Busy last couple of weeks
So, aside from causing shitstorms on Facebook with notes and links, it's been a fairly eventful and busy last couple of weeks.
I heard tell of a local Blues musician playing downtown that sounded pretty good on iTunes, so decided to go to the show. Because I was supposed to meet up with another friend later at the capitol to shoot some pictures, I brought my camera stuff along. Luck would have it (for me, anyway) that the band's camera was full, so I offered to take a few pictures to send them. Fortunately for me, they liked the images, and invited me out as a VIP guest to take pictures at the season-ending KGSR Blues on the Green event at Zilker Park.
It was huge.
Something like 10,000 people came out to listen to Nakia and the Blues Grifters, and the main act, Raul Malo. The pics are up on my flickr, so go check them out if you haven't already. I'm really hoping this can be a spring board of sorts to find some other things I can take photographs of and get paid for. Adding another string to pull is always good. As for the music itself, they really are very good if you're into the soul/jazzy/bluesy sound, which they make in abundance.
Then I also heard about the second annual Cupcake Smackdown at The Domain, and decided that cupcakes and zombies were too good to pass up, so went there on Saturday. It was indeed epic. I skipped breakfast and made the mistake of getting a Hillcountry Cupcake. I was buzzing for a good hour, but got some good photos of the zombies and cupcake cannons that were used to fight the invasion. Pics are also up.
Recipe: Chicken sausage stuffed peppers
A friend of mine tweeted the other day that he was making stuffed peppers for dinner, and attached a pic, which got me slightly jealous with how good they looked, so I decided to attempt some on my own. And they were awesome. Epically awesome. And easy!
Ingredients:
Red bell pepper, split in half and stem removed
Chicken sausage - the spinach and feta cheese variety from Newflower Farmers Market is what I used because it smelled good
Fresh basil
Tomatoes
Cheddar jack cheese, shredded
Salt + Pepper
Olive Oil
1) Fire up the grill, and grill up the sausage
2) Chop up the basil, and mix it in a bowl with the tomatoes which I just sort of mashed up, along with a little bit of cheese
3) Chop up the sausage, ideally back to the raw, crumbly sausage state, and mix it into the bowl of stuff, along with a pinch of kosher salt
4) Spoon in the mix into the cavity of the pepper halves, and top with a bit of black pepper
5) Drizzle a bit of olive oil on top, put it all on some foil, and throw it back on the grill for a few minutes. Done.
Bad, bad me!
Oops. It had been going so well, too.
After a small bit of polenta (which, by the way, is excellent. I always walked past it at the store meaning to try some, but never got around to it until now) after the gym, I was in a rush to head out the door Thursday to get to the Capital Macintosh photography Special Interest Group where they were gonna do a small talk on basic lighting. It was a pretty good talk, incidentally, but not the point. I thought I ate enough, but I hadn't.
Knowing that the fridge had nothing prepared in it, on my drive home, I had a hankering for cajun fries, so come 9pm, I stopped at Five Guys. This is where the first line of the blog comes from. It was late, I was hungry, so my will broke, and I had a burger and fries.
Trying to live healthy despite no job and no real motivation has its challenges, but all in all I've done well so far. I've discovered the pure, unadulterated joy of cooking (along with the pure, unadulterated agony of doing the dishes and pans). The Newflower Farmers Market up the road is becoming a favorite spot of mine to find really good, cheap, fresh vegetation, and in doing so, I'm eating more of it. Shocking, given my history of vegephobia.
I can try to justify the lapse in judgment by honestly going to the gym four days of the week now, but that would be dishonest. I wanted a big, greasy burger, so I got one. This is not to say I am a certified health-nut. Far from it. Rather than count calories, and reading every label on every bit of food I eat, I'm subscribing to the school of thought of just being mindful of what and how much. Sure, it's easier to screw up and take advantage of a system like that, but if you have a lifestyle you're aiming for, you find ways to do it right. As the old cliche states, you're only cheating yourself - and in this case, it actually is true, unlike most of the situations you heard of growing up.
