Cocktail Confessions

Yeah, it’s a little late in the making, but today’s a great opportunity for an update and catch up on recent activities due to the rainy weather.

I’ll be working on a new entry dedicated to my sausage making shortly (maybe even later today).  I just off-loaded some pictures from my Droid phone that I took while in the kitchen while making them, and they turned out pretty good for not having touched a meat grinder in over 5 years.

Work has been slow….mind numbingly slow…so slow in fact, I’m fantasizing about other careers.  The good news is (and don’t tell my boss), it’s allowed me to start reading in earnest again and I’ve been able to finish a true crime book in about two weeks, and I started a new science fiction novel two days ago and I’ve already been able to get through the first 100 pages…just at work (albeit most of it has been during lunch breaks).  I’m getting more and more interested in buying an Android tablet (when the price is reasonable…they are just too expensive right now for a 10″ tablet) and start carrying digital books around, much like a Kindle.

My diet is still plugging along, although this past weekend I cheated a bit more than I would have liked to have and it affected my Sunday weigh-in for sure.  Saturday I spent the afternoon with a few friends ‘beering’ at a local brewery, Cismontane, and had a few pints of some heavy handed beer.  This included a rare chili-cheese dog for lunch.  Dinner that evening consisted of having a ‘sausage’ party (Yeah, I can hear all the jokes right now).  I grilled 4 different types of sausages for my friends and neighbors and this was followed by a little Jack Daniels drinking and some Oreo cookies.  But when it was all said and done, I came in the next day at 224.8 lbs, still slightly down from the previous week.  However, earlier in the week I did have two days where I was 223.8 which had me excited, but it didn’t last. 

Speaking of beer, I’m still on track to go to Brew Bakers with my friend Brian on March 12th, about 2pm and we’ll be brewing and tasting some beer.  My friend Joe had an excellent play on words for a beer, and after massaging the idea a bit and brainstorming some visuals, he came up with an excellent mock-up picture for the label.  I liked it so much that I’m going to give him a few suggestions to tweak, and I’ll end up using it for my own.  I don’t want to reveal it hear just yet, but I am excited to debut it later…it’s pretty damn funny and a collaborative effort, but Joe for sure came up with the spark.

Finally, I also started my train benchwork layout after many months of sitting idle. 

Two weekends ago I bought most of the wood, except the actual table top as Home Depot’s arm-saw was broken (I’ll go back at a later date), and other hardware.  This past Saturday I got up and started measuring, re-measuring, and then triple-measuring before I made cuts with my miter saw and began the first stages of assembly.  I ended up with a 3.5′ x 6.5′ butt-joint assembled frame (pictured) .  That’s a pretty decent beginner size for a N-scale (1:160) train layout.  I’ve already cut the legs too, at 3.5′ tall when fully assembled.  I’ll attach those this weekend and maybe get the side bracing done, then finally back to Home Depot to get the actual top.  From there, it’s trying to find sheets of pink extruded insulation foam, and then the real fun/project begins.

We also got a new TV about a week back as the old plasma died.  Well, it’s finally mounted on the wall and had Cox Cable come out and got a new DVR (more storage and HDMI compatible).  This has allowed me to ditch some cables and finally get rid of my VCR as well, so we’ve freed up some space and got rid of about a third of the cables.  I have an idea to hide the rest of them, but that’s a project for another day.

Overall, not too shabby of a start only a month and half into the new year.  Big items left to tackle is getting involved (volunteering) at an animal shelter in the area, actually take a few days for a mini vacation, cleaning out a bit more of the house and purging stuff we don’t use anylonger (there’s been a discussion of a neighborhood garage sale in the coming weeks), and a few other smaller things (like a new podcast entry).  But so far, so good, but I still feel like I need another day in the week to catch up for everything I either want to do, or just rest because the other days seems so busy.

The last few days have been a whirlwind of small personal triumphs (I’ll take them where I can get them, thank you) and frustrating moments.  Most everything here deserves a small entry in their own right, and perhaps I’ll expand on some of them in the coming days.  It all really depends on how busy I am at work, or for that matter how bored I am…which has been the predominant theme as of late:

-         My weight loss plan started out good, but came to a stall this past week.  After five weeks of eating semi-solid food (oh, how I miss the ‘crunch’), riding the bike more often at the gym, and trying to really monitor my overall diet amongst other things, I’ve lost just shy of 12 pounds.  But this past week I lost nothing at all which is a little disheartening, but no reason to get into a tizzy just yet.  I did have a few drinks over the weekend, but I don’t think enough to ruin my regime; but then again since I didn’t lose anything at all, so maybe it did after all.  The other issue is that my shoulder has been nagging me again and causing some slight discomfort overall.

-         I was able to make roughly 7 lbs of sausage, over the weekend, and brought some over to my buddies house yesterday for Super Bowl.  Not sure if they may have been grilled on the BBQ a little too long, but despite great flavor, they were a tad bit dry.  That’s weird, because with the left over meat that I didn’t stuff in a casing, I made a patty which was very juicy.  It was a lot of work, and while not my best sausage to date, the effort involved after not making for close to 6 years still was an accomplishment in my book.

