Deep Thoughts, by Rick Root

Cajun Linguini alla Riccardo

2010-03-08T07:11:56-07:00

More experimenting this weekend with pasta dishes.

This one turned out fabulous, especially if you like a good spicy pasta dish.

Here's what you'll need:

1 eggplant
1 red bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
2 zucchini
12oz pasta (like Al Dente Brand Spicy Sesame Linguini or Red Chili Pepper Fettucini)
1 tbsp cajun spice
1-2 pounds of spicy andouille chicken sausage
olive oil
1/2 cup pasta sauce (any kind will do, I used Classico Tomato & Basil)

Cut the eggplant, zucchini, and peppers into bite sized pieces and set aside. You may want to remove the skin from the eggplant, but you don't have to. Cook pasta according to the directions, rinse, and toss in a bowl with a little olive oil, and set aside. Add 3-4 tbsp of olive oil to the frying pan and heat over medium high heat. Add eggplant, peppers, zucchini, and sausage, and about 1/8 cup of water (my pan was quite full so adding the water helped to steam the vegetables a bit). Sprinkly on the cajun spice, and stir fry for about 8-10 minutes. I covered mine when I wasn't stirring to help keep in the heat and moisture. Add the pasta, and the tomato sauce, cook for another minute or two to make sure the pasta is heated nicely (in case it sat in your bowl for a while and got cold), and then serve.

Makes: a lot. Easily 10-12 servings.

Suggestions:

Use less pasta for a dish that's richer in meats and vegetables (I used 12oz of pasta, but I think 8oz might've been the right amount).
Substitute or add other vegetables.
Stir fry some diced chicken or shrimp in a separate pan and add at the end instead of or in addition to the andouille sausage.
Top with grated parmesan cheese.
If you can't get a spicy pasta like the two I mentioned, use regular pasta, but you may want to add more cajun or creole spices to the stir fry. I also wonder if maybe adding a little shrimp/crab boil to the water when cooking the pasta would help make the pasta spicy. Might be worth trying some time.

Nutrition-wise, this strikes me as a fairly healthy dish. If you used 8oz of pasta and 2 pounds of sausage, like the Trader Joe's Andouille Chicken Sausage I used, and maybe 1/4 cup of total olive oil, you're probably looking at about 350 calories, 16g of fat, 26 carb, and 25 protein plus whatever is in the vegetables. Those numbers are just for the pasta, sauce, sausage, and olive oil. The vegetables only add about 40 calories per serving.

You could probably cut down on the fat by using less olive oil. Maybe just some non-stick cooking spray, and a tablespoon of olive oil to toss the pasta with.

The Math behind the Hurricanes playoff hopes

2010-03-05T08:27:56-07:00

People have been talking about how improbable the Canes playoff hopes, but why? Because we have 6 teams to pass, right?

I think what's more important is the number of points it will take to get into the playoffs, NOT how many teams we have to pass to get there.

I put the current games played and point totals into a spreadsheed, and used that to project the final standings. I already suspected the 8th place team would have fewer points than normal because the eastern conference is weak this year. The point totals are skewed towards the west.

Anyway, here's the projections:

	Team	Games	Points	Projected
1.	Washington	64	94	120
2.	New Jersey	62	79	104
3.	Pittsburgh	64	80	103
4.	Buffalo	62	75	99
5.	Ottawa	65	76	96
6.	Philadelphia	62	69	91
7.	Boston	62	67	89
8.	Atlanta	62	66	87
9.	NY Rangers	64	66	85
10.	Montreal	65	66	83
11.	Tampa Bay	63	63	82
12.	Florida	63	60	78
13.	NY Islanders	64	60	77
14.	Carolina	63	59	77
15.	Toronto	63	50	65

We could get in the playoffs with 89 points. There are 19 games left. We currently have 59 points.

15-4 or 14-3-2 gets us there.

It's still improbable, but we are 12-1 in our last 13 games against eastern conference opponents (12-3 overall in our last 15).

5 of those final 19 are against Boston (2) and Atlanta (3). 2 more against Tampa Bay, 2 against the Candiens, and 1 more against the Panthers.

This weekend's games against the Panthers and Thrashers are *HUGE* (every game is HUGE, but we can afford to lose a few, as long as it's to a "top 6" or western conference team. We cannot afford to lose to Florida or Atlanta.

Go Canes!

Diet Progress Update - Still on the wagon!

2010-01-28T15:50:17-07:00

So, I haven't blogged since I started by diet and exercise program back in early november. I managed to get through the holidays and a trip to Las Vegas, and I am currently down 23 pounds. I'm working with a trainer twice a week, and at the gym 5-6 times a week. Plus, eating healthy and logging my daily food intake. It's going well.

Today, I started an appetite supressant called Phentermine, that my doctor prescribed. It's a short term (1-3 months) assistant to help me avoid being hungry when I don't really need to eat. Logging my food intake will be important, because since I'm working out, doing cardio and weight training, I need to make sure that I get ENOUGH calories. So even if I'm not hungry, no skipping meals! But it might help me curb the cravings between meals. Today, I think it did, but one day is not enough time to make an assessment. I definately feel its affects. I don't think I'm "jittery" but I do feel somewhere between normal and jittery. Alert? I dunno. At any rate, I need to keep track of my blood pressure while taking this medication, and go back to see my doctor for some blood work after 30 days to make sure I'm metabolizing the medication properly.

So I started at 290 when I weighed in on the morning of November 2. I'm currently at 267.

I'll keep you posted!

