Cooking with Brent

As you may know I like to watch cooking shows, taking ingredients and mixing them together in just the right quantity to make something fabulous. Having watched many shows and also spending time actually cooking I feel that there are things I can pass on to aid in your cooking endeavors.

Ashley requested a pumpkin roll for her birthday. I have never made a pumpkin or any other roll for that matter. I'll admit I was a little nervous. I pictured a crumbled pile of cake with the filling spread on top. So following the directions very carefully I proceeded to cook. The instructions said to "lay out a clean dish towel (do they really need to tell you to use a clean towel? seriously) "dusted with powdered sugar to turn the cake onto..." So I had my towel all prepared and I was ready to turn the cake over onto it. Not wanting to have it break, or go other than where I wanted it to go I turned it over quickly and probably a little too hard. Instead of having a towel dusted with powdered sugar I had a kitchen dusted with powdered sugar, it went everywhere. I know what you’re all thinking, "your man wouldn't have done that...", and your probably right, but this was my first time. So after the cloud of sugar dissipated I proceeded to pull off the wax paper and roll the cake. At this point I was feeling a little better about the success of the endeavor, but still a little worried. So I proceeded to mix the filling and let the cake cool. Once cool, I carefully unrolled the cake from the towel and proceeded to spread the gooey cream cheese mixture on it. Once frosted it got rolled up and placed in the fridge to cool.

The end product was amazing, if I do say so myself. So if any of you are brave enough to try the pumpkin roll (recipe on the Libby pumpkin can) be careful not to dust your entire kitchen in powdered sugar.

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday lovie Ashley, happy birthday to you!


I want to wish my best friend a happy birthday. I hope she has had a great day! Thanks to everybody who called and wrote to wish her a happy birthday.

Bad Cows

I have to rant for a minute. I read online that a super crazy environmental group is blaming cows for global warming and deforestation. They are urging us to stop drinking milk and eating meat. So if we all do what VIVA (the crazy group, not the milk producer) suggests aren’t we going to have a whole lot of cows with no purpose? So as a simple engineer here is an idea of what to do with all of our excess cows.


Let’s harness all those bad greenhouse gases that the cows are producing. We could refine it and market is as ‘bovine-diesel’. We could have the largest fuel producing region in the world, just imagine the entire Midwest in gas production. Or better yet we could go all back to the future and install a cow on every car, totally better than the Mr. Fusion. The folks in Texas would love the idea, instead of mounting a big longhorn rack on the front of their Cadillac they can install the whole bull.

I’m starting to make the “Moo-ve Over, Bovine on Board” bumper stickers right now, so place your orders early.

Seriously people, I’m as much of an environmentalist tree hugger as the next guy, but blaming cows for the problems of the world, is just crazy.

Playing with Scissors

For those of you who don’t know me really well, I am fidgety, can’t sit still for more than 2 seconds. If there is a small object near me I will pick it up and play with it. This can get me into trouble, as it did the other night.

I was working on the laptop at our dining room table. Scattered on the table were various crafting items that Ashley had been using for a Young Women’s project. Among the various objects was a pair of scissors. Absently I picked them up and began to open and shut them not really paying much attention to what I was doing. Then something felt different, it wasn’t just air that I was cutting but something a little more solid. It was one of those moments when you really don’t want to look down and see what happened.


Of course it wasn’t one of the old tablecloths, it was Ashley favorite red tablecloth. So please keep all sharp objects away from me, especially when I’m distracted.

Thoughts of Dad

Today is my dad’s birthday. There are things that I learned from dad that I never appreciated until recently.

Most of my memories of dad are of work related things. Whether it was making a trip to the mountains to cut firewood, or laying sod, or planting trees. There was always some home project that needed to be accomplished. Very rarely were the correct parts available to finish a job, but there was always an abundance of parts that would ‘work’. I don’t know and probably will never know if piecing things together as only dad could do really saved time and effort. It never made much sense to me but he always knew that the convoluted path to get there would work out. Dad never really needed a set of sawhorses; he had kids for that duty. There were many times that I heard “come hold the end of this board while I cut it”.



I’m appreciative of these things now that I have projects of my own and have the skills to be able to build and fix things. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time working on our basement and while I work my thoughts invariably turn to my dad. It’s during those moments that I feel his loss most. My dad was good at just about everything he did and while I do pretty good work, it just doesn’t seem to be as good.

