Eclectic Coalescence

Mothers Day

2008-05-07T16:43:00.001-07:00

What to get this year? I'm running out of time! I would have sent some of my fresh roasted coffee beans (I need to write about that soon), but Mother has 1-upped me and bought a "real" coffee roaster, so that is out. I have a friend who works at a high-end beauty products store and says she can get me 50% off. But I can't remember what time she works, and if I go at the wrong time, I will doubtless get sold a bunch of stuff for regular price. And now I feel guilty for acting as though Mother does not deserve full price beauty products...

Dr. Moon

2007-11-05T22:56:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the long silence. This news story was so amazing, I had to post about it. It seems that moonlight is the miracle cure for asthma, cancer, you name it! Check out the story here and the groundbreaking research group here. Also, you should watch this video.

[later -- It seems that some people weren't sure whether I was kidding about this. Well, don't worry. I still have my head on straight. I just thought it was funny.]

exquisite blend

2007-06-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

I just had the most amazing cup of coffee. I was in Pasadena last weekend, and I stopped by Peet's (several times). I picked up four half pounds of fresh beans:

Columbia
Ethiopia
Costa Rica
Kenya

All these are wonderful in blends and delightful as soloists, as well. I began the week (Monday - Thursday) with a cup each day of one of the four.

Monday was a trip to Ethiopia. The elegance of their coffee is exemplary. Flavors including cocoa, earth and grape stem are all in good proportion: none of them screams; none hides in the corner.

Tuesday, I visited Kenya. Always a treet. Pungent tea and young wine are at the forefront.

I then moved on to Columbia. The Columbian coffees tend to be a bit subdued. There are few or no bright, acidic flavors in this coffee. This may be seen as boring to some, but it allows the coffee to be brewed exceedingly strong without becoming harsh; similar to mocha java, for example, but more evocative of roasted nuts and less reminiscent of cocoa.

On Thursday, I treated myself to the exotic Costa Rican experience. This coffee is a real sparkler, the feistiest of the siblings. Acidic hot tar flavors leap from the cup and are backed by floral and citrus tones. The coffee is not without body, however, with the brighter flavors supported by fresh walnuts, and pine straw.

And today I started mixing. This is an activity that kept me entertained as an undergraduate, living in Eugene, where I could purchase fresh regional beans from local roaster Full City (and occasionally from Sisters Coffee Company, which was en route between Eugene and Bend). I mixed two parts Columbian beans with one part each of beans from Costa Rica and Kenya. I used almost enough Columbian beans to brew a cup by itself. But the Columbian beans strike a very different note than the Costa Rican and Kenyan beans, so I could get away with that.

The results was a very strong, yet delicate cup. The most prominent flavors were fresh citrus and oaked sangiovese (really). These were backed by a lovely foundation of nuts and berries. Amazingly, the result was actually less harsh than pure Kenyan or Costa Rican beans, despite the very generous total volume of beans included. It shows the effect of spreading the flavor impact over the entire palate.

poor idiots

2007-05-19T22:08:00.001-07:00

I've just been informed that this link is broken. What used to be there was a bunch of people who were going crazy because they couldn't remember where the line, "Wait for it...wait for it" came from. Of course the line is old and shows up all over the place. But there were people watching the entire Matrix and Star Wars trilogies, trying to find the line. I feel sorry for them.

Juice season

2007-05-17T22:37:00.000-07:00

Now that the valley has seen a few days over 100 degrees, it's time to start stocking my refrigerator with juice. So far I've got apple, orange, pineapple, mango, cranberry, black cherry and pomegranate. I've also got a fresh lemon left and yogurt, bananas and frozen berries for smoothies. I need to buy limes, coconuts, club soda, tequila, vodka and rum. Oh! And the little umbrellas. Actually, the liquor is kind of silly, since the point is to stay hydrated. But it sure does taste good.

