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Velma

Velma invented the Egg McMuffin.

This would have been around 1957, at a business she owned with her father called The Gem Diner.

The Gem Diner was a little place in Sanitaria Springs, New York — which in itself was a little place near Binghamton, New York — that sat on the side of Route 7 and sold sandwiches, shakes, burgers and fries to travelers who would stop by for lunch or an early dinner. But few people came in for breakfast.

“They stop and get coffee,” Velma said to her father.

“They get coffee,” Grover corrected. “To go. They don’t want to be late for work, so they fill their thermos and leave.”

So Velma began thinking of a portable breakfast that could be made quickly. She came up with a fried egg, slice of Canadian Bacon and cheese served on a toasted English Muffin.

“What is it?” Grover felt the warmth of the English muffin and egg flow through the wax paper that covered the sandwich.

“It’s breakfast,”

“Well,” he unwrapped it. “We’ll give it a try.”

They sold out the first week. The item was named The Gem Diner Special and it cost thirty cents.

“Don’t forget The Gem Diner Special tomorrow,” Grover would remind every customer he rang out.

Now, on the road from Bainbridge, New York to Binghamton, New York, there were over fifteen places to stop and get a cup of coffee on your way home from work — twenty if you weren’t picky. But none with a prettier waitress. So every day Larry De Morier stopped at The Gem Diner. And every day he would talk to Velma. And every day he would leave — only after he made her laugh at least twice.

He proposed to her on the porch steps of Grover’s house in Sanitaria Springs — the big house that was once the town’s hotel — just around the corner from the diner. They were married in January of 1958. Grover rented the upstairs rooms out to people, so he moved to a back bedroom of the house, and the newlyweds took the first floor.

Life went on.

Four years later, two days after Christmas in 1962, Velma awoke suddenly and knew it was time to deliver her child. She woke her husband who carried her bag out and scrambled to get her into the car. Larry jumped in — it was ten miles to the hospital but the roads would be clear at this hour — but when he turned the car key, nothing happened. He tried again. And again. But without even a click from the starter to signify effort, the car did not start.

Larry jumped out of the car — leaving his wife inside — and disappeared. It was cold and silent in Sanitaria Springs at this time of night. Velma sat — trying to remain calm — until she heard the roar of a large engine in the distance, then a car raced towards her; a copper colored Ford Fairlane. Larry jumped out to transfer his wife inside.

“Who’s car is this?” she asked, through shallow breaths. .

“A friends.”

Larry shot out of the stone driveway.

On the clear back roads, they made good time. They got to the hospital and their child was born, and fifteen hours later — when his head had now cleared — Larry decided he’d better find out who’s car he had taken — since he had ran up the street and looked inside of every car he could find until he came across one with the keys in it. So he and Grover made some phone calls, identified who owned the car, described the situation. The police were contacted and they stopped their search for the stolen Fairlane.

The Gem Diner did well for a few more years but the hours were long and demanding. And Grover decided it was too much for his daughter and her young family, and too much for him. They closed the doors. So Grover paced the big house trying to determine what do next — especially since Larry and Velma would soon have another mouth to feed with their second child. He had to come up with a source of income for her where she wouldn’t have to be away from home as much.

“A fish store?” she asked. “You mean, to eat?”

“No. Tropical fish,” he said excitedly. Pointing to the area that was once the bar of the old hotel. “Right here. You wouldn’t even have to leave the house to take care of customers. You would here the buzzer inside the house when someone came in that door, and you would just walk in through the house. Simple.”

So Grover got to work on The Mermaid Aquarium, Sanitaria Springs first tropical fish store. He bought display cases and shelving, hose and tank decorations and filled over a hundred different tanks with water, gravel, pumps and exotic fish.

“Do people care about tropical fish?” she asked.

“You’ll make them care. And a fish tank is cheaper than one of them color TV’s, remind them of that.”

Grover walked out to his car, motioning his son-in-law to help him carry something back in.

“What is it?” Larry lifted his side of the box but something inside moved.

“Alligators.”

“What?”

“Baby ones. Put them in that tank right next to the piranhas.”

Preparation for the store continued. And two days before the grand opening of The Mermaid Aquarium, Grover Bennett died. Velma opened the store without him. And a week after that, she named her new daughter after her father’s favorite song; Laura.

The Mermaid Aquarium provided a solid second income to the family and with the rent of the tenants upstairs and Larry’s small salary, they squeaked by. In fact, there were even a few dollars to spend on a new trend: kids birthday parties hosted at McDonalds.

In 1972, as Velma helped kids into the basement of the Front Street McDonalds — where they had games, music and cake set up for her son’s tenth birthday — she passed a large poster announcing McDonalds newest food item. The franchise would now start serving breakfast and they invited all to try the new Egg McMuffin.

Velma smiled.

And time moved on.

Velma is 93 years old now and I thought of these stories as I helped her pack last weekend. I thought of how when my dad went on medical disability in 1978 and his small salary would now become even smaller, Velma became the oldest College Freshman at the State University of New York at Delhi’s Nursing Program. She was 56 years old and she combined classes and graduated in one year. She then went to work at The Delaware Valley Hospital in Walton for almost thirty years, where she won nurse of the year in 2002. A plaque still hangs there with her name on it.

