Category: Fun

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“I am the most beautiful dog in the world”

I stumbled across this while reading one of my student’s blogs just now. I think it’s funny, especially in relation to our dog, who is just the most spastic dog in the world, which would be hard to capture in a comic. Annette and I went for a walk on this nature path in Ann Arbor, and we decided to take the little spaz with us. I tried to take some decent pictures, but that never worked out. Sophie got twice the workout of us, zigging and zagging, and just about pulled both of our arms out of our sockets pulling on the leash. She spent much time choking herself to the point of turning her tongue a slightly pale shade of blue.

All that excitement has left her with some sort of, er, tummy issues. I hope she’s not pooping too much in the house while we’re both away….

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Playing with my new digital camera

Sophie on bed

I bought a digital camera yesterday, an Olympus FE-130. I was in the market for a $200 or less camera, and I got this one at Costco for about $175, which is about $30-40 less than I had seen similar cameras. Here’s a picture of Sophie, pretty much the only one around here who would let me take a picture of them.

It’s certainly not a fancy-pants camera, but it’s small, it takes some nice snapshot-style pictures, and it even can take short and somewhat low-quality movies. Here’s one I took this morning of an increasingly reluctant Sophie— it’s funny, it’s a MOV file, and it’s abut 8 MB.

This thing didn’t come with a memory card, and I will probably buy one because otherwise, I will have to work with the 25 MB harddrive built into tht camera itself. But I might not buy one because I also stopped by the Apple store yesterday and bought a do-hickey that can connect my camera to my iPod Photo and download the images. Apple’s web site that describes which cameras work with this device is a little fuzzy, so I took my iPod into Costco and persuaded a guy in the store to see if the camera I wanted to buy would work with it. (Though as far as I can tell, this thing would probably work with any camera that connects to a computer with a USB cable, which is pretty much any digital camera). So we plugged the store’s display camera into my iPod and bingo, it worked. The Costco’s comment was “wow, that’s pretty slick.”

The goal here is to be able to take the camera and the iPod on our upcoming European vacation and to be able to manage pictures without a laptop. We’ll see how it works.

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Unofficial Notes on a trip to Omaha

Technically, I am on a business trip since I’m giving a presentation at a conference here in Omaha, NE at Creighton University– I guess I’ll write about that later on the official blog– but I thought I’d post a few miscellaneous and unofficial notes on the trip out here so far. For what it’s worth.

  • Got to the airport my regular two hours before the flight and I had about 90 minutes to kill. Which is fine– I would much prefer to be way too early than a little late. And which was also good because I sat at the wrong gate for about a half-hour before I realized what was going on.
  • The plane was a fairly small jet, not a “puddle-jumper” prop engine deal, but not exactly plush, either. I think it sat about 40 people. Anyway, things are going fine when all of a sudden, there is a loud “WHHOOOOOSHHH” noise in the cabin. I turned to the woman sitting next to me, who had also turned to me, and we both had a “what the…?” expression on our faces. Turns out there was a “minor” leak with some kind of door, but we weren’t losing cabin pressure, so the problem was determined no big deal. And I guess it wasn’t since we got here, though the rest of the flight was noisy, sorta like leaving the window in the car cracked while on the interstate. It seemed to get colder, too.
  • The woman I was sitting next to was a sociology professor at U of M-Flint. Small world.
  • Inexplicably, I saw a woman getting on and off the plane clutching a box that (according to the box, at least) had a pyrex glass cassarole dish in it. An odd carry-on choice.
  • So far, downtown Omaha, NE is nicer than I would have thought. Here are a few pictures from a brief afternoon walk:

Downtown Omaha park of some sort

This is a park/walkway of some sort right downtown about a block from my hotel.

Cute French restaurant/wine bar

There’s an area here called “Old Market.” It’s not a huge area (but hey, neither is Greektown in Detroit) with a whole bunch of cool little restaurants and stores like this one.

more Old Town

Here’s another shot of the Old Town area.

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Steve’s Birthday Week, Part 3: More Chicago fun (or, Thai-Thai!)

I would have liked to have had posted this message while I was still in Chicago, but time was short and, even more important, Internet access was shitty. You’d expect different in a big city like Chicago, but I had a hard time getting a free wireless connection, even at a Panera’s that promised it. It worked one day, kind of, the next day fine, and the third day not at all.

Anyway, in brief, here’s what I did on Wednesday, which was more or less my “day off” before my part of the conference activities began in earnest:

After spending a fair amount of the morning grading essays for my online class, I hiked down to the Tribune Tower to see my friend Bruce, who works there. He and I have known each other since freshman year in college, which I guess was 22 years ago now. Jeesh, that’s depressing; I was a freshman before most of our current first year students were born.

Anyway, we had a lovely lunch at a sort of yuppie Thai restaurant in that sort of yuppie/touristy neighborhood near the Trib Tower and the Magnificent Mile. I had a Pad Thai with some kind of fish that was pretty darn tasty. But hey, what do I know about Thai food, other than I like it and, because Annette isn’t so fond of it, I don’t tend to eat it that much. We talked some business, we talked some sports (Bruce is crushing me in the NCAA Basketball tourney as far as picks go), we talked family, etc.

On my walk back to the hotel, I went through Millenium Park, which is right off of Michigan and just north of the Art Institute. I can’t remember the last time I was in Chicago, but this was new to me, and pretty darn cool. If you follow the link above, you can see the real photographs, but I have two here from the camera phone that turned out pretty good if you ask me.

This is a picture of Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate,” what the web site describes as a “110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect the city’s famous skyline and the clouds above.” It’s pretty cool, but I was a little disappointed to find that the bottom part of the sculpture, which you are supposed to be able to walk under and such, was closed off– you can kind of see it in this picture, I think. The blue line on “the bean” (as it is popularly known) is tape, and underneath it is a crew polishing the thing.

This is “The Crown Fountain,” which was designed by Jaume Plensa. Basically, it’s two big glass towers which project these enormous video faces. “Weather permitting,” as they say, water comes spitting out where the mouth is. Also very cool, and it looked even more cool when I ended up taking a cab ride by it at night.

I went back to the hotel and did some more grading, and then it was time to meet up with my friends Troy and Lisa. I picked Troy up at his downtown office, and let me just say that driving around downtown Chicago (really, any very large city) is a bit like an elaborate video game. Judging by some of the quasi-illegal/questionable things I did, it appears to me you get three lives.

Anyway, we went out to their house, which is on the Chicago-side of the Chicago/Oak Park line. A really neat neighborhood with lots of “Chicago Bungalows,” a house style I hadn’t heard of before. Troy and Lisa don’t have one of these, but their house is brick and of a similar 1930’s era. We went out for my second Thai meal of the day, one decidedly different from the yuppie-fied lunch. This place was clean and no frills, and while I think you could get Pad Thai, we all ended up with selections quite a bit different from that– crispy omelette (which was shockingly orangish-red), a soup with coconut milk in it– I believe it’s called Tom Ka Gai– spicy chicken and beef, little egg roll-like things, etc. Very very tasty.

Thanks again for the hospitality, folks.

As for the rest of my trip: it was conference/work stuff pretty much all day on Thursday (that’s “official blog” stuff), a bit of conference stuff Friday morning, and then back home. Despite the fact that I was out until well after 2 am on Thursday, I am up this early after not being awake off and on for the last couple of hours.

I have always heard old people need less sleep….

Anyway, happy birthday to me. To wrap up my birthday week, I’m hanging out with Will today (while Annette gets caught up on school stuff) and then we’re all going out for fancy Italian tonight.

Slight Update:

Troy emailed me to let me know the restaurant we went (and that is just down the street from them, too) is Amarind’s and here’s a review.

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Steve’s Birthday Week, part 2: Chicago fun

I’m in Chicago right now– for work, the Conference for College Composition and Communication– and I need to get ready for my full day of conference activities in a few minutes here. But before I head over to the conference and give up my free internet connection at Panera’s, I thought I’d post a bit about the “fun part” of my trip so far.

We (meaning me, Bill H-D and Steve B) drove into town on Tuesday. After spending several hours in the car (literally) going over a tit-for-tat/crazy email exchange I had with some one at work, we checked into the Congress Plaza Hotel, which I would describe as a lovely dump of an old hotel. Not elegant, but it works for us.

Dinner Tuesday night was at Frontera Grill, which is one half of celeberity chef Rick Bayless’ restaurant empire (the other half if is the much more expensive Topolobampo). Basically, it’s high-end Mexican food, and oh yes, it is very good. We began in the bar, where the three of us and three other folks (two from work, Heidi and Linda, and one from Australia, Clair) shared a table about the size of a large hubcap in the bar. We started with some appetizers there, including some excellent tamales. Then Steve and Bill and I ended up with a table. Here’s Bill and me eating (sorry about the sad quality of my camera phone):

Bill and I both had “small plate” orders of Ceviche; in addition, I had Enchiladas de Pato, which were duck enchiladas, and Bill had Huaraches de Huitlacoche, which the menu describes as “grill-seared, corn masa flatbread topped with black beans, Tracey’s huitlacoche (corn mushroom), roasted winter vegetables, tangy tomatillo salsa, sunflower greens and homemade fresh cheese.” By “corn mushroom,” they mean this moldy stuff that grows on corn. I tried a piece of it, and I have to say it was excellent– very earthy and mushroom-y like.

Here’s Steve B:

He had the special for the evening (and arguably more manly meal), ribs.

Oh, and the celebrity chef himself, Rick Bayless, was wandering around the restaurant. He was surprisingly short and skinny, if you ask me.

All in all, a great dining experience, and, considering what it was and how much we ate and drank, it wasn’t even that crazy expensive.

I’ll have to update some more Chicago fun later; now I gotta work….

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Not 40 yet party a successful kick-off to my “birthday week”

One thing that I regret from my “not 40 yet” birthday party last night was I forgot to get out my digital camera and snap some picts. Just as well I suppose, since the crowd that was here last night, mostly fellow faculty members and teachers at EMU, isn’t exactly the kind of people who like to have pictures of themselves partying circulating out in the blog-o-sphere or in places like MySpace or Facebook.

Though as an aside, wouldn’t that be kind of funny? I’m telling ya, if parents out there scared of MySpace of Facebook or whatever really want to stop the kids from using those things, the smartest thing they could do is start posting stuff there themselves. Because once the “grown-ups” start using those things, it is so un-cool.

Anyway, we had a great time. A few memories/thoughts/recollections in no particular order:

  • My friends from way WAY back in the day, Troy and Lisa, were able to make it all the way from Chicago. Well, they were actually coming from Lansing, where they were visiting family, and we were kind of a convenient pit-stop. But it was fantastic that they were able to make it. I’ve known Troy since seventh grade, I’ve known Lisa since high school, I was the best man at their wedding, etc., etc. Good times, and it was great they could be here.
  • Lots and lots and LOTS of food, too much food, it turned out. Spinach pie, jalepeno poppers, onion fritters, cheeses, veggies, sushi, dips, chips, cookies, etc., etc., etc.
  • I got a few cool gifts, even though I wasn’t asking for any. Carol and Clayton gave me a lovely picture book/poetry book; Cheryl gave me a nice plant; a number of people gave me various alcoholic beverages (I’m not sure exactly what that’s supposed to say).
  • I got a few fun/funny/goofy gifts, too. Laura gave me this old inspirational/advice book from the 1930s called Life Begins at Forty. Oddly, there appears to have been a movie made of this book. Christine H. gave me some cards, which she informed me were a “re-gifting” item, and she also gave me some sort of Asian dried food product in a bag that she thought was attractive. The food product served as a fine party game at the end of the evening. Everyone left tried one in order to guess what it was; this morning, sober and in better light, it seems to me like they are some sort of date. I thought they tasted vaguely like petroleum.
  • Rachel brought a cake that she baked. It was quite yummy, and I was able to cut it up and distribute it and avoid the singing of “Happy Birthday.”
  • The kids, sent to their own “party” in the basement, broke into a stash of fruit roll-ups. Rather amusing.
  • I drank plenty and had lots of fun, but to tell the truth, I am more “tired” than hung-0ver from my excess. Which is good.
  • Without sounding all hokey about it all, nights like last night give me comfort in that Annette and Will and I have a lot of good friends.

Like I said, an excellent start to birthday week. I say “birthday week” because it seems to me that one day is not nearly enough time to celebrate a birthday. Frankly, I would prefer a “birthday month” (Lisa told me at brunch this morning that a friend of hers was trying to advance the concept of the “birthday year” celebration– that might be going too far), but Annette wasn’t going for that, so a week seems like a fair compromise.

And practically-speaking, it really is a “birthday week.” I’m going to be at a conference from Tuesday to Friday of next week, and much of that adventure will basically be a party, and I’m hoping to celebrate my “real” birthday on Saturday with the family here. That’s a week right there.

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Rites of Spring a bit early?

Today it was about 65 or so degrees out, and in this neck of the woods and at this time of the year, that’s usually time to run around outside half-naked and rejoice at the end of winter. Of course, we’ve had a pretty mild winter this year. Oh, and also of course, what inevitably happens when we have a “warm snap” like this is it snows about a week or two later.

Anyway, besides watching the Hawks win the Big Ten tourney and making my NCAA picks (I’ve got Connecticut winning it all, but just for the hell of it, I picked Iowa to go to the final four), I went out and hit a bucket of golf balls at the newly remodeled Miles of Golf. Not that there is really a whole lot of “remodeling” that needs to be done to the driving range part of the operation.

It felt pretty good swinging a club after not doing so for around four or five months. I was hitting them about as well (or as poorly) as I was in the fall. Two thoughts occurred to me. First, not this summer (because I’m once again going to be out of town for too much of it and because of other things coming up) but some summer, I’m going to take some golf lessons. Second, my goal this year is not to worry so much about the “long game,” mainly because without something in the way of lessons, I don’t really see myself hitting the ball a whole lot further than I do right now. Rather, I need to concentrate on the short game: approaches, chips, putts. Unfortunately, that’s kind of hard to practice at a range.

Anyway, after things settle down in April, I’ll be back out. Unless it snows.

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The Beer Watcher: Hmmm, it’s beer….

Beer!

Well, here is is, real beer, the homebrew that I had a very modest part in. Actually, I first opened one of these babies late Wednesday night after we got back home after a long flight home from Florida. I mentioned it in an email to brewmaster Bill and fellow beer watcher Steve B., and Bill asked “Well, where’s the blog entry?”

Okay, here ya go.

A few more details, at least a rating according to this stuff on ratebeer.com:

  • Appearance: As you can see here in the picture, damn, it looks like beer. Real beer, the kind you might buy at a store and everything. When I opened it, it had a satisfying “thwack” sound when the cap popped off. Nice color (a wee-bit cloudy), nice head, and yes, the carbonation worked out great.
  • Aroma: Yep, smells like beer. A nice hoppy IPA, straight-forward though not over-powering at all.
  • Palate: I’m a little fuzzy on the directions for this category, but I guess I’d say smooth and gentle, full, rich, ah, beer-y.
  • Flavour: Who are these people at ratebeer.com, Canadians? Brits? What’s with the “u” in flavo(u)r? Anyway, it very much reminds me of Bell’s Two Hearted Ale, which was the goal of the recipe that we bought oh so long ago. There’s a sort of subtle sweetness there, and again, a pleasant richness.
  • Overall: Darn good beer, a brew that not only tastes great on its own terms, but it has what I would describe as a satisfying freshness. And hey, it doesn’t hurt that it’s homemade.

We’re having a party here in a couple of weeks, and it’s going to be touch and go to see if there is any of that beer left. Hmm, beer….