The end is in sight...

Hi all, it's just after noon on Tuesday May 31st. I am sitting at my desk at work, thinking about how in 74 hours I'll be done with this job forever. (When you say 'forever' in your mind as you read this please try to make it sound like this: for-ev-AAAAAAHH).

[Intermission]

Ok, it's now 3:20 pm. I had to go do an inventory audit with the corporate auditor that is here from Minnesota. It went ok.

Unfortunately, since it took three hours, now I'm tired and I don't feel like writing so much.

So there it is. A short post...with the end in sight.

Cheers...

On Dreams and Sleep...

Last night was rough. I felt like I fell asleep soon after laying down but when I woke up I felt tired. That may have to do with the dream I had though.

I dreamt that I was living in New York City, with some roommates. These were people I do not know and have never met, but they were in my dream regardless. One of my roommates had to get up early for work and he needed quiet late at night so he could sleep. I remember going to bed and then waking up when I heard someone in my room. Then I remember getting shot twice in the chest.

I felt my lungs filling up with blood and I couldn't breath. I remember that feeling lasting longer than I thought it should, I was drowning in my own fluids for way longer than it should have taken for me to pass out and die. I called out to my roommates but the only one to hear my pitiful pleas was the noise Nazi roommate.

He just banged on the wall and told me to be quiet.

Then I woke up, and I woke up tired. Every morning around 5:20 something or so, as I'm getting ready, I tell myself the same thing: tonight I'm going to bed earlier. I go to bed at 9pm on most nights and it seems like I'm still super tired either way.

I ask myself if going to bed earlier is really going to fix things anyway. I mean, I get 8 hours of sleep by going to bed at 9pm, but I wake up tired every day. Is going to bed at 8:30 or even 8pm really going to make things better? I kinda doubt it, but I suppose it's worth trying once or twice.

My body just isn't built to get up before 6am. I've noticed on the days where I sleep in later and get up either at 6am or just past 6am, the whole day feels better. I know I'll definitely be getting up at or past 6am after June 17th.

Anyone got a time machine I can borrow?

Email and the Pre 1970 generation...

What is it about “older” people and forwarding random stories, chain letters, gossip, pointless videos, and sob stories through email?

Am I the only one who has experienced this phenomenon?

There are quite a few older members of my family that "keep in touch" with me via email. I put that phrase in quotes because their definition of keeping in touch is very different from mine. I define it to be sending a message that includes some form of the following:

- A short greeting
- Questions about the well being/life of the person I'm contacting
- A summary of the current events in my own life
- A short farewell

Notice how none of those things are random. No stories about kitchen fires, no Microsoft money making schemes, no video attachments that just may save your life (unless of course these things are part of my life). Nope, nothing like that. Just plain old, "Hi, I'm doing ok, I hope you are too."

See, I get at least three or four of these random forwarded emails from "older" family and friends a week. The craziest part of all this to me is that, if these people picked up a phone (landline or otherwise) and called me, I highly doubt they would spend the entire conversation telling me about some dumb advertisement or infomercial they saw recently. And yet that is almost exactly what they are doing when they send me these emails.

I realize that some of you would say the destructive power of the "send to all" button is perhaps mostly to blame for this problem. I feel that is quite the cop out though. It's the same thing to say that guns are responsible for all the shootings that take place.

Just because it's there doesn't mean you have to use it!

Does this happen to you too?

Language...

Those of you who know me well know that I don't curse very often. Like most human beings, I am susceptible to many human failings and cursing is one of them; however, I still rarely do it comparatively speaking.

My current job makes me wish I was a sailor.

Every day something happens and my face starts to feel a slow burn and all these colorful words pop into my head. Words usually reserved for drill sergeants and professional sailors.

I thought I'd write a little to blow off steam, but it's really not helping. Which is sad, because writing random crap on my blog usually makes me feel better. I'll start to go off on one tangent or another and end up in a totally unexpected place far from where I thought I'd end up. The view from that new place is usually interesting and different, it brightens my mood while shedding new light on the day.

