2010 In Review, Part I: January - March

I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning. The end of 2009 saw Kirsten temporarily stranded in Blacksburg by the first of a couple massive snowfalls. Dylan had moved out of my apartment in Windsor Hills and Teddy was readying to move in (once he returned to the states from Hong Kong). I was preparing for my second semester of grad school, taking one required course in theory, and two electives, Creative Non Fiction and Business and Technical Writing. Kirsten, along with my roommates Teddy and Chris, was preparing to graduate. At the time she was considering grad school for the fall, namely Tech and Radford. In an attempt to bolster her resume, she joined an internship program to tutor at Blacksburg High School.

Honestly, the one definably "January" moment I can remember is recieving our electric bill at the end of the month for the period where no one was there. The bill was for over twice our previous highest bill, and unfortunately there was no mistake. However, a fonder memory is the week or so before classes began in which Teddy, Kirsten and I were able to spend some time together, mostly relaxing and catching up, hearing all about Hong Kong and Teddy's excursions to other parts of Asia. On one of his forrays to China, he bought himself a nice (cheap) suit, and very kindly, got one for me too. So of course, we had to wear them at the first opportunity, which happened to be initiation for brothers neither of us knew very well yet.


February seemed to primarily a blur of lots of snow. We had several sledding adventures on the hill with Zubie either in our laps or chasing us down the hill, barking the whole way and getting a face full of snow for his trouble. I got out of class with decent regularity. In one of my nights off, we decided to drive downtown to get some food. This trip should have been unremarkable if it weren't for the fact that Teddy locked his keys in his car, with it running. Fortunately, one door was only partially closed, and after much finagling, we were able to get a wire hanger in and pull the door handle from the inside. Of course, this event lead to a running joke every time we went anywhere, to make sure not to leave keys in the car.

In March, I began the month by visiting New York City during spring break for a few days with Kirsten, Anna, and some of Anna's friends, and we met Teddy there as well, who, along with his cousin, once again served as my guides through NYC. Our trip was only two days, but we did almost everything I had done on my first visit, which was four days. We took a Chinatown bus from DC to NYC Midtown (it drops you off by MSG). Going in, our goals were primarily gastronomic; Anna wanted to try to find the Best Burger in New York (courtesy of HIMYM), I insisted we had to try Katz and a Pizza too, and Teddy suggested we find a good Bagel place (something we'd failed to do in our first visit). We also located the bar that inspired MacClaren's from HIMYM, McGee's Pub, but ended up not stopping in.

Anywho, starting at the beginning, we took the Metro into Chinatown early in the morning and waited at our sketchy "bus stop" which was a sign over the door of an abandoned house's door. The bus, all black, eventually showed up, and we were on our way. We arrived in New York around 1:00 and made our way the half-dozen or so blocks from MSG to Madison Square Park, where our first (and only) Burger stop was: The Shake Shack. It's a little nicer than a shack, but it was a small building in the middle of a park. And we waited over an hour in line for our food. In addition to an amazing, heart-attack-inducing burger, we also got just as unhealthy cheese fries and something called a concrete. Our particular concrete was chocolate ice cream with brownie chunks, and probably some other chocolate items in the mix, with a consistency much like its name.


After our insanely delicious, and worth the wait meal, we took the subway to our hotel to put our stuff down and take a brief break. We then headed out and walked to Times Square. First stop was the Hershey's Store, which smelled deliciously of chocolate. I bought a Reese's shirt, and really hoped that it retained the smell of that store forever. Then we crossed the street and amused ourselves in the M&M's store for quite some time. It was much bigger than Hershey's (what with 3 floors), and was generally a little more ridiculous in the random things you could get with the M&M's logo on it. From there we headed into Times Square proper and looked into seeing a show, but even the cheapest tickets were a good bit more than we were looking to spend, and so we declined. Moving on down Times Square, we headed into the Toys R Us there and enjoyed the myriad displays and various toys themes, the Lego section, the Dinosaur section, and, of course, the Toy Story section. If you've never been, there's a Ferris Wheel inside the store. Truly a playland.

After Times Square, I think it was actually about dinner time, and with Teddy and I enthusiastically leading the way, we headed to Katz's Delicatessen. Kirsten followed Teddy and I's lead and ordered a pastrami Ruben (we probably should have shared). It wasn't quite as good as the first time, but that's like saying winning the lottery a second time wasn't as exciting as the first, it's that good. Anna wasn't nearly as pleased with her Philly Cheesesteak. Unfortunate, but we are in NY, not Philly. After our very filling dinner, we headed to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked half-way across it. We had a heck of a view from there, even if I did keep looking at the ground and water hundreds of feet below through the planks.

Our next stop was Rockefeller Center. One of my driving goals in the visit was to take Kirsten ice-skating at Rockefeller, so we did. While we skated, Anna and the others were entertained by an older Asian man doing interpretive ice-dance. He was so into it and enthusiastic you couldn't help but admire him. After our brief skate, we walked over to Rockefeller center and went to the "Top of the Rock," which is cheaper and much easier than going to the top of the Empire State Building. The view was incredible, nearly indescribable.

The relatively dark spot is Central Park. After we descended from those heights, we parted ways from our guides and I insisted on returning to Times Square, since it is a different place at night. Compared to my previous visit, it was relatively quiet. By that I mean we didn't see any party buses or Lamborghinis. Regardless, it's still an explosion of light and sound. Once we were done taking in all the sights and sounds, we walked our way back to the hotel and gratefully removed our shoes and quickly slipped into unconsciousness.

On day two, we took the subway uptown to Teddy's cousin's apartment to meet up with them, and from there, went to a bagel place for breakfast/brunch. From there we walked a ways and walked by Tom's Restaurant (of Seinfeld fame). Cam, Anna's roommate, wanted to see Strawberry Fields, so we obliged, and went to Central Park, entering by Strawberry fields and then walking through the park to Columbus Circle. We walked by McGee's Pub, then took the subway downtown to see Ground Zero, then walked to the Liberty Island Ferry. We walked briefly around the island, taking the obligatory photos with Lady Liberty, then headed back to the ferry. For the second time in as many trips, rather than get off at Ellis Island, I was in a group that was too tired and too short on time to bother, and so we stayed on board. From there we went to Lombardi's in Little Italy for Pizza.


This was my favorite of the three pizzas: Meatball, green pepper, and sliced tomato. Having tried NY and Chicago pizza, I can't say they compare. They are two completely different things, and both of them are, quite simply, awesome. After dinner, we quickly made our way to Insomnia Cookies, which was just a few blocks away, where Anna got a box of delicious and (at the time) warm cookies. We then bolted for the subway to get us back to MSG to catch our bus. We were cutting it close, and our nerves were not helped by a delay on the line that had us waiting nearly fifteen minutes for the next train, which then stopped a few times in between stations. Getting off the train and in a hurry, we managed to go the wrong way for a couple blocks before realizing our mistake and then I ran ahead to hold the bus if need be. Fortunately, the bus itself had been running late and so we made it. Not by much, but we made it.

I could continue on in March by describing how I got a ticket for a right on red, and then continue on to April and beyond, but this post, due to my love for writing about trips, is already quite long enough, so I will conclude it here for now.

All the best to you and yours,

-TES

Bloody Hell, We're in Canada!

So, this past weekend we did Insane Roadtrip 2009, take 2. Around 10:30pm on Friday, Dylan, Katie, Cory, Kirsten and I left Blacksburg bound for Milwaukee via Chicago. Dylan drove through West Virginia and Kentucky, pointing out to me (the only conscious one at the time) places he knew, where he lived, and so on. About 20 miles into Indiana, I took over and drove for a couple hours until we were a bit North of Indianapolis and had to stop for gas. I bought gas and then got to pass out in the back for a couple hours as dawn broke and Katie drove us into Chicago.

We parked downtown after a brief journey through the rougher South-side of Chicago thanks to some faulty direction by yours truly. Little sidenote, the garage we parked in happens to be the one used in the opening scene of Dark Knight. Just so you know... moving on. After we parked we walked down towards Lake Michigan and through Millennium Park. From there we went wandering for some Pizza. There's a chain of places called Giordano's, and Kirst and Cory wanted to check that place out since it bears the same name as a family friend. We made our way toward the closest one that showed up on my GPS to learn that it was no longer in that location.

So we made our way back to a different pizza place we had passed that looked pretty good: Pizzano's. We got a sausage, green pepper and buttercrust pizza. It was pretty fantastic. There wasn't as much sauce as there was on the pizza from D'agostino's, which I actually liked: It allowed me to taste the really good sausage and the crust, which was delicious.

After lunch, we made our way out of the city (which was remarkably less painful than last time), and headed for Milwaukee, WI. I napped a bit more on the way up. We proceeded to get slightly lost in first a rich neighborhood, then a very poor one. Eventually we made our way toward the stadium and stopped at a Best Western a few blocks away. We got an executive suite for $140, which was pretty sweet (no pun intended). We relaxed for a while and then walked over to the game.

It was kind of weird at first to be going to a baseball game indoors. However, the atmosphere was incredible. It was just very fun and family friendly. The food was good and relatively cheap ($4.50 for a sausage of any sort you could desire). The game was a lot of fun, there were plenty of little things to keep fans involved. All in all I had a great time, and it was undoubtedly my favorite ballpark of the few I've been to.

After the game, we made our way back to the hotel and promptly zonked out. It added a bit to our trip cost (about $30 a person), but it definitely helped with our sanity and general health. We could have gotten a hotel for much cheaper outside the city, but the convenience was invaluable, and the room was nice.

The next morning we checked out around 9:30 and jumped back in the truck and headed back to Chicago. Sadly, we were unable to take the time to go by the custard place that we had planned to visit. That's my only real regret from this trip. As crazy as it sounds though, I think I'd be willing to go back to Milwaukee. The city seemed really nice from the little I saw of it, and I really enjoyed the Brewers game.

We got off the highway right on to West Addison and parked about a mile and a half from the park. We took a shuttle that was included in our $6 parking that took us right to Wrigley. We took our touristy pictures and went shopping for hats for everyone.

Foolishly, when we parked, we left our sweaters and jackets because it was sunny and we were warm. When we got to our seats, we were decidedly chilly. We were up high, and in the shade. Game-time temperature was 58 degrees. I had never been so cold in August.

Regardless though, I think we all had a pretty good time (though Kirsten and Katie had to buy sweatshirts to do so, and I think Dylan might have been on the verge of hypothermia). The Italian beef sandwiches were quite good. This time I also got a Chicago-dog, which included nacho cheese and hot peppers on a very large hot-dog on a poppy-seed bun. Delicious.

After the game, we decided to walk back to the cars and get a to-go pizza from Dags on the way. Thus, we walked about a mile with a quite heavy pizza before eating it in the bed of Dylan's truck. I love Chicago pizza, but I think I gained ten pounds this weekend.

After that it was a long drive home, which didn't end until 6:30 am on Monday. Just a bit painful on my first day of classes. But, that said, I had a great time, and I think everyone else did as well. Sorry that this was a bit superficial, but I didn't want to write a novel... yet... about this.

All the best to you and yours,

-TES

Attack of the Wine-Os

So, this past week, Kirsten turned 21, the great defining age of a college student... Hurrah. Now unlike your typical collegiate, we did not immediately hit the bars and get her shwasted. Instead, I took the day off from work and we slept in. Then, when we eventually got up and ate something (around 1:00pm), we went to the pool in my apartment complex and hung out there for a couple hours.

When we got back, we played with Zubitube for a while, and letting him meet a bunch of other dogs, including a Rotty that Kirsten absolutely adored. She was right out of the mold of Freya: A 90 pound puppy, sweet as can be, who thinks she's a lap dog.

Then we went to Kroger to get supplies for dinner, which was going to be Chicago-style pizza, made from scratch. Kirsten decided to pick up a bottle of wine to go with dinner. We had no idea what to pick, so she picked one that had dogs on it. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, it was pretty terrible, but will probably be used to make a spaghetti sauce sometime in the near future.

Then we got back and I started making the dough. It was about 9:00pm before I got the right consistency, and then it has to sit for about an hour as it rises. Good thing we ate late. We'd forgotten to get a large pan that would fit the pizza, so while we waited on the dough, we went back to get one. Unfortunately, they didn't have any big ones, so we settled on making a small one.

We got back and Kirsten fried up some Italian sausage and green peppers while I worked on the sauce. We decided to use canned tomatoes because they were probably of much higher quality than the fresh ones at Kroger. I added some garlic and a good amount of sugar, and like that, I had a near match for the sauce we had in Chicago.

I molded half the dough we made into the pan, and put the other half in a bowl and covered that and put it in the fridge for later. We then put in most of the almost pound of shredded Mozzarella, put in some of the sausage and green pepper, then topped it with the rest and popped it in the oven at 350. The remainder of our pepper/sausage mix we put into the fridge with plans to make another the next night (which we would).

After 10 minutes or so, the pizza was well melted and the crust browned. The crust had risen enough that I could put some of the sauce on the top before cutting it and serving it. It was a bit difficult, but we managed to serve the slices, adding a bit of sauce on top once they were on the plate.

As you can imagine, it was delicious.

We made the same thing on Wednesday night, and served it a bit more intact through our experience.

On Thursday, Kirsten went with Katie on a winery tour. They had planned on going to three wineries. Unfortunately they got lost on their way to the first in Floyd. Once they got there however, they absolutely loved it. The guy running the tour was very nice, and let them try almost every wine they had, rather than just the half that were designated for that day's tastings. Katie decided it was best to not go to another winery because Kirsten would hate them by comparison to Chateau Morrisette.

They each bought four bottles of the wines they liked. Unsurprisingly (at least, I wasn't surprised), three of Kirsten's four were three of the four sweet wines the winery makes. When she got back Thursday night, she was gushing about the winery, the wines, how much fun she'd had, and all that. Secretly, a knowledge and appreciation for wines is something I've always wanted to develop, so it was easy for me to catch Kirsten's enthusiasm.

On Friday night we had a softball game, which ran late. Normally that would be nice since it means we got extra playing time. Unfortunately though, we had made plans to meet Eric to see Transformers at 10:10. The game was supposed to end at 9:00, but went to 9:20. We had to rush to get back and change before bolting back to Christiansburg for the movie. We were late, and made it just before the end of the previews.

The movie was certainly entertaining, if not exactly difficult to predict. Some of the acting was on the goofy side, but I came for the explosions, not the acting, which Michael Bay delivered in spades. After the movie, we hung out in front of the theater and talked with Donnie and Eric for a while. Eric mentioned that the Vintage Cellar hosted wine tastings every Saturday and, considering Kirsten's new interest, suggested we all go.

So, on Saturday, we did. Kirsten took a break from painting the full bathroom and we met Eric over at the Vintage Cellar. I had no clue what the guy was talking about most of the time, but I really liked three of the five wines he had us try, the most expensive of which was $8.95 a bottle. The first two were whites, very smooth and easy to drink, and the last was a sparkling red that was essentially alcoholic sparkling grape juice. Kirsten got the sparkling wine, I got a bottle of a dry wine from Chateau Morrisette (which I saw at Kroger 10 minutes later for $3.00 less...), and Eric got the first bottle that we had tried. Then we made plans for him to come over and hang out after dinner.

Kirsten wanted to grill steaks for dinner, so after the Vintage Cellar, we went over to Kroger and got the food for dinner, along with a wine stopper and some wine glasses... Kirsten was excited to see that Kroger had all of Chateau Morrisette's wines in stock, some for less than they were marked at the winery.

We had baked potatoes (not fully baked... my bad...), grilled corn and our steaks, marinated with Lawry's Signature Steakhouse Marinade... which I highly recommend by the way. To go with dinner, we had one of the wines Kirsten had bought, a Blackberry Wine. Overall, a very delicious dinner, perfect for a Saturday.

After dinner, Eric came over, brought the wine he'd bought along with a few movies he was lending me to watch. We hung around, had some blueberries and yogurt for dessert and chatted until Katie could come over after she got off work. Then we started the movie, The International, which was completely the wrong movie to be watching while we talked off and on, tried wines, and cheese... and generally didn't pay full attention. I liked what I saw enough to want to watch it again though.

