You may not know this, but I'm an old man.

Wow, more than 10 days without an entry... I committed a blog-sin. I apologize to my readers (yup, both of you) for the absence. In my defense, a lot has been going on lately - some of which I'll be writing about today.
  First and foremost, I have the body of a 60+ year old man. I'm serious. In 2003 I missed the first half of my high school graduation because I was in the emergency room. What was I there for? Kidney stones. Kidney stones, a problem most people never have to think about until they're much older. And I've had quite a few of them by this point in my life. Now I have yet another old man condition. I have shingles. I shouldn't even be at risk for it until I'm much older - hell, the vaccine isn't even recommended until you turn 60! To quote the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke: "About 25 percent of all adults, mostly otherwise healthy, will get shingles during their lifetimes, usually after age 40. The incidence increases with age so that shingles is 10 times more likely to occur in adults over 60 than in children under 10." Ridiculous, isn't it? Anyway, shingles is basically a resurgence of the chicken pox virus that stays dormant in your body (yup, the pox never actually leaves you after you've had it), only this time it attacks your nerves specifically. So when you get shingles you don't get the characteristic spots all over your body, just concentrated in a few batches or as a band around a single nerve cluster. Additionally you can't spread the virus through the air (by sneezing, coughing, talking, or anything else) because shingles doesn't infest your respiratory system like chicken pox does. The only way to spread it is through direct contact with the sores (or obviously by touching your sores and then touching somebody else before washing your hands). And you can't infect somebody with shingles - you can only give them chicken pox, and then only if they have not had them before. They say shingles can grow to be quite painful along the infected nerve. It's also not uncommon to end up with long term or even permanent nerve damage due to the infection. But honestly, so far it hasn't been that bad. I'm a little more than a week into the infection and it's been fairly manageable. I rarely itch and my spots (a large patch on the small of my back and smaller patches on my inner thigh, butt cheek, and shin) only hurt when something accidentally bumps or brushes against them. The medication is kicking my ass though. I'm taking Acyclovir and almost immediately after taking a pill I always feel weak, woozy, kinda silly, and get a fairly harsh headache. Ah well, I can handle it. Supposedly shingles typically last around 5 weeks or so, so I've still got a fairly long journey with this stuff. Sucks that it has to be at Thanksgiving though - it's my favorite time of the year!
  Speaking of the holiday season, we reach my second point for today... my birthday. Being born between Halloween and Thanksgiving, my birthday has always sort of marked the beginning of the winter holiday season for me. For birthdays and Christmas in my family, we always do wish lists. I usually try to put at least 5 or so items on the list and range the prices from 10 bucks to about 60 or so. This year I think I got everything I asked for on my birthday (man, what am I going to ask for on my Christmas list?)! My list was fairly modest, but that's excited none the less. Here's a quick list of my relevant loot:

• Large book-style cd wallet, holds more than 200.
  
• 7in high-quality santoku style kitchen knife.
  
• A couple of heavy-duty high-quality nonstick pans (nice to have finally have a few that aren't just cheapos).
  
• D&D core book set to replace those lost and/stolen by the moving company a year ago (technically I got a Borders gift card, but that's what it was for).
  
• Neverwinter Nights 2 (PC game).
  
• Enough money to buy a new graphics card that can actually play my new game.

All in all, I was pretty happy with my birthday. Not only did I get some fantastic presents, I also had some incredible food. Duck a l'orange special ordered from this great little gourmet marketplace down here, almost-free crab legs at the Jolly Roger seafood joint, and many helpings of Brenda's ever-incredible chicken cordon bleu. I couldn't have asked for more.
  The final point worth mentioning today, is the upcoming move. I'm not sure whether of not I've already mentioned it here, but come early 2008 we're moving away from our dreary little town of Currituck, NC and heading back home to the DC metro area of Northern Virginia. We've officially told my parents (we're renting the top-floor apartment from them) and now we're looking for places and starting to put in applications for employment. We miss the convenience of life of there, and more importantly we really miss our friends. But the rent prices are much higher - so every pray or cross you fingers that we'll be able to find a suitable place that we can really afford. As for jobs, I put in an application to the work in a Marriott kitchen with a recommendation from a friend who works there. It may not be my long-term career choice (eventually I'd like to go into something in finance, preferably as a financial planner), but the culinary world is hobby I'm fairly passionate about so I'm still excited about the prospect of learning as much as a I can in a commercial kitchen. Once we're settled and I can afford it, I'm plan on taking some classes to work more towards my goal in finance.

