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14 entries this month
Date night!14:57 Aug 30 2009
Times Read: 659
Gina and I had a rare night to spend with just the two of us!
We wnet to see the movie "Ingloroius Basterds". It was quite good and we both enjoyed it.
We then went out to dinner to a lttle place that serves "Thai - French Fusion" cuisine. We have been meaning to try this place for the past couple years, but just got around to it last night. It was awesome! The service was great and the food just amazing.
We started off with soup, Gina had coconut soup and I had Chicken Lemongrass soup. Both were quite tasty, and mine had a nice spicy kick. We then shared an appetizer platter which had chicken satay, egg rolls, corn cakes, steamed dumplings, fried stuffed wontons, and some puffy fired egg thing, which we have no idea what is was...but it tasted great! The appetizerd came with three dipping sauces, a spicy chilie sauce, plum sauce and a sweet and sour type sauce.
For the main course Gina had a curried chicken and mango dish, which was very flavorful and I had crispy fried duck with plum sauce. The portions were very large and the food tasted great.
We finished with dessert, which we rarely get to when we go out. Gina had batter dipped fried bananas and I had a coconut custard. Both were excellent, but I was a bit taken aback by mine, as I was expecting a cold dish, but the custard was served hot After the suprize of putting something hot in my mouth when I was expecting something ice cold wore off I really enjoyed the dessert.
We made it home just before the predicted thunderstorms opened up, so the timing couldn't have been better.
Somehow I think next weekend will be a bit more "active"!
FAIL!23:41 Aug 26 2009
Times Read: 671
That was my day at work today.
A giant cluster FK, all around.
Back to the drawing board!
Lazy kind of Sunday21:33 Aug 23 2009
Times Read: 678
We overslept this morning and missed church.
Anthony's grandmother came and picked him up and told us al about the bizzare happenings at the party they went to last night.
After they took off we decided to head out and go to a farmer's market then walk through the shops in a local town that has it's main street set up as a "shopping village".
Used to be on a nice Sunday the place would be wall to wall people. I guess it's a sign of the current economy but there were damned few people and at least 30% of the shops are vacant with "Shop for Rent" signs.
We stopped for lunch at a nice lttle cafe'. We had paninis and salad which was very good.
After that we headed home and now I'm trying to decide what's for dinner! I defrosted some chicken breasts so that will be the main ingredient...just not sure what I'm going to do with them! I have a couple hours to decide!
Rainy weekend20:22 Aug 22 2009
Times Read: 686
It rained and thundered etc most of last night.
Today it's cloudy with thunderstorms coming and gpoing. When it's not raining it's just like walking through a sauna with the heat and humidity.
We are watching a friend of our's Grandson this weekend as they went to a party for a friend of their's in NJ today and they won't be home until late tonight or tomorrow morning. We were going to take him to a local event..."The Hecklerfest", but as that is outside and most of it in several fields (including teh parking) we elected to skip it! To those who might wonder a "Heckler" is not someone who harasses performers...it it "One who 'heckles' flax". Flax is the plant that linen is made from. The flax plant has to be smashed and dragged across tines to seperate the fibers for spinning into thread. The smashing and tining of the flax is called "heckling". So I hope you learned some obscure fact there!
Instead of "Hecler Fest" we went to the lock Barnes & Noble and bought him a book. Well, actually we ALL got books, which is the danger of going to Barnes & Nobel or Borders! I picked up Anasi Boys by Neil Gaiman. It's supposed to be somewhat of a continuation of the American Gods characters. Now I just need the time to read it!
18:35 Aug 20 2009
Times Read: 695
I traveled to a customer's plant on Tuesday in order to run a trial of our film on their packaging line. As is normal with these things they told us to be there by 9:00am. Of course when we arrived they were not even close to being ready. They still had not roasted the coffee they were going to package during the trial.
After they gave us the complete plant tour - which was quite impressive as they had made numerous changes and improvements since the last time I was there - we still had a ton of time to kill before they would be ready.
So they brought us into their QA lab to participate in a "cupping" event they were conducting. They had a vendor of green coffee beans in and they were evaluating teh various batches of beans via "cupping".
