Smitten State Fan

Tuesday, I had lunch with NP at the Refectory. I had delicious chicken and dumplings, sans dumplings. I guess they got away. That was perfectly ok with me, though, because I got extra rice.

That evening, I celebrated JA's birthday with him and our friends (JJ, HB, JM, DS, AP, AY, and GMc) at Tyler's, at the American Tobacco Campus. I discovered that Tyler's has excellent (extremely tart) lemonade. We shared wings, calamari, pickle chips, nachos and French fries.Tyler As expected, we had a great time.

The next day, I was back at the tobacco campus for my weekly meeting at OIT and had lunch at the Mellow Mushroom with AE and M. For some strange reason, I hadn't noticed that they sold pizza by the slice before. Spinach, tomatoes and feta was a nice combination.

Thursday, LA brought Gizmo Monkeybear Batrabbit over so all of the dog lovers within CIT could meet him. He's AT's dachsund pekingese mix puppy. He's adorable and his tongue is out of control.

Friday, AN, SM and I went to the Visualization Forum, which was an interesting program, given by David Kidd, from the National Evolutionary Synethesis Center, on Visualizing Evolution. He focused primarily on 3D phylogenetic trees, which were cool. Later in the afternoon, AN, NC and I took a field trip down to the Duke Computer Store and checked out the latest tablet PCs. They had the new Lenovo X60 with the touch screen that allows you to either use your finger or a stylus. More exciting to me were the Sony Vaio UX series tablet PCs. They are about the size of a paperback novel, have 1GB of memory, a 1.33Ghz processor, WAN, Cingular cellular access and a 40 GB harddrive. It has a slide-out keyboard, which looks somewhat easier to use than a Treo keyboard, but would have similar issues. I was certainly smitten. It's so portable and is really impressive considering that it's so small, but its computing power is almost as good as the machine I'm using now. That said, one would probably have to have an additional monitor and keyboard to make it practical for everyday use. It's possible that it might be a good Treo replacement, which would mean also carrying a real phone that actually works well as a phone (a novel idea). I don't think I'm going to get one, but on Amazon I saw a strong recommendation for a portable bluetooth keyboard, Think Outside Stowaway Bluetooth Keyboard for PDA, which would work with a tablet PC, a PDA, or with my Treo 650. I decided to order one and give it a try. I take a lot of minutes at meetings and I don't like hauling a heavy laptop around, so I'm betting it will be extremely useful.

That night I met AE at Nosh and we shared another SRB pizza with chicken.

We take basketball very seriously in this area and it's very obvious. We had cable installed in a conference room just for the ACC tournament. So, anytime you want to see what's going on, you can look through the room's windows and check it out on the projection system. Library HR had a bracket contest and I got everything wrong except for UNC's wins. That was amusingly pathetic. I, however, am temporarily a rabid State fan, because I think it's exciting that they are doing well, despite their having knocked Duke out of the tournament. I would love to see them beat UNC tomorrow.

Today I went over to CL and JL's house for an ACC tournament party. We watched the two semi-final games while eating wings, brie and crab dip. It was nice getting to meet KC and CC's baby son and the rest of their family. I experienced another example of good intentions not going so well. I brought over a four-pack of random cold sodas and on the drive over, they decided to leap out of the cartoon, out of the basket I keep on my backseat, and hide between the back seat and the side of the van. One of the bottles actually opened! It was the blueberry one, of course.

Fuzzy Concert Photos!

Friday, after work, we had a happy "hour" at Twinnie's. We had a grand time laughing, talking and playing SV's new ukulele. It's great having a place so close to the library that serves iced
lattes to me and beer to everyone else.

Saturday night, I was within the Cary city limits twice and only had to turn around once. I made the mistake, yet again, of looking up the address on a map before I left, so I was looking for a street that was actually an unlabeled entrance to the shopping center. Fortunately, I was pretty sure that one of the shopping centers was a likely candidate, so I just had to turn around once I was past it.

The destination was Japan Express, where I met CL and JL for dinner. The food is pretty much identical the food at the one on Hillsborough Road, in Durham, which means it was good, fast and cheap. I had the hibachi shrimp.

From there, CL and I took off for the RBC Center to see Billy Joel in concert. Once we got to the the Edwards Mill exit, the one that normally leads to the arena, we saw a sign that said "All Concert Traffic - Take Blue Ridge Exit". Uh oh. Well, we had 50 minutes to get there. It was only the next exit. We were only only driving at .00008 mph. Pretty soon I was saying that I hoped that we got there only an hour after the concert was supposed to start. The whole thing was just a mess. Fortunately, CL is about as calm as I am in such situations, so she was a good person to have along. We also were in a great spot to view the total lunar eclipse, which was a bonus. Needless to say, we were still annoyed. Once we got there, we still had the challenge of finding a parking spot. There are advantages to going there with an avid soccer player who can get out and run like lightning in order to find a space. She was able to talk someone into letting us park in the VIP parking, with all the stretch limos.

Finally, we got inside! We were only a half hour late. Fortunately, it sounded from what Billy said as if he hadn't played too many songs yet, because he knew that the majority of the audience was late and still arriving. It was a great concert. His voice has not obviously deteriorated over the years and his piano playing ability is just incredible. It's like seeing a concert pianist perform. Ok, perhaps most concert pianists don't play their pianos by sitting on them, but they are usually almost as skilled as he is. He's skilled at twirling a microphone stand in the air like a baton, too. Of course, he teased the audience until he played Piano Man at the very end.

I drove CL home to Cary and then made it back to I-40 by making five correct turns. If you don't know me, this will not seem like such a big deal. If you do know me and know that I'm scatterbrained all the time anyway, but even much more so if I'm driving, you should probably make sure that you aren't letting in any flies. I just have the uncanny ability to have a pretty good idea of where I am at all times, but still not know in which direction I should be going.

Changes, Food, Food and Disdain

Before I start rambling about food I've eaten, I thought I should point out some of the changes I've made to the blog recently. I've added a Google Reader module that contains items from other blogs, which I've shared from my reader and I think are worth checking out. I've also added a del.icio.us module so you can see what sort of things I've bookmarked recently. I'm working on migrating some things over from my original web page, so there are some new links that started out there, but may have new content. Finally, I've added a new subscribe button to make it easier to read this blog in a syndicated format, in the aggregator of your choice. Note that this feed does not currently contain the comments.

Sunday morning, I had brunch with AE at Nosh. Look at those yummy buttermilk pancakes. I woke up craving pancakes and they just happened to have a pancake special.

Sunday night, I cooked dinner for my dad. I was feeling experimental, so I made spaghetti sauce out of Paul Newman's tomato sauce, a can of whole soybeans, a foil packet of (effectively) canned salmon and ginger. I have yet to figure out how much ginger you need to add to something to make affect the flavor substantially, so I should probably look at some recipes that call for it. Well, my dad deemed the dish "interesting" which he later updated to "not that bad". I think it was really ok after adding half a cup of parmesan to my serving, but I haven't been eager to eat the leftovers.

