What happened? I take a few days off from blogging, and suddenly my hits plummet! That's kinda funny because it's like everyone in the WORLD has fallen into the holiday spirit of becoming fat, lazy, and happy :o) !
This week was D's birthday. Paul, Cathy, D, and I have sort of started a tradition of going to a legendary NYC restaurant for each of our birthdays. Cathy got Peter Luger's, I got Le Souk, and D picked Tao. The place was packed with frolicking girls looking to become mistresses for old Upper East Side curmudgens, young lawyers with their sport coats and suits, and apparently, move stars. But, we didn't see any that night. The food and environment were awesome though, with a huge buddha at one end of the three level room and gigantic Chinese tapestries lilting from the cealing. The food? Pan-Asiatic and awesome! I particularly liked the tuna sashimi with a small slice of jalapeno (sort of like the ones you get on your nachos at ballgames, except they taste good). Mmmmm...my mouth waters just thinking about it. Maybe I should have eaten more than an avocado and pita chips for dinner tonight, especially after that workout....
I've been thinking about vacations for next year and, in true holiday spirit, losing sleep over it. I have a friend getting married in Poland in August and have been invited to go on a three week expedition to Argentina with Paul and Cathy + Cathy's relatives, who have contacts and friends down there. In September. With my two weeks of vacation. Hmm...I'm not quite sure how that's going to work out. I haven't mentioned it to my boss yet, but I'm thinking "sabbatical". My employer will probably be thinking "pink slip". So we'll see how that shakes out in a few months.
There was something else significant I was going to blog about that I thought about in the sauna after the gym tonight. It was going to be magnificent. It was going to allow me to interact with my audience. It was really a brilliant idea. But, alas, I'm blonde. I'll think of it when I'm crammed in the subway tomorrow morning and don't have enough free space to blog from my cell phone.....
Write comments, people!!
J. Riley
I'm back. I just realized that my title makes no sense because I lost that thought. Anyways, over Thanksgiving I got rid of my old computer and backed up a bunch of old pictures and documents from college to my new computer. It was pretty funny going back and reading some of the stuff I wrote earlier this week, like letters to friends (pre-email), looking at digital pics I took of things like the world's largest pizza ever ordered by my roommate and I in Sunnyvale, CA (I think it fed us for a week or something), and pictures from a gathering that I couldn't remember taking place :o/ . Gee, and I wonder why I didn't get any work done this week....
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Monday, November 29, 2004
Note To Self:
Happy Holidays! So last night I was standing in the mile-long taxi line at LaGuardia Airport at 12:30am and an idea hit me after waiting about a half hour in the line. Maybe, just maybe, one of the other thousands of people in this taxi line are going to Manhattan, like me. I know it's a long shot, but I would have put money down that there was at least one other person going to Manhattan. I looked at the couple in front of me and the guy behind me and thought, yea, they might be going to Manhattan. But I wasn't in a sociable mood, so I left it at that. Another ten minutes go by and right when I hit the front of the line, somebody else was hit with a similar idea and a lady and gentleman asked if anyone else was going to Manhattan. Quickly realizing that this was an opportunity to save some cash, I volunteered to share my cab. It was a win-win situation for both of us, they didn't have to wait in the line and I didn't have to pay the full fare. Why don't people do this more often at the airport? I mean, probably at least 50% of the people are going to the same 12x3 mile island, so it makes perfect sense. I ended up paying $10 for door to door service rather than the $25-$30 it would have cost me if I rode alone. It doesn't get any cheaper than that, folks....
I had a great trip back to Cali for the past few days for Thanksgiving. It wasn't warm enough for me to work on my tan, but I guess the company of friends and family more than made up for that! I even scored on the shopping front, purchasing a new pair of running shoes for $30 and finding a hip Sears & Roebuck jacket, light blue with white paint and black grease stains galore, in my dad's closet that he probably hadn't worn in about 10 years....
