Irish History #21

What You Need

1
lb. ground beef
2
cups hot mashed potatoes
4
oz. (1/2 of 8-oz. pkg.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, cubed
1
cup KRAFT Shredded Cheddar Cheese, divided
2
cloves garlic, minced
4
cups frozen mixed vegetables (peas, carrots, corn and green beans), thawed
1
cup beef gravy

Make It

HEAT oven to 375ºF.
step 1
BROWN meat in large skillet; drain.
step 2
MIX potatoes, cream cheese, 1/2 cup Cheddar and garlic until blended.
step 3
COMBINE meat, vegetables and gravy; spoon into 9-inch square baking dish.
step 4
COVER with potato mixture and remaining Cheddar.  Bake 20 min. or until heated through.

Kraft Kitchens Tips

Healthy Living
Save 70 calories and 9g of fat, including 5g of saturated fat, per serving by preparing with extra-lean ground beef, PHILADELPHIA Neufchatel Cheese and KRAFT 2% Milk Shredded Cheddar Cheese.
Prepare as directed, omitting the garlic and substituting 3/4 cup KRAFT Original Barbecue Sauce mixed with 1/2 tsp. onion powder for the gravy.
Note
If using instant mashed potatoes, omit the milk when preparing the potatoes.

American Pickers are gay

Story found here

HOLLYWOOD-Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz, stars of the History Channel’s American Pickers television show, have raised eyebrows in the past with their a-little-too-close relationship and outright disdain for stunning co-star Danielle Colby Cushman. On Monday, the pair “came out of the closet,” in the hopes that fans would understand their choice of sexuality.

Mostly, the Pickers have not been disappointed. Fans have started a campaign on Twitter under the hashtag #SupportPickers, and many members of the LBGQT activist movement have issued statements of support.

Cushman, who is often taunted and belittled by the Pickers despite her staggering beauty and quick wit, said “I knew it all along, but never said anything because of their miserably fragile egos. I guess they’re stronger than I thought!”

Fritz, the submissive “bear” and megapowerbottom of the couple, has mostly “retreated into his oil can collection,” as rumors of a negative and unsupportive family have spread widely across the Internet. Wolfe, however, seems upbeat and optimistic, just like he always does on TV. Wolfe said, “We’re going to keep on picking, but if you hear a little more lisp when we’re trying to haggle with gays, you’ll know that we aren’t actually just pandering for better prices.”

My favorite pictures

Since I took down tons of pictures on here, I have gotten emails asking to put some up. Fine, I will. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the past few years. Enjoy.

Here I am fresh back from Ireland in 2010 (see shirt). With me are my friends Shannon and Kelly. No offense to my friend Shannon, doesn’t she look hot in that hat? BTW, I survived a few nights in Dublin. Millions of brain cells did not.

dating

Halloween 2010. Besides Brett (The Penguin), no one is sober in this picture.

koser11's Photos | Nov 10, 2012  

I was 20, maybe 21 here. Man I was good looking once. What happened?

dating

Ireland 2010, again. My favorite thing is next to me. Her name was Rosie O’Sullivan. Lovely and I can still hear her beautiful accent like it was yesterday. O’Sullivan means “dark eyed-one” in Irish. This beautiful angel did have dark eyes.

dating

Aww, Shannon and Kristen with me, with Shannon’s husband in the background. Both married, both lovely and I’m still a nerd.

dating

I’m no thug. I’m not ghetto. My alter-ego “T-Bone With A-1″, well, that’s a whole different story. Yes, the gun is real.

It was New Year’s 2013….. I have no clue what’s taking place here. I was on beer #16 along with tons of Bourbon already down my throat.

My favorite person from work with me one night at the Highlands Taproom. Emily beyond beautiful like always!

   Halloween 2012. Gilligan’s Island. We came in 2nd. Rigged ass contest.

Sad….. my last night in Ireland 2010. This was me along with some of the staff from the Arlington Hotel. These people were beyond nice and showed me true hospitality. I never felt home sick due to them and I almost didn’t want to leave. If Rosie O’Sullivan would have been mine, I would have never left……

 Even though I was not in this picture, this is beautiful to me. This was Ireland. This is where my DNA came from. The forefathers of my dad came from here. I am proud of that. Seeing Ireland firsthand was a dream come true. My dad never got to see Ireland. I made it a goal in life to do so. It was even better than I ever dream it could have been. I am proud of my short-tempered, whiskey drinking, folklore believing, hatred of the British, lover of red-heads and Celtic DNA.