-         Made my way over to Home Depot on Saturday and bought a lot of wood to start my train layout bench work.  On the downside, however, their arm saw was broken so I didn’t get any cut plywood that would have been the base of my layout, nor did I get any pink extruded foam because despite the online website stating they carry it, when I was there in person, they told me they didn’t.

-         My wife said that her sink at her vanity in the master bathroom was leaking.  A leak I can’t yet find, but there was water about underneath and onto the carpet.  Yet another item that needs to be fixed at the house that I wasn’t expecting.  Sigh.

-         My 7.5 year old plasma TV died on Sunday.  While I’m excited to buy a new TV, we weren’t planning on it until the end of the year when we had more money.  Another untimely expense in my book.

-         My job has been sucking bad this past week.  I’m at an all time low for morale right now.  My managers (yes, plural), cannot make a decision or a stand on anything if their life depended on it.  It is so frustrating to work under those who can’t commit to anything and seem wishy-washy on anything thrown their way.  I wake up in the mornings imagining ways to get out early or to look busy, but neither I nor my wife are in a position to quit right now.

-         The Motorola Xoom tablet is going to be too expensive for me to purchase here in the next few weeks.  Rumor has it that it will retail for $799.  As much as I would like one, I can’t justify that price right now, especially with a dead television that is going to be replaced.

-         I am reading a lot again.  Not my comics that I used to enjoy so much, but I’m plugging away at hardcover books (especially used ones I get from the second hand market) as of late. 

-         My efforts in organizing a camping trip with friends has been dashed due to my friends inability (sorry guys if you’re reading this) to agree on a date.  In my final attempt, I threw out 3 separate dates for April/May coming up (3 months advance notice at that), and no one has responded.  I give up.

-         Saturday, March 12^th, I have a date to brew beer up in Huntington Beach.  Another mark in the ‘Win’ column for my 2011 bucket list.

-         Looks like there’s going to be some turn over in my neighborhood.  One neighbor has finally had their house reposed by the bank (I won’t miss them), but my next door neighbors just told me they are trying to sell their house via ‘short sale’ which means it’s a gamble on who it may attract.  I like my neighbors now…they are nice and quiet and even younger than us.  The potential outcome is making me a tad nervous.

This rings true for me more times than not.

A cleverly crafted letter, or a direct phone call to the people that matter (without losing your cool), that spells out logical points and is based on a solid argument generally works out in your favor more often than you’d think.

Over the years I’ve been able to get out of a myriad of CC late fees, fraudulent billing statemnts, and other similar infractions that had any semblance of being in a ‘gray’ area. 

When it comes to actual product mishaps, disappointments in performance, design flaws, or whatever, the same principal also applies.  I have gotten my share of free meals, charges reversed, complimentary samples, upgrades, shipping credits, etc. based on solely on my confidence and persistence.

Like your mama may have told you as a life lesson:  ”It’s easier to catch flies with honey than shit.”  Well, on second thought, that’s probably a bad analogy, because I can never recall a time where a fly turns down a nice fresh pile of steaming shit, BUT, the principal is there:  Striking while the iron is hot and fresh and doing it in a calm and rational way will generally give you the results you want.

I could launch into a plethora of examples for you, but let me combine my most recent one with a product review at the same time.

About 6 or 7 months ago, possibly longer, I purchased a set a ‘cheap’ headphones from Best Buy by a company called Skullcandy.  I spent all of $19.95 on a pair of Ink’d earbuds for my Zune player as the default pair that Microsoft includes with their players are cheap and very uncomfortable in their own right.

Anyway, as it turns out, Skullcandy earbuds are pretty much like all other earbuds out there other than the fact with a few jazzy color schemes, some slick marketing and a creative name, they seem to command a slightly higher price.  That doesn’t mean they are actually any better than other OTC earbuds under $50, but they make the consumer ‘believe’ their product is superior through an above average presentation.  Another selling point is that they supposedly have a good warranty program in placeas well.  But let’s be honest, we aren’t talking about a personal computer or new plasma television set.  How many people actually fill out the warranty card or even take the time to register $19 earbuds with any company?  I’d wager to say less than 10% and I even think that’s being generous.  Most people don’t register hardware products under a certain value as it just seems easier to replace them by buying new ones.

Now before I get into the meat of what I’m dropping here today, let me do a quick review of the Ink’d earbuds themselves:

I read an article not to long ago that led the reader to believe that all OTC earbuds and portable earphones are pretty much supplied and manufactured by one company in China.  That’s right, in the end it doesn’t matter if you buy “ABC” brand’s metallic glow-in-the-dark, or “XYZ’s” Shiny Sound 2000′s….they are all made by the same company, they just get fancy names and pretty paint jobs by those that sell them domestically.

I’m not sure if that also rings true for mid-level and high-end earphones, but all the ‘low-ends’ are pretty much the same.

My experience with my Ink’d's are as such: they sound a little ‘tinny’ or hollow to me.  Don’t expect deep bass sounds (there’s no huge magnet driving these puppies).  They come with three different size silicon ear inserts, and by default the mediums are installed.  I did find these a bit uncomfortable after long periods of wearing them.  I’m a tad lazy in swapping them out for the smaller inserts, and for all I know the smaller ones may fit my inner ear better and be more comfortable in the long run.  But I give Skullcandy credit for including three different sizes….most brands don’t, so they must figure everyone has the same size ear and thus just accepts the feel.

