This Is Not a Cooking Blog

I love this city.

2009-04-11T23:16:00.000-07:00

it's true, i do.

Thursdays

2009-04-09T05:16:00.000-07:00

I may need to rethink taking the time to watch LOST on Wednesday as it airs. I always feel like crap the next day when I have to get up at 5am. I'll have time for a nap after work and before D&D (assuming I get off work on time), but that won't help me actually get through the work day.

Good Times

2009-04-07T22:32:00.000-07:00

I had a pretty amazing weekend this past week, and I'm hoping the next one is as good or better.

New D&D game is under way, thanks in large part to my organizational efforts. I managed to find a good group of people who get along and are fun to play with. That means we win D&D before we even start playing.

Spent some time getting to know someone better, and had a great time with that as well.

Managed to bike downtown and back, not all in one go of course, but I got down there, and I got back, which is something like 4.2 miles each way, so an 8.4 mile round trip. Possibly my record for one day of biking. Getting to work and back is almost trivial now, the hills along the way barely seem to register.

Started watching The Wire, did season 1 this past weekend, started on season 2 yesterday. I dunno about "The Best Show on Television", but it's damn good.

I'm glad that I'm in the habit of actually doing things on my days off now. There was a time not long ago when I would just sit around and do nothing, and that does no one any good. Nothing like hard work 40+ hours a week to make the weekends something precious.

Biking!

2009-03-23T17:21:00.000-07:00

I've now ridden my bike to work and back two days in a row, so I think I can say that I'm back into the swing of things. It was even chilly and sprinkling a bit this morning, and I didn't even feel like I was making myself choose the bike over the car, so I was pretty psyched about that.

The weather here is definitely getting warmer, and with that apparently comes "wetter", as it seems to have rained every damn day. I don't have much of a problem with this, and it's usually sunny by the afternoon when I get off work.

I went to "World-wide Dungeons and Dragons Game Day" this past Saturday. Sounds like something of an annual event, but really it's something that Wizards of the Coast puts on whenever they have a new major product to sell you. Regardless, it was a good opportunity to sit down with some strangers and roll dice. I've never played 4th edition D&D before this point, though I have some of the books. I must say I enjoyed it quite a bit. They've changed things up to give every class lots of toys and interesting things to do, instead of the old "I'm a barbarian. I hit it with my axe. I hit it with my axe again. Oh, my turn again? I hit it with my axe."

Extreme biking up a volcano

2009-03-06T09:02:00.000-08:00

I rode my bike up a volcano yesterday.

ok, well most of the way up. The first bit of the trail is a bitch and a half, but things level off a little better further up. And the way down was super easy, of course.

Mt. Tabor is an extinct volcano that is within the city limits of Portland. Not only is it in the city limits, but the park around Mt. Tabor is about a mile away from my apartment. I'm not sure why I hadn't explored that area yet, but I finally got around to it yesterday and it was pretty awesome. Lots of windy roads and trails, a neat playground, and good seating at the top for hanging out and watching sunsets and whatnot. Not to mention a pretty amazing view looking downtown. Plus there are some reservoirs on the park land as well, which look cool, but I don't think you'd want to swim in them or anything. Only one of them was full yesterday.

I took some pictures, they'll be up on Flickr shortly.

Going out

2009-02-17T14:22:00.000-08:00

I'm a fucking social butterfly lately, it's a strange change of pace from back in Iowa. Whereas I'd maybe go out once or twice a week back then (and each of those outings more or less revolved around drinking until bar close), here I find myself going out nearly every night of the week, and the drinking, if any, is quite limited. Just this week for example, I have Tubesday tonight (going to a bar called Tube for vegan ham'n'cheez sammies), LOST on Wednesday, Hopworks on Thursday (a local microbrewery) to hang out with some local PPKers, and then a Christopher Guest movie night on Saturday. Granted there will be some drinking at these events, given the locations, my personal level of drinking has gone way way way down. I'll have maybe two drinks on the more wild nights here, and often none at all if I'm working the next day, though that may come primarily from a fear of a 5am hangover.

I credit this new more social life primarily to the fact that I'm not playing World of Warcraft any longer. It's been hard to give it up, and there are still times I'm tempted to reinstall, but I feel happier and more fulfilled by spending time with friends in real life, and not spending all day alone in my apartment.

Of course now, between working 40 hour weeks and going out most nights, I almost feel like I don't have enough time at home, for things like cleaning and bill-paying. To be fair though, I do have enough time, I just spend it fucking around on the internet instead of doing useful things.

hmm. this is starting to sound mopey. I was going to talk about my lack of a dating-life, but then it would definitely be mopey, so I'll sign off.

meh...

2009-01-13T18:16:00.000-08:00

I just went across the street and rented the first three discs of season one of Battlestar Galactica instead of going to the library. Various people have been hounding me to watch this forever, and this seemed like a good time to do so.

ps: it's pretty good so far, but the first episode is 3.5 hours, so be prepared to sit for a while.

