OMG - 1st Blog in September and it's already the 18th!

I'm sorry for not writing anything, I keep saying this in most of my newest blogs.. I need to do a better job of sitting and writing at least once a week if not back to once a day. I'm not really trying to create the longest blogs ever. ;)

As mentioned in my last blog, me and Jessie went to see Jon Oliver in Boston on Friday the 28th. We ate at Jacob Wirth before the show and met a really cool couple (Kriss and Jonathan) who was sitting next to us. Jessie was trying to decide what to order (I know, shocking) and Jonathan started giving us his review of her choices, we hit it off really well and hung with them until we went into the show. The warm up comedian was the same warm up guy from when we went to see the Daily Show, he was much funnier this time. Jon Oliver was as good as expected so it was a very good night.

The only problem with the night is we got home very late (as expected) and I had to get up early in the morning to drive to Brad's house. AnimeFest was really good, but I think the name should be changed to Board Game Fest. Anime was only on in one room and it was mostly old stuff, the only Anime I watched was some of Ponyo in Japanese and that was at the end of the night. I played two games of Carcassonne: The City and won both and one game of Apples to Apples which I lost to Kelly (Brad's girlfriend). The kicker to that game is she joined late and still managed to get 7 cards first.. The highlight of the night was probably going out for Japanese food with Christian and Mara, we went to a place right by Brad's house (don't remember the name) and spent a while talking and catching up. I left in the early morning because I had drank way too much caffeine and there was no way I was going to sleep there.

The problem with writing blogs infrequently is I don't remember everything.. I know I did something on the 30th and 31st but I don't remember.. So, checked Google Calendar and Flickr and I have no records for those days. Nurit mentioned to me yesterday that she adds things to her calendar after she does them, now I see why she does that.. Just asked Jessie and she recommended checking my IM logs..

September 1st's dinner was at our house but I don't remember any specifics about dinner, don't even remember what I made.. I love chat logs! I just read the chat log with Holly and it reminded me that I made a Rhubarb Cheese sauce and put it over Ham. AH-HA, I just realized something.. When we went to make the Brazilian cheese Jessie asked me what happened to the Muenster we had in the fridge, now I remember.. I used it for the Rhubarb Cheese Sauce!

Ok, back to Sunday/Monday.. I just checked my chat logs with Holly and found out that Sunday was mostly spent sleeping, the rest of the time we watched Weeds. Monday night we watched more Weeds and Jessie made her "German" meal which was Chicken Sausages, Red Cabbage with Bok Choi and Pirogies.

Wednesday Sept 2nd will always live in memory as the day Matt Salvatore lost to food! Casa Mariachi in Putnam has a 5lb Burrito challenge, if you win you get a bumper sticker, a shirt and your picture on a wall of fame. If you lose you get your picture on the wall of shame and pay $27 for the burrito (if you win it's free). Anyway, I think he made two fatal mistakes: 1. He chose Chicken which means he got 5lbs of shredded chicken. 2. He didn't spread the toppings (guacamole and sour cream). You have an hour to finish, he probably had half of it down in the first 10 mins before slowing down. He was still moving at a good pace till he hit the 2nd consecutive glob of sour cream which crushed his hopes. There are pictures, check my Flickr.

I was supposed to have dinner with Lynz on the 3rd, she called me from work to tell me her mom had tickets for the CT Defenders for that night so me, Lynz and Anja met her mom at the stadium instead. We sat in one of the luxury boxes and made friends with the waitress. It was nice to be able to chat with Lynz's mom and it was fun explaining baseball to Anja. Cutter came up and hung out with us in the box which I think made Anja's night. One of the biggest highlights for me had to be watching Lynz and Anja doing push ups in the luxury box during extra innings! We ended up leaving the game early because it was a weekday and the game didn't matter since the Defenders had already clinched the division.

Nothing like going to Laire when you're already exhausted! Friday drive to Laire was tough, I had to stop a bunch of times and get coffee and walk around to stay awake. Did my work shift Friday night and went right to bed. Saturday I played, and when I say played I mean "FULL Combat". The plan was to play from morning till dark, the actual-laity is I played from about 9am till 3am! The only time I stopped was when I went out to Veggie Heaven for dinner. I ran, I jumped, I fought and I killed! Sunday was more of the same, got up around 10 and played till about 2am only stopping to go to Fu's for dinner. I did plan to play Monday but when I woke up I was so sore I had to leave. When I say sore I don't mean my tendons either, I mean my calf muscles. All in all this was a VERY successful event, no tendon pain and no knee pain!

September 8th's dinner was at our house again and Nurit came out for it. She got there early so we had some time to hang out before the crowds showed up. Speaking of the crowds: Sara, Sean, Ryan, Gwen, Lynz, Jesse and Marie all ended up calling out. I made some steaks on the grill and Kevin made some kebabs and Sarah brought shrimp for the grill. It was a good night but most of it was spent with me at the grill, ran out of gas so me and Joe had to go get more before I could finish grilling.

The 9th and 10th are missing from my memory and I don't have any chat logs with Holly for those days because she was not at work. I know the 10th Jessie went to Yoga and then to Hoyle's house, I hung out with Elizabeth for a bit and then I ate dinner, made the Catupiry Cheese and went to bed. I'm going to guess the 9th was watching Weeds with Jessie.

The 11th me and Jessie went over to Matt and Sile's house and made the Brazilian style pizza. We made two, one traditional style with ham, onions, hard boiled egg and catupiry cheese and the other one had lots of veggies. The pizza's came out great and we had a good time chatting and hanging out.

Jessie was real sick on the 12th, we watched LOTS of Weeds and ended up bringing her to the hospital in the evening. Joe came over around 9 and I went to dinner with Matt at the Courthouse.

Phew - Almost done.. The 13th I went and had lunch with Lynz for her birthday, I packed up a picnic and we went and got "lost" in the woods in Willimantic for a few hours. We found a nice spot in the woods that had a little stream sat, relaxed and snuggled.. Yay picnics, I've missed you.. Wine at Lunch returns, at least for a day. After lunch I headed back home and took Jessie out to a corn maze. We went to the corn maze in Pomfret, their maze is laid out as a spider in it's web. They had a bunch of scarecrows scattered through the maze and you had to answer 9 questions about them (which one plays baseball, which one is holding a christmas bear) so you couldn't just "solve" the maze without finding all the scarecrows. I like corn mazes and hopefully we can get to the one in Thompson before the season ends.

We're finally on the current week! Monday I went to Nurit's new house and hung out there with her and her room mate helping her organize her room. We went to this amazing apartment complex to get her a box spring from a couple that couldn't get it in their unit. This apartment complex was built inside an old middle school so it had massive ceilings and massive hallways. I didn't feel right taking any pictures but wished I had. We went to Ohara's which is an Irish restaurant/pub by her house, I had a Wasabiaki Salmon which was a wasabi/teriyaki glazed salmon. It was very tasty but certainly not spicy.

Tuesday - Dinner.. I made cheeseburgers at Hoyle's request (it was his birthday) and Badger made some amazing pork chops. Sara, Sean, Lynz and Kristen did not come this week. Hoyle brought Janine and Kevin brought two new people who were both very cool. After dinner and after Rowan left we pulled the porn pile out and tried to get some porn diving going. We didn't get any porn diving but we did at least sell a few.

Wednesday and Thursday was Weeds, Weeds and more Weeds. We are half way through season 4. I guess it's not fair to just say Weeds, Weeds and more Weeds, we also watched Daily Shows (welcome back after a 3 week vacation), Monk, History Detectives and Chopped.

