Orange You Glad to See Me

Several weeks ago, my co-worker Jordan brought his Boston Terrier puppy to the office. Our CEO Frederic decided that since we didn’t have a ball for her to play with, we’d toss an orange around for her to chase. It turned out she was much more interested in licking and chewing on the orange than playing fetch. Our attempts to get it away from her to throw around were futile (Bostons are *fast*). I took some pictures with my iPhone of the adorable incident.

Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

When I was younger, my family had a bit of a tradition of sitting around the fireplace during the winter while cracking and eating either mixed nuts or pecans that we had bought in bulk. We’d lay out newspaper on the carpet, then crack the nuts over the paper while enjoying the fire. When we were done, we could just crumple up the newspaper with all the shells inside and throw it out.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, Brett and I decided we should use up the last of the firewood we had bought while it was still winter. We then ended up going to the grocery store right after making that decision. While we were there, we found that they had bulk nuts for sale. Sadly, no actual chestnuts were included. Regardless, we bought a small bag, along with some red wine, and grabbed one of the free Foster City papers on the way out the door. We snapped a couple of photos of ourselves enjoying the wine and nuts over the newspaper in front of the fire. It was a rather nostalgic occasion for me, and enjoyable of its own accord as well.

Good Eats

Brett and I made this recipe last night. While it is called Chicken with Red Grapes and Mushrooms, we decided to leave the grapes out. I also added garlic and reduced the thyme as suggested by some of the reviewers. Last, I used cornstarch instead of flour to thicken it, as I find cornstarch blends much smoother than flour. Several reviewers commented that they would have preferred white wine, because the use of red wine gave the chicken an unappetizing purple hue, but that did not concern Brett and I. We decided for our first attempt to stay true to the recipe in that regard. I’ve had many a red wine sauce and I always like the flavor, so why not? We decided to serve it over egg noodles and to make a sauteed squash medley to go with it. It turned out amazingly! The chicken was definitely quite purple, but it didn’t really bother us. I would definitely recommend this recipe to anyone. It had the characteristic flavor of a red wine sauce, of course, but the thyme and the cream also came through beautifully. It was a surprisingly delightful combination of tastes. I thought the squash was a great accompaniment as well. We may try it again with a white wine at some point, but it will be difficult, as we liked it so much with the red.

My Holiday R’n'R

I spent 12 days in Texas over the holidays this year. My mom is retired now and my middle sister is working a restricted schedule right now, so I got to spend a lot of time with both of them and my two nieces. I took my laptop with me with the intention of playing CoD:MW2 for several hours each night after my parents went to bed around 10. While I did end up playing about 5 times under such circumstances, often, I was kept so busy during the day that I was too tired to play by the time 10 rolled around. It was the busiest I’ve ever been over break since I moved to California and started doing the 2 weeks in Texas for the holidays thing. So much for rest and relaxation.

We did some shopping, we did some cooking, we went out to eat at lots of my favorite restaurants (see my previous post), we decorated the tree and wrapped presents, we opened presents, I spent some time at my middle sister’s house with her family, I spent some time hanging out at my youngest sister’s house with her dog (although I spent most days and nights at my parent’s house), we played several games of Trivial Pursuit, the nieces came over to my parent’s house to play (they live a block away), I helped my mom fix her iPod Nano, I listed several old printers on eBay for my parents, I introduced both of my sisters and my oldest niece to Peggle (they are all addicted now and my youngest sister has now gotten one of her friends addicted as well), I showed my five year old niece several other games on my iPhone (and watched with amazement as she figured out how to unlock the phone and scroll through the pages of applications all on her own), we watched TV in front of the fire, we did crossword puzzles, we put together a 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle, and so on and so on. I even managed to take a few photos here and there when I remembered during all the activities.

I got some good pictures of the beautiful Houston thunderheads. For the first time since I moved to California, there was a thunderstorm when I was back in Texas for the holidays, and I was thrilled. I miss them!

I took a few pictures while driving through my parent’s lovely neighborhood, including the nice tall pines and the walking path along the road.

