Fish Fear Me

Happy Halloween

Like Charlie Brown and the football, I went and bought candy for the kids that most likely won't show tonight. None of these loser brands of course(via Kate). The last few years Halloween has been dead in my neighborhood, though I hear from other people that it is alive and well in theirs. I had one group of kids last year and by 7:00 the streets were empty. Maybe this year...

Picture of the day over at the Coalition of the Swilling. I love the sign in response that's just to the left of the protester.

RIP, Dean Barnett

Dean Barnett, one of the smart and decent political guys of our time, has passed away. I only knew him from his written word and the occasional times when I listened to him as a guest or guest host on the Hugh Hewitt radio show.  He struck me as a happy warrior when it came to politics; willing to argue for what he believed in, but not willing to compromise his integrity, nor his decency toward those with whom he disagreed. We could use more Dean Barnetts in this world.

My condolences and my thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.

A list of tributes is here.

Another Crock Pot Recipe

The "experiment" below worked out pretty well. In fact, it was delicious. The whole tedious and dreadful preparation amounted to going to the grocery store and getting:

• One 26 oz. can of cream of mushroom condensed soup
• About 1-1 1/2 lb. of "B" sized red potatoes, or sub another type if you like
• One white onion, about baseball sized
• One pork loin fillet, about 1 1/2 lb.
• Seasonings as you like
• One 15oz can of corn

Wash the potatoes and cut into about 1" chunks. Don't worry about being exact. Chop the onion. Put the cream of mushroom soup into the crock pot and add about a third of the can of water. Sprinkle in the seasonings you like, in this case I used basil and garlic salt, then add the onion and potatoes and mix well. Unwrap the pork loin and work it into the mixture so it is resting on the bottom of the crock pot. Throw a bay leaf on top and cover and cook on low for 10 to 12 hours. Leave it alone while it cooks. Leave. it. alone.

Oh, I forgot the corn? Nope, that's just for a side dish. Substitute any other veggie you want.

When cooking a pork tenderloin on the grill you end up with a nice and firm, and easily sliced piece of meat. What you will get here will fall apart with a butter knife. My suggestion for serving is to carefully take the meat out with tongs, it may break up a little, and place it in the center of a rectangular casserole dish. Use a slotted spoon to remove the potatoes from the crock pot and place them around the meat. All that's left in the crock pot now is gravy and you can ladle that into a gravy dish. A spoon is all you need to serve as the meat pretty much just falls apart.

Put out your side dishes and away you go.

Total prep time: 15 minutes. Cost? Well that depends. The most expensive part is the meat. A Hormel pork loin will usually run about ten bucks, but occasionally there are "buy one get one free" deals and my Mom pounces on those like a cat on a mouse for us to split. I may look for them more often in the future.

Why I Love the Internet, cont.

Once in a while up here(near Grand Marais, MN), you can occasionally catch site of one of the big boats that ply the Great Lakes. I took Sammy out for a walk earlier and almost missed this one:

Just like always, I wondered what boat that was and where it was headed. That has always been a mystery. This time something clicked and I checked to see if there was some kind of ship tracker website out there just like they do with airline flights. Sure enough, there is one (zoom in on an area to see more ships).

For some reason it did not show a boat in the area this morning so I still didn't know which one had just gone by. Hmmm. A little more searching came up with the Duluth Shipping News and their schedule of inbound and outbound traffic. A little more checking at that link has me pretty sure that the above is the Lee A. Tregurtha, "Expected to arrive Two Harbors bet 17:30 and 18:30 for DM&IR to load iron ore pellets SL".

Back at the ship tracker link, it says the Indiana Harbor is sliding down the north shore right now and should be by in a little while, heading for Duluth according to that schedule. And by Jove, I think I just caught sight of her in the telescope. We'll see if I can get a pic of that one too.

Man, I love the Internet.

Quiet Sunday

The Vikes are on the bye this week so today will be a wander around the woods a bit and keep an eye on my under-performing FFL team day. The winter storm we were supposed to have by now either missed us or has been delayed.

But first:

Slated for Sunday dinner is what I freely admit is a bit of an experiment:

Buried in all that gravy/cream of mushroom soup is a pork tenderloin that has been slow cooking since early this morning. I'm not following any particular recipe, just winging it. We'll find out.

The Classical School of Mooching...

...control the center:

Transition

 
It's very still and damp up in the woods this morning after the heavy soaking yesterday and last night. Our old friend Arctic air mass is coming to pay us a visit tonight and you can feel the forest hunkering down. We are expecting to get 1-3" of snow overnight and through tomorrow. The ground is still warm so most of that won't stick at first, but we could see some accumulation by tomorrow night.

Down on the lake there is a small craft advisory in effect close in along much of the Minnesota part of the north shore. The rest of the western half of Lake Superior is under a gale warning and the lake is already starting to rock a bit. A southwest wind has started to whip up some whitecaps and bring in some waves this morning, and coming in off of the lake it's a bit, er, invigorating. We may get to see some impressive action out on the lake by the time the weekend is over. A couple pics from this morning:

TGIF

I'm heading up north shortly, so just a quick post to say TGIF. That and to say I'll be pondering some of the doomsday thinking that I've been reading about Obama being elected. I'm talking about the stuff that is beyond he'll raise taxes. I mean the stuff like this is the end of America as we know it. Hysteria or valid concerns? My default position is that it's hysteria, but there are a number of things that have me more concerned than if, for example, Kerry had won in 2004. Like I said, I'll be thinking about that on the drive up, but feel free to lay out what you think.

