Little Woman So Sweet

Hey You!

I just posted a video on Youtube if you wanna see it.

http://www.youtube.com/user/MarcTwyman#p/u/0/2LQrp_t6480


It is me playing a Blind Boy Fuller Tune on acoustic guitar.

night night

What now?

This guy is done.

brother can you spare a dime?

Well it looks like the politicians just wasted some more of our money. S&P Just downgraded the USA to less thatn a AAA credit rating for the first time ever and in doing so they cited political brinksmanship that made the risk unpredictable. If the elected officials had not put thier party and ideology before country, we could have saved some money. The Tea Party happened a long time ago and it should be off limits for anyone to use it as a title for thier organization just like it is telling when someone claims to have God on thier side or hi-jack the American Flag.


So from the One Man Web log to all the ideologs: Up Yours!

Fear and Cowardice

I was watching a movie online just now, one of the hanibal lector ones called Red Dragon. It struck me when Hanibal told the young retired detective that he had fear but was not a coward.

It made me think. Most poeple may have already thought about it but it isn't possible to be brave if there is no fear. Bravery, or the lack of cowardice, is only applicable if there is an element of fear. The reason our founding fathers were so great is because they were facing a situation where they would have been crazy not to have fear at some level. They stood up to the English powers and if the revolution failed, they would have surely been shot or hanged.

The latest fiasco from our current round of elected representatives was in my opinion cowardly. Nobody wanted to step away from worrying about what their particular group of supporters would think and they all just behaved predictably. Sickening stuff.

OK, it is now back to the movie.

Nanu Nunu

Science Cathes up to One Man Web Log

OK, Here is a story from todays news:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/25/time-travel-is-impossible-scientists-say/

The headline is "Time Travel is Impossible, Scientists Say"

And here is a quote from the story:

By proving that even a single photon must obey Einstein's theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, Hong Kong physicists believe they have debunked the idea of time travel once and for all.

A Hong Kong University of Science and Technology research team led by Du Shengwang said they had proved that a single photon, or unit of light, "obeys the traffic law of the universe."

"Einstein claimed that the speed of light was the traffic law of the universe or in simple language, nothing can travel faster than light," the university said on its website.

"Professor Du's study demonstrates that a single photon, the fundamental quanta of light, also obeys the traffic law of the universe just like classical EM (electromagnetic) waves."


Now here are some quotes from One Man Web Log entries that pre-date the "scientific breakthrough" :

http://marctwyman.blogspot.com/2010/05/to-hawk-or-not-to-hawk.html
I can't go into it with mathematical equations but I don't think warp speed is physically plauseable.

http://marctwyman.blogspot.com/2010/05/scientific-breaktrhrough.html
I was driving through the U-Turn at Gessner and Katy Freeway and maybe it was the G-force of approximatley 1.009 Gs that gave me the proper frame of mind to come to the indisputable conclusion that time travel will never be possible. No matter how advanced human technology advances it will never happen...

http://marctwyman.blogspot.com/2011/01/time-and-space-travel.html
As far as time travel goes a trip down "memory lane" is about as real as it is going to get. At least considering the parameters of the physical universe as we know it.

Is the Chili good here?

The other day we went to Chili's and I decided to try the chili. I asked the waiter if it was good and he kind of laughed but he said it was. I thought it was OK and I figure that it is a good represention of what it is supposed to be which is a Terlingua style chile. However, It is a little bit more chili tasting that I prefer. Not necessarily too spicey but too much of a chili (chili powder) taste which I understand would be correct as far a what folks would expect.

Last night I decided to make a batch in the crockpot my ownself. I used about a half a bag or so of red beans (dried), a couple of cans of diced tomatoes, a can of chili paste, a container of sodium free free range chicken broth, about 6 or 7 fresh jalapino peppers (seeds removed), a good amount of ground turkey meat, a couple of good sized white onions, a bell pepper, about a half a batch of celantro (chopped) and a bout 8 celery stalks chopped. I also added a good bit of chili powder, some garlic powder, some onion powder, some Mrs Dash, a little black pepper & I think that was about it. I rinsed off the read beans added all the ingredients. I cooked the turkey meat with some chopped onion in a large skillet and then added it also. I let it cook on the lower of the two crock pot settings and I tasted it this morning and added a little bit more chili powder. I was thinking about cheating a little bit and adding some Sweet Baby Ray's bbq sauce but I decided against it. It came out pretty good. It isn't the purist's chili but it is something I can eat for several days in row and not get overpowered. I had some tonight with som brown rice and it tasted pretty good. If a person wanted to get really serious about it, they could add some of the peppers in stages but it has just enough kick for me but more importantly a good flavor. To me it is just hard to go wrong with a crock pot. You just throw a bunch of stuff in there and about 8 hours later, it ususally tastses pretty good.

