A Libertarian's New Year's Resolutions

In case you've been sleeping this last twenty five years, whenever people start talking politics around me and ask me of my leanings, I tell them that I am a registered Libertarian. I believe that the Republicans are bad and evil and that the Democrats are even worse.

The Republicans want to preserve the Status Quo and keep all of their tax breaks and other perks. The Democrats want pretty much the same thing, but in addition they want to create an endless stream of social programs. But they want you and me to pay for their good deeds.

Do you want proof? Just stop and think.

I'll repeat, all that you have to do is stop and think.

Was George Dub bad or good for the country? Wasn't he up to January 20th. 2009 the worst president ever? One day later, look what we got. Obama, the new Worst President ever.

When campaigning Obama preached change, and we did indeed get change.

Do you want change? Real change? Positive change. Then make some changes in your own outlook. When people say why vote Libertarian and throw away your vote? I counter that if enough people "throw away their votes" that maybe some real, not superficial, change will then occur. Until then, what value is your vote if you continue to piss it away perpetuating the good ole boy, and girl, system?

Anyway, Happy New Year. Read below and then think. Really read this and then really think.

It's like the difference between hearing, and listening.

A Libertarian's New Year's Resolutions

by Harry Browne

1. I resolve to sell liberty by appealing to the self-interest of each prospect, rather than preaching to people and expecting them to suddenly adopt my ideas of right and wrong.

2. I resolve to keep from being drawn into arguments or debates. My purpose is to inspire people to want liberty -- not to prove that they're wrong.

3. I resolve to listen when people tell me of their wants and needs, so I can help them see how a free society will satisfy those needs.

4. I resolve to identify myself, when appropriate, with the social goals someone may seek -- a cleaner environment, more help for the poor, a less divisive society -- and try to show him that those goals can never be achieved by government, but will be well served in a free society.

5. I resolve to be compassionate and respectful of the beliefs and needs that lead people to seek government help. I don't have to approve of their subsidies or policies -- but if I don't acknowledge their needs, I have no hope of helping them find a better way to solve their problems.

6. No matter what the issue, I resolve to keep returning to the central point: how much better off the individual will be in a free society.

7. I resolve to acknowledge my good fortune in having been born an American. Any plan for improvement must begin with a recognition of the good things we have. To speak only of America's defects will make me a tiresome crank.

8. I resolve to focus on the ways America could be so much better with a very small government -- not to dwell on all the wrongs that exist today.

9. I resolve to cleanse myself of hate, resentment, and bitterness. Such things steal time and attention from the work that must be done.

10. I resolve to speak, dress, and act in a respectable manner. I may be the first libertarian someone has encountered, and it's important that he get a good first impression. No one will hear the message if the messenger is unattractive.

11. I resolve to remind myself that someone's "stupid" opinion may be an opinion I once held. If I can grow, why can't I help him grow?

12. I resolve not to raise my voice in any discussion. In a shouting match, no one wins, no one changes his mind, and no one will be inspired to join our quest for a free society.

13. I resolve not to adopt the tactics of Republicans and Democrats. They use character assassination, evasions, and intimidation because they have no real benefits to offer Americans. We, on the other hand, are offering to set people free -- and so we can win simply by focusing on the better life our proposals will bring.

14. I resolve to be civil to my opponents and treat them with respect. However anyone chooses to treat me, it's important that I be a better person than my enemies.

Adios 2010

I don't know about anyone else but I won't be all that sad to see 2010 go away.

For me, 2010 was just an extension of 2009 and that wasn't very good.

My business took the Diamond Lane into the crapper in early 2009 and I've been living hand to mouth for the last two years. Besides the obvious, struggling to pay your bills etc., the other downside to being destitute is that you don't get any respect. When things are going well, everybody wants to be your friend. Your jokes are always funny and people listen to what you say. They hang onto your every word. When you're broke, you're just another bum and what you say, or feel, is worthless. It's also hell on your personal relationships. When the money goes out of the window, the romance goes out the door. Sorry to say, that is the way it is. But life does go on. One has to pick themselves up, brush off the dust and then climb back up on that figurative horse.

I realize that just because we tear a page off of our calendars that some controller of our collective fates somewhere doesn't fire off a cannon and announce "OK, the woes of the World Economy are over. Everybody may now resume life once more". But having said that, it does appear that things are finally improving. As a builder and seller of capitol equipment, I am one of the first people to know when things are slowing down. Business stop spending money on their machinery because things "are tight". Conversely, as a builder and seller of capitol equipment I also am one of the first to see things recovering, which it is.

So I am looking forward to 2011 to be as good as 2009 & 2010 were bad. I found a recipe for a drink called AMF, if you catch my drift, to toast away 2010. If you want a copy, let me know and I'll be only to glad to share it with you.

I was recently thinking back to New Years' past, and thought back to the celebration in Times Square. It was the heralding in of the year 2000 which despite Y2K being such a big deal, it was a small deal. If you have a Bucket List, New Years at Times Square should be on it. Being crammed into a relativally small area with three and a half million drunken New Yorkers is an experience not to miss. At the time, I thought that it would be My Worst Nightmare. It was actually very nice. My then wife Nancy said that it was because all of the asshole New Yorkers were all out in LA at the time.

Let's all hope that all of our wishes and expectations for 2011 do come true.

I'm bored

I'm trapped on my sailboat, three days into a ten day rainstorm, with a wet dog. Just about the time that both me and my Golden Girl get dried out, I get the Growl. The Growl is Sadie's way of telling me it's time for another walkie. So out we go and I spend five to ten minutes in the rain while she sniffs around seeking the perfect square inch to do her business. By then, were both soaked pretty good. Being a water dog, she doesn't even notice, let alone care about the simple fact that it is raining. So back in we go, I have to carry my wet load down the ladder and sternly warn to not even think of shaking half of the Pacific Low's wetness all over my and the galley. I get us both dried off and Sadie retires to the electric space heater and I to my rack. It's Sunday and there are basically four things to do.

