So, I haven't written since my little escapade down to Alabama and the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. I travelled down with 4 others the weekend before Veterans' Day, and we proceeded to play 126 holes in 4 days. I learned a valuable lesson on this trip - keep your back elbow down! No, wait, that's one of the 836 golf tips I was having trouble with by the 3rd day. What I learned is that NO ONE should try playing 126 holes in 4 days, particularly when you travel somewhere and play on some of the hardest courses you've ever set foot on.
That being said, the RTJ Golf Trail is a GREAT place for a golf vacation. Practically all of their locations have more than one full course, and each course has a distinct design, so they all legitimately seem different too. I should mention that while playing 126 I never played a single hole twice. Pictures never really do justice to outdoor, 'picturesque' scenes in my opinion, but here are a few of the better ones I snapped between holes.
Before I move on, a short ranking and synopsis of the courses for those couple of readers that are also golfers.
Silver Lakes - As you might imagine, the courses feature some lakes (though they aren't actually silver). This place was heavily wooded and the course itself was in immaculate shape. Maybe my new favorite golf course on earth. I'll hafta let that idea simmer for awhile before I make that official ('Pebble Creek' golf course northwest of Cincinnati is the current owner of that title).
The Shoals - Silver Lakes is the nicest I've ever played, and The Shoals is the toughest I've ever played. One course was links-style (over 8,000 yards from the back tees!), the other was a 'traditional Alabama course' - i.e. it's in the middle of the woods.
Oxmoor Valley - Both courses have been built on top of old mining areas. There were a few holes that actually exposed shale and other signs of mining.
Hampton Cove - A distant 4th place. But to be fair, we played this course on the 4th day, and I truly hated golf that day. On the plus side, ZERO bunkers!
Happy Birthday, Oliver!
While I was away playing too much golf, my wonderful dog had his 10th birthday. You only turn 10 once, so I did provide a Nylabone treat upon my return. If I had more time and was cruel (and weird too, probably), I would have stuck a birthday hat on him and snapped a picture. Alas, I've been busy.
My Coaching Debut
One of my friends at work asked if I wanted to help coach an 8th grade basketball team this year (his son is on the team), so I've been dabbling in that for the last few weeks. It's not the official school team; more like rec leagues for little kids. This is a foreign idea to me, but that's what they do around here. We only practice twice a week, and these kids aren't serious about the game at all, so you can imagine we don't have too many complicated plays in our playbook. But we had our 1st game last week, and we won 26-13! This group of kids has historically been pretty bad (read, the doormat of their leagues every year), so they were pretty fired up to start the year with a win. Sadly, we got rocked in our 2nd game, so the jury is still out on whether the season is going to be more like the 1st game or the 2nd.
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Many changes are imminent on the job-front. Things are not looking up there, so I'm probably going to get a little more serious about checking out the job market (even though I'd be stupid to leave the relative safety of federal employment right now). I don't own a gun or anything, so I won't be taking one to work. But it's a good thing I also don't know karate, because I probably would've kicked a couple of people in the face by now....
(I may have too much material here, and it's possibly not entertaining. I may just be entertaining myself, and scaring everyone else....)
Yeah, so I ended the Vegas trip down a couple hundred bucks due to $5 blackjack. I'm usually somewhere between up a couple hundred and down a couple hundred when I leave Vegas. Nothin' too devastating, considering the gov't pays me about that much for a week there anyway (on top of my normal pay). It's technically for food and other such necessities, but really I have to feed myself when I'm at home too, so I guess I might as well foolishly entertain myself and make the casinos even richer :-) I'm really close to even for all my small-time gambling endeavors, so I figure that I'm really winning :-) I also figured out the card-counting basics, but at the 'cheap' tables it doesn't really get you very far. Here's the short version. You're supposed to keep track of the number of cards with value '10' left in the deck (10s and all face cards). A higher proportion of these is good for you and bad for the house. But if you play at the cheap tables they only play with a single deck, so you only play 2-3 hands before the count resets back to 0. At slightly higher stakes they play with 6 or even 8 decks at a time, so the proportion has alot more time to get out of whack before they shuffle the cards.
