le Tour

So, this year (as with every year) I look forward to watching the tour.  It started off this weekend and I got to watch PLENTY of tour coverage on Versus with Paul and Phil (the best cycling announcers out there).  Here's the rub, during the week, I'm in the office when live tour coverage is going on.  So I have a couple of options.

1. Record the live coverage or watch the replay when I get home in the evening.  I could do this, but it is always so much more fun and exciting to see the action live!
2. Watch one of the free feeds online.  I did that this morning via some links I found on CyclingFans.  The coverage wasn't bad, but there were drop-outs and not the best quality picture.  But for free, it is not a bad option at all.
3. Watch the Versus feed online via their TourTracker.  Unfortuantely, this option costs... $30!  Now, you get great HD coverage and probably extra awesome displays and information and all that.

I'm a bit torn.  For one, their FAQs says: "Are Phil and Paul the commentators for the live stream?  The live stream will have commentary throughout with a mix of Phil and Paul along with other commentators from Match."  So I do get some Paul&Phil.  But lets look at the pricing.  There are a total of 20 Stages plus the prologue.  They just completed Stage 3.  4 of those remaining will be on weekends.  An additional 4 will be while I am in California.  So, 20-3-4-4 = 9 Stages remaining where I could watch it online.  For $30 I just don't think it is worth it.

Versus, I would like to support you, I really would.  But $30 is just too much.  ESPN was great this year with the World Cup.  They offered every single match FREE online at ESPN3 (though I think there was a deal with academic institutions and Comcast).

For now I will either watch it through somebody else online or catch the recaps when I get home @ night.

Waffles!

Justin sent me a link to a product that I should have.  I've put a picture right here so you can see it.  The link below takes you to more information about the page.  Unfortunately, it does not appear to be available in the US nor does there appear to be any way to order one.  :(
Penguin Waffle Iron

Carol's Birthday

Ha! A NON-OVERDUE post!  How crazy is this, timely posting.  So this past Thursday was Carol's Birthday.  On Thursday evening, some of us went to the Olive Garden for dinner to celebrate.  It was a nice dinner with a FABULOUS waiter.  I don't know what the standard is for tipping anymore, but I tipped him 26%, he was that good.  Mind you, this is not just good compared to the previous waitress who was awful.

Anyway, we have a lovely time and then came back to the house to watch the season premier of Survivor, because Carol loves Survivor.  Then on FRIDAY, I had LONG planned to have a surprise party for her at the house.  I was going to make a cake and everything.  As it coincided with the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, I decided to make an Olympic Rings cake.  Making the cake was a huge project.  It took 3 days and many hours.  The cakes were all cooked in a 9in round pan.  We bought a GIANT can of pudding because the diameter of the can was the right size.  We use the pudding to make dirt and then I used the can as an inner wall for the cake pan.  All in all, I think it turned out quite well.  I have no plans to quit my job, and am certainly not as crafty as my sister (ask her about her amazing cakes) but I'm quite happy with it.

Well, a week before the party, Carol decided to invite people out to Cafe 210 for the night on Friday night... GAHH!!!  Through much trickery and planning, I was able to get everybody to leave Cafe with a 'reasonable' excuse around 8pm and head back to the house.  Carol was less than happy, as could be imagined.  Eventually I was able to drive her back to my house (while giving EXCELLENT answers to every question she posed as to what was going on) and not tip her off.  I got her upstairs and everybody jumped out to yell "SURPRISE!" and she was very very happy with everything, all of the frustration of everybody leaving was worth it I think.

We wound up eating delicious delicious cake and watching parts of the opening ceremonies for a while.  More pictures here.  More pictures will follow when I steal Carol's camera and upload the rest onto my computer and the web.

Help me Wilford Brimley, you're my only hope...

Yet another overdue post! Almost every weekend we make pancakes for breakfast on either Saturday or Sunday (or sometimes both). Typically Justin would make them and then get everybody else up with the delicious promise of pancakes. At the beginning of this year, I started doing the making because I was up first most often. I started always doing chocolate chip pancakes, because they are AWESOME. Nothing too special, just throw some chips into the batter when they are cooking and you get you delicious chocolate chip pancakes.