--Quote of the Day

Another day, another way to change the future of yesterday. - Stacy Davenport

Upcoming Events: Works Progress Administration concert at Club Passim on Nov 13th, we are going to the 7pm show if you want to join us.

BYOB - Outside too

Bloggity Blog Blog... What's new with me? Well.. The biggest thing is that I fought at Laire this weekend.. I was full combat Saturday from when I woke up till right before feast. We woke up to some orcs trying to attack our tent site and we went after them to kill them, during the fight Lux had his sword stolen so we tracked them into their encampment. I didn't get a chance to swing in the wake up fight because I was walking to slow to get into the fight. I was wearing my sandals and didn't want to chance rolling my ankle on the rocks. I did however fight at the encampment, I hit a few, killed one and didn't get hit so I would call that success. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful until they announced arena fights. I have never lost in an arena fight and really wanted to fight their undefeated champion, I also really didn't want to hurt myself so I originally denied the fight. After watching a few fights however I changed my mind and entered the arena, considering I had not fought since November I think I did pretty well. I did end up losing in the end but I made a pretty good showing of it. Good news is that I can still at least say I'm undefeated in the Avalonian arena..

So, how are my feet? Very good, thanks for asking.. I'm sore like I over did it at the gym but at least I'm not in pain.

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The week in review..

Wednesday night I went out with Holly, we went to Paul's Pasta Shop in Groton. It's a nice place right on the water, I had a Spaghetti Pie which is Spaghetti baked in a deep dish with ricotta, hot and sweet sausage, meatballs, green peppers, mushrooms, pepperoni and mozzarella cheese topped with red sauce. It was so good and crazy big, when it arrived I cut it in half and brought that half home for Jessie to eat for lunch the next day. Holly had Paparadelle Carbonara which is a crazy wide pasta tossed with prosciutto and peas cooked in a black peppercorn alfredo sauce. After dinner we drove to Dairy Queen and then went and stood on the waterfront by the restaurant.

Thursday night I went to dinner with Lynz, we went to Coyote Flaco in Mansfield Center. We sat outside on their deck and ended up having to prop a menu up to block the sun from being in my eyes. The place had this "door handle" which is a man's worst nightmare.. It was a horseshoe pointed upwards around crotch height. I took a picture of Lynz standing next to it, I will post it on Flickr when I'm done with this blog so you can check it out. I had a skirt steak which came with a chicken enchilada, beans and rice. The steak was very good but the enchilada was a little dry, it was much better once I dumped a bunch of guacamole on it. Lynz had chicken mole (if memory serves).

I'm so glad that summer is finally starting, to be able to sit outside two nights in a row should not be a novelty in July. Speaking of summer, I really don't want to be sitting in this class right now, it's really nice out and I'm sitting in a room with windows which just makes it worse because I get to see the sunshine but not get to be in it..

Sunday I went to the Mets game with my friend Lee and his wife. It was awesomely hot and the sun was on us for the whole game.. So, you know how when you normally wear pants and your legs never get sun? Well, that would be a good time to put sunscreen on your legs.. My knees got really sunburned, possibly to the point of sun poison. I had a really tough time driving home and ended up with a really bad headache after taking a bath. I bought some after sun burn lotion while I was in Australia, I put that on it after my bath which made it feel much better. My headache and lack of energy could also have been because I didn't eat much yesterday. Jessie made me some food right before bed and woke me up so I could eat it. I think that and some dead to the world sleep made everything better. I had so little energy I could barely get my car unpacked from Laire, I just threw everything into the garage, I'll start laundry tonight when I get home.

Saturday night (yes, while at Laire) I went to dinner at Veggie Heaven in Denville NJ. Everything on their menu is Vegetarian, they do an amazing job of making meat substitutes. I had beef and chicken in a sesame sauce, Amber had some spinach noodles with chicken and mushrooms, Al had a chicken cutlet supreme, Mateo had a seafood dish (don't remember which one) and Adam had sushi and some lo mein. Everything (even the seafood) tasted like what they said it was supposed to be! I've never had a seafood substitute that actually tasted like shrimp, crab, etc.. We will probably be going back there each month, it has a much better selection than Fu's (the place we normally go). It's about a 20 min drive but it's very worth it.

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In other Mets news.. Delgado and Reyes both worked out on Sunday and are looking good, there is still no timetable for their return but they are doing better and should be back sooner rather than later. Maine and Beltran have not been doing as well and they will probably be back later rather than sooner.. They enter the all star break 6.5 games back and will certainly have a up hill battle in the 2nd half, hopefully we can get our players back soon to make the hill a little less steep.

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Tonight me and Jessie are going to a town meeting to support/change the BYOB outdoor serving law. Over the last few years restaurants in Putnam have added outdoor seating. If you serve alcohol you are allowed to serve it on the outdoor patio seating, however if you're BYOB you are not allowed to let anyone on the outdoor patio to drink! The meeting tonight is to change the BYOB law so that they can allow people on the outdoor patio to BYOB.

Saturday Putnam is having it's first River Fire from 7pm till 10pm. Me and Jessie will be there, if you're in the area come on by. Maybe we can do dinner before heading over like we did at the fireworks.

---Thought of the Day

These cookies are magic! They cure sinus infections and cranky moods.. :D

---Diversion of the Day

http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/2009-07-07/index.html

Rollercoasters aren't just for Lynz anymore.. ;)

I have been taking a new way to Milford the last few weeks thanks to Google Maps and my GPS. Anyway, there is a home improvement store on the way that has the following quote on their sign out front.. "If you can't learn to do something well, enjoy doing it badly"

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Lots has happened since my last blog...

Went to the Mets/Yanks game at CitiField and was once again reminded why every year we say "this is the last Mets/Yanks game we go to".. I say this now, but I'm sure I'll go back on this next year.. I could sell those stupid tickets for almost as much (if not more) than my entire ticket package. Maybe next year I will really sell them..

Thursday was a great day with a capital G-R-E-A-T... Started out super exciting with a work con-call then going to Long Subaru in the down pour to get my 3,000 mile service.. I know, it does not sound to great yet.. Well as it turns out, Long Subaru gives you your first service free! After my car was done I went to Lynz's house for lunch, we ate at the Willi-Brewpub which I had not done in a long time and then got to relax at her house (kid-free and stress-free) which I had not done in, it seems like forever.. After dinner I ran home, took a quick shower and went out to meet Holly..  I got to meet Louie and then we headed out for sushi, the sushi restaurant we went to had outside seating so we got to enjoy the semi-warm weather while we ate. After dinner we went and played pool, I won both games with Holly scratching on the 8-ball, I guess that goes back to the quote on the top of this blog.. After pool we went to the boardwalk and sat on a bench looking out on the ocean. It was a beautiful night and it made for a wonderful end of a great day.

Sunday was not all bad, in fact it was not even half bad.. Actually, I think I quite enjoyed it (it being the day as a whole).. I went over Sara's house for lunch and we went and got (wait for it) sushi at Thai Basil.. After lunch we went and walked around the paths around her yard with Murphy.  Sunday night Jesse, Marie and Sara came over and we went to the Courthouse for dinner and then we met up with Rene, Hoyle, Janine, Matt, Sile and Daniel and watched the Putnam Fireworks. I love the Putnam Fireworks, they always do an amazing job. I don't know how much they spend on them but it's worth every penny..

Speaking of Fireworks.. Friday night Amber and Kris came over and we hung out with my friend Mike playing Guitar Hero till real late.. Saturday me, Jessie, Amber and Kris went to my mom's house for a bbq, I went to Smoke and Leather and finally got a pipe.. Joe (my mom's husband) makes a really good BBQ sauce that he marinated the chicken in and put on top of the burgers. My mom bought a bunch of fireworks and we had a really good time shooting them off in the evening.. Me, my brother and his kids played Croquet during the day which was lots of fun (thanks Randy for showing me that silly game)..

