The summer heat is upon us and what better way to celebrate than to have a BBQ. In all honesty, I started barbecuing before the summer officially started but who cares, summer is here and that’s all that counts.
For many years I have been using gas systems for the BBQ because it’s convenient. But as of last year I have been using more and more of the charcoal variety instead of the gas and what a difference it makes. It took me a bit of getting used but once I got the knack of it there was not stopping me.
Got myself one of those kettle style grills and yes I could have gone nuts and bought myself one of those mega large kettles but I’m not grilling for a team so why bother. Besides, I want to get my grilling down before splurging.
If you have never barbecued on a kettle grill then I suggest that you go out and try it. There are a few models that can be found cheap at the hardware stores and it does the job well, it doesn’t have to be one of the more popular ones like weber, big green egg or old smokey. Once you get the hang of it then go on and have yourself a real grilling party. I found that it really helps to use a chimney when dealing with briquettes and charcoal, it makes it that much easier. If you’re not sure what I mean by chimney then do a bit of research and find out. If you don’t want to research it then I’ll tell you.
A chimney is basically a metal pipe (think stove pipe) with a handle that has space at the bottom for some flammable material, like paper and the top portion is filled with briquettes and charcoal. You basically light the paper at the bottom and it will create a ton of smoke for a brief while and in a few minutes you get hot coals! Grab it by the handle and not the body. You can also check out the embedded video below.
So what should I grill? Everything! I like the usual suspects when it comes to grilling, steak, pork chops, chicken, veggies, kebabs of all kinds, basically whatever you want. The only thing I wouldn’t try is cake, I don’t think cake grills to well but I could be wrong, maybe I can ask the folks at America’s Test Kitchen to try it, they’ll probably find a way to make it work. Hmmm…grilled cake.
Here I was all caught up in the World Cup and the G Summit demonstrations that I forgot about the earthquake.
The quake happened after 1pm on June 23rd, I was sitting at my desk and I heard my boss make a remark about the floor shaking and sure enough, the floor was shaking. Most of us in the office just stood there with the same look on our faces, wondering if a truck was passing by or if it indeed was an earthquake. It was an earthquake. No one was in a panic but it was enough to cause a stir and sure enough the ever popular Twitter was on the move. In a matter of seconds after the tremor, there were thousands of tweets from Ann Arbor to Syracuse to Montreal to Toronto to Ottawa, you get the point. I sent a text to my sister in Toronto asking if she felt it, she did not. Funny how some people didn’t feel a thing but at the same time it’s understandable.
If you were riding in a vehicle or pedaling a bike then chances are that you wouldn’t have felt it but I figure if you were in a building or standing still then surely something would have been felt, not so for some.
Many people in the office said that it’s been a while since they felt a tremor but the last time I felt one was back in February. That one was fairly close to the house, app 35km or so and registered 3.9 on the shake-o-meter. The June 23rd quake was around 5 or 5.5 on the shake-o-meter, depending on who you ask but one thing is certain, it managed to spook many people, except for me of course.
I finished up the assembly on a kitchen cabinet for the girlfriend, it wasn’t from Ikea, hand built by yours truly, putting the woodworking skills to use. The Jazz festival started in full gear in Montreal and the FIFA World Cup was being watched at many places in the city. Of course we can’t leave out the G summit meetings in Toronto.
While the Jazz Festival entertained the people in Montreal the G Summit turned into a scene of violence and vandalism for the city of Toronto. The outcome of the Summit was not a big surprise, watching the clash between protestors and police is always a treat but in the end those protestors that are violent are the ones that get onto the news.
Here’s the thing, those protestors that are violent think they get respect and make a point by vandalizing property but in the end they don’t think. People will just see them as troublemakers and I do hope they get whatever is coming to them like becoming a new hood ornament for a Mack truck, I know I know, it’s mean. You shouldn’t have to do that to a Mack truck.
Many of these people talk the talk and protest like they do because they live in a society that tolerates it, people get angry, things get damaged, some arrests are made and then it’s over. Try that in a different part of the world where they shoot first and ask questions later, not so much protesting over there.
Anyways, the outcome of the Summit was no big surprise, so much for the billion dollar security force. I don’t think the Summit should have taken place in Toronto, too easy to access and too big to really contain. As I said, why don’t they hold it in a secret location and don’t call it the G Summit, call it something else. Hold it in a location where no one can really afford to go and where car and bus access would be difficult or impossible, one road in and one road out.
Anyways, I couldn’t watch anymore of the G Summit clashes because it was upsetting. Not as upsetting as England losing to Germany though.
If you had to describe yourself to a person with just one word what word would it be? The English language has a plethora of words so it should be possible to pick a word that best describes you. I had this conversation with a friend a while ago and of course anyone who picked a physical description like sexy, beautiful or handsome really didn’t get. Sure you can be sexy but that would be it, you’re just sexy and Kodiak’s (Ursus arctos middendorffi aka the Alaskan Grizzly) don’t care for sexy but I’m sure to them sexy people taste good. All that sexy would sure add flavor, mmm…sexy flavor. Okay, so try to pick a word and if sexy is the only thing you can come up with due to a lack of vocabulary then so be it.
One of my friends chose the word ‘oblivious’ and I wondered why but soon realized that oblivious was a good choice. Another one picked ‘rational’ and it really did not match, we did debate it for a while and then dropped the debate because it was anything but rational, my point was made. It’s funny how you think a word can define you and then realize that maybe that word may not have been the best choice. One of my friends described another friend as a ‘dog’, I said that it was an insult to the dog. It’s difficult to try and define a person with just one word because there is more to a person than just a word, unless of course that person is clueless then there is no hope.
The word that would best describe me is ‘clever’ and of course some could argue and say that ’smart ass’ maybe a better description or maybe even ‘bitter’ but I’m only bitter when people really piss me off. It’s safe to say that I’m clever 75 percent of the time compared to 5 percent of the time that I’m bitter, honest. Okay maybe 7 percent bitter, tops. As for being a smart ass, aren’t we all at some point in our life.
Acronyms, gotta love em. In this case the OMG would represent “Oh my God!” but I think it may soon stand for “Oil, Million Gallons”. Okay, it may not replace the original OMG but it was worth a shot.
All this BP oil is doing some serious damage and I along with a few friends were discussing this topic. We were kind of split half and half on the subject of oil companies being more responsible but I said that we as a society are partly to blame seeing as we are the ones who demand this stuff. It’s bad enough that we use it for our cars and other motorized toys but manufacturing uses it for other things too, think tires and the like. We have an obligation to be more responsible and limit our use of the oily stuff and not be so dependent on it. But I have to be real at the same time, it may take quite a while to achieve an alternative to oil and even then it will take some doing to convince people. As it is, many alternatives that could or should move forward are not and according to one of my friends, it’s the oil companies that prevent it from moving forward. My response was that it may not necessarily be the oil companies but industry in general but what do I know, I just work for a living.
As far as I’m concerned this whole mess in the Gulf was due to greed, it involves money so greed is in the mix there. Sure there’s other things that caused it but greed is what drove the drilling in the first place. Someone did mention to me that BP probably did not follow any environmental guidelines and that would make sense because if they had maybe they would have had a game plan to clean up the mess. No, BP is responsible for this mess and I hope that they do go belly up after they clean up their mess and I hope that those people responsible get prison time for their neglect or as one Facebook group suggested, Stuff the BP exec’s into the pipe.
I guess OMG won’t change to “Oil, Million Gallons” but that’s okay, it would probably just cause confusion, LOL :-p