We continued to pack.

“Not everything,” she said. “We don’t need to take everything, just a few things. I’ll be back.”

“I know.”

And we would be back. A few times probably to get the house ready to sell.

“Your heart is strong, Velma,” Doctor Freeman had said, only a few days before when he examined her. “Very strong. So are your legs. But your balance is terrible.”

So Velma would go to Ohio. To Laura’s house. Where there was a room waiting for her and a city that had senior centers and groups and organizations and she wouldn’t be alone in a big house.

“I’m not just going to twiddle my thumbs,” she said.

“No one is asking you to.”

“I need to do things.”

“We know.”

And we packed her bag and got her medication. We took a few of her pictures and I checked the lock twice. We got in the car and then went back inside for her cane — she didn’t think she would need it. Then we adjusted the heat in the car to volcanic levels — just the way she liked it — and we headed out for the five hour drive to meet my sister half way between Walton and Columbus.

“I didn’t get breakfast,” she announced, as if a serious crime had been committed against her.

“We’ll stop at McDonalds on the way out.”

“Okay.”

And we did.

January 23, 2016
Brain Health

For almost a century, the field of clinical psychiatry — the medical branch dedicated to the study and treatment of mental disorders — was the only branch that did not look at the actual organ it was treating.

This is true. For over a hundred years, a psychiatric assessment of a patient’s mental care would begin with a patient history and psychological assessment, and would end with therapeutic sessions — and of course, lots and lots of drugs.

Now, with cardiac treatment, the very first step for diagnosis has always been to have scans of the heart, valves and arties taken. Pulmonary care first begins with looking at the lungs, and if you broke a bone, the first step— the very first action taken — would be to have an x-ray shot of the injured bone.

But in the world of mental health it was always assumed that the mental illnesses had nothing to do with the vessel that illness was contained in. That struggles, disease and conditions of the brain —– had nothing to do with the brain itself. So it was simply ignored.

But something interesting happened in the 1990’s when a few groundbreaking doctors first began to use SPECT (Single-photon emission computed tomography) scans of their patients brains, in their treatment. And when they did, they discovered some interesting patterns — especially where addictions are concerned.

For example, if you scan a person’s brain who is addicted to alcohol and compare that to a healthy person’s brain, you will see two completely different organs.

The healthy person’s scan will show activity in the various areas of the brain — the frontal lobe, the hypothalamus, the prefrontal cortex — all firing off as needed. There will be a dispersed activity in all these areas. All parts of the machine have a use and all of those parts are being utilized where needed.

But the alcoholic scan will show overactive areas in the what is referred to as the pleasure and reward bundle of the brain — the nucleus accumbens, the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala — with other areas seeing very little use. In fact, an alcoholic’s brain will have this swiss-cheese-appearance with certain areas of the brain basically shutting down due to lack of use. And an alcoholic’s brain will actually be physically smaller than a healthy person’s brain. We see the exact same thing when we look at a brain scan of someone addicted to drugs.

Now this isn’t very surprising to us. We know that there are chemicals in alcohol and drugs that are extremely harmful. So a chemical attack of the brain can result negatively to someone who abuses drugs or alcohol. Yeah. That makes sense.

But here is where things get interesting.

If you now scan a person brain who is addicted to say, food for example — someone who is morbidly obese — or someone who is addicted to gambling, pornography, sex or shopping, you will see —- the exact same thing.

A person’s brain addicted to shopping — is almost identical to that of someone who is addicted to alcohol. The brain from an individual who is addicted to pornography — will look just like the brain of someone who is addicted to heroin.

What? How is that possible?

It’s simple.

The brain registers all pleasures in the same way — whether it’s booze or sex. Gambling or cocaine. Finishing an important project at work, or scraping enough change together for a fifth of bourbon. In the brain, pleasure has a simple and distinct signature: the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine. That’s it. To the brain, all pleasures are the same.

All drugs of abuse — nicotine or chicken wings, crystal meth or Facebook — causes a particularly powerful surge of dopamine. And in our brain we then create a well-worn path to get to it.

And in addiction our view of the daily life becomes very simplified.

Stressed? No problem, grab the addiction.

Celebrating? No problem, grab the addiction.

Bored? No problem, grab the addiction.

Eventually the other areas of the brain — reason, patience, problem solving, planning, — aren’t needed as much. You have only a condition and response. This equals that —- with the ‘that’ being the addiction. The magic button that can be used at any time, all the time.

And eventually a very worn path is created between a very small part of our brain. And the other rooms just —well. Shut the lights off because there is no activity going on there.

Now, where it gets even more interesting is that the likelihood that the use of a drug or activity will become an addiction is directly linked to the speed and intensity of that dopamine release. So smoking or injecting a drug, produces a faster and stronger dopamine signal and is more likely to lead to drug use that taking as a liquid or pill.

But we live in a very fast paced society. A person who is addicted to shopping can get that dopamine rush as soon as they pull out the credit card out or even hit the shopping cart icon. And someone addicted to gambling doesn’t need to find a bookie or a casino any longer. You can gamble online from your phone. And food —? Twenty four hours a day we can get fast and hot food delivered, picked up or microwaved — in seconds. And that dopamine rush is triggered.

