There's probably going to be a private, short-list-only blog about some of the things that happened on the fishing trip, but this one will stick to the food. I've been sick the last week, and the night before I was up all night because I wasn't feeling right (that should be more than enough details), so that sort of set the tone for me- I was pretty much congested, headached, and tired the whole trip.

Thursday morning we met up and 3 of the 4 of us drove to Lake Texoma to start out fishing extravaganza. We stay at a little cabin at Cedar Mills marina on the Texas side, so we weren't exactly "roughing it." That being the case, I packed up all the kitchen stuff I had and planned on cooking 2 really nice meals. We'd found a sale on bone-in ribeye steaks late last week, so that was the meal Thursday. It was a reprise of the last steak dinner I made- pan fried ribeye with a brandy/peppercorn/cream sauce, served with roast red potatoes and spicy caramelized onions. Huge hit- the 2 guys who had it couldn't get enough, and #4 wound up coming later than he expected and had already eaten, so we split his ribeye and had his leftover potatoes and onions.

Friday was our fish dinner. The past 2 years I've made fish and chips, lots of deep frying, which is always a mess. Last year I also made jalapeno hush puppies, even more mess. This year I decided to do something cleaner and a little more upscale, so I made pan-fried fish (in a little butter and oil over medium-high heat, brown one side, flip, brown the other, maybe 4 minutes total), lemon-parmesan risotto, and a chipotle beurre blanc. A beurre blanc is a butter-emulsion sauce- so you make a reduction of white wine vinegar and chicken stock, with diced shallots and chipotle, then move it off the heat and whisk in small bits of the butter over low, low heat. If the sauce gets too warm, the butter separates, which screws up the emulsion. Well, as the fish were coming off, we were putting the plates on- a base of risotto with the fish on top, then sauced with the beurre blanc. When I made the first plate, the beurre blanc seemed a little cool because it had been finished first and the burners (I call this stovetop the leaning stovetop of pisa- every fucking burner tilted a different direction and one didn't really work), so I wanted to warm it real quick. Well, I put the front burner on medium, moved the sauce over and got back to the fish. I turned around, and sure as shit, the sauce broke on me. I was verrrrrrry pissed off about it, needless to say, but hoped that what was left would have a little flavor, and it did, but instead of being a nice creamy sauce, it was a very runny mess. Sucked. I vaguely remember there being some way to fix a broken beurre blanc, but I didn't have it in front of me at Texoma and couldn't just hop on the net and try to find out real quick, obviously.

So we survived- the guys really liked the meal, and Dan (the drunk beligerent planner of the whole thing) even said that usually there was only one meal a year he really ate slow and savored- his birthday dinner at Del Frisco's.. but that he felt the same about both dinners this weekend and particularly the fish one. I also bought a big bottle of Chimay premium beer, and we had that along with the fish, and then finished the bottle of Dancing Bull savignon blanc that I used for the risotto. Then of course regular beer came back before we started playing cards, but I like to think I was an island of quality in the middle of the lake o' Budweiser and peanuts. All recipes available on request, of course- I'll post the chipotle beurre blanc for fun.

Chipotle Beurre Blanc sauce

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

1/2 cup chicken stock

1 shallot, finely minced

1 chipotle (from the canned chipotles in adobo sauce in the Mexican aisle), seeded and minced- cut the top off, slice vertically down one side to open it up, then scrape

1 stick of butter, unsalted preferably, but whatever

2 tbsp adobo sauce if desired

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Over medium high heat, reduce the vinegar, stock, shallots, and chipotle for 6-8 minutes or until most of the liquid has evaporated but not all.

2. Remove pan from heat (see above) and let cool for a bit (like 2-3 minutes, you can prep the butter into small bits while you let it cool). Over loooow heat, whisk in the butter 3-4 small squares at a time until the butter is incorporated. Keep whisking and adding until all of the butter is incorporated. Taste- add adobe, salt, and pepper to taste. The sauce can be kept indefinitely over LOW heat, or in a thermos to keep warm. This can be made well in advance, just don't make the mistake of reheating it over anything but low heat, which will break the sauce.

