If the large bottle of shampoo and body wash that you took was really a potentially dangerous chemical, why on earth did you throw it in the garbage with all the other potentially dangerous chemicals? You’re doing the terrists dirty work for them and turning that garbage can into a big potential bomb.

In other news, Hillary hates women who hover. You know who you are. In your attempt to avoid whatever terrible disease is lurking on the toilet, you have managed to piss all over the seat. Gross. Please just sit like a reasonable person. Thank you.

While some parts of travel are lacking, shuttle drivers rock. Thank you Shirley for making our day a little nicer.

Kickball was canceled today, so I had a full day to mess around at home.  After making angel food cake yesterday for a dinner party, I was left with a dozen egg yolks that needed a culinary home.  Hillary searched online and found a recipe that would use all twelve yolks.  The recipe was for a rich sweet Mexican bread called Pan de Muertos, or bread of the dead, that is traditionally made for all-saints day.  The bread-making took about 5 hours including the time needed for the dough to rise and everything went well… until the baking.  I misread the recipe and cooked it at 350 instead of 375.  The outside looked great, but it was still uncooked on the inside.  I eventually got the rounds mostly cooked through without being too burnt by cutting them in half and baking them cut-side down.  How does it taste?  Even the burned bits are amazing.  I plan to make this again for sure.

We had planned to grill-out after the kickball game and we were still in a burger mood though the game was rained-out.  I thought this would be the perfect time to have dinner at Riverside Lunch which is supposed to server the best burgers in town.  Walking in, I was surprised by the number of beer posters hanging up all over the walls.  We grabbed a booth and scoped out the menu.  I was surprised when I saw that the burgers were so cheap.  We were quickly approached by a very pleasant waitress who brightened up when she heard that this was our first time at the restaurant.  I ordered some onion-rings and a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, and grilled onion, while Hillary ordered a hamburger with lettuce, tomato, and grilled mushroom.  The onion rings were out to us in less than two minutes, and the burgers came out soon after.  I have to agree with common wisdom.  The onion rings were steaming hot and the burgers were the best I’ve had in town so far.  They really were quite basic, but they have a great flat-grill flavored taste.  Rarely do we eat out for less than $10.  We definitely plan to go back to Riverside next time we’re in the mood for a burger.

I just ran across a great idea.  Once a month, a person is handed the torch to pick a style of wine, or a wine-making region, then everyone blogs about their choice.  The website is called Wine Blogging Wednesday.  I’m a little late as the April event happened last week, but this might be a good excuse for a party next month.

I used to walk to the corner almost every day for lunch when I worked at Gilmer Hall. Since moving over to ITC and not walking to work anymore, I try to eat a small lunch at my desk most days. The past couple of days I’ve gotten to eat out again. We’ve had engineers from Aruba Networks on-site and they like to eat out for lunch. Yay, my favorite!

Dragon Lady is a decent Chinese restaurant about a block away. We went there as a group of eight. I ordered the Hunan Beef and enjoyed it. They make good food, though I think I prefer Taiwan Garden for nearby Chinese food.

Today, a smaller group of us, only four this time, walked to the corner and ate at Lemongrass. I ordered chicken Pad Thai spicy. I hadn’t had the pad thai in a while so I didn’t really remember what it was like, but it didn’t dissapoint. One of the engineers ordered a community plate of spring rolls and satay. The saytay tasted breaded and fried, kinda’ weird, but I love the spring rolls. Good stuff. Everyone seemed to enjoy their meals.

I haven’t worked out in a few weeks, so that has to change. A while back I had the idea of doing a quick round or two of barbara-lite (10 pull-ups, 20 push-ups, 30 sit-ups, and 40 squats) in the morning every morning. I did this today and want to keep doing it every morning.

The theme this year for my Christmas gifts was cheese. Last year I got interested in cheese-making, even going so far as making my own feta, but didn’t have the real equipment and bacterial cultures to do it. For Christmas, Hillary gave me a cheese press, Hillary’s parents gave me a copy of Ricki Carroll’s “Home Cheese Making”, the bible for the amateur cheesemaker, and my brother gave me a beginners cheese-making kit which included cheese wax and bacterial starters. Last week, I gathered up my new equipment and a gallon of fresh organic milk from Rebecca’s and turned it into cheese. I just bought a dorm fridge from a co-worker where the cheese sits to age for 2-3 months. I’ll post an update when I cut it open.

Push Jerk 3-3-3-3-3-3-3 reps

45#, 55#, 75#, 95#, 95 (failed 3rd rep), 75, 75

I’ve done a few crossfit workouts, but I’ve never known how to warm-up for them. I’ve usually just done a few loops around the indoor track at the AFC, then done the workout of the day. Today I decided to try the official warmup and I realized I’m really out of shape. I think I need to go to the gym and just work on the warm-up! After the three rounds of warm-up, I was ready to go home. No squats tonight.

When I worked for the Psychology department, I met a woman from Brazil in one of the labs. I had heard about a Brazilian restaurant in C-ville named Copacabana and asked her what she thought about it. She told me that it was okay, but for great Brazilian meat I had to check out Ipanema Grill or Texas de Brazil, both in Richmond. Hillary and I have a membership at a climbing gym in Richmond so we’re there somewhat regularly, but never in the evening. I figured we’d make a special trip sometime to try one of these restaurants.

Flash forward to yesterday, Hillary and I were in Richmond, used-car shopping, and we’re getting hungry. I pointed out a Fuddruckers earlier in the afternoon as a possible dinner choice, but neither of us were craving burgers. I knew Texas de Brazil was a little pricy, but Hillary reminded me that we hadn’t yet gone out for a nice dinner in celebration of her birthday. It was settled. We got directions and drove to the south side of Richmond and the restaurant.

The service was pretty cool.  Waiters walk around with chunks of grilled meat on swords and carve off pieces for you.  Most nights they have 15 different types of meat to choose from.  Needless to say, it’s all-you-can-eat.  We will probably go back there with family when they come to visit.

We’re all cleaned up. There were three services running on the server that I stopped, and Kevin deleted the offending code and upgraded phpGedView. We should be okay now.

My brother just wrote me that he found a strange file called “z.php” in his images directory. He deleted the file, but I started snooping. I found some directories in /tmp that shouldn’t be there, but still digging. I’ll write more later.

I just realized I had a very wierd dream last night. I can only remember a few tidbits.

I was sliding down a hill where there were trees lots of trees. I wasn’t actively avoiding any, but after a while I wondered why I hadn’t hit one yet. I looked down at some sort of speedometer thing and noticed that I was actually speeding up. Somehow I was then stopped and, when I stood up, I saw that there was a big tree in front of me. I looked around and saw that the trees were plumb trees. I plucked one off of a nearby tree, started eating it, and thought that I should remember this place so I can make some plumb wine.

There was other stuff before and after this but I can’t remember any of it.

Ooo, a Cthulhu costume! This costume is on display at the Nova Express Cafe in Hollywood. This would take me years to make.