Nebraska Discoveries 13: Historic Fort Crook & SAC Chapel, Offutt AFB

05. May 2010 · Comments Off on Nebraska Discoveries 13: Historic Fort Crook & SAC Chapel, Offutt AFB · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

Today I’m sharing some of the history on Offutt AFB.  Unfortunately, everyone can’t just get onto Offutt.  You need to have a military ID card to get onto the base freely, or make a friend with a military member who can sign you in as a guest.

As mentioned before, I started using this software to track my runs. The software doesn’t seem very stable on my iPhone (probably because I downloaded the free version and they want my money before it works the way I want it to…). So this isn’t the most accurate thing out there, but it’s fun to give it a go.

So here’s a map of the most recent run I performed:

If you choose “view full” in the lower left, then select the satellite map (or Hybrid), you can see that I’m running the perimeter of a large field. This is the parade field of what was formerly Fort Crook, which was the original military installation that is now the home of Offutt AFB. Fort Crook was established in 1888, and was completed in 1894.  Today, many of the buildings surrounding the parade field are from their original mid-1890s construction, including the buildings of “General’s Row” which are seen in the background here from the late 1890s:

And here are the same houses today, the same ones as on the left side of the above photo:

Major Mom the Geek Strikes Again…

03. May 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

Just showing off one of the gizmo gadgets I’m trying out here. This software is in my iPhone.  It ties into the GPS in the phone and records location, distance, speed and time.  I’ve downloaded the free version, which has some sort of screen saver glitch that prevents me from stopping the runs in time, so it isn’t 100% accurate, but it’s good enough for me.  In fact, in this case, the GPS didn’t kick on until I was about 6 houses down from where I started running, so this route is about .1 miles short.

I love that it’s translating into route information and elevation data.  You can even see that I run opposing traffic if you zoom in enough 🙂

For more oohs…and aaahhhhs….click on “Show Elevation” towards the bottom. This is one of the hillier runs I do, and my knees usually pay me back for about 24 hours after this run.

Hypothesis Successful!

02. May 2010 · Comments Off on Hypothesis Successful! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

Yesterday morning I posted about the Hamburger Helper we were planning for dinner. I predicted that our dinner would be a beef-based gravy and it turned out that’s exactly what we ended up with.

I know I had promised just a comment at the bottom of yesterday’s post about the outcome of the Hamburger Helper. But this was worth a separate blog post because of a suggestion from a friend (which I’ll mention below).

So here’s what we ended up with:

From 2010 05 01 Hamburger Helper

Howie’s vomit? No…”Beef Pasta” flavored Hamburger Helper.  Let’s show it nice and up close for you:

From 2010 05 01 Hamburger Helper

I don’t know about you, but I don’t find this appealing looking one bit. It tasted edible, and only Jacob liked it…I can’t believe I loved this stuff as a kid!  My hypothesis was correct in that the flavor of this dish was based on a creamy beef gravy. You add milk along with the browned beef and water. If you manage through the preservative-y saltiness, you can taste a beefy-type flavor.

Why is this a separate post? Because when I posted this picture to my Facebook page, one of my friends, who maintains a gluten-free household, brought this blog post to my attention. Homemade Hamburger Helper! Without the preservatives, sodium and other unpronouncable ingredients! Yay!

I was thinking that Hamburger Helper would make a good camping meal, so I’m looking forward to this alternative! Now, to choose a flavor, Suzanne made so many options!

What Does "Natural" Taste Like???

01. May 2010 · Comments Off on What Does "Natural" Taste Like??? · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , ,
Last Sunday I took both boys to the grocery store.  Dave was working at the train show, so I just took both boys along, which is rare for me.  I typically go during the week when I only need to take, at most, one of the boys.  So it had been a while since I took both Jacob and Timmy.  They weren’t poorly behaved, but I was inundated with “Mommy, can we get X?”…”Mommy, can we get Y?”…”Mommy, can we get Z?”

