Saturday the woman said "hey, let's take you to Burger Bar" (Huber Keller's fancy burger joint in SF) so off we went. To make good use of the driving, we went to Jeep & Truck Fest 2010 which is a big sales event for aftermarket parts. There were tons of really modified vehicles, 'deals' on parts and installs and all sorts of stuff. I found a guy selling electric fan kits but he didn't know if they would fit my '06. The packaging said it fit up to '05 and in theory the '06 is the same but maybe they did something funky to mine. I've got to take some measurements and see what's up before I buy anything. Admission was free, but the fairgrounds wanted $8 to park. We rolled up to the parking payment booth and they just waved us through. Sweet.

We parked at the BART station just north of SFO since they charge extra if you ride through the airport area, and rode in from San Bruno. With the Chinese New Year parade going on it would be impossible to park anywhere so although it cost more to BART in for the 2 of us than it would be to park in a garage, there may not have been garage space available.. We made it to Burger Bar just fine and after some really tasty burgers (I had the natural with prosciutto and mushrooms) we snapped a few pics of the setup for the parade and then got the hell out of dodge.

OK, not directly out of dodge, we stopped at "Crate & Barrel 2" and found a coffee table that we really liked. It's the right size, the right height, reasonably priced and kinda funky looking yet still works with our decor. Who knew we had a decor?

Today in keeping with the Hubert theme we decided to try his salt crust tenderloin. Checking the recipe we noticed it's a bit out of order (why pre-heat and sear the meat when you have to let the crust sit for several hours?) and missing some liquid (2 egg yokes as the only moisture in a mix with 2+ cups of flour and 2 cups of salt?) but we figured it out. The only real shock so far is the meat itself, we went to whole foods and asked for a 2lb tenderloin....

Yea, ouch. I better not ruin this! Basically you make a really salty bread crust to bake the meat in after browning. It locks in all the juices and provides 'great flavor', or so says Hubert. Looked good on TV so we'll try it. We're going to cut the fillet in half and get two meals out of it, if it's as good as it's supposed to be it will be worth the cost. $30 home cooked meals is a bit pricey, but cheaper than our weekly sushi outing so as long as we skip that this week we're OK.

As long as I had everything out to make the salt crust (and had to go to whole foods) I made (or actually am in the process of making while I write this, the dough is in the fridge resting) another batch of ravioli with better flour. We got some 00 flour (I think it's zero-zero in chef speak, I keep calling it double-aught flour) and some semolina flour which is designed to mix into regular all purpose flour when making pasta. We'll see how it turns out tonight with the ricotta and mushroom filling.

The salt bread crusted beef turned out really well, it really flavors the meat and the baked spices add flavor even though they're not left on the meat anywhere. Our oven is just not warm enough though, it was supposed to be 15 minutes at 375F but it was still rare at that time/temp, so I'm guessing the temp isn't right. We bumped it up to 400F and hit it for another 4 minutes and then it was medium rare. That is one thing you never get with household appliances it seems, enough heat! The woman took some pics of me wrapping the beef after browning it, but we didn't take a pic of the final product before eating. Doh.

I also finished making the cheese ravioli, we'll have to see how they taste another night. I'm too stuffed to even think of trying a taste. I had some leftover dough so I cut it into fettuccine noodles with the pizza cutter. No idea how it will taste, it's the wrong type of dough for that type of noodle.

I'm done cooking for the week I hope.... oh wait, cooking class is on Wednesday!

Saturday morning was the archery club 3D shoot (and breakfast). I went early to eat (pancakes and eggs, boar sausage, some other random stuff all cooked over makeshift bbq/stoves outside) and then did the full course. Igor, the Russian dude I shot with last month invited me to shoot with his group which was cool. I feel like I've got some people to hang with at these events... almost like making friends! I think I did OK my first time out, and my score could have been better if I had bought some mulligans (you can buy two for $1/each, but I figured it didn't matter for my first shoot). I came in for a tie for 12th out of 18 in my class (full results).