And this is not only for addictions that we consider ‘destructive’ but for all addictions. A person’s brain who ids addicted to marijuana will look like the one who is addicted to work. The individual, who has to get to the gym six times a week, will have a brain that looks like the person who is addicted to nicotine.

Do you know anyone who cannot hear that ping of a text message or the sound that an email has just been received, without checking their phone? That little sound can easily be hard wired to that dopamine trigger, and a path is formed.

So what does all of this mean?

Well, it means that when we get most of the joy, happiness, release, and pleasure from only a few areas, that there is not only a spiritual cost but a biological one. It means that that quick pleasures can be extremely costly — not just for what we are leaving out of our lives, but for the damage done to the organ that keeps us breathing and allows us to reason.

It means that old habits destroy, and new skills build.

It means that quick fixes are costly, and new experiences are constructive.

It means that the greatest joys are the ones we work at, and the ones we strive for.

January 18, 2016
The broken gauge

From the moment we are born — when we are a minute old, right to the day before our eighteenth birthday — we fall under a specific legal category. We are minors.

Now, the dictionary definition of a minor is one of lesser in importance, seriousness, or significance. Which in the legal state is somewhat untrue. Yes, as minors we cannot vote, buy tobacco, we cannot serve in the military and we cannot make legal decisions on our own. But as far as importance, we have the very highest priority of legal protection and safety.

But at eighteen years of age this changes. We leave the state of minorship and enter the legal age of adulthood. This is the line. There are the things that happened before we are eighteen — our childhood — and then all that occurs after — as an adult.

Now, there is no clear reason why eighteen was chosen for the age of adulthood. Many historians will say that it is tied to the end of the public school system and the beginning of college enrollments and most kids complete high school at the age of eighteen. An age had to be chosen and this one made sense.

So the normal path of life is tied directly to this age.

Before eighteen, we are a minor.

At eighteen we are an adult.

By twenty-two we should be done with college or have our career path chosen.

By twenty-five we should be living completely independent and be financially established.

By thirty we should be married.

By thirty-five we should have kids.

By forty we should be hitting our career stride, making a good income and raising our children.

By forty-five we should be upper management.

By fifty we should be reaching our area of peak income potential.

By fifty-five we should have our kids in a good college.

By sixty we should be looking towards retirement and the good life.

This is the path. This is the gauge we should measure ourselves and others against. If we are ahead of the curve, we are successful. If we are behind it, we are failing. And all of it is based on the fact that — we are adults at eighteen. And this is when it all begins. This is when the grading starts.

But there is a major issue with this type of reasoning. The biggest one is that the human brain — the device that has complete control over all we think, reason, decide and do — is still developing until the age of twenty-five. This is true. It’s also the reason why our car insurance rates begins to go down at the age of twenty-five because we are finally done cooking and can now think clearly — at eighteen the rates are the highest and at twenty-five they begin to go down.

So at twenty-five we first have all the mental equipment we will be given. But according to the scale we should be seven years into our path. And if we’re not; if at twenty-five or thirty we are just opening our eyes and seeing clearly for the first time — we are a failure. And worse, we have missed the boat. We realized too late. The opportunities have left us and we’ll just have to get by someway else.

And this is absolutely not true.

Life decisions do not have expiration dates. You don’t go back to college to finish, you go to college. You don’t go back to your old profession; you just decide that is the industry you want to make a living at.

Fifty is as perfect of an age to begin a business as thirty is. Twenty is just as good a time to go to college as forty. And learning to play the guitar, to speak Spanish, to dive or to juggle, has no age limit at all.

There is no back.

Because there is no gauge.

May 16, 2015
Every man needs a garden
Remember when you were a kid and you took the tops of carrots and placed them in in a jar lid of water on the windowsill? Then every hour, all day long, you would run back to check; to see if the carrots had sprouted yet? Then, the next morning, as soon as you got up, you checked again? Then later that day too? Then —. Well then — it would always get a little boring. And by the end of that day you had forgotten it all?

Remember that?

Then later, about two weeks, you’d finally think about those carrots and you would run to the windowsill to find one of two things?
1. Either the carrot tops had completely dried out from neglect and stood there mocking you? Or —
2. Your mother had watered them, which meant that you had bright green sprouts of success projecting from the top?
And when that happened, you —. Well, you felt like a —. Well, like a guy who could get carrot tops to grow on a windowsill. Which, at six years old, is about as big a deal as it gets.

And that — my friends — was your very first garden.

And for some of us, that was our last one too.

There are many reasons to have a garden — and when I say garden I mean everything from a few tomato plants to an acre of produce. A garden is just something you grow on your own.

