- Don’t subtract from the population – Valentine’s Day is a great day to find out that your significant other has been sprinkling the landscape with their affections. If this should happen to you, take a deep breath and remember that they’re not worth the prison time.
- Don’t add to the population – Ever wonder why obstetricians always look like hell around Thanksgiving? It’s because folks lose their everloving minds around Valentine’s. Unless both parties involved are fully aware that a child can be the product of PX jewelry and gas station flowers and agree that putting a bun in someone’s oven is a good idea, take precautions. Remember, Captain Condom says “Wrap that rascal!”.
- Don’t drink and drive – Yes, that pink champagne goes down real easy. So does your bank account and life expectancy when you risk getting pulled over and doing the Harlem Shake on the median for the nice deputy. Either have a designated driver or budget for an Uber.
- Related to item number 1 – Check on your buddies! I’ll say that again for the folks in the back – Check on your buddies! Reminders that you were once in love, or realizing that you don’t have anyone to love right now, can be hard for anyone. Make sure the folks on your left and right are OK, and for heaven’s sake respond when somebody reaches out.
- Finally, please remember School of Cool Rule Number 1 – Don’t be f&*#ing stupid! That stripper doesn’t love you, even if the heart shaped pasties make her eyes sparkle. That bouncer really doesn’t like you, but will oblige by loaning you an ass kicking if you need one. There is no such thing as a good deal on a used car to celebrate Valentine’s Day! Last, but not least, if you find yourself standing in a wedding chapel or in front of a justice of the peace and you have to think hard to remember their middle name, run, do not walk, to the nearest exit!
All posts by daddybear71
Valentine’s Day Weekend Safety Brief
Posted by daddybear71 on February 14, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/02/14/valentines-day-weekend-safety-brief/
Today’s Earworm
Posted by daddybear71 on February 14, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/02/14/todays-earworm-842/
I’m so easily entertained
The Young Prince and I laughed way too hard at this.
Posted by daddybear71 on February 14, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/02/14/im-so-easily-entertained/
Recipe – Upside Down Apple Crisp
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Ingredients –
12 to 16 ripe apples. I used Granny Smiths and Fuji
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups oats
2 cups white sugar
Cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice to taste
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup bourbon
1 to 2 quarts cold water
1/4 cup lemon juice
Directions –
Combine 1 cup soft butter, brown sugar, and oats in a mixer and combine until smooth. Press mixture into the bottom of a greased 13×9 inch pan.
Combine white sugar and cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice in a bowl.
Combine cold water and lemon juice in a large bowl.
Wash and core apples. Apples can be peeled if you prefer. Slice into wedges between 1/8 and 1/4 inch across. You could also use a mandolin to slice evenly across whole apples. Place apple wedges/slices into lemon water to prevent browning.
In 13×9 pan, layer the apple slices evenly across the bottom crust. If you cut into wedges, align wedges so that they all go in one direction. If you used a mandolin, evenly cover crust with apples.
Once crust is covered with apple, liberally dust apple layer with spiced sugar mixture. If using wedges, place next layer with wedges perpendicular to layer below it.
Continue layering apples in alternating direction and dusting each layer with spiced sugar until all apple is placed in pan.
Heat 1/2 cup of butter until it just melts, then combine with bourbon. Evenly pour buttered bourbon over the layered apples, then dust top of apples with spiced sugar mixture.
Place on middle rack in 350 degree oven for 45 to 30 minutes. Dish is done when apples are fork tender and top layer is brown.
Allow to cool. Syrup in apples will be extremely hot. Serves well with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Makes enough to feed a small army.
Posted by daddybear71 on February 7, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/02/07/recipe-upside-down-apple-crisp/
A Good Start
I’ll leave the progress report on the dismemberment of USAID, and the reasons it deserves percussive defenestration from the top of the Washington Monument, to those with a better grasp of the details. Suffice it to say, things have been off the rails at that agency for quite some time, but a bit of sunlight appears to be disinfecting things quite nicely, so far.
Of course, things have yet to fully roll into the federal courts, which I expect will complicate things a tad right quick. I’m sure the unions and other perpetrators will gum up the works as much as they can. Perhaps they think something shiny will distract the president, or perhaps they think their allies/coconspirators in Congress will take heart from early judicial successes and start throwing spanners in the works for them.
President Trump is taking potshots from folks who assert that USAID is a drop in the federal budget bucket. To that, I suggest President Trump adopt a “Broken Windows” approach to this. As was done to reduce crime in New York, small infractions should be taken seriously and run down until they are either reformed or dissolved. No fraud, waste, or abuse of the taxpayers’ treasure or trust can be overlooked, no matter how small.
