Links

Since I can't seem to write a post without ranting for ten paragraphs, I'll just throw down some links:

Ever know anyone who looks like they're smelling something bad in every picture they're in?

http://happiestpeopleever.tumblr.com/

Ever have the family member who insists on some bizarro phot setup?

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

Ever woke up and weren't sure what happened the night before? (many off color references here - you were warned)

http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/

From all the helpful moms out there:

http://www.postcardsfromyomomma.com/

Lastly, there is a friend of mine who has a pepper sauce company. I'm not linking directly to his site, since I don't want him to trace back and read all about my secret life saving the world.

Do a search for Bella Pepper and check it out. It's good, not tooo hot and from a local guy.

alive and kicking

Amid reports of the inevitable downfall of the printed word, I want to take a moment to call out two fine publications. It’s too little too late for these two, but I want my public support on the record. Best Life (by Men’s Health) and Conde Nast Portfolio both appear to be victims of the bad economy and the internets. Best Life was my first adult (not that kind!) magazine. I found it in the airport and it was always filled with articles about the best of everything. There were usually good, better and best options and reasons for why each was selected. It was a much more reasonable and democratic best-of than say, the Robb Report. There were health articles, money advisors and the occasional fashion advice piece. The really interesting pieces to me were about parenting. I know the best laid plans of parents usually fall apart when the tantrums start, but this was the first magazine that I’d read to cover topics like this. I was going to stockpile ideas so that when the day came, I would already be armed and sail across those perilous waters unharmed. I got Best Life for close to two years before they announced, that the issue I was holding would be my last. Bad times. This followed closely on the heels of the announcement of the closing of my newest favorite magazine, Portfolio. I am not a magnate, nor do I aspire to be. I think I would have turned my nose up at Portfolio a few years ago, but I’ve tuned my tastes a little and I started trying to read things that would make me think a little. I read my first issue on the way to Spain. Then I got another issue and heard they were closing. While the body of work I had to examine was small, I liked it very much. There were pages of minutiae and profiles of interesting people. And it covered some of the finer things in life, which I do aspire to sometimes.

It was in my last issue of Portfolio that I read about the founder and CEO of Heartland Express. He’s a self-made billionaire, goes into the office every day and still negotiates the deals. He was diagnosed with cancer too, but that hasn’t seemed to slow him down much. Why am I writing about this? I asked M this weekend if she were a self made billionaire, would she still go to work every day? My take was that if I had worked hard enough and taken the big risks to get myself into the billionaire club, I don’t think I would have a choice but to go to work every day. The sadistic drive it takes to be that successful can’t be turned off suddenly. I don’t see how the rush of sitting on your boat fills that void. I think I understand why these old timey billionaires still burn the midnight oil, long after they need to earn any more.

Which brings me to my point. Prince Harry (Henry Charles Albert David Windsor) recently spent some time in New York City. Instead of tearing up the nightclubs, he did some charity work, paid respects to various memorials and prominent figures and played a little polo. Sponsored by a champagne company and attended by the all the floppy hated people, this polo match even got some national press coverage. During the press coverage, I noticed the winning team was awarded what appeared to be watches as part of the ceremony. At first I thought, why kind of watch do you give a prince? I mean even lesser royalty is usually pretty stacked in the cash department. And even if he weren’t royalty, he’s playing polo. You know, with the horses? There are professional polo players, but I don’t think they make very much. I think it’s one of those sports where you don’t need to pay these guys very much because they don’t need to get paid. You can’t sign up for polo classes down at the local Y. You need stables of animals, caretakers, veterinarians, teachers, safety equipment and lots of open space to run around, not to mention other kids and teams to play against. I don’t recall any pickup polo games starting down at the local park. This is an already wealthy crowd. So for the guys sitting on the horses, what kind of watch DO you wear? Jaeger Le Couture made a watch specifically for polo players, one that could pivot so that the face would face down on your arm, protecting it. A nice feature to be sure, but it was not being handed out at this tournament. After some research, I found my answer… “Adding additional fire to the competitive heat of the Veuve Clicquot Manhattan Classic polo match is the delightful prize that Piaget will bestow upon the victorious team. Winners will leave the podium wearing the Piaget Polo FortyFive.. retailing for.. $11,900” Wow. Just wow. Is that what it takes to add fire to the competitive heat for these guys? I can just picture it now.. “Hey that’s a nice watch”.. “Why thank you. I won it”.. “Oh really, in like a raffle or a poker game or something?”… “Actually it was at the 2009 Veuve Clicquot Manhattan Classic polo match”… “Uhh (searches for guy with champagne tray, hopefully it’s Veuve Clicquot)”.

