Caught In The Whirlwind
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The Precipice
Apr 20th 2009
Two basic things that are being mentioned today.
First off, the wine and chocolate festival that I went to on Saturday was very awesome. There was much sampling of wines, and a few new wineries discovered which is always good. Upstate New York has a thriving wine country which is handy for me since I enjoy a glass on occasion and there's a lot of good stuff being produced right in the area.
We ended up buying a bunch of bottles for future consumption. Lakeland Winery had some really awesome fruity wines. Especially a melon flavored one. And the other big find was Tickle Hill for their Peach Fuzz and Hector Nectar. And a bunch of other things too. I'm doing this from memory and I can't remember them all.
We also sampled the cheese, chocolate and olive oil/hot sauce booths. Found some really awesome champagne cheese which I was tempted to buy, along with some all natural fudge sauce and actual fudge which I REALLY wanted to buy. I managed to hold off because I knew that if I did actually buy it, it'd be gone in about 3 hours. Which would be ungood for me. I did get their card though, so I know where to go if I ever do want some for something.
Sunday was mostly spent relaxing and watching South Park. I made my chicken alfredo for dinner which went over really well. I'm still getting used to the stove so I had the sauce done a lot faster than the pasta, but I'll adjust that one and get it right the next time I do it.
Now for the second thing. We've got some impending staff reductions going on at work today. I hesitate to say this, but I'm not terribly worried for my job considering the big projects that I just started. But you never know with these things. I won't know much of anything until this afternoon and even then there's a company meeting tomorrow morning so it probably won't be totally over until then.
We'll see what happens…
Vox Hunt: Say Cheese.
Apr 17th 2009
It's National Cheeseball Day. Show us something cheesy.
I defy you to find a anything on this planet that is cheesier than the band GWAR
Daaaaaaah!
Apr 17th 2009
The car airbag saga continues!
I went down to the dealership yesterday morning to get my front crash zone sensor replaced on my Rogue and, as it turns out that wasn't the problem to begin with. I don't blame the techs or anything as Nissan has a procedure that needs to be followed regarding waranty replacements of things and all they can really do is follow what the service manual tells them to do. But the upshot is I need to go back next week when another part arrives and hopefully that fixes the issue.
They did adjust the steering wheel seal though. And confirmed that the tread on my tires is still ok, even though they gave it a look over last week when I brought it in to be checked out.
So anyway…another week without airbags. This week has been particularly long and stressful which is why I'm looking forward to the weekend so much.
There's a wine tasting and chocolate festival going down at the Utica Aud which my friends and I will be attending. It's been a while since we've gotten to do wine tasting so hopefully we'll find something new and tasty to enjoy while we're out there.
Odds and Ends
Apr 15th 2009
Just a lot of odds and ends to report today.
First off, my car. I can't recall if I mentioned this or not but the airbag light turned on again on my Rogue, so I took it in for service last week. They had to order a couple parts which came in yesterday. So tomorrow morning I'm going to go sit at the dealership again so they can finish the repair. I do really like my car a lot, but I'm not sure I'd buy another new car the first year the model was out. There's a lot of little hitches and bumps along the way. Thankfully it's all related to stuff that's not essential for making the car move so far, but it is a little annoying to have to take it in for service so often. Really happy with it otherwise.
Second, my room at the new place is in desperate need of a nightstand which has been finished and I'll be picking that up this evening. Hopefully it'll help me tame the random bits that are sort of floating around in my room looking for a place to rest.
Third, it seems I have a 32 dollar credit on my account at time warner because, apparently, I wasn't supposed to pay my entire bill last month since I canceled my account. So now I need to figure out how the heck I can get that money back. Moving is such a hassle…
Easter 2009
Apr 14th 2009
The post is late, I know, but I was a bit busy yesterday with a lot of running around. So you're getting it today.
I went over to my parents for a little Easter get together, as I had mentioned previously.
One of the purposes of the visit was to go through a bunch of old stuff that my parents had stored from when I was a kid, including all of my saved stuff from grade school. That was a pretty cool, to see that old stuff again. I seemed to have an issue with spelling (well, a continuing issue with spelling…they just hadn't invented the spell checker yet). I wrote that NASA launched a satellite that weighed 300 ponds…
I brought my XBox 360 over and played some Madden with my dad in the afternoon because we haven't figured out what to do with our weekly football playing since I moved 25-30 minutes away. I ended up winning 2 games and losing 2 games, but it was fun.
By the time we were done with that my sister and her husband had arrived and we ate followed by a game of Apples to Apples which was as fun as always. They brought the expansion pack for the game this time which added more cards.
