Last night I officially became a Pledge in Taco Mac's Brewniversity! In order to become a Pledge (and get a shirt) you have to buy 13 different beers. I went to The Fred last night and was planning on just having one beer there and then heading over to the Taco Mac in Duluth so I would be closer to the hotel for the end of the night. Well, that plan failed.. I went in and met some awesome people and decided to stay. I ordered a Avery Hog Heaven to start along with a five cheese crab dip. The Hog Heaven is a Barelywine which has a very IPA flavor and feel. While I was drinking that Sean ordered a Corsendonk Christmas and Natasha (the bartender) asked if he wanted the tap or the bottle so he ordered both to do a taste test. Sean let me and Jeff have some as well so we could all make partake in the test, all three agreed it was better in the draft. My second beer of the night was a Rodenback Grand Cru which is a sour red ale, the first sip sorta punches you in the face but after that it's amazing! A little bit later Jeff ordered a La Rulles Tripel and let us all have some.. Was still hungry after the dip so I got their spicy fried shrimp which was so hot my mouth was on fire, need more beer to wash it down with so I got my own Corsendonk Christmas to finish off the night. While I was eating my shrimp Sean and Jeff both left and when they were leaving we did the whole "nice to meet you" and another of the regulars who towards the other end of the bar said "what?! you guys just met tonight!?" lol! Finished off the night chatting with a guy named Tony who had just come in and was a big foodie so we were swapping exotic food stories.. All in all, it was a great night. Now I did not officially hit my 13 purchased beers but since I don't live in the area Natasha counted the ones I shared and gave me the shirt! :D
It was so icy last night, I don't think Georgia even has rock salt or sand for the roads and sidewalks. I almost fell on my ass like 3 times going into The Fred.. Today has been a "take the good, take the bad" day so far, woke up to find my water in the room undrinkable again so I didn't shower or brush teeth. I had extra water at the room the first night I knew the water was undrinkable but then it was fine so I didn't get any last night, turns out they had another pipe issue last night.. Apparently Duluth is not meant for prolonged cold. The good, got my seat upgraded to first class!
Currently sitting on the plane and using the free WiFi, Delta is offering free WiFi during the holidays.. :)
I know I have not blogged in a long time and I'm not going to do the recap thing because it would just be too darn long..
The problem with blogging your life is when it gets too complicated to sit down and write about it.. That and I guess some stuff does not need to be in a public forum, at least not while it's happening..
Anyway, I'm down in Duluth GA this week teaching and it's smeggin' cold! When I found I had a class in Duluth in December I figured it would at least give me a break from the cold, boy was I wrong! It was 20 with a wind chill of -5 when I landed (those numbers are Fahrenheit unfortunately.. Last night it fell to 10 with wind chill of -11!
My students told me about this placed called Taco Mac which is a 99 type restaurant with 100+ beers on tap and 200+ beers in bottle! They have a frequent drinker program called Taco Mac Brewniversity, you get credits for each different beer you drink and when you get a certain number of credits you get benefits like 13 gives you a shirt, 125 gives you a 20oz for the price of a 16oz and so on.. The food was good, I had buffalo chicken tacos and the beer was awesome! Beers had last night: Unibroue La Terrible, Left Hand Nitro Sawtooth, Red Brick Laughing Skull and Warsteiner Dunkel. They have a bunch of locations, was talking to a random guy at the bar and he was telling me one of them is designed like an old speak easy, apparently you have to knock on the door and show your Brewniversity card to get in.. Going to that one tonight.. Not that it should surprise anyone but within five minutes of being there I had made a new friend who lives in the area now but is from NY and a Mets fan! I am meeting him tonight at the speak easy...
Laire was good this weekend, I played "Brother Hawk" because Daimone is still a Drowned One and finally started to learn Warlock skills. Still no word on my Druid quest but at least I have one master class started. I left Saturday night so I could be home for Sunday since I had to get laundry done and what not to get my flight on Sunday.
Speaking of my flight on Sunday. I got to the airport and found my flight was delayed from 6:07 till 7:00 then 7:30 then cancelled! I was in a bit of a panic and found out that AETravel's website does NOT work on the Droid OS! I had Becca log in and start looking for alternate flights but luckily it was not needed since the 3:30 flight was getting ready to leave and they had extra seats which they put all Elite status people from the 6:07 flight in. Even my luggage made it on the flight which shocked me because they told me it probably wouldn't till the morning..
Other news since last blog..
I got my renewal notice for the Mets season tickets and I mailed it back asking to move to section 424 again. In past years I have heard back in late January if not early February and was shocked when they called me a few days after I mailed the letter in to move me. They could not get me 3 seats in 424 but they did move me to section 426 which is a significant move from last year. That and the price went down about $40 per seat so it's all good all around... :)
Jessie's mom is having financial problems, no surprise here, so we are trying to sell her stuff out of the Kingston house and will eventually be trying to sell the house as well. The sale is this weekend so most of our free time has been spent driving back and forth and trying to get things ready to be sold. Thanks to Shane for helping us out during the week when we couldn't be there. If you want to come shopping come on down, she has a lot of good stuff and we are selling it all pretty cheap.
The last time I blogged I was out in Chicago.. That night I went to see a friend of mine in a burlesque show. The show was not till 10 so I went to Chicago Diner for dinner and then wandered around the city for a bit. I had a mock pastrami sandwich with mock bacon, it had banana peppers and sprouts on it and was very good and very large. All the mock meat at the Chicago diner is made with gluten so if you have gluten alergies don't even think about going there.. :(
Afterwards I was wandering around and stumbled upon a guy on a crazy bike trying to drumb up money to do a trick. The bike's frame has a circle above the rider and has a tire attached to the frame, he does a trick in which he pushes forward and rolls the bike over. If you pay him $5 he will do a single roll, for $10 he will do a double roll. The crowd he was talking to had already given him most of the money and I contributed to the pot to get it up to the $10 needed. He rode down the street a bit and came back doing his rolls as he passed us, I got a real good video of it and posted it to youtube.
Met my friend at 9pm and hung out with her before the show. It was the first time we met face to face after years of talking on IM. She is as cool in person as she is on IM, no strike that, she's cooler in person.. :) Speaking of firsts, it was the first time I went to a burlesque show and I really enjoyed myself. There was eight dancers and each one did a song/act. I can't say all burlesque shows are awesome but Chicago's Vaudzilla certainly is, if you're ever in the city you need to make time to see them. I am going to make a point to see other burlesque shows to see if they are as cool.
... Saturday I went to see Iron Man 2 with Jessie and dad, it was very well done and I loved the fact that they tied in the Avengers movie. Two of the Avengers comes to Iron Man and evaluates him for membership in the Avengers. There was not as much action as the first movie but they did a great job of showing the political and business aspect of Iron Man.
Sunday me, Badger and Jessie went back to the Robin Hood Springtime Festival with her friend Drew. The weather was amazing and it was great to be able to have time to just wander the faire a bit without having to worry about running from plot show to plot show. Me and Jessie did a vow renewal ceremony with Friar Tuck.. :D After the show I went with Lynz to JD Coopers for dinner and pool.. All in all, a great weekend home..
... Most of the week was working with Kevin trying to get everything ready for Future Imperfect, we got everything but Kevin's new chest plates done. Still want to make small changes to mine like put brown leather around the whole thing instead of the black tape that I put there for the time being. Kevin got his armor wearable but still has a long way to go to make it the way he wants it.
Thursday night me and Jessie met John, Lynz and Anja at 3rd Thursday in Willimantic. We ate some dinner and watched a folk band in the beer garden.
... Future Imperfect was just as good again, I know I've said it before but that game really is awesome! The guy who runs the game setup a module for the players to gather food for the cooks to make for dinner. He actually went out Friday night and dug holes and buried potatoes and carrots, he also made "boar poo" that had resources in it. The poo was so realistic we were avoiding stepping in it and at one point Kevin was getting close to it so we decided to move it so people could dig without worrying about it. I grabbed a stick and when I stabed it to move it I found a resource and that's when we realized it was fake! What a site to see the colony officials breaking apart poo to get resources!
This weekend coming up is Laire, I hope it can be half as fun as Future Imperfect..
/sigh... Jose Reyes was told he has to rest for 2-8 weeks while he takes medication for his thyroid.. That leaves Reyes and Beltran out for the season opener.. ugh... Who ever heard of a smegging baseball player having to sit because of a thyroid problem...
I finished Sea of Monsters this morning, it was very good and I'm looking forward to the 3rd book, but before I do that one I am doing Good Omens which was finally released on audio. So far it's good, I like how any tape left in a car for more than a fortnight becomes Queen's greatest hits.. :)
Speaking of music, Jessie just sent me a Folk Opera, the music is very good and it's coming to MA in April, I may have to go see it if I am free.. Check it out here..
Last night I went to Lov'n it Live which is a raw vegan restaurant in southern Atlanta, I went there the first time I was in the area and it was just as good if not better. I got a seaweed soup which was good and a nutloaf with broccoli & cheese which was amazing. The broccoli that is, the nutloaf was just ok. I asked for the recipe for the broccoli but they wouldn't give it to me. I took the train there instead of driving and it only took like 40 mins total to get there, the food took forever to get, I was getting upset as I sat waiting for them to serve me. It took almost an hour to get the soup and about 20 mins more to get the main course. They are just lucky they are that good.
