Sunday, March 28, 2010

The Minnesota Zephyr



Clicking on the photo will take you to a larger version of it.

The Minnesota Zephyr is a heritage railroad operating out of Stillwater, Minnesota. It operates as a dinner train and serves a five-course, white linen dinner on a six-mile route, traveling between four and seven miles per hour.

You can see more of my Minnesota photography here.

You can see all of my photography here.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Squirt Guns and Canines


I have a dog sharing this humble abode with me. The dog is a Miniature Pinscher, her name is Jasmine, and that's her in the photo on this blog.

Besides being extremely loyal, very playful and extremely funny dogs, min-pins also have one other trait.

They bark.

A lot.

Jasmine is actually my 2nd min-pin. My first one (named Jafar) also barked more often than most people would like to hear, but at complete different times. When I had Jafar he would mostly bark during two occasions; when he wanted to either go outside or come inside, or when he was in his kennel. That was pretty much it. Jasmine actually loves being in her kennel, and when she wants to go outside she'll just come tap me on my leg. She could easily spend the rest of her day barking.

She can see the neighbors INSIDE their own house and bark. She can see a leaf blow across the yard and bark. She can hear me walk into the room she is in and she will bark. And don't even get me started on people walking by on the street. Or heaven forbid she sees the mailman.

The times she sees someone either out on the street or the mailman, or someone pulling into my neighbors driveway to pick up their kids (the neighbors have a daycare) she will bark incessantly until the offending party is out of sight. And for the mailman that could be a long time because he always parks his truck out in front of my house while he walks the street, so the truck is there a long time.

Yelling at her doesn't work (for more than a couple of seconds anyway), calling her name doesn't work, making funny sounds doesn't work. About the only thing that has ever really worked is simply going up to her and standing next to her. She then not only stops barking but usually bows down and submits to me.

But how often do I want to get up and walk over to her? I've heard a few people over the years tell me to get a squirt gun and use that when she barks. I heard it again earlier this week and so on my next trip to the store I went and picked up a new squirt gun.



I used the squirt gun for the first time on Thursday when two people were walking down the street. She started barking, I squirted her and that immediately caused her to stop barking and look over at me with a "what the hell was that" look on her face. She then came over and had to inspect the squirt gun and after doing so she decided to curl up in my lap.

A few hours later the mailman showed up and she went into her normal over-the-top barking and racing all over the couch routine. I squirted once, she looked over at me once again with that "what the hell was that" look, and then came over and wanted to lay in my lap.

A short time later she again wanted to bark at some people out on the street, and this time she actually heard me pull the trigger on the squirt gun, turned and saw the water approaching and ran out of the way. She is a quick little dog, but despite not hitting my target it still worked. She again came over and laid down in my lap. But that showed me just how quickly she learned.

Today there was only one time that she started barking. I hit her with the first squirt of the gun and she again came over and laid down in my lap.

I am completely amazed at how well this worked. And I'm amazed at how fast Jasmine picked up on it. Now, min-pins are smarter than normal dogs (a tool they quite often use in spite), but they are notoriously difficult to train. And here I am, I've used the squirt gun just four times and she's already learned that she'll get squirted when she barks, AND she's totally submitted to me each time I have squirted her. I've never had to say a word, and after pulling the trigger three times on the first use, I've only had to pull it once on the subsequent times.

I have to say, if you have a dog that has habits you want to correct, go get yourself a squirt gun. Trust me, the longer you wait, the more you'll end up kicking yourself for not getting one sooner.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Disney Worlds Cinderella's Castle

I took this photo back in 2007 on my first trip to Disney World after getting my DSLR. I don't think I ever posted it to my photography site as I wasn't very happy with it. But now that I've finally figured out how to tweak a few things with photoshop, this just might be my favorite Disney photo.

Clicking the pic will give you a bigger view of it.



You can see more of my Magic Kingom photos by clicking here.

You can see more of my Walt Disney World photos by clicking here.

You can see all of my photos by clicking here.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Dave Matthews Band - You and Me

I've been having a hard time getting this song out of my head recently. And that is not a complaint. The song is called You and Me and is from the Dave Matthews Band album Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Fixing Joe Nathan


The Minnesota Twins came into this years Spring Training sessions looking like a lock for the Central Division title and a possible long playoff run. They have the best line-up they've had in decades. They have the guy that has been statistically the best closer in the game the past six years. And they have a young and hopefully improving pitching staff.

