Fresh Code

I had more cooking to do today. I made buffalo chicken cup things and spinach dip so we had a TON of food to bring over. Spencer and John had a really nice crowd. My entire family but for Lauren and Sean because they never like to do anything, ever. Jason and Alice went over, Taylor and Delaney, Miri, Dale and baby Michael, Justin, Ryan and Angel. We ate and ate and ate. The game was excellent even though the Seahawks totally blew it at the end. We had a nice time.

Today I learned that you should really run the ball on second down when you are one yard away from winning the Super Bowl. Yep.

The Superbowl is tomorrow so I spent the day cooking all sorts of stuff to bring to Spencer and John’s house. Since we are vegan and they are not I figured I should make a decent variety of stuff so we could eat a bunch of crap and still have plenty to share.

I made Pepper Jack and Mozzarella cheese, roasted chickpeas, and jalapeno hummus. Jayde made four dozen chocolate chip cookies and I have more stuff to make tomorrow. I also decided we should have burritos and spanish rice for dinner but when I got home we didn’t have any canned beans. We have a giant bag of dry pinto beans though and we have a pressure cooker so I looked online for a recipe and pressure cooker cook time. It looked super simple and would take less than an hour start to finish. I got everything in the pressure cooker and tried putting on the lid. It didn’t go very easily so I stopped trying before it was all the way closed but then couldn’t get it back open. I had somehow got the lid on crooked and it ended up STUCK. Wayne came in and had to try for a really long time to get the lid off but he finally managed. Yay! When the lid is on properly it closes very easily. Noted.

The recipe said to keep all of the water that is left with the beans and then re-fry them. Apparently when quadrupling the recipe there ends up being too much water so it took a really long time to cook the beans down enough to be the right consistency for burritos. They were still really good though.

I helped Jordan for a bit with his To Do List application and everyone else went to bed. I thought about staying up to work on my Mozilla stuff but decided I’d get some rest since I’d have to cook again for most of the morning. Bleh, I hate cooking! I love eating though.

Today I learned that David Tennant was in a ton of other stuff that I will have to find time to watch.

The weather was so different today than yesterday. It was much cooler and foggy. We could hear the nearby ships blowing their foghorns. I love all of the sounds we have here. We didn’t have trains or ships in Lake Havasu and rarely ever heard an airliner. We get to see and hear all kinds of cool things here!

Andrew went for a long run while Wayne and I walked down to the community garden. They have the same stuff growing as we do. Kale and beets! When we got home, the wallpaper guy was busy removing the last of the wallpaper in our entryway. Wayne and I ran to the store for some breakfast fixings and then made sourdough pancakes and O’Brien potatoes. Yum! I think we all ate enough to hold us over through lunch.

I puttered around most of the day clearing out the rest of the yellow room and doing some laundry. Alice came over and said she would make dinner again. She suggested buying some pizza dough and making homemade pizza but I told her I could make crust easily and for cheap. I got that started in the late afternoon and then listened to a podcast on This American Life about internet trolls. It was very good! I checked on my dough and yikes it was HUGE! I made enough for six pizzas. Alice handled prepping all of the toppings and I had pizza sauce as well as homemade pesto on hand. I wish I had taken pictures of them. They were excellent! Bob, the wallpaper guy and his wife, Tanya joined us so there were 12 of us. We still ended up with nearly two pizzas left over. That will be perfect for lunch tomorrow!

Andrew, Wayne and I watched another episode of Dr. Who and then went to bed early. A great day 🙂

Today I learned that some scientists may have figured out how to use nuclear waste to generate energy. I’ve been waiting for someone to figure this out for a long time! I hope it’s successful.

I slept in and it was wonderful. It also happened to be a really beautiful day. It was like summer outside. A warm day and clear blue sky made for a busy neighborhood. People were out doing all sorts of stuff. Wayne and I took a walk to start our day and then he got busy working on kitchen demolition. Jason came over to help as did Taylor. They made a pretty good dent in it while Andrew and I braved Costco.

We went to the one in Beaverton and it actually wasn’t too busy. We got the few things we needed and headed home. Luckily Andrew checked his phone and noticed that there was a huge backup on the freeway heading home. We took a back road through Forest Park and it was incredibly beautiful! I’m glad that we had to alter our route.

When we got back home the deconstruction crew was really hungry. We had a big crowd to feed so I opted to grab sandwiches from East Side Deli. We’ve been great about sticking to our budget and not eating out as much as we used to so I didn’t feel guilty at all. Besides, I didn’t want to make that many sandwiches.

I spent the rest of the day going through and cleaning out the “yellow room”. It’s a small room off of our dining room that has just collected misc stuff. It’s painted bright yellow inside and has some awful foil wallpaper on the walls hence the name. It’s going to become a part of the new kitchen though so it needs to be cleared out so the wall can come down.

