My First cooking Segment

Still No Knitting

Well still no knitting. Well nothing interesting. So I figure I should be posting some here.

I have been kicking around the internet archive site and found thing little thing from the fifties. It is a kids show where they threw some circus acts on TV. It was called Super Circus.

Super Circus 1954

New Balls

The quest for new smaller balls continues. Making round balls is a pain in the neck. It has been the bane of the Clown Brigade's existence, that and, mimes.

When we started the Brigade many years ago we used rubber lacrosse style balls. It was annoying to find ones that were all the same weight. There was also the issue of them bouncing when you drop them. It was simply not fun for new jugglers. So we started making some cube shaped balls. These had he advantage of not rolling when they were dropped.

We made them in a 5.3 ounce size, these wee the same weight as lacrosse balls. We also had a smaller round 3 ounce ball. We had an even smaller 2 ounce cube shaped ball. We had a great deal of trouble sewing smaller balls.

For the last couple months I have been messing around with the geometry of the pattern we use. The hope was that I could increase in interior space of the balls. I have just finished the first set of this new pattern.

They are 1 3/4 ounces and round. They are a pain in the neck to turn inside out. They are also very difficult to stuff as well. On the upside they are even rounder than our previous balls. That is also the down side. They make the larger size balls look almost ovoid in shape. This could be my imagination.

Pineapple Bread

Besides knitting, clowning, juggling, and writing the great American Novel I am trying to make the best Fruit Cake. I love fruit cake. Frankly it is one of the few secular Christmas traditions that I am interested in.

I enjoy trying various fruit cakes from several companies. For some reason fruit cake is not a big thing with the bakeries in my neighborhood. So I have been trying to make a great Fruit Cake.

Well anyway this is a pineapple cake from all recipies. I came out well. It is not dark enough or sweet enough to be the base for a fruit cake. The Mrs. likes it and she is hard to please with sweet pastries.

It is not too sweet and there are no exotic ingredients. It did take me ten fewer minutes than the recipe called for. I am putting the recipe bellow. Love someone this Christmas folks.


https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/6937/pineapple-bread/

Z

Chief's Message 12/12/2018

Gandalf Meme

Just figured I should get back to blogging eventually. I even took a stab a writing a meme today.

The White Man's Flag

It is odd the way that we as Humans latch onto a symbol. We enshrine something as important to our society or heritage for countless reasons. Some of them are exceptionally important while others, not so much.

One such symbol is the “Stainless Banner” This is the name given to the first flag of the Confederacy to have the familiar insert that we all recognize. The person that created this flag called it the “White Man’s Flag”. If you do not believe me look up William T. Thompson. He owned a newspaper and published his thoughts on why he created his flag. This is a quote from him in his own paper. So it is probably not a misquote.

“As a people we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause.”

This quote was from 1863 at the beginning of the war. No one wrote angry letters of protest to his paper. No one threw away his idea for the flag because he thought it was supporting the subjugation of the slaves. Everyone in the Confederacy was pretty much cool with his view on the subject.

The other interesting thing about this flag is that it was not flown over the capital of South Carolina or on it’s grounds for decades after the civil war. The good people of South Carolina only needed to put the flag up after the Civil Rights Movement won a few victories. How can anyone, with a straight face, say this is not symbol of white people being superior.

It would appear the South did not need reminded of their heritage until they couldn’t kick around black folks any more.

The current defense is that the flag, being a battle flag, represents the valor and bravery of the Confederate Soldiers. As a Yankee I see I view the actions of Southerns as treasonous. No matter how you cut it they thought they were not going to get what they wanted under the Lincoln Administrations. Did they wait to see if a deal could be struck? No they raised an army and killed hundreds of thousands of their brothers.

