Look Who Went To George’s Last Night

Me. That’s right, I was in attendance at George’s Bar last evening. It was good to see many of my friends (read “hashers”) there, though the scene has changed somewhat. Prior to sitting at the bar I purchased items from Half Moon Outfitters (a small 1-Liter dry bag for camping) and from Paper Source (a birthday card for my uncle John). My purchases won’t single-handedly keep either place in business, but I’m trying to spread some of my discretionary spending money to local merchants.

I Can Recommend The Food, But Not The Smoothie
Yesterday a coworker had to pick up some floor tiles at Floors & Decors so since we were headed that direction (the southbound I-85 access road near REI) I chose the Havana Restaurant as our lunchtime destination.

Nestled in the new shopping center across the street from Lee’s Bakery and right next to Pirates Pub, I’ve been meaning to try one of the two Havana offshoot restaurants from the burned Havana Sandwich Shop for some time.

As soon as we entered I knew the food would be good because the room was nearly filled and there was a line of about ten people ahead of us still waiting to order food. This was fine by me as it gave me time to peruse the menu (not that I had anything other than a Cuban sandwich in mind) prior to stepping up to the counter to order. I did order the Cuban (half) sandwich plate (which comes with yellow rice and black bean soup) as well as a mango smoothie (I’ve been trying out different non-soda specialty beverages these days, but I need to go back to just drinking water). The sandwich, rice, and beans were superb, the smoothie was sub par. The problem with the smoothie was twofold; one, their blender didn’t properly pulverize all of the ice into a “smoothie”; two, the straws they provided were too narrow to stand up to the task of drinking the thick concoction and mine continually collapsed on itself making “drinking” impossible.

I will return to the Havana Restaurant when feeling the desire for Cuban cuisine, though I have to admit that I’d still rather have one of Lee’s Bakery’s Banh Mi sandwiches when given a choice. Lee’s sandwiches are just as good, cheaper, and their smoothie was much better.

SPAM That Amuses Me
I received the following in electronic mail yesterday.

Dear Weelittlebit,

We can increase your web traffic. See for
yourself. Email us for a free consultation
and site review.

Sincerely,

Carolynn C******
U-Media

It seems that U-Media knows me so well that they are comfortable referring to me by my hash name. Yeah, right. 😉

ITP Flickr Pic
More iPhone 4 camera testing.

If I told you there was a really pretty short-haired woman sitting the booth ahead of me, but that I decided to see how the camera took a photo of my salad, would you believe me? Well, you should because I clearly focused on the salad. Also dimly pictured is the bottle of Sam Adams that I consumed with the salad and slice of pizza I had to eat that night. I was going to have a JailHouse Brewery beer, but the only one they had available was the Slammer Wheat, and while it is “wheat beer drinking season,” I don’t do wheat beers.

fwiw – As has been reported I had to adjust the white balance for this photo as the one straight out of the camera(phone) was too warm and yellow.

One And Done
I almost made it through one episode (the season premiere for Season Three) of Mad Men last night before conking out. Fret not as I had the opportunity to watch the episode in its entirety when I awoke again at 3:00am. I figure that if I can watch one episode a night I can have myself all caught up before the start of Season Four.

Because I conked out so early (was it the beer?) I did not get a chance to watch last night’s Top Chef so if you could do me a favor and not provide any spoilers today I’d certainly appreciate it. My plan is to watch last night’s episode after coming home from reccying with Cockpit tonight.

Dear Chrome Developers: Why Are You Not Catching All Of My Misspellings?
“Attendane” is not a valid American English word, why is there no red line telling me that I’ve misspelled “attendance?” I happened to notice my misspelling (and fwiw Chrome just happily let me type “happend” instead of “happened”) while proofreading today’s post. Just what dictionary are you guys using?

I hate to throw this in your face too, dearest Almighty Google Developers, but Firefox correctly caught both of these spelling errors.

Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – meh, wishing I was getting more exercise so that I could drop some weight
Current Music – silence as I await today’s Tour de France stage
Website Of The Day – Evernote released and update version yesterday, go check out the news on the Evernote’s Blog.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – nothing
Morning Weigh-In – didn’t check
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 77

Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~7 miles, Wheel Mileage – 95.1 miles
Pushups – 0, Situps – 0
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 15 (15)
Vegetarian Days – 0, Carnivorous Days – 14
Marta Rides To Work – 0
Bike Rides To Work – 0

July Goals
– Not to get sick for the entire month (still waiting to accomplish this)
– Not get fired from my job
– Ride my bicycle no fewer than 150 miles
– Get the Sharpened Stone, LLC moving further
– Complete at least one iPhone application
– Completely plan out my August/September Colorado trip

2010 Goals
– Reduce my weight to 185 pounds (starting weight was 198 pounds) [update: On July 1 I’ve sadly gained weight; I’m at 203 pounds]
– Completely read the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die
– Earn at least $150 through photography sales in order to cover the cost for the renewal of the Sharpened Stone.
– Save $500 for the sole purpose of donating to charitable organizations of my choice
– Attend at least one professional photography workshop
– Enter no fewer than three photographic competitions / gallery showings
– Get the Black Sheep stats out of Excel and online
– Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides
– Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers

The Unmeasurable
– Continue backing up all data, including the off-site storage
– Become a proficient programmer in PHP and CSS Objective-C
– Do not create a solution for something which is not a problem

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]