A friend of mine whom I haven’t seen in forever ordered a cake from me out of the blue! She wanted a stacked cake that was pink and black. She picks this up today!
I can’t believe my son is already 14. What a big guy!
I made them cake of course. Damien wanted his cake without icing and to be Oreo like. So I made it that way. Courtney really likes Nightmare before Christmas, so I made a Jack Skellington Cake. It’s a confetti cake!
Jaime made them custom birthday cards, they are amazing!
Here is Damien’s Oreo Cake that looks like a decorated Oreo Cookie.
Here is Courtney’s Jack Skellington Cake that is a Confetti Cake.
I’ve been experimenting with liquid levels to make the cake more moist. They sure are more moist and they are pretty dense too. A slice will definitely fill you up!
Jaime and I helped her mom move stuff up to her house in Forest Lakes. When I was done, I saw an old hand rail that was all the way bent and I knew I could straighten it out. While I did so, the old rusted thing snapped and tore through my hand.
It’s about a half inch deep. We had to drive a half hour away to get to the Urgent Care where I got 13 stitches and a tetanus shot.
I’m just wondering how ironic some people think this Facebook ‘like’ is. It says:
I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO PRESS 1 TO HEAR A MESSAGE IN ENGLISH… WE ARE IN AMERICA, LEARN THE LANGUAGE.
Shouldn’t we learn to speak Native American. Oh and by the way, which America? North America or South America. Statistically, more people speak Spanish in the Americas than they speak English. Not that I can speak Spanish, I’m just saying it’s ironic and I know the point you all are getting at.
Damn sexy!
Steve wanted to surprise his wife for her birthday so he set up a surprise birthday party. Kelly and I have been friends for
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This is a wonderful video of a Marine turned sculptor. He creates busts of the fallen and donates them. Pretty touching.
Watch the full episode. See more 9 to 5.
And if you haven’t seen this tear jerker… But it’s happy tears!!!!! Like watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition.
So… I’ve been in contact with quite a few Marines, especially ones who went to United States Marine Corps boot camp with me on March 22, 1992. During our “Receiving” week, which is the first week of boot camp. We had a plethora of shots and immunizations. I have no idea how many, but there was many of them. We were injected with needles in our shoulders, our arms, the back of the triceps and on the meaty part of the ass cheek. We were also injected with needleless vaccine guns. A few times on each shoulder.
Its very uncommon during your first week of receiving to stop everything and say “What the fuck are you injecting me with?”. Especially being the recruit and ‘lower than whale shit’ with the fear of the new stressful environment and not wanting to be made an example of. I’m on a lot of Facebook groups and pages asking this same question on our acquired immunizations and sicknesses and it seems that its a common trait we all share. We all rarely get sick.
This brings to mind a few questions…
Are we even more awesome now? Is this the Government’s way of bringing down VA healthcare costs? What would the impact be if all US Citizens were given the super secret soldier serum. How would this effect the economy? How would this affect Medicare? If everybody got this and we lowered the US morbidity and mortality rate, what would it mean to our food supply?
If a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan, do we get a Tsunami? Many interdependent questions that can build upon one another. Your thoughts?
I’d like to know who the fuck said there should be a separation between old and new Tomcats. We aren’t bridging the gap by keeping things separate. If our goal is to carry on the tradition of the Marine Corps and the tradition of 311 Tomcats, then a bridge should be built and some people should cross that bridge and get over it.
What am I ranting about?
I was on the VMF-VMA reunion page and saw this. Note the highlighted part that. But read the whole thing. It’s live on their website here.
This here is the only conversation I’ve ever had with Shewell.
First off, what the fuck is ARIZONA BUSINESS? Secondly, adding Tomcats to the VMA-311 name brings higher search rankings with all search engines. Third, I’ve been re-united and have seen many people re-unite and share memories since I’ve created the Tomcat Group and Page on Facebook.
You all want to know my intentions? My intentions are to bridge the generation gap and bring together old and new. This is outlined in our Reunion newsletter.
Thoughts on keeping a separation between old and new Tomcats?
So, as many of you all know that our wedding flower is the Delphinium. If you didn’t know, you probably don’t follow our wedding blog here. Anyway. I’ve been searching high and low for some methods to making the delphinium.
I found this post on Cake Central, luckily I’m a member! I tried posting, but didn’t get an answer, so I made my way over to http://www.tanyacakes.com/, found Tanya’s email address and emailed her, asking her about some tips and tricks.
She emailed me back the same day. She forwarded me a message that said to use a 5 petal cutter or a calyx cutter.
I mixed up some blue fondant and gum paste and rolled out a little bit. I used a large 5 petal cutter and a calyx cutter. I think the calyx cutter is the one. (p.s. a calyx is the attachment between the flower and the stem).
I made these three.
I like the middle one. I think it matches closest.
I hope they look like this when I’m done. This is a picture of a delphinium up close. I think this is exactly the ones we are going to be getting from Sam’s club.
The count has gone up. Three people that I was in boot camp with, I am in touch with today. Last year, it was John and Mike from sister platoons 1057 and 1061. As of yesterday, I was thinking about how you never forget the person in front of you in boot camp. I remembered the name Vostinak and yesterday, I typed it into Facebook. Low and behold, a Marine I went to boot camp and Basic Warrior Training with. Its sometimes weird reaching out because you never really are sure if that is the person or not. I asked him if he was in Platoon 1056 in the Marine Corps.
He got assigned Infantry in BWT and not long after we all got our orders was the last I saw him. I remember sitting next to him and talking about where we were going. He wasn’t that happy about it then. I’m glad to finally get back in touch after 18 years. Pretty awesome.
