Halcyon Repose

Brenden has been planning a trip to Europe to train for most of the summer. Not the first time for him, after all he has to keep up with his own training, and it hopefully won’t be the last. The only reason I bring this up, is that he will be spending 3 weeks training at various clubs in Paris, France. He managed to get himself setup in an apartment for his stay, and a few weeks ago he sent an open invitations to crash to anyone who wanted to come visit.

Now that is an opportunity worth looking into. I checked some airline sites, and the cheapest ticket I could get was for about $800 round trip. If I had thought about it a few weeks prior I could have easily afforded it in lieu of getting some upgrades for the car, but it was a bit too late for that. At this point I was more than willing to go into debt to make the trip, after all, it might be awhile before I would get another shot at Europe. Unfortunately I keep my credit card limits very low, and I didn’t have enough left on the cards for the purchase. So off to the bank I go to apply for a BoA credit card. I assume my credit will support it, and if I get it soon enough, I can still get good prices on tickets.

Fast forward to two days ago. A friend of the fencing center who is in the airline industry gave Brenden a ride to the airport, and Brenden dropped the fact that I was looking to go, assuming I could afford it. I then receive an email yesterday offering me a Companion Pass for my flight to Paris. This brings the flight to a very affordable $500 (give or take). This of course has me very excited, and moves this trip into the realm of “very possibly going to happen”. Hopefully by the end of the week I should have a schedule all laid out and plans in concrete. *Hope Hope Hope*

I recently uncovered Poe’s website that proves that she is alive and kicking.

http://realpoe.com/
http://www.myspace.com/poe

The thought of more Poe goodness at some point in the future makes me very happy. I got a chance to catch her in concert back in Nashville and I must say, she is one of my favorite live performers ever.

YouTube and Joe have offered to help ease the pain of withdrawels.

Hello
Hey Pretty
Angry Johnny
My Lips are Sealed
MTV brings us some higher quality vids along with “Trigger Happy Jack” Unfortunately includes commercials before the goodness.

Early last week, I took a step towards bettering myself. I went to a Japanese market with the intention of buying something other than Japanese sweets. A week or so ago I got the urge to look up a curry udon recipe to see how difficult it would be (http://japanesefood.about.com/od/udon/r/curryudon.htm). Totally manageable, so I then started on the next and hardest part of my quest. I knew the ingredients that I needed, in fact, they were all familiar to me. Joe had introduced me to dashi once when he was in town when we made an oyakodon, and the curry I was well familiar with, even though I had never actually made any before.

My biggest fear was that I would get to the store, and I would be up against a wall of various colored liquids in a bottle as I vainly tried to figure out what the kanji for Mirin was. So I steeled myself and made the journey to Mitsuwa, where things were not as bleak as I had imagined. There was typically at least one brand of whatever I was looking for that had blissful romanji on the packaging, and the shelve tags were all in romaji as well. It turned out my biggest difficulty was in trying to decide what type of udon noodles to get. There had to have been over a dozen different kind of dried uncooked udon noodles, and I had no idea which were the ideal for my curry udon. After finally settling on a type, I ended up finding some frozen udon noodles in the freezer section, and seeing as how they were more immediately recognizable, I cheated and got a package of those instead.

I went a little crazy while I was there and got every thing I needed for my curry udon, plus some more curry for a possible night of standard curry, and some chicken and panko bread crumbs for a chicken katsu donburi.

I got home and immediately discovered that among the food that Joe had left me when he left the country, I had enough rice noodles and dashi to feed myself on donburi for the rest of my life (not quite but I did have a lot). I ended up making a donburi for myself, Kenny, and Kara that night. Kenny got the first batch since he has an aversion to onions, and as such he got to be my first test subject. He said it was good, but apparently the rice noodles were still a bit chewy. I realized that I hadn’t used any water, just soy and mirin, so when I made Kara’s and mine, I threw in generous amounts of water to soften the noodles (it wasn’t until later that I remembered that this is what we used the dashi for when Joe first showed me how to make it). The second batch came out well, I must say, even though I ended up scrambling the eggs in with everything too much, and there was no real juices left to soak into the rice. I still need to work on that bit, but it was still mucho tasty. I think a smaller pan will help a lot for when I decide to make some again.

Tonight I decided to try my hand at the curry udon. It was about 5pm, and I was trying to decide if I should cook something, or go to the gym. Seeing as how I was extremely hungry, the gym lost. So I ran to the store to get some potatoes and carrots for the curry, while I was driving back, I saw a cute girl jogging down the road. This sort of sparked some inner guilt, so I got home, threw every thing on the counter and went to the gym for a few hours. Upon returning I set about my project.

First up was the beef, which I had purchased earlier in the week. Into the skillet along with the onions and carrots. While they simmered I got out the largest pot I had, and mixed up the 8 cups of water required by the single package of dashi. In went the potatoes, curry, and the beef and veggies from the sauté pan. I brought to a boil, let simmer, and then added 4 servings of udon noodles. Added a little soy sauce (taste test confirmed this made a huge difference), and then I let it simmer for as long as possible. I should mention that the curry was about half an inch away from the top of the pot.. so this recipe will feed a small army. About 10 o’clock my hunger overtook me and I spooned out a bowl for myself and spooned the remaining udon into 3 tupperware containers which went into the fridge (4 servings on the nose).

