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Dernière mise à jour : 19/11/2009

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Sexe : Male
Statut : En couple
Age : 36
Zodiaque: Verseau

Ville : McKinney
Région : Texas
Pays: US
Date d’inscription :: 28/12/2005

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dimanche, novembre 23, 2008 

Humeur actuelle :  amusé
Howdy, boys and girls, it's that time of year again - time for Mr. Turkey to reach his full potential in the smoker. As with the 2006 blog, this one will be semi-live, updated throughout the day as the birds cook and I throw some other surprises in the smoke.

As always, I am using fresh turkeys between 11 and 14 pounds. You can get bigger turkeys, but I am not a fan of the 20 pound bird. They tend to be less flavorful and tender than the smaller birds, and there is a safety consideration, as well. With an extremely large bird, it is very difficult to get the bird completely cooked around the thighs and deep inside the breast without over-cooking the outside, and nobody wants to head out for Chinese, Christmas Story-style, because their bird done burnt up. Fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra.

We start with some hardwood lump charcoal in a charcoal chimney to establish a bed of coals. Once the charcoal is lit, it is spread in an even layer in the fire box of the smoker and topped with pecan chunks.



Meanwhile, unpackage the birds and discard the neck and giblets. Thoroughly rinse the birds inside and out, then pat dry with paper towels. From here, I liberally sprinkle the birds inside and out with a handmade Cajun seasoning rub. Where before, I could only divulge the recipe for that rub if I killed you afterwards or you signed a non-disclosure agreement, I have good news. That rub will (and many more) will appear in my forthcoming cookbook, which is tentatively titled "But Mostly I Just Eat & Drink". Until then, any Cajun or Creole seasoning from the supermarket will work. I highly recommend Paul Prudhomme's Poultry Magic.



Once we have established a good bed of coals to work from for the rest of the day and our smoker temperature is approximately 250*F, the birds go in the smoke, where they will stay until they reach an internal temperature of 160*F. That translates into roughly 40 minutes per pound.





That's where we're at right now, folks. Later, we've got a brisket and some jalapeno cheese pork sausage and red pepper garlic chicken sausage that will go in. Then, towards the end of the evening, I'm going to show you how to smoke shrimp.

That's right - shrimp.

1:00 p.m. - I'm having a little problem with my fire being cool, so I added a single oak log to pop my coal bed up a bit. The first hour or two of smoking generally require some close supervision until the fire's right, so don't be afraid to get in there and mess with your vent settings and add wood as required.



1:15 - Now we'll turn our attention to the brisket. I've got a sweet barbecue rub on these that has a good bit of brown sugar in it. The brown sugar will put a hell of a nice bark on the brisket as it caramelizes, so we'll have a nice, flavorful crust on that bad boy when it's finished. The rub goes on about 30 minutes prior to putting the brisket in the smoke so that it has a chance to adhere to the meat and so the brisket can come up to room temperature.



3:30 - The fire is finally cooperating and everything is coming along good. We're getting some good bark on the bottom of the brisket and the turkeys are beginning to color. In about two more hours, it will be time to start basting the turkeys. I just rotated the brisket so the side that was closest the fire box doesn't overcook.



4:45 - The brisket is well barked and the underside is beginning to get a little too well done for my liking, so I have wrapped it in foil. Foil wrapping has the effect of braising the brisket in its own rendered juices. The brisket has more than enough smoke flavor at this point, but it will continue cooking in the smoker until it's done.




5:45 - Now it's time to work on those smoked shrimp I was talking about. Smoking shrimp for a long time over low heat will naturally attempt to produce little slices of BF Goodrich in a shell. To overcome that, we have to devise a clever method for locking in moisture. The clever method is this - coat the shrimp in plain yogurt. We're also going to use extremely large shrimp that have a high moisture content, so I've got some 18/20 count Gulf shrimp. I skewer these using two skewers so they're easy to flip, because we'll turn them halfway through the smoking. For the yogurt mixture, we've got a quarter cup of plain yogurt and about two tablespoons of seafood seasoning. This mixture is brushed on the skewered shrimp. The shrimp are then placed back in the fridge to macerate in the yogurt mixture until it's time to smoke them.







7:10 - Jon Buck and I have successfully eradicated a number of Shiner Bocks who were smugly occupying my fridge. This turns out to be fortuitous, because I am going to need the fridge room soon. The shrimp are about to go in the smoke, as are all the sausages. Here's what we've got ready to cook:


12:15 Saturday - Sorry for the long delay. When Lyne and the girls got home, I just got into a frenzy of plating and serving and eating, then I went to bed early to get up and hunt this morning.

Anyway, the shrimp came out beautifully. They went into the smoke for 10 minutes per side, then moved to a 350*F oven for 10 minutes to finish.



