“Grill” Pickle

Man was meant to grill.  From the first time a caveman noticed that banging two rocks together would create a spark, meat has been cooked outdoors over an open flame.  There are few things in life that match the serenity of standing in front of a blazing hot grill – chrome plated tongs in one hand, ice-cold beer in the other.

Unfortunately, in the apartment complex where I live, grills are illegal.  While I understand the safety concerns for fire danger in a building that houses many residents, outlawing grilling altogether is ridiculous!  Being a law-abiding citizen, I have refrained from buying a grill and breaking the rules.  However, the grilling alternatives have not been working out for me.

First, I tried to use a cast iron grill pan.  While the food didn’t cook all the way through, it did blacken it thoroughly.  I also found that cast iron is damn-near impossible to clean.  The food had charred onto the pan and no amount of “non-abrasive” scrubbing would  get it off.  I used that pan once… and threw it away.

My wife bought me a sweet teflon grill pan/griddle combo for Father’s Day.  First time I tried it out, I smoked up the whole apartment and charred the grill, again.  While it was one of the best steaks I’ve ever made, once again I was unable to get the burned carbon off the grill pan.  I tried scrubbing it, soaking it in soapy water, even soaking it in salty water (which I read about online) and nothing worked.  I was able to get the grill fairly “clean” though, so I decided to try to use it again last night. BIG MISTAKE!  Twenty minutes later my food was cooked, but the entire apartment smells like smoke, the smoke alarms were going off, and the pan was ruined beyond repair.

While many will be quick to criticize my grilling abilities, I cannot for the life of me figure out what went wrong.  I made sure the pans were good and hot, which is supposed to make them naturally non-stick.  I used some oil as an added precaution.  I don’t get it.

As I see it I have two options, either give up on the grilling altogether… or smuggle a grill into my apartment.  If that means a whole summer without steaks or burgers, start watching the police blotters for my name and have bail money ready!

The Smelly Chair Saga

My family is in a state of transition.  While I’ve relocated to Texas since the beginning of the year, my family remains in Denver so the girls can finish school and we can sell my damn house.  Maintaining two households has been interesting to say the least.

My wife has packed up at least a third of our belongings and tucked them away out of sight in storage.  If you’ve never listed a house, the first thing the realtor will tell you is stage the house to look bigger – by removing all your stuff.  This had my wife a little cranky because they still have to live there. 

In the meantime, I’m renting a one-bedroom apartment.  Even though I have a house-full of furniture and stuff… it’s still in my house.  This leaves me with an air mattress to sleep on, a camp chair to sit on, and a lot of empty space.  Even though my wife is very against me buying anything for my apartment, (because it’ll be just added ‘stuff’ when we’re all together again) I decided I needed a comfortable chair to sit on.  Buying something new was both cost prohibitive and likely to get me divorced, so I scouted Craigslist.

Craigslist.org is supposed to be like an online city-wide garage sale, but often people have a seriously inflated sense of what their stuff is worth.  I made calls on several items and eventually found a chair that looked nice, was the right price and the person was even willing to drop it off.  “Score!”  As I’m loading the chair into my apartment, this person says, “In the interest of full disclosure, there was a coffee spill under the cushion that we attempted to clean and it’s still a little damp.  You should probably leave the cushion off overnight.”  I think “no big deal”, pay them and send them on their way.  One day goes by, still damp. Two days go by still damp.  The third day not only do I notice that it’s still a bit damp… I’ve also begun to notice a smell.  Undaunted, I make a run to the store and pick up some Febreeze.  I spend the next two days alternating between spraying the foul chair with Febreeze, and letting it air out.  I also think that perhaps the seller was speaking in code and “coffee spill” actually meant “cat pee”.  At this point, dis-stink-tly UNhappy.  However, what am I to do?  The chair was cheap, I bought it as it, and I’m stuck with it.

I eventually got the offensive odor relatively under control.  The only problem I have now is that I’ve hosed it down with so much Febreeze, I smell like a flowery old lady when I sit on it.  I guess it beats sitting on the floor.

Face-ing The Facts

I get a kick out of Facebook. It’s fun to reconnect with old friends and make new ones. I like reading through the Live Feed and finding out what’s on everyone’s minds. My hometown has discovered Facebook within the last year or so. Quite a few of my old classmates are on and many of us have reconnected. It’s fun to find out what everyone is up to and go through their photo galleries to see what their kids look like.

I find the “Suggestions” area to be somewhat suspect, though. Surprisingly, just because someone I know has a sister who has a co-worker who was tagged in a photo at a bachelor party with someone who also is a fan of Tim McGraw… does not mean we’re friends. The funny thing is because so many of my former classmates are on Facebok, three of the biggest d-bags in my high school have somehow managed to get FB pages and they keep popping up in my “Friend Suggestion” box.

