http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

This is the hardest I've laughed in a good long while.  I am officially the whitest person in America.

Especially given that a few weeks ago I was in marsgirl_73's jetta going to the liquor store for a wine tasting and we were belting out I Got a Man.

So a few days ago yellowfin tuna was on sale at the grocery store.  I've never made it before.  I figured I'd give it a try, but I didn't have a recipe.  So off to the intraweb tubes we go...

I'm sure it's not a new thing, but chow.com  is quite awesome.  It lists a ridiculous amount of information about various ingredients (although I can't seem to find a simple "Ingredients" page or tab, so you have to search for your ingredient).  The best thing is that it lists flavor affinities, which is incredibly useful to me, since I generally cook without recipes.

It looks like the primary function is restaurant reviews from NY, Chicago, San Fransisco and DC, but there is also a recipe exchange.  There are even blogs, one of which marsgirl_73 should be especially interested in:  http://www.chow.com/tastingnotes.  I'm going to read the articles on knife skills, a glaring omission in my cooking skills.

Anyway, I made sesame encrusted tuna with an orange-soy sauce glaze over julienned vegetables and rice.  I overcooked it a little, but hey, it was my first try.  It was yummy.

Tonight I made Kalbi steak, which is a Korean specialty.  This is quickly becoming my favorite marinade for beef.  I use a simplified and slightly altered recipe from god-knows-where.  Probably cooks.com.  I also use a different cut than the traditional ribs.  And I use the leftover marinade for a sauce (heating it up of course).  This has been especially good with a flatiron steak and sirloin.  Also probably not traditional, I serve it over garlic mashed potatoes, with enough sauce that I don't need to use butter or milk in the potatoes.

I more or less stole the recipe from the people at Dillons.  They have pre-seasoned meats available to take home and cook.  One time I was there and they had samples of kalbi short ribs.  He didn't know what was in it, and they don't sell the seasoning, so I wrote down the ingredient list on the prepared steak.

Fairly simple Kalbi recipe:  http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1818,145161-233202,00.html

I'm clearly somewhere in the pacific rim.

*geeking out*

It’s Caucus Time!

I got there around 6:30 or so with Catharine and Patrick.  We had to park several streets away, near where my grandmother lived.  We got into line which was stretching to the street.  By the time we were close to the door, it was to the street, and about two blocks long.  We got up towards the entrance, and they announced that the room they were planning on using for the caucus was at capacity, and they'd have to figure something out.

So we all get herded into the hallway.  It's a clusterfuck, because the Obama room ends up being behind our line, so we had people trying to go in without checking in, and people who are already signed in ending up back in line.  Many "don't cross the streams" jokes ensue.  The democratic party seriously underestimated the number of people who would come.

I finally get signed in at 7:45.  I wasn't sure that I was registered as a democrat, so I had filled out voter registration I'd downloaded.  They ran out of voter registrations, so they were handing out blank sheets of paper to make your own.

While in line, we saw many many neighbors, friends and co-workers.  Ultimately, we ended up in the gym, with 1117 of our closest friends.  So we pull up our little patch of gym floor, and wait.  And wait.  And wait.  The people in charge eventually track down a microphone, but no one can hear them.  Ultimately, the gym is full to capacity, and has to overflow to the auditorium where the Clinton supporters are gathered.  I think about half the bar is there.

They had planned quite a bit of politicking, assuming we'd all be in the same room.  But since we were separated into different rooms, there wasn't much in the way to do.  So they cut back to just one big speech.  It was a kid from my neighborhood, the son of a former co-worker.  He runs Veritaserum.  He's 17, but will be 18 before the election, so he could caucus.  Good speech, very sweet.

Final count: Congressional district 4 – State senate district 30 328 N. Oliver, Wichita

Obama 77.9% Clinton 22.1% Richardson 0% Edwards 0% Kucinich 0% 1,758 total votes

Most common things overheard:

I didn't know there were this many democrats in Kansas.
This may be the only time my vote will ever matter.
Is this a republican plot to kill the democrats?

