Archive for the 'Friends' Category
Cook Like You’ve Got a Pair (of Pot Holders)
Posted by Erundur Anwamehtar on June 26th, 2008, at 10:17pm

I cooked dinner tonight. I had fewer guests than initially intended (only two) so I ended up cooking way too much.

Menu:
1) Spaghetti. wheat noodles and spaghetti sauce (from packet)

2) Chicken. Skillet cooked. When the skillet gets sufficiently heated, I pour in some water to create water vapor, and then seal the top of the skillet w/ some foil and a round pizza pan. This heats things up quite well within the skillet and helps the meat cook more thoroughly on the inside. The water vapor also helps the meat remain juicy. It’s still a good idea to turn the meat over a couple times and redo the seal.

For flavoring I tend to improv: today, added salt, pepper, dash of oregano, one beaten egg, “bread crumbs” (fist-ground Ritz crackers), Parmesan cheese, and some spaghetti sauce. It tasted good for improv. (I was roughly following a recipe for Parmesan chicken.

3) Green beans. They come from a can, they were put there by a man.

4) French bread. Sliced, buttered on each side. Note: don’t broil french bread. It starting burning on top in less than five minutes. I need a better way to heat it up for the future.

Results: Although I didn’t have as many guests as intended, the two people who were able to make it had a good time. I had some decent discussion about Christianity, science, and community with Lion. Also discussed work situations and other topics. Nick got here a bit later.

We played a game of Carcassonne. It’s my current favorite board game. It’s tile based and you take turns putting out tiles and placing your pieces. You get points as you reach objectives and keep playing until you run out of tiles.

After Lion took off, played some PS3 w/ Nick for a bit, but I’m not enthralled by any of the multiplayer games I’ve tried so far (Gran Turismo 5, Armor Core 4). Then again, I’m not quite the fiend at video games I was in the late ’90s ;)

All in all, I’m glad I had people over and I’m hoping to do it again on a monthly or bi-monthly basis.

Charleston Trip
Posted by Erundur Anwamehtar on June 15th, 2008, at 7:03pm

I’ve been in Charleston, South Carolina, for the past week.

I did a lot of things. My highlights include touching a six-hundred-year-old tree, hanging out w/ my friend Mark and his wife MaryEllen, meeting some of their friends including Jessica who I stayed with the first two days, eating Southern food, playing racquetball (which I just realized I’ve been spelling wrong for the last week), seeing some huge planes, going to the beach, and seeing historical sites such as Boone Hall Plantation and Fort Sumter.

Six Hundred Year Old Tree and Me
Six Hundred Year Old Tree and Me: This tree at Boone Hall Plantation is over six hundred years old. Yes, that’s right, since before Columbus. I stood by it and even touched it. Pretty sweet.

Mark in Front of Fort Sumter
Mark in Front of Fort Sumter: This is a photo of my friend Mark in front of Fort Sumter.

Check out the rest of the album:

Jessica's Yard The Old Slave Market You Know You're In the South When Jessica by a Horse Carriage Me on Horse Carriage Tour House on Carriage Tour of Downtown House on Carriage Tour of Downtown House on Carriage Tour of Downtown House on Carriage Tour of Downtown House on Carriage Tour of Downtown View of Atlantic from Charleston Home Entrance w/ Door to Porch Mr. Hats Gravestone Gravemarker Church Graveyard Self-Portrait Land Behind the Dock A Building Water Beyond Dock A Walkway at Boone Hall Plantation Slave Cabin Sweetgrass Basket Six Hundred Year Old Tree and Me Six Hundred Year Old Tree and Me (Self-Portrait) The Drive to Boone Hall The Drive Away from Boone Hall Fort Sumter Mark in Front of Fort Sumter Me In Front of Fort Sumter Cannon at Fort Sumter Me by a Wall in Fort Sumter Fort Sumter Flags of Fort Sumter The Island w/ Fort Sumter Bird Above the Ferry Me w/ Cooper River Bridge Mark w/ Cooper River Bridge

Good Times in Seattle w/ Benjamin and Suzanne
Posted by Erundur Anwamehtar on March 5th, 2008, at 6:23pm

Ben & I @ Space Needle
Ben & I at Space Needle

Ben and I Preparing to Cross
At the Crossing in Kirkland

Monkfish
Pose w/ a Monkfish

Ben & Suzanne Under Waterfall
Under a Waterfall at Westlake Center

Building a Tower to Heaven
Building a Jenga Tower to Heaven: It fell soon after. Bubble tea is awesome.

Sunset 2
The Sun Setting in Seattle: View from Medina, the town of Bill Gates

Rock On, Seattle
Rock On, Seattle

Homeschool vs. Not
Posted by Erundur Anwamehtar on February 8th, 2008, at 7:46pm

Jake’s got a couple posts (first, second) about a bill in the Nebraska State Legislature, LB 1141. According to Jake:

From a quick read, what I gather is that his new bill would require students in unaccredited school situations (read: home-school) to be tested on an annual basis at the parents’ expense in order to ensure adequate progress is being made. If not, parents can be required to enroll their students in a public school.

I don’t really have a lot to add, but if this is something you’ve ever heard debates about it’s worth looking at his posts.

One Thousand Posts
Posted by Erundur Anwamehtar on February 3rd, 2008, at 10:49pm

According to my current iteration of my blog, this is my one-thousandth post.

I never thought I’d see the New England Patriots lose Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants. I gotta say, that was the best Super Bowl I’ve ever seen. Down-to-the-wire drama and a huge upset — perhaps the biggest in Super Bowl History. Plus, I’ll get to tells kids in twenty years that I saw the greatest team in NFL history lose the only game that matters.

I saw the game with a couple of friends from church (Aaron & Jessica) — two of the few people my own age. They have a lot of friends there age which was nice. Also, I will not complain when I’m invited to social gatherings that include even one available female my age. It’s probably the first time that’s happened since I moved here.

HDTVs rock. I want one, but then I think about starving children in Africa. But I don’t think starving children anywhere are able to consume HDTVs so I feel a little less bad about wanting one.

So FLAC files sound awesome. I decided to rip Radiohead’s new album In Rainbows to FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) to see if the sound quality is really that much better. It does sound a bit better. At some point I want to repartition my hard drives and perhaps slap a fat 1TB (Terabyte, baby, Terabyte = one thousand gigabytes) drive in my computer so I can go crazy on backing up all my albums and DVDs in the best quality possible.

The only problem with FLAC is that it’s complicated if not impossible to get iTunes to play FLAC. So what I’ve done is I’m using Winamp is the player/library for my FLAC files and storing them all on one of my other drive partitions to keep it all sorted and simple. Of course, I also created MP3 copies of the files for use w/ the iPod. With the demise of DRM though, I’m more open to considering other portable media players, but I can’t say I’ve seen anything more impressive than the iPod.

I’m considering purchasing a laptop I can load up w/ Linux. Partially to be nerdy and indie and open source, but I’ve become a lot more familiar w/ the command line over the years and it’d also be a much better machine for doing web development. Anyway, this also feeds into the desire to find alternatives to iTunes/iPod because Apple isn’t exactly friendly w/ Linux.

Of course, I’d take a Macbook if I could get one, but cost remains prohibitive. It’d cost me twice as much to get the Apple as it would for a comparatively powerful Dell w/ dual-core Athlon chips, 2GB RAM, DVD-burner, 120gb hard drive, wifi.

I’m impressed w/ how busy I’ve stayed this weekend. I spent 15 hours out on Friday, 9 hours out on Saturday, and 9 hours out today.

Social Life FTW!!!