Odetta

Odetta Holmes has died.

If you haven't heard her music, check it out.

I mixxed up the LATimes piece on her. I'm sure more are to follow.

4 Great Images of "Rust"

Yesterday, I tried out something I haven't done in a while. I felt a little rusty. It inspired me to go looking for pictures of "rusty" on flickr. What I found was really interesting and made me feel melancholy and wishing I had a time machine where I could go back and see things as they were, not as they are.

Rust and Surf # 2 by Patrick Smith Photography (and on flickr)

In addition to being a fabulous picture, I really liked how the photographer placed notes on the image discussing its composition points. Really well, done. Check them out on flickr or over on the full website. Excellent stuff.

Pelican's eye view by Peter vanAllen (and on flickr)

I'm a sucker for HDR shots. I know its cheating a bit, but I really love the way they pop. Wish I could learn to make them myself. Anyway, I like this one. It makes me wonder what life was like when this was all new.

Found in Field Dead by Яick Harris

This truck looks so sad. It probably had a useful life. And someone had a lot of interesting experiences in/with it. See, melancholy. That's what these pictures do.

And finally,
Tractor rust by tina_manthorpe


This one is an abstract, obviously, but it really conveyed a lot of emotion to me. Ravages of time and all that. This photographer has some other great decay and rust photos. Be sure to check them all out.

I had originally planned on making this 10 images--people seem to like those Top10 lists--but then decided I was writing this for myself anyway and I would stop at 4 :-) Its a good number for today.

As my son would say, peace out.

Wow.

Just wow.

What an amazing night.

I'm Not Sure Comments are Needed on this One

Wow, this is entertaining.

Troy and I spent the entire video commenting that the monkey probably drives better than his mother. LOL.

Full Disclosure: I found this on Mixx
http://www.mixx.com/videos/2532291/what_happens_when_a_chimpanzee_gets_on_a_segway

Blog Recommendation

Each day, I look forward to reading the Big Picture. The fact that its published only 3x a week makes me sad on the days I don't have a big picture to look at.

Produced by Boston.com, this is perhaps, the only thing I like about Boston. The pictures they find each day are absolutely amazing. They have given me a new appreciation for photography and covered some things that I never thought would hold my attention for longer than 30 seconds. Example: the Australian Motorcycle Gran Prix.

I encourage you to check it out, leave comments, give feedback on how great the features are. Hopefully they will continue to publish!

I'm Very Lucky!

I thought maybe I'd try to bookend my "hard to be me" post by talking about the rest of my family this morning. I've got a bunch of work to do, but somehow getting this blog post done will help me get my "real" work done, right?

Anyhoo, that's Zack in the picture with me. I love this picture because I think it captures Zack's personality. Although my son looks a LOT like me, he's really all Troy inside. He is always happy and smiling. Any crankiness he experiences is very quickly replaced with happiness. His imagination runs overtime.

Last night, about 15 mins before this picture was taken, he was telling me the story of Max. Max, apparently, is Zack's imaginary kitty cat. I didn't know kids his age were all about the imaginary pets. Totally shocked me. He had all sorts of stories about Max and him at the playground. Max really likes to go on the swings.

Last night, h also caught me by surprise while we were waiting at the Jenny Craig Center (yes, I'm trying to diet and called in the cavalry), by counting from 1 to 20. Missed a couple in there but last I knew he was only up to about 8 consistently. I guess all working moms understand the mixed feelings that brought up-- ooh, wow, he's counting to 20! and oh, where did he learn that and where was I?

By looking at the man that my husband is and seeing the same personality bits in Zack, I find myself growing curiouser and curiouser about how Z will grow up. With that Alice in Wonderland reference made, I'll go ahead and get back to work now....


UPDATE: after posting this the first time and actually looking at it, I was reminded of a picture taken just over 2 years ago now that is similar in composition:

Am I becoming *THAT* blogger?

That only links to YouTube videos?

Maybe, but I have a reason. I'm discouraged with the world today. Take this for example:



52 Million times its been viewed. That's more than watched the Presidential debates here in the US.

And its not entertaining. Its just ... dumb. (No offense to the creator).

Sigh.

What's up with me today??

Oh my, another blog post!

Two things I've got stuck in my head thanks to mixx:



(I like that one cause it has subtitles)

and



Enjoy.
Or not.

Its Hard Being Me

As I wrote the title of this post, a lot of thoughts flew into my head about how that title could be interpreted. Lord knows there are a lot of things about myself that are difficult. But when I wrote it, there was a specific instance that I meant where its hard to be me. And that is dealing with being in a large family and being the only non-McCain voter in my family.

To me, the decision in this election is a very easy one. Sure, there is the whole "I hate George Bush" and the Bush Doctrine thing. There is the fear of the badness a conservative court would perpetrate on us. There is the fallacy of trickle-down economics. There are more things I don't have the time or heart to discuss here...

After thinking long and hard about it, though, I am really beginning to suspect that the real reason I am so very pro-Obama is in large part because I am so very anti-Republican. I really dislike politics. I dislike politics. I have disliked politics for a long time. Neither party represents my views. I am an independent in the truest sense of the word--I want to be independent of all politics. Some of my views are conservative--I am for sure a fiscal conservative and would wish for the government to only provide enough structure and oversight to overcome information imperfection and neg/pos externalities to encourage companies and people to make rational decisions. The wisdom of the crowds wins in economic markets. On the social side, I'm definitely liberal. I believe white rich people aren't inherently better than anyone else in the world--they were just born lucky. And its their responsiblity and the government's responsibility to help level out the hands of luck and give people a boost up when needed.

All that being said, why my intense dislike for the Republicans? I guess you could call it a moral issue. The Republican party has a 'get elected at all cost' mentality that I think is just wrong. Its bad for our country. A party that can't get elected on its platform but has to resort to dirty tricks and flat-out lies is not a party I can support. And its not a party anyone SHOULD be supporting.

And this crap is happening on two levels.

First, on the "official" level. Having Sarah Palin talk about Obama's association with "Domestic Terrorists" is horrible. Its just horrible and abject lies. The domestic terrorist in question was elected Citizen of the Year in Chicago in like 1987 or something (too lazy to go find the article about him). Did he do something dispicable in the past? Yes, no doubt about it. But a lot of people did things in their past and we were willing to forgive them. The city of Chicago obviously did. How does Barack Obama serving on a large board of directors with the man somehow have some sort of impact on his ability to lead this country? And before anyone pipes up with "but its his associations, and who you hang with says a lot about you." Well, explain to me the Keating 5. And you can't, so shut up.

