To the loyal Reader who has noted the lengthy time between Chapters 5 and 6, I offer an explanation, along with an expression of joy at being back on line....

Shortly after publication of Chapter 5, in early September, "Ol' Trusty" - my PowerMac - suffered a near-fatal injury (death by contamination?) when the ceiling of my Houston apartment collapsed onto my living room. While spared a mortal wound from falling sheet rock by the narrowest of margins, "Ol' Trusty" received a more than liberal coating of cellulose (blow-in) insulation, which left both him and me coughing and gagging.

Believe me, a coughing and gagging Mac is not a pretty sight. After a thorough vacuuming internally and externally, it was decided to move the patient back to Corpus Christi for a complete evisceration and reinstallation of software, including software upgrades where possible, and only recently has his recovery been sufficient for a return trip to Houston.

I sure did miss the little guy, even though I was immersed in solving project-end crises in Houston, as well as in two locations in the New Orleans area, which kept me fully occupied with work, even through the holidays.

In true Hemmingway spirit, your Correspondent works hard and plays hard, and, like Hemmingway, a lot of my play is done with a fishing pole or a firearm in hand. In one of my more insane moments, Christmas night, to be exact, I was persuaded to take to the field in pursuit of feral hogs, specifically, sitting in a freezing cold pit for four hours listening to a tape of "Feral Hogs Feeding Frenzy" being broadcast (in stereo) out over the Katy Prairie in the hopes of attracting a hungry boar or sow into gun range.

Somehow, in a lucid moment, I realized that I had absolutely no clue what I was going to do with a hog if I shot one. "Hog Butchering 101" and "Swine Husbandry 202" are not, after all, required courses in the Metallurgical Engineering curriculum at Missouri School of Mines.

When a hurried and informal survey of "hunting buds" and general acquaintances confirmed that the necessary steps of dressing, butchering, preserving and curing a hog in a second-floor city apartment are not, in fact, common knowledge, I realized I needed "outside help" and decided to look for answers on the Internet, rather than taking my kill to a commercial processor, a cop-out considered treasonous at best by the long line of woodsmen, scouts, and mountain men that comprise my genealogy. <I think he meant "scalawags, rogues, and scoundrels..." -Ed.>

Next day, with a cup of egg nog and a Christmas cookie at hand, I powered up and launched Communicator, which opens (for me) at the STMUG website. I knew from past experience that in order to access the information I needed on the Net, I had to know the proper address for the information, enter it in place of the STMUG website address, and then hit the "return" key. While it was unlikely that my needed address would be something so easy as "http://www.pig", "http://www.butcher" or "http://www.hog", I tried these anyway, and got the expected result - a lot of error messages.

I remembered my MacMentor telling me something about "search engines" and their ability to find stuff for you on the Web, and remembered seeing that phrase used on the STMUG website "links" page, to which I promptly clicked, and then on to "without reviews".

I was amazed to find a choice of fifteen different search engines available for my selection! While it was intuitively obvious to me that neither a dictionary nor a thesaurus was going to be of much help, I realized that making the proper selection of search engine could be the key to my success, or failure, in finding the information I needed.

It was clear that I needed more information, beyond the brief descriptions included for each search engine choice, so I clicked my way back to "links (with reviews)" and read the helpful information so conveniently at hand (thank you, Webmaster!). <note - this would now be Web MISTRESS - AppleAngel>

After studying the options for a couple minutes, I decided to start my search with "Hot Bot" and, after loading it in a mere 11 seconds by clicking on its link, I began my search by entering "hog butchering" and, to my delight, I was quickly rewarded with "a bunch" of matches (although, somewhat irritatingly, the phrase "fewer than 500" did not show up on the first page of results).

In scrolling through the first couple of pages, it was obvious that I had at hand more information about hogs than I would ever care to know, and enough sources of additional information about related topics to keep me in front of my Mac for hours, if not days.

What was especially exciting was the apparent exact match of the first listing to what I was trying to find:

"Butchering Livestock At Home"

 

Alas, my soaring hopes plummeted quickly when clicking on the handy link and four successive pages within the site led me NOT to the promised instructions but to a "chance of a lifetime" opportunity to purchase a comprehensive book on the subject for 20% off the list price, a savings of $2.99! Plus $4.95 shipping and handling, of course......

"Basic Butchering Of Livestock & Game - by John Mettler, D.V.M."

While this may have been an attractive offer, and a handsome addition to my personal library of assorted unread literary classics, I was looking for information NOW!

(I also had to question in my own mind, if this guy's a D.V.M., why is he killing all these animals?)

And so began a detailed search through the various "hit" locations, a search prolonged by inevitable sidetracks which yielded vast quantities of really neat stuff, but, alas, not what I was seeking. I find that I am especially easily distracted by any site that even hints of cooking and recipes - I can easily get lost for hours.

Some of the hits were flat amazing, including one, the (apparently) closely-related "Jim and Macca's Pig Hunting," which, when opened, consisted solely of the following, which really makes me wonder.....

"I've done enough. I've seen enough. I want out."

...as well as several more sites related to Harley Davidson (obviously, a different kind of hog...).

After fruitlessly searching and taking sidetracks (I did find several recipes for my favorite German spice cookies), I realized I was getting nowhere, and slowly at that. It was time to refine my search!