It’s become a bit of a tradition on Friday’s.  We go to the Irish Pub right around the corner from work and get a Guiness, Fish and Chips.  We typically go with one of the British guys in the group and its a down right weekly taste of the UK! It is actually cooked really well, and my only complaint is how I feel after eating a big tub of tartar sauce, which is really just flavored mayonnaise.  I might have to cut down on that this week.
I actually saw a a movie during its opening weekend, which I haven’t done since Zodiac, and even then I didn’t realize it was the opening weekend (Otherwise I would not gave gone!)  Wall-E was excellent.  I especially liked that they were able to build the characters with almost no dialog.  I went late on Sunday night, so the number of kids were at a minimum.  Which means everyone else there were the type to cheer at the Mac-startup sound when the robot finished charging for the day.  I’m not sure if it’s just New York, or if the number of computer geeks are increasing day by day.

So I’ve been counting the calories, and I think I have a sustainable diet plan.  I’ve been doing this on and off for the past couple months, but I think I might be able to maintain it now.

190 cal - OJ (not from concentrate)
150 cal - chips
432 cal - hummus and vegetable sandwich (Cosi)
240 cal - Lentil chili (Medium) (Hale and Hearty Soups)
264 cal - Crackers
??        - As much Green Tea as I want.  I don’t think this has any calories, but tell me if I’m wrong!

I’ve done that for the past couple days, but now that I add it up, I’m worried it might be too low.  Only adds up to 1276 calories, and that’s if I finish the crackers, which I usually don’t.  Hmm, maybe I need a snack in there somewhere.  At least it gives me some room in case I want to get a variation on the sandwich or soup some days.  Anyway, this is the plan, and I used to “take a break” on the weekends, but I think I might stop that.  My only break will be the Friday Fish and Chips.  I’ll give it a month and see if I get any results.  Seems like this is also Vegetarian, Vegan even.  I might be turning into a hippie!  On days I exercise, I have these organic fruit/granola bars.  These are the only ones I could find without corn sweetner in it.  Read Omnivore’s Dilemma!   I may have written about that book before, but I can’t recommend it enough.  For some reason, I was really suspicious while reading the book, and kept looking for the point where he might use some left-wing vegetarian hippie logic for something.  He goes from being a vegetarian to shooting his dinner, and has good things to say about both.  He was constantly giving good opinions on all points of the spectrum, so I didn’t label him.  I guess that’s the mark of some unbiased research.  In the end, its the Christian Libertarian farmer that’s the hero!

Worked a little late today due to the IBMs acting up.  We did a minor upgrade to TSM and for some reason it caused the Clariion to detach in a really peculiar way.  Made it tough to believe it was a software problem.  Anyway, after a few hours, it seems it was related to the SANDISCOVERY option being enabled in the new TSM.  It was enabled before, but after disabling it with the newer version, seems seemed to work fine.  I guess SANDISCOVERY, IBM HBAs and EMC Clariion don’t like each other.  I was always suspicious of SANDISCOVERY, but it because usefull on some Windows test servers I was messing with.  This unfortunately calmed my suspicions.  I wish we could have been a 100% IBM shop, but there is Quantum and EMC in the mix. Oh well.  Humby took an “action shot” while we were trying to isolate the problem.
Also, I got a shot of cortisone in my heel the other day!  I went to the podiatrist to address some complaints, shin splints, etc.  I had something scary sounding, which really just means “sore heel”.  I apparently abnormally pronate when I walk, and it was magnified by coming to NYC and walking much more.  It’s all treatable and I might actually be able to get on the treadmill after this, instead of just the elliptical machine.  He also remarked at how inflexible I was.  He tried to bend my foot back to stretch my calf and it wouldn’t budge!  That also has something to do with the pronation, so now I have to stretch regularly.  Stretching is probably a good idea anyway, and I should probably stretch more than just my calf muscles.  Maybe yoga is in my future.  Hippies!