I'm not sure how long Pauly Dogs has been on Duke's campus, but I've avoided it since I don't eat beef and I love hot dogs. On Monday, I decided to be brave and try my first veggie/soy dogs since my previous valiant and unsuccessful attempts a couple of years ago. I ordered one with sauerkraut and spicy mustard and Paul(y) thought I had to be a yankee. He seemed quite surprised that I'm not, but I did explain that I'm half-German. So, it was actually pretty good. I was impressed. The dogs were made by Morningstar Farms and either I've forgotten what hot dogs taste like in 3 years or the texture was actually pretty accurate. I'm pleased, because it's nice small lunch that's comparatively inexpensive and the cart is just across the Bryan Center Walkway from the "Passion Paradise" smoothies at the Keva Juice cart.

Monday night, I went to a computer science faculty candidate recruitment dinner at SR's house. It was fun talking to people from the department and TN has beautiful tropical fish tanks.

I had lunch at the Refectory with NP yesterday We ended up sitting near and talking to Debbie Moose, a writer who specializes in food. I told her that she had my dream job, but I don't think she knew just how serious I was! I had chicken pot pie and it was great. It certainly rivaled, if not surpassed, the chicken pot pie at the Nantucket Cafe and the style was very similar.

Last night, my dad and I went to the monthly Durham FM Association board meeting. I actually enjoyed this one, because it was held entirely at the Bennet Point Grill, the way it used to be. The service was uncharacteristically slow and the fried oysters in my usual Caesar salad were much cooler in temperature than I would have liked, but the meeting was short and we had a fun crowd attending.

Right now I'm watching the Duke v.s. Maryland basketball game, including the commercials. I know this will be unpopular with many of my geeky readers, but I think that the realistic violent video games that they are advertising these days, particularly those that turn on-going military conflicts into "games" are sick. I wonder how much money the pentagon is funneling into the industry to boost recruitment, if not accuracy.

No Popups For You

Good News! After all these months, I finally determined what was causing the annoying popups. It was my webstats4u counter. Webstats4u bought out nedstatbasic a while back and they added popups at the same time. I was not aware of this and had attributed the popups to something else. Sitemeter is far better anyway, so I'll be removing all my other counters on my website. I apologize to all my readers who had to close the pesky windows for so long.

The take-home message: Beware of Webstats4u.

Duke Plays and Serves Sorbets

Yesterday, at the weekly Visualization Forum, Jeremy Block gave an interesting talk on biochemistry modeling using the DiVE, the "cave" or virtual environment cube that has images projected on all six sides. We had penne pasta with eggplant and great desserts, so it would have been enjoyable regardless.

Last night I met AE, KD and JH at Chai's, followed by Shade Tree Coffee. We had a lot of fun and celebrated JH's two job offers. He accepted both of them!

After that, I went to Duke Plays, a huge party that was an effort by two Duke seniors to provide alternatives to lacrossesque drunken off-campus debauchery. The huge party (and I do mean huge) was hosted in the first floors of the two library buildings. As far as locations, they could not have picked one that was more convenient. I really liked being able to lock my heavy leather coat and purse in my office. The party was open to faculty, staff and alumni and since I qualified on two counts and am even library staff, I thought I should attend. I believe it was actually only the second alumni event that I have attended since graduating seven years ago.

The food they served was absolutely incredible. It was all dessert hors d'oeuvres and was all delivered by by roaming people with serving trays. Again, it could not have been more convenient. They served mini-chocolate éclairs, weird little pies with a cherry in the middle, mini-creme brules, mini-white chocolate thingies, chocolate dipped cheesecake on a stick, samosa-like pastries containing warm peanut butter and jelly, canolis, pineapple mousse with whipped creme and pistachios, and more. The two best things were individual spoons filled with orange honey sorbet and skewers with balls of melon and pineapple dipped in honey and chopped mint. Wow. They also had lime sorbet, but I never ended up getting a scoop of that. I got three scoops of the the orange, due to AT's help, for which I am very thankful.

It's a good thing they had the roaming serving platters, because it was simply impossible to move once the party got going. I would guess that there were at the very least a thousand people there, if not more. I look forward to hearing the official estimates. It was a semiformal occasion and most of the attendees dressed up quite a bit. The library was almost completely transformed into a glitzy nightclub. There were four different bars, colored spotlights and exhibits depicting recreational activities of Duke students since the beginning of time. There were two bands, Katharine Whalen of the Squirrel Nut Zippers and Pulsar Triyo, both of which I inadvertently managed to avoid for the most part. I spent the majority of the time talking to LA and YB safely between two bookcases. I also got to chat with with several other co-workers, too. I even had a couple of very brief encounters with actual undergraduates, which were entertaining.

Was it a success? By most measures, absolutely! I couldn't have been happier with the food and that is, of course, my main criterion of judgment. I had a great time. Alcohol, however, was served and I certainly witnessed some things near the end of the party that suggested to me that not all were partying in the spirit in which it was intended.

Today, I saw part of West Side Story. In the middle, it suddenly started freezing up. It would just lurch along. It eventually became ridiculous enough such that we gave up. It's possible that my DVD player is particularly sensitive, because I suspect it's not a particularly good one. It came free with my television, after all. Believe it or not, but I think that this is the only (albeit partial) live action musical that I've ever seen other than Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Boing Boinger and the Bamboo Garden

Last night I met up with a bunch of my former fellow IBMers at Inchin's Bamboo Garden, in Morrisville. We had a good crowd: CL, JL, PS, KC, GA, and TH. It was particularly fun, because we sat at four tables pushed together into a square, so we always had one group-wide conversation going. The restaurant is owned by a very close friend of PS, so we had lots of inside information about the dishes and PS went into the kitchen a couple of times. It is a small chain and wil soon have six restaurants across the country. They make everything fresh, so it's on the slow side, but that's perfect if you're catching up with friends. They have good selection of Indo-Chinese dishes, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. I noticed that they do not serve pork. I had a bowl of sweet corn soup with shrimp, which was very good. For my entree, I had vegetable "coins" with manchurian sauce. They reminded me of disc shaped vegetable pakoras more than anything else. I enjoyed it.

This morning I went to the latest in the series of talks put on by the Duke Web Communicators Group. It was a question and answer session given by Cory Doctorow, co-editor of BoingBoing, who is also a science fiction writer and activist, among other things. I thought he was very impressive, funny and adeptly imparted a great deal of information in rapid fire fashion on DRM, collaboration, the logistics of running BoingBoing, etc. He also was actually wearing what I believe was an iPod inside his shirt, with earbuds dangling around his collar the whole time. His shirt snapped instead of buttoned, which made the player more accessible.

This evening, I went to a second talk, also given by Doctorow, to a much wider audience. This more formal talk focused on a variety of issues, including, but certainly not limited to, privacy, the ramifications of inneffective legislation, the risks of RFID and surveilance cameras.

