Monday

The cold Weather continues....it was in the upper 30's overnight, though the house held the heat without using the furnace. It was 60 inside this morning when I got up and I know the furnace had not run since I had shut it off the other day. It's a balmy 52 right now and partially cloudy though thunderstorms are predicted and temps just below freezing overnight.

I had a massive pounding headache this morning, bad enough to keep me home from work guilt-free but since I will be out Wednesday when they come to install my fiber service I dragged myself in. As I type this at lunchtime my head still is bothering me, though not quite as bad. I would not mind going home and crawling into bed though!

My Son Chris has his first day today at his new job; I hope it goes well for him and he enjoys it!

Sunday

Another quiet day.....the X phoned as I was getting ready for an e-bike ride reminding me I had promised to look at her lawn mower which won't start. I must have gotten up wrong (I had Tails napping on me and did not want to disturb her) because I twisted my back when I got up to answer her call. Fortunately the e-bike ride and some subsequent stretching exercises took care of it over the course of the day.

I told her I would be there in an hour or so after my e-bike session. I was pretty sure the spark plug on the mower was either shot or fouled, so, I managed to find my spark plug socket on the first look and headed over.

I removed the spark plug from the mower and it was fouled, so with some emery paper I got it cleaned up, reinstalled, and the mower running on the third pull of the rope.

I am sure Scott was thrilled that I fixed the lawn mower since he would have to cut the grass now!

I went inside to tell the X who was sitting on the floor trying to extricate Chris old baby blanket from the vacuum cleaner. She told me she and Scott had tried to pull it out. I sat down in a chair, and within a couple of minutes had it taken care of.

She invited me to dinner, and I headed home, picking up the ingredients for my side dish which would be Perogies in a sausage cheese sour cream sauce.

I went back there a few hours later and the five of us ate; the X had made a nice London broil, one of the kind that are packaged in a marinate, and it was very good.

I headed back home and spent some time cleaning up, playing FATE on the PC, and continuing my effort to watch all the recorded TV on the Dish Network PVR before I cancel the service Thursday after the Wednesday scheduled install of my AT&T U-Verse fiber optic service.

That's about it....a very uneventful weekend.

midnight postings and ramblings

A very late or early hour for me to be blogging but.....

WHAT A FREAKING DIFFERENCE 24 HOURS CAN MAKE

Friday night it was 80 degrees and Saturday it was 50! Insane!

Chris came over Friday night, he and I watched The Dr. Who premier from the previous week and an hour long Good Eat we had never seen where Alton is stranded on a deserted island and makes all kinds of food using native ingredients, while slowly losing his mind and making a companion out of an old coconut....quite bizarre yet entertaining!

Not much going on today (Saturday); no kids, so Tails and I hung out home. I tried to fix the screen slider off the living room, I took it down figuring the wheels were broken but all four were fine, I tried adjusting them all and still cannot get it to slide right in the track without jamming.

Did some more cleaning in my office today, it's almost to a point where I won't die from shame when AT&T comes out Wednesday to install fiber.

High a nice long chat with the X's brother Kevin today, it was really good to talk to him at length, seems we rarely have a chance to do that these days.

Speaking of the X she came over this evening and we watched this weeks Supernatural and a Just Shoot Me (How the Finch Stole Christmas) which neither of us has seen since we were living together. A blast from the past indeed.

In my mission to watch all the stored TV off of my Disk Network PVR, I am doing well! A week ago there was almost 100 hours of recorded TV programs, today there is barely 10! If all goes well this Thursday I will call Dish Network to cancel my service! Whoo Hoo! Can't wait for fiber optic service!

Recipe - An alternative to the Burger King Cheesy Bacon BK Wrapper

I don't know about the rest of you but breakfast is one of my favorite meals of the day. I could eat breakfast any time. Bacon and eggs for lunch and dinner are fine by me.

Of course many people around the world eat breakfast at fast food places, and it is well known how bad this type of fare is for you nutritionally.

While I realize those who 'eat on the go' may have no choice (or willpower to nab something else), those that are willing to do a little work can come up with a healthier and tastier alternative which is what I've done with this recipe.

I recently (yes, I admit it!) tried the new Burger King Cheesy Bacon BK Wrapper which consists of scrambled egg, smokey cheese sauce, bacon, and hash browns wrapped in a flour tortilla. While sound in concept, it falls short in a number of areas. Nutrition being the first, plus there is barely enough bacon and potato to taste, and in my humble opinion the smokey cheese sauce added nothing except perhaps calories.