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In and around this crazy week I've been working on my new shield for Laire, I am planning on fighting a bit this weekend so I need to have my shield re-done. I had been trying to get someone who was actually an artist to paint on my shield but nobody could do it under short notice so I did it all myself.. I'm actually shocked at how good it came out.. Not to sound too cocky but, I do tend to do a good job at whatever I actually try to do.. "unquiet" right? Anyway, I have pictures of it on my computer and they should be on Flickr soon after I post this blog, go check them out..

My feet have been doing much better, I ran a few times in the last few days and I've even been doing push ups again. Must make these pants not tight!

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Yesterday me and Jessie were going to go to the Thai place in Webster but on the way saw signs for Waterfront Mary's and decided to go there instead.. I'm very glad we did, the place is right on Webster lake and they have outside seating right against the water. They actually have docks so you can drive your boats to the restaurant! What an awesome idea, I would love to live somewhere that I could drive a boat to a restaurant! The food was good and cheap as was the beer. I will certainly be going back and I would recommend it to anyone. We had crab cakes which had tons of actual crab meat and I had a shrimp ceaser salad. The waitress recommended I put lemon in my ceaser salad which I had never tried before and turned out to be an awesome idea. The restaurant has a Myspace page but I can't link it because I'm typing this blog at work and can't access Myspace.

After dinner we watched Iron Chef America and History Detectives while I worked on my shield. I am all gaga over Elyse Luray (one of the History Detectives), I feel sorta stalker-ish because last night I joined Twitter and she was the first person I added my following list..

I added a bunch of new Food Network shows to my TV lineup (Chopped, Next Food Network Star, and The Best Thing I Ever Ate) for the summer since all the regular shows are in repeats.

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Unquiet by Toad the Wet Sprocket

I am taught but i

Never learn a thing

I'm not deaf but i

Can't hear everything

A quiet world

Unquiet

I am strong but i

Never move a thing

I have words but i

Lack the voice to sing

A quiet world

Unquiet

I would sell the world

Would i...

I am fast but i

Never move at all

I have sight but i

Never choose to show

A quiet world

Unquiet

I would sell the world

Would i...

A quiet world

Unquiet

NL East article on ESPN

I was reading ESPN today and they had a really good article about the beat up NL East. For those of you who skip my baseball blogs, there is more under this article so if you want you can scroll down.. :P

The NL East is playing out like a really nasty game of dodgeball, and if you're keeping score at home, you could probably count the bodies left standing on one hand.

You know the New York Mets have lost their best home run hitter, their All-Star shortstop, two-fifths of their rotation and their second most important off-season acquisition in J.J. Putz … and at the end of play Tuesday night, the Mets were still just 2½ games out of first place.

The Florida Marlins saw their most consistent starting pitcher from last year sent to the minors, and their starting center fielder batted .202 before being demoted. They've had to make do at third base with a youngster who had always played in the middle infield. Dan Uggla, one of their few returning veteran stars, is batting .217, and shortstop Hanley Ramirez has a nagging groin injury. Today, these Marlins, with the lowest payroll in the majors, are three games out of first place.

The Philadelphia Phillies might have lost No. 2 starter Brett Myers for the rest of the season, No. 3 starter Jamie Moyer has a 5.97 ERA, and No. 5 starter Chan Ho Park lost his job. Closer Brad Lidge was much less than perfect before landing on the disabled list, shortstop Jimmy Rollins has battled a slump most of the year, and now Raul Ibanez is hurt.

And the Phillies lead the NL East.

So in other words, this battered and tattered division -- major league baseball's Black and Blue Division of 2009 -- is a very long way from being decided.

A few hours before Tommy Hanson pitched out of trouble over and over again and the Braves shut out the Yankees, Atlanta GM Frank Wren spoke with optimism, and who could blame him? The Braves have been one of baseball's worst offensive teams; their outfield production was easily the worst in the majors, prompting Wren to trade for Nate McLouth. And those Braves are four games out of first place.

"I think none of us foresaw what the [Phillies and Mets] would have," Wren said. "We're sitting where we thought we would be. … I actually feel like over the last week, we've started to make some strides. The last five days, we've swung the bat as well as well as we have all year."

Casey Kotchman has been swinging better of late, Wren says, but hasn't had a lot to show for it yet. Garret Anderson ripped a two-run double Tuesday night, and is hitting .435 over the past week. McLouth has helped the Atlanta offense, creating more opportunities for Chipper Jones, Brian McCann and others. If the Braves can muster any offensive consistency, they'll be dangerous because of their rotation and bullpen depth.

Wren is open to adding a hitter "who is available and who fits what we need," but like a lot of other GMs, he reports that there are few players on the market right now. And in the end, Wren's hands could be tied because of expense. "There's very little financial flexibility [among other teams], and for us, as well," Wren said. (Yet another reason why the trade market will probably be a dud: It's unclear whether even the Dodgers can take on money, as Bill Shaikin writes.)

Soon enough, the Mets will get back Jose Reyes, John Maine and Carlos Beltran, and it's possible they will get help from Carlos Delgado and Oliver Perez. And the Mets, one of the few teams willing to take on money in trades, are looking for a hitter. The Phillies are looking for a starting pitcher, but without success so far. The Marlins have historically made runs in the second half of the season, as their young players improve.

Jeff Schultz wonders if better days are ahead for the Braves. These days, the Mets must hit and run and pray, writes John Harper.

I hope at least some of you thought that was interesting.. If not, too bad.. To keep my blog legal I should say that Buster Olney wrote that..

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I went to my cousin's wedding on Saturday and Sunday I went to see Hangover with my dad for father's day... Hangover was such a bad movie.. I recommend nobody see it..

I went bowling with Lynz on Thursday which was tough on my feet but good too. I think there was a ball magnet in the gutters because my ball really liked hanging out there. I was adjusting my approach to not hurt my feet so I was all over the place but I had fun and I feel it did a good job of building up some muscles in my legs.

Saturday at my cousin's wedding I ran a little bit and that really strained my calf muscles, I am thinking next week I will hit the gym and try the elliptical machine. If that fails I'll be swimming for sure and maybe some very minor weights.

Anyway, back to work for me...

Surrounded by beauty

I am totally in love with this heat wave! I bitch and complain all winter but I do think the change in seasons makes you appreciate the warmer weather and the regrowth of nature. I just wish the colder parts of the year didn't last as long.

Yesterday I went up to Kaitlyn's house, we went and got some sammiches and brought them up to a beautiful waterfall in the middle of the woods. The water is all mountain run off and runs really strong this time a year due to the snow melting. All around the water there are amazing looking big rocks, Amber could probably spend an entire week there just studying the rocks.. I took a few pics (posted to Flickr), but they don't do it justice. The water comes down a waterfall and forms a really nice swimming hole that is a little over head deep, on the other side of the swimming hole is a cliff face of clay. Kaitlyn was telling me how in the summer they will swim across and get a bunch of clay, they swim back with it and put it all over their bodies and lay out in the sun on the rocks! Free spa anyone! I know, you can't have a spa without a hot tub/jacuzzi right? Well, if you swim to the base of the falls there are rocks you can sit on in the water and have the waterfall pounding around you.. After we ate and chatted for a while we ended up going for a swim, the water was surprisingly not cold. I would say the ocean in Australia was colder, I was able to sit in the water for a few awhile whereas in Australia I was not even able to get legs in the water!

