefing they got in order to help them come back to the civilian work place.
After lunch, I dropped him back off at his afternoon out processing station. One more day and he'll be back on his way to the Bay Area.
I'm glad that he made it back safely and that his unit didn't lose anyone when they were over there. Citizen-soldiers like him make the world a better place for all of us.

Colors of San Francisco

Two weekends ago, I was in San Francisco for a friend's wedding. Sunday morning I walked around North Beach, the Financial District and the Embarcadero and took some pictures.
The day was perfectly clear with a blue sky - impressive for the end of October. Everything was light so nicely and the colors just stood out.
I've just signed up for a flickr account, so check out some of my photos!

Installing a microwave

This weekend, I installed a microwave. Wow, you think, I took a microwave out of a box and slipped it into a cut out in a cabinet. Well, it was not a simple task. Firstly, I failed to measure the depth of the cabinet. The microwave we chose was about ¾” too deep. After a few calls, I got some guidance to cut the wall board in the back of the cabinet to make the cabinet deeper.
The wallboard was quick and easy to cut, so I slipped the microwave into the opening, drilled the pilot holes and screwed it in. There was a bracket that was supposed to go in, over the top of the microwave and across the opening. Well, again, a failure to measure, the opening was 1-1/4” too narrow. Now, it was wide enough to fit the microwave, but it needs more space for ventilation. That called for removing the microwave and some more trimming.
I carefully measured (and re-measured this time) because I would be cutting the cabinet facing. I marked it and drilled holes at the corners and started cutting. I haven’t mentioned yet that we have oak cabinets and I was cutting by hand. Each cut was only about 16” long, but cutting oak by hand isn’t exactly the most fun thing. I was also using my keyhole saw because of the small cut I was making.
I put the microwave in again and finished it all up.
What I didn’t share at the beginning was that a week ago, I discovered the fact that it was too deep for the cabinet. So, in the course of installing this microwave, I put it in the cabinet about 8 times.