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
Showing posts with label Travel - Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel - Australia. Show all posts
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
While in the air back from Sydney..
Would you believe I had not been on the internet long enough to type a blog?? Well, it’s sorta true.. I was on the internet while at work but I never had a block of time that I could just sit and type till now.. When is now? On the plane from Sydney to SF..
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Lets hop in our Delorian, fire up the flux capacitor and bring us back to Monday evening..
Class went a bit longer than I wanted on Monday so by the time I got back to the hotel is was already late. Me and Jessie decided to go upstairs to the executive room and get a drink and some appetizers while we figured out plans for the night. Plus side to the executive room is that we could both use the internet because they had free wireless upstairs and only one wired in the room. First of all, while on the subject of appetizers let me just say that in most other countries they don’t call them appetizers, they call them “entrees” and they call the main course the “main”. At first this seemed odd to me because we are so used to calling our main dish the entrée but it makes more sense to call the first course the entrée and the main course the main course because after all that is what it is… Anyway, back to the story… We ended up eating lots of cheese and bread and having a few glasses of wine while we decided what we wanted to do. If you’ve been looking at Flickr you will have noticed a bunch of pictures from the Aquarium so it’s pretty obvious where this story is going, but we found out that the Aquarium didn’t close till 10pm so we jumped on the ferry and headed over.
The Ferry ride was nice, it was raining but I stood outside at the very front of the boat taking wonderful pictures and seeing the beautiful skyline all lit up. Jessie sat inside by a window and every time the ferry would stop I would run over to her window and give her a little kiss.. It was like a drive up kissing window.. :D
The Aquarium was really cool actually, I’ve been to a bunch of them in the past but it was nice to see the different creatures they have on the southern hemisphere. One of the really cool things was they had Dugongs which are the original “mermaid”, they say that ship hands used to see them in the water and think they were seeing mermaids. I have a few pictures of them and you can clearly see they don’t look like mermaids, well maybe the tail does.. They however amazing looking creatures and they were feeding them massive amounts of lettuce which was cool to watch them eat. They had a walk above them so you could look down into the water and they had one of those glass tunnels you could walk through too so you could see them from the in the water angle. Speaking of in the in the water angle, they had a shark walk too – big deal everyone does now right, but they also had a coral reef exhibit and they had a glass walkway there too. That one was super cool because it not only had a glass ceiling and walls but a glass floor, it was very relaxing to stand there completely surrounded by fish.
We purchased a two park pass which included the Wildlife Park, when I scanned my ticket at the Aquarium it said it was an invalid ticket type for Mondays which was stupid because I had just purchased it. Ironically it didn’t scan correctly at the Wildlife Park either so I ended up giving to Ange to use at both places as long as she uses it before 30 days is up.
After the Aquarium we went to City Extra which is a 24 hour restaurant that serves decent food. I had the fish and chips snack again (see pervious blogs) and Jessie had Potato Wedges which she says were “eh”.
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Nothing left to see on Monday so.. Onto Tuesday Marty… Tuesday was not at all what it was supposed to be.. Jessie made last minute plans to hang out with Nigel who we met at the Poly meet up on Sunday. I got out of work and went to Scruffy Murphy’s which is a really big Irish pub in Sydney. Someone from Ireland should come there and show them how to be an “Irish Pub”, the only thing that made them an “Irish Pub” was the name and the Guinness. They had techno dance music on and Cricket on the TV, they had slot machines in the back and served regular pub fare for food. I’ve felt more in Ireland at “Irish Pubs” in America. I had a Guinness and then went shopping to kill more time till Ange got out of work. Me and Ange went to a Korean restaurant and had some really good food, she played me some Australian music by her friend but I forgot to get a copy of it. Maybe she can rip it and mail me a MP3 CD of them and George (who she played for us on Thursday). The house Ange lives in does not have heat which is an odd concept for us Americans, it also has really, really high doorknobs. The doorknobs are at face level which is really odd when you’re half asleep looking to open a door.. A few of the doors and windows have this odd creature on the stained glass, I posted (or will post) a pic of it on my flickr site, check it out and let me know what you think it looks like.. :D
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Wednesday.. Ange dropped me off at the train and I got to work a little late, stupid trains.. Ironically I found an awesome way to get to work on Wednesday night for Thursday, there is an express train that runs from Central to Epping and only stops twice on the way. I wish I had seen that in the beginning of my trip… /sigh…
Anyway, after work I went over to Ange’s house. We had planned to get together on Wednesday and ended up having Tuesday and Wednesday because of Jessie’s impromptu plans with Nigel on Tuesday. That night Ange took me to an Italian restaurant that she apparently takes all her dates to, I felt a little “on display” with the waitresses and waiters sizing me up. One waitress actually (not so smoothly) walked by, put a tray down and turned to take a long sizing up glance at me.. I had a great eye fillet with mushroom gravy and Ange had a chicken dish. I’m having a brain cramp as to what type of chicken it was, I know she was going to get the Chicken “in-pajamas” (parmesan), the “in-pajamas” thing came from a commercial they used to air in Australia. I’ve obviously never seen it but it was pretty cute when she was describing it. After dinner we went back to her place and I played her a bunch of music on my iPod before heading to bed. One other thing about her house, she has a four poster bed with almost see through white cloth hanging from it that you can let down to have it make a little sanctuary. Me and Jessie have always talked about wanting a four poster like this and I have to say it was really nice. I think it would be too big for our bedroom with the bed we have but it maybe something to look into.
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Thursday Ange dropped me off and for the first time I took the express train which worked out really well. I got to class just before 9am but didn’t leave her house till almost 8. The day before we left her house at 7:30 and I didn’t get to work till about 9:15.. Thursday was the last day so I got out early and headed back to the hotel, when I got out I texted Jessie and she was just at the hotel so she decided to wait for me before heading out. We had a really good time at the hotel before heading out to the Wildlife Park. That place was awesome! I’ve never seen a Koala bear actually awake! Every zoo I’ve ever been to that has had Koalas had a habitat that they said they were in but I never saw one other than maybe one asleep way up in a tree. This place had them out in the open air with you, they even had a spot where you could pay to pet one and have your picture taken with one. We didn’t pay but we did get to see them really close up, they are such cute animals. Speaking of cute animals, we also saw a sugar glider and these rabbit eared bandicoots that looked like Mieu (the cat from Phantasy Star I). Also on the cute scale, but not on the same level, I finally saw a real Kangaroo, they had a bunch of them in this prairie and they were really cool looking. We also rock wallabies and an overgrown guinea pig looking creature that was running around like crazy, there was a lady from Australia who told us it was the most active wombat she had ever seen.
After the Wildlife Park the food frustration struck.. Jessie had looked up an Indian restaurant she really wanted to eat at and a micro-brew house that looked cool. We decided we would eat an early dinner at the Indian place and then do late night entrees at the brew-house. So, we went to the Indian place and found they closed from 2:30pm till 6:00pm, since it was only 4:30 we decided to do the reverse, go get entrees and beer at the brew-house and then come back for a later dinner. We walk all the way to the stupid brew-house to find them closed for a private function!! ARGH! So…. We decided to head back to the Indian place and kill some time in the mall shopping till they opened. Got some really cool stuff including a drizabone hat and a wool liner for my duster. We got to the Indian place a few minutes after six and Jessie got some really spicy lamb chops and I got goat curry. It was the first time I had goat and it was good, the lamb was very good as well and I would say it was bordering on what I would call too hot. We also had a mushroom naan which was very good. After we ate we started to head back and it started to pour! It rained so much we ended up jumping in a cab to go back to the hotel and we left puddles in the taxi! Unfortunately in order to get a taxi we had to first walk across the Harbourside Bridge and I walked through a puddle that no shit came half way up my shin!
Got changed at hotel and I grabbed my duster before heading back out to the brew-house. We met Ange there and had a few beers, it was the first brew-house I’ve ever been to where non of the beers were good. Just so you never accidentally go there, it was called Red Oak brew-house and it was BAD, I really can’t stress that fact.. I tried three different beers and Jessie tried three and they were all bad. I had the Christmas Cheer which looked great on paper, the Irish Red and the Honey Ale. Jessie had the St Nicholas which was an unfiltered Belgium ale, a blackberry wheat and the chocolate stout. We left there and went back to City Extra to have some late night snacks and some good beer. Me and Ange split scones and Jessie had banana crepes, I also had a James Squire Amber to make up for the bad beer I had earlier in the night.
….
Well, I guess is the end of this blog… My battery is about to die so I’m going to save this before it’s too late.. I am hoping to post this while in SF so everyone can read it while I’m in the air to Boston…
....
Uploaded pics to flickr from the last day or so.. :D
….
Lets hop in our Delorian, fire up the flux capacitor and bring us back to Monday evening..
Class went a bit longer than I wanted on Monday so by the time I got back to the hotel is was already late. Me and Jessie decided to go upstairs to the executive room and get a drink and some appetizers while we figured out plans for the night. Plus side to the executive room is that we could both use the internet because they had free wireless upstairs and only one wired in the room. First of all, while on the subject of appetizers let me just say that in most other countries they don’t call them appetizers, they call them “entrees” and they call the main course the “main”. At first this seemed odd to me because we are so used to calling our main dish the entrée but it makes more sense to call the first course the entrée and the main course the main course because after all that is what it is… Anyway, back to the story… We ended up eating lots of cheese and bread and having a few glasses of wine while we decided what we wanted to do. If you’ve been looking at Flickr you will have noticed a bunch of pictures from the Aquarium so it’s pretty obvious where this story is going, but we found out that the Aquarium didn’t close till 10pm so we jumped on the ferry and headed over.
The Ferry ride was nice, it was raining but I stood outside at the very front of the boat taking wonderful pictures and seeing the beautiful skyline all lit up. Jessie sat inside by a window and every time the ferry would stop I would run over to her window and give her a little kiss.. It was like a drive up kissing window.. :D
The Aquarium was really cool actually, I’ve been to a bunch of them in the past but it was nice to see the different creatures they have on the southern hemisphere. One of the really cool things was they had Dugongs which are the original “mermaid”, they say that ship hands used to see them in the water and think they were seeing mermaids. I have a few pictures of them and you can clearly see they don’t look like mermaids, well maybe the tail does.. They however amazing looking creatures and they were feeding them massive amounts of lettuce which was cool to watch them eat. They had a walk above them so you could look down into the water and they had one of those glass tunnels you could walk through too so you could see them from the in the water angle. Speaking of in the in the water angle, they had a shark walk too – big deal everyone does now right, but they also had a coral reef exhibit and they had a glass walkway there too. That one was super cool because it not only had a glass ceiling and walls but a glass floor, it was very relaxing to stand there completely surrounded by fish.
We purchased a two park pass which included the Wildlife Park, when I scanned my ticket at the Aquarium it said it was an invalid ticket type for Mondays which was stupid because I had just purchased it. Ironically it didn’t scan correctly at the Wildlife Park either so I ended up giving to Ange to use at both places as long as she uses it before 30 days is up.
After the Aquarium we went to City Extra which is a 24 hour restaurant that serves decent food. I had the fish and chips snack again (see pervious blogs) and Jessie had Potato Wedges which she says were “eh”.
….
Nothing left to see on Monday so.. Onto Tuesday Marty… Tuesday was not at all what it was supposed to be.. Jessie made last minute plans to hang out with Nigel who we met at the Poly meet up on Sunday. I got out of work and went to Scruffy Murphy’s which is a really big Irish pub in Sydney. Someone from Ireland should come there and show them how to be an “Irish Pub”, the only thing that made them an “Irish Pub” was the name and the Guinness. They had techno dance music on and Cricket on the TV, they had slot machines in the back and served regular pub fare for food. I’ve felt more in Ireland at “Irish Pubs” in America. I had a Guinness and then went shopping to kill more time till Ange got out of work. Me and Ange went to a Korean restaurant and had some really good food, she played me some Australian music by her friend but I forgot to get a copy of it. Maybe she can rip it and mail me a MP3 CD of them and George (who she played for us on Thursday). The house Ange lives in does not have heat which is an odd concept for us Americans, it also has really, really high doorknobs. The doorknobs are at face level which is really odd when you’re half asleep looking to open a door.. A few of the doors and windows have this odd creature on the stained glass, I posted (or will post) a pic of it on my flickr site, check it out and let me know what you think it looks like.. :D
….