All in all a fun little family gathering. However, considering the amount of tasty treats that I came away with (cookies and a chocolate bunny. You know, standard easter stuff) I'm going to have to hit the gym soon…
Cinnamon Rolls. And Darn Good Ones Too
Apr 12th 2009
Last night we properly broke in the kitchen at our new apartment with some baking. Specifically cinnamon rolls. More specifically THESE cinnamon rolls.
We stumbled upon the recipie a couple weeks ago and determined that, yes…we would be making these. And making them soon. The recipie makes 7 tins, but we figured for health reasons we should cut that in half. Having 7 tins of cinnimon buns hanging around the house…no good. No good at all.
So we set out to make the rolls. Wassy did most of the work as she is the baking expert in the house. I helped a bit in the roll making phase. We ended up making quite the mess. Like…a mess of epic proportions. You have to spread melted butter on the dough and then add the sugar and cinnamon. Once you're done with that you're supposed to roll it up. But we discovered we didn't let it sit quite long enough so we had a little butter oozing problem.
Well, it was more like a river of butter. But we got it all sorted out and stuffed what remained of the oozed mixture back into to the rolls to provide necessary cinnamon flavoring.
The end result looked quite nice:
The kitchen, however…did not:
But in the end, the rolls were cooked. The icing was made, and the rolls were eaten. And dear lord, were they good. Highly recommend this recipie to anyone looking to make some homemade cinnamon rolls.
QotD: Is Ignorance Bliss?
Apr 10th 2009
Do you believe that ignorance is bliss?
I'm a worrier. Basically, if I know about something coming up and it's potentially scary or could go wrong, I tend to worry about it. So in that sense, ignorance is bliss in that if I don't know about something I can't begin to construct scenarios where things will go wrong. And I know I'd be a happier person in the short term if I was ignorant of all the news swirling around these days about all the uncertainty everywhere.
But there's also a situation where ignorance is bad. Because then you get blindsided by something you otherwise should have known about and could have changed/prevented/done something about. Continuing my previous example, as much as I'd like to stop paying attention to the news, it's best that I don't shut it out completley or I'm going to miss something that's truly important.
So…yeah, My take on the old saying is that ignorance is bliss except when it isn't, which is usually always.
Easter Everywhere!!
Apr 8th 2009
I seem to be in demand for Easter this year. I've been invited to 3 places this sunday…my grandparents, my parents and also to one of my new roommate's parents. Traditionally my grandparents have an Easter dinner thing but this year, due to circumstances that are too long to explain really, I won't be attending that one. I will be going to my parents, but if they hadn't asked I would have gone with my friends over to their dinner.
Whew, that was confusing…
Anyway, not much else to report at the current point in time. Things are still proceeding smoothly on the new apartment front. All I'm waiting for is my nightstand to arrive and I need to get a couple of shelves for game consoles and my bedroom will be complete. And we need it to not rain/snow for a day or two so we can work on cleaning off our balcony and making it a usable space.
I'll try to provide some pictures shortly.
Oh, and last night my roommate's cat actually curled up next to me and went to sleep. This is a big development as she is normally very skittish and won't even get up on the same piece of furniture as me most times. I think it was mostly because I was sitting down next to her favorite blanket.
QotD: No Housework Day
Apr 7th 2009
Today is "No Housework Day." Tell us: What's your least favorite chore around the house?
I hate, hate, HATE, HATE cleaning the bathroom. Specifically the shower/tub. It's just so…icky. Well that and it takes a while to do and even though it's my own mess (well…actually 1/3 my mess now) it's still icky.
*shudder*
Thankfully, it has been decided at the new apartment that I will not be in charge of cleaning the main bathroom with the tub. Mostly due to the fact that you don't really want me in charge of cleaning a bathroom with a tub. Ever.
I have the smaller bathroom to clean, but that's manageable.
Settled In? Maybe?
Apr 4th 2009
It seems like we're pretty much all settled into the new apartment. We've got some wall decorations going up now around the various areas. I need to do some more organizing in my room and in the spare bedroom/office but we've got a fully functional apartment now. I'll try to take some pictures once the wall decorations are more finalized.
It's weird. It feels like we've been living here for longer than a week. But this past week seems to have gone by very quickly as well. So…time is just all screwed up in all sorts of ways.
Last night we had a little party deal to celebrate being settled in. We broke out the Rock Band and played through Perl Jam's Ten album which was purchased for the evening. And a late night abandoned game Trivial Pursuit (we started it a bit too late and then ran out of energy about an hour in) rounded out the activities. A fun and much needed evening of relaxation.
This weekend I want to finalize my room and get some of my various art stuff hung around the apartment. I also want to get some work done on my C++ chatbot that I'm making. I finally got the basics working and now I hope to actually get it to do something resembling actual chatting soon. Hopefully this weekend. But first, the cleaning.
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