I must say, while it was not the best curry udon I have had (Shin-Sen-Gumi’s has kick ass curry udon if anyone is interested), I will say it was better than most I have tried. I can imagine that left-overs will be even better after everything gets to soak up the curry for a few days. All in all I will say this was a big success. And of course I have overcome the hurdle of the first try. I won’t be as hesitant to try cooking some again, and I have a couple of ideas on what I will do differently next time. All in all, it is a pretty cheap meal considering how many people it feeds. After I get finish polishing off the left-overs, I think I’ll pick up some more chicken and try some chicken katsu curry. Yum!

Teaching various martial arts, I have noticed how different kids interact to different situations and to each other. I have always enjoyed people watching, and specifically watching the social interactions that make up people’s everyday life.

MSN had an interesting article up about how the latest generation of kids are turning out to be overanxious thanks to growing up in an environment where mom and dad provide everything including the solutions to all of the problems thier child will face in life.

http://health.msn.com/pregnancykids/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100142037&GT

It is a long article and worth the read. Interestingly enough, there is a section on cell phone use and how they might influence the social and mental developement of youth today. Their use is something I have commented on, but I never connected that it might have further reaching and deeper impacts beyond the obvious.

People never check to make sure the water bottle is empty at the water cooler.

So things are finally starting to cool down here in Southern California, much to everyone’s relief. Sure 90 degree days and 80 degree nights aren’t bad, but when you have no air conditioning, you have the fan on full blast, and you are still sweating buckets while trying to go to sleep, it can get rather annoying. I didn’t want to spend any time upstairs in my room, so it was out and about in the sunshine trying to keep myself from remembering how hot it really was.

An old fencing friend was in town this week. Whenever he comes in we all go to Louis’s restaurant and indulge ourselves in good food, good friends, and some good wine. This time was no exception and while I spent more money than I actually had, it was worth it.

Assuming we get a bonus at work, I am seriously thinking about a motorbike. Something small to learn on. Of course this means I will have to go take the motorbike training class, and spends lots of money on protective gear, but the end result will be some transportation that will help mitigate the gas consumed by my monster of a Mustang.

Music – Once More with Feeling — Buffy

Well I managed to finish my list, and in the process started recauling the outside of the bathtubs. The townhome we are in is a few decades old, and apparently so is all the caulking around the tub and toilets. All of it has turned a nasty black color, and is in dire need of replacing. Just from what little I have done, I can tell this will be a big improvement on how things look.

Ed has been MIA from the house ever since he got engaged with his girlfriend and she got her own apartment (and 56′ TV), and Kenneth is out of town for work (if you can call going to a gaming convention work, I am sure it is, but on a different level than most people are used to).

I figured I would lean back and chill all weekend, but after one night of chlling I started to go stir crazy. Today I had planned to wash my car, and also my roommate’s car, just to be a nice guy, but as I was cleaning up a pile of cat vomit (gotta love my little rodents) I went to flush it in my roommates’ bathroom, and I noticed how entirely and utterly nasty it is in there. So I decided to change plans for today. I’ll still wash my car (and hopefully get a chance to get to the beach for some rollar blading or biking) but I am also going to clean their bathroom (and mine while I am at it) top to bottom. Since Ed is gone, that means I can leave the life and death of the bathroom to Kenny, since he is the only one that will be using it. I can understand the frustration of sharing cleaning responsibilities on a shared bathroom, so Kenny will get to start with a clean slate (haha).

A total list of things I am hoping to get taken care of today while I am at it:

Clean bathrooms
Empty Kitty Litter box (poor kitties, I have neglected their box for a week)
Vacuum
Clean cobwebs from the ceiling (gogo extendable vacuum wand)
Wash Car
Laundary (whites, colors, and linens)

It’s been a long time between posts, so I’ll try to play some quick catch up.

Car

My car is still doing well, in the first two months, I am approaching 3k miles, which is more than I would like (esp considering gas prices) but she still runs like a dream. I did have one small incident involving my door handle and the side of the garage (after I spent 3 hours detailing it no less). Good news was that after checking it out and then walking away in disgust, my roommate was looking at it a few days later and noticed that it didn’t seem to be a scratch into the door handle, but stuff on the door handle. Sure enough, after I attacked it with a buffing cloth and pocket knife, I was soon rewarded with an almost mint condition door handle. Three coats of wax for the win!