A couple of weeks ago while eating pancakes, we had the idea of making chocolate pancakes instead.  Just make the batter with some coco powder and extra sugar; should be delicious, right?  Well, that night over dinner we came back to the idea of chocolate pancakes.

 But we kept adding on.  First we said to add chocolate chips, too!  Then it was lets have hot cocoa while eating our pancakes.  Then the pinacle.... lets use Hershey's Chocolate Syrup instead of normal pancake syrup!

It was here that we coined the term, "Diabetuscakes."  Yes, I know the spelling is wrong (if there is a correct spelling of that).  It is made to be pronounced like Wilford Brimley, 'diabetus.'  On the morning of the Diabetuscakes, we invited Mihir over, as we KNOW he has a sweet tooth.

The few pictures here show the cooking process.  Conor, Mihir, and I all felt a crazy sugar high almost immediately after consuming the glorious-glorious diabetuscakes.  Justin, however, did not get hit until 10 hours later.  And then he couldn't stop shakin/moving.  It was a wonderful day, but one that does not need to be repeated any time soon.  More pics here.

Next time with chloroform

This post is long overdue, but I finally had time to put it out there. Back on 8 Jan, it was Justin's birthday. So Conor and I started thinking of what we should do. Should we invite people over, should we go out to dinner, should we do nothing to give him a slap in the face? Eventually we came up with the plan of kidnapping Justin and taking him out to dinner. We hashed our plan during the day and got ready to act in the evening.

Justin was at home playing video games on the couch, so he was plenty distracted. Once we got home, we gathered up a pillow case and Carol's Walmart bag with a drawstring. Then get got some of my 550 cord. We went upstairs and got ourselves situated. Carol stood to the side to capture the events with her new camera. Conor and I placed the bags over his head and tried to cinch them shut. Unfortunately, Justin was really into his game and just thought we were messing with him. He put up quite the struggle, but eventually we got him to cooperate (for future reference we need to remember to use chloroform). We bound his hands with the cord and put the bags back over his head.

Conor and I then proceeded to pick up Justin and carry him down the stairs and outside. He still didn't know what was up, so naturally he threatened us with his knife if we dared to throw him into the snow in the front lawn. Another reminder for the future, ducktape the mouth so that they can't talk.


After taking him outside, we placed him in the trunk of my car. Yet another bonus for driving my Saab hatchback, TONS of trunk space and VERY easy access :). We had planned to drive a roundabout way, but we were late due to the struggle so we had to drive directly there. It wound up not mattering because Justin said he was lost after the first turn. We drove to Outback where we treated him to a birthday dinner. After dinner, we headed back to the house where we were joined by Julia, Monica, and Kevin. Pictures of the entire evening can be found here.

PENGUINS!!!

I was at Giant last night getting some grub. While in the produce section, I saw this out of the corner of my eye. LOOK HOW AWESOME!!! It was normally $20 at holiday time. For some reason they STILL had them (maybe they just found more in the back) and it was on sale for $3 with my Giant BonusCard.
Now, $3 for a really cute christmas nesting box decoration is quite a good price. IT GETS BETTER. I don't have any pictures to document, but there were treats inside. In his head, there are carmel candies. In his torso, there are some large (fill up the whole width) individually wrapped chocolate cookies. The bottom section contains peppermint twist candies. Made my night while shopping at giant!.

Awesomeness

For those of you who don't already know, I have the best sister ever. Her skills are numerous, but one of the ones she shows off a lot is her way with fabric. For Christmas this year, she made me a plush Weighted Companion Cube from Portal.

Sure, I know that Valve sells them at their store, but it is $30 and it is a puny 6 inch cube! This beauty is a 16 inch cube, and with the corner pieces comes out to a SWEET 18 inch cube (I know because it just slides into an 18 inch cube packing box).