The J. Riley
I had a great trip back to Cali for the past few days for Thanksgiving. It wasn't warm enough for me to work on my tan, but I guess the company of friends and family more than made up for that! I even scored on the shopping front, purchasing a new pair of running shoes for $30 and finding a hip Sears & Roebuck jacket, light blue with white paint and black grease stains galore, in my dad's closet that he probably hadn't worn in about 10 years....
The J. Riley
Monday, November 22, 2004
Bushwhacked!
Tonight, my schedule was bushwhacked - and I'm not referring to the movie, the book, or any other media piece about the effect of President Bush on our country. My Spanish teacher went off and got sick on us, leaving me with a big hole in my Monday night schedule. Luckily, my favorite Yoga class (which I normally have to miss) is at the same location, so I walked downstairs to the gym. But I was bushwhacked! I didn't have my yoga clothes with me! Rats. So, I decided since I'm there, I could always go to the sauna, because clothes are not optional in a sauna. But, yet again - bushwhacked! Since I had the Justin-the-academic backpack with me rather than the Justin-the-super-athlete backpack, I didn't have my padlock with me. I huffed and I puffed, and I walked home.
Maybe I need to create a contingency plan for all of my events, in the event that someone bushwhacks my schedule next time. Great, something else for me to lose sleep over....
Carpe Diem,
J. Riley
Maybe I need to create a contingency plan for all of my events, in the event that someone bushwhacks my schedule next time. Great, something else for me to lose sleep over....
Carpe Diem,
J. Riley
Sunday, November 21, 2004
Latest Major Purchase
Maybe it's the new job, but I seem to be going out of control on spending my money lately. I've been thinking about this latest purchase for at least two weeks, losing sleep over whether or not it was worth buying or not. I thought about trying to find it on sale or maybe searching the internet for coupons, but just the thought of dedicating that much time made me very self-conscience. I contemplated putting it on my Christmas wish list, but I just wouldn't feel right putting it down and actually expecting (or hoping) someone would come through and spare me the drama of buying it. Today, at around 12:37pm, I decided that it was something I could not live without anymore. And I walked down and made the purchase. I am now the very, very, very proud owner of 80 sheets of Snuggle Botanical Bliss fabric softener sheets. Actually, make that 78 sheets now...
In an effort to make purchases of grand spectacle like these seem more reasonable, I've been taking measures to save money. For the last two weeks, I have more or less consistently been making my lunch at home every morning before heading off to work. Spending $8 a day (at least) on lunch can really break the bank over time. In addition, and more significantly, I have been trying to reduce my booze intake in public places over the last month, which can potentially save me $60-$100 per weekend. Of course, this hasn't been taking place purely for financial reasons, but, more importantly, for both philosophical and health reasons (note the reduction in chalazion occurrences ;o) . I've been happy with the results, and for the first time in months I have made contributions to my savings account (in addition to my automatic withdrawls for investing at the beginning of the month).
In accordance with my new healthy, strict lifestyle, I went to Alan's house Friday night to make some dinner. I had a ton of organic veggies that I needed to use up, so I waltzed over to his place around 8:00. He bought some (organic, on my insistence) chicken breasts use as a side dish for our dinner. We popped a bottle of not-so-good Merlot (we didn't want to waste it, though, so we struggled through it) soon after I arrived while Andrea sipped her French martinis. The boys got to work in the kitchen, me cooking up some delicata and striped squash with maple syrup glaze as well as fresh green beans with honey-lemon vinagrette and roasted pine nuts. Alan put his apron to work on chicken cooked in broth and bourbon. Andrea....read a magazine.