Nature is really the best medicine, my foot feels great after spending a few hours out by the falls... I even slept without my boot on last night for the first time since having the cast off!

April catch up blog

So, the picture that was short-listed for inclusion in the seventh edition of the Schmap Sydney Guide was officially put to use in the guide which I think is pretty rockin'...

Here is the link - http://www.schmap.com/sydney/entertainment_concerts/#p=339954&i=339954_21.jpg

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The other night at dinner John mentioned an article on the Onion that talked about Mr. Met not getting enough sleep at the new stadium. Check it out..

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I've neglected this blog for far too long. I now need to recap almost the entire month of April..

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The week of the 5th - 11th..

Monday the 6th I woke up and decided I was going to try and walk on the cast, I took a few tentative steps before I put the crutches down and everything was great. To compare, I didn't walk on the cast until the beginning of week 4 during the last surgery and even then it was only for very short spans of time. This time I started walking in the beginning of week 3 and I only used the crutches a few since the 6th.

Melissa came over that day and we hung out and watched opening day! The great thing about opening day is no matter what, every team at least thinks they have a chance to make this their big season.. Thursday I went over Nathan's house up in Beverley for the first time. His house is very nice and they did a lot of work on it since they got it, it would have been interesting to really see how it looked before hand. We ended up going to Home Depot and Lowes and it was probably more walking than I should have done, by the end of the day my left knee, back, arms and shoulders were killing me. Luckily for me Lynz came over on Friday night and did a lot of work on my legs, arms, shoulders and back. I can't say how thankful I am that she was able to put everything back in place.

Friday night Melissa went to Alliance (LARP formally known as NERO), Saturday morning she came over to shower and get changed before going to a friend's party in Boston. I'm usually the one coming home from LARPs and being all excited about what happened so it was odd being on the other end of that.. A good odd, but certainly odd. I can't wait till Laire in May... I had to miss the April event because it was too close to me getting my cast off, but I'm ahead of myself..

Saturday night Sara came over and we went to Pho Evergreen in Greenville RI and had really good soup. It's a really nice family run restaurant, Sara told the girl she was allergic to gluten and she made a really good point of checking with her mom about each ingredient. On the way out the youngest boy was sitting in the reception area watching TV and we heard a dog barking from what appeared to be the back room.

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The week of the 12th - 18th..

The 12th was Easter or as a friend called "Zombie Christ Day".. We went to my brother's house which was nice because we had not been there in a while and the food was really good... His kids are getting real big, it's sort of amazing to me to realize that little Lenny is now 16!

Monday I went to dinner with Kaitlyn at our normal restaurant (the People's Pint) and afterwards got to sit and listen to her play the guitar and sing! It was finally nice enough out so that we could sit in her breezeway and just relax. She'll probably yell at me for saying this in my blog, but she has a great voice and I could totally see her playing an acoustic live set in a local bar or club.

Tuesday I got my cast off!!!!! I was supposed to get it off on Thursday but I could not get an appointment early enough to do it and then get to the Mets game in the same day. I really wanted someone to be there with me when I got it off because I was unsure how stable I would be afterwards so I picked Melissa up Monday night and brought her to Putnam so she could go with me on Tuesday to the doctors. The cast came off and the foot actually had strength enough to push the doctor's hand which is way better than last time when I could barely stand. They gave me a soft boot cast and it was really nice out so we went to play Mini-Golf afterwards which Melissa won by one stroke!

Wednesday night I went over to Willimantic and ate dinner with Lynz and Anja, we went to the sushi restaurant in the mall and hung out at her house afterwards. I had not been down to Willi in a while so it was a good change spending some time there.

Thursday was my first game at Citi-Field! I think I am going to write a separate thing about the stadium in general so I'm just going to say that for Thursday nights game is was COLD! I went with Melissa and my dad. Mike, his mom, Amber and Kris met us there. Ivon ended up spending the whole game in the Promenade Club bar and only came to the seats for about 10 minutes towards the end of the game.

Saturday me and Jessie went to lunch with Hoyle and his wife Janine. We met up at Unos by their house and afterwards went back to their place for a while to hangout and chat. She is a very nice girl and I think we may have convinced her to come to Tuesday night dinners. Yes, I have not mentioned anything about Tuesday night dinners in this blog. And Yes, they are still going strong. Trick is I don't remember what everyone brought each week so I will just say that they were fun as always! I will actually talk about this weeks in a bit but I'm not there yet... So... After leaving Hoyle and Janine's house we went home and met up with Ryan and Sara for dinner at Bella's Gourmet Market in Putnam. The just reopened after being closed for a week to put in a kitchen, they now have a full dinner menu and I highly recommend you check them out if you live in the area. They have this amazing Balsamic marinated grilled Watermelon as an appetizer that comes with chocolate goat cheese! I would go there and just eat that! I got a steak which was so tender I was able to cut it with my butter knife!

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The week of the 19th - today..

The 19th saw my 2nd game at Citi-Field, it was still cold but a bit warmer. I went down with Jessie, Sara, Ryan and my dad. We gave Mike's tickets to Amber and Kris but they didn't show up. Ivon sat at his seats this time and once again we lost. Walked less this time but still probably too much.

Monday was my first day back at work, I went in early because of the silly Boston Marathon and ended up lasting till after lunch before my foot was starting to really bother me and I took off. Monday night Amber came over and we went to dinner at Someplace Special. She filled me in on all the goings on at Laire over the weekend while at dinner much to Jessie's boredom.

Tuesday I went to work, then the dentist... I had a cleaning appointment scheduled for 2, I got there a few minutes early and found out that my dentist had retired and given the practice to another dentist. I've never met the dentist so him retiring is really not that big a deal, but.. The dental assistants were very upset over the changes which included having to use new machines. Upset dental assistants + new machines = horrible cleaning! I left there feeling a bit violated and in pain. I hate dentists! Dinner was quiet this week, in attendance was me, Jessie, Melissa, Sara (for most of it), Ryan, Joe, Hoyle, John (for a little while) and Kristen (for a few minutes towards the end). We (me, Jessie, Hoyle and Melissa) got there late and were the first to arrive. Joe showed up a few minutes later and then Sara had to leave because of "mom issues". We ended up going to the table with just the 6 of us. John showed up a little while after and then Sara came back to bring our little group up to 8. Kristen showed up while everyone was eating dessert to drop the kiddies off for Sara to watch for the night.

Yesterday I went to dinner with Sara at Thai Basil while Jessie was at Yoga. We were supposed to go early but we had to wait for Kristen to come get the kiddies before Sara could come out. I got home from dinner around 9 and ended up chatting with Ange and Melissa before heading to bed.

Holy crap - it's today! I am sitting at work with a bunch of pissed off employees, apparently even though my company made record profits last quarter they are giving everyone a pay cut for the rest of 2009! Oh and they stopped 401k matching funds too! I'd hate to see what they would do if they didn't post record profits! I dropped my car off at Patrick Subaru for it's first 3,000 checkup since the new engine. It's been getting very poor gas mileage and running kinda loud and although Kiss may Love it Loud I don't when it comes to my car. They just called a few minutes ago to tell me it's done so now that I'm done with this long ass-blog I'm going to go get it. Tonight I'm going to the movies with Jessie, we are going to see Earth. I'll let you know how it is. If you don't know Disney is planting a tree for every ticket sold this weekend so go..

