MMP - The Fire Within

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I make good fires. The key is a clean fireplace and visualizing the result.

First I clean out the ashes and unburned log bits. Then I take only one section of the newspaper, and crumple the pages up one at a time, into banana sized pieces. These are layed under the grate.

Next I take a look at the pieces of wood AI’m going to burn. I visualize how they are going to go in. Small twigs in a mound on the center of the grill. I see them catching from the flames from the paper. Then I take the kindling that I have loving split from long straight pieces of bigger wood. No knots in them. I place three of those on top of the burning twigs, two side to side, and then one crossways on top of them. I see the flames growing stronger and brighter. I feel the heat starting to come off of them.

Then I place the unburned bits from the previous fire back in there. I see them catch quickly, just as the kindling is burning about as strong as it is going to.

Then, the final step - two big logs go in. There is enough uneveness from the previous steps to allow plenty of air to circulate through the logs. And as the the night goes on, I visualize adding other logs - always keeping the number of big logs in there to the magic number three.

So I start the actual building and burning. The newspaper is lit, the twigs start catching, and I realize one thing: I should have visualized opening the flue.

Happy Monday, y’all.

2

I usually have help cleaning out my fireplace. Booger the VunderCat lurves to hide out under the andirons…

Stooopid then leaves a trail of soot wherever he goes…

3

Make that “Stooopid cat…” :smack:

4

It worked both ways.

5

And really, that sort of goes without saying, doesn’t it?

Sean, from the title, I would’ve sworn this was gonna be a diatribe about extra spicy chili.

6

I don’t have a fireplace. I don’t feel deprived because I don’t have a fireplace on purpose. See, when I was having my house built, I said no fireplace. I hate cleaning 'em. I hate chopping wood. Sure, I coulda had gas logs but I didn’t want those either. I’m not a fireplace kind of guy at all. Not that there’s anything wrong with fireplaces. Just not in the swampcave.

I had skate wing for dinner Thursday night while I was in Etlanner. It was good. Tasted kinda like deep sea scallops. I’d never had skate wing before, so I grasped the opportunity to have it. I like trying new things. I told ACBG about it on the phone. He said, “ok, you ate part of a skate for dinner?” A real comedian ain’t he! I showed him what it is when I got home Friday night. He’s not real big on fish so his comment was, “Ewww!” Then I soaked in my whirlpool bathtub for a while and went to bed. I got snuggled real good.

Saturday we went to a going away dinner for a friend who’s moving. That’s always a reason to have a going away dinner, I guess. We had bbq pork <snerk> butt! <snerk> The person who smoked the <snerk> butt <snerk> also smoked a <snerk> butt <snerk> for me while he was at it. Yesterday for lunch we had sliced smoked <snerk> butt. <snerk> Lot’s of <snerking> went on Saturday and Sunday. Age, as we all know, has nothing to do with juvenility. :smiley:

7

Swampy, it’s actually common for skates and rays to be caught and converted into “scallops” for the [del]easily suckered[/del] unwary public. I don’t have a proplem with the idea of eating these critters, just not when they’re being passed off as shellfish.

There is a type of ray that is commonly caught in the Chesapeake Bay while surf fishing, but I don’t know the variety. It doesn’t have the barb in the tail that a stingray does, but the tail is dangerous anyway just by whipping. I personally haven’t caught one (hell, the only thing I’ve caught so far while surf fishing is a sunburn), but if I did, I think I’d just cut the line and let it go. They’re scary…

8

I have a fireplace. Never use it. It’s too dang hot here!

I’d better get to work…I’ll be checking in later.

9

No fireplaces for me, either. The last time I had one, I fell down and broke my leg whilst bringing in logs from the woodpile. :frowning:

10

Ya big dummy. :wink:

I make good fires, too. We have a woodstove and I love it. Makes the house nice and toasty. There’s no flue to mess with, just a damper that needs to be open, so it gets air, and catches correctly. It the damper’s closed, the smoke won’t back up into the house or anything - the fire just won’t get any air and will be very slow to start.

I make better fires than my husband and I think it pisses him off just a little bit. He’s a firefighter.
(I haven’t posted in the MMP in a while. I hope I’m still welcome.)

