in Buffalo
Last week was the end of an increasingly busy time at work, culminating in a very hectic Thursday, when I gave exams in all my classes. However, once I was already giving the exams, I could basically imagine it was already the weekend and could mentally relax.
That evening I drove down to my parents' house, then we all went over to my sister's house, since it was my youngest nephew Gabriel's 13th birthday (damn, he's a teenager already??). He had gotten into Magic: The Gathering a few months ago (damn, people still play that??) and heard that I still had a lot of old cards in my parents' basement, so I had given them to him back then. He assembled some decks out of them and the new cards and so on Thursday I played the first game of Magic I had played since college. Sigh... It's a well-designed game and I had fun (even though the game dragged because we were playing decks designed by a novice). I actually want to dust off my old decks (I kept my most valuable cards) and play him again. But I don't want to get back into it, because it's such an incredible money sink.
Friday morning, I woke up super early and hopped on a plane to Buffalo. I hadn't been getting much sleep the previous two nights, so by the time I arrived in Buffalo, I was a zombie. Unfortunately, I couldn't go home and sleep, but instead had to go to Christian's office on campus, because he had bought very expensive equipment for his lab and Friday and Saturday, the company had sent a representative from Germany (ahem, the owner, Brigitte) to oversee installation, calibration and a lengthy tutorial demonstration. I just stayed in his office in the meantime and tried futilely to grade. We went out for lunch at Siena, which had very standard Italian-American offerings, but they were done well. Wine was a bit pricey. Brigitte and I both got a strip steak special, which was tasty, while Christian got a veal milanese. They then worked the entire afternoon and in the evening we tried to go out to Blue Monk in Elmwood, but it had a line, so we walked down the street and had Taste of Siam. I think Christian and I had eaten there once before. The food had some good seasoning and flavor, though the "very hot, one step below Thai hot" I requested turned out to be mildly spiced. We dropped Brigitte off at the hotel and then headed home, where I promptly fell asleep.
Saturday, we woke up early, went to the farmer's market and Lexington Co-op, and then we picked up Brigitte and dropped Christian and her off at the university. I then headed off to run some more errands before heading home and relaxing. In the evening, after I had picked up Christian, I made a nice Mediterranean-style pork roast with cumin, balsamic vinegar, paprika, chili powder, and pomegranate syrup. It came out quite good. We opened a bottle of Guigal 2010 Cotes du Rhone for some classic Rhone flavor and then watched a cheesy horror movie, Chopping Mall. It had some great lines (Ferdy: Look, I'm sorry if I made you angry, Linda. Linda: It's not you, Ferdy. I'm just not used to be chased around a mall in the middle of the night by killer robots.) but not enough for this to fall into the cult classic category for me. 4/10.
Today, we're just lounging around together. We'll likely go clothes shopping, since we need some stuff and this weekend has all the sales. But otherwise it'll be quiet. I'm around till Tuesday, because this is a "fall break" for us at Fairfield, and then Christian arrives in New Haven on Thursday for another weekend together.
That evening I drove down to my parents' house, then we all went over to my sister's house, since it was my youngest nephew Gabriel's 13th birthday (damn, he's a teenager already??). He had gotten into Magic: The Gathering a few months ago (damn, people still play that??) and heard that I still had a lot of old cards in my parents' basement, so I had given them to him back then. He assembled some decks out of them and the new cards and so on Thursday I played the first game of Magic I had played since college. Sigh... It's a well-designed game and I had fun (even though the game dragged because we were playing decks designed by a novice). I actually want to dust off my old decks (I kept my most valuable cards) and play him again. But I don't want to get back into it, because it's such an incredible money sink.
Friday morning, I woke up super early and hopped on a plane to Buffalo. I hadn't been getting much sleep the previous two nights, so by the time I arrived in Buffalo, I was a zombie. Unfortunately, I couldn't go home and sleep, but instead had to go to Christian's office on campus, because he had bought very expensive equipment for his lab and Friday and Saturday, the company had sent a representative from Germany (ahem, the owner, Brigitte) to oversee installation, calibration and a lengthy tutorial demonstration. I just stayed in his office in the meantime and tried futilely to grade. We went out for lunch at Siena, which had very standard Italian-American offerings, but they were done well. Wine was a bit pricey. Brigitte and I both got a strip steak special, which was tasty, while Christian got a veal milanese. They then worked the entire afternoon and in the evening we tried to go out to Blue Monk in Elmwood, but it had a line, so we walked down the street and had Taste of Siam. I think Christian and I had eaten there once before. The food had some good seasoning and flavor, though the "very hot, one step below Thai hot" I requested turned out to be mildly spiced. We dropped Brigitte off at the hotel and then headed home, where I promptly fell asleep.
Saturday, we woke up early, went to the farmer's market and Lexington Co-op, and then we picked up Brigitte and dropped Christian and her off at the university. I then headed off to run some more errands before heading home and relaxing. In the evening, after I had picked up Christian, I made a nice Mediterranean-style pork roast with cumin, balsamic vinegar, paprika, chili powder, and pomegranate syrup. It came out quite good. We opened a bottle of Guigal 2010 Cotes du Rhone for some classic Rhone flavor and then watched a cheesy horror movie, Chopping Mall. It had some great lines (Ferdy: Look, I'm sorry if I made you angry, Linda. Linda: It's not you, Ferdy. I'm just not used to be chased around a mall in the middle of the night by killer robots.) but not enough for this to fall into the cult classic category for me. 4/10.
Today, we're just lounging around together. We'll likely go clothes shopping, since we need some stuff and this weekend has all the sales. But otherwise it'll be quiet. I'm around till Tuesday, because this is a "fall break" for us at Fairfield, and then Christian arrives in New Haven on Thursday for another weekend together.