Watch TV, but I just can't get into football being we don't even have a team here in LA. Screw that, life does go on without football.

Or I can read. I'm slogging through volume XI of The Durant's Story of Civilization but it's heavy going and I can only get through an hour, or two, at a stretch.

I can eat. I'm eating my way to the bottom of my freezer. Digging through my freezer is like an Archeological dig. I pull something out, brush off the frost and say to myself, I wonder what the hell this is.

Or I can surf the web. I've read, and re-read, my emails. I've purged my Outlook of old, never to be re-read saved emails. But then I remembered an article that I read in the LA Times years ago about what we Americans ate back in the late thirties and early forties. There are twin windows of time, for food and cars that are quite similar. The first is the late thirties and the other is the late forties. The late thirties because the Great Depression was winding down and a lot of folks could afford to get back to normal and WW2 hadn't kicked rationing in yet. The late forties, to me, was a culinary extension of the late thirties. The War, with all of it's rationing, was over and the quest for Modernism hadn't really affected most folks yet.

I started looking for something similar to that old article, I couldn't find it, but maybe I found The Mother Lode. It's called www. foodtimeline.org and I found it very interesting.

[1946] Cocktail Parties. This is the era when the hostess' attitude is a "help yourself" party she may give her fancy free reign and let her guests assume full responsibility. Alcoholic or non-alcoholic cocktails--either or both. A choice of the following suggestions: Stuffed celery, Olives, Radishes, Marinated mushrooms, Hot ripe olives, Potato chips and cheese Antipasto, Lobster spread sandwiches, Caviar and cucumber canapes, Very small hot toasted sandwiches or puff shells (mushroom, cream cheese, liversausage, oysters etc.), Codfish balls, Tiny broiled sausages with mustard cream, Chicken livers in blankets, Broiled sardine canapes, Deviled sardines, Rolled tongue or chipped beef hors d'oeuvre, Lettuce sandwiches, crab or lobster canapes, pastry snails, Shrimp surround a small hollowed cabbage filled with mayonnaise or pink sauce for shrimp, Meat pie in dough (rissoles), Pretzels and cream cheese, Pickled onions and bacon, Bacon and saltine canape, Oyster canapes, salted nuts." ---The Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer [Bobbs-Merrill:Indionapolis] 1946 (p. 800-1)

It's mostly familiar, but also different enough to not expect at your next soiree.

MAIN COURSE

Grilled kabobs, OK
Scalloped chicken supreme What the hell is that?
Beef and corn casserole Ditto.
American lasagne American cheese in it?
Tuna-potato chip casserole Who doesn't love that?
Savory meat pie Shepard's pie?
Welsh rarebit with tomato slices and little sausages
Swedish meat balls I used to love those.
Fluffy meat loaf Fluffy?
Baked ham with glaze OK, but who beside Honey Hams "glazes" anymore?
---Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, revised and enlarged, 2nd edition [McGraw-Hill:New York] 1956

Chicken a la king Do you even know what that is?
Oysters baked in the half shell Not lately.
Turkey or chicken casserole with vegetables What ever happened to the casserole?
Chicken pot pie What ever happened to the Pot Pie?
Hamburger-olive loaf Not lately.
Chicken or veal croquettes Worst of all were the (canned) salmon croquettes.
Baked fish Who bakes fish?
Souffle My mom made a spinach souffle, and I loved it.

Oh well, it looks like it's time for my mid morning repast.

I got a new military decoration the other day.

A few years back, I got an email from a shipmate that we were awarded another medal. The Combat Action Medal (CAM) and we were to write to some bureaucrat in St. Louis to receive it. Now you may, or you may not, know that you can't just run down to Medals R Us and buy these things. They are, with a few exceptions, awarded and are not a commodity to be bought and sold. If you loose your medals and want to replace them, it's a fairly big bureaucratic deal. Anyway, I wrote the cival servant in St. Lou and gave him all of the pertinent information that I was instructed to convey. Name, rank and serial number. Name of ship dates of service aboard said ship and deployment dates were all dutifully noted. That was three years ago and I still haven't heard back. The medal was first created in 1969 with "retroactive presentation" to March 1961. So I guess in the grand scheme of things, three years wait isn't a sin.

The ribbon, is quite another thing however.

When you get a medal awarded to you, you get just that, the medal. You then have to go out immediately and buy the ribbon for your dress uniform for inspections, or even liberty call.

Well I was in Oceanside last week. Oceanside is just south of Camp Pendleton and is a Marine town. I was walking past a Jarhead uniform store and went in for he hell of it. I told the guy that I wanted to buy a ribbon for a Combat Action Medal and asked if he had them. The Marine Corps is, after all, part of the US Navy and we have the same decorations apart from Army or Air Force stuff. Suddenly, the guy starting calling me sir and showed me one. I also got a triple ribbon bar for my new top row. There was a chart on the wall which showed the placement of the various medals on the uniform. There is a pecking order in how the awards are placed and in what order. The Congressional Medal of Honor is on top etc. I couldn't find the CAM on the chart. I asked where the medal was on the chart as I couldn't find it. The clerk explained that it wasn't on the chart. That was because there is no medal for the Combat Action Medal. Only the ribbon and the chart was for the medals. So I bought the stinking ribbon but I probably will never wear it as I haven't worn my uniform since a 1986 Halloween party.

I started thinking about the old WW2 term SNAFU.