Wednesday.. Ange dropped me off at the train and I got to work a little late, stupid trains.. Ironically I found an awesome way to get to work on Wednesday night for Thursday, there is an express train that runs from Central to Epping and only stops twice on the way. I wish I had seen that in the beginning of my trip… /sigh…
Anyway, after work I went over to Ange’s house. We had planned to get together on Wednesday and ended up having Tuesday and Wednesday because of Jessie’s impromptu plans with Nigel on Tuesday. That night Ange took me to an Italian restaurant that she apparently takes all her dates to, I felt a little “on display” with the waitresses and waiters sizing me up. One waitress actually (not so smoothly) walked by, put a tray down and turned to take a long sizing up glance at me.. I had a great eye fillet with mushroom gravy and Ange had a chicken dish. I’m having a brain cramp as to what type of chicken it was, I know she was going to get the Chicken “in-pajamas” (parmesan), the “in-pajamas” thing came from a commercial they used to air in Australia. I’ve obviously never seen it but it was pretty cute when she was describing it. After dinner we went back to her place and I played her a bunch of music on my iPod before heading to bed. One other thing about her house, she has a four poster bed with almost see through white cloth hanging from it that you can let down to have it make a little sanctuary. Me and Jessie have always talked about wanting a four poster like this and I have to say it was really nice. I think it would be too big for our bedroom with the bed we have but it maybe something to look into.
….
Thursday Ange dropped me off and for the first time I took the express train which worked out really well. I got to class just before 9am but didn’t leave her house till almost 8. The day before we left her house at 7:30 and I didn’t get to work till about 9:15.. Thursday was the last day so I got out early and headed back to the hotel, when I got out I texted Jessie and she was just at the hotel so she decided to wait for me before heading out. We had a really good time at the hotel before heading out to the Wildlife Park. That place was awesome! I’ve never seen a Koala bear actually awake! Every zoo I’ve ever been to that has had Koalas had a habitat that they said they were in but I never saw one other than maybe one asleep way up in a tree. This place had them out in the open air with you, they even had a spot where you could pay to pet one and have your picture taken with one. We didn’t pay but we did get to see them really close up, they are such cute animals. Speaking of cute animals, we also saw a sugar glider and these rabbit eared bandicoots that looked like Mieu (the cat from Phantasy Star I). Also on the cute scale, but not on the same level, I finally saw a real Kangaroo, they had a bunch of them in this prairie and they were really cool looking. We also rock wallabies and an overgrown guinea pig looking creature that was running around like crazy, there was a lady from Australia who told us it was the most active wombat she had ever seen.
After the Wildlife Park the food frustration struck.. Jessie had looked up an Indian restaurant she really wanted to eat at and a micro-brew house that looked cool. We decided we would eat an early dinner at the Indian place and then do late night entrees at the brew-house. So, we went to the Indian place and found they closed from 2:30pm till 6:00pm, since it was only 4:30 we decided to do the reverse, go get entrees and beer at the brew-house and then come back for a later dinner. We walk all the way to the stupid brew-house to find them closed for a private function!! ARGH! So…. We decided to head back to the Indian place and kill some time in the mall shopping till they opened. Got some really cool stuff including a drizabone hat and a wool liner for my duster. We got to the Indian place a few minutes after six and Jessie got some really spicy lamb chops and I got goat curry. It was the first time I had goat and it was good, the lamb was very good as well and I would say it was bordering on what I would call too hot. We also had a mushroom naan which was very good. After we ate we started to head back and it started to pour! It rained so much we ended up jumping in a cab to go back to the hotel and we left puddles in the taxi! Unfortunately in order to get a taxi we had to first walk across the Harbourside Bridge and I walked through a puddle that no shit came half way up my shin!
Got changed at hotel and I grabbed my duster before heading back out to the brew-house. We met Ange there and had a few beers, it was the first brew-house I’ve ever been to where non of the beers were good. Just so you never accidentally go there, it was called Red Oak brew-house and it was BAD, I really can’t stress that fact.. I tried three different beers and Jessie tried three and they were all bad. I had the Christmas Cheer which looked great on paper, the Irish Red and the Honey Ale. Jessie had the St Nicholas which was an unfiltered Belgium ale, a blackberry wheat and the chocolate stout. We left there and went back to City Extra to have some late night snacks and some good beer. Me and Ange split scones and Jessie had banana crepes, I also had a James Squire Amber to make up for the bad beer I had earlier in the night.
….
Well, I guess is the end of this blog… My battery is about to die so I’m going to save this before it’s too late.. I am hoping to post this while in SF so everyone can read it while I’m in the air to Boston…
....
Uploaded pics to flickr from the last day or so.. :D
Monday, February 9, 2009
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
----
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.
----
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...
----
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"
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.
----
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
----
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.
----
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...
----
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"
Saturday, February 7, 2009
James Squire.. Master Brewman
When you think of Australian beer I would like you to think of James Squire.. Last night me and Jessie went to his brewhouse for dinner which is off King's Wharf. It was very beautiful walking along the wharf with the casino across the water and the sun just winking out for the night. I took a picture but I don't think it holds the true beauty of the scene.
For food I had a rump steak that came with 2 big grilled prawns. The prawns where still in their bodies and they were so tasty, the meat was grilled perfectly but needed a bit of salt to bring out the flavor. It seems to be a trend here with places not using enough salt, either that or I'm just a salt junky... Jessie had the Kangaroo which she said was the same as beef, I still hold to my statement that it's a cross between venison and beef.. Dessert was holy jeez amazing. I had a Forest Berry Brulee which was a creme brulee that had raspberries inside it.. In America I've seen creme brulee with fruit on top, but it was so much better with the fruit already in it. Jessie had the James Squire Waffles which is vanilla waffles, caramel banana & homemade toffee icecream. I had a bite and wow was it good, it was like the perfect banana fosters but better!
For drinks... I started with a Highwayman which is a semi-unfiltered Irish Red, my 2nd beer was a Craic which is a Guinness type beer but with a more coffee flavor, my 3rd beer was a return to the classic Amber Ale. I've now had four different James Squire beers and I have to say that I loved each one...
I want to try more of the Coopers beers. I really love their Pale Ale but as of right now James Squire is my favorite Australian Brewer.
For food I had a rump steak that came with 2 big grilled prawns. The prawns where still in their bodies and they were so tasty, the meat was grilled perfectly but needed a bit of salt to bring out the flavor. It seems to be a trend here with places not using enough salt, either that or I'm just a salt junky... Jessie had the Kangaroo which she said was the same as beef, I still hold to my statement that it's a cross between venison and beef.. Dessert was holy jeez amazing. I had a Forest Berry Brulee which was a creme brulee that had raspberries inside it.. In America I've seen creme brulee with fruit on top, but it was so much better with the fruit already in it. Jessie had the James Squire Waffles which is vanilla waffles, caramel banana & homemade toffee icecream. I had a bite and wow was it good, it was like the perfect banana fosters but better!
For drinks... I started with a Highwayman which is a semi-unfiltered Irish Red, my 2nd beer was a Craic which is a Guinness type beer but with a more coffee flavor, my 3rd beer was a return to the classic Amber Ale. I've now had four different James Squire beers and I have to say that I loved each one...
I want to try more of the Coopers beers. I really love their Pale Ale but as of right now James Squire is my favorite Australian Brewer.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Big Bus Tour...
I got back to the hotel and Jessie was in the shower, I joined her to clean up and afterwards we got dressed and hit the big bus tour. The big bus tour is a double decker open air bus, they have one in pretty much every major city and we like to do that tour in each city/country to get the lay of land and some cool history about the area.
So, we grabbed it at Alfred and George right here in Circular Quay. Took it around to Hyde Park and got off so I could get my laundry. The place I dropped my laundry closes at 6pm so we wanted to make sure we got it early, the entire bag of laundry cost me $8 AUS which is less than the hotel would have charged for 1 shirt! We decided we were hungry and hit a pub by the laundry, the pub had Guiness on draft as well as James Squire's Amber Ale. I had two James Squires and Jessie had a Guiness, for food I had fish and chips and Jessie had a BLT which of course was served with back bacon so it was awesome! The best part of the meal was talking to two random people about movies. Craig is a really cool guy who works at Mex Bar which is a restaurant down the road, his flate mate (can't remember her name) works at the pub we were at. He was on his 2 hour lunch break and the four of us ended chatting while we ate.
He mentioned Heath Ledger's first movie which is called Two Hands. It was an Australian movie that was filmed here locally, it may mean that we have to rent it and watch it on my PC since I can change the region on the PC. After lunch we got back on the bus and took it around the rest of the way and are now back in the hotel. Neat things I learned today.. The first ever game of cricket was played at Hyde Park, the Cathedral at St James was never finished because in Australia they had a tax law that only applied to finished buildings so to get of taxes they never "finished" the building..
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Weekend plan as of now.. Tomorrow - Take the ferry to Manly and go to the beach and probably a steak house. Sunday - Take a train out to the Blue Mountains and check out that area. Depending on when we get back on Sunday we may go to a Poly Meetup in Newtown.
So, we grabbed it at Alfred and George right here in Circular Quay. Took it around to Hyde Park and got off so I could get my laundry. The place I dropped my laundry closes at 6pm so we wanted to make sure we got it early, the entire bag of laundry cost me $8 AUS which is less than the hotel would have charged for 1 shirt! We decided we were hungry and hit a pub by the laundry, the pub had Guiness on draft as well as James Squire's Amber Ale. I had two James Squires and Jessie had a Guiness, for food I had fish and chips and Jessie had a BLT which of course was served with back bacon so it was awesome! The best part of the meal was talking to two random people about movies. Craig is a really cool guy who works at Mex Bar which is a restaurant down the road, his flate mate (can't remember her name) works at the pub we were at. He was on his 2 hour lunch break and the four of us ended chatting while we ate.
He mentioned Heath Ledger's first movie which is called Two Hands. It was an Australian movie that was filmed here locally, it may mean that we have to rent it and watch it on my PC since I can change the region on the PC. After lunch we got back on the bus and took it around the rest of the way and are now back in the hotel. Neat things I learned today.. The first ever game of cricket was played at Hyde Park, the Cathedral at St James was never finished because in Australia they had a tax law that only applied to finished buildings so to get of taxes they never "finished" the building..
----
Weekend plan as of now.. Tomorrow - Take the ferry to Manly and go to the beach and probably a steak house. Sunday - Take a train out to the Blue Mountains and check out that area. Depending on when we get back on Sunday we may go to a Poly Meetup in Newtown.
Iced Coffee?
Problem with not blogging at least once a day while I'm on the road is I forget details.. I can't for the life of me remember the name of the place I ate on Wednesday night. Oh well, maybe I'll look at the receipt at the hotel and add the name in later as a comment. Anyway, Wednesday I wondered around the city some more and ended up eating a really awesome pizza that had lamb, onion, cheese and tzatziki sauce. The place had a minimum charge of $20 AUS for using AMEX so I had two Cooper's Pale Ales with it..
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Thursday I decided to try the bus route to work instead of the train. The night before I found out that there was a 6:54 bus from Circular Quay that would get me to work by 8:00am. I left the hotel and decided to grab a coffee so I went to the local shop next to the hotel. I ordered the Iced Coffee because I loves me the Iced Coffee. I was NOT expecting the Spanish Inquisition! They grab a plastic cup, they walk over to the freezer and scoop out Vanilla Ice Cream, then they pour milk in and then hot espresso, after the espresso they put whipped cream on it (without asking) and sprinkled coffee powder on top of the whipped cream! I was just standing there watching them make it dumbfounded. It was ok but it was not what I would ever consider an "Iced Coffee", I would consider it more a coffee flavored milk shake or ice cream float.
Walked to the bus and had no problem getting to work, actually got into the building a few minutes past 8:00. Class went good and by 2:30 I was ready to head back which was good because I needed to figure out the laundry thing.. OK, well, I had already figured it out at this point... The hotel wants to charge an ass-load of money to wash stuff, they wanted to charge $6 AUS per pair of underwear!! I found a drop off/pick up laundry on Cathedral street so I figured I was getting out in plenty of time to go back to the hotel, shower and drop of laundry and then call Lucy to figure out what time we were meeting. Well, my adventures in leaving work continued yesterday in real bad fashion. I got to the bus in time to get the 2:45 bus which of course didn't show up... I got on the 3ish bus and it took like 90 minutes to get into the city, at one point the driver slammed on the breaks so hard everyone in the bus went flying, I was sitting down and slid forward in my seat slamming my knee into the seat in front of me. I ended up getting off the bus before he got to Circular Quay and walked the rest of the way! Called Lucy and we decided to meet at 6:00 which left me not that much time.