Normal day today.  Just a photo of my workspace.  I had a business idea on the way home.  I’m too lazy to do anything about it, or even search the internet to see if someone has done it already.  Just in case it is original, I wanted to document what I thought of so I can at least say, “I had that idea back in 2008!”
The idea is to web-ify trade conferences.  I was listening to TWIT today, and they started doing a live stream while recording the show.  As far as I know, they don’t offer the video for download later (Like Revision3), which is besides the point.  While they film the show, he mentioned about 3000+ people were watching the stream.  They also have the ability to distribute links to the listeners as they are talking, as well as monitor a chat room to asnwer questions as they come up (and are at least moderatly interesting)   The technology to do this seems to have fallen enough that this is actually affordable to do even with a large audience.  The market for the technical conference is shrinking.  Maybe for trade conferences in general, but I’m only familiar with the technical ones.  Comdex used to be the largest, but they are discontinued now. These conferences are extremely expensive, and these companies are getting less and less “bang for the buck” so they just stopped going.  Apple recently said they are trying to reduce the amount of conferences they attend because they are getting their message out other ways.
The idea is to have a scheduled online event. Each “booth” section would have a streaming camera, product specialists, chat room, rss feeds, twitter feeds, all the other social buzz words. The idea is to have the same level of interactivity that you get from actually going to a trade conference in person.  The audience can pre-subscribe to the different feeds they’d be interested in.  They can log in to the chat room to ask about the battery life for whatever.
For each “booth”, you can send out a streaming kit, which involves a camera, laptop, software, and all the stuff to get up and running, or just send specifications and a software CD, and the presenter can have their own setup.  You’d have your keynote’s and all the other stuff, but would be so cheap compared to the old way, they wouldn’t even need an approval on their expense report!
Anyway, I thought it was a good idea.  We’ll see if we see it someday soon!

Finally got around to upgrading the camera.  I got the Fuji f100fd.  I just wanted a small camera that I could carry around anywhere, and still have a hope of getting a decent picture indoors in a low-light situation.  I went to B&H, which had a good price, was close-by, and I got the instant gratification of buying in person.  (Not having to wait for mail-order)  The instant gratification was ruined a little bit by having to charge the battery for a couple hours before I could use it :(  B&H was a bit of an experience. I’ve been there before, but never purchased anything.  They have this pretty efficient system.  There were a lot of people there, and a lot of people in line.  But everything flowed very well.  They have a neat little conveyor system that shuttles the stock to all different parts of the store.  Probabably minimizes shoplifting, but also probably helps the flow of the purchasing process.
Anyway, I still haven’t gone through the manual yet.  Just took a few photos on Auto, and the low-light sensitivity is definitely better than my old Canon elph.  Here is a picture on the corner.  Like I said, everything is still auto, and I’m not sure if the Auto mode is the best for normal outdoor-sunny shooting.

