It's all Bacon, baby

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:38:05 GMT

Amuse Bouche
Diced Hamachi with cucumber dressing on cucumber slice Cucumber. That's all I tasted. And the little bit of fish that did come through tasted like canned tuna! Jen left a few bits of the diced hamachi on her plate. I tasted that alone and it was better than the bite I had indicated, but even so, it was a pretty unimpressive amuse bouche.

First Course
Potato leek soup. Lovely texture, the leek flavor really shone through strongly. Yum.
Tagine of Maine Scallops cumin, roasted eggplant, zucchini, chermoula, raisins, almonds, harissa. They had me at cumin. Lots of cumin. And PERFECTLY cooked scallops. Fantastic.
Pickled Weiser Farms Nantes Carrots and Coriander Can't even begin to describe how blown away we were with this. It was nothing more than some carrot sticks, pickled, in a dish. But the balance of flavor was sheer genius. The tang of the vinegar was so ideally complemented by the...floweriness?...of the coriander. Almost everything else we had, while still being some of the finest food we've ever eaten, didn't come close to rivaling the brilliance of a few carrot sticks.

Main Course
5 Oz Millbrook Venison File"CARAMELISÉ AU VIN”pear and butternut squash mousseline, griottine cherry jus, hen of the woods mushroom. Other than being over sweet (a common trend with venison I've found) everything in this had marvelous flavor. Wonderful cherries, with the wine reduction taking the best flavors from the wine without being alcoholly. And the wood mushrooms were spectacular, earthy in the best possible way. The one real down note was the pear/squash mousseline. No real pear flavor. Before seeing the menu again and remembering that it was pear, I just noticed that it was slightly sweeter than you'd expect for a squash. Meh.
Duck Breast Hmm, I don't think the menu online matches the way they prepared it last night. Mine had chanterelle mushrooms and a parsnip mousseline. I don't recall the jus description, and there was some sort of torte with a sausage filling that was wonderful. Overall, it was oh so close to perfect. There was something in the jus that lent a bitterness that was just a little too powerful. Almost like there was a drop or two too much worcestershire (I don' think there was actually any worcestershire, but that's the kind of bitter flavor it was triggering for me). Tone that back and it would have been perfect. The duck meat was impossibly tender for being as rare as it was. The mushrooms, like in the other dish, amazing. And where the pear/squash mousseline fell short, the parsnip was right on target. Delicate and delicious.

Wine
Brolio Chinati Classico 2004 if I recall. Very nice, bright and acidic. Perfect for the scallops and the venison. Might have wanted something a little less acidic for the duck.

Dessert
Selection of 2 Cheeses Cremiere double creme. Delish with a bit of honeycome and perfectly toasted pecan. And a hard, sharp sheep's milk cheese, the name of which escapes me. That went best with the fig jam.
Lemon cake with pistachio mousseline and limoncello gelatoBig disappointment. The cake was okay, nothing amazing. The gelato had little flavor at all and definitely did NOT taste like limoncello. And I didn't taste a hint of pistachio in the mousseline. I knew I should have ordered the heavenly sounding chocolate thing. Sigh.

Yes, we splurged. That's what happens when you watch a season of Top Chef in 2 days.

Oh, this was at Marché Moderne. I may always feel out of place at the Louis Viton and Tiffany and other upper crust stores that surround it, but fine dining is the one luxury of the wealthy that I fully embrace.

But I do have a few questions for whomever designed this, err, potted landscape:

WTF?

Some sort of leafy green (kale family perhaps>) and a couple giant pine cones. Sure. Whatever.

Not that it will enlighten anyone who needs enlightening or anything...

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 05:33:16 GMT

...but this blog post, linked from Digg, is such an excellent short summary of how to spot creationists/I.D. pseudoscience trying to pass itself off as legitimate.

Read and be informed

But do yourself a favor and don't read the comments below. It'll just make your head explode.

I seem to be able to rock

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 19:13:13 GMT

I never would have believed it, but Rock Band is indeed teaching me to drum.

I've been able to pathetically keep pace on the easy setting for a while, but that hardly counts. And I wasn't even doing particularly well on easy at that. Turning the difficulty up to medium and I was a flailing monkey. Nothing made sense, I couldn't identify a rhythm to save my life. It was hopeless.

