Thursday, November 20th, 2008
We got about 20 steps away from the car when I noticed the Christmas lights on the trees at Somerset Square. “Oh yeah, can we go back to get the camera?” I asked Laura. I thought I would ask nicely, even though I was already headed back.
Can you imagine me out and about, not attached to my camera? If the shoe were on the other foot, I would probably be pretty annoyed by this point. When you’re 10 years deep with someone, you tend to let things slide a little. With my personality, a lot slides.
We did a little shopping up at Pottery Barn this afternoon. I went up to finish purchasing the office furniture. I made a little list. It was on my Blackberry…another annoying trait, I’m sure…Blackberry-itis. Either way, it came in handy. My list was this: small table, floor lamp, garbage pail and mouse pad. I knew I could get everything but the mouse pad at Pottery Barn. Perhaps I would pick that up another day. Can you believe I have had my hands on like 50 mouse pads in my life and have none to speak of? I worry that I am going to put a dull “circle” in my new desk from rubbing the mouse around directly on the wood. Either I get a big piece of glass for the top of the entire desk or I get a mouse pad. I think the mouse pad with do.
We went in to Pottery Barn and looked around a little. It’s always the way…when you go in for something in particular, you seem to wander around aimlessly for a long time. If you go in with no money in your pocket, you want everything in the store after 10 minutes. After a while, I decided that I really didn’t need another table, since the desk and cabinet I already bought still sit empty. Also, the wicker garbage can was $57. Laura’s response said it all when I told her the price. “What?” Okay, forget that one, I’m no fool.
I settled on a nice Chelsea Floor Lamp Base with a medium shade. It’s funny, Pottery Barn sells the lamp bases and the lamp shades separately. Sorry, I’m used to Home Depot.
We thought an hour was long enough in that store, so we left. We wandered over to Williams-Sonoma for some kitchen items I had on another list. Out came the Blackberry again. By this point, I began hiding it. I hate people with Blackberrys. Seriously. I don’t want to turn into that guy, but folks, it’s getting very difficult for me. There honestly are good reasons for using it.
I mainly needed things to assist me in making my next pizza. I have a killer herb pizza recipe and it is a true winner. The only problems I have are rolling out the dough, grating the cheese and slicing the pizza. Oh, that’s all. So, with that in mind, I picked up a rolling pin, a cheese grater and a pizza cutter. I also got a nifty french fry cutter that I have been wanting for the longest time. I make a mean sweet potato fry.
There, the items on my lists were all crossed off.
We left.
Half way back the the highway, I said, “Ooof, I totally forget to take you to lunch.” That had been my plan all along, but unfortunately, that wasn’t in my Blackberry. Oh well.
A few thoughts very quickly flew through my head…”Maybe I can get away with it and we can just eat something at the house,” and “Maybe we can quickly pick up some takeout,” and “Maybe we can just eat tomorrow,” but finally I thought, “Jay, stop being such a dirtbag and take the girl out to lunch.” Ladies, we all think it, I’m just the only one who has the guts to write it.
I tried, I really tried to get to Glastonbury in one shot. Nope, couldn’t do it. I must say, the roads around here are a little tough if you have no idea where you are going. I do use the GPS, but if you have absolutely no idea of what direction you are driving in, it’s very hard to get places. I haven’t been able to “orientate” myself yet. It’s the whole “84″ and “384″ thing that throws me. It seems like there are a bunch of “off ramps” that turn immediately into “on ramps.” Do you know the kind? I don’t think anyone handles them well. I do, but when I am driving on the regular highway and someone is trying to get off one and I am trying to get on one, it seems like we just drive side by side staring at one another until I force them to slow down and I miss the on ramp. I have done this a million times. I did it again today. You think I would learn.
Anyway, I was coming back from Manchester, trying to go to Glastonbury and ended up on the other side of the river. Go ahead Liz, laugh. I know you already are. I am sure you can also imagine my face turning red while I was cursing out all the stupid drivers who caused me to end up in this mess.
We made it to Glastonbury Boulevard at about 4PM. I really wanted to take my lady to Houlihan’s for a late lunch. We turned down the road and I started getting my swagger back. “Oh yeah sweetheart, here we come. I hope your taste buds are turned on because this handsome old man is…what, Houlihan’s is closed? Oh MAAAAAN!!!” We drove past a few other restaurants and finally learned that these places are dinner restaurants, not lunch and dinner ones.
