Adventures in Orlando….

So the reason I was disconnected for 5 ½ hours last week was because I was headed to Orlando for Microsoft's annual TechEd conference. It's their largest conference for their customers and I think last I heard, we had something like almost 15,000 attendees. I went because it is a great opportunity to promote our technologies, such as Server and Domain Isolation and IPv6 (see Sean, I care). We had a ton of traffic at our booth thanks to an awesome demo – oh yeah, and the technology is pretty cool too. J

It was a pretty tiring week just because you are standing for hours on end without really moving around, so your back and legs tend to stiffen up (I'd rather go running for an hour – at least the muscles get moving). Plus with all of the foot traffic, there was a lot of talking involved – ok, I know I never have a problem talking – but to be constantly positive and prepared to answer all sorts of questions from some really technical people was a challenge since I am most likely the "least technical person" on the team. Fortunately the team I worked with was very helpful in case I got in some deep water.

The restaurant highlight of the week was a place in downtown Orlando called Del Frisco's. We had an awesome meal there with excellent service. Check it out if you ever need a break from Disney cuisine while you are in Orlando. And fortunately I decided to head up to New York on Thursday evening instead of Friday morning – there was a huge computer snag within air traffic controls on Friday morning that impacted the entire east coast!

Being disconnected for 5 ½ hours allows you to….

I guess the term 'disconnected' is somewhat relative. To me, it means no internet, no mobile phone, no incoming e-mail, etc. But I guess I still have my laptop and decided to download some goodies for me to read for my 'disconnected' period. For the most part, I have been spending time in the Dining & Wine section of the New York Times catching up on articles from the past couple of weeks. You may have heard about the ongoing food coma that has been taking place since about mid-May for Marc and I. Unfortunately for me, it continues for another week.

Anyway here were some of my favorites:

1. Cupcakes with publicists?
   
2. Revolt against the chicken fingers!
   
3. Bottled water does not really help the environment.
   
4. And my homeland (L-AW-NG EYE-SLAND) is starting to produce some great wines. Maybe Marc and I will have to venture out?
   

And I save the best for last…. I mentioned during a previous post that Copper River Salmon is in season and Marc actually enjoyed some Sockeye (as opposed to King Copper River Salmon) on a recent visit to Herb Farm. So while we were dining at the restaurant, I picked up Chef Traunfeld's most recent book because it seemed more thought-out and easier to understand than his previous one. I promised myself that when we got back from our wine country trip that I would try and take advantage of it still being the Copper River Salmon season, and attempt to cook some for Marc that he would deem edible and possibly eat again.

[NOTE: About 2-3 years ago, I grilled some Copper River Salmon for Marc and he didn't appreciate it from the get-go – barely go through 2 bites – so I knew my work was cut out for me.]

I decided to go for the Slow-Roasted Salmon with Fresh Herbs recipe in The Herbal Kitchen, and picked up some sockeye based on our recent dining adventures, advice from the fishmonger and Marc's severe dislike of any real "fishy" scent. I am happy to report that he ate the entire dish and maybe even liked it? (One of the advantages of being married to "an oversized child" is that their expressions tend to be very genuine and that they don't tend to fake it if they don't like something.) Unfortunately I forgot to cut the herb sauce ingredients in half, so the sauce may have been "too herby" but I am going to try it again one more time before the Copper River season ends. Wow – halibut, crab, salmon…. Marc is really starting to get into "eating his own kind". J

Wine Tasting Class at CIA

I didn't really talk about this class in my previous post. First, it clearly was one of those gifts that benefitted the giver significantly. Since Jill already acknowledged this, I guess I don't need to rub it in. Second, I learned a lot.

Jill already mentioned the 4 types of wines we tasted (we did this several times over the two days). We had to identify color, scents, flavors, acidity, body, tannins, etc with each wine. Then they'd bring out a plate of food or spices. We'd eat a little of something and then sip some wine and see how the food affected the flavor. It's interesting what a twist of lemon (or other ingredients) will do to a wine.

I won't go into the details of the plate of potatoes prepared 6 or 7 different ways or the rice paper rolls filled with mystery ingredients (the last two were AWEFUL - I think intentionally). You also don't need to know the details of the spit cup we all had especially while eating food and drinking wine. A few of the guys in the row in front of us never appeared to spit - I was surprised they weren't trashed. The lady in the company store said usually there are a few folks walking around the store trashed at the end of the day.

What I will tell you is that I found an appreciation for white wine for some foods. I've never really thought much of whites and basically skipped over those and went straight to the big, bold, fruity or spicy reds from the beginning. But the exercises showed me with specific detail that sometime the red just doesn't go with the meal. Sometimes when we opened a red it tasted great. Then we started eating and I was like, "what is with this wine?". Turns out, body style of the food, or fat content of the food, or sweetness of the food, or acidity level of the food, or umami (savoury-ness) can really do things to the flavor of the wine.

So maybe we will drink those 20+ bottles of white that we've slowly accumulated and ignored. Hopefully most of them aren't past their prime. Of course, a good beer would go with most of those "white wine" meals too and that may be where I end up on some days.

Too Much Good Food In Too Little Time

As you can probably tell from Jill's recent entries, we have been eating well. First, Sally rolled into town and Jill had to show her a great time by going to the best restaurants EVERY night (given the limited time, we actually dropped a few from the list).

