Since it’s early autumn and there were no big SEC football games during the afternoon, the wife and I thought we’d spend some time in the mountains. We recently climbed the Lookout Tower at Frying Pan Mountain in the Pisgah National Forest. Black Balsam Knob Mountain is about ten miles farther south on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and Skinny Dip Falls is a popular area about three miles down the valley from the mountain top.
Pretty much everyone should have heard about Netflix’s customer service train wreck. Universities will cover this case study in business classes for the next generation. Shares of the company have slid around 40% since the CEO announced plans to split the DVD mail order and online streaming into separate services with separate billing. This comic strip pretty much sums up customer sentiment.
Some days are ordinary. Other days are extraordinary. Yesterday was what I refer to as a bookmark day.
The wife and I wanted to get outside this weekend, but the heat and mosquitoes make it difficult to do too much during the day. So we decided to visit the walking trails at nearby Conestee Park early on Saturday morning. At some point in the near future, the Swamp Rabbit Trail will connect with the Conestee Trails and the area will be filled with bikers, hikers and dog walkers. But for now, the area is pretty dead. The way I see it, that’s a feature and not a bug.
I bought myself an acoustic guitar for an early birthday present. In an odd coincidence, I just found out that a couple of my oldest friends just started playing within the last few months as well. It must be part of a ⅓-life crisis or something. Anyway, I’m afraid that if I store it in a hard-shell case, it’ll become a pain to get out and put back up. So I decided to make a little stand to keep the guitar conveniently at hand.
I’ve had the same old bedspread since my freshman year in college. It’s pretty faded and tattered to say the least. Since getting married, I’ve never been allowed to let guests know it exists, much less see it, kind of like Zelda from Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. So the wife took it upon herself to make me a new blanket for my birthday.
I like a plump, rare hamburger as much as the next guy, but sometimes I’m in the mood for a well-browned griddle burger. As regular readers know, I occasionally grind my own meat for sausages, shepherd’s pie and meatloaf. A lot of hamburger lovers insist that you need to grind your own beef for burgers to ensure that the patty doesn’t become too compressed. I’ve never really found that to be the necessary for traditional, grilled hamburgers. But when it comes to griddle burgers, it’s an essential step.
I started the “Slow Carb” diet explained in Timothy Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Body, at the beginning of April. I weighed in at around 190 pounds with a BMI of 30. The diet is not designed to be fun, but rather to “hack” your metabolism and trick it into burning fat for everyday energy. I followed the diet guidelines to the letter for two months. Over that time period, I lost around ten pounds of fat and an inch or two on my waist. I plateaued around 180 pounds for a few weeks before starting to lose a little more weight, albeit much more slowly than I had previously done. The key to getting past the plateau was learning proper portion control, which I had never paid attention to before. At the beginning if July, after about 100 days on the diet, I weighed in at 175 pounds with a BMI of 26. So, what did I learn?
As you probably already know, I have an incredibly creative and talented wife. She’s into arts and crafts of all kinds, but mostly sewing and pottery. She even has her own website at ElizabethChandlerDesigns.com and a Project Blog where she posts pictures of her latest designs. Recently, she’s shifted gears from custom orders to pre-made items and has built up an inventory. She’s selling everything through an Etsy Shop.
This is the best time of year to make Caprese salad. I have a farmers’ market a half-mile from my house and they have so many varieties of tomatoes in varying stages of ripeness right now. I always hate how the oil and vinegar in Caprese salad drips below the sliced tomatoes, so I make a chopped version that can be tossed to coat the tomatoes.