But last Saturday I turned on practice mode, picked the easiest drum song in the game (Psycho Killer), and learned it on medium. Easy enough when broken down by section. I got pretty good at it, but only because I memorized it practically note-by-note. I couldn't really call that drumming. But encouraged by my success, I picked another song (So What'cha Want) with a slightly more difficult drum part. That went surprisingly well. So I learned a third.

That's when things got surprising. Sure I'd memorized 3 songs' worth of drumming by going over them a section at a time at 70% speed. But obviously I couldn't just start a song and pick it up, right?

Umm, wrong. Simply by memorizing 3, something's apparently clicked. I can now play ANY easy song nearly perfectly on medium first time through. And I can play the harder songs better than I was originally playing songs on the easy difficulty mode. I've drummed to The Who songs, for crying out loud! I'm actually thinking in rhythms and measures, recognizing patterns, understanding how to change the patterns in rhythm. I can get my limbs to function independently on different beats. I never would have fathomed I was capable of any of this.

I'm going to have to graduate to hard soon. I've tried it a couple of times. I'm not there yet, but I can see it being doable. The hardest part will be building the leg strength and technique to keep up with the more constant kick drumming that's required at that difficulty.

Now, I know I'm not exactly going to able to go join a band and play drums on songs unless someone stands in front of me scrolling the music past with Rock Band style notation. But right now, put me in front of an actual drum kit and I feel confident that I could bang out a passable rhythm, and that's something I absolutely could not do just 4 days ago.

So my drumming can far exceed my expectations with a little bit of training and practice. Same for drawing. I wonder what other activities beginning with "dr" I can master.

Everyone up on their SAT analogies?

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 01:14:40 GMT

Munchkin : Lito :: Garfield :

A) Lasagna
B) John
C) Nermal
D) Odie
E) C. Because it's always C.

Rewiring

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:06:58 GMT

Arriving back from the UK, I've had no problem driving on the right side of the road. I didn't drive at all while there and was only a passenger in street transport all of 4 times, relying almost entirely on the Underground, walking, and various other trains. So I never had to retrain that part of my brain.

Yesterday I got some work done on my car at lunch. So I dropped it off and walked to grab something to eat while I waited.

I don't walk much here. I walked a LOT in the UK. This was the first time I'd walked across a street since getting back, and holy crap I confused myself!

Interestingly, making things more difficult was the fact that I never really got completely used to the whole "traffic coming from the wrong direction" thing. Even by the end of the trip I had to consciously take a moment before stepping off a curb to be sure I'd looked in all the right ways. What I found when I stepped off the curb yesterday was that as far as my brain was concerned, that rule was still in effect. So I started looking one way. Then my brain said, "No, wait, are you sure that's the right way? Because you're back here now, and maybe your instinct is to look the wrong way first! Wait, no, my instinct is still right, I should look this way...wait, should I? If I look was looking right there when I'd look left here, and I look left here when I'd look right there, and I felt like right now I should look left, then I should look right...right? Aaaargh!!"

Bizarre to encounter that a full week after returning.

Still trying to justify $140 for a bottle of whiskey

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:12:10 GMT

One of the big treats of our trip was our visit to the Scotch Malt Whiskey Society. We have Disneyland annual passes, our friends in Edinburgh have a membership here. A club of whiskey fans that buys casks directly from distilleries for tasting and selling. There is almost nowhere else in the world to enjoy these whiskeys in this way. Commercial whiskey, which has to be bottled for consistency, is almost universally a blend of whiskeys from different casks, with water added. What you get at the whiskey society is straight from the cask, full strength (generally over 100 proof), and unmixed. Served with a pitcher of water if you prefer it a little more watered down, often recommended just to see how the flavor can change drastically with even a small amount of water.

We went on "Red Ribbon Tuesday" where drams of the best whiskeys, indicated by gold ribbons on the bottles, are sold at the lower red-ribbon price. Part of the charm is the detailed and imaginative descriptions of the various samplings they provide. For example, the first one I tried was labeled "Complex and Delightful" with the following description:

A rare chance to sample the malt from this Inverness
distillery built in 1846 and demolished in 1986. The nose begins with furniture polish and ‘magic balloons’ turning to toffee and scorched wood. There is also something fresh and elusive – peeled cucumber or boiled pasta, perhaps? The unreduced palate is scrumptious, with toffee, vanilla pod, fig and cinnamon, and some dry woodiness. The reduced
nose is complex and delightful, displaying melon and kiwi, chocolate, leather and Danish pastries. The flavour is now wonderfully sweet (puff candy, cinnamon whirls) but with nice woody notes (‘chewing sappy sticks’). Rather special.