There is a story that took place shortly after the war that involved Robert E. Lee taking communion with a Black Man. The quote I found on it as follows:

"NEGRO COMMUNED AT ST. PAUL'S CHURCH," CONFEDERATE VETERAN, 13 (AUGUST 1905): 360. "Col. T. L. Broun, of Charleston, W. Va., writes of having been present at St. Paul's Church, Richmond, Va., just after the war when a negro marched to the communion table ahead of the congregation. His account of the event is as follows:

Two months after the evacuation of Richmond business called me to Richmond for a few days, and on a Sunday morning in June, 1865, I attended St. Paul's Church. Dr. Minnegerode [sic] preached. It was communion day; and when the minister was ready to administer the holy communion, a negro in the church arose and advanced to the communion table. He was tall, well-dressed, and black. This was a great surprise and shock to the communicants and others present. Its effect upon the communicants was startling, and for several moments they retained their seats in solemn silence and did not move, being deeply chagrined at this attempt to inaugurate the "new regime" to offend and humiliate them during their most devoted Church services. Dr. Minnegerode [sic] was evidently embarrassed.

General Robert E. Lee was present, and, ignoring the action and presence of the negro, arose in his usual dignified and self-possessed manner, walked up the aisle to the chancel rail, and reverently knelt down to partake of the communion, and not far from the negro. This lofty conception of duty by Gen. Lee under such provoking and irritating circumstances had a magic effect upon the other communicants (including the writer), who went forward to the communion table.

By this action of Gen. Lee the services were conducted as if the negro had not been present. It was a grand exhibition of superiority shown by a true Christian and great soldier under the most trying and offensive circumstances."

This is a quote from a witness that clearly did not like Black People. There is some question of if this happen or not. We do know that is daughter was arrested in 1900 for defying Jim Crow laws by sitting in the “Colored” Section of Street Car. She clearly learned this behavior from somewhere. And it is likely that it was from her father who has been held up by many as a moral and just person.

One thing that we do know was that Robert E. Lee was the President of what was then Washington University, now Washington and Lee University. He was buried there at the beloved institution that he helped turn around from some lean years before his tenure. During his time there the Confederate Battle Flag was never flown over any pat of the campus. In fact at his burial on campus he forbade use of the flag or uniformed Confederate Veterans. If anyone on the planet could have justified having that flag represent them it was him. He understood that is was not appropriate. The man that sent thousands to die and kill under that banner knew that it’s day had passed

The south should look to the example of it’s greatest hero and his family. In them is a forgotten symbol of what this country should be.

Blue Plastic Ball Failure

Well there is some tearing at the seams. This was what happened with the other plastic balls. So it is sad. The nearly lasted three weeks.

The frustrating part is that there are companies that make plastic bean bags. I am simply not able to find that material in the local fabric stores.

Well it is back to the drawing board.

Second week of the Blue Plastic bals

Today was the third time I took the blue plastic balls to juggling at CMU. They continue to hold up and there may actually be hope that this material will work. The denim and duck cloth start to become rounder when they are broken in. Also the seams on the cloth ball’s seams tend to flatten out as they are used. that is not happening with the plastic balls. 

So if this material works there will need to be some work on the pattern. Even so we are at two weeks with a bunch of different people jugging them. So this is a good sign. 

Flying Blue Plastic Balls on Sunday

Well they survived their first go round with throwing. A dozen or so folks threw them around today. The only complaint was that they were not filled enough. This was fairly obvious to me as well. It will be fixed on the next set of them if the plastic holds.

The first set of plastic balls we made did not survive the first Brigade Practice so these are already better than the last ones.

Big Blue Plastic Balls

Experimenting with Gillie Balls continues. One of the major issues we have with the gillie balls is that they are made of cloth. Hospitals would prefer that the balls had a plastic surface. All things we where being equal we would just juggle lacrosse balls. We did make the larger gillie balls the same weigh as them for this reason. We also have some places that will not let us juggle lacrosse balls because they think we will destroy the equipment. On an odd side not no one has said we cannot juggle clubs in a hospital room. So I am not following the logic. Still, when I run my own hospital I will make the rules until then I suppose that is where we are on that subject.

Anyway last year we tried making gillie balls out of the same plastic material we made the end of juggling batons out of. This failed miserably splitting on the seams after a week. With the success we have had making tartan balls with interfacing on the inside we are trying a plastic with cloth like material on the under side.

I made up a set of these and the first thing I notices is that there is too much room on the inside of the balls. Since we make them to weigh the same as lacross balls they are not filled by volume. So the first thing we have to do if these work is make a pattern specifically for them

Well I have tossed them around and I will take them to CMU to see what the experts them of them.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Sushi and Ball Fun

This was a rather nice plate of sushi from the good people at Little Asia. This was a very yummy Monster Roll.