Among the items they asked for was Hamburger Helper.  Jacob actually cracked me up during his sales pitch, since he even took the time to mention the Box Top for Education at the top of the boxes.  While it isn’t the most nutritious meal out there, I guess it beats a Happy Meal, right?   I remember having Hamburger Helper as a kid.  It was okay, but not at the top of my dinner-preparation list.

Here’s the one I let Jacob choose. Why not? This can be one of our “sometimes foods”, right? I had hoped he’d choose one of the more Italian-themed flavors, like the lasagna-style, but this is what he picked.

If you can’t read the label, the description of the flavor is “Pasta & Naturally Flavored Sauce Mix”.

What in the world is “Naturally Flavored?” Staring at the packaging didn’t give me any insight. It looks like a cheese sauce in the picture, but it turns out it isn’t really. Looking at the ingredients, I didn’t see anything that indicated milk products. Sugar, beef stock and dried onion and garlic jumped out as a hint to the flavor.

Patricia’s Hypothesis: It’s going to be a standard beef gravy with the pasta and beef.

So this will be our dinner tonight — I’ll leave a comment this evening and let you know how it turns out. I picked up some 96% lean ground beef, so I know this will be a low-fat meal, at least.

Speaking of Hamburger Helper, who else remembers the jingle from the 1980s where the slogan was “Hamburger Helper helps the hamburger help HER….” Ha ha! Not “help HIM”….”help HER”.

Because what man would cook this, right?  I found the commercial on You Tube, so enjoy!

Nebraska Discoveries 12: Lauritzen Gardens…Omaha’s Botanical Center

28. April 2010 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

Since I won’t be in the Omaha area forever, I realized recently that my time is running out for visiting the many attractions in the area.  Thanks to my boys’ field trips, Cub Scouting and birthday party invitations, they’ve already been to several area attractions.  But I’ve set a new goal for myself and the family: to visit every attraction on the Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau’s “Pin Map”.

You probably can’t see it that well, but just click on the “Pin Map” link above and you can see the original PDF.   It’s called the “Pin Map” because in front of each of these attractions is an enormous mock up of a blue-tipped pin.  I’ll get a picture of one as soon as I can…
So…my goal is to visit each of the 15 attractions on the “Pin Map” before I leave the area.  So far, I’ve covered 7 of the 15 attractions (numbers 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, and 13)…and we have this summer to make our way through the rest.  Maybe I’ll blog about these “pins” as we visit them…I hope to, but I won’t make any guarantees.
Today I’ll share with you my first visit to #8 on the list: Lauritzen Gardens.
Timmy’s preschool class took a trip here on Monday.  I can’t believe I’ve lived here nearly 2 years and hadn’t been here till this week!  I guess it goes with living in a house full of boys, right?
This is a beautiful place, full of pretty flowers (of course) but I also really enjoyed the gardens “repurposing” sconces, corbels and other ornamentals from throughout Omaha…the pieces were rescued and help decorate the gardens.  The kids really enjoyed the flowers but the weather wasn’t very good and the walking was pretty tough on that group of 4 and 5 year olds.
So here are some pictures of the lovely visit.  I won’t include everything, just some of the more summary-type pics.  I STILL can’t believe I left our camera sitting on the counter as we headed out the door…so these pictures are with my iPhone camera.

This piece was repurposed from a downtown Omaha building:

Tom & Jerry: Not Suitable for Children….Really?

23. April 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

So…over here on the left is a DVD box set that I bought for my boys this week.  38 episodes of Tom and Jerry!  It was $14.99 at our local Baker’s (read: Kroger) grocery store.

My boys LOVE Tom and Jerry!  I loved Tom and Jerry cartoons when I was little.  I fondly recall watching the shorts on Channel 27 back in the early 80s in Norfolk.

This particular box set is special because it has the short “Puss Gets the Boot”, which was the very first Tom and Jerry short…so old that Tom isn’t even called “Tom”.  He’s “Jasper” here.  In fact, “Puss Gets the Boot” is the very first time William Hanna and Joseph Barbera worked together in 1939.

I’m looking at the back of the box, which typically has the description of the DVD, playing time (320 minutes!), MPAA rating, etc.  There’s also this line:

“TOM AND JERRY SPOTLIGHT COLLECTION VOLUME 2 is Intended for the Adult Collector and May Not Be Suitable for Children.”

