Staycation 8/6 - current

Staycation, all I ever wanted...

After a long night / morning of flying I went home, did laundry, packed and left for Laire... Friday night I did my logistics shift and went to bed! I got woken up in the middle of the night with someone trying to kill me in my sleep, no... Not in game, sorry... The rest of Laire was good but too quick.. I tweaked Chatima so he would be more assertive and had a very fun time playing him.

I left early so I could spend some time with Jessie but that was thwarted by important phone calls... Monday was craft day, me and Kevin got a lot done and Hoyle came over a bit latter and we ended up watching TV till too late.. Tuesday was dinner and it was nice to be able to veg out there.. Janine came over on Wednesday and we watched Wicked, I have not seen it in a while and it reminded me how much I like it.. Wednesday night me and Jessie caught up on Next Food Network Star and Daily Show. Thursday I basically hung out all day and worked on my medical pack for FI, I would probably have finished it but someone took the glue with them when they left on Monday night so I spent a lot of time on Wednesday and Thursday morning getting glue.. Thursday night me and Jessie finally had some time to ourselves without any distractions.. :)

We went to Turtles Taco Shop which is right down the street from us, I've eaten there before and I know they say they are SoCal influenced but now that I've recently been to Wahoo's Fish Taco I certainly agree.. The same fresh and vibrant flavors are here in little Putnam.. I will probably be bringing all my dates there... At least for a little while.. Speaking of bringing my dates around Putnam, Bella's Bistro finally has gluten free pasta and pizza dough.

This week has been full of downloading great little apps for my Droid X. Such a great phone by the way, only touch screen I've actually liked.. It's so responsive... Anyway, because I like to share, I got:

Games: Phit Droid 3, Phit Reload, a Scavenger Hunt game, Andoku Sudoku, GODroid, Dominion Card Shuffler

Utilities: Adobe Acrobat, a Bar Code Scanner, Ebay, a Shared Shopping Cart, Unit Converter, Flickr Droid

Travel: Fandango, Airline Checker, Yelp, HappyCow, NYC Subway maps, DC Subway maps, I downloaded the Chicago subway/bus map but it sucked.

Toys: Shazam (figures out what music is playing), Google Goggles (not very successful app thats supposed to determine what things are by taking their pictures, MotoTorch LED, SportsTap

If you have any other suggestions let me know.. Always looking for good apps.

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Tonight Lynz is coming over, it will be nice to spend some time with just the two of us.. Tomorrow me and Jessie are going to our friends Sarah and Mark's house for dinner and then depending on how late that goes to Rob's party. Sunday I drive to NYC for the 8pm Mets game and to teach next week.

Smegging caught up batman!

I'll try to make this a more regular thing again so you are not bombarded with this stream of blogs.

Oh, and I also updated Flickr and Youtube if you have not already seen..

:D

Irvine Week 8/1 - 8/5

Are you tired of reading blogs today? I am breaking them up to make the download quicker, you may have reached the end of a part but not the end of the complete blog, please check your library for the next part of this blog... :) If you get that semi-quote you get points..

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Anyway, so now to Irvine... I think I hate the time difference between home and CA.. It's nice going but it sucks coming back.. But more on that later..

I got to Irvine Sunday night I honestly don't remember what I did after arriving.. Did I eat anything that night, other than on planes or in airports? Hmm... My flight was almost bumped, I got to the airport and of course they were overbooked so they offered to fly me to LAX instead of Santa Ana but in first class. I agreed but they ended up not needing me so I went off on my normal schedule to Atlanta and then to Santa Ana. I know I ate in Atlanta but I'm not sure if I ate in Irvine.. I'm going to say no, I think I got in pretty late so I just hung out in the hotel once I checked in.

Monday I ended up chatting with a girl on OKCupid during the day and made plans to hang out on Tuesday. I decided to go up to Downtown Disney after work and watch some of the Mets game at the ESPN Zone during happy hour and then hit Brennans for dinner. Well, apparently the ESPN Zone does not have a happy hour!? Or at least they don't offer any drink deals, they do offer food deals but I didn't want to eat there. While I was at the ESPN Zone Sarah (the girl from OKCupid) ended up texting me to see if we could meet up now instead of Tuesday. I left Disney, met her and went to Wahoo's Fish Taco for dinner. It was very good and very cheap.. SoCal Mexican is certainly a unique flavor, it's very fresh and alive if that makes sense. It was so nice after dinner, we decided to go to the beach and grab some wine, unfortunately the search for wine was harder than we thought and he sun was going down too quickly.. So, switch to plan B. Go to the hotel and have wine and chocolate in the room. :) She is a very cool person and I'm looking forward to hanging out with her again next time I'm in town..

