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30 days about me

30 Days About Me. Day 27: Worst Habit

August 28, 2011 by robertforto 3 Comments

I am participating in a blog challenge this month. It is 30 Days About Mefrom the blog a

Daily Dose of Toni.

We are nearing the end of this challenge. We have shared many things over the last month–our favorite books, songs, where we live, our favorite websites and clothing stores. It has been fun.

Today is what is our worst habit.

My worst habit is sippin’ the bubbly. No, I’m not talking about the aristocratic Dom Perignon type that you see doled out in Crunk cups on Hip Hop videos on a channel that no longer plays music.

I am talkin’ about good ole’ red blooded Americana–Coca-Cola. The drink of champions or is it the champions of diabetes? I don’t know, but I am addicted.

It is my only vice. My only real addiction. My worst habit.

Yes folks. My name is Robert and I am a colaholic. There I have completed step one. I am on the path to recovery.

My how the allure of that curvy 20 ounce bottle has one me. If you only knew.

All addicts blame someone for their shortcomings. In this case it rests solely on my mom’s shoulders. She tried to raise us boys well. She bought us school clothes every year at Sears, she sent us to the best public schools that money could buy. She let me play football at six, and she was happy that I was the first of her kids to graduate college even though I had to pay for it.

It all started innocently enough. My brother Ryan and I were allowed to drink the forbidden juice (coke) only on special occasions which included eating at the cafeteria at the local K-Mart, and visiting my aunt Bernice, and on Friday nights. That’s it. There were no Big Gulps. No super-sized cups the size of a party keg. No rooting around for spare charge for the vending machine. No trips to the corner store to pick up the carmel colored elixir.

On Friday nights is where this demon really grabbed hold. It stuck to me so hard that I could barely shake it’s sugary allure. My mom would let my brother and I stay up late to watch a show called Friday’s. It was Saturday Night Live’s twice removed cousin. It was a show so dreadful that they put it on late at night only to compete with infomercials hawking Japanese knives that cut through bricks and creepy dudes in plaid suits and cheap shoes telling us about weather systems on the fringe of Appalachia where we lived at the time.

It wasn’t the show that Ryan and I were interested in. It was the eight ounces of coca-cola in these little greenish glasses with flowers on them. Mom filled them to the rim. We were so excited. We positioned ourselves on the floor upfront of the big console TV, presumably so we wouldn’t spill our drinks on the couch–never mind sitting close to the TV would make us blind. Thank goodness it didn’t.

We would take the smallest of sips of our cola and the flavor was an explosion in our little mouths. It sent an immediate sugar rush through our bodies so quick it made out toe-heads spin.

We savored our little glasses double gripped with both little hands making sure that every last drop hit the spot. None of it was wasted.

That’s when I became a fiend. Not to mention my neighbor, Scott Dunn, who lived down the street. He would lay on the couch all day in cut off jeans shorts and shirtless with a belly the size of Mt McKinley with a a 16 ounce bottle of cola firmly resting at it’s apex.

But he was a Pepsi guy.

So that’s it folks. The therapy session is over. I admitted I am powerless over things that I can not change.

Change??? wait a second do I have enough change for a soda?

Hmmmmmmm Soda!

Follow my news and updates on Twitter, my whereabouts on Foursquare and  relationship status on Facebook. Or send me a telegram.

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Filed Under: Alaska, Daily Post Tagged With: 30 days about me, Appalachia, CocaCola, Kmart, pepsi, postaday2011, robert forto, Soda

30 Days About Me. Day 25: Best Friends

August 26, 2011 by robertforto 2 Comments

I am participating in a blog challenge this month. It is 30 Days About Me from the blog a Daily Dose of Toni.

Today’s topic is who are your best friends?

My best friends in the whole wide world are the 4710 Facebook friends I have. That’s right all 4710 of them. I can’t have any more best friends because Mark said so. Mark isn’t even my friend. But hey he makes the rules. Don’t you hate bullies?

Facebook has a policy that you can not have more than 5000 friends (and/or page likes). They say that a person can not possibly know that many people. Duh! Way back before Facebook Pages were the big thing for businesses, blogs, celebrities, brands and bands everyone just used their used plain ole’ Facebook account to gain followers/friends. This was may back in the stone ages. 2009 to be exact.

Now when I try to add friends and/or pages that I like I will get a pop-up message that says that I need to delete some friends or pages before I can accept new one because my limit has been reached.

It takes effort to un-friend someone. Plus it’s just plain rude.

Think about it folks. Why do some people take such a deliberate and conscious effort to un-friend someone that they probably don’t even know? Did they say something that you didn’t like. Do they post too much? Did you disagree (oh, forbid) on a post and you got so upset that you hit that un-friend link on the bottom left?

Come on guys! Don’t take life so serious. Facebook is meant to be engaging and thought provoking (at least to me). It is the speak easy club of the 1930s, the sit in of the 1960s, the AOL chat room of the late 1990s.

So what do you use it for? Sending people like me Farmville, Mafia Wars and Cityville requests? I get a bunch of them every day. I am not interested!

Or are you one of those that keeps your Facebook account only for family and ‘real’ friends and you connect socially on obscure accounts like Path, Meetup, My Yearbook, Orkut and Hyves.

I got news for you people, none of your friends–real, imagined, or virtual–are on any of those sites. Just look at MySpace.

