Hotdogs Roasting On An Open Fire

~My friend Mark Stamps Sunday evening on Beaver Lake (these were marshmallows, but you get the idea)

I wonder if the gal who wrote the line "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." ever roasted an Oscar Meyer. If she would have, I'm betting the line might have gone, "Hotdogs roasting on an open fire...". I'd be willing to bet a large package of Ballpark Franks on that. In any event, I'll keep you posted...

Cold Log Cabin Night

This would be a pretty good place to be on a cold rainy night like tonight. Fire up the cast iron dutch oven filled with your favorite winter gruel or porridge fixin's and a Sam Adams Winter Ale or 2 and the next thing you know you'll be ready for a John Wayne movie, providing the old microwave works well enough to pop up a couple bags of Orville Redenbacher's. With any luck, you might have a little egg nog left over from Christmas Eve for sipping while you wait for Ol' John to get in his first gun fight of the evening. Of course, now that I think about it, you could do all this just about anywhere, except for maybe the southern 2/3's of California. I'm sure at least some of the things mentioned here are known to cause cancer in The Golden State.

Oh, and as always, if you or any of your I.M. force should be caught or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. And, if anything further develops, I'll keep you posted....

It's Not Unusual....

Word on the street is tens of thousands of goomers received a GoPro camera for Christmas: I was one of them. This picture was taken with the wide-angle lens setting. So far it looks like the GoPro takes great outdoor video and pretty good indoor, providing the lighting's good. The jury's still out on the still picture quality, but I'm guessing it's not going to be close to the Nikon D5000. When the lighting's right, however, daytime outdoor video is cinema quality, and you're not likely to go better than that. In fairness to the GoPro folks, these darn things were developed for outdoor video, not indoor still pictures. Since I don't sky dive, mountain climb or ski the Rocky Mountain triple blacks, I'll have to come up with some other uses for this bad boy. Maybe I'll get a chance to video the Duster Man catching the world record flathead below Bagnell Dam (which I'm confident he's going to do) or Klietus as he single handedly sets the controlled burn record in Barry County Missouri (I'm referring to the intentional burn, not unintentional: apparently Tom Jones holds the Missouri State record in the uncontrolled burn category). That gives me an idea: a time delayed brush pile burn. Everyone would of course want to see that. YouTube is chocked full of skydiving video montages, but I've yet to come across a time delayed brush pile burn. I think that might be worthy of a go. I'll keep you posted....

PS. I guess the cat's out of the bag. Tom Jones is "Almost Uncle Tom" and yes, that's the Tom Jones of Engineering fame...not the guy who sang...

It's not unusual to be loved by anyone,
It's not unusual to have fun with anyone,
But when I see you hanging about with anyone,
It's not unusual, it happens every day...and so on

More Bacon

DRY-RUB UNCURED HABANERO BACON

If you found this site while doing a bacon search (and I'm betting you did), we're not in the bacon business. But as a public service, I can point you to some fine folks who are. You can find them at huckberry.com It's where I found the bacon picture. 

The huckberry folks call this particular slab "dry-rub uncured habanero bacon". I'm betting it's pretty darn good. If you try it, Give Marsha a call with your assesment-I'm betting she'll want some if it's any good. But don't expect her to pay full price and if there's not at least one coupon involved....forget it. Again, I'm betting this bacon passes the taste test. I'll keep you posted.... 

PS. I have no professional affiliation with huckberry.com, but since I've recently used a few pictures from their site, I felt it only fair to give them a plug. I'm betting they won't mind.

Missing Elf

 Looks like Santa's missing an elf!

Red Christmas Barn Lights

It's time to replace the red Christmas lights on the barn. Maybe next year I'll put lights all the way around the roof line. Now that I think about it, that's a good idea. Maybe Aunt Dee Dee can find some good quality red LCD Christmas lights at a post Christmas yard sale for a few cents on the dollar, as soon as the 2015 yard sale season kicks off. I'm guessing that's not until March or so. I may have to settle for light strings in assorted colors, which would be OK. But red seems to work well and it's not often you see a Missouri barn tricked out with red Christmas lights. I wonder if "Almost Uncle Tom" has plans to install Christmas lights on his barn? I'll have to head up that way soon to check things out first hand. Then I'll report back with a Cole County Barn Report. And for the record, those are hard to come by. I'll keep you posted....

Christmas Morning Bacon

I wonder if anyone woke up this morning to discover a nice big slab of country cured bacon under their tree? If they did, I bet they were pleasantly surprised. I don't know anyone who doesn't like bacon, except for maybe the Waterman or Epstein family. There's nothing wrong with not eating bacon, but it's hard to imagine breakfast at Cracker Barrel without it.
I've decided to put bacon on my  list of all-time highly recommended items. I'll keep you posted of further developments in that area. In the meantime, Merry Christmas!