Adventures of Lazy Son

Time Traveling

2011-09-06T22:15:00.001-04:00

Our next destination was Wilton, ME which was about 385 miles from Moncton. It was a pretty brutal ride. Luckily though going through U.S. customs was a breeze. We even gained an hour crossing the border. Who knew there was another time zone farther East? We stayed at a Comfort Inn & Suites which apparently had a "Platinum Award" for good service. Uncle Floyd asked for dinner recommendations and he suggested the Calzolaio Pasta Co. Our only requirement was that the place had beer on tap and they had that so it was a go.

For appetizer my Dad and I split the New England Clam Chowder. Creamy and delicious. We also ordered the Stuffed Portabellini Mushrooms, silver dollar portabellas stuffed with pancetta and sausage stuffing topped with marsala and mozzarella. They were fantastic. I could have eaten another plate of them.

Mushrooms!

For my entree I had the special that night which was a lobster, clam, shrimp "scampi". It was probably one of the best meals of the trip. The lobster was over the top good. I wish I could bath in this dish.

My Dad had a boring salad. The fresh mozzarella on it was really good though.

Uncle Floyd went the healthier route and ordered off the "vegetariano" menu. He got the risotto al fresco consisting of zucchini, sun dried tomato's, and fresh broccoli simmered in veggie stock, wine, and herbs. I'm sure it was good but come compared to my dish it was just mediocre, :P.
The three of us split a dessert because we were so full but we had to try the apple strawberry pie. At least I think it was apple strawberry...I ate it to quickly before snapping a picture of it.
Throughout dinner we were entertained by this little girl who was munching on muscles, clams, and other sea foods all night! That's what I like to see! A child that isn't a picky eater!

When we got back to the hotel, we suited up and jumped in the hot tub. It felt great. We really need to look for more hotels with hot tubs because my back was killing me.

Sea Pho Run

2011-09-05T22:11:00.001-04:00

On our second day on PEI we decided to do some kayaking. It was getting late in the season and some places had already closed. But we stopped by an information center in Cavendish and they found a couple options for us. We bike over to Outside Expedition in Rusticoville, PE. The next kayaking tour wasn't until 1pm so we ran over to the Dunes Cafe in Brackley Beach which was recommended by a friend.

They have an art gallery too! What really peaked my interest was the Dunes Pho on their menu! I just had to try it. It was nothing like pho however but still very tasty.

Uncle Floyd had the chowder and said that it was the best chowder he has had on the trip!

Here is the back of the fancy art gallery/cafe.

The front. I wanted to look around some more but it took a little longer than we thought getting our food so I had to haul butt back to the kayaking place which was 15 minutes away.

After kayaking it was time to say goodbye to Prince Edward Island and head to Moncton, New Brunswick. For dinner we went to the Pump House brewery for some good eats starting with the hummus platter!

For the main course I had the bison (wish it was moose) burger served on beer bread!

This place was pretty funny. On they're menu they had something called "chicken lips" and the caption under it said "because buffalo have wings right?". They were deep fried slices of pepperoni.

Light It Up

2011-09-04T22:05:00.000-04:00

The pictures here are our tour of the east coast of Prince Edward Island. We decided to check out lighthouses since Uncle Floyd and Dad have thing for them.

Its pretty silly, it costs $4 to walk up one of these things. There should be an all day pass you can get so you can go up as many lighthouses that you want.
Between the two lighthouses we visited, we stopped by a winery called Rossignol. The winery was recommended by a friend. The winery had some interesting wines. One of which was a strawberry rhubarb!
The next light house we visited had some history tied to Marconi. This lighthouse was actually used to communicate with the Titanic before it sank!

Babo enjoys lighthouses too.

This contraption is cool. Its some crazy light that automatically changes the bulb when one burns out. Why don't we have more of these around??
This box is a fog horn. its pretty obnoxious. It took us forever to get some footage of me using it. The person working at the lighthouse must have been annoyed.

For dinner we went back downtown in Charlottetown.

We went to Olde Dublin Pub for dinner. I had the lobster stew which was very rich, creamy, and delicious.

My Dad ordered the steak and guinness pot pie. I thought it was alright. I enjoyed my dish more.

For dessert I had the bailey's cheesecake. It was fantastic. I prefer it over the cheesecake from Gahan.
Uncle Floyd and Dad had some crazy whiskey bread pudding. It was super sweet and very filling.

Ze Goggles, Zey Do Nothing!

2011-09-04T09:58:00.000-04:00

Today we headed to Prince Edward Island. But first we checked out the shores around Mabou and a whiskey distillery! At the distillery there was this motorcycle couple from California drying their underwear on their bike. It was pretty gross. I didn't need to know the guy wore tightie whities or his wife likes black with lace underwear. I should have gotten a picture of the wife, then you would know what I mean.

Here is the distillery! Apparently the only single malt distillery in Canada. But not for long as there is another single malt company starting up.
They only produce booze during the winter. The rest of the year they give tours and have cabins for rent.
We then caught a ferry to Prince Edward Island (PEI). The crew on the ferry didn't seem to care if we tied down our bikes or not.
The ferry ride was about 50 minutes long. I decided to enjoy and ice cream while I waited. The flavor I got was called "Wowie Cowie". Not sure what the name was all about but it had a bunch of caramel on it.

Uncle Floyd looking pretty sinister with his ice cream.

Uncle Floyd asked me if I could see the whale in this picture. Never saw it. He must have been pulling my leg.

For our first dinner at PEI, we went to Gahan Brewery! The only micro brewery on the island so we had to check it out.
I had the special for dinner which was halibut with lamb ragu. The fish was cooked perfectly and the lamb was a nice compliment. I just wish the portion was a little bigger
For dessert I had the chocolate cheesecake. It was pretty good. Though I prefer New York style cheesecake.
Here is the ceiling! I thought it was interesting that the a/c vent was curved with the dome. Its the little things, right?

Here is some of the decor. It was a really neat place, and great beer.

Cabot Trail

2011-09-03T21:47:00.003-04:00

Been slackin' on the postings. We do all this riding and by the time we get settled in our hotel and get some food, the combination of being in the sun all day, full stomach, and buzzed from beer, I just pass out at the end of the day.

The next day of our adventure we did the famous "Cabot Trail". Supposedly world famous trail. It follows the coast of Cape Breton. However, most of the time you're too far inland with trees blocking your view of the ocean. Plus, if you're ever fortunate enough to drive the coastal highway in California, the view from Cabot Trial at times seems lame. But here I have a great shot for you!

We also ventured down to this place called "Meat Cove". It was pretty ghetto. A windy dirt road with turns and uphill and downhills. Coming across this rickety wooden bridge I thought my bike was going to tip so I revved the engine not thinking about the 90 degree turn at the end of the bridge. I ended up braking while turning on a dirt road and totally bit it. I should have just straightened my bike on the bridge and stopped. My bike was fine thanks to the engine guards, my right knee however got a little roughed up.

Despite the fall, ended up being a nice scenic ride. Ended the day in a tiny town called Mabou. Ate at a place called the "Red Shoe". I ordered the Shepard's Pie. Its pretty delicious. Funny though how the mash potatoes were served on the side.
Our accommodations for the night were in a cottage! A fancy modern cottage at that with wifi!
Too bad we only stayed one night. I enjoyed having the tv room to myself with several feet and a wall separating me from my Dad's chainsaw snoring.

Here is the kitchen! Not bad for under $160/night.

I'll miss you fancy cottage.

Puffin

2011-08-29T20:57:00.005-04:00

Today we hung out in the area. The winds were pretty bad so it would have been pretty rough to ride to our next destination. On the site seeing tour we stopped at the Marconi Museum. Apparently its the "mecca" of wireless technology according to Uncle Floyd. It was the location of the first transatlantic broadcast.

It had some nice views too!

Here are our bikes!

In Baddeck, we were going to check out the Alexander Bell Graham museum but there was an obnoxious fee to enter and it looked pretty lame so we decided to go eat instead. Below is a picture of our sea food chowder.

Here is my "artsy" picture of a rail we passed. I had to walk through some brush to get here and while I was walking I thought to myself, "This would a perfect place for a snake..". What do I see right after I thought that? A snake! Freaked me out and I ran on the tracks. Luckily he was just as afraid of me and slithered away. All I saw was his tail.

Me and the sea...

Another "artsy" photo.

Here you can see how boats get through the rail!

Here is where Santa gets his mail at Christmas Island.

For dinner we went back to Governor's Pub and Eatery. It's really hard to find a place to eat in Sydney. Practically all the restaurants don't have a website let alone decent reviews.

Tonight we got some artichoke and spinach dip.

For dinner I ordered the curried seafood linguini. It was very tasty.

My dad ordered the seafood chowder,

Uncle Floyd went crazy and ordered the Thai peanut chicken stir fry. He said he enjoyed it.

Hopefully tomorrow we'll see some whales!

Ello Govena'

2011-08-29T10:03:00.000-04:00

Arrived at Sydney, Nova Scotia from Saint John, New Brunswick. It was a brutal ride. Constant rain and a tease of a blue sky to the East that we never seemed to reach.

I was super hungry when we arrived to our destination 385 miles later. I picked out the Governor's Pub and Eatery. Looked like they had a good spread from the looks of their website. For appetizer I ordered the steamed mussels in garlic butter and white wine sauce. Very tasty.

Lots of Irish things in this place...

For my entree I ordered the fish n' chips made with haddock. It was awesome. I've never had such a fresh fried fish.
My Dad ordered the reuben which was awful. No thousand island dressing and the bread wasn't grilled and it was soggy. The soup of the day, some kind of barely was really good.

Uncle Floyd got the haddock on roasted potatoes.

Here is a silly guy getting his picture taken with the waitresses.

Found Scuba Steve in the hotel room...

Super Bass

2011-08-28T21:54:00.003-04:00

Here are our whips. Left is my Dad's bike and right is mine.

Here is Uncle Floyd's!

From Paramus, NJ we headed to Alan's in Maine!

I slept on a cot next to a standup bass...I was then woken up by a rooster.

Alan like's Volvo's..He has a 1967 Volvo he plays around with.

Here are our lovely hosts! Babo photobombed this picture.

The three motorcyclists!

First Stop

2011-08-25T21:40:00.003-04:00

Its that time of the year again where my Dad, Uncle Floyd, and I venture off on our bikes on another adventure. The destination this trip is Nova Scotia. I hear its pretty up there so I bought the big camera to capture some pictures.

Our first day brought us to Paramus, NJ. If you haven't been here, you're not missing too much. Really, I had more fun in Newton, Kansas.

For dinner I picked out the Bistro 55 located on route 17. I saw a picture on yelp of the fried olives and decided I must try them.

They were good but with all fried things I felt like I had an oily pool sloshing in my stomach after eating them.
For dinner I had the bistro burger. Apparently its grass fed cow. It was a pretty good burger. The cole slaw with it was better than most I've had. Had a little tang or something in it. I like to thing it was horseradish.

What I should have ordered was the Duck Confit Grilled Cheese. I had a bite of my Dad's and it was crazy good. Just juicy duck fat and cheese. I could blend it and drink it.
Uncle Floyd had the salmon. I think it was served with some kind of jicama salad, I may be wrong. It looked good though. They had some fancy beers at this place too. Most of them from Brooklyn Brewery but there were some from Dogfish Head as well as Unibroue.
I was tempted to order some seafood, but I'll save that for when get farther up north where I know there will be some fresh crustaceans and the like.

Birthday at Amada

2011-06-03T16:34:00.002-04:00

Went out for Graham's birthday! Celebrated at a fancy place called Amada. I am unable to post all the pictures so all you get is the dessert and pictures of us stumbling back home.

Robot..

Puppy Overload

2011-03-06T04:09:00.002-05:00

Hung out with Ben the other day. From that beer festival, Graham and Rich owed Ben money so I decided to deliver that to him while I was in the area.

Of course Ben had to run errands that day so I tagged along to do some dog sitting. Gidget, Maggie, and Tori, I haven't see them for awhile.

Maggie loves this stuffed turtle. At least they're not playing with that floor mat anymore.

