Steel Cut Oats

What are steel cut oats? Basically they are whole grain groats (the inner portion of the oat kernel) which have been cut into only two or three pieces. Normal oatmeal, like Quaker instant, is a rolled, steamed, processed oat.

Steel Cut Pros:
1. Eating foods in their most natural "whole" state provides nutritional benefits stripped by the processing of normal oatmeal.
2. Nuttier, chewier texture than rolled oats.
3. No sugar, unlike most of the microwave stuff. Add fruit for sweetness.
4. They only have one ingredient, oats.

Steel Cut Cons:
1. They take 30 minutes to cook.
2. No sugar, thus bland.

Apparently there is a quick cook version of steel cut oats in the Trader Joe's frozen section.

Best Hot Sauce

When I was in Mexico, there was usually fantastic freshly made hot sauce around. When there wasn't, they would usually pull out a bottled hot sauce called Valentina, which was also great. Back in the U.S., I have found Valentina impossible to find, until now. I wandered into a local Mexican grocery store and discovered the stuff on the shelves for $1.19 a bottle.

If you need a new hot sauce and no other hot sauce can help, and if you can find it, maybe you can buy...Valentina Salsa Picante!

Bowl Saga Thickens

with 2 new bowls!

The NCAA has solved two of college football's biggest mysteries:
• Where will the ninth-best ACC football team go for the postseason, if it qualifies?
• What about the seventh-best team in the eight-team Big East?
The answers, in order, are the Congressional Bowl in Washington and the St. Petersburg Bowl, the two newest additions to what is now a 34-bowl postseason.
The NCAA licensed the games on Wednesday. There could have been 35 games, but the NCAA rejected a request for a Rocky Mountain Bowl in Salt Lake City.
The Congressional Bowl will be Dec. 20 between Navy, if it qualifies, and an ACC team. If the ACC can't fill the spot, a Mid-American Conference team would.
The St. Petersburg Bowl will be between Dec. 20-23, with a Conference USA team playing a Big East opponent.
There are 68 bowl berths and 120 Division I-A teams.

Dustin Diamond aka Screech

Dustin Diamond, the guy who played Screech on the TV show "Saved by the Bell" came through town to perform his stand-up comedy routine. It was fun to see old Screech in person, but his comedy act wasn't so great. He mostly relied on ultra-dirty sex jokes, a comedy cop out if you ask me. I was hoping for more stories and humor from his "Saved by the Bell" days. The ticket was only 10 bucks though, so it was worth the price.

Bagel-fuls

Perceived problem: People love bagels with cream cheese but just don't have the time to do the spreading.

Solution: Bagel-fuls.


Bagel-fuls are frozen, hot dog bun shaped bagels prefilled with real cream cheese.



These are to be prepared in the microwave. I followed the directions and bit in to a doughy bagel filled with still-frozen cream cheese. Ughh. It took several attempts to get the thing sort of right. They may turn out better if you had a wide-mouth toaster to heat them up in.


Bagel-fuls aren't too bad once you figure out how long to nuke them. I guess it's handy if you have no time in the morning and have to eat while driving to work. They come in original, strawberry, and cinnamon flavor. I'll be sticking to the classic bagel myself and enduring the rigors of spreading my own cream cheese.

Recommendation: Avoid.

Unswaddled Sleeping Baby

Cool GT Jingle

They say the students at Georgia Tech who can't hang with the engineering curriculum take the "M-Train" which is changing your major to Management or Business.

Roll With It Baby

Jack hit a few milestones last week. First - he learned to roll from back to stomach meaning he can now roll around the room until he crashes into something and starts crying! Second - he's now sleeping unswaddled. And finally - he's gotten his first tooth! The experience took a bit of toll on his appetite but he's now eating pretty well again too.


If he opened his mouth a bit more you could spy his tooth in the bottom left part of his mouth. We'll try for tooth shot within the next few weeks.

The Farm

Erin and I went with her Dad to check out their family farm near Tecumseh, Nebraska this weekend. It's about 45 minutes outside of Lincoln. The farm is made up of nearly 400 acres of rolling prairie, cedar forest, and several small lakes. There is some talk of building a little cabin on the land which would make for a very peaceful, isolated weekend getaway spot.

Top Five Sticks

The good folks at 5lab have done the legwork to determine the five best sticks. It's an interesting list indeed.

5Lab's 5Best: Sticks
1. Long, Skinny
2. Long, Skinny with Bend at End
3. Long, Fat at First, then Skinny
4. Long (All)
5. Short, with Two Branches

Ode to the Record Store

Today was the first annual Record Store Day. No - I'm not talking about Best Buy, Wal-Mart or Amazon.com but real independent record stores. They are an endangered species though good ones can be worth their weight in gold for music lovers. Alas, most have gone the way of the Dodo bird. Kind of like the old Hot Dog Records from Jonesboro which has actually fared much worse than the fabled dodo.

Folsom, CA has one record store left - Dimple Records. I try to get in there at least monthly and was able to sneak away today to celebrate Record Store day. I snapped up a good variety of discs so it was a successful trip. The odds of being able to make a similar trip in a few years don't look all that promising though.