The wires themselves are coated in a silicon like rubber that aren’t smooth and give the earphones a feel that they may be a bit more rugged and weighty; an impression that they may be more durable.  It’s my experience there really is no added protection to the internal wiring underneath this sheathing.  I noted that after a few months, something exposed a little piece of copper wire and they get just as tangled up, if not more so than all other brands.

The biggest problem with all these damn earphones is where the wire meets the RCA jack itself.  I’d say 90% of all earphone failures all happen here.  No one has been able to design a rugged enough ‘sleeve’ around the RCA plug itself and the internal wiring.  Overtime this thing just gets bent and disconnected somehow.  You’ll sit there like a dolt wiggling the wire back and forth, trying to tape it in place for a few weeks, but eventually they’ll give out.  This happened to me and to just about every other headset I’ve ever owned in my life. 

What Skullcandy does have for it, as I mentioned earlier, is a vast array of color schemes that go beyond the standard black or white ones that we’ve all seen 1000 times. 

So my final take? Eh, you end up buying them for their color schemes first, and maybe the ear insert second, but I see no real difference in sound quality themselves, which makes sense, if they are indeed all made by the same Chinese company.

Now back to my initial issue.  My headphones broke at the common point of failure where the wire meets the jack.  I can’t even remember when I bought the damn things and the simple thing to do is just to buy another pair.  But since I wanted to try my hand at the warranty and see if I could get a free replacement, I went ahead to the Skullcandy website.

While the website itself may look ‘cool’ and relatively simple in design (less is more), all the darn pictures take a bit longer than I’d like to load.  Doesn’t matter what PC I use (work vs home), or what browser (IE vs Firefox)…it just takes longer than you expect to load, but no big deal, unless you use the forward and backward buttons to check out individual products…then the page refresh gets old fast.

First I had to create an account, validate my email, blah, blah, blah.  Then I had to register my product, but since I can’t remember when or did I keep the receipt, I made one up in the probable time frame.  So far so good.

The problem starts when you have to get an RMA number.  They pretty much discourage a calling at this point  and request you fill out a warranty claim and get an RMA number via email.  You then have two choices for a claim: 1) aggressive enjoyment (?) -or- 2) manufacturer defect.  I didn’t know what to select and since there was no guidelines I chose #1 (mistake – more on this later).

Once you get your RMA, your instructed to place your damaged earphones in a padded envelope and mail to them along with a tracking number.  Thank goodness the tracking number is optional, because if I had to pay for Fed Ex to give me a tracking number, it’s already too much work and additional investment for $20 headphones.

I press on.  I mail my earphones and am instructed to wait for an email upon their receipt.  Should take 3-4 business days, but for me it took at least 6 – 7 business days (not weekends either).  My email said it would take 4-6 weeks processing.  Stop right there.  4-6 weeks to process a request for a replacement of $20 ear phones….after waiting for over a week just to get confirmation they received them?  Buying a new pair seems highly plausible as this point.

I call them up and am put on hold for a good 10 minutes until I get an actual person.  To Skullcandy’s credit, I will say that everyone I spoke to was both nice and spoke English, and for those two facts alone, I hung in there.  I told the first guy I spoke with that this 4-6 week processing seems unreasonable.  You look at the earphones, you plug them in to see if the work or not, and you make a determination on the spot.  There are no moving parts here, nothing radioactive or needs DNA screening to my knowledge.  He said it’ll probably be faster just hang out a few more days, so I agree.

Sure enough a few days later I get an email stating that my claims was processed and I’ll get 50% value credit to their online store.  Okay, that’s ‘cool’ I guess, but why not 100%?  Not my fault that the internal wiring breaks.  I call up again, wait another long period of time and this time get a young lady who is equally nice.

Now here’s the moral of the story folks….this is where persistance pays off (note: the first time)……I remainded very cordial and made my case and she agreed.  In realtime right then and there, she credited my not only 100% ($20) but gave me free shipping as well.  When I asked her why I only got 50% the first time, she said because I chose ‘aggressive enjoyment’.  If I would have chose ‘manufacturer’ defect, I would have most likely got 100% credit the first time around (read: they don’t check or test their claims…probably not worth the time and effort for a quick cheap replacement).

Armed with online store credit, I chose a new pair, but then here’s where I ran into issue #2.  Again, whether I tried either IE or Firefox, their website rejected my home address and asked me to ‘try again later’.  Well, I tried off and on multiple times over the course of two days, each time double checking my own address which I lived at for the past 7 years, and each time my address was rejected.  Screw this, I’m calling back.

And yet again, I get the nicest guy on the phone.  I tell him the issue, and he says he’ll be happy to fix it and push it himself…which he does and even before I hand up the phone with him, I get an email confirming my address and….get this….an additional 20% off my next purchase.  How awesome is that?

So while I may have had to jump through a few extra hoops, and do the leg work myself, in the end I got a full replacement plus a 20% coupon to boot.

In the future, I probably wouldn’t buy a new headset unless it was in the mid-tier ($60+), but Skullcandy customer service was a positive experience.

Following on the tails of the previous entry (they were originally together, but my beer memories grew too lengthy), here’s my take on homemade sausage.

