Huh.  What do you know?  It still works.  I don't have a lot to say, but I'm so enjoying the taste in my mouth that I thought I'd share my joy.  I made a blue cheese-stuffed beef tenderloin tonight for the first time, and I must say, it may have been the best entree I've ever had.  Paired with a nice bottle of Chianti from The Burk, perfection was attained!

Happy Easter!

Last Friday marked a big day for me.  I finally got the 42" Plasma screen that I've been waiting for so long to hit a reasonable price point.  It now sits on our living room floor.  I bought a wall mount for it, and I'm now sitting at home waiting for CompUSA Digital Living people to come give me a tech orientation for my new home.  They'll tell me how much it will cost for them to mount the TV and the speakers.  I'm hoping that it's cheap enough that I don't have to do it myself.  But back to Friday.  The granite guy came and ground out the scratches on one of kitchen counters.  The Best Buy service guy came and fixed our new washer, which had filled with water and then stopped.  The building warranty guy came and fixed the gas connection to the dryer.  And I came home from work looking forward to spending a relaxing weekend in our new place.

On Saturday, we did some unpacking in the morning.  Don & Connie came up in the afternoon to take me out for my birthday dinner to Saddle Peak Lodge, which, having done it two years running, has become a birthday tradition.  It was a nice leisurely drive up the PCH and then back through the Santa Monica Mountains.  Along the PCH, you could see where they had moved a lot of mud and dirt off the road after the recent landslides caused by the unusual amount of rain.  The road was definitely narrower than it used to be.  The dinner was excellent; I had buffalo.  Also, I was sporting one of my spiffy new shirts that Jamie got me for my birthday.  Side note: I love tagless T's.  The Siebers spent the night on our air mattress, and then we headed to the Omelette Parlor or Factory or something like that for breakfast.  I think there was a quirky-commercial-guy convention nearby, because we saw a bunch of random guys that are in a lot of current commercials, like the State Farm commercial where the wife runs over her husband's toe.  After that, Don & Connie headed to San Diego, and Jamie and I did some more work on the house.

Things are coming together slowly.  With Jamie and I both working a lot, it just takes a while.  Hopefully, my desk will be delivered this week, so I can start putting together my office.  I bought a label maker and labeled both ends of all my home entertainment system wires.  There will eventually be some rewiring that I'll have to do on that as I upgrade my components, but I've got the basics set up for now.

Oh, there is one thing that is done.  The kitchen and Jamie's office are all set up and ready to go.  I've run enough water and ice through our refrigerator dispenser so we can start using that.  We sealed our granite counter tops, so we could finally pick things up off the floor and set things on the counter.

Two last things:  I plugged the phone line in my office into my computer modem, and now caller ID shows up on my computer screen.  Thank you Windows Media Center!  Also, Mark hooked me up with a flickr Pro account, which means that I'll be uploading some high res photos of the place very soon as we finish putting stuff together.

Clinton called tonight and asked me, “What do people do on a Friday night?”  He vaguely remembered that in his not-too-distant past he would go out and do stuff on weekends.  So, we piled into the car, sans Doug, who doesn't know what he's missing, and headed to the Grove for a little dessert at The Farm.  It...was...awesome.  I started off with a perfectly temperatured hot chocolate with whip cream.  Soon to follow was The Farm Something Or Other Brownie Sundae and an order of S'mores.  They bring a flame out to the table with marshmallows on sticks, a Hershey's bar and some homemade-style graham crackers.  Wow.  Being at the Grove and eating s'mores reminded me of the last time Jamie and I were there at Sur La Table, and they were selling a s'mores candy bar called “some'mores”.  These people either didn't get the etymology of the word s'more, or they have no idea what function an apostrophe performs.  It still tasted good.

By happy accident we had the largest group of our friends at church tonight all at one time.  Me, Jamie, Doug, Clinton, Summer, Clinton's friend from Groundlings, Nick, his girlfriend, and Terence.  The service, unfortunately, was not a standout.  It really went on forever and the fill-in pastor used poor analogies and repetition to drive home a point, maybe.  But I don't know what that point was.  Oh well, just one service.  Afterwards, Terence and Summer joined us four regulars at Chipotle.  Halfway through my burrito, I got this weird vision of me eating a second burrito, something I've never dreamed of doing because of fullness.  I mentioned this vision, and Doug admitted that he was thinking the same thing.  He went and got a second burrito and proceeded to play with it as much as eat it.  By the time I finished my first, I knew I couldn't handle a whole other burrito, so I just went to get chips and guac.  While I was gone, Doug had smeared his messy, messy hands all over his shirt and parts of his burrito had fallen down all over his pants and shoes.  What a character.  Then, we all did some seat-swapping, and I got to chat with Terence for a little while.  We're talking about setting up a trip to the Sundance film festival in January for the group.

The next two days, Jamie works for another Maxim shoot, and then we head to Texas on Wednesday.  Yeehaw! 

The rain is coming down again!

We always have time to blog whenever nothing is going on.  Then, when we have exciting news, we don't have the time.  Ben & Jamie Dudley were supposed to be coming out to visit the 4th-11th.  Jamie was supposed to be working non-stop through the 3rd.  I got a call a couple of weeks ago from Ben who broke the news that they had just bought a house and were going to close on it and move into it instead of coming out to Cali.  What a jerk.  Since Jamie was super-busy, I decided to keep it on the down-low, and plan a little anniversary extravaganza surprise.  We had already gotten the hook up from Toni for tix to the Crowder/Mercy Me/Smitty concert in San Diego.  Jamie already knew that we were going to meet her parents, Marianne, and Jeff at the Prado for our annual dinner there before the show.  She also knew that we would be heading back up to LA on the 4th to get ready for Ben & Jamie's arrival that night.  Instead, we went to dinner and the show, which was a lot of fun.  The adults stayed out front for most of the show, but us kiddos hung back in the bus and Tiki Lounge with the band.  It was a good time of roasting forbidden marshmallows and sausage on a stick while catching up on the stories of Waco and the road.

