I need to set up a photo album first, but then I'll catch you all up on what I've been up to the past few weeks. But in the meantime, Happy New Year! I'm not one usually inclined to make New Year's resolutions, believing as I do that every day is a perfectly fine opportunity for a new start. But I'm making a bit of an exception, in the hopes of perhaps holding myself a bit more accountable if I put these out there for everyone to see. So here are my goals for 2006 (feel free to share yours as well, if you want):
1) Take lessons and learn to play the guitar.
2) Learn some Spanish (and maybe refresh a little on my French) -- do this using my Spanish phrase-a-day calendar and Spanish language tapes.
3) Be better about keeping in touch with people -- don't let any e-mails go unanswered for more than a week (maybe two). And if it's been a couple of months since I've heard from a friend, drop them a note.
4) Blog more often. It doesn't always have to be about some big event or something funny (although it doesn't hurt).
5) Get back to going to the gym 5 days a week. If for some reason, I can't make it to the gym, stretch and jump rope.
6) Start practicing tai chi again on a regular basis.
7) Floss at least every other day.
8) Cook more.
9) Eat healthier -- keep track of what I eat everyday on www.mypyramid.gov/index.html to keep myself accountable.
10) Start the process for buying a house so that I can do that by the time my lease ends in February 2007.
11) Do more hiking, biking and other outdoor activities.
12) Get my Christmas cards from 2005 out. :-)
I'll let you know if I think of any others...
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Merry Chrismakwanzakkuh
I'll update soon, but in the meantime, have a Merry Christmas!
As Tiny Tim said, "God bless us, every one."
As Tiny Tim said, "God bless us, every one."
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Celebratory Deathmatch
It appears a number of conservative Christians are upset about the White House's Christmas cards this year -- or rather "holiday" cards, as they do not specifically mention Christmas. But I mention this because of the following quote from the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches and a former Democratic congressman:
"I think it's more important to put Christ back into our war planning than into our Christmas cards."
And he's right. I mean, more of generals should be asking themselves: WWJK? (Who would Jesus kill?) He was, after all, known for his immense skill in war game strategy. And there's no better stocking stuffer to give other countries than a crusade.
But it's possible he wasn't talking about wars such as the war on terrorism or the war in Iraq or the war on drugs (are we still fighting that?). Because the Heritage Foundation says there is a "war on Christmas." Although I don't think Christmas has either oil or weapons of mass destruction.
I'm assuming that Santa is leading the other side of this war against Baby Jesus. As any kid can tell you, rearrange the letters in "Santa" and you get "Satan" (they both wear red...). So that got me thinking: In an epic battle between Jesus and Santa, who would win? Let's look at the breakdown.
SPECIAL POWERS
Santa: Super stealth -- the guy can get into and out of any house undetected. Also, possibly super speed. And while he can't fly, his reindeer can.
Jesus: Walking on water, which will be handy when Jesus wants to get to Santa's North Pole lair. Also, healing and bringing the dead back to life, which is going to make it really hard to take down Jesus' army. Plus, if you kill him, he's just going to be back in three days.
Advantage: Jesus
POSSE
Santa: Nine reindeer that can fly and that have antlers, perfect for fly-by gougings. Elves -- even though they normally build toys, they could very well be capable of building more dangerous items. Also, they're small, which makes them harder to hit.
Jesus: 12 Apostles. They can ... umm, fish?
Advantage: Santa
TRAINING
Santa: I think it's obvious that Jelly Belly doesn't spend a lot of time in the off-season doing any physical training.
Jesus: A pretty fit guy; he does a lot of walking, including up and down mountains. And a wimp isn't going to be able to overturn the table of a moneychanger.
Advantage: Jesus
RESERVE ARMIES
Santa: The children love that guy.
Jesus: He did say, "Let the children come to me" so that could split that group of support. Also popular among lepers and tax collectors.
Advantage: Jesus, by the rotting skin of a leper's teeth.
ENDURANCE
Santa: Unless they've got a stockpile of fruit cakes in the North Pole, I'm pretty sure the elves can't make food. So in case of a long siege, those reindeer are probably going to start looking pretty tasty.
Jesus: He can multiply loaves and fishes. Also, getting wine out of a rock? Now that's a good morale booster for the troops.
Advantage: Jesus
HOME COURT ADVANTAGE
Santa: It's the North Frickin' Pole. And while the postman may be able to get there, I'm pretty sure the good people of Galilee would freeze to death.
Jesus: The Mediterranean. It's balmy. And Santa's been all around the world. He won't even break a sweat.
