Merry Christmas, In Pictures

First we flew with Crowley (for essentially the first time*) on AirTran to Detroit.  What a difference between Southwest and AirTran, it’s hard to believe they’ll be co-operating soon.  I think we need a new designation for airlines:  “Low fare, high cost”.  We drove to Lansing and then to Munster the following morning to be with Aimee’s family.  The full complement of pictures is available here:  Christmas 2010 Photo Album.

Once in Munster, we opened gifts with Aimee’s parents and had lots of time to kick back and catch up a bit.

That evening, they graciously hosted the extended family for dinner and dessert so that we would get a chance to visit with everyone.  Megan drove in for a visit and a lovely lunch at Jalapenos: “The Hottest Mexican Restaurant in Schererville”.

  

 

We ventured back to Lansing in time for the traditional trip to Roma Bakery and Deli.  We were there for about 2 hours as we ordered some of their finest imported meats, cheeses, and homemade desserts:  salami (Genoa and Oldani), prosciutto, hot capicola, soppressata, and lots more. 

  

Also had a delicious lunch there and then homemade dinner before visiting with the Blundys and Sarah and Matt. I have no pictures of that but if I were to describe the scene…  “some old friends, catching up in the basement over wine and heavily fermented honey while Crowley cowers in the corner” … would about sum it up.  It was a nice visit!  Aimee worked on a scrumptious cherry pie the next morning and they turned out great!

 

Few trips to Lansing are complete without a trip to Georgio’s and Beggar’s Banquet in East Lansing.  We met up with Matt and Allison for brunch on Christmas Eve at Beggars.  They weren’t busy for we lingered over Bloody Marys and coffee and got to catch up for a while.

We celebrated the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord at St. Gerard, 6:30pm edition.  Aimee and I posed with [a very bored] Crowley in front of the stocking array and Christmas tree. 

When it comes to online tools, I’m a “Google” kind of guy for the most part (Gmail, Calendar, Documents, and of course Picasa).  However, Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011 is refreshingly easy to use.  I’m not ready to convert just yet but I used their “Photo Fuse” tool to create the family picture below and was quite impressed.**

Overall we just had a great visit – food, family, friends, festivity, and a feline-like dog.

 

I hope everyone has a great year-end.  Aimee and I will be visiting Veni, Vidi, Vici for their Prix Fixe NYE dinner following mass at IHM. 

Coming soon to a blog near you:  I’ll take an in-depth look at analytics from our blog visitors, how often they visit, where they visit from, and more…

Footnotes:
* I flew with her from Minneapolis to Chicago when she was 8 weeks but I don’t really count it because neither of us really knew what was going on.
** Also, I’m using Windows Live Writer to create my posts now because the Blogger interface is just not flexible enough.

Getting ready for Christmas Vacation!

First, Crowley would like to share some Christmas photos of her.  As always, more are available in the Crowley Album on Picasa.

Second, Tonight is the Star In The East Christmas concert at IHM.  The concert is free and open to the public.  Aimee and Jeff will be singing my arrangement of “I Wonder as I Wander” for two voices, piano, and orchestra.  I’ll also be playing a Paul Tate arrangement of “Bring a Torch” for piano and flute, among a few others.  Hopefully I can get a recording to post.

Third, here is a video of Aimee and I decorating the Christmas Tree here.  I mixed in a recording of her singing “He Shall Feed His Flock” from Messiah.

Christmas Tree in Atlanta

Fourth, we leave for Michigan tomorrow!!!  We are flying with Crowley for basically the first time (she flew when I first got her but everything was so new at that point…).  We will be visiting with family in Lansing and Munster, most of whom we haven’t seen since June.  Also looking forward to visiting Matt and Allison, Sarah and Matt, and hopefully Megan during this time.