As a sidenote, although Vegas is pretty much a place of overwhelming craziness, it does get one thing right - every business in that town understands customer service. I've never been to a restaurant that was anything short of attentive. I got a free lunch one day because somebody in the kitchen messed up, so my food came out not more than 5 minutes after the rest of the guys. I didn't say a single word about it, because it wasn't a big deal. But they took it off the bill, no questions asked. That seems to be more of the rule than the exception in Vegas.
AND, I also had a previously unfathomable string of horrible music while sitting in 'New York, New York' (a casino, pictured above). They played a song, and I noted to my compatriot Logan that "this song is easily on my top 10 worst songs ever". Then the next song came on and I said "geez, this song would be on that list too", and a 3rd consecutive song came on which made me think that it must not be my night. This is entirely subjective, of course, but for my money you can't get worse than these three songs:
Werewolves of London - Warren Zahn OR Kid Rock (it's really the same)
Blinded by the Light - Manfred Mann
Greased Lightning - Travolta & ONJ
MAYBE I would want to put a Meatloaf song in there, but I really don't know which song I'd take out so I think I should just stick with this trifecta of musical pollution.
ROCK THE VOTE!
So, I'm a registered Republican, and even though no one asked, I'll tell you I'm voting for Obama (and possibly every Democrat on the entire ballot). I'm doing this because John McCain is one of the greatest Americans of his generation, and even he has been incapable of making the Republicans make any sense. He has had to do what the party says, and that's a shame. The party is more interested in puppeteering the Christian right than in compromising to make some improvements to the country. They could have latched onto Obama's incredibly liberal voting record, played up the higher taxes issue, and destroyed him with his flip-flop from publicly funding his campaign and his lack of experience. Instead, they decided to throw Sarah Palin in the 'invigorate the core' (and 'invigorate' me to not vote republican). A few thoughts on this nomination.
You can't learn about foreign policy or energy plans by osmosis. I don't care how close Alaska is to Russia, nor does sitting on an oil reserve make one an expert in energy.
I understand the desire to put a female in VP slot to capture a few disenfranchised Clinton supporters. The republicans have a perfectly capable, smart female candidate in Condaleeza Rice (who also happens to be black, which couldn't have hurt). But she was too close to the Bush shenanigans for their liking I guess......they might as well have thrown Ann Coulter in there. At least everybody already knew she was bat-shit crazy.
When someone asks which newspapers you read, don't answer "All of them." That's retarded.
I'm certainly not a fired up abortion rights activist, but the incestuous rape case is one in which I expect even the purist of pro-lifers to at least acknowledge the opposing viewpoint of pro-choice. The country was founded by Christians, but was founded FOR religious tolerance. It's called compromise, and if we can't compromise when a girl is raped and impregnated by her father, we're in real trouble. If pro-lifers spent all their money to educate at-risk females rather than buying lobbyists, the end result would be less abortions than ever. It doesn't have to be illegal to lower the number of abortions.
Obama's plan isn't 'socialism', it's a progressive tax code. And it was started by the republicans. Socialism is a national banking system. Oh.....shit.......guess we messed that up. At least the democrats will tell you what they're about. The republicans aren't for free markets anymore either, but they'll say they are. And these guys (that I voted for) have been re-distributing the wealth upwards for a long time, and that system isn't working anymore. If the rich bastards want to move to India to make a couple extra million because our tax code is a little higher, I'm in favor of giving them the plane ticket.
/end political rant
I got an 'A' in my Foundations of Effective Management class that ended last friday. I'm on to Managing Organizational Behavior, which started this past monday. Now that I know what to expect, I don't think this class will be too tough either. I'm going on my golfing trip this weekend. 7 rounds in 4 days, starting this saturday. I won't be blogging next sunday, but my next post should have some pictures from Ye Ol' Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail.
.......oh wait. I'm staying at the fabulous Air Force Inn for $30/night. Normally that's not a bad thing as the 'hotel' on Nellis Air Force Base is probably the nicest I've ever seen on a base. (Sidenote: Don't EVER stay on an Army base!) But they are struggling so far on this stay. My remote control doesn't work, no ESPN (seriously?), it took a half hour to check in, the internet is as slow as old-school dial-up, and I got a 6 a.m. wake-up call that I didn't order. That's a bad start.