I really think pugs are one of the ugliest dogs and I would never in a million years consider owning one. But I can see their appeal as their so ridiculously friendly. At least the pugs I've come across have always been social and nice.
Gidget has put on the pounds since I've seen her last. She must have some fat built up for the winter. Totally understandable.
Tori (yellow lab), tends to do her own little thing. Once she is outside she just wonders off and magically appears back in the house when she seems to be done exploring the great outdoors.
I saw this cool icicle, decided to take a picture of it before breaking it off and throwing it like a spear.

Grease Kitty

2011-03-04T04:03:00.002-05:00

The place I had my car fixed had a stray kitty pet. I felt bad for it as they don't let it inside the office but they do however give it cat food and a bowl of water. Of course the bowl of water isn't much good these days as its frozen.

But the cat is very friendly. As I knelt down to get a picture of it, she(?) charged me so she could get petted.

I wonder where this cat goes when it snows...

As I was petting the cat, I could definitely tell it was an "outside" cat. The fur was really nasty and there were all kinds of burs or something in her coat. Hopefully I didn't get lyme disease...

Mexico

2011-03-02T03:49:00.000-05:00

After picking my car from the auto repair shop, I met up with Manthan and his little puppy Cabo. I turns out that Cabo is not a "designer" puppy. He's just a mutt! The pet store called and said that the paper work was messed up and Cabo has a little Beagle in him as well! I don't see it but that would explain why he doesn't look like any other peekapoos.

He is however pretty smart. He's getting better with the whole "doing business" outside rather than inside. He just has to be taken out often.

Got a shot of him prancing towards me.

He tends to get a little hyper and starts growling and biting everything like a maniac. Manthan was a little concerned about that so Michele and him hired a dog trainer to come over that was recommended by a friend. Apparently they worked magic. Taught Cabo five commands in an hour's time!
Good thing too because Michele was making crazy talk about giving him away or something within six months if he didn't start behaving better.

So hopefully Cabo will stick around and I'll be able to come over and not worry about my shoe laces getting eaten.

Car is Fixed!

2011-02-28T03:41:00.000-05:00

Got my car fixed a couple weeks ago. The work done to it took 7 days. It was suppose to be five but because of the snowy weather it postponed it for later.

I was a little sad to give up the rental hybrid but its nice to have my car back looking better than ever! Well, I guess when I drove it off the lot after I purchased, that was its prime...but you know what I mean.

I'm not exactly sure what work was done. I do believe that the wheel was replaced and there's new paint on the door, bumper, and wheel base. All that matters is that its lookin' good, right? I did however notice that they filled my tire with air rather than nitrogen. I'm sure that doesn't make too big of an impact on the car. I could always go down to Costco and get free nitrogen if I want.

Now for some angled action shots!

There is still part of me that wishes I pocketed that $1,968.16 but I know I made the right decision because looking at scratches every time I got in my car would drive me crazy. Now if it was on the passenger's side...

Breakfast Bowl

2011-02-25T03:23:00.003-05:00

The church my dad and I go to hosted this "Breakfast Bowl". The speaker for the event was Michael Franzese, a former mob boss for the Colombo crime family in the 1980's. We heard him talk the week before, and afterwards, a pastor made an announcement that he would be speaking at the breakfast bowl and it would be a "completely different" topic. It would be about "sports". Since his talk that Sunday was enjoyable, we decided to purchase two $15 tickets for the bowl.

What does his talk end up being about? His life, which was pretty much word for word of the same talk he gave the Sunday before. I was completing his sentences in my head it was so similar. He did spend 15 minutes after his talk about sports betting. But I felt tricked into thinking he would be talking about something new that day. His talk was mostly about how he had it all. No respect for the law and had houses in each corner of the U.S., a boat, plane, and helicopter. He gave it all up because he met this good looking Hispanic Christian girl. He knew he had to change to make a life with her. So he did some time in prison and made a break from the family in 1993.

The breakfast was alright. For some reason I was hoping that it would be better. But I guess if you're supplying breakfast for 1600 smelly men, you can't get too fancy.

My plate consisted of bacon, eggs, pancake, home fries, sausage, danish, and a cup of fruit. I really just wanted some cream chipped beef, I love that stuff.

Year of the Rabbit

2011-02-23T03:14:00.001-05:00

According to my resources, it is year of the rabbit! Chinese New Year/Tet was celebrated at my mom's church a couple weeks ago. It was a pretty hectic time. It seemed like my mom was hosting a party practically everyday.

Below is a veggie center piece she made as well as some banana leaf wrapped things. I have no idea what they're called but the ones made with banana in the center are the best.

Remember when my mom made my dad collect tree branches? Well this is what they were used for. Mostly center pieces on the tables as well as some bigger branches in these 5 foot vases. For some reason she left the price tags on the little charm ornament things.
The food was alright. Not much as much variety that there has been in the past. A little bean sprout salad, the banana leaf thing on the left, succulent Chinese roast pork top right, and some crazy rice noodle sheet things with pork roll.
I'm sure my mom lives for this event. She beats the drum for the lion dance and also sings on stage. She was really into this year moving around a lot.

Here is the priest my mom is always hanging out with, Father Quan.

Winter Wonderland

2011-02-21T06:46:00.002-05:00

Blizzard! Well, not a real blizzard but for someone that has grown up in Saudi Arabia, it seems pretty close. A couple weeks ago we got a bunch of snow over the course of two days, at least 15 inches. Below are some pictures I took of the winter wonderland!

Every year this cherry blossom (small tree) looks like its dead but proves me otherwise when its in full blossom in the spring. I like cherry blossoms, but it seems as though their flowers fall off in a matter of weeks which is kind of a bummer.

Snow on the street!

Because my family is not normal and our three door garage is too full of junk to hide one car from the elements, I'm the only one in our neighborhood who is shoveling snow in the driveway even though the community has a plowing service that clears the driveways.

Below is a picture during my shuffling of the cars so I can get to the snow. This picture also features the Hybrid, which I have to give up today, rats! Even though it doesn't have as much "pick up" as the Mazda 6, its fancy gas efficiency, push to start button, XM radio, USB mp3 support, bluetooth, etc. far make up for it.
It happened to snow on a Wednesday aka "Trash Day" and of course I didn't get the trash out the night before so I had to shovel a path to the road and then shovel a nook out of the snow in the road to place the trash can.
I wish it would only snow on Mondays so I can get take advantage of the powder and "Men's Day" discount at Spring Mountain.

Trying to Bring Sexy Back

2011-02-18T06:40:00.001-05:00

Woot! I got down to 177.5 lbs!

Despite the copious amount of food available to me, I've been able to keep my appetite under control. I have also been using one of those pull up bars that fit over the door frame. Of course at the time I'm writing this I'm more like 181 lbs after that dinner at William Penn Inn. But I'm sure I can get back down to 177 or lower in no time. I plan on trying to get under 170 lb. According to all the body mass index calculators out there, at my current weight I'm close to being described as "overweight". I know those BMI numbers don't take a lot into account but they still make me feel fat. :'(

Large Portions

2011-02-16T06:35:00.004-05:00

While my Dad was down in Florida for some investment thing, my mom made me some pasta.

Yeah, she made all of this for me. No wonder I'm so fat. There is enough food here for five people easily. She has no concept of cooking just to meet your needs. So of course I was eating this for the next couple days. Mmm, leftover pasta. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate she likes to cook for me. But even when I say I just want a "little bit", we end up with this. It probably doesn't help that she visits Costco at least once a week.

This is Pedestrian at Best

2011-02-14T06:32:00.001-05:00

Ever watch Top Chef? This one episode, Padma Lakshmi described the dish she tasted as "pedestrian at best". Really? I thought it was a little harsh. The other judges were not nearly as critical as she was. Anyway, the other night my parents, Father Quan, and myself went to William Penn Inn for dinner. My parents have been holding onto a 100 bone gift certificate for over a year and thought it was about time we use it. Father Quan also had 75 bones in gift cards as well. Of course between the four of us the bill was much more than that.

For my first course I got the Maine Lobster Bisque soup! I'm not even sure what bisque is. I just know I had crab bisque in Hilton Head one time and it was delicious. So was this by the way.

For the main course I played it safe and got the Penn's Surf n' Turf. Which is two crab cakes and a 6 oz filet. Both were very good. Its been a long time since I've had a fresh crab cake. The steak was good as well. My Dad and Father Quan had the rack of lamb. The lamb was very tender and cooked to near perfection. My Mom ordered the classic Surf n' Turf, 6 oz lobster tail and filet.
For dessert I had the "Inn" Cheesecake. It was the restaurants spin on a classic cheesecake which was also very good. I seem to go through phases when it comes to cheese cake. Sometimes I prefer it to be very light and other times dense and packed with flavor. This happened to be a little heavier and I was in the mood for it so it just made it that much better. Oh man I love cheese cake.
William Penn Inn is a pretty fancy place. Its been around since 1714! The best deal they have is their buffet in my opinion.

Camelback Mountain!

2011-02-11T06:24:00.001-05:00

Got another snowboarding/ski trip in! This time it was Camelback Mountain. It was just Rich and I since it was a Friday. We wanted to take advantage of the midweek prices. We also saved 3 bones buy purchasing the tickets online.

I don't get it, their logo is a "M" made to look like two humps on a camel (bactrian), but this statue here is just a one hump camel (dromedary). Whatever, did you know that they use robot jockeys for camel races? A little fun fact for you, free of charge!

Rich has been skiing much longer than I have been snowboarding. That paired with skis being faster, he always beats me down the mountain as one can see in this picture below.
These pictures are actually stills taken from my flip camera. They aren't half bad! This is my first time using the feature in the included software.
What's skiing without alcohol? I'm not sure if it is legal or not, but we packed some cans in our jackets for the ski lift rides. This is my first time having Blue Moon in the can. I prefer bottles but cans are much more convenient to pack.
While on the one of the lifts, there is a trash can located under the path of the lift with a wooden funnel above it to help make the trash can. Rich and I both made it with our cans, there would be a prize for that or something.
We arrived at the mountain a little before 10:30 am and didn't head out until 6 pm. We took a couple pee breaks and a lunch but other than that we were on the mountain the whole time. I was expecting the trails to be a little longer but despite that it was a lot of fun! I think I prefer Blue Mountain, but last time I was there it was super crowded. With these smaller mountains its better to hit them during the week. Surprisingly, there was a good number of people on the slopes for a weekday but it wasn't too bad.

The Hybrid

2011-02-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

While my car was in the auto repair shop, I was fortunate to get a rental car for free. The Hertz gave me a 2010 Toyota Camry Hybrid! I've never been in a hybrid let alone been in one so I was really excited.

I was expecting some ridiculous gas mileage but apparently this whip only gets 33 city/34 highway mpg. Which is good but I thought these things were suppose to get 40 or something.

Its been really fun driving this car. It sounds like a golf cart when just the electric engine is running and it has a decent sound system. It has a USB port so you can plug in your iPod or other mp3 player. Of course while I was driving the "maintenance required" warning came on and wouldn't let view any information such as temperature, average speed, eco chart, etc. for more than 2 seconds before blinking the warning again. Luckily, I was able to reset it after spending 10 minutes reading the manual.
One of my favorite features of this car is the wireless key and the push to start button. Now I kind of wish my car was as cool as this one. At least my Mazda has a sunroof and a wicked cool spoiler!

Meet Cabo!

2011-02-07T07:53:00.000-05:00

Manthan and Michele got a dog! Its one of those "designer" dogs. Its called a Peekapoo which is a mix between a Pekingese and Poodle. I think it was a toss up between going to Mexico or getting a puppy. As you can see they got the puppy and his name is Cabo.

Here you can see Manthan giving Cabo a bath as he managed to get poop smeared all over himself while in his crate. I guess that's normal for most puppies less than three months old.

You can see he's rather cute. Like a little Ewok or a maybe a baby Wookie.

He's calmed down a lot since the first time I saw him at the pet store. I even got him to pose for a couple pictures!
He's very playful and loves his toys with squeakers in them. One of his favorites is a stuffless ferret.
While taking him for one of this several walks, he decided to plop himself in the middle of the street and chew on a leaf.
Here he's chewing on a dried beef stick. He made quick work of the doggy bone that was given to him earlier. He only had too accidents today which I think is pretty good considering he's only been in the house for 4 days.
He's not crazy about his crate yet. I wouldn't either. Its very cold looking because there isn't any sort of mat or blanket for him. But there is a space heater next to the crate so he shouldn't get too cold.

Sushi Time!