Casey Anthony

I sympathize with the jury because they had to find that beyond a reasonable doubt that the mom killed the kid. The prosecution did not have an official cause of death and without that it is hard to convict someone of murder. As far as I am concerned, if the public is going to be mad about the results, they should be mad at the prosecution for going forward with a case without enough evidence to convict. They should have either waited until they had the evidence needed for the murder conviction or they should have charged her with a different crime. Maybe endangerment of a child or child abuse. Florida seems to have a history of going after people without proper evidence. Janet Reno did it and got famous in the process. It turned out she was creating evidence through hypnosis that did not stand the test of time.

The "Tax Lady" is done

Check out this video of Roni Lynn Deutch apparantly blaming the state bar of California for the mess she is in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmajIcRShL8


Yesterday she plead "not guilty" to contempt of court:

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=18579082&postID=5831369971147613124


American Tax Relief, Another of the 4 major players among the "Tax Resolution" companies, was shut down by the Federal Trade Commission:

http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/1023083/101109atrpi.pdf


It was a state attorney general lawsuit that was the first domino in bringing down Roni Lynn Deutch and just last month the State of Tennessee won its case against another of the 4 major players in the "industry", JK Harris. This is was not the only state level AG action that has focused on JK Harris.

http://www.legalnewsline.com/news/233089-tennessee-wins-case-against-jk-harris

The Solution?

The country is in deep do do financially and the legislative answer from both sides seems to be a nice pork sandwich. I am thinking maybe we should be having a salad. Or maybe a nice healthy bowl of soup.

There was a deal

There is no question that there was some sort of deal. Osama was holed up in a mansion not far from Islamabad. No way that the Pakistani intel folks were not clued in. They have been playing both sides all along.

Either way. It is a great moment for America.

Tauelangi Angilau

We just got back from our two-day Galveston mini-vacation. We stayed at the LaQuinta on East Beach and Kathy, the manager who works nights, took great care of us. We got a good deal on a suite so we had plenty of room and an ocean view. Luckily for us, weekdays are still not booking up like they will be once things heat up a litttle but overall Galveston looks like it has come back pretty well. As far as the Seawall, Murdocks was the only place to rebuild over the water. The fairly new Hooters restaruant was washed away and never returned and of course the Balinese is still gone also. One thing that struck me when driving down Seawall Blvd. after dark is that too many of the street lights are out and also they need a little more lighting along the sidewalk. Even if just for a several blocks or so just to create a little better place to take a stroll in the evenings.

I brought my laptop along so I felt like I had jettisoned into the current century when I was able to look at Denny's Menu online to call in my order one morning. Of course Denny's was close enough to see from our window but it was still convenient. I guess most places offer free wi-fi but it was something I had never taken advantage of before. LaQuinta does provide a breakfast with choices of Belgian Waffles from the waffle machines, orange juice, coffee, yogurts, cold and hot cerials, as well as a selection of muffins and also bread that could be toasted.

We spent about a half a day at the beach just relaxing. I set up a couple of umbrellas and a pen for my dogs so we were pretty well prepared. There was a bit of a cool breeze but the water was actually comfortably warm. That reminds me; I still need to wash and vacuum the car.

A bit of sad news also. Hurricane Ike claimed one more victim during our stay in Galveston. A 65 year old man from Utah named Tauelangi Angilau was killed during the demolition of the Flagship Hotel which was damaged by the water and waves during the storm.

The Blues

The internet is funny sometimes. Here is the wording of a link that got fabricated and displayed in a banner add based on my browsing activity: "The Blues - Symptoms, causes, treatments of The Blues" Then it gave the web address to a medical site of some sort. I guess Comander Data could have answered this one a long time ago if someone had bothered to ask him. Now that IBM has "Winston", we can defer other age old questions to him. I think I like it better when there is still a little bit of mystery but what can you do?

The Real Deal; Mr Quinn Sullivan

This kid is a real guitar player at any age. See for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4xVkTr01l0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewm_7mzfZi0&feature=related

Civil War

You know, if you think about it, the Civil War really wasn't all that long ago. Crazy stuff. What a terrible time to be a soldier living in America. They have been running a series on PBS for the last several nights and I have caught bits and pieces of it. It really souded like Lincoln was a great leader and a great human being. Sad he got killed by an idiot but he got the important stuff done. Hopefully, looking back on it, he would have been satisfied with his contribution to humanity. The other obvious thing that struck me is how good a General Robert E. Lee was. In terms of American values, he was fighting for what I consider to be the less than the best cause, but back then, in the minds of the Southerners, I am sure they rationalized it was more about states' rights.

