McDonough, GA Restaurant Gets Surprise Marijuana Delivery

Did you see this crazy story about the restaurant that was shipped 250 pounds of weed in a dozen big buckets by mistake?

Here's the link to the original article: http://media.myfoxdc.com/myvoice/gamj.html

Here's what it says:

MCDONOUGH, Ga. (FOX 5) – Buckets and buckets of marijuana were sent to an unsuspecting woman. About 250 pounds of pot were sent from Phoenix via FedEx to the woman's family-owned restaurant in McDonough.

A dozen five gallon buckets of marijuana were recovered by authorities when the drugs were shipped via Fed Ex to the D and N Seafood and Wings restaurant in McDonough Tuesday afternoon.

"I looked down in it I thought it was like a plant because it was very green," said restaurant owner Nicole Williams.

Williams and her husband called police. Authorities said the pot was meant for the previous business at the location.

Agent Chad Rosborough with the Flint Circuit Task Force, a collection of local police working drug cases, said several suspects were already identified in this case.

Investigators said within the last three months, about 100 of the boxes filled with marijuana have been shipped to the McDonough area, and all of them have been shipped from Phoenix.

Police said some of the marijuana was sent to another private shipping business and a home.

"High end, it could be upwards to a million dollars of marijuana," said Rosborough.

Williams said the day the pot was delivered, two men in a white Suburban SUV with Arizona license plates stopped in trying to sell them cleaning supplies.

"The tags said Arizona. I wish I had gotten a tag number but unfortunately I didn't," said Derrick Williams.

A Fed Ex spokesperson in Nashville wouldn't discuss the specifics of the case. The spokesperson said Fed Ex was working with local and federal agents to find and arrest the people involved in Phoenix and the McDonough area.

I'm wondering if maybe someone had been sampling something out of one of those buckets before filling out the FedEx shipping label:

Flunky: Ok, I got this 250 pounds packaged up. Where do you want it to go?
Dealer: That one goes to 1515 North 5th street.
Flunky: Ok, five... one... five... one...
Dealer: No! It's one five one five!
Flunky: Oh, yeah! Right. One... five... uh... what?
Dealer: ONE FIVE!
Flunky: Yeah, I got that part already. One five what?

If you ever received something like this, you would definitely have to turn it in to the police, otherwise this guy might show up looking for it:


You wouldn't want to take chances, but I definitely would be tempted. Here's what I would probably do. I'd dump all the weed out of those buckets, pack it all into one-pound bags, pack the bags into cardboard boxes, tape up the boxes, and then label the boxes with FedEx labels like they came to me that way. Then I'd hide the buckets and call the cops. I'd tell them that FedEx delivered all these boxes of weed to me by mistake.

I've got no real practical use for 250 pounds of weed, but you can never have too many good buckets.

How to See the Space Station Pass Overhead

Have you ever watched the International Space Station pass overhead? I've seen it several times.

It looks like a star moving across the sky. Often it is very bright, almost as bright as Venus. If you have ever seen a satellite, the ISS is generally much brighter than most other satellites you can see. Usually you have to get out of the city to see a regular satellite, but the ISS is often visible from the city on a clear night.

When the Space Shuttle is visiting the Space Station, it usually spends a day or two to catch up to the space station, and it is sort of amazing to see both of them passing overhead, one bright star following another.

This website tells you when and where to look to see the Space Station, and other big, bright satellites like the Hubble Space Telescope: http://www.heavens-above.com/

This might look like a long explanation but it is really very easy to do. You tell the site where you are --- it tells you where to look.

1. I usually use the site anonymously and select the Select your location from our huge database option.


2. On the Select Country screen, select the country where you will watch for the satellite.


3. On the Select Town screen, enter the city or town where you will watch for the satellite.


4. If more than one match comes up in the Town Search Results screen, select the right one from the list.


5. The Main Menu screen appears and shows you some summary info about the observing site you have selected and provides links to all the satellites you can get predictions for.
   If you want predictions for the International Space Station, select ISS.
   If the Space Shuttle is up and you want predictions for it, select STS-###. (That's Space Transportation System and the mission number)
   If you want predictions for the Hubble Space Telescope, select HST.
   There are several other satellites you can select as well.