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but if you delete those people, they keep showing back up. It’s like an omen. “You will ‘friend’ these people and you will like it!” No thanks. I went to a relatively small high school. There were about 180-190 kids in my class and I would say I at least got along with all but three of them… you guessed it, the three that keep showing up on FB.

Does Facebook have a “guy”, like that dude Tom on MySpace that I can write? Everyone wants a Dislike button? Forget that. I want a D-Bag button on the Friend Suggestion box so that if you click it, they go away forever. Who’s with me?

Making a Crockery of Me

My wife and I have come to an impasse.  We have a simple rule at our house.  If one of us cooks, the other one cleans up.  Now I’d say my wife cooks 90% of the time, which has me doing dishes the majority of the time.  I have no problem with this arrangement.

What I do take issue with is that during the time that I’m not home – when I’m not using any dishes or eating any food – all those dishes get piled up and left for me.  Most of the time, I just do them without complaint.  After a particularly messy group of pans, including a crusty crock pot ended up left for me, I decided to take in-action.  I did all the dishes and cleaned up everything EXCEPT the crock pot, which I left in the sink.

It’s been three days and so far neither of us is budging.

My resolve is weakening though… it grosses me out.  Plus I really wanted to make pulled pork this weekend.

Halloween Headache

Scary prices make me feel wicked!  So my girls Halloween costume parties are coming up at their respective schools.  This means it’s time to take out the annual loan to go and purchase new costumes.  While Halloween in general in one of my favorite holidays of the year, this ritual is one of my least favorites.

First there is the cost.  Can you find a more cheaply made product in the entire world than a Halloween costume?  Polyester or that flimsy plastic crap fabric, every corner cut possible.  And all this shoddy workmanship can be yours for a mere… FIFTY BUCKS?  You can put $49.99 on the package, but it’s still Fifty bucks!  I spent an hour last night trying to convince my 12 year old daughter that the discounted $20 Batman costume was cool, to no avail.

And what perv designs these things?  My girls are 8 and 12.  The costumes for the 8 year old are ok, but for the tween?  Hello! or should I say Hell-no!  Every costume is slutty.  Low cut tops and micro-mini skirts.  Don’t get me wrong, at a bar costume party I’d be all about it… but not for my kid.  She’s 5’2″, so she fits into a junior medium or a ladies small.  Apparently you have to be a DD to fill out the tops, though.  Seriously? 

Well, $90 later the greek goddess and zombie prom queen are all set to go.  I’ll have to seek my reimbursement in trick or treat candy.

Child-ish Behavior

We’re Foodies at my house.  All four of us like watching the Food Network and eating at good restaurants.  We love trying new recipes and even cooking things together.  Up until now, this has seemed harmless enough.  Well, my wife and oldest daughter went to see “Julie & Julia” last week and it’s beginning to cost me a fortune.

The movie itself:
Movie Tickets – $18
Popcorn & Sodas – $25

Then my wife needed to have Julia Child’s book:
Mastering the Art of French Cooking – $40

The book says the most important thing is a set of excellent cutlery, so off to the store for that:
Chef knife set – $200

What’s next, Culinary School?
Culinary Arts tuition – $28,017
Pastry and Baking Arts tuition – $26,334
Culinary Management Diploma program – $12,900

So, that’ll run me around $70 grand! Trust me; I won’t need a whole table-full of chopped onions to make me cry.  In fact, my eyes are starting to sting right now.

Grilled to Perfection

For those of you new to the Jesse & Shotgun radio show, I have troubles with my grill. It is not that I have trouble with cooking food outdoors; I just physically have problems with my current grill. Let me explain. My gas grill is probably 5-7 years old. Everything is in relatively good working order, but it’s a cheap grill… and open all around the bottom. Couple that with the fact that it’s almost always windy here in Colorado and my stupid grill doesn’t even get hot enough to brown brats. It’s pathetic. For that reason alone, I do not grill nearly as often as every man should. There have been many days I’ve gone out to fire up the grill… waited… and ended up cooking my food some other way. I actually once, I hate to admit, BAKED a STEAK! Sad, but true.

After the humbling steak incident, I went to Target and bought a $40 George Foreman electric grill. That decision has lead to much ribbing and torment on the morning show. Jesse also has issues with my “meat fork” because it has an electric meat thermometer and “no self-respecting male should have to check the temperature of the meat” for doneness. He also thinks my pigtail flipper is “wussy”. I stand by the pigtail. It’s awesome!

Well, further proof that I am married to the most wonderful woman in the world… my wife said that for Father’s Day (and our 15th anniversary-which are two weeks apart) I could buy myself a new grill. I’m so PUMPED! Being the nerdy guy that I am, I spent the last week visiting grill stores and doing research online. I decided on an infrared grill, because they heat evenly, burn a third less propane and heat up quickly. It’s really sweet and even has a place to add wood chips for smoking. Whoo-hoo! I went and picked it up yesterday. I wanted to get the one that was already put together, but it wouldn’t fit in the minivan… so I got one in the box. I took it home and put it together in my garage. At one point, my neighbor Tom came over to check on me because he’d “been watching me work on the grill for five hours” and thought I might need some help. LOL.