Back on the wagon

2009-11-08T18:52:30-07:00

So after several years of terrible eating and a complete lack of exercise, I've managed to get myself into the worst shape of my life. Last weekend, I'd had enough. Candy, that is. :) Anyway, I went out and bought some comfortable pants because I'm tired of squeezing into the 40" waist pants that I'd been wearing. Just admit you're a size 42, and move on. Hopefully, I want be wearing them long. Anyway, I started my diet Monday morning, weighed in at 289 pounds! If you look at my blog from back in 2004, I was down to around 230-235 pounds, so I'm up 50 pounds in 5 years, probably 30 of that in the last 2 years.

I started off low-carb for a "shock to the system", and I dumped about 8 pounds of water weight in 3 days. I like doing the low-carb thing, because I feel like it helps wean me off the horrible foods that I tend to eat.

Thursday afternoon, I joined a gym in Apex that's convenient - Lifestyle Family Fitness. It's a nice place, great equipment, and no contracts. I did 40 minutes on the treadmill Thursday night... didn't work out Friday because Emily and I went to the hockey game, Saturday I did 20 minutes of cardio and a leg workout on the weight machines, and did 30 minutes of cardio this evening. I'm not low-carbing anymore - not really, at least. on days that I'm not doing weights, I'm avoiding carbs, but on days I'm going to do weights, I'm just going to try to eat "good carbs" like fruits and whole grains.

Tomorrow afternoon is my first of three free one hour personal training sessions. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Math test to predict your favorite movie!

2009-11-05T11:36:00-07:00

This math test can predict your all time most watched film, mine was 'Star Wars'. Try it without looking at the answers. It works!

Pick a number from 1 - 9.
Multiply by 3.
Add 3, then multiply by 3 again.
Add the two numbers together to get your final answer (ie, if you end up with "32" your final answer is "5")
See what your favorite movie is from the list below!

Good Luck!

Scroll down for the list!

Movie List

Gone with the wind.
Aliens.
Oliver
Star Wars
Forrest Gump.
Saving Private Ryan.
Jaws.
Grease.
The joy of Anal Sex with male goats & leather clad gay boys.
Mary Poppins

Good, huh?

My Thoughts on the Michigan-Penn State game this weekend

2009-10-21T05:14:44-07:00

I'll be in Ann Arbor this weekend for the Michigan-Penn State game (among other things). And I think Michigan is gonna win.

With Michigan ranking 7th in total offense (averaging 37.3 a game), and Penn State being #1 in total defense, it should be very interesting. Of course if you exclude Michigan's win over Delaware State, their scoring average drops to about 33 points a game, still good for around 18th. Penn State's offense is much less impressive if you take Eastern Illinois out of the mix too (they won 52-3)

While Penn State has only given up 8.7 points a game, I think it's a LARGE factor of their schedule so far.

Akron (31-7)
Syracuse (28-7)
Temple (31-6)
Iowa (10-21)
Illinois (35-17)
Eastern Illinois (52-3)
Minnesota (20-0)

They've had a REALLY REALLY weak schedule. Michigan is better than all of those teams except Iowa. And as bad as Michigan's defense seems sometimes, at 46th, they're not *THAT* bad.

My point being, I think we're in for an exciting game on Saturday!

Michigan 35
Penn State 31

GO BLUE!

Michigan Stuns Notre Dame - and me!

2009-09-12T18:36:43-07:00

Okay, I admit it. I may have picked Michigan to win but I didn't really expect them to. It is simply against my religion to pick against Michigan.

Anyway, some comments on today's game....

--
Matt Mille, former Lions President, was the color commentator for the game today. The Lions have been one of the biggest jokes in football for the last 7 years in large part due to his "leadership".

I yelled "EAT IT, MILLEN" at the TV several times, the first when he said the notre dame guy didn't step out and the review came back and said he DID step out. :)

Millen provided in his tenure with the Lions that he doesn't know shit about football.

Tate Forcier for Heisman!

I found this interesting bit of analysis on espn:

Second guessing: Protecting a 34-31 lead with under three minutes left, Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis made a few curious calls. First, he handed the ball to fullback Robert Hughes on first down instead of Armando Allen, who had had a great game to that point. Hughes was stuffed for no gain. Then he threw the ball twice, both resulting in incompletions that stopped the clock and gave Michigan the ball back with plenty of time. The Wolverines also got to keep their timeouts, which came in handy on the final drive.

Now I will grant that if Clausen had made either one of those passes, Michigan might not have won. But the fact is, those two incomplete passes left us with two timeouts that we probably shouldn't have had. Michigan called timeout after the fullback run, and would've called timeouts after two more runs probably assuming ND didn't get a first down. In either case, a first down would've been devastating, so Charlie Weis clearly made the WRONG call with the passes.

Regardless, this loss isn't gonna be good for Weis. the ND/MSU Game could be interesting next week. I'll be full on rooting for MSU in that one.

Noise - I've heard that the new construction is doing a wonderful job of keeping the noise in. I think that was evident today when Notre Dame seemed to be having trouble hearing and called several timeouts that were clearly caused by crowd noise, as well as a couple of delay of games that I think were probably attributed to crowd noise as well.

Even in 1997, when the crowd was as loud as could be, I don't think it ever really caused problems on the field, so this excites me very much.. maybe we'll know longer be known as the quietest 110,000 people in football.

Replacing brass doorknobs with bronze door knobs

2009-09-07T15:06:23-07:00

Door knobs are expensive!

Our house is full of brass, and we hate it. We started by replacing all the outlet covers with nice venetian bronze plates that I found at Lowe's. The darker colors really go well with the decor.

Now, we've decided to replace all the brass doorknobs. Of course, this also means replacing the brass hinges as well.

We found some inexpensive Kwikset knobs on ebay, 6 passage and 6 privacy knob sets, for $150. I found 10 matching dummy knobs for our double-door closets in each bedroom and for the french doors to the TV room... about $75 for those. 60 bronze hinges for $0.99 each plus shipping, which also worked out to about $75. I'm one privacy knob short so I'll probably just pick that up at home depot for $20... which will bring the total cost of this little project to about $320.

