Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

Jeremy beat me to the punch on making a post remarking about how hot it had been this past week.

I ran to HEB (grocery store) today and well it felt like it was the hottest it has been so far this season.

I am sure that it was more likely not the hottest day so far, but rather the fact that I was outside around 2pm and in a parking lot (that had been collecting heat all day).

Regardless of whether it was or wasn't the hottest day so far, even the breeze was hot.

Not "sort of warm", not a "mildly refreshing" breeze, but hot, sort of like a hot breath on the back of your neck.

Needless to say I got inside the store quickly and made my purchases.

I have a little bit of a cold. Speaking of which my OJ should be ready, I am going to go and drink a glass of OJ and take a nap (which might turn into tomorrow, but who knows).

Laterz

So Gina and I went to the farmer's market again this weekend, Jeremy and Nicole met us there as planned.

Gina and I got there a bit a head of schedule (prolly like 20 minutes), so we had actually gotten most of our shopping done before they showed up.

It was fun. We bought some more bread. Hopefully, with a little luck Emma will not get a hold of it this time. I think I might have forgotten to mention up here on the blog that Emma managed to get a hold of the baguette that we bought last weekend. When we realized it was missing our first thought was "EMMA!!!" Gina found the remaining 1/3 of the baguette in the backyard.

We bought some more tomatoes and more basil. Gina is planning to turn most of the fresh basil into pesto (and freeze) it.

We also bought some snacks and drinks while we were there. I ate a tofu dog that had been rolled in dough with sauerkraut and mustard, it was pretty good. We also bought a beef "arm roast", which will be pot roast on one night and then it will magically turn into Gina's tasty beef and barely soup another night (most likely the following night).

We also went over to IKEA today, I have been wanting to get a laptop table so that when I am sitting on the couch I can do stuff on the laptop without it being on my lap (like it is right now). This laptop table is apparently called DAVE.

Well the Round-Rock IKEA is out of DAVE tables, they were also out of the computer desk that I thought would be perfect for Gina's new room. I guess I probably haven't mentioned that either. Did I forget to mention that Gina bought a Bass recently? Not a Bass Guitar but a string bass, some times referred to as a "double bass".

And with that, she has cleaned out our guest room, as to house her bass and her music stuff. Given the extra room that is now in there (seeing as the queen bed has been removed) I think this one corner desk from IKEA would be perfect in there. Gina has been needing a place of her own in the house, so I am very excited to help her get the room into order to help her feel a bit more at relaxed when she is at home.

The desk I have in mind is the TOVIK.

Jeremy and I will be heading over to Fast Eddie's soon to try and get a spot to play Guitar Hero III before it comes out tomorrow. I have no idea how busy this will be, but I probably actually need to call him in a few minutes and see about us heading over there, cuz I think it is probably going to be swamped. I have enjoyed playing Guitar Hero at the stores and at the Webmaster Jam Session.

Oh yeah, so I had the idea and it is just an idea right now as I haven't had the chance to really look into the details. But here is the idea, Gina makes really, really good dog treats. I mean our dogs love them and from what I heard Kelly's dogs loved them too. So we bought some dog treats down at the farmer's market. They are honestly not very impressive. I think that Gina should make treats and we can sell them down there. I would have fun being down there on Saturday mornings and being part of the local commerce scene.

We have tossed around the idea quite a bit today and Gina seems interested, but skeptical that the dog treats are good enough to sell. I am believe the dog treats are excellent and worthy of selling. Given the number of dogs we saw there last weekend and this weekend, I feel it is safe to say that it is a good venue for us to try and break into the market.

Gina has on occasion also made dog beds, so I think that would be another thing that can be sold. The other thing would be the "belly bands" that Gina has made for Basil. The ones that Gina made do not seem to bug Basil, but the one that she bought at PetSmart did. I mean the one from PetSmart used some elastic in it that looked like it was painful to wear for long periods of time, while the bands that Gina makes do not. Another thought would be to also allow John to sell some of his handcrafted pet furniture down there as well.

In my opinion the folks buying from that particular market are more likely to be interested in good dog treats and dog beds and hand crafted pet furniture than any other farmer's market I have been to. Then again I could be completely wrong.

Like I said, haven't done much investigation. But if the cost of the booth isn't too much, I would be willing to pay for at least a couple of weekends of experimentation.

More to come on the idea of the farmer's market booth.

Time to give Jeremy a call.

Laterz

Gina and I had a bit of an adventure today (all good, nothing bad).

But I wanted to put a quick post up, just in case anyone is reading my blog who also knows Jeremy.

Jeremy and Nichole are on their way to Texas.

