July 2005 Archives

Tomorrow, Carrie and I embark on our first ever road trip. We will be traveling out to Grand Junction, CO to visit her parents for a while and to see her brother get married on Saturday. Google estimates the trip to be 14 hrs and 39 mins. In preparation, we checked out a few books on tape from the library:

Dracula - Bram Stoker
An Instance of the Fingerpost - Iain Pears
and some Dave Barry book

While we very much look forward to this long excursion, it will mean a bit of a hiatus in posting. I know, I know, and so soon after my return. Fear not, faithful viewers, for I shall return. Who knows, I may even post a picture of two of the trip for y'all.

Three cheers for leaving at 5:00 a.m.

Hip hip, oh screw it.

Sounds like some sort of Harry Potter spell, no?

Ok, so I'm on the fifth book, so what?

Now I consider myself somewhat of a beer snob. I am by no means a connoisseur, but as far as beer goes, I'd rather have water than a bud light anyday. Normally, I enjoy drinking Boulevard Beers, of which the wheat and Zon are quite nice. But recently I've been wanting to branch out a bit. I tried an Anchor Summer Beer and a New Belgium Trippel (oh, and the fat tire is quite nice as well). That is to say, I've been branching out a bit during my trips to the liquor store.

Tonight, though, I had a beer unlike any I've had before. Carrie and I went to a nice pizza joint in Liberty called, The Dish, which aside from great pizza, has a nice beer selection as well. It was the first place that I had a Newcastle Brown Ale, for instance. On this trip, I decided to sample a beer whose name was frankly irresistible to me. It was the Delirium Nocturnum from the Huyghe-Melle brewery. It was fantastic.

While not unlike some other nice brown ales I've had before, a few things did stand out. First was the bottle, which featured pink elephants--apparently the mascot for this brewing company (which is older than the U.S.). It reminded me of the scene from Dumbo, where the title character gets drunk and the audience gets to join in on his highly trippy dream sequence. Pink elephants everywhere, if memory serves. But I digress. The taste had this slight hint of sweetness that was really unique to my amateur palette. I enjoyed it immensely. Finally, it's always nice to have a beer that is above the U.S. standard 5.5% alcohol by volume measurement. Yes, this nice brew clocks in at 9%, which doesn't hurt in the least.

So if you ever get the opportunity to have a Delirium Nocturnum, do so. It really is very enjoyable.

(Carrie says it tastes like beer, which is icky. FYI.)

(I'm going to start this blog post with one of the stupidest ways to start any speech, essay, or other form of communication: defining a word everyone already freakin' knows. C'mon, not only is this patronizing, but it reeks of ineptitude and a grasping for material. Of course, I suppose that by ranting about this little pet peeve of mine I managed avoided leading with it.)

Tattle - n : disclosing information or giving evidence about another [syn: singing, telling]

As it is summer, there has been a bit of turnover in my little apartment building. The building itself is rather small, with only 10 apartments together, and we are split in half such that I rarely see anyone from the other side of the building. One of the big rules of my building is no pets of any kind. (Although I did ask the landlord about a hamster and he said that was cool.) This was something I looked for in an apartment, given my aforementioned cat allergies. So, it was somewhat of a surprise to hear something I had never heard in this building: barking.

At first I heard it outside, but close to the building. Thus, I could never confirm whether a dog actually lived on the premises. Today, however, as my wife was leaving for the grocery store, she heard barking coming not from immediately outside the building, but rather from upstairs. Clearly, there is a dog in one of the apartments. A strict no-no.

Now, we still can't confirm that the dog isn't just visiting. After all, he may be taking care of it for a while for a friend. However, given that the barking first began with a moving truck, it does not seem to be the case. What to do, what to do.

Clearly it would be in bad form to call the landlord about such things. Or would it? Which is our greater responsibility? To not be a snitch, or to help our landlord keep the building in good condition, which would be in our best interest. An interesting dilemma, I would say.

Add to this the fact that we think the owner is also the one who is constantly running up and down our rather noisy stairwell, and the situation becomes even juicier. It all feels like some sort of Seinfeld espisode, frankly.

On an entirely different note, I really wish that I could get to Richmond, VA tomorrow. You see, a little school district that had iBooks for certain grade levels, are selling them for $50 a piece. This is not a joke. I do have relatives in Arlington, but alas, that is still quite a drive for something so silly. And by silly, I mean absolutely awesome. Damn.

I like cats. I'll just come out in say it. Consider this my public coming out of the closet about my love of cats. You see, my family hates cats, and we all are allergic to them (me to the least extent), and for me to tell my family this would be disaster. (Hi John, if you're reading.) Regardless, there are several reasons why Carrie and I cannot get a cat for quite a while.

