2021 Week 51 – One Week to Go!

It’s the week before Christmas, and we’ve had some amazingly warm weather lately. I was looking at the long-term forecast, and it says we’re going to be in the 60s on December 25th… In INDIANA! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 60-degree Christmas in the Midwest.


The Bearded Bagel opened up a brick-and-mortar shop on 96th St. in front of Sam’s club. I haven’t been yet, but they specialize in steamed bagel sandwiches like Broad Ribble Bagle (BRB) serves. Not as big of a menu as BRB but a lot closer. The food trucks have been around the city for a while now and have a pretty decent following.

Speaking of Carbs, the Chef/Owner of Northside Social plans to open a biscuit place around 96th and Keystone. I’m keeping my eye on that as it’s really close to my office (and I love a good biscuit sandwich).

Staying on the food topic, The Union Jack Pub in Broad Ripple has opened a new location across the street from their old locations. They own the building, so they should have a little more control of future costs. I’ve had lunch at the new location twice this past week. For the first lunch, I ordered a Cuban sandwich with a salad. It was very good, and I would not hesitate to get that again, but the guy sitting next to me ordered the 7-inch personal deep dish pizza, so I knew I needed to return.

Pepperoni, Mushroom, & Green Olive Pizza

This was a solid little pizza that was absolutely delicious. LOTS of cheese and toppings with a very flavorful sauce and light doughy crust. All I was missing was a side of garlic butter to dip that crust in.

I’ve been a little less serious about the Low Carb diet these past few weeks and have found myself “cheating” a little more than usual. I’m still eating better than I was earlier this year and have seen the benefits of lowering the carbs and sugars in my overall diet. I can’t remember the last time I had fast food, and I’m totally OK with that!


And finally, here’s a little bit of food trivia I learned about this past week. Did you know Wolfgang Puck lived in Indianapolis? In fact, Indianapolis was his first American home, and he worked here for a couple of years in the ’70s. He still has a presence in Indianapolis with a Wolfgang Puck Express located in the Indianapolis International Airport (IND).

At the age of 24, Wolfgang took the advice of a friend and left Europe for the United States. His first job was at the restaurant La Tour in Indianapolis, where he worked from 1973 to 1975.

https://wolfgangpuck.com/about/

Enjoy the next to the last week of 2021, and Look for our year-end recap next week.

2021 Week 48 – You ARE Being Watched

I took some time over the long holiday weekend to finish a book I had started a few weeks ago and promptly start another related one.

Permanent Record by Edward Snowden is an eye-opening tale centering around a late 20-something NSA contractor who exposes the US Government’s mass surveillance system created after 9/11. Love him or hate him he brought to light the vast data collection of US citizens by their government.

No Place to Hide by Glenn Greenwald starts up with his interview of Snowden while he hides in Hong Kong before his trove of documents is released to the public by various medial outlets. Meanwhile, Laura Poitras films a series of interviews for her documentary Citizen Four. It goes into incredible detail about the surveillance systems in use around the world, by many countries, and details just how far they have gone to invade your privacy.

If you have any interest in this kind of stuff it’s well worth your time to seek out these books or at least watch the full documentary (available on YouTube with Ads (that will track you, haha)). It will chill you to the core and make you think about what you do online going forward.

As I wrote earlier this year everyone needs to be using a Password Manager application. My favorite continues to be Bitwarden. The free version is more than enough for most people but the $10 paid version adds some advanced features and helps support the development. Getting started with a Password manager is NOT difficult and is NOT a good excuse for NOT using one. Bitwarden for Beginners is a great place to start.

NordPass just released their annual Top 200 Common Password list. It shows what people are actually using to secure their private data as well as how long it takes to crack and gain access. If your password is on the list you should assume your accounts have been compromised because you probably use the SAME password in multiple places. The benefit of a Password Manager is that you can use a different, unique, password for every account and only need to remember ONE (secure) master password/phrase. The tool generates and documents the login details for you.