I took a quick shower, packed up laundry and jetted over to the Cathedral St to drop of laundry. Dumped that and walked as quick as my lame right foot and now bruised and swollen left knee could take me across the city to meet at the movie theater. I got there with a few minutes to spare even so I went into the Albion Hotel Bar and had a glass of Beez Neez Honey Beer while waiting for Lucy. She showed up and we checked the movie times, there was nothing playing right away so we decided to go eat first. While we were looking for a place to eat we found a Cafe & Board Game place called Norita, we walked upstairs to check it out and found they only had coffee, and desserts so we moved on. We ended up eating a Spanish Tapas place and had some really good food, we had grilled bell peppers with garlic and oil, prawns in garlic butter, deep fried little fish (bait) and sausage in a wine sauce. Everything was ok, better once salted! The bait was probably the best thing we had, nice and crunchy and fishy.. The prawns were probably the only one that was "eh", I think they used frozen prawns.
After dinner we walked back to the movies and nothing was playing for hours that we wanted to see so we walked to a different movie theater which had crap playing. So, we started walking back figuring we would go see a later movie but needed to kill time. We ended up going back to Norita to get some coffee and maybe play a game. I was amazed at the selection this place had, they had simple games like Jenga and Rush Hour, they had card games like Uno and they also had hard core board games like Axis and Allies and Settlers of Catan! After much thought we ended up with Rummicube because she had never played it but likes Rummy.
We left Norita and she walked with me most of the way back to the hotel before heading home. I got back to the hotel and chatted with Ange for a few hours on the phone before bed.
----
Sorry for the long blog... But I was slacking in the updates.. I am sitting here at work, the students just finished the course so I'm going to pack it in and meet Jessie at the hotel!
---Diversion of the Day
http://xkcd.com/539/
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Thursday I decided to try the bus route to work instead of the train. The night before I found out that there was a 6:54 bus from Circular Quay that would get me to work by 8:00am. I left the hotel and decided to grab a coffee so I went to the local shop next to the hotel. I ordered the Iced Coffee because I loves me the Iced Coffee. I was NOT expecting the Spanish Inquisition! They grab a plastic cup, they walk over to the freezer and scoop out Vanilla Ice Cream, then they pour milk in and then hot espresso, after the espresso they put whipped cream on it (without asking) and sprinkled coffee powder on top of the whipped cream! I was just standing there watching them make it dumbfounded. It was ok but it was not what I would ever consider an "Iced Coffee", I would consider it more a coffee flavored milk shake or ice cream float.
Walked to the bus and had no problem getting to work, actually got into the building a few minutes past 8:00. Class went good and by 2:30 I was ready to head back which was good because I needed to figure out the laundry thing.. OK, well, I had already figured it out at this point... The hotel wants to charge an ass-load of money to wash stuff, they wanted to charge $6 AUS per pair of underwear!! I found a drop off/pick up laundry on Cathedral street so I figured I was getting out in plenty of time to go back to the hotel, shower and drop of laundry and then call Lucy to figure out what time we were meeting. Well, my adventures in leaving work continued yesterday in real bad fashion. I got to the bus in time to get the 2:45 bus which of course didn't show up... I got on the 3ish bus and it took like 90 minutes to get into the city, at one point the driver slammed on the breaks so hard everyone in the bus went flying, I was sitting down and slid forward in my seat slamming my knee into the seat in front of me. I ended up getting off the bus before he got to Circular Quay and walked the rest of the way! Called Lucy and we decided to meet at 6:00 which left me not that much time.
I took a quick shower, packed up laundry and jetted over to the Cathedral St to drop of laundry. Dumped that and walked as quick as my lame right foot and now bruised and swollen left knee could take me across the city to meet at the movie theater. I got there with a few minutes to spare even so I went into the Albion Hotel Bar and had a glass of Beez Neez Honey Beer while waiting for Lucy. She showed up and we checked the movie times, there was nothing playing right away so we decided to go eat first. While we were looking for a place to eat we found a Cafe & Board Game place called Norita, we walked upstairs to check it out and found they only had coffee, and desserts so we moved on. We ended up eating a Spanish Tapas place and had some really good food, we had grilled bell peppers with garlic and oil, prawns in garlic butter, deep fried little fish (bait) and sausage in a wine sauce. Everything was ok, better once salted! The bait was probably the best thing we had, nice and crunchy and fishy.. The prawns were probably the only one that was "eh", I think they used frozen prawns.
After dinner we walked back to the movies and nothing was playing for hours that we wanted to see so we walked to a different movie theater which had crap playing. So, we started walking back figuring we would go see a later movie but needed to kill time. We ended up going back to Norita to get some coffee and maybe play a game. I was amazed at the selection this place had, they had simple games like Jenga and Rush Hour, they had card games like Uno and they also had hard core board games like Axis and Allies and Settlers of Catan! After much thought we ended up with Rummicube because she had never played it but likes Rummy.
We left Norita and she walked with me most of the way back to the hotel before heading home. I got back to the hotel and chatted with Ange for a few hours on the phone before bed.
----
Sorry for the long blog... But I was slacking in the updates.. I am sitting here at work, the students just finished the course so I'm going to pack it in and meet Jessie at the hotel!
---Diversion of the Day
http://xkcd.com/539/
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Australia Day 4 completed and Day 5, so far..
Let me restart and recap the rest of yesterday and today.. I was re-reading the last blog and although it's a good account of my time with Lucy it's not a good telling of the rest of the day..
After Monday's adventure in getting to work I decided to get up and leave earlier. I left the hotel at 6:30ish and got as I got to the train station the train was pulling up. I jumped on to find it was a semi-express which got to me Epping in about 40 minutes. I got off the train and the bus was just pulling in! What friggin timing.. I got to work a little after 7:40 which was really ironic because the doors didn't open till 8.. /sigh
For lunch I went to (hold your surprise) a Japanese restaurant in the food court and got 6 pieces of sushi, 1 maki roll, 1 eel hand roll and a gyoza all for $17 Aus. It was very good, not as good as in Japan, but duh... Before I left I got an outside door pass so I can now get there before 8am.
Anyway, you know the rest of yesterday so onto today..
....
Left the same time today and got to work around 8:15.. That's not the annoying part, but wait.. For lunch I went over the food court and, I know, I know, I almost don't want to say but... I ate at Hungry Jacks... Ah, ha! You don't know what Hungry Jacks is!! My secret is safe... For now... :(
I got out of work real early today (2:30ish) and walked to the bus. Now, the bus said it was coming at 3:11 and it was 2:48 so I figure I'll sit and wait.. While I was waiting I saw a bus go by for Circular Quay but I figured it would be quicker to wait for the bus/train than take a bus all the way. Well, the stupid 3:11 bus ended up being a 3:26 bus and when it got the train station the next train was not for almost 20 minutes. While waiting I ended up chatting with a girl named Xai, her mom is from China but she considers herself Australian not Chinese. When the train arrived, much to my horror, it was an "every stop" train.. /sigh
Good news was that me and Xai talked on the train for about 30 minutes before she got off (the train you dirty bastards). Finally got back to the city at 4:45! Called Lucy and found that she has a basketball game tonight so had to push our date till tomorrow.. It's now almost 7:00 so I am going to head out to eat, I have no idea what or where yet. I guess I'll end up wherever my feet take me.. :D
Oh, I do know I'm going to walk up to Circular Quay and check the bus schedules to see how long it would have taken to take the stupid bus. I may do that tomorrow..
After Monday's adventure in getting to work I decided to get up and leave earlier. I left the hotel at 6:30ish and got as I got to the train station the train was pulling up. I jumped on to find it was a semi-express which got to me Epping in about 40 minutes. I got off the train and the bus was just pulling in! What friggin timing.. I got to work a little after 7:40 which was really ironic because the doors didn't open till 8.. /sigh
For lunch I went to (hold your surprise) a Japanese restaurant in the food court and got 6 pieces of sushi, 1 maki roll, 1 eel hand roll and a gyoza all for $17 Aus. It was very good, not as good as in Japan, but duh... Before I left I got an outside door pass so I can now get there before 8am.
Anyway, you know the rest of yesterday so onto today..
....
Left the same time today and got to work around 8:15.. That's not the annoying part, but wait.. For lunch I went over the food court and, I know, I know, I almost don't want to say but... I ate at Hungry Jacks... Ah, ha! You don't know what Hungry Jacks is!! My secret is safe... For now... :(
I got out of work real early today (2:30ish) and walked to the bus. Now, the bus said it was coming at 3:11 and it was 2:48 so I figure I'll sit and wait.. While I was waiting I saw a bus go by for Circular Quay but I figured it would be quicker to wait for the bus/train than take a bus all the way. Well, the stupid 3:11 bus ended up being a 3:26 bus and when it got the train station the next train was not for almost 20 minutes. While waiting I ended up chatting with a girl named Xai, her mom is from China but she considers herself Australian not Chinese. When the train arrived, much to my horror, it was an "every stop" train.. /sigh
Good news was that me and Xai talked on the train for about 30 minutes before she got off (the train you dirty bastards). Finally got back to the city at 4:45! Called Lucy and found that she has a basketball game tonight so had to push our date till tomorrow.. It's now almost 7:00 so I am going to head out to eat, I have no idea what or where yet. I guess I'll end up wherever my feet take me.. :D
Oh, I do know I'm going to walk up to Circular Quay and check the bus schedules to see how long it would have taken to take the stupid bus. I may do that tomorrow..
No Day 4 blog?
You may be wondering where the day 4 blog went.. Well, here it is on Day 5.. I was planning on writing a blog last night after work from the hotel but...
So, as you may or may not know I messaged a few girls on OKCupid before I left for Sydney. All of the ones that I messaged before I left had not logged for awhile and I was beginning to think they would not log on in time for me to hang out with them.. Anyway, yesterday morning one of them finally logged on and I ended up chatting with her a bit and then yesterday afternoon another one logged on and we ended up chatting while I watched my co-instructor teach. We had made plans to hang out tonight and I left work to head back to the hotel.
I get back to the hotel and logged on to type a blog before going to the hot tub before dinner and she was back online. She was supposed to go to help her mom last night but that fell through. Chatted for a bit more and went to meet her for dinner. Her name is Lucy, she is lucygoo on OKCupid.
We met at Thai Nesia in Darlinghurst, the restaurant is bring your own alcohol so we went to the bottle store next store and got some beer (I forget the name of it but I asked Lucy and will post it when I get the name from her). We shared sea salt & pepper barramundi and a soft shell crab dish which were both very good. After dinner we went to a pub and a had a few more drinks before she drove me back to the hotel.
We are planning to hang out again tonight.. :D
---Diversion of the Day
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/how_i_met_your_mother/community/50_reasons/index.php
So, as you may or may not know I messaged a few girls on OKCupid before I left for Sydney. All of the ones that I messaged before I left had not logged for awhile and I was beginning to think they would not log on in time for me to hang out with them.. Anyway, yesterday morning one of them finally logged on and I ended up chatting with her a bit and then yesterday afternoon another one logged on and we ended up chatting while I watched my co-instructor teach. We had made plans to hang out tonight and I left work to head back to the hotel.
I get back to the hotel and logged on to type a blog before going to the hot tub before dinner and she was back online. She was supposed to go to help her mom last night but that fell through. Chatted for a bit more and went to meet her for dinner. Her name is Lucy, she is lucygoo on OKCupid.
We met at Thai Nesia in Darlinghurst, the restaurant is bring your own alcohol so we went to the bottle store next store and got some beer (I forget the name of it but I asked Lucy and will post it when I get the name from her). We shared sea salt & pepper barramundi and a soft shell crab dish which were both very good. After dinner we went to a pub and a had a few more drinks before she drove me back to the hotel.
We are planning to hang out again tonight.. :D
---Diversion of the Day
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/how_i_met_your_mother/community/50_reasons/index.php
Monday, February 2, 2009
kangaroo!
Today was the first day of work in here in Sydney. Now normally I try to go to the office on Saturday or Sunday when I first arrive in a new place, well I didn't do that because I was too busy wandering Sydney to bother going to work. Well, that was not the best idea..