So, in conclusion... as Kirsten said, "God, we're old..." which is sort of my sentiment... but slightly more optimistic that this is an interesting hobby to have, and, so long as we don't start going through several bottles a week, relatively affordable.

All the best to you and yours,

-TES

The End (of the semester) is Nigh

And with the end of the semester comes 2 things: 1.) Kirsten is even busier than she has been all semester with school work, which I didn't realize was possible, and 2.) I'm not just sitting around twiddling my thumbs for most of the time I'm at work.

As far as Kirsten being busier, that mostly means I'll have to entertain myself a bit more for the next week and a bit, and stay out of her hair as much as I can. So maybe I'll take the time to work on my Arabic a bit, read some books I've been trying to get to, and finalize some things for grad school next semester.

Who am I kidding? I'm going to be watching playoff hockey if I can find it on TV. I find it very annoying that the majority of the games are being aired on Versus. No one carries versus... what the hell? Though, Comcast does give us MASN2, which it's not supposed to. It doesn't even list it as MASN2, but I can watch Nats games on it, sometimes. So, maybe we do have Versus and I don't even know it...

With work, well, I'm projecting that the next week or so will suck, considering we have a bunch of new people for the rush, so most of the time I'm just watching over them or doing nothing, and also the big boss man is coming into town, and he always comes up with pain in the ass projects for me to do. Though this time it might be building a slide from the second floor to the first, which could be fun. But yeah, just to run through the things I've done in that store which I should be paid a lot more for are: installing insulation, painting, staining, building shelves attached to the walls, correcting a mistake in the original installation of the light sensors, installing lights into the ceiling upstairs, moving lights, rewiring lights, and so on... Though, honestly, that is more fun than when I actually do things that are in my job description. I would just like to be properly compensated for it.

Yesterday, we watched the Caps win in game one, and then sat around with all the Kentucky Derby stuff going on in the background. I wish we had all bet on the race online, because while Cory and I would have lost our bets, Kirsten picked Mine that Bird to win, and at 50:1, that would have been a nice winning.

Afterward, we went to Macado's for an improvised Delt Semi's, since someone dropped the ball. We had to wait almost an hour before being seated, and we ended up sitting at two separate tables, one upstairs, one down. Despite that, we still had fun, and definitely had plenty of time to talk since our waiter consistently disappeared for long periods. After dinner, Kirsten had work to do, so we decided to go back to her place rather than go to the house for the after party.

On Friday, we went and saw X-Men Origins. I enjoyed the movie, despite the fact that, in some scenes, the special effects were surprisingly bad. After looking through some people's complaints about the movie, I definitely see their problems, but at the same time, I enjoyed it. There were plenty of things that didn't quite make sense, scientifically speaking... but this is a movie about superhero mutants... so... not a big problem for me.

Also this weekend, Kirsten got a packet from a caterer this weekend outlining their services and whatnot. We looked through it and decided these people are crazy. It's very expensive and too... high class I guess? Reading through the menus, I was reminded of every single time Patrick Bateman goes to a restaurant in American Psycho. For example, let me outline their cheapest menu, at $80 a head for 100 people:

Passed Hors D'oeuvres

Pastrami-Cured Salmon on a corn cake with orange blossom honey mustard

Roast Beef and Arugula Crostini with an artichoke red pepper relish on brioche toast

Phyllo Purse: Brie cheese with almond and pear wrapped in layers of phyllo with a curry aoli

First Course

Heirloom Tomato Salad with Burrata cheese, wild Arugula and San Danielle prosciutto wrapped mini French baguette with aged balsamic vinaigrette

Main Course

Sweetheart Chicken: breast of free-range chicken presented on a heart shaped crouton with rosemary and Chanterelle mushrooms and roasted shallot jus accompanied by asparagus spears, potato cake and baby carrots

So basically, if we have any vegetarians, they're screwed... also, if you don't like mushrooms and asparagus, which I don't, tough luck. Also, from the pictures, a lot of these main courses look like something from those really ridiculous french restaurants where you get a single thin slice of a beef roast, about three inches around, and then random sauces glazed on the plate. So... looks like we'll be moving on to looking at another caterer.

Anywho... I'm sure I've overlooked something or another, but I think this is plenty long enough for now.

All the best to you and yours,

-TES