Sunday, May 15, 2011

Sunday 5/15/2011

I am feeling worse than before I started taking the antibiotics. My head is aching and I am starting to get some chest congestion. I'm not even sure the strep throat and what else is going on in my body are even related. There is all kinds of junk floating around right now in terms of sickness, I suppose it's possible I have more than one going on at the same time.

Meaning I am not going to get a lot done today. I did manage to clean out 2 of the pond filters yesterday, trying to sum up the energy to clean out the 3rd.

Dunno. Anyway, one of my tenants that paid most of the rent for this month - but was short - bought me a 2 for 1, $40 pot roast. So, I have one of them in the slow cooker right now. Slices of bacon on the bottom of the cooker, topped by potatoes and carrots, roast on top of that. A bag of pearl onions and large mushrooms, sliced in half on top of that. I wanted to cut up a white onion and put that in there as well, but the cooker is full. Made a mixture of beef broth and tomato paste, poured that on top of everything. I also seared the roast in a frying pan with some oil to darken the meat and of course rubbed various seasons onto the surface of it.

I am going to slow fry the onion later on when the roast is nearing completion. I'll actually like them cooked that way better than in the cooker, anyway.

Uhhh, one of my tenants walked by a few minutes ago, all dressed up. What's up? Going to pick up a dead body. Gag. Have fun with that. I'll think of you when we are picking it up. I'm not sorry to say that I don't think I would much care for that type of job.

I found the cheapest pond liner on the net I could find - and trust me, I went to a lot of site - and ordered it. An Amazon provider, it was cheaper with shipping than anything I could find on Ebay. I can do nothing with my new setup until the liner arrives and I get it installed into the horse trough.

Another bicyclist killed by being struck by a car. This happens frequently around here. I would offer cyclists some advice, but I am sure they won't heed it. I'll give it anyway: when you are riding a bicycle on a major surface street and there is bicycle lane, stay in it. Don't veer out of it and into harm's way. I don't get why they have their own lane and many times refuse to stay in it. If I were riding a cycle, I am pretty sure I wouldn't want to risk my life out in open traffic. Then, there are the cyclists that are on a street with no bicycle lane. This isn't against the law, obviously, but attempting to take up an entire lane is. Not only that, it isn't very smart. I see them all the time, riding in the middle of a lane on a very busy street. It's a wonder there aren't even more of them killed out there.

I'm so ready to not only move out of this neighborhood, but move out of the city of Phoenix as well. The city government doesn't want to deal with it's budget mess by finding ways to do it from within, instead, they just want to continue to raise taxes and fees. Most notably is the water rate. They seem to want to raise it every single year. I'm half inclined to run for City council myself. Not that I would win, but who knows.

Jumping around - my roast is cooking very nicely. Another 5 or 6 hours and it's done, lol. Huge roast, longer cooking time in a slow cooker.

G'day.

ben

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