Tractor Square Dancing

Yes I am proud to be from PA!

Odd Things on the Internet

Kitty Wake-Up Call

5 Players Suspended for the Tide

What the heck does this mean?

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA ATHLETIC MEDIA RELATIONS

Saturday, October 20, 2007

ALABAMA FOOTBALL

5 FOOTBALL STUDENT-ATHLETES SUSPENDED FOR TODAY'S GAME

TUSCALOOSA - The University of Alabama has suspended five football student-athletes - Antoine Caldwell, Glen Coffee, Marlon Davis, Marquis Johnson, and Chris Rogers - for today's game with the University of Tennessee for a violation of institutional policy involving impermissible receipt of textbooks.

The infraction was discovered on Thursday, and the school immediately initiated an inquiry that is ongoing. The student-athletes were informed of the suspensions on Friday upon the initial results of the inquiry. The University is still in a fact-finding phase and will release further details when it is completed.

"This is a situation that developed late this week and we are actively investigating," said Director of Athletics Mal Moore. "These suspensions are a measure aimed at dealing with the facts as we know them at this time. While I cannot discuss the situation in great detail, I can assure you we will address it fully when we have completed this inquiry."

-UA-

J.K. outed Dumbledore

Here's the story @ Yahoo.

I believe in this case the fan-fic was already ahead of the curve.

Attn: All Alabama Drivers - Take Note!

more funny pictures

I *heart* I Can Has Cheeseburger!!

more funny pictures

5 Websites that Can Change Your Life...

...according to the Today Show

http://www.expertvillage.com/

http://www.lemonade.com/

http://info.asksunday.com/

http://fatsecret.com/

http://www.kayak.com/

844 lb Shark caught in Florida Panhandle

Record winning shark catch

AP Article

9 Words Women Use

1. Fine: This is the word women use to end an argument when they are Right and you need to shut up.

2. Five Minutes: If she is getting dressed, this means a half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more Minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.

3. Nothing: This is the calm before the storm. This means something, And you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with nothing Usually end in fine.

4. Go Ahead: This is a dare, not permission. Don't Do It!

5. Loud Sigh: This is actually a word, but is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men. A loud sigh means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you about nothing. (Refer back to #3 for the meaning of nothing.)

6. That's Okay: This is one of the most dangerous statements a woman can make to a man. That's okay means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.

7. Thanks: A woman is thanking you, do not question, or Faint. Just say you’re welcome.

8. Whatever: Is a women's way of saying F@!K YOU!

9. Don't worry about it, I got it: Another dangerous statement, meaning this is something that a woman has told a man to do several times, but is now doing it herself. This will later result in a man asking ‘What’s wrong?' For the woman's response refer to #3.

Scabies @ Harvard

Eww!

Here are the links.

IvyGate Blog with the letter that went to the students

The Gawker Link

One more reason to keep it in your pants kids!

Edelweiss German Cafe & Bakery

This very well may be my favorite place in Tuscaloosa.
The pretzels are awesome!

From the Tuscaloosa News

Published Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Flavor of Germany
Restaurant owners like recipes from Germany

By Lucinda Coulter
Special to The Tuscaloosa News

TUSCALOOSA | When Chris Weidmann unlocks the Edelweiss coffee shop at 5:30 every morning, two clocks help her stay in synch braiding bread and punching cinnamon roll pastry.

Video at bottom of story

One large round clock set for German time reminds her of her mother, who lives in the small town of Neuhausen where Weidmann grew up, near the Black Forest. She uses the other, set for time in Tuscaloosa, to know when to expect breakfast customers and, in the afternoons, to drizzle icing over tiny pumpkin spice cakes.

Weidmann, 41, and colleague Ester Scheeff opened the shop in July as part of a longtime dream they have had of owning a restaurant. Born and reared only 10 miles apart, the two German women from Swabia in southern Germany love the simple culinary traditions of their homeland.

They first cooked and baked for their families and friends, many of whom are employed as their husbands are at Mercedes Benz U.S. International in Vance. They met one another two years ago as bakers at The Café, a European bakery that closed in February.