6. The next screen shows the visible passes for the next ten days for the satellite you selected. I attached the screen I got when I selected the Space Station for my area.

Here's what the chart means:

I ran the predictions on the 8th, but you can see there are no visible passes until the 12th. Dang! This is because the angle of the orbit does not bring the station over my location at night at a time when it is still illuminated by the sun until then. It might still go directly overhead in the few days between the 8th and 12th, but it's either in the daytime, or late at night in the earth's shadow, when it cannot be seen.

The Mag column tells you how bright it is going to be. Small numbers are brighter. Negative numbers are brightest. The brightest pass on my chart is the Feb 16 pass with a magnitude of -2.2.

You have both the Start Time and End Times, so you can see how long the pass will last. Feb 16 is also a long pass, about 5 minutes.

You have both the Start Az and End Az. Az stands for azimuth, which is basically the direction, so you can see where it's going to start in the sky and where it is going to end. The Feb 16 pass, starts in the NW (North West) and ends in the SE (South East). Basically this pass starts at one side of the sky and ends at the opposite, so it goes almost directly overhead. That's why it is a long pass and why it is so bright.

The Max Altitude columns tell you how high in the sky it will get and when and where that will happen. Al stands for altitude and tells you the angle off the horizon --- 0 is on the horizon and 90 is straight overhead. The Feb 16 pass has a maximum altitude of 70 degrees, so it goes almost directly overhead.

So here's what I would do if I wanted to see the Feb 16 pass, which looks like a pretty good one for my location. (This is only for my location --- you need to run the chart for yourself to get accurate times an angles.)

I'd make sure it was a clear night. Any haze will ruin it. It's possible to see it from my backyard, but if I had the opportunity I'd go to a dark location with a broad view of the sky. And even better I'd bring a friend along. I might bring my binoculars too just to make it that much brighter. Looking at the sky through good binoculars is great, but it's not really necessary because the Space Station is so bright.

The pass is starting at 18:39 (6:39 pm), so I'd want to be there early. There may still be twilight then, but if it was dark, it would be good to let the eyes adjust to the darkness.

A few minutes before 6:39, I'd say, "Hey, have you ever seen the Space Station?"

The Friend would say, "What the hell are you talking about?"

I'd say, "The Space Station is coming up right over there at 6:39."

They'd say, "You're so full of crap!"

I'd start to look toward the north west scanning above the horizon for a moving "star." When it popped up, I'd say, "Wooooo-hoooo! There goes the freakin' Space Station!"

It's a fun trick. Seeing that little light moving across the sky and knowing people are living and working there right now is kind of a blast. Try it a few times before you decide to blow someone's mind just to be sure you know how it works. And make sure your watch is set for the exact time.

Here a few more tips about viewing the station:

Occasionally they change the orbit of the station in order to avoid space junk or to re-boost the orbit back to it's specified altitude. So if you get a 10-day prediction and plan on watching a pass a few days away, it's a good idea to get the another prediction as near as possible to the day you plan to watch, because the orbit may have been altered in the meantime. Be sure to do this especially if the Space Shuttle is at the station. They often use the shuttle engines to boost the station, so the predictions may need to be updated frequently during the time the shuttle is there.

Also, the example I gave earlier was for what would be a great pass directly overhead, lasting about 5 minutes, and very bright. Often they will just pass over one side of the sky and not get as high as you would want, so be sure to use your local chart to determine how high, how long, and how bright it is going to be.

Have fun watching the International Space Station, and be sure to wave as it goes by!

Never too Old to be a Dork

I guess that in my day-to-day life I often do things that make me sort of a dork.

I was shopping at Target the other day, and Target has the best shopping carts for riding. You can stand on the back axle, and they are nice and stable, not like the ones that want to flip up in the front when your weight is on the back and dump you on your butt. Or the kind that don't even have a bar to stand on --- what's up with that?