Then we flew to Sonoma on Horizon Air from Seattle direct to Santa Rosa. The flight went along the Eastern ridge of Mt Rainier and we were staring at the mountain that looked like it was only 1000-2000 feet below us. It was amazing. In addition this prop plane flew lower than our standard Alaska Air flights to California. It may be coincidence, but there was no turbulence to speak of and that was enjoyable for me (turbulence makes me wish I was knocked out cold).

We spent some time biking and driving around Dry Creek Valley, Russian River Valley, and the Alexander Valley in addition to wondering around Healdsburg tasting wine in town. I won't comment on how much wine we purchased but suffice it to say that we may actually get a bigger locker at the Seattle Wine Storage facility.

That wasn't the hard part although I did get tasting fatigue one day and basically could no longer tell a pinot noir from a zinfandel. The hard part was all the 4 or 5 star restaurants (many with multi-course tasting menus) less than a week after we showed Sally around Seattle in a similar fashion.

We ate at: Willi's Seafood & Raw Bar, Barndiva, Zin, Mirepoix, Cyrus, Tra Vigne, Auberge du Soleil, Bouchon, and Terra. Did I leave any out? Probably. We both gained a couple pounds but were both surprised we didn't gain more than what the scale read. Time to swim...

Book Recommendation and the Ongoing Food and Wine Coma….

Read a book recently that I meant to tell you about – The Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman. Let me stress that it is not a business book, but more of a sociology book of sorts. It is thought provoking and pretty insightful as to how many people in the States pretty much contradict themselves in terms of how they perceive Wal-Mart. Anyway read it and tell us your thoughts as Marc and I both read the book.

So Marc and I had about 3 days to recover from Hurricane Sally before we headed down to Sonoma and Napa for Memorial Day weekend. For Marc's birthday, we took a class at the CIA (no, not that CIA but at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone (Napa Valley)) that focused on Food and Wine pairing. OK before the abuse starts along the lines of "Jill, this sounds like the equivalent of a guy buying lingerie for his wife or girlfriend", I get it and will admit that I definitely benefitted from this gift. There, I admitted it. Done. That being said, Marc and I both learned a lot and I'll let him share his thoughts on the 2-day class.

As for me, it was a tiring class! For 2-days, you are constantly being asked to consider the validity of different food and wine combinations by actually tasting it all. I'm not saying that the class was so tiring that I would have preferred to be back at work, but here is an example of one of the exercises:

You have 4 different wines – Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon. And the chefs brought out chicken prepared 5 or 6 different ways – poached, baked, grilled, braised, smoked, and some other way I can't remember. That leads to 24 different combinations to taste and analyze….. in 15 minutes! You have to pace yourself about ensuring you spit out some of the wine (otherwise you would be wasted by 11am – I'll have to talk about Marc's early wine tasting days and the impact of him not spitting out wine when he tried about 15-20 glasses at a charity event). You have to ensure that you do not let the previous flavor combination impact the next one you taste.

All in all, it was great fun and we learned a lot. Most importantly, we met a number of really cool people in the class who were all taking the class for different reasons. They all had some great perspectives to share. While we were in Napa, we had the pleasure of dining at Auberge du Soleil (Marc went for the tasting menu!! And it was a fabulous meal with perfect weather – see picture above), Bouchon (Always excellent; the pistachio pot de crème was awesome, and the dessert wines sent out courtesy of the bartender were really nice!) and Terra (Loved the foie gras ravioli – YUM). Take a look at the picture on the right – you'll notice that Marc was stuck putting on chef pants at Terra since the dress code does not allow for men to wear shorts, but oddly enough they allowed me to wear my baseball cap.

I'll pass the baton to Marc to discuss the Sonoma part of our trip as well as his thoughts from the class. Mr. WaterClown – you're on! J

Hurricane Sally visits Seattle

When I lived in New York, I had a number of friends who enjoyed food and wine but none more than my friend Sally. I actually met Sally while she was dating a friend of mine that I used to work with (yes, I am still good friends with her former boyfriend - Matt). As Sally and I moved to different places, we always maintained our great friendship. But for me, she was what I call "my food partner-in-crime" – over time that became something like "food and wine partner-in-crime".

Since I have lived in Seattle, I have been trying to get her to visit Marc and me to sample the awesome local produce, seafood, restaurant scene, etc. Well you know that saying, "be careful what you wish for because you just might get it"? Yeah, well Hurricane Sally visited Seattle for 6 days and it is going to take some time for our stomachs and livers to recover. Given that Sally is a chef for a living; the pressure was immense to showcase Seattle's best in the food and wine scene. Marc and I strategized quite a bit for this visit….

Upon Sal's arrival, we had to have her sample some great Pacific Northwest microbrews (we also had to clear her palette of the awful Bud Light she had during her flight delay at the STL airport), so I think we started with a Cinder Cone Red from Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon. That seemed to go over well, which led to us all crashing and me having to head to work the next morning while she explored downtown Seattle. She got to see all of the major sites (including Elliott Bay Books – a fantastic independent bookshop) and we found out that she consumes lots of coffee, which makes Seattle an obvious choice for her to consider relocation to.

That evening, Sal and Marc picked me up and we went to Café Juanita in Kirkland. Wow. I had been trying to get into this place for awhile, and it definitely lived up to the hype. Wonderful menu and great service. The bar for the rest of the week's meals had been set pretty high now. Seared foie gras, papperdelle with duck ragu, a ribeye with castelmagno sauce – yum!