Brown Cow, Rainbow and Goat

First of all, I'd like to write about yogurt. I've recently eaten a couple of cups of Brown Cow yogurt, which were quite good. Today I had apricot mango and it almost tastes like flavored homemade whipped cream. The coffee flavor was good, too. I've just been amazed at how different it is from Stoneyfield yogurt, which is what I usually eat. I once took a long break from Stoneyfield, because once when I was in college, there was a berry barb in one cup of Wild Berry that lodged itself in the inside of my lower lip. That was a fairly traumatic experience. It tastes good and is very healthy, though, so several years later I gave them another try and I've been enjoying it ever since. Variety is nice, though, so I'm glad that I tried Brown Cow.

Yesterday afternoon, there was a hawk that I could see outside my bedroom window. Just as I got out my camera, a second hawk landed in the tree!

Friday night, I went to guitar practice after work. We decided to get Chinese take-out from Rainbow Restaurant. The food was really quite good and better than takeout that we'd gotten from Shanghai in the past. The pork spareribs were great, although apparently difficult to extract from a beagle's clenched jaws. The steamed dumplings were very good, as were the cold sesame noodles. The sauce for the lemon chicken was nice and tart, too. We were all pleased.


Saturday afternoon, I spent the day making a necklace and earrings for AC and baking coconut macaroons. Then I went to HC and AM's birthday and Mardi Gras party. That was a blast. Their house was completely packed with musicians, dancers and people gobbling down food. HC roasted a goat, which was loaded with spices and garlic. I'd never knowingly eaten goat before, but it was excellent. With awesome live music on both floors of the house and more food than could even fit in their dining room, it was really cool.

After doing some Blackboard testing this morning at 3am, I slept quite late. Then I actually washed some dishes. Miracles occur even here at the Heathen Hovel. My parents and I headed over to ACME for another fine dinner. Weekly e-mail from the owner, Kevin, detailing the weekend's menu do wonders for their business. Tonight I had a shrimp and lobster pasta, with goat cheese, tomatoes, artichokes, spinach and bacon. The portions were huge, so we skipped dessert and I took home leftovers.

Contracts and Cucumbers

I hope all of you survived yesterday. I wouldn't want any undead readers.

I'm very excited that we will be seeing at least another four years of my hero, Keith Olberman, on MSNBC. He's one of the few that probably deserves a 4+ million contract, because he is doing a fine job of educating the public about the activities of neocon scum.

I've been eating meals at my various favorite restaurants recently, of course, but I've been ordering the same stuff that I always order. I had a particularly good time with AE, LA and AT at the Thai Cafe last weekend. Afterwards, we went to Sips, the coffee shop in the same complex. I was pleased with my mocha and I'm surprisingly picky about them. The atmosphere at Shade Tree Coffee is a lot nicer, though. I also enjoyed a nice serving of chicken salad at the Symposium Cafe, with DS.

Here's a photo of last Friday's post-guitar-practice Cafe Zen sushi.


Ok, I also can't forget the tuna and pickled cucumber salad small plate that I had at ACME on Sunday.

Last night I went to a wonderful Duke Symphony Orchestra concert with my dad and AN. They played pieces by Abel, Bach and Mendelssohn and it was lovely.

Anti-Smear Campaign

Last night, my parents and I went to the Thai Cafe for the first time in a while. I saw and talked to FW briefly. It continues to be a restaurant where I see people I know almost every time I go. I was happy to have a cup of spicy coconut soup and an order of Thai Cafe Baskets all to my self.

Fortunately, I also had a leftover basil roll to take with me for lunch today. I didn't have much time to eat, because I went to a yoga workshop from noon to 1pm. It was billed as Office Yoga, so I thought it would be perfect and it was just what I hoped it would be. All the exercises were meant to be done while sitting down at one's desk. I'd barely been exposed to yoga at all, except for some exercises that RB would do in mid conversation when we were in college, so this was a nice introduction. The library has all kinds of wild workshops, lectures and discussions all the time. It's one of the many things that makes it great place to work.

Tonight my dad and I went to Eastern Lights for dinner. We shared roast pork with green onion, shrimp with lobster sauce and an order of potstickers. It was all delicious and we had plenty of leftovers to take home to my mom.

Thanks to AE, I discovered that Fisher has lots of pens that are way too cool. I've really enjoyed my Swiss Army pen. It writes so much better than any other ballpoint that I've had. Roller balls and fountain pens don't work too well for me, since I'm left handed. I don't appreciate getting ink smeared all over everything. I'm going to resist ordering a bullet pen for at least a little while, though.

Rationalization

The last couple of nights, I've been fortunate to be able to watch an almost full moon rise from my windows in the great room, while I've been typing away at the computer. I often like to think about how many thousands of people are looking up at the moon at the same time. No one else, however, gets to look at the moon through the branches of the oak trees surrounding my house. It sounds like a good way to rationalize getting a small tripod, don't you think?

Moscow Soloists

One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post was that on Wednesday night I saw the Moscow Soloists perform at Duke's Page Auditorium. I hadn't been paying attention and thought that they were singing soloists, so I was quite pleased to see that they were string players. They started out with a work by Beethoven, who is my favorite composer. This was followed by more modern pieces by Britten and Schnittke. While some of their techniques were interesting, modern "classical" music just isn't my cup of chai. Their final choice for the main program was Schubert, which was very pleasant. Not surprisingly, their encores were the best part. They played a short Mozart piece and followed that with another work by Schnittke that sounded to be primarily klezmer based. That was great. It was also good to see AG in his new role as Interim Director of Duke Performances, even though we'll miss him in the library.

Snow Sans Snacks

I have some catching up to do. I'll attempt to stick to the more interesting bits, but I'm not promising anything.

Early last week, I saw V is for Vendetta. I thought it was an excellent movie, because it was both entertaining and thought provoking.

Early that week, I also had lunch at the Refectory with NP. This is still noteworthy because I actually finished my equally sized portion of Sopa du Pollo well before he did. It's my favorite dish there. It's basically a "Mexican chicken casserole".


Last weekend, KS and DB visited. DB was so adorable, especially when carrying around my stuffed animals. It was really a treat to have them over for the weekend. Saturday night, we went to Chai's with AE, DS, JH and AHB. I had chicken pad thai and I believe KS did, too. (Sorry, RP, I'm just not certain!) Afterwards, we went to Shade Tree and were joined by JH's friends, L and S. I had a nice cup of cafe mocha and KS had a sundae, which looked very good. Sunday morning, my parents came over and we made crepe style pancakes, which we served with maple syrup and strawberries. I thought DB was very good while we ate.

Sometime this week, I saw Everything is Illuminated, which I thought was another really interesting movie. One of the characters sounds very similar to Borat, which makes it funnier than was probably originally intended. It also took me a while to not think of Elijah Wood's character as Frodo and there's one line in the movie that is extremely appropriate for that context.

I had lunch with NP again on Tuesday and got to hear all about his wearing a kilt and eating haggis at a recent party. We had chicken and shrimp gumbo, which was good.

Thursday was supposed to be the day of our department retreat, where we were supposed to give presentations of research topics that we'd been working on in groups. My group was investigating the future of Learning Management Systems. Unfortunately, we had a winter storm warning and I elected to work on ordinary work from home. All the schools were closed, it was snowing when I had planned to leave home and I didn't want to drive there and get stuck. Well, like many of these things, it fizzled and would likely have been perfectly fine if I'd gone. They did apparently have over 300 accidents in Orange County, but the roads at least looked ok. I was disappointed that I missed it, but probably saved myself from a few extra thousand calories in sandwiches, popsicles and candy that way.

