Bringing the Drama

i got my passport today! less than two weeks since i went and applied, so i’m pretty impressed. i didn’t even pay for the quicker service. and y’all, the passport, it is awesome. i had no idea. i had looked at my dad’s a few weeks ago, he had gotten it in the late 60s, and it was all olive green and boring. mine is red, white, and blue with holograms and pictures of what makes America great. all that was missing was a picture of people at a kelly clarkson concert with american flag bandanas. my picture looks good too, so the lady in the post office was not drunk after all.

tomorrow i have a chance to have run 40 miles in the month of january. FORTY MILES! how in the world? also, my new shoes should arrive tomorrow (or at least Friday). they shipped fedex smart post, which is apparently “they’ll ship it when they get around to it”. the package sat in Dallas for two days before it left. oh well, getting it shipped for free is still free, and i’m okay with that.

and finally, next week is Mardi Gras, so i’ll probably be hitting up a couple or three parades this weekend. i have off two days next week, so i plan on taking one of those days and attempting some Bobby Flay biscuits. i saw him make these on Throwdown the other night, and want to try them out when i have time. since Saturday seems to be a full day of watching soccer at the pub and a MG parade, it may have to be next Tuesday. of course, i will be taking pictures of the process.

so here’s the deal on europe (since i mentioned the passport the other day and have not said anything about the actual trip)….my awesome friend Chrissy is a missionary living in Dublin right now (there’s a picture of her on my fridge!). i wanted to go visit her. i also wanted to accomplish at least one goal of mine before my next birthday and since going to Europe is one of them, i wouldn’t be going 0 for 5 if i went before April. there’s the situation…so one night on IM i’m talking to my friend Lori about wanting to visit Chrissy. Lori goes to Europe ALL THE TIME. she tells me she’s already going to be in Europe (of course!) with some other friends and i could meet her at the end of March. my birthday is in April. PERFECT! so the plan is i will leave on Easter to fly to Paris, then we’ll go to London, Newcastle (for now, not final), then to Dublin to visit Chrissy. it’s going to be awesome. i have no idea what to pack. i have no backpack yet. my flight on Easter is going to be at 8:10 am (because apparently flying out at a later time was going to cost $200 more). i will be spending my birthday in Dublin…that is basically what i know for certain. so i’ll be 1 for 5 on the birthday goals. some guys get paid a lot of money for hitting .200, so i won’t be a total loser.

i will get back on a Wednesday, then i’m flying out that Friday to go to Charleston and run in the Cooper Bridge Run. i ran in the Bridge Run back in ‘04 and i had a lot of fun. i love Charleston. i’ll be meeting up with my friend Scott and probably seeing a bunch of other people who i have not seen in years. hopefully two days to recover from jet lag will be enough. i’ll be using the two recovery days to also make up for not running while in Europe, so i hope my plan works.

ever since the awesome weekend at jazz fest in ‘06, i’ve been on the lookout for a poster. it meant a lot for me to go that year, you know, with the hurricane and all, so i’ve been wanting to get a poster. my parents wanted to get one for me last year for my birthday, but could not find one. i scoured ebay this past year for one with not much luck. all of the auctions were basically going for the same price, sometimes higher, so it was discouraging to say the least. the other morning, when it was announced everyone would be getting that crazy tax rebate, i saw on ebay a 2006 poster for a little less than what all the other auctions had gone for. i decided enough was enough. i bought it. it came yesterday and i took it to the framer’s, so i hope to have it next weekend. i’ll post a picture when i get it back.

speaking of next weekend, i hope to be getting my new running shoes which i will hopefully start putting into service next weekend. i’ve been running a lot, and i owe a lot of it to the Nike+. i’ve logged almost 35 miles just in January alone, and there’s still a week to go! i’ve never really run on a schedule for longer than a week or two, but now i’m looking at my challenges going “my team just needs 3 more miles to be in the lead, i could do that tonight!” i feel great after i run too, which is awesome. this year will be the year i run a 10k in under an hour legitimately. right now i’m running a 5k in about 27 minutes, so the goal is within reach!