Today happens to be the first really sunny day of spring here in Utah, and all I can see is shadows.

I find out the sex of my first born child one week from today. That's a happy thought, one that usually makes me smile. Right now it's like a snowflake trying to put out a raging forest fire for all the good it's doing me.

In my life I have used words as both sword and shield, armor for the ages. But right this moment I feel defenseless.

On working, waiting, and writing...

I don't even know what to write about right now. I'm at work and I just needed to get away for a moment or two (Or quit altogether, I haven't decided yet)...

Since starting to write that Nanowrimo Novel, I've found that it's a little bit easier to get lost in my own head when I'm sitting at a keyboard typing something into a blank word editor. I used to stare at the blank page, wondering how I'd ever be able to fill it.

Now, I type and type and get lost and wonder if what I'm filling it with will ever be worth something to someone. Sometimes I look at what I've written and break the rules set by people like Stephen King: those rules say write and write and write with the door closed. Don't worry about the critics or the writing. Just get the details of the story down and leave the rest for editing. I look down and I wonder how any of this is going to matter. I stop myself before deleting though, just because I don't want to make the time I spent writing feel any more like a waste of time than it already does.

Yesterday was a 2nd rock bottom at work. I don't know what happened, I thought Tuesday was bad, but Tuesday was a "bright sunshiny day" compared to yesterday. Maybe it's the weather. Now that I know I'm moving to Tucson, every time the Utah weather reminds me that Spring is just a word and nature doesn't give a damn about that word, I'm also reminded of how long two months can be when all you can do is watch the clock and pray.

I've spent a lot of time reading the Penny Arcade blog in the last few days. Jerry Holkins has an interesting way with words, one that I would never attempt to emulate but that helps me think about the possibilities of the sentence differently. Sometimes I'll be reading one of his rants and he'll say something like, "I don't think we're quite ready to play that game yet. In fact, I don't think I would be ready until I've played n + 1 games. Where n is the number of games you could possibly play in a lifetime."

Think about that sentence for a minute...Yeah it's different, that's for sure. I don't make value judgements on whether or not it's a great group of sentences or not, that's not for me. What I do though, is evaluate it against all the possible sentences that could push me to have a better understanding of the possibilities in writing, and I say it's way up there on the "Opening up my eyes" scale. It's like he took a rant and pulled a theorem out of a math textbook to describe some aspect of his life. This I like, it's something that helps me to be a better writer.

I've been thinking about writing much more during the last six months, but even more than that during the last six days. Since I've decided on a PhD school, and the lion's share of work in a PhD program is writing, I've been fixated on the topic and what I can do to be successful. Obviously, writing every day is part of the success program. Not so obvious is what more I can do to fine tune my writing. I'm still working on it, but I've got some pretty good ideas.

Vanina says I'm an amazing writer (the current blog notwithstanding). I tell her she's pretty amazing herself, but that I'm not done getting better at writing yet. Hell, I haven't even finished my first book yet (working on it, I'm on the very brink, but that is probably 20 thousand words or so, so I guess it depends on your definition of brink).

PhD school will require a whole new level of writing. I'm excited and anxious about it all at once. I love putting pen to paper (metaphorically) and seeing the results afterwards. In fact, I always find it fascinating to go back and read something I wrote, whether from five days ago or five years ago. It's almost like reading a letter from someone you've known your whole life. It's obviously your writing and your thought process, but it seems like it's coming at you from a whole new direction. It's a deja vu experience, without that whole "glitch in the matrix, oh crap they're coming to kill us" feeling.

Ok, I better get back to trying to finish my Friday. I hope all of you are having a better work week than I am. Even a better day today that I am would make me happy.

And the winner is...