I look forward to watching as more details of how the government has spent and misspent trillions of dollars in the past few years see the light of day. Even if President Trump loses in court, these things are in the public record now. Attempts to obfuscate or deny the data would likely need to be based on assertions that the data, provided by the government itself, is incorrect. I don’t see those who profit from the illusion that the government is good at what it does asserting that the government isn’t keeping accurate books.
As time goes on, we need to convince the Congress to change or create laws to prevent the knot President Trump is cutting through from being retied. Like I said during the Obama years, if you live by the executive order, you will die by the executive order. Republicans won’t be in charge forever, and a legal basis for challenging reconstruction of the federal bureaucracy needs to be built now.
Congress must pass laws preventing what we’re seeing at USAID and will inevitably come to light in the rest of the federal government, as well as prohibiting the bureaucracy from becoming as Byzantine and opaque as it is now. A ban on grants to organizations at all connected to politics, accounting and auditing requirements, and a publicly searchable database of all federal expenditures, updated at least quarterly, would be a good start.
Give the American people the ability to oversee what’s going on in the government, and the geeks amongst us will show us the meaning of haste as they fold, spindle, and mutilate the data. Counting coup when finding someone abusing power or pubic trust, no matter which side of the political spectrum the watcher and watched are on, should be celebrated.
In the meantime, I’m off to write a quick missive to my congresscritters, encouraging them to support the drawing and quartering of the federal bureaucracy.
Posted by daddybear71 on February 6, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/02/06/a-good-start/
Rumblings
- Last week, I posted about crossing both the Red River of the North between North Dakota and Minnesota and the Red River between Oklahoma and Texas.
- Imagine my surprise when I crossed the Sabine and Pearl Rivers multiple times apiece on the same day.
- Whoever designed the roads in Texas and Louisiana needs to report for ‘random’ drug testing.
- The city fathers of Houston need to be told that the 2020 census is over. They can stop blocking travelers on the freeway in an attempt to pump up their numbers for representation.
- Not sure what’s going on with Houston, but my car was relatively clean when I started across that city, but was so dirty when I got to the other side that windshield washing fluid wasn’t able to cut through the grime. Had to pay a tithe to Buccees and go through the world’s longest car wash in order to see out my back window again.
- For some reason, after directing me to drive directly across Houston, the magical elf box in the car advised me to get off of I-10 and drive around Beaumont, Texas. This put me on a path through Port Arthur and other out of the way spots.
- Not complaining, mind you. It was good to break the monotony and see somewhere I’d never been.
- I do have to ask, though: How bad is traffic in Beaumont that I got warned off, but Houston was tolerable to the navigation software?
- While sitting in the traffic jam across the Mississippi River, I noticed that the bridge was humming and moving rather rhythmically. Problem was that my side of traffic wasn’t moving, and the other side of traffic was moving intermittently. I’m still not sure what caused the bridge to move like that, but I’m glad I got across before I found out.
- While driving across America’s heartland, you see the unfortunate remains of animals being struck by traffic. On this trip, deer were most common. Occasionally, I saw a coyote frozen to the side of the road. In Oklahoma, I saw several armadillos, which was probably not good for whatever hit it. Heck, in Texas I saw a HUGE wild pig whose final resting place was tastefully decorated with pieces of a Toyota.
- Nothing, however, will ever compare to the eldritch abominations I saw on the elevated sections of the highway in Louisiana. I’m pretty sure they were mammals at once time, because they tended to be at least a little fuzzy, but other than that, I can’t figure out their taxonomy.
- As part of my trip, I pledged to get the Young Prince a few tee shirts as souvenirs. I was ‘advised’ to not get him college tee shirts, especially anything from Southeastern Conference sports teams, by She Who Shall Not Be Named. Apparently, she still bleeds Kentucky Wildcat blue to some degree.
- So, anyway, Boo got tee shirts from LSU, Auburn, Texas A&M, and the University of Texas.
- I may need a safe house for a couple of weeks. Any offers?
Posted by daddybear71 on February 5, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/02/05/rumblings-21/
Once awoken, twice wrathful
Instapundit links to this series of posts over on Twitter/X:
We told you to leave us alone.
We didn’t want to get too political.
We didn’t want to get too involved.
But you made us.
You went after our kids, our jobs, our money, and our lives.
You made us care.
Remember?
Well this *waves hand* is our response.
Enjoy the bed you made.
Most Americans just want to be left alone. They want to do their jobs, raise their kids, and enjoy their lives. They have vague, at best, political thoughts, and those only bubble to the surface every few years.