WHAT?  Are they serious?  Because of the violence?  The perceived racism of Mammy Two Shoes (a character inspired by Hattie McDaniel’s Mammy from Gone with the Wind)?  What’s it doing on Cartoon Network and Boomerang if children shouldn’t be watching it?

The beginning of the first DVD in this set has an introduction by Whoopi Goldberg, who discusses the racist themes and violence and emphasizes that while it’s funny to see the characters perform in such ways, it doesn’t mean such behavior is advocated.  At least Whoopi is supportive of allowing viewers to see the cartoons the way they were originally drawn…many of the Mammy Two Shoes episodes had her edited out and replaced by a seemingly white woman.

Anyway, I found that rather interesting, that disclaimer about Tom and Jerry not being for children.  My kids love it, and I don’t think they’re going to become criminals or juvenile delinquents because of what they watch on these DVDs.

What Will They Think of Next????

18. April 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

So here we are at Costco, for our quarterly stock-up trip. We were almost out of the big ticket items that I usually stock in bulk: toilet tissue, coffee, dinner napkins, kitchen trashbags, bar soap, etc. As usual, we ended up with stuff we don’t need, like a case of Mexicoke. But I have to admit I did MUCH better than usual!

So I was walking down the snack aisle, issuing an endless stream of “No, Timmy!”s and “No, Jacob!”s at their endless stream of “Mother, can we have [insert crappy snack item here]?”. And we saw these chips. And dissolved into a flurry of giggles all at once!!! I think we all agreed: none of us want this!

O. M. G. What will they think of next???

Nebraska Discoveries 11: Flowering Trees

17. April 2010 · Comments Off on Nebraska Discoveries 11: Flowering Trees · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

Today I went on a number of errands, including to our nearby model train store to pick up a boxcar Dave ordered, and to the local large children’s consignment sale that’s wrapping up this weekend. I decided to grab my camera and capture some of the pretty trees that are gracing eastern Nebraska right now. I’m not sure why I didn’t notice these last year — it could be that I was just coming home from my deployment at this time a year ago…and my mind was on other things, like looking at how much my little boys had grown instead of at the blooming trees.

Anyway, I’m definitely now noticing these pretty trees throughout Eastern Nebraska, and I spent several minutes this afternoon photographing assorted trees in our neighborhood, and then later today I was busy uploading the pictures and investigating what kinds of trees I photographed.  I’m no professional photographer, I just wanted to capture some memories of these pretty trees, we don’t plan to be in Nebraska forever.

Really…we won’t.  We really like it here, but I’m afraid we don’t LOVE it here.  We LOVE Pennsylvania…we LOVE North Carolina…we really really really LIKE Florida.  But that’s for another topic….

So first, we have a plum tree in my front yard. The one on the left.  Pretty, isn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s chosen to bloom BEFORE the tree to its right, which is an apple tree. They’d be so pretty together, wouldn’t they?  The apple tree is covered in buds right now, will probably bloom next week…

From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees

After the tree in my own yard, I drove over to the next block, where there were some pretty trees that reminded me of my college days. In front of my dorm building were similar trees, that bloomed just as we were cramming for finals!  You can see the referenced tree behind these folks barbecuing in August 1991, but since this picture was taken in the summertime, it’s well beyond blooming.  Pardon the confused-looking tailgaters.

From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees

I vaguely remembered that the tree in front of Irvin Hall was a member of the magnolia family (it was nice having a Forestry major for a roommate my Junior and Senior years). Upon further checking, I learned that I had captured two kinds of magnolia trees today…a Jane Magnolia (pink) and a Star Magnolia (lighter pink…almost white).

From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees

Next on our little trip was to the neighborhood park, where we had a great variety of flowering trees — 3 kinds: redbud, some sort of apple or pear blossom tree, and a crabapple tree. I’m having a hard time telling pear from apple blossoms so I could be wrong here with the white flowers.