Also, I'd like to share a little known Vegas fact. A section of it near the base actually smells worse than Terre Haute on its worst day. I kid you not, this place has a stench issue between I-15 and the base. Don't leave your vehicle unless it's an emergency.
I had an uneventful trip over here. And as excited as I've been about my new laptop, making my first trip with it has been even better. I packed for a week in a small duffel bag, mostly because my laptop is the size of a hardback novel. On the flight from Dallas (where I connected) they showed the movie '21'. That's the movie about the MIT kids counting cards and making big money in Vegas playing blackjack. It was obviously a fitting movie to watch on the way to Vegas, and was a pretty decent story. I'm sure they had to compress the technical details to keep the movie interesting, but I seriously doubt that counting cards is that efficient and effective. I'll try it tonight (jk), but tables just can't get 'hot' that easily.
So, ya know how I said I only travel about once a month? Yeah, about that......I'm suddenly booked pretty full for travel between now and Christmas with trips to Purdue, Univ. of Michigan (both to interview grads), DC for two meetings, back here to Vegas again, and my Alabama golfing trip now looks like poor timing. I think I only have about 15 days actually at my desk until next year. NO MAS!
OK, it's almost 7 a.m. here and I need to finish getting ready and head over for work. I may post again this week if anything interesting happens (that's fit for parents' and grandparents' ears, of course! ;-)
(Text-only post warning. Taking pictures of myself isn't normal.....)
So, I haven't visited a dentist since before the first (stupid) Saw movie. For those not up on horror porn (slang term, not literally porn), the first Saw film was released in 2004. The FIFTH Saw movie comes out this weekend. So sad....(*insert your own anecdote about declining human morals here*)
Anyway, back to my dentistry story. I last visited the dentist in 2002, I think. It's been quite some time, anyway. Well, paranoia and my general attempt to take care of myself a little better led me to go to the dentist today. My main criteria for selecting a dentist was name-length and overall pronunciation difficulty. Bonus points if it sounds like you're putting a spell on someone with the name. Dr. Dibenedetto won the prize (Dr. Alakazaam was booked). Bottom line: no cavities. The claims that one should get their teeth cleaned every 6 months is possibly more ridiculous than the engine oil companies saying "change your oil every 3000 miles". Can I also ask why they tell you things like "your gums are going to bleed a little bit, but if you floss more and come in for more cleanings that won't happen."? Human beings shouldn't fall for tricks like that. Look at the weapon they are using. It's a sharp, bent piece of metal! Name any other part of your body that would stop bleeding if you jabbed it with pointed metal more often???? That just doesn't make any sense. Denstists are sadistic...
Not really. Deep down I know I should take care of these teeth. I will likely start going every 6 months now, but I'm not going to be afraid to cancel if I'm busy! (And I may get that weird front tooth thing fixed. Dr. Bibbity-bobbity-boo said it would only cost about $100 and be pretty easy to do.)
On to other news....
I'm not going to be able to come home this weekend because my final project is due friday night for my "Foundations of Effective Management" class, and I have to travel to Vegas monday. I won't complain about trips to Vegas, although it's pretty easy to be tired of traveling in general. I only travel about once a month though, so it's not a big deal. I get back on Halloween.
This year I'm helping coach an 8th grade basketball team. A guy I work with has a son that plays in the lower levels of competition and he asked if I'd help. They only practice twice a week, and these kids aren't even going to play in high school. They are just there for fun, and that's fine. I'm sure it will be a learning experience, and hopefully a good time too.
Alright, I'm typed out. I got sick (again!) this past week, but I'm pretty much back to normal. I think blogging may be weakening my immune system.....
It has been a busy weekend! I just got done writing a 5-page paper for my 'Foundations of Effective Management' class, so if anybody is interested in ING's Asia/Pacific Insurance company's efforts to align their human resources with their strategic execution - I'm your man. Overall this was a reasonably crappy week, but those happen once in awhile.....