They pay attention to local issues, especially those that touch either them or someone they care about. If it happens outside their circle, they might take a few moments out of their day to drop a coin in the donation box at the checkout or make a meal to go to a family in crisis.
But then they want to go back to the daily grind of employment, church, school, and family.
In short – They do not want to be disturbed. They do not want to be inconvenienced. Most of all, they do not want to care. They pay other people to care. They trust other people to care.
Where politicians have messed up in the past decade or so is that they insisted that people care about national and worldwide issues.
Don’t care that some folks can’t get health insurance that is as good as the government thinks they should? Well, now you’re forced to care because the government is telling your insurance company who it has to cover and what it has to cover. Enjoy the decreased coverage and higher premiums.
Don’t care about a war on the other side of the world? Well, the government is going to make you care because money that could have been spent on something closer to home, if at all, is going to be going that way, along with quite likely that nice young man down the road who joined the military a couple years ago. Enjoy the sound of Taps playing out across your local graveyard.
Don’t care how other people are raising their kids because you have your hands full trying to raise your own kids right? Well, the government is going to make you care because it’s going to glorify the most depraved thing you can think of when it comes to children, and then it’s going to teach your kids that depravity is OK. Oh, and don’t tell your parents, little ones, because they’re big meanies. Enjoy the underage drag shows and sterilization of gay teenagers.
So, slowly at first, then all at once, we started to care. The problem for our elected servants is that when we start to care, we go from “Huh?” to “How dare you?” to “I can’t tell you what we’re going to do, but we’re going to need a shovel, some plastic sheeting, and a roll of duct tape.” right quick.
For those playing at home, this is the same mistake the Japanese and Germans made in 1941. We seriously could not have cared less about the wars in Europe and Asia, until somebody bombed us and then one of their friends decided to join in on the fun. After we stopped the bleeding, we proceeded to rip out the problem on both sides of the world, root and branch. In the end, we emasculated two cultures that had thousands of years of martial spirit by pulling that spirit out through their belly buttons.
Now, after taking insults and threats, liberally sprinkled with actual harm done to us, since 2009, the American middle has awoken, rubbed the sleep from its eyes, and has decided to bring hell to breakfast over the whole mess.
Enjoy the next few years. I would suggest praying that this burns out before we finish cleansing the country with fire.
Posted by daddybear71 on February 4, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/02/04/once-awoken-twice-wrathful/
Hotel Review – Courtyard Marriott, Baton Rouge
I’ve been doing a bit of traveling lately, and last night I decided to end my day in beautiful Baton Rouge, Louisiana. After having travelled through the garden spot of Port Arthur, Baton Rouge looked like heaven, even considering the traffic jam on the rickety bridge across the Mississippi.
I picked one of my go-to hotel chains and found an affordable room at the Courtyard Marriott. Here are my thoughts on the hotel:
- When choosing where to put a hotel, you would think that either convenient access from the interstate that runs directly behind the hotel or easy access to great food and entertainment would be considered. Honestly, in the best of worlds, you’d have both. In this case, I got neither. It took 15 minutes of slight right turns and roundabouts to get to the parking lot after I left the interstate. This parking lot is deceptively easy to miss, as it adjoins a neighboring Residence Inn and a mysterious building with neon lighting but no signage, but has no connection to them. After checking in (more on that to come), I cleaned up and searched for local cuisine to enjoy. To my disappointment, I could either walk over to the Texas Roadhouse (a fine establishment with good food, but I was hoping for something I couldn’t get in Louisville) or a drive to the nearby mall to sample their wares. I stretched my legs and got a chicken Caesar salad at the Texas Roadhouse.
- If the location isn’t perfect, at least the staff should be friendly and helpful. The best I can say about the ladies at the front desk last night was that they were present. When they noticed that my driver’s license was from Kentucky, they asked about how cold it was up there, why I wasn’t there now, and what I was doing in Louisiana. I remarked that I was just passing through, it was 20 degrees colder in San Antonio that morning, and it was just beautiful and 75 degrees here in Baton Rouge. After being informed that “Sir, this is the South”, I was given a keycard to the room furthest from both the lobby and elevator in this half-full hotel.
- After a long day on the road, I thought a shower would be good before getting dinner. As expected in a hotel, the water in the tub went from ‘Lapland’ to ‘Hades’, with little room in the middle for ‘survivable’. I found something on the hot side of survivable, cleaned up, and then made my way out through the fog bank that had built up because the bathroom fan was inoperative.
