Thursday, August 19, 2010

Sans Soucy Blackberry Sangria

If you read my post about Clarksville's Wine Fest then you know how much I loved Sans Soucy Vineyard's Blackberry Sangria. They took the recipe  off their website but were nice enough to email it to me:

Blackberry Ginger Sangria
  • 2 bottles of Sans Soucy Blackberry wine
  • 1 cup of finely chopped fresh ginger
  • 1/2 cup of sugar
  • 2 cups of frozen berry fruit mix
  • 1/2 of pineapple tidbits 
  • 1 can of frozen orange juice concentrate
  • 1/2 liter of 7-up or other lemon soda
One to two days before, combine all ingredients except soda. Keep refrigerated. One hour before, add soda, mix well, serve very chilled. Makes approx 1 gallon. Optiona: add a tablespoon of berry fruit to individual glasses for garnish.

Trust me, you should try this recipe. Obviously, any blackberry wine will do but Sans Soucy's is especially awesome!
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Thursday, August 5, 2010

10 years ago today

Exactly ten years ago today, I was recently moved in to my high-rise apartment in downtown Pittsburgh! This was my view. Pretty cool, eh? A great place to live for a hockey stalker like me. Of course, they have a new arena now but if you could turn just a little left in this picture, you'd could see where the new one was going to be built. Pittsburgh is a gorgeous city!
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Sunday, July 25, 2010

No oysters until further notice.

That's the sign that was posted on the wall of an area seafood restaurant on Friday. You'd think this far north, we wouldn't be impacted very much by the BP oil leak. Maybe if you don't like seafood. I joked with the owner that maybe he could make a claim with BP, since I heard at least two other customers say they came just for the fried oysters. I didn't really think he'd qualify, since their buffet has lots of other foods on it. But he did tell me that his seafood distributor, who bought over $1 million worth of oysters from the Gulf last year, did not qualify for a claim because his business is not technically located on the gulf. That's the trickle down effect right there. Way more people have been affected than just those on the gulf. And that's by the leak itself. I won't even go into the politics of how many people are affected by the inane moratorium on gulf oil drilling. So as much as we love our fried oysters, that's a way smaller price to pay than those people in the gulf who are more directly affected. It's even way less than the trickle-down people who probably won't qualify for claims.

But hey, since when does Vice President Biden live close enough to the Gulf to qualify for a claim? After all, he billed a recent Gulf visit to BP. $75,000. That could have helped out a lot of struggling Gulf families.

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Friday, July 2, 2010

Sisterly pride

 
My sister is the coolest and I have to share this awesome story about her. It started with sorrow when of her co-workers experienced a tragedy. Her co-worker"s schizophrenic son stabbed her other son in the head. One son is dead and the other is in jail. The funeral home said they could not even start on the funeral until my sister's co-worker gave them $5000. Of course, she didn't have that kind of money. No one does these days. My sister certainly doesn't, but she wanted to help. So my sister went and asked her boss if she could sell back some of her vacation days to the company. Her boss said yes. When her boss mentioned it to other co-workers, they all began selling back their vacation days until the company had the full $5000 to pay for the funeral.

People tell you to practice random acts of kindness every day, but few rarely do it. My sister does. And she won't toot her own horn, so I'm tooting it for her.

Love you, sis!

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Friday, June 11, 2010

THIS is why I love hockey...

Read this essay and you'll love it too! There's Something About Hockey.

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Thursday, June 10, 2010

Ditto


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Sunday, June 6, 2010

I hate today

Today is the day I hate the most. June 6th. It's been 6 years since my Dad died, although it seems, literally, like yesterday. Love you & miss you, Daddy!

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Friday, June 4, 2010

New hottie

 

Yep! I saw "Prince of Persia." I'd read some pretty bad reviews of it but I was pleasantly surprised. I thought it was pretty good. Granted, it's got lots of bits of other movies in it, but most do these days. There's quite a bit of "The Mummy" in it, including Gemma Aterton kinda looking like Rachel Weiss. Lots of sand, too. And desert guardians. There's obviously some "Lord of the Rings" there. Instead of a ring, it's a dagger, and there's that whole Aragorn-thing Jake Gyllenhaal has going on, which is always a good thing. As well as the Nazgul. It even has bits of "Hidalgo" in it, thanks to some grand escapes across desert village rooftops. And not to be outdone, quite a few tidbits from Indiana Jones movies. It also pays homage to time travel movies. There were some new things, too, tho.

But I obviously have a "thing" for this type of dude, as seen by other faves of mine:

 
So if you look like these guys, drop me a line!! Hahaha! Yeah, right. Won't hold my breath on that one!

