So, when last we left out intrepid traveler he was in the San Jose airport about to a "new york style bagel".. I ate it on the plane from San Jose, it was ok but certainly not a "NY Style bagel".. I guess I didn't really expect it to be. The flights home were uneventful but good. Got home, hung out with Dianne, Jessie and Joe on Saturday night.
Yesterday I finally got my tattoo, after years of design and waiting I finally have it. It only took about 2 hours and was not nearly as painful as I thought it would be. Pictures on Flickr. The only part that was real painful was the top of the shoulder by the neck. After the tattoo me and Lynz went and got some dinner at the Courthouse. They were slow and I convinced the waitress to give me potato skins instead of fries! So good!
Tomorrow I have to go to the Brazilian Consulate to finally get my Brazil Visa.. I just found out I may be going to London now as well as Georgia and Brazil.. If that's the case it will be, fly out Sunday to Georgia, leave Georgia on Friday, go to Mythical Journeys Future Imperfect, fly out on Sunday to London, fly home Friday morning and go to WPA Friday night, fly to Brazil on Saturday!
Class got out before lunch, I changed into my MChat shirt and headed up to SF (that becomes important later). I got to the pier area and to the Alcatraz ticket line right before 1, but by the time I went through the ticket booth I missed the 1:10 boat so I got a ticket on the 2:20. I walked the pier for a bit while I waited and ended up eating a nasty hot dog for lunch because it was the only thing quick in the area.
The boat ride was actually quite enjoyable, I stood up on the 3rd deck in the front. At one point a group of kids were trying to get their picture taken and asked the couple standing next to me who ended up being from London. I ended up chatting with them on the boat and hanging with them a bit on Alcatraz during the Cell Block Audio Tour.
Got off the boat and walked the long way up to the Cell Block, and by long way I mean I walked all over the island before finally making my way to the Cell Block. The island is actually quite beautiful, it had a small town outside the prison that housed the guards, warden and their families. I walked by the old school, post office, shops, etc. Most of them were either ruins, rubble piles or at the very least very run down. The only thing that is in what I would think is usable condition is the actual prison.
When you enter the prison you go in as the inmates did, past the entry point and the showers before getting the audio unit and starting the tour. The audio tour was done by four former inmates and four former guards. Having them do the tour really added to the "realism" of the place, without the audio I can see some people not feeling this place could really be that bad. The cells themselves were so small I don't know if a tall person could actually lay down, there is a small cot, two metal "shelves" (one was a table, the other the chair), a toilet, a sink and two actual shelves above the sink/toilet. I took bunches of pictures and will sort through them before posting to Flickr, I hope I got some good ones but it was pretty dark in there. The audio did a good job of explaining how it felt to be there. It talked about a few escape attempts, one of them involved a prisoner making a "bar spreader" and scaling the bars to open a hole in the area where the guards had guns. It was crazy to hear about that and to have the inmates pointing to the exact bars the guy climbed, etc. The only escape that every actually worked was the one where three prisoners dug out a passage using spoons, the guards on the audio were saying how they think the guys drowned at sea, the inmates were saying they think they made it to Mexico. Nobody will ever know for sure I guess. The tour then brings you into the area where bad prisoners go, they have two stages of bad. The first is an open cell but away from everyone else, those cells were actually bigger than the ones in the normal cell blocks but they were facing the setting sun and the city.. According to the inmates on the tape you could hear the sounds of people laughing and partying from the yacht club which made being in there worse even though you had a bigger cell. The other level of bad was the "hole" which was a room with four steel walls. Apparently it's now a federal law that any solitary confinement had to have at least a light on, it was not back when Alcatraz ran so they would lock people into a four steel walled cell with no light or anything. After the tour I ended up jogging down the island to get to the 4:20 boat.
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Back on the mainland I saw the double decker tour bus getting ready to leave. It was the last tour of the night and I jumped on at the pier which was the first stop. The tour was about two hours long, all in all it was pretty boring. Most of the city is very bland looking and I couldn't get off since it was the last bus of the night which meant the few places that did look really cool (like Haight) I couldn't really go check out. Next time I'm in the area I must go spend some time on Haight street, it was the heart of the hippie movement in the 1960s and still very much looks that way. Looks like it would be an awesome place to kill some time. Speaking of Haight St, I saw Amoeba Music which is sorta like Powell's Bookstore but for music. Unfortunately I couldn't stop.. We went over the Golden Gate bridge and back, it was a nice bridge I guess, we went through some really nice parks I would like to visit and we went by the adult street. The bus didn't go down that street, just by it. Speaking of didn't do, the bus didn't go down to Lombard St which I thought was odd, I figured it would have to drive by at least the bottom of that block. As the bus got more and more empty it ended up just being me and this one girl, we were both on the top as it was getting ready to go over the bridge so we moved downstairs and ended up chatting for the rest of the ride.
Interesting fact: SF has the lowest mean summer temperature of any US city, but it hardly ever gets frost in the winter. It's just a steady 60-70 degrees for most of the year, too cold for me..
Oh, and we passed the building that Godfather was written in. They say that the first ever espresso was served in that building too. I want a fact check on that one.
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After the tour I decided to get something to eat on the pier, I had seen signs for a place advertising seating area over looking sea lions. Apparently the restaurant is only open for lunch but I did get to see the sea lions. This may be the oddest thing of my trip, I was walking along the pier and a girl stopped me and commented on my shirt. Now, I've had comments in the past like 'cute shirt' or 'hey that's funny', but I've never heard anyone actually say they heard of the comic or let alone something like (I remembered the actual quote last night but now I don't because it's 5am and I'm sitting in the airport) 'Nice shirt, I love monsieur chat'! That's right, a lady in SF is a loyal reader of MChat, I guess Joe's little comic isn't so little anymore.. :)
After my failed attempt to eat near the sea lions I ended up eating at the Crab House. The place was pretty crowded so they put me at the "fireplace" which is a bar seating area with a firepit in the middle. The lady on the left of me was a food critic working for Zagat the lady on the right was Kim from Arkansas who is in SF on business. I was debating the menu and was going to order the Crab Enchilada when the food critic told me that the only thing worth getting was the crab, just the plane old crab, by plane old I mean cooked like New Englanders cook lobster. The butter was not plane however, it was a garlic butter and was so good. Ended up hanging out with Kim for a while and finally headed back to the hotel.
When I got back to the hotel I went to hang out with Ashley, I was pretty exhausted so I only hung out for a few minutes.
Now I'm at the airport and about to get a bagel and get on my flight.
So, I finally contacted Mike about moving the Bella's URL over to me. I had him change the IP address to point to Steve's new server which is where I will be hosting. A lot of credit goes to Steve who is in the process of upgrading his systems to Windows 7 and took time out of setting things up to setup my website.. :)
I worked with Steve to get everything up and running last night and the URL started pointing there just an hour ago or so. I of course have a bunch of updates I want to make to it, right now I don't have FTP access to that site (it's not setup yet) so I have to send the changes to Steve and he will update when he gets home. Basically I changed the main logo to include "gelateria" and cleaned up some of the images to make them crisper.
Once I have own the URL I will see about setting up a .mobile version of the site. And onto other web news, Allen told the guy who owns the new BBQ place in Putnam that I did his website so I may have another customer. More free food?
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For dinner last night I went to Yo Yo Sushi which is by work, I got a 10% coupon from the hotel and had been wanting sushi so it works.. The place was pretty good, they had a boat moat that you could grab off but I went with a set sashimi meal which was actually quite a bit of food. After dinner and website playing I hung out and chatted with Ashley (the girl who works at the counter at the Residence Inn) and the two guys from Denmark again for a long time before finally heading off to bed.
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Today/Tonight.. Going back to SF to check out Alcatraz and possibly eat at Cafe Gratitude again.
Last night I went to play Mini-Golf in Milpitas at Golf Land USA. They have 3 courses which are rated easy, medium and hard. I left to head up there (about 10 miles) right around 5pm so I was a so glad to have the Prius and all-access to the carpool lane! The traffic was stopped on the highway and I was doing 65 next to them! Anyway, as I got closer I saw a wonderful mountain range.. The way the sun was playing off it was so pretty, I took a crap ton of pics of it to capture the beauty. I posted 2 pics from the drive to Flickr. The Mini-Golf place was right at the base of the mountain range so I took another good pic from the parking lot.