Lastly a brief warranty update (for those who care):

1. The Nerd Herd at Best Buy did in fact manage to fix Aimee’s fried laptop by replacing the memory and reconnecting the hard drive.  Being out of town, my first comment back to Aimee was to check if they put back the same amount of memory that we sent it in with.  They did not.  For over a week they’ve been “looking for it” and finally today decided to order in the missing 2 GB.  Best Buy, your warranty repair was good; your integrity and ability fix a wrong, not good at all.
2. Ed Voyles Acura had our car for a known warranty navigation replacement.  They didn’t bother to order the replacement unit until they had our car for a day.  We pick up our car and I call to check on the status of the order a week later – it hasn’t been ordered yet.  When it comes in, we bring our car back in, they do the replacement but, come time to pick it up, there’s no disc for the navigation system.  So we wait another week and a half for that to come in.  To top it off, I’ve asked them address our poor fuel consumption while they have our car.  After giving the stock answers on tire pressure, weather, driving habits, and maintenance,  I receive a last ditch effort to quiet me in the form of a decade-old service bulletin from Acura about how fuel economy tests are unrealistic.  The EPA agreed and required new mileage ratings in late-2007 and our car is still 30% below those lowest numbers.  C’mon, pay attention Ed.  It’s enough to make you need some wine and Drunken Goat cheese!
3. Canon – I decided to “take a limb” (as Aimee would say) and send in my 15-85mm lens for factory repair because it seemed to have some optical variability and lack of sharpness in certain circumstances.  I was right!  They fixed it and cleaned it all up, no charge.  Nice job Canon!

Oh, you’d like to send us a Christmas Card?

Recently, I’ve had several people freely admit to “stalking” us (it’s not stalking if you’re putting it out there) to find our Atlanta address on the internet.  To the best of my knowledge, it’s not out there.  So here’s a little riddle to deduce it for yourself:

1. Our street is named after our 5th president.  Once you figure that out, go ahead and append “Drive NE” to it.
2. Our address number is the year you get when adding one century to the year our 5th president left office.
3. Our apartment number is four digits and adheres to the following rules:
   • All four digits add up to a prime number.  Let’s call it 17.
   • The third digit + the fourth digit equals the two-digit number you’d get by concatenating the first and second digit.
   • The second digit is half the third digit.
   • The third digit is less than the fourth digit.
   • The fourth digit is often the most difficult to move independently of the others.
4. You know the city and state.  The zip code you can find by Googling the result of steps 1-3.

Here’s a little Christmas card from us:

* Crowley saw a squirrel as we took this one but it was the best take got (of like 30 pictures)

Chicago Weekend II

The Christmas party and concert season is in full swing and it so happened that many of our annual Chicago parties and concerts fell on the weekend of December 3-5.  So we figured it would be a good weekend to take a flight up to Chicago and spend it with our friends. 

We arrived just in time to hop in our Avis rental (their computers were actually functioning this time), get into the city, and go to our 5th consecutive Deck the Hall concert at Old St. Pat’s.  The OSP choir, made up of 75 vocalists, was conducted by Bill Fraher and accompanied by the 30-person Metropolis Symphony Orchestra.  The group performed to sell out crowds for three exhausting nights in a rows and did a very nice job.  It was especially strange for Aimee to be a mere listener this year.  Me, I’m more or less used to it.

The festivity of the evening was augmented by new-fallen snow and a late night of catching up at the Neary’s.  It was quite liberating to consume much wine, knowing that we only had to make it down the hall at night’s end.  We were most grateful for Michael and Joanna’s hospitality (and that of Miles actually).  Hopefully we get to return the favor when they come to the south to celebrate MLK day.

Saturday started with massages (and a chance to catch up with Meg) followed by lunch at Mayan Palace with Sara and Kristen.  It’s always to return to the palace where, not 50 yards distance away, I lived in my first apartment in Chicago, next to Sara and Kristen!

Due to some just lousy planning, we had to miss our annual dessert party in Skokie.  David and Maryjoy – we’ll be there next year to visit, pick up some new recipes, and meet little Theo. That evening Mark B hosted a very generous and thought-filled evening of dinner and socializing.  We got to reconnect with some old friends and meet a few more ND connections in Chicago.  I’m so glad we were finally able to make his Christmas dinner, though I learned my lesson about being the farthest traveled guest.

We had to make an early departure to get to Courtney and Frank’s home for a) their annual post-Deck the Hall party and b) our slumber party.  As is typical, we were treated to their warm, festive, yet comfortable décor, delicious food, new wine vintages, and this time, their guest bedroom.  We are so fortunate to have their friendship!

Sunday morning naturally brought the occasion for brunch.  Our selection was Gioco – good because I knew it wouldn’t be terribly crowded (though I don’t know why) and because they take reservations.  Aimee’s dad and sister made the quick drive over from Munster to be with us and our friends.  Sunday afternoon naturally brought the occasion for some group shopping in the “adult sleepwear” section of Target.

Made ya look.  Anyway, then Sunday evening we joined the choir for mass at Old St. Pat’s.  All in all a decent mass, despite a fiendishly out-of-tune Steinway and a little slip up while the presider sang the mass parts (on the bright side, it’s always nice to be personally recognized in the middle of the Doxology). 

After a late flight, we landed in a chilly-but-significantly-warmer Atlanta, ready for a trip to Austin, final preparations for the Star in the East concert, a piano lesson, a Paul Tate concert, Christmas shopping, and a trip to Lansing!  Busy times.  Fun times.

Hosting our First Thanksgiving

There were no Pilgrims, and not really any Indians.  We did however have a collective 37.5% Native American representation and a couple Canadians.  Aimee’s parents made the drive from Munster, Indiana on Tuesday to be with us for Thanksgiving and visit our home in Atlanta.  Aimee’s co-fellow Daniela and Matt (and their little boy Noah) accepted our invitation to join us for an “American Thanksgiving” so we ended up with 7 for dinner. There are a few pictures inline below; the Picasa album pictures start here.

Aimee and I are thankful for many, many things.
I think a blog post is great place to mention a few of those…..

We both got to have at least 4 days off from work.  We are thankful for that time away, but even more thankful for meaningful employment that we both often take for granted.  On a specific note, Aimee officially passed her Neurology board exam.  Everyone is so proud of her!  She is officially a board-certified Neurologist. 

We are thankful for our parish here, Immaculate Heart of Mary. Through their welcoming arm and open-minded music ministry, we have a place to not only be better musicians, but also “give to God” what is truly God’s. We got to be part of the Thanksgiving Day liturgy where we celebrated not only Thanksgiving but El Dia de Acción de Gracias.  Through a beautifully celebrated bilingual mass, we realized how thankful we are for a faith that is universal in language and creed and culture.  (We are also thankful for Michael and Jeff’s willingness to participate in our test turkey dinner and to not scoff at our tater tots).

We are thankful for parents who make sacrifices of time to be with us and who care enough to be part of our traditions and lives and impart their own nuggets of wisdom.  It was such a blessing to have Aimee’s parents with us for several relaxing days in Atlanta.  We are thankful for co-workers who make day-to-day life tolerable, edifying, and supportive. Sharing this US holiday with Matt, Daniela, and Noah was especially gratifying.  Crowley may or may not agree on that last point.

We are thankful for Notre Dame, for once on an even playing field, putting together an offense and defense to beat USC!  A consequential object of gratitude is for warranties.  Evidently the ND-USC showdown was not of sufficient gravity so as to warrant its broadcast in the Atlanta market. (I’m shocked).  I sprang into action, connecting Aimee’s laptop to the TV and pulling up the ESPN3 live broadcast of the game over the internet.  After three hours of overheating, the laptop simply breathed its last.  I may know my way around a computer but fried circuitry is not my bag.  So while sad that she’s without her laptop, I’m immensely grateful for the Product Protection Plan we purchased 2 years ago.  I don’t have extremely high expectations for the Nerd Herd boys but I expect we’ll be getting our money’s worth. 

On Sunday we purchased our first “real” Christmas Tree.  Coming in at a towering 5’ 6”, it is decorated and filling our home with the smell of Christmas.

Lastly, we are thankful in advance for our upcoming weekend in Chicago!!!  Deck the Hall, hanging out with friends, massages, dinners, wine, music, brunch….all good stuff!

* For those of you still hung up on the first comment, Aimee’s maternal side has a somewhat sizeable amount of Cherokee Native American in the lineage.  I did some estimating, and that’s where the 37.5% comes from.

A guide to driving in Atlanta

Thought I’d put down a few guidelines for driving in Atlanta. Let’s say you’re new to the area and looking to drive in a manner that best allows you to fit in with other motorists…

1. Blinkers – blinkers, turn signals, indicators, it doesn’t really matter what you call them because they are really not to be used. When approaching pedestrian-dense intersections in downtown and Midtown or navigating the winding streets with hidden turns and drives in the Highlands or Druid Hills, it’s important to keep those around you guessing. The bottom line is that random changes in speed, erratic changes in direction, and abrupt turns are all positive elements to driving and walking in a car-obsessed city.
   
