December is here before it’s June

Just to give credit where credit is due….

“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?” – Dr. Seuss

Wow, December already. Good thing I have a scheduled plan that constantly reminds just how far behind I really am. Seems like every time I finish a project and check it off the plan, I notice that I should have completed it 2 or 3 weeks ago. Oh well, it’s only time….

The House (Renovation)

The renovation is moving along albeit slowly. Simple things that I originally thought would cost the least and get done really quickly seem to take the most time and cost far more than I thought.

For instance, I thought the bathroom vanity top would just be a simple Home Depot(HD) off the shelf purchase and installed in an afternoon. Well, yes, I COULD have done that. However, the stuff they had in stock was just plain butt-ugly. I could have special ordered a top and the selections were much better. The problem was that I would have to pick one based on a tiny little picture in a brochure or the incredibly stupid name they came up with for it. If it looked totally different from the picture when it arrived, too bad, you own it.

So feeling very frustrated about the whole thing, I stopped into a marble/granite place on the way home from work one day just to look at something other than HD crap. Well now, let me just say that I should have done that WAY earlier. I spent an hour or so and finally decided on one and about a week later (last Wednesday) they installed it! They even let me pick out the exact piece from a HUGE slab of the material! Turned out that it cost almost exactly what the special order at HD would have cost. Huh… Imagine that. Of course the whole process took about 2 weeks longer than I thought it would have.

That’s kind of the way everything with this whole renovation has been going. Countless phone calls, choices to make on all sorts of things, scheduling delays, budgeting, installation, endless problems, Aaagh!

I did break down and buy a new airless paint sprayer, a nail gun (that thing is FUN!), and a power miter saw. I really hated to spend the money but they have already made my life MUCH easier. Plus I can sell them later on and get at least some of my money back out of them.

I purposely have not posted any pictures yet as I wanted to do a grand reveal (such as it is) when it’s a little closer. I’ll probably do that in the next week or two.

The House (Un-Stuffing)

It’s steadily getting whittled down. The attic is completely empty (that was a pain in the posterior) and I’ve made a second and third pass at all the junk in the garage.

I’ve had two garage sales so far and both went really well. Almost all of the nick-nack stuff is pretty much gone. I think the remaining larger items will just have to get advertised (Craig’s List, etc.) to sell or get donated.

I can’t wait until the first of January so I can take another big load down to Goodwill. I think I reached my limit for this year’s donation tax write-offs.

The RV Search and Getting Ready

There haven’t been any RV shows since the Tampa one a month or so ago. The next one is the big one in January in Tampa. I have spent a lot of time on 3 or 4 of the bigger RV dealership websites looking over numerous units.

I’ve also spent a great deal of time perusing web boards and blogs to glean information on all sorts of things. The list of issues is really long and each must be thought about and taken care of. Such as having a real street address but not actually living there, what state to have your driver’s license issued in, roadside assistance, truck/RV insurance, banking, health care, taxes, mail, etc.  I never knew it was SO difficult to go off-grid, but not totally off-grid.

In future posts I’ll break down most of these as I wade through them. Stay tuned, the journey is getting interesting and picking up speed.

Hello... Hello (knock knock) anyone home?

Hookay, so I didn't post anything in October....  It's now November!  Here's a shotgun blast of an update.


House Renovation
Slooooooww going. The shower in the master is completely finished. The flooring is done. Painting is all done, the new toilet is installed, and the medicine cabinet is in. I've got the vanity but unfortunately the water faucets that come out of the wall hit squarely on the vanity interior shelf.

So two choices, cut two big holes in the brand new vanity or open up the just finished and painted wall to move the faucets up about 3 inches. Anyone want to guess which one I'm going to do? Hint, I saved all the leftover pieces of drywall when I did the ceiling. This little 'hiccup' is but one of many reasons the renovation is going so slow.

I'm really trying to have the master bath completely finished in the next week or two. I'm very behind and need to get back on schedule. Yes, there really is a schedule and it doesn't have much slack in it. The schedule says that I should be moved back into the master by the beginning of December and that's not looking very good. I want to use the Christmas break to work on the other two bedrooms and the hall bath.


"Operation Un-stuff"
The first garage sale went VERY well. I unloaded a ton of stuff, but still have a ton more to go. One of my goals has been to take the big garbage can to the curb once a week totally full. Up until lately it was pretty easy, but now it's getting more difficult finding 'stuff' that I just plain don't want anymore. I'm planning on at least a couple more garage sales and I'll start putting some of the bigger items on Craig's List. I'm still holding the ultimate goal of no storage unit when it's all done.


Work....
Yeah, well, it is what it is. I had an explanation for that comment all typed out but decided to delete it just in case.


RV Search 
Been hitting as many RV shows as I can. I take my little notebook and tape measure and terrorize the sales people unmercifully. I can now estimate within a few seconds how long it is before they don't want to talk to me anymore. I went to one in Tampa a month or so ago and the sales-guy actually started avoiding me completely after I pointed out a long list of major flaws in their 'flagship' fifth wheel. I'd bet that if he had seen me walking away, he would have thanked me for leaving.