Friday I went out with friends for a bit of a 'going away' party. My friend Sameer is 'going away' (to DC). We ended up at the Soft Rock karoake establishment. While there I stumbled upon an undeniable fact. The song 'Poison' by Bel Biv Devoe has very forgettable verses and more rap than you think, and only sings the chorus (which everyone knows) twice. Don't be fooled into 'helping' on this little number. It's futile. A youtube video for your amusement.....
Saturday I went to Brett Pagel's wedding, which was lovely (what else is there to say about a wedding?). I skipped out of the reception a little early because another friend of mine recently went to DC to work for the FBI, and he made a surprise trip back into Dayton. So I met up with him and we went to "King's Table". There I learned 2 things. 1) Their skee ball game is not of regulation length. 2) Even though the small hole on the top right says '100', the game only gives you 50 points. Don't be fooled.
Sunday I became more constructive with my time, and helped a guy that I work with move into his house. Sadly when I showed up it was just him, his fiance, and one other dude, none of which weighed even 150 pounds. If I'm your 'muscle' for a move, you've got problems.
I got my fancy new laptop in the mail on wednesday! I didn't really know exactly what I was getting into with this thing, but it's actually turned out A O K. I had some Linux-y trouble the 2nd day when trying to update some software, but other than that it works like a dream. It is REALLY small, but just big enough to be able to touch-type with no problems. And it boots up in ~15 seconds. And, AND, it has a bootleg version of Tetris on it! All for $350! (And my other laptop is officially DEAD. The board is no good. I'll be using it to try my first sell on eBay as soon as I get a chance to post the dumb thing.....)
It's almost midnight, so I'm gonna mail this in instead of filling you in with more boring details of the last week. I might come home next weekend - TBD.
It's basically been another uneventful week here. I'm not sick anymore and the dog hasn't had anymore seizures (or whatever that was). I did go see Jim Gaffigan, and the guy is still funny. He had all new material, other than doing his famous Hot Pockets routine. Here's a clip of his old stuff, if you're just looking to be entertained for 10 minutes.
On with the blog.....
Going Green
OK, so I'm making the plunge. I bought some plastic tubs at Target, and I'm sorting paper from glass/metal/plastics. This is the only good thing that came from a couple of dates with a girl from Cincinnati. She was surprised I threw away beer bottles. Amy, if you're reading this, that was a valid point. See ya never....
Turning White????
*WARNING - Bad movie reference upcoming* I have blown up no less than 3 computers in the last 2 weeks. I think I'm turning into that guy from the movie Powder. For those that haven't seen this lame movie, the guy from Powder was an albino with superhuman intellect and extreme magnetic fields around his body, apparently due to his mother being struck by lightning while pregnant. The only part I'm referencing is the extreme magnetic field part. My skin is the same hue, and I don't believe I've gotten appreciably smarter or dumber recently.
Two of the 3 computeres were at work. Actually I destroyed the same one twice, but that's splitting hairs. The computer at work is a significant annoyance, but in the end it's no skin off my back. HOWEVER, the other computer was my laptop. I bought that laptop last spring, and it has been a piece of junk from day 1. I highly don't recommend Windows Vista Home Basic, and the same can be said of Compaq Presario laptops. Friday I gave it to my friend that works on computers to see if he can get my pictures off of it. Hopefully he's successful, but either way I'll be pillaging it for parts when I get it back. I can't possibly survive without a laptop, so I've purchased a replacement which I can't WAIT to get in the mail.
Ooooozing Geek
I bought something that has become known as a Netbook. It's possible many of you have heard of these before, but I wouldn't bet on it. The one I bought is the Acer Aspire One. Basically it's a super-small laptop (9" screen) with smaller memory and computing capability that is really just meant to be super mobile and used for basic internet surfing. Most, including mine, come with what is called a solid-state drive (SSD). This is what you find in smaller memory iPods, cameras, etc. The bottom line is that it doesn't spin up like conventional hard-drives. Blah, blah, blah. No one reading this cares.
Here comes the really geeky part. Since it only has a 16GB hard-drive, Windows is a bit much for it. So it has a Linux operating system (Linpus Linux Lite to be exact). Using Linux may actually make me more pale and I'll need to be alot smarter to be a 'power-user', so my Powder comparison could be coming true soon. Stay tuned.....
