Christmas in Review

As usual, I made my pilgrimage to Wichita for the Christmas holiday. It was definitely a nice and needed break filled with sweet treats and gifts.

Here's a clip of Megan (my sister) and I making Christmas cookies:

One of the low points of the trip was the crappy weather on Saturday. It was snowing and the wind was blowing so hard that you couldn't even see the street from my parent's house:

It pretty much did this all day until the afternoon. Since the weather had calmed down by the evening, I had planned on going out and seeing friends that I never get to. I didn't even make it a mile from my parents house when I ended up in the ditch on Webb road. I was traveling North bound when I gave the accelerator a tiny push. This whipped my back end 180 degrees and I ended up bumper deep in the snow on the other side of Webb. Luckily, within a few minutes, a Durango with 4WD stopped and helped pull me out. I was stuck really good and it took around 5 good tugs to get me out. The amazing thing was that my Pathfinder nor myself sustained any damage.

Christmas Eve we had a big dinner with smoked pork and all kinds of desserts with the grandparents. Needless to say, I put away at least two plates and 7-8 Christmas treats. On Christmas day, I think I ate an illegal amount of food. Seriously, if over-eating was against the law, I'd be serving 40 to life for the obnoxious amount of food I ate on Xmas. Starting in the morning, we ate breakfast casserole at my parents like we usually do. I headed down to Megan's parents around noon where we had a very tasty crab leg lunch served with baked potatoes, green beans, and jello salad. I then made it over to my aunt and uncle's house, Jean & Archie, around 3PM. They were serving authentic Mexican food of which I ate at least two plates full. The selection ranged from deep fried tacos to tamales to tostados, all of which were so good. I grazed on and off for the rest of the day and felt pretty crappy by the late evening.

I definitely made out well with the gifts this year too. Among many things, I received 3 new Wii games, several books, new tools, tailgating grill, and much much more. As always, I'm grateful for all the great stuff I get every year.

Yesterday, Megan and I took advantage of all the sales and got a crap ton of Christmas lights for next year at Target where all their Christmas stuff was 75% off. Megan had already bought us a tree and a few other things, but we picked up a bunch of icicle style lights and other lights to drape over the bushes.

Santa didn't get Ember the FURminator. I've been getting more and more frustrated with the amount of dog hair in the house, so yesterday I splurged and bought her the $45 medium size FURminator. I can't believe I spent this much on a damn dog brush, but it ended up being a worthwhile investment. The propaganda accompanied with the FURminator always has a picture of the dog next to all the hair extracted from the tool. So, I had to take my own FURminator picture the first time I used it on Ember last night. The one on the left is a picture of a Shiba from the FURminator website and the one on the right is my Shiba Ember:

I could have gotten more hair off of her, but after 30+ minutes she was starting to get pretty pissed and wouldn't let me do much more brushing. I put all my pictures from Christmas here. Here's to having less hair in the house in 2008!!

Merry Christmas!

Website Enhancements

I had some time to work on some improvements to the site:

• Blockbuster queue widget. I subscribe to Blockbuster Total Access to receive movies through the mail. The Blockbuster thing in the right side bar will show, in real time, the contents of my movie queue.
• Condensed the archive list. Now, instead of listing out all of the post archives in the right side bar, I've condensed this down to a drop down box to save space.
• Updated map. I've updated the map piece in the right side bar to now center on the location of my house instead of my old apartment address.
• List of Google Reader subscriptions. This is the "What I'm Tracking" piece on the right side bar. This is usually referred to as a blogroll. I recently started using Google Reader to keep track of what I'm interested in via RSS. I used to use a plugin for Outlook called RSS Popper that downloaded updates on the machine where I was running this plugin with Outlook. Now that I've switched over to Google Reader, no matter where I am, I can read "updates" to the Internet that I am interested in like I'm reading unread email. There are other subtle improvements to using Google Reader like being able to watch embedded videos without have to actually go to the site address for the post, organizing your subscriptions by "tags", and starring your favorite items.
• My recent starred items. This is right below "What I'm Tracking" and shows the most recent articles that I have "starred" in Google Reader. This is basically a way of saving the Google Reader items that you are most interested in or want to save for whatever reason.

Stay tuned for a complete redesign one of these days...

Engaged!