Anyway, so.. Mini-Golf.. I decided I would play both the medium and hard courses. I played the medium one first as a warm-up and shot a 52 on 18 holes, I think I had one hole at 5 but everything else was in the 2-4 range. One thing I thought was really cool, well ok, maybe more than one.. First, the putting area changed colors at points which made a really neat trick of the eye when trying to read the hills. Second, the entire course was covered in "mini-golf carpet". When I say the entire course I mean the whole place, the hills, the walkways, everything. It was like immersing yourself into a mini-golf world.
Onto my second course.. Oh, wait.. I forgot to mention the most supertabular thing about this place! When I grabbed my pencil out of the pencil bin it had LETS GO METS carved into it in orange writing! OK, now on to the second course. Remember this is the "hard" course. I was actually talking to Lynz for most of this course so she can vouch (in a way) for my awesomeness. What, what, can't hear you over the sound of my awesomeness.. :D Right, so.. I actually hit two consecutive Hole-In-Ones! The first one was one of those holes that you just have to hit it up the ramp in the middle and you automatically get a hole in one but the second one was a brutal looking hole. It had a MASSIVE hill in the middle of the green and then at the end had a V right after the hole so if it came down the hill too quick or at the wrong angle it would pass the hole, hit the V and head out into the outskirts of the green! So, continuing on with my amazingness (couldn't use awesomeness, it would have been repetitive), there was one hole that had two choices, picture of it on Flickr, one choice was to go up a real steep hill into the mouth of a tree which presumably would bring the ball near the hole, the other choice was to hit it straight through a really thin passage. I shot the hole twice, once up the tree and once down the passage. Both times I got a 2 on the hole, both times I was right near the hole after the first shot! I can't believe I made it through that thin passage.. Oh, wait, yes I can, because I am that awesome.. ;)
After Mini-Golf I went to the Great Mall to check on yet another Verizon store. I told the stupid guy I had a Z6c World Edition and needed a charger that would work with my international adapters (they slide onto the old charger and won't fit the new one) or I needed new international adapters. He said that they don't make international adapters for my phone and the only one they have them for is the blackberry and that the blackberry charger won't work for my phone because the blackberry is micro-usb and my phone is mini-usb! I really wanted to punch him, why in the hell can't a Verizon rep know that my phone, first of all, does exist and second of all does NOT use the same accessories as the Z6TV! So, after explaining that my phone was indeed micro-usb (which by the way he argued with me about) he pulled out the blackberry charger and it worked! No "unsupported charger" or anything, just straight up charging! So, I want to buy.. Nope.. They don't stock that charger, but he can order me one which will take approx a week to get in. No thanks.. Ordered one on-line and it will be at the house maybe as early as Friday, but no later than Monday.
That guy get's a "random people - douches" tag! Anyway, speaking of the "random people - cool" tag.. I went back to the hotel and spent some time chatting with Ashley, the girl who works the night shift behind the counter, and two of her friends. They are all in college and the one guy is doing a project where he has to come up with original game ideas, Ashley was doing Spanish homework, put those two together and you get... "Language Brawl" Language Brawl is a game idea the three of us came up with.. So, here's the idea.. You're driving down the street and you hit a car, you get out and so does the other driver. The other driver does not speak your language, instead he speaks the language you're trying to learn. As he speaks it shows up on the screen and you have to translate it and answer him, if you don't answer in time he kicks your ass. Figure the beginning levels will have the sentence in your language except maybe one word you have to translate but in the end you could have to translate the whole sentence. We even figure you can do a multi-lingual one (for our European friends who speak many languages) where you hit a car which hits a car and both drivers speak different languages and you have to translate them both in the alloted time.
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Food TV is doing another "Next Iron Chef", the last time they did one it was to replace Mario Batali who had a contract difficulty with Food TV. So, I was trying to figure out who was leaving this time.. Well, I too can add 1+1 and get 2.. For years now Cat Cora said she would not open a restaurant because she could not juggle her personal life, the show and a restaurant. Apparently she opened a restaurant in Disney World called Kouzzina. So the only question now is, do I go there this year or do I wait till next year and go with Jessie. I have to figure that out soon because if I'm going this year I need to make reservations.
---Diversion of the Day (watch with sound to truly enjoy)
I went to Cafe Gratitude last night and they have inspirational paintings around the restaurant. They actually sell posters of them, but apparently not all of them.. The one I loved was in the bathroom, it was a big mural and in the middle was a kid drowning in negative words, around him were positive places and the word choose repeated. Around the kid in the center and before the other places were the words "Where I put my attention creates my experience." I thought it was an amazing piece, but it's one of the few they don't sell posters for. I have emailed the artist asking him if there was a poster or print of it available.
So... I got out of class around 4ish and went straight up to SF. I love the fact that in California they let hybrids drive in the carpool lane. Actually the law has been changed, it used to be *any* hyrbid, now it's only select hybrids. I guess they are not allowing those crazy SUV hybrids which still only get 14-15 MPG in the carpool lane, you have to be above a certain MPG to get access as a solo rider. Well, using the carpool lane it took me about 40 mins to get up to SF. When I left work it was something like 82 degrees, as I was driving with the windows down, it started getting real cold. After a bit I rolled the windows up and looked at the temp gauge in the car, it read in the 50s, I looked up and saw signs for "Candlestick Park - this exit". I was pretty shocked actually, I had heard the stadium was built on the side of a mountain but what I didn't realize is that it *was* built into the side of a mountain. It was a beautiful view of the mountain, bay and stadium (didn't get pics because I wasn't ready for it). By the time I got into SF proper it was back up into the 70s.
First stop - AT&T Park. I don't count this as me being at the stadium for my stadium list, but I had to drive by. I actually parked on the side walk by the stadium, I asked the attendant and he said I could park there since I was only going to take some pics. I walked around the stadium and took some pics (uploaded to Flickr). The stadium is right on the bay and the outfield wall is open to the bay so people walking by can look into the stadium, there are signs asking people to please only stand in "viewing areas" for an inning at a time. You can actually see a good portion of the field from these "viewing areas", they were inside setting up for some concert. Anyway, around the front of the stadium there is a nice steak house built into the stadium. There are no doors into the stadium from the restaurant but I imagine it would be packed on game days, I went in to use the bathroom and there were a few people but not a mob.
Second stop - Lombard St.. There a few theories behind why this street is the way it is. Some of the locals say that the people who lived there didn't want the traffic so they convinced the city to screw with the road. Lombard is a short cut from the Eastern section of the city to the Golden Gate Bridge and they were getting tons of cars driving that way. If that's true it backfired because now people come from all over just to drive down the street. Other stories say that they made the road that way because the incline of the road was too steep and was causing problems with cars going up and not being able to and with cars not stopping as they go down. I don't believe that theory because there are steeper roads in SF and even in the surrounding area and they didn't do it to those. Either way this is one crazy fuck road, you really have to see it and drive it to really get the grasp of it. I stopped at the bottom of the road and took some pics, then I drove around and down it, back around and parked at that top. I walked down and back up and took some cool pics and videos. The best pic I found is one that was taken from a nearby building top, I posted it on my Flickr along with my pics. I also posted videos of people driving on it on my YouTube.
Third stop - Golden Gate Bridge.. Nope.. It was getting very foggy and the traffic was out of control going there so I decided I would go after dinner..
Third stop - Cafe Gratitude.. The restaurant was very pretty, as I stated above I loved the paintings they had. The staff was really nice too, the place was mobbed so I ended up sitting at the bar which worked out well because I got to chat with the guys working while I waited for food. All of the menu items are things like "you are wonderful", "you are insightful", etc. I got a White Bean and Kale Soup which was cooked, a raw Bratwurst which was made of nuts, fennel and had kimchi and a mustard seed sauce wrapped in romaine lettuce. For dessert I had a raw chocolate moose which was so good. I really never understand why people insist milk should go with chocolate to dilute the flavor. Nothing like a good strong raw cacao.
Fourth stop - Golden Gate Bridge.. Nope.. The fog was even worse and I didn't feel like going if I wouldn't really appreciate it. Maybe I'll go back on of the other nights I'm here, if not I'll get there eventually because after all it's just another bridge right..