Well folks, that's it for now. Sorry about the lapse in updates. I'll try to get better about that. I know I have at least two more posts I want to make before November is over - a really good eggroll recipe I created by adapting a slightly similar recipe from Gourmet magazine, and a hottie post starring a woman I think is probably the single most attractive lady alive. So look forward to those and thanks as always for taking the time to read!

Vacation Report!

I don't have a whole lot of time, but here's my quick vacation recap (fair warning - long post ahead):

First off I had to go to TX to be the best man for my brother's wedding. Texas sucks. It's boring, it's hot, and it's ugly. But we weren't there for vacation so we get everything set up for the wedding, and decide to spend the night (Friday) before out drinking - apparently the only worthwhile spot is some crazy honky-tonk bar called Whiskey Town or something like that. It's huge, pretty cool, and while I definitely am not a country fan - I was glad to hear them playing moderately listenable 'authentic' country rather than the terrible country-rock crossover stuff that is so popular amongst country fans and stations these days. Then the drinking starts. Now, I wouldn't say that I have a drinking problem. I don't drink often - honestly I drink 'for real' less than once every other month. My problem is that I only seem to be able to have two drinks or two hundred drinks. So I'm fine when I decide to just have a couple - I stop there and I'm happy. We were partying though. I won't go into some of the details but something set me off and after being already way too smashed for my own good, decided to angrily go and order a double shot of Bacardi 151 (those of you who care about alcohol tolerance may want to note that I'm a very infrequent drinker and I only weigh about 140lbs, so I'm the very definition of a "lightweight")... The 151 is the last thing I remember. Next thing I know I'm being woken up in a puke-soaked bed being told to jump in the shower to get ready for the wedding. I was later told that I not only drank the 151, but also had another 6 or so drinks that night - not including the additional ones I ordered for myself (and I know I did since my CC statement shows me closing out not one, but TWO more tabs). I had apparently been thrown out of the TX bar after falling off the stool with such force that I scraped the entire right side of my face and trying to get into a fight with one of our friends. Story goes that I was puking pretty much non-stop from that point on until 5 am, and puking up blood at that (there was talks of taking me to the hospital but apparently none of them knew whether or not I had insurance and they didn't want me to get charged). So anyway I'm puking nonstop literally until one hour before my brother's ceremony (and it's worth noting that I have never ever thrown up from alcohol in my life - heck, I haven't thrown up at all in about 15 years), but I was so determined not to ruin it for my brother that I summoned all my resolve and toughed out my role as best I could - supposedly I did well enough that nobody could tell I was still drunk. On to the reception I sat quietly saving my strength for my speech/toast, delivered it as I hoped, then went to sleep in the still-somewhat-puke-scented rental car. We spent one more uneventful night in TX before getting on our morning plane to Vegas...
So early Sunday morning we arrive in Vegas - I'm still so sick from drinking that I can't even handle food - I couldn't even manage to drink water until just now. But I'm in good spirits (an unintentional pun! ha!) - we're in Vegas and the lobby to our hotel (the new Planet Hollywood - formerly the Aladdin before the restoration) looks absolutely beautiful - trendy and cool and not at all cheesy like we were expecting (have you ever been to a Planet Hollywood restaurant? Super tacky - thank God the hotel/casino felt NOTHING like that). We sign up for early check in and they tell us they can have a "great room" ready for us in 3 hours. Cool. We leave our bags and head into the casino.... Wow. I mean, wow. This is far from my first trip to Vegas, and I'm been in a lot of casinos - from the sleazy Sahara to the luxurious Wynn... and honestly the casino level of the PH is the best I've seen. It's open, welcoming, and almost too trendy-cool for it's own good. We're instantly in a good mood. This place definitely isn't for everybody, but Theresa and I really felt like it was right for us. We gamble a little bit, but I'm more of a table player than a slot guy, and it's too early for most tables to be open - so we explore some more. The entire public area of this place is gorgeous. Even the parts still under renovation with their obviously Aladdin