2009 Update

Sorry for the decently long break. I kind of got sidetracked with work for a while. I’ve been through a couple trials recently that went fairly well. Little hiccups for the most part. So now that work is calming down a bit, I decided I would update things a bit.

So as you could guess, work is going well at the moment. The winery cut back my hours after I agreed to give them to some of the other employees who only work there and nowhere else.

I’ve been enjoying working there and I’m looking forward to getting back, hopefully sometime in March. I love being able to discuss wine and meet new people. It’s funny because I never thought I’d enjoy that job to the extent I have. I guess part of it is the fact that wine is such a sensual topic. When there’s a group of women doing a tasting and I get started talking about the flavors, and what sorts of food or cheese would accompany it well, the looks on their faces is amazing. If I’m feeling troublesome I’ll start adding to it by describing situations with significant others.

One of my favorite things to do comes about towards the end of the tasting. I love describing a nice way to enjoy our 2006 Late Harvest Vidal Blanc. I’ll start by explaining how its made and then I get into some of the flavors. I generally give a warning like this isn’t a wine you’ll drink by the bottle but more of something to have a small glass with special someone. Just imagine being cuddled up next to your significant other on a cold evening after a delicious meal. You get a pair of glasses, fill them partway with the late harvest and put a plate of fresh cut fruit in reach of your seat. Then, in between small sips of this thick, honey-tasting wine, feed your special someone a small piece of fruit. Just taking your time with one another enjoying the taste of the wine, the complementary flavors of the fruit, and the nice warm body next to you.

That description, told while looking the women in their eyes, is generally enough to get them picturing that scene in their minds. Its great to be able to see their reactions after I’m done my little tale. I feel like an exhibitionist after they leave but being able to do that to groups of women is an aphrodisiac all its own. I’m looking forward to getting back to it.

In other news, I’ve been doing small repairs around my house: new doorbell, new outside light, replacing closet doors, rewiring cable and internet, etc. Its keeping me busy while making things nicer for both my sister and I. Plus I figure that it will help keep the parents off of my back about anything I might let slip by accident.

February seems to be the month of traveling for me. I’m heading back to Cleveland for the wedding of two of my good friends. I’m really looking forward to it since I haven’t been back in almost a half year and I miss everyone there. There are going to be some people I haven’t seen in much longer there as well. We’ll see what kind of mischief I get into and also which of those stories I can share on here.

Then two weeks later I’m heading to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. My friends who are living down there started bugging me before the New Year and I finally realized that I’m not going to have this chance for too many more years. I mean, I have a place to stay down there as well as friends who know the areas, know the parades and can keep me out of the sort of insanity I don’t enjoy. I’m really looking forward to going and this trip is really beginning to spark my yearning to travel.

I’m hoping to also make it to Boston for St. Paddy’s day. I figure that’s another experience that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to live up. Being a twenty-something in Boston for St. Paddy’s will be amazing and this is another event where I have friends in the city and won’t have to worry about a place to stay or guides about what to do.

What Mardi Gras and St. Paddy’s are really doing to me is to make me remember my love for traveling and seeing new places. While growing up, my family took trips everywhere we could. We would think nothing of going on a weekend trip to some random place just because we hadn’t been there before.

Its been such a long time since I’ve done something of that sort. The closest was probably back in high school/college when my friends and I wound up down at the Jersey shore every weekend just to have fun because we could. It wasn’t quite traveling but it was enough to suit my mood and let us cause trouble.

So where I’m going with this is that I’ve decided I’m going to start planning to do the things that will be more and more difficult the longer I wait. There’s a couple things on the list I doubt I’ll be able to do but there’s others that I’m going to make sure I do.

The Want to Do List:
Route 66
Driving Tour of Napa, Sonoma, and California in general
Separate Trips to England, Ireland, France, Italy, Europe in general, and Eastern Europe specifically
Appalachian Trail
Continental Divide Trail
Pacific Coast Trail
Carnival in Rio

Need to Do:
Whitewater raft down the Grand Canyon
Mardi Gras (100% scheduled)
St. Paddy’s in Boston (50% scheduled)
Learn to Surf on the Gulf

Neither is a comprehensive list but they’re starts at least. I figure, I have no serious commitments now, disposable income (for the most part), and the age/youthfulness thing going for me.