This was a very interesting process. First they took teh raw "green" coffee beans and roasted them in a very small roaster there in the lab to a standardized darkness level. Next they ground teh roasted coffee beans to a standard grind size. They then placed 4 tablespoons of coffee into small ceramic cups and added boiling water. At this point the evaluation begins.
First the coffee sits for minutes, during which time the grounds float to the top and form a crust. The tester then takes a spoon, gets their nose right above the cup and breaks the crust, evaluating the first aroma detected when the crust breaks. The coffee is then sitirred and anything reamining floating on top is skimmed off with a spoon. Next another aroma component is evaluated. The tester once gain gets their nose right above the cup, and then blows air from their mouth onto the coffee and evaluates the aroma from that action. The next step is actually tasting the coffee. A spoonful of coffee is taken from the, then is noisily slurped into the mouth then swished around inside the mouth, being sure to completely cover the tounge and then it is spit out into a large spitoon. This is repeated many times and the various testers compare their impression of the aroma and flavor of each batch of beans.
Hmmm, No. 4 is quite earthy...yes I agree and number 6 has a distinct grassy note....Oh yes, of course, number 7 seems a bit acidic......
Honestly I COULD detect differences, but I'm not quite sure "grassy" "Earthy" or "Acidic" came to mind...It all tasted "Coffeeish" to me!
Almost done the vacation review...00:57 Aug 19 2009
Times Read: 701
Day 7:
We woke up ealy on Friday and he sky was blue and cloud free!
I made french toast and bacon for breakfast, we showered and drove the the parking lot at the camp entrance to wait for the bus to Provincetown. This was a cool discovery, the transit system on Cape Cod runs busses every hour that go between Harwich and Provincetown. The one way trip is only $2.00 per person, which even for a round trip is way less that the parking fees at any of the pubilic lots in P-Town. Not having to drive in the stop and go traffic is an additional bonus.
The bus let us off on MacMillan Warf. Our first stop was a walk on the warf to see the various charter, whalw watch, ferry and fishing boats.
Off to one side was an old abandond pier that has been left to decay.
After checking out the waterfront we ventured through the various shops along Front Street in P-Town. There is everything from fine art galleries, Jewlery stores, Book stores, Bars, Clubs, etc to A Funky Army-Navy store, sex toy shops and cheep T-shirt stores.
When time came aroung for lunch, we decided this place was the quintinsential P-Town eatery!
After lunch we finished up with the shops and got on the return bus around 3:30.
We got back to camp and Gina headed out to pick up the main course for our dinner while I started out on cooking the sides.
Gina went to the seafood shop in Rock Harbor and picked up a nice 1 1/2 lb Lobster for each of us and had them steamed there. I made parselied potatoes, corn on the cob and plenty of melted butter.
After our Lobster feast we packed up what we could that evening and headed to bed so we could be "up and out" early Saturday for the trip home.
And more still...03:30 Aug 18 2009
Times Read: 709
Day 6.
I woke up at around 5:00am Thursday morning. The sound of rain pounding on our tent woke me up. The sound of the rain falling and flowing across the campsite made me have to REALLY pee. So I dragged myself out into the pouring rain to go to the bathroom.
It rained until around 3:00 that afternoon.
We ventured out after having pancakes for breakfast and drove around the lower cape from Orleans to Falmouth. Really didn't see much of anything of much interest.
It cleared up in time to cook dinner. We had mussles marinara over linguini with some Italian bread.
We had to secide what to do with our last day and we elected to get up fairly early and head to Provincetown on Friday. Hopefully next year we will get to a Bay beach!
Still more vacation01:18 Aug 18 2009
Times Read: 713
Day 5:
We had consulted the weather reports and Wednesday and Thursday were supposed to be somewhat cloudy, with Wednesday being the "worst" of the two.
So we decided we would go to Provincetown on Thursday, as last year we went in the rain and it sucked! Friday we would go to a beach on Cape Cod Bay, which left Wednesday free for a "Camp Day"
SO we basically hung out in the State Park. Went down to the lake and David fished while we swam. Hiked a few trails. Rode our bikes on the bike trails. Sat around an read and relaxed.
