Mudbelly's Smoked Duck recipe...

Took three wild duck fresh killed. I skin them and cut them open right down the back bone. Marinate in woostishire to your hearts content.

Stuff with sliced apple.

Use a wrap of bacon to secure a big slice of onion right on top with slices of jalapeno pepper stuffed in all around right next to the meat.

Smoke on grill, not right over the fire, but slowly for two hours. I felt like the fire went out too soon so at the end of two hours I put them in the oven at 300 degrees for an hour.

For a light Thanksgiving day lunch the breasts were sliced into thin strips and served cold with boiled shrimp, smoked oysters, raw veggies, cheese, crackers and dips.

They might have been the best duck I ever cooked.

Long Way Home...

From here on out it will be study for finals. Lucky for me some things have happened to ease the demands on my time.

1. The Panthers lost, no more football games, even if I did not go, I still have a late kid pick up.

2. Cathy is out of her regular work schedule. Takes away some of our time together, but I will use that time for study.

3. I don't have to work this weekend. Will work next weekend, but a big push right now will get me a good start.

4. The calendar is penciled in. If I am not already confirmed for your activity, I may not show up. If I do show up I may be screaming and slobbering senseless.

So starting Monday I have at least 8 test in about 8 days. One of them is a big lab, the only lab test for that class the whole year.

I am going to get my boogers out and start studying.

Lets' Review...

A restaurant, The Back Porch in Huntington, Tx. Go through the light headed south on 69, turn at the bank. Cruise past the sub courthouse and there it is on the right.

Wheelchair access, nice and homey inside I like to sit in the back porch section, although closed up for the winter still nice.

Order the Ribeye sandwich. They will cook it how you like. Tack on home made onion rings and strong tea. Wash hands before you leave or the dogs at home will be real curious about where you have been and what you have been holding.

Dreaming...

I woke up dreaming of electric sheep. That's not true, I was really dreaming of basal ganglia. I just said that so you would not think me strange. The basal ganglia is something I study in school, so I have an excuse, not for being strange, but for thinking about it. The basal ganglia, not being strange.

The basal ganglia (BG from now on for your own sake) is in the brain. If you have problems with it you may have Parkinson's Disease. I know all the names of the parts but am not sure what these parts really look like. Maybe in lab this week I will donate my brain so my classmates can see the BG. I would kind of think that they would poke around in there saying stuff like "I think that's it," and then they would just throw it in the trash with their left over fast food lunches, an ignoble or noble end depending on your view I guess, which ever is a common feeling brought on by the which side are you own mentality left by the last election.

Since I can't see the BG and every book seems to have a noble or ignoble view of it I draw a circle on a sheet of white paper. The circle is about the size of a half dollar and it represents the brain and I draw a vertical central sulcus dividing it into cerebral hemispheres. I pull a booger from my left nostril. I break the booger into six or so pieces to represent all the various BG parts, the putamen, the caudate, the GPI and GPE, the sub thalmic nucleus and the substantium nigra, (it's the black part of the booger where the dolphimine is made) and arrange them evenly in the middle of the circle around the dividing line. Looks pretty good to me. I forget for a minute these are booger pieces and I see the little jolts of neurotransmitters fire back and forth never missing the target. The booger pieces dance as they say, "Me, me activate me!" I am learning now, I study hard.

I wish I was six years old and had show and tell today at school.

Panthers Save Christmas...

Now you know I bleed Panther Purple. I could not make it to the game today and I don't think I could have faced it like a man, I know the Panther Hat could not face it, I would have had to turn him around backwards. Best I could do was listen at home where no one could see or hear the snot slinging, screaming hair pulling defecating pain I was in. My fault, the loss, bound to be. I just spent too much energy pulling the Ags through yesterday.

The upside, and all things have an upside. Ever wonder if you can really determine what is a good or a bad thing? I mean when considering the whole scope of the universe. Ever wonder why we do that in this space, consider the whole scope of the universe? I do too. The upside is that my life will be somewhat easier, No more taking Mary to catch the band bus to games, picking her up late at night and we can have Christmas as planned and so on. Maybe squeeze in a few more duck hunts, or fish. The cats bit pretty well last Christmas break.