After class today I went to Old Norcross and wandered around, it has the feel of Putnam with cute little nick nack stores and antique shops. They have a neat coffee house that offers beer and wine tasting as well as coffee. They also have a real expensive steak house and the british pub I went to the other night. I walked around for a bit and took some pictures of the really cool kids park. Not the one I was in the other night, this main street area has two really cool parks (one on each side). Hopefully the pictures will do it justice, I will post them either later tonight or tomorrow from work. After hanging out there for a bit I came back to the hotel and then to Barnacles for dinner. Brandon was there tonight! I hung out with him for a bit before he went home and I came back to the hotel.
Now I'm just listening to the songs from the Folk Opera while waiting to play my OOTP games against Lee. Meeting him online at 9.
I just got back from the worst hot tub ever... It was certainly HOT but it only had one working jet... I'm in Duluth Georgia again, you know last time I was here I was also healing from getting my tattoo done, this time it's all the way healed at least but I'm still hesitant about being submerged in water but that's ok since the main pool is closed for repairs and the hot tub sucks..
Last time I was here I spent most nights at Barnacles and met some really cool people. I went there last night and I was the only white person in the whole bar. I went by there again tonight after dinner and once again nobody I knew was there.. :(
A guy in my class found a bbq place he heard was good so I think I'm going to go there tomorrow, tonight I went to a British Pub that's about 9 miles from the hotel. I was told about it by a girl from OKCupid who I have not seen online since.. Speaking of OKCupid, work blocked that as of this afternoon, I guess it was just a matter of time.. Anyway, so this place ended up being pretty cool, they had Fat Tire on tap and sold fish in chips in a single or double portion, I got the single portion which was plenty of food. Left plenty of room for my Fat Tires.. :)
Another guy in my class was talking about how great the hotel next door was, I wish it were a Marriott because this place is pretty lame (hot tub & pool suck and TV/channels are weak) but it's all about the points..
It's been a long time since I blogged but I'm going to pretend that nothing of interest happened during that time because I was starting to feel overwhelmed with trying to recap the ever missing blogs.. One thing I will say.. I went to see Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Lightning Thief, it was bad like one of those made for TV fantasy movies, the sets however were great. Speaking of Percy Jackson, I read the first book recently and it was VERY good and I just started the 2nd (Sea of Monsters) and it's just as good so far. Whoah, this blog is truly a tangent in a tangent... Speaking of books, I just finished And Another Thing which is the 6th book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy. It was written by Eoin Colfer with permission from the estate of Douglas Adams.. It was very good and really captured the feel of the old books. If you're a fan of the books I recommend it. And another thing regarding books (see that clever use of the previous title), they finally released Good Omens on audio! I have that on my iPod and it will be the next book I listen to right after Sea of Monsters.
I've decided I like blogs that are a stream of thought so.. I didn't get a chance to watch/listen to today's Mets game but John Maine started today, he left after facing only 8 batters and striking out 4 of them! Apparently he moved weird towards first base and they decided to pull him before he hurt himself again. Can't say I blame them.. Speaking of the Mets, Perez pitched the other day and got shelled, ugh! We are paying that smeghead 13mil for another 2 years.. I am however excited for the upcoming season, I think with the addition of Jason Bay our team will do much better than last year (especially if we can stay healthy)..
Right, so back to present day.. I was at the airport in Hartford waiting for my flight then none other than Don King comes and sits down across from me! He is looking old but he is an awesome guy, took a few peoples pictures with him and talked with him for a bit.. During that excitement I met a really cool girl who lives in Springfield, she works as an interpretor and was flying to Las Vegas to meet her boss. She had not flown in a VERY long time and I helped her get a seat assignment and I helped her get to her connecting flight in Atlanta, we are going to get together when we both get back. :D I also met a really cool guy from Middletown CT who travels almost 90% of the time for work. I ended up sitting next to him on the flight which made the flight go pretty quickly.
Umm.. So, back to tonight.. Yay, tangety (is that a word) blogs... I went to the British Pub as I mentioned, it is on a street that ends in a really cool park, I wandered around the park a bit before dinner and took some nice pictures which I will hopefully post tomorrow at work when I'm not on a really slow internet connection.
My car this week is a tiny little car called a Cevy Aveo.. I took some pics and will post them tomorrow as well. It's not a bad little car actually, the steering wheel is very thin but otherwise it's nice to drive.
Ok, I guess I'm done for tonight.. See ya all later..
Oh, one more thing.. I found out that there is a Marta station about 10 mins from work, the Marta runs every 8-10 minutes into Atlanta so one of these nights I will be heading into Atlanta to eat at that raw place (Loving it Live) without having to deal with traffic.. :)
---Diversion of the Day
Jessie found this band last night while staying up too late, hope you like it (I know I did)..
Long time no blog.. I have been having some issues with my work laptop over the last few weeks, it started when I got home from Duluth. Apparently I got some sort of virus while using the in flight wi-fi. The laptop was running real slow all of a sudden and I went into the services running and saw two CTFMON.exe, I ended them both and ran a scan which found nothing.. I ended up having to run a FULL virus scan (including looking inside all zip files) before it finally found a SpyWare. Ok, lesson learned, is it really that important to have internet on the flight? I don't think so, and if I do that again in the future I will be jacking my security settings before hand.
Spyware - gone.. PC back to normal for a day or two before it just locks up, wtf!! I go to move mouse, bring up task manager, anything and realize that the laptop is REAL hot.. I turn it off and feel bottom which could probably cook an egg.. Turn it back on and it runs.. I was in the airport on the way to Brazil when this happened the first time so not much I can do.. Get to Brazil and find out the IT guy there will not take my laptop apart but suggests I wait till I get back to corporate, in the meantime I grab a little metal frame which will hold the laptop up and make it not overheat as much. Get back to corporate and after a day of fighting with India and our IT group I finally get a local IT guy who cleans out the fans which had collected MASSIVE dust bunnies.
Overheating - gone.. So, you know how when things run hot it can have adverse effects on the long term life of your parts? Well, although the laptop has no more dust bunnies it still is overheating? Bad mother board? Probably, I have an appointment with IT to bring it on Monday because of the holiday weekend. What to do in the meantime? My friend happens to have an extra Dell D630 which he brings over and we swap the hard drive..
Overheating II - gone.. Now to relax and resume normal PC operation.. Not so fast, overheating PC = crashed operating system.. Hard booting crashed operating system = corrupt files! My laptop is going to need to be re-imaged because anytime I load things like Chrome, Java, Flash the PC hangs. Not that overheating kind of hang, but the operating system dying kind of hang. Well, I uninstall Chrome and re-install to try and fix the issue.. Now it only does it when I close Chrome.. Switch to IE.. Same problem.. Ugh.. Back to re-image idea.. Well, as you may or may not know I've been wanting to replace my work laptop with a lighter smaller netbook. As it turns out Radio Shack has the Acer Netbook I want on sale for $250 on Black Friday.. 5am journey to the store yields favorable results amid the crazy shoppers..
So, I wake up on Black Friday at 5am, throw some clothes on and head over to the Shack.. They open at 5:30 and can't really be that busy right? I know it's Black Friday, but they are Radio Shack not Walmart. Speaking of Walmart, I drove by them and found their parking lot and all the nearby parking lots filled! On to Radio Shack, I got there around 5:15 and there was a pretty decent sized mob hovering around the door. By the time the store opened I would say there were just under 50 people waiting, they were shaking the doors and yelling for the Shack employees to let them in early.. When the doors were finally opened at 5:30 much pushing and shoving ensued, luckily for me I was standing near some big dudes and followed them as they pushed their way through. This little maneuver made me the 2nd person to the counter and the 2nd person to get a Netbook. They only had three which I knew going into it so I feel pretty lucky..
One of the deciding factors to me buying this Netbook was that, although it came with Vista, it got a free upgrade to Windows 7. So, first thing I do is go to Acer's website and register for my free upgrade only to find out that this netbook is NOT eligible for the upgrade! I call Acer customer service who informs me that:
1 - the website does indeed say the AO751h is eligible for the upgrade but only if
2 - the netbook came pre-loaded with Vista Home Premium and that
3 - this netbook came with Vista Home Basic and therefore
4 - it is not eligible
Odd, ok.. Do any of the AO751h configurations come with Vista Home Premium? No! That is not a valid operating system choice for this netbook! What are your valid choices you ask? XP Home and Vista Home Basic. You really have to love false advertising! Oh, and even if it was eligible for the upgrade I found out that I would have gotten Windows 7 Starter which is not even a full version of Windows 7!
Well, there are some amazing deals on Windows 7 right now, you can get Home Premium for $29.99 if you're a student or an educator at a university. The only thing you need is a .edu email address.. If you have a .edu look it up because I can't imagine you will get a better deal.. Oh, well, maybe.. Worcester State College is selling Windows 7 Professional for $39.99! Speaking of .edu, I really think EMC should have .edu email addresses for people who work in education. The Microsoft deal will work for both students and teachers but I can't prove I'm a teacher.. Either a .edu or some form of EMCU ID, I'll be bringing this up next time I'm at work.
