I’m not sure if there are greater pleasures than sitting outside in the warmth on a nice spring(ish) evening with a cold bottle of beer. If there are, I’d certainly like to know what they are. But for now, I’m content to sit on my porch with a beer and my laptop. And music. Hey, I’d exactly say I was “Heidi” here.
I am what I am.
If I keep up my current level of running, I should be back to “normal” in no time. I ran 3.5 miles on Saturday and Sunday, 4.5 miles on Tuesday, and another 4 miles today. I sure need it, too. I’ve been neglecting the level of exercise my food and libation desires were used to six months ago, and without the same amount of running my body finally caught up with what I eat.
On the other hand, I don’t really care all that much. I’ve only really fluctuated about 5 pounds from where I’d like to be, though it feels like five pounds out and not into muscle. I’m feeling a bit rounder about the middle than I usually do, and I know full well it’s due mostly because of my love of beer. Probably going to get worse before it gets better, which I’ll just have to find out in time.
Of course, I say that as I sit here drinking something, that while 100% fat free according to labs, ends up as fat in the end if it’s not burned quickly enough. I did run for about 3.5 miles today, that oughta help a little bit. Maybe my body will metabolize it more quickly.
I’m really looking forward to this weekend. Not only is it a three-day weekend to give me a little time off from work, but I’m going to make it a doozy of a weekend to boot. Friday night–weather permitting, of course–Hanne and I are going to wander up the street to the Goodfoot Lounge and ry and snag one of their tables outside. The Goodfoot is a pretty cool bar–good food, strong drinks, all local and/or organic beer–but what always kills me is the smoking. Odd rules about smoking, too. When I went there for the first time for Erika’s going-away party, I had my Cuban cigar to smoke, and they wouldn’t let me smoke it inside. Wait…cigarette smoking is OK, but not cigars? I just don’t understand that mentality. So I smoked it outside.
In any case, it’s a pretty cool place, and I’ve had a hankering for this grilled turkey sandwich on their menu. And you know, beer…always good.
Saturday I have some plans during the day to do something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile, and then Saturday night is pretty much wide open. A bar relatively close to me that makes drinks all with freshly-squeezed juices Ive been to a few times is now under new management, and I might go check it out. Good drinks, decent prices, nice atmosphere, bad service, crappy food. Hope they worked on those last two items. It’s worth a look-see, at least. Probably hang out there for awhile, have a few drinks, maybe call a friend or two to join us, then watch a movie or a few episodes of “Buffy” that Hanne and I have been chewing through at a pretty steady pace.
Sunday is the big day. The first beef cubelets of 2007! I convinced my Dad to have a cubeies day this weekend since it’s a holiday weekend, I’ve been dying to have Hanne eat them, and since it’s part of the whole beef cubelet experience, I’ve been meaning to go to John’s Marketplace and buy some beer, anyway. Way to kill several birds with one honkin’ holiday rock. I might stop by the house of one of the partners, too, since she lives on the way and she needs some troubleshooting with the wireless on her laptop and I can’t do that at work.
Plus, you know, clocking in on a Sunday. I can add to the overtime I’ve already racked up for this pay period.
I have no plans on Monday. Although, both 300 and Grindhouse are playing at the Laurelhurst, maybe I’ll try and convince Hanne do do a double (technically, a triple) matinée feature since I have the day off! All the beer and pizza I can eat, too! Well, I still have to pay for it, naturally.
I’m still trying to catch up on my back issues of The Economist, but I’m getting very close. Right now, I’m only three and a half issues behind, though I did manage to knock out this week’s issue last night when I read all evening instead of turning on the TV. But I gotta say, that newspaper goes a lot more quickly when I skim or entirely skip the articles about sub-prime mortgage rates and the special section on international banking. Oy vey those stories are dull. I much prefer their editorials (which I never thought I’d hear myself say–I’ve always despised editorials) and news pieces.