Reasons to have a garden
1. No matter where you live, you can have a garden. If you are in the middle of Manhattan or the backwoods of Tennessee, you can grow stuff. On a windowsill, a roof top, the sunny part of an alley or in the many community gardens that are set up. There is no place, no living arrangement, where you can’t grow a few things.
2. There is little skill involved. Yeah, I know, you don’t have a green thumb. And yes there is an art to gardening. But the basics are incredibly simple. You put seeds in the ground. You water them. They grow.
3. Cost savings. Just a few tomatoes or squash from the small patch of dirt by the garage saves you money that you would have to pay out. And that’s not even adding in the value of canning or freezing for the winter.
4. Pride. Yeah, it sounds hokey but there is pride involved. When you take a few zucchini to a neighbor or a basket of tomatoes into work, there is enormous pride in that. A sense of accomplishment.
5. Health. Whatever you grow in your garden you know how it was grown. You know what pesticides you put on and how much. There are no secrets. And you have the advantage of taking the food at its most peak time and going from garden to table.
April 19, 2015
How to shine your shoes
Although the good old days when shoeshine boys stood on street corners — young kids with a shoe box, offering a quick shine to passersby — was well before my time, I did get to be part of the great suit era of the 1980’s; when no matter whether you worked in the mail room or had the corner office, you were donned in a suit and tie.

And this was also the time of the shoeshine guys.

These shoeshine guys — with their barbershop like chairs on a pedestal — were everywhere; hotels, airports and even some restaurants. Which made perfect sense because these were the days when your first impression was determined by the firmness of your handshake and the shine of your shoes.

Now if you think that the shoeshine guys were just a nostalgic look at a different era, I guess they were. But for a young man they were also a rite of passage. Having your shoes professionally shined while you sat there and looked on, meant that you were not only old enough to get your shoes shined — and were actually wearing shoes that you could be shined, not sneakers — but that you could pay for it yourself. And for a few bucks you could feel both responsible and frivolous at the same time.

They are mostly gone now, the shoeshine guys. I mean, you still see them in airports and most major cities still have them, but the bulk of them; the shoeshine guys set up as you waited to get a table for lunch or as you sat at a bus stop, are all gone. With the majority of us in business casual, our loafers don’t seem to need to be as shiny as our wing tips.

And most likely the next generation probably doesn’t need the shoe shine guys like we did. Because they have there own rites to go through. But there still — even if just for a wedding, funeral or interview — you will be a need to shine your shoes. And when you do, you want them to glow.

HOW TO SHINE YOU SHOES:
1. Remove the laces of the shoes. A lot of people don’t bother with this but its the only way to get the tongue polished and get in all the nooks at crannies of the shoe. Take the laces out and fold the tongue up — this is also a good time to replace the laces if needed
2. Clean the shoe. Not polish, but clean. Place your hand inside the shoe and with the other hand take a slightly damp cloth and wipe down the entire surface of the shoe to get off all the dirt and dust. Note, if you skip this step you could not only polish the dirt into the leather, but any sort of particle of dust could easily scrath the surface of the shoe.
3. Apply polish. Using circular motions apply a thick coat of polish all over the shoe. Don’t be stingy here. Get a thick coat of polish all over the shoe and work it in.
4. Get the shoes wet. With a spray bottle or a just taking your hand over the stream of water from the sink, cover the shoes with beads of water — its best to do one shoe at a time. Once its wet, you get in there and start buffing the shoe. This is the shining stage. Work it hard and add more water if needed.
April 2, 2015
REVIEW: Audio Book. Johnny Cash: The Life

Audio Book:

Johnny Cash: The Life

Written by: Robert Hilburn

Narrated by: Charles Pittard

As I’ve mentioned, I spend a great deal of time in the car — a great deal. In fact, if I sat down and calculated it, I’d say that I average about 2,000 miles a week.

My routine is simple. In the morning I get in the car. I drive. I have meetings during the day and then I drive home. That’s my life. And it’s not unusual for an average day to contain six or eight hours behind the wheel — or more.

And when I get in the car — after I return all the phone calls, send the audio emails and check on my mom at least once — what’s left is pure windshield time. And the majority of that windshield time is spent listening to audio books.

At any given time if you were to look in my car you would see three different audio books. One of them will most likely not have passed my five-minutes-test and I’ll put it in the backseat and not finish it. The second will most likely be tolerable and the third will be good to possibly great. Depending.

I just finished an audio book that was the biography of Johnny Cash. It wasn’t great.

Now, the first thing to know is that I knew very little about Johnny Cash before this book. I could name a handful of songs but I never really followed him and didn’t see any of the films made about him. So I had a clean slate going in and picked up the book to learn more about the singer.

As the book opens, we learn about Johnny’s — then called JR’s — childhood and this beginning had a great few chapters. We looked at the artist’s very early life of growing up in the hills of Arkansas and we saw his family through their struggles and hardships. I enjoyed this part — even though the narration was probably one of the worse I’ve ever heard.

See, audio books are an art form and there is so much talent in these narrators because you don’t have sound effects or music, you have one person reading the book with all the different voices, characters and accents. And a truly good narrator will allow you to forget that there is only one person reading this book and you would swear that there are a dozen or more.

This is not the case with this book.

The narrator — a gentlemen named Charles Pittard — simply reads the book. And he reads the book the same way that you would read a shopping list or instruction on putting together a chair. Drole. Dry. And flat. This is probably the second worse reading I’ve ever heard, next to Juila Roberts when she narrated The Nanny Diaries — it was a long drive and the book was loaned, not my normal choice of books — and I couldn’t get past the first few minutes. She just read it like she had one eye on the clock.