Fourth stop - Candlestick Park.. On the way home I drove up to Candlestick Park. If you think it was cold at 4:45 you don't know cold. The car said it was in the high 30s! I got out and walked around and took some pics but it was too dark and none of them came out. It is a very pretty area, the stadium is generic but the area around it is very pretty.
Drove back to the hotel and relaxed in the hot tub a bit before bed.
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Oh, going back to yesterday's blog.. Rice-A-Roni.. I was going to post a big long thing about how I doubt Rice-A-Roni is the SF treat. I mean seriously, lets think about who lives in SF.. Gays and Asians. Can you possibly imagine an Asian whipping up some Rice-A-Roni? And as for the gays, I certainly can't see it. SF is probably one of the most "hippie" areas of the country (aside from maybe Portland) and I can't see people who care about food eating tons of Rice-A-Roni.. Anyway, so I was going to post this long blog about that and I decided I would post a little video clip of the old commercials. Well, I did a search for "Rice-A-Roni: The San Fransisco Treat" and the first hit was a blog ranting about the exact thing.. A guy answered that blog with a history lesson about why Rice-A-Roni was indeed the San Fransisco Treat..
The DeDomenico family all enjoyed an old Armenian dish consisting of rice, vermicelli pasta and chicken broth. The rice and pasta were sauteed in butter before the liquid was added, giving the dish its distinctive taste.
In 1958, Vince DeDomenico decided to take this recipe and produce it for sale in grocery stores. He placed the rice and pasta in a box, and added a dry seasoning mix in place of the liquid chicken broth. Because this product was made up of half rice and half pasta, he decided to call it RICE-A-RONI®.
Chicken RICE-A-RONI was first introduced in the Northwestern states in 1958. With it came the first RICE-A-RONI commercial, featuring San Francisco's Cable Cars and the now famous jingle. Created in San Francisco, RICE-A-RONI would soon be known to all as "The San Francisco Treat®!"
The RICE-A-RONI jingle, The San Francisco Treat® slogan, "Saute and Simmer" and scenic San Francisco became familiar to every household in America in the 60's as the product was introduced through television advertising.
Well, I guess I've been told..
All in all.. I think SF is a very nice city, it is easy to drive around, easy to park and pretty to look at.
BTW - I'm reading this blog realizing how much of a "gay hater" I sound like.. For those of you who know me you know I'm the furthest thing from that.. For those of you who accidentally stumbled on my blog, first off "welcome, hope you enjoy my tangents" and secondly I can assure you I'm not a gay or Asian or really an anything hater.. :D Well, ok, maybe I'm an Atlanta Braves hater.. :P
So, yesterday was a fail on the Gut be Gone program. I got out of work and headed over to a local bar called Quarter Note to watch the end of the Yankees / Angels game. I love being in CA and watching baseball games during happy hour that would be night games back east.
I had a Fat Tire (had it on tap).. This is a good point to mention.. After talking with Jessie I decided that doing no alcohol was not necessary for my Gut Be Gone program, and that I should instead just cut back greatly on it. I ended up sitting at the bar with a guy who worked at Cisco and his hot friend. After a bit the girl's friend came in and the four of us got a booth together and chatted till the girls had to go to work.
After the game I went on a failed mission for a new mobile phone charger. Sometimes I love my phone, but it's always a struggle to find accessories, the Verizon store was out of Z6World Edition chargers so they sent me to Microcenter which had a generic Motorola charger. The guy was nice enough to let me try it and it came up as an unsupported charger. Grrr.. I guess I give up now and will just order one online.
After Microcenter I went and got my California treat.. No, not rice-a-roni.. Rice-A-Roni may indeed by the SF treat but I probably won't have any of that in SF either.. My California treat is a Jack in the Box Ultimate Cheeseburger. I was standing in line and came up with a brainstorm, what would make this burger better is if they put it on sourdough bread.. I was sooo right..
I almost died laughing when I saw a sign on the counter for "healthy food options" at Jack in the Box.. Seriously, who are they kidding?
Speaking of SF.. Tonight I'm going there, going to hit Cafe Gratitude which is a big raw restaurant. Have to balance out the Jack in the Box right.. :)
Saturday after dinner, I'm picking up where the last blog left off, me and Jessie went to see A Murder is Announced at the Bradley. We had not been at the Bradly in a long time, we apparently missed all the plays this year.. Have to make sure to get to more of those next year, the only one left this year is the Broadway Live Christmas show which is always "eh".. This play was good, I was actually wrong at guessing who did the murdering.. Jessie was right.. Not going to say who because I don't want to ruin anything for anyone who might see this play in their lives..
Onto sunny California..
The flight from Hartford to Minnesota was great! It was a brand new plane and had next to no noise and no turbulence, I actually walked up and down the aisle without having to hold the seats.. I sat next to a lady and her baby who where on their way to Irvine, she grew up in WeHa and now lives in Irvine with her husband. The baby was amazingly quiet too which was good because when I saw them come onboard I was a bit scared it would be an annoying flight.
The flight from Minnesota to San Jose was NOT a new plane, it was actually so old it still had ash trays in the seats! It was NOT a quiet turbulence free flight, as a matter of fact we hit a big storm right outside San Jose and ended up getting thrown around quite a bit.
Landed and shuttled over to rent-a-car where I was given a Prius! It's a 2009 Prius, but it's a base model which means it has no iPod connection. The radio station it was on had Madonna playing when I finally turned up the volume so yay for me.. :)
Speaking of iPod, I finished the Element on the plane and started Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I figure it's almost Halloween so it's a good time to listen to this finally. It's pretty short (7 hours), I listened to about 1/3 of it already. It's a fun book so far.
Oh, well back to class for me.. I have not done any real exploring but I found out that the hotel has free breakfast and dinner! I probably won't take advantage of the dinners because I want to hit some of the sites while I'm here but it's good to know.. Oh and since this is a customer class I get free lunch too!
Today's rainy cold weather made me glad to be heading out of the North East. Weather in Santa Clara, 70s all week.. I'm glad to be going but glad it's only a week too, it's been a long time since I've been on the road so I'm torn with my sense for adventure and my sense of missing those back home..
Since last I wrote I did lots.. I was just getting ready to go to Laire when last I wrote, Laire was a great time. I even played on Friday night (have not done that since right before my surgery). Friday night was almost a mistake as I pushed myself a lot to far when Naryn went down and I felt the need to run her to get a life spell. After that little incident I had to lean on her to get back to the cabin. While relaxing in the cabin we got ambushed and we almost died, my crazy running speed (almost forgot how fast I can really run) saved my life and Naryn's, unfortunately it was not enough to save Ventrick. I stumbled my way back to the cabin once more and feared I had taken myself out of the weekend with my crazy running.
I woke up on Saturday and was surprisingly fine, so onto another day of hard core combat. Saturday night ended with a big mod in which I kept getting yelled at for breaking the line, I was a bit over zealous to kill things since I was finally able to again.
One of the coolest things about Laire was that Robyn came back.. I ended up hanging out with her most of Saturday going on mods and overseeing her warrior training. Friday night she hung out with me while I was doing the dishes and Saturday night she came with us to Veggie Heaven. I'm making her a shield now that she knows how to use one.. :)
Sunday night me and Jessie went and had dinner with dad so I could fix the speaker wires I put on backwards and to get my new blueray/dvd player.
Monday was another long crazy day, me and Jessie went down to NYC to see Garfunkel and Oates. We parked by the venue (Upright Citizen's Brigade) and walked over to Pure Food and Wine which is a raw vegan restaurant on the other side of Manhattan. Dinner was great and the show was better! We ended sitting center stage right behind Riki's mom, it was very cute to see how flustered she got by having her mom in the audience. If they are ever in your area I recommend seeing them, they are funnier live than they are on their CD/YouTube clips.
Tuesday was my 14 year dating anniversary with Jessie. To celebrate we had Tuesday night dinner at our house.. OK, well to celebrate the anniversary we went to see Garfunkel and Oates but on Tuesday Jessie broke open a bottle of ice wine we have had for years, it was very good and just reminds us both that we miss Montreal. The Tuesday night crowd was very small this week and we ended up having it in the basement. We will continue to have them in the basement till it gets too cold to do so..
Wednesday I went up to see Nurit, she cooked dinner and we hung out and watched Cheers. Thursday I was supposed to go see Stacy but she cancelled at the last minute. In a way I'm glad she did because me and Jessie got a chance to relax and I ended up going to bed before 9! I guess my body finally had enough of the late nights and needed the after Laire rest I was not giving it.