Police search home of actor Charlie Sheen

(Reuters) - Police searched the home of Charlie Sheen on Thursday looking for firearms that would have violated a court order against him, but they found only bullets and an antique rifle, a lawyer for the actor said.

Thats right, the link doesn't work. There is enough Charlie News out there that I don't need to be a supplier.

I know he has put himself out there but even if he has, I don't know if it means he has to give up his rights. Maybe they would have searched his house even if he hadn't been so public with all his rants and such. Still, I can't help but wonder.

Somebody call the ACLU.

Two great tastes that go...

=




PLUS

Well, Not exactly.

But I did see a guy on TV cooking apples the other day so I decided to try it myself.

I cut up an apple and cooked it in a little bit of cooking oil and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on it. Then I realized I needed some sort of pastry to go with it so I got a couple of of those half cooked flour torillas they sell at the store and cooked them in the same pan I had used for the apples. I sprinkled cinammon and sugar on them also and then made some apple cinnamon tacos.

I have noticed before that if you put a little bit of butter on a flour tortilla and cook it, but not too much, it gets kind of a sweet taste. The cinnamon apple tacos actually tasted pretty good.

corny southwestern update

The stew/soup crockpot concoction/recipe from the last post turned out pretty good.

I had put enough chili powder to enhance the "southwestern" style zing that I like but not so much to overpower everything.

I was also glad that I didn't use the whole bag of 15 variety beans.

The only thing I addded was a can of corn after it was cooked and that seemed to help the texture and fit the recipe just right. One other thing that might work is some finely chopped raw onions added when it is served but I haven't tried that.

a total crock

Today I decided to use the crock pot to cook some beans and chicken.

Here is what I put in there.

Half of a bag of Hursts 15 Bean soup mix (it is a bag of beans with a flavor packet. I didn't use the flavor packet.

3 Chicken Breasts cut up

3 peices of bacon cooked in the microwave first between paper towels and then cut up

3 carrots cut up

3 or 4 celery stalks cut up

one and a half onions chopped

2 Jalapino peepers without the seeds

1 Bell pepper chopped

2 potatoes cut up

1 can of diced tomatoes unsalted

A good few shakes of Garlic Powdr

some onion powder

Several good shakes of Chili powder

a few good sprinkels of Mrs Dash

Oh Yeah, You gotta put some water in there also.

Thats all I can remember. I put it on about 3 hours ago. It already smells good but I know it is going to take a while for all the beans to cook right. I may cheat a little bit.

I guess I will find out how it turns out tonight.


ps. don't use your fingers to clean out the Jalapino's. Cut the pepper in half longways, take a spoon and under running water scrape out the seeds. Do this last and then make sure to wash your hands with soap and water right after that (before you touch your eyes or mouth). You need to use soap because the oil from the Jalapino needs to be broken up to be removed.

The way it has always been done

Hello from the one man problems of the world sovling brigade:


I was just listening to a radio talk dj republican guy talking about the middle east and how if revolution takes hold in the middle east and Saudi Arabia goes down to fundamentalists then we are all going to be chicken fried as far as our economy becaues we do not have enough energy to run things without thier oil.

My thinking is that if we can put a man on the moon then we can figure out how to produce, or actually capture, energy.

It is a simple fact that all of the energy we are using originally came from the sun. Dinasaurs either ate plants or other dinasaurs that ate plants so if oil came from dinasaurs then it ultimately came from photsenthisis or the bioligical converting and storage of the suns energy.

The natural answer is to capture the engergy from the sun and with all the advances of chemestry and biology to the point that they are not actually connected, we can do this.

There you have it,

Now go out and grow yourself a can of oil.

Bye

Mississippi John Hurt

Mississippi John Hurt is well respected as one of the great fingerpicking blues guitar players.

Here is a video of him playing a spiritural called: "Walk that Lonesome Valley"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgdLVWgU4G0

I really like this song. It is also interesting to see what a gentle personality that Mississippi John Hurt had in introducing his song. Very authentic in more ways than one. I think Im gonna learn me how to play this song. Then maybe I can walk the lonesome valley a little better my ownself.

Here is a version of Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis doing the same tune (sans the Jordanaires) with a little rockabilly guitar to go with it :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guJnpSSTERo&NR=1&feature=fvwp

I do like the back up vocals by Jerry Lee Lewis.

Here is June Carter and her sisters doing the same tune:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79a-qg6t5fw


& if you have time, click on this one to walk somemore:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1fFO92vxoQ

This one is from the movie "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAs4L9AKUKk&feature=related