Vicki used to call it Frito Pie

Vicki, our Office Manager back in the Good Old Days, or like the Kriegsmarine used to refer to as The Happy Days, would upon occasion woop me up some Frito Pie when she thought that I was working too hard and not eating. Boy, did I ever have her fooled. Me, working too hard, and not eating? Come on.

Frito Pie is dirt simple and one of my favorite comfort foods. Who said that comfort foods had to be like Cream Of Wheat with skim milk poured over it? Bland, bland, bland. Not me. Sometimes yes, but others lets light up the afterburner and see what chars.

I could have this very wrong, but this is what I do. I put a layer of Fritos in the bottom of a bowl. Yah, we're gonna nuke it so make it a microwave safe bowl. Not one of Grandma's heirlooms. Next add a layer of chili. The chili in the above picture is the gourmet shit. Left over from Saturday's boat parade made with Tri-tip. Leftover chili is maybe better than the "fresh" stuff. That's the beauty of chili, it's unpretentious. It knows that it's chili and therefore it goes willingly anywhere. Alone in a bowl, or atop a hot dog, it doesn't really care. Chili is like the ugly girl with the killer body, she's just so damned happy to be out and around she'll pretty much take whatever you throw at her.

Lastly, lay down some shredded cheese, any cheese will do as long as it's not cottage cheese or ricotta. Nuke it and while the cheese is changing it's state from solid to a more plastic consistency, grab a cold beer or two. ABB.

Kosher Okayu

Among such notable discoveries that were made by accident such as Polycarbonate and Ivory Soap, I would like to offer for consideration Kosher Okayu.

After puking my guts out for the last two days I decided to cook myself up some Jewish penicillin. IE Matzo Ball Soup. I usually augment my soup with a bit of rice and Fettuccine. Gotta have some additional starch in the soup as if the Matzo Balls aren't enough. I ladled out a small portion to see if I could even get it down and also to see if I could keep it on. While sampling the first bit, I left the heat under the pot on down low. I left the heat on too low and discovered a pot full of what I initially termed as Rice Gruel. After checking out the word I realized that Gruel is rather thin and what I had was a Rice Porridge instead. Being that I am a big fan of Japanese food, I looked up the Japanese term for Rice Porridge, I knew that there had to be something like that in the Japanese diet, and it is called either Congee or Okayu.

As I like rice so much, I'm sure that Okayu will become a mainstay of my diet when my tummy has been KOed either by illness or gross abuse. But if I use Matzo Ball soup as a base, I can then combine two of my favorite cuisines, Japanese and Jewish. Compai and La Cheim.

Yuck, blah, oatmeal.

About two and a half years ago, I went out on one of my road-trips. I drove to Florida via New Orleans and on to North Carolina. Up to Ohio then Michigan and lastly Iowa and then home via Old Route 66. On this trip, I made a few changes in how I ate. Instead of loading up on an Egg McMuffin with a deep-fried slab of "hash brown" potatoes for breakfast, I made some instant oatmeal in the microwave in my motel room.

For lunch, I tore a page out of Jerid's playbook and went to Subway and got a sub without cheese or mayo. The bottom line is, because I was on the road for over three weeks, this change in eating became a habit. In the evening, because I wasn't automatically stopping at MacD's, or Wendy's, or Burger King, I gave my choice of dinner some thought and ended up loosing thirty pounds.

Continuing the pattern after I got back, I switched to the Quick Cooking oatmeal in the cylinder for two reasons. The first was cost, those little packets are costly per serving. The other reason was my palette was tiring of the mushy Instant type.

After consuming a package of Quick Cooking Oats, I switched to the Old Fashioned variety. Same price, still cooks up quickly in the microwave. Oatmeal, as a food, is not glamorous, but it's damned good food. It's cheap per serving, it cleans out your vascular system and it has fiber. Nuf said?

I heard all of the bull about the steel cut oatmeal, so I bought some McCann Irish. It's texture was marginally better, but the stuff seems costly as hell for oats. It also, unlike the Instant, or Quick Cooking stuff needs to be cooked for "30 minutes".

Well well, it appears that Trader Joe's has Made in the USA Steel Cut Oats for a lot less mulah than the Irish stuff.

So here we are. For daily use, I now get the store brand oatmeal at Albertsons when it's on sale of course. For $2, you get 42 Oz. of oats. That's 2 pounds, 10 Oz. of oatmeal which should supply you with a warm tummy for about about two months. Every now and then, I will have a yen for the steel cut type and will take the time to nuke the TJ's. The label says "Microwaving steel cut oats is not recommended". I say bullshit, thirty minutes on 30% works fine for this old sailor.

Next week, I may stop swearing like an old sailor and stop nuking my steel-cut in favor of making it in a pan which will take another thirty minutes to clean up.

But don't bet good money on it.

For the Love of Coffee

I love to ingest things, good things. I like food and beer and wine and chocolate chip cookies. But I really like coffee. When it's black it's practically sin free. When it's bad, or has been boiled, it can be really bad. I really like the stuff with International Irish Cream coffee creamer.

My friends George and Melinda like to make real Irish coffee. Thy perk real coffee, add some brown sugar and put in real Irish whiskey. Melinda whips real cream to top it with and it is real good. Me, I'm a tad bit lazier. I do grind my dark roast beans from Trader Joe's before dumping them in my coffee press. But when the coffee is done brewing, I just add the International Irish Cream coffee creamer and pour in some Irish whiskey. It's a bit less work, but very hard to tell from the real thing. In the event that I'm out of Irish whiskey, a very real likely-hood, bourbon whiskey is almost as good.

In fact I'm riding out a rain storm and having a tot o' Irish coffee right now, which warmed me right up and moved me to write my praises about it.