2011-02-04T07:52:00.001-05:00

My mom's priest friend wanted to take us out for dinner. He took us to this sushi buffet called Minado. I've been to a few sushi buffets in my time, they're never as good as sushi restaurants but for what they are they're alright.

There was a crazy spread at this place. I tried so many I forgot what I had even thought I snagged some pictures. The ones on the left are supposedly "Volcano Rolls" and the ones on the right are tempura ones but I forget what was in them. They were all really good. The deep fried ones were like crack. There seemed to be a pretty quick turnover on the sushi so they didn't stay out too long before getting eaten.

My second plate was a little more exotic. The purple looking sushi is died with beets! At the bottom of the picture we have eel, squid, and octopus! The one thing on this plate I wasn't crazy about was the mussel. This was the first time I've had a mussel cold and it almost ruined my meal. Not sure if it was just the way they prepared it or it was due to the nasty cold state it was in.
On this plate I believe we have some more tempura sushi, mango squid, coconut shrimp, grilled shrimp on a skewer, mini crab cake, some crazy raw beef stuff, and a cooked beef thing. This was the first time I've had grilled squid and it was quite enjoyable.
At this point was super stuffed but I just had to fit dessert in. I decided to go with a green tea theme. I got green tea ice cream, green tea cheese cake, and green tea sponge cake! The cakes were disappointing. I was really excited about the cheesecake but it didn't taste anything like cheese cake. The sponge cake was a little bit better but I would have liked some more green tea punch. The ice cream on the other hand was ballin'. Its so good I might have to put it on my top 5 favorite ice cream flavors! It kind of looks like green poop in the picture, but once you try it you'll be in love too.

If you're passing through the East Norriton area, you should hit this place up.

Cottage Run

2011-02-02T07:50:00.001-05:00

Went to the cottage to look for my winter boots. I didn't find them and the cottage was colder than it was outside! Pretty nuts if you ask me. Look at these icicles just waiting to take someone's eye out.

Good amount of snow up here, I thought we were going to get the mini van stuck.

Brrrr!

My mom takes it upon herself to decorate for her church's Chinese New Year celebration. For that she has my dad collect tree branches so she can wire on flowers on them so they look like cherry blossoms, they turn out really nice!

I'm sure glad its not me in the snow cutting down branches.

Isn't that good lookin' bark on that tree? I think so.

Pho Real!

2011-01-31T07:42:00.001-05:00

If you want to get a real bowl of pho, you usually have to go to China Town or Vietnam. But lucky us have the Vietnam Cafe which is relatively close by. A hot bowl of pho really hits the spot during these cold winter days.

I was really craving egg rolls so I snagged some for an appetizer as well as some hot tea.

These egg rolls are not as good as my mom's, but they're still quite tasty.

Here is the bowl of pho before all the fixings are put in. A bowl slightly smaller than this would cost 35 cents in Vietnam. You can see that the meat is still rare and you have to submerge it in the broth to cook it further.

I like to put a lot of sriracha and hoisin sauce in mine.

Oh man, I love pho. I could eat it every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Pho is actually a breakfast dish in Vietnam, a little fun fact for you free of charge.

My First Car Accident

2011-01-29T06:58:00.000-05:00

While taking Ashley to the airport last December, I got in my first car accident. I was in the center lane about to go through an intersection and apparently a girl in the left turning lane decided to change lanes to go straight right when I was passing her. She hit the rear driver's side of my car.

I was so annoyed. I kept thinking I should have seen it coming and been able to avoid it but what can you do, woman drivers. :P A police report was made and all that good stuff. At the time I didn't see any damage on my car because there was so much salt caked to it. But the next day when I washed the are that was hit, I could see scratches from the impact. As far as I could tell, my car drove fine but because of my OCD, I wanted to get those scratches fixed.

I called up State Farm and they contacted the other insurance company for me. I took my car to the nearest auto repair shop to get an estimate. I was thinking the work would only be a couple hundred bones, the estimate came out to $2180.16!

Just for a few scratches? No wonder insurance bills are so much. Once I told the claim agent the estimate she said she would have to send an appraiser to get a second quote. A day later I got a call from the appraiser saying he was too busy to come by to look at my car and he said that the estimate seemed fair and I should be able to get the check no sweat. I later called the claim agent and it turned out she called their third party appraisers that would talk down the estimate with the repair shop.
I ended up getting a check for $1,968.16. I quickly deposited that in my savings so I could make some pennies from interest over the next two weeks. After looking at the estimate, most of the cost is from labor. $700 for parts and another $500 paint labor which is insane. I should get my car back in a week. I dropped off my car today and also got a rental car payed by the insurance company through Hertz.
The car they gave me is a 2010 Toyota Hybrid Camry! Pretty snazzy if you ask me. I'll post some pictures of it. Now if I only had somewhere to drive it.

Snowboarding 2011!

2011-01-27T06:48:00.002-05:00

Got out once this winter to go snowboarding. It turned out to be a pretty good day since it snowed in the morning. It was Spring Mountain again this time and even though it wasn't "men's day", I still got a pretty good deal on the lift ticket. Usually the all day ticket is $29, and since we didn't plan ahead of time we decided to go later to take advantage of the evening lift ticket which is $25 after 4pm. It also happened to be "business bash" night which means if you have a business card or work I.D. you can get an additional $5 off.

We all know I don't work so I don't have a work I.D. However, I do have a business card that I had to make for one of my finances classes. So I brought it along and sure enough they took another $5 off my ticket so I only had to pay $20! Not as good as the $15 all day on Monday but every dollar counts in my book!

This lady on skis took our picture with Julie's iPhone 4, it came out horribly blurry. I would have been okay with it but the fact that she has the same phone as Julie, I'd expect her to be able to take a better picture.

I brought my camera, but I only had enough battery juice to get one picture off.

Another iPhone picture. Not sure why we didn't use the flash.

Julie also snagged some video of me "rippin' it hardcore" down one of the trails but I haven't acquired that video yet.

Back to San Diego

2011-01-25T06:25:00.000-05:00

Hi there! Today's pictures are from Monday January 17! Julie's last day in PA before heading back to California. I went over to Uncle Gary's thinking I could play Wii while she packed. But of course I didn't get the chance too as she had taken over the tv room with all her stuff. Also, she decided to wait the last minute to move her files from her old laptop to her new fancy one. So I helped with that since there wasn't anything else I could do. I think I folded a pair of sweat pants too.

Below is a sandwich I've never seen before, peanut butter, jelly, and potato chips! Sounds pretty absurd if you ask me. I've had a mayo and potato chip sandwich with some ground pepper, now that's a tasty sandwich. But I don't know about this PBJ and chips business.

I forget what this stew is called, its one of Aunt Janice's super awesome hearty recipes which was excellent on a cold day.
Julie was running a little late to the airport so she decided to drive since she thought he would drive too slow. I saw my life pass before my eyes a few times before we arrived at the airport.

Side mirror!

I wasn't planning on going to the airport with Uncle Gary and Julie, but Uncle Gary said I could tag along. I figured I didn't have anything planned that day and Uncle Gary could use the company on the ride back.
I don't understand how American Airlines runs their operations. You have a kiosk where you print out your own boarding pass as well as plug in the number of bags you are checking in. Then you have to drag your bags to the counter where they weigh them and put tags on them. After that, you have to haul them to the TSA security monster scan machine. It just doesn't seem very efficient. I guess their reasoning was that most passengers won't check their bags for domestic flights since they want to save monies.

My Sorry Attempt at Bird Watching

2011-01-14T05:04:00.000-05:00

Mid December the Blue Heron decided to visit the pond. Did I ever come up with a name for him? I forget. Anyway, I had just gotten my hands on the T2i and decided to try out the zoom lens.

I knew nothing about the Canon T2i at the time and even less about photography, but despite that I think the shots came out alright.

Oh snap, he saw me.

I wish he would pierce one of the geese with his beak, that would totally make my day.

Flying in like a boss.

Or like a G6?

Okay now he's just showing off.

I wish I was one of those people that got paid for their photos. Someday perhaps, someday.

Night Out On the Town

2011-01-13T04:54:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday the posse went for dinner for Rich's 25th birthday. The restaurant we went to was Alma de Cuba, one of Stephen Starr's many restaurants. If you couldn't tell by the name, its a Cuban restaurant. If you look at Alma's menu, you'll see that ceviche is one of their specialties.

They guys got to the restaurant early, so we all got mojiotos before sitting at our table. I got the suave mojito, you know, because I'm so suave. It consisted of Bacardi Limón and sugarcane syrup. It was really good. So good it might be considered a foo-foo drink, at least it didn't have an umbrella in it.
Michele ordered the mango martini with ketel one, mango liqueur, and mango purée. I had a sip of it and one word to describe it is "dangerous". Even though you can taste the vodka, its still not enough to keep you from slurping it down as if it was a delicious smoothie from Jamba Juice.
They serve they tasty rolls with some kind of pesto garlic mixture. I am currently trying to cut down on the carbs but these were so good I couldn't resist.
For appetizers, we ordered chorizo sliders and a couple ceviches. Picture below is is the yellowtail kingfish. The other two were the rainbow (tuna, salmon, black bass, w/ jalapeño & sweet potato) and the thai mixto (crab, shrimp, octopus, fluke, coconut-lech de tigre, mango & tomatillo). They were all very good. I picked the thai mixto because I like that stuff. Everyone seemed to like it. The yellowtail kingfish was a little fishy for some but I thought it was excellent.
For my second drink I decided to man up and get the classic mojito. I'm glad I did, it was even better than the suave. It also packed a punch, definitely got my $8 out of that drink.
Randomly, Jules was showing Michele pictures of a Pomeranian puppy. I couldn't find a picture of the one she had, but it looked like a fake puppy because it was so fluffed up.
For my entrée I ordered the rum cured duck breast served with creamy yucca, duck vigoron and smoked currants. The duck breast was succulent and tender. The slaw wasn't that bad either. I got to try some other dinners including Rich's Chilean sea bass, Graham's beef tenderloin, and whatever Jules had. The sea bass was something else. It just melts in your mouth like butter. I know for a fact I could feed this to someone who doesn't like fish and they would love it.
What's a birthday without dessert? Rich and Graham both got the chocolate cigar. Almond cake wrapped in chocolate mousse dusted with chocolate and served with dulce de leche ice cream. It was very fitting as both Rich and Graham share a love for smoking cigars. Each of their plates had these crazy match sticks made out of sugar and lit on fire.
I figured I didn't want to watch them eat so I also ordered a dessert, the dulce de lech crepes. Vanilla crepes filled with dulce de lech and served with truffled streusel, bitter chocolate glaze and smoked vanilla ice cream. Oh man was this good. I was hesitant to take a bite because it was so pretty looking, but didn't seem to be a problem after the first bite.
After dinner John and Kelly left to tend to their dog Smokey. The rest of us headed to Rum Bar for one more drink before heading back to Graham and Jules'.
I ordered a mai thai, that dark stuff you see on top is 151. Not as good as the classic mojito but still very tasty. Graham got one too.
Rich got a flight of rum. Not something I would do but hey, its his birthday! He can do whatever he wants!
We ended the night playing Golden Eye on the Wii. Brought back a lot of memories as I was a huge fan of the original on the Nintendo 64. Rich has been playing this game all week so of course he beat us the first game. But he soon got frustrated as Manthan, Graham, and I won the following games. Had a great time that night, not too often I get dressed up and go to fancy restaurants.

Dad's Beer

2011-01-12T03:04:00.000-05:00

Came across this brewski a couple months ago, Dale's Pale Ale. Its brewed by Oskar Blues Brewing Company, located in Longmont, Colorado.

We bought a six pack of this stuff as it shares the same name as my dad. It was an alright beer. Not too exciting. It definitely has hops but its balanced with the other flavors of the beer. It would make for a good "Game Watching" beer with pretzels and other snacks.

Twigs

2011-01-11T03:14:00.001-05:00

I was fortunate to meet Twiggy the bichon. Before seeing her I thought the name was silly. But after getting a look at her, the name is quite fitting. She's a little shy but seemed like a very nice dog when she wasn't pooping all over the place. Don't you dig her sweater?

The sad news is that Twiggy had to be put down. A week ago she got into some Hershey Kisses, that combined with her stomach problems caused her to stop eating. Poor Twiggy. I wonder how much longer she would have lived if she never got to those chocolates. At least she's keeping Daisy company now.