Dinner was great (and cheap), so we went ahead and popped another bottle of better-tasting wine while Andrea continued drinking her Vodka and Pucker paint-thinner drinks. We decided to play some Balderdash, which I hadn't played before. In a nutshell, a topic is read and each participant writes the definition or what have you and you try to guess the one that is actually correct. Well, suffice to say that by the time the second bottle of wine was done, the alcohol-induced definitions weren't really G-rated anymore and so Andrea scalded us and I ended up the winner. :)
Saturday was a crazy day. To begin with, my thoughts go out to the Arnaudo family who lost Grandma Rita this weekend. Many of you knew were fortunate, as I was, to hear her stories about Los Gatos before the Silicon Valley SUV's moved in and have a classic Italian dinner at her house over the years. She will be missed by many people in Los Gatos and by our and her friends and family around the world. Her passing ends a chapter of the original Italian families that helped bring the Bay Area intoworld prominence as an agricultural center.
After waking up around noon, I got on the phone with Stefan to help him with some web page stuff. At about 3:00, I decided to get dressed for the day and go down to watch the Real Madrid vs. Barcelona FC soccer game, which are basically like two of the best teams in the world. Stefan broke the news to me about Grandma Rita right before I arrived and it cast a dark cloud over me the rest of the day. When I arrived at the bar showing the soccer game, I found a line around the block to get in and see the game. Who are these soccer fans, and why haven't I met them before!?!? By that time, the bar was already full, so about 40 of us broke rank and crowded around the window in the door to try to catch Ronaldhino jinking and tricking the defenders with Brazillian passion while Zinidene Zidane roamed the midfield with his talismic French character, looking to punch holes through to his Brazillian and Spanish forwards. As fun as it was to sit outside in 40 degree weather and a crooked head, trying to make out the dots on the TV monitors inside, I gave up after half time and left with game being broken open by the speedy Ivorian Samuel Eto'o and Dutchman Giovanne van Brockhorst's left foot.
After wandering around downtown for a few hours and reading a few chapters of a book on Real Madrid and David Beckham, I met up with a former coworker and friend of mine who is (finally) leaving EY and moving to Africa (Mauritania, mom) to work as a voluteer for a year. Chatting it up with him and his friends helped me break out of my anti-social state-of-mind. After dinner, I met up with my buddy Sean, who rummaged up some girls he knew from the spa to go out with us. Yes, in true New York fashion, Sean does go to a spa and get facials. A true Upper East Side metrosexual, no doubt ;o) .
So the four of us headed down to catch some live music in Greenwhich Village and chill out with a glass of wine or something. The amazing part of the evening was that, of all places in the city, I ran into Baltimore Jenn in the same bar. I guess great minds think alike ;o). She had friends in town from down in Maryland and Virginia and I was just amazed that we would end up in the same place. So we chit-chatted briefly before the four of us headed back up to the Upper East Side and somehow ended up in the Euro-trashy restaurant Baraonda, where the gorgeous and glamorous hang out. Never a dull moment in the packed indoor area that felt more like a club than a restaurant with their Latin, American, and Middle-Eastern music blasting out of the corners....
Today, I contemplated the meaning of life and whether that meaning required the use of fabric softener. The apartment is clean, the clothes are botanic blissfully clean, and I am living static free for another 78 loads of laundry!
Carpe Diem, see some of you next week for Thanksgiving...
J. Riley
P.S. I've got a new "Comment" deal down below, so check it out and drop me a line!
In an effort to make purchases of grand spectacle like these seem more reasonable, I've been taking measures to save money. For the last two weeks, I have more or less consistently been making my lunch at home every morning before heading off to work. Spending $8 a day (at least) on lunch can really break the bank over time. In addition, and more significantly, I have been trying to reduce my booze intake in public places over the last month, which can potentially save me $60-$100 per weekend. Of course, this hasn't been taking place purely for financial reasons, but, more importantly, for both philosophical and health reasons (note the reduction in chalazion occurrences ;o) . I've been happy with the results, and for the first time in months I have made contributions to my savings account (in addition to my automatic withdrawls for investing at the beginning of the month).
