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- Erin Michael Accomplished silver smith & visual artist.
- Jennifer Wenker Art An accomplished fine artist specializing in natural settings and environmental awarness.
- Two Roasting Joes Coffee Locally roasted & locally fresh quality coffees.
Recommended Blogs
- Borowitz Report Great political satire.
- Chap's Stick Cigar Box Guitar Blog A record of my cigar box guitar projects.
- CoffeyWeb Ron Coffey on Greenfield and more.
- InThePink Political satire and irreverent commentary from Eileen Smith.
- Margaret & Helen Wonderful political satire.
- McClain H.S. Alumni Todd Swift’s McClain Alumni Bio Site
- North Coast Muse Nature, art, food and info from Sally Turner Kennedy.
- Notes From Gail News and views from Gail Allen.
- Shoe: Untied The wit and wisdom of Dave “The Shoe” Shoemaker.
- Sue's News News and views from Sue Raypole.
Playing around with double bocks
My grandfather Inskeep was a beer drinker and towards the end of his life he lived with us. Almost always there would be a couple of bottles of his favorite brew in the fridge and typically it would be one of the Cincinnati brews such as Hudepohl or Burger. In the early winter he would always bring home something called bock beer and all I knew about it was the color was always much darker and he claimed it was more powerful.
For years I heard stories that bock beer was only made in the winter because that’s when the brewers cleaned out their vats and bock was brewed from what was left over. Since then I’ve learned that such isn’t true and that bock is brewed year round and technically has nothing to do with a particular season. It is typically a dark brewed lager that tends to be low on hops, high on malt, and often higher in alcohol content.
Bock is also higher in nutritional value and was often used by German monks, and others,
Greenfield’s salvage food store
There’s a great new resource in town that could save you some major dollars on your food bill. For several years now we’ve been buying staples at the Amish owned Dent & Bent store on Duff Rd. and finding significant values. On May 1 a Greenfield family opened just such a store here in town.
A&L Grocery, located at 11955 SR 753 (next to old Mitchell’s Sporting Goods), has an every growing selection of salvaged foods. These are items that for some reason won’t or can’t be sold in regular groceries. They have exceeded the “best by” date, or a can is dented or the label disfigured. Unlike the Amish store, A&L is also offering a limited variety of produce and day-old breads. They plan to expand their produce line as locally grown vegetables come into season.;
I’ve stopped in twice now and each time came away with a bag or two of goodies for far less than what it would have cost elsewhere. To me there are a couple of simple rules one should follow when shopping in salvage food stores. While the date codes isn’t too important I always check to make sure a jar lid isn’t damaged and is tight and that cans aren’t disfigured along a seam. Adhering to common sense we’ve only had to toss a couple of items.
A&L’s hours are Monday-Saturday, 9 am to 7 pm and on Sunday, 9 am to 5 pm. Their phone number is 937 981 1100.
The inventory at these kinds of stores changes rapidly so it pays to make frequent stops.
Random thought: Why so little attention?
On Mother’s Day one or more thugs opened fire on a street parade in New Orleans, spraying the crowd with bullets, and wounding at least 17 people. I don’t recall it being a story on the Nightly News or receiving any major news coverage. Most of what I know has come from incidental headlines found on the Internet. Why the outrage over Newtown, CT or Aurora, CO but almost nothing above a whisper when 17 innocent people are the victims of gun violence in NOLA? Makes me wonder if race is playing a part.
My current take on current events
As we all know there are three major political scandals dominating the news cycle these days. There’s the never-ending conspiracy drama about the attack on America’s outpost in Benghazi, the admitted use of the IRS to harass conservative groups, and the Justice Department’s confiscation of the Associated Press’ telephone logs. I suppose everyone has an opinion so I’ll offer mine.
