Journal

Fun with eggs...

So last night after eating some bbq from Uncle Wendell's at Chris and Holly's we went off to see Forgetting Sara Marshall. Get back, hang out for a bit, go out to my car...

And Shannon saw something on the windshield...turns out that the hooligans were apparently having fun at my expense. A good portion of an egg was on the passenger side of the window, some egg shells...So I raged a bit, cursed and what not...

So I headed across the way got a wash, and it got the majority of the egg off...deciding it wasn't enough I remembered that there was a gas station down the way (I needed gas anyways) that had a wash that actually touches the car...so I filled up, and went through that wash...almost all of the egg was gone, then went back and got a squeegee and rubbed and scrubbed off the rest.

Even though my car is made by Acura, it's not like it's the most expensive car in the world...they don't even make it anymore...Oh well...no accounting for the obnoxiousness of kids...

I think the gremlin travelled with me...

So at work, I found out that a core assumption that I made was...well..false...I think I figured out how to fix it...sort of...but I'm not sure until I actually try...whee!

Then, after I left work, and headed out of the metro, and was proceeded to be tailgated (though I was speeding, and I couldn't get over since there was no room in the traffic leaving Des Moines) for miles... I finally got over and passed. And here's what got funny...later when the limit went up to 70 and I increased my speed, I ended up catching up with the person and passing them. So it seems like they're willing to go 15 over when in the metro, but not so much in the country? That doesn't make sense to me.

Travelling up I380 (HOLY GOD THEIR ROADS ARE CRAPPY), I pulled off to a gas station (I think it was the same one that a bunch of wet cribber campers were at when we got downpoured on a few or so years ago) cause I had to go...

Got back on the road and headed north, and the traffic just got slower and slower...finally stopped...I was first complaining about the number of commuters between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids...then it became something else...then...about 30 minutes later, it was more the thought, if I don't see a dead body, I'm gonna have to make one... :-D

Finally got up to the accident. It was a 3 car on the left side of the road (near the interchange of I380 and Highway 30E (I think)). A car was crunched by a pickup, which was in turn hit by another car. I thought this couldn't be it...this is already off the road...maybe a little slow down, but not a stop...

Then on the on ramp up from 30W there was another problem. A semi, towing a large chunk of a pre-fab house had several (maybe 3 or 4) tires that had blown and the trailer looked like it was on the rims...on the interstate ramp...

I got to my parents hung out a bit and headed over to the Mattas.

Nathan was just finishing up with bathing Taylor and Cali and getting them in they're PJs...We played with the girls a bit before Nathan put them to bed...

So he went to check on the basement (since they do have an issue with water coming into the basement). He takes a step down, and comes up withe a wet sock...on the finished, carpeted part of the basement...So it turns out that the water tile that runs through the back of his yard was...well...full, so his sump pump is basically pumping into a place that is already full of water. So...in the unfinished part of the basement he had an inch or two of standing water....

We hooked up his hose from his wet dry vac to the output from the sump pump, then had that feed into another hose, and into another to get it out on to the lawn...which was pretty much already saturated with water...After about an hour or so, parts of his basement were pretty dry, while others were pretty wet...so the basement doesn't really slope towards the drain or the sump pump...and is very uneven (as the water shows)...

Shortly after that I took off to drive home (and going only 4 over, which was a good thing, cause there were cops everywhere on I80).

blah blah blah

I made a sausage, bean and tomato soup on Monday for movie night. It turned out very well...good recipe from Cook's Country. It was interesting to take about half the beans with some stock and blend it up to make a general base for the soup...I've been having a lot of less recipe thoughts in my head and more formulas. So instead of spicy Italian sausage and white beans, switch it over to say some ground chuck or cut beef and kidney beans and you got a thickener for chili (which I still haven't made).

I bought a big leg of lamb (from Iowa), I'm going to have my brother smoke it and use it for a party to celebrate a friend visiting Iowa (from Japan). It has to be the most I've spent on a single piece of meat...I've had steaks in restaurants that cost more, but I didn't pay for them...

I got a new chair at work yesterday. It was nice, adjusted a bunch of things, but in sitting on it today, I'm not sure that I like it. I just don't think it has enough give or cushion on the seat or the back. I think...all the adjustable things were nice, but for long term sitting, I nead a bit more padding. As Shannon tells me, I have no butt, so more padding is nice.

