| 2010-07-25 21:43:59 936 Had a great time with the Garraways last night. Capped off a wonderful Saturday. Woke up this morning and remembered that we were going to eat lunch after church today. So I made a 8AM Kroger run while Emily got ready to leave early for choir practice. We decided on two dishes that I am good at churning out: mashed potatoes and baked beans. I made the potatoes from a mixture of a couple large russets and about three pounds of red potatoes. Seems like mixing types makes the texture better. Afterward I mashed them with my hand mixer with a stick of butter, two packages of herbed goat cheese, costs half as much as Boursin so more bang for the buck to get two, and a good splash of organic Kroger whole milk. I dosed it up with a good helping of chives to give it some more green flecks. After I put the potatoes in the serving dish, I shook some paprika over the top for color. Apparently the potatoes were well liked because the dish was almost licked clean. The baked beans were my usual; heavy on the onion and bacon. I made them a little spicy this time with a dash of my homemade dried habanero powder. They were mostly gone too so must have been at least decent. |
| 2010-07-24 15:27:42 935 Awesome Saturday. Got up at 6AM and road the geared bike to the office in right under 15 minutes. Running stop signs really helps increase my average speed. I got the truck and came back home. After a bit I went over to Wilson's and helped him, his family, and Tommy get his stuff packed up to move. Then we all went to the Grill for lunch. Emily and I got home and let the puppies play in the backyard for a while. Turns out that a laundry basket makes a good shelter for Mr Snickets to keep him safe from the puppies.Now after getting a bath both puppies are on the couch sleeping with me playing on the internets. |
| 2010-07-24 15:05:12 934 Now I need to be a better programmer and fix my own code so that I actually have a nice easy way to put new posts into the database. I am doing these from the mysql command line. Seriously. Gets into crazy "quote escape HELL" trying to do things this way if I ever want to insert any HTML or links or such. |
| 2010-07-24 15:04:49 933 The new job is awesome! In 1998 I took a Saturday Java class at the ERC. I never dreamed that in a million years I would be working there. |
| 2010-07-15 20:53:03 932 this is my testy test. |
| 2010-06-18 13:51:02 931 At some point I am working on making a new CMS for sesser.net that can handle my ordinary posts and also incorporate my tweets since I make them so much more often. My biggest roadblock right now is that I have not finished fixing the date formats of all of my posts so that all of them are in sync. Just got back from backpacking into the Walls of Jericho in Alabama. It was awesome! |
| 2010-02-11 19:21:13 930 Being a good husband and I've got supper in the stove. Sad thing though that Emily will be here a while before it is done. I googled up a recipe for Spinach Chicken Parmesan which is perfect because we already had all of the ingredients. In fact already had green onion chopped up waiting to go into something! Also got some cornbread and black eyed peas cooking. On the subject of food, I came up with something awesome the other day. Filet mignon pinwheels with Boursin and spinach (see this is why I had spinach already!). This turned out to be an incredibly tender way to cook a piece of filet and with these instructions seems to put it a little over medium well done.
Heat oven to 425F. Butterfly the filet, getting it as thin as reasonably possible. Separate the small piece of meat connected by fat if there is one and flatten it out. Just end up with a few pieces of ~3/8" meat. Put a thick layer of Boursin on the top of each piece of meat and then add a blanket of spinach. Roll each piece up as well as you can and pin with a toothpick or three and place into the skillet. Stand up the short pieces of meat and lay down the long ones. Drizzle the melted butter over the meat and the salt and pepper a bit. 20 minutes in the oven and you are done! |
| 2010-02-05 15:34:19 929 SQL of the day: SELECT vlan as vlan2, max(total) as total2, (select max(up) FROM `vlan_usage` where vlan = `vlan2`) as up2 , (select (`up2` / max(total)) * 100) as per, (select max(updated) FROM `vlan_usage` where up = `up2` and vlan = `vlan2`) as last FROM `vlan_usage` group by vlan2 order by per desc; |
| 2010-01-12 21:45:17 928 So now Emily is on semi veggie kick for food and found a recipe for Lentil Stew that I bastardized into something maybe even better. The original called for mint! Emily gets credit on keeping the mint out and mixing up a few of the other ingredients. It turned out great and was so thick it seemed kinda meaty even though it wasn't.