Happy Great American Smokeout Day, to me.

Today, 18 Nov. 2010 is Great American Smkeout Day. Back in 1981, I was still selling residential income property, apartment buildings, in Long Beach and on the morning of the smokeout, I was driving to the office. Some perky bastard was on the radio touting the smokeout. How if I didn't smoke today, that would be at least one more day that I would be adding to my life. I was thinking screw you, you asshole, if I wanted to hear a sermon, I'd go to church, as I was automatically shoving a Marlboro into my piehole.

I'd been ill for some time by then. I didn't know t right then but it turned out to be Cat Scratch Fever. As a doctor pointed out to me, it couldn't be CSF because I didn't have a festering scratch wound and I didn't have a fever either. Anyway, as I was groping for my lighter while driving down Second Street in the Shore, I thought to myself that I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I thought gee, if I quit smoking I'd have to feel better. So I said to myself, that's it, I quit. And I did, quit. I also knew right there and then, that I was an ex-smoker, and I started to feel better immediately. I had quit smoking a thousand times, I used to kid that every night when I went to bed, that I had temperately quit smoking, at least for eight hours. Unless, maybe if I got up to pee.

I got to the office and predictably, when I got there, one of my co-workers, who had "quit" mooched a smoke off of me. We used to kid that Dave didn't quit smoking, he had quit buying.

I tossed him my pack of cigarettes and told him to keep the pack for I had quit. Naturally, he didn't have a light either, so when he bummed my lighter, I told him to keep it also. For I really know that I was an ex-smoker. It was really weird, because I did actually know that I had quit.

So enjoy the day and remember, if you don't smoke today, that would be at least one more day that you would be adding to your life.

Is The Captain Drunk?

Of course the captain is drunk, but he is not mad. A B-29 is flying low over the marina every two, or so hours. And here is photographic evidence.

I am an airplane guy. Actually I'm more of a transportation guy. Not only do I love aircraft, I took flight training for my private pilot's license a while back. I love ships, boats, cars and motorcycles. Ask my son Ed about my Norton Commandos. Want to see pictures of my turbocharged Corsa and Spyder? Have I told you about life on board a destroyer in the Navy? Get the picture?

Any way the first thing that I ever wrote about was a B-29 bomber. It was about 1947 and I was about five years old at the time. It wasn't much of a story just about how big and loud that they were. Well here it is sixty three years later and guess what. They aren't all that loud and they're not all that big to me any more. I never actually saw one in person, or in flight until now, but the thrill is as if I was still five years old and I still get a kick out of seeing the big bird.

Don't Spachcock that bird my Friend

Just pass it over to me.

I don't know who devised the Spachcock technique but he must have been a Mexican and he, or she, deserves at least two pages in the Testament of Food. Spachcocking, in case you're wondering just what in the hell I'm talking about, is the way El Pollo Loco BBQs their chickens. They lay flat on the grill so they cook fairly uniformally. I bought a chicken on Sunday and ended up braising half of it with a can of mixed veggies mad a gravy with the juices and poured the gravy over come instant mashed potatoes. Good comfort food as it was somewhat chilly on Sunday. I saved the other, Spachcocked half, and today it is in the nineties. Good BBQ weather. Let's light off the Q.

Throw the bird in a container and season with Seasoned Salt, Pepper Medley and Chipotle .

Put some fresh briquettes in the Magma, light them off etc. etc. When nice and hot place the boid on the grill and toss on a few dry Mesquite chips right outta the bag. Meanwhile soak some more chips in some water.

Let's stop and digress for a moment the rule is, pork gets Hickory. Everything else, IE Beef Fish and Chicken gets Mesquite. Commit this to memory, it will never fail you. Toin da boid occasionally to cook evenly and I swear this will be that best chicken that you ever stuffed into your piehole. If you don't agree, just send the un-used portion to me for proper disposal.

Gimme another Tollhouse Cookie

Call it a Toll House or a Chocolate Chip cookie. Call it whatever you want, just hand me the cookies, very slowly, and nobody gets hurt.

In all of the big, big world, the Great Blue Marble, Mother Earth is there anything that you stick in your pie-hole that can measure up to a chocolate chip cookie? Oh sure there are pizzas ans shrimp and lots of other delights that you can chomp on, but in my ever so humble opinion, the chocolate chip cookie is the culinary high water mark. With milk preferably or maybe a good hearty cup o' Joe. Chocolate chip cookies are like sex, there are probably no bad cc cookies, some are just better than others.

My ex-wife thrice removed IE wife number one made maybe the best I ever had. She was an OK cook, but good God almighty can that girl bake. I've asked for the recipe, but like my mother, she aint talking no matter how much I beg. I won't beg for sex but I will beg like a dog for that recipe.

The best in my opinion are with Pecans. Pepperidge Farm Chesapeake Dark Chocolate Pecan Cookies are, undoubtedly the best that you can get out of a bag from the supermarket. The store baked Albertsons CC cookies are a good go-to cookie when the munchies set in at 10:30.

Hard to believe because I do so love chocolate, the double-double chocolate cookies are actually to chocolaty. It's all a matter of balance you know.

