Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

The past few days, I've been listening to the ads on the radio for summertime events -- beach parties by bars, lawn fetes by churches, and clambakes. Which led me to thinking: I haven't had clams in a long while.

I know about the current health advisories, that it isn't exactly safe to be eating clams these days. But I used to love them when I was a kid. Steamed clams, clam broth, clams on the half shell -- I loved them all!

One of my favorite memories of my father: eating clams on the half shell with him. Dad would shuck clams with a knife he made himself from some scrap metal he found at work. He'd then add some vinegar and a few drops of Tabasco sauce onto each clam. Then he'd add a little ketchup. And my dad and I would eat them. Mom and my sister didn't care for clams, though. That left more for us.

Now, I have a commercially made clam knife, and a ready source for clams. But it's just not the same eating them without Dad around.

I found a nice recipe on allrecipes.com for a clam bake, with potatoes, shrimp, mussels, chicken broth (!), and corn on the cob. I also looked at the calorie count, the fat count, and the cholesterol count. Yikes! This is something I'd probably want to do once or twice a year.

I just saw this and want to share it with everyone I know. Longtime followers of my LJ know that this is one of my favorite poems, or verses.

Marianne Williamson narrates her poem "Our Deepest Fear".

mseuphrates posted a great cartoon on her LJ today: The 24 Types of Libertarians. Too funny not to share.

I returned to work late last week. I got my car back on Sunday after services. The company laptop has been set up and configured. And I had the OK to work from home today. Right now I'm on my lunch break.

So, thanks to the events of the past couple of weeks, I now have to do a better job watching what I eat -- fats, carbs, sodium, calories, cholesterol, etc. I will need to cut down -- or cut out -- some of my favorite foods. I'm already cutting out most fast food. So I'll have to find new places to eat.

One of the places I used to go to on an occasional basis was the local MCL Cafeteria, in Kettering. It's a regional chain, based in Indianapolis. It has a reputation of being popular with senior citizens, as evidenced by some of the jokes I've heard about the place. But hey, if it's good enough for older people with their own special dietary needs, it's good enough for me. Besides, it's still the official restaurant of the Black Book Band (as far as I know).

This evening, after dropping M off, I headed over there. I had a dinner of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry relish, orange gelatin, and iced tea. All for around $12. I think I'll be returning soon, and maybe become one of their regulars.

To recap, I was discharged from the hospital on Friday night. I have been spending the long weekend at home recuperating and resting.

Saturday morning, my friend Rick took me to services at Temple Beth Abraham. That afternoon, Deb took me to Bob Evans for a turkey dinner.

Sunday, Deb drove me to UU services and then grocery shopping. R dropped off M at 2:00pm and picked up up a little after 6:00pm.

Today, Riock took me to the pharmacy where I could get my prescriptions. I'm also spending the afternoon at his condo watching Harry Potter movies.

I am still looking to see if I can get a ride down to Cincinnati this week so I can return to work. I'm still under a "no driving or heavy lifting" restriction this week.

Even though I am now gainfully employed for the next several weeks, the paychecks won't be rolling in right away. I had been toying with the idea of attending Marcon for Saturday only, but since I won't have the money for a convention registration, I won't be attending Marcon this year.

( It goes deeper than that. )

Yesterday afternoon, I updated my resume on dice.com. I added the system administration work I've been doing at Day-VEST the past few months.

Later that day, I received a call from Sogeti USA about a short-term (6-week) Perl task for one of their clients in the Cincinnati area. I discussed it with the recruiter. They originally wanted me to do this as a 1099 gig (meaning I'd be on the hook for my own taxes). Having never worked like this -- all my work has been W-2 (in which taxes are taken out before I get paid) -- I had no idea how much a good going rate would be. So after discussing the details, I sent him a copy of my resume, and confirmed the W-2 rate that we decided on.

This afternoon, the recruiter called back. They want me to start a week from Monday.

In the meantime, I'll have to submit paperwork for a background check and a drug test.

One of the albums in my collection is a two-record set called "Pink World" by the Planet P Project. For those of you who don't know, the Planet P Project is keyboardist Tony Carey, once with Richie Blackmore's band Rainbow.

I first heard this album from the local library. I later found a copy of the album in the discount bin. I think. Recently, I found some of the songs on YouTube.

The world that is depicted in Pink World is somewhat harrowing, almost like a dystopic SF world. Surverillance cameras are everywhere. People in cages for a human barrier of sorts. Through it all is a young boy, named Artimis, who doesn't speak. It's been a while since I've heard the album, so my details are sketchy at best.

It's been on my "to digitize" list. Not any more.

I found Tony's web site and it mentioned that Pink World, and his eponymous debut album, have been remastered and released on CD. So I went looking for it on eBay. And found it.

What are your favorite concept albums that I should know about?

Last week, the lastest version of Ubuntu Linux -- 10.04, aka "Lucid Lynx" -- was released. Like any Linux geek aficionado, I started downloading the distro that evening, knowing that me and all the other Linux lovers would be doing the same thing. (I really should learn how to use torrents for these downloads.)

( The gory details of upgrading three machines. )

So, after a few days of using Lucid, I still love Linux. The purple background is a nice change from the earth-tone backgrounds of previous versions. And I'll get used to the minor cosmetic changes from Karmic.

BTW, if anyone wants a copy of the desktop and 32-bit server versions burned to a CD, let me know.