Heat up a splash of olive oil in a heavy pot. Throw in the garlic and let it cook until it is just starting to brown on the edges. Add the lentils, chicken stock, and tomatoes. Let boil for a bit, covered. (at this point I actually turned the stove off and let everything sit so that we could go to church and work out and had to bring it back to a boil) Then add the potatoes and boil until they are done. Chop up the lemon zest, add it, the lemon juice, and the chopped parsley. Stir a bit and add the handfulls of spinach. Keep cooking until the spinach wilts. Serve hot, garnishing with the feta cheese and fresh cornbread. |
| 2010-01-07 16:02:36 927 Steak au poivre for a late lunch today with a side of Emily's "mexican" mac and cheese and some toasted rye bread. I took two pieces of filet and got them near room temp on the counter. Roughly cracked some peppercorns in the magic bullet and rubbed them into the meat and then sprinkled a bit of kosher salt on both sides. Heated my big cast iron pan with a bit of grape seed oil. Once it was hot, threw in a bit of butter and the meat. Cooked four minutes a side and then cooked the edges for a couple minutes too. Moved the meat to the oven on warm and sautéed a finely chopped shallot for a bit. Added a splash of merlot and let it cook down. Carried the pan outside to a sawhorse off the carport and deglazed with a bit of bourbon. The flames were impressive. Put the pan back on the stove on lower heat and brought a cup of heavy cream to a simmer. Added the steaks for a few minutes to soak up some sauce and they were done! Well Emily's needed to be sliced and put into the oven to bring it above medium, but mine was done, somewhere below medium rare. |
| 2009-12-25 20:46:27 926 Merry Christmas! |
| 2009-12-09 21:40:14 925 Emily's new bike came in today via UPS. It is a Motobecane Messenger in pink. It took me a little while to put together even though it came half assembled. It is amazing that it was only $299 for the apparent quality of the components. The fit is still a little long for Emily so I am going to replace the stem with a shorter one and move the seat forward a little. For a bike this small, 49cm, it is strange that it came with such a long stem and bars that seem to be pretty wide. |
| 2009-11-20 22:26:15 924 “The governor’s plan is absolutely racist,” said Charles Chiplin, adviser of JSU’s NAACP chapter. “We resent the notion of our three black schools being asked to merge when cuts aren’t affecting the major white universities.” - from the Clarion Ledger. Crazy that MSU has more black students, 3,622, according to the IR report than Alcorn State has students total, a mere 3,250! |
| 2009-10-20 20:04:31 923 It has been a couple years since Emily and I have been to Hot Springs so we decided to try it out again with the Waldroups. Friday started with me going to class at 8:00 to catch the test review. Of course Emily wasn't ready when I got home but at least we got on the road a little before 10:00. Had a nutritious breakfast of chicken strips and potato wedges at Smokey's, the gas station that sprung up in the middle of nowhere between here and Tupelo. Memphis sucked because of the traffic due to construction and wrecks on 55 but we finally made it to Texas de Brazil. It was awesome as usual. Double awesome because we got it at the lunch price! After that Emily killed some time going to two of the stores left at Peabody Place. That "mall" is totally going to be completely dead soon. Maybe they just need some stimulus cash. From there we headed on over to Cabot and made pretty good time on 40 with all of the big trucks. I started using the GPS to set my cruise because according to it, the Accord's speed is 5mph off at 70. We got there and got a tour of the new Volvo and I got a tour of Cory's sweet new bike parts. After a while, two more couples came over and we had loads of fun eating cheese and olives. After a wonderful night of sleep with no doggies to wake us up, we got up around 9 and had an awesome breakfast of cheesecake. We watched the episode of Glee Emily and I missed last week, I guess Tivo thinks Mythbusters is more important. After a bit we got on the road to take a detour to Pinnacle Mountain on the way to Hot Springs. Google's Street View makes it look impressive. We were going to take the western trail but there was a festival going on near that side which made the parking be not free. So we drove around to the eastern summit trail and headed up. The sign said it was only a 3/4 mile trail. That is not bad at all until you add in the fact that it ascends nearly 1/4 mile in that distance. The first half of the trail was dirt and rock strewn like I had expected. What I did not expect was to be on all fours climbing up boulders. It was a great adventure and I made it to the top even with my fear of heights. We made an executive decision to descend on the less steep western side to the bottom and then take the base trail around back to the car. It was a blast, most fun I've had hiking in forever. From there we grabbed some food at a burria to place that is a chain around Little Rock and drove on to Hot Springs. Checked into the I got up on Sunday morning and had the adventure of an Arlington shower. They are pretty small tiled enclosures with the shower head a whole 5'6" or so off of the ground. It was not as bad as I thought it would be. All in all I thought the Arlington was pretty good, but that was because I was