My brain is mush.

I’d like to write a nice article about this morning’s three-hour examination. From an outside perspective, it was actually quite interesting. But it hurt my brain. And thinking about it now is hurting my brain more. So I’m going to stop thinking about it. I’ll just say this: If you ever have the chance to experience a cognitive neurological examination, take it, but I hope you never hit your head hard enough to need one.

Cold, wet weather ushers in my favorite time of year: soup season. I started simple this year with a hearty, vegan potato and black-eyed-pea. It requires a little pre-planning, but is an easy soup to make. Read on for the recipe.

Ingredients:

2 cups dried black-eyed-peas (or whatever beans you prefer)
2 potatoes
2 carrots
2 small-med white onions
2 bulbs garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt, pepper, and spices to taste

Instructions:

The night before, set your beans out to pre-soak. Use a 4-quart or larger soup pot. Toss your dried beans in the bottom and fill with enough cold water to cover by at least 2 inches. Too much water isn’t a problem – too little is.

After the beans have soaked overnight (at least 8 hours, though soaking until the next evening is just fine), rinse. You’ll be tempted to skip this and just apply heat, but you’ll be sorry if you do. Not only does rinsing wash away any dirt or rocks that got mixed in with the beans, but the part of the bean that causes gassiness comes out in the pre-soak. Rinsing your beans now means a more pleasant experience after dining.

Refill the pot with water and place it over high heat. Add a good pinch or two of salt. The beans will boil for around an hour. Keep an eye on the pot. You’ll probably have to add water at least once. I like to first heat water in my teapot before pouring it in so that the beans aren’t cooled in the middle of cooking.

While the beans are boiling, prep the rest of your veggies. Peel and cube your potatoes. Peel and grate your onion and carrot. I like to use a food processor for the onion and carrot, but if you don’t have one, dice the onion quite small and use a large cheese grater for the carrot. You want small pieces of these. Peel and mince your garlic.

Pour olive oil in a sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and carrot. You’ll want to stir every now and then to cook evenly. A little black is okay – it will add flavor. After about 10 minutes, add the garlic and continue to cook at medium-high until the vegetables are sweet – a total of 15 to 20 minutes. When they’re done to your liking, turn the heat off and leave them be until we’re ready for them.

While prepping and cooking the vegetables, the beans have been quietly boiling away. If you haven’t already, go ahead and skim the scum off the top of the water with a big spoon. I like using a slotted spoon for stirring the soup, but find they make a mess when flinging scum from the pot into the sink. When you think the beans have 15 minutes left (usually 45 minutes for black-eyed-peas – if you’re using a different bean, you might have to adjust), add the cubed potato. The beans and potato will boil another 10 to 15 minutes until the potatoes are soft.

When the potatoes are cooked, reduce heat to medium and add your sautéed veggies. You may want to add additional water to get the level of soupiness you prefer. You salted the beans, so taste before adding any additional. This is the time to add any other spices you like. Tonight, I used black pepper, ground cumin, a touch of cayenne, and some generic “Italian seasoning blend.” Let the whole thing simmer for another 5 or 10 minutes to come together.

The result is a tasty soup that sticks to your bones. The lack of meat makes it quite inexpensive. Using dried beans requires an extra step and some planning ahead. Canned beans are more expensive and usually high in sodium. Plus, it’s just fun to know you cooked the whole thing from scratch!

Yeah. That’s the best plan my confused mind can come up with, after so much deliberation and reflection. The next 6 months should see me saving up for the time I’ll finally decide to go & move. To do what exactly, that I’m still trying to figure out
Hopefully, I’ll have a new job or plan lined up somewhere else. But if nothing is there, then I’ll have to resolve to be fine with that. Quite scary to think about it now actually, with nowhere concrete for the following step… But sabbaticals should serve the purpose of refreshing your head & giving you a clearer picture of what to decide & do next, right?
However, I may have chosen a worse time to do this lil soul-mind searching. With the economic downturn everywhere, it may actually be a tad foolish. But I feel I just have to do something different this time, otherwise I’ll feel more (misplaced) complacent, crazier & might end up resentful.
Thing is, I do have a vague outline of plan-of-sorts of what I want to do, it’s just the getting to it aspect that is always daunting & almost improbable! And so before I scare myself out of this great plan, I’ll psyche myself up with images of just dropping everything & flying off somewhere pleasant & cool and ready to rock another adventure…

As if we didn’t have enough woes and worries in the world, many folks simply love to gossip about totally useless stuff. Gossip has absolutely no purpose whatsoever. Think about it, what does gossiping about something really achieve that’s useful?