In accordance with my new healthy, strict lifestyle, I went to Alan's house Friday night to make some dinner. I had a ton of organic veggies that I needed to use up, so I waltzed over to his place around 8:00. He bought some (organic, on my insistence) chicken breasts use as a side dish for our dinner. We popped a bottle of not-so-good Merlot (we didn't want to waste it, though, so we struggled through it) soon after I arrived while Andrea sipped her French martinis. The boys got to work in the kitchen, me cooking up some delicata and striped squash with maple syrup glaze as well as fresh green beans with honey-lemon vinagrette and roasted pine nuts. Alan put his apron to work on chicken cooked in broth and bourbon. Andrea....read a magazine.
Dinner was great (and cheap), so we went ahead and popped another bottle of better-tasting wine while Andrea continued drinking her Vodka and Pucker paint-thinner drinks. We decided to play some Balderdash, which I hadn't played before. In a nutshell, a topic is read and each participant writes the definition or what have you and you try to guess the one that is actually correct. Well, suffice to say that by the time the second bottle of wine was done, the alcohol-induced definitions weren't really G-rated anymore and so Andrea scalded us and I ended up the winner. :)
Saturday was a crazy day. To begin with, my thoughts go out to the Arnaudo family who lost Grandma Rita this weekend. Many of you knew were fortunate, as I was, to hear her stories about Los Gatos before the Silicon Valley SUV's moved in and have a classic Italian dinner at her house over the years. She will be missed by many people in Los Gatos and by our and her friends and family around the world. Her passing ends a chapter of the original Italian families that helped bring the Bay Area intoworld prominence as an agricultural center.
After waking up around noon, I got on the phone with Stefan to help him with some web page stuff. At about 3:00, I decided to get dressed for the day and go down to watch the Real Madrid vs. Barcelona FC soccer game, which are basically like two of the best teams in the world. Stefan broke the news to me about Grandma Rita right before I arrived and it cast a dark cloud over me the rest of the day. When I arrived at the bar showing the soccer game, I found a line around the block to get in and see the game. Who are these soccer fans, and why haven't I met them before!?!? By that time, the bar was already full, so about 40 of us broke rank and crowded around the window in the door to try to catch Ronaldhino jinking and tricking the defenders with Brazillian passion while Zinidene Zidane roamed the midfield with his talismic French character, looking to punch holes through to his Brazillian and Spanish forwards. As fun as it was to sit outside in 40 degree weather and a crooked head, trying to make out the dots on the TV monitors inside, I gave up after half time and left with game being broken open by the speedy Ivorian Samuel Eto'o and Dutchman Giovanne van Brockhorst's left foot.
After wandering around downtown for a few hours and reading a few chapters of a book on Real Madrid and David Beckham, I met up with a former coworker and friend of mine who is (finally) leaving EY and moving to Africa (Mauritania, mom) to work as a voluteer for a year. Chatting it up with him and his friends helped me break out of my anti-social state-of-mind. After dinner, I met up with my buddy Sean, who rummaged up some girls he knew from the spa to go out with us. Yes, in true New York fashion, Sean does go to a spa and get facials. A true Upper East Side metrosexual, no doubt ;o) .
So the four of us headed down to catch some live music in Greenwhich Village and chill out with a glass of wine or something. The amazing part of the evening was that, of all places in the city, I ran into Baltimore Jenn in the same bar. I guess great minds think alike ;o). She had friends in town from down in Maryland and Virginia and I was just amazed that we would end up in the same place. So we chit-chatted briefly before the four of us headed back up to the Upper East Side and somehow ended up in the Euro-trashy restaurant Baraonda, where the gorgeous and glamorous hang out. Never a dull moment in the packed indoor area that felt more like a club than a restaurant with their Latin, American, and Middle-Eastern music blasting out of the corners....
Today, I contemplated the meaning of life and whether that meaning required the use of fabric softener. The apartment is clean, the clothes are botanic blissfully clean, and I am living static free for another 78 loads of laundry!
Carpe Diem, see some of you next week for Thanksgiving...
J. Riley
P.S. I've got a new "Comment" deal down below, so check it out and drop me a line!
