To think that games at this stadium have been the center of national attention – national championship games, a Super Bowl – and all the while the attending patrons were faced with such quaintness as urinal troughs.

On one hand, modern urinal courtesy is like an 11th commandment (Man Law?): Thou shalt not acknowledge the other guy next to you. Jimmy Kimmel made great fun of this commandment with his skit on the old Man Show, in which he would start a lengthy conversation with the guy at the next urinal. The most common reaction was disgust. Those zealots!

This may have something to with our cultural attitude about urinating outdoors, too. It violates city ordinances all around the Phoenix area, and getting caught gets a citation and a fine of a couple hundred bucks (or so I am told).

On the other hand, a more practical attitude these days is represented by the outdoor urinals in merry old England. These outdoor fixtures are found opposite the Charing Cross Railway Station in London, U.K. Identical fixtures may be found in Leidsplein Square in Amsterdam.

I have lots and lots more thoughts on this topic. However, I wanted to keep this brief and tasteful. Besides, I am getting a little sugar rush from my breakfast waffles right now, and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for any foggy-headed foolishness that I might write at the moment.

Besides, I think it is time for a nap.

The core topic here used to be part of a fun lecture that I gave in my classes at Arizona State University. I even gave it one time to a preschool class, although I toned down a bit for the 4-year-olds. The main point is that veggies are comprised of plant parts that do not produce seeds. The USDA, however, has different ideas about that definition. Some of the so-called veggies in the photos below do, indeed, produce seeds. There are, therefore, actually fruits. Isn’t this exciting already?

For fun, maybe you can make a little quiz out of these photos. Identify which of the so-called veggies in each of the photos below are not really veggies. HIINT: For the sake of simplicity: 2 of the 9 veggies in the righthand photo are not veggies. Which ones are they? How many non-veggies do you see in the lefthand photo? You ought to get some kind of reward for getting the right answers. So let me know what you come up with, either by commenting here or contacting me directly by phone or email. I don’t have plan for award. Students used to get point on exams for correct answer, although that won’t do you much good. So my offer is just a couple of Atta-boys or Atta-girls, or even some huzzahs if you wish.

My Ulterior Motives

Today I am testing a social bookmarking service, so I wanted to see how far and wide this silly little post goes. Aren’t all my posts silly and fun?

In addition, I just wanted to get these photos out, since I paid a dollar each for them.

Finally, this post is a small peak into the mindset of a professional botanist, so you can see how folks like me think. I really think this topic of veggies vs. the USDA is pretty neat. As a happy hour topic, it sure beats talking about how lousy the Diamondbacks are again this year.

All the best,

Dennis

Here are the girls huntin’ and peckin’ in the yard, just as they like to do all day, every day. They wouldn’t come closer to the camera because, well, they were too chicken.

Cheers,

Farmer Dennis

Eve's Onion Cutting Strategy

Eve is just going to love it when she finds out that I announced this on Facebook. Don’t you think?

Imagine my laugh, then, when Eve suggested that I look at my Ameritrade account, just for fun. Well, to no surprise, my 3,500 shares of Etravelserve.com Inc (TSER), is still valued at $0.0001, for a total value of 35 cents. They were delisted a long time ago. However, good old QPSA, of which I bought 65 shares at 25 cents a share, closed trading yesterday at $5.39. Wow, that is a jump from a $16.25 purchase to a $350.35 value.

Louis Rukeyser may have been right about there being three animals in the stock market: bulls, bears, and pigs led to slaughter. After spending most of my time in that third category, I’m happy to finally have some personal good news from Wall Street. Now I am going to see where else I can get a 2156-fold increase in investment. Isn’t that more than 200,000 percent?

Keeping It Simple

All I did was to peel and cut up one eggplant and put it into a frying pan with some coconut oil. This is the best cooking oil there is, in case you didn’t know. Olive oil is so twentieth century.

Then I took some leftover green beans, cut them up, and added them to the eggplant.

I chose an Organic Three Pepper Pasta Sauce for the base.

I stirred in some sea salt and my new favorite spice mix, Cajun Spices. (Thus, making it ‘creole’ – fabulous flavors and not too spicy.) Then I stir-fried the eggplant and green beans until they looked a little toasted.

This is when I decided that they needed some red color, so I cut up and threw in a couple of fresh tomatoes. Now they looked fine to my Artistic Iron Chef eye!

Finally, I added the sauce, then covered and let simmer for about 30 minutes. Here is the result … yummy!

Serve On A Bed Of What?

This took a little more vegan-brain creativity. I happened to have some quinoa grain and buckwheat in the cupboard. So I decided to nuke them up together … must be the first time this combination has appeared in human history! … for use where you might normally have pasta. (I’m down on pasta, which is another story.)

Both of these so-called grains are actually seeds. Calling them grains is one of those silly things the USDA does. They are seeds! They aren’t even in the same family as wheat, rye, barley, and rice, all of which produce true grains. Nope. Not even close.

One heads up if you use quinoa and buckwheat is to add about twice as much water as the directions call for. Buckwheat is like a sponge and will soak it up pretty fast, which might keep the slower-cooking quinoa from getting done. Here is what it looks like … brown!

And Now For The Drumroll Please…

The new dish here is accompanied by a few slices of avocado, just to round out the meal. Actually, I served it with salad, too.

