I love lambics, especially in the summertime. So when Michael came home one evening last week and informed me that they Ortinos Northside had in stock some of the Floris lambics made by Delirium (who makes