I have narrowed the selection down to a fifth wheel in the 30-35 foot range, with at least two slideouts. I actually developed an Excel spreadsheet that categorizes every possible aspect of full time RV'ing I could think of versus different rig types, and the smaller 5'er (RV jargon, cool right?) seemed to score the best.


Misc. Stuff
The dollhouse has basically stalled out. I just don't have time to work on it and do renovation work at the same time. I'm going to have to figure out some sort of schedule to multitask and get it done. I still really enjoy working on it, I just haven't had the time lately.

Cooking. Now here's where I have been having the most fun. It feels like the more I learn, the more I want to learn. My knife skills are getting better (yes, I still have all my fingers!) and I'm using more and more base/raw ingredients rather than processed/prepared stuff. I've also found that some of the cooking websites have self-paced online classes for free and have been working through a couple of these. I'm no Julia Child (partially because I'm a guy) but I feel like I'm getting better.


Enough for now. I'll get some progress pictures of the renovations once I stop tearing it back a part again.

Something new to try

Yeah, yeah, so this post isn't ground breaking and earth shattering. So sue me, I had fun doing it.

I'll start this post with a small confession. If I'm late coming home from work, the fridge is empty, and I'm just too damn lazy to go to the grocery store, I've been known to stoop to the depths of a frozen pizza. I know, I know, it's hard to believe that I would take the easy way out and go the dinner low road.  I'm aware that I've now disappointed everyone with my culinary transgressions, but I've given this some thought and I've decided to curb the frozen pizza easy way out.

Several grocery forays ago I noticed that Publix sells uncooked pizza dough in a bag. Imagine that, pizza dough ready to go. So this last weekend I waited until the bakery counter was empty and slithered up and luckily the lady immediately asked me if she could help. So I asked my dozen or so questions and did my purchase. Didn't want other people laughing at the newbie greenhorn.

Once home, that dough just sat there in the fridge and DARED me to give it a try. That's right, it DOUBLE DOG DARED ME! Not being the type to turn away from a double dog dare, I figured Sunday night was my chance. I had a backup plan (tomato soup and a tuna fish sandwich) just in case this whole episode failed miserably. So here I go, with both feet.

In typical engineer fashion, I assembled all interested parties.

Special interest to the bag of dough. I really had no idea exactly how to tackle this beast. I took it out of the fridge (according to the deli lady's directions) and let it come up to room temp. About then I noticed that it was growing!! See that big bubble on the top? Agghh!!! What do I do with that?!? She didn't tell me about that! I remembered watching a Food Channel show about bread and they said something about punching it down (whatever that means) so I figured I would 'pop' that sucker through the bag. I guess that was the right thing to do as it went back to normal size. Crisis averted??

When I was doing the fiendish deed of going to battle with the dough 'burp', I noticed the sticker on the bottom of the bag. I guess I didn't notice it before. Imagine that, explicit instructions! Exactly what I need!

Alright, get it out of the bag and lets roll it out. Slight problem. I don't have a rolling pin. Hmm, that's a problem. I guess a water glass will work almost as good.

I also couldn't just make a standard pepperoni pizza and call it good. I figured I could jack it up a bit by frying up a pan-full of pork lardons to go on it.

Yeah, ok, so it's not round. Relatively rectangular is a shape too!

Twenty minutes in the oven and she looks good to go!

This was really pretty easy, and it was really quite good. I thought it was better than the standard frozen variety and I could actually pronounce the ingredients that went into it. So maybe, just possibly it was better for me than the 'Buy one, Get one' frozen hockey puck.

So while I agree that this post wasn't a stop the presses type of thing, it was another step in my cooking education. Plus I get to eat my mistakes!

Dollhouse Update

Got a couple of requests about the dollhouse and what it looks like. I didn't realize that the original dollhouse update was one of the posts that got deleted last year. I don't have the text from that post but I do have the pictures although they don't show very much. Basically just what some of the stuff looked like in the kit.

The bag on the right are the shingles. The lighter piece of wood in the foreground with all the rectangular pieces stamped into it are the staircase risers & treads. I worked real hard to make sure that those treads fit perfectly into the staircase. Little did I know that once it's all assembled, you can barely see the staircase inside. All that work that nobody will see.

Anyway, those pictures were taken 9 months ago. Wow, has it been that long? So here's some pictures of what it looks like today.

This is the front of the dollhouse. I still have all the window 'glass' and frames, some door frames, all the gingerbread work, and the front porch still to do, but you can get an idea. You can just see the bottom of the staircase through the front door.

This is what I call the 'play side'. Where the back is all opened up for placing furniture, dolls, etc. As you can see, I didn't do any detail work on the inside. As this will be a played-with dollhouse, I didn't bother with interior details as they would just get wrecked anyway. Not complaining, this dollhouse was intended to be used from the very beginning. I'll do all the interior work on the next one which will be a show-only dollhouse.

