This Post Has No Pictures...

...and the reason is that I (capitalized for effect) have no pictures. of anything. from the last 2 years. (so those blackmail photos of you snuggling up to a transvestite are gone--you know who you are)

my hard drive died, just the hard drive, and it has made the last several days unbearable (technologically). i have replaced the drive and now i am back at it, but i had not backed up my photos since 2007 when i got my new imac. that was the only real loss.

learn from my mistakes, back up early and often. i got a 1TB (terabyte=~1000 gigabytes-that's for you mom) drive plugged into my airport extreme router and i am using apple's "time machine" to automatically back up now. of course once this happens, you get all freaked out and take all the precautions you should have done in the first place, and then it will never happen again.

BACK THAT THANG UP! (that's for you cory)

last bits of hanford

this was my childhood lightswitch

this is a baby toad i found near my parents pond
my trophy from grandma's yard

grandma being zany

...more than meets the eye

Father's day

since i was in hanford at the beginning of the week, i celebrated father's day early with my dad and grandpa. grandpa and i shared some superior dairy ice cream, a stroll, and a nice conversation. i admit that when i got to town i was stumped as to what to get my dad for a gift, i had a card already, but couldn't find that special thing. that changed when i went out shopping with mom on wed night-that's how we bond. at marshall's i saw the coolest, most pimped out converse ever. my dad has a collection of odd chuck taylors (desert camo, candycane striped, etc.) and these would be the crown jewel in that collection. Red, patent leather, perforated, clear rubber sole with red inside. mom tried to talk me out of them, she did not understand these shoes. i saw them and spontaneously felt a profound connection to my father. these were not only shoes for him, but they were shoes i was proud to say speak to a shared affinity.

he's a good man, and i love him greatly. (but when he dies, i'm getting these shoes)



additionally, there are other photos on my parents' blog if you just can't get enough of the shoes.

The Evolution of Nate

This is a short trip through some of the momentos i found while going through boxes at my parents house. they capture very suscinctly the changes in my life over the course of one year from approximately May 1997-May 1998. of all the boxes of star wars action figures, baseball cards, and comic books that i went through, this box had the most sentimental value. its probably because it was full of things that WERE me, rather than things that BELONGED to me. additionally there was a lot of bad poetry that should never see the light of day again, sheesh high schoolers in love...

in high school as seen by his friend Phil Malouf (MD.)

in high school as seen by his youth groupin bootcampin hospital corps schoolin field medical service school

odd bodkins! a tea update!

Loyal readers let me first apologize for my neglect, it has been several months since i brought you up to date on my tea snobbery. so long in fact that i had to go back to reference which ones i'd mentioned. i am sure that your anticipation has forced you to throw yourself over whatever rocky cliff is nearby, and as your body tumbled and scraped its way--homer simpson-like--to your doom, your only concern was to end the nights of sleepless yearning for new and rapturous tea experiences. your wait is over.

Mildly disappointed by pu-erh, i offered it to some friends at work who had given coffee up for lent. since it needs to be steeped in a larger container, it was really for more than one cup at a time. having made it for them, to show them how (recall that the instructions are a bit odd), i tasted it with the triple filtered, softened, starbucks water, and it was quite good. much better than at home from once filtered tap water (which i tend to prefer).

after pu-erh, i tried lion mountain keemum, another china black tea. it was warm and honey-like, but had a smokey taste like burned paper. not to be confused with the lapsang souchong that was very piney. keemum was tolerable, but not particularly noteworthy. even with the teas that i know after the first cup are stinkers i finish the whole 4 oz., which takes approximately a month. so i try to make the experience better by adjusting steep times, temp, and any other variable i can find to get the best cup possible from that batch.

with keemum out of the way, i moved from china to india black teas. there are only two species of true tea plants (you can make an "infusion" of anything by adding hot water) camelia sinensis which is chinese tea, and camelia assamica which is indian tea. chinese tea has smaller leaves, and more caffeine (generally), most "english breakfast" teas are mostly indian with some chinese added.

first up was assam golden tip. this was a harsh, malty tea. it was very bitter, which is possibly related to the condition of the leaves. Peet's has two offerings of assam, golden tip ($7.50), and extra fancy ($12.50), the difference is leaf condition. golden tip is made of broken leaves, and therefore, lower grade and cheaper price. the result is better than that of tea bags which are the next lower grade as they include "dust and fragments (tea dust, not dust-dust)". the finer the pieces, the more acidic, and bitter (also more caffeinated) the tea. it was very potent, superior to lipton tea bags, and on par with twinings english breakfast for flavor, but slightly harsher.

after that i got darjeeling fancy organic, i had heard of darjeeling teas from a number of pop cultural references, not the least of which the movie darjeeling limited (which i thought was pretty good, but i like wes anderson films). darjeeling, i have heard, is the preferred tea of queen elizabeth 2. well she can have it. i am still almost done with the tin after 4 months. its not that its bad, it just tastes like peanut shells. after enjoying some peanuts, i end up with a container of moist shells that have had all the salt sucked off. if i were to take that container, and then pour assam tea into it and drink it, i imagine it would be similar to the experience of this tea. no adjustment can rid me of the peanuts.