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Saturday, April 24, 2010

Hottie of the Month

Been awhile since I had one. Re-watched "The Hitcher" last week. This cutie is in it. I don't know why I'm hung up on grungy 22-year olds lately. This is Zach Knighton. He cleaned up for a doctor role in "Flash Forward." Now I wish I'd kept watching that show. Oh well...
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Monday, April 12, 2010

License to drink

Or something like that. At least it's a license to walk the streets of Clarksville a bit tipsy once a year. This was the 4th annual Lake Country Wine Festival but the first time I'd attended. And it was totally and completely awesome. I don't know, maybe it was all the tipsy-friendly people, all the great wine, people pouring you glass after glass, or maybe it was that the weather was awesome!

I found plenty of wines I liked but I only bought 4:

Chili Dawg, Peaks of Otter Winery, Bedford - this wine tastes like hot pepper jelly and they served it with a bit of Easy Cheese, just like you would do salt with a shot of tequila! Great for around the fire pit! And the 2 hippies they had selling and serving the stuff? I hope they get a raise! They were so cool! This booth had tons of people around it ALL DAY! 

Blueberry, Coltsfoot Winery, Abingdon - a sweet, smooth blueberry wine! And the folks at the booth were SO nice! In fact, all their wines were excellent, but I liked the blueberry (their sweetest) the best. They had a cranberry wine that would be perfect to serve with Thanksgiving dinner.

Late Harvest, First Colony Winery, Charlottesville - honeysuckle, roses and apricot. Tastes SO sweet. This is technically a dessert wine and it beat out Tomohawk's honey wine in taste for me, so I went back to buy a bottle.

Blackberry, Sans Soucy Vineyard, Brookneal - Most of the 15 wineries had their own special Sangria recipes on hand. I thought the best Sangria of the day belonged to Sans Soucy Vineyards, made with their blackberry wine! I went back for 2 glasses, and then bought the wine so I could make it at home! And the folks there? Super nice! And considered local.

There were many other wineries that had really good wines. I would have bought more but didn't think it prudent, being unemployed and all. Mattaponi Winery had an excellent strawberry wine, probably the best of the whole event. Peaks of Otter had a mango that was great, a peach that was super and good blueberry, blackberry and strawberry wines too. Tomohawk Mill had a great honey wine! Fincastle had a rose sangria that was a huge hit with the crowd. It was good, but I still liked Sans Soucy's blackberry sangria better! And of course, Chateau Morrisette had all their great wines out! They have a brand new blackberry wine that was awesome! The only reason I didn't buy any of their wine is because my two favorites of theirs (Red Mountain Laurel and Sweet Mountain Laurel) are sold in our local grocery stores!

The only downside to the day was involving some of the above-mentioned Sangria, which everyone was more than happy to give out samples of, just like their wine. Except for Hickory Hill Vineyards from Smith Mountain Lake. When me and my friend went up and asked to taste the Sangria, he told us only one sample per group. Huh? When every other winery is pouring sample after sample? At first we thought he was joking, but then he poured my friend a sample, but not me. Well, I'm not buying anything I haven't tasted myself, so I just walked off and tore up the brochure I had picked up. I won't buy their wine with that attitude. And why doesn't it surprise me coming from people at Smith Mountain Lake? I've always found people from up there a tad snotty. You have to understand I live in the only lakeside town in Virginia, next to the largest lake in Virginia, and yet Smith Mountain Lake thinks it's a super special place to be. More like, it's super crowded. You want to have nice, quiet, lakeside living, you come to Buggs Island Lake. You want to hear jet skis and power boats all day, you go try to afford something at Smith Mountain Lake.

Okay, forget my rant about lakes in Virginia, I still think that was a shitty attitude to have at a wine festival! The whole point is to show off your wine and let people taste it so they buy it. Won't be buying anything from Hickory Hill and I'll tell others not to, also.

But with that one minor exception, the day was awesome, the band rocked (ain't nothing wrong with good Bon Jovi covers at a wine festival) and the people were friendly! Thanks to Melinda, Linda, Mary, Charlie and all those other hard workers who make cool stuff like this possible in little 'ole Clarksville.
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Saturday, April 3, 2010

Heath care is not a right.

Although national health care is noble, it is NOT a right.