Since we were an hour early, I had a few thoughts run through my mind again, but I won’t put you through that again. We thought that a little food shopping at Whole Foods would help pass the time. I also secretly decided to take her to Max Fish, instead of Houlihan’s. That was my little bit of trickery and deceit. We spent about about a half hour at Whole Foods and the next half hour walking around Somerset Square in the cold. The cold felt really good against my face, strangely enough.
To make a long story short, we ate at Max Fish. Here are a few pics of the event:
Jay standing next to car
Max Fish business card
I hope you don’t mind, but I am going to offer a short review of both Max Fish and Houlihan’s. Here we go…
When my bother and I left Houlihan’s over the Summer, I told him that I just ate one of the best meals of my life. It was really incredible. I went and told Laura about it and have been trying to get her to come back with me ever since. In the meantime, my brother and I went back to the restaurant and basically ate the same meals again. Since they were no surprise to us, the first time may have seemed a bit more satisfying.
This evening’s meal at Max Fish was delicious. There is no doubt about it. After we left and began driving in the car, I started thinking out loud. I thought, “You know, I just basically ate the same thing I ate over at Houlihan’s, but Houlihan’s was half the price. The Ceasar Salad over at Houlihan’s was actually better than Max Fish too. If I want to go out for a beer, I will go to either restaurant, but if I want to eat, I am going back to Houlihan’s. The tables at Houlihan’s were much bigger as well.”
There you have it folks, the strangest restaurant review ever given. And to think, it only took a half hour of reading to get to it.
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Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008
Hey, guess what guys and gals? Yes, I found another beer. Before I begin, please let me know if I ever repeat any of my beer posts. That would be a little embarrassing.
Ok, I was up in Whole Foods this evening doing a little food shopping. I have this great vegetarian cookbook that has the most excellent recipes. Tonight, I made herb pizza. It knocked my socks off, just like my socks were knocked off in my previous post. Tomorrow night, I am making kidney bean and mushroom burgers.
You know, I have often considered writing blog posts describing the things I cook. I am just starting to get good at it, but I would tell you if what I made was bad. I’m honest like that. I will have to think about that one. The problem with taking pictures of the stuff I make is that the pictures would come out terrible. It takes a very long time to set up those real pictures for cookbooks and stuff, and I fear that my singular reputation as a master chef would be tarnished and I wouldn’t view myself as one any more. I would still cook, but it wouldn’t be as much fun as it is now.
Anyway, back to my story. I was food shopping when I passed the beer area, again. I know, I know, it’s my weakness. Don’t worry mom, I don’t drink too much. This beer area was near the bakery. for some reason, they keep the seasonal beers over in this area, while the regular beer is kept over in the beer aisle. I browsed through the bakery beer area for a while looking for something good. There were mainly ales and lagers, which don’t do it for me. I decided it wasn’t my night for beer and I moved over to the cheese area.
I did most of my shopping when I wandered over to the real beer aisle. I chatted it up with some lady who was trying to surprise her husband with a new beer that he hasn’t tried yet. She mentioned that he liked the Sam Adams Oktoberfest. I told her that I just saw some Oktoberfest in the other area, but by a different brewery. Maybe he would like that. She thanked me and hurried off. That was my good deed for the day and made me think to myself that I was an angel. Remember the last time I thought I was an angel?
As I was now looking over the entire selection all by myself (just the way I like it, hehe), I noticed a six pack glaring at me. It said “Chocolate Stout” right on the side. “Hmmm,” I thought, as I was picking it up and putting it in my cart. That’s a much as I thought…just “Hmmm.”
Check ‘er out.
I finished up and left. When I got back to the house, I unpacked all the food and started up my process. The first thing I always do is crack open a beer before I start cooking. It makes things glide. I took a few sips and decided that this “Fort Collins Brewery Chocolate Stout” is exactly what my next batch is going to taste like.
Did I mention that I am making chocolate stout next? I have all the ingredients. I was thinking about adding coffee to it, but I think I better not. I like to drink my beer at night and I fear the coffee will make me lie in bed staring at the ceiling. That’s not good for my tennis game.
Speaking of tennis, today was a fantastic clinic. I truly think I am getting better. My buddy and I hit for about a half hour after the clinic and we came to the conclusion that we have both improved considerably. This dude is like a wall at the net, so I don’t mess with him there, but as for ground strokes, we are lovin’ it. Believe it or not, we are signed up for cardio-tennis on Monday mornings now. We’ll see how that goes. I think I’m more into smacking tennis balls than running around, but I’ll get back to you with the verdict.
That’s all. Good night.