After the shoot I went up to my parents, mom hadn't seen me in a while and it gave me a chance to drive right by Bass Pro Shops to look for my belt and stuff (never miss a shopping opportunity :). Sunday morning there were deer in the yard so I decided to test out my stalking ability. I circled way around them, moving 150 or so yards down the hill before coming back up with some bushes between us. I would only move when a car went by down on the road, hoping it would mask my movement sounds. I got into position inside the bush I wanted and as they went by I was going to take a picture. I had dad's D70 and when I turned it on the lens did some auto-focus dance and the flash popped up and the deer heard it and instantly stopped. I clicked the camera to manual mode to try to focus through the bush to take a shot and it worked but it's really strange looking... some setting must have been way off because the picture quality is crap. No bucks in the batch, so I wandered back up the hill. 15 minutes later mom said "there are all the bucks"... yep, standing right out in the open on the hill munching away. Humph.

Day of disappointment. Hunt this weekend, canceled. Psycho class, canceled (due to my choice I won't go into but it upset me enough to just ignore the $750 non-refundable deposit). Add that to the Jeep trip failure, the 2nd Jeep trip failure, me missing Vegas for the downtime that ended up getting moved, etc, etc. It's a rough year for plans I make. The woman is still going to LA for the race this weekend so I'll have to figure out what to do with myself.

I tried another ravioli recipe today (for the filling). It's made with ground lamb and a bunch of various herbs and spices including a few from the front porch. I also ran the pasta thinner this time (setting 5 instead of 4) and hand cut the squares instead of using the cutter. It was much faster, but the ravioli look kinda half assed. The taste though is amazing, puts that first effort to shame. This batch (I cooked up just a few as a trial) is way better than anything I've had from a store before. Not up to good restaurant quality yet, but it would blow olive garden out of the water. :)

The downtime is in full effect, we've got IS&T networking guys scurry around, data is flying everywhere, filers are being upgraded... and so far nothing has really gone wrong. Currently I'm sitting in the lobby waiting for the next crew to arrive. There are still a surprising number of people moving through the building on this random Saturday morning. I think the sales/marketing droids are having some sort of class in the big conference room. There are laptops everywhere and big piles of candy and shiny stuff (look like gold triangles, I'm guessing they're chocolates) by everyone's work spots. Rewards for participation? Works for 12 year olds, and sales people. :)

Other than downtime prep not much has gone on this weekend. I did manage to workout 3 times and get to the archery range 2 times during the week, that's about a personal best for morning activities. Four workouts a week is pretty typical, but doing the two range trips is a bit of a stretch. Once the rains stop I won't ever drive in so my archery time will go way down.

Here's a picture of the big banner they don't want people taking pictures of. Fortunately security isn't here on the weekends. I had to email the photo to myself (don't have the cable with me to sync up to the air) so it's smaller than usual but you get the idea. I never like sitting under these things, always feel like they're going to fall and crush me. Wonder when they'll put up an ipad banner?

We actually finished up and left an hour ahead of schedule. First time ever!

With the spare time tonight I finished loading ammo for the class next month. 857 rounds total.

Reading Kenny's journal and seeing he passed through Hornby Island. We've been there too (for the wedding a while back). Seems like a nice place to visit, wish we could go back when it's not raining, but what are the odds we hit the dry week in the whole year of the PNW? :)

One of the woman's blogging buddies is in the business of making cheap Chinese knockoffs of the tempurpedic beds. I asked her to ask him to send me some foam scraps so I could try to put them in my old worn out shoulder recoil pad to see if they worked well for that. He didn't end up sending me just scraps, he also sent two 1' square blocks as well. I ended up using the big squares as cushions on my old ratty office chair, but they were just raw foam and weren't very finished looking. Liz, one of my minions, is a crafter/sewer type so I asked her to make me some fitted pillow cases for the blocks and this is what she came up with. You can't tell in the photos but the workman ship is top notch. Double stitched seams, perfectly cut and even the stripes on the material line up on the sides. They're removable too so I can wash them. The fabric was something someone gave her so she used it for this since it's kinda ugly, but whatever they're just cushions and look 1000% better than pink and green foam blocks. The woman says it's inappropriate to make my minions do personal stuff for me; it's not like I forced her to do it. It's like having Brian craft stuff for me in-game. :)