The next day, Sal and I explored different neighborhoods within Seattle such as Green Lake, Ravenna, Queen Anne, South Lake Union, etc., and we got her some proper Dungeness crab chowder at Duke's along with the best amber around – Mac & Jack's African Amber. Marc introduced me, and I am definitely a fan. That evening, we went to Crémant for dinner which was another awesome meal – more of the same with Alaskan halibut, salads using morels and other very seasonal produce, and I'll tell you – Crémant probably had some of the best pommes frites (aka French fries) I have ever had.

On Friday, the sun was out and the mountains were starting to show so we headed back to Queen Anne and then drove around Magnolia. It was warm and very pleasant so a great day to be enjoying Seattle. Plus Marc got us off on the right foot with his famous M&M pancakes. We then had to do some food shopping as Sal was starting to really get inspired by the local ingredients. She rummaged through some of our cookbooks and found one that she actually gave to me as a gift – Bouchon. Armed with an extensive list, we went to the Pike Place Market (home of the flying fish) which may be very touristy but also has some reasonably priced fresh produce and seafood. The selection is incredible, so Sal was just loving it. We got morels, fiddlehead ferns, baby sweet onions from Walla Walla, sea beans, rhubarb and more. Plus we picked up some Dungeness crab, which I'll never turn down.

Our final stop was DeLaurenti's, which is an Italian specialty store that also has a great cheese counter. Sal had checked out Beecher's earlier in the week, and they also have some very high quality cheeses, but DeLaurenti's has an impressive selection. Nathan and a McSteamy look-alike took great care of us for about a half hour letting us sample different cheeses before we settled on 5 for the big dinner that Sal was going to cook for us on Sunday. McSteamy seemed to take a liking to Sal, so yet another reason for her to consider relocating here – attractive, knows a lot about cheese – this could be good. Ok, enough – Sal's embarrassed enough probably as she reads this. We met up with Rebecca and Nina for lunch at Latona Pub. I felt that in order to give Sally the complete Northwest experience, she needed to try another beer so we hooked her up with Baron Hefeweizen.

A few beers later, we needed to re-charge as Marc, Sal and I were off to Crush later that evening. I've blogged about this place before and you always worry if a place is going to live up to the hype. Well yeah it did. We skipped the tasting menu this time, and that was a great call. Marc had an awesome short ribs dish and also tried some veal sweetbreads, Sal had some local sea scallops and I went with the black cod. Lots of great local produce incorporated into the dish such as sweet onion risotto, more mushrooms, etc. We split a dessert that had pink peppercorns and rhubarb incorporated into a trifle. YUM again! At this point, we all wished rolling home was an option.

Saturday was going to be a LONG day. We had reservations at the Herb Farm at around 6:15pm with Maureen, and we decided to go wine tasting in Woodinville in the afternoon. We had a disappointing brunch at Salish Lodge – normally this place is great but we had a crappy server, which kind of ruined the experience of being right near Snoqualmie Falls. The weather ended up holding out (ok, unless you were Michael who was riding 100 miles in the wind for the American Diabetes Association – great job, Michael!) and we enjoyed a pleasant afternoon of sipping wines at Cuillin Hills, Matthews, Des Voigne, Woodhouse and Brian Carter. It all kind of worked out that Maureen lived close by since she was joining us at the Herb Farm (also in Woodinville). We hydrated and Marc snoozed for a bit before the main event.

The Herb Farm has won many awards over the years and is definitely a nationally known restaurant as the executive chef has won the James Beard Award and a few others over the years. And yes, their mantra is to use only fresh ingredients that are in season. We went on a tour of the actual herb farm where everything grows and got to taste many of the herbs that were going to be used with dinner that evening (my favorite was chocolate mint – shocking). The theme of the evening was Copper River Salmon, and to Marc's credit – he actually tried some. He enjoyed the sockeye (no skin) but the fillet not so much because the skin makes it fishier. Maureen, Sally and devoured our courses (the Dungeness crab soufflé with stinging nettles was my favorite actually) and the 4 of us had a great time. Because Sally is in "the industry", we were able to get a tour of the kitchen and talk to the Executive Chef (Jerry Traunfeld) for a bit after the meal.

I felt relieved – all of the restaurants selected lived up to expectations, and all were enjoyable for different reasons. But there's more! The Seattle Cheese Festival happened to be this weekend, so we ventured there on Sunday morning. It was at Pike Place and there were a ton of cheeses to sample (see picture to right). Marc had picked up some tickets to the Mariners' game for that afternoon, so of course we had to take Sal to Pyramid Brewery for a pre-game meal and beverage (more Hefeweizen). Unfortunately the Mariners' lost, but what was in store for later in the evening made up for it (oh and the Yankees finally won a game).

We had enough food from Friday's shopping extravaganza for a feast, so we invited our neighbors over – Guré, Jim and Eneko – along with Rebecca and Michael. Cheese to start of course, with a Mache salad topped with some crabmeat (I'm not giving this justice) with some brioche. Then we went to a flank steak and gnocchi that was pretty easy to make, along with fiddleheads and morels… more food coming…. Ended with candied rhubarb and a chocolate mousse piped into some fresh eggs brought over from Guré and Jim's hens! We also had a majority vote that said that Sal needed to return to Seattle in August. Stay tuned.

It was all so good that I almost overslept and Sal would have missed her flight. Ok, maybe I would not have minded having "my food and wine partner-in-crime" for another day. It was great to spend some time with her and catch up. Food and wine aside, Sally is a trusted and valued friend to put it mildly, and my dazed state this morning (yes, noticed by my boss) was completely worth it given the laughs had by all. Marc and I can't wait to have her back.

