In a state of constant paradigm flux

The Three Musketeers

2010-09-17T08:10:00.000-05:00

This past Friday my brother graduated from his program at the LA Recording School. My dad flew out there from Argentina and I hopped on a plane to meet them. Here's a photo of the three of us on Rodeo drive:

I know my brother is taller and has the "thug" look down to a T, but at least I'm not balding like he is and didn't get my grandmother's thunder-thighs.

It was an interesting weekend as I hadn't spent this much time with my dad in years. We drove around LA, did some shopping, got a bite to eat at The Ivy in Santa Monica, and hung out with Paco.

Whilst in DC we spent Sunday walking around Georgetown and on Monday we took the double-decker tour bus. Weather couldn't have been better for the tour. Exhausted from all the traveling, drinking, eating, and family-time I promptly checked my brain out for the next few days and am now finally recovering. Just in time to play host for the in-laws.

Diary of Mad Yogi: Talk about "Power" Yoga!

2010-09-17T08:03:00.000-05:00

In the couple of weeks I've been a VIDA member I haven't had much time to test-drive their classes/instructors. Part of me has been hesitant as they're already announcing an upcoming schedule change that will shuffle instructors, what classes they teach, etc. I still have to get my ass to the gym so I've been on the treadmill a few times and attended a few yoga practices.

My first VIDA yoga class was on a Friday afternoon down at the Verizon Center location. The class was billed as a Power Class, described as a dynamic flow of poses focusing on strength building. To prepare myself mentally I show up way too early, spend 15 minutes trying to find the studio on the 4 floors of gym facilities, get settled, then realize there's a lady doing stretches that looks like Gumby and all I can do is hope she's not in the class. Time crawls by and the instructor finally shows up. Bendy lady leaves. Instructor explains she's a sub, puts on some music, and the class gets started. First weird thing: I'm the only guy there. As we're going through class, it becomes evident this is going to be a pretty mellow practice. We're not holding poses very long and going through a simple series A and B structure. Second weird thing: the flow between poses was off. Maybe I had gotten too accustomed to Kevin's Baptiste style or how the other instructors at Results went through the series, but this lady had me teetering off-balance constantly and my limbs kept repeating going on muscle memory to the next pose and I'd have to pay extra attention to see what she wanted us to do. Last weird thing: playing reggae music during yoga. I'm all for opening my mind to different styles of music. But listening to "no woman no cry" while trying to build strength in yoga just doesn't mesh.

Somewhat disenchanted by my first yoga experience at VIDA I went back to the schedule and found one of my Results instructors has an early Saturday morning class. Faith is fun, tough, and has helped me push my practice. Let me tell you that going to yoga at 9AM on Saturday is one of the most unnatural things I have ever done. I was awake but my body wasn't. My legs felt stiff, my shoulders were cramping, and in general a bit tired. No matter how I felt at the start of the class, 10 minutes into it my joints and muscles warmed up and I was moving like a well oiled machine. The adrenaline rushing through my head from a good practice made me feel good about getting up early for yoga and revived my interest in trying other classes at the gym.

Fast forward a week of inactivity due to crazy work schedules and travel, and I'm back in DC trying to do yoga. It may just be me, but I keep getting messed up on the VIDA website. Yesterday I looked up the evening class schedule and saw Mimi (Budokon) lady was teaching a Power class at 6:30. Bingo! That would certainly be a class I'd enjoy. Following a productive day at the office I head home to kill some time then walk over to the gym. The hands on the clock swing to 6:30 and a lady plugs her ipod into the stereo. Oh-no, not another sub. I was correct, but as she introduced herself she said she was subbing for Monica (???) and this was a vinyasa flow class. Despite my confusion I stayed put and followed the practice. It was certainly mellow, not very challenging, but good to get warmed up. VIDA doesn't leave any time between classes, so as soon as we were done people rushed in to set up for the next class starting in less than 5 minutes. I check the schedule and find Power Yoga with Ursula is next. Feeling rather bendy, warmed up, and with nothing else to do at home, I decided to stick around for another round of yoga.

I've been practicing yoga for 4 years now and have been exposed to a sundry of styles and instructors. On my list of "most challenging" you'll find Gregory, Mimi, and that ashtanga class I took at Flow a few times. This Power class is on a different league. Ursula, clearly a Puero Rican no-BS chick, kicked us into overdrive from the first pose. Talking about how she got back from a workshop where her instructor (Baptiste style, yea!) had her hold downward-facing down for 5 minutes, she moved us through series A and built up from there are a frightening pace. Five minutes into the practice I was sweating puddles. A girl next to me had a beautiful practice. She would do this one-legged scorpion hop into chataranga that looked amazing. We kept exchanging looks through the mirror while in wheel as Ursula spoke out like a drill sergeant. We couldn't help but laugh when she would ask us to take it to the next level, holding poses for 8 or 10 breaths. 60 minutes of pushing us hard, I was drenched in sweat from head to toes but feeling like I had shed a month's worth of worry and stress and was ready to take on the world.

This morning I rose unable to raise my left arm and wishing the twitching on my leg muscles would stop, but every bit of pain was worth it.

The end of an era

2010-08-31T07:02:00.000-05:00

This is my last week as a Results member. *Sniff*

Early last week rumors started circulating around the blog-sphere that the Mt. Vernon location was going to close suddenly. Rumors were confirmed on Tuesday by an email announcement that the club would close September 1st. Of course this comes in addition to the imminent closing of the U St location.

This was the last push I needed to switch my membership over to the evil VIDA empire. The Mex and I toured their 15th and P location and found it just as modern and cold as any results. Even on a calm Saturday afternoon it felt as cruisy as any gay bar in the city. It'll take some time to get used to that feel. As of lately Results had become the gym where old Dupont homos go to pasture so young or hot the stares weren't as strong.

These last few days, knowing they would be my last, had a bittersweet taste to them. Taking my last Sunday afternoon class and saying good bye to the instructor made me a little sad. On the other hand I'll be glad to leave "the shirtless one" behind in the Monday night class. Last night's class just pissed me off all around. Having done two practices over the weekend, both focused on hips, I asked the instructor NOT to focus on hips. Of course all the bitches in the class started whining and seem to have overpowered my request because we ended up doing a bunch of hip exercises. So much for honoring requests.

Alas, tonight will be my last spin class at Results for the time being. It'll mark the end of 2 years of membership and toss my fitness schedule into a state of chaos. The worst part of this shift is having to try classes, finding instructors I like, and figuring out a pattern for the weeks to come. Blah!

Celebrating Cinco

2010-05-06T09:42:00.000-05:00

Ahhh Cinco de Mayo. Everyone thinks it's Mexican independence day but it's really another commercial holiday along the lines of St. Patty's day crunched through the capitalist marketing machine to encourage drinking and sell stuff. This year it even fell on a Wednesday. It appears that wasn't enough to deter the locals from going out to every mexican or latin-themed bar in the District.

At the last minute a few co-workers and I decided to walk down to Rosa Mexicano for a drink to celebrate the holiday. Leave it to a Mexican restaurant to carve out half its seating space for a private party on one of their busiest days. The bar was packed, the waiting list was crazy, so we pushed our way to a somewhat habitable corner of the bar. Sharing a pitcher of sangria and guacamole when you have no surface (i.e. table) to set things on was interesting. We took turns holding the tray of chips and pouring each other refills.

Putting my aversion to bars and loud places aside, it was quite fun. We bitched about family, gossiped about coworkers, and got to know the new guy a little bit.

The best part was getting back home and being sufficiently buzzed that I had no desire to do chores. Instead I set my mind to baking. Crisis ensued when I checked my butter inventory and found there was none left. No butter in the paradigm's household, how could that be?! Thankfully I wasn't lucid enough to sashe over to Whole Paycheck and refill the butter tray. Opening my recipe book I quickly made up my mind and found the brown sugar cookie entry.

There's something about the smell of browned butter, watching the frothy solids slowly sink and turn the color of caramel that just incites comfort and soothes me. Mix it with a generous amount of brown sugar, more butter, and flour and you've got some of the best cookies I've ever had.

Rolling the dough in fresh sugar prior to baking gives them a crunchy shell that balances the soft, chewy center. Yum. I managed to impart some self control and only had one cookie last night. Then another this morning. I've got another saved for a mid-afternoon snack.

MMmmmmMMMmmm... cookies...

Diary of a Yogi: One more spin class and my hip flexers will call it quits

2010-05-05T13:45:00.000-05:00

I started doing one spin class a week a few months ago. I felt I needed to mix up my fitness schedule mostly because I could not find any suitable yoga classes for Tuesday evenings.

Being scared to go into a new class on my own, I talked Leba (a friend I've had from my WSC days but now goes to Results) into going with me. I'm trying the "Leba" nick name. It's short for Lebanese which suits him well given the ethnic tree tattoo under his right pit.

The first couple of weeks we had a different instructor for every class. There was Mike, who I kept having to imagine in a particularly painful bondage video just to make me feel better about the pain he was inflicting on me. There was trail girl who loved telling us about the scenery, hills, and all that crunchy granola crap one sees when you bike outside instead of in a dark, humid room in the back corner of the gym. There was also sing-along-karaoke latino queen. This guy had quite a collection of thumpy latin music he loved to sing along to, the ENTIRE class. Only later did I find out the reason Leba chuckled at the beginning of class is that he was reminiscing about the time the latin queen pulled out all the moves on him and still got shot down. Ouch.

The constant change in instructors made the class interesting so we kept going back. After a few weeks Mike returned regularly but managed to give each class a unique feel. Sometimes we do stamina, other times we do strength, every time I feel like my legs are going to give out on me as I walk to the locker room.

Have I lost any weight from this? I should probably lay off the chocolate truffles and cookies to notice a difference. Do I feel that my legs are stronger? Not really since it takes days to recovers and I'm still doing yoga and trying to pick up running again so they're just wet noodles most of the time. Is it fun? Absolutely.

We've now gotten into the routine were we check on each other Monday morning, I call the gym and reserve a set of bikes, and we meet up in class. We have to make sure to call a day ahead because bikes #13 and 14 go quickly. They're primo real estate in spin being in the back row directly under the only fan in the room. A few weeks ago we were stuck with bikes off to the side and proceeded to sweat buckets worth of liquid. It was so hot, and we were so sweaty, it was hard to keep from slipping off the handle bars. In retrospect it would've been easier to get that sexy glean on has when covered in sweat by just drenching ourselves with a bottle of water. We walked out thinking that was the hardest class we'd had so far.

Then this week we went back for more, and pondered why every class feels harder than the last one. Let's hope it eventually get easier.

The Mex's New Boogie

2010-05-04T07:48:00.002-05:00

Neither one of us can get enough of this song. I downloaded the CD and the Mex has had it on repeat since. He loves to turn up the volume and wiggle around the kitchen to it!

Watch Gay Video & Lesbian Movies

The Derby

2010-05-04T07:45:00.000-05:00

This was a calm weekend. The highlight was the Kentucky Derby party held by The Queen and Ms. JLJ. At first I was hesitant to go due to its early start time (5:30PM), the long week we had just put behind us, and likelihood I would simply fall asleep at a party if I attended after doing yoga.

Putting all my concerns and worries aside, we had a great time. There were only a handful of guests, the conversation spanned countless number of topics, and the food and drink were plentiful. It was just my kind of party.

The race itself lasted under a minute. TV coverage was mostly of the partying leading up to and following the race. The hats! The copious amounts of alcohol! All the regalia was shadowed by the poor weather, muddy track, and copious amounts of drinking we were doing as well. This was my first exposure to pre-mixed mint juleps. Delivered in a bottle very similar to the Jim Bean large format but wrapped in garb commemorating the 135th Derby, the blend of bourbon and mint was just perfect. I'm not a bourbon drinker. Hold a Manhattan under my nose and my face will scrunch up in disgust. My my how a little sugar and mint changed my mind.

One of the hosts relayed the story of his quest to find said mix. Apparently Episcopalia (the area around the Cathedral) had some pent up thirst and cleaned out all liquor stores of the sweet nectar of the Derby. One store owner retold how a customer came in and bought 18 bottles in one stop. Our meager share expired shortly after the race. That's when I took charge and asked the host for a pan, water, sugar, and any and all remaining mint leaves to whip up a simple mint-flavored sugar syrup. Following the same method as for mojitos, I crushed the mint in a small bowl using white sugar to break up the leaves and release their oil. Bringing the crushed leaves and sugar to a simmer over medium heat on the stove released the remaining flavor. In the meantime we set up a pitcher with a fifth of JB, a splash of soda water, and plenty of ice to cool the warm syrup. The result was just as good if not better than the mix! I was certainly proud of myself.

Having consumed more than my share of juleps, I couldn't stop nibbling on my other contribution to the party. Early Saturday morning I revisited my love-hate relationship with Pastafrola. Crack of my childhood, the shortbread dough is difficult to work with, gets soft far too quickly, but at least can be patched up in the container. Using my last can of Membrillo (quince paste) brought up from Argentina and lots of cursing to push, pull, stretch, and dab the dough I put together quite a beautiful tart:

It's sweet, but not too sweet. Much like figs, quince have a unique somewhat smokey/foreign flavor that makes my mouth water. The dough was crispy but not dry, adding its own crumbly texture to the smoothness of the filling. Can you tell I'm salivating already?

I think I've found a new way to spend Saturday mornings while the Mex swims. Instead of running around the condo doing chores or ironing, I should turn to baking. Not only was I calm, relaxed, and absolutely giddy with myself when I pulled the tart out of the oven, I was even happier once I'd eaten about a quarter of it :)

Snow-calipse weekend

2009-12-21T13:29:00.005-05:00

This was quite a weekend. DC got slammed with almost 2 feet of snow overnight. As can be expected the city ground to a sudden halt. Roads were a mess, public transportation was non-existent, and everyone was urged to stay home. Being good citizens the Mex and I followed Fenty's orders to stay off the streets and couped up at home for the day.

There's not much to do when you have an ADD'ed Mexican bouncing off the walls in your tiny apartment, so I baked a coffee cake, helped him pack for his trip back to chacha land, watched a trashy gay movie with him, and just enjoyed the day off from working out, driving around, and the general chaos that is DC.

Our plans to hang out with Molly on Saturday evaporated due to the snow, so we decided to reschedule for Sunday. Sunday was a much nicer day as the sun came out, the snow stopped falling, and signs of life could be seen on the street. We drove around town enjoying that most major thoroughfares had been cleared of the snow and got in a bit of shopping at Crate and Barrell, Bloomingdale's, and J. Crew. All family gifts, I swear!

Sunday afternoon was a whirlwind of activity. I helped Knick and Knack set up their new blog: http://the-crafty-ones.blogspot.com/, went to a yoga class, then met them for dinner at Lauriol Plaza.

The craziest part of this snow storm is that cabs are nowhere to be found. RedTop Cab had the Mex on hold indefinitely until he got tired and hung up while Diamond Cab only made him wait 20 or so minutes to say he should call again at 3AM Monday to see if they had any cabs available. Our plans to get him a cab to the airport evaporated, I resigned to waking up early with him and driving him to DCA. The roads in DC were empty at 4AM making the drive a breeze once I had the lights timed correctly.

With the Mexican dispatched to Cha-cha land I'm left to my own devices to prepare for Family-rama 2009. My brother is supposed to land at Dulles tomorrow afternoon. I've yet to hear from him where he's staying exactly. Mother arrives Thursday morning. Christmas will be here before I know it!

Paradigm Meltdown

2009-12-11T07:20:00.003-05:00

Oh where do I begin? Following the lessons posited by our old and wise Gay Canuck during his blogging days, I'm going to do another bullet point list, in chronological order:

My credit card got scammed: It happened while I was in Colorado. Upon returning I logged onto my credit card's web site to check the cost of a few entries I had to include in my expense report for the trip and noticed a charge from "TANGY SWEET - 2". At first I racked my brains trying to figure out what it was from, then remembered a similar entry from my Red Velvet cupcake purchases a few months ago. A quick call to the credit card company confirmed it's listed as a "restaurant" in gallery place, so that had to be it, and even more interesting they tell me the number was keyed in and not swiped. What didn't make sense was that the charge was posted on a Wednesday, processed on a Thursday, WHILE I WAS IN COLORADO. I asked the Mexican, who was in California, if he had happened to phone in an order while I was gone and he said no.

I call the credit card company back, they transfer me to their ominous security department and that's when the car just drove off the cliff. The escalation to the security department involved being transferred from a nice, cordial english-speaking representative to an off-shore call center. This guy must have skipped his morning chai, had a bug up his ass, or just hated his job, because as soon as I explain the situation his immediate response was "We have to close the account". Em, ok. I nod along as I listen to him explain what I have to do, authorize it, hang up, then let it settle in that I just had to close my credit card account, and live without a credit card, because of a fraudulent $14 cupcake charge. Holding back the tears from shock, I decided it was for the better and carried on with my life.

Let me tell you, paying for things directly out your bank account is WEIRD. I haven't used my PNC Visa Check card in ages. Granted, I didn't lower down to the level of using cold, hard cash, but to see my hard-earned dollars fly out of my bank account the moment they were spent WITHOUT giving me any points, miles, or feel-good emotions felt wrong. Alas, a week later new, shiny, gold cards arrived in the mail and life returned to normal.
The weather: When did it get so freaking cold!!!! Colorado was cold, but sunny and dry. I left DC it was in the 70's. I come back and the temps snow-dive into the 30s. If I were that weather girl from Mean Girls I'd say "They can cut glass!!! Better wrap yourselves up when going out!"
I lost a week of my life to a cold: It started last Saturday with a stomach ache and general aches. Sunday I lost my appetite altogether. Then Monday came and all hell broke lose. My nose decided to stop working. My sinuses expanded to feel like a grapefruit inside my head, my joints and muscles screamed with every step I took. Medicating myself with Sudafed, tea, and rest, I was hoping it would be a 24 hr bug. As usual I wasn't so lucky. This dragged onto Tuesday, when the fever/aches diminished by the snot just kept on coming. I learned a long time ago that to avoid a chafed nose during a bad cold, I have to keep rubbing some kind of ointment over my nostrils to prevent friction with the tissue paper. Neosporin works well enough, but it's certainly not enjoyable and you can't be seen out in public if your nostrils have a shiny, oily gleam around them. Since things din't get better after the first day I knew I could not risk going to the gym. Thus I sat on my ass from Saturday to Thursday. It's now Friday and I'm back to 95%. Let me tell you that now I understand why a majority of Americans are depressed. Sitting on my ass for almost a week, working like mad, not getting any physical activity, resulting in poor sleep at night, general discomfort, sore butt, fidgeting, loss of appetite, and a general feeling of grouchiness. That's right, I became and even bigger bitch because I wasn't working out. Gasp. Let's hope I don't get sick again any time soon.
And then hell froze over: My brother finally made it to LA the week before Thanksgiving. The dynamics behind his departure are dramatic enough to warrant their own post, so I will only provide the necessary details here. He's been in school less than a month, and he's already planning a holiday. Where to? Why Washington, DC of course! You see, he "doesn't want to spend Christmas alone in front of a computer" (those were his words edited from chicano spanglish). But what about his wonderful girlfriend and her family who invited him for Thanksgiving? Well, they're worse than pagan, they're Jewish, "they don't do Christmas" he tells me, thinking I haven't met a Jew in my life. When I ask about Hanukkah and Festivus, the bitch in my flying at full speed, he just ignores me.

He wants to come here and spend Christmas with my Mom and me. Before you start awww-ing and saying "how sweet", let me remind you he's on a tight budget and supposed to be studying his ass off at this new school, not taking a week off to come to DC. Despite his grand idea, he claimed he didn't have the money. He asked my mom, who has no money, and got nothing. He asked my dad, who's pissed at him for a sundry reasons, and he said no. It's not that may parents are evil. It's that he is going about this all the wrong ways. First, he wants to be macho and gift his girlfriend of all of 3 weeks a ticket to come with him. Come alone?! But who would he diddle in cold DC? He's gotta have a female specimen to tag along. Then he makes the mistake of telling us that I don't have to worry about lodging because he's crashing a friend's. This is the "friend" that happened to get a 40-some year old woman prego and came crying to my mom asking for money for an abortion. Then it turned out the lady WANTED to get pregnant, did it on purpose, lives with her parents in the DC area, and the guy is getting a spouse's visa to enter the US. Abortion or green card, mmm, such a tough choice. Then he tells us he wants to get here December 22nd and leave the 26th. My mom isn't getting here until the morning of the 24th. Thus he's maximizing time with his friend, and limiting his time with my mother. All this amounted to a big "hell no" from my parents. I was able to relax and accept he wasn't coming for all of a few days before I checked my email this morning and noticed the Expedia.com screen capture in which he sent me his and his girlfriend's itinerary.

That's right, my brother is coming to DC for Christmas. God help me and give me strength not to kill him. Where he got the money for this? I have no clue. My dad's unemployed, broke, and climbing walls he's so desperate for a job. My mom depends on him for money, so we'll see how that goes. Me? I've got a fresh mortgage and pretty freaking expensive furniture to buy with my hard-earned money to make my home a comfortable place. I think the Mexican was right. It won't be long before we find out my brother's doing porn in LA in order to make end's me. Cocky bastard might just do it because he's so into himself.

Is 2010 here yet?

2 bottles of wine later...

2009-12-04T09:12:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was one of those days. I'm referring to those days where I used to be overwhelmed with panic, with the feeling that things were out of my control and everything was just going to fail and explode. I used to have those days quite frequently when I first started working. It took more than a couple of stern talks with my various employers, some counseling, and some serious introspection to internalize the "it isn't important enough to get this worked up about it" mantra.