Tuesday I went to Newport Beach and ended up eating at a brewery near the beach. I had a cobb sammich which was a great idea! It was turkey, bacon, avocado and cheese on a sweet bread. The beer was really good too, they had a blonde on happy hour special so that's what I had and it was right up there (if not better than) with Red Hooks old Blonde Ale. Watched the sun set over the beach and went back to the hotel and hot tub for the night cap.. Oh, and I also went to the short man's store on Tuesday before dinner and got two new shirts. One of my shirts had apparently ripped so I was in dire need of a replacement and what better town to be in need of a shirt.. Before we leave the topic of Tuesday, I went to the former site of Diedrich Coffee and had a moment of silence for that company as I enjoyed my Starbucks iced coffee...

Wednesday I decided to hit the Irvine Spectrum to get sushi at the cool place I have a frequent buyer card for... Things do change over the years let me tell you.. Plan - go the Fox Sports club and have a beer during happy hour while watching the Mets game, then go get sushi.. Fox Sports Club, gone! Sushi place, gone! Well smeg... How about plan b - go to the Yard House for a beer and then the new sushi place for dinner... The new sushi place was banging, I got what they called deluxe sushi combo which was mackerel, toro, abalone, and a few others with a toro tuna roll! As if toro was not tender enough they chopped it up for the roll... Sooo good, it was like butter in your mouth! After dinner I ended up hanging out in the courtyard at the hotel chatting with some of the people who were there for the swim competition..

Years ago Irvine high school built a massive pool facility with many Olympic sized pools. It was a massive burden on the tax payers but I guess it's paid off because they hold competitions there many times a year where people come in from all over the world.

Thursday I basically puttered around after work.. I went to Panera and ended up sitting outside at the seating area for hours while I played with my phone and enjoyed the sun. I also grabbed a screen protector and then went to the beach once again for a bit before finally heading to the airport for my LATE flight.. I really, really hate the red eye! But these are the things I do for Laire... I got a 9:40 flight (CA time) and landed in Atlanta after VERY little sleep around 4am. Hung out in Atlanta for 2 hours pacing the airport terminals and then flew to Hartford. I did sleep on that flight, I actually fell asleep before we took off and woke up on landing... WIN! Still was not nearly enough sleep.. Came home, did laundry and headed to Laire...

Sweeps week.. 7/23 - 8/1

Got home on Friday the 23rd just to run back out again to Boston.. Jessie had gotten tickets to see Marc Maron at a bar in Allston, she listens to his WTF podcast. I listened to it once or twice and have been eh about it but I figured it would be at the very least funny.. I called the club and they assured me that the 7pm start time was accurate so against Jessie's better judgement I met her on the way and we drove up without eating first. I just have to say Smeg off to that bar! The doors opened at 7 but nobody went on for a long time after.. I can't be too upset at the cock knockers because we did end up with front row seats which is really great because of the way Marc Maron makes eye contact with his crowd and really seems to connect with them..

The first guy (who runs the comedy show there every week) came up and was pretty funny, he did a bit about hybrid Halloween costumes and did a Marty McFly / Abe Lincoln mix which was very good, his Michael J Fox impression was perfect and Abe Lincoln stressing out about getting back in time to free the slaves was awesome. He did another bit which was almost awesome, I saw almost because he went a bit too far with it.. It was about how he found a leather jacket at a hand-me-down clothes store and what he could deduce from the previous owner by what was in the pockets.. Great joke during the inspection of pocket number one, went to far when he looked in pocket number two.

The second guy was a local guy, Sean Sullivan, and he was very good. He did a bunch of jokes about buying a house in a horrible area and about buying a new toilet for that house. His stand out bit was certainly about the toilet..