Cleaning out the inbox....

We got something for everyone in this entry....

So I am actually using Microsoft Word 2007, which is part of the Office 2007 suite that was released by Microsoft a few months ago, for this blog entry. It's actually kind of cool since the editing features in Microsoft Word are way more robust than they are in Microsoft's Live Writer product, which is still in beta. If any of you use Word 2007 and blog, just go to the 'New' option and you will see an option to create a blog entry. You'll then be prompted for your blog's login information and you should be all set. J

Let's kick it off with one of my biggest pet peeves in sports (other than my team losing) – refs/umps impacting the outcome of a game with a blown call and of course, the game can't be appealed after it has ended. Well it happened tonight between a very close game between the Yankees and the Mariners. The replays showed it wasn't even close that a base runner was out (would have ended the inning), but the ump declared the runner safe. Of course, that runner scored on a broken bat single on the next play. That runner, Willie Bloomquist, offered this gem of a quote, "We'll take it. It's just a good thing there's no instant replay in baseball." Well Willie – glad you gave yourself some 'good karma'. Harv always says something along the lines of what comes around, goes around. I look forward to seeing it come around.

Refs/umps have a role in sports, but they should not be trying to steal the spotlight from the players and influencing the outcome of the game. The ump should be suspended without pay but most professional sport leagues never hold their officials accountable. Once again, Bud Selig is a joke. I guess at least we can say we split the series 2-2 with Triple A pitching and we have the Rocket coming back. And we found another young pitcher for down the stretch when all of the Red Sox pitchers get injured, as they typically do in the 2^nd half of the year.

Enough of that - moving on to YCMSTU – Sports Edition, I guess it's never too soon to start bulking up your kid to be a sumo wrestler. Tanya, Greg, Lisa, JB, Glenn and Gwen – are you reading? Continuing with the sports topic, this has got to be one of the funniest videos I have seen in awhile (you have to listen to the audio commentary to get the full effect) – only Red Sox fans and announcers can create this kind of drama.

More of YCMTSU – Current Events Edition, we have found a dry cleaner that is being sued by a judge for $65 million (yes, that is US dollars). I can't even believe that a judge would do something so ludicrous given how many of them complain about how litigious our society has become.

Going back to my employer, did you all know that Microsoft hosted the Pac-Man World Championship? My mom (aka Big Yves according to my bro-in-law) used to be quite the Pac-Man player when we had it on our home computer in the 80s – an Atari 800, I believe. But her real passion was around Lock-N-Chase (scroll all the way down), a game created for the Intellivision console, which competed directly with the Atari 2600 game console.…. and BTW, Intellivision kicked the 2600s ***! When I was about 10 years old, I used the Atari 800 to help Harv out with cataloguing his sales and I guess I belted out one day something along the lines that quality (aka $/sale) was way more important than the quantity of sales. I guess it was one of those moments that made him realize that I was wired slightly different than most kids – I'm sure there were other less flattering ones as well.

Continuing on the video game theme, I hear that Sony's Playstation 2 has now been banned from prisons in the UK. Yes, you read correctly, prisons in the UK provided inmates with the opportunity to play videogames. I wonder if they will have videogames where Paris Hilton is going, since she was sentenced to jail for 45 days. Good one. Anyone from the UK want to comment on prisons having PS2s?

Moving over to another favorite topic – food. More from the UK – now this has to be riveting TV. Think I may go back to the BBC the next time I am across the pond. Just kidding, the BBC has some good programming and blows away any local news that you would find in the US.

I found this article in the NYT about how to avoid 'mindless eating' to be pretty accurate. I have no self-control when it comes to sweets. I see them, I eat them. This causes a conflict with Marc as he has a sweet tooth that is more controlled, so we have solved this by putting things in hidden locations throughout the house out of my reach. With Marc being a foot taller than me, this is not too hard. J

Frank Bruni, the lead NYT's food critic, wrote this great blog entry. It really gives me perspective as a foodie because when I was 15 years old, Shake 'n Bake with Chicken Rice-A-Roni was considered gourmet (no offense, Big Yves). As Ian likes to say, I didn't even really eat onions until I was about 22 years old and then things took off from there. I couldn't ever imagine appreciating Le Bernardin (#26 in the world – and yes, it is all that and a bag of chips) at even 22 years old, let alone the age of the students who Mr. Bruni took along for the gastronomic adventure. Excellent stuff.

It would be sad if Chumley's had to close. I have spent many evenings at this speakeasy when I lived in the Village, although looking back – the beer is awful (note Marc's influence here). It took me a long time to get over Grange Hall's closing (scroll halfway down the page). I still have not been to the restaurant that replaced it, even though I have been told it is very good. Guess I am not over it yet.

NY'ers – cutting in line in Washington State may violate the law soon. Take note for when you visit. We can't agree on how to manage serious traffic congestion issues, particularly on bridges that can fall with one major earthquake, but our legislators can focus on drafting legislation to deal with line cutters.

Living with a Yankees Fan

Jill and I have a nice set of blue towels and red towels (although they're not exactly bright red). I've been using the blue towels and Jill has been using the red towels since we started using them.

Well, baseball season came along, and particularly the Red Sox and Yankees matchup last week. Jill says, "we need to talk". I cannot use the red towels during baseball season. Even though these towels were perfectly fine before baseball and they don't match the Red Sox red color anyway, she refused to continue using them.

I think it's time to start planning Mariner Room 2.0 ;-P

STOP THE PRESSES: Marc eats seafood that Jill cooked!