Advantage: Santa
BEST SURPRISE MOVE
Santa: One word -- Tannenbombs
Jesus: He expels the demons from a possessed person and sends them into the reindeer, who then drown themselves in the sea.
Advantage: Santa
SECRET WEAPON
Santa: He's got a sack that seems be infinite. So who knows what is in that thing.
Jesus: Dad.
Advantage: Jesus
WINNER: Sorry, Santa, it looks like Jesus is going to put the smackdown on you. Have you considered enlisting the help of the Easter Bunny?
"I think it's more important to put Christ back into our war planning than into our Christmas cards."
And he's right. I mean, more of generals should be asking themselves: WWJK? (Who would Jesus kill?) He was, after all, known for his immense skill in war game strategy. And there's no better stocking stuffer to give other countries than a crusade.
But it's possible he wasn't talking about wars such as the war on terrorism or the war in Iraq or the war on drugs (are we still fighting that?). Because the Heritage Foundation says there is a "war on Christmas." Although I don't think Christmas has either oil or weapons of mass destruction.
I'm assuming that Santa is leading the other side of this war against Baby Jesus. As any kid can tell you, rearrange the letters in "Santa" and you get "Satan" (they both wear red...). So that got me thinking: In an epic battle between Jesus and Santa, who would win? Let's look at the breakdown.
SPECIAL POWERS
Santa: Super stealth -- the guy can get into and out of any house undetected. Also, possibly super speed. And while he can't fly, his reindeer can.
Jesus: Walking on water, which will be handy when Jesus wants to get to Santa's North Pole lair. Also, healing and bringing the dead back to life, which is going to make it really hard to take down Jesus' army. Plus, if you kill him, he's just going to be back in three days.
Advantage: Jesus
POSSE
Santa: Nine reindeer that can fly and that have antlers, perfect for fly-by gougings. Elves -- even though they normally build toys, they could very well be capable of building more dangerous items. Also, they're small, which makes them harder to hit.
Jesus: 12 Apostles. They can ... umm, fish?
Advantage: Santa
TRAINING
Santa: I think it's obvious that Jelly Belly doesn't spend a lot of time in the off-season doing any physical training.
Jesus: A pretty fit guy; he does a lot of walking, including up and down mountains. And a wimp isn't going to be able to overturn the table of a moneychanger.
Advantage: Jesus
RESERVE ARMIES
Santa: The children love that guy.
Jesus: He did say, "Let the children come to me" so that could split that group of support. Also popular among lepers and tax collectors.
Advantage: Jesus, by the rotting skin of a leper's teeth.
ENDURANCE
Santa: Unless they've got a stockpile of fruit cakes in the North Pole, I'm pretty sure the elves can't make food. So in case of a long siege, those reindeer are probably going to start looking pretty tasty.
Jesus: He can multiply loaves and fishes. Also, getting wine out of a rock? Now that's a good morale booster for the troops.
Advantage: Jesus
HOME COURT ADVANTAGE
Santa: It's the North Frickin' Pole. And while the postman may be able to get there, I'm pretty sure the good people of Galilee would freeze to death.
Jesus: The Mediterranean. It's balmy. And Santa's been all around the world. He won't even break a sweat.
Advantage: Santa
BEST SURPRISE MOVE
Santa: One word -- Tannenbombs
Jesus: He expels the demons from a possessed person and sends them into the reindeer, who then drown themselves in the sea.
Advantage: Santa
SECRET WEAPON
Santa: He's got a sack that seems be infinite. So who knows what is in that thing.
Jesus: Dad.
Advantage: Jesus
WINNER: Sorry, Santa, it looks like Jesus is going to put the smackdown on you. Have you considered enlisting the help of the Easter Bunny?
Monday, December 05, 2005
Xtreme embarrassment
Work asked if anyone would be willing to write a short article on going snowboarding, so I volunteered. I've skied for a long time and have wanted to try snowboarding for a few years, but have never gotten around to it. I've never skateboarded and I'm not exactly the type to be thrashing down a half-pipe doing 360s and ollies or whatever while chugging Mountain Dew, but I figured it was a good excuse to give it a shot.
I went yesterday and this was pretty much how the day went:
7 a.m.: Alarm goes off. I had originally planned on driving out earlier to the ski resort, which is about three and a half hours away in western Virginia, but when I didn't get home from work until about 1 a.m. I thought better of it.
8:30: I'm finally on the road after having showered, eaten, gotten all my stuff together and stopped by the house of a friend for whom I'm dog sitting. It's mornings like these that I really wish I drank coffee. I could desperately use the caffeine. Instead, I pull over at a rest stop for a quick nap along the way.
