Sugar Free and Caramelly delicious!

Yo know what a challenge it is to have an extreme sweet tooth and diabetes? Well apparentely Smuckers does. They have a line of sugar free dessert syrups. While I don't care for sugar free chocolate ( they always taste so bitter to me, and not in a good way) I love their Sugar Free Caramel topping. Sometimes I use it on waffles or french toast for a break from sugar free "maple" syrup. (Yes Abbie the qoutes are for you... I know you love true maple syrup but a lot of use just can't) The Caramel topping is great on Sugar free Ice cream, better on fresh fruit! One of my favorites is to take a sliced banana and pour on the caramel. Or dip Apple or strawberries slices in the caramel. But sometimes you gotta mix it up!

SUGAR FREE CARAMEL FRUIT SALAD
1 Banana, sliced
1 apple, sliced
1/2 cup of strawberries, sliced
 1/4 cup Smuckers Sugar Free Caramel syrup

Mix all the fruit slices in a bowl, toss, being careful not to bruise the fruit. Chill for 1/2 hour, then pour on 1/4 cup of the syrup. Serve immediately!  Serves 2 (or 1 piggy person).

Substitute real caramel syrup for the sugar free if you don't have diabetes or other sugar related issues, or for other folks.


I am not paid or given anything by Smuckers for this review. I just like the product!

First Urban HomeSteaders?

Is the President breaking the law??? With all this hooey about Urban Farming trademarks and such, I give you these facts:

• President and First Lady Obama have a substantial garden at the White House, which the WH Kitchen staff uses for state dinners and for cooking for the Obama's
  
• Mr. President has called upon the White House Kitchen Staff to Home brew Beer which President Obama served at their Super Bowl party
  
• And the Obama's established Bee Hives at the white house. Honey the white house uses.
  

Not since Thomas Jefferson, has a president been interested in growing their own food. Sure others have, I'm sure, but none that come to mind. Seems to me, then I would call the Obama's the First Family of Urban Homesteading. So, I'm thinking maybe Mr. President maybe should get into the fray over the Trademark Issue. It is only fitting. As President, Mr. Obama, moreover Mrs. Obama has shown class in in returning the food gardens to the white house landscaping. As I said the Obama's are the First Family of Urban Homesteading, not The Dervaes, so, Mr. President, take back the UH Name. Do it for democracy and the American Way. Do it for Freedom. Hell, Do it cause I want you to!

Now I am not fooling myself. Chances are the next republican elected president will tear out the garden and bring in paving to make a Nascar Track. Hell, even Reagan couldn't wait to tear out Jimmy Carter's Solar Panels on the White House. I always wondered if Reagan went up to the roof and said"Mr. Carter, Tear down those solar panels"

Anyway Mr. President, You now have the opportunity to show those that would copyright and disallow folks to practice in the 2nd oldest profession in the world that they cannot copyright a life style. Especially a lifestyle seem to have embraced, even if Michelle started it.

Ever had one of those days???

Just to let Chile know she is not the only one who gets strange injuries, I gotta tell you all about my day. I got a glass shard in my foot Sunday. Try as I could, I could not get ahold of it to remove it. So Monday I had to call the podiatrist, Hoping for an appointment. They could not get me in until today. So, the regular podiatrist is not in. He is in Mexico taking shoes to the poor, and treating folks down there. Not an un-noble cause. So i get this young pup of a doctor. Looked like he just came out of podiatry school. He took X-Rays, found the shard, and proceeded to cut into my foot and remove it. Very good young doctor, he had me in and out in about an hour. He wrote me two prescriptions. And boy let me tell you, by the time I got to work my foot was killing me. Luckily I took the Ibuprofen 800 Mg. I was feeling pretty good, and got through the night.

One of my jobs at work tonight was to try and replace a washer in a leaky shower valve in the Women's shower. Unfortunately, that particular shower has bad shut offs, so I had to shut the water mains off. We put a sign up on Tuesday that the showers would be closed due to no water. Sure as shit I went in to shut the water off, there were two guys working out. One of them had the nerve to say to me he was sick and tired of maintenance always shutting off the water when he was using the fitness center. Well really I am sorry... sorry we put signs up in the fitness center that said we would shut down the showers for 2 hours and he apparently didn't see them before today. Then this dumb ass has the nerve to say to me "Apparently you don't know who I am ... I am Mr. So and so, And I work very closely with the company CEO." Well I said to him,"Apparently you don't know who I am- I am the guy who knows where the main water valves are and can shut the damn showers down right in the middle of your shower should I see fit. Needless to say I won that argument. Finished the job in less than 1/2 hour. If dumb ass would have spent more time working his tired old poop body out instead of bothering a working guy he would have never known the showers were down. Asshole.

Mom and my uncle celebrating old age.

