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Counting Down The Days

Jason — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:57:57 +0000

Things have been, thankfully, quiet this week, with only a few minor events to write about. And after last week…yeah, I think I’ll take quiet any day.

So, first up, we’ve discovered we have a mouse in our apartment. My roommates cat has been stalking our dishwasher for the past few weeks and last night, Jay found her with a mouse in her mouth, looking totally confused as to what she should be doing now.

She dropped it, which lead to a merry chase as we tried to capture it. It escaped into one of the electrical baseboard heaters in the downstairs bathroom and the cat seems to have given up the hunt. So I’m not sure if it’s gone or lost or what. I’ll update if the saga continues.

Other than that, things have been, as mentioned, uneventful. I’m mostly just playing persona 4 at the moment and working on my mom’s website design off and on. I’m trying to draw up a spool of thread in Adobe Illustrator that I can use in the header as it needs something. Hoping to get that done today so I can also use it in my Digital Typography class tomorrow when I’m making up an envelope design for her too. Figured might as well combine projects!

The big thing I’m waiting for now is Saturday, where my friends and I are going to head down to, among other places, Bully Hill Vineyards in the finger lakes wine country for some wine tasting, hopefully touring and dinner. We’re also going to try to hit a couple other places in the area, including a micro-brewery. But we’re concentrating mostly on Bully Hill as far as time spent goes. Should be a good time I think.

The Precipice

Jason — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:17:07 +0000

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…

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Daaaaaaah!

Jason — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:40:36 +0000

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.

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State Fair 2008

Jason — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:23:14 +0000

Shot of the crowd

So yesterday, my friends and I went out to the New York State Fair for the day and had a really nice and mostly relaxing time. Mostly relaxing because during the afternoon it was really, really crowded. Other than there, it was a very nice day. The ordering on this may be a little screwed up, just warning. I didn't keep detailed notes on the exact order of things and the stuff that happened earlier is kinda bleeding together.

We started off by trying to find something to eat. I spotted a chicken wrap stand right off the bat and ended up with a very nice tasty chicken wrap. My friends found some stuff in the international building and then we went in search of wine.

This year, they changed the law and allowed people to wander the fair grounds with up to a 10oz glass of wine which was AWESOME because it was kinda annoying being stuck in one place like last year. So we wandered down towards the wine court furthest from the main gate in hopes that it would be less crowded. It was…because it was closed until 4. Drat. So we went back up to the one nearer to the gate.

Jay’s Beer

On the way, we stopped at one of the food stands. I got some Fried Oreros which I had resolved to try (very tasty) and my friend Jay got himself his first beer. This is the first fair we went to where he realized that he liked beer, so he was looking forward to sampling. As this was his first beer, I had to take a picture of it to document the occasion.

Just as a side note, the place that sold the fried oreos had, new this year, fried cheesecake. I was tempted to give it a try, but honestly, cheesecake is bad enough for you to begin with, why would you fry it??? There was an awful lot of strange fried stuff at the fair this year. Fried ice cream for one…fried pickles was the other one that was just strange to me. Also…in the dairy building we located a new ice cream creation. The Hot Beef Sundae. Hot…beef…Yeah, I think I'll be passing on that one.

The 2008 New York State Fair Sand Sclupture

On the way, we visited the Horticulture building to check out the sand sculpture, which is another must see object at the fair. It's amazing what they can do with sand and water. This year's was of a ship being attacked by an octopus thingy. It was really crowded around it so it was hard to get a picture. They construct it during the fair, so by the time we went, it was all finished.

We made our way to the wine court which, as it turned out, was right across the aisle from the beer garden. Which was not a very good idea because it was ultra crowded whenever you ended up anywhere near either location. It was crowded enough where we didn't get any wine tasting in early but we did get a really nice wine slushie made from a white wine which was excellent. Even better than the Sangria ones.

Horticulture Building Garden

After the wine we made our way back to the horticulture building so that Jay could try to eat Kangaroo meat (they were out…) and Wassy could grab a BLT because her slice of pizza wasn't cutting it. We ate in the little garden they have there. It's a very nice place to sit and eat since it's a little quieter than the main building and you get a good breeze with some shade.