Noon: I get to the ski resort and am surprised that there is no snow anywhere. But then again, of course there's no snow. It's been a warm winter until recently and I'm not that high up. How depressing. But they have a few runs open that they've covered with manmade snow. I get a half-day pass and rent a snowboard and boots. With the rental comes a free beginner lesson. The next one, though, isn't until 2 or 2:30.
12:30: I grab a quick lunch and watch the people on the slopes. Most of the snowboarders make it look easy. I know they're lying.
1:00: I decide to try to get a feel for the snowboard while I'm waiting for the lesson to begin. I strap myself in and manage to stand up.
I promptly fall over.
I stand up again.
And promptly fall over.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 several more times.
Finally, I decide to move to somewhere with less people standing around in order to minimize my embarrassment.
I watch two young girls who have coerced a third friend into trying to snowboard. I listen in on what they're telling her, hoping to glean some information that might be useful. Unfortunately for me, and their friend, they're not a lot of help.
I finally get to the point where I can stand up and slide back and forth a little. On flat land. I try moving slowly down a hill and quickly lose balance and fall.
At this point, I should mention something: I have been warned about this. Everyone I know who was ever snowboarded has said that it is difficult. There's a steep learning curve, they say, so don't expect to get the hang of it until after you've done it a lot.
They are right.
Colorado skiing background, a pretty decent sense of balance, comfort on a mountain slope -- all of these traits are for naught.
2:15: I at least get pretty good at strapping my boots into the snowboard and am OK at standing up by the time the lesson starts. The class consists of me and a young couple. We go over the basics of safety and naming the parts of the board. We practice sliding around with one foot strapped to the board, which is a lot harder than it looks.
2:25: Finally, we hit the slope. We practice standing. I will have a lot of practice at getting up before the afternoon is over. Then we practice moving on the heel edge of the board. Later we practice the toe edge. It takes an eternity to get down the slope. I will sum up a very lengthy journey like this: I fell. A lot. Occasionally, I would have moments of comprehension that would last for a few seconds and were followed by a loss of control and either a face plant or a butt fall. I exerted way more energy than I ever would have thought possible and suddenly understood why, when you usually see snowboarders, they're sitting down on the slopes. It's freaking exhausting. It took me about 40 minutes to get to the bottom of the slope. I sense that the instructor, while nice, was probably a little impatient with me. The other two in the class made it down in about half the time it took me. They, too, were nice about it, but I felt bad.
3:10: We get on the lift. To say that it's a huge relief to be sitting down on something that's not the cold, wet ground is an understatement. That relief turns to embarrassment for the umpteenth time that day when I fall down trying to get off the lift and must quickly crawl/slide on my rear to get out of the way before the people on the next lift chair run me over.
3:15: The instructor and the rest of the class prepare for a second run. I politely bow out. I don't want to make them suffer any more than they already have and I desperately need a break.
3:25: I stop by the restaurant and order a glass of water, a smoothie and an ice cream sundae. After all of that, I'm burning up. The waitress, who is a friendly, motherly sort, wants to know what sort of food I order in the summer.
3:45: It's possible I have overestimated in my food choice. By the time the sundae arrives, I've not only cooled down, I've chilled myself. I barely eat any of the sundae. The waitress says I look defeated by the sundae. She is right, but the look of defeat has more to do with having spent the past few hours having my ass spanked by a 3-foot board working in tandem with a mountain.
3:55: I head back outside and decide if I want to try another run. But a lot of me is soaked and cold, and frankly, I'm not sure I can make it to the bottom of the hill before the lifts close at 4:30. In the half-hour I've been sitting down, I also feel like my muscles have atrophied. And I have to try to take some pictures of snowboarders to go with the article. So I pack it in, grab the camera and spend awhile shooting photos.
4:30: I'm on the road again. About 7 hours of driving for one full run on the hill. I am humbled. In the future, I know that I can either stick with skiing, which I know and which comes fairly easy for me now, or I can try snowboarding, which is new and difficult. One of those telling life choices. I'd like to think I'll choose to snowboard again. Although given the distance of the slopes and that I'll probably only get out there once or twice a year -- if that -- it's going to be difficult to feel like I'm having fun on a board anytime soon. But we'll see.
5:30: I fill up at a gas station and grab a Mountain Dew while I'm there. I chug it. At least I've done something Xtreme today.
I went yesterday and this was pretty much how the day went:
7 a.m.: Alarm goes off. I had originally planned on driving out earlier to the ski resort, which is about three and a half hours away in western Virginia, but when I didn't get home from work until about 1 a.m. I thought better of it.
