Money Trouble

I feel a need to apologize to the rest of the world for our confusing money. How is somebody from a foreign country supposed to know how much a dime is worth? Where did we get the arbitrary names of dime, nickel and penny from anyway?

Last week we were on vacation. We started off by going to Boise to be a part of our niece’s baptism. Instead of heading straight back home we took the scenic route through the Columbia River Gorge and Mount St. Helens. As part of vacation we are always on the lookout for pressed penny machines. (Ashley has quite the collection and is always looking to add more to the 600 or so she already has.)

So now on to the reason for my apologetic blog.
At the Johnston Ridge Observatory at Mount St. Helens there is a penny machine. Near the penny machine there was a display of various types of volcanic rock from different volcanoes from around the world. As I was examining the different types of rock I noticed a lady having a problem making a pressed penny. For those who have never had the experience of using one of these wonderful contraptions they are really quite simple. You place 2 quarters and 1 penny in the appropriate coin slots (the quarters pay for the privilege of squishing a penny, and the penny is what you squish), push them in and let her rip. Nothing to difficult unless you have no idea what the various coins are. The lady was from London and feeling a certain affinity to the English People, I offered my assistance. Her main problem was instead of using a penny she had a dime in the slot. Since she had no penny and I happened to have one in my pocket I furthered good will between our countries by giving it to her.
I understand her dilemma; there is nothing on our coinage that indicates its value. Other countries coins have a number clearly printed on them as to there value. But not us, we like to make it as confusing as possible for those dang foreigners.

Another funny money story from our vacation. We stayed in a B&B in Hood River Oregon. As I was bringing stuff in from the car I saw a penny, 1 cent >8-), on the ground or so I thought. Never to overlook making a little extra money I picked it up. Upon initial examination I thought it was a Canadian penny, but it just didn’t look right so I looked closer. It turned out to a Euro 2 cent piece. Huh! Little town in Oregon and I find a Euro coin. It has now been added to my jar of various coins from around the world.

I'm Back - Finally

Wow! July already. Where has the year gone? So I haven’t updated my blog for a while (as most of you have noticed). Here are a few of the lame reasons that I’ll use in my defense:
I had to go to Groton Connecticut for work, the basement swallowed my life for many months, I spent time in San Diego for work, work has been insanely crazy so I just couldn’t spend any more time on a computer when I got home, and the most believable reason of all LEGO Star Wars. Okay I'm going to try and repent and make the wait so worth while. I promise.

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.