- After schlepping up to my room, cleaning up, and going out for dinner, I returned to my room and prepared for bed. Being unconscious was the highlight of my stay. The mattress had lumps in just the right places for me to stretch out and get a few hours of sleep.
- That sleep, however, was interrupted when I woke up at 4 AM to a chill and a large amount of noise. Checking the window, I found a half inch gap in the window, allowing in the cool Louisiana air and the sound of semi’s making their way down I-10. This was accentuated by the sound of wind coming from the miniature refrigerator, which I am not ashamed to say I was not brave enough to investigate. I’m having enough of an adventure, thank you very much, and I don’t need to be swept into white-trash Narnia through the dorm fridge.
- After a couple of hours of trying to get back to sleep, I decided to just get on the road. My morning shower was, at best, tepid, as apparently all of the hot water in Louisiana had been used already. During my hose down with weak tea water, I noticed that the vinyl shower enclosure was in need of either replacement or a good scrubbing with detergent normally used to clean up crime scenes. I’m guessing housekeeping can’t use anything too harsh, as the old toothpaste used to caulk the seams would probably let go and injure someone. At least the towels were scratchy.
Overall, if you’re looking for somewhere to stay in Baton Rouge, might I suggest Alabama?
Posted by daddybear71 on January 30, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/01/30/hotel-review-courtyard-marriott-baton-rouge/
Rumblings
- I had an adventure in temperature and weather swings this week.
- It was 40 degrees and raining in Kentucky when I climbed in the car.
- It was -20 degrees and blowing snow drifts across the highway when I drove across North Dakota going west.
- It was 30 degrees and snowing sideways when I drove across North Dakota driving east.
- It was almost 50 degrees and sunny when I pulled into the hotel parking lot in Texas
- Ouch, my joints
- Driving is just a series of decisions.
- Do I pass the semi that is going 1 mile under the speed limit when there is a state trooper behind me?
- Do I slow down and put on my caution blinkers when the snow storm swirls so bad I can’t see the two semis in front of me anymore?
- Do I stop in Omaha after a nice day driving across America’s heartland, or do I test my manhood and go another 3 hours just to show I can?
- Do I listen to political podcasts to wile away the hours, or do I blast 80’s rock and sing along at the top of my lungs for 300 miles?
- Crossing the Red River of the North to get gas in Minnesota because I missed the exit in Fargo and don’t want to lose time by going back, then crossing the Red River to go from Oklahoma to Texas 24 hours later was kind of surreal.
- It’s all fun and games until you zip your beard into your jacket.
- Note to self – being smart and laying out an extra sweatshirt to wear in the car so you don’t have to wear your jacket while driving only works if you remember to pick up the sweatshirt before leaving the house.
- Supplementary note – Truck stop sweatshirts are quite pricy and smell sort of funny.
- Note to the Wendy’s in South Dakota – Hamburger buns aren’t supposed to be crunchy.
Posted by daddybear71 on January 24, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/01/24/rumblings-20/
Rumblings
- Today marks the 2 week mark after leaving my day job. Been keeping myself busy doing little projects around the house, digging out from the snow storms, and cooking.
- Started the job search already. Not a lot out there yet, but I don’t have to grab the first thing that comes along, either. Worst case scenario, I find something ‘good enough’ in February or March, and continue the search.
- For now, it’s good to just decompress and get myself together. It’s been the better part of a decade since I had much spare time and energy.
- Dinner tonight is glazed ham, country-style green beans (onions and ham, slow cooked), home-made macaroni and cheese, and gingerbread made with fresh grated ginger for dessert.
- I’m currently sitting in the living room, looking out on the snowbanks, and trying not to EAT ALL THE THINGS BECAUSE THE HOUSE SMELLS DELICIOUS.
- Cooking and baking has always been something I enjoy. Heck, even doing the dishes and folding the laundry has been nice for the past couple of weeks. Not sure I could do this forever, but being a temporary house-husband for a couple of months might just be the therapy I need.
- Me not working is taking some getting used to. There are these two people who live in the same house as me, and one of them looks a heck of a lot like me. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them somewhere before.
- They’re having to get used to seeing me outside of runs to the coffee pot and microwave.
- The dogs, on the other hand, think this is great. They get hot and cold running pat-pats, treats at least two times a day, and even the occasional nap while I putter around the hours.
- My sense of humor is returning, as is my ability to write more than a few words at once. It’s an amazing what not staring at a computer screen and talking on the phone for 10 to 14 hours a day, coupled with more than four hours of sleep a night, will do.
Posted by daddybear71 on January 15, 2025
https://daddybearsden.com/2025/01/15/rumblings-19/
DaddyBear
DaddyBear’s Den 