President Obama has often said the thing over Benghazi is just a political sideshow staged by the GOP to gain some political advantage. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is leading the charge in the House claiming the Obama administration created a ton of “talking points” for covering up the truth of what happened. Issa’s main evidence is based on a supposed email from the State Department proving a conspiracy to hide the truth. Today, May 15, it was revealed that the actual email said nothing that would support the claims of Issa and his supporters. In fact, the email clearly shows that all Obama’s people were trying to do is dispel the abounding misinformation and get the various agencies on the same track. In other words, GOP zero, Obama one.
Regarding the IRS scandal, it’s a no brainer. It is wrong, it is illegal, it is un-American, it contradicts the basic principles of a free society, it is an abuse of government power, it isn’t fair, it isn’t moral, it isn’t ethical, and somebody’s head should be served up on a platter. Matter of fact, I can think of two heads that should roll, first the woman in charge of the department from which the harassment originated, Lois G. Lerner, and secondly, the head of the IRS, Steven Miller. The GOP has every right to be upset about this action and Congress should act to discover the truth and to legislate against such future behavior. Current score, GOP one, Obama one.
Finally, there’s the Associated Press, freedom of the press, brouhaha. On the surface this one looks like a duck, walks like a duck, but I’m not yet sure it talks like a duck. I don’t think enough information has come out to really question the actions of the Justice Department. I’m willing to wait for further details but Eric Holder and his raft of DOJ ducks are on horribly thin ice here. He is going to have to prove beyond doubt that national security was so threatened it justified pushing aside a major Constitutional protection. I personally have strong feelings about freedom of expression, especially when it comes to interfering with the role a free press plays in keeping the politicians straight. Freedoms of speech and press are how We the People keep the rats away from the cheese. Update on score, game currently tied but possible touchdown under review.
Special fundraiser at Three Spoons Diner
Received this info from George Gall at Three Spoons Diner. Mark it on your calendar!!!
On May 20, Three Spoons Diner in Greenfield will hold a fundraising night to benefit the Highland County Community Action Organization, Inc. The restaurant will feature Pulled pork & Brisket, baked beans and macaroni and cheese. Other menu items and desserts will be available for purchase as well. There will also be 50/50 split the pot tickets, give aways, gift certificates, and other items!!! Come out and have a blast for a great cause !!!
The time will be from 4-8 at Three Spoons Diner in Greenfield. All proceeds will be utilized to provide meals to seniors throughout the county through the Home Delivered Meal Program operated by HCCAO, Inc. Currently, the program has over 40 seniors on the waiting list for meals. However, with sequestration, increased operating expenses and other funding cuts, there is no opportunity to take new people onto the program at this time.
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When real men had two floppies!
Today we live in a world of inexpensive multi-terabyte hard drives but it wasn’t that long ago when hard drives were horribly expensive, measured in mere megabytes, and 10 Mb was considered monstrous.
But, before hard drives there were 5.25″ floppy discs that each held 360 Kb of data. If your floppy drive could handle it, you could buy high-density floppies with 1.2 Mb capacity.
The first IBM compatible PC I owned was a Tandy 1000A that I bought on sale at the Dayton Hamvention in 1985. It came with a color CRT monitor, dual HD 5.25″ floppies, 32 Mb of ram memory, keyboard (no mouse), and a dot matrix printer. I paid a little over $1,400 and that was a real bargain. Next day I had to go to Radio Shack and buy a $200 DMA plugin card to boost the memory up to 64 Kb and allow it to run most software programs. Wasn’t such a bargain after that! This was a purely DOS machine and it would be a decade before a workable version of Windows would put DOS to rest.
The Tandy 1000A made no provisions for installing a hard drive. The only solution was to buy an external drive or a plugin hard card from Radio Shack. Either was horribly expensive, somewhere north of $500 for a 5 or 10 Mb drive. Later I was able to find a used Western Digital 10 Mb hard card that I adapted to work in my PC. I paid slightly over $200 and felt blessed.
Tits in the wringer
A former student of mine recently referred to Fox News and the far-right as the, “Outrage machine.” He went on to recognize that with the revelations about the IRS targeting the Tea Party they finally do have something to be outraged about. I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the IRS issue, knowing that before it’s over we all will have had our fill.
