Howard’s Blog

Well it’s the 19 of December, and I doubt if I’ll get a post in before Christmas, so I’ll take this opportunity to wish everyone a Frohe Weihnachten, Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noël, or whatever name you may use to describe the Winter Solstice.
Sometimes I wonder what a celebration it must have been in the times when short, cold, dark days brought death and starvation, and the day after the shortest brought promise. Hardly surprising that the solstice has been celebrated by just about every northern culture for thousands and thousands of years.
For those of you who have won in 2007, share the success. To those who have lost, take heart in the knowledge that for every day that the burden doesn’t crush you, it strengthens you.
Thanks to everyone who made my 2007 full.
Howard

The amazing Rye has added meteorologist to his already fairly lengthy, and multi-faceted list of expertise – and warns of a nor’easter nor’easter approaching the hallowed ground of the east coast on the weekend.

I just post the video.

This entry is due in no small part to contributing editor, chief international correspondent, and water rat extraordinaire Ryan, who was kind enough to remember me of the events on December 6, 1917, when a French cargo ship, fully loaded with explosives, collided with a Norwegian ship in the Halifax harbour , and the resulting explosion killed about 2000 people, and injured another 9000. The entire story can be found here, and although there were almost certainly heroes to go around on that day, for me the most poignant story is the story of Vince Coleman, a Railway Dispatcher in Halifax. He and a co-worker had already heard about the burning ship and were on there way to safety when Coleman remembered that a passenger train was due in the station, went back to the station to send an urgent telegraph message:
“ Stop trains. Munitions ship on fire. Approaching Pier 6. Goodbye. ”
He saved the lives of at least 300 people that day, and payed for it with his own.
The next day, with thousands of people wounded and/or homeless, Halifax received 40 cm of snow.

And since we’re on the subject of Nova Scotia, here is a song from a Nova Scotian about Nova Scotia

break from the Canadian music theme. For a killer cover from JC.

So I just wanna start by noting that the Pakistani military is now being led by General Ashfaq. Seriously. Whatever happened to ‘Don’t ask don’t tell’????

Anyway…last year in the fall I finally got around to trying to make a pumpkin pie. Problem number 1 – no pumpkin pie filling in Austria. Problem number 2, the pumpkins here are more like rope than pumpkin – inedible. The squash is good tho(the same word is used for both here – although what we refer to as a pumpkin is sometimes referred to as a halloween pumpkin) and I finally found a recipe that works…from Mc’Calls Cooking School Magazine.
Ingredients:
1 Piecrust

3/4 cup brown sugar, packed(I have never seen a recipe where is wasn’t packed)
5 eggs(yes, 5)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg( I use a bit more)
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pound(2 cups) pumpkin(boiled until soft if you’re using fresh -and you should be)
1 cup heavy cream

Optional Topping:
3/4 cup heavy cream, whipped with 2 tablespoons confectioners sugar
walnut halves

The rest is easy – beat the filling ingredients until smooth, pour most of the filling into a 9 inch pie plate – with crust(not all of it, or you’ll spill the filling putting it into the oven -guess how I know?), put it into a preheated 180°C Oven, pour the remaining filling in, and nake for about 50 minutes. chill overnight(at least 4 hours)
yummy.
And….back to Canadian music. I had a conversation with a guy at work about Anne Murray yesterday. Really.
Here she is singing a Kenny Loggins song:

Time for a break from the Canadian music – why? ‘cuz Ryan wants more music goodies like the Sam Cooke tune. The bad news is, there is nobody like Sam Cooke. There is also nobody like Etta James.

I spent last week at the Oracle University, and obviously got caught up in a conversation regarding the Vancouver airport taser incident – all I can say that the RCMP have gone downhill over the years – it’s hard to have any kind of respect for that kind of policing.
Anyway, one of the guys in the course brought a dvd for me on the last day of the course, and I can highly recommend it – it’s called Orwell Rolls in his Grave, I think it’s from 2003…worth a look.
Here are the Groove Kings

One of my very first albums was a K-Tel collection with a ton of good music, including Johnny Nash’s ‘I can see clearly now’, and it’s been a favorite of mine ever since. Rarely do I prefer a cover version to the original, but in this case, I have to go with a hometown(Halifax, Nova Scotia) girl’s version – Holly Cole.

Anytime I’m in London I try to make it to a big record store to check out the charts – which bear no resemblance to the Austrian charts(Charts here tend to fill up with Brittney types), and buy cd’s I’ve never heard of. The last time I was there I bought the number 3 on the charts – Econoline Crush – a band I’d never heard of, and didn’t know until recently that they were Canadian…go figure.

I just can’t bring myself to let that last video stay on top any longer.
It never ceases to amaze me how much…stuff.. you find on YouTube..but between the pieces of crap, there is a ton of music, good and bad, new and old. So for the benefit of the Europeans, who only get to hear the Canadians who MadeItBigInAmerica™, I think I’ll post a few links to videos that didn’t quite make it across the pond. Besides, we’re having Canadian weather today in Vienna, and I don’t want to go outside…
Let’s start with Blue Rodeo, good despite coming out of Toronto

And on this day in 1985, the best hockey goalie I’ve ever seen smoked his modified 930 into a schoolhouse wall in New Jersey…and died the next day(The hospital kept him alive until his father could arrive from Sweden to say goodbye) at the brutally young age of 26. Pelle Lindbergh.