Unversity of Arizona! I have decided to attend the Eller College of Management for my Strategic Management PhD. As you may or may not know, I received offers from Northwestern's Media, Technology, and Society Phd program and from the University of Arizona. My wife and I spent the entire month of March both deciding and waiting to hear back from the rest of the schools. All of those results produced rejections unfortunately, so the choice came down to just the two schools. In the end, we decided that Tucson, and the University of Arizona were right for us. I'm so excited for the fall! I can't wait to start this new adventure!

Snow and Lightning

Vanina and I just got back from an Caribbean cruise this past weekend. The week before the cruise we checked the weather and rain threatened at all three ports of call. That information turned out to be wrong, thank goodness. All three ports, Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Jamaica had good weather during our day in port. It was cloudy in Cozumel and for part of the time in Jamaica, but the sun shone and we both got tans (and burns) for our time in the sun. The day we returned to Salt Lake City it was raining. A few hours later that rain turned into snow. After spending a week in the tropics, snow was the last thing I wanted to see. The only good to come out of it is that it reminded me of something I have been meaning to blog about since February. Around the 1st or 2nd week of February it snowed here in Salt Lake. That is nothing out of the ordinary for this valley during winter, however during this snowstorm I heard thunder. I had never heard thunder during a snowstorm before so I immediately went to the window to check it out. As I was looking outside, sure enough I spotted flashes of lightning lighting up the sky. I couldn't believe it. Lightning during a snowstorm! It was pretty amazing to behold. All of the snowstorms back home (in D.C.) are full of wind and ice, but never lightning. Thunderstorms are common occurrences during the spring, summer, and fall, but all of the storms in the winter are sans lightning and thunder. The main reason I wanted to document this experience is that I'm now into my fourth decade of life on this planet and I thought I had experienced all the types of weather that I was going to experience. Lightning in a snowstorm was totally, unexpectedly new. Its nice to know there's still something new under the sun for me to experience every now and again. Here's to the new!

All Time Low...

I hit an all time low today. When I was getting ready to go into work this morning, late as usual, I actually considered taking my Nintendo DS to work. I have never considered doing such a thing at any job I've had. That is how bored I am with this job.

The realization that I have reached such a low point at this job hit me like a ton of bricks. I hope this is pretty much rock bottom here, because if it is there is only up after this right? If not, I'm pretty worried about how bad it will get.

On a completely different note, I always see my neighbors across the street standing on their front porch to smoke cigarettes. They come outside, light up, and finish a cigarette, then they go back inside the house. I understand wanting to keep your house from smelling like crap and what not. However, when I was getting into my car this morning at 6:31 a.m. I saw my neighbor out on the front porch smoking a cigarette. It is by no means warm outside here in Utah, at least not at 6:30 in the morning. Also, I have never seen them leave for work that early, or anything like that.

Now, I don't mind getting up at 6 in the morning if I have to go to work (any earlier than that and I start to get real cranky, though). All I can say is, if I had to get up at that hour, not for work, but to go outside and smoke a cigarette? That'd be the day I quit.

I'm just sayin'.

So Tired...

Both Sunday night and Monday night were tough ones for me, sleepwise. I had trouble sleeping both nights, tossing and turning and what not. I also had very strange dreams, ones that I only vaguely remembered, but still haunted my waking hours.

Last night I finally fell asleep and only woke up a few times during the night, but slept through for the most part. When I woke up I hoped I would feel refreshed, but today was the worst morning yet this week.

It snowed three or four inches overnight and as I was out there cleaning the snow off the cars I was in a half daze. When I finally finished cleaning all the snow off my car I was trying to open my door and it wouldn't budge. I thought, "Crap! My door is frozen shut." I went to the passenger's side door and met with the same problem. I was about to go back in the house and get my wife to take me to work until I realized that I had not unlocked my car. Once I took care of that, the door opened just fine.

What is amazing to me about this story is how I was able to get up, get ready, make breakfast, and clean snow off the car and still basically be sleepwalking for how useful my brain was through all that. The simplest act of problem solving was beyond me this morning. What should have taken me two seconds took two minutes to figure out.