Next time I'll be at work will be Dec 23rd.. I have an ass-ton of vacation left for the year so I am (as of last Wednesday) on vacation. I'll be heading down to Florida in a few days (probably leaving on Thursday) and will return around the 19th. I do actually return to work on Dec 21st but I will be teaching a TTT via Centra at 5am on the 21st and 22nd so I won't be going into the office.
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So, short story long is I'm typing this blog on my brand new Acer Netbook which is at the moment running Vista but will be upgraded to Windows 7 later today.
Anything else happen? Well.. Last I blogged I was heading out to the Galeria and to meet Luana. The Galeria was indeed open when I got there and pretty crowded since everyone was getting off early on Thursday for the long weekend (Friday was a holiday in Brazil). I wondered around the mall for a few hours and was a bit disappointed honestly, the last time I was in Sao Paulo the mall seemed to have more diversity.. What I mean by that is, more stuff from more bands.. This time it seemed that most stores had the same stuff, if not the same stuff it was different stuff for the same bands. Not only did they all seem to have the same bands, but those bands were almost all American bands, they didn't even have any Tuatha De Dannan shirts or dvds this time. I was really hoping for a bootleg concert DVD of theirs and I was trying to find Jessie one of their shirts. Another disappointing thing was the prices.. You may remember that KISS recently released a WalMart exclusive CD (Sonic Boom), they had that CD for over $100! Yes, I mean the "$" sign not the "R$".
After a few hours there I walked over to Augusta St to meet Luana. We meet and went to get some food, I was wanting something healthy since I had not eaten much greens since I was in Brazil so we went to a mall that was up the street. The mall was just like an American mall and we went up into the food court which had things like Subway and Starbucks. She suggested one place which had really good salads and I got a salad/steak combo meal, the steak was ok but the salad was indeed really good. After dinner we walked down to the club she had to do sound check at and after I walked her to the subway before catching a taxi back to the hotel. She is a very nice girl and it's a shame we didn't have more of an opportunity to hang out..
Brazil taxes imports up to 70% depending on the item. They do this to encourage people to buy Brazilian which I guess I understand, but why tax imports when there is no Brazilian counterpart? To make the rich richer right? Only reason I can think of..
Friday I checked out and went to work to hang out with Paulo a bit, we went to a mall for lunch because it was the only thing nearby that was open. We ended up eating at a sushi restaurant which is always a good thing.. It was very good sushi and I was amazed that everyone there, even the little kids, were using chopsticks! I guess it's really just North Americans that can't figure out how to use chopsticks.. After lunch we went to a few stores and looked at TVs, laptops and DVD/Blue Ray discs. I am amazed at how much electronics in general cost in Brazil and I really think they need to relax that stupid import tax on things like TVs and computers. US and Japanese car companies build cars in Brazil and are still taxed with the import tax because they are not Brazilian companies.. I was sorta surprised that some of the mall stores were cheaper than the galeria on heavy metal CDs & DVDs, and I'm not talking a little cheaper either. Paulo convinced me to buy City of Gods on DVD, I have not watched it yet but he says it's quite possibly the best movie ever made in Brazil.
After lunch Paulo took a few calls and then had to leave for a few sites. I hung out a bit more at work and then left for the airport. They say you want to get to the airport early right, well not too early in Brazil.. I arrived around 7pm for my 11pm flight and found out the Continental ticket counter was still closed, there was a big line waiting, I asked the lady where the "elite" line was and was pointed to a MUCH smaller line. In line I met a really cool guy from PA, we ended up chatting for a long time and after we finally got through security we went and got some food together. Turns out he was on the same flight, and not only the same flight but the same row of seats! Certainly made the trip back more enjoyable.
Speaking of enjoyable, I watched "GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra" and "Julie and Julia" on the plane. GI Joe was much better than I expected, I don't know if it was really a good movie or if it was good because my expectations where so low. Either way, I really enjoyed it and would probably watch it again because it's always tough to watch super special effects movies on the little screen on the plane, not to mention that they probably cut some stuff too to make it more family friendly. Julie and Julia was a cute movie and was very well done, they mixed in just the right amount of Julia's life to let you know what her life was like before she became the TV superstar.
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While we are on the subject of TV superstars and cooking for that matter.. I landed Saturday and we decided to go to Bar Americain (Bobby Flay's restaurant in Mohegan Sun). We're not stupid enough to think the place won't be crazy crowded so we call, and call, and call.. Not once did they answer so we figure we will just go down, how long can the wait be? So, funny story.. They were closed for a Private Party on Saturday night! It was apparently the official opening night with the ribbon cutting ceremony and all.. So, Summer Shack it is.. We had a very nice meal at the Summer Shack and then headed home. During the day on Saturday we were trying to convince Christian and Mara to come down, luckily they didn't since the place was closed! Sunday we made attempt number two, once again we called all day and once again there was no answer. We went down somewhat early and were asked if we had a reservation.. How could we have a reservation when you don't answer the phone? Oh, we have the wrong number? Apparently both Bobby Flay's site and Mohegan Sun's site have the wrong phone number.
They sat us anyway after a very short wait and all the hassle was worth it.. I may have mocked Bobby, well, ok, I mocked him a lot.. I will not mock Bobby anymore, he is truly an Iron Chef. When Fuji TV was looking for the first American Iron Chef they turned to Bobby Flay and he showed how American he was by dis-respecting the kitchen and standing on his cutting board after the battle. I guess I never looked past that one moment. What I should have realized is that they picked him to the be the first and, at the time, only American Iron Chef and they obviously had reason to do so. I have now eaten at most of the Iron Chef restaurants, I have Cora, Batali and Garces left, and Bobby is certainly in the top 3 in my mind. The whole meal costs around $130 which is a pretty good deal when it comes to Iron Chef meals and I highly recommend his restaurant if you ever want to eat Iron Chef quality American food!
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This blog is getting out of hand so I am going to start ending it. Here's the quick week in review.. :)
Monday - Dinner with Holly, we went to dinner by her house and then back to her house where I finally met Brutus! I was about to write a big thing about how Brutus is a really cool dog and how I'm really glad we got along but I really don't want this blog to be 100 pages.. Oh, bah.. Nobody ever said you had to read my blog right? I assume if you're hear it's because you want to hear my ramblings so 10 pages or 100 pages it doesn't matter right?
So, after dinner we went back to her house.. First she let Ruca out, I met Ruca before and we seemed to get along so let's start easy.. Ruca came out and seemed to remember me which was good. We bonded a bit and then I held her leash and gave her a dried bull penis to keep her busy while Holly let Brutus out. Brutus came out and seemed surprised to see someone in the house, he was not upset, just surprised. He turned the corner into the living room and just stopped. Brutus is a much bigger dog then Ruca and I think he is the kind of dog who does not realize how big and strong he is. After some time, tricks and treats Holly brought him over to smell me, after a few minutes he was eating out of my hand. He is very gentle when taking food out of your hand, it could be the most gentle I've ever seen a dog take food from a person actually. After a little while I tried to give him his bull penis but unfortunately Ruca finished hers too quick so now she wanted his too. Brutus was let outside, then put away while Ruca was let out. Then Ruca was put away and Brutus came back out to hang out a bit more, I gave him his bull penis (I really just like saying bull penis) and we got along well. After a bit more he was put away and Ruca let back out with no leash while we played some Wii.
Tuesday - Dinner.. We had our own little Thanksgiving celebration with Turkey Burgers, stuffing, sweet potatoes and egg nog. I made Brazilian pizza with Catipuri, ham, onions and egg. I know, it's not very Thanksgiving, but it was in honor of Sao Paulo.
Wednesday - Played and lost the OOTP World Series.. Caught up on lots of TV..
Thursday - Thanksgiving at my mom's house.. Lots of food, lots of fixing computers and lots of good times..
Friday - Radio Shack (see above) and Joe's birthday party. Joe's party was zombie themed and most of the food was in the shape of brains.. He boarded up his front window and put caution tape up which made the house look really cool from the outside.
Saturday - Anja's birthday party, hung out with Dagmar again.. She is really cool and we need to get her to Tuesday dinners.. Me and Jessie caught up on more TV and played Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. That game is really not very good, the song choices are pretty bad and the sound mixing makes it hard to play. We have to keep reminding ourselves it came out between Guitar Hero III and IV, they obviously rushed it out.. Saturday night Kevin and Sarah came over and we played MULE, troubleshoot his PC (bad video card) and watched most of Red Dwarf Season 1.
I just got to Sao Paulo today and found out almost everything is closed.. I went and walked the city a bit this afternoon and found that the only thing open are gas stations and chains like McDonalds. I guess I'm going to eat dinner at Hooters since I assume they are open and they are right by the hotel. If they are closed I guess I'll eat at the hotel.
The taxi from the airport cost me 120 Reals which is outrageous, I guess I'm glad I can expense it.
The flight from Boston to NJ was delayed but they got me on the earlier flight so I ended up getting to NJ about the same time I would have if I had gotten the correct flight. As I was wondering around the Boston airport I found out they now have a Harpoon brewery on site which had Winter Warmer on tap! I was so excited since it's one of my top 5 beers of all time. I got to NJ and ended up going to the Brooklyn brewery and chatting with a girl from LA. She is working on a dating site geared towards lawyers, we talked a lot about OKC and my relationships which gave her some ideas for her site.