Machine Bug

2011-01-10T03:12:00.000-05:00

Here's the little robot bug that sits on my desk. May not look like much but its very entertaining, at least it is to me.

You turn it on and it runs in a circle until it hits something with its antenna and then moves backwards a few steps before moving forwards again. It was a re-gift, but I'm happy it was given to me. :)

Starbucks

2011-01-09T03:18:00.001-05:00

Went to Panera Bread for lunch on December 27th. Afterwards we hit up Starbucks, and here are some random pictures that were taken!

Bizarre Lunch

2011-01-08T03:00:00.000-05:00

You'll never guess what I had for lunch, Vietnamese sloppy joe and frog legs.

Pretty random, I know. But it was the only thing I could find in the fridge today. I'm trying to cut down on the carbs so I wasn't thrilled about eating the potato bun. The frog legs on the other hand were extremely random but very tasty. They pretty much taste like chicken with a few characteristics of fish, such as being a little lighter and more flaky. I still get a little grossed out when I eat frog legs but their deliciousness gets me over it easily.

Epic Egg Roll

2011-01-07T10:10:00.000-05:00

Are you kidding me? This thing cannot seriously exist. Packs more Chinese than China itself?

I'd probably die from a heart attack, but I'd like to try this someday. Its like an entire Chinese buffet with every bite!

My New Years Eve

2011-01-06T02:49:00.000-05:00

New Years Eve, it was interesting to say the least. I went to one of my high school buddy's (Drew) place. The first thing I noticed was the food spread. It was amazing. Pulled pork, deli meat, buffalo chicken dip, bacon wrapped scallops, mini quiche, spanokopita, shrimp cocktail, crab meat deviled eggs, salmon cucumber bites, and lots of booze.

I don't know why but foosball was such a big deal in high school. I never got into it. So I spent most of the night snacking on shrimp and the salmon cucumber bites.
I always get nervous at these formal dress events. I never know if I'm going to over do it or not look nice enough. But I looked pretty sharp. Also, for some reason I look unusually slim in some of these photos, must be the lens on the camera.

Here are most of the guys at the party, most of which I graduated with.

Here is what looks like a failed attempt at a "high-five". But that doesn't matter, what does matter is that I rocked the pong table. Though no one probably noticed. But the "Saudi Sniper" lives up to his name once again.
The next day I was trying to leave but Drew and Lee insisted that we set up the hookah once more. I didn't want to because I didn't have any quick lighting coals. We tried lighting the coals for several minutes with a lighter because came up short. Finally, we doused the coals with lighter fluid which still didn't work.
Drew and I were ready to give up but Lee was determined. He succeeded by splitting the coals in half and blowing on the them continuously. Just goes to show that perseverance and determination pays off. This last photo should totally be one of those inspirational posters in an office somewhere. I know that would get me motivated.

Christmas Decor After New Years?!

2011-01-05T12:34:00.000-05:00

Randomly the other night my Dad wanted to go check out some Christmas lights even though it was after New Years day. He wanted to check out two houses in Ambler and he failed to mention that they may not have their lights up anymore.

The first house we visited had cleaned up all their decorations. The second house however still had their hodge podge of decor. Everything from Frosty to cute Baby Jesus. There was even a castle with Mickey Mouse hanging out in it.

As you can see, the house is not that big, so I wonder where they store all this ridiculous decor during the rest of the year.
Good thing we checked this place out, because apparently its the last year the Drelicks are doing this. All the the Christmas stuff is up for sale. They've been doing this for 28 years! Can't imagine how much money was spent on energy for this thing all those years.
I kind of felt like a creeper walking up their driveway taking pictures, but what am I suppose to do?
They even had a fancy "guest book" booth with a map and lights. This guy has to be an electrical engineer or something.
Even though it was cold and wet out that night, it was nice to get one last bit of the Christmas season before all that junk in their yard was retired.

Video Calling For iPhone

2011-01-04T04:26:00.001-05:00

A video from PC Magazine showing the advantages and disadvantages of Skype 3.0 and FaceTime for the iPhone.

Now if I could only get myself one of these...

Baby Monkey

2011-01-03T04:47:00.000-05:00

This is such a silly video I had to share it. I dare you to try and watch this without smiling.

Can't Explain This One

2011-01-02T04:40:00.000-05:00

Uncle Gary wanted me to take pictures of this Russian Nesting Doll at Mimi's. I have no idea why. I thought he was joking when he said it but he wouldn't let me leave until I took the silly pictures. So here they are.

There are only four of them, not very impressive. Especially if you've seen this crazy one that I just witnessed that seemed to never end with the dolls.

Mimi's For Christmas Dinner

2011-01-01T06:59:00.001-05:00

I was fortunate enough to be invited to Mimi's for her fam's Christmas dinner. I had not been invited, I'd be forced to hang out with a bunch of Asians at my aunt's place. I was told Mimi's shin dig was at 4pm. Thinking that people would show some kind of respect to the elderly and show up on time, I made sure I was there on time. I arrived at 4:03 pm to find that I was the first one to arrive. I admit it was a little awkward since it was just Mimi, Lynn, and I chatting but there was lots of appetizers and drink (Snapple) to keep me satisfied.

Bekah and David were the next to arrive and they didn't come until 50 minutes after I did. The first thing David said to me was,"Arriving on time never pays off". Hopefully I remember this next time.

Most of the evening seemed to revolve around group pictures.

Here Josh, Uncle Gary, and I are hanging out on the couch watching people get their picture taken.

Another picture of Julie and I.

My parents. Whenever I see a picture of my Dad and I, I'm bitter that he's taller than me. I feel like the son should eventually pass his father in height. But considering my mom is so short, I'm at least thankful to be taller than my diva sisters.
My mom is notorious for taking awkward photos. Here is the awkward photo of the night. I think this photo would have been okay if they weren't holding hands. My mom is wearing her mink coat she has had as long as I can remember. It was my favorite coat of her growing up because I would spend hours just petting it as if it were a dog or something.
That night someone asked,"what's a mink coat made out of?". Um...mink? They then asked what a mink was. I've always thought of them in the same family as otter or weasel.

The next photo, you'll see that everyone wanted a picture taken with "their" camera.

The cousins and grandparents.

The obligatory silly picture.

There was a surprise guest that night, Winston! It was good seeing him Christmas Eve and didn't think it would be so soon when I would see him again. It was a nice surprise. I think he's nine years old? I've always remember him as a boring pet but this encounter with him and the previous one he's been a lot more active and cheerful. Its almost as if he became a puppy again.
Ugh I can't wait to have my own dog. I really think a pet is required for happiness, unless you have a child because that's pretty much a pet but much more expensive.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T00:00:00.000-05:00

The Big Family Christmas

2010-12-31T16:20:00.000-05:00

Every year we have a big family Christmas. Uncle Floyd's gang travels the farthest from Indiana. This year the party got started early at 1pm! I'm not complaining, it was nice to have some extra time with the fam. I was also excited to meet a new family member, Oliver! He's 4 months old and weighs 17 1/5 lbs! That's how heavy our roast in the oven was!

Grandpa blabbed about how Oliver reminds him of my Dad when he was a baby,"Dale was a fat baby too!". Oh Grandpa. Of course there was a huge feast prepared by everybody. Ham, beef, creamed corn, mashed potatoes, salad, sweet potatoes, rolls, and of course egg rolls. I'm sure some family members just come for the egg rolls because they are so good.
We do a gift exchange every year. Gifts around $10 scattered randomly among family. Here, Josiah is helping Aunt Janice open her gift. We started doing something different last year where a story is told that incorporates the words "left" and "right". Each time one of those words are said, presents are passed in that direction. I kind of liked the white elephant game more, but I guess that takes longer than people would like.

Here's Grandpa and his four children. They all definitely look related.

It was so fun seeing Josiah as he's three years old and a total blabber mouth. When there is a discussion going on and he's not part of it, he'll randomly blabber something out to get everyone's attention so he feel like he's contributing to the conversation. I was jealous of his footed pajamas.

Another silly picture of Julie and I.

Overall it was a fun time. However, it wasn't the same without my sisters, their kids, and the other cousins.

Some New Kicks!

2010-12-31T08:18:00.001-05:00

I got some new sneakers! They're Onisuka Tiger Ultimate 81's. The picture below is actually of the first pair I received but I returned them because they were too big. I have always thought my shoe size was 11.5. Since Onisuka Tiger is owned by Asics. I have a pair of Asics in size 12, so I was certain that 11.5 would fit but they were way too big. So I had them returned and got the 11's which were still a little big but the 10.5's that I tried on at the mall were two narrow for my stupidly wide feet. The cool thing about sneakers these days is that most of them come with two pairs of laces of different color!

I'm still unsure which laces I prefer. At first I was leaning towards the white/grey laces, but now I'm rocking the blue laces, since blue is my favorite color. Let me know what you think!

Munchkin Cats!

2010-12-31T02:57:00.002-05:00

Have you ever heard of munchkin cats? Cats with stubby legs that tend to stand on their hind legs, and they are also known as "munchies". Not sure how I feel about them. Sure they look cute and I want to squeeze one like a stuffed animal but apparently their prone to back problems like daschunds. According to the International Cat Association, their short legs are a natural mutation and are just as healthy as any other feline. The one below reminds me of Chloe but not as cute. >'.'<.

Sergeant In Town

2010-12-30T03:02:00.001-05:00

Its been decided, Henry is now "Sergeant Mint Pepperson". Not sure what army he is a sergeant of because he seems to be a loner.

Joel pointed him out while he was running around back of the house. I would really like to know what is out there that is of interest to him. I hope he isn't making a nest in my car.

New Gloves

2010-12-29T10:00:00.000-05:00

I got some new snowboarding gloves for Christmas. They were ordered from Park 2 Peak. They seemed to have the best deal for the gloves I was looking for. I was surprised when I received them because there was a hand written "Thank You" message written on the invoice.

Not often you get hand written message from online shopping companies. I just might be ordering from them again!

Joel Came to Town!

2010-12-29T03:07:00.001-05:00

My old roommate Joel came into the area! Its been like two years since I've seen him. He currently resides in Seattle as a chef. He graduated with a digital media degree...but apparently he really likes cooking!

I pretty much spent 48 hours with Joel while he was in town. I met up with him at Graham's and from there we went to Belgium Cafe where a bunch of Jules' friends were meeting. It was a little awkward as they are all pursuing their Phd while I'm just bum. But things got a lot more comfortable once we sat a table and ordered a big pot of mussels and beer. After a snack, one of the things on Joel's list was a cheesesteak, a real one. Apparently they don't know how to make them out west, go figure.

Joel swears by Geno's. Its amazing we're still friends. Since he was going over to Geno's I figured this would be perfect opportunity to end which steak is better. My one beef with Geno's is their ridiculous neon lights.
After Geno's we headed over to Pat's to get a real cheesesteak. Joel had already eaten two provy wit (provolone with onions) at Geno's and he got a THIRD cheesteak at Pat's. His third steak was a whiz and mushroom.

I of course kept it simple and traditional with whiz and onions. I like to eat my steaks with the delicious peppers they have. Ugh, my mouth is watering right now just looking at these pictures.
After having the cheesesteaks, one thing is certain, their both very delicious. However, the texture of the meat in a Pat's cheesesteak is just what I expect a cheesesteak to be. Geno's keeps their meat sliced. I do think that sliced would be better if you were getting provolone but I prefer my cheesesteak chopped up with a shower of whiz on top. I also got a lot more meat at Pat's. I compared my steak to Graham's and he didn't get as much. They must like me at Pat's even though I rarely ever get down there. After cheesesteaks we headed back to Graham's for Joel's stuff before heading back to my place.

The next day consisted of Joel watching a bunch of movies I have before we met up with Rich, Manthan, and Brett in Cherry Hill, NJ to watch True Grit. The movie was fantastic. I'll have to watch the original with John Wayne. The dialogue in the movie was awesome. We should have a talk like a Western Cowboy day.

After the movie we headed back into the city to Graham's. There we watched a bunch episodes of Californication and Dead Like Me. It wasn't long until we all got hungry and ordered a feast from California Pizza. California Pizza was pretty much what we ate after every night of drinking. One of the most famous menu items is the Cali Fries. French fries piled with mozzarella cheese, bacon, and ranch dressing which is then baked to perfection. This is one of the worst things you can put in your body but it is so stinkin' delicious you can't resist. We ordered three of these as well as a pepperoni pizza and cheese pizza.