Now you could get around the narration except that most of the book is written in this flat manner as well. In fact, a few chapters in the book stops being a book and becomes more of a report. A list of all the songs Johnny Cash wrote, recorded and all the places he went. I didn’t feel like I was there, I felt like I was sitting in a Moose Halls listening to someone’s presentation on the life of Johnny Cash; while watching slides and getting to see the speakers collection of albums and concert tickets.

Not a good audio book. Don’t bother.

March 26, 2015
10 things to never buy from a dollar store

Dollar Stores are amazing — and by Dollar Store I am referring to Dollar Tree or others like it where everything costs a dollar; not any one of the discount stores where the word Dollar is simply in the name.

I frequent Dollar Tree a great deal and these are great places to get greeting cards, decorations, cheap hand tools and Millar balloons — nothing cheers someone up more than a dozen helium balloons from the dollar store.

But in my experience, I’ve discovered that there are certain things that you should never — and I mean ever — buy from the place. Here are the top ten.

10. Ear buds

How bad can they be right? They’re only a buck and if the sound isn’t that great you can just chuck them. No. First of all these things are designed for some race of ears much larger than humans have and even if you can cram them in your ear holes the sound will melt your brain. Stay away.

9. Glue sticks

A pack of four, Elmer’s glue sticks at Wal-Mart is about five bucks. A pack of four no-name glue sticks at the dollar stare are, of course, a buck. What’s not to like? Except that these are made from one of the few materials in the store that are not sticky and permanent. These don’t work so don’t waste your money.

8. Band aids

The Band-Aids at The Dollar Tree must use the same stick-technology as the glue sticks. It’s as if someone printed Google Images of band aids and put them in packs. They don’t work so skip by them.

7. Razors

Okay, we are getting in serious territory now because buying Dollar Tree razors will simply tear your face off. It will. These are dull and dangerous devices and even if you’re traveling and forgot your razor, it’s far better to walk into your meeting with a two day beard, then it is to do it while missing an ear. No.

6. Soda

I’m not even sure that Dollar Tree soda is legally soda. It’s more like Kool Aid with a very slight carbonation sound added when you open it. Horrible stuff. Buying the individual bottles of the brand name soda in the cooler up front is fine, but never get one of these three-liter horrors.

5. Knives

Dollar Tree sells many kind of knives; kitchen knives, utility knives even no name Swiss Army type knives. And the ones that are actually made from a metal — most are silver painted plastic blades — will never hold an edge and therefore are extremely dangerous. You will slice off a leg with one of these things trying to cut something, so don’t buy them.

4. Colognes/perfumes

Again we are getting in an area that is a danger to human life. The only thing worse than cologne from The Dollar Tree is the thought of the long term environmental impact if that same bottle managed to getting in the water supply. These things will set off smoke alarms. Stay far away.

3. Super Glue

Any super glue that is not made by Loctite, is just glue — my humble opinion, of course. And this stuff is barely that. It doesn’t work and don’t buy it.

2. Aluminum foil

Aluminum foil is expensive — especially if your barbecuing or using a smoker, when you’re going to need a lot of it. But there is not enough Dollar Tree aluminum foil in that entire store to do what you need to do. It’s thin, it breaks easily and it’s more like shiny paper than anything even close to aluminum foil. Don’t buy it.

1. Batteries

Right before a battery dies, as its saying goodbye to its wife and children, they unplug the monitors and wheel it into The Dollar Tree. By the time you get the battery out of the store and into your car, the trip will be enough to kill it.

March 22, 2015
How to pack a suitcase
I love the type of movie where there is a tortured soul, filled with wanderlust, who hears the call of the open road and decides to see the world. So he throws a few meager possessions in a small backpack and starts walking. He hitchhikes, he takes the bus, and he meets people along the way. Then we have scene-five. This will be after he arrives in a town — usually to help a rancher or struggling non-profit group out of a crisis — and he meets the girl. Scene-five will be their first date. You know the scene — the darkened restaurant, the candlelit tables, him in a suit and her in a dress, and as you watch, only one thought goes through your head.

Really? You packed a suit in that small backpack? C’mon.

This kid has a daypack that is half full. He carries it from New York City to Provo, Utah, and during that time he has six full changes of clothes, a suit, a raincoat, hiking boots, sneakers and during the date scene he is wearing an expensive pair of Italian loafers.

No. You did not get all of that in your twelve pound pack.

But that’s what we want. We want a bag to be light and small, yet we want it to contain a never ending supply of clothes, coats, shoes, formal wear and a few books — just in case we get bored. We want it to be our house — in a bag.

Type of travel

There are two basic types of travel packing. You are packing for weight, or you are packing for content. You can’t do both.

If you are going to be in three different locations over four days, if you are going to be carrying your bag through train stations, airports or have it on your back most of the time, then you want the bag to be the smallest and the lightest possible.

But if you are going to one location and then back, then you want your bag to contain everything you need, or will ever need, for a specific time period. You want maximum content in a limited space.

The suitcase laws

Half of everything in your bag you will use.

A quarter of everything in your bag you will not use

And a quarter of items that you end up needing — you forgot to pack.

Staging

Most of us pack this way. We open the bag and start stuffing things in. When there is no more room, we’re done packing. But by staging, we can guarantee that we get everything we need.

