Steam powered robots - Cool stuff!

or should I say Hot Stuff?

Anyway...

http://www.crabfu.com/steamtoys/

Watch the vids. Which is your fave?

Is there an egg cracking test for culinary school graduates?

So, there I was, preparing the bread mix (from scratch, of course) for one of my favorite desert breads, Cinnamon Sugar Bread (yummmmm), and I started to wonder...


In order to graduate from a Culinary School, does a student have to pass an Egg Cracking test?


If so, that's one test that I'd fail spectacularly on! I've cracked thousands of eggs in my time (who hasn't?) but I still consider myself a novice egg cracker at best...

Anyone know?

Euphemisms: Going Down, Falling Over, Dumped It, Had a Get Off

Why do motorcycle riders use so many euphemisms when talking about crashing? Seems like they never crash...they just fail to stay upright in some fashion or another.

Now, I have literally fallen over once. On my first motorcycle (Honda VLX Deluxe), a couple weeks in, at a stop sign. My front tire wasn't straight when I hit my front brake, and over to the right side I went. Fortunately, my cruiser had engine guards, so no harm done to me or my bike.

I've actually crashed on my bikes over the years twice since then. Unless you count the time I ran over a fellow rider that had crashed in front of me, but I managed to stay upright. Maybe 2.5 times would be more accurate, lol.

I didn't just "go down" or "dump it" or "have a get off" or "fall"....I crashed.

In my experience, personal and from observing others, a rider is at great risk in the first year that they start riding AND at even greater risk in the 3rd year. Exact time varies somewhat depending on how many miles they actually ride, but you get the idea.

When you are a newb, you are at greater risk. Once you think you actually know what you are doing (but before you actually do)...then you are at an even your greatest risk. The risk never goes away of course, but sometimes we help it out more than others.

Along the same lines, there are so many Euphemisms used for how a rider crashed. Let me decode them for ya:

Throttle Stuck: They pinned it to win it and all they got was a trip in the ambulance (if it really had stuck, clutch and kill switch anyone?)
Cold Tires: Going too fast around a curve...or improper braking technique
Sand/dirt/gravel: Not paying proper attention, not scanning far enough ahead, going faster than they can see
Brake Checked: Following too closely
Rider ahead missed a shift: Following too closely

I could go on and on, but hopefully you get the point. It's never the rider's fault that something bad happened...

Must Read! Important! Read This!

Bleh. Whatever happened to a succintly worded and relevant subject line that actually gave a potential reader an even chance at divining what the post will be about?

If ya title your post like I just did, I will NOT read it. I find it extremely annoying when I am scanning through a forum's posts and see subject titles like that. In my experience, I usually want my click back if I give in to curiousity and look at them. I can honestly say that it has been a couple years now since I've done it.

Who are you to tell me what to do? What I must read? Sure fire way to get me to ignore ya.

Ya'll might want to think about. Maybe even do the same as I. It might be hard at first, you'll lie awake at night wondering about all the "important must read" posts that you failed to read that day. It gets easier with time though, each day you don't read them and life still goes on.

Save your clicks for important stuff, like watching idiots on youtube...

The Cornered Cat

Came across The Cornered Cat website today. Great resource for anyone who owns a gun or is thinking about owning a gun. Targeted mostly towards woman, but lots of great info for both genders.

To quote them, "If you've ever wondered about the legal or social or practical or ethical aspects of owning a gun or carrying it, or wonder if carrying a gun is right for you, you've come to the right place"

The time to think about it is NOW, not when it happens or after the fact.

Sound the trumpets, beat the drums...

Ok, so maybe starting a Blog for the very first time isn't exactly an heroic moment deserving of trumpets and fanfare. Especially in this day and age of endless Blogs when I'm the only one who knows about this one, heh. So, why even start one then? Great question, if the class has no other questions, then the class is adjourned...

I hafta admit, my goals for this Blog are not very lofty. This is literally the first Blog I have ever done. Part of my interest in doing a Blog is in experiencing the doing of it. Of course, part and parcel to that, is that as I see/hear things of interest, I'll post about them here. Might even have some thoughts of interest pop up from time to time that I'll share, interesting to me at any rate. As you already probably figured out, many of the things I find of interest will relate to (in no particular order) guns and motorcycles. I'm fairly eclectic though in my interests and will certainly not focus on just those two areas.

Well, I'm off to explore the user interface of this site and get familiar with all the options. I'll post more later. Wish me luck!