I'm a Single Girl

For today, I'm alone. Steve had to drive to Phoenix (three hours away) to go to a mandatory training thing. Something that has to be renewed every year, I dunno.

And Shay's over at his dad's since I am leaving for International Waters in the morning.

What's a girl to do with herself? I'm used to cooking a full dinner, cleaning up afterward, having very little spare time to just sit and stare.....

So....

I will eat chocolate dipped in peanut butter:

A Little Friendly Competition

Out at the airport, there are three FBO stations. An FBO is Fixed Base Operator. Basically a gas station for airplanes. But some are jazzier than others, offering fancy pilot lounges, private theater rooms for pilots to use in their down-time, free food, smoothies, etc. Our airport is no exception. The beginning of the airport was in 1991, and there was one FBO. Steve's boss, Big Mike built it. He eventually sold it only to buy it back last year. In the mean time, a second FBO was built. People laughed at the idea of having two FBO's at an airport that didn't have enough business to support one. Then, a third FBO was built, by a business man who was just looking to spite the owner of the second one. Aaaaah, revenge. The most logical reason to build a million dollar facility that will never make a profit.

Over the past year, the competition has ranged from friendly to intense to downright mean. Cops have been called. Fights have erupted. Newspaper articles have been written. All the while, we have watched it all happen with a chuckle.
Steve's boss, as I mentioned earlier, Big Mike, has a lot of cash. When he decides he wants to show the airport who the big dog really is, he has the cash to do it.
So he bought a monster truck. Solely for the purpose of pissing off the other FBO's.


It worked.
The neighboring FBO, #2, decided to post some new signs nearby.


So now Big Mike is formulating his retaliation.

It's fun to be on the sidelines.

Hellooo California. Hate Your Traffic!!

I don't understand why so many people LOVE to live in California. There's not one community that has any less than 1 billion people living in it.
And they all travel to and from their destinations at exactly the same time.

But the good news is, the porno convention is coming to town! Yay!


And here's what my corrective shoes look like in heavy traffic:


Here is our reason for traveling to California this week. We were picking up a HUGE engine and dropping off one. At the HUGE ENGINE STORE. It's right next to the Pants Store. And the Mexican Food Store:


The whole time we were in the land of concrete swimmin holes, I had a headache from the smog. That's all I can figure it was from, the pollution. And it wasn't one of those little itty bitty headaches, it was a "stab you in the forehead" kind of pain. So I wasn't real talkative.

Not talkative, that is, until we met this wonderful couple who are living in their tourbus. They retired from Southern California and hit the road recently. They worked four hurricanes last year, if I remember correctly. Here's their website:
www.ourodyssey.us

Louise and Sean are their names, and they've been so many places they can't remember all of them. Cool!

Tomorrow I am off to Mexico, to work at the off road race. If I am not killed by the drug cartel gunmen I will be sure to post lots of pictures and stories.

The Dump

Hi. My name is Manual. Manual Labor. Several times a year I put together an impressive assortment of equipment and I do all our landscaping.
Nine foot ladder? Check. Sawzall? Check. Welding gloves? Check. Loppers? Check. Rake? Check. Big truck and 30 foot trailer? Check and check...
So here I am, getting ready to climb the big ladder.



And here I am, up a tree with a very sharp electric saw:


And here's a picture of the trailer after several hours of cutting and loading:


After I arrived at the dump, I was moved enough to take a photo of the huge metal pile:


I backed the trailer into the "Green Waste" area of the dump, and hopped out with my trusty welding gloves to begin unloading.
Then, "What's this? The last person who borrowed the trailer messed up the tailgate? So I can't actually unload all this stuff?????"
Yeah. Mitch the Bitch borrowed the trailer, bent up the tailgate, said nothing to no one and certainly didn't fix it, and I had to unload 600 pounds of tree limbs without putting down the tailgate. And yes, I have the receipt from the scale. It was 600 pounds. Once again, Mitch the Bitch has found a way for me to be waaaaay less impressed with him!

It took about an hour to unload, when normally it takes about 15 minutes.
Once I got back home, I soaked my sore hands and changed out the overalls so I could go run errands. All the while gritting my teeth, muttering "Mitch the Bitch."
Thanks so much, Mitch.

Liquor License

Good news, we are ready to begin the liquor licensing process for the new restaurant.

Bad news, the process is a lot more complicated than I originally thought.

"Print this, fill it out, get finger printed, take a class, print those results, send in the application with all this, blah blah blah blah, license fee is $100, if your license is approved it costs $2,000."

WHAAAATTTT????????

Chile Rellenos

I believe the translation for Chile Rellenos is "You Will Be A Fat Ass" but I'm not sure about that.

My quest for the perfect C.R.'s started about a year ago. I began "research" by trying the dish at different types of restaurants. Then began looking at recipes on the internet. After trial and error, I found the best way to make them was to ask a restaurant owner and boy did that pay off.

Oh R.J., this is what I was doing while on the phone with you....

First you roast the chiles and then place them in a ziplock bag to steam them for about 20 minutes. I prefer to leave the skins on, because it makes it easier to work with them. But some people skin them. They must like misery.

Then, stuff them with cheese. Like so...


Then dip the chile in a egg and flour batter, roll it in a little flour:

Then throw it in some hot oil:


At this point, my trusty photographer ran off to watch the Family Guy, not realizing that we weren't DONE!!!

After the chiles have been fried for about 1 minute, transfer them to a greased casserole dish, add a little bit of enchilada sauce, a LOT of cheese on top, and bake it long enough for the cheese to melt.

I just happened to make my own refried beans on this particular day, so I served them together. And now we're all just a little bit fatter....

Bikers! Like on Every Which Way But Loose!

While we were on our California Adventure (is that theme park still open???) we noticed a LOT of bikers passing us on the freeway. In Arizona they're highways. In California, we call them freeways.
Anyhooo.. these were not normal bikers. They had incredibly sweet rides, very custom for the most part and we were quite intrigued. Couldn't take our eyes off them. They passed us in groups of about 50, and we lost count after the first couple hundred.
We approached our destination, Santa Ana, and we kidded that maybe all these bikers were going to Steve's boss's restaurant, called Original Mike's.
Then we got downtown, and saw 700 bikes parked at Original Mike's. I guess we were right!

They were there for a fundraiser. This little girl had a medical problem and the bikers were raising money for her treatment. But, it was quite a show for us. We walked around to check out the bikes, and the people. We're so used to our bubble we live in, that it was a real treat to gawk at different people. I did manage to take a picture of one guy who looked like he could play the typical biker in most television shows. Notice the photo is kinda blurry, because I was hurriedly snapping it while he wasn't looking my way:


Everyone was nice to us, I expected to be treated rudely I guess. Maybe it helped that we were walking around with the joint's owner. And he's like a big white Sasquatch...

Who also has a following of very eager cops....

But I certainly need to include some photos of the bikes.






We went to Robert Escalante's shop where Steve's boss has some of his collector cars stored. He also had a couple of his motorcycles there. Steve had to try out the newest V-8 bike;

Wow. What a monster bike!

And then of course I spotted this very classy signage:

Very funny.