Easy Crock Pot BBQ Ribs

I thought I would share one of the crock pot recipes I've been doing for years. It's so easy and delicious (and relatively cheap) that I thought others might like to give it a try.

Ingredients:

• 2.5 pounds of country style ribs (beef or pork, try to catch them when they're on sale, they freeze great!)
• 1 bottle of the BBQ sauce (Sweet Baby Ray's is my absolute favorite and they recently went on sale at $0.88 for an 18 oz bottle, I bought 20)
• 1 medium size onion (I love red onions, but any kind will do)
• 2 cloves garlic (or 10, as you prefer ) 
• 6 mushrooms (optional, I buy cremini but anything works)
• 1 can beef broth
• 1 T apple cider vinegar
• 1 T vegetable oil (or bacon grease, if you're like me and always have some handy :) )
• Salt and pepper to flavor (or your favorite BBQ spice rub)

Preparation: 

This really is about as easy as cooking can get. Dice the onion, when I made it this morning I had red and white onions in the fridge so I used half a red and half a white onion but the key really is to get a nice dice going and get that onion-y goodness in your crock pot. 

Break down your garlic cloves, dice them finely or use a press, and toss em in the crock pot. 

Grab your bottle of BBQ sauce and pour the whole thing in. In order to get all of the yumminess out of the BBQ bottle, pour your beef broth into the bottle and shake, shake, shake it up. Pour the beef broth into the mix as well. 

Now, if you're lucky enough to have a bottle of Wickersham Family Authentic Down Home BBQ Spice Rub shake a decent helping into the pot, otherwise add a teaspoon each of salt and pepper and send me an email begging for a sample of my spice rub. 

Next quarter (or smaller, if you're a little mushroom queasy) the mushrooms and mix them into your crock pot. These mushroom are totally optional, you could leave them out completely if you wish but why would you! Their primary role is, of course, to add their earthy, nutty flavor to the recipe. The added benefit, even more of course, is that they give you something else to soak up the yummy base you just made over the next 8 hours and help stretch the recipe if you're feeding a large family. And an earthy, nutty flavor, of course. 

Now that you have your base taken care of (that was really easy, right) it's time to turn to your meat. You could just throw the ribs into the crock pot and be done; I've done this on many occasions when I've been in a hurry. It will be delicious. 

If you have a few extra minutes, however (a really, really small number of minutes) you can crank the flavor up a few notches by browning the ribs before you put them in the crock pot. The flavor benefit to lightly browning these ribs before you braise them all day in the crock pot is unbelievable. The secret to all this extra flavor, obviously, is the Maillard reaction. It's also an opportunity to sneak some bacon into your ribs, which is never a bad idea. If you happen to have a tub (or a skillet left over from breakfast) of bacon grease you owe your family an apology if you skip this step. Seriously, it's bacon. Vegetable oil works well too if that's all you have (seriously, save your bacon grease). You want a mid-hot pan so you get a good sizzle, grab your tongs and lightly brown each side of your ribs. Then toss them into the crock pot. That's it. 5 minutes for flavor magic.

Now, if you browned your ribs you've got to keep all those brown bits in the pan. Deglaze with the apple cider vinegar (I said 1 tablespoon but I just use a couple splashes to cover the pan) and use your wooden spoon or silicon spatula to to get all that gooey goodness off the bottom of the pan. Let it reduce for just another minute (really, you've got the time!) and pour it into the crock pot. 

If you didn't brown your ribs, just pour a couple splashes of apple cider vinegar into the crock pot. Seriously though, brown the ribs. 

That's it! Stir it up a little to make sure the ribs are coated and set the timer so they're done by dinner. I like to go low for at least 8 hours but it's up to you. These ribs tend to be pretty tough and chewy so the lower and slower you can cook them the better they'll be. I like to serve them on a plate with some rice and my kids love them. Let me know if you try it!

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Posted in: cooking,crock pot,family,hobbies

BBQ Smoker Modifications

People have shown a (surprising) interest in seeing the mods I did to my BBQ Smoker, which is the 

Char-Griller 5050 Duo Gas-and-Charcoal Grill with a side firebox added. We use the charcoal side almost exclusively for smoking big hunks of meat but I have noticed some shortcomings. Apparently a bunch of other people have too, and I found some great ideas for fixing things up. The biggest problem has been keeping temperature up, not surprising because of the relative lightweight nature of the smoker, and I wanted to address this so I could help keep the temperatures stable.