I realized that I could not eat these on a regular basis, and I yearned for something like this that I could! So, concept firmly in mind I set out to make Chris' Cheesy Bacon Breakfast Wrap. I spent a few days on and off thinking about this. The hardest part was trying to find nutrition information on Burger King's offering. There is none on their site but I finally found it on an excellent site called The Impulse Buy.

See below for nutritional breakdown compared to the Burger King version, ingredients, and preparation.

Nutritional Breakdown - Burger King Version
390 calories, 24 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 1.5 grams of trans fat, 150 milligrams of cholesterol, 1080 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of carbs, 1 gram of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, 14 grams of protein

Nutritional Breakdown - My Version

292 calories, 10 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams trans fat, 33 milligrams of cholesterol, 1190 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of carbs (17 grams net carbs) , 14.5 grams of fiber, 2.5 grams of sugar, 27 grams of protein

Wow! Mine has 25% fewer calories, less than half the total fat, no trans fat, 75% less cholesterol, much more fiber, and double the protein. Note it does have a bit more sodium since I am using two slices of turkey bacon and a bit more sugar (why do they add sugar to fat-free cheese anyway??). Oh, and mine, at least to my palette, tastes much better


Recipe - Chris' Cheesy Breakfast Bacon Wrap

Ingredients (for 1 wrap)

2 slices Louis Rich Turkey Bacon
1/3 cup egg beaters

1/3 cup (two ounces) Simply Potatoes Shredded Hash Browns

1 LaTortilla Factory large low carb whole wheat tortilla
1 slice Kraft Singles Fat Free Sharp Cheddar

1 fluid ounce (1/8th cup) 2% Milk

Freshly ground black pepper

Notes:

• I have tried many brands of Turkey Bacon; nothing comes close to the Louis Rich variety; it is delicious! Other brands have been passable to something like shoe leather consistency, so, get this brand! If you have ever had turkey bacon and not liked it, and you have not had this, you just have not had turkey bacon. In some places it is now being branded as Oscar Mayer with the Louis Rich in smaller type. Same product, available at many grocery stores and Costco/Sam's Club.
  
• Two of these wraps make a nice dinner. If you wish to make more than one, multiply the ingredients above by the number of wraps you wish to make.
  

Preparation:

• Lightly spray with Pam-type no stick spray a non-stick skillet and cook turkey bacon how you like it, be it crispy or not, turning once.
• Remove pan from heat and remove turkey bacon from pan. Lightly spray pan again with Pam and add shredded potatoes. Cook until lightly browned (or more depending on preference).
• While potatoes are cooking lightly whisk egg beaters and milk. Make sure potatoes are distributed evenly over the bottom the pan and then slowly pour in egg beaters mixture. Lightly sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper. Cook covered over low heat until top is done. Uncover and remove from heat.
• Cut cheddar cheese slice in half and place end to end on tortilla along with two strips of bacon, and add contents of pan. If making more than one wrap divide contents of pan across tortillas after proceeding above with cheese and bacon for each one. Roll up, eat, and enjoy!

WHY does eating out have to be so bad for you at fast food places? Here is a very satisfying breakfast wrap that is much better for you.

Food, Kids, Computers, TV, and Weather

Not much happened over the weekend; the weather was nice, we ended up grilling some Steaks on Sunday; Saturday I made three cheese and garlic herb tortellini with garlic and mushrooms for dinner; the X was working a show over the weekend so I invited her to stop in on her way home for a bowl of food. And good news, she's finally on the mend and seems to be mostly recovered. There was enough leftover so I gave her a bowl to take with her. She and I watched an episode of Dirt while we ate. After growing up with Courteney Cox Arquette in Friends and Family Ties it is so shocking to see her play the evil, scheming, and seemingly heartless lead character on Dirt!

Chris goes for his drug test today and then his first day of work is Monday. This is so exciting! If he does well and likes this company he could be working there after he graduates in three years. He'll be working 8AM to 5PM which means he'll need to get up fairly early since he needs to allow time to get to work. I hope he gets into the routine OK; he's used to staying up all night, going to bed in the AM, and getting up sometime in the mid-afternoon. Even when on campus he'll be up most of the night and grab a couple of hours sleep before classes; I don't know how he does it; ah to be young again!