After that, we headed out to the other main attraction of the fair…the Rainbow Milk Bar. They have the best tasting milk ever there. I don't know how they do it…but they do. It's awesome. And cheap since it's a quarter for a pretty decent sized glass. But before we got to the milk bar, the photo op of the day presented itself.

The Dairy Princess!

Butter Sculpture

Much like last year where I got my friends picture as a bunny, we spotted this cutout and it was decided that this would be it. So…I took his picture. It only cost me $2, which I think is money particularly well spent in this case. Due to the formatting of the post here, I had to make it a smaller image, so just click on it if you want to see it in full glory.

After we got done with the milk bar, we had to go see the butter sculpture. Last year it was kinda lame, a farmer and his cow. However, this year it was a sculpture inspired by the little Hey Diddle Diddle poem. You know, the cow jumping over the moon and such. And so they did. There was the dish and the spoon and the little dog there as well. I thought it was a lot better this time out. Going with a farmer and a cow seems like they didn't have any good ideas, so they just fell back on the default.

Geese??

After we got finished there, we made an attempt to see some of the farm animals on display. We made a quick trip through the cow area, and tried to get into the horse building but that was closed because they were preparing for a competition. It ended up being closed all day, at least whenever we ended up in the area.

So we went to see the chickens and the pigeons which was cool. I was more looking forward to going to see the birds than I was the cows and horses. We saw a bunch of different kinds of chickens (including the "Geese" that are pictured to the right…something tells me they ran out of signs). We also saw some baby ducks, some huge chickens that were probably the biggest chickens I've ever seen and the pigeons, of course. We skipped the rabbits because of a case of allergies. The pictures of the chickens are located below if you're interested in seeing them.

After we got done with the chickens, we were starting to get hungry and hit really the only major snag of the day where we had a heck of a time trying to find a place to eat something. Eventually we got that all sorted out and headed down to the grandstand winery to get the wine tasting and drinking portion of the evening taken care of.

It was surprisingly empty there, which was good because we could hang around and move freely without having to trip over people or yell to be heard over the loud crowd. The only problem was that there seemed to be less wineries there this year to sample. But what was there was pretty good. Found a couple of new places to look for and a couple of new wines to try out. Wassy and I ended up getting a full glass of this blend. She got a peach and I got a strawberry one which was very awesome. When we inquired about getting it, we were informed it was a do it yourself type thing which was a little too much work. We both ended up with more white wine slushies and we hit the road to wander a bit and take in the fair at night.

Haunted House Monster

As we were wandering, we passed the haunted house we had seen before and, in our alcohol influenced state, thought that it might be a good idea to take a trip through. Jay was to lead since he's the least affected by such things. So we paid and started going through. Wassy was apparently clinging to Jay the entire time as he strolled through the strobe light-lit hallways. It was mostly the anticipation of what might happen that really got me. Coming up upon things that could move at any moment and hearing the sounds from further on in the haunted house. There was a very startling scream that got me pretty good in the beginning as far as actual scares go. Then we encountered this little midget guy that kinda went "Raar" at us. Wassy found this incredibly funny and started laughing like crazy. The midget appeared to not be impressed. Further on we found a "Do Not Press" labeled button, which…of course you have to press. It caused a loud noise to go off which was startling. And then we arrived at the last room which was a big open space with skeletons coming at you and such. There was a guy there dressed up like a ghost thing (my friends are going to yell at me because I should know his name but do not) which Jay found to be perfectly normal. Even said "Hi" to it and asked how it was doing.

I will admit I am a total wuss, so I was kinda making scared type noises at every corner because I hate it when stuff jumps out at me. Or stuff might jump out at me…It just wasn't good. I think my friends had more fun listening to me than they did going through the haunted house.

After that, we made the last rounds to grab some kettle corn and fudge and headed on home, exhausted, but satisfied that it was a really good fair trip.

Of course now it's officially fall. Boo! I miss summer.

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To The Alehouse!

Jason — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:27:17 +0000

Aerial Acrobatics 1

This weekend was lots of fun, and I didn't even do anything I was planning on doing Friday. Everything sort of changed mid-stream. My plan was to spend the weekend cleaning up my apartment, doing a major clean type deal because it really needs it, going over to my friends for a little while on saturday. However, all of this changed when i got my replacement drivers license in the mail on Saturday.

