Twins Baseball...

Let's talk about the Twins...

They haven't exactly had the best start to their year. Now, they have played most of their games on the road, which I think will always be par for the course early in the season because of the outdoor Target Field (I've decided I don't care because I love Target Field). I'm sure that doesn't help, as they were 53-28 at home last year.

I was a little frustrated the other day when they lost their second game in a row to Tampa Bay and then Mauersie was placed on the 15-day DL for "leg weakness". I guess he had a viral illness, was dehydrated, etc., which happens. But, it was mentioned that this viral syndrome aggravated leg weakness he's been having since offseason arthroscopic surgery. That doesn't sound good to me!!!!! Why does the former AL MVP have ANY level of residual leg weakness?!?!?

So, I popped a little comment onto Facebook. I see my friend Quinn put a post up today, gently reminding me and all the other lamenters that there's a lot of season left. That's true. I certainly wasn't giving up on the whole season, just voicing frustration that we're not hitting well and that our pitching (except Liriano and the closers) have been good, but we've managed to blow about 3 games which we should have one (because of starting pitching), even though the offense was weak.

I was trying to offer an intelligent rebuke, hoping I could find some Elias Sports Bureau stat for "what is the average finishing record for MLB teams that start 4-10"? However, no such luck. I DO think the Twins will turn it around. However, as one of the commenters to Quinn said, "these games still count". I'm sure it doesn't help the Twins' collective confidence being 4-10 and I'm sure it emboldens the teams they are playing against.

This is the best I could find: The Twins record after 14 games each of the last 9 full seasons and whether or not they made the playoffs that year:

2010 10-4 playoffs

2009 7-7 playoffs

2008 5-9 no playoffs

2007 6-8 no playoffs

2006 7-7 playoffs

2005 6-8 no playoffs

2004 9-5 playoffs

2003 8-6 playoffs

2002 9-5 playoffs

So, the worst record in the first 14 games the last 9 years making the playoffs? 7-7.

Things we've got going for us? 1) Betting hitting is sure to come. 2) Home crowds at Target Field, especially into the summer, will help. 3) KC and Cleveland lead the division by 3 full games right now--I don't think that will last.

Things that make me sad: In looking up the above records, I was reminded that we haven't won a playoff series since 2002. Sigh.

NBC NEWS--Tea Party Upset Because Federal Funding Used to Add Fifth Face to Mount Rushmore

(snicker)

Try this!

OK, many points for Tally for talking us into making this recipe (she may even be back into positive points now--hee hee). It's a quiche with hashbrowns for the crust. I guess the high-brow folks might not like it, but we thought it was delicious.

Quiche with Hashbrown Crust

Ingredients:

-3 cups frozen, shredded hashbrowns, thawed, drained, and pressed as dry as you can get them with paper towels
-4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, melted
-3 eggs (can use 4 eggs if you like it a big more.....well, eggy)
-1 cup dairy product, meaning crank up the richness to what you like. We used 2% milk, which I thought was great. If you like it richer, go for whole milk or half-and-half; less rich, 1% or skim
-Salt and black pepper
-Other seasonings you may like (garlic powder, cayenne, etc.)
-Add-ins: meat, cheese, veggies, etc. I would go with 1/2-3-4 cup of cooked meat (less if it's bacon). We used turkey breakfast sausage. I would use some type of onion, about 1/2 cup. We used green onions, which I recommend. You could also add mushrooms, peppers, whatever, but I would slightly cook any mushrooms, peppers, or regular onion before adding to soften them up a bit. Finally, 1 cup of shredded cheese. We went with pepper jack.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Mix the drained, dried hashbrowns with the melted butter. Add a little salt and pepper and any other seasonings you wish to add. Press the hashbrowns into the bottom and sides of a 9-inch round pie pan to form a "crust". The original recipe we used called for baking for 20-25 min, until the crust is golden brown and starting to crisp. It took at least 40 min for us, so you'll have to see how that one goes for you.

When the crust is getting close to being done, mix all the other ingredients. Again, we used 4 eggs, 1 cup 2% milk, 1 cup grated pepper jack cheese, 3/4 cup cooked turkey sausage, 1/2 cup green onion, and a little more salt and pepper.