As per usual, hope everyone enjoys! I also made marinaded skirt steak fajitas Wednesday night before I left for the trip, but there's nothing to that really. I just put 2 skirt steaks into a storage bag with herb garlic marinade from the grocery store, then I grill it on my electric breakfast thing (you know- those wide black ones you put on your wedding-type registry?) and grill about 4-5 minutes a side on the highest heat it'll go, salt and pepper once they're on. You can also grill over medium high if you have a grill handy. Cut once down the middle with the grain, then slice thinly ACROSS the grain of the steak. You can slice at an angle if you can- it'll keep them thin but a nice sice. Use for fajitas, tacos, steak sandwiches, or by themselves- I kept half as leftovers and used the rest to test the chipotle beurre blanc recipe before I went on the fishing trip.

Whew- okay, that's really it! Spring's almost over, I get to start double duty coaching soccer and track at 7am Monday morning- what a way to come back from break. :(

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: The Last Kiss soundtrack

So last night was kind of an unusual request- grilled seafood. I've never personally grilled seafood, and I rarely cook fish of any sort. So when I was requested to grill shrimp, I honestly thought WTF for a lil bit. I did make sure there was chicken as well (just in case), and then proceeded to make grilled tequila shrimp, margarita chicken breasts, and a black bean and avocado salsa.

Surprisingly- all turned out well. Probably juiced more limes than I've seen in my life- everything had a lil in it. The shrimp were very easy- 30 minutes in a marinade of EVOO, lime, tequila, minced jalapeno, salt, and cumin, then skewered and grilled for just over 3 minutes on high grill heat (propane model- not always my fave, but very convenient). Have to say- good flavor, nice background spice/heat, and just about cooked right. 3 minutes and the shrimp should come off- you don't want them becoming too firm.

Chicken was good as well- very similar marinade with different quantities and cayenne pepper instead of jalapeno for heat (plus 1 hour in the marinade- do this before the shrimp). Grill heat was lowered to medium after the shrimp came off, then the chicken did 4 minutes on 1 side, then about 5 on the other. Moist, no pink, surprisingly well done given that I didn't know anything about the grill prior to using it. :)

The salsa, on the other hand, was a mess, but one that was still edible. I wanted to get roma tomatoes, but the Kroger's we went to were out, so I had to get hot house instead. Hot house tomatoes are not as easy to dice, so I decided to puree them instead- yeah, big pink mess. Chopped red onions, avocado, cleaned can of black beans, 2 jalapenos diced, some cilantro, lime juice (of course), salt, pepper, and cumin. It was way too wet from the pureed tomatoes, but when you got a hold of the chunky part, it was still good solid fresh salsa. We drained it afterwards and refrigerated- now if only I had some chips to try it with the day after. Prolly a lot better. :)

So anyhoo, that was it for the weekend. I think for Sunday night I'm just gonna buy something easy or get some takeout. We didn't eat last night until like 8:30-9, because of picking food, shopping for groceries, then marinading and grilling.. So tonight- someone else gets to cook. :) No idea what I'm cooking next week- but it feels like I should make something with pork. Last week before spring break, so the big spring break meal will be some fresh pan fried striped bass with a lemon beurre blanc, lemon pepper risotto, and then maybe roasted potatoes with parmesan. Any ideas for next week? Samonia and Amanda- I expect comments.. They make my day. :)

Current Mood: groggy

So tonight- pan fried ribeye steak with a pepper cream pan sauce, served with roasted potatoes and spicy caramelized onions. Molten chocolate brownies for dessert, with homemade whipped cream. Fucking brilliant. And Lost- now WTF is going on??? :)

And this is why I love track season and the fairness of a free for all sign up for duty- I have morning duty at school, then our first track meet of the year, so I'll work from 8am to approximately 9:30pm tomorrow. Can't effing wait. And it's almost 12:30, and I'm posting a blog. Yaaaar. :)