One story that I’ll be interested to continue to follow is the new French President. I wasn’t terribly surprised when he was elected (I was mostly just glad that Le Pen got a well-deserved smackdown in the polls), but I was surprised at some of his remarks afterwards and some of his appointments. The co-founder of Doctors Without Borders? Good choice. France has so many odd problems when compared to the US, I’m interested to see if some of them are too deep-seated for politics to solve without a significant social shift (I almost wrote “social shaft,” which would have made sense in its own way, too) or if they just needed the right approach by the right President.
Come to think of it, I wonder if the same thing is true in this country. I guess I have to wait at least a year to find out if that’s the case in France, perhaps two and a half years to see if that’s the case here.
My mind is wandering too much. Guess that’s my cue to do something else.
I’m generally able to handle myself around spicy foods. As a rule, I tend to spice some things up that don’t typically need it (crushed red peppers on pizza and with pasta, rooster sauce on bento, cayenne pepper in Mac & Cheese), and foods that are traditionally spicy (curries, Thai noodles, Pad Thai, etc.) I up the ante a bit and get them spicier than I need to. Last year I got a pizza from Stark Naked Pizza up the street called the Burning Bush that had pepperoni, pepperoncinis, habenero peppers, and…something else. I was sweating after the first piece, but it was tasty so I downed the whole thing.
Needless to say, the next afternoon I was having a few problems with my stomach and general digestive system. The price of spice, I call it. It didn’t help that was the day I was driving to Victoria.
So Saturday night, Hanne and I went up to Salvador Molly’s (arrrr…pirate cuisine be tasty!) and took advantage of their happy hour and filled up on cheap rum drinks and even more inexpensive appetizers. Nothing like a dinner of fried foods to be the pinnacle on one’s weekend, yes? In any case, they have an appetizer on their menu called “Great Balls of Fire,” their own version of jalepeno cheese poppers. The deal is, if you can finish all five–with the sauce–you get your picture on the wall. Sounds swell. I thought about doing it the first time I was there, but after reading up on them I decided to save it for another time. I was feeling adventurous on Saturday night, though, so I ordered a single Ball of Fire. Just one. Plus the dipping sauce.
I had chips from my soup so I dipped a corner into the sauce to test the spiciness, and it was by far spicier than any sort of salsa I’ve ever had before–and I always buy the spicy salsa. Mouth got a bit burny just with a couple of chips and the sauce. Of course, being the culinarily adventurous soul that I am, I dove in. I dipped the little fried piece of Hell into the sauce and chowed down. Two bites and two dips later, my one Great Ball of Fire was on its way down the hatch.
And that’s when the problems started.
I know I’m eating spicy food when my nose starts to run. I also know I’m eating spicy food when I start perspiring or when my mouth is burning. What I didn’t expect, though, were the above-mentioned side effects as well as watering eyes, blurry vision, and most interesting, a numb face. My mouth was burning so much that I couldn’t feel my tongue anymore. I wasn’t perspiring, I was sweating. Actual beads of sweat all over my face.
I asked the waitress what goes into the sauce, and she said ground-up habenero peppers as well as some other secret ingredients. I’ve eaten habeneros in salsa, before, and while they’re spicy and you don’t touch mucous membranes without thoroughly washing afterwards, they don’t have that sort of effect. It’s my opinion that the chef puts in a dose of pure or concentrated capsaicin, which while technically isn’t cheating since it’s the ingredient that makes peppers spicy, it just isn’t fair. A few drops of the concentrated stuff makes an entire pot of chili spicy, so that’s gotta be what’s in it.
Hanne had a great time watching me flounder around in pain, especially since the waitress wouldn’t bring me milk since she said it wouldn’t help. Milk chemically breaks down capsaicin, so I know it always makes the after-effect of spicy food tolerable. Ug. Needless to say, that night and the next day I wasn’t feeling terribly well, either. Cost of having fun, I suppose. The price of spice.
Last week Hanne gave me a little basil plant as a present, so as a thank you I practically picked it clean and made her fresh bruschetta last night for dinner along with some oven-baked polenta with tomato sauce. First time making either of those, actually, and I was quite pleased at how well they came out. I might try making some more polenta and cooling it in my fridge in a dish where I can then warm it back up in a saucepan, frying in a bit of olive oil. Mmmm. I like having access to fresh herbs, though I hope the plant can grow fast enough to meet my level of basil consumption. I might have to buy a second plant to meet production needs. And oregano. And thyme. Yum.