Danielle appears to be making a bit of an effort to be on the Internet less and spend some more time with me watching TV and such; she still spends way too much time doing non-creative things. She barely uses the tablet and pen anymore that I got for her last birthday, but Scott uses it quite a bit so its not like it is going to waste. Danielle is still taking a lot of pictures, mostly of Tails and has captured some good shots.

Scott, sadly, is moving into his second week having insomnia again; he is worried about stuff that may happen over a year from now when friends go off to college and his loses touch with them. Hopefully he will sort this out and move on and do what I've been telling him, which is not worry about things that will never happen. I've also mentioned that good friends will keep in touch! Scott is such a good, sensitive, and talented young man; I hope he overcomes this as he gets older.

Tails is as cute as ever and has adopted my bed as a resting place when she wishes to be left alone; now that the weather is warming up I leave my room and the windows open and this allows a good flow through ventilation with the rear sliders opened.

Its been in the 70's since Sunday and will be through the end of the week though temps are expected to drop into 60's and possibly 50's over the weekend, though the weekend is forecast to be dry. We shall see.

I ordered AT&T's U-Verse fiber optic service last Friday. For a few dollars less that what I am paying now, I will have phone, TV, and Internet delivered over a fiber optic link, with more speed, channels, features, and even HD programming! If I add in the cost of what Dish Network would charge me add another savings of $20 each month!

Such geeky features too! Check out the U-Verse site here. I can't wait they come on the 30th! Its an all day install (6 to 8 hours). I spent some time cleaning my office and the utility room where they will have to work, though my office needs additional cleaning to get it beyond the embarrassingly dirty/disorganized stage that I would not want strangers to see. Weird how that works isn't it? My kids and others I know see it and it does not bother me at all!

The new Home Theater PC is now fully setup; I had four problems that took me a couple of weeks to solve 3 of, and the fourth is an issue with Microsoft Media Center; it's a know issue and from what I see on the Internet, Microsoft says the fault is with the video drivers I am using which makes it the video card vendors issue....and of course the video card vendor says it Microsoft's fault. I have logged tech support calls and we shall see what happens. I brought the box in for the old one, once I do a couple of minor things to that I can box it and sell it. Then the last pending computer job is to build one for the X wife; back before they changed the rules at work I obtained a decent desktop Pentium 4 machine which will certainly be better that her Pentium II PC she's been using for the past 8 years. I will have to load it and install it at her place.

The New Camera

So, last week my new camera came. Having a decent 7.1 mega pixel Shirt Pocket Form Factor Casio camera with a 3x optical zoom I was not really in the market for one. But woot had this one on sale for $99 last week:

It is factory refurbished. I never buy refurbished unless it is factory certified by the original manufacturer and comes with the full years warranty, not that 90 day deal you get from some places. It looks brand new and features 12 mega pixels and a 5x optical zoom while still fitting in a shirt sleeve pocket. Read an independent review of it here. A good deal, since the lowest price I could find the same factory refurbish elsewhere was $179.

I LOVE THIS CAMERA! It also takes HD video at 1280x720 resolution and unlike most digital still picture cameras that do video, it will auto focus and let you use the zoom while filming. The shots I have taken have been gorgeous, and it also has a built in panorama mode where you take three pictures, such as of a nice scenic landscape or cityscape, and it stitches them into one wide picture. See an example below and remember it has been scaled down somewhat so as not to use too much picture quota on the blog. The original shot is just over 30 megabytes and has dimensions of 6124x1648. Click the picture for a larger version.

doo doo doo, looking out my back door!

Danielle is happy because the previous camera has been delegated for the kids to use and she has been following Tails around taking many pictures!

Speaking of Tails, here is a shot of her taken with the new camera; look how cute and fuzzy she is!!! Click the picture for a larger version. Awwwww!

Oh, Day of Days!!

Yesterday I called my Dad to see how he was feeling; he was very excited! Evidently there is a clinical trial of a new treatment for those with emphysema that may help hi,! He will be going for pre-screening Monday to see if he is eligible. Pray for the best please!

I know from talking to his girlfriend he is not in good shape! She mentioned they went out to her doctor the other day and he had his O2 with him; he was so winded when they got there he ended up in a wheelchair because he did not have enough breath to walk. I am hoping this procedure is doable for him, but it is the first glimmer of hope we have seen for him. I will be cautiously optimistic until I hear back from him next week.

