Take:

• An old swingset
• A reciprocating saw with a metal blade
• A couple cans of Rust-Oleum
• Misc hardware

Cutting it down:

Construction complete

Painted:

Painted up

Know what it is yet?

Here’s the burner (which I had already)

With burner

And a pot and pulley:

Pot and pulley

Anyone still not sure?

Turkey fryer pulley rig:

For the first cut, we used Alton’s Recipe for the brine, and the directions from the manufacturer for the cookery (350 degress for 3.5 minutes per pound, which ended up being 45 minutes). I felt it was a bit overdone. Alton’s recipe starts it at 250, waits for it to get up to 350, and then cooks it for 35 minutes. I think we’ll try that one next.

AB’s brined turkey recipe is quite good. The turkey was wonderfully seasoned and juicy.

His cranberry sauce, not so much. It’s okay, but the Ocean Spray canned stuff is better.

To go with it, we had stuffing doctored up with mushrooms and apples, garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, and baguettes.

This was the first major meal cooked in the new stove which, is finally in. Originally, we were supposed to get the gas lines run last Wednesday and do the hook up on Saturday (which, requires the gas company to pressure test the whole thing before they’ll unlock the tank). So, I was going to be home to take delivery of the stove, meet them for hookup, etc. I canceled gaming, and Liz went hunting. Of course, a plan is just a list of things which don’t happen, so they couldn’t do the hookup on Saturday for lack of staff. Thus, we pushed the whole affair back to the next Tuesday. I still leave gaming canceled, so Lizzy can go hunting, while wait for the stove. Once it arrives, I convert it over to LP, and the next few days we end up trying to use our other appliances to cook supper (lots of soup and things made with a contact grill).

Tuesday roll around and the gas man shows up after lunch. Of course, sales guys can never seem to fill out work orders correctly, so:

• He doesn’t have enough gas line.
• And, of course, what he doesn’t have enough of is too small

So, very little happens while he waits for someone to come out from the home office and bring a couple of rolls of the proper line. I mean, we get the tank set up, some holes drilled, and the beginning of the line run (he had maybe 20 feet of the right size line, which got us in the house). A bit of work later (went pretty quickly with two people), and we’re in business. No leaks, gas on, stove works.

It’s pretty awesome. Two ovens, five burners, and it throws a lot more heat than the electric one did. This is the one.

In addition, we’ve gotten the house into something approaching clean, gotten our Warmachine figures varnished, and played a couple of games. I even won a game for once… and it’s only Friday. Most of the Christmas shopping is done as well. Tomorrow is “put the snowblower on the tractor” day, and we’ll likely go grocery shopping on Sunday.

Oh, and I’ve gotten an Amahi server set up and mostly configured. It’s pretty slick.

I think that’s it for now. I enned to post pictures of the miniatures at some point, but I’m kozy and don’t feel like getting the camera.

I’ve updated the blog to WP 3.8.

I also had a bit of an overloaded meltdown a couple of weeks ago. Basically, the working theory was that we weren’t going to work on the house or do anything until after the potatoes went in (which happens about the second week of July). At least, this is what I thought. After the list got stupidly long, and it had to be done sooner, rather than later, I basically just stopped doing everything outside work, working on the house, and being a fire commissioner. This made Liz sad, because she was looking forward to brewing beer, and I had told her not to get me any brewing stuff for my birthday, since I would not have time to use it and it would just take up space. I think that put a bit of a point on it, so she agreed to let me set the pace of things, and not set deadlines, and try to slow down. So, theoretically, we’re actually going to be able to do things like brew beer and sit and read…

At least, once the peas are picked and the potatoes are in. We picked and processed about 4 gallons of peapods today, and we’ll do our first picking of garden peas later this week. The replacement tomato, pepper, squash, etc. plants are all in (next year we’ll wait until the second week of June to plant them).

Fire stuff continues to be stupidly busy, with 3 meetings last week, and while there right now aren’t any this week, I expect there to be 2 by the time the week is out.

As I mentioned, I’m basically not gaming. Essentially, I’m not going to schedule anything recurring until it’s been a year and I’ve actually had at least one night free a week for a year where I can just read and play video games. I’m still buying game books, as I tend to collect them, and like to just read them, etc.

I upgraded everything to Jaunty, fixing the XFCE bad window placement problem by giving new windows focus. While it is not ideal, I spent several days poking different window managers and basically being disappointed by them. KDE4 is too unstable, GNOME is not configurable enough, and FVWM would take too much work to make it not make my eyes bleed. E17 is too unstable (though I may try the official E17.org Jaunty builds)

There’s more, but I think I’m going to break here for tonight. I finished reading Watchmen (there’s a pile of other books I need to review, and will do once I unbury them in the mess which used to be my office), and am now on to V for Vendetta.

Oh, as of right now, I’m planning on hitting Carnage, and will likely be bringing some homebrew. Since it’s not a regularly schedule thing, I likely will be able to find the time. If anyone else is going, let me know – especially if you want me to run something.

I was going to submit comments or send an email via your website, but the “Contact Us” link brings me to a FAQ, with no discernible way to actually contact you. Therefore, you get a public letter which everyone can read.

I recently purchased one of your “Miracle Whip – All Out Squeeze” products, which feature a nonstick squeeze bottle in order to be able to get all of the dressing out of the container. I regret to inform you that I will no longer be purchasing this product, as I believe that the nonstick bottle coating is leeching into the product. Once consumed, the nonstick ingredient affects my bowels similar to the dressing.

I confirmed this by the following methodology:
Day 1: Turkey sandwich with Miracle Whip
Result: Distress

Day 2: Ham sandwich with Miracle Whip
Result: Distress.

Days 3 and 4: The same turkey and ham, but with no miracle whip.
Result: Nothing abnormal.

Day 5: Turkey with Miracle Whip
Result: Distress

I feel this to be pretty conclusive proof.

Further, since my local grocer no longer sells small containers of Miracle Whip save in squeeze bottles, I will no longer be purchasing this product.

Sincerely,

Matthew Caron