For comparison, this picture shows my xbox360 controller on top of the cube. The controller itself is just over 6 inches across. Yeah... that is one large companion cube. And it is all mine!

Best. Sister. Ever. Oh yeah, she made me a bitchin' flames hat, too. No joke. A knit hat with bitchin' flames. Take a look here.

Accomplishment

There it is! May not look like much, but that box was completely filled with stuff when I moved out of the old place. It has just been sitting filled to the brim with crap. I FINALLY got around to sorting through it. Wouldn't you know it, much of it gets recycled. Much of it is from stuff I don't even HAVE anymore (at least not here with me). So the good news is that box is cleaned up. Bad news, now my desk has crap all over it again. Nothing too bad, I just need to figure out exactly where I am going to put some of this stuff.

On the plus side, I found my binder of instruction manuals and the like. So I organized the loose manuals and info that I had. But that binder is overfilled. So, time to get a new binder. In fact, I think I will get a big binder for my personal stuff, and then use the old binder for the house stuff (windows, dishwasher, etc).

Also found a bunch of stuff that goes into the office on campus (course notes, books, etc.), so that will be nice to get out of my room. There is still some stuff where I don't know where it is. Stuff I remember having, but so far I haven't come across in the organization process.

Some more cleaning and organization is in order in the coming days/weeks... but also of importance is picking a paint color. Once I have that, I can then paint the room. Then, it will really begin to feel like MY room!!!

Closet

When I moved into the new house, there was only one TEENSY TINY closet in my room. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of my room like that, so you'll have to trust me. Additionally, there wasn't a door... yeah, crazy. So the first thing I wanted to do was add a door. Well, that didn't happen. Why, you ask? Because there was mold in my bathroom and I had to redo a wall and plumbing with my father's help. Pictures can be found here.


So, eventually we finished the bathroom. Awesome. My next move was to install a door. Unfortunately, the door opening wasn't quite you standard rough opening size. Why? I have no freaking clue, but it wasn't. Once you see the rest of the house, you stop asking intelligent questions as to the design (you should have seen the crazy framing that was in the bathroom wall that we redid). So I wound up buying a belt sander (which I then happily sold to my dad) and began to sand the rough door opening so that it would fit. I finally got it, and then stuck the door in one night in August. As you can see from the picture (click on the first one to enlarge), there is a gap between the top of the door jamb and the bottom of the soffit. That hasn't been fixed yet, also no trim. BUT it FINALLY got a coat of paint and a handle/lockset!


The next project was adding in a closet! Over thanksgiving, my dad and mom came to state college. They helped me design and build a closet so that i could actually store my clothes and begin to clean my room. They left with framing done and the drywall hung and 1 coat of mud on the seams. I finished the mudding and put coats of paint on the closet then later. The inside has a coat of primer and 2 coats of semi-gloss white paint. The doors and jamb then got 1 coat of primer, 2 coats of semi-gloss white and 1 coat of semi-gloss ULTRA PURE WHITE by Behr (my paint of choice).


Eventually trim will be installed, but I am going to wait until I choose a color and paint my walls first. Then I don't have to worry about cutting in around the trim. I can paint the ultra pure white trim before it gets installed and then touch up the nail holes in place. It should look awesome once installed.


Now to continue sorting through the boxes and boxes of crap.....

Duckpin Bowling

Had an awesome time at home with the family. On Monday, Carol came down to join us for the remainder of the week. On Tuesday, Caitlin, Rogue, Dad, Carol, and I all went Duckpin Bowling at Severna Park Lanes. As my dad says, "Duckpin Bowling is second only to Candlepin Bowling in terms of hilarity."

We had a blast, and like all family fun sports, rampant cheating was encouraged. This time, in the form of using the gutter bumpers. However, we did find out that having the bumpers up does NOT 100% prevent gutter balls! It IS possible to sneak the ball between the end of the bumper and the last side pin and into the gutter (Additionally, you can be like the kids in the lane next to us and bowl the ball into the gutter right from the start).

Pictures!!!