Bruschetta and polenta was exactly what my recovering stomach needed last night. Stupid spicy food.
I love this time of year. Long warm days, cool breezy nights, and the most unpredictable of weather. Example: 80 degrees on Friday and Monday, pouring rain Saturday night. I’m told The Oregonian published that it didn’t rain at all Saturday night, though my walk to and from Vincente’s with Hanne begs to differ. Let’s just say that brown shirts don’t tend to hide rain droplets too well.
The moral of the story: always listen to your significant other when they say “I heard it was going to rain, do you want to bring an umbrella?”
I was in a foul, grumpy, crabby mood on Monday. I can’t place my finger on specific events besides some annoying coworkers that made me crabby, but it was just non-stop annoyances all day long. I hate that. Steady work? No problem. But people being silly, asking dumb questions, and being unreasonable doesn’t fall under the “steady” category. Just annoying. I was in such a bad mood, I think my bad mood started rubbing off on my coworker (not plural, since Marc went home sick with probably what I had last week), which isn’t too common. I’m usually the bad mood soother with my music and good spirits. Monday, however, was my day to be crabby.
All ended well, though. Hanne bought me dinner and was waiting on my front porch when I got home an hour later (covering for Marc being out) than usual, and we ate outside and then watched TV until in was late. At least it was a decent way to end a bad day.
Last Friday Hanne officially finished her first year of law school, making her 1/3 of the way to becoming a full-fledged blood-sucking lawyer. Call it 222/666, if you will. We went to a backyard BBQ after work with a bunch of her friends, though it was touch and go for me for awhile. I was still on the mend from my illness last week and coughing a lot, but I toughed it out to be there for her celebration. I think that earned me some beaucoup brownie points.
On the way there, we stopped by the grocery store to pick up a six pack of beer to take (Pike IPA), and I came across Lagunitas Brewing’s new seasonal beer: Undercover Shut Down Ale. I’ve actually been looking for it for awhile, but it might not have been for sale until now. Mostly, I wanted to drink the beer brewed because of a news story I read about. As I remember it, Lagunitas rented out their brewpub two years ago to a private party, and at some point during the party someone got busted for selling pot on their outside deck. Someone who didn’t work for the brewery and who wasn’t supposed to be at the party. Anyhow, they were found liable, and they got shut down for 20 days as punishment. No sales, no brewing, just whatever the distributors still had left could go out to bars and stores.
After the suspension, they started brewing a special batch of beer, one that I read was going to be “extra, extra bitter” since they were upset about being shut down. I don’t know if the beer I saw was a second batch or the same batch that’s been fermenting and aging since the shutdown, but Undercover Shutdown Ale is pretty damn good. Has a bit of a bite to it, too, at 9.3% alcohol. A note for those not in the in the know: ending an evening of consuming several bottles of beer by consuming an extra large 22 oz. “bomber” of 9.3% beer is not the wisest thing to do. I should know better by now.
Saturday night Hanne and I went out to celebrate, first to Nostrana for cocktails made by Felicia, and then to Vincente’s for the pizza Hanne had been craving and I’d been avoiding so not to add to my already growing midsection. Let’s just say that I haven’t been running enough for the amount of beer that’s been consumed. My pizza exile aside, it was just about a perfect evening except for the torrential downpour that made me look like a rare brown leopard until I dried out. I had planned on breaking my fast in June when Hanne goes back out to the East Coast to see her brother’s graduation by chancing a Burning Bush pizza from Stark Naked Pizza, last consumed the night before my trip to Victoria last year. Delicious, extra spicy pizza, but it made for an extremely uncomfortable drive the next day. Let’s just say that it was spicy enough going in, but…well…I’ll leave it at that.
I thought best to reclimb that Everest when the girlfriend’s not around.
Just about everything else is going hunky-dory, thank you very much.
