TSA SNAFU

This is getting a lot of press in St. Louis as it happened here. How much coverage is this getting in the rest of the world?


Consumerist - Traveler Detained For Carrying "Too Much" Cash Sues TSA - Tsa

Steve Bierfeldt sues TSA over detainment for carrying cashBack in March, Steve Bierfeldt was pulled aside while going through the security line at Lambert-St. Louis (Missouri) International Airport, taken to a room, and questioned for half an hour about the box of cash he was trying to check through. Bierfeldt, who works for a Ron Paul organization, recorded the conversation. Now with the help of the ACLU he's suing the TSA.

Adios very soon.

While not as large a Iggy's lunker, this was my son's first Largemouth Bass. 

Its almost vacation time.

Excitement is building both for me and the kids. I thinks the wife's excitement is tempered by the thought of 15 hours in the car (each way) while 28 weeks pregnant. Fishing, swimming, boating, swimming and maybe a little casino time. I can't forget duck racing, turtle racing and fireworks. Ice cream, cake, pie cookies and possibly come of that beer called Surley.

Driving to work last Thursday....

I am sitting at a stoplight.  A maroon Chevy Blazer comes around the corner. The driver loses it and bam flips over. Didn't hit anything, didn't even squeal the tires that I heard.

I pulled into the parking lot and a couple of other guys came over and we extricated the lady from the SUV (Suddenly Upside down Vehicle). She was shaken, but not visibly hurt, no severe bleeding or anything.

The cool thing was she flipped it right off the road and into a parking lot.  Traffic continued to flow with a minimum of lookylous.

CK Cleaners

I drive by the CK Cleaners everyday.  Everyday I think I should stop and take a pick for BWOP. I did just that last week. How does one become the 39th best O8/S8 player in the world?

So back in 1989...

I was alone in a hallway at my high school and this girl chucked a McDonald's Cheeseburger at me from about 50 feet away. It landed short, because, although she did play the tuba, she did not have the strength to get it all the way to me. The cheeseburger hit the ground and skidded towards me, but remained wrapped in its yellow waxed paper.

I don't know why I was alone in the hallway of my school.
I do know why she threw the cheeseburger at me.
I wonder what sort of cheeseburger ninja wrapped that thing.
It just dawned on me that her and her friend that showed up 5 seconds later were stoned to the bejessus.

Almost exactly 20 years later and that episode pops into my head and I figure out she was stoned.

Sometimes your brain is a weird fucking thing.

Watch both videos. The Roots Cook.

THE GHOST OF ELECTRICITY: Jimmy Fallon and Mos Def get all 'Tricky' on the Roots

Lifehacker=handhacker

Not the best tutorial I have ever seen on this topic. First, you want a FILLET knife. The hatchet that guy is using works, but if you are cleaning fish repetitively, get the right tool for the job. If you like cool knives, get one like mine here. Also pick up this bad boy while you're at it.

The fillet knife needs to be flexible, not rigid and strong. Sharp and flexible. A good flexible blade lets you feel the bones easily. A thinner blade lets you use a little finesse.

The overall technique is good, but I see a couple of critical errors.

0:24 - you don't need to gut your fish. If its live, fillet it without gutting. If its dead it prolly should have been gutten already. If you want to use the remainder for stock, gut later. If you bought it at the market its probably gutted and clean. You do not want to rupture the intestines which you can do gutting. Don't do it filleting either. The bile is gross and makes the meat spoiled, IMO.

1:27 Uhm, yeah, do that only if your health insurance is paid. That guy is going to cut his thumb off. You make the cut that he makes at 0:32 and holding onto the head with your left hand turn the knife to the tail. I like to make the cut that he makes at 0:32, separate the majority of the fillet from the back/spine and come back and cut from the incision made at 0:32 toward the tail with my left hand holding the head. Seriously, that is a serious cut he's making at 1:27 towards his hand and he is going fuck up some day and slice himself. Also, if you do it my way with a proper fillet knife, you leave the ribs on the carcass.

In summary, wrong knife, good overall technique, but be careful not to cut your thumb off. Maybe I'll shoot a video when I'm at the lake this summer, cause this is some low rent instruction. But there are several videos with good technique on youtube.

Also, if you have a fillet knife, a good one, you can easily skin the fillet if you desire. We like to batter and fry or batter and bake fillets, making skin removal a requirement.



Lifehacker - How to Filet a Fish Like a Pro - How To

We asked a chef to show us how to filet a fish, and we filmed it for good measure.

Why ask why?

Downtown St. Louis Business: Arch Rivalry Series Cancelled

Said Illinois Athletic Director Ron Guenther:

The Illini are basically a bunch of scared weenies.  We're tired of M-I-Z-Z-O-U beating the crap out of us over and over again. We're like weak defenseless little girls, babies even. You measure our manliness in inches, where as M-I-Z-Z-O-U is teeming with so much testosterone that our side is petrified, unable to function.  What we make in TV rights doesn't come close to paying for the psychiatric treatment we need to recover from the PTSD after getting it handed to us by M-I-Z-Z-O-U. We should drop the Illini moniker and call ourselves the Nancy-boys.