So, on the menu tonight, is a chicken noodle soup made from the stuff I bought at Newflower and Costco. No cans. It may turn out great, and it might not. Thus is the adventure of cooking for one.
As Horace puts it, mens sana in corpore sano. Or as Stephen Fry puts it, mens' sauna offers corporal punishment. Good night.
iPhone therefore iAm
So. The next great thing from Cupertino has graced the world with its presence. Of course that can only mean the next iTeration of iNamed iProducts.
Yes, that's right. The much-rumored, and much-leaked, and much-previewed iPhone 4.
Sadly, I did not get one. Howmever you look at it, love it or hate it, it is a very cool device and the envy of all non-Google fanboys everywhere... at least, it will be for the next few weeks while they are still hard to find. Like the iPad, the Jobsian camp has yelled its magical revolutionary technology from the top of the mountain, and I, a fan of most things shiny, listened and gazed doe-eyed up hoping that I might get my hands on one. Well, not for a while. After that one November morning camped out for a Wii/PS3 (and not getting one, being the 10th in line, and not the 9th), I've sworn off line camping for products forever. I must admit, had I been invited, I probably would have gone like an idiot to stand in line.
Instead, I get to watch as all the cool kids unboxed and showed off their new phones to the ooohs and ahhhhs that escaped my lips. I have to say, that screen is extraordinary. That alone may be worth the price of admission. My jealousy of friends having the phone is not in sour disposition. Sometimes I surprise myself. It is sheer admiration. I want one, but am for the moment, more than content to juts be gazing in from the outside.
Til next we meet, the Web.
An entirely satisfactory weekend. Oh, hello June.
It seems most people I know had a pretty good Memorial Day weekend, myself included.
Much of it was spent trying to avoid the heat of the sun, because let's face it, it's getting bloomin' hot here in Austin. While the Koens and Knotts went off to Rockport, I decided to spend the weekend here around town, learning how to cook different things with the same four ingredients, and hanging out with friends. Incidentally, those four ingredients are salmon filets, chicken breasts, onions, and mushrooms. Tomatoes and rice are added in, depending on what it is I come up with. They also involve either the toaster oven or the charcoal grill. So far, I've done a basic grilled salmon, basic grilled chicken, salmon on rice, salmon with stir-fried vegetables, chicken tacos (which rock), and combinations hitherto. Seriously, it's hard to make something that tastes BAD with just salmon, chicken, or tuna. It may not taste great, but certainly not bad.
Saturday, we had a small dinner at Steven and Courtney's of BBQ chicken (yum), pasta salad (YUM), and root beer floats (yum). Being nice out, there was much chatting and playing with the dog on the back porch into the early evening. This is what life's about. Good food, good friends, and all that those involve.
Sunday, I started off by going to the weekly flickr meetup at Progress Coffee, where I had a lemonade. This was followed up by a quick trip down to the HOPE Farmers Market, which was a bit empty due to the long weekend. I didn't get anything, but the produce they had there looked pretty good. Bunch of hippies - but of the East Austin variety, so they were 'funky' (in all senses of the word) and tattooed, but hippy in the heart. I walked around East Austin a bit more, taking pictures as I went, because I had an hour to burn before heading up to Hubert and Melissa's for another Memorial Day weekend BBQ.
Monday was even more relaxed. I cleaned up the house a bit, did dishes, ate a strawberry from the garden. I was going to swing by Zilker Park, but they're charging for parking on weekends, so I went down to Butler Park instead to watch the end of the CapTex Triathlon.
I've finally regimented my gym visits (to a solid three days a week), in the hopes that the structure will help. We'll see how that goes. I've been weighing in at about 198 the last few times, so maybe that's encouraging. Until next time.
Taiwan Twenty Ten
Phew. What a trip.