UK vs. U of L 12/29/12

Here is my predication for the game -

 

I am a UK fan. I feel U of L is due a win. They have lost the past three straight years and last four games against UK. U of L is playing at home this year. So far this season U of L looks like the better team. U of L has more experience and the talent level at UK is not the same as it has been the past three seasons. The drama with Pitino seems to be gone and everything seems to be in U of L’s favor.

With that said, I will not root against UK or predicate U of L wins. I believe the game will be close. UK somehow wins, 68-67. Go Big Blue!

 

Names of those murdered in Newtown, CT – RIP

- Charlotte Bacon, 2/22/06, female
- Daniel Barden, 9/25/05, male
- Rachel Davino, 7/17/83, female.
- Olivia Engel, 7/18/06, female
- Josephine Gay, 12/11/05, female
- Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 04/04/06, female
- Dylan Hockley, 3/8/06, male
- Dawn Hochsprung, 06/28/65, female
- Madeleine F. Hsu, 7/10/06, female
- Catherine V. Hubbard, 6/08/06, female
- Chase Kowalski, 10/31/05, male
- Jesse Lewis, 6/30/06, male
- James Mattioli , 3/22/06, male
- Grace McDonnell, 12/04/05, female
- Anne Marie Murphy, 07/25/60, female
- Emilie Parker, 5/12/06, female
- Jack Pinto, 5/06/06, male
- Noah Pozner, 11/20/06, male
- Caroline Previdi, 9/07/06, female
- Jessica Rekos, 5/10/06, female
- Avielle Richman, 10/17/06, female
- Lauren Rousseau, 6/1982, female (full date of birth not specified)
- Mary Sherlach, 2/11/56, female- Victoria Soto, 11/04/85, female
- Benjamin Wheeler, 9/12/06, male
- Allison N. Wyatt, 7/03/06, female

Nice blog #15 – heroism

Full Story here

NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) – Elementary school library clerk Mary Ann Jacob heard gunshots and shouted “Lockdown!” to a class of fourth graders. Then she discovered the classroom door wouldn’t lock.

Quickly, quietly she and other library staff got the 18 children down on the floor and crawled with them to a classroom storage closet. Hiding from the gunman who killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday, they barricaded themselves inside by shoving a file cabinet against the door.

“We settled them down with paper and crayons,” Jacob told reporters on Saturday.

The gunfire suddenly ended and police came pounding at the door. But the library staff refused to open it until they slipped a badge under the door, Jacob said.

In the aftermath of the massacre, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy on Friday said “evil” had descended upon the small community of Newtown. But emerging a day after the carnage were tales of heroism by school staff members, including the six who died.

There was first-grade teacher Vicki Leigh Soto, 27, who police said “put herself between the kids and the gunman’s bullets” and whose body was found huddled with the students in a classroom closet, according to The Wall Street Journal.

And there were selfless survivors like first-grade teacher Kaitlin Roig. She told ABC News she scrambled her class into a cramped bathroom, locked the door and “told the kids I love them” in case those were the last words they ever heard.

A school custodian reportedly raced through the hallways echoing with gunfire to check that classroom doors were locked from the inside, the Newtown Bee newspaper said.

On Friday morning fourth graders were in Jacob’s library classroom when the intercom sputtered to life with what sounded like a struggle in the school office.

Thank you to the men and women who serve this nation

America has its share of faults. We are from perfect. This nation still has the greatest freedoms in the world. Websites such as mine can exist. TV shows such as “Saturday Night Live” can poke fun at our politicians daily. People like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert make a living poking fun at politics and our elected leaders. In some nations, these men would be arrested and possibly even murdered for this.

People in this nation can even burn our nation’s flag; refuse to sing the National Anthem and refuse to sing the Pledge of Allegiance. Our nation even allows people to join anti-American groups and hate groups. That is how great our freedom in this nation is. As long as you don’t break the law, you can pretty much do anything in the United States of America.

We as a people take way too much for granted. Most people have no idea what our men and women in the armed-forces give up. They are told when and where to be without a say. They eat, sleep and do what they are ordered to do. Many of them are thousands upon thousands of miles away from their families. They give up so much so you and I don’t have to.

Louisville’s Strange Brew wants to say “thank you” to our current men and women who are serving this great nation. We want to thank the veterans who fought or served this great nation. We thank our forefathers who fought and died for our freedoms. America is still the greatest nation on earth and I am proud to be an American.