so to depart from darjeeling i got ceylon fancy, a sri lankan tea that is supposed to be lighter and cleaner than mainland indian teas due to differences in elevation on the plantations. i poured a cup for my wife, who subsequently exclaimed "chinese restaurant tea", and she had nailed it. it tastes like the tea in chinese restaurants, which is odd as it is not a chinese tea, but what are you going to do? it is light and citrus-ey, and a little grassy (not orchard grass, just lawn grass). its not bad for the afternoon, but its too weak to drink in the evening.

the final tea for this post is assam extra fancy, which i was apprehensive to buy after golden tip. why buy more of the same when you can get an equivalent experience in bags for cheaper, was my thought. after the first cup i felt like a fool. it was black and acidic, and rather like coffee, not at all what i had in mind. it was terrible. part of the problem was this, i had recently switched from a spoon like steeper with a few largish holes to a mesh ball steeper with fine holes all over. so the mesh steeper is slightly larger and allows for faster expansion and infusion, more holes make it quicker for the tea to get out. it actually changes the flavor and character of the tea, perceptibly. so i tried steeping for 5 min instead of 15 (i like it strong-but not bitter{like my women-forgive me}). and the resulting cup was very strong, and rich, but still a little acidic. so by accident one day--i was in a hurry--i steeped it just less than a minute. the resulting cup was still very flavorful, and rich, but considerably smoother than golden tip and twinings. so far this is the best tea i have found. to give an indication, i still have 2 teas i got before it, and it is long gone.

babysitting (or Nate vs. the snotgoblin)

meg works hard. she has even taken up a side job writing study questions for kaplan test prep to make a bit of scratch. so she said the other day, "i want a massage" to which i replied "do you want me to set up an appointment?" but she is very humble and hates to spend money on herself (other than buying pets) so with some coersion i got her to agree to get one today. i also called her best friend joy and suggested she come up to join meg, and i offered to babysit her 14 month old.

now i am good with babies, and really good with "kids", but what the heck do you do with a toddler? can they walk, like really walk, without help? how to feed this little monstrosity? the ability to string two letters together is not the ability to communicate (unless of course you are the creature's mother) what is the time limit on a diaper?

so joy and mikky showed up, then the girls left and it was mikky and me. apparently she can walk pretty good on even ground (which will come up again later). since i think strollers are collossal pains i opted to carry and walk with her. and where better to do this than the santa ana zoo. it was a lot of fun. mikky fell down twice while walking, the first time it happened i sat down in the middle of the pavement and pulled out the diaper bag and had mikky sitting on my lap. as soon as the bag was beside us she was pointing to the small external pocket where her pacifier spends its vacation time. popped it in, and all was good. next time i would be prepared.

the trick i learned was to carry her when we were between exhibits and let her run loose when we stopped. cause a toddler does not understand the flow of traffic in a public place. she was fascinated by waterfalls and birds, (which was nice to have shared interests), and i was fascinated by her. we got to pet the goats. and i helped her use the slide. it was a good time. then i took her home and eventually to the block in orange to meet up with mommy. very nice time, toddlers are far more interesting than babies-so there's hope all you baby owners out there.

but within a half hour of returning the little snotgoblin to her mother, i was beat. i took a two hour nap, just layed down and passed out. all the picking up and carrying, and putting down, and diaper bag, and left arm, right arm. thats a lot of work. newfound respect for the parents of small children. its more than just sleep deprivation.

Summer renovation season!

So, for those who don't know Meg and i live in some old ghetto apartments (cause they're the only ones that allow dogs) and each year we celebrate lease renewal by painting a wall. as is apparent by previous posts our color palette tends toward the "lively" (yeah, we'll go with that). this year we decided to do the kitchen, by "we decided" i mean i asked meg which wall and what color (if i disagree i reserve the right to argue) she said "kitchen" and "lime green". i said "cool".

i like painting. maybe its just the fumes, but i do enjoy it. especially masking, i don't really know why. since we only do one wall, it is usually pretty easy to get the whole thing done in one day, from getting everything moved away from it, to putting everything back. which is nice, since i have learned that meg generally likes the things i do around here, the process freaks her out. like taking everything out of the kitchen and putting it on the dining room floor so that only a small trail of a walkway exists. but it works out that i can start when she's at work and finish before she gets home (and in this case, have to make dinner).

once all this was done, i added some bars for hanging storage, and while i was at ikea picking those up i thought of my unused can of paint, and decided to surprise meg by redoing the bathroom as well, later in the week. a year or so ago there was a leak from above that lead to a hole in the ceiling, the apartments fixed the hole, and plastered it, but never came back to paint it. so we had a big ugly section of not just ceiling, but wall that stared at me while i took a bath. so i couldn't just paint one wall, i had to paint everything. so i bought a can of white paint and painted the 3 walls and the ceiling. the remaining wall, the one that the door is on, i painted bright lime green. i also took down all the horrible cheap apartment wall fixtures that were in awkward and freqently unusable locations, puttied and plastered the holes, and put in NEW cheap ikea towel hooks, and toilet paper hanger, a magazine rack, and a small shelf. the cost of all this was around $50 including paint.

the only remaining alteration is the light, which at this moment is a bare bulb. i took the plastic cover off the existing light fixture and the room looked 300% less dingy (and this was before the painting) so i refuse to put the old cover back on. i found a light today, that is $30. kinda pricey for an apartment, but when i consider that i will likely be here for another 3 years it seems worth the ten bucks a year not to hate the bathroom.