It’s another hobby I really enjoy.  There’s a lot of creative freedom in making your own sausage, the marrying of fresh meats such as pork and beef with all those fresh ground spices.  It’s very satisfying to stuff your own casings and see how very plump and juicy they are, and you know how fresh your ingredients are.  There is absolutely no comparison when it comes to store bought, pre-packaged sausage and the stuff you make on your own.  There’s no sulfates, preservatives, colorings, or questionable cuts of sub-par filler meat you have no idea what part of the animal comes from (lips and assholes anyone?).

And like brewing your own beer, there’s definetly some bragging rights somewhere in the mix when you can cut off your own links and grill ‘em up for your friends.

I was never too keen on breakfast sausage.  It’s okay, and I’ll eat it, but I normally don’t go for the little maple infused breakfast sausages.  They always taste either a bit too greasy or to burnt for my liking, and I know the meat in those comes from questionable sources.  I’m also not a fan off too much fennel seed, or sausages that have been frozen weeks ago in their travels to the store.  A lot of larger grocery chain stores will have their own ‘mild’ or ‘spicy’ Italian sausages, but I always think they lack the flavor I’m really expecting.

My favorites include the oh-so-bad-for-you Mexican Chorizo, and German (or is it Polish) Kielbalsa?  Of course a good beer-brat with grilled onions on an artisan roll is also divine.  And if you make your own beer, how can you deny the perfect synergy of craft beer and sausage…they go togother like Lindsey Lohan and….well…everybody I suppose.

Just over 7 years ago, (even before I started brewing my own beer), I got a small electric meat grinder by Rival, I think.  I even bought a book of professional sausage recipes that went way beyond just pork and beef.  There were exotic game ones that included venison, ostrich, boar and some to be made with poultry and veggies such as artichoke hearts and others that incorporate other mixtures such as pesto or a tapenade.

I also made them pretty traditionally, that is with actual hog casings (meaning cleaned intestine lining) and not this artificial paper-esque collagen stuff.  I used to go to a local butcher an get a few pounds of both beef and pork, and often needed to call ahead of time and ask them to same my all the back fat they could (a required ingredient for ‘real’ sausage making…by controlling the fat..you’re controlling the amount of flavor and moisture you introduce into the mix). 

And not being satisfied with over the counter spices that may have been sitting in my pantry for years on end, I even bought my very own stone morter and pistal to grind my spices and release their fresh aromas and oils.  You can’t beat the taste or smell of freshly milled spices, and that’s the sign of an above average sausage.

I made a chicken and artichoke pesto sausage once.  Turned out pretty good, but I was super nervous handling the chicken and keeping it cool while I worked.  Stripping raw meat off the bones was harder that you think as chicken tends to get a little slimy, and can cause major food poisoning if not handled correctly.  You must clean all your surfaces both before and after, at least twice, and I suggest using those new Lysol or Clorox towelettes to clean counter tops to avoid any change of contamination.  I’ve had food poisoning from bad and uncooked chicken before…..it is the worst!!

Of course, the beer infused ones are even better, because often during my mixing process, the recipe may ask for a few ounces of beer.  So what do you do with the rest?  Well, drink it of course.  I don’t think I ever made a round of sausage in my kitchen that I also didn’t have a buzz going on from Negro Modelo.

It was a sad day about 5 years ago when I made a fatal mistake of becoming lazy for a moment and put the plastic stuffing tube into the dishwasher.  It was only after I ran the dishwasher did I realize that the spinning arm inside took a chunk out of it and deformed it, and thus my electric grinding and sausage stuffing days were over….

Until now.

Today I found two replacement universal stuffing tubes on Amazon.com for the low, low price of $9.98.  I added it to my electronic shopping cart (as well as a copy of WoW: Cataclysm for all you gamers out there), and now I’m already salivating at the idea of breaking out my old grinder (wife says it’s in the garage somewhere….I’ll try and find it this weekend.) and getting wrist deep in ground meat in the coming weeks.  Oh the joy of soon calling my long lost friend, the butcher, to once again request he save me 2 pounds of back fat and make sure he has about 10 feet of hog casings.  I’m actually looking forward to making a nice spicy summer sausage.

There are two past hobbies of mine I’d like to bring back this year: making my own sausage (upcoming post), and making my own beer.

I used to do both at regular intervals from 2001 thru about 2004, but ever since we moved to our new house around the beginning of 2005, I haven’t done either.  That’s just over five years.

I got my Mr. Beer kit as a gift from a close friend of mine, Sam, and was quite intrigued with the prospect of making my own flavorful creations.  I was imagining they’d be somehwat cheaper to produce in home than buying a twelve pack at the store,  that they’d be a bit more robust in both flavor and alcohol, and also garner myself some bragging rights along with those nice summer BBQ’s I used to have.  I mean who isn’t impressed and wants to try a home craft beer made by a friend?  Even if it isn’t the best beer in the world, you walk away thinking you just drank something very unique, something that took time and great care in handling of  ingredients instead of that commerical cheap marketed corporate swill.  It also helps that I bottle them in 16oz  grolsch bottles that are generally reserved for nice European brews.

