Castlehom Chronicles

Breakfast of a Sailing Survivor

Right now you can buy these “board” books “A  MAN A CAN ____” used for a Cent plus Postage from Amazon. The day before yesterday I bought an  18 oz ruby red filet of Atlantic Salmon from Chile. The label said "COLOUR ADDED" so we might add “farm fed fish” not “wild fish” and isn’t Chile on the Pacific side of S.A.. Whatever! My breakfast yesterday morning (8:00 AM) was a Salmon Casserole: besides the Salmon, three Organic Large Brown Eggs, gluten free oatmeal, a red Spanish Onion, two white onions, Elephant Garlic, a pinch of SEA SALT and a small jar of tartar sauce are blended into the mix.   In the last step the hot steaming mix of Salmon, Eggs, Onions, Oatmeal and Garlic is smothered with a Glass Jar of chilled up market Tomato Pasta Sauce which I’d earlier bought at 75% off. 

The microwave “trick” is to cook the mix in layers.  That way the items in the bottom layer will  be cooked the most, the last item or items in the last layer, the least or not at all.  If you are a cook I need not tell you I’d cook this dish  differently ashore in a real oven but here "at Sea" I do it in layers with the energy efficient microwave - each layer getting a two – three minute flash of microwave  energy before the next layer is added. I’ve done this often enough that I do not  microwave burn a layer - just a minute too long with any layer can ruin the final result.   The first layer is the onions.  I’d have nuked yellow cooking onions more than the 3 minutes I nuked the diced spanish (purple/red) and white onions.  The second layer was sliced elephant garlic (2 minutes).  Did I mention that I cook with an open can of beer.  Today it was a Heineken. Each time I nuke a layer I am careful to add enough beer to the layer to be nuked to avoid microwave burn.

The 3rd step is to lie the salmon filets red flesh down on the steaming mix of onions and garlic.  On my boat’s 1000 watt microwave I nuked the fish 5 minutes.  My microwave has a rotating base. If you have a more powerful feature rich microwave be careful because the only thing you can do wrong is to over cook or microwave burn an ingredient.  If you see that the fish needs more cooking – give it a few more minutes.  Did I say the fish should cover the mix.  For space reasons on the boat I use Pyrex Cookware that works in the Microwave, the Electric Oven, the Gas Grill and on the Table.

The fish cooked - the next step is to remove the skin.  Whereas that task would have been near impossible raw it peals off cooked without any waste or effort.  I’ll have to read if I should eat the skin.  It tastes better gone. 

Of course there is more to it. Salmon esp farm salmon is fat. Omega-3. The hot mix now has oil and juice from the salmon.  This is the time to spice the nuked mix to your fancy but keep in mind that the tartar sauce is spiced.  In my   case I added sea salt, black pepper and mustard sauce not powder.  I was careful to break the salmon into the mix with a fork; I was careful to not mush the mix into a paste.  To that end the three eggs were scrambled then folded into the mix.  I hand blended a half cup of gluten free oatmeal into the eggs.  No reason for the oatmeal being gluten free – it was another one of my 75% off buys.  Last item I added was the jar of Tartar Sauce and a  bit more of the beer as some  beer was needed to wash all the sauce out of the bottle. 

A 6 minute NUKE and it’s done.  I could still taste the garlic distinct from the onions but it was burning hot.  Thanks to the eggs and oatmeal it was solid. It was ready to eat  but too hot to eat. I took the Pasta Jar out of the frig – poured it over the hot mix - and there I was eating hot Salmon Casserole.

In general few cooks  relate fine cooking with microwave – but it can be a wonderous tool with fish and vegetables.

The magic this time around and a surprise to me was the taste effect of the Jar of Tartar Sauce. 