My idea was to both add thermal mass and to increase the time that the smoke/heat stayed in the cooking chamber. The first addition was to add a 3 inch water heater exhaust pipe to the chimney and bring it down to the grill surface.

Aluminum exhaust hose

The next step was relatively simple but I think will make the biggest difference in the overall performance of the smoker; eight firebricks in the bottom of the smoker. These bricks sit close to the firebox opening and add a tremendous amount of thermal mass to the smoker. 

I mounted a couple of stainless steel sheet metal squares on top of the bricks. The right side piece is pressure fit between the slightly offset bolts holding on the firebox and the left side is sitting loose so it can be adjusted to tune the temperature gradient across the pit. 

Bricks and stainless ductwork

The stainless steel plates serve two purposes: both serving as a bit of a duct to carry the smoke across the pit and as a vaporization plate for dripping fat and juices from the meet. I can also add a cookie sheet if I need to with some water (or beer :)  ) to make it into a water smoker,  but I have a vertical smoker, the Brinkmann 852-7080-E Charcoal Gourmet Grill and Smoker, that does water very well. 

The finished product

With the smoke coming through the bricks and under the stainless plates and drifting up and back across the surface of the grill to get to the exhaust pipe I'm hoping to get a more serious hit of smoke in the meat as it smokes and also a more consistent temperature over time. I'll keep you posted!

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Posted in: cooking,friends,hobbies,interests

Urban Farming Overabundance: Fresh Tomato Sauce

Our tomatoes have been producing like crazy lately. So many, in fact, that I can't get them picked fast enough before they start to over ripen on the vine.

Today we went and I stripped the heirlooms as aggressively as I could; lots of beautiful orange, yellow, black, and (boring!) red lovelies to fill up the refrigerator.

One thing I know some people struggle with is what to do with "mushy" tomatoes. I have even seen people in the garden throw them in the compost bin because they were soft. Ahhhhh! Today we had a fair amount of beautiful ripe "mushy" fruit and I decided that it looked like just the right amount to cook for dinner.  Here is a quick rundown of what I did with them; hopefully it will help you avoid the temptation to toss the mushers!

The first step was to separate out all of the mushy tomatoes. We had a nice big wire basket that we filled up -- you can see the wonderful variety of color in the tomatoes.

Into the food processor they go! I threw in a medium sized onion and a couple of cloves of garlic and ran it pretty aggressively to get everything nice and liquid-y. Not pureed exactly, I still like my sauce a little chunky, but pretty smooth. 

Next I poured the mixture into a stock pot with a little salt, pepper, and "italian seasoning' from Sprouts. Sidebar - I love Sprouts for buying spices. So easy to buy fresh spices and so cheap; their blends are amazing!

The secret to a great sauce from fresh tomatoes (mushy or otherwise) is cooking it long and low (in my opinion).  I can't remember why at the moment ( I believe it was something I heard on America's Test Kitchen), but it is very important that you don't let tomatoes get to a boil when you're cooking them as it will really ruin their fresh flavor. I left them on medium-low uncovered for about three hours until they were nice and thick and had lost most of their water (the kitchen smelled wonderful!) and set the mixure aside until we were ready to make dinner.

Once it was time for dinner, I poured a few cups of red wine in the pot and let it cook off for about 10 minutes. A little grated parmesan, some good EVOO, and half a lemon with it's zest and we were ready to eat! We served it over some farfalla with a few grilled chicken breasts and a spinach, mozzarella, and fresh tomatoes salad on the side. It was a wonderful "mushy tomato" dinner!

UPDATE: I forgot to take a picture of the finished product yesterday, but I got this pic today from leftover lunchtime

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Posted in: cooking,gardening,hobbies

Sub-Irrigated Garden

Well, when we moved to Avondale I had to leave behind my beloved garden beds. I had worked for years to develop rich soil in the gardens on the north and south sides of the house and had some really well developed fruit trees going in back yard. So many plans turned to dust. We're in a rental house now, so I have to be a bit more careful about my approach to permaculture but I can't stand the thought of not growing some of our own food. The kids love it, and there is nothing like going out into the backyard to pick a salad or gather some broccoli for dinner. So I decided to get ambitious and build a large sub-irrigated bed in the back yard to take care of our gardening needs. If you're not familiar with the concept, check out one of my favorite urban gardening sites at http://www.insideurbangreen.org/diy-sub-irrigation/ for a dizzying array of examples and pictures. The basic idea is that you provide a way to water your garden from the bottom up which prevents evaporation and promotes deep root penetration. I think it's an ideal solution for desert gardening. We have a large open area covered in rocks on the west side of the house which I have decided will become the "farm" side of the house. The long term plan is to have two raised sub-irrigated beds as well as our composter and the chicken coops on this side of the house with a little picket-fence to keep out the dogs and toddlers (I'm not sure yet which is more destructive to the garden). Here are a few snapshots, hopefully there will be more as the growing season hits full stride.