Little did I know that it takes anywhere from 4-6 weeks for a batch of Mr. Beer to be ready to be consumed, and there is some pretty heavy duty up front effort in cleaning and sanitizing all the equipment.  It’s not hard to make per-se, but you do need to be careful not to contaminate the bottles during fermenation, or introduce anything that may disturb the yeast or purity of your concotion.  I think the hardest thing about these small kits is having patience.  It takes a few hours to mix sanitize, boil water, mix, measure, dilute, add flavoring and yeast, etc.  It’s a totally different thing after that to stare at this plastic amber keg, mocking you day in and day out for 2-3 weeks as nature takes it’s course and makes naughty..naughty with the yeast.  After the initial fermentation, you then bottle everything (and add sugar for to start the carbination process) and need to wait yet another 2-3 weeks, rotating the bottles every few days, checking its progress, all the while smacking your lips wondering how much longer this whole thing is going to take.

My personal fav - Stout

Finally that magic day comes and you can now put them in the fridge and wait a few hours for them to cool enough to enjoy.  Then you invite a few of your friends over for a BBQ and you’re beaming like a brand new father, passing out cigars in eager anticipation.  The finely rubbed steaks are coming off the grill with the right markings, the fresh potato salad is out, and your beers are being passed around for the first time.

Ahhh….that first taste is so worth it.  It’s like tasting chocolate for the first time, or looking forward to that one time a year your wife actually makes Thanskgiving Day stuffing.  But soon before you know it, like any relationship, your bliss on riding high with your whole 12 pack soon disapates in just a few short hours and you realize how much work, effort, and waiting you did, just for it all to dissapear so quickly.

Since the lots are small with this starter kit, I wanted to see if I could brew a much larger lot, but when I began to look at advancing to the next level of brewing I became concerned with the space required and investment in ‘professional’ equipment.  Even on the lower end of top grade home brewing you can expect to drop hundreds of dollars.  Then there was a question of space.  I don’t really have a spare room that can be left undisturbed and regulate temperature (a must in order to be successful).  So the next best thing I found was Brubaker’s in Huntington Beach, CA. 

Brubaker’s is a place where you can rent out a kettle and brew upwards of a pony or full keg at a time.  The nice thing is they have all the equipment, tons of beer recipes taht mimic many popular brands (or you can create your own), and when you are all done brewing for the day, they actually store it for you and call up when it’s ready to be bottled.  You can pay them to bottle it for you, or you can save a few bucks and go back and bottle yourself.  I made a keg’s worth a few years back and titled it “Frankie’s Beer” after my baby mini-schnauzer and had it ready to go for our block’s annual 4th of July party.  Needless to say it was a hit and there was some definite bragging rights and ego massaging going on.  But getting over all that, it was damn fine beer bottled in 22 oz brown glass bottles and clocked in at around 7%.  I even went as far as making my own labels picturing my dog’s face.

Is it worth it?  It depends on my mood.  Enough time has passed where the allure of making a new batch of beer makes it seem likes it’s going to be a new experience all over again.  I have a few old unused kits in my pantry, but I’m afraid the shelf life of 5 years isn’t going to help me.  I may have to start from scratch and buy a new pack (I’ll soon have a spare room to put it in as my step-daughter is moving out next week), but I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.  I’m even trying to muster up some of my friends to go back to BruBaker’s for our own brewing appointment.

Just some various odd and ends this week:

1. My progress on my diet has slowed down a bit this past week.  I knew the first week was going to be easy to drop some excess water weight and that the real challenge begins in week two, and it sure did.  It’s becoming harder and harder to slough off the extra pounds even by following the same procedures the previous week.  I actually weighed in on Saturday at my lowest yet, 228.8, and while I was in-fact surprised, I also knew I was on empty.  That morning I woke up so hungry.  The reason I weighed in on Saturday morning instead of Sunday was that my wife and I were going to her company party, and I figured I was going to cheat a bit.  I didn’t cheat bad, but I did have a few drinks of whisky on the rocks.  I also has a nice dinner, albeit the fillet Mignon was smaller than I would have liked.  The dinner also came with risotto, a salad, some bread and veggies.  I’m pretty sure I limited myself to one piece of bread.  As far as desert went it was an apple tart topped with a single scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Well, I ate the scoop of ice cream and pretty much passed on the tart after one bite.  The tart was below ‘meh’ and didn’t end up tasting like a desert at all.  The rest of the night I drank water and danced with avrious people to work up a good sweat.  On the way home I did have one single Jack-In-The-Box taco (I would have had two, but they screwed up my order and I got stiffed one taco) and a few french fries my wife had.  Anyway, the next morning I was shocked to step on the scale and see I was up to 234!!!  WTF??  My wife told me to calm down, it was probably water weight from the somewhat salty food and excess liquid I was carrying around, although the first thing I though was the whisky.  It wasn’t a lot of whisky, but I figure 5 stiff drinks throughout the night was quite a few calories, but it didn’t compute, especially after my dancing.  Sunday I was dead tired so I didn’t go to the gym, and Monday I forgot my gym clothes after work, although for dinner I had a steamed fillet of salmon and steamed veggies.  So this morning, I weigh 230.6…clearly not 234 from Sunday, but up almost 2 from Saturday.  So I’ll be hitting the bike after work today, having oatmeal for breakfast, soup for lunch, and some pure beef London broil for dinner.
2. Finances have been a little tighter than I’d like to admit, but I can’t fault my wife or myself on wasting money.  There may have been that one night we went out for sushi and spent $90, but that happens once in a blue moon.  So I’ve been packing lunches for work, eating oatmeal for breakfast, and trying our best to clean out our freezer.  It just seems like the next 11 months are going to take forever as I continue to pay off my car.  But then my wife is going to want a car in the next year or so, but no way are we getting one with the payments as high as mine.  I hate to admit, but I haven’t been turning down my parents little extra help here and there when they offer to help, although it does pain and embarrass me to some degree.
3. One thing that may help is my step-daughter is moving out on the 25th.  She’s totally not ready, but I am.  As much as it pains my wife, my step-daughter desperately needs to experience the real world to understand the value of a dollar, and more importantly hard work and respecting others.  Inherently she’s a good kid, but her sense of entitlement that everyone else can see but my wife is a bit tiresome.  And the fact she only pays us $125 in rent, while might be missed upfront, I try and tell my wife that when she moves out, our bills will decrease dramatically.  I expect our electricity and water to go down dramatically.  My wife will save a lot in gas as well as she doesn’t need to shuffle her to and from work multiple times a week.  Our grocery bill will also drop dramatically, and that’s one thing I’m looking forward to the most.  The kid eats a lot, and she eats “my” shit and never replaces it.  For example, last week I bought a ‘large’ box of Cheerios, and I only had 1 bowl, and when I went to have some this morning, I realized the box was empty.  That’s the second time that’s happened and I’m just talking cereal.  There have been plenty of times I’ve come home to see ‘my’ yogurt gone or the last soda that I pick out for myself.  Also, it will be nice to have a clean house again.  She NEVER offers to mop the floors, or vacuum, water the plants, dust, or clean up after herself in the kitchen.  So it’ll be nice to come home to a house and watch my TV when I want, go to the fridge and see that the stuff I look forward to is still there, and hopefully all my bills will be lower.
4. Camping – Trying to organize a camping trip with my friends and it like herding cats.  Deserves its own post really…so look for that.
5. Train Expo – This upcoming Saturday I’m going to the Anaheim convention center for the Great Train Expo.  I’m really looking forward to this.  I’ll be shooting some video with my Playsport, buying some tools, maybe even a structure, DVD, and quite possibly a train.  I’ll be going by myself and I’m okay with that.  I like to do something for myself once in a while, and this is a treat….finances be damned!!
6. Speaking of trains, I’ve added a new banner (see right hand margin) for the Union Pacific Steamer Excursion.  Basically you get to vote for a route (there are four different ones in different parts of the country) in which an older steam train will take and you get a chance to win and get two tickets for this historic ride across parts of America.  How fun does that sound?  See a piece of America the way it was some 60+ years ago.
7. New tech:  Looking into buying a new external hard drive, most likely a Western Digital 1 terabyte drive to back up music and pictures.  Also eagerly awaiting to see the price and release of Motorola’s new Xoom 10″ Android tablet.  I’d really like one of these, but the $600 price point may be a deal breaker.
8. Talked to a friend about doing some brisket or rib smoking in the near future.  Probably when it warms up a bit.

On Christmas Eve I was introduced to a very nice bottle of bourbon by my parents.  My mom and dad know I enjoy a good whisky and these last few years they occasionally prurchase me a nice bottle on special occasions.  Which now that I think about it is very weird because I can’t even begin to guess how many times I was grilled when I was a teenager and even of legal drinking age of the dangers and ills of drinking.  I can vividly remember having to pass breath tests when I came home late at night when I was still living with my parents, and now today they are bringing over high end bottles of booze.  Mixed message anyone?

Anyway, I was introduced to a 750 of Bulleit Bourbon, which averages about $20-25.  All I can tell you it was very clean and smooth as I sampled it ‘neat’, not mixing it with anything, and I’d easily buy this again in the future.  The flavor profile is as such: hints of oak and spice, crisp, clean flavor that isn’t harsh in the throat along with notes of vanilla and honey.

I came across this blurb on the net and thought I’d share it with you, unedited, because it’s an interesting story:

Tom Bulleit is a Southern gentleman in the truest sense of the word, but his considerable charm and family pedigree are only part of the story. He is a former Marine, a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, a successful Lexington attorney and the founder of Bulleit Bourbon, a brand he created based on a family recipe dating back nearly 200 years.

Bulleit’s great-great-grandfather Augustus emigrated from France to New Orleans around 1800, eventually following the commerce of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to Louisville, where he became a tavern keeper. Of French heritage, he relied on his knowledge of brandy-making to create small batches of Kentucky bourbon in the mid-1800s. Soon his product was traveling with the tide of pioneers headed westward. Business was good, but in 1860 Augustus disappeared while transporting whiskey to New Orleans. One family story said he was killed by his business partner. Another said he disappeared into the sumptuous life of the French Quarter. In any case, his bourbon died with him. Until Tom Bulleit came along.

Tom Bulleit was raised in Louisville and worked in distilleries before joining the Marine Corps in 1968. Later he went to law school. During his law career, Bulleit was active in the campaign for a Vietnam Veteran’s memorial in Washington, D.C.