The most relevant end-result of this purchase is that I can now create a Christmas list. Historically I have been pretty bad at giving people ideas for things I want for christmas. Even though I told Grandma on the phone that I usually don't ask for tech-y things for Christmas, I'm going to make an exception here because these are pretty cheap. Here are 3 things I would LOVE to have for my new gadget that are within reasonable price ranges for the Christmas (and birthday) seaons.
External CD/DVD Drive - Netbooks are too small for internal CD drives. But it will still be super-handy to be able to copy things on and off of the machine via CD/DVD. Again, the exact drive isn't important, but the specs are what I'm shooting for. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151163
Again, no big deal if I don't get any of these. If I don't, I'll probably just go buy them after christmas. But I will promise to NOT buy any of these before then. And if you aren't sure how to get one of these I can offer further ordering assistance.
I need to go read for class and hit the hay in anticipation for another monday morning. (I'm kinda sore because I got back into the habit of running this weekend.....) See ya!
My loving sister has brought to my attention a ridiculous error in my previous post. Even though this post is probably making me a tad late for work, I think it's worth the investment to clear up any confusion that may have resulted. I can't have people going ~9000 minutes before my next regularly scheduled post......
I DO NOT HAVE A CRUSH ON JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE.
While I will give Justin some credit for trending the right direction (I'm not afraid to say he's come a long way since his days as lead moron for the boy band), he's nowhere near man-crush level. I'm willing to publicly admit he's not a loser, but that's about as far as it goes. Sorry Justin. If you'd quit wearing so many scarves, and you can get someone to make your right hand look less gargantuan maybe even more people would like you. These aren't easy things to look past as a shallow society.
FIRST, I should apologize. I did not realize that Lou and Lori had both left comments on my earlier blog (hello, auntie's!). I have now changed my settings so that I get an email anytime someone leaves a comment, so from now on I can respond appropriately to any future posts.
I got Sick this Week
So I caught some random bug this week. I stayed home and slept thursday, and have been doing excessive amounts of napping for most of the last week. For a couple of days I also had a slightly sore mouth, which I think is a new one for me. It was like having a sore throat, except it was my gums, inner cheeks, and other various pieces inside my mouth. If I hadn't already had mono, I would have perhaps guessed I had it. But then again, I I hadn't already had mono, I wouldn't know what it felt like, and probably wouldn't have made a comparison to it. A quick stop at WebMD.com gave me this helpful advice (paraphrasing) - "Don't always assume it is herpes". Well thank you for that nugget of medical wisdom. Although I appreciate their concern, I happened to be a step ahead of them in this particular regard. I think Wikipedia and WebMD have two things in common.
They both have TONS of information
Their usefulness is counter-intuitive
I would never have guessed that Wikipedia would be even remotely useful, but it turns out there's a TON of good information on it. Sadly, WebMD sounds like a good idea, but it ends up just being a place that people search on when they are afraid they caught an STD. Anyway.....the good news is that I'm pretty much back to normal.
Oliver Got Sick Too
In what appears to be an unrelated incident, Oliver gave the impression that he had a near-death experience friday night. Here's the short version of the story......He fell out of bed friday night (occasionally he is allowed there) and was scurrying around like he was trying to escape some sort of pain. His back leg definitely wasn't working correctly, because he had a serious alignment issue that was forcing him to constantly turn right (insert Derek Zoolander ambi-turner joke here). After walking all the way around 3 sides of my bed (going right), he sadly rammed into the wall and then scurried out of the bedroom where I caught him and he peed on the floor. Then he took off again and threw up back in the bedroom. So I picked him up and took him to the safety of the ceramic tile in my kitchen (where he threw up a little more). By the time I did some initial clean-up of the various fluids, he had calmed down a lot and seemed fine. We went outside and he took a dump, but basically acted like nothing had happened. I have lots of possible explanations for this, but I really have no idea. I'll be keeping an eye on the situation, but he seems unphased now.
As a sidenote, is there a veterinarin version of WebMD? It seems like the philosophy of self-diagnosis and half-measured solutions is better suited for pets than people anyway.....just sayin'.