This first picture is just after we finished construction. Notice the black fill-pipe in the back corner. This is where we water the garden. Sorry I had to cut my model out of the picture...

This next picture is about a month later after things had really started taking off. The tall plants in the middle are the tomatoes, squash on the left side of the picture and cauliflower on the right side. The foreground is different varieties of peppers and sown in the bare spots are carrots, beets, and spinach.

And a view from the other side (cracked bonsai pots courtesy of the twins). Two large basil plans next to the tomatoes, some cabbage on the left side, eggplant and zucchini on the right side. Next to the basil you see leeks and swiss chard, with various onions, garlic, and scallions filling in the rest. There is quite a bit of loose-leaf lettuce sown in the bare spots and the bonsai-pot-corner now contains a flowering strawberry plant (not-pictured).

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Posted in: gardening,hobbies,home improvement,interests

Nerd Alert

OK, if you aren't incredibly geeky this may come across as way over the top. You have been warned.

So I have been trading like a madman on Craigslist, getting rid of some older hardware and doo-dads and picking up some neat new things to play with. One my happiest trades was an old G4 mac setup that I traded to a guy for a Core 2 Duo Dell. He wanted to try the mac and he had this extra computer laying around that he didn't need anymore. So, we traded, and I promptly brought it home and set it up. The first thing I did was wipe Vista off of it and install Leopard. Heh, this was cool in a very ironic sort of way because I had checked out the specs of the machine online and it turns out it is a great candidate for a 'hackintosh'. So I got drivers loaded and everything set up and it runs pretty nicely as a mac. Technically, this makes me a 'software pirate' (as if it was THIS that made me a software pirate) and I am doing a nice little write up for my ethics class about why I don't think there is anything wrong with doing what I did here. Anyways, so I have also been futzing around with Windows 7, which is quite a nice refinement over Vista (and very Mac-y), and decided to do something interesting. I threw another hard drive in there and installed Windows 7 on it. Now I have Leopard installed on a 300 gig drive and W7 installed on a 400 gig drive and I can toggle between them at boot time to switch from Mac to Windows. Pretty snazzy. Why would I do this? Well, it was fun. Also, I have been 'employed' (and I say that loosely considering what they are paying me) by Claremont to do a lot of their video processing for our remote campus. I have a nice iMac and a Macbook Pro (another CL trade) but frankly I need some more muscle to really crunch video. Plus, we just got a hi def camcorder and it does suck up some serious resources playing around with video on there. My imac is getting cluttered up with scripts and video/audio files as I throw around media for the school and what not, so now I have a machine that I can boot up into Leopard when I need to do video work, load it down with jobs, and have my iMac free to do other creative things. Plus, I have a nice little windows box to play around with when I want to do windows-y things.

I hope you found that as interesting as I did! Woo hoo!

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Posted in: computers,hobbies,interests,macs,school

The end is near

So many things seem like they're coming to an end: school is almost over (can you believe we have a paper due on Dec 29?), our time 'working' at CITD is over, the pregnancy is almost over, the holidays are almost over, and football season is almost over (Go Gators!).  It's crazy to look back and remember this year, it has definitely been the most up and down year I can remember... so much has happened it is almost impossible to believe it was all in 1 year!  Started with Christmas/New Years Eve in Florida, then the two trips in the spring to be with the family as we let Nannie go be with the Lord, then the infertility stuff and the treatments, the layoffs at work, new pastor at church, the pregnancy,  saying goodbye to M&M, having like 10 foster kids in 2 months, J&B moving in and moving out, having A&R move in, the Psych eval and becoming a certified candidate in the UMC, the house being robbed.  Yikes, big year.  On top of that, I have been doing my darndest to stay on top of school and the house and still be involved in the family and the church.  Ttthhhhhhhhhhhhpppppppptttt.  Almost too much to imagine.  

