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.

Jamie and I watched Far From Heaven tonight.  It wasn't a terrible movie, but I must admit that I was surprised that it garnered a best actress role for Julianne Moore and even more surprised that Todd Haynes was nominated for Best Original Screenplay.  My favorite part of the movie was the art direction, actually, followed by the cinematography, for which it deserved its nomination.  Of the actors, I thought Dennis Haysbert had the most powerful performance, but maybe that's because of the 24 connection.  I thought the writing was heavy-handed and “wretched“, and the writer's agenda was hardly subtle.  Apart from that, I'd still recommend it to those interested, just don't go into it with any Oscar-worthy expectations.

Jamie and I received the first two discs of the second season of 24 on Thursday, and we're already about to finish them up!  We've never actually watched it on TV, because we missed the beginning of last season.  When it came out on DVD, we ordered them on Netflix, and we were hooked.  I really don't think that I'd be as big a fan just by watching it on TV, because of the commercials and the having to wait each week for the next episode.  Anyway, I rate it as about 5783 Conans.  Man, I need to come up with my own rating system.

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.

I'm going to write today what I intended to write last Sunday from the Siebers' residence, because the fact that I was at their house on a Sunday underscored the key point underlying the point that I was planning on making.  In other words, I was at their house and not at church.  I miss having a church like ubc.  This is a lament, not a whine, I promise.  I grew up going to church, albeit not always willingly.  Oftentimes, I wouldn't want to go, and my mom would force me to go, so I'd put on shorts to rebel.  She would tell me that I couldn't go to church in shorts.  I agreed with her, and suggested that I stay home.  So, she reluctantly let me wear shorts, and I gained some kind of victory there.  It's funny that I did this, because when I look back, I loved going to church as a kid.  I got to see all my friends and play in the gym and win at Bible drill.  By the time we got into the eighth grade, Mark and I and others were already starting to emerge as leaders among our church peers, and I was certainly super-involved.  Then came college, and I needed a break from church.  This break lasted until the second semester of my sophomore year, when I started going to ubc.  Over the years, I got pretty involved there, too.  I loved to get there early (most mornings) and to stay late.  Now, here's the key, I made my non-church plans around my church plans.  I wouldn't go out of town for the weekend, unless I could be back by Sunday morning.  I once drove non-stop by myself from Florida to make it back just in time for church (I almost died that morning by sleeping at the wheel).  And this is what I miss...Having something in a church that I am committed to enough to put it ahead of other things, not just out of obligation, but because I look forward to it.

Well, we went to Bel Air Presbyterian last night, and we really liked it.  Granted, it was different from their normal service, but I got a good initial vibe, which has me rooting for the church the next time we go.  Here's hoping...

Jamie and I went with Tiffany (Tawny's sister) to the ArcLight yesterday to go see The Human Stain.  We arrived with one minute until showtime.  I can positively say “one minute”, because the sign at the box office said, “starting in one minute”.  The lines were long, a rarity at the ArcLight, so by the time we actually got to the register “The Human Stain” was “Now Showing”.  I asked for three tickets as Tiffany handed me cash for hers, and I was going to purchase all of the tickets with my card as usual.  They were having some problem with their system, so they asked for a different card.  Same problem.  So, the manager says, “Do you have any cash, and maybe we can help you out with the rest?”  I had enough for one ticket, and this because Tiffany had just given me the cash.  So, we got three tickets for the price of one.  The ArcLight has raised the bar once again.  As for the movie, it was quite a heavy movie with some wonderful performances, but it's one of those that I can't recommend, because there's no way of telling how others will respond to it.

I know, three posts in one day...I guess I'm catching up.  I don't know if this is making the news anywhere else in the country, but I read this article on MSNBC, then heard the story on the radio on my way to El Segundo.  For those who don't like to click on links or don't want to read the whole story, here's the gist:  Some LA city employee saw two VCRs used for dubbing, one labeled “master”, the other labeled “slave”.  Naturally, he was offended by these inanimate objects and immediately reported them to the county’s Office of Affirmative Action Compliance.  Obviously, he was concerned for the “slave” VCR, and wanted it freed from its bondage to its “master”, or as the “slave” VCR called it, “boss”.  Or maybe he was offended because of the years he spent as a slave, oh wait, we haven't had slavery in this country for almost 150 years, so unless he is also the oldest man alive, that's not the case.  I wonder, would this have been reported if the “master” VCR were black plastic and the “slave” VCR were white plastic?  As a result, they are now going to label the VCRs with “primary” and “secondary”.  Hopefully, someone will report this injustice to the EEOC or the Office of Ridiculous Complaints Compliance, and we will not rest until they are both labeled identically, perhaps just “VCR”.  Of course, the other 23 letters of the alphabet will then have to file a complaint.  Well, whatever happens, its just important that we continue to apply the most offensive context we can possibly imagine to every combination of letters that we come across until our language is completely bland and words can't hurt us any more.

