Last Saturday we trucked out through the slickness to go to the Jordan Creek Animal Hospital Christmas Party. It was fun. They held it at Joseph's Steakhouse and Lounge this year. This is our first trip there and everything was pretty good. Staff was attentive (relative to the size of the party), the appetizers and food were pretty good. I really enjoyed my steak (it is not often that I have such large pieces of meat). They gave out iPod Nanos to the staff at the party, which is pretty cool. So now Shannon has her own, and I've been helping her learn how to rate things and get all her music setup... I'm starting to feel more comfortable with the JCAH people, and it's nothing against them, It's really me, I don't have a lot in common with them, other then...well...Shannon. But they are a friendly bunch and I'm glad Shannon works there....
So over the last week we've had quite a bit of ice and snow and though most of the main streets are clear (well until it snowed again this morning), 43rd, 44th and Thornton (basically two and from work for me) are still covered in ice and/or very bumpy with ice mounds. 44th being the bumpiest and 43rd being the slickest...On Tuesday, we had quite a bit of ice come down and I ended up working from home, but Shannon still had to go in. It was a tough drive, but I've been in worse. Since not to many people were on the road, it made it much easier. I stopped at Hy-Vee on my way home and while I was in there, the power flickered twice...
Thursday I made a nice spread for movie night. Roasted Pork Loin with Maple-Mustard Crust, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Corn and bread from La Mie. The garlic mashed potatoes I made in the normal fashion, but I sautéed the garlic first, then let the garlic integrate with the cream (who needs milk?) and the butter. So it integrated with then potatoes very well. I did use about 3 cloves of garlic for about 8 servings...and I think I could ratchet it up a bit...maybe add another clove or two. The pork loin went pretty well, even though I cooked it at a higher temp then I intended for much much longer then I should've. It did ruin the apple and fennel bed that the pork was on, though some of it turned out ok... I was pretty happy over all though.
Friday I spent an extra long time outside finishing chipping off the ice from the sidewalks (around 2 hours), and I come in to find my phone overflowing with text messages. So I spent a good chunk of Friday figuring out that the problems that people were experiencing were entirely related to a push for an upgrade for another product that some how corrupted internet explorer...so..it was frustrating morning followed by a long frustrating afternoon (apparently I have two versions of the same software, and one would not install at all on Windows 2003 and the other would...course I didn't figure that out until around 4:30).