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Thursday, July 24th, 2008
We had to wake up extra early today because of a few chores that needed doing. The first thing was to drive Holly to the vet. She has been there a few times since we arrived in this part of the world. Apparently, she got some wound on her tail that needed tending to. She went in this morning to get a little operation, but when the vet looked at the tail, she decided not to go ahead with it. She thought it would heal by itself. That’s good for Holly and good for the wallet.
After that, we ran up to Super Stop and Shop in Glastonbury for some food shopping. Laura’s family is stopping by for a visit in a few weeks and that is going to require an entire Costco ordeal. In the meantime, the local food store is good enough to hold us over.
I stepped on the scale yesterday and noticed that I weigh 190lbs. I am not sure what the ideal weight for a strapping 6′3″ genious is, but I feel like I am five pounds overweight. I am really going to have to hit that indoor tennis center in East Hartford soon. After all, that is about 90% of the reason I wanted to move over here. It’s the little things with me. I am serious about the tennis though.
Since I am waiting for the cooler weather to come to join the tennis club, and possibly because Laura thinks I am getting fat, we decided to go for a nice long walk down the road today.
In general, I usually have no complaints about walking down the road, except for the hill. The hill is where I usually begin to sweat and I hate that. The reason I hate sweating on the walk up the hill is because I cool off on the way down the hill and that usually means another shower for the day. If you are anything like me, you understand multiple showers per day during the Summer.
I thought we could beat the sweating today because it is cooler than it has been lately. Unfortunately, with all the rain, it is also very humid. I didn’t beat the sweating. Either way, I did take some nice nature pictures along the way.
Road approaching the hill.
Larger river down the road.
Same river at the other side of the street.
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Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
Boy, that title is pretty long.
Yesterday, Laura and I went shopping. We first went up to Home Depot in Enfield, CT. I got a bunch of stuff, most of which I can hardly remember right now. I am sure I’ll write about it when I start using it.
Then, we went to Circuit City and got some stuff. After that, we went to Costco for food shopping. Just to let you know, Costco in Enfield has a gas station for members. Gas around here is $4.39 per gallon. I paid $4.05 yesterday at the Costco gas station. It averages about 30 cents less per gallon than regular gas stations.
Back to Circuit City. While there, I picked up some Sony bookshelf speakers that I am going to use for the new downstairs. I also picked up some new computer speakers. The computer speakers I was using up until yesterday were Altec Lansing and getting pretty old. I gave them to Laura as a hand-me-down. I got a hand-me-up to the new Bose Companion® 2 Series II Multimedia Computer Speakers.
When I was looking at them in the store, I kept asking the guy (kid) if they had an amp in them. I was worried that they might be like those cheap Dell speakers you get with a new computer. You should probably have someone standing next to you hitting two pans together than using those Dell speakers. Man, if I had a nickle for every pair of them I threw away.
He never gave me an answer. He just kept saying that these Bose speakers were the best brand they had in the store. Since I never quite got an answer out of him, I just bought them and decided that I would return them if they were horrible.
I got home and hooked them up. Right after that, I hooked up the Altec Lansings to Laura’s computer, which made her very happy. Now she can pump the bass. Back to my speakers. I turned on Media Player and was quite impressed. All that stuff Bose says about themselves is pretty true. The speakers are very clear and I can now hear sounds I never heard out of my old speakers. It’s pretty amazing what they can do with half the size and weight of something.
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Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
We took the leap. The leap to Costco (finally) up in Enfield, CT…near the border of MA. We have been meaning to do this for a very long time, but never got around to it.
Back at our old house, we were members of Sam’s Club, which is just an extension of Wal-Mart. We got pretty sick of it and didn’t renew our yearly plan. It seemed like there was some sort of stagnation with its stock. My father kept telling me that Costco is much better. I remember Costco from the Danbury location and it was pretty good. My father and I are a little different when it comes to shopping at Costco though. He likes to look at tools and equipment, while I like to look at the heads of lettuce.
One of the main things I was looking for was high quality food, mainly produce, and a big store. We visited BJs in Willimantic earlier in the week and were disappointed. It seemed like an older store and was much smaller than the others. I like to feel like I am in a stadium.
The Enfield Cosco was built in 2004, which means it has all the latest perks, groceries, tire changes, pharmacy, etc…and for those people who need to have dessert while they go food shopping, there is a fast food place. It’s almost sad.
Anyway, membership is $50 and good for a year, so we did it.
Yes, that is the actual Enfield store.
We filled our cart up last night and made out like bandits. I got a 2 1/2 pound bag of spinach and a huge box of veggie burgers, among other things. The prices were pretty good, but you can never really tell. On some stuff, they are definitely better. On other stuff, it’s a little tricky. The good thing is that we don’t need to keep running out to the grocery store for every little thing, like we used to. Now, we just load up the trunk and that’s that. Of course, we are still going to have to go to the regular grocery store for some stuff, but this place helps out a bunch.
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Saturday, May 17th, 2008
In an effort to learn more about the area we now sleep in, I have been suggesting that we visit different grocery stores for our food shopping. So far, we have been to Whole Foods in Glastonbury (very nice, but expensive), our local grocery store (pretty ok), Super Stop and Shop in Colchester (big and very well priced, but nothing wowed me) and today, Shaw’s in East Hampton.
We have been seeing quite a few Shaw’s grocery stores around in various towns. I haven’t really wanted to go in any of them because I prefer those jumbo super-stores. I like a wide variety. Well, today was different. Laura needed to deposit a check and her bank is in East Hampton, so Shaw’s was the store of choice.
We parked in the parking lot and began walking into the store. I turned to Laura an told her I really liked what I saw. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood and the store looked great. We shopped around for a little while, when I turned to say something to Laura. She kind of had a weird look on her face and hadn’t been putting any groceries in the cart for some time. I asked her what was wrong and she told me that the place had crazy high prices. I started to look around and I quickly agreed. Things were way out of whack. I understand that food prices are going up, but this was a little up, up and away. We did what we had to do and left.
After leaving the store, I stopped on the side of the road to grab some photos of Lake Pocotopaug in East Hampton. It looks like a really cool lake and it might be good for the canoe I want to get.
Pretty cool, huh?
After mentioning the canoe idea, I have been informed that this wouldn’t be the best place to go. Apparently the Connecticut River offers some sort of a canoe rental. I will let you know what we find.
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Thursday, May 8th, 2008
We took another trip to a different town today. We went food shopping at Stop and Shop in Colchester. Colchester was a pretty neat town, but a little busy for my taste. It was cute with a nice park right off main street. I think it may have seemed busy because rush hour was getting close.
While in Stop and Shop, I felt a bit tired. I kept wondering why. Then, I remembered what I had done all morning…raked leaves. By the way, Stop and Shop’s prices were waaay lower than Whole Foods. We got about triple the product for just a little mo’ money. That’s cool with me. I think we are still going to go back to Whole Foods because I like the atmosphere. Stop and Shop seemed much more like just buying food to survive. If I am going to go out somewhere, I like to have an “experience.”
Anyway, back to those leaves. Since this propery is a bit larger than our other one, it is taking a little while to get used to. One thing I noticed was that there needs a lot of raking to be done. There are many gardens (which are very nice and right up my alley), but they need a bit of TLC because of the Winter. The good thing is that they have a nice variety of plants already planted. There isn’t much in the way of running out to the nursery to get new stuff. Yesterday, we went to Home Depot for some spruces and pachysandra. I got the spruces, but there was no pachysandra to be found. When we got home, I noticed there was pachysandra already scattered throughout the front. They were just kind of buried with leaves.
A few days ago, I decided to it would be best if I picked one area per day to rake. There is no sense me killing myself and I can always use a nice break from the computer. I already did about three or four areas and things are starting to come together. Today, I did part of the big front garden and along the front of the house.
Believe it or not, this area had three tarp fulls of leaves. One tarp full equals about four wheel barrow loads. Crazy. If you are wondering what the heck a tarp full is, it’s me laying a big tarp on the ground and raking the leaves onto it. When it’s full, I pick it up like a big sack and carry it into the woods.
The front of the house was easier with only one tarp full. I needed to get the leaves away from the house because, well, it looks better and I can also get to the foundation for insect spray.
After I am all done getting all the leaves up, I am really going to focus on getting the lawn in order. I already have been doing some stuff, but it needs to be raked and reseeded.
Also, this is the month I get my new ride on lawnmower. I am planning on this towards the end of the month, so there maybe one tough day with the push mower.
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Sunday, April 20th, 2008
I read that the Minnewaska State Park is on fire over at Paul’s blog this morning. I had already planned on going up to Stone Ridge again today to do a little food shopping, so I thought I would grab a photo. Things really didn’t look too bad…I guess most of it’s out. There was another place to get a better shot, but we already had some that were ok.
From what I read, the fire has already burned 2,300 acres.
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