But for me, the real standout among the 7 or 8 we all shared was my second dram, "Pastrami on Rye":

Leaving Kirkwall on the road to South Ronaldsay, you pass a temple of drams with twin pagodas. This sample is very like a sandwich – it smells of smoked ham or pastrami on rye with mustard and gherkin, all wrapped in waxed paper – but where did the Golden syrup come from? It is undoubtedly complex; with water the waxed paper turns to oilskins and wellies in the sun, then later it softens down to egg custard. Various flavour elements combine nicely together – sweet toffee notes, drying smoke and honey mustard. Best enjoyed as a sipping whisky at natural strength.

And I swear to you, that is a dead on accurate description. I mean this in nothing but a good sense, after every sip it felt like I had just finished a bite of a perfect New York pastrami sandwich. That satisfying oily, rich flavor lingered. AND it can get me drunk? I can think of no more awesome thing in this world that can be served in a glass.

At £69 for a bottle (~$140) I just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger. But oh I was close. I'm still sitting here wondering what at home I could Ebay for $140 to justify having my friend courier a bottle over when he travels this way in October. It was a remarkable drinking experience and well worth that expense.

Download

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:50:12 GMT

As the world economy collapses around us, we are wrapping up our extended week in the UK. Definite mixed feelings as we'll be returning with Obama gaining momentum but only because the country is losing steam and people are finally waking up to the need for ACTUAL change.

But for now I'm going to block all that out, close my eyes, and recall yet another glorious adventure in my privileged life.

In London I was surprised to discover just how poor my memory of my visit 12 years ago are. I have far clearer memories of Paris, part of the same trip. For whatever reason the week in London left less of an impression. Which was kind of nice, feeling more like discovering a new city rather than revisiting.

While London surely deserves more than 2 1/2 days to truly enjoy, our main goal was Edinburgh so the time in London was pure bonus. And we surely made the most of it. Not ones to let a little thing like jet lag or a 10 hour flight in a seat that failed to recline slow us down, we landed at 9AM local time and hit the ground running. Or at least strolling. For the whole afternoon we criss crossed Hyde Park. It's not hard to see where Central Park drew its inspiration. I know the chances are slim but I hold out hope that the Great Park in Irvine captures some fraction of the magic that those two great civic parks have. Foolish, I know.

That wore us out good, and killed enough time that the hotel, just up the street from the park, finally had our room made up. A short rest and off to find dinner. Vowing to not fall into our usual pattern travel pattern of failed food plans we selected a recommendation from Lonely Planet. We got a bit turned around looking for it, which afforded us an opportunity to explore Leicester Square and the surrounding area on a Saturday night. Lively as you'd expect. Another travel faux pas we avoided this time, we seem to always be on the move on weekends instead of witnessing the action. We finally got ourselves on the right track...only to discover that the restaurant we'd chosen is closed for refurb! Figures. But no bother, plenty of other options around and we had a nice Italian dinner. Then slept. Well.

Anyway, not going to continue a blow-by-blow of the rest. But we did our share. The V&A, the British Museum, the Tate Modern, the Tower of London, a walk down the Thames, a pass by Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey, and a futile attempt to mount a Trafalgar Square lion.

Big highlight was high tea (well, afternoon tea at high tea time) in the St. James tea room of Fortnum & Mason. Absolutely wonderful of course, particularly the premium teas. Goodness is that good tea, and of course I had to by a small bit to bring home. Oh yes, and I got to see the staff rolling their eyes and mocking the boorish woman who popped out of the lift, chewing gum, and marching up to a group of friends already seated. They stopped short of just booting her, but it definitely offended their standards.

So. Scotland. Where to even start. Our friends Josh and Jackie have an adorable flat right off the Royal Mile and make fabulous hosts. We arrived on Tuesday afternoon to gloom and drizzle, or as they call it in Edinburgh, "sunny weather." But that was the last bit of rain we felt. It rained late evening and overnight the next day, but that was it. Lots of threatening, but it never happened, and we even saw a fair share of ACTUAL sunshine. Our travel weather luck continues to be good.