I came out of a foosball dry spell this past weekend.  Scott B had a housewarming cookout (I will not call it a barbecue!) at his new place in Brooklyn.  I had a good time, played lots of foosball.  It’s a pretty large place with a backyard and 2 floors.  2 couples are living there and it was the first time I met the other couple.  Quite a few people went.  Most I’ve met before, but I met a few more.  Finally played Rock Band.  Drums are too hard, bass is too easy.  That’s about all there is to that, video games get boring pretty quick.
Other than that, I did amazingly little this weekend. I did a couple things on my todo list, but that only involved picking up paper-shredder oil.  I didn’t even get around to using it yet.  I’m still backed up on shredding stuff.  I got my jiffy steamer in finally, but I haven’t gotten around to using it.  Once I do, I’ll hopefully be on my “wear a suit once a week” routine.
I hope this is doing a good job of communicating how bored and pathetic I’ve been lately! I must be in some kind of funk.  Other than the party this weekend, I’ve spent most of my time sleeping and just laying on my bed listening to audiobooks! I’m giving myself one week to get out of it.  By next sunday, I’m committing to be back on my exercise routine.  Hopefully that will be enough to get me outta the funk. Oh well, at least I got a funny picture out of it.
My birthday is coming up and maybe this funk is related to that.  I doubt it, because I don’t really think about it unless someone else says something about their birthday, and I remember “Hey, mine is coming up!”  I’m not really into presents or anything, and it’s in the middle of the week, so eh. Whatever….
So the photo is a bit big, and I need to write more stuff to take up space, so the photo doesn’t wrap into the next post!
Ace just got back from the Philippines and he started work in Brownsville already!  I thought he was going to come back here first, but I guess not.
Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog! I’ve been going back and watching some Arrested Development episodes. It was such a good show.  GOB is my favorite character by far, but Jason Bateman is getting better this time around.  He’s more subtle compared to GOB, so I guess I didn’t really get the character the first time I watched the 3 seasons.  This time around, the characters are already built up in my head, so the mannerisms are more noticeable.  I call it the Napoleon-Dynamite-effect.  Arrested Development and Firefly are the 2 shows that I would actually pay to bring back!  The Firefly movie helped a little, but I think they could have made the Preacher a much richer character, so I was a little disappointed.  Ok, enough rambling…

I had to pull from stock photographs because I’ve been very lazy taking pictures lately.  I should have taken some at the BBQ festival.  The “Big Apple BBQ Block Party” was awesome, but I was unprepared.  At least, now I have some knowledge, and it’ll be the dog’s bollox next year.  The festival was at Madison Square park this past Sat-Sun, 12-6 on both days.  Several booths offering different barbecue variations.  If you approach the booths from the street, which is what every one did, you end up in Disneyland-style roped-off lines that barely move.  It was also the first weekend this year that got over 95 degrees.  I didn’t end up going until Sunday at around 2pm.  I ended up going to the lines serving food that no one really wanted, since they were shorter!  I did get to try Brunswick Stew, which I’ve never heard of before.  The knowledge for next year:  They have something called a “Fast Pass” which costs $100 and are limited in quantity (It was sold out before Sunday)  This is basically a backstage pass and a debit card for barbecue!  You just have to eat $100 worth of BBQ over the 2 days.  You also get into the fenced off area behind the booths, so you don’t have to wait in line with the “riff raff”  Next year, I’m getting their early on Saturday and buying a pass, straight off!
Last weekend, I also finished cleaning out my room.  I brought several shipments of clothes to Salvation Army, and moved a few shipments of stuff to my storage facility.  I ended up buying a full size hand cart with big wheels and nylon straps.  Totally worth it.  It made moving everything much easier.
Last, but not least, I finished upgrading my website.  Upgraded Wordpress and moved to smugmug.  I also tightened up the security on everything.  Now I have no excuses for not writing and taking some photos.
By the way, the photo is from Lansdowne Road, maybe the best mini-burgers, and they have a cool sheet of ice that goes the length of the bar to keep your drink cold.  Neato!

Ace graduated towards the end of May, and we celebrated by taking him to Bouley.  We went to Bouley, got the tasting menu and had the matching wines.  It’s one of my favorite things in the world!  Note to self, “don’t drink 2 Guinness before a multi-course meal!”  Grace couldn’t make it, so KC filled in.  Great time, food, wine.  A friend introduced me to the term “smarmy”, which is my latest source of amusement.  I think I have a few expressions which epitomize the feeling.  What do you think?  This is me in Bouley with one of the “smarmy” expressions.  I think I will pose smarmy for a while….
My Mr Ned suit is complete. (Wore it to Bouley)  I need to take a few more pictures of it to get a critique in the clothing forums, but I like it.  The only thing is that the armholes aren’t as high/tight as I would have liked it, so it feels a little restrictive if I actually move around in the thing.  Other than that, it was a good first custom suit experience, and I will come back to get it “just right”.  Great value too, since it’s about the same you would pay for a decent “beginner’s” suit at BrooksBrothers.  I got a very light 8oz wool, so hopefully I can wear this through the summer.
It has been a while since I updated this site, and I think it’s because I’ve been planning a few changes.  I’ve been wanting to update wordpress, but my photo gallery plugin wouldn’t have worked.  I’m not really a fan of managing my own gallery anymore, so I’m migrating to Smugmug. If you click on the photos link, you’ll see that smugmug lets you customize it pretty heavily.  I customized it enough to make it seem like its the same site as everything else.  The CSS isn’t perfect, and I’ll be working on it.  I also got the random picture on the front look to smugmug. The next thing is to upgrade Wordpress, which I’m looking to do this weekend maybe.