Oh well, I guess that is life.  It's interesting to try and remember what life was like when I was younger, college aged or younger I guess.  I have always felt like I was super busy, like the crush of life was almost too much to bear.  The funny thing is, when I look back I can't believe I wasn't bored out of my mind then!  It's amazing how much pressure a full time job puts on you just from the perspective of time.  Having to get up and squeeze what feels like a full day of 'stuff' into the hours before you go to work and then again in the hours after the kids are in bed is crazy - but it is just you do when you're an adult.  Blargh, it sucks sometimes though.  Sometimes when I just veg out and watch football or a move I feel like I'm wasting so much time; it's so hard to remember that you absolutely must have down time.  

So, to add to the randomness, I'll talk about a movie I watched last night (between 2am and 5am while I was up suffering from a terrible sick stomach), "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."  First of all, it wasn't a great movie.  I think the gross out jokes have been done better and with more finesse but whatever.  It did get a lot better towards the end and I'll give it a thumbs up because I've been a sappy romantic of late.  As I was laying on the couch after the movie ended (trying not to poop my pants), I realized that the movie sort of touched me because it was similar to the story of how I fell in love with Aimee.  I know this is crazy, but I sort of had my own Sarah Marshall (though not nearly as attractive or wealthy as Veronica Mars and much, much taller).  I realized this when I heard the line in the movie where one of the guys described his relationship with Sarah Marshall as 'time served' or something like that.  I was totally whipped by my ex and it took her throwing me away to really free myself from her.  When I was recovering but still in love I met Aimee and she was totally the 'cool Hawaiian chick' from the movie.  Like the characters in the movie, we just sort of accidentally fell in love with each other and before I knew it I couldn't imagine life without her.  I'm not really sure what my Vampire puppet opera was but I'm sure I could come up with something if I tried really hard.  Either way, in the end I found my Aimee and there couldn't be anyone better for me :)  

Alright, have to go read about Indian immigrants - I can't wait to be done with school!

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Posted in: church,family,florida,foster care,friends,hobbies,home improvement,pregnancy,school,work

Dinner recipe posted

A Ham steak is something that we almost always have in our freezer. They're cheap and, being pork, relatively heart-healthy (mind the salt if you're sensitive!) Oftentimes we'll just thaw one out and throw it in the oven to broil but tonight I was in the mood for a little something extra so I volunteered to cook. Here is what came of it:

Ham Steak and Potatoes served with Steamed Green Beans

Make sure you save the piece with the ham bone in it for yourself, everyone thinks you're being magnanimous and they usually have no idea that it's the best meat on the steak.

Give it a go and tell me what you think!

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Posted in: cooking,hobbies,interests

I don't often do this...

But I just wanted to post a link to an article I read this morning that really touched me.  It says a lot of things I wish I could say about life.  It's funny how you can spend a lot of time writing things and never be fully convinced that it isn't absolute trash.  I'm glad sometimes that I have the courage to look like a total idiot.

So here it is: Photography, and the Tolerance for Courageous Sucking  courtesy of Merlin Mann at 43Folders

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Posted in: hobbies,interests

Process Discipline

So, today I realized what my life has been missing. I think that this has come to me because I have started getting a taste of it and have begun to realize how important it is to me. Discipline. When I think back, the times when I have been healthiest, happiest, most productive; I have been the most disciplined. Disciplined with what I put in my body, what I do with my body, just how I live my life. At work we might call this process discipline. It's interesting when I think about how easy it is (relatively speaking) to take in foster kids and turn their lives around with just a little bit of discipline. I'm not even talking about discipline in terms of punishment or whatever, though it is amazing how a little dose of the time-out chair will turn children around. What I am talking about is the regular discipline of bathing, eating, brushing teeth, hugging, speaking, all of the hundreds of little things that we take for granted in life. Going to bed at the same time, having a set amount of time to eat dinner, feeding the dogs every day, these seem like such small little things but when are disciplined about doing them every day they can have a transformative effect on your life, or the life of your children. I hate to make this comparison, but I think children aren't that much different from dogs in that they crave structure and discipline. Having to feed the dogs every morning seems like a chore that you would regret but for children that have never been responsible for anything or had something they can count on every single day it can literally turn their whole life around. Children obviously learn so much faster than dogs and they pass through the phase and move onto greater challenges but I think that the comparison is valid for a certain stage of life.