I've been looking a lot at the Congressional Quarterly's partnership with the St. Petersburg Times with their PolitiFact blog (look, not so lazy I couldn't find the link). A quick scan will tell you that the Repubs have many many more "pants on fire" and "completely false" grades than the Dems. Many many more. An embarassing amount more.

Is a party of liars really who we want in charge? I don't. You may be power hungry bastards and bitches (99% of politicians are) but at least be honest power hungry ones.

The second thing is the implicit or unofficial stances. The implicit allowance of continued rumors and lies to be spread.

So what does this have to do with it being hard to be me?
My family, mom, 4 brothers, 4 sisters-in-law, mother-in-law and sadly, husband, are all McCain supporters. My husband, at least, can articulate why. He's a one-issue voter. What is best for small businesses is best for him. Understandable (and forgiveable).

But my family just doesn't accept that I am not a wackho right-winger, but instead harasses me about it.

My brother says "I don't understand how someone as intelligent as you supports Obama." When pressed for details about why he supports McCain? Nothing but BS made up Republican lies.

My mother forwards me an email saying we shouldn't vote for Obama because no one has seen his birth certificate. I send her back the link to the page on his website that shows it. And point out that I haven't seen McCain's birth certificate either.

Back comes an email that she fears for her children and grandchildrens' futures if Obama gets elected "what with his associations with domestic terrorists." Do you know how sad it is to have your mom spouting made-up Fox News regurgitated "fair and balanced" bullshit at you?? Sigh.

And don't get me started about my mother-in-law. Rush Limbaugh told her that Arctic drilling is a good thing because pipelines are environmentally-positive. Responding to my disbelief, she lets rip with this one--"well, the animals can all snuggle up to it in the winter to keep warm" LOL Yeah, because oil pulled out of the ground is kept at a balmy 106-degrees throughout the pipelin process.

Requests to these folks... well, requests to my family to provide specific examples of policies they read themselves and disagree with have been met with complete silence.

My family are a bunch of really intelligent, hard-working good human beings. Who are being lied to and snowed by the Republican party. If that's happening to the smart ones, I can only imagine the impact on the rest of the populace.

Here's hoping Nov 5th is a good day.

Oops!

I was doing some testing on my blog today of a new widget for Mixx.com. And any mixxers that are reading this, NO, you can't have it until Thursday.

In doing so, I realized that I hadn't blogged since August. Well, that's embarrassing. I mean, its not like I have a lot of people reading this, but still. I made a commitment to be better about blogging and I need to get back on it.

But in the meantime, I'll keep my day job at Mixx and not try to become a professional blogger ;-D

Times They Are A Changin'

My quick thoughts for this historic day.
As some of my 3 readers may know, I don't follow politics. Not at all. In fact, I find most politicians to be hypocritical, in-it-for-the-power types--despite all their fancy rhetoric.

I have CHOSEN not to vote in the last 3? 4? elections out of principle. Yes, how unAmerican of me. Women had to fight for the right to vote. And I don't vote. Oops. Well, whatever.

All this being said, I have been totally engaged in this election. Why?

Answer #1: George Bush. What a nightmare. He makes me embarrassed to be American. He and Cheney's evil deeds have masked to the rest of the world what a GREAT and AWESOME country this is. Except we elect evil henchmen as our leaders. Oops.

Answer #2: WOW! By January, we'll have either a woman or an African-American in the White House. DANG. This is monumental, and either way, I think this is a great thing for America. A great thing--whether you are blue, red or green.

So I'll watch with interest, and what the heck. Maybe I'll even vote this time around.

Its All About The Attitude

I've had a few frustration points in my life recently. In the case of all of them, it was a perfect storm of lots of little things in a specific area building up over time and bubbling over into a few "I can't take this anymore" type of thoughts.

I had a long discussion with Troy (hubby) about them, and he gave me some great advice while we were riding the bus back from NYC last weekend. The advice was simple:

"Don't Care As Much"

In the week that followed, I looked at some of the situations and people that were frustrating me so greatly. And I realized that the most frustrating thing about these people and situations were that they weren't going to change. And I couldn't do a damn thing about it.

Before Troy dispensed his sage advice, I would have spent hours of frustrated effort trying to improve the person or situations around me. My anger and frustration and stress growing by the minute.

Now I've come to realize that its ok to not have everything around me perfect. That "good" can get you through the day. That in the whole big scheme of things, spending more time with my son, and working on my own projects is smarter, easier and less stressful than killing myself over something I can't control.

I was mortified my last annual review at AOL netted me a "Meets Expectations" grade (3 out 5, received by 85% of employees) . It was the first time I was not graded "outstanding" (5 out of 5) since they started doing those reviews in the late 90s. The new me wouldn't be mortified. I'd be pleased that I spent those extra hours with the two people I love the most, enjoying my life.

In the end, isn't that the right attitude? Isn't that what its all about?

Cool little meme

My creation, originally uploaded by kaparkins.

This image above is generated by the following:

The rules:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The questions:

1. What is your first name? Kerry
2. What is your favorite food? Macaroni and Cheese
3. What high school did you go to? Trumbull
4. What is your favorite color? Black
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Dean Cain
6. Favorite drink? Chardonnay
7. Dream vacation? Tokyo
8. Favorite dessert? Cupcakes
9. What you want to be when you grow up? archaeologist
10. What do you love most in life? Zack and Troy
11. One Word to describe you. reliable
12. Your flickr name. kaparkins


Of all the great photos I found doing these searches on flickr, these were the best. Links to them where you can get the full information on the awesome photographers who took them (they put me to shame!):
1. county kerry, 2. Nobody Does It Better, 3. At the old ball game..., 4. Perspective Matters (500 unique and cool people count this photo as a favorite), 5. deancain0013, 6. Chardonnay!, 7. The neon lights, 8. candy pop land, 9. The Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huangdi, 10. star leaf fringed in moon gate [─► this sweetgum leaf was before erroneously starred as a maple leaf ◄─], 11. The Wonder of Christmas, 12. Z asleep on the way there

New York State of Mind

Just got back from New York City. Again.

I had a great time this past weekend, hanging with my 4 friends from high school. We played native New Yorkers and ate at some great local places. We also played tourists and took the Circle Line boat around the southern part of Manhattan and under the Statue of Liberty. I haven't been near Lady Liberty since junior high and I had forgotten what an amazing place it was.