OK, so I'm gearing up for a skydive some time soon.  I have a question for those that have done it before.  Is temperature a factor?  I mean, should I do it now, or should I wait until the spring and warmer weather?

While I continue to nurse my wounds from actual skating, I have made some progress in the virtual skating world without a helmet or pads.  I reached 90% on Tony Hawk without any outside aid.  At that point (an A), I decided to do some research.  I could only find hints that helped me get about 2% more.  What's funny is that on the rest of the goals, just knowing that there weren't any hints out there helped me to 'go for the gold'.  So, I'm now at 99%, one goal away from completion.  Hopefully, I can do that before my wounds heal.

Update -- Make that 100%!

Well, not exactly, which brings me to the story of the weekend.  I was originally planning a different blog for today, but that one will have to wait for tomorrow.  Jamie, Clinton, and I spent the weekend at the Siebers, and, as per usual, we took our skateboards with us to have some fun in their driveway.  On Friday, I decided that I wanted to try an 'Ollie', because Pro Skater 4 has inspired me.  Now, I should mention that I don't know how to do an 'Ollie', but I thought I'd guess.  So, I slammed down one end of the board and did some kind of jumping motion, and before I knew it, I was reeling backwards and landing hard on my back side, narrowly avoiding the side of my car with my head.  The most serious part of this injury was a little bit of skin scraped off of my elbow, but not enough to even be red.  Not too bad, but I showed it off for the rest of the day as my first skating injury.  I also decided to wait until I get pads and a helmet before I go down the road of really trying to learn to trick.

Then, comes today.  Clinton comes in and mentions that he had just gone down the street, venturing out of the normal bounds of the driveway.  He mentions that it seemed like it wasn't even as steep as the driveway, but that it was longer, so you build up some speed.  He took Jamie's deck down, but suggested that he thought my Sector 9 would probably have been smoother.  Well, I was ready to do my first run of the day.  I was even wearing my new skate shoes.  So, I grabbed my board and thought I'd try the street as well.  So, I hop on and start to go down.  Very quickly, the board starts to wobble pretty seriously.  This was not a foreign experience for me, because when I was new to the driveway, this happened a fair amount as well.  I don't care for the wobbliness, so when I realized that I wasn't going to be able to rein it in, I figured I should go ahead and bail before matters got worse and I wouldn't be able to choose the manner of my bailing.  So, the plan was to jump off and immediately start running to match by current speed and let the board fly down the hill all by its lonesome.  However, during all of this, I hadn't recognized just how much speed I had built up.  In fact, I soon found out that I was going faster on the board than I am capable of running.  So, after I hit about three strides running, I started to go down.  I'm pretty sure my elbow hit first, as it took the most damage, but I also caught my knee, hip, side of my stomach and shoulder before I completed my roll on to my back.  I remember being surprised that I continued to fall for so long.  Afterwards, we could see that the red in my shirt had actually rubbed off onto the pavement leaving a red stripe 10 feet long.  I got up and kind of checked to make sure that I wasn't so badly injured that I should sit back down or something, and Clinton zooms past me on Jamie's deck.  He thought that he could get down to check on me faster if he rode down, but then realized that if he tried to stop, he was going to be in the same predicament I was, so he continued on to the bottom of the hill.

I'm proud to say that now I have my real first skating injury, considering I bled from six different places.  The good news is that the injury hasn't scared me off from skating, though I am planning on investing in a helmet and some pads before I try too many new things.  One other ironic thing, the shirt that I was wearing is the shirt that I got from Jamie's cousins a year and a half ago that has some skate brand logo on it.  I wore it to ubc one Sunday morning while giving announcements, and mentioned then that I felt like a real poser for wearing a skate shirt, having never skateboarded before.  Perhaps, today was payback, although the shirt bore a fair amount of injury as well.