I need to start figuring out how to increase my income as well. I am still trying to think up ways to do this that will not involve changing my job since I enjoy what I’m doing and I like my future prospects but I need more income if I’m going to get rid of my student loan debt and get the income to do some of these adventures.

So as you can see, things haven’t been exactly sedate for me. I’m continuing to try and have a good time while improving myself. My book list isn’t shrinking at the moment because I haven’t been doing as much as normal. I’ve been doing some side projects that I may describe in the future if they pan out well. On top of everything else, I’ve started going back to the gym. Nothing serious at the moment, but enough to try and get back into some shape other than round. Anyway, that’s about it at the moment, I figure I’m going to try and update a bit more frequently but we all know how that goes. Maybe I can do better than once a quarter, who knows.

Quick Story

I know I haven’t written for a while and I do have a post or two saved that I need to update about what I’ve been up to, but I’m not in the mood to do that today.  I was searching through my computer today and stumbled upon a quick blurb I wrote while in Arizona for training earlier this year.  I haven’t edited it since I wrote it and I may have had a drink or two in me when writing, so please forgive any spelling/grammatic errors.  I may go back and edit it a bit later.  I think I could get a decent short story with some revision.  Without further ado:

A Short Break

So I took a short break, but I’m back.

The Coldplay show was fabulous.  The crowd energy was great and they really put on a fabulous show.  I really enjoyed the experience.  If you have a chance to see them in concert, do so.

The big thing since my last post has been my trip out to Phi Kappa Psi’s Grand Arch Council (GAC).  I was out in Indianapolis from last Wednesday to this past Sunday.  GAC is the venue where the fraternity amends the bylaws, elects new officers, and conducts the business that affects the fraternity as a whole.

There were around 600 people attending which made for a nice crowd.  I was able to hang out with a bunch of brothers from the NJ area.  I had met most of them earlier this year at their formal.  This time, I was able to get to know them individually and I had a great time hanging out with them.  As a result, I should be heading to more of their events from now on.

This was my third GAC and I am still enjoying the experience despite becoming used to the routine of everything.  I am looking forward to the next one in 2010 in Orlando.  I am debating whether or not to start a betting pool for how many brothers either get arrested or kicked out of Disney World.  I figure it should be interesting combining drunken fraternity guys and Disney World.

Other than the concert and GAC, I don’t have too much other news.  Work is going well and keeping me busy.  I keep winding up with jobs that take much longer than they should but I guess that comes with the territory.

Oh well, I’m heading to Counting Crows/Maroon 5 this weekend so that should be fun.  We’ll see what else occurs and makes for a good story.

My Life – Music, Tech, and Reading

So I guess irony is rearing its ugly head.  After my last post discussing Coldplay, I received a call this past week offering me two tickets that are absolutely fabulous seats to the Coldplay concert here in Philly.  I’m looking forward to it and hopefully my mind will change about their latest sound.

I’m also planning on hitting up the Counting Crows/Maroon 5 when they hit Philly later this year.  Counting Crows has to be one of my favorite bands to see in concert so my level of excitement is rising as the concert approaches.

Work has been keeping me busy.  Its gone very well and I am definitely looking forward to working with this client in the future.

I snagged a copy of the iPhone 2.0 software upgrade before its official release late last week and have been spending way too much time playing with different applications.  I was able to miss the iTunes server crash on Friday by installing early and some of the attorneys in court on Friday appeared to be a bit jealous.

I’ve been debating for a while whether or not to do a custom entertainment system throughout my house.  After talking with one of my friends this weekend, I have pretty much decided to start the planning for it and to look into what I will need to begin development.  My plans are pretty grandiose but I figured that I might as well go all out while things haven’t even been developed.  I want to make a system with speakers in every room in the house connected to both a central server as well as individual sources in each room.  So in essence, I could start playing music in one room and have the sound follow me into another.  At the moment, I’m planning on incorporating some location finding equipment so I can do a follow function for the audio depending on where the controller is located.