I was feeling a little out of sorts earlier this week, and I knew a little exercise would straighten me out. I took a shortish run on Sunday (3 miles or so), then ran the long way home from work on Monday and Tuesday (4 miles or so), but when I got home after my run on Tuesday, my nose was running like a sieve. I figured it was a combination of allergies (it’s been bad lately) and being hot from my run in 75 degree weather, so I just ignored it. After a couple of hours of my nose running, I decided that I couldn’t handle it anymore so I took an antihistamine, but an hour or so after that when it hadn’t done any good, I told Hanne: “I think I’m sick.” I had a little pouty sad look on my face when I said that, but that doesn’t translate well into writing.
I went to bed, woke up with a sore throat, cough, and a still running nose. And then I was feeling very out of sorts. I’ve skipped work because I wasn’t feeling well or feeling up to being at work, but the last time I was actually sick was two years ago when I had strep. I forgot what it was like to feel that crappy, though fortunately a few snuffles and a stuffy head isn’t nearly as bad as strep. I’ve felt bad in the last two years (sadly, mostly just situational and temporary illnesses like “Ooops, I forgot to drink enough water last night.”), but the general physical malaise that comes with a cold really just sucks. Fortunately, I had plenty to do. I reupped my City of Heroes account and played for a couple of days, watched some TV, and tried to sleep. I don’t like napping when I’m sick, though, because I always have really disturbing, strange, and vivid dreams. And that’s only when I can actually manage to sleep.
Hanne couldn’t take care of me, either, because she was in the thick of studying for her last final and was scared of getting sick herself, to boot. I didn’t hold it against her in any way, but I missed seeing her. I wouldn’t have been much fun to be around, though, what with my constant coughing and sneezing and honking my nose. I think she made it without getting sick, though, since her last final is this morning and she made it without too much fuss. After that, she’s a free woman!
I finally came back into work today, though, only to find the place pretty much in chaos. I missed a lot of fun, it sounds like. I also missed my regular Wednesday trip to Barley Mill for the first time in ages, but I made up for it and went with Hanne Thursday night instead. I still wasn’t feeling really up to par, but since I have no food in my apartment, I’d already eaten pasta for lunch and didn’t want it again, and I’d had some rice from the Thai place down the street for dinner the night before, I wanted to go somewhere. I hadn’t been out of my house in two days, and a couple of beers was probably the last thing I needed, but I was celebrating not being as sick anymore. Works for me.
All I have now is a lingering cough, but I knew things were better last night when I yawned and my ears popped. What a wonderful feeling.
My last post doesn’t make much sense unless you’ve been following what’s been going on at Digg, or rather, unless you’re a big ol’ geek.
The short story of it is, someone cracked the HD-DVD encryption code, and the string of numbers can be used to create (with some work) an HD-DVD ripper so you can make digital copies of an HD-DVD. A lot of people who’ve posted the code have gotten DMCA takedown notices from the organization that holds the rights to HD-DVD, because they essentially equate ripping DVDs with piracy. It’s been the better part of 15 years sine DVDs hit the open market, and it’s still illegal–yes, illegal–to make a copy of a DVD you own to put on a digital device or some sort of media center.
In other words, it doesn’t look like there will be any sort of “iPod for movies” anytime soon, unless you consider the ones Apple sells through iTunes. You can rip your own music, put it on an MP3 player, burn it to a CD, but you can’t do it to a movie you own.
So, I post the code as my own form of protest over the issue.
This has been somewhat of a mixed week at work. It’s been a combination of “Oh my God, I have way the hell too much breaking to stay sane” and “Why isn’t the damn phone ringing?” There was a great article on Fark I saw posted about how a government study claimed that IT workers do far less actual work than people in other fields, but the comments about the article were priceless. One person equated their IT job as like a fireman: we get paid to sit around even when there’s no fire to be put out. Except firemen also don’t build and fireproof houses like I’m essentially supposed to do. Someone else also said that in my line of work, if we’re doing our job it doesn’t look like we’re doing anything at all. My work should be seamless and invisible.
Of course, that’s not always the case. Printers break, servers die, viruses get in, and jacks stop working, but that’s why I’m there. It’s my job to make sure other people can do their job. If I sit on my ass for part of the day and read the latest headlines on Fark or write a personal email or two, I think that I deserve it.