Friday, November 19, 2004
What I Want for Christmas (Geeks-Eyes' Only)
I think I need this for my apartment so I can run X-Windows in Linux at reasonable speeds. I mean, built-in liquid-cooling? How tight is THAT?
Where'd I Put That Dunce Cap?
Wednesday night I was fortunate to have the opportunity to go to dinner with my new friend, Baltimore Jen. We headed out to La Paella down in the East Villiage for some healthy conversation, tapas, paella, sangria, and demonstration of my hair's attributes - the pigmentation, to be specific (see the next paragraph). Maybe we should have noted that the paella said "2 person minimum" before ordering up the tapas (stuffed peppers with goat cheese...yummy) as well as indulging ourselves with bread. Two paella plates each later (verrrrry slow plates on my side of the table, of course), we still had roughly half of the paella, shellfish, lamb, and chicken left to eat, which would prove to be vital to providing me with calories at lunchtime on Thursday in preperation for my regularly scheduled cardio class at the gym.
Thursday morning, I quickly realized that I had lost my debit card somewhere along the way. Thinking back to the last time this happened (a span of maybe three weeks, folks...), I figured I left it at the restaurant. What is ironic about this situation is that Paul, Cathy, and Dee have been pestering me lately about getting a credit card so that I can be protected in the event that I lose my credit card or wallet (hey, it's not like I have a HISTORY of losing these things....oh, wait, nevermind. ;o) I refuse to change my position on the issue, although I'm beginnging to soften my stance. Especially when I do things like leave debit/credit cards at restaurants on a regular basis, as the trend indicates....
In other news, I'm happy to say that roughly 50% of my blog hits are coming from Firefox now. Thank you to everyone who upgraded, you saved me the trouble of trying to figure out how to trick Google/Blogger.com into allowing me to block hits from Internet Explorer. Once I established the obvious link between using Internet Explorer and supporting George W. Bush, the Euros quickly made the switch. During the consultation phase of demonstrating Firefox's badass-ness, I was able to demonstrate to Alex the power of Firefox by showing him all the spyware that was in his computer. We cleaned him up with Ad-aware and some registry hacks, but it just goes to show what happens when you use something as un-secure as Internet Explorer. You people think I'm lying, but I'm not.... :o)
Yesterday I bought tickets for some Lake Tahoe skiing during a weekend in late February with a bunch of former coworkers. Who woulda thunk that I could get round trip tickets for a measley $185 from San Jo to NYC? Siblings, you really have no excuses for not having visited me yet, especially with these prices. Or at least for planning to visit me. Summer, I recommend that you come before you graduate since you know that your trip will be significantly subsidized ;o) .... Faryn, you too....
Note to self: consider eating Tibetan vegetarian food sometime at Tsampa, which is near La Paella.
Thursday morning, I quickly realized that I had lost my debit card somewhere along the way. Thinking back to the last time this happened (a span of maybe three weeks, folks...), I figured I left it at the restaurant. What is ironic about this situation is that Paul, Cathy, and Dee have been pestering me lately about getting a credit card so that I can be protected in the event that I lose my credit card or wallet (hey, it's not like I have a HISTORY of losing these things....oh, wait, nevermind. ;o) I refuse to change my position on the issue, although I'm beginnging to soften my stance. Especially when I do things like leave debit/credit cards at restaurants on a regular basis, as the trend indicates....
In other news, I'm happy to say that roughly 50% of my blog hits are coming from Firefox now. Thank you to everyone who upgraded, you saved me the trouble of trying to figure out how to trick Google/Blogger.com into allowing me to block hits from Internet Explorer. Once I established the obvious link between using Internet Explorer and supporting George W. Bush, the Euros quickly made the switch. During the consultation phase of demonstrating Firefox's badass-ness, I was able to demonstrate to Alex the power of Firefox by showing him all the spyware that was in his computer. We cleaned him up with Ad-aware and some registry hacks, but it just goes to show what happens when you use something as un-secure as Internet Explorer. You people think I'm lying, but I'm not.... :o)
Yesterday I bought tickets for some Lake Tahoe skiing during a weekend in late February with a bunch of former coworkers. Who woulda thunk that I could get round trip tickets for a measley $185 from San Jo to NYC? Siblings, you really have no excuses for not having visited me yet, especially with these prices. Or at least for planning to visit me. Summer, I recommend that you come before you graduate since you know that your trip will be significantly subsidized ;o) .... Faryn, you too....