I've read today that the state party expected around 15,000 people to caucus.  Count was upwards of 33,000.  Damn fine turnout.  I've heard of caucuses in Olathe which were moved outdoors when the building hit capacity, and the Lawrence ones moved around to accommodate everyone.  My friends in KC said their caucus had to overflow from the church they were in to the synagogue next door.

And ultimately, Obama won roughly 3/4 of the votes statewide.

GOBAMA!

I got home around 9:30 to watch the rest of the returns.  Armed with my little spreadsheet of delegate counts and percentages, it became clear just how close this thing is going to be.  One hopes that the extended primary season will benefit Obama.  The thing that worries me is that Obama won in a lot of red states.  There's no chance that Kansas would go Democrat, so while it is nice that he won here, I don't think that this would help him in the general election.  Interesting.

As of right now: Obama is up 71 votes in New Mexico.  Crazy crazy election.

From Tuesday---

Today's Secret Word: Clusterfuck!

So I decided to go to the Obama speech in El Dorado (crappy town 25 miles away). So I head out this morning about 10 am. It is a balmy 20 degrees with a wind chill of 6, and blowing snow. I decide to take back roads, because I decide that the turnpike (most direct route) will be a total clusterfuck (AAAAAA!). After speaking with several people in line, I have determined that I was correct.

So I get there about 45 minutes early, and this town of approximately 12000 residents is ridiculous. I am only thankful that the back roads resulted in the most direct route to Butler County Community College (BCCC) where he is speaking.

So, I park in the drive-in movie theater across the street from BCCC, and lo and behold the shuttle to the school stops behind my car to pick me up. This will officially be the last time anything particularly good happens for a good long while.

So I get into line. I'm guessing I was somewhere in the vicinity of 4,000th in line. There is seating for 2,000 in the gymnasium where Obama is going to speak. There is SRO in addition to that, and two or three overflow rooms just off of the main gym. They were expecting roughly 2,000 people to show up. When it is all said and done, I am probably halfway back in line.* I am approximately 100 people from the entrance to the main building when they reach building capacity. Not just the gym and the overflow rooms, but the entire building. No one can enter by order of the fire marshall.

Now if I were running the show, I would, say, direct the front of the line to the next door. But no, they close the doors and tell everyone to go to that door over there. So in a total clusterfuck, I go from 100th in line, to about 15th from last in line. I'm seriously pissed. So I get into the practice gym with several hundred of my closest friends (and a few actual friends). By this time, I've been driving or in line for two and a half hours, and I have to pee like a banshee.

Huge line for women's bathroom, and ten minutes until the candidate is due. So we stage a coup, and while the men's room is empty, we take over. Actually, the only time we had to make someone wait was while the last of us was washing our hands, so it's not like it was a huge deal.

So I get to my place in the back of the room, and wait. And wait. And then I call my friend marsgirl_73 who is going to the rally in KC, which is 3 hours away and scheduled for 2.5 hours from now, and tell her that the candidate is going to be late, because he's not even here yet. And then all of a sudden, someone in front of me sort of nudges his buddy and points towards the door at the front. Because, having been told of several overflow rooms, Obama decides to go speak to each room for a few minutes and thank them for coming out. I squeed. Seriously, I'm just easy, I got chills. The man is charismatic. So he talks for a few minutes, shakes hands for a few more.

More waiting while he tours the other overflow rooms. Intro by a mother and grandmother of a vet. Many many thanks to several people including classmates of Obama's grandfather (who lived in El Dorado, thus the stop in such a podunk town) and his first cousin twice removed.

Good speech, funny. Peppered with little random asides about Kansas and such. I guessed given the schedule it was going to be a short speech, but it ended up being well over half an hour. Me and two old guys sitting next to me were the only ones who laughed at his joke about trickle down economics. Obama gets pretty close to the end, and then announces that he's got another introduction to make. Holy Mother of God, it's Sebelius. We got the official endorsement instead of Kansas City.