Friday, I went to the weekly Visualization Forum and listened to a talk by Michael Young, from NC State, on "Leveraging narrative concepts in the automatic construction of interactive experiences". He talked about some of the algorithms used for programming dynamic interactive video games. It was pretty interesting. The spinach lasagna was good, too.

Friday night, at guitar practice, I felt as if I actually was making some progress with shifting to and from the B Minor chord on Wild Horses. Afterwards, JJ, JA, EB, MP, HB and I went to El Corral. I had Vegetarian F, which was two spinach quesadillas. That was good. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of ordering a fried banana. I momentarily forgot that their idea of frying something was to add corn flakes. That is actually a nice effect when it's Mexican Fried Ice Cream, but bananas need to be cooked thoroughly before I like them. I need stick to the ones at Kim Son, which are wonderful.

This evening, I met AE, EG, JB and LB at Chai's for dinner. It was nice to see LB for the first time, because she's very cute. It was also good to see EG, since I hadn't seen her in over five months. I ordered what was effectively sesame chicken. It was a lot of sweet fried chicken with rice and no vegetables. AE and I went to Shade Tree afterwards and talked for quite a while. Check out that link, because now they actually have a demo of how they do some of their neat latte art.

Living on Crackers

My dad fixed my van last Saturday night. It turned out that it was possible to access the adventurous bolt while the lift was folded up and then he put the joint back together. He took it to Triad Mobility on Monday where they did some routine maintenance to check everything out. They also replaced the bolt, which was somewhat stripped.

That night, my parents and I went to the Flying Fish and I tried a duck quesadilla special. It was pretty good, but very cheesy. That's what one expects of a quesadilla, but I didn't really notice until I tried to eat it cold, for breakfast, the next morning.

Last Sunday, DS and I went to Target, which was loads of fun. I've liked Target more each time I've gone there. Of course, I think I've spent less and less money each time, too. After a visit with HS, we had dinner at Kemp's. They had excellent oysters, as always. DS made the suggestion that I should get a combination platter that combined oysters with something that warms up better. In my opinion, oysters are pretty awful the second time around. Well, I got flounder and only ate the oysters. I ended up having three additional portions out of that one dinner.

Here you can see 'February Gold' daffodils that have been blooming in my yard. As I recall, it is fairly normal for that variety to bloom in January here.

Monday night, my parents and I went to ACME Food & Beverage Co. I believe that I had forgotten just how spicy the calamari with Asian slaw is, because I ordered it. It is very good, but it's just a little too hot for me. For dessert, we shared an enormous piece of ginger cheesecake with pear-ginger-caramel sauce. It was one of the best desserts that I've ever had at ACME, or anywhere, actually. I'm not a huge fan cheesecake, although I do enjoy it on occasion. This was absolutely wonderful. If you live in the Triangle and you like ginger, you need to go before they change the menu.

Tuesday, I had dinner with Annette at Chai's, which was a nice way to unwind after a super-busy day at the office. I had the udon noodle soup, with tofu.

Wednesday, my mom made fried chicken and I got to visit with FIFO again. My mom's fried chicken is delicious. Hopefully I'll learn to make it someday, if I'm brave enough to try again.

Thursday, we were supposed to have some sleet and freezing rain. We had snow instead. It was very pretty and I got to work at home, which I appreciated. Early in the morning, I got to see a pileated woodpecker on one of the trees in my yard. That was exciting. Of course, my faithful red-bellied woodpecker, provided me with a cacophony of crashes and bangs outside all the windows of the house.

Friday night, after guitar practice, we went to Vin Rouge. I had a watercress salad special with duck liver and proschiuto stuffed figs . It's was interesting, but not something I would ever order again. In fact, I may avoid duck liver in the future. I also ordered a side order of fries, which were very good. We shared some little neck clams and oysters gratin as appetizers and they were the best part of the meal.

Last night I went to a party at the G's and had long conversations with several people. As always, the food was great. I think I've been finding their vertical-windy-terrifying driveway easier to negotiate every time.

We've been having sleeting and freezing rain all day. Everything around here is lightly coated in ice, but it should warm up and melt during the night. I got to play Desktop Support this afternoon. My mom's laptop spontaneously decided to display everything rotated 90 degrees and she brought it over to my house for me to take a look. After looking and various settings (not the useful ones), I used the Google to determine which setting to change. It made sense that it would be the configuration for the graphics card, but it behaved differently depending on which user was logged in. While it's fine now, I think the machine probably needs to be re-imaged, because it doesn't even want to reboot half the time and the screen randomly goes blank. (Thanks to CF for her background image.)

So how have my New Year's resolutions been going? Well, I've had mixed results. I haven't kept up with practicing the guitar and lifting weights. I have, however, taken my vitamins every single day since the beginning of the year. That's actually exceeding my goal. I don't believe that I've "broken" the other two resolutions, because I an opportunity to start the habits anytime. In the meantime, I'm happy to have some default nutrients, so I can live exclusively on Jacob's crackers and peanut butter.

Caffiene Free Post

Yesterday morning, my van lift died. More specifically, the lift would not close. I guess this is slightly better than other situations I've had to deal with, because I could actually get out of the van easily. It's hard to drive around with the doors open, though. When the lift folds itself up (normally a nice feature), it jams. My dad thinks that there is a loose bolt in the gear box. Unfortunately, the gear box is welded shut, so even though he can see it, there's not much he can do about it. I think he's going to work on taking what he can apart this evening. I scheduled an appointment for the van to visit Triad Mobility on Monday morning, regardless.

It's frustrating, particularly since this is a three day weekend. I hadn't envisioned sticking around the house very much. I did get to spend some quality time with FIFO last night, which was nice.

This morning, I was looking forward to drinking a nice cup of real coffee. Unfortunately, I appear to have left coffee in the pot since last weekend. Both the pot and the filter are molded. Since I want to scrub that thoroughly, I guess I'll be drinking tea instead.

Why We Fight

I saw Why We Fight tonight, and I highly recommend it. It focuses on the history of the military-industrial complex and, in my opinion, is far more effective than Fahrenheit 9/11, in part because it doesn't try to be funny. While I think Fahrenheit 9/11 is an excellent movie, Why We Fight comes across as more objective and educational.

Shoes and Socks

I received my order from baumhouse.com last week! That was every bit as exciting as I'd hoped. It's so hard to find shoes that fit me properly that getting seven new pairs was really amazing. Finally I have Bostons that I can wear in the rain. So far, the screaming bright red ones have received the most attention.

Duke's campus Subway has quit selling the chicken parmesan sub. I don't know why, since they make both fried chicken and meatball subs. It's annoying.

It was incredibly hot at work last week, because of what I believe was routine maintenance. Everything was back to normal yesterday. We've been extremely busy at work with the start of the semester, too.