Needs more books

2009-01-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

I finished the Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide Compendium a few days ago, and I'm kind of stuck with nothing fun to read right now. I finished the one book I got for xmas too. When I left Iowa City, I sold the vast majority of my books, but kept a big box of ones that were favorites of mine, or had sentimental value, but this also means that I've read each of them maybe a billion times each. I may head to Powell's in the near future to bulk up my bookshelves, or I might just head to the library and use that card I got. We'll see.

My local branch doesn't have a ton of books on hand, so I'd likely be requesting a bunch from the interlibrary loan, but if I want to read a book enough to bother requesting it, I feel like I might be better off buying it so I can keep it. I think I'll head there after work tomorrow anyway and see what they have on hand for "impulse reading".

A year is kind of a long time, really

2008-12-31T22:18:00.000-08:00

It's a new year tonight, and rather than dwell on the fact that I have no one to kiss to ring in the new year, I am going to spend time thinking about what I've done this past year. It has actually been a rather eventful year for me.

1) Comprehensive Exams
I passed my comprehensive exams, which led to me being able to graduate with my master's degree. Obviously I'm not using it right now, but I consider the experience to have been incredibly worthwhile on a number of levels.

2) Traveled around the country
I spent about a month in my car traveling around the US meeting awesome people and camping and laying on the beach.

3) Moving to Portland
I love this city. Within a week of getting here, I had a decent apartment, and now I've found a job before I ran out of money. Mission accomplished!

ok I don't know if three bullet points actually constitute "a rather eventful year", but it's certainly been an adventurous and uncertain year. I'm hoping that this next year will be more occupationally and financially stable, less paper-writingly stressful, and contain a good deal more kissing than the last.

New Snippets, because I've been lazy

2008-12-20T18:25:00.000-08:00

1) Jeff got a job.
I'm working at an all-vegan bakery in SE Portland now. It is awesome. I spend most of my time baking, and I'm also learning the ropes of our wholesale outfit so I can manage that part of things.

2) Snow sucks.
don't get me wrong, it could be a lot worse (cf: Iowa), but it's still snow and cold in a city where people have sworn to me that it never gets below freezing in the winter. Lucky me, I move here in time for the first real winter they've seen in at least 4 years.

3) Xbox.
I got a job, so I got my xbox back. Thanks mom! I picked up Fable 2, and it's pretty awesome, though I've already beaten the main story line (short game). Luckily, it's got tons of other things to do even after you've beaten it. I'm probably going to pick up Mass Effect again soon, because that game is awesome.

4) Portland is awesome for free stuff.
I found a kickass coffee table around the corner from my apartment, so I dragged it home and now it's in my living room. I also got a free working 27" TV on craigslist, and I made a TV stand for it with the remains of a disassembled futon frame that I found on the street. My couch is the backseat of someone's car that they had out by the trash, and my 5' tall book case was out on the curb with a 'FREE' sign on it. Basically all of my furniture is castoffs or made with castoffs. I feel pretty good that I've been saving money (important when unemployed!), not contributing to big corporate profits, and saving usable things from the landfill.

Books books books

2008-12-05T18:40:00.001-08:00

Reviewing books on Goodreads got me thinking about reading, and how I haven't read casually in quite some time. The last book I'd read was Slaughterhouse 5, and I only read that because I was traveling to Minnesota last month, and books are the best thing for an airplane. But I was thinking about books I enjoyed and that I should read more, so I did. I started in on Douglas Adam's Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the Ultimate compendium, with all 5 books in one), which I got from my aunt and uncle one christmas a number of years ago (and have read 2 or 3 times since). Not only that, but the next day I was reading about how a book called World War Z is going to be made into a movie, and I realized that I own the book but have never read it, so I started in on that too. Well I got pretty absorbed in WWZ, and finished it about half an hour ago. It's basically a history book from the future, after a zombie plague sweeps the world, in the format of interviews with survivors. Very interesting, and quite moving at times, despite being a work of fiction. I decided to keep Hitchhiker as a sort of "bed-time" book, to read a chapter or two of every night before I go to bed, but maybe I'll read more now that I've already devoured WWZ.

Good Reads

2008-12-04T00:22:00.001-08:00

There are a lot of website around nowadays that are trying to capitalize on the semi-recent popularity of "social networking" sites, like facebook and myspace, by adding a new spin to the base idea.

One of these sites is Goodreads, where you create a profile for yourself, and then browse or search through their vast database of books and rate or review the ones you've read, mark ones you haven't but want to read, and tag the ones you're currently reading. And of course, as a social networking site, you can keep a friends list, and stay up to date on what your friends thought of books they've read, which ones they're reading now, and which they want (maybe so you can buy them a birthday present).

The site's database is quite extensive. In addition to popular fiction and sci-fi books, I was able to find quite a few academic books, such as Kager's Optimality Theory. If you do happen to have read a book that isn't in the database already, you're in luck, because the database itself is editable by users, and the interface for adding a new book looks to be quite simple to use.

