Google street view

Google Street View is so cool. I saw my childhood home, the old Marc Plaza Hotel in Milwaukee where we used to stay when we went to GenCon, and here:

Run Away!

I really need to get out of DC. I'd love to do a cheesy weekend getaway to Colonial Williamsburg and Busch Gardens, or even a B&B in Charlottesville, just to get away from this toxic city for a few days.

Of course I'd much rather be in SF, or Zurich...

Hmmm, Salty!

Actually that title doesn't have much to do with anything, except the fact that I think I consume a lot of salt. Still I sweat a fair amount in exercise every day, and my blood pressure is low.

So next Tuesday is Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday... naturally I think back at this time of year to when Andreas and I were in New Orleans for the event as part of a cruise (it was the year before Katrina). I was also scanning some cruise pictures this morning, which just makes me pine for another cruise. I haven't had a real vacation in years.

If you're good maybe I'll post the link to the Mardi Gras gallery (mostly-naked dancing boys!)

White Stuff

While it has been fun (in a weird, flashback sort of way) looking at Shigeki's pictures of his latest trip to Hawaii, I'm enjoying the dusting of snow we're getting here in DC. Of course, traffic is snarled, and the entire Metro system is running at reduced speeds because of ice-on-the-tracks paranoia (this is from the system that refuses to officially acknowledge that people actually walk up and down moving excalators--when they aren't broken of course--because of the liability. Of course it's the same system where a bus drive hit and killed the 5th pedestrian in a crosswalk this year, and I swear the train driver hit 100 mph in the tunnel under the river towards Rosslyn last night.

Though this once again reminds me of this (kinda cool) 'Snow Apocalypse' version of the Metro.

I left my heart...

...in San Francisco! Here's a shot of my San Fran citicam, one of my desktop widgets.

Of Leeks and Laundry and Bad Music

More on Top Chef, this time actually about the food and not cutie Hung. What's with the Leeks? I admit I don't know that much about cooking, though I was correct in assuming that leeks are related to onions. But it seemed like it was all about the leeks sometimes on Top Chef. And in fact in the final cook-off, Casey was asked why she didn't include them in one of her dishes, and she said they weren't in the offered ingredients selection, and the chief judge said in his most confrontational voice: "Yes, they were." And she made a face, and they played the ominous discordant music-of-doom. One of my favorite soups is indeed potato leek, so maybe I should try to make it some time. Wonder if Hung has a recipe...

Oh I can't resist... For those of you who criticize Hung, you need to read chef Rocco DiSpirito's Online Blog about his experience with Hung when he acted as his sous chef for a day. He has nothing but praise and admiration not only for his skill, but his patience and communication skills, and just as an all-around person. So there.

Yesterday I did class, then went up to Takoma ("tacky") Park to meet an old friend from college for lunch. It was nice to see her again after quite a few years of just emailing back and forth. I took the Metro for the whole trip, partly because I did not want to drive back up again to that place where I had spent several torturous months as a Mac consultant (nothing against the business; it was just the nature of the work and the location and all the horrid driving and stressed clients...). There were also several street closings in D.C. because of the AIDS walk, and that could have delayed me getting to class (like last week). But Metro takes at least twice as long, plus the walking. Anyway, I got home around 2:30 and I was dehydrated and exhausted. I drank like 32oz of water, then another 16oz a little while after. I resisted the temptation to take a nap, but just laid around the house for awhile. Then I had a terrible carb craving. I made pasta. *Burp* I went to bed really (8:00!) early. Today (after class) is food shopping and laundry. And making slow progress on my latest SW chapter (I will finish it today!) and a model I'm building. I should take pictures of that and bore you with them!

Finally, there was an article the other day in the Washington Post about a local DJ who deliberately plays 'Bad Music' at the end of the night. They specifically cited Wham's Careless Whisper as one that he played when the management wanted the place to empty out. Instead, they packed in, loving it. As I've noticed with my spin classes, the 20-somethings love 80's music. I guess much of it would be considered 'bad' by these Post people, but I don't get it. Granted I have absolutely no room to talk, since I liked *N Sync and Backstreet Boys, and I still put Britney Spears in my spin mixes (now with a little sense of irony as I play Toxic and Crazy). But what exactly makes this music bad and other music good? If people like it, is it not good by definition? I think anything else is just snobbery. Sure it's manufactured, none of those people writes their own stuff (Actually Madonna writes a lot of her stuff) and it's light and fluffy with the same kind of lyrics, but so what? I can also appreciate Mozart and Vivaldi.