---Diversions of the Day
It's been long time since I blogged so I will give you two today...
http://mchat.comicgenesis.com/d/20090413.html
http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/2009-04-14/index.html

Mets add 'historic bat' in Sheffield

No, this is not a blog about only baseball again.. I just laughed my ass off when I read that headline on MLB.com.. I guess "historic" is the new pc phrase for old.. If you don't know who Gary Sheffield is, he used to be a great outfielder, now he is a has-been. He is 40 years old and his last good year was 2005 when he hit .291 with 35 home runs, he has steadily decreased since then and was released by Detroit in spring training because he hit .175 in the spring. If the Mets were going to sign a random old outfielder I would have rather they sign Bonds who could probably still play or at least hit the crap out of the ball.

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Quick update, recap of the last week or so...

Last Saturday was Joe M's birthday, originally just Jessie and Hoyle were going to go but since my foot was feeling pretty good I decided to tag along and drag Sara with us. We met at a Comedy Club/Brewery in Hartford called City Steam Brewery Cafe around 5 figuring we would eat and then catch their 7pm show. When we got there we found out that the show was sold out so we could either go to the late show or go to Funny Bones in Manchester, after a quick vote we decided to eat and head to Funny Bones. Speaking of food... I would really like to go back to that brewery on a night that they didn't have a show, the food (crab cake sliders) was very good when they finally brought it. I had a two of their beers and they were both tasty, the first (and better) beer was the Winter Wheat which is an odd beer, at first I was not sure if I liked it but by the end of the glass I decided I liked it enough to bring home a growler. Well, as it turns out the Winter Wheat was the end of the run, I got about 2 glasses in the growler but they only charged me $3 for it so I figure it's a win. The 2nd beer I had was Deirdre Does Dublin which is a Guinness clone, it was ok but not great.

After dinner we loaded into the car and shot down to Manchester, got tickets and got seated right before the show started. Ian Bagg was the headliner and was really funny. I forgot the names of the first two comedians, they were ok but obviously not that memorable. My leg was still feeling ok afterwards so we went back to Joe's house and played some Apples to Apples with his clan.. Speaking of his clan, I was shocked to see Gwen sitting at the table when we arrived for dinner. Me and Jessie knew Gwen from a few years ago when she was living in Willimantic with her ex Jack. We lost touch with them when they moved down to Georgia, we messaged Gwen once or twice when she moved back to Providence and it was very cool to catch back up with her over dinner and the show. We didn't stay too long at Joe's because my foot was starting to really bother me. We did stay long enough to invite Joe, Melissa and Gwen to Tuesday night dinners. More on that later.. :)

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Monday I had lunch with Mike B at Bella's in Putnam and helped him setup his stereo system at his girlfriend's condo. Bella's is adding a kitchen this coming week, they are closing Monday-Wednesday and revamping the restaurant. When they open back up on Thursday they will have a full dinner menu including Jessie's raw pasta sauce!

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Melissa came over during the afternoon on Tuesday to hang out before dinner. We hung out and watched "What the Ancients Knew - Greeks", it's the 2nd "What the Ancients Knew" episode I recorded (the first was Japanese). I was not impressed with the way they put the show together, there was so much they could have talked about but didn't. The only thing that was really cool was when they talked about the giant Triremes, which were their war ships. They actually built one and had a team of modern day rowers get in and test how fast it could go and how long they could maintain that speed. Jessie made a tamarind dip for dinner, Sara made Afghan Squash which was really good especially when mixed with Jessie's tamarind dip.. Kristen made cookies and Lynz & John made a veggie dish. Melissa was hijacked by the kiddies when she arrived and didn't rejoin the adults till dinner was served. After dinner I went and laid on the couch to put my foot up and Melissa came and sat with me when the kids weren't having her spin them..

We ended up playing Trivial Pursuit after John and Lynz left. Teams were - Me and Melissa, Jessie and Hoyle, James and Therese, Kevin and Sara and Kristen. Joe was going to team with Kristen but he was not feeling good so he took off early. Hoyle and Kevin are pretty evenly matched when it comes to trivia games but Hoyle and Jessie ended up coming out on top in the end. Me and Melissa did ok considering we kept getting distracted by the kids and apples.

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Wednesday I had lunch with Mom, Joe, Grandma and Sara. Joe made a pizza for him and Sara, the rest of us got pizza from that really good pizza place in Putnam. Grandma was not impressed saying that it was not really New York pizza. Mom and I disagreed.. :)

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Lynz came over Thursday, she had been meaning to check out that herb place by the Vanilla Bean so we ate lunch at the Bean and checked out that place. I had a turkey, bacon, avocado wrap which was sooo good.. After lunch we went up to Dr Scheffel's office to get my stitches out. Getting the stitches out hurt a lot more this time, last time getting the stitches out was a relief because of the staple that was pulling on the bandages, this time there was no relief just pain. The re-casting process really sucks, while your knee is bent they push your foot up to the angle they want it and then have you hold it there while they cast it. Holding the foot at a stretching angle really hurt my knee and my muscles. Once the cast is on and hard the next trick is straightening your knee which stretches the tendon even further. Back to the pain meds for a few days..

Amber came over for a bit on her way home which is always cool.. The rest of Thursday night was lots of Red Dwarf. Years ago I started watching Red Dwarf with my friend from NY, we watched 3 seasons and I think we watched 1 episode in the last year so I decided to download them off Netflix online.

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Last night me, Jessie and dad went to see One Night of Queen which is a Queen tribute band called Gary Mullen & the Works, they are sanctioned by Queen and Brian May as the definitive historical Queen show. They did two sets, the fist set was good but the 2nd set was holy crap amazing! The version of Love of My Life was probably the crown on the show for me, they did a different version of it than Freddie and Queen would normally do and it was great to hear him use Freddie's voice but a different arrangement. They also broke up We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions with Friends will be Friends which was nice and unexpected. We got handicap seats which were very close to the stage off to the side of the theater. I took lots of videos and should have them up on YouTube in a little while.

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So, I'm watching the Mets/Red Sox game now. Before watching this I watched this weeks Mets Weekly which talked a bit about food at Citi Field, they apparently have a stand which has fries with various dips including a bacon dip!

Speaking of Baseball.. Over the last few days I've been reading a bunch of different articles on ESPN.com and MLB.com.. Here are some interesting things I read...

The new Yankee stadium has a center field restaurant that apparently blocks the view of the field from the bleachers! They just announced they are lowering the price of those bleachers to $5 because they are "limited view", if you look online you can find pics of what it looks like to sit in those seats. Speaking of Yankee stadium, the Yankees increased their ticket prices 76.3% from last year! The Mets increased their ticket prices by 8.6%.. The Red Sox had the highest average ticket price for the last 13 years, this year the Yankees eclipsed them. The average ticket price at Yankee stadium is $72.97, the average ticket price at Fenway is $50.24, 3rd place is Wrigley Field at $47.75 and Citi Field is 4th at $36.99.

How about salaries? The Yankees are once again #1 in baseball with $216,661,739.. The Mets are at $129,987,735.. I don't know where the Mets fall because not all teams have published their salaries yet for the 2009 season. I know, if all the teams have not published their figures how can I say the Yankees are #1? Because no other team is even near them.

---Thought of the Day
Be true yourself and have the confidence to know that by being yourself nothing is untouchable or unattainable..

Seats at CitiField

So, the Mets opened Citi-Field up for people do take seat tours for season tickets. A fan went in and took a bunch of pics and posted them on Photobucket.

Anyway, this picture is pretty close to what the field will look like from our seats..



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What else? Well, I've been doing a whole lot of hanging on the couch, all in all this surgery recovery is alot easier than the last one. My foot does not really hurt and hasn't for a few days except the time I put all my weight on it by mistake.. I think the big difference this time is that there is no staple tugging on my bandages. The other big difference is that the swelling is not going away nearly as quickly, but I will trade that for the no pain any day.

