Meat Parade

Both the vegetarians have left the house for the holidays. The two meat eaters in the house have been having Meat Fest 2008 (tm). We did steak chili, prime rib for Gregmas, steak and eggs for breakfast, chinese food.

There's already a huge fanbase on Internet. So by no means is the bacon weave a new idea, but it's still awesome.

One layer 6 x 7 bacon weave, lightly cook until chewy, definitely before it's crispy. Uncooked turkey slices wrapped around portugese sausage, baked until turkey is done.

Top bacon weave with cheese, roll around turkey/sausage like a bacon burrito and use toothpicks for structure. Bake until done.

Scallops fried in bacon fat and pork stuffing (as the vegetable).

Nom.

Tequila Christmas

Gregmas. Drinking Gregnogg. Today I was alone.
For the first time in a long time. No where to be and no one to be with. Wanted to do something but not sure what. should I asave the new experience to share with the wife? should I do ot for myself and hav eit just for me? well for now lets just drive. it's too late in the day to do anyting too different, so lets explore somewhere small. something that maybe at least a little bit different. First drive to Honoli'i. Its too crowded. Moreso than usual, surpise; it's christmas. Surfing Christmas sounds about right.

Drive around the neighorhood instead looking for something new. Only find rich houses with barriers, made to cut me off and exclude everyone from the veiw. They paid the money so they steal the view. It belongs to the island; which will be here long after they are gone. They paid sp much money to deny everyone else.
Anyway, I found this silly sign showing a dog pooping as if the person who was responsible for the dog's poop didn know, like the sign would change things, like pooping is wrong or detrimental to anything other than asthetics.

After exploring the neighborhood of Honoli'i I headed north a bit more until I found the scenic view sign. I took a sharp right because it came on all of a suden like. Drove for a way and crossed the bridge that I usually find a sound group of peole hanging around. Today it's emtpy. I park the car and secure the camera. Wearing my Gregmas best I advance, roll up my cuffs, stash my slippers and climb my way down, feeling adventerous. I easly find the water. Set up the camera, fire 1, 2, 3 shots. The battery dies.

Climb back out. Pick up empty coronoa bottle on the way out. There's plenty of trash already dumped there but I can recycle this bottle so I take it.

There's sometimes a debate about who's doing more damage to the aina; locals or haole. On a large scale, developement, polution, toxic waste, industry, haole's win by a landslide. For small dumps, refridgerators, microwaves, couches and bags of trash the the locals take the cake. They'd rather dump it and forget about it than have to pay the few dollars to at least have it shipped somehwhere less delicate and exotic than a paici9fic siland.

Well fuck them. They'll blame it on me and that's fine. It'll continue to happen and at least I tooks something. I lessend the load.
Anyway, finsished the evening with above average gaming with Mittens. For that I am grateful.

A friend of ours is leaving soon. We met him a year ago when he traded a dead laptop for an Xbox controller. "You're like the most legitimate people I've met since I moved here" he said to us when he came over for Thanksgiving. Despite the 6 year age difference and our vast energy levels we became fast friends.

He's leaving on Wednesday back to the mainland and it's likely to be a long time if ever before we see him again. I will be lonely without him.

We said goodbye with fireballs.

Infrastructure

One of the places I work moved across the street to an older place twice the size and the same rent.  It seemed like a smart move for the owners.  What they failed to notice and mention to me was that there was no phone infrastructure.  I think it's rare to find a building in a downtown that has no phone wire whatsoever.

The DSL was activated and phone cable run to the outside of the building in a fancy new gray box and that was it.  The repair man offered to run it inside for an extra $150. They said no thanks because they thought I could do it.

And I could.  

I was called frantically in the middle of the morning at my other job asking if I could come fix the situation.  Having no wire strippers or any phone tools I arrived. I used cat5 cable and ran a length to the wiring area in the back by my repair desk.  Phones only use 1 pair of cables but usually 2 pair are present I think as a backup. Cat5 brings 4 pair, allowing for an additional 3 lines if that need arises in the future.

The only tool I had was my leatherperson mini.  This is a key chain sized tool that is rusty, sticky and has notches in every sharp edged tool.  I have it always.  Using the small scissors I was able to strip the wires and curve them so they'd seat and wire in well. I matched both sides, after checking both sides several times to fix broken wires bent from poor stripping on my part everything worked!

My boss was relieved but was less impressed than I.  Didn't they realize I'd brought their business to life using a 2" 2oz tool and a bit of know how?

I had in fact done this with exactly those tools. It made me think of the phone company. They had it made.  They had infrastructure that rarely needed upgrading, a simple technology that isn't patented by anyone,  easy to install and requires very little maintenance and no competition.  

For decades these companies have sucked out monthly fees from almost %100 of the population. They grew fat with mirth at the ease of the industry they captained.  Even when they were busted up for monopolizing the game didn't really change that much; they were all friends still.

Thankfully Internet is giving them a run for their money.