Funniest moment: Sebelius was joking about that her two sons liked Obama for two different reasons. One is a policy wonk who likes his policies, and the other thinks that anyone who can get Michelle Obama to marry them has to have something going for them. The camera panned back, and the look on Obama's face as he glanced over at someone was "yeah, I hit that."

All in all a fun time, although colder than fuck.

I couldn't get a good picture, but what the hell.


*The newspapers indicate that I was way off and there were all told about 3,000 people.  I call bullshit.

The CD Cover Game

---

Always wanted to be in a rock band?
Well, here's your chance… sort of. Make your own CD Cover with the following steps and rocket yourself to multi-platinum status and start fending off the groupies.

1. The first article title on this page is the name of your band.
2. The last four words of the very last quote on this page is the title of your album.
3. The third picture on this page, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4. ???
5. Profit

Mine:



Note:  I took off a little of the name of the band, and added a question mark on the title of the album.

    So anyway.  My friend had a combination white trash/festivus party last night.  I certainly got into the festivus spirit.  It was a festivus miracle.

We decided against dressing up, but were going to get into the spirit of the trashiness with our alcohol choice.   The flyer made it seem like it was BYOB (it wasn't).  So we arrive with our big purses and water bottles full of mixed drinks.  And I bought a Rogue Amber Ale.  It has an American Flag on it.  We start talking to a number of people, including someone we called Colorado (there was also Bling, Napoleon Dynamite and That Other Guy).

There was a crappy gift exchange, for which marsgirl_73 purchased an Ewoks cartoon DVD and sent it to me.  It was a fine offering, and was appreciated by many.  Ultimately, it was stolen twice (the upper limit on stealing presents, the only other gift that was stolen twice was the bowling ball).  I ended up with black legal pads and white pencils, for all of my emo legal needs.  I sacrificed one legal pad for the airing of grievances.

Then it was time for the feats of strength.  Or in this case, Poker, Ping Pong and Kereoke.  Oddly enough, I participated in all three.  I failed supremely at them all, in true festivus style.  Bling (so named because his festivus gift was fuzzy dice and some bling) took most of my money almost immediately.  I aired my grievance against him (he didn't respect his elders).  Colorado and I found the kereoke choices inadequate and did an a capella version of "In the Ghetto."  Twice.  And I lost spectacularly to The Other Guy in ping pong.  Napoleon Dynamite took all of my friend's money.

Eventually, I decided that in order to not make a fool of myself, I should stop drinking booze.  So I switched to soda.  And went back to hit on Colorado.  Who got weirder and weirder as I sobered up.  Who lives in Boulder for four years and doesn't go into the mountains?  Anyway, I wander back into the other apartment where my friend is mouthing off to three guys who aren't any fun at all, and look like they're about to take a swing at her.  I never did figure out what happened with that because we decided it was time to leave at that point.  So we called her husband, and he picked us up on the street corner outside the party.

So I've rented Jesus Camp.  Wow.   I'm not that far in, and so far:

1.  Seriously, if you're going to be bitching about how american adults are fat and lazy in their faith, it helps if you yourself aren't 300 pounds.  At that point it just becomes embarrassing for you.

2.  Telling kids to speak in tongues?  I don't think they understand.  You're moved by the spirit to speak in tongues, you don't do it on command. And you don't do it en masse on command.

3.  Creationists are scary.  Talking about how creationism is the only way all of the questions are answered?  Only because your default answer is "god did it."  Takes all of the questions away when you don't think about the answer.  Also, I swear to god, they said that Galileo was right to change his answer and submit to the church.  The hell?  Even the Catholics admit they screwed the pooch on that one.

4.  They are in a different Missouri than I know.  How can I tell?  There aren't any billboards for porn shops.  All I remember from I-70 in Missouri are the billboards for porn.  And flipping off the exit sign for Columbia.  Somethings are more important than god, like say KU basketball.

5.  They make their kids recite the pledge to the flag.  Fine, whatever, I'm okay with that.... WHAT?  You're praying to some christian flag?  Not the american one?  the hell?

