A Throwback Weekend
Am I the only one who believes that today should be Presidents’ Day? This way those lucky enough to get Presidents’ Day as a paid holiday (which finally includes yours truly) wouldn’t have to slag in to work and deal with all of the idol chatter? Of course those lucky enough to have winning squares (which also includes yours truly) don’t mind going to work all that much today.
Don’t Go Back To Buckhead
Or the Meehan’s in Sandy Springs which resembled the Buckhead of the 1990’s that I remember. I met up with ITP-Readers Terri, Pat, and Tony at said Meehan’s to hear a really good REM cover-band called REMakes.
Meehan’s is a small bar made even smaller when the band takes the “stage” and the place is overstuffed with 30-50 year olds partying like it’s 1999 (again, including yours truly). With the exception of the young lady who was a doppelgänger for Lisa Loeb I wanted little to do with this crowd, and after about six or seven songs I, along with the three others, had to fight our way out of the bar to leave.
One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others
One Super Bowl party.
Seventeen adults and thirteen children.
Sixteen adults were paired into eight couples, seven of which accounted for all of the children.
Were it not for Wendy, who was in attendance with her boyfriend, I would have looked and felt like a complete freak being the only one there sans lover and child. Had it really been ten years since I saw most of these people? We all looked pretty much the same, with the exception that there were all these kids running around the house.
I had a great time at the party as we reminisced about the old days and I heard some stories which have occurred in my decade’s absence. At night’s end I couldn’t believe how much my friends had grown up. Life can really make me feel strange sometimes.
ITP Flickr Pic
There are lies and then there are damn lies. This photo falls into the latter.
I know that BWANA is something other than the acronym for my buddy ITP-Reader Harold, aka “Bitch With an Attitude” but I was gobsmacked when I saw this license plate on the campus of NC State last week.
How Does One Say “FAIL” In Spanish?
For the Super Bowl party we were instructed to bring a Mexican side dish, or entree. Undaunted I hit up the Mercado de Pueblo on Saturday to get the ingredients for what I was loosely calling chicken enchiladas.
With the exception of cheese (which I forgot to get at the store) I picked up all the ingredients for my concoction and decided to make a “dry run” on Saturday night to make sure I could pull this off.
My enchilada filling was going to be a mélange of onion, garlic, jalapeño peppers (has anyone else noticed how mild they’ve been lately?), tomatoes, black olives, chicken, cumin, and salt. I cooked all of these up in a pan, tasting along the way, until everything was incorporated and perfect.
I took this filling and started to put some into the fresh corn tortillas and everyone that I started to roll fell apart immediately. I managed to get four into a baking dish, covered these with some “enchilada sauce,” and mozzarella cheese (I said I forgot to get the proper cheese) and popped them into an oven to cook. The resulting mess was edible but far from the sort of pretty dish that I’d like to bring to a party.
On Sunday morning I headed out get the proper cheese for my enchiladas and also decided to take the cheating gringo’s option of rolling the filling into flour tortillas instead of corn tortillas so that they wouldn’t fall apart.
While no Mexican in his/her right mind would ever consider what I made “enchiladas” I thought the experiment turned out pretty well.
I Thought It Was A Simple Question
How much does a cup of water weigh?
That was a question I had yesterday in an attempt to improve my (bread machine) baking — btw, I failed. Although I can’t seem to reproduce the scattered answers that I got yesterday I will say that I was shocked that every website did not provide the same answer. One site said 11 ounces, one said 11.4 ounces and another said 11.6 ounces, with none stipulating the temperature of the water or the altitude at which the measurement was made. The whole reason I was seeking the weight of water was to get a precise measurement for my baking!
Sometimes the simple things proved to be complicated.
Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – Okay I guess
Current Music – Listening to the “The Sunshine Show” podcast from CBC Radio3. Holy shit I love this wacky “radio” show.
Website Of The Day – In case you missed some of yesterday’s ads you can check out Super Bowl Ads to see if you can find them.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – 201 pounds
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read -52
Monthly
Foot Mileage – 0 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 0
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 5 (3*)
Vegetarian Days – 0, Carnivorous Days – 7
Marta Rides – 0
* – since I stayed in a hotel
February Goals
- Not get fired from my job
2010 Goals
- Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds)
- Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
- Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Jalapeño Beach SmugMug account I opened the other day.
- Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
- Attend at least one professional photography workshop
- Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
- Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
- Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
The Unmeasurable
- Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
- Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS
- Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem
Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]
I love the license plate photo – will Harold now go get one????
I was thinking about making some enchiladas this week, and I have never even considered trying to use the corn tortillas for that very reason. It is a great dish to make a bunch smaller pans of & freeze, then when you need/want them, just pop them into the oven. AND – with your plumbing situation, you could get those disposable aluminum trays & throw them away when you are done.
I “technically” get President’s Day off, but since most of my customers are open, I’ll be working. At least I’ll be getting paid overtime. Hopefully I will be done by lunchtime. (I’ll try even harder to get out of here if the weather is nice)
Here’s a thought…why not have the Super Bowl on Saturday? No one has given me a logical reason why this can’t happen…and the argument that “the NFL always plays on Sundays” isn’t a logical argument. There’s no college ball happening at the time of the Super Bowl.
Look…this is coming from someone who doesn’t give a rip about football. I only cared about watching The Who at halftime…not interested in 4 hours of commercials and 11 minutes of an actual “game.”
There’s no reason that the game can’t be played on Saturday since the NFL has already played games on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays during the season.
I had mixed feelings about The Who playing.
1) They are really only 1/2 of The Who.
2) I wish that artists would retire before they become caricatures of themselves. It almost felt very “Spinal Tap” to me.
Sadly, I did not stay up to watch the superbowl.
Sadly, I do not have today off!
The demand for prettier peppers has compromised the hottness of the pepper.
Look for peppers still grown in the hot dry desert countries….dry hot climates promote the chemical that makes them hot….now they are grown in wetter cooler climates.
For all those that came out to run Red Top Rumble….thanks…and congrats on your finish!
I was hoping that purchasing the peppers at the Mercado de Pueblo would yield hotter peppers.
Sorry I missed photographing Red Top Rumble this year. It was too early and too cold for this non-runner.
Red Top was fun, I didn’t do as well as last year but better than a couple of weeks ago, I can live with that. It was a chilly race but the trails were in much better shape than I had expected. The hashers were well represented this year, great job to everyone that came out.
I don’t get President’s Day off but the CDC is closed so I’ll be telecommuting next week.
Paulie, you don’t have a kitchen scale? It sounds like there is really no way to get a precise measurement without one.
The key to using corn tortillas is to warm them up a bit in the microwave before you start to roll them…or as you all found out they will just fall apart.
I stayed up as long as I could to watch the game, I was so fed up I went to bed with 2 minutes left. While I’m not happy the Colts lost, I’m please that (Purdue Alum) Drew Brees had such an awesome game.
I do have a scale, which is why I was trying to get a conversion so that I could weigh the water necessary for my recipe. My recipe requires 1 3/8 cup of water but I don’t have a measuring cup which supplies that sort of granularity. Therefore I wanted to try and calculate how much 1 3/8 cup of water would weigh without actually weighing what I thought would be 1 3/8 cup.
On Sunday morning I read that warming the corn tortillas would work but didn’t feel comfortable relying on this.
My old friend Wendy (the one who first introduced the word “hasher” into my vocabulary) was at the party sporting a Drew Brees replica jersey. She too is a Purdue graduate and was pleased with the outcome.
Okay I get it now (I was thinking the recipe was in weights)
1/8 cup = 2 tablespoons