California Pizza is something else, I've never come across a pizza that was as greasy as theirs. They seriously must dump a vat of grease on every pizza before it leaves the kitchen because the amount that drips from each slice is ridiculous. I don't remember their pizza tasting good, but it was irresistible if you had the beer munchies. It was also very affordable for the poor college student.
I managed to get a picture of everyone together except Graham. I should have had him take the picture so I could be in it but he was super cranky so I just ended up with this. It was a long ride home as Manthan, Brett, and Joel all got a ride from me. It was about 3:30 am by the time I got to bed, I slept like a baby until my alarm went off at 9 am.
It was great seeing Joel and getting the gang together again. The only person we were missing was JZ, rats. Maybe I can photoshop him in the picture above...

We Be Burnin'

2010-12-28T22:39:00.000-05:00

Abby and Josh had a great idea for Christmas presents. They decided to go through the family home videos and convert them to DVDs! They were thinking about sending them off to have a company do them but that can be really expensive real fast if you have a lot of tapes to convert.

Instead, they borrowed the DVD recorder I have. The end product doesn't look as pretty as getting them professionally done, but it sure does cost less. I think Abby had about 40 tapes to go through. After digitizing them, it came out to 12 DVDs. They then asked me to make 4 copies of each, and one of them they just wanted 3 copies.

I was tempted to just put some burning software on their laptops but I figured it would be fun to see how long burning 47 DVDs would take. To make the process go faster, I fired up the three desktops we have in the house. Running up and down the stairs every 5 minutes or so. I also had to label the DVDs with a sharpie so I wouldn't get them mixed up. I was able to do it just under 3 hours. Go me!

Leaning tower of C-Disa?

I Weigh Less Than A Slice Of Bread

2010-12-27T10:45:00.004-05:00

I knew it, as soon as I started bottling the cider a fox came around. Silly cider poacher. Actually, he was really interested in the geese in the pond. I wish the geese took me as seriously as the fox. The five geese in the pond wouldn't take their eyes off the fox. Too bad the ice didn't lead closer to the birds, he might be able to get one.

I had a really hard time getting a picture of this guy. My camera kept focusing on bushes and grass instead of the fox. I guess I'll have to figure out the manual focus thing.
As I tried to get a better shot of the fox, I got his attention and scarred him off. I felt bad but it wasn't like he was going to get a bird anyway.
It was so cool seeing him trot across the ice. With his reflection off the ice it was like there were double foxes! What does it mean?!
Here you can seem him having second thoughts about leaving the birds. It would be so epic if I caught footage of him attacking a goose. Geese are pretty vicious, I'm not sure a fox would be able to take on such a large bird.

I wish I had a pet fox. My favorite bat is the fox bat.

I heard on Animal Planet that the fox is actually more closely related to cats than dogs.

I really wish I could have gotten picture in better focus. The foxes coat was so pretty. It looks like he's wearing black socks. Reminds me of a cat named Chloe with white paws.
The fox eventually retreated to the bushes. I wonder if its home is back there. I wonder if I'll see him again. If I do I'll have to name him. I was thinking on the theme of Fantastic Mr. Fox or George Clooney. I'll have to think about it.

Goodbye Mr. Fox, I hope you can get an annoying goose one day.

Christmas Defender of the Universe Morning

2010-12-27T03:55:00.003-05:00

I was not looking forward to Christmas morning this year. Usually I get to spend it with at least a sister plus kids or more, but this year it was just the rents and I. On top of that, my mom was really busy with her Catholic church events so she didn't have time to make our long tradition of steak and eggs on Christmas morning. We also have a tradition of reading the Christmas story from the bible and opening Christmas presents following that but apparently we didn't have time for that either.

I woke up Christmas morning late. I threw on a sweat shirt and headed downstairs to the tree. My parents were busy getting ready to leave the house. So I decided to open the two presents my sister Michelle sent me. I then envisioned the rest of my Christmases being like this, alone. I'm sure I'll get use to it. Aunt Janice was kind enough to invite my Dad and I over to their Christmas breakfast.

On the bright side, I got some pretty neat things from Michelle. The first thing I opened was a little random. It was a glass skull decanter. Not sure if I have ever mentioned wanting one of these, but its pretty rad. The cork is a little hard to remove but I'm sure it'll loosen up over time.

The second gift she got me was even more cool, a Voltron 2 GB USB drive!

This thing is so ridiculous. Its preloaded with Voltron desktop wallpapers and an episode from the original series. For you who don't know, Voltron was a pretty big deal in the 80's. The figure comes apart at the waist to reveal the USB plug. Once plugged in, the chest plate lights up during data transfer. Its about 3.5 inches tall and although not very practical to carry around compared to your conventional USB drive, this one defends the universe! Can yours do that?

Didn't think so.

Lunar Eclipse

2010-12-27T03:09:00.005-05:00

Hear about that lunar eclipse? You probably did. Well I have nothing to do these day so I decided to capture it via some photography. I thought I just had to stay up until midnight but to my dismay I was misinformed and it turned out that if I wanted to see this eclipse, I had to wait until 2:41 am!

Below you can see what happens if you mess up the auto white balance on your camera.

Took me a couple tries but I was able to get a good shot of the full moon, however, the rest of the shots go down hill from here.
It was freezing that night, but I was determined to capture the moment with my bare hands. I sat in a chair with a tripod with just a sweat shirt and sweat pants. Eventually I got some slippers as my poor piggies were getting cold.
This moon thing is pretty crazy. It was really neat to see the moon get darker over such a short amount of time.

I kind of dropped the ball on shots of the half moon...

Here is the few decent shots I got of the actual eclipse. Pretty crazy the moon gets a red haze over it. I think I read somewhere it due to the earth's atmosphere refracting light onto the moon. There there was no atmosphere on the earth then the moon would be totally black.
The next two pictures came out really dark so I tried to brighten them up. But they ended up just looking unnatural. But you are able to see the craters on the moon.

At this point I was super tired and cold. I ended my shooting frenzy with this last shot. It was a little depressing seeing the professional videos and pictures the next day as they looked a lot better than mine. But at least I got to see it with my own eyes.

Why Did the Goose Cross the Road?

2010-12-27T01:32:00.000-05:00

I don't know, but here is a picture of them doing it. They were originally in the yard but I chased them off.

Ugh, they drive me crazy. They live to torment me and poop on my car.

Aunt Janice's Breakfast Feast!

2010-12-27T01:22:00.000-05:00

Of course my Dad and I were late to the breakfast. We were told to be there at 10:00 am and we didn't walk in the door until 10:35 am. The only time I'm ever on time for anything is if I drive myself.

Supposedly everyone wasn't waiting too long. Aunt Janice made quite the spread. Quiche, frittata, baked grapefruit with brown sugar, roasted potatoes, cinnabuns, and Christmas ham.

The amount of food was overwhelming. I might as well have been at Shady Maple in Lancaster. Everything was really good. My favorite was the quiche. I kept eating it even after being full.
I always envy their tree. Every year its packed full with presents. As much as I like getting presents, that's not what I look forward to. I really enjoy seeing other people open presents. I guess everyone does, but I think I enjoy it more than most. Sadly, Uncle Gary, Aunt Janice, and Julie didn't have time to open their presents that morning and had to wait until we bounced.

Found this bear to take a picture of. I could use a good squeeze right about now.

Aunt Janice always has a stock pile of assorted teas. I forget what I had but it was good. One of those immune booster ones. I had it plain although I am a fan of honey.

Christmas Eve

2010-12-27T00:16:00.001-05:00

Spent Christmas Eve at the Cousins'. I was told the festivities started at 8pm, so I left my mom's church a little before and arrived at 8:15pm. I was the first one there and people didn't start funneling in until what felt like 20 minutes later.

The Dan Household has two cats and a dog. Below is Buttons, I believe she is Bekah's favorite.

Julie and Rach for a pose.

The other cat is Clarence. He slept most of the time that night but he mosied around from person to person. Julie and him get along great.
I think Lydia came up with this while at Abby and Josh's. You turn off all the lights in the room while having the Christmas tree lit. You then lay under the tree and look up. Its suppose to look like a forest or something? Not sure, but it had to be fun if they continue to do it.

Clarence again.

Aunt Janice and Uncle Gary were kind enough to get me a gift. I've never seen it before. What you do is place this hat with a net on your head and you throw balls in it? I'll have to read the directions. This might have to be one of those games that requires alcohol consumption to enjoy.

Here is Lydia sportin' it as well.

Clarence!

Julie being mean to Clarence.

Had a pretty good time at the party. Turned out to be a late night as I had to drive Julie home, yawn.

Happy Dog

2010-12-26T20:30:00.000-05:00

Here's a happy dog. It must be nice being happy.

We Don't Take Kindly to Cider Poachers

2010-12-26T10:18:00.001-05:00

Finally got around to bottling the cider. Ever see Fantastic Mr. Fox? One of the farmers makes cider, a lot of cider. I wanted to bottle the cider sooner but after talking to a guy at the home brew store, he said that you want to wait for the cider to get under 1.000 specific gravity and it just wasn't doing it. Next time, I'm just going to bottle when it stops bubbling.

I was thinking about using wine bottles and corks but decided to go with capping bottles so I would end up with more bottles and less likely to waste any cider.

I watched several videos on youtube about capping before hand to see if there were any techniques I had not thought of. My setup was pretty simple, I clamped the capper on the corner of the table, and tide the siphon with the bottler filler wand tide to a mic stand over a bucket. I spent a lot of time cleaning the bottles, sanitizing them, and drying them. The toughest part was getting the labels off.

Since every hard cider I've ever had was carbonated, I wanted to carbonate mine. I added some priming sugar two days before bottling as well as some more yeast. I was a little worried after the first day because the cider wasn't bubbling. But by the second day they yeast was pumping out some more gas as well as alcohol! According to my calculations, the cider is 7.8% alcohol by volume and probably more since I added more sugar to carbonate it.

I found it was a lot easier pushing the bottle up into the wand rather than putting the wand in the bottle. It seemed to make less of a mess too.

After filling the bottle it was time for the capping.

The caps I used have oxygen absorbing pads in them. I heard people having a hard time getting a good seal on their bottles but I was having pretty good results this go around.
Everything was going smoothly until I ran out of bottles and had to clean some more. I decided to try some of the cider during the bottling process and it wasn't that good. I might change after two weeks of carbonating but I think my problem is that the yeast has eaten all the sugar so its no longer sweet. I'll have to come up with a solution for that. I read that a lot of people stop fermentation after they have gotten a desired amount of alcohol by cold crashing or adding potassium sorbate to kill off the yeast. Another solution is to back sweeten the cider with Sweet'n Low or some other fake sugar that the yeast won't eat.
Below you can see the final product. I did add some Sweet'n Low to a couple bottles to see how they turn out. I think if I do this again I'll go for a lower alcohol content and save some of those natural sugars in the cider.

Eagles Party

2010-12-25T10:46:00.001-05:00

After the cookies making, I took the van to New Jersey to meet up with everyone at JZ's. They had an Eagles slash "show everyone our new place" party. Due to the cookie event I arrived after the game but I was able to listen to the unbelievable win on the radio. The food theme that night was Mexican and Kelly was nice enough to leave the food out for my consumption.

John and Kelly have poodle named Smokey. He's old and frail and even though I'm not crazy about poodles, he's alright. Here you can see me trying to squeeze in the couch between Kelly and Smokey. Smokey was generous enough to move his back legs before I sat down to make more room.

Even though I was on the road during the final minutes of the Eagles game, I was able to catch a bunch of highlights. This is definitely the most intense game I've ever seen.

Here we have Rich sporting one of his many new flannels, Heather took this picture.

Cookies!

Apparently Graham is not a big fan of pictures.

Sleeping Smokey.

Smokey was extra fluffy that night because Kelly brushed him. John was telling me that his new thing is to eat dog poop. He must be confusing it with tootsie rolls or something in his old age.
Overall it was a nice relaxed time and I really enjoyed the Mexican spread. I love flour tortillas. I bet they're bad for you, it seems like everything that I like is less than healthy.