Of course, it could've been worse.

There are 20 interior doors. Home Depot sells the bronze hinges in sets of 3 with screws for $9... that's $192 with tax. The passage knobs are $15, the privacy knobs are $20, and the dummy knobs are $10... so for my counts, with tax, that's $353.

Total savings by going the ebay route: $225, or about 41%.

Not bad!

CFUnited 2009 - Why I want to go

2009-07-31T12:41:50-07:00

CFUnited is the best Coldfusion Developer's conference out there I think. I've been to several CFun/CFUnited confernces in the past. I skipped last year so I could go to MAX (and then had the MAX conference pulled out fron under me), and was scheduled to go to CFUnited this year but had that pulled out from under me too due to budget cuts at the University. So I'm not going. At least not on the University's budget. And not on my own budget if I have to pay for my own registration.

But thanks to Ben Nadel, I might yet have a way of going.

I supposed to look at the list of topics and pick one that I really want to attend and why. This is extremely difficult because there are a multitude of topics that I'd like to go to. You see, I have two jobs. I have a "real job" where I work 40 hours a week and get salary and benefits at Duke University. And then I have a freelance job with Classcreator.com, a web site tool for planning class reunions. Most of the topics that would interest me are related to Classcreator - scalable applications, geolocation, performance tuning, APIs, etc.

I think, if I have to pick one, I'll go with Geolocation with Coldfusion. We're still building out Classcreator, but eventually we're going to need to target products and services towards a user's physical location.

Or maybe Design Patterns and Coldfusion - a good generic topic for solving problems. And let's not forget the SciFi BOF Session (or is it ScyFy)? We must discuss how we felt about the end of Battlestar Galactica, or maybe we can talk about the upcoming Stargate Universe!

Does it count as an entry if i can't make up my mind?

BTW if I win a ticket I'm going to have to share a room with someone!

More fishing humor

2009-07-23T09:01:16-07:00

Dave and his buddies were hanging out and planning an upcoming fishing trip.

Unfortunately, he had to tell them that he couldn't go this time because his wife wouldn't let him. After a lot of teasing and name calling, Dave headed home frustrated.

The following week when Dave's buddies arrived at the lake to set up camp, they were shocked to see Dave. He was already sitting at the campground with a cold beer, swag rolled out, fishing rod in hand, and a camp fire glowing. "How did you talk your missus into letting you go Dave?"

"I didn't have to," Dave replied. "Yesterday, when I left work, I went home and slumped down in my chair with a beer to drown my sorrows because I couldn't go fishing. Then the ol' lady snuck up behind me, covered my eyes and said, 'Surprise'."

"When I peeled her hands back, she was standing there in a beautiful see through negligee and she said, ' Carry me into the bedroom, tie me to the bed and you can do whatever you want'.....

So, Here I am!"

Vacation Day 7 - Friday, June 19

2009-07-02T09:05:56-07:00

Today, our last full day of vacation, we decided to go to Cape Lookout, and we did it by way of Harkers Island. I picked a ferry at a place called Calico Jacks Inn & Marina. Harkers Island is a quiet little island nestled in the Back Sound behind Cape Lookout and Shackleford Banks. We took our time getting ready as we had made no ferry reservations, and weren't sure who was going with us, etc. As it turned out, Bill and Lin joined myself, Emily, Adrienne, and Erin. Thanks to the GPS, we took some shortcuts that cut our drive time to Harkers Island to about an hour and 20, and we arrived at the marina right about 12:15 - just in time for the 12:15 ferry. But we hadn't eaten lunch, and the marina really only had snack food, so they recommended a restaurant about 2 miles down the road called The Fish Hook Grill where we could go get some carry out and maybe make it back for the 12:45 ferry. They were busy but got our food together pretty quickly but we didn't make it back to the marina until about 12:50 so we missed the boat and would have to wait until the 1:15 ferry. So we hung out and ate our lunch on the front porch of the marina.

The ferry arrived and took us over to the island, dropping us off at a dock near the lighthouse. We signed up for the 4pm return ferry so we had about 2-1/2 hours to hang around.

A nice boardwalk ran from the doc to the bathhouse and gift shop, then to the lighthouse and keepers quarters and all the way across the island to the beach on the ocean side. After checking out the gift shop and hitting the bathrooms we wandered over to the ocean beach for some shell hunting and some fun. The waves were gigantic (some as high as 8 feet) and there were some surfers out in the water. I never went in deeper than about waist deep, though yes, the occasional 8 foot wave did tower over me! But since Emily couldn't go into the rough surf, we shortly headed back over to the sound beach for a swim (just me and Emily). The rest of the gang went to check out the lighthouse and keepers quarters.

The water in the sound was WARM. Very shallow, and a good 10 degrees warmer than the ocean... the top 2 feet of water must've been between 85 ad 90, it was very warm. Emily and I had our goggles so we did some pseudo-snorkeling, looking for shells. Of course there aren't a lot of shells in the sound but Emily did manage to find a "kitten's paw". After about a half hour of tooling around the waters of the sound, we headed back to the ocean. I wanted to get some time in the waves.

I managed to convince Emily to stay up on shore where the waves had already broken and just washed around her feet mostly, while Erin and I played in the waves and the rest of the gang hunted for shells. They actually found quite a few cool ones.

However, the coolest shell was "found" by Emily. A shell hunter in the water tossed a big whelk near her. She didn't seem him toss it, but she did discover the shell laying there, and she thought she'd "found" it herself. Who are we to tell her otherwise? the guy who tossed it up near her had obviously found plenty of his own otherwise I suspect he would've walked it up and put it with the rest of his shells.

