Trick Or Treat! Here's Your Zucchini!

This post sat around for 3 days.  I've just got to post it for GYSC.

Once a month a church in north Topeka gives away food.  They have been doing it for over a year.  There are no income guidelines.  All they ask is your name and how many are in your household.  I use to work with the paster and have volunteered to help out with the giveaway before. 

Our pantry is very sparse these days, so I went down to the church Tuesday.  The giveaway started at 9:00 am.  I got there at 9:10 am.  The line of cars was already 5 blocks long.  It took an hour and half to make it through the line and get some groceries.

You never know what you'll get, but when you need some food it doesn't much matter.  That is, it usually doesn't matter!  I got a variety of stuff.  They loaded a box in the Pathfire and a second unopened box marked "produce".

The box contained bread, rolls, 5 lbs of potatoes, 5 lbs of carrots, a dozen large cucumbers, a dozen zucchini, some pudding cups, and various other things.  On the way home I popped open the box of produce.  The last time I volunteered at the church, I remember them giving away pallets of blueberries.  They give away everything until it's gone.  I remember some people, towards the end, getting cases of blueberries.  I was hoping there would be some sort of fruit in in case.

Wrong!  It was a case of, drum roll please, that's right, zucchini!  There must be at least 3 dozen in the case.  I haven't counted them.  They are packed so nice, I hate to disturb them!

Zucchini was not something I grew in the garden this year.  Usually I have more than I need so I give them away.  Now I've got about 50 of them!  The bottom of the frig is so full of produce!

Only two things come to mind to rid myself of all the zucchini.  First, give them away to Trick or Treaters!  But, I don't want to be cleaning up smashed zucchini from the front of my house.  My other thought is to give them to a girl at work.  She has an African tortoise that eats a lot of produce...lettuce, cabbage, and maybe zucchini!

All I know is that I am going to have a lot of molding produce in my frig, if I don't come up with something.  

Update on Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 3:02PM by Steve Linderman

I talked to Amy today.  It was sucky that I called work, but Amy is willing to take all the extra produce I have.

I'll bring you more than you can imagine.  Hahahaha

Thanks for putting this food to good use.

SovBo

Sunday Morning With SovBo

An update from last week's post about my finances.  After paying all my bills, I had $34 to get me by for 2 weeks.  Everything was going good until last night.  I went to the grocery store and spent $8.50 more than I had.  So in effect I made it one week, not two.  This doesn't surprise me.

Luckily I have $28 in another checking account.  I will have to move some money from that account to cover the $8.50.  So be it.  I am paying down my debt.  I haven't been late with a payment for over 20 years.  My net worth increases monthly (by paying down debt).  Someday I'll have a positive net worth!  Nyuck!  Nyuck!  Nyuck!

I'm on my second cup of tea.  I watched Wealthtrack with Consuelo Mack.  She talked to Rob Arnott about our country's GDP figures and the different ways it is, and should be, looked at.

Then I checked out The Reformed Broker's website.  His post A Call To Action talks about why we have the Wall Street protesters and the majority of the country's disgust.  There is an audio player you can click on to hear the program he was on.  Definitely worth a listen.  I'm going to go back and listen to it again, myself.

It's now 11:40am and am listening to Alex and Kevin on Diggnation.  Kevin and friends went salmon fishing and he is describing how they are going to cold smoke most of the fish.  They had 35 - 40 pounders.  Now they get into the main part of the show.

Fall is on the way.  I mowed the yard last evening.  That's what you do on a Saturday night when you are pinching pennies!  Hopefully it will be the last time I need to mow this year.  It's been on the dry side lately and the grass is not growing fast at all.  It's just trying to stay alive.  Just the way I like it!

Cup three of tea, then on to harder stuff later today.  I'll check the bell peppers and jalepenos that are still growing in the garden.  I know there are some that are ready to pick.  Maybe all of them.  The tomato plants are all but dead.  I saw a few spots of red, but the tomatoes haven't been good for weeks now.  It was not a good year for tomatoes.  Too hot and dry.

I have 6 more minutes and morning will become afternoon so I'll have to stop, or change the name of this post and that would be way too much work.  What to say in 6 minutes?

Well, not much, I guess.  I'll hopefully listen to Leo live on TWiT.tv this afternoon.  He does a three hour show.  It's my Sunday routine, instead of reading the paper, or going to church.  Anyway, have a good day.  Appreciate what you have.  Learn something new today.

Oops!  Time's up!

GYSC: Or Bust

Have fun in NYC, GYSC.  You're blog inspired me to start doing something online.  Thanks.

Sovbo

Last Day of Vacation

My vacation flew by and it will be back to work tomorrow afternoon.  I have mixed feelings about the past week.