Spread out the bare minimum you need for the trip — the absolute least you will need. Pretend that this is all you are allowed to take and you could survive the trip if you only had that. Now pack it. When you’re done, the available space is what you have for everything else you think you’ll need.

Over packing is a common — and sometimes costly — mistake. Pack too much and your free carry-on could easily cost you a hundred dollars or more in fees. Remember, laundromats exist in hotels, resorts and in every town or city you’ll be in. You can always wash clothing while you’re away.

And remember if you’re going to be bringing things back — souvenirs, clothing, items purchased while away — you’ll need space for that.

Rules of the road

Try to bring one belt if possible — something that can be used for both casual and dress.

Try to bring two pairs of shoes — or if needed the pair of shoes your wearing, one extra pair and a pair of sandals. No more.

HOW TO PACK A SUITCASE:
1. Use the roll-up method. By taking your clothing — shirts and pants mostly — and rolling them in a tight tube, you can get the best use of space in your bag
2. Underwear. Pack one pair for everyday your away, plus one extra pair. No more.
3. Wear the same clothes on your way out, as you do on your way back in. This will save you one change of clothes.
4. Toiletries. Clean out your toilet kit before you leave — otherwise you’ll be carrying those free shampoos and conditioners you had to have from the last trip out, and then back home again. And if flying, remember the TSA regulations of liquids being 3 ounces or less — unless you are checking your bag.
5. Pack for the weather. The forecasts for your location could change a dozen times before you get there, but it doesn’t hurt to have a rough idea of what the weather will be like so you can pack accordingly.
6. Fill your shoes. Pack socks and underwear in the shoes that will be in your bag. This is wasted space so fill them up.
7. Fill the edges of your bag first. Again, this is where pockets of wasted space often hide, so fill that in first.
8. Use the outside pockets for items you’ll want to get to quickly: phone chargers, books, magazines, etc.
9. If checking a bag it’s a great idea to fill your carry on with all you’ll need to survive a few days — contact lens stuff, change of underwear, toothbrush, etc. That way if your bag gets lost you can stick with the plan while they find it and get it to you.
March 19, 2015
How to make corned beef and cabbage
Until they make Superbowl Sunday an official holiday, the most gastro-masculine celebration of the year has to go to — Saint Patrick’s Day. I mean, c’mon, any day that revolves around red meat and beer is bound to attract testosterone. Which means that being able to make the staple meal of Saint Patrick’s Day, corned beef and cabbage, is right up there in the masculine food hierarchy with grilling a great steak or deep frying a whole turkey.

History

Corned beef and cabbage became part of the Irish-American culture in the early nineteenth century when Jewish butchers offered very inexpensive cuts of salted beef to the public. Salted meats had been available in Europe for centuries but most of Ireland ate little of it, in either fresh or salted form, because it was not only extremely expensive but came from cows that were owned by the wealthy — so even if you did have the coin to purchase it, you probably didn’t have permission to buy it. So what beef that wasn’t used by the estate was salted and exported at a much higher profit than they could have received at selling it to the lowly peasants. So, when Irish immigrants came to the larger cities in the US, they saw inexpensive cuts of salted beef were available for purchase — possibly for the first times in their lives.

More corned beef in consumed in the United States on Saint Patrick’s Day than any other day, which means that the price need to be competitive on that day. This gives you an opportunity to purchase a few of these salted gems and freeze them for later on in the year.

Corned beef and cabbage is an example of what is called a boiled dinner. These are one pot meals that are cooked low and slow and include a piece of meat, and many root vegetables and spices. These are great because they are easy to make, inexpensive, hard to mess up and feed many people — which makes them ideal for camping trips, tailgating, deer camps or any time you want a big hearty meal for many.

And the best part is, they are really hard to mess up. A boiled dinner is quick to prep it, then you turn it on and wait.

HOW TO MAKE CORNED BEEF AND CABBAGE

Ingredients
- 1 medium onion, cut into wedges
- 6 red potatoes — or a bag of fingerling potatoes.
- 1 bag of carrots
- 1 bottle of dark beer
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 bay leaf
- 3 stalks of celery
- I head of cabbage cut into wedges
- 1 cup of apple cider
- 1 corned beef brisket with spice packet (2-1/2 to 3 pounds), cut in half
- 1 small head cabbage, cut into wedges
Many people make this meal in a Crockpot and you definitely can. However, I find that the more modern the Crockpot the faster it cooks — I can’t prove this yet, but it seems like the newer crockpots cook at a higher temperature and can dry out the meat. So a Dutch oven or any pot or pan you can cover, will work fine.

Place your onions, celery — cut long way like your carrots — and potatoes in the bottom of the pan. Place your brisket on top of the vegetables. Add the spice pack that came with the meet to the top and place the cabbage on top of the meat. Pour the vinegar and beer to the side to fill the pot.

And that’s it. Cook for about 4 hours at 300 degrees.
March 14, 2015
Freelance

Around the time that I first met my wife — this would have been 1990 or so — I made a change in my occupation and began calling myself a writer. Now, I didn’t say I was a writer, or that I was writing much or had even been published. That’s not the point. I just started calling myself one — see, how it works is that first you call yourself a writer, then you become one.

And what do would-be writers call themselves if they have little to no publishing credits? That’s easy. We are freelance writers. So, that’s what I was. A freelance writer.

