Happy Anniversary America

Sunday, May 3rd, 2020 at too damn early in the morning or as you call it 6:00 a.m.

Happy celebration of the transected orbit of our blue rock around the source of all life,

I have started using Grammarly (the free version) when I write. I love it. It does a great job with spelling and punctuation which is why I use it. There is also a so much per month version however I am retired and this is about all I write, and I do most of that with a microphone, so no need for all the bells and whistles. If you do a lot of writing in your job, I highly recommend it.

You can get it for free at Grammarly free download

I have come to the conclusion (just for the old folks in the audience), that any kind of remodeling is best left to the young. My daughter has been working on a few upgrade projects in the house, she says I've been helping, however just watching her work from a chair has left me sometimes too sore to stand up. I can't imagine being her and doing 99.9% of the work and then even just breathing afterward. It is a stunning revelation that making new is for the young. Crap. Just think, I would be damaged irreparably if I had to lift a hand or swing a hammer. It sucks being old. I hate every minute of it. Being old, being disabled, being unable to play sports, all of it. If it were a thing I would hit it with a brick. Such is the life I suppose.

May 1st is the start of the burning ban in Georgia. That's the state-mandated ban on outdoor burning of debris, tree limbs and etc. We are always banned from burning trash. If you live in the city and don't have trees or have heavy trash pickup it is not a problem. Out here, if we couldn't burn it, we would be engulfed by it eventually or it would just be overgrown and get out of control. You would have piles of tree limbs everywhere from all the last dozen storms that pass through.  Ours has been extended to start June 1st, because of the early season storms that passed through this spring and caused so much destruction, but I don't like dealing with it anyway. Who the hell can go to the dump that often?

Speaking of going to the dump, I don't have any idea how I accumulate so much crap every year. I have an outside open-sided storage area that has three stalls and one of those stalls is crammed full of crap that has to go to the dump. I just can't wrap my head around how a disabled guy in a wheelchair (I can walk, just not well) whose kids are grown and do not live at home, can gather so much crap. I would bet all of my friends except for the couple that has a 1500-foot long driveway that looks like the infantry has been training to dig foxholes (you know who you are), They probably have more crap than I do. I mean, he built a dwelling and has the debris of other family members to contend with too, and not all the land is his, but I think they are the only people I know that contend with as much crap collection as I do. I have no idea how it happens.

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

1. Happy Anniversary !!. On May 1st, every year it should be a national holiday. That day in 2011 was the day that Seal Team 6 shot and killed that bastard Osama Bin Laden. May he Rest in Hell the piece of dog crap. I have written about this before and about how we should have responded to his family when they objected to how he was killed and buried.
   
   You can read the previous statement I made (in this blog) here .---> Previous Blog Post
    
   I'll admit my language was a teeny tiny bit passionate at the time but I stand behind every profane NSFW word I wrote then. I just have chosen to not express myself so crudely and so bluntly in this forum anymore in deference to a great woman that I admire and love very much for whom it was displeasing to read. I am forever in her debt, she mothered me as a young man, and also snatched my ear a time or two and I respect her wishes ( Love you, Marilyn!!)
2. The family and I sat down and watched Animal House (1978, John Belushi, etc) last evening. The veil was lifted a little bit as my son David got to see the origin story of stuff he has heard his entire life. I have a lifelong habit of repeating movie quotes and dialog and even play with my wife with the occasional snippet. It was good to see him (and Megan) smile and laugh every time they saw one in the movie that they have heard me say over and over. It gave them context, if only a little and it's sorta like having an origin story for your Dad played out on the TV. It was cool. David has the greatest laugh.  ---> Ramming Speed !!
3. Why in the hell does anyone watch a movie made by the fat bloviating piece of human waste Michael Moore?  I cannot for the life of me figure out how he ever shoots a single frame of film and why he is not working in a junkyard or a landfill shooting rats for a living! As far as I am concerned and is it just my personal opinion, he contributes ZERO to society, and has made NOTHING worth watching.
4. Apparently, there is a plan to re-open the legal brothels in Nevada in such a way as to keep the workers and the clients safe from exposure from the CoronaVrus (Covid-19).  It's a so-called "Risky Race" to see how they do it. I understand it has something to do with more than one thing being required to be wrapped. The jokes just write themselves. I'll just leave this right here....
5. I didn't know normal everyday people had no clue how to make sure their own food was safe to eat. Someone actually wrote to one of those advice columns and basically said? How can I make sure I am eating safe food", meaning unspoiled and not out of date food with nothing to do with the pandemic at large. I was stunned. Shocked. Anyway here are some free tips. Use these or your own and get cracking. Nothing is much more important than this stuff.
   
   * Know the danger zone for food - Keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold. The danger zone is between 40* and 140*.  Bacteria is basically present on everything and keeping your food in the right zone doesn't necessarily kill the bacteria, but it does retard the growth, until you prepare it. This is especially important for egg and dairy-based products, which are like Petri dishes for mold growth. If your freezer is not cold enough (usually around aero degrees), then even frozen foods can spoil in the freezer.
   * Do the maintenance on your appliances -  Every so often you should clean the refrigeration coils on your refrigerator. Usually, you can do this with a vacuum cleaner but it might require the use of a stiff brush. Defrost your freezer whenever it needs it. If your freezer is allowing Ice to form in it there is a failure of some sorts with your automatic defroster. Usually if this is a problem and you cannot afford to repair it right away, you can keep it running correctly by using a hairdryer to melt the ice. Remember to be careful using an electric dryer inside of a wet freezer, and it is a safe practice to have plenty of towels on hand to keep the water from going everywhere. You may have to turn off the freezer for a short time to accomplish this. Make sure the seals on the doors seal the doors shut and if they don't, you can replace them usually for less than $75.
   * Rotate your food - FIFO - Use the system that every good restaurant in the world uses, put new products you just bought behind the ones you already have where ever they are stored. This one thing ensures you use the oldest product first. The first thing you bought is the first thing you use when preparing a meal.
   * Obtain and install - Thermometers that are independent of the installed ones in the appliances and the oven (Don't put metal ones in the microwave dumbass!) This one thing keeps you from being lulled into a false sense of security when the installed thermometer is wrong or broken because a second one independently verifies the actual temperature. Make sure to put one in the oven also and to calibrate your oven temperature to match the knob or display. It is easy to do and the directions can usually be found on every manufactures website, or if not remember, Google is your friend.
   * Use cooking Thermometers - Whenever you cook, whether you are cooking on a grill, the stovetop, or in your oven you should always use a probe-type thermometer to measure the final temperature of your prepared food. Guidelines are available on the internet to tell you what specific temperatures should be of any food you serve. In general, if you achieve meat temperatures equal or above 165*, you will kill any bad bacteria the food may have had when you put it in the oven. It will not however cure spoiled food.to do that you must do one final thing.
   * Visually Inspect and smell Raw food before cooking - You would think this is a no brainer but I've seen it time and again, the hamburger was gray and the cook made it anyway. Even cooked above 165*, it will still taste and smell bad, even if the bacteria is dead.
   
   Anyway, I have to go, Megan is throwing out leftovers again and I want to see if she is getting rid of something I want to eat this morning.
   
   BigMike