influences somehow manage to fit in and look fantastic. Seriously kids, next time you're in Vegas, be sure to stop by. Anyway, we eventually get our room which is also beautiful, despite the two Stallone pictures adorning our walls, and I am totally ready to get some sleep. Napped, energized, and finally ready to get some food we set off for this Ellis Island Brewery and Casino I'd heard about which was off the opposite street corner one road behind our hotel.... and we proceeded to have one of the greatest meals we've ever had. Seriously. This place is off the strip, so they need to use classic Vegas tactics to get people in to gamble: put out some really fantastic food for unrealistically cheap prices. I had a gigantic roast turkey dinner (the special) with mashed potatoes, corn salad, and gravy that could have easily fed myself, my girlfriend, AND a guest all on it's own. It also came with the uncontested best bowl of chicken noodle soup on earth. Now I know that chicken noodle is boring - I think so too - but this soup was so amazingly fantastic that my eyes were rolling back into my head while I ate it. The single best thing I ate in all of Vegas. And I ate at Tom Colicchio's Craftsteak!! But I'll get into that later... My whole dinner cost me $6.99 plus about a buck for micro-brewed root beer. The girlfriend had a $5.99 burger that was plenty good, but not really special enough to warrant saying much about it. She did say the Ellis Island in-house brewed hefeweizen beer ($1.50 for a pint) was really good, but I was no where near ready to taste anything alcoholic. Also, we got to watch some old lady in the restaurant almost die from choking. Seriously somebody was giving her the Heimlich for like 4 minutes before this 18 year old looking kid came up and finally got her throat clear after another couple minutes of Heimlich. Seriously, she was turning blue - we were certain we were about to watch her die. It was really, really intense. Not much else happened that night though - pretty much all of our time was spent winning money at the video roulette machine back in the PH. Monday was our "big" Vegas day: the only day we were there morning till night, the day we were eating at Craftsteak, and the day of our ridiculous timeshare tour. Yes, we had to do a tour - but hey, I only paid $100 bucks total for both nights for a 4 person room (our friends decided they couldn't make it) in a newly renovated hotel! The tour sounded great and honestly if we had any money to spare we really might have purchased a timeshare there (it was currently being built, literally as a part of the PH - the only timeshare with a casino inside!), but of course the overly aggressive final sales push at the end was horrible. But I'm immune to pressure sales anyway, so we just sat there and said no the next 30 minutes worth of varying offers they threw at us. Lol. After that we gambled a bit more, had an utterly amazing chicken florentine sandwich at the Earl of Sandwich in the PH and went back to our room to rest for a bit before our big dinner (hey, I was still feeling drained from my bout with alcohol poisoning... and the gf had been drinking early that day - we were both in need of some napping).
...Now you remember way back when I mentioned the desk clerk getting us a "great room?" Well here's a tip for you - any time a hotel desk clerk happily gives you a "great room," be wary and ready to demand a different room - because she's probably happy to be unloaded the crap room on a rube like you. We get into a room and just lay down for the much needed nap when we're awoken by a sound that you should never have to hear in any hotel you're staying at... a jackhammer. I'm not kidding. And no, the jackhammer isn't outside working on the timeshare construction... IT'S IN THE VERY ROOM NEXT TO US. Turns out they're still renovating a few rooms on the one side of our floor... And they put us in the absolute worst room they could. The gf calls down to the front desk to complain about the noise and they respond not with apologies, but rather with "they'll be done soon." Unbelievable. Frustrated and not yet ready to deal with making a larger issue out of it, we change into our dinner clothes and head towards the MGM Grand and Craftsteak. We gamble to kill time, but gambling in and of itself isn't very interesting - so on to dinner. Honestly, I was so looking forward to eating here I could barely contain myself. The place is beautiful. Probably the best restaurant atmosphere I'd ever seen, and I've eaten at my fair share of nicer establishments. We get one of those inset somewhat-private booths along the wall where we can look out into the whole of the place. We place our orders and enjoy the bread and delicious imported butters while waiting for the