If we are truly going to improve this world, gain greater acceptance of others and the unknown, deepen our spiritual connection to the universe, and evolve as we are meant to, we need to start a better habit.

As you go about your activities today, be 1% more mindful of gossip you might engage in. If you catch yourself starting to gossip, just stop, if you feel you need to apologise, do so, or merely change the subject to something better (you might even want to use this 1%-a-day blog as your topic, if that helps!) Also, avoid getting drawn into conversations with others that gossip.

If the truth be known, the majority of people gossip because they are bored and have nothing else to talk about. Suggest a better topic, you’ll be quite surprised what happens, especially if you share the conversation.

Engage in 1% less gossip today and observe what happens…

http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/walker/ufbir/index.shtml

Basically every world record you could want to know about bugs is here.

Biggest? Loudest? Most fecundiferous? Most instars? Longest lived? Shortest lived?

It’s all here…and I probably spent far more time than I should have clicking around on it.

I know it’s not a real update – though I hope to have something more substantial to post soon, maybe even later this afternoon if I get my homework done. I was in shock the first week of class, but it’s passing.

In the meantime, here’s a little trivia via Jason:

Can you fill this out without lying? Copy this entire message to your own blog, delete my answers, and type yours. Easy easy!

1.What was the last thing you put in your mouth?
I’m eating an apple. Braeburn. From Chile.

2.Where was your profile picture taken?
From an avatar generating website years ago. I don’t remember the link.

3.Can you play Guitar Hero?
Why play guitar hero when I am a guitar hero?

4.Name someone who made you laugh today.
Corbin. Nothing special – just conversation.

5.How late did you stay up last night and why?
Later than normal – almost 2am. I got a phone call around 9pm from a good friend. We talked until 10:45. I still had a few hours of homework and reading to complete. It was worth it.

6.If you could move somewhere else, would you?
I guess that all depends on where. I’d like to move – the town I live in isn’t a place I would have chosen and isn’t convenient to church or school – yet God seems to have me there for a reason, so I stay.

7. Ever been kissed under fireworks?
Yes.

8. Which of your friends lives closest to you?
I’m friendly with a few of the guys in my complex, and one or two might even be real friends.

9. Do you believe exes can be friends?
I don’t have much experience in this. I don’t see why not.

10. How do you feel about Dr Pepper?
I don’t drink sodas. When I did, I drank a lot of Dr. Pepper. I’m guessing it would be way too sweet if I tried one today.

11. When was the last time you cried really hard?
It’s the “real hard” that throws me. Probably not since I was a kid. I’ve cried since then, but not in the sobbing sense I get from the question.

12. Who took your profile picture?
I did. From a website.

13. Who was the last person you took a picture of?
Eric – our lead guitarist.

14. Was yesterday better than today?
No. It was yesterday. Today is today. Neither is better.

15. Can you live a day without TV?
Yes. I watch more than I need, but have no trouble turning it off.

16. Are you upset about anything?
Nothing of consequence. I still think the BCS is a terrible idea and wish the NCAA would go back to the old model where the idea of a football “National Champion” was not nearly so important.

17. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it?
Of course! What kind of silly question is this? Oh, that’s right. It’s a question defined by modern western thought that people are defined as individuals. Bad definition. We are better defined by our relationships. No relationship = no person.

18. Are you a bad influence?
On whom?

19. Night out or night in?
Generally, I draw the blinds and shut the door, leaving the night outside. When the weather is right, I open the window, inviting it in.

20. What items could you not go without during the day?
*shrug* There are things I’d rather not do without, but a day isn’t long at all. I can’t think of anything at the moment I couldn’t leave behind.

21. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital?
Bob. He had just had heart surgery.

22. What does the last text message in your inbox say?
k

23. How do you feel about your life right now?
Pretty darn good. Sure, I’ve got my troubles, but… Glory to God. My life isn’t just my life anymore. The old is gone, replaced with the life of Jesus Christ. It’s a really good life.

24. Do you hate anyone?
I don’t always like what other people do, but I don’t think I actually hate anyone.

25. If we were to look in your facebook inbox, what would we find?
I have no idea. Probably nothing at all. I don’t use facebook much. I didn’t even realize it had an inbox until this question.

26. Say you were given a drug test right now, would you pass?
Yes. Unless they start testing for coffee.

27. Has anyone ever called you perfect before?
Yes. It wasn’t very nice.

28. What song is stuck in your head?
None. I’ve been singing songs in my head most of the day, but no one song is stuck at the moment.