I wish we could've stayed another hour, as 4 o'clock rolled around pretty quickly, and we headed back to the docks for our return ferry trip.

Nothing else interesting to report. Bob returned this evening. We got home around 6:00. It was Bill's birthday, so to celebrate we ordered take-out again from the Hurricane Restaurant.

Clearly, I'm not a grownup yet....

2009-06-24T20:01:16-07:00

The Tigers are playing the Cubs tonight, and I noticed their centerfielder's last name is Fukudome.

I'm sure it's not pronounced the way I'm pronouncing it... but.. hah.

Vacation Day 6 - Thursday, June 18

2009-06-24T13:44:54-07:00

I was very excited today about our planned trip to Cape Lookout. We'd made reservations on the 8:45 ferry with Island Ferry Adventures and a guided tour with Port City Tour Company to visit Shackleford Banks, part of the Cape Lookout National Seashore. Shackleford Banks is a 9 mile island at the southern end of North Carolina's Outer Banks, and is home to over a hundred wild horses, left by the sunken ships of Spanish explorers over 400 years ago.

the ferry dropped us off on the southern end of the island, and there happened to be a small herd of the horses right at the ferry dropoff, so we didn't actually have to go hunting for them. However, we'd paid an extra $10 for the walking tour, so we followed our excellent guide Larry off into the wild, where we learned about the horses, fiddler and ghost crabs and other wildlife on the island. We also spent some time on the ocean side of the island where the surf was quite rough, looking for shells. The water felt great.

After the walking tour (about 2 miles I'd guess) and the shell hunting, we headed back over to the sound side for some swimming. I was the only one with the sense to put my suit on when we left in the morning, so me and Emily were the only ones who went swimming.

I guess I should mention that this trip was just Adrienne and I, Emily, and Erin. Bill and Lin and Marnie and Derrick stayed at the resort (and Bob had actually gone home Wednesday morning).

The water on the sound side was surprisingly deep. It actually dropped off to 10' or more only about 20 feet offshore.

We got on the 12:20pm ferry back to Beaufort, and hit up Clawson's 1905 for lunch on the recommendation of our ferry boat captain. Lunch was excellent. Emily and I went into the General Store afterwards to look around, and on our way out, Emily tripped down the stairs (about 3 steps) and went face first into the sidewalk. Very unpleasant. Amazingly she survived the incident without any blood or broken facial parts. And I really was amazed because after seeing her face hit the sidewalk, I thought for sure I was going to pick her up and have her nose be bloodied at the very least. She managed to calm down after about 5 minutes but during most of the ride home she was telling us how certain she was that something was wrong with her. My little drama queen, I love her!

I have no recollection of what we did for dinner that night. I think Emily and I had leftovers while Adrienne and Marnie and Erin had dinner at the Hurricane Restaurant.

Tomorrow - back to the islands!

Olive Chapel Otters vs. Eagle Ridge

2009-06-24T07:09:23-07:00

Emily had a swim meet last night, her first of the summer swim season. It was at Eagle Ridge in Raleigh, and thankfully I was not volunteering. Of course, the benefit of volunteering is you're not bored.

Summer swim meets consist of "main events" which are scored, and "heats" which are not. The top swimmers typically get to swim in the main events.

Emily got to participate in her first ever relay events. She swam the backstroke leg of the medley relay for one of the Otters 7-8 girls relay teams, and her team took third place. She also swam the anchor (4th) leg of the freestyle relay at the end of the meet, and took third place in that race as well.

In the individual events, she was in main events for both freestyle and backstroke, and in heat 1 for breaststroke and butterfly. She finished 3rd (of 6) in freestyle, and 2nd (of 6) in backstroke, won her heat for Breaststroke, and finished 4th or 5th in Butterfly.

Overall, an excellent outing. She had a good time, and won some place ribbons. I'm anxiously awaiting her times to see if she set any personal bests.

Vacation Day 5 - Wednesday, June 17

2009-06-24T07:02:51-07:00

Today was our day to stick around New Bern. We intended to go down to historic New Bern and have lunch at The Cow Cafe, a cool little place we discovered on Middle Street last time we were in New Bern, then visit Tryon Palace. Tryon Palace was build in 1767 as the home of the Royal Governor, but it burned down in 1798 and wasn't re-built until the 1950s.

Anyway, lunch was good, but as we finished it started to rain. So instead of heading over to Tryon Palace, we shopped. There are a lot of cool little shops on Middle Street, including The Pepsi Store which was supposedly the place where Pepsi was invented, then called "Brad's Drink". The pepsi Store consisted of a soda fountain where you could sit at the bar an order a Pepsi for 50 cents, and a bunch of pepsi-branded merchandise. It was kinda lame, actually. Plus, I'm a coke drinker. Coke Zero, actually.

We ended up spending a couple hours wandering up maybe 3 blocks of Middle Street before getting ice cream at the end of our shopping trip. By that time it had stopped raining but it was very wet, so we just headed back to the resort. We ordered take-out from The Hurricane Restaurant, which was onsite at the marina. I wrote a review of this experience on Google:

We recently stayed at the Fairfield Harbour Resort, home of the Hurricane Restaurant. We had a large party and ordered carry-out from the Hurricane twice. Everyone in our party enjoyed their food. For my part, I had a full rack of ribs the first night, which were good... fries and slaw on the side. The second time I went with the Seafood Fra Diablo, which was shrimp and scallops over pasta with a spicy marinara sauce - also good. This isn'ta "top of the line" or fancy upscale restaurant, but as far as "resort/hotel restaurants" go it was good enough for us to eat twice at in a week. Of course, it has the convenience of being the only nice restaurant within 10 miles of the resort.