Alice had offered to make dinner since the guys were so busy and she knows I hate cooking so she made Frito pie. Yum! It’s just chili over Fritos but it’s tasty. After dinner we went to their house and watched Maze Runner. I kinda liked it. It wasn’t the best movie ever but it kept my attention.

Today I learned that this is the stove I wish we could get for our new kitchen.

I didn’t accomplish much of anything today. I did shower and put PJs on. I stayed in them all day and it was great! I did help Jordan get Pygame installed and running on his laptop so he can mess with game development and I made a few more pieces for this scarf I am making. I hope I don’t get bored before I finish it.

Wayne spent the day taking down the ceiling tile stuff from the hall, stairway and entry. He also found some knob and tube upstairs going to the hall light. So much for not having any live knob and tube!

I watched the Seahawks vs Packers game and it was incredible. I’m not a huge football fan but wow this game was so exciting. The Seahawks were playing a horrible game for like 3/4ths of it but I dunno what happened at the end. They were amazing! It ended up going into overtime but they quickly won and are going to the Superbowl again. They went last year and won.

Wayne and I made O’Brien potatoes and tofu scramble for dinner then Andrew made popcorn and we went over to Alice and Jason’s house to watch Transcendence. It wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t spectacular or anything but was entertaining at least.

Today I learned how to invoke Python in 32 bit mode. Never needed to do that before!

It was so nice to sleep in our bed! Andrew and I went to bed early but I still didn’t want to get up this morning. I was so comfy. I woke up when Andrew brought me some chai though. For some reason I was feeling super motivated to organize paperwork, like boxing up stuff from 2014 and gathering  up stuff for the accountant. Andrew, always more motivated than I, went for  a long run in the rain. I got all of the paperwork taken care of though which was nice.

Wayne and I talked about what the next steps should be for our ongoing house remodel since most of the wallpaper was taken down yesterday. It’s interesting to see where original doorways were and what colors of paint were on the walls way back in the day.  Now we just have to decide whether we want to put everything back the way it was or just improve upon the shitty work that was done. Either way, we need to improve a lot though. We keep finding more interesting and horrible work but luckily Wayne and Andrew are very handy and will get it all fixed up.

Alena came over with Tiberias, Rialla and Anya. We got to hang out and play for most of the day. Alena also taught me how to crochet! I’ve never been interested and really wasn’t interested when she brought up the idea but there was this really cool scarf at New Seasons that I loved but it was ridiculously expensive. I took a picture of it to show her and she said it would be super easy to make myself. Ha! I am not handy like that at all and I am not really into sewing, knitting, crocheting at all. But she got me to agree to a lesson and holy crap it’s not that bad and I’m 1/4 of the way done with the scarf already!

After Alena and the kids headed home I really did nothing but crochet. My hands HURT. Wayne made us grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. It was perfect for this very rainy day.

Today I learned how to crochet.

This year the GSG holiday party was the weekend before the work week. I kind of like it that way because we were able to fly in on Saturday and home on Friday then have a weekend before work starts again.

Andrew and I slept in a bit and then got dressed and took a cab to South Side so we could finally eat at the Zenith. I had been wanting to eat here for three years now and today was the day!

Two summers ago, when Wayne and the kids came with us, the five of us walked from the hotel all the way over to South Side to eat there. It was hot and miserable but it was only about 3 miles away so we toughed it out. When we got there we saw a huge line winding around the corner. Uh oh! We took our place in the back and some regulars assured us that there was plenty of room inside. Whew! I was really looking forward to eating here because everything was vegan. Vegan pancakes, french toast, savory meals, baked goods. Yum! We were about fifteen minutes early for the opening so stood around and listened to the kids complain a lot.

The time had arrived and they should be opening but the line wasn’t moving. We waited another 10 minutes and still nothing, 10 more minutes and nothing. Some people were walking away. Ha! More room for us! 5 more minutes and nothing. Finally Andrew went to their website on his phone and there was a little notice that they were closed and on vacation. Well then…….the kids were so unhappy! I was disappointed and we were all hot and tired. We ended up going to some meh place and took a cab back to the hotel.

But today they were open! The Zenith Cafe is in the back of an antique store which is kind of unusual but very cool and interesting. It’s group seating so we were at a table with six other people. Really nice, helpful people who gave us all sorts of suggestions about where to get vegan food in Pittsburgh. We had really great conversations with all of them and the food was amazing! There was a huge table full of different pies and cakes. There was another with all kinds of salads like fruit, potato, macaroni, pasta. I ordered the french toast and Andrew had the Tofishy sandwich. Mine was excellent. I didn’t try his because I don’t like seafood or anything that tastes like seafood. He said it was really good though. After we couldn’t possibly eat another bit we paid the bill and summoned a Lyft. Wow, she showed up in like three minutes and was very pleasant. I would definitely use Lyft again.

