Last Sunday I celebrated the birthday of a good friend of mine, and did so potluck style. It was a roaring success and I was reminded that there are only a few keys to a good party (besides awesome people, whose pictures are being omitted to protect the innocent).
Jameson: A necessary evil
Stanky Cheese, Delicious Fruit, and Candied Nuts
Lotsa garlic for just about everything
Latin American corn cakes with queso baked in
7 foot whiteboard for shenanigans
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But I spent last night hacking a bunch of PHP code to pieces to try and get the specific minimalist design requested by an artist for her site. Obviously still a work in progress, it started with a relatively basic Wordpress theme that I then butchered down even further to get what you currently see. Sometimes the simplest looking things take FOREVER!
It likely would have gone much faster if I had any formal (shit, or unformal) training in PHP, or at least in some coding language. But I’m enough of a computer nerd and problem solver that I managed to stumble my way through the page editor.
My only prior experience was inserting the dailymile widget on the right column of the site. After tackling Art By McDermott and stuck in PHP mode, I decided to make some tweaks to my own site, which are subtle, but get me closer to where I want the site to be.
That also got me to combine the About Me and About The Blog page into one About The Boilover page. This site has taken a life of it’s own far from what I originally intended it to be, and the process has been a lot of fun. Not that it’s over, by any stretch of the imagination. But now I have something to fall back on when people ask me what the site is about (historically I just made up some BS and let them figure it out).
I also figured out a way to get the images to look a little better in the Pix on the Right. I threw some new ones in there of things that put a smile on my face–something I could always use =)
So rather than work on any number of drafts last night, it felt good to get all techy. Check out the about page, it will give you a little more insight into the crazy work of The Boilover.
So remember this? And this? And the other few posts I’ve gotten out so far about life sans elevator?
Yeah, it was a nice try.
See, the thought in my head was to use all this stair climbing as a way to gain strength and recover from a rather annoying knee injury. Instead, a minimum 400-600 stairs a day was never allowing any rest for my knees, and it was aggravating the issue (I know there are people in NY [not that people in NY read this site] that are laughing at me because they live in an 8th story walk up…whatever, blow me). So I made it a month, and for the last 15 days I have used the elevator as I normally would.
And I’ll be damned if my knee doesn’t already feel better.
Will I give it another shot? Probably not, but I may get back to taking the steps up to my office. I will certainly be taking advantage of the open stadium policy UC has at Nippert, and I plan on hiking Carew Tower and QCS at least once. But in between those episodes of stair madness, I will just be another dude on the elevator.
Still, that much of a failure (<—-notice the “ure” at the end, that is how this word is normally used, I know many of you have forgotten this basic principle) is giving me a case of the monday’s this morning.
I’m not normally a Friday post guy (although I would like to get to daily postings…..hey, I can be lazy) but I wanted to let you know about something happening this weekend (after all this is a site for keeping active and entertained).
While walking back to my car from the #birthdayburgerbash at Bar Louie on Wednesday I passed Southgate House and noticed the name “Andy McKee” on the list of upcoming events. I couldn’t place the name right away, but when I typed Andy into youtube, Mckee was the first suggested result. Upon seeing the word drifting and the thumbnail for the video I immediately remembered watching/being amazed at the following clip. 28 million views and counting says it’s worth your time to watch.
So if you don’t have plans for this Saturday (unfortunately I do) you should check this guy out. Apparently he’s an incredible one man show and the ballroom at Southgate House should be a great place to see him. Tickets are $15 in advance, $18 at the door.
I love breakfast for dinner, but more specifically, I love eggs with dinner (as evidenced by this post). A veggie omelet with toast can tide me over, or, just as appetizing is a grilled muenster and swiss, with an egg. Either way, topped with a little sriracha I’m satiated.
The other night, however, brought about rumblings in my stomach that wouldn’t be quelled by any ordinary breakfast sandwich. No, after a grueling circuit workout of body and free weight exercises I needed something more substantial. Raiding my bare cupboard turned up the usual; bread, cans of soups, pasta and peanut butter. The fridge wasn’t any better, not holding much more than eggs, bread, cheese, and OJ. Like a word problem on the SAT’s I was left trying to figure out the best combination of pieces, knowing not every foodstuff was going to be thrown into the mix (if all those cooking shows taught me one thing it was KISS!–keep it simple stupid!).
Ok, tomato-basil soup, cheese, and bread–that’s an easy option. But I didn’t want to make three grilled cheeses, requiring my continued attention at the stove, eating one sandwich as a made another. No, I was looking to cook, eat, and be done.
Thus I bring you the smothered and covered (I don’t think waffle house has that trademarked) over-medium triple decker, served bloody.
Don’t be fooled, there is no meat in this.
It all starts with four pieces of bread and cheese (I’m going muenster and swiss) in the toaster oven. Crisping bread and melting cheese, keys to a good start.
While that’s toasting it’s time to turn our attention to the eggs. Fried eggs aren’t that difficult. Normally I like mine over-easy, and for me that means cooking them on one side, flipping them over for about 30 seconds and then pulling them off the stove for that phenomenal runny yoke. But for this adventure I wanted over-medium, with a gooey center that stayed in place upon dissection. Instead of pulling my eggs off at the over-easy phase, I just kill the heat and let them finish up while the toast/cheese is in it’s final stages of toastymeltification.
At this point it’s time I turn to my friends at Progresso, heating up their tomato-basil soup in the microwave.
Now, for the construction (click on the pic below to see the GIF, sometimes it doesn’t load on this page).
I call it the stack n’ smash, because the next step is….
Now, for the awesome inside reveal shot:
So that’s the triple decker over-medium, but where’s the blood? Remember the tomato soup that is still sitting in the microwave…lay it on…thick.
Truth be told I ladled some soup on so I could take that picture, but then I just dumped the rest of the bowl over it.
The final step, clean your plate, as best you can.
