Agree to disagreement...

While The Daily is not quite so anymore, on occasion I come across something that supports the cause and I am compelled to spew my opinions to the page. There have been many debates in my industry, and specifically with my Tech Weapon of choice. Yes folks, I am a Flash Dev at heart, and ever since the first time I made a semi-3D ball bounce across the stage, I was hooked. The irony, if I am using the term properly, is that I was using a Pre-Jolly Rancher Color PowerMac at the time, which brings this story full circle.

I too am sick and tired of the Mac Vs. PC debate, although I do enjoy the commercials. I recognize the power of a Mac, because I can hit the power button on my MacBook Pro and in less than 35 seconds be Googling my life away. Not sure why a PC manufacturer can't figure this one out yet, especially since the Pocket PC has a 7 second boot time. I fought the urge to get an iPod for 5 years, and a Mac much longer, but I finally wanted to see how I could utilize my skills and create some iCandy of my own and sell it in the app store. With Adobe announcing that I could now compile my Flash Applications to be sold and distributed on iTunes, I was planning all sorts of possibilities and build-app-get-rich-quick schemes. That didn't happen... because of Apple.

My gripe is more with Mr Jobs, and his lack of colorful turtlenecks, his lightly stone-washed beltless jeans, and the ugly sneakers that stick out like a Fashion Model at a Linux Conference. Not only that, but he is a titanium-plated pot that dares to call the kettle black by not only maintaining an Ultra-Club VIP list of a market place and establishing a very restrictive dress code to boot. Yes, I am talking about the 3rd Party letter crap that he pulled that makes everyone buy his hardware, write with his cryptic code, and eat up all of his iPoop or else you can get sell in his iMonopoly. I can go on about Flash and the HTML5 debate, but that will be saved for another rant.

I will extend an Olive Branch to the folks over at The Brads, because they make some really great comics, and although I don't completely support their point of view... I can relate quite well. I think it is good to find a passion, learn the facts, and pick a side... so while most people will have very little clue what I am analogyzering about above, at least you can relate to the simple fact that everyone should have an opinion.





"get opinion"



Read the Comic that inspired this posting...



rp

so, Koda Pants is gone... RIP

With the passing of our very loved dog Dakota, aka Kodapants, aka, Koda P, aka rascalpants, we are contemplating when to buy a new pup and what breed... err umm... cocktail of breeds I should say. I have always, and will always want a British Bulldog. Even the animal form or icon of my Hell on Wheels is a British bulldog. Wouldn't I look superly awesomer than the next MINI driver with a spit dripping stump of an animal sitting in my passenger seat?

Well, apparently they are expensive... I mean Ferrari expensive... where they are handmade, don't really drive them much, and the parts have to be shipped from the smallest most remote town in Italy kind of expensive. I was not aware that this breed, 90% of the time, must "delivery" their pups via C-Section, which obviously puts the mom at risk and the breeder is out quite a bit of funds with every litter. And thankfully, a good breeder only allows the mums to have three litters because of the risks. But even with the health issues, and the cost to keep them healthy ( yeah.. I would insist on Pet Insurance with this one ), I still want one.

Anyway... doesn't look like I will be getting my bowling ball of a wing man anytime soon... as a matter of fact, I will most likely be trading in my Z4 M Coupe for something even more "responsible" by the time I get the lil hulk. I kinda like that name... Hulk... or maybe Princess.

humphf....






"bulldogs our"

rp

ummm, yeah...

I don't really know how some will feel about this blog, but when the captcha popped up, I knew I had to fit it in somewhere. I had to battle the urge to stick it to em, and rant about where I think their own heads are located. But I believe no matter what comes out of this one, I am sure it will be taken a few different ways.

I think this is a good opportunity to have conservatives open their mouths and express how their point of view is superior, because apparently they hold the power to please all Americans. We see Town Hall Meetings with and moaning, grunting, and outright screaming at how they don't like the legislation that is being force onto them. But who can blame them, it is a very big plan that if pushed through, could have a huge impact on everyone involved.

Some say the Democratic Party is forcing Big Government to take over and control the situation, but as some ppl often say, it is not about the size of the Government, but how you use it. I personally think things are moving along at a pace that will satisfy everyone, and if some would just relax, I think they would really enjoy the benefits of the Obama Administration.

What do you all think?






"boning the G.O.P"


Yeah, you better read it again...


rp

okay, what now...