I'm pleased to announce that as of yesterday, Megan and I are engaged to be married!

Because Megan loves Christmas so much, she has been on my case to open presents early (like she does every year). So, last Friday, I told her that she could open one present on Sunday and she agreed that I open one as well. I hosted a poker game at my house on Saturday night, so I was less than ready when Megan wakes me up after 6 hours of sleep on Sunday morning to make breakfast and open that one promised present. I should also mention that she stole my pillow and I was forced to sleep straight on the mattress all night.

I finally managed to get out of bed as the smell of bacon brought me down to the kitchen. She was working on our traditional Sunday morning biscuits and gravy. While we were waiting for the biscuits to bake, Megan convinced me to go ahead and open the one present each that was agreed upon. I opened my first which turned out to be a new Wii game: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

It was her turn to open the huge box that she had been eyeing and periodically shaking throughout the weekend. She unwrapped it and saw that it was a large printer box with another wrapped box in it. She opened this box to find another wrapped box. She opened this box to find yet another box while I am nervously laughing the whole time. She looks and me and says "I've seen this in a movie". She unwrapped this box to find an even smaller box and than another even smaller box. Now, this part takes a little background explanation. A couple of weekends ago, I went to the Chiefs vs. Raiders game and won an iPod nano. I already have an iPod nano so Megan has been dropping subtle hints that she wanted the one that I won. So, with that said, the last wrapped box turned out to be an iPod nano box. She gives me a nasty look which I later found out why. She was think that I had just totally cheated and gave her the free gift that I got as her first present. She opens the iPod nano box and starts digging through the red tissue paper to retrieve a small little white box. I'm getting on my knee during this time and snatch the box from her, open it, and ask her if she will make me the happiest man alive and marry me.

Megan claims that she had no idea what I said, but was pretty overwhelmed by the whole situation and managed to utter out a response of "Yes". She grabbed the box and the rest is a little hazy for both of use. I later had to explain to her what I actually said, but she knew enough to say "Yes". I think she might have blacked out :) Megan is sometimes hard to surprise, but I think I definitely surprised her this time.

Needless to say, Megan called absolutely everyone in her cellphone and never actually ate the breakfast we made. I, of course, enjoyed the biscuits and gravy and the overwhelming sense of relief. I have known Megan for about 10 years but that was still the most nervous I have ever been in my entire life.

Here are some pics of the rock:

First Attempt at Recreating "The" Cinnamon Rolls

My Dad has always made these delicious homemade cinnamon rolls. I copied the recipe down the last time I was in Wichita and took a crack at making them. Basically, I made a huge mess in the kitchen, but the end results were some pretty damn good cinnamon rolls. They didn't turn up as fluffy and big as Dad's, but they were good nevertheless.

I'd also like to mention that I probably would have never been able to make the rolls without Megan's help. I was somewhat of a retard when it came to kneeding and making the mixture into dough. She came into the kitchen with me trying to make the dough by mixing it with a little fork. She just laughed, took over, and used her hands to do the mixing.

In true nerd fashion, I took pictures along the way to document the process. This shows them right after the dough was rolled up and cut into individual rolls:

Here they are after letting them raise for almost 3 hours:

After baking for 20 minutes:

Making the final touch with white cake frosting:

Hungry now, aren't you?

Silver Lining

Megan and I went to Arrowhead stadium to see the KU vs. MU game. Here's Megan doing some food prep out the back of my Pathfinder:

We ended up meeting up with my sister Megan and her friends before the game:

Here's some more pics from the game.

Yeah, yeah, I know, KU lost. But guess what? Mizzou isn't going to any bowl games and Kansas is in the Orange Bowl!!!!

KU vs. MU this Weekend

The KU vs. MU football game is this Thanksgiving weekend and guess what? I've got tickets. The game is sold out at Arrowhead and tickets are going for several hundred dollars on ebay.

We are ranked #2 and MU is ranked #4. This is one of the most anticipated games of the season, not to mention the most important sporting event at Arrowhead in the last many years.

I'll also be visiting Arrowhead the next morning for the Chiefs vs. Raiders rivalry game. My family is coming up and we're all going to the noon game.