Eh, whatever.

So. Sleepy.

Actually to tell the truth, I am feeling okay, despite having to work almost three hours later than usual yesterday (till almost midnight) and not getting to sleep till 1, then getting up at 5 am to go teach my spin class. As I mentioned earlier, one night-shift guy was on vacation (supposedly back today) and the other was sick. We learned yesterday that he is now in the hospital with pneumonia!

Actually the class went pretty well, I led a pretty intense one for some reason. Maybe because I'd had a week off... After class I've spent the morning doing laundry, getting the car washed (it looks so clean and sparkly now) and such. Here's a few pictures from the guesthouse we stayed at on Fire Island. You walk everywhere on the island on these little elevated walkways. I love the cute little gateway to the house. It was nice and quiet and restful (totally unlike what it was Memorial Day weekend, I am sure), just what I needed. Though I did not need the sunburn on my neck. Even a week later, a total stranger in the lockerroom yesterday said out of the blue "Thats quite a burn you have on your neck!" He was actually kind of cute; I should have flirted with him, but I'm always taken by surprise when someone talks to me in an unlikely situation.

Tired

Stayed up too late again, this time watching the rather silly and uninvolving Alien vs Predator on TiVo.

I'm going on a weekend trip. I will be glad to get away from here for a couple of days, but I am really dreading the driving, especially in my not-too-great mental state right now. Wish me luck. What did people do before Mapquest? I wish I had one of those Garmin thingies (love that ad by the way).

Hm, it seems that you can't burn a podcast onto a CD through iTunes, which sucks. Guess I'll have to listen to it on the iPod directly. Oh, I just remembered that I have one of those gadgets that gos in your tape deck put lets you plug into a different mini-jack device! (yes my car has a tape player--which I have never used--and a CD player).

Random News

1. I'm happy to report that my weight is back down to 165 lbs (about 75 kilos?) after an unhappy belt-tight period of being up to 172 back in January-Feb. I'm not sure what I did, except maybe eating/drinking a little less in the evening (thanks Shigeki!). The 'experts' are divided on whether eating in the evening is worse than another time of day, but if you are reducing your overall calories, of course that is going to help. And in the last few weeks I've started doing some upper-body weights work again, which I'm proud of. I get stress-relief from a good 30 mins of cardio at lunch, but I need to build some muscle. Not getting any younger!

2. I now have enough Amex points for a round-trip flight to Europe. Now, what to do with that?

3. They are hiring a new night guy at work, which is a bit of a relief for me, making it less likely that I'll have to stay late for some emergency or if one of the other guys is out (assuming of course they aren't planning to ax one of them...). My position is apparently okay right now, partly since the department head just told me that I was one of the two people he wanted to send to training for this new high-tech printer gadget (yay!).

4. Have I mentioned lately how much less stressed I am, even though this is supposed to be (and it is, believe me) a 'high-stress' job? Still some stress, but nothing like that consulting job. Oh, I have mentioned it? Well I'm mentioning it again! :-)

5. It's Friday! Much to do this weekend. I think I'm going to try to clean up this blog, among other things.

6. No one is warning me against bamboo sheets, so I'm gonna give them a try. I need something pretty in my bedroom. ;-)

OMG

I have pictures strewn everywhere. Last week I decided to get the best pictures from my trip to Greece (ahem, several years ago) scanned and put on a web page (for my own easy enjoyment, if no one else's) and as I dug through box after box of pictures, I kept uncovering more stuff that I'd half forgotten about. Scanning all this in could take centuries... The first skydive, the game cons (yawn, except for the one that I was a guest at in Sweden, the one hosted by a group of High-school Swedish guys... um, yeah...), the cruises, Italy, Switzerland...

So while I get busy with the scanner, I give you a random shot of the sea off the side of the ship from some cruise, and me with a pint at Billy's flat in London several years ago (he was there for a semester of college and I went to visit him for a week, and travel around) and no I was not drunk (yet), but I'm sure we did a pub-crawl later.

Marid Gras 2003

Seems so long ago when Andreas and I were on a cruise and stopped in New Orleans for Fat Tuesday... it was pre-Katrina of course, so kind of a different time.