We generally had a very low key day.
Dinner that night was Caeser salad, Scallops and rice.
Wednesday was also Chrissy's 23rd birthday, so we also got an angle food cake and had mascerated Strawberries and Blueberries and whipped cream over the Angel Food cake! mmmmm
Picking up on the vacation...12:51 Aug 17 2009
Times Read: 717
Day 4:
On Tuesday Allie, Chrissy, Zack and Liam got up early and headed to Boston for the day. This left Gina, Dave and I to spend a day together.
We got up fairly late, had fried egg and bacon sandwiches for breakfast and then went out "exploring". We ad a great time driving around the Cape. Sadly we left the camera in the tent! :(
We went to Rock Harbor at low tide, which is very cool to see...You can walk for about 2 miles out on sand that is covered at hight tide. Gina decided to stroll out onto the sand and by the time she came back in (maybe 10 min.) the tide had risen such that she had to wade through knee deep water in areas to get back in.
The three of us had a great lunch at a seafood place and then headed back to camp.
While we were out we bought David a fishing liscence, so he wanted to head to one of the lakes in the state park. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach on the lake while Dave fished.
A shot of the beach on Cliff Pond:
We came back to camp, had steak, saute'd onions & mushrooms, foil roaseted potatoes and corn on the cob for dinner.
The adult kids arrived back at camp just as we finished dinner and we did another campfire and headed to bed as the fire died.
Football Fan looking for a new team to cheer for.03:32 Aug 17 2009
Times Read: 732
A break from the Travelouge...
What the F were the Philadelphia Eagles thinking signing Michael, the dog torturer, Vick.
Jeff lurie must have gone completely insane.
I'm done with them...and for me, that takes a lot.
And more vacation...03:14 Aug 17 2009
Times Read: 738
Day 3:
I woke up early Moday and made breakfast. A "dutch oven" dish with bacon then egg soaked bread. Served with maple syrup poured over it...sort of like french toast in a casserole...mmmm
We went to Coast Guard Beach on the National Seashore for the day. We packed a cooler with drinks and sandwiches for lunch. The weather was perfect, high around 85 with a nice breeze. The water, on the other hand, was only 63 degrees. And some bizzare ocean current delivered a ton (probably several tons) of rocks on the shore. As high tide was at 3:30pm, the tide was coming in most of the time we were there the surf was tossing these softball size rocks as it broke on shore. I went to go in the water once and when I started walking in the surf a big ass rock smashed into my ankle. I retreated, content to walk along the shore!
A shot looking north from Coast Guard Beach towards Nauset Light Beach.
And a view straight out to sea from the shore. (If you squint really hard you can see Portugal right across the ocean).
After our day at the beach we headed back to camp, showered then had dinner.
We had Hamburgers and the salads left over from the previous night.
Another campfire with the attendant snacks and then off to bed after the fire died.
Vacation continued..22:10 Aug 16 2009
Times Read: 741
Day 2:
We woke up early and hit the road for the Cape. Stopped for breakfast at a Burger King on the road. We took I-93 through Boston, this was my first time driving through the "Big Dig" project there. It sure was an improvement over the way it was years ago.
We got to the State Park on the Cape just as the check in time of 1:00pm rolled around. We checked in and got to our campsites and started setting up.
Dave and Gina set up our tents.
Dave was being a bit "unhelpful" so I gave him Atomic Nuggies
(OK we staged that..but it does look funny...no?)
After setting up we went out food shopping, had a pretty low key dinner of Brats, sauted onions and potato & macaroni salads.
Had a nice campfire and made hobo pies and s'moresand turned in fairly early.
I'm Back!02:40 Aug 16 2009
Times Read: 757
Hey...Back from vacation!
Hopefully I will have some photos up tomorrow sometime.
To those who are curious...No car wrecks this time!!!
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COMMENTS
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faeriemoon
18:41 Aug 30 2009
Next week you're going to be outnumbered by women. What will you ever do? :p
KCRC
21:07 Aug 30 2009
Feh...It's the story of my life!
I grew up with 3 sisters.
Had Gina, Allie and Chrissy with no one else for 5 years.
I think I'll suvive!