You really have to wonder what’s happened to this guy.  Compare the short video below with the longer, more incoherent one below that. In case you’re confused, these are the same person.

Okay, so it was not a screaming success.

Essentially, too much brown sugar made it too sweet, and too much liquid made it too runny.  On this recipe, cut the brown sugar down to 1/4 cup, and add only 1/2 a can of beef broth.

It also was not very spicy, which was fine for some in the house, but I tend to like a bit of a kick.  Next time, I won’t remove the seeds from the jalapeno peppers.

It was a great game, however.  The Cardinals scored 16 points in the final eight minutes of the game to take the lead but allowed the Steelers to score a winning touchdown with 35 seconds left.  The Cardinals had a shot at the win, but a fumble essentially ended the game.

Here’s this year’s Super Bowl chili recipe.  We’ll see how it goes, what needs adjustment, etc., and will make any changes in the next blog entry.  I am cooking this in a slow cooker.

2 medium onions
3 cloves garlic
1.5 lbs lean ground beef
1 lb lean ground pork
3 pieces thick-slab bacon, cooked chopped, plus 2 tbsp bacon fat
1 28 oz. can whole tomatos
1/2 can tomato paste
1 can red kidney beans
1 can beef broth
2 large carrots, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
2 poblano peppers, seeded and chopped
4 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp rosemary
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed 

Saute the onions and garlic until golden.  Add the beef and pork and brown.

Add everything else.

Slow-cook on high for 2 hours, then turn to low for four hours.

Makes 10-12 servings.

A lot of you write in to me and say, “Hey, Tim.  How about sharing your recipe for your famous seven-layer dip?”  I’ve been so inundated with requests for this recipe, that I figured I would finally post it.

Ingredients:

• 1 can refried beans (I use fat-free)
• 1 container Breakstone Sour Cream (I definitely don’t use fat-free)
• Guacamole
• 1 head lettuce, chopped
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• cheddar cheese, finely shredded
• Salsa (I use Newman’s Own, Medium)

In a small pan, heat up the refried beans.  While that’s heating up, chop up your lettuce and tomato.

Spoon the heated-up refried beans into the bottom of a glass (transparent) dish.  Let this cool slightly before proceeding to the next step.  Otherwise, you’ll cook the lettuce.

Add a layer of chopped lettuce.  

Add a layer of chopped tomato.

Add a layer of guacamole.  Now, you can, of course, purchase pre-made guacamole, but I prefer to make mine, combining avocados, red onion, cilantro, lime (or lemon) juice, a small amount of chopped tomato (which is a bit redundant in this dish, but you get the idea), about a teaspoon of chili powder, a little salt, and a bit of pepper.  Try hard to keep this layer smooth, and don’t let it smear the glass dish.

Add a layer of  sour cream.  Do this carefully, so it remains a separate layer from the guacamole.  

Add a layer of shredded cheddar cheese.

Top with salsa.

Place two large serving spoons in either side of the dish, and serve with tortilla chips.  And remember:  the name of this dish is Tim’s Famous Seven-Layer Dip.

Enjoy!

Today is November 11.

As I was growing up, I routinely would see 11:11 on the clock.  I would be watching television, reading a book, lying in bed, doing homework … something.  I would look at the clock for the first time in an hour or more, and it would be 11:11.  Not every time, of course, but the time 11:11 seemed almost to haunt me.  Although it’s possible I saw times such as 9:26 just as frequently, it certainly did not seem so.

Step forward to my early thirties.  My wife and I had a new child and a new Honda Civic.  We were driving the Honda Civic on a Maine country road with our new-born in the back.  We approached a two-lane bridge that arched in the center so that you could not see the other side.  I looked down at the odometer–I don’t know why.  We had driven the car 111.1 miles.  I looked up at the approaching bridge and moved the Civic over to the right as far as it would go.  As we got near the crest of the bridge, a truck came at us from the other direction, his left tires crossing the center line into our lane.  Had I not moved over, we may have collided.  Had I not noticed the mileage, I may not have moved over.

The silly thought occurred to me at that moment that all those times I had seen 11:11 earlier in my life simply were preparing me for that day, as if all those clocks were telling me to remember this time, these numbers, which some day would be important.  Silly thought, huh?

It’s Veteran’s day today, so my office is closed.  I’m at work nevertheless, trying to take advantage of the quiet to get some work done.  This morning, after working for several hours, I received an email from a colleague asking whether we could set up a meeting for tomorrow.  I reached for my iPhone to check my calendar.  When I pressed the On button, the iPhone displayed the time in large numbers.  It was, of course, 11:11.