I normally do something minor to my car within the first few months, and I always left the damage there as a ward against other mistakes, but not getting my handle fixed never even crossed my mind. When I thought of the body work I was going to have to get done if the paint was damaged on the handle, I immediately realized I needed to get into gear and sell my old Integra to help cover repair costs. I was planning on doing some more work to it, but I wanted money fast, so I cleaned up the exterior as much as I could given the car’s dire need of a new paint job. I grabbed some images for posting on recycler.com and craigslist.com, and planned on cleaning up the rest of the car the next night. Not 10 minutes after I posted the ad on craigslist.com the next morning, I had a phone call asking about the listing. Throughout the day I had about 15 phone calls and 5 emails. With that much interest I wasn’t going to drop the asking price one dime till every one of those people turned me down. I told people that I was going to be home at 7, and all of them wanted to be there right at 7. I sort of feel bad for not making appointments, I mean I didn’t want 4 people there trying to outbid each other (that would have been nice though), but in the end, the guy who called me first showed up an hour early, and ended up paying the asking price for the car without even taking it for a test drive. The whole process felt rushed, but I had the cash and his contact information to give to the DMV, so I am not too worried about it.

I took part of the money and upgraded my home computer, and some more to buy a NICE stereo for the car that integrates VERY well with my iPod (since I wouldn’t be able to afford to get either for a long while), and shunted the rest into savings. I am very happy with both purchases and it makes going back into leaving from paycheck to paycheck a little easier. The disadvantage to setting my car payment as high as I could absolutely afford is that my disposable income is going to be nil for a very long time.

E3

I wasn’t very trigger happy with the camera at this year’s E3. I do have a few pictures to put up, but most of them revolve around the huge Illidan statue in front of the Blizzard Booth (the Demonic bad guy in the next expansion for World of Warcraft), and some pics of Ed and Frances posing with Frogger, Ryan getting Frogger in a headlock, and of course Frogger’s revenge. But where I didn’t take any pictures, there were those who did step up to the task. Manny snapped some pictures through out the day, and Jamin brought his camera to the party. I haven’t yet gone through them and to do my typical web resizing, but they are there in all of their glory. I am actually in a number of them, which is strange because typically people with cameras tend to avoid me.

Around the House

This past weekend was extremely productive for me, even though I still haven’t figured out why. Starting off on Saturday, I got to fill in for Brenden in his fencing classes since he was out of town for a tournament. Getting off from there I went home with the intention of collapsing, but instead Kenny and I both mentioned to each other that the back garden needs to be cleaned up. I didn’t take any pictures to serve as before shots to show you how bad it was, but believe me when I say it was extremely bad. My roommate’s girlfriend had started a garden over a year ago, and when she stopped weeding it, I refused to help as it was her baby. As of this weekend, the weeds were easily waist high, and a huge eyesore. I ran to the hardware store to equip us with the necessary tools, and when I returened; Kenny, his girlfriend, and I launched our attacks. The end results were three and half trash bags of nothing but weeds, and two triumphant green gladiators. After removing the weeds and cleaning a bit, it actually became apparent that we actually do have a back patio. We stopped by the hardware store again to resupply on our weed killer so that we could finish the roots, and while we were there, Kenny decided that what our back patio really needed was a new grill. What do you know, but The Home Depot actually sells grills! We rented a truck (no I am not putting a grill in the back of the new Mustang), and carted Kenny’s new prize home. Once we returned the rental truck, we then promptly broke in the new grill with some fresh grilled hamburgers, grilled corn, and home-style french fries (yum!). We are thinking of just trashing all the current soil in the patio planter, and going with fresh new soil so we don’t have to worry about surviving roots or seeds from the weeds, but that will have to be a project for another weekend.

While I was at the hardware store earlier that day, I had found a seal repair for the toilet in my room. It had a slow leak into the bowl that means the valve turns on once every 10 minutes or so to refill the reservoir. I purchased a new seal, and that night I tore my toilet apart only to find that the seal I had wasn’t going to help any. Of course at 11pm at night, no hardware store is open, so I left my toilet and in pieces spread out round my bathroom and the next morning I ran and got all the parts necessary to completely redo the internals of the toilet. After a few hours of work, I had a new working toilet, and with the parts I pulled out of my toilet, I was able to replace the valve on the downstairs toilet so that it is now back in tip top shape as well. All in all not a bad weekend’s worth of work. Now for those of you who want pics of me repairing the toilet.. sorry, but I felt they would be in bad taste.. I apologize for the disappointment. ~

My apartment was in DIRE need of cleaning (seeing as how I am the only one that cleans really). Setting aside the money to purchase a vacuum has been on the list of things to do since my old one let me know, in no uncertain terms, that it had had enough of this sucking up dirt thing and was retiring.

Since the parents are coming for a visit, and my carput was about 80% saturated with cat litter, I figured that now was a good time to pick up a new vacuum. I decided that while my last $60 vacuum did well enough for an apartment, it obviously bit the dust a little bit sooner than I would have liked. I therefore purchased one that was a bit mor expensive (but not on the high end of the scale at all) and it really does make a difference. This new vacuum pulled up the kitty litter with no problem, and that was before I realized that there was a seperate switch to turn on the carpet beater/comb. It also has a cannister that pops out for easy disposal of the trash, versus a bag, and I found out how really nasty our floors were. *bleh*

Third post in one night, I must be chatty or something.

This video absolutely cracked me up. I don’t know if I am a child of vionlence, but watching the Easter Bunny taking out innocents had me giggling like a school girl.