in other news, i think i’m also going to buy tickets to the rest of the Hornets’ home games and will start helping out with my home church’s youth group next weekend (but maybe the following weekend because of some football game). oh, and i talked to Chad about coaching little league baseball this year, but apparently we have to have practices during the day which would make us have to get to work at 5 am, and neither of us want to do that.

so saturday, after watching Clemson literally just about give Duke the win, i turned to alcohol and baking, in that order. i had read from a couple of friends about a sour cream apple pie. i like apples, i like pies, not a fan of sour cream but let’s see how this turns out. i had bought the ingredients for what was supposed to be a NYE party that didn’t turn out, so i was prepared to use them to make the pie. first, i cut up the apples.

i had bought 4 apples but ended up only needing two cups which ended up being about 2 apples. mixing the sour cream mixture wasn’t bad at all. the sour cream container i bought was 8 oz and was EXACTLY one cup. they had an encouraging message on the safety seal.

the filling mixture stuff went together fine and poured nicely over the apples inside the pie shell. i was worried the sour cream taste would over pour the sweetness of the sugar and apples, so i was nervous as i covered the apples. i put the pie in the oven for an hour like the directions said, and waited. there’s nothing like having your house filled with the scent of something baking like an apple pie. it was like i had filled the house with some BBW spray or something (though i’m more partial to vanilla). anyway, about 45 minutes in, i made the topping.

the one regret i have is that i think i made the topping too soon. the butter started to meld together instead of clump up, so when i went to ‘crumble’ the topping over the pie, it was kind of like breaking up playdoh and spreading it out over the pie.

when i took the pie out to add the topping though, it looked good, so i thought it was a success at that point, regardless of how the topping would come out. the pie went back in the oven for 15 minutes and i waited.

i took the pie out of the oven and let it cool for a bit. i cut into it about 30 minutes later to find out if my fears were realized or if this would taste like an apple pie. the first bite let me know it was good, very good, like “why don’t i eat apple pie all the time?” good. word.

yesterday i took a day off work to go get my passport. a lot of the reason i got my haircut the other day is for the passport picture i would be getting. first of course, i had to go get a copy of my birth certificate, because you mail it off with the passport app. since either of my choices for getting the BC were about 40 miles away, i chose the one reached mostly by interstate in Hammond. getting the BC was easy, so then i stopped on my way home in Mandeville at the main post office. i found the application to fill out, and then waited outside the door that said “PASSPORTS” since right when i walked up i saw someone go inside. while i was waiting, guy came up with his fiancee. he had brought his own pictures, but i knew the P.O. did that, and i figured if you brought your own pictures you just did that so you could have a picture you liked or something. he ended up leaving after a few minutes. another guy came up, he was older, and he told me how he was holding a place in line for his daughter. finally, the door opened and i went in. i told the lady i needed my picture taken, so she took me in the back part of the P.O. and took my picture with a digital camera. i had never been in the back of a P.O. before, so that was kind of cool. after taking my picture, the lady brought me back to the front office, and went off to take care of my picture, like printing it and cutting it out for the app. another lady looked over my app, took my BC, etc. there’s a part at the end of the app where you put what date you are leaving and what countries you’re traveling to. she got to the end of my app while she was explaining how long it would take to get the passport, and said “you should have plenty of time and oh! that looks like a nice trip!” (i’ll talk about the trip later) after about 10 minutes total, i was done. i had to pay an extra $15 for the P.O. to take my picture, but it was worth it because there are all kinds of rules for the pictures, like how big they should be, how big your face should be, etc.