Christmas Cookies

2010-12-24T10:25:00.000-05:00

The annual Christmas cookie making went down this past Sunday which is also when the Eagles had their amazing comeback against the New York Giants. Every year Aunt Janice has all of her nieces, their significant others, and one nephew (me) over to make some fun festive cookies.

Due to my car problems I arrived a little late and Rach, Abby, Bekah, and Lydia already had a head start on the cookie production. I believe they are called "sugar cookies".

Below is Abby talking to Josh in one of her stylish aprons that she made.

I asked Josh for a picture and this is the face he gave me. Weird.

Surprisingly, the girls forgot when to put the sprinkles on the cookies. They baked the cookies before decorating them. Luckily we had some icing to put on already baked cookies. I couldn't get my hands on much dough so I only stamped out a couple cookies with the cookies cutters before moving to the icing station.

Heres Bekah taking an iPhone app break.

When everyone took a lunch break for some pizza, I decided to press on as I had already eaten before arriving. Below you can see what I had accomplished! I did everything below except the bottom left cookie. Bekah for some reason stock two cookie people together. I did however give the one cookie person a "pearl necklace", take it as you will.
My Dad was in a hurry to bounce so I didn't get to finish as many cookies as I had wanted but I think I did pretty good in the time I had.
Even though we were missing Brent and Julie arrived late, it was still a good time and glad I was able to squeeze it in before heading to Lawrenceville to see John and Kelly's new place.

Car Trouble

2010-12-23T12:09:00.003-05:00

I was on my way to see Tron (good flick by the way) and stopped for gas while Ben got some snacks for the movie. While pumping gas this kid from another pump shouts over,"You like your Mazda?". It was pretty random but I said I did like and he continued to ask if I ever had any problems with it and I said "no". He then went on to say that he doesn't see many Mazdas on the road. He must not get out much or be very unobservant because I see at least one Mazda everytime I leave the house, one other than my own of course.

After heading back to Ben's place I said goodbye to his dog Marley and got back in my car. It wouldn't start. Extremely frustrated I ask Ben if he could jump my car. After hooking up the cables it took a couple tries and revs of Ben's car before I could get my car started. On my way home I used my high beams a couple times and each time I used them all the lights and electronics in my car would shut off for a second before coming back on again. I made it home and figured I'd try to charge the battery in the morning.

The next day my car refused to start even with a battery charger on it for a couple hours. When I'd open the door the needles on my speedometer and tachometer were spinning back and forth, I thought my car was possessed. I decided to bring my car to the Mazda dealer since its never been serviced and if there was a problem with my alternator or something else they could fix it the fastest. I also read online that people had similar problems as me found it was their starter solenoid, whatever that is.

It turned out it was the battery, the "charging mechanism" was bad and a new battery would fix it. They also suggested I get my fuel injectors flooded, oil change, and new power steering fluid. I went ahead and did all that good stuff and the bill wasn't cheap. At least now I have a working car again and will know better when I have a dead battery again. Of course this all happened after a kid asked if I have ever had problems with my ride.

Farewell Brousin..

2010-12-22T04:18:00.001-05:00

The time came too quickly for when Brent had to head back to New Orleans. He left this past Saturday. I called him at 10:15 am to see if he wanted to hang out before getting on the road. He told me it was "okay" but he would be leaving in an hour. I had a feeling it would be later than that.

Once I arrived at the house a found Uncle Gary under Brent's car trying to change a headlight bulb. Apparently he was having a little bit of trouble. I asked him if he needed some help thinking he wanted me to hold something or take a look at the headlight. I should have known better, instead he asked me to pick up a bag of ice for a cooler Brent was taking.

After coming back from picking up ice, I found Brent in one of his common spots with laptop and hand rolled cigarette in hand.

What better way to hang out than play some Wii? We played a couple games of Mario Kart, and after losing to the pros online we decided to switch over to Wii Sports. While playing Brent also got a few more bites of his momma's home cooked food. In the following photo you can see Brent's "Mii" have an uncanny resemblance.

By this point it was almost 2 pm. He ended the Wii games and gave a crack at packing Brent's Celica. For such a tiny car it is able to pack a lot once the backseat is folded down. Good thing Brent only brought two backpacks up with him because most of the space in the car was needed for shelves and a table plus bar stools.

We had to prop the hatchback with a wooden dowel...at least the heat is still working.

Here is Brent trying to compact his belongings in the car. Apparently his sister Julie had to do the same thing when she did her road trip out to California.

Aunt Janice calls us "brousins" since neither of us have a brother. We might as well be brothers.

It was a sad day to see Brent leave again but at least I got to hang out with him more than his last visit. I have video of his departure. I think I'll upload it to a video site and embed it in the blog to conserve my precious upload space.

Karaoke

2010-12-21T04:09:00.001-05:00

Wednesday we decided to hit the local favorite dive bar Mariano's. This place is pretty epic, however it was pretty tame the night we went. Brent just got back after taking a trip to Greensburgh, PA for another tattoo! This is his first tattoo with shading! Much more interesting to look at than his other tattoos.

Mariano's has a very awkward lay out. The area across the bar is very narrow and if you come with a group of 3 or more it can be challenging to find seating unless you come early or reserve a table. Wednesdays and Saturdays happen to be karaoke night. However, there just weren't that many performers this time, lemon.
Julie even came out that night! We even got a picture taken! As you can see, I didn't get the memo to make a funny face, I usually don't. But despite the silly pictures, the picture came out very nice.
We even got Julie and Brent to sing! Nikki was obsessed with the microphone, we actually had to cut her off so we could leave and let other people have a turn singing. Behind Brent you can see Larry aka "Weasel". He's the karaoke jockey. He usually sings a couple songs through out the night. He's usually high in energy and smiling, but tonight he just looked out of it, must be the cold weather.

Close up!

Julie bounced early and it was just Brent, Nikki, and I again. Apparently Nikki had too much tequila. Oh tequila, you strike again! That night Brent and I made an interesting discover, Magic Hat #9 and Starbuzz Blue Mist shisha. It was amazing. Something with the #9 apricot flavor and the blueberry mint shisha just worked in harmony. Definitely didn't expect that. I guess you can pair a good beer with anything if you look for it.
Below you'll see why I don't pass out around Brent. He'll just end up on top of you if you do. It actually worked out that he crashed in the basement because he helped my Dad and I move my Uncle's furniture to his new apartment.
For lunch the next day, we went to Michael's Diner, one of Brent's favorite hang outs. I wish I brought the camera so I could have taken a picture of their mozzarella sticks, they're to die for...or kill? If you like cheese, you'll like these. I had the reuben sandwich, can't go wrong with that at any diner.

Sumney Tavern Outing

2010-12-20T04:15:00.001-05:00

Went to hang out with Brent on Monday. When I arrived he was in the shower, he takes the longest showers. He actually told me that he had to wash his hair twice because its been awhile, ew.

Below we have a picture of Brent's new whip, a 2004 Toyota Celica with just over 100,000 miles on it. The Toyota Celica is tiny but they make up for it with gas mileage rated 33 mpg highway. According to Brent he gets a little more than that. The car looks like its in pretty good condition considering what he paid for it, should last him a good amount of time.

Upon walking in the house I was greeted by this lady, Dorthy, Julie's fish. I'm not sure when she got this fish. I think she acquired her freshman year which would make her about 5 years old. For a fish she has quite the personality. When ever I get near her she puts her face up against the bowl moving her little fish lips. Looks a little cramped in her bowl, I wonder if she wishes for a bigger tank to get some exercise. Maybe one of those treasure chests that open and close every so often.
While waiting for Brent to finish in the shower I entertained myself by taking silly photos. With all these snowmen you would think I was at my other Aunt's house, the one with the farm.
Brent finally got out of the shower but took another hour before he put a shirt on, it was in the dryer. As you can see he is quite skinny these days. He must not have ranch dressing in his diet anymore.
Later in the evening we met up with Brent's friend Nikki at Sumney Tavern for a few beverages. Here they are getting their nicotine fix.
After the tavern, we headed back to my place of residence for some television and hookah. Nikki gave me the evil eye in this picture. Nothing really was on tv, we watched most of Elf and some food network shows, my favorite!
Here's Brent with his fancy getup. Overall it was a chill night which is rare when a bar is involved.
Nikki decided to take a bunch of random pictures, here is one of them. On the left is a bottle of snake rice wine. Pretty sure I'll never consume it, I've heard bad things from Zane Lamprey about it when he tried some. On the right there is the old school camera my Dad used back in the day and a baby lamb on top of it.

Word Lens

2010-12-19T12:54:00.000-05:00

This is the craziest app. Where was this and the iPhone when I was doing my spanish homework in high school??

Is So Cool Like

2010-12-18T09:05:00.001-05:00

Have another video for you today, Charlie. You probably don't know him but he has a vlog and occasionally writes songs. He recently cut his hair but more importantly, he got a fancy camera, the Canon 60D. I wish I had it, and a youtube channel that created enough revenue for me to afford it. If you're wondering, 2,000 british pound is about 3,095 us bones.

Philly Winter Beer Festival

2010-12-17T10:35:00.000-05:00

Last week Rich called me telling about this Beer Festival in Philly. It looked like a pretty good deal. They had "VIP" tickets which allowed you to get 2 more hours of drinking and get in on a dessert and beer pairing that was hosted by Rolling Barrel. Rich and I tried to get our other friends to go. By the time we found out who wanted to go, the VIP tickets were sold out! I was super discouraged but then after a few refresh clicks tickets were available and for $5 cheaper than what was advertised! Woohoo! Below you can see all the breweries that were there.

We arrived a little late so we missed Rolling Barrel speaking about the three different beers and desserts they brought. But I did get to try Dogfish Head Punkin Ale with a caramel apple, River Horse Milk Oatmeal Stout with a Tasty Cake, and a Winter Ale with fruit cake. The pumpkin pairing was definitely the best.

Rich found his favorite soup.

Not only do you get to have fancy beers and desserts, but they were a full out buffet as well! Rich and I were a little concerned that the "light buffet" would leave us less than full, but there was nothing light about this buffet. Salad, two types of pasta, jerk chicken kabob, sausage, pulled pork sandwiches, giant soft pretzels, and french fries! The tasting glass was also a great deal. Much bigger than the other tasting glasses I have acquired and the microbreweries that were at the event pretty much filled your glass full each time. This might be the best $35 I've ever spent.

Ben was with us too, apparently his hair cutter at his salon burned him on the neck.

Graham and Rich were doing snus all night and here you can see where one of their pouches ended up.
The night turned into our own little beer crawl. After the festival we went into center city to Byblos, a hookah bar. It was a nice time but super expensive. One hookah was $30!

After Byblos we hit a few more places. We then decided we were hungry when really we all had plenty to eat at Blockley. Our next stop before ending the night was Pat's. I usually get whiz but decided to be different and get provolone. Boy was that a mistake. Not nearly as good as cheese whiz. I'm thinking about trying white american next since that's what all the grease trucks use in the city. I yet have to the other cheese steak joints in the city such as John's and Tony Luke's.
Even though it wasn't as good as whiz, the cheese steak was still delicious. Oh man, I could go for one right now.

LED Sheep Art

2010-12-16T10:34:00.000-05:00

If you know me at all, I really like LEDs (light emitting diodes). This video has been around for over a year but this is the first time I've seen it. I wish I had a puppy...

Another Awkward Photo Site

2010-12-15T13:34:00.003-05:00

I thought I've seen it all. From ugly tattoos to awkward family portraits websites. But I have recently come across a new one, awkward pregnancy photos. Some of these, are just too weird. Check them out at Pregnant Chicken.

The caption for this one reads, "That's it, Steve. A little further back, a little further. Now crouch down. Perfect!" I think the ex-boyfriend may have been the photographer in this one.

Bad News Bears

2010-12-15T08:04:00.001-05:00

Manthan went to India for a month. He returned a few weeks ago and since then we've hung out a few times and even played beer pong at his place in Philly. Lately though, he's been really sick. So much so he went to the doctor to see what was up.

Well, yesterday morning I get a call from him telling me that his doctor thinks he has contracted a disease from India and that everyone he has been in contact with might have gotten it too, which includes me. What is even more awesome is that I don't have health insurance so I'll most likely die if I indeed did get infected by him. If you don't see any blog posts from me, you'll know why.