The brisket is one of the best I have done and received a lot of compliments from Buck, Lyne and the girls. There was a nice smoke ring and the brisket was fall-apart tender.






This all went down with some skillet beans and yeast rolls and I hit the pillow less than an hour after the dishes were cleaned up.

If any of y'all have any questions, fire away.
Actuellement j'écoute:
If We Ever Make It Home
Par Wade Bowen
Date de publication : 2008-09-30
12:23  
62 Comm.
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mercredi, octobre 29, 2008 

Humeur actuelle :  amusé
Y'all have surely heard by now that my favorite one-man gaffe machine, Joe Biden, opened his fat fucking mouth and inserted his designer shoe-clad foot in Pennsylvania by saying that tax cuts should go to those making under $150,000. Of course, the amount of $150,000 is substantially below where Obama says the threshold will be under his tax plans. An Obama spokesweasel rushed to correct the gaffe:

Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor issued a statement that corrected the vice-presidential candidate without explicitly saying so.

"No family making less than $250,000 will see their tax increases one cent," Vietor said. "And if your family makes less than $200,000 - as 95 percent of workers and their families do - you'll get a tax cut."

The money quote here is, "No family making less than $250,000 will see their tax increases one cent," which is a pile of bullshit visible from outer space. Would the Obama campaign please stop lying about their tax plans? Under Obama, every tax bracket except the bottom bracket (a 10% tax rate for those making $14,000 or less annually) WILL receive a tax increase. Obama is playing with words when he says there will be no tax increase because he does not view allowing the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, aka the Bush tax cuts, to expire as a "tax increase". Using his fuzzy grammar, this is simply allowing tax rates to return to their previous levels. How that is not, in his mind, a tax increase is an act of mental masturbation only a Democrat could understand.

You're being lied to. When those cuts expire in 2010, every tax bracket save the bottom one and the top one will go up 2%. That means your taxes. Yeah, yours, too, over there. And you. And you. And you back there. And you, the lurking sumbitch who never comments. For the top bracket, taxes will go up 3.8%, plus whatever additional penalty Obama intends to levy to punish success. On top of that, hundreds of thousands of taxpayers will be lumped into the highest tax bracket when its threshold is lowered from the current $307,950 to $250,000. As an added bonus, married couples will also face the reintroduction of the marriage penalty, which was phased out under the Bush tax cuts, further increasing their tax burden.

So let's cut the cutesy little bullshit word games. Your taxes are going up with Obama. Every last one of you. If you're not bright enough to figure that out, well... that explains why you're an Obama supporter.



NOTE: Inexplicably, after years of writing about shaving my balls, chasing ass, getting drunk, naked jogging, barbecue, bar porn, The Twelve Steps, organic gardening, being held hostage, new dogs, old dogs, hunting, cohabitation, cooking, becoming dictator of Texas, the socioeconomic impact of beer, road trips and being in Maxim magazine... THIS blog is the most popular. By a lot. Like... a lot a lot. My previous best was about 4,000 reads. This one is sitting a little under 16,000. You people are wildly unpredictable... and I like that. I don't know who all is linking and pimping, but thanks! And if someone is auto-refreshing me... please knock it the fuck off.

NOTE DEUX: Alright, I know for a lead pipe cinch now that one of you folks is auto-refreshing this blog. Seriously, knock that shit off. I don't cotton to cheating.

Actuellement j'écoute:
The Lonesome Dirge
Par Rodney Parker & 50 Peso Reward
Date de publication : 2008-04-01
10:23  
195 Comm.
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jeudi, octobre 16, 2008 

Humeur actuelle :  réfléchi
For anyone who doesn't know me well enough... yes, this is nonfiction.



There is magic in the sky tonight, born of Canadian prairies, borne by north winds. Two fingers of bourbon and a single ice cube go in the glass before I go outside to take up my yearly vigil on the night of the first hard cold front to listen for geese migrating. Lowering myself into one of the white rocking chairs, I sit and sip and wait for the migration's vanguard to pass.

From high and lonely places they sing, but who these days hears their song? The hunter does. The Lab at my hip, Cade, so recently just a pup, has come to understand why we are outside waiting the first faint fanfare of fall. He knows now, after a season afield, that his life is tied to these visitors as surely as mine. Ears perked, head cocked, he peers curiously at me, a bourbon-sipping, Drake-clad madman sitting in the cold wind when mama is curled up warm abed inside. With a shrug and a wag, he dismisses this frivolity and lies down at my feet.