Off to bed early as we had a big day planned for tomorrow - our trip to Beaufort and Shackleford Banks.

Vacation Day 4 - Tuesday, June 16

2009-06-24T06:41:54-07:00

Our original plans for Tuesday had been to hang around New Bern. This would've allowed Emily and I to drive back to Garner for a 6pm swim meet - the first "real" swim meet of the summer swim season. Unfortunately, because the trip to Topsail hadn't occurred on Monday, and Wednesday wasn't going to work either, we ended up going to Topsail Beach on Tuesday. We left around 9am in a bit of rain, and it poured pretty hard at times... we managed to drive out of the rain but then back into it on and off. As we drove down the main drag on Topsail Island (Hwy 210 / Anderson Street), there was some really high standing water on the road. Thankfully we were in the pickup truck so it was no problem. I think I did power wash someone's house going through one puddle.

We were visiting our friends, Bob and Debbie Grady. Adrienne's dad and Bob have been friends for a long time, and Adrienne has been visiting the Grady's at Topsail Beach since the mid 80s I think.

Marnie rode down with Bill and Lin for this trip, and left Derrick back at the resort with Bob. It was raining hard when we arrived at their second row beach house on the south end of the island, so we went inside to relax for a while. Eventually it did stop raining, so Emily and I went out to the beach for about a half hour to play.

Debbie made us one of her typical awesome beach lunches - a good ol' southern steampot. Smoked sausage, corn on the cob, new potatoes, and shrimp, all boiled together. And the shrimp was good and fresh too! I love fresh peel-n-eat shrimp. As usual, lunch was great.

Nothing much else to tell about Tuesday. We headed back to New Bern around 5 o'clock. We picked up Chinese takeout on the way home for dinner, and went back to our condo to play Blockus and Uno before retiring for the night.

Vacation Day 3 - Monday, June 15

2009-06-23T07:58:32-07:00

We had originally intended to spend Monday at Topsail Beach with our friends the Grady's. A few days before the vacation though, we changed the plans because Marnie didn't feel it would be a good idea to take Derrick back on another car ride the day after driving to New Bern. The trip to New Bern for them on Sunday was about 3 hours. The trip to Topsail Beach was about 90 minutes. So we rescheduled the Topsail trip for Tuesday.

Somehow, Monday we ended up driving about an hour and 15 minutes to go to Pine Knoll Shores (on Emerald Isle) to go to one of the North Carolina Aquarium's. This would end up being the only time Derrick (20 months old) left the resort. Everyone actually had a great time, and Derrick really loved the aquarium. Marnie and Bob took Derrick back to the resort after a couple of hours and the rest of us went to Fort Macon State Park on the northern end of the island. We had about an hour to kill before dinner, so while Adrienne and Bill went to check out the civil war era fort, Emily and Erin and Lin and I hung out on the beach. Emily and I flew our kites and walked along the shore. Because it's on the end of the island, swimming is not only dangerous here because of the currents, but actually prohibited. They even say "no wading" though we did get our feet wet!

Finally 5:30 rolled around and we packed up the truck and headed to The Channel Marker, a wonderful seafood restaurant on the sound side of Atlantic beach. This was our third trip to this restaurant and the first that it wasn't "awesome". The appetizers were still great, my she-crab soup was awesome. I thought the crabcakes were great but Adrienne said they weren't as good as last time. I actually ordered a pound of peel-n-eat shrimp and it was overcooked. Oh well. I think we'll probably still go back.

After dinner, we headed back to New Bern for a good night's sleep.

Vacation Day 2 - Sunday, June 14

2009-06-23T05:01:32-07:00

We had a limited schedule today for a couple of reasons. We weren't sure when the rest of the crew was arriving, and of course it was Sunday.

After getting some breakfast, we headed out to the Aurora Fossil Museum in Aurora, NC - a very very sleepy little town about a half hour from the resort. Sunday hours had the museum opening at 1pm and we got there around 10:30, but we were still able to dig in the fossil pit in the park across the street. The fossil pit is a pile of rejected "stuff" from the PCS Phosphates mine. We looked for fossils for about an hour and found numerous sharks teeth.

Then we headed up to Washington, NC, where we were going to go to lunch and maybe hit up the North Carolina Estuarium. We had a bad lunch experience at The Meeting Place, then ended up heading back to New Bern as the rest of the family was going to arrive. No time for the Estuarium.

Washington, NC is a pretty cool little waterfront town at the mouth of the Pamlico River. They've undergone quite a waterfront restoration I guess, and the downtown area itself is quite cool.

One note, beware of one way streets. Luckily for us it was pretty quiet, but we ended up driving about 5 blocks the wrong way down the one way "Main Street" in downtown Washington before we noticed.

Didn't really do anything worth mentioning the rest of the afternoon/evening.

Vacation Day 1 - Saturday June 13

2009-06-21T07:51:37-07:00

Saturday, June 13. Emily had her "Red/Black" swim meet Saturday morning. I woke up sneezing and with watery eyes. Should be a fun day. I ended up being a volunteer timer for the meet, which started at 8am and finished around 10:30am.

We couldn't check into the hotel until 4, so we had plenty of time and no rush to pack up the truck for a week. When you stay in a condo, you pack a lot more stuff. Food, games, etc. For me and Adrienne, Emily, and Adrienne's step-sister Erin, we took an amazing amount of stuff. The bed of my pickup was pretty much full.

We finally took off around 1:30. It's about a 2.5 hour drive to the Fairfield Harbour Resort in New Bern. About an hour and a half in, I had to give up driving because the sneezing and watery eyes were just killing me. I took a couple of benedryl and let Adrienne drive the rest of the way.