Every relationship has milestones of some kind.  Tonight Marc and I had one; one that I would not have considered had it not been for OTBN last month.  I was food shopping this afternoon and Tom Douglas, who was basically the 1st chef from the Pacific Northwest to make to the big time, was signing books and cooking some halibut.  For those of you outside of the Pacific NW, halibut is very much in season right now here and it is awesome!

Based on the fact that two of our friends cooked seafood at OTBN that Marc ate, I decided to take a chance and ask Chef Douglas for some tips - namely how to get Marc to eat more seafood (fried does not count).  In addition to halibut, he recommended some locally procured Dover Sole to try out on him.  So I went and bought one small fillet for us to split and was told to season with some bread crumbs, lemon pepper, garlic and olive oil.

The payoff:  Marc ate one bite..... Marc ate two bites...... Marc ate five bites in total, which was about half.  Because Dover Sole is so delicate, you have to be careful how you cook it so it came apart as I was transferring it from the pan to the plate.  So Marc thought it was "mushy" but he would eat it again!  It's a start!

I'll have to start plotting the next fish in the seafood curriculum - will keep you posted!  And before I forget - Thanks Chef Douglas!

Some Progress, But We Still Got Some Work To Do.....

Click here for the Jeffrey update - Jeff is my super-sized nephew born on Monday!

Let's rewind to last week because I wanted to talk about race relations.  There were 3 events last week that indicated how far we, as a nation, have come and unfortunately, how far we need to go.

First let's talk about the positive - Jackie Robinson.  Mr. Robinson ha been credited with breaking the color barrier in baseball by being the first African-American player in the game.  Mr. and Mrs. Robinson endured lots of hateful remarks and threats for breaking barriers, but remained classy and dignified throughout all of the hate.  People today can learn a lot from them.

Unfortunately Mr. Robinson died from diabetes complications in 1972 at the age of 53.  His widow, Rachel, has continued his legacy by establishing the Jackie Robinson Foundation which helps minorities attend 4-year universities.   Now when you look at the baseball diamond, you see people of all different races and nationalities which is no small part to Mr. Robinson's influence.

Unfortunately we had a couple of events over the past week, which also indicated how far the U.S. needs to go in racial relations.  The whole "Imus in the Morning" thing was absurd on so many levels.  I don't know why Mr. Imus felt a need to denigrate the women on the Rutgers basketball team in what was supposed to be a time of celebration for them.  I hope Mr. Imus doesn't have daughters of his own because I wonder how he would feel if someone disrespected one of their achievements on national radio.

So Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (who both incidentally never apologized for all of the hurt associated with the Tawana Brawley hoax) called for Mr. Imus to be fired.  The networks obliged after also listening to their employees' feelings on the matter.

Now move over to the Duke lacrosse case, where we had a prosecutor who played on racial tensions in an election year.  Mike Nifong, the prosecutor, made infammatory statements that riled up national support because of allegations that 3 Caucasian college students had raped an African-American woman.  Reverends Sharpton and Jackson were on the case calling for justice for the woman and inciting protests, etc.  I, along with most of the country, believed that these students committed rape based on the D.A.'s statements.  My bad, for sure.

And guess what - after over a year, a new prosecutor who took over from Mr. Nifong basically states that a "rogue prosecutor" wrongly withheld key evidence that would have exonerated the subjects almost a year earlier.  One of the former suspects talked about how fortunate he was that he could afford representation that could expose the D.A. (Nifong) for what he was -  an "overreaching prosecutor".... makes you wonder about people who can't afford comptent legal representation.

But while the Reverends called for action on networks for Mr. Imus and got it, they never apologized to the lacrosse players who were wrongly accused - just like in 1987 with the cops in New York whose lives were ruined by the false allegations in the Brawley hoax.  In my mind, people like the Reverends do not help move forward racial harmony but only continue to incite hate.  Racism goes both ways and there needs to be some acknowledgment of that.

Jeffrey Alex Behar - 1/3 of the Size of Jill Already!

My (Jill) sister, Lisa, gave birth this afternoon at around 3pm (EST) to a healthy baby boy named Jeffrey Alex (note witty commentary in the caption area of the screen). Jeff weighed in at 7 lbs and 7 oz., but the most interesting part was that he was measured at 21 inches. Now being that I am vertically challenged at 59 1/2 inches, it made me think.... and wow, my newborn nephew is already 1/3 of my size.

When I informed my family of this tidbit, there was laughter all around as I am technically the shortest of the clan and it was deemed, "the line of the day". But what makes me laugh is that my sister is only 3 inches taller (see picture to right) than me and the rest of my family is not exactly crawling with genes from the Jolly Green Giant. Anyway thank goodness the kid inherited a height gene from the Behar side.

Jarrett sent a few pics over from his phone with one entitled, "Consor Cheeks, Behar Nose". I'll have to go through some of my pictures of Lisa and Jarrett to ascertain if the nose thing is cause for concern. :-)

More tomorrow.... was going to publish something based on all of the news from the last week, but thought not-so-lil' Jeff should have the spotlight.

New Mobile Phone

Those who have known me during the "mobile era" know that I generally get the cheap (FREE) phone and a pretty minimal mobile cell plan. I don't really care for talking on a phone much.

I have been holding out for a 4 mega-pixel camera phone that doesn't take crappy photos. But I couldn't wait long enough as my current phone was getting worse and worse reception to the point that I often had to call people back or have them call the closest land line available.