The 'Get to Know Michael' Pop Quiz
What does Michael have in common with a typical teenage girl????
a. He is self-conscious about his body
b. His texting antics are out-of-control
c. He has a crush on Justin Timberlake
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If you guessed 'c', you'd be correct. I inexplicably had an extra $33 in text charges on my bill this month! Stop the madness! People need to quit texting me, and they probably will as soon as they realize that I'm not that likely to respond anymore unless it's really warranted.
Entertainment Section
I saw the movie "Burn After Reading" this weekend. (By looking at my blog you'd think I went to the movies alot, but you'd be wrong.) I don't really recommend this movie for anybody, although if you love other Coen Brothers' movies you will likely go anyway. Suck-o.
I also caugh the end of the David Blaine "Dive of Death", and that was pitiful. BUT, if you were let down by this, perhaps this little video clip will cheer you up. (Note: Everyone is obviously welcome to watch this, but if you aren't familiar with David Blaine's "Street Magic" you probably won't appreciate this clip. I'm kinda looking at you, Mom and Dad :-)
In other comedy news, I'm going to see Jim Gaffigan here in Dayton this thursday. I'll let ya know how it goes.....
I'm frantically working on a plan to go to Alabama to play golf in November. They have a bunch of courses that are part of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail that are supposed to be awesome for fall/winter. More to come on this....
Oliver is Having a HORRIBLE Week
In addition to his strange illness, Oliver also has an owner who is intent on plucking all of his long hairs out. Here's a picture at ~50% completion. I've gotten much better at this and I can pretty much get this done in about 3 hours of effort. But in general it's not really that good of a time. It's probably his version of a human's trip to the dentist.
Political Commentary
I'm not sure if you've all heard about this, but it turns out that America is screwed. How do I know? Well, Lou Dobbs and Ron Paul were the only people I saw on CNN or MSNBC that were making any sense. And that is in the book of Revelations as a sign of the apocalypse (NEWEST New Revised Edition....they caught another monk typo). It doesn't matter who gets elected, they are just as screwed as the rest of us. In fact, they may be even more screwed. We're probably just about due for an assassination attempt (Note to Secret Service - I'm just speculating, not planning.) I'm estimating that we may be back to 'normal' in 3 presidents. But they might as well announce now that the guy who wins this election won't get re-elected because he's not going to be able to un-do all the stupid shit that's happened already. I'm not even that motivated to go vote now, despite my location in a swing-state. Sorry Barack and John, that's just bad timing for you guys. PUT YOUR MONEY IN A COFFEE CAN AND BURY IT IN YOUR BACKYARD!!!!! (jk)
So, many of my neighbors continue to not have electricity due to the hurricane-strength winds last sunday. According to the Dayton Power & Light website there are still over 38000 people without power here in Dayton. I'm lucky to not be one of those.
I officially got my 1st post-promotion paycheck this friday. I'd be more excited about it if I hadn't been told I was getting promoted last November, only to have it take until now for it to get done. The government can obviously make even the simplest, straight-forward good news and manage to piss people off about it. But I'm over it, and it's just in time for October, which just happens to be one of those glorious 3 paycheck months (I get paid every 2 weeks). I've got a fever, and I think the only cure is more Playstation 3! (well, just one would be enough) I dont' really have a fever, but I've seriously been fighting off Playstation3 procurement urges off and on for about a year. If I'm going to waste money I really oughta buy a bed. Mine is a piece. But for 5 years I figured I'd just keep using this one because if I ever get a serious g/f (stressing serious here) she'll probably either already have appropriately nice bedroom furniture or she'll certainly be in charge of picking new stuff out. Segue.............
Potential Procreation Update (for Megan)
I have consistently spoken out against 'persistence dating'. This is when someone pursues another and the pursue-ee says 'no thank you' many, many times, but eventually gives in and goes on a date. I've never understood the logic and have been quite critical of this philosophy in the past. The phenomenon lives on mostly because every time it happens it gives false (kinda false) hope to all the people getting the 'no'. Well, I gave in and went on a date with a girl that's been jonesing for a date for quite awhile now. That was a mistake. Hopefully she's not reading this, but she surely should know that it didn't go all that well. Nothing horrendous, just kind of an 'eh...' experience, and one that doesn't warrant further investigation. But we did go to a thai restaurant that is part of the group known as the 'Dayton Independents', which I'd never heard of before. As you might imagine it's a group of independent restaurants that have a loyalty rewards program in place. I am now going to slowly start going through this list to check these guys out (there's only about 20 restaurants in the list). In conclusion, I tried the persistence dating scene, and will now go back to criticizing the participants. I can take 'no' for an answer; and now I'll expect any progressive, forward-thinking female pursuer to do the same.