Amy went to the store to get some steaks as I was in the final stretches of putting it together and just as I was wheeling it onto the patio in the back yard… it started to downpour.

I can’t win.

When Life gives you Lemons

I buy them on the car lot.  If there is a gene that men have that make them good at selecting vehicles, it is missing in me.  I have a long history of buying cars that end up being money pits. Let’s review…

First car: (Jr. year of high school – 1988)’78 Ford Pinto station wagon.  My dad still says I bought it because it had a good stereo.  LOL.  I replaced the radiator three times, new transmission, alternator, and one time I was duct-taping a hose in some farmers driveway.

Chevy Malibu – when the transmission went out in the Pinto, I got the Malibu from my dad.  I had it less than six months and had to replace the engine!  Then two weeks later, the clutch went out. I drove it 70 miles back to my dad’s house in 2nd gear.

AMC Eagle – I bought this off a lot.  I thought I did really well.  First time I brought it home… dad said the “ticking” I didn’t think anything of… was rod knock.  Less than a year later, it was seized up in my driveway.  I sold it for scrap to the junkyard for $35.

Then I bought a couple cars from my father-in-law which were good…

Buick Regal – my favorite car ever.
Chevy Celebrity – ugly but ran well.
Buick Century – great car, I had this for a few months and my father-in-law traded me for a Jeep Cherokee.

Jeep Cherokee – my first truck.  I decided at this point I was a truck man. It had some weird engine troubles which cost me several hundred over the three years I drove it. I wrecked this one.  So I bought my wife a Chevy Blazer and started driving her car… a Geo Prism.

I drove the Prism for another year, before I had to have another truck and bought…

Ford Explorer – This was another money pit. New clutch, brake rotors, broken blend door, and some engine gasket got me in almost three grand deep in two years.

Jeep Wrangler – Everybody has the car they always want to own, for me it was a Wrangler.  I had it for a year (until last Saturday).  In that year, I had to replace the clutch and transmission; I snapped off the blinker switch so the wiper washer didn’t work; the blend door was broken (2nd car in a row); and finally, the heat went out and the locking gas cap busted!

Over the weekend, I bought a ’01 Jeep Grand Cherokee.  It runs well, has moderate mileage, leather interior and power everything… and I even got a decent price!  I thought I did great, until I got in this morning and found out that the heater doesn’t work. (3rd vehicle in a row!) Thankfully the dealership is fixing it today.

Morale of the story: If you need someone to come along when you go car shopping… lose my number.

Bad Advice

So a few weeks ago Jesse was gone and the rest of us were talking about Facebook.  I had mentioned that I really like reconnecting with friends from high school and college…and I do!  It’s fun to find out what people have been doing for the past 20 years, see pictures of their families, relive old memories, etc.

The discussion centered on who you “friend” and who you don’t.  A friend of mine from high school sent me a “friend suggestion”, which is where you suggest to someone that they add a mutual friend. The suggestion was for my high school girlfriend.  We were together for about four years from high school to college.  To say it ended badly would be an understatement, but I was under the impression we had made nice at least to the point where we were still friends.  I had left the request alone for a few weeks at the point of our conversation.  Had she sent me a friend request, I would accept – being the good guy that I am.  But if I sent the request, it would put me out there in an uncomfortable place.  I discussed it with the rest of the show, and Amanda and Chuck said yes send it… intern Ty said not to.

I went with the consensus and sent the friend request.  That was two weeks ago.  Today I was writing something on a different classmate’s wall and saw the ex-girlfriend’s picture in her friend’s column, so I checked the status. She has not accepted my friend request.  So, now I look like a tool.  This especially stinks because as high school sweethearts, we hung out with all the same people.  I should have just gone with my gut (and Ty’s advice) and just deleted it.

The moral of the story… don’t follow Amanda’s advice.

Qwest for Service

Over 165 countries are connected to the Internet. The number grows everyday, but it is estimated that approximately 47.5 million people use the Internet in the US alone.  We are all connected in one way or another to the information we get online, whether it’s sports scores, weather information or movie times.

I try to claim that “it’s for work”, but I’m online probably at least three to four hours a day.  Checking emails, reading gossip blogs, updating facebook, etc.  So this weekend was especially painful when my internet service was down ALL WEEKEND.  I actually had to spend time talking to my wife and kids!  Seriously though, everyone expects to get a blip in service from time to time, but for two solid days is ridiculous.  I finally got on the phone with their service people yesterday from their pleasant call center overseas and after almost an hour on the phone she informed me that after double-checking my address that there was an outage in my area that was as yet unresolved.  That’s a crock of bull.  Fix the damn thing!

As of this morning, still no internet service at my house.  My first call to the service department was pleasant.  They won’t want to hear from me today!

Facebook status: “Shotgun is- a little past irritated”