But Bulleit couldn’t get bourbon out of his blood. In 1987, venturing into a new frontier, he created Bulleit Bourbon from the original recipe.

“I always loved the business,” Bulleit said. “My father couldn’t understand why I would leave a successful law practice, but I was attracted to the creative and entrepreneurial challenges of making this brand of bourbon and doing it right. I guess you could say it became my passion, and it still is. We are creating one of the definitive styles of bourbon currently distilled in this country. It is one of the most distinctive mash bills out there. The high rye content, absence of phenol alcohol and at least six years of aging produces something really special.”

Bulleit Bourbon was awarded the Brown Spirits Gold Medal at the 2004 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

The Bulleit legacy is a compelling chapter in the story of Kentucky bourbon, that most American of spirits. Bulleit resurrected a whiskey that was not only a lost piece of his family’s history, but of an American era. He is one only a few remaining scions of a Kentucky bourbon-making family whose name is on the bottle.

Now, onto the fun part…(you knew it was coming you cheeky little monkey’s, didn’t you?)

BLT

• 1 1/3oz Bulliet Bourbon
• Lemon wedge
• Tonic

Preperation: Serve over ice in a rocks glass and garnish with generous wedge of lemon.

Bulleit Mint Julep (serves 12)

• 15 oz Bulleit Bourbon
• 30-40 fresh mintleaves
• Simple syrup (1 cup sugar disolved in 1 cup water)

Preparation: Wash mint leaves, pat dry and place them in small mixing bowl.  Cover with 3 oz of Bulleit Bourbon and let soak for 15 minutes.  Remove mint, then place in a clean cotton cloth and wring over bowl thus bruising the leaves.  Dip back into bourbon and wirng again.  Repeat this process several times to create mint extract.  You can put leaves back in for an hour for a more concentrated mint flavor.  Combine mint extract (leaves included, if preferred) with symple syrup in a covered glass container or jar and refrigerate overnight.  Fill julep cups with crushed or shaved ice and insert a fresh mint spring.  Add 1 oz of Bulleit to each cup and then add marinated julep mixture to taste.

Yours truly in the middle

The “taking it back” mantra has been with me now for a few weeks and really began to be put into practice on Jan 1st.  I realize that was only a few days back, but I figure if I try an stay positive and keep reminding myself of certain attainable goals I offered up in my previous post, I have a decent chance of completing or at least attempting a few of them.

Case in point: Buying a scale.  Now you may think buying a scale is not really that big of a deal, and by most account you’re right.  However, I’ve never been satisfied with just ‘getting by’ (unless it’s work where my motivation not to strangle somebody on a daily basis keeps me in check), so buying a typical bathroom scale is not a simple task.

I went to the gym on Monday and of course, as is the case at least half of the time I go and work out, the professional doctor’s office caliber scale they have onsite was broken.  That thing is never calibrated correctly and just by moving it an inch to the left or an inch to the right on the tile floor will generally produce different results.  I have learned over time to take an average of my readings based on that scale and came up with a Jan. 1st starting weight of about 235 lbs. That’s not erally taking into account food I may or may not have eaten for breakfast, if I’ve used the restroom, how heavy my clothes are, etc.

Well, I finally gave in and went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to buy a scale.  I wanted to avoid the older analog scales so I went directly to the various digital ones to compare.  They range in price from $29 all the way up to $99.  Some of them have various additional features as well, including memory for multiple people, measuring of water, bone density, muscle mass, and BMI (to name a few).  I settled on one that cost me around $52 that does indeed measure much of this stuff.

I can now weigh myself at home, first thing in the morning after I use the restroom and before I get dressed to get a reading.  The only crappy thing is that stupid BMI calculation.  I don’t really don’t put any stock into that very much because I believe the calculations are based on Ethiopians.  According to any BMI chart I’ve ever seen, I’ve been considered ‘morbidly obese’ since I was around 18 years old.  I’m 5’10″ and 40 years old, and according to these charts and my current weight my BMI is roughly 33.7.  Anything over 26 is considered ‘overweight’, and to reach that fine line I should be 181 pounds.  I haven’t been 181 in close to 20 years!!  What BMI doesn’t take into account are bodybuilders or those with above average muscle mass.  What I’m getting at is that BMI is a pipe-dream for me.

Now, back to the present:

I’ve starting hitting the gym again.  I’ve been riding a stationary bike for 20 minutes at a time, followed by some moderate weight lifting on at least 2 body parts.  This past winter break where I was off work for 11 days straight afforded me to hit the gym at least 7 times.  That’s probably the amount of times I go in a whole month these last few years let alone a week and a half.  Today is Wed., and after work I plan on going again to ride the bike and lift.  I haven’t gone to the gym after work in over 3 years!  I’m actually looking forward to it and hopefully I can keep this up for a while.

So what else am I doing? 

