There arises the odd instance in which you may find your freezer filled with an overly abundant supply of a particular type or cut of meat.  On such occasions, it is well served to have a simple high-yield recipe handy that can incorporate the meat that you wish to minimize.  Recently I found myself with an excessive amount of ground venison sausage, and a need to clear up some freezer space.  The following recipe for venison breakfast burritos is something that I came up with as a solution to this problem. 

     The yield of this recipe is around eight burritos, but can be tweaked to make more or less depending upon how much filing you allocate to each wrap. High in protein, these burritos are comprised of deer meat, hash browns, bacon, onion, pepper, salsa, cheese, and eggs wrapped inside a flour tortilla.

     You will Need:

• Venison sausage
• 6 strips of bacon
• 1 medium skillet worth of shredded hash browns
• ½ purple onion – chopped
• ½ red bell pepper – chopped
• 5 eggs
• Shredded pepper jack/cheddar
• 8 large tortillas
• Butter/olive oil
• Garlic powder
• Salt + pepper
• Sage
• Salsa, if desired
• Aluminum Foil

     You will need at least two skillets fired up, but everything should finish at roughly the same time.  In the first skillet, place on medium heat and begin to brown the shredded hash browns.  Add salt and pepper to taste, and apply a sufficient amount of olive oil. 

     In the second skillet, begin to fry the bacon.  Once the bacon is done, remove to a separate plate and use the bacon grease to sautée the chopped onion and pepper on low medium heat. 

     Back to the first skillet, coat the bottom of the skillet with butter and begin to brown the sausage.  Around a pound-and-a-half of sausage seemed appropriate for this particular recipe.  Add sage, salt, and pepper to taste as the sausage is browning.  Venison is very lean, so add another tablespoon or so of butter during the process.  Additionally, a little heat can go a long way with venison, so adding a dash of your choice of chilli powder or hot sauce to the mix may be advisable at this point.  Once the meat has browned, crack the eggs in to the skillet and begin stirring in until they are done and scrambled. 

     At this point, you should have hash browns, cooked bacon, sautéed veggies, and the egg and sausage hash in separate bowls or skillets.  Begin to place the various ingredients in the tortillas in balanced amounts.  Once this is done, crumble the cooked bacon in the wraps and sprinkle the shredded cheese on top to melt.  I happened to include a bit of peach salsa and thought it added a lot, but salsa can be a deeply personal experience so feel free to use your discretion.

     I will openly admit that I am lacking a good measure of sophistication in my burrito rolling technique, and find using a sheet of aluminum foil under each tortilla aids in the process.  This will also come in handy if you wish to save a few burritos by keeping them wrapped in the foil and placed in the freezer to enjoy later.  I have found that a single burrito makes for a filling meal at any time of day, and they keep quite well in a freezer bag, so it may be a good idea to make as many as possible!

2014 Aussie Open - Redux

The 2016 Australian Open is in full flow.  This is supremely exciting to me for two reasons:
1) I am a massive tennis nerd  2) Over the past few years, the AO has become my favorite slam to watch and follow.  There are several factors to this, not least of which (and this may seem counter intuitive) is that I have to wake up at 3am to catch a lot of the big matches.
In light of all of this, I decided to revisit a few of my old postings from this time in 2014.
Allow me set the stage for this lengthy monograph - I am an active member of the Talk Tennis forums and write contributing posts occasionally.  Truthfully, I spend a good portion of this effort messing with other posters and generally goofing around.  However, after the final of the 2014 Australian Open, I wrote a little exposition about the outcome of the last match.  Strangely, I do not have any recollection of writing this, but felt it was surprisingly readable considering the substance and structure of many of my other contributions.
Since this match, Stan has won another slam (2015 French Open), maintained strong results throughout 2014-2015, and solidified himself as a top 5 player on the ATP World Tour.

If you do not follow tennis, or don't care to read due to the length, that is quite alright.  It was posted with a specific audience in mind and, quite frankly, I am just putting it here so that I don't have to dig back through 2 years of posts should I need to reference it again.