Oh, BTW while I am ranting and raving, let me take a moment to say Happy Birthday to my Mom.Wow. 78!!! God ain't that old. I would show you what I got for her, but we aren't exchangin presents until Sunday. And I thought that would be a good post for trashy Tuesday.

Voice of an Angel.. A Rob's Rave

Susan Boyle... I can't watch the you tube video without water coming from my eyes. And I just heard her new album, "I Dreamed a Dream". It was all I was expecting. I have been in love with Susan from the moment she marched on the stage on Britain's got Talent, and made Simon eat his words. And some crow. (Anytime someone makes a fool of Simon Crowell, well, lets face it- an angel gets his wings)

Her album is a mix of good songs, "I Dreamed a Dream", "Cry Me A River",(one of my favorite songs ever), "Wild Horses". Real "cleaning up" music. All delivered with her strong melodic voice. I now know what angels sound like. I give it two big hammered thumbs up!

It's no wonder this is the #1 album in the USA, and on a lot of folks Christmas list, including mine

Rave: Breaking the bottled water habit!

It's a good thing I read other blogs when they make comments on mine. Other wise I would never find neat campaigns like this Breaking the Bottled water habit. I know you have heard other websites lament about plastic usage and why it is bad. But I am thinking of it as Patriotic to use your own re-usable water bottle. Helps to get us of Foreign oil dependency. I found this through the Four Bushel Farm blog. I think it is important. Did you know that every plastic water bottle uses 1/4 cup of oil in it's production? Or that Tap water is safer than it's bottled counterpart? And if you filter the tap water is the same as the bottled counterpart? So sign up and get out your reusable water bottle and start saving big bucks. (If you drink one bottle of water a day that's over $365 per year!) It is the patriotic thing to do! Here are the info from the New American dream website:

Everything we consume has a climate impact, but manufacturing and trucking water
bottles to homes with clean tap water seems particularly wasteful. The Beverage
Marketing Corporation reports that Americans consumed 31.2 billion liters of
water in 2006 – nearly 9 liters per month for every man, woman, and child.

Manufacturing all those bottles requires 900,000 tons of plastic, the
equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil, and emit more than 2.5
million tons of carbon dioxide. Trucking around all those heavy bottles emits
even more greenhouse gases. Beyond the climate impact there’s the massive waste
– 86% of water bottles aren't recycled -- and water bottling is also,
ironically, a very water-intensive endeavor. The Pacific Institute tells us that
it takes three liters of water to produce one liter of bottled water!

Good bye Garden plot- A mini rant

Well a semi-sweet day around here- I went and took the remaining plants out of my plot in the

community garden. For the record, The community garden was just a demo garden, one that I am proud of. We got a late start (Late June-early July) And with 6 of 8 of the plots growing food, we managed to donate over 51 pounds of food to the food bank. My hope is that the City of Burien takes note and starts a community P-Patch. Of course, (RANT ALERT)cities being cities it seems to take an act of god to do anything worth while, they need studies, cost analysis, etc etc. HARUMPH. They have the park land, thanks to the King County Executive, cost would be minimal, savings to the city would be substantial. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY THEY SIT ON THEIR HANDS ON THIS ISSUE. People want and need to grow their own food.

and the cost issue, well I ranted before on this issue. Suffice it to say, I am not backing off until I see a nice community garden in Burien. Maybe I need to contact the new city council people. You know- introduce myself, in my boyish Tony Soprano way. Maybe leave a head of cabbage in their bed. Anyway onto the rave part of this post. There are a lot of folks to thank for our "community garden: The good folks at sustainable Burien, my fellow like minded members who did the labor and are pushing for a permanent garden, Dane and Kathy, the curators of the BIAS, who let us have space for it, and see the garden as an art form. No one to thank from the city, cause I don't have a permanent garden yet!

100 Mile Challenge- Planet Green Style

Have you been watching "The 100 Mile Challenge" on Planet Green? Now this is what reality TV should be. Bascially, The good citizens of Mission B.C. have taken on a 100 mile food challenge, started by James MacKinnon and Alisa Smith, who write on their experiences doing the 100 food mile challenge themselves for one year on a blog and a book. Their book "Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Robust Year of Eating Locally" Is available now.
The show is enjoyable. You see the fails. The successes, the "cheats". Done in a great documentary reality style. I have only seen the first two episodes and I must say that I am hooked. And let me tell you, they mean 100 local miles for everything, oil, wheat (which includes flour) vinegar- even salt and pepper (I was laughing at the St. Cyr familie's quest for salt- they ended up going to the beach and boiling down Ocean Water!And I was equally amazed- (it worked!) That and the search for flour or wheat.
This show makes you question- What's In Your Pantry?
It is amazing to see what folks will do when based with a big challenge. And these folks are doing it for themselves- no money or prizes! I would give this show 4 green thumbs

More news on re-cycling cell phones

Sure when I think about changing cell phones and where to re-cycle them, comes this post on ecogeek.org about a new way to recycle your phone- just like going to the cash machine! Soon these eco ATM's will be popping up all over and the machines will soon be able to accept other gadgets like MP3 players, cameras and laptops. The advantage to doing this is you get a coupon for money off on your new phone, you know it is going to be recycled, and for the retailer the ecoATM company makes it beneficial to the retailers by installing the machines at no cost and making the payments redeemable in-store, increasing their sales. It also allows them to apply donations from the machine to their favorite charity.
So maybe I will wait until getting my new phone-

Do you think this is a good idea to get folks to recycle electronics?

Rave: Boy Scout Popcorn

About a year ago I ranted about schools sending kids out to sell crap. Well this year, I am raving about the boy scouts. Has Rob softened in his old age?

Nope.

I have a different opinion between schools selling crap because (in this levy state) we don't give the schools enough money to fund arts and sports programs. But the Boy Scouts (and Girl Scouts) are a different matter- they are a private organization who do some good in the world. While not a big fan of the Boy Scouts of America per say ( I think they are a fascist group, who discriminate with the blessing of the Supreme Court) I do admire the boys that go through it.

I Digress-

I was coming out of Lowe's today, and here is this little guy, who stopped me and asked if I would like to buy some Boy Scout Popcorn. Before I could say no, This little salesman went in to his selling spiel- and Ron Popeil and Billy Mays would have been proud of this little tyke- the kid even had samples of the chocolate covered caramel corn! Needless to say I bought a box of Microwave popcorn- The popcorn will go into the movie bags for Christmas- and the Boy Scouts of America get $10.50 of the $15 I spent. Not in the spirit of the Buy Hand challenge, but hey a Two-fer is a Two-fer! And I am putting the bags together, myself. (There is a justification for ya)
Anyway, I am glad part of my Christmas goes to support charities, while giving to others, some of who wouldn't spend a nickle to give to any charitable organization. Hee Hee.

It's like peeing in your pants in a dark suit, Kinda gives you a warm feeling, and nobody really notices!

Rave: The Weather

It is too nice to work- that’s my motto- we have been having nice warm weather- got up to 85 today- suppose to get to 86 tomorrow.
I don’t know how, in grey Seattle, they can expect folks to work when we have inclemently warm weather-Indian summer what have you.I managed to do a little gardening this morning- planted chard, mesclun and lettuce seeds, I did. Then go and have a nice little breakfast with my puppy. I just love nice days like this.
I propose a new bill in congress that we all get Sunny Days Off. So we can blow work off. For Me. We can call it The “It’s Sunny so I don’t have to go to work so blow me bill”! Or the "Blow Me" bill for short.
Think of it- people will feel so good they will go out and shop and frequent sidewalk restaurants and cafés and the economy would be healed! I is a geniuos. Screw Ben Stein. Vote for Rob for Head Geniuos. Maybe then he will even learn to spell genious right!

PARKING THE CAR FOR CHILI

This post is in support of Chile's Park the Car Challenge. A challenge I am not registered for, as I need to drive to work. But I thought I would relate an experience I had to day PARKING THE CAR FOR CHILI. And Yes, I know. Chile is spelled with an "E" at the end not an "I". But read on:
Well today at work I had planned to have delicious, nutritious chili dogs for lunch. I got my lunch ready, got the hot dogs out. Got the buns out. I forgot to bring my can of Vegetarian Chili. So now what? Recently I have been reading Chile's Blog about parking the car. So I thought - I
have three good options- Get in my car and go to 7-11 and get a can of chili. 2- Go in my car , go to Mikes Gourmet Hot Dogs and get the king of all Chili Dogs 3- Ride my Work Bike to the store- bad idea as my work bike is in need of maintenance and truthfully I only use it when I don't have a van or electric go cart which is one advantage to cutting our crew from 9 to 3- I always have one or the other. 4- Screw 1, 2 and 3- Walk to the corner convenience store (About 1/2 mile from the front door at work. Ms.Chile, who rides her bike Hunnerts of miles a week with no booster, would be so proud of me for parking the car, yet disgusted at me for eating and loving Chili Dogs. So anyway I decided to park the car and go for a quick little walk. The walk takes me to a short cut through "springbrook trail park",Were a couple of years ago a rabbit dashed out and bit me. The only thing I have in common with Jimmy Carter- Unprovoked Rabbit attacks. Or I would have had to walk thorught the trail if they were not widening Interstate 405 to keep the citizens in Bellevue (the city in Washington, not the Famous Mental Hospital in New York - though I can't always tell the difference) happy. Of course Road contruction workers make me nervous as well, a bad experience I had as a kid and got into a F.U.! F.U.! Argument with one (Needless to say it was a case of him comparing me to Mama Cass - whom I loved- and saying that "Be Careful- Mama Cass choked on a sandwich"- to which my reply was something like "Don't be stupid your whole life, you worthless motherfucker" Even as a kid I had a mouth that my dad thought would get me killed before I was 21.)
Anyway I noticed with amazement how much bottled water and Gatorade these guys drink- And even more amazement when I saw they picked up every one of their empties. They had a box just for empty bottles and cans! Of course when I got to the store, I found I had forgotten my bag in the car, so I grabbed a can of chili and went to the register. $1.99 the clerk said. I paid him and of course he said- "Wanna bag?". Yes I did, but told him No I was fine. So there I go off back to work looking a tad bit like Mr. Magoo with my can of chili in one hand. Down the street.I had survived the walk, The construction workers, and the republican rabbits. Happy to be back at work, nuking my chili and my wienies. I parked the car. I survived. I ate Chili Dogs. Life is Good. Doesn't seem like a bad thing to once in awhile to hoof it.

Deer antler Dog Chews and WTF Whole Foods?

Wow a rave and a rant in the same post. Must be a slow news day!
THE RAVE

Today I did some walking. And some shopping. Yes Ms. Chicken, you heard me- I shopped. I was reading the Raise a green Dog blog, today she had a review on Buckarooz Deer Antler Chews for dogs. At first you might think Gross! But Gross is Bull "Pizzles". Yep. Penises. For dogs to chew on. Given the choice I walked up to the Mud Bay Grainery and bought an antler. Now here is the thing before you all call me Bambi's Mommy Killer- Buckaroos are just a sustainable product- turns out that the Bucks drop their horns naturally. Just waiting their for some dumass to pick them up. And another Dumass to walk to the pet store just to buy them. And the advantage to Buckaroos are:
•the antlers are filled with marrow high in calcium and phosphorous
•they're odorless
•they can last up to a month
•the antlers are tested for bacteria, chemicals and contaminants
•the antlers are all from free-ranging white tail deer, mule deer and elk in the US
•the only processing involves cutting the antlers to size and packaging
•all the antlers are dropped naturally (deer are not killed)

So I feel that is one green choice for Romeo.

THE RANT

Now for the other issue-

Batter Blaster - It's Organic- except for the packaging!

Martin and I took the Light rail up to the Westlake Center, then rode the S.L.U.T. (South Lake Union Trolley) to the Whole Foods for lunch and so I could buy some Preserve Razor Blades and some Dr. Bonner's Tea Tree Oil Soap. While there, I saw this new product called "Batter Blaster". WTF Whole Foods? You going the way of Trader Joe's? Pancake Batter in a spray can? Cheese-in-a-can I understand, but is America to lazy to mix up some Bisquick and make pancakes? I sense a big product FAIL here. Of course Bisquick is not with out sin- they have the Bisquick in a bottle that you just add water to to make pancakes. Really are we getting that lazy America? Sheeze. I thought I was in Whole Foods, not Safeway.

Edible Schoolyards

Time for a rave! The other day I was ranting about community gardens and the lack of cities to provide resources (see land) and the fact the School district doesn't seem to be able to afford landscape maintenance any more and Rick, a fellow blogger and one of my readers made a comment about Alice Waters and her "Edible Schoolyard" program. The Edible Schoolyard can be found in Berkley. Very interesting website- they have online resources for creating edible schoolyards all over the place, lesson plans too. So take a minute and take a look at Alice Waters in a "60 Minutes" interview and read the edible schoolyard website. Thanks for the great tip and link Rick! I think we need some more programs like this!


Watch CBS Videos Online

3 Cheers for Betty

It seems the Queen likes fresh veggies and fruits as well as anyone. This is a great video on her new allotment at Buckingham Palace- seems that upstart US president started something. Of course, unlike Michele Obama, Betty ain't going out and digging- it would not amuse her, even if she could shed those dresses and bonnets for a nice pair of overalls and a baseball cap. Well a Robs World salute to Her majesty-Pip Pip, Cheerios and Cocoa Puffs to HRH Elizabeth! Good Show, Betty, Good Show!

Safeway going green????

The usual plastic fare at my local safeway

Talk about shock value! Tell me it isn't true. Tell me they made a mistake! I was getting lunch at the Safeway Deli, and they put my delicious Chicken Gizzards in a brown paper bag! No plastic, no "Aluminum Coated bag", just a plain simple brown paper bag. Then I ordered jo-jo potatoes, and they put them in a paper bag! Is Safeway finally getting that we don't need a plastic container or plastic lined insulated foil bag every time we order some food? I will be asking around next time I go in. I was too shocked that I didn't have to ask for a brown paper bag to begin with! And yes I know Safeway is a big box food retailer! Do you think food giants can change their ways and become greener- voluntarily?