The controller/remote is going to be a large portion of my development efforts.  I want to design and build a custom touch interface remote with its own operating system.  I know already that I’ll be duplicating a lot of existing functionality but I know there’s already open source projects that do similar things and I want to be able to add some interesting functionality into the remote.  Hopefully when I’m done, I’ll be able to watch/listen to media through the remote itself.  I also want to plan for eventual expansion into some smart house technology.

So, that’s my geeky plan for the present.  I’ll wait and see how it actually progresses.

On another note, Jules has given me the idea to start looking into reading well reviewed books again.  I’ve been on a science fiction kick of late so I figure this might be a nice change of pace.  Here’s the list of stories I want to read next in no particular order:

People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Keynes
The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
You Can’t Be Neutral On a Moving Train by Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn On War by Howard Zinn

A decent amount of Howard Zinn due to the current political climate and posturing of politicians regarding Iran, some older scientific works just out of plain curiousity and some older works that I’ve been meaning to read.  Oh, and The Power and the Glory because I haven’t read it in the last couple years and its a fabulous book.

So anyway, after that fun little rant, I’m off to bed to relax and get ready for work.  Another week of fun and all that jazz.  Hopefully, I can get started reading my list at some point.

Catching Up

I had a short hiatus from blogging but I’m back now.  I’m sure that everyone was upset that I was so quiet.  Hearts were breaking while tear ducts were being overused.  Anyway, on to my ramblings.

I’ll start with music today.  This past week, my sister got the new Coldplay album, Viva La Vida.  I stole it for a couple hours to check out the sound.  I like their past work and wanted to hear how they developed beyond that.  The only single I heard prior to listening to the full album was Violet Hill and it was a nice maturation of their natural sound.  That being said, other than Violet Hill, I don’t really like the album.  Its not a bad album, but I just don’t have the appreciation for Viva La Vida that I did for Parachutes or even X&Y.  I guess the best description I can have for the album is that I get the feeling Coldplay was trying to get more of a European sound to their music.  That’s not very descriptive but probably the best I can do at the moment.

Candlebox is coming out with new material and I’m extremely jazzed.  I loved them back in the day and can’t wait to hear what the next album sounds like.  We’ll wait and see and hope that the singles being released are as good as the album.

So, I’ve had Karl Jenkins’ Requiem on my list of albums to buy for quite a while.  I finally broke down and purchased it and I can say I’m very happy with my purchase.  I’ll admit to mostly wanting to hear if the rest of his piece compared with Dies Irae.  Overall, I don’t think that the album is as cohesive as some classical pieces I’ve purchased in the past but the outstanding portions of the album outweigh any negatives.

I think its a requirement for blogging this week that I have to mention the passing of George Carlin late last weekend.  Its amazing, the man was 71 years old and I still think he passed too early.  I never realized how much I considered him a gauge for the state of our culture until I realized he wouldn’t be around to pass judgement on us anymore.  I find that more depressing than I thought I would.  I’ve been reading/listening/watching his old bits this week and he really was an amazing comic.  I wonder who will step into his shoes and let us know where we’re screwing up without coming off as trying too hard.

Last weekend I went to see a play with my friend Kimmi.  Throughout college, she and I saw plays on a pretty regular basis and I went to see her perform even more than that.  With her being in New York, we don’t see each other nearly enough.  So, when she let me know one of her friends was directing a play in nearby Princeton and she wanted to see it together, I instantly loved the idea.

The play we saw was Arcadia by Tom Stoppard.  The only Tom Stoppard production I had seen prior to Arcadia was the video version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.  The video wasn’t bad but I could see where the writing became long-winded at times.  That’s not to say that the ideas and dialogue weren’t hilarious or thought-provoking, they were, just long-winded.

Arcadia turned out about the same.  Starting with the writing, some of the dialogue was hilarious and other portions would not end.  The pacing of the play was a bit off kilter.  Some of the scenes felt rushed while others gave me the feeling of sitting through a long sermon.  The play ended up being about 3 hours which was probably 45 minutes to an hour too long.  The acting was decent.  Not fantastic but good for summer theater.