Here's what I snapped up today:

The Deluxe Version of The Rolling Stones Live Disc - which is the soundtrack for Shine a Light, a Scorsese film on the Stones...
The Eels Useless Trinkets which includes B-sides, soundtrack tunes and other unreleased stuff. 50 tracks worth of off-beat eels.



Then I also snapped up E=MC^2 - the new Mariah Carey disc, Elton John's classic Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, a Yes classic 90125 and a weird unathorised disc by Depeche Mode - Songs of Faith and Devotion: Strange Versions.

Happy Record Store Day!

Birdy's Eggs

I held the camera above the nest since you can't see inside from ground level. What do you know, two bright blue eggs. Now Erin and I are having to come and go through the garage so as not to disturb mother bird's roosting. Are there any bird watcher types out there that can identify what type of bird this is? We are currently guessing "House Finch", but that's based only on where the thing decided to build its nest.

Birdy

A rather trusting bird has built its nest on top of our outside door light. I had never seen said bird inside of the nest until tonight. I assume that means there will be a fair amount of chirping going on soon. Hopefully we won't get attacked Alfred Hitchcock style when we come and go from the house. Let's hope Yuki doesn't notice our feathered friend!

New Pokémon Out Sunday!

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon hits stores this Sunday. Erin, Robert and I all enjoyed the last Pokémon game and I'm pretty excited about this one too. Erin will be playing the "Explorers of Time" version of the game while I'll be playing "Explorers of Darkness". We got these explorer's guides as a free gift for reserving the game at Target.

(Baseball)(6)

When I told you in a previous post about Erin's baseball bounty, it seems there was some confusion. She doesn't just get every Yankee game, she gets every game. What's more, she can watch as many as six at a time. I'm trying to convince her to hook her computer up to the projector to put these games on the big screen so we can start our own little sports bar venture. So far she's not buying in, but it's a long season.

It's Been Waaay Too Long

With no new Jack pictures...so here are some of Steph's best.


Here Jack is guarded by two beagles!

Here's a great one of Jack as he jumps. No matter how bad the kid feels jumping seems to always bring a smile to his face.



Here's one of both of us - Jack is wearing his madras Easter shorts!

Yuki Learning Tic Tac Toe

Ever since I saw the tic tac toe playing chickens at the Craighead County Fair as a child, I've dreamed of teaching my own animal to play the game. Tippy the dog never really had the aptitude for it. Yuki's training is going better, though up to this point all I've been able to get him to do is chew up the giant cardboard x's and o's.

Pyramid of New Ben & Jerry's Flavors

Just when it seemed Ben and Jerry's would never come out with anything new, they hit us with this trio of new flavors. The new Cake Batter flavor is intended to celebrate B&J's 30th birthday. It has yellow cake batter ice cream with a chocolate frosting swirl. It really does taste like cake batter. Tasty but odd. Imagine Whirled Peace is Erin's favorite. It has caramel/sweet cream ice cream with fudge peace signs and toffee cookie pieces. The soft and chewy toffee cookie pieces are the most interesting thing here, other than the partnership with John Lennon's ghost. Finally we have One Cheesecake Brownie. It features cheesecake ice cream with cheesecake brownie pieces. The "One" part is some campaign to help fight extreme poverty. Perhaps B&J should leave poverty alone and campaign against extreme obesity instead!

The REAL Tourney Pick 'Em Results

You may have noticed the nice smoke and mirrors scam Robert pulled in the previous post claiming to be the pick 'em champ. We don't recognize rouge leagues here. The official pick 'em order shakes out as follows:

#1 - Daisylope
#2 - Aaron's Picks (We gave him an extra 32 points for picking Kansas as champs).
#3 - Bill's Picks (Bronze ain't bad!)
#4 - Robert's Picks
#5 - Krixpix
#6 - Erin's Picks
#7 - Dad's Picks (Maybe you should go back to that all ACC in the finals strategy)
#8 - Stephie's Picks (I'm not blaming you Steph, I'm sure Jack distracted your pick 'em focus)

CONGRATULATIONS TO DAISYLOPE!!! CONGRATULATIONS JAYHAWKS!!!

1 daisylope 22 20 24 32 16 32 (Kansas) 146 146
2 Bill's PIcks * 21 20 20 24 16 32 (Kansas) 133 133
3 Robert's Picks 21 18 24 16 16 32 (Kansas) 127 127
4 aaron-s pick-s 24 24 20 24 16 0 (No Pick) 108 108 (((+ 32))) = 140
5 krixpix 19 12 8 8 16 32 (Kansas) 95 95
6 Erin's Picks 19 16 20 24 0 0 (UCLA) 79 79
7 richardtangeman 26 18 16 8 0 0 (UCLA) 68 68
8 Stephie's Picks 20 18 16 0 0 0 (Louisville) 54 54

2008 Tourney Pick'em

I did a NCAA Tourney Pick'em with my MBA friends and surprisingly ended up winning the thing! Steph came in a respectable 5th place too....out of 35 entries... The prize - props on Wubert.com! Check it out!