At any rate, this is something that I am missing in my life.  Maybe instead of referring to it as discipline, I will refer to it as living an intentional life.  It's interesting to me that this is the terminology that we use in seminary and also the same that we used in Aikido.  Aikido is really what got me thinking about it.  I was the healthiest I have ever been when I was practicing and I have been missing it lately.  I don't think it was solely the physical activity, I believe that a big part of it was the intentional manner in which I went through my daily life when I was heavy into practice.  Taking off my shoes when I enter a house and placing them neatly against the wall instead of just lumping them into a basket.  Having a regiment of movements and exercises that I did at different times during the day.  I had a class in seminary that required a certain amount of this effort as well, and it produced similar results which leads me to believe that it is not solely physical in nature.  Waking up every morning and spending a short period of time in reflection.  Having a meditation that I performed every night before bed.  I have started modifying my life to be more intentional over the past month or so and I believe it has already caused things to turn around.  Simple things like the pill box I put together has gotten me on track with my medicine and vitamins, a simple evaluation of my spending every night has resulted in us having more money, with no noticeable change in lifestyle.  Riding the bus has introduced a regularity of schedule that has caused me to be more productive at work, I think.  All in all, I am going to be looking for more discipline (intention) in my life.  I hope that I will be able to share some of the benefits with family and friends...I am notoriously lazy so I hope I can maintain.  Hopefully writing here will only help things.  

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Posted in: exercise,foster care,hobbies,school,work

Ugh

So I'm sick. I went home from work on Friday with a sick stomach, I was hoping and praying it was something I ate. Turns out it wasn't. I spent the whole weekend just sick enough to feel like crap but not sick enough to warrant staying in bed all day. Of course, it hit its peak on Monday and I just felt like absolute garbage all day. Now it has progressed to my lungs and I have kind of a yucky cough and that strange feeling like my lungs are full of glass. I sure hate that. Of course it is made worse by the fact that Aimee is pregnant. I have been sleeping on the couch and generally avoiding being close to her because I don't want to get her sick. The worst part is waking up in the morning and taking care of the girls while Aimee gets ready for work. To cap it off things at work have been sort of stressful and of course I have like 900 things to read and write about for school. Last night I had to finish up my paper on Judaism and I just couldn't manage it without a nap so I laid down on the couch just about 30 minutes after I got home from work and went to sleep. That did the trick and when I woke up I finished the darn thing and emailed it to my prof. I hope it doesn't suck (it does suck, but I figure if I pray enough maybe God will change all the words around and somehow when the teacher reads it somehow it will make sense).

On a side note, I have been super bummed out lately that the guys that broke into our house stole my cameras. I finally bought a little point and shoot type of camera like our old one so at least we'll be able to get some pics and movies of the kids and Aimee's pregnancy. (just so I don't forget, I should point out that right now Ave and Rosa are sitting on the floor going 'Daaa da da da da Gooo Gators!' over and over and over again) I was planning on inviting our friends over and taking Christmas portraits, I don't know if there is anyway I will be able to get a decent camera by then. It really bums me out thinking of all the crap I sold on Craigslist and eBay to get the money for the kit I had. My biggest problem, of course, is that I don't want to spend all of that money and get the same camera I had before. It is now 2 models behind the latest and greatest. I definitely got to the point before it was taken that I was running up against its limitations. The nice thing about the SLR is that I had a nice collection of lenses that would would have worked with a brand new body when I decided to upgrade, but now they are gone. It is frustrating. Anyways, I know this is a very first world problem to have and I shouldn't complain ... especially since the economy is in the pooper and people are getting laid off left and right. Ah well, if only I was perfect :)

I had started writing a long piece here about the election but I think I'll save that until later.  I know you guys can only stand for me to bloviate for so long :) 

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Posted in: family,hobbies,school,work