Local Notes

Ham Lake Fire: A Washington D.C. man has been indicted in connection with the Ham Lake fire back in May of 2007:

Almost a year and a half after the Ham Lake fire consumed about 75,000 acres along the Gunflint Trail, a federal grand jury indicted a Washington, D.C., man on charges he started the blaze.

Authorities say the blaze began after Stephen G. Posniak, 64, set fire to trash May 5, 2007, at a Ham Lake campsite in northern Minnesota and then left without completely extinguishing the flames.

The resulting two-week-long fire crossed the U.S-Canadian border, destroyed 140 structures in Minnesota valued at $4 million and cost $11 million more to put out.

Posniak, a retired computer programmer, faces three counts: setting timber afire, leaving a fire unattended and unextinguished and giving false information to a U.S. Forest Service officer.

We'll have to see how this plays out, innocent until proven guilty and all that, and accidents do happen. It sounds like Mr. Posniak was an experienced visitor to the area so I would be surprised if he was blatantly negligent in extinguishing his campfire, if in fact he was the one who camped at the fire's point of origin. If it was his camp, it's entirely possible that he thought he had properly extinguished his fire and gone on his way. I know I've drowned enough campfires to be an expert and I'm still paranoid about something like this happening to me. This part of the article makes me wonder though:

Questioned later, Posniak gave "false, fictitious and fraudulent information" to U.S. Forest Service officers by stating he camped overnight May 4 on Cross Bay Lake, not Ham Lake. He told officers he had encountered an out-of-control fire at a Ham Lake campsite while paddling back through Ham Lake to Tuscarora Lodge.

Hmmm. As horrified and crushed as I'd be, I like to think that I would be honest about something like that. If the above is true, that makes me think that the fire got out of control while he was there and he panicked and booked. That's just speculation and to be fair to Mr. Posniak, they may have the wrong person or it may have been something entirely different. If it did happen that way and he didn't make a beeline straight to the nearest phone then he's not going to get much sympathy from me. We'll find out soon enough.

Remember the Outrage? There were all sorts of screams against the pre-emptive raids on some groups just before the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. Now one of those persons has admitted to plotting to plant bombs:

A 23-year-old Michigan man has admitted to plotting to detonate a homemade bomb in the tunnels near the Xcel Energy Center, hoping it would cause a power failure and prompt cancellation of the Republican National Convention.

Matthew B. DePalma of Flint, pleaded guilty in federal court in Minneapolis Tuesday to illegally possessing Molotov cocktails.

And this:

In an urelated case, two Texas men have been indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly making Molotov cocktails during the convention. The Texans are accused of planning to use the bombs on police cars parked in a lot not far from the Xcel Center. David McKay and Bradley Crowder were part of a group of convention protesters that came north to St. Paul from Austin, Texas. Police found the bombs in a common area of an apartment building taht the men were seen entering and leaving.

St. Paul provided plenty of venues for people who just wanted to make their voices heard. Unfortunately, there was a small group of people who came to keep others, Republicans, from exercising their political right to assemble. Those people aren't protesters, they are anti-democratic thugs, and should be treated accordingly. Shame on anyone who tries to justify their actions.

Wrong again. Yesterday I wrote that the precipitation that was headed our way would be rain and not sleet. We're getting both right now on this rather dreary day.

Charming. Looks like we have some bipartisan nutcases running around the Twin Cities:

Vandals struck the garages and homes of at least six Minnesota members of Congress Tuesday night, spray painting angry graffiti including a Biblical reference to "Psalm 2."

When Laurie Coleman, wife of U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, hauled her trash to the alley at 7:30 this morning, a chilling sight greeted her.

Spray-painted in black on the wooden siding of the garage in the couple's Summit Hill neighborhood, in letters nearly a foot high: "U R A CRIMINAL RESIGN OR ELSE! PSALM 2"

On the alley side, each double-bay stall door had the word "SCUM" spray painted in black ink, as a did a wooden partition in between.

Also vandalized in similar fashion: U.S. Sen Amy Klobuchar and U.S. Reps. Keith Ellison, John Kline, Michelle Bachmann and Jim Ramstad. Klobuchar and Ellison are Democrats; Coleman, Kline, Bachmann and Ramstad, Republicans.

The thought of having someone slinking around defacing your property while you sleep is at least creepy, if not downright scary. It sounds like the cops are taking it seriously because of the "or else" aspect. I can't imagine they have much to work with though.

Reality Check

These people think we're stupid:

Arctic temperatures naturally peak in October and November, after sea ice shrinks during the summer. The shrinkage lets more of the sun's rays heat the ocean rather than be reflected back into space.

Reality Check:

Another point is that the Arctic temperatures do not “naturally peak in October or November”. They peak in mid August generally.

Yep. That's why the Arctic sea ice extent begins to grow again in September. As the second link notes, the sea ice extent for this year is now more than 30% higher than last year at this time. It's pretty simple really, it's freakin' cold up there already. As I write this the temp in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, Canada(Towards the southern edge of the Arctic Circle) is -9º C. That converts to 16º F. The low that is forecast for tomorrow night works out to -6º F. Now that's a reality check all by itself. Contrary to temps peaking now, Mother Nature is making ice in the Arctic Circle, I guarantee it.