I’ve actually been busy for the past couple of weeks.  Unfortunately Matt S left and moved to Chicago.  He was a great personality in our group and it will be much quieter without him around.  I told him I will invite myself to Chicago in 6 months or so, once he’s learned all the restaurants.  I still haven’t been to Chicago.  It will be good to visit while knowing a local. Maybe a year would be better.  I don’t think I want to go in the middle of winter.
Right after his going away party, I was off to Montreal for work.  I flew up the Saturday before I actually had to be there so I could visit the city.  It was very cool.  Several french restaurants with people that spoke french, but could all understand english.  The last part made it a little easier to get around than when I was actually in France.  Also, of all places, Montreal had the best burger I’ve ever had!  I thought I would find that in NYC somewhere.  (I’m still looking).  While doing restaurant research, I found this excellent food review journal EatWellMontreal and I found many places to eat in my neighborhood. I was up late on Saturday and tried to find a place near by, and I went to M:brgr on his recommendation. I had the Kobe burger and poutine. I never had poutine before.  It is obviously very heavy, but I did like it.  The burger was just right.  The patty wasn’t too big or too loosly packed, which I normally don’t like in your normal “gourmet burger”  You can tell from the EatWellMontreal pictures that it isn’t a typical steakhouse burger.  They are definitely doing their own thing, and I liked it.
I have an uncle in Montreal and his passion is the family tree.  He has a program that has over 20,000 entries in it!  He has lived in Montreal for longer than I’ve been around and I supposedly visited when I was a kid, but I have no memory of it.  He showed me around the city, it was great.  Travelling is so much better when you know a local.  Even with the internet, you are still “driving” and you might be limiting your experience.  For example, if I didn’t have an uncle there, I would have probably just stuck with the restaurant and downtown exploration.  They took me to the different neighborhoods and the different points of the mountain (Montreal=Mount Royale, it’s actually a mountain!) and also showed me the huge basilica, which is a typical sight seeing stop that I had no idea about.  Good time, unfortunately stupid iPhoto lost all my iphone photos, so I had to pull an archive photo of myself for this post.
I’m back in the city, and I’m back on my mission to drink my 4 bottles of wine.  The last 2 nights I went out to dinner at places with a corkage.  I drank both bottles of 2001 Mouton.  There was a little variation between the 2 bottles.  I enjoyed the first one more, but maybe it’s just psychological.  First place was Po in West Village.  $50 tasting menu, and it was awesome.  I’m not typically a fan of gnocchi, but one of the courses was a potato gnocchi in a really spicy tomato sauce.  I am still thinking about it! I went with my cousin Grace and she was as crazy about the wine as I was.  This wine really had some depth.  I could totally tell there were several different things going on during just the smelling, tasting then after taste. I could actually smell like 5-10 different things in the wine at the same time.  Crazy good! (Translation for oenophiles: Very complex and expressive at all stages, nose, middle palate, texture and finish) After Po, I wanted to get to the other Mouton ASAP, so I went to Les Halles tonight and was able to get reservations even though it was Mother’s Day.  They even forgot to charge us the corkage, so we tipped really well.  It’s the good life!  2 Unico bottles to go…

