June 25th, 2005 at 8:31 am (Uncategorized)
Canada
Your country is 53 concerned with morals, 50 prosperous, 77 liberal, and 33 aggressive!
You’re a charitable country with a soft spot for mounties. Don’t plan
on invading anyone anytime soon, but be happy–life’s good and people
everywhere enjoy a welfare state.
Vous etes un pays charitable avec un endroit doux pour mounties. Pas le
projet sur envahir n’importe qui n’importe quand bientot, mais etre
heureux — vie bonne et gens apprecient partout un Etat-providence.
For your information, the possible countries in this test include:
Haiti, North Korea, Albania, Russia, Vietnam, Turkey, Poland, India,
Singapore, China, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Libya, Tanzania,
East Timor, Lithuania, Indonesia, Iran, Canada, Israel, Sweden,
Australia, Germany, or the United States of America.
My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
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You scored higher than 68% on morals |
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You scored higher than 13% on prosperity |
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You scored higher than 99% on liberalness |
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You scored higher than 8% on aggression |
Link: The What country are you? Test written by cactusoftheeast
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June 7th, 2005 at 12:40 pm (Uncategorized)
Dinner Club #3
Venue: CH1VE, Downtown
With Ayal heading out for new digs in NYC on Thursday, we hit up another restaurant of his choice. Even my brother’s dead battery, which resulted in our late arrival to the venue, couldn’t dampen the wonderful evening ahead. Dave, a friend of Ayal’s from Japan was a very welcome addition to our group. He had just returned to the States with plenty of amusing anecdotes to share.
At CH1Ve, the menu is short and the wine list is long. Adding to the complimentary edamame, we started off the evening with their cheese board and grilled rustic bread (from bread and cie). I give props to any restaurant which offers a cheeseboard. However, other than the passionfruit cheese spread, the other two cheeses (gouda and cheddar) and odd spreads (horseradish-pear!) weren’t very interesting. Accompanying our dinner was a spicy Palmina super tuscan and a pleasant pinot grigio by Laird.
Dinner was done family style as usual and we shared in the following: chicken stuffed with a tomato cream cheese, pan-seared hawaiian sunfish, scottish salmon, stone ground mustard rubbed lamb and a cured meat and dry sausage sampler. To quote Ayal, “Small portions, very tasty”. The fish was on the bland side, but like all of the meals they came with great sides (bok choy, latkes, mushroom rolls). I’m not a huge fan of lamb, but this lamb was delicious. It wasn’t as robust in it’s “lambiness”. In regards to the chicken, I’ll say it now, I’ll say it again later, “Cream cheese makes everything taste good.”
Abiding by the first rule of dinner club, we tried the “kinda” rice pudding and pear/apple/quince crumble for dessert. They were good desserts, but they didn’t blow me away. View other photos from the evening.
Rating: Owm Owm
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June 6th, 2005 at 2:16 pm (Uncategorized)
Cuyamaca Flowers
On Saturday June 4th, Tim and I left the foggy coast behind for a “death march” in Cuyamaca. I hadn’t been up to see Cuyamaca since the Wildfires decimated the area in October 2003. It is very refreshing to be able to say, “the place looks gorgeous”. Wildflower season is in full tilt. I was concerned that the birds would now have few places to hide and nest with many of the trees becoming blackened hulls during the fire. However, I should realize that animals are prepared for “natural” disasters. We saw many birds nesting IN the dead hollowed out branches.
I chose the 6 mile loop out to Dyer Spring along the Harvey Moore Trail as I had never been on the trail before. Dyer Spring isn’t much to write home about, but the trail itself is very pleasant. Unfortunately, while I was all smiles the whole trip, Tim ventured further and further into the red zone. Maybe it was the bushwhacking through the waist-high pokey grasslands. Maybe it was the thousands of flies that were keen on “escorting” us for the majority of the hike. Maybe it was the fact that we didn’t bring food or water with us and we sometimes wondered if we were still on the trail. I’m guessing next time Tim will stay home and “feed the cat”.
Update:I had such a good time, that I went up to Cuyamaca on June 11th with Jeannine and Dale. We hiked a few trails south of Lake Cuyamaca, and then went to the Azalea Glen Trail in hopes of viewing azaleas. Our plans were once again foiled. I’m not sure if the azaleas were wiped out completely during the fire, as the trail was obviously heavily hit. It may be that they just haven’t recovered enough to have enough energy to bloom. Nonetheless, the trail was still beautiful in it’s own regard and we had a great time hiking it. Pictures from both trips (mostly flowers) can be seen here.
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June 1st, 2005 at 9:22 am (Uncategorized)
Angela with her fellow graduate Steph Fox
What a great extended vacation!
There were many laughs and smiles to share when Michelle and I descended upon Denver Wednesday night to join Angela for her graduation celebration. It’s always great to be with them, but it was especially nice to not think about work for 5 days. We started our mini-vacation with a hike up in the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area. There was still plenty of snow on the ground as we forged the “4th of July” trail. While we didn’t see the trail in it’s 4th of July splendor (as July is peak wildflower viewing), we did enjoy lots of waterfall and mountain shots. See those shots here. It was then onto meet John and Suzi Filose for dinner. I must send out a big thank you to the Filoses for their super generosity all weekend long. They put Michelle, Angela and I up in a room at the Westin in downtown Denver and provided a very cushy ride with their rented Lincoln Towncar among other things.
Friday was the day of Angela’s convocation. There was some debate on why UCD chose to use “convocation” instead of “graduation”. With the aid of Wikipedia, which states that convocations are “assemblies of various universities which are convoked to grant degrees”, I’ve determined UCD was just trying to be hoity-toity. Kudos to Angela on her Masters in Genetic Counselling. I’m certain she will put the degree to good use helping individuals. As a sidenote to another discussion the 4H club stands for “Head, Heart, Hands, and Health”.
In true “piggie” fashion we spent most of our visit planning our time around meals. After the graduation ceremony we hit the Cherry Creek Grill for a tasy lunch. This was followed by a potluck celebration with Angela’s fellow graduates at her classmate Jenna’s family homestead. We even stuffed in a snack from Taco Bell/Pizza Hut before heading out dancing at a very popular club “Vinyl”. It was just plain awesome that Janel and her boyfriend Daniel were able to come boogie with us. For those that are interested, Janel is doing great! She loves her job, being with her family and things seem very good between her and Daniel.
On Saturday we headed back into the mountains for a bit of Filose nostalgia. The Filose family used to take winter vacations in Breckenridge. We visited both Georgetown and Breckenridge for some shopping and exploring. Even though we had packed in two large meals, we headed out for gelato upon our return to Denver. We returned to our room with an intention to watch a pay-per-view movie, but got sucked into X2. That Hugh Jackman is so hot right now.
But as with all good things, my vacation had to come to an end. I’m of course pleased as punch that Angela will be back in San Diego in a month to begin her job search. We’re already planning our time together around food with a trip planned to eat ourselves silly at the Del Mar Fair July 4th weekend. Let me know if you want to join us.
Beep beep.
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