Busy Week

The week started off with me going to Pittsburgh for NESUG, a SAS conference. Probably not that interesting for non-SAS programmers, but I was asked to present, and here is my paper if you are interested. Motivating Clinical SAS Programmers not the best paper, but it was well received and the presentation itself was fun. Pittsburgh, itself is actually quite nice, small and easily walkable. On the Monday we went to the Pirates Dodgers game (Pirates got killed). But PNC park is worth seeing, and a night at the ballpark is always fun.

I got back to Boston on Wednesday, and Heike had to give a presentation to Forsyth on Thursday. Her presentation went well, and I think everyone was impressed. Someone asked her if she was from Scotland (because of her English), which she took as an insult (if you've ever heard the scots talk you'd understand). It's like when someone asked me if I was Swiss...because of my German.

Friday, we went over to the Zahn's for Inka's book party. Her thesis was published , all 525 pages of it (Jason did the cover, you can check out his stuff here). Quite an accomplishment. As always dinner was delicious and the company was extremely interesting...some Germans, some Algerians, a couple Americans...basically you had no idea what language to speak to anyone there.

Saturday. Started with cleaning the kitchen. Doesn't sound like the best use of a Saturday, but it really needed it. Went through the fridge and threw out everything we hadn't touched in a year. It's amazing how stuff piles up. I had been putting this off for, well, about a year. I always think "Maybe we'll use this sometime" so I never throw anything out. But today it was all "executive" decisions. If I didn't want to look at something anymore...Gone! in the trash.
On to the fun part of the day. Margo turned the big 28 on Wednesday so we went over to their place to celebrate. Great food, good company and a couple of Dos Equis/Margo-ritas at 3 in the afternoon = a good time. We got home around 7, and were looking for a movie. We found something that Frau Schundler was talking about at Cris'. A skiing documentary by Warren Miller. Unbelievable. Awesome soundtrack, incredible skiing and boarding. I've never wanted to move to Steamboat Springs more. Let's start looking for a couple of weekends in the winter where we can go and find some of this powder. Anyone know anywhere good (within driving distance)? Vermont?

Tomorrow, Heike has brunch with the girls at Union Cafe. I'll try to get her to put a review of it up on the blog. Afterwards we're going to take advantage of the beautiful fall weather and go for a walk at Crane Estate.

That was a busy week.

Crepes

Hi all,

we have a lot to post now that the summer is winding down. Eventually we will put up some pictures of our trip to Germany, 2nd anniversary, Karina's wedding, and other adventures we've had over the last couple months. But instead of waiting for us to get organized and do them all in order, I think I'll just post something now and then do the rest as the pictures trickle in.

Heike and my new thing is to have breakfast every morning. It worked very well this week, especially with the jet lag. (it's easy to have breakfast in the morning when you wake up wide awake at 6am). I think we'll have more problems as we get over the jet lag, but the idea is to establish the pattern now and hope for the best. On that front, this morning I got up early and made crepes. I just purchased a really cool book (cool if you like to cook) "Jaques Pepin's Complete Techniques." This book goes through, step by step, how to do eveything in the kitchen. He's got recipes along with stuff like "How to truss a chicken 3 different ways." Anyway, I decided to try the crepe recipe that he suggested.

Recipe:
1.5 cups all purpose flour
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1.5 cups milk
2/3 stick sweet butter, melted
1/2 cup cold water

Combine everything but half the liquid, whisk, add the rest of the liquid (I forgot the water), whisk until it has the consistency of light syrup, cook like pancakes.

The two interesting tricks here were:
1. Use melted butter in the batter. This way you don't have to grease and regrease the pan. The butter in the batter combined with using a non-stick pan is enough so that nothing sticks. None of the 20 crepes I made stuck at all!
2. To disloge the crepe from the pan, let it cook over medium (8 on my electric stove) heat for 50 seconds, then bang the pan on a dishcloth on the counter. Really hit it, and the crepe will loosen. Then wow your friends by flipping it in the air.

Delicious. Eat them sweet or savory.

More HD beatings

So AC is really on a roll. I think they've won at least the last 4 nights of bridge, and HD is getting pretty sick of it. HD has decided to give up the Shaikh bidding system, and move on to the American Standard (5 card Major) system. HD will need a little time to figure this out, and hopes that AC doesn't mind that we will be using a cheat sheet next time we play. Starting this week Bridge night has moved to Sunday's so that Cris can still play pool all summer. Unfortunately, HD is busy tonight, so no bridge this week. Unless we can reschedule for Wednesday??

Anyway, on to the scores from last week. I really need to figure out some HTML on how to enter these scores in a more readable manner. If anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated. I would love to have a little interface to enter the "above" and "below" points, then have the lines and such all come out correctly. My "real" programming skills are not this high...SAS programmers aren't real programmers.