Another security tool you should consider using, especially if you use your devices in public, is a personal VPN account. This tool encrypts your traffic and protects you from anyone wanting to access your data. Sounds a little overkill but it’s not uncommon for someone to sit on a public network and watch for unsecured traffic to exploit. In fact, as far back as 2013 AT&T and Starbucks encouraged it! My personal favorite is Private Internet Access (PIA) which works on all devices including your phone and tablet. An annual subscription is $39.99.

I think that just about wraps things up for this week. It’s hard to believe 2021 is 90% over & we’re getting ready to settle down into the winter months. At least I have a stack of books to go through while hunkering down inside for the next 3 months. See you next week!

2021 Week 15 – Batter Up!

Baseball is back! I played baseball for many years before I moved to Indiana and have followed the Cincinnati Reds since I was a kid. When Major League Baseball (MLB) went on strike in 1994-95 I just stopped watching. I’ve attended several Indianapolis Indians games over the years since then but I never got back into the MLB. I found myself watching a Reds game the other day & actually enjoyed it! I’m now back on the bandwagon rooting for the Cincinnati Red Legs.

Remember that Cargo Ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal last month? There have been some funny Internet memes as well as canal simulators that came out of the mess. One I quite enjoyed allows you see the actual size of that ship compared to everyday objects on Google Maps. Like this one comparing the Ever Given to Lucas Oil Stadium:

And it even showed up in the Microsoft Flight Simulator game

Fishers has a new(ish) Mexican restaurant near the Geist Marina. El Lago (meaning “The Lake”) has been open about a year and quickly became our go-to place for dinner. The prices are great, the portions are huge, and the quality is amazing. My favorite is the Burrito Choriz which has chicken and steak cooked with onions, covered with cheese sauce, Mexican sausage, shrimp and pineapple. Served with rice or beans. For $13 you can’t beat it! I recommend the beans, they are really good and obviously homemade, as is their salsa.

Finally, some good news for the Castleton area. It was posted on the Indianapolis Reddit they’re finally making progress on the Saraga International Grocery that was reported in the IBJ back in 2019. I have some concerns bout the other asian markets in the area (Patel Bros, Asia Mart, Viet Hua, and One World Market) being able to compete with Saraga but I welcome the addition to the area. It’s about as close and Indianapolis is going to get to a Jungle Jim’s in Cincinnati.

Porter Ranch Gas Leak Plugged

Follow up to a post from the end of December.  Looks like they finally were able to get the Methane leak contained.  No telling what the long-term environmental impact will be or what the 5,000+ displaced families are going to have to deal with.

Nearly four months of environmental contamination and civic disruption in Porter Ranch came close to an end Thursday when work crews pierced the underground casing of the damaged Aliso Canyon gas well and started injecting it with a mud-like compound.

Source: Road to recovery begins in Porter Ranch as gas leak is halted at last

Huge Methane Leak You’ve Probably Don’t Know About

Big problems in Los Angeles after an underground containment system failed and started spewing Methane at an incredible 110,000 pounds an HOUR!  Even worse, containment efforts have failed and it’s estimated the leak won’t be stopped for months.

More info here and here.

“Among the Hidden” Book Series

How does this book sound to you?

In a futuristic society the world is controlled by a new government and “The Population Police” who have decreed that no family shall have more than two children. These laws having been brought on supposedly by overpopulation, severe famine and death. Any child being born third or after in a family is a “shadow child” not to be seen by anyone or they will be taken away and killed along with their family and anyone who harbors them. – Book synopsis from Wikipedia

Sounds like a scary scenario right?  Here’s the kicker.  My son was assigned this book to read in 6th grade!  Doesn’t that seem a little dark for pre-teen kids?  I’m not alone according to some of the reviews on Amazon.

When I asked him about the Diary of Anne Frank he’d never heard of it.  This “Among the Hidden” book has a similar premise of hiding form the outside but at least Frank’s tale is true & discusses an important part of world history.

Not sure what to think of this…