The Art of Shaving

While visiting my first born Ed up in Walnut Creek this last week, somehow we started talking about shaving. I mentioned how I only use a Bic disposable razor for sensitive skin with the orange handle and how I used to stock up on Yardley Lavender Lather shaving soap while in Hong Kong because you couldn't get it stateside. Ed told me how his wife Cassy bought him a very nice upscale shaving ensemble consisting of soap, razor, pre-shave conditioner and badger hair brush and how he really liked it. Cassy had bought the set at The Art of Shaving which was a short stroll from their apartment and asked if I would like to check it out. Of course I said yes as I'm always up for new and varied experiences. We went in and I was approached by a pleasant but somewhat pushy young man who started extolling the virtues of the proper shave IE with a real lather using a brush etc. etc. As I explained to him that I had been using a brush that I inherited from my Grandfather the Barber since before he was born, I was no stranger to the "art of shaving". Pure bullshit of course. My Grandfather Alfred Koch was a barber but I acquired my mug and brush in Hong Kong twenty years after his death. But I have been using the genuine mug and brush technique for over forty five years. Cest La Vie. The soap that he was trying to convince me that was indispensable to the shaving "art" was a mere $45. Forty five bucks for a cake of soap? Gee, maybe I really do look that stupid. Wink, wink, but I'm not.

Occasionally, when I stay at a upscale hotel/motel, they provide complementary soaps that are round and that fit nicely into my shaving mug. The whole stinking room is about the same price as the soap that the nice young man was trying to foist off on me. When I'm on the road, I usually just shave in the shower and rub some soap on my face and have at it.

But when I'm "spoiling myself" and want to artfully shave I do the below.

So here's the drill.

Wash your face to get the accumulated oil(s) knocked down. I actually use dishwashing liquid for this task. I know Joy or Ajax won't ex-foliate quite like the $22 60 ml. pre-shave oil, but man up and do it. Wet the brush with a lot of very hot water. Nothing moisturizes like water in my estimation. Work up a nice lather in the mug and brush it on your puss. Squeeze of the residual in the brush and smear it above your pie-hole. Let it soak in for twenty or thirty seconds and start shaving. First with the grain (down) and then if you think that you're gonna get lucky later on back up against the grain. It's like going to a girly spa for men and probably a hell of a lot cheaper.

Top off with a little after shave, I still Canoe, and your good to go.

Screw change, this is the way to get the growth off of your face.

A Trip to TJ's

I'm not sure how or when I left the fold, but I sure did. I do know why however. I love Trader Joe's. I've been going there since it was a two liqueur store chain. I worked in Alhambra Ca and a co-worker, Al Bull III mentioned TJs in passing. When I proclaimed my ignorance of TJ's, Al gave the place a very glowing oral review. Back then TJ's was primarily a very eclectic liquor store with a few extra items. I was immediately hooked. This was in 1974. As the years went by, Joe added more items but then I moved out of the San Gabriel valley to live aboard and left TJs and In-and-Out behind me.

About 1980, TJ opened a store at Marina Pacifica in Long Beach and a few years later In-and-Out built a drive-through practically across the street from TJs. Both are less than a quarter of a mile from where I am moored. Life was, once again, complete.

I made my trips to TJ's to buy specifically the Italian pastas, the Santini Olive oil, the seeded baguettes, Palugra butter and the coffee. And let's not forget the Two Buck Chuck.

The store was small and as I hate crowds I went less and less. I couldn't seem to find an uncrowded time. It didn't matter early morning, mid-day or evening, I was always getting mowed down by a cart being pushed by some impatient portly yuppie who was perpetually in a hurry to go where, or do what else? This all resulted in my making less, and less, trips to TJs.

The other day while in Walnut Creek visiting with my son and his wife Cassy, we walked over to TJs, and I was immediately back in the fold.

The Italian pastas are now a buck, up from 69 cents. So what else hasn't gone up in price? I stocked up. No Santini olive oil so I got the TJ house brand. Seeded baguette, check. This one had anise seeds on it which seemed to overpower the taste of the bread itself. There was no Palugra butter in stock but Cassy thought that maybe it was because this was a fairly small store, even for Trader Joe's. Five bottles of Two Buck Chuck rounded out this excursion's purchases.

But the main event is the coffee. I'd been buying TJ's House Blend for years and there wasn't any to be had. Small store syndrome once again? They had decaf house blend but drinking decaf is kinda like having phone sex, why bother?

I got the Joe's Dark Coffee, $3.99 for a 13 Oz. can of beans. What a deal! I'd been buying ground coffee, in a can, from the supermarket for some time now and those days are probably over.

This morning, I dusted off my trusty Magic Bullet and ground up some beans, made a pot and am in heaven.

It looks like I'll be returning to my local TJ's, which is also within walking distance since they moved into a bigger location, real soon seeking out the elusive Palugra butter and Santini olive oil.

The Great Hope

It was just about two years ago when I was sitting in my hotel room in Vallejo watching the Republican National Convention when John McCain introduced Sarah Palin to us, the citizens of the USA. I liked her at once, but shades of Jimmy Carter I knew that she would get chewed up and spit back into Alaska. But son-of-a-gun she just wont go away. She's honing her political saber to a fine point and using Mr. Obama like a piece of paper to judge just how sharp it is.

Well guess what, it's getting a very fine edge on it. I'm watching her, right now, speaking in Anaheim stirring up the crowd, and stir it up she does.

For years, my dad in his wisdom as a die-hard union Democrat would go on about how the Democrats would get us into wars and the Republicans would get us into recessions, and once again it looks like the old man was right on the money. For the last generation, the Republicans tried on a variety of new dresses to see how they would be perceived. But as an old sailor friend of mine used to say, you know what you get when you put a new dress on an old whore. You have an old whore in a new dress.

Me thinks that Sarah may just be the undoing of the GOP, that she may just be the new spirit that is so badly needed. A blast of wind from the North, The Wolf. The new age of the GOP and hopefully the country.

I listened to Gorbachov speak years ago and remarked to myself that it sounded like maybe this commie was for real and speaking the truth and it came to pass that he really was.

I get the same feeling of hope listening to Sarah this evening.