Still have to do the fireplace mantles, bookshelves, and interior window & door frames.

This is the other play side.

Something I just noticed in these pictures, you can see every single glue joint!! Agh!! I didn't know that the flash would bring them out like that! You can't really see them in regular light! That looks terrible! I may have to paint the interior now. I can't leave it like that, that's just embarrassing.

Currently the top of the turret isn't glued down and I'm thinking about not gluing it. That way it can be removed and the interior space used as another room.

By the way, remember that bag of shingles? Well, that's them after countless hours of placing and gluing of each and every one. I then coated the roof with some Tung oil to give it that golden look. It just looked too 'blah' unfinished.

Oh man, those glue joints are killing me....

"The urge to destroy is also a creative urge"

or so says Mr. Picasso. I just know it felt damn good. Yes ladies and gents, we have destruction! House renovation has officially begun. To me, this kicks off the master plan to jumping off on the big lap.

Below is what the area over the master shower USED to look like (well, actually this is the other bathroom. I forgot to take a before picture). I heard that building what is essentially a box over the shower was all the rage in the early 80s. I always thought it was stupid.

This is what it looks like as of this morning!

The original bathroom also had this fluorescent light 'box' above the toilet and vanity.

Well, it got the same treatment.

In the upper edge of the picture you'll see a cutout in the ceiling. That WAS the ceiling vent fan that I took particularly great joy in ripping out. It was the noisiest fan in existence. I tried numerous times over the years to get it quieter and it just refused. So I finally got the last laugh on it. Turns out the builder cheated and used dryer vent hose (That's the silver tube you can see. That particular one goes to the hall bathroom) and duct taped, yes duct taped, it to the fan housing. Only the finest of craftsmanship here folks!

Speaking of fine craftsmanship, take a look at the door framing. I removed the old casing on this side to replace it. Good thing I didn't take off the casing on the bedroom side, because if I had the door would have fallen out. That's right, the entire door and frame was held in by the casings.

Notice also that this wall is stripped back to the bare drywall. When I took out the light box, medicine cabinet, etc. a few edges pulled up along the paint line. I figured I would simply scrape them off and feather the edges. Well, they didn't feather out, the edges just kept coming loose. I was able to pull off almost the entire wall of paint in a couple of sheets. I guess all  those coats of paint over the years never actually stuck to the wall. I'll probably be able to strip the entire bathroom this way.

I'll finish out this episode with something I've seen all over the house and it really chafes my backside every time I see it.

But first a short explanation. Years ago when Camille(?) hit Miami, it was discovered afterwards that the vast majority of the housing damage was caused by the roofs actually lifting off the houses and then the rain would wreck everything inside. To combat that, builders were required to install a hurricane lintel around the top of the outside walls. If the wall is concrete then the bottom half of metal straps are buried in concrete poured along the top rim of the walls. The upper half is supposed to wrap over the top of the roof trusses and be nailed on both sides. The theory being that enough straps would hold the roof onto the house during a hurricane.

I know the straps are inspected to be present after the lintel pour. But I don't know if they are inspected for proper nailing after the trusses are installed. I can only figure they aren't.

Not a single nail on this side. It appears that there are two nails on the other side but I can't get my hand back there to know for sure. I suppose there could be a nail on the top of the truss but I can't tell that for sure either. The ones like this that I saw over the garage and family room areas weren't even wrapped over the truss. They were just sticking straight up in the air.

Yes indeed, only the finest of craftsmanship!

The tile guy was here last Friday to measure out the shower surround and floor. I should get the estimate early next week. He's allowing me to save a lot of money by doing all the tile demo work, plumbing rework, and installing the dry-board in the shower area. That way all he has to do is just the actual tile install. Should save me a huge chunk of money.

Stay tuned! The fun is just beginning!

Bittersweet Day

Had that very same frog in my throat when I saw my BBQ trailer being pulled down the exact same street as my sailboat so many years ago. I really had to fight off the urge to chase him down and kill the deal. I said it back then and I'll say it again. Whoever said that the the happiest day in a boat (in this case trailer) owners life is the day it sells is full of $h1t !!

This is the very last picture I got of it. I guess 'Second Star BBQ' is no more......

BUT, it's a good thing. At least that's what I keep telling myself! It's a major milestone towards the big jump-off. Now I can concentrate on getting house renovations underway and getting more serious about getting the work done. It's just very weird to not see the trailer on the side of the house.

So that I didn't sit and wallow in a pool of depression about it, I dove head first into finishing out going through old paperwork and getting it sorted out into a much smaller (and portable) package. I culled it down from a stuffed, full size two drawer filing cabinet to a waterproof carry-able plastic case. This is what I will be using in the RV. I'm going to look into possibly even scanning some of that paper and storing it digitally. Let's just say that the paper shred-o-matic got a really good workout.

I'm also getting 'stuff' together for the very first (of what I am sure to be many) garage sales. I bought one of those cheap white plastic folding tables at Sam's and set it up in the garage. Stuff to be sold is going on it as a staging area. The rule is: 'Whatever goes out that garage door, does NOT come back in.' I filled the table in about 10 minutes. I may need to go back and get another table.