In most stories, even fictional ones, there is a grain of truth. All the zombie movies had to come from somewhere, I think zombies do exist, but only for an hour or so every morning. There are millions of them across the world. The true un-dead are the working world just after 5am.

I go by Author or Novelist...

The challenge is complete. I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith, I have written 50,000 words in 28 days.

I win.

It feels good, all the not knowing if, then the not knowing how, then not knowing when, then knowing soon, then knowing victory.

My story actually is not done yet, I am currently at 51,076 words but if I had to venture a guess I would say that the novel will be complete in another 20,000 words probably. I will continue to write every day until it is finished.

Then what? You ask. I'm not sure yet. I'll let it sit for a while before coming back to work on the second draft. At least long enough to let me work on something else entirely almost to completion. I have a few interesting ideas of what to work on next. One of them involving the Cheshire Cat. That story would be shorter, maybe in the 10k words range, but it might be a fun departure from the science fiction book I'm about to finish. I'll figure it out once this current project is done.

After a complete second draft is finished, and I'm not sure how long something like that would take, remember I'm a first timer here, I'll look into getting it published. I'll definitely have my group of first readers read it though. They can tell me if it's worth the paper it's printed on or not.

We'll see.

Nanowrimo Day 22

I just realized that I havn't updated on Nanowrimo since day 4. I guess it makes sense though, as I have been so busy writing my novel that writing in my blog just doesn't seem nearly as important. Especially since I'm not sure anyone reads or cares, I mostly write for me on here.

Nanowrimo is going well. With the 1667 words a day I am supposed to write, my word count should be at 36,674. I havn't written anything today, so I really should be at 21 days worth, which is 35,007. My Novel, which has yet to present a name for itself, stands at 40,200 words.

This nameless monstrosity stands as a testament to the sheer perserverance of man. I never thought I could do it, week two made me think I would quit, but as I enter the last week of this insane challenge, I see that the end is not only in sight, but that I believe I will make it.

Only 9,800 words separate me from greatness. I've always wanted to write a novel, and now that I'm almost there, can almost call myself a novelist, it seems anticlimactic. Did I change the world? Did I create the great American novel? Nope.

It did change me though. Maybe my novel created the great American David. Maybe it is just the peice of work that creates the path for all other peices of work I might create. I don't know.

What began as a fear of not being able to finish, then evolved into a fear of reaching 50k words but not being done with the story, has now mutated into a fear of this novel being the only story I have in me to tell. I believe all of these fears stem from some nameless primevil entity that dwells in the basement of my brain. That entity knows only shadow and only ventures out seldomly. I would have rooted it out long ago, but it sometimes is the only part of my brain that functions when all the other parts are frozen. Its the one that knows how to survive and does what must be done. I think the fear part of it really is just it's way of trying to protect me. From myself, and from failure.

I tell you this though, protecting yourself from failure is doing yourself a disservice. Failure is a great teacher. It's lessons are branded on my brain in a way no other lessons could be. I say be couragous, fail brilliantly, and then get up again armed with new experience. The next time, success will be that much easier.

With a sickness...

I'm at work. I'm sick. My mind feels like its somewhere else though.

My nostrils are at times stuffed and then runny. They constantly feel like they are on fire though. I might as well be breathing fire. The coughing has gotten better though, it used to be I would cough till I choked. Same with the sneezing, yesterday it felt like there were small razor blade factories in the lower portion of my lungs and the only way to ship the product out was to sneeze. These factories had not yet discovered boxes however, instead they shipped the razors haphazardly in singles. Every time I would sneeze these razors would cut their way through my lungs, up my throat, bouncing off the back of it, and out my mouth.

Whoever the buyers are, I wish them a slow death.

The back of my neck feels tight, like someone with a large boot is standing on the back of my neck. Then there's the not so visible effects of the sickness. My stomach complaining as it tries to digest the energy I need to beat this bug. The subtle draining of energy as I try to function at my normal level at work.