I have been driving a bit which is good because it was not until the 3rd or even 4th week I was willing to drive last time. This time it's the left foot so I can use the pedals still with my right foot, but the big difference is the pain levels.

Tuesday before dinner Lynz came over but I was feeling all feverish so I slept most of the day while she worked, we did get a few episodes of Cheers in towards the end of the day. I went to Tuesday night dinner (drove there, Jessie drove back) which was lots of fun, not sure what stole the show, it was either John's biscuits and sausage gravy or Kristen's ham, cheese and veggie dish. After dinner we went into the living room and played Balderdash which is a funner game than I thought it would be.

Wednesday Sara came over and we watched a few 4400 episodes, we are now on disc 2 of the 3rd season. For christmas my dad got me the entire 4400 box set, each episode is extended so it's been really awesome watching them over again. There were actually pretty important scenes pulled out of the original airings because of time, for example at the end of the 4th episode of season 3 they show Isabella going to meet Rilan at his office, obviously no reason was shown but that's awesome because it explains Rilan's later involvement.

Thursday I ventured out on my own and hung out in Putnam for a while which was nice to do, made me feel all quasi independent. Afterwards I watched the rest of the Monk episodes I had TiVo'ed, I am now caught up. The final season of Monk starts this summer and knowing that it's the last episode I'm really looking forward to it. I think the show is ending just in time before it gets too played out.

Speaking of played out... I watched the latest episode of Legend of the Seeker!!! If you're like me and still holding on to this stupid ass series you will have seen maybe the worst book to film/TV abortion ever made last week! If you have not seen you may not want to, especially if you have any respect for Terry and his work. The question I have to ask myself is, WHY!?! Why do I still watch this show.. I know I said in a previous post that I was going to stick it out for the rest of this season but I honestly don't know anymore... There are only two episodes left so I'm going to TiVo them but I will only be watching them if there is nothing on TV like this afternoon.

Thursday night John, Lynz and Anja came over and had dinner and played Guitar Hero World Tour. Jessie moved her bass up to hard and only failed one song, John did a great job playing drums, the first one I've seen pick it up and not fail the first few times.. Lynz played guitar and I sung for the most part. I actually jumped to the drums on two songs and did pretty well considering my left foot is in a cast and my right ankle is sore from the constant workout of carrying all my weight.

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Back to the beginning.. I'm really looking forward to this season and Citi-Field.. I loved Shea and I will always have very fond memories of going there but I am very excited for Citi-Field, other than the naming rights and the lack of dome I think they did a great job of everything else. Check out that photobucket site and hopefully you will share my opinions. I had been getting worried about the Mets but with Maine's good start yesterday and our bullpen coming together now that Putz and K-Rod are back from the WBC. I'm still bitter about Duaner being released but you gotta move forward right? Duaner was picked up by San Diego and has pitched 4 innings so far for them allowing 1 hit. In one respect I'm glad he didn't sign in the NL East but on the other hand it would have been karma if he had and because a thorn in our side. At least we only play the Padres 6 times all year so he can't be that big of a thorn.

---Thought of the Day
"A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection." -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club

Couch....

Laying on the couch taking pain killers and watching lots of mindless TV.. When I say mindless I really mean that.. I am now all caught up on Legend of the Seeker and it's still really crappy! As a matter of fact it might be getting worse as the show continues. There are three episodes left in season one so I am going to make myself finish the season but I will not be watching it next year if there is one. Some of the horrible things they did was gave Zedd a brother, made Geller an evil wizard trying to recreate the power of a confessor and speaking of confessors, they have an army of confessors who were all running from one quad and in that army of confessors was the real mother confessor! Oh, it's ok though because now Kahlan is the mother confessor because Kahlan and Richard killed the mother confessor after she confessed Zedd!?! As I said, I'm going to make myself finish watching the season but I'm done after that...

Right now I'm catching up on Monk, what's really cool about that is that I'm watching it in black and white. Why, you ask? It's on my old TiVo which is an old series one, the series one TiVos have a problem when you put it into standby mode it sometimes comes back in black and white. Now I can't get it back into color, I think it has more to do with the fact that I broke the connector on the back of the TiVo when I took the coax cable off. I'm planing on getting an old Series one TiVo from dad so I can swap out my hard drives and copy the rest of our old shows off in color. I'm sorta growing bored with Monk right now, I've watched a bunch of episodes over the last few days and it's amazing how similar they are to each other. Plus, it's been years since they did any advancement on the Trudy murder plot line.

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Japan beat Korea in last night's WBC game which means that Saturday night Korea plays Venezuela and Sunday night Japan plays the USA. The winner of each of those games plays in the final on Monday night. This is the first round of the WBC that should have a double elimination, instead the first few rounds did. They way the first few rounds worked was:
Day 1
Team A v. Team B
Team C v. Team D
Lets say A and C win.
Now Day 2
Team B plays Team D
Team A plays Team C
Lets say B and A wins (that sends Team D home because they lost twice)
Now Day 3
Team B plays Team C
Lets say team B wins (that sends Team C home because they lost twice)
Now Day 4
Team A plays Team B and they both continue to next round regardless of who wins!

As of right now there is no way Japan and USA can play in the final game. Because they play each other in the first game and one of them will go home. I would think in the finals you would want the double elimination.

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So, as you may or may not know we got a new HD Tivo over last weekend and had the cable guy install cable cards in it on Monday. When I booked the appointment they told me the cable company did not use Multicards and that they would have to give me two Single Cards. Well, the Tivo worked well for a day or two before it started skipping and losing picture. The cable guy came out today to troubleshoot and brought a Multicard. He pulled the S cards out and put the M in and now everything seems to be working again plus we save $3.00 a month because now we are only paying for one card. I really hope this is not an ongoing problem, the cable guys seems to think that it will be an ongoing problem because of the cable cards.

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I updated the relationship chart finally... Here is the new version...

From the Ocean to the Mountains, Australian Style

Saturday morning me and Jessie went for breakfast up at the Quay, she had a salmon, egg and spinach sandwich on a bagel and I had a BLT which served on Turkish bread. She was not very impressed with the bagel, but liked the sandwich as a whole. The BLT however was great, I really like Turkish bread which is crunchy but also soft and how could you not love a sandwich of back bacon! After breakfast we grabbed the ferry and headed over to Manly to hit the beach.

Although it was very warm out the water was crazy cold.. We got to the beach and found an empty spot close to the water to put our towels (newly purchased) down. There were two girls sitting down feeding the birds so we asked them to watch our stuff for a few minutes while we went into the water, they said yeah and laughed giving us 5 minutes, no make that 2 before we get back. Me and Jessie walked down to the water and I got my feet in up to the shins before retreating back to the towels, Jessie actually got in and went swimming for a few minutes before joining me at the towels. We ended up chatting with Sara and Irina for awhile, Sara is from the Netherlands and Irina is from Russia via Spain. They met at the university over by work where they work. When they were getting ready to leave I asked them to lunch on Monday which Sara accepted, we were to meet today at 12:15 at the escalators.

Me and Jessie soaked in the sun for a bit longer before heading out to the upstairs bar that overlooks the beach where we had a beer each before heading back towards the city. Jessie had been talking to guy Mik who lives in SF but spent some time in Sydney, he recommended eating Turkish Pizza over at a place called Saray's. We went over there for dinner, most places in Sydney are BYO (Bring Your Own) which is really good because you can usually buy an entire bottle of wine or beer for the same price you would normally pay for one glass at a restaurant. Before dinner we went to a bottle shop and got a bottle of sparkling shiraz, being American I never thought of red sparkling wine before but it was really good and I'm actually surprised now that we don't have sparkling reds in America. Armed with our sparkling shiraz we went in and got some pizza. Jessie got a lamb pizza and I got a egg and sausage pizza, they were both they were both so much better with the addition of a tzatziki style sauce Jessie got to "dip" the pizza in. I say "dip" because we really just smothered it on and enjoyed. Jessie also got one of the grape leaves because we were watching the lady make them fresh, it was the first time I've ever had one of those that was spicy.. It was so good.