The main role, Bernard, came off perfectly like an overbearing ass.  I felt like either the writing or the actors tried to redeem his character at the end but I’m not sure if that was even necessary.  I think his comeuppance regarding the duel provoked enough of a deflation to his ego and subsequently his snobbishness that overly humanizing his emotions for Chloe towards the end seemed a bit too much of a character change when he still was this respected scholar.

Septimus was well-cast.  His detachment while teaching in the initial scenes did a lot towards involving the audience in the play.

The play was fairly well-performed, well-written, a bit long-winded at times but overall very much what I expected from a Tom Stoppard script.

That’s about it for now, I’m tired and have work tomorrow.

Cooking Made Me Sad Today

So I was in a good mood tonight and decided to cook a decent meal before I got to business and finished everything for my meeting tomorrow.  I had glanced through the latest issue of bon appetit this week and noticed that they had a decent recipe for lamb burgers.  I figured that would be a good use of the extra lamb I picked up the other day.  Also, I had a bag of fresh apples which would be perfect for a nice homemade apple pie, some fresh greens for a salad, and some veggies for grilled veggies.

I started making the crust for the pie first since I wanted the pie to have a little time to sit and cool after cooking.  The dough went together fairly well, it wasn’t holding exactly as I’d like it but I figured I’d work it a little more when I was rolling it out and everything would be fine.  I did the filling (tastes delicious) and went back to the crust.  Yea, no matter what I tried, it just wouldn’t turn out well.  I guess I need more practice making crusts.  So I tossed the crust and am saving the filling to try again tomorrow.

I decided I could survive without dessert and went on to start with the burgers.  I fried up the onions, defrosted the lamb, and added some nice curry to the onions.  The smells from the onion/curry mixture were amazing.  So I combined the lamb and the onion mixture to make the burgers.  The burgers were more moist than I’m used to dealing with so I figured I would cook them over high heat to cook out some of the moisture and sear them a bit and then lower the temp.  Yea, the burgers fell apart on the grill.  The worst part of it is that as the meat was cooking on the elements below the grill, they smelled even better than before.  Luckily, I saved two burgers to eat later and I’m planning on seeing what I can do to get them to firm up tomorrow.

The salad was at least good and I vetoed the grilled veggies since I wanted to clean the grill before the lamb became too stuck on.  So, after my grandeous plans for the evening, I’m writing this as I sit and let the cheese steak digest being somewhat disappointed but challenged at the same time.  I will conquer this meal :-p

A Compelling Question

So, I had a decent day today. Nothing too horrendous and it kept me interested. So I was planning on cleaning around the house, but I wound up hanging out with my dad for a little and then decided that I wanted to cook for dinner.

Now, this aspect of the evening helps complicate my question. I have a tendency to be in a good mood while cooking. I can’t figure out if I cook because I’m happy or I’m happy because I’m cooking. I’ll have to do further experiments

Anyway, I ended up getting the idea to make a beef casserole before I even got to the grocery store. As I was walking the aisles and picking up ingredients, I stumbled upon the meat in the back of the store. Beside the ground beef I spied a pound of ground lamb. Now, I haven’t really eaten a good deal of lamb before but I figured I would try something new

I got home and what started as a simple beef casserole became a lamb casserole with organic brown rice, shallots, onions, red wine, and spices. All of this was covered with an absolutely delicious Jack/Colby cheese.

I’ve been saving a couple bottles of wine because they’re somewhat hard to get as a resident of PA under the jurisdiction of the idiotic PA liquor control board (who should seriously suffer horrible diseases for restricting the wine I can easily purchase). So, one of my favorite wineries that I discovered while living in Cleveland was the Two Hands vineyard. They make decently reviewed wines, mostly reds but what turned me onto them was their Brilliant Disguise Moscato. So I’ve been expanding into some of their other vintages trying not to get caught up buying their extreme high end at $100-200/bottle. I picked up a couple bottles of their 2006 Angel’s Share shiraz.