So, I was heading back to my car with 24 rolls of toilet paper, a bottle of Draino and some Mr Clean Magic Erasers. I put one foot on the axle, gave a couple of good pushes with the other foot, then put it on the axle too. The parking lot has a gentle downward slope, and the car was at least 50 yards down the row, so I had a long straight run and picked up some really good speed! I noticed other shoppers watching me and realized what they were seeing: a man in his forties, grinning like a fool, hurtling through the Target parking lot, clinging to the back of a shopping cart. A dork.

Do you do anything dorky, or is it just me?

Review of "Hot Drinks" Cookbook

My local newspaper has a feature every Wednesday in which they have a reader write a review of a cookbook. Here is a review I wrote and had published last fall.

(Note: the paper writes the headlines --- what a bunch of dorks!)

AAAAAaaaaaarrgh! Grab a glogg with gusto
By Eric Renger

The following review is by a reader who was given a cookbook from the Times. The included recipes were selected and prepared by the reader.

When I first saw the "Hot Drinks" title, I thought maybe this was a book of drinks that are "hot," as in "fashionable" or "currently popular." Picture an airhead holding a martini glass, saying "Ooooh! That is so hot!" But Paris Hilton had nothing to do with this book -- "hot" in this title refers to high temperature.

I was drawn to the book because I do enjoy a delicious toasty beverage during the chillier months, and I have a number of warm "medicinal" beverages that I take when I get a cough. I also often drink these medicinal beverages as a sort of inoculation or vaccine to prevent a cough from developing. You can't have too many medicinal beverages. I also spotted a recipe for Swedish Glogg, which I wanted to compare to my own recipe.

"Hot Drinks" is an attractive book, and it is filled with enticing photos that make you want to try everything right away. It has about 10 recipes each in five categories: chocolates and coffees; teas and tisanes; cocktails; punches; and dessertlike drinks. I wanted a diverse group of people to sample recipes from several of the different categories, so I glommed onto a dinner party hosted by my in-laws and prepared Rosy Cheeks, Swedish Glogg (both the recipe in the book and my own for a blind taste test), and Mayan Hot Chocolate with Chile and Orange.

I chose Rosy Cheeks because I wanted something from the teas and tisanes section, something without alcohol or caffeine, but when I really got into the recipes in that section, nothing grabbed me. So Rosy Cheeks was sort of a last resort. It is a combination of Ruby Red grapefruit juice, cranberry juice cocktail, guava juice and lime juice, served hot.

Rosy Cheeks is the sort of drink that makes your wife's face scrunch up into a grimace like she just bit into a lemon, makes her head wag back and forth, and makes her say, "Ugh! Tart!"

Just to be sure that it wasn't a false first impression, and also because it was sort of amusing the first time, I asked her to try another sip, and because she is such a good sport, she did. And even though the element of surprise had been lost, she still shuddered like she had swallowed an especially sour bug.

My own reaction was not quite as violent, so Kathy held out her glass to me and said, "Here. You can have the rest of mine," which I did accept, albeit not gratefully.

Everyone at the party who tried Rosy Cheeks agreed it is too tart and a bit bitter. Some suggested that it would be better if it were served on ice with a generous shot of vodka in it, which is a great idea, but directly contrary to the concept of a hot tisane. Others suggested that it needs to be sweeter if it is to be served warm. I tried slightly different proportions of the ingredients, adding a bit more cranberry cocktail to sweeten it up a bit, and the drink was improved slightly, but not enough to be worthwhile.

I also found the color of the drink to be less appetizing than the photo in the book. The book says, "The pink color virtually blushes with a rosy glow, hence the name." But when I made Rosy Cheeks, it seemed a bit murky and unappealing. If my cheeks were that color, I would see a doctor immediately. I suppose it would not be a very alluring name for a recipe, but it would have been more accurate to call this drink Grayish-Purple Pucker Face.