So, I get off the phone from my dad, and it rings again, it's Chris, my 19 year old who has been looking for a job suitable for his co-op program at Kettering University, and he's got a job! Wow! And not the one in Detroit which would have totally sucked because we would hardly ever see him, but close enough to town so he'll still be in the area 6 months of each year!

THEN, On the geek side, the phone rings again, and it's the X, she's met someone at work who does AT&T sales and she's telling be about fiber optic service being available in our area, so, I will be signing up today. For what I am paying now for my phone, Internet, and Satellite TV, I will get so much more over a fiber optic connection including HD TV which I do not have and would cost me an extra $20/month over what I will be paying.

I have not had a day this good since before the divorce! I think that's entirely too long to wait for such a day. I am still giddy today.....is this what happy feels like?? ;)

So, it was such a good day I was almost afraid to go out of the house this morning!

Monday Evening's bad news!

Note this was written Tuesday so adjust time references relative to then.

I arrived home last night to very visibly upset children who, after being calmed down told me of a terrible situation, our good friend, teacher, and companion, the satellite service was broken!! After the kids and I got over the shock of the receiver is stuck in a test loop I accessed the situation; it was dire! We could not even watch any of the recorded content)! I called Dish Network and after being disconnected twice after being on hold almost 20 minutes finally got someone who could speak, but strangely enough, not under English!

The first thing I did was inform them I ran the self test and the box was stuck in a test loop and would do nothing else no matter what buttons on the unit or the remote were depressed.

So, of course thing I am told to do is:

"OK, press the menu button on the remote so we can go to the main menu."

"Uh, I just told you nothing works the box is stuck in a test loop. It's error 502 which states the box will do nothing until the satellite feed into it is fixed.

"Now, sir, please, I just need you to go into the main menu so I can check a few things." was the reply........

No matter how patiently I described it quite a few times, that I couldn't 'go to the main menu BECAUSE THE BOX IS STUCK IN A TEST LOOP!! Yes, at this point I was raising my voice somewhat.....I wonder where they farm out their L1 support to.......

After a seemingly endless eternity of trying to get that across I asked for and was transferred to a supervisor who immediately says "Hmm, error 502 the box must be stuck in a test loop!" right after I gave him the error number.

After asking me why I was sobbing he scheduled the maintenance call. They can't have anyone come out until Thursday the 17th (whimper!) so I must work from home that day.

I got the typical 9AM to 5PM window.....I think the kids may be too addicted to TV....I found them sitting on the floor in front of it mesmerized by the test loop display, the younger one whispering to the older one "look, my favorite screen of the test loop is coming up!"! I noticed this not because I was sitting there watching with them you understand, but because I am a concerned parent and the house had gotten very quiet!(Gee, I wonder which screen of the test loop I'm missing right now!?!!???)

If you in any way enjoyed this post OR have had bad dealings with tech support, check out this older post entitled If there's no Internet this must be Wednesday!. It is both a horrifying yet amusing tale of my worst tech support experience that happened with my ISP back in 2006 (wow, have I really been blogging this long.....Chris Falco: Proudly boring the world for over two years now!)

Note my recanting of the the interaction with Dish support might be a bit embellished, but, it is atypical of support from large companies today. I was disconnected by their automated systems twice...and I was told to press the menu key after patiently explaining it would not respond to any commands......

L1 support by the way is the first level of tech support; most times these people are not technically oriented and thus paid less; they troubleshoot by rote utilizing scripts....which can be very frustrating to the more technical savvy customers.

A Long week

It's been a very long week since my last writing here; as touched on in my last post the X is still sick, and on some days barely able to function; Sunday for example she had a blinding headache that really took a lot out of her! I worry about her because she pushes herself and suffers from what I call 'weight of the world on your shoulders syndrome'. She's been on at least two different antibiotics and assorted meds for the symptoms and as of this morning she is only marginally better. She needs to relax and smell the roses more.

I've done what I could, offering to run errands, watch the kids extra, and making her meals whenever I can.....I worry about her and hope she feels better soon.

Not much to tell other than that, though I may do a post or two about the new bargain prices camera, problems with my satellite service and tech support experience, and other issues. The kids enjoyed their week and two days off and are now back at school for the first day. I do not realize they had yesterday off too until my door burst open Sunday evening and Scott, surrounded by members of his entourage entered, Scott announcing that they were here to take the Rockband instruments over to a friends house where he was sleeping over.