I'm home from my two week excursion with Dad to Taiwan to take care of some business, have some fun, and generally enjoy being somewhere else. I've been asked how my trip was, and my answer has always been as such: "Tiring, filling, exasperating, fun, but I'm glad to be home."
And so it is all of those.
The trip in fast forward
Leave Austin at 8am on the 25 Mar, arrive in Dallas at 9 and meet up with Dad at Gate D30. Sit around for a bit, and leave for Tokyo Narita at 10:30. 13 hours later, arrive in Tokyo. Sit around for another three hours, then arrive in Taipei Taoyuan at 7:30p, 26 Mar. Picked up by a few of Dad's college friends, and immediately go to a small dumpling restaurant, which was delicious. All a blur.
Fall asleep almost immediately around 11 when we settle in at Dad's friend's house. Awake at 3am due to Dad snoring. This is a theme that carries on most of the trip.
Hop a cab in the morning to Taipei Rail Station for bus trip with Dad and his college class down to Kaohsiung for tour of the town and surrounding countryside. More food. Delicious. Stay the night in a hotel in Kaohsiung, which isn't bad. A few more sightseeing trips. Return trip to Taipei in tour bus takes six hours due to traffic jams on every highway heading towards Taipei. Immediately fall asleep again when we arrived back at house.
Next day, Dad and I took our own little tour around Taipei. Everywhere from Danshui where Dad went to school, to Longshan Temple, to Taipei 101 (where it is now heavily toured by loud, Chinese tour groups that come in the many dozens). Meet up with some other of Dad's friends for dinner. Sleep. Lunch with some of the line dancing folk Dad will be video'ing in a few days time. Many comments on how quiet I am, because I don't understand most of what they say because they speak mostly Mandarin. High Speed Rail trip down to Taichung takes a scant 30 minutes with a few stops (that's fast!). Dinner with Mom's side of family in Taichung at nice hotel restaurant that Mom found last time. More snoring, less sleep.
Walk around Taichung with Dad, including trip to Science Museum. Japanese lunch with Aunt who looks exactly like Mom (though not twins). Trip to wholesale shop to pick up supplies for The Store. Trip to supermarket for some supplies. Dinner at an international German foods restaurant with Uncle, because he thought it was whimsical. Overly loud music at the place, they turn it down for us.
Hang out in Taichung for another 3/4 day before getting ride from Dad's cab-driver friend down to Chingshui. Hang out with Abon for an hour before Grandpa/Grandma/Aunt Pei-hwa arrive at house in Chingshui. I look on in wonder at a house I barely remember on my first trip to Taiwan in 1986. Enjoy a couple days in Chingshui, including very important trip to local graveyard up in the mountains to pay respects and clean up grave sites for family. Grandpa's younger brother, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents. Almost impossible to find way around graveyard - have to walk through other people's gravesites to get to the ones you need. Not a sign of disrespect, just necessary to get around. More hanging out in Chingshui with trips to Dad's elementary school, Alice's pre-school, and local bakery.
Quick trip up to Taipei to film/photograph embarrassing (imo) line dancing. Not my bag of tea, but Dad is getting paid, and they liked my photographs, so I shan't complain about that. Back to Chingshui.
Another day in Chingshui, then off to Taichung, then HSR to Taipei for final night in Taiwan.
Up at 5 to get to Taoyuan airport for 8:55a, 8 Apr, flight to Tokyo Narita. Sit around for five hours upon landing for 6p flight to DFW. Ten hours. Arrive in Dallas at 3:35p 8 Apr. Pass through Customs after an hour. Say bye to Dad, and sit around for two hours for 6:30p flight to Austin. Or not. Flight delayed twice due to First Officer not showing up for work. Two more hours. 8:45p flight and finally land in Austin at 9:40p. Home at 10:30. I've been recovering ever since.
Here are some pictures:
My not-so-secret garden
I admit it. I like gardening. I like it quite a lot.