Since the dreams of many Americans who want affordable healthcare are slowly spiraling down the toilet, by their own flushing, I think now is a good time to look at what we have in store for the next few years. Statistics show that at our current rate of non-action, our insurance premiums will almost double in the next 10 years, and the average family of 4 will be spending over $25,000 a year on healthcare premiums. I don't know about you, but I definitely cannot afford to be spending THAT much money on healthcare without finding other means of income. And since I pass out when I give blood, selling my plasma is probably not a good "option".

The foresight of the average Joe Conservative is about 3 feet in front of him, and he can't see the bus coming right at him. The benefits behind the new healthcare plan are much better for the average American family, who is struggling to pay for the private insurance and HellCare they currently receive. All of the false theories and rhetoric that are spewed daily by the ignorant right are putting normal everyday citizens in harms way. And some of the signs that are held up at the Town Hall Meetings that read, "No to HealthCare, Balance Our Budget" and "ObamaCare is Socialism" with a picture of him sportin' a Hitler mustache are just ridiculous. To suppose that our President and his plan to make healthcare affordable, God forbid, is the equivalent to Hitler and his Genocidal tendencies just shows how delusional these people really are. And Please... is anyone truly worried about our national debt??? If so, where were you and your "Hitler" and "Balance the Budget" signs when Dubbya was spending over $600 Billion to fight an invisible war on Terror?

PEOPLE... you voted for this... did you think he was only kidding about bringing about legislation to "change" our system?!? The nation is, to borrow an overly used analogy, at a crossroads, and we can either turn onto the 4 lane highway that at times might be busy, or we can continue on the backwoods gravel road with no directions and a broken compass. Something needs to be done about healthcare and as it currently stands, the hopes of a bill to make healthcare affordable are falling... or should I say dying.





"our fatality"


So what is your opinion on what to do next? If you don't like the current legislation, then what type of system would YOU propose?

rp

the secret is in the smoke...

My last posting was about my second attempt at True BBQ and the successful results that make you want to spend countless hours cursing at a slowly extinguishing fire while burning your fingers off. This is the follow-up that didn't quite make the cut, but should have. While the brine was probably the reason the meat pulled apart so nicely, the sauce is probably the reason my Lil Bluey and everyone else keeps asking for more.

You see... here in the smack dab middle of our country, we take BBQ sauce very seriously. There are all sorts of variations and very strong opinions, but my personal favorite is a sweet, slightly tangy sauce with a nice spicy "elbow to the back or your throat" finish... much like the homemade rub I put on my Que. Our BBQ style here in KC is tomato-based and fairly thick, but I like to add a touch more Carolina Kick with bit more vinegar. Since we are a city filled with hybrid BBQ, using both pork and beef, we tend to think our Que is the best in the world. And of course... it is.

So here is my little recipe for a BBQ sauce that I think most will like, and many will love.

Casey-Style BBQ Sauce

3 T Organic Ketchup
2 T Brown Sugar
2 t Worcestershire Sauce
1 t Apple Cider Vinegar
1/2 t Pure Maple Syrup
1/2 t Seasoning Salt
1/2 t Paprika
1/4 t Chipotle Tabasco Sauce
1/8 t Cumin
1/8 t Garlic Powder


This recipe makes about ½ cup for sampling or brushing on meat when done. To make this sauce a bit spicier, double the Paprika and Chipotle Tabasco Sauce.

To finalize this sauce for the table or jarring, pour a much larger batch into a large tin casserole container, and place in a smoker. Let this sauce smoke for about an hour or two along with your other meats. Stir the sauce about once every hour. To add even more flavor, place the container under the grates in the smoker to catch the fat drippings of the meat.


Recipe by Casey Hill of Kansas City

"meal retaliation"

rp

mind your P's and Que...

So, after the maiden voyage of the BBQ Smoker, which I have yet to name, I wanted to pull off a come back with a Pulled Pork Shoulder. This would prove to be a fairly good challenge for me, and below you can see how it all turned out.

Now, there is a lot of confusion about pork shoulder and pork butt. You hear some ppl refer to the meat as one or the other, while others think that they are two different parts of the pig. So to clarify, when you get pulled pork from a restaurant, you are almost always getting meat from the shoulder of the pig, even though it sometimes says "Pork Butt". Well, the butt is not the ass... it is the "butt" or end of the pork shoulder. It is called pork butt, because at one point in time it was referred to as the Boston Butt. You can do your own Googlin' and find out more about the naming of this piece of tastiness.