expecting it to be an adventure. David had told me not to expect much out of it as compared to the Eola in Natchez. It definitely could use some work though. The bathroom in the room was interesting. From the pattern of the floor tile you could tell where the original bathroom ended and they tried to tie in more tile when they expanded it. The original bathroom was just the toilet and sink and the shower stall was added later! The "fire escape" map on the door confirmed this as it indicated a much smaller bathroom with the closet in a different location. Kinda makes sense that the rooms did not have showers in them once upon a time since the place was set up for spa bathing. Anyway we checked out and then headed to Granny's Kitchen on bath house row for breakfast. Cory and I found some on street parking that the Volvo used its sweet parking camera to get us in inches from the curb. The food was awesome and fatty, two orders of peanut butter pancakes, one of strawberry pancakes, and an awesome omelet full of meat and cheese with grits for me. The service was so so. From there we crossed the street and checked out the museum bath house for a while and the a few more shops. Got back on the road headed to Cabot and saw signs for the Pharaohs exhibit. So of course Cory called to see that it would be open and we decided to go. It was really neat, the first time I've ever seen a real mummy as far as I know. By then it was getting so late that it was time to eat again so we went to the Flying Saucer and got some good German food. Eventually made it back to the Waldroups' house and got back on the road. Eating before we left really paid off, we did not stop until Holly Springs on the way back for a break and more gas. All in all it was an great trip for us for a somewhat quick weekend getaway! |
| 2009-10-13 20:24:13 922 I feel special, NeweggHotDeals is following me now on the twitter. They have 20k+ followers and are only following 864. So that puts me in an exclusive club right? |
| 2009-10-13 19:46:47 921 So today has been a decent day. No rain on the bike in this morning unlike yesterday. The lunch ride was nice and dry too. I did get soaked on the ride home tonight though. Made it fun though. As my favorite pair of jeans are deteriorating precipitously, I won another pair on eBay and was able to pay for them now that Paypal has reverified my ability to send money. They came in today and are exactly what I expected. Of course the worst part of today is that the white MacBook's hard drive is failing. It still boots, but very slowly. After it boots I can't run anything but Terminal, everything else bounces in the Dock and never loads. dmesg indicates that there are read errors on the hard drive. So I ordered a new 250 gig to replace this failing 80 from newegg for a sweet $55 with free shipping. And because it will likely ship from Memphis tonight, I should have it at lunch tomorrow and have a functioning laptop pretty soon. |
| 2009-10-04 21:58:01 920 Boo on Paypal. Since I've closed my Regions account I have not attached the new M&F checking account to it. Even though I've got my Amex attached to it I cannot purchase anything because I've spent more then $10k through Paypal. Isn't that backwards logic? Hinder your customers who actually use your service for 9+ years and reward those who have spent very little? The tailgate was awesome this weekend. Tommy and I got out on Friday afternoon and put up three tents right at 5. There were nine of us who met up for dinner at the Veranda later on. I had the shrimp and grits which were weird. Instead of what I expected of a usual shrimp and grits, the grits were deep fried wedges and everything was in a soupy mess of some sort of butter/broth sauce or something. Got up early on Saturday to run the "Get in the Game" 5K with Tommy, Luke, and Jessica. It was five laps around the horse track at the horse park. I ran a slow 28:00 according to my watch which is a whole 3:05 off of my PR, but this is the first time I think I have actually ran a whole three miles in a long time without any walking breaks. I got back to the house and got cleaned up so that Ben and I could head out around 10AM. The tailgate site was great, and once the Garraway's showed up we had a four tent compound. Of course I had forgotten the Directv receiver at home so I got David to drive me there to pick it up. Back at the tailgate it was an adventure to get the satellite aimed but it worked out. The first round of food was done then, mini burgers and hot dogs, so we had a bit to eat. Around 2PM Bryan and I rode back home on bikes to let all of the dogs out. By the time we got back it was fajita time which was awesome! There was so much food! Eventually we went into the game. Emily sat with us during most of the first half and finally went up to the portal to watch it and not be crowded. It was a decent game even though we fumbled nearly every possession. Bryan and I finally left as the fourth quarter started. All in all it was a great tailgate. And we will always remember the scary old lady who came and saluted our flag. It was creepy. |
| 2009-09-25 18:27:01 919 The Veggie Tales Theme Song as sung by Rebecca St. James is awesome! Also I've been listening to Polite Dance Song by The Bird And The Bee over and over and over. |