On Friday, a bunch of folks at the office went to Cosmic Cantina for lunch. HC brought me back a vegetarian burrito. I hadn't had one of those in years and it was just as wonderful as I'd remembered.

At guitar practice that night, we worked primarily on Puff the Magic Dragon. It's such a fun song to play. The highlight of the evening was when Darwin the Beagle decided to climb on top of me while I was playing. My fingering accuracy deteriorates somewhat in such situations.
We went to Baba Ghannouj, at Erwin Square, for dinner. It's hard to beat a healthy falafel sandwich for dinner, which was under $6.

Saturday night, AE, JH, DS and HS came over. We played Khet and Pentago. HS seemed to have a great time and it was such fun having him over. He's so much better behaved than FIFO.
We all met LA at the Flying Fish for dinner. It was really crowded, too. LA and I tried what was supposed to be pomegranate sorbet, but it seemed to be gelato. The flavor wasn't readily identifiable. This is a good thing. I shouldn't eat dessert after a eating a large plate of oysters anyway. Overall, I had a truly excellent time that evening.

On Sunday, after an afternoon of trying to catch up on some work, my parents and I drove in the pouring rain to ACME Food & Beverage Co. They have lobster pot pie on the menu again. That's one of my favorite dishes there and they haven't had it in several years. I need to remember at a convenient time that I have leftovers in the fridge. For dessert we shared two pieces of coconut cream pie with lime curd whipped cream. That was very unusual, because the pie wasn't sweetened. That meant that the strongest flavor was the lime cream. It was quite good, but definitely surprising.

Yesterday, I had lunch with NP at the Refectory. It was nice to have Refectory food again, because I was really starting to miss it. I enjoyed a large bowl of dal. We had a lively conversation about toe socks and iPod random song algorithms.

Today I had lunch with LA at Twinnie's. We primarily discussed dog behavior and bats. This evening, my dad and I went to the Durham FM Association meeting at the Mayflower. The program, by Woody Woodard, KA3VSA, was about publicity and ham radio.

Tres Leches New Year

Last Saturday, my parents and I went to the Monet in Normandy exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Art. It was extremely crowded and the exhibit hall was very cramped. I thought it was a very nice collection of his work, but it was a shame to not be able to see some of the paintings at a distance. I guess I've been jaded by seeing some of the extensive collections in Boston and Philadelphia, where you can take your time and see works from almost any distance. I'm also just not crazy about being in crowds. That said, I thought it was very cool and I recommend that local readers go, if you haven't already, by January 14th.

I've been enjoying my new Philips HS820 Compact Foldable Neckband Headphones, which I got for Christmas, from my Amazon wish list. My main criteria when picking them out was that it would be more obvious that I was wearing headphones so people at work would understand why I was not answering them. I also wanted a behind the neck band and for the headphones to sound at least quasi-decent. I'm not entirely sure yet how long I can wear them and have them stay comfortable, but I'm pleased so far. I think they do sound better than earbuds and the walkman salvaged headphones that I had been using.

One cool thing that I was introduced to this Christmas by E&ES was wrapsacks. They are reusable cloth giftbags, which are made out of pretty batik fabrics. They also have serial numbers so recipients can register and track the bags as they are reused. So overall, they are pretty, fun and less wasteful than dumping a lot of barely used paper into the landfill. The only downside is they are comparatively expensive.

On New Year's Eve, I went to JJ and JA's house for a party. It was fun talking to people and eating lots of good food. I had hoped that JA would make his Tres leches cake again and he did! I actually had two fairly large pieces. I am not a big cake fan, in general, but it is so unbelievably good.

On New Year's Day, I spent most of the day cleaning. JJ and JA came over and I made shrimp and bacon pasta for them and my parents. After dinner JJ and I played guitar and then we lit the tree for the second time this year.

That reminds me. Happy New Year everyone!

2007 Resolutions

Due to the overwhelming success of my 2004 resolutions, I appear to not have made any in 2005 and 2006. It's time to give it a try once again:

1. Lift weights at least 3 times a week. This is the second appearance on this blog of this resolution, but it's slightly more ambitious than the once a month goal set in 2004.
2. Take vitamins at least 5 times a week, especially the vitamin D and calcium. Again, I don't think once a month is very helpful.
3. Practice guitar at least 3 times at week. It's kind of sad, in a way, that I have to make this a resolution, because this is an activity I truly enjoy.
4. Try out a new recipe at least once at month. If I made this more ambitious, I might have to alter resolution #1. I got several new cookbooks for Christmas, so, in theory, this should be easy.
5. Buy more earrings in 2007. I've got to have at least one resolution I'll be guaranteed not to break.

Movies and Murder

One thing that I left off from my post covering Christmas Eve is that my parents gave me a DVD of Buckaroo Banzai, from my Amazon wishlist. My Dad, AE and I watched it that night, since I had not seen in it at least a decade and I was eager to watch it again. It is one of the few movies that I've seen ten times or so. I'm not sure that AE agreed that it is one of the greatest movies ever made, but I'm confident that she'll only need to watch it a few more times.

I had Monday and Friday off, since they were Duke holidays, but I had decided to work Tuesday through Thursday as an experiment. When I worked for IBM, I had to use up all my vacation at the end of the year, because the days didn't roll over. Now I have the opportunity to save up to two year's worth. Now that I've tried it, I'm not sure it's worth saving the three days. There's something to be said for having a whole week off and getting plenty of sleep each day, even if I would have had to handle a few pages during my time off. The cafeterias on campus weren't open either, so I had no reason to go outside at lunchtime, since I just had leftovers to heat up in the microwave. At least I tried it.

Tuesday night, my parents watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I thought it was an interesting movie and some parts are very funny. One startling thing was that it actually shared two cast members with Buckaroo Banzai, Christopher Lloyd and Vincent Schiavelli.

I can't think of anything remarkable that happened on Wednesday.

Thursday, after work, my dad and I went to Tonali, which had been recommended by AJ. Based on his recommendation, I even recommended it to numerous people without having actually gone there myself. The owner/chef was the sous chef at Four Square and it serves unusual Mexican fare. Unlike Four Square, the prices are inexpensive. They do not have any sort of liquor license yet, which may be a concern to some. I had some mashed potato pancakes with some greens, which were good. My dad had a paella special, which I thought was very good. For dessert, we shared dulce de leche creme brulee, which was fantastic. It was easily the best creme brulee I've ever eaten. Their menu changes every week, so I look forward to trying many other dishes in the future.

As I was getting ready to go to bed last night, I noticed a huge spider (2 inches in diameter?) in the middle of my bedroom floor. The encounter with the black widow really set me back in terms of my arachnophobia and I've ended up calling my dad to come to the rescue twice since then. That's a very high number of large spiders compared to the previous two winters here. This time I was determined to handle it myself. It was time to transform into Lenore the Spider Killer.