Below is a video that I put together to show my particular smoker setup and the results of the day. I made some modifications to the smoker, even before I did the first re-season on it, because as some of you might know, I do a ton of online research so I know what I am doing... or at least so I can fake it ;)

The first thing I did was to take an old Air Bake cookie sheet and bend it 90 degrees, so I could attach it to the opening inside of the food chamber. Many ppl have found out the hard way that an offset style smoker like this has a ton of heat distribution problems, and I wasn't about to let some failed engineering spoil my smoking fun. I drilled some inch-wide holes in the sheet and staggered them, so that smoke and heat will pass further into the bottom part of the chamber. The main goal was to block the radiant and convection heat coming from the firebox, and without the means to weld a 1/4 inch sheet of steel there, the cookie sheet would have to do. I call it a "conflection" plate in the video, which I am still trying to find the definition of without much success. :)

The second thing I did was to put a few fire bricks into the bottom of the food chamber to even out the severe ups and downs in temperature that can sometimes happen to smaller smokers like this one. These where only $1.50 each at a local Stonework company.

A day before cooking the butt, I soaked it in a homemade brine solution for 12 hours. When it was done soaking, I made sure to wash it off thoroughly with cold water, and then cut inch deep slits and inserted some garlic cloves. I used a KC Style dry rub that I have pieced together from various recipes, and the main ingredients are brown sugar and paprika... the rest is up to you.

And without further Adieu...



I hope you enjoyed the movie, and if you have questions or comments, feel free to post them. The butt tasted absolutely perfect, even without sauce, and I was pleasantly surprised. If you want some for yourself, invite us over... and make sure to have lots of Sam Adams ready. :)





"over-all wowed"

rp

a trip to the misery...

I have been meaning to drop a blog about our recent family excursion, and it wasn't until I read another few stories about summer vacation over at rockfathers.com that I remembered I forgot to remember to blog about "The Branson".

A vacation had been planned a while back to take a short road trip with all of The Beautiful Brown Eyed Girl's family to Branson, MO. The F-in-law was offered three conjoined penthouse condos on a fancy golf course, because of some stuff he had done for a friend. So we all decided it would be fun to go down to the bowels of Country Living and find out how the under-half lives.

With all road trips with kids, I am always a bit on edge, cause at any moment, a back-seat brawl can break out and turn the tension in the van (yes, we most definitely rented a van) to an all time high. Luckily for everyone, those were few, and most of the time I think the kids enjoyed the ride and so did I in the Captain's Chair of our short-term vessel.

In the 4 days we were there, we visited White Water (twice), Silver Dollar City, and rented a pontoon boat at Table Rock Lake. There were a few incidents of misfortune and family angst, like taking the kids on Thunderation at SDC right as we got there... that definitely set the tone of the day, and scared the crap out of the "olders". It took some stern words to get them back on even a very small ride, but we ended the day with a nice trip down the The Lost River of the Ozarks... and I ended up keeping one baseball-sized spot on my shorts dry... the rest... looked like I fell in the river. Nothing like driving an hour home sopping wet.

The last day of excitement was had at White Water again and we started off the day with everyone, including Zee Zee riding down the Ohana Falls slide. Even though he was clung to me "like a tick on a squirrel's ass" and looked like he was seeing his death, at the end of the first run, he "signed" for more, so we knew the little guy had fun. Later that day we trucked off to TR lake and putted around in the pontoon boat. THAT was probably the most fun we had as a group the entire trip. Beers, snacks, neked kids, and swimming in the murky muddy waters of a Missouri Lake. Wished we would have spent the whole day out there on the water.

All in all, our trip down to the Vegas of the Bible Belt was not the chaotic horror show it could have been, and was instead a great success.





"the missouri"

and for your viewing pleasure...


















rp

fight for health...

Other than the typical boo-hoo celebrity stories, chugfests for racism, and the totally insane Iran election aftermath, there really is only one other story that is making headlines each day. HR 3200, or otherwise known as "America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009" is an important issue that has brought me out of my blogging slumber.

There are two articles on CNN.com today, one written by a GOP rep. opposed to the bill, and another DEM rep. that is in favor of the bill. I recommend you read them both, but not until you finish the rest of my "spin". I have also been reading and responding on various FACEbookOFFs (coined that phrase BTW), and most of the opposition to the bill is based on not having choice or how this bill gives the GOV an unfair advantage over private insurance companies. I have to admit that some of these ideas did not start out in the caverns of my Cerebral Cortex, but are none the less valuable points that I will happily steal and recklessly expand upon.