That was a good team the Panthers played today, that is the second upset they have pulled. Somedays you just come to play and everything reasonable is out the door.

Big screen winner...

We gave away a big screen on Thanksgiving day to celebrate 3000 visits to this site. Here is the winner:

That is a release that the lucky winner is perusing. Just the standard stuff, the older you will get is not responsible for bad programs, Fox News, if your team loses, or if your significant other sits there watching till their brains turn to scat.

In turn I signed a release that I did not know anything abut how the cable was hooked up to this TV. Just in case one of those Thanksgiving day massacres you hear about occurs and everyone gets arrested for some dreadful foolish crime where it is not clear who the real perps are.

Anyway, it was a good Thanksgiving, Katie and Travis feed good. Here is the older you will get crew being thankful for many things:











One more thing, don't bet on football with Katie.

Happy Thanksgiving...

To all the visitors to this blog.

It has been about a year since I installed the visitor counter and we made it over 3000 this week. I think that's pretty good. This site is really making money, you know, kind of like google and youtube. That's how it goes on the internet, you get on there and next thing you know there are huge tracts of land, I mean sums of cash being deposited in your paypal account. Don't ask me why or how, it just works that way. Even though this site is doing so well my wife says I still have to finish my degree and get a real job.

The money sure helps with the bass boats and big screen TVs we give away. In fact I'll be out of pocket for a couple of days while I go and give away one of these TVs. You will hear all about it for sure. I hope it goes a little better than that bass boat I gave to the guy in Virginia. I did not mean to surprise him so and am sorry that he did not even know what a bass was.

Be thankful.

Hunting...

Me Morgan and Mary headed out this morning to Big Slough Wilderness area for a little duck hunt this morning. Me and Morgan both scored a wood duck hen. I made the kill using my dad's old model 12 Winchester, one of the finest duck guns ever made. It's 50s or early 60s vintage best I remember. Along with the duck and two squirrels from Morgan's last hunt they are on the smoker now.

Mary's first real hunt carrying a gun. I have been lax with my youngest, Had usually guided all the other kids in some kind of hunting experience by now, but life changed on me and I have not had a chance to take her. She basically got a quick course last night with the single shot 20 gauges I hunted with as a child. The course consisted of orders to not shoot yourself or anyone else in the foot. I have had quite a few patients who did this. Not pretty.

Mary did fine on the hunt, really the hunting part was good. She slipped up on several bunches of wood ducks swimming in the big creek, but the lack of practice in shooting caused all misses. That's ok. If I had took all shots I could have bagged 3 to 5 ducks. I don't like gutting animals that well though.

Made me feel real good hunting with my kids today. Took away some of the stress of school this week. Morgan had found the ducks last week hunting with his buddies and it was kind of a continuation of an old Wallace thing, the introduction of Mary to creek jumping wood ducks. This is turning into a real good Thanksgiving.

Here she is looking down the Big Slough canoe trail. I don't know if you can make out the big log jam at the most distant point of the picture, but there was 8 to 10 ducks sitting on the water there. I think Mary has the makings of a good hog hunter. We saw lots of hog sign, she had many questions about hog, like will the shells we have kill one. No darling, the steel duck shot will only piss him off, do not shoot hog today.


Here is looking the other way, I got a shot at two ducks in flight here. Five minutes later Morgan walks up, he had spooked them and never saw them. I told him to keep stomping around out there, I am in a good place.

Here is a shot of a beaver pond. One of Morgan's college buddies called this spot beautiful. He should have seen it 25 or so years ago, it was an oak flat with open views, might have well been old growth never logged timber. I think the beavers messed it up, but being a wilderness area you gotta let nature take it's course. We have killed a few ducks here through the years. A real engineering feat, last time I walk around in this area, been a few years, it was a three stage dam system that was being used to cause this back up.

Driving home we spotted this. I am not sure this was national forest land. There was also a nice sturdy table and a stack of fire wood, someone's camp, I bet complete with women.

I know you are wondering, one hole or two?