In other news, I’ve started watching ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ (so far it’s been great). M and I watched ‘Star Trek’ (excellent), and I also just finished ‘Frost/Nixon’ (also highly enjoyable). They have nothing in common and stand in their own spheres. I recommend them all.

Finally, the grilling season has begun. We did a little moo – a couple of fat porterhouses and some self ground steak burgers, a little oink – 6lbs of smokey spicy adobo pork tenderloin, and this weekend we commenced with the cluck – a preposterously good bbq chicken. In past posts, I wrote about sticky ribs that made me feel sorry for all the food that I ever ate afterwards, because it would never live up to those ribs. Every time I think about this chicken, I cry a little inside. I know that no one else (except M) will get to experience this chicken. I know that every chicken I make from here on out will need to be that much juicier, a little smokier, a touch sweeter, a hint spicier and a tad crispier. I made the sauce myself. Not quite the 8 hour cook from fresh tomatoes, but it took an hour or so and a whole lot of dashes and drops to get it right. I think I could get into making different sauces. Too bad they have such a high bar to reach. Even the sweet potatoes I cooked were the best I’d made with a grill. The secret was to double wrap them in foil and put them right in the fire. On Sunday when I went out to the porch to put the cover on the table, I could still smell the chicken from the night before. It made my mouth water then and I’m getting hungry writing this now. Yesterday we ate too much pizza too late in the day to have dinner. Tonight, the fridge will not survive the attempt. I’ll apologize in advance for the pictures I’m about to share. They depict acts that not everyone will be comfortable with. They are definitely NSFW (not safe for work), if only because you will need to leave work immediately and get you some chicken. Only it won’t look like this and you’ll just have to imagine something that tastes good when you eat whatever unfrozen caveman TV dinner you get your hands on to satisfy that delirious craving for smoke, sweet, salt and secret ingredients.

dirty bird...

Junior Criminal Acessory Kit

While it wasn’t the extreme weekend accomplishments of the one before, M and I managed to pack a lot these past few days. Since we’re hosting a Mother’s Day get together, we had to spruce the place up a bit. Ingredient lists needed to be made, schedules worked out. Then we had a night out on the town to King’s with some friends. Wii bowling skills aside, I stunk the place out. I did manage to throw a big nasty hook for a strike, making it easily near the top of my lifetime athletic accomplishments. We restocked the pantry and fridge with wild and exotic food from around the world. But none of this compares to the excitement of the junior criminal accessory kit I picked up Sunday afternoon. 

What is a junior criminal accessory kit? 15 feet of ¾” manila rope, duct tape, 32” of remnant 2x4, 50lbs of sand and several sections of ½” iron pipe. Why did I have this? I had my golf clubs, the chores were done, I was free to hit the range. I barely got outside before I saw the raindrops on the windshield. No golf for me. Instead I headed over to the a big box home store.

I’ve written about the monkey bars routine before. It started with some rope and pipe, then moved to steel cable. The cables spawned a medicine ball. Now we have a climbing rope, sand dummy, balance board and an-as-yet-unnamed horizontal bar thing that I will try not to permanently injure myself with. To her credit, M didn’t protest or laugh or put her foot down and say no. The B home gym is just about complete. There was an obligatory ‘should I be worried?’ and a ‘should I sleep with one eye open?’ comment, but once the plan came together I think I resolved those questions. If something terrible were to happen though, it will look bad for ol’ B here. I can see the security camera footage with my cart full being played and the credit card bill up on a projector for the court to see. This here is my defense. The strangest thing was that the cashier didn’t think twice about ringing me up. Maybe if I had a pickaxe or a wood chipper and a tarp it would have looked more suspicious? 