After dinner Ange called, her evening ended early and she was still up and very awake. She met us at the hotel and we ended up driving with her up the Rocks to park and walk back to the hotel. I thought the pub on the Quays was still open but it was not so we went back to the hotel bar which was just calling last call. Jessie got a beer and I got two beers since it was last call and we all hung out and chatted while we drank our beers. Afterwards I walked her back to her car and she drove me back to the hotel. I know she's probably reading this right now so I won't say too much, but.. OK, I know, when has that stopped me before... Ange is a very cool person, I had a blast talking to her on the phone the other night hanging out with her in person was even better. It felt very comfortable for the three of us to hang out, it was like she was an old friend instead of someone we just met. I'm hanging out with again on Wednesday night and really looking forward to it.

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Speaking of looking forward to it... I was speaking with Robyn today and she is having problems with her car, it seems to be overheating.. After about 15 minutes of driving the car starts getting hot, the heat gets up to middle bar and then the check engine light comes on. Apparently the vents in the car are still blowing cold air but... I didn't get to talk to much about it with her because I just found out this morning but I had to run to class so we had to cut our conversation short. She is going to check into the cost of bringing to the dealer but if this does not get fixed she may not be coming up this weekend! I'm not very car savvy, anyone who is have any ideas? I would really hate to have her not come up, but I would hate it more if her car died on the way.

/sigh
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Sunday we got up early-ish and headed up to breakfast before catching the train to the Blue Mountains. We took the subway from Circular Quay to Center Station and purchased round trip tickets to go from Central to the Blue Mountains (Katoomba) which was a complete waste because they didn't have a swipe thing or a collector at the Katoomba station and we didn't need them to get back either because once back in the city limits we could use our regular week passes. We had to wait awhile for the train and once we got on it was way to air conditioned, we were frozen by the time we got out there. Warmed up quickly once we were back out of the air conditioning. Grabbed the Big Bus Tour around the Blue Mountains and got off and Scenic World which had a open glass floored sky ride over the ravine to a restaurant & shop. From the restaurant you can take a 415 metre railway that runs at a 52 degree decline into the valley floor. Once on the floor there is a 50 minute walk through the brush before heading back up in another sky ride. The walk was amazing and took us a bit over the 50 minutes, my foot actually started to feel really good while I was walking down there in the woods, so much so that I was not limping towards the end! It didn't last long, I would say once we were back into town I started to limp again.. Maybe I just need to live in the woods.. Anyway, at one point on the path there was a gazebo they called the rainforest room, it had pews and a podium which would have been the greatest place ever to teach a class from. We took bunches of pictures yesterday and I posted what I considered the best ones from my phone.

We left Scenic World and met Kate from Canada on the bus heading back to the train, she was very cool and was in Sydney for awhile but was heading home soon. We got off the bus and the three of us went to a market before she left and got the train that we missed because we were still looking at stores and I was getting food when it came. We ended up getting off the train early and grabbed a train into Newtown to go to the Poly meetup. We met a few cool people there and had some good conversation before heading to dinner at Thai Tanic, I know lame name.. We had a good time chatting over dinner and one of the guys, Nigel, drove us back towards the hotel. He lives in Manly and made the offer to take us snorkeling, I think Jessie is planning on taking him up on the offer which should be really cool for her.

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So, Jessie and Ange have been chatting and Jessie mentioned Elizabeth's username. I wonder what Elizabeth's reaction to a girl in Australia stalking her is going to be...

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So onto today... Sorry for the long blog but not much time to write when you're living it... You know the line, "Don't dream it, be it".. That line is still just as much true today as it was when Tim said it in 1975. Remember that and you'll never want for excitement and enjoyment in your life..

Not much going on here, just watching students do labs.. I went to lunch today, got to the escalator at 12:10 and much to my pleasant surprise Sara showed up pretty much right on time! We chatted while we ate and then went and sat outside on a bench and chatted some more till I had to go back to work. We are going to meet tomorrow too.. She has a boyfriend back home and is not interested in doing anything while here in Sydney but loves meeting new people..

I have no idea what the plan is for tonight, I will text Jessie when I get out and see if she has any ideas.

---Thought of the Day
"Don't dream it, Be-ee it"
"What Spirit is, man can be"
Who needs the Bear Necessities when you can have it all!
"I want it all, and I want it now"

Snow rehab?

I went to Laire this weekend and played "Brother Hawk". Brother Hawk is my Southern Barbarian Druid/Warlock wannabe, he currently casts low magics and is a pacifist which means I can avoid any real combat and quick movements. Unfortunately (or fortunately) what I can't avoid is the snow.. I brought my walking stick and after putting some foam on the sharp pointy end I was able to use it in game. I have to admit, I've always seen people walking with walking sticks/canes and I never really got it. Don't get me wrong a good walking stick can be real nice when you're walking in the deep woods and need to test ground before stepping, need an extra balance point or need to push/pull something closer to be able to step on it in a river/stream, but other than that I always felt like I was just carrying extra weight. I certainly never got why people need to use them when walking on flat even ground. Well, I get it now...

Friday night I just worked Logistics and hung out before going to bed. I played all day on Saturday, I stayed in the inn for most of the day but I did walk to the cabin once to get clothes to change into Daimone for after feast. Kevin came down and NPCed the event which was cool to have him there, I hope he continues to come down with me and Amber. Saturday night the three of us and Al went to get sushi instead of eating the in game feast. After feast I came in as Daimone, I probably did more in the few hours I played Daimone than I did in the rest of the event. Saturday night I was walking back to the cabin by myself to go to bed and it seemed that the walk was never going to end.. I had to take very small steps and keep my eyes down on the ground in front of my feet to make sure I didn't step on any ice, every once in a while I would lift my eyes and look at how much further I had to go. It reminded me of Monty Python's Holy Grail when Lancelot was running towards the castle and they kept showing him running in the distance. I was actually getting frustrated at how long it was taking me but I did a good job of not speeding up.

So, I forgot who told me this but I was told that the best kind of rehab I could do for my ankle would be to walk on the beach because the foot would sink into the ground but not twist. I would say that the snow had the same affect. I might have hated walking in the snow while I was doing it but in the end I think it did a lot of good for my foot. Maybe I can convince Jessie to go for a walk tonight after dinner.


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I just realized that next Tuesday dinner is Obama's inauguration.. I'm so excited for him to take control of this country, perhaps we can get back to the Clinton glory years. If you've missed them you really should catch up on his YouTube videos, he has done a great job of going over some of his economic recovery plans.

---Diversion of the Day

Merry Santamas

Just a quick, well quickish, blog to say Merry Santamas...

So, I don't take vacation from work on Santamas week because in the past we have always been told to just "work from home" so I don't waste the vacation time. Last year my boss got upset because nobody came in on Christmas Eve or the day after Christmas and he said that if you're not taking vacation you should come in... Anyway so on to this year.. I didn't take vacation again and last week my boss sent out an email saying that everyone who was not on vacation had to come in Mon-Wed and Friday, he said that we didn't have to stay long but that we did at least have to come in each day.. Well... I showed up on Monday and found that the elevator didn't work! It took me awhile to get up the stairs and when I did my boss said he was just about to call me and tell me not to come because the elevator was not working... Oh well.. It was good for me to go in anyway because I hadn't seen my boss in awhile so we had a good meeting.. As it turns out the elevator was broken because it froze up due to the cold weather so I was told not to come in for the rest of the week.