Here's a nice little Simpsons dig at Missouri to set the tone for this weekend:

Christmas Wish List

Like last year, I've put together a list of stuff I need or just want ;) I'll update it as I think of more things. Seems like there's more stuff I need now that I have a house (especially tools).

Download in PDF, Excel, or Text.

KU Homecoming

We went down to Lawrence yesterday for KU's football homecoming (went last year too). We stomped Nebraska to make our record 9-0 and #4 in the country! We went to Marsh's sisters place which is right by the stadium. Megan just so happened to be in a nearby house and came by to hang out. Ryan was in town as well for the Chiefs vs. Packers game today. I took a few pictures. Here's one of the three of us:

Pumpkin Carving

Megan and I carved pumpkins last night. I went with a KU design and Megan created an owl.

More pics of the pumpkins.

Ember's Birthday Today!

She's three!!

Excuses

So, the website has been down and not updated for quite some time now. I can explain, I promise. So much stuff has been going on:

• Started school which includes one evening of class and one lab. The profesor expects us to spend the rest of the time outside of class studying for his class.
• Megan and I remodeled one of the living rooms. This consisted of stripping off two layers of wallpaper and two layers of trim, repainting the entire room with four coats, and removing the curtains. We spent a good two weeks on this working on it every evening.
• Getting ready and preparting for house party on September 23rd.
• Planted new grass in the backyard.
• My Internet was down for two weeks. This made the site not only out-of-date but completely inaccessible. The cable company took forever to get out here and fix it.

Hopefully I'll be posting more frequently in the coming weeks. I'm planning on putting together some "before and after" pics from the all house projects. Stay tuned...

The Infamous Crab and Ryan's Nipple Video

I finally got the video of the crab pinching Ryan's nipple when we were in Cozumel a few weeks and immortalized it on YouTube:

Underwater Pics from Cozumel

I finally got the pictures developed from the underwater camera we used in Cozumel and posted them on my gallery here. They are all mainly from Xel-Ha but there are a few from snorkeling near the resort we stayed at.

Vegas Baby!

I went to the Actuate International User Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada last week. The conference was at the Bellagio (map). I've collected all the pictures my coworkers and I took and posted them on my gallery.

I have been to Vegas a few times and was really impressed with how nice this hotel was. My room was the nicest I have ever stayed in with curtains that operated on a switch and a full blown bathroom with two sinks and separate shower and bath tub. I also had a pretty good view of the strip:

They had all kinds of neat stuff (besides the casino) like the world's tallest chocolate fountain, the colored glass in the lobby, and of course the lighted dancing fountains in the front of the hotel:

I got there on Sunday and we had dinner at Noodles in the Bellagio and then we went to a poker tournament that I set up at Treasure Island (map). It was myself and a couple of my managers and another guy I work with. There were 9 rounds and none of us made it past the 5th round. I'm not sure about the other guys, but I was just getting crappy cards and there was nothing I could do about it. Later that night, my manager and I played some limit Hold 'Em at the Bellagio poker room. It was good times but I didn't win again :)

The conference started on Monday. We ate at the Bayside Buffet at Mandalay Bay (map) for dinner. This was one of the highlights for me cause it had king crab legs and sushi. I ate so much crab legs and sushi it was ridiculous. I felt so sick for a couple hours after eating but it was totally worth it :) Later, we went and played blackjack at a nearby casino until 3AM in the morning.

Tuesday night was the big blowout party at Pure at Caesar's Palace (map):

Pure is a really popular nightclub where a lot of the celebrities hang out (I didn't see any). There was really fancy food and open bar of all the most top shelf liquors. All of the bartenders and waitresses were pretty much half naked and very "enhanced". Hey, I'm not complaining :)

Wednesday I made my presentation and then headed to the airport. Unfortunately, the best flight I could get was at 7:50PM Pacific. So, I didn't even get into KC airport until after 1AM Central and didn't get to my house until 2:30AM. Oh well, I'll do what it takes to go to Vegas!

Cozumel - Day 5

After looking for a boat to go deep sea fishing since we arrived in Cozumel, Dad decided to just charter the whole boat so that him and Ryan could go. Megan, mom, and my stomachs were too weak to risk going out fishing on a boat for 5 hours. They each caught a barracuda on the trip:

The guides cleaned the fish and gave them the meat but we couldn't get any of the cooks at the resort to fix it up for us. Apparently one of the guides ripped out the liver of one of the fish and ate it raw like it was a snack :P

While Ryan and dad were fishing, the rest of us chilled at the beach and later Megan and I did some ceramic painting:

Megan finished hers twice as fast and was a lot more artistic than mine. Oh well, she took pottery in high school so she's got the advantage. They glossed them for us and we picked them up the next day before we left.