Back Porch = Done (I think)

Something small, simple. An item that seems too good to pass by. If you think about it, it’s the chance encounters that really get things started. M came up to me in a store one day to show me a big glass bowl and we ended up with a new downstairs bathroom. Not to be outdone, a few months back we were in a home store and we saw a cantilevered patio umbrella for sale. It was early March. Who’s buying patio furniture in March? We had a functioning set. It came with the condo. It was faded and the umbrella was home to several hornet nests, but it was good for a free set. Seating for 4 was alright, but anything more required carting out the living room stuff. Part of me wanted something better, but new gear is pricey. $35 for an umbrella wasn’t a bad start. We’d need to figure out a way to keep it in place. I had a pretty good handle on that one. Then we’d need a new table and some chairs. This umbrella didn’t come up through the middle of the table, so we needed a table with no hole. Last fall M and I were sitting outside in Florence and we noticed that the café used cast iron fencing and basic greenery to separate diners from the road and it was surprising effective. We thought something like this might work for out little space. We had all these ideas, but all we really had was an umbrella.

Over the next few months we acquired more. We’d isolated a few tables from Ikea but they weren’t being delivered to our closest store. Tired of waiting, we drove to Connecticut instead. 3 hours of driving for 10 minutes of shopping. I think we got the support system for the umbrella next. I had it in my mind that I would construct an elaborate wood base and blah blah blah. I’m not great at building things. M heard me out but didn’t jump at the idea. We needed about 100 lbs of weight. Four 37 lb pavers would do the trick. Table, pavers, umbrella – check. Chairs were on deck. Another Ikea run and another and another and we were in business. Turns out I can assemble them fairly quickly when I get into a rhythm.

By now, our living room was holding all of these acquisitions and starting to look like a Building #19 warehouse. Shredded cardboard, packing material, piles of furniture and boxes were everywhere. The railing system was less straightforward. Our first investigations of decorative fencing yielded flimsy plastic pickets and miniature stockades - nothing that would hold a planter box. After an abortive and confusing attempt at mocking up a stone wall in the garden center of a big box home improvement store, we found our fence in the building materials section. A few details about attaching said fence later and it was off to start assembly.

Construction started a week or so ago when I put together the umbrella. Turned out the pavers were a little too thick at the corners and needed a haircut. I don’t own nor did I want to rent a wet saw. I shot a quick text for help to some family members and got the great advice to use a cold chisel and a hammer. I didn’t have a cold chisel either, but I saved the steel punch that came with our granite vanity. I figured, good for breaking granite, good for breaking concrete. Michaelangelo I am not, but I shaped those pavers with a whole lot of aggression and noise. Satisfied, I went on to assemble the railings. We can’t attach the railings to the deck directly, so we decided to use some 2x6’s and make portable railing units. This will help when the condo board has the deck re-stained and when the snow comes. Each railing came with 8 lag bolts that weren’t exactly well fitted to the bases of the newell posts. I had to tighten them ¼ turn at a time with the only tool that would fit. It didn’t get me fired up to turn a wrench for a living.

We decided to do the railings last weekend because it was too cold to oil down our new furniture. That’s right, the table and chairs needs to be oiled every year. We traded indestructible aluminum for high maintenance wood! It does look a lot better and the first year’s oiling wasn’t so bad. We’ll see how I feel 7 years from now. 6 chairs and a (newly assembled) table later, I’d had my fill of oil and mineral spirits. We filled up our planter boxes, added 3 new shrubs and sold off the old furniture. All on a Saturday. Before 6pm. I even hit up the driving range afterwards. The 2x6’s looked a little pale next to the chairs, so I gave them a little George Hamilton style bronzer. It’s a little odd, but the deck stain to match the deck was only sold in gallon buckets and I needed a cup of it. We had so much time left over, we decided to fire up the grill and have some steaks. Didn’t even have to use my AK, gotta say it was a good day…

Drink up

Last night M and I had to make an unscheduled trip to Ikea. It’s not close to where we live. It rained last night. It was dark. Why did we have to go? Something we bought had an epic design fail and needed to be taken back. The trip was less than satisfying and I was frustrated when we left. Ikea didn’t do anything wrong other than be out of stock for something critical. But this misses my point. As we were leaving, I noticed someone was having a little less fun than I was. Or maybe they were having more fun? Either way, this was piled up against a column.


