Open Thread – BBQ
The writer in me wants to wax poetic about the spread you see before you, but since a large portion of it has been ingested by yours truly, I find myself unable to do much but groan…
I hope you all had as wonderful of an Independence Day as I did!
I heard on WHO news tonight that to check for a new computer virus, to go to DCWG.org.
Apparently the virus does damage to your computer when one visits a web site and it re-directs you to another site. I might not have all the info correct, but by checking DCWG.org, you can get the info you need.
There are thousands of homes in West Virginia without power, and residents need water, food, etc. Coal River Mountain Watch is, as always, helping out in any way they can.
If you are so moved, you can donate: http://crmw.net/donate.php
Skipped all the 4th stuff. Off the coast of LawnGuyland, three children were trapped in a motor yacht cabin and drowned. The boat was grossly overcrowded, and piloted by one of the kids’ uncles.
Now, time to take action. The Navy is killing (and deafening) whales and other marine mammals. Please ask them to stop:
http://signon.org/sign/navy-under-water-sound?source=s.em.cr&r_by=219841&mailing_id=4893
http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/06/19/teacher-year-gets-laid I post this sadly and with no comment.
Oh! The title of the article is “Teacher of the Year Gets Laid Off.”
That’s different.
Sorry to hear so many are suffering from the heat. The best advice for dealing with it unfortunately does not apply and that is to just live in it all the time and try to avoid air conditioning unless it is really necessary. It is dry season here and has been hot even by our standards (45+ C) and humid but without so much as a hint
of rain now since the end of April. The dust is quite incredible but alwasy is by now, none of the connecting roads are paved.
Slow down, it helps a little. Drink plenty of water, eat fruit or drink juice, you need to keep your electrolytes up or you get get dehydrated very fast. Wear a hat if you can’t stay in the shade. Eat less. These are all probably crazy things but I sort of have followed them here for the past 9 years and it has mostly made it bearable. Like I say though, the biggest part is long term adaptation which none of you can do because in 6 months it will be cold instead of hot. Here it will still be hot but wetter (I hope). The worst part of dry season is yet to come. Burning. In a few weeks they will start to burn the sugar cane fields, the clear cuts, (most of which are secondary growth not old growth) and the grazing land. Until the rains come, sometime in September the air will be fairly toxic whereever the smoke ends up.
Of course there was no celebration here, different independence day and it is a muted celebration. I did, however, have a small celebration over the announced discovery of the Higgs boson.
FYI the equivalent of BBQ here is a bit more ritualized and conscribed, it consists primarily of a large variety of different cuts of meat heavily salted and cooked over coals on large skewers. It is called churascaria (my spelling my be off). It is not hard to invoke a party for that, all one has to do is provide the meat. Plenty of veggies are served up with it as well of course but the focus is entirely on the meat. Also there is an entirely different approach to eating the cooked meat, instead of waiting for it to be done through it is repeatedly carved and then put back on the fire to cook a bit more, this way every serving is succulent and only light charred if at all. No sauce is used in cooking, various elixirs can be applied to meat on the plate. The cattle here are very different from N. American breeds, fairly tough by comparison but with a much larger variety of cuts. There is also pork , chicken, turkey, horsemeat and wild game of different sorts. One of the most common wild game meats is Capybara which is a large semi-aquatic rodent. It is actually quite savory but rather tough and thus usually stewed.
Fish of course is a very large item on the local menu but because of my awareness of artesanal mining practises I have to avoid it most of the time. The local waters are heavily contaminated by mercury from haphazard gold extraction by garimpieros. I have though tried to sample different varieties of fish that come in from expeditions undertaken by my equipe on time off and the variety and flavor of the fish populations here is truly amazing.
I just thought mudflatters might enjoy a little different perspective on how things happen in other parts of the world.
Wouldn’t it be great if all of us truly did have a modicum of indepenence?
How do I unsubscribe from email notices for new posts? Not sure why but I am getting email notifications (tons all at once) of old posts. I’m thinking one of the mudflats techies behind the scenes is migrating the archive and I am getting a notice each time a post is moved to where ever.
I think MF is an WP.org site now so may be different than WP.com method but see if this works…
Go to bottom of one of the received emails and look for an unsubscribe link, button, whatever. If it is there follow it through and unsubscribe.
You might have to do it more than once . If it takes you to a you-are-subscribed to page- unsubscribe to all the ones you see š
(woops. dang. I wasn’t gonna use smileys for awhile. )
Thanks Alaska Pi I think it will work. Oh and š
I stayed home from the fireworks and cookouts. Went out a couple of times yesterday and could barely breath. Forecast is for a few more days of this oppressive heat. I can’t even stand to weed for longer than 15 minutes. My long haired German shepherd is miserable. š at least we have had rain and the plants are saved.
my fourth turned out nice. very quiet in the neighborhood and i was deep in a book and snuggling with the Nubian.
Nubie is a great snuggler and he loves to rub his face against my kindle. my neighbor came over with some friends and hung out with me. later i joined the neighbors in our yard. they were grilling hot dogs for the kids and having a few beers as the sun set. when they started singing disco songs i figured it was time to come upstairs and rest myself.
nice day. good neighbors. music. food. it was a beautiful thing
4th sucked big time. 100 plus heat index and running sweat all day and night. Thanks for asking. South Korea is gonna start whaling for research again. Iowa gummer Braindead choked on food while defiling the USS Iowa in California on the 4th. Three young kids drowned while swimming in the Iowa river yesterday.
Oh, man, you’re not kidding about the heat. I’m a bit north of you, south of the Twin Cities in MN. Depending on which website I go to, I’m told the heat is supposed to break either tonight or tomorrow. I sent the rest of the family out for grilling and fireworks while I stayed home in the non-air-conditioned house to take care of the dogs and cats. Usually around here there’s lots of people doing their own fireworks, but this year…hardly any. Devastating to hear about the kids. Nothing mitigates the pain from that kind of tragedy.
4th of July 2012–one big sucky sweatfest of nastiness and grief.
Heard about the Gov. chocking on a carrot. This wasn’t mentioned on WHO. Think I heard it on CNN.
It was 102 deg here yesterday. 100 deg today and more of the same tomorrow.
Heard from friends that are vacationing in Alaska—–said it was 50 degs and they were freezing.
If I need to go to the grocery, I try to wait until the sun goes down. This heat takes my breath away.
Grandson called from New York. He was going to watch the fireworks with a friend from the 40th floor .
I enjoyed the fireworks on the TV.
We are sweltering in northwest lower Michigan this week also, but it is considerably worse in the Detroit area where our son lives and works. Wednesday night/early Thursday morning there were bad storms in the Detroit area and power was off for many people. We’re not sure if it’s on again yet or not.
The heat ordeal should be over for us tomorrow but not until after Sunday for the Detroit area.
We spent the Fourth of July mainly in the house staying as cool and quiet as possible. Yesterday we had to be out and about in the late afternoon and evening and found that it was no picnic.