Mom got 'tatted by a lady doing hentai tattoos near the swim-up bar:

Megan, Ryan, and I decided to go to Senor Frogs again since we were leaving the next day. We had a good time again (except for Ryan dancing with some nasty locals :)). Megan was in a male vs. female contest but lost :(

We left the next morning and the rest is history...

Cozumel - Day 4

Today, we decided to take an excursion and go to the mainland to visit Xel-Ha. It's kinda hard to explain, but it's basically a huge natural aquarium that you can snorkel in. Freshwater from underground caves meet the ocean here for a unique experience. They actually filmed a movie, The Blue Lagoon, at this place. We took a ferry to Playa Del Carmen and then a bus to Xel-Ha. The map on the upper right shows where Xel-Ha (circled) is in relation to Cozumel.

The place was absolutely beautiful as you can see from all the pictures from this day including:

They had a "lazy" river that you could take a inner tube down or just snorkel the whole time. Like I said, the whole place was like one big aquarium that you snorkeled in. Half the fun was going off exploring on your own by large underwater rocks or where the underground caves surfaced. We saw all kinds of fish including tiger fish, stingrays, spikey black things, and all kinds of other fish that I had no idea what they were (including really big ones by the bridge that gated off the place from the ocean). I took a bunch of pictures with an underwater camera but I have not had a chance to develop the pictures yet. As soon as a I do, I will get them posted.

One of the funniest things about the trip was our tour guide. We couldn't help but make fun of his hilariously bad English. When he was explaining the trip to us in the bus, he would constantly repeat things like "do not forgeet your per-seen-el be-long-eens", and he explained if you swam with the dolphins you could "keeece thee dolphins" and do "fute pooshes off thee dolphins". You probably would have had to been there to appreciate how funny it was.

The only bad thing was that mom got sick while we were there for a couple hours. Luckily, though, our tour guide was there to give mom a keeece and make everything better :)

Cozumel - Day 3

More chillin at the beach in the morning. Megan and I went and checked out a kayak and took a lap around the beach. It was good exercise and we ended up splashing each other pretty good.

In the afternoon, we decided to go take a taxi into town and check things out. We went to a bunch of shops including the Senor Frogs store, tequila shop, and other miscellaneous t-shirt shops (a lot of which were pretty crappy and offered like 10 shirts for $20). Ryan got a bottle of tequila at one of the stores. One thing I thought was pretty cool was that the place where Ryan got his tequila had a "rifle" of tequila as well as Sublime tequila:









For dinner, we ate at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville for a change from the food at the resort. It was good and we had a pretty nice ocean view and saw one of the large cruise ships leaving.

Later that night, we met with Megan's "boyfriend" Enrique in the hotel lounge. He was all sweaty and acting weird as normal but offered us a coupon for a free taxi ride to Senor Frogs. So, we took it and said that he would later meet us at the club.

They were giving free shots like every hour when we got there. One of the "shot givers" grabbed my camera and took a picture of me as she injected a bunch of alcohol in my mouth:

As you can tell from Megan's face, one of the disturbing things was the phallic balloon that one of the waiters constructed for us:

Much to Megan's disappointment, Enrique never showed up...

Cozumel - Day 2

Another nice leisurely day of relaxing at the beach all morning and afternoon. The waters in front of the place we were staying were not as clear as the beach nearby so mom and I went snorkeling over there for a while. We saw tons of fish including a small stingray that my mom pretended to see when I pointed it out to her :)

Early in the afternoon, we had our rooms upgraded. This included larger rooms with a refrigerator, nicer floors, etc. The best was the sweet ocean view that the new rooms had:

In the evening, we had dinner at one of the restaurants at the resort where you had to make reservations. It was fancy and all and the appetizers were good. However, my brother and I ordered their "sirloin". It definitely was not a sirloin and had about as much fat as it had meat on it :(

Later in the evening, we went to the nightly entertainment which was a casino night. They had several tables of blackjack and one roulette wheel. Ryan and Megan almost immediately lost all their chips in blackjack. I played blackjack with my parents until we had to stop. I think I had more chips than anyone at the casino night. After combining my parents and my chips, I won a bottle of white tequila.