8:30: I'm finally on the road after having showered, eaten, gotten all my stuff together and stopped by the house of a friend for whom I'm dog sitting. It's mornings like these that I really wish I drank coffee. I could desperately use the caffeine. Instead, I pull over at a rest stop for a quick nap along the way.
Noon: I get to the ski resort and am surprised that there is no snow anywhere. But then again, of course there's no snow. It's been a warm winter until recently and I'm not that high up. How depressing. But they have a few runs open that they've covered with manmade snow. I get a half-day pass and rent a snowboard and boots. With the rental comes a free beginner lesson. The next one, though, isn't until 2 or 2:30.
12:30: I grab a quick lunch and watch the people on the slopes. Most of the snowboarders make it look easy. I know they're lying.
1:00: I decide to try to get a feel for the snowboard while I'm waiting for the lesson to begin. I strap myself in and manage to stand up.
I promptly fall over.
I stand up again.
And promptly fall over.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 several more times.
Finally, I decide to move to somewhere with less people standing around in order to minimize my embarrassment.
I watch two young girls who have coerced a third friend into trying to snowboard. I listen in on what they're telling her, hoping to glean some information that might be useful. Unfortunately for me, and their friend, they're not a lot of help.
I finally get to the point where I can stand up and slide back and forth a little. On flat land. I try moving slowly down a hill and quickly lose balance and fall.
At this point, I should mention something: I have been warned about this. Everyone I know who was ever snowboarded has said that it is difficult. There's a steep learning curve, they say, so don't expect to get the hang of it until after you've done it a lot.
They are right.
Colorado skiing background, a pretty decent sense of balance, comfort on a mountain slope -- all of these traits are for naught.
2:15: I at least get pretty good at strapping my boots into the snowboard and am OK at standing up by the time the lesson starts. The class consists of me and a young couple. We go over the basics of safety and naming the parts of the board. We practice sliding around with one foot strapped to the board, which is a lot harder than it looks.
2:25: Finally, we hit the slope. We practice standing. I will have a lot of practice at getting up before the afternoon is over. Then we practice moving on the heel edge of the board. Later we practice the toe edge. It takes an eternity to get down the slope. I will sum up a very lengthy journey like this: I fell. A lot. Occasionally, I would have moments of comprehension that would last for a few seconds and were followed by a loss of control and either a face plant or a butt fall. I exerted way more energy than I ever would have thought possible and suddenly understood why, when you usually see snowboarders, they're sitting down on the slopes. It's freaking exhausting. It took me about 40 minutes to get to the bottom of the slope. I sense that the instructor, while nice, was probably a little impatient with me. The other two in the class made it down in about half the time it took me. They, too, were nice about it, but I felt bad.
3:10: We get on the lift. To say that it's a huge relief to be sitting down on something that's not the cold, wet ground is an understatement. That relief turns to embarrassment for the umpteenth time that day when I fall down trying to get off the lift and must quickly crawl/slide on my rear to get out of the way before the people on the next lift chair run me over.
3:15: The instructor and the rest of the class prepare for a second run. I politely bow out. I don't want to make them suffer any more than they already have and I desperately need a break.
3:25: I stop by the restaurant and order a glass of water, a smoothie and an ice cream sundae. After all of that, I'm burning up. The waitress, who is a friendly, motherly sort, wants to know what sort of food I order in the summer.
3:45: It's possible I have overestimated in my food choice. By the time the sundae arrives, I've not only cooled down, I've chilled myself. I barely eat any of the sundae. The waitress says I look defeated by the sundae. She is right, but the look of defeat has more to do with having spent the past few hours having my ass spanked by a 3-foot board working in tandem with a mountain.
3:55: I head back outside and decide if I want to try another run. But a lot of me is soaked and cold, and frankly, I'm not sure I can make it to the bottom of the hill before the lifts close at 4:30. In the half-hour I've been sitting down, I also feel like my muscles have atrophied. And I have to try to take some pictures of snowboarders to go with the article. So I pack it in, grab the camera and spend awhile shooting photos.
4:30: I'm on the road again. About 7 hours of driving for one full run on the hill. I am humbled. In the future, I know that I can either stick with skiing, which I know and which comes fairly easy for me now, or I can try snowboarding, which is new and difficult. One of those telling life choices. I'd like to think I'll choose to snowboard again. Although given the distance of the slopes and that I'll probably only get out there once or twice a year -- if that -- it's going to be difficult to feel like I'm having fun on a board anytime soon. But we'll see.