first course. The a la carte style salad arrives - we ordered the mixed lettuces and the artichokes... Ug. I am so disappointed. I'm an artichoke fanatic - I like them on everything and prepared just about any way you can... but these were terrible. The artichokes themselves were unrealistically bland to begin with, but then they came completely drenched in some odd cream dressing that would have been strong enough to drown out the most flavorful 'choke, much less these poor excuses for the heavenly vegetable. I was so disappointed I honestly felt like crying. I ate about three mouthfuls of salad and a total of about 4 of the tiny artichoke quarters. Then the entrées hit the table - knowing that the two of us aren't the biggest eaters we had agreed to simply split the 16oz grilled T-bone with the a la carte side order of wild mushroom risotto. The steak... wasn't spectacular. At all. I have a sort of food pet peeve - I want the main component of any dish I'm eating to be the main flavor I'm tasting. The steak (which was served 'warm' at best) was covered in a small forest worth of rosemary and tasted of nothing but the herb even after I scraped all of it off the steak the moment it arrived on the table. Admittedly the texture was superb - the T-bone was more tender than any cut of filet I have ever had - but the damn thing was just so damn rosemary tasting that I couldn't help but feel somehow robbed. Thankfully my gf's mushroom risotto saved the meal. It was perfection - silky and creamy but still al denté enough to give you a nice almost-crunch. And the massive portion (honestly, it was large enough that it alone could easily have fed three or four people) was topped with what seemed like close to a pound of absolutely perfectly sautéed mushrooms. We actually ended up leaving a bit of the steak on the plate in favor of getting our fill of the risotto. All in all, I feel almost heartbroken over my Craftsteak experience. Somewhat downtrodden, we headed back to the PH and gambled on until bed time. Tuesday was our last day in Vegas and started out with us being woken up by what sounded like plumbing work in the under-construction room next to us (oh I had forgotten to mention all of the concrete dust footprints we saw heading in and out of that room from the point of the jackhammer on) and a second call to the front desk to complain (we mentioned the many various little problems in our room as well - none of them major, but there was really more issues than should be acceptable). This time they offered to extend our 11am checkout to 2pm, to make up for lost sleep. Wow, how very generous. Ug. So we headed down far earlier than intended to get breakfast and spent the next many hours gambling. Up to this point we were pretty much breaking even on our gambling money. About an hour and a half into our Tuesday gambling (mostly roulette and video roulette) we were up over $200. Two hours after that however, we had lost not only the $200+ but also the roughly $160 combined we had set aside to gamble with before the trip. Ah well, c'est la vie, non? We did accrue a lot of points on our PH player's club card though - at this point enough for three of the four potential "first 48 hours" rewards - $5 in free slot play, $10 off the award-winning buffet, and another $10 in free slot play. We'd also accrued a whopping $7 in cash-back money. Woo-hoo. We instantly blew threw our free $15 and very much enjoyed the extensive upscale buffet for lunch. Then we checked out and headed out to the Venetian - I'd never been and really wanted to see it more than any of the other casinos. Eh. It's cool, but nothing is really cool enough to write about. We came back to the PH to get our bags, realized we had another hour to kill, and gambled some more. Didn't really lose or gain any more than we already had, but we did happen to get enough player's points to earn the final of the four rewards - $25 in free slot play. And this time the player's club clerk pointed out that we'd been earned food comps as well - we didn't even know about that perk. So our very final act in Vegas before heading to the airport to head back to DC (via Newark airport in NJ - ick) was spending our $20 comp coupon at Earl of Sandwich getting yet another delicious sandwich and plenty of snacks for the plane.
Not much else to note after that - I seem to have gotten sick on the flight to Newark, which I attribute to my alcohol-weakened immune system - and we spent another couple days back in our old hometown of Northern Virginia (it's always easier to just say DC, but really I'm actually from about 45 minutes outside of the city proper). Had a really great time all in all, even despite my silly drinking mistake and my major food disappointment... but I am glad to be home!