In fact, if you look at our wedding announcement you will see listed under occupation, both a purchasing agent and a freelance writer — see, it was okay to be a purchasing agent, as long as your were a writer too.

Now, if I were to research this, it may have been possible that I had a small piece published by then, but I doubt it and it didn’t matter. The title was what was important. Which is the great thing about being a freelance writer; you didn’t have to be published or even have written anything. And because people were somewhat confused by the freelance heading back then, they pretty much left it alone after that.

Calling myself a writer was also a convenient safety chute, or back door. If my real life failures were ever brought up, I just pulled the writer thing out. Yeah, well, I’m also a freelance writer. Meaning, yeah, I may look like a loser now, but some day you may be bragging that you met me once. Other variations of this include; yeah, well I’m also a musician, and, yeah, well I’m also an actor. And when you’re young, these back doors actually work.

So Debbie and I got married and I continued being a writer. I had a few bad articles published in a few bad independent newspapers — that pretty much accepted anything — and now I crowned myself, published freelance writer. Then, when Debbie was pregnant with our first son, I pimped a copy of his ultra sound for my very first paid writing gig. A short article in The Weekly World News — a highly respected periodical of the day known for in depth studies of both bigfoot and aliens — entitled, I’m having Elvis’ baby; because at that early stage of Nick’s development, his head had that Elvis pompadour thing. I was paid fifty dollars and a batboy t-shirt. And now, I had moved to the level of professional freelance writer.

I started sending query letters out to magazines and publishers by the truck load and this probably explains while I still have this weird thing about the mail. Even in the day of texting and email there is a solid Pavlovian reaction to the sound of the mailbox being opened — I have to get the mail, this might be good news.

I managed to get a few pieces published in a few magazines and then, on the very same day that we were closing on our first house, I heard back from a small publisher. They liked a book idea I had pitched and wanted to publish it.

I had made it.

Now, the book was a non-fiction look at the first year of marriage — at all the changes and challenges that existed. And although I didn’t want to write non-fiction — no one wants to write non-fiction — it’s widely known that once you get a non-fiction book published, agents and publishers beat a path to your door in order to get to your good stuff.

The book was badly written and badly edited and I didn’t care. I was about to be a published book author which would put me on the correct path. I went on a small book tour, did the CNN, Fox News, thing along with a bunch of book signings. And because the book was the only one of its kind back then — there are dozens now — I convinced the publisher into letting me write another one. This time on the first year of fatherhood.

Book two was the same. Rinse and repeat. And then everything stopped. The world didn’t beat a path to get to me. The publisher wasn’t interested in more of my dumb ideas and I was — confused.

The books — that were supposed to fix everything, to justify my existence and erase my many failures — did not. And I actually felt worse than I did before I was published.

Now, we enter my angry phase. I mentioned the books on my resume — as a way to catch an interviewer’s eye — but otherwise I didn’t talk about them at all. If the topic were brought up in casual conversation, I changed the subject — the same way you do when asked if you beat that DWI charge or how the bankruptcy is going.

I did very little writing during this time but ironically did land the highest paid writing job I had, or would ever have. This was the beginning of the end of the dot-com bubble and finding content providers was still difficult to do; which meant that they were actually pretty highly paid. There was a website being developed called Decisionagent.com that paid me three hundred bucks for every 700 word article I could write for them. I pumped out three of these a day, every day, for six weeks before the bubble popped and they went belly up.

Now there’s more to my glorious writing career. I got to spend the last six years working with a great group of people writing and helping direct Christmas plays, I have a book coming out next week and of course there is this website. But here is the point to all of this.

I no longer think of myself as a writer. I don’t. And a large reason for this is that I’ve learned that I really don’t like writers all that much. I’m sorry if this offends, but writers — for the most part, there are exceptions — are largely self important, arrogant, self involved people, usually with a 70/30 mix of ego over talent. They’re not much fun to hang out with and you really don’t want to aspire to be like them.

So I’m no longer a writer — freelance or otherwise.

Now, I just write.

The history of bat boy — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Boy_(character)

March 11, 2015
Five great peasant dishes

As far as fun, creative cooking, nothing can compare to peasant dishes. You know, comfort food. The meals that you grandmother made that tasted amazing, cost pennies, and you never, ever got tired of.

Peasant dishes have been given that name because they were made from ingredients that were inexpensive and readily available. These were the meals of the common folk and they usually consisted of one dish, were made from less desired chunks of meat or sausages and used whatever vegetables, grains and starches were easily found.

There is an art to creating great peasant dishes; it being more instinct than cooking. And my Aunt Isabelle — who ran a boarding house and provided a decent living for herself for three decades, after her husband walked out and left her penniless — could make a mouthwatering meal for a dozen hungry men, from a few cheap cuts of meat, some vegetables and a lot of practice.

There are many recipes for peasant dishes but using a recipe here seems almost blasphemous. The cooks that developed these dishes didn’t use recipes. They just looked at what they had to work with and they made it as rich and as flavorsome as possible. And anyway, by following a recipe, you’re just copying someone else style — robbing you of the pleasure of developing your own.

So, here are the top 5 peasant dishes of all time. These are all easy to make, cost pennies and have ingredients that are readily available. But more importantly they have few rules which allows you to experiment and get creative.

