Roasting Hatch Peppers

It is Hatch pepper season.

My local grocery store was having a sale so I bought a bunch.

Had a few raw that I  chopped and had on a burger for some extra taste and had the in a few other dishes.

Nice amount of heat, nothing to much bu enough to know its there, great flavor, and it tastes better than a jalapeno, IMHO. 

I had a lot leftover so I decided to roast them.

 I grilled them on a friend's propane grill.

Once all roasty,  I had them sweat in a bowl covered in plastic wrap for 15 minutes.

Then I proceeded to skin them and the burned parts came off quite easily, leaving behind wonderful and tasty roasted peppers.

 These then got placed in quart ziploc bags and put away for later use.

 I did, however, forget one rather important step.

Yep, I wasn't wearing gloves. There were no food gloves available.

So, after peeling the peppers and putting them away, I washed my hands repeatedly with dish soap, dried them and washed them again with the soap. Did that cycle 5 times. 

This should have been sufficient. 

Should have being the operative words, but it was not. 

A few hours later, I went to take out my contacts, again washing my hands well before doing so.

Nope, that didn't help either, the peppers got their revenge. 

Fingers removed contact lenses and then instantly: 

Ouch. Frack, Ouch.

I think this is probably what being pepper sprayed feels like.  

Ouch, more Ouch, and F me even more Ouch. My eyes, they were a burning, they were tearing, they were burning some more. The burning feeling  continued.

And these are Hatch peppers not even really hot peppers!

Anyhoo, the burning sensation eventually went away. A useful lesson was learned. 

I'm now going to make sure I have some plastic food handling gloves available and on my hands whenever handling even mild peppers.

So I'd count that as a success with eight roasted peppers and a practice exposure to pepper spray all in one go.

I would however suggest to most people to forgo the exposure part and just process the peppers while wearing gloves for a far more sedate and less painful process.

Imagine, If You Will, If It Had Been Three Puppies

That Lindsay Clancy had strangled to death instead of her children.

Do you really think all these women would be lining the entry to the courthouse and sitting in wearing pink on her behalf?

PBS: Women rally in support of Lindsay Clancy at her trial

Court TV:  ‘Team Lindsay’: Hundreds line the street outside courthouse in silent support of Lindsay Clancy 

Note the pictures, every single one attending is indeed a white female and almost certainly can be classified as an AWFUL - an American, White Female University-educated Liberal.

The Suicidal Empathy of the AWFUL is fully on display here.  

But now, with ten states allowing abortion up until the very moment of birth, there is room for the suggestion of a modest proposal here:

We simply need states to respect women's choices and bodily autonomy, and to do so to meet the AWFUL's needs. We therefore must extend that cut-off to permit post-partum abortions until the child reaches real viability. 

 Perhaps that should be six years old where the child can prove they can sleep through the night and get up and feed themselves without their mother's intervention. Perhaps longer, maybe even up to 18, for after all, it depends on how the mother is feeling at the moment, and it is her choice, of course.

In all seriousness however, while she has certainly committed murder and had a multitude of options to handle the situation other than killing her children, this is again a case where mental health care in this country needs a major rework. 

It is well past time that choices are made and resources are dedicated to the  institutionalization and treatment of those who are a harm to themselves or others until it can be shown they will not be such a harm.  It is long overdue.

Lobster, No Lobster. Yes Lobster

After the shark feed we dove Lobster No Lobster.

Did you know that lobsters migrate?  They do, and neither European nor African swallows are involved.

Jacques Cousteau named this site because on one dive he found this reef just teeming with lobster. The next time he dove it there wasn't a lobster to be found.

Yes Lobster do indeed move around and migrate. 

We first dove Lobster No Lobster during the day and didn't see a single lobster.

There was a rather healthy reef system there.

 And smiling fish

 

There were also some quite large Lion fish.

 

Each spine on a lion fish is venomous and if you touch it, it hurts, a lot. So avoiding these invasive species is a really good idea, and there are unfortunately quite a few of them around.

 No lobster in sight.

Still a nice dive. 

The night dive however did have lobster.

Big. Lobster.

 

And a big Crab:

And a tiny Stingray

 

And best of all, a tiny and cute Octopus!

First time seeing an Octopus in the wild.  Very cool. 

That was a night dive for the books, we just kept finding cool creatures.

Day Dive: 44 minutes, average depth 27 feet, and a max depth of 32 feet.

Night dive:  1 hour, average depth 24 feet, and a max depth of 31 feet. 

Shark Dive

The highlight of the Blackbeard's trip is the Shark Feeding Dive.

After seeing some sharks while you dive, there's nothing like watching a bunch of them go after a nice chumsicle.

The boat headed to Split Coralhead for the feed. Split Coralhead is one of two shark feeding sites Blackbeards go to, the other being the Henry Smith wreck.