The other idea is that the table will stay with me when I jump off. It folds down reasonably small and I think an outside table will come in handy for projects. It's cheap enough that I don't need to worry about it getting wet or messed up. If it gets that bad then I can easily replace it.

Next big step is to start researching bathroom shower tiles/fixtures/flooring/etc. The big demo is coming up fast. That calendar has no mercy.

Quick Update

Not too terribly much to report so far, but I'll skim the highlights....

Home
Still in the process of emptying out tons of 'stuff'. Getting significantly closer to getting the house renovations kicked off. Still lots of stuff to get sorted through and rooms to get emptied out.

My original plan was to move into the back bedroom temporarily while I work on the master bath/bedroom, but that decision didn't last long. Because I've decided to take down the horrible popcorn ceilings, I've found it will be far easier/cheaper to do all the bedroom/hallway ceilings at once and then the rest of the house later on. So to do that I'll need to move into the living room or family room to live in while the demo work is going on. Then I can start on the master bathroom and make all the mess I need, and it will most definitely be a huge mess.

I'm really glad that I'm getting started now. Going through the list of work that needs to get completed before the house goes on the market and it's going to be very, very close to get all items completed in time.

The garage that I had so nicely cleaned out is now getting cluttered up again. The downer thought of today is that I completely forgot about all the 'stuff' that's up in the attic. Ugh, that many more things to go through.

BBQ Trailer
The guy who bought the trailer is supposed to be here early Thursday morning (8/7) to pick it up. I have gone over the paperwork several times to make absolutely sure that it's all in order and there's no last second snags. Bittersweet feelings about that hobby being over with. I won't miss it, but I will miss it.

One item that has unexpectedly popped up, now that I won't have the BBQ trailer any longer, I won't need the big truck any longer either. I'm toying with the idea of getting rid of the F-150 and buying a small very used truck. The gas mileage alone will make a huge difference. Wouldn't it be a hoot if it turned out to be an Isuzu truck like I used to have?? If I go that route then I'll use it while all the renovation are going on and for work, then buy the really big 5th wheel towing truck later on.

Can you imagine what that would look like? Hi! I would like to trade in this 199x beater toy pickup for a monster Ford F-450 turbo diesel with duel rear wheels and fifth wheel package? The salesperson would instantly break out laughing.

Future Plans
I've spent a good bit of time working on an extremely detailed timeline for the next few years. It started out as a rough idea of plans for jumping off on the 'big lap' and kind of morphed into a very detailed month to month timeline for what I need to do for house renovations, closing out the house, changing lifestyle, etc. If work has taught me nothing else, it taught me how to make very detailed plans for future operations. I'll continue to tweak at it but so far it's been pretty darn accurate.

Doll House
I just found out yesterday that the one who I am doing this for has a birthday coming up in the next few weeks. That means that it is going to be an all-out bash to get it completed before then. I'm very unsure if I can get it done by then. Every step is taking 10x the time that I thought it would. I just got the main roof work done but still have the turret roof to do, doors & windows, porch details, gingerbread (lots of gingerbread), and the list goes on and on.

Work
Big changes on the horizon. Details to follow. Sorry I can't be more specific but it's at 'that' stage.


So that's a rough idea of where I am. Some good stuff, some exciting stuff, some not so good stuff. But then, I guess that's what life is, a mix of the good/bad/ugly. Till next time

Major Milestones

A week of pluses and minuses.

Pluses...
The big Stumps cooker is sold and delivered (several hundred miles and a blown trailer tire later..). So that is done.
The trailer is also sold and is scheduled to be picked up August 7th.
The 'un-stuff-ing' of the house continues.
Got to see my very good friends Tim, Karen, and Forrest.

Minuses...
Pretty much the same as the 'Pluses' above. Except for Tim & Karen and Forrest, those were pluses no matter how you slice it!

How's that for short and to the point? Glad to see the cooker and the trailer go, and yet sad to see the cooker and the trailer go.

Was extremely happy to see my friends, Tim & Karen and Forrest. That was THE highlight of the whole trip! Tim was the guy who took me in and taught me (very patiently) how to cook BBQ several years ago, and still does. He retired from the competitive BBQ circuit some time ago but keeps contact with several of the cook teams and very definitely would still be a VERY formidable team in a competition. He and Karen were kind enough to let me park the trailer in their side yard for the night and put on a wonderful dinner for my good friend Forrest and me that Thursday night.

Forrest is who I bought the cooker from some time ago and graciously agreed to buy it back. He is also a mentor of mine and a good friend. I will miss his friendship and his Dutch oven cooking (which is award winning and delicious). Friends like Forest and Tim don't come around very often.

