TWLOHA Day

Today is To Write Love On Her Arms Day. It is something that developed over the last couple years without any guidance from the actual organization but they fully support it. You can read Jamie's thoughts on it on their blog. So, if you feel so inclined, write a little message on your arm today and then share the purpose behind it if someone asks. I went small but I'm sure it'll get noticed. There's a facebook group and a flickr group to check out if you want.

Restaurant Do's & Don'ts

Few things are more frustrating than a bowl of hot soup with no spoon.

I came across this list in the NY Times earlier this week. And since I love lists...and food, I thought I'd share it. stoppable, we can use these as a starting place when we open our restaurant. 1-50 and 51-100. Some of them are very good. Things that I wouldn't have been able to put my finger on, but grate on my nerves when dining out. The author has a series of articles about his travails as he starts up a fish restaurant in the Hamptons. These would be fun to combine into an entrepreneurship class...which I'm not teaching this year, unfortunately.

Lala.com

So I don't know how long this has been going on but something I've been enjoying lately is Google's new music functionality. If you search for a band, song title, or even some lyrics, at the top of your search results will be a play button and you can listen to the full song (the first time, 30 seconds after that) courtesy of either iLike.com or LaLa.com. Google is trying to work its way into the music distribution chain. Lala is also starting to work with facebook so users can buy songs there. It is pretty handy and being able to hear the full song is much better than the iTunes Store's 30 seconds, but I don't know how much better (if any) it is than just clicking on the video of the song and watching/listening to it there. Either way, check it out and see what you think.

Rooney's Street Skills

Manchester United's Wayne Rooney has a new show coming out that is like an American Idol sort of show for street soccer players. He has taped a couple commercials of him doing some street competitions to promo the show. This one where he has to trap a ball dropped from an apartment complex (the last one is 6 stories up), turn and pass it into a dumpster is the most entertaining. There were two takes on YouTube for it. This one looks like the first one; it takes a few times for him to get used to it, but the last ball is pretty sweet. This looks like the second one, he's definitely got it down this time. Not bad for wearing jeans! There are some other neat ones, like evading a bunch of rolled tires. The full show is here, but I haven't watched it yet so I can't vouch for it.

Athletes Acting Badly

Two unfortunate examples to share:

• This one is all over YouTube and ESPN. Elizabeth Lambert, junior defender on the New Mexico Lobos soccer team, puts on a display of multiple ways of how not to act. Only got a yellow in the game, but her coach has suspended her indefinitely. Too bad it distracted from a great match of the #1 and #4 teams in the country.
• This one was a talking point on College GameDay this past weekend. Florida linebacker and captain, Brandon Spikes, blatantly eye-gouges the Georgia ball carrier after the tackle. He was suspended for half of a game. He later said he would sit the full game...against Vanderbilt.
  

Sunny Day, Sweepin' the Clouds Away

40 years of Sesame Street and Google is helping commemorate it with a week of Google doodles. And the first two have been great. Be sure to keep checking to see what they come up with. I YouTube'd to see if I could find the first episode from back in 1969 and this was the part I came across. It's right up my alley with a take on 'Consider Yourself' from Oliver the musical. What an amazing tv program. I still have songs, sayings, voices, words and lessons stuck in my memory that I learned from Ernie, Bert, Snuffleupagus, Oscar, the Count, Big Bird and the gang. I may need to buy this compilation of musical guests over the years. It looks pretty good!

The Best of Us Challenge

I didn't see these when the Olympics were going on, and randomly came across them tonight. The Best of Us challenges; a series of videos of Olympians doing random physical feats and offering normal people a challenge. Since random physical feats are a family gathering favorite with my family, I thought I'd share these. I'm a big Lolo Jones fan, and she does 33 push-ups w/clap in 30 seconds. She's beast. I'm gonna have to try and match that. I tried just now (just after eating smokey pulled pork dinner) and got 21. And I'm even a bigger fan of Shawn Johnson and she has two videos. This one of 54 ear touches from a handstand is pretty impressive (much more so than the egg toss one). This Australian track guy gives out after 25 taps in 10 seconds, so I give Shawn the edge in that one. Micheal Phelps' speed putting is also pretty good.
So, family, get ready for some fun over Thanksgiving! :)

Smokey Pulled Pork

There are few better feelings then walking in through the door after a Monday of work and having your apartment smell amazing and knowing that your dinner is already done in the crockpot. I had a pork loin that I'd thawed out and need to cook, so this morning I decided to put it in the crockpot and get creative. Creative is not something that I do very often in the kitchen, but it turned out well for me this time. A can of diced tomatoes, an onion, some garlic, a can of chicken broth, beef bouillon, a couple dried gaujillo peppers, and half a can of chipotle peppers & adobo sauce. I wasn't sure how it would look when it was done, but the meat was pretty much falling apart and a lot of the liquid had boiled off, so it was perfect to make it into a pulled pork-type dish. And to go with it, corn muffins. No pix due to some camera problems, but it was delic!

Founding a New Program

I loved this DM Register article about the brand new football (and volleyball & cross-country) program at Meskwaki Settlement school. The pride, hope and enthusiasm in the article are a refreshing reminder of what high school sports were for me and can be for other kids. At the school I teach, our team has not had any success and the morale is awful. I hate to hear the other kids making fun of their own team and the players seem like they'd rather not have to wear their jerseys on Friday. That sentiment really makes me sad; in high school there was no better feeling than slipping on my jersey on Friday morning. I loved reading the freshman's quote in the story, "It's an honor to wear the uniform." I also thought it was cool that there were a few kids who switched schools to be a part of the inaugural year at Meskwaki.

Kitchen Creations

Here's what I put together in the kitchen this weekend...


I unwound on Friday night with a Sam Adams, some good music and put together a Thai chicken curry out of my favorite cookbook, "Rick & Lanie". It was super tasty and rich.


Saturday I made a broccoli & cheese soup during the football games. It was super easy. It wasn't super-cheesy like most broccoli & cheese soups, it was more like a puree'd veggie soup which just enough cheese (Laughing Cow! how easy is that!) to make it smooth & creamy.


And Sunday I made a borscht. The inclusion of the beets will probably turn a few people off, but I liked it. The sour cream really finishes it right.