JAYHAWKS WIN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

I've been waiting for this since 1991 when I started college at Kansas. At the time, I wasn't a college hoops fan at all. That changed very quickly and I've been a true blue Jayhawk ever since. Every year they were good. Every year they had a shot, but every year they fell short. Now, nearly 20 years after I became a Jayhawk fan, they have finally won it all!! Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!!!!

It was nice to see Roy Williams cheering on the Hawks during the finals. I'm not sure how Mullins and his sisters feel, but for me Roy did enough to redeem himself so I can finally bury my negative feelings toward him.

The game itself was very exciting going into overtime. I'm still amazed the Hawks could blow that 90 point cushion they built up in the opening minute of the game.

ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK KU. ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK KU. ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK KU ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK KU ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK KU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jayhawks Blast Roy Williams

KU pummeled UNC, weathered a comeback, and then pummeled them again. It was an almost fictional start for KU as they ran up the score to 63 to 0 in the opening eleven seconds.

As a KU grad, I must say it felt great to beat Roy in the Final Four. Roy did win the title a few years back with Matt Doherty's players, but he has never done so with his own recruits. UNC is a great school with a great program, but many KU fans will never see Roy as anything but a traitor.

Mullin's sister and KU grad Laura was so into the game that she dressed up her stuffed bunny. Why she chose Carolina or Cornflower blue for the ear bands, I'll never understand.

Baseball Nut

Erin is the family's biggest baseball fan. This is a provable fact. The proof, as they say, is in the pocketbook, and Erin has just lightened hers by around 120 dollars in the name of baseball fandom. For her money, she'll receive the TV broadcast of every single 2008 major league baseball game streamed over the net. She can watch the games live or in archived form. This might seem expensive, but 162 Yankees games lasting 3 to 4 hours each equals a lot of baseball bang for the buck.

Cinnamon Fire Twizzlers

It's about time cinnamon flavor showed up in a Pull-n-Peel Twizzler. It's as delicious as it sounds. They have a good spicy cinnamon flavor. This new flavor shall move into the top position on the Twizzler flavor pyramid.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!!

KFC Experience = FAIL

I should know better than to ever try to eat at KFC. I really should. Once in a while though, fate seems to lead me through the Colonel's doors. I always regret the trip. Tonight, I was enticed by a coupon in the newspaper good for four dollars off a KFC family meal. I walked into the store and immediately noticed the place was dirty and smelled badly. Nevertheless, I stepped up to the counter and ordered the 10 piece family meal priced at $14.99. I presented the coupon and the employee was baffled. He got his manager, a middle aged, obese woman with bad teeth wearing a sloppy, stained KFC uniform. She inspected the coupon and informed me that the family meal was specially priced at $14.99 so they couldn't take the coupon. The regular price was $16.99 she said. I suggested she charge me the $16.99 price and allow me to use the coupon. She thought about this for awhile and then told me that they don't usually do that. I thanked her and left.


The last time I tried to eat at KFC was in 2002. That time, I had gone there for lunch, and ordered a 2 piece chicken meal. The employee told me they were out of fried chicken. I expressed mild disbelief, thanked her, and left.

These bad experiences haven't caused me to permanently write off KFC though. I'll stick to my schedule of giving them a try every 5 to 7 years. I look forward to having my next KFC experience around the year 2014.

Lincoln Now 156th Largest Metro Area

The Lincoln metro now has more people than the Boulder, CO metro and Deluth, MN metros. By way of comparison, the Sacramento metro ranks 26th, the Kansas City metro ranks 29th, the Omaha metro ranks 61, and the Jonesboro metro ranks 337th.

Amazon Beats iTunes by a Buck

I was Mr. Jonesing to pick up the new Counting Crows disc, so I decided to check out Amazon.com's new mp3 download service. Turns out they had the new disc for $8.99. iTunes was charging $9.99 so I went for it at Amazon. This is the first time I've used Amazon to download a cd. It worked very smoothly. You have to download a tiny application. Then, once I downloaded the music and clicked on the file, it automatically opened in iTunes along with the cover art. Nifty! I now consider Amazon a valid option when trying to get the best price on music.

NCAA Tournament Trip

The opening rounds of the Midwest region of the NCAA tournament took place at the Qwest Center in Omaha. I went with some friends on Saturday to see if we could get in for a reasonable price. Sadly, we couldn't. Tickets were going for as much as $400.00. However, we did have fun mixing with fans of various teams in bars near the venue. And, we went to a Kansas Alumni pep rally bash in the Qwest Center for some free rock chalk snacks and goodies.

I found this used ticket on the ground.

We also saw some Wisconsin faithful gearing up on their bus.

Onion Feature - NIT Still Looking for Teams

NIT Still Has 10 Open Slots If Anyone Wants To Play

Baby's First Easter

Jack celebrated his first Easter today. The highlight - his first meat! He had a Turkey and Veggie dinner.

He found his Easter basket pretty quickly too which featured a stuffed rabbit and some Cadbury chocolate.

Watch Dog

One good thing about Yuki, he always nose the time.