Let us all hope, pray, think positivity or what ever works for you that maybe this bleak period of US history maybe be closing.

The roots of this bleakness go way beyond Obama and even Bush.

Basically it has been a mind-set of me-to, not what can I do for my country.

Just when did the world go crazy, and when did you realize that it had?

I remember my grandparents walking around bitching about how the whole world was going to hell. Yah, and I rolled my eyes back and grumbled about how the old farts didn't like the way things appeared to be going. Well, here I am and here I go.

A few weeks ago I started hearing about how some Muslims wanted in NYC wanted to build a mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero. Being that the USA is supposed to be a free country, the question is, do they have the right to build there. The answer is, yes, they do have the right. Is it the right thing to do, no, it's incredibly wrong and it is also unbelievably insensitive. It should be an insult to all Americans whether they be Christian, Jew, Wicka or even Muslim.

Next to further escalate the madness, some asshole in Florida, who calls himself a man of God, threatens to burn Korans. That's real bright. If you don't stop talking about building your mosque near Ground Zero, I'm going to start burning your holy books. If you ever spent over over five minutes on a school playground during recess, you probably know the the probability of success of that particular tactic. Once again. In our fair country does Reverend Buba have the right? In case you dozed off recently the answer is yes. This charlatan does, as an American, indeed have the right. Once again, though he has the right, it is not the right thing to do. It is also incredibility insensitive and no way to get the opposition to back down. Should there be a knock on his door at two o'clock in the morning like in Nazi Germany and have the boy "go to camp". I think maybe so.

Now we have some other hugely mis-guided folks who want to exercise their constitutional rights by displaying signs at military funerals citing that the newly deceased had it coming because of our, by their opinion, tolerance to homosexuality. IE that there are gays in the military. By now, we don't have to repeat the mantra of whether they have the right etc. etc. and whether it is the right thing to do.

I have a pragmatic solution here. It is so logical that I wonder why it hasn't been implemented by now.

Issue the Marine Honor Guard live ammo. Instead of shooting the 21 salute up in the air, yup blow those morons away. Preferably right into the fallen Soldier, or Marine, or Sailor, or Airman's grave and fill it in.

Damn, if I were King, the world would be a much better place to live.

Ya Shudda Been Here Last Week

In case you don't know it, I love the heat. As a kid growing up in Cleveland I delivered the morning paper, The Cleveland Plain Dealer. In the dead of winter, I would get up at five in the morning and freeze my ass off. With the wind howling in off of Lake Erie, it was enough to make me vow to get the hell out of that out-door freezer and head for a warmer clime.

When I arrived at LAX one February evening and it was eighty degrees as I deplaned, I knew I was at my new home.

Well last week, I was working in Watertown So. Dakota, a very nice place with very nice folks. But let's face it, it aint a beach city. The weather was almost nice in SD, it rained half of the time and it was still September so the cool mornings were just that, very cool, but not freakin' cold.

Back at the marina however, it was a very different story. Last Monday the all time high temperature record was broken. Not for that particular date, but the all time record. How does 113 sound? Sounded pretty good to me.

Here it is now exactly one week later and the temp is less than half of that 113.

I know, I know, all of those Clevelanders are wondering what the hell am I bitching about, it's still thirty degrees above freezing. Well after living here in La La Land, thirty degrees above is cold.

There is one thing however to take the sting out of being so cold. Grandma Kochberg's home-made matzo ball soup.

It's about the only thing worthwhile about being cold. So here we go again. The days are getting shorter and colder, so light off the soup-kettle cookie and make us a pot. It's real complicated.

You get a box of Manischewitz Matzo Ball Mix. There's two packets in the box. For one or two hungry sailors make only one packet. Blend two eggs with two tablespoons of oil and mix in the packet of he Matzo. Put the mixture in the fridge to firm up.

Bring four cups of water up to a boil. Take one of the two boxes of the Mrs. Grass' Chicken Noodle Soup mix and pour the contents into the pot. There will be noodles, powdered chicken broth and the ever so lovely Golden Flavor Nugget swirling around the pot.

After the soup comes back to the boil, take the Matzo mix out of the fridge and roll into balls the size of golf balls and drop into the soup. You should make four. At this point, I like to throw in about a 1/4 cup of rice because I like the chicken and rice combo.

Cover the pot, turn down the heat to a simmer and take smell as the galley starts to take on the aroma.

Now be patient and wait twenty minutes because as Alton Brown likes to say, your patience will be rewarded.

ZYNC?

I heard an ad on the telly this morning for an American Express Zinc card. I really couldn't believe what I heard, so I Googled it. Yup, there is a ZYNC card.

I have heard of a Platinum card, a Gold card, a Green Card and even a Silver card. But a Zinc card? Please.

Who's the freakin' marketing moron who came up with a ZYNC card? Zinc is the bottom feeder of the metals world. It is literally used as a "sacrificial metal" on ships and boats. It's the stuff that you let erode away in order to save the worthwhile stuff. Zinc is so worthless that it is the primary metal used in making American one cent coins since 1982.

I'm guessing that the marketing genius who came up with that snappy name will be standing in the unemployment line and be voting Democratic by election day. I wish that I knew his, or her, name so that I could track the meteoric arc of their carrier. Perhaps he should be retrained as a burger flipper at Mac-you-know-where.

Do you want fries with this card?

9/11

Tomorrow is the ninth anniversary of 9/11. I'm sure that for all of us, this was a life altering event. I'm not old enough to remember Pearl Harbor and the ensuing WW2, but I'm sure that those who do remember, remember it well.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was close, but the Kennedy Assassination was my first. On November 22, 1963, I was at sea on an aircraft carrier, the USS Constellation CVA-64. I remember the announcement over the 1-MC. In no time at all, we all wanted to spool up the Phantoms. We all felt, as I still feel, that Castro was behind it all.