The new Home Theater PC is 99% setup, and the old one is 88% ready to be sold, having been restore to factory defaults over the weekend and then having all the latest service packs and updates installed.

The weather is slowly moderating and doing the typical West Michigan thing; for example; it was below freezing overnight, 32 when I awoke and by mid-afternoon the temperature will have risen over 30 degrees to take us into the 60's!

I hereby proclaim that WINTER IN WEST MICHIGAN IS OVER and this weekend, with a Devil May Care attitude, I shall drain the snowblower of any remaining gas, and perhaps this very evening pour what's left of the gas can into the Mustang!

Anyway, for those that stop by on a regular basis, I just thought I'd take a brief lunchtime moment to post this.

Flight 405 Video

For those of you have never seen the video about Flight 405, it is a MUST SEE. It depicts a large jet having to make an emergency landing on the highway.



I'd be very interested in comments from anyone who watches this or had seen it.

Just another Monday in West Michigan

I had half a day as a personal day Monday so I just worked from 6P30-AM to 10:30AM and headed home. Scott and Danielle are at my house this week and have the week off. so Sunday night before retiring I put all the items I need for work into my bathroom so as not to disturb them. I got dressed and then headed right out the door by the garage.

After arriving home I rode the exercise bike and then headed out to the garage. A couple of months ago I had bought a holder for my iPod that plugs into the cigarette lighter and then broadcasts the sound from the iPod over the FM radio band. I finally decided to take it out of package and try it out. It worked flawlessly and I was berating myself for not having used it awhile back. I backed the car out of the garage and headed down to Forest Hills foods to get legal size envelopes to mail my taxes in. After getting them addresses back at the house the kids and I headed out.

It should be noted it's another glorious sunny day in West Michigan; the temperature at 2PM is barely 60 but Scott and I forgo wearing coats.

We stopped at Wendy's first for lunch then PetSmart for a couple of cat related items, and finally the Post Office so I could send out the taxes. Normally the accountant files mine but the X mishandled Christopher's (my oldest boy) taxes and had him claim himself as a deduction which he can't do as he's claimed on mine. SO my e-file bounced and now here I am paying for his amended return processing and running around with paper forms and such......oh well!

That done we returned home and Scott headed off for a bike ride, and Danielle, well......need I say anything??

Scott and Ben arrived back at my house and around 5:40 Ben departed. Scott, Danielle, and I headed over to their Mom's house so they could clean their rooms. After leaving there we parked on the side of Forest Hills Food and Scott headed off to China Garden to get dinner while Danielle and I went into Forest Hills Food; the X has been sick all weekend and was feeling terrible today after being diagnosed with a viral infection. She has so much on her plate with trying to run her company and all, I worry about her! We picked up something she needed at the store (her dinner was being taken care of by Scott next door) and I picked up a get well card for her as well.

We met Scott over by China Garden and then headed back to the X's where I ran in with her food and card, asking Christopher to serve his Mom because I wanted NOT to have this infection if I could avoid it! I also got to try some spicy beef jerky he had to procure which he said they made him sign a wavier for! Chris' friend Mike was there and he thought the jerky was very hot while Chris and I thought it had a nice spicy taste but certainly nothing major!

I exited the X's house and returned home where Scott, Danielle, and I enjoyed dinner watching a Simpson's episode (Treehouse of Horror XVII) and an episode of "The Critic". We followed this with an episode of "Monk" and then Danielle departed for the computer while Scott and I watched Psych.

The Weekend

Saturday: After getting up around 8:30 I spent some time continuing the finishing touches on the migration of the old HTPC to the new one which I had moved into the entertainment system cabinet last weekend. iTunes was not recognizing anything except the few songs I had purchased. Post thinking and troubleshooting about this the answer turned out to be somewhat easy; on the old HTCP my external drive was drive E: and on the new it had gotten mapped at J: because for some reason the card read slots were taking the first four drive letters. I had to disable both USB disk devices and then trial and error fashion re-enable the one the drive was plugged into. After doing that changing it to drive E: was easy, iTunes came up and all my songs were accessible. I re-enabled the other USB device and the card reader slots mapped above them.