When the crust is done, yank the pan out, add the egg mixture, and put it back in the oven, turning the oven temp down to 350 degrees. It's done when the whole top is puffed and light golden brown. The recipe we used called for 30 min, but I think it took ours more like 45 minutes, so watch yours carefully.

Enjoy the deliciousness.

Little River...

This was our little cabin, which was great. It had a real fireplace, which is something I've never had anywhere I lived--I loved it! Below was the view, looking out onto the Pacific from our deck.

This was a great little place in a great quiet, little town. Three things I had here were among the best I've ever had. The Swedish pancakes they had for breakfast--outstanding! The bacon they served with the pancakes--ridiculously good. It makes me want to make my own bacon because it was SO much better than any bacon I've had before from the grocery store.

We relaxed for a couple of days, which was great. On our way back to Yucca Valley, we swung through Napa Valley (more ridiculous people and crazy, middle-aged women who had had too much wine--see previous Napa Valley post, as it was more of the same).

What's that, you say? What was the third thing from the Little River Inn? Pliny the Elder beer, my friend. It deserves its own post eventually, so stay tuned...

Coming up, the Super Bowl. What does that mean? Commercials? Family and friends? Nope! John trying to make appetizers and having no idea what he's doing. We'll see how they turn out and if I can impress the wife.

Pacific Coast

Day 4 was spent driving to Gold Beach, OR, a little town on the Pacific coast of OR, just north of the CA/OR border. Day 5 was the best drive, in my opinion, down the 101/1 to Little River, CA, where we stayed at the Little River Inn.

We stopped to see some of the huge redwoods:

I'm really not a "tree-hugger" philosophically, but decided I should become one literally for this picture:

Next stop....Little River!

Bend, OR

Lots of driving.

After briefly spending time in Sabin with Tally's family, we trekked across ND, stopping for the evening in P.L. with my family. It was nice to be able to see everyone, even if it was pretty brief. The next day, we made it to Pocatello after a long one, then trekked through Idaho and Oregon to reach Bend. The weather was a little iffy, but nothing like Tally had to put up with driving herself back to MN in November, so I was thankful, as it could have been worse.

Let's talk about Bend. It seemed like a pretty neat little town, though we only spent one night and the next day until noon there. Really cool downtown with lots of interesting shops and restaurants. We stayed at this place called the Oxford, which reminded me of the HoDo in Fargo. They were really, really nice there.

The most interesting thing to me was the smell around Bend. It was really wonderful. You know how mountain areas smell like pine, spruce, etc. Tally and I noticed many variations of this smell on our trip through the Western U.S. Bend's was perhaps the most interesting and the best, in our opinion. It almost smelled sweet with a cinnamon component. Maybe I'm crazy, but I thought that was really interesting.

Road Trip!

OK, so having safely made it back from Okinawa, a road trip was called for. Tally had driven home over Thanksgiving (both to see her family, since she would be gone to Okinawa over Christmas, and to drop off the dogs at her parents' house), so we returned to pick up the dogs and drive back to CA.

We decided to extend our trip to go to some areas we hadn't been before. Also, we had plans to stay at a little place in Northern California that we had had our eye on for awhile. Since we couldn't celebrate our wedding anniversary last year with me being deployed, this was our late "anniversary present" to one another.

3200 miles, 8 days, 2 wiener dogs......buckle up.

And, we're back!

OK, so it's obviously been a long time. The rest of the deployment was fine. We were on the Navy ships for about 2.5 months. We were in the Philippines doing a field exercise (nothing very exciting there as far as pictures). We had to leave early because a typhoon was headed to that area. To avoid the typhoon, we sailed south around the Philippine Islands, then spent two days flying humanitarian aid and assessment issues to some of the remote areas hit by the typhoon. Luckily, damages to some buildings were the main problem, as opposed to injury and loss of life, which was minimal. I didn't really do very much, but managed to find my way into a couple of photos:

http://www.marines.mil/unit/31stmeu/pages/photos.aspx?Page=11

We then did some support missions, which didn't require anything from the Marines, before having some liberty time in Singapore and Hong Kong, both of which were very neat. I have some pictures, but they're on my other camera, which I don't have right now. We'll see if I ever get those up. If not, it was nothing TOO exciting, anyways.

Also, Tally came out to visit me before we came back to 29 Palms, which was great. It was a little bit of an adventure, since she flew "Space A" (which stands for "Space Available", and is a system of free military flights, with the catch being there's no guarantee you'll get a seat, and you can always get bumped at the last minute). However, we had fun, and she ended up being able to fly home on the exact same plane as me, sitting right next to me! Pretty neat. I do have a few pictures.

First is us at Pizza in the Sky. It's a really great pizza place with wood-fired pizza up on a bluff overlooking a little coastal town. It's run by locals, but the pizza is really, really good.

Next, we're at the Nago Pineapple Park, which was neat. The "tour", which was supposed to show the pineapples, how they are grown, etc., was pretty minor and quick, but they sure tried to sell us lots of stuff! The pineapple wine and cake were good, though.

Finally, here's us and the wife of another one of the officers in my battalion (she flew out with Tally) at Hama Sushi, this great little sushi place. It was SO good and ridiculously cheap.

For Christmas, I want....

And, this spurt of three sudden posts after months of nothing wouldn't be complete without ridiculous trucker's hat that are seemingly quite popular here:

What does that last one even mean? And, why does the desk say "truck"?

Okinawa

Well, I don't have a ridiculous range of experiences here yet. It's very, very hot and humid pretty much all the time. My main experiences off-base thus far have been snorkelling, going to a teppanyaki restaurant, and doing some shopping in a "mall", where they sell some interesting things.

I don't have a car here (many servicemembers people buy them cheaply, even if they're only here for six months, like us), so I was kind of limited where I went to snorkel. However, only one of the many little bases here is actually on the beach, so myself and another officer I work with went up there a couple of weeks ago with our cheap snorkelling gear. It was fun to try, but we didn't pick the best spot, as there were no colorful reefs, etc. in the area. Maybe next time.

OK, I know this picture is ridiculous. Why the thumbs-up? Not sure--it wasn't like I was about to undergo the countdown as pilot of the space shuttle. I'll have to work on that.

Teppanyaki is what many of us call "Japanese barbecue" or "Japanese grill" in the U.S. It's style of cooking where so many people can sit around one cooking area and the chef comes out and cooks your meal for you, right in front of you, usually with quite a bit of flair. Three of us went to a place that was pretty good. The highlights for me were trying beef sashimi, raw, thin-sliced beef that you dip in some kind of delicious sauce and trying the kobe beef. Kobe beef is from one certain part of Japan, and it is extremely marbled (high fat content), which makes it very tender, as long as you don't overcook it. I agree that it was very tender, but it was just way, way too rich (and expensive) for me to try for a very, very long time.

Beef sashimi:

Kobe beef:

For those of you who are squeamish about the raw beef (sashimi), it could have been worse. Some of my friends went to a sushi place, where one guy ended up with thinly-sliced horse meat. Sounds good, no?

Summer things....

While I'm in Okinawa and then touring around SE Asia (more on that later), Tally got to spend some time back home with her family. They rented a lake cabin for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I have already deleted most of those pictures Tally sent me. However, I'll slap up a couple.

I guess Savannah's a pretty big fan of the lake in general and everything that goes with it: grilled meat, boats passing by, dead fish to sniff, grilled meat, etc. She managed to find her way down to the water to check out the situation:

Also, even though the dogs DO swim (and, quite comically, I might add), their favorite mode of shore patrol is on a mesh floatie. Sophie will do it, but I think Savannah would stay out there all day. (Note: Yes, Tally, I'm sure you didn't want me to put a picture of you in your polka-dot swimsuit on here, but it's the only other one I have. I'll make up for it by putting one up of me in my snorkelling stuff in the next post.)

Maybe I'll finally be "non-deployed", and I can get back to the lake next summer.....