That’s three 16oz PBR tallboy cans, emptied of their contents. One? I can understand that. Maybe they grabbed a road soda on the way out the door? It’s a long drive to Ikea. Maybe they had a rough day. A 16 oz can is a little excessive for a casual brew, but I’ll let it slide. 2 cans? Maybe they had a really long ride there and wanted some refreshment before a long slog through the cavernous Mecca of fine Swedish home furnishings? Maybe they ate a bag of chips on the road and were really thirsty? 3 pounders? I have no idea why anyone would need 48 ounces of cheap beer all at once, at a furniture store. 48 ounces equals 4 regular 12 ounce cans. So he might be sneaky and think he only had 3 beers but he really had 4. I’ve been reluctant to go some places before, but not “I need to drink 4 beers before I go in there” reluctant. Or maybe I’m being too cynical and they fell out of his recycling bin on the way to the redemption center. He bought a carload of goodies and needed the extra space and the $.15 worth of aluminum didn’t make the cut.

Speaking of recycling, I went out to our recycling dumpster this weekend. Before I got there I could tell I was out of luck. The lid was bulging. I decided to try around the side so I could sneak some stuff in the side. As I opened the slider, something fell and hit me on the head. A big empty plastic bottle of Fleischmann’s Gin. Really? If I remember right that stuff costs about ten bucks, maybe twelve if you’re not in a college town. I know the economy is in a rough patch, but that seems a little extreme. Our condo complex isn’t a big party group, so I have to think that this is teenagers hiding evidence from their parents. I don’t care if you’re making omelettes or gallons of manhattans. Life is too short for crappy ingredients. On the other hand I should be glad it wasn’t one of those big mother Beefeater bottles crashing down on my skull. Keep the dream alive everyone - go with the plastic. For safety.

More fun stuff

Since I had so much fun with my musical suggestions from yesterday, I remembered one more that had me boppin to myself all morning. Check out Soulja Boy's 'Tell em - crank that (soulja boy)'. I think this guy was born in 1990? This song was huge right around his 17th birthday. Not bad for a young man. I hope he earned (and kept) some money from it. The song itself isn't so entertaining, but the video (find it on youtube) is a little funny. It comes with it's own little dance and everything.
Another youtube gem is Randy Pausch's last lecture. Who is Randy Pausch? Watch the lecture. It's long (over an hour), but reminded me of some of the impressive and interesting professors I met in college. It makes me grateful that I know quite a few of these types of people in my own life and keeps me motivated to meet and cultivate relationships with more of them.
If you like the 'interesting lecture' genre, check out TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conferences. They have some enthralling 20 minute presentations on everything. Captivating. I feel better just having listened to them every day.

Best Omelette Ever

Behold the deliciousness that M and I created for our Easter brunch #1 this Saturday. Eggs, potato, tomato, red peppers, basil, rosemary, garlic. All fantastic. It took a little longer than a normal omelette, but it tasted much better. Will definitley be making this again.

Unrelated to the omelette. I just watched Lonely Island's "Like a Boss" video. I wasn't familiar with Slim Thug's original version of it. I know only one is meant to be funny, but they both blow it out the box for hilarity. Big plus for extra close-ups of Slim Thug's paltinum and diamond teeth. An honorable mention needs to be made here for Flo Rida's "Low". This is another older song that I only recently became acquainted with. Funny in a different way. I even did a Spanish remix freestyle one day in Madrid that had people staring at me. I had to create a few pandora stations so they could recommend even more of this crunktastic worktime soundtrack.

Last, I had to mention a video I saw this morning of this guy on youtube who does eating challenges. If you've even seen Kobayashi, the hotdog eating champion, you can tell he doesn't eat like this all the time because he's only 140 lbs. A lot of guys think because they're big they can eat a lot and eat it quickly, which tends not to be the case. In some perverse cosmic twist, you have to be a sort of athlete to be able to eat a lot of food quickly. Case in point, this monster who tried to eat 40 Totnino Pizza rolls in 2 minutes. He's out of breath before the first ten are polished off. The rest is a little hard to beleive. He crawls to a halt at around 4 minutes and then, admitting defeat, asks for more challenges and washes it down with some Smirnoff beverage. Stay classy.