Highlights from last week include Cris bidding something ridiculous like 4 NT and making 7, Cris bidding 5 spades and making like 2. This was the most aggravating "stink" bid. HD would have won the rubber except for his stupid bid.

HD | AC
------------
30|30
30|-300
------------
90|--
60|--
------------
70|--
120|--
------------
130|--
------------
------------
90| 90
-200| -400
30|20
------------
70|130
------------
120|--
------------
--|60
--|40
------------
------------
-100|-400
30|-200
20|-400
-50|40
-50|30
--|-500
--|-100
------------
120|--
------------
60|60
--|80
------------
--|60
--|60
------------
------------

Bermuda Pictures

For Memorial day we visited our friend Monbill who lives in Bermuda. I can't believe that there are people who live in Boston or New York who haven't been to Bermuda. From Boston is it a 1.5 hour easy direct flight, and you go from gloomy Boston to Paradise. Bermuda is just awesome; lush greenery, lots of birds (wild chickens), and unbelievable water. When we were there both the air and the water had the same temperature 72. Perfect for a little snorkeling, a little beach time, a little (terrible) beach volleyball, and of course a little Rock Band. You don't need good weather for Rock Band, but after a day on the beach, it is a perfect drink beer and relax activity.

Highlights of the trip were a day out on Monbill's boat, some time in Horseshoe bay
and snorkeling in Tobacco Bay.

Enjoy the Pictures.

Bermuda

Smoking AC

So after a while of not posting, I'll finally get around to posting the two devastating blows to the HD reign. AC smoked us two weeks in a row. I'll attribute the first loss to my reading of the quality book (I paid $2.12 at Lorem Ipsum) "The Basics of Winning Bridge". So this book talks about different bidding strategies that I thought were good but Heike disagreed. Anyway we did prove that it is a team game, and one person with one bidding strategy and the other with a different, does not help at all. Check out the scores. A lot of -200 and greater.

Let's start with the blow out on the 12th.
HD|AC
-50|40
-50|20
-100|-100
30|-200
--|-100
--|30
-----------
90|120
-----------
--|80
--|60
-----------
-----------
-200
-----------
-200|20
60|60
-400|30
-200|
60|
120|
-----------
60|
90|
-----------
--|120
-----------
40|60
--|40
-----------
-----------

May 19 (after a weekend in the real AC)
HD | AC
----------
-100|60
--|60
-----------
120|--
-----------
100|--
-----------
-----------
90|60
--|40
-----------
30|--
40|--
90|--
-----------
90|60
60|--
-----------
-----------
-300|30
40|100
--|500 (small slam!)
-----------
--|180
-----------
120|--
-----------
60|40
--|90

Atlantic City Killing

Cris has reminded me just about everyday that I need to post the latest scores...when you see the scores you'll see why I wasn't too motivated to post them this week. Dinner, first of all. The boys cooked and we had Fajitas which were delicious. Let me see if I have some pictures of them. They were served with guac, various hot sauces, and cheese. No salad this time. When Cris and I cook there seems to seldom be salad.

Onto the bridge. AC delivered a beat down to HD. We played 4 rubbers. A couple of them went so fast that we decided to play one more. (and HD hadn't gotten a W yet, so we tried once more.)

HD|AC
-------
-100|-100
--|30
--|-100
----------
--|120
----------
60|--
60|--
----------
--|60
--|40
__________
__________
-50|30
-50|90
-100|40
90|-200
-50|60
----------
90|60
--|40
----------
60|60
--|60
__________
__________
-300|90
--|60
----------
--|90
--|60
----------
--|100
__________
__________
-50|-400
30|-100
180|60
--|90
----------
--|120
----------
200|60
----------
30|80
120|
__________
__________

Ouch. A 3-1 beating.

Grill Veggies

I finally posted the pictures. Dinner tonight was Grilled Vegetables, with chicken, and corn. It felt like summer.

In a grill pan, grill squash, zucchini, mushrooms, red peppers, and onions in a tiny bit of oil and a little Herbs de Provance. I don't like to add salt, because I feel it takes the water out of the veggies and then they steam rather than grill. Anyway, we did the chicken with a little Cajun seasoning, in the Wok. Everything kept in the oven until ready to serve. We served it with salad, bread, and steamed corn on the cob.

Bridge. We only played one rubber tonight, because we got a late start, and we had actually played yesterday when we were all together for some German Cooking.
HighDef won the unenthusiastic rubber.

HD|AC
-------
30|-200
20|-100
-200|30
-50|--
90|--
-400|--
---------
-- | 120
---------
60|30
20|--
60|--
---------
60|--
60|--
__________
__________