Once we were back at the hotel we had a bit of time before we had to get ready for the party so I caught up on email and any articles I had open tabs for. Andrew worked on some OpenBSD stuff.

The party was in the Grand Ballroom of the hotel so once it was time to go we just headed up the elevator. It was nice to see his team and their families. We always have a great time hanging out together. We never get seated at the same table but always end up gravitating back to a group once dinner is over.

The food was pretty good this year. The vegan offering was pretty similar to what they serve most years but they added some couscous and marinara sauce so it was more like a meal instead of a plate of veggies. The dessert is still a boring bowl of fruit though…..We stood around talking with his team for quite some time after the party was officially over and then headed to our rooms. The employees have an early morning beginning with breakfast and then a full day of meetings so everyone was off to bed. Besides, the Speakeasy is closed on Sundays 🙂

Today I learned that The Franktuary moved! It was one of the few places I could get a vegan lunch. Boo!

Soooooo early……up and out of bed. Grabbed our stuff and headed to the car. Wayne, the best, drove us there. The airport was busy but the security line was not at all. We got put through pre-check so getting through was a breeze. Our flight left on time and arrived in Denver on time 2.5 hours later. Our next gate was steps away.

We had about an hour layover so I went and found us some lunch. Burritos that were not awful. By the time I got back with them though it was time to board so we had to eat on the plane. That’s ok. Two of Andrew’s co-workers were on the same flight from Denver and we were sharing a car when we arrived so that was convenient. Our flight from Denver was also about 2.5 hours. That is definitely the way to fly to Pittsburgh. Two relatively short flights instead of one looooong one.

We got to Pittsburgh about five minutes early and since Andrew and I didn’t check bags we went to the group meeting spot to wait for our chauffeur.  There was another couple flying in on a slightly later flight that would be riding with us as well so we sat and talked while we waited. The chauffeur ended up finding us and off we went to the hotel. GSG always puts us up at the Omni William Penn. It’s a beautiful old historic hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. I’ve been here twice per year for the last three years so it feels like home away from home now. They took it upon themselves to upgrade us to a suite which was REALLY nice. Everything was perfect except we miss Wayne!

Andrew and I decided to brave the 10F temp and walk to our favorite Indian restaurant, Indian Spices. It’s usually where we eat our first dinner and we typically end up going back at least one more time before we leave. We had a fantastic dinner and ordered slightly too much food as usual but man it was good! After dinner we hustled back to the hotel. I think we were walking into a slight breeze and it was making our faces hurt so we hurried 🙂

We were both pretty done after our long travel day so we called it a night fairly early.

Today I learned that yeasted semolina pancakes are a thing. Gonna have to try and make that!

Ahhhhh another relaxing day doing not much at all. I got up and helped Wayne start a fire and then I curled up on the couch and worked through an interactive Git tutorial. I use Git regularly but always stick to the same few commands and hope I don’t mess anything up. I’m hoping to learn more than just the basics though so hopefully this is a step in the right direction.

I got some sourdough started in the afternoon. I’m going to try and let it proof for 48 hours and see what happens. Usually I leave it 15 – 18 hours but it’s not always very sour tasting. I also got my remaining starter into clean jars and got them all fed. I decided to make some chocolate chip cookies while I was in there. I found a recipe that uses coconut oil for the fat and I really like they way they turn out. I’ve used the recipe the last few times I’ve made cookies and everyone loves them.

I did a bit of reading while Andrew and Natale went to see the third Hobbit movie. I stayed home because I’m trying to stick to our budget but mostly because it’s just really nice being home by the fire.

We decided on Garlic Noodles for dinner. I made the sauce and toasted the cashews. It’s one of my favorite meals and it was yum! After dinner we watched Dr. Who. Slowly catching up.

Today I learned about this interesting art project.

 

Today was really quiet. Andrew spent the morning working on OpenBSD stuff at home and went to help Dave go through boxes and organize stuff at his house. I worked with Jordan and went over some Python and Git basics. He’s going to be starting a coding bootcamp on Monday and he’s ridiculously excited about it. I think he will be fine if he just sticks with it.

Natale and I spent the early evening taking all of the ornaments off of the tree and packing them away. We have a LOT. He did a fantastic job of getting them well situated in the bin. It was impressive!

We had burgers for dinner and then went over to Alice and Jason’s house to watch The Hundred-Foot Journey. I really enjoyed it! The father in the movie totally reminded me of my dad and made me miss him a lot. It was a beautiful, slightly foggy night as we walked home. It’s wonderful here.

Today I learned that Elon Musk is going to try and land a reusable rocket on a football sized platform in the ocean.