The flights were pretty uneventful but I should mention the plane was going real fast on the flight from Boston to NJ. He made it from Boston to NJ in about 34 minutes! While I was on the plane getting ready to take off they announced that they had too much weight and they said they were taking all of the later flight passengers off the plane to correct the weight. They announced like 10-15 people but I was not one of them, I guess it helps to be "Elite".
The week behind.. The biggest thing since my last blog was Future Imperfect, it was an awesome time! If you don't know what Future Imperfect is, it's a sci-fi LARP that takes places on a newly colonized world. In just one short weekend I got sworn in as a deputy and made lots of friends. I can't wait till the next event. The FI dates do not conflict with Laire which means I will not have to miss one over the other. After the game I went and saw Kevin in a vampire musical called Nightsong. The story, dialog and lyrics were all very good but the acting was BAD, I really hope that someone else picks this play up and does a better job with it.
Thursday night me and Jessie went to Bella's and had some great food as usual. Dianne came up after dinner and we hung out for a bit before bed. Friday we went to see WPA which was a great show, it was at Passim and somehow they got 6 people and a drum kit on the stage. Not much room for them to move but they did a great job. We were supposed to go to the 7pm show but Jessie must have clicked on the wrong show when buying tickets so we ended up wondering around Cambridge for a few hours while we waited for the late show.
Class got out before lunch, I changed into my MChat shirt and headed up to SF (that becomes important later). I got to the pier area and to the Alcatraz ticket line right before 1, but by the time I went through the ticket booth I missed the 1:10 boat so I got a ticket on the 2:20. I walked the pier for a bit while I waited and ended up eating a nasty hot dog for lunch because it was the only thing quick in the area.
The boat ride was actually quite enjoyable, I stood up on the 3rd deck in the front. At one point a group of kids were trying to get their picture taken and asked the couple standing next to me who ended up being from London. I ended up chatting with them on the boat and hanging with them a bit on Alcatraz during the Cell Block Audio Tour.
Got off the boat and walked the long way up to the Cell Block, and by long way I mean I walked all over the island before finally making my way to the Cell Block. The island is actually quite beautiful, it had a small town outside the prison that housed the guards, warden and their families. I walked by the old school, post office, shops, etc. Most of them were either ruins, rubble piles or at the very least very run down. The only thing that is in what I would think is usable condition is the actual prison.
When you enter the prison you go in as the inmates did, past the entry point and the showers before getting the audio unit and starting the tour. The audio tour was done by four former inmates and four former guards. Having them do the tour really added to the "realism" of the place, without the audio I can see some people not feeling this place could really be that bad. The cells themselves were so small I don't know if a tall person could actually lay down, there is a small cot, two metal "shelves" (one was a table, the other the chair), a toilet, a sink and two actual shelves above the sink/toilet. I took bunches of pictures and will sort through them before posting to Flickr, I hope I got some good ones but it was pretty dark in there. The audio did a good job of explaining how it felt to be there. It talked about a few escape attempts, one of them involved a prisoner making a "bar spreader" and scaling the bars to open a hole in the area where the guards had guns. It was crazy to hear about that and to have the inmates pointing to the exact bars the guy climbed, etc. The only escape that every actually worked was the one where three prisoners dug out a passage using spoons, the guards on the audio were saying how they think the guys drowned at sea, the inmates were saying they think they made it to Mexico. Nobody will ever know for sure I guess. The tour then brings you into the area where bad prisoners go, they have two stages of bad. The first is an open cell but away from everyone else, those cells were actually bigger than the ones in the normal cell blocks but they were facing the setting sun and the city.. According to the inmates on the tape you could hear the sounds of people laughing and partying from the yacht club which made being in there worse even though you had a bigger cell. The other level of bad was the "hole" which was a room with four steel walls. Apparently it's now a federal law that any solitary confinement had to have at least a light on, it was not back when Alcatraz ran so they would lock people into a four steel walled cell with no light or anything. After the tour I ended up jogging down the island to get to the 4:20 boat.
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Back on the mainland I saw the double decker tour bus getting ready to leave. It was the last tour of the night and I jumped on at the pier which was the first stop. The tour was about two hours long, all in all it was pretty boring. Most of the city is very bland looking and I couldn't get off since it was the last bus of the night which meant the few places that did look really cool (like Haight) I couldn't really go check out. Next time I'm in the area I must go spend some time on Haight street, it was the heart of the hippie movement in the 1960s and still very much looks that way. Looks like it would be an awesome place to kill some time. Speaking of Haight St, I saw Amoeba Music which is sorta like Powell's Bookstore but for music. Unfortunately I couldn't stop.. We went over the Golden Gate bridge and back, it was a nice bridge I guess, we went through some really nice parks I would like to visit and we went by the adult street. The bus didn't go down that street, just by it. Speaking of didn't do, the bus didn't go down to Lombard St which I thought was odd, I figured it would have to drive by at least the bottom of that block. As the bus got more and more empty it ended up just being me and this one girl, we were both on the top as it was getting ready to go over the bridge so we moved downstairs and ended up chatting for the rest of the ride.
Interesting fact: SF has the lowest mean summer temperature of any US city, but it hardly ever gets frost in the winter. It's just a steady 60-70 degrees for most of the year, too cold for me..
Oh, and we passed the building that Godfather was written in. They say that the first ever espresso was served in that building too. I want a fact check on that one.
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After the tour I decided to get something to eat on the pier, I had seen signs for a place advertising seating area over looking sea lions. Apparently the restaurant is only open for lunch but I did get to see the sea lions. This may be the oddest thing of my trip, I was walking along the pier and a girl stopped me and commented on my shirt. Now, I've had comments in the past like 'cute shirt' or 'hey that's funny', but I've never heard anyone actually say they heard of the comic or let alone something like (I remembered the actual quote last night but now I don't because it's 5am and I'm sitting in the airport) 'Nice shirt, I love monsieur chat'! That's right, a lady in SF is a loyal reader of MChat, I guess Joe's little comic isn't so little anymore.. :)
After my failed attempt to eat near the sea lions I ended up eating at the Crab House. The place was pretty crowded so they put me at the "fireplace" which is a bar seating area with a firepit in the middle. The lady on the left of me was a food critic working for Zagat the lady on the right was Kim from Arkansas who is in SF on business. I was debating the menu and was going to order the Crab Enchilada when the food critic told me that the only thing worth getting was the crab, just the plane old crab, by plane old I mean cooked like New Englanders cook lobster. The butter was not plane however, it was a garlic butter and was so good. Ended up hanging out with Kim for a while and finally headed back to the hotel.
When I got back to the hotel I went to hang out with Ashley, I was pretty exhausted so I only hung out for a few minutes.
Now I'm at the airport and about to get a bagel and get on my flight.
So, I finally contacted Mike about moving the Bella's URL over to me. I had him change the IP address to point to Steve's new server which is where I will be hosting. A lot of credit goes to Steve who is in the process of upgrading his systems to Windows 7 and took time out of setting things up to setup my website.. :)
I worked with Steve to get everything up and running last night and the URL started pointing there just an hour ago or so. I of course have a bunch of updates I want to make to it, right now I don't have FTP access to that site (it's not setup yet) so I have to send the changes to Steve and he will update when he gets home. Basically I changed the main logo to include "gelateria" and cleaned up some of the images to make them crisper.
Once I have own the URL I will see about setting up a .mobile version of the site. And onto other web news, Allen told the guy who owns the new BBQ place in Putnam that I did his website so I may have another customer. More free food?
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For dinner last night I went to Yo Yo Sushi which is by work, I got a 10% coupon from the hotel and had been wanting sushi so it works.. The place was pretty good, they had a boat moat that you could grab off but I went with a set sashimi meal which was actually quite a bit of food. After dinner and website playing I hung out and chatted with Ashley (the girl who works at the counter at the Residence Inn) and the two guys from Denmark again for a long time before finally heading off to bed.
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Today/Tonight.. Going back to SF to check out Alcatraz and possibly eat at Cafe Gratitude again.
Last night I went to play Mini-Golf in Milpitas at Golf Land USA. They have 3 courses which are rated easy, medium and hard. I left to head up there (about 10 miles) right around 5pm so I was a so glad to have the Prius and all-access to the carpool lane! The traffic was stopped on the highway and I was doing 65 next to them! Anyway, as I got closer I saw a wonderful mountain range.. The way the sun was playing off it was so pretty, I took a crap ton of pics of it to capture the beauty. I posted 2 pics from the drive to Flickr. The Mini-Golf place was right at the base of the mountain range so I took another good pic from the parking lot.
Anyway, so.. Mini-Golf.. I decided I would play both the medium and hard courses. I played the medium one first as a warm-up and shot a 52 on 18 holes, I think I had one hole at 5 but everything else was in the 2-4 range. One thing I thought was really cool, well ok, maybe more than one.. First, the putting area changed colors at points which made a really neat trick of the eye when trying to read the hills. Second, the entire course was covered in "mini-golf carpet". When I say the entire course I mean the whole place, the hills, the walkways, everything. It was like immersing yourself into a mini-golf world.