I woke up around 6am today and left around 7am figuring I had two hours to make it to work. Well, I walked to the train station got on the 7:20 train. I arrived at Epping Station at 8:15 figured I didn't have time to walk, plus my leg is sore from all the walking over the weekend, so I jumped on the bus to the industrial park. First off, the bus was flying so I couldn't read any signs of the stations we were blowing by. I remember Matt telling me that the EMC building was right by the mall/food court so when we past the mall I hit the button to get off which dropped me off a few blocks away from the mall. I ended up calling Matt because I had no idea where the building was and the directions I had suck. Matt got me to the building, go to the mall so that you are standing in front of Subway, walk across the street and walk between the Nortell building and some university housing complex. Behind the Nortell building there is another building, EMC is in there! Oh man, I'm glad Matt was available to get me there today.
I arrived with about 5 minutes to spare before 9am start time. Apparently a bunch of students must have cancelled out because there are only four this week plus another instructor who is co-teaching. The classroom has a really old PC for the instructor PC and no student PCs and/or laptops. The instructor PC is so slow that when I hit the next button on Power Point it takes a good 20-30 seconds for it to proceed, which is actually pretty funny but also pretty sad. Anyway, class went well and I was done with lecture before lunch which is normal for Monday MDS class. Went over to the mall food court to eat lunch because that's what they do here. The mall food court has an ice skating rink, I took a picture... After lunch the students did labs and I was out around 4ish. I got back to the hotel around 5:30 and relaxed a bit before heading out to eat. I went down to Darling Harbor and ate at a steakhouse called The Meat & Wine Co.
When I left the hotel I thought I was going to get a Wagyu Ribeye, but after looking over the whole menu I ended up with the Kangaroo Fillet. Kangaroo is VERY tender and tastes like a cross between Venison and Beef. It was very very good but the portion was small. Imagine you order steak tips, now take four of those tips and put it on a plate with potatoes and sauce, that was the size of the dish. Don't get me wrong, it ended up being a good size, I actually got dessert because I was still a bit hungry when done. I also had two glasses of a great Shiraz, one with dinner and one with my chocolate pistachio dessert.
Back at the hotel and getting ready for bed, I will upload pics to flickr before bed so when you read this there should be some cool day 3 pics.. :D
I woke up around 6am today and left around 7am figuring I had two hours to make it to work. Well, I walked to the train station got on the 7:20 train. I arrived at Epping Station at 8:15 figured I didn't have time to walk, plus my leg is sore from all the walking over the weekend, so I jumped on the bus to the industrial park. First off, the bus was flying so I couldn't read any signs of the stations we were blowing by. I remember Matt telling me that the EMC building was right by the mall/food court so when we past the mall I hit the button to get off which dropped me off a few blocks away from the mall. I ended up calling Matt because I had no idea where the building was and the directions I had suck. Matt got me to the building, go to the mall so that you are standing in front of Subway, walk across the street and walk between the Nortell building and some university housing complex. Behind the Nortell building there is another building, EMC is in there! Oh man, I'm glad Matt was available to get me there today.
I arrived with about 5 minutes to spare before 9am start time. Apparently a bunch of students must have cancelled out because there are only four this week plus another instructor who is co-teaching. The classroom has a really old PC for the instructor PC and no student PCs and/or laptops. The instructor PC is so slow that when I hit the next button on Power Point it takes a good 20-30 seconds for it to proceed, which is actually pretty funny but also pretty sad. Anyway, class went well and I was done with lecture before lunch which is normal for Monday MDS class. Went over to the mall food court to eat lunch because that's what they do here. The mall food court has an ice skating rink, I took a picture... After lunch the students did labs and I was out around 4ish. I got back to the hotel around 5:30 and relaxed a bit before heading out to eat. I went down to Darling Harbor and ate at a steakhouse called The Meat & Wine Co.
When I left the hotel I thought I was going to get a Wagyu Ribeye, but after looking over the whole menu I ended up with the Kangaroo Fillet. Kangaroo is VERY tender and tastes like a cross between Venison and Beef. It was very very good but the portion was small. Imagine you order steak tips, now take four of those tips and put it on a plate with potatoes and sauce, that was the size of the dish. Don't get me wrong, it ended up being a good size, I actually got dessert because I was still a bit hungry when done. I also had two glasses of a great Shiraz, one with dinner and one with my chocolate pistachio dessert.
Back at the hotel and getting ready for bed, I will upload pics to flickr before bed so when you read this there should be some cool day 3 pics.. :D
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Chinese New Year!!!
So, my friends who live in NYC tell me you would have to be a fool to go near Times Square on NYE, well shit! Apparently don't try to go anywhere in Sydney on the Chinese New Year! Now I know what you're going to say, Chinese New Year was Jan 26th right? First of all, you didn't know that.. Almost no American knows that.. Secondly, sure it was Jan 26th (I just looked it up) but apparently today is when the celebrate it in Australia. They closed off Pitt, George and Castlereagh between Bathurst and I don't know where, and the areas that people could walk in were friggin packed. People were buying things called "peek-a-view" which were mirrors in a long triangle shape so you could hold it up and look over everyone's head.
It wasn't all bad of course.. I got to see a lot of the floats and people standing around getting ready to start the parade which was very cool. I decided not to ask the guy at the hotel about steak houses because I wasn't sure anymore if that's what I wanted so I decided to wander. I walked all the way down Castlereagh (when it was open) to it's end and then walked down Broadway figuring I would certainly find something to eat on Broadway.. I know when you hear Broadway you immediately think of NYC and the gloriousness that is Broadway, but here Broadway means just that, it's a broad way.. There were no restaurants or theater houses on Broadway.. /sigh
I decided to walk back up George because there was a place I had remembered seeing the other day that looked interesting but I couldn't get there because I hit a wall of people and a closed street! OK, over to Pitt because I know there are plenty of good restaurants on that street, closed! Oh crap, now what? I could go over to Castlereagh and head up to where the block stops and then head back to Pitt to see if I could still hit one of the restaurants. Denied, Castlereagh was also closed! Well fuck.. Over another street to Elizabeth and up that? Elizabeth was open but also dead (hold your snide comments about Elizabeth being open and/or dead). I walked up Elizabeth (again hold your comments, I don't want to hear anything about "Cavernous" or "roomy") to the St. James train station and jumped the train to Circular Quay. The train station at St. James was empty, I mean zero people, I took a picture..
Anyway got out at Circular Quay and ate at City Extra which is a 24 hour dinner type place. I had fish and chips and a James Squire Amber Ale, that James Squire makes some good beer. The fish and chips were available in two sizes, I got the small which was four little pieces (about the size of a buffalo wing at the Courthouse) and a small amount of fries which was just the right size. Sitting there eating my fish and chips overlooking the harbor and Opera House I was reminded how much I love British colonies. You know everyone gives Dianne crap for being a, I forget the word for it, fan of Britain but she is right. I love my time in London and I love Singapore and Australia for their British influence, and no it's not because women with British accents are hot. Speaking of hot, I miss my women back home...
Back at the hotel hanging out with my good buddy James Squire.. Got another Amber Ale at the bar downstairs and am drinking this while typing this blog.
Well, it's time I made like a record and got out of here.. Till next time... :D
----
Oh, one more thing.. I just did spell check and realized I wanted to say something else and instead of inserting it where it makes sense in the narrative I figure I'll throw it at the end.. They had that big TV running at Circular Quay with tons of people sitting and watching the Australian Open outside on the make shift stands. If you don't know what I'm talking about I posted a pic on flickr yesterday of a section of stands in the street, that was set up so that people could sit outside and watch the Open on a big-ass TV. It was kinda cool to see that many people watching an event like that on TV in the cool night air.. OK, I say cool but it was like 70 which is cool for here considering it was like 90 during the day today..
It wasn't all bad of course.. I got to see a lot of the floats and people standing around getting ready to start the parade which was very cool. I decided not to ask the guy at the hotel about steak houses because I wasn't sure anymore if that's what I wanted so I decided to wander. I walked all the way down Castlereagh (when it was open) to it's end and then walked down Broadway figuring I would certainly find something to eat on Broadway.. I know when you hear Broadway you immediately think of NYC and the gloriousness that is Broadway, but here Broadway means just that, it's a broad way.. There were no restaurants or theater houses on Broadway.. /sigh
I decided to walk back up George because there was a place I had remembered seeing the other day that looked interesting but I couldn't get there because I hit a wall of people and a closed street! OK, over to Pitt because I know there are plenty of good restaurants on that street, closed! Oh crap, now what? I could go over to Castlereagh and head up to where the block stops and then head back to Pitt to see if I could still hit one of the restaurants. Denied, Castlereagh was also closed! Well fuck.. Over another street to Elizabeth and up that? Elizabeth was open but also dead (hold your snide comments about Elizabeth being open and/or dead). I walked up Elizabeth (again hold your comments, I don't want to hear anything about "Cavernous" or "roomy") to the St. James train station and jumped the train to Circular Quay. The train station at St. James was empty, I mean zero people, I took a picture..
Anyway got out at Circular Quay and ate at City Extra which is a 24 hour dinner type place. I had fish and chips and a James Squire Amber Ale, that James Squire makes some good beer. The fish and chips were available in two sizes, I got the small which was four little pieces (about the size of a buffalo wing at the Courthouse) and a small amount of fries which was just the right size. Sitting there eating my fish and chips overlooking the harbor and Opera House I was reminded how much I love British colonies. You know everyone gives Dianne crap for being a, I forget the word for it, fan of Britain but she is right. I love my time in London and I love Singapore and Australia for their British influence, and no it's not because women with British accents are hot. Speaking of hot, I miss my women back home...
Back at the hotel hanging out with my good buddy James Squire.. Got another Amber Ale at the bar downstairs and am drinking this while typing this blog.
Well, it's time I made like a record and got out of here.. Till next time... :D
----
Oh, one more thing.. I just did spell check and realized I wanted to say something else and instead of inserting it where it makes sense in the narrative I figure I'll throw it at the end.. They had that big TV running at Circular Quay with tons of people sitting and watching the Australian Open outside on the make shift stands. If you don't know what I'm talking about I posted a pic on flickr yesterday of a section of stands in the street, that was set up so that people could sit outside and watch the Open on a big-ass TV. It was kinda cool to see that many people watching an event like that on TV in the cool night air.. OK, I say cool but it was like 70 which is cool for here considering it was like 90 during the day today..
Get Shoes (check)
I left this morning with one task.. Get new sneakers and maybe new sandals.. Well, I didn't get either sneakers or sandals but what I got are even better!
I left the hotel around noon so I decided some lunch was in order before I did anything else. What did I eat you ask? Movenpick ice cream! That's it you ask? No sir, I had a lactaid.. :P
Ok, so seriously.. I left and as you know I can never walk down the same street twice so I headed a different way to the shopping area on Pitt St. Now I know what you're thinking, if the hotel and the shopping area are both on Pitt St why didn't you just walk down Pitt St.. Well... Because I don't like to walk down the same street twice, that's why they call it exploring.. Anyway, so I decided to walk over a few streets before walking down and I saw this amazing castle looking thing in the distance so I walked over to that, it turns out it's the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.. Well, I'll be.. Anyway, so right next to the SCoM is the Royal Botanic Gardens which is free and very beautiful (pictures up on Flickr).. Speaking of pictures, so I got real creative with my camera phone today, I saw this really cool fountain that I wanted a picture of me at so I found a park bench and propped my camera on the top of the park bench using bark I found on the ground to wedge it into place so that the fountain was in view, set the timer and ran over to the fountain. I was amazed at how good it came out on the first shot. I ended up carrying around that bark for most of the day in case I found another use for it but I didn't.
By the way.. Wearing my sandals was a A+ idea, I was actually walking my normal speed today for the first time since surgery! There was no pressure on the blister because the sides of the sandals are open and the Achilles was not being bothered because of the way the strap sits on my leg does not touch either cut. To think I almost didn't bring them this trip. So, I'm not getting rid of those, I'm going to have someone redo the insides so I can wear them barefoot again. In the meantime I just have to get over my Cliff Claven picture.. I mention this now because it was when I was leaving the Gardens that I came to the realization that I was walking my normal speed and had no pain.