Friday Lynz came over and we walked to Bella's for dinner. The idea was to go to 85 Main for sushi but as we walked we decided we didn't want that. After dinner hung out and watched some Star Trek TNG.
Saturday, yesterday, me and Jessie went to the CT Ren Faire again. It was cold but there was no rain in site which means we got the full show this time. We saw a bunch of shows and ate lunch before leaving. I ended up getting called on stage during the Wheel of Mis-Fortune and got to sit down without a dunking after guessing the word right. :)
After the Ren Faire we went home, napped and met Matt, Sile and her parents for dinner. We were supposed to go to the Courthouse but because of the size of our party the wait was too long so we went to 85 Main. I had a pumpkin bisque with scallops that was ok. The scallops were good but the bisque left a bit to be desired, it was better after adding soy sauce. As an appetizer I got some Tuna sushi and it was really good, pretty big pieces and nicely cut.
I'm boarding in Hartford now.. I will post more later..
Kiss just released a new CD set this week. They released this as a Walmart exclusive which is the first thing that pisses me off but whatever. I went to Walmart on Tuesday morning to wait in line and get my copy like all the other Kiss fans, yes there were lines.. I cleverly avoided the line in electronics when i saw a few of the CDs sitting on a A-Frame and grabbed one along with the new Madonna DVD and walked to the front registers which had no lines. :)
This CD set has two CDs and one DVD. The first CD is a new CD called Sonic Boom, on first listen I loved the first song then it dropped off dramatically till the last few songs. On second listen I was more forgiving perhaps because I found myself liking most of the songs but my favorites are still the first and last. The CD booklet lists who wrote each song but not who sung them, obviously I can tell the Gene and Paul songs but there was one song sung by someone else, I assume it was Tommy Thayer because I've heard Eric Singer's voice before and it was not that bad.. :)
Speaking of bad voice, Eric did sing Black Diamond on the second CD but did it in his best (it was bad) Peter Criss impersonation.. If you hadn't guessed the second CD was a CD of recorded Kiss hits called Kiss Klassics. The did 15 tracks and for some reason felt the need to include Christine Sixteen in that set. For the most part these songs sounded almost identical to their original versions all the way down to the fade out and fade in at the end of I Love it Loud, they did sound better if only for modern day recording studios. A few of the songs were actually different and mostly in good ways, for example I Was Made for Loving You was done more in line with how they play it live and not in the original disco mold. Forever was a stinker, Paul's voice sounded strained and uninspired. All in all I think Do You Love Me was the best of the re-recordings.
But wait, there's more.. This set comes with a 6 song live DVD that was recorded on the last tour in Buenos Aires. Kiss fans are everywhere and one of my co-workers was talking about getting this CD so I let him borrow mine and then we decided to watch the DVD here on one of the projectors. Wow, was it bad.. I gotta think as a marketing decision this was a major screw up, nobody is going to watch that DVD and then think to themselves 'man I gotta go see these guys'. They were out of tune, out of sync and generally had no life on stage. I have to imagine that they could have found a better night to take the recordings from.
All in all, is the new CD set worth it? Yes.. There are enough good tracks on the first CD to make the $12 paid a value not to mention most of the songs on the 2nd CD were well done and sound fuller than the previous versions. The DVD, just throw it out..
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If you live anywhere near Hebron CT you need, need, need to get to the CT Ren Faire this year.. They did an amazing job on the fight sequences this year. The story this year is called 'For the Love of Lancelot' and there are four shows throughout the day, five if you include the show at the gates before the faire opens. By the way, if you can you really want to try and get there before the gates open because that show was really good and really sucks you in.
I mentioned the fight sequences were great this year and that's mostly in part to Taryn Bazinet and Colette Marie Crowley who play two French girls who fight as one, they were like watching intense synchronized swimming combat. The final fight had this holy crap amazing sequence that you really just have to see to believe. No, I'm not going to describe it because you need to go see it live!
I was a little disappointed by some of the cast changes and the fact that the sheriff was not around but all in all it was an amazing time.
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Sunday me and Jessie went to the final Mets game of the year with dad. He bought tickets in the Ceaser's Plaza Club which were right in front of the SNY broadcast booth. Believe it or not the seats were a bit thiner than the seats in the section we want to move to in the Promenade, they were actually thinner than some of the seats on the same level but further away from Home Plate.
When we got to the game they had closed off our normal parking area and let us park in the main lot (usually only for pre-paid parking). Because we were in the main lot we decided to walk over to the Shea Stadium base markers. It was neat standing on the pitchers mound marker and looking around at how small everything looks. Citi-Field was beyond the outfield wall at Shea but yet it looks so close when standing on the mound and even at Home Plate. I guess it looks smaller because now it's all just a parking lot.
It was a really good game. Nelson Figueroa pitched a complete game shutout, first in Citi-Field history. Jessie got a new sweater from Touch and we got a ball autographed by Alyssa Milano. Here is a quote from the label of her sweater.
"to rally for each other
to play fair
to run with abandon
to dance with life
is to Touch"
:)
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Speaking of Monday.. Lynz come over Monday night with Anja and we watched a great episode of Nova regarding the possibility of life on Mars. You can watch the entire episode here on PBS.
This was especially interesting right now because I just finished reading the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson which is all about Terra-Forming Mars.
Speaking of Terra-Forming.. I'm going to be playing Mythical Journeys: Future Imperfect in November, it's a futuristic LARP that takes place on a newly colonized world. Just finished making my character the other day. Going to use a shot gun so it should be fun and at the very least different.. Come check it out with me..
Tuesday dinner was spent working with Kevin on his costume and on my gun. We had to modify the shells so the bullets go further by drilling holes in the bottom to let more air in. Sarah stole the food show with her soup. Hopefully she will post the recipe either here as a comment or on the Tuesday night dinner blog.
Holly came over last night and I re-made my Tomatillo Salsa tilapia dish, but this time with cod because Price Chopper didn't have any tilapia. It came out good but not as good as it does with tilapia. The salsa was just as good but the end product was a little less then I would have liked it to be.
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Yay, Laire is tomorrow... Speaking of yay! Garfunkel and Oates are coming to NYC next week, they will be at the Upright Citizen's Brigade on Monday and at the Gotham Comedy Club on Wednesday. Me and Jessie will be going to the Monday show, care to meet us there?
I have lost so much flexibility over the last year, Achilles Tendon surgery will do that, so I decided I would start doing yoga with Jessie and Hoyle. Plus, I figure yoga is also good for my gut-be-gone plan so it's a win all around. Well, I am so not ready for yoga yet. It was nice to get stretched out but my left ankle was so not ready, I ended up sleeping with my soft cast on and even that wasn't enough so I took three Advil before I was able to fall asleep. All day my ankle was killing me too so I ask you... Yoga, it's good for you?
I've been a bit slack the last few months but I think October is going to be my return to blogging. The original idea of this blog was to keep everyone updated of my travels and I haven't been travelling so therefore haven't been blogging. Well, travel is back on. If you don't know I recently stepped down as global lead instructor and am now a regular instructor again, with that demotion I will be teaching more which after all is what I enjoy about my job. So, upcoming trips? Chicago the week of Oct 12th, Santa Clara the week of Oct 19th and Sao Paulo (if my visa gets approved) the week of Nov 16th.
Somewhere in there I want to finally get my tattoo, I'm thinking the week of Oct 26th. I need to talk to the tattoo guy, I will go over there next week and try and set that up. My tattoo design can be found on my flickr site.
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The semi-monthly update..
Last we left off was Sept 18th and I was just about to go to Jesse and Marie's house for a game night. Game night was fun, I was a bit concerned how the night would go because I had not seen John in a long time and I didn't know who else would be there to hang out with. I was glad to find out my concerns where unfounded because the night went well and me and John even played some games together plus I even got some time to hang out with Lynz upstairs.