I usually go to the Sterling Renaissance Festival in Sterling, NY every year with my sister, but she ended up not going this year for several reasons. My friends (Jay and Wassy) were going on Sunday, but I didn't really want to spend the money since we were going to be doing the state fair at the end of August, and I wanted to save money for that. However I did really want to go this year since they got a new owner and had a lot of improvements.

I had settled on not going though…until my drivers license arrived in the mail. Which means I could also partake in some of the consuming of spirits, which was all I needed to push me over the edge of going, so we rearranged plans and they swung by Sunday morning to pick me up and off we went.

Epic Cup Of Coffee

We arrived promptly on time, no thanks to the GPS continually falling off their windshield (I need to get the weighted mount thingy for it…), got our hands stamped and started wandering around the shops a bit. My friend Jay wanted some coffee so we stopped by one of the vendors to grab one but they had a little problem with their coffee machine. So what started out as a quick coffee pitstop turned into a 10 minute coffee wait. I had to take a picture of the cup of coffee so that it will be preserved for all time. And it is there to the left.

After the coffee we headed to catch the rat show which I saw last year and my friends hadn't seen. It was as good as I remember it being and my friends enjoyed it too, which is also a plus. After the rat show, the pubs had opened, so we took a little break and had some lunch and mead/beer depending on who you were (I went with the mead).

Aerial Acrobatics 2

We wandered on over to where one of the new attractions was, some acrobat type people who put on a really neat show. The pictures don't really show how high they were but they were high enough where a fall would hurt a good deal, but not high enough where they could right themselves to land on their feet if they did fall. Thankfully, nobody fell and the show was really quite interesting. I hope they're back next year.

After that things got a little fuzzy as to the order of things. There was some wandering around, I caught another show which my friends weren't terribly interested in, but I thought was good. Another stop at the pubs and I tried some draft cider this time which was good (And if anyone was wondering, yes there was water for me sprinkled in with the drinking to stay hydrated and all that). There was also a stop at the archery booth for the necessary bit of archery. I did ok, but my friend Jay ended up doing better (after nearly whacking himself in the face with an arrow which deducted major points). I stopped taking pictures at this point because I was just relaxing and having too much fun to think about it.

Towards the end of the day we went out wine tasting at the booths outside the show. We eventually ended up spending the most time over at the Thousand Islands Winery booth where we were guided through their selection by a entertaining and nice man who was also wearing no pants. Their wines were awesome though and I ended up buying two bottles, one of a Niagara and one of a dessert wine called Seaway Blues which is a blueberry flavored wine which I was surprised that I liked more than the Strawberry that I tried.

After that we went back in and wandered for a bit more but eventually we grew tired and made the trek home. All in all, I'm very glad I decided to go as the day was just perfect. Good weather, good company and a good time.

Unfortunetly…now I keep thinking it's Sunday because I usually don't do anything major on Sundays and have another day of the weekend to get through before I have to go back to work

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Would You Like Some Cheese With That Whi– Er…Wine?

Jason — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:16:33 +0000

Time for a weekend update post! This weekend started with me in the mood for some relaxation after some events that happened on Friday, but the weekend delivered…at least Saturday did. My friend Wassy has been having some really good results from her site and had been getting a bunch of commission requests. Which is good and bad. Good because her little business is starting to actually go somewhere. Bad because it keeps pushing back a piece that I wanted to have done that's all City of Heroes related.

But because of that for our weekly get-together we ended up just hanging out at their place while I played some City of Heroes with Jay and she did her artwork stuff. I must say, she has a fine system for playing games while laying down on the couch and I must figure out how to do this at my place. It's very comfortable. The evening was capped off by a little wine and some fruit and cheese type snaking which ended up being very good. All nice and relaxing (and productive for her at the same time)

Sunday though I was in the mood for something productive. So I decided that I was going to finish the de-cluttering project that I had started a while agot and totally failed with. I attacked the mess in my bedroom which resulted in 5 bags of garbage for the trash guy to take away this morning, along with a whole lot of cardboard. I've got a ton of computer related items which I'm never going to use. I'm at a premium for space anyway, so I really need to either chuck it or sell it. Most of this stuff is in the "chuck it' area unfortunetly. I manged to get a good way into it and as soon as I get home today I'm going to continue the process. Well, after I exercise. I really need to get rid of some stuff that I NEVER use. Like my old Sega Game Gear, for example.

