More photographic evidence of the Birthday Bonanza!

Brandy and I invited several folks over to the house this weekend to celebrate our birthdays. It was a lot of fun and a big thanks to everyone who came out for the shenanigans.

We fired up the grill and pulled out the drinks for all of our guests. However, I completely underestimated the amount of food I had planned to cook. We planned for 2 hamburgers a person as well as corn on the cob and roasted potatoes. MLONF brought along additional hamburgers as well as chicken. Now, I do not have a small grill, but let’s say it took me 45 minutes to an hour to cook all the food on the grill.

We had three varieties of hamburgers:

1. Pre-made normal beef patties. Yummy!
2. Ground beef and Ground pork mixed with onions and slight seasoning. Yummy +1!
3. Ground beef and Ground pork mixed with onions, chipotle peppers, and an assortment of spices. Yummy +2!

For our 17 guests, we ended up with 35+ hamburgers, 12 chicken legs, 16 ears of corn, and 4 small pans of potatoes. This does not include the pasta salads, barbecue weenies, fruit salads, and desserts. Needless to say, we ate well.

Speaking of cake, Christian baked us a special Birthmeh Cake.

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Whitehowler took pictures over yesterdays geocache adventure.

Take a look:

http://idlemindsradio.com/geocache/index.php?event=15 

Today, I decided to go on an adventure during lunch. I, along with 2 fellow co-workers, decided to find a geocache that was hidden along the Cahaba River behind our office building.

For those of you unfamiliar with geocaching, it is very much like a treasure hunt, only instead of treasure, you are looking for a cache of trinkets or a log book. To find these caches, you use GPS coordinates to make your way to the general location and then scavenge to find the cache. (more…)

This one slipped past my radar. The new seven wonders of the world, as voted upon by the technologically-enhanced members of the world, are:

• The Great Wall of China
• Petra in Jordan
• Brazil’s statue of Christ the Redeemer
• Peru’s Machu Picchu
• Mexico’s Chichen Itza pyramid
• The Colosseum in Rome
• India’s Taj Mahal

Hit up the following link for more details: New 7 wonders of the world named

Over at MSN.com, there is an article details 10 secrets of the grocery industry that they’d rather you not think about. Most of it is common sense, but it’s interesting to have it spelled out for you.

10 Things Your Grocery Store Doesn’t Want You to Know - MSN Health & Fitness

9. The salad bar can make you sick. Raw produce at the salad bar, pre-made salads at the deli counter and other pre-cooked prepared foods all have the potential for harboring harmful bacteria (like E. coli, salmonella and Norovirus). “The biggest contributors to unsafe food are foods that are held at unsafe temperatures, handling of food by individuals with poor hygiene, and refilling partially used containers of perishable food with fresh food,” says Michael Doyle, Ph.D., director of the Center for Food Safety and Quality Enhancement at University of Georgia.

This is something that I have just failed to think about when I walk through the deli section. Ugh…

Anyway, give this article a read and just keep some of these things in mind.

As more is revealed about this situation, the more concerned I am. There’s not much I can do about it, but concerned I remain.

CNN is the latest news outlet reporting on the missing bees. An alarming statistic — 25% of the US bee population has vanished. That’s a lot of bees… and considering they pollinate a grand majority of US crops, this is huge. (more…)

Okay, I’ll admit it. I am curious about the bee situation. So I’m following it as various articles come up, and more than likely, I’ll continue posting here about it.

From the article:

“Preliminary work has identified several likely factors that could be causing or contributing to CCD,” says Dennis vanEngelsdorp, acting state apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. “Among them are mites and associated diseases, some unknown pathogenic disease and pesticide contamination or poisoning.”

So, it could be wi-fi electrical interference or some form of disease. Either way, there doesn’t seem to be a solution sighted in the near future.

ScienceDaily: Honey Bee Die-off Alarms Beekeepers, Crop Growers And Researchers

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Apparently, this is becoming a big issue. First, they report the electromagnetic radiation may be a cause for bees to lose track of where “home” is. And now more bees, into the billions according to the article, are being lost.

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Reading along my usual news sources today brought up an interesting article about the disappearance of large amounts of bees. And strangely, it has been attributed to electromagnetic radiation released from many of our high-tech gadgetry — mainly cell phones. (more…)