Observe that all legitimate rights have one thing in common: they are rights to action, not to rewards from other people. The American rights impose no obligations on other people, merely the negative obligation to leave you alone. The system guarantees you the chance to work for what you want -- not to be given it without effort by somebody else.- Leonard Peikoff, Ph.D
I've seen a lot of talk lately, since BHO's health care passed, that health care for everyone is a right. I've especially seen these posts on Facebook, which should probably tell you the intellectual properties of those espousing such delusions right there. Re-read the above quote. Contrary to what you probably think, it is NOT referring to Obama's health care plan. But wait, read more:
The right to life, e.g., does not mean that your neighbors have to feed and clothe you; it means you have the right to earn your food and clothes yourself, if necessary by a hard struggle, and that no one can forcibly stop your struggle for these things or steal them from you if and when you have achieved them. In other words: you have the right to act, and to keep the results of your actions, the products you make, to keep them or to trade them with others, if you wish. But you have no right to the actions or products of others, except on terms to which they voluntarily agree.
Notice in the Declaration of Independence, you are guaranteed the right to the pursuit of happiness. Notice it is the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself. It means you have to work at it. It's not handed to you on a silver platter. Wait, there's more:
That is why the U.S. system defines rights as it does, strictly as the rights to action. This was the approach that made the U.S. the first truly free country in all world history -- and, soon afterwards, as a result, the greatest country in history, the richest and the most powerful. It became the most powerful because its view of rights made it the most moral. It was the country of individualism and personal independence.
 Today, however, we are seeing the rise of principled immorality in this country. We are seeing a total abandonment by the intellectuals and the politicians of the moral principles on which the U.S. was founded. We are seeing the complete destruction of the concept of rights. The original American idea has been virtually wiped out, ignored as if it had never existed. The rule now is for politicians to ignore and violate men's actual rights, while arguing about a whole list of rights never dreamed of in this country's founding documents -- rights which require no earning, no effort, no action at all on the part of the recipient.
You are entitled to something, the politicians say, simply because it exists and you want or need it -- period. You are entitled to be given it by the government. Where does the government get it from? What does the government have to do to private citizens -- to their individual rights -- to their real rights -- in order to carry out the promise of showering free services on the people? 
Have you answered that question yet? Think about it. It goes on:
The answers are obvious. The newfangled rights wipe out real rights -- and turn the people who actually create the goods and services involved into servants of the state. 
You don't need to think of health care as a special case; it is just as apparent if the government were to proclaim a universal right to food, or to a vacation, or to a haircut. I mean: a right in the new sense: not that you are free to earn these things by your own effort and trade, but that you have a moral claim to be given these things free of charge, with no action on your part, simply as handouts from a benevolent government. 
You have a right in America to try to get health care, any kind you want or can afford, not be provided with it for free:
Under the American system you have a right to health care if you can pay for it, i.e., if you can earn it by your own action and effort. But nobody has the right to the services of any professional individual or group simply because he wants them and desperately needs them. The very fact that he needs these services so desperately is the proof that he had better respect the freedom, the integrity, and the rights of the people who provide them.
Yeah, but it's just rich people who are paying for health care. Nobody else can afford it. Not so:
Under any socialized program, it is the "little people" who do most of the paying for it -- under the senseless pretext that "the people" can't afford such and such, so the government must take over. If the people of a country truly couldn't afford a certain service -- as e.g. in Somalia -- neither, for that very reason, could any government in that country afford it, either. 
Some people can't afford medical care in the U.S. But they are necessarily a small minority in a free or even semi-free country.
This was a speech about Bill Clinton's health care plan back in 1993. Everything holds true today tho. Even though it is a noble cause, health care for every American is NOT a right, and I'm getting sick of people saying it is. That just flies in the face of the Constitution. Anybody remember that piece of paper?

I'm all for giving the disadvantaged health care, I just don't trust the government to do it. Have you stood in line at the DMV lately? Tried to forward your mail at the Post Office? Tried to get your tax returns done correctly? If the government had authorized Wal-Mart to come up with a national health care plan and implement it, I would be all for it. But the government can't run anything.

Nobody seems to care about our national debt, but these same people were sure bitchin' and moanin' when Republican administrations wanted to spend money on the military.

Speaking of the military and safety, I saw something recently that said Obama had kept us safe longer than Bush and I laughed hysterically. Bush kept us safe for 7 years after 9/11. I won't even go into the fact that the build up for 9/11 happened on Clinton's watch. And since Obama has been president? Three terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Oh sure, it wasn't 3000 people that died, so you probably didn't notice:
  1. Little Rock, AK - Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, an American Musclim opened fire on a U.S. military recruiting office. Private William Long was killed and Private Quinton Ezeagwula was wounded.
  2. Detroit, MI - Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempts to detonate an explosive on an aircraft enroute from Amsterdam to Detroit. During the incident, the suspect ignites himself on fire until he is extinguished and overpowered by two passengers. The aircraft lands safely in Detroit with the only injuries reported to be the suspect himself and two others.
  3. Austin, TX - American Joseph Stack lit his house on fire and then flew a small plane into the IRS building after issuing an online manifesto against the IRS and the U.S. government.
I'm just really tired of this Obama-is-a-rock-star mentality. Give me a fucking break. He can fail or succeed just like any man. And guess what? He will. On both counts. But he is NOT some holy messiah that can do no wrong. Squealing groupie girls, go find a real rock band or hockey player to stalk. BHO is a politician just like every one else in Washington. He knows how to play the game, which is why he's suddenly changing his mind on a lot of things (i.e. drilling for oil off the Atlantic coast, closing Guantanimo, trying the 9/11 hijackers in NYC, etc.) He's playing that political game. JUST LIKE ANY PRESIDENT! The "change" he was talking about only relates to the name on the presidential stationery.