My sister and her dog scout came over and spent the night with us at my parent’s house one night. Here she is resting in front of the fire with me.

Here is the fire by which we sat!

Last, here is the jigsaw puzzle we worked on in a few different stages of completion.

Texas for the Holidays

I went down to Texas with the idea of taking a picture of every treat or meal I ate, so I could publish a holiday food tour. However, in the 12 days I was there, I only remembered to take about 5 pictures. Thus, my grand idea failed. However, I decided to go ahead and post the ones I did manage to capture.

First, I had to throw in a picture of my favorite bottled water, not available in California, Deja Blue.

Next up is a Sonic Cherry Limeade Slush!

Every year, my sister makes me a treat called Muddy Buddies every year (rice chex rolled in melted milk chocolate and peanut butter and then sprinkled with powdered sugar). OMG, so good!

There was the requisite Whataburger breakfast taquito. Amusingly, a sticker on its wrapper declared that my taquito came with no pickle. Frighteningly, the wrapper on my sister’s taquito bore no such sticker (fortunately for her, the sticker was superfluous).

The drink that came with my taquito demonstrates what is considered a “medium” in Texas.

I know California hates restaurant chains, but one that I really miss is La Madeleine. Their soups, including tomato basil, potato, and cream of mushroom, and their caesar salad dressing are just divine. My dad pointed out that I have should have taken the picture of the potato soup before I mixed in the mountain of bacon and cheese they had put on top. Normally, they don’t put that much, but I guess they sensed that I didn’t get to partake very often. It was ridiculous and I didn’t think I would eat all of the bacon and cheese, but sometimes I surprise even myself.

My mom made breakfast tacos (also with no pickle). I tried to get a pretty picture, but it kept falling open.

One of my last meals was Tex Mex at Los Cucos. I had combination chicken and beef fajitas. Sadly, I forgot to ask for refried beans instead of charro beans, but it was still good. Their red salsa and green sauce (an avocado tomatillo blend) for the chips were both spicier than they were in years past, so I had to limit my intake more than I would have liked on those.

My final meal, lunch on the way to the airport, was at Cracker Barrel. I got roast with mashed potatos, slathered in gravy, along with corn, green beans, a biscuit and cornbread, and apple butter. Mmmmmmmm. Best . food . ever.

Other meals that I did not get pictures of include my mom’s homemade biscuits and gravy, her cream of mushroom soup and cheese biscuits, her ice cream balls, my dad’s seafood spaghetti, my whitefish almondine with mashed potatoes and gravy, boiled cabbage and bacon, and a white roll at Luby’s, my fried chicken sandwich and waffle fries at Chick-fil-a, my grilled chicken sandwich and fries (with the best ketchup ever) from Whataburger, my orange cream slush (basically dreamsicle flavor) from Sonic, my sushi and miso seabass at Miyako, and my sausage and cheese kolaches from Kolache Factory.

Fun in the Sun

Warm weather and clear skies have finally returned to the bay area. Thus, it is time to get out and start enjoying nature again! Along those lines, yesterday, Brett and I visited Point Reyes National Park (view map).

We got there around 4 p.m. and found the road down to Chimney Rock and the Point Reyes Light House closed to the public. We were disappointed because that was our destination, but we decided to just turn around and head down to Drakes Beach (at Kenneth Patrick Visitor Center) and see what we could see from there. When we pulled into the large parking lot, it was mostly full and there were a fair number of people there. We saw the visitor center and went in to talk to the park ranger. She told us that right now is peak migration season for Pacific gray whales and they pass by the CA coast, so a lot of people come out to watch for them. Thus, they close the road down to Point Reyes Light House and Chimney Rock to their tour buses only until 5:30, due to the large volume of people wanting to go down there to watch for whales and the small parking lots down there that cannot accommodate them. Fortunately, we were there late enough to miss the *huge* crowds, but she said that 700 people had taken their bus tours down that day.

We decided to hang out at Drake’s Beach until 5:30 and then drive down ourselves. We were able to do some pretty hiking and look at some beautiful views of the shoreline and the ocean after a short hike up to some high cliffs.

