We Finally Did It
Both sets of parents came over Saturday with their plant saplings in hand. We dug up the backyard. The house is now a home. Banana, guava, lemon, orange, mint, cilantro, curry leaves, tomato and hot peppers now adorn the backyard.
Here’s a photo of what it looks like now. Read the rest of this entry »
Increase Your Food Mileage
Ever wonder how much you should be eating?
Sometimes after a big meal at a restaurant, when I’ve unbuttoned my pants to keep breathing and hope no one’s noticed, I feel like I’ve just consumed a full day’s worth of calories.
I went to Escalante’s with some co-workers today, and surprisingly, was able to stop eating without scarfing down my entire meal. After a bowl of their famous tortilla soup and one quesadilla, I decided I was satisfied and didn’t need to go back to work stuffed and itching to go back home to throw up.
Ideally, I try to keep each meal at around 500 calories. Sometimes, that’s wishful thinking, but it’s easier to do if I avoid eating out. But put some brownies or ice cream in front of me and it’s over. Like today when I had a brownie, a cookie and a cupcake.
This Web site gives you an idea of how much 200 calories constitutes. That’s one half of a Jack-in-the-Box cheeseburger, three apples or a bowl of cereal. Nutrition Action shares the 10 best and worst foods. The best include citrus, wild salmon and brown rice, while tempting delicacies like McDonald’s Chicken Selects Breast Strips, Starbucks Caffe Mocha and Cheesecake Factory Cheesecake are deemed the worst. A Dairy Queen chocolate chip cookie dough blizzard has 950 calories.
The other day at a housewarming, I stayed away from soda, knowing I could replace that 100 or 200 calories with some dessert. Sajan and I discussed snacking on apples when we’re hungry at night. We don’t drink soda, and generally don’t keep junk food in the house. Though we did snag a $3 bucket of Blue Bell Cookies ‘n Cream.
Nik Talon’s Must-See Movies
Looking for a quality movie to rent this weekend? Local heartthrob and film aficionado Nik Talon aka Stan offers his you-can’t-go-wrong picks.
Goodfellas
Leon (The Professional)
Swingers
Office Space
Spinal Tap
Donnie Darko
Sunshine
Entropy
Fight Club
Trainspotting
True Romance
Requiem for a Dream
“I can’t leave these out as well, too many to list. I’m sure there is something I missed,” says Stan.
No Country for Old Men
The Royal Tenenbaums
Edward Scissorhands
The Last of the Mohicans
Closer
Rushmore
The Darjeeling Limited
Pulp Fiction
Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind
Shawshank Redemption
Event Horizon
Kill Bill
Heat
Amelie
A Streetcar Named Desire
Seven
Silence of the Lambs
America Psycho
Memento
Taxi Driver
American Beauty
Election
The Shining
Forest Gump
The Graduate
Magnolia
Unforgiven
The TV Mount
Sajan stayed up till 1:40 last night drilling small holes and rather large holes into our living room wall. Jimmy sustained injuries, with profuse bleeding from the toe after a heavy bracket fell. The amalgam of wires running from the TV, when held all together in the hand, has a diameter of around six inches, I kid you not.
Victory was declared this morning when we saw that the TV had not fallen from the wall. Sigh of relief.
The quesadillas I made yesterday earned the name Country Quesadillas because they smelled like Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage, not Mexican food. The rosemary and thyme surely had something to do with that. Adding plenty of Cholula gave it a more spicy Mexican feel. And the sugarless cookies I made the other day, they probably taste better with some banana or honey. The next time I make something sugarless, I’m making something with crushed pineapple. It’s guaranteed to be super sweet but still sugarless then.
Links Extravaganza 6.23.08 On Houston’s Greatness
Houston, We Have No Problems | Houston is Silicon Valley, suburban geek. Low unemployment, high United Way donations and big oil.
Houston Gets PR Boost in Recent Rankings | L.M. Sixel in the Houston Chronicle
BusinessWeek Touts Houston | From the Houston Strategies Blog
Houston Doesn’t Have a Problem | Chicago Tribune
Houston’s Pipeline of Prosperity | Washington Post
Houston Gets ‘Schooled’ in Smart Survey | From the Houston Business Journal, on Houston’s not-so-greatness. Prof. Stephen Klineberg was paraphrased as saying “if Houston doesn’t start producing — or at least attracting — a younger, highly educated work force, employers will begin to look elsewhere to set up their businesses.”