So, after the Gardens I walked down to Pitt St so that I would arrive at the beginning of the shopping district. The first store I went into was a outdoors type of store sorta like an EMS, I tried on a few sneakers and nothing was playing nice with my Achilles, she recommended I go over to Kent St by Town Hall because there are a few more outdoors stores over there that carry a few other brands. Well, Kent St would be next, after I Pitt St that is. So on I go into store after store after store looking at bunches of shitty sneakers. I went into this one mall and almost got lost, you go in at street level and go downstairs under the buildings like in Singapore and Montreal and just like there it's multiple malls combined with different directories. I did find a LUSH in that mall which was cool, it made me smile.. I've now seen LUSH in Canada, USA, England, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Singapore and Australia! Anyway, I ended up leaving the mall on George St because I got turned around inside the mall. I walked back to Pitt and continued my journey looking in store after store after store.. I got all the way to the end of Pitt St which by the way is far past the end of the official shopping area before heading over to Kent with my heart full of hopelessness.
I got to Kent and found the stores the lady was talking about, I went into the first one and BAM I found the best shoes ever! I'm not kidding either, these things friggin rock. They have an outer rubber part which comes off so when your shoes are all muddy and snowy you can take the rubber off and walk around inside without having to take the whole shoe off. The back is very low so it does not touch either cut so my Achilles is fine as well. They are made by Patagonia and called Toast & Jam, that link will bring you to them on Onlineshoes.com. I got the Velvet Brown color so I can wear them as work shoes as well. I left that store and continued to walk up Kent St back to Circular Quay before heading back here to type this blog and upload new pics.
It's about 5:30, I think I'm feeling steak tonight.. I'll keep you posted so until then, what.. You know maybe I need like a tag line.. Like "live long and prosper" but cooler, you know that way I can say till then "..."! Seriously I think that would be cool, post your ideas and we will see...
Sorry for no diversions of the day, I have not had time to "play" on the internet and find anything although Lynz did send me this really cool video of Obama slamming the heads of companies for giving themselves bonuses! Crap, where was that link...
OK, here it is.. Thanks to Google Chat log files..
---Diversion of the Day
I left the hotel around noon so I decided some lunch was in order before I did anything else. What did I eat you ask? Movenpick ice cream! That's it you ask? No sir, I had a lactaid.. :P
Ok, so seriously.. I left and as you know I can never walk down the same street twice so I headed a different way to the shopping area on Pitt St. Now I know what you're thinking, if the hotel and the shopping area are both on Pitt St why didn't you just walk down Pitt St.. Well... Because I don't like to walk down the same street twice, that's why they call it exploring.. Anyway, so I decided to walk over a few streets before walking down and I saw this amazing castle looking thing in the distance so I walked over to that, it turns out it's the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.. Well, I'll be.. Anyway, so right next to the SCoM is the Royal Botanic Gardens which is free and very beautiful (pictures up on Flickr).. Speaking of pictures, so I got real creative with my camera phone today, I saw this really cool fountain that I wanted a picture of me at so I found a park bench and propped my camera on the top of the park bench using bark I found on the ground to wedge it into place so that the fountain was in view, set the timer and ran over to the fountain. I was amazed at how good it came out on the first shot. I ended up carrying around that bark for most of the day in case I found another use for it but I didn't.
By the way.. Wearing my sandals was a A+ idea, I was actually walking my normal speed today for the first time since surgery! There was no pressure on the blister because the sides of the sandals are open and the Achilles was not being bothered because of the way the strap sits on my leg does not touch either cut. To think I almost didn't bring them this trip. So, I'm not getting rid of those, I'm going to have someone redo the insides so I can wear them barefoot again. In the meantime I just have to get over my Cliff Claven picture.. I mention this now because it was when I was leaving the Gardens that I came to the realization that I was walking my normal speed and had no pain.
So, after the Gardens I walked down to Pitt St so that I would arrive at the beginning of the shopping district. The first store I went into was a outdoors type of store sorta like an EMS, I tried on a few sneakers and nothing was playing nice with my Achilles, she recommended I go over to Kent St by Town Hall because there are a few more outdoors stores over there that carry a few other brands. Well, Kent St would be next, after I Pitt St that is. So on I go into store after store after store looking at bunches of shitty sneakers. I went into this one mall and almost got lost, you go in at street level and go downstairs under the buildings like in Singapore and Montreal and just like there it's multiple malls combined with different directories. I did find a LUSH in that mall which was cool, it made me smile.. I've now seen LUSH in Canada, USA, England, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Singapore and Australia! Anyway, I ended up leaving the mall on George St because I got turned around inside the mall. I walked back to Pitt and continued my journey looking in store after store after store.. I got all the way to the end of Pitt St which by the way is far past the end of the official shopping area before heading over to Kent with my heart full of hopelessness.
I got to Kent and found the stores the lady was talking about, I went into the first one and BAM I found the best shoes ever! I'm not kidding either, these things friggin rock. They have an outer rubber part which comes off so when your shoes are all muddy and snowy you can take the rubber off and walk around inside without having to take the whole shoe off. The back is very low so it does not touch either cut so my Achilles is fine as well. They are made by Patagonia and called Toast & Jam, that link will bring you to them on Onlineshoes.com. I got the Velvet Brown color so I can wear them as work shoes as well. I left that store and continued to walk up Kent St back to Circular Quay before heading back here to type this blog and upload new pics.
It's about 5:30, I think I'm feeling steak tonight.. I'll keep you posted so until then, what.. You know maybe I need like a tag line.. Like "live long and prosper" but cooler, you know that way I can say till then "..."! Seriously I think that would be cool, post your ideas and we will see...
Sorry for no diversions of the day, I have not had time to "play" on the internet and find anything although Lynz did send me this really cool video of Obama slamming the heads of companies for giving themselves bonuses! Crap, where was that link...
OK, here it is.. Thanks to Google Chat log files..
---Diversion of the Day
It's legal to drink at 15!?
I just went up to the executive level for breakfast and while there I was reading a newspaper article on drinking. They just did a report here that says one or two drinks in a night can actually be good for you but to make sure you stop at four. I guess that's not so weird, what is weird about it is that in the article they recommend that people approaching the legal drinking age should not have more than one drink a night. I found it odd that they listed that in there and reading on further I found out that in Australia the drinking age is 18, ok no problem right, and that people aged 15 - 17 are allowed to drink under parental supervision. I guess they figure that if they have two years of drinking under supervision they will be more responsible when they are allowed to drink at 18..
----
Last night I walked down Pitt st to find something to eat, I was surprised to find most of the retail stores closed at 7pm. I don't know why that surprises me since most Ireland and Germany were the same way. Anyway, I ended up looking at bunch of different places till I saw the menu of Edinburgh Castle which had prawn and calamari risotto. Feeling in a seafood mood I went inside, I know when am I not in a seafood kinda mood. Anyway, in this place you go up to the bar and order your food/drinks, they give you a table marker and your drinks and the guy brings the food over. I had a Blonde ale and it was very American-ish which was sorta disappointing. The food however was great, took a picture but it was too dark to see so I didn't post it. Speaking of pictures, I did some work on my Flickr site last night to include the Sydney pictures. What I had to do was create a new 2009 Collection and then in there put the previous 2009 collection, now named 2009 Monthly and the Sydney Collection into it. Inside the Sydney Collection I have a set for each day. To keep things consistent I did the same thing with the 2008 Collection so that Japan is now under 2008 and I have a Monthly Collection for 2008 as well.
Back to the restaurant.. They had techno music playing and had Cricket on the TV which was really cool, apparently the Australian National team is away right now but they return home on next Sunday for a day/night match. I am really interested in going but the tickets are $85 a seat and I don't really think Jessie would want to sit in a Cricket Pitch all day. I'm going to see if there are any local teams I can go see today, but at least I got to see some on TV last night if nothing else. It's not as boring as everyone made it out to be but then again that was watching one hour while eating and not watching an entire day long match.
----
I've never had a blister on my foot and let me tell you it really really sucks! Especially since it's on my right foot which is already a problem since it's still stiff and the muscles are not back to full strength yet. I guess it's probably because I have not done this much walking on that foot since November but I think a big part of it is these sneakers which are not the most comfortable things to wear. When I got them a few years ago they were very comfortable but since I've been visiting the foot doctor they have not been, they didn't work well with the inserts that I had to wear and they certainly don't work well now. The back of them rubs against the lower cut and creates aggravation there, because of that I am walking odd in them. Now that I have a blister wearing them is nothing but annoying. What else did I bring? My work shoes which are ok, they also rub a little against the cuts but not as much as the sneakers and my really old sandals. I wore my sandals to the pool yesterday and that was actually comfortable but the part flat part your foot sits on is all ripped up so they will not be comfortable to wear for an extended period of time, plus I won't wear my sandals with socks and with my blister and cuts I think it's important for me to wear socks. Plan for today is to look for new sneakers and maybe new sandals.
I just tried on my sandals with Thorlos and they are the most comfortable of the three pairs of shoes I have, the work shoes are a close second and the sneakers are really not comfortable at all. I guess I will wear sandals and socks, at least the socks are green so it's not too bad. I just have visions of Cliff Claven walking around in sandals and white socks to shake out of my head and maybe I'll get over sandals and socks. I can't wear them without socks because of the bottom part being all ripped up. I don't know if I'm describing the ripped up part correctly, I just took a picture to show you what I mean.
----
Last night I walked down Pitt st to find something to eat, I was surprised to find most of the retail stores closed at 7pm. I don't know why that surprises me since most Ireland and Germany were the same way. Anyway, I ended up looking at bunch of different places till I saw the menu of Edinburgh Castle which had prawn and calamari risotto. Feeling in a seafood mood I went inside, I know when am I not in a seafood kinda mood. Anyway, in this place you go up to the bar and order your food/drinks, they give you a table marker and your drinks and the guy brings the food over. I had a Blonde ale and it was very American-ish which was sorta disappointing. The food however was great, took a picture but it was too dark to see so I didn't post it. Speaking of pictures, I did some work on my Flickr site last night to include the Sydney pictures. What I had to do was create a new 2009 Collection and then in there put the previous 2009 collection, now named 2009 Monthly and the Sydney Collection into it. Inside the Sydney Collection I have a set for each day. To keep things consistent I did the same thing with the 2008 Collection so that Japan is now under 2008 and I have a Monthly Collection for 2008 as well.
Back to the restaurant.. They had techno music playing and had Cricket on the TV which was really cool, apparently the Australian National team is away right now but they return home on next Sunday for a day/night match. I am really interested in going but the tickets are $85 a seat and I don't really think Jessie would want to sit in a Cricket Pitch all day. I'm going to see if there are any local teams I can go see today, but at least I got to see some on TV last night if nothing else. It's not as boring as everyone made it out to be but then again that was watching one hour while eating and not watching an entire day long match.
----
I've never had a blister on my foot and let me tell you it really really sucks! Especially since it's on my right foot which is already a problem since it's still stiff and the muscles are not back to full strength yet. I guess it's probably because I have not done this much walking on that foot since November but I think a big part of it is these sneakers which are not the most comfortable things to wear. When I got them a few years ago they were very comfortable but since I've been visiting the foot doctor they have not been, they didn't work well with the inserts that I had to wear and they certainly don't work well now. The back of them rubs against the lower cut and creates aggravation there, because of that I am walking odd in them. Now that I have a blister wearing them is nothing but annoying. What else did I bring? My work shoes which are ok, they also rub a little against the cuts but not as much as the sneakers and my really old sandals. I wore my sandals to the pool yesterday and that was actually comfortable but the part flat part your foot sits on is all ripped up so they will not be comfortable to wear for an extended period of time, plus I won't wear my sandals with socks and with my blister and cuts I think it's important for me to wear socks. Plan for today is to look for new sneakers and maybe new sandals.
I just tried on my sandals with Thorlos and they are the most comfortable of the three pairs of shoes I have, the work shoes are a close second and the sneakers are really not comfortable at all. I guess I will wear sandals and socks, at least the socks are green so it's not too bad. I just have visions of Cliff Claven walking around in sandals and white socks to shake out of my head and maybe I'll get over sandals and socks. I can't wear them without socks because of the bottom part being all ripped up. I don't know if I'm describing the ripped up part correctly, I just took a picture to show you what I mean.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Landed in Sydney!
I am sitting on the flight from LA to Sydney and can't sleep.. I slept for a while but now I'm wide awake, got a Golden Ale from James Squire to try and put me back to sleep.. James Squire's Golden Ale is a beer that was made specifically for Quantas airlines, one of the big things that people don't realize about airline food/drink is that your taste buds are less active at high altitudes. With that in mind James Squire developed this beer, I bet it tastes horrible on the ground, but on the plane it tastes really good.