Still have a lot of unpacking and such to do here (alright fine, really we just need to watch all of our new TiVo'ed shows before they get deleted to make room for even more junk), so I think I'm done with this entry for the night. Sorry if my story was somewhat less than interesting, I just wanted to be sure to include all the relevant parts.
And don't worry Smartie, the Wii post is still coming - I'll probably get it up tomorrow.

"We don't have a cow, we have a bull."

The girlfriend and I did something very uncharacteristic for us this Sunday... we actually went out. Our one-year-old residency in northern most part North Carolina has turned us into slugs. Our typical Sundays sadly consist of the two of us lying in bed all day either watching television or playing video games. But we decided we would fight our depression-like urges and join my sister's family and our father for a day of cheap bowling at the Navy base bowling alley. We all had to ride together in my sister's new van since they were the only ones with the clearance to get on the base, but that just gave me and Theresa an excuse to make faces at my 11 month old niece and take pictures when she made funny faces in return...

Wow, that's one excited baby!

Seriously, how cute is she?
Anyway, considering our lack of social interaction as of late, we were actually pretty excited... and I really don't go out of my way to hang out with Dad as much as I'd like, which is extra sad since he really is one of my favorite people. We get to the base and thereby the bowling at about noon and stay there till roughly three-ish, bowling a total of four games throughout. We're a bit of a bowling family (arguably lame as that may be): I took informal bowling lessons when I was young, and both Dad and my sister are former league bowlers. And Dad is actually pretty good. As in, he has bowled a perfect 300 game before sorta good. So my only goal when bowling is to beat him in at least one game... It's looking pretty good at the end of game two, he's only a few points ahead and so I'm feeling pretty confident about game three... and then beer comes in. You see, bowling is a drinking sport. That's kind of what you do. If you're bowling and not drinking while you're doing so... well, you're not really bowling. Not all the way at least. Originally the plan was to have a beer or two while we were there, but when I went to go pick one up at the little food counter, I saw the magic word: Pitcher. Oh, the irresistible pull of the beer pitcher. It is as wonderful as it is reputedly low-class. How can I really justify paying $3.00+ for my little bottle of beer when I could pick up a whole pitcher of frosty Yuengling for Theresa, Dad, and I for a mere eight bucks?

Oh Yuengling, you're my best friend.

I didn't beat Dad that third game. I'd like to blame the beer, but I wasn't intoxicated at that point (yet). No no no, I just dropped the ball on that game. When it comes to sports/games/etc that I actually care about, I'm a notoriously competitive person. And while I don't usually lose my temper at other people, I get mad very quickly when I think I'm not doing something as well as I should be. So the first couple frames of the third game were harsh... Seven pins total in the first, and zero in the second. I can't remember the last time I've gotten two gutters in a row before then. I have excuses of course (I slipped once, and bent my thumb nail way back on the release on the second), but I still posted zero none the less. So anyway, I was pretty pissed at that point. Blood boiling, cussing up a storm, and all that. And that is where my friend beer really came in. Beer turns losing into a much more tolerable state. And since I was losing hard, I upped my drinking pretty well. I scored possibly an all time low that game - a 92. Theresa, who is blessed with incredible luck in all games but bowling, even beat me that game (albeit by one point).
But the bowling isn't really all that interesting, all that worth sharing. What is worth sharing, is my new culinary adventure. The modest food counter at the bowling alley had a pretty decent selection of dive-style food at ridiculous prices... and I just couldn't pass up the chance to try fried chicken livers for $3.75. I'd never had liver of any sort, and I am embracing the mentality of my culinary heroes as of late - that food, no matter how odd or unfamiliar (obviously excluding anything of any real danger), should be dove into bravely and treated rightfully like the adventure that it can be!

Damn these things are ugly, and they smelled just about as bad.

Chomp!

Okay, so honestly, they aren't that bad. And they definitely aren't at all what I expected. Texturally I expected something more 'organ-like,' chewy and gooey and all that. Not at all. Admittedly a little bit gritty, but most they were just like an exceptionally tender cut of meat (yes, the texture seemed more like super-tender beef than any chicken part). The flavor was a real shock though. Very flavorful, and definitely chicken-like, the only real off-putting part was the ridiculously strong saltiness of the livers. I mean it was salty like nothing should ever be. Flavor-wise, it was a lot like eating just the flavor packet from a package of chicken flavored ramen. So edible, and actually not bad, but sickeningly strong and saltier than any piece of meat should ever taste. The taste did linger for quite awhile though - had to end up ordering a Miller Chill to kill the taste...

Cheers!

So we bowled another game that I paid very little attention to and headed home. I know this will be far from the most interesting blog entry you'll ever read, but it was an uncharacteristically good day in my rather drab life and it seemed worth sharing with everyone. Not to get too touchy-feely on everyone, but I really think sometimes it's important to just take a moment out of life and share it with the people who matter most. Long as you have a good attitude and willingness to enjoy yourself, pretty much any activity can turn itself into a worthwhile day. It was nice to spend the day with the family - I really don't do that as often as I should. And again, I know this is a pretty boring entry, but hey, at least it's an excuse to post some cute baby pics!

Thanks for reading!