Selling the cooker and trailer are the first tangible milestones towards the jump-off of the 'Grand Lap Around The US'. Many, many more to come and they each will be joyful and painful at the same time. Next up is a lot more of the 'un-stuff-ing' of the house. I'm looking to get started in earnest with the house renovations within the next 2-3 months. Those chapters will entail a lot of demo work and gutting out of entire rooms getting ready for re-furnishing. Lots more to come on that front. I'm really looking forward to being displaced to an extra bedroom.... Not.

On a more personal note, I had subscribed to an online dating site in hopes of meeting someone. Except for 'meeting' a couple of nice possible friends (only friends), it was a complete waste of time and money. Needless to say, I will NOT be renewing that subscription. Another plus and minus. The minus is obvious, the plus is two sided. I've met some very nice ladies, but unfortunately I would have to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to actually meet them. The other is that I now know not to bother with online dating.

Don't mean to be such a Debbie-Downer in this post. Just have never had to deal with anything even close to this sort of thing before and it's a learning process. One positive though, I didn't wait a whole month to update the blog! Close, but not a whole month!

So stay tuned. The journey is just getting underway and will start picking up in the next month or so.

Yes, I'm still here

Wow, a whole month has gotten away from me with no posts. Gotta catch everybody up! Where to begin...

Home front
I may have told some of you that I'm in the process of 'un-stuffing' the house. I'm in the early stages of preparing to jump off and go full time RV'ing. I want to see the country and I want to take my sweet time doing it. So what better way than to sell the house, retire from work, buy an RV, and just go?

The extremely early planning is that I'll use the RV as a base and do sightseeing in a 50 or so mile radius around it. Once I've seen everything I want, I'll just move the RV to a new spot and do it again. Some spots may be a couple of days and some places may be a month or two. Who knows? I'll probably end up making it up as I go. Might even try my hand at a little work-camping at a couple of the national parks just for the fun of it. I definitely want to do a lot of boon-docking in some of the more remote places. Just thinking about having no neighbors in sight just sounds so very good.

I've completely given up the idea of buying the boat and sailing the Caribbean. It never really did feel like a good fit anyway. This way when I get tired of it or I just can't physically do it any longer, I can just decide where in all my travels was a really great place to call home and just go there. Watch, it'll end up being someplace like Armpit, Utah or something.

Because my jumping off and going involves retiring from work, I really don't want to get specific as to dates just yet. It's at least a couple of years out which gives me time to get house renovations done. So right now the job is to get the house mostly emptied out and ready for interior demo. Man! There is a LOT of stuff in this house! There's going to be a whole bunch of Craig's list, garage sales, and Goodwill in my future shortly.

Barbecuing
I've put the trailer up for sale and I believe it's already sold. I think I'm done with that hobby. I did the Cocoa Village competition a few weeks ago and by the time I did the second turn in, I was basically done with it. Nothing went particularly wrong (other than I overslept by a mile), my heart just wasn't in it. I had the same thing happen when I did Apopka a few months ago. I had taken some time away from it to see if the 'batteries' would recharge and they didn't.

I still really enjoy my backyard stuff (jerky, bacon, cold smoking, etc.) and I'm still trying new things. In fact I'm having the same fun that I used to have when I wasn't competing.

I can always compete old school like I did 3 or 4 years ago. I would take an air mattress and my sleeping bag and just sleep in the bed of the truck. It was actually pretty comfortable.

Garden
Ugh... Summer heat has pretty much killed everything.
I've gotten about 8-10 hot pepper plants in pots kind of in a semi-shady spot and they are doing fine. I've built a frame with screening on it up on posts over one of the planter boxes in an attempt to give plants a little semi-shade. Going to plant a couple tomatoes or something under it to see if it helps at all.

I've started a whole bunch of tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, etc. seeds in the garage so that about the time that the worst of the heat breaks in another month or so I'll be ready with all new plants. That's right, I'm too cheap to go buy plants at Home Depot. A pack of seeds costs a buck or two. They want $3 or $4 per plant which I just cannot bring myself to spend. Plus, I don't get confined to whatever plants they have in stock. I can grow whatever I want from seeds.

Dollhouse
Remember that one? Yep, I'm STILL working on it! I can now for sure say that if you want to spend endless hours on a project, this one will fit that bill. Can't begin to imagine how many times I've been tempted to just throw the whole thing on one of the grills and light a match!

I'm actually starting to see the end coming into sight. I'm currently working on roof shingles. Each and every stinkin' single one. Hundreds of individual shingles prepped, lined up, fitted, and glued on the roof sections. Thank goodness for headphones and good tunes!

Believe it or not I'm actually thinking of doing another one when I finish this one. Now that I know exactly what is involved in doing one of these, I'm thinking of doing another one and going all out with the details. Really doing it right with floors (wood, rugs), walls (wallpaper), kitchen (cabinets, appliances), interior lights, etc. Should take at least a couple of years to do.


That's enough for now. I'll set a calendar alarm to remind me to update periodically. Obviously I can't remember to do it on my own very well.

Naples BBQ Competition

This is another one of the posts that got deleted in the great Brain Fart of 2013. It was originally posted 10/24/13

Well, another one in the books. That’s about all I can find good from this one. It had all the potential to be a good competition, unfortunately it don’t go quite like that.