I have never had a more “grapey” wine but after the first couple sips it began growing on me. Some of the more subtle flavors began to emerge as my palate adjusted and I really began enjoying the wine.
This wine just went with the evening for its unique flavor.

The casserole had to be one of the weirdest but satisfying dishes I’ve made in a while. The flavors were somewhat muddled in some bites but when they individually emerged, “Mmmm” is the best way to put it

At the end of the evening, I’m still left with the question that I’m not sure if I’ll be able to ever answer: Do I cook because I’m happy or am I happy because I’m planning to/actually cooking?

The Everpresent Gripe

So lately, it seems like I was stuck doing jobs in Center City Philly (CCP). Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind working in CCP. The jobs generally are nice and I know where all the parking is located. The whole thing is that parking isn’t cheap (yes I get reimbursed but I don’t like seeing large numbers on my credit cards) and I don’t get mileage since the office is in CCP and that’s all that matters to clients. So its 40 miles-ish round trip that I don’t get paid for and I have to drive into the city in case I end up needing to do an emergency job somewhere else after my first job.

Now, I guess karma decided that I needed a good swift kick in the pants for complaining too much. As a result, Monday, I had a job in the southernmost part of New Jersey (Cape May for those who care). It was a nice, easy drive and I was able to check up on my shore house before I went to the job and picked up some live crabs on the way back (Hold on and I’ll tell that adventure after this one).

After I got home, I checked my email and saw I had my job for Tuesday. I looked at the address and had to laugh. So instead of South Jersey, I was going the exact opposite direction and heading up to North Jersey, Newark in this case. To top it off, it is a two day depopsition (dep) but in different locations. To explain: a two day dep generally means I can setup my equipment (takes 30-45 minutes if I’m relaxing) on the first day and then leave it overnight so I don’t have to take everything down and set it up again the next day. In this case, since we are at two separate locations, I had to do my full setup Tuesday morning as well as Wednesday. And as an addition, I now get to do a dep up in Manhattan on Saturday. Its a 9AM job so I need to be there at 8 which means I get to leave Trenton at 6:30 which means I have to be up around 5 so I can get up and make it to the train station on time.

So yea, Karma decided to remind me that I shouldn’t complain about not having to drive far when I could be stuck with 1.5-2 hour drives 3 days in a row instead.

Now, back to the crab story. I probably haven’t eaten crab outside of sushi/sashimi in the better part of a decade. So as I’m driving to the job, I pass a crab stand and decide that crab sounds like a fabulous idea for dinner. I call my dad and tell him that I’m going to pick up live crab for dinner, my treat, on my way home. He’s not extremely enthused for some reason but he tells me that I might as well pick up two dozen since we’ll eat them.

I finish the job, get the crabs, and take them over to my parents’ house. On an aside, my car (which I am pretty anal about keeping clean) now smells like crabs which I am not pleased about. Anyway, I hang out with my mom while we’re waiting for my dad to get home from work. He gets home, gets changed, and we start cooking crabs. Now the temperature this night had to be in the 90’s despite the sun being down. My dad decided to boil the crabs on the grill so the house didn’t heat up worse than it was. So he’s outside tossing crabs into the water and taking them out while sweat is pouring down his face.

He finishes cooking them and puts them on the kitchen table. I get right to work with a crab. First off the little bastard is too hot to handle so I have to wait, then when I crack it open I can’t find the tender white meat. Apparently I was opening the crab from the wrong side. I finally get to some of the good meat, I eat it and realize, I’m not a very big fan of crab anymore.

Meanwhile, my mom is digging into them but she doesn’t eat much in general so she has two and is done. My sister apparently doesn’t like this type of crab so she has two and is done. My dad doesn’t really like crab so he has two and is done. And I’m sitting here, forcing myself to eat three before I decide I’m done.

There the four of us sit, around the newspaper covered table with the remains of crabs in front of each of us, while there’s still a huge pot with another dozen crabs that none of us wants to dig into. So as we’re cleaning up, my mom starts trying to pawn the extra pot of crab off on my sister and I. Neither of us wants to bring it home because it will go to waste. So eventually, my sister agrees to take home some of them for her boyfriend.