WARNING: I can tell you in advance that you won’t get the results I get unless you use the same or similar up market ingredients.  But no matter.  What I’ve done here isn’t really cooking but you’ll be surprised how good it is if you make it yourself.  That’s why I recommend the board books.

 http://www.amazon.com/Man-Can-Microwave-Tasty-Can/dp/157954892X

In this case the third book has given me one wonderful breakfast then two more.  Did you think I ate it all in one sitting?  If you add the eggs it was at least three days of all the protein you or I need in a week.  Over the three breakfasts it was for me I used two jars of Pasta.  Newman’s isn’t the best Pasta I buy but it’s good enough.  If you have the time go to a farmer’s market and get some fresh ripe tomatoes.    

I am really pleased with this recipe.  Next time I’m going to add Cashews and try spicing differently - test different fish – Grouper or Cod are next.

Doing Good by doing good!

http://talkic.com/

Megatons to Megawatts 1993.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts_Program

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swords_to_ploughshares

Russian Nuclear Crisis
to Hit the U.S. in 2013
31 Million U.S. Citizens
Will Be Affected

Few people realize it, but at the end of 2013 an event will take place in Russia that could devastate U.S. energy supplies.
On that day, a 20-year nuclear warhead agreement between the United States and Russia will expire.
Unless preventive steps are taken, 10% of America’s electric energy supply will dry up.
Here’s what’s going on…
In 1993, the United States and Russia launched a program known as "Megatons to Megawatts."
The purpose of this program was to convert 500 tons of Soviet-era warheads into uranium for U.S. nuclear power plants.
The program has worked well. Maybe too well.
Believe it or not, this Russian program accounts for 10% of our total electricity — more than solar, wind and hydro combined.
This fuel powers one out of every 10 homes, businesses, schools and hospitals in America. 31 million people rely on electricity generated by defunct Russian missiles.

The Cave and Basin has been Hijacked

Designated enemy aliens under Canada’s War Measures Act (1914), some 8,579 enemy aliens were interned during World War I as prisoners of war. Ostensibly nationals of countries at war with Canada, the vast majority however were settler immigrants, primarily of Ukrainian ethnic origin. The Castle Mountain Internment Camp was the largest internment facility in the Canadian Rockies, housing several hundred prisoners at any one time. Established on July 13, 1915, a total of 660 enemy aliens were interned at the facility during its entire operation.^[1]

“That’s right.  Canada rounded up farmers in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, and they built the Cave and Basin during WWI.  A few were deported but most were released back to their farms without apology or recompense.”

“I have swum in the pool above.  A lot. It’s at the Banff Springs Hotel (I worked the summer of 1957 as a Golf Caddy).  I could swim there because the Pool was not attended –the water was far too cold (60 degrees) to attract many guests – I swam laps – typically 50. That summer, 4 months,  at least 50 miles.  I made the swim team via super fitness and the short story is that that in turn got me the job at the Cave and Basin. I’m not a competitive swimmer. I was  a good life guard. I have too much fast twitch for competitive swimming.  Swimming those laps, making the swim team. That’s  5% of the story…and without it I’d never have had two years at the Cave and Basin. 100s wanted to be guards at the Cave and Basin. My Dad had the first 95% covered.  I just had to show up with a Badge that said “Red Cross Instructor”.  The badge was a necessary but not sufficient condition!  My Sport was wrestling.”

http://www.usms.org/articles/articledisplay.php?a=104 Years ago I held a vision of diving off the blocks when I was 100. Now my goal is to dive off the edge of the pool. Growing old is something that will take me some time to catch onto. I think I’m ready. (“that’s another aging swimmer talking about slowing down…this 2012 I am PADI Open Water Certified and besides salt water being easier than fresh, swimming is way easier today than it was in Banff when I was fit and sunk like a bag of rocks…back then threading water was the hardest part of getting my badges…today I float like a cork in distilled water and need 30# of lead to dive”)

“This is the way the Cave and Basin was when I was there as a lifeguard.  I am not sure what they’ve done or rather I can’t believe it so if you know and have some 2011 or 2012 pictures please please upload them!”