So I upgraded to a reasonable phone (RAZR V3t) for this day and age. I hope it serves me well until an affordable camera phone that takes decent pictures comes around.

It's Not You, It's Your Apartment....

Wow. How many times have you dated someone and they were breaking up with you with a line that went something like:

"It's not you.... it's me."

Or you've used that line yourself on someone. And you're like, ok sure - whatever. In today's NYT, we have a new take on it in only a way that New Yorkers can do it:

"It's not you.... it's your apartment."

So this is what starts us off on another entry of YCMTSU.

Straight from Keith Olbermann over at MSNBC (courtesy of Sunny D back in Bay Shore), now you too can have your dog "Bark Mitzvahed", as opposed to Bar or Bat Mitzvahed. I wonder if you should use people years or dog years to determine the appropriate timing for this time-honored tradition of the Jewish religion. Lisa - when is Lucy's big day?

Speaking of Lucy - my niece, who happens to be a bulldog, my sister and brother-in-law sent me this hilarious video of Adam Sandler hosting Letterman and bringing his bulldog, Matzoball, on as a guest. I guess it was timely since Passover starts on Monday (I think).

And then speaking of Bat Mitzvahs, a very close and very fun family friend, Sylvia (the lady in blue dancing with my cousin Claire), is getting Bat Mitzvahed this weekend in New York. It was not really until recently that girls were given the opportunity to participate in this tradition, so now many synagogues have Adult Bar and Bar Mitzvah classes which is really cool. My Mom did this awhile ago, and we were all pretty proud of her commitment to this. Good for you, Sylvia!

Anyone want to try yoga for your face? I'm serious.

Hey - even the WSJ's Law Blog has a version of YCMSTU - Richard Scrushy (of HealthSouth fraud fame) violated his probation by going to Disney World.

Less of Joe Buck is always a good thing for mankind. What an jacka**!! (I know this is supposed to be a family friendly blog - sorry) Thank goodness that FOX does not do the NCAA tournaments.

I definitely have to try the chocolate and olive oil mousse recipe mentioned in this article here. And now that Marc has ventured into eating his own kind (see 3rd paragraph), I may need to try cooking these as well at home.

Finally - if you're reading this, Marc and I need you to do us a favor and think positive thoughts for our close friend, Rebecca. She is in the midst of a crisis that is as pretty tough as it gets, so please think positive things for her and her family.

OTBN.... post-game wrap-up.

Well Marc and I had our inaugural dinner party (OTBN) at our new home. It was actually supposed to be a month earlier, and then we decided to move so that changed things a bit. It was also the opportunity to break in our new dining room table, which we ordered from an outfit in Georgia called Primitive Folks. Danette clearly takes much pride in her work and I would not hesitate to recommend her and her company.

As you can see from the pictures, we had a great time and consumed massive amounts of food and wine. Some people managed to do some work over the evening - crazy. Rebecca and Patrick, can you write off the food and wine since you guys were talking shop? :-)

The highlight of the evening for me was the fact that Patrick and Dina both made seafood dishes that Marc actually ate. In the picture below, you will see an empty plate in front of an empty chair. That chair belongs to Marc and his plate is pretty clean. Patrick made a starter dish that consisted of crab meat, and a host of other wonderful things. Dina took advantage of the fact that halibut season literally starting yesterday and made some wonderful halibut cheeks with some polenta and tomato coulis. YUM!

Everyone had to come and present why their wine was selectd for the evening. We had everything from:

1. "sticking it to the man" - Chris and Shelly
2. "going through phases of spending thousands of dollars on wine a long time ago and this is part of the last case" - Sharon and Ralph
3. "the wine we had on our first date 6 years ago and OTBN is on that anniversary" - Rebecca and Michael
4. "found it in some shop on the Champs-Elysees" - Patrick
5. "was part of the winemaking process one year" - Laurie
6. "discovered Piedmont wines on a recent trip to Italy and now I'm hooked" - Dina
7. "the wine that made us decide to get married in Healdsburg" - Marc and Jill

But the best story was from Maureen and the story of her family unexpectedly inheriting a winery with Concord grapes and being absolutely clueless on what to do. So basically they knocked on a neighbor's door and asked for some help. "Hey, you got some sugar and by the way, how do you run a winery?" That makes this entry fall into the YCMTSU category.

What a fun time - and as expected, I'm writing this from the couch. Time for some leftovers. YUM!

Replacing an LCD Display on a Laptop

The other day, my laptop display started showing a white line about 1/4 way from the left edge that ran from top to bottom. I knew it was a hardware problem from the beginning. I contacted support at Dell and after many attempts to fix and scan the problem in software, they finally relented and decided to send me replacement hardware. This was at 5:30pm pacific time.

I offered to replace it myself rather than have a tech come out. It sounded cool. They sent me a link with instructions. The replacement arrived the next day! That was fast!

 

I followed the instructions this evening after dinner. I had to do everything on the page except remove and replace the display latch. I think it took just over an hour to complete. The hardest part was just getting the plastic display bezel off and handling all the tiny, tiny screws without losing them.

At one point, I had put 6 little screws on a card to keep them out of harms way. Later, I forgot I did this and picked the card up to move it and the screws went flying all over the dining room floor. I was so glad I found all of them.

TGIF and OTBN..... Woo woo.

Well, I am glad we made it to Friday. A lot of interesting food articles were discovered this week, so we'll get to those in a sec. Lots to say - what a shock.