I left early because the next day we (me and Jessie) went to King Richard's Faire with Jesse, Marie and Lynz. Lynz's birthday had passed recently so me and Marie bought her an outfit, she got a dear skin shirt, some bracers and a fur cowl. It was pretty funny because when she got the shirt I was talking to the lady at Pterodactly Leather about how I envisioned some type of fur scarf/cowl and she told me that the fur guy sold his booth so I left her shop looking for other options, we were a few feet away and she came running out with some fur she had in her shop and put it over Lynz's shoulders and it was perfect. We went and got food while she sewed it together and put a bone button on it. I love the end result, she did a great job and in very short time. Pictures of Lynz in her outfit can be found on my flickr site. Oh, I love this picture of Jessie and Lynz.. :D
The 20th I went to the Mets game with dad, uncle Larry, Mike, Scott, JM and Katie. We ate at the Acella club which is the restaurant in left field, it was nice but a bit over priced. No matter what you got it was $51, they had a bbq beef brisket sandwich, bbq ribs, a really good salmon dish, a really good scallop dish and a burger on the menu. That's right, $51 for a burger or $51 for scallops! On top of the main dish you also got access to four appetizer stations which had bagels, cheeses, salads, pizza, etc.. It was nice to watch the game while eating but I really didn't feel like I was at the stadium till we left the restaurant. Speaking of Citi-Field, the Mets just announced that they will be lowering the prices of all their season plans next year. I really want to sit in section 424 next year, they have a few extra rows above the regular section which have a few seats per row. Perfect row would be row 8 which has 5 seats in, 3 of those seats are the wider ones which would make it much more comfortable for dad and Mike. I tried to call them and they told me I had to wait, I might try and call them again next week.
Thursday the 24th Holly came up to Putnam, we went to Bella's and watched Planes Trains and Automobiles. It was a good night and it was nice to hang out in my area instead of hers, no nosy neighbors.. :)
The 25th I brought Luna to a new vet to get her checked out, the new vet is holistic only which means that I needed to go to another vet to get her blood work. It was a long stress filled experience, she is overall healthy but has some digestive issues we are addressing with supplements. After the vet I went up to Nurit's house for dinner. The crazy odd thing of the day is that Jessie ended up chatting with a guy on OKC just to find out it was Nurit's room mate! Jessie ended up going to a concert with him that night.. The somewhat odd thing was me, Nurit, Shoshanna and Mike went out to an indian restaurant.. I know, crazy right? Non of the four of us are vegetarians but we all ended up getting vegetarian dishes.. I thought it was odd, screw you if you don't.. :P
Jessie bought a cuff set when we went to King Richard's Faire and we had to go get it so we went down on Sunday. Funny thing, when we got there they were closed! Apparently it poured in Carver so they closed early. Luckily Jessie called the guy and he had the guard bring us to his booth to get it. It was kinda cool to walk around the faire with nobody else there.
After that we went to Julian's in Providence for their Dieu du Ciel beer dinner, I don't know where the menu is right now so I can't put the food list in right now. The food was great and we met up with Ara and Ellis there which was awesome. Ara and Ellis are the couple we met at the Armsby Abby beer dinner. They are a very cool couple who teach at Holy Cross in MA. Julian's is now the 2nd place we had beer dinners with them and the 2nd place that O'hara's Celtic Stout on draft! This time I had one as a pre-game beer. The only way I would have beer this month is if we did another beer dinner with them because it would be silly to go to a beer dinner and not drink..
Monday Lynz and Anja came over and I made hot dogs with bok choi and quinoa for dinner and we watched Episodes 2 and 3 of Star Trek the Next Generation. Tuesday night we had dinner at our house again even though the weather is starting to get cold, Holly and Louie made their Tuesday night debut, Hoyle and Badger brought lots of meat for the grill.
Going to the CT Ren Faire tomorrow, hope to see you all there! If you can't make it tomorrow go another day! There, is that a good ad?
You may remember last year before my tendon surgeries I had done the one hundred push up challenge. Well, I am feeling pretty darn fat lately so I am going to do it again. The site has gotten a bit cooler since last time, they now have a tracker and they also have a 200 sit-up program.
Alright well, I did the tests the other day and my push ups came in at 37 which means I skip to week 3 and start at the hardest level of week 3. My sit ups came in at 20 which means I start at the middle level of week 1.
Well, here are my day 1 numbers which I just did now:
Set
Push ups
Sit ups
1
14
9
2
18
9
3
14
6
4
14
6
5
30
20
Remember that set 5 is supposed to be MAX, they give you minimum numbers for set 5. The minimum numbers were 20 and 8 respectively.
What else am I going to do to get rid of my gut? Well, I am feeling inspired by Sara's 30 day challenges (I know, like half a year later) so I am going to go the month of Rock-Tober with no alcohol.
ps - so apparently this site sucks when it comes to putting in tables.. I did an HTML table and it is not showing up correctly so I had to use underscores.. Will look into that more later.
I'm sorry for not writing anything, I keep saying this in most of my newest blogs.. I need to do a better job of sitting and writing at least once a week if not back to once a day. I'm not really trying to create the longest blogs ever. ;)
As mentioned in my last blog, me and Jessie went to see Jon Oliver in Boston on Friday the 28th. We ate at Jacob Wirth before the show and met a really cool couple (Kriss and Jonathan) who was sitting next to us. Jessie was trying to decide what to order (I know, shocking) and Jonathan started giving us his review of her choices, we hit it off really well and hung with them until we went into the show. The warm up comedian was the same warm up guy from when we went to see the Daily Show, he was much funnier this time. Jon Oliver was as good as expected so it was a very good night.
The only problem with the night is we got home very late (as expected) and I had to get up early in the morning to drive to Brad's house. AnimeFest was really good, but I think the name should be changed to Board Game Fest. Anime was only on in one room and it was mostly old stuff, the only Anime I watched was some of Ponyo in Japanese and that was at the end of the night. I played two games of Carcassonne: The City and won both and one game of Apples to Apples which I lost to Kelly (Brad's girlfriend). The kicker to that game is she joined late and still managed to get 7 cards first.. The highlight of the night was probably going out for Japanese food with Christian and Mara, we went to a place right by Brad's house (don't remember the name) and spent a while talking and catching up. I left in the early morning because I had drank way too much caffeine and there was no way I was going to sleep there.
The problem with writing blogs infrequently is I don't remember everything.. I know I did something on the 30th and 31st but I don't remember.. So, checked Google Calendar and Flickr and I have no records for those days. Nurit mentioned to me yesterday that she adds things to her calendar after she does them, now I see why she does that.. Just asked Jessie and she recommended checking my IM logs..
September 1st's dinner was at our house but I don't remember any specifics about dinner, don't even remember what I made.. I love chat logs! I just read the chat log with Holly and it reminded me that I made a Rhubarb Cheese sauce and put it over Ham. AH-HA, I just realized something.. When we went to make the Brazilian cheese Jessie asked me what happened to the Muenster we had in the fridge, now I remember.. I used it for the Rhubarb Cheese Sauce!
Ok, back to Sunday/Monday.. I just checked my chat logs with Holly and found out that Sunday was mostly spent sleeping, the rest of the time we watched Weeds. Monday night we watched more Weeds and Jessie made her "German" meal which was Chicken Sausages, Red Cabbage with BokChoi and Pirogies.
Wednesday Sept 2nd will always live in memory as the day Matt Salvatore lost to food! Casa Mariachi in Putnam has a 5lb Burrito challenge, if you win you get a bumper sticker, a shirt and your picture on a wall of fame. If you lose you get your picture on the wall of shame and pay $27 for the burrito (if you win it's free). Anyway, I think he made two fatal mistakes: 1. He chose Chicken which means he got 5lbs of shredded chicken. 2. He didn't spread the toppings (guacamole and sour cream). You have an hour to finish, he probably had half of it down in the first 10 mins before slowing down. He was still moving at a good pace till he hit the 2nd consecutive glob of sour cream which crushed his hopes. There are pictures, check my Flickr.
I was supposed to have dinner with Lynz on the 3rd, she called me from work to tell me her mom had tickets for the CT Defenders for that night so me, Lynz and Anja met her mom at the stadium instead. We sat in one of the luxury boxes and made friends with the waitress. It was nice to be able to chat with Lynz's mom and it was fun explaining baseball to Anja. Cutter came up and hung out with us in the box which I think made Anja's night. One of the biggest highlights for me had to be watching Lynz and Anja doing push ups in the luxury box during extra innings! We ended up leaving the game early because it was a weekday and the game didn't matter since the Defenders had already clinched the division.