Speaking of tasting really good, Jessie had signed me up for the Vegetarian meal which meant two things. One - I got my food before everyone else! Two - I got a Indian style tofu/rice dish which was amazing. The girl next to me got the chicken dish and it looked ok. Speaking of the girl next to me.. I was in the LA airport waiting for the flight and I ended up chatting with a girl also waiting for the flight, we were talking about the ridiculousness of the LA airport when I saw her ticket was the seat next to mine. She lives north of Boston and is studying for her masters degree in Sydney and is going back for her second year. She is very cute but has a boyfriend in Sydney that she is pretty serious about. As I type this she is reading the 2nd book in the Twilight series, I might give book two a shot depending on the Audible play lists..
Let me back up to the first flight.. I got on the flight from Boston to LA and there was a seat empty in my aisle, it stayed empty till the last person got on the flight.. Now, my first thought was crap now I'm in a full row but when the lady sat down I was very happy to have her next to me. She was probably in her late 50s or early 60s but she looked like she was in her 40s at most, she works as a nurse for a cosmetic surgeon. We had a very long talk about people with body images and how sad it is that so many of these women come in and keep getting bigger boobs, flatter stomachs, etc. She was on her way to LA to meet her daughter who works teaching classes world wide, her daughter was coming from Texas and they were going together to Australia. They were flying to Melborne for the first week and Sydney for the second week before flying home. It would be really funny if we were on the same flights home. I have never had a problem with my ears on a plane before today, I had taken a decongestant before boarding but I didn't take one on the way down, in retrospect I really should have. Old plane + head cold = ears that won't pop. I took the decongestant when I landed but my ears are still not fully popped. I have one more decongestant which I'm going to take an hour before we land in Sydney.
Now to LA.. Land in the airport terminal and there is a shuttle bus to a secondary terminal for the Quantas flights. I went to get on the bus and they told me that if I wanted to eat or shop I should stay in the main terminal since there was nothing in the secondary one. I got a cookie and some water, looked at the shops and got bored so I jumped on the bus. Speaking of food, I ate sushi and miso soup in Logan airport which was real good, but real expensive. When I got over to the other terminal it was a dump, there was a few terminal desks and doors which led to buses! When they board the plane they have you check in a desk, go outside and get on a bus, then they drive you to the plane and have you get off the bus and walk on the plane.
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Landed in Sydney around 8am local time which I guess makes it a 16 hour time difference! It's 4:30pm now and 12:30am for you east coasters. Took the train from the airport to Circular Quay which is pronounced Circular Key. Walked the few blocks to the hotel and checked in and changed before getting changed and heading back out. I walked down Pitt St and saw all kinds of stores which will be fun once I'm in shopping mode, I walked across Cockle Bay and all around Darling Harbour which has the IMAX and the Aquarium. Walked back over the Harborside Bridge which is a walking bridge across the bay and back up the Circular Quay area which has the Ice Bar and the Opera House. Why in the world would I want to go into the Ice Bar? You pay for 30 minutes in the bar and it's basically like sitting outside back home!
First let me tell you that I felt like shit on the whole plane ride, I was constantly blowing my nose and drinking Gypsy Cold Care Tea and EmergenC. Once I got into the sunshine and heat I felt 100% better, after walking around for hours however my right foot is killing me which is why I'm back at the hotel. Plan for tonight is to soak my feet in the hot tub and then go back down Pitts St and find something good for dinner. For lunch I grabbed a Lamb Souvlaki wrap from a stand on the street. I found but didn't eat Movenpick ice cream, I didn't feel like ice cream since I was enjoying the heat but will most likely eat some tomorrow since it's close to the hotel.
That's all for now, I will probably post again before bed or at the latest in the morning to tell of my dinner experience. By the way, my stupid left ear is still not popped!
Speaking of tasting really good, Jessie had signed me up for the Vegetarian meal which meant two things. One - I got my food before everyone else! Two - I got a Indian style tofu/rice dish which was amazing. The girl next to me got the chicken dish and it looked ok. Speaking of the girl next to me.. I was in the LA airport waiting for the flight and I ended up chatting with a girl also waiting for the flight, we were talking about the ridiculousness of the LA airport when I saw her ticket was the seat next to mine. She lives north of Boston and is studying for her masters degree in Sydney and is going back for her second year. She is very cute but has a boyfriend in Sydney that she is pretty serious about. As I type this she is reading the 2nd book in the Twilight series, I might give book two a shot depending on the Audible play lists..
Let me back up to the first flight.. I got on the flight from Boston to LA and there was a seat empty in my aisle, it stayed empty till the last person got on the flight.. Now, my first thought was crap now I'm in a full row but when the lady sat down I was very happy to have her next to me. She was probably in her late 50s or early 60s but she looked like she was in her 40s at most, she works as a nurse for a cosmetic surgeon. We had a very long talk about people with body images and how sad it is that so many of these women come in and keep getting bigger boobs, flatter stomachs, etc. She was on her way to LA to meet her daughter who works teaching classes world wide, her daughter was coming from Texas and they were going together to Australia. They were flying to Melborne for the first week and Sydney for the second week before flying home. It would be really funny if we were on the same flights home. I have never had a problem with my ears on a plane before today, I had taken a decongestant before boarding but I didn't take one on the way down, in retrospect I really should have. Old plane + head cold = ears that won't pop. I took the decongestant when I landed but my ears are still not fully popped. I have one more decongestant which I'm going to take an hour before we land in Sydney.
Now to LA.. Land in the airport terminal and there is a shuttle bus to a secondary terminal for the Quantas flights. I went to get on the bus and they told me that if I wanted to eat or shop I should stay in the main terminal since there was nothing in the secondary one. I got a cookie and some water, looked at the shops and got bored so I jumped on the bus. Speaking of food, I ate sushi and miso soup in Logan airport which was real good, but real expensive. When I got over to the other terminal it was a dump, there was a few terminal desks and doors which led to buses! When they board the plane they have you check in a desk, go outside and get on a bus, then they drive you to the plane and have you get off the bus and walk on the plane.
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Landed in Sydney around 8am local time which I guess makes it a 16 hour time difference! It's 4:30pm now and 12:30am for you east coasters. Took the train from the airport to Circular Quay which is pronounced Circular Key. Walked the few blocks to the hotel and checked in and changed before getting changed and heading back out. I walked down Pitt St and saw all kinds of stores which will be fun once I'm in shopping mode, I walked across Cockle Bay and all around Darling Harbour which has the IMAX and the Aquarium. Walked back over the Harborside Bridge which is a walking bridge across the bay and back up the Circular Quay area which has the Ice Bar and the Opera House. Why in the world would I want to go into the Ice Bar? You pay for 30 minutes in the bar and it's basically like sitting outside back home!
First let me tell you that I felt like shit on the whole plane ride, I was constantly blowing my nose and drinking Gypsy Cold Care Tea and EmergenC. Once I got into the sunshine and heat I felt 100% better, after walking around for hours however my right foot is killing me which is why I'm back at the hotel. Plan for tonight is to soak my feet in the hot tub and then go back down Pitts St and find something good for dinner. For lunch I grabbed a Lamb Souvlaki wrap from a stand on the street. I found but didn't eat Movenpick ice cream, I didn't feel like ice cream since I was enjoying the heat but will most likely eat some tomorrow since it's close to the hotel.
That's all for now, I will probably post again before bed or at the latest in the morning to tell of my dinner experience. By the way, my stupid left ear is still not popped!
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Next stop Australia...
Just finished packing to head to Australia.. Going to load up the car, have breakfast with Lynz and get out of dodge.. Problem is that I've had this stupid sinus head cold since Monday night and I can't seem to shake it. Lets take the pressure I already have in my head and add to it the pressure of being in a plane for almost 24 hours.. /sigh
It will be worth it when I land in 80+ degree weather though. At least that's what I have to keep telling myself.
Tuesday night for dinner I made a pineapple honey teriyaki chicken dish with cherries, broccoli and peppers over rice. It was tasty..
Recipe:
Sauce:
one bottle gluten free soy sauce
two table spoons of honey
one half an onion
four pieces of garlic
get a bottle of cherries and pour one half the juice into the sauce along with 4-5 cherries
about 1/4 of a pineapple
puree in a food processor and pour over the chicken for the night.
Cooking:
2 cups rice in rice cooker with half the 9-10 cherries and about the same amount of pineapple cut up into small pieces.
steam broccoli till tender
cook chicken in sauce in wok
when chicken is done use a slotted spoon to take chicken out
put 2 bell peppers (cut into large pieces) in and cook them just enough so they get soft
take them out with the slotted spoon and put in the broccoli so that it can soak up the flavor.
dump everything in with the rice and stir.. Throw out the extra sauce.
That's all for this hemisphere.. Oh, remember that Australia is 14 hours ahead.. It costs me .23 a minute to receive calls, .25 for each text received and .20 for each text sent.
It will be worth it when I land in 80+ degree weather though. At least that's what I have to keep telling myself.
Tuesday night for dinner I made a pineapple honey teriyaki chicken dish with cherries, broccoli and peppers over rice. It was tasty..
Recipe:
Sauce:
one bottle gluten free soy sauce
two table spoons of honey
one half an onion
four pieces of garlic
get a bottle of cherries and pour one half the juice into the sauce along with 4-5 cherries
about 1/4 of a pineapple
puree in a food processor and pour over the chicken for the night.
Cooking:
2 cups rice in rice cooker with half the 9-10 cherries and about the same amount of pineapple cut up into small pieces.
steam broccoli till tender
cook chicken in sauce in wok
when chicken is done use a slotted spoon to take chicken out
put 2 bell peppers (cut into large pieces) in and cook them just enough so they get soft
take them out with the slotted spoon and put in the broccoli so that it can soak up the flavor.
dump everything in with the rice and stir.. Throw out the extra sauce.
That's all for this hemisphere.. Oh, remember that Australia is 14 hours ahead.. It costs me .23 a minute to receive calls, .25 for each text received and .20 for each text sent.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
I will not take these things..
Jessie just got her tickets to Australia, we are actually flying back on the same flight which is really cool, she even got the seat next to me.. :D
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Is ESPN kidding with their articles? I am sick and tired of that website/network commending the Yankees for spending hundreds of millions!!!!! AARGGHHH!!
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Last night I went to the People's Pint again with Kaitlyn. We got there and the place was packed so we asked if they had live music and as it turns out they were having an "old time session" night starting at 8:30. What that means is that people from all over the area come to the bar with their instruments and jam/play old time songs, if you've read my Ireland blogs you will remember that type of thing is big in Ireland and it's awesome to have a place to go nearby that does the same things. Last night there were a few fiddle players, a banjo, a washtub bass and a few other instruments as the night went on. I had a steak salad which came with a sesame dressing that reminded me very much of Anne's Shitake Sesame dressing. We had chips and salsa and Kaitlyn had a burrito, apparently she is a big fan of spicy because she dumped a ton of this really, really hot sauce they called Rooster Sauce which tasted really good but jeez it was HOT! She said it's a similar sauce to this stuff. I had one bite of her burrito and my nose started to run it was so hot, it's a good thing I had good beer to kill at least some of the spice.
Speaking of good beer.. After dinner it was snowing again so we went driving around on back roads while listening to music, talking and drinking Slippery Slope beer, I didn't drink much of it since I was driving.. After the drive we went up and hung out in her room for a bit before I headed home.. So I am a big believer in the idea that everyone's stories are what makes them who they are, last night while hanging out I found Kaitlyn's coaster collection and we spent a bunch of time going through each one and the story associated with it. Did I mention lately how much I love my life.. :D
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Today was the 2009 Northeast International Auto Show in Providence.. Lame, lame, lame! So, I get out of work and drove all the way there to find basically a big sales floor. Every car manufacturer was there and they each had all of their current cars on display. They didn't have any cool concept cars or even upcoming 2010 models. You would have seen just as much if not more if you went into their individual dealers showrooms. The only semi-interesting was the stuck up rich bitch who jumped into the Black GMC Yukon Hybrid and proclaimed "this is my car", when her friend questioned if her mom would get it for her she replied something like "she told me I'm not allowed to spend more than $40,000 on a car today but this is the car I want", ugh! Speaking of a Hybrid Yukon, guess how many miles per gallon it gets? 20! That's right, it's a hybrid that gets 20 miles to the gallon! I really wonder why the American car companies are surprised nobody is buying the shit they are selling...