I traveled on the Megabus again. Unlike last time where I paid a whopping $6.00 for my ticket, this weekend, I paid $2.50. Roundtrip! Woo hoo! We ran into some glitches on the way up. First was traffic (of course). The teeny-tiny State of Delaware must be using its entire GDP to tear up I-95 because it was a parking lot from the Maryland border all the way over the Delaware Memorial Bridge. And then, once we got on the Jersey Turnpike, the bus driver pulled over. Unexpectedly. Told us that she had driven too many hours and was waiting for another bus driver to be delivered by company car to relieve her. Now note that this didn't occur because we were so delayed that she was on the road longer than expected. Oh no. She ran out of time well before our planned arrival time in NYC. We sat for 35mins waiting. Then, after getting back on the road again, we got stuck in one of those legendary 45min backups through the Lincoln Tunnel. After all was said and done, we arrived 1.5 hours late into the city.

The way back was better. We only had some smoking tires to deal with, but only had to wait 10 mins for a new bus to arrive. But the bus driver was intent on showing the movie Lake Placid 2 on the bus. It was a horror movie, obviously rated "R" and yet there was some kids on the bus. Very odd. And the movie was a train wreck. Thankfully not a bus wreck though. Even with the dang Delaware traffic, ony 20 mins late.

In the end, even with the delays, I would still travel megabus again. So cheap, really convenient, and takes as long as driving without the exorbitant parking fees!

I wish I was staying in NY for a few more games. The All Star game is at Yankee Stadium in its final year. I would have liked to be there for that.

At this rate, it will be a while before I head back to the Big Apple, but the last two weekends made memories that will last me for a while...

Why Am I an Obama Supporter

I plan on voting in this next election. Although I've had the right to vote since 1986, I have exercised my right to not vote. In general, I dislike politicians. Besides my life not much being changed by whomever is in office (both locally and nationally), I have a deep suspicion of people who are so hungry for power. I know that I can probably do as good a job as most politicians do, but that still doesn't inspire me to run for office. I don't understand the motivation to be a politician--I just don't.

As far as my own political beliefs, I'm really quite in the middle, overall. There are some things I firmly believe in that are historically "Republican" and some that are historically "Democratic." What I don't believe in is extremism--either on the right or the left. I think people that are way right-wing or way left-wing are just wrong. And there is no party that matches my views, no candidate. That remains true today.

On the right, you have people that are sheep--they listen to leaders who are trying to advance their own agendas and they don't question what they are hearing. They accept it when Rush Limbaugh tells them that Alaskan pipelines are good because pipelines give the animals that live in Alaska a warm place to snuggle up to (no, really). They believe when their religious leader tells them that some parts of the Old Testament need to be obeyed 100% without question (man shouldn't lay with man) and others can be ignored (stone the wife if she cheats) and that's all in line with what God says. This type of blind following holds true to all people I've met who profess far right-wing views.

On the left, you have some fairly whacked out ideas as well. Conspiracy theories abound. The government is seen as some evil that needs to be tossed down in favor of some unspecified perfect society that somehow doesn't need governing. The common theme with everyone I've personally met with these leftist views is that these people universally, and sometimes I think unconsciously feel they are smarter than others AND that they are somehow better human beings for it.

Of course, these generalizations aren't true across the board, but they are true for the people i have met.

Long story short, it is for all these reasons that I have not bothered voting. And then we come to George W. Bush. I never voted for Bush. But I didn't vote to not put him in office. Even if I did in '04, wouldn't have mattered. I was never "for" the war in Iraq. I had a long "discussion" with a friend of mine who was in the first war in Iraq how that war was not justified. We were justified in kicking the Iraqis out of Kuwait, but the rest of the "war" was just gratuitous, unnecessary and a failure. Because really, what was accomplished by it?

The second War in Iraq just as unjustified.

And then the Patriot Act. WTF? How can we call ourselves Americans if we suspend some of the fundamental reasons that make us America? George Mason refused to sign the Constitution unless it included the Bill of Rights. Its something that every single American benefits from (more than they even realize) and yet we just gave one big piece of that up without a fight. Frightening.

If we all read about an election in a small African country where the president was moved into office even though the majority of voters voted for someone else, and the area of the country where the president's brother ruled bent the rules to push him into office--well, we'd all be convince the election was rigged or tainted. Well, it happened here in the US.

Wiretapping Americans without anything other than the need to say that the government needs to listen in? Problematic.

We've stopped being America, and that needs to stop.

Of the two candidates, John McCain seems to be the more centrist one. Obama seems like one of the "extremists" I dislike. However, this is only the way things seem. The real question is what compromises the two candidates will make to get elected. McCain will compromise to the right, Obama to compromise to the center.

In the end, the choice is clear. The politics of the last 8 years, as influenced by the neo-cons, or an attempt at something, anything different. I choose the latter. I choose Obama.

Weekends in New York

I am spending the next two weekends in New York City.

This coming weekend is July 4th, and we're going to do three things:
1. Coney Island & Nathan's hot dog eating contest
2. Fireworks, as seen from Roosevelt Island
3. Yankees/RedSox game

The weekend following, I'm celebrating a group 40th birthday gathering. I'm not sure how to better describe it. I still am in (relatively) close touch with my 4 best friends from high school. This year, we all turn 40. Due to lots of different schedules, families and locations, we're going to get together for one weekend to celebrate.

The 5 of us have managed to keep close through 4 marriages, 4 kids, 3 adoptions, 2 parental divorces, 1 parental passing, 1 PhD, 3 Master Degrees, 2 college dropouts (hiatuses), 21 years of a hand-written chain letter and countless "i'm in town for one day, let's do lunch" type drop-ins.''

For a group of women, we've managed to only have one disagreement about boys, thankfully. Compared to my other friends, this is apparently quite the accomplishment.

Yet, despite all this, I still remain a bit anxious about our Birthday Gathering. Its now taken on the importance of capital letters, I guess.

I honestly can't remember the last time the 5 of us were together. I think it might have been our 5th-year high school reunion. I'm not counting weddings because one of us was (obviously) otherwise occupied during those occasions.

So what if we have nothing in common but crazy memories of our halcyon days? (side note: i have no idea exactly what that means but always wanted to drop it into conversation or blogversation). Will we be stuck with minutes of uncomfortable pauses? Will I fall back on babbling like I always do to fill an uncomfortable silence?

I'm probably more curious than worried. There is a part of me, the unsocial part, that will just be curious to sit back and observe the dynamic like I'm examining lab rats. That probably won't go over to well.

None of the girls going on the trip read this blog. Hell, I don't think anyone reads this blog. So there is no chance they will be influenced by my nerves, but I am wondering if they feel the same way I do...

Thank You, George Lucas

I'm a very avid reader. I have been since I was young. I used to sneak a flashlight into bed so that I could continue to read after my parents turned the lights out. The words created such vivid images in my mind, and took me to places I would never imagine on my own.

