The time has finally come to say goodbye to Austin. This is something I wanted to post on Wednesday, the day we left, but we had to deal with some last minute problems. We packed up the truck on Wednesday morning and were on the road by the afternoon. The first night we stopped off in Monroe, Louisiana and stayed in a La Quinta. Ehhh I shiver with disgust just thinking about it. I would have slept better if I was on a cold slab in the middle of an artic storm. My skin itches just thinking about the dump. Thursday was a loooong day. We got on the road about 7:30 in the morning and called it quits sometime about 11 or 12. I can’t remember becaused we crossed the timezone change. We ended up in Kannapolis, NC in a Econolodge. I normally wouldn’t have stayed there but I was dead tired and just wanted somewhere to sleep. 5 hour energies can only take you so far. Friday, around noon, we arrived at our new home in Cary, North Carolina. Going into the apartment we were nervous as we signed a 12 month lease without seeing the apartment. Our decision was based purely on the reviews we read online. Luckily, the place is beautiful and spacious. Alev even says she likes it better than our house. Boo yah!
We’re going to miss Austin more than I can describe. In my mind I kept telling myself the move was still far out that way I wouldn’t think about it. But I couldn’t do that anymore when our last day came around. When I was talking to people I would start feeling real weepy, even when talking to people I don’t care much for. I said my goodbyes to my co-workers, at least the ones I cared to, after my team took me out to lunch. I’m hoping we can get back into Austin a few times a year. I lived there longer than anywhere else in my life. It’s a huge part of me and I will always have a special place in my pants for it. Oh Yeah!
Man, I can’t believe how much I haven’t blogged this month. I have had a ton of stuff I wanted to post but we’ve had a lot going on. It also doesn’t help that I pretty much turned off my brain two weeks ago. When I get home I sit my ass on the couch and stare mindlessly into the TV for a few hours. It was cool for a few days but now it kind of sucks. Anyway, it’s almost time to say goodbye to Austin and hello to Raleigh. I can’t wait to get this move over with.
To the entrecard folks, sorry I haven’t dropped hardly anything in awhile. Things have been hectic and I haven’t been spending too much time on the computer. After the move I will get back on the ball.
Well, you know that itch that I scratched a few months back? (no? Then update yourself homeslice: link) I don’t think I scratched it well enough because we ending up buying a 2008 Harley Davidson XL1200N Nightster. When we were looking around, I was looking for the Baby Blue/Black nightster. I soon realized I’m not quite that comfortable with my sexuality to pull it off. Instead, I went with the colors that I’ve been drooling over since first seeing the bike, Orange and Black. B-E-A-utiful! I can’t wait till we get settled in North Carolina and I can hit the roads. I’m fully the expecting the rides out there to be purrrty.
There are still a few things I need to do to fully transition into my Harley owner status. One, I need to start working on getting that leathery skin look. That means I need to rub myself down with baby oil and ride around in a wife beater. When my skin has the consistency of beef jerky I’m good to go. Second, I need to get some official jailhouse ink. I don’t want some poser ink, so I’m going to get myself arrested and sent to prison. Then I will do unpleasant things to get my Jailhouse bitch ink. Third, not really needed for Harley owners but doesn’t hurt, I will be getting a license plate with ‘PNS EXT‘. Everyone will know I’m riding a Harley to overcompensate for my tiny package.
It will be an awesome journey!
Sir Robbie Rob the “The Leathery Skin Harley Owner” is out! Peace!
We are back from our weekend trip down to South Padre Island, where we went to do some deep sea fishing. The whole weekend was a blast besides coming down with a full blown cold.
When I posted about leaving town we were already on the road. We left Austin on Friday around 6PM and arrived in South Padre around 2AM. By the time we got everything unpacked and settled in, it was closer to 3AM and we had to be at the boat by 7AM.