Earlier today (around like 1:30pm central I think), Jeremy called me and told me they were in Virginia and were planning to make it to Nashville tonight before stopping.

Well, MSU is playing Indiana right now and I best get back into the living room.

Laterz

Once again I am faced with the fact that I have neglected my blogging. Course, I am not the only one

Work has been busier and busier, so I haven't had the opportunities that I usually do to log during lunch. I mean, if I managed my lunch hour a little bit better I could watch clips of The Daily Show, eat my sandwich and blog. Maybe I will try that tomorrow, course I still haven't quite learned to chew bubblegum and walk at the same time.

Jeremy is back in town.

He picked up a copy of Halo2 the other day at Fry's. We saw some videos on YouTube on some pretty impressive Lego Mindstorms the other day, so yesterday we went to Toy's R Us to see if they had any kits. Well, as with most sought after items Toys R Us was found to be lacking what we wanted.

Anyway, off and on over the last few days we have been playing Halo 2 after work, I have been lucky enough to beat him more often than not. However, he is getting better, while I am more or less just staying at the same skill level. However, neither of us are anywhere near being what one would probably call "Good".

I bought Stratego a few weeks back. We played a couple of games of it last night, I won them both. I hadn't played that game in probably 15 years or so.

We played a game of Scrabble after that, Jeremy beat me.

I brought my laptop home tonight and decided that I would boot up and blog a little while I am on the couch. Unfortunately, I am fairly I cannot bring myself to work on the specs that I should work tonight. I have been writing up specs for the last two days. While not overly, overly detailed specs it has taken a toll on the old mind. Especially since I have been fielding other requests here and there, interruption while writing specs or documentation tends to be more of a drain than one would usually think.

Anyway, I brought the laptop home thinking I would work a little bit, but that doesn't look like it is going to be the case.

I bought "Babylon 5: The Lost Tales" the other day. I had seen that there was a new Bablyon 5 DVD a few weeks ago and had spent the last few trips to Target and Wal-Mart looking for it. I finally found it at Best Buy, otherwise I was going to have to buy it online.

I have it on the TV right now. So far the storyline of the first lost tale is building, nothing critical has happened yet. I am not sure how the tale is going to play out just yet.

Anyway. Let me tell y'all a little bit about what happeneed this past weekend.

I dragged Gina out of the house on Saturday. (Pretty literally.)

The original idea was to drag her out of the house grab breakfast and maybe see SuperBad. However, that isn't how it played out.

We ended up going to The Salt Lick for lunch. Now, going to the Salt Lick from our place up here in Cedar Park is like an all day adventure, particularly since we didn't leave until about 10:30 almost 11:00. We had a good time at Salt Lick, we stopped on the way to pick up some Beer and Wine Coolers, since the Salt Lick is BYOB.

On the way out of the Salt Lick I saw that they had a small easel setup with these little maps to some wineries around there.

One of the little maps had something interesting on it "High Quality Olive Oil".

Gina and I have had some great olive oil from this place up north, a Spanish olive oil. (I can't spell the name of the place, but it is like Fugarelli's.)

So, we decided that we should follow the map and see where the adventure leads us. We ended up at this little ranch where they make their own olive oil, cold press, right there on the premises. They even grow most of their own olives. It is a working cattle ranch that also grows olives and grapes (for wine), they make their own wine on-site as well.

The olive oil was fantastic. I mean it is hard to describe, but as cheap as I am let me tell you I had no problem paying $19.99 for a bottle of olive oil that is probably about 1/8 the amount of olive oil that I get from CostCo for $10 or $12.

Anyway, they had some very interesting boutique type stuff too, mustards, jellies. However, the interesting thing was the balsamic vinegar, they infuse it with pears or lemons. We bought the one with pears. We also bought a couple of bottles of wine, a bottle of Sangria and a bottle of Tejanti.

It was a fun time, we made it home at about 5:30.

Well, I am getting sleepy, so best that I call it quits on the blogging for tonight.

Till tomorrow, while I blog, eat and watch The Daily Show.

Laterz

So we were supposed to get 10 days of rain. However, it has not been a full ten days of rain.

I guess, on one hand it is a catch 22, I hate the rain but I hate the heat just a little bit more.

It was 90 or 92 today, the billboard sign we passed on the way home said 100. This had to be the heat index as the humidity is still pretty high not the +80% it was over the weekend but high.

Anyway, I have lived here for almost 10 years now, so the idea of a hot summer really isn't new or surprising.

Jeremy did a quick post about micro-blogging. So I guess I should chime in too.

I used Twitter while I was at the Web 2.0 conference, since there was such hype about it at the SXSW conference. I wanted to find out what the deal was. While, it was neat, the whole text messaging thing was a bit annoying.