Cooking Update
I'm risking comparisons to Steve Correll in '40 Year Old Virgin' with this section, but I do like to cook. It's officially fall starting tomorrow, and that means it is completely reasonable to start firing up the crock pot. I do own the Biggest Book of Slow Cooker Recipes, (BBSCR) and also the CIA's Soup cookbook. With the CIA book I've learned that you'd better set aside 4 hours of time and make sure you have an internet connection. There's going to be some assumed knowledge in the recipe that I don't have. But with the BBSCR you basically just cut a bunch of stuff up and throw it in the crockpot. This friday I made 'Golden Beef and Apple Cider Stew', and I give it a 6 (out of 10). Nothing spectacular here, and I probably won't make it again. It had all the usual suspects in a typical stew (potatoes, carrots, onions, celery, beef), and also obviously had apples and apple cider in it. It was certainly edible and tasted good enough for me to eat it for about 4 meals, but I won't go so far as to endorse it.
Travel Update
No travel plans here, but I did actually enter in the Tampa Bay Rays' raffle to win the chance to buy postseason tickets.......unlikely I'd go, but it doesn't cost anything to throw my name in the hat.
Movie Review - Tropic Thunder
This could have almost gone under a previous section. I went with a female friend, but it's been decided that this wasn't a date. Actually this female friend is Meghan, who came with me to Lindsey and Brent's wedding last year. ANYWAY, Tropic Thunder is unlikely to be enjoyed by anyone that can't deal with really crude humor. If you're into that type of thing it's certainly worth a rental, but maybe not worth going to the theater to see. Tom Cruise has a small part in it, and he manages to steal the show and be the funniest character in the whole thing.
Alright, I gotta get back to reading a case-study for my Master's class. Maybe I'll include a picture next week...........
Well, according to the news, 100,000 people don't have power in the dayton area because we've had hellacious winds today (sustained winds up to 50mph with gusts over 70mph). Luckily my condo still has power. But I was at Dorothy Lane Market this afternoon, which is a fancy-pants grocery store that has amazing produce, deli, etc., and the power went out there just before I was getting in line to check out. (I bought all the ingredients for 'Golden Beef & Apple Cider Stew'. I'll let ya know how it turns out.) They couldn't get their generator to work, and after about 20 minutes of standing around in the dark they started just estimating the cost of items in people's carts and letting customer's pay with cash. I'm pretty sure I got a good deal, as my estimated cost was $32, but usually I spend closer to $50+. But I don't ever pay attention to how much crap costs at the grocery store. I just grab something and throw it in the cart.....I was at the mercy of the 16 year old cashier, but she was definitely estimating low and I wasn't going to stop her.
Since you're reading this you know that I survived my trip to Rome, NY. But as I mentioned earlier, my hotel was very creepy and should probably be the setting of a horror movie. Heavy forest surrounding a 1-story hotel with the exterior doors isn't a good idea. Don't go to 'The Beeches' in Rome, even though this picture doesn't look that horrible. It's unsafe.
I went to the baseball Hall of Fame this wednesday, and that place is officially impressive. They know how to do a hall of fame. Basically the entire town is the 'hall of fame' because all the stores and crap around the actual HoF are devoted to baseball too. I was only there for just over 2 hours, so I didn't even come close to seeing everything. But I did take plenty of pictures. Here's the Cardinals official locker (with random stuff in it), and Ozzie's plaque.