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Fiona Apple - Love Ridden

Just a quick announcement, I s'pose.. This year I got put in charge of the yearbook at school, a move which I sort of delayed for 2 years somehow. Well, as of about 3:25 this afternoon- we finished. It's a 240 page beast- I'm afraid to even look at what my own junior high yearbooks were, but 240 they were not. I wish I had one of my HIGH SCHOOL yearbooks handy to compare. I like to think that by and large it will be clean, and whilst simple, have a few nice spots. I know just from going through the index that there are more "inconsistent" spellings than I'd prefer, and we've probably sent over half of the pages back with corrections after seeing proofs, but hopefully it will have less mistakes than most. We'll see. I'm also knee deep in applications for next year- no rest for the weary, I guess.

At any rate.. The only other note is kind of a sentimental one. It's odd to me how this whole moving to Texas thing has worked, and I've noted a fair amount of angst this year about transitioning from Oklahoma as a home to Texas as more of a home. One of the things when I got down here was to use match.com as almost a social networking site (before those things existed).. I met several girls who I didn't wind up dating, but who I still talk to a lot. Well, tonight one of them called me about St. Patty's day (hi Hannah), and then I caught one of them on yahoo messenger and we made plans to hoooopefully hang out in a month (hey Christi!).. It's really strange, but very nice, to think that I met these 2 people verry early on after moving here, and even though we don't see each other very often (Hannah probably last July 4th, Christi.. prolly 3 years now!!) we still keep in touch fairly often via email and IM and stuff. It's cool, because one for sure thing down here is that I'm constantly meeting new people and miss having people who "know" me for any length of time. So, I guess this is just a blubbery sentimental post to mention how much I appreciate my longtime Dallas/Fort Worth friends who even if I don't see you often enough, we still chitter and stay in touch. Look forward to seeing you both again very soon!

PS- just an addon, but I'm cooking a big dinner tomorrow night, so should have some more food info to add soon. :)

Current Mood: happy

So one of my resolutions was to blog weekly- and that hasn't happened, but here I am anyway to fight the good fight. :)

So quite a while back, right around New Year's, the husband of one of my former coworkers (a math teacher) emails all of us at school about pulling a surprise birthday party for his wife's 30th. He talked about maybe dining out, then going to karaoke or, shock horror, a titty bar. Abuelo's was mentioned, because they have a room you can reserve, and my instant reaction was something along the lines of "are you nuts??" There's nothing more wasteful money-wise than dining out, aside perhaps from masturbation, but I guess you enjoy both so whatever. I said screw that, I'll cook her dinner, something that is an absolute favorite, and then we can eat and drink at someone's house on the cheap, and then go out once we're nice and buzzed. Safe, right?

So Jeff (the hubby) thinks I mean that we'll do a pot luck dinner where everyone heats something in the oven or microwave. I explained that no, really, I would cook appetizers and a main course that would feed everyone, and that would be that. So he does some digging and comes up with a favorite of Misty's (his wife, the 30 year old) that her mom makes, called Chicken Sopa. Recipe follows:

Chicken Sopa
1- 5 or 6 lb chicken skinned and cut up, or use boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 can cream of mushroom soup (may want to use healthy low fat)
1 can cream of chicken soup (may want to use healthy low fat)
1 can chicken stock (may want to use stock from cooking chicken)
1 small can green chili peppers diced or chopped
1 onion diced
1 pkg. tostados- restaurant style
1 lb sharp cheese grated
Cook chicken in water that covers it until bones can be removed from it. Remove skin and bones and cut chicken into bite sizes. Combine all ingredients except tostados and cheese and mix well. Layer into a buttered 2 qt casserole dish w/ tostados 1st, then mixture, then cheese and repeat.
Serve w/ leftover tostados.
Bake at 375 for 30 min.


