It's been a while since I have blogged, so I will indulge.
Went to Rock River Pizza Company on Saturday. Loved it. If you haven't tried it yet, take a road trip to Watertucky and give it a go. You'll be pleased. Not Faye's Pizza pleased, but pleased nonetheless.
My new favorite song. The sounds these guys make are incredible:
Lori and I watched a few movies over the weekend, and for the most part, they were rather good. We started off by watching Labor Day, starring Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, and narrated by Toby Maguire. I had pretty low expectations, but I was rather pleased. The movie is about a woman whose husband ditched her for his secretary and left her heartbroken. Winslet's character became secluded and had given up on love altogether. Enter Josh Brolin, who plays a fugitive who has escaped prison while visiting the hospital to get his appendix removed. He takes refuge in Winslet's character's home where she resides with her son. I'll let you take it from there, but it was worth the time.
Next up was An Unfinished Life, with Morgan Freeman, Robert Redford, and Jennifer Lopez. I really liked this one. Lopez plays a widow, now in an abusive relationship, and escapes to Wyoming to live with her estranged father-in-law, played by Robert Redford. Jean's (Lopez) daughter is a stark reminder of the death of Einar's (Redford) son, tragically killed in an accident while Jean was at the wheel. Morgan Freeman (Mitch) plays a ranch hand opposite Redford that had been crippled by a bear attack while Redford's character was falling over drunk. This is an old storyline from Hollywood -- a jaded old man softened through his relationship with a child while being mentored by an old friend. Good flick.
I watched "Under The Skin". What a horrible film. Seriously. If all you care about is seeing Scarlett Johannson naked, well....then you're gonna love this movie. If you enjoy movies where the director actually lets you in on the plot without blatant attempts at mimicking Stanley Kubrick, then you'll think it sucks -- as I did. Fuck this film. Don't waste your time.
We're getting closer to opening the store. Should be in the next few months. That, along with our attempt at getting our dream home has kept us busy and nervous.
More later.
-Clark
Monday, February 23, 2015
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Monday, February 9, 2015
Mid Century Madness
Had a pretty good weekend.
Lori and I went out to the Old Rock on Friday night with Mr. Thom. It was a little weird in there that night. We sat down, and we waited at least 20 minutes before anybody even spoke to us. Granted, it was busy...but not that busy. The good news is that once we WERE finally waited on, I quickly forgot about the lack of attention earlier. One thing, though -- they need better beers out there. Only the Hopalicious appealed to me, but I don't like to drink that all the time. I tire of it rather quickly. After listening to countless country songs on the juke, we needed to get out of there. Too rural. ;-) Home by 10PM.
I headed over to Mr. Thom's place on Saturday morning to help him with his home network. He had some serious bandwidth issues over his WiFi connection. Not only was his signal being trounced by that of his neighbors, his equipment was almost a decade old. Using Speakeasy's website, we determined he was only getting about one-third of the possible bandwidth. We installed a WRT1900AC by Linksys. It was up and running within about 20 minutes, and the results were incredible. Excellent signal strength and fantastic throughput over WiFi. And now he's rockin' a Roku. How could life be any better?
Saturday night we met up with Niki, Miss Mommaerts and Jen. We hadn't gone out together for a while and it was nice to be able to catch up with them again. We ended up having a couple of brews at HSB, and then quickly migrated to the Black Kettle. I'm always surprised by the steaks out there. I'm not ready to render judgement on their food yet. I need more data.
Sunday was time to relax with smatterings of cleaning. Did laundry, cleaned the floors, took down a Christmas tree (don't fucking judge me), and cooked some spaghetti. Dudes -- lemme tell ya. I have the spaghetti sauce dialed in. Totally easy and it has HUGE flavor. Here's the dealio:
Clark's Spaghetti Sauce
2 green peppers (diced)
1 large white onion (diced)
3 28 oz cans of diced tomatoes
1 12 oz can of tomato paste
5 cloves of garlic
1.5 lbs of ground chuck
1.5 lbs of italian sausage
2 teaspoons oregano
2 teaspoons basil
2 teaspoons thyme
3 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon fennel seed
dash of chili pepper
sea salt and ground pepper to taste
Empty cans of diced tomatoes into large pot. Add tomato paste. Fill the empty can of tomato paste with water and add it to the pot. Mix in peppers, onions, garlic, oregano, basil, thyme, fennel seed, sugar and chili pepper. You only need to add about 2 teaspoons of chili pepper. If you add too much, you'll overpower it, so chill. Let simmer on medium-low heat. Stir occasionally.