I headed out Thursday (the 17^th) around noon to travel to just outside Naples and the ‘Big Swamp Smoke Off’ competition. Full tank of gas, check. Tunes, check. James (GPS) dialed in, check. I’m good to go for my ~3.5 hours of travel. Down I-95, across SR-70, down US-27, some little CR, some other little CR, another little CR, one tiny little one-light town after another, miles and miles of orange groves and Bingo! I’m there!

This is the fairgrounds late Thursday afternoon. Not a whole lot going on, yet. Some of the vendors are getting set up.

Off in our own little area is Tom (Blitzkrieg BBQ) and me. We were joined a little while later by several other teams but the majority won’t show up until tomorrow morning. So I get electric/water/TV antenna/etc. set up.

The rest of Thursday night was spent doing chicken prep. Oh, how I so truly LOVE chicken prep. 20 thigh pieces that essentially get dissected, cleaned, veins & tendons removed (don’t get squeamish on me), skin scraped completely clean of all fat, trimmed down to uniform size. Mmmmmm boy! I just love me a big pile of chicken entrails right before dinner. I don’t get it, I hate chicken the very most, but it’s my best scoring meat.

The rules say that I can do any trimming I want before meat inspection as long as I keep the tags and don’t do any seasoning. I usually do the bulk of the trimming and prep on Wednesday or Thursday before the competition. That way when I get meat inspection about noon of Friday, I can go right into injecting, marinating, brining, etc.

Bright and early Friday morning I go to start working on the brisket. Here’s where the trouble starts. I bought a 13 pound brisket. It should have been way more than enough to fill up one turn-in box, always has been in the past. So I cut the cryovac wrapping off and Hmmmm, that’s an awful lot of fat on that sucker. I figure I’ll just trim away the bulk of the fat and see what I’m really working with. So I trim… and trim…and trim….and trim. Oh shit, this thing is virtually ALL fat! There was ridiculously little meat in it. That was one especially FAT and LAZY cow. Oh well, go with what I got ‘cause the nearest place to get a replacement brisket is probably 40-50 miles away. When I do competitions there’s almost always one ‘oh shit’ thing that happens, I figured this was it. Alright, I can live with it.

Next, I go to work on the pork butts (No, they really aren’t the backside of the pig. They’re actually the front shoulder) and everything seems to be pretty normal. Ok good, we’re back in the groove.

Next up is ribs. I buy one of those 3 slab cryovacs as I usually bring home at least a slab as leftovers after I turn in the best looking 10-12 ribs. I probably should do 6 slabs to be extra safe, but it starts to run into a lot of extra $$. I slice it open, take out the first slab, and wait a minute, what’s wrong with that slab underneath? Oh no! Somebody cut across all the bones right through the WHOLE SLAB! All of that meat is completely blood soaked and totally unusable. So now I’m down to just two slabs and that is the barest of minimum to go with. If ANYTHING happens to either of those slabs I won’t have enough to make turn-in. You have GOT to be kidding me, two ‘oh-shits’ in one comp and both really bad ones? Grrrr… Ok, alright, deep breath, count to 10 a few times, take a break, cool off and adjust plans. Fortunately, the rest of the day goes well.

It’s now O-dark-thirty Saturday morning and would you believe that the party down at the other end of the midway is STILL going on? Amazing (There’s a whole story within that but I was not involved). It’s time to do final prep on chicken & ribs and get them into the cooker. Ribs and chicken are more of a timing thing unlike brisket and butts which are very much a temperature thing. The goal is to have chicken and ribs finish about 10-15 minutes before turn-in. Not an easy thing to do, especially chicken, it does not ‘hold’ at all. So they get final prepared and put into the cooker at the well-practiced ‘right time’.

Now I’m coming up on the start of crunch time (~9:30A-10:30A). This is where all the meats are coming to the end of their cooking cycles and require a LOT of attention. I will check temperatures probably a dozen times in any 10 minute time frame, except for when I have to make a change. At 9:30 I have to take the chicken out of one pan and place them on a grate, in the same order that they were in the pan, and put them back in. 9:45 I have to wrap the ribs in aluminum foil along with a special basting sauce for an hour. I have to almost constantly check the brisket for that probe tender ‘buttery feel’. Keep the butts moist but covered. The list goes on and on.

Chicken gets turned in at 11:00, so at 10:30 I put the finish coat of sauce on the chicken and give them a quick temperature check via probe. Oh shit (#3 if you’re counting), they’re done now, in fact they’re already a little overdone and I have to put them back into the cooker to set the sauce. By 10:50 they are going to be WAY overdone. Can’t be helped, if the sauce does not get set, it will run right off the piece.

Ribs get turned in at 12:00, so at 11:20 I unwrap them, check for done-ness, turn them over, sauce, and put them back into the cooker to set that sauce. Oh shit (that’s right, #4), they’re already way overdone and I only have the 2 racks. They are literally falling apart and in competition falling off the bone tender is a very bad no-no. It means they are way overcooked. No fallback. The only thing I can do is pull them out a couple of minutes early, let them cool off a bit (sometimes ribs will tighten back up a little as they cool).