I quickly determined that using a plunger was not an effective way to smash a spider and it got away. Next, I decided to try using one of my reachers (or "arm things" as I like to call them) and that was much more accurate, but it still got away and crawled under my secretary desk. I whipped out my LED flashlight and looked underneath the desk from my bathroom. From there, I could actually see its eyes, glowing blue. I got my binoculars from the great room and then looked again from my bathroom. Combined with the light from the flashlight, I could see it really well. Eventually it crawled behind one of the legs of the desk, so I wasn't sure where it was exactly. I waited, because I knew I would have a hard time sleeping knowing it was there. Approximately 22 minutes later, it crawled out into the room. I was fast enough and accurate enough with the reacher that time.

Today my parents picked up take-out sushi from Kurama. As always, that was wonderful. Kurama still has the best sushi in the area, in my opinion.

AE and I went to Shanghai for dinner. We had soup, steamed pork dumplings and shared an order of ma po tofu. I was actually somewhat disappointed in the ma po tofu, because I think that Eastern Lights's version is far better. Fortunately, I was already pretty full from the soup and the dumplings. We went to Kroger afterwards and I resisted buying a DVD of the Princess Bride for $10. That's another movie that I've probably seen ten times and not in the last decade, but I figure I can always get it from NetFlix if I feel like it. AE also found a bottle of "Seasoning" that we thought was amusing.

Happy Secular Winter Holiday 2006!

I would like to wish all of my dear readers and their loved ones a Happy Secular Winter Holiday. I hope you are enjoying some sort of respite from your hectic lives and have relished the smidgen of extra daylight that we have already received.

I started this blog three years and one day ago. I'm not sure I really believed that I would still be writing in it and I certainly have made fewer posts in 2006 than in previous years. I, however, am glad that I've kept it up as well as I have.

I've continued to have a good break. I had lunch with DS and AE at Nosh on Saturday and then went furniture shopping consulting afterwards. I think I like shopping more when I'm not the one making the decisions. At Nosh, I had Piper's patties, which were effectively little omelette's. I'm not sure whether I would order it again. I think their Rocket Breakfast or Mike's Slammer breakfast is much better. It tasted good, though, so I just might not have been in the right mood for it.

Yesterday, the 24th, my parents started working on straightening the tree and I left to pick up AE. We also picked up two SRP pizzas (meat, blue cheese, cream cheese, mozarella and caramelized onions) from Nosh, substituting chicken for beef. Those were excellent. We spent the day decorating the tree. It's likely the nicest tree that my family has ever had. It's certainly the largest, since it's nine feet tall.

For dinner, we had shrimp, lettuce with balsamic vinaigrette and crackers. I tried out the mango horseradish sauce that I bought at A Southern Season. I didn't really like it that much, unfortunately. I may try mixing it with something else, as is suggested on the label. We also tried out a bottle of wine that I got from FW, who owns Creek Side Winery, in Elon. I just tasted it, but I thought it was delicious. My parents and AE seemed to agree.

Next, my dad lit the candles and we started playing the Bach's Christmas Oratorio CD. I took lots of pictures of the tree, as always. I didn't take any more movies, because I figured I have enough of those. Finally, we opened presents.
My parents primarily got stuff from my Amazon wishlist. I have such good taste.

This morning, my Dad came over and we made crepe pancakes. I haven't been baking enough recently. I didn't even immediately recall where I keep the flour! The pancakes were lovely, though.

For AE's present, I told her that I'd make her three pairs of earrings picked out from my design notebooks. I used to draw every earring that I made and keep track of how well each design sold. She did that and then picked out the beads that she wanted. I made one of the pairs and I'll be making the other two soon.

I made rolls. I'm not sure, but it's possible that I hadn't done that since last January. I should do it more often, because they are so good. My mom brought over the turkey breast, dressing and cranberry sauce. She also made gravy and green beans here, so we had quite a feast.

Before and after dinner, AE and I watched the movie, Harriet the Spy. I read the book when I was 7 or 8. While I didn't remember much from the book, it seemed to be a good portrayal.

Avoiding Washing Dishes

I should be cleaning the house, so I don't know why I'm writing now. Actually, that's probably exactly why I'm writing now. At least the stove doesn't have mail on it anymore.

Last Sunday, I went to Brasa to celebrate DS's birthday. I'd never been to a Brazillian steakhouse before. They have an appetizer bar with lots of random food, including things like raw oysters and fried bananas. They also have people wandering around with skewers serving various kinds of meat directly at the table. Since I still don't eat beef, I was pleased that they also had pork sausage, pork ribs, pork loin, chicken, cinnamon coated pineapple and chicken hearts. I neglected to sample the chicken hearts and probably will have that flavor remain unknown to me for a good long while.

It was hot at the office on Monday. They are doing some sort of maintenance and the early warnings indicated that it would actually be cooler than usual instead of hot. Apparently it was cooler in some parts of the building, but it was 80F in our cubical area. Fortunately, several of us escaped to the Macaroni Grill. I had lobster ravioli, which is the same thing I ordered almost exactly a year ago when we were there commemorating NW's departure.

That night, my parents and I watched Four Weddings and a Funeral and I enjoyed it. Hugh Grant looked a lot younger over 12 years ago. I guess I did, too.

It was was very hot at the office again. The Duke University Library Staff Association put on its annual holiday party in the Gothic Reading Room. The food was catered by Ole NC Bar-B-Que and was actually pretty good. People were supposed to bring in desserts. A bunch of us had a good time trying to figure out a long list of Christmas carols from a list of their acronyms.

Tuesday night, I met AE, JH, AH and KD at Chai's. I had chicken pad thai and that was good. AE and I went to Shade Tree Coffee afterwards. They were out of decaf espresso beans, so I had the opportunity to discover that their drip coffee is very good.

Wednesday was hot at the office, but not quite as hot as previous days. It was only 77F. I escaped once again and had lunch with NP at Thai Cafe. We shared some Thai Cafe Baskets and I had an order of chicken massaman with spicy coconut soup. As always, the food was superb. Since it was lunchtime, I also got to order Thai Iced Tea, since I didn't have to worry about the caffeine's keeping me awake.

Wednesday night, I had dinner with my parents at the Flying Fish. They were out of oysters! I tried their ceviche and got a side order of fries. That was an enormous amount of food. Either the fries or the ceviche would have been more than I could have eaten for a meal. The ceviche was very good, but it wasn't nearly as good as HC's.

Yesterday, I went to a Staff Development Committee meeting and then had lunch with DS at the Loop. I got to show him around the office afterwards. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that my cube decorations are more of a shock to those who have seen how I decorate my home. It's completely different, although I seem to be accumulating more stuff around the house as more boxes of my grandmother's knickknacks get unpacked.

Last night, I went to JJ and JA's for guitar practice. That was fun, as always. We decided to see if we could get a table at Grasshopper, since it was a Thursday. We did. We shared some really delicious calamari as an appetizer. It was sliced very thin and was just perfect. We also shared fried pork dumplings and fresh spring rolls. For my entree, I had an order of bun with hanging roast pork. It was very similar to the vermicelli dish I had the Kim Son Vietnamese restaurant a couple of weeks ago, but the meat was far better at Grasshopper. I probably like the pickled vegetables and noodles better at Kim Son, but this was very good, too.