Have fun.

5. Shepherd’s pie

Like many classic peasant dishes, there are dozens of variations of shepherd’s pie — some have a brown sauce, some red, but the basics are the same. Ground meat and vegetables covered in mashed potatoes and cheese. What’s not to love?

4. Pot pie

Now, homemade pot pie tends to get some reluctance from cooks, because it involves making a crust. But basically this is just a simple biscuit dough — which is very easy to make. Pot pies are rich, tasty and so, so filling.

3. Goulash

Like shepherds pie there are so many deviations of goulash that there are actually serious arguments about it. What some people call goulash — dark gravy with sirloin mixed with egg noodles — are not what others consider the dish — red sauce, ground beef and elbow noodles. But whatever variation you choose to make, this a great dish to make, easy and cheap.

2. Haluski

Haluski is not only the lowest price dish here — the meatless version will cost you about fifty cents in ingredients — but it is beyond a doubt the most flavorful. My kids, who are pretty picky eaters, love this every time my wife makes it. All haluski is, is cabbage and egg noodles. That’s it. But many people add in bacon for flavor — my wife’s version also includes capers. Amazing.

1. Chili

Chili is, was, and will always be, the mack daddy of peasant dishes. It is easy to make, flexible and includes so many possibilities, that there are countless cookbooks dedicated to just making chili. It’s a great, easy and fun dish to make.

March 5, 2015
How to make jerky
Origins

Tracing the history of jerky is somewhat difficult because people have been salting and drying meat for centuries. However, the word jerky has a direct line back to the ancient Incas: sometime around the year 1550. During that time, the Incas would cut slices of llama meat, rub it with salt and dry it in the sun or over a fire. When the Conquistadors arrived, they continued this tradition and called it Charqui, and when they later invaded the Americas they noticed that the natives were doing a similar process with meat from buffalo, deer and elk. The Native Americans began using the same term — only with their accents they pronounced it jerky.

Jerky allowed people to consume high protein fuel that was readily available and eat it when food was scarce. It became a staple food item for early American pioneers and allowed for Western expansion. Over the years people discovered that the meat could hold more flavor if certain spices and tastes could be added and they began to create it for flavor, not only as a survival food.

Nutrition

Contrary to popular belief, beef jerky is actually a pretty healthy snack. It’s a great source of protein, is low in fat and calories and has minimal carbohydrates. Yeah, the sodium content is through the roof, but hey, it’s salted meat.

And remember, jerky is not just a snack food. Jerky is dehydrated meat which means it can be rehydrated again when placed in hot water so you can use it in chili’s, stews, at home or while camping or hiking.

But here’s the thing. The cost of commercial jerky is downright ridiculous.

Economics

Let’s use the Jack Links brand of beef jerky as an example. This brand resale’s for $5.99 for a 3.25 ounce bag. So, if we take $5.99 and divide it by 3.25, we find out that this jerky costs $1.84 an ounce. And since there are 16 ounces in a pound, that means the cost of this jerky is — $29.44 a pound.

That’s thirty dollars a pound for — beef jerky.

In comparison:
- Lobster is currently running around $12.00 a pound
- Filet Mignon is $19.00 a pound
- And Prime Rib is about $17.00 a pound
But beef jerky — that you buy at the gas station — is thirty dollars a pound.

Now add to this, the comparison between the taste of homemade jerky and the prepackaged kind, and it’s not even worth comparing. The jerky you can make at home tastes worlds better, hands down — and will not contain any strange chemicals, preservatives or nitrates.

Now marketers jumped on this fact a few years ago and starting producing small commercial dehydrators to dry your meats and vegetables, at home. They created infomercials, bought television time and dominated the shopping channels, stating what a crime it was for you to pay so much for beef jerky when you can make it yourself. But they would like you to make it at home — with their two hundred dollar dehydrator.

Now, that’s just plain silly.

Why would you pay two hundred dollars — for something that is basically a little heater and fan? And why would you pay any amount of money for a device that can do what the Incas did in the 1500’s with just fire and the sun?

Because everything you need to do to dehydrate — herbs, vegetables, meats, anything — can be done in your kitchen oven and can be done for pennies.

And it doesn’t matter what type of meat you use. You can use beef, venison, turkey, salmon, tuna or something even more exotic. And you can cater each batch to different tastes — make sweet, smoked or spicy.

HOW TO MAKE JERKY
1. Cut meat in strips. You’ll want these to be about the size of a slice of bacon. And the best way I’ve found is to get your butcher or meat department in the supermarket to cut the meat for you.
2. Prepare marinade. Here is a real simple marinade that works well.
- 1 part Worcestershire sauce
- 1 part Soy Sauce
- 1 tbl Honey
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 tsp liquid smoke
- 1 slice of onion
- 1 squeeze of lemon
1. Place meat in storage dish, cover with foil and refrigerate anywhere from two hours to overnight.
2. Preheat oven to 160°F
3. Place a cookie sheet, wrapped with aluminum foil, in the bottom of the oven. This is to catch all the dripping from the jerky, because you are going to place the jerky right on the oven racks.
4. Allow to dry in the oven for anywhere from 6 to 12 hours.
February 25, 2015