First off, I want to say that my thoughts and prayers are going out to the Edwards' family, as in John Edwards who is running for President. John Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, recently announced that her cancer has returned and it is an incurable form. The good news is that a pretty decent quality of life can be maintained with the right treatment. That being said, it has been consistently reported that Mrs. Edwards was adamant about her husband remaining in the campaign. What galls me is that I can't believe some people are criticizing this family for their decision. It is their own decision and none of our business. Do people not have enough things to worry about? I still have no idea who I am voting for, but obviously I am pulling for the Edwards family as they deal with this news. For the record, I thought that Mr. Edwards was the better Democratic candidate in '04, but that's not giving him a lot of credit when you compare him to John Kerry.

I used to work at Merrill Lynch in their Research Technology area, and we supported all of the equity and fixed income analysts. With all of the regulatory scrutiny recently, everyone seem to be calling for the demise of sell-side research. Clearly this indicates it is not as close to death as people might think. I kind of think of the same thing when people talk about the demise of Windows (yes, that Windows). OK disclaimer - I work on networking technologies (this is another technology I support) on Windows at Microsoft. But why would I work on a product that I did not believe would be successful?!! DUH!

Lisa, my sister who is a guidance counselor in a middle school, has a tough job. Middle school education was the subject of a recent article in the New York Times. Check it out. Incidentally, I am going down in flames in my bracket for the NCAA Men's Tourney. I went the upset route with Duke. Big mistake. HUGE! The Women's Tourney is way more interesting with upsets. Go Marist!

OK - on to some entertainment to lighten things up a bit. I talked about Manny Ramirez auctioning his grill off earlier this week. Well I guess his auction violated eBay policy because they could not verify it was actually him. Too bad, Manny. Goes back to YCMTSU. :-)

R.W. Apple, Jr. keeps living on. He was the subject of a recent article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Mr. Apple's last piece is a glowing portrait of his favorite spots in a story headlined "Savoring Seattle," published in the spring issue of Town & Country Travel. I have blogged about him in the past here and here. He was a kick and seemed like he would have been a really cool person to listen to.

Article in this week's NYT Dining & Wine section regarding cooking with wine. Ian and I took many cooking classes together, and our first one was a paella class at Peter Kump's (now known as the Institute of Culinary Education). I remember the instructor, Shirley King, vividly, and most important, she taught us a very important lesson - keep in mind this was very early on in my cooking days. If a wine is not good enough to drink, why cook with it? I have used that philosophy for years, but this week Julia Moskin argues that you can cook with really poor tasting wine. I suppose you can, but why? There are so many excellent and inexpensive bottles of wine out there. Gosh - that was a fun class. I remember that Ian was massively hungover from too much port from that class.

Speaking of Ian, he always talks about "offroading" in the kitchen. This article talks about that, and I have to say - when you improvise on a recipe under pressure AND it works, it is pretty darn cool.

OTBN is tomorrow, albeit a month late because of the move. I am psyched. More on that on Sunday when Marc and I recover on the couch.

YCMTSU - "Manny Being Manny" version

For those of you who may follow baseball, you may have heard of a player named Manny Ramirez.  Manny plays for the much hated "Evil People" AKA the Boston Red Sox, and unfortunately is one of the best hitters in the game.

The reason for the child savant comment is that even with Manny's amazing hitting ability, he does some things that are inexplicable even to his most loyal fans.  The Boston press, being as relentless as the New York press, have coined the term "Manny Being Manny" to explain these actions.

One of the main themes in Manny's life is his love/hate relationship with the Boston press and the city of Boston.  Like New Yorkers, they are very loyal fans and expect a lot from their players.  And given Manny's salary, the expectations are even higher.  The constant scrutiny from the media in Boston has made Manny decide that he is not going to talk to the press or seek publicity.

I guess things change.  Anyone need a $4000 grill and an autographed Manny Ramirez baseball?

And on that note - Go Yankees!

"Bugged" Umbrellas?

I am a regular rider of the "242" bus that goes from our neighborhood in Seattle to Redmond.  I can't say enough about how great that route is in that it happens to connect where I live and where I work in a fairly east manner, and eliminates me from having to drive on 520, which should just be blown up and re-built from scratch.

Riding the bus allows me to catch up on e-mail/work, read a book/magazine, sleep or text message a friend (or two if my fingers are really up for it).  :-)  I avoid talking on the phone while on the bus at all costs.  I tend to be in my own world on the bus as I either have a list of things I want to do on the bus, or I want to sleep.  Either way, I am not too focused on what is going on around me. 

Bus drivers have a very tough job.  An example I'll give is that they drive these very big machines and navigate all sorts of idiots on the road.  Buses share express lanes with cars carrying 3 or more people on a certain stretch of 520.  Combine that with the express lane also being the merge lane on and off the highway, and you have all of the makings of a disaster waiting to happen.

[BTW, as I am typing this ON THE BUS, there is a leak in one of the windows so I am kind of getting rained on - but hey - it's all good.]

As the bus is moving along at a decent clip, you will see cars trying to merge on.  On at least one occasion per day, you will see someone in their fancy sports car trying to beat the bus by trying to merge on to the highway just ahead of the oncoming bus.  The bus driver is then forced to hit the breaks and hopefully no one goes flying forward as a result. 

The reason I am talking about the bus today is that a wacky thing happened today.  I am one of the last people to be dropped off on my way into work.  I noticed someone left an umbrella on one of the seats, so on my way off of the bus I decided to hand over the umbrella to the driver.  I probably said something like this as I was getting off, "thanks, someone left this umbrella and have a nice day".