I also had a pretty Christmas-y week. I finally cooked up the awesome beef and noodles Aunt Lou gave lots of us at Christmas. That's some good eatin'. The only 'problem' is that it could feed about 10 people. I've eaten it for basically every meal since friday, and I'm only about half way through it. While at the HoF I bought some Christmas gifts, which is easily the earliest I've ever done that before. Landon's getting a book called 'Hello Fredbird', written by the one and only Ozzie Smith. Maybe it will overtake Cars as his favorite thing on earth! (Unlikely....)
That's all I've got this week. I need to crank on a paper for my master's class that is due tomorrow.....
So, I'm in Rome, NY. My best analogy for describing this glorious town is to imagine Salem, IL, in 1983 (Effingham has too many restaurants to draw parallels to Rome). Basically what I'm saying is this place has no appeal for out-of-towners.
I was originally supposed to be traveling with a co-worker that has been here several times before. She didn't end up making the trip, but she did manage to recommend the hotel I'm staying at. This recommendation was poor. I just stepped out to take a picture, but it's dark and I fear the dark woods just beyond my door (btw, Pujols just hit a 3-run homer to tie the Cubs!) This is one of those old-school hotels that is one-story and has all the doors to the rooms on the outside. What makes this one creepy is that it's surrounded by thick forest. It does have free internet and digital cable, but the setting is slightly unsettling. As a non-obese male in his 20's I doubt any perpetrators would view me as the lame zebra in the pack, so I really don't think I'm going to be targeted. But I wouldn't want to stay here alone if I was a more inviting target. And I'm not going to be thrilled if some senior citizen gets attacked next door...
The only good thing about this trip is that I'm only 50 miles from Cooperstown, NY, so I'm going to hit up the baseball hall of fame before my flight out of Syracuse tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes if I keep doing this blogging thing. For now I'll just back-fill you all on some other halls of fame:
Football Hall of Fame - Canton, OH. Don't waste the gas. Total letdown.
Hockey Hall of Fame - Toronto, Canada (the 52nd state). Much better than the football hall of fame. It's reasonably interesting even for non-hockey fans.
Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame - Cleveland, OH. Another mediocre review. My hall of fame experience so far has led me to speculate that all of them are just OK.
OK, I'm done. But I'll post a video that you all may find humorous for its saturated level of ridiculousness.
While on the phone tonight, Megan pointed out some funny videos on her blog (that I regularly forget to check), and I decided I should play along on this blogging phenomenon. It does seem to be a good way to keep everybody more up to date on my comings and goings. I obviously won't be discussing details of work on here. But rather than focus on what WON'T be on here, I'll give everybody some teasers of what WILL be covered.
Travel excitement - When I travel to great places (like Rome, NY!) I'll paint the scene for everybody and it'll be almost like you were here yourself (minus the part where I got up at 3:45am to catch a 6 am flight).
Sports excitement - I know everyone wants to hear about my glorious career as a rec. league sports superstar! You all already know this, but people take sports way too seriously, even as adults. For better or worse, I have already honed my athletic skills back when it seemed more appropriate to spend 30 hours a week trying to master a game. So now I amuse myself by dominating people that think there are professional scouts in the crowd of 20 people watching the games. I hope this stops being amusing before I tear my ACL, but the smart money is on my career ending under the knife. Maybe I'll surprise myself and stop while still intact......
Dating excitement (some of it) - I'm just gonna throw a little bit of this information in there to try to calm some nerves. Anytime I'm interacting with females my age and Megan is around, her desperation on my behalf is palpable! ;-) Don't panic. Even if I don't find a keeper in the next few years, I'm getting close to the point where I can be somebody's marriage Round #2. I'm told these girls have much lower expectations and a wealth of knowledge on how to make a relationship work!
Random Theories - I've got 'em. Now I'm gonna share 'em. Examples - half-sized loaves of bread (someone has since stolen this idea from me and started producing them), how to fix the DH problem in major league baseball, how my old lady of a neighbor could quit banging her front left bumper on the garage everytime she pulls in (it's called 'reverse'). I will likely only be amusing myself with these stories.
I'll be attempting to adopt the 'sunday updates' theory from Megan, but I can't make any promises at this point. We'll just see how it goes.
Everybody else is doing this blogging jazz, and ,as much as I'm inclined to poke fun at it, it does keep me more 'in the loop' with everybody. So, I'm going to participate a little bit.....