I ponder the act of migration. Assisted by GPS and radar and air traffic control, how difficult is it, really, for men in airplanes to cross counties, states, countries? What feat is it for man to accomplish what feather and sinew have done for ages? We pride ourselves on our place at the pinnacle of creation, yet a bluewing teal smaller than a football can fly in one leap from prairie Canada to the Texas coast's rice fields in little more than a day.

The sacrifices, of time, of money, of relationships... they come back to me on cold October nights while others dream. I am paid in full on nights like these because it is at this point that I begin to participate in nature in a way the average man of briefcase and business suit and season tickets and luxury car can never and will never understand. Others chase tenuous, fleeting things in life. I chase the things the cave painters chased, fanning a flame deep down in my soul that has burned as long as the birds have ridden north winds.

A long time passes. The lights of the neighbors wink out one by one, leaving only Cade and me to listen to the wind in the dark. I walk to the porch rail to light a cigarette and as I sip the bourbon in the oft-refilled glass, the dog comes to perfect heel, cocks his head and casts his eyes inquisitively skyward. As if on cue, the geese call out to us. Specks. A lot of them. Their laughing, trilling call rises above the chilly swishing of the wind.

Perhaps we shall meet, the geese and I and the now tail-wagging bundle of Lab nerves at my side, but the instruments I will bring to bear on the geese are trifling and weak against thousands of years of instinct. But I will lie in muddy fields, stand in frigid, waist deep water, hunker in ice-sheathed blinds all winter long just the same. To seek shelter in a warm house with the television and a hot meal like others do would make me a stranger to myself because in the end, what I will find this winter in shivering misery punctuated by handfuls of feathers is… me. The really real me separated from office life and purchase orders and the stresses and nonsense that close my mind to the world around me. The crux of the sky's song is that I am here and the birds are here and we have closed all of creation to meet, one on one, and dance the endless dance of predator and prey. Maybe one day soon I will win. Just as likely the birds will laugh and wheel into the sky just as I laugh on the ground at the ineffectiveness of my spread or my calling or the willful inaccuracy of my shooting.

No matter. One day soon, the birds and I shall meet and one of us will be the victor. The ancient dance will go on and I am a part of it and that, more than anything else, is the heart of things, as sure and true as my love of the ancient song in the sky that I listen for tonight. Until that day, I simply listen, thankful for the music the north wind has brought for millennia; music that only I and a few others still listen for, know, love.

 It's about to be a beautiful time of year.



Actuellement j'écoute:
Jet Black & Jealous
Par Eli Young Band
Date de publication : 2008-09-16
10:31  
41 Comm.
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lundi, octobre 06, 2008 

Humeur actuelle :  amusé
The government bailout, which was vociferously opposed by an American populace who the government views as being one step up the intelligence ladder from protozoa, has proven once again the utter stupidity of placing any hope whatsoever in the government's ability to do anything right. As I have often stated, government is the highest form of incompetence. I even came up with a fancy name for it. Wanna see?

Donovan's Iron Law of Government - Government is the highest form of incompetence.

Write that down.

Even though government incompetence is an iron law, a significant portion of the country, having failed to take away any lessons at all from history, wants to put a presidential candidate in office whose primary political tenet is that the government can and will make your life better and should thus be given more money, power and trust.

So, to make this as understandable as possible without bringing up that these are the same morons who engineered the current financial crisis and fucked up its solution, I am going to use my own business as an example of how the free market trumps government stupidity, waste and inefficiency every damn time.

Most of you know I am in the printing business. Specifically, I am a print broker. That means I do not own any printing equipment of my own. Rather, I secure customers and match their print jobs to my exhaustive supplier base, then manage the print project from start to finish on behalf of my client. From the time I become involved with a new project until the time it ships, my basic workflow looks like this:

1. Receive request for quote from customer
2. Using my comprehensive knowledge of each of my suppliers' capabilities and equipment, match customer project to the exact right production facility to ensure highest possible quality and most competitive pricing
3. Request quote from appropriate supplier
4. Submit pricing to customer
5. Receive customer purchase order
6. Submit purchase order to production facility
7. Manage project through completion, ensuring quality of work and timely completion
8. Bill customer on net 30 terms
9. Upon customer payment, collect ridiculously huge commission

Pretty simple, right? Now, let's run that same process through a government bureaucracy so you can get a glimpse of what you're voting for with Obama.