The place should start smelling fucking fantastic.
Now you need to start on the meat. I brown it in an electric skillet just out of convenience. I mix the ground chuck and the italian sausage by hand in the skillet and then brown it over medium heat. I usually hover over the skillet and break up the large chunks of meat until I get it to the consistency that I want within the sauce. Drain and add to the sauce.
Add your salt and pepper. Taste as you go. It'll take a few minutes for the sea salt to properly dissolve, so make sure taste...add....wait....taste...etc.
Let that all simmer on low for about 30 minutes.
I add salt to my water when I boil spaghetti noodles, as it helps to keep them from sticking together. Cook the noodles in the boiling water for 9 minutes. Rinse. Toss with olive oil.
Serve, bitches.
Still working on the financing for the house. We should have some news today or tomorrow but it is driving us insane. I want to make an offer and get the negotiation started. Lori and I need to be in that place. Anybody else in there would be a disservice to coolness.
Lori and I went out to the Old Rock on Friday night with Mr. Thom. It was a little weird in there that night. We sat down, and we waited at least 20 minutes before anybody even spoke to us. Granted, it was busy...but not that busy. The good news is that once we WERE finally waited on, I quickly forgot about the lack of attention earlier. One thing, though -- they need better beers out there. Only the Hopalicious appealed to me, but I don't like to drink that all the time. I tire of it rather quickly. After listening to countless country songs on the juke, we needed to get out of there. Too rural. ;-) Home by 10PM.
I headed over to Mr. Thom's place on Saturday morning to help him with his home network. He had some serious bandwidth issues over his WiFi connection. Not only was his signal being trounced by that of his neighbors, his equipment was almost a decade old. Using Speakeasy's website, we determined he was only getting about one-third of the possible bandwidth. We installed a WRT1900AC by Linksys. It was up and running within about 20 minutes, and the results were incredible. Excellent signal strength and fantastic throughput over WiFi. And now he's rockin' a Roku. How could life be any better?
Sunday was time to relax with smatterings of cleaning. Did laundry, cleaned the floors, took down a Christmas tree (don't fucking judge me), and cooked some spaghetti. Dudes -- lemme tell ya. I have the spaghetti sauce dialed in. Totally easy and it has HUGE flavor. Here's the dealio:
Clark's Spaghetti Sauce
2 green peppers (diced)
1 large white onion (diced)
3 28 oz cans of diced tomatoes
1 12 oz can of tomato paste
5 cloves of garlic
1.5 lbs of ground chuck
1.5 lbs of italian sausage
2 teaspoons oregano
2 teaspoons basil
2 teaspoons thyme
3 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon fennel seed
dash of chili pepper
sea salt and ground pepper to taste
Empty cans of diced tomatoes into large pot. Add tomato paste. Fill the empty can of tomato paste with water and add it to the pot. Mix in peppers, onions, garlic, oregano, basil, thyme, fennel seed, sugar and chili pepper. You only need to add about 2 teaspoons of chili pepper. If you add too much, you'll overpower it, so chill. Let simmer on medium-low heat. Stir occasionally.
The place should start smelling fucking fantastic.
Now you need to start on the meat. I brown it in an electric skillet just out of convenience. I mix the ground chuck and the italian sausage by hand in the skillet and then brown it over medium heat. I usually hover over the skillet and break up the large chunks of meat until I get it to the consistency that I want within the sauce. Drain and add to the sauce.
Add your salt and pepper. Taste as you go. It'll take a few minutes for the sea salt to properly dissolve, so make sure taste...add....wait....taste...etc.
Let that all simmer on low for about 30 minutes.
I add salt to my water when I boil spaghetti noodles, as it helps to keep them from sticking together. Cook the noodles in the boiling water for 9 minutes. Rinse. Toss with olive oil.
Serve, bitches.
Still working on the financing for the house. We should have some news today or tomorrow but it is driving us insane. I want to make an offer and get the negotiation started. Lori and I need to be in that place. Anybody else in there would be a disservice to coolness.
