Last month, Laura and I had the great fortune to attend a lecture by Ken Burns at Belmont University, in Nashville. Many thanks to Asheley R. for arranging awesome seats right up front and for letting us know about it in the first place. The lecture was fascinating to say the least, in fact it was so amazing that I will not even attempt to report on it, as I am sure that I cannot begin to do it justice. One thing I will say, Mr. Burns packs an incredible amount of information into a lecture. First off he speaks very rapidly, which requires you to pay attention just to catch all of the words, never mind processing those words. Secondly, there is no filler, he spoke for an hour and it was all substantial, simply amazing.   Just listening to his prepared lecture was treat enough, but he was just getting started.

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The other night we had several friends over to the house to work on a secret project of little importance to national security.  It was suggested that full people = happy people, so we decided to provide some sustenance.  This was a great opportunity for the Laura I married and I to try the recipe that the Laura I did not marry gave us for real Louisiana Red Beans & Rice.  We know this is an authentic recipe ’cause the Laura I did not marry is from Thibodaux and is certified Cajun.  The Laura I married put this together and it was awesome, so I asked and received permission from the Laura I did not marry to post it here.  So if you are not too confused by all these Laura’s yet, give it a try.

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At the behest of several friends, I threw my hat into the political ring this year by announcing my candidacy for the office of President of the united States of America.  There are several reasons that I agreed to participate:

1. I love this great country of ours and I feel that public service is a patriotic duty.
2. This is the first election in which I am constitutionally eligible to participate as a candidate, having only recently passed the age of 35.
3. I feel strongly that I am at least as well qualified as my esteemed opponents to bungle the handling of the current and any forthcoming crises.
4. Uncertain times call for uncertain leadership, and while my leadership style is erratic at best, I would guarantee I would certainly be more fun than the other guys..
5. I have always wanted my own secret service detail and motorcade.
6. Like my esteemed opponents, I too am an attention whore.

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I went off to college to study Pre-Law and Psychology and that went fairly well, until that fateful day when I noticed an audition call on the board at the Student Union.  Although, I had done high-school drama, I had never considered myself an actor or artist, but a buddy talked me into going with him and I ended up getting the part.  A couple of years later I found myself with several shows under my belt making a living in professional theatre as an actor and designer.  A few years later and I was doing design work for big clients and making a living as an “artist”, still doing some acting, but mostly designing.  Fast forward ten years, when my sister-in-law points out an item in the local paper that a new theatre group is having auditions for Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town”, and I suddenly realize I haven’t trod the boards in a very long time…

Two weeks later, I am on the poster and deep into rehearsals to play the part I have always loved, The Stage Manager.

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I get asked for this recipe all the time, so in the interest of making my life easier, I figured I would post it here.  This is a great appetizer that is super simple to make.  It is perfect for entertaining at home or to carry along to hoiliday parties, etc.  You can make everything ahead of time and then heat it up just before your guests arrive, or if you have a long trip to your destination you can keep it in a cooler and heat it up after you arrive.  We also use this one for tailgating at football games, just prep it in an aluminum dish and heat it up on the grill.

CAPTAIN RODNEY’S CHEESE BAKE

1/2 cup mayonnaise
One 8 oz pack cream cheese
2 cups grated cheddar cheese
2 green onions (chopped)
6 Ritz crackers (crushed)
8 slices bacon (cooked and crumbled)
1/2 cup of any Captain Rodney’s Glaze

Mix mayonnaise, cream cheese, cheddar and onions in greased pie pan.  Top with crackers and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.  Top with bacon and any Captain Rodney’s Glaze.  Serve with crackers, I prefer Ritz.

Most folks use Captain Rodney’s Sweet & Spicy Glaze on this, but I am awful fond of his Sweet Garlic Grilling Glaze or the Lime Ginger glaze, it doesn’t matter though it is good with any of them.

Last December I had the honor of being chosen as the final interview of the year for the Cache-a-Maniacs podcast.  We set things up and one night last November we talked for about an hour about my experiences geocaching.  It was interesting to get to tell some of the stories first hand, but what was really great was the incredible response I got from it.  I was truly amazed at how many people listened to the podcast and contacted me directly to comment on it.  I have also been surprised to find that as we travel the country attending Geo-events, just how many people introduce themselves and compliment the interview.  I have to give all the credit to DarrylW4 and Firefly03 who host the podcast, they did a great job of making me sound like I knew what I was talking about.  So many thanks to them for the interview and for hosting this great podcast.  Rather than having me type on and on about how much I enjoyed this, and how great it was, why not check it out  yourself, and after you listen to me ramble, check out some of the other interviews, there is some great stuff in there.

Cache-a-Maniacs Podcast, Episode 55- Monkeybrad

I am a big fan of abandoned places and I love to explore them.  If you sit quietly in an old building you can almost feel the echoes of the events that happened there.  I often wonder what happened to make people leave, how were they able to abandon an often beautiful structure and leave it to the mercy of the elements.   Weekend before last we had the great pleasure to visit the geocache, Korn Grain Co. about 20 miles west of Erin, Tennessee.  As we approach the season of the witch, I thought I would share some of my photographs.  I desaturated them and blew out the highlights to give them an artsy, pretentious feel.  This will hopefully convince you that I am a deeply sensitive, tortured artist.

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This is a teaser we created for an incredibly complex cache by TOM Creative Group called The Key to the Cryptonomicon.  It truly is the next step in the evolution of mystery caches.

This time we started with a 2-inch aluminum blank and focused on building a pot stand that would pack well, was very light but sturdy and that would work on less than perfectly level surfaces. After several failed attempts we came up with this:

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I made a couple of the pot stands/windscreens for my alcohol stove last week, with the help of RobertLipe, FullCt and PPPorch, so I thought I would share. These are pretty rough, as I did not have the patience to do nice finish work on the prototypes, it may also have something to do with the Guinness cans we were emptying that night as well.

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