11

I don’t have a fire here but i had one growing up. I’m great at lighting fires. And also at sitting in front of them enraptured by the dancing flames and hogging all the heat :smiley: Not only is a coal fire a wonderful thing but the bunker to store the coal in is a wonderful place to play. I have just this minute realised why my mother put me in dark clothes so often as a child. I guess she wasn’t trying for a goth-toddler after all!

The closest i have come to fire lately was my plans over Christmas to build snowmen and then set them on fire. I was probably going to use petrol but I was a little concerned by that sneaky tendency to change into gas before i’m ready. Unfortunately there was too little snow at my parents’ rural place so i never did get around to researching better combustibles.

One thing i DID get around to researching was how to make guncotton. I just had visions of blowing up a whole row of my Calvin & Hobbes-style snowpeople. I really, really wish there had been snow over Christmas :frowning:

12

In the Anachi household fires are visualized so:

Go to garage. Remove faux log from box. Go back inside and lay faux log in fireplace. Retrieve grill lighter from kitchen. Click on grill lighter and place flame where indicated on faux log wrapper. Et voila! C’est un feu! :smiley: What? This is Flawduh! And the home of the biggest fantasy in the history of man to boot fer cryin out loud. :wink:

So what was everybody’s favorite superbowl commercial? Loved the sheep streaker but the baby Clydesdale pullin the wagon wins hands down with the “AAAAWWWWW” factor.

And did anybody notice? Mick’s got batwing arms! :smiley:

More later.

Tupug

On preview…welcome back bibby, c’mon in an set a spell.

13

Great MMP Sean. My inner pyro is satisfied. Fire fire fire fire fire fire fire fire fire fire!! :smiley: :: sets things on fire :: Obviously I don’t have a fireplace in my dorm room, but you can bet I’d be using it if I did.

Last night I watched the Superbowl, and I’d like to share a few observations about the game. The Seahawks obviously played worse than the Steelers, and by halfway through the fourth quarter it was obvious that the Seahawks had lost. I noticed that on one of the Steeler touchdowns, the player was completely in the clear as he ran into the end zone. But instead of just running into the end zone, he decided to take a flying leap into it and risk a possible dislocated shoulder. Because in the NFL, you must always preserve the possibility of an injury, lest the game become too boring or something. But enough about the actual football. Throughout the game John Madden made some interesting remarks, identifying first a “bootleg pass” and then a “bootleg run.” Because we all know that football plays are mass produced on the cheap in China and then sold on the shady streets of downtown Detroit.

The other thing about the game was the awarding of the Lombardi trophy at the end. They gave it to some player, the Steelers’ Hines Ward. And I remember there was another Steelers player, Jerome Bettis. They had a mic on him during the game, and they’d play sound snippets which would sound like this:
BETTIS AND OTHER PLAYERS: Grunt oomph urgh argh grunt
STEELERS FANS: cheer
SEAHAWKS FANS: glare
STEELERS: win
CONFETTI: falls
SEAHAWKS FANS: leave
Anyway, they gave the MVP a shiny new Escalade. Which of course means that they turned the Superbowl into the Price is Right. They should have had him bid on it. Closest without going over, of course.

Finally, I’d like to comment on the number of this Superbowl: XL. That is, 40 in Roman numerals. But c’mon, XL? Extra Large? Can you be more of a comment on the American consumer culture? Seriously. They players even had XL on the front of their jerseys. Just as a further note, in ten years we’ll have Superbowl L. I dare the American media to get excited about that. And in 1,960 years, we’ll have Superbowl M. XL, L, and M. I don’t think S is a Roman numeral though, or else we’d have Superbowls that come in all sizes.

14

Bobbio, with the teeny-tiny type, I thought your cat had dragged SNOT everywhere! :stuck_out_tongue:

Fireplaces: we have the gas logs and they’re hotter’n blue blazes. We didn’t even bother lighting the pilot light this winter. I envisioned many hours of enraptured fireplace-staring when we bought the house, but alas, there have been none. Unless you count the few times we lit the damn thing and then were driven screaming from the room’s 110-degree heat.