If you're even a little bit of a reader, rating books (on a 5-star scale) can be a fun way to while away a lazy afternoon, as you reminisce about what you liked (or didn't like) about books you may have read long ago. And don't feel any pressure to add *all* the books on your bookshelf, or all the books you've ever read. Just rate a few whenever you think of them, and you'll probably have quite a list of books before you know it.

Hot Sauce

2008-11-18T21:17:00.000-08:00

It's amazing how much better a boring meal can be made by the liberal application of hot sauce. Cholula, I love you baby. Don't ever change.

Chipotle pasta sauce

2008-11-13T00:57:00.000-08:00

Sounds maybe a bit weird, but try it out, I think you'll like it. This recipe comes from a co-worker of an ex-girlfriend, and it originally called for chicken, but f that.

start with some soy curls. A handful or two? probably two. Rehydrate them in some kind of liquid. I use water with some soy sauce mixed in. While they're hydrating, make the sauce.

2-3 cloves garlic
3 chipotle peppers (the canned kind in adobo sauce)
a couple spoonfuls of the adobo sauce
1/4-1/3 cup of white wine (I usually use a cheap chardonnay)
same amount of extra virgin olive oil

whiz all this together really good in a food processor of some sort. Then add some green onion that's been chopped up kind of finely.

once the soy curls are hydrated, squeeze them out a bit and put them in a container, and then pour the sauce over and stir and let them marinate for a little bit. This part can be skipped if you're hungry.

Boil pasta, sautee soy curls with all the sauce while the pasta is cooking, drain pasta and toss it all together in the end. I like to put nooch on this too, but that's totally optional.

Thanksgiving test run

2008-11-09T00:46:00.000-08:00

Jess had some people over tonight to test her thanksgiving recipes on before she presents them to people at a talk next week about vegan thanksgivings. She made a pretty awesome pecan pie (recipe courtesy of Toddx on the PPK), and a sweet potato casserole. Plus she baked some awesome tomato-rosemary scones and mocha chip muffins from Isa's upcoming brunch book. Oh yeah and roasted potatoes factored in there somehow too. Tons of food, and it was all delicious...thanks Jess!

Favorite Things

2008-11-07T16:54:00.000-08:00

My friends are posting lists of their favorite things on their blogs, and in the interests of killing time, I'm going to do so as well.

1. Avocados
Avocados are what got me off of cheese when I first went vegan. They're creamy and fatty and they've got kind of an almost-cheesy flavor. I probably eat too many avocados now, but they're finally back out of season so I'll be less likely to get them. Here's a few ways I like to eat avocados:
sliced, on toast
cubed, tossed with pasta and olive oil and nooch
with a spoon
sliced up, wrapped in a tortilla
mashed with some minced garlic and nooch, spread on toast
What do you like to do with avocados?

2. Video Games
Video games have always been a major recreation of mine, starting back in the day with the Atari 2600. I don't even remember how or why we got it, I was so young, but I remember playing the game with the tanks (Tank Battle?), and hangman on it. More recently, I have an Xbox 360, but it's at my parents' house, and mom won't ship it back to me until I get a job. So mostly I've been playing World of Warcraft. I got Fallout 3 recently as well, and that's a pretty cool game too.

3. Really hot showers
Pet peeve: luke warm showers. I want my shower water to be hot.

4. Riding my bike
Portland is awesome for this. There's a bike repair collective literally across the street from my apartment, for all my repair needs. Lots of grocery and restaurant options within easy biking distance. Riding my bike makes me feel more connected with my neighborhood. I can better see/hear/smell whats going on around me than if I were in a car.

5. Hoodies
Cozy, comfy, and secure. Zip hoodies preferred, but pullover ones are ok in a pinch. I hate the way the zippers get weird after you've had it for a while though, does anyone know of a way to fix that?

Heat

2008-10-24T13:51:00.000-07:00

Turns out the gas going to the pilot light in my furnace was turned off, which is good because it means my apartment wasn't slowly filling with gas, but bad because I haven't had heat. However, my landlord came over today and figured out the problem in short order, and now I have delicious hot air pumping in.

In sadder news, my grandfather passed away this morning. The last few years have been difficult, watching his mental and physical health decline, but he was a good man, and he will be missed.

Nhut Quang...Vegan Vietnamese food in a box.

2008-10-23T20:52:00.000-07:00

The box being their sparsely decorated restaurant. The food however, was pretty darn good, and everything on the menu is vegan which was a surprise to me. I went with some of the usual crew, plus Dazee, who is in town for a bit for a law conference. (I may have talked about Dazee while I was in Louisiana, he's Kittee's husband.)

Anyway, I had number 28, which was a bowl with noodles and veggies and fried gluten, and it was pretty delish. I had to take the bus to get there, which was a bit of a pain waiting for transfers, but I'd definitely go again. I'll have to try the egg rolls next time I go...and bring a book for the wait between buses.

In other news, it's getting colder here, and my windows are quite drafty, so I've taken the initiative and gotten plastic sheeting to put up over my windows. I finished installing them today, and it seems marginally warmer in here, but I'm sure it'll help a lot with gas bills once I actually figure out how to turn my heat on. In the mean time, I'm cooking and baking and taking hot showers, which is keeping me reasonably warm. That makes it sound like it's 20 below, but it's really only gotten down to about 40. But 40 degrees indoors sure feels pretty damn cold.