Squaw Peak

2007-05-11T09:48:00.000-07:00

I wasn't getting any exercise. As a result, I felt like I wasn't getting very much exercise. So I decided to start going to the top of Squaw Peak a couple times a week. If I can keep it up over the next couple months, I will probably last all summer. I think in July I'll have to get there at 5 AM for it to be bearable. Anyway, it's a beautiful little hike. Only a little more than a mile each direction, but it climbs about 1200 feet in that time, so it's a good quick workout.

Chino's

2007-05-11T09:36:00.000-07:00

There's a restaurant chain in Phoenix (not really a chain; two restaurants -- I guess that makes it a "dimer" -- sorry; chemistry joke) called Chino Bandido. They serve Mexican and Chinese combinations. Now, to many of you, that may sound unappealing, but it's actually pretty good. I had their food for dinner last night. I had a jerk chicken quesadilla, sweet and sour chicken, pork fried rice and black beans. Oh, and they give you a snickerdoodle on the side.

more food

2007-05-06T22:19:00.000-07:00

okay, this time the pictures are in chronological order.

pork chop, salad, corn, applesauce.

salad, toast, blue veined cheddar (i didn't make the cheese).

flourless chocolate cake. slightly overcooked, unfortunately. turned out perfectly a few days later (below).

lamb chop.

mango banana milkshake.

spicy lamb.

stumptown coffee... oh... yeah.

fish fry.

flourless chocolate cake. this is SO easy to make.

some recent results from my kitchen

2007-04-21T22:46:00.000-07:00

The photos are in reverse chronological order, because every time I post a photo, blogger puts it at the top of the manuscript, regardless of where my cursor is. It wasn't always like that.

seared fillet mignon over butter lettuce with mint and carrot yogurts, Burgundy mustard and creamy balsamic vinaigrette; pita bread and hummus. this meal would have been a starchless disaster, but my sister pointed out that since I already had mint in the refrigerator I could make hummus. thanks A!

stew

toast, marmalade, cappuccino

"Thai jambalaya" (anyone know a better name for this?)

liguine with lemon goat cheese sauce. I didn't have time to sit around and wait for a roux to thicken, so I used an egg yolk as an emulsifier. it actually worked pretty well. the wine is a cheap Burgundy I got at Trader Joe's; it was a lot better than I expected.

NASCAR food: stuffed jalapenos with homemade ranch dip and anchor steam in a frosty mug

sausage sandwich (idea ripped off from defalco's)

fried eggs

a more adventurous way to eat eggs. the coffee is not a prime example. I think it's from the melita.

pasta rustica with tomato sauce. I actually didn't care for these pasta from Coppola. They didn't cook well, because they have a thick core and thin pieces sticking out, so they turned out really uneven. But the sauce was good.

cinnamon toast breakfast

espresso with cream

Peet's Arabian mocha java (this is not an espresso drink and there is no steamed milk. The frothiness is a result of convection and deposition processes involving chilled heavy cream and fine sediment from the press pot brewing technique.)

rigatoni with fresh herbs and Oregon white truffles

nacho night

liguine with capers, anchovy and fresh basil; Kim Crawford marl. sauv. blan.

breakfast alla Zanzibar's Coffee Adventure (sub berry jam for marmalade)

liguine with capers, sausage with carrots

thick cut "Iowa" chop with green beans, mashers and pear sauce

taxes

2007-04-15T14:53:00.000-07:00

Taxes are due in two days. It was one day, but (thankfully) they moved it from Monday the 16th to Tuesday the 17th. I think they did this just for me. I need help with my taxes, and I can't call for help today (Sunday). That means I'll be finishing up tomorrow and mailing them on the 17th. Actually, I'll try to finish a day early and get them out on the 16th, but I might not make it.

My situation is confusing. I live in Arizona right now, but I have intended to move back to Oregon as soon as I finish my PhD. So I have kept my Oregon driver's license and residence. I haven't registered to vote in AZ, either.

I thought I had all this solved. I just have to fill out AZ form 309 which lets me use my Oregon taxes as an Arizona credit. You see, the Oregon tax guide says that Oregon taxes ALL income on a full-year resident, regardless of where it was earned. Since Oregon taxes are higher than AZ taxes, this would mean my AZ taxes would be zero, after the credit for tax paid to another state.