after i left the P.O., i did some shopping at old navy and gap. i had gotten a gift card to old navy last Christmas (i’m talking 2006) that i had never used. i used to buy a lot of stuff at old navy, but yesterday, i walked around for a while just thinking how the clothes aren’t as cool as i used to think they were. the shopping highlights were a couple of dress shirts and then a pair of slippers that were $3.50. i went over to the gap where i hit up the sale rack and scored some new pants for $17 (reg $50), a sweater for $10 (reg $40), a pair of turkey boxers for $4, and a white golf shirt for $7 (reg $25). and then everything was discounted 25% at the register. i am a pretty good shopper. (incidentally, those $4 cords i bought back in June are awesome).

i stopped off for some grocery shopping on the way home and saw my friend Len’s wife in walmart. he’s going to be coming home for some R&R in a couple of weeks. (he’s been stationed in Kosovo since last summer) hopefully i’ll get to see him while he’s in town.

the day ended with my friend Brandon and I going to the Hornets game, and i did in fact get my Tyson Chandler bobblehead. the crowd last night was a bit bigger than Wednesday, which was good. the Hornets came out and crushed the Bobcats in the 2nd quarter, and there were a lot of alley oop slams which was cool. the Bobcats were just a jumpshot team, they had no inside game, so when the shots started to not fall, they were helpless and couldn’t stop the Hornets inside game. it was a lot of fun. hopefully more people will want to come out to games. even my parents went to the game! i guess my emails about how they should just go to a game finally got to them. i got home and looked up if you could buy half season tickets, but you can’t. i plan on hitting up a few more games this season. oh, and i bought Celtics game tickets for the game in March for Jacob, Zach, and I to go to. word.

i went to another Hornets game tonight with my friend Matthew. since it was a last minute type plan, Chad had to bum a ride home from another co-worker since i had driven the carpool today. Matthew and I went down to the Arena without tickets, and planned to get this special Wednesday night package, but when we asked at the ticket window, the girl looked like she had seen a ghost who was asking her to solve equations. apparently you had to buy the package deal online, which was going to cost each of us $30 after the “convenience” charges. we ended up purchasing tickets for $20 with NO SERVICE CHARGES! upon entering, we decided to grab some jambalaya. the girl gave us a larger than normal serving…i tipped her $2. the crowd was a little embarrassing. i know it was a rainy Wednesday night, but come on! on one hand, the cool part about the crowd being small was that we were able to sit wherever we wanted (we moved from the $20 seats to the $45 seats). the downside was when the Hornets came out for shootarounds (probably 20-30 minutes before tipoff), the Arena might have had 5,000 people in it (the box score said just under 10K ended up showing up). i felt bad for them, because they are playing extremely well, half a game back in the conference. hopefully the NOLA metro area will wake up and go see them play, no matter who it is against (tonight was the Sonics, who are pretty terrible). i’m going again on Friday to get a Tyson Chandler bobblehead. word.

so today i got a nice surprise that some girl i had never met blogged about me. all she knew of me before today is that i posted comments on my friend Brandy’s blog (who tonight posted an entry asking for questions….post as many questions as you can!) anyway, so the blog entry about me, how cool is that? let that sit for a second and think about it. i’m not talking mentioned….not talking linked to, i’m talking ENTIRE blog entry. i know, i know, i can’t help it. she even highlighted my “beard in a meeting” story. what up!

after work tonight, i went and got a haircut. i think the last time i had gotten my haircut was late summer maybe? there wasn’t really a reason like i was trying to see if i could go a year again without getting it cut or anything, i just had not gone. there is a reason i went tonight that i hope to reveal later this week. anyway, i stopped by the haircut place (it’s not a barbershop, and it’s not a salon, i’m open to suggestions on what to call it) by my house. it’s one of those places where you don’t know what hair person you’re going to get until they call your name. i feel weird writing down someone’s name on the sign-in sheet to request them because i kind of feel it’s telling the next haircut person that they’re not good enough (which i’m not!) so i just kind of let it ride. the lady who cut my hair tonight did a very fine job, although she had her moments. when she parted my hair down the middle and asked if i wore it that way, i thought there might be a problem. she rallied though and did a great job. my friend Chad raves about this guy named Sanders, who i did see at the place tonight, but was one little kid away from having cut my hair. i talked to him for a second and asked if i could write his name down next time, and he was cool with it. (incidentally Chad, he’s off on Wednesdays). a picture of my current hair is below along with the last picture i took before i got it cut. don’t worry, the old hair picture was to prove a point to the people that hated the famous chef behind THROWDOWN!