George was making slight movements with his paws and mouth. I wonder if cats dream, and if they do dream if there has been any studies on what they might dream of. I know I heard a story...on NPR I think about mice dreaming...and they dreamed about running mazes (the brain patterns on the mice running the maze were the same when they were sleeping and then they also adjusted to apparently run made up mazes)...So it was just an interesting thought.

We've been collecting roof and gutter bids...they weren't as much as we thought...which is nice. So if you know any roofers or gutters...let me know.

mmm...easter

So we headed over to Cedar Rapids for easter. The drive over wasn't too bad, though there seemed to be a plethora of drivers who were in such a hurry that they had to drive like extreme jackholes...

We stopped first and Shannon's parents and chatted while they ate dinner. Sean was feeling under the weather (ear infection) but Sheighliegh (sp?) seemed to be as chipper as normal.

It was pretty fun...good to catch up

We headed over to my parents around 3 to have a late lunch/early dinner. At my house the attendance was fairly light, comparatively, with only my parents, us, Jed and Stephanie, Joseph and Isaac for a total of 8. Josephy made a smoked a leg of lamb and we had quite the setting of sides. For dessert we had pie, pumpkin (mom still has lots and lots of pumpkin) and basically a chocolate nut fudge pie...both in my grandma's crust recipe (made with lard!). Dinner was great, the lamb was smokey, lamby, and juicey. Big fan. I also got to try Joesph's attempt at BBQ sauces. One he wanted to have a root beer undertone, but wasn't able to achieve it, although it was still a pretty good sweet sauce. The second was a mustard based sauce w/ bacon...it was very good. In fact at a recent church potluck, he was asked many times for the recipe....

After dinner, we chatted a while, and then we headed home. Traffic was much worse coming on, including an incident with a douche on the south side of CR, in a crappy looking red Hyundai Elantra, got on I380 on the Highway 30 on ramp, proceeded to cut me off, accelerate, and then exit at the VERY NEXT EXIT...

There were numerous people that were in such a hurry, that they had to drive like total jack holes, to gain a mere car length. When I think about the tickets that I have received over the years, which I've received many, I get a little miffed, that my speeding is ticketed, but these guys driving relatively recklessly is not. I don't generally drive in such a future fashion, and yet I'll get dinged for 12 over...oh well.

troubles lately

I've been having a lot of trouble lately. My moods have been swinging all over the place. Feelings of accomplishment, only to be dashed by more requests that are getting more and more minute. Feeling good to waking up in the morning in pain. I know that a lot of my health problems are self induced (yes, cholesterol and blood pressure tend to run high in my family, but the extra pounds doesn't help either). And even with the knowledge that it's really only me that can do it, I still over eat and it's very depressing. On the other side of that, eating still brings me comfort, so it's a kind of silliness...even if I eat healthier things, I tend to over do it.

I'm also depressed about our finances. Even though we're certainly better then we were last year, and we're not to a point where we're just looking over the edge (we can certainly see the edge). But even with that, faced with putting a new roof on the house is gonna remove any progress that we made and move it back into probably a tighter place then where we were at the worst of it. I guess I can't really say cause I have no idea what it would cost to do it...I had an estimate, but I'm sure prices of both labor and material has gone up since then...

And because of this, it also effects my hobby (which also effects the weight wee). Most of our meals are fairly simple, lot of them made from scratch (using cheaper ingredients). This can range for the price of the email, sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less (then pre-packaged garbage or take out or restaurants). The only real exceptions I have is movie night (where I pretty much have no limitations, though the last meal, excluding the price of the cheeses, was under 10$ for 4 people w/ leftovers) and special occasions. Though the thought of buying another 2 pounds of lobster meat frightened me (since I'm not allowed to buy live lobster), just...luckily we probably have enough leftover from the last time...

I really don't know what eludes me about frosting a cake. I don't know if my frosting just sucks or I do. Or maybe I'm just not patient enough to wait for the frosting to form properly...Looking at what I made tonight, the frosting didn't look like it was ever going to have the consistency of mayonnaise, like it said in the recipe...even after letting it cool for 2 hours or so... It became a separate style of frosting a cake...since apprently the other way wasn't gonna happen. Or maybe it's because I ran out of granulated sugar, and had to use powdered sugar...which I guess is the only really amazing thing. I bought a 10 pound bag of sugar for the desserts I made for my birthday, and in less then a year (about 9 months), all of that sugar is gone...not that we ate all that, but it's still something...