Next we performed the Glogg Challenge taste test of the two glogg recipes. Glogg is a potently fortified, sweetened, spiced and heated wine beverage of Scandinavia. There are millions of recipes for glogg, and everyone thinks their own is the one and only way to make it. This may be due to the dual nature of the Scandinavian culture itself. A thousand years ago, Viking barbarians swept out of the north to terrorize all of Europe. Now Scandinavians are mostly known for ultra-safe automobiles and stylish-yet-affordable furniture. Glogg recipes occupy the entire spectrum from Erik the Red to Ikea. My style of glogg is not the kind for sipping in the inglenook with your pinkie finger extended. It's the kind for guzzling out of tankards on a rocky shore after rowing the longboat from Iceland -- a fortifying drink before storming a hapless village. AAAAAaaaaaarrgh! Gloooooooooggg!

The Swedish Glogg recipe in "Hot Drinks" calls for Aquavit, also called Akvavit, a clear distilled spirit that has a hint of caraway seed. Now I'm no mechanic, but I'm pretty sure Volvos can be tuned to run on Aquavit. The recipe also calls for Ceylon cinnamon sticks, which the book notes is the true cinnamon, not the cassia bark that is usually passed off as hard cinnamon sticks. Honestly, would a Viking care? The glogg in "Hot Drinks" uses candied orange peel instead of the fresh peel that I am used to, and it omits cloves, which I think are essential, and it uses less sugar, and it doesn't simmer as long -- the differences go on and on.

The results of the blind taste test were no surprise to me. Without knowing which recipe was which, everyone who sampled them felt that the "Hot Drinks" recipe was not adequately spiced, was a bit too dry, and was not complex enough. The lack of complexity is disappointing, considering the more exotic (and more expensive) ingredients called for in the "Hot Drinks" recipe. Many of the recipes in this book use unusual ingredients available only in specialty stores, which is fine when the added effort and expense adds something special to the recipe, but very irritating when it doesn't pay off.

Again, without knowing which recipe was which, everyone felt that the recipe I use was more complex and better balanced with respect to sweetness. I would attribute the better complexity in the recipe I use to the cloves, the fresh orange peel, and a caramelization process performed on the sugar that involves brandy, a fire extinguisher, and a 2-foot-tall blue flame.

I personally did not like the caraway flavor of the Aquavit, and I also felt that the "Hot Drinks" recipe resulted in a beverage with more of an alcoholic burn than the recipe I use, even though the two have about the same alcohol content. Even a Viking does not want to be burned by his glogg if he can help it.

As I mentioned before, glogg recipes vary widely. They often borrow from each other and are adapted according to taste. This recipe is not one I am going to try again or attempt to adapt. The recipe I use is one I developed based on a recipe I found on the Internet. If you enter the words "hero" and "glogg" into your search engine and poke around a bit, you will find the recipe I use as my jumping-off point. And any search for "glogg" will find plenty of other good recipes.

Next we tried the Mayan Hot Chocolate with Chile and Orange, which received mixed reviews. Almost everyone liked the complex bittersweet flavor. It was somewhat reminiscent of Mexican mole sauce, but with more of an emphasis on bittersweet chocolate. The chile flavor did not really pop out, but it did add to the richness of the overall flavor, and it added some heat. Not everyone liked the heat, and not everyone liked the bitterness, which is to be expected --- not everyone tolerates those flavors well, and it is really just a matter of taste.

One unanimous criticism of the Mayan Hot Chocolate was that the drink was not as creamy as you would expect. It looked nice and frothy, but the consistency was a bit thin, and the flavor was not as richly concentrated as you might want.

During the preparation, all the dry ingredients are mixed together, and then heavy cream is added to make a paste. The recipe does not call for it, but I added a lick-the-bowl step. That stuff was delicious! We knew the basic flavor was great, so a few days later, Kathy and I rescued this recipe by making the wonderful paste and just blending that with the liquid to taste. We also used milk as the liquid instead of water. That was the best hot chocolate we had ever had in our lives! If you make this recipe, I recommend using a little more cream to make the paste, and using 1 cup of milk instead of 1 1/2 cups of water.