The benedryl didn't help, so when we got checked into the resort and unpacked into our super cool condo, I went back up the road a couple miles to a gas station and bought some Nyquil, then ordered some pizza for carryout at the Big Apple Pizzeria across the street from the gas station. Nyquil is the only cold med I trust. After eating some pizza, I went up to the bedroom and crashed. It was only 8 o'clock.

The resort we were staying at was the "Wyndham Vacation Resort at Fairfield Harbour". It's one of their older resorts - built in the 60s and 70s I'd guess from the architecture. We had two units, one of which wee would not check into until Sunday. The second unit was for Adrienne's sister's family, and her dad and step-mom. But the unit we checked into on Saturday was located in the "Sandcastle II" part of the resort. These were attached townhome style units that had recently been remodeled.

When you walk in the front door, there is a foyer and half bath, then up half a flight of stairs into the dining room, along with the full kitchen, living room, and exit to the "front porch" - the units surround a large pond, with a walkway around the pond and a few docks for fishing and such. We had a beautiful view of the "lake". From the dining room, up another half flight of stairs to a laundry-room which doubled as a jacuzzi tub room, and also the "master" bedroom - a double bed, desk, and full bathroom. Up another half flight of stairs to the second bedroom and another smaller full bath, and then up another flight of stairs to a loft-style third bedroom with 2 twin beds.

About a 5 minute walk from this unit was the marina and the recreation center. This was not really a public marina, but more a place to rent boat slips. There was a restaurant at the marina, but no store or anything, so it wasn't the kind of marina where people would dock temporarily to load up on supplies, use the bathrooms, or anything like that. There were a lot of big boats though, probably 80-90% of them sailboats of 30-40 feeet. The restaurant, which we ate at twice, was not great but was decent. Okay, we actually got carryout and took it back to the unit twice.

The rec center had a mini-golf course, indoor and ourdoor pools, tennis courts, and playground. Amazingly, I didn't use the pool once. I think Erin took Emily to the pool once.

That's about all I have for "Day 1". More to come!

Car Hits Train - DRIVER FAIL! [VIDEO]

2009-06-11T09:23:00-07:00

This occurred at the New Hope Valley Railroad in Bonsail, NC, where my dad volunteers...

Watch out for Craigslist Scammers!

2009-05-28T09:09:41-07:00

How stupid do these people think we are? Okay, well at least I'm not that stupid.

I have an ad on craigslist for a vacation rental - I've got points in my wyndham timeshare account to use up this year.

Anyway, I had some interest from a guy in going to Daytona Beach the week of Labor Day, so I checked availability (amazingly, still some availability left!) and gave him a quote.

After exchanging a few emails, I got this response from him:

Hey

I have receive the confirmation from my secretary that the payment as
been issued out and was mailed by the courier company. It will be
delivered to your address a day from now according to the courier, but
to my greatest surprise the draft was issued out to the sum of $2850
instead of the actual cost of our stay . She claimed that i requested
for that amount to be issued out to you but am very sure i only made a
request for just the cost of our stay. This is a terrible mistake and
i was just informed about this so please once the check is delivered
please take it to your Bank and have it cashed You will then deduct
the cost of our stay plus an extra $50 to offset the cost of your run
around expenses. The rest of the fund should be sent to my travel
Agent via a Cash Transfer outlet the same day you receive the payment
so that travel Agent can book our tickets and Car hire service at
once.

**I will need your immediate response via email assuring me that i can
trust you to handle this with utmost care and have the remaining fund
returned appropriately as requested and will hope that your intentions
remains noble though out the duration of this transaction**

Thanks for your anticipated support.

Yeah, sure, I'm gonna cash your counterfeit check, and send you the extra $2000.

If I actually do get a check from this dude I'm calling the FBI.

What to do if you're having a heart attack..

2009-05-27T06:21:47-07:00

Someone forwarded the following email to me about what to do if you're having a heart attack. Some of the advise may be valid. But I have a problem with the instructions to "phone a neighbor or a family member who lives very close by"

Call 9-1-1.

I mean, duh. How much time are you gong to waste trying to call someone who really can't help you? What if they don't answer. Are you gonna call someone else? No, if you're having a heart attack, and you're able to make a phone call, just call 9-1-1.

Why keep aspirin by your bedside?

About Heart Attacks

There are other symptoms of an heart attack besides the pain on the left arm.

One must also be aware of an intense pain on the chin, as well as nausea and lots of sweating, however these symptoms may also occur less frequently.

Note: There may be no pain in the chest during a heart attack.

The majority of people (about 60%) who had an heart attack during their sleep, did not wake up. However, if it occurs, the chest pain may wake you up from your deep sleep.

If that happens, immediately dissolve two aspirins in your mouth and swallow them with a bit of water.

Afterwards

- phone a neighbor or a family member who lives very close by

- say "heart attack!"

- say that you have taken 2 aspirins.

- take a seat on a chair or sofa near the front door, and wait for their arrival and... unlock the front door!

~ do NOT lie down ~

A Cardiologist has stated that, if each person, after receiving this e-mail, sends it to 10 people, probably one life can be saved!

I have already shared the information-- What about you?

Do forward this message; it may save lives!

Rent my Orlando Timeshare this summer! Dates vary!

2009-05-20T19:43:22-07:00

Those of you who have read my blog know I'm a Wyndham Vacation Resorts timeshare owner. That means I've got points to be used at any of Wyndham's fabulous luxury resorts.

If you're looking to head to Orlando this summer, don't stay in a hotel! I might be able to get you a one or two bedroom suite at the Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort - inside Disney Property! Or at the Wyndham Star Island or Cypress Palms resorts - both within a few miles.

No timeshare presentation required - you're renting from me. Rates as low as $75/night.

Lots of availability in July, August, and even into the fall.

Just email me, rick@webworksllc.com, if you're interested.