After the casino night, we went down to the beach with a couple guys we met and my parents. We had a wager going for Ryan to have a crab pinch his nipple. One of the guys finally caught a small one and got it on Ryan's nipple like 3 times. He screamed like a girl every time :) It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Megan has a video of it I still need to get.

We finished the night up with some karaoke. Me and this other guy sang Billie Jean by Michael Jackson. I think Megan has a video of that too. Megan was dancing with Enrique for what quite some time. There's more to come regarding Enrique later...

Cozumel - Day 1

So, we got back from Cozumel last week on Tuesday (7/30/07) and I've finally a little settled in and at a point where I can post about the vacation. I plan on doing separate posts for each day cause otherwise it would be really long. I'm still waiting on pics and videos from my sister so I should have more content eventually. The pics from everyday of the vacation are up.

Cozumel is a small island off of Mexico that is only about 34 miles long and 9 miles wide. It's very close to Play del Carmen and Cancun.

We arrived the first day around 1PM and made our way to the resort we stayed at: Melia. Not much went on today but just getting our rooms situated and going down to the beach for some much needed relaxation.


Did I mention the resort had a swim up bar??

We stayed in and had drinks and went and saw the nightly entertainment they have at their Fantasia room. This involved a lot of loud noises and Mexican dancing.

One of the funny things was this piano player that played in one of the bars the whole time we were there. He just kinda sat there and smiled and added a few notes here and there to the rest of the music his electronic keyboard was playing for him. I was able to get a picture with him in which I took over the keyboard action:



We didn't notice any difference in the music when he took his hands off the keyboard and put my hands on :)

It's Alive

I got my PC setup this evening in the office of my new house. Just had to register the free DNS service I use with the new IP address here and the site is back up and running. I can't sit at my desk for another week and a half though cause I cannot put large rugs down on the newly finished hardwood floors yet. I need the rug so I can roll around on my office chair without damaging the floor.

Getting things in the house and unpacked has been a little slower than I was hoping because I screwed my back up pretty good. I've been self medicating with some old pain medicine for relief. I was able to mow the lawn this evening though. It was getting pretty tall and really needed to be done.

My parents came up this weekend and I was able to get a ton of things done. We got everything from my old apartment moved, redid the electric box (see spreadsheet for more details), got the cable and Internet turned on with cable wired to all of the rooms, a couple trips to Home Depot for supplies, and a lot of much needed yard work done. I'm sure I'm missing something.

This week I'm having my new living room and patio furniture delivered, the outside and inside sprayed for bugs, some roof and guttering work done, and of course more moving stuff inside and unpacking.

Site Down for Awhile

Today, I'll be packing up the computer that hosts this website and moving it to my new house. I'll be pulling the plug this evening and things probably won't be up until Sunday or Monday (assuming I don't run into problems).

I'm an Official Home Owner!!

Two days ago, I closed on my house at 8933 Craig Dr., Overland Park, KS 66212 (map). After all the weeks of looking, going back and forth with contracts, having inspections done, and lining up work to be done, it's finally done! Wait...no it's not. I still have to move all my crap and do the million things to the house I want :(

Right now, all of the hardwood floors are being redone and I'm slowly moving my stuff into the garage. The floors are going to be off limits for furniture until this Sunday so I have to put everything in the garage or basement in the meantime. Speaking of furniture, I got all new patio furniture, sofa, love seat, chair & ottoman, side tables, lamps, and coffee table from Nebraska Furniture Mart being delivered next Thursday (7/19/07). Mom and Dad are coming this weekend to help me with the move and do some work on the house.

By the way, I put pictures up from Wichita of Ember facing off with a bird and of Paul and Shonda's wedding.

