A Lovely 10C Site!

A Montana cowboy was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud toward him.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?" The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers,
"Sure, Why not?" 

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his laptop computer, connects it to his iPhone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his iPad that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his iPhone and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-colour, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturised HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."
"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says the cowboy. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?" 

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"

"You're a Congressman in the U.S. government," says the cowboy. "Wow, that's correct," says the yuppie. "But how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required," answered the cowboy.
"You showed up here even though nobody called you, you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are, and you don't know a thing about cows.

This is a flock of sheep. Now give me back my dog."

@variablepulserate Went home after 11.5 hours in hospital. Haemoglobin should be better, more tests needed, seeing my GP in 90 minutes.

variablepulserate.10centuries.org.

"…and with the ceremonial Whirling of the Plates successfully completed, Charles is now King of England."

@variablepulserate It's not noticeable.

variablepulserate.10centuries.org.

@variablepulserate Here's some blurb from the manufacturer's website: This Sustain Wooden Cutlery Pack contains a knife, fork, spoon, teaspoon, napkin, salt and pepper. Made from birchwood with a light beeswax coating, perfect for food service and takeaway. Made of Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®-C117930) certified wood.
Premium, sustainable, disposable wooden cutlery pack
This product is made of FSC®-certified wood
Made from renewable, plant-based sources
Compostable in industrial facilities under specific conditions.

These items are sold in a minimum order of 400 units per pack.

variablepulserate.10centuries.org.

Meals in the public hospital sector now come with a sealed paper envelope containing coated wooden knife, fork, spoon and teaspoon, recycled paper napkin and individual sachets of salt and white pepper.

I’m really very worried…

Following annual blood tests I’ve been diagnosed with severe anaemia, my haemoglobin level is close to 60% of its normal (already lowish) level. Tomorrow morning I collect a referral from my GP to take to the big public hospital four suburbs to the west of here for assessment and possible treatment. I don’t know how long I’ll be there but I’m packing a go-bag with essential clothing, electronic communication/entertainment toys, medications and toiletries.

Some coffee pods of sizes I didn't get with the sample pack of 12 assorted pods when I bough the pod machine on Sunday arrived by mail today, from Nespresso direct, you can't get them in the shops. With the arrival of these 80 ml and 535 ml, pods I now have - once the pods have been used then opened and emptied - a wide variety of sizes of reused pods I can use later. I have some food-grade perforated silicone caps that cover the tamped coffee grounds in the recycled pods.
These pods have a circular barcode on the underside of their rim, the codes are read by the machine to determine how much water to force through the ground coffee. The pods are spun at up to 7000 rpm to centrifugally remove the liquid from the pods.
It then drizzles down the sides of the pod and arrives in the cup or carafe with a very thick crema - even with reused pods.
The pod sizes I have will be dispensed as 40 ml, 80 ml, 150 ml, 230 ml, 390 ml and 535 ml.

@variablepulserate Ain't.

variablepulserate.10centuries.org.

Yesterday morning I made up what amounts to a bean casserole, with seven different legumes involved. I used a can of peeled whole tomatoes, a can of beans in smoky sauce, a can of baked beans, a can of four bean mix and two sweet chilli black bean meal pots. In addition there were 100 grams of frozen Quorn "mince," half a can of chopped Spam and a tablespoon of toasted farro wheat grains. I cooked it all up in an enamelled cast iron dutch oven on the induction cooktop, simmering it all for 40 minutes to concentrate the sauces by evaporating excess moisture.
Just the sort of food I like on these increasingly cold nights.