Nothing like going to Laire when you're already exhausted! Friday drive to Laire was tough, I had to stop a bunch of times and get coffee and walk around to stay awake. Did my work shift Friday night and went right to bed. Saturday I played, and when I say played I mean "FULL Combat". The plan was to play from morning till dark, the actual-laity is I played from about 9am till 3am! The only time I stopped was when I went out to Veggie Heaven for dinner. I ran, I jumped, I fought and I killed! Sunday was more of the same, got up around 10 and played till about 2am only stopping to go to Fu's for dinner. I did plan to play Monday but when I woke up I was so sore I had to leave. When I say sore I don't mean my tendons either, I mean my calf muscles. All in all this was a VERY successful event, no tendon pain and no knee pain!
September 8th's dinner was at our house again and Nurit came out for it. She got there early so we had some time to hang out before the crowds showed up. Speaking of the crowds: Sara, Sean, Ryan, Gwen, Lynz, Jesse and Marie all ended up calling out. I made some steaks on the grill and Kevin made some kebabs and Sarah brought shrimp for the grill. It was a good night but most of it was spent with me at the grill, ran out of gas so me and Joe had to go get more before I could finish grilling.
The 9th and 10th are missing from my memory and I don't have any chat logs with Holly for those days because she was not at work. I know the 10th Jessie went to Yoga and then to Hoyle's house, I hung out with Elizabeth for a bit and then I ate dinner, made the Catupiry Cheese and went to bed. I'm going to guess the 9th was watching Weeds with Jessie.
The 11th me and Jessie went over to Matt and Sile's house and made the Brazilian style pizza. We made two, one traditional style with ham, onions, hard boiled egg and catupiry cheese and the other one had lots of veggies. The pizza's came out great and we had a good time chatting and hanging out.
Jessie was real sick on the 12th, we watched LOTS of Weeds and ended up bringing her to the hospital in the evening. Joe came over around 9 and I went to dinner with Matt at the Courthouse.
Phew - Almost done.. The 13th I went and had lunch with Lynz for her birthday, I packed up a picnic and we went and got "lost" in the woods in Willimantic for a few hours. We found a nice spot in the woods that had a little stream sat, relaxed and snuggled.. Yay picnics, I've missed you.. Wine at Lunch returns, at least for a day. After lunch I headed back home and took Jessie out to a corn maze. We went to the corn maze in Pomfret, their maze is laid out as a spider in it's web. They had a bunch of scarecrows scattered through the maze and you had to answer 9 questions about them (which one plays baseball, which one is holding a christmas bear) so you couldn't just "solve" the maze without finding all the scarecrows. I like corn mazes and hopefully we can get to the one in Thompson before the season ends.
We're finally on the current week! Monday I went to Nurit's new house and hung out there with her and her room mate helping her organize her room. We went to this amazing apartment complex to get her a box spring from a couple that couldn't get it in their unit. This apartment complex was built inside an old middle school so it had massive ceilings and massive hallways. I didn't feel right taking any pictures but wished I had. We went to Ohara's which is an Irish restaurant/pub by her house, I had a Wasabiaki Salmon which was a wasabi/teriyaki glazed salmon. It was very tasty but certainly not spicy.
Tuesday - Dinner.. I made cheeseburgers at Hoyle's request (it was his birthday) and Badger made some amazing pork chops. Sara, Sean, Lynz and Kristen did not come this week. Hoyle brought Janine and Kevin brought two new people who were both very cool. After dinner and after Rowan left we pulled the porn pile out and tried to get some porn diving going. We didn't get any porn diving but we did at least sell a few.
Wednesday and Thursday was Weeds, Weeds and more Weeds. We are half way through season 4. I guess it's not fair to just say Weeds, Weeds and more Weeds, we also watched Daily Shows (welcome back after a 3 week vacation), Monk, History Detectives and Chopped.
--Quote of the Day
Another day, another way to change the future of yesterday. - Stacy Davenport
Upcoming Events: Works Progress Administration concert at Club Passim on Nov 13th, we are going to the 7pm show if you want to join us.
Wednesday night me and Jessie went to Armsy Abbey in Worcester MA, they did a special vegetarian beer diner with Pretty Things Brewery. The trick to the meal was that everything served had to be harvested from no further than 50 miles away from the restaurant. You may or may not know but the New England area has had a very odd summer and therefore a very odd crop growing season. This made the menu very challenging but they did a great job presenting a raw bar appetizer and 5 courses, each course came with a beer that Pretty Things paired. At dinner we met a very cool couple who had just moved to Auburn from CA to teach at Holy Cross, the restaurant only holds around 60 people and all tables hold 6 people so we ended up sitting with them, her mom and her brother.
Menu:
Raw Bar was lots of raw cut up veggies, with a goat cheese dip and home made bread. Even the butter was made fresh the night before. They paired the raw bar with their American Darling which is a light summer beer.
1st Course
Arugula & Black Seeded Simpson with Fresh Nectarines dressed with a Basil-Honey Vinaigrette and topped with Blue Goat Cheese and a Spent-Grain Crisp. This was also paired with the American Darling.
2nd Course
Creamy Baked Corn & Chevre Pudding. This was paired with Mr. Sysiphus which tasted like a Don De Dieu with a hint of cherry flavor. I think this was my favorite of the courses and also my favorite of the beers.
3rd Course
Roasted Corn Bisque served with Squash Fritters. This was served with their signature beer Jack D'Or. This beer was not well received at our table. I don't think any of the six of us finished it.
4th Course
Whole Wheat Popover filled with sauteed Black Trumped & Chicken of the Woods Mushrooms served with a Carrot-Parsnip-Mint Puree and Blanched Green Beans. This was served with St Boltoph's Town which is a dark beer, this was Jessie's favorite beer.
5th Course
Housemade Ricotta sweetened with Honey and set in a crust of Spent Grain & Whole Wheat Flour topped with Caramelized Peaches and a Lavender infused Whipped Cream. This was served with Baby Tree which reminded me of Slippery Slope and not just because of the 9.x% alcohol content.
In between each course the owner would speak as would the owners of Pretty Things. They would talk about the course you were about to have and the beer that went with it. It was a great experience although I didn't realize that it would last from 6pm till after 11pm.
I really hope they do more of these in the future.
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Hmm, I know I say this all the time but I really need to be better about writing blogs in a more timely fashion. Last blog was on the 15th.. So, what's happened since then? Lots of long nights for one. The problem is that I don't have the energy to write everything because I'm too busy doing it.. I know.. Excuses, excuses, excuses.. Well screw you... :P
Me and Jessie went over my mom's house on the 16th to hang out in the pool since we have not been able to do that so far this year. A tree fell in her backyard and hit part of the pool but it's still intact! The ladder broke in half and there is a small dent, but otherwise it's still usable. Had a really good time but ended up leaving my sunglasses there which is why I'm stuck in Farmville! Why? Because we went back there on Saturday the 22nd to get my sunglasses and she sucked me into that game because she needed more neighbors! Ok, so the real reason I have not written a blog is probably that I've been playing that stupid game. You have to go into this game every so many hours to harvest the plants you are growing. If you know you're going to be away for awhile you can plant long term things, but if you want to make money you need to plant the 4 hour crops.
The 17th (I know, I hate going day by day too I've been busy)... The 17th Jessie helped get together a raw foods meetup in Thompson, we ate lots of really good raw food and watched Fresh. Fresh is very similar to Food, Inc and OmnivoresDilemma. This movie was a little more in your face about the cattle farms and such, they even showed one scene where they were removing waste from the cows stomachs. They apparently cut a hole in the cow and permanently insert a tube so they can reach into the stomach area and remove the shit the cows can't digest! You know, at some point doesn't it just make sense to stop feeding them this shit to begin with?! I gotta think, when you have to install a tube in a cow so you can manually remove indigestible waste it should be a sign you're doing something wrong!
On the 18th we had dinner at our house.. How can I talk about dinner in the next paragraph after talking about watching a cow's insides be cleaned! Funny thing is, I made burgers! NOT beef burgers, they were made of buffalo and oh so good.
The 19th I went down to the Mets game with Bradley J and met up with Rick Lopez, Amber, Kris and Josh Goldberg. The game was interesting to say the least. They are seriously bad right now. Bobby Parnell gave up 8 runs in the 2nd inning and we lost by a BIG margin, I want to say it was something like 18-2. I know, I could go look it up but honestly I don't care. Murphy went 2-3 and that's really all that matters. I had an awesome time and we really pretty much stopped watching the game after a while and just hung out.