However, when I started filling out my Oregon return, I realized no income had been withheld for Oregon. So I would send a BIG check to Oregon, then get a (not as) big check back from AZ. I thought, "That can't be right."

Finally, I found the following section in the Oregon tax manual:

Special-case Oregon residents. If you are an Oregon resident and you meet all of the following conditions, you are considered a nonresident for tax purposes.

* You are an Oregon resident who maintained a permanent home outside Oregon the entire year, and
* You did not keep a home in Oregon during any part of 2006, and
*You spent less than 31 days in Oregon during 2006.

That applies to me, so it looks like I am saved.

Note: If you read and enjoyed this entire post, you may also enjoy this.

amazing

2007-04-15T00:06:00.000-07:00

While surfing the net for some sweet shots from Top Gun, I stumbled upon this elegant example of Engrish.

India

2007-02-17T01:16:00.000-08:00

I recently got to visit India for 18 days. I was supposed to be there for 19 days, but delays in Atlanta, Paris and Dubai added almost a full day to my journey to get there.

I got to see a couple of old (~1000 yr) Hindu temples, and a Jain temple (with the worlds tallest monolith -- a very tall naked guy). I also got to visit a Buddhist monastery in a Tibetan refugee settlement in the hills in Southwest Karnataka; that was the most relaxing part of the trip. I wanted to visit a Benedictine monastery on the outskirts of Bangalore, but I never could figure out how to get there (I emailed the monastery and heard back from them more than a month later that I was welcome to stay with them. I emailed again to find out how to get there and still have not heard back). In India, places don't have addresses like 230 W. Broadway. The address for the monastery was "about 10 km from Bangalore on the road to Mysore." I drove on that road, all the way from Bangalore to Mysore and saw no evidence of a Benedictine monastery. Mysore was nice, though.

Anyway, I'll put some pictures below. The first is with some Tibetan monks. It was only their third day at Namdroling monastery when I met them. They had just moved down from a major monastery in Himalaya (can't remember which one). They are past their first stage of training (in the Tibetan music and other preliminary things) and are now beginning ten years of studying Tibetan philosophy at Namdroling.

Other pictures:

birds fighting over grains used in a Bhuddist ritual

inside Golden Temple

"country" women carrying firewood

friendly soldiers

typical Bangalore residential area

cute kids I met

Belur

huh?

2006-07-08T18:40:00.000-07:00

I feel really loved today. A couple months ago, I was a day late on a credit card payment, and I got charged $39 AND I had to pay a finance charge on the carried balance. I figured it was my fault though. There was really no reason why I was late, except I was thinking I'd paid it, and I hadn't. So I didn't bother to call and argue about it. Last month then, I payed off the whole balance, including the finance charge and late fee. Then a few days ago, I got a bill with ANOTHER finance charge...why was I getting charged interest when I paid my whole balance, on time?

So today, I called CitiBank. I asked the friendly lady, who spoke English no foreign accent, why I was getting charged when I paid my whole balance. She explained it had something to do with an average balance on the card...I didn't understand, but before I was able to get to the bottom of it, she said, "and I'll go ahead and give you a courtesy credit for that finance charge." I hadn't even argued with her! When I acted really surprised, she said that they don't mind doing that, so we [the customers] can be educated on how the finance charges are calculated...even though I never really got educated...just confused.

Then she volunteered the information that normally if you're late on a payment, if you call and explain you just forgot or were busy or whatever, they'll cancel the late fee. I said I wished I'd known that. She canceled the late fee from two months ago, even though it was completely my fault, and I'd admitted that! She even canceled the interest!

I mean, ethically, it really is the right thing to do, you know; be nice to people when they make silly mistakes, instead of taking advantage of them. But I generally don't expect that from big businesses these days; especially without a fight. But I didn't even argue about anything, and it is all as if I'd never made the mistake! I'm impressed, and I'm taking this opportunity to put in a plug for CitiBank. They treat you like you're human!

The Aveda Institute is like a box of chocolates

2006-07-06T15:02:00.000-07:00

I really needed a hair cut today. There's an Aveda Institute in Tempe, where they train the stylists. They'll do my air for $10, since I'm a student, which is less than I'd pay at most barbers. So I go there.