Some do it for subsistence, some do it for stress-relief, others just do it because there's nothing else to do. I'm somewhere in the middle. To me, it's the primary challenge of keeping something alive. Everyone's knows someone who "just can't seem to keep that damn houseplant alive!" Fortunately, I'm not one of those. I don't claim to be a farmer, or even know anything close to what the "right" thing is to do, but I do seem to keep the plants, at the very least, alive.
Last year, I had some luck with the okra, to the point where I no longer picked them because the plants were getting unmanageable. The tomatoes were a bit of a disappointment, and the peppers more so. This year, I'm trying something a little bit different. I'm attempting strawberries, tomatoes, and those ever-present shallots. Because I'm attempting strawberries, horticulturists recommend planting basil nearby to keep the flies away, so I'm doing that, too. I can't claim to be the biggest fan of basil, but maybe, like tomatoes, I'll grow a fondness for them. I do like pesto, after all.
I've also dug out a second garden box to go along with the original. There's nothing in it yet, but I'll find something to put in there when I get back from Taiwan.
I guess I ought to say something
What have I done in the fortnight I've been away from this site? Well, from the outside, life has gotten better... better... maybe I just mean more productive. I did the Vegas gig, I did the Richardson office building gig. Those were good, and let me survive for another month without dipping too much into savings. I saw on the news that TWC is cracking down on their rules (and who can blame them, after handing out that many millions of dollars over the last couple of years), so rather than taking those payments under the table and whistling, I figured it was time to man-up and not take another unemployment payment. Hell of a risk, I know.
In any case, an old manager from SigmaTel contacted me about whether I would be interested in some contract work. I jumped at the opportunity, but the timing was a bit unknown, depending on when the people at headquarters could get the paperwork through.
On Tuesday, I gave a little photography workshop to Julia and Nathan on what the settings mean on a camera, which was pretty fun. It looks like Julia is having a little too much fun with her new-found knowledge. Unbeknownst to me, aforementioned manager had sent me an email saying their meeting with Company H had gone really well, and they needed work done ASAP. So basically, if I was willing, I would be starting the contract right away, before having signed any paperwork. Sounds good to me. I know there are some people out there that absolutely would not start any type of job without 110% assurance that they would get paid x amount by y date, and wouldn't do a thing before signing agreements and all that... nah, that's not me. I have some faith in someone who needs work done now that they'll do right in the end.
So, that's where I've been for the last half week. Waist-deep in datasheets, Dremel'ing off the rust that has built up in my brain for the last year, and having a damned good time. I have an idea of what I want to do for their design, and have it semi-sketched out on paper, so now I'm just waiting on the work laptop to arrive so I can put it into the program and make it all pretty-like. In any case, I'm using my brain and my education again.
This first bit of work is very short term, but I'm hoping it will have some follow-up work in the near future. I still have my trip to Taiwan next week, so I may end up doing a little work while I'm over there. Fine by me.
Las Vegas recapped
I can say with a fair amount of certainty that I have finally recovered from the Las Vegas experience. That's not to say the experience was poor. Quite the opposite. I did a lot, and I learned a lot. Learning a job on the fly is in many ways far more satisfying than reading it, hearing it, being tested on it, and so on. I can also say the trip was a personal success - namely, the company that is marketing Turnberry Towers liked my photos.
The time and effort breakdown was basically thus. Total photography time was around 7 hours, while editing time was easily another 8 or 9 hours. Don't worry, I'm not going to whine about the effort. It was satisfying as few other things are. I mention it because it's a very good personal yard stick on what a proper job effort entails. This was far different from the Evans wedding I did in Corpus in 08, especially as I have actually learned quite a lot since then.
Like I said, satisfying.
More surprising is the amount of 'busy' that has piled up so quickly in recent history. I'd forgotten what it was like to be properly, and I mean properly, busy. I know it'll be short lived, but I may as well wallow in it for as much as I can.
Much love. x
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