After the party, I felt like the book had not delivered very well. We had two outright failures and one fixer-upper. But Kathy and I both felt we had to give it another chance. This book is like a rotten kitten that continuously shreds the upholstery, but he's so darn cute, you keep cutting him slack.

Kathy decided she wanted to try Paris After Dark, a coffee drink that would also make use of some of the leftover fancy-pants Dutch process cocoa powder I had purchased for the Mayan Hot Chocolate. We both liked Paris After Dark. It seemed a bit more sophisticated in flavor than some of the coffee and chocolate drinks you get at the chain espresso shops --- not overly sweet or rich. You could have this after dinner without feeling like you were going to make yourself feel overfull, as can happen with a richer mocha. It was very nice, and easy to make.

We also tried Spicy Mulled Cider. We often serve spiced cider at Thanksgiving and other cool-weather holiday parties, so we thought this recipe would be worth a try. I’ve never added star anise pods or slices of orange and lemon to my spiced cider before, so it was an interesting change. I think the lemon made it a bit tart for my taste, but it had a nice flavor overall. If you are going to make this recipe, be very sure to enunciate properly when you tell your spouse what you are making. I told Kathy, “I’m making a spiced spider.” She looked in the saucepan and saw the eight-legged star anis pods bubbling away and nearly jumped out of her skin.

All in all, I would not recommend the book. The gorgeous photography and tempting descriptions suck you in, but the recipes mostly do not deliver.

Want to be a critic? We'll give you a new cookbook to review. Contact nboer@bayareanewsgroup.com.

Paris After Dark

Serves 2

4 teaspoons sugar
4 teaspoons Dutch process cocoa powder
4 teaspoons heavy cream
1 1/2 cups strong, freshly brewed coffee
1/4 cup heavy cream, firmly whipped with 1 teaspoon sugar, for garnish
Pinch of fleur de sel (French sea salt) for garnish

In each of two mugs, mix 2 teaspoons of the sugar and 2 teaspoons of the cocoa until well-blended and lump-free. Add 2 teaspoons of the cream to each and stir until thoroughly combined into a light paste. Add 3/4 cup of the coffee to each and stir again until thoroughly mixed. Top each with a dollop of whipped cream. Roll the dollop over to stain it with the coffee, then sprinkle a few grains of fleur de sel atop the whipped cream.

-- Staff analysis

Per serving: 180 calories, 2 g protein, 11 g carbohydrates, 15 g total fat, 9 g saturated fat, 55 mg cholesterol, 90 mg sodium, 1 g fiber. Calories from fat: 78 percent.


Mayan Hot Chocolate with Chile and Orange

Serves 2

Eric Renger recommends using a little more cream to make the paste and using 1 cup of milk instead of 1 1/2 cups of water.

1 ounce bittersweet chocolate (72 percent cacao), coarsely chopped
4 teaspoons Dutch process cocoa powder
4 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground ancho or Chimayo chiles
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 teaspoons heavy cream
1 1/2 cups water
4 orange wedges
2 Ceylon cinnamon sticks for garnish

1. Melt the chocolate in a 4-cup glass measuring cup in a microwave for 90 seconds at 70 percent power.

2. Combine the cocoa powder, sugar, chiles and cinnamon in a small bowl. Blend together until thoroughly combined and lump-free. Add the cream and stir well to make a thick paste.

3. Add the paste to the melted chocolate, mix well, then add the water and stir until thoroughly combined. Heat in the microwave for 90 seconds at 70 percent power, stirring once after 45 seconds. Serve in 2 Mexican pottery mugs. Squeeze 1 orange wedge into each, divide the hot chocolate evenly between the mugs, and stir well. Garnish with the remaining orange wedges and the cinnamon sticks.

-- Staff analysis

Per serving: 140 calories, 2 g protein, 20 g carbohydrates, 8 g total fat, 4.5 g saturated fat, 15 mg cholesterol, 10 mg sodium, 1 g fiber. Calories from fat: 50 percent.


