How to cook a steak

I seldom eat steaks out. They are easy to grill at home and $20 will buy you a nice sized chunk of filet or prime rib at your local meat market or grocery store whereas $20 at your local steakhouse will get you a piece of steak you can carry in a thimble.

Keys to cooking a good steak are:
1) take it out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature before grilling
2) salt it liberally preferably shortly after taking it out of the fridge, the salt helps develop a crust
3) I also like to lightly rub in some chopped garlic, black pepper and olive oil before grilling
4) gill the steak over high heat
5) don't fiddle with the steak on the grill and only turn it once
6) cook your steak underdone and then (and this is very important for a juicy steak) take it off the grill and let it "rest" for at least 5, but preferably 10, minutes before cutting into it.

During the rest it will continue cooking and the juices will redistribute throughout the steak. During grilling the high heat causes pressure which makes the juices move towards the outer edge of the steak. So if you cut into it right after you take it off the grill the juices just run out into your plate instead of staying in the steak.

Once you master it you'll seldom want to order steak at a restaurant again.

On College Football Playoffs

If I had my way, and believe me the world would be a much better place if I did, statistics and sports writers and university presidents and AD's would have no place in deciding the national championship. I would expand Division I (or the FBS or whatever you want to call it) to include the largest 128 schools by enrolled student population. They would be divided into 8 sixteen team conferences mostly along regional boundaries. Each conference would be divided into 2 eight team divisions. Each team in the division would play every other team in the division plus 2 non-division opponents for a regular season of 9 games. Division championships would be determined by W-L within the division. Tie breakers are to be determined by each conference. Then the winners of each conference's divisions would meet in week 10 for the conference championship weekend (Wouldn't that be a great weekend of football!) Weeks 11, 12 and 13 would be a 8 team playoff among the conference champions. Seeding would be determined by a selection committee... or maybe by drawing straws... or maybe a cheerleader bikini jello wrestling tournament between week 10 & 11 (that would bring in some extra TV revenue!) Anyways, that's my two cents worth. In this system the championship is determined on the field where it should be.

I'm excited about the playoffs. Although, to be honest, I preferred it the way it was when I was growing up. The SEC champ went to the Sugar Bowl vs. an open bid. Rose was Big 10 & PAC 12. Orange was Big 8 and open bid. And then you had all the arguing afterwards. I liked the arguing. I also liked knowing you were going to New Orleans if your SEC team played well. New Orleans is definitely the place to be for New Years. It beats LA and Miami hands down! I've been to LA a bunch of times, the Big 10 & PAC 12 are welcome to it IMHO!

Tony Steward and Kevin Ward

I'm not a Tony Stewart fan. In fact, if anything, I'm a Tony Stewart anti-fan. I've watched more than a little racing and I've never driven a race car but in my opinion there's only one person to blame for Kevin Ward's unfortunate death and that person is Kevin Ward. If he had stayed in his car he would be alive and well today. But, instead, he let his temper get the best of him and he chose to get out of his car and walk into the traffic on the race track.

If anything good can come from this let it be that these driver's stop acting like spoiled children and climbing out of their cars and getting out on the track to throw their helmets at the drivers they are mad at as they drive by. Temper tantrums are unbecoming in 3 year old children. They are even more so in grown men. You can take out your frustrations on the track if you are still in your car. If you are no longer in your car then you take out your frustrations in the pits or garages after the race. That's what fist fights are for.

My thoughts on the Hobby Lobby case

The ruling applies only to small, closely held, i.e. family owned, corporations. When the Government intrudes and attempts to force a family to provide services which the family feels are immoral for their employees then in my humble opinion, the Government is wrong.

This is not a widely and publicly help corporation where the stockholders number in the hundreds or thousands and come from all walks of life. This is a family owned corporation. So they are being forced, by the Government, to take money out of their pockets and pay for services which they believe are immoral and wrong and thereby, according to their beliefs, putting their own souls in danger. Just because you start a corporation doesn't give the Government the right to force you to give up your religious beliefs.

Personally, I think it's just plain wrong that the Government can force a corporation to "give" employees "benefits" of any kind. Benefits were originally used as enticements to lure employees to take a job. It is wrong to force a corporation to provide services if the corporation doesn't want to provide them. What's next? Is the Government going to force companies to give two weeks of paid vacation? Why not force companies to provide free food and free coffee for their employees? Why not force companies to offer 401k plans to all their employees. Why not force the employees to participate in the 401k plans? Why not force companies to give employees stock options? Why not force companies to provide a car for it's employees? Corporations should not even be forced to pay you for your work. If you're willing to work for free to get experience and make contacts, i.e. interning, what concern is it of the Governments, other than the fact that Government feels cheated because they can't tax you for your income?

To those who say Hobby Lobby is imposing their religion on their employees:

The Constitution says absolutely nothing about preventing a non-Government entity from imposing their religion upon you. It does say that the Government cannot impose religion upon the people. And Hobby Lobby is not saying, "If you use one of these four forms of 'birth control' then we will fire you." What Hobby Lobby is saying is, "We'll pay for you to use any of these 16 forms of birth control but we're not going to pay for these 4 other choices."

How is that imposing religion? It's as if Hobby Lobby said "We'll pay for our employees to eat, but we're not going to pay for sushi, caviar, filet mignon and jelly beans" and every one screaming that they are trying to starve their employees to death.

Just my two cents worth (and it probably ain't even really worth that much).