I just fell back onto the face of the planet!

2008-10-19T11:20:00.000-07:00

I was totally abducted by aliens and that's why I haven't posted on my blog. I just got back, it was pretty cool. We cruised up and down the solar system and ate vegan hot dogs.

Anyway, too much has been going on to catch up here, but I'm settled in Portland, I'm having fun, and I still don't have a job, so there's the important parts.

Now I'm off to an all-vegan brunch at my friend's house!

"Interesting" trip statistics

2008-09-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

Since I left Iowa City on July 31st:

Total miles driven: 5632.3
overall average speed: 52.0
moving average speed: 59.8
Travel time: over 100 hours, my gps blanked out after 99:99

The land of soymilk and agave nectar

2008-08-31T18:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm here. which means my travels are over, at least for a while. I now find myself faced with the daunting task of finding a place to live and some kind of job to help pay the bills while I spend my free time eating delicious vegan food and completing phd program applications.

It seems to be pretty standard here to live with roommates, and it certainly seems like it would be both cheaper, and more socializing to do so. However, I've only lived with roommates for one year ever, and that was an experience I'm not really super keen to repeat. I'm quite a solitary person and I don't think I'd like sharing space with people. I don't even have people over hardly ever. My last apartment I was at, where I lived for two years, only saw not-me people come over maybe three or four times ever (those of you who were there, you can feel blessed).

So with that in mind, I've begun putting out feelers to set up showings for a number of decent-looking (and reasonably affordable) one-bedroom apartments in the SE Hawthorne neighborhood. I've also sent out a few emails to some random people looking for roommates, on the off-chance that I can find some people as cool as KT's roommates.

I feel that a job can wait until after I've already found a place to live, though I'm hoping that apartment applications won't look too harshly on "self-employed" as my source of income.

I am almost in portland

2008-08-30T23:56:00.000-07:00

I'm about 3 hours away. I was originally going to try to make it into town for brunch at sweet pea, but I stayed up too late doing laundry. so instead I'm shooting for getting into town around noon to help out with the leafleting at the circus.
After that I'm probably going to spend time setting up a PO box, local bank account, and then chill at the library trawling through job and apartment listings.

Thusly, I send the call out to any pdxers reading this. If you know of a reasonably priced apartment in a convenient neighborhood, or if you know some cool people looking for a roommate, let me know.

Also, if you want to hang out, call me. I'm sure I could use some drinks after stressing out about jobs/apartments. If you don't have my number, email me at j.michael.press@gmail.com.

Some photos from New Orleans

2008-08-28T06:57:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen them yet, I encourage you to go check out the photos I took at Kenny Hill Sculptural Garden near New Orleans LA. There is some really awesome, crazy stuff there. You can click this link to go to the set that has those photos.

Which reminds me, I recently organized all my trip pictures so that they are grouped together by general location. You can find these folders along the right-hand edge of my photostream.

So here it is

2008-08-25T15:21:00.000-07:00

After I'm done here in New Orleans, I'm abandoning the rest of my plan and just heading for Portland. The plan was never super-solid in the first place, and upon further contemplation, I'm not really looking forward to spending time in the Southwest, it just doesn't seem very interesting to me. I've had a great time traveling so far, and I've still got a ways to go, but I want to take a more direct route now. I'm getting tired of life on the road, and I think I'm ready to settle down somewhere (at least for a little while).

A dog was humping my leg today

2008-08-24T20:08:00.000-07:00

I'm at Kittee's place, in New Orleans Louisiana! Her dog Vee is pretty crazy, but he's gotten used to me now, so that's nice. now if he would just stop humping my leg. Kittee's husband Dazee is pretty awesome too. We made an excellent pizza with mushrooms, seitan, olive salad, and teese (fake cheese).

Tomorrow, depending on the weather, we've got a lot of things to do. Lots of pictures to follow.

Feeling Blah

2008-08-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

I know I need to just get up and get moving, but there isn't much I'm actually excited to go do today. Plus it's rainy and drab, and looks to be that way all day. This sort of puts a damper on my usual "go walk around neat neighborhoods" method of seeing the city.

Plus nothing that I was planning on doing today actually feels very interesting. I think I might just take a day off of sightseeing and veg out in my hotel, at least until 8pm when there's a live band playing at the local veg coffeehouse/foodplace. I'll probably go check that out.

Thinking about a change of plans

2008-08-21T14:28:00.001-07:00

Because I really don't want to bother with most of the Southwest US.

Ok, off to Savannah today

2008-08-21T04:25:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to spend time at The Sentient Bean, it looks like a neat place. Plus museums and historic downtown stuffs. Should be moderately interesting. Tropical Storm Fay is probably not going to be up that far North as far as I can tell from the predictor maps, but there's plenty of other storms that look like they're spinning off from her, so I'm probably going to take Kittee's advice and stick to a hotel while I'm there.

