What Did You Do Today?

[Pat B]

Thanks Uncle Bob and Brian. Brian, I've been making jokes about it all along since it was only a skin laceration and not a serious head wound. I was lucky. 

[Eric Krewson]

I had a longtime friend over to shoot his cross bow and rifle on my 50-yard backyard range, we have been friends for 40 years. He is disabled from having so many back surgeries, he can barely walk 20 ft. I pulled his arrows and marked his rifle shots, even gave him advice on using his equipment, he seemed to have forgotten how.

This is a very intelligent man, sometimes a bit intense who has always been a spend-aholic on hunting and fishing gear, he had a large shop filled with boxes of stuff he bought and never used. Other than this quirk he has been very level headed in all other areas.

Now get this; he told me about being contacted by a gal in Saudi Arabia who was in a bind but had inherited 650 mil in gold from her late father's estate who just happened to be a gold miner. The estate hadn't been settled yet but if my friend could send her some cash he could have the bulk of the gold. This was a very elaborate scheme complete with video chats and directions on how to set up aps on his phone to send her bit coin. She set the hook and led him into a financial trap but he believed every word of it and had sent her 20K, she was pressing him for more, much more.

I told him it was a classic Nigerian scam but he was completely oblivious to what I told him and refused to see the truth.

I don't know what to do, I think I could see the early signs of dementia in him which would make him a perfect candidate to fall for such nonsense.

I just sent my friend this; it may end our 40-year friendship by my intervening, as his friend I just couldn't turn my back on his huge mistake and it what it will mean to his wife, kids and grandkids, he is 76.

https://nordvpn.com/blog/nigerian-prince-scam/ 

[Eric Krewson]

Rainy days are good days to cook, I started the morning making a deer stew with a neck roast, tasty meat but tough and stringy. I pressure cooked the roast for 35 minutes to tenderize it. When I make stew, I make it up as I go, no recipe. I put everything I had on hand in the pot along with some beef stock. I like my stew thick and creamy, I always thicken the finished stew with instant mashed potatoes, they also add a rich flavor.

I planned to cook the stew for several hours; I had bought a couple of chickens at Walmart yesterday so this looked like a good time to bake one while I was waiting on the stew to cook. These whole chickens are huge, much larger than the rotisserie chickens that they sell. I have found that an hour and 20 minutes in my convection oven at 350 degrees cooks them just right, cooked perfectly and still juicy. I will get 7 or 8 meals from the chicken I baked today.
I like to make a wine sauce gravy out of the drippings for the sliced breast meat.

[Pappy]

Man Eric that looks great,especially after what I been getting the last few weeks. Good old version stew yum yum. 😋 Pappy

[Pappy]

By the way did you get your friend taken care of with the scammers?? Sad but happens a lot now days.Pappy

[Eric Krewson]

I emailed him, told him how much he meant to me and sent him a detailed description of just how a Nigerian scam worked and how he had been taken by the scammers. I didn't hear anything from him for a week or so, then he emailed me back with a "thank-you", he didn't elaborate whether he believed me or not.

The scammers had him brainwashed, sometimes a person like this is hard to get to.

I was scammed out of 30K one time in the 80s on what was called a pump and dump scheme. Several analysts were really talking up a particular stock, promising it would double or triple in value in a year. I bought 30K worth of the stock on their advice. Turns out they bought the stock at $4 a share, pumped it up with praise to get people to invest in it which boosted the value to $70 a share. The analysts dumped their shares at $70, took a huge profit and caused the stock to drop back to $4 a share and leaving us gullible holding the bag with huge losses. My $70 a share stock dropped to $4 in hours, the stock became a penny stock a few weeks later, lesson learned.  I got off light at $30K, others lost hundreds of thousands.

Ever since that hard-earned lesson I can spot a scam from a mile away. 

[GlisGlis]

Pump and dump is the scheme of many recent crypto currencies. Some are worst than others.

[soy]

You'll have that especially with the new stuff...dang crypto any who

[Eric Krewson]

I tried dehydrating and vacuum sealing squash this year; I didn't expect it to taste very good because when I opened the jar the squash smelled funky strong.



I tried it in my steamed vegetable mix and it was actually very good.

Yesterday I decided to fry some to see how it would turn out, I rehydrated it in a bowl of water first.



I rolled the rehydrated squash in mix Zatarain's of fish fry, flower and corn meal and fried it in olive oil with thinly sliced onion, I didn't bread the onion.



The finished fried squash was about the best I ever ate, I wish I had put up 10 jars instead of just 2, no more freezing squash for me, drying will be my go-to method of squash storage for me in the future.