Speaking of which, my friend sent me an email awhile ago which had a really cool picture.. I am going to post it here, the fine print is amazing.. :D
Lynz and Anja came over tonight, we got some Chinese and Anja watched Muppet Treasure Island while me and Lynz chatted. She left a little while ago so I'm here at the blogging machine typing this stuff up before bed. Ok, well I started typing it while she was putting Anja to bed. Dani called while they were here and is apparently really sick so I will be running logistics this month which is just as good since I will still need to take it easy on my foot. Speaking of Laire.. Kevin will be coming down with me to NPC this month, hopefully this will become more of a regular occurrence.
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My friend Chris sent me a email the other day with some cool facts about Orange County NY.. Here are some of the more interesting ones:
'Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese' was invented in Chester , NY (1872)
'Velveeta' cheese spread (1923) and 'Liederkranz' cheese (1882) were invented in Monroe , NY
The oldest (1839) continuously operating winery in the US is in Washingtonville , NY (The Brotherhood Winery )
The Tuxedo dinner jacket originated in Tuxedo Park
The first Registered National Historic Landmark (1850) is Washington 's Headquarters in Newburgh , NY
Bear Mountain State Park has more visitors annually than does Yellowstone National Park .
The main runway at Stewart International Airport (SWF) (formerly Stewart Air Force base) is over two miles long (11, 818 feet) and is an alternate landing site for the Space Shuttle.
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Kristen sent out a video of how to make cows jealous, I think you'll all appreciate this one..
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Speaking of risque stuff.. Carrie sent me a really cool Facebook invite.. I urge you all to join us in celebrating the end of Bush on 1-20-2009!
---Diversion of the Day
http://mchat.comicgenesis.com/d/20090107.html
btw - Check out my Flikr and Youtube if you have not recently. I uploaded a bunch of new stuff on Tuesday night.
----
Is ESPN kidding with their articles? I am sick and tired of that website/network commending the Yankees for spending hundreds of millions!!!!! AARGGHHH!!
----
Last night I went to the People's Pint again with Kaitlyn. We got there and the place was packed so we asked if they had live music and as it turns out they were having an "old time session" night starting at 8:30. What that means is that people from all over the area come to the bar with their instruments and jam/play old time songs, if you've read my Ireland blogs you will remember that type of thing is big in Ireland and it's awesome to have a place to go nearby that does the same things. Last night there were a few fiddle players, a banjo, a washtub bass and a few other instruments as the night went on. I had a steak salad which came with a sesame dressing that reminded me very much of Anne's Shitake Sesame dressing. We had chips and salsa and Kaitlyn had a burrito, apparently she is a big fan of spicy because she dumped a ton of this really, really hot sauce they called Rooster Sauce which tasted really good but jeez it was HOT! She said it's a similar sauce to this stuff. I had one bite of her burrito and my nose started to run it was so hot, it's a good thing I had good beer to kill at least some of the spice.
Speaking of good beer.. After dinner it was snowing again so we went driving around on back roads while listening to music, talking and drinking Slippery Slope beer, I didn't drink much of it since I was driving.. After the drive we went up and hung out in her room for a bit before I headed home.. So I am a big believer in the idea that everyone's stories are what makes them who they are, last night while hanging out I found Kaitlyn's coaster collection and we spent a bunch of time going through each one and the story associated with it. Did I mention lately how much I love my life.. :D
----
Today was the 2009 Northeast International Auto Show in Providence.. Lame, lame, lame! So, I get out of work and drove all the way there to find basically a big sales floor. Every car manufacturer was there and they each had all of their current cars on display. They didn't have any cool concept cars or even upcoming 2010 models. You would have seen just as much if not more if you went into their individual dealers showrooms. The only semi-interesting was the stuck up rich bitch who jumped into the Black GMC Yukon Hybrid and proclaimed "this is my car", when her friend questioned if her mom would get it for her she replied something like "she told me I'm not allowed to spend more than $40,000 on a car today but this is the car I want", ugh! Speaking of a Hybrid Yukon, guess how many miles per gallon it gets? 20! That's right, it's a hybrid that gets 20 miles to the gallon! I really wonder why the American car companies are surprised nobody is buying the shit they are selling...
Speaking of which, my friend sent me an email awhile ago which had a really cool picture.. I am going to post it here, the fine print is amazing.. :D
(the fine print says "you probably thought it was smart to buy a foreign import of superior quality with better gas mileage and resale value. Maybe you even thought that years of market share loss might prod us into rethinking our process and redesigning our products with better quality in mind. But you forgot one thing: We spend a shitload of money on lobbyists. So now you're out $25 billion, plus the cost of your Subaru. Maybe next time you'll buy American like a real man. Either way, we're cool.")----
Lynz and Anja came over tonight, we got some Chinese and Anja watched Muppet Treasure Island while me and Lynz chatted. She left a little while ago so I'm here at the blogging machine typing this stuff up before bed. Ok, well I started typing it while she was putting Anja to bed. Dani called while they were here and is apparently really sick so I will be running logistics this month which is just as good since I will still need to take it easy on my foot. Speaking of Laire.. Kevin will be coming down with me to NPC this month, hopefully this will become more of a regular occurrence.
---
My friend Chris sent me a email the other day with some cool facts about Orange County NY.. Here are some of the more interesting ones:
'Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese' was invented in Chester , NY (1872)
'Velveeta' cheese spread (1923) and 'Liederkranz' cheese (1882) were invented in Monroe , NY
The oldest (1839) continuously operating winery in the US is in Washingtonville , NY (The Brotherhood Winery )
The Tuxedo dinner jacket originated in Tuxedo Park
The first Registered National Historic Landmark (1850) is Washington 's Headquarters in Newburgh , NY
Bear Mountain State Park has more visitors annually than does Yellowstone National Park .
The main runway at Stewart International Airport (SWF) (formerly Stewart Air Force base) is over two miles long (11, 818 feet) and is an alternate landing site for the Space Shuttle.
----
Kristen sent out a video of how to make cows jealous, I think you'll all appreciate this one..
----
Speaking of risque stuff.. Carrie sent me a really cool Facebook invite.. I urge you all to join us in celebrating the end of Bush on 1-20-2009!
---Diversion of the Day
http://mchat.comicgenesis.com/d/20090107.html
btw - Check out my Flikr and Youtube if you have not recently. I uploaded a bunch of new stuff on Tuesday night.
Monday, December 15, 2008
the Fatness
So, loyal blog readers.. I am back from my Laire weekend and am sitting on the couch bed with my leg up about to watch Batman: The Dark Knight.. I'm sure you all read "Placeholder" and have been holding your breath waiting for details.. Well, never fear, in this blog you will get all that and more!
So where to start... Current events or old ones? Well, I'm all excited about current ones so I will start with one of those and then go backwards.. I got out of the shower tonight before Jessie got home and while I was using my "lushnue" my cell phone text message went off so I walked out to the phone... That's right, I walked without my crutches.. I figured that the crutches would bother my skin because of the rubber against my naked underarms so I would try to walk instead.. Well, I've been walking since, my leg is a bit sore but not in pain so I am going to continue do walk on it until/unless it starts to hurt. It is very uncomfortable to walk on because my foot is in the cast at a strange angle, but I figure that it will be good in the long run because it will help my leg to get stronger.
Well, now back to the beginning... Oh, wait... "lushnue"... Did you ever watch Family Ties? There was an episode where Alex was playing Scrabble and he used the work lushnue and they asked him what it meant and he said towel, they said use it in a sentence and he said when he gets done with his shower he uses his lushnue to dry off.. It was a pretty stupid moment in TV history, but for some reason stuck with me...
Ok, really going back to the list now... :D
The Mets built Citi-Field with the idea to lower the stadium, they built the field level at almost a movie theater angle, I don't mean a stadium seating angle, I mean a regular old movie theater angle. I would probably never buy a seat on field level because if anyone sat in front of me I would never be able to see the field. The good side is that because they did that the Excellsior level is at the altitude of the old field level/loge. The Metropolitian Box seats are at the level below the old mezinine and the Prominade runs the same alititude of the old Mezz all the way up the first row of the old Upper Deck. The Yankees built their new stadium with a bigger angle on the field and upper levels. The new Yankee stadium is just as tall as the old stadium, what they did is took the first 10 rows off the upper deck and created club boxes between the levels. I think the Mets move of lowering the stadium will get rid of the idea of "nose bleed" seats. The Yankees will still have a problem selling their upper deck seats.. Speaking of selling seats... The Yankees had most of their 2008 season tickets holders tell them to go screw themselves with their new pricing. The Mets have almost sold out their entire stadium for all Friday-Sunday games already and have not even opened up season ticket sales to the public yet.
So, onto item 3... Citi-Field food... Another thing that makes me happy about the new stadium is that the Mets have made a deal with US Food Group. They are still using Amarak for their normal concession stands but USFG is going to stock the new food areas, there are going to be a few different ones.. First is the Center Field Court which is going to be on the field level in center field, it will have a 7000 square foot Team Store and will open an extra hour or two before the game, for food it will have a Smoke Shack for ribs, a Taco stand, a Sushi stand and a bar with over 40 different beers on tap. The next one is the Sterling Club which is behind home plate on the field level, the Sterling Club is only accessable by people with seats in the field level. The next level up has the Excellsior Club which is the glass enclosed restaurant in LF. The Excellsior Club will seat 1,000 people and is only accessable by the 6,000 seat Excellsior level, my guess is that restaurant (the biggest one in the stadium) will be open to the public after the first year. The Metropolitian Club is the only one that does not have a view of the field and is only accessable from the Metroplitan sections. The Prominade Grill holds 600 people and is a glass enclosed restaurant behind home plate between the Prominade box seats and the Prominade reserve seats, that restaurant is only accessable from the Prominade sections. I talked to a lady at the Mets and she said that as long as you are eating/drinking they will not kick you out of the restaurant. USFG said that all of those restaurants (Sterling Club, Excellsior Club, Metropolitian Club and Prominade Grill) will have the same food which is awesome..
Phew this is going to be one long blog.. I only wrote about two of the things on that list... :)
I joined the Mets Club on mets.com, it gives you 15% discount at the Mets team store and the online store. It also gives you a free membership to the GameDay Audio which I buy every year anyway. The Mets Club is $19.99 and the GameDay Audio is $14.99 so for $5.00 it will give me 15% on anything I buy this year.. I should have the card in March sometime before the season starts.
I said I was going to mention "shower", but that almost seems obsolete now because of the whole walking thing, but I wanted to mention how I took a shower all by myself the other day, I did that again today so now I feel it's "old hat"...
Sara updated her OK Cupid page awhile back to include all of us in our little CT/RI community, I had been meaning to do so since then and I finally got around to it... If you have not seen it I wrote:
In contrast to those moves the Yankees signed CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett for a total of 240,000,000.. 160,000,000 for 7 years for CC Sabathia and 80,000,000 for 6 years for AJ Burnett..
The New England area got hit hard by ice storms on Thursday night/Friday morning, my brother had lost power and it just returned on Sunday night. Here in Putnam we got rain, lots and lots of rain but no power outages. I arrives at work late on Friday because my friend Jay had lost power and was late picking me up.
So, what's left on that list? TSO and Laire... oh, and Prop 8.. Well, Prop 8 will be the Diversion of the Day, so skip tha one for now...
TSO - Me and Jessie went to see TSO on Thursday night.. It was an amazing show as normal, the first half was their normal "christmas show" which was just as good as normal, it may have been better becaue they had a few new people and the show seemed to be done better this year. This year they had one more person from Savatage on the east coast tour and during the 2nd half they played two old school Savatage songs as a Criss Oliva tribute. I kinda wish one year they would swap east and west coast touring bands so that we could see the Jon Oliva tour instead of the Alex Skolnick/Chris Caffery tour. Don't get me wrong, I like those guys, but it would be nice to see the other group.
Laire was a mix of good and bad this weekend. Good because I got to roleplay/train lots of people.. Bad because they didn't name a Sherrif and I couldn't fight so I was pretty useless in the grand scheme of things. The best part of the weekend had to be Desdimona showing up on Saturday night and finding me not in the inn because I was down at the Order meeting. When I arrived back at the inn she laid into me pretty hardcore because she had gotten all dressed up for me and I wasn't even around... Like I said, really good roleplay this weekend.