Shedding Wars

Wow! It's been a long time...sorry for no posts for Tinjblog's 2 1/2 loyal readers. I'll have to get some updates on things that I've missed, such as: taking a 'tour of California' with Tally's parents, Tally and John running a half-marathon in wine country, going to Kauai, going to the MLB opening day game at Angels' Stadium vs. the Twins, the Temecula Wine and Weiner Dog Festival, Las Vegas (again), and probably a bunch of other stuff.

Anyway, this post is short and ridiculous. This morning, it became readily apparent to me that the dogs have entered "shedding season" since the weather has warmed up, as all kinds of little hairs were showing up in my hands when I was petting them. So, I decided to see who would win by producing the amount of hair that would make the bigger pile. The verdict?

You be the judge. Whose pile is the biggest? The first correct answer gets a 1/2 off "Tinjblog" temporary tattoo (the kind little kids get at fairs or in 25-cent machines at the grocery store).

Don Sutton

We were eating at a restaurant in Palm Springs this past weekend and happened to randomly be introduced to Don Sutton (Baseball HOF, 324 wins, 7th in strikeouts, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Sutton) by our waiter. He was a little before my time as a player, but I did remember that he was in the Hall of Fame. I remembered him even more clearly, though, as one of the Atlanta Braves broadcasters for many years, as we had TBS as one of our cable channels He's a super-nice guy and took time out of his dinner with his family to talk to Tally and I about military things, as our waiter had introduced me to him as a military doctor.

One more good recipe to try...

I wanted to try a different kind of ribs recipe. This requires a little effort and waiting (allowing time to cook), but it was totally worth it:

Braised Beef Short Ribs

Make sure that the ribs are at least 4 inches long and 1 inch thick. If boneless ribs are unavailable, substitute 7 pounds of bone-in beef short ribs at least 4 inches long with 1 inch of meat above the bone. We recommend a bold red wine such as Cabernet Sauvignon. Serve with egg noodles, mashed potatoes, or roasted potatoes. Serves 6

3 1/2 pounds boneless short ribs , trimmed of excess fat (see note and technique below)

Kosher salt and ground black pepper

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 large onions , peeled and sliced thin from pole to pole (about 4 cups)

1 tablespoon tomato paste

6 medium garlic cloves , peeled

2 cups red wine (see note)

1 cup beef broth

4 large carrots , peeled and cut crosswise into 2-inch pieces

4 sprigs fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

1/4 cup cold water

1/2 teaspoon unflavored powdered gelatin

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 300 degrees. Pat beef dry with paper towels and season with 2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in large heavy-bottomed Dutch oven over medium-high heat until smoking. Add half of beef and cook, without moving, until well browned, 4 to 6 minutes. Turn beef and continue to cook on second side until well browned, 4 to 6 minutes longer, reducing heat if fat begins to smoke. Transfer beef to medium bowl. Repeat with remaining tablespoon oil and meat.

2. Reduce heat to medium, add onions, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and beginning to brown, 12 to 15 minutes. (If onions begin to darken too quickly, add 1 to 2 tablespoons water to pan.) Add tomato paste and cook, stirring constantly, until it browns on sides and bottom of pan, about 2 minutes. Add garlic and cook until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Increase heat to medium-high, add wine and simmer, scraping bottom of pan with wooden spoon to loosen browned bits, until reduced by half, 8 to 10 minutes. Add broth, carrots, thyme, and bay leaf. Add beef and any accumulated juices to pot; cover and bring to simmer. Transfer pot to oven and cook, using tongs to turn meat twice during cooking, until fork slips easily in and out of meat, 2 to 2½ hours.

3. Place water in small bowl and sprinkle gelatin on top; let stand at least 5 minutes. Using tongs, transfer meat and carrots to serving platter and tent with foil. Strain cooking liquid through fine-mesh strainer into fat separator or bowl, pressing on solids to extract as much liquid as possible; discard solids. Allow liquid to settle about 5 minutes and strain off fat. Return cooking liquid to Dutch oven and cook over medium heat until reduced to 1 cup, 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in gelatin mixture; season with salt and pepper. Pour sauce over meat and serve.

Crepes

Delicious. I've never tried them before, but they were actually not that hard. I like Alton Brown, so I went with this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/crepes-recipe/index.html

Update...

OK, so a little behind. After the Vikings fiasco that (unfortunately) may carry into the playoffs against the Cowboys this week, Tally did a "sprint" triathlon in Hemet, CA the next weekend and I did just the 5K part because I'm a terrible swimmer (working on it, though). She did very, very well even though she didn't have some fancy bike with a ridiculous aerodynamic helmet. I finally squeaked out a 5K in under 20 minutes (19:59), so we were both happy.

We then headed home for Christmas, which was great, but got very, very cold near the end (low in Fargo was -33 F on New Year's Day). It was nice to fly back into Vegas!

Life is getting a little better for me now that we finally got another Medical Officer in my battalion. I'm actually getting home at a decent time (usually) and getting to exercise more.

On the cooking front, risotto is a new favorite for us. The combination possibilities are endless. The only trouble is that it is quite a bit of work, but it's delicious! One other thing I'll recommend are sweet potatoes. I was never really a big fan, based off of the old sweet potatoes and marshmallows that are often served at Thanksgiving. It was always just too sweet for me. You can simply bake them though (just like a regular potato), but we had mashed last night. Again, just boil them like potatoes, then add some milk, butter, and a little maple syrup (you could probably get away without this, but we tried it; we had some actual maple syrup lying around--not sure if the imitation kind would be as good: I'm really enjoying misusing punctuation and continuing this ridiculous excuse for a sentence) and salt and pepper. You should try it.

Coming up: three-day weekend for MLK day. Going to LA/Santa Monica--hopefully, I'll be able to meet up with Quinn and cheer on the Vikings to victory, not a 47-point loss (holding out hope that the old reverse jinx is on my side there).

There's the Brett Favre from December 2009 we've been waiting for...

Last year, I noticed the Vikings were scheduled to come down and play at Arizona in December. I really wanted to go, but couldn't because we were completing our training exercise in the desert. So, when I was in Iraq this year, I noticed that the Vikes were AGAIN supposed to venture out to Arizona. I told Tally that would be my Christmas present and bought two tickets.

It was a crazy day. We were scrambling to get there because of one reason after another. But, we finally got there, and had a very good time, at least at the beginning. There were a lot of Vikings fans there, especially in our section. Of course, most of those in our section were pretty plastered and ridiculous, but it made for good comedy. See--look how much fun Tally was having:

Of course, then Brett Favre decided to become....well, Brett Favre. And, it didn't help that we couldn't block anyone or put any pressure on Kurt Warner. It was pretty ugly. I give the stadium there high marks. The food was good for a professional sporting venue, too.

On our way back to our car, we noticed two Vikings fans dressed in purple T-shirts with gold letters on the front. One had an "E", and one had an "R". Tally guessed that they must have been there with three others to spell out "FAVRE". We decided that they didn't pick the best night for that, but, oh well. I told her that maybe they were actually there with 10 other friends and were spelling out "INTERCEPTION". In that case, they would have been much more accurate with their cheerleading.

(Sigh.) Ladies and gentlemen, your 2009 Minnesota Vikings.

Coming up, a triathlon in December, and maybe some other stuff before Christmas.

SNOB ALERT!!!

As a public service to all loyal Tinjblog readers, I do have to mention that there are a lot of snobs in Napa Valley and the surrounding environs. Of course, there are tons of great people, but there are those who choose to be wine snobs, and those wineries where you have to (and, no, I'm not kidding) wait to be seated, at a formal table by a concierge in order to simply taste some wine. I'm going to start a winery in Napa Valley, require that much ridiculousness, then serve these folks some Boone's Farm wine. Ha!