A source from M-I-Z-Z-O-U was quoted as saying "FUUUUUUCKKKK, now we have to find some no name 1-AA school championship division team to pound on early in the season. Someone call Northern Illinois and see if they'll man up!"


Why ask why? Fuck the Illini.

Drugs?

If I ask, "did this guy rob this bank for drug money" am I going to start a Raul Ibanez-esque episode on the tubes?


Man arrested in U.S. Bank robbery - STLtoday.com

Check your ammo

Mystery shell in deputy's gun blamed for Iowan's death | DesMoinesRegister.com | The Des Moines Register

A mysterious hard-plastic shell that was mixed in with Polk County sheriff's deputies' "less-than-lethal" ammunition was blamed Wednesday for the death of an Urbandale man whom authorities had tried for more than three hours to save from a threatened suicide.

Justin Schleuning, 21, died 30 hours after suffering a wound Monday that was caused by a shell the sheriff's office neither stocks nor issues to deputies.

The shell was fired by Deputy Dale Petersen, an 11-year veteran, who believed he had loaded his shotgun with less-than-lethal ammunition commonly called "beanbag rounds," which are designed to stun rather than kill a suspect. How the mystery round made it into Petersen's ammunition cache puzzled authorities Wednesday.

And so it begins...

Fight night at the casino! Lifting the cap on gambling will lead to more and more events like this. The casino is across the street from the dome and now is having fights. I am salivating at the juicy games when STL hosts the final four.

Lumière Place to host sporting events - St. Louis Business Journal:

The inaugural Fight Night at the downtown casino features World Boxing Foundation (WBF) Welterweight Champion Brandon Baue defending his title against Keon Johnson.

GM Scuttlebut

GM's new chair is rebuilder | Reuters

Two years after riding off into the sunset, former AT&T Inc Chairman and Chief Executive Ed Whitacre finds himself back in the saddle again.

SBC Communications Inc.: Information from Answers.com

In February 1993 SBC moved its headquarters from St. Louis to San Antonio, Texas. It joined a local group of businesses to acquire the San Antonio Spurs basketball team for $75 million. It also became the first regional Bell telephone company to acquire a cable television company outside of its service area when it paid $650 million to Hauser Communications for two cable systems in Maryland and Virginia.

Dinner at the Club, Darling? - St Louis Magazine - June 2006 - St. Louis, Missouri

In recent years, St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan has mischievously pointed out all the revenue St. Louis lost when SBC chief Edward E. Whitacre Jr., blackballed by SLCC, picked up his headquarters and went to San Antonio.

Good luck with that, GM.

****UPDATE****

Whitacre plans to stay planted in San Antonio as GM chair - St. Louis Business Journal:

Because of those deep South Texas roots, and despite his new role, Whitacre says he will not leave San Antonio for Detroit. Whitacre retired from now Dallas-based AT&T in 2007.

“This is my city,” Whitacre said of San Antonio. “I’m not moving.”

That said, Whitacre does hope to help restore faith in an historic company.

Gotta get this one out asap

Tonight on Letterman, Dave made a joke about Sarah Palin's daughter getting knocked up by ARod.

I think Dave crossed the line.

No way Lil Palin sleeps with a minority. No Way.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Poker

Played in a home game last week. Dropped first  buy in set over set. Clawed back to get 5.55% over even for the session. Sold my FTP bankroll so I could buy home repair stuff online. Big Wally's Plaster Magic, if you must know.  Hadn't wanted to play online for a couple of weeks, now have the itch since I liquidated my funds.

Would like to get to Vegas with end of July or mid-August, don't know if I can make that happen. I haven't been to the boat for a couple of weeks. Last session there was brutal. Dealer error screwed me out of a huge pot. I can take the suckouts, but a tweeky dealer turning and burning before the action is complete is unacceptable. I was setting directly across from him and yelling "wait, WAIT!" as he was burning, but he turned anyway. The would be river card didn't fill any of the draws. My two pair good. The new river card filled the flush.

Mistakes happen, but forgeting the last guy to act, especialy when that guy is a "play every hand to the river" donk is unforgivable.

Hopefully will get to a card room while on vacation.  4/8 or 2/10 spread. The 3/6 game is soft, but always full fromw what I hear.

I think that my 3 star status at the boat is in jeporady. I might have to lose my card so I can retain my parking privledges. 

Uranus

We had a Saturn for about 8 years it was the cheaper of the SL1/SL2. A four speed auto with a four cylinder.  It needed oil and brakes and stuff.  The PCV valve went out (clogged) twice. Paid for one, got the other for free. It was a good little car. The stuff on the lot now looks like crap.