Thursday I went and hung out with Holly and had Mexican and stayed out way too late again.. I posted my facebook status last night.. "Another late night.. No wonder I'm tired all the time.. Ah, well.. Wouldn't trade it for anything.. :D" That's really the only thing I can say about not only Thursday the 20th but also for last night too, which by the way was a super cool night. Last night (I know I'm jumping ahead) I went to Holly's house. I made a buffalo rice dish and brought it down. The downstairs of her house is kinda odd, they have a family room off the bathroom? When you're in the main section of the house and you want to go to the family room you have to go through the bathroom, I don't think I've ever seen a bathroom/hallway before. The only other way to get to that room is to go outside. The upstairs of the house has two bedrooms and a bathroom and all the doors are like wood slat doors. They are vertical beams of wood with a cross beam near the bottom and top to hold it together. Plus, one of the bedrooms has a big overhead window and a wood canopey.
Nurit came over on Sunday morning and we went to the game with Matt. Randy met us at the stadium and we once again watched the hapless Mets lose. This time they actually made it an interesting game in the 9th before... Oh wait... Rewind to the beginning of this masterful game.. Oliver Perez started and failed to make it out of the first inning! Pedro Martinez started for the Phillies and Perez was taken out with 3-0 count while Pedro was batting. Yes, that's right, they took Perez out in the middle of an at bat and not only in the middle of any at bat, but in the middle of facing the opposing pitcher! I was trying to find out how often that has happened in baseball, but I can only find questions asking if that's legal so I guess that shows how infrequently it happens. I've certainly never seen it unless the pitcher was hurt which he was not. Speaking of things I've never seen. Pagan led off the Mets 1st with an Inside the Park Homerun! I mean, I've seen Inside the Park Homeruns but never live.. Oh and in the 9th with the Phillies batting and two outs Francour made an amazing catch and the ump said he trapped it, after a bit of an argument the umps actually reversed the call to the correct one! I mean how often does that happen.. Now all of this is great but lets get back to the Mets batting in the 9th. Down by two runs Castillo on 2nd and Murphy on 1st with Francour up at bat. No outs by the way, that's key here.. So.. The pitch, the hit and run is on, the 2nd baseman moves over to cover for the throw from the catcher.. Francour connects, he rips a line drive up the middle right into the waiting arms of the fucking 2nd baseman who takes one step and tags 2nd retiring Castillo and waves his arm slightly to the left to tag Murphy who had no chance to return to 1st to complete the UNASSISTED TRIPLE PLAY! There have only been 16 Unassisted Triple Plays in the history of MLB and this was only the 2nd ever that ended a game! You know, if you're going to lose a game at least this one was lost in style!
Now onto Monday.. Almost done.. I already did Wed and Thurs up in one of those tangents.. Monday me and Jessie ran to Manchester with hopes meeting Lynz and Anja for a 7:20 show of Ponyo. Well, we failed.. I hate Manchester, we made it to Red Robin around 7:05 and then preceded to get lost trying to get to the movie theater. Why didn't I just type it into my GPS? Because the movie theater is NOT in my GPS! Oh well, I stuffed my burger down as I walked from the car to the theater and we only missed the first few minutes of the movie. The movie was very cute and the voice acting was exceptional, it might be the best voice acting in a dubbed movie that I can remember. Not going to say much about other than go see it!
Tuesday dinner was at Ryan's this week. Before dinner we met at the pond by the house and went swimming. It was fun, but it made everything later than normal. We didn't eat dinner till at least 8:00. I didn't make anything this week but Jessie made a raw Strawberry Rhubarb pie.
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Tonight I'm going to see Jon Oliver with Jessie, tomorrow is Animefest XVII at Brad's house. Maybe I can sleep on Sunday?
Last night I made dinner for Lynz and I.. Tonight I'm making dinner for Jessie and I.. Both dishes feature Horseradish as the main ingredient..
Last night:
Grass Fed Rib Eye
Corn
Grilled Potato
Last night's sauce was: Big ass piece of Horseradish (about 1&1/2 inch of root)
Lots of garlic (an entire bulb)
6oz Greek Yogurt - Plain
A pour of Cider Vinegar
Cut the potatoes in half and spread the sauce on and closed the potato up before putting it in some foil. Cook on grill for LONG time, they were mostly done. Added some salt to them after they were cooked.
Pour the rest of the mixture on the steak and grill. Remember to save some to reapply when you flip the steak.
Tonight:
Tilapia
Rice
Mushroom and Garlic Spinach
Tonight's Sauce:
Big ass piece of Horseradish (about 1&1/2 inch of root)
Lots of garlic (an entire bulb)
Piece of Ginger
The juice of 6 lemons
1/4 of an Onion
A pour of Cider Vinegar
Salt
Let the Tilapia soak in the mixture for awhile, then wrap it in Banana Leaves with some of the sauce. Grill the Tilapia in the Banana Leaves.
Pour the rest of the sauce in a sauce pan with some cut up mushrooms and more garlic (maybe 2-3 cloves). Heat it up and toss spinach in for a few seconds before turning off heat, cover to let the spinach absorb the flavors.
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The other night me, Jesse, Jessie, Joe and Badger played a round of mini-golf at Mulligan's Island in Cranston RI. They have two courses, red - easy & blue - hard. At my suggestion we played the hard course which was pretty hard indeed. I posted a bunch of pics on Flickr. There was one hole which nobody finished. It was three islands with hollowed out logs between them. The bastards put hills in front of the logs so it was real hard to get into them. Nobody made it off the 2nd island before the 6+ stroke limit.
Joe ended up winning with a final score of 47, Jesse had 48, Badger 56, Me 59 and Jessie at 63. I certainly want to play it again when it's light out so I can better see the hills from the tee point.
At the end of the course they have a plinko type ball return, if you get the ball on the platform you win a free game. I was the last to drop my ball and the only one to win!
It's been far too long.. I guess I will start with the list I posted in the last blog...
-DDLC
The guy from DDLC came out (a while ago at this point) to do the yearly cleaning of our oil burner and to fix the door on the chimney. He was a really funny guy who was a lot of fun to talk to. Apparently the lady on the phone told me that he could of course fix the door but they never told him that he was going to do that so he didn't bring the stuff he needed to do it. Luckily he had spare stuff in his van from the last one he did so he was able to take care of it. I was going to post this whole big thing about talking to him but it's been so long now I don't remember most of it. I really need to blog more often.. /sigh
On the same day I had the lady from the town zoning board come out and look at where we want to put the fence, she said as far as zoning was concerned there was nothing stopping me but recommended I talk to the guy in the highway department to make sure it was ok for snow cleaning and walking rights. Talked to him a few days later and he said that as far as he was concerned if nobody complains there is no problem. He did say that the town owns 40ft of road so I need to measure from Elizabeth's yard (back of the sidewalk) to our yard and see how many feet that is.
-Dr Pialtos
Apparently I skipped a year in my yearly exams.. Did that matter? No.. I still have the same vision as I had the day after my surgery in terms of distance. What has changed is my astigmatism, I now have 2 "clicks" of an astigmatism, it was 1 "click" 2 years ago. He said he would not prescribe glasses for anyone under 4 "clicks" so I guess I have a while still before I have to worry about that which is a great thing! When he first put the letters up and asked me to read the lowest line I did without hesitation and he asked if I had memorized the chart.. :)
-Jesse and Marie's Party
This is one of those things that at the time I had lots of cool stuff to write about but now it just seems outdated.. I had a really good time there and met some really awesome people. Their house is great for hosting parties, they have a nice size deck and two fire pits, one close to the house and one far away on the yard. The basement has a built in bar and plenty of room for people to hang out. One of the really good things about going was it was the first time me and Marie really got to talk, which at the time was all exciting but now it's common place.. It took a while to get to know them but I'm really glad that Sara brought them into the Tuesday dinner crowd because they are really cool people..
