Maranda and I carved pumpkins.
Mine is the one on the right.
Pumpkins
October 28th, 2009Canon 7D Video
October 26th, 2009A quick video with my new Camera.
Canon 7D. Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L.
Where: Meadowbrook Park, Urbana, IL.
Senior Pictures
August 1st, 2009I shot some Senior Pictures today. I’m delighted by most of the shots. I think we did a great job and they’re going to be extremely happy with how everything turns out.
I’m amazed at some of the nice locations for photography around Champaign and Urbana. Places I’m sure everyone else knows about but I just discovered today.
I’ll hopefully post some samples once I get a chance to edit and let the clients pick the ones they want to have printed.
Internet2 JointTechs July 2009
July 19th, 2009A few of us are attending Internet2 Joint Techs in Indianapolis. It’s a sort of conference for networking (the personal kind) between the Internet2 community. I haven’t been to one since ABQ in 2006. It was really useful and actually introduced me to a few new tools. I’m hoping this one is just as useful.
I doubt I’ll post a whole lot unless there is something really interesting in one of the workshops or presentations.
Hops Still Growing
June 8th, 2009Stopped by Jim’s to take a look at the hops.
I watered, weeded, and prepared a spot to put a rhizome that Paul is going to give me.
The Cascade variety is growing quite nicely (Left) while the Willamette isn’t growing as quickly (Right).
Both look pretty healthy though.
(Also a flower picture from Jim’s pseudo garden)
Great Lazy Weekend
June 8th, 2009Maranda and I had a great weekend.
It kind of started Thursday night. We had been wanting to make ke-bobs on the grill for a while but never got around to it. We realized this would be a lot of work for just two people so we decided to make a cookout of it. We got ahold of Josh and Jeremy to see if they wanted to participate. They did and Jeremy (Kenzia) offered to host. I marinated some steak and chicken and bought fixin’s for the ke-bobs. Jeremy and Kenzia made cole slaw and beans and Josh and Cheryl provided yummy cookies for dessert. Jack and Lily were cute like always and gave us lots of entertainment. The night was perfect and ended well with s’mores.
Friday was pretty uneventful. We basically sat around and had Ice Cream.
Saturday was a bit more exciting as we went to Farmer City to visit Maranda’s Sister and her new twins. It was fun even though I just sat around and ate spaghetti and cookies. We wanted to take advantage of the nice weather so we went to Old Orchard to play putt-putt. I’m pretty sure I won but when Maranda tallied up the score it was 51 to 51. Not sure how that happened. We went to Sun Singer for dinner and it was amazing as usual. I tried the “Hot Dutch” and Maranda had the “Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wrap” mmmm. Then on a whim we decided to go see a movie. I picked “The Hangover.” Maranda thought it would be dumb and I kind of did too, but it turned out to be SO FUNNY. There were so many things wrong with that movie….but it was absolutely amazing. It will definitely get added to my DVD collection when it comes out. After the movie we went back home to watch some TV and made Caipirinhas. They were a great way to end the day.
Sunday was kind of lazy and we went to Le Peep for brunch. It was awesome and I was very happy to have a good friend from High School Jamie as a server. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We watched the Turkish Grand Prix (Formula One) and then went for a walk and explored the new subdivisions that are popping up. After a while we watched “He’s Just not that In to you.” that Maranda wanted to rent. It was okay. I think it points out in great detail how dumb girls are some times. (I’m sure I’ll get hit for that comment.) But oh well.
So pretty good weekend. One more open weekend and then a about three months of busy…Joy.
IPA Bottling
June 2nd, 2009Today Maranda helped me bottle the IPA.
It made a total of 47 bottles. I was very happy with the turn out.
I took a sample and it tasted nice and hoppy, just like an IPA should.
I used about 2/3cup of priming sugar. I hope it wasn’t too much. I’d hate to have little grenades in my pantry.
May30 Storms
May 30th, 2009Some storms passed to the north and south of us around 1830 today.
I decided to take a few pictures from my balcony and make a panorama.
View is from due east at the left to due south at the right.
Enjoy!
Weddings and updates…
May 26th, 2009I’ve decided I like weddings where I’m a part of the wedding party much better than when I’m not.
It’s really nice not having to deal with what to wear, where to be, and so forth.
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I think I’m going to move the IPA to bottles this week. It’s been in secondary for two weeks now and fermentation has pretty much stopped.
I bought a bottling bucket, spygot, and some priming sugar. So I’m all ready to go…Now I just need to get it done.
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I really need to find a nice secluded field for Helicopter flying. My garage is too small and the nearby Meadowbrook park is too populated. I fear I’ll lose control and end up flying it into the plethora of kids on the playground.
Any ideas?
Salmon Fillets
May 19th, 2009As I eluded to in a previous post, I had about 10lbs of fresh salmon to cook. Two whole fish and 6 fillets.
Last night we decided to grill a couple of the fillets. I wanted to try something different so I pulled out the Steven Raichlen recipe book and flipped through the pages.
We settled on a mustard sauce recipe and went for it. We picked up some mustard seeds, grainy mustard (Grey Poupon) at Meijer and headed back to get started. Maranda made the sauce while I prepared the grill and readied the salmon. Salmon wasn’t going to be enough for dinner so we made some rice and grilled up some asparagus. I kind of made up a quick glaze for the asparagus. I mixed some vegetable oil and Worcestershire sauce and dipped the asparagus in it. I then put a little coarse sea salt and crushed black peppercorn and threw it on the grill. About 3 minutes on each side was enough to cook it to perfection.
It turned out absolutely amazing. We paired it with a nice Chardonnay.
We’re becoming quite the chefs. Or grill-master in my case.