No matter what your politics or how you feel about Keith Olbermann, I would like to hear anyone raise an argument against this plea.

I was flying on US Air flight 3054 on Wednesday night, travelling from LaGuardia to Portland.  As the flight attendant shut the door, she gave the standard line, “Please turn off all portable electronic devices.”  We all know this is the rule, and many people try to finish up that one last email or phone call before they are asked, personally, to turn off their phone.

I was in seat 3A.  Across the aisle from me, in seat 3D (I’ve never understood why they skip letters on these little planes), was the guy in the photo.  He had an iPhone that, after the announcement, he hid under his JAMA magazine.  When the flight attendant sat down, he continued to send and receive text messages and check email.  As we taxied down the runway, he kept texting.  And as we took off and rose above New York City, he didn’t stop.

My first thought was that there are some people in this world–way too many people in fact–who simply don’t believe the rules apply to them.  Rules, to them, are meaningless restrictions on their freedom of choice.  And it causes you to wonder:  if this guy has no qualms about bypassing this safety rule, what other rules does he choose not to follow?

My second thought was about safety and personal responsibility.  We all know–and I assume this guy knew–that use of a cell phone on an airplane can cause interference with the plane’s equipment.  In this case, what is my responsibility?  Should I or the woman on his other side have asked him to turn off his phone?  Should I have notified the flight attendant somehow?  It was interesting to me that he didn’t care at all what his airplane neighbors saw or thought–he just didn’t want to get caught by the flight attendant.  Any time she walked by, he hid the phone under his medical journal.  In the end, however, I did nothing but take his picture so I could post it here.

My final thought was that this guy was a McCain supporter.  Although “Country First” is written on Senator McCain’s campaign signs, a very large number of his supporters have a “me first” attitude.  This guy clearly was thinking only of his own needs, everyone else be damned.

Although I do plan to prioritize writing to a level that allows me to do it daily, my day job and late-night baseball have kept me extremely busy recently.  (Pretty exciting about them Red Sox, eh?)

However, I would like to mention one thing I found humorous. A while back I wrote a middling review of a blog traffic-building product called Blogrush, commenting that the president of that company had written some pretty odd, very lengthy, rambling emails to his product users. My conclusion was that the jury was still out on the product.

Well, guess what. They kicked me out of their network. They did not cite my review as a reason, of course, but I suppose they didn’t have to–we’re grown-ups here; we both knew why they were doing it.

Road construction is on-going, by the way. The road in front of our house has been flattened dirt for a couple of weeks now, as the major work has moved to the other end of the street. Our driveway has been inaccessible since they started. Also, although the plan is for the road to get no wider and, if anything, narrower in places, they’ve removed quite a bit of yard from the front of our house. The plan is for about two more weeks of this, and then we’ll be done.

Road construction outside our house started in earnest today, and they did not mess around. The backhoe had not been there fifteen minutes before half the road in front of our house was rubble. It took them longer to get it off the truck than it did to destroy a large portion of road that had laid there for more than 50 years.

By the time I returned home from work this evening, it was too dark to photograph, but it appeared the blacktop was entirely gone. I parked around the corner and walked to the driveway, not noticing that that the first five feet of our drive way also had been removed. Nearly fell on my face.

Next step is to lower the street in front of our house by 11 inches. Once they do that, I think I’ll stop trying to get up the driveway in the dark.

The road in front of our house is being entirely rebuilt.  It’s only one block long, but it’s not a small task.  First, there’s a bend in the middle of the road.  Second, they need to repitch the road so that the center of the road (the center being the spot between the two ends) is higher and the ends are lower.  We live at one end of the road, so the road in front of our house is dropping by 11 inches.  In order to accommodate this, the city actually has to provide us with a new, more steeply sloped driveway.

I’ve put some “before” photos below.  You can click on them to see a larger image.

In order to preserve the character of the street, no sidewalks are going in.  To do so would require taking down fences, many trees, and at least one stone wall.  However, we are getting curbs and drainage and a small number of trees apparently will be coming down.

We’re told construction will take roughly six weeks, which would have them cutting the ribbon some time around Thanksgiving.  Our driveway is likely to be dirt for four weeks, and we’ll have a day or so that we cannot use it.  We’re just looking forward to no longer having a large lake at the bottom of our driveway after each rainfall.

I’ll provide scintillating updates as we go along.