I had today off from work, so my parents and I went to the Flying Fish for lunch since we knew another oyster shipment should have come in. Afterwards, we all went to Catherine Callaway's to pick out some earrings. It was nice having a longer chat with her and it was nice to see she was very busy with customers. I used to hang out in her shop quite a bit when I was a teenager and she inspired me more than anyone else to start making jewelry.

Tonight I cooked dinner for my dad. I made my usual shrimp pasta with bacon and garlic. He was supposed to bring a bottle of wine with him, suitable to use as cooking wine, but he had forgotten. As an experiment, I decided to use beer instead. I used most of a bottle of Corona and he drank the rest. I also added a bit of ginger to my basil and chives mixture. It turned out well. I still prefer using wine, but it was a decent substitute.

The Art of the Wrong Turn

Yesterday, our Blackboard Tech team met with the UNC Blackboard team at Nantucket Cafe. It was fun commiserating. I had only been there once for lunch before and I finally got to try their lobster, bacon and scallion quiche, which I had with a side salad. I felt as if I'd been spoiled by all the Refectory quiches, which are light in comparison. The Nantucket quiche was good, but way too rich. It had a croissant-like crust, which, again, was good, but was a little over the top. I was glad that I hadn't foolishly paired the quiche with a bowl of lobster bisque, no matter how good it it is.

Guitar practice was cancelled, so I made yet another trip to the Flying Fish with my parents. This time I got a Flying Mayan burrito, which contained black beans, sweet potatoes and avocado. I am not a fan of sweet potatoes, but it added a nice touch to the burrito.

Today, I went to the Forest at Duke to see AE play in the Durham Community Concert Band. It was hard to believe that it had been well over a year since I'd seen them play. I know two other members, TL, a ham radio operator, and RG, from the library. I enjoyed the music quite a bit and I was actually able to see AE play her French horn, because she was on the front row of the horn section and I was on the front row of the audience. Afterwards, AE and I went to Target and I was able to get a whole bunch of Annie Chun's noodle bowls. According to the link, I could actually buy them online for less, with free shipping, if I wanted to buy them in bulk.

Tonight, I went to a party at CV's house. I had a very good time and the food was good. I managed to only make one wrong turn on the way there, after I actually entered the development. I made no fewer than four wrong turns on the way back. I am so talented. I recovered very quickly in all cases, though, because it was easy to find places to turn around. I think it's actually easier to find one's way around this time of year, because it's easy to determine if you've been down a road before, due to all the Christmas lights.

Music Appreciation

Today was a relatively good day.

First, HC brought in chocolates that AC made. They were truffles made with cayenne pepper, ginger and Grand Marinier. I ate two. I could have eaten many more and I usually only eat large quantities of dark chocolate covered orange peel. The truffles were my idea of a delicious and nutritious breakfast.

HC, CV, SM and I went to the Refectory for lunch, which was fun. I had black beans and rice, which is always good.

I went to my parents' for dinner and visited with FIFO. I swear he acts happier to see me every single time I go. Hopefully, the greeting ceremony won't get too much more dangerous. When I got back, I had a package from Amazon waiting for me. It was from my brother! That was very exciting, indeed. He got me four CDs from my wish list, Die Prinzen, Die Aertze, an Eagle's Greatest Hits and the Thompson Twins. The first two were ones that I listened to when I took German in college. I understood almost all of the lyrics back then. Now I can appreciate the actual music more.

Is Six Years the Equivalent of a Geologic Era?

Tonight I went to the Orange County Radio Amateurs annual Christmas party. This year it was held at the new Mayflower, in Hillsborough. Various seafood restaurants have occupied the building over the years, after the Western Sizzlin went out of business. None of them have been particularly good. I decided to get a combination fried oyster and baby flounder platter. I figured I could eat the flouder and would have more than enough food if the oysters weren't good. They weren't great, but they were better than the ones at the Mayflower in Durham. The baby flounder was pretty good. I also picked green beans as my side, because I think it's virtually impossible to destroy them. I like them equally, regardless of whether they are barely cooked or barely recognizable.

It was good to see everyone. I don't go to their meetings regularly so I don't get to see many of them as often. I used to be more social and would go to the Saturday morning OCRA breakfast, but I haven't done that much at all since I started working at Duke. It's just too early in the morning and I'm too tempted to eat extremely unhealthy food.

One of the people I met for the first time tonight was one of my closest neighbors, GJ. That was very cool. I've lived in this house for about 2 1/2 years and had only seen him from a distance. Of course, I've lived within a few hundred feet of here for 17 years, which makes it even more remarkable. He recently became an amateur radio operator and has been checking into the Durham FM Association Thursday Night Nets, which I check into almost every Thursday, if I remember. I would imagine that it used to be more common to meet neighbors this way back when there were more hams, but maybe not ones that live so close.

I forgot to mention that on Sunday, I had brunch with AE at Nosh. They had a special that replaced the biscuit in the Rocket Breakfast with a giant fluffy pancake. It was a very good pancake. One amazing thing is that just as I was leaving, I ran into KY (now KE) for the first time since graduation. She just moved back here last week and looked exactly the same as she did six years ago. I guess six years wasn't that long ago.

White Elephant Tape Measure Exchange

I forgot to mention at least two things in my last post.

My parents and I watched An Inconvenient Truth on Sunday. I thought it was extremely well done. It wasn't as depressing as I'd feared, but I also didn't see it as uplifting either. It's good that it's not depressing, because that would lead to fewer people watching it. One sad aspect is thinking that we were watching the guy that could have been our president. The world would have been a very different place. Of course, I might have had a similar reaction had I been watching a Barney video. Almost any entity, animate or not, would be better than what we have. One of the more disturbing things to me were the photos of glaciers that have receded or almost disappeared completely. I kind of hope they weren't paying attention to the seasons when they were making the comparisons, but I suspect they were. I guess it all makes me wonder just how much damage we have to do to the earth and just how many peoples lives have to be directly impacted adversely by the resulting changes for enough people to do something that will really make a big impact. I say big impact because I know that every hybrid car, every solar panel and every recycled French fry makes a difference.

I can't remember what the other thing that I forgot was. Oh yes, when we went to Kim Son on Friday night, we had deep fried bananas and ice cream for dessert. I think I've determined for certain that I only dislike raw bananas. If they are well cooked, I like them. I don't think they are cooked enough in banana pudding and I suspect this is due to some sort of allergy.

Tonight the Durham FM Association had its annual Christmas party, which included a white elephant gift exchange. I'd never participated in one of those before and it was surprisingly fun. I ended up with a 12' tape measure, by choice. My dad ended up with a 100' tape measure by choice. Some things definitely tend to run in families. About 40 of us ate dinner that was catered by the Shrimp Boat and it was pretty good. It was definitely better than last year for some reason. JH joined us for dinner, which made it even more fun.

Not Locked Up Every Night

Last Wednesday, AN and I went to Mt. Fuji for dinner. We had a lovely dinner and were entertained by D, who accused me of having locked up my parents, since this was actually the second time that he'd seen me without them. I thought our caterpillar roll was definitely the best, although one of the things we had was a salmon skin roll, which I'd never tried before. That was good and the pieces held together better than the ones from other rolls, which I appreciated a great deal.