But the real reason I go is that it's just such an adventure. First, you pay, then you sit and wait for your stylist. You watch these girls practicing, styling on wigs...they're all looking at each others' work, explaining what they think they did wrong. Then you start to notice the stylists themselves. They come up to the front every few minutes and get a customer. Some of them have gorgeous hair, and you think, "I hope SHE calls me." Then the quite overweight lady with the bleached, spiked hair comes up, and you start to tremble with fear. "There's no WAY she's touching my head!"

Last time I went there, the girl who did my hair said she really didn't know what to do with guys' hair. She'd only cut one other guy's hair, and about a week later, she'd run into him in public, and he'd said, "Hey! You screwed up my hair!!!" This came out when she was about half-done with my hair. And she was right. It came out pretty badly. I looked like a little kid from the 80's.

But today, I got a girl who was only four weeks from graduating, and who was planning to get a job at a Scottsdale resort when she finished. She did a great job. Even her gay supervisor liked it.

You never know what you're gonna get.

Oh Beautiful...

2006-07-05T11:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a great holiday for me! For starters, it was just really relaxing. And in the evening, Dmitry invited his group to his house to watch fireworks, eat good food, drink wine and Russian vodka and celebrate getting a grant from NSF.

But the best part was the huge storm that came through Maricopa County. We finally got rain in Chandler after I-don't-know-how-long. And this morning I was able to walk to Einstein's Bagels for breakfast! I didn't even wear sunglasses. It was just nice out. Like about 80 degrees and pretty humid and cloudy, which, for Phoenix in the summer, is absolutely heaven! I drove to work with the window down this morning. I sat outside with iced coffee and read some computer code I'd printed out. I feel human again.

evolution

2006-07-02T23:30:00.001-07:00

I'm enjoying a very nice pinot noir tonight. My friend Sochetra gave it to me for my birthday. I opened it two days ago. On the first night it was fine. Nothing wrong with it, but kind of closed, and a bit more harsh than I'm used to with pinot. But still, it was good. It tasted like I'd opened it a year early, frankly; and if that was as good as it was going to get, I would have given it maybe 87 or 88 points. Not bad, but not exciting.

I tried it again last night, and the wine had opened up dramatically! All of a sudden there were aromas of caramel and cinnamon; flavours of strawberry, orange, nice oak, good subtle tannins. I was quite surprised. I've never seen so dramatic a change in a wine. It went from one-dimensional and a bit harsh to supple, rich and complex overnight!

Now it is on day three. All the same great flavours are there, but the feel has gotten perfectly silky, just the way a good pinot noir should be. So if you have a 2003 Domaine Serene Evenstad Reserve Pinot Noir sitting around waiting to be opened (and I'm quite sure you don't, but just in case), please let it decant for an hour. It's well worth the wait. 93 points.

math

2006-06-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

My friend recently pointed out, insighfully:

crutches + coffee = disaster.

It was further argued (by another friend) that

coffee + disaster = crutches

This is very nice, but it seems to me,

disaster = crutches

just as well as

coffee + disaster = crutches.

The crutches are because of the disaster, not the coffee.

I think coffee + disaster = laundry

Now if we add crutches to each side,

coffee + crutches + disaster = crutches + laundry

This is believable. Now, if we substitute using the original expression, we obtain

2 disasters = crutches + laundry

This make sense. Crutches from, say, a car wreck, and laundry from spilling your coffee. Two separate disasters.

Someone also pointed out that

disaster + crutches does not necessarily equal coffee.

Well, that's because,

disaster - crutches = coffee.

Think about it. If you had a disaster and you didn't have any crutches, you'd be stuck in a chair all day. If that happened to me, I would definitely drink a lot of coffee. Also, if we add crutches to both sides, we get,

disaster = crutches + coffee, which is just a rearrangement of where we started.