Spicy Mulled Cider

Serves 4

3 cups sweet apple cider
4 whole star anise pods
1/2 teaspoon whole allspice berries
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 5-inch Ceylon cinnamon stick
4 white cardamom pods, cracked
2 slices of orange, quartered
2 slices of lemon, quartered

Combine all of the ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat and bring to a low simmer. Lower the heat and continue to simmer gently for 30 minutes. Ladle into four mugs and serve steaming hot.

-- Staff analysis

Per serving: 90 calories, 0 protein, 23 g carbohydrates, 0 total fat, 0 saturated fat, 0 cholesterol, 20 mg sodium, 0 fiber. Calories from fat: 0 percent.


BOOK: "Hot Drinks: Cider, Coffee, Hot Chocolate, Spiced Punch, Spirits" (Ten Speed Press, $16.95, 96 pages), 50 recipes

AUTHORS: Mary Lou Heiss is the author of "Green Tea," and Robert J. Heiss is the host of a weekly radio show about food. They operate a specialty food store and co-wrote "The Story of Tea."

REVIEWER: Eric Renger is a thirsty barbarian of the north.

Misadventures with Skyrockets

This is my first post on my new blog. Just to see if this crazy thing really works, I've decided to paste in some ramblings about my various misadventures with skyrockets. My misadventures with skyrockets began at a very early age and have continued through most of my life. Here are some of the highlights:

Early Experiments

When I was about 10 years old, I made a small rocket by painstakingly cutting the small disks of gunpowder from about a hundred toy cap-gun caps and stuffing them into a segment of tube from a "monkey-tail" plant. I lit the little rocket with a magnifying glass. It shot straight up my sleeve and exploded in my armpit. That hurt a bit.

Mexican Garage Fireworks

When I was in college I went to Mexico with some friends. We bought a big bundle of large exploding rockets that were obviously made in someone's garage. Due to a little problem with a very fast-burning fuse, the rocket ended up ricocheting around inside a confined balcony space while a friend and I jumped and dodged to get out of its way. It eventually impacted my hip and exploded, leaving a small crater in my thigh. That also hurt a bit.

Flare Gun

Another time in college, some friends launched a rocket from an eighth-story dorm room across the quad into the common room of another dorm where it exploded, panicking the students studying there. The next day, housing authorities circulated a flyer soliciting any information regarding suspects who fired a “flare gun” through the dorm window.

A Brush with Fame

And on yet another night in college, my roommate attempted to launch two rockets simultaneously out of our dorm window with a homemade bazooka. One went out the window, but the other shot around the confined room and exploded, setting off the fire alarm. We went into a panic trying to air the room out before the whole building alarm went off. Olympic swimmer Matt Biondi lived one floor below. Suddenly he burst through our door, sucked in a huge Olympic-sized breath, and blew on the fire alarm until it shut off! Then he turned to us and told us to, “Quit fucking around!” He seemed to sort of resent the disturbance. That was my brush with flame…uh, I mean fame.

Another Confined Space

On my last night in the dorms, my friends and I were drinking tequila and firing rockets out the window, while some lunatic on the balcony next to us yelled, “Thunder! Lightning! Feel my power!” Apparently he thought he was causing the lights in the sky. My friend’s skyrocket technique was to stand well back from the window, light the fuse, wait for the rocket to start to flare, then throw it out the window. Eventually he missed the window, and I was able to re-experience the by-now-familiar thrill of dodging a rocket in a confined space as it shot around my dorm room and exploded. Another friend of mine, who stands about six foot four was able to prevent the fire alarm from sounding by holding a pillow over it while we aired the smoke out of the place. It’s good to have friends in high places.

Hechen Bala!

A few years later in San Felipe, some friends and I were launching rockets from the beach out into the ocean, when some locals in a house above us on a cliff sent a few jumping jack fireworks in our general direction. For some reason we took it personally and decided to launch our very last rocket back at them. You could not have asked for a better shot. The rocket soared up to the top of the cliff, barely cleared the wall around the yard, and exploded about ten feet off the ground, directly over their heads. Of course they returned fire, and because we were out of ammo, we spent the next fifteen minutes dodging rockets on the beach. When you visit another country, it’s important to remember that you represent all Americans.