Movies sometimes have the same power for me. When a movie can create a sense of wonder and realism and emotion for me, I am instantly hooked. My "top ten" of movies is really quite simple.
1. Star Wars
2. Indiana Jones
3. The Lord of the Rings


I remember seeing Star Wars for the first time so clearly. My mom had a long day of me and my 4 brothers. She sent my dad out with the oldest of us to go the movies so she could have some quiet time. My younger brothers being just 6 stayed at home and went to bed. I, on the other hand, had an experience I would never forget, even after 31 years.

I waited 4 hours in line to see Empire Strikes Back. 6 hours to see Return of the Jedi. I fell in love with Han Solo. I had dreams of Mark Hamill vacuuming my ceiling in a blue and red striped rugby shirt. Don't ask. Really. Star Wars was a major influence in my life--and in more ways than I have time to write about here.

When it came time for the Star Wars prequels, I thought I had reached Nirvana (nerdvana?). As the opening began to roll, I grabbed my husband's arm and squeezed tight. He looked over at me and laughed. I was crying tears of joy and excitement.

[hey, i never claimed to not be a loser here]

2 hours later I felt a profound sense of loss. George Lucas f-ed up. In his quest for either technical perfection or the almighty marketing dollar, he somehow screwed over my childhood. Episodes 2 and 3 lessened the hurt a little bit, but not much. Somewhere, Lucas lost the heart of the story. The relationships that held the action together and created a world in which I wanted to live.

Fast forward to May 24, 2008.

I'm entrusting a rehash of my childhood memories to George Lucas again. This time, though, Steven Spielberg is involved. I'm feeling more optimistic.

The theatre goes dark, and my husband is again laughing at me as I am again wiping away the tears. The movie opens in classic Spielberg fashion. Your first shot of Indy is in shadow--putting on the battered fedora. With that one bit of cinematography, I knew everything was going to be ok.

I smiled. A HUGE smile. One that didn't leave my face for 2 hours and 4 minutes.

Thank you, George Lucas. For not killing my fond memories and having to provide a condition on my love.

Lawsuits and Arbitration, Oh My!

Troy and I bought a condo in Vegas a few years ago--pre-Zack. We viewed it as a good investment, and liked the convenience factor of it. And although ability to travel to Vegas has diminished (with the arrival of Zack and the big job changes), we are still very glad we made the purchase.

One of the appealing things about the purchase was that it is a condo-hotel project. Which means that we can easily rent the condo out without having to either hire a property management company or be there in person.

One year has passed since we bought, and we've recently learned that some of the other owners have filed a lawsuit against the builder for violating some laws during the sales process. In reading it over, the lawsuit has some merit. But their first step was overturned by a judge because the condo owners didn't go through the arbitration process first as agreed upon in our purchase agreements.

I never understand why people resort to lawsuits. There is one party who makes good with lawsuits. That's the lawyers for the little people who try to take on the Big Guys. They get paid no matter what the outcome. The Big Guys have lawyers on staff, so the marginal cost of fighting a lawsuit is zero. Makes it a tough world. And the only hope, imho, that the little people have is if the Big Guy wants to avoid negative publicity about the whole thing.

In this case, I am upset that no attempt to go to arbitration was made. They want the builder to buy back their units. I don't want to sell mine at all.

Instead, I just want to make a bit more money off of the rental program. So I came to Vegas to a meeting of other owners, opened my mouth and now took the lead on trying to move our complaints on the rental program forward to arbitration.

Oh my.

Defending Digital Photography

I wish I was a better blogger. If I was, I could actually have a source to cite here. But I don't. I pathetic.

I read an article recently that basically said that digital cameras were killing the "art" of photography because the transient nature of digital storage encouraged people to immediately ditch "non-perfect" pictures. The author of the article supposed that so many of our most cherished photos from the pre-digital ages were the cast-off ones. The ones that at first glance may not appear perfect but actually wound up capturing a moment that was not perfect or posed or predisposed. He lamented the toss-awayness of digital data.

At first read, I agreed with him. I have often discarded photos I've taken while looking at them on a little screen about 1" by 3/4." What treasures did I lose by casually hitting the delete button on my camera? Especially because my camera holds 200+ pictures and I have never come within 50 of running out of space. Why not hold on to it? Storage is cheap. I spent the next month or so holding on to every single click.

In doing so, however, it made me a little more conscious of each click. And I began to realize the flip side of the whole digital thing. Storage is cheap. Film is cheap. Developing the pictures is cheap. Even printing pictures is cheap.

Since moving to digital, I have clicked the camera shutter more times than I had previously. Because the marginal cost of one more picture is practically nil. But the marginal benefit could be huge. Many times, my son is doing something somewhat mundane--playing with his sippy cup, laughing with the dog, riding his play train, dancing, napping. The things kids do every day. But because I was able to snap 25 pictures in 3 minutes, I was able to get the perfect shot--that captured the exact look of concentration as he tried to get that last drop of juice out of his sippy cup. The look of pure joy as he danced in a little circle waving his arms around, as he opened his mouth in the beginning of a snore in his afternoon nap.

I thank the people who brought photography to the digital age. For I have been able to capture the emotions and experience of my son's life more than I ever could have in the film age.

The new Nationals Ball Park

This past Saturday (March 29), I went to the new Nationals Ball park in DC. We chose to go on Saturday, even though it was an exhibition game, because we wanted to stay away from the circus that was the George W. Bush throwing out the first pitch mess. Good decision from what I heard :)
My hopes were high for the ballpark. As some (or all 1) of my readers know, I got on yearly trips with husband and friends to ballparks around the country. The goal is to enjoy some baseball, take in the local experience at the park, have some beers and find some cool thing to do in a city we otherwise never would have been to (Milwaukee, that would be you!). But a big part of the trip is the ballpark itself.

I have my personal favorites:
1. Pac Bell Park in San Francisco (I know, its AT&T park, but just like Candlestick is still Candlestick...)

• Great view of the Bay and on over to the Oakland Hills
• Excellent food that is representative of local establishments. Garlic from Gilroy in the form of the 40-clove chicken sandwich, Garlic Fries from Gordon Biersch (sp?), Compadre Nachos, Anchor Steam beer. All local and yummy.