Overwhelmed, feeling defeated, I managed to get through the workday. Then my day took a turn for the better. Some Asian lady that barely spoke English drove down to pick up the old IKEA photo frames and kitchen jars I had listed on CL. Little by little we're getting rid of the remaining boxes. Now I just have to deal with all our chochkies.

Then I had a friend come over and we got to chatting over a few glasses of wine, and a few more glasses of wine, and before I knew it we had finished two bottles of red. The conversation flowed as smoothly as the vino. We shared battle stories on our troubled fathers, laughed over family idiosyncrasies, and compared notes on new home ownership. Suddenly we realized it was midnight, both of us having to wake up early to go into work on Friday, and called it a night.

It was an incredible feeling to end the day on a good note after such a shitty afternoon. Can't say my poor liver would stand too many of these evenings, but now I know that a healthy pour and a willing ear can help release some of the tension in my shoulders.

A Seinfeld Moment

2009-11-18T08:43:00.004-05:00

I have a love/hate relationship with Seinfeld. At times I find the show funny, but it certainly didn't feel pleasurable to sit through an entire episode. I was one of those geeks who loved back-to-back re-runs just so that I could see what Mac Jerry had on his desk. You pretty much knew he always drove a Saab, so no surprises there.

There's one episode that's etched into my memory in which Jerry gets caught for re-labeling his jeans because he's outgrown a size 30 waist. Elaine rags on him, I can't remember what George does, but in general it seems to be a tear in the fabric of morality. Jerry explains he's just put on a few pounds and there's no point in advertising it, specially if girls stay over. So he buys bigger pants and then transfers the old labels to them.

That's what I feel like doing right about now. This weekend we were graced with a beautiful, sunny, warm Sunday afternoon so the Mex and I decided to walk from our place down to Metro Center and hit up the Banana Republic. The goal was to replace a pair of paints that I had worn so thin it almost had holes in the cuffs, pockets, and waist. It didn't hurt that the GAP/Banana group is desperate and they had sent me a 30% off coupon.

I managed my expectations on the walk down as I kept reminding myself it was rare for me to find something that fit me, and that I found value in, at Banana. Low and behold I was shocked when I found not one, but TWO pairs of pants on the sales rack. My biggest problem is usually finding the right inseam. I'm about as wide as I am tall, and 30x30 pants are hard to come by. There, I admitted I'm a square. The sales rack had a pair of 31x30's, always welcome on those days when one is a little bloated, and a sleek pair of size 30-waist pants. Rushing to the changing room I can't contain my excitement, mostly because neither pair was over $25. Didn't you know I'm as cheap as people get?

The relaxed fit pair was comfortably loose, and in a neutral gray color. SOLD

As I tried the other pair on, I half expected to have a butt-cheek hanging out as I tried to button them closed. Gasp! The button meets the eye and the clasp secures in place. I'm wearing size 30 pants. This is bad. I must erase this from my memory else I talk myself into replacing all my over-sized casual business wear from my fat days for skinny pants.

And that thought brings us right back to today where I've squeezed myself into a pair of size 30 ZARA pants I bought ages ago. They fit, there's even some breathing room, but there's no-where as comfortable as those shapeless, baggy, out-of-style diaper-butted khakis I've been wearing for years. Taking a queue from Seinfeld, I may just go out and splurge on baggy pants and pull a switch-aroo on the labels to appease my ego.

Silly Invoicing

2009-11-17T09:59:00.003-05:00

I ordered a bunch of prints through iPhoto to give to my mom when she comes up.

This is the order confirmation I got:

I get that I picked different photos and got one 4x6 print of each, but couldn't they just summarize this into "# 4x6 prints"?

Baby Steps in Home Decoration

2009-11-17T09:23:00.005-05:00

With a week's worth of work behind us, my co-worker and I headed to Colorado Springs airport Friday morning in hopes of getting a seat on the 6AM flight out. That would get me back to DC around 1:30PM instead of the expected 9:30PM that was part of my original itinerary.

Thankfully not many people were traveling that day and I was able to get seats on both my flights without issues. Though as I ran from Terminal F to B in O'Hare and arrived just in the nick of time to board my flight to DCA, I asked one of the stewardesses if there was food for sale on the flight and she replied: "Ha! This is SUCH a short flight at only one and a half hours, that's what the restaurants out there (hands waving in the air in an "exit pointing" maneuver) are for!". Thankfully I bit my tongue and refrained from pointing out what a bitch she was to someone clearly hungry and tired.

Once home I started to put the place back together while the Mex was caught up in one conference call after another. Starting with the den/office, we were able to get things back where they belong. We even took the opportunity to re-arrange some of the furniture. As anyone will tell you, when you first move you just put stuff where it fits.

The new colors look great. The master bath is a little lighter than we expected, but it still works. The yellow in the living/dining room is exactly what we wanted. Here are some photos:

We were also able to set up the new dining room table since the old one was gone. We're loving the table! It's dark, sleek, and the glass adds just enough brightness to the piece. It's also huge when it's expanded. Having a smaller table opens up the space. On a hunch, we also shifted the couch and silk rug to be at an angle to the rest of the room. It takes up a bit more space, but makes it feel less structured. It also highlights our need for a chair for that space. All in all, it looks great.

Chandelier Make-Over

2009-11-11T20:17:00.007-05:00

When we first saw our condo as part of our house-hunting adventures, we really liked the space but were shocked at one of the light fixtures. It wasn't ugly per se, just shockingly out of place. Pablo considered including the removal of said piece as one of the terms in our offer, but the Realtor advised against it just in case we offended the current owner. Chances are she spent quite a bit of money putting the thing up there and liked it enough to keep it.

After we finalized the purchase and moved in we just stopped looking up and started ignoring this blight in our ceiling. Having recently hired a contractor/electrician to install a fan/light in the Klingle Basement we knew the removal/replacement of the chandelier wouldn't be cheap and it was something we could defer to a later date.

It just so happened that a week or so ago, as I was warming up on the treadmill before my yoga class and watching HG-TV, one of their shows suggested sprucing up awful light fixtures with shades to soften their light. I had one of those "a ha!" moments that nearly threw me off the machine, so I stored the idea away in the back of my mind. Fast forward to our trip to Lowes this past weekend and I was determined to do something about this fixture.

The first item I would tackle would be the mismatched bulbs. Some were rounded, some were pointy, some had different wattage ratings. It all added up to one big mess. Browsing the wall of light bulbs at Lowes, we found a six-pack of frosted bulbs that would work. Ideally they would be rounded, but it seems no one thought of making rounded frosted bulbs and found it easier to force everyone to buy those ugly tipped bulbs.

The second step was finding a set of small, neutral, simple light shades to put over the bulbs. Their frosted color would soften the light, but there's still something awfully tacky about exposed bulbs. Lucky us this Lowes actually stocked more than 2 units of any one item and we were able to buy 6 shades.


The before and after

We got home and despite being exhausted from our expedition into suburbia, we decided to tackle the chandelier. First step was to replace the bulbs. Immediately it looks better when lit. Once up there, with my face up against all its bling, I noticed that the "crystals" where held together by little malleable gold clips and that they weren't permanently attached to the fixture.

We started out talking about taking all the crystals down and washing them. Then we moved to only putting back some of them so it wouldn't look as heavy, and we ended up shortening and putting back up only a few of the strands of fake crystals. Overall it is much more subdued and the light from it is softer and more pleasant.

The clips wasn't the only thing I noticed while changing the bulbs. The leaves and branches on this thing had never been cleaned and the thick layer of dust had to go. While I Swiffer-ed between gold-gilded leaves and bulbs, the Mexican decided to start playing with the crystals. We had always joked about turning them into jewelry once the fixture came down and he was getting a head start on that plan. Working diligently with his little Mexican fingers, he produced 3 strands of crystals of various lengths. Once satisfied with their heft, he strung them over his head like fine diamonds and rushed to the bathroom to check himself out in the mirror. His face was brighter than a kid's on Christmas morning. Alas I forced him to put the crystals away on the promise that they would be kept safely in a plastic bag until next October when they would resurface and take part in a fabulous Miss Adams Morgan outfit.

Despite being a small, affordable project, getting to work on it together made it feel much more significant. This wasn't a radical change, but it was a small step towards making this our home.

Out with the old, in with the new

2009-11-11T13:53:00.007-05:00

Several people have made fun of my tenacious use of Craiglist. The Mexican has certainly been on the verge of breakdown as I threatened to put some of his possessions for sale on-line.

My latest venture in Craigslist was selling our old dining room table. You know which one, the IKEA table in light-wood finish with the chair and bench. It served us well during our years in the Klingle basement. The light finish helped lighten up the room and the leaf saved our butt at more than one dinner party.

Despite our attachment to the table, the night we finished the move felt like "a roast" of our furniture. Friends gathered to kid about the wobbly bench, the uncomfortable seating position, the faded chairs, etc. Only after all this negative feedback did the Mexican accept it was time for the table to go. This only reinforced my feelings that the table was too big for the space and that we needed a new one.

With this new dislike of our table, we started surfing the web for a replacement. Requirements included a leaf, preferably wood, and at least seating for six. After many a discussion, we started considering a glass-top table. Nightmares of smudged glass-tops and chipped corners plagued our nights, but in the end we ended up finding a solution.

Maximizing my efficiency at the office, I would go furniture shopping on-line while on conference calls and decided to browse Design Within Reach, that trendy store where the weirdest things are really expensive but every so often you can actually "reach" one of them. Low and behold they had a table that met our criteria so we decided to check it out.

A trip to the store was scheduled to check it out before the Mex left for CA on weekend. The speed with which he pulled out the plastic and decided we were buying it amazed me. There was no tittering, no stuttering, just pure determination. We took advantage of an AMEX-only discount on top of the sale price of the chairs and purchased.

We walked out having purchase a table and four chairs in under 15 minutes. We would've liked to purchase the leather-clad chairs, but at $450 a piece getting four of those would have eclipsed the cost of the table.

Having purchased the table the focus shifted to getting rid of the old table. That's where my mad Craigslist skills came in. Photographs, measurements, cost, details were all posted within a few days. Right away I got a number of seriously interested people but certain details discouraged their purchase. For example, one pair of girls came by to check it out and explained they wanted a table to seat 6 on a regular basis as they lived and cooked in a group house. Then they added that the table should be able to seat up to 10 for their dinner parties. Where they plan on finding a table that can seat 10 people and shrink down to 6 when not needed for under $200 is beyond me.

A week came and went and there were no other hits. I reduced the price, got a little more interest, and started the back and forth again. In the end I was able to sell it the night before heading out to Colorado Springs. A couple of spaniards bought the table. The Mex and I found reasons to call them just to hear their accent and laugh. The accent is just so cute!

With the old table out of the way, walls painted by the end of the week, we're set to put together the new table and chairs. I'll make sure to post photos when it's ready.

Next step, dining room storage, coffee table, and sideboard. Gotta start counting pennies...

Paradigm Lost?

2009-11-11T13:16:00.004-05:00

The last couple of months have put a lot of pressure on me. A combination of changes at work, life-altering decisions in my personal life, and a series of wonderful events have lead to changing my status to "MIA".

My attempt to replace blogging with Facebook status updates hasn't fulfilled that need to express my crazy ideas for the world to see so I'm taking my thoughts back to the blogsphere.

Instead of a detailed account of everything that's taken place, here's a series of highlights:

1) Work realized I spoke Spanish and had me traveling around Latin America including Puerto Rico, Chile, Mexico (twice), and Colombia. Photos here and here
2) We moved out of Klingle Rd. We are now Loganites as we purchased a condo south of the circle. Early photos of the condo here.
3) The Mexican and I spent a wonderful 2 weeks in Argentina with my family. Photos here
4) The Mex got extended in California, but he's traveling back and forth every other week now.
5) With lots of help with the family, my brother has gotten closer to pursuing a degree in the US
6) They canceled my favorite evening yoga class, forcing me to find a new set of classes to further my practice. I can now do peacock!
7) We can't imagine having survived this summer without the help of our friends. Shout-out to Molly for acting as our marriage councilor.
8) I finally made Premier Executive on United and now get free upgrades and priority seating. Those free G&T's on our way to Argentina made sleeping that much easier.

Those are just some of the highlights. Keep your fingers crossed that this mid-year resolution doesn't fade too quickly.

Stay tuned!

Paradigm Snapshot: Hot as hell

2009-07-23T08:06:00.001-05:00

I finally got around to pulling the photos from my cellphone.
Here's evidence of the torturing heat in Mexicali from the rental car's exterior temp thermometer.

Diary of a Roaming Consultant: Melting on the wrong side of the border

2009-07-13T23:05:00.003-05:00

The car's exterior temperature read a toasty 115 degrees. You read that right, one hundred and fifteen degrees. This was at 7:30PM when the sun was but a sliver on the horizon and something resembling a breeze had gathered enough strength to move the syrupy air around.

This week I'm in Mexicali, Mexico. I keep wondering how I keep getting sent back to Mexico. Didn't I make an oath to myself never to set foot back in cha-cha land? I think life is just doing this to spite me, or help me grow strong enough to overcome anything.

I flew direct from Washington (Dulles) to San Diego and drove the two hours to Mexicali across the border from Calexico. The flight was uneventful. Despite my recently acquired Premier Executive status I was unable to secure a first class seat. Seems every one of the 6 seats had been actually purchased by some crazy person. These seats didn't even have leather upholstery. What a crock! Sitting back in the lowly Economy Plus section, I managed to get some reading and napping done. I did manage to take advantage of the priority baggage handling as my suitcase was one of the first on the conveyor belt. Somehow, every time I've checked a bag and found a place to stand by the belt to wait for it, a group of incredibly rude and clueless travelers shoves their way in front of me. In San Juan it was a bunch of silver-haired Philippine couples that didn't see the problem with forcing their 5-foot frames through to the belt to be the LAST ONES to gather their bags. In San Diego, a possy of valley-girls with their token cheer-leading homo decided to like totally set up like camp in like front of me with their overfed, teenage, muffin-topped asses. I'm not bitter...

The drive to Mexicali was actually interesting. The landscape was nothing short of breathtaking. The sheer size of the boulders, mountains, and nothingness around took my breath away. As the AC worked to push wisps of cool air out the vents, I kept looking around and hoping my cell phone would pick up signal soon in case the car suddenly broke down. This was NOT a good place to get stuck.

Crossing the border was a breeze. They have this system where you drive through a series of lanes with stop lights that tell you to stop or go. I bet the Mexican border agent must have been in a rush to get home because they let a bunch of us through without even slowing down. Pity I wasn't smuggling any Mexicans back to their homeland. I could've made a few bucks on the side.

Mexicali itself is a sad, flat, hot-as-hell border town. Driving down one of the main avenues you get to peek at the fence that marks the border between the two countries on every other side street. There's not much difference between the houses on each side of the fence. The heat attacks you no matter which side you stand. In my case, I consider myself to be on the WRONG side of the fence.

Puerto Lico and Flied Lice

2009-07-02T09:43:00.002-05:00

Puerto Ricans can't pronounce "r's". At least they chose not to in most words. Whenever you ask them where they are from, a strong "Puerrrrrto Lico" comes out of their mouth. You'll notice they stress the R in "Puerto" but their tongues go numb for the "Rico". I asked my client about this and they explained that it's a documented quirk of the local dialect. Furthermore, there's another variation within Puerto Rico. It was funny to hear my client refer to people "from the island". My look of confusion must have tipped him off as he explained that they called anyone from the interior of the island "islanders". The funny thing is that Puerto Rico as a whole is an island.

In any case, these mountaineers have a different pronunciation for the "r". A cross of the gargly French "r" and the angry "gh" that is very common in Arabic, they tend to stretch their "r" sounds.

Why am I rambling about how Puerto Ricans pronounce the "r"? It's because this week we went out for Chinese food for lunch with the client. This was quite the experience as they explained to me how Chinese food in Puerto Rico has been transformed much like Mexican food in the US.

To start, you get french fries with your meal. That's correct. French fries accompany your fried rice, noodles, or just about anything else you order. Then there's the fried rice. They pork isn't crispy and flavorful. It's served in bigger chunks and soft. The strangest part of the rice was that it tasted sweet. I can't begin to describe how wrong this felt in my mouth. The chicken stock flavor mixed with very little spice. It looked like fried rice, it just didn't taste like it. It didn't help that for $5 I was served about 3lbs worth of food in a Styrofoam container. The sheer amount of rice made obsessing about the flavor that much easier.

That's when I started to laugh and the client looked at me perplexed. I explained how we often make fun of Asian people who are learning English because they can't pronounce the "r" and fried rice comes out as "flied lice". Well, Puerto Ricans have taken this to the next step and make a completely new dish out of Flied Lice.

Diary of a Mad Yogi: Running Outside - My Route

2009-06-23T20:19:00.001-05:00

I'm back in Puerto Rico for another two weeks. I've decided to skip the gym at the hotel altogether and enjoy the good weather. So far I've managed to get a couple of runs in.

On Monday I did a ~6 mile run, here's the route:

View Larger Map

Today I cut it a little bit shorter since running on tiled sidewalks and concrete is killing my knees:

View Larger Map

It was still a good run and over 5 miles. I just have to keep this up all week and I may make up for all the mofongo, totopos, and rice & beans I've been eating.

OMG

2009-06-22T17:22:00.001-05:00

AlertDC to Transportation

5:37 PM

Metro reports that 2 train collided and one train is on top of the other train. Metro reports massive injuries at this time. The green line and the red line are affected. Further information to follow.

Sent by DC HSEMA to e-mail, pagers, cell phones....powered by Cooper Notification RSAN

Diary of a Roaming Consultant: Beauty Sleep

2009-06-22T06:37:00.002-05:00

I don't know if it was the cheap Trader Joe's Proseco we had with dinner, nerves about missing my flight earlier Sunday morning, or general unrest with having to go back to Puerto Rico, but I simple wasn't able to sleep Saturday night. I would wake up in a panic every hour, look at the alarm clock, try to do the math in my head to see if it was time to go, and jump out of bed. The physical strain would bring some awareness with it, at which point I would go to the bathroom, come back, and figure out I was 4, 3, 2, or 1 hr early. The first time it happened I jumped out of bed, rushed to the shower, and started to get ready when a quick look at the distant kitchen clock showed me what time it was. Without my glasses it was a little blurry, but the hour hand was far too close to midnight for things to be right.

In the end I woke up and got ready with plenty of time, was waiting outside when my cab showed up, and arrive at the airport plenty early. The flight was on-time, even arriving at San Juan a few minutes early. No drama at the rental car office, swift check-in at the hotel, everything was going for too well. The sun was even out. I got back to my room, changed into shorts and a t-shirt, walked across to the street to the Walgreen's to get some cold drinks, and then plopped my ass down in the sun by the pool. I managed to get 30 minutes on one side, snoozing on and off, flipped over, started to fall asleep again, then noticed the cold drips on my back. At first the mist/drizzle felt good, cooling down my skin. When it started to pour off my back in little streams it got annoying. Thankfully I packed up and went back to my room before the torrential rain started.

By this point it was close to 3PM, I hadn't eaten a decent meal all day, and I was trapped in the hotel. I considered driving over to Borders to take advantage of a 40% off coupon, but the hotel's staff warned me it was a 20 minute drive away, by law all business in San Juan close at 5PM on Sundays, and that since it was Father's day they would most likely close early. Instead of getting in the car and going book shopping, I braved the weather and walked the 100 or so yards over to the Chili's near the hotel. Wet, cold, and hungry I ordered myself a glass of red wine to raise my spirits and a juicy burger. It didn't take long for me to devour the meal. The only reason I spent as much time at the restaurant as I did was because of the dismally slow service.

Back at the hotel I thought about turning on the TV but instead I crawled under the covers and read for a bit. Around 6 I talked myself into a short 1 hr nap. When the alarm went off at 7 I turned it off, set it to go off at 6AM the next day, and went back to sleep. At this point I wasn't thinking about how difficult it would be to fall asleep if I woke up halfway through the night. As expected, I was awake at 1AM. Before I could absorb reality and open my eyes, some part of my mind talked me into pushing my head deeper into the pillow and just going back to sleep. A quick wink at the window showed bright lights, but once things came into focus I realized they were just street lights. It was pitch black outside. Getting back to sleep wasn't hard. I'd managed to be up and about for 8 hours on nothing more than fumes and now I was crashing, hard. I woke up again a few times later in the morning. First at 4AM, then at 5AM, and finally when the alarm went off at 6. By then the effects of 12+ hrs worth of sleep could be felt throughout my body. I was relaxed, comfortable, and even a little toasty from the little bit of sun I'd gotten the day before.

I can't remember the last time I managed to sleep this much. I know it's normally not healthy or useful as one wakes up feeling worse off than when you started, but this time it was truly beauty sleep. Had there been any tangible transformations as a result of my slumber, I would've gone from ugly toad to prince in shining armor.

Let's hope the stress levels this week stay low, the sun stays out, and rain stays away. This prince could use a tan.

Diary of a Roaming Consultant: Back in the office

2009-06-16T07:17:00.002-05:00

I'm getting a break from travel this week but it feels like I'm working just as hard. Being at home base means going back to having salads for lunch and working out every day since I have no excuse not to.

The office hasn't changed much since I left. We have a new intern that looks as young and clueless as they usually are. No one has been evicted/moved around in my absence, and the building is still emitting its share of somewhat toxic VOCs that give it that "new building smell". The pale yellows, washed out grays, and muted tans used as a color palette still make me want to hurl.