You may notice in the background a few of our juggling balls. We have the always stall worth Briggy Ball in black and red to the right of the picture. To the left was have a brand new set of balls in Andrew Carnegie's tartan.

Well be safe out  there and keep your stick on the ice

Sushi Tuesday

Still messing around with Sushi. This is a recent plate with a few of my favorite rolls.

2 Year Birthday for Briggy Balls

The oldest set of Briggy Balls in the Brigade is two years old. Not a bad life span for a couple of pieces of duck cloth. The Duck cloth does appear to last longer than denim and it comes in a nice array of color.

These double stitched balls have also been through the washing machine a few times.So all and all not bad for some practice balls.

Here they are on our kettle stand getting ready for an evening of fun on the South Side.

Baby Gillie Bals

I am working on some of the smaller gillies balls. There are three ounces and perfect for most children and small people. With the juggling classes this summer I am sure we are going to go through a few of them.

Ides of March March with Monkey

Samantha Ann's monkey went along with us on the Ides of March March.

 Here is Monkey with a drummer. Maybe he is a drummer mime. Well he was very loud.

 Here is Monkey with Mandy the spritual leader of the ides of March March. I think Monkey and the octopus have a date.

Here is Monkey with Ramone.

Making Balls Again

Miss Thurmon made a bothersome discovery a couple weeks ago while at a juggling practice. One of the lacrosse balls we were using was a great deal heavier than the others. This meant that the scale I have been using is off. So this week I picked up a used postal service scale. Sadly it also means that a lot of the balls that I have been making have also been off.

So for the last week I have reweighed all the round bean bags we have made in the last couple months. I am adjusting their weight and stitching them back up. I figure by Sunday I will have all the practice balls fixed. I may even be able to make a couple new sets.

Anyway after weighing all the balls they balance out at 5.3 ounces. This also puts them in the mid range for what lacrosse balls are supposed to weigh.

Some Juggling and a Death Threat

Kettle Stand One

Everything has to start somewhere. For the Brigade our fundraising activities started standing kettle for The Salvation Army. Since we have been apart from the Army we have not done a great deal of fundraising until this year. We have done some hoagie sales and a little of this and that. This spring i got out and stood a little Kettle for the Brigade.

By the way standing kettle is standing outside a store with a bucket and ringing a ball. I do own a bell but I rarely used it. Usually i would juggle and sing Christmas Carols. I should probably have mentioned this sooner.

Anyway tonight I have my stand ready, my carol cards and juggling balls. I always feel like the holiday season is starting when I get out there on a kettle. If you want to stop by I will be at the Combodican Kitchen on the South Side. Which by the way has the best Seafood Wontons in the commonwealth.

Over the years I have stood kettle at lots of stores and have never recomended one on my blog. The Cambodican Kitchen  will be the first. If you want some good food this is the place. It is also the only restaurant that I stop at weekly. And it is not because I stand kettle there. There were lots of places I stood kettle near and would rather bring a sandwich than eat the food.

Maybe someday it will mean something. As for today the Cambodian Kitchen is our first Kettle Stand.Kettle Stand One.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Package for Someone

I have had this package for one of the members of my troupe for a month or so. When I do not have it I see this person. When I have it I do not see this person.

Of course it is books and it is heavy when you are toting it around in a bag of juggling stuff.

When I tell them it I had it on my person yesterday I think they think i am messing with them. So i am posting it here. For what ever reason I am getting into wrapping things in brown paper. I am trying not to use tons of notebooks to save tree but I am wrapping things in paper. That must be some kind of mental illness. I am sure that someone will make a drug that cures this but causes temporary blindness or make you need to wear a diaper.


Well there is some random poorly spelled stuff. Thank you for listening.

Random Talk About Making Balls

Ridewood Church Show

Alakazi and I had a show this week end. It rained a bit. Actually it drizzled the entire time. Even with the rain fun was had by all. We did realize that we do not have funny colored umbrellas.

Well just checking in. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

My Play List

If you listen to the play list on my phone it is nuts. There is only one radio station that half as nuts as the music that I choose to listen to that is WRCT. In the middle of the night that sometimes have a DJ Filling Dead Air. Well that it what it says on thier web site when you tune in over the web. i apparently live on the back side of a hill from thier transmitter so I get a clear signal over the web.

