Winner winner A1C, Cat's Cafe and Tequila

FIrst of all - My brother got his first copies of his new book Cat's Cafe which is an historically accurate fun read about the expansion west to Idaho Falls (then called Eagle Rock).

If you liked Deadwood or Hell on Wheels you will love this book.  Its a fun easy read with a TON of history and references if you want more information.  I am totally impressed even though I hate to admit it (he IS my brother so . . . ).  I'm not a huge fiction reader typically and especially westerns but I do live historically accurate "fiction" and I gotta say - I read the prolog and first 3 chapters and LITERALLY look forward every day for a few more chapters.      

He even has a trailer from the book.  Honestly, DJ and I were watching youtube and this came on randomly out of the blue and DJ said  "Oh that looks like a good movie,   WAIT! - is that Ralls'es (?) book?"   

     

So yea - I'm impressed.   PLEASE help - Can you all just click on his website. The publishers want to see a following to see if there is mass market appeal and one way is clicks on his website 

RallsMelotte.com   just look around a few pages.  Get those numbers up.  It really is a good fun read full of history.  

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Second of all  I had my first A1C (blood sugar) test after I was diagnosed with Diabetes three months ago when I came in at 7.8 and as you see on the scale it's not great.  Of course I went through the 5 stages of being diagnosed, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.  

  At the acceptance stage I cut out all (most) beer and snacks and replaced all my snacks with an assortment of nuts and peanuts (not a nut but a bean actually),  I have nuts everywhere. Nuts are a super food. I also stopped eating the ENTIRE pizza and watched my portions and started looking at carbs in food.  The goal is to stay under 150ish a day.

WELL - I dropped 20 pounds (from 172 to 152), worked out 3 times a week and of course was taking 2000 then 1500 mg of metformin a day. 

A few days ago my A1C test (which is a 3 month average) is down to 5.4 and was told to drop the metformin to 1000 and maybe 500 mg a day and keep doing what I'm doing.

WINNER WINNER.  I'm normal.   

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So it's all good here in the coming winter of Tequila.   Yea - Tequila.    We had the summer of Rum and then got married.  We had the Covid induced winter of Vodka where we tried all sorts of vodkas to see differences and now - we're looking into the winter of tequila and yes - clothes really do fall off with tequila. 

We have tried 5 now and so far The Rocks tequila REALLY is smooth!  The ones we have tried.

Jose Cuervo - not bad at all actually  

Milagro which is nice and "smooth"er 

Espolon which is from Agave grown in the highlands and is MUCH more citrusy and made for mixed drinks - a little harsh but a lime will take some of that harshness away 

1800 an excellent goto tequila 

And a new favorite - The Rocks, Teremana - ACTUALLY smoothest we have tried yet   VERY smooth.  The others have the word "smooth" but come on man  smooth?  This one is. 

 

Have not tried George Cloony's yet which most people say is one the the smoothest.  What an amazing plant Agave is  - we have watched a lot of videos about tequila :-)    it's going to be a long winter. 

BTW - Tequila, Rum and Vodka have zero sugar and actually will bring down you blood sugar (a lot of testing on that one).  Although while your blood sugar lowers your liver and kidneys have to work a little harder.      

Carry on! 

BEST SMASH BURGER EVER!!!!

 We were watching Americas Test Kitchen and they have a piece on how to make an outstanding smash burger so we tried it. 

O M G  

You REALLY need to try this at least once.

Both DJ and I have now said three times - this is one of the best burgers we have ever had!!!  AND there is even a money saving thing going on - or at least a logistical burger thing we over came. 

Since hamburger now comes in 1.2lb packages we always had that extra 0.2 left over when we needed 1 lb.   FIXED!!!!   

OK - you buy 1.2 lbs of burger - instead of trying to get 4 Qtr. pound patties do this.  Roll the burger into small 2 oz (1/8 lb) balls.  You will need two balls per burger and left over balls go into the freezer for anything you need a small amount of burger for - OR one more smash burger.

Get all prep work ready BEFORE you cook.  Onions, cheese (American is a MUST, seriously American is the BEST for burgers).  Once the burgers go one its REALLY REALLY fast  

 Then with a small pan wrap aluminum foil on the bottom.  You need to do this for the smashing part.  Doing this will make them all very even.  A spatula will make uneven smash's 

 If you have a cast iron skillet heat it up on medium for 5-10 minutes.  cast iron heats unevenly. After that turn it up for a good fry 

Place the balls in a hot pan and a little oil and smash the crap out of the balls. Press HARD and get them about the width if your tiny finger OR LESS 

Add any salts or what ever and set the timer for 2 minutes   

TWO MINUTES!!! 

After 2 minutes they will look like this.   NOW - flip them over to sear for 15 seconds

2 minutes first side  15 seconds second side,  

  Then - put one slider on a bun, put American cheese on top and put the other slider on top of it. 

It will be the juiciest most tasty burger EVER.  Get cheap buns that will crush down (not the best finish burger photo LOL) 

Let me know!!  

SO here is a question

A couple personal things to let you know I'm doing GREAT.  I've lost 18 pounds (172 - 154) my knee feels great and I'm healthy and wise (the wealthy is still in flux with this stock market). 

this summer we saw 3 amazing concerts (Nightwish, Roger Waters and Ghost) with the last one GHOST I believe was the best concert I have ever seen in my life. Seriously the most polite and happy crowd I have ever ever seen.   For any of you that watch Stranger Things here is Mary on the Cross (not what you think it's about  LOL).     

 

I have a project from all my photos at the concert.  Here are a few of my favs of the MANY MANY Sisters of Sin 

It was an amazing concert! 

ANYWAY - It's NHL and NBA season and I did pretty darn well last year on picks, up 62 units before it fell to mid 40s and I stopped.   Should I post picks here??  is there enough interest?  I post them on the Sports Handicapping forum on Facebook but should I copy and paste here also?   

This is what I put on the forum a few days ago.    
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After my initial idea/system bloomed and then stagnated last year I've tweaked it and will have dogs this year in NHL ML and PL (probably not NBA yet)

Still a couple weeks away though. How does it work?

I have a power rating that picks games but as we all know winning and losing games is meaningless. Who cares what your record is, 100% meaningless. It's $$ that counts right?

So I added in the line WITH my power rating. What I found last year is there are times my power rating PLUS the line was right on and those were the games I picked and it seemed to work (see graph).

This the summer I looked at ALL the games that the system DIDN'T pick. WOW, if I would have bet the OTHER side on those games I might have done even better!!

That's the plan this year - HOWEVER - this causes a problem . . .  SO SO MANY GAMES!! Could I be betting EVERY GAME? If my ROI is 10% with 1200 games . . . is that a bad thing?

My goal is always 5% ROI which is what the pros strive for which would be 60 units and a LOT of wagers. 

This will start as a trickle but by the middle of November it should be balls to the wall wagers. Quantity vs. Quality.

first wagers should be in a couple weeks. Stay tuned

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Let me know if this is easier. 

Cheers