Take the Stairs ... Please

The Tower of Odd Smells has been undergoing some minor rennovations, adding the smell of paint to its myriad odors. They've finally painted almost all the floors and are now doing work on the public spaces. This means that the gym in the top of the tower has been closed. 

Were I feeling lazy, this would be good excuse to just not exercise. Fortunately, I have been feeling motivated by this whole engagement thing, so I did some situps and pushups yesterday and today I walked the stairs. There are 5 stairwells in the building: 1 in the middle and 4 spread across the 4 wings of the building. I would go up the central stairwell then down one of the 4, repeating until I had walked all of the stairwells. It's a good workout certainly, and due to the windows on the 4, I have the benefit of good views across Denver.

Also in my efforts to slim down for the wedding, I have changed my smiley faces into cyclops. Uh, that probably needs some explanation. Most mornings, my breakfast consists of a bagel and a banana. When I split the bagel, slather it with peanut butter and jam, and place it on the plate with the banana, I get a smiley face. Now I have cut that down to one half of the bagel. So now my smiley face is a cyclops. 

I'm also looking to cut out orange juice. I have a glass of that with every breakfast. Unfortunately, it has an inordinately high amount of calories. It's just juice! But Jen prompted me to check the calorie content, and it's a lot. Of course, the number I found is for the concentrate. It's a little hard to estimate exactly what it works out to, as I add differing amounts of water. I'm guessing it has a bit more than 100 calories per glass I drink. A beverage that doesn't involve cream shouldn't be that calorie rich.

I still have a stock of OJ in my freezer, so until I finish that, I'm going to keep drinking the juice ... and walking the stairs.

Almost Famous(-ish)

So, assuming it is still up and you are reading this post in a timely fashion, you should go to Adobe's DevNet. Take a look around. You may notice someone familiar-ish looking. Well, just in case it's no longer up, take a gander below. Feel free to click on the picture to enlarge it.

It's me! With a play button eye patch! And David! Who's my boss! See, David wrote an article for Adobe and I helped out with the sample files for the articles. Since it was a video application, we used video shot from our webcams. We needed screenshots of building the app, so here I am, the loyal employee. Now I have an even longer amount of time of famousness(-ishness) than when a video of me laughing maniacally showed up on the big screen at the big Adobe MAX conference (for a couple of seconds).

Better get your autographs while I'm not charging for them.

Light

Last night I was able to ride home without all my lights on. I rode through the gathering twilight without having to strap on my head lamp, reflectors, and a taillight. It felt quite good, even though I should probably keep them around for a bit longer. 

It's so weird that it feels like this has just sprung up on me. It hasn't seemed a gradual thing even though it is. It feels like just one day, BAM! it was lighter. Weird how perception works like that.

We're Engaged!

Hello friends of Nils.  I'm Jen.  You may have heard a bit about me on Nils' blog, but today, you actually get to hear from me.  You see, I was so excited about Nils' proposal yesterday that I wanted to sing his praises to you all, since you know and love him too.  And I knew that if I let him write about it, he just wouldn't brag about it sufficiently because one of the reasons we love him is that he is humble.  But he is also awesome and his praises SHOULD be sung!  So I am commandeering his blog for the day to tell you the story.  Here goes:

One day in late 2008, Nils asked me, "Do you think time is linear or cyclical?"  I answered that I thought it was both.  Similar events and themes recur over time, like seasons, but there is also a progression to it all, a coming to fruition in the midst of repetition.  Without knowing it, I ended up setting describing the theme of the proposal that Nils would make several months later.  In his exquisite attention to detail and symbol, Nils chose to create a full-day long proposal in which he would take me on a tour of events and places that had been significant to the two of us during our dating relationship.  But each return would have something added to it that took it to the next level.

Nils began by making me breakfast, which he has done many times before since he loves making unique breakfasts, while I have more of a talent for eating them, if you know what I mean.  THIS time Nils made a traditional Thingvall family favorite: melt-in-your-mouth French Puff biscuit/muffins covered in buttery cinnamon sugar.  Following breakfast, he gave me the most excellent gift of several hours of down time together, catering to my love language.

When I had returned from a two-week trip to Ireland in 2008, Nils had greeted me with a lovely picnic in the park, filled with a variety of cheeses, breads, and wine.  So for lunch, he surprised me with a picnic yet again.  But THIS time, it was a tropical picnic with cranberry goat cheese, smoked mozzarella, goat brie, pepper brie, fruit, and chai in the Denver botanical gardens.  The sound of a babbling brook in the shadow of giant, unfathomably unique plants and flowers from the rainforest gave us a much-needed tropical break from the gray Colorado winter.

