i’m usually pretty careful in my surroundings when i’m bartending — no customer likes to have lime juice inadvertently squeezed into their eye, nor having a drink spilled on them. I must have gotten a bit careless on saturday, being grumpy from all the martini-like concoctions and cosmopolitans people were ordering. (emphasis on martini-like: a true martini is 5 parts gin or vodka - preferably gin to one part dry vermouth, served with an olive or a lemon twist — nothing more, nothing else).

so, when i got an order for an amstel lite, I wandered over to the cooler, reached in, and felt a sharp heat across the big knuckle on my left index finger. pulling my hand out, I realized that I was bleeding all over the place. needless to say, I was lucky to have a backup bartender nearby to finish my shift while I went home, cleaned the wound, and bandaged it. the bleeding stopped in 15-20 minutes, something I was grateful for, as going to the ER at 1am on a Saturday night for some potential stitches didn’t seem very fun.

2 days later the cut is healing along nicely, although I still can’t really bend my finger. On the up note, I was told by my regular doctor yesterday that I was up on my tetanus shots, and that I’d be fine. That, and the fact I’ve got the weekend off. Nice to have downtime, but I really did want to pay for the new iPod I bought the other day.

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not a huge change from last week in terms of performance, although we were able to raise the weights in a few places. progress is coming along nicely with the routine, but i still hate the lat raises / rev flys in the smack middle of the routine.

superset a (4 rotations)
straight arm lat-pulldown: #11.5 x10
rack pulls: 225lbs x10

superset b (4 rotations)
military press: 100lbs x10,
lat pulldowns: #11 x10

superset c (4 rotations)
reverse flys: 12.5lbs x10
lat raises: 20lbs x10
seated row: #12 x10
leg raises: bw x20

superset d (4 rotations)
overhand tricep pressdown: #10 x10
underhand tricep pressdown: #7 x10
brooklyn press: 35lbs x10

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Me: So, how do you deal with him?

Her: You take a deep breath and make some adjustments.

Me: And that’s it?

Her: It also really helps to love your job.

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being able to call credit card companies and tell them that since my balance is down to $0 that I would like to cancel the card. and follow through with it. have to admit though that the offer of a 7.7% interest rate was rather appealing — but not having the temptation in my wallet was even nicer.

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Las Vegas, NV

Just got back from a mini-vacation in Las Vegas — I have to say the city is definitely growing on me. It was my second time there, but by far much more relaxing and enjoyable than the first time I was there back in 2000.

Spending much of the time just bumming around with my friend Kyle, we actually did manage to do a few neat things — saw a show, went to a few local bars (much friendlier and cheaper than the joints on the strip), went to the bodies exhibition, drove out to Hoover dam to check out the new monstrous overpass they’re building, poked around red rock canyon, and caught up on my sleep.

More commentary and pictures to follow.

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before i head out to dulles airport and get on a jetblue plane to vegas.

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The Wall

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The Wall and Monument

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I went ahead and removed Gallery2 from this blog and replaced it with a much smaller and easier to deal with wordpress-based gallery. While it doesn’t have all of the snazzy features that WPG2 had, it’s easier to manage.
Additionally, I added highslide, a cute javascript-based plugin which provides a nifty interface for images which are going to be displayed inside posts. hope you enjoy.

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So…. while I’m usually an advocate of the school of thought which suggests that you should never ask a question that you don’t want to hear the answer — the following situation has me in the ever reoccurring dilemma of “do you tell a white lie to spare their feelings, or do you simply tell the truth?”.scenario: i’m futzing around online, chatting with friends, etc. when I receive an unsolicited message from somebody which essentially has some rather graphic self-portraits, a phone number, and a request that I call call them if I was interested in a no-strings sexual encounter.

my reply: thanks for the offer, but I don’t think we’d be a match.

their response: why don’t you think we’d be a match in bed?

Now…. based on my gut feelings, and the information gleaned from their profile, what is the proper thing to do?

A) simply not respond in the hopes they’ll just go away

B) honestly tell them that you don’t find them attractive (”sorry, but while i find it commendable that you’ve lost 90lbs over the past seven months, your pictures don’t really do anything for me at all”)

C) make something up which shifts the conversation that suggests that there’s nothing wrong with their offer, but that there is something wrong with you in not wanting to accept it.

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Gonna actually be working outside of my normal schedule at nellies — gonna be bartending this thursday’s (and possibly friday’s) happy hour.  swing by the bar and keep me company!   i’ll be there pretty much the entire evening –  from 5pm til close.

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courtesy of markie, via eater blog

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as the holidays are right around the corner, it appears that the season of gluttony is in full swing. steven asked me to make a dish for his office potluck. it could be savory or sweet — just not terribly healthy. i settled on making a raspberry cointreau trifle.

after it was all prepared and settled into the fridge awaiting its impending doom the following day, steven inquired about the nutritional information of the dish i had prepared. given the number of vegetarians, vegans, and random “allergic-to” people at hrc, everyone bringing a dish to the potluck had to write up a little card with their name, what the dish was, how veggie it was, etc. steven decided to just be a bitch and let people know how bad it was for them. i think the trifle excelled in that category - then again, what do you expect from a half dozen egg yolks, 2 cups of half n half, nearly 3 cups of whipping cream, and nearly a cup of booze?

for the entire trifle:
calories: 10116
fat (total): 531g
fat (saturdated): 292g
carbohydrates: 1128g
dietary fiber: 34g
protein: 42g
alcohol: 68g

and even knowing all of this, people still ate it.