Staying up late watching movies doesn't work very well at campgrounds.

2008-08-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

because then you get woken up at 11am by a super-loud bluejay, a weedwhacker, and a riding mower. what the fuck? This state park isn't a campground, it's like a state-sponsored KOA or some shit.

plus the heat. I'm already sweating inside my tent.

I bet this would work much better somewhere cooler. I'm about sick of the heat and half ready to call it quits because of it. Only the thought of hanging out in New Orleans with Kittee and seeing all the awesome things there is keeping me hopeful right now.

Winter is coming, right? That means it gets cooler in the south?

ps: Dexter season two is pretty damn good. well worth staying up until 7am.

Slight change of plans

2008-08-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

I've stopped in Myrtle Beach SC, to enjoy some sun and sand and water at the beach. I've got a pretty sweet campsite about a 5 minute walk from the beachfront, plus electricity and wifi at the site itself. This is at Myrtle Beach State Park. Not too bad a deal. I've already been down to the beach and splashed around in the water a bit and laid in the sun for a bit. I'll probably stick around here for two or three days before heading down to GA.

Wilmington is a city steeped in history.

2008-08-18T16:32:00.000-07:00

Lots of neat stuff here, but certainly not enough to keep me here. I had a good day of chilling with a long-time World of Warcraft buddy and seeing some of the sights. We bummed around downtown (I finally found the requisite hippy/hobo tibetan prayer flags), checked out the Cape Fear Museum of History and Science (pics forthcoming, check my photostream later), the Serpentarium (which is exactly what it sounds like, again, photos uploading to Flickr as I type this), and then went across the river to the Battleship North Carolina, a huge decommissioned battleship. Very neat stuff all around. After all that, we grabbed dinner at a japanese hibachi-style steakhouse, where I got a buttload of veggies and rice...not the most exciting, but certainly filling and more than a lot of steakhouses have. Lunch was a Tempeh Philly "cheesesteak" at a place downtown. They didn't have vegan cheese, so I just left that off, but it was pretty darn good regardless.

Tomorrow I'm heading out to Savannah GA. my goal is to find a roadside stand selling peaches and eat one.

The Tater Pig

2008-08-18T06:23:00.001-07:00

Originally conceived who-knows-where, it was veganized on the PPK by SonOfSeitan (Mike). He tells us that the original form is a potato with a hole bored through it (as with an apple corer or the like), and then a sausage of some sort (usually a breakfast link?) is inserted through the hole. This is then baked as a normal potato. Serve with salsa, fake bacon bits, vegan sour cream, chili, etc.

Our campfire version used a Yves brand "meatless hot dog" in the centers. Lacking an apple corer, I first made a pilot hole through the potato with a clean tent stake, then attempted to enlarge the hole by twisting a small knife. The other people decided this was too much effort (it was), and instead cut the potatoes in half and used a knife and spoon to hollow out half-hot-dog-sized grooves in each half, then sandwiched the dog inside. Once wrapped in foil, these were then set on the coals for about 50 minutes, and they were damned delicious. Luckily the PPK's Nikitee was with us, and she made awesome chili that we used to top the tater pigs, and she also had vegan sour cream and avocados that we used for toppings as well. Thanks Nikki!

Some Pics from Fallingwater/Ohiopyle

2008-08-17T13:25:00.000-07:00

Jill, one of the lovely people I hung out with last weekend in PA, took some pictures and has them uploaded on her flickr stream. You can see just the relevant pics by following THIS LINK.

toot toot

2008-08-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

I'm in Wilmington, and it's about to rain really hard. I know this because I slept through the storm last night outside of Charlotte, and then drove through it on my way here. Now I get to chill out in my tent while it ravages Wilmington. Wish me luck!

Charlotte is nice, but...

2008-08-17T07:59:00.000-07:00

I actually spent the last couple days in Fort Mills SC, at a lake house with my aunt, uncle, and cousin. It was quite relaxing, and a very nice change of pace. We ate delicious food, and did some canoe-ing, but mostly just chilled out and chatted. Good times. From here I'm heading to Wilmington NC, not sure where I'm gonna set up camp there yet, hopefully there aren't too many tourists taking up the good camping spots.

Some Pictures

2008-08-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

Lots of new pics up on my Flickr photostream. I tried posting some highlights here, but they got cutoff by the margins on the page. Tips on fixing that?

Asheville NC!

2008-08-14T08:33:00.001-07:00

I pretty much love this place. It's almost as good as Portland. I'm at an independent bookstore right now, Malaprops, and I'm gonna explore around downtown today. There's a museum I want to check out, two restaurants with lots of vegan food (Rosetta's Kitchen and Laughing Seed), and the city sponsors both free wifi access in the downtown area, and live music performances in a small park downtown.

Last night I hung out with Bryophyte from the PPK and she was pretty darn cool. We grabbed some dinner at Rosetta's and then walked around downtown a bit, but a lot of stores were closed by 5:00, so I'm gonna hit them up today. We also saw a belly dancer/drum performance in the public park, and then grabbed some beers at Jack of the Woods bar, which is owned by the Green Man brewing company. I'm going to do a brewery tour there later today. Hell, if they're hiring I might not leave here.