The weekend for me consisted of another hair-raising dining experience with Little Mr. Baby Cherry. I’d plucked him from a nap, so when we arrived at the restaurant, he was in a semi-stunned state. Which, unfortunately, did not last very long. The entire Waiting for the Food to Arrive period was spent in the restroom, where he merrily stacked rolls of toilet paper. The actual dinner itself was spent trying to wrangle some food in him, trips around the restaurant perimeter pointing at the pictures and going, “Look! Horsie!” and general mind-numbing entertainment. The Waiting for Dessert shift was taken by my husband, who took him out in the snow :eek: The grand finale came during dessert (yes I know I’m on a diet, shut up) of brownie pie topped with ice cream (for the record: yum) when he flung the extremely heavy beer mug they use for all glassware in this restaurant to the floor and it, of course, shattered. By the grace of God, we were in a smallish back room, so only one other table was shattered by the experience of dining near The Twisting Tornado Toddler of Doom, also known as my darling baby.

In other news: I suckered by sister into taking some [del]worthless crap[/del] lovely home furnishings home with her, thereby freeing up some much-needed basement space. And–we saw a mouse. :mad:

Joke of the day (best told aloud) –

Q: What did one mushroom say to the other mushroom?
A: You’re a fun guy!

15

Alas, I have no fireplace. But I’m sure somebody in the building would find a way to complain. We got a visit from the condo association president. Seems some people in the building don’t like the fact that we’re smokers. Gee, this would have been useful to know before. Like, maybe, say, they should put it in the by-laws and tell people they’re facists before they drop a hefty amount of money on a new home. So now, we’ve got windows open, air filters, fans, and everything else we can think of to keep the smoke from bothering others. I’m doing my best to abide by mob rule, but I’m mad as hell. If I had known that everybody’s ventilation systems were connected, I might not have bought the place. I’m well aware that the obvious answer is to quit smoking, but if I didn’t quit when my grandmother told me to, what are the odds I’m going to quit when some lady down the hall tells somebody else that she thinks I should? It was forty degrees in our living room last night. I’m just waiting for them to come after us with torches and pitchforks. I’m feeling simultaneously angry, embarrassed, and completely at a loss.

In other news, I went out on Saturday and spent too much money on new bedding that actually matches the walls. (Those satin sheets were nice, but I like to wake up with the blankets still on me most days, so we’ll save 'em for special occasions.) I bought a new quilt (white with yellow, blue, and lavender flowers on pretty green vines), a blanket (Egyptian cotton, very warm), and three sets of sheets (two jersey–lavender and navy–and one flannel–white with blue and green snowflakes). I also finally got around to buying pot holders for the kitchen so I don’t have to take things out of the oven with my sleeves over my hands. Total damage at Bed, Bath & Beyond: $339. Ouch.

Then I went and started painting the top half of my bedroom. When I finished yesterday, I discovered something upsetting–too green. Normally, I wouldn’t say anything was too green, but oh man, that was a lot of green. The lighter green is much darker than I thought it would be, so there’s maybe a four-shade difference between the light and the dark. The overwhelming greenness was easily (though time-consumingly) solved with a bunch of stencils and craft paint I already had to hand. I haven’t finished yet, but now I sleep in a rose garden instead of a pool table, so that’s probably a step up.

And I totally forgot the Super Bowl was yesterday, so I missed all the good commercials. We did, however, Tivo the “40 Greatest Commercials” special that was on Saturday night, so I could watch Terry Tate, Office Linebacker take out yuppies over and over and over again.

So who won? :smiley:

16

No; that;s the dog’s job… :rolleyes:

17

No fireplace in my apartment (but lots of candles!) but KeithT and I were talking over the weekend about our dream house that we’re going to build some day and we’re definitely going to include some sort of fire source. Either a fireplace or a stove or something. Maybe a pellet stove since it’s easier than hauling logs in from outside all the time.

I went home and visited the parents this weekend. That was good. Mom made venison for lunch yesterday. Really really yum!

18

I did not watch the Stupor Bowl last night. I did not see any of the commercials. I am not upset with this at all. I just didn’t care. How’s that for un-Amurrkin?

19

The only modicum of interest I could muster for the Super Bowl was that one Shaun Alexander of Seattle is from Kentucky and seems like a nice guy, from the article I read in the paper the other day. So, I was for the Seahawks because he’s on that team. I watched for perhaps 10 minutes until they took a shot of him, then I left the room and never came back.

But–spats your post made me grin. You’re s’very clever!

20

Fer shame! Hang your head! :wink: