Two Weeks Ago

Wow, this is taking long to write. So in reverse order (becuase the second story is longer) we had two great evenings two weeks ago! Friday night we went to see the Cubs play against the Giants. It was a nice cool night, a great pitching match-up in Zambrano vs. Lincecum and a Cubs win. This was the first time I've ever gotten to see the Cubs win in person. Every other time I've gone to a game it ended in a loss. The only downside was the fact that the game went extremely fast and was over in two hours. I expect my ball games to last approx. 3 hours, so it was really weird to be home by 10:30.


Wednesday was even better. I had been told that we were having dinner with an old friend that night for the two past weeks and thought nothing of it. I was told we were eating in Berkeley, okay. We drove over there and were looking for parking when we drove past the Berkeley Rep. Theatre and I said "I don't think we'll find parking in that garage because there is something going on that theatre tonight". I can only think she thought I was the densest person in the world at that moment because I failed to notice all the giant signs for the "American Idiot" show on the front of the theatre and along the street. I had been tricked! She got tickets to the show!! I wanted to see this since I read a story about it back in May, but kind of checked off as one of those "it'd be cool, but..." events and didn't really think about it again. She, however, remembered and got tickets. Not just any tickets. Row F tickets, 7 rows from the stage tickets. I can't even describe how amazing the show was. At least seven musicians on the stage in the background, great singing by all of the actors, a set that went at least 50 feet in the air and involved wire work, a ton of TVs and some really cool set changes. I loved it. It was so much fun and afterwards we walked down the street and happened to find a restaurant that gave us a 20% discount because we had been to the show. We even ended up eating next to some other people from the show, and we talked about how great Green Day is and how cool it was that the album had been turned into such a cool musical.

Farmers Market and more

Here are some pictures from the San Francisco Farmers Market and other things we've been doing the last few weeks. Really this is a catch-all post.


This is my favorite. These tomatoes are as big as my hands. I think I should submit it to the Tomato Association of America to use in advertising.


Enjoying my bacon sausage breakfast sandwich.


Charli's giant avocado.


We made pancakes for breakfast awhile back and decided we needed whipped cream for them. Mine is the one on the left. It was definitely too much whipped cream, but I liked how it looked on the plate.


My favorite coffee shop in Santa Rosa. Its also in one of the oldest buildings in the city.

A day at the fair

We went to the last day of the state fair yesterday. We got our free tree saplings, a whole bunch of free stuff and spent most of our time looking at the animals. The guinea pigs had already been taken home, so we saw lots of chickens, and baby animals. We also went to the horse races where I won a whopping 30 cents. It was nice having the guy had me 3 dimes. Of course, the most important item at the fair was the fried food, and was it there in abundance. Here are the general highlights from our day.


This was from the Sacramento Chalk Festival. I like Jackalopes!


One of the many baby cows born during the fair. Thanks to the UC Davis Vet School.


Baby Piglets!


Youngster Goats


TOTALLY FRIED!!!! I passed on the Fried White Castle. Seemed a bit much, though I was tempted.


So my plate of "food" contains zucchini curls, fried artichokes, fried mushrooms, a deep fried twinkie and what is that on the stick you ask???


The Zucchini Weenie! Yes a hollowed out zucchini stuffed with a hot dog then battered and fried. It was really tasty. Well that's it for the fair. I've got a few other things we've been doing I want to post, so keep an eye for them.

Explorer Cat

Madeline has decided that everything is new and must be explored, regardless of the fact that nothing is new. As you can see, the armoire and my bookcase are now fair game. The windows, however, are still the big thing. She ran into the screen door today leading out to the patio when a dove landed on the bannister. She'll learn eventually.

More Bacon!

Okay, we're still not completely finished unpacking, so the final apartment pics will come soon. However, while grocery shopping this last week, I came across two bacon products to share with everyone. The first is...

Have you ever been eating Chicken Noodle soup and thought to yourself, "I wish this was bacon noodle soup?" Well wonder no longer. The other is...

Now this I can guarantee, I will not be trying. Not a huge fan of spam to begin with, but adding bacon sounds worse to me, and that's hard to do given that bacon is the greatest food on earth.

Finally, we were looking through cookbooks at the store, and well if you ever need to buy me a gift start with these!

Two of the most essential cooking ingredients. Yum! I truly am a carnivore.

The Move: Part One

This is the first of a two part entry on the move and new apartment. The move itself was forgettable. Problems with Budget, the long drive, a cat meowing intermittently for 8 hours and physical loading and unloading of the truck was exhausting. I slept a good part of sunday afternoon and all sunday night. I woke up monday sore and started to unpack. None of the rooms are completely finished, but the place is somewhat livable now.

Not having seen it before I got here, I have to say its pretty nice. Its easily the biggest place we've ever had and its nice not feeling cramped for space. Here are the "before" pics of the place with everything just piled up. I post "after" photos once we finish unpacking.


This was from a rest area in the San Joaquin Valley, couldn't pass up taking a picture. Unpictured??? The Bacon flavored sunflower seeds.


This is from the front door looking across the dining area and into the living room. The bedrooms are to the left and the kitchen is on the right.


The Kitchen: It has a bar opening into the living room which can't be seen in the photo.


This is my office and storage room.


This is our bedroom.


Our first meal in the apartment on monday night. I thought the cardboard table was especially nice.


And finally Madeline. We think she approves of the new place. She really likes that the windows extend to the floor. The windows also lookout directly onto a bunch of redwood trees, so there are a ton of birds and squirrels for her to watch. She is suspicious of the patio and prefers to just sit at the door and meow at us every time we go out there. I liked the shadow effect in this picture.
The next post will go up once we get the place in order.

Chocolate Bacon!

Yes, bacon and chocolate together at last. Now, this wasn't an impulse buy. I've seen it at Whole Foods for over a year and could never bring myself to eat it alone, but we had some friends over last week who share a love of bacon. Believe it or not, it tasted good. At first you only taste the chocolate, but then the salt and smokey bacon flavor emerge. And its, not just bacon flavoring. It's real bacon bits. I'm not sure I would buy it again, but to have had it once was great. This tops the bacon cookie as best bacon flavored desert...so far.

Watchmen

Saw Watchmen yesterday and still haven't decided how I feel about the film. Visually stunning. And very faithful to the imagery and feel of the setting. In fact, as you watch the movie you could take snapshots and insert them onto the pages. But maybe that's one of my problems with it. In some ways, it fells much more like a companion to the comic than an independent project. And for the ending, yeah they changed it and while it works on some levels, it loses ALOT of the significance that the original story placed on the final act. I was so excited to see the movie, and while I am a little disappointed in the end result, overall I did enjoy it. How can you not, its the Watchmen on the big screen? Now I guess I'm just gonna have to wait and see the extended director's cut when it comes out on DVD.

BACON!

So the first entry in a really long time, and its about food? Yup, a series of bacon related foods have inspired me. First there was the recipe for Candied Bacon in the LA Times. Then there was the release of Baconnaise! Yes, its bacon flavored mayonnaise. The best news, however, was my discovery in San Diego of bacon flavored cookies. They were kind like a merangue with maple creme in the middle and bacon sprinkled on top. So tasty!

Here is the cookie.

And here I am tasting it.

Change is Coming

Okay, I'm actually start doing more on here very soon. School just seems to suck up all free time.