Logan, West Virginia is boring.

2008-08-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

That's where I am right now, or at least near it I guess. There's not much around here.

Anyway, this past weekend I got to meet a lot more PPKers, and they were lovely people and I had a very good time eating lots of tasty vegan food and going down natural waterslides and having water fall on me under a waterfall, and also watching water fall at Fallingwater.

Carnegie Museums etc...

2008-08-08T13:36:00.000-07:00

ok so I don't have a ton of time here in the city because I want to get back before dark, it's an hour and a half drive, and I got a late start, but just coming up here for the museums was totally worth it. I couldn't take pictures of most of the Art museum parts, but I got the most important thing from the Natural History section: mother-fucking Dinosaurs! I took pics of other things, but Flickr is being stupid and not letting me upload past a certain amount, so you just get dinosaur pics today. Go check them out here (same link as yesterday, in case you missed it). The newest pics should be at the front I think.

Anyway, the other pics I have are from some neat buildings downtown, and other parts of the natural history museum. I think I'm gonna take Sarchan's suggestion of Quiet Storm for some dinner food before I head back.

Pittsburgh!

2008-08-08T10:54:00.001-07:00

I'm in Pittsburgh for the day, at the Carnegie Museum of Art/Natural History. I've taken some pics, I'll post those later when I have a place to plug in for power.

Pictures!

2008-08-07T10:33:00.001-07:00

I started a Flickr account (hot damn, I'm rocking the web 2.o now!).
Photostream thing
Right now it's just pics of the park I'm staying at right now. I don't have any Portland Gathering pics up because I didn't take any there, but I'll get around to posting some that other people took eventually.

ok I'm an idiot and must have accidentally deleted the link right before I posted (damn laptop touchpad mouse).

Here it is
http://www.flickr.com/photos/29402485@N08/

Podcasts?

2008-08-07T08:52:00.001-07:00

I've been filling the driving hours by listening to the Dungeons & Dragons podcast. Give me some other suggestions on podcasts to download. I like things about games, electronic gadgets, and camping, but most of you probably know me well enough to figure out what else I find interesting.

Addicted to Internet

2008-08-07T08:48:00.000-07:00

You know there's a problem when you can't go more than two days without checking your email/forums/etc. Even when you have to drive an hour to find wifi access.

Just a general heads up: I don't seem to have any cellphone reception at all in my campground or surrounding environs, and for some reason text messages haven't been reaching me, so if you've tried to contact me recently via those means, I'm sorry that I haven't gotten your message. (even with full bars like I have here, text messages aren't coming through. Not sure what's up.)

Yay Starbucks

2008-08-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

edit: I'm currently camped out at Ohiopyle State Park in SW Pennsylvania. I'll be there through Monday or Tuesday.

I have no idea where the fuck I am. I just told my GPS to find a starbucks near my campsite and here I am. Quick post before my two hours of free internet are up.

I think that I will be taking the following route after this weekend. I have no idea when I'll be in each place, but I'll try to contact people at least a few days in advance.

From Stewart PA where I am now:

to Asheville, NC (I hear this place is good for vegans)
to Charlotte NC (you can stop bugging me to visit you now! :)
to some place in SE NC (wherever Timeline lives...Wilmington? I'll PM you)
to South Beach FL (sup Traff)
to New Orleans (Kittee when are you moving? I want to visit you)
to Houston/Austin/Dallas TX (Which of these is most awesome?)
to Albuquerque (because why not? (thanks Brecca))
to Flagstaff (on the way anyway)
to San Francisco (maybe if I get here by July I can go to the LSA conference there)
to LA (visiting more internet friends)
to Portland (hopefully to settle down for a while).

The following items were factors in my decision:
The route that let me visit the most people that I like
The route that seemed more fun in general
The route that wouldn't be butt-ass cold in the winter, so I can still camp out
The fact that I probably have a 0% chance of getting in to Amherst, so why bother? (sorry L...I'm still applying there though)

Columbus Ohio

2008-08-04T10:09:00.000-07:00

Chilling outside the Columbus Museum of Art. It's closed on Mondays, but the Wifi is still free!

I'm feeling a lot better about things today, thanks to everyone for the encouraging words. I think I just needed some alone time after two days being constantly around people. I'm still not sure where I'm going after PA, but that doesn't matter so much right now.

Last night was a KOA outside of Indianapolis. I'm probably not going to stop at a KOA again unless I have to, since they're stupidly expensive even for a primitive site ($28! nearly twice the price of most other places primitive spots). I'm not too pissed though since it was close to the showers, and there was a swimming pool that I spent a little time at.

Lafayette IN

2008-08-03T12:17:00.000-07:00

Hanging out at a place called Local Mountain Coffee Cafe, which gave me 2 free hours of wireless for the mere cost of a soy latte. Hooray.