2. Highway Interchanges – be advised that the giant 3-4 "exit only" lanes for I-75 and I-85 are changed on a daily basis. This applies to the exits for I-20 downtown as well. You never know where they will be, so never commit too early to a lane. I always wondered why people acted surprised that they were on the wrong side of an 8 lane highway (despite the advisory signs overhead and lettering on the pavement for miles preceding). Now I know, and you do too.
   
3. Keep passive – when driving in Atlanta, passive is key. Till now, my guiding principles were to be assertive, predictable, and get where you need to go, without being impetuous and angsty. Here it’s the opposite: maintain a proper degree of oblivion to your surroundings and when in doubt, open up a can of road rage. A few specifics? When a light turns green, wait until the car in front of you has advanced while pretending not to notice. When first at an intersection turning left (yielding to oncoming traffic), it’s equally acceptable to complete the turn on yellow/red as it is to simply revert back and wait for the next time. When merging, be sure to use up all of the merge lane (after all, you pay taxes on that part of the road too). Lastly, when driving your SUV 94 mph on I-85, it’s important to note that you can still be passive and not pay attention, just don’t slow down.
   
4. Multitasking – if you’re not multitasking while driving, you’re wasting time. Traffic being what it is (you know, due to inoperative blinkers and dynamic road infrastructure), you simply need to be getting more done while driving. Top choice around here: talking on the cell phone. The preferred manner is to put the phone in “hands free mode”, and hold it about six inches from your head so that you are more efficient by only using one hand to drive and you can still monitor your device for incoming text messages. Bonus: it’s perfectly legal! Bottom line here is that you don’t want driving alone to be too much of an active experience.

Turkey Test Dinner

This weekend we cooked a Test Turkey for Thanksgiving.  A choice, 9.16 pound premium young turkey came home from Kroger with us and I think we did well with him.

The foil tenting went in place at the right time to ensure proper (but not excessive) browning.

In our rush to get the turkey carved up, after allowing proper time to sit, we decided to invite Michael and Jeff over to sample the dinner.  With little to no planning, we pulled off a nice evening!  And enjoyed two bottles of the Frontera Malbec which, at $7 a bottle from Trader Joe’s, was delicious!

Pictured above along with Michael and Jeff is the decanted Malbec and, yes that’s right, tots.  We weren’t sure how many scalloped potatoes I had leftover so we supplemented with another form of potato.  What?

Lessons Learned:

1. Turkey always takes longer to prepare than you think.
2. You can never stuff enough butter under the skin.
3. You should not “warm up” turkey in the oven at 400 degrees.
4. More, I just can’t think of them right now.

Lastly, a video of me foolishly chasing after Crowley (like a head-less turkey?).  Aimee and I like to throw the frisbee when we go to the park and Crowley has interpreted this as a classic game of keep-away.  She runs back and forth with each successive throw, closing in as a potential catch is errored or an errant throw is made.  Below is some footage of her preying on my poor catch and running off with the prize:

Thankful for the weekend

One of the consequences of living outside a walking distance from a host of delicious restaurants (Moe's doesn't count), is that we cook a lot more. Thought I'd share a few examples. First is Chicken Fricassee. I even made a great gravy to go along with it. This comment may only connect with a few of you, but I thought Bill Knapp's actually invented Chicken Fricassee. Man, theirs was good though...

Next I used a family recipe to make a batch of scalloped potatoes. It's amazing how good potatoes can taste with just some milk, flour, onion, and salt and pepper.

Not pictured is Panko encrusted shrimp with edamame and vegetables. Also not pictured is the Test Turkey that we are preparing this afternoon. We are hosting Aimee's parents for Thanksgiving and are new to the realm of "large bird roasting". For the rest of today we have some errands to run and likely some traffic to sit in. Hopefully sporcle.com only takes up small percentage of our day. My favorite quiz? I encourage you all to take it and refresh your memory of our U.S. presidents. Also happy birthday to my nephew Ryan -- he's 11!

For the dog picture-of-the-post, I present Crowley with Duchess, a Harlequin Great Dane who we met at Gotham Park.

The weekend in reverse

It's the way my brain works, it's a recency thing, so we'll start this today and work backwards. Our friend Tommy had a group over for a chili pot-luck tonight so we spent most of the first part of the day cooking chili. Ours was a veggie-heavy, medium spiced version with flavors of cumin and white pepper featured. We also loved the sweet chili and the beer chili. Very unique!