You can't imagine my horror at seeing this- I was NOT going to cook something that required slapping together cans of cream soup and diced ro-tel chilis. Jeff had clearly missed the point. So I dug around a little to find an equivalent sort of thing that could substitute for the soups, and would make it fresher and more flavorful. I consulted Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen, and adapted the following, minus the Mexican greens. It's a little more involved, but quite tasty.

Roasted Poblano Crema Chicken Tostados
1 pound (approx 6) fresh poblano chiles
1 tbsp veg or olive oil
1 large white onion, sliced 1/4 inch thick
3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped (I pressed)
1/2 tsp dried oregano, preferably Mexican
1/4 tsp dried thyme (I also used fresh)
4 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup creme fraiche
1/2 cup masa harina (mixed with 1/2 cup broth or water)
Salt
Pepper
Tostados
Jack cheese
1 roasted chicken, store bought, meat shredded w/ or w/out skin (yes- you have to cheat somewhere)

Broil the poblanos 4-6 inches below a full blast broiler, turning every 3-4 minutes for about 10 minutes or until charred. Put in a mixing bowl with plastic wrap to cover, let stand 5-10 minutes. Peel, stem and seed the poblanos, and slice into thin strips.

In a 4-qt or larger stock pot or dutch oven (preferably thick bottomed), heat 1 tbsp oil over medium/medium high heat until shimmering, add onion and cook. Stir regularly until slightly browned, 5 minutes or so. Add garlic and herbs, toss for 1 minute, then add chiles and just heat through. You can add a little stock now and cook for a bit, or as I forgot the 2nd time I made this, just move on to the fun part.

Puree the mixture in a blender, probably in a couple of batches. If this were a soup, we'd strain and make it nice and smooth, but it's not a soup, so we'll skip that part too.

Add 3-4 cups of stock plus the puree and cream, bring to a simmer. Take your masa harina and water/broth mixture, and whisk into the soup. I tried straining it, but c'mon- none of us do that kind of crap. You'd want a medium mesh strainer though- we tried it with my (presumably) fine meseh KitchenAid strainer and it was just a hassle. We wound up dumping it in and it worked just fine. Whisk a lot, you probably don't want little corny tasting lumps in the mixture. Partially cover and simmer about 10 minutes, then season with salt. Add shredded chicken to mixture, mix and keep warm over low heat.

Now, here's where you can go one of two ways. The first time I made this, I went the casserole route, and it was good- the only problem was that you wanted texture from the tostados (that's why you got tostados instead of just corn tortillas afterall). Just layer like the above recipe, bake at 375 for 30 minutes, and you're golden. Personally I like to break some of the tostados in half so that you can put the straight sides against the side of the casserole, then fill in the middle with whole tostados. I made sure the very top was just tostados and cheese- kind of lasagna style. We still ate it with the leftover tostados for crunch. Second time I made this, to make it a little more hand-held party food style, I just made little tostados by putting the filling on top of a tostado, cheese on top, then putting in a 400 degree oven until the cheese had just melted. I think adding a touch of sour cream and green onion might be a nice touch after coming out of the oven, but it didn't occur to me last weekend. You could also probably spice up the mix a little with diced serranos or jalapenos, but the poblanos give it a nice mild spicy chile flavor that people seemed to like a lot. Serve immediately and enjoy!

It's funny- the mixture winds up looking more than mildly guacamole-esque, so some people were kind of put off at first. Then they smelled and tasted, and I actually had requests for it at school from people who were at the party. Misty wants the recipe because she secretly thinks it's better than mom's- though I warned her that mom's was a lot easier and prolly still nice and comfort foody. :) Bayless suggests serving the soup part with diced ham, cilantro, and fried tortilla strips, or maybe even some diced red skin potatoes that had been boiled and salted. All sound very tasty in the soup- I think ham and tortilla strips would be very good- crunchy and, well, porky. :)