After a refreshing nap, Nils told me that it was time to dress up and he drove us past the Denver Valentine's Day lights back to the west end of 16th Street, where we had met for our first date.  He guided me through the park near the Platte River to Zengo's, as he had done the year before.  But THIS time, Zengo's was not the end.  It was only a stop for mojitos, shrimp, and sushi featuring Kobe beef lightly heated with a blow torch, combined with out-of-this-world sauces, rice, asparagus, and all kinds of other flavors.

Mildly satiated, we returned to Nils' place to exchange Valentine's Day gifts strongly featuring Wen's and Rocky Mountain chocolates.  Then, we headed off to a fancy dinner.  Now, in our time together, we have frequented quite a few excellent restaurants, but THIS one brought them all to fruition. Literally. We went to Fruition, one of the top 10 new restaurants in the country, where we had a 5 course meal complete with a wine paring for each course.  Rabbit pot pie, mushroom and fresh herb gnocchi, bass and lobster in a creamy sauce, the most tender duck ever, and chocolate strawberry mousse in a seared sugar bowl were among the featured culinary delights.  

Now, an ordinary guy might have proposed right then and there.  Or at the gardens.  Or at appetizers.  I mean, what woman in her right mind wouldn't already be screaming "Yes" by now?  But Nils knew that I am the type who prefers to do my deepest emotions out of the public eye. So he drove us up Highway 285 to Falcon Park, where I had surprised Nils for his 30th birthday by doing a revision of prom with a twinkle-light dance floor under the stars (Nils' original prom left something to be desired...).  So Nils brought me back to this special place and, under the stars and brilliant half-moon of the cold, clear night, he used his Google phone to play a set of love songs and to provide a little light with which I could...read a book!  What?  A book, you say?  The mind reels that there could be more, but there is!

One of Nils' many talents is making books from scratch—cutting the pages, setting the type, sewing the cover and all!  Nils had made a book for me before, one that I wanted but was out of print. (Isn't he SO sweet?!?!?!)  But THIS time, the book he made was a conversation with God thanking God for me and asking for His blessing on our relationship and His help in keeping our love strong and growing.  He had me read the book aloud through my tears (of COURSE I was sobbing from overwhelming delight by now) and the book ended with a proposal.  The ring was hidden within the book in a little box made from cut-out pages.  

And, weeping from happiness greater than I had ever dreamed was possible, and silently praying the Ephesians 3:18 prayer that God would expand my capacity to be able to take in His wide, long, high, and deep love for her, poured out so abundantly through Nils' beautiful acts and words, said, "Yes!"    

Editor's Note:  Actually, Jen said, "Hell yes!" because "Yes" just didn't seem strong enough by that point, "Heck yes" sounds silly when you are in passionate moments such as these, and besides, there was no polite company around to offend. 

A Modest Proposal

It's official! Jen and I are engaged! I am so stoked! Jen offered to write it up for me, so that'll be coming soon. :D

Stuffed Pears

It occurs to me now that I should have taken pictures before I ate them, (UPDATE: Here's a pic from a second batch) but that won't stop me from talking about my pears. I got some red pears dirt cheap this weekend, and I had Italian sausage and ricotta cheese left over from my lasagna. I also had some almonds lurking around from after my chili-lime almonds for the Super Bowl. Ideas for using all this started percolating in my brain. So here's what I did, in recipe form:

Stuffed Pears

1/2 lb. hot Italian sausage

7.5 oz. ricotta cheese

1 C. ground salted almonds

1/2 tsp. ground thyme

4 pears

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the sausage, cheese, nuts, and thyme together thoroughly. Cut pears in half, remove the stem, and core. Scoop out a bowl in the pear halves about the size of an egg. Fill the bowl with the sausage mixture. Bake for 25 minutes.

So it is super easy, but it didn't knock my socks off. I'm trying to figure out what I could change about it, as I'm not sure what it needs. I certainly would do this with firmer pears. Perhaps I could use sweet Italian sausage instead of hot, and maybe use a different nut, like a walnut for a richer flavor. Maybe some sage? Perhaps I could mix in some of the pear flesh with the sausage. I'm not sure. It was good, but not really good. It's definitely worth experimenting with.

The biggest change I would make is to swap out the ricotta cheese for interesting cheese, say like gorgonzola. Ricotta is such a disappointment. It is to cheese like tofu is to meat. It is bland, uninspired and doesn't melt worth a darn. It really only can serve as texture and filler. I was hoping I would get some ooey-gooey texture between the nuts and meat, but the ricotta just disappeared. It's just filler. Some gorgonzola would give me the texture and flavor I was hoping for.

In other news, Jen and I got a photographer signed up for the wedding and I've got the honeymoon taken care of. We're getting a lot of stuff crossed off the list, and it feels good. And Valentine's Day is coming soon ...

Culinary Weekend.

If there was a storm today, I cooked it up. Darn straight. I went to the store and tore my arms out of their sockets with the amount of groceries I hauled up to my apartment. The cooking fiesta started out with some tuna noodle casserole. However, this was a recipe from Epicurious, so it was a bit fancier than most. It turned out quite good, though I wonder if the same effect couldn't be had by using cream of mushroom soup rather than making my own cream sauce with chicken broth and a roux.

I was aided in my cooking by my laptop's clever design. Since the recipe was from a website, and I'm too lazy to print it out, I swiveled the top of my laptop around and propped it up for easy reading. Since it was swiveled, errant bits of food wouldn't gum up the keyboard. And, since I was able to put it in portrait mode, the whole recipe was visible. Clever!

Next up was a lasagna, which I made with my mom's recipe. That one went into the freezer uncooked to feed me another day. I forgot how good that recipe is with its blend of ground beef and sausage. I did discover that I need to make it in a smaller dish, or at least cut the cheese for it thinner. 

I'm left with a half pound of sausage, a half pound of ricotta, and some almonds left over from the chili-lime almonds I made for the Super Bowl. Hmmm. Well, I picked up some very red pears from the store for $1.18 a pound. I'm thinking that I will grind up the almonds and mix together with the ricotta and sausage. I'll then take my pears, halve them, cut out a bowl in the center of them and then fill that bowl with the sausage mixture. Then bake that for a while, and I think I'll have something interesting and tasty. I just need to find some guidance on baking pears and see if the meat would get cooked enough.

Speaking of lasagna, Jen and I had some good portabello lasagna when we went caterer shopping with her parents. In fact, Saturday was full of wedding planning (and no, we're still not engaged). We started off with cake tasting at Das Meyer Fine Pastry Chalet. It was incredible. The building is filled with amazing cakes and gargoyles. There's also an ample pastry case filled with pecan buns, cinnamon rolls (I think you'd like them, Mom), and all sorts of other delectable confections. Jen and I settled on our cake flavors and design and also purchased a heap of their mind-blowing cream cheese mints. 

After that we went and had a tasting with a caterer. We're going to go with them, so that is exciting. They provided a heap of very tasty food, including the aforementioned lasagna and an amazing beef tenderloin. Not to rest on our laurels, we also went and picked out tuxes. We followed that up with an engagement party, but this was for one of Jen's friends. It was a wedding-packed day and a food-packed weekend!

In Full Swing

So, Lost? Totally rocking it in their 5th season. These first 3 (or 4 technically) episodes have been awesome with reveals, answers, and TWISTS OF FATE! I just watched the most recent episode, and was elated to see a certain character return. Eeeee! This is good stuff.

Work is going great. I'm messing around with the Flash Media Server Administration API in preparation for a project we'll be taking on soon. It in and of itself is not horribly interesting, but I have been having fun building a library of classes that will make it much easier to work with, and that has been fun. It's also been great that the things I've been trying have been working on the first try. 

It has been nice to be in the lull between big projects. With Beatport done and our new project slowly ramping up for us developers, it hasn't been all stressful, and I've been able to take time to do my work the way I'd prefer to do it, rather than in a way it has to be done in order to meet deadlines. Ahhh. Good deal.

The strange thing about this positive outlook right now, is that I've also been off of caffeine for 3 days. It's in the interest of keeping Jen company as she kicks the habit, as well as keeping me from drinking so much it feels like my heart is going to explode. So, all this positive attitude is coming out of no coffee. Freaky.

Hee Hee Hee

Jesus tells us to forgive everyone. I suppose I may need to work on this, judging from the amount of joy and satisfaction I got from this WIRED article: Hummer Drivers Get More Tickets. A Lot More.

Coming Around

Ah, it is good to be on the mend. Today, I had the merest of coughs and a light case of sniffles. It looks like I am getting better. Actually, the worse symptom today was some severely chapped lips. Anyhow, it was good to feel better after a weekend of recuperation and football. I felt pretty good until I got the bill today for my mole removal. Ouch. There's covered by insurance and then there's paid for by insurance. They are not the same thing.

I finally got my hands on Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Well, I guess this is the second time, but this time I have the time to read it. That and the next book in the Y: The Last Man series came in. I think it is suffering from my high expectations. I had heard so much good chatter about it, that I have to say I'm underwhelmed by it. I was expecting more. At least this book, #4, explained in part why the main character was such an idiot for the first three books.