Speaking of Laire, or rather the ride to Laire... Me and Amber where driving down and we came up with a great idea for a new comedy sketch, Christmas Pirates.. OK, so here's the deal.. Draw with shaving cream on your back windsheild "Merry Christmas" then get a skull and crosscanes flag and hang it from your antenna. (Crosscanes are crossed Candy Canes instead of crossed bones). OK, so now your car is ready... Next, get yourself a big pair of scissors.. Now while you're driving down the road look for those people with the big-ass trees on their cars. Drive up real close and cut the ropes holding the tree on, as the tree falls off their car down the street wave, smile and say in your cheariest voice Merry Christmas!
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Today I booked my flight to Australia.. I am flying Quantas from Boston to LAX to Sydney on January 29th and flying from Sydney to SF to Boston on Feb 13th. I will be missing the Feb Laire event but I think Australia is worth missing one month of Laire... I booked my hotel at the Harbor Marriott which is the one Matt said I should book.
Speaking of today and the blog title of "the Fatness", I went with Amber to Bills Bread and Breakfast today and got a chocolate chip and banana pancake and spread peanut butter on it to make it the most awesomist pancake ever...
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Tomorrow is communal dinner.. Matt, Sile, Kristen, Caity and Libby won't be there so it should be a smaller group. Tomorrow looks like it will be mostly fondu of various kinds but I'm making a buffalo/quinoa dish since now I can stand and cook...
Well, that's all for now.. Sorry for the book but I guess that's what happens when I don't blog for a few days... :D
btw - Dark Knight was very good, I'm shocked actually at how good it was...
---Diversion of the Day
So where to start... Current events or old ones? Well, I'm all excited about current ones so I will start with one of those and then go backwards.. I got out of the shower tonight before Jessie got home and while I was using my "lushnue" my cell phone text message went off so I walked out to the phone... That's right, I walked without my crutches.. I figured that the crutches would bother my skin because of the rubber against my naked underarms so I would try to walk instead.. Well, I've been walking since, my leg is a bit sore but not in pain so I am going to continue do walk on it until/unless it starts to hurt. It is very uncomfortable to walk on because my foot is in the cast at a strange angle, but I figure that it will be good in the long run because it will help my leg to get stronger.
Well, now back to the beginning... Oh, wait... "lushnue"... Did you ever watch Family Ties? There was an episode where Alex was playing Scrabble and he used the work lushnue and they asked him what it meant and he said towel, they said use it in a sentence and he said when he gets done with his shower he uses his lushnue to dry off.. It was a pretty stupid moment in TV history, but for some reason stuck with me...
Ok, really going back to the list now... :D
The Mets built Citi-Field with the idea to lower the stadium, they built the field level at almost a movie theater angle, I don't mean a stadium seating angle, I mean a regular old movie theater angle. I would probably never buy a seat on field level because if anyone sat in front of me I would never be able to see the field. The good side is that because they did that the Excellsior level is at the altitude of the old field level/loge. The Metropolitian Box seats are at the level below the old mezinine and the Prominade runs the same alititude of the old Mezz all the way up the first row of the old Upper Deck. The Yankees built their new stadium with a bigger angle on the field and upper levels. The new Yankee stadium is just as tall as the old stadium, what they did is took the first 10 rows off the upper deck and created club boxes between the levels. I think the Mets move of lowering the stadium will get rid of the idea of "nose bleed" seats. The Yankees will still have a problem selling their upper deck seats.. Speaking of selling seats... The Yankees had most of their 2008 season tickets holders tell them to go screw themselves with their new pricing. The Mets have almost sold out their entire stadium for all Friday-Sunday games already and have not even opened up season ticket sales to the public yet.
So, onto item 3... Citi-Field food... Another thing that makes me happy about the new stadium is that the Mets have made a deal with US Food Group. They are still using Amarak for their normal concession stands but USFG is going to stock the new food areas, there are going to be a few different ones.. First is the Center Field Court which is going to be on the field level in center field, it will have a 7000 square foot Team Store and will open an extra hour or two before the game, for food it will have a Smoke Shack for ribs, a Taco stand, a Sushi stand and a bar with over 40 different beers on tap. The next one is the Sterling Club which is behind home plate on the field level, the Sterling Club is only accessable by people with seats in the field level. The next level up has the Excellsior Club which is the glass enclosed restaurant in LF. The Excellsior Club will seat 1,000 people and is only accessable by the 6,000 seat Excellsior level, my guess is that restaurant (the biggest one in the stadium) will be open to the public after the first year. The Metropolitian Club is the only one that does not have a view of the field and is only accessable from the Metroplitan sections. The Prominade Grill holds 600 people and is a glass enclosed restaurant behind home plate between the Prominade box seats and the Prominade reserve seats, that restaurant is only accessable from the Prominade sections. I talked to a lady at the Mets and she said that as long as you are eating/drinking they will not kick you out of the restaurant. USFG said that all of those restaurants (Sterling Club, Excellsior Club, Metropolitian Club and Prominade Grill) will have the same food which is awesome..
Phew this is going to be one long blog.. I only wrote about two of the things on that list... :)
I joined the Mets Club on mets.com, it gives you 15% discount at the Mets team store and the online store. It also gives you a free membership to the GameDay Audio which I buy every year anyway. The Mets Club is $19.99 and the GameDay Audio is $14.99 so for $5.00 it will give me 15% on anything I buy this year.. I should have the card in March sometime before the season starts.
I said I was going to mention "shower", but that almost seems obsolete now because of the whole walking thing, but I wanted to mention how I took a shower all by myself the other day, I did that again today so now I feel it's "old hat"...
Sara updated her OK Cupid page awhile back to include all of us in our little CT/RI community, I had been meaning to do so since then and I finally got around to it... If you have not seen it I wrote:
"On a typical friday night, I don't really have a "typical" Friday.. Friday's are pretty crazy for me, but on a typical Tuesday night (when I'm not traveling) I go over to my friend's house for our communal dinners.. It's pretty crazy actually, we end up having about a dozen adults and six kiddies. We all get together and bring food and let the kids run wild in the livingroom while the adults have some time to catch up. It's become (and hopefully will remain) a regular event.Back to the Mets... They signed K-Rod to a 3 year 37,000,000 deal which is very good considering the contracts most MLB players get. K-Rod broke, no "crushed" the single season saves record last year with 62 saves! So, after that glorious move the Mets made one I don't get, they traded Joe Smith, Endy Chavez and Aaron Heilman in a 3-Team trade with Cleveland and Seattle for JJ Putz. Putz was a premier closer in 2006-2007 but spent most of 2008 on the DL. I guess it's a good trade as it gets rid of Heilman who asked for a trade and Chvez who is apparently a dick in the clubhouse, but it also got rid of Joe Smith is who has been our best reliever for the last two years. Joe Smith had only been in the major leagues for two years too so he really has shown that he can be the "real thing".. Since writing the list the Mets also traded Scott Schoeneweis to Arizona, Scott has been nothing but crap since we got him so I'm glad we dumped him but we got nothing in return. I really wish Joe Smith the best of luck in Cleveland and hope that Putz can return to his 2006-2007 form.
The crazier part for me, when I stop to think about it, is that aside from my wife and my friend Matt I've met all of them because of this site in the last six months.So, if you think I'm cool, and you want to hang out you may want to check out our little poly family: jlinkens52, LynzM31, thescooch, cj_jpm, wittanman, dream__brother, puzzle_lover, darksoulseeking, and yodiebabie."
In contrast to those moves the Yankees signed CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett for a total of 240,000,000.. 160,000,000 for 7 years for CC Sabathia and 80,000,000 for 6 years for AJ Burnett..
The New England area got hit hard by ice storms on Thursday night/Friday morning, my brother had lost power and it just returned on Sunday night. Here in Putnam we got rain, lots and lots of rain but no power outages. I arrives at work late on Friday because my friend Jay had lost power and was late picking me up.
So, what's left on that list? TSO and Laire... oh, and Prop 8.. Well, Prop 8 will be the Diversion of the Day, so skip tha one for now...
TSO - Me and Jessie went to see TSO on Thursday night.. It was an amazing show as normal, the first half was their normal "christmas show" which was just as good as normal, it may have been better becaue they had a few new people and the show seemed to be done better this year. This year they had one more person from Savatage on the east coast tour and during the 2nd half they played two old school Savatage songs as a Criss Oliva tribute. I kinda wish one year they would swap east and west coast touring bands so that we could see the Jon Oliva tour instead of the Alex Skolnick/Chris Caffery tour. Don't get me wrong, I like those guys, but it would be nice to see the other group.
Laire was a mix of good and bad this weekend. Good because I got to roleplay/train lots of people.. Bad because they didn't name a Sherrif and I couldn't fight so I was pretty useless in the grand scheme of things. The best part of the weekend had to be Desdimona showing up on Saturday night and finding me not in the inn because I was down at the Order meeting. When I arrived back at the inn she laid into me pretty hardcore because she had gotten all dressed up for me and I wasn't even around... Like I said, really good roleplay this weekend.
Speaking of Laire, or rather the ride to Laire... Me and Amber where driving down and we came up with a great idea for a new comedy sketch, Christmas Pirates.. OK, so here's the deal.. Draw with shaving cream on your back windsheild "Merry Christmas" then get a skull and crosscanes flag and hang it from your antenna. (Crosscanes are crossed Candy Canes instead of crossed bones). OK, so now your car is ready... Next, get yourself a big pair of scissors.. Now while you're driving down the road look for those people with the big-ass trees on their cars. Drive up real close and cut the ropes holding the tree on, as the tree falls off their car down the street wave, smile and say in your cheariest voice Merry Christmas!
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Today I booked my flight to Australia.. I am flying Quantas from Boston to LAX to Sydney on January 29th and flying from Sydney to SF to Boston on Feb 13th. I will be missing the Feb Laire event but I think Australia is worth missing one month of Laire... I booked my hotel at the Harbor Marriott which is the one Matt said I should book.
Speaking of today and the blog title of "the Fatness", I went with Amber to Bills Bread and Breakfast today and got a chocolate chip and banana pancake and spread peanut butter on it to make it the most awesomist pancake ever...
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Tomorrow is communal dinner.. Matt, Sile, Kristen, Caity and Libby won't be there so it should be a smaller group. Tomorrow looks like it will be mostly fondu of various kinds but I'm making a buffalo/quinoa dish since now I can stand and cook...
Well, that's all for now.. Sorry for the book but I guess that's what happens when I don't blog for a few days... :D
btw - Dark Knight was very good, I'm shocked actually at how good it was...
---Diversion of the Day
Monday, October 6, 2008
Cosmos Rocks, just not in October!
Remember how I said in my blog I was all excited because Queen was coming out with a new CD (Cosmos Rocks) the first week of Oct? Yeah, well... Funny thing is that I was reading that ad in a British magazine apparently.. That CD did come out in Europe this week... It does not come out here till Nov, however if you pre-order it from Queen's website you get it on Oct 28th. I did pre-order it so I guess I will wait.. Or will I... I dunno, I'm still tempted to change my iTunes address to a UK one so I can download it.. :D
I got my new iPod case a few days ago, it sucks! The click wheel does not work with the case on and the car iPod adapter won't plug into the bottom because the hole is not big enough.. Doh! I emailed the company today asking how I return it..
Next weeks Invista class was cancelled! So I am taking Monday as vacation so we can go to CT Ren Faire and working on Invista prep the rest of that week. I am having the lab cleaned up so I can work on it.
Check out Google Translator it does a pretty good job, and it will actually do entire websites..
Oh, and a musical side.. Check this out.. Giovanni Sollima!
Going to Haiku tonight for dinner with my dad and then going home to marinate steaks for tomorrow..
BIG BREAKING GREAT NEWS!!!
I should be going to Australia in January for two weeks!!!
---Thought of the Day
Read my previous blog.. :P
I got my new iPod case a few days ago, it sucks! The click wheel does not work with the case on and the car iPod adapter won't plug into the bottom because the hole is not big enough.. Doh! I emailed the company today asking how I return it..
Next weeks Invista class was cancelled! So I am taking Monday as vacation so we can go to CT Ren Faire and working on Invista prep the rest of that week. I am having the lab cleaned up so I can work on it.
Check out Google Translator it does a pretty good job, and it will actually do entire websites..
Oh, and a musical side.. Check this out.. Giovanni Sollima!
Going to Haiku tonight for dinner with my dad and then going home to marinate steaks for tomorrow..
BIG BREAKING GREAT NEWS!!!
I should be going to Australia in January for two weeks!!!
---Thought of the Day
Read my previous blog.. :P
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