My iPod's battery is getting worse and worse. I didn't even make it halfway through making the cake, before the battery said it was dead...it's really getting annoying...I guess the option here is to get a charger for the kitchen. I have one for work, one in my car, I can hook it to my laptop down here and charge it...I dunno...maybe I just want a new one...which we really can't afford.

Being responsible sucks.

random ranting and other things

Well I guess I don't have much bad to say about mediacom, 2/3rds of my last payment came back. So I guess that's a good thing. I got the check about a week ago.

I'm sick of winter. The snow, then the warm up, then the icy snow, then a warm up...I heard we're over 50 inches for this winter...which, while isn't record breaking, is quite a bit above normal.

So with the kitchen cart, the saga continues. I finally opened up the big box that contained a door and two hinges...quite the over packing. To find out the door was the wrong one...but I only found it after I had to break the door that was on there (with the mis-drilled holes), to try to get it on. So I called and another door is on the way...hopefully for the last time.

I got my new glasses today. I got them from Russ' Uptown Optical, where I had what I think is the best eye exam I've had, and then proceeded to drop a chunk of change (mmm...pre tax dollars) on the new ones. They're pretty nice...light and the new coating on them makes the outside look quite a bit better.

I took the day off...I'm starting to like this every other Friday off thing...and considering I can do that and still gain time in my PTO bank (mine is 87% full).

Valentine's Outing (Lucca)

So in our continuing interest in the restaurants in Des Moines, we went to Lucca over in the East Village.

Lucca is owned by Steve Logsdon, who is the brother of Joe Logsdon who owns La Mie (who needs a website), which is one of our favorites (bakery and restaurant). Steve also does Basil Prosperi breads, which are also fantastic.

So the had a 3 course menu, which consists of a appetizer, main and usually a cheese course, from the cheese cave. Since I am writing this way late, I'll provide just general details, rather then specific ones, since I didn't take notes, and I'm forgetting the terms.

Shannon had Gnocchi and a Duck Pasta, and I had a pork based appetizer and Beef and Mashed potatoes (which ended up being pasta, since they had run out of mashed potatoes). So everything we had was very good. The duck was probably the best I've had (in my limited, but growing experience). My beef was very tender and delicious.

For dessert, which was special, since they normally do the fromage (cheese), they had a vanilla bean custard type of a thing with hand made chocolate truffles. Both being very very good.

Service started off a bit slow, but being that we were at the tail end of the people going to the show at the Civic Center. After they cleared out, the speed picked up dramatically.

I had a couple of glasses of wine, and Shannon had none. With all that we were just a bit under 100$ for the two of us without tip. I'm looking forward to going again...and so is Shannon.

Valentine's Dinner

Lamb Chops on a bed of rice w/ pancetta, white onion, garlic and shallots with a salad of baby spinach with blue cheese crumbles with a pear and roasted red pepper vinaigrette (no pictures, forgot to take).

Went pretty well, cooked the lamb a little longer then I wanted to (they were still a little pink in the middle but not enough for my taste.

For dessert we had a piece of chocolate mouse cake and chocolate cake (from Gateway Market). I had plans of making some cookies on Wednesday night (then taking to my work and sending to Shannon's), but when I got home I didn't feel very good, so I didn't so much bake anything

Seriously?

In a move to piss me off further, Mediacom has sent me a bill for the next months service.... This is almost exactly 1 day shy of 2 weeks or when I dropped off my equipment at the Mediacom office (I still have my receipt for dropping it off).

According to what I have already paid for, I still have a week left of service. So that means they owe me a refund for nearly 3 weeks (just 1 or two days shy (depending on if you count the Monday as a day I have to pay for or not).

I called and had the direct pay removed my account and the person told me not to worry about it...but until I get a refund for services not used, this is not finished.

I did receive a call to try to get my business back (which means that at least somebody in that company knows I ended my service), but when I asked the the caller what they had in the way of HD offerings, she didn't have any information on that. Not only on what their plans are, but what they currently had. You'd think that in this day and age, it'd be something you'd have information on and be prepared to answer questions for.

We'll see what happens. I guess will tell if I ever go back to Mediacom...for anything...ever.