i’m taking it easy on the running this week after having gone 9 times since the beginning of the month. i revamped my playlist, so i am ready to bring it. also, Clemson won tonight, and no one called. Saturday they play Duke. i hope no one calls.

so as mentioned earlier, i got a new set of stainless steel pots for Christmas. they are the Emeril brand all-clads, and so far they have been nice to look at. i have not yet used them for any cooking. i finally took them out of the box on Saturday to clean them and ready them for battle. little did i know that Emeril had a surprise for me. inside each pot was a warning label sticker. not the sticker that just peels off, like a static cling type deal, we’re talking paper sticker. the kind that kids stick to windows and you’re like “well great, how am i going to get that off?” an example is below:

i mean really, couldn’t that have been some kind of plastic ring to cut off from the handles or something? did they really need to put paper stickers on each pot? i peeled as much as i could off, but of course it left sticky stuff behind that you could see. undaunted by my desire to get all of this ’sticker’ off, i took it to google. after a quick search, i was able to find one of many solutions. this one included tools i already had….flour and water. boom. after 2 or 3 applications of the flour/water combination, the sticker came off in its entirety. TAKE THAT EMERIL!

yesterday on my way home from a meeting at church, i stopped at the store to pick up some things. i stopped at the store with nice produce and a good beer selection since i was in need of both. i perused several things i don’t normally buy, and ended up taking home some Louisiana strawberries (which reminds me, it’s almost time for Strawberry Harvest Lager!) and some creole mustard. folks, the mustard has already proven itself after having eaten it today on my turkey sandwich. however, what i really wanted to find as a loaf of bread that had not already been cut that i could use for sandwiches. after watching an episode of Good Eats recently that dealt with sandwiches, i wanted to follow Alton’s lead and start using better ingredients when possible. unfortunately, the bakery did not have any, but i did pick up a loaf of french bread hot out of the oven for 99 cents. i ended up eating half of it on my way home because i foolishly went to the store hungry. the bread was really good though.

today at work i read about a guy with bionic legs. don’t believe me? read the article i have linked. it kind of blew my mind.

today on my day off, i went to a matinee showing of Juno. so maybe you haven’t heard of it already, but you probably know some of the actors in it, like Sydney Bristow and CJ from The West Wing. i won’t spoil any of the plot for you, but i do want to tell you it was a fantastic movie. i laughed out loud several times, so i hope i didn’t bother the other 8 people in the theatre. though me laughing isn’t as bad as the lady who had her cell phone ring THEN ANSWERED IT during the movie. (wtf lady?!?) the dialogue was great, although at some points i felt old, and then thought, “i wish i talked like that sometimes”. i wasn’t really expecting the movie to be THAT good, but it was. the relationships between all of the people in the movie got me a bit teary at parts. the ending made me happy after a point where i thought it could have turned south. it was easily one of the best movies i saw that came out in 2007. however, the movies i saw that came out in 2007 really aren’t very many, so even though my opinion probably doesn’t matter as much, check out this guy’s. he’s kind of a big deal in movies.

after leaving the theatre, i stopped and bought the soundtrack. i’ve already listened to the song that was used on the opening credits 23 times (give or take) today. it’s probably not really music i’d listen to if i hadn’t seen the movie, but listening to the soundtrack reminds me of the great movie i saw. i guess that’s the point of the soundtrack, right?

last weekend and this weekend i was able to sleep late. i’m talking like back in college or high school late. 10 hours. 12 hours. it was awesome. i haven’t been able to sleep late like that in years. this morning i woke up early and went after the goal that had been eluding me for some time…..making fried eggs while keeping the yolk runny. i had tried previous times but not succeeded. the yolk would break and it would not come out right. this morning, i made two fried eggs and the yolk came out runny…perfection!