The truth about that little event has never, to my satisfaction, been told.

But I digress.

On 9/11/2001, I get a call from a friend back in Indiana asking me if I'm up yet and do I have the TV on. The answers to that two-part question was no and no. I put on the TV and don't really belive what I'm seeing. I thought that it was a hoax. It had to be like Orson Wells, War of the Worlds, hoax. But as we all sadly know, it wasn't.

It was the second life changing event of my life.

We must remember that over 3000 innocent people were executed on that day. Ben Laden and Al Qaeda are like playground bullies at school. They aren't necessarily the toughest kids in the yard. But they are the sociopaths who continue to beat up the kids who are not able, or willing, to defend themselves. They continue, bolder and bolder, unabated to throw their weight around until one day, the big kid, who has seen finally enough ambles over and kicks the crap out of them. It is time for us to quit pussyfooting around, afraid that we're going to piss the extremists off. Piss the extremists off? What do they have to do, kill another 30,000 Americans before we wake up and face the fact that they are already very pissed off. If the Sunnis want to kill the Shiites, and vice versa, let them kill each other. They have been doing it for thousands of years.

Kids and dogs because they don't have a well developed sense of right and wrong, will weigh the consequences of their acts before eating all of the cookies or peeing on the carpet. If they think that the reprisals for their acts are lesser than the repercussions, they will go ahead with their mischief.

If we amble over and do some big-time ass kicking, I think that they will contain their bullying to their own sandbox and stay away from us.

Burn Baby Burn

It was a stupid idea in Nazi Germany, during the Watts riots and it still is.

Burning entire neighborhoods, flags and books.

What way is there to proclaim to the entire world that I was born with a head full of shit instead of brains.

Truth be told, I have always been a but leery of Arabs and Muslims and since 9/11, I just plain don't like them. They want to build a mosque near Ground Zero. Do they have the right to do it here in the good old USA? Is it right? Hell no. Now we have some asshole(s) in, where else, Florida who are making a lot of headlines by talking about a public burning of the Koran. One again, do they have the right? Again, yes. Is it just plain wrong? The burning of someone's holy book, like our King Jame's Bibles, is WRONG, and everyone should speak out.

When I was a kid, the Soviet Union had a lot of nuclear weapons. We had Air Raid drills at school and I just knew that some day there would be a big, bright flash and the world, as I knew it, would either end or really change.

Then the Red Chinese were the BIG threat.

But it also passed.

Now it's the Islamic fanatics.

You know what? Here is what is going to happen. Just like the East Germans and the Russians,

the Muslim women, sooner or later, are going to get pissed off.

Communist dominated women wanted Mercedes Benzes, TVs, refrigerators and dishwashers and Communism wouldn't support such consumerism and the whole flawed system crumbled like a Trabant.

As the world grows metaphorically smaller and flatter, I don't think that the woman in the Islamic world will take the veils, burkas and other subjugation much longer. And when the Camel dung hits the fan, that system will change as quickly as The Evil Empire did.

Flugtag

Let's see, what to do this weekend. Oh yah. Red Bull is staging a flugtag here in Long Beach. In case you're not familiar with this event, allow me to explain. First of all, as you probably figured out, Flugtag is German. Flug means flt and tag, pronounced tock, means day. Got it Flying Day.

It's a joke. Those Krauts have a warped sense of humor. The whole idea is teams build flying machines out of strofoam and ripcloth and assemble them with duct tape and a glue gun. The idea is to see how far these craft will fly off of a thirty foot high platform.

Get the joke yet? There aint no way these things can fly. Fall yes, fly nope.

Any way, on Saturday I took the Golden Girl down to Rainbow Harbor, my old live aboard home and enjoyed the party with 105,000 other aviation fans. Sadie wasn't impressed, I was. It was a bucket list event for me. Vini, vidi, vichi. I came, I saw, I had a beer.

Travels With Andy, La Paz

Andy and I got into La Paz Friday afternoon. It was a fun trip, but I was glad the we were finally in town. The Slice of Life II is a seventy foot Pacemaker and is about the most luxurious boat afloat. Each stateroom has it's own air-conditioner unit. After the 106 degree heat outside it made for near-perfect napping, which I did.

The Slice has a very nice hard-bottomed inflatable dingy so after my nap, I took a spin around the marinas after which, we all took advantage of the marina's pool.

To sum things up. Would I take this trip again? Yes.

In a car? I wouldn't. But I'm a pickup guy. The road is "paved" and for most of the trip, in pretty good condition. I would also carry one, or better yet two, five gallon cans of gas. There are some pretty long stretches between gas station in central Baja. A map that shows where gas stations are located is a must. The Mexican map that we bought along the way sucked. It wasn't, at all, up to date. Some of the places that showed Pemex stations located had crumpled vestiges. The AAA map is much more accurate.

Is it dangerous? It never even crossed my mind that there was a possibility of danger while we were on the road.

Did I burn out on Mexican food? Yes, but only for a day, or two.

Travels With Andy, Loreto to La Paz.

I am seriously considering retiring in Baja Sur. I thought that I'd like to live in La Paz because it is big enough to have certain amenities that we Gringos feel the we can't live without. Things like electricity and running water and maybe a supermarket. But now I'm starting that La Paz is going to hell just like Cabo San Lucas already has. I didn't see a Starbucks yet, but the do have a Walmart. The Walmart is OK, but when the Starbucks opens, I think I'll move on to a quieter, saner place. One of my Plan B options is Loreto/Peurto Escondido, so when we pulled out of Loreto, we took a small side to Escondido.