I wish I could go home. I can't though. I need sleep. I need a new body.

The medicine did not help. I took it just over an hour ago and there has been no demonstrative change in my condition. Unless you count feeling worse. I dont though.

I got a flu shot this year, for the first time ever. This is not the flu, at least I don't think it is. It started on Saturday and I think I'll be better by tomorrow (optimism, ya dig?) but if this is a cold I havn't had a cold this bad in a long time. Years, even.

I have a long and storied history of getting sick on Christmas day. I think its the blatant consumerism in the face of celebrating salvation. Either way, of the last 30 christmases I've been sick for at minimum half of them. I do not, however, have a history of getting sick in the middle of November. That post Thanksgiving dinner feeling not withstanding. I think everyone gets that. Lets hope this is my Christmas sickness jumping the gun this year. I will be in DC with the family and I would love to not be sick during that time.

I'm obviously not too sick to work, so I'd rather be sick while I have to be at work than be sick while I'm on vacation. I'm sure you agree.

Anyway, wish me luck on fighting off this plague.

It's time to Check out, Sir!

Ah, Friday. So difficult not to just check out mentally at work. You know, since my work is so fulfilling and interesting and all that. It should be a pretty eventful and stressful day, because I have 51 people I manage and of those people 5 of them are extra. Today I have four people on vacation and four people called in sick. So, I am down three people and still have the same amount of work to do. Yay! Go Team!

In other news, my Nanowrimo Novel is at 9300 words. I'm currently averaging 2325 words a day. This is well above the 1667 words a day needed to complete the 50,000 words in 30 days challenge. My Goal is actually 1923 words a day since I lose 4 days in the month to resting on Sundays. It's crazy because 9300 words seems like a ton but it amounts to about 15 single spaced pages in Microsoft Word. That seems kinda meager to me when I reflect on how difficult it was to write all those words. According to many published authors, the more you pratice the skill the easier it is to do. Stephen King described it as teaching your brain to enter a waking dream state and then transcribing what you see there.

I agree that it is more than just thinking and then typing, but I think in the two hours a day I spend (on average) writing my Nanowrimo Novel, I have only achieved something similar to this state for a few minutes at a time each day. I think it's great that I'm even able to come close to what these great authors describe as how they write. It makes this whole experience worth it.

The fear of not finishing is ever present though. There are times, however, when a different fear takes its place, the fear of getting to 50,000 words, but not being done with my story. The more I write and the closer I get the more these two fears change top spots in the back of my mind. At the same time, if I manage to get to 50,000 words, whether the story is done or not, I'm going to be celebrating.

My current goal is to be at 13000 words by Tomorrow night (since I don't write on Sundays). that will put me just above target.

All in all, this experience has been awesome, even in the first 4 days of writing I've already learned a lot. I would definately recommend this event to anyone who is even remotely interesting in improving their writing skills.

Thanks for reading!

Madness? This is...

Nanowrimo! Day 2. This crazy challenge is already taking it's toll. I woke up this morning feeling like I had only slept an hour or two. I actually slept 7 and a half. Getting from my bed to the bathroom, to the kitchen, I literally felt like I was dragging a dead body along. The only problem? That body was mine.

Yesterday I wrote 3,007 words in two hours. In order to complete Nanowrimo the daily goal, in terms of words, is 1,667. So according to that I did almost double duty yesterday. That's to be expected though, only the first page or so is tough, then you fly along until you hit some major roadblocking plot development. Oh, and then there's the ever present fear that I will run out of story before hitting anywhere close to the 50,000 mark. Yeah, I do my best to ignore that fear.

What I am really hoping is that the tiredness I feel in the early morning really has to do with how much I'm taxing my imagination, and not with how much I'm not enjoying work right now. I told Vanina this morning that I didn't think I'd make it to Thanksgiving. Having 4 days in a row off, that hasn't happened since September, and then it felt like a dream that I floated through all too fast.