To end the night, as my sister and I walk in the door of my house, she asks me if I want to grab some crab fries from Chickie and Pete’s.

My life makes me laugh

Blockbuster Surprises

So I have a bad habit of stopping by Blockbuster and doing their whole 4 pre-owned movies for $20. Great deal overall but as a result, I’m amassing a large collection of dvds with some great movies and some flops as well.

I decided to watch one of the movies I recently purchased – The History Boys. Its the film version of the Tony award winning play of the same name. Hell, it even has the same cast, writer, and director as the original theatrical version. I have to say, I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy it or not since it sounded like a somewhat intelligent british flick bordering more on a drama than a comedy. It was hilarious though. Overall, great flick with fabulous lines and great acting.

As I’m writing this, I’m watching You Kill Me. Ben Kingsley is hilarious in this. He’s an alcoholic hitman who is trying to sober up. His boss makes him move to LA and sober up and he gets a job as an undertaker. Hilarity ensues of course. I definitely recommend it for a fun evening.

Hell, I found my new favorite car from one of my Blockbuster finds: the Spyker C8 Spyder in War with Jet Li and Jason Statham.

Anyway, felt like sharing a couple of my recent finds.

Orgy of Music

So, for some reason, I’ve become interested in discovering new music again. This interest generally reoccurs every couple years but I haven’t felt it very strongly for the last several years. All of a sudden, I started buying cd’s and talking to singers/bands again. I’m not complaining in the least because it has been a lot of fun.

Its actually scary, I’ve been finding these bands through recommendations of other people and bands but the best place I’ve been finding to listen to samples of their music is myspace. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It is definitely much easier today finding samples of music of relatively unknown bands than it was 5-6 years ago.

So, without further ado, I figure I’ll share a couple of the artists/bands that I’ve discovered of late:

Alyse Black – Fabulous female voice from a jazz/ragtime background. The best word to describe her music is quirky. Its not a bad quirky, she has a great voice, and the music is well performed, the music just puts a smirk on your face with songs like “Emeline” and “Complete with Sound Effects.” And then you get to songs such as “Wouldn’t it Be Nice,” “Sally All My Days,” and the title track of her album “Too Much & Too Lovely” where a scene of smoke and comfortable booths comes to mind with the strong jazz tones and her well rounded voice. One of my new favorite artists especially considering she contacted me through myspace and suggested I check out her music after looking at some of the other artists I listen to.

Lauri Kranz and Snow and Voices – Lauri Kranz is a wonderful solo artist who I discovered after she joined up with Snow and Voices. One of the reviewers I read after purchasing her music said after hearing Kranz’s voice they were reminded of Beth Gibbons of Portishead. I definitely see the comparison but Snow and Voices has much more of a rock/jazz sound than Portishead’s trip-hop.

Portishead – Speaking of Portishead… Now I know that they are not anywhere close to a new artist or a new find for me personally. I’ve had Live at Roseland Ballroom for years now and still love relaxing to the Gibbons voice and its trance-inducing sound. The reason I bring up Portishead is that they just released a new album entitled Third (Impressive title I know). The sound has definitely evolved and become somewhat more refined and less reliant by Gibbons’ vocals. I’m not sure how much I like their new sound but its growing on me and their old stuff is always a great listen.

The Disco Biscuits – Nowhere close to being a new band, they’re new to me. I find that this Philly-based “trance fusion jam band” (thanks wikipedia for the description) is great background music when working on the computer. Their live sets are constantly evolving and impressive when listening for the individual components of their sound.

Gotan Project - Again, not a new group by any means. I love the Tango. I can’t dance it for the life of me but the music has to be some of the most sensuous ever created. A few years ago I discovered Astor Piazzolla, commonly called the Father of Nuevo Tango. Nuevo introduces new instruments and melodic elements into the traditional tango structure. I find this style even more alluring. Gotan Project continues this style today adding elements of hip-hop and techno without diminishing the style and body of Tango.

Anyway, those are some of the artists that I’ve been listening to lately and hopefully if you check them out, you’ll enjoy them as well.