Yah, this is mas pacifico, more peaceful. After driving down the coast for a half hour and enjoying the sights along Loreto Bay, MX1 veered west and inland for the next few hours. We tanked up at the Pemex in Viudad Constitucion and started to look for a cute place to eat. We ran out of town before we found anything so we just kept rolling along. A bit south of Santa Rita, I said that I was stopping at the very next place that had food and we found this charming little place along the side of the road.

There was no menu. You could have a machaca burrito or a machaca quesidilla. What else do you have we asked? Oh, you can have a machaca & egg burito or a machaca & egg quesidilla. That was about it. But the beer was cold.
We ate and once again, hit the road to La Paz.

Next episode, thoughts on Baja, Loreto, Peurto Escondido, La Paz and Mexico & Mexicans.

Travels With Andy, Baja Sur to Loreto

We, Andy & I, crossed into Baja Sur about noon on Thursday. More desert, rocks and Baja highway. As we approached The Sea of Cortez you could sense that we were putting the desert behind us and the sea was looming ahead.

On our way to the sea, we crossed over this stream with palms etc. It was very scenic.

Finally we came to the Gulf and drove into Santa Rosita, a really cute little fishing town with a few stoplights and the trappings of a small city. We lunched in town and I had, what else, more grilled Yellowtail. Can't get enough of that Yellowtail.

South of Mulege, we stopped at a beach called Playa Santispac on the Bahia Concepcion. The water was the warmest that I've been in outside of a tub, it was about ninety six which isn't too surprising being the air temperature was 106. Not only was the water vary warm, but the salinity seem higher than normal so we got an eight pack of Modelo beer and floated around sipping that good Mexican beer.

The Germans set up breweries in Mexico and the Mexicans became almost as good as the Krauts at brewing beer. My two favorites are Pacifico probably because it has anchors and other nautical crap on the label and Bohemia because it's so damned good.

Conception Bay is huge, and we drove along it for over half of an hour. Each time we rounded a corner, the view was so spectacular that I wanted to pull the truck over and take yet another photo. We got into Loreto a bit early to stop for the night but we stopped for the evening anyway because we were hot and tired and, most of all thirsty for more beer. We stayed at the Oasis Hotel right on the beach and I had more grilled fish for dinner. Friday morning we got up early and when I went outside, I was befuddled for a moment. Not too difficult for me to be on any given morning.

I was looking at the Sun rising over the sea, a sight that I don't see to often living in California. I then realized that we were on the east coast of Baja and I was seeing the Sun rise over the Sea of Cortez, AKA The Golf of California. It was a very nice way to begin the day.

We next stopped at Puerto Escondido which was very nice. But that's a subject in the next exciting chapter entitled The Third Day.

Travels With Andy, Baja Norte

The other day, my neighbor Andy May asked me if I wanted to help him drive down Baja to La Paz Mexico. Andy captains a seventy foot yacht which he takes down to La Paz for six months of the year and wanted some help driving his truck with a boat trailer in tow. Being I was waiting for a large check to clear at the back and was essential stranded in the marina because I only had $3 in my pocket and I considered it a trip of a lifetime, I said hell yes. Now I, and a hell of a lot of other people, have traveled extensively. I’ve hopped on airplanes and have jetted to Europe, Australia, Japan and Korea which are all basically pleasure trips. Driving down Baja was a bonfide adventure. Literally, a trip of a lifetime for me. It’s not the Baja 1000 race over dirt roads but we were pulling a trailor with a nineteen foot Boston Whaler on it down some pretty crummy and narrow pavement.

Long Beach to Ensenada through TJ was pretty routine. South of Ensenada you cross the “frontier” into the “real” Mexico. For a few hundred miles, most all of the bridges along the road were being replaced and there aint nuttin’ like a Mexican detour. The boat trailer was bouncing like hell and the Whaler was bouncing on the trailer most of the time.

We stopped for lunch the first afternoon at a little restaurant near the Mission San Vicente. I figured that as long as I am in Baja, I'd load up on fish so I had grilled Yellowtail which is the "well" fish in Baja.

We spent the first night in Catavina, a little town in the Mexican desert that appeared to be dying. The Pemex gas station had closed and there was a very nice hotel called The Desert Inn is where we stayed which had to make it’s own electricity with their own generator which quit periodically. It was a bit pricey, $85/night for two, for being in the middle of the Mexican desert, but it was truly the only game in town. No fish here, so I had Pollo con Mole. It was bueno.

Off we went the next morning at 6 AM through some of the most rugged terrain that I have ever driven through. Narrow bumpy roads with dips called vados that water washes through when it rains. When it rains along there, there is no way you could get a car, or even the pickup truck through. Along the way, I drove over a rock, imagine that rocks on a Mexican road, and punctured the left front tire. Before we could get the jack set up, an Angeles Verdes appeared and changed our tire. The Green Angels patrol the highways in Mexico to assist tourists at no charge. It was the first time I recall seeing one and there he was and we were on our way in no time.

About noon, we stopped for coffee in Gerraro Negro which is where the Twenty Eighth Parallel is. The 28^th is the official dividing line between Baja California Norte (North) and the state of Baja California Sur (South). Every fifty, or so, miles there is a military checkpoint where some uniformed, and armed, Mexican solder asks you where you’re coming from and where you are going. Most don’t speak a word of English and talk very fast but after awhile, you just automatically say Long Beach California after the first burst of Spanish and then say La Paz after the second burst. They all seem to be nice and friendly and a few want to chat a bit to try out their limited English. I’m not sure what is really going on, but I’m guessing that the Mexicans are trying to discourage the drug traffic and also to try and show that everyone is relatively safe from the gangstas.

Next Baja Sur to Mulege.