Jen, from Jen’s Cakes had some really cool stuff on her Facebook page. I was so impressed that I HAD to have her recipe and method.
You take 1 part Knox unflavored gelatin(or any unflavored gelatin NOT JELLO) 2 1/2 parts water. Mix. Microwave about 30 seconds but watch it or it will boil over fast. You can add a few drops of the americolor to give it color or it will clear. After micro let it set for about 3-5 minutes and scum will be on top. Scrape it off and then you might need to warm it up again by 5-10 seconds. Use a painter’s brush and brush on your veiners or a thin impression mat or acetate. Keep them in one big stroke or you will mess up the already set gelatin.
hen you will keep your gelatin warm after a few strokes by micro 5-10 seconds. Finish what you want to have and then time is your friend. Let it set-up 31/2 to 5 hours. Do not pull it off the veiner it will pop off itself and it makes a little snap crackle pop sound as it sets. Use any kind of siccor to cut off what you do not want or make strips for making a bow.
To make the bow you will curl each strip into a bow and use gelatin to connect the ends. Once it is all set just use the gelatin to connect them together in whatever way you want to make your bow. For flowers use a white wire while you are painting onto the veiners. Then connect each leaf or petal you want to make your flower and twist the wires together use a floral tape to keep them together in the end.
I like this title. haha.
Though I make decent fondant roses, I thought I’d Youtube ways other people make them. I found this video:
The author of this video, Ella from the Cake Eccentric, does a great job explaining. I also applaud how she can talk and do stuff at the same time. I can’t. Probably one of the reasons why I would make a crappy instructor. So… I tried it myself and though the realism isn’t there that I can produce in buttercream and royal icing, I thought the technique was great. I just sat on the couch and made some leaves and put them together like in the video. These two pictures are of the same rose.
The Wilton method is different, it requires cutting out five petal templates and wrapping them around a tear drop looking mold of gumpaste from the day before. They do look more real but it takes a lot longer. I’m talking an extra day longer.
So, depending on the person(s) you are making and decorating a cake for. You can make roses quickly and sufficiently or do the realistic, labor of love and time consuming roses.
Here are some of my roses in buttercream
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I’ve been slowly working on my book. I’ve chosen to write it in Microsoft Word. I did try to use Google Docs to make it, but I’m not as used to adding graphics and making tables transparent in Google Docs. Nor do I get a good view of what it will actually look like on paper. I guess I should have tried some sort of print preview, but I do like WYSIWYG editors. I like how Microsoft Word has that view like its on paper.
I’m anxious to see how this book turns out, so I really need to get cracking on it.I think drive and personal curiosity of my end result will get this book complete.
This book will definitely be my masterpiece and one of my goals for this year. I want to complete it by October.
Damien has had a Fro for a while. Now he’s got corn rows. You can see how long his hair was here.
Since I became a public critic on Yelp, I am amazed at how some people at businesses recognize me and thank me for my criticisms. I normally write about positive experiences or the worst experiences. I am very happy to say that most businesses aim to please. They’ll even follow up and ask me to contact their manager next time I visit their establishment. Pretty dang cool!
My method of writing as a critic is short, brief and to the point. I often scan other reviews and if I see them to be a few pages about every single dish they’ve tried and every person they have encountered at that establishment, I’ll just skip it. Try it out, and if you want to, connect with me.
We had a nice weekend. It all started with Friday. When I got home Friday, I knew my brother and his girlfriend were going to be dropping their dogs off, so I cleaned the house a bit. I did all of Damien’s chores as he was at his mom’s for the week. Jaime had been talking about taking time off of work just so that she could take a break and do house work. No way was I going to let her take paid time off to clean the house, so I cleaned it.
When she got home, dinner was ready. I made Baked Spaghetti which came out pretty good but a little bland. But its basically; make spaghetti, add ricotta and eggs and cheese, throw it into a 9X13 and bake at 475 for 30 minutes. It came out like a spaghetti lasagna. Here is the recipe.
After dinner we went to Ikea and Jaime got a new desk and a shelf for our kitchen. Though Ikea closes at 9, we left there about 9:30ish.
The next day, I got up early as usual and since my shoulder wasn’t hurting (I must have hurt it wakeboarding last weekend), I went to the gym for an hour and a half.
LA Fitness has repainted and re-carpeted the whole place. It looked nice. I’m happy to say I can still lift the same amount of weight after two weeks of not going. I did cardio and then benched up to 405lbs and squatted 405lbs too. Yeah, strange combination, but it works! I even did some abs.
When I got home, Jaime was up, I had my power protein shake and then started putting the furniture together. We rocked it and not only do we have new furniture, we also have all clean clothes. Jaime went crazy on the laundry and attacked the pile! Jaime also made her wicked awesome ribs. It smelled good!
For dinner, we went over to Camille’s and ate and then played with the kids in the pool. It was pretty late when we got home.
Bright and early (for Jaime) we hit the road to drive to Yuma to pick up Damien. We stopped over at Eli and Deana’s. Their daughter has taken an interest in my cakes and Deana always compliments the pictures of my cakes, so I thought I’d give them a little gift of some piping nozzles and piping bags and teach them a little bit. Here is Deana’s blog post.
After we left, we went to pick up Damien and guess what?!?! He’s got corn-rows! Pictures will come.
When we got home, Pat and Courtney came back from Vegas, from visiting mom there, so of course we got bagels that my mom brings from Montreal. We had that for dinner while watching a movie. Thanks guys and thanks mom for bringing the bagels. We enjoy them.
Well, gotta hit the gym!
Jaime brought my cake to work for all my old friends to enjoy. Jaime is a sweetheart and printed my certificate. I love that woman!
Above, Vesta enjoys cutting herself a piece of cake.
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