| no christmas for me |
[Dec. 22nd, 2008|06:31 pm] |
Alaska cancelled their flights today. After being in line for 4 hours to get into standby which I was in until 6~pm, I gave up and came home.
Cancelled my flights and got a refund.
I'll fly to see my parents in January. I didn't mind too much, but now I feel kind of guilty about it. Also, no one is around in Seattle except for me.
What should I do for my vacation days...?? Can't decide! |
|
|
| Barcelona |
[Dec. 16th, 2008|01:38 am] |
I went to barcelona fairly recently for work. I did a talk at a MS conference (TechEd EMEA). Anyway, Janice came along for part and I did a bunch of sight seeing and eating. I put up some pics @ http://flickr.com/photos/amrock/sets/72157611243551391/
(Yes, I'm actually going to try and reuse my flickr again...)
Food was pretty delicious, except for one resturant that was only "meh" quality.
I like Barcelona because it's medium sized. It's not like Paris, where I could stay for weeks on end and still feel totally overwhelmed. Barcelona, I can go to the city and feel like after a week or two that I at least know where things "are".
Also, I'm going to try and post more... |
|
|
| memorial day steak with grilled asparagus and rosemary garlic sweet potatoes |
[May. 27th, 2008|01:48 am] |
Today I made 14 day dry aged ribeye steak with grilled asparagus and rosemary garlic sweet potaotes. The wine is a Chateau St Jean 2004 cab.
The wine was great. Very smooth, strong notes of vanilla. I liked the sweet potoates and the asparagus more then the steak, actually. Personally I don't think the dry age meat is worth the extra price increase. It was more gamy but more flavorful. I switched steak cooking techniques (see after the cut), so it may have been because of that rather then the dry aged meat.
( More pics after the cut ) |
|
|
| View! |
[May. 17th, 2008|07:17 pm] |
It's been super sunny and summer-y and happy here. I took this picture yesterday before I went out (clickies for big)
Yes, I want to cut that tree down. |
|
|
| cooking steak, turning the fire alarm off every 3 minutes... |
[Apr. 29th, 2008|10:41 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  happy | ] |
... and caking your entire apartment with a thin film of oil and grease.
I just cooked a most delicious steak using the following method:
1) preheat oven to 500. put cast iron skillet in oven immediately.
2) turn on stove at max heat.
3) at 500deg, take out skillet. put steak on it, dry (previously rubbed with salt, pepper & a little bit of olive oil)
4) cook each side for 3-5 minutes
5) put back into oven for about 5-8 more depending on doneness
6) let rest for 5 minutes
7) FOOD-GASM
Unforunately, about about step 4 the fire alarm went off. So I put it back into the oven (the only place that would keep the smoke enclosed) for about 5 minutes - I think - while I was freaking out about what to do. And then I flipped sides in about 2 seconds keeping the entire smoking thing inside the oven.
Even though I was fast, the fire alarm went off again.
About 3 minutes later, I pulled the steak out with my fingers (ouch) and left the skillet inside the oven (now off).
The fire alarm went off again. I was afraid the building one might go off at this point. It didn't, luckily. So for once, I actually managed to leave the food alone to rest, and waited probably 10 minutes.
The steak was delicious. The problem was, obviously, my apartment's ceiling was filled with smoke, and my neighbours hate me.
Any ideas how to get around this issue? I'm thinking about buying a propane burner (like the ones they use for camping) and doing it out on my balcony with just the skillet, but I'm not sure it'll get hot enough. I am trying to resist getting a real grill, of course. It has to be small, and fairly cheap. Has anyone tried this?
( pictures! ) |
|
|
| Back. Into. It. |
[Jan. 29th, 2008|02:11 am] |
No apologies, no grand life update. Gonna get back onto this horse and saddle and just get right into it.
A couple pics I've been wanting to post for a bit; one for james, one for mairin:
Also, I now am a proud owner of a Express and a BR store credit card.
Just sayin'.
|
|
|
| Trip to seattle, #1 |
[May. 24th, 2007|01:39 am] |
I rented a budget truck to take my stuff to seattle. it cost $500 to rent, $200 on gas, $50 for motel. Took about 16 hours to drive there.
I ended up missing the flight back too, because I returned the truck to the wrong place and had to drive 20 miles back into the city (rush hour traffic - this was at 9am!) Then my cab didn't show up for 20 minutes. Very lame.
Luckily, the US Airways people were very nice and booked me onto a continental flight later that night for no charge. even better i changed from a stop over in Phoenix to a direct flight, albeit one that got in at midnight.
Now... i'm home. tired. eating mom's home made YUM.
I'm considering my second drive up to Seattle with my car. Does anyone want to drive with me for any leg of the journey?
Here's what i have so far:
houston to el paso, 772 mi, one day. stay one night
el paso to LA, ca 802 mi, one night at charles
la, ca to sf, ca, 382 mi, stay at places...stay 2 days/1night?
sf, ca to seattle, wa, 808 mi, arrive |
|
|
| I'm done. |
[May. 16th, 2007|06:58 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | Satisfied | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Ratatat | ] |
I just finished my Ethnic Studies 137AC final paper, "Race and Class in H-1B visa public discourse".
I'm officially done.
Graduated.
Here comes powerpoint slides and word specs, hardwood floors and black pianos, a red Toyata Camry and about 2500 miles, new clothes and new shoes.
I feel... empty.
EDIT: I feel delirious with happiness! |
|
|
| Tenative movie schedule |
[Mar. 15th, 2007|01:59 am] |
( schedule )
Basically, I may elect not to see all of these movies, but I won't ever add any movies. The scheduling is such that I can basically see all of them if I so choose. I probably won't.
