I had a conversation with a man today about Egypt.  He was a troubleshooter for a multinational food company.  He had gone to Egypt because the company was having trouble getting a new pita bread factory opened.  There were problems with infrastructure and equipment and many other little things. 
While he was there, the superintendant of the factory said he wanted to show him something.  They drove just a couple of blocks and stopped on a street corner.  There a man with a huge bowl of dough was rolling out pita bread.  The two men weighed a few pieces of dough, and saw that the pieces were completely uniform.  The superintendant said, "This man works 18 hours without stopping, then rests for three days, then does it all again." 
They went back to the factory and got it running.
The troubleshooter said he was there just long enough to get the factory running, then went home. "It will break down after I am half an hour out of the country but I finally got it running". 

Guess what this is.

Looks like a stair case doesn't it?  But it is actually the interior of the Red Pyramid in Dashur.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Pyramid

Here is another view.

The writing on the right side of the picture is graffiti (probably candle smoke from the 1800's) on the inside.  The pyramids at Giza were amazing, but overall, I enjoyed our visit to Dashur more. The pyramid is imposing and more grand looking on the landscape, and the interior is this awesome corbled vault. It was less crowded: at Giza there were a couple hundred tourists and double that many people trying to sell us things.  Here there were a few other people and, oddly, only one person trying to sell anything, and he was asleep.  (That happened a lot during Ramadan). It was also a fun place to go, driving over the Egyptian country side and seeing the villages and farms.  The only downside was the smell, which was worse than the  NYC subway.  

Somewhere I want to go - Day 5

Somewhere I have never been but would love to go: 
I Love Barbecue.  Living in the south for sometime I learned to recognize places to get good barbecue, (more about that later) and heard about the world of competitive barbecue.  Sometimes the food network has competitive barbecuers on TV and it looks like so much fun.  They have giant elaborate grills and smokers on trailers, so they can travel to different barbecue competitions around the country.  Inside the rigs are large unmarked jars of spice rubs, whose recipe they guard with zeal.  At the competition, they tend the fires with all the care of a steam train fire man, watching for hot spots and flare ups.  The smell of burning wood and slow cooking meat must be amazing.
Writing this, I looked up barbecue competitions, and there are many more than I ever imagined.  I think I will be doing this soon.

My Rules for Finding Good Barbecue:
1. If it is a chain with more than 3 locations, or if those locations are more than 200 miles apart: -50
2. If the location is in a strip mall: -20
3. If the building has an indoor seating -10
4. Add 5 points for each of the following that is missing; Public bathroom, doors, windows, floor.
5. If the location is a guy in a trailer with a picnic table outside +25
6. If the trailer is next to the interstate -5
7. If you are given a printed menu -10
8. If the menu has more than 10 things on it -10
9. If the menu has fish -10 or vegetarian dishes -50
10. If most of the signs are written in magic marker and taped somewhere +10
11. If the cook is also the person that takes your order +10
12. If the cook is related to the person that takes your order +8
13. If there are utensils -5, if they are not plastic -10
14. If the food is served on anything that has to be washed -10
15. If there are other people eating there who the cook has known for more than 20 years +15
16. Add 5 points if you are in a state that was part of the Confederacy

Rialto Beach, Olympic National Park

Colorado is just about as land-locked as a state gets. So our trip to Washington was the first time our kids got to see the ocean or a beach.  The idea of high tide and low tide was totally new to us.  We found out the tides are more extreme at full and new moon, and we were there in between.  Still, for people totally unfamiliar the the ocean and tides at all, it was a whole new world.  We spent most of our time at Olympic on the beach, I would love to go back and hike more in the interior.

Random Picture

I have thousands of pictures, so I thought today I would select a random picture and post it, then write the story.  This is a replica of one of the ships that Columbus sailed to the Americas.  These ships were doing a tour up the east coast and we went out and saw them when they stopped in Florida.  I forget which of the ships this one is.  Something that we learned upon going to see the ship:  You see in all the movies people "swabbing the deck".  I always thought that it was becaue of the sea water and wind and stuff the deck got wet so people always had to mop it up so people didn't slip.  The truth is, the deck is designed to stay wet.  The deck is swabbed not to get the water off, but to evenly distribute the water over the whole deck so the boards stay wet. 
They are still touring, if you are interested: http://www.thenina.com/schedule.htm

Day 2 The Pinewood Derby

Last night was the Pinewood Derby.  The car turned out great, yesterday's problem with the paint job wasn't a problem because DS already had a cool paint job planned.  He painted it like lanes on a track, complete with brown strips for the infield.  On the front the painted the word "WIN" and on the back "Start".  I loved the design.  Every boy raced four times, once in each lane.  After winning the first race by a long way, the car feel behind.  Sadly, before the last race, there were some technical issues, they were repaired, but the car lost a lot of speed.  The scouts all had a fun time.  The funnest they had was after everything was over and the boys lined up across the gym from eachother and rolled their cars back and forth between them. 

Just for Fun...Day 1

I was writing my menu for the next three days.  (Yes I only do three days at a time, I hate making up menus so I have to keep the job short or I don't do it.  That is why we have seven pizza boxes in our garbage right now. and a birthday party)  And I looked up the blog of someone that blogged about cooking in her crock pot once a day for a year.   And it made me wonder if I could do a blog every day for a year.  So here goes...day 1.

Today is the pinewood derby, we haven't done anything on his car until last night except shaping.  Last night we added weights and today we were painting it.  It is a really cool shiny black with gold flecks.  Except I wanted to put it outside to dry, and it was raining, so I grabbed an old aluminum pan to prop over it to keep off the rain.  Except the pan had ashes in it.  I got ashes all over the wet paint of the pinewood derby car, and today is the big day.  I'm such an idiot.

So what is on the menu?
BBQ roast beef sandwiches (potluck for derby)
Macaroni and Cheese
Tamale Pie (crock pot from the website)