Am I getting used to the road? I certainly hope not. I head down to Puerto Rico for another two week stint next week. Thankfully I talked the Mexican into joining me out there for the weekend. If the weather holds up, that means lounging at the beach or by the pool with a cuba libre in hand.

If only...

2009-06-11T12:19:00.002-05:00

...I could get the Mex to follow this rule I'd be RRIIIICCCHH!!!!

Puerto Rico in June

2009-06-11T12:14:00.003-05:00

You'd think getting assigned to a project in the Caribbean would be wonderful. If it ever happens to you, make sure it's later in the summer, else you'll get stuck downtown, with a tiny umbrella that's no good in torrential rains, huddled in a store's doorway, waiting for the rain to stop.

Diary of a Mad Yogi: Running Outside

2009-06-11T12:07:00.004-05:00

When on the road I try to make full use of a hotel's fitness facilities. In most cases this means an outdated treadmill and some kind of stationary bike or elliptical machine.

The Hampton Inn I'm currently staying at takes this one step further with not one, but TWO treadmills and both are recent models. I've used them for the last couple of days to get a couple of miles in before dinner.

Last night, as I lay in bed reading and trying to stay awake, I came to a point where I had to decide if to turn off the lights and go to sleep at 6:15PM or get off my ass and go work out. I knew going to bed that early would be a bad idea so I pushed off the comfy covers, changed into my gym clothes, and headed downstairs to the gym.

Part of me was pleasantly relieved when I peek through into the gym room and found the tread mills in use. It wasn't long before guilt set in and I remembered I was on-site, eating like a pig, and had to work out. I decided to brave the elements and head for a run outside.

Puerto Rico reminds me a lot of Veracruz in Mexico. Incredibly humid, hot as hell, windy enough to pick up sand and blast it against you, and obviously not designed for pedestrians as the sidewalks cut out at random places. Doing my best not to get run-over by traffic, I followed the coastline and was out and about for 45 minutes or so. Given my pace, I'd be exaggerating if I claimed to cover 4 or so miles. The humidity was unbearable. Not even halfway into my run I was eying every bottle of water with lust and imagining dumping it on my head to cool off.

In the end I was glad I managed to run around and get a workout. It made it that much easier to gulp down the fishbowl margarita I consumed later that night. So much for dieting while on the road...

Diary of a Roaming Consultant: My Voice Betrays My Age

2009-06-11T12:04:00.002-05:00

I've had two customers this year express shock at how young I was once they met me. Apparently, based on our phone conversations and remote work, they had assumed I was some old geezer sitting in a comfy office in the US.

Both these clients are in Latin America. There certainly seems to be a correlation. I've also been told in the past that the pitch of my voice changes when I switch from English to Spanish. Could that make me sound older?

I guess from now on I'll have to make sure to send clients a picture of myself just so they know what to expect. No way to hide the inner-60-year-old over the phone though.

Paradigm's Believe It or Not!

2009-05-04T07:41:00.004-05:00

Add this to the list of things you thought you would never see:

Yes, it's the Mexican on a full-size utility tractor dumping a load of horse manure. You can't say I haven't tried to butch him up!

Diary of a Roaming Consultant: Breakfast at Lunch

2009-04-15T20:40:00.004-05:00

Things in cha-cha land are going well. The highlight of this trip has been my willingness to explore the culinary offerings of the area. Here are some highlights...

Pastes: apparently a British invention brought over to Mexico a long time ago, it's essentially the process where you wrap food in a dough to create an empanda-like item. It was explained that workers used to do this to keep the food warm a little bit longer. They can be stuffed with just about anything they get their hands on from potatoes and refried beans to rajas and carnitas. The dough is crumbly, not flaky like the empandas I'm used to. They're also pretty large, and just two were enough to fill me up for lunch. They laughed when I started turning red after a few bites of the rather spicey potato-filled one.
Taquitos de canasta: I may have misunderstood what they called these. They were really nothing more than ordinary mexican-style tacos. Take a bunch of small corn tortillas and stuff them with assorted "guisos". There was refried beans, carnitas (pork), mashed potatoes, something that tasted like stewed chicken, and a last one with eggs and sausage. Ignoring my urge to open each one up and analyze the contents prior to eating the tacos, I chowed down like there was no tomorrow. There's something about travel that makes moderation go out the window.
Tortas: Here's one example of the dialect differences between chacha-land and the mothership. To Mexicans a "torta" is sandwich made with a burger-style bun. Not to be confused with a sandwich which typically uses common slices of white bread. In my Spanish, a torta is a cake. Mexicans call cakes "pasteles". We went to grab lunch at "Chino's" a local "soda fountain." I certainly had to do a double take when they explained what this place was. A "soda fountain"??? Didn't those go extinct back in the 50's? The menu at Chino's was expansive. After asking what a few of the items were and hearing that they didn't amount to much more than a tortilla stuffed with something and deep-fried, I decided to try one of their famous tortas. Feeling far more adventurous than normal, I ordered a chorizo and egg sandwich. Part of me expected a sunny-side-up egg atop a few sausage links between slices of bun. Instead I got a quite tasty scramble of chorizo bits and eggs, layered with avocado, tomato, mayo, and peppers. The spicy bits were quickly removed and placed far from my palate. Consuming this sandwich was a rather messy endeavor. The scrambled contents lacked structure, so for every bit of force applied to maneuver the sandwich something came out the opposing end. A couple of napkins later, a near-miss with an undiscovered pepper, and lots of slurping from my sugary Coke (bottled in a sweating glass bottle), I was happy.
Sopa Azteca: Most of my evening meals have come from the restaurant at the hotel. Part of me hasn't felt like venturing outside. Once I walked across the street to the large Mall outside my window I found the options to be a very stinky shushi place, VIPS (a bad chain of Eat&Park like restaurants), and McDonald's. I returned to the hotel and decided to order a club sandwitch with a side salad instead of the fries. This girl is trying to watch her figure. Being that it was one of the cheaper items on the menu I expected a few pieces of toast with some ham, bacon, and tomato and that's it'. Instead I got a platter, not a plate, a platter worth of food sufficient for 3 people. My eyes must have bulged out of my head because the waitress said "don't worry, it's healthy food." I ended up deconstructing the sandwich to pull out the protein bits (ham, cheese, chicken) and mix it up with salad. The remaining carcass of toast was quite amusing. This night I returned thinking I would order something much smaller. Browsing through the menu, the only thing that caught my attention was the Aztec soup. I must admit I was quite disappointed. it was a thick, cloudy, tomato-ey broth clearly flavored with roasted peppers to try and add some depth. A few pieces of avocado added body, but it wasn't enough to make up for the soggy cubes of cheese (very much like tofu) floating among the endeless strips of soggy tostadas. Tostadas are essentially fried corn tortillas. I slurped away at my soup, trying not to burn my tongue. I almost choked when I started chewing the single strip of roasted pepper floating in my bowl. The skin was dry, crackly, nice and crispy. The inside had a paste-like texture, melting away at my tongue. The burn spread quickly, reaching the back of my throat and forcing me to lash out for my beverage. In conclusion, I'll stick to chicken-noodle from now on.

As you can see I've been good and haven't turned anything down. The client keeps mentioning fried warms, ant eggs (Mexican caviar), and other creepy-crawlies that are considered regional delicacies but thankfully they haven't brought any in for lunch.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to stomach the next meal. Riding in the car with the client's team, one of them decided to explain to me that they really considered the last couple of meals they'd had with me around noon to be breakfast. Further questioning revealed that they normally work from 7AM to 3PM or so, don't consume any sustenance prior to departing for the office, don't get a "lunch" break, and just pig out when they get home between 4 and 5. Dinner is also radically different and a much lighter affair. I thanked them profusely for adjusting to my foreign customs and feeding me around noon. Else they would have to deal with one cranky consultant. One of them explained that they've always done this, even when back in school. Immediately I thought of all the news bits and things I'd heard about increased productivity following a decent breakfast, increased attention in children, less digestive problems, weight loss by more frequent and smaller meals. Instead of going on and on about all this, I simply told them I'd been raised to have breakfast, a small lunch, an afternoon snack (aka "tea"), and then a heavy dinner. I can only imagine what went through their heads when I described all those meals.

I may suggest that one day next week we skip the noon meal and all head out after work for drinks and food. That may require I have a gigantic breakfast in order to hold me over. Maybe it's my love of food that leads me to eating so much. Regardless of their normal schedule, they certainly didn't turn down the food server to us for lunch and ate like they were truly hungry. ONE MEAL A DAY?! Jeez...

Diary of a Roaming Consultant: Pa-cha-cha-cha-chu-ca Day 1

2009-04-13T08:09:00.003-05:00

The poor Mex was a ball of nerves yesterday. He stuck around waiting with me till they started boarding my flight. His flight would start boarding only 10 minutes later. This is the first time we've both flown out on the same day, at the same time, in different directions. I guess it finally hit him that I have to travel for work every so often just like he does :)

The flight was uneventful, except for the 25 minute delay as we waited for a new cushion cover as one of the seats occupied in economy plus had some dampness issues. Then they pilots claimed they saw some flashy lights on their dashboards and had to test a few things. I'm sure they pushed the poor plane well past the recommended speed to maximize fuel efficiency. We landed at exactly 9:30 when we were supposed to.

The Mexico City airport was empty. I got to waltz through the gigantic duty free shops on my way to immigration control, where I ran around taped-off corridors trying to find the exit. I was the first one in line and went through without problems. Then came baggage check. Memories of Continental losing my bags EVERY SINGLE TIME I FLEW TO VERACRUZ rushed back. I waited almost a half hour for the last set of bags to be placed on the belt. Thankfully this last batch included mine. For a minute I almost took the wrong bag, as some other lady was traveling with the same mossy-green Eddie Bauer luggage piece I bought at Target almost 5 years ago. Good thing I bothered to check the name tag.

Off the plan, through the airport, the cab service was waiting for me with a sign that read "OVIETA". I've never understood why Mexican people want me to be Italian. In Veracruz, they would often write it down as "OVIETTA". Might be my charming personality...

The highway was clear, the weather cooperated, and we made it to Pachuca in about an hour. Th driver was polite and earned his tip.

I'm staying at the Crowne Plaza in Pachuca. Per my searches the nicest hotel in town. Getting to the hotel involves a series of twists and turns off the highway as you snake around what will be a large retail complex at some point but is nothing but empty fields right now. The hotel is relatively small at only 5 floors, but spacious and bright. By the time I got to my room it was well past 1 AM EST. I texted the Mex to let him know I hadn't been kidnapped and held for ransom, and crashed. No dinner, no shower, just sleep. I managed to fall asleep after 10 minutes of fighting to set the alarm clock. Who on earth puts some futuristic touch-screen gadget with no instructions in a hotel room?! I set my watch alarm as a back-up just in case and promptly passed out.

This morning I got to realize I forgot to pack shaving cream and perfume. This tells me I've going to have to venture to the mall near the hotel I saw on my way in and see if I can find a CVS-like store for some toilettries. The best part of this morning was walking into an empty restaurant, sipping a cup of hot, hazelnutty coffee, and nibbling on a plate of molletes with chorizo. Being careful not to drip any of the bright-red oil from the chorizo on myself, I indulged and had to molletes quickly followed by a piece of toast with butter and jam as dessert. That's what I get for skipping dinner.

It's going to take a day or two for me to get used to the service here. Never would I turn down extraordinary service, but I get a strange feeling here. Maybe it's just me being paranoid about being a "huero" in Veracruz or because they assumed I only spoke English and almost jumped out of their underpants when I asked for a table at the restaurant, but there's certainly a "don't touch the alien" vibe.

Well Mex, I told you I could make it in one piece and I did. I didn't even need my army of 5-foot-tall Mexican ninjas clad in black spandex outifts to protect me. Now let's hope I can make it through the week.

Tea and Crumpets

2009-04-11T07:49:00.002-05:00

I may be from a country that at its peak in the mid 70's reached something resembling first-world status, then very quickly shed its royal cloak and sank deep in to the third-world rankings, but that doesn't mean I'm not civilized. I grew up drinking tea. First cup in the morning for breakfast, then another in the afternoon.

In the US people make fun of cops for their love of donuts and dunking in coffee. I applaud these individuals! Dunking is paramount to enjoying a good cup of tea. You get the warmth of the beverage and the sweet, sugary goodness of the dunked.

But I digress. This week I was invited over for tea and a chat. Knowing I couldn't show up empty handed, I put on my baker's bonnet and whipped up a batch of cookies. Going with America's Test Kitchen instead of Nigella's recipe for Snickerdoodles yielded a batch of large, soft, deliciously mellow cookies. Unlike Nigella's, the ATK recipe doesn't call for as many spaces. You roll about 2 Tbsp of dough into a ball and bake it. In Nigella's version, the balls are much smaller and cook as little bubbles more than flat discs. In any case, they turned out great.

Cooling on the rack. Each cookie is about 2" in diameter.

They puff up during baking and you pull them out when the look a little raw. They then collapse and finish baking while cooling.

Perfectly crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside.

A good thickness for dunking.

The cracks give them an unusual look. The cinnamon isn't overpowering, it's subtle.

Tarting it Up

2009-04-04T09:04:00.004-05:00

The Mex was away from home for over two weeks. To welcome him home I put on my baking hat and threw together a fresh fruit and pastry cream tart. Unfortunately, the same night I decided to bake after months of not having baked anything, what few friends/family I have that call me all decided to call me on the same night. I managed not to screw anything up (too bad) while on the phone lending a caring ear. Here's an overview of the process:

Starting off with eggs and full-fat half&half...

Bring the half&half and sugar to a simmer...

Beat the egg yorks till well blended...

Add corn-starch to the egg mix...

Temper the eggs, then pour back into the pot...

Watch out, this stuff thickens quickly! Add butter and vanilla...

Still until all ingredients come together and transfer to a bowl to chill.

This is what happens when you're distracted by the phone while baking a tart shell... it gets toasty.

The edges held up marvelously...

Even though it wasn't the most even distribution of dough...

A couple of hours after everything has cooled and chilled, spread the pastry cream around...

Top with a mixture of fresh fruit and berries...

Glaze with some warmed apricot or apple jelly for extra sparkle.

Cooking with Jamie

2009-04-04T08:23:00.008-05:00

I can only hope he's better in bed than writing cook books. This past week I experimented with a few recipes from Jamie Oliver's Cooking with Jamie book. It was released a few years ago, shiny pictures and all, and I simply couldn't resist the smirk he wears on the cover. The Mex and I were pleasantly surprised with his some of his recipes such as the spicy sausage pasta. He managed to fall out of favor when we bought the big illustrated Spanish book and Nigella's latest.

These past two weeks, being home alone, I had no reason not to cook and produce sufficient leftovers to be that cheap guy who eats at his desk in the office.

I started off honoring my upcoming trip to cha-cha land by making steak taco's. This Cook's Illustrated recipe simply blew me away in its simplicity and flavors the first time I made it. Despite my lack of practice in the kitchen, it came out perfect once again. Putting it together is relatively simple. You make a Mexican version of pesto by throwing oil, cilantro, garlic, jalapeños, and cumin into the food processor.

The best part of this recipe is that you don't have to get a fancy cut of meat. A pound and a half of flank steak, cut into 1" thick strips along the grain, is the perfect vessel for all these flavors. Because of the weather, I pan fried these puppies. I can only imagine how much better they would be grilled on a hot flame which would let the sugar truly crisp up the edges of the beef.

Once the strips of steak are browned all around, you set them aside to rest for a few minutes. Having saved some of the "mexpesto", you mix in some fresh lime juice and put it in a large bowl. Letting the steak rest allows the juices to distribute evenly and the flavor to be more even. You then slice them into 1/4" thick pieces against the grain to make sure it's tender and toss them in the remaining marinade/juice mix.

Serve with some re-fried beans, chopped pickled onions, sour cream, and fresh lime wedges.

Next up in the menu was Jamie Oliver's Mac&Cheese. I'm a glutton for comfort food and there are few things more comforting than a bowl of warm pasta covered in a cheesy sauce. I don't know if to chuck it up to his British roots or having never had a box of Kraft, but this was thoroughly disappointing. At the same time, I can't place all the blame on Jamie. Being cheap, I went cheese shopping at Harris Teeter as part of my larger grocery run. I should have learned my lesson last time I tried to get Italian Fontina there. All they carry is the rubbery Danish type. Buffalo mozzarela? Sorry, we only have this over-processed dried stuff. Fresh Mascarpone? As if.

The recipe itself was incredibly simple. Boil the pasta, reserve some of the water. Fry up some rosemary in the now empty pot. Throw the noodles back in the pot with all the most of the fontina, parmesan, and mascarpone in until they melt. Transfer to earthen baking dish, sprinkle nutmeg on top and disperse the mozarella. I added some breadcrumbs on the top for crunch and texture. Bake for half an hour then broil for a few minutes to get a nice crust on top.

I probably should have paid more attention during the broiling stage. Alas, I ended up with a brick of noodles with some melty cheese. The flavor was promising, there just wasn't enough of it there. A simple bechamel to distribute the cheese more evenly would have done wonders for this. The highlight was getting to use mascarpone in cooking, something I had never done before. Then I got to make myself toast with Mascarpone and honey using the extras. Alas, it was good enough to reheat at the office and provide sustenance, but certain not something I'll make again.

Last, but not least, I tried to make Potato Röti. Oliver claims this was a big thing in the 80's. Unfortunately I can't remember much around my kindergarten years. It's essentially a large potato pancake that you make in the oven. The reason I chose this recipe was to see if I could really pull off the knife work to cut up the potatoes into small, even match-sticks.

The amount of garlic called for in this recipe is excessive. Six large cloves were enough to stink up the whole apartment well into the next morning. Preparation was simple as it involves a single pot. If I ever make this again I will use less garlic and purchase an oven-safe non-stick skillet. The vessel I used was oven-safe, but not non-sticky enough to serve the pancake as a whole. It may also have come out better baked at a higher temperature or made with different potatoes because it lacked crunch. The edges were nice and brown, but the middle of the package was almost mushy like reheated french fries.

My last kitchen adventure wasn't recipe driven. It was Wednesday night after Yoga class. I was both physically tired, mentally hyper, and famished. Thankfully I had planned for this and purchased a couple of oven-ready pizza crusts. Think Boboli, but a cheaper brand. Using some of the leftover ingredients from the previous recipes I threw together three pizzas: 1) tomato with oregano and fontina, 2) turkey pepperoni with fontina and parmesan, 3) mozarella with parmesan. The crust, albeit store-bought, reminded me of the "pizza a la roca" style they have back home. Crunchy on the outside with a very yeasty flavor and airy crust. None of that flat, Neopolitan style crap or incredibly thick-crust chicago style. Just perfect.

All this work in the kitchen certainly kept me busy. The next couple of weeks may not include any kitchen adventures with my upcoming Cha-cha trip. My goal is to get back and try some of the other cook books I've been neglecting. Particularly the baking recipes. With a light travel schedule, I may go back to baking and taking things to the office. Let's hope the new crowd appreciates my efforts.

Princess for 90 days

2009-04-04T08:20:00.005-05:00

Here I am, keeping my fingers, toes, eyes, and legs crossed hoping that I get enough qualifying miles to get status this year and MAYBE, just MAYBE enjoy a little more priority in boarding or more room in the future, and United sends me this:

Are they desperate?! Regardless of their motivation, I couldn't click through the registration form fast enough. I'm already day-dreaming about EconomyPlus upgrades back from cha-cha land and being able to laugh in the face of the boarding agent bitch at LAX who made me check my luggage last time because I was in seating area 4.

Now I just have to fly another 12,000 miles in the 90 days after they activate my status to keep it.

Too Good to Be Bad

2009-03-25T09:36:00.002-05:00

It's frustrating, even when I unconsciously try to be bad and sleep in, I'm hard-wire to be a goody-goody. Take last night as an example. I had dinner in Annapolis with the ex at a cute little restaurant near the downtown area. We shared a bottle of wine, laughed, enjoyed a pleasant meal. By the time I was done saying bye to the pup and covering him with smooches, it was almost 10:15 and I still had to get back to DC.

The drive between DC and Annapolis over US-50 is as boring as it can get. I was tired, riding the coat-tails of my last glass of wine, and pumping pop music loud to stay attentive during the drive. Due to DC traffic and some major EMT/Fire/Police event on Florida Ave I didn't get home till a little after 11.

Taking big strides towards the bed while I peeled off layers of clothing, I checked the time the alarm was set to, made it a couple of minutes later, and then crashed. This is where i get to bitch about our alarm clock. I hate it. It has one switch to set the time for the radio, buzzer, and clock which the Mex always leaves in the right-most position that adjusts the clock time and I always mess it up. Then there's ANOTHER switch to tell it which alarms you want to use: none, radio, buzzer, both. Turns out that last night, after setting the radio alarm to the desired time, I forgot to set the alarm "type". I've done this before...

Given how tired I was you'd think I would have stayed in bed and slept till 10 or so. Unfortunately, my body decided I needed to wake up at 5:45AM. Looking at the clock, I acknowledged I had another hour of sleep before I really had to get up so I rolled around, pulled the covers over my head, and tried not to worry about whether it would rain on me on my bike ride to work. Then I woke up 10 minutes later, and 15 minutes after that, until I finally called it quits and got out of bed. It wasn't till I was in the shower that I realized the alarm never went off.

Blah. Here's to hoping I can sleep in on Sunday.

Feeding my Addiction

2009-03-20T10:24:00.003-05:00

Given my personality you would think I'd be addicted to a number of things including alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, porn, etc. Somehow despite my biological tendencies to attach to a single object my parents succeeded in raising a pretty vanilla, straight-laced boy. This means I have to create with my addictions lest they trigger the "we will disown you" or "you will burn in hell" triggers.