Entertaining on the Fly
Throughout the week, Sajan and I usually update each other on our plans for each day. Today we did a quick guest appearance for a VBS right after work. Sajan went to Stafford to visit his parents and pick up some shoes. I headed to the grocery store for five bucks worth of items before driving straight home. I marinated some chicken with thyme, rosemary, paprika, salt, pepper and soy sauce for quesadillas later this week.
On my way home, Jimmy and Liz announced they were coming over. They brought BW3 wings…mmm! Sweet BBQ, Asian Zinger and Spicy Garlic. Sajan arrived back home soon after, excited that the TV mount he had anxiously awaited had finally arrived in a box at our front door.
We ate wings. We laughed. We made “That’s what she said” jokes. The new Coldplay CD whirred. Then the doorbell rang. My mother had made a surprise visit. Or surprise inspection, should I say? In typical mother fashion she noted our messy living room and any out-of-place items strewn around. She watched us eat wings. It was nice to see my mom. She got to see our freshly planted flowers in the front yard. She left.
The boys played with the new TV mount, looking for studs in the wall with the stud finder and making jokes about whether I found Sajan with the stud finder. The boys cooed over the good prices from monoprice.com. I whipped together some chocolate cheesecake brownies for work. Liz surfed the Web, googling anything we happened to be talking about. How to find studs. How to heal first-degree burns (like the one I got touching a hot pan). When is Jesus coming.
We tasted the warm brownies with cookies n’ cream ice cream. Liz and Jimmy left. Sajan wishes he could take tomorrow off, so he can play with the TV mount some more and get it on the wall.
Me No Function Without Internet
A few months ago, the Internet went down at work, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. Before we moved into our new house, I wondered what I would do if our wireless connection wasn’t installed soon.
Sometimes it feels like the Internet is my lifeblood.
Don’t get me wrong, I am all for playing outside in the fresh air or sitting down with a good book. But when it comes to being productive, or at least feeling that way, the Internet does the trick. Even at work when I need to write something, I intermittently stop and research on the Internet or make sure I didn’t miss an e-mail. Commenter No. 1 on this blog post “Your Brain on Google” does the same thing.
Our lives revolve around having the right information to move forward. If I’m looking for a good lunch spot or want to know how to kill the ants invading my house or how to do lame but useful exercises in my chair at work, the Internet is my omniscient source of advice and inspiration.
How to Plan a Wedding in Houston Pt. 1
Are you getting married? Don’t know a thing about the planning process, how much things should cost or the best vendors to go with? With time and research, you can get a better handle on how to proceed. Below are seven tips of the day.
1. After you get engaged, the very first thing you should do is register with theknot.com. Any bride will tell you it’s the one-stop shop with tons of useful advice and resources.
2. Before all the fun stuff like gown or flower shopping, you MUST search around for your wedding venue and reception hall. Everything else will come into play once these two locations are booked. This also means you must have an idea of your guest count. So make your guest list immediately. Then start cutting it down if necessary. You will drive many miles to visit halls. It’s worth it to find the right one. Your guests will love you if the wedding ceremony and reception locations are close to each other. But such is not as easy as it sounds.
3. Go to Barnes & Noble and flip through bridal mags for ideas.
4. Schedule consultations with vendors and get lots of free advice!
5. Go to the Bridal Extravaganza at George R. Brown Convention Center. It’s huge and has great vendors. I found my photographer Nat Nelson there. Skip the smaller bridal shows. You’ll waste your time and money on tickets and parking.
6. Start a blog on your account at theknot.com to document your exciting months of planning and share with your friends. Get your fiancé involved in writing posts.
7. Keep a spreadsheet to compare prices of vendors and products you find. Make notes daily about potential ideas.
A Crisis in Texas. What Are You Going to Do About It?
For years, Houston has been plagued by dropout factories – high schools where at least 40 percent of entering freshmen do not graduate. View the list of schools here.
The numbers are astounding. We’re losing millions of students in Texas. MILLIONS. And we haven’t been able to pinpoint the severity of the problem in the past because of schools that have been misreporting and inflating graduation rates.
Black, Latino and Native American students have only a 50 percent chance of graduating in four years. Fewer than 60 percent of Black and Latino students in Texas earn regular diplomas alongside their classmates. For Black and Latino males the rates hover just over 50 percent. (Read more here.)
If you live in Houston, your own personal future and that of your family is jeopardized by the astronomical drop-out rate. Read the rest of this entry »