-Yankees game on Sunday
I went to a Yankee game with Matt, I bought tickets for us to go to a game for his birthday earlier in the year. This was my second time at the new Yankee Stadium and my opinion has of it has really gone up. The first time I sat in the bleachers with my cousins and I was far from impressed with the stadium.. Back then we had walked around the Main and Field levels of the stadium and it was very closed and felt like a mall that happened to have a baseball game. This time I sat in the upper deck and was very impressed at how open it was, the concessions were all done like at CitiField so that you had a view of the stadium no matter where on the upper deck you were. Me and Matt walked around each deck and I think the upper deck is by far the best place to be. It still pissed me off that you had to wait in different lines for different food when the two lines were at the same booth but it wasn't so bad up there because you could still see the field and still felt like you were at a game instead of in a mall.
Go check it out! I took the train from New Haven directly into Yankee Stadium, on the way I went into the bathroom and saw a sticker for this site. It made me laugh and laugh even harder when I actually looked at the site. Apparently it's a website whose premise is that watching birds is voyeurism and must be stopped!
- Ruca
I met Ruca the other day (again, a while ago now).. We met at a parking lot near Holly's house and ate outside with her (Ruca, not Holly) leashed to the chair. After dinner we went for a walk on a trail in the woods. I even got to walk her for a while which was good. She can certainly pull so when it got to uneven ground I gave control back to Holly because I was afraid of hurting my tendon. Still have not met Brutus, we need to schedule a time for me to do that. Who's Ruca and Brutus? Holly and Louie's dogs..
- Mets game - Ebbet's Club / Cleaning / Air Conditioning / Hornet = wants bats
Dad bought tickets for me and him to sit in the Ebbet's Club for one of the games we had tickets for in our season plan. We gave our tickets away and drove down on Wednesday, unfortunately the game was rained out right at 7pm. I was trying to get the house cleaned for the BBQ and had everything scheduled so that I could go to the game on Wed and still get everything done for Friday night. When they announced the rain out they said that our tickets would be good for the next day at 7pm! So much for my cleaning schedule.. We headed home just to make the trip again the next day. It really is a long ride/day when going to the games because we leave typically at 2pm for a 7pm game so that we can get good parking and eat/relax a bit before the game starts. Got a little cleaning done late Wed night and a little more Thursday morning.
Let me back up a bit, Wednesday morning I got up and mowed the lawn until the batteries ran down on the mower. I really like mowing the lawn and it was the first time this year I got to do that because my legs are finally good enough to push the mower around. My enjoyment of mowing the lawn was really shit on when I got stung by a hornet near the bushes in the front of the house, if getting stung by a hornet was not bad enough I got stung on my left tendon! Let me back up a LONG time.. A few years ago I was cleaning out the area around the stream by our house and stepped on a ground nest and was stung an assload of times in a matter of a few seconds, it hurt for days and apparently left me hyper sensitive to hornet stings! So, back to modern times (well, modern in terms of this dialog), by Thursday morning my leg was REAL swollen. It was to the point where having a sock on was painful because of the compression of the sock. I looked up what eats hornets and found bats being the main animal that eats them. I am seriously looking into getting a bat house or two to put in my yard.
So, back to CitiField with my leg crazy swollen and lots of cleaning not getting done. I was a bit beat up and stressed out going down to the game but I would not have missed sitting in those amazing seats. The Ebbet's Club is at the top of the field level behind home plate, they have a private eating area that has a bar and some really good food. They have some normal food like hot dogs, nachos, and pretzels but they also have hand carved sandwiches which were amazing. You pick pork or turkey and that goes on a nice roll with your choice of toppings. On Wednesday I had pork with horseradish mayo, bbq sauce, an olive spread (think muffaletta) and cheddar cheese. It was $12.00 and came with home made chips. On Thursday I had meatballs on the same bread which was not as good as the pork sandwich. Drinks in the Ebbet's club have FREE refills! The other neat thing about our tickets is that it allows you into all of the other clubs in the stadium, well not all of them. It allows you to go into any club that's considered "lower" than the club you have tickets to. Because of that we walked through the Excelsior level and into the Ceaser's Club, the Ceaser's Club is behind home plate on the Excelsior level.
So, these seats were so close we got a bunch of foul balls into our section. One of them hit about a foot away from dad's head, the second one hit right above my head and I caught it as it bounced down, the third one hit my knee! Why didn't I catch that one? Well, I was texting Ivon (phone in right hand) and drinking a beer with my left hand. Sure, I could have dropped the beer but that would have freed up my left hand I probably would have missed it anyway and I didn't think dropping my phone was a good idea. I will say that was the last text I sent while a batter was up.
Oh, I put air conditioning into this section too.. Why? Well, while I was at the game Wednesday Jessie called me from Walmart to tell me she was buying a air conditioner for the bedroom.. I hates the ac so I am sleeping in the spare room for the summer..
Speaking of my leg/hornet sting, I went to the Urgent Care facility on Friday and got put on all kinds of crappy medication that I'm done with now.. If you ever get put on Prednizone be prepared to be moody and hungry..
- bbq
What to say.. It was great.. Thank you all who made it, screw you all who didn't.. ;)
- Man's night out
Kevin had the idea for us to do a man's night out the other night. Matt, Kevin, Ryan and myself went to JD Poopers and ate some good food and played some pool.. We played best 2 of 3 in team mode with me and Matt winning and playing each other for champion of the day which went to Matt as he crushed me in the final game..
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Former Giant Brad Benson makes a new marital vow, apparently he now owns a Hyundai dealership in NJ and decided he was not going to have sex until his dealership is the #1 dealership! Don't believe me, check out his youtube page..
While we were driving to and from CitiField we heard an add on the radio in which he asked everyone to please help him out because he wanted to have sex again! Crazy stuff...
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I started tracking my gas usage.. Here is the link to my car.
The site keeps a historical graph and tells you what percentage of the EPA you are getting. If you decide to track your gas usage send me the link..
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That's all the stuff I had in the last blog and in this text document I've working on.. Now on to new stuff...
Jessie went to a raw retreat and some dude there had these on. She told me about them and I went and tried them on with Holly.. I got a pair of brown KSO on the way to Laire and I have to say they ROCK! It's like walking around barefoot but with a sole. The oddest thing was when I stepped in mud and it went up in between my toes. Side note to that is that I had great traction in the mud because I was able to use all my toes.
Speaking of Laire, I played my barbarian shaman character and actually did a little running around. I played from Sat morning till about 11:00. I didn't leave the inn at night because I didn't want to step odd and hurt myself.
Monday night me, Jessie, Joe and Badger went to see Food Inc at the Cable Car Cinema in Providence, RI. If you've read the Omnivore's Dilemma you know what this is about. There were a few new things shown and it did a very good job of presenting the case against big factory farms. After the movie we went to Wild Colonial Tavern which is a really old bar on Water St. We hung out and had a few beers while playing pool. We did a tournament style and the final game came down to me and Badger with Badger beating me in the end. I'm sensing a theme here, I keep getting into the final game and falling just short of the victory..
- Tuesday Dinners..
Last week (8/4) we had dinner at our house as a change of pace, the weather was great and we setup the tables outside in the driveway and set the kids to watch Howl's Moving Castle and Totoro in the basement. Ryan brought over a venison roast for the grill, it came out really good. I cut it up into strips and seasoned it with (I don't remember right now) and grilled them for a few mins. How am I supposed to put recipes up if I don't write them down and don't remember.. I suck.. If anyone who watched me season the meat knows what I put on it please post it as a comment.. After dinner we made a fire in our new firepit and got to listen to Lynz & Marie play the Banjo and Dulcimer until Lynz's string broke.
This week (8/11) we were back at Ryan's house. Kevin, James, Fey and Mandy brought Muchkin Booty and we ended up getting a big game going. It's an ok game, I am just not a big fan of card games. Give me a nice long board game any day..
Last night me and Jessie met Holly and Louie at Mohegan Sun and went to Bobby's Buger Palace.. Bobby as in Bobby Flay, does this mean I can cross him off my Iron Chef list? Nah.. But Bar Americana is opening in Mohegan Sun as well so I will cross him off after I eat there. It was very good but was a little pricey. My burger (Miami Burger) was $7.50 and then you have to buy fries on top of that for $2.50. They said the fries were big enough for two people, they lied.. Holly was the only one of us to get her burger "Crunchified" which just means with chips on it. We tried to get her to say "Chrunchified" but she just said "with chips on it".. After dinner I lost some money on the slots and then wandered the mall and played H2Overdrive in the arcade. It's a kick ass 4 player boat racing game. If you see the machine somewhere you should play it.. :)
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