No one appears to advertise on this station so it is not cluttered with any of that. For some reason I always tune in the middle of the night. So I had no idea that it was a college radio station. I suppose I should have guessed because of the lack of advertising or pledge drives.

With any luck there will be juggling on Sunday. I think I am going to put in a request.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Facebook needs Customer Service

Facebook continues to be a pain the neck. The Brigade has a facebook page where we put up our practices and events. Members check what they are showing up for. When it was working it was a nice thing. Sadly it is not working. People who have left the group accidentally cannot be invited back. I have tried over and over and not been able to figure it out. Of course there is no customer support from facebook. There are tons of ads and if you click the wrong thing they try and sign you up for a video game advertised by a half naked cartoon. I wonder if female members get the same half naked cartoon or if their half naked cartoons are male.

Well anyway. I would like to fine a social network site that all of the Brigade members can log into and get regular updates of what we are doing. That is the sad thing about facebook. Surely they have made money off the tons of adds that are plastered through out the thing. Heck now I am getting ads that appear to be entries from other users. Of course they are put in because everyone has learned to ignore the ads on the sidebar. You would think they had made enough money to have a customer service department. Maybe they have made their money by convincing a new generation of customers that they do not need to be respected.

Juggling Ball Obessions

Juggling balls have been a minor obsession over the last couple of years. I have sewn them, knit them, crocheted them, filled balloons with sand, slit open ball pit balls and turned them into juggling balls. They have been stuffed with sand, wood pellets, BBs. ball bearings, ground up walnut shells and even water. They have been cube shaped, pyramids and now sort of round. As for the round we have tried all kinds of ways to make them round. We have tried six pieces, ten pieces and even one horrible experience making them like a mini soccer balls. The closest on the round we have gotten to is making them like a baseballs. Odd how the one sport I like to watch turns our to know the easiest way to make a round juggling ball.

Tonight I am going to bed after making one ball that is the closest we have ever gotten. A millet filled baseball shaped juggling ball. It is still not perfect but it closer than I have gotten thus far. The newly minted ball is sitting in bed with me as I type this before I turn in. I locked all the cats out of my bedroom so they will not play with it. In the morning I will stuff two waiting shells with millet and sew them up. If all goes as planned I think this will be as good as we can make them without industrial sewing machines.

I would like to thank the members of my clown troupe and the Masters of Flying Object Juggling Club at CMU. Their feed back and testing has been invaluable. Also none of them have tried to have me committed for my obsession and have been down right polite about it.

When all is said and done it looks as if these balls will cost around 2 dollars a set to make. That is not bad. Heck it down right affordable when you consider most juggling balls are ten dollars or more a ball. As I look at the finished ball on the pillow next to me I realize two things. First my quest to make the best juggling ball I can make may be at an end. Second I need a girl friend.

Thank you all for you time, help and understanding. Now I wonder if I can make a decent juggling club.

Balls and Roller Skating.

The millet has been ordered. Well 20 pounds of it has been order and will be here tuesday. I have several cut outs of the balls at the ready. I have been sewing them a few at a time as I sit around watching the tele. So when I do have the millet I should be able to stuff the balls and have a few sets ready to go for next friday's juggling group.

After letting everyone in a couple of juggling groups play with the round balls. They like the size and the only complaint with the sawdust off the wood pellets and they angular ends. So the millet should solve all our problems with the balls.

I will keep you posted on this thing.

Also the Roller Skating at Eden Park starts thursday. This is a great little fundraiser for a local college fund. You would not think clowns are into education. Actually you would be right for the most part. Heck Tri-Rivers Clown Alley threw out a bunch of people who wanted to teach juggling. Anyway Steel City Clown Brigade is all about education. We tutor kids and help raise money for educating them.

Well  our contribution to this outing is showing up and doing balloon animals. In future I will post the times and cost of these events. So if you are in the South Hill may want to stop by for this one.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Rambling About Balls

It is odd to me that people like round balls a great deal more than cubes. I am talking of course of juggling balls.