After the show, instead of heading back to Fallbrook, we went to the W in downtown San Diego.  It was a very relaxing hotel with all the amenities.  Jamie awoke the next morning to huevos rancheros in the room.  We walked down to the GasLamp district and checked out Urban Outfitters and the Z Gallerie.  I was tempted to get a t-shirt at Urban that said, “Everybody loves a Jewish boy”, mostly because I thought it might help me to get ahead in Hollywood.  I resisted.  We grabbed some lunch at Hennessey's, a pub frequented by Jeff, where I got a chili dog and a Guinness.  Mmmm.  We got back to the hotel in time for Jamie's appointment at the spa, which she'll have to blog about.  I headed up to the “Beach”, which is a sandy area on the roof of the hotel where I spent my time reading “The Bourne Identity”.  It's nothing like the movies.  (The same can be said of “Bourne Supremacy”).  That night, we ate at the hotel restaurant Rice, which was nice, though my meal of prosciutto wrapped salmon left something to be desired.  We headed back up to our room, where we had cookies and milk delivered to our room, while we watched The Last Samurai.  We checked out the next morning and headed up to Jamie's folks' house where we have been lounging about until today.  I may fill in some of those days activities, but not now.  Back off.

I ventured out today to try to track down some Big Red (soda) in order to make some awesome ice cream.  Jamie had already checked at Ralph's, so I went down to the Target to check it out.  They had nothing.  In the same shopping center, there's a store called BevMo that has Beverages and More!  While they did have a lot of exotic carbonated beverages, they had no Big Red.  They did have IBC Cream Soda, so I thought I'd give that a try.  Now I needed to get some sweetened condensed milk, so off to Ralph's I went.  I grabbed the Eagle Brand (which is what some people's rap is filled with), and got in line.  There at the check out counter about 4 people in front of me was none other than Julian Sark.  For you non-Alias fans, this means nothing to you.  However, for me, I would really have liked to talk to the guy.  I thought about doing the cell phone camera, but I didn't think I could get a good shot.  Usually, when I see celebrities, I think “That's cool.  There's so-and-so.”  This time, though, I think that I would have enjoyed engaging in conversation with him.  One, because Alias is one of my top shows.  Two, because he's just a supporting character, I feel like I could have a normal conversation with him without a bunch of people swarming.  And three, because it was in our neighborhood Ralph's, I felt like he was on my turf.

Off to Texas tomorrow!

Connie came up and went shopping with Jamie yesterday.  As a special treat we all, including Clinton, went to Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles on Sunset for dinner.  I've been there once before, but I'm not sure I mentioned it.  If you ever come to visit us in LA, remind us to go to Roscoe's.  There might be better locations than the one on Sunset, so if you know about other locations, let me know.

So, B-dub and Jan came into town last week, which was mucho fun-o.  We did a ton of stuff, including going down to the beach in San Diego where the Dudley's had their group from UBC.  We hung and relaxed at the Sieber residence for a couple days, where Jeff and Sieber extended family joined us for Dr. Pepper tacos.  Then we had a fun-filled day in LA, seeing the sights, eating good food at Rubio's with Clinton and some of his Baylor friends, going to see a movie at the ArcLight (Eternal Sunshine, which I loved, but the girls hated) where Mike and Robin Hogan joined us, eating good food again at Vert, then capping off the day with the Crowders at Trader Vic's.  Now, sadly, Jamie's sick, and I'm doing my best to fight it off, but I seem to be losing.

It wasn't tuesday, and it wasn't Clinton's apartment, but it sure was Dr. Pepper Tacos.   Connie picked up some really good flank steak, better than what we got from the strike-ridden Ralph's in our neighborhood.  We were about three hours behind in our marinating time, so she had the butcher run it through the meat tenderizer.  The Reata Grill Blend (from the Cowboy Cocktails book) was a little bit truer to the recipe, as we did a fair amount of substituting at our place a couple weeks ago.  This time around, the meat was cooked right, on a real grill, instead of on the Foreman.  I don't know if it was the difference of ingredients in the rub, or the difference of the cooking on a grill, but that meat was SPICY.  I had to go to the refrigerator during my first taco and get a glass of milk.  My mouth still hurts.  In spite of that, the meat was perfectly cooked and awesome.  The green drinks that the group is sporting is a Cuban concoction called a Mojito (light rum, powdered sugar, mint leaves, creme de menthe, and a sugar-rimmed glass).  While refreshing, they were no match for the spiciness of that meat.  Word of advice...pico de gallo powder is not chile powder.  For those wondering about the new person in the picture, that's Tiffany, Tawny's sister.  For those wondering where I am, I'm behind my brand new digital camera! I'll tell more about that in its own post.

Well, tonight we mixed up Taco Tuesday a bit and prepared the Dr. Pepper taco recipe that you can find in the Cowboy Cocktails book that we use all so often.  So, all day today, we had a couple of flank steaks marinating in a bath of Dr. Pepper, cinnamon, and garlic.  We don't have an outdoor grill, so we had to go with the Foreman grill.  It did a decent job, but left things a little too pink in the middle for our tastes, so Jamie finished them off just a little bit in the microwave.  Granted, a grill would have been better, but I was pretty impressed with how tender and juicy these turned out.  To wash down these tacos, we had a little concoction also from Cowboy Cocktails called a Dr. Pepper Moo.  Officially, it's just Dr. Pepper and half-and-half as it is in the “unleaded“ section of the book, but it doesn't hurt to add a splash of vanilla vodka, wink wink.