Detroit Tigers Lookin' Good!

2009-05-20T19:37:00-07:00

Verlander no-hit the rangers through 4 innings, then threw like 40 pitches in the 5th, but managed to get out of it and only gave up 1 run - and came back to pitch and finish the 6th inning as well. He struck out 8.

After the third inning, I started thinking we might see a no-no tonight. Oh well.. Verlander's starts are "must see TV" right now!

Brandon Lyon came in and got booed pretty harshly after giving up a first pitch homer, but that was all he gave up in the 7th.

Joel Zumaya came in and gave up 3 straight singles and then a grounder to second to give up a run, then just destroyed the next two batters.

Did you know that Zumaya hasn't walked a single batter this year? His K/BB ratio is infinity. Or undefined, I guess.

And Rodney got his first save since May 3.

Tigers have won 5 in a row now. The Rangers have lost 9 straight in Comerica Park. ouch!

These Tigers are looking good. The pitching has been solid. And soon we're gonna get Bonderman back too.

46 Things That Have Never Happened on Star Trek

2009-05-15T09:13:00-07:00

The Enterprise runs into a mysterious energy field of a type that it has encountered several times before.
The Enterprise goes to check up on a remote outpost of scientists, who are all perfectly all right.
The Enterprise comes across a Garden-of-Eden-like planet called Paradise, where everyone is happy all the time. However, everything is soon revealed to be exactly as it seems.
The crew of the Enterprise discover a totally new lifeform, which later turns out to be a rather well-known old lifeform, wearing a silly hat.
The crew of the Enterprise are struck by a strange alien plague, for which the cure is found in the well-stocked sick-bay.
An enigmatic being composed of pure energy attempts to interface to the Enterprise's computer, only to find out that it has forgotten to bring the right leads.
A power surge on the Bridge is rapidly and correctly diagnosed as a faulty capacitor by the highly-trained and competent engineering staff.
A power surge on the Bridge is fails to electrocute the user of a computer panel, due to a highly sophisticated 24th century surge protection feature called a 'fuse'.
The Enterprise ferries an alien VIP from one place to another without serious incident.
The Enterprise is captured by a vastly superior alien intelligence which does not put them on trial.
The Enterprise separates as soon as there is any danger.
The Enterprise gets involved in an enigmatic, stange, and dangerous situation, and there are no pesky aliens they can blame it on in the end.
The Enterprise is captured by a vastly inferior alien intelligence which they easily pacify by offering it some sweeties.
The Enterprise is involved in a bizarre time-warp phenomenon, which is in some way unconnected with the 20th century.
Somebody takes out a shuttle and it doesn't explode or crash.
A major Starfleet emergency breaks out near the Enterprise, but fortunately some other ships in the area are able to deal with it to everyone's satisfaction.
The shields on the Enterprise stay up during a battle.
The Enterprise visits the Klingon Home World on a bright, sunny day.
An attempt at undermining the Klingon-Federation alliance is discovered without anyone noting that such an attempt, if successful, "would represent a fundamental shift of power throughout the quadrant."
A major character spends the entire episode in the Holodeck without a single malfunction trapping him/her there.
Picard hears the door chime and doesn't bother to say "Come."
Picard doesn't answer a suggestion with "Make it so"!
Picard walks up to the replicator and says, "Coke on ice."
Counsellor Troi states something other than the blindingly obvious.
Mood rings come back in style, jeopardizing Counselor Troi's position.
Worf and Troi finally decide to get married, only to have Kate Pulaski show up and disrupt the wedding by shouting, "Did he read you love poetry?! Did he serve you poisonous tea?! He's MINE!"
When Worf tells the bridge officers that something is entering visual range no one says "On screen."
Worf actually gives another vessel more than 2 seconds to respond to one of the Enterprise's hails.
Worf kills Wesley by mistake in the holodeck, (pity this wasn't done in "Deja Vu" then we could have seen it 5 times without rewinding the tape).
Wesley Crusher gets beaten up by his classmates for being a smarmy git, and consequently has a go at making some friends of his own age for a change.
Wesley saves the ship, the Federation, and the Universe as we know it, and EVERYONE is grateful (including the Net).
The warp engines start playing up a bit, but seem to sort themselves out after a while without any intervention from boy genius Wesley Crusher.
Wesley Crusher tries to upgrade the warp drive and they work better than ever.
Beverly Crusher manages to go through a whole episode without having a hotflush and getting breathless every time Picard is in the room.
Guinan forgets herself, and breaks into a stand up comedy routine.
Data falls in love with the replicator.
Kirk (or Riker) falls in love with a woman on a planet he visits, and isn't tragically separated from her at the end of the episode.
The Captain has to make a difficult decision about a less advanced people which is made a great deal easier by the Starfleet Prime Directive.
An unknown ensign beams down as part of an away team and lives to tell the tale.
Spock or Data is fired from his high-ranking position for not being able to understand the most basic nuances of about one in three sentences that anyone says to him.
Kirk's hair remaining consistent for more that 1 consecutive episode.
Kirk gets into a fistfight and doesn't rip his shirt. (Or even, Kirk DOESN'T get into a fistfight...)
Kirk doesn't end up kissing the troubled guest-female before she doesn't sacrifice herself for him.
Scotty doesn't mention the laws of physics.
Spock isn't the only crew member not affected by new weapon/attack by alien race/etc!! due to his "darn green blood" or "bizarre Vulcan physiology" and thus he cannot save the day.
The episode ends without Bones & Kirk laughing at Spock's inability to understand the joke, and he doesn't raise his eye brows!

Spend Christmas At Disney World!

2009-05-14T13:29:19-07:00

Spend Christmas At Disney World!