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air is brisk, morning are darker…. yay!   fall is here.

and in keeping with my happy mood, here’s a hysterical link….. just be warned, it’s not terribly work-safe

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okay… I know i’ve been rather remiss in actually updating this thing, so here I am writing a little bit.

thoughts from folsom (still digesting the whole experience, i’ll probably post more about it later)

in other news:

My sister finally got the news she was waiting for: (no, her neighbors did not just spontaneously combust) she passed the bar.  We had a celebratory dinner for her at the home of the parental units.  Plenty of booze, roast beef, taters, and veggies made for a good time, but still didn’t ease the shock of hearing my mother drop the f-bomb not once, but TWICE in an evening.

booked my tickets for my fall trip — heading to chicago the week after turkey day to see james, dennis, possibly some relatives, and some various and sundry others.  short trip, unfortunately — heading out on wednesday and returning on sunday.   at least i’m flying out of national, which should make things easier.

steven and I ripped open the front dash of my car this weekend and installed a new stereo.  We weren’t eaten too badly by mosquitoes during the whole process.  i can now play audio and mp3 cds, plug my iPod into a native dock connector, any other audio device via minijack, and even a USB flash drive to boot.  woo hoo.

I had my eyes burned out this morning when my boss showed me pictures that were taken of him and his friends during the Miss Adams Morgan Pageant.  let’s just say the last thing I really need to see is him dressed up as a star trek glam babe — complete with a furry set of breasts and a cherry red wig.

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i don’t know why, but i hope you’re at peace now.

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thankfully things have been quiet of late. we’re not in seminar-mode anymore at the office, so things are slowing down a bit — my god-awful office mate is being moved out of the glorified broom-closet we share to another spot at the Center for her.

got the night off on friday — one of my barbacks needed the money more than i did… so i gave up my shift — wound up at remingtons, hanging out with one of my favorite bartenders and former co-workers.  even though i was technically off (and hadn’t worked at remingtons for a few months), I still was made to work for my free booze — rail booze at that.  it was almost like old times, and dang it felt good being amongst that crowd.

11 days before heading out to san francisco for our anniversary trip — it will be good to get out of town and enjoy some of the *ahem* camaraderie during folsom. it will also be great to hang out with friends who i haven’t seen in a long time.

Just got the semi-final proofs for the next pakt flyer (October 2007) — and they looked pretty damn good! I have to thank jim gade and his photoshopping abilities to make me look halfway decent. All I ask that please, please refrain from any sort of comments comments regarding flaming. *chuckles* so, if you’re looking for a casual, low key sunday beer-bust type event (and they do have a decent hefeweizen on tap)

on a final note… i guess i should promise that i’ll soon be posting stuff that’s a tad more interesting — things have been kinda messed up around here of late and the creative juices / desire to blog have been down to a minimum of late… but i promise that they shall return soon.

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…or more like a revelation occurred to me last night. opting for a wine pairing with a 9-course meal is the foodie equivalent of saying “i want to get wasted” (especially after having had one cocktail while waiting for the nibblies to arrive). I don’t really consider myself a foodie — but I do enjoy the occasional indulgent splurge on a special occasion.

S and i just had our 4th anniversary on the first. we actually finally got around to having our little celebration by going out to dinner — and boy was it good. it was definitely a night of firsts: S actually declared that a gin and tonic was, indeed, something drinkable. I discovered that when you do a pairing, if you’re lucky… you can actually score a little bit more than the short pour they give you for that particular course if you are so inclined… i mean c’mon…. the bottle has already been opened… and it needs to be consumed… especially the fizzy one.

just when i thought chef cathal armstrong couldn’t outdo himself after last time… he did this time. every time i’ve been there, the 9 course tasting menu seems to get lighter and lighter — and i actually left the restaurant not feeling the least bit bloated. granted, the alcohol probably helped a lot, and the fact that i shared at least a little bit of each course i had.

Canapés

1. Deviled quail egg topped with Osetra caviar
2. Ham and cheese croquette with mustard aioli
3. Duck mousse on

Amuse-Bouche

1. Velouté of Porcini Mushrooms

Regular Courses

1. Ahi Tuna “Salade Niçoise” (deconstructed salad: 4 slices of seared/peppered ahi, with small small mounds of aioli, black olive powder, micro greens, pepper relish, hard-boiled quail egg)
2. Sautéed scallop sausage with scallop velouté, baby leeks and yukon gold potatoes
3. Gnudi fritti with “tomato thing” and parmesan cream (ravioli insides that were fried and resting on a bed of tomato sauce and drizzled with the parmesan cream)
4. Smoked Atlantic hake with Eastern Shore succotash and house cured rashers
5. Pan roasted veal sweetbreads with lima beans, smoked ham hock and caper brown butter
6. Shafer Farm loin of venison with sweet onion custard, cardoons and huckleberry jus
7. Piave vecchio with red wine poached figs
8. Raspberry “gratin”
9. Chocolate sesame mousse with date ice cream

After-dinner mini desserty-thingies

1. Chocolate espresso truffle
2. Raspberry linzer-torte
3. Pine nut brittle
4. Berry “Lokum”

Originally published at defenestrate.org. Please leave any comments there.

I was recently given a hypothetical (or not so hypothetical) scenario and asked how I would respond.  For one of the few times in my life, I was at a loss for words.   Maybe you, gentle reader, might have a better answer than I…

“You’re involved in a menage-a-trois with a friend of yours and a friend of theirs.  While you’re going at it, the boyfriend of your friend’s friend walks in and joins in on the action.  How does one respond to this new development?”

A) Extend a lube-covered hand and introduce yourself
B) Ignore their entrance, reasoning you’ll be acquainted with them soon enough
C) Run away screaming
D) Other

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