Little Known Fact

EXIF data is much more interesting than you might originally imagine. Background: Our house was robbed on Tuesday. It was horrible, not because they took so much but because Aimee came home and found the house in shambles and didn't know if they were still there or not. She was terrified. Because of this, and not at all because we care about our stuff, we are installing an alarm in the house. I've always been very anti-alarm, I don't know why. I guess it's because back home we don't even lock our front door. Like, we don't lock it when we all leave and go off to work and whatever. My dad leaves his keys in the ignition of his car in the driveway. Take that Phoenix, HA! Anyways, so our house got robbed and they stole all of my camera equipment. Now, I don't have a huge kit but I was proud of it and I'll tell you photography was something that I really, really enjoyed doing. I don't say that meaning I'm done with it, I'm just deflated because the took everything. Lenses, camera bodies (digital and film), chargers, flashes, memory cards - EVERYTHING. It is so strange too, they literally walked past 4 laptops (5 if you count the one under the bed) and a pile of Target giftcards from our baby shower but stole my stupid cameras. I wouldn't have cared TOO much if they had taken my laptops because they couldn't get our private date (yay encryption!) and, you know, it wouldn't be that hard to convince Aimes that we need to replace laptops :) But my freaking cameras. Grrrrr. So anyways, I cruised by a few pawn shops today and no cameras had been brought in but they said without serial numbers I was sort of SOL. Apparently the police automatically check the serial numbers of everything that gets pawned and flag things reported as stolen. Bummer.

So back to EXIF data. EXIF data is the silly stuff that your camera saves inside every picture you take. It's very meta. Time of day, exposure settings, lens information, etc. Just on a whim, I thought maybe the EXIF data has the serial number of the camera? First glance, no bones. Has the model number, has my name(?), but no serial number. So I turn to google. Turns out, there is a 'secret' binary field inside the EXIF data that camera manufacturers use to store lots of interesting information...and Canon is nice enough to store your camera's serial number. Ironically, this dataset is labeled 'MakerData' (creative aren't they?). So I download this nifty program, compile it, run it on one of my raw files and BINGO! Out pops my camera's serial number! I was wicked impressed. I also managed to find the serial numbers of 2 of my lenses in the original boxes (I don't know why I keep boxes...err, I mean I guess now I know why I keep boxes). Hello! So tomorrow morning I'm going to call the 'callback officer' and report the serial numbers and who knows...maybe I'll get lucky.

I still can't believe that they didn't take more of our stuff. I can only hope the dogs were going nuts in the back yard and they were scared.

PEACE!

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Posted in: family,friends,hobbies

Dirty Little Secret

So, I have a dirty little secret that I want to share with all of you, my legions of followers. I spend way more time than is appropriate for a 32 year old man on Yahoo Answers. I was timid at first, until I got my first 'Best Answer'. 'Best Answer' is like crack. Once you get one really good hit...your ego takes over and you're a gonner. I think it had to do with dead car batteries. Mostly, I tear through the math and science homework forums and help kids in junior high and high school with their math homework. Occasionally I see what must be a person in college or an adult that is trying to help their kid and I chuckle. Mostly, what I really appreciate is that you can tell the kids on there 'how' to do the problems without just giving them the answers and they appreciate it. I don't know if this is an indication of my altruistic nature or if it has more to do with my long quiet desire to teach but I really do enjoy it. I think part of me is just happy that kids in jr/sr high do SOMETHING other than offend the sensibilities of every red-blooded web designer by butchering Myspace pages.

In other news, I think Claremont should really consider begging me to take a job as their technology coordinator.

That is all.

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Posted in: hobbies,interests,school

In a funk tonight

I don't know why, I'm just in a rotten mood right now. I can't really explain it, I had a good day at work and I am having an enjoyable evening with the wife and kids. I don't know why this happens to me, but I just get in a funk sometimes. I had an interesting conversation with Adam today. Actually, it feels like I spent most of my day at work talking with Adam about various things. I'm not sure if I'll get to my scheduled task in the 'garden' tonight, but I'm hoping to at least get some plumbing supplies at the Depot after the girls go to bed. Hopefully I'll get up early in the morning and get out there before everyone else is up and about. Thankfully, it seems to be 'cooling' off a little bit. I think we're officially in monsoon season now.

More later

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Posted in: family,friends,hobbies

First Post!

Well, consider me suckered into the world that is blogger.  I can't for the life of me understand why people want to read what I have to say about anything but I'm game.  I'll start out by just saying that I don't know what I want to blog about...so I guess this could be very random for a while.  I love photography, so I'll subject you to my picture taking nonsense. I love my family, so I'll subject to endless prattling about how wonderful and amazing they are.  I love my friends, so I'll probably write on and on about the fantastic things they are doing.  I am in seminary, so I am likely to talk about things that are going on with school andy my studies as well as my faith.  Lastly, I am a huge nerd, so I guess I'll write a lot about nerdy stuff.  Maybe I'll link that to a separate space so my not-so-nerdy friends can be spared.  Here's looking at you, kid...

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Posted in: family,friends,hobbies,interests