Now the entrepreneurs are expanding culinary choices in the coffee shop on Fourth Street in Tuscaloosa to include authentic dishes of the Black Forest. They added a lunch menu with bratwurst, salamis and German sandwiches on demand in the shop they named for the small, white flower that grows only in the Alps.

“It’s a dream come true for me to stay in America and open our own little place,” Weidmann said. “It is like cooking at home.”

For the two shop owners, long hours cooking, first at the restaurant and then fixing meals at home for their families, is a way of life.

“We did a lot of cooking,” Weidmann said of helping her mother prepare meals for the 12 children in her family. “She had to feed them all.”

Swabian dishes are home-style, made with fresh ingredients, and the vegetables, meats and fillings for pastries are easy to find. Potatoes and meat dishes with noodles or spaetzle are popular and bread is baked every day. The steps for pretzels or layered pastries cannot be rushed.

“It’s food that’s good, rich and plenty,” Weidmann said. “We only use normal ingredients that you’d have at home. We don’t use a lot of fru-fru.”

Breads, pretzels and Black Forest cakes

At the Edelweiss, Scheeff is known for the pretzels and breads she bakes, and Weidmann prepares the pastries, many of them in abundant layers of cake and cream or topped with honey and almond dressings.

The Black Forest cake that Weidmann has made since childhood is her most popular recipe and requires a lot of whipped cream – and time.

“It became my favorite because everybody wanted it,” Weidmann said. “You have to take two or three days, step by step.”

Other pastries she prepares include cinnamon rolls and variations with the basic pastry dough that include almond fillings and vanilla pudding. Weidmann refers to a popular braided breakfast bread as “an old German thing, like you braid your hair.”

Timing is key to all of the food preparation.

“We use no preservatives,” Weidmann said as she rolled out pastry dough and drizzled white sugar and cinnamon on top. “We make it fresh to be eaten that day or the next.”

Scheeff’s specialties are pretzels, bread and a mustard-based potato salad – all of which she learned to prepare from her mother and mother-in-law. With three grown children, she wanted to perfect her techniques for baking breads such as multi-grains and pumpkin seed recipes that friends requested.

“I baked bread every day when we moved to Tuscaloosa, and everybody liked my pretzels,” Scheeff said.

Weidmann said that one of the shop’s regular customers often orders a meal-sized bowl of the potato salad for lunch.

Scheeff uses no mayonnaise and instead combines oil, vinegar, vegetable broth, salt and pepper. The mustard is an important ingredient for the glossy dish, served hot or cold.

Weidmann and Scheef said that they have learned, gradually, to translate their metric measurements for ingredients to the English system. They also substitute ingredients that are difficult to order in America. Almonds are substituted for hazelnuts, for example. And the main ingredient for cheesecake in Germany is different from American sour cream.

Their spirit of trial-by-error has encouraged Gudrun Piepke, who serves and cooks at the Edelweiss.

The 45-year-old Piepke grew up near Heidelberg, Germany. She was an accountant and has been a Tuscaloosa resident for seven years. She cooks for her family but until she began working at the Edelweiss, had never baked pastries.

“You don’t have to be afraid of doing something,” she said. “I never thought you could get so much fun out of it.”

Swabian family meals

The two colleagues favor meat and dumpling dishes, referred to as schnitzel with spaetzle, for meals they prepare at home. Their homeland is a wine growing region, and to enhance meals, they serve a German wine, made with trollinger with lemberger grapes.

“Oh, that’s a wonderful wine,” Weidmann said. “It has nothing to do with drinking. It is just about enjoying a good meal and a good wine.”

She especially enjoys making maultaschen, a traditional Swabian dumpling filled with sausage, spinach or ground beef. She prepares the dish when her 80-year-old mother visits from Germany.

Both Weidmann’s and Scheeff’s children said they appreciate the German dishes such as schnitzels and cakes with whipped cream that their mothers prepare.

Maggie Weidmann, 14, said she looks forward to having her favorite, the Black Forest cake every year for her birthday and is proud of her mother for starting the restaurant.

Marcel Scheeff, 24, agreed.