I suppose 25 years on this earth is a good amount of time. I didn't accomplish everything I wanted to do but I suppose most people don't anyway. On the bright side, my parents will have a little more spending money and you'll have one less crappy blog to read.

Who Let Me Have a Camera?!

2010-12-14T09:07:00.000-05:00

Boy do I have some random photos for this blog post. Apparently I have a thing for Redner's Spring Water as I have posted three pictures of a water bottle. This first picture is pretty silly, I got one of those lenses and reversed it before taking a picture. As a result, you get a super narrow dept of field. Kind of felt like taking a picture with a microscope.

Here we have another one of a paper bill. I tried getting more of the money in the picture but this is the most I could get without the entire picture being blurry.
Spring Water! I wish I had one of those Britta Filters. You know, the ones that go on the tap. I suppose the pitchers are okay but they take up too much space in the refrigerator.
Another picture of a water bottle! There is even a second bottle in the background! Did you know a guy made an artificial island with water bottles? You should check it out. Pretty crazy if you ask me. He gave up his job, belongings, and family to build it. I guess the job and possessions is doable, but your family? That's a little intense.

Surprise Christmas Slash Birthday Party!

2010-12-13T10:28:00.001-05:00

Josh organized a surprise birthday party for Abby. Supposedly he intended to invite me but never put me on the email list. However, he did remember to get a hold of me for the festivities. The theme for the party was "cheesy Christmas sweaters". I've heard of this theme before but hoped I'd never have to attend one. I thought it would be easy to find a sweater for the event but apparently there are no such sweaters in my house. I even hoped over to the thrift store (2nd Avenue) and couldn't find anything. Apparently tacky Christmas sweaters are a hot commodity item. I should have looked at the vests too but didn't think of it at the time. So alas, I was one of the few at the party that were party poopers.

Above you will see Abby's surprised reaction. But I think she found out about the party before hand, still not sure about that. So her reaction may be an act. Below we have a picture of one of their cats, Delilah!
She's very nice. Last time I was over she was very friendly to me but this visit she ignored me for the entire party.
Here we have Josh in his $10 ugly Christmas attire.
Rach brought outfits for the cats. Delilah was able fit in hers, but her brother Samson was too fat for his. The catfits (<--see what I did there??) were purchased at Walmart for $2 each! I think every cat should have a Christmas outfit for the holidays. You just need to make sure they fit your cat. Even though Delilah was about to fit into hers, she was a little immobile due to the dress being tight.
Here's a picture of Samson. Oh man, I don't want to be harsh, but this cat is so stinkin' fat. He's like a grey version of Garfield. Samson was nice enough to greet me when I arrived. Once I sat down he hopped on my lap and laid there for a bit until Abby scared him off. I'm amazed how high he can jump despite his huge belly.
Samson is very photogenic. When he's not lying around he's eating. I only caught him eating out of his bowl twice that evening whereas last time I was over he visited his bowl three times scarfing food down for a couple minutes.
I got Samson's attention in this picture. He must have seen his reflection from the glass or perhaps he was curious from the noisy sounds coming from my camera.
There was a great spread at the party. Lots of beverages too. One of my favorites was the spiked cider. I believe it had cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, and some kind of whiskey/bourbon heated over the stove. We also had pizza and tons of snacks. I brought an assortment of cookies (oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip, and fruit cake) that my mom had baked the day before.

We even played a game! It was called telephone pictionary? Something like that. Everyone who was playing got in a circle. There were then three stacks of papers. Each stack had a sheet for each person that was playing. The first person that has a stack has to draw something and pass it to the left. The next person has to guess what the drawing is, put it on the bottom of the pile, and write in words what they think the picture is before passing it their left. That next person draws what the previous person wrote without seeing the original drawing. You do this until everyone has written or drawn something and then present the "story book" that was created. It was a lot of fun. Maybe the buzz I had from the cider attributed to that but that's definitely one game to keep in my bag of trips for future parties. Just like the game telephone, the last picture drawn is very different from the original.

He Came Back!

2010-12-12T14:57:00.004-05:00

I found the squirrel again the other day hopping around in the backyard. Not sure what he was doing. Nothing out there that would be of interest for a squirrel, unless they like mint and hot peppers.

I haven't been able to come up with a better name than "Henry"yet. I guess I'll just call him that unless someone else comes up with a better name. I think its nice he likes hanging around the house. Something else to look at besides the annoying geese. Apparently though, squirrels can be a nuisance. My Dad told me today that when my Uncle brought his car in to get some work done, they found a squirrel next in his car! The squirrel even helped himself to some wiring to make his nest. The mechanic said that the wires that were damage were for the cruise control. My uncle doesn't use cruise control so that's probably why he never had an issue with it. I hope Henry doesn't have any ideas to start building a nest under the hood of my car. Oh man, it just occurred to me that Henry could be a girl. "Henry" is one of those unisex names, isn't it?

Stuffed Companion

2010-12-11T10:53:00.000-05:00

I've already written about Babo but I've haven't mentioned him for awhile.

I've taken him practically everywhere. He rode on my motorcycle across the country and back and I squeeze him into my luggage wherever I go. Childish, perhaps but I never said I was mature in the slightest. Babo was given to me by my youngest sister and while he may be ugly, he makes up for it in softness and a great pillow on the plane.

Having a bad day? Someone giving you a hard time? Babo's got my back. What he lacks in mind power, he makes up for in love. He's everybody's best friend. He will stick with you to the end and when something scary happens, he will send you a nice greeting card from wherever he runs away to. Babo is a mischievous creature so its best to bring him with you to as many places as possible. Its okay to leave him at home but it is recommend you keep the cookies in money on the highest shelf. This is all stated in his "bio" on the uglydoll website.

That's probably why we get along so well, our love for cookies and money. Despite having Babo for a couple years, he's still in pretty good shape. I know other people who give their uglydolls a lot more lovin' seem to lose their mouths or plumpness.

Well that's about all I have in me today. As you can see my life has been very uneventful so I have very little to write about. I leave you with this silly shallow depth of field black and white photo, bam.

Christmas Decor

2010-12-10T10:07:00.001-05:00

I'm certain that my Mom lives for the Christmas holiday. She has so many decorations, she could easily decorate three medium sized homes. Most of her collection consists of Nutcrackers and Santa Clauses. One Santa even has fiber optics coming out of him and stands about three feet tall. My mom is also stuck on hanging stuff from the ceiling. If its Chinese New Year its lanterns, Valentines Day its a bunch of red things, and this time for Christmas its these enormous spherical ornaments as well as dozens of plastic snow flakes spanning about eight inches wide.

I'll have to get some pictures of all this stuff, but for now the following pictures will have to do.

Above you can see a portion of my mom's nutcracker army. Below is the seven foot tree which appears small because the ceiling is so high.

Here is the new garland. My mom is overly excited about this. It looks the same as last years if you ask me.

Bear with me, I tried to get a little "artsy" with the next couple of shots. At least I'm willing to admit I know nothing about photography. The one thing I am an expert on is sleeping in.

Some macro attempts on the garland.

Can't leave out your monochrome!

That's all I've got for now. Apparently I've been bitten by the photo bug so you'll be subjected more horrible pictures in the future. Luckily, no one visits the blog so the number will be minimal.

Sweet and Sour Soup

2010-12-09T12:27:00.003-05:00

Had some fancy Vietnamese soup the other night. At least I think its Vietnamese, at least a Vietnamese lady made it. I guess it could be Thai, we'll just say "Asian" and cover all of them.

Traditionally this dish is made with fish but my mom decided to change it up with shrimp. I prefer the shrimp as it does fall apart and disintegrate within the broth. I'm not exactly sure what goes into this stuff but I do know there is lots of pineapple and okra. I scarfed it down too fast to realize what else it was comprised of. This is one of those dishes that taste oh so good when its chilly out.

Back to the okra, I like it. However, the only time I ever get to eat okra is when its in gumbo. I like the taste of it but do to the mucilage in the pods, there is a ton of slime produced from them. While it tastes pretty good freshly cooked, the texture is a little funky reheated. The okra pods in this dish was kept intact minimizing the sliminess and as a result were super delicious. Okra can also stir fried and cooked with acidic ingredients to cut down on the slime. I've tried to mention this to my mom but she refuses to take any advice from me. Another reason for me leave this place.

Poor Ducks

2010-12-08T11:06:00.000-05:00

Found a video today. Of course there is a chance you've probably seen it since it has over 2 million views.

If only these geese in the backyard had as a hard of a time in the wind, then maybe they would just blow off the yard into the pond.

The Minolta

2010-12-07T10:06:00.003-05:00

Dug around and found my Dad's old Minolta SR-T 101. Apparently my oldest sister has dibs on this. I think she even used it for her film classes.

This Minolta was introduced in 1966 and stayed in production for 10 years with minor changes. This camera looks like it has seen better days, the door to the film has trouble staying closed. The other lenses in the camera bag look like they have been roughed up too. The lens on the camera now is MC Rokkor PF 58mm. Apparently this was a very good lens back in the day. I've been looking around to see if there is an adapter to use this lens on newer cameras but all the adapters I have found have glass in them which will comprise the picture quality. I did find a website where they will send you a kit to modify the lens to fit your EOS or whatever new fancy camera you have. I think this site will also modify the MC Rokkor for you if you are not confident in your machining skills, like me. I doubt I'll ever get around to using this equipment. Looks like I'll have to get by with the cheap Fuji for a little longer.

Squirrel!

2010-12-06T17:37:00.005-05:00

I was about to head out the door the other day until I saw a visitor on the deck.

I was surprised to see him get all "Mission Impossible" on the wall with it being so cold out. I thought it was funny he decided to take a stop on the speaker just to hang out. If he comes around again I was thinking of naming him. Right now the first thing that comes to mind is "Henry", I'll try to get come up with something better.

If you're wondering about how that Hedge Fund thing went, well it was awful. Not sure what I was thinking rolling up to the place in jeans. I was the only person under 35 too. Most of the people there looked like they were in their late 40's. The speakers tried to keep the seminar under an hour but of course it ran longer than that and most of what they talked about was boring tax stuff and SEC regulations.

The food however was good. They even had beer there! The food was catered by Starr Restaurants. They had cocktail shrimp and some kind of nuggets, not sure what they were actually made of. The star (pun intended) of the spread however was the cheese steaks! They were not your typical cheese steak. They consisted your regular findings in a cheese steak but instead of being in a roll it was wrapped in a crazy tortilla and then deep fried. Nothing like a cheese steak from Pat's, but still very good. I wasn't able to snag one of these delicious treats before the seminar started, it was torture waiting to get my hands on a cheese steak and free beer. The beer I had was Kenzinger from Philadelphia Brewing Co. I believe it was my first time having it and it was very tasty.

Cutest Daily Puppy

2010-12-03T11:32:00.003-05:00

This is the cutest puppy ever! Ugh, I wish I had a puppy so bad. This puppy's name is Chloe. I don't think I've ever seen a Australian Shepard with different colored eyes, so cool.

That's My Boy Blue!

2010-11-30T12:38:00.003-05:00

He's back! The Blue Heron that likes to chill in the pond behind the house. At least I think its a blue heron, I'm no bird expert. I actually tried to snap a picture of him before he took off because he was in such deep water you couldn't see his legs. But I scared him before I could get a shot of that so I'm left with flying off into the distance. I hope one day I'll have a better camera to take these silly pictures instead of this ancient Canon Powershot.

In other news, my Dad is making go to a Hedge Fund seminar tonight. Everything they'll be talking about tonight will probably be way over my head. If this thing was about index funds, that would be more up my alley. On the upside, I think there will be free hors d'oeurves.

More Junx

2010-11-27T14:36:00.004-05:00

Have another good TSA video to put up. I need to stop posting videos, but I've really been doing nothing worth talking about lately. Lemon. Despite this song being extremely silly, he's on point with the x-ray lyrics.

Don't Touch My Junk. On Second Though..

2010-11-25T22:16:00.000-05:00

I didn't know about all this new TSA security business. I'm pretty sure I don't want to walk into a scanner that throws a bunch of x-rays at your body. On the other hand, the alternative doesn't seem much better, until I saw this video.

Bottle

2010-11-24T13:34:00.008-05:00

Probably something you shouldn't watch if you're depressed.

In other news, I just ate some turkey liver for lunch. It was a little too in tense, would have been better fried with some onions.