2. PNC Park in Pittsburgh

• By far the best view from a stadium: You can see the Roberto Clemente bridge (which crosses teh Allegheny River) from the stands, and the vista is amazing. On game days, they close the bridge to just foot traffic.
• The food, again, relies on local fare: pierogies, Allegheny City Beverage, Primanti Brothers and their famous smash sandwiches. Yummy.
• Recognition of their heroes--Pop's Plaza (named after Willie Stargell), Roberto Clemente bridge, and a giant statue of those two plus Honus Wagner, Legacy Square to honor the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords
• General fan friendliness: Family bathrooms, a Home Run ball exchange policy, Kids ID bracelets, etc.
• in short, a lot to love

3. Fenway Park in Boston

• Yes, yes, a diehard Yankees fan putting this park on my list. But before I'm a Yankees fan, I'm a baseball fan. And how can a baseball fan not love Fenway Park? Now I wish the Sox sucked in their ballpark forever, but I can't dis the ballpark. Gotta respect the team for hanging on to the old dog and making lots of improvements. When I was last up there (Fall 96?) it needed a lot of work. But I've heard its getting better.

4. Oriole Park at Camden Yards

• here, its all about the warehouse. A great design, good seats all over the house.

Back to the original topic of the post: The Nats new ballpark.

I was disappointed.

That's not to say that there weren't things that I didn't really like, but the overall effect was, eh.
Things I did not like:
1. Not much atmosphere or character. There is so much history and architecture that could have been used to inspire the stadium. Instead, we get (what felt to me) a carbon copy of the Phillies new stadium. Nice, but not memorable.
2. When you had a choice of a view of the river or a view of the Capitol building, you choose... neither? Well, I guess you can kind of see the Capitol from the cheap seats... but why not orient the building to get better view of the monuments? I mean nothing is allowed to be taller than the Washington Monument for a reason people!

What I did like:
1. Our seats (thanks, Eric). They are on club level, cushioned and quick access to a temperature-controlled area with food and bars.
2. Local food. Here, they did good. I had a Ben's half-smoke with chili and fixin's from Ben's Chili Bowl. I could also have scored chili Mac from Hard Times, some BBQ from Red, Hot & Blue, ice cream from Giffords. The food choices get an A from me.

Of course, since I am a Baseball Fan(atic), I'll still be going to my share of game there. Even if I am slightly disappointed. Maybe it will grow on me.

Making Money by Blogging

I've been using the web for a while now, (obviously) and have had many false starts on blogging. I think, actually, that this blog is probably my longest running attempt at blogging, and you can see how piss-poor I am at doing it consistently.

However, I have run across a bunch of people, especially recently while working on Mixx.com, that blog for the money. Not for some other motivation.

And now this causes me to create an aside from the point of this. What is my motivation for writing this blog? I genuinely have no idea. I can take a guess at some motivations, but there certainly isn't a strong dominant one. For example, I like to write restaurant reviews, so that's a motivation (for some of my posts). I have some long-standing issues or ideas in my brain that sometimes need working out. I get annoyed by some things. All this ties together to create the feeling that I want to blog. Given those things, though, I wonder why I don't just create a private blog. Or write to a local file on my harddrive. Why do I want other people to read my blog? I really don't want that, as I've only ever told like 3 people that I do write a blog. had this thing going for 2 months before my husband knew. And I tell him everything--except those things that I know will bore him ;-)

Anyway....

I was looking at a site called dat money (I'll refrain from giving them a backlink they probably crave). The guy says he made like $500 last month on his blog. Thing is, his blog isn't really that great. At all. Its a blog about blogging. I am beginning to think there are 20,000 of these blogs about blogging that are involved in some Ponzi scheme to fool people out of their money using AdSense. Hmmm...

I know that if I put my mind to it, I have way more to offer to a reader than blogging about blogging. I'm pretty good at my job (maybe). I know a lot about social media and the internet. I am also pretty filled with advice for new moms--not that anyone would probably want to hear it. I am good fantasy baseball and fantasy football player. I know a lot and am very opinionated about sports.

Maybe some day, I'll give money blogging a start. I'd have to figure out how to run wordpress or something.

St Patty's Day, Interrupted

We went out to dinner for St. Patty's Day last night. We had to, I'm Irish!
We went with friends to the Melting Pot for their Irish beer dinner. The setup was pretty nice--they had a big room with 3 long tables and 3 fondue pots for each table.

As a side note, Troy didn't like the setup. As he said, if I wanted to go to dinner with some strangers, I wouldn't have chosen the beat bloated dude we had to sit next to. For the record, the couple near us were actually very nice. A bit chatty, but nice.

Anyway, the first course was cheese fondue, of course. It was paired with Kelly's Irish Cider, Raspberry flavored. I loved that stuff! Wow, I could drink that all the time. I'll have to find somewhere to get my drink on with that stuff.

The second course was salad. I chose the Caesar. It had Parmesan-crusted pine nuts. They were outstanding, and a nice addition to a Caesar. I'm usually pretty picky about my Caesar salads.

(flashback to '93) My Caesar pickiness stems from a cross-country drive I was on. Stopped at a Denny's in Utah. Yeah, I know, a Denny's in Utah. I ordered a Caesar salad because how could you mess up Romaine, croutons, Caesar dressing. Yes, you can get all fancy with that (made tableside, anchovies, parmesan shavings, etc), but at its core, those are the 3 things that make a Caesar a Caesar. Take one away, and no Caesar. So anyway, I order my Caesar, there in Denny's and the waitress says:

"what kind of dressing you want with that?"

Me: "Excuse me?"

Waitress: "What kind of dressing do you want on your Caesar?"

Me: "Caesar dressing"

Waitress: "Honey, I know you want a Caesar, but I need to know what kind of dressing you want on it"

Me: "Can I have Caesar dressing?"

Waitress gives me sort of an angry look

Me: "Caesar salads generally have a dressing on them called Caesar dressing. Why can't I have that?"

Waitress: "We don't have 'Caesar' dressing"

Me: "Ranch?"

Waitress: "Yeah, I can do ranch for you"

So out comes the salad with Romaine, tomatoes, carrots and ranch dressing. I guess in a Denny's in Utah, "Caesar" means you want Romaine lettuce instead of iceberg in your salad. Oh, and you want to pay $1.00 more for that "fancy" lettuce.

The best Caesar I had was in Florida. One of those places that make the salad right at your table. Kind of cliche, but in this case, the salad was awesome. Hint of anchovies, garlic croutons, Parm shavings, a very garlicy fresh-made dressing, Really crisp Romaine cut at bite-size pieces. Yummy.

So back to St. Patty's Day...
Paired with the salad they offered Wexfords. Wexfords is one of those Irish beers that, like Boddingtons and Guiness,comes in the pub can with the little ball in there that makes the beer pour all funny. Now don't get made at me purists, I say funny to mean just that its different than your standard beer pour. Usually, I don't like beer that comes in funny cans with little balls in it. However, I reallly enjoyed Wexfords. Or maybe I was just in love with my Parmesan-crusted pine nuts and my taste buds were dead from the Raspberry Cider. In any case, it is a beer I will order again.

