Realm of the Shadow Redux

Hello there. First of all I should probably preface this post as one that will possibly cause some trepidation in a few readers, some concern for my sanity in other readers, some outright discontent in still some of those whom read my drivel, and antipathy for my comments in still another sect of my readership. This is because I am going to be discussing my son Michael’s recent automobile accident. Now you need to understand a few things here, first of which is that I don’t usually proselytize about what some people would consider somewhat normal occurrences of sheer physics of a terrible crash. This crash though is not what I would consider to be normal. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let me back up a bit and discuss this from the beginning.

From what we’ve been able to determine our son Michael left work on Saturday morning (the 20th of February, 2010) in a normal manner in order to drive to Atlanta, IL and take care of his sisters, Nikki, house while they were in Ireland. You see, Michael had been house-sitting for his sister and her husband because they specifically needed someone to take care of their dog Chase so it gave our son an opportunity to get out of the house for a “mini-vacation” from the old curmudgeon (me) at home. Again though I digress and I respectfully request your indulgence as some of this background information may in time prove to be important (ok, probably not but it does allow me a chance to stretch out this post!). Anyway, to get back to the story at hand, Michael left work somewhere between 7:00 a.m. and 7:20 or so to head back to Atlanta for the day. Now, Michael being Michael (and all those who are familiar with my son will understand that statement), he decided to travel down the 2 lane highway sentimentally known as Old US-66. Old US-66 is a famous highway that was in heavy use back in the 50′s and 60′s as it was a major highway that ran from from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, before ending at Los Angeles. It has gone by many names such as “the Mother Road“, and “Main Street of America”. This road is so notorious it even has hit songs written about it. Anyway enough about the road, let’s get back to the story about Michael and the events that have transpired.
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Oops, my apologies, I did not mean to publish this yet and I hit the Publish button by mistake. For those of you that have come here prematurely please come back later as this post is not complete yet.

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Ok, first of all I wish to highlight that I’ve placed a new countdown on the right hand sidebar of this site for the movies being released in the upcoming month. I will try to keep this updated on a monthly basis but cannot promise to do so merely because I may become too busy to update it regularly. Hopefully this won’t be the case.

Now on to those reviews (note: I won’t review all of the movies that you see on the monthly list, only those that I am interested in either seeing on the big screen or on dvd once they have been released). On with those reviews!
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I really don’t know if anyone actually reads my movie picks for the year or not (started doing them last year), however it is a handy tool for me at least. I use this as a means to keep in mind what movies I would like to see during the year as long as I have the funds to do so. I will place links to trailers if I am able to find them, if not I will probably only give a very short description of the film.

Without further adieu I give you my picks for the new year……

The only order these are in are chronological. I may comment on how much I really wish to see the movie in the description.

My first choice will be Crazy on the Outside starring Tim Allen, Ray Liotta, Kelsy Grammer, and Sigourney Weaver being released on Jan. 8, 2010. This one looks quite good and will most likely be a Netflix rental for me when it is released on DVD. I doubt if I will go to the big screen to see this one. Here’s a link to the trailer:
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Had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year with Mike, Nikki, Tim, Grandma Dar, Derrell, Emma, Jean and myself in attendance. Jean decided she wanted me to smoke the turkey this year (which I have not done in MANY years) and as such we needed to downsize our bird selection. The experts state that you need to use a 10 to 14 lb. bird to smoke in order to prevent possible salmonella contamination since the cooking process is slow and low (low temperatures at a very slow pace). So, with that in mind we were off last Saturday to Jewel/Osco to pick up a properly sized bird since they had them on sale for .89 per lb. with a $10 off coupon on birds between 14 and 24 lbs. Of course we were unable to find a 14 lb. bird so we had to ask my buddy Chris to help us out. He found a 15.3 lb. bird for us and we decided that would be close enough so we purchased it (thanks for the help Chris!). So we brought it home and on Monday evening I moved it from the freezer to the refrigerator to start the thawing out process. We also went to Sam’s Club to pick up a spiral cut ham for those who do not care for smoked turkey. I also got a 5+ pound roasting chicken out as I hate to smoke just one item at a time (since it uses so much charcoal you really need to consolidate as much smoked meats as possible). After two days of thawing out I made my brine on Wednessday night for both birds. In case you don’t remember the basic brine process here is the recipe for that:
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