At 5:30, we headed down the road. We briefly went to Point Reyes South Beach, but there were a lot of people sun bathing and surfing and the views weren’t that interesting, so we continued down. We did not go to Point Reyes Light House, as it seemed like that’s where most cars were going and it would be more crowded and we were more interested in the wildlife and the views. We headed off to the Chimney Rock side of the peninsula. On the way down, we saw elk and some hawks. There were also a lot signs for Historic Ranches, and thus lots of cattle guards and driving through pastures with cows where you had to watch for them on the road. Some were close enough to touch if I had rolled down the window and tried.

We ended up in a *tiny* parking lot (less than 10 parking spaces) on the Chimney Rock side of the peninsula. They must normally get hardly any visitors when it’s not whale season. We took the hiking trails down to Chimney Rock and when we got to the shore, we saw two large groups of elephant seals hanging out on the beach. We were again up on high cliffs, so we were looking down on them below, laying on the sandy beach by the water. The best part, though, was that we sat and watched the water for a while, and started seeing whales spraying water as they crowned for air off the shore. The ranger told us that there had been 7 reported whale sightings all day. We watched for about 10 minutes and saw 4 different sprays although we never saw more than that.

There were large amounts of time spent in the car, including miles and miles on Sir Francis Drake Blvd as it passed through towns, forests, and hills, and at times was fairly winding and at times fairly narrow. However, it was a worthwhile trip,

More Warcraft Updates

So WOTLK is imminent and I have managed to upgrade my gear a bit via battlegrounds. I did end up with Merciless Gladiator’s Crossbow of the Phoenix and was also able to get the two-handed sword. I was really loving the look of that polearm, but my polearm skill was pretty low, so I went with the sword. I also was able to upgrade my shoulders and now I have Merciless Gladiator’s Chain Spaulders. I’ll probably have enough honor for one more piece before the expansion. At least it will be a bit easier to level with the better gear. Hopefully new items will start dropping off mobs that are better than those I have, especially the non-upgraded items, and I’ll be able to replace it all within a few levels. Those shoulders look bad ass for now though!

I’ve also been enjoying the achievements added in the Echoes of Doom patch. When I first heard about the achievements system, I thought it seemed dumb and uninteresting. But I’ve been surprisingly sucked in! Only to a certain extent though. If I see one that seems easy to attain, I do the little bit of work to get it. Those that seem like chasing a ghost, though, like the Perfect Storm achievement, I don’t bother with. If it happens, it happens, but I’m not going to alter what I would be doing in a given play session so I can try in vain to get it.

I also have found the Halloween related world events and the expansion pack related world events rather fun. A lot of people having been qqing about the latter, but it hasn’t bothered me that much. There have been several occasions when I was trying to play and I got turned into a zombie and had my plans interrupted, but I took it as an opportunity to have fun in a different way than I was planning. It has been interesting to do something new and I haven’t found it that disruptive. I guess most people didn’t have the same attitude though.

Lastly, I was hoping to get my epic flying mount before WOTLK came out, but alas, almost two months later, I am still only at just over 3000 gold. At that rate, I will never get the 5000 I need before the expansion comes out. I know you can’t use your flying mounts for a while in the new expansion areas, but I was just hoping to have that out of the way and put aside so I wouldn’t have to worry about it when all the new and interesting content from the expansion was at my disposal. Oh well, at least making the gold to buy the mount should be cake and will seem less like grinding with the new content to go through.

Me Want…

I have been playing WoW again lately and have decided I’m in desparate need of new weapons. None of the drops or quest rewards I’ve gotten in the last month have been better than what I was already using, which, frankly, is sad (see Arcadian Claymore and Splintermark). I discovered that I could fairly easily upgrade both of my weapons at the Valley of Honor quartermasters by playing a bit of AV and turning in my honor and AV marks. I know I need to upgrade my bow first and am currently working towards Merciless Gladiator’s Crossbow of the Phoenix . But, damn, there are both a polearm and a two-handed sword that I am drooling over (see below – how good do those look on me!?).

