Ben’s Blog

Its been awhile since I’ve grilled fish so I asked Holly to pick up some marlin steaks while she was shopping at Meijer. I found a great recipe on allrecipes.com, really it was the only recipe on the site for marlin and amazingly I had all the fresh ingredients so I decided fate must have wanted me to make this dish.

If you’re interested - here is the recipe:
Rosemary Marlin with Roasted Corn and Tomato Relish

Besides the marlin steaks you’ll need corn on the cob, cherry tomatoes, onion, garlic, fresh rosemary, and of course something green for garnish. Here is what mine came out like:

In case you’re wondering…it was awesome. I made some sage stuffing (stovetop) and threw some garnish on the plate for the picture. Holly was laughing the whole time but this might be one of the best meals I have made in a long, long time. I wanted to take the picture to add to the allrecipes.com site…so why not put it on the blog as well?

Holly and I spent another weekend in Tawas - this trip was for the 11th annual Canoe trip with my friends from college. We had to reschedule this years trip on short notice so the crowd was drastically smaller than normal. Thanks to the diehards in the group we had 3 canoes make the short trip from Whirlpool to City park in Oscoda in record time. Despite the small group I think everyone had a good time and I’m looking forward to a normal trip again next year.

While at the cabin I got a chance to take a picture of the new tree I planted, and my fancy watering device (patent pending). I selected a flowering pear tree on the advice of the helpful staff at the nursery, and based on the size the tree will reach at maturity. I needed a tree that wouldn’t grow so tall that it would over-shadow the cabin, something that would get about 20 feet wide and tall. While looking one of the associates told me not to worry…the sizes listed wouldn’t be reached for at least 15-20 years. She seemed sure of herself as she gave me this advice until I told her that I think the cabin will still be in the same spot 20 years from now.

We planted this as the “Ed Rapin Jr. Memorial Tree” with some of the donations given to my mom after my dad’s funeral. We had a surprising amount of money donated, most of which went to Lenawee County Hospice.  Next we made a donation to the the Parks & Rec department of Raisin Township and used the remainder to plant this tree up north. Hopefully I did a good job planting this so it takes off and grows big and tall.

Submit your orders now for the watering contraption…I know you want one!

Classes at GVSU started today which meant last week was a busy one as everyone on campus worked hard to make sure everything was ready. I think it is safe to assume that professors and staff members at the university procrastinate on big projects just like the students.

On top of a already tense week Friday brought a couple webcasts for the President’s office. Helping with webcasts has always been in the category of “other duties as assigned” or a result of being too quick to volunteer to learn something new…in other words it is something I have to fit in on top of an already packed schedule. I don’t mean to complain though - it is something I enjoy, especially when the football season starts. Friday’s webcast included President Haas’ Faculty/Staff address followed by the 2008 Convocation. The best part of the back to back schedule was that I got to drive around a golf cart all morning, all around campus. Nothing says big pimpin’ like hijacking one of the Meadow’s golf carts to commute around campus!

The other highlight of the morning was running across this office at GVSU. I feel bad posting this as I am sure this professor has had to put up with jokes ever since Walker, Texas Ranger (or any of Chuck’s earlier accomplishments), but I couldn’t pass it up. If the real Chuck was a professor of Music I am sure he would pick GVSU too.

Let me preface this with the fact that I watch and listen to a lot of news.  If I am in the car I listen to talk radio, when I am at home I watch either NBC news or Fox News about 50% of the time that the TV is turned on.  Given this I was a little suprised when I heard this on the news the other day:

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) — Democratic U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the first black woman to represent Ohio in Congress and a strong critic of the Iraq war, died Wednesday after a brain hemorrhage, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Tubbs Jones, 58, died Wednesday evening of a brain hemorrhage caused by an aneurysm that burst and left her with limited brain function, said Eileen Sheil, a spokeswoman for the Cleveland Clinic, which owns the Huron Hospital in East Cleveland where Tubbs Jones died.

I wasn’t really shocked by the news, but rather that the only reason I know of Stephanie Tubbs Jones was because of her appearance on the Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert.  This reminded me of a conversation I had with a coworker once who got most of his news via John Stewart…  I wonder how many people are like him - relying on comedy central for news, or like me - retaining more information from these shows than I ever would have expected.  Anyways, just thought I would share as I found this interesting.

Verizon shipped a couple new phones to my office today - one was Holly’s new phone, the other was a replacement for my Samsung i760 which has a perfect imprint of my ear in the touchscreen.  Holly’s phone came well packed, surrounded with air packets; mine on the other hand came with a single bubble pack in a big box with my phone bouncing around.  What gets me is that someone had to make look at my box and make a decision…”Yes, I think one bubble pack will do…close up the box and ship’r out.”  Here are pictures for your viewing pleasure, click for larger images.

Note: one bubble pack on the right, phone in white box on the left...good enough for Verizon I guess.

Note: well packed phone