Thief

2010-11-23T17:58:00.002-05:00

I had my gps stolen from my car the day after Halloween. What is up with that? I thought Mischief Night was the night before Halloween. If there is one thing that really boils my blood, its when something is stolen from me. I've had my stuff taken before but this time it really bothered me. Probably because my car was in the driveway of my parents' house, located in a gated community. My gps (Garmin Nuvi 765T) was not even on my windshield, it was tucked away in the armrest. I usually lock my car but must have forgotten since my key remote battery was dead at the time. Ugh. That gps and I have been through a lot together, on the motorcycle and in the car.

I have been looking for a replacement but I can't find anything I want. My gps had an audio jack out, multi-point routing, bluetooth, powered mount, lane assist, and a couple other features that apparently are not all included in the newer models. I was thinking about just purchasing the 765T but because it is discontinued its overpriced for a new one and to save some money the only other option is to buy it refurbished. Not too crazy about that, but hopefully Garmin's 2360LMT will have good enough reviews when it is available that I will be able to overlook the missing features from the 756T.

Daisy

2009-02-15T18:41:00.000-05:00

~Happy Birthday Daisy~

Got White Teeth?

2008-12-22T16:15:00.005-05:00

During the whole trip my dad insisted that he wanted to get his teeth whitened while we were here because it was so much cheaper than getting it done in the states. My dad found a dentist in Saigon but the dentist was running late and they weren't sure if they could fit us in.

While waiting for my dad to figure that out i was stopped by another shoe fixer. This guy wasn't nearly as nice as the first guy that glued my shoes. He wanted 20,000 dong for gluing them ($1) but my dad said 10,000 dong. So he agreed and while he was gluing them he said he could clean them too!
Of course once he was done cleaning one shoe he wanted 30,000 dong. But my dad insisted on 20,000 dong. As a result he didn't clean the second shoe nearly as well as the first one. Oh well, they'll just get dirty again. Plus i need some new sneakers anyway.
i'm probably going to regret posting these pictures but why even bother taking them if i'm not going to share them with you? i'm certain you're all very curious on what goes down while getting your teeth whitened.

i believe the process uses some kind of acid. To protect your gums from deteriorating they put this gel over your gums where they meet your teeth to protect them. Once that dries with the help of some crazy blue light, they add a bunch of crazy chemicals to whiten the teeth.
After the procedure my teeth looked fantastic. i felt like i was ryan seacrest. Because...you know, his teeth are really white. Too bad they got dark and gross again the next day...
Here is the tray with all the goodies they used on my teeth. Ugh, what a long process. Took like an hour. Can you imagine being awake with your mouth open for an hour?! A bug couldn't have flown in my mouth!
That pretty much wraps up my Vietnam trip. Had a really good time in spite of spending practically every second with my parents. Now the next adventure is to get a job...or is it another motorcycle trip?

Tourin' Around Saigon

2008-12-21T16:08:00.005-05:00

Once we arrived back in Saigon we decided to take a tour of the presidential palace. This place is huge. Pretty much the Vietnam equivalent to the white house...except it got over thrown and turned into a museum.

This place even has an old school theater! The projector is massive. i wonder if it still works. This thing sure isn't no DLP projector.

Out back on the roof there is a helicopter. They wouldn't let me get near it.

In this picture i'm sitting in the War Room. There were signs that said don't touch anything but i did anyway.

Can't visit the president's crib with out climbing the walls in the underground bomb proof shelter.

Oh dear, can't get my mom out of the kitchen no matter where we go! Even though this kitchen is ancient my mom loved it. She was telling my dad and i how easy it would be to too cook for people in this thing. She could dish out food like no bodies business if she had a kitchen this size.

Here is the front of the palace.

The picture i took of my parents turned out better than the one of my mom and i. Probably because i took this one.
Here we have some tanks! Probably not the same tanks that knocked down the gates on April 30th 1975 (my birthday!).

For dinner we ate at random food court while wondering the streets. i ordered some goi coun for myself and pho!

The pho tai was really good and so was the iced coffee.

This night was insane. The whole city was lit up for Christmas, New Years, and Tet. The streets were filled with crazy Vietnamese people that wanted to get their picture taken with the decorations. So silly if you ask me. There were a bunch of vendors too selling light things. Like hair bands with devil horns on them that lit up...what does that have to do with Christmas? Wait a minute...i think i just figured it out! Horns, like an ox! Its the year of the Ox! Is that a stretch? That's the best i can do i'm stickin' with it.

To get a better idea of how crowded it was we went up onto the roof of the Rex Hotel. While on the roof we watched the chaos and had a few drinks.
Not only was all this crazy celebration going on but Vietnam was currently in a soccer match for the Tiger Cup or something. Once Vietnam won the game that's when the city really went crazy. Hundreds of people were parading around on scooters all over the city.
Inside the Rex we found some musicians playing some old school Vietnamese instruments. The instrument on the right is pretty cool. Its only one string but can produce all kind of crazy sounds while changing the tension of the string.

Had a pretty good day for our last full day in Vietnam...but i'm ready to go back to the states.

Last Night in Chau Doc

2008-12-20T16:05:00.003-05:00

Today we went on one last bike ride to the Cham village. Tin tagged along and helped us grab ferry tickets so we could get across the river.

Its pretty crowded on one of these ferries. i think it costs like 6,000 dong to ride one of these.

After buying what we wanted this Cham village guy introduced us into some english speaking people that were visiting friends and family. i think the one guy was from Seattle and other guy from somewhere in Texas or Cali. We were also invited to a wedding but couldn't make it since it was our last night and wanted to spend it with the cousins. i think what my dad is sitting on is the groom's thrown? i have no idea. Everything in this village is just so different.
Woot! Another puppy! This is Elvis, anna's love and joy. She would get so fussy if anyone tried to take him from her. i seriously thought she was going to kill him because she was so rough. But he lived anna's visit! Hip hip!
i think jimmy liked me more, but elvis seemed to warm up to me after spending some time with him. Ugh, someone buy me a puppy already.
My dad wanted to check out a rice mill so he had Tin run around to find one. Once he did he came back to bring us to it. The crazy old rice man showed us how everything worked and how the rice got polished and all that fun stuff.
All this machinery was run off one moving part and there were belts wheels going all over the place to run different tasks.

Wei and Lam!

For dinner we had fish again! i wouldn't say this was my favorite meal of the trip but my mom seemed to like it so much i requested. These fish are so meaty.

i'm sure you're thinking that these things are pretty ugly looking...but the only way to serve fish is to have the head still on it. That's the only way you know its fresh!
The whole trip was determined to find some bia hoi, fresh beer. This beer is freshly brewed and delivered all over the town. While Saigon has several breweries that produce fresh beer, Chau Doc only has on distributor so you have to go there to be certain your beer is really 'fresh'. There are no preservatives in the beer too so this stuff has to be consumed quickly.

Our guide to this place was Lam's dad, Liem? i have no idea how to spell his name but he sure knows how to drink. He's an electrician. He learned how to fix things from a guy that was renting the bottom floor of his mother's house for an electrical shop. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.
Each of these jugs hold two liters. We drank two of them. The beer wasn't amazing but definitely drinkable. You can tell they use rice in the brewing process. Guess how much one of these cost? 14,000 dong. That's 5.6 beers for like 80 cents! Or a 30 pack of beer for 8 bones! Ugh, why did i wait so long to drink this stuff?! i could have been crunked this whole trip for cheap! Oh well...i'll know better for my next visit.

Well at least i got to try some bia hoi and drink enough to get buzzed. It was so cold too...hmm.

Caught Me A Water Buffalo!

2008-12-19T16:02:00.004-05:00

Since the day before i failed miserably finding a nice water buffalo we went out again to find some more where silly Vietnamese communists can't get all up in our faces.

Wasn't long until we found some more water buffalo! These were some real water buffalo with long horns and the whole shabang.
The first herd we saw were kind of hard to get to so after taking some video and pictures we went up the road further to another herd that were grazing.
Can't say you've been to Vietnam without riding a water buffalo! So i asked the guy if i could hop on one of these bad boys. Sadly, the water buffalo doesn't like lazysons so he was trying to get rid of me. The owner thought maybe if i got on the water buffalo by myself he wouldn't mind...but no. It was even worse. It didn't help that we were on a hill either so i fell after riding it for like 30 seconds. i'm no cowboy that's for sure...more like a rodeo clown, lemon.
There is like nothing to hold on to on these things. i tried grabbing the horns but he didn't like that and i almost got impaled. When i fell off the thing i fell into a nice thorn bushel and cut up my feet and legs. But no regrets, next time i'm wearing pants and getting one of these things in an open field. Also i might feed it some carrots or something before hand to befriend it.

Later in the day we grabbed some drinks at our dessert place.

Lam is so funny, spoiled, but funny.

The church by the house was had some kids practicing some choreography for the christmas service going down in a couple of days. The choreographer was totally gay. Like...i've never seen someone dance and prance so gracefully with a look on their face of thinking what they were doing was the most awesome ever.

Nativity scene or something going on here.

Tomorrow we'll be hitting up the Cham village again. Get me some gangsta clothing and my mom some curry spices.

Searchin' for Water Buffalo

2008-12-18T15:59:00.006-05:00

We didn't have any plans while back in Chau Doc. Spent most of our time packing and hanging out. Tin and Thao tore down the shack back behind their house and built a fence to protect their property. It smells pretty sick nasty back there because there are still pools over water from people houses just collecting and growing all kind of weird stuff. But at least it looks better than when that shack was still around.

Woot its finished!

Around noon, my dad, Tin, and i hopped on our bikes to search for some water buffalo. i still didn't get my fix yet. Tin took us to the border where we ran into some. They were pretty lame though. They were all young and their horns were super short. After taking a few pictures, the border police told us to leave be
Look who i found! Its jimmy! Snap! He got fat over 4 days...what have they been feeding him? Wasn't chicken soup thats for sure.
Here is baby's lover. Not sure what her name is but here is jimmy getting a little somethin' somethin' to eat. Baby is pretty cruel to his g/f. He doesn't give her the time of day. Sure he's blind...but that didn't stop him from...
Here is my massage girl. She's pretty hilarious. Whenever i come in this salon place they change the music to something in english and it is ridiculous. Like stuff from the early 90's. This day i got a pedicure and manicure for the first time...never again. The chick cut up all my nails and they were bleeding like crazy. Then this massage girl was afraid they'd get infected so she poured alcohol all over them, that was fun...not.
According to cheri, all the vietnamese girls in this place think i'm very handsome and want to kidnap me. i'm sure cheri was just pulling my leg. They're probably wondering why i'm so short and fat because the american's they see portrayed in the media are all ridiculously good looking and fit.

Heading back to Chau Doc

2008-12-17T15:53:00.004-05:00

Too bad we couldn't take a bus back to vietnam. Had to go by boat again. At least we were going down river this time which should knock off about an hour of traveling time. Lucky me i had a fully charged ipod and laptop to keep me entertained!

You're probably wondering why i have a picture of four arms from Ben 10. Halfway around the globe and i still can't escape the cartoon network? i actually took this picture for rich.
We spent our last morning in Phnom Penh looking for paintings. i wanted something with water buffalo. i like them and i think it has something to do with me born in the year of the Ox and also being a Taurus. What liking water buffalo didn't have something to do with was these crazy bug bites all over my legs. They were so sick nasty. i thought i had some terminal illness i was going to die any minute. They didn't really itch but it hurt when they were touched. i don't think i've had bug bites like this before. They even pussed a little bit..tmi? eh, whatever.
After getting our paintings we then took a tuk tuk to the crazy market. This place is massive and its divided into several sections and categories. If you want electronics you go to one section, if you want t shirts you go to another, if you want jewelry you head for the center of the market.

Here is a picture from the center of the market looking out into of the wings.

While my dad and i were walking around the place we found our way in the jewelry repair place. It was kind of awkward because we were like the only non-cambodians there.
While at the Vietnam customs on the river i saw me some water buffalo! i don't know what it is about them, they just look so chill i wish i could have one for a pet.

While waiting for our visas to get processes we ran into the same girls that tried to sell us stuff on the way up! They all called me 'an op' (sp?)...which means baby uncle. Lucky me. Probably can't see it in this photo even if you enlarge it but my eye was so swollen. It was so irritated you have no idea. i think it was due to some dust in my eye put its probably some crazy disease i contracted.

peace out!