Mass tonight was great! In honor of All Souls Day last week, we did Pie Jesu as set to music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Aimee sang the soprano line beautifully while blending well with fellow soprano for the other part.

Saturday brought us back to Iberian Pig for a visit with Aimee's colleague from Rush, Jennifer N. We had a great time catching up while reprising the pork cheek tacos, along with a butter lettuce salad and tempura-style crab cakes.

Now that we're both done reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, we decided to watch the Swedish version on Netflix. It was good to watch/read (it was subtitled). I'm not one of those people who, nose in the air, is surprised yet disgusted that "the movie wasn't as good as the book". They are different forms of media, different arts, with different strengths. Was it as detailed or full of the same plot rabbit holes? No, but it was entertaining to watch and that's what counts in my book. Oh yeah, that was Friday night.

Not long before, we booked another trip to Chicago! December 3rd through 5th we will be in town for Deck the Hall Friday night, a handful of visits and holiday gatherings on Saturday and of course, mass on Sunday. We're looking forward to it!

Lastly, today is Aimee's mom's birthday so Happy birthday up there in Indiana! We'll be having a belated celebration when they come down here Thanksgiving!

Lastly (take 2), I couldn't leave a blog post without a picture so here, on behalf of Southern class everywhere, is a picture we snapped from the car this morning:

Couple Random Updates

Not a whole lot here but thought I'd jot a few notes...

Today it sleeted in Atlanta. Briefly, then it turned to rain, but regardless Crowley and I got caught in it while at the park, and it was cold. Anyway, it's really about the same temperature as Chicago lately. This is here:

Last weekend Aimee's friend Daniella and Matt hosted us at their home for dinner. It was the first time I can remember having lamb chops cooked at home. Combined with some very fine, complementary wine, the dinner was great. Daniella made two desserts because one serving of delicious decadence wasn't enough. Their 2 year old son Noah also hosted Crowley for the evening. She stopped running away just long enough to snap a picture:

Sunday brunch was done in high style. Aimee and I hit our first Waffle House (ever I think).

Mass at IHM was prayerful and rewarding as always. We really love the opportunities to be part of their music program. Had a nice dinner with Michael and Jeff afterwards at Community BBQ to thank them for watching Crowley during our last trip to Chicago. Gotta say, I think it's the best I've had in Atlanta.

Happy 30th Birthday to Aimee

"Time and tide wait for no man, but time always stands still for a woman of thirty."

- Robert Frost

Wise words indeed. This "fortune" was occupying a giant fortune cookie that arrived in the mail from Kristen N. We had a lovely time celebrating Aimee's 3-0 this year. Of course it started with our trip to Chicago and dinners/brunches with friends. The next indication that a birthday was among us was a visit to the Atlanta Cupcake Factory on Highland. I wanted to find a bakery that would make a banana cake and, striking out at Alon's, I decided to try the cupcake route. I found this place which specializes in red velvet with almond frosting and also, that's right, banana with brown sugar frosting.

Birthday Morning began with breakfast tacos featuring egg and potato with a hint of cumin and chili, topped pepperjack cheese in a corn tortilla. And some candle wax. Along with some thoughtful cards, a delivery of flowers from Aimee's parents arrived, adding a floral scent and more life to our home.

We'd been saving it for a special occasion and this was it: birthday dinner was at The Iberian Pig in Decatur. Wow -- what a great experience! We started out at the bar with a glass of red for Aimee and glass of white for me (both designated "Damn Good" by the menu)

and a portion of their drunken goat cheese which was possibly one of the best cheeses we'd ever had. The cheese was a semi-soft, made of goat's milk, aged 75 days and soaked in red wine for 72 hours. Shortly thereafter we were greeted in a surprise visit by Dr. Newman and Dr. Biousse, Aimee's fellowship directors. They introduced us to the chef and offered to pre-buy dessert for us. Once seated, we ordered the Arugula salad, Pork Cheek tacos, Esparragos con Moscatel, and then split the Spanish Lamb Ribs. The dessert selection were the house made churros with cinnamon-chili infused chocolate sauce.

The Iberian Pig facade in downtown Decatur

Flowers from Aimee's parents. She loved the colors!

The fortune cookie met its match.

New birthday outfit from my mom