also this past weekend i hit the gym twice. i joined a local health club over Christmas break. my parents had joined a couple of months ago, and had been asking me about joining. so over Christmas break, they got me a week membership. i went and found out how much it would cost. FORTY THREE DOLLARS?!? i took a couple of days to figure out if this was okay. a couple of friends told me that’s about what they paid, and it was standard. fine, i thought, i guess i can deal with it. i’ve been wanting to start working out and running again, so i figure if i was PAYING for a gym membership, i’d go. having to pay would be my motivation. there was no way i was not going to get my money’s worth out of this deal. so far i’ve gone 4 times. it’s nice and i feel i made a good decision so far. i like the treadmills and the 5 flat screen tvs, the spread out areas with all the machines, and it’s convenient to go after work. today though, i had to dodge the first mardi gras parade of the year to get there. i made it though, and extended my lead against my friend Janelle and helped my teams in the nike+ challenges (though April is still in the cellar).

with all the new cooking i’ve been doing lately, i bought actual sticks of butter/margarine at the store last night. i have my sights set on a couple of recipes where the tub of country crock is not going to work very well. i went looking for a butter dish at walmart. just a plastic one, nothing major. I COULD NOT FIND IT! there was not one butter dish to be found. WHY walmart why?!?

also, as a tip for friends and family, if Clemson loses an excruciatingly tough game (like the one tonight), please do NOT call me to talk about it right after. having to talk about having my heart ripped out and stomped on is not something i want to do. if i call you, that’s one thing, probably because i have something to get off my chest (like last year’s THIEVERY at Duke). only if i lived with you while at Clemson could you call me, and even then, it would just be a profanity laced tirade about missed free throws, missed foul calls, and a bad defensive choice costing us a chance at knocking off the #1 team in the country!

also, do not call me DURING the game, because i feel talking during a game while on the phone is a jinx to the team. (sorry Scott for not picking up earlier, but i’m superstitious like that).

i used to tell people i was one of the last people on Earth under 30 to not own an iPod. it seemed all my friends had one. i was interested but never could justify buying one. i’m old school…i collect vinyl, i like to buy cds with cases and album art. the idea of the nike+ system appealed to me when it made it’s debut. something that combined music and running, two things i enjoyed. i still put off buying anything. it was too expensive. i wanted to wait for the latest version. what if the nike thing doesn’t work? then in October, the new iPods rolled out. while most people clamored for the newest models with touch screens, talking shuffles, and nanos that put your earphones on for you, i looked at the older model Nano. my sister had gotten one last Christmas, so i had some familiarity with it. refurbished old Nanos were going for $99. they got me hook, line, and sinker. i rationalized that i could get an iPod with all the Nike stuff for $150, and i would start running regularly again. so in the midst of one of the worst semesters i had ever had, i bought an iPod…it could have been the stress.

now, one of the appeals of the Nike+ stuff is the ability to create a playlist for your run. with the lack of time i had during the semester, i never thought i had time to sit down and plan out a list. making a song list was important, and i wasn’t just going to throw something together. so the iPod sat in its box for two months, opened only for me to look at it a couple of times. i didn’t even turn it on or take the plastic off.

after the semester was over, and during my Christmas break from work, i finally sat down with a glass of wine and my laptop and plugged in the iPod. i loaded workout worthy songs and got the Nike+ stuff going. it is awesome. i’ve only actually run with it twice, and both times had to take off the iPod because of the earphones either falling out (bought new ones tonight) or me not being able to work the iPod right (i’m learning). however, i am already addicted to the Nike+ challenges. i’m helping people with my same birth month, same state, same dating status, etc, run more miles than the other teams. unfortunately, a few of my teams are vastly outnumbered, but still, it is fun. i wanted to go run this morning after seeing how bad April was doing in the birth month challenge. at least i can help my teams tomorrow after work.

(i have taken the plastic off since this picture was taken)