Note to self: consider eating Tibetan vegetarian food sometime at Tsampa, which is near La Paella.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Readers who need to upgrade to Firefox
OK, I warned you to upgrade to Firefox. Please note that Firefox is created by the open-source community, who is quite notorious for being fanatically liberal (politically speaking). By supporting Internet Explorer (as you violators currently do), you are supporting Microsoft and, therefore, are supporting the Republican party. In other words, if you're not using Firefox, you are supporting Bush. How's that for slippery-slope? Here's the list:
Alexander, please download and install Firefox (click here)
Rebecca, please download and install Firefox (click here)
Summer, please download and install Firefox (click here)
Nana, please download and install Firefox (click here)
I'm going to consider setting up a page to block people who use Internet Explorer, just to make my point. It's a small download (4.5mb), so you would be wise to go ahead and start preventing viruses, trojans, and spyware from invading your computer.
In other news, I played three or four games of racketball tonight (my blood blister is still flourishing on my thumb, but the activities didn't piss it off) and continued my out-of-form (as they say in soccer news) streak by losing all three. All I gotta say is that payback is a bitch, and thou who art challenging me to a game will feel my wrath on thy backhand.
Tomorrow I'm taking Jenn out to dinner. I believe that tapas are definitely in order....
The J. Riley
I'm going to consider setting up a page to block people who use Internet Explorer, just to make my point. It's a small download (4.5mb), so you would be wise to go ahead and start preventing viruses, trojans, and spyware from invading your computer.
In other news, I played three or four games of racketball tonight (my blood blister is still flourishing on my thumb, but the activities didn't piss it off) and continued my out-of-form (as they say in soccer news) streak by losing all three. All I gotta say is that payback is a bitch, and thou who art challenging me to a game will feel my wrath on thy backhand.
Tomorrow I'm taking Jenn out to dinner. I believe that tapas are definitely in order....
The J. Riley
Monday, November 15, 2004
To Russia, With Love
Today I began my regularly scheduled walking tour of the area that I'm working in, and this month it's South Brooklyn. More specifically, Brighton Beach / Coney Island. Yes, the same Coney Island where they have the infamous Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest every Fourth of July weekend. Yes, the Coney Island that has the east-coast equivalent of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Yes, the Coney Island that has inspired the delictable "Coney Island Hot Dog", which has....some kind of ingredients on it that...are...from...Coney Island (OK, I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I know such a thing exists, just like the elusive minivan taxi here in NYC!!) Coney Island (which isn't really an island) is home to America's connection to the Russian mafia and thousands of other Russians. So, today I ate some authentic beef stroganov served by a lovely Russian gal at a coffee cafe that was playing Euro-techno and was filled with the sweet music of the Russian language (:-\ ??). In the heart of Brighton Beach, which I caught a glimpse of when passing it on the subway, has Russian signs on buildings (and no English) and the beach itself looked marvelous with our beautiful, warm (~55 degrees), sunny afternoon. I was tempted to take my three layers off and go for a skinny dip, but I withheld the urge...for any spectators sake.
I realized that I haven't given anyone an update on my Spanish classes. I will not embarrass myself by attempting to write something legible, but suffice to say that the further I get in Spanish, the better I realize my German is. Now that I'm thinking about it, I can see that my German is actually pretty good. I can put sentences together with ease, I can conjugate verbs without thinking about it, and my vocabulary is pretty extensive. It's a good feeling to realize how far I've come with learning a foreign language and to realize that the five years of German I took and the two summers I spent there were not wasted! On that note, someone told me about a website called meetup.com that has all sorts of random meeting groups for a million different events, including one for people like me that want to practice speaking German. So, I went ahead and signed up for that one, maybe I'll miss a Thursday-night cardio class sometime and meet up with some other kraut-speakers at Hallo Berlin down in Hell's Kitchen (I love saying that!) for some beers and bratwursts...or knockwursts....or tueringers...or bockwursts...or weisswursts....or....well, you get the idea.