Saturday was low key. It was kinda half assed trying to rain so while the woman went to ride (indoors) I went to the archery range and did about half the field course. I was totally alone out there which was nice. It was not really raining, just sorta misty out and not cold or windy at all. I would say it was almost perfect, just enough weather to keep people away, not so bad to make it miserable. After I got home and cleaned up we went for a walk, then sat down to organize the tax papers. What fun. Here is our happy scribe filling out the papers to send to the tax people. She says my writing is too hard to read so she has to fill everything out. Whatever.

For dinner she made spaetzle with ham and onions, from scratch. Took me forever to just do the dishes from several hours of her in the kitchen.

Forget worrying about the battery in my air, the one in my MBP at home now lasts about 20 minutes. Good thing it's still user replaceable, gotta remember to snag a new one from on site spares tomorrow.

Today, instead of going 4x4ing in Holister ('cause the park was so soggy from the rains they had most of it closed down) we went out to Manteca to Bass Pro Shops for me to look for camo gear for the upcoming hunts. Pigs can't see for crap so nothing special is needed there but turkeys apparently see everything so you've got to do full gear. I got a lightweight waterproof jacket, pants, shirt and gloves seen here in the pile downstairs. I thought I was matching my bow by getting the AP color (guessing it means all purpose) but it turns out the bow is actually APG (all purpose w/green?). Even if I had known the bow wasn't AP I wouldn't have been able to get APG, they didn't have anything in that color other than some hats. Probably because nothing in CA is really green except in winter. It was actually cheaper to get the full outfit than I thought, which was a pleasant surprise.

I also forgot to mention that I got a few ammo cans at the surplus place on Saturday. Beats some of the cardboard boxes I was using to store ammo in.

Also, also forgot to mention that by bumping the tire pressure in the Jeep from 28 to 32 the gas mileage went from 14 to 16mpg. No Prius but at least it's in the EPA range now.

Working on my new macbook air, it hasn't caught fire yet. This is a DVT build unit (Development Validation and Test... I think) so it's got some random collection of parts in it and has been abused badly. So far everything is OK although the battery is half dead after only an hour of use. I thought they had 5 hour batteries in them, but I am running the wireless heavily and editing a lot of text... It does have the SSD drive though which is kinda cool. I can't hear normal drives spinning but I bet with something this light I could feel it. Once I'm converted over I'm turning my work mbp over to my new hire and will rely just on the air and my desktop at work, and my 15" mbp at home. Never thought I would have so many macs around. I don't see many airs around the offices anymore, I think they're out of vogue. Not sure why, do you really need to carry around so much weight when most all of us do around here is check email and edit wiki pages?

The dentist yesterday was not good at all. I've got 2 cavities. 1 in a wisdom tooth, the other is one of my 2003 fillings that's going bad. They said the white colored ones last only 7-10 years but the silver colored ones last 20. I'm going silver now, no one can see that far into my mouth anyway so who cares about a bit of color in there? Wish they had bothered to ask me what I wanted the first time around, I never would have gone the vanity route.

The reorg went off without any problems yesterday, even if I did sorta goof up my speech in a few places. I typed out a huge outline and it turned out to be almost 2 pages. All the important stuff came out even if it wasn't in the right order and everyone seems OK with it. Time will tell of course but I think it's going to be all right even in the long term. This is officially a new high point in my career, and should ensure that my next job is a manager slot and not a work my way up to manager slot. Woohoo, level 2 manager. Wonder if I get any new spells at level 2? Sigh, sometimes I miss gaming and even WoW.

It's not really February yet, but I know I won't get to finish this before tomorrow since it's already bedtime but I wanted to at least get the stub up for the month.

I did play my favorite game again this weekend called 'rearrange the safe'. I wanted to see if I could get all the .308 in there, and I did without having to remove anything that was in there before. Well some stuff, like the slings and some used parts, but none of the rifles had to go. I bet the safe is heavy now.