1. I’m trying to drink more water.  I usually don’t drink soda or put cream in my coffee anyway, but I’m really trying to drink more water on a daily basis.  I still drink Ice-tea and coffee and any soda I do drink is diet or zero calorie.  Cutting back on the booze will help as well (no empty calories).  I know you may not think this is a big deal, but this far I haven’t had a sip of alcohol in 4 days now.  That’s a big deal, as I usually like a stiff Manhattan or a nice craft beer after work.
2. I’m trying to eat on a more regular and earlier schedule…meaning I’m not skipping breakfast and having my dinner between the hours of 6-7pm instead of later (often between 7-8:30pm). 
3. I’m eating more fiber and fish.  The fiber is taking a little toll on me right now as I’m having a little abdominal discomfort, but the added benefit is lowering my cholesterol as well.  Fish oil tablets at night provide Omega 3′s if I don’t have regular fish (which I want to eat more of anyway….I love salmon BTW).
4. Making some minor modification along the way including: eating less (but not eliminating) carbs altogether, smaller portions, less red meat.

Now all this is a work in progress and I’m kinda winging it.  I’m avoiding Weight Watchers, Atkins, PX90 and all that other stuff.  I want to ‘enjoy’ my life, not become a slave or punish myself for over night results in which may make me give up in a few weeks like so many other people with weak will power and no results to show for it.  I don’t want to give up baby-back ribs, BBQ, and the occasional piece of dark chocolate (my personal kryptonite).  I’m not gonna be that guy that can’t enjoy a nice meal and order salad with dressing on the side while out with my friends, or avoid gourmet food trucks…..I just need to be smarter about my choices and let my stomach, not my eyes, do the ordering.

Hopefully I’ll get back to writing some new entries here with a bit more consistency.  Although I don’t have much to show for it, it does seem that my free time as of late is luxury I do not seem to have much of.  With that in mind, I have a few planned entries for the days coming  so thanks for hanging in there and checking back in.

My Droid phone is a year old now, and I still love it.  I’m passing on getting the Droid II or Droid Pro for now.  With Verizon now beginning to rollout their LTE network and with dual core smartphones in the pipeline, I figure I can wait a bit longer.  Not sure I’ll jump on the iPhone bandwagon or not.  Yes, I understand people call it the ‘Jesus phone’ and I do realize it can do a lot of things, but Apple is so over-priced and so proprietary, it’s become almost a personal mission statement for me not to get anything Apple.

In a few short months, Motorola will offer up Olympus (aka Terminator) and it’s only a matter of time before the Google Honeycomb OS makes it’s official debut, so I’ll try to stick out until then.  I’m also looking forward to the day I can afford a nice 10.1″ Android tablet as well.  I can see myself reading books (ala Kindle), magazines, and playing a few social games and looking things up while I watch TV.  Plus it’ll be easier on my eyes.

Speaking of eyes, I’ve been wearing my reading glasses now for a few months, but am already thinking I may need to go visit the optometrist again.  My eyes have been very tired and sore as of late.  While the glasses do help and my mid range to long distance vision still seems really good, it does seem my close up abilities are even getting worse than when I had them first checked out a few months back.  I notice that things close up tend to be more blurry, take longer to focus and seem to put more strain on my eyes.  It’s not even the end of the day anymore where I just want to close my eyes for a few minutes and rest them.

Okay, back to my phone.  What a racket cell batteries are.  My battery isn’t holding a charge like it used to for my phone.  Whereas when I first had my Droid the battery seemed to last at least 2 days, maybe a tad more on average; these days it’s lucky to hold a charge for a full day under normal usage.  Of course, if I don’t look up anything, the battery will last longer, but that’s the whole point of getting a smart phone: reading emails, surfing the net, looking up restaurants in the area, shopping, taking pictures and updating Facebook.  So anyways, Verizon still wants $39.99 for a standard battery.  WHAT?!?  $39.99?  That’s ridiculous!  If you can wait a few days for shipping, buy on Amazon.com.  Here, I found a new battery (well, hopefully new and not counterfeit) for $5 +S/H.  Yeah, I’d rather spend a total of $8 than $39.99+ tax for the same thing.  It’s analogous to buying accessories at the car dealership.  The same floormats for $69.99 found at the car dealership can generally be found at Target or Walmart for $14.99, so why would you do the same phone accessories?

Hopefully I’ll have some time later today for a few additional posts.

Anyway, after yesterday’s post, I went ahead and looked up some side effects for my generic cholesterol medicine, Simvastatin, and realize this is exactly what is happening to me:

• Flatuence.
• Fatigue.
• Muscle soreness.
• Weight retention and in some cases weight gain.

I also spoke with my father who is also on the same medicine and he reported that he too feels bloated, so that explains a few things.  Doesn’t that suck?  You take medicine to help out in one area and it often affects you in a different area as well.

Anyway, last night for dinner it was two baked tilapia fish fillets and a bag of steamed veggies in a mild herb sauce, and two glasses of water.  I was a tad hungry later on, so I did have about a cup of salsa and some tortilla chips, but I’ll have you know there was no cheese that was added.

That’s going to be the hard part for me….portion control.  It’s all about retraining both my mind and stomach to be satisfied with less calories, even if they are healthy calories.  This morning for breakfast I had a single english muffin with a little pumpkin spice spread to tide me over until lunch.  I plan on trying this place called Dijon Chicken for my meal this afternoon and I’ll write up a review on Yelp when I’m done.  In the meantime, I’m looking for an Android App to help with dietary recording and requirements on a daily basis.