I did it! The deer is cooked. I cooked it in three different ways and took pictures. One thing I’ve taken for granted during all my years of buying supermarket packaged meet is the amount of blood that I don’t have to deal with. The hunk of deer was wrapped in a layer of plastic wrap, a layer of newspaper, several plastic shopping bags, and finally a garbage bag. Once I got all of the covering off, I found a large, extremely bloody piece of meat. I took the picture below after I washed off most of the blood.

After I got over the sight of all the blood, I grabbed the meat, cleaned it, and inspected it. I found no buck or fur, though I had absolutely no idea what signs I should be looking for. I had my lady, who has better eyes than me, take a look also. She didn’t see anything either, so hopefully we won’t get any surprises as we eat this massive quantity of meat. After inspection, I got to play butcher.

I was pretty proud of my butcher skills. I cut two huge steaks and some smaller pieces for stew. The remaining hunk was my roast. Below are before and after shots.

In the end, it all came out tasting pretty good – very much like beef. I’m not sure if I’d be able to tell the difference in a blind taste test. The stew and sliced roast are hanging out in my freezer right now (It’s a whole lot more meat than we’re going to eat within the next few days) and I am already looking forward to the next time I’m gifted with venison.

Last night I tasted deer for my first time. At first, it seemed almost indistinguishable from beef, but after a moment, i noticed that it’s flavor was much more intense than beef’s flavor. Still, my first reaction was “it’s okay.” About ten minutes later, I realized that the taste was still on my mind and I wanted more even though I had eaten a full meal and desert not long ago. Fortunately I was given a huge hunk of frozen deer to take home.

Along with the frozen cut, I was given some advice on how to prepare it. I’m trying not to be squeamish about it – I’ve cleaned and prepared meat and fish before, but this will be my first time preparing meat that didn’t come from a market. Somebody shot the deer, cut it up, froze it, and now it’s thawing out in my sink. I was instructed to check the meat for buck and if there are holes from buck, check them for any fur that might have entered the deer along with the buck. Mmmm. Still, I think it is worth it – the meat is fresher than anything I’ve ever bought and it wasn’t raised on funky hormones and chemical concoctions.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to cook it. After doing some reading online, I think I’m going to cut it into three pieces and cook them in different ways. I’ll roast the larger piece, broil another piece, and cook the third in some sort of gravy. Hmmm . . . maybe I’ll take pictures of the process and post them. Stay tuned.

Update: I just got home and checked on Bambi. After about 16 hours of being out, Bambi is still frozen solid. I was planning to marinate him for at least 24 hours, so I guess there’ll be no Rudolph for Christmas.

Today I had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant with some co-workers. The restaurant we went to is one of my favorite places to eat in Philly. Despite that, I haven’t eaten there in years. I forgot all about the place. There have been a few times recently when my lady and I found ourselves completely uninspired when trying to figure out where to eat, and this place never crossed my mind.

I’m wondering if there are other things from my past that could be enriching my life now, if they hadn’t been forgotten. Even as I write this, some things are coming to mind. We tend to look to memories as ways of reliving what once was, the good times we had but memories can also be the key to the good times to come. Don’t forget that.

I am writing this entry on my newest gadget – an ipaq 110. The ipaq is a PDA – no phone, just a PDA. Sales on phoneless PDA’s have been abysmal over the past few years, especially in comparison to smartphones. I am purposely going against the trend.It’s not that I don’t see the benefits of having one device, the problem is that when it comes to purchasing smartphones in this country, I see nothing but a bunch of bad options. Let’s see . . .

- I could’ve taken the standard path – buy a smartphone that is subsidized by a service provider. After paying a chunk of money, I would’ve been stuck with a 2 year contract, a phone that would not have worked on other networks, and a monthly bill that was inflated by data costs. To cut down on data costs, I could’ve gone with a wi-fi enabled phone, but phones with wi-fi are more expensive.

- I could’ve bought an unlocked phone which would not be limited to one network. I would’ve spent a LOT more money, and once again I would’ve been forced to choose between extra data costs and expensive wi-fi.

- I could’ve bought a network subsidized phone and then used one of the various unlocking methods to get rid of network limitations. Depending on the phone model, unlocking can cost money and it can be risky – just look at the horrible experiences many iphone users had with unlocked phones.

None of these options seems worth it to me, especially considering the alternative – a plain old PDA. My ipaq 110 has wi-fi and bluetooth. I can get online, work on my website, blog, write lyrics, and more – and I don’t have to deal with any monthly fees or contracts. Counting shipping costs, the ipaq cost about $280 (www.datavis.com) – comparable to the initial cost of some of the cheaper smartphones. If you want to factor in the other costs, you could add the data costs for the 2 years of contract time (I believe it usually starts around $20/month) and you’ll find that a $280 smartphone really costs you $568. Ouch! I think I got a good deal.

So, my hope is that my ipaq will make me more efficient. There have been many times when I wanted to do some writing, but I was not at a computer or the computer I was at didn’t have the file I wanted to work on. Now, that won’t be a problem because my computer is with me. My e-mail is with me, my RSS feeds are with me, my schedule, my lyrics – it’s all here in my hand.

Edit: So I wrote the entry that’s about to be posted after this, but apparently I sent the wrong file to blogger. I’m going to leave this up for memory’s sake.

Bluetooth PhoneManager
version 4.30 071012
Diagnostic file

———

Check if “HP IPAQ 110″ is allowed
HP IPAQ RX4 NOT FOUND
HP IPAQ HX2490 NOT FOUND
HP IPAQ HX4700 NOT FOUND
HEWLETT-PACKARD COMPANY NOT FOUND
HP IPAQ HX2790 NOT FOUND
HP IPAQ 110 found
Ok!