Watching trashy television has been on of my long-life addictions. It's been a good substitute for the friends I never had, it provided enough background noise to tune my brother out, and it kept feeding my imagination. Many of my favorite shows have recently been canceled (Pushing Daises), on hiatus (The Closer), generally suck (Trust Me), or are about to end (Battlestar Gallactica). This left my scrambling for another boob-tube nanny to capture my attention over lonely dinners at Chateau Klingle. Enter "United States of Tara." I'd seen a couple of posters promoting the new Showtime series but never paid much attention to them. I'd tried catching onto Kathy and Kim, but after a few episodes the jokes felt flat and shallow. Walking around LA I saw another one of the Showtime posters and made a mental note to download a few episodes and try it out when I returned to DC.

As a hermit, one who's rarely felt normal or accepted, this show just strikes home. I know everyone on the world suffers from the same personality issues, except The Architect, we know. Toni Collete is simply fantastic as she takes on the different personalities they refer to as "alters". The family includes a rebellious teenage girl, a studious and insecure gay boy, and the hunky dad who I still remember from his days as Carry Bradshaw's sensible love interest. I laughed, I sobbed, I gasped as the screen faded to black at the end of a number of episodes. They're only 30 minutes (or less), just enough to give you a taste of the drama TNT promises but never delivers, laughs Comedy Central y forced to bleep out, and reality none of the public networks seem to capture without ending up as an after-school special on PBS.

In short, you MUST watch "United States of Tara".

Up and Down the 101

2009-03-19T13:06:00.005-05:00

I spent the past weekend visiting the Mexican in LA. His flying from one coast to the other on a weekly basis is driving him nuts and we decided it best to give him a rest and have me fly out for the weekend. The airfare was cheap, I got to use the discount coupon I got when I signed up for my United credit card, and it turned out to be a great weekend. Here's a slideshow of the photos we took:

We spent the weekend driving up and down the 101 in California, thus the title of this post. Blame it on poor planning, schedules, distribution, or just because, but everything we ended up driving to and from LA more times than I can count. The Mex is staying in Newbury Park which is a 45 minute drive from LA without traffic. Here's a rundown of what we did:

Ate at Cafe Firenze, Fabio from Top Chef's restaurant. B+ from ambiance and decor, though the Baskin Robbins next door in the strip mall cheapened it a bit. Food left a LOT to be desired.
The Getty in LA. The architecture alone is enough to spend all day looking up. The art was impressive. The highlight of the day was the incredibly gay waiter and the tuna nicoise at the restaurant.
The Getty Villa. Woa... It's one thing to like ancient Mediterranean culture, it's quite another to build a replica of an ancient villa on your property to house all your art from that period. The beautiful weather helped.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. The magna carta exhibit was a bust. It was fun getting on the Airforce 1 replica.
Watchmen. Blue penis, need I say more?
Chinese Teather and Star walk in downtown LA. A sea of people, was fun for all of 15 minutes.
Had my first "hand roll" sushi, it was a seaweed cone with all the typical contents of a sushi roll, but not in a roll. It was delish and very cheap
Driving up the PCH and eating Cal-mex for lunch. Those twisty roads from the PCH back to the 101 are awesome!

We were so tired by the end of each day that we would grab a bite and crash. At least we got all the big sites out of the way so next time we can focus on some of the vineyards and not so touristy places. One thing I learned was that no matter how much I yelled "Tom Tom! Where do I turn??" the Mex simply didn't respond. More than once we ended up driving WAY off course, only to turn around. That's how we managed to get a lovely tour of Las Felices on the way to downtown LA, then on the way to the Getty Villa we toured some old LA suburb. I don't even want to think how much running around we're going to do next time I fly out!

The Best Pork Chops I've Ever Made

2009-03-19T12:53:00.004-05:00

I've always treated pork as that protein I revert to when I'm tired of chicken and fish. Often I roast a tenderloin or fry up some thin chops to serve with a mustard sauce. Flipping through the latest Cook's Illustrated, they had a rather lengthy article on cooking thick-cut pork chops with various sauces. Unlike the traditional sautee then bake, this recipe did it backwards. It started out baking the chops at a low oven temperature for almost an hour, then searing them to get the expected color and flavors outside. The result was a deliciously tender chops with the marbling soft enough to eat.

I decided to accompany the chops with "Patatas Viudas". Widowed potatoes are a typical Spanish tapas dish. It's really nothing more than potatoes boiled in broth season with saffron and paprika. This adds lots of color and some mild flavors, but no real body to the dish.

Baking the chops late at night took lots of patience, so I don't recommend doing this if you're trying to rush dinner. Specially as you have to be careful that they reach the correct internal temperature. The thicker the chops, the longer they will take. In the end it was well worth it because they didn't dry out, and as the chops baked it gave me time to prep the potatoes. Thankfully I adjusted the recipe for the potatoes and cut most of the ingredients in half or I would have ended up with enough potatoes for a month. The pairing may not have been ideal as the spiciness from the hungarian paprika I used (you could use regular mild paprika) didn't go that well with the jus from the chops. They would have been better with grilled sausages or a roasted chicken.

Overall I was happy with the outcome as it showed I haven't lost my groove in the kitchen.

Getting back into it

2009-03-10T08:55:00.006-05:00

With the Mex flying back and forth to LA, my recent foot injury, and all around gloominess, things have been a little quiet in my life. I hadn't cooked a decent meal in ages. I haven't blogged in what feels like years. Running may be out of my life for the next few weeks but I have other things to keep me busy, right?

It seems it had been long enough since my last attempt at the weird illustrated Spanish cookbook to forget how silly those recipes are. Flipping through the post-its that mark the recipes I had decided to try, I selected zucchinis stuffed with shrimp. How hard could it be? I grew up having zucchinis stuffed with a corn & ham bechamel sauce all my life and my mom never complained. This should be easy...

Navigating the crowded produce section at Harris Teeter, I rushed to pick some zucchinis. At the time I didn't realize they weren't quite the broad, wide zucchinis my mom normally stuffed. These were the thin, dark green cylinders you get in all American grocers. The rest of the ingredients were easy: shallots, shrimp, cream. I had some leftover frozen raw shrimp from a previous cooking experiment and decided to use that.

The instructions called for cutting the zucchinis into thirds after cutting out stripes of the peel. I could only fathom it would make them look prettier. In reality doing this weakens the outer shell of the vegetable and since you're baking them skin-side down, no one notices anyway. Cutting thirds out of thing cylinders leaves you with thin wedges, not exactly something you can stuff. The recipe then called for scooping out some of the flesh of the vegetable and throwing it away. Wait, WHAT?! Why would you throw it away? I set it aside in a bowl already scheming about how to put it back into the dish.

Once the zucchinis were steamed and laid out in a baking dish it was clear there wasn't any to stuff. The wedges were just too thin to put anything in them so I decided to turn it into a casserole style dish and simply cover the zucchini with the shrimp and sauce.

My last modification to the recipe was to top the dish with some grated Gruyere. Everything is better with cheese on top.

I should have been more conservative with the garlic as I could smell it for days after having this bake in the oven. Overall it was an OK dish. The textures were lacking as everything was too soft but not very congruous. The flavors were pleasant but with such mild ingredients there was nothing to captivate the palate. maybe if I'd thickened the sauce a bit more, or if the zucchinis had been bigger, or if this lady used some spices, it would've been better.

Snow!

2009-03-02T19:51:00.001-05:00

Diary of a Mad Yogi: Hair Drying... but not on your head...

2009-02-26T08:22:00.006-05:00

It's been a while since my last Diary of a Mad Yogi post. I simply could not resist sharing what I observed last night.

I've been trying to go regularly to the 8:15PM yoga class at Results on U St. The class tends to be small, the instructors (Kitt and Scott) are both excellent, and they usually have enough energy that they make me want to push through the practice. Last night's class only had two students counting myself, so he paid us plenty of attention. The small class made it possible to focus on our stance in triangle and other poses. Since we were both at a similar level we also worked on coming up into hand stand, wheel, and other "advanced" poses.

Given how late the class starts, I was tired before I even started. By 9:30 when we were done, I was wiped so I rushed to the locker room to change back and head out. At the end of every row of lockers there's a mirror. In the rows of lockers to the left of the main entrance to the locker room, these mirrors also have a small ledge with a hair dryer plugged in. As I took off my yoga clothes and changed into my street clothes I watch this guy who had obviously showered towel off a bit. He then reached for the hair dryer and powered it up. My first thought was sympathizing with him given how cold and awful it was outside. But that's when he took the hair dryer and instead of pointing it at his head he directed the flow of warm air towards his genitals. Flicking his wrist left and right to ensure even drying of his "man pieces", I found it hard to stifle a chuckle. Just when I thought this was too funny to be real he starts moving his arm and takes the hair dryer behind him and points it at his butt. By this point I was finding it hard not to laugh and had to force myself to concentrate on putting on my shoes. Dressed and ready I rushed out of the locker room with a big smile on my face.

Who uses a hair dryer to blow-dry their privates?! Worse, who has to blow-dry their butt crack??

Cashing in the miles

2009-02-23T12:04:00.005-05:00

The past year has been a quest to maximize the number of miles I have on my United MileagePlus account. I have:
1) Signed up for their Chase credit card to get a 30k mile bonus
2) Shopped through their United MileagePlus Mall to get miles for purchases I would have made anyway, paid for with the United Chase card for extra miles.
3) Consciously selected which restaurants to visit based on their Dining Rewards Network, which gives me miles for money spent dining
4) Influenced my work travel itineraries to try and earn as many miles as possible.
5) Had the Mexican transfer whatever miles he had in his MileagePlus account (no longer in use) to my name, paid for with my United Chase card so I'd get miles for the charge
6) Set up my hotel frequent customer programs to give me miles in place of or in addition to points to centralize all my rewards

Why did I go through all this trouble? Because I'm cheap. You might as well call me Señor Scrooge.

Today I cashed in 110,000 miles and watched my balance shrink to a paltry six thousdan miles and change. I gasped when I first saw the transaction posted to my account. It felt almost as bad as checking my 401k. What did I buy for 110k? Two coach-class tickets to South America.

Earlier this year I had started researching the price of flights to Argentina for my annual pilgrimage to the motherland. When I booked my February trip to Chile through Buenos Aires the prices were consistent with what we paid in Oct of '08, around $1500. Changing the search parameters to October of '09 I almost chocked. A single ticket had ballooned up to $2300. The Mex and I we would have to set aside over $4500 greenbacks. OUCH! Honey, I love you, but since i can't fit you in a carry-on, you're staying home at these prices.

That's what kicked me into mileage-overdrive. Unfortunately, United decided to change their "menu" for 2009. It used to cost 50k miles for a US>South America ticket. The increase of five thousand miles a ticket may not seem much at first, but when buying two the miles start to add up. However, trading in the miles means we save the money we would have otherwise spent on tickets and can take a mini-vacation while in Argentina without worrying too much about the cost. Mendoza? Cordoba? Chances are we'll have to swing by Gral Acha and visit the Evil Grandmother so we'll be touring the interior.

Now that I've nearly zeroed out my mileage account I can focus my OCD on something else. Will I turn to yoga/exercise again? Or will it be baking? Maybe I'll find a new hobby. Stay tuned...

Paradigm Snapshot: Santiago, Chile

2009-02-11T14:11:00.002-05:00

Tonight the corner, tomorrow the world!

2009-02-01T15:51:00.002-05:00

Taking my "business" global this year has been fun. So far all my travel has been within the continental US. Some nice places, some not so nice places, some very not so nice places. Overall an eye opener overall as it forced me out of my cushy city life in DC.

This year, given that I'm one of the few bilingual resources left in the team who can speak Spanish, I was tasked with a project in Latin America. Immediately I thought of finding a way to visit my mom in Buenos Aires. One doesn't fly for 11+ hours and not take the opportunity to visit the country next door if you have family there.

This two week trip has been a roller-coaster ride. Adjusting to Latin culture and speed usually takes me a couple of days. This time around, I didn't have the luxury of transitioning. I was dumped into an office setting, with a whole bunch of power players, and told to function. Remarkably I snapped into role and managed to carry myself through it.

I've spent the past week in Santiago, Chile. It's been a blur. Highlights so far include the impeccable service at the Marriott here. Through a corporate discount we're paying 50% less than the market rate for a very well appointed hotel, including breakfast which everyone else pays $25 for.

The engagement is for two weeks and since it makes no sense for me to fly back to DC, pack a new set of clothes, and turn right back around to Santiago, I spent the weekend in town. Yesterday I toured Concha y Toro's vineyard, once of the most famous and prestigious brands in Chile. It was short, to the point, but interesting. Somehow the afternoon disappeared as I managed to take a 4 hour nap. Waking up from such a nap left me in a comatose state where all I could do was watch "The Scorpion King", one of the few movies that weren't dubbed.

The weather here has been beautiful. Low humidity, slight breeze, bright sun, mid 70's to high 80's. Unfortunately whoever designed the hotel had shit for brains because the positioning of the pool means it gets sunlight for all of 2 hours midday. Being white as a sheet of 8.5x11, the last thing I want to do is lay out during peak UV flares. I don't want to repeat Las Vegas...

Sunday was spent walking around downtown, touring the museum of national history, the museum of art's comicbook exhibition. My poor feet are about to fall off. I managed to scale up one of the "cerros", the Chilean name for small mountains, in the middle of the city. Their public parks program is without par.

This make not be my most coherent post, but I just wanted to get something down on the blog. I'll post pictures up in a gallery upon my return.

Cheers,
The roaming consultant.

PS: If you ever come to Chile, get a Pisco-sour.

Now I Remember Why I Hate Florida

2009-01-19T20:30:00.004-05:00

Work sent me to Florida this past week. Almost half of the company was there for the annual Sales and Services meeting. It's interesting to see how large a sales department it takes to carry forward a product-driven company.

We were held hostage at the Portofino Bay hotel at the Universal Studios complex. The last meeting was in Vegas and I must admit that set the bar pretty high. Universal Studios was a repeat location from 2006, so most of the consultants were familiar with it. I personally regretted feeling trapped in the hotel and surrounding park. The conference facilities were acceptable, except for having to wear layer upon layer to keep myself from shivering to death in the larger meeting rooms.

The weather did not cooperate with us. It was cold in DC when I left and it was unexpectedly cold in Florida as well. I managed to throw a light sweater into my suitcase before leaving but that wasn't enough. During the day temperatures peaked in the mid 50's. At night when the wind picked up and the temperature dropped into the 40's, none of us were comfortable. Thinking FL would at least be comfortable I packed mostly polos and light button-downs. My "emergency" sweater and running pull-over certainly got a workout as I wore them 24/7. To make things worse, Tuesday night we were asked to participate in a team-building event at Universal Studios and that's when it decided to rain. Running around an amusement park in the middle of a storm isn't fun. By the time all 400 or so of us made it over to the gates, the rain had stopped but everything was wet and cold. I didn't have to wear the cheap $5 plastic poncho they handed out prior to departure but I regret not doing so because it would have at least protected me from the wind.

Overall it was an interesting experience. I can't say I enjoy being couped out with my co-workers for that long a stretch, but I got to talk to a lot of them that work remotely and I hardly see. My loyal readers know what an anti-social hermit I am, so you will be shocked to know that I tried my best and with a couple of glasses of wine and a G&T giving me strength I was social almost every night.

Unlike most of my peers who scheduled flights later on Friday to take advantage of the "mini-vacation", my flight left at 7:30AM from Orlando Airport. Getting up at 4:45AM to catch the shuttle out to the airport wasn't fun but I wasn't the only one eager to get home.

It's hard to describe the feeling I get watching the Washington monument from the back of a cab as we drive up the river towards Arlington cemetery. Every cell in my body cries out "HOME!" and a sense of relief takes over me. It can be 2AM or 4PM, I could have had an awful or great flight, but knowing I will be home in a couple of minutes just makes me feel comfortable. Every one of the trips I take forces me to step outside of my comfort zone.

We've been notified that there will NOT be a July Sales and Services meeting. In this "macro-economic situation", a phrase everyone repeated ad nauseam, the company cannot justify the expenditure. Alas, I can't say I'm disappointed.

Another Vampire Series...

2009-01-19T20:15:00.003-05:00

There is something to be said for my vampire addiction. Some people turn to trashy sex novels to pass the time, others are more intellectual and bother reading the news on a regular basis. On the other hand I prefer to read about blood-sucking individuals with supernatural powers to calm my mind and relax. It's mental comfort food.

You've read my brief reviews of the Southern Vampire series, the original Interview with the Vampire series, and others I've picked up along the way including Twilight. This time around I stumbled upon this series browsing through the shelves at Borders. In a brilliant marketing/sales move, they have dedicated shelf space in the fantasy/sci-fi section specially for "First in series" books. This means you can tell there are a couple of books in the storyline to keep you busy and can easily identify where to start. I bought "Touch the dark" first. It's only an $8 paperback made even more affordable with the recurring coupons Borders sends out to rewards members.

This story isn't just about vampires. Following a similar approach to the Southern Vampire Novels, albeit with a lot less humor, the reader follows a heroine through her adventures with supernatural creatures. She's special herself but still struggles to deal with all the creatures out there trying to make her life impossible. The text itself isn't remarkable. The first book is captivating enough to make for an entertaining read, but in a typical editorial fashion the second and third tomes waste plenty of page-space repeating elements of the story for readers skipping books. The repetition also occurs within the book. This made me flip through a couple of times just to make sure I hadn't lost my page and wasn't reading the same chapter once again.

There's sex embedded in the storyline but the author's gender and beliefs show through in the "saving onself for the special someone" mentality. Thankfully the lead does the dirty deed sometime in the second/third book (I can't remember) and things get hot and steamy more frequently from there-on. As with any vampire novel targeted at women there's plenty of chapters describing hard throbbing members, chiseled abs, flowing manes and chastity-belt-melting foreign accents. What more could one ask for?

If you're finished the Sookie novels and enjoyed them, thought Twilight was too prudish, the Inverviews with Lestat were too serious, then this series is just up your alley.

Is this what Scientology is like?

2009-01-19T19:48:00.003-05:00

I was in Tulsa, OK last year and ran out of reading materials. Instead of going to the Borders/Books-a-Million/Barnes&Noble across the street from the hotel I decided to get crafty and borrowed the car from my co-worker to hit up a used book store in town. One of the books that caught my attention was "Battlefield Earth" by Ron L. Hubbard. At the time all I could remember about it was the cheezy movie with John Travolta. Upon my return to DC, it proceeded to accumulate dust in one of my bookshelves.

The holidays came and went, my credit card balance was approaching painful levels, so I decided to go shelf-shopping for something to read knowing both the Mex and I are guilty of buying books and never reading them. Being the holiday season and having plenty of time on my hands, I picked up Battlefield Earth. The book, even in paperback format, is over one thousand pages long. Thinking that would be enough to entertain me for a couple of weeks, I dove in.

The first couple of chapters made no sense and were difficult to get into. The book includes a preface where the author describes how he almost invented science fiction because at the time people didn't speculate about technology, all they were accustomed to was fantasy or fiction. At first it seemed comical, having someone try to explain how science fiction came to be, then describing a teaching/training artifact in the story that was supposed to take place in the year 3000 but still operated much like a record player. The book was written in the 70's and it's obvious his crystal ball didn't see solid state drives, chips, and high-density optical media anywhere in the horizon.

It was only during a casual dinner conversation that the Mexican brought up that the author is the same nutjob that founded scientology with dienetics. That certainly put an interesting spin on the story. Yes, there were little gray men, political and economic commentary, and of course not-so subtle hints that the Russians were evil.

All in all it was an interesting read because of his approach to narration. It's typical for an author to only elaborate on the points of a story necessary to develop characters and reach the climax. For example, an author may take the liberty to simply state that in the year 3000 the government will be a form of neo-green-socialism, without having to explain how it came to be and how the party evolved. Apparently Mr. Hubbard felt that every twist and turn in his story deserved to be explored in detail. This resulted an epic tome that could easily have ended halfway through the book when the main character achieves his mission but the story just keeps on going and going. Were they paying him by the word or page? Either way he certainly made bank.

Despite being "break-through" science fiction, it's still easy to recognize what period it came from. All aliens are humanoid in one form or another, they simply have evolved differently to reach the same bi-pedal standing form. Interestingly, they're all dominated by capitalism and money. It's clear that even though the author was working hard to speculate the reach of technology in the next millennium, he did not feel comfortable straying too far from the present. All in all it feels like you're watching one of those old 1970's Star Trek re-runs where their imagination simply didn't extend to the miniaturization of computing, biodiversity, etc.

I would only recommend reading this if you have a month of your life in which you find yourself inexplicably disconnected from society with no alternate source of entertainment. Even if you're fast reader and average 250 pages a week, it will take you over a month. Better read the cliff notes...

Beware DC Towing!

2008-12-05T15:49:00.001-05:00

YouTube@Work

2008-12-03T08:07:00.001-05:00

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Let Hell Freeze Over...

2008-12-02T23:00:00.002-05:00

I made Pecan pie. The Mex's sister requested it. I still couldn't bring myself to make plain jane pecan pie, so I made a triple chocolate version. Triple chocolate as in containing white, milk, and bittersweet chocolates in addition to a shitload of pecans. Here's the only decent picture I have of it:

I managed to force myself to eat a slice or two. The chocolate flavor was strong enough that I did not mind. Just enjoy the picture, because it's unlikely I'm making this bizarro pie ever again. The filling is more hard-candy than custard or traditional pie filling. The recipe didn't even call for topping the pie with pecan halves!