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
The council had some very important votes during the last regular meeting. All in all, I think it went rather well.
Looks like the State of Wisconsin will be consolidating agencies due to Walker's budget. This might affect me and my contract. We shall see.
Still hunting "cool ranch". Waiting on the bankers to give us the thumbs-up.
Wish us luck...
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Science, bitches.
Lori and I went to see Neil deGrasse Tyson at the Overture Center last night. What an amazing presentation. Neil has an uncanny way of showing you what the world looks like through the eyes of an astrophysicist by demystifying the correlation between politics, economics, religion and scientific discoveries and how they effect modern society. Through all of that, he keeps you entertained while you hang on his every word. If you have the opportunity to see him, I highly encourage you to do so. It was something that I will never forget. Thank you, Lori!!
Dan and I are still in the process of restoring a 1964 Ducati Monza Jr. We inspected the replacement 250 engine that we will be using, and we found that the clutch housing is busted. That's one problem. Another, is that we aren't getting any movement from the bevel drive or piston. We'll find more that needs to be replaced as we go, but I am confident that we can get this bad boy running at some point. We're shooting for getting it going by the SCR in spring, but I'm not that optimistic. I think the SCR in October is more likely.
Lori and I also attended a "salon party" on Sunday. I had never been to one before, and I actually had to Wiki it before we went. It's really just a fancy way to say "a party where current events are discussed". We had a great time, and it was fun to connect with Niki outside of her work setting. I even was able to exercise my chess skills -- but Gabriel checkmated me in the end. It's always good to have a worthy opponent, so I will take him on again soon. :-)
Looks like Lori is moving ahead with her business plan. She'll be opening an olive oil retail store (infused olive oils and aged balsamic vinegars), and we think it will be in the Sun Prairie area. We still need to really nail down a location, but from what we've observed, that looks like a good spot. More on all of that soon.
Not much else is cooking, so I will keep this to one page. Happy Tuesday, folks!
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Failure Pile in a Sadness Bowl
Watched the movie "Codebreaker" on Netflix last night. Fantastic. If you're at all interested in how the age of computing commenced, then you might be fascinated by this film. It's about a British man named Alan Turing, and it begins with his breaking the code for the German Enigma machines during WWII. Without this advantage, Hitler's Luftwaffe and U-boat forces would likely have poured into Great Britain and D-Day might have been a failure in Normandy. This guy was a mathematical genius, and he literally gave us the construct for modern computing back in 1936. Every smartphone, every computer, tablet, laptop, mainframe, etc, still employs these very basic principles. Without this highly intelligent Brit's phenomenal work, history could have taken a much darker path.
There is a shameful element in the story of Alan Turing, however. The British government treated this hero horrifically, due to his sexual orientation. I commend them for eventually apologizing to the man after his death, but they literally wasted an unbelievable asset to mankind. Very sad.
I've been feeling the itch to get back on the motorcycle lately. There are 56 more days until spring, and it can't come soon enough. I need my 2-wheeled therapy.
After work yesterday, I decided to get a long-overdue oil change. My sexy 2005 Ford Freestyle with sheepskin seat covers had been neglected. Not only was I a couple thousand miles past the limit, the heater in my car was not working very well ever since this last cold snap. Sure, it would get a little warm when I was cruising at about 72mph, but in the city, I was freezing my balls off. My feet would feel like two throbbing ice blocks by the time I reached downtown Madison from Columbus. I went to Super-Lube in Sun Prairie for the service. I got the usual upsell shit that they always try to pull, but then the technician came over to me with my air filter to show me how filthy it was. It was covered in hair and leaves, and it looked like something was nesting in the air intake. No mention of that was made, but they did recommend replacing it. I agreed, and they proceeded to put in my new air filter. They guy then reaches into the air intake, and pulls out THE REST of the nest. Yes, I had a mouse nesting in my engine's air intake chamber. Fantastic. Low and behold, my fucking heat works again. Woot-woot!