29. Someone knocks on your window at 2:00 a.m., who do you want it to be?
Someone with a real crisis. Otherwise, I might get cranky and have to repent.

30. Do you want to have grandkids before you’re 50?
I’m 35. I have no kids. I have no plans to have kids. So, uh… No.

31. Name something you have to do tomorrow.
“Have to” do? Pray. Not much else really has to be done any day. On my todo list, though, is completing the next Bible study module I am writing and some reading for Theology.

32. Do you think too much or too little?
Usually.

33. Do you smile a lot?
That’s what people tell me. It’s not something I usually notice myself, one way or another.

The horse thing is killing me. I know I sat here and typed out the whole “giving up on this for now” post, but we all know that was laughable.

I’ve been out to see another horse.

Not going to buy it, but went to see it. Would’ve seriously considered buying it if not for the I’ve-never-seen-it-this-bad foot fungus problem… that and I suspect she might have a sore back issue as we bucked Jim off rather soundly.

And that’s when it hit me. I’ve moved into the desperate stage of my horse search. I was actually willing purchase an unsound horse if it got me that one step closer to riding again.

It was a big wake up moment.

So I had a firm talk with myself and promptly went here and fell in love with this and this and this.

Hey… at least they’re sound and ride-able and come from a reputable place.

Sigh.

I’m afraid I’ve been a bear to live with for the past few weeks.  I’ve cried over Aimee again and again and again.  The horses at VSH remind me of her, which reminds me that she’s gone, which reminds me that I don’t have a riding horse which makes me look at their horses and then I cry all over again.

Sigh, sniffle.

So… I’ve tried to focus on Beau and Leo. 

Beau is coming along nicely, still a bit jumpy and spooky, but coming along.  He’s getting easier about being casually handled and I lead him around the driveway without a single incident.  He was definitely uncertain and relying on me to clue him in to what was going on, but he listened well and didn’t play up at all.

Leo, on the other hand, has turned into a bit of a menace.  The weather here has taken a slight turn towards Autumn, the mornings are cool and the days aren’t quite as hot and I think the combination of weather and food has turned our once sweet boy into quite the devil.  He levelled a fine karate kick at me just the other morning (he missed and hit the water trough instead) which made me realize something.

The gonads have gotta go.

Seriously.  On our little quarter mile road there are 16 equine.  Of that 16, five are geldings, five are mares, four are jennys, one is a jack and the other is Leo the colt.  Two of the jennys are bred but that still leaves seven ladies to love and one gent to fight.  Zeke, our jack, is better mannered than Leo, but isn’t happy about the colt being here either.  So I’m waiting for the vet to let me know when he can come out to do shots and then we’ll schedule his procedure.

FYI- I don’t own all the horses on our road.  We have 7 horses and 5 donkeys.

Ok, after typing that I feel the need to explain.  Yes we own 7 (EEK!) horses.  Here’s the run down-

Alise- white Percheron mare, approx. 30 years old.  I retired her several years ago although the kids do sit up on her from time to time.  She’s the boss mare of the pasture and at about 17.2hh she’s got the size to keep that ranking.

Fantine- white PercheronX mare, approx. 10 years old.  She is a PMU mare and has absolutely no concept of horse behavior.  She is unpredictable at best and while I have high hopes for her, I’m realistic that she’s pretty much going to be a pasture ornament.  She’s about the same size as Alise.

Maddy- bay Appaloosa mare, approx. 14 years old.  She is the gigantic mare that Julie rides.  We got her the summer before Jim and I got married as a “if you buy this mare will throw the App in free” kinda thing.  The mare we originally bought, a OTT TB didn’t work for us so I gave her to a friend, but Maddy turned out to be a real gem.  Maddy grew from about 15hh to 17hh in the first year or so that we had her but we never thought about how big and well boned she was (particularly for an App) because we compared her to Aimee.  Next to Aimee everybody was small!

Belle- bay Mustang mare, 17 years old.  Ah Belle.  My first from the ground up training experience.  I should’ve picked a more sane horse as Belle has always been a bit on the screw-loose side.  Belle is maybe 14hh… although I would say she’s shorter.  I have ridden her and even did lessons on her for a while, but eventually she was retired because of her unpredictable nature.  We’ve toyed with gifting her to somebody that wants a companion horse, but we always come back to the fact that Belle eats very little and her actual maintenance is slight and she’s Maddy’s best pasture mate so Belle stays.

Skye- blue roan POA gelding, approx. 12 years old. Skye is very nearly as wide as he is tall.  He hasn’t been the best pony in the world, having a distrustful nature (yes, normal for a pony I know) but Xander loves that he’s blue and has spent quite a good bit of time lead-lining around on him.  He’s also a favorite of my nephew Spencer.  I think he’d make a fine cart pony, but I have neither the cart nor the harness to make that happen.