Opened the freezer today while looking for a thermometer.  Guess it has been neglected a bit!  I don’t go to the grocery store and really only use the fridge for drinks every once in a while.  A different lifestyle than suburban-Shawn.
The Ziegfeld theatre has been showing old Bond movies the past two weeks.  I went to “Dr No” and “From Russia With Love” last weekend.  It was the first time I’ve been to the Ziegfeld, and it was great.  It’s a huge old-style theatre.  Maroon felt-covered walls and gold painted wood.  Happy!
I’ve decided to not keep around old bottles of wine any more.  Ideally, I’d like to keep about a case worth of mixed wine for special occasions.  I currently have 4 bottles of special-occasion wine that I’d actually drink.  The others are of “questionable provenance”and I don’t want to risk trying to drink them.  The problem is that any wine refrigerator of this size isn’t really made for long term storage.  At the size that I’m looking for, they are also extremely shabby.  They don’t seem to make a high quality wine refrigerator for under 30 or so bottles.  I used to have a 35 bottle refrigerator, but that was too big for the NYC apartment.  I’ve thought about it, and I think that is the trend I want to follow.  I think the idea of the storing a special-occasion wine is a suburban idea.  Special bottles, like these, take time to get a hold of.  And space isn’t that expensive, so it makes sense to stock up.  In NYC, on the other hand, space is at a premium and coincidentally, I can buy any wine I’d want just a few blocks from here.  If I wanted a Lafite or a d’Yquem Sauternes, Morrel has it.  At the moment, they even have an Unico.  (I carried 2 Unico’s from Spain when I visited a few years ago)  Now the only problem is, what do I do with the current store of special-occasion bottles? I was thinking of just drinking them over the next couple weeks.  (I just reclaimed them from Trevor R’s wine fridge after storing them there for quite a while)  I don’t know if I can convince myself to drink almost $2K worth of wine in such a short amount of time! I’ll be trying to convince myself over the next couple of days.  What are the alternatives?

It sounds familiar, but I didn’t remember.  Shannon and Ryan have their birthdays within a week of each other.  They both turned 30 this year, and they organized a party down in Houston.  I took a week and visited Houston.
First day was her actual birthday, so we did what she wanted.  She’s a big nerd, we visited Lucy since the exhibit happened to be in Houston.  Apparently the fact that the exhibit is touring the world is pretty controversial.  The Smithsonian isn’t accepting it out of protest, but Houston’ll take it!  We also saw the DaVinci exhibit which was also kinda neat.
I also wanted to get a culinary taste of Houston, because I don’t really remember trying to do that before.  All the places we went to were excellent.  Ryan and Shannon have good taste!  Ryan is a true foodie.  The places I remember were Breakfast Klub (Get the Wings and Waffle!), Strip House, Tortas El Angel (Best tortas this side of the border), and to top if off…. Feast.  Here is one person’s experience. Ever since seeing that Bourdain-London episode, where he had random neglected pig parts, I’ve been wanting to give this stuff a try.  As it turns out, Ryan bought a couple books from the St. John chef and had heard that a former collegue of the chef opened upshop in Houston.  My mom and Ryan got the Ox Tongue fritters and I had the pig cheek.  I liked the fritters more, but the cheek was along the lines of mexican barbacoa.  It went well with the cabbage, and it was definitely an experience!
The actual birthday bash was a great time.  They had enough food to feed everyone about five times over!  The main attractions were the 2-60qt. stock pots on burners continuously churning out crawfish/corn/potatoes.  The crawfish were driven over from Louisiana and were still very alive.  They were cleaned, salted and dropped in the seasoned boil. The 40-50 people there didn’t even make it through half of the crawfish! I have to say, my favorite part was the corn-on-the-cob, cooked in this spicy crawfish seasoning.  Then Ryan made gumbo on a 3rd turkey-fryer burner, which he was working on for a few days.  Real fish stock and a chocolate colored roux. THEN, just in case you didn’t like any of that Lousiana-style stuff, they bought enough barbecue, crudités, cheeses for everyone two or three times over.  They also had a beer keg, wine, sodas, etc.   Good times!