 ______________________________________________________________________________
(Let it be first said that I like Stan and Rafael and respect them both as players)

This Australian Open this year was very interesting from a spectating perspective.
It seems that there has been an undue amount of controversy drummed up over the proceedings and results of the final. Additionally, it would seem that there is no middle ground to be had on the subject, based on the largely unreadable polarizing stances taken by most people who have been posting recently.

I would like to submit that, while there was the factor of a less-than-100% competitor in the final, the tournament ended how it should have, and most probably would have.

Stan played an exceptional 2013, and either defeated or took to the wire all members of the top 4 at slams and large arenas. He played with consistency and heart during big moments, and began to develop the mentality and tactics of someone who could challenge any top player on any given day. He reached a well-deserved high in the rankings and made a significant impression on the tour, both with fans and with other players. All said, he’s been knocking on the door for a while now.

Additionally, he worked his tail off during the off-season, and his results have been indicative. He marched through the Chennai Open. Coming into the Australian Open, he looked to be on a mission, like he believed he could make a run. I know that many people on this forum had him selected as a dark horse to push deep or possibly win the whole thing.

He played very well through a supremely tough draw, finally ousting the defending champ at his favorite tournament. I will not say that beating Novak at the Aussie is as meaningful as taking out Rafa at the French Open, but it is up there. In my opinion, this was the Final Boss.

He then beat Berdych in the SF, who remained unbroken the entire tournament. Again, he was playing solid, tough tennis. Credit to him for not taking the typical ATP route and allowing a big win on a big stage to cause you to lose focus and fall to a lesser opponent in the next round.

We now come to the final.

Stan was playing lights-out, completely dominating the court. Even he said after the match that the first set-and-a-half of the final was some of the best tennis he has ever played. If you doubt that go watch a few highlights. Again credit to him for not folding when reaching the big stage, as many predicted this final would be a walkover.

As far as Nadal’s injury goes, I do not think that he was faking. I also do not think that he was suffering with the injury to any significant extent during the first set of the match. He was moving well and playing well.  However, Stan was, on this day, obviously the better player.

As far as the controversy on the Medical Time Out goes, I think that Rafael is generally a pretty sporting guy. As the rules stand now, he was within his rights to take the MTO (I personally believe that the rules should be amended a bit to only allow for MTOs at the end of sets or before the injured player serves). However, I also believe that Stan was well within his right to challenge the umpire and ask what the issue was. This MTO was probably entirely legitimate, but the problem was, as Stan stated, that this had happened multiple times in the last few matches and just generally did not look favorable. That combined with the issue of some repeated on-court coaching made this in to more of a talking point than it should have been.

(As for Rafa’s press conference, I thought he did a fair job giving Stan the credit for the win and the solid two weeks, but I felt he could have done without alluding to his back being injured prior to the match. I don’t know if this was necessarily accurate, and shouldn’t have been a considered a factor throughout the first set.)

At the end of the day, although Nadal is a warrior and has been known to fight back, we cannot suddenly speculate that if not for a sore back he would have simply turned everything around and began dominating Stan for the next three sets. Any guesses on the result of the match based on the first set-and-a-half would result in Stan winning cleanly.

Again, credit to Stan for composing himself and finishing a job against an opponent who was playing unexpectedly and erratically. It would have been very easy for him to let the situation and the occasion get in his head, but he remained focused and displayed the mental discipline of a champion.

If we are concerned with such things, the facts of the matter are:
• In 35 previous Slam appearances, he never made a final.
• No eighth seed had won Oz since 1980.
• No player had beaten the top two seeds en route to a Slam title since Sergi Bruguera in 1993.
• No player had ever vanquished Nadal and Novak in the same Slam.
• Stan was 2-27 against the world's top two heading into the Aussie

But, when all is said and done, stats are just stats. They’re numbers about the past. It did not seem that Stan cared much about stats, and came in playing like he would win the trophy throughout the tournament.

I do not think that the conclusion can now be drawn that “Stan is in Rafa’s head” based on the result of one match. But all in all, I hope that we can all agree that for two weeks Stan was clearly the best player and more than earned the title.


He does not deserve an asterisk of any kind next to this victory.

It is 5am.  I rarely encounter this iteration 5 o'clock.
With a good measure of difficulty I roll out of bed and begin to make my way downstairs towards the smell of cooking breakfast.  It is dark throughout the house, save for a small light above the sink in the kitchen.  My roommate is already up and working his magic over the skillet.  We share our traditional jabs about who was able to wake first, and who will get a lesser share of the bacon.
This is our ritual, the beginning of some of the best times we can hope to spend together.
After breakfast and coffee, we load up the truck and begin barreling down the road, bound for more elevated territories.  Much of the trip to Location X is filled with talk of strategy and timelines; which fly patters to use in what waters, what part of the creek we will be in by which time of day- that sort of thing.  Both of us have been lately practicing a technique called Tight Line Nymphing.  "Competition regulation", my roommate says, and the new challenge lends itself to a good deal of excitement.
We continue to bump along the dusty dirt road, a bit worn from the most recent heavy rainfall, until we reach the mouth of the creek.  The truck is tucked back in the brush along the bank, and we throw on our gear and packs.  We are in the water and making our way upstream just as the sun is beginning to peak through the trees.
To the casual observer, it would all appear more closely associated with hunting than fishing.  We wear camouflaged patterns, creep low through the thicket, and crawl over river rocks like lizards.  These are all very necessary measures, as we are stalking through Native Trout territory.  These fish are much more elusive than their stocked siblings, and many times more difficult to land.  The particular nature of native trout requires a delicate approach to the water.  Once a run has been cast into a handful of times, we move on.  If one of us slips on a stone and causes more than a small ripple upstream, we move on.  If the sun peaks from behind a cloud and causes us to cast a shadow towards the other bank, we move on. As is such, there is a fair balance of moving through rough-cut trails and along the bank between cast series. 
Each run is approached with a due level of respect and consideration.  The first few casts allow the nymph to dead-drift through the current.  Each subsequent cast incorporates various jigging techniques in order to rouse any particularly coy salmo trutta that may be patrolling nearby.
By noon we have made our way several miles upstream to the confluence.  We share our customary mid-day meal of Pepsi and beef jerky, with Cow Tails for dessert and sustained energy. 
It is at this moment that the serious business begins.  After lunch we each pick a side of the fork to work up, and assign ourselves a 200-yard beat to fish exclusively.  This is to simulate the circumstances in a competitive scenario, and practice having to catch fish in an area with limited potential. 
"Fish to the right side of the fork if it has rained recently, fish to the left side if it is cloudy".  This is what we were told by a guide we met along the way, who begrudgingly offered the information due to the fact that we already had knowledge of this particular location.  It was neither cloudy nor had it recently rained, so we consider conditions to be all square.
The remainder of the afternoon continues on in similar fashion, as it usually does.  We see no other people moving about.  It is sincerely rare that anyone ventures this deep in to the wilderness area.  Being among wilderness so rarely exposed to humans, we regularly see patterns of animal behavior that surprise us.  You come to understand and appreciate the depth and beauty of the natural world beyond what one can observe from the side of a nature trail.
We meet back up at the confluence before daylight begins to wain and begin to make our way through the woods and back towards the footpath.  The walk back is filled with talk of successfully implemented strategy, and a comparison of catch numbers.  This is, of course, on the honor system.  In a way, this conversation and the long trek out of the wilderness is the best part of the trip.  The conclusion of another good day, marked by some great shared experience.

things dangerous to come to

Release the Reigns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9DICw3J914

^^^
This is one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands.
It doesn't have a ton to do with this post, I just like it.

Maybe it has a little to do with the post.

We'll see how it goes.  I'm going to try something new and write stream-of-conciousness.
Sometimes that is a better method of thought collection, albeit a poorer method of literary expression.



Life is hard.

Life is hard for almost everyone.

I heard it said once that you are either headed in to a storm, in the middle of a storm, or headed out of a storm and getting ready for the next one.
This is a pretty good piece of imagery.

We can do everything within our power to avoid a lot of the more obvious cracks in the pavement, and still fall in to a sinkhole.
Sometimes we can ramble around blindfolded and hope we don't bump in to anything too hard.

Either way, if you engage the world in any significant way, there is no possibility of missing the challenges along the way.
It is what we do with these things; mistakes, challenges, trials, hard times, whathaveyou; that matter.  It is what builds us and strengthens us.

Taking the events of your life and using them to shape yourself in to the person that you want to become is the goal.  By any means necessary.

If you are willing to put in the work, and face parts of yourself or your life that you may not be comfortable or satisfied with, I promise it will be worth your time

Along the way, there will be people, and things, that will be measures of comfort, guidance, and solidarity.
When the real challenges present themselves, some of these things will be there, and will come up short.
The only true sufficient source will be you.  Your character.
At the center of this will be Christ.

I don't mean this in an uber-preachy way.  I mean this sincerely.

I have a very difficult time keeping this perspective.

It's like a perfect resource book resting on my shelf that I never dust off an read.
I pass by it every day and think "maybe I should open that up and take a look", but never do, then trip and fall down the stairs.


I do know that God never said that life would be easy and clean.
He never said that you could move through it smoothly with all of the dots lining up just right along the way.
It will be hard, confusing, messy.  Regardless of what our expectations are going in.


The point is, in some roundabout way, you have to deal with what is in front of you in the best way you can.  Head on, and with a clear heart.

If your struggling heavily at your job, have relationships that are falling away, aren't where you think you might need to be, and feel run down in general, it's easy to say "Well, at least I have all of my fingers and toes".
But that is a momentary reprieve from the task at hand.  What needs to be done to address what's on your heart?

This may seem counter-intuitive, but I think that an emphasis is too often place on the journey, rather than the destination.
You read that correctly.

Yes, the path along the way is very important, and largely shapes whatever the destination ends up being.

However, I think the end-goal is often undervalued or, rather, underutilized.


What is it that you ultimately want?  What does that look like right now? 
Who do you ultimately want to be?  What would that person do right now?



It's late.  I'm tired.

While General Douglas MacArthur was stationed in Australia and acting as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the Southwest Pacific Area, he penned this prayer for his only son, Arthur.

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee—and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.

Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.

Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.

And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the weakness of true strength.

Then I, his father will dare to whisper, “I have not lived in vain. ”

outside

Ladies and gentlemen, the fall is essentially upon us.

I could not be happier about this.

The best thing about the fall is being outside.

I really like being outside.

A lot.

One day I hope to have a job that affords me a little more time outdoors.

Or a cabin with a massive garden.

Or just a farm.

Or race in the Iditarod.

So on and so forth.

 

There is something very renewing about spending an extended time in the wilderness, and I often wonder why that is.

I understand that it is not everyone’s cup of tea.  Humans have spent the better part of our existence trying to refine and escape from outside.

We retreat inside to seek the comfort of a roof and air conditioning.

Going outside has become an increasingly recreationalized.  Not that it’s entirely a bad thing.  I would never want to give anyone a reason not to get off of the grid for a spell, or enjoy the brillance of the natural world.

I guess, for a lot of folks, it is like a retreat from the retreat.

For my own part, I enjoy the simplicity of nature.  It is more of a retreat from the unnecessary things involved in the day-to-day.  It feels good to step back, slow down, and take stock.

 An appreciation and understanding of the outdoors is something I want to foster in my own children.  I think it is an oft neglected aspect of childhood in the modern age.  A walk on the creek bed can inspire an imagination as much as a video game (although some video games are very well developed)

 

At any rate, I cannot express how much I enjoy falling leaves, camp fires, hammocks, pumpkin pie, and apple cider.  So I won't even try.