This will be a short blogging week. Thanks to the Company I’ll have Thursday and Friday off. Thanks to the Company, or at least the Building Company I’m currently sweating in an 81ºF office building. [Update @ 9:08 – chiller is working and the building is cooling down.] And thanks to my getting up late and rushing around the house I incorrectly put a tablespoon of salt instead of a teaspoon of salt into my crockpot baked beans that I’m making for my dinner tonight.
BetsyFest Was A Whopping Success
On Friday night I was the first one to arrive at Holy Taco, somehow beating everyone who said they’d be there early. Oh well. I plopped my ass at the bar and ordered a beer and then the party was on. My earliness and desire not to drink too much led me to be the first to depart BetsyFest ’10, but when I did there were perhaps fifteen others still remaining to keep the party going.
I feel as I somehow missed a third leg of BetsyFest ’10 which would by held on Saturday. But, I had such a great time at Thursday’s and Friday’s festivities that I didn’t feel a void. 🙂
Experiments In The Kitchen
For some reason this weekend was filled with kitchen experiments, most of which looked horrible, but unlike the salty beans I’ll have tonight were quite edible.
For lunch on Saturday I took some “guacamole” (in quotes because while the main ingredients of guacamole were found they were not in proper proportion) and fried it up with an egg. Hideous looking, not bad tasting.
On Saturday afternoon I decided to cook up (in the crockpot) the pumpkin, butternut squash, and new potatoes that I’d purchased the week before. I made this concoction using the spice combination that I’d used for the sweet potatoes I made for the Thanksgiving potluck. The biggest problem with my concoction was that the squash broke down into strands, much like a spaghetti squash would, while the pumpkin and potatoes proudly held their form. Again, not much to look at, but it was still quite edible.
ITP Flickr Pic
I like this navel orange
I don’t know why.
I’m Finally On The “Modern Family” Bandwagon
And I’m certain that ITP-Reader Lisa can’t understand what took me so long to heed her advice.
The St Andrew’s Day Massacre: When CB Really Means YBF
I ran with the Black Sheep Hash yesterday. For a long period of time I thought that I would be blogging about how I made it through the first check, but was so stymied by the “CB 2” that I had to return to my car and wait for the pack to arrive there after running circle. Luckily I wasn’t alone, so the small pack of hounds of which I was a part managed to figure out where trail went (the “CB” was supposed to be a “YBF”) and we lucked into trail which was being laid by BWanA (aka ITP-Reader Harold) who had found a bag of flour and was using it to mark trail for the rest of us. The remainder of trail was really well marked and had I been in any sort of running shape I would have done really well.
Circle took a long time yesterday and its brevity was not helped by the appearance of four “local” lads who couldn’t figure out what this group of skirted guys was doing in the woods singing (to be fair there were more than a handful of women in attendance yesterday as well). I arrived home around 6:30pm and did little more than watch tv (The Amazing Race included) for the rest of the evening.
Odd stat of the day: Number of beers consumed by me at the hash — zero
Stats & Goals
Daily
Current Mood – sweating
Current Music – silence
Website Of The Day – I was going through notes this weekend and remembered to look for a guy who I saw in Wyoming who was walking across country. Why I didn’t stop and take his photo I’ll never figure out, but perhaps my transmission would have died then so maybe it was for the best.
Mode Of Transportation To Work – my car
Exercise (b)Log – Saturday: situps (50), pushups (20); Sunday: hashing (~4 miles), situps (50), pushups (10)
Morning Weigh-In – 202 pounds (aaah, the power of water retention)
Pages Of 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die Read – 77
Monthly
Foot Mileage – ~13 miles, Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Pushups – 30, Situps – 125
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 0 (0)
Vegetarian Days – 0, Carnivorous Days – 21
Marta Rides To Work – 0
Bike Rides To Work – 0
November Goals
– Not to get sick for the entire month
– Not get fired from my job
– Ride my bicycle no fewer than 100 miles
– Run no fewer than 50 miles
– Determine the fate of Sharpened Stone, LLC
– lose five pounds
– eat vegetarian at least one day a week
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, completed
– Ride in no fewer than two 50 mile or 50K bike rides, completed
– Complete my Taco Mac Passport requirement of 125 beers, completed
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]
I’m only sort of on the Modern Family bandwagon, I watch it here & there when it is on, but haven’t started recording it. I just don’t record any 30 minute sit-coms besides Big Bang Theory.