Practicing with the CMU Juggling Club has just be great on so many levels. One of the benefits is experimenting with new equipment. In the past we would just have the members of our group to kick around a new juggling apparatus. In the last year if we have been experimenting with something we h

ave been able to pass it around what ever it is with a dozen or more jugglers.

One of the newest thing we have experimented with is the round juggling ball. now you may say to yourself, Self, aren’t all balls round. Well I suppose in once sense you would be correct. We tend to call anything that is the size of a ball a ball. So we have cubes that are balls. I am sure there are some pictures of juggling cubes.

Anyway. It is much easier to sew a cube. I have gotten rather good at it. I can sex a juggling cube in under two minutes. Stuff in under a minute and sew up the stuffing hole by hand in two minutes. We have gotten so good at making juggling cubes that we give sets away to strangers who show up at juggling practices.

The ball pattern we are experimenting is a lot like the cover on a baseball. In face I disassemble a base ball to get the pattern. We upped the size just a little bit. Anyway it weighs the same as our large juggling cubes.

Anyway we have made two sets of round bean bag type juggling balls. One set is being circulated among the younger members of the brigade. The other set I have been using as much as possible. Also it has been passed around at two of the CMU Juggling meetings.

Everyone likes the size except for a couple of the youngest members of the Brigade. They of course being ten have small hands. I think I can scale them down to meet their needs. The only other complaint is the stuffing. We use wooden fuel pellets to fill our bean bags. They are angular and let out dust for the first couple of weeks of juggling with them.

The grains I have found in the strip district have been processed so that they can easily be boiled. This means that is they get wet they expand. They also cost seven bucks a pound. That is the problem with the wooden pellets. If they get wet they expand.

I do know that many juggling balls are stuffed with millet. I don’t know what kind of millet is best. Even so on the up side you can get white millet for feeding birds at Agway stores. They closest Agway store is a bit of a hike It looks like it is around forty bucks for a fifty pound bag. This is a lot more than the three buck we spend for fifty pounds of wood pellets. Also I imagine the volume of millet is a bit less. Which at this point we are stuffing the balls by volume and not weight.

Well that is where we stand. in another week or two we might have a round millet filled juggling ball. Well we will test that bad boy when we get it. If the stuffing is really our last problem this may be the last step to the best possible juggling ball we can make.

So that is more than you probably every wanted to hear someone ramble on about balls. Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Early Morning Randomness

Still kicking around the idea of writing a book. I have a couple hundred pages of something that I like. Well I like the idea of the story. I am not sure i am in love with how it is working out. I will throw another fourty pages into it and read through it. Maybe this is the one. Maybe it is practice for when i finally get around to writting the Great American Novel.

On other front i am still messing around with knitting. I find myself more fascinated with pattern and individual stitches these days. For what ever reason i don't really have any inclination to make something useful. In a lot of ways it is like the books I have been kicking around for years.

On the clown Brigade Front we are trying to integrate Standing kettle and Birthday Parties into the group. We have also started providing some religious services to a local nursing home. It is nice to see the Brigade getting back to it's roots.

Well just checking in. Be safe out there

Cleaning the Carpet.

At this lovely hour I am cleaning the carpet in the brigade office. It is always disturbing the shampoo a light colored carpet. Sure you get a nice clean carpet when you are done.When you are cleaning you get to know just how much junk is in your carpet. In a tan carpet the color charge is greater than I would like.

I did not pick my carpet color. I probably would have picked something darker. I am not sure why i am rambling on about this. Over the last couple weeks I have been tryng to spruce up the office. In July we started taking a bunch of shows for money. It has been nice for some of the young people to earn some pocket money. Heck it has been nice for the Brigade to have another source of income.

With the lack of another clown troupe in Pittsburgh we appear to be the only way new clowns will be trained. The sad thing is that there are two national clown organizations in United States that are not interested in having a growing clown community in this area.

I have always though it was important for us to continue the craft of clowning. I just don't know. This does not feel like something our Brigade should be doing. Sadly I do not think there is going to be anyone else to do it.

Ask Zeeppo

Clown News 8/23/2013

J Rock Cat 1

Slow Progress

Video is not a medium that I have done much in over the years. Lots of people have fancy camera and microphones and the like.  So doing vidcasts and editing stuff has been a bit of chore to pick up on.

