I've been away...

I've been away...
I still have a bit of drainage on my left ankle, but it's finally almost gone.  Can't believe the New Year's here!  And I'm still in Denver.  In the meantime, after years of fighting it, I got trapped into joining Facebook.  I must admit I'm having fun with it.  A nice group of copywriters adopted me.  I met some really interesting folks.  Reconnected with a bunch of people I hadn't talked to in years.  It's not all bad...

I keep hitting unexpected speed bumps on the road to my Latin American walkabout.  C'mon!  It can't be that complicated!  If I can't figure out how to do all this (mostly bureaucratic paperwork) in the next week, I'm just going to store what's left of my stuff with a friend, and pack a couple of extra bags, and catch a tourist flight.  Probably what I should have done in the first place.  What?  Me over-think things? Naaaaawww.

So, I've been going around doing goodbyes to all the familiar spots in my life.  One of the places I've come to like very much is the local breakfast joint, Jelly.  I have some pix, but I can't figure how to transfer them to this page.  I'm still learning these things.  Or not.  When I'm on the road, these places will be the ones I think of.  And the ones I recommend to my new friends who are going to or through Denver.  I surely hope I figure this out before I hit the road.

One of the first things I did on Facebook was humiliate myself (my hubris) with a baking experiment for a new friend, Becky Rider from Fargo.  She's a food and wine writer, and I had promised her a galette. Not just any galette, but one without grains in the pastry.  Well, I used coconut flour.  That was alright, but, without gluten, nothing was sticking together.  I'd already thought of that, and added eggs, but it still wasn't holding together like I wanted.  I wound up making a fruit pie.  It would have been alright except the oven's thermostat chose that moment to die, and the oven went to 600 degrees.  I rescued the pie, but not before the rim of the crust was blackened, and the blueberries crisped.  The peaches, raspberries and blackberries did okay.  As a presentation, it was a disaster, but nobody eats the rim of the crust anyway, so everyone wiped out the pie in about five minutes.  So.  Not a total disaster.  Becky was very gracious.  It was New Years Eve, and it seemed like a good idea at the time...

What could go wrong?

So.  There I was, minding my own business, prepping to go walkabout in Latin America.  Some small problems popping up, but nothing really drastic.  Then my old infection came back.

No!  Not that kind of infection!  I was in an accident on my bike about two and a half years ago, and gouged up my ankle on the sprocket's big ring.  I was about thirty miles down the road, and, by the time i got home, I'd forgotten about the cuts and scrapes.  A few days later my leg swelled up like a Johnsonville Brat on a hot grill, and my brain started cooking off.  A friend noticed (I didn't.  I was hallucinating), and dragged me off to Denver General.  Saved my life.

The docs straightened everything out, and I went home.  About nine months later it came back with a vengeance.  I wound up at St. Joseph's Hospital, and the docs got it under control, but they couldn't kill it.  Kept going to stronger and stronger antibiotics, but nothing seemed to work.  Finally sent me to an infectious disease specialist down in southeast Aurora (about thirty-plus very hilly miles round trip on my Cannondale).  I guess it was pretty serious.

Anyway, I had to get a line inserted in the large vein in my upper arm which ran down to my heart, because the antibiotics they were giving me now were so strong that, if they'd run it into the standard place at the inside of my elbow, the stuff would have eaten my vein up.  I had to do this every twelve hours, so I got to hang a bag at home every night.  Did this for five weeks (lost over twenty pounds--it was July-August of last year.  That part felt great!), and the doc cut me loose.

It came back about three months ago, but not as bad.  I caught it right away, and it's almost gone.  But I didn't want to be walking around in the Tropics with that kind of thing, so that's why I'm still in Denver instead of where I should be.  I want to be completely healed this time.  Well, shit happens...

About a month ago, I got a chance to get together with a super-great lady whom I admire and respect:  Kung Fu Girl--Susan Fujii--of Kung Fu Finance.com.  She's made it her mission in life to help people learn the real way to invest and make money.  She has gathered a fairly large following to her, and there aren't very many whiners.  Anyway, I took the opportunity to present her with a hand-written recipe on velum for orange-nut bread with a dedication.  This wasn't just any recipe; this was developed and tweaked by ME.  Sometime in the future I'll publish this--but not now...