The Spanish Way: Deep Fried Baby!

2008-12-02T22:50:00.003-05:00

We're slowly getting through this bazillion Spanish recipe book. The pictures are pretty, the words sound funny, the food seems somewhat interesting. That is until you read the recipe and realize the only spice she uses is salt, and even that is optional.

Here are a couple of snaps of pork loins in a mustard sauce with orange juice and wine, served with roasted sweet potatoes.

Overall not a bad meal. The Mex loved the mustard sauce and I have to agree with it that it was the highlight of the meal. I could have simply sauteed the pork instead of deep frying it in two cups of olive oil like the recipe called for. The roasted sweet potatoes were done following a recipe from the latest Cook's Illustrated where they devoted two pages to the whole process. It was a collection of complaints about overcooked, undercooked, too sweet, not crispy enough potatoes. The author's goal was to produce well browned potatoes that kept their sweet flavor and tender inside without drying out without cooking them for hours at low temperatures. It still took almost 2 hours to follow the recipe from end to end, so any perceived time savings are moot.

They're EVERYWHERE!!!

2008-12-02T22:38:00.002-05:00

Mexicans!!!! They're EVERYWHERE!!!! And they come in all shapes and sizes, though mostly "petites". Here's a couple of snaps of our Thanksgiving break with P's sister.

Walking around downtown.

In-line waiting to get on the ice at the sculpture garden.

Happy feet!

Yea, the whole standing sideways to look thinner isn't working. And who's that tall stud in the leather jacket?! I think the scarf makes the whole look. Thanks M!

On our way to a rather disappointing show of Twilight (the movie).

Eastern market. Check out the Mex with his fancy hat.

Paradigm Snapshot

2008-11-23T10:52:00.002-05:00

Here I am at the ripe age of 1 month. The resemblance to Mr. Clean and Dr. Evil is purely coincidental.

Tiara... pff! Get me my crown!

2008-11-18T10:52:00.006-05:00

Up to this year I had been blessed with strong, healthy teeth. Over my teenage years I had one or two minor cavities, but neither required anything more complex than a simple drill and seal. Being a stickler for check-ups, I've gone to the dentist's for a semi-annual cleaning every since I can remember. Even when in college and without dental insurance, I managed to save for the cleanings on my own.

Surprise doesn't quite capture what I felt during my last cleaning. First, I was trying out a new dentist downtown because I got tired of being butchered by the guy near 19th and L. This new doctor came with a recommendation from Imelda, the first time I've actually had a referral from an acquaintance/friend. Second, it had been between 6 and 9 months since my last cleaning because of the pain the last one inflicted and my reluctance to find a new dentist.

The appointment went well except for the two cavities he found on my right side, one on the top, another on the bottom. He claimed both were small, but one was relatively deep. An hour or so later I walked out a couple hundred dollars poorer (despite dental coverage) and cavity-free, or so I thought.

A couple of weeks went by and I started to feel discomfort chewing on my right side. I simply couldn't chew anything hard with that side of my mouth, which until recently had been the dominant side. This was a week or so before our trip to Argentina so I was concerned my tooth would explode/start bleeding and I would spend two weeks in pain without eating my favorite foods, so I stopped by the dentist's for a follow-up. In what has to be the quickest analysis, preceded by the longest wait time, he determined that the cavity must have been deeper than expected and he would have to go back in to scoop out all the dead stuff.

I managed not to panic. He just kept drilling and drilling. When he fixed my cavities I would flinch at the smallest amount of pain, even though half my face was numb. This time around, humming to the classical music, relaxing my grip on the chair, I got through it unscathed. The visit was another hundred or so dollars, with a note to come back after my trip to get a crown fitted as a more permanent solution.

The Argentina trip went well, I enjoyed a few days of peace back home, and almost forgot about my 8AM Monday morning appointment. By now I'm a pro and don't even blink at the sound of the drill. He ground away what felt like most of my tooth to set up a base for the crown. This is my first, so the whole process was scary. He fitted me with a temp crown that had some remarkably jagged edges, but it worked as a tooth. He warned me not to eat anything sticky on that side for a while, but if it popped out to come back in and they would cement it again. The whole process was relatively pain-free, until I walked over to the receptionist to get my bill. The line items included a root canal, the temp crown, the real crown, and a bunch of other stuff. The total cost was over $2,000. Their estimate for my responsibility after my insurance kicked in, $650. OUCH!

The picture was tacking during my "crown molding" appointment. I couldn't help but chuckle when he hooked a metal ring around my tooth to secure this dental-dam-device onto my face. It wasn't very pliable and pushed against my bottom lip and tongue, forcing me to take every opportunity to use my fingers and pick it up just a bit to let my poor lip breathe.

A couple of weeks letter I got a note from my insurance carrier detailing my coverage and what my payment would be. Thankfully it's a much more manageable $344.20. Even then, this shit is expensive. I can't imagine how people with bad teeth deal with this!

Mindless Reading Update

2008-11-17T08:34:00.006-05:00

I picked this one up on the $2 bargain table at Borders before heading down to Argentina. It had "CHICK-FLICK" written all over it, but I knew I would need something to keep me busy on the flight home. Having finished that awful "Whistle Stop" book I was ready for something light and funny and this fit the bill perfectly. The author pulls the "I am Latina, hear me roar!" card one too many times, but otherwise she manages to craft a fast-paced, sit-com-like story. The protagonist, this puerto-rican-american woman who works for a small pharma company testing alterntive uses for their one and only drug, battles with getting divorced as her husband springs the decision on her. The divorce rocks her world, stunting her to the point of becoming a useless hunk of flesh. She still loves her husband, he's the one who was stepping out and glad to get the break. In all her suffering, she starts reading articles on this group of researches who have identified the biological foundation for emotions. From there it's a hopscotch and a big leap of faith to her developing a pill for heartbreak that helps her get over her (ex) husband, jumpstart her career into drug stardom, and find a new man right across the hall from her apartment. For all you bitter, jaded, heartbroken people, this is worth a chuckle or two.

At first I was amazed at the blatant cross-selling between books. Having finished the last tome of the Southern Vampire novels available on paperback, I was craving more vampiric sex and those inserts on the back of the book caught my attention. Charlaine Harris and her publishing were praising this new author and her series of "soccer-mom demon-hunting stories". I was sold. If mama-Harris liked it, or so the publishing house wanted me to believe, so would I. Thankfully it wasn't hard to pick up the first book, Carpe Demon, at the local Borders. Think Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Supernatural meets Reba meets The Nanny. The story is not as sexual as Sookie, but full of charm, humor, and fantasy. California Demon is the second book in the series. It started off a bit slow, having to recount a lot of the facts you would get if you'd read the first book. I hate how publishers have to cover their ass and allow people to read books out of order. Despite this redundancy, the book picks up where the last one left off, posing new challenges for our super soccer mom and her family. The ending was quite unexpected. Not to give anything away, but she goes from having an ultra-secretive life to starting a club of followers who know her secret. It's bound to get more complicated and funny from here. I've already purchased the other two books in the series. For more info on the author and the series, check out her website.

SO wrong, yet so right

2008-11-17T08:17:00.003-05:00

Paul Rudd is one of those guys who isn't hot, he's not dreamy, but he is simply cute and always walking the fine line towards "the dark side". Watching this skit gave me enough material for a couple of weeks' worth of dreams:

You must watch the other skits he did for SNL here

Midnight Bond-ing

2008-11-14T14:48:00.003-05:00

Give me a min, I gotta clean up the puddle of drool I left while watching Quantom of Solace. Daniel Craig isn't pretty. He's muscular, hot, but not really handsome. There's just something in his face, how it doesn't even flinch, his droopy cheeks, that just makes him so desirable.

Now brace yourselves, we caught the midnight show at the Uptown. Yes, the paradigm holder managed to stay up past 11 and NOT turn into a pumpkin! It required a very strategy 30 minute nap between dinner and the movie, but I managed to stay awake and enjoy the show.

The storyline is better structured than the last Bond flick. It seemed to have a better balance of the dramatic character development that is supposed to humanize Bond and the action-flick explosions and fight scenes. There were plenty of Aston Martins, a cheeky bond girl, and some crazy villains. All in all, a very enjoyable movie.

Erika went with us but was confused because she hadn't watched Casino Royal. This means we'll have to host a movie night in the near future. Mmmm... maybe it'll be a Daniel Craig-a-thon with 4-layer cake, Casino Royale, capped by one of the TWO movies he's got coming out in the near future. Better get my bib ready....

My ATLHW Persona

2008-11-11T08:59:00.008-05:00

The crafty one and the Mex are obsessed with the Real Housewives of Atlanta. I watched a couple of episodes with them this sunday and must admit it is a rather addictive show. The women have a "j'ne sais qoui" about them.

The Bravo website for the show has a quiz you can take to determine which ATLHW you are. Here's mine:

Lisa Wu Hartwell
Hartwell, a resident of a luxurious country club community in Duluth, GA, is a busy career woman who wears many hats -- she owns her own real estate firm, Hartwell & Associates, a jewelry line called Wu Girls, a baby clothing line, Hart 2 Hart Baby, and juggles a budding acting, modeling and writing career. She's a devoted wife to her husband, NFL player Ed Hartwell, and their three children 13-year-old Jordan, ten-year-old Justin and one-year-old EJ. When she's not running one of her many businesses or running after the kids, Hartwell is very active in Atlanta's social scene.

At least I look pretty fierce, even after popping out three brats! What do you think? What the bio doesn't tell you (courtesy of the crafty one) is that she's had to declare bankruptcy at least once, she's been married at least twice, and she probably has one of the hotter husbands.

More BUTTAH!

2008-11-10T21:12:00.003-05:00

These last couple of months I've been on a chocolate cake kinda mood. For Erika's birthday, I made a three-layer, chocolate fudge cake frosted with milk-chocolate buttercream, filled with dulce de leche.

You have to first make a fudge by melting chocolate and sugar.
It's easier to make three layers than two and cutting them in half.

The three layers cooling on the rack.
I only made half the frosting recipe since it was only for covering the cake. It still called for a stick of butter.

Half a pound of milk chocolate and 4 oz of bittersweet chocolate make for some awesome food porn.

The assembled cake on the left.
The frosting, having rested in the fridge for a while, needs to come back to room temperature.

My trusty KitchenAid took care of whipping up the cake batter.
Dulce de leche goodness. I need to get better cake pans with straight-angled edges.

Wax on, Wax off, #@$%&#$*(%&$

2008-11-10T20:48:00.003-05:00

Family heirlooms, trinkets, priceless artifacts passed down through generations. Everyone will find different value in these things. Sometimes their worth isn't monetary, but emotional. Sometimes it's the uniqueness of the object and the memories attached to it that make it valuable to you.

Having traveled around the globe a couple of times, my mother had to set up a couple of houses from scratch. Every time she set up house she went all out. No eating dinner on a cardboard box and sitting on plastic crates for us. Furthermore, she has a knack for finding handcrafts and unique artifacts wherever she goes. This is incredible in this day and age when everything is made in China, even the espresso cups you buy in Italy or the "hand-made" china you buy in Mexico.

My mother was forced to review a lot of the crap she's carted back to Argentina over the years when she downsized to a tiny two-bedroom apartment. She threw out plenty, but certain things she just couldn't find the strength to part with. Case in point, the set of hand-made copper plates, pots, and serving-ware she bought in Mexico over 25 years ago. This stuff is older than I am!

I remember when she had them hanging in our kitchen in Campana, never meant for kitchen use, but for decoration. This last visit to Argentina she decided to gift me the set of copperware. Thankfully I had the Mex to use as a drug/copper mule and saddled his luggage with it. Bringing it back to the US wasn't the worst part. We certainly didn't know what we were getting ourselves into.

Having mentioned that this stuff is OLD, you have to understand that it's spent a large part of its life packed away in boxes in damp, dark attics in a number of houses. As a metal, it has slowly oxidized and turned a dark color. Furthermore, my mother's cleaning practices involved lemon juice and some other abrasive compounds; not some of the advanced metal-cleaning polishes people use these days. Cleaning these items requires a lot of elbow crease, bottles of Weiman's Metal Polish, and patience. We tore a number of the Mex's old tee's that he no longer wore to use as a rags. We've had these plates in our apartment for over 3 weeks and we're only halfway through on the first round of polishing. You have to understand that every wipe picks up years of human oils, oxidation, and dirt. It gets to a point that the towels and rags are so dirty they look black. Washing them is a full-day affair because when we put them in the dryer whatever cleaning residue is left in the cloth dries up and becomes this fine mist. Because our dryer exhaust empties back into the apartment, we are forced to vacate the premises to avoid light-headedness and aches.

Despite the sweat, pain, and swearing that has gone into it I can't describe what it means to finally have a piece of my family with me. Not having them around the corner, and having spent most of my time in the US as a college student, meant I didn't really have a chance to build a "home". I must admit I have amassed a large amount of my own crap, but it's different when you can pull something out a drawer and imagine telling your grandchildren the story of how it came to your family.

Jumper & Reflex

2008-11-10T16:11:00.008-05:00

There are far too many examples of great concepts that have been butchered by Hollywood to list here. One of the more recent examples was the movie "Jumper." Imagine my surprise when I found out there was a book that the movie was based on, not the other way around. In my mania to read books to better understand the sucky movies they were turned into, I picked up "Jumper" and "Reflex" by Stephen Gould.

The concept is the same, but it doesn't take long for the story to go a completely different direction than the movie. I understand that in adapting a novel to the screen they have to adjust the plot to make it more interesting, more realistic, whatever. In this case, reality didn't much play into things since the protagonist can teleport at will.

The narrative was very similar to the Bourne series. It's a mystery more than a sci-fi/fantasy story. The first book has a very dark tone full of loss, anger, and self-discovery. I'm not saying it's deep or worthy o fa Pulitzer, but certainly better written than some of the other sci-fi crap I've read. The cherry on top was having a sequel to follow-up the original story. The movie ended on a short note, using a poorly designed book reviewconstruct to build hype for the obvious to come sequel. Chances are that a sequel will never be made because of how poor the movie did in the box office. Regardless, the script varies so much from the book that the sequels would bare no relationship to each other.

I certainly enjoyed the book.s. The first one took me a while to get into. The constant description of teenage anger and hate against parental aggression/desertion got old. The sequel was much faster paced and had two protagonists to boot! If you liked the idea behind the movie but hated its rendition and are looking to learn more about the Jumper concept, I recommend reading these books. They're available in paperback everywhere for cheap.

"Yes We Can"... shop

2008-11-10T08:37:00.004-05:00

While everyone was running around like headless chickens over the elections last Tuesday, I was facing a different kind of problem. My blogroll includes the Consumerist blog that posts sales, discounts, and coupons on a daily basis. On election day, they reported that Kenneth Cole was offering 44% off ANY purchase in honor of the elections. What does the number 44 have to do with anything? Well, they chose that percentage because the country was in the process of electing its 44th president.

At first it seemed unreal. I knew stores would try to capitalize on the excitement over the election, but this promotion didn't make much sense. I stopped myself before analyzing the discount any further, and starting browsing their website, immediately clicking on men's accessories and getting a full listing of all their leather bags. I've wanted a portfolio/man bag/laptop case in leather for ages. In the past I've settled for the comfort of laptop back-packs, but their dowdy looks, unnecessary pockets, and overabundance of zippers and straps leading to nothing make them something of a fashion no-no.

Extensive browsing lead me to narrow down my search to two bags. Chatting with the Mex and the Crafty one didn't help pick on. The Mex preferred the chocolate brown color of the older-looking model. Molly agreed with me and thought the laptop case looked more youthful and nicer with its rounded edges. In the end I picked the latter and I simply couldn't be happier. Free shipping and 44% off made it possible to purchase this thing for just a little bit more than one of those new tricked-out bags from KSwiss or JanSport. In total I saved over $100. The timing could not have been better as just that weekend I had mentioned to the Mex how I wanted to retire my laptop bag. Said bag looked rather "tired" since I inherited it from him after he wore it for a number years to commute back and forth to Reston and the MBA.

So there you have it. Although I couldn't vote, I did my part for the country by boosting the economy with some gratuitous spending. I was pleasantly surprised when the bag arrived just a couple of days later. My cheek-to-cheek grin must have angered the Mex because all he could do was pout and mention how he liked the other brown better. Jealous? Maybe. It just gives me an idea of what to give him for Christmas or his next birthday.

Grounded

2008-11-05T10:36:00.003-05:00

You are probably wondering why haven't I blogged much lately. I can't point to any specific reason, more than anything an agglomeration of events and feelings that have lead me away from the keyboard and more towards friends who can offer direct feedback.

First, there's my being "grounded" through the rest of the year. I'm working on nothing but remove development projects. Doing one of these every so often is nice, but doing three in a row means I'm stuck in DC. As much as I hate this office, I make the effort to come in every day in case I need to reach out for help. Not that anyone ever comes into the office, as I end up working with them virtually.

As life goes, while I'm stuck in DC the Mexican has to travel to North Carolina on a weekly basis. This means I'm home alone M-R, leaving me no excuse not to hit the gym regularly. After less than 30 miles on the treadmill and 2 yoga classes, so many parts of my body hurt I can't even count them.

There was also the break-in into my mother's apartment and the fall-out effect on my family. The emotional turmoil outweighs the financial loss. My mom's still not OK. It took me a week to start shaking off the feeling that we had been violated. All the while trying to get used to talking to my dad, my brother, and my mom over IM without picking sides or sharing information I'm not supposed to. There have been to many fights, too many arguments, and now isn't the time to take sides.

I'm still processing everything that happened on my trip to Argentina. Seeing and talking to my dad after 3 years of being apart, dealing with the worry and responsibility of my brother's plans to study in LA, and the internal struggles inherent to every family.

There's the state of the economy, politics, and its impact on my dream of some day owning the roof over my head.

It's not worth mentioning my usual quirkiness. My friends have been incredibly kind and attentive these last few weeks. They've helped me by listening to me, putting up with me during the week, diverting my attention to lighter topics. Words can't express my gratitude.

I promise I'll get back to blogging eventually. Just have to get my rhythm back, one chord and three-layer chocolate cake at a time.

Yes we can

2008-11-05T10:23:00.000-05:00

Halloween Mexican LoLCat

2008-10-31T15:15:00.001-05:00

Something made me think this is a scheme the Mex would try on me:

more animals

YouTube@Work: Vote however you like

2008-10-31T15:06:00.002-05:00

I guess it goes to show how much I want citizenship in this country that I'm still having trouble realizing that the presidential elections are around the corner. Just give me a green card already. I believe in capitalism, not democracy.

Regardless of my political views, this is still adorable:

Pissed

2008-10-28T06:33:00.004-05:00

Over the weekend my mother's apartment was broken into. We have reason to believe the maid was in on it as there were no signs of forced entry. Ignoring the financial loss and emotional hit this caused, I was shocked even more when this came out:

Robaron el departamento de la hija de Martínez de Hoz en Villa Urquiza
El atraco fue el sábado, cuando Patricia Martínez de Hoz Obieta, 50 años, había salido de su casa. Al volver encontró que todo estaba revuelto y que le faltaban 150 mil dólares, joyas y otros objetos de valor.
Para leerla haga click en el siguiente link:
http://www.clarin.com/diario/2008/10/27/um/m-01790351.htm

That's a snippet from an article published by El Clarin, one of Argentina's largest dailies. It describes how they broke into the apartment of Jose Alfredo Martinez de Hoz, and repeats it often enough to make it the hook in the story. Obviously, some dead-beat reported assigned to review police reports noticed my mother's last name and decided to make this a story.

What's wrong with it? Jose Alfredo Martinez de Hoz became the minister of economy when the military took over the Argentine government in 1976. Wikipedia article here. He wasn't a nice guy. No one really likes him. But the worst part is that he's still ALIVE while my grandfather died when my mother was young. Yes, my grandfather was in politics, but he was never that high up or part of the military government.

I won't bother contacting them about a correction. You would think a reporter could at LEAST check the facts before running a story.

Photos from Argentina 2008: Part 3

2008-10-19T21:08:00.003-05:00

Today was mother's day in Argentina. Why do we celebrate it on a different day than most of the world? Probably because we like to do things our way. Anyways, we spent it with family, friends, and other strangers eating like pigs. Following tradition for any large gathering, mass quantities of bbq'ed beef (aka asado) were consumed alongside numerous bottles of alcoholic beverages. Fun was had by all.

Photos from Argentina 2008: Part 2

2008-10-19T21:00:00.002-05:00

Dad, my grandma, and my great-aunt (My dad's aunt who married his father's brother) spent the day in "El Tigre". It used to be a sleepy little community by the river but has blossomed since they put in an amusement park 10 or so years ago and a train that stops along several artsy-fartsy towns along the way to the park. The last mayor seems to have corraled enough money to rejuvenate the downtown area as well which was transformed from a dingy port specifying in fruit imports into a collection of small galleries selling all kinds of crap. I'll have to post separately describing my great-aunt's story of how she emigrated from Italy to Argentina after WWII.

Drunk blogging from Argentina

2008-10-18T23:15:00.002-05:00

I'm proud to report I finally got drunk in Argentina, on Margaritas of all things. These could hardly be considered the realy thing, as they tasted more like grapefruit than anything and had table salt on the rim of the glass rather than the traditional kosher-like salt. Alas, the enchiladas were good.

What prompted me to drink two of these vile concoctions? Why, I only had to watch Hairspray in castillian. After 2 hours of Argentine Spanish, where "Yo" is pronounced "SsssHhhhhhO!", I was ready for a drink. This rendition was based on the screenplay, not the original theater script and it showed. The lyrics were funny and well adjusted to the local dialect. E.g., "La vida sin amor es como un pancho sin salchicha" which translates to "life without love is like a hotdog without a weiner".