This really nice thing about this recipe is that it is really simple. The final dish is delicious, too.

This little exercise will give you an idea for when you set a goal to make a million dollars per year. Imagination is important here, so let’s play with this.

Oh, before I get started, my definition of a millionaire for this exercise is anyone who makes a million dollars per year. It is not really a practical definition. That is not going to stop me here!

First, calculate how many hours that you work in a year. If you want to use a reasonable number, use this typical information for the United States:

A normal work week for most jobs is 8 hours a day for 5 days. There are 52 weeks in a year, and most folks get a two week vacation. So, 8 X 5 X 50 = 2000 hours worked in a year.

Many companies also give 10 holidays, which brings it down to 8 x 5 x 48 = 1920.

Many companies also give 5 days of sick/personal time per year, which brings it down to 8 x 5 x 47 = 1880.

My buddy, Larry, who is self-employed and charges by the hour for his services, says that this number is pretty realistic. So you have 1880 hours to earn an hourly wage each year.

Converting Work Time Into $1,000,000

Repeat the phrase above in a Dr. Evil voice, with your pinkie pointing to the corner of your mouth.

Now for the conversion: $1,000,000 in 1880 hours means $531.14 per hour. Check my math.

That’s all it takes!

The take-home lesson is that, if you are not doing something ever workday to bring in at least $531.14 per hour, then you will fall short of making a million dollars per year.

Wasn’t that fun? Of course, one variation on the above calculation is that you can work one hour for a million dollars, then take the other 1879 hours off. This may seem like outrageous thinking. However, this is clearly the direction that makes the most sense. People at the top of the heap do not work hourly. Revisit Robert Kiyodaki’s Cash Flow Quadrant to see what I mean. Or just play his Cash Flow 101 and see what it takes to get out of the Rat Race.

Okay, that’s it for now. I just wanted to share a little bit of fun with you on a beautiful Sunday morning in Tempe, AZ.

Earlier this morning my intuitive self struck a blow for clarity. It came as I was thinking of a gentleman whom I met last night. I first noticed him as I was on my way to a dinner conference at Nello’s ‘Health Food’ Pizza Joint. He was bedding down next to a low wall at the edge of the parking lot. My thought at the time was that someone with ‘official authority’ would probably rouse him up before the night was over and either take him in or order him to move on.

We had a lot of food left over from the buffet, so I filled some takeout boxes and took them out to where I had seen our outdoors visitor. He was still there, and after a little noise from me, woke up and accepted my offer. He asked me to sit down and chat while he was eating, so I did. He described himself as a Sioux from Montana, wandering and looking for work, not all that successfully. Upon my asking, he told me his name was Red Eagle. I left after a few more minutes to get back to help with packing up the conference stuff.

Red Eagle. Hmm. Here is when my intuition finally hit me with a ‘don’t-ignore-me-this-time’ whack upside the head. Many years ago I had the experience of finding my animal spirit guide during a Native American shamanic drumming ceremony. My spirit guide turned out to be an eagle. Since that time I have had many more experiences involving eagles. I won an Eagle Award. I took a men’s leadership course that earned me an eagle-head ring, which I wear proudly to this day. I have an eagle photo clipped to the dashboard cover in my truck so I can have it in front of me everywhere I go.

I have had only a few conversations with my animal spirit guide, conversations that I sought during meditation. Last night, I believe, he came to me as Red Eagle. The actions that led me to him were a first. I had never taken food to someone in that situation before, or even approached anyone under those circumstances. Could he, Red Eagle, my animal spirit guide, have summoned me?

Red Eagle and I, we are connected. Carl Jung called the connection among people the ‘Collective Unconscious’. Such a connection goes by many names. I would say that my intuition is screaming at me that my connection with Red Eagle is much closer. Even if I had a scientific explanation for this, it would be unimportant. I believe that I met my animal spirit guide last night. The purpose of this meeting, if I see it correctly, might be just to invite me to talk with him more often. I look forward to it, if anything just to enjoy the beautiful forest outside the workshop of my mind. Of course, I’d bet that he will have some interesting things to say, too. And, boy, do I have some questions for him!

Scruffy - A Self Portrait

So this morning I am up early (ca. 4:00 AM), excited as usual to see what I can accomplish and how much fun I can have. Doing a lot of cool stuff. However, I just had to take this picture to show the world one of the benefits of self-employment, so to speak.

More later. Now it is time to check my revenue streams from last night. Now THAT is fun!

I just had to put this out to the world somewhere, and this seemed like the best venue. Today I received an envelope from Amazon Digital Services Inc., which contained a check for $25.68, made out to me. This was a pleasant surprise.

To be honest, the Amazon commission rate for associates is a paltry and unexciting 4%. For this reason I haven’t really pursued any marketing through Amazon. Oh, I put up an Amazon store on my golf blog, I published one of my ebooks in Kindle format, and I mentioned some supplements here and there with links through my account. So I never really expected anything all.

The surprise is that I don’t see where the final $17.12 of this check came from. The Amazon associates pages are as obtuse to use as anything I have ever seen on the web. So I will just be grateful for my good fortune, however seemingly small it is at the moment.

Whew! Glad I could share that success with you!

Cheers,
Dennis