The Wandering Minstrel

A couple of weekends ago, I barbecued a rib roast on the outdoor grill. I made the mistake of walking away from the grill while it was cooking. The unusually thick fat cap began dripping into the coals and a fire within the grill flared up. By the time I got there to put out the fire, the meat was fairly well seared. I managed to salvage the roast, but the aged burner-under-briquette BBQ (had it since 2002) was toast.

I managed to milk a few extra years out of the old rig before incinerating it. It already suffered from rust, the piezoelectric igniter was shot and the grill was in poor shape for the last couple of BBQ seasons. It was pretty decrepit and should have been replaced already.

The Better Half and I went to Lowe’s today and bought their house brand BBQ Grillware 3-burner grill. We figure it only has to last a couple of years, so we went cheap. When we leave Kalifornistan, we’ll just donate it to the Salvation Army and write it off.

BBQ Grillware model GGPL-2100DW

Grill Width (Inches) - 52.4
Grill Depth (Inches) - 23.0
Grill Height (Inches) - 46.0
Porcelain coated cast iron grate
141 sq. in. warming rack
28 1/2 Lb. burger capacity
Porcelain coated lid
624 sq. in. cooking surface
Electronic ignition
Liquid propane fuel system
5-gallon tank capacity standard
3 stainless burners plus side burner

Never mind the man behind the curtain . . .

Dear Customer:

On Saturday October 17, 2009 at 10:00 am PDT we will be migrating all MySQL databases to a new server. The new server is to alleviate recent issues caused by high load on the current server as well as to upgrade to MySQL version 5.1.

The procedure we will use to migrate will ensure the least amount of downtime per database.

The window for this maintenance is 2 hours. During this time there will be periods of intermittent connectivity errors to MySQL.

Thank you,
Omnis Network, LLC

On Interstate 10 just east of the state line, we passed an accident site. We briefly had to wait while the authorities got the number one lane cleared for traffic. When I drove past the site, the Better Half captured several images, including this one.

Fender bender? Not exactly what you might think. When the little red car got tangled up with a cattle truck, its fender wound up in the left rear set of duals, all bent to hell. Well, the entire vehicle was bent to hell, but I thought the fender in the wheel wells was an interesting touch.

I don’t believe that any livestock were killed or injured in the making of this film. I like my beef tender, but . . .

. . . with a refreshing Poopcicle.

Imaged by The Better Half last winter in Northern Arizona. Some careless pet owner left this to freeze overnight in the campground.

The Better Half and I were out shopping this afternoon. We paused briefly near the Torrance (California) Airport, Zamperini Field, where she took this photo of a massive brush fire in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, near La Cañada, about forty miles north.

The convective force of the fire is elevating the smoke that combines with atmospheric moisture to form this smoky cumulus build-up that resembles a nuclear cloud. Clickable image.

Kennedy was no friend of the Second Amendment. He was always a solid F-minus with the NRA. Forget all the platitudes and adoration from the far left politicos and media morons - consider some other, realistic points of view from those not as enamored of the late ultra-liberal:

“There is a lot one could say of Senator Kennedy — positive from supporters, negative from critics. They say one should not speak ill of the dead. True. But I am of the view that one should not lie about the dead either.” –political analyst Bill Bennett

“[Ted] Kennedy left the scene of a fatal accident for which he was at least partly responsible. Then he used his extraordinary power to get off, spending the rest of his career in pseudo-remorse, playing the most liberal of Senators. It was always an act to me, even when I agreed with him politically. This was not a life well lived.” –author and screenwriter Roger L. Simon

Hat tip Patriot Post for the quotes.

Oh yeah - and then there was the McCain-Kennedy Amnesty Act to legalize millions of criminal aliens . . .

I woke up this morning, came downstairs to the computer desk and tried to log onto the Internet to do the usual on-line stuff. There was a problem with the network connection.

I tried several things to troubleshoot the system: reboot, reset the cable modem, reset the router and power cycle everything. Nothing worked. The modem lacked it’s usual little twinkling indicator lights and was stuck with one steady light and one steady with an occasional flicker. The cable activity indicator was totally off.

Aha! The cable modem died! Time to call Time Warner and get my Road Runner® technician to bring me a new modem. I called the Road Runner® help line number.

To make a very long and aggravating story short, I waded through telephone tree, three technicians all of who put me through the identical drill of convincing them that I tried everything else that may have caused the symptom. An hour and a half down the rat hole.

Finally, finally, I got the last one to admit that it could be the modem. With that, I was connected with a person to set up the house call. At first I got some bureaucrat underling that wanted to send someone out on the 25th to ‘have a look.’ Sometime between 9AM and 7PM I was told. “Let me talk to the supervisor,” I said.

A man came on the line and tried to convince me that ‘as a courtesy,’ he could send out someone tomorrow with the same 9AM to 7PM time frame. I then told him that I would be prepared to fire Time Warner and go with another ISP after twenty years as a good, regular paying, premium customer, if he couldn’t pin the exact time down - after all, weekends are when I do shopping and other things I can’t do during the week. The best he could do, he told me, was to have the installer call me a half hour prior to the service call so I could be at home for the service.

Fortunately, I have a 3G modem I can install on one of the computers as a work around, but then one of us has to work ‘offline’ while the other has internet access. It’s a pain and a bit slower, but at least we can go online.

I’ll have a follow-up report later.

We have been experiencing problems with the database server over the last 36 hours or so. I am advised that there may be additional periods of interruption, so please be patient if that should occur.

Sorry for the inconvenience.