Danielle arose around 10:30 and after a good morning headed downstairs, I rode the exercise bike around 11 and after I had finished up Scott had wakened and we headed out for some errands. We stopped at Costco first for some items. I had to wait when I finally got to the register as they were changing tape. "Good News!" exclaimed the cashier brightly, "You get to be first on a new roll! Isn't that great!" The person next to him who boxes your purchase looked at this guy askance as if to say "What planet is this gut from", and I brightly interjected "Oh my god, something must seriously be wrong with me, you know because here is this great thing, like, first with new register tape, and for some reason I find myself unable to drum up even mediocre interest!" This set the boxing dude into much laughter along with patrons and the supervisor who were within earshot. As I was handed the receipt I muttered pseudo sotto voce "I can't want to get home and put this in my memories box! This is truly a day to remember!!" which caused a fresh burst of laughter.

We zipped over to GameStop because after I had sold a couple of xBox 360 games to a coworker a bit back I had told Scott we would get a game we both liked, but, nothing suited both our interests. I had promised them Wendy's for lunch but I guess the mild weather brought out the bad parent in me and I asked if they'd still like that or going into Coldstone next door. They picked the latter and they each gave me a taste of their 'lunch'.

At this point Scott was awake enough to drive and with him at the helm we headed out to Best Buy to look for a good wireless mouse as the performance on my current one was lacking. I found something suitable there, paid, and since I had to go through the ATM machine for some cash, I drove and after procuring additional fluid assets we headed off on the next mission looking for a rental game for the Wii Scott wanted. I 'did Scott a solid' as I told him and backed into a space at Family video because his weak spot is still parking lots. He remarked there was nothing 'solid' about this....

No Soap at Family Video for the rental but down the hill at Hollywood video we obtained the game using a free rental I had from a previously defective rental DVD. Back at home I ran the cabling from the HTPC to the Onkyo receiver; the old hookup was an optical audio cable and a DVI to HDMI from the HTPC to the Onkyo. The new setup would be a single HDMI to HDMI with both HD audio and video. Once I got this working I marveled how things sounded much better and with one less cable across the floor. (Not that you'd notice on the right side of the plasma display with the mega bundle of cabling from that device and the xBox 360!)

Scott and I then watched a Scrubs, I played around some more on the HTPC. Scott headed out for a bike ride, and a bit later figuring Danielle had been on-line long enough I took her with me to Forest Hills Foods for some shopping and a refill on the propane tank for the grill, because this weekend I, like cooking legend Biker Billy, planned to Cook With Fire!

For dinner, I made pasta. For Scott, the usual pasta with marinara sauce. For Danielle and I, I oven roasted fresh broccoli, mushrooms, and garlic cloves in some olive oil and tossed that with pasta, olive oil, a bit of 2% milk and some grated Romano cheese. It was awesome!!

Thanks to the patience of my friend Brian, who had loaned me Meet the Robinsons weeks ago, Danielle, Scott, and I watched that and found it incredibly funny, in fact downright hilarious. It's now on my list of DVD's to pickup.

The kids have off next week and had Friday off too, so, I let Danielle stay up until midnight, and Scott until 1AM, I headed to bed around 12:30AM.


Sunday: ANOTHER GORGEOUS DAY! Blue sky and sunny, around 9AM I headed down to Forest Hills food to see what types of family packs int he beef variety they would offer, I snagged a five pack of New York strips for just under $20 and shucked four ears of corn on the cob to have with dinner. The remainder of the morning passed in exercise bike riding, computer puttering, and getting myself and the house cleaned up a bit. I also made a nice spicy (using Red Monkey seasoning) turkey bacon rollup with lettuce and tomato on a Flat Out flat bread.

At 12:30 PM there was a knock at the door; Emma had arrived. As Scott was not up yet I sent her in to wake him, she was trailed by Tails who wanted to join in. After Scott was up and the two of them got some food together (Scott made himself Ramon noodles and Emma some rice balls wrapped in seaweed) we sat down to watch Hot Fuzz off of HD-DVD; Danielle decided to stay on the computer (what a surprise). Scott and I remarked afterward that the movie was even better the second time around and Emma enjoyed it too. After the movie I went back to playing around on the computer and Scott and Emma headed for the family room. Emma left around 5:30 and I fired up the grill after putting a pot of water on the boil for the corn on the cob. By 6 PM we were eating perfectly grilled NY Strip steaks, all of them seasons with Montreal rub and mine also had Red Monkey Barbecue Spice rub. Danielle and I each had an ear of corn on the cob; Scott had two. We all remarked it was a most delicious dinner.

After dinner the rest of the evening was spent on computers and watching TV, by myself, and on and off with the kids.