He said that the strawberry and whipped cream cake Ester Scheef makes is delicious.

“It wasn’t unusual for us to have three cakes for one family birthday,” he said. “She’s always baked a lot. The Edelweiss is the perfect match for her.”

Like down home

Michael Holdefer and his daughter, Erin Holdefer Kightlinger, said that they eat breakfast at the Edelweiss almost every day because the food is fresh and delicious. The shop reminds them of the German food they enjoyed when the family’s twins, Erin and Lauren, trained in Hamburg before they participated in gymnastics at the University of Alabama.

“It’s like a down-home restaurant in a family atmosphere,” said 25-year-old Kightlinger, who works at her father’s business downtown.

“My favorite is the cheesy pretzel roll, and the sweets are not overwhelmingly sweet.”

German native Ilse Gerhardt walks into the small shop often to buy the crusty bread topped with sunflower seeds or pastry glazed with almonds and honey. A Tuscaloosa resident since 2005, she said that she enjoys choosing from a wide variety of breads, some made with potatoes and often with whole grains.

“It’s a piece of my home country when I walk into the Edelweiss,” Gerhardt said.

Reach Lucinda Coulter at coulterlucinda@aol.com or 205-394-0296.

BLACK FOREST CAKE

Cake base:

• 8 eggs
• 200 grams (7 ounces) sugar
• 200 grams (7 ounces) flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Vanilla flavoring to taste
• 1 8-ounce found spring form pan

Filling:

• 650 grams (23 ounces) cherries in water, drained
• 100 grams (3.5 ounces) sugar
• 4 tablespoons cornstarch
• Rum flavoring
• Heavy whipping cream
• Chocolate flakes

Beat eggs with sugar and vanilla flavoring. Whisk sifted flour and baking powder together. Pour into greased pan. Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 40 minutes. Let pan cool. Divide cake base into 3 layers. Cook 2 cups juice form cherries with sugar and rum flavoring. When water is cooking, stir cornstarch in, lert thicken. Put cake ring around first cake layer and put cherries on the first layer. Refrigerate for 2 hours. Put second cake layer. Bat heavy whipping cream. Put 1/3 on cake base and then add last cake layer. Remove cake ring. Put whipped cream all around. Put chocolate flakes on the edges of the cake. Decorate top with cream and Maraschino cherries.


NUT CORNERS

Cake base:

• 150 grams (5 ounces) flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 65 grams (2.2 ounces) sugar
• 1 package vanilla sugar
• 1 egg
• 65 grams (2.2 ounces) unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons apricot jam

Knead all ingredients together. Roll dough out to a rectangle, 13 inches by 9 inches, and put on a greased baking sheet. Spread jam on crust. Set aside.

Topping:

• 100 grams (3.5 ounces) butter
• 100 grams (3.5 ounces) sugar
• 1 package vanilla sugar
• 2 tablespoons water
• 100 grams (3.5 ounces) water
• 100 grams (3.5 ounces) coconut

Cook all ingredients slowly together. Let cool. Spread topping onto crust. Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 minutes. Let cool. Cut into triangles. Dip one corner into almond bark.


PEACH CREAM PIE

Cake crust:

• 250 grams (8 ounces) flour
• 175 grams (6 ounces) sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 egg
• 125 grams (4.4 ounces) unsalted butter
• Spring form pan

Filling:

• 2 cans peaches or pears (reserve juice)
• 1 package vanilla pudding (not instant)
• 3 eggs
• 100 grams (3.5 ounces) sugar
• 250 grams (8 ounces) sour cream

Mix all ingredients for crust on working space by hand. Knead it together. Refrigerate cake crust for 1 hour. Mix ¼ cup juice with vanilla pudding powder and 1 tablespoon sugar. Set aside. Cook 2 cups juice until it boils and stir mixture in. Let boil for 2 minutes, constantly stirring. Put crust in round cake pan. Layer peaches on and then add cooked vanilla pudding. Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 40 minutes.

Topping:
Separate eggs and beat egg whites until stiff. Set aside. Then beat egg yolks with sugar until foamy. Whisk sour cream and egg whites into the mixture. Spoon onto baked cake and bake for another 15 minutes. Let cool.

Daughtry

I think I may be officially 'OLD'. I am still slightly deaf after the concert last night.

So I was in attendance at the UA Homecoming Daughtry Concert. Apparently he was involved in a some little tv show called 'American Idol' but didn't win -- I don't know maybe you've heard of it?

So first of all the opening band was The SunStreak hailing from Rochester, NY. The were alright - I was actually kinda liking them by the last song or did I like it because it was the LAST song? Then they had to go all spastic on the crowd. Writhing around like they are having a seizure and I swear I thought the one guitar player was going to smash his guitar. At one point he was playing to no one showing off his baggy panted backside. Heck the lead singer even yelled ROLL TIDE!

Here is what I have learned.

• All lead singers must where the tightest jeans they can find. Add to that an innocuous white or black t-shirt and voila you have one sexy lead singer!
• It is best to sing with one foot up on the speaker - you can show off your manly curves this way.
• Throwing things at the crowd will make them like you (guitar picks, half drunk bottles of water , etc...).
• Nothing riles up a crowd like fake fireworks complete with sound effects?
• While the techies are setting up for the headlining act - this is the opportune time to call all your friends that are at the show and wave at them like idiots (picture thousands of drunk undergrads doing this simultaneously).
• Not only was my ticket for the concert it was also for the GUN SHOW! Daughtry was quite the muscular fellow. The poor gals behind me kept chanting for him to take his shirt off - but much to their chagrin he never did.

For some truly rabid fans go to his official site and read the poetry. Scary...I am very glad to say I was never that much of a fan-geek!

That's C.U.C.U.M.B.E.R , Cool As A

So I was the calming influence at work today - go figure! Guess it was just my day to stop the drama. Just call me Mary J. (No More Drama).

It is Homecoming here in BAMA-land!

And my weekend is almost here - one more day o' work and then I can be a somewhat slacker. There are a few things to do on my dance-card to keep me busy but I foresee several naps in my future and possibly a movie and of course homework...it just doesn't do itself you know!

Kudos to UA

From the Tuscaloosa News

TUSCALOOSA | Students who threw cups at University of Georgia players celebrating their overtime victory over the University of Alabama will be punished for their antics.

The incident at Bryant-Denny Stadium sparked national attention and comments from Crimson Tide head football coach Nick Saban and has resulted in new rules.

Delta Kappa Epsilon and Theta Chi social fraternities will lose their seats close to the field in Bryant-Denny Stadium for the next two home games because members threw objects onto the field during the Alabama-Georgia game.

University spokeswoman Cathy Andreen said the groups would be moved farther back into the stands.

Members of Theta Chi declined to comment, and phone calls to the DKE fraternity house Wednesday went unanswered.

Also, Sigma Chi and Sigma Nu fraternities’ seats will be moved back for Saturday’s game for block-seating violations. Those were not tied to the cup-throwing incident, Andreen said.

Student groups apply for block seating, which is awarded based on a host of factors such as campus involvement, grades and size. The vast majority are awarded to Greek organizations.

To stop future incidents, the Office of Judicial Affairs will begin enforcing new sanctions against students who throw anything at any sporting event.

For an initial infraction, the student will be forbidden from attending the next three games of that team with a student ticket, a punishment that would extend into the next season if necessary. The student must also attend “Capstone Character Class," Andreen said.

Caught twice, the student cannot buy student tickets for that sport again. The third violation bars the student from all sporting events for the rest of his or her academic career.

“It’s always been a violation of the student code of conduct to throw objects on the field, but the university felt it was time to be very clear and specific to discourage unsportsmanlike conduct," Andreen said.

UA police will report violators to Student Affairs. If a number of thrown objects come from one particular group, the student organization will be asked to identify the violators. If the group does not, the entire organization will be subject to penalties, Andreen said.

Mud-Flap Girl

So here is the original image from the Wyoming Library Marketing Campaign.

Here is the link to the rest of the campaign.
Kudos to the geniuses that thought them up!