So, let me be sure to understand this – the hares didn’t lay enough flour, so Bwana found some & helped everyone get to the end? That’s nice….. Wheelhopper had plenty of four yesterday, good trail, beautiful day, can’t complain about it. (but note to others, when a hare lets his 6 year old help with some of the flour marks, it can be interesting, but we figured it out without any problems)
oh yeah – and the beans might be fine (but I live with a salt-a-holic, so what do I know)
Barb, the mark that threw us all off was a YBF “squared”, but was written as a CB2. The hares parked it on the ice for quite some time due to this not so small “typo”.
It was pretty amazing territory to hash through- a beaver swamp, lots of briars, and of course, some barbed wire for extra fun. A beautiful day to be on trail. I was thanked by the new BS GM (whose name escapes me) for coming out- he flagged me as an “old school” hasher. Sort of made me feel special. Might have to put BS on my calendar.
Paulie, the only beer I had was for being a too long.
-FP
Sorry for delayed response, I don’t seem to be getting email notifications today.
In the end the beans may be ruined, not for the salt, but rather because I just remembered that I have a 5pm meeting tonight. I hope there is still a hint of liquid in the crockpot whenever I arrive home.
Good explanation, Steve. The BS GM is now Bone Hole. Had it not been for the “typo” I would have really enjoyed trail even though I’m completely out of shape.
Barb, what did you think of The Amazing Race? Did you think the Double U-Turn was an interesting twist?
I always thought it was strange that only 1 team could be U-turned, so it was fine. I guess they will have to have a flight somewhere where there is only 1 choice to get everyone back together again. Except team tattoo (who needs to be eliminated next), I like all the other teams, so I really don’t care who wins, though I kind of hope it is the hyper blond & yer partner, she cracks me up with her good attitude.
Glad Chad/Steph got the boot – very annoying couple. Yes, I think I’m pulling for team QVC as well – probably because they seem like they’d be the most fun at the end of hash! The race needs some sort of IQ-related roadblock to help send Team Tattoo packing. The gal seems nice and cool but her boyfriend is a major tool.
I’m wondering about the next leg. It seemed as if this leg would bring everyone together on the same flight, but Jill and whatshisname and the tattoo team manage to score better flights.
Team Tattoo is the only one I dislike at this point as well. At first I thought that I was being biased against them because of their piercings and tattoos, but then I realized that they don’t seem to have any sense regarding what they are doing. I was surprised that they used some common sense with the U-turn.
As a Florida grad and a lover of women with short hair that I find attractive I wanted Chad / Steph to last longer. However, Chad’s attitude was irritating to me and I thought that they should be penalized for trash-talking whichever one of the doctors was trying to put the rickshaw together.
Speaking of the doctors, since they’ve harped on DocBlond’s diabetes I was surprised there was no mention of this when the Roadblock was drinking a full glass of cane sugar.
I will use this forum to tell you, “I told you so” again! Next time let’s hope it does not take you so long!!
I thought the trash talking was great actually. When she said to the camera, I’m an MD, not a PhD, that totally cracked me up. But, still not as good as team Globetrotters trying to get the scared chick to not go down the slide. That was the best.
I think the non-diabetic one drank the cane sugar, didn’t she? (since they both didn’t have to.) but – maybe she needed a sugar fix?
Yes- I think the female tattoo is the smarter one, but that isn’t saying much 😉
And – Brenan – yes hyper blond & partner would be a hoot at a hash, I think that is a good way to determine who to root for.
I’d forgotten about the Globetrotters. I think trash talking is no different than sabotaging the equipment for teams which follow you — which I thought one team should get penalized for tossing the shovel into the middle of the pile of dung in Russia.
Yes, it was the non-diabetic one who drank the cane sugar.
I think the hyper blond would get on my nerves quickly. I sorta dig Claire (?), each week I notice something different about her. Last night I noticed she has one of those nose studs.
I like the TattGirl, but I really, really hate TattBoy. He’s lucky he’s got her…or she’s really a dumb@ss for putting up with that toolbox. Either way, she’s interesting, not scared of anything, tough as heck and has a boat-load of patience (but maybe a thimble-full of brains).
I hate Notre Demon and the Bottle Blonde. Honestly, this is the only team I do not want to win. He’s a condescending prat…pronounced with a “tw.”
I hope this will be the first winning season for an all-girl team on The Amazing Race…about damn time! I’m cool with QVC or Team Surgically Focused winning it all. Dig them both, although QVC had to grow on me a bit. At first I felt they were playing for the cameras, but they seemed to get more “real” as the race progressed. Notice the “kiss-count” stopped. Thank kee-rist.
BTW- I love my tattoos :)…especially the memorial tatt for my mother. The other looks like a Lick-em-Stick-em…but I did get it when I was 17 at a hardcore show, so it’s to be expected.
Anyway…to say you’re biased against anyone with tattoos considering you know and are friends with loads of folks with ink seems a little silly, just saying.