When I laid down for our little nap, I noticed my throat was feeling a little raw. By the time I woke up it felt 10 times worse and know my sinuses joined in on the fun. I thought for sure it was the hotel room. The place smelled like one big moldy dish towel. Part of me was wishing it would get better after leaving the room. It didn’t, but…it was considerate enough to not get worse until after we were done fishing.
I don’t fish very often and I don’t think I’ve caught anything…ever. But I went into our little trip wanting to catch a shark. I was obsessed with the idea of catching one and clubbing it to death…with a wiffle bat. Not sure where this idea came from but the image I have in my head is a funny one. Close your eyes and imagine it. It would take you days maybe even weeks, assuming the shark you caught evolved quickly enough to breathe outside of water, and that’s only if it didn’t managed to gnaw off a limb. That’s probably one of those thoughts I should have kept to myself. hmmmm. eh. Moving along.
We left the dock sometime around around 7:30. We traveled some two hours before we dropped our lines for the first time. Right away, two guys on the boat managed to pull in some nice sized kingfish. After that catch, we went awhile and no one caught anything. When the spot had no activity for awhile the captain would move to another one. We repeated this all day long. Sharon was the first one in our group to catch something, another kingfish. Shortly after, Alev caught her fish. In helping her reel it in I tripped over the anchor and fell on my ass, felt so awesome. It was getting late in the day, Eric and I hadn’t manage to catch anything. But in a moment of staring into space my line got a bite!! Just getting the bite would have made my trip. That felt like progress after not having one all day. I reeled it in pretty easily, except there were a few times I thought I lost it. I pulled in another kingfish. At the end of the day, Eric didn’t manage to get any bites. I think he was a little bummed about it. He didn’t have a full day of fishing though. He and I ate some pretty shady breakfast tacos before getting on the boat. As we headed out to sea he started getting sea sickness. He slept it off, but missed a good portion of the trip.
A classic picture of Sharon with her catch.
I’m holding up Alev and I’s catch. I had the biggest catch of the day. Woo Hoo!
We got the charter place to clean the fish and cut into filets. After wards, we took some of the filets to a local restaurant to get cooked up. We had it fried and blackened. The blackened was by far the best, the best blackened fish I’ve had in a long time. Big props to the chef at Amberjacks.
The whole trip was awesome. I wish it would have been longer and we could have done some more fishing. But I guess it worked out just right. By Saturday night I was in full blown head cold mode. When I woke up on Sunday, I could have used my phlem to paint a nice glow in the dark painting for myself.
Yeah, you read that right. That’s how I roll.
Good Times!
Wheeee, I have finally caught a freakin’ fish! I think I’m ready to start fishing in some tournaments. I’m that effin good. One fish, a big ass one at that, in 28 years! Beat that you professional douches.
Sir Robbie Rob the “Bad ass fisherman” is out. Peace.
We are currently on our way down to South Padre with Sharon and Eric. Tomorrow we will be going out on the Gulf for some deep sea fishing! I will be putting my mad fishing skills to work. I fully expect to catch a great white shark…then I will club it to death. I need to practice my clubbing skills for that trip down to Antartica…look out baby seals!
Metallica’s new album, Death Magnetic, is right around the corner. The first video for the album is ‘The Day That Never Comes’, and it’s pretty good. Well, the video kind of sucks but the song is pretty kick ass. I’ve “sampled” the entire album (Thanks to mininova) and it lives up to the hype that’s been going around. Many so called fans say they haven’t released a good album since Master of Puppets, …And Justice for All, or The Black Album. I say every album from start to finish has been pretty good if not great, even St. Anger. But I think the latest album should satisfy those fans of the earlier stuff.
Check out the video for ‘The Day That Never Came’
It seems like Metallica is now embracing the internet. They are going to be releasing the album digitally prior to it hitting stores. Now only if they would follow Radiohead and let fans decide the price they want to pay.