A couple of hours later, I get an e-mail from Marc entitled "bus today" that states:

Did you turn in an umbrella?

Now people leave stuff on the bus all of the time.  I have left stuff on the bus and lost a couple of cellphones along the way.  It is not newsworthy enough to tell Marc that , "hey I found a lost umbrella and guess what, I gave it to the bus rider!".  So I am sitting in a meeting and wondering, "how in the world did he know about the umbrella?"

Some of the insane things going through my head include a James Bond like device that is tracking my every move.  I'm thinking, "Did I marry a secret agent who thought I would divulge his not-so-secret love of M&Ms?  Did he BUG the umbrella and have it placed on the bus as a way to see if I would flap about his disdain for not eating his own kind?" 

[More BTW - Picture me making weird faces during this meeting trying to figure out what in the world is going on.  OK - my own fault for multi-tasking.] 

Turns out that one of Marc's friends, Matt L., is a King County bus driver who recognized me as I was getting off of the bus.  I forgot this little factoid, and it was compounded by the fact that I only met Matt and his wife, Leslie, once.  In fairness, I would say he is my friend but you can't claim someone as a friend if you don't recognize them.  There's gotta be a rule on that somewhere. 

Matt was incredibly cool about my lack of recognition and my embarassing social gaffe, but I'll now make a public apology- Sorry Matt!

I'll conclude with a thanks to Matt and his many colleagues for braving the roads to get Marc and I to/from work safely.  We really appreciate it and hope that more people get on the mass transit bandwagon in the Puget Sound area.  The roads are way too crowded.

Is it Friday yet?

P.S. -- Also another shout-out to Neil, who had some minor surgery today (can you use the words 'minor' and 'surgery' consecutively?).  Hope you feel better!

Moving.... Mostly Good

So the big project we have been working on is.... MOVING.  Yes, we moved to a new house in the same neighborhood as our previous house.  It's pretty exciting and tiring, at the same time.

Now my cousin Claire has bought and sold 14 different homes, so that puts her at about 28 transactions.  I am sure she has seen and heard it all when it comes to buying and selling homes.  I am in the process (with Marc) of my 4th transaction.  So I am not a veteran (especially compared to Claire), but I am learning.

The main thing I have learned is that there are definitely different levels of people who make a living in the residential real estate industry.  This will probably sound biased, but I happen to think very highly of our real estate agent and her team - Team Reba.  They conduct themselves as professionals, and do not give the appearance of someone who thinks selling homes is easy money.

Marc and I purchased this house from a family-owned construction business, and the daughter-in-law was the seller's agent.  It was obvious from the start that she thought it would be quick money to be a real estate agent in between taking care of her child.  There was obvious lapses in her not following process set out by MLS, the listing she posted was FACTUALLY incorrect, and then she tried to "pull a fast one" on my agent.

So this manuever that the seller's agent tried to pull had a dramatic impact on the transaction.  It tainted everything that came from the seller and his agent.  When someone tries to do something so blatantly dishonest, how am I supposed to believe anything that comes out of their mouth in the future?

And to boot, it makes me suspect of a lot of other agents out there - right or wrong, it's how I feel.  It's hard from a consumer's perspective to know what kind of rules, ethical guidelines, that someone needs to abide by if they are going to sell real estate.  And with companies like Redfin and Zillow being hot right now, I think that the potential exists for more litigation and disdain for dealing with the real estate purchase and selling process.

I'm venting... all in all, I should not complain.  Our agent had our back on multiple levels, but now that I have been a veteran of 4 transactions - I feel like I am one of the lucky ones who has an agent who knows the rules, is smart enough to get help when she does not, and is willing to be honest with me about what is realistic and what isn't.

Back in the saddle...

OK, OK..... I know that it has been awhile since I have made a post to the blog.  Marc and I have been busy on a top secret project (one that does not involve Agent Kellerman) for most of 2007.  We hope to be able to share some details over the next few weeks as things solidify.  Needless to say, we are really excited about this project and look forward to posting more info later on.

Other than the top secret project, not much has been going on from my side except for work picking up some steam.  So what made me decide to post an entry today is that there is a pretty big industry conference going on in San Francisco called RSA.  It is very security focused from a technology perspective, and the team I work on at Microsoft focuses on network security.  Some of my fellow teammates are down there now talking about the stuff we build.

So Bill Gates made the keynote at this conference and he highlighted the 2 of the technologies (IPsec and IPv6) that my team supports, which is super cool for us to get that kind of exposure and backing from the Big Cheese himself.  OK, yeah I'm a geek but it's nice when you get some validation that what you are working on is the right thing.

One thing I should have blogged about was Marc's birthday dinner back in the middle of January.  We went to Crush, which is run by Chef Jason Wilson and his wife, for dinner and it was nothing short of fabulous.  Rebecca and Michael, our good friends who are always up for a culinary adventure, joined in the gastronomic experience.  Chef Wilson, who was highlighted as one of Food and Wine's Best New Chefs in 2006, even adapted their tasting menu to cater to Marc's non-seafood/non-fungus palette, which was awesome.  My hangover the next morning was not so great, but it was quite a meal.  Go if you have not been already.  We will be returning.

Also checked out Union, when Cousin Claire came into town on business.  It's always good to dine with Cuz as she always has good stories to tell and is a lot of fun.  We were glad she didn't have to deal with the ice and snow that came earlier in the week that she visited.

And to my husband - Happy National Signing Day!