6.  If you're going to be rah rah jesus america, take your flag down when it rains.  I understand the desecration of the flag as a political statement, but I'm fairly certain these motherfuckers would be frothing at the mouth if anyone else disrespected the flag.  You are to take the flag down in the rain and after dark.  Show some respect or protest, but don't be a hypocrite.

7.  You realize children are impressionable right?  and you can make them believe whatever you want?  Talk to me after they hit puberty.

8.  Ten bucks says Levi is a skinhead by the time he leaves his teens.

9.  Oh my god, she just advocated theocracy.  Wow.

Weekend fun.

It's been a alternately lame and fun weekend.  So I finished the books from the last post.  I lack self-control.  I was particularly amused by Deep Survival.  It goes into psychological and neurological reactions to stressors, then oulines traits that survivors have.  A disturbing amount of those stories seem to happen where I vacation every summer.  Also, as I went through I was mentally checking off the random things I do on the harder hikes.  Who knew that reciting all of the beers I know and deciding which one I want to go buy when I get down off the mountain was a survival tactic? Also apparently good: singing the angriest songs I can think of (waves to Kill Creek) and mocking myself for being a wuss when I bitch to myself about the fact that my boot is causing a blister (I still have a scar from that too, dammit).

However, I am not, apparently, good at finding fun things to do for free in Wichita.  My friend and I decided we needed to get out of our respective houses.  After doing chores for an hour half-assedly trying to come up with something fun to do, we failed and ended up going to the nature center to wander around looking at birds.  While there, our only ideas were going to Target (later abandoned because I decided there would be too many idiots there, and oddly enough, shortly thereafter my friend's mother in law called from there), and going to the grocery store.  Do we know how to have fun or what?

More fun was helping to babysit my niece and nephews.  I reached the upper pantheons of cool aunt last night, apparently.  My nephew was playing with blocks, and I mentioned that his structure looked like a sun temple.  Which got us talking about ancient Egypt.  My parents have this book so I was flipping through it and talling Sam a bunch of stories from it.  He was interested in the heiroglyphics, so we were writing things in heiroglyphics for a while, translating them back into english (ie, reading the pictures back).  He was in hysterics.  Apparently nothing is funnier than the word "Pants," which was what the glyph for G looked like to him.  Also funny: dead horse (H, which is actually a lion as near as I can tell) and cash register (hill).  Minutes of fun.  After which, he looks up at me and says "Katie, say something amazing."  Fully expecting brilliance. So I tell him about Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh that wore a beard.  I guess that fit the bill, given that he nearly collapsed laughing.  Apparently cross-dressing royalty is absolutely hilarious to a 6 year old.

Also of note, my nephew took one look at "Twisted Flax" and said, "that looks like DNA!"  What six year old knows what DNA looks like?  Jeez.

http://www.nerdtests.com/nt2ref.html


I am a nerd.  Yet, oddly, not socially awkward.

Story from my board, this is why I love these people.  From the ongoing prank war with their neighbors.

So I'm walking to my job hanging at the park with the kids while they wait for the school bus, when I notice a huge racoon just chilling in the middle of the street. It doesn't budge as I get closer. Oh wait. It's dead. But it looks like it just laid down for a nap. No blood, guts or gore. Eyes wide open - creepy!

After the bus driver leaves with the kids, I go get a shovel and a big plastic bag. Then a second plastic bag 'cuz I think this is gonna be a two bagger. I can't maneuver the damn thing to get it into the bag. I'm gonna have to touch it. Ew! Then I got a brilliant idea. I went and got an old dog bed. I laid the poor roadkill gently into it and placed it in the big shallow hole that my neighbors never filled in after their tree died in the last freeze. I placed a piece of this year's Halloween candy in its mouth (since it was open), although the tongue had swollen up at this point, so I had to spear the candy on a tooth. Then I went back to the bus stop for the next wave of kids.

On my way back home, my neighbor was out watering his lawn. So I stopped off and we both just stared at the racoon. I silently handed him the plastic bags.