So, the quick hit list of our adventures in Edinburgh: The Scottish Museum, Edinburgh Castle, pubs, walking around old town, Indian food, Garyfryar's cemetery, the public library, napping at the flat, Princes street, international food street fair, Dean modern art gallery, Leith waterway walk, pubs, the royal yacht Britania, attempted to golf (more on that later), pubs, a hike to gorgeous Arthur's Seat, cheese, haggis.

We also took a day trip out to Glasgow. That turned into a fantastic day. We started with a tour of the Glasgow School of Art and their main building, designed by Charles Rennie Makintosh. It's a gorgeous facility, an amazing example of art nouveau, and we were taken on the tour by a very knowledgeable and enthusiastic student from the school. Frank Lloyd Wright never actually met Makintosh, and supposedly his style developed independently, simply with similar influences of practicality, nature, and eastern design. But they are SO similar that I can't possibly believe that Wright was never exposed to Makintosh's work, or at the very least the larger movements in art nouveau that were informed by Makintosh.

From there we headed to the Kelvingrove Museum, a combined art and natural history museum. It's very informal, free, and somewhat aimed at children. But it was really quite enjoyable, probably the most enjoyable museum experience we had on the trip. They even had a respectable impressionists collection, though it was rather decimated while were there as several of the best pieces are on loan to a museum here in Edinburgh for an impressionists exhibit that we ran out of time to see ourselves.

And then we hit the Glasgow pubs. A couple nifty places with good atmosphere and good beer. Had a chat with a very friendly Glaswegian (yes, Glaswegian) bartender who proudly was able to name more Californian cities than we were able to name Scottish cities. Dinner consisted of a couple of orders of chips (fries) as we headed for a cheerful pub-fueled train ride back. Good fun.

Ugh. That's just the short version. Hah! One final note - museum cafes! We had invariably marvelous food at museum cafes. That is all.

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:40:25 GMT

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 05:02:00 GMT

Munchkin seems in a better mood. I think we've finally convinced her that we've got this whole new bunny situation under control. I don't think she had much confidence in our ability to keep the invader at bay, but we've demonstrated that we're on top of things. So, secure in the knowledge that she's not going to be forced to fight to the death at a moments notice, she's returning to her old routines, pausing only occasionally to poke Lito. And she even refrains from actually trying to bite her through the cage at least half the time and settles for a simple taunting. It's progress I tells ya!

Arrival of a legend

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 00:50:56 GMT

It's not often the Dodgers land a big name expensive player that everyone else in the league would like to get their hands on, even one as obviously unlikely to be around at the end of the season as Manny Ramirez. So, taking a cue from the Dodger's website, I bought tickets Friday morning and was on hand for his debut as a Dodger.

Added bonus, starting pitchers were Clayton Kershaw who looks for all the world like he's going to be an ace some day, and Randy Johnson, well beyond his prime but still a top tier pitcher.

The outcome could have been better, but we got a good game.

Buying day-of seats for an eventual sell-out assures an excellent view of the palm trees from our deep left field perch.

There were 2 ceremonial first pitches for no good reason. The first was thrown by a kid from a church group that's been doing a Dodger game outing every year for 20 years. The second was Adam Corolla.

Meanwhile, we got our first glimpse at Manny.

Corolla bounced his pitch half way to the plate. But instead of doing the appropriate smiling head shake while humbly walking off the field, he insisted he get another chance...which he promptly sailed to the backstop. And yet, he asked for a third. Stupid Hollywood jerks.

All that ridiculousness out of the way, Manny could take the field.

And participate in the Dodger stadium tradition of signing a ball for a kid

And now the game can start. Kershaw got things off on the right foot with a strike on his first pitch and a 1-2-3 inning.

He proved to be a good match for the veteran Johnson, but fell victim once again to a shaky bullpen performance. I'm starting to think the relievers have some sort of grudge against Kershaw.

Johnson may be slowing down in this late stage of his career, but he's still one big mean looking dude and I wouldn't want to be at the other end of his stare or his fastball.

In his first appearance with the Red Sox 8 years ago, Manny hit the first pitch he saw for a homerun.

No such luck tonight. 1st pitch, groundout.

But the night got better as he hit the next pitch a few innings later for a single, then another single in his next at bat. Sadly Matt Kemp made one of his trademark base running mistakes and ended the inning.

(this is not the same swing as above, this is a different at bat. He's just got a consistent swing)

And here is what I was hoping would be a shot of a game-winning swing. With one on and no one out in the 9th, down by 1, Ramirez was up there with a chance for a walk off homerun. It was instead a double play.