So after the rib fiasco, it’s pork butt at 1:00. I get them out of the Cambro (the big brown boxes in the one picture above) that I store them in after they reach final cooking temperature. Oh yeah, I need to heat up the sauce to go on the pork. Can’t put cold sauce on hot meat, it will seize right up. You guessed it, oh shit (#5) I didn’t bring the correct sauce. I had been experimenting with a new sauce for pork but it isn’t perfected yet. So in a moment of panic I reason that the ribs are pork just like the butts. So the rib sauce should work on the pulled pork too, right? Right? Please? Oh pretty please? Yeah, um, no.

Final turn-in of the day, brisket at 2:00. Alright, big finish, here we go! I wish. Turns out I was right about that brisket. I had to use almost every fiber of meat to get the box even close to full. Didn’t matter if it had a little fat on it or not, it went in.

Needless to say I was the proverbial good sport at awards. I knew long before they started that I didn’t need to map out a path to the stage when my name was called and I was correct.

Mehh, win some lose some. I figure it this way, I got 4 ‘oh shits’ already in the bag for the next competition, so everybody better watch out. I’m gonna be on a roll!

Makin' Bacon (Get you mind out of the gutter)

This entry was originally posted 10/13/13. It was one of the entries that got accidentally deleted during the colossal brain fart of 2013.


So what does a bored BBQ fanatic do when he's not competing? Why, he makes bacon of course!! Let's all say it together,'Mmmmmm Bacon....'

One goal that I've had for a while now was to make the ultimate BLT sandwich totally from scratch. That's right, the very finest of BLT goodness that can be made. I know, one of my more goofy ideas. I don't even remember how it got started.

Here's where I'm at with it so far: Growing the lettuce and tomatoes in the garden, check. Mel said she would show me how to make bread, check. Now for what I thought would be the hard part, the bacon. Seems it's not as hard as I thought. Find and buy a pork belly (yes it really is the pig's belly, now don't go getting squeamish on me now). I only bought a cut-off piece of about a pound for this test run. A full belly runs about 5 pounds.

Trim off the skin, rub it down with a mixture of cure, sugar, pepper, and a little maple syrup.

Put it in a zip-lock bag and into the fridge for 7 days, flipping each day.

Then rinse it really well, pat dry, and put it back into the fridge for a day to form the pellicle.

Put in the smoker at 225 for a few hours. That's a bottom round underneath the bacon. Mel wanted some sliced BBQ beef.

Smoke with apple wood until it reaches an internal of about 140-145. Don't render that fat!

Take it out and put it in a zip-lock and into an ice bath to stop the cooking.

Slice it up as thick or thin as you like!

Of course a little test drive is obligatory!

Freeze the rest

This was a really fun first time out and VERY tasty too! Doesn't taste anything like whats in the store. I'll do this again in a couple of weeks with a full belly. This first test was a really simple flavor profile, so the next time I want to try a maple glazed and a spicy peppered version.

So anyway, back to the BLT. Once the lettuce and tomatoes get there, I'll be doing a blog on the finest BLT in the world! You're all welcome to come over and try one! I'll even let you try my homemade garlic tomato soup. I've got that one down to a fine science.

Being a jerk, the beef type

How does one make beef jerky? Well, glad you asked.... I didn't ask...yes you did!... wasn't me... you're losin' it.... yes I am

Was in Publix Friday night and they had nice looking 'Eye of Round' on sale. Whenever I see a roast like that I instantly think of one of about three things. It's either going to be steaks, sliced BBQ beef, or jerky. Well, I haven't done jerky in quite some time, so jerky it is.

Notice that the weight is 2.74 lbs. Won't be anywhere close to that when I get finished! First order of business is to get every bit of that fat off. Fat is what will make jerky go bad really fast with no preservatives and I don't use preservatives. So the fat has to go.

Next is to slice it up into about 1 inch 'steaks'. In fact, when I buy an Eye of Round for steaks, this is exactly the process I follow. I would place the slices into individual FoodSaver bags and they will last for months (theoretically, as they get eaten long before that). Far cheaper doing it this way than buying individual steaks.

At this point they go into the freezer to get firm, not completely frozen. They slice up easier and better if they are cold stiff.

While I'm waiting for them to firm up, I'll go ahead and mix up the marinade. Little of this and a little of that. Soy sauce is the big ingredient here because of the acid and the salt. Everything else is for the flavoring. I got turned on to the Emeril's seasoning by my good friend Tim and he is absolutely right.

Now that the steaks are firmed up, we can go ahead and slice. I like to lay the steak flat so that the 'grain' of the finished product runs across the slab. Running it lengthwise makes it very difficult to tear off and chew. Running it into the meat makes for really tiny 'bits' and gives the meat a mealy kind of texture.