| 2009-09-20 23:01:00 918 Is it bad to get excited about the Glad ForceFlex with OdorShield trash bags? I think I am really that domestic now. Well really the cheapo Kroger bags that we just finished up sucked so bad. I've got high hopes for these wonders of technology to cover up the smell of puppy poop. |
| 2009-09-16 18:41:57 917 So I am planning on keeping up with how many hours I park on campus with my 09-10 parking decal. I drove today because I was going to do a presentation at 10AM and being truly "business casual" was part of the grade. Normally I would have just carried nicer clothes in my bike bag, but because of the weather I took the easy way out by driving to Butler. I was parked in the Butler staff lot from 8-11. So considering that my parking pass for the year is going to cost $85, my total cost of parking per hour so far is $28.33. Of course at the first football game I found a way that having a parking pass will make it pay for itself. It costs $12 per game to park on campus if you did not buy a pass with your tickets. However with a valid decal, I can park behind the old Weed Science building for free! At a realized savings of $12 per game, I think the damned thing is going to pay for itself. |
| 2009-09-08 21:57:49 916 Twitter has killed my posting. Awesome night ride tonight. Seven of us this week. The pace was picked up this week since there were no mtn bikers. Way hotter this week too. I can't wait until it cools down some. |
| 2009-07-26 13:42:24 915 So after the weekend of July the 12th, I went to work that Monday and Tuesday. Emily had taken her car to her dad's where the issue was determined to be that the gear on the rear camshaft had separated from the shaft. That means we made it from Carthage running on only 3 cylinders! In playing musical vehicles with Emily's parents, Mr Joe was borrowing Emily's grandmother's car. The AC belt was busted and he didn't like the way the main belt looked so he got me to go to Autozone and get new belts and bring out to him in Maben. I made it back just in time before dark to get the grass cut. Aunt Sue's funeral was on Wednesday so I got up early and drove to McComb in the Toyota. David and Deborah were in a hotel down there so I me them and got into my suit. We were way ahead of schedule so the three of us went to the mall to waste some time. Was a productive trip because David found a new jacket and I found a MSU polo on super sale. We met up with Mom and Dad at the church in Summit. There was a ton of food for the family and we all got a little to eat. Afterward we went back into the church. There were so many people and more flowers than I have ever seen at a funeral. Dad said that at least a third of the flowers were missing from the visitation from the night before. It had been a few years since I had seen Aunt Mildred and I sure can't remember the last time I saw her and Granny in the same place at the same time. After the service I got on the road headed home. I got back on 55 in McComb and saw the funeral procession heading south on 55. Filled up with gas in Brookhaven and found that the 20 year old Toyota had made 31 MPG! I finally made it back to Starkville after dark, in all covering 400 miles in a day when the truck had only moved 1000 this year before this trip. |
| 2009-07-12 22:45:49 914 It was a rough weekend. Mom called at 5AM Saturday morning to tell me that they were headed to Jackson because Aunt Sue had been hurt in a robbery. We were already up because Emily to her midterm at 8:30 in Jackson. We made it to the campus a little after 8:00 and Emily went to her class. I navigated the buildings and found my parents and others in the emergency room. My parents had been up since 3AM, had driven to McComb, and then up to Jackson. After a bit Dad and I went to go get him something to eat and to gas up the truck. We got back to the emergency room shortly before the huge group of family and friends were moved up to the 4th floor of the critical care hospital. Aunt Sue was wheeled down that hall shortly after that. All that I could see of her face was swollen, bloody, and bruised. The preacher from her church led us in prayer after that. Then it was just a waiting game. A doctor finally came out and gave some remarks that definitely were not positive. David made it there a little before noon. Mom had told him not to come but I know it really made her feel better for him to show up. Emily had a lunch break around 12:30 so Dad, David, and I met her and eventually worked our way over to Backyard Burgers across State Street for some lunch. Afterward Emily headed back to class with some other classmates who had also eaten at Backyard Burgers. At some point around 3PM they took Aunt Sue down the hall to take her for another CAT scan. She came back through after a short while. After a few minutes a doctor came out looking for Melissa or Casey, but they were gone because they had finally left to get some food. They were summoned back and went back into the back with the doctors. The news was not good. Apparently things had gotten much worse since Aunt Sue's original CAT scan and the second. Emily finally got out of class a little after 4 and came up with us. A little after 5 we decided to head out. We accomplished a few errands that needed to be run in Jackson and headed back home. Poor Ada had been in the kennel forever and had managed to hold her pee which was amazing. On the way home, I floored the Accord to pass some slowpoke on Hwy 16. After that we could tell that the car was not idling right at all or having much power to get up hills. This morning I