I look like I know what I'm doing

2006-06-25T13:35:00.000-07:00

When the Chandler jazz festival was happening, I was sitting in 98 South wine bar, enoying a flight and a piece of fish (don't remember what exactly it was now). See my posting from a couple months ago, for a description of the jazz festival. I had a bunch of books with me, as usual. This is because:

* I'm single.
* I don't have many friends who are willing to spend between $20 and $40 to hear jazz over dinner, and make up for it by eating fritos for lunch all week.
* When I'm eating, I don't like to just sit and stare.
* I actually like reading.
* I always bring my wine journal to 98 South, when I go. You see, at the rate I go through wine at home, it would take me an eternity to fill up my wine journal. But an empty wine journal isn't as cool as a full one. So I bring it with me to restaurants and write about the wines I taste. This helps it to fill up at least faster (still not fast). It worked out especially well this night, because I ordered a flight. Also, the whole point of the journal is that I won't forget the wine...it's easier to forget when you just have one glass and you don't even have the bottle at home.

Well I was sitting there eye-ing, sniffing and tasting one of my wines, and this guy came over from the lounge and asked me if I was evaluating the restaurant! If I hadn't been so surprised, and if the jazz hadn't been so loud, I would have said yes, and gone along with it; but I was so surprised by it that I just said, "Oh, no! I'm just taking notes on the wine," or something like that.

So he replied, "Well you just looked like you knew what you were doing. Do you have any suggestions?" I told him what I was drinking and what I thought of it. He thanked me and probably ordered what I recommended. It was an odd experience. It was like, just for a moment, I knew how Robert Parker feels when he eats out (that is, when he eats). I think next time I go there, I'll actually TRY to look the part, and be ready to oblige. It's like Kurt Vonnegut says. "You are what you pretend to be."

binary

2006-06-24T11:48:00.000-07:00

I know most of you have probably seen this, but since I'm such a nerd, I thought it was hilarious:

There are 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary and those who don't.

Objectivity

2006-06-24T11:35:00.000-07:00

Yesteray, I watched the news, which is usually a mistake. I really just want to see the weather report. But why do that, when I can get it off the internet anyway? They showed a home video of a tornado tearing up some farmland and houses, and they said it was a video of "what appears to be a tornado."

Why do they have to do that? Do they honestly think the video is fake? Do they really think I'm sitting at home, thinking, "Oh! It just APPEARS to be a tornado...Lord knows you can't believe what you see these days...I'm glad those anchors have their heads on straight, or I might just blindly believe this stuff!"

It pisses me off, because they act like they're presenting nothing but the most raw facts possible. They are carefult to say it "appears to be a tornado," while their editors are sitting behind the scenes choosing stories and footage with implications that are in line with what they want their newscast to appear to say.

Morons.

This is better.

2006-06-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

I did it:

To take the theological quiz, click here.

Also, pay a visit to my brother.

So Smart

2006-06-23T11:03:00.000-07:00

As you all know by now, I pretty much a genius. Well I finally figured out how to make a link in html! So now I can do this:

To take the quiz, click

here

.

Also, pay a visit to my

brother

.

Okay, I admit that is a very crude version of what I meant it to look like, but still, I managed to make a couple of links, and that should count for something. Just watch...I'll have holographic videos going on on my blog, before you can say, "Non mi piace questo regazzo, che' si chiama "Allan", perche' e' molto antipatico e anche e' stupido!"

I'm postmodern!!!

2006-06-23T10:36:00.000-07:00

My brother found this quiz online where you can find out how to classify your theological worldview. According to the results, I am roughly equal parts postmodern, neo-orthodox and Weslyan:

Emergent/Postmodern 75%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 71%
Neo orthodox 71%
Classical Liberal 46%
Roman Catholic 39%
Reformed Evangelical 32%
Modern Liberal 25%
Charismatic/Pentecostal 25%
Fundamentalist 11%

Strangely, I came out second-lowest on Pentecostal, even though that's the sort of church I'm supposed to be from. Maybe I'm going through some kind of rebelious stage...Nope. That's not it.

It seems like postmodern should be the opposite of orthodox (you can check out my brother's related comment at thepresspot.blogspot.com).