I had a great time hanging out with M and D in Chicago, I ended up spending two nights there on their futon (which was previously mine!) We did some El and bus exploring the first day, and then some of their friends came over and took us out bowling that night.

Second day was a thorough exploration of Chinatown. We ate at a place called Evergreen, which was on some street that started with a W. It focused on Cantonese and Szechuan cuisine, and the waitress seemed to know what "vegan" meant, so I was happy. I had a spicy tofu and veggie dish that was damned tasty.

My next planned stop is Ohiopyle, PA, home of the Ohiopyle state park. I'll be meeting some PPKers there and going to the Frank Lloyd Wright Fallingwater thing. I'll probably spend about 5 or 6 days there, since the camping is relatively cheap, and I'm a bit ahead of schedule.

At this point, I need to make a decision on what to do once the mini-gathering in PA is over. My original plan was to head towards Connecticut, visit my friend L, and we'd go up to Amherst MA to do a tour of the UMass campus there. I'm a bit hesitant to do that though, primarily because I really really really want to just go back to Portland, and I feel like I'd maybe just be wasting gas (money) by going out there and back.

I'm also partially considering it because settling down somewhere (Portland) would be a bit of return to normalcy, which I'm missing quite a bit right now. Living on the road is harder that I thought it would be, though not really from a "meeting physical needs" aspect, as the getting from place to place, and feeding myself issues haven't been a problem so far, but more in the "feeling of stability in life" aspect. I initially thought it would take me longer to get to this point to be perfectly honest, and I'm a little disappointed in myself. I'm going to give it a while longer though, to see if I can get more used to it. It's not like I'm panicking every day because I don't have a place in mind to stay each night, but it just feels unsettling to not really know where you're going to end up at the end of each day.

Where's Jeff? Morrison IL

2008-08-01T08:40:00.000-07:00

camped at the Morrison Rockwood State Park last night, and it wasn't entirely unpleasant. I would have preferred something less humid, but I think that's going to be a rarity until I get out of the midwest.

I'm parked in the parking lot of the Morrison Dairy Queen, using their wireless connection. Yay. Once done here, I'll be on my way to visit my friends M and D in Chicago for a day or two.

Google ads

2008-07-30T13:39:00.000-07:00

Thinking about putting a google ad thing at the bottom of the main page here. Thoughts? Being that I'm unemployed, it might be a way to earn a little scratch, but I doubt it'll accrue hits fast enough to actually be worth it.

Chilling out at ICPL

2008-07-30T10:26:00.000-07:00

that's the Iowa City Public Library. Free wi-fi + air conditioning = win in my book. I think I've nearly finished up all the last-minute administrative stuff that I was waiting until after Portland to do, so pretty soon I'll be able to head out east towards Chicago.

Speaking of Portland, it was a pretty amazing experience overall. I'm so happy that I got the chance to see old friends from last year, and meet new ones as well.

Highlights:
Flight from Omaha to Portland via Denver: Plane has to go back to Omaha when we're almost to Denver because of a storm cell and lack of enough fuel to go around it. By the time we actually do get to Denver, our flight out to Portland has been canceled, and since it was due to the weather, they refused to give us any sort of food or hotel vouchers. So we ended up crashing in the terminal on the floor until 6am the next day. At first they switched us to a 6am flight to San Fransisco, where we could catch a flight to Portland at TEN PM, which would have sucked. But around 2am Lauren and Rachel were wandering around and randomly asked a desk agent if there were any other options and she found us a flight that went through Sacramento and got us in to PDX around 1pm. Much better than not getting in until 11pm. Regardless, we lost about 24 hours of Portland fun time, and it would have actually been faster for us if we'd just driven there from Omaha.

Karaoke at Alibi:
The small group I was with got there early, so we played some Apples to Apples while sipping tiki drinks. Then the karaoke started and we met up with about 20 other PPKers (members of the Post Punk Kitchen forum. Camping with these people is why I was in Portland in the first place). We had some amazing songs come from our group, including "Dare to be Stupid" from Tommy, Lauren and Maeve did "If You're Happy and you Know It", and Justin did the Doobie Brothers' "What a Fool Believes".

Camping at Willamette Mission State Park:
We were in the group camp area called "Beaver Island", and of course much hilarity ensued. Lots of delicious food, fun games, lounging in the shade, and campfire singalongs. Good stuff.

The Bye and Bye:
A NE Portland bar, with a delicious signature girly drink, and tasty vegan food (all of it! an all vegan bar. be still my heart.)

So much more! I have to head out, but once I have more time I'm going to trawl through everyone's Flickr streams and post the best pics (IMO) here, hopefully with an anecdote or two.

Quick update

2008-07-27T13:50:00.000-07:00

Still in Portland, having a great time. Tons of details to fill in when I get back to my own computer, including tales of a night spent in the Denver airport, and all of the awesome food at the campground.

Now with 100% more homelessness!

2008-07-22T08:01:00.000-07:00

The apartment has been cleaned (mostly), the keys have been turned in, and I'm about to head off on my trip to Portland.

I managed to fit everything into my car, and in such a way as I am not blocking any of my rear view mirror. I think this means that I win.