I have to say that I like the 'status' feature on Facebook, which can arguably be called micro-blogging. Facebook is sort of a swiss-army knife of a site with all the features. Now that they have an Open platform (F8) there is a Twitter application you can install on your Facebook profile, thus merging the two.

I haven't really used Jaiku, I learned about it at the ETel conference Jaduka attended earlier this year. I guess I will need to try it out.

I did try out Pownce, given that I am a bit of a Digg fanboy, so the at least trying out Kevin Rose's new deal is the least I could do.

It is interesting, but not spectacular.

I think micro-blogging is a powerful thing, at ETel and Web 2.0 there was this concept of 'Presence' (more so at ETel) floating around, to me all the micro-blogging sites are a form of Presence that has history, so you can go back and look at what people had previously set their Presence to.

I don't think it is a replacement for blogging. But I think it is a very nice compliment, particularly as more and more micro-blogging sites get added into more and more places, cell-phones, popular social networking sites, desktop widgets, etc.

All for now.

Laterz

I think that is how the saying goes.

Regardless, Jeremy and I got the last of the tree limb out of the tree.

I took up the pole saw this time and trimmed off the remaining leaf bearing branches on the dead limb. I also attempted to trim off some parts that we thought were keeping us from being able to remove it easily from the tree. A couple of pieces I cut off might have proved useful. However, given what the solution we ended up using to remove the limb, I doubt it.

Jeremy at one point was on top of the ladder pushing the tree limb up, as to dislodge it from the other limb it was sort of stuck in. However, even with me helping out we couldn't lift it high enough.

The way in which we were attempting to dislodge it, ie lifting it up, made me remember that I had some 8' (maybe 10') 2x4 beams in the garage from one of the renovation projects. We went and retrieved two of these and set about finding a good spot to plant the beams as to be able to push the limb up and out of the tree.

And with a resounding... CRASH-THUD, the limb hit the ground.

Luckily it didn't hit either one of us. Just before my thought about the beams, while Jeremy and I were messing with the limb whilst Jeremy was on the ladder, Gina had let Curly out into the front yard. Thankfully, when the limb had come crashing down finally, Gina had taken Curly for a walk around the block, we think the limb weighs a good 80-90 pounds, so it most definitely would end the life a little dog (or a knucklehead who is trying to jostle it out of the tree).

No one was hurt in the end, which is good. However, now there is a front yard full of tree limb to take care of.

I can honestly say that I am avoiding the task, as it is very HOT and HUMID out.

Jeremy and I are currently hanging out at the DraughtHouse in downtown Austin. We ate a late lunch @ Delware subs just south of here and are now currently enjoying a pint. We are going to work on John's weasel site. We will likely move from here over to Mozart's coffee house, as there doesn't seem to be any power outlets, which always seems to be the case for me.

Time to get cracking.

Laterz

I made it to Boston at the scheduled time.

Jeremy on the other hand had to stay in Atlanta for an extra 4 or 5 hours, ouch.

I need to finish getting ready, the convention center is already open.

I have my badge but, I need to get the badge holder and other things that go along with the conference (bag, book, program, etc).

More to come.

Laterz

I picked him up from the airport yesterday afternoon.

I was a bit late, I got caught up folding clothes and hanging towels out on the clothesline. Which, now one of the posts for the clothesline needs to be replaced. It has snapped at the base. I had noticed that it was rusting pretty bad right where the dogs had been marking it, I figured it would probably last a couple of years.

So that will be a project for next Saturday. I will try to get that in the ground before taking Jeremy back to the airport. I fly out to Boston on Sunday for the eBay Developers Conference.

On the way back from the airport, we went through downtown and over to the UT campus. I haven't been down there in a quite a while. We hit "Einstein's" an Arcade right there on the 'Drag' and played some video games. Then I got us lost looking for the Dobie mall, I thought it was north but it was south.

So along the way we stopped in at 'The Hole In the Wall' and had a quick beer and shot a game of pool. Asked directions to the Dobie.

It was very Hot yesterday, and 'It is very Hot' was said many times, mostly by Jeremy.

We browsed and each bought a graphic novel at Funny Papers, the comic store in the Dobie mall.

Then we headed towards home, stopping at HEB along the way to pick up some stuff for dinner and lunch stuff for Jeremy for the week.

I gotta go.

Back to the grind.

Laterz

I sit here conflicted and somewhat ashamed as I fell off the wagon last night.

I am writing this blog post today after having just consumed some tasty corn tortillas with melted cheese (quesadilla) and a Clif Builder Bar.