My Fine Feathered Friends

I have been living in a new apartment complex since May, which has the same man-made ponds throughout as my last apartment complex. Since moving in, I have befriended some of the local duck regulars by feeding them periodically. After the first few times I gave them some bread, they started recognizing me. When I’d pull into my parking space after arriving home from work, they would quickly waddle over to my car. It was so adorable. I was surprised how quickly they started that behavior, after only two or three feedings. I guess birds are smarter than I realized.

There is one particular pair of ducks that I am quite fond of. They are a male duo that hang out together. I like to think of them as brothers. I have never really liked mallards that much. I don’t find them that attractive physically and they seem to be such jerks as well. The duo with which I have become buddies are not mallards, although I have no idea what kind of duck they are. They are larger than mallards and do not have the characteristic green head with a white band around their necks either. They instead have this really cute coloring where they have white chests with brown feathers mixed in with the white. They seem to be the only two of their species around here, so they hang out with the mallards, but I try to make sure they get more food than the others. I got some pictures of the boys the other day, which I have posted here.

There is also a mallard family that has some babies, which are cute despite my dislike of mallards. I have been unable to get any pictures of them because it’s always dusk when they show up. I’ve tried taking pictures, but they come out too dark or too washed out when I turn the flash on. There is also a goose couple that’s been hanging around for weeks with their babies. I have been able to get some good photos of the goose family, which I have posted here.

The Surf and The Sun

This weekend, Nicole and Steve invited me to go to a park called Fort Funston in San Francisco, which is a beach park that allows dogs off leash. I took Sammy and, as far as I know, that was the first time she’s been to the beach or seen the ocean.

The beach at Fort Funston was great. There was a lovely view of mountains in the distance both north and south of the beach. There was an awesome assortment of dogs throughout the day, mutts and purebreds alike. The weather was perfect, too. The beach is usually so cold because of the wind. On Sunday, it was windy, but not exceptionally so. It was fairly warm, about 80 degrees, so the wind just served to cool things down to a perfect temperature. The water was still freezing though!

Not surprisingly, Sammy had no use for the water, which probably was only in part due to the temperature. She is prissy about being wet *or* cold, so she wouldn’t have liked it either way. When she first saw the water, she walked up to it, just far enough to be standing in about an inch of water. She tried to drink it and then reacted by shaking her head with her eyes squinted closed and gnashing her teeth at the salty taste. She started to walk out of the water, with her back to the waves. She then paused, tried to drink it again, and, in the midst of having the same reaction again, was smacked in the bottom by a large wave. She left the water indignantly and didn’t go back the entire time we were there. At one point, I took her by the collar and tried to get her excited about running after the waves as they went out and running away from them as they rolled in, like the other dogs were doing, but she was not interested and walked off wondering what was wrong with me.

She did enjoy the sand though. She fell asleep on the warm sand for a while. Later, we buried her and she didn’t care at all. Finally, it was time to go. There is a fairly steep climb to get to and from the beach. It was somewhat trying to climb down when we first got there. The sand moving underneath your feet means you have to push off extra hard with your calves to get anywhere. Getting back up was less fun, of course. I had to pause a few times to catch my breath. Sammy pushed right through it and left me in the dust. She was slow, but steady, and waited for me when she got to the top.

The only downside of the whole thing was caused by my own absent mindedness. I tried to be well prepared for this outing. I put sunscreen on all my exposed skin before leaving the house. I wore jeans and a t-shirt for the occasion, thinking there would be a cold wind. However, at some point, I did some wading in the water, so I rolled up my pant legs to keep them from getting wet. The mistake came when I never put them back down, since it was plenty warm. We were there for about 3 hours, mostly laying on the sand. The result was that I got a severe sunburn from knee to ankle on the front of both legs. There is a lot of tightness to the skin, pain, and swelling so it’s probably 2nd degree. I read up on how to treat burns last night, and the advice to keep them bandaged was invaluable. Today was way less painful with the bandages on. Hopefully the healing will begin soon and be quick!

Last, Nicole took lots of great pictures of the outing!