Thorpeland Photography

Trouble in Paradise

Late Saturday morning Valerie, myself and Jimmy headed out to the lake for a day of jetskiiing. I park and get on my jetski while its still on the trailer and begin the normal engine warm up procedure. I am greeted with only, "click, click... click click." Noooooooo!! The battery is dead. Luckily Jimmy has a batter charger. But it needs a wall outlet, and cannot use a car lighter socket. So we end up having to remove the battery and walking back up to the little building where you pay to get into the park. Luckily it wasnt very hot outside and there was shade to sit in while we waited the 45 minutes for the battery to reach a strong enough charge level. We walk back to the jetski's and begin to install the batter again. Only to find out, on of the nuts that secures the battery posts had fallen off somewhere! Without this nut, we would be unable to re-attache the positive battery cable. Leave it to Jimmy. He digs thru his tool box and brings out 2 plastic zip ties. We loop them through the batter post holes and zipped them as tight as we could get them. The cable held solid and the jetski fired right up! We were then able to have a great day of riding out on the lake.
Now let me rewind a bit and talk about Friday night's activities. It was time again for another gathering of the "Dinner Club". This is where a group of friends and myself gather every month or so and meet for dinner at an unusual restaraunt. This month it was Ethiopian food. I had never had this type of food and was interested in finding out what it was like. The six of us met up at the restaraunt about 7pm in Dallas. We were seated at our table and began to look at the menu. Everything seemed normal. Dishes of chicken, lamb and vegtables made dinner sound better and better. We were already starving! It comes time to order and I decided to go with the seasoned chicken with some type of vegetable/meat sauce. After what seemed like an hour wait, the food arrived. Whoa... not what i expected. First off, I had forgotten that with Ethiopian food you do not use silverware. You eat with your hands using a type of bread that resembles a giant pancake. Secondly, what I had ordered was nothing I could recognize. But oh well, I was starving and I wanted to try it. I tear off a piece of pancake like bread and dip it in the sauce thats on the chicken. Take a bite.... OUCH!! SPICY HOT!! It seems in Ethiopia, curry is a popular seasoning. Three glasses of water and 45 minutes later I had just about finished off my chicken dish. I can honestly say, im glad I got to try Ethiopian food, but if I never have it again....I'll live.
Now, jumping ahead to Sunday. ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!!? Its the first weekend of the NFL and my Chicago Bears are up against one of my other favorites, the San Francisco 49'ers. Oh dear, by games end the score was 49-14... San Fran. I sure hope the Bears get a lot better by next week. On a good note though, the Dallas Cowboys lost also to the Atlanta Falcons. Which means at least I dont get a phone call from my friend James, talking trash about how "his" Cowboys are going to the Super Bowl. Lucky me.