So if you want to be my BFF or heck even just connect with me I will have to kick someone to the curb. How would you feel if that happened to you? I know, I know, it brings back painful memories of high school where the popular guys and gals didn’t want to include you in the gum chewing session by their lockers or worse yet you were the last guy to be picked for a game of kick ball.

But I think we should go back to a more simpler time. Way back to the era of one, Mister Rogers. That’s right good ole’ Fred. Sportin’ his cardigan and changin’ his shoes.

At least he wanted to be your neighbor. And if you didn’t want to he even begged.

Those were the good ole days. 

 

Follow my news and updates on Twitter, my whereabouts on Foursquare and  relationship status on Facebook. Or send me a telegram.

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Filed Under: 30 Days About Me, Daily Post Tagged With: 30 days about me, a daily dose of toni, blog challenge, facebook, Friends, postaday2011, robert forto, Social network

30 Days About Me. Day 22: Favorite Websites

August 23, 2011 by robertforto 4 Comments

I am participating in a blog challenge this month. It is called 30 Days About Me.. It is presented by the blog a Daily Dose of Toni.

Today’s topic is some of my favorite websites.

I have a lot of websites and apps that I use everyday. Some for work and some for pleasure but all of them make life a little easier.

In no particular order they are:

Facebook

Twitter

Map My Ride

Yahoo

RobertForto.com

YouTube

IMdB

Iditarod Sled Dog Race

Google

Digg

Wikipedia

eBay

Paypal

Skype

BlogTalkRadio

American Kennel Club

Foursquare

Gowalla

Google Analytics

Google Calendar

GoDaddy.com

WordPress

Netflix

Chase Bank

Weather Underground

 

Follow my news and updates on Twitter, my whereabouts on Foursquare and  relationship status on Facebook. Or send me a telegram.

 

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Filed Under: 30 Days About Me, Daily Post Tagged With: 30 days about me, a daily dose of toni, facebook, foursquare, Google, iphone, Map My Ride, mushing, postaday2011, robert forto, Sled dog racing, twitter

30 Days About Me. Day 21: Recipe that I Love

August 22, 2011 by robertforto 4 Comments

This month I am participating in a blog challenge. It is 30 Days About Me from the blog a Daily Dose of Toni.

Today’s topic is a recipe I love. 

Over the past year or so I have been forced to spent more time in the kitchen. This is because the worlds have collided on several fronts and some of them are out of my control.

As many of you know I am in Alaska and my wife, Michele is still in Colorado waiting to move up in September. Also I live 45 minutes from the nearest fast food haunts that are named after a colorful set of characters: Ronald, the King, Carl, Wendy, the Colonel, and the Queen.

Not to mention the cost of a burger at a sit down joint up here will set you back 20 bucks with a modest tip.

So with that I have learned, rather quickly, to become quite adept in the kitchen, I even showcase some of my creations on my blog under the title: Recipe Rants. But my favorite recipes is not one of my own it is one of Michele’s.

Rigatoni

From the kitchen of Michele

Prep time: 25 minutes

Servings: 6 to 8

Ingredients

2 lbs ground beef

3 jars of spaghetti sauce, any kind

1 medium yellow onion

2 minced cloves of garlic

1 Tbsp oregano

1 Tbsp thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

1 lb Rigatoni noodles

1 lb shredded mozzarella  and cheddar cheese combined

Add in’s (optional)

Olives

Peppers

Mushrooms

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown ground beef adding onion, garlic, and other seasonings to lightly oiled pan. I use olive oil. Once browned, drain completely and return to stove and add sauce, taste. If necessary, add more oregano and thyme. Salt and pepper to taste.

Prepare noodles as directed. This can be done while meat is browning. Drain completely then add to a 13×19 inch baking sheet un-greased. I usually place a generous amount of sauce on the bottom of the so the noodles don’t stick. Add the cheese and mix in’s to the top.

Place in the oven and allow the cheese to melt and turn a golden brown. Serve with garlic bread, salad or veggie of your choice.

Baking time: 25-30 minutes depending on your oven. If baking frozen, allow at least 60 minutes. It is best to defrost in the refrigerator over night then pop in the oven for 30-40 minutes.

Per Serving

This feeds my family of 7 people and we still get leftovers out of it! Remember there’s two growing boys at my house!

 

Follow my news and updates on Twitter, my whereabouts on Foursquare and  relationship status on Facebook. Or send me a telegram.

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Filed Under: 30 Days About Me, Daily Post, Recipe Rants Tagged With: 30 days about me, a daily dose of toni, alaska, Michele Forto, Olive oil, pasta, postaday2011, recipe rants, rigatoni, robert forto

30 Days About Me. Day 20: Something You Wish You Could Forget

August 21, 2011 by robertforto 4 Comments

I am participating in a blog challenge this month. It is 30 Days About Me from the blog a Daily Dose of Toni.

Today’s topic is something that I would rather forget. As I think about it this is something that I never want to forget. It is 9/11/01.

Last year I recorded my radio show Dog Works Radio (then known as The Dog Doctor Radio Show) as a remembrance to those who lost their lives in this horrible act of terrorism.

Please take a few minutes to listen to this show. It may be difficult at times but it makes us who we are as Americans.

Listen to internet radio with Dog Works Radio Show on Blog Talk Radio

 

Thank you for listening.

 

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Filed Under: 30 Days About Me Tagged With: 30 days about me, 9/11, postaday2011, Radio, remembering 9/11, robert forto, Talk Radio, United States

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