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My brother got a new dog creatively named “Rex”.  He is a mix of genetic party favors but appears to have a goodly streak of American Pitbull Terrier in him marked by the a wide smile I would call arrogant (the dog, not my brother).  Rex is young and when he came over our aged Max quickly tired of him.

Me: Can you tell your dog to stop mounting Max?
Ryan: Max started it.
Me: Max can barely make it up stairs let alone make an effective pass and literally screwing the pooch.  Please restrain your dog.
Ryan: You’re just jealous that my dog is better than your dog.
Me: You were the one that picked out Max in the first place.  So, sure, you’re better at picking out dogs than you are.
Ryan: That’s what I thought.

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My brother got married today.  I don’t know if I believe the hype that it’s “the happiest day of his life” but I’d like to think that the day confirmed the happiness Amanda and Ryan have inspired in each other.  Trying to paint a narrative would be foolish, so here are my notes:

  • The photographer didn’t gel any of his flashes even though he was dealing with dusk light, incandescent light, and his flash.  His photoshop-fu is strong.
  • The first four songs played at the reception were “Stuck in the Middle with You”, “Here’s to You, Mrs. Robinson”, “1234” and part of “Good Riddance”.  Someone should shoot the DJ.
  • Deejaying is much less impressive when one uses a laptop and there are no physical media to manipulate.  I think there should either be totemic discs somewhere or just a touchscreen to queue up songs.
  • Suspenders fall into toilets too easily.
  • Me: Blessed are the teetotalers, for they shall spoil the world’s parties.  My Aunt: I’ll drink to that.
  • Amanda Dilks is now Amanda Robinson and I now have a sister-in-law.  Which just sounds weird to say.
  • There’s a bit of a disagreement over who married into who’s family.  Amanda’s side outnumbers my brother’s but we have the edge in size and firepower.

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My brother gets married tomorrow to someone he’s been dating for at least five years, leading me to respond “yes, you fool” in response to “did you think your brother would ever settle down?”  In fact, the wedding seems to be the penultimate step as he and his fiance own a house together and even more damning, a cat.  The ceremony is to be officiated by the mother of one of Ryan’s friends and when he was a much slimmer man she was a much larger woman for reasons I assume were medical.  During the practice exchange of rings she stood in the center while Ryan and Amanda were off to each side until the ring was placed and the two stepped closer together.  In a moment, the bright garb of the pastor was completely blocked out by my brother’s dark-clothed frame and I began laughing.  Some looked at me quizzically and I just pointed to the alter and said “eclipse”.

Later on at the rehearsal dinner my brother gave his members of the bridal party a top-shelf alcohol of their preference and engraved SOG pocket tools.  Knives and alcohol, that can’t end poorly.

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So, after my 17 hour marathon rest I was moving stuff into the attic when my  brother came over.  He asked me about splitting a Father’s Day gift with him, I asked the cost, he told me and I told him where my wallet was to get the cash.  Later that day my dad came back and gave me a big hug thanking me for the Father’s Day gift.  Trying not to make it obvious that I had no idea what he got and knowing my brother’s penchant for firearms-as-gift I asked “What caliber is it?” He replied “.357 and that he’d “keep it under his pillow”.  Scanning over my knowledge of killings in the home and the strength of my father’s prescription glasses I realized Ryan had gotten my dad the greatest gift of all: Fratricide.

Editor’s Note: The technical term for killing one’s son would be filicide but it both sounds worse than fratricide and is a bit more remote from common parlance.  I hope it sufficiently conveyed the sense of terror at my father being armed while in a hynogogic state.

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My brother is growing up and buying his a house (with assistance) and I’m mourning/celebrating his imminent departure.  I looked around the house, joyed at the crap he’d take with him, especially the things that were my mother’s that he took over, like the curio for porcelain filled with shot glasses or stereo cabinet that nicely holds 3 rifles, 2 shotguns and enough ammo to stop a smallish epidemic of the Rage.  I hope he takes the television he destroyed innocently enough by repeatedly smashing helicopters into it during his “things that fly with blades spinning parallel to the floor” phase which was succeeded by his “things that fly with blades spinning perpendicular to the floor” phase.  The latter took up much room and our pool room is now a graveyard of Styrofoam and scale appropriate hack jobs or so I’m told.  I didn’t realize that when a plane’s tail falls off it’s reattached with a 18 inch wide piece of cellophane tape and girded with logs or what ever a scaled up bamboo skewer would be.

But the things I’ll miss the most are the odd periods of excitement/terror that accompanied my brother discovering some new problem or situation in the house that was best fixed by a large calibre handgun.  Today’s was “don’t be alarmed if you hear a loud bang *holds up revolver* but the pumpkin has to die”.  Little did I know that the proper tool to open a pumpkin to retrieve seeds was not a pearing knife but a Smith & Wesson.  Who knew?