Need to Reside Requirement

Residential leases in Banff restrict occupancy to eligible residents as defined in National Park regulations. The eligible residency provisions ensure that community residential lands are available exclusively for community use, rather than recreational or second home purposes.
By federal regulation, a person is generally considered an eligible resident if he or she:
• is employed or operates a business in the park, or
• is a full-time student in the park, or
• has retired after not less than five years of employment in the park, or
• is the spouse or dependent of someone who meets the above criteria.
Please visit the Parks Canada Administration building to pick up an eligible resident form. Parks Canada staff will verify the completed form and contact you once the form is ready to be picked up.
For more information about the concept of eligible resident, please click the following link, or contact Parks Canada directly at:

Banff National Park Administration Building
101 Mountain Avenue, Banff, Alberta
T: 403.762.1500

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banff_National_Park#Prison_and_work_camps

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place (such as a forest, mountain, lake, desert, monument, building, complex, or city) that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance. The list is maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 states parties^[1] which are elected by their General Assembly.^[2]

“The past few years  ~ $14 million has been spent on the Cave and Basin where I was a lifeguard for two summers (1958, 1959). The pool is still closed.  The story is too complicated and confusing for me to dare summarize.  Apparently there are no plans to bring back the swimming pool that has been closed since the 1990s.  The acting heritage programs manager Steve Malins said “We thought our money would be better invested in other sites.”   Enjoy the pictures and the links.  There is an incredible story here.  I am not making this up!”

“It is not about the Pool.”

iStarBadger

Bedtime Stories for Wolfies

http://www.stalkingtheflock.com/

“Not everyone will like you. Accept this. Do not sacrifice your integrity to gain approval of anyone! When you try to please everyone, you slowly destroy yourself. Dancing monkeys, those who exhaust themselves for the amusement of the  masses, have plenty of fair-weathered "friends", but real men are not afraid to acquire enemies; they are not afraid to put their convictions before their popularity. Live life through your own eyes, and live by your own standards (not society’s). Doing so will fend off the two-faced sheep, and net you a few real friends who love you for who you are, and not your shallow facade. Just as shallowness is drawn to shallowness, strength is drawn to strength. To attract people of equal integrity, simply be yourself. Those who bend to the will of the masses and follow the trends may, on the surface, seem like they have plenty of friends, but when the chips are down, they soon find out that they really have not a lot in the whole bunch (herd). Above all, be yourself. Live life in a genuine manner. Do not subscribe to flawed ideologies: “Love your enemies” This is flawed! This statement destroys the value of love itself. “Do what thou wilt” This is flawed! That statement invites your enemies to do as they please to you. LOVE YOUR FRIENDS, DESTROY YOUR ENEMIES; this is the unflawed code of the wolf.” (©Thorin)

http://www.amazon.com/Howls-Wolfpack/dp/0615439063/ref=pd_sim_b_3

This KINDLE book is the collected works of writers who will challenge the way you look at the world.

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm517386752/tt1601913

men meet wolves; wolves eat men; eof

Raccoons, Coyotes, Feral Cats, Pale Male, Eagles

http://www.wildlifesolutions.com/raccoons-and-raccoon-removal/?gclid=CNf0_4bioK4CFcIDtgodBhhJ5A

Raccoons are primarily nocturnal, although in some rare circumstances they can be seen during the day. Adult raccoons range in size from approximately two to three feet long and weigh approximately 10 to 20 pounds. They are omnivorous, eating both plant and animal foods, insects, and pretty much anything else they can find.

http://www.stpete.org/wildlife/florida_coyote.asp

The coyote (Canis latrans) is becoming a common occurrence on Florida’s landscape. Traditionally associated with the American West, the coyote has become an established species in the eastern U.S., including Florida (Hill et al. 1987). Range expansion can be attributed to the coyote’s nonspecific needs in habitat and food; large litter size and short generation time; decreased competition across its range from other predators–the gray wolf (Canis lupus) and red wolf, (Canis rufus) , grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) and puma (Felis concolor) ; and the coyote’s ability to adapt to and benefit from human activities (Moore & Parker 1992, USFWS 1978, Gier 1975) .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_Pigeon#Cities_famous_for_pigeons