1. Receive request for quote from customer
2. Ignore quote request, hope it will go away
3. Receive second request for quote from customer
4. Figure these assholes must be serious, resent having to work today
5. Dig out approved vendors list
6. Submit 574 page request for quote (form 937A) to approved vendors, giving preference to woman and minority owned businesses while ignoring all measures of cost efficiency and overall quality of work
7. Wait seven weeks
8. Receive quote from supplier which bears no resemblance to actual fair market pricing because the supplier knows government agencies take forever to pay and has built in finance and pain in the ass charges
9. Submit pricing to customer not giving a red rat's ass what they think of the pricing or how long it took to get a fucking quote because they've got nowhere else to go so fuck 'em right in the fucking ear
10. Receive customer purchase order with admonition scribbled in margins to shove said PO up the orifice of my choosing
11. File environmental impact statements for ink and paper, electrical usage to run the press, carbon sequestration and effects of print project on all flora and fauna worldwide
12. Wait 37 weeks for EPA approval
13. Receive EPA request to change to paper stock with higher post-consumer recycled content
14. Get new quote from supplier reflecting higher material cost
15. Submit new quote to customer, tell them to fuck themselves if they don't like it
16. Resubmit environmental impact statement
17. Wait 42 weeks for EPA approval
18. Receive EPA approval to proceed with project
19. Put project into government production schedule; anticipated lead time - 11 weeks
20. Explain project to production manager for the seventh time because he is a government employee and therefore an imbecile
21. Ship project! Woo hoo!
22. Field irate phone call from customer demanding to know where the shit their project went
23. Attempt to obtain shipping information from United States Postal Service; acknowledge this as exercise in futility.
24. Project arrives at customer! Woo hoo!
25. Project is 73 weeks overdue and 140% over budget. Oops.
26. Bill customer on "upon receipt" terms
27. Wait four hours for payment
28. Shake down customer, threatening full audit by IRS
29. Upon payment, place commission in general fund where it will mysteriously disappear into the whirling vortex of government stupidity, never to be seen again
30. Raise taxes to compensate for inefficient use of current resources

Hope this helps clear a few things up for you, folks. A vote for more government is a vote for more stupid.


Actuellement j'écoute:
The Lonesome Dirge
Par Rodney Parker & 50 Peso Reward
Date de publication : 2008-04-01
11:19  
109 Comm.
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jeudi, septembre 25, 2008 
Over the weekend, I was idly flipping through channels and went past USA, who has made the executive decision to become the House Channel - all House, all the time.

"House!" exclaimed my eldest child.

My mother, who had swung by for a quick visit with the girls, asked "Do you watch House?"

"Yes," spake the eldest. "We watch it all the time with mama."

"Does he remind you of your father?" asked my mother.

"Yes!" exclaimed both of my children.

It was, I must admit, one of the proudest moments of my life. You see, I have no small amount of adoration for Dr. Gregory House and consider him to be my own personal messiah. Anything you really need to know about life can be learned from House. Observe:

When someone makes an unreasonable demand, the best course of action is to make a demand of your own:

Cuddy: I need you to wear your lab coat.
House: I need two days of outrageous sex with someone obscenely younger than you. Like... half your age.

Cuddy: I want you to do your job!
House: Then stop spending your money on low-cut tops.

On substance abuse:

The drugs don't make me high, they make me neutral.

On the futility of teamwork:

Like I always say, there's no "I" in team. There's a "me" though, if you jumble it up.

When being badgered by mental inferiors:

Stop asking me questions based on the premise I'm wrong.

Practical solutions to everyday problems:

If you want to stop car accidents, take out the air bags and put in a three inch machete.

The proper way to offer a job to an attractive woman:

You know, I have a position available on my penis. Wait a second, I think I screwed up that joke.

On the selfishness of others:

Patient: Am I going to die?
House: Can we talk about something besides you for a moment?

Regarding panties; not the best thing in the world, but damn close to it:

(Cuddy bends over and we get a zoom shot of her ass)
House: OH. MY. GOD! You're not wearing underwear!
Cuddy: Of course I am!
House: Skirt that tight, you've got no secrets. Skirt that tight, I can tell if you have IUD.

On ho's and where they stand in relation to bro's:

Wilson: It is possible to have a friend of the opposite sex.
House: Blasphemer!

House: Look, I know you're friends with her, but... bro's before ho's, man.

How to delegate responsibility to others:

You find the toxes. You run your bubble study. You're not going to find anything, but I'll get the office to myself. There's a lot of porn piling up on the internet. It doesn't download itself!

On dealing with jealousy:

Wilson: You're just mad because he's closer to a Nobel Prize than you are.
House: And yet I've nailed more Swedish babes. Crazy, crazy world.

On being hung:

Wilson: You cath'ed yourself?!
House: It's actually not that bad after the first nine, ten inches.

On the vagina of someone you desire:

House: (answering the phone) Inspector Gadget.
Wilson: My God! You're actually at the CIA!
House: You've gotta get down here. They've got a satellite aimed directly into Cuddy's vagina. I told 'em the chances of an invasion are slim to none.


And now I'm going to go Nina style on you. Like you fuckers are actually working...



Actuellement j'écoute:
Jet Black & Jealous
Par Eli Young Band
Date de publication : 2008-09-16
6:43  
117 Comm.
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jeudi, septembre 25, 2008 

Humeur actuelle :  reconnaissant

Once upon a time, there was a man who discovered how to implement statistical process control at semiconductor test – both at wafer and package test. Whether or not you even know what that means is immaterial to this blog, but the lessons I learned from this man, this Teacher, are forever and they apply to nearly every aspect of your life.

For the sake of argument, let us all agree that The Teacher is the smartest man any of us have ever met. This is not a stretch. The Teacher and his son (who, in the name of full disclosure, has been my best and constant friend since the age of ten) discovered how to apply SPC at test and the world took notice. But there was a problem, and that problem was cash. The Teacher had hired myself and a half dozen other students to bring semiconductor SPC to the world, and he paid our way from his own life savings. And thus it was that I was first introduced to International Business.

 

Like its acronymical cousin, Irritable Bowel, International Business is nothing to be taken lightly. It is, on the best of days, a horrific clash between what you expect and what actually happens. Thus it was that, equipped with a metric buttload of cultural ignorance, I first approached the subject. In a small gesture indicating that there may, indeed, be a God and that he does, in point of fact, love fools, I closed my first international deal in a Southeast Asian drinking contest, solidifying more than a quarter of a million dollars in business and guaranteeing not only my personal future with the company The Teacher began, but securing venture capital financing amounting to, in the end, $13.5M.

 

How, specifically, that deal went down is a story for another time, and if interest warrants, shall be written about later. What matters now are the lessons I learned while working for a company funded from someone's own retirement account and the responsibility placed in the hands of a 29 year old kid – a responsibility that encompassed the future of more than a dozen young men and their families. To put his in perspective, at a glance informed by nothing else but my blog, how would YOU feel about me securing your future employment?

 

You see, The Teacher brought me on to sell something – SPC software, specifically – and LOTS of it in short order. Let's ignore the fact that I had to receive a crash course in statistics. Let's ignore that I had left the country for the first time a week earlier, but had, none the less, convinced the Executive Vice President of one of the largest test and assembly houses on the planet to meet with us. For the sake of this discussion, I was the same redneck asshole you people perceive me to be. Holy shit!


The Teacher made every penny count, and more importantly, he made sure everyone in the company was taken care of before he was. More than anything, that is the lesson I took from him. TEAM first, leaders second by a long shot. There were days later when, absent a firm traunch of venture capital or a definite close on a sale, The Teacher would forego his own pay to keep the team's morale high.

 

THAT is a leader.

 

THAT is what constitutes a leader of men, and following after, what defines how private enterprise should be led.

 

Your trust, your word, is all that matters – and in this regard, The Teacher crushed all definitions of what it means to lead. TEAM FIRST. That was his axiom, and it welled up from within him as easy as breathing.


We closed the Singapore deal. Me and Scott together. We closed it. Again, a story for another time. But it was $253K and it solidified Round A of the VC money. I am, to this day, stunned. But there it was and still is.

 

In much the same way as how, specifically, all this went down is a story for another time, so, too, are the specifics of how The Teacher looked after those under his tutelage. Suffice to say that I took away from that startup the lessons forsaken by the CEO with whom we were saddled by the venture capitalists who proclaimed loudly to have the company's best interests in mind while simultaneously subverting the very man whose only waking thoughts were for those who sought to share his successes.

 

Apply the lessons of The Teacher however you will to the economic crises of the moment. Know only that I have taken this from his teachings – you are only as good as the team which supports you; you must take the ultimate personal risk as a matter of course for the sake of the team; and you will only succeed when the success of those around you is your number one priority.

 

Thank you, Teacher, for instilling in me the values that make success axiomatic.I hope that, in some small way, I can share your wisdom with the people around me. 




This blog is dedicated in its entirety to Jeffrey N. Bibbee, Cynthia Bibbee and Scott V. Bibbee, who have been my constant friends, my unwavering mentors and the foundation upon which my success has been built. Combined with my own father, these four have made me who I am today and have my undying gratitude. Thank you. Thank you a thousand times, Dad, Jeff,Cindy and Scott.

Actuellement j'écoute:
Vagrants and Kings
Par Cory Morrow
Date de publication : 2008-05-20
10:47  
39 Comm.
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samedi, juillet 26, 2008 

Humeur actuelle :  j’en ai marre
Allow me to tell you a short story.

A not too long time ago in a galaxy... um... right here... there was a radio DJ who played music no one else would play. This jock played guys far outside the Nashville mainstream of country music. Pat Green, Cory Morrow, Bleu Edmondson, Jack Ingram, Randy Rogers, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Jason Boland... the list is long and familiar to those who are fans of what we call OKOM - Our Kind Of Music.

From the synth-pop, starched-jeans, line dancing graveyard of what country music had become rose these scions of a new brand of music. While Nashville threw down Garth Brooks, Texas musicians found Willie... Waylon... Johnny... Merle... Billy Joe... Ray Wylie... Radney... Robert Earl. They found something worthwhile. Something Outlaw. Something outside the lines. And hat they found was good and it began a sea change in OKOM. Texas and Red Dirt music took country music right the hell back where it belonged.

Radio shunned the new sound. This "Texas Music" thing, this "Red Dirt" bullshit was a fad, something to ignore, something to gloss over when Toby Keith had a new single.

But it never went away.

Ever.

Justin played it all on The Front Porch Show. By thousands, by tens of thousands and then in numbers best noted scientifically, The Front Porch show drew listeners... and fans... and disciples. And OKOM grew by leaps and bounds. Justin gave a voice to artists both huge and unknown without prejudice, without condition. Everyone had an open invitation to The Front Porch Show's studio. It was something rare and special.

OKOM fans in Dallas, how many artists did you discover on The Front Porch Show? How many of you remember the greatness of Doug Moreland and Jason Boland together live on The Front Porch? Who first heard Jack Ingram's "Electric" on The Front Porch? How many pounds of brisket have YOU smoked with Justin as accompaniment?

Me personally? Two hundred pounds, easy. First time I ever phoned in a request was standing by the smoker and talking about the massive rubs I had just found while scouting. It was good friends and hunting stories when Justin answered in 2002. We've been friends ever since.

Justin's contract was non-renewed by Cumulus. Friday was his last day on the air.

There comes a time in every music scene when mainstream collides with indie or outlaw or whatever. Maybe you have seen it happen with your music. I am seing it now with mine.

This isn't about country music, folks. This isn't about any style of music at all. This is about independent voices playing independent music of ANY style, of ALL styles. You may hate country music and that's fine. But what happens when the Program Directors come after hip hop, electronica, drum and bass, classical, jazz, pop, indie, rap, world, Celt, reggae, crunk or whatever YOU enjoy in YOUR town?

Now is when we draw a line in the sand. Now is when we say enough. Now is when we tell the commercialized PD's that they will not, cannot ride roughshod over freethinking, independent musical taste. NOW.

With that in mind, no matter where you are, make whatever use you choose of this:

 dan.bennett@cumulus.com - VP & Market Manager, Cumulus Dallas
jon.griffin@cumulus.com - Production Director

I do not make a habit of asking you for things. But I am begging you now. Unleash hell.



Feel like doing me the biggest favor ever? Repost this or give me a bulletin. Thank ya!
Actuellement j'écoute:
Bleu Edmonson: Lost Boy
Par Bleu Edmondson
Date de publication : 2007-10-23
4:42  
72 Comm.
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vendredi, mai 23, 2008 

Humeur actuelle :  amusé
This one is going to be pretty dry and academic, folks, but I get a lot of questions about organic gardening. Let me kick this off with a bang and say that if you're not using organic landscape techniques, you are an environmental terrorist of the first order. I don't care how green you think you are. I don't care if you're driving a Prius with compact flourescent headlights while giving Al Gore a handjob with all natural recycled lube; if you're not using organic landscaping techniques, you are trashing the environment.

The two biggest culprits are chemical fertilizers and insecticides. Everything you put on your yard will eventually find its way into the water cycle as rain and irrigation wash it out into the street, down the storm drain, into a bar ditch, over to the nearest creek, down into a river and thus into either a lake or the ocean. That means along the way, you're fucking up my wetlands and I will probably have to kill you. This kind of chemically tainted runoff is called non-source point pollution, and it is the number one contributing cause of water pollution. Fertilizers containing weed killers are common anywhere there are lawns, and they're a cocktail of chemicals that is lethal to both plants and wildlife. Further, it has become quite fashonable in suburbia to broadcast insecticide on the lawn, especially in the South where fire ants are a problem. The pesticides used in these broadcast applications are indiscriminate killers. They may take down pest species for a little while, but they also declare jihad on your beneficial insects - spiders, ladybugs, earthworms, preying mantis...es? manti? manatees? - and wreck the microbial life critical to your soil's health.

Healthy soil is the most crucial element of an organic program. Healthy soil produces healthy plants and trees which in turn require less care... and the whole point of beautiful lawns and gardens is spending time enjoying them, not maintaining them. When soil is healthy, it has a great biodiversity of microbial life, earthworms are present in abundance, it has a loose, loamy texture and pleasant, earthy smell. No matter what kind of soil you start with, it is simple and straightforward to make it rich and fertile. I am going to focus on flower beds, but I'll answer lawncare questions in the comments if anyone has them.

The most basic of all soil amendments is compost. Compost is nature's very own fetilizer and soil amendment. It is virtually impossible to add too much to your existing soil, but I would recommend putting down a layer at least 3" thick on top of your native soil to start with. You will need approximately 100-150 pounds of compost per 1,000 square feet. If you were to simply till the compost in, you would notice an immediate improvement in the soil, but we're going to take it much further. Once you have your compost down, you will also add the following amendments at the following rates:

- Expanded shale - 80 lbs. per 1,000 square feet
- Lava sand - 80 lbs. per 1,000 square feet
- Greensand - 40 lbs. per 1,000 square feet
- Dry molasses - 10 lbs. per 1,000 square feet

Expanded shale and lava sand both hold water, release micronutrients in the form of minerals and increase soil's paramagnetism, increasing nutrient transport to the roots. Greensand is an excellent source of iron and trace minerals. Dry molasses contains carbon, sulfur, potash, trace minerals and provides sugars to feed the microbial life in the soil. It also repels fire ants! All of these amendments are important and all can be found at any nursery or gardening store that carries organic products.

Spread all of these amendments out uniformly and till everything in. This job requires a lot of beer when done by hand, which is why I do it by hand. Use a tiller if you're not thirsty or have a vagina.

Now you've got beautiful, healthy soil. Let's put something in it. There are a million different plant choices, but we can narrow things down significantly just by acknowledging that most of the plant choices available to you are bad ones. Home Depot and Lowe's have poor quality plants that are almost certainly ill-adapted to your specific location. When you begin planting your garden, skip the home improvement centers, go straight to a local nursery and ask them about their native plants. Native Dave, a native plant guru, explains it best:

We focus on native plants because we advocate responsible resource management. When combined in naturally-occurring plant communities, native plants help to conserve water, energy, time and money;
preserve integrity of water, soil and air; restore native wildlife and ecoregional identity; and celebrate local natural beauty and resources year-round.

Got that? By planting native species, you decrease the amount of maintenance and resources required to maintain your garden and that means more time to barbecue, pitch washers and drink beer while enjoying what you've grown.

This is all an academic discussion if I can't prove results. We'll turn our attention to the sorry state of the landscaping when Lyne and I moved into our home. Builders ain't gardeners, and nowhere was that more evident than right in front of my house:



Ouch. Tragic. That is pretty much the only photo I have of the original landscaping. I didn't spend any time photodocumenting it because two days after we moved in, I tore out every single bit of it save the crepe myrtle. I raked all the existing hardwood mulch into the driveway, applied my soil amendments and started fresh.

The garden as it looks this morning:



Because I live in a suburban area, my options for gardening for wildlife were somewhat limited, so I built my garden to benefit butterflies and hummingbirds and, to a lesser extent, songbirds. A water source of some kind is very important if you plan to attract wildlife to your garden, so I added a bird bath right away. I've used native and well-adapted perennials for both hummingbirds and butterflies. I took some macro shots of various plants throughout the garden.

Blackfoot daisy, a Texas native attractive to butterflies:



Scabiosa or pincushion plant, a well-adapted species attractive to butterflies and bees:



Gaura "Crimson Butterflies", a Texas native attractive to butterflies:



Red Autumn Sage, a Texas native species of salvia greggii attractive to butterflies and bees:



Mealycup sage, a Texas native species of salvia farinacea attractive to butterflies:



Sunfire coreopsis, a well-adapted species of coreopsis grandiflora attractive to butterflies:



Penstemon, a well-adapted perennial attractive to hummingbirds:



Red yucca, a Texas native attractive to hummingbirds:



Variegated lanata, a well-adapted perennial attractive to butterflies:



I have several daylilies that are not in bloom and my purple coneflowers have a way to go before they put out some blooms. The four shrubs in the background along the porch railing are a compact form of abelia, that will be covered in small, sweetly fragrant white blooms that are powerfully attractive to bees and butterflies. The garden overall is quite immature and there is a lot of dead space between plants right now. It will look much better by the end of the growing season when everything fills in.

I use organic fertilizer in a couple of different forms. I use Espoma's Flower-Tone organic fertilizer powder and Nature's Guide Garrett Juice for foliar feeding. Plants are deadheaded frequently to encourage rebloom.

For those in the Dallas area, we are blessed with a ton of organic nurseries. I highly recommend Shades of Green in Frisco, Northaven Gardens in North Dallas, Redenta's in the Lakewood area of Dallas and Calloway's, which has locations all over DFW.

Dirt Doctor.com is a tremendous resource for organic gardening and Howard Garrett's The Organic Manual contains everything you need to know to get started in organic gardening.