Anyway, I thought this was fun. You can take the quiz if you want. Since I'm an idiot, I don't know how to link the address to the word 'quiz', so just hit the link below okay? And enjoy it! Or if I'm such an idiot that it doesn't even show up as a link at all, you can just copy the address into your address bar. Work with me here.

http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=43870

Are you for real?

2006-06-21T16:58:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning for weeks now to tell you about a weird experience.

As I approached the post office, which is at kind of a funny intersection, I was cautious as usual, and it paid off, because a 25-year-old ex-frat-boy in a pickup ran a stop sign and would have hit me if I hadn't stopped (I didn't have a stop sign). The following conversation followed:

Me: beep! (apparently a mistake...)

Arrogant truck guy: [hands in the air and an expression that says, "What?"]

Me: You ran stop sign.

Him: What?

Me: There's a stop sign right there (pointing).

Him: Well if there's a stop sign there, where's it at?

Me: It's right there (pointing).

Him: Well where is it?

Me: It's RIGHT THERE! (I took care to point as directly as possible toward the stop sign which was about 10 yards away).

Him: If it's right there, where is it?

Me: [squinting to make sure I didn't imagine the stop sign]

Him: A lot of staring

Me: Whatever, I don...[interupted]

Him: That's What I Thought!! [drives off]
==========================================
Now what the h*** is that supposed to mean? This story happened months ago, but I didn't post it, because I started thinking I was going crazy, so I drove by and made sure the stop sign was actually there. And it was. So I don't know what arrogant truck guy's problem is, but I'm sure glad he didn't hit me. I hate to think what sort of story he would have come up with for the police/judge.

Starbucks

2006-05-25T11:07:00.000-07:00

OK everybody. To be fair, I do have to tell you the one good thing about starbucks. The people who do marketing for the company are very good at what they do. They really bring in the customers. So if you want to be a brainless lemming and victim of mass marketing; if you want to pay twice the appropriate cost for a coffee drink with no coffee in it; or if it pleases you to have some financial preditors behind big desks trick you into defining your social status and mental state in terms of a low-quality pretentious overpriced drink; then by all means, support Starbucks!

I did overhear one conversation that I really enjoyed about coffee and Starbucks.

I was sitting in Gold Bar working and a bunch of Catholic High School students came in. One student ordered a nice strong coffee drink, then the other one said something really profound: "I'm not a coffee person. I'm a Starbucks person." That comment pretty muched summed up the difference between Starbucks and a real coffee shop for me. I must also say that the guy who says this is the only person I've ever met who has the right to go to Starbucks unashamed, because he actually realizes what he's doing. He is not being tricked by Starbucks. He just likes it, and that's fine.

Gold Bar

2006-05-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

Gold Bar Espresso is among the more important institutions in Tempe. H*** in all of Maricopa County. The reasons are a several:

They have jazz on Sunday night.

They have Allann Brothers Coffee.

They serve the best house coffee in the city.

They are very nice people.

They have free wireless.

They are not obnixious like Starbucks.

If you're ever in the Phoenix area, check them out at the northeast corner of Southern and McClintock in Tempe.

Confusing

2006-05-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

Okay everyone, this posting will be a bit heavier than some; sorry it it's over the top.

I'm supposed to be doing a project wherein I measure the elastic moduli of simple fluids by simulation--we are particularly interested in the shear modulus. In essence, it is simple. If I put a shearing force on an object, it will push back. For small perturbances, the restoring force (the pushing back) is proportional to how much I deform the solid.

dF/A = -G du/l,

where dF is a differential amount of force, G is called the shear modulus, and du is a differential amount of "strain" (deformation). A is the area over which the force is exerted (ie, we normalize the force with the area) and l is the length between two points in the object, relative to which I measure the distortion (the strain). If you're already lost and you actually care about this, just comment and I'll offer you the explanation specially designed for people with no physical intuition (please realize when I say things like that I don't mean them). For those of you who know some physics, this is precisely analagous to the harmonic oscillator: F = -k x. We just normalize it to make it a property of the substance, rather than the system and/or situation.