Happy wedding anniversary to Rose and Juan. Check out pictures here:
http://www.pbase.com/wallace_6/wallace_photos

Let's blow off some steam...

One test today. I don't know which has me more agitated, taking the tests, wondering what the grades are on some tests that should have been back by now, or knowing that I won't get the scores on these this week till after Thanksgiving so I'll spend the weekend with my drawers in a wad. I can't wait for this semester to end.

Think I'll blow some steam. Morgan killed a duck and two squirrels this weekend on a hunting trip. I have not bought a hunting license since I have been back in school. I think I'll get one and let my boy take me hunting. He says the woods is full of wood ducks.

The Indians thought wood ducks mystical, they lived in woods and nested on the earth, swam in the water, flew in the air. They were in all three planes of existence that the Indians knew about anyway. They were not around to see the line for that new game thing.

Think I'll go after them, shoot up the woods, wear camo and rubber boots, defecate under the old growth timber on the big island. They say it's one of the few places that have never been logged. I'll kill a squirrel and bring his head home to put on a pike to warn Sparkey, Speedy and Spankey that such could happen to them if they don't quit screwing around on the deck.

I'll clean my kills and visit people's homes on Thanksgiving. After praying long and loud over the poor dead thing I'll insist they try the dish I have prepared and then I'll watch their eyes dart and their neck muscles tighten as they taste muddy duck and tree rat.

I don't know if all these things will help my grades, but studying don't seem to be the answer right now. I am ready to try other methods.

Going down...

Through that long dark tube of the final two weeks or so of the semester where there is about 13 days and 15 test to take. Something like that, I have stopped counting and just take my lumps but I scream when I am taking them. Makes it hard for the other students to concentrate, but hey I paid for this education too.

Speaking of long dark tubes ever heard of pipe stem colon? Where the colon loses all those nice convolutions and becomes straight and rigid like a pipe? I think there is some kind of syndrome med students get when they study about disease and they think they have every one of them.

A weekend of traditions....

The Panthers continued in their winning ways with the first play off victory in their run to the state finals by a score of 72-24. Mary was not present with the band this week due to a conformation retreat but I got Panther Band Pictures anyway. So does the Lufkin News, the band made the front page.

It's different playing football in the city. Panther fans had to go thorough metal detectors to enter the stadium. Here is an ugly scene narrowly averted. This woman had to be convinced that it would harm the brain no more that cell phone radiation before she would enter.

And of course there was the drumline.

The tubas.

And trumpets.








More on the tradition thing. Morgan went out hunting yesterday and killed a duck. This ensures that the fine Wallace custom of having a dish that tastes like mud on the table each Thanksgiving is carried on. He was supposed to return to the field today with more hopes of success. There might be a pile of ducks to eat next week.

Cold weather...

Not fit for bream fishing that's for sure. 34 degrees right here, heck a couple of days ago I had fixed a big glass of iced tea to drink on the way to school and I got there and stayed from 9-2pm and when I got back to the car I still had a couple of ice cubes in my glass.

Anyway here is how a couple of residents around here handle the cold. That's one of those plastic dog houses you can buy with the snap on top, better quarters that 3/4 of the humans in the world have, with the top unsnapped because of the size of someone who eats more each day than 3/4 of the worlds humans do. There is a homemade dog house, built and painted a few years ago by me and Mary that the big white dog used to prefer, but I have only seen him in it once this year so far. Maybe he is getting old and has arthur and can't fold his bones up like he used to. Speaking of arthur, I have a test on him next week, got to study.

Hey guys, mommas working tonight, you can both sleep in, she will never know.

The toughest man in Lufkin...

That is what one of our Taekwondo instructors said last night when he went over to Lufkin Parks and Rec to teach the classes there. He was referring to the regular instructor there, Mr Holt, a third degree Black Belt. Mr. Holt did not beat anyone sparring, did not break up a big old pile of boards, or kick the highest. See, Mr Holt is awaiting a lung transplant. He has some problems caused by inhalation of welding fumes and has had to give up teaching because he just no longer has the wind. The desire is still there, because he climbed those stairs to the second floor to watch the other instructors teach his classes. That is what made the other instructor call him the toughest man in Lufkin.