Next, AN and I went to see the Duke Symphony Orchestra, which performed works by Mozart and Shostakovich. The Shostakovich, in particular, was very impressive. We got to chat with AE some before and afterwards.

Thursday was my birthday. 31 doesn't seem like a big deal to me after 30 and 29. 29 seemed like the "worst" to me, in terms of aging anxiety. I actually ate lunch by myself at the Refectory, because NP was too sick to join me. Although I was sorry he was sick and missed his company, I enjoyed people watching while eating a giant piece of quiche and a bowl of fruit. I had dinner with a bunch of friends at ACME Food & Beverage Co., which was a lot of fun. I had my usual fried oyster salad with the bourbon bacon vinaigrette. They brought out the chocolate terrine with a candle while everyone sang "happy birthday", which was very nice. I really wanted the rice pudding with brandied cherries and caramel sauce, so I ordered that, too.

Friday, we had guitar practice. JJ tried playing the penny whistle, which KD gave me, while we played Long Black Veil. The penny whistle is in D and, so far, that is the only song that we play in D. That also just happens to be the only song where I do the majority of the singing. We just need to learn more songs and I need to practice more. For dinner we all went to, Kim Son, a Vietnamese restaurant. I hadn't been there in at least five years and I was happy to go back. I was very pleased to see that they had added a ramp since my last visit, too. I had grilled pork with vermicelli and pickled vegetables. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Saturday, AE and I went to A Southern Season and went shopping. I mostly bought chocolate and tea. I also found a mango horseradish seafood dipping sauce that I wanted to try. One of the things I got was "Red Fire" dark chocolate with cinnamon and hot chilli peppers, made by Vosges. It is surprisingly good. It's not very hot, but it has a little kick to it. I tried the Dragon Pearl Jasmine today and it was really quite wonderful. It comes in silk sachets and the tea leaves are bunched up into pea sized balls that slowly unfurl in the hot water. It smells just like jasmine flowers, which seems very unusual for a beverage of any sort.

We had dinner at the Weathervane, which part of A Southern Season. I had lobster ravioli, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was well seasoned, but extremely mild. It was light and not creamy, unlike many lobster ravioli dishes I've had in the past.

Finally, we went to the Deep Dish theatre and saw a performance by Fat Mouth Improv. That was a fun experience, because one of the group's members is my boss, NC. I'd never seen improv before, so I had no idea what to expect, but it was a lot of fun. Some of their fast scene changes would have been impressive even if they had been planned out verbatim and it was awesome to see an plot emerge in the long form improvisation. It was very funny, too. It's just not every day that one can see one's boss take a scary flying leap across a stage in order to catch an imaginary frisbee or act as if he were pole dancing.

Sunday, I went with my parents to Mt. Fuji again, just to prove to D that I did, indeed, let my parents leave the grounds now and then.

Boop!

Last Saturday, GM and I picked up AE and we went to Taverna Nikos for dinner. Not long after we arrived, I received my first text message from an actual human being. I'm surprised it's taken that long considering I have a phone with a qwerty keyboard. My parents got them from my brother years ago. Then again, it's not as if I've sent them to anyone.

I ate shrimps and scallops in a lemon cream sauce over penne pasta.. The shrimp were absolutely perfect. As I suspected, I discovered that my new fondness for scallops is not all inclusive. I don't know if it's the type of scallops or the degree to which they are cooked, but I wasn't as enthused about these. Fortunately, the rest of the food was more than I could eat.

After dinner, we all went to see the Bulgarian Women's Chorus at Duke's Page Auditorium. Like almost everything I've seen there, this was part of my family's season tickets to the Duke Artists' Series. We had to work harder at finding a parking space in the Bryan Center parking garage, because there was also a men's basketball game at the same time. The choir appeared first in flowered white dresses with their hair completely covered in white cloth. They sang folk songs with unusual tempos and harmonies. Some songs were comical when in a repeated phrase they would enthusiastically say "boop!". Of course, we had no idea what they were singing about, because there were no translations provided. After the intermission, they wore black dresses without head coverings. Strangely enough, that made them look almost as if they were completely different people.

The next morning I went to the late service of the church that GM attended when he lived in Durham, Blacknall Memorial Presbyterian. I went to hear GM play the oboe with their orchestra and their large choir. They played Vivaldi's Magnificat, several hyms and carols. I hadn't attended a church service since I was 12 or 13, so it was an unusual experience for me. I explained to several people, who welcomed me, that I was there to hear the music.

Afterwards, GM and I met up with AE, JH and P at Madhatter's. I had a eggs benedict and a latte. The eggs were superb and not overcooked, like they were the last I was there. AE and I went in WholeFoods for a bit and GM headed back to his new home in Charleston.

As soon as I got home, my parents and I watched the movie, the Constant Gardener. Flashbacks in the story made it a little confusing at first, but I thought it was a very good movie about evil drug companies. It was written by Le Carre, so it's not surprising that it had a good plot.

That night, I went over to JJ and JA's to play music. We spent a lot of time working on Jingle Bells, which was fun. JJ picked up Chinese food from Shanghai. After dinner, we watched the Christmas Story, which I hadn't seen in about 20 years.

Mousetraps and Ticket Acquisition

Yesterday, I went back on support, so things at work were somewhat more mentally hectic than they were for the previous three days of coding/investigation.

I had lunch with NP (and briefly CB) at the Refectory. I ate quiche, a small salad and a popover, which was similar to the quiche, but fluffier. NP was recommending strategies for keeping a cat from getting outside if I were to get a kitten, which he strongly recommended. We argued somewhat over whether my hypothetical kitten should be male or female. I was arguing that I'd rather get a male, based on the personalities of male cats I've had. He was arguing for a female since females would be less rambunctious and less likely to try to leave the house. I recently told a friend that her dog is welcome to stay in my house whenever she comes to visit, so for this and many other reasons I think this discussion was completely academic for the time being, despite the fact that there's a large mouse living in my garage.

I don't claim to understand why I dislike the idea of standard mousetraps, but a cat's playful rodent torture doesn't seem so bad. I, however, would rather not be a witness to either.

Last night I met AE, KD, GM, DS, JB, JH and KR for dinner at Chai's. GM is visiting from Charleston for the first time since late July, so it's been great to see him. I actually hadn't seen JB in the same length of time, so I was finally able to give him a well traveled stuffed frog for LB, which had been living in my van for a good while. I had a chicken walnut roll, which was quite good. We went to Shade Tree Coffee afterwards. Overall, I had a splendid time.

This morning I ordered Billy Joel concert tickets. What was interesting is that there didn't seem to be a way to specify that I wanted accessible seats. Maybe I just missed it somewhere, but the only way to get them that I saw was to check the box indicating that I couldn't see letters in the CAPTCHA. Then it suggested that perhaps if I can't see it, I might want accessible seating. That's completely bizarre! Fortunately, I got the seats that I wanted and they weren't horribly expensive compared to when I saw Billy Joel and Elton John a few years ago.