Scrub-a-dub-dub

2008-07-21T18:38:00.000-07:00

T-14 hours
The car is packed! Except for my cooler/mead, and the box of "throw last minute shit in here".

I'm slowly whittling away my "clean this stuff" list. One bedroom down, one to go, then it's just a little hallway, big living room, kitchen, and bathroom! before 10:30am tomorrow! I can totally do this.

I am a recent convert to the "swipe it twice with magic eraser, and then paint over it if it's still there" school of cleaning.

Obviously I also belong to the "put a sassy description of something in quotes so you can use a whole run-on sentence as an adjective" writing style.

The kitchen will be the real beast. I finished the stove top and under the burners last night, but that used up the last of my oven cleaner. So long easy street.

Advice for Adriane

2008-07-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

Adriane said...
Sounds liberating. I've been wanting to de-clutter my life as well.Have any tips?

Well Adriane, there's a few things I've learned I suppose.

1) Start early
If you're moving or have some kind of deadline, you want to be working at least two months in advance, probably more. If you don't have a deadline, I encourage you to make one, even if it's arbitrary. Without some kind of goal, it's easy to get sidetracked and caught up in all the random stuff you'll find while you're cleaning.

2) 'Sunk Cost'
Please be familiar with the economic principal of Sunk Costs. That's a lot of words, but I'll simplify it here. If you paid $400 for a bed, and you are entering a situation where you cannot take it with you, the original cost of the bed cannot have any impact on decisions you make with regards to how you're going to dispose of the bed. You cannot think "oh my god, I just spent a ton of money on that bed, I can't get rid of it!" or "I can't sell it for $50! It cost $400 new!". You must treat all decisions about that bed based on their own merits. If you can get $50 for it, or the alternative is throwing it out, take the $50 and be glad you got some part of your original investment back. Of course, this fits in with point 1 above, where if you start early you are more likely able to wait for a better offer.

3) Primacy of Recency
I had boxes in my closets that I hadn't opened in two years, since I packed them and moved into my current apartment. If I had to do this again, I wouldn't have even opened those boxes to see what was inside. If I haven't used it in two years, it's clearly not something that I need. Instead, I ended up spending a ton of time reminiscing about the items in the boxes, and then ended up getting rid of it all anyway.

4) It is just STUFF
In the end, everything you own is just stuff. It can be replaced. It does not define who you are. It is much easier to declutter your life when you are able to detach your emotions from your belongings. I'm not suggesting that you throw away all your pictures of your family, or gifts from relatives, those objects represent something more than what they physically are. I am suggesting that you carefully examine everything and actually think about what the object is, and then determine whether it fits into the life you want to live.

Getting down to the wire

2008-07-20T09:31:00.000-07:00

Two Days Left
My desk sold yesterday. I'm a little worried about actually fitting everything I have left into my car, but I think I can swing it.

Today needs to be a cleaning day. This place has to be spotless when I turn in my keys on the morning of the 22nd, so I've got my work cut out for me. I can hear my mother now "if you'd just cleaned the small things on a regular basis, you wouldn't have so much work to do now!" I can't help but think though, that I'm saving time in the long run by just doing it all at once at the end. Anyway, I did give the place a reasonably thorough cleaning when I had Couchsurfers over a few weeks ago, so hopefully it shouldn't be too bad.

I didn't quite get my kitchen finished yesterday, though I did get two boxes of non-perishable stuff packed up from my pantry. I need to find a small box for my spices, I think. I'm dreading the refrigerator, because I know I'm going to have to throw things out and that makes me sad. I don't think there are any food banks in the area that will take perishable items, especially if they're already half gone.

re: the title of my blog

2008-07-17T10:55:00.001-07:00

Most of the blogs I pay attention to are cooking blogs, specifically vegan cooking blogs. This is not one of them.

Preparations are nearly complete

2008-07-16T16:50:00.001-07:00

T-minus: 5 days
Things are moving along nicely in my quest to rid myself of extraneous material goods. The vast majority of my furniture is gone, either to consignment or via craigslist. The only remaining pieces: my large glass desk, a wooden hexagonal end-table, and my wooden coffee table. It seems that craigslisters don't want these pieces for whatever reason, and the consignment shop won't take them. Why they're full on hexagonal end-tables is beyond me, but the other two pieces have large panes of glass, which they don't accept. Regardless, I need to find some way to get rid of these pieces besides just throwing them away. I suppose freecycle is my best bet at this point.

Soon I will be able to start packing my car with the things that I'm actually keeping, instead of the things I'm getting rid of. This should lead to better mental health for me as my apartment begins to declutter itself again. I've completely cleared out the two bedrooms, and the majority of my kitchen drawers/cabinets, but this leaves me with bags and boxes of things I am taking with me sitting and taking up space in my living room.

But sometimes I'll post about food.

2008-07-16T11:55:00.000-07:00

This is a blog about my life and travel, my attempts to live a more simple life, and my difficulties (or lack thereof!) of finding vegan food while traveling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_living