Two years ago today

Today in 2007 I had my first date with K. Who would've thought on that day that we had so many days to look forward to together? We've had so many wonderful moments together and I couldn't ask for a better girlfriend. I really do love her with all my heart.

We're playing it low key today because we were out playing cards with our mutual friend. We first all went out to dinner at a ma and pa style Mexican restaurant. The poor lady who served us really did not know English and we had the hardest time ordering. But the food was pretty good. So it was worth it. We then went over to our friend's house to eat pie! I don't remember what it was called but it had graham cracker crust, dulce de leche and banana slice filling and it was topped with whipped cream infused with coffee and sprinked with dark chocolate shavings. It was delicious. We then made up a card game and had some good conversations. I even got to try some homemade meede. It's wine made out of honey. Time flew by and next thing we knew it was waaay past 2AM So today we're relaxing. We're ordering pizza and watching the movie Traitor. It'll be great, I'm sure.

Branson Finale

Today in Branson I started off with a run on the treadmill and a swim in the indoor pool. Then I ate a nice hearty breakfast and we eventually made our way to the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum. It was pretty fun because I got to see a lot of crazy crafts like scale replicas made out of matches, shrunken heads, meteorites, optical illusions and a lot more interesting stuff! I took the tripod in so that I could take as many pictures as possible without the flash. That came in handy several times because most of the displays were enclosed in glass and the flash bounced back. My parents also had a custom picture of themselves made with their faces inserted into the two main Shrek character's faces. They even colored them green, so that was pretty fun. My dad lives by the motto "better out than in" ;)

After that we all ate sushi for lunch and then headed to Table Rock Dam and lake to take nature pictures. I was really glad that I finally got them to come out into nature with me so that I could photograph some of the scenery. We also got off a lot of portrait studio quality pictures of the whole family during this trek and I got off about 100 shots! Everybody should now have new pictures to show off of one another now!

We also got the chance to watch Fred Claus in the movie theater that was supposedly IMAX, however, I didn't notice any difference from the regular theater. I guess IMAX is only special when you have a film created with a super wide angle lens and a ton of microphones. The movie was funny and it made me wish that every child everywhere got a present for Christmas, naughty or nice :)

Clicky!

I beat K to it!

The Chicago Spire

My weekend was pretty laid back because I have some crazy sinus cold that just kicked in Saturday morning. I hope it goes away Monday, that would be great! Anyway, on Friday, I hung out at Kristin's house and just lounged around. We talked a lot. I dunno what we talked about though. The cold is making me delirious!

Saturday, I watched a lot of TV in the morning and learned a quick way to make puff pastry, how to brine a pork roast (soak in salt water) and that Donald Trump is building a 90 story building in Chicago. Of course, that will be ironically "trumped" by a 150 story building scheduled to be finished in 2009 in the north side of Chicago. This building will be the tallest in north America, and strangely it will look like a giant screw. After that I rode my bike 10.4 miles to the youth group leader thing I do at the church. That was a lot of fun! I wore earplugs for the first time and it was so peaceful and quiet. I found myself becoming overly comfortable while riding like this so I made it a point to remind myself that I have to maintain 100% attention and scan for potential hazards just like they taught me in class! Luckily my nose behaved for the whole bike ride! After the youth group I ordered fried rice and watched Donnie Darko with Kristin. I still don't completely understand what the director was trying to get at in the movie. But I think Donnie could travel through time or something. Or he was just super crazy!

On Sunday, Kristin and I made white bean and chicken chili, sweet potato chips, with some special cornbread muffins with green onions, sour cream, sharp cheddar, and creamed corn inside. They were very soft and moist. With a little tweaking they could be some fantastic snacks! My nose is driving me crazy today and I think the cold is worse, but what can I do but wait it out... well I guess I could take 6 Sudafed, 1 Claritin, 2 Tylenol, and one vitamin! That oughta fix it! wait.... nope, didn't help.

mmmhmm

On Thursday I made fried catfish for Kristin, her grandmother and her sister. They loved it. I cheated and used Zataran's cornmeal breading though instead of making it from scratch. Her grandmother also made some delicious traditional cornbread that contained only corn meal, oil, salt, and eggs. It reminded me of those corn cakes I tried to make once as a kid because I learned that George Washington loved em! I didn't like the corn cakes so much because they were very dense and had little flavor, but Kristin's grandmother's cornbread had plenty of flavor. I even put a little maple syrup on my piece.