1) Our lease won't allow it. This doesn't necessarily stop most people, but for Carrie and me, goodie two shoes to the last, it does.

2) I'm allergic. Now, I'm not terribly allergic. I've stayed with cats for decently long stretches of time, with only occasional eye stratching. Still, the thought of even occasional eye stratching for 15 or so years isn't entirely appealing, either.

3) My family is highly allergic. True, this would keep them away, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But think about it this way, they are going to visit with or without cats, so it would be best not to have them miserable as well.

So, to appease ourselves somewhat, we trek out to Petsmart every saturday (almost) for their pet adoption day. We really shouldn't tease ourselves like this, I suppose, but we do it anyway. I like Emma, and she likes Socks in case you were wondering. This is, naturally, bittersweet, and I can't tell if we are better off for our visits or not. One day we will walk out $180 poorer (plus litter box, food, etc.) and two cats richer. Of course, we will also be kicked out on the street and disowned by my family...

Why do cats have to be so much easier to take care of than dogs? I still really like dogs, don't get me wrong, but I just don't have the time to deal with one...

I suppose we'll stick to hamsters for now. Unless of course I can convince the wife to let me have a snake. That'd be cool.

So my wife said to me a few days ago, "I feel like baking. Pick something out that you want me to bake." Life is good.

After pouring through a few different cookbooks I finally made a decision. Despite my most sincere desire to have chocolate peanut butter balls (similar to buckeyes), I picked dark chocolate truffles. They were quite delicious. The key ingredient was the amaretto. Mmm... Unfortunately, having a few truffles is probably equivalent to about 5-6 decently sized cookies. This sort of Calorie condensation leaves one rather disappointed. Afterall, three truffles barely dent my appetite. Sight.

On another note, I watched yet another French film today. Weird, huh. It was called Wasabi. I was drawn to it by Luc Besson, who was behind some cool films like The Fifth Element and The Professional. It was a funny little action film that actually had a moderately interesting story line. I very much enjoyed it.

Finally, on one last note, Carrie is nearly finished with the latest Harry Potter installment. As I started and finished reading only book two today, she has had to hold her excitement and sadness at various parts of the book. I know that she desperately wants to tell me, poor thing, so I fear I must plow through these remaining four books as quickly as I can. You know, for her sake.

So last night I'm watching t.v. around midnight, looking for something to watch during the commercials of Cheers. Now, this isn't as easy as it sounds, since we don't have cable, but I was fortunate enough to stumble across something of interest. I was sure that I'd seen it before at one point or another, but it was still interesting.

It was the inspirational story about a one-legged girl completing the iron man competition. You know, that masochistic event consisting of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and a marathon to cap it all off. Well, she didn't complete it the first time, but undetered, went on to finish the race anohter year, blah blah blah.

Anyway, what struck me was that I was watching this at midnight. What kind of people are watching t.v. at midnight on a weekday? Think about it. Usually this crowd doens't have to get up early in the morning (you can infer from that what you will) and is not necessarily motivated to get a good start on the day tomorrow. Is this some sort of inspiriation message for me to get off my duff and make something of myself? (Step 1: stop being lazy and staying up too late.) Or, is this the sort of thing that midnight t.v. viewers love to watch, because that's all we do, watch. Perhaps the network realizes that our only hope is to live vicariously through others. I dunno.

Or perhaps the greater irony is the fact that I'm watching this true-life, inspiriational story during the commercials of a sitcom all about people hanging out in a bar. Hmm...

I only have one word, "Norm!"

I didn't post yesterday and I didn't even know if I would post today, either, as I have been busily working on my website.

What's changed?

Well, nothing on this site, really, save a few more entries retrieved from backups. No, rather I've been working on a music download site of the legal variety. A little something to host all of my piano recordings. Everything is basically ready to go, except navigation to other sections of andy-lee.com. If you want to check it out, simply go to:

http://andy-lee.com/music/

Do realize, though, that it is very much still under construction.

Oh, and on another note, I finished the first Harry Potter book today. Read the whole thing straight through. Interesting, I will admit, but I simply don't understand the craziness behind the series. I've ready many books that were much better (James Clavell, for instance). Still, Carrie says that they just get more interesting, so I may yet try another. Who knows.

I know, shame on me for following the crowd. Perhaps I'm so late in joining the game it doesn't really matter so much, eh?

Carrie and I attended a wedding today. Yes, it seems to be the thing to do for 20 somethings during the summer. The service and reception were both very nice, but I think there were a few things that stood out as particularly refreshing.