5:30: I fill up at a gas station and grab a Mountain Dew while I'm there. I chug it. At least I've done something Xtreme today.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Story leftovers
(As a quick note, News in a Nutshell is on hiatus through the holidays -- I'll be out of town some and I'd really like to try to get Christmas cards sent before Valentine's Day this year, so I won't have a lot of time. But if I run across any really interesting articles, I'll let you know. And I'll try to update a little more frequently.)
So this Thanksgiving was definitely a good test of my culinary skills. I had to cook a dish for a get-together with work friends on Thanksgiving (yes, I worked), and then prepare the meal for my parents and brother, who were coming into town on Friday. I went to the grocery store at the beginning of last week and realized two things:
1) You shouldn't go to the grocery store the week of Thanksgiving because it's a mad house.
2) You shouldn't wait that long to buy a turkey either. They were out of fresh turkeys and only had frozen ones that wouldn't have thawed in time.
So I decided to go with ham -- delicious and easier to make. Everyone wins!
For the work dinner, I decided to make sweet potatoes, something I hadn't done before, but figured wouldn't be too difficult. Plus, I could make a double batch of it, take 3/4 to the work dinner and keep a fourth of it to serve the next day to the family. I bought fresh sweet potatoes, scoffing at the cans of sweet potatoes. I needed eight medium sweet potatoes, but apparently I was in the mutant sweet potato section because they were all pretty big. When I began to peel and dice the potatoes, I began to rue how I had laughed at the cans. I get it now.
I also had more sweet potatoes than I really needed, which required some ... improvisation with the ingredient amounts. It worked out all right, except when I realized I didn't have brown sugar like I thought I did. So while one batch of potatoes was boiling, I quickly drove to the store to get a bag of brown sugar and get back before I accidentally burned my apartment down or something. It turned out pretty well. Some people who don't normally like sweet potatoes even said they liked them, so maybe there's something to be said for the trouble of fresh sweet potatoes.
Just stay away from the giant, mutant ones.
As far as Thanksgiving, the menu called for:
Ham
Sweet potatoes
A corn/cornbread dish, the recipe for which my mom gave me
Croissants
Sparkling cider
Most of that stuff was pretty easy to make and it all went off without a hitch. Although due to a typo in the corn recipe, I bought nine boxes of corn muffin mix instead of one. I thought nine seemed like a lot, but there was no way on Earth I was going back to the grocery store again last week if I was wrong. (And they were only three for $1.) So now I can make corn muffins to go with pretty much every meal I make for quite some time.
Corn muffins make a great Christmas gift, don't they?
So this Thanksgiving was definitely a good test of my culinary skills. I had to cook a dish for a get-together with work friends on Thanksgiving (yes, I worked), and then prepare the meal for my parents and brother, who were coming into town on Friday. I went to the grocery store at the beginning of last week and realized two things:
1) You shouldn't go to the grocery store the week of Thanksgiving because it's a mad house.
2) You shouldn't wait that long to buy a turkey either. They were out of fresh turkeys and only had frozen ones that wouldn't have thawed in time.
So I decided to go with ham -- delicious and easier to make. Everyone wins!
For the work dinner, I decided to make sweet potatoes, something I hadn't done before, but figured wouldn't be too difficult. Plus, I could make a double batch of it, take 3/4 to the work dinner and keep a fourth of it to serve the next day to the family. I bought fresh sweet potatoes, scoffing at the cans of sweet potatoes. I needed eight medium sweet potatoes, but apparently I was in the mutant sweet potato section because they were all pretty big. When I began to peel and dice the potatoes, I began to rue how I had laughed at the cans. I get it now.
I also had more sweet potatoes than I really needed, which required some ... improvisation with the ingredient amounts. It worked out all right, except when I realized I didn't have brown sugar like I thought I did. So while one batch of potatoes was boiling, I quickly drove to the store to get a bag of brown sugar and get back before I accidentally burned my apartment down or something. It turned out pretty well. Some people who don't normally like sweet potatoes even said they liked them, so maybe there's something to be said for the trouble of fresh sweet potatoes.
Just stay away from the giant, mutant ones.
As far as Thanksgiving, the menu called for:
Ham
Sweet potatoes
A corn/cornbread dish, the recipe for which my mom gave me
Croissants
Sparkling cider
Most of that stuff was pretty easy to make and it all went off without a hitch. Although due to a typo in the corn recipe, I bought nine boxes of corn muffin mix instead of one. I thought nine seemed like a lot, but there was no way on Earth I was going back to the grocery store again last week if I was wrong. (And they were only three for $1.) So now I can make corn muffins to go with pretty much every meal I make for quite some time.
Corn muffins make a great Christmas gift, don't they?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