And of course there’s the boys-

Beau- bay Mustang gelding, approx. 7 years old.

Leo- Palomino TWH/QH colt, approx 18months old.

So while I have 7, some of them are special needs and some of them are retirees. Only Maddy is truly ride-able and that’s Julie’s go-to mount and since Julie is my go-to riding companion… well you see the predicament. 

Sigh.

Have I mentioned that I miss Aimee? Cause I really, really do.

It’s been a week and we been in LA. For sure that was crazy just smoke from the fire. Goig out way too late doing lines while the corporations are turning off our I Internet I wonder what will happen next I’m slightly delirious at the mo so please excuse me mixing has started again Gerson is mixing using bretts stems I am begining work on new song
got to run sending good wishes

Paul

This is a purely frivolous post. Please stop reading now if you are offended by humor or sarcasm.

Worse than being frivolous, it’s a repost of a chain-mail type email I received this morning. I normally trash these sort of forwards, but looked at it before seeing what it was. I warn you. You don’t really want to keep reading.

Black means the statement fits, but only on occasion.
Green means I’m a regular offender.
Red means I’ve kept myself pure – for now.

• If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don’t work there, you live in Oregon. **Giving as often as receiving.**
  
• If you’ve worn shorts, sandals and a parka at the same time, you live in Oregon . **Bonus points for wearing socks with your sandals!**
  
• If you’ve had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed the wrong number, you live in Oregon .
• If you measure distance in hours, you live in Oregon .
• If you know several people who have hit a deer more than once, you live in Oregon .
• If you have switched from ‘heat’ to ‘A/C’ and back again in the same day, you live in Oregon .
  
• If you do things outside while it’s raining because they will not get done if you wait for the rain to stop, you live in Oregon.
• If you install security lights on your house and garage but leave both doors unlocked, you live in Oregon
• If you can drive 75 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching, you live in Central, Southern or Eastern Oregon.
• If you design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a 2 layers of clothes or under a raincoat, you live in Oregon. **we just got cold/wet**
  
• If driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow and ice, you live in Oregon .
• If you know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction, you live in Oregon . **Also known as: showers, rainy season, showers, and road construction.**
• If you feel guilty throwing aluminum cans or paper in the trash, you live in Oregon . **Hopefully, this is no longer an Oregon thing!**
  
• If you know more than 10 ways to order coffee, you live in Oregon. **I drink my coffee straight these days, but I went through my breve phase.**
  
• If you know more people who own boats than air conditioners, you live in Oregon. **This is starting to change in the valley cities.**
• If you stand on a deserted corner in the rain waiting for the “Walk” signal, you live in Oregon
• If you consider that if it has no snow or has not recently erupted, it is not a real mountain, you live in Oregon.
• If you can taste the difference between Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, and Dutch Bros, you live in Oregon..
• If you know the difference between Chinook, Coho and Sockeye salmon, you live in Oregon.
• If you know how to pronounce Sequim, Puyallup, Abiqua, Issaquah, Oregon , Umpqua, Yakima and Willamette , you live in Oregon.
• If you consider swimming an indoor sport, you live in Oregon .
• If you know that Boring is a city and not just a feeling, you live in Oregon. **I don’t just know it’s a city – I used to live there.**
  
• If you can tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese and Thai food, you live in Oregon.
• If you never go camping without waterproof matches and a poncho, you live in Oregon. **I keep them in the back of my car year round “just in case.”**
  
• If you have actually used your mountain bike on a mountain, you live in Oregon.
• If you think people who use umbrellas are either wimps or tourists, you live in Oregon .
• If you buy new sunglasses every year, because you cannot find the old ones after such a long time, you live in Oregon.

There’s an awful lot of green in that list… Go Ducks!

The sunset on primrose hill
Feels like the end of the world
We know
she said it feels
like the end of the world
We know

Got in a fight
Cuz you got mad
I drank all your fancy
Champagne
I’m not taking the bait
Yo not this time

Electro Punk rocker
I’m loosing control
Electro punk rocker
You know

Last night I was
with with my x
And her girlfriend
Got so high
We made it pretend
Yeah now 3 is my
Favorite #

Electro punk rocker
Don’t want to live this life again
Electro punk rocker
So sod off yeah

It’s 11:11 what happens in heaven

Got your text
But I was having sex
And every time I think of you
I don’t know what to do

Electro punk rocker
Don’t want to live this life again
Electro punk rocker
So sod off yeah

You make me blush
Look but don’t touch

Back at work for only three days and the apathy is already able to be cut with a knife. Usually it takes a week or so for the apathy to ripen to this point. Just something else that changes ever faster.