Onto my second course.. Oh, wait.. I forgot to mention the most supertabular thing about this place! When I grabbed my pencil out of the pencil bin it had LETS GO METS carved into it in orange writing! OK, now on to the second course. Remember this is the "hard" course. I was actually talking to Lynz for most of this course so she can vouch (in a way) for my awesomeness. What, what, can't hear you over the sound of my awesomeness.. :D Right, so.. I actually hit two consecutive Hole-In-Ones! The first one was one of those holes that you just have to hit it up the ramp in the middle and you automatically get a hole in one but the second one was a brutal looking hole. It had a MASSIVE hill in the middle of the green and then at the end had a V right after the hole so if it came down the hill too quick or at the wrong angle it would pass the hole, hit the V and head out into the outskirts of the green! So, continuing on with my amazingness (couldn't use awesomeness, it would have been repetitive), there was one hole that had two choices, picture of it on Flickr, one choice was to go up a real steep hill into the mouth of a tree which presumably would bring the ball near the hole, the other choice was to hit it straight through a really thin passage. I shot the hole twice, once up the tree and once down the passage. Both times I got a 2 on the hole, both times I was right near the hole after the first shot! I can't believe I made it through that thin passage.. Oh, wait, yes I can, because I am that awesome.. ;)
After Mini-Golf I went to the Great Mall to check on yet another Verizon store. I told the stupid guy I had a Z6c World Edition and needed a charger that would work with my international adapters (they slide onto the old charger and won't fit the new one) or I needed new international adapters. He said that they don't make international adapters for my phone and the only one they have them for is the blackberry and that the blackberry charger won't work for my phone because the blackberry is micro-usb and my phone is mini-usb! I really wanted to punch him, why in the hell can't a Verizon rep know that my phone, first of all, does exist and second of all does NOT use the same accessories as the Z6TV! So, after explaining that my phone was indeed micro-usb (which by the way he argued with me about) he pulled out the blackberry charger and it worked! No "unsupported charger" or anything, just straight up charging! So, I want to buy.. Nope.. They don't stock that charger, but he can order me one which will take approx a week to get in. No thanks.. Ordered one on-line and it will be at the house maybe as early as Friday, but no later than Monday.
That guy get's a "random people - douches" tag! Anyway, speaking of the "random people - cool" tag.. I went back to the hotel and spent some time chatting with Ashley, the girl who works the night shift behind the counter, and two of her friends. They are all in college and the one guy is doing a project where he has to come up with original game ideas, Ashley was doing Spanish homework, put those two together and you get... "Language Brawl" Language Brawl is a game idea the three of us came up with.. So, here's the idea.. You're driving down the street and you hit a car, you get out and so does the other driver. The other driver does not speak your language, instead he speaks the language you're trying to learn. As he speaks it shows up on the screen and you have to translate it and answer him, if you don't answer in time he kicks your ass. Figure the beginning levels will have the sentence in your language except maybe one word you have to translate but in the end you could have to translate the whole sentence. We even figure you can do a multi-lingual one (for our European friends who speak many languages) where you hit a car which hits a car and both drivers speak different languages and you have to translate them both in the alloted time.
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Food TV is doing another "Next Iron Chef", the last time they did one it was to replace Mario Batali who had a contract difficulty with Food TV. So, I was trying to figure out who was leaving this time.. Well, I too can add 1+1 and get 2.. For years now Cat Cora said she would not open a restaurant because she could not juggle her personal life, the show and a restaurant. Apparently she opened a restaurant in Disney World called Kouzzina. So the only question now is, do I go there this year or do I wait till next year and go with Jessie. I have to figure that out soon because if I'm going this year I need to make reservations.
---Diversion of the Day (watch with sound to truly enjoy)
So, yesterday was a fail on the Gut be Gone program. I got out of work and headed over to a local bar called Quarter Note to watch the end of the Yankees / Angels game. I love being in CA and watching baseball games during happy hour that would be night games back east.
I had a Fat Tire (had it on tap).. This is a good point to mention.. After talking with Jessie I decided that doing no alcohol was not necessary for my Gut Be Gone program, and that I should instead just cut back greatly on it. I ended up sitting at the bar with a guy who worked at Cisco and his hot friend. After a bit the girl's friend came in and the four of us got a booth together and chatted till the girls had to go to work.
After the game I went on a failed mission for a new mobile phone charger. Sometimes I love my phone, but it's always a struggle to find accessories, the Verizon store was out of Z6World Edition chargers so they sent me to Microcenter which had a generic Motorola charger. The guy was nice enough to let me try it and it came up as an unsupported charger. Grrr.. I guess I give up now and will just order one online.
After Microcenter I went and got my California treat.. No, not rice-a-roni.. Rice-A-Roni may indeed by the SF treat but I probably won't have any of that in SF either.. My California treat is a Jack in the Box Ultimate Cheeseburger. I was standing in line and came up with a brainstorm, what would make this burger better is if they put it on sourdough bread.. I was sooo right..
I almost died laughing when I saw a sign on the counter for "healthy food options" at Jack in the Box.. Seriously, who are they kidding?
Speaking of SF.. Tonight I'm going there, going to hit Cafe Gratitude which is a big raw restaurant. Have to balance out the Jack in the Box right.. :)
Wednesday night me and Jessie went to Armsy Abbey in Worcester MA, they did a special vegetarian beer diner with Pretty Things Brewery. The trick to the meal was that everything served had to be harvested from no further than 50 miles away from the restaurant. You may or may not know but the New England area has had a very odd summer and therefore a very odd crop growing season. This made the menu very challenging but they did a great job presenting a raw bar appetizer and 5 courses, each course came with a beer that Pretty Things paired. At dinner we met a very cool couple who had just moved to Auburn from CA to teach at Holy Cross, the restaurant only holds around 60 people and all tables hold 6 people so we ended up sitting with them, her mom and her brother.
Menu:
Raw Bar was lots of raw cut up veggies, with a goat cheese dip and home made bread. Even the butter was made fresh the night before. They paired the raw bar with their American Darling which is a light summer beer.
1st Course
Arugula & Black Seeded Simpson with Fresh Nectarines dressed with a Basil-Honey Vinaigrette and topped with Blue Goat Cheese and a Spent-Grain Crisp. This was also paired with the American Darling.
2nd Course
Creamy Baked Corn & Chevre Pudding. This was paired with Mr. Sysiphus which tasted like a Don De Dieu with a hint of cherry flavor. I think this was my favorite of the courses and also my favorite of the beers.
3rd Course
Roasted Corn Bisque served with Squash Fritters. This was served with their signature beer Jack D'Or. This beer was not well received at our table. I don't think any of the six of us finished it.
4th Course
Whole Wheat Popover filled with sauteed Black Trumped & Chicken of the Woods Mushrooms served with a Carrot-Parsnip-Mint Puree and Blanched Green Beans. This was served with St Boltoph's Town which is a dark beer, this was Jessie's favorite beer.
5th Course
Housemade Ricotta sweetened with Honey and set in a crust of Spent Grain & Whole Wheat Flour topped with Caramelized Peaches and a Lavender infused Whipped Cream. This was served with Baby Tree which reminded me of Slippery Slope and not just because of the 9.x% alcohol content.
In between each course the owner would speak as would the owners of Pretty Things. They would talk about the course you were about to have and the beer that went with it. It was a great experience although I didn't realize that it would last from 6pm till after 11pm.
I really hope they do more of these in the future.
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Hmm, I know I say this all the time but I really need to be better about writing blogs in a more timely fashion. Last blog was on the 15th.. So, what's happened since then? Lots of long nights for one. The problem is that I don't have the energy to write everything because I'm too busy doing it.. I know.. Excuses, excuses, excuses.. Well screw you... :P
Me and Jessie went over my mom's house on the 16th to hang out in the pool since we have not been able to do that so far this year. A tree fell in her backyard and hit part of the pool but it's still intact! The ladder broke in half and there is a small dent, but otherwise it's still usable. Had a really good time but ended up leaving my sunglasses there which is why I'm stuck in Farmville! Why? Because we went back there on Saturday the 22nd to get my sunglasses and she sucked me into that game because she needed more neighbors! Ok, so the real reason I have not written a blog is probably that I've been playing that stupid game. You have to go into this game every so many hours to harvest the plants you are growing. If you know you're going to be away for awhile you can plant long term things, but if you want to make money you need to plant the 4 hour crops.
The 17th (I know, I hate going day by day too I've been busy)... The 17th Jessie helped get together a raw foods meetup in Thompson, we ate lots of really good raw food and watched Fresh. Fresh is very similar to Food, Inc and OmnivoresDilemma. This movie was a little more in your face about the cattle farms and such, they even showed one scene where they were removing waste from the cows stomachs. They apparently cut a hole in the cow and permanently insert a tube so they can reach into the stomach area and remove the shit the cows can't digest! You know, at some point doesn't it just make sense to stop feeding them this shit to begin with?! I gotta think, when you have to install a tube in a cow so you can manually remove indigestible waste it should be a sign you're doing something wrong!
On the 18th we had dinner at our house.. How can I talk about dinner in the next paragraph after talking about watching a cow's insides be cleaned! Funny thing is, I made burgers! NOT beef burgers, they were made of buffalo and oh so good.