Green obviously means I'm going or could go, red means I can't or I don't need to, and yellow means I can't and I won't be able to see it.
http://www.asianamericanfilmfestival.org/
Edit: Woman is the future of man is sold out (!!) and instead of all 3 on Sat I'm going to watch made in korea with James.
Edit 2: I reordered the movies. Refresh the page and the picture should change (if it doesn't, ctrl+F5) |
|
|
| Vista. |
[Feb. 17th, 2007|10:28 am] |
I'm now running Vista. A few notes on it:
1) It's fast. I mean, it's fast. Surprising - this summer it was dog slow on a much faster computer.
2) UAC is not annoying. It *is* until you turn off Secure Desktop - here's how. After my initial setup, I rarely get the thing, and because it no longer blanks out the screen, it's not annoying anymore. Serious.
3) Preview is really cool. I like that it updates thumbnails for programs (including video and games). No one else does this. It pop ups a little thumbnail when you mouse over things on the task bar. Alt tab shows previews. There's a cool little Expose clone, but it's a little buggy. I think it has to do with programs running in admin mode, which admittedly is rare.
4) Sleep is the best feature ever. When I put the desktop in sleep, all the fans turn off, but the memory is still being refreshed. I can wake up the desktop in like 2 seconds and its totally useable. Now I can sleep in silence!
5) Search is awesome. No more looking through the start menu for programs that hide their name under "<some idiotic company name>". Search finds your emails super fast. Files. Anything. It's pretty cool. (Office 2007 is also realllly cool BUT outlook 2k7 is slow until it indexes all your mail - took me like 4 days in the background)
6) There is a volume mixer to mix the volume coming from each program. Awesome feature.
7) I don't run games. No comment here.
8) My PCI TV capture card doesn't work. ATI won't release drivers for Vista. "It's too old!" This is lameness (I can't play XBOX360 now). Can I buy a tiny TV from someone?
9) No drivers are out for my recording stuff. It's okay, though, because I can run it on my laptop anyway. I don't really want to run Cubase on vista anyway yet.
9) WMP11 is quite nice, but I wish I could run multiple versions of it. Luckily, I usually use Media player classic to run videos and stuff, so it's fine. (Note: you need to enable DX9 output, otherwise Vista will turn off glass when you run MPClassic!)
10) They renamed "My documents etc" to \user, and now I can redirect Desktop, Downloads, Music etc. to point to whatever I want. This is great because now all my shit is saved remotely.
11) Supposedly the DRM is really horrible, but I've yet to encounter this. Just sayin'.
12) IE7 has no mouse gestures. Sticking to FF2.0
( Some screens ) |
|
|
| lovemakers 2 extra tickets |
[Jan. 18th, 2007|05:43 pm] |
I thought I only bought one, but it turns out I hit down accidentally in the text box before hitting enter. Then jeremy bought me one before asking if I had one. This is EXCELLENTE.
So yea, two tix if anyone is up for it? They are free? lovemakers are wonderful? What else can I say? You're awesome too? |
|
|
| Fuck you, target |
[Jan. 13th, 2007|06:34 am] |
Target double scanned my pair of cargo shorts (19.99+tax).
Should I go back and argue? I don't even have a car to get there.
Fuck me, 19.99+tax is like 3.5 meals at the ghetto. |
|
|
| ♥ |
[Jan. 12th, 2007|11:21 pm] |
I publicly declare my undying love for these wonderful snacks. |
|
|
| Found a song |
[Nov. 7th, 2006|03:42 am] |
I did a cover of The Artist in the Ambulance a month or so back and I forgot all about it. I was cleaning up when I found it. Here it is.
artistagain
I think it's a lot better then the one I did a year or two ago. |
|
|
| Story time! |
[Nov. 6th, 2006|03:45 am] |
Awesomeness
I talked to the advisor of CS, Barbara Hightower, and she says there are no problems with me declaring CS this semester. There is an 80 unit cap (to declare) that seemed to get into the way, but it turns out that was introduced in Fall '04. I started Fall '03. So in other words.. I'm going to declare the CS major at 148 units. Awesome. Currently I'm a double major; I would switch to just CS so I don't have to take any more lab, but unforunately it's after the pass/fail date, so it wouldn't matter. I can still drop the major next semester. If I do, I have to take 1 breadth class as opposed to 3 tech classes and a breadth...
Guitar center
Me and Anthony went to Guitar center on Friday. I spent $100. I bought a guitar stand, a pop filter, and a cable. Yes, that was $100. I was quite the asshole when I bought my guitar stand. I wanted a very specific model, the one I got over summer, which is a two leg A frame model with locking neck support. It's so hard to find, it's not even on the guitarcenter.com website. It's very sturdy, won't rock even if a Les Paul (mine is 11.5 lbs - I measured yesterday) is dropped onto it, and the neck suppoprt has this locking retainer thing that assures you the guitar won't drop out. It fits acoustics and electrics fine, and takes up a lot less space then a three leg tripod version. In other words, it's perfect. I waited 30 minutes while the guy tried to find it. After he failed (I sent him back 3 times - I'm such an asshole), we had the epiphany of looking up my purchase history. We finally checked every single store in WA to find the one I spent most of my time at last summer, then we had to look up every purchase I made there, because I couldn't remember when I bought it. I was a little scared to see that about every two weeks I was spending $100~ there. There were also a couple $1k+ purchases. Expensive hobby, music... Anyway, eventually we find the exact model number and I get my stand. We retreat to KFC for KFC snackers, which were quite good. Processed chicken, ahhh.
Edit: I found it via the powars of google: http://www.activemusician.com/item--MP.OSS-71049/ref=fg |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
lastquestion's journal
lazy