A very Happy New Year to everyone out there. To quote (someone):

May the Best Day in Your Past Be the Worst Day in Your Future

Things have been pretty quiet out here. Most everyone on the island has the three Christmas weeks off (starting with the Monday before Christmas to after Three Kings Day [Jan 6th]), so we’ve been staying home (to avoid traffic/crowds/etc). Note that I say “Christmas”…no “Happy Holidays” down here! There is a pretty large Jewish population on the island (which I need to visit: because they might have some of the foodstuffs that I’m still missing), but most everyone is Roman Catholic, or, at least, Christian.

Our New Years Eve was uneventful. We decided to stay home and just relax (it was a lazy day anyway). Tried to call up to Chicago at midnight (our time–10 PM CST), but it was hard for us to get through. Lots of fireworks, sirens, hollering, etc, at midnight (and 11…and 1…and 2…) but otherwise the year slipped in quietly.

Let’s see, what else have we been up to? On Wednesday we roasted some more coffee–man, it’s a lot of work! Cleaning off the “skin”, roasting (for about a 1/2 hour over a wood fire), etc. It came out pretty good, though. We roasted it darker this time (too dark, I think, but everyone drinks it with milk down here, so that covers up bitterness). We’ve got some good pictures, which I’ll post shortly.

After that, a young cousin of Evelyn’s came over. We were prepping dinner at the time, so I had him don my chef’s coat and had him finish the meal (a stir fry of beef and veggies). At first he started out scared shitless, but then he got comfortable. Ev’s Mom & Dad were freaking out a bit…”watch out, that oil is hot”…”make sure he doesn’t burn himself”….”are you sure he can do it?”….etc. I told ‘em not to worry about it–that’s how you learn…I can’t think of one good cook I know who doesn’t have a cut or a burn on their hands. In the end, all went well, and he (hopefully) had a good experience. (He’s about 10, doesn’t really have a dad around, etc, so the “male bonding” is important for him.) The food came out good and then I taught him some magic tricks (cards)..I’m a man of many talents, after all.

Today (Sunday) we’re going to start working on “Evelyn’s Exotic Pies”. I going to work with her on crusts, then we’ll start testing out fillings. The challenge is to understand the local fruits and come up with good pie filling based on them. “Basic” stuff like Apples and berries just aren’t down here (they are frozen, and/or really expensive), so we have to work with what’s at hand. I’ll keep you posted as things progress.

One other thing: Now that we have a decent Internet connection again, we’ve started getting into Podcasts. Boy, the more things change the more they stay the same! We’ve been into Old Time Radio for a long time, and it’s fun to see that coming back again. (Check out WWW.RUSC.COM for a really great OTR site–it’s pretty cheap and has a zillion shows available for download) I just love the fact that people think this is all so New and Cool! Stuff that radio actors and us Hams have been doing for over 100 years! Talk to people Over The Ether–yea, I do that with my Icom Transceiver, too…and so did Marconi. I know, it’s on the internet now, no schedules, can listen on the go, etc. But, it’s the storytelling that makes it worth it, and the storytelling has been going on for as long as humans have been around. Anyway, I’m glad that the storytelling aspect is coming back–something that TV pretty much ruined. Nothing like listening to an old “Dimension X” show from the 40′s while you are getting ready for bed. If you love podcasts, check out rusc and see what people were doing 60 years ago. Some really cool stuff!

Here’s a sample episode from Suspense, circa 1958. It’s called the “32nd of December” (about 3.5 MB in size):

Suspense Old Time Radio Episode