So far so good, but I'm reading this paper, and they define the strain tensor as:

u,ij = (1/2)[(du,i/dx,j) + (du,j/dx,i)],

where u,i is the ith component of the displacement and x,i is the ith coordinate of the displacement. It seems like this derivative would always be either 1 or 0.

This had me confused for quite some time, untill I figured out what they meant by those derivatives. Well here's what it is. As I move along coordinate x,j, AFTER the deformation, I will observe that the amount the object is displaced from its former conformation changes as I move through the object. If that last sentence didn't make sense, don't feel bad. It's very hard to explain in words. I finally understood when my friend Dan found a nice article at Wikipedia that actually had pictures to explain this stuff. If you want to understand, go there. It turns out that this derivative is equal to the strain for small perturbations (it's a first order expansion).

I just wanted to mention this, since this work is actually a major part of my life.

A good development

2006-05-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

In my life, there has been a good development. Everyone has figured out that I like wine. This means that whenever Christmas or my birthday rolls around, I get wine and wine-related gifts. For my birthday this year, I received a gift certificate for some wine, a bottle of a nice pinot noir, and a very nice book loaded with information about wine. Thank you givers of these gifts; you know who you are.

Once I get the bottles from the gift certificate, I'll have enough white wine to survive the Phoenix summer. I also now have a couple of lighter reds (pinot noir), for those days when I still realize it's way to hot for cab or zin, but I just don't want white wine. My brother's recent alertness and generousity also helped me to acquire a couple of very nice whites, at prices boardering on burglary.

Yes, I will have some relief on those days when it is 115 outside and I can't leave town.

Jazz

2006-04-24T15:12:00.000-07:00

The Chandler Jazz Festival happend 21-22Apr2006, in historic downtown Chandler. I went down there two nights in a row. Friday night, I heard some young guys from Mesa Community College (except the guy on bass) who were really entertaining and creative. I got the impression they hadn't been playing together all that long (not sure) but they were all very good at their instruments.

Saturday night, I heard a good band; it turned out that they play their frequently; bandleader goes by "Chops."

So that's jazz two nights in a row. It was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed some good food and wine at the same time (The bands I heard were playing at 98 South wine bar).

The downside is I managed to spend $80 on two dinners. This means I'll be eating peanut butter and jelly all week. But that's just the price of hearing good jazz. You can live like a king on the weekend, if you don't mind living like a peasant during the week. But this does mean no DeFalco's all week, and that hurts. If I'm thrifty enough, maybe I can go on Friday.

One thing that is certain is that I will never resort to Top Raman in an effort to save money.

DeFalco's

2006-04-21T15:53:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, I was saved. There is a problem in the Phoenix area. The place is growing so fast that rents are going through the roof; and so many big businesses are coming here that it has been more and more difficult for local business owners to survive. Since moving here, several times I have tried to visit places that were supposed to have great authentic Italian food, and several times I have been just weeks too late. Then one Thursday, I was driving on Scottsdale Road, and I passed a building I'd never before noticed. Its sign said, "DeFalco's Italian Grocery and Deli."

I turned around. It was late, and I didn't have time to eat much. I ordered a shot of espresso. E' state Buonissimo! I went home happy.

In the weeks following, I have discovered that DeFalco's serves other-worldly sandwiches. You can get the hot or mild italian sausage with red sauce and roasted peppers and onions sandwich on a crusty baguette, with a side of pasta salad and prosciutto-stuffed peppers, with a Pellegrino, for example (this would probably run you about $15). Or you can just get a half cheese steak with hod Giardinara peppers added and drink water for about $5.50. That's more realistic for lunch most days. Let me emphasize that these sandwiches are sooooooooooooooooooooooo good.

Now every Friday, I go there for lunch with my good friend Jean-Phillipe Bellier (JP is from France, and misses old-world cuisine).

So if you're ever in the Phoenix area, pay DeFalco's a visit. And if you already live here, I expect your duty is clear by now.

The worst thing about DeFalco's is that they don't open early enough for me to get my morning coffee there. I'll have to work on that with them.