Tuesday ended up being a very busy day, Kaitlyn went to buy an exercise bike and Ryan agreed to help her pick it up from the person selling it. She got stuck in really bad traffic and got here later than we expected, Ryan came over and we drove up to get the bike. On the way back we ate lunch at Bill's Bread and Breakfast which was the first time I had eaten lunch there. It was good, I had a kielbasa, onion and pepper wrap. After lunch we moved the bike into my garage and Ryan and Kaitlyn left and I made my home made Teriyaki and started to marinate the pork for last night. Amber came over and when Jessie got home we went to Sara & Ryan's house for dinner.

Sara decided she would do pizzas because it would be quick and easy, unfortunately it was nothing but hard work for her, we may think of catering big holiday weeks in the future. I had a great time wandering around the house handing out presents one at a time. Lynz brought over candles for everyone which were a big hit until one of the kids threw one through the coffee table... Joe brought over home made candies which were really good, I stole most of the peanut butter cups... We had a full house this week with the addition of Amber and Badger (Jessie's friend), speaking of Badger he brought over a home made blueberry mead which was so good. Me and Amber left around midnight after we watched the Colbert Christmas DVD.

Yesterday I spent the whole day cleaning with Amber to get the house ready for Santamas Eve. We put the oven on the cleaning cycle and it finished right before I would have needed to start cooking, in my hurry to get things going I forced the latch and broke the locking mechanism for our oven... I ended up bringing the pork over to Elizabeth's house and using her oven.. So between Elizabeth's oven and my stove I cooked my teriyaki pork tenderloin, my caper pancetta cauliflower and spinach & broccollini and somehow managed the timing so the pork was perfectly cooked! Jessie made her raw sauce and zucchini pasta as well as rice pasta and regular pasta, for some reason we only had half a bag of rice pasta so we had to make both kinds. How many people can you sit at your table? We managed 13 people at ours, Lenny, Derek and Rachel got the bench on one side, mom and Jessie got the piano bench on the other side and we had 4 people on each long side (Matt, Lenny, Sandy and Joe on one side, dad, Jessie's mom, me and Amber on the other). After dinner while everyone was still at the table we did gifts and then dessert and Wii playing for the rest of the night. I got a new Rayman party game that everyone played for awhile and then Lenny and Rachel challenged me to Guitar Hero World Tour face offs. I like the idea of doing the presents here like that, makes it so we don't have to bring anything with us over to my brother's house today... By the end of the night my foot was killing me, I certainly feel like I pushed it yesterday being on it all day cleaning and moving furniture and cooking and everything else...

This morning we watched the entire Colbert Christmas DVD including the bonus song, the three alternate endings and the 25 little skits in the advent calendar.. Why do they call it an advent calendar? I'm not going to go down that tangent because I would have to actually look it up... One of the days in the advent calendar had the full version of "Jingle Man, Christmas Boy" which was the song he was doing in the beginning of the special.. Here are the lyrics, I want to rip it off the DVD so I can put it on my iPod...

Oh, Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Catching smugglers in New York and thieves in Illinois
Oh, Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho
Dashing through the town
In a one-horse Escalade
Hunting criminals down
Punching all the way, PUNCH! PUNCH! PUNCH!
Helping the police
Eating candy canes
Wearing polar fleece
And an umbrella if it rains
Oh, Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Catching smugglers in New York and thieves in Illinois
Oh, Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho
Dashing through the snow
In a pizza delivery van
Over the streets they go
Hitting pedestrians, Just kidding!
Never doing drugs
Calling their grandmas
Giving lots of hugs to
Everyone who needs a hug
Oh, Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Silver bells and do be do
I lost my train of thought...
ROCK LOBSTER!
Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho

The more I listen to the Colbert Christmas the more I like the Feist song "Please be Patient", I really like her voice and will need to check out more of her stuff.. She is apparently a folk artist out of California. For more of her check out my diversion of the day... :)

Jessie's mom just left and I'm going to put an end to this "quick" blog so I can spend some time with Jessie before we go over to my brother's house...

---Diversion of the Day


Jessie found this on polyweekly's forum and I figure it's Santamas so why not have two diversions.... :D

---Diversion from the Diversion of the Day
Have a jolly poly Christmas
It's the best time of the year
Quads and vees are trimming trees
While metamours bring cheer.
Have a jolly poly Christmas
And when you walk down the street
Show your glee and NRE
To everyone you meet.

Oh, ho, the mistletoe
Hung where you can see;
When your quad reaches it
Kiss her and him and me.
Have a jolly poly Christmas
And in case you didn't hear,
Oh by golly have a jolly,
Poly Christmas this year!

Happy Solstice Everyone!

Today Sara, Ryan, Jessie, Amber and myself trekked through the snow down to New London to go to the Solstice Celebration.. It was a very nice service, they did a bunch of songs and in between they used quotes from Greek Myth and Black Elk Speaks which is an interview/story they did in 1932 with a Sioux medicine man. Here is one quote that I really liked..

"You have noticed that everything an Indian does in in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken, the people flourished. The flowering tree was the living center of the hoop, and the circle of the four quarters nourished it. The east gave peace and light, the south gave warmth, the west gave rain, and the north with its cold and mighty wind gave strength and endurance. This knowledge came to us from the outer world with our religion. Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where the were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our teepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children."
Black Elk Speaks, John G. Neihardt

What ever happened with yesterday's solstice bonfire? We didn't make it, by the time we got going we realized that we were never going to make it with the roads the way they were. So.. Instead we went to the Courthouse for dinner and to Target for some shopping.

Speaking of shopping.. Tonight afterwards we went to the Crystal Mall and wandered around/went shopping.. It was fun, I got to go to Sat Mat and look around, it was not as busy as I would have liked it to be.

How many people can you stuff in a Outback Sport? Well, how about me driving, Amber in the front, Rene in a car seat taking up 1/3 of the back seat with Ryan, Jessie and Sara taking up the rest?

This tendon thing really sucks.. Last night as I was leaving Ryan and Sara's house I stepped on a hard lump of ice/snow and hurt myself bad, I ended up having Jessie drive home and I had to crutch into the house. Today I was really really careful to not step on any un-even snow/ice patches. I did really good till I got home and after taking my shoes off Nest tripped me and I went down hard... Now for the second straight night I'm laying on the couch in lots of pain and nothing but Advil to try and make it better... Fuck... Day by day right?

So.. Onto food matters... If you remember I mentioned that I loved the way I felt in Japan and Singapore and it has everything to do with the food I was eating or rather the food I was not eating. So, I figure there are two things that you don't really eat in Japanese and Singapore cuisine and that's wheat and milk. So, since Lynz and Sara can't it wheat I figure that's the easier thing to test.. I did not cut it out completely but I did cut back on it massively and it helped but didn't make it go away. So, now I'm going to put wheat back in and remove milk and see if it gets better or worse. If it gets worse than I will really cut wheat out completely, if it gets better then I will continue to cut milk. I figure through enough experimentation I should be able to figure it out.

Well, that's it for me for now.. Jessie is done with taking the trash out and we are going to do the tree now...

---Diversion of the Day
http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/2008-12-16/index.html

---Thought of the Day
We are most certainly going to have a white Christmas this year.. It's been snowing here now since Friday at 2pm without stopping... Actually it stopped today from about 6pm to 11pm but it's snowing again now.. Hopefully the sun will make a hasty return and we can have an early spring...