The entree was standard Melting Pot fare--raw meats and veggies for you to boil up on your own. It was served with some double-chocolate malt bock stout nasty crap I would rather not taste or drink. So I gave mine away.

Ah, and then towards the end of the meat course, comes the Smithwick's. Ah, I love me some Smithwicks.

But then came the phone call. From the sitter.

Little Zack fell down and bumped his crown. And cried for 20 minutes. My son doesn't cry for 20 minutes. He only moans at night for 20 minutes when he wants his bottle or his mommy. So we left. Early. Before the chocolate course. Great sadness.

And I didn't get to finish my Smithwick's.

By the time we got back to check on him, Z was his old happy self, no sign of pupil dialation, etc. We think the crying was cause he got scared when he smacked his coconut.

Did I mention I didn't even finish my Smithwick's? And that I didn't get the chocolate fondue?

Tonight is our anniversary (13th!) and a trip to Morton's. Maybe no interruptions this evening.

On Redemption

I got into a weird place at my old job. My boss moved me into a new position, that was really quite different from the old job function I held. "We hired this new guy" he told me, "and we think he can do a better job of creating a differentiated and compelling product vision than you." Hmm, I said. "And you are an expert at shipping products, so we will put you into this job over here that is leading up the project managers." I'll get back to you, I said.

I went home to talk to my husband, who is so very supportive of me, it brings me to tears when I really think about it. He reminded me that the last time I worked a job I wasn't really made to do, I was miserable. I got bored so quickly. And a bored me is a bad me.

I also started thinking about the larger picture here. I had worked diligently for this company for more than 11 years. Put off having kids because I was so dedicated to the job. Made many sacrifices, including having only two "unplugged" vacations in 11 years. And it had come down to the fact that my skillset was completely unappreciated by the company. Not just unappreciated, but underappreciated.

My personal brand, what I had worked so hard to achieve, was not what I had imagined it to be. Those above me in the management hierarchy thought my skillset was completely different than it actually was. Anyone who worked more than 15 minutes with me knew that doing the task of project management was NOT in my wheelhouse. In fact, it was a running joke how horribly disorganized I was. When I was a project manager 6 years earlier, I was running a project involving a team of over 200 people, and when I left the position and had to transition the project to another project manager, my "transition" document was an email with everyone's name in it. I said, well, I think I have this plan in my head, and that's all the people that are working on it. Not much skill there for a project manager. In the next 6 years, I never evolved my horribly lacking project manager skills, even though the company in general evolved what was asked of the project managers. And now I was being told to lead a group of people who's job function I didn't even understand. Uh, how about putting me in charge of the finance department? I probably would have had just about the same amount of chance of understanding how to lead the accountants.

How did it get to this? Not sure. I was never one to suck up. I had always had my own style. I had never been afraid to speak my mind, whether it was to the CEO or to a brand-new hire. I figured if that person didn't want my honesty, then that was their shortcoming.

Having some time, and going through the stages of grief, denial, anger, etc etc, I came to realize that it wasn't that the management of that company didn't get ME; it was that they weren't product people and didn't understand what it meant to create compelling products. And, I probably pissed them off at some time. Oh, and I was hugely pregnant and on maternity leave for 6 months--hard to make an impression in that state ;-)

What the management at that company didn't understand, and doesn't understand, is that being a 'product leader" is not just about coming up with ideas -- which my replacement was obviously great at. Its about coming up with ideas, turning them into an actual set of achievable plans, and making micro-decisions along the way about the end-user experience in order to achieve something that is functional, enjoyable, has "smile" moments (where you have surprised the user into enjoying something more than they thought they would), works, matches your business goals and reflects the value proposition for users that your brand is communicating to the market. Its inspiring people to understand the vision of what you are trying to accomplish, how that vision translates into a positive for the company, and thus why they should believe in you and work their ass off to accomplish said set of tasks. Its getting to know each member of the team, to understand what motivates them so that you can speak their language and create individual motivation points for each team member to bring out their best. Its raising the level of people who work around you. Its creating a cohesion so that all voices feel heard and valued and motivated. Its about convincing your team that all the great ideas are theirs (even when/if they aren't). Its about achieving an end while making the means as enjoyable as possible for everyone.

So after I asked to be given a layoff package--and to my old boss's credit, he complied and I was able to pay for my son's college education in one fell swoop because of it--I spent a lot of time second-guessing my skills, my passion, and my sense of where I belonged and what I wanted to do 'when i grow up.'

I signed on with Chris McGill to build out an idea he had from scratch. I created requirements, hired a brilliant tech guy, a web developer wunderkind, made wireframes, supervised the creation of a design, and shipped www.mixx.com.

And got more than 100 glowing reviews, a surprisingly large amount of raving fans who have created their own mixx fan site, and 7 other ex-coworkers who chose to leave that other company and come work with me.

Redemption.

Poste Brasserie

Last night, I dined at Poste Brasserie in DC. I accidentally left my phone (and camera) at home so no pictures of this restaurant. I'll have to rely on words.

Overall, I'd give Poste's efforts an A-. We were dining with a sizable group so we were lucky to be put into our own private room. I say lucky because the bar there was hopping so the main dining room was quite noisy.

The first course I had was a housemade charcuterie board. Yummy. Fresh, flavorful, spicy, everything you want fresh housemade sausage to be. There were 4 slices on the board; fennel salami, porchetta, besaola, and coppa. 3 were amazingly good. The 4th was sort of like an olive loaf. The taste of the meat was fine, but I'm not a big olive person, so that got left uneaten.

My next course was the celeriac soup. The presentation was nice, if a bit overdone these days--they served it in a highball glass. Very frothy at the top. The soup was very flavorful and complex. Would have been good on its own. But what raised this above ordinary was the pieces of shrimp and smoked bacon in the soup. Awesome! Of course, anything with bacon is better, but the smoky flavor of this bacon went well with the celeriac soup.

For entree, I went with the Grilled Pineland Farms Flatiron Steak. It was nicely flavored with a Bordelaise sauce, of which I am a great fan. So it would have been hard to mess this up. I asked for my steak cooked to a warm pink center. It was a little rarer than that, so grilled just perfectly. The Bordelaise sauce was made to a perfect consistency. A strong effort overall.

The steak was served with some "boulangerie potatoes." I had a taste of these (quite good) but concentrated mainly on the side order of Macaroni and Cheese which we were all splititng among us. Apologies to my dining companions, but I think I hogged the Mac & Cheese.

