Birthdays Dinner
Monday November 19, 2007 at 11:17 pm | Filed under Friends, Me
Over the past few years we’ve gone out for a dual Birthday dinner with Tim and Shana (the birthdays being mine and Shana’s). We haven’t quite managed to match the one a couple of years back when we went to The Hobbit, but this year we came close. Before we left for dinner we started off with a cocktail and Tim and Shana got me a gift… wait for it… A BACON WALLET! I’m not even going to explain it because you’ll want one and I’m not giving you mine so just deal with it and keep reading.
A little early for both of our birthdays, we went to a place in Brea called “La Vie en Rose” which means “Life In Pink” in French. You guessed it, they serve French cuisine. Correction… awesome French cuisine! They serve a fixed price menu based on the main course you choose, then you can pick an appetizer and a dessert. Monique and I were the meat lovers and both had cuts of beef: filet mignon for me and a black pepper steak for her. Tim and Shana both had the salmon as their main course. The appetizers were great as well… Tim got mussels (and thankfully shared!) and I had spanish ravioli filled with crab meat and drenched in some kinda yummy sauce. We also got a plate of cheeses and I hadn’t heard of any of them before: Etorki, Saint Andre, Morbier, and Saint Agur. I don’t know which was which, but there wasn’t one we didn’t love. Dessert was this huge cart of French pastries that we all got to choose one from. Not a bad choice among them, but my favorite was the raspberry tart that Monique picked. Sounds cliche, but it really took me back to Paris. The whole place did, really. The only thing missing was a slightly less pregnant wife, some coffee, and a big communication barrier.
see all 10 photos in a slideshow
Meteor Shower 4am — Be there!
Saturday September 1, 2007 at 6:21 pm | Filed under Friends, Me, Photography, The World
Bryan and I were foolish enough to get up at 3am and try to get some photos of the ever so cool sounding meteor shower. Check this out:
Keiss [a comet] “has visited the inner solar system only twice in the past 2,000 years,” says NASA. “In 83 BC, give or take a few centuries, Keiss swung by the sun and laid down a trail of dusty debris that has been drifting toward Earth’s orbit ever since. On Sept. 1, the dusty trail and Earth will meet.”
Wow! Freakin awesome, right? Well, it was pretty cool, we saw a dozen or so meteors, some with massive trails. But we didn’t really get a whole lot in photos. In the center of the photo above you’ll see the best one that I caught. The shot is way too bright, but we were experimenting, so whatever. Anyway… we decided to spend some quality time goofing off with long exposure shots while we were there in the dark. Check some of the other shots we created in a slideshow.
*STOMP*, Ketchup!
Wednesday August 15, 2007 at 3:06 pm | Filed under Entertainment, Family, Mac, Me
Good grief… over the past few weeks the Sharks get a new logo, Apple announces a new iMac/iLife/iWork/etc, our TV breaks, Monique and I drive halfway across the country and back for my family reunion in Colorado, and we get to go to a great concert at the Greek where we saw Squeeze and Fountains of Wayne. Oh yeah, and we also found out that we’re having a girl! I’ll tackle these one at a time:
The San Jose Sharks get cartoony! This new logo was unveiled in late July. I still haven’t seen any new uniforms, but those are on the way too. I don’t mind the new look, it’s really using the same colors as before but it’s a more aggressive style. Change is weird so far, but I’m sure it’ll grown on me.
Apple made a few announcements on August 7th where they introduced the new iMac, which looks like a giant iPhone, and the new iLife and iWork. The iMac is really nice, and comes with a new apple keyboard that I’ve ordered to replace my keyboard. The new ones have much less travel in the keys and are really nice to type on, plus they’re super thin!
As for iLife, it always seems to be packed with enough features to more than justify buying the new version each time it comes out. This time around there’s a ground-up re-write of iMovie, which I think will do wonders for those who have been shy about making movies because they were scared off by complicated software. Not that the older iMovie was complex, but this new interface is ridiculously easy. The downside of the new easy goodness is that some of the more advanced features were removed. So I’ll be keeping my old copy of iMovie ‘06 (which the install kindly keeps for you in a separate folder). iWork is better than ever, and now there’s a new alternative for Excel called Numbers which seems really promising so far.
What’s next on the list? Our TEE-v done broke-ded! Yeah, we noticed a couple of weeks ago it was turning off from time to time on its own. Turns out it was trying to tell us that its lamp was nearing the end of its life. So tonight, after waiting and waiting, the dude is supposed to come out and fix it for a small fortune. Fun! It’ll be nice to have our idiot box back in action!
We took a mother of a road trip, me and the pregnant lady, to Greeley Colorado to meet up with a ton of family at my tri-annual Family Reunion. I still haven’t posted all of the pictures for this one, but they’re coming.
Lastly, we went to a great great concert on Monday night, had a friend with some last minute free tickets (Thanks Cary!) and we got to see Squeeze and Fountains of Wayne at the Greek! I am always weary of seeing bands that may be past their prime, but wow, Squeeze delivered! Those guys are getting up there in age and they still sound as good, or BETTER than they ever have.
In closing, I’ll throw a little baby update in here. We’re so excited to be having a girl. We’ve been shopping for stuff, we’re starting to go to checkups more frequently now (another one tomorrow morning), Monique’s got showers coming up, I’ve gotta get a lot of things done with the nursery before the big moment, and I really need to be posting to this here site more!