The thing is that if the Brigade is going to be able to look for donations on line we are going to have to prove that people should give us money with something that we put on line. So we need to be able to make television or something like it.

These newscasts have been the something like a phase that we are going through in order to make something up. They have been six kinds of terrible and sometime seven kinds of terrible. In our most recent attempt we have even done some editing. The editing was all me and all bad.

Well I working my way through Luther on the Internet. I am on the fourth episode of the most recent series and Ruth Wilson's name popped up on the screen. If you do not watch this show you are missing out. Any way this should be a good episode.

Be safe out there and keep your stick on the ice.

Clown News 7/20/2013

God times throwing fire

I had fun at Duck Hollow yesterday. It was the Brigade's first juggling at Duck Hollow of the season. This is me juggling torches in my kilt. The picture is blurry because I was moving so fast. It has nothing to do with trying to use a camera phone at night.

Anyway it was a neat evening. We did not have a bunch of people but the people we had were a nice mix so it was a nice evening.

I would like to think the Fire Arts community in Pittsburgh is starting to turn the corner. Yesterday I did not have to explain to anyone that they should not be drunk or standing next to the fuel pit. Also not once did I have to tell a drunk smoker that they were standing next to something flammable.

The sad thing is was almost entirely a new group of people. The folks that showed up at Duck Hollow last year who defended drunken spinning where not there. So there is no proof that they learned anything from the police periodically breaking up the spinning groups last year. It would have been nice to save the Pittsburgh Fire Arts Group. With the way things a going they will simply become another irrelevant internet group.

Well safe safe out there everyone

Clown News 5/19/2013

Rambling About Clown Stuff

2:33 AM

It is early in the morning and I am once again without sleep. Actually I feel like I could sleep but it does not happen.

I have been working on several thing of various degrees of importance. I am working on a way to increase the rate of fire on the Brigade confettie cannon the Clownzooka. I am back to working on the LAst Brigadier. I also have three grant proposals for the Clown Briagde in the works. They are not due for some time but I need to stay ahead of such things.

Everyone who writes a book thinks they are going to write the great American Novel. I suppose that is mostly Americans that think that. Anyway, I think The Last Brigadier may be my best shot at that title. The more I work on it the more I like the characters. Also I know exactly where this book is going to go. Heck I even have a plot outline written out.

The book was started three years ago. In it is a character who is a Baptist Preacher in a church up the Hill from where the Brigadier was once stationed. His fictional atributes are very similar to my current minister's actual existance. I wonder if I knew about him in the back of my mind when I created this character.

Well be safe out there. And keep your stick on the ice.

Ted Nuggent Once Knew the Way

This is not the man I want in control of gun control. Maybe if I had an electric guitar I would want him around. At the end of the Video Ted does prove that we do not need guns. Please watch.



You see Ted is able to fend off the flying bullets from an army of cops with his tasty guitar riff. So kids put down you guns and pick up a guitar.

Bad Crickets

I do not know a great deal about fire arms. Nor am I an expert on raising children.

Even so this is what the NRA is defending. The kid in the picture cannot be more than ten even if they are really short. I have met many ten year olds. Being a clown you get to meet lots of kids. I am not sure I would have wanted any of them to be armed.

I remember when people were outraged by Joe Camel. Joe was a cartoon Camel that smoked Camel Cigarettes. He was always in a cool popular place with good looking women in awe as he played the piano or golfed or what ever upright cartoon camels do. In Joe's defense none of the kids who took up smoking because he was smoking killed their siblings with second hand smoke. Well not with the same efficiency that you can do it with a cricket rifle.

At least with cigarettes it took years to kill people. If you follow Jimminy's boot wearing cousin you can take about todlers left and right. It was interesting listening to a discussion on the "news" channel about this. The Gun Defender was claiming it was a good idea for kids to learn things young. He claimed there was a great heritage in our nation of learning things while being young.

You know I teach young people how to juggle. You have seen the videos on this blog if you are long time reader. Have you ever seen a kids with a set of swords in their hands or torches. No because it is too dangerous.

When will Americans realize five year olds with guns are dangerous? Perhaps the NRA wants all the kindergarder kids to have baby rifles to prevent the next school shooting.