A few years ago I saw the Robert Rodriguez movie Once Upon A Time in Mexico. The special features on the DVD included a ‘10 Minutes Cooking School‘ where Robert Rodriguez cooked up something called puerco pibil aka cochinita pibil (check the link for some more information about cochinita pibil). His presentation had me really interested in trying out the dish…plus it looked really good.
Even though the feature is listed as a 10 minute cooking school, it’s really more of a 5 minute one leaving a bunch of holes that you need to fill in yourself. I tried the dish out and it was just ok. At that point I had never had cochinita pibil before so I didn’t know what it was supposed to taste like. Luckily, we found a place in Austin that served it and it was damn good, damn, damn good. It blew the one I made completely out of the water. So I completely ditched Mr. Rodriguez’s recipe and went back to the drawing board. I have tweaked some thing hear and there resulting in some pretty delicious slow roasted pork. Now I want to share my recipe with you.
Before getting into the pork recipe, we need to make some pickled onions. If you want to fully enjoy the pibil you must have the onions with it.
Pickled Red Onions
1 cup boiling-hot water
1 medium red onion, halved lengthwise, then very thinly sliced lengthwise
1 fresh habanero or Scotch bonnet chile, halved, seeded, and deveined, then thinly sliced
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon dried oregano (preferably Mexican), crumbled
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pour boiling water over onion in a small bowl and let stand until softened, about 10 minutes. Drain onion well and return to bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients.
Cochinita Pibil
3/4 cup Achiote paste*
10 cloves garlic
1 1/2 cup orange juice
Juice of 2 limes
8 bay leaves
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoon ground thyme
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
4 pounds pork butt, cut into 2-inch chunks
1 pound banana leaves
Big Ass Zip Loc bag or marinade container
Aluminum foil pan & foil
In a food processor or blender, blend the achiote paste, salt, garlic gloves, oregano, thyme, cinnamon, bay leaves, cumin, orange juice, pepper, and lime juice. You want to make sure you blend everything really well. Here is what mine looks like after blending;
Put your pork butt chunks into the big ass zip loc bag, then pour the marinade into the bag. Seal up the bag making sure to get as much air out as possible. Put the bag into the fridge and let it marinade for 24 hours. If you can’t give it 24, plan for at least 12.
After marinating, line your aluminum foil pan or baking dish with a layer of banana leaves. Use the longer leaves as you will be wrapping it around the meat. Dump the contents of the zip loc bag into the pan making sure the pork is evenly arranged. Take the overlapping portion of the leaves and wrap around the pork. Next, wrap the dish tightly in foil, you don’t want any heat to escape.
Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Bake for 6 hours or until the pork is tender and easy pulled apart. Remove from the oven and let it cool down for a few minutes. Take some forks and pull the pork chunks apart. Now you’re ready to enjoy this great dish. I serve it up taco style with the onions but it’s great even without tortillas.
(The above picture is not mine, I found it on google. We have a bunch of pictures of preparing the pork but by the time it’s done we forget about the pictures and just eat)
If you go taco style, make sure you get some freshly made tortillas. It really adds to the whole dish. In my experience the ones found in the your local grocery store’s bread aisle takes away from the whole thing.
*Some Cochinita Pibil recipes call for grinding up annatto seeds. I’ve tried this and haven’t really liked the end result. The paste has been consistent for me. You can find the paste in many grocery stores that carry international foods.
Google announced the release of their open source browser, Chrome. I came across this at MarketPlace via this link.
Being the one that likes trying out new things I quickly downloaded and installed it. Installation is painless as I would expect. After everything I’ve read about the browser I was expecting to be wowed…I haven’t been wowed. I don’t see myself moving away from Firefox anytime soon. It’s still too early to call this thing a dud, but it continues my lack of interest in the tools Google offers, besides the search of course.
I know I’m in the minority when I say Google’s offerings are pretty much crap, but I think way too many people eat up this stuff just because it’s from Google. But…anyway, I will continue playing with it trying to keep an open mind.
I invite you to share your thoughts on the new browser. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, go here: link.
Recent Comments