My dad had a funny way of showing us that he loved us. Very rarely did he ever just come out and say it, but we knew anyway. We often heard things like “come look at my dumb kid” and “are you ever going to amount to anything”. I knew that this was dad’s way of showing affection. Because of my dad I’m trying to amount to something.

Doorway to Where?

You may know that we have been doing some home improvement and remodeling on our basement. The ‘project’ originally started out to simply insulate the walls and paint. Over time the scope has greatly increased from a simple job to a complete overhaul and makeover. Since we will have new walls, and floor, why would we want to keep the old ugly beat-up doors? So out came the old doors and frames. Before the demolition I carefully measured each opening and made sure what direction each door opened. After making a beautiful sketch with all of the relevant information, destruction commenced.

The closet door is a bi-fold type door no door frame required. Super genius engineer that I am I carefully measured the door size to the existing frame. With the door frame removed the 30” door that I bought was too small for the 32” opening. No worries 32” is a standard size door so return the door I have and get the correct size door. Off to Home Depot to make a simple exchange. Normally you would think that if you have the product and a receipt it should be really easy to return an item. For some reason the barcode on my receipt would not scan properly so the cashier attempted to enter the receipt code in manually. After several failed attempts additional help was requested. So the other lady working the service desk came over and attempted to enter the code, same results. At this point I stated thinking that I was becoming quite attached to my closet door and should just keep it. Finally the head cashier came over to assist with my transaction. After about 15 minutes we finally get results, I got my $38 dollars back and it was time to get the correct size door. Amazingly enough it works better when you type in all the numbers on the receipt, huh. I wish I could say that it was a happy ending and all is well, but alas no. Picture if you will a nice row of closet doors all organized into sizes and styles. Down the row I go, 48”…. 36” ….. 30”, huh? Where is my 32” closet door? The manufacture makes a 32” door, I want a 32” door. How hard is this? Apparently very hard. Super genius engineer to the rescue, big door frame, smaller door, duh! make a smaller door frame. Once again I need to buy a 30” door. The three doors that are on the shelf all look pretty beat up, I don’t want a damaged door. Ashley suggests that we go get the one we just returned. So no problem just walk nonchalantly up to the return counter and grab my original door and hope the lady that helped return it doesn’t notice. So after everything I end up with the same door that I started out with. I was hoping that it would be on sale the second time around, but no, at least the price didn’t go up.

Airport Trivia

Having to start somewhere so here goes….

Several weeks ago my Grandpa passed away. So I headed down to Salt Lake to be with my family. Actually I was flying down to Boise and then driving with my sister down to Salt Lake. From where we live the airport is not really convenient. Since I was traveling by myself, it was easy to catch a ferry and then a bus to the airport. Ashley dropped me off at the ferry terminal and then headed off to a Young Women’s basketball game. After an uneventful ferry and bus ride I arrived at the airport 3 hours early. I know it seems a little excessive to get to the airport so early, but it’s just the way it worked out. I wasn’t checking any bags so it was straight to the security screening and all of the joy that goes along with that. Take off the shoes, make sure all your liquids and gels are in one zip top bag and place your things on the scanner. Luckily I didn’t get selected for an ‘additional’ security screening so I moseyed down to my gate stopping for pizza along the way, hey I had nothin’ but time. Stopping along the way to check the status of my flight, and guess what, it was delayed by 35 minuets. No problem I had my ipod and book I could entertain myself. I found a place to sit near my gate and started watching the people around me. Soon a group of older people, probably mid 60’s I would imagine, started talking quite loudly. I wasn't necessarily trying to listen to their conversation, but I really couldn’t help it. Their conversation turned to TV shows, more specifically The Golden Girls. They were trying to remember the names of the main characters and could only come up with Rose and Blanche. It there desperation to solve this dilemma one of the ladies turns to me and asked if I watched The Golden Girls. Trying really hard not to laugh and make a snotty comment I just said, ‘no, never did’. Seriously, I’m a guy in my thirties, on what planet would I watch The Golden Girls. Okay I’ll admit that I’ve watched some pretty dumb shows just because there wasn’t anything else on, but not this one. Just in case you were wondering, the other ones are Dorothy and Sophia, (isn’t the internet great).

So once I got to Boise it was just a matter to make it out to the curb and wait for Jen to pick me up. Being the super nice brother that I am, I decided to make myself easier to see by standing on a bench. So my sister drives up and thinks to herself “Who’s the idiot standing on a bench? Oh wait it’s just my brother.”