Right now I have to go try to sell the last of my DVDs.  Yeah, we know how THAT's going to work out...

As Things Go Sideways...

So.  The raspberries looked good, but they were tasteless.  No self-respecting foodie would use them in anything that other people would taste.  What to do with them...  I know!  I'll use them in my morning smoothie.  That way I won't feel guilty about inflicting them on others.  I feel so damn self-riteous!  Guess I'll have to live with it...

The damn pseudo-berries only lasted about five days; they grew fur.  Gaaaaah!  No more Franken-fruit!  The crap that's sold to people in this country is getting worse by the day.  I suspect in my darker moments that we're the subjects of a diabolical experiment to determine how much abuse we'll stand for before we crack.  I think I'll turn "The Experiment" back on the experimenters.  Let's make a run for the border.  Let's go walkabout!  Road Trip!

Gotta raise some expense money.  Have to sell off all my worldly possessions.  Oh, crap!  Have you seen my "stuff?"  This is going to be a challenge.  Several boxes of signed first editions,  several boxes of StarTrek & Star Wars collectables, at least two hundred cookbooks collected over the last three decades,  more baking books,  several hundred other books--reference--another pile of fiction,  about five hundred DVDs (lot of whole seasons worth), couple of samurai swords for cutting practice housed in brocade boxes,  all my cooking gear (piles of it), couple of extra bags of cook's knives, yada yada...

I just came off a strange weekend that kinda prompted this whole train-of-thought.  when I first retired about four and a half years ago, I bought my first PC laptop, and learned to surf.  I got sucked into signing on to LinkedIn, and promptly forgot it.  Until about a year ago, a dear friend--an author--asked to connect to me on LinkedIn.  I started picking up connections until last Friday afternoon, I had 35.  Then something happened.  It was like Gamer's OCD.  By Monday morning I fell away from my Mac with almost 300 primary connections.  I went and cleaned up, then baked three loaves of banana-nut bread, and took one (still hot) up to the crew at Jelly, a breakfast place just a few blocks from my pad.

Then back home, and back on my Mac to grab more connections.  LinkedIn admin slapped me down.  I had been a Naughty Boy; hadn't followed the rules (what rules??).  They assigned me a minder--er--mentor (probably to housebreak me--insert old joke about guys and instructions here).

Over the next few days, even though I didn't seek any more connections, my primary connections passed 460--and it keeps on growing ("It's alive!!!").  Who knew?  It was during this OCD episode that the plan sorta came together.  I was acquiring this network (with a lot of really dynamic people in it), and I would hit the road and blog and take pix and meet lots of interesting people.  Just before I take off, I'll message my entire network, and publish my blog address, and they can derive some measure of entertainment value from my "exploits" (read here pratfalls and blunders).  Might balance out having to put up with my inane questions.  Well, it's a work in progress...

This is very confusing--I'm sure after some practice I'll figure my way around this place.  How hard could it be?  Right??

The market down the street has raspberries on sale for a buck a container.  Biked down and grabbed ten containers.  Figured I'd make a cake with choux paste, then fill it with pastry cream, and top it with piles of raspberries.  With the rest, I'll make a couple of raspberry-marble cheesecakes.

This is going to be fun!  Maybe I should make the raspberry cheesecake with chocolate.  I know!  A dark chocolate sponge cake crust.  A milk chocolate batter with lots of raspberries.  A white chocolate-Kirsch glaze with raspberries on top.  I'll post pix!!  

Later for you guys.  I'm going to work!

Blithely Tripping Through Life

So, there I was, blithely soaring through the web, and I stumbled into Drayton Bird's blog - birddroppings.
Drayton is one of David Ogilvey's original "MadMen" from the "Olden Days." He refers to his musings as dollops of drivel - don't you just love the alliteration? Anyway, I was so impressed (bemused) that I forwarded it to some chums.
And that's how I came to set up my own blog.
I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to write about--I can almost guarantee it won't be as smooth, as entertaining as Drayton's "Drivel." But WTF? I need the practice. I need the experience on the keyboard. This is going to be fun! Until it isn't...
So, onward into this Strange New World with all the many strange new people in't.

Posted from Denver
11 June, 2012