Here is a picture of Mr. Holt in his prime. Several years back he was State Champ in the double song jah bong. Might have took second or third at worlds that year, which is where this picture was made.

Keep him in your prayers. He is a great instructor and a real fine man.

He has some expenses to deal with due to this illness. If you would like to help out there are raffle tickets being sold. Check the Taekwondo school link at the sidebar for an address and phone number, this is where they are sold if you would like stop by and buy one to help out.

Slow couple of weeks...

At school. Only two tests and one of those was postponed several times for various reasons. It's made my study habits lazy. I am better when all systems are synergized by multiple challenges. There are several grades out also, so I am not getting feedback right now if I need to study more. Grades so far have been good, on par with the other semesters. Things will pick up though. Today makes for 15 days left in the semester. I think there are about 12 tests and this includes finals to be taken. I will soon be past this little lazy interlude and into a crazy screaming screaming slo0bbering finish to the semester.

I am also writing a paper on the disability simulation I did. I got over a thousand words down and I had to stop. Felt I was too far out to sea and might not be able to swim back. I had to take a break and will go back this weekend to take a look and make sure I am going in the right direction with the paper. The simulation seemed pretty easy, but once I started setting words to paper there was a lot to write about.

You know me. I can put down 500 words about going through a door. I can tell about the actual experience, add in my feelings and the things I saw on the other side and then relate it to other doors I have gone through and how people reacted and their feelings to my going through the door and then I can make the door a metaphor and an allegory of life to show the symbolism represented by going through the door and finish with my goals of going through other doors.

Gotta get throughout the door marked "exit" and finish this semester.

New CD release...

That's right, yours truly plays the hits of the Lufkin High School Band. You can see me in the picture, at the end of the tuba line playing my 1936 King upright tuba on the far right. Covered are the school song, fight song, National Anthem and a couple of pop tunes. Players consist of current some currant band members and alumni who still remember which end of the horn to blow in and have enough wind to do it. Proceeds go to the band for funding a trip this spring. No, the trip does not include me.

For some reason ever since this recording there is one of the young tuba players who ever time he sees me says, "there is that hippie tuba player." Now do I look anything like a hippie? One day me and my wife were walking together and we encountered the gentleman who made the above picture. He said, "you were great the other night playing the tuba." I asked my wife, "don't you wonder what all went on up there?" She did not want to hear about it.

This cd is equipped with anti pirate software. That means Captain Jack Sparrow will not be able to listen to it.

I know you ask, well that's a lot of people in that group, how will I be able to tell which tuba is you when I listen? Simple. There is an old technique I perfected long ago for situations like this. I tune a whole step lower than the rest of the band. You can hear me just fine.

Pictures from the last few days...

The plane was back, for a long time Thursday afternoon and a little while Friday morning. I have written about this guy, he swoops all low over the game pasture next door. Wakes my wife, a day sleeper. I wonder what he would do if I was at the local airport when he landed, he gets down from his sky mount all cocky from his maneuvers and everything, he dismounts with a vision of himself as some sort of Red Baron with Red Man chewing tobacco, and I walk up and lay a good old fashion East Texas cussing on him for waking my wife. It could happen. I am a big enough guy that people take a cussing from me pretty well.

Some drumline shots from the pep rally. Funking it up on the field, wish I had got this on video.











Zildjian cymbal endorser all sweaty and wild during a gig.












Honor America Night, an annual event by the combined high school and middle school bands to honor veterans. Three Hundred kids on the field, 4 screaming band directors, band boosters slinging hot dogs, apple pie and fireworks, maybe they can enjoy the rest of football season.

Brushed with the famous...