Google Spreadsheets and House Projects

The process of purchasing a house and all of the little projects to get up to my standards has become quite overwhelming. The nerdiness and organized part of me decided to use Google Spreadsheets to keep track of everything like cost, phone numbers, supplies, and prioritizing all of the different tasks. Working for a company that does enterprise reporting, including spreadsheets, I've been pretty impressed. You can format and formulate as you would in Excel, including creating separate sheets, but it's all web based. They have even added charts recently. However, because I want a way to access and share with others, the publishing feature has been the most impressive to me. With the click of a button, I can provide a universally accessible URL to see my spreadsheet in many different formats. For instance, the following is my work in progress housing projects spreadsheet and examples of several different formats:

• HTML: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pk22WgzhimEuFNUNQKNIBaQ&output=html
• PDF: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pk22WgzhimEuFNUNQKNIBaQ&output=pdf
• Excel: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pk22WgzhimEuFNUNQKNIBaQ&output=xls

You can even embed the spreadsheet in a web page:

Office Space

The office space where I work (map) has been reorganized to reduce the cost of our lease. With this reorganization, I got to move from a cubicle to an office. I like it so much better. I am able to close the door when needed for private conversations and keep things quiet when I need to concentrate on something. It was also a coincidence that I got a new computer with a 22" wide screen LCD:

More pics of my new office.

Caveman

Here's a pic a co-worker of mine snapped when we were in Boston about a year ago for a user's conference. It was at Durgin Park and I ordered their famous prime rib.

Maintenance Complete

All of the upgrades went fairly smoothly. The only trick is to get Apache to load PHP (my picture gallery uses PHP to render its contents). The following are the upgrades:

• MySQL - version 5.0.11 to version 5.0.41
• PHP - version 5.0.4 to version 5.2.3
• Apache - version 2.0.54 to version 2.2.4

So far, everything appears to be working and Apache hasn't crashed at all since upgrading.

Maintenance This Weekend

I've been having problems with my HTTP server crashing regularly so I'll be upgrading Apache, PHP, and MySQL this weekend to the latest versions. Depending on how many problems I have, my site could be down for a significant time this weekend. I've ghosted my current disk so I can resort back to that if I screw it up too bad :)

#$@!% Good Beer Commercial

My New Home

I had inspections today for the home I am planning on purchasing. Check out all of the pics I took.

If all goes well, I will be closing July 9th and all the way moved in by July 23rd.

My Week in Toronto

I made a trip to Toronto, Ontario (map) this week to visit the performance management division (performancesoft) for my company. The first half of the week we spent going over the software they develop there and the rest of the week I spent educating them in BIRT.

Sunday

I arrived a little after noon at my hotel (map). I then started walking downtown to see what I could find. I walked past the Rogers Centre (map) just as the BlueJays game was getting out. This is the famous stadium that has the retractable roof. There was a brewery, Steam Whistle Brewery (map), nearby so I decided to go check it out. I ended up having a couple of the free samples and did a tour. After the tour, I met these intoxicated Torontonians and they told me all about Toronto over more free samples. They were big baseball fans and one of the guys couldn't quit telling me about how much he loved Kauffman Stadium (the stadium where the Kansas City Royals play) (map). The brewery was closing down and they wanted me to join them out front for more beers they had purchased at the brewery. Weird, I know, but they were real friendly and gave me a bunch of info about Toronto. Anyways, after hanging out front of the brewery for a while I decided it was time for me to go up to CN Tower (map). After denying several invitations to go to their BBQ party back at their place, I made my way to the tower.

CN Tower was pretty incredible. Apparently, it's the tallest building in the world. It cost about $20 and the elevator takes you to the top. The view was really clear the evening I went up (see pictures). I ended up having dinner at the top of the tower at Horizons Cafe. The food wasn't very good (I had the Grilled Lime and Honey Glazed Shrimp Brochette), but it was definitely worth it because I got to sit right next to the window and take in the sights while I was eating. Before I went down, I stood on the transparent glass floor:

Monday

I walked from the Actuate office (map) and went to the first place that looked good for lunch: The Healthy Greek. It was one of those places where you can see the big spit of meat spinning in the window. I got the wrap and Greek salad. The wrap was the best I ever had. The crunchy chicken, sauce, and fresh vegetables really made it.

I didn't do much this night as I was pretty worn out from traveling the previous the day and walking all over the city. I went and ate at this Korean BBQ place called Yummy BBQ (map). I got the BBQ chicken and ribs. The meat was just ok, but it came with all of these random sides like this weird tofu dish and some type of marinated cabbage. The sides were disgusting.