AVAILABLE: 1 room deluxe suite, sleeps 4 at the Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort - "inside the gates" at Disney World!

$900 : December 20-27 (7 nights)

Dear vacationer,

My name is Rick, and I have some extra points in my Wyndham Vacation Resort account, so I'd like to rent them out to you. You will not be required to attend a timeshare presentation, it will be just like staying at a hotel.

A really, REALLY nice hotel.

Wyndham's Bonnet Creek Resort is their absolutely top of the line resort, and it's "inside the gates" at Disney World in Orlando.

Located right next to Disney's own Carribean Beach Resort, the Bonnet Creek Resort is right off Lake Buena Vista Drive, mere minutes from Disney theme parks and other attractions. The aerial photo to the left shows Epcot Center, and I've watched the epcot center fireworks from the balcony of one of the rooms at Bonnet Creek.

Aside from the usual Disney attractions, it's easy to get onto Interstate 4 from here, and take a quick trip to Seaworld, Universal, and other Orlando area attractions.

Unit Features

Full Kitchen
Washer/Dryer
Whirlpool Tub
Air Conditioning

Amenities

2 Outdoor Swimming Pools
Lazy River
“Get Out & Play” Activities Program
Exercise Equipment
Outdoor Hot Tub
Game Room
Playground
Miniature Golf

Area Attractions

Magic Kingdom® Park
Epcot®
Disney-MGM Studios
Disney’s Animal Kingdom® Theme Park
Downtown Disney® Area

Area Activities

Lake
Golf
Boating
Horseback Riding
Restaurants
Shopping
Masseuse
Live Entertainment
Water-Skiing
Jet Skiing

Terms and Details

No refunds are available within 30 days of travel.

Your full legal name must be provided at time of purchase for guest check-in.

The resort will require a credit card at check-in.

The images shown at the left are examples of the units in this resort. Your room may differ.

Pictures

The Wyndham Resort at Bonnet Creek

This aerial photo shows nearby Disney theme Parks!

Kissimmee/Orlando/Disney Vacation Rental from $75

2009-05-14T07:37:00-07:00

Looking to vacation in Florida in the next month or so? I can get you in a super-nice 1 bedroom condo within a few miles or Disney property, with tons of amenities for as little as $75/night.

$75.00/night !!!

Let me hook you up. I have extra points in my Wyndham Vacation Resort account...

There is availability at many of Wyndham's outstanding resort properties in Florida, such as the Star Island resort in Kissimmee.

Only a few miles from Disney property, Star Island offers many amenities:

- 2 Outdoor Swimming Pools
- “Get Out & Play” Activities Program
- Driving Range & Putting Green
- Exercise Equipment
- Day Spa
- Playground
- Live Entertainment
- Picnic/BBQ Area
- Jet Skiing
- Outdoor Children’s Pool
- Lake
- 9 Tennis Courts
- 1 Outdoor & 1 Indoor Hot Tub
- Fishing
- Health Club
- Clubhouse
- Basketball
- Laundry Facilities

I can get you a 1 bedroom unit here for as little as $75 a night (for a 6-7 night stay) or $100/night for a 2 bedroom (6-7 night stay)

Other Orlando-area resorts are also available - even some limited availability at Wyndham's Bonnet Creek Resort.

Let me know what dates you're looking for, and I can check availability!

Just email and let me know!

I've attached some pictures of the Star Island resort

Rick

U-Verse Problem #1

2009-01-30T13:42:40-07:00

Apparently, you can only pause live TV when you're watching on the DVR. They call it a "whole house DVR" because you can watch recorded shows on any TV receiver in the house... but you can only schedule recordings directly on the DVR receiver.

So if I'm up in my bedroom watching TV and I want to record a show... I have to go downstairs to the main TV and record it there (or use the internet...)

Anyway... Adrienne is going to be annoyed by this.. I might have to move the DVR to the bedroom...

I wonder if there's a U-Verse app for my ipod....

AIG to pay $450 million in bonuses - using Taxpayer money

2009-01-28T21:16:51-07:00

What the hell?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=auhzcUg60VZA&refer=home

The specifics:

About 400 workers at New York-based AIG’s financial products unit may get $450 million in two installments, said two people familiar with the situation who declined to be identified because the plan is confidential. That is in addition to about $619 million in retention pay going to 4,200 executives and employees at subsidiaries including life insurance.

Seriously? These are the people that the government has bailed out not once but twice, and has seen a significant percentage of the financial sector bailout money - something like a hundred billion dollars of taxpayer money.

This is just wrong.

Retention bonuses? They really feel like they need to keep those people that drove the company into the ground? FIRE THEM ALL.

I sure wish I got a million dollar bonus.

Why would anyone expect Republicans to support him?

2009-01-28T21:11:21-07:00

Let's say you're a republican congressperson. Why would you support the economic stimulus package proposed by the Democrats and President Obama?

I mean, really?

Let's pretend for a minute that you think it does have some good things in it, and you know the economy needs something. You know damn well it's going to pass, so why not support it, knowing there's not a damn thing you can do to stop it?

And that's exactly why none of them supported it. Even those that would've otherwise voted for it in a truly bipartisan effort, their votes were simply not needed, and rather than support the President, the Republicans suddenly decided to tow the party line.

The fact is, their votes were irrelevant, and supporting the measure would only embolden the Democrats and President Obama.

F'ing politicians, all of them.

To his credit, I think Obama did do what he could to get bipartisan support. But it's a lot harder to get the support of people whose votes are irrelevant, as the republicans votes were in this case.

At least Obama had them take out the millions of dollars for condoms.

God I f'ing hate Nancy Pelosi. Can't Obama tell the dems in congress to make someone else speaker of the house? Yes, I know he can't. But c'mon. Get her outta here and put someone sane in charge.