Friday was a pretty awkward night. K's friend met a new girl about a month ago and they're already official. They call each other by nicknames regularly and cuddle more than any other couple I've seen. This made it kind of awkward because I find it annoying when people can't keep their hands off one another while in public. And they just met and they were cuddling like they knew one another for months. We played Apples to Apples entirely too long, and I suggested we stop playing that game and move to another once to everybody, but I was ignored. So I secretly begged K to intervene since it was her friend, but even that took awhile. The strawberry daiquiris were very good though. I only had a tiny bit because I was driving. Her friend is a good dude though so I hope he is happy with his new gf.

Saturday was a pretty laid back day. We made 49ers flapjack dough the night before and let it ferment over night. When Kristin came back over the next day, we cooked them up and they tasted more sour than we remember from Walker Brothers, but they were great with syrup. We decided that we'd try not to let them sit over night at room temperature next time and see if the taste was more similar. After that we did our youth volunteering thing at Kristin's church. They had a special speaker who told her story about how she tried to kill herself and how she found God afterwards. It's sad that she felt so desperate to kill herself though, but I'm glad she is happier now.

For dinner I had a Work Burger from Crave. It is one of the better burgers out here. It comes with bacon, onions, mushrooms and cheddar cheese. They even cook the beef to -order, so if you like yours a little more pink, you can ask for it! We then watched Apocalypto. It was a pretty good movie, but yes, Mel Gibson is still the king of gory snuff films. There was a lot of blood. He sure loves his blood.

On Sunday Kristin and I hung out at her parents' house and went shopping at random stores. Her parents fed me brownies with walnuts and I ate too many. But boy oh boy were they good. At least Kristin is keeping me working out over the weekends. That makes me feel a little better. We also ate dinner at her parents' house. I had Lou Malnati's pizza and herb crusted tilapia. After all that I watched Queen with Kristin and took an online "personality strengths" test. Apparently my strengths are: Competition, Achiever, Focus, Strategic, and Significance. So basically, I'm gonna kick your butt at whatever I do every time by focusing on my strategy and it'll be a significant butt kicking. yeah that's right. :P We tried making flapjacks again just to experiment and we only let the dough rise for an hour before cooking it. It was a lot more self-adherent and dough-like, but the flavor was better. We still have to experiment more to get the recipe right! Maybe leaving the flapjacks in the refrigerator over night instead of at room temperature, or adding more butter to the recipe will help.

Movies, Molasses, Marklar

Friday was the start of my movie marathon weekend. Well I only saw 3 movies, but that is more than normal! I went to see the Simposons Movie with Tony, Kristin, and her friend. It really didn't seem all that exciting and it seemed like just another episode to me. But I guess after writing a show for 15+ years you start to run out of ideas. It really is one of those movies you should see in the dollar theatre but not shell out the money for the full-price ticket. It was really short, but I was glad because we ended up going to the 11:00PM showing because of random scheduling mix ups along with people going to the wrong place and having to find the rest of the group. Before the movie I had a great piña colada at Bahama Breeze. And before that, I had cooked the chicken saltimbocca for Kristin and Tony to try. Even though I burnt the chicken it was still moist because of how it was cooked and everybody claimed to like it! Kristin even had a second piece (2 days later).

On Saturday I watched Cruel Intentions with Kristin. I remember liking that movie back in the day and I still do, although I have a more jaded viewpoint on the way love works now and I have a hard time believing that somebody could fall in love with another person in a matter of weeks. The movie still showed that you could change for the better and in the end, you'll get killed for it. It's those life lessons that I so adore! (sarcasm)

Molasses Cookies

Blueberry pancakes started the day on Sunday. Kristin came over to make them with me. We put the heat on too high though so they either burned or were slightly undercooked between the blueberries. Next time I'll do better, I swear! We also tried making a recreation of the Walker Brother's flapjacks by adding a lot of extra water to one pancake. It was thin, but it just didn't have the same flavor. I think it was most likely the pancake mix we were using because I remember having a slightly undercooked pancake made at the YMCA with very similar flavor. Walker Brother's probably adds a couple of secret spices to their flapjacks and I bet that's what made them taste so good! Later in the day I watched the Rocky Horror Picture show with Kristin. It was a weird movie, but I had to watch it because people referenced it all the time in college. I really don't know what was so awesome about it though. It kind of reminded me of Clockwork Orange, which is a very very twisted movie. You don't want to watch it.

While watching the movie, we made molasses cookies. Kristin has loved these cookies since childhood, and I really am starting to like them too. While making the cookies, I learned that Cracker Jacks are actually molasses flavored, and not just some crappy caramel flavor like I had thought as a kid. Anyway, Molasses cookies are delicious spice cookies made out of a bunch of tasty spices including, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and of course, molasses! These cookies get my stamp of approval! They kind of remind me of ginger snaps, and I probably have eaten them and mistaken them for ginger snap cookies. I've eaten 10 since making them last night. Good thing we made small ones because I'm sure I'd have eaten more mass-wise if they were bigger!