I was looking on the Nanowrimo website at some of the other users and their current word counts. Some of these people must have taken the day off yesterday (from work or school) because there are a few of them that are over 15,000 words. In one day!

Madness...

Odds and ends...

Today's post will be a number of random items that I thought you might find interesting/amusing.

First, when I got in my car to go home from work yesterday, I felt a spider web cross my face and settle around my head. I was not happy about that. Some damn spider had gotten into my car and set up shop there. Admittedly, I think that spider bit off more than he could chew when his web crossed my path, but still my car is my space only. I wouldn't have even mentioned this event, had I not recently learned about the Utah Hobo Spider, whose bite you can't feel and can cause this to happen.

Today I will finish my last PhD School application. I started this past weekend and have so far applied to 9 programs. These programs are all over the country and I won't hear back from any of them until late February at the earliest, so the waiting game begins tomorrow. I don't much like that game, let me tell you.

As one chapter closes (PhD apps) another begins, that next chapter being my thrid attempt to successfully finish Nanowrimo. For those of you who do not know what Nanowrimo is, it's a 30 day challenge where you attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. What I've always heard is that the third times a charm, so we'll see if I can make it happen this time around. Last year was almost a total bust, as I was busy being a newlywed and writing wasn't anywhere near the top of my list of priorities. This year, I've used every ounce of extra energy I have to get everything else done so I won't have anything getting in the way of the time I'll need to accomplish this challenge. I have at least one friend willing to attempt this with me, if you are game too let me know. Wish me luck by the way.

Last, I have a new dilemma I've never had before. Here's the situation: Have you ever been really good at something, but you really didn't enjoy it? Particularly something they will pay you good money to do? Yeah, I know it sounds like the dilemma of a character in some novel. It's not, it's the problem I've having at work right now. According to my boss, my boss's boss, and his boss, I'm pretty damn good at my job, like top 10% they've ever seen. In fact, I'm so good that I'm in the running for a promotion to Plant Manager (the next rung on the corporate slave chain...I mean ladder) in Chicago (a job that comes with a 20k a year increase in pay). The main problem is, when I'm at work I feel like I'm watching the paint peel. Yes, it's that boring.

You gotta remember, I used to work in the IT industry, doing technology stuff. I was working on stuff that sometimes I barely understood myself, but damn if it wasn't intersting. Here, I'm working in the textiles industry and most of the product innovations we have here (polyester blends, washing machine formulas, chemistry) were old when my Grandmother was looking for her first job. Not a whole lot of interesting going on. "But the money!", you say. Yes, yes, the money. I couldn't care less. I mean that last part.

Let me know what you'd do if you were me...(you already know what I'm doing, see paragraph 3 above).

T.K.O. SHATT 2.0

Welcome to the redesign! So I noticed today that Google had completely overhauled the Design portion of Blogger, and since I was bored out of my gourd today at work, I decided to give my blog a new (and hopefully refreshing) look.

It's most assuredly brighter if nothing else. Being that I was at work while I was doing this, I got interrupted several times and it took most of the day to finish what should have taken no more than an hour tops. If you notice any discrepancies with the color scheme or boxes or anything like that please let me know in the comments section so that I can fix it.

Enjoy!

The Pain that Keeps on Giving...

Not many of you know this, but I have had a hurt back for the past fourteen years or so. It started as a sports injury that hurt for a while then went away after resting and didn't bother me again for five or six years. Then I re-injured my back, thankfully after I came home from Panama, in another sports accident. Since then, it has been an on again, off again recurring pain. In 2009 however, it stopped doing the "off again" portion and became a continuous pain that only wavered in level of relative pain.