I’m in no way defending the behavior of the IRS but before anyone gets too outraged and accusatory it might help to stop and reflect on the reality of political scandals. Political scandal is as old as the nation and no party, presidency, congress, or court is free of its stain.
Democrats and Republican congresses and administrations have all, at one time or another, resorted to using the power of the government to punish or harass its opponents. Richard Nixon and his Plumbers became the poster children for overzealous use of power with the
The bots are lurking
I recently installed a new statistics gathering plugin on this site and it provides lots more detail about who is visiting and from where they are located. I had similar software working behind the scenes several years ago and I was always amazed at the worldwide distribution of my readership.
The software I was using then didn’t show what kinds of hits I was receiving. I couldn’t tell if there was an actual person behind the hit or if it was a spider or bot (robot) searching for information or a weakness in my security. The Internet is overrun with such things and some of them provide necessary functions, such as providing search engines, such as Google, with the necessary information needed to stay current. Others have a far more nefarious purpose such as providing hackers and scammers with security weaknesses or email addresses to spam.
My new software differentiates between bots and people and I’m getting hits from Russia and a number of Eastern European countries. From what I’ve heard and read a lot of the world’s hackers are located in these areas and my software is supporting those claims. The majority of those hits are coming from bots and I’m guessing they aren’t Google simply checking to see what today’s CGS topic is about.
You got the rumors, we got the answers
In case you’re not aware of the rumors floating around town here’s a recap:
- The Elliot Hotel and Rosie’s have been purchased and scheduled for demolition.
- Alley 21 in Hillsboro is planning to build a bowling alley in Greenfield.
- Rancher’s Roast Beef is planning to open a store in Greenfield.
- A new surplus/salvage food store has opened in town.
- The Subway is relocating to the vacant lot where Farmer’s Wholesale was once located.
- Pizza Hut is opening a carry-out store in town.
- A gun manufacturer is setting up a factory in the soon to be vacated R.R. Donnelly building.
As a public service CGS made a trip to town this morning for the sole purpose of running down the truth about some of these claims. Here’s what our rumor control department has learned:
Eileen’s take on the NRA convention
Eileen Smith is one of my favorite bloggers. She is a genuine word smith and comes equipped with a biting arsenal of satire and cynicism. In one of her latest blogs she discusses the NRA’s annual meeting which this year took place just down the road from Eileen in Houston. For a nice smile I suggest you read her piece.
Click HERE for Armed Forces Beyond our Control.
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Mothers and music are changing the world
Mother’s Day 2013 is just around the corner and in many of the world’s nations mothers and future mothers have no idea of their rights as humans. They are sold into slavery, forced into arranged marriages, denied education, and treated as objects and not as humans. Playing for Change, through music and drama, is trying to educate these women about their basic rights as humans. I urge you to watch the included video and consider offering your support in some way.
COPD cost range from $7 to $99 thousand
During all the debate over Obama Care it’s been argued that America has the best health care system on earth. Granted, people do come here from all over because of our quality of care. Quality of care is not the same as efficiency or availability of care. A new government data base focused on the inefficiency of America’s care system has been laid bare for all to plainly see. Just within the New York City area the cost of hospital care for COPD treatment can vary between seven to ninety-nine thousand dollars.
It appears that no one has a reasonable explanation but at least the raw facts of the matter are there for all to see. Click HERE for complete article about data base. This is one of those articles we all need to take a look at.
FACTOID: It is claimed that more people died during the English blitzkrieg by being trampled during crowd panics than by the actual bombs the Germans rained on Great Britain. Much of the rubble from the bombing was hauled out of the cities and used as fill for construction of Allied airfields throughout the nation. Ironically it would be from these airfields that countless sorties of Allied bombers would fly out of on their way to targets deep inside the Third Reich.
Random thought: The VA
The drums of war are beating louder these days over events in Syria. I suggest that before the US become involved in yet another war we take the time and spend the money to clean up after what we’ve already done. For once and for all, modernize the Veterans Administration and begin rapidly responding to the immediate needs of those we sent to fight our blunderish exploits.