So I guess it was a hit- I started cooking around 1pm, made meat fillings for what I had planned to be empanadas, but wound up being quesadillas instead. We had leftovers today at school for a taco party, and will eat a little bit of the leftovers tomorrow as well. I made two 9 x 13 Pyrex dishes full of meat filling. That was 3 pounds of ground beef and 3 packs of chorizo sausage. I had hoped to make a roasted corn and black bean filling as well, but that got cut for time. The empanadas went the way side because it would involve dough prep, cutting, rolling, filling, crimping, and then baking. Quesadillas are stupid easy- they're just glorified grilled cheese sandwiches afterall. And people like 'em- I put butter on the outside and make sure the tortillas are warm first, so that they're brown and crunchy on the outside and melty in the middle. We held them warm in a 200 degree oven before serving as an appetizer, then ramped up the heat to make the tostados. Fed around 20 with obviously lots of leftovers (well- I tripled the recipe for the chicken crema, actually, oops!).

Otherwise life is just as insane as ever- yearbook final deadline is next Tuesday, and I'm taking Wednesday off to rest. Probably won't party (though a bottle of champagne sounds fun), but just rest and relax and blow off the inevitable steam that will be created. Yearbook rep thinks everything looks great so far- but I'm concerned because out of a 240 page yearbook, we've probably sent about 150 pages back with edits off the proofs. It's about $4 a page for each edit, so I'm guess that's a new digital camera we just blew, or 3 licenses of Adobe Creative Suite for the classroom. But I guess it's better to have a book that is as close to error free as we can make it- profit is secondary. Still, we'd better start selling the hell out of yearbooks. We'll start a marketing push after we finish next week with sample photos and stuff- I also have to start recruiting kids to be in yearbook for next year. Fuck me- can't I just finish this one and be lazy? :)

Oh- almost forgot. Watched "This Film is not Yet Rated" tonight. Great documentary about the MPAA ratings board and their secret society-esque control over whether movies with sex in them can get released in the US or not. Oh- but they don't censor. As long as you leave the blood out- kill whoever you want however you want. Just don't show pubes or female orgasm. Unless you work for the studios, in which case Sharon Stone can show us her whole bit and you can get an R. Verrrry fun movie- they actually stake out the ratings board with 2 lesbian PIs (which adds an interesting wrinkle, given how the ratings board usually deals with gay/bi/lesbian sexual themes) and find out the names and backgrounds of all of the raters but one. The one public member of the ratings board (its chairwoman) of course assures us that all of the raters are "average parents" with children between 7 and 15, and only rate for 3-5 years. 2 of the men on the board are divorced with no kids, several have kids in college or older, etc etc. There was 1 Asian woman for diversity, but everyone else was white as far as I can remember. Enough detail- you should rent or Netflix it. :)

Current Mood: sleepy

..since I guess I've been converted over to ye olde myspace blogging, which sort of gives me mixed feelings. :) Myspace- is it the devil, or just another fad waiting to pass? Hmm.

At any rate- post-Thanksgiving update I s'pose.. I came home early from Oklahoma City, and surprisingly I was very productive the past couple of days. When I left, my apartment was a total mess, now I've mostly wrangled the living room and the kitchen.. I'm going to pick up the dining room today and maybe clean the bathroom a little, and at least the "public" parts of the apartment will be presentable. I rate it as a pretty fair accomplishment all in all. Good thing, too- this week is going to be nuts.

Monday night: 7th grade boys basketball- I'll be "supervising" the gym.
Tuesday night: Freedom! But we have a deadline for the yearbook, so it'll be a busy day.
Wednesday night: High school volleyball banquet.. Free food, nice time, I'm sure I'll be recognized for winning district with the middle school which will be nice.
Thursday night: 8th grade girls basketball- there's a chance I may not have to work this. We shall see.
Friday night: Parents Night Out- it's a pseudo lock-in at school with stuff from 5-8 (I'm working the back gym/volleyball) and then a dance after that. So yeah, I'll be at school 'til 8.

Fun week, right? Anyone want to swap? :)

This week I'm teaching the Constitution to my 8th graders. We're going to do a little breakdown of the Preamble tomorrow (no memorization, we're analyzing dammit), then basic constitutional principles like federalism, checks and balances, seperation of powers, etc, before moving on to more specifics on government powers. Finally, Friday we'll talk about how the Bill of Rights addresses concerns found in the Declaration of Independence, and start going through amendment by amendment. Simultaneously, the kids are doing this simulation game.. I give them 10 minutes at the end of class to spend points for a "turn" of the game. They're in groups based on the notion of a state of nature where they have to re-design society because all the adults suddenly disappeared (excepting me of course!). So it's kind of an exercise in practical governance- they get to see how expensive it is to try and do everything all at once, and have to pick priorities in what they want to develop. They also learn a little bit about organizing government- their small groups can form larger federal or confederation-type governments which share part of their points to benefit all of the groups. So they learn the problems of direct democracy (letting all of the group members have a voice or vote in spending the shared points) vs. representative democracy (picking someone to go spend the federal points while the rest of them work on the local points). It's pretty useful, I think, and some groups are pretty good at working together, while other classes just suck. In a week or so I'll let them start interacting with the other classes, and see what kind of messes they can get each other into. It's fun, and the most "science-y" thing I could come up with for a history class. We never get to do anything fun like that, so it's a nice break from the monotony. :)

At any rate- that's next week. Hope everyone's enjoying their post-Thanksgiving, umm... Roundness? :)

Current Mood: relaxed

So time for a substantial post. There have been quite a lot of things going lately- busy with school, busy with the personal life, etc.. I discovered over the holiday break just how bad my financial situation is, since I've managed to go from an okay situation to stretched to the max since the summer by making some bad, thoughtless decisions. So I've been learning about the whole budget process and trying to live within my means, rather than just saying eff it and spending however I wanted because "it'll be okay."

School has been okay, it just seems like there's something every week that keeps me busy. We're in panic mode a little, because the 8th graders have to take their state mandated test in April, and so you've gotta get everything covered. That means we're going to try and crank out a chapter a week, and there's gonna be lots of highlights and skipping specifics. It sucks because I haven't had time to wrap up the big simulation activity thing we started last semester. I'm afraid it's been so long now that the kids won't remember exactly what's going on if or when we do ever find time.

Probably the most fun I've had is with my new Kitchenaid stand mixer. Today, for example, I made my first pizza completely from scratch. I made the dough last night, then grilled some chicken, chopped some red & yellow peppers, serrano peppers, and red onions and added cheddar/jack cheese. Good stuff, lemme tell ya, I just need to figure out what kind of sauce to add to it. I used a caribbean jerk marinade for the chicken, and maybe that's what I should use for a sauce as well. Dunno. Gotta figure it out, and the cool thing is that I have 4 more dough balls in the freezer, so I can make more next weekend to figure it out. :) I also made some more focaccia last week, and it was a huge hit at school. I made sure to go to all the older ladies and give them a piece, so now I'm like the favored son around campus all of a sudden. It's fun. I'll probably make some more next weekend to take up to school. It's kind of fun because I feel like I've "figured it out" so to speak. Comparing things to my *first* loaf of focaccia back in thanksgiving break.. Wowsers. This last one just had such a good crust, and that first one's crust was awwwwful. I picked off the bottom and threw most of it in the lake for the birds to chew on. :) I even gave some kids a bit of my bread last week, and they loved it. So now I'm kind of the celebrity chef amongst them. It's fun.

Weight loss is still going well, and it's all a bit weird too. I'm kind of hot shit all of a sudden, and that is awkward, for someone who can show you frumpy chubby pics from August. It makes me look forward to being single and able to date though, because it's all a bit more exciting. It also makes me want to lose the next 10 pounds or so and get down under 200 pounds for the first time since, well, I was 20? Fun stuff. :) I'm also doing lots of pushups, so suddenly I might have an upper body instead of just a belly.

I've also taken kind of an unusual step for me, in that I'm finally trying to create a means of making money outside of school. I have an opportunity to shoot and edit a wedding video for a friend of mine from school, and I'm going to try and parley that into a side business for the summers. Even if I only make a little money, it'll pay for my camcorders and computer upgrades, and I even have some ideas running around for other projects I might use them for. It's not like a get-rich-quick-scheme by any stretch, but it could be fun and fit in well with having my summers off. The only other thought I had for making extra money would be to find some kind of cooking job around here that I could work part time during the summer just to get a bit more experience. Either way, to help me make some debt payment goals, I need to make extra money somehow some way. I may also sign up to sub for summer school, and they get paid pretty well. So yeah, lots of little things going on there, so no big travel plans this summer after getting spoiled last summer with Paris, London, and DC.

So I guess that's what's shakin these days. Gonna go grade a few tests and watch the Carolina-Seattle game. Hope everyone's having a good 2006 so far, even if it took me 3 weeks to get around to writing about it. :)

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: Batman Begins soundtrack

You are Jayne, the bravo of the group. You may not
be too bright, but you got muscles and can hit
a man in the neck from 500 yards with a bent
scope. You send money to your mother and as
much has you may dislike it, you're a hero.


Which Firefly character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I got Mal the first time, but I figured that was no fun, so I changed a coupla answers and got Jayne. Whoot! I've graded 15 of 99 essays now- only.. 84 to go. Yikes. I need to find a carrot to dangle with this grading, but I haven't any money to go spend.. I dunno, maybe I'll go get flour at the store and some milk and parmesan and make some fettucini alfredo tonight to treat myself. Dunno. Hafta figure something out so that I can go from, oh, irritated to more like "determined." Anyone have ideas?

Current Mood: irritated
Current Music: Nothing..

All the bloggy kids seem to be playing this at the moment, and who am I not to jump on a bandwagon. Thus...

Four jobs you’ve had in your life: Applications clerk at the Oklahoma Guaranteed Student Loan Program (high school summers), Reservations whore for Hertz Worlwide Reservations (college summers), Production Assistant at FOX25 News OKC, middle school teacher, coach, department chair.

Four movies you could watch over and over: Real Genius, Grosse Pointe Blank, Mallrats, Office Space

Four places you’ve lived: Eh.. Midwest City; Oklahoma City U dorms; renthouse on Drexel in OKC; Lewisville, TX

Four TV shows you love to watch: Monster House, Lost, Good Eats, My Name is Earl

Four places you’ve been on vacation: Washington, DC; Claremont, CA; Chicago, London

Four Web sites you visit daily: Soccernet, My Yahoo, Crooks and Liars, Arsenal World

Four of your favorite foods: Lasagna, fajitas, cereal (take your pick!), Kraft mac & cheese with miracle whip instead of buttah.

Four places you’d rather be: London, Chicago, Iceland, DC

Four albums you can’t live without: Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese Dream; Liz Phair, Exile from Guyville; Tori Amos, Boys for Pele; at the moment the King Kong soundtrack

Current Mood: groggy
Current Music: Watching some Star Wars

...you've been warned. And it's wine from Oklahoma- bizarre.

So among the things that happens in this kind of Xmas-y break is that I have too much time to myself. Time to stress, time to be introspective, time to watch movies (Love Actually tonight), time to play Xbox, and time to be a disgusting pig and eat on the couch and gain back all that weight I lost. :)

Along those lines, and with a bottle of wine, I kind of thought it might be sort of useful to write a nice fun rambling entry tonight. With no rhythm whatsoever, and in no particular order:

-I love tracks 20 and 21 of the King Kong soundtrack.

-Ironically, I sort of thought it might be time (as I write on the internet) to ditch my cable modem connection. This presents difficulties, as the filter at school would prevent me from future updates. But- watching this movie tonight in particular reminds me that you can't meet the woman of your dreams (who you can't speak the same language as) on the internet. Sorry, I've been on match and eharmony and matchmaker and yahoo personals and god knows what else, and I guess it shows how stubborn and stupid I am that I haven't realized this sooner. And I enjoy IMing folks, but it's not the same. I read some random tidbit about people who IM not being as happy as people with real life contact, and I'm sort of curious. So cold turkey might be sort of harsh, but last time I checked, I can always steal wireless from a neighbor.

-I installed Quicken 2006 yesterday. Yikes I have screwed myself over financially. Somebody wake me up when it's 2009 and I *might* be out of debt.

-I was reading about the history of the common school movement the other day (a book about the separation between church and state), and in particular about how the first common schools tried to incorporate a non-sectarian moral religious education along with everything else. It occurs to me that the best way to settle our religion-in-public-education problem might be to incorporate a similar program: Readings from all traditions that emphasize common moral themes. Christianity (of course, but both Protestant and Catholic), Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, philosophy, whatever we can incorporate into the curriculum. As non-religious as I am, I will admit that we educate some pretty immoral or amoral bastards these days, and our capitalist 2-party society doesn't help things. This would also serve the dual purpose of giving a common ground for our students and introduce some much needed diversity. After this whole war on Xmas thing, it's obvious that we need a little bit of common ground to walk on. Seriously? Happy Holidays? It's surreal- like people are running around saying "Shoot the President!" or "Vote for Bin Laden!" or something. I like to think it's honest inclusiveness not PC shit. At any rate- I suspect that the person who seriously tries to present this as an idea will summarily be shot by the conservatives and the liberals will *almost* lift a finger in time. And then mourn tremendously and use it as a campaign issue but still not win back a majority in either house of Congress.

-I've been giving a lot of thought to the idea of centrist politics in the US lately too, but that's a pretty daunting task. I'm just frustrated that there is no fact any more, that the undercurrent in our country is very us vs. them taken to a new extreme.. Red state vs. blue state is a scary idea, and I really wish, as stupid as it sounds, that we could just try to do what's best for all of us. Where all the white states? (Haha- bring back whitey!) Or you know, red/white/blue states who are just interested in doing what's best for all of us. Then again, there are corporations involved in politics. We're so fucked.

-So this guy's blog mentioned reading a book about the fall of the Roman Empire. He writes about politics and corruption in DC. And he mentions that book with no hint of its relation to the US. Ah well.

-I was recently in charge of our staff Xmas party at school. It was awesome. People were hugely entertained by my Scrooge and Santa awards- I had the teachers vote for a person on staff most like Scrooge, and then someone most like a Santa and/or Mrs. Claus. Then I stuck a camcorder in front of middle school kids and asked them who THEY would vote for and why. Then I edited an 8 minute clip together with some music and titles and the whole 9.. Folks laughed a lot at the party- I was quite proud.

-I have to grade essays between now and next Wednesday. Lovely.

-I love Serenity too.

-Anyone know of a way to make about $2400 a year extra? It'd be greatly appreciated. I've actually thought of getting a job as a part time cook someplace. Handy experience and extra money. Wonder if they'd work around my teaching/coaching schedule?

-Since it's 12/27/05- here are questions #12, #27, and #5 I wrote once in my journal:

#12: If you had to choose one place to live the rest of your life, where?

#27: Fave beer?

#5: What one value would you want to pass on to your kids?

My answers (maybe)- #12: someplace near London, #27: I've been on a severe Hefeweizen kick of late, #5: Tough one. Dammit, why isn't it 06 yet? Probably I would want them to value humanity at its most basic.. Value the fact that we're bigger than just one person or one society, that it would be better for the US if the, oh, 2.7 billion people in China, Africa, and India were research cures for cancer or aids than the 300 million in the US. Even if it meant Pfizer didn't make enough money from Viagra sales to meet quarterly stock goals.

Anyhoo. I'm gonna go watch Serenity. Hope everyone is having a great holiday- my Xmas was awesome and I'm looking forward to another yo-yo to Oklahoma for New Year's (though it'd be nice if I didn't have to). Might be the last chance I can afford to drink for a while. Yar.

Current Mood: thirsty
Current Music: Duh- Kong soundtrack