Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

Remembering Gary Porter, aka Skinner......

As some of you may know, one of my local friends and allies, Gary Porter, passed away from cancer this past Wednesday. He survived throat cancer (2009), and anal cancer (2012), but after a valiant effort, was not able to survive lung cancer (2013).

( I first met him in 1993... )

I am a better man for having known him. He will be missed. And the world is a poorer place now that he's gone.

Here is his obituary:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dayton/obituary.aspx?n=gary-alan-aka-skinner-porter&pid=164456668

Many of you out there are familiar with the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, also known as C.G. Jung. He was a student and protege of Sigmund Freud. Jung came up with a theory that the masculine persona is a blending of four basic 'archetypical' or template energies. (The feminine persona is also a blending of these, with 'queen' substituted for 'king').

In 1990, Jungian psychologist Robert Moore, along with mythologist Douglas Gillette, wrote a book that explored these archetypes: King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. I read this book in the summer of 2002. We often reference this book and archetypes in the work we do in the Mankind Project.

One of the things I want to do in the next several years is to bring the concept of the archetypes to chapters of my college fraternity, as many colleges and universities do not have departments of mens' studies. I often hear about negative incidents at college campuses that give the entire greek system a black eye -- stories of hazing, alcohol abuse, sexual abuse, and so on. I strongly believe that these are a result of "boy behavior" and "boy mentality", encouraged by peer pressure. As one man in my mens' group observed, "Boys cannot teach boys how to be men." This is where alumni like me come in: to teach and mentor these young men in things that aren't taught in the classroom. And to tell them that college and university men do not do these things.

Two years ago, one of the writers at The Art of Manliness website wrote a 7-part series on the archetypes -- one part for each of the 4 archetypes, an introduction, and two parts on boyhood archetypes. Each of the articles has been given a tag of "KWML", for easier reference as a group.

( Links to the articles in the series. )

In late January, I was contact by a recruiter for a job here in Dayton. I submitted my resume, and had a phone interview on Thursday, February 21. Lo and behold, one of the interviewers was Ed, a man I used to work with at previous job (BAE Systems, from May '06 through May '08.) He is now a project manager for this new company. That afternoon, they gave me a verbal offer.

( But I kept it under my hat for a while. )

A couple of months ago, I made a goal to cook for myself and eat at home more often. But lately, I 've found that it is no longer worth the effort. I can't make the leftovers last more than a week without the food developing a case of green mold (or white mold if it's spaghetti sauce). I don't know where it's coming from. And I don't know how to get rid of it, outside of a wholesale clean-out and scrub-down of the refrigerator. And if I do have mold spores in my indoor air, how do I get rid of them? (I rplaced the furnace filter last month.)

Our local Goodwill Industries organization -- Goodwill/Easter Seals Miami Valley -- has an outlet store with a section devoted to computer systems and parts. There are several volunteers in the area who refurbish these systems that are donated by both individuals and businesses.

Last November, I bought a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop for about $150. This became a holiday gift to my ex-wife and daughter. She has a desktop computer that one of her friends gave her a few years ago. But she has no place to set it up. And she's been wanting a laptop for a while.

In December, I picked up a Dell Latitude CPx laptop at Mendelson's for about $10. This is a model I'm familiar with, as I already had one (which had been named "tardis mark iii").
Last week, at the Goodwill Outlet, I found a 40 Gb IDE hard drive for $5 and a power supply for $4. They didn't have memory for it, so I'll look online.

Elsewhere in the outlet store are large blue bins filled with various items. And it was rather crowded. It's a feeding frenzy, as people are frantically looking for deals and bargains. Some folks were wearing latex gloves, so that they wouldn't get cut or infected by the products.

I found a KVM switch/cable, a case for a portable CD player, a Magnavox VCR/DVD combo ($3), and an HP PSC 2355 printer ($5). I took everything home, cleaned up everything with Clorox disinfectant wipes, and ran them through some tests. The VCR/DVD works well -- I can play tapes, record tapes from TV (it has a tuner), and play DVDs. But when I tested the printer this evening, it powered on, but would complete the bootup sequence. I looked inside and saw that there were no ink cartridges. So I went to my local supermarket to buy cartridges. They're expensive! After installing the ink cartridges, I tried powering up the printer again. And it still wouldn't complete booting up. So I have to find out if I can get my money back for it. [Updated 05-Mar 01:50] So after futzing with it for about an hour, resetting the printer, reinstalling the ink cartridges, fixing a carriage jam, and ensuring that the power supply connection was robust,I got it working.

Would I go back? Probably, for the computer parts. But not for much else.

[Parts of this were originally written 7/31/12.]

One of the many things I remember from growing up in my neighborhood: One of the local fathers would push his son up and down the sidewalk, while the young son rode on his Big Wheel. At the time, I thought the son would grow up to become dependent on his father. Now, I would applaud the father for being there for his son.

Occasionally, I'll be stuck with someting and have to ask someone for assistance. When I think of asking other people for help, there's a voice in my head that repeatedly says, "Asking for help is a sign of weakness." (And the voice sounds like Lt. Worf's voice.)

I really hate being dependent on others. I should be strong and intelligent enough to figure out how to do things myself, without burdening anyone else.

If I go into a store, I don't need the sales clerks to help me. I'm perfectly capable of finding what I need all by myself. I know, it's probably part of their training to greet customers and offer assistance. But when they pounce on me within 10 seconds of entering a store, I want to scream at them, "Leave me alone!"

( So what's at risk for me if I ask for help? )

I heard on the local news this past weekend that a long-standing Dayton restaurant -- The Grub Steak -- is closing its doors at the end of February. I was there once, last summer. Both the food and the service were good (I ordered their signature "Royal Ribs"), but it was a little on the pricey side. I'm sad to see this restaurant go by the wayside, as they've been in business for nearly 50 years.

( This is only the latest in a string of local restaurant closures. )

Last month, I finally got started on one of my long-term projects: convert my collection of video tapes to DVD.

I have about 500 VHS tapes and 100 Beta tapes in my collection. A couple of years ago, I picked up a copy of the Honestech VHS to DVD 3.0 package at Big Lots for about $25. It came with capturing and editing software, and a device to convert a three-RCA-plug signal (audio-left, audio-right, video) to a USB connection.

And so, I hooked up a VCR with the output cables going into the converter device, and plugged the USB end into my computer. And it performed rather well. I'm now doing about 1-2 tapes a day. I tend to start a tape before I go to bed for the night. And the next morning, after the tape is done, I create a project file, and move the resulting MPEG files to an external hard drive. A T-120 tape, with a full 6 hours of information, take up about 20 Gb. So, on a 1 Tb drive, I can have up to 50 tapes saved.

The next step is to edit the MPEG files to trim out the filler at the beginning and end of the program, and put in markers so I can skip through the commercials. It's probably too much of a hassle to edit out the commercials, so I'll put the markers in after the commercial breaks, right before the program resumes.

I probably won't burn DVDs of programs that are commercially available, e.g. Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Friends. But for the items that aren't available, or rare (e.g. the original pilot of Babylon 5 as it originally aired in 1993), then they're getting the DVD treatment.

Movember 2012 has come and gone. There were 16 of us participating. And we raised about $1500.

I have pictures of me and my mo at http://mobro.co/jimpoltrone.

Last year, I mentioned my long-term search for an octopus, in order to make a recipe I got from my uncle Yano. I'm happy to report that an octopus was acquired for this purpose.

My friends from college Dan and Jody, and our mutual friend Mary (who just got a job in the Columbus area), were staying at the Great Wolf Lodge in Mason, OH for a Christmas-time getaway. I had the day off, so I drove to Mason to visit them. We then went to the Foodie Mecca of the Midwest, Jungle Jim's, where I was able to purchase a 0.5 kg octopus (that's about 1.1 lb for those of you who haven't gone metric yet) for $9, along with a couple of 6-packs of IBC Diet Root Beer and a 6-pack of Holy Grail Ale.

So, after bringing the octopus back home, I looked for my uncle Yano's recipe, and found it in my recipe book. The octopus is first cut up into bite-sized pieces. (Because of the texture, a sharp knife is required.) It is then simmered in red wine, along with mirepoix (carrots, celery, and onion -- the holy trinity of cooking), garlic, parsley, and olive oil. It is then marinated overnight in more olive oil, parsley, red pepper flakes, lemon pepper, and sea salt. It has been cooked and is now marinating.

Some of you are probably thinking, "Eeewww!" right now. But octopus is a delicacy in places like Spain, Sicily, southern Italy, Greece, and Japan, where seafood is prevalent. ("Polpo" is the Italian word for octopus; the plural is "polpi". And "calamari" is the Italian word for squid.)

As for my uncle Yano, he passed away in 2010. Sebastiano Puma (we called him Yano for short) was a friend of my family -- my dad's goombody. I have no idea how they first met. But we stayed in contact over the years. As far as I know, he is survived by his widow and two daughters. At one point, he owned a liquor store. I remember getting a board game from him: "Rum For Your Money", which plugged Don Q Puerto Rican Rum. It drew upon the story of Don Quixote, oh which the liquor's name was based.

I am looking forward to having this over the next couple of days.