The Heirloom tomatoes are going to be ready soon. Homemade tomato coulis? Yes thank you!

Making homemade refrigerator pickled vegetables because they are low in calories, healthy to eat and most of all I just like them. This will be awesome in a couple of days. Yep.

Went for a 20 mile bike ride today, then did yard work, garden chores, etc. Made a healthy Sunday dinner. Raw Kale with garlic, lemon and goat cheese. Who knew the goat cheese would taste so good with Kale. Made a homemade quick tomato sauce with a giant organic yellow tomato, garlic, organic tomato paste and mushrooms with spinach fettuccine. I am normally not a fan of fettuccine, but this is the only pasta that I’ve found locally that’s organic and doesn’t have tons of calories for a serving.

Random sign at the car wash today. Get your car detailed and your nails done and eyebrows waxed at the same time? Looks legit.

I made a scarecrow today out of one of my fat suits. A scarecrow should be scary yeah? Damn the birds trying to eat my precious ‘maters!

This was Trigger’s collar and tags. I don’t care what people think, when she died I cried like a little girl for days. A big chunk of my heart fractured on that day and will never heal. I think I cried more for her than for my parents when they both died. I can’t replace her out of my reverence and respect for her, but I do love Clove as if he was mine. This is one of my most prized possessions.

Vegetarian mushroom stuffed tomatoes and kale lemon salad.

Cardigan weather this morning. Argyle and Mini go well together I think.

Took a drive up Palomar Mountain and went hiking in Love Valley on the Eastern side of the mountain. A nice spot that not very many people know about so we did not see anyone else all morning. There is a cool old barn when you arrive at the bottom of the trail. Lots of old junk sitting around, and some bath tubs that were once used for cattle water troughs and game guzzlers. A nice lunch in the meadow and then drove up to the observatory. I had not been in a long time but it’s pretty cool. The Mini Cooper loved the twisty winding mountain roads and it took some real restraint to drive at a reasonable speed and not scare the shit out of my passenger. I did okay I think. I had almost forgotten how cool and scenic it is up there, thanks for reminding me.

Waiting on the Mini to get it’s check up and service.

So when i was just a kid, in 6th or 7th grade I lived in this little redneck town in California called Bridgeport. We were mostly bored kids because there was really not a lot to do in the town. We liked fireworks and guns a lot, both were abundant in the town. We got the fireworks from the local Indian reservations or we made our own small pipe bombs and crap like that with materials from the fireworks. Everyone had guns so there was also a surplus of ammunition and gunpowder in every garage and shed. There was also a large military base nearby that we would pilfer items from as well. We were sort of a little terrorist squad I guess, or so we thought. The local sheriffs knew us all and were quite aware of our activities but could never really pin anything solid on us, so they just tried to scare us. It was really sort of a game as I think they were bored as hell also.

In the center of the town sits the Mono County Court House in all it’s splendor and glory. Built in 1888 and still in use today it’s the pride of the town. On the front lawn sits a cannon that was donated by a prominent local family that made a lot of money during the gold mining days. Directly across the street (which is Highway 395) sits the “Sportsmans Inn”, a sort of local bar and restaurant. There is a big monument telling the story of the cannon and how it’s “never been fired”.

We had a huge surplus of gunpowder that we had gathered from emptying blank 7.62 mm machine gun rounds that we pilfered from the local military base. We devised a plan to fire the cannon. It would be genius and we knew it would enrage the local cops to no end thereby making the game even more fun.

We had about a half pound of gunpowder, a homemade fuse made from fireworks fuzes twisted together, and an old mop to use to tamp it down. We staged all the items behind Ken’s Sporting Goods in his woodpile Three of us dressed in camouflage and blackend our faces with a burnt cork. After darkness we crept over to our stash. We slipped over the wrought iron fence and crawled to the cannon. We inserted the fuze and then dumped ALL of the gunpowder into the cannon and tamped in down with the mop. We realized we had not brought any sort of projectile so thinking quickly I grabbed a bunch of trash and we tamped that down as well.

I lit the fuze and we ran like hell to Ken’s woodpile. The cannon roared and belched out a flame about three feet long, hurling the trash across highway 395 and into the plate glass window of the Sportsmans Inn. The window shattered completely and stunned patrons stared in disbelief. The local cops harassed us for months about who fired the goddamn cannon but nobody broke and talked. It’s one of my fondest memories of that town.

This is what I used to look like compared to what I look like now. I was a gigantic 260 lb guy with a shitty diet of fast and processed food and heading upward fast. My back was totally jacked up and my ankles hurt all the time. I could not run more than half a block and I was done.

I started to go to this crazy holisitic chiropractor to have my back fixed. He got me on an eating plan (read not a diet but a lifestyle change) that was healthy foods, limited amounts of meat and dairy, no fast foods, no shitty carbs, etc. That was a little over a year ago. I’ve dropped down to 168 Lbs since then. My waist size is now a 32, My back and ankles don’t hurt anymore. I can find clothes that look good and fit well. I can ride a fixed gear bike 20 miles and am not exhausted now.

I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner. I guess the hard drinking crappy eating punk rock lifestyle was great but it fucked my health up all to hell eventually. Thank that crazy assed Doc Wayne for setting my shit straight anyway and making me see how much more enjoyable my life could be.

I still eat certain foods that might not be so great for me. I like nice restaurants and dining out (read not Denny’s or Chili’s) and will drink really good wine sometimes. I save these things for when I want to treat myself to a nice date with good company and they are an exception not a rule. Anyway if you are in the situation I was in do something about it now. It aint easy at first but the results are worth it. I want to lose about 8 more lbs and sort of maintain that size from now on.

todayinlaborhistory:

Today in labor history, June 5, 1939:  The U.S. Supreme Court rules on Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, upholding several lower courts’ rulings that Jersey City mayor Frank Hague’s ordinance banning labor meetings in public places and prohibiting the distribution of CIO literature violates the First Amendment right to freedom of assembly and is therefore unconstitutional.

I had a busy day today. Bike ride this morning, yard work, etc, no time to eat. Only had coffee all day. Made this with some stapels I had on hand. Good comfort food with a bit of class. Sauce recipe courtesy of Chelf.