There is a professor at Kilgore, in the journalism department, as two old guys on that side of the campus we greet each other in the halls as we pass. He has a book of photos out. See it here:
http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/lovwee.html

Mr. Lovett was written up by our local newspaper editor, his friend, and I saw a write up about the book in the student paper. Actually Mr. Lovett has made my picture, or I can't really remember now, directed a student to make my picture. He may have just said, "that guy there." And I was captured by a journalism class and they did one of those quick interviews, they ask some students about a current concern and they publish the results with a few pictures in the paper. The questions are like, "What do you think of the election," and then they give a percent like 40% thought it endangered the homeland, 10% thought the Democrats would scrub their bellies till they were plumb pink and 60% thought it was the equivalent of a powerball lottery. You can see the question I was asked and the picture that Mr. Lovett or his student made in a September 2005 post on this blog. Actually he has made my picture a couple of times if you count PTA club pictures for the annual.

I actually heled Mr. Lovett teach his class one day. In the hall outside the photo and newspaper lab they often have an exhibit of photos by students or whoever and at my lunch time walk I often stop to see if the exhibit has changed. One day when they were hanging new photos I was watching as they went up and Mr. Lovett stepped out of his class to check his students progress. He eyed me and then he eyed his students and said," Spread the nudes out, if you hang them all together people will clog up the hall in that one spot looking at them."

You just never know when you will be able to lend a hand.

Sometimes...

I just scrubs his little belly till it is plumb pink.

You can't really see real good in this picture, but when his hair is wet his shin is all spotted like a little hog underneath. No not my belly, my skin, the dog's!


Be careful giving a dog a bath. When you do that it does something to their brains and they don't know who they are for a few days till they get all dirty again. You can see the mystified look on their faces when they get out of the tub. Lost looking they are. The Big White Dog never gets a bath. He needs to know who he is at all times because as much running around as he does we can't afford to have him in altered states.

You know, someone is going to tell my mamma that he put a picture of himself taking a bath on that blog. She won't say anything to me though. She will just call the wife and then I'll have to answer to her.

So once again...

A lot of folks I voted for lost. I don't think I have been really happy about an election result since 1992 and even then that dogcatcher could not catch a dog. Even the wet dry thing for Angelina county passed. Now I am worried that there will not be enough room for Red Bull Energy Drinks in the coolers of local Stop and Gos.

So I guess that will give us a curtural thing to observe, being wet for the first time in 70 years the urge to go "across the river" has become almost genetic in the DNA of BOC (born in the county) residents. Will the river dry up and store owners in that location have to tighten their belts as a cash cow comes to an end?

May be they will convert to sell Red Bull in prohibited amounts.

Horning in on other action...

Curling up with a text book and to keep tabs on the election tonight. As if I had a horse in the race. I did horn in on other blog action. I said "monkey" on the Lufkin Daily News election blog. You can see for yourself:

http://www.lufkindailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/communities/bonner/entries/2006/11/07/this_cant_be_good.html#comments

Don't forget to vote...

And I don't care who you vote for. I'll be happy with what is decided if enough people vote to make it truly what the state thinks. No 20-30% turnout folks, let's go get 'em.

Course this being America and with everyone wanting some return on whatever they do I think it is only proper that if you vote that enters your name in some kind of powerball lottery that is worth so much money you will vote for a set of candidates that completely reflects a different set of views next time you visit the polls.

Kind of like with this blog and how we give away a big screen TV to every 100th visitor. Helps keep the numbers up and the riff raff out.

First day of deer season...

We went to the lake. Game wardens all in the woods on the first day of deer season, as if there was any need to keep an eye on law abiding citizens like me and Cathy anyway and the fishing was good. Caught 12 cats, a mix of channels and blues in just a couple of hours yesterday afternoon.

While tied up fishing I saw this guy come swimming out from the bank, looked kind of funny, sitting all low in the water. Looked kind of strange, I pointed out he was not swimming right when I first saw him. Cathy thought maybe he was just showing off his catch as fishermen are wont to do.

As he got closer it was apparent he was in distress. We pursued in the boat. He dove about 4 times, staying under water 20-30 seconds each time, but then he got too tired and we were able to net him.

Next is a shot of his catch. He was not really hung by the fins too bad. Cathy thinks the catfish had a bite out of him that was holding him up. Maybe just greedy and refused to spit him out. The catfish was dead, but not too long, rigor mortis had not yet set in. Not sure what kind of bird, help me out experts, my guess is some type of cormorant or an anihinga. He was easily freed and took off acting like we never had met.

