Sunday, January 04, 2009

Ann Graduates

On the evening of December 19th at Grady Gammage Auditorium, Ann Marie graciously accepted two diplomas bringing to a close her undergraduate studies at ASU. That's right. I said two diplomas. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Management Technology and a Bachelor of Science degree in Air Traffic Management.

After the ceremony, we celebrated appropriately at Anzios Landing, a restaurant adjoining the runway at Falcon Field in Mesa. Pilots can taxi up, park, and walk into the restaurant. I don't know who directs the plane traffic to the restaurant, but I'll bet they don't have two degrees.

Congratulations Ann!

Thanksgiving 2008

Another Thanksgiving and another turkey challenge. Over the past two Thanksgivings, we've been perfecting our turkey production skills. Since our oven isn't big enough to for all we need it for, It's been my job to cook the ham and two small turkeys outside on the grill. It's not really cooking though since both the ham and turkeys are pre-cooked. It's really just heating. It sounds simple but two years ago while carving, I struck ice at the center of the bird. This year we decided to carve the turkeys the night before. To keep them from dying during heating, I basted them with chicken broth. This worked beautifully. We had hot moist pre-carved turkey ready to serve.











Most of the family showed up. Mark and Jay couldn't make it this year. Mark is in the Army and Jay is in California and worked the day before and after thanksgiving. Linda made up for her missing sons by bringing her "stand in" son Jon. Jon is one of Mark's friends who is now living with Jim and Linda.
fter dinner, there was talk of politics and the state of the world in general with the usual consensus that everything is screwed up. It's a wonder that there aren't more people in positions of power that are as smart as we are.
For several years I've been recommending turkey enchiladas in place of the traditional fare. Turkey doesn't rate high on my list of meats to eat. In an enchilada, it would be better. Now that we have the turkey preparation down, I'm going to stifle the enchilada idea. No one was buying into it anyway, and I don't want my serving turkey enchiladas at Thanksgiving to be one of reasons the world is screwed up next year.