The report cited Extinct Birds, published in 1905 by zoologist Walter Rothschild, who stated, "man and his satellites, cats, rats, dogs, and pigs are the worst and in fact the only important agents of destruction of the native avifaunas wherever they go."^[11] Rothschild gave several examples of cats causing the extermination of some bird species on islands.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Male

Pale Male (hatched 1990) is a well known New York City Red-tailed Hawk who has made his home since the early 1990s near Central Park. Birdwatcher and author Marie Winn gave him his name because of the unusually light coloring of his head. He is one of the first Red-tailed Hawks known to have nested on a building rather than in a tree and is famous for establishing a dynasty of urban-dwelling Red-tailed Hawks. Each spring birders set up telescopes at the Model Boat Pond to observe his nest and chicks at 927 Fifth Avenue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_cat

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All the above relates to the previous Post about Wolves.  A number of animals and birds have co-evolved with human beings.  If you live in a City – I will cite Miami and Toronto – you’ve likely had or know friends and family who have had direct encounters with raccoons, coyotes and pigeons but none with wolves or eagles.  In general wolves and eagles are not a co-evolution but a competitor.  As such – until the recent green revolution - we humans have exterminated wolves and eagles – Ben Franklin thought the turkey not the eagle should be the national bird. On balance, raccoons, coyotes, pigs and cats do better in our presence than our absence.

iStarBadger    

Liam Neeson 6’4” Alpha Male

The Grey is a 2012 American adventure film directed by Joe Carnahan and starring Liam Neeson. It follows a number of men stranded in Alaska after a plane crash, who are forced to survive using little more than their wits as a pack of wolves stalks them. The film is based on the short story "Ghost Walker" by Ian MacKenzie Jeffers, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Carnahan.

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In your busy busy life I can’t expect you to see every movie out there but THE GReY is so outstanding beginning with "gray is a color and grey is a colour".  A group of oil-rig roughnecks are left stranded on the sub-arctic tundra after their plane experiences a complete mechanical failure and crashes into the remote Alaskan wilderness. The survivors, battling mortal injuries, biting cold and ravenous hunger, are relentlessly hunted and pursued by a vicious pack of rogue wolves.

In 124 minutes it made perfectly clear to me what might become us if we lack our means of defense now so assumed that it requires film and the “suspension of disbelief”  to appreciate that even a pack of oil-rig roughnecks is no match for a pack of wolves.  Said another way it is that we ain’t so special or all-powerful without the systems we have over time amassed – here in this movie the lost rifle – without it – the wolves are more than equal these rough men who in turn are more than most of we soft readers.

iStarBadger

http://screenrant.com/the-grey-reviews-benk-148405/

http://www.amazon.com/Howls-From-The-Wolfpack-ebook/dp/B006JT9A9I/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2

alive, Infernal fire, Demon inside, Rising higher. Hell’s pit, Home ground, Ever lost, Never found. We’ve survived, Heaven and hell. We’re denying, The world you sell. Lock us up, Throw away the key, Fight till death, That will be your fee. Rusty chains, Hold us down, Blood spills, Onto the crown, Our hands, Now are free, The wolf’s howl, Echoes every scream.

The Wolfpack (2011-12-08). Howls From The Wolfpack (p. 6). Abyss Press. Kindle Edition.

The spoiler no one has posted is the four word poem that Liam speaks/reads near the film’s end.