Finally, there is the family who earned the memorial "Made Me Want to Drop My Dinner Plate on My Head Until I Lost Consciousness" Award at one of the restaurants we ate at. Luckily, they were behind me, so I didn' t have to look at them, like Tally did. UNluckily, they were RIGHT behind me, so I could hear every word they were saying. Of course, I could have been in a different zip code and still heard every annoying word and all the bragging. We got up to leave right after them, and we noticed that their table cloth was covered with different splotches of wine stains. It wasn't one big stain, but several, indicating that more than one of them probably got sauced all day at the vineyards, then sauntered on down to the local restaurant to finish off the evening by being loud, rude, and spilling wine all over. You stay classy, Napa. (from "Anchorman")

Napa Valley and San Francisco

We have wanted to make it up to Napa Valley and San Francisco since we have been in California, but just haven't been able to pull it off yet. Sooo, since we both had four days off for Thanksgiving, we decided to have our Thanksgiving meal the Sunday before (it was delicious) and travel over the four-day weekend.

It was a great trip! It is extremely beautiful in that area. Visiting in the fall was great--I think that would be the best time to go, if you're ever planning on it. Of course, I dispense that advice without having any authority or expertise to do so whatsoever. But, all of the leaves on the vines turned fall colors, along with all of the other trees. And, it was a great change for us because, even when we get out of the desert, the terrain in Southern California is very dry/brown. It was nice to see all that green for a change.

Without getting into really long explanations, these pictures are of Tally standing in the Vineyard, the two of us at a tasting room at a vineyard, and Tally outside of a cupcake store in Napa (the store did very good work)

We ate at two different restaurants for dinner, both of which were great. I won't go into it, but if you ever go, I would seriously consider Celadon in Napa and Tra Vigne in St. Helena. The food was really, really good.

On the way down to Carmel on Saturday, we swung through San Francisco. It was fun to say we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge. We drove over the the presidio and down to the beach, where we were able to get some pictures with the bridge in the background:

(I think I look the best when squinting.)

And, we then stopped in downtown San Francisco a little bit to shop and eat. It was very interesting, but pretty crowded. Of course, there were a ton of weirdos, who I enjoyed watching immensely. Too many to get into here, but, if you want to people watch, go to San Francisco.

SNOB ALERT!!!

OK, so to briefly opine about the Wynn. As I mentioned, we got a good deal there, so we decided to stay. It's a beautiful place, the service and rooms and food (and everything!) are great, and it actually smells good for a casino, but it's just so ridiculous, we've decided.

Vegas can be very expensive (especially ANY of the huge casinos). But, the Wynn takes the cake. It costs $14/day to use the wireless internet in your room and $30/day if you were to use the fitness center (I ran around the strip for exercise, thank you very much.). The food, drinks, everything is too expensive. Now, this does keep a lot of the riff-raff away, which can be a good thing at times, I think. However, it certainly does attract that very famous species, the snob.

Now, don't get me wrong--there are many very nice people there. However, there are a ton of straight-up, rude snobs. No discrimination here--they are American, European, Asian, and everything in between. They can often be heard loudly complaining about little things, wearing ridiculous clothes, complaining about the (already amazing) service, aimlessly wandering right in front of you and inconsiderately stopping right in your way, not opening the door for you, and giving you disdainful looks (I think, because it's the cool thing to do).

Anyways, this led to high entertainment for Tally and myself. When we were getting ready to check out, we noticed the door and the end of our hallway was open. Inside this door was an extension of our hallway, but the carpet wasn't gaudy (see earlier post), the walls were painted a different color, and this hallway had its own elevators. We were shocked and curious. So, we did what anyone in our position would do: we decided to go over there and take there elevator down to see where it led to.

The whole thing was hilarious. We stuff ourselves into the elevator, overloaded with our cheap luggage. The other people we picked up on the way down included two Asian guys, dressed very expensively, a European guy who was very busy looking cool listening to music on his iPhone and couldn't be bothered, and a couple who got on at the spa floor, looking like they had just been pampered to death. We quietly rode down and got off. Well, this set of room had its own separate lobby with secret rooms and EXTRA-snobby people sitting all around. We coolly kept walking through, until we found the casino and made our way to the parking ramp. I'm sure they knew we were outsiders, since I don't think anyone in that group would be caught dead carrying their own luggage. It was hilarious and fascinating.

Next post: Napa Vally and San Francisco