Did you miss me?

     Wow, it's been a while since I last left a post. I have been pretty busy lately, I suppose. I actually played rugby for the first time a few days ago. It's all good fun up until you get dogpiled. That wasn't even the biggest event of my week, though. You want to know what it was? Well, it doesn't matter because I'm going to tell you anyway. I turned 18 yesterday. For some people that is one of the biggest events of their life. For me, meh, it's just another day I managed to live through. That's an accomplishment in itself, though, for me. Yeah, not dead yet!

My 18th Birthday:
     My birthday wasn't anything flashy, but it was a pretty good day, if I say so myself. Actually, I think it started the day before my actual birthday. That day a barbaque was held at my friend's neighbor's house and that is where I got my shot at rugby. The teams were 5-on-5. My team consisted of a few relatively scrawny guys, a lean fast guy, and me. The other team had four scrawny guys and a gorilla. The gorilla murdered my team. In the end we lost by only one point, but it was still fun. Just remember to watch those gorillas...
   
    On my actual birthday my friend came up to my house and we hung out all day. That was actually a pretty big food day for me when I think about it. For breakfast my friend and I made bacon and egg-in-the-holes. Yeah, we burnt them. There was not enough fat in the pan, but we pretended that they tasted good anyway so we didn't look like idiots. Later in the morning after breakfast we wanted to make some chocolate chip cookies, but we didn't want normal cookies. My friend and I both modified one cookie. I added black pepper to mine while my friend put red pepper flakes in his. We were really excited to try our "special" cookies, but once the batch came out of the oven we both forgot where the spicy cookies were. My friend's cookie was found and thrown out rather quickly later in the day, but mine is still lurking somewhere amongst the normal chocolate chip cookies. It's only a matter of time...

     The next adventure of the day involved driving to the store with my friend to buy a few components for a little surprise we are planning for some other buddies in the future. I'm not going into detail about that though. Its still a work in progress. While we were there we couldn't help, but go strolling through the toy section. I hadn't been in there for years. We actually bought a frisbee that we saw in there too. That baby can fly! We also bought two family size bags of candy which were consumed almost entirely before the day was over. Do I even have to tell you that a major sugar rush followed?

     Overall I had a great day and have no regrets. I feel kind of bad that I just talked about myself during this post though. Here's that chocolate chip cookie recipe to make up for it courtesy of Peach at food.com.

Recipe: Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:

-2 1/4 cups flour
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-3/4 cup packed brown sugar
-1/2 cup butter, softened
-1/2 cup shortening
-1/4 cup sugar
-1 (4 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
-1/8 teaspoon almond extract
-2 eggs, beaten
-2 cups chocolate chips
-3 Tbs black pepper (my personal touch)

You know the drill here. Mix the wet and dry ingredients separately. Then add the wet to the dry and mix until just combined. Bake rounded teaspoons of dough at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

Word of the Day: Stroll
verb. To go for a leisurely walk

    Story Time: I like to go for walks. In my opinion hikes are even better. One afternoon I went for a hike with a friend in the woods behind my house. It's a good, steep, uphill, and scenic walk. The kind that will grow hair on your chest. I'd gone on this walk a million times before, roughly, so we took a different path this time. We ended up in a densely forested spot with little light coming down. This is where my friend noticed something moving up in the trees. I noticed it too, but then it rapidly started moving in our direction.

 Yeah, we both screamed. You would have too if you were there with us. We ran back towards my house as fast as we can only to run into my dog halfway down. I wanted to cry at this point. Scariest day of my entire life. The moral of the story is to always go hiking with a friend. Two targets have a better chjance of surviving then one. Not a lovely stroll

     Storytime's over boys and girls. I'll talk to you later. Peace out!

It's Some Good Stuff!

     I just got back from a trip to the park to play some tennis and am very tired, but I felt like leaving a post so I did. First I just have to say that playing tennis is about twenty ties harder then it needs to be when a toddler is running around on the court. It felt almost like target practice... I didn't hit him, but it really isn't a good place to watch your kid. Moving away from that I'd like to move onto a subject close to my heart, pizza.

Thoughts on Pizza:
     Pizza is the only food I remember liking throughout my entire life. All of my other favorite foods today used to make me sick. There's crab, burgers, steak, and various other things. I wouldn't touch them. If I was served them I would do something like go to the restroom. The food would then be sneakily moved to the toilet. Enough about my childhood. I'm here to discuss the king of Italian delicacies (it totally is one!), pizza. I'm going to be honest with you. The pizza that most of you know sucks. It sucks hard. Come on, you don't want any of that cardboard Pizza Hut garbage. You want real homemade pizza. It really isn't that terrifying. Trust me, I know these things. Now go out and buy a pizza stone so you can use my favorite thin crust pizza recipe. Dude, this pizza dough is genius. I was able to actually whip a fly off of the ceiling with a piece of it once. It also has great texture when baked. Here it is courtesy of unknownchef86 on food.com.

Pizza Recipe:
      Ingredients-

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (may substitute whole wheat flour for 1 cup of the all-purpose)
• 1 ( 1/4 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup warm water
• 1/2-1 tablespoon olive oil

     Activate your yeast in the warm water and sugar and let it sit for ten minutes or so then add everything,  but the cornmeal. Knead it for about eight minutes and then let it rise for twenty more. Now you'r ready to make two 12 inch thin crust pizzas. Seriously though, only make thin crust pizzas. It gets tough when you make it too thick. Like shoe leather tough, but if that how you roll then go right ahead. After you put on all the fixings bake in a 500 degree pre-heated oven on a pizza stone for about 8-10 minutes depending on the pizza's size. The pizza stone is your best friend here. If you skip it you might as well have made your pizza on a slice of Wonder Bread. The pizza would have no bite at all. It would be one sad little pizza, but if you do follow all of my guidelines you should have one sexy little dinner. Now go delete the pizza guy from your cell phone speed dial list.

Word of the Day: Terrifying

adj. Causing great fear or dread; extremely frightening

     Nothing strikes fear into my heart quite like inner tubing behind a boat. Why the heck would anybody want to be dragged around at high speed on nothing, but a piece of rubber or whatever tubes are made of these days. There is, however, one particular tube that makes me cry like a scared little schoolgirl. I'm talking about the one in the picture above. It's a taco for gosh sake! Things that go in tacos die! The thing tries to fly away with you on it which inevitably leads to you crashing into the water rather hard. I personally never got flipped, but when I rode it it certainly tried to. My friend and I were yelling, "Lean, man, lean!" the whole time. The picture isn't of me, but of a few other friends that rode on it, but now that I think about it they did biff it after about 30 seconds of riding this run. Okay, I'm done venting about how much I hate inner tubing. I'll talk to you guys later. Peace out!