I love macaroni and cheese. Ever since I was a little kid, I've been eating M&C like its in limited supply and I've got to finish it all before someone else does. I'm a big fan of Kraft Mac&Cheese actually. I run into some restaurants (or people) that try to do their own homemade mac & cheese but only two times has that been really enjoyable, where I wanted more. Last night was the second of those two times.

The M&C at Poste Brasserie is obviously made with good quality, fresh cheese. Some time is put into the creation of a creamy, thick sauce that had a hint of sharpness to it. My guess would be some sherry. Light on the bread crumbs atop the serving dish. I would go back there just for the Mac & Cheese. I thought it was that well-made and tasty.

Btw, the other return-to-me mac&cheese was made my by friend, the Canadian Michelle Hill who makes this odd dish she calls mac & cheese but is kind of franco-american spaghetti o's like. She claims she can only get the right noodles and cheese in Canada. But for all its oddities, its DAMN DELICIOUS and I hope she gets back to canada soon so I can get some more of it!

That's it for now.

Reds

Back in October (yes, I am seriously late in blogging this, keep your comments to yourself), I went on a business trip to Toronto. We were up there for the ONA conference. Online Newspaper Association. Yeah, I never heard of it either.

It was a nice conference, and I was lucky enough to have an evening free as my boss went out to dinner with some ex-coworkers of his. I asked the concierge at the hotel for a place where I could find some good food and a nice glass of wine and she suggested the restaurant "Reds" named not after the baseball team or the Warren Beatty movie, but after red wine. Ah, good find!

The bar at Reds was hopping. It was hard to miss because it took up the entire first floor of the place. Their selection of wines by the glass was excellent, and better, reasonably priced. And in October, the US dollar wasn't doing so good vs. its Canadian brethren. The dining room was upstairs and the first impression I had was that it was noisy. Because it was open to the bar below. Once I got over that impression, I liked what I saw. The entire front of the restaurant overlooked a pleasant but busy street, well-lit at night with lots of people and activity. Major plus when you are dining by yourself to have something to focus on (side note: i read when dining alone, when I'm not actually eating).

The service was very attentive but not intrusive. Another major plus.

For appetizer, I had a seafood stew with mussels and shrimp. In the stew was some asparagus, corn, carrots, and green onion. It was polished off with a dollop of pesto. Very complex flavor, nice texture. A great start.

One of reds specialties, in addition to having a great wine list and lengthy selection of wines by the glass was that each and every appetizer, main dish and dessert came with a recommended wine to pair.

With the seafood stew, they recommended the 2004 Scarbolo Pinot Grigio. Not only was the pinot grigio excellent, but the pairing was outstanding. Needless to say, I was excited for the rest of the meal. And by the time I realized how excited, my plate was cleared and I have no picture.

On to the second course. I have a picture, but have no idea what they called it. It was a bit of shredded duck blended with olive oil, salt and pepper (that is the lump just behind the fork. Behind the duck is a roasted blueberry. The triangles to the left are herb crostini type things. Each piece individually was just OK. However, together, very very strong. A bit salty, but overall an extremely awesome combination.




Note: thanks to Corey, I seem to have figured out how to correctly get my photos inline. We'll see if it lasts ;-)

The main dish was up next and so I decided to order another pairing with my entree since the first was so well done. The problem was that instead of ordering the small glass, I ordered the bigger glass. It came nicely prepared in a small carafe. Made for a great table setting:



My entree was a filet server atop some mashed potatoes, with some al dente veggie pieces and thinly sliced potato chip type things. The sauce was a red wine reduction, flavored with mushrooms. The pairing was a Langmeil Shiraz that was quite peppery, and again, paired nicely with the richness of the sauce and the meatiness of the tenderloin. Presentation of the dish was beautiful as well:



To finish up, I went with the cheese course, not being much for dessert. I went back to the well and had another glass of the Pinot Grigio I had with the app. Reds had a wonderful cheese selection. You could choose 2 or 3 from among 20 artisan cheeses. I selected the Isle of Mull Cheddar from Scotland, the Thunder Oak Gouda from Canada, and finally a Manchego from Spain.




Such a nice finish. I wish I was back there right now.

In summary, an excellent dinner. Would only have been made better by having good company with me :)

Geeking Out!

My iPhone now has a Mixx Webclip icon on it! Woo hoo!

Now we just need an iPhone version.

Here's a crappy picture of it:

Waiting for Gosnow

Bad pun, yes.

I'm waiting for snow to show up today. Out at home, the forecast is for 6". Here, near work, they are saying 2" converting to snow. My boss won't be happy when I skip out early, but I have no desire to try to fight the hills in my neighborhood getting home. I don't want Z to have to walk home in the snow. We'll save that for when he turns 3 ;-)

Speaking of Z, here is a picture from our drive into work the other day (from my iPhone so forgive the quality and my ability to get it to show vertically)


He loves his video iPod and watches the Backyardigans on the way to and from work. Here, the headphones got stuck looking like blinders. Made me laugh!

How to Disguise Chicken

I think I should write a book on how to disguise chicken. I'm dieting by doing the lo-carb thing, and so chicken has become a mainstay in my diet. Troy is perfectly happy just plopping a bunch of chicken meat down on his plate and calling it a meal. I, however, need to be more clever in disguising the flesh.

On a low-carb diet, you are theoretically supposed to stick to about 20g of carbs a day. Spread out over 3 meals, this means I go for chicken disguises of 5g carbs or less. My favorites:

1. Salad dressing
The bolder the salad dressing the better. Look for something about 2-3g of carbs per serving (generally 2tblsp in size). That way, 4 tablespoons of dressing can be applied to the chicken to make it stop tasting like chicken! That's a TON of dressing. If you rotisserie a chicken or marinade it so the chicken has some flavor, then a complementary dressing is great, and, extra bonus, less dressing is needed. My personal disguise dressing is Brianna's Chipotle Cheddar. Looking at their website tells me I'll have to try some more of those!

2. Salsa and Sour Cream
When you eat a chicken taco, you wrap chicken, lettuce, cheese, salsa and sour cream in a tortilla and call it a meal. So take the tortilla out of it. Cut out the need to shred some lettuce and cheese and voila! Low-carb heaven. I love salsa and sour cream mixed together. To me, its as good as peanut butter and chocolate or wine and cheese. So how can this NOT make chicken yummy?? Add some extra zing with a little sprinkle of cayenne in the mixture.

3. Bruschetta
After saying I'm too lazy to shred some lettuce for #2, I'm *not* advocating making your own bruschetta here. Costco sells some really tasty brushcetta in a jar. Just watch the carb count on this one. Its up near 7-8 for 1/10th of the jar. The jar is honking-big so I'm not sure I could even eat 1/10th of it. But I do hate when they measure in that way. I mean, am I suppose to empty the whole jar into 10 even piles of tomato-y goodness in order to figure out how much that is?!?