Bis dann,
J. Riley
I realized that I haven't given anyone an update on my Spanish classes. I will not embarrass myself by attempting to write something legible, but suffice to say that the further I get in Spanish, the better I realize my German is. Now that I'm thinking about it, I can see that my German is actually pretty good. I can put sentences together with ease, I can conjugate verbs without thinking about it, and my vocabulary is pretty extensive. It's a good feeling to realize how far I've come with learning a foreign language and to realize that the five years of German I took and the two summers I spent there were not wasted! On that note, someone told me about a website called meetup.com that has all sorts of random meeting groups for a million different events, including one for people like me that want to practice speaking German. So, I went ahead and signed up for that one, maybe I'll miss a Thursday-night cardio class sometime and meet up with some other kraut-speakers at Hallo Berlin down in Hell's Kitchen (I love saying that!) for some beers and bratwursts...or knockwursts....or tueringers...or bockwursts...or weisswursts....or....well, you get the idea.
Bis dann,
J. Riley
Sunday, November 14, 2004
How Many Blondes Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb?
Well, I'm checking in with my weekly weekend update blog. Like most weekends recently, it's been busy, it's been late, and it's been COLD! Ladies and gentleman, winter is here, whether we like it or not. There were reports of snow in Jersey on Friday night / Saturday morning, and my layer-count increased to three on Saturday, not including gloves, scarf, and beanie hat....
Friday, to add to the unpleasant temperature, we were inundated with some rain and heavy winds. However, even this wouldn't prevent me from attending my first cooking class in New York downtown in the Murray Hill area. The theme for this class is eating well and living well, so there were only fresh, organic vegetables used as ingredients. And only organic wine was drinken...drunken...drunk?? In any case, the class was a great way to spend a Friday night, meeting a group of about 10 people and a wide variety of age groups. We were given recipes and cooked up an autumn dinner, from adzuki bean soup to Delicata squash, black rice, and green beans. and it was wonderful! I plan on putting some of these recipes to use in the near future to impress my guests. "Oh, it's just something I threw together"...
Speaking of impressing guests with my cooking, I may have the opporunity to invite someone I met on Saturday over for a little dining delite and conversation. Saturday was my monthly engagement at a Hell's Kitchen housing center with some kids. This month, we took the kids to the Sony Wonderlabs, which is basically like a place that kids can go to and play with multimedia items that teach them a little about technology today (and sends subliminal messages to ask for Sony gadgets for Christmas). I was hoping that some of the volunteers from last month would be there again because it was a great group. Unfortunately, there was only one repeat volunteer, an intruiging young lady named Jen that I got along with very well last month. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to meet up with her in the very near future....
After "saving the world" (as some of my friends call it), I did a little shopping for some work pants at Jos. A Bank. Paul just returned from his second business trip to Israel in three weeks, so I met up with him and Cathy to try to get lottery tickets to see Rent! on Broadway. After being unsuccessful, we headed over to another street to try to get standing room or cheap tickets to something else. We struck gold at the theater playing "Dracula", $21 student fare for upper orchestra seats. We all whipped out our Cal Poly ID's and were golden.
I have to admit something: Dracula just plain and simply freaks me out. I envision Translyvania as a dark, mystic place with ghosts and vampires flying around. What is it about "Transexual....transvestites....from Tra-tra-tra-Transylvaaaaniaaaa" (Rocky Horror Picture Show)? I don't know, but one of these days maybe I'll get over it and take a trip to Romania to visit Vlad the Impaler's castle and get over this dracularphobia.