Toyota has been ascendant for at least three decades, and GM declining, for a simple reason: Toyota built cars that worked ("bulletproof," as they say) at a time when GM built cars that didn't work.

In my life I have driven/owned the following domestics and they has met the demise listed in parenthesis.

1981Mercury Cougar X-R7 (transmission failed at 60,000 miles)
1991 Dodge Spirit (transmission failed at 80,000 miles)
1995 Saturn SL (sold to neighboor's retired dad)
1999 Dodge Stratus (stolen and wrecked) Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep can be stolen with nothing more than a standard screwdriver.
1997 Mercury Sable (stolen, was never the same, traded was a great car and I would still be driving it if I would have remembered the club)
1999 F150 (Own) the club is on whenever I park it.

Kausfiles

Yes Exactly

The main problem, he says, is that local food is seasonal. For example, avocadoes grow in California during the summer months. Same with grapes. "What happens if you want some grapes during the month of December?" says Equihua. "What are you going to do? Not eat grapes?"

Yes, exactly. You eat what you have on hand that's fresh the best you can.  Americans having to have "grapes" 24/7/365 is the fucking problem.



Michelle Obama's organic garden and its discontents. - By Christopher Beam - Slate Magazine

Ghosts

I was in the grocery store yesterday. I did one of those hard blinks because my subconscious mind recognized the person pushing the cart coming toward me. In the split second that it took me to realize that my mind thought that my grandmother was at the grocery store I went from a normal after work trip to the grocery to depressed. My grandmother has been dead for 10 years. The woman that I saw at the store looked a lot like my grandmother from 30 yards away.

Stupid mind. That head snap, adrenaline rush followed by crestfallen depression was something I could do without tyvm.  It does get easier, but not as fast as they say.  My grandma died about 18 months after my grandpa. Grandpa died about 3 months after my wedding. Its true, grandparents love their grandkids more than anything in the world. Parents see the imperfections of their children. Parents see the poor choices, the flaws. Grandparents only see the good, the awe, the perfection. That's not to say grandparents won't set you straight, because they will and should.  But grandparents set you straight with a root beer float and a threat to tell your parents. Parents set you straight with a belt or a grounding.

So when I read Dawn's post about her grandpa today I could relate. I tend to think of my grandparents when things are going well.  When something happens are I want to tell them all about it.

Clareified » Blog Archive » Song of the Day

Wimps.

That figures.

STB is pussy.  This confirms it.

Conservatives Are More Easily Disgusted - Yahoo! News

The Thing Is...

The thing is that you just don't get it until you get it. Until you are there, and you realize that you are on your way to the Emergency Room with them in your arms you don't get it.

You don't understand why your parents were (or are) that way. You don't understand why your formerly dependably drunk drinking buddy suddenly is home by 6 more often than not. You don't get what they (we) mean when we say your life will change. Yes there will be 3am feedings followed by 4am diaper changes followed by 5am puking followed by 6 am diarrhea. That change is obvious and is the scared straight part of teenage abstinence programs that everyone takes for granted. Everyone gets the part where you don't sleep and show up to work with multiple stains of disgusting origin on your clothes.

The real way your life will change is indescribable. Its not a feeling or an emotion, its a state of being. About 12 hours after our first of three (or is it 4?) ER visits I was talking to my mom and she said "now you get it don't you?" Yep, now I get it.

This is a photo I took after the ER doctor put about 4 stitches in outside corner of my daughter's eye for the second time, as the first time they pulled through and had to be redone, and repaired the inside corner with surgical glue. We had just received confirmation that no,she didn't permanently damage her eye, yes she will see fine and binkies are good for narcotics, not just ecstasy. 

For the rest of my life I will be transported back to that night in the ER everytime I look at her and see that scar. When she's 13 and its the worst thing that ever happened to her I will feel guilt. And I will always remember that feeling I had in the pit of my stomach when I was certain that she was going to lose her eye.

In the last week or so I have delt with a bloody nose and a blood clot
that looked like a slimy gummy worm, a busted toe nail and a lost
finger nail. Kids will be kids. I am now mostly bald and graying. Each emergency comes with a little less panic and little better grip on my stomach. But everyone touches me in a way that only a parent feels.


Knowing that the Otis family is dealing with doctors and ERs brought this all to the surface. As did some other, better news about kids that I came across today. To the Clan Otis, best of luck. Sounds like all will be better soon, I hope it is.

To those of you thinking about parenthood, brace yourself. It will change your life.

Buhbye

The Rams are surely going the way of the football Cardinals. This just isn't a football town.

What about Rush Limbaugh? In interviews last year, the
prominent and influential talk-radio host has expressed a desire to
purchase the Rams and a desire to keep them here.

June 1: Kroenke is Best Hope for St. Louis Rams | Bernie’s 5 Minutes | STLtoday