Black Butte Porter Float

2006-04-21T15:02:00.000-07:00

I finally did it. I tried a porter float. For those of you who have never lived in Oregon (there are probably precisely zero of you), Black Butte Porter is a splendid porter brewed by Deschutes Brewery in Bend, OR. It's named after Black Butte (pictured above). Whenever I buy a six-pack of Deschutes beer, I brag to the cashier that the beer comes from my home town. They usually just think I'm weird. But I was at Trader Joe's recently and it turned out that my cashier had lived in Bend back in the seventies. He had even skied the cinder cone (this is the cinder cone on the side of Mount Bachelor, after which Deschutes Brewery named their Cinder Cone Red, which is available now through sometime in the fall).

Anyway, I always thought that a porter float would be good. I had some support for this theory:

* McMenamin's serves a Terminator Milk Shake, which contains their Terminator Stout.
* Coffee-flavored milk shakes and ice cream are good.
* Black Butte Porter has a distinct coffee-ish flavor.

I think you'll all agree that this pretty much proves that a Black Butte Porter float would have to be good. So I finally tried it. At first, I didn't put enough ice cream in, and it just tasted like there was something wrong with the beer (kind of like when you don't put enough ice cream in your coffee--if you do that).

But I didn't lose heart. I just scooped more ice cream into the frosty mug and stirred the thing up really well (by the way, it fizzes a lot).

And you know what? It was terrific. I highly recommend it.

-Allan Friesen

Dear Readers,

2006-02-11T19:15:00.000-08:00

Dear readers,

First, let me thank you for providing an audience (yourselves, for the less intelligent among you) for my “work.” For my first posting (the previous one has been deemed my zeroth posting, since it is stupid), I want to tell you a bit about me, so you can understand the origin of what I will write subsequently.

I was born in Bend, Oregon, which is a very nice place. I went to college (U of O, Eugene OR). I am going to more college (ASU-Tempe AZ). I ski. I like to cook. I like to golf. Golf does not like me. I write counterpoint. I play the piano. My ukulele playing also is pretty killer.

I must interject at this point and apologize for this apparent display of egotism. I have no inferiority complex. The reason why I emphasize that my ukulele playing is “pretty killer” is that most people think it is an instrument that cannot, or should not, be taken seriously. Well how many of you can play the following virtuosic musical excerpt on your guitar?

I think I’ve made my point.

I believe that cement is often poured in the wrong place. Especially in parking lots and near intersections.

I like good coffee.

I also happen to be a student of theoretical physical chemistry. This is where I get money (and what I’m studying at ASU), but I won’t be writing much about this, since most of you probably wouldn’t understand it. For example, how many of you understand the following complex scientific picture, which was drawn by a genuine scientist?

The overwhelming complexity that goes into a drawing like this is difficult to put into words that the ordinary person may understand. And the problem is that we use ideas like the one illustrated above to craft even more complex ideas.

After studying many complicated theories, I can write sentences like:

* Space and time form a continuum called the space-time continuum.
* Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son may be an example of a teleological suspension of the ethical.
* The Born-Oppenheimer approximation works pretty well.
* Beings which in the Darwinian sense may be regarded as advanced primates are behooved, when their places of residence portray fragility, as in the case of structures of disordered quasi-equilibrated pseudo-solids (or very highly viscous liquid-like materials undergoing self-diffusion on time-scales of at least hundreds, if not billions of years), not to hurl sturdy, dense primitive weapons in the direction(s) of their enemy(ies).
* Come’ si chiama?
* Bordeaux is good with beef.
* Students of the second Viennese school are sometimes prone to employ hexachordal inversional combinatoriality.
* The ergodic approximation also works pretty well sometimes.

I also like studying theology, and I plan to post many things relating to this, in the future.

I’m interested in a lot of things, and I look forward to talking about all of them.

Ciao!

-Allan Friesen

hello world

2006-02-11T18:08:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I have my very own blog! This blog is pretty sweet. It's AWESOME! This blog is...incredible.

I wonder how much they're going to try to charge me to have my very own blog. Can you believe I didn't even give them a way to bill me? I can't believe they think I'm just going to send them money without a bill.

Fools.