big fat w00t!!!!!!!!!!!

my attempts to send these pictures just gave me a headache...

still could not ruin the   B_E_S_T__ D_A_Y__ E_V_E_R_!!!!!!!!!

for more pictures go here (copy/paste if link doesn't work):
www.aboveallohio.com/sher_enterprise

thanks to buckwheat for helping me out.

also, check back here because i was using my puny little free camera from kodak... i took this picture with it through my binoculars, a technique pioneered by my brother steve. that's why it's a little fuzzy.

anyway... check back because i was chatting with two guys next to me that had monster cameras with mile long lenses and they've promised to send me links to their galleries when they get them up.

 B_E_S_T__ D_A_Y__ E_V_E_R_!!!!!!!!!

Pie

i was just reading the cake story. yes i wrote it, and i lived it, so i didn't NEED to read it but i did anyway.

the cake has been dubbed "Red Velvet Fudge," by the way. it was sort of a cross between fudge and a cake, i thought brownie, but it was moister (is that a word?) and denser. and it had a thin layer of almost cakelike somethin' between that and the frosting. it was murle's birthday cake so he cut it. it was super thin so he cut giant slabs, but they were too heavy to lift, so he had to cut them again.

onto the pie... a week later i once again found myself in the kitchen (my own this time) with apple pie on the agenda. there were no incidents... no animals (or humans) were harmed while making the pie. i did not cut myself, bleed on anything, drop anything into anything... there were no crazy metamorphoses (a word?) at any time in the pie making process. no reason to do a pie drawing... and while i do not miss the stress, the confusion, the 37 phone calls to my mom (it only took 4)... smooth sailing does not translate into a good story. i DID get brave and experimental and mixed in some cream cheese, but i didn't notice a difference really. i think i was too meek. it's pointless to experiment if you're so timid about it that you can't even tell the difference.

anyway... i do not anticipate baking again any time soon, the fire department can stand down, go home, see their families. move along folks, nothing to see here...

(for pete's sake, could someone leave a comment for once?)

the great cake adventure

so last night i had a cake to bake. and i am housesitting at a friend's this week. turns out that's essential to my story.

i went to the store, bought what i needed and went to their house and started assembling. alright, where does angel keep her mixer?... hmmmm

after ransacking the kitchen not once but twice (i found beaters which gave me hope... false hope) i called mom. there was also no whisky thing, so i resolved to use the blender.

my mom was afraid it would break it down too far. of course i had no idea what that mean, but i tried not to "over mix" it. which i never really knew you could do. i put all the liquids and eggs into the blender, got as much of the eggshell out as i could, and then added the dry stuff, stirring it in first of course. DUH (i'm pretty good at this after all!)

so the only instructions i didn't really follow were beat on low for 30 seconds, then on medium for two minutes. the blender only has high, higher and holy cow that's fast... and i also had a tiny delay getting it into the oven after mixing. the instructions said to put it into the oven IMMEDIATELY... except for i was making tater tots.

of course tots bake at 425. and while i had sychronized cake readiness and tot completion perfectly, i had to let the oven cool down. my mom said just turn it down and leave the door open for a minute (she's very smart).

so instead of "immediately" putting the cake in, it was a minute before i did (i swear it wasn't more than a single minute) but, by then the cake batter was doing funny things and the color was kinda funky... like tie dye and swirls and stuff. i put it in the oven anyway and went to play video games because i do not have video games at my house.

after a bit i thought perhaps i should check on it...

somehow, even though the pan was level when i put the cake in the oven, and the batter was level in the pan, and the pan remained level when i went to look at it...

in one corner of the pan, the batter had gone out... like the tide. i found it between two other corners, where a giant mound had grown. it was like i baked a balloon under there... or a groundhog... but like a baby ground hog because it was big but not THAT big.

here's a terrible picture i drew of it, since i didn't take a photo.


i let it bake some more and the mound shrunk a little, so i let it go a little longer and took it out of the oven and let it sit.

it all fell down.

i cut a tiny piece off one of the sides and tasted it. not bad, seemed moistish... so i let it cool, put it in the freezer after half an hour because the instructions that i love so much say that's what to do to make it easier to frost... so i went back to mario brothers... for 3 hours. (now you know why i don't have video games in my house)

when i took it out of the freezer, it had shrunk away from all the sides about 3/4 of an inch... it also shrunk away from air. so now it's about an inch thick and flopping around in the pan like a dead fish... i didn't know what else to do so i frosted it. (i used extra in the one corner, to make it look even.)

well, now that it's frosted, it weighs like 180 pounds. i dislocated my shoulder getting it to my car... and now the tires on that side look a little flat.

and of course i am going to serve this cake to my friends without a word of warning.

i'll post the list of survivors tomorrow.

beans beans

so i'm out to dinner with my family... nothing fancy... might have been an applebees, definitely not a denny's but other than that, hard to say. either way, i found myself in desperate need of the restroom.

so, in i go.

i'm there, doing my business, minding my own business, when i notice dripping and a small growing puddle on the floor in front of me, right under the door. i raise my gaze and see that the drops are dripping from the bottom of the door. glancing higher, i see that the drops that are dripping are coming from the slime that is slithering... down the inside of my door. ew

and then i recognize... baked beans. really? what is going on in here?

i look all the way up, and there, hanging her head over the top of the stall door, is a giraffe. poor thing is spewing baked beans like niagra falls, right into my bathroom stall. why? who knows, but i feel sorry for the poor girl, she's obviously sick as a dog and my heart goes out to her...

and then i feel a drop

kind of a plop

more like a splotch

on one foot
then the other

and i look down and BY THE HAMMERS OF GRABTHAR AND MANOLO BLAHNIK!!!!!!! giraffe-puked baked beans are splashing all over my BRAND NEW JIMMY CHOO LOAFERS!!!!!!!

...

and THAT is when i realized it was a dream. jimmy choo doesn't make loafers.

tiny computer

as i sit and wait for my new laptop to arrive, i appreciate more and more the full sized everything i am missing. if i didn't have the netbook i'd be going completely nuts, but i cannot wait to be back at my desk, with a keyboard... a mouse... a monitor. miss you emachine, RIP!

What do you say to God?

JoePa is dead

i feel like that nickname, inferring something paternal, should be revoked.

I could be nice, and I certainly do not wish more pain on his family and friends, but i also wonder what he said to God after he died.

How did he explain that football was more important than the welfare of a child? and when he knew it wasn't just the one... how did justify that to himself? more importantly, how does he think God is going to excuse this?

I do not now, nor will i EVER, understand how someone can stand idly by and allow a child to be hurt. nothing good he did in his life can ever cancel out the fact that he CHOSE to sacrafice dozens, if not more, CHILDREN... say it again: CHILDREN, in order to keep his precious football machine intact.

he disgusts me.