I am not impressed....

[electra225]

......with Omaha Steaks. We got some as a Christmas gift. I will say the filet mignon was good, nice and tender. The four ounce strip steaks would have made a pair of work boots if they had sent a set of laces and some tin for the steel toes. The hamburger tasted good and grilled nicely, but it was gray in color. I can't handle tough or grissly meat. It wasn't worth $150 by any stretch of the imagination. We can get better meat at Basha's.

[TC Chris]

Have you tried a complaint to the company? Some that value their reputations will try to make things right. It's worth a try. What's the cost of few ones and zeroes on the internet these days, anyway? Cut and paste your shoe-making observations into a complaint letter and see what happens.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

We've had it given to us a few times and thought it was mediocre. A good local butcher, the few left, can usually do much better. We prefer well-marbeled rib-eyes to most other steaks, medium rare.

Back as a kid in Baltimore we had a chain of steak houses called Rustler, owned by Colts great Gino Marchetti (who also owned the Gino's hamburger chain in the Mid-Atlantic states, their Gino Giant was the best of any Big Mac type burger I ever had). Anyway I remember going there with our family of 6 as it was affordable and also very good, they had excellent various sized steaks cooked to order, baked potato, soda, tea or coffee, and a really quality salad bar for something like $3.49. My mouth is watering just thinking about it now. Nothing like a really good steak. I could never be a vegetarian, after all if we weren't meant to eat animals, why are they made of meat?

[TC Chris]

I could never be a vegetarian, after all if we weren't meant to eat animals, why are they made of meat?

I have become a mostly-vegetarian by force of circumstances. It's either genes or my own dumb past choices or both. A long-ago smoker; an eater of ill-chosen foods for too long. So 13 years ago they propped my coronary arteries open with stents. And then there was some re-plugging. Two things are in my control: exercise and diet. The former is daily--biking to work, after-work daily hiking route. As to diet, I've been eliminating heart-pluggery from it. So now my diet is mostly grains, veggies, fruit, nuts, low-fat dairy, with occasional ventures into a bit of chicken or turkey. I won't turn down a meal including beef when visiting, but I just don't buy the stuff. A neighbor down the block uses his kitchen exhaust fan, and my walking route takes me downwind of it. The best Italian-cooking smells come out from time to time and set my mouth to watering. Then I go home and make oatmeal for dinner.

When I see young people smoking I want to grab them and shake them.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

I like grease and gravy. The wife fries chicken in lard. Bacon, fried eggs and coffee are the nector of the gods.

[walyfd]

I stopped smoking after 35 years. Actually 50+ since I was born into smoking households. I'm working on getting in shape but GOD it's hard. "deleted" gut will not go away. And I'm not eating more since not smoking.

It's an entire lifestyle change. Don't berate people for being as stupid as we were. "deleted", we've been stupid since Adam and Eve. That's never going to change.

Another thing that isn't going to change is none of us lives forever. Even the undertaker... take it from me, there's no perfect way out but some are better than others. Smoking causes so much needless illness... cancer is the most devastating.

[TC Chris]

I like grease and gravy. The wife fries chicken in lard. Bacon, fried eggs and coffee are the nector of the gods.

My mother grew up in AL and it's highly likely that lard was the principal common ingredient in all the cooking. She lived to 98, almost 99. But her father died of heart disease at 68 and her mother of congestive heart failure at about 78. I'm aiming for 100. It will take that long to get all the radios and other electronics fixed, not to mention the cars and boats and a gazillion other projects. And that assumes there aren't too many curbside finds along the way.

An ex-smoker once observed that if he learned he had a certainly-fatal disease that was going to kill him pronto, he'd buy a pack of cigarettes right away. I'd probably make that the second stop. The first would be at the Mexican restaurant to buy a pile of nachos with cheese melted thickly all over them.

But that's a project for another day. Right now I'm focused on being the fit old guy, the one who's working when most of his peers have been retired for a decade, and who rides the bike to work when the younger colleagues (at my age, everybody is a younger colleague, but I mean less than 55) are all driving. The joy of feeling healthy is a good enough incentive to make oatmeal again. And to jump on the bike when it's 20 degrees out.

Chris Campbell

[TC Chris]

I stopped smoking after 35 years. Actually 50+ since I was born into smoking households. I'm working on getting in shape but GOD it's hard. "deleted" gut will not go away. And I'm not eating more since not smoking.

Seems to me that recent studies are showing that there's a difference between fitness and fatness. Geez, I hope so. Most of us aren't ever going to look like we did at 18. I weigh 20-30 pounds more than I did 30 years ago, which technically was middle age, and 35-45 more than in college. The only time I was able to make significant progress was when the colitis started and everything that went in one end came out the other end pretty quickly. No time for the nutrients to be absorbed and nurture my flab. But then I started on the miracle medication and things slowed down. And the weight stopped dropping. I was whining about not being able to lose weight to my doctor once and he said, "Chris, most guys your age would kill for a body like yours." What he meant was not that modelling agencies were going to be knocking on the door, but that I was able to be active and do most anything I wanted. What's more important than the perfect bod is maintaining function and endurance--the ability to walk, balance, and do stuff. Motion and general health are correlated at least. So when I stop typing this, I'm going to put on the exercise garb and head out for the daily 3-1/2 mile hike.

Chris Campbell

[walyfd]

Being able to physically work is a blessing. I can keep up with friends that could be my kids. I can still walk 12 miles of the Hershey flea market in a day and walk all over NYC... in dress shoes. I did notice I was slowing down a little since covid so... age + stress + bad habits... so toss the bad habits.

I was the typical 98 lb weakling as a kid. Now I see old classmates and I LAUGH!!! FAT! GRAY OR BALD!!! And some of these were the jocks... I can push their wheel chairs... or be their pall bearer...

I always walked and worked on the house or my cars. A lot of people never maintained activity as a lifestyle. It was a hobby or whatever until they got the trophy or trophy wife...

Like restoring a car... it's one thing to make it factory, the hard part is maintaining it.

[TC Chris]

Being able to physically work is a blessing. I can keep up with friends that could be my kids.

I was the typical 98 lb weakling as a kid.

I always walked and worked on the house or my cars.

You've noted the important thing, which is maintaining activity and making it part of daily life. When I was a kid, the organized activities were the ball sports, especially football. I didn't have the body or the brain for that. I eventually discovered that while I didn't have quick reflexes, I had endurance. Walking, running, and bicycling became part of my daily life. I have enjoyed bike touring. My first "century" (> 100 miles) was fully loaded--me, the bicycle, plus the tent, sleeping bag, pad, Svea stove, pan, utensils, clothing (extra jeans), rain gear, food, county map book, etc. It was accidental. I was about 50 miles in when I saw thunderstorms ahead, no place to camp, and figured out I was better off high-tailing it back where I had come from.

My post-education working career has been 47 years so far. In that time I have lived within 2 miles of my workplace all but 2 years. That has meant that I could walk or bike to work. Since August it has been 3 miles but I'm still cranking on the bike. If we count grade school, high school, college, and post-grad work as 'work," then I have lived within 2 miles of work for 6 of 69 years.

There's a lot of good luck in all that. I am lucky to have lived and worked n places that made it feasible to live near the jobs. I am lucky to have had good health that let me ambulate and cycle my way to and from. I am lucky that my physical abilities pushed me into activities that contributed to long-term health and not into things like football that lead to early disability and impairment. And I'm lucky that as a kid I had parents whose basic rule was "go outside and play."

Chris Campbell