First, the mexican hat dance. No, this was not some replacement for the chicken dance or YMCA at the reception, rather it was the song that played during the recessional at the service. Skipping may and or may not have been involved.

Second, one very large piece of paper. Normally, when the bride and groom make their entrance to the recption, they kind of stand and wave or do something else that is no doubt equally awkward. To solve this problem, have them instead burst through a large piece of paper, decorated appropriately, as though they were football players at homecoming. Awkwardness is now instead placed with the guests. A brilliant idea, if you asked me.

Finally, legos. While everyone is patiently waiting for the bride and groom to arrive from the agonizingly long photography session, make sure that every table has legos to play with. Then, have a little competition to see who the winner is. One caveat, though: make sure you have a prize. Victory without spoils is hollow to say the least.

Well, only one more wedding this season (that I know of). Although that for my wife's brother, and I may end up doing the photography. Who knows....

Thought for the Day

Legos are seriously awesome.

or How to work on your website without boring your wife to tears

Now, just for the record, I have not, nor will I in the foreseeable future read any of those books. It's not that I hate Mss. Rowling or anything, it's just that I can't stand things that are tremendously popular. Popularity tends to breed aversion in me.

That being said, I am going to a little launch party at Barnes and Noble this evening. My wife will be purchasing the book right out of the shoot. Ideally, this means that she'll hang out with me at the next Mac store opening I attend (if there is one anywhere remotely where I live opening up, that is), but I'm not keeping my fingers crossed.

Wish me luck tonight, I fear that I will need it to survive the onslaught. That, and to feign enthusiasm.

So the website is getting a little bit back to normal. I was able to upload the entries through January of 2004, which actually only leaves me a few more months from that year to finish up. The site looks more like normal, although a few tweaks need to be made yet, and everything is going pretty well. The difficult part will be to create the new front page to this blog. That is, a page that actually exists at http://andy-lee.com, if you will.

You see, I think I'm finally going to do what I've wanted to do for quite some time now. I'm going to have a nice web space with some of the better pictures I've taken, recordings of my recitals, as well as a link to this blog. Maybe.

While most everyone on earth realizes that I have a blog (those that might care, that is), my parents still have no idea. Not that I've even published anything that scandalous (although I am having sex now, look out), but I just think it might be a little weird. I dunno, we'll see.

Actually the bigger problem would be my wife's blog. (Hey honey, you can start updating again. Your server is actually run my a competent company and not your jack-of-all-trades husband. Ahem. Now I know what everyone is thinking, "Publicly embarrassing your wife equals no sex." Have no fear, I'm not getting any tonight anyway.)

What was I saying? Ah yes. You see, while I have a bizarrely open relationship with my parents, Carrie has a much more normal relationship with hers and would really rather not have her parents reading her blog. Heh, 'normal' people.

Regardless, now that I have a whopping 5+ gigs of webspace at my disposal, you should be seeing a whole lotta stuff hanging out around here. Thankfully, bandwidth is still yet to be a problem.

So I said that I'd be gone for a while, given my recent marriage. I think that most of you could easily understand that. There was, however, one little problem...

You see, I was hosting my blog from my nifty mac mini. While this was heaps of fun to set up (no sarcasm), it does present a problem. You see, when the computer goes, so does the website. Thus, Walking Stick was down for, well, quite a while. Naturally, this is not a good thing.

The problem turned out to be a corrupted hard drive. Corrupted to the point that nothing could be retrived. This is good if you have most everything backed up, which I did--save two things.

One of which was the website. Well, it was backed up, but not since I switched from paid hosting to the do-it-yourself variety. Therefore, anything written this year is gone. Bummer. I have been able to retrieve snippets from various web caches, but if any of you happened to save some of it, let me know.

The other thing that was most unfortunately not backed up was something far more valuable and impossible to get back. I lost the honeymoon pictures.

They are gone. All of them save one we actually printed out. So the 300 or so photos from Hawaii we had are gone since that POS hard drive decided to eat them. No, the photos are not still on the cards as we have used the cameras since. No, there is no way to get them back now...

So for the time being, things are going to be a bit, well, weird. I have migrated to a server that will be just that, a dedicated server. I finally made the leap to my older G4, but it will give me the ability to host this site, many pictures (save those from Hawaii), and lots of other fun things, so the best is yet to come.

Oh, and the look of the site? Well, it was due for a makeover, wasn't it?

Thanks for your patience, whomever may still be reading. Here's looking forward to many more blog entries.

Backed up frequently, of course...