Last Weekend (and Monday)

I had a pretty fun-filled weekend and I really enjoyed it. On Friday, I went hot tubbin' I still can't believe I didn't know there was a spa in the club house all this time... I'm gonna use that thing like all the time now!

Saturday was a very busy day. I woke up at the crack of dawn.... well 7AM... so that I could get to the DMV to have class M added to my license. However, I was planning on going up with Kristin, but when she came over that morning, she forgot her course completion certificate (that you need to waive the written and riding test) so I decided that I'd just go on Monday. In the afternoon, Kristin, her sister, and I went to Lynfred Winery for a tasting and a tour. They gave us a lot of wine, and at first I was trying to drink it all, but eventually I asked for less in the glass. Kristin and her sister asked for a lot less after their first "samples." It was pretty fun though. After the winery, we needed to walk off all that wine so Kristin and I went to the local nature center and park and I explained the finer subtleties of milkweed and Kristin told me all about the park. After the enlightening walk, we both went to church and then met up with the church's youth/young adult group for a BBQ. Everybody was nice, but it seemed like everybody was just too nice and it made me a bit uncomfortable. I like it when people don't act all fake. Who knows maybe they're all just genuinely nice. I'm just not used to that.

2008 Chevrolet Camaro

But the day wasn't over! Next we went to see the Transformers movie. It made me want to buy the new 2009/2008 Camaro instead of the new 2008 Challenger. GM is doing a much better job keeping the Camaro on people's minds than Chrysler is with the Challenger. Chrysler is keeping the Challenger development pretty secret and most consumers know just about nothing about the thing except to expect only a high-end SRT version the first year and have the regular models come out the second year. Nobody even knows for sure if a manual transmission will be offered on the base models. If they don't that'd be sad and I think a lot of people would be upset that it was not an option on a powerful sports coupe. The Camaro will definitely have a manual option, which is what I'd get if I bought a sports car. If you can't handle the manual, you don't deserve to have a sports car :P But back to the movie, It was very action packed and it made me remember my childhood days. Kristin was right about it though, it was a guy movie. I'm glad she came anyway.

After all that fun on Saturday, I relaxed in the morning on Sunday and then Kristin and I went to a wave pool in the area and we relaxed for at least 4 hours. I have sunburn! I put tanning lotion on my lower arms, face and neck because those are the only tan parts of my body, so none of that is burnt, but I have a red patch on my body that looks like I was wearing a sizzling hot t-shirt. It's fun! After that, we went on a long bike ride around the area and we raced and Kristin won. Shhh don't tell anybody.

I missed lunch technically because we went to the water park around 12:00. So I was hungry at about 5:00. We decided to go to Bahama Breeze and eat some Caribbean food. I had the jerk chicken pasta and Kristin had a Cuban sandwich. I wasn't too impressed with either however. I could not taste any jerk flavoring on my chicken because it was sliced almost deli-style. But the food definitely had a good flavor. I just wanted jerk-flavor! Kristin's Cuban, seemed American, with it's salami and lettuce and tomatoes. It had plain mustard on it too, which I'm not a big fan of. I blame my dad for forcing us to eat it on our sandwiches as children! I love brown, spicy, honey, Dijon, and about any other mustard, just not the plain. After the restaurant we watched Arachnophobia. It was not as exciting as I had hoped it would be. By today's standards the movie was very slow and not very suspenseful. It really is amazing how much movies have changed since 1990. Back then, people thought that movie was awesome.

Since I didn't get my license on Saturday I decided to wake up at 6AM on Monday to make it to the DMV at 8AM. I thought I had read that they opened at 8AM. Well, they do on Wed-Sat. But after arriving at 7:40, I find that they are closed on Monday and they open at 9AM on Tuesday! So I still don't have my license. But I plan on going around lunch and getting it done for sure!

At work, they are starting to force people to get their new ID badges. I was trying to let mine completely fall apart before I got my new vertical-oriented badge. I mean it was only half peeled and the clip was holding together pretty well with tape. It still had a lot of life left in it! But now I like the new badge because it is all pristine and not warped or peeling :)

Knocked Up

Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl Star in "Knocked Up"

I give this movie 3.5/5 stars. I laughed a bunch of times and it kept my attention the whole time. This movie lost points when I started questioning how could the guy be so socially inept. I mean nobody blurts out, "we're having a baby" to a bunch of kids at the breakfast table the first time they meet. And I don't get why they had that whole baby crowning scene. I don't think it added much to the movie, unless it was the director's goal to scare kids away from making babies because babies are gross. kidding. This movie is worth watching, but wait until it is at the dollar theater or rent it on Netflix.