In any case, the show was mediocre, it was worth seeing for $21! The singing was good, but the melodies didn't sound right to me. The killer part of the show was all of the flying and physically suspended effects that the characters went through. Oh yea, and the part where the main actress pulls her dress down to her waist ;-) . Cool stuff! The story line was typical Dracula, cheesy at some points, freaky creepy at others....
Sunday I spent half the day trying to fix a guy I know's computer (stupid CDROM hardware issue - nothing I can do about that!). And also trying to change a LIGHTBULB! How hard can that be? Well, it's pretty tough if you're blonde. My badass chrome halogen light went out the other day and, after a trip to the local hardware store, I had my part. Except that now the lightbulb doesn't FIT into the spot?!?!? Does anyone have any hints? It's the right part, but it just isn't quite wide enough for both sides of the lightbulb contacts to touch. I guess I don't have the mechanic in me like....my sister does :-
J. Riley
Friday, to add to the unpleasant temperature, we were inundated with some rain and heavy winds. However, even this wouldn't prevent me from attending my first cooking class in New York downtown in the Murray Hill area. The theme for this class is eating well and living well, so there were only fresh, organic vegetables used as ingredients. And only organic wine was drinken...drunken...drunk?? In any case, the class was a great way to spend a Friday night, meeting a group of about 10 people and a wide variety of age groups. We were given recipes and cooked up an autumn dinner, from adzuki bean soup to Delicata squash, black rice, and green beans. and it was wonderful! I plan on putting some of these recipes to use in the near future to impress my guests. "Oh, it's just something I threw together"...
Speaking of impressing guests with my cooking, I may have the opporunity to invite someone I met on Saturday over for a little dining delite and conversation. Saturday was my monthly engagement at a Hell's Kitchen housing center with some kids. This month, we took the kids to the Sony Wonderlabs, which is basically like a place that kids can go to and play with multimedia items that teach them a little about technology today (and sends subliminal messages to ask for Sony gadgets for Christmas). I was hoping that some of the volunteers from last month would be there again because it was a great group. Unfortunately, there was only one repeat volunteer, an intruiging young lady named Jen that I got along with very well last month. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to meet up with her in the very near future....
After "saving the world" (as some of my friends call it), I did a little shopping for some work pants at Jos. A Bank. Paul just returned from his second business trip to Israel in three weeks, so I met up with him and Cathy to try to get lottery tickets to see Rent! on Broadway. After being unsuccessful, we headed over to another street to try to get standing room or cheap tickets to something else. We struck gold at the theater playing "Dracula", $21 student fare for upper orchestra seats. We all whipped out our Cal Poly ID's and were golden.
I have to admit something: Dracula just plain and simply freaks me out. I envision Translyvania as a dark, mystic place with ghosts and vampires flying around. What is it about "Transexual....transvestites....from Tra-tra-tra-Transylvaaaaniaaaa" (Rocky Horror Picture Show)? I don't know, but one of these days maybe I'll get over it and take a trip to Romania to visit Vlad the Impaler's castle and get over this dracularphobia.
In any case, the show was mediocre, it was worth seeing for $21! The singing was good, but the melodies didn't sound right to me. The killer part of the show was all of the flying and physically suspended effects that the characters went through. Oh yea, and the part where the main actress pulls her dress down to her waist ;-) . Cool stuff! The story line was typical Dracula, cheesy at some points, freaky creepy at others....
Sunday I spent half the day trying to fix a guy I know's computer (stupid CDROM hardware issue - nothing I can do about that!). And also trying to change a LIGHTBULB! How hard can that be? Well, it's pretty tough if you're blonde. My badass chrome halogen light went out the other day and, after a trip to the local hardware store, I had my part. Except that now the lightbulb doesn't FIT into the spot?!?!? Does anyone have any hints? It's the right part, but it just isn't quite wide enough for both sides of the lightbulb contacts to touch. I guess I don't have the mechanic in me like....my sister does :-
J. Riley
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