drove Emily to work in the trusty Toyota before 7AM. I worked on the car a bit, added Seafoam to the gas and for the first time ever ran a portion through the intake via the brake booster hose. This was scary but we apparently effective in cleaning up whatever has had the "check engine" light on for years. The car still had a rough idle. Then at church the "good" microphone had a fit during Kidz Church and did not cooperate. After church I went to Autozone and got a PCV valve (redundant?) and replaced that. The idle problem appeared to be solved until I put it in gear and it began to idle roughly. That's when I took some Zaxby's out to Emily at work. I called mom while driving and she said that she'd call me back. After I got home she called to let me know that Aunt Sue had passed away. They were on their way to Granny's to tell her. I have not heard anything past that. I got back in touch with Emily at the hospital to let her know. Mr Joe called me a little while later and I let him know too. In the meantime I kept working on the stupid Accord. I removed the throttle body and its myriad of vacuum hoses and electrical connections to get to the IAC valve on the bottom to clean it. After reassembling everything, it still doesn't work right so it is possible that the IAC is broken or about 10 other things could be wrong. Stupid car for working at 1k+ RPM but sucking for anything under. Today has not been the best day every for many people. I don't know what this week is going to bring. Cory and Sarah will be here Wednesday night. It will be the first time for us to see Cory since last July since he has been overseas a bit in between. I have no idea what the plans will be for Aunt Sue. |
| 2009-07-01 22:45:29 913 Walking Ada at 10PM is awesome through Green Oaks. She has so much energy. Good to have her back after a week long recovery after the spay. |
| 2009-06-30 22:56:43 912 Alt Nation on DirecTV is bad. Making us buy too much music from iTunes. Good ole Ethel on XM was awesome but did not encourage consumerism as much. |
| 2009-06-30 19:51:40 911 424 miles for this month so I beat June 2008. First month from this year to beat anything from last year. It is pretty easy to still crush any milage record from 2007. Ironic thing is that I was not as heavy in 2007, hovering around 225ish even after I broke my wrist. Today makes the third day in a row to weigh under 240 which I haven't been since last Thanksgiving. Hopefully I can make it to 230 before the Heart 'O Dixie triathlon in a few weeks. In all the fun last week I managed to nearly destroy one of my toenails. I was just locking up my bike after the crazy long work day and bumped the tire with my left foot. It made my second toe's nail point up at an angle. I think it needs to fall off. I'm sure not going to let Emily pull it off like she volunteered to do. I've kept it band-aided with antibiotic ointment which makes me feel better at least. But I come near crying when I catch it putting on a sock. I've got to heal before I can race and run seven miles! |
| 2009-06-27 17:22:41 910 Been an interesting week at work. On Tuesday night at 10PM Greg Grimes and I did some network configuration updates that went horribly horribly wrong. (horribly should be repeated for a while) I went home on Wednesday a little after noon thinking that Greg + Cisco on the phone would have an easy remedy. Apparently it turned out that the remedy was visiting a bunch of closets on Wednesday night. I was lucky and missed that because no one let me in on the plan. I got to work at Thursday morning and went with Todd (who had been at work since 6:30AM Wednesday) out to south farm to calm the wireless links. Anyway, work this week was loads of fun. At least we all went to Mugshot's for lunch on Friday! Also this week, there was a horrible rain cell that came through at 5PM on Tuesday. I had my helmet tail light with me so I figured I could make it home. Biggest problem for me was that I had my dark lenses in my glasses. So I was in a position of protect my eyes from laser rain but not see because of the darkness of the lenses. I headed out because I am brilliant. This was the hardest sideways with waves on the ground I have ever ridden in. I survived and made it home even though everything on me was soaked. In fact my shoes had ~1/4" of water standing in them once I took them off. My phone/iPod did survive in my bags zippered pocket even though the rest of the bag was soaked! |
| 2009-06-20 17:13:07 909 iPod touch is awesome! Especially when it is free! After rebate though :( |
| 2009-06-15 21:55:38 908 I have slacked so bad in 2008 in putting miles on the bicycles. This week (Monday!!) I have put down more miles than I did in weeks 2 and 5 of this year. Of course week 5 was the Alaska vacation. I guess week 2 was spring semester startup. I'm going to Disney World! Booked the Caribbean place this morning with the travel agent. |
| 2009-06-14 17:42:25 907 My lungs are full of concrete dust. Stupid me for taking the angle grinder at the last small pieces of concrete board for the new bathroom's shower niche inside with no mask. Hopefully I'll stop coughing up gray stuff in a couple days. Between yesterday and today I've gotten every thing sheetrocked and concrete boarded! It is just going to talk a little caulk and mud to get things smooth and ready for tile. I'm so ready for Phi Mu Alpha's national convention! Going to be a sweet Orlando/Disney vacation! |