From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees

Then I headed up the road towards my errands, and I knew there were some bright yellow shrubs that I wanted to photograph.  For some reason I was thinking they were goldenrod, which is Nebraska’s state flower.  I took these pictures all along thinking they were goldenrod, but I was wrong, they’re actually forsythia.  I remember seeing forsythia everywhere in Korea in the springtime…pretty.  Fascinating fact: forsythia can produce its own lactose.

From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees

Before our errands, Timmy and I had lunch at Culver’s, which is a local fast-food/frozen custard chain. I caught some pictures in the parking lot of their pretty flowering tree: I think it’s an apple tree of some sort, but I could be wrong.

From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees
From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees

Finally, I’ll post this picture nice and BIG so you can help me to identify it. I’ve no earthly clue:

From 2010 04 16 Nebraska Flowering Trees

Lost in Translation? Not anymore!

07. April 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,


On two recent blog posts here, there are comments written in Chinese characters.

This one: http://vollmerdp.blogspot.com/2010/03/big-top-cupcake-love-it-or-loathe-it.html

And this one: http://vollmerdp.blogspot.com/2010/04/garden-season.html

The first one went up on March 14th, and I get the comments sent to my e-mail account. So there’s all this Chinese in my inbox.

What do you THINK I’m going to do with it? Yep, sent the e-mail to the trash and didn’t think anything else of it.

Until it happened again 2 days ago. This time I said, “Let me throw this into Google Translator and see what I get.”

I put in the comment that I got in the Garden Season post and got this text in return:

“Simple act of spiritual joy to others, prayer is better than thousand bow”

Awww….how sweet. Next to the comment is a bunch of ellipsis with a link. Like a moron, I clicked the link.

Go ahead, click the link. I dare you! Get the kids out of the room first, please!

The second set of text? The one on the Big Top Cupcake post? Well, I’m not putting that translation here. You may go check it out yourself, just go from Chinese to English on the Google Translator.

I’d like to remove the comment, but not before my billions (cough!) of faithful readers get a chance to copy/paste it into the translator and get a smile. Once again, get the kids out of the room!

Garden Season!

05. April 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Hooray! The weather has finally warmed up well here, and the birds have returned! The grass is returning to a lovely green color, and the kids would rather be outside playing then cooped up in the house.

With the warmer weather comes one of my favorite things, starting our family’s garden! It’s been very exciting to see what perennials are returning…about a month ago, the snow pack had melted (after about 90 days!) near my herb garden and it was great to see the parsley, chives, sage, oregano and thyme all returning for us. The hops are coming in with incredible enthusiasm, and just yesterday I saw the first peek of rhubarb!

From 2010 04 Garden
From 2010 04 Garden
From 2010 04 Garden

Chives, Parsley and Hops all returning!

So I have quite a challenge being such a gardening enthusiast having to move her family every 2-3 years: it seems that as soon as something gets well-established, it’s time to move on. In Florida and North Carolina, it was so difficult to say goodbye to gardens that were in their peak productivity in the month of July. Dave and I have made efforts in each-and-every home we’ve had to grow our own flowers and veggies. In fact, I even wrote a letter to Organic Gardening Magazine in 2006 about it after reading about Hanscom AFB’s successful community garden.

Here’s the article that spawned the letter.

It was like a breath of fresh air, since typically OG magazine leans towards more, shall we say, liberal topics. So I wrote a letter to the magazine expressing such (click on the image to zoom in):

Anyway, this past weekend we planted our lettuce and cabbage, and sweet onion sets are waiting to go into the ground. I have tomato plants ready for my upside-down planters, which I buy from this company here so I can just purchase the refill sets every year. They did a wonderful job last year…they took a hit during our 16-day vacation, so hopefully I’ll manage its care better this year.

It was fun hanging out at Lowe’s with Timmy last week to pick up some gardening supplies. I noticed that Ferry & Morse has quite the marketing campaign going…they’ve attached so many of the kids’ favorite characters to gardening:

From 2010 04 Garden
From 2010 04 Garden
From 2010 04 Garden
From 2010 04 Garden
From 2010 04 Garden

I get a bit camera happy when I see great-looking veggies and flowers, so I’m sure you’ll see more photos soon!

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