I don't think anyone actually reads my blog, because I haven't told anyone about it, but if you are reading and can think of some other good disguises of the low-carb variety, let me know!

On One-Upmanship

I know a few people who are constant one-uppers. Not only have they had the same experience as you, but somehow, some way, their experience is grander, more extreme, more magical, more memorable, more humorous. Just more.

After a lot of thinking, I think this is motivated by low self-esteem and a high degree of neediness. Overall, a bad combination. Their lack of self worth compels them to dish out exaggerated stories that make them look good, or interesting. Their high degree of neediness makes them need the constant validation that these stories bring.

I suppose that all these people started off in a different place, but then grew to realize their crazy stories brought them attention and approval.

I'm glad I'm not like that. At least I don't think I am. Look at me looking for validation.

Anyway, that's my thought for this morning.

I Am The Biggest Loser!

I went to the gym today. Again. These college lectures I bought have done wonders for my desire to workout. I actually look forward to exercising my brain by learning something new.

Today, it was Julian the Apostate. He was the last pagan emperor of the Roman Empire. For the average person, probably boring. For me? Worth trotting on a treadmill or riding a bike for 30 mins to learn about.

I'm down 5 lbs.

Now guess which of these discussion points makes me the biggest loser ;-)

Update on the Dieting

I was just reading my old posts about dieting back in August.

The good news is that I kept off 4 of the 5.5 pounds I lost back then. The bad news is that I didn't lose anymore.

After our trip to Chicago (and to moto), I kind of fell off the wagon a bit. We then went to Vegas, and fell off a bit more.

Then my new job I referenced? Well, we finally launched. Mixx.com

But it took a lot of working long hours, being stressed, and tons of work. We're doing well, but it didn't help my dieting and exercise program.

I'm back on it now. This time inspired by my sister-in-law Lisa, who has dropped a bunch of weight and is looking good.

I'm a week in and doing great so far!

Moto Part 3: Dessert

Continued from Part 2

Now we move on to the desserts. By this time, I've had a bit too much wine, so if the pictures get blurry, you'll understand.

Course 14: CO2 Fruit

Expectation: what the hell is CO2 fruit???
Reality: This one is hard to describe. The bottom square there is a piece of watermelon. They somehow injected CO2 into the watermelon so that it was this fizzy, carbonated, soda-like solid. Delicious, btw. I can't remember what the brown flakes were. The middle thing was a pudding that was citrus-y and fizzy. The top thing was like a cripsy piece of sugary dough--almost like a funnel cake, but insanely thin like phyllo dough. For the life of me, I have no memory of what was under the deep-fried dough, but I do remember it was good. Again, let me remind you of the wine.

Course 15: 3 Cotton Candy Stages
Expection: BIG. First, I love cotton candy. Second, last time we were at the restaurant, I remember being in love with this course. Third, this is Troy's anticipation of this course:
Reality: Did not disappoint. This dish had, as advertised, 3 parts to it. The cotton candy truffle is the ball in the upper left. The piece of paper was the 2nd part. And finally, the straw the 3rd:
The cotton candy truffle they warned us about. It had a liquid center that tasted like liquid cotton candy. The outside was like a solidified cotton candy ball. The two textures meeting in your mouth after you bite into it was really cool. Similar but different tastes and totally different textures.

The cotton candy paper was like one of those Listerine breath strips. No, not in terms of taste, but in terms of experience. You could bite into it or plop the whole thing in your mouth at once. It was kinda big:



So I chose to just rip it into pieces. I placed the piece on my tongue and let it dissolve. At first, it totally tasted or felt like paper. Then it started to dissolve into cotton candy goodness. Yum, yum. I also liked the "fine print" on this one--a copyright notice from Homaru Cantu the chef. Well deserved copyright of the edible paper thing.

The third cotton candy dish was like straw. You know those fried potato straw things they sell at Outback or some other chain steakhouse? It had that texture or feeling. I'm having trouble describing it because it was lighter than that. Both in weight and width. It was kind of crunchy, but didn't taste fried. Don't know how they accomplished that, but it was awesome :)

This might be my favorite course. It was certainly my favorite dessert. Although the next one was pretty cool

Course 16: Frozen Flapjacks
Expectation: Pancakes plopped in a freezer?
Reality:


OK, so the size was a bit disappointing,the flavor was interesting, but the experience was so cool. The server comes out wearing a cold-resistant glove (which, btw, looks amazingly like a heat-resistant glove) holding a metal? flat tablet that has been dipped into liquid nitrogen. I put the question mark next to metal because I thought that most metals shatter when you put them in liquid nitrogen. I wonder if they break a lot of these things.

Anyway, another server then comes over with a plastic large syringe with the flapjack batter in it and doles out a small dollop onto the frozen tablet thing. They take this mini-spatula and flip it over and use the cold to "cook" it. They then plop it on the spoon, put it in the dish and then pour some maple syrup on it. I was too impatient with my picture-taking to wait for the maple syrup.

Summary: taste good, method cool!

Course 17: Carrot cake
Expectation: Slice of cake with white frosting and a little frosting carrot on it.
Reality: Carrot cake soup! WTF?
I have to confess, I don't like carrot cake. Or at least, I don't think I do. I haven't had it in as long as I can remember. And maybe I just never tried it because really, carrots don't belong in cake. Period. SO I didn't taste this one. Troy did, though, and here are the results:

End result, I guess, was it was good cause he slurped down his and mine (politely, of course).

Course 18: Chicago Dog
Expectation: Hot dog for dessert? Uh, no thanks
Reality: A mini-hot dog in a bun with toppings all made out of ice cream. How cool is that??


It tasted like ice cream. Had a little vanilla creme dipping sauce. Over all, good stuff.

Course 19: Pina Colada Forms
Expectation: no clue.
Reality: Puffy, Pina Colada Clouds! Exceptional!



Course 20: Chili-Cheese Nachos
Expection: With the previous hot dog dessert, we knew we were in for a treat. The nachos were made all out of dessert items, but for sure did look like nachos:

Note that I had already started eating before I snapped the photo (back to the wine thing).
Hard to tell here, but the nacho chips were made out of a churro-like batter. The ground beef was actually chocolate. The cheese strips were some sort of un-remembered fruit. And the salsa was also a sweet jelly-like fruit. Really tasty, really inventive. Loved it!!

Final picture to leave you with?
Mysterious reddish puffs that I have memory of:




So WOW! 20 courses plus a mystery bonus at the end. Three hours, 12 wines, good friends and conversation later--Very happy diners!!!