Tuesday

For lunch, I ate at the same Greek place as I did on Monday. I couldn't resist :)

I had been persuaded by several coworkers that I absolutely needed to go Niagara Falls (map) while I was up in this area. The Falls are about 80 miles from Toronto. I heard from several people that the casinos will basically give free bus rides to Niagara Falls to get you to go into their casinos. I checked this out a little bit and it didn't really seem to go with my timeframe (I had to work most of the day). So, I was able to get a round trip student ticket at the bus depot for $30 Canadian. It was about 2.5 hours there and 2 hours back.

The Falls were incredible. It was really weird how the temperature would quickly change like 15 degrees when gusts from the Falls would hit you. Also, the time of the day I was there yielded many different rainbows (see pictures). I can also see why the Canadian side is better to view than the US side. The water actually falls on the US side but you have the perfect view of it on the other side (Canada).

I ate at this place right by the Falls called Edgewater's Tap & Grill (map) and sat outside where I could still see both Falls. I had the BBQ ribs and chicken (American style, not Korean) with a big huge piece of delicious baked cheesecake. I also had the local Niagara brew, Millstone Lager, which was pretty tasty.

Wednesday and Thursday

I had to spend both of these evenings locked in my hotel room working on my final examination for Software Architecture :(

Wednesday I ate at this Vietnamese restaurant for dinner called The Bowl (map). I had their chicken noodle soup (usually what I like from Vietnamese restaurants). The owner actually told me about his recipe and how he used to use MSG but has gone to all natural ingredients. Whatever was in it, it was really good.

On Thursday, I had sushi at this place nearby the office. I got soup, salad, and 12 California pieces for only $9. The sushi was just as good as any place in Kansas and cost a third less. Thursday night I got a burrito from this place called Burrito Boyz (map). I had heard about how good this place was from the guys at work and they were totally right. It was basically just like Chipotle except for they grill each side of the burrito so it's all good and crunchy.

Friday

Had spring rolls and Pad Thai at East for lunch and headed to the airport to travel back to the good 'ol US :)

New York Day 3

There's something wrong with my server so I won't actually be able to post this and the new pictures until I get home and see what's wrong with my home machine.

Anyways, we took the Staten Island Ferry this morning and saw the Statue of Liberty (map). Then, we checked out Wall Street (map), New York Stock Exchange (map), etc. We also got to check out Ground Zero (map).

We ended up in Chinatown(map) and ate at Joe's Shanghai (map) for lunch. The chef is famous for perfecting the art of soup inside a pastry. The crab stuffed dumplings were the highlight of our meal. We then made it to Little Italy (map) and had some gelato.

For dinner we ate at Ray's Pizza (map) in Time Square. Then, we went down the street for insanely good cheesecake at Roxy's Deli (map). I had the marble chocolate and Megan had the strawberry.

Headed back to KC tomorrow...

New York Day 2

We went to the Empire State Building (map) first thing this morning. It took me a while to warm up the extreme height. It was definitely something else though and offered a view of all of Manhattan.

Afterwards, we went further North and checked out Rockefeller Plaza (map) and Central Park (map). Central Park is friggin huge. It's like a whole another world inside a concrete jungle.

We had the world famous frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity (map). It was so good, but I ate way too much of it and then had to walk several miles :(

See all the pictures from today.

For dinner tonight, we went to this Jamaican / Southern food place called Maroon's (map). It won best fried chicken in NY in 2006. Naturally, I order the fried chicken and Megan got the meatloaf. It was so good, but of course I ate too much and then had to walk a mile back to the hotel.

New York Day 1

We arrived in New York yesterday after catching a flight at 7:20AM from Kansas City (yes, we had to get up at 4AM!). I thought I was going to die from the cab ride from the hotel. They drive within inches of each other! Our hotel is in a very centralized location in Manhattan (map).

Yesterday evening, we explored Times Square (map). Check out pictures from yesterday.

Today, we're going and checking out some more things on the Northern side of New York - Empire State Building, Central Park, Rockefeller Plaza, etc.

'Copterin

For my birthday, Megan got me a remote control helicopter. It's pretty sweet but hard to control. Here's a pic that makes it look bigger than it actually is: