Random Quote

What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864)

Awesome Paper Sculptures

Wow, Richard Sweeney creates amazing paper sculptures

FOUND HERE.

 

And to think - all i ever made was paper airplanes...

Croque Monsieur

Well we made the Croque Monsieur sandwiches this weekend. After it was all said and done, the sandwhiches were very tasty. We topped them with fried eggs (so technically a croque madame) on some Potato and Rosemary bread from the Pangea Bakery.

 

As good as they were though, i dont think they warranted the amount of work going into them. 

 

The Bachemel sauce was excellent though, and works great as a spread for toast for a quick bite to eat later on (spreads like butter)

Would you Stop to Listen?

Very interesting washington post article about Josua Bell (acclaimed violinist) playing in a D.C. subway station as a street performer.

 

CLICK HERE

California in Review

Hmmm... windows live writer messed up my blog for california, so now i have to retype the stupid thing.. oh well.

 

Anywho - I'm back from california. All in all it was a great time. Good food, good coffee, and most importantly: good company.

PICTURES FOUND HERE

A couple of highlights:

- Good coffee at the living room cafe in oldtowne. I wanted to buy a tshirt, but they were sold out!

- Great Fancey Mac&Cheese at The Yard House with white truffle oil.... yummy.

- Eating a barbecued turkey on easter sunday with the family Matt lives with. Absolutely awesome food (A salad to die for made by a german girl who was visiting) and the classic accompanyments.

- Lots of walking, a few miles every morning, and a few more every afternoon. Got to see a lot of the SDSU Campus (just a few minutes away from the house, and good walking area)

- Playing Project Gotham Racing with Matthew (man does this bring back memories of high school)

- Eating a california burrito at 2:00 AM with Matt at Santanas Mexican Grill (darn good burritos!)

- Most importantly - just hanging with a friend.

Cooking again

Well me and DaNece finally started cooking again!

Last night we made one of the best meals i have had in a long time!

Food included:

- Pork Tenderloin cooked in wine, served with sauteed apples. The pork turned out great, searing it first, and then roasting it in wine and broth not only made it rediculously tender, but it also cut way down on cooking time compared with just roasting it. Only problem here was that the granny smith apples were too tart to compliment the meet well, and the skins were a pain to cut. Next time we will go with skinned red delicious, or pears.

- Fried Green Beans with Garlic. Quick and easy, plus it gives me a good reason to bust out the Wok (deep frying small amounts of things makes way more sense in the wok than the deep fryer). These turned out good, though i forgot to soak them in water before cooking them, and i didn't pat the oil off them after cooking (i was REALLY hungry). Other than that, a definate hit.

- Potatoe Latkes. By far the biggest hit, and also VERY easy to make. Grate up a few potatoes, and an onion, get as much water as you can out, then mix with flower and eggs. We didn't follow the linked recipe (can't find the recipe that we did use, but they are very similiar), and we used the spiced flower that we browned the pork in. Deep fried in the wok right before the green beans, and snacked as we finished cooking everything else. A few things we will change next time around: add chease to the mixture, we both agreed the flavor would be out of this world with cheese. Make them thinner; when we got greedy and made them thick the center was a little mushier than i would care for.

 

All in all an absolutely great meal! We will definately be making the latkes again (probably this weekend along with the Croque Monsiers that i am dying to try). And the braise and roast method is how all pork loins will be cooked in our house from now on (the meat was literally falling apart by the time it was done).

I dont think DaNece really liked the green beans, so i may make those one night when she is out of the house with the girls.

California So Far:

Okay, so here is my impression of california so far:
- It stinks. No really, it smells bad.
- It doesn't actually get dark in San Diego at night, because of the city lights reflecting off of the smog
- It's humid, which means LOTS of vegetation
- 70% of women here have had surgery to enhance their top end
- Beautiful, even against all the rest
So a few photos:
Matt, chillin with the first president of SDSU

Ocean Beach:

Pretty Flower in the driveway of the house Matt lives in:

How to make those ugly utility boxes less of an eye sore:

Latest Photoshop Piece

Well this is my latest photoshop creation. Daryn picking his nose. (click for larger image)

Good Game

Went to the Arizona Sundogs CHL Playoff Game 1 last night with DaNece and Luke. Great Game, we won 5-1, plenty of action, and fighting. A great time had by all.

Why being the IT guy aint so bad

So i have found a number of things that make being the IT guy not so bad:

1. My internet doesn't get blocked

2. I get to read all the funniest emails before i block them

3. I get to play with all the newest toys (and get a free laptop to use!)

4. When it is slow, i can play games; nobody else can!

5. I get to drive around to different offices = time away from desk = good.

6. I can mess with people

7. I can sit with a printer torn to pieces on my desk, and people assume that i am VERY busy and shouldn't be bothered.

8. Scheduling vacation is easy, because there are only 3 IT guys, and we rarely want the same days off.

9. I get two monitors to work on.

10. Overtime for easy things. I have to restart the servers - cant do that with people here, so i have to wait till after hours to hit the restart button

Californ-i-a

well i am going to San Diego this weekend to see my buddy Matt 

Should be a good time, definatley nice to take a 3-day weekend, and a mini-road trip.

 

Pictures upon return i'm sure.