Just like the drift dive, the entire boat of divers gearded up and lined up to jump in together with a negative entry to drop to the bottom as quickly as possible. 

As we dove in, the sharks were already there waiting. 

 All the divers sat or knelt on a circle and then the chumsicle was brought out.

 

With only four sharks hanging out to be taking care of busienss, the shark feed lasted a long time. it was interesting that only four showed up, normally it's about a dozen.

They got to eat well. 

 

This made the chumsicle last awhile, and even split apart and fall to the ocean floor and the sharks really chowed down on it.

 

This had the sharks get nice and close. 

The expression on this yellow snapper's face as the shark was close behind was like "Dude, I'm outta here!"

 A very enjoyable dive.

It's always an experience seeing eye to eye with sharks.

Seriously eye to eye.

 Yep, that one came rather close.

Dive time of 1 hour and 2 minutes, the longest shark dive I've had yet, with an average depth of 49 feet with a 56 foot max. 

Diving: Cut 'N' Run

On July 7, we dove the Cut 'N' Run site.

Named because there's an anchor and chain on the bottom left there by a merchant ship that upon spying a pirate ship in the distance cut the anchor and ran for it. 

The site has a 50 foot depth by the anchor that slopes down to 70 feet and then 90 at the ledge, and then drops straight down to 1000 feet plus. 

We dropped down the anchor line to the anchor and chain.

 We were joined by a local resident:

 The shark was curious, but as more divers came it took off.

We then headed off into the deep two more recent additions to the bottom. 

Ran and sailed great when last run, prior to sinking in 2024, this sailboat is now available to the discerning diver.

 

 No lowballs, we know what we've got.

Leaving the sailboat behind, we then inspected another wreck.

 

 

A nice airplane wreck.

 it's been there longer than the sailboat by quote soem time.

 There was a nice Black grouper by the wreck.

 

We then headed to the ledge, and off it dropping down the wall.

No bottom in sight.

Dropped to 90 feet along the wall still no bottom in sight.

But there was a big Barracuda.

 Still no bottom, just a blue void below.

After being at 90 feet for a couple minutes I got a NDL (no decompression limit) alarm on my computer so we needed to ascend to avoid a decompression situation that we were really no equipped for handling.

We then went back up and started tracing our way back to the boat. 

We saw some pretty fish on the way.

 

Ended up doing a 5 minute safety stop at 20 feet.

Total dive time of 41 minutes and got to see a shark, fish, two wrecks and an anchor chain.  Quite a nice and enjoyable dive. 

An Evening of Laughs With Henry Cho

Last night, I drove to Ann Arbor with a friend to see Henry Cho live on his Empty Nest Tour at the Michigan Theater.

To say he is hilarious and that it is a great show is an understatement.

His opening act Nathan Wallace was also very funny and really got the laughs rolling.

Henry Cho then performed with a lot of funny new material and some of his hilarious classics, as well as some very funny and smart off-the-cuff stand up based on audience questions.

It was a great show.  

Getting out of the parking structure after the show, not so much, but that happens.

If you get a chance to see Henry Cho on tour, it’s well worth it.

If you're not near a live show, then catch a show of his live streaming on Netflix or such, it's worth it.

Stupid Criminals: Let's Play Name That Party

So Jabran "Jim" Manna, a West Bloomfield Township Truastee is alleged to have placed cameras and spied on some women in their bedrooms and sent the feeds from the cameras allegedly to his cell phone.

Rather creepy and criminal behavior, that.

MSN/The Detroit News: West Bloomfield trustee hid spy cams in women's bedrooms, prosecutors say

Board of Trustees member Jim Manna has been charged with seven felonies after Oakland County prosecutors said Thursday he hid spy cameras in smoke detectors in two women's bedrooms.

Manna, 65, is charged with two counts of capturing an image of an unclothed person, a five-year felony, and five counts of installing a device for eavesdropping, which carries up to two years in prison.

Two adult women discovered surveillance cameras hidden in smoke detectors in their bedrooms, according to a release from the prosecutor's office....

Nowhere in the article is his political affiliation mentioned. 

Click on Detroit:   West Bloomfield Township trustee faces 7 felony charges over alleged hidden cameras, nude videos

Nor in this article is his political affiliation mentioned, but it does have a great mugshot photo.

WXYZ Detroit: West Bloomfield Township trustee charged, accused of planting hidden cameras

No mention here either, but the mugshot photo is still a great feature.

The Detroit Free Press:  Why a West Bloomfield trustee is facing felony charges for spying

Nor here.

As one might suspect from the rather uniform omission of his political affiliation as an elected official, this is indeed a case of a (D) thinking with his d. 

Yep, he's a proud member and trustee of the Democrat party.