The 19th I went down to the Mets game with Bradley J and met up with Rick Lopez, Amber, Kris and Josh Goldberg. The game was interesting to say the least. They are seriously bad right now. Bobby Parnell gave up 8 runs in the 2nd inning and we lost by a BIG margin, I want to say it was something like 18-2. I know, I could go look it up but honestly I don't care. Murphy went 2-3 and that's really all that matters. I had an awesome time and we really pretty much stopped watching the game after a while and just hung out.
Thursday I went and hung out with Holly and had Mexican and stayed out way too late again.. I posted my facebook status last night.. "Another late night.. No wonder I'm tired all the time.. Ah, well.. Wouldn't trade it for anything.. :D" That's really the only thing I can say about not only Thursday the 20th but also for last night too, which by the way was a super cool night. Last night (I know I'm jumping ahead) I went to Holly's house. I made a buffalo rice dish and brought it down. The downstairs of her house is kinda odd, they have a family room off the bathroom? When you're in the main section of the house and you want to go to the family room you have to go through the bathroom, I don't think I've ever seen a bathroom/hallway before. The only other way to get to that room is to go outside. The upstairs of the house has two bedrooms and a bathroom and all the doors are like wood slat doors. They are vertical beams of wood with a cross beam near the bottom and top to hold it together. Plus, one of the bedrooms has a big overhead window and a wood canopey.
Nurit came over on Sunday morning and we went to the game with Matt. Randy met us at the stadium and we once again watched the hapless Mets lose. This time they actually made it an interesting game in the 9th before... Oh wait... Rewind to the beginning of this masterful game.. Oliver Perez started and failed to make it out of the first inning! Pedro Martinez started for the Phillies and Perez was taken out with 3-0 count while Pedro was batting. Yes, that's right, they took Perez out in the middle of an at bat and not only in the middle of any at bat, but in the middle of facing the opposing pitcher! I was trying to find out how often that has happened in baseball, but I can only find questions asking if that's legal so I guess that shows how infrequently it happens. I've certainly never seen it unless the pitcher was hurt which he was not. Speaking of things I've never seen. Pagan led off the Mets 1st with an Inside the Park Homerun! I mean, I've seen Inside the Park Homeruns but never live.. Oh and in the 9th with the Phillies batting and two outs Francour made an amazing catch and the ump said he trapped it, after a bit of an argument the umps actually reversed the call to the correct one! I mean how often does that happen.. Now all of this is great but lets get back to the Mets batting in the 9th. Down by two runs Castillo on 2nd and Murphy on 1st with Francour up at bat. No outs by the way, that's key here.. So.. The pitch, the hit and run is on, the 2nd baseman moves over to cover for the throw from the catcher.. Francour connects, he rips a line drive up the middle right into the waiting arms of the fucking 2nd baseman who takes one step and tags 2nd retiring Castillo and waves his arm slightly to the left to tag Murphy who had no chance to return to 1st to complete the UNASSISTED TRIPLE PLAY! There have only been 16 Unassisted Triple Plays in the history of MLB and this was only the 2nd ever that ended a game! You know, if you're going to lose a game at least this one was lost in style!
Now onto Monday.. Almost done.. I already did Wed and Thurs up in one of those tangents.. Monday me and Jessie ran to Manchester with hopes meeting Lynz and Anja for a 7:20 show of Ponyo. Well, we failed.. I hate Manchester, we made it to Red Robin around 7:05 and then preceded to get lost trying to get to the movie theater. Why didn't I just type it into my GPS? Because the movie theater is NOT in my GPS! Oh well, I stuffed my burger down as I walked from the car to the theater and we only missed the first few minutes of the movie. The movie was very cute and the voice acting was exceptional, it might be the best voice acting in a dubbed movie that I can remember. Not going to say much about other than go see it!
Tuesday dinner was at Ryan's this week. Before dinner we met at the pond by the house and went swimming. It was fun, but it made everything later than normal. We didn't eat dinner till at least 8:00. I didn't make anything this week but Jessie made a raw Strawberry Rhubarb pie.
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Tonight I'm going to see Jon Oliver with Jessie, tomorrow is Animefest XVII at Brad's house. Maybe I can sleep on Sunday?
It's been far too long.. I guess I will start with the list I posted in the last blog...
-DDLC
The guy from DDLC came out (a while ago at this point) to do the yearly cleaning of our oil burner and to fix the door on the chimney. He was a really funny guy who was a lot of fun to talk to. Apparently the lady on the phone told me that he could of course fix the door but they never told him that he was going to do that so he didn't bring the stuff he needed to do it. Luckily he had spare stuff in his van from the last one he did so he was able to take care of it. I was going to post this whole big thing about talking to him but it's been so long now I don't remember most of it. I really need to blog more often.. /sigh
On the same day I had the lady from the town zoning board come out and look at where we want to put the fence, she said as far as zoning was concerned there was nothing stopping me but recommended I talk to the guy in the highway department to make sure it was ok for snow cleaning and walking rights. Talked to him a few days later and he said that as far as he was concerned if nobody complains there is no problem. He did say that the town owns 40ft of road so I need to measure from Elizabeth's yard (back of the sidewalk) to our yard and see how many feet that is.
-Dr Pialtos
Apparently I skipped a year in my yearly exams.. Did that matter? No.. I still have the same vision as I had the day after my surgery in terms of distance. What has changed is my astigmatism, I now have 2 "clicks" of an astigmatism, it was 1 "click" 2 years ago. He said he would not prescribe glasses for anyone under 4 "clicks" so I guess I have a while still before I have to worry about that which is a great thing! When he first put the letters up and asked me to read the lowest line I did without hesitation and he asked if I had memorized the chart.. :)
-Jesse and Marie's Party
This is one of those things that at the time I had lots of cool stuff to write about but now it just seems outdated.. I had a really good time there and met some really awesome people. Their house is great for hosting parties, they have a nice size deck and two fire pits, one close to the house and one far away on the yard. The basement has a built in bar and plenty of room for people to hang out. One of the really good things about going was it was the first time me and Marie really got to talk, which at the time was all exciting but now it's common place.. It took a while to get to know them but I'm really glad that Sara brought them into the Tuesday dinner crowd because they are really cool people..
-Yankees game on Sunday
I went to a Yankee game with Matt, I bought tickets for us to go to a game for his birthday earlier in the year. This was my second time at the new Yankee Stadium and my opinion has of it has really gone up. The first time I sat in the bleachers with my cousins and I was far from impressed with the stadium.. Back then we had walked around the Main and Field levels of the stadium and it was very closed and felt like a mall that happened to have a baseball game. This time I sat in the upper deck and was very impressed at how open it was, the concessions were all done like at CitiField so that you had a view of the stadium no matter where on the upper deck you were. Me and Matt walked around each deck and I think the upper deck is by far the best place to be. It still pissed me off that you had to wait in different lines for different food when the two lines were at the same booth but it wasn't so bad up there because you could still see the field and still felt like you were at a game instead of in a mall.
Go check it out! I took the train from New Haven directly into Yankee Stadium, on the way I went into the bathroom and saw a sticker for this site. It made me laugh and laugh even harder when I actually looked at the site. Apparently it's a website whose premise is that watching birds is voyeurism and must be stopped!
- Ruca
I met Ruca the other day (again, a while ago now).. We met at a parking lot near Holly's house and ate outside with her (Ruca, not Holly) leashed to the chair. After dinner we went for a walk on a trail in the woods. I even got to walk her for a while which was good. She can certainly pull so when it got to uneven ground I gave control back to Holly because I was afraid of hurting my tendon. Still have not met Brutus, we need to schedule a time for me to do that. Who's Ruca and Brutus? Holly and Louie's dogs..
- Mets game - Ebbet's Club / Cleaning / Air Conditioning / Hornet = wants bats
Dad bought tickets for me and him to sit in the Ebbet's Club for one of the games we had tickets for in our season plan. We gave our tickets away and drove down on Wednesday, unfortunately the game was rained out right at 7pm. I was trying to get the house cleaned for the BBQ and had everything scheduled so that I could go to the game on Wed and still get everything done for Friday night. When they announced the rain out they said that our tickets would be good for the next day at 7pm! So much for my cleaning schedule.. We headed home just to make the trip again the next day. It really is a long ride/day when going to the games because we leave typically at 2pm for a 7pm game so that we can get good parking and eat/relax a bit before the game starts. Got a little cleaning done late Wed night and a little more Thursday morning.
Let me back up a bit, Wednesday morning I got up and mowed the lawn until the batteries ran down on the mower. I really like mowing the lawn and it was the first time this year I got to do that because my legs are finally good enough to push the mower around. My enjoyment of mowing the lawn was really shit on when I got stung by a hornet near the bushes in the front of the house, if getting stung by a hornet was not bad enough I got stung on my left tendon! Let me back up a LONG time.. A few years ago I was cleaning out the area around the stream by our house and stepped on a ground nest and was stung an assload of times in a matter of a few seconds, it hurt for days and apparently left me hyper sensitive to hornet stings! So, back to modern times (well, modern in terms of this dialog), by Thursday morning my leg was REAL swollen. It was to the point where having a sock on was painful because of the compression of the sock. I looked up what eats hornets and found bats being the main animal that eats them. I am seriously looking into getting a bat house or two to put in my yard.