Jakob the Liar by Jurek Becker

http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/a/jakobtheliar.htm

http://www.amazon.com/My-Sister-Spouse-Biography-Andreas-Salome/dp/0393007480

http://www.amazon.com/Jakob-Liar-Jurek-Becker/dp/0452281709/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329219767&sr=1-1

In the late 70s I wrapped up my affairs in Victoria and moved to “Castlehom” the farm on Big Island where I lived until 2000.  During the summer of that year I attended a total immersion six-week Summer School in German in Portand Oregon.  The course was a function of the Goethe Institute.  It was held at Lewis and Clark College but the faculty was lead by H.F. Peters the author of Zarathusra’s Sister.  Dr. Peters was then tenured at Reed College.  The students were a mix of super bright kids from Reed College and High School Teachers from all over America who taught German.  Thanks to Peters’  fame the faculty was an amazing collection that included Jurek Becker.  If he were living I’d offer him email at www.ravensbruck.net or www.Auschwitz-Birkenau.net in the sense that what is first lived as tragedy be expunged as comedy (Jurek Becker was born in 1937 and lived in the Łódź Ghetto as a child with his mother.). When he was five, he was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp (sic: with his mother) and later to Sachsenhausen. His mother died in the Holocaust, his father survived; father and son were reunited after the war and settled together in East Berlin.

After completing his national service in the East German army in the 1950s, during which time he became firm friends with the actor Manfred Krug, Becker studied philosophy in East Berlin but was expelled for expressing non-conformist views. In the 1960s he wrote film scripts, one of which, Jakob der Lügner (Jacob the Liar), he turned into a novel when the film production was halted. It was made into a film by the East German film company DEFA in 1974 and in 1975 became the only East German film ever to be nominated for an Academy Award (in the foreign-language film category), though it did not win (sic: I saw the film in Portland Oregon during the Summer School at Lewis and Clark). A 1998 remake, starring Robin Williams in the title role, had limited success. By the mid-1970s differences of opinion with the GDR authorities were becoming apparent, and Becker was one of the original twelve signatories of the petition against the expulsion of writer and singer Wolf Biermann in November 1976. In 1977 he moved from East to West Berlin, though somewhat unusually he retained his East German citizenship. He continued to publish novels and short stories, some on Jewish themes, others not.

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“The pix captures the man I remember.  Jurek was a child at Ravensbruck where he was interned with his mother.  His Novel has been made a movie at least 2X.  I watched the first movie in Portland with him in attendance to explain!  He was very alive and full of creative energy.  Not at all depressing in the flesh.  Quite the opposite!  But like many – not just Primo Levi – he died too young.  No doubt I missed a lot.”

iStarBadger

Auschwitz-Birkenau Bill Hunt

http://auschwitz-birkenau.org/

“My interest in the Holocaust began while working on publicity for Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. I have also learned a great deal from speaking to both Schindler Jews and Caroline Goodall who, through her role as Oskar’s wife in the film, had forged a friendship with Emilie Schindler.

I’ve put this site together as a photographic record of Auschwitz-Birkenau on the 60th anniversary of the camp’s liberation.”

Bill Hunt

Social Choice and Individual Values by Kenneth J. Arrow

Most Americans strongly favor equality of opportunity if not outcome, but many are weary of poverty’s seeming immunity to public policy. This helps to explain the recent attention paid to cultural and genetic explanations of persistent poverty, including claims that economic inequality is a function of intellectual ability, as well as more subtle depictions of the United States as a meritocracy where barriers to achievement are personal–either voluntary or inherited–rather than systemic. This volume of original essays by luminaries in the economic, social, and biological sciences, however, confirms mounting evidence that the connection between intelligence and inequality is surprisingly weak <SNIP – SNIP>

IQ is not a strong independent predictor of economic success, and that people’s associations–their neighborhoods, working groups, and other social ties–significantly explain many of the poverty traps we observe.

The optimistic message of this beautifully edited book is that important violations of equality of opportunity do exist.

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“This book espouses intransigent individuality while refuting blind conformity to societal norms… It is a  great work  telling a great truth!”

iStarBadger