I guess that's about it. I'll be happy to answer whatever questions y'all have as best I can.


As an aside, I have no idea what happened to the formatting on the text of this blog. But after 15 minutes of trying to fix it, I suddenly don't give a red rat's ass about it anymore.


Actuellement j'écoute:
Hair in My Eyes Like a Highland Steer
Par Corb Lund
Date de publication : 2006-09-19
2:10  
101 Comm.
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mercredi, mai 21, 2008 

Humeur actuelle :  amusé
Nina has suspiciously turned on comment approval for her latest blog, wherein she has posted new sonogram pictures of baby Jack. Folks, I'm here to tell you, she turned on comment approval to prevent me from revealing the truth.

She posted the following color-coded image of Jack:



Red Dot - Eye
Blue Dot - Nose
Yellow Dot - Mouth
Green Dot - Elbow resting on leg
Green Line - Arm
Black Line - Leg
Pink Shadows - Body

That is what she would have you believe, the visual sleight-of-hand she is foisting on an innocent and gullible readership. I've seen the fucking X-Files. Fox Mulder wouldn't buy Nina's bullshit and I'm not buying it, either. Look again at the same image with Nina's scribbling's replaced with my own:



Red - Beady little alien eyes
Green - Flared little alien nostrils
Blue - Tiny little alien oral cavity
Orange - Massive alien skull to protect hyperadvanced, telepathic and telekinetic alien brain

Look again and tell me I'm makin' shit up:



Nina is carrying the demon spawn of another planet which will no doubt, upon reaching its full gestation period, claw and chew its way out of her womb and begin taking over the world. My strong suspicion is that Nina's recent moodiness is actually a product of her mind being controlled by the alien growing inside her.

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than Nina's womb. We must be cautious.


Actuellement j'écoute:
The X-Files: Original Motion Picture Score
Date de publication : 1998-06-02
4:23  
81 Comm.
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vendredi, mai 16, 2008 

Humeur actuelle :  amusé
I have steadfastly maintained since he burst into the national consciousness that Obama's supporters are a special kind of stupid. With little knowledge of what the man stands for and an even weaker grasp on the fundamentals of the Constitution or economics, Obama supporters are all about the vacuous mantra of change and hope. What that means, no one can really say with any precision, but by God it looks good on a campaign sign. Oh, don't be offended. Everyone knows you folks mean well. The problem lies in the fact that Obama himself stands for some fairly stupid stuff.

One needn't invest terribly much time into research to uncover some truly alarming policy proposals that Obama has rattling around in his puerile skull, and there are a few gems so spectacularly obtuse that they defy a thinking person's attempts to unravel the supposed logic behind them.

Thus it is that I turn this blog over to the Obama supporters themselves, both as an attempt to examine the inner workings of their minds and an amusing way to pass the morning. I will give you, my fine readers, two of Obama's policy positions and give you carte blanche to defend them in any manner you see fit. What I am looking for here are well-reasoned, soundly logical explanations of how these policies will be good for America.

POLICY 1

Among other news sources, US News & World Report says, "As part of his "Tax Fairness for the Middle Class" plan, Barack Obama is in favor of nearly doubling the capital-gains tax rate from 15 percent to 28 percent." Please explain for us how raising the long term cap gains rate to 28% is in any manner fair or helpful.

If at all possible, please attempt to be more intelligent than this very real and very serious response I received from one of Bethany's readers when I posited the exact same question: "Capital gains tax hike? Why not? Only rich assholes pay this tax more than once in their lives. Fuck 'em."

POLICY 2

Mr. Obama has proposed shellacking oil companies with a windfall profits tax. According to Bloomberg, "Democratic presidential candidate Barrack Obama's proposal for a windfall profits tax on oil companies could cost $15 billion a year at last year's profit levels, a campaign adviser said." Please explain how simple business practices do not dictate that any increase in expenses, such as higher taxation, will not be immediately passed along to consumers. That's you. Yeah, you, too. And you over there.

So, that's it. All of you Obama folks, please levy whatever arguments you wish to support either or both of these policies. Invite your smartest liberal friends in here to defend these policies. Bring on whatever facts, figures, reasons, logic, validation or gut reactions you care to employ. Let's all see where your heads are at.

I will respond at the appropriate times, but for now... the floor is yours.


UPDATE: Thus far, only Sacrriela and Question Mark have offered anything that even vaguely resembles lucid reasoning from the liberal perspective. That's a pretty low percentage of the total responses, but goes a very long way towards proving my point.
Actuellement j'écoute:
Mescalito
Par Ryan Bingham
Date de publication : 2007-10-02
12:05  
240 Comm.
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