So, back to CitiField with my leg crazy swollen and lots of cleaning not getting done. I was a bit beat up and stressed out going down to the game but I would not have missed sitting in those amazing seats. The Ebbet's Club is at the top of the field level behind home plate, they have a private eating area that has a bar and some really good food. They have some normal food like hot dogs, nachos, and pretzels but they also have hand carved sandwiches which were amazing. You pick pork or turkey and that goes on a nice roll with your choice of toppings. On Wednesday I had pork with horseradish mayo, bbq sauce, an olive spread (think muffaletta) and cheddar cheese. It was $12.00 and came with home made chips. On Thursday I had meatballs on the same bread which was not as good as the pork sandwich. Drinks in the Ebbet's club have FREE refills! The other neat thing about our tickets is that it allows you into all of the other clubs in the stadium, well not all of them. It allows you to go into any club that's considered "lower" than the club you have tickets to. Because of that we walked through the Excelsior level and into the Ceaser's Club, the Ceaser's Club is behind home plate on the Excelsior level.
So, these seats were so close we got a bunch of foul balls into our section. One of them hit about a foot away from dad's head, the second one hit right above my head and I caught it as it bounced down, the third one hit my knee! Why didn't I catch that one? Well, I was texting Ivon (phone in right hand) and drinking a beer with my left hand. Sure, I could have dropped the beer but that would have freed up my left hand I probably would have missed it anyway and I didn't think dropping my phone was a good idea. I will say that was the last text I sent while a batter was up.
Oh, I put air conditioning into this section too.. Why? Well, while I was at the game Wednesday Jessie called me from Walmart to tell me she was buying a air conditioner for the bedroom.. I hates the ac so I am sleeping in the spare room for the summer..
Speaking of my leg/hornet sting, I went to the Urgent Care facility on Friday and got put on all kinds of crappy medication that I'm done with now.. If you ever get put on Prednizone be prepared to be moody and hungry..
- bbq
What to say.. It was great.. Thank you all who made it, screw you all who didn't.. ;)
- Man's night out
Kevin had the idea for us to do a man's night out the other night. Matt, Kevin, Ryan and myself went to JD Poopers and ate some good food and played some pool.. We played best 2 of 3 in team mode with me and Matt winning and playing each other for champion of the day which went to Matt as he crushed me in the final game..
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Former Giant Brad Benson makes a new marital vow, apparently he now owns a Hyundai dealership in NJ and decided he was not going to have sex until his dealership is the #1 dealership! Don't believe me, check out his youtube page..
While we were driving to and from CitiField we heard an add on the radio in which he asked everyone to please help him out because he wanted to have sex again! Crazy stuff...
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I started tracking my gas usage.. Here is the link to my car.
The site keeps a historical graph and tells you what percentage of the EPA you are getting. If you decide to track your gas usage send me the link..
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That's all the stuff I had in the last blog and in this text document I've working on.. Now on to new stuff...
Jessie went to a raw retreat and some dude there had these on. She told me about them and I went and tried them on with Holly.. I got a pair of brown KSO on the way to Laire and I have to say they ROCK! It's like walking around barefoot but with a sole. The oddest thing was when I stepped in mud and it went up in between my toes. Side note to that is that I had great traction in the mud because I was able to use all my toes.
Speaking of Laire, I played my barbarian shaman character and actually did a little running around. I played from Sat morning till about 11:00. I didn't leave the inn at night because I didn't want to step odd and hurt myself.
Monday night me, Jessie, Joe and Badger went to see Food Inc at the Cable Car Cinema in Providence, RI. If you've read the Omnivore's Dilemma you know what this is about. There were a few new things shown and it did a very good job of presenting the case against big factory farms. After the movie we went to Wild Colonial Tavern which is a really old bar on Water St. We hung out and had a few beers while playing pool. We did a tournament style and the final game came down to me and Badger with Badger beating me in the end. I'm sensing a theme here, I keep getting into the final game and falling just short of the victory..
- Tuesday Dinners..
Last week (8/4) we had dinner at our house as a change of pace, the weather was great and we setup the tables outside in the driveway and set the kids to watch Howl's Moving Castle and Totoro in the basement. Ryan brought over a venison roast for the grill, it came out really good. I cut it up into strips and seasoned it with (I don't remember right now) and grilled them for a few mins. How am I supposed to put recipes up if I don't write them down and don't remember.. I suck.. If anyone who watched me season the meat knows what I put on it please post it as a comment.. After dinner we made a fire in our new firepit and got to listen to Lynz & Marie play the Banjo and Dulcimer until Lynz's string broke.
This week (8/11) we were back at Ryan's house. Kevin, James, Fey and Mandy brought Muchkin Booty and we ended up getting a big game going. It's an ok game, I am just not a big fan of card games. Give me a nice long board game any day..
Last night me and Jessie met Holly and Louie at Mohegan Sun and went to Bobby's Buger Palace.. Bobby as in Bobby Flay, does this mean I can cross him off my Iron Chef list? Nah.. But Bar Americana is opening in Mohegan Sun as well so I will cross him off after I eat there. It was very good but was a little pricey. My burger (Miami Burger) was $7.50 and then you have to buy fries on top of that for $2.50. They said the fries were big enough for two people, they lied.. Holly was the only one of us to get her burger "Crunchified" which just means with chips on it. We tried to get her to say "Chrunchified" but she just said "with chips on it".. After dinner I lost some money on the slots and then wandered the mall and played H2Overdrive in the arcade. It's a kick ass 4 player boat racing game. If you see the machine somewhere you should play it.. :)
Wednesday night me and Jessie went to a renewable energy symposium in Thompson CT. It started with a talk about water energy out by one of the waterfalls.. After the talk we walked back to the library for the rest of the symposium, during the talk I recognized a girl from VSC (Delia) and we ended up chatting. As it turns out Jessie and Sara had been given her information last year and they never got together.. What a cool small world.. Anyway, we ended up hanging out with her for the rest of the night and made plans for her and her husband (Martin) to come with us to dinner and the RiverFire on Saturday.
The rest of the symposium was nice, they talked about solar energy, wind energy and geo-thermal. If you're building a house today the government will basically pay for you to put in geo-thermal which is awesome but you only get a percentage off if you're replacing an already existing setup. Solar is nice but we don't have a southern facing roof so does not really do us too much good.
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Thursday night me and Jessie went and enjoyed a lovely bottle of wine while we ate outside in the patio seating at Bella's! Yay, BYOB outside.. I had their linguine and clams and Jessie had a shrimp pasta dish. Both of them were excellent as usual. Their head chef Allen does a great job of combining flavors. I can't say often enough how good the food there is.. If you're ever in or around Putnam make sure you get to Bella's..
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Friday night me and Lynz went to Waterfront Mary's in Webster. We sat on the deck outside even though the smell of rain was in the air.. I really love the fact that you can drive your boat up to the restaurant, I know I can't do that but it's awesome. There were two ladies trying to leave via boat and the boat was having problems and one of the ladies was obviously drunk and yelling alot (in a funny/happy way). The girls next to us made a joking comment about beating her up if we paid them.. If you have not been to Waterfront Mary's they have a gazebo with a large table in it. As the rain got closer I recommended the 5 of us (me, Lynz and the three ladies at the next table) go steal the gazebo table. We went for it but someone had beat us there so we ended up trying to sit under the umbrella at the bar. While we were trying to figure out lighting over there the gazebo table opened up and we pounced.
We had an awesome time hanging out and after we all ate we moved inside to get away from the bugs that were eating me and Gladi alive. We stayed a lot later than we planned but it was a great night. What a week for meeting random awesome people.. :)
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Saturday me and Jessie cleaned a bit in the morning, went to Quaddick Pond in Thompson and relaxed at mid day and cleaned again in the late afternoon. The house was pretty much cleaned (except floors) before anyone got there. We had Hoyle, Joe, Rowan, Delia and Martin all meet at the house around 4:30.. We walked down to Thai Place and ate before heading over to the River Fire.
Ryan, Gwen and Tim met us over at the River Fire and we grabbed a great spot right on the water till we were yelled at for sitting on the rocks.. We ended up going to the other side of the river where we wouldn't be disturbed.. The River Fire itself was pretty lame and we ended up going back to the house for Apples to Apples till almost midnight.
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Sunday morning me and Jessie went out and did some shopping.. We got a new screened in gazebo for the back yard (where the picnic table is), a portable fire pit, a boche ball set and some other stuff for the house including the miracle hangers for my closet. Afterwards we ate lunch at Buster's and went home to setup the gazebo. Matt came over and helped us (I don't think two people could have put it together). We cleaned the house more and I actually feel ahead of schedule to get the house cleaned for the BBQ.
Speaking of BBQ. Matt, Sile and Daniel came over to eat the first meal in our new gazebo. I made pork chops with balsamic, soy sauce, garlic, and lemon pepper seasoning. I added some hot sauce to Matt and Jessie's but kept mine and Sile's unspicey. I also got a 5lb bag of Sabbrett hot dogs so we won't be needing those for the BBQ and we had some corn on the cob. Daniel actually ate most of a hot dog and half a corn on the cob! Matt and Sile brought over some sides and beer and made it a great first gazebo dinner.