Boy was that a fun game to be at, despite the loss.

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:50:14 GMT

Expensive, but likely worth it

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:14:34 GMT

I'm seriously considering getting myself a subscription to this:

http://www.stashmedia.tv/

STASH delivers the planet's most innovative and outstanding commercial animation, VFX and motion graphics plus insightful behind-the-scenes extras in a monthly DVD magazine. Also tucked inside the STASH DVD case is a companion book of color stills, details on the featured work, credits and tech notes.

So freaking tempting.

Delightful

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:59:37 GMT

You Are a Haunted House

You are a deeply complicated and sometimes deeply disturbed person.
You can't help but be attracted to the dark side of life - even when it's pretty gruesome.
In relationships, you are honest and real. So real that it's definitely a little scary.
You don't fake it or play along just to get along. And people either respect this... or deeply resent it

Your life is thoughtful, deep, and even philosophical at times.
You see the world as it is. You don't sugar coat anything.
Facing and fighting your fears is important to you. You believe that too much of life is whitewashed.
You're not too morbid... you just believe that you can't enjoy life without exorcising a few demons first!

At your best, you are brave, intense, and fearless.
Not only do you face the abyss head on - you challenge your friends to do the same.
At your worst, you are depressed and morose.
If you're not careful, your thoughts take over your mind... and they aren't pretty!

What Carnival Ride Are You?

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 17:01:47 GMT

My score on The what Proto-Goth Icon are you? Test:

Jim Morrison!

(Our test has determined that you possess 52% Hellbentness, 23% Sanguinity, and 10% Creeps!Well done!)

"When Jim Morrison stepped on stage bathed in black leather and began singing, reciting and screaming his rich, dark, apocalyptic, visceral lyrics on stage, goth was born in the rock sphere ..."

Go you! Jim's your Proto-Goth Icon Match(tm)!

Jim Morrison was a poet influenced by Rimbaud, Verlaine, and Baudelaire. With his saturnine good looks, magnetic stage presence and skin-tight leather trousers, Morrison quickly became one of the major pop sex symbols of his day, although he soon became frustrated with the strictures of stardom. He and his band, The Doors, influenced the Los Angeles emergence of Death Rock, particularly with the album "Strange Days."

This album was described as "gothic rock" even way back in 1967, and The Doors were a strong musical influence on some goth bands, most noticeably on Southern Death Cult.

Jim Morrison is reported as having died in 1971, but there are many stories about his death, including some that suggest he may have faked it in order to escape the limelight of stardom. On the other hand, even if Morrison didn't die in 1971, he would be over 60 today. Given his hellbent nature, it seems quite likely that the Grim Reaper would have caught up with him by now, either through misadventure, overdose, or simply bad living.

Link: The what Proto-Goth Icon are you? Test
(OkCupid Free Online Dating)

Too good not to post...

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 21:16:09 GMT

I have a head for business and a BaconDelight for sin.

Which movie was this quote from?

Toblerone!

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 16:35:50 GMT

This message brought to you by Toblerone.

They're out to get me

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 21:33:36 GMT

This is NOT my day to be on the road. Twice today, I've come within inches of someone deciding that my passenger compartment, beginning at my driver door, is a through street. I've apparantly engaged my car's previously unknown cloaking device which allows it to be entirely invisible until one is within spitting distance.

The first incident happened not 30 seconds after I was pondering how long it would be until I witnessed an accident at one of the half dozen 4 way stops I now navigate on my new work commute. I was in the right lane, approaching an intersection at which I do not have a stop sign, but cross traffic does. A car pulled out from my left, I presumed he was turning left into the open left lane in my direction. By the tinme it dawned on me that he intended to test whether my car and body were indeed still solid objects, it was necessary to swereve pretty dramatically as I leaned on my horn. Putz.

The second came as I returned to work from lunch. A car traveling in the opposite direction pulled into the center divider lane, and began his turn into the space my car was occupying without so much as slowing down. Had he not somehow returned his focus to this plane of existence rather than whatever alternate universe he was staring at, I wouldn't have even had time to hit the horn before he demolished the left half of my body. Thankfully he came to a skidding stop before that...then shot ME a look. Asshole.

Oh well. At least if I had been hit I wouldn't have had to deal with the reality-defying pile of crap in the spare bedroom that, no matter how much we unpack, never changes in magnitude.

Most important lesson learned from 3 painting projects

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 15:32:59 GMT

Prep work will ALWAYS take twice as long as anticipated. Even if you've already made an allowance for it to take twice as long as you anticipate.

First coat of color goes on the kitchen tonight!

I'm handy, who knew?

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 17:34:29 GMT

It seems my semester of woodshop has finally paid dividends beyond the clock in our livingroom.

I'm putting together a modest work space in our new garage. Project #1 for the work space? Putting it together. I purchased some great storage/workbench cabinets by Stanley that need to be anchored to the studs. The only problem is that, along the wall I wanted to place these cabinets on, the studs are actually set about 3 inches back from the raised foundation. Which means the cabinets don't sit flush against the studs.

So I devised a scheme in which I'd grab some 2x4's (which I've since learned are actually 1.5x3.5's), cut some short lengths, and bolt them to the existing studs. That would extend the studs past the foundation and allow the cabinets to sit flush. The key being, I'd have to countersink the bolts.

Relatively straight forward, but I was all giddy. I mean, how could I not be with a project that involved a circular saw, a drill, and no fewer than 4 different drill bits? And best yet, an entirely custom job that I devised all on my own.

And miracle of miracles, it all worked. I can't stress enough how much fun it was to use a spade bit to countersink those bolts, and how gratifying it was when I moved the cabinets into place and saw them flush against the newly installed extended studs, and perfectly leveled. I didn't exactly build a finely crafted bookshelf from some exotic hardwood, but damnit does it feel good to be able to do something like that all by my lonesome. I had been feeling mildly defeated for having given up on the kitchen and calling a plumber to install the sink. But now I'm feeling good again.

As for over all progress, things are going well. Last night, we finally buckled down and put everything in the kitchen away. For the first time in a month, we have a fully functional, non-cluttered kitchen. In the end, we definitely sacrificed counter and cabinet space vs. the apartment. But we did a good job of economizing and it's very workable. Tonight, the painting process begins on the kitchen cabinets, which is the final major project. If that goes to plan, we can consider ourselves "done" by this weekend! I'll believe it when I see it.

I'm free!!!

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 23:00:19 GMT

Somehow, after shaving and trimming my mustache this morning, a half-inch long bit of whisker managed to end up stuck to the roof of my mouth towards the back, poking straight down. And I could feel it with my tongue. Every time I swalled, every time I moved my tongue at all, there it was. I was able to locate it with my fingers, but it was too short to get a grip on it.

It

was

driving

me

INSANE!

I knew it would eventually work it's way out, but while it was there, I did nothing but constantly mess with it with my tongue, reach in and futilely try to scrape it free with my finger, and otherwise drive myself looney.

But my persistance paid off as it finally came free just moments ago.

I feel like a new man.

A day to forget

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 07:23:20 GMT

Man I'm fried right now.

I don't often let little shit get to me. I forget things, things go wrong, things invoncenience me, whatever. It's life and getting frustrated or annoyed just makes it worse, so why bother.

But every once in a while, especially when my back is giving me shit, it gets through. Today was once in a while.

I started to recount the events, but really they're trivial. They just hit me wrong while I was tired and aching. The short version is, forgetting my phone in the car lead to missing our cable installation appointment, and leaving my painting pants at home lead to wandering around the mall desperately trying to find a pair of pants under $45.

Bah, I just wanted to sit against a wall and sob.

At this point I'm exhausted, but feeling much much better since the bedroom color is turning out perfect. It's going to require a second coat, but I'm just so happy that after seeing hundreds of paint chips, we managed to get it right. Sweetness.

Spoke too soon

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 15:15:20 GMT

"Less brushing, more rolling. Whee!!"

Ha! So, the thing about a large bedroom is, it LOOKS like there's less detail work because it's all spread out. The reality? More detail work. Much more. It took about twice as long to prime the bedroom as it did the bathroom. Ceiling, closet, 3 doors, window, built-in desk, baseboards. Ugh. By the time we got done with the edging, I could hardly enjoy the fun of rolling the walls. Tonight's session in which we'll put color on the walls will be better since it's JUST the walls, the baseboards, window sill, doors, and trim are going to be a highligh color painted on another day.

Meanwhile...we're keeping the bathroom as-is. A night of rest and drying, plus viewing it with the bathroom uncovered, and we're really happy with it. We held the paint chip up in the room...and sure enough, we got the color we asked for. Amazing how different things look on the wall. In hindsight, we'd have gone with a shade or 2 lighter. But now that it's done, we do like it. We are going to look into getting better lighting in there, that should make a big difference.