Lori and I have been stalking a mid-century modern home that was built in 1950. We're in the process of getting all of our ducks in a row so we can make a formal low-ball offer. I. must. have. this. house. It just needs a little love and care, and it would be one sexy mutherfucker of a home. We've started referring to it as "cool ranch". Here's a picture of the back of this Frank Lloyd Wright inspired property:
We'll see how things pan out, but I really want to bring this property back to its proper condition. The exterior is gorgeous, and the interior has great bones. We will do it justice....I promise.
I think that's all I have time for today, folks. I should really start earning my paycheck. I will leave you with this little nugget that left Lori and I giggling last night. Patton Oswalt is my new all-time favorite comic right now. Enjoy:
Watched the movie "Codebreaker" on Netflix last night. Fantastic. If you're at all interested in how the age of computing commenced, then you might be fascinated by this film. It's about a British man named Alan Turing, and it begins with his breaking the code for the German Enigma machines during WWII. Without this advantage, Hitler's Luftwaffe and U-boat forces would likely have poured into Great Britain and D-Day might have been a failure in Normandy. This guy was a mathematical genius, and he literally gave us the construct for modern computing back in 1936. Every smartphone, every computer, tablet, laptop, mainframe, etc, still employs these very basic principles. Without this highly intelligent Brit's phenomenal work, history could have taken a much darker path.
There is a shameful element in the story of Alan Turing, however. The British government treated this hero horrifically, due to his sexual orientation. I commend them for eventually apologizing to the man after his death, but they literally wasted an unbelievable asset to mankind. Very sad.
I've been feeling the itch to get back on the motorcycle lately. There are 56 more days until spring, and it can't come soon enough. I need my 2-wheeled therapy.
After work yesterday, I decided to get a long-overdue oil change. My sexy 2005 Ford Freestyle with sheepskin seat covers had been neglected. Not only was I a couple thousand miles past the limit, the heater in my car was not working very well ever since this last cold snap. Sure, it would get a little warm when I was cruising at about 72mph, but in the city, I was freezing my balls off. My feet would feel like two throbbing ice blocks by the time I reached downtown Madison from Columbus. I went to Super-Lube in Sun Prairie for the service. I got the usual upsell shit that they always try to pull, but then the technician came over to me with my air filter to show me how filthy it was. It was covered in hair and leaves, and it looked like something was nesting in the air intake. No mention of that was made, but they did recommend replacing it. I agreed, and they proceeded to put in my new air filter. They guy then reaches into the air intake, and pulls out THE REST of the nest. Yes, I had a mouse nesting in my engine's air intake chamber. Fantastic. Low and behold, my fucking heat works again. Woot-woot!
Lori and I have been stalking a mid-century modern home that was built in 1950. We're in the process of getting all of our ducks in a row so we can make a formal low-ball offer. I. must. have. this. house. It just needs a little love and care, and it would be one sexy mutherfucker of a home. We've started referring to it as "cool ranch". Here's a picture of the back of this Frank Lloyd Wright inspired property:
We'll see how things pan out, but I really want to bring this property back to its proper condition. The exterior is gorgeous, and the interior has great bones. We will do it justice....I promise.
I think that's all I have time for today, folks. I should really start earning my paycheck. I will leave you with this little nugget that left Lori and I giggling last night. Patton Oswalt is my new all-time favorite comic right now. Enjoy:
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
So -- here we are, folks.
Only a handful of you have this address. I am hoping that you check in daily, as I will be writing a post first thing in the morning over a cup of coffee. If you like what you read, tell a friend about it. You've been given the address because you have been supportive during my failed Facebook experiment, and I need an outlet to write. Writing isn't any fun if there isn't a reader, and that's where you come in.
Understand what you're getting into, as this will not be politically correct. This will, at times, be a raw extension of the conversations I have in my head.
I have no delusions of grandeur. I simply want to write.
I hope you stick around, man.
-Clark
Only a handful of you have this address. I am hoping that you check in daily, as I will be writing a post first thing in the morning over a cup of coffee. If you like what you read, tell a friend about it. You've been given the address because you have been supportive during my failed Facebook experiment, and I need an outlet to write. Writing isn't any fun if there isn't a reader, and that's where you come in.
Understand what you're getting into, as this will not be politically correct. This will, at times, be a raw extension of the conversations I have in my head.
I have no delusions of grandeur. I simply want to write.
I hope you stick around, man.
-Clark
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