CHOICE

If asking someone, who opposes the bill, what choice they currently have, you will get some kind of delusional response like "I can choose which Doctor and Healthcare Provider I want, and this new bill takes away that right...". To this I easily spew out, "Do you really think you have a choice in the matter?" Currently insurance companies dictate your healthcare, NOT your doctor, and definitely NOT you. You have no choice but to go "out-of-network" and pay double or triple the already unaffordable rates you currently pay. Since an insurance company is typically a "private" corporation, meaning not run by the GOV, the sole purpose is to make as much money for the shareholders as possible. Actually, by law, that is the only thing a corporation is supposed to do. The same thing goes for most hospitals and healthcare providers, but I digress. My point is that if your sole purpose is to cut costs and make money, how can you be providing the best care possible without limiting the services you pay for? You can't! It is more cost effective to have you take monthly pain killers, than to approve of a surgery that should bring an end to your problem. That is not a very good choice, now is it?

UNFAIR

Conservatives love preaching about how "big government is bad for business", and how this bill will give an unfair advantage to the GOV. "Small businesses will loose money!" "Millions of jobs will be lost!" "That's bad for business!" This is the same BS mantra that lost them the election, because we already have lost our jobs, and small businesses are closing their doors left and right. This bill will actually be better for the small business owners, because the cost of offering healthcare coverage to employees will no longer be the huge financial burden that it is today. Their profits will increase and in turn their business will grow, and new jobs will inevitably follow. How many Americans dream of starting their own business, but they can't because they so desperately need their insurance? They cannot risk having a health problem arise in their family, and not be covered by their existing plans. Sure, if something did happen, they will still have to pay out the whazoo, but at least the insurance companies can't immediately drop them from coverage. Not yet. So this holds back thousands of Americans who want to discover their dreams by starting their own business. This plan is GOOD for small business, this plan is GOOD for the entrepreneur, it is GOOD for the American Spirit.

Now I am not claiming the bill is perfect, and I actually can see how if implemented poorly, it could become a problem. But this plan is definitely much better for the 304 million that it will serve each day. And yes, this includes the 47 million low life, scrum of the earth, dirty rat infested uninsured (spit to the side), who don't even deserve to breathe the air Mother Nature has given the rest of us hard working, completely moral, tax-paying, holier than thou Americans.

I will gladly discuss and debate any of my above points, so please feel free to drop a comment or two in the suggestion box. But for my last point I want to ask a few questions to see if this gets anyone thinking. If we don't pass this bill, what will happen to our current failing HellCare System and how will this affect each and every one of us? If your employer can't afford to keep you around, what happens to your job? What happens to your family? What ever happened to the saying... "At least you got your health"? Without this bill being passed, can we even say that?





"controversial ribbing"

rp

the daily does V...

I wanted to test out my new camcorder that I got for $60... and I also wanted to make up for lost blogs, so here is a special one for my minions-o-plenty.

Just an FYI... if you live close to a MicroCenter store, I would highly recommend this video camera if you want a simple device to capture footage for the web. It will not get you the quality you want for anything commercial... not even close actually. But for less than $100, you can't really beat this price. I already had an external 4GB SD card, so I was ready to grab about an hour or two of HD sized footage. Here is the camcoder in question.

And here is what is constantly playing in the minds of young humans...





As kids we tell each other some of the weirdest combinations of potty mouth jokes, but no matter how old you get, they still are pretty funny.





"vastly maturing"

rp

separation of church and state...

Okay, this seems to be a topic that has a lot of ppl tossing their ideas around as to how to handle the issue of a child's parents abstaining from medical care, and a government entity forcing medical treatment on a child unwillingly.

The most recent article that I read

So it seems that after a court battle, the Hauser Family has consented to the chemotherapy, which apparently this medical procedure is against their religious beliefs. And a bit lower in the article it mentions a very similar case where a court ordered a young girl to go through the same type of treatment, which was also against her religious beliefs, and she ended up dying 2 years later anyway. So not only did Pamela have to endure a tourturous medical treatment, but in her eyes probably thought she was going to hell for it. How nice!

There are laws that protect children from illegal acts such as sexual abuse and child labor, but to my knowledge, I have yet to come across any laws that say it is illegal to obstain from medical treatment. Since when did we allow doctors to have more power than the Constitution of the United States. I have yet to read the statement, "In Doctors We Trust" in any historical document, so what would make a court of law order a procedure that might violate the First Amendment?

This is the same assinine thinking that has congressmen trying to pass laws that order young girls to get the HPV vaccine, even though they may never have sex.

Now i understand that there where two instances in that article where the children grew up and wished the State had actually stepped in and done something, and this is a HUGE grey area that I would love to discuss further. I mean no child deserves to endure 6 months of pain from an untreated gasoline burn, and that instance seems pretty extreme, but at what point do we allow a community, run and motivated by money, to force their values and beliefs onto everyone and prevent a true separation of church and state.

When will we, as a nation, truly start respecting ALL religions, instead of just the most popular one?





"at biblical"

rp