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The Argument from Incredulity is a pretty little fallacy that arises whenever someone states a statement is false because they personally believe it to be false or are unwilling to deal with a fact being true. The Argument from Incredulity is frequently ventured forth by the dumb so tends to be bundled with other fallacies. This fallacy often tends to be obvious unlike some more subtle fallacies but tends to take some heavy lifting to overcome.Continue reading

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Every January 1st, I take all my cast iron cookware and season each piece.  Using kosher salt and a pair of tongs I do an initial clean of each piece and use a light detergent and air dry if necessary.  I then heat each piece to slightly hot, slather it in vegetable shortening and put it upside down in the oven on rocket hot (500+ degrees) over a jelly roll pan for an hour or two.  Two rounds covers my two dutch ovens, griddle and three skillets and all in all takes about 6 hours including a nacho run (it’s the new year, one should celebrate).  To not burn myself, I let the pieces cool down for about 45 minutes before handling and then I air cool until the piece hits room temperature.

Around 5 PM, my brother determined that he wanted to bake brownies NOW because his girlfriend wanted them and I told him I was in the middle of this process.  He told me to take the pieces out and I laughed because even the best oven mitts have trouble with 500 degree iron for more than an instant as the pressure on the hand by the metal quickly overcomes even impressive insulators.  He thought himself man enough to take them and I left to get a drink.  I could make out his cry of pain and the crash as the skillet collided with the oven door (he didn’t think to pull out the oven rack rather than just pulling out each piece) and I saw him get into his car and drive away.  Later I went down to check on the iron’s cooling when he returned with a box of Entenmann’s in hand.

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Every January 1st, I take all my cast iron cookware and season each piece.  Using kosher salt and a pair of tongs I do an initial clean of each piece and use a light detergent and air dry if necessary.  I then heat each piece to slightly hot, slather it in vegetable shortening and put it upside down in the oven on rocket hot (500+ degrees) over a jelly roll pan for an hour or two.  Two rounds covers my two dutch ovens, griddle and three skillets and all in all takes about 6 hours including a nacho run (it’s the new year, one should celebrate).  To not burn myself, I let the pieces cool down for about 45 minutes before handling and then I air cool until the piece hits room temperature.

Around 5 PM, my brother determined that he wanted to bake brownies NOW because his girlfriend wanted them and I told him I was in the middle of this process.  He told me to take the pieces out and I laughed because even the best oven mitts have trouble with 500 degree iron for more than an instant as the pressure on the hand by the metal quickly overcomes even impressive insulators.  He thought himself man enough to take them and I left to get a drink.  I could make out his cry of pain and the crash as the skillet collided with the oven door (he didn’t think to pull out the oven rack rather than just pulling out each piece) and I saw him get into his car and drive away.  Later I went down to check on the iron’s cooling when he returned with a box of Entenmann’s in hand.

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I make french toast in two phases: first I sear them on a griddle then I bake them, thus the outside is crunchy and the inside is creamy.  I’ve seen silicone baking sheets advertised like all hell during Christmas so I decided to my silicone cutting board as one and see if the food didn’t stick.  So, I placed the seared toast on a baking sheet on top of the cutting board and popped it in the oven.  After 5 minutes I pulled it out to find my toast floating on molten silicone.  Thinking I’d lost a cutting board and baking mat, as it cooled I heard a popping noise.  It was the cutting board solidifying and I quickly extracted the toast which didn’t appear to have any silicone on it.  I now had a resolidified cutting board with 5 toast-shaped dents in it that came off in one piece.  I tried a piece of the toast and it tasted….. rubbery.  Not wanted to waste the toast I wrapped them in aluminum foil and wrote in Black Sharpie “Toast for Ryan”.  Don’t tell him.

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I make french toast in two phases: first I sear them on a griddle then I bake them, thus the outside is crunchy and the inside is creamy.  I’ve seen silicone baking sheets advertised like all hell during Christmas so I decided to my silicone cutting board as one and see if the food didn’t stick.  So, I placed the seared toast on a baking sheet on top of the cutting board and popped it in the oven.  After 5 minutes I pulled it out to find my toast floating on molten silicone.  Thinking I’d lost a cutting board and baking mat, as it cooled I heard a popping noise.  It was the cutting board solidifying and I quickly extracted the toast which didn’t appear to have any silicone on it.  I now had a resolidified cutting board with 5 toast-shaped dents in it that came off in one piece.  I tried a piece of the toast and it tasted….. rubbery.  Not wanted to waste the toast I wrapped them in aluminum foil and wrote in Black Sharpie “Toast for Ryan”.  Don’t tell him.