Not much else to report back on. I'll make sure to blog about my great-aunt's nazi background sometime in the near future. DISCLAIMER: My direct family had nothing to do with the Franco/Hilter factions. This relative married into the Obieta family after emigrating from Europe to Argentina. Her father volunteered to serve in Franco's army, escaped to Argentina after the war, then prompty left because he claimed "there were too many jews in town".

Photos from our trip to Argentina: Part 1

2008-10-16T21:02:00.005-05:00

Here's a big chunk of the photos the Mex and I took during our week in Argentina. We spent a couple of days in Bs As to celebrate my mom's birthday then headed north for a couple of days at Iguazu Falls. A detailed account of our adventures will come in a couple of days. Enjoy!

Click on the little comment bubble in the bottom left corner of the slideshow to view my comments.

Pre-Flight Jitters

2008-10-08T08:30:00.003-05:00

I'm taking the Mex home with me tonight. Home, home. As in "ET phone home" home. No, I'm not from another planet, but I am from a different hemisphere. Close enough, right?

Thinking of all the ways I can sneak ground-up Tylenol PM pills into his beverages and food so that he sleeps on the flight, I'm starting to panic about going home. First, I haven't seen my father since graduation back in 2006. That's right, I haven't seen my father in 3 years. Granted our relationship isn't sit-com perfect, but it still makes me nervous and I can't help but be scared that he's going to pull another one of his antics and demand that I go see him in bumble-crap Gral Acha, La Pampa or ask me to smuggle money into the US in another one of his schemes to avoid paying taxes.

Then there's my mother, who has been calling me every day, starting with T-8 days, to just talk. It's cute how she can't contain her excitement. Part of me feels like telling her "I know I'm the favorite one, but you shouldn't show it :P". She can't stop asking what we want to eat, what she should stock in the fridge so that we can have breakfast. I'm getting tired of explaining that neither the Mex nor I are picky eaters and that we'll devour just about anything she puts in front of us. We both had a good laugh expecting the Mex's reaction to the Argentine prevalence of full-fat, big carb foods.

We packed our bags last night. That was an adventure. "But I HATE the way I look in khakis, it makes my ass look like a tractor trailer," whined the Mex as I stressed the need for minimal packing while having a "business-casual" option to wear for dinner out and such. Taking a pair of slacks was out of the question, so he had to compromise. We're taking two full-size cases and they're packed to the brim with knick-knacks and gifts. Once we get there we'll offload a lot of the americana, but we already know we're coming back fully-loaded. My mom is gifting me the set of hand-made copper plate-settings she bought in Mexico over twenty years ago. The mex will be carrying those back to the US. My job will be to bring back enough alfajores, dulce de leche, and wine to carry us through the winter.

I had a good laugh when I explained to him that my mother, who's even more OCD than I am, does laundry every night and that if needed he could take a single pair of underwear and he would still have clean underwear every day. In return, he explained that when he goes home his mother doesn't even offer to throw his dirty clothes in the hamper with theirs. The injustice.

It seems he's even more nervous of meeting my mother than of the trip itself. I can just see the little thought bubble coming out of his head in which a video of my mother laughing at him and calling him fat is playing non-stop. He doesn't quite understand that I could bring home a 400lb serial-murder and my mom would still be happy as long as she got to see me. A 5'1" Mexican that loves to eat and talk, and can do so in Spanish, is a god-send to her.

Personally, I can't wait to step out of the office, leaving my laptop behind safely locked at my desk, and forgetting about work, clients, and office politics for a full two weeks. It just seems unreal.

If you've got any good karma left, send it our way. We could do with a trouble-free flight. Stay tuned as we're likely to post from the land down under about all our adventures. I'm sure my loyal readers are just DYING to know how the Mex fares in the land of tall, thin, fair Argentineans. And no, we don't turn fat people into soylent green. We simply hand them a pack of cigarettes and introduce them to Italian-style espresso.

After Dark

2008-10-08T08:22:00.003-05:00

This book was weird. It read like an anime comic book, but without the images. Set in Japan, it follows a teenage girl and the people she comes in contact with over an evening in a big city. The story is meant to showcase what happens in a metropolitan center once everyone goes back to the suburbs, and that part is somewhat interesting.

You have the expected bout of prostitution and male anger, the mob, and a whole lot of teenage angst and existentialist psycho-babble thrown at you. The writing is unique, almost following the strokes of a paint-brush as it draws out characters for you.

What left me stuck in a loop was the subplot of a girl who can't wake up from her sleep. Trust me, I'm not revealing any cliff-hangers here. Chapters of how the reader, set in the context of an audience watching a theater show but who can't be seen by the actors, watches this girl sleep are downright freaky. There's an unplugged TV that receives signals from another realm, and then suddenly the girl is caught in a blank room, inside the TV, banging against the glass trying to get out. Was there a point to that whole story? No. None that I could find.

It was a very short book, worth reading if you're tired of formulaic novels and want to take a stroll down the "artistic writing" isle.

The Southern Vampire Series

2008-10-08T08:11:00.003-05:00

Gosh darn I love Sookie. You see, when I heard about HBO's new show TrueBlood I did a little bit of research on it. It wasn't hard to find that the story is loosely based on a series of books by Charlaine Harris. Starting with Dead until Dark through to Definitely Dead, this was a nice transition from the teenage-oriented Twilight series to a somewhat more adult and certainly more sexual series of trashy books. It only took me two weeks to finish the 6 books available at Borders at the time. For $7 a pop as paperbacks, I figured they would at least keep me busy on flights.

The first book took a while to get me involved, but towards the end of the story I was hooked. Unlike the Twilight series were the dance around the topic of sex for hundreds and hundreds of pages, and take 4 books to finally do the deed, the Southern Vampire series makes sure to keep your blood boiling from book one. The stories are set up much like traditional mysteries, where you peel off one layer at a time as you follow Sookie through her discoveries.

I don't want to give away any of the details, but there's no much that is new in terms of the vampire angle here. The characters find themselves tangled up with magic, werewolves, elves, fairies, shape shifters (known as were-beings), and of course the local authorities. So what makes this story unique? The fact that vampires have come out of the closet due to the invention of artificial blood on which they can survive without killing humans. Like the X-Men movies, the parallels to being gay and coming out of the closet to an unwelcoming public are pretty easy to find.

There's a new book out, "From Dead to Worse", that I'm dying to read to find out where Sookie's love life stands. You have to understand, she's been through a series of boyfriends in these books and has had a number of spicy, quite sizzling, affairs.

If you like reading about vampires, enjoyed the Twilight series, and are looking for something else to satisfy your appetite for blood and sex, look no further.

The Glass Castle

2008-10-08T07:51:00.003-05:00

This was another one of those "under $5" buys at Borders in order to have reading materials for my work trips. The first 10 or so pages made me skeptical and left me thinking how I wasn't in the mood for another story about snobby socialites in the Manhattan Upper East Side. Unexpectedly, the tone, subject matter, and setting took a dive much like the DOW JONES as of lately.

The story covers the early years of the narrator as she travels with her family. Her parents, one crazier than the other, strongly believe the government to be an evil force and try their best to live under the radar. Their capriciousness and happy-go-lucky lifestyle often leads to unemployment. Their pride and paranoia keep them from taking advantage of welfare services that would help them feed their children. It's not unusual for the kids to go hungry in this book while the father wastes whatever money he can scrounge up on book and the mother hides money in order to buy herself giant Hershey candy bars and art supplies.

I was angry, devastated, and overwhelmed by a feeling of disgust while reading this book. Yet I couldn't put it down. The story materializes a lot of the stereotypes we have of poor people from the south, but doesn't mock the situation, it just throws it in your face. The undercurrent of hope and survival stoked by the kids' ability to adjust to any environment they're placed in struck a cord with me. Although I never endured gut-wrenching poverty, I was too often carried from one forsaken third-world latrine to the next.

A recommended read as it's now available at Borders and elsewhere for less than $4.

Everyone's getting old in September

2008-09-28T09:47:00.002-05:00

It seems hetero couples get horny in January when it gets cold, start going at it like bunnies, and 9 months later they add another crying brat to the brood. Somehow every other person we know was having a birthday in September. At least I'm not getting old for another couple of months. The best part of all this, quoting Le Jason, "[The paradigm] is the only Klingle left under 30!". We celebrated the Mex's, the maharajah's, and le Jason's bdays in quick succession. Earlier this month we also hosted a small dinner for my ex who turned [struck out of the record for national security reasons, aka too old]. Not wanting it to be an awkward dinner party for three, we invited the Maj who was very willing to cancel his evening massage session and join us for a home cooked meal, and Erika, the Mexican amazonian. Somehow we managed to go through 3 bottles of wine, a bottle of rose Cava, and finish 9"x13" dish of chicken pot pie between the four of us. And of course there was cake too!

Yes, those are Barbie candles atop a home-made chocolate chiffon cake.

Despite appearances, it came out well. I did not feel like making an ornate layered cake, so instead I looked through my recipe books and made a chocolate chiffon cake. I then whipped up some semi-sweet chocolate butter-cream frosting to cover the hole in the middle of the cake and provide a little bit of moisture to the fluffy but rather dry cake. Served with macerated strawberries and the cava, it was well received.

Never question a gay man's ability to blow.

Surprisingly M and the Maj hit it off well, fawning over their twink conquests while the Amazonian acted innocent and surprised by their tales of man-hunting. We laughed, drank, and ate like it was going out of style. All in all, another wonderful evening at chez Klingle.

Brunch: the most important meal of the week

2008-09-28T09:40:00.005-05:00

Nigella came through once again. Tired of our brunch staples of baked oatmeal, eggs and bacon, french toast, or waffles, I decided to branch out. We had to stop by MacGruder's last night for a bit of shopping so we could get our parking validated after eating at Spices. Browsing the isles for food I didn't need, I saw they had croissants on sale and bought half a dozen of these big, shiny, fluffy "half-moons" as we call them in Spanish. I had a faint memory of Nigella making a pudding or some sort of dessert with stale croissants on TV at some point, and knew I could track down the recipe. It turns out I was thinking about Croissants in Caramel Sauce. Similar to a bread pudding, but with pastries, you make a caramel custard then bake the whole thing.

This one managed to come out picture perfect. The goddess suggested a shallow dish to get more of the "crisp" bits on tops, but I didn't feel like pulling out a 13x9" Pyrex, and it looks so much pretties in this ceramic casserole. Being liberal with the bourbon in the caramel sauce made this a hit. Both the Mex and I were moaning faintly, trying to hide the pleasure from each other. A few bites later, having finished a plate of fried dry-aged black forest bacon from Whole Foods, the Mex gave me his smile of approval and requested a repeat of the dish in the near future.

If you like bread pudding, croissants, caramel, and are looking for an easy recipe for Sunday brunch, look no further.

Another year, another wrinkle on the Mex

2008-09-23T15:18:00.005-05:00

Yesterday was the Mex's bday. Don't ask how old he is, let's just say he's older than he was and approaching a rather large number. This being a minor birthday, we didn't make that big a deal out of it. A small shindig Saturday night, then dinner and cake between us the following evening. I flew out to North Carolina the day of his birthday, so we had to celebrate early.

One of the highlights of the celebration was my making an old-fashioned chocolate cake with creamy bittersweet chocolate ganache, filled with frosting and dulce de leche, and topped with raspberries. I'll admit the cake is far from pretty as I was tired and lacked the necessary tools for decorating. I've known I need an icing spatula for years, but somehow I've avoided buying one till I could justify the $125 expense for the Whustoff one they sell at William-Sonoma. How much for a blunt knife you ask? You read that right, $125-smuckaroos. There are cheaper ones out there for sure, but then I wouldn't get to brag about my icing spatula.

The cake, as expected, was incredibly chocolately. When left to rest for a few hours, the bourbon sprinkles moistened the cake just so without adding flavor, and the dulce de leche provided a nice contrast to the thick and rich frosting. I cut a large slice of the Mex sunday night, and when he saw me on the plate he gasped and asked if we were going to share that. Stifling a chuckle I told him it was all for him, looking at his little eyes glimmering and reflecting the image of the cake on the plate I knew there was no chance we would share so I could myself a separate piece. Having served the cake for dessert while watching TV, it took only a few minutes to prove me right. All that remained of the Mexican's slice of cake was the "crust" of frosting, sitting straight up, lonely, on the plate. I couldn't resist and took a chunk of it, if only to make the look of guilt and satisfaction on his face all the more enjoyable for me. I'm not evil, I'm just a baker.

Diary of a Roaming Consultant: Tulsa, OK!

2008-09-23T14:15:00.004-05:00

I spent last week in Oklahoma. It was... how should I put this... as bland as a baked potato with no toppings. The city of Tulsa was wonderful, with great vistas, plenty of parking all around, and a great and eager client to boot. Staying downtown based on the client's recommendation was not such a good idea. Although the hotel, a DoubleTree, was well appointed, I walked away with a number of complaints.

First, they kept the hotel cooled to a steady 62-or-so degrees. Even at noon, the air conditioning units in that place didn't skip a beat. I think the 300lbs guy in the three piece suite behind the welcome desk must have been the one to set the thermostat. Because of this, I spent 4 days shivering.

The hotel room was comfortable, spacious, and clean. The internet connection had a tendency to build up lag the later the hour, but a call to the tech support line would result in the flushing the network and things going back to normal. One thing that nearly drove me insane was the shower-head placed so low in the wall that only the Mexican could have comfortable taken a shower. No only was the pipe pretty low on the wall, the shower head was so ridiculously large that when standing by it reached my chin. This meant that in order to take a shower I had to point it out towards the far wall, feeling like i was getting hosed down, or squat underneath the stream of water. The latter resulted in me getting my head banged more than once.

Second, there's the fact that the "downtown" area dies a very quick, sudden death, at 5PM. Even if people managed to stick around, there wouldn't be much for them. There's a couple of convention centers, a few restaurants scattered about the place, but for the most part no stores, no pedestrians, just concrete and boarded up storefronts. I was told "Utica Square" and other areas further south where the happening places. Recognizing my knack for getting lost and being utterly exhausted after days of talking, I decided not to venture too far out.

Third, you've got parking. This could be either a positive or a negative, as no-where I went in Tulsa did I have problems finding a parking spot. Predictable, this south/mid-western city was built to accommodate drivers. Their parking payment systems, however, left a lot to be desired. The city of Tulsa made a significant investment in electronic meters for their street-parking spots. These meters, deployed throughout DC, allow you to pay with coins or credit cards and receive a print-out that you display on your dash. Strangely, unlike the system in DC where you park wherever you can and then display the receipt, this system had designated spots for which you paid, with some electronic meters server only two spots. I can't fathom the cost benefits of the installation. Larger lots that took up block after block of city landscape, required you walk up to a "pay station" and deposit your payment. You may think there was someone there to take your bills, but that would imply someone actually monitored these lots. Instead, you walked up to a giant metallic box on a pole with little slits labeled for each of the parking spots. Depending on the lot you paid anywhere from $1 to $2.50 for an hour or a day's of parking. Payment entailed shoving your bills/coins into the tiny slot and walking away. How would anyone know you've paid? It didn't seem like anybody monitored these lots? What if you overstayed? How would they know when you made your payment/arrived? The only answer I could come with was that as an east-coast snob, I was bread to cheat the system. Out in OK people different, and trust is something that still occurs naturally and doesn't result in laughter and references to political campaign ads.

Fourth, Flying to Tulsa was a nightmare. My 6AM flight out of DCA to O'Hare was canceled after sitting at the gate for 45 minutes because the technician couldn't get a panel off to put a screw/bolt on. At least that's what the pilot said. By the time we all deplaned, I was one of the last ones, the line at the check-in counter was so long there was no way I was going to wait to make alternative travel arrangements with a live person. I called Concur, the travel service employed by Blackboard, and asked about options. The lady on the phone was very nice and suggested I get on the next flight out to Chicago and then call again. Running up to one of the e-ticket machines, almost having to check some preppy guys in flip-flops, I got myself a seat on the 7AM flight just as they started to board. Once in Chicago, the United representative at the gate for the next flight to Tulsa (scheduled to depart at 4PM) was less than useless and told me to run to terminal C, because the customer service desk at B8 was never open. Thankfully I swung past that gate and saw a few reps helping people. A short wait in line, a couple of winks at the mustached-woman behind the counter, and I had myself a seat on the 10AM American flight to Tulsa. NEVER AGAIN will I fly American, unless I absolutely have to. Walking to their side of the airport, the place looked like it hadn't been cleaned since they banned smoking at airports. The airplane was crowded, and I got stuck in the back next to a guy taller than 6'2" with a big bag that didn't fit under the seat. Weirdest of all was when two men, one dressed in religious semitic attire, made a stink about their seat assignments because the guy with the curls and threads hanging off his waist, being a religious man, couldn't possibly sit next to the cute blond next to him. It took 10 minutes to convince them that the old, non-religious guy could sit next to the woman and the other could be in the middle of a sausage sandwich. My flights back were no better with a one hour delay out of Tulsa and further delays out of Chicago.

Finally, I have to mention the white whale. That's what I nicknamed the rental I was given for the week. This car represents the ultimate in Chevy luxury and power. A 300hp, 330ft/lb of torque monster with a 5.3L V8 that costs $30k and change. Was it a nice drive? only if you're used to steering catamarans through tornadoes. Was it fuel efficient? Only when it shut down 4 of its cylinders for more than a minute and stopped drinking gas at a rate of 11MPG. Was it comfortable? If you weren't going around a corner and using your elbows to keep yourself from sliding off the awful flat leather seats. Worst of all, it didn't have cup holders. There was a slot by the arm-rest were beverages fit, but nothing to secure them in place. You know how bad things are when an American luxo-barge doesn't have cup holders in the front.

Despite these minor quiggles, I really can't complain about this trip. Everything went smoothly with the client and they seemed happy with the results. I got to try a J.F.J.O sushi roll, due to its semblance to my initials, that had smoked eel, asparagus, yellow tail, and a few more things I can't remember; and managed to go out on a 6 mile run on the River Parks trail. This week I'll be shuttling around North Carolina working with a couple of customers. My expectations for this one aren't so high. Stay tuned!

A-OK,
Your favorite consultant.

Food Porn Recap

2008-09-23T09:19:00.007-05:00

Another random collection of photos of my cooking experiment in the last couple of weeks/months. Enjoy!

Assorted mini-muffins

The Mexican demanded that I welcome his parents to our home with muffins. He had this grand plan to send them off to NYC with a bag full of fruit, muffins, and other treats. Last year I baked my famous apple pie for Dona Perfecta, and that went over well. This year I didn't have enough time for a pie, but muffins fit the bill. I made a mixed batch of maple, brown sugar, and cinnamon, chocolate chip, and blueberry muffins.

I still had some batter left-over and decided to experiment a little and make strawberry & cream-cheese muffins. I personally love the combination on toast, bagels, cakes, etc. It's very similar to strawberries and cream. My plan was to macerate some fresh strawberries and fill the muffins with a dollop of sweetened whipped cream cheese covered in strawberries. These muffins puffed up beautifully, but once they cooled and their tops fell flat and they looked more like cup cakes. The flavors simply weren't there, as the strawberries were rather tart if not bland. Next time I'll have to use strawberry preserves to get the desired effect.

Glazed Lemon Bundt Cake

In addition to welcoming the in-laws with a batch of fresh mini-muffins, I whipped up a cake for us to have with dessert their last weekend here.

A few months ago I had purchased a soft silicon mold for my failed attempt at making Gin Jello. Since that cooking experiment the Mexican had nagged me to use the mold because of the pretty pattern on the bottom for a Bundt cake. Call me crazy, but I hate the name. Regardless of the shape, I was more concerned about the taste. Having survived a couple of hot, humid days, I figured lemon would be nice and fresh. The cake itself was a breeze. Glazing it was a pain in the ass. It took almost 2 hours to slowly drizzle the glaze, let it dry, then apply some more. Pardon the shoddy photo, but the lighting was less than ideal.

Overall it turned out well. The cake was moist, the glaze was crunchy, and the flavors balanced the tartness of the lemon with the sweetness of the cake well.

Mile-High Blueberry Pie

Unlike my strawberries and cream muffins, this pie was a success. Harris Teeter had blueberries on sale earlier this summer and I bought a couple of plastic bins, bringing home at least three or so pints of blueberries. My goal was to make a blueberry pie, but I wanted to try a new recipe. My usual staple, while yummy, wasn't fun any more. I searched Cook's illustrated and some of my other books and ended up merging instructions and ingredients to make the pie pictured above.

We pigged out on warm pie with soft vanilla bean ice cream for days. That is, once I convinced the Mexican that the amount of sugar in a slice of pie wasn't the equivalent of eating a cup of sugar. He had it burned in his mind that eating pie was akin to shoving a stick of butter and a cup of sugar in his mouth. Once I read him the ingredient list, then factored the reduced quantities for each slice, and pointed to the nutritional benefits of all the blueberries he was eating, his frown turned into a smile and his face was covered in blueberry-goodness. If only all our fights were this easy...

Creamy Cream-less Tomato Soup

This is one of the recipes in the latest issue of Cook's illustrated. Not sure if I've blogged about it before, so I'll keep it short. No cream means lower fat content, which is always a boon when trying to feed the Mex. Instead of using cream, this recipe uses bread to thicken the soup. The soup, while creamy, clearly has something other than a dairy base. It was still delicious, and the garlic-toasted croutons gave it a nice crunch.