Our catfish were all bigger than this one and they are swimming in our bellies with no problems.

Miles and miles...

Owned my little Scion for about one year now and am closing on 40,000 miles of diving in that time period. That's 1200-1300 gallons of gas if you figure in about 30-34 miles per gallon which is what I usually get. Man I am tired of driving. So tridI think on my day off today I will drive down to the Panther game in Magnolia.

Along with fuel consumed I have intaked 139 gallons of Red Bull and other assorted energy drinks. I think a Red Bull can add 5-7 points to your test score if you drink one right before the exam. I have afternoon classes this semester and from my grades the Red Bull I had that morning has worn off by then. Of course intake of 139 gallons of Red Bull means an outflow of 13,900 gallons of urine. This has overwhelmed sewer systems between Nacogdoches and Kilgore. There have been reports of strange glows from settling tanks and piping that is unexplainable hot to the touch at these locations.

Recently there was a warning in the Lufkin paper about abuse of these drinks. They failed to mention that consumption of Red Bull coupled with Red Man chewing tobacco turns you into a bright shiny superior being. They don't want people to know that, especially deer hunters on the eve of the opening of deer season. The woods will turn toxic with all the spitting and urinating. It will distract the Homeland security boys from more important business if they have to start rounding up these abusers. That article also made it sound like there was only young people abusing these drinks. As an old guy really made me feel like some kind of addict and that I needed to hide my use from my peers. That is effectively done by writing about it here.

Actually I have tried to detox a bit from the Red Bull. Substituted a glass of tea on the way to school and so forth. It is really only a caffeine habit. I drink instant coffee. Three spoons in a cup, packet of sweetener, milk and a shot of water right from the faucet. It has crossed my mind to use a bowl and just make a little pudding of the instant granules and eat it. That way I get the caffeine and have a bit of breakfast at the same time. You could even mix it in a little baggie to take in the car, tear off a corner while driving and suck out the contents kind of like some special astronaut food.

I better go study, I am too full of good ideas this morning.

He's down in Mexico...

Recent unrest in Mexico does not surprise me. You know who happens to be there. Old poster 500 that's who. I can't reveal his real identify due to the delicacy of his mission. It involves banjos, hot sauce, a reverse Alamo and deeds that are best discussed in other places on the internet than here.

He's not by himself. He has his backup with him and that's good. A voice of reason in his darkness you might say. Keeping his back covered on noisy buses and late arriving trains that stop unexpectedly in distant deserts while the passengers squat in shifting sands awaiting resumption. During these waits he palavers and mumbles in old broken Spanish while the Indians clutch holy relics till they all continue on together down parallel tracks to destinations near and far.

He will be back. He will read all this. He will feel tingles that only come from having his cover blown. He will have stories he tells and stories he does not tell. Then he will go down again and do it all over. Those dreamers just think they have the border sealed. Yesterday was his birthday, he is riding a high horse right now with Day of the Dead trinkets hanging everywhere.

What not to write in a blog...

Nice little editorial in the Kilgore student paper about writing something about someone in your blog, then they find it and are pissed. It happens. People lose friends. Lose jobs. Just an extension of gossip I guess.

So here are the Older You Will Get blog guidelines:

Always write about youself, not other people. If you can't fill pages and pages you are not busy enough or are watching too much TV or something. I often see friends and I say, "did I tell you about what the big white dog did," they say, "I read it on the blog," I say, "know how many catfish I caught," they say, "I read it on the blog." Hey, this thing keeps me from staying over at your house for hours and spilling my guts.

Don't write about the things your friends and associates do that push your buttons. One day you will grow up and not be so bothered.

If you delve into political postings use the Sermon on the Mount as a standard to judge the behavior of those that should be acting in the public's interest. In fact use the Sermon on the Mount to guide you in most anything.

Don't write about your boss. There will be one like him at the next place you work also.

Post pictures. One picture is worth a thousand words.

Keep in mind that most stuff on the net is worse that yours.