A GREAT Christmas!

Gene Howe · Post by **Gene Howe** » Fri Dec 28, 2012 7:31 am

Howdy all you splinter pickers!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Santa was good to you.

Christmas in Tucson with our son and his fiancee was great! Warmer (but not much!) than up here on the mesa. Christina is of Mexican descent and we spent a lot of time with her EXTENDED family. Those folks Know how to celebrate! Great fun! Great food! Wonderful fellowship.
Went out to a great Vietnamese restaurant (Miss Saigon) and had some amazing Pho. I think that's spelled it right. Anyhow, it's a rice noodle soup that comes with all sorts of savory greens on the side that you can add to your taste. The choices of meats for the soup were seafood, chicken, rare beef slices and beef balls. I chose the balls, thinking they would be spiced meat balls, kinda like Albondigas or Italian wedding soup. They weren't! They were sliced gonads.
Not a problem. Mountain oysters have always been a favorite of mine.
It was a wonderful treat for the palate.
Our son found an old Craftsman shoulder plane for me as a Christmas gift. I *think* it's a shoulder plane. Open on one side, two throats, and solid iron. No wooden handle. It's missing the fence. A future quest, I guess.
He also gave me a portable DVD player for use in the shop. That will be quite handy since the wife refuses to let me take the desk top or the lap top to the shop.
Now I just gotta figure out how to burn U tube videos to a DVD. Anybody know how that's done?

What's everyone got planned for New Year? Any resolutions you'd care to share?

Just be safe out there, whatever you do!

joedw00 · Post by **joedw00** » Fri Dec 28, 2012 10:35 am

Sounds like a fun filled Christmas. We had around 27 here with all kids and grand children. I don't make resolutions. I use RealPlayer to download you tube then convert it over to WMV, then I burn it to a CD.

backhertz · Post by **backhertz** » Fri Dec 28, 2012 1:41 pm

Pho (promounced, "Faaah")is one of my favorite dishes. There are a number of Vietnamese restaurants in my area popping up which gives us a number of places to choose from. I can take my wife & myself out for dinner and enjoy an appetizer and each of us enjoy a bowl of pho. The check including the tip is usually under $20 and I can walk out without being over stuffed unless I had a large bowl of pho which is more than enough for 2.

Pho is a broth-based soup and is usually served with a plate full of bean sprouts, leaves of fresh cilantro, half a lime, and a few thin sliced chili peppers. Some people usually add fish sauce, hoisin sauce, or chili sauce to directly to the soup while others might simply add the sauces to a small dish and dip the meat or whatever into the dish. This way they don't disturb the flavor of the broth.

My globe trotting youngest daughter took a trip to Vietnam and attended a couple of culinary courses so she could learn to make her own pho. It starts in a broth which I understand cooks overnight. She tells me it is primarily a breakfast dish/meal over in Vietnam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pho

Vietnam was a French colony for many years and the French influence on Vietnamese cuisine is very apparent in many of the dishes. If you ever want to enjoy a great Vietnamese hoagie/sub/grinder/ or whatever you might call a sandwich made on a French bread torpedo roll, you will enjoy a Vietnamese hoagie which is not a heart attack on a roll like most Italian subs, but a very flavorful sandwich with fresh ciliantro. Here is a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bánh_mì

My favorite place to enjoy Vietnamese cuisine is near Long Beach, CA in a place I only know as "Little Saigon." It's an area where English is the second language and a person can really enjoy all the variations of the cuisine. But throughout the US now, more and more Asian restaurants are opening up and becoming popular. In addition to the soup, you can enjoy a variety of other things.

I worked with an engineer who was considered a "boat person" who escaped Vietnam following the US withdrawal in the 70's. He would always order for me without even looking at the menu and I would just enjoy whatever he ordered for me. I had no idea what I was eating sometimes- but he was eating it too, so I knew I was safe.

My engineer friend was also a genius at downloading movies and videos off the internet. Where he went to obtain the movies, I have not a clue. But if you want to copy You Tube videos, you can simply go to You Tube and watch many You Tube videos on how to do it. Go to Youtube.com and enter: "copying youtube to DVD". You'll get more choices than you'll have time to ever watch.

I think joedw00's suggestion to use Realplayer is a good place to start. Here is one link- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYOhDYLkUcM
<you might want to turn off the sound as he plays some annoying music>

joedw00 · Post by **joedw00** » Fri Dec 28, 2012 2:05 pm

RealPlayer will download just about any video you are watching. Like backhertz said that is what is neat about it you will be able to watch it even if you don't have internet. It will be in RealPlayer library.

fredsheldon · Post by **fredsheldon** » Fri Dec 28, 2012 3:22 pm

Enjoyed Christmas with my Wife's family in N.O. where I passed out over 30 custom Pen and Letter Opener Sets to family members. All seemed very surprised that such items could be forthcoming from my modest SS shop.

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And Santa was good to me as well, I now have a speed changer on my recently restored 10ER which I'm using as a dedicated drill press. I hope I have it set up correctly. It seems to operate properly. Now I can start on next year's project, Custom Computer stylus pens for everybody.

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