Early yesterday morning, I made plans with some old friends that Jeremy hasn't seen in like 5 years, I had run into the Prellops a few weeks back, a completely chance meeting. I decided on Cracker Barrel, knowing that there probably wouldn't be anything on the menu for me.

I figured this was going to be my defining moment during this Vegan adventure. I would either crack or I would endure. As the pressure to become an omnivore had been mounting this past week, I started too look at this experiment in dietary veganism as something more like a test of my personal discipline.

I apparently lack consider personal discipline, that would be the conclusion of my vegan experiment.

Given what I read in the book Vegan Freaks, I know that my vegan experiment was for all the wrong reasons, so I welcome any comments from the die-hard vegans out there.

Within a few days of the start of all of this, I realized that being a Vegan was hard, very hard. I never thought it would be fall off a log easy, but I never thought it would be this hard. Of course this reminds me of an adage "If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.'

Since this post is attempting to be about full disclosure of my experiment, I said a few days in 'Being a Vegan SUCKS!'.

Mind you, I wasn't doing it for any of the right reasons. I am not morally opposed to meat. I was trying to find out what it was like to be my sister back in college.

This week had it's fair share of stress at work, but I managed to be good about it all. I managed to go out to eat with coworkers and stick to a vegan lifestyle. There were some moments of poor planning that bugged me, I should have planned better, but I didn't. However, there was something that snapped, or maybe the term 'fractured' at lunch on Friday.

We went to Sushi Sake, a decent sushi place near the office. I ordered Oshinko (various pickles), Miso, Edamame, cucumber rolls and avocado rolls. Maybe I should have ordered more food, but when Gina and Jeremy were eating their steak Bento boxes, I was overwhelmed with jealousy. I love the bento box, I love steak. I didn't want to continue with the experiment.

Mind you, I had this feeling while folks were eating pizza in front of me. But this time it was a bit stronger.

I ordered a bowl of fried rice at this point, figuring that the jealousy was mainly coming from my continued hunger.

The fried rice had bits of pork in it.

SUCK!

I picked them out and ate the fried rice.

While watching them eat the bento boxes, I thought about how I would probably eat eggs and bacon in the morning with the Prellops.

I think I had resigned myself to falling off the wagon in the morning.

However, then in the afternoon. I had a marathon conference call. This was the straw that turned the fracture into a full on break.

I need a drink after work and more importantly I had an urge for comfort food. Unfortunately, comfort food typically isn't Vegan. I should probably restate that. Comfort food that can be bought at a restaurant is typically not Vegan.

We ordered a variety of appetizers and I had a few drinks. The funny part about the drinks was that, I opened the menu and saw a good looking slush style drink that stated it was a red bull cherry slush. But it didn't come with any alcohol, I asked the waitress:

Ben: Does this come with vodka? (pointing at picture of red bull cherry slush)
Waitress: No.
Ben: Can I get this with vodka? (still pointing)
Waitress: Yeah, I think we can do that.

They brought out the glass, and a full can of red bull. "Some assembly required", I thought to myself, I might have said this out loud as well.

I had sort of wanted to order a steak. However, I was concerned that my body might reject a sudden infusion of red meat.

There was a cobb salad on the menu. It was definitely not the best cobb salad I had ever had. But it was pretty good.

That meal ended my 11 days as a Vegan.

I won't go into the details about what I had for breakfast, but it was not Vegan, and I did find it tasty.

I am not sure that I will ever try the Vegan thing again. I will continue to eat healthy, likely I will eat Vegan meals from time to time.

I salute all of you Vegans out there. I salute your dedication and respect your moral convictions.

Time to grab something to eat.

Laterz

So I dragged Jeremy, Eddie and Gina to Food Shui for lunch.

Jeremy had already eaten there once before, so I knew he was going to like it.

Eddie said he liked it.

Gina ordered the Kung Pao w/Chicken. She kept passing me the pieces of green pepper that were in it. I ate them happily until I choked on a spicy one. I felt the spice sort of creep across my tongue onto the back of my mouth and then it hit that spot on your throat that makes you cough and choke a little.

I don't think I will be ordering the Kung Pao, seems a little bit too spicy.

This time I had the Mongolian bowl w/fried tofu. It was pretty good. I ordered their spring rolls too (not fried), quite tasty. Gina liked them.

Oh yeah, Gina had a taste of the tofu and said she liked it. She normally doesn't like tofu.

I'm just giving this quick update before going back to work. However, I have to post a link up to this song that I heard a while back, saw it on Digg I think. Then they played the YouTube video at the Web 2.0 conference.

I downloaded the MP3 and have been listening to it quite a bit, when I have actually had my headphones on the last week (ie not much).

YouTube - Code Monkey

Back to the grind.

Laterz