So I finally decided to do something about it. First, six months ago, I went to a general family doctor and he prescribed me Gabapentin. This is a medicine for Epileptics to control seizures. It is also used to control nerve pain. The most interesting thing about this drug is a sentence from the medical information page that comes with the drug when you pick it up. It reads, "It is not known how Gabapentin controls seizures or reduces nerve pain." This sentence is printed directly after the paper tells me that this medicine is used to control seizures and nerve pain. Damn, I love modern medicine.

Last week, after switching insurance from my company's sucky one to Vanina's amazing insurance, I got an MRI and went to a back/joint specialist (all covered). He reviewed my MRI and told me that I have Herniated Nucleus Pulposus (Spinal Disc Herniation) with nerve impingement in my L4.5 disk (my sciatic nerve). Basically this means I am in pain all the time but my pain spikes and shoots down my leg when I bend over forward or lift objects weighing more than a few pounds.

The doctor has prescribed me to get a Spinal Injection (yes think Epidural) of Cortisone, and go to Physical Therapy afterward. Hopefully, the injection will reduce the inflammation (and pain) in my back allowing me enough time (months) to complete my physical therapy regimen and strengthen my core muscles so my back won't return to the way it is now.

I'm scheduled for this spinal tap on Thursday. Wish me luck.

1st Anniversary!

It's hard to believe that it has been one year already, but it has! Vanina and I were married one year ago this sunday (two days from now). We will be celebrating this momentous occasion privately, at the Waldorf-Astoria here in Utah.

We are SUPER excited about this weekend! I hear wonderful things about this Hotel, and will be sure to report on it after the fact.

It has been getting colder and colder here, and raining alot this past week. We are hopeful that Saturday will prove an exception to this though, as we would very much like to hit up the Mountain resort to play on their Zip lines and slider coasters during the day. If it is raining this won't happen, as wet and cold don't mix very well at all.

No matter the weather, Park City has much to offer. In fact, I have yet to visit that city during the warm months but have been there numerous times during the winter (for film festivals and snow activities mostly).

I hope everyone who reads this has a wonderful weekend planned as well.

Free Advertising

So Vanina and I went to Costco last night for dinner. She was actually craving Chinese food, but she also wanted a Chicken Bake and she opted for the latter.

When we got in line to order, we noticed a new item on the menu: "The Carne Asada Bake." Vanina decided to give it a try. I'm so glad that she did. After one bite of that thing, my polish dog and combo pizza no longer seemed appetizing.

Now, I have long since stopped eating chicken bakes. I no longer like the taste, but this new Carne Asada Bake has restored my liking for the bakes. I am a Mexican food junkie and this thing hits the spot like nothing else on Costco's menu (not to mention the fact that it tastes better than most things on some Mexican food restaurant menus).

If you love Mexican food like me, do not pass go, do not collect $200, go straight to Costco and purchase a Carne Asada Bake for lunch.

Oh, and a little bonus tip for you: if your Costco membership is expired (like ours is) you can still use the card as a "Show Me" (little Fringe joke there) to get into the store and then go purchase food (which does not require a card).

That is all.

Nostalgia, Cheese steak, and Home...

This past weekend my wife and I went to a place called Moochies here in Salt Lake. Moochies is a little hole in the wall italian deli style food place. Just so you get my meaning, the place is attached to a pottery store and there is a sign inside that says "For restrooms please go next door to Circle Pottery." That's how hole in the wall it is.

Nevertheless while growing up I would always eat really good cheese steak subs and I have been craving one for some time now. So, I did some searching online and found that Moochies' cheese steaks were rated number two in SLC. The number one place was too far to drive just for a cheese steak (like 20 minutes one way).

The website I found online was NOT wrong. The cheese steak subs we ate were really good, if a bit pricey. It totally reminded me of home and growing up and my grandparents (who loved eating out at little hole in the wall sub places). So for the memories, tasty food, and good feelings the price was not too much.

As long as it's not too often, because I'm sure that sub was terrible for me! It tasted oh soooo goood though!

Oh, and if you happen to be in my old neighborhood check out one of the deli's I used to go to: Gina's, you won't regret it.