Finally came Marc Maron who was the best of the night.. The only thing I will say about him is that if you ever get the chance to see him grab it.. I think he has a comedy central presents and a few other recorded stand up bits, actually I know he does because we have one on our iTunes. If you like funny with a bunch of real thrown in check him out.. Seeing him live will make me go back and try the WTF podcasts again, just need to get off my arse and put them on my iPod.

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Saturday was Scott's wedding, me and Jessie drove down and checked in at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott before the wedding and then walked over the church. The church part was a church wedding, the music really stood out for me which is not surprising since music is a big deal to Scott. They actually had one of Scott's friends there via webcam so he could watch the wedding which was a really awesome idea.. The reception was a ton o' fun! It was nice to see everyone (including my brother) be silly and relax, it was so silly and relaxed that I even ended up on the dance floor for the end of the night. Lots of great pictures on my cousins facebook site, they had a silly photo booth which ended up being the biggest hit. You go in and click the button and it would take four pictures.. Great idea, will steal it... :D After the reception the place had a burlesque show so we stayed for the beginning of that, I was so tired and it was a very low energy show that we didn't stay long. It was more like half naked cirque de soleil then what I think of as burlesque. I want my burlesque to fun, goofy and high energy, I guess I can thank Pam for that..

Sunday we drove home and I got to spend a little bit of time with Lynz at Thompson Dam before the super work of cleaning my house on Monday..

Sweeps week... I was a bit stressed out about getting my disaster area of house set up for the bbq.. Luckily for me Kevin and Hoyle came over and helped me rip through the basement on Monday! We even cleaned the windows in the basement and garage! Vacuumed basement floor, walls and ceiling.. I don't remember which day I figured this out (might have been Monday), but the Furminator works wonders on getting cat hair off furniture! I spent a lot of hours working on each chair, couch and cushion so that our pet allergic friends could bare to be in the house for an extended period of time. I was going to bail on Tuesday dinner to clean but once again, thanks to Kev and Hoyle, I felt that I was able to go because the house was almost done. Wednesday I went to the Mets game and watched the Mets come back in the late innings just to lose in extras because our manager does not manage to win.. When you're home you can't reserve pitchers for innings yet to come, you need to play each inning in extras as if it were the last. Because of that he left one guy in too long and we ended up losing. That really sums up the entire season for the Mets.. We don't need to win today, as long as our players are healthy and rested tomorrow! How can your team lead the league in shutouts and era and be under .500!? Sigh... Maybe they will lose so many games between now and the end of the season they will have no choice but to fire him and bring back Bob Vay..

Thursday and Friday were spent prepping food and making sure all the last minute shopping was done. Oh, I forgot to mention, as if the normal load of getting the house ready was not enough.. We had a pipe burst in the basement! Luckily it was the outbound pipe so there was no water running into the basement unless you ran the sink and/or dishwasher. Almost $400 later we were able to do the dishes which had been piling up.

The bbq was great, thanks all for coming out! I even got to get out from behind the grill and play some games and hang out..

Sunday morning I got up and with Brad and Chris' help got the place cleaned up before heading out to Irvine...

--This weeks cleaning and being home was sponsored by teaching an online class!

Deep in the Heart of Texas - July 18 - 23

I flew to Dallas on Sunday and met up with my friend Christine, she was a student of mine back in Chicago and we ended up hanging out that week a few times. Anyway she was waiting for me at the hotel when I arrived so I got changed and we went to dinner. Well, actually it was a bit early so we first went to the Stadium Cafe bar for a drink. Dinner ended up being at a micro-brew house that had opened up since last time I was there. The beer was just 'eh' but the food was actually really good. When I say the beer was 'eh' I'm being nice to it.. Christine actually didn't finish hers and I had to "down it" after I finished eating. We were walking back to my hotel room and walked by the comedy club which appeared to have an open showing, last time I was in town the comedy club was closed to the public for a best in texas competition. We went in and found that Jon Lovitz was doing a show that night, actually he was doing a show as we entered. The CC machine was already shut down and the box office was technically closed but they took some cash and brought us to a pretty close seat. The show was awesome!

Monday night I brought Josh to the Magic Time Machine, it was certainly not as cool as the first time. This time we had Wild Bill as our waiter and he might as well have been any generic dude. Not only that we were sat no where near the bathroom so I didn't get to see any cool bathroom heckling. The food was still amazing but the show was lacking...