And that whole fiasco had us taking a second (well, third...well, eighth) look at the bedroom color. The one we had slated for the walls now looks waaay too dark, especially attached to the bathroom/cave. So we've chosen a lighter shade that should work much better *crosses fingers*.

I guess the bedroom furniture is arriving later than I anticipated. So be it, we'll live out of boxes for a little while. We should be picking up living room furniture this weekend, that'll be fun. Shoot, just remembered that we need to order rugs.

Is it October yet?

Medical Insurance hell

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 17:28:55 GMT

So it begins. My first battle with a medical insurance provider.

Shortly after my trip to the emergency room, I received a letter and a form from my health provider. The letter said, "We are requesting information from the hospital that is submitting the emergency claim and will review the case to determine if this is a covered emergency. If you have any more info that would not be in the medical records, please fill out the form."

If figure, hey, the situation speaks for itself. I was unable to move and required adminstration of 3 separate pain/muscle relaxing narcotics and 3 hours before I was able to barely get myself into a sitting postition to leave the hospital.

Well, I just got a letter that said, "You didn't send us any more information, so we denied your claim."

WHAT?!

First, how is that a basis for denial? The original form didn't say "Send this in or we will deny coverage." It didn't say, "We've reviewed the record sent from the hospital and unless you give us more information, we will deny coverage." It said, "IF you think there's more information, send it in if you'd like." What a load of crap. If they received the records after that and didn't find enough information, tell me THEN that they need more information.

So, now I have to plead with them, else I'm stuck with a $2700 bill. The scary thing is, they want me to have played doctor. One of the criteria I remember reading on that form was that it had to be something that "Someone with reasonable general medical knowledge would reasonably think might get worse without emergency treatment" or something to that effect. What a load of crap. So I made sure when I called an gave a statement today to say that I had no idea what was wrong and had know way of knowing if lying on my bed for god knows how long before I was able to move might have caused more damage.

Bloody hell I have a feeling this is going to suck.

The purple is gone!

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 16:20:42 GMT

Well, save for the mistakes that the last painter left on the ceiling and the trim, there is no more purple in the bathroom! Yay!

That's the good news. The "jury's still out" news is the new color. It's...um...dark. Like, we knew we were going dark, but damn did it dry daaaaark. Not that it's not a beautiful color, I really like it. But it's a small bathroom, and even with the glass light fixture cover removed (i.e., 2 bare bulbs), the shower area looks like a cave. Though it did occur to me later that we were looking at it with the shower covered in brown masking paper, so if we remove that, it might brighten things up a bit. We'll see how we feel about it tonight. If we don't like it, we've got 3/4 of the bucket left, we may try tinting it to lighten it up and put another coat on.

Meanwhile, tonight the real fun begins. We're priming the bedroom. The bathroom was all corners and detail work, hardly an open wall to paint. The bedroom is large expanses of wide open painting apace. Less brushing, more rolling. Wheee!

We got a refund for some of our closing costs from escrow. It was substantial. Substantial enough that I don't feel as worried about having gone over budget on furniture and soon-to-be going over budget on rugs. Because those are two areas where we found the perfect items just out of our budget and it really would have been painful to have to compromise on those.

Home Improvement Saga Begins

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 17:10:29 GMT

Well, day one of hell-week went relatively well. Didn't get quite as much done as hoped, but the lost time was due to some prep work that should make life easier going forward. So at the moment we have a primed bathroom and bedroom with half-washed walls. Today's goals are to get color on the bathroom walls and finish washing the bedroom.

Our whole schedule has been thrown off due to coutner installation schedule. Turns out that won't be done until 2 weeks later than hoped and includes an 11 day period where we'll be living there sans kitchen counter/sink. Grrrr. The silver lining is that it's freed us up to take our time during this first two weeks as getting the ktichen cabinets painted will have to wait. It also gives me plenty of time to gain the confidence to grapple with the plumbing. Between the sink, disposal, and dish washer, there's a lot of stuff down there. And the current stuff is old, so none of it is going to go easily. It will certainly be a learning experience.

In other good news, sounds like we have a buyer for our sofa! One fewer thing for the movers, and an extra couple hundred bucks in our pocket (err, in Home Depot's pocket).