Dig the slicer right out of the '60's. Yep, it's a real 'Oster' slicer. I believe it belonged to Mel's grandmother. Believe it or not, this slicer does a really good job! Can't rush it, but it does turn out first rate slices. And yes, I do wear gloves when handling meat. I've been doing competition where they are required for so long now that touching meat with bare hands is really weird to me.

All sliced up, into the marinade, cover, and into the fridge to soak overnight. I prefer a minimum of at least 12 hours, 18 to 24 is even better.

Unbelievably early the next morning, it goes into the cooker. Gotta start early as it takes ALL day to get it dehydrated. Remember, we're not really cooking it. I don't want the temperature inside the cooker to get above about 135-140. Any higher and it will cook the meat and I don't want to do that. I want LOTS and LOTS of warm air to dry out the meat, not cook it.

Ok, some of you observant types might notice that I didn't use the smokehouse for this batch, and you would be correct. I didn't. Three reasons. First, I'm still seasoning the smokehouse. I still smells like raw wood inside, not smoke. Second, I don't have any sort of temperature control on the smokehouse yet. I'll have it installed in the next week or two. Third, this is a very, very small batch of jerky and I have't used the WSM in quite a while.

I didn't get a picture of it, but I've found that 4 or 5 charcoal briquettes in the bottom of the cooker with the fan turned almost all the way up fits the bill just nicely. Just have to remember to check on the fire every 20-30 minutes ALL day long. With all that air and so little charcoal, the briquettes don't last long at all.

Here's the finished product after about 12 hours of dehydrating. It's a whole bunch smaller than when it started. Yes, I filched a couple of pieces. Quality control, Right?!

Remember that 2.74 lbs of meat? Well, it sho don't weigh that much now! Not even a pound. Almost a 70% weight loss! Mighty expensive water! Ever wonder why beef jerky costs so much in the store? Now you know!
It went from $5/lb meat to about $14/lb jerky.

This was a very small batch. In fact, it was the smallest batch I've ever done. Of course about halfway through the drying phase I remembered that I have about 2 pounds of venison in the freezer that I've been meaning to jerky. Rats. I guess I'll have to do another batch in a couple of weeks. Wonder if Publix has that sale still going?

Stay tuned!

It'ssss Aliiiive!

Those of you that know me will get the joke in the title of this update.

Soooo, I've got an operational smokehouse!! I finally got to fire it up last Sunday and actually see smoke come out of the chimney!

As I mentioned in the previous version of this blog (before like an idiot I accidentally deleted it), I got the idea for the smokehouse from a lady who frequents the BBQ Bretheren bulletin board forum. She lives somewhere in Oklahoma I think, shoot I don't even know. Doesn't matter. Her blog is incredible and I wish I could do half the things she does. Anyhow, I based the design of this smokehouse very heavily on hers. Many thanks to Jeanne ( I probably mis-spelled that). Her blog is, 'Cowgirls Country Life' and is an excellent read. I owe her a very big Thank You!

So without further blathering on my part, here it is!!

It was built completely from scratch, except for the Weber Smokey Joe grill. Although even that is modified to be what is called a mini-WSM. The fire resides in the black Weber grill in the foreground. There is no fire in the smokehouse itself.

So do the wavy, smeary TV flashback thing and I'll take you through it from the beginning. Here is the same spot before spending too much money and drinking a few too many beers.

Yeah, not very pretty. The weeds had pretty much taken over and what little grass was left was getting pretty straggly. Even the vegetable garden was looking bleak.

Soooo, after standing around for a while, thinking about it, having another beer about it, I got started. Cleaned it all off, re-graded it, leveled it out as best as I figured, and we're underway. This is where it got interesting.

After building a boat (I'll have to post a pic or two of that), three staircases (one was even a spiral), and a big stage platform, the neighbors were fairly sure that I'm nuts. This puts it over the top. They're quite sure now. I'm hauling bricks, dirt, sand, and all sorts of nonsense into the back yard. Then, oh yes, then, I start working on the smokehouse itself in the garage.

Stepping forward a little bit, and you can see that I couldn't just build a little smokehouse with maybe a tin roof. Oh no. This had to be full blown with even a cedar shingle roof. It's a sickness.

Here's inside the house. There are opposing rails on the walls with half circle cutouts in them. Those hold 1" dowel rod that I can either drape stuff like beef jerky across, hang stuff like salami, sausage, ham, etc, or I can put metal grates across them and put bacon, etc. on top of. In the back corner is the inside of the chimney stack. All of the interior wood is completely unfinished. Can't have anything like paint or stain messing up the meat!

I tried to get a shot of the smoke coming out of the chimney, but it's very elusive. Kind of like, well, smoke.

Here's what it looked like inside.

Here you can see some of the rods. I need to get a few more.

So far I've been doing drying and seasoning runs with no meat. I figure a few more to be sure that the bricks are fully dry, the wood has a nice patina, and I have a better idea of what I'm doing, then I'll be ready for a load of meat.

So the big question now is, do I do jerky first, or a big batch of bacon? Hmm... May have to have another beer and think about the one.