Oh, and for anyone thinking that nationalized health care thing is a win, I've got a few things to point out... First off, it's not a win for America, it's a huge loss, you just don't know it yet. Wait and see. And even if it DID turn out to be awesome, Obama didn't do squat to get it done. It was all Congressional secrecy and behind-the-scenes blow jobs by Pelosi. Obama passed the buck and said (just like Jean Luc-Picard on Star Trek: TNG, "Make it so!") and she did. I still have yet to see Obama actually DO anything. But, good news for him, he'll get credit for it. So while everyone still thinks its a good thing... GO HIM!
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Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Maybe I should teach a class..

Stalking 101... Hey, you go with what you're good at right? I'm fresh from a road trip to my old stomping grounds, Pittsburgh PA where I took in hockey practice and a game.

Here is the cutest picture from practice, or rather, players leaving practice:

Mike Rupp #17. Defenseman. Big boy. 6'5". Drives a monster truck. And the cutest smile and dimple ever!

And the cutest from after the game:

Kris Letang #58. Half my age. French Canadian, meaning he speaks fluent french. Oui!

All in all, I got 8 autographs on my 10-year old Kasparaitis jersey! Very cool! Plus, I just love Pittsburgh in general. I had such fun there during my two years of graduate school. This time around, we ate dinner outside along Carson St. and then walked around taking in all the sights, meaning all the different people that are routinely found on Carson St. Bikers, punk rockers, hippies, sports fans, college kids, sluts, jocks, rockers. It's like Bourbon Street without the masks, Beale Street without the sidewalk boozing, or Duval Street without all the souvenir shops.
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Thursday, March 4, 2010

Somebody must be worried...

The other night, Leno had Sarah Palin on his show. The same night, Letterman had Mitt Romney on. Then last night, Jon Stewart spent 10 whole minutes (a lot when you only have a 30 minute show) ranting about Megyn Kelly from Fox News.


Me thinkest the Dems are getting a tad worried.

Hmm. What could they possibly have to worry about? They have a Dem president and a Dem Congress, they can pass anything they want. And what have they passed lately? Um, well, ah, healthcare? No. Cap & Trade? Nope. Oh wait, they did pass a resolution apologizing for slavery.

I don't know what they're bitching about.
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Thursday, February 18, 2010

Yummy Yummy French Country Crock Roast

This is a low carb crock-pot roast recipe that I tried and totally LOVED! It is from Leanne Ely's book, Saving Dinner the Low-Carb Way, but with some slight changes!

1 tbsp olive oil
2 lbs beef roast (get a chuck roast that will be tender)
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, pressed
4 slices bacon, chopped
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 tsp rosemary, crushed
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp marjoram
salt & pepper to taste

In large skillet, heat olive oil. Brown roast on all sides, place in crock-pot.

Add to skillet, onion, garlic, bacon and saute a few minutes. Pour over roast.

Add to crock-pot, wine, seasonings, salt & pepper.

Cover & cook on low for 8-10 hrs.

I suggest adding whatever vegetables you want to this. When I make it next, I'm going to add carrots, mushrooms and maybe asparagus or eggplant.

It's got an awesome flavor! Trust me!
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Sunday, January 10, 2010

Current iPod Workout Playlist

Ain't Nothing Wrong with That - Robert Randolph & Family Band
Black Horse & Cherry Tree - KT Tunstall
Box of Sunshine - Infidel Inc
Can't Let you Go - Jesse McCartney
Dive in the Pool - Various
Don't Go - Yaz
Dragula - Rob Zombie
I Can Make You Dance - Zapp
I Like the Way - Bodyrockers
I Wanna Be Sedated - Ramones
I Want it All - Transplants
Icky Thump - White Stripes
Jealous - Gene Loves Jezebel
Makes Me Wonder - Maroon 5
Me & My Gang - Rascal Flatts
Paralyzer - Finger Eleven
Pretty Vegas - INXS
Riot Radio - Dead 60s
Shut Up & Let Me Go - Ting Tings
SOS - Rihanna
Take Your Mama - Scissor Sisters
Train in Vain - Clash
Trouble - Pink
Unglued - Stone Temple Pilots
Walk Away - Kelly Clarkson
Walkie Talkie Man - Steriogram
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