Since the smoking stopped over three weeks ago I’ve been trying to decide how to or not to spend the savings. I guess it would defeat the financial purpose of quitting just to spend money on something else. But since there isn’t a cigarette sticking out from between my fingers I feel the urge to replace it.

BTW…

Becky and I saw a black bear while traveling the BlueRidge Parkway last week. I’m not sure why telling you this has taken almost a week but there it is. It happened too fast to get a picture…but it was fascinating nonetheless.

As always…I must be off.

my heads spun off

today i guess i just wont care

cuz im not there

when everything is breaking

today i guess i wont care

cuz im not  there

i wanna fight

the way you smell

your still always late

like my girlfriend

It’s been 9 days since I’ve been online and I’m not on vacation. Once school starts, I’ll be around at least 2 or 3 days a week. Until then, who knows? There’s a fair bit of work to be done to get ready for school. I need to focus on some other projects and maybe even take a little time off before life gets crazy. This month is becoming a transition time. I seem to be busy, and yet there’s an easy, slow rhythm to it.

I’ve got a couple questions I’d like to share with whomever may be reading and may toss in a few little updates from the mobile phone. Other than that, don’t be surprised if the conversation slows down a bit for the next few weeks.

Be at peace,
Caedmon

March 2518 – that was the target date for the millionth hit on my blog here at http://veethree.wordpress.com after I’d been blogging for a month and had a total of 163 hits. It’s fun to see that the hits are escalating, though, and we just passed 5,000. The target date has now moved forward to around June 2165!

My gracious thanks to all those who have visited and commented. Thanks, too, to those who take the time to read the posts on Facebook (you lower the hit count but raise the interaction). And also, of course, to Google – without which we bloggers would be much lonelier voices…

– Posted From My iPod

I’ve been laid low for the past week with flu and then bronchitis – along with the rest of Jo’burg, it seems. Our local doctor was saying that he’s never had a week for flu like this one, with seasonal flu hitting hard and coinciding (as these things do!) with the arrival of swine flu in the city. There are so many cases they’ve basically stopped most testing because the laboratories are under so much strain the results don’t come back in a useful time. And Tamiflu is almost impossible to find anywhere.

My eldest son, who also picked up the flu along with my youngest, was tested for swine flu but the results came back clear. Not so lucky were good friends of ours whose kids all got it – families that share stay together, so they’re now all in quarantine. It’s kind of scary when something you read about as being so feared elsewhere in the world is suddenly a reality at home.

It seems the important thing to do is not to panic about the swine flu outbreak, as highlighted in this mail that they sent round at work:

” The H1N1 Influenza (Swine Flu) pandemic continues to make headlines and South Africa has just had its first confirmed death. We are receiving ongoing queries from our colleagues across the Group concerning incidents of H1N1 ‘flu and how the bank should position itself.

It is important that we clarify the nature of H1N1 ‘flu.

· The H1N1 virus is NO MORE contagious than normal seasonal flu
· People who have had contact with confirmed cases of H1N1 flu are advised to stay at home only when they show signs of the illness
· H1N1 flu is NO MORE dangerous than normal seasonal ‘flu.
· Patients who are vulnerable to complications arising from seasonal ‘flu are equally likely to suffer complications arising from H1N1 strain of ‘flu.
· Routine laboratory testing of suspected cases is only required for those who develop serious complications (in line with WHO recommendation)
· Routine washing of hands and hygienic practices are still stressed as the best way to decrease the rate of spread
· The virus has become established throughout the country and community transmission is inevitable.

It is critical that we all take a calm view of this strain of ‘flu. Simple precautions will ensure that our work environment is healthy.

We do not foresee that impact of the H1N1 ‘flu will be any different from the impact of normal seasonal ‘flu.

Issued by: Business Continuity Management”

I guess the statement that swine flu is no more dangerous than seasonal flu will be cold comfort to those seriously affected by it, but perhaps one of the lessons is that seasonal flu can be very dangerous and we often take it too lightly. Stay clean, stay healthy and we’ll move on through.

– Posted From My iPod

A fantasy world is simply a tool. Some use it to explore their amoral (or immoral) self. I personally enjoy morality stories in fantasy: most traditional fantasy stories ala Lord of the Rings adopt this. Here is some other random dude’s view on it:

http://www.spectacle.org/1195/fantasy.html