On the positive side, I am finally unwound and de-stressed.  I was so tight I thought I could pop at any second.  I'll see how long it lasts when I go back to work.  I didn't travel anywhere or do anything unusual.  No big family memories were made.  Those kinds of things just aren't in my budget these days. 

I feel fortunate to have a roof over my head, a full belly at the end of the day, and am warm and dry when it's time to go to bed.  I remember my late brother, Spencer, being quoted as saying that decades ago when he was being interviewed in Alaska for some book or magazine.  That has stuck with me all these years.  I think that's why he loved Alaska so much.  With those 3 things, life can be pretty darn good.  Volumes could be written about the adventures Spencer had, but I will save that for another time.

Other stuff I'm glad I did this past week was to get the brakes fixed on the Pathfinder.  I fixed a computer for a girl at work.  I got ALL of the laundry done, even the bedding!  I made some great homemade chili with fresh garden tomatoes and taco seasoning instead of chili powder. 

I also got to visit with my sister, Judy, for a while.  I hadn't seen her in months.  She owns a small town grocery store with one gas pump.  She works 6 days a week and takes Sundays off to go to church and get ready for another week.  I gave her a laptop to use, but forgot to tell her the login password, so I should be hearing from her any day now.  Oops...

I spent yesterday looking at how I might incorporate some audio or video podcasts into this site.  There's a lot of ways of doing it, but for me, it'll have to be free or really cheap.  The trouble is that the free ways have such a learning curve.  You don't see any audio or video on here yet, do you?  I'm working on it.

Why would I want to do such a thing?  Because I can.  Well, maybe I can.  We'll see.  I think it would be awesome, since I don't know how to type.  I use a modified hunt and peck style.  It was developed by an ingenious, unconventional, guy.  I think his name was SovBa, 'er Sovber, 'um Sov something.  I'll try and remember his name later!

Anyway, the down side of my vacation is that come tomorrow, I'll be about $250 overdrawn at the bank.  That's when my house payment comes out.  The bank won't mind because they'll charge me $10 to loan me the money at 18% interest until I pay it back.  I'll get paid Friday and pay it back then.  I hate wasting money like that, but for my health and sanity it had to be done.  I'll just chalk it up to the cost of my vacation.

I didn't get the garage cleaned out, either.  It is a real mess.  I would take a picture of it, but I'm too ashamed.  I still have until tomorrow afternoon so it might be the big finale of my time off.  But in the big picture, it really doesn't matter all that much.

I'm going to grab another cup of green tea and monkey around with recording an audio welcome message for the site.  (I'd really like it to be video, but I'd have to go comb my hair or put on a hat.)

Good Luck, Johnny!

When I look back at my career in broadcasting, I can think of no other sports caster that was harder working and more fun to be around, than Johnny Kane.  Good luck on your new job as Sports Director at Kansas City's KMBC!

My first paying television job was way back in the time machine.  Way back.  Way, way, back.  Farther than that.  Keep going.  Yea, now you're getting close.  That's right...1978.  In all these years, I can't think of anybody that made watching the sports highlights on the local news, more fun than Johnny.

I am not by nature, a big sports fan.  I went out for track and played some basketball in Jr High and High School.  You were pretty much ridiculed in the small town I grew up in, if you did not play sports.  That was back in the days before No Child Left Behind.  Back when the only sports at school were football, basketball, and track.  There was also baseball in the summer which was sponsored by the Kiwanis Club.

The fact that they pushed sports so much made me rebel in my own ways.  We had a house and 5 acres of land.  We had a few horses and always raised some pigs to butcher and once we raised and butchered a cow.  I spent my free time riding horses, not playing football.  I saved face at school by being the Freshman Class President, Junior Class President, and Senior Class Vice President.  (I spent my Sophomore year in Fairbanks, Alaska, canoeing, fishing, hunting, and trying not to think about school at all.)

To this day, I can't hold a descent conversation with anybody about any professional sports.  But, I do enjoy watching The Olympics when they come around.

Johnny Kane lives and breathes sports.  A lot of sports casters do.  But Johnny talked about the day's sports that made it fun for even people like me.  He didn't talk down to you.  He didn't just spew a bunch of stats that everyone should have already memorized.  He makes sports fun, like they should be.

In television lingo, Topeka, Kansas is considered a middle sized market.  Most news, sports, and weather people consider it a stepping stone to moving to a bigger market.  A lot of them can be real jerks, too.  But Johnny Kane is one of the nicest, hardest working, guys in the world.  Not just when he's on television, but behind the scenes, too.  I have no doubt that I will see him someday on ESPN if that's what he wants to do.

Johnny has been the Sports Director at KSNT for the past 5 years.  Now he's moving on to the big time, not as a sports reporter, but as the Sports Director at KMBC.  So as Johnny moves from Topeka, market 136, to Kansas City, market 31, all I can say is Good Luck, Johnny!

It was a pleasure working with you my friend.