Wow, this is shaping up to be more of a deal than I expected.  I thought it was going to involve simply dinner on Friday with my parents and my brother and his family.  Thus far we have:

1. Awesome present #1 from Marsgirl



They've got Yodas n shit on em.

2.  Niece learning to say my name.  My second youngest niece now screams my name when I enter a room.  While I was at my parents' house playing with my niece, they invited me to...

3. Bach - Goldberg Variations.  Oh.  My.  God.  Piano recital from the chair of the department at Wichita State.  This was one of the most amazing things I've ever heard.  Dinner with the parents beforehand.

4. Present from C.  Homemade chocolate and tulip bulbs for my front yard.

5. Present from my sister and her family arrived today.



6.  My friend's mother invited me to join them at http://www.wso.org/volunteer/showhouse.html and then to lunch on Friday.

7.  Friday night I'm going to dinner at Timberline with my parents, my brother and sister in law, and my nephews and niece.  Yes, I know I don't usually do chain restaurants, but they have serviceable steaks and a kids' menu, which is all I require in my birthday dinner.

Not so bad, as it turns out.  Helps with some of the crappiness of being halfway to 70.

The tiger kid who was writing inappropriate stuff on the memorial signs got his ass kicked at school today.  Oops.

OK, I am going to need a handbasket, but this has me in stitches.

The legitimately sad part is that at a friend's school, a kid died in a car accident and there was a memorial at school today.  Then it gets silly.

From my friend:

"There was almost an "emo-fight" today at school. The counselors had hung In Memory posters in the hallways for students to sign. These were delivered to the families this afternoon. One self-proclaimed "emo" kid went around to all the posters writing stupid shit like "Long Live Emo" and "I'm a Walking Emo" in an attempt to either be funny or an asshole, I'm not sure which.

Well, this caused a rift in our Emo gang. Yes, they have formed a gang, and they call themselves The Tigers. Some of The Tigers supported the boy's comments because he was just expressing himself. The other half of The Tigers thought he was being disrespectful, so our school almost had a full-fledged emo brawl after 5th hour today. At least 30 kids with crazy piercings, spiky hair, and black clothes were standing around sulking in the hallway mumbling to each other that they were going to kick each others asses. The mumbling turned into chest-bumping and cursing, before the police had to step in and break it up.

It was the most comical fight I had ever seen. No punches were thrown. All these depressed kids were going at it with creepy glances and hushed voices."

I'm sorry. *snicker* Emo gang? That's just sad. The Tigers? Even sadder. So do they have dance numbers and fight with the Jets?

I was working in my garden and I had some help...

I have noticed Krycek's kitties hanging around my porch.  How cute is this one?

Some are a little arty, I admit.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v215/kthutch/RMNP%202007/


Primer:

Giant Track is the mountain we're on at the house.  Those pictures were taken from the deck last night.
Sunrise at Sprague 1 and 2 were this morning about 5:45.  One is the clouds, one is the reflection of the clouds in the lake.
Long's Peak was also this morning.  Long shot from about 11 miles away.
Sprague sunrise shots were a few mornings ago, there was too much wind this morning.
Lily Lake picture is of Lily Mountain, one of the summit contenders.
Hummingbird pics are from the porch
Alluvial Fan pics are from a big ass waterfall.  That water is COLD, but it amused the children for me to wade, and it scared my mother for me to be that close to such a powerful waterfall.  I was about a foot from the main portion at that level.
Glacier Creek is yesterday's hike.  Long story.  Pain in the butt, literally.
The last is a deer, and part of my brother's car.  This was out of my front door.

It's sad.  Nearly everything I do on the fourth of july is vaguely ironic these days.  I'm watching the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest, and later I will be reporting on the troop movements of the rebels in my neighborhood.

Sad.

On the other hand, GO Joey Chestnut!  A true American hero.

Totally, utterly not safe for work.

http://www.vh1.com/shows/dyn/2007_world_series_of_pop_culture/series.jhtml

Check out the interview with Westerberg High.

I violently disagree that the 'Mats were the best band of the 80s though.  They weren't even the best band of the 80s from Minneapolis.