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You're Probably Tired Of Penguins By Now…Well Too Bad!

Jason — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 12:38:00 +0000

Yesterday was definitely action packed. My friend Wassy and I were left alone because my friend Jay went to a LAN party this weekend. I didn't attend because of my desktop computer situation. Namely the total lack of one. Anyway, it wouldn't have been very fun for me to fight with the MacBook all day (and night)

More Rock Penguins

Anyway…the day started early. The plan was to go out to the Syracuse Zoo and pick up my drunken penguin wine holder for my bottle of penguin labeled wine, then wander the Carousel mall for a bit, then head back to her apartment for some music listening, apple crisp baking and general hang-outing. I picked her up at her place and we headed out to Syracuse for a stroll around the zoo.

I had thought that the fact it was a little chilly yesterday morning would prevent as many people from showing up at the zoo with their screaming little kids. Apparently I was wrong. Instead, we ran into an entire tour group of little hooligans and their support staff. Bah! We got some time at the penguin cove alone though, which was nice because it rarely happens.

I know I have like 800 pictures of these penguins up here, so I only posted one additional one. They were all sitting on their rock warming in the Sun. I guess it wasn't warm enough out for them to be swimming all over the place.

Drunken Penguins!

After we finished looping around and looking at all the animal type things the zoo had to offer, we hit the gift shop where I was able to purchase my drunken penguin wine holder (pictured to the left) which is absolutely awesome. I need to come up with a better location to put it though now. I'll come up with something.

After that, we went over to the mall to grab lunch and do some shopping. I got to play with the new iPods over at the Apple store for a bit, which was cool, especially the Touch. My friend finally purchased something at William-Sonoma after years of browsing around there. I figured I'd record the occasion here so there's some proof if somebody doesn't believe her when she says she did it.

We were also on the hunt for the Game Cube remake of Resident Evil that my friend thinks that she's going to make me play a lot of. Hah! Anyway, we went two the two Game Craze locations out there and came away empty handed, but hit the jackpot on our way back to her apartment at a local shop Game Nutz (located in the same parking lot as a NASCAR store, it seems. There appeared to be an event happening while we were there).

After swinging by a few local stores to pick up some baking supplies for her (and some apple cider for me…yum) the music listening and baking portion of the day began. She made Apple Crisp with some almond type topping stuff. It was good. We also found some more music type stuff she liked.

All in all, a fun filled, although exhausting day.

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Vox Hunt: What The Weekend Holds

Jason — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 02:49:37 +0000

Show us what the weekend has in store for you.

A little too late to show what the weekend holds. How about what it did already:

Drunken Penguins!

Yep, I went to the Zoo and picked up my drunken penguins. They're now holding my wine. Woo.

Since I was at the zoo, I snapped a couple of mandatory pictures of animals. So here we go.

Rock Penguins

Closeup Bird

I'm too tired to post much more right now though, so a full roundup of today's activities will be forthcoming tomorrow at some point.

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Moving Day!

Jason — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 00:03:07 +0000

Curse You Evil Ramp

Well, not MY moving day. I went over to my friends place today to help them carry their large items from their storage space into their brand spaking new apartment.

Yeah…their couch is really heavy. REALLY heavy. And their mattress is HUGE. I never want to push a mattress that big up a flight of stairs ever again.

I'm going to be extremely sore tomorrow I think. We managed to move all the big stuff in around about 5 hours (with lots of rest breaks, one bottle of lemonade and one bottle of water). I should have wore shorts today. I'm definitely very tired right now.

Penguin Wine!

Oooh, in addition to stealing their air conditioning unit (right after the weather started getting cold) I was surprised with an extra gift for helping in the move.

Penguin wine! Wooo! I have no idea how that penguin is holding that wine glass over there, but it doesn't matter. The artwork is just cool…and sophisticated too.

Anyway, I need to head out to the Syracuse Zoo and pick up a wine bottle holder thingy for this to use for some display action. Why the zoo you ask? Because the zoo had the absolute best wine bottle holder. It makes the wine bottle look like it's being carried off by a bunch of drunken penguins.

It rocks!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to pass out…

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