On Saturday a big chunk of their team fell apart. Joe Nathan (the guy I mentioned above as being the best closer in the game) tore a ligament in his pitching elbow during a spring training game. The typical procedure for this is to watch and treat the injury for two weeks and then see if surgery is needed. This is the path the Twins are apparently taking with most people saying Joe will almost certainly need surgery. This route would keep Joe from playing this year, and with his age being 36, it might be a career ending injury.

I've always been one who thinks the closing position in baseball is very much over-rated. But you simply can't take someone who has dominated the position off your roster and not suffer a loss. If Joe is out for the year, it wouldn't be difficult to see an extra 5-8 losses this year as you couldn't expect anyone else to do as well as he has. And with how close the Central Division has been the last few years, those 5-8 games are beyond important.

But what if the Twins could have Joe back, say, in the middle of May? There is a new procedure that doctors are using that could have Joe closing games again that early in the season. The procedure is called Platelet-Rich Plasma therapy. This procedure is so cutting-edge that there still needs to be much more research done before it becomes mainstream.

The procedure centers around using the patients own blood. Their blood is drawn and spun to isolate the platelets. I'll state here that I have absolutely no idea what that means, but the platelets are 10 times more concentrated than in normal blood which helps them clot and promote healing. The method, which is strikingly straightforward and easy to perform, centers on injecting portions of a patient’s blood directly into the injured area, which catalyzes the body’s instincts to repair muscle, bone and other tissue. Most enticing is that the technique appears to help regenerate ligament and tendon fibers, which could shorten rehabilitation time and possibly obviate surgery.

To date, there is been just one other MLB relief pitcher that has had this procedure done, and this pitcher was back throwing in two months. The pitchers name is Takashi Saito. He was the Los Angeles Dodgers closer during the 2008 season and suffered his injury in the middle of July. He was the Dodgers closer again during that seasons playoffs. Not only is Saito a relief pitcher like Joe is, but he was 38 years old when the procedure was done. Joe Nathan is 36. Having elbow surgery might not just put Joe out for the season, at his age it might end his career.

As I mentioned, this is still a very new procedure, and the procedure as it is now performed fails over 20% of the time. The only downside of it failing is Joe would then get the Tommy John surgery and be shelved for a season.

To wrap up, I don't see why they wouldn't look into this procedure. If Joe was 26 instead of 36, yeah, you do the surgery. But if the elbow hasn't healed at the end of this two weeks of rest, I think this option is too good to pass up. At that point you're looking at surgery where he'd be out for the season. Or you could try something new and possibly be back in two months, and helping what looks like an exciting season for the Twins close out on a good note.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Burger Making 101


There is a secret to making a mouth-watering burger that gets looked over in back-yard grills everywhere you live. You can make a MUCH better burger in a frying pan than you can a grill.

Don't believe me? Let me explain something. Do you see all of those juices dripping from your burger that land on the charcoal at the bottom of your grill? Each and every one of those drips is flavor. The more of those juices that you can keep in your burger, the better your burger will taste.

So how should you cook a burger? Get yourself a cast-iron skillet and follow these simple steps:

1. Pre-heat your skillet for at least five minutes on high heat. Once the skillet is hot, add 1 tbs of canola oil (or your oil of choice).

2. Form a 1/4 pound of ground beef into a ball. Drop the meat in the pan and set your timer for 1 minute. While the meat is cooking season the top of the burger with your choice of seasonings (my favorite is paprika and pepper).

3. When that minute is up, flip the burger and then using your spatula press down firmly on the patty until it is around 1/2" thick, set the timer for another minute, and season the burger again.

4. After that minute, flip the burger for the last time. If you want cheese on your burger, this is when you want to add it. Then depending on how you want your burger cooked, use the following times: For a Rare burger, cook it for one minute after that final flip for a total cook time of 3 minutes. For a Medium Rare burger, add a fourth minute. For Medium, add 45 more seconds. And then add 45 seconds for each Medium Well, Well and Hockey Puck. But going back to the keeping the juice in the burger theory, the more you cook a burger, the dryer it becomes.

That's all there is too it. Using a skillet will keep the juices in the pan, thus keeping the flavor with the burger. And during each of the first two minutes of cooking the burger, those juices will caramelize on the burger, creating a seal that will help keep the juices inside of the burger.

I'm very much aware that cooking a burger on the grill just feels good. You can still do that and get the same results by placing a small cookie sheet on your grill and cooking the burgers on there.

There are many ways to cook your hamburger. If you try doing it this way it may just become your favorite.