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After everyone left Jessie got me to start watching Weeds. We watched a few episodes of season 1, it's a pretty good show and it certainly has potential.
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Today I have a guy coming to give us a price on putting a fence in our front yard and we are actually moving forward with getting estimates to replace our windows. I have a rough estimate from a place in Danielson and I am having Gladi's brother come from Webster to give us another quote.
Flickr has been updated with a few real nice pics, check 'em out..
Me and Jessie decided to head to PortlandOregon for my birthday this year, why Portland?Storm Large wrote a one woman musical about her life that she is performing at the Portland Center Stage, the show is running from March till the end of May and I hate missing once in a lifetime shows.If you don’t know who Storm Large is she is a singer/song writer who is from MA, she moved out west and started a band.That band had released a few CDs and then she went on Rockstar Supernova which is where we found her and fell in love.She is a tough, kick ass girl who makes no excuses for her attitude, language and appearance.Since Rockstar Supernova she has released another CD which not surprisingly was her best selling one to date.Check out her song Ladylike which she sung on Rockstar Supernova and later recorded for the CD of the same name.
So, using Marriott Rewards points, Continental miles and a travel voucher we got our trip all set for a grand total of $80 + rental car and food.I may bitch about my job but the travel thing is one part of it I really do love.
Enough background, let’s get to the fun that was this trip…I mean that in a mostly serious way..Thursday’s plans: Fly from Hartford to Newark, check.Fly from Newark to Portland, how ‘bout Friday?It turns out that Newark was having bad weather so our flight from Hartford was delayed, ironically (or rather unfortunately) the flight to Portland was not delayed by the weather..Our flight to Portland was supposed to leave at 6:05 (and did) and our flight from Hartford got in around 7:00… No big deal, the hotel will be on the airline right?Nope…Because it was the weather that caused us to miss our flight they would not put us up in a hotel for the night.We were made aware of this while still in Hartford so I started calling/texting a bunch of people from Laire to see who lived near the airport.Our new flight was at 7am so we decided it would be silly to get picked up by someone local just to have to be back at the airport for 5am.A few calls later and I cancelled one night in Portland and used the points to get a room in Newark..
After texting, chatting with a bunch of people in the area we decided to have Grifo meet us at the airport and go out with him for dinner/drinks.He got on a few wrong trains and in the end never made it over (gave up around 9:30).While waiting for Grifo to show up we met some really cool guys, one of them was from Chicago and visiting his friend in NYC.His friend apparently hooked him up with a crazy girl, depending on who’s version of the story you believe he was told that the girl was crazy before he went off with her.Regardless, she was crazy and not the good kind.She is on medication and once it wore off she got real crazy and the whole experience ended with her hitting him while sitting in the airport waiting for his flight.I have to give him credit for doing the right thing, he grabbed her hands and restrained her knowing that the cops (or goons as he called them) would show up and break it up.As it turns out nobody reacted at all and he had to just sit there and take the beating, makes me sick that we pay a so called security force to let that happen.
We finally made it to the hotel and now it was getting late so our food options were very limited, we ended up eating in the hotel restaurant which ended up not being that bad.I had a steak which was very well prepared, the spices were done very nicely and it was cooked almost perfectly (crispy on outside but still pink in the middle).The hotel had Yuengling as well which is always a win.Not the birthday dinner I imagined (eating at a nice restaurant in Portland) but it ended up being really good.
---- Crazy Enough
When we got to the airport on Friday we couldn’t use the self check-in because our flight had been changed from the original plan, we went to the elite check in area and the elite security clearance area and were on her flight with plenty of time to spare.Again, I love this part of my job..The non elite lanes were out of control and we probably would have missed our flight.
Arrived in Portland, got a car and went to the hotel to shower and change before heading out for the day.We were going to do a walking tour of Portland so we parked between the tour starting point and the theater but due to my foot we decided not to do the tour.Instead we did the beer tour, we had lunch at a brewery called Deschutes Brewery, it was very good.I had a burger with garlic, goats cheese and some mustard.Jessie had a lamb burger which had tzatziki sauce on it, her burger was ok but mine was better.We each got a flight of beers which includes six four ounce glasses, my favorites were the Mirror Pond Ale, the Amber Dawn, the Bachelor Bitter and the Gluten Free ESB.
After lunch we went to a book store called Powell’s.This place is out of control big, they are at least an entire city block and three stories tall, they have different color rooms for what genre you’re looking for (the blue room was Sci-Fi, the red room was games, etc.).They had some really old out of print books just sitting on the shelves used and some even new, they had autographed copies of some books for sale as well and they had a RPG section that was bigger than most stores entire sci-fi and fantasy section.They had RPG books from the old West End Star Wars and one book from the Decipher Star Trek as well as almost any Wizards of the Coast book you could ever want.We wandered around for a while to walk off the buzz we had from lunch.They had an Ancient Greek section that was an entire isle, some of the books were in Ancient Greek and some were the translated versions we are all used to seeing.
After lunch we went to one of McMenamin’s pubs (the Ringler’s Annex) and I had a their raspberry beer (Ruby) which was very good, Jessie got a coffee with rum and it was super strong.After our mid day drinks we went for a walk around the city, we didn’t see too much other than pubs and after a while ended up back at Powell’s so Jessie could get a real coffee before the show which we split.
The Portland Center Stage is a nice theater, they are actually two theaters, there is a big one upstairs which has two levels of seating and then there is the small one down stairs.Crazy Enough was downstairs in the smaller of the two stages.Before the show I saw Storm come in and walk up to the third floor to get ready, Jessie was standing on the stairs taking a picture of the poster when Storm walked past her.While we were waiting for the show we saw the announcement that they extended the run to the end of June!
I don’t know what to say about the show, it was the most personal thing I think I’ve ever seen done on stage.She talked in depth about everything in her past, her mom had made a lot of attempts to take her own life and when Storm was a little kid she was told by her mom’s psychiatrist that it was hereditary and that she was be crazy like her mom.She was told it would probably kick in when she was in her 20s or at the latest when she had kids of her own!What a thing to tell a little girl!She talked about a few of her mom’s attempts including one in which she put dishwasher detergent in dinner.She talked about going to see her mom in the hospital and how it was when her mom would come home from these trips.She talked about her sexuality at school and her bout with heroine when she moved to CA.There was one really funny point when she was talking about her early sexuality when she had gotten an older lawyer in bed while she was still very young and after hours of sex after all of her makeup had worn off the guy looked down at her and asked “how old are you, really?” and she said 13.I don’t know if she was 13 at the time or if she just said that to fuck with the guy but his reaction was hysterical.She went on to talk about how her band and her attempt to get onto the Lilith Fair.She also was a model for a dildo company and she relayed a really funny story about her time posing with the “product”, the camera man told her that she made their penises look small.She finally made peace with her mom right before she finally died a few years ago, and she admits that she is indeed crazy, but unlike her mom her crazy works for her.She’s not too crazy, she’s just crazy enough..If you have the means I would recommend the trip out to Portland if only to see her show.Hopefully she will release a live copy when the run is over, it would be awesome if it became a touring show.We got the soundtrack and it has some truly amazing tracks.
---- Speaking of crazy enough…Did you know that Seattle is only a 3 hour drive from Portland?Why is that relevant?Well, the Red Sox were playing the Mariners so Saturday afternoon we drove up to Safeco field and saw the game.Saturday morning we met Mik (a guy Jessie had been talking to on IM since Australia) and wandered around the city.We went to the Saturday Market which is an outdoor market with food, drinks, clothes and artwork.I had a Rogue summer beer and got a few cool things from the market.We ate breakfast and lunch at the same vegetarian restaurant and then headed off to Seattle.Safeco is a nice stadium, the view from the seats was very good, we had row 1 in the upper deck so we had a great view.The only problem I had with the stadium was that when you were not at your seat I felt very away from the game, you could not see the field from any of the concourses.The food was good, I had an Ichiroll which is a really spicy tuna maki roll, it was so spicy I almost couldn’t eat it.One really cool thing about this stadium is that they had the ability to order food from your seat, you could do this on your Nintendo DS (Mariners are owned by Nintendo) or your Verizon phone via text messages.The other nice thing (hope you’re not surprised) is that they serve Starbucks coffee instead of Dunkin Donuts.I had a few different beers at the stadium including a Pyramid Amber Ale which was really good.Speaking of Pyramid, they had a brew house across the street from the stadium which we went to after the game.I had a summer brew from there which was also very good.
We didn’t get back to the hotel till after 2am and had to get up at 4am so we could get to the airport in time for our 8am flight..At the airport in Portland we went to the Rogue brew house and had a pre-flight drink and breakfast which included Kobe beef meatballs with blue cheese inside them.At the Detroit airport I had my mid-day Murphy’s Irish Stout..Got back to CT and ate at the Japanese restaurant in Willimantic before finally getting home to pass out..
---- Portland is a really cool city, it's very laid back and very spread out. There are no really big sky scrapers and there is a bunch of greenery in the city. The ride to Seattle was amazing, there was this enormous snow caped mountain off in the horizon and the road was lined with big hills and enormous trees! I can see why people love it out there, I wish I had more time (and healed feet) so I could go hiking and enjoy the lovely surroundings. I would like go back there when I have time to just veg in the wilderness for a few days.