Although, I should add that I had a quarterly performance review last Friday, and several complaints against me were raised by my manager. Apparently, I’ve been short, rude, and less than helpful in recent weeks. My manager said “complaints,” but I knew he meant “complaint.” I knew who it came from, I knew why they complained, and I knew that I was on the right side. I hadn’t been rude, I’d said “no” to something. Actually, I’d said “Not right now.” It’s not my job to tell people they can’t do their job, but it’s my job to make sure that the firm stays in compliance with our software licenses. Last year I got into a bit of trouble when in the course of enforcing licensing for a piece of software I said “no” to an attorney, but in that case I was just the messenger. In this case I told someone “We don’t have any more licenses of this software, we are unable to purchase any more, and we have an alternative that does 95% of what the software you’re looking for does.”
Naturally, said person was not happy about this. I can’t change the fact that we can’t buy the software anymore, and the workround my manager later proposed will enforce the licensing in the spirit of the agreement only, not the letter.
What got me to the point in which I was apparently rude (and I say apparently because while I was extremely frustrated with this person, I don’t remember being rude) to the person was that they went over my head and CC’d the managing partner on a further email to me. I could have copied and pasted my original email to them, but instead I responded and reiterated my original point: we can’t buy the software anymore, we have an alternative, quit your griping and take what I can give you. OK, so I didn’t actually add that last par, but that I was even thinking it might be what got me in “trouble.”
In the end, one complaint about my conduct doesn’t bother me. The person who did complain bothers me, because they went about it entirely unreasonably, even if I was an obstacle for them.
Speaking of work, today was the monthly Partners meeting, and since Symantec released a new version of their antivirus/firewall software, I decided to take the opportunity to update all the partners’ laptops. Updating laptops is tough, because it requires a restart to update the software, and sine they suually take them home I can’t exactly update them on the weekend early in the morning when no one is working. So instead, I took the first opportunity when everyone would be away from their laptops and I remotely installed the software and rebooted them.
Except one. I updated 18 machines, I think it was. One installation failed and I had to do it manually, one installation completed but the machine didn’t restart. What made the situation so fortunate was that it belonged to a partner who I happen to be very good friends with, but who is fairly high-strung. Moreso, she hadn’t gotten my original email stating what I was going to be doing so she didn’t know to close all her documents, and since she had locked her workstation before the meeting I couldn’t manually close and save anything she had open. I took a chance that she didn’t have anything pen she needed saved. I was wrong about that, but since her machine didn’t restart…does that count as winning or losing?
In the end, it was sheer luck that her laptop didn’t restart and close all the things she had open and unsaved. Lucky me. Someone out there is looking out for me, and after the week I’ve had I needed the break.
It hasn’t been a bad week, but I’ve been taking a mini vacation to relax: I’ve been wearing jeans all week. I’m such a rebel.
Hanne and I are well into “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and she seems to be enjoying it more and more. And why not? I’m always right. She seemed incredulous about seven seasons of “Buffy” at first, maybe now she’ll want to watch ‘em all. Just wait until I break the news about the spinoff to her. Another five seasons right there.
Last weekend I washed my car at my Dad’s house. No big deal, right? Wrong. First time I’ve handwashed my car. Ever. I’ve had it for close to three years, and that was the first time. Actually, it’s only the third time my car has ever been washed–and only the second time by me. I know, I know, I don’t take great care of my car, but I don’t drive it very often and I don’t are if it hs a little bit of dirt on it. But lichen? I had lichen growing on my car under the dirt. Ew. I had to really scrub it off, and if my Dad hadn’t been helping me I would probably still be out there scrubbing my car. I can probably pull air in through the intake vents in the front now, too! I so rule.
Of course, parked in my driveway, under the tree things are right back to normal a mere three days after washing. Nothing’s caked on quite yet, but it’s getting bad again. Maybe today’s THUNDERHAIL storm washed some of it off.
OK, I’m tapped for material.
This post will likely be replaced by a DMCA takedown notice at some point in the future.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2188970/drm-lobby-tries-hd-dvd-genie
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/05/02/digg-riot-in-progress/
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I write about myself because I can.