Speaking of lacking shows, Tuesday night I went out with Josh and a few students to a Tepinyaki place, when the guy said "this one is japanese ketchup" I laughed till I realized it was ACTUALLY ketchup!! Then I was just sad.. The cook was very slow and did almost no tricks, and the ones he did do he did sub-par like the onion volcano. He absolutely killed the sprouts with soy sauce but he did an awesome job on the steak, scallops and shrimp so once again the food was great but the show sucked..

Wednesday we went to a mexican place and I had an amazing portabella mushroom burrito. It was an asian/mexican fusion dish, it had sesame seeds and a oriental style mushroom gravy.. So good! We didn't take advantage of it but when we arrived they had an avocado and some lemon on the table for you to make your guacamole. You could either make it yourself or have them make it at your table. We chose neither.. The chips they gave us were nice and warm and perfectly salted and the salsa was OMG amazing! I tried to buy some but to no avail.

Thursday I went to the Ballpark at Arlington to see the Texas Rangers.. I would rank the stadium pretty high up on the list.. What makes a good stadium? Food, view and ambiance.. The food - how about a bacon wrapped hot dog slow cooked over a bed of onions!? Not feeling that? How about some beef brisket, or a chicken fried steak sammich? The view - eh, I got row 1 in the upper deck and the bar was annoyingly in my view the whole game, I could either lean forward or scrunch down but I could not just sit normally without having the pitchers mound be blocked. If I was not in row 1 this would not have been a problem so I don't want to kill it on that. The ambiance - they have a giant kids play area behind center field complete with batting cages, pitching cages and a whiffle ball park. Unlike Citi-Field the lines were not crazy for the whiffle ball, probably because you had to pay ($1 per kid). They also had a statue of Nolan Ryan with all of his achievements in the middle of the kid play area. They had a Rangers Hall of Fame but it was closed due to a private party which sucked. The field level was very open and as you walked around the concession stands you got a view of the field which is nice, but the upper deck was not. The upper deck was the standard go through a tunnel to the food area behind the seats, I guess they all can't be Citi-Field.. My biggest knock on the stadium was the scoreboards, they looked like they were straight out of the 80s which does not make sense since it's a somewhat new ballpark. Before the game they did a great introduction with a song from each year the club was in existence with highlights playing during each song. Oh, and the awesome (or hysterical) thing was they played Deep in the Heart of Texas during one of the breaks! I laughed, then videoed the scoreboard!

Woke up FAR to early on Friday to get to the airport..

This week was Josh's co-teach for this class so we took turns teaching and watching.. Once he gets qualified it should free me up to do the Symm Config class more which is an online course which means more home time..

--Diversion of the Day

New York Week July 13 - 17

New York Week:

I just re-read my last blog and I actually don't have to much more to say about New York week, Thursday night I met up with a girl from OKCupid. I went over her sublet and we chatted for a while and played a game she is co-designing called Mingle, it's a game designed to help you get to know each other better. It was a good game but the ending mechanism needs a bit or work. If the game goes massive I can say I played a beta version.... :)

Class got out at a decent time on Friday so I decided to see if I could grab an earlier train back. Waiting in line at Amtrack in Penn Station sucks! But it was worth it since I got on the earlier train afterall. I was planning on the fact that I was not going to be able to get on an earlier train so Jessie went out for the night. I stopped at Mohegan Sun to hit LUSH on the way home and the place was empty! It was so empty I decided I'd eat there and ended up at Bar Americain where I even ate the squash! I got a cod with mussels in a spicy corn sauce, the cod sat on a bed of raw spaghetti squash.. The sauce was so good I probably would have eaten anything you put in it..

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One day home is CERTAINLY not enough, but I guess that's what you get sometimes.. I was home for Saturday and me and Jessie spent a nice lazy type day hanging around Thompson Dam..

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Flew to Dallas on Sunday - to be continued in next blog.. I decided I would write these as separate blogs to make the reading time less overwhelming..

phew

I've been away for a while... I'll be back soon I promise.. I have to catch you up on NYC and Dallas, our BBQ and Irvine.. In the meantime I uploaded a bunch of pics to Flickr and a video to Youtube (the ones from my old phone).. Enjoy..

I will really be back soon, I'm on vacation next week so at the latest I'll put something up Monday or Tuesday..