Diary of a Roaming Consultant: I'm a Marriott Duchess now

2008-09-11T08:23:00.005-05:00

One of the perks of being a traveling consultant is getting to pocket all the miles/points/rewards from the various services we use that include hotels, flights, and rental cars.

In an ideal world, one would be able to pick a single provider for each, stick to them, and rack up incredible amounts of points. Companies promote loyalty by giving your account a different "status" based on usage. The higher the status, the faster you earn rewards, further building customer loyalty.

Unfortunately, I'm often sent to places under conditions that do not favor my choices so I'm forced to use a variety of airlines and hotel chains. This means I have points and miles scattered here and there but I really do try to use Marriott hotels and United flights. Even if Fairfield Inns are awful and the only Marriott option, I'll suck it up and stay there. This is getting harder as I'm usually the tag-along in service engagements and if I don't make the hotel reservation first, the other consultants tend to favor Hiltons and I'm forced to book at the same hotel.

Today I got my first "princess status" card in the mail for Marriott. It's really more of a "duchess" title, since silver at the bottom of the rewards ladder. It doesn't take much to get to silver status, only 10 nights in a calendar year, so I don't feel that special. I will however start earning rewards 20% faster. The other benefits amount to a different reservations number and access to reservations/rewards limited to those in the "silver" status. These don't really mean much to me but may come in handy in the future.

I'm no-where near an upgrade on United, which requires 30 qualifying segments before you read Premier status and I've only got 12 this year. I doubt I will fly 18 segments by the end of the year. Even then, I prefer non-stop flights which make it harder to reach that goal.

But why does all this matter? It matters because a friend of mine gets to enough an almost-yearly vacation in Aruba or any other resort of her choice courtesy of Marriott since her husband is also a traveling consultant who just racks up the points. Wouldn't you want a week's stay for free in a beach resort with a free flight? I sure would, specially with hotels going for $300-600/night in most nice places.

The Latest Duchess of Marriott

Surviving the In-laws

2008-09-09T09:05:00.002-05:00

Our apologies to all our friends who haven't really heard from us in the past week or so. We've been invaded by the in-laws. It's the subject of many a joke, meeting your in-laws. You imagine this monsters in matching outfits with plans to build an addition to whatever dwelling you inhabit so they can visit frequently and remind you of all your inadequacies and how you're not good enough for your significant other.

I first met the Mexican's parental unit last year during the "I'm coming out and you better like it" event. Little did I know I was being used to thrust his new lifestyle in their face, resulting in something resembling a gag-effect as they tried but failed to swallow the new info on their son. This time around things are much different. For one, they've had a full year to process the idea of the Mexican being a big ol' homo. He's still paranoid and ran around the day before their arrival hiding drag outfits, porn, glittery box of faux jewelery, and any other trace of "gay-ness" including the funny COLT calendar full of hunky porn-stached men I hung over his desk.

The last couple of days have been exhausting. Balancing a full work-schedule, life, and the in-laws is like having two full time jobs. I've also determined that the Mexican's Adult ADD must be genetic, because his parents can't sit still for 15 minutes either. Their only limitation being their age that keeps them from running around any faster.

"Doña Perfecta" has been amazingly pleasant. The Mex is even afraid she'll end up liking me better than him. At first he was afraid his parents wouldn't like me, now he's afraid they like me too much. Of course I've put on my best smile and tried to be the nicest wife on Klingle Rd. during their stay. Last week I welcomed them home with a batch of fresh mini-muffins. This week-end they came back from NY to a lemon Bunt cake. I've been trying hard to cook at home, keeping the fridge stocked to prevent racking up a four-figure restaurant bill like we did the last time they were here. Dinner Sunday night was Giada's short-rib ragu with tagliatelle, slightly adjusted for the slow-cooker so I wouldn't have to baby-sit the stove for 4 hours. They certainly cannot complain about the food service at Chez Klingle.

Prior to their arrival the Mex insisted his parents wanted to bring me a gift, and asked if I would like a perfume from the Duty Free. Pondering for a few seconds, I told him all I wanted from his parents was unconditional love. Since he was on the phone he had to stifle the chuckle building in his throat, put his hand over the receiver, and in an incredibly honest and bemused tone said something along the lines of "sorry, no can do, how about a bottle of Hugo Boss?".

Both the Mexican and I are simply exhausted. We haven't hit the gym in a week and have started to feel like walking blobs. My schedule shifts back into travel mode and has me flying around until we take off to Argentina. Hopefully we'll get an afternoon here or there to catch our breaths.

Once upon a time...

2008-09-05T11:40:00.000-05:00

YouTube@Work

2008-08-25T13:57:00.001-05:00

Diary of a Mad Yogi: The 14 mile run from HELL (updated)

2008-08-25T11:46:00.004-05:00

I don't remember failing the reading and comprehension section of the SATs, but my skills are certainly under review. As most of you know I've following a training plan developed for the pack-of-homos running the Marine Core Marathon later this year. The original version or the training plan, according to one of the group members, had an incorrect start date and gave us an extra week of training that did not exist. An updated version was sent out that accordingly to my reading skills had simply removed the week with the 10-mile "cool down" run.

Looking over the original training plan trying to figure out what to run this week, I saw that last week's 12 miler was followed by 10, then 14 miles. So if we're skipping the 10, I should just do the 14 right? I wish I had read the updated plan and seen that this week was only 13 miles. But what's the big deal you may ask? It's only an extra mile right? Well, since I'm not a bionic man that can run a full marathon in 3 hours and change (*cough* Klingles *cough*)through rain, hail, and freezing temperatures, it means a LOT.

Despite feeling kinda shitty from having finished a bottle of wine with the Mexican at dinner the night prior, I talked myself into driving down to the C&O canal and embarking on this 14 mile quest. I had my new wife-beater-esque running shirt one, loaded fuel belt, packets of gel, and my MP3 player. Every step during the first mile I cursed myself for coming out, telling myself I should've just stayed in bed. Most of you may not understand this, but when you run by yourself for extended periods of time not even the repetitive beat of techno music can keep you from conversing with your inner voice. The one that tells you you're too fat, too slow, how everything you do is wrong, yada yada. It's like listening to your mother yell at your for hours on end. By the the end of the second mile I had already wrestled this inner voice into submission twice and my stamina was fading. How much more could I take?

It's an unproven phenomenon that if you make it past the first three miles, I can pretty much get through any run. But those three miles are an excursion through every layer of hell. Thankfully, somewhere between the 2.5 and 3 mile markers, some shirtless, incredibly fugly guy decided to jump out in front of me. He was keeping good pace, kicking my ass in fact, but that was enough to revive that inner voice again and give it a new tone. It wasn't critiquing any more, it was pushing me on. "Come on you slow fat-ass! You can't let that turd jiggle away from you!" As I ran past each half mile marker I kept trying to focus on the rhythm provided by the State of Trance music playing in my head. "Slow down, you don't want to burn out, SLOW DOWN BITCH!" kept ringing over the thumpa-thumpa. I should have listened to myself. By the time I got to the turn-around point at mile 7, somewhere in a retail development in Bethesda, my legs were burning, I was a puddle of sweat, had less than half a bottle of water left, and no will left in me. I could try to flag down a cab, but with no cash, or cell, I wouldn't get far. Knowing I couldn't just collapse by the parking lot, that I should at least crawl into the bushes before I passed out, I started the run back.

On the way back the gradient changed, as the trail points downhill for 4 or so miles. The mile markers kept going by. I could feel the acid building up in my thighs, my knees screaming with pain at every impact with the pavement, but I just kept going. At this point I was pissed. Pissed at myself for being such a pussy, pissed because I started off too hard and burnt out, pissed I was doing it by myself, pissed at all the other runners and bikers I ran by on the trail who looked so happy to be outside. Anger was my only fuel at this point with no water or gels left. Somehow that heat inside me got me all the way to the last three miles and dropped me off at the gates of hell again. I was starting and stopping more than a Metro bus down 16th street at rush hour. People started to pass me left and right. That was simply not acceptable. Running on fumes, I managed to run all the way back to the car. The original plan was to head back to the gym and stretch. The anger was overwhelming, but not enough to cover the disappointment I felt. It had taken me 2 hours to do the 14 miles and every bone in my body hurt like it had shattered into a million pieces. Slamming the shifter into Drive, I zoomed up Rock Creek Parkway so I could get home and take some aspirin, take a hot shower, and calm down. I would've cried during the drive, except my tear ducts were sealed shut with the dry, scabby deposit of 2 hours of sweat evaporating under the rays of the sun.

I managed to get home in one piece, spent a good 10 minutes on the floor doing nothing more than stretching my ham strings. My legs still hurt. When I walk, every so often my right knee will seize and my leg will continue its movement in a forward ark kicking further than I expected. Anyone watching me will think I should be on crutches. Little by little they're getting better.

Fourteen miles. 14. That's the most I've ever run at one time in my life. It's now painstakingly clear why my friend Jen called it quits during her 16 mile run and backed out of the Las Vegas marathon. Jen has since provided additional details:
Sorry! My pride won't let it rest.... it was on the Tussey Mountainback trail, legs 4-6. That's mountain running not just sissy park running!

Without a pack of hot, shirtless hunky guys running around you, WHAT'S THE POINT?! Thankfully next week's run is only 10 miles. We'll see if I decide to keep up with the training plan or not. It may be time to switch into the support role and ride along on my bike.

Garlic and Sapphires

2008-08-21T18:24:00.003-05:00

Don't think that I haven't been reading lately because I haven't been posting reviews. Quite the opposite. I've been in such a funk that all I've done is read. Work out? Pft! Go out? Puh-lease. Read snuggled up in bed with a glass of cold milk? Sign me up! I probably won't get to reviewing all the books I've read so far but they include Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer, In Her Shoes, The Book Thieve, The Beautiful Miscellaneous, Tender at the Bone, Mistress of the Art of Death, I Hope They Server Beer in Hell, and a few others.

The latest book, however, deserves a review. Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl is succulent in its simplicity, humor, and subject matter. The third book by the award-winning editor of Gourmet magazine, this tome covers the period of her life when she moved from LA to Manhattan to become the lead food critic at the New York times. The chapters are brief and book-ended with recipes that I dare not try because I know I'll offend the memories of said dishes that are captured on the pages.

As you read through the book you can't help but laugh and keep laughing. You may think it's about the food like her other books, or about learning how to cook (which she does little of in this book), but it's really about the transformation of a human being into something completely different. You can almost picture her start out as a caterpillar, wrapping herself up in all these protective layers and exploring the million shapes her life could take, and suddenly she blossoms into a butterfly. Maybe it's because I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my life, but I found it uplifting to know that sometimes you don't have to plan your way through everything. It's best to give your heart a chance to speak for itself, try different things, and see where life takes you.

I strongly recommend this book for foodies and all those people in the world who can't bother to tell the difference between consomme and soup or ganache and frosting. You don't need to read the first two books, and you get a collection of recipes anyone can attempt.

French toast, Torrejas, whatever you want to call them, they're good

2008-08-21T18:07:00.004-05:00

Last week I bought a large loaf of crusty, country-style white bread at Magruder's on the way home from work. I needed a few slices to make the cream-less creamy tomato soup in Cook Illustrated's latest issue. Having sliced off a few generous pieces of bread, I still had almost a foot of loaf left. A few days went by without us touching the loaf then I decided to turn it into French toast.

I learned a long time ago that it's best to make French Toast a day ahead and let it sit in the fridge. Last year, a few months after the Mexican and I entered this "what's your is mine and what's mine is mine" arrangement, we spent a Sunday exploring the differences between French toast and Torrejas. The latter are the Spanish version of the same dish, except that according to most recipes they are deep fried instead of simply grilled/sauteed like French Toast. The egg batter and soaking process are remarkably similar for both. Torrejas have a deliciously crunchy crust and incredibly moist, almost cool interior. Think of the world's greatest donut covered in maple syrup and you're 50% there. This is not to think that French toast isn't any good. We actually preferred it being the anti-carb, anti-fat homos that we are. Here's my recipe...

French Toast

Ingredients

1 large loaf of bread, preferrably 1-2 days old, sliced into 1/2 slices. If crust is really hard, shave off.
8 eggs
3/4 cup milk or half & half
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 Tbsp cinnamon

Instructions

Mix the eggs, liquids, and cinnamon in a large tupperware container large enough to fit all slices of bread flat or at an angle. Mix thoroughly to break the yolks and incorporate the cinnamon. You will have to adjust the liquids by adding eggs/milks depending on the amount of bread you have. Don't add too much milk however, or you just end up with soggy bread that won't cook.
One at a time, immerse the bread slices in the egg batter making sure to coat all sides. Leave the soaked slice in the container, pushing aside to leave room to continue the process with all slices. Once finished, arrange all slices so the largest surface area possible is in contact with the liquids, then cover and put in the fridge.
A couple of hours later, or the morning of the day after, remove the container from the fridge. Turn each slice over, one at a time, so the side that was up against the lid is now in contact with whatever liquids remain. Place the container back in the fridge for at least another hour. If you're like me, you go on a 10 mile run and then come back.
Remove the container from the fridge once again and set one the counter. Take a large, flat skillet and heat over medium. Heat oven to 250, put a large baking dish or plate in the middle shelf. Add 1-2 Tbsp butter and a Tbsp of cooking oil. Wait for the fats to warm through, then add some of the french toast to fill the pan. Cook for 5-7 minutes until browned and caramelized. Turn over and cook another 5-7 minutes. Once cooked on both sides, transfer to the plate in the oven. Add a little more butter and oil. I like to keep the butter at hand and the oil in a measuring cup to make it easier to pour. Repeat for the remaining slices of bread.
Allow to sit in the oven for 10-15 minutes to rest. It's best when the toast has a chance to cook through in the heat of the oven. Serve with maple syrup and fresh fruit. I also like softening mascarpone and mixing in honey and cinnamon and making french-toast, peaches, and mascarpone sandwitches with a splash of syrup.

Smellin' Good

2008-08-21T17:51:00.003-05:00

For every trip to Argentina, I'm usually tasked with purchasing a series of products that may not be available down there or are taxed so highly they're not worth the price. In the days before the internets, my mom would have me pick up bottles of perfume for her at the Duty Free stores in airports. It didn't take long for us to realize that these "tax free" offers didn't save us that much. When my mom came up to visit back in 2006, we discovered Imagination Perfumery.

An on-line store with some brick-and-mortar equivalent in Miami, their website is a simple, stark black & white presence. It's usually a pain to find what you want because of the stupid names fragrance companies name perfumes. Is it Carolina, or Carolina Herrera, or Carolina Herrera by Carolina Herrera? Aren't they all the same? Well no. Then there's Eau de Parfum, Eau de Toilette, and all the little beauty products that each perfume line seems to spawn. Thankfully shopping for my mom is easy. Buy the biggest bottle of the good stuff you can find.

Why am I blogging about women's perfume? Because Imagination Perfumery is running a 15% discount through the 8/24, plus free shipping on any order over $75. Their prices are decent, and if you spend enough, you get a pretty good deal. They sell all kinds of fragrances and products for both men and women. Do NOT ask for them to gift-wrap your items. They end up looking like Salvation Army give-aways as they use the cheapest Walmart paper you can imagine and do an awful job of wrapping perfume boxes.

If you spray as much perfume on yourself as the Mexican or my mother do (measured in the gallons per spritz), then you can't ignore this offer. Best of all, if you ship to the District of Columbia there's no sales tax! Having just purchased a total of 12 bottles of perfume that will last my mother a little over a year, I saved well over $150 bucks between the coupon, no sales tax, and free shipping. Don't ask me what the bill came to. Let's just say most people in the mid-west spend more on rent per month than I just did on this purchase.

Me, in a lolCat

2008-08-19T15:49:00.001-05:00

more cat pictures

Diary of a Roaming Consultant: OH! - HI! - Oh yea... you again - O!

2008-08-14T12:18:00.003-05:00

Having spent many a year in State College, PA, it's expected that my view of Ohio-ans may be less than favorable. They are, for the most part, wonderful people. They are not, however, metropolitan people. I spent two weeks in Dayton, OH for work and had a set of mixed experiences. First, I wasn't in downtown Dayton, but about 20 minutes north-east near Wright-Patterson Airforce Base. Any fantasies you may have of hot, fatigue-clad, men in group showers are just that, fantasies. The building I was in was populated by a mix of contractors (or civies as they called them) and middle-aged engineering geeks pursuing advanced degrees in topics such as Nuclear Physics and Waste Water Recycling Management. So there I was, stuck in the middle of nowhere, no eye candy, working my little heart out. The hotel, a Fairfield Inn, was unacceptable. Another example of how modernizing a 1960's behemoth with bright fabrics and new wall paper doesn't translate to a smoke-free building with comfortable spaces.

Dining options around the hotel were limited. There were two exceptions, a cafe/diner place open till 3PM that prides itself for freshness and salads were I had a couple of good lunches, and an Indian place that was very tasty but ended up giving me fire-hole every time I ate there. My poor white-boy entrails just aren't used to that stuff. My people would probably use Saag Paneer to oil engines and Chicken Masala to build houses.

My one reprieve came from finding a massive retail complex a short 10 minute drive from the hotel. Populated by a large bookstore/cafe, Panera, Chipotle, McCormick and Schmitt's, and more, I was glad to have found this oasis of civilization by accident. One night I spent 3 hours at the Panera, enjoying their highly reliable internet connection over the spotty one at the hotel. It seems to be a recurring issue with Fairfield Inn hotels, their internet just sucks.

My first time there I walked around and took a couple of picture. The fountain in the central park was turned on and kids were running through the jets of water having a blast. A live band played populate alternative and rock covers as parents and other sat on the lawn and benches.

The second time I visited "The Greene", as this retail Meccah was called, I'd set up a plan to enjoy a grilled salmon salad at McCormick's. When I walked in, the hostesses looked at me suspiciously despite my crisp black polo and tight jeans. I asked if they could accommodate one and they pointed towards the bar while stifling a laugh. Looking around the bar, I couldn't see an open spot anywhere. There was plenty of physical space as the bar, but no stools or seats to occupy the space. Disgruntled, I stormed out and walked across the park to this italian restaurant where I hoped to have better luck. The hostess kindly pointed me to the bar. The place was dark, full of Ohio-ans out to "fancy" family dinners even though the place was more Olive Garden than Mario Batali. I found a seat at the bar and planted my ass on the stool. It only took a few seconds to discover why it had been empty. The bar, the stool, the floor were all wet. I hoped it was only water as I ran out of that restaurant.

Having done some research into my dining options, I decided to venture out and drive Yellow Springs, a quaint little town another 15 minutes further out of Dayton. The drive there was full of beautiful scenery as the big, toasty-orange sun set behind the fields full of green and the barn houses in the distance. Getting there was easy, parking was a breeze. The town has a "center" with a number of restaurants and stores. By this time it was 8PM, I was pissed, and I was starving so I walked into the first joint after reading their menu and noticing a "monthly wine list" How bad could this be?

The Winds Cafe turned out to be a little jewel in the middle of nowhere. On that particular day not only did they have a special Wednesday menu, but they were also celebrating restaurant week. I found a seat at the bar and was quickly greeted by the bar tender with a glass of water and a basket of bread. The menu itself was concise, but the number of alternative menus made choosing dinner difficult. In the end, I settled for the restaurant week special. A tomato caprese salad with some very lemony, crisp extra virgin olive oil; followed by a crunchy with a moist center fried wall-eye fillet; and for dessert a fruit and berry crostata with a capuccino. Accompanying the meal I had a quartino of Ann Amis Pinot Gris, a delicious wine from Oregon. Total cost (with tip), $40.

I left Ohio feeling like two weeks of my life had been torn out of the timeline. As a state it doesn't call to me. Maybe if I went to downtown Dayton, or Columbus, or Cincinnati, I would like it better. Alas, I'll keep dreaming about hot airmen.

Camo, buzz-cuts, and bad-food no more.
Till next time,
The Roaming Consultant.

Summer Grilling: Huachinango, Bubbly, and Peaches

2008-08-14T11:43:00.006-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, embracing the summer grilling spirit, the Mexican and I had a few friends over for dinner. I had been traveling all week, so the short-prep and quick-cooking properties of grilling suited the event well. Having eaten chain food for days, I felt adventurous and chose to grill whole fish. This was my first time cooking a whole fish, let alone grilling it.

Walking around the isles at Whole Foods the menu suddenly took on a Mexican theme: grilled red snapper (aka Huachinango), fresh tomato salsa, avocados, tortillas, rice, and re-fried beans. To top it all off, I had promised our guests I would make a pitcher of my blueberry mojitos.

Here are some snaps of the spread:

Since I didn't have much time to prep and we would be eating outside, I decided against baking something heavy and sweet. Then I remembered I would have the grill available after the fish were done. So what could i do? Bake some cookies in the grill? Naah, too risky. Grill fruit skewers? Too much work. A couple of quick searches on FoodNetwork.com and CooksIllustrated revealed a couple of options. In the end, I settled for grilled peaches with a flavored mascarpone cream. Then I found strawberries were on sale so I picked up a pint or two. Then I remembered that we had asked our guests to bring some bubbly, so that would work great as a sauce for the dessert: fresh, crisp, and carbonated. It was all taking shape nicely. Here's my adapted recipe.

Grilled Peaches with strawberries, mascarpone, and champagne

Ingredients

4 ripe, white or yellow peaches
half a pint of strawberries
1 cup champagne
1/2 lb mascarpone (1 tub)
2+ Tbsp honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp lemon zest
1/4 cup lemon juice
Sugar

Instructions

Prep the peaches: Using a sharp knife, slice around the circumference of a peach. Hold the peach firmly in both hands and twist one side to release from the pit. Loosen the flesh around the pit with the knife and extract it carefully. Repeat for all peaches. Place the peaches in a large Tupperware container, sprinkle with lemon juice and a little bit of sugar, cover and set aside. I would recommend macerating for at least an hour.
Prep the strawberries: Rinse and dry the fruit, then core and cut the strawberries into quarters. Place in a Tupperware container with a tight-fitting lid. Sprinkle with sugar and lemon, cover, shake the container like a maraca, put in the fridge. Again, allow at least 1 hour to macerate.
Prep the cheese: Spoon the mascarpone out of the tub into a small bowl. With a fork, mixing spoon, or spatula start working the cheese till soft, almost the consistency of whipped cream. Add the honey, cinnamon, and vanilla extract. Continue to whip/beat until incorporated. Cover the bowl and place it in the refrigerator.
Putting it all together: Heat the grill using a medium high flame. Take the peaches and spray the open faces with PAM or equivalent to improve scoring. Place the peaches on the grill face down. Cook for 5-7 minutes, watching they don't burn. Quickly transfer the peaches to individual bowls, spoon some of the strawberries besides the peach slices, scoop some cheese atop the warm peach so it melts, and pour a little of the champagne on top. You'll watch it fizz up as it comes in contact with the melting cheese. Sprinkle with lemon zest. Server immediately.

NOTE: You could increase the amount of strawberries in the bowl and serve each person half a peach to feed 8 instead of 4.

WARNING: Likely to induce loud moaning, specially in foodies who've had too much to drink. Do not be afraid if neighbors think you're hosting an orgy.

Diary of a Roaming Consultant: I'm going bi-coastal

2008-08-14T11:26:00.003-05:00

I was in Oakland, CA what feels like ages ago. Here's the most memorable moment of that trip:

Let's see if I can summarize my experience using the Gay-Canuck bullet-point method:

California is WEIRD. You can go from 70 degree beautiful coastal weather in a metropolitan area to 100 degree scorching dessert heat and suburban sprawl.
Don't try taking illegal left turns, and if you get caught by a cop, flutter your lashes profusely
Trader Joe's in Oakland is truly populated by hippies, college students, and other crunchy types. I felt like the queen of England buying bottled water and yogurt.
Trader Vic's is past its peak. Had dinner one night and paying way too much for a a simple stir-fry didn't make the tiki-decor and overzealous wait-staff any better.
Oakland, thought across the bay from San Francisco, might as well be a different country
Sushi out in Cali is good
If you're traveling with co-workers who think Taco Bell is foreign cuisine, don't expect to hit up Chez Panisse.
The latest iteration of the Ford Mustang is an awful car. It felt like driving a bathtub with a hamster under hood that drank gas like the DCAC consumes vodka and gin.
If you stop at the Oakland airport, don't fraternize with the cashiers at the burrito place. The manager might catch you and organize a public display of latin male chauvinism as he brings the cashier to tears over their misuse of time and throws in that they will have to work holidays and weekends.
The Presidio Club put an awesome twist on "old" food. Make sure to get there early. Dinner can easily take 2 hours.
San Francisco is beautiful. Just ignore all the California people, mad traffic, lack of parking, an hazy smoke from the fires up north and you'll be happy.
If you give the toll lady on one of the bridges a $20, she'll have a roll of 16 dollars worth of 1's to give back to you. That's enough bills that they won't fit in your wallet. Locals informed me they do this to teach you a lesson and pay with exact change.
Treasure island is 10% mountain sprouting from the water, 90% man-made flat. Driving around was like traveling back to the 60's, but not finding any people.

Will I go back? Hopefully, but straight to San Fran instead of Oakland. Will I drive a Ford Mustang again, hopefully not.

Newly bi-coastal,
The Roaming Consultant

Diary of a Roaming Consultant: Check out ... check in again

2008-07-24T07:45:00.004-05:00

NOTE: I meant to finish this post almost a month ago. It is now totally irrelevant but I still felt like sharing.

My engagement has been extended till Friday. This is how long I'm usually on-site, but I was only expecting this one to last 3 days. This means I had to scramble to update my travel arrangements at the last minute.

Thankfully, the hotel had a room available, though they warned me it was a full and not a king sized bed. Having finished with the client for the day, I headed back to the hotel hoping to crash for a bit before heading off to the gym. I check in, having a much nicer lady welcome me this time around, and head to my room on the second floor. On my way up the flight of stairs, thinking to myself how nice that I was on the second and not fifth floor, I remembered their note about the room being smaller. Swipe the card, push the heavy door open, squeeze myself in through the little hallway and all I can see is wall. There's hardly enough room around the bed, furniture, and random decorations for anyone to walk around. So this is what they meant by a smaller room with a full bed. There was the bed, and well, that was it!

Despite my being on a lower floor, the internet connection at the hotel continued to suck. Every time a drop of rain fell from the sky or a cloud came over the building, the connection would die. This made it incredibly difficult to get any work done. Browsing porn on-line? Forget about it!

The worst part of having the engagement extended two more days was that I had barely packed enough clothes for 4 days. Not wanting to show up in the same wrinkly, dirty clothes I had worn earlier in the week, I stated googling for dry-cleaners in the area. I called the number listed for the closest one to the client site, no answer. The second number resulted in a Realtor asking me if I was interested in renting the space the dry-cleaner USED to occupy. Third try's the charm, right? Ring ring.. someone picked up the phone. My discussion went something like this:
Them: Harro!? Palk Cleanels.
Me: Hi, I just had a couple of questions for you. First, how late are you open today?
Them: We open 7am, close 6 "pee-em"
Me: (thinking I had 30 minutes to get there, proceeded with my questioning) I have a load of general laundry I would like to drop off. Could you have it finished by tomorrow?
Them: Yes, next day delively. (in a very heavy asian accent, and no, it's not a stereotype)
Me: Great. How much would it be?
Them: 10 poundel is 10 dollah, then two extra dollah for every poun'.
Me: Ok, I'm pretty sure my clothes don't weigh that much. See you soon!

I throw everything in one of the hotel's laundry bags, and drive over there. Thank god for the GPS system in the car or I would have driven around it 4 times without seeing it. Think open-air strip-mall from 30-year agos overrun by new development of cookie-cutter green awnings.

I walk in with my bag, gleeming since I was certain I would have clean undies to wear on Friday, and the lady looks at me like I'm a crack addict. She quickly asks for my phone number. It's become evident no dry-cleaner bothers to learn your name any more, they all go by phone number. My mind is vivid with an image of this old, short, asian lady saying something like "Ya, this 202-555-5555, he got skid mark! you see!? hahaaha! he no wipe right!". As she hands me the ticket, I go to give her my credit card and she balks. Aparently you don't pre-pay for laundry, they want you to pay when you pick it up. Since when is it offensive for a client to pay AHEAD of the service?!

Anyway, having procured a laundry service for my garmets, I returened to my little shoebox of a hotel, stopping by the Cracker Barrel next door for a take-out serving of meat loaf so I could obscure my feelings of anger as the internet connection died every 5 minutes with mashed potatoes and corn.

End of story, not because it ended there, but because it was so long ago I don't remember what else happened.

Wrinkly yours,
The Roaming Consultant

Diary of a Roaming Consultant: New England Won Ton

2008-07-22T19:49:00.002-05:00

This week I'm in a town called Tewksbury, Massachusetts. Nice, colonial, very green. Been raining on and off these last couple of days but otherwise decent weather.

The hotel is acceptable. No pictures because a description should suffice. Imagine your standard 20 year-old middle-of-nowhere-off-the-highway joint. Add a "21st century" update that involves awfully bright colors (bedspread, art, carpeting) while retaining the highly distinguishable scent of old burnt cigarettes throughout the entire structure. It also has no gym, strike two. Instead of fitness facilities they have an agreement with the local Gold's Gym that is a couple of miles away. You drive there, show them you key card, pay 5 bucks, and get to use the facilities. In terms of cardio and weight equipment it's good. The people are fun to watch and range from the overweight real estate sales lady to the incredibly muscular guido wannabe. It trends towards the latter interestingly enough. Want a towel? That'll be $2 for renting one. Want to shower? You better stink really bad and have no alternatives, because the locker rooms are scary.

Overall your typical middle-"New England" experience. People really do talk funny up here.

The cherry on the sundae was given to me on the way back to the hotel from the gym. It's late and I'm hungry so I decide to get some take-out at one of the places on the way back. I see a generic looking asian/chinese/japanese place, swerve the car in to the parking lot and go in. I order WonTon soup for $4 and a small Veggie Lo Mein for $4.50. Wait about 10 minutes to get my food then head out.

Back at the hotel I open the paper bag containing by nourishment and am immediately shocked. At the top of this rather large bag sits a bread roll. Since when do chinese restaurants give you bread?!I dig deeper into the bag and pull out this large, hot, plastic container thinking to myself "did they screw up my order"? No. for $4 you can get a quart of wonton soup in northern Mass. I am NOT kidding. The Lo Mein? It's one of those tiny paper boxes they usually deliver the side rice in. I'm still giggling about the roll of bread though. Crazy Mass people.

Out and about,
The Roaming Consultant

Diary of a Roaming Consultant: Hotel... motel... luxury suite?

2008-07-20T14:49:00.004-05:00

Part of traveling around the country for work is staying at all sorts of hotels. Choices are often determined by the proximity to a major metropolitan center. It's best to travel near a big city as you don't want to get stuck in a town where the only boarding choices are the Clarion, or a drive-up motel that offers by-the-hour rates. Yes, you read that right.

The last two trips put me in some rather nice rooms. The Hilton I stayed in Oakland was in a great location for a resort, right by the water, but none of the rooms had a decent view because of the orientation of the building. Getting to/from the hotel was a pain, and although the hotel was very nice it lacked a pool and was generally small. Definitely geared towards the business traveling crowd, I wouldn't recommend it if visiting San Francisco because you would get stuck across the bay and definitely need a car. It is conveniently located across the street from a major open air mega-mall complex with your standard Banana, Gap, Apple Store, chain restaurant fare in addition to an IKEA.

The best thing about this hotel was the free business center. That includes printing, web access, copying, AND faxing anywhere in the US. I still remember choking at the Affinia's $5.95 for 15 minutes of computer access and $2/page faxing fees. Having these tools available to me 24/7 meant I could stay current with my expense reports and print out the much needed Google Maps directions. Overall I give it a 4/5 five stars. In addition to its poor location I would add a ridiculously priced breakfast buffet ($15/person).

I flew directly from Oakland, CA to Las Vegas, NV for our mid-year Sales and Services Meeting. Blackboard hosted its annual users conference at the Venetian Conference Center and we took advantage of the pre-negotiated rates and convergence of most of our staff in preparation for the conference. Even though the conference was at the Venetian, we stayed at the sister hotel, the Palazzo.

I was assigned to a standard "suite" yet this room was almost as large as our apartment and certainly more luxurious. It lacked a kitchen, but from my last experience in Manhattan, you could get a minifridge and live in this place. The room had a gigantic bathroom with a tub and separate shower AND make-up desk, the bedroom area, then a living room. There were no less than 3 flat-panel TV's distributed throughout the room because you KNOW you have to watch your favorite soaps while you soak in a bubble bath. A peak inside one of the larger suits revealed a foyer with matching Louis XVth style sitting chairs, a reception area, and a gigantic room. How could you tell those apart from the standard suites? Why they had a double door of course. That way room service could deliver the dinner-table sized carts full of nibbled and spirits that are required for a night of drunken debauchery.

But not everything was perfect in the land of gambling and marble. We were on the 5th floor, which just happened to be one of the "service" floors so our window looked out not to a steep drop but to a large air conditioning compressor unit, a contractor trailer, and a window washing scaffolding unit. More than once we saw people walking past. The air conditioning never seemed to understand what we wanted from it. It would blast freezing cold air into the room for a few minutes, then let it warm up again to 90 degrees and wait a few minutes before kicking back on. This was specially problematic as the number of lamps, lights, and bulbs in the room meant the place would heat up rather quickly. There were so many lights that they provided a "master" switch by the door to shut off all power in the room. The TV's, although wonderfully large and HD-capable, lacked the Sci-Fi channel. That meant I missed the friday night episode of Stargate Atlantis. How dare they offer the channel on their gym equipment but not in the rooms? I guess I can attribute that to the fitness facilities being operated by another company called the "Canyon Ranch Spa". Being a separate entity, our negotiated rate did not include access to the fitness facility and the Spa felt entitled to charge us $20/day for access to a simple gym. Clean, yes, up to date, yes, but nothing more than a gym. No happy ending or hunky trainer to keep you entertained.

Don't even get me started on the resort itself. At first I was simply flabbergasted by the sheer dimension of the place. Cathedral-style ceilings with marbles, granites, crystal, and detailing everywhere. Absolutely tacky and over the top, but nonetheless expensive as hell. By day 2 I'd had enough of the sountrack they pipe in to every public area. Restaurants, bad jazz; by the pools they played different music ranging from 80's mix to current pop; casino, generic muzak. Everywhere you went music was blasted at you. It only made it that much more enjoyable to go back to your room where it was nice and quiet. Except in our room, which was next to a TelComm closet and lead to all sorts of funky sounds at night, including a 5AM hammering session on Monday morning.

I can now say I've been to Vegas, gambled and lost money, enjoyed some wonderful food from restaurants that have simply paid shitloads of money to be associated with chefs popularized by their TV shows, and gotten burned to a crisp. Don't believe me? Look at the picture below. That's what happens when you lay out by a cabana that is constantly spritzing you with a fine mist of water and the weather lady warns you of a UV index of 9. And no, there were no private bits in the shot. I just cropped out a mole. The Mexican was no better. I started calling him "Butterball" because he commented on his "bright red turkey thighs". Of course he was not amused.

Where will I go next? Well, there's Andover, MA; Dayton, OH; maybe Kokomo, IN, and who knows where else. Till next time...
The Roaming Consultant

Diary of a Roaming Consultant: Where did you buy that shirt?

2008-07-10T10:22:00.004-05:00

Read this post with Katy Perry's "I kissed a girl" in the background to set the mood.

We were at lunch yesterday in this lovely cafe, located in an old car dealership building on Broadway Ave. in Oakland. The three of us were enjoying our lunch and getting great service. Having finished our sandwiches, I asked for a dessert menu to address my craving something sweet. The waitress, very dainty, skinny, and soft spoken, brings over a set of dessert menus printed on lilac paper. While discussing the options with my co-workers, she states "oh, it matches your shirt!". Personally, I didn't even hear her. The guy to my left repeats this and looks at me, at which point she's come around to offer me a menu and asks where I purchased my shirt. I respond indicated it was purchased at the GAP, like most of my baggy clothing from 25 lbs ago, a long time ago. She smiles, then follows up with "Do you know if they have it for women as well?". The other two guys at the table start to snicker while looking at me.

It was strange, I felt like that typical tourist in a foreign land who doesn't understand the local customs. Was this very pretty, very feminine waitress hitting on me? The others seemed to think so.

Lesson of the story? Even in baggy worn blue khakis and a wrinkled striped lilac shirt from the gap one size too big, I've got game. Watch out ladies!

The Blackboard Baker: Muffin-time

2008-07-09T23:15:00.003-05:00

Although Molly no longer graces the Blackboard office with her presence, her triage calls have touched their participants forever. We will gladly send her our shrink bill for that :)

In any case, the Mexican and I had plans to hang out with the crafty one this past weekend and play some video games, watch a movie, and just eat. Her only request was that I bring some muffins along. Saturday morning, before going to the gym, I get right down to the task. "mini muffins please" she indicated, but did not provide any requirements for flavor/content. I know she liked my triple chocolate muffins, but I didn't have the time or energy for those. Instead I decided to make a batch of plain batter, divide it in thirds, and add the flavor as the last step. The first mini-batch was easy. Molly loves chocolate so I added a few teaspoons of vanilla extract, threw in a good handful of chocolate chips, and voila! Chocolate chip muffins. The second batch turned to one of my trusty staples, blueberry-lemon muffins. I didn't feel like killing a full lemon for a few teaspoons of rind, so I used some store-bought lemon juice to add the citrus flavor. Then I got to the third and last batch of dough. I couldn't quite figure out what to do with it. Leave it plan? Naah, too boring. Add cocoa and make choco-muffins? Naah, they turn out too dry. I couldn't add raisins because she wouldn't eat them. Too late to make bran muffins. I decided to experiment and started by adding a little bit of vanilla extract, then I added some brown sugar, and slowly it all came together. My mind was filled with images of warm bowls of oatmeal with rich molasses-like molten brown sugar, sprinkles of cinnamon, and layers of maple syrup. Throw a bit of each into the bowl, and you get brown sugar-maple syrup-cinnamon muffins. One of my best creations to date.

Overall, they were well received. The Mex loved the new combination and requested I make a batch of them upon my return. I have to find a way to trick him into thinking whole yogurt and a stick of butter somehow fall under the guidelines of his diet.

What's for lunch: Schnitzel, Tuna Pasta, and Blueberry & Peach Cobbler

2008-07-09T22:41:00.010-05:00

I'm too lazy to write up separate posts for this so here it goes. Having gone through all the interesting recipes in Nigella's cook books, we've moved onto Jamie Oliver's Cooking with Jamie. It's got beautiful photography, the recipes looked simple enough, and I got it on discount at Borders. Once you delve into the contents, you find out he's another crazy Brit who's got a taste for spicy, yet somewhat bland foods. Nigella can sometimes surprise you by taking a standard American dish and spicing it up in the sense that she adds a lot of flavors. Jamie on the other hand will simply add heat to a dish through the use of chilies, peppers, and such. Anyways, here's a few of my latest cooking endeavors.

Schnitzel with home made apple sauce
Just about every culture out there has figured out that if you take a hunk of meat, pound it, bread it, then fry it, you can make a pretty meager meal delicious and filling. My peoples have Milanesas, the Italians have things like chicken parmiggiano (in all its wonderful Americanized glory), and the Austrians have Schnitzel. I'm used to breading beef and chicken. Pork, not so much. I guess that somewhere between the German plains and Swiss alps the Austrians found a lot of room to raise pork and decided to make that one of their most popular dishes.

You start out with a few boneless pork chops, pound them to 1/4 thickness, bread them, and fry them. I was amazed at how good these things looked since I have a knack for screwing up the breading and/or frying process when making milanesas.

The Mexican took some of these pictures, you can tell which ones because he tried to emulate Orangette in her overhead, full-plate, part-of table composition. Then he got bored of that and reverted to his usual too-close, somewhat out of focus shots.

It was Jamie's suggestion to serve it with some homemade applesauce and cornichons (baby pickles). The applesauce was interesting, certain a lot more flavorful than the jarred stuff one is used to getting at the store. The nutmeg and cinnamon punched through the bitterness of the apples. It took a couple of bites for the palate to adjust, but once the shock wore off and started taking bites of the pickles, applesauce, and schnitzel combined, you were in heaving. The Mexican simply devoured his plates. I don't know how he found the time for bites in between the moans that came out of his mouth.

Pasta with tuna-tomato sauce

This dish wasn't such a success. For starters, Whole Foods no longer carries the really good Spanish tuna the Mexican and I love. It's smooth, tender, perfectly preserved. We went with the most expensive can of tuna they had at the store, and got some watery, rubbery, tactless hunk of flesh that certainly smelled like tuna but didn't smell much like it.

This was one of Jamie's dishes where he takes a rather plain set of flavors (tomato, pasta, garlic) and simply kicks it up a notch adding red chillies to the sauce. It was easy enough to make that we're willing to try it again, but with the right tuna.

Blueberry Peach Cobbler

Finally, not coming out of Jamie's cook book, I decided to make some cobbler. A couple of weeks ago, finding myself in the vicinity of Eastern Market, I stopped by and purchased a bag of peaches. I think I got ripped off because at $12 a bag, they certainly weren't great peaches. They were still hard as a rock which meant they would need to sit on my counter for a few days and ripen. Unfortunately, they decided to skip the ripening stage and go straight to rotten. Two days after the purchase, I checked the bag and found they were all covered in a lovely green fuzz. Straight to the trash they went.

Browsing the produce section at Whole Foods, I decided to give it another try. Their $5 for 4lbs tub of blueberries enticed me to make a combination cobbler. Long-time readers know how much I hate to peel peaches since I've compared it to handling a lubed-up ball-sack belonging to a 60 year old man. That's how much fun it is. Despite my hate for soggy and slimy things, I wanted a peachy summer cobbler. Then I remembered how last summer the Mexican and I gained 5 lbs making cobblers but couldn't remember why exactly we liked them so much. I've memorized the standard recipe for the filling (sugar, acid, starch) but couldn't recall what topping we had settled on. Then the light bulb came on, yogurt biscuits! These are SO good. Baked right in the cobbler, you get these soft, clumpy biscuits that compliment the cobbler just perfectly.

Unfortunately I only got enjoy a few servings of warm cobbler and vanilla ice cream. The rest was left behind for the Mex to enjoy as I hit the road for work. Chances are his diet-crazy state-of-mind has forced to totally ignore the gigantic Tupperware in the fridge holding a couple servings of heaven.

You want to know why IGLA drove me crazy?

2008-07-03T10:14:00.004-05:00

ANY event that concludes with a bunch of grown men in out-dated polka-dotted suits with pink flamingos strapped to their heads is HIGHLY likely to induce dementia.

From Metro Weekly:

The Mexican is second from the left. Lovely, eh?

You know you need a challenge when...

2008-07-03T10:07:00.004-05:00

You play Facebook Hangmania at the office to the point of reaching the top leaders.

Case in point: