Four legged visitor for the next three weeks

So listen to this. My folks came out to visit me during the first weekend in December, and they brought along their cat, Misha. You might remember her from a long time ago, in this post.

Well needless to say, when my parents left for home on Tuesday morning, Misha went into hiding in the basement. My folks spent about an hour trying to find her, but Misha just didn’t want to be found. So they ended up having to leave her behind until they come back for Christmas. So basically I still have Misha for another week and a half, before my parents show back up to claim her.

So far its been a mixed bag with Misha, since she is still in her “man hater” mood, and keeps hissing at my all the time. A couple of times she let me play with her, but that has only happened twice. Most mornings I get to find out what “trouble making” she got into the night before. For some reason, one of her favorate things to do, is grab the toliet paper roll from the bathroom and chew it up in the middle of the room. But in general, she likes to chew almost anything (posters, speaker cables, clothing, etc.), which is very anoying. Personally I can’t wait until our time together is over with.

Happy 200th Post!!!!

Has it been 200 already? I had to check the calendar and number 200 took about nine months to reach, while getting to number 100 only took about six months. But somehow the MIIA train just keeps on rolling down the tracks, one post after another. So thank you very much, for hanging in their through all the crazy posts.

-AuSable

Back from Vacation

I’m back from taking a week off for a little bit of R&R, but it was more like a whole week of BS (beer and skiing). Now that I’ve got some of my vim & vigor back, it’s back to the craziness that is this blog.

Back from Christmas break

I just got back from a little road trip, after taking the week off for Christmas. And while I was passing through Michigan, I was able to pick some favorites to bring back with me. With the two major items, being Better Made chips and Vernors. Also when I was swinging through Kalamazoo I stopped by the Meijer on South Westnedge Ave and picked up a couple of flavors of Jays Chips, since I haven’t had Jays Chips in a while (excluding Krunchers.) Hope everyone had a great Christmas, and I’ll try to get these new items posted as soon as I can.

Winter is now here – December 2009

Man did it snow last week, so much so that work was actually closed on Wednesday for a “snow day.”

When all was said and done, we got just under 16″ of snow in total. This of course isn’t taking into effect the high winds while it was snowing, so there were drifts on my front sidewalk that were just under my knee. The only upside to all this snow, is hopefully we’ll have an awesome ski season this year. I guess we’ll see over the coming months.

Digital Camera Repaired – sort of

Well I was able to fix the lens cover on my digital camera, but only after about 4 hours of multiple assembly and dis-assembly cycles. But as with everything, when one thing is fixed something else breaks. And while re-assembling the camera I ended up nicking a spot on the flat cable that connects the LCD display to the motherboard. So now the screen is totally jacked up on the camera, but everything else was unaffected. So I’m back in business, though not at 100%.

Personally after 11,000+ photos taken with this camera, I think that I’ve more then gotten my monies worth out of this camera. So now the hunt begins for a “parts” camera on ebay, to replace the LCD or cable (if it isn’t hard connected to the LCD panel). Wish me luck.

Digital Camera Broken

Somehow the freezing cold temperatures from standing outside this past weekend in Chicago, ended up freezing the automatic lens cover open on my Nikon S52 digital camera.

I started to take apart the camera to repair the lens cover this week, but ended up breaking one of my precision screwdrivers while taking the camera apart. So until I can dig myself out of the snow and pick up a new set of precision screwdrivers to finish taking apart the camera. This repair project will be on hold for the time being.

In the mean time enjoy some of the final pics from Hot Doug’s before my camera broke. Because it might be a while before my camera is repaired.

Side notes:
One of the hot dogs is a Chicago dog (fried and grilled) with everything on top.
And the other dog is a Ribeye Steak Sausage with Chimichurri, Crispy Fried Onions and Oregon Smoked Blue Cheese.
Both were excellent, especially with a side of duck fat french fries.

Happy 100th Post!!!!

This post marks a milestone for miia monthly, in that this is the 100th post to the site!!! WooHoo!!! Who knew that it would only take 6 months? Personally I never thought that this “blog” would have lasted a month, let alone 6 months. But I’ve started to use this website in a strange way myself. In that I’m using it to look up my own recipes so that I don’t have to remember all the details (pictures, words, everything.) This is a big enhancement from my old method of writing down my recipes (and cooking notes) on a note card. Plus if I’m traveling, I’ll always have my recipes available.

So I hope that you enjoyed the first 100 posts, and hope that you stick around for the next 100 posts and beyond.

Thank you.

More broken stuff – inside and outside

Man, I don’t know what is going on, but stuff has been breaking all around me. And it seems to be happening out of nowhere. First it was big blue ceramic bowl, and then it was my kettle (and I didn’t even think that it was possible to break a stainless steel kettle.) And now just a couple of days ago the support grate inside my charcoal chimney starter disintegrated to nothing.

The chimney starter had to have been the funniest thing that broke out of the three. I went through my usual process to start a batch of charcoal, and when I came back 15 minutes later to check on the charcoals progress. The top of the charcoal had dropped ~2 inches, which I thought was kind of strange. So I just added some more charcoal to the top of the chimney.

It wasn’t until the coals were ready that I found out why they had dropped so much. When I picked up the starter all the coals fell out the bottom. I should have known that the end was near for the chimney starter when I had to replace one of the rivets on the handle a week ago. Well it least it is close to the end of summer, so I’ll be able to get another starter as an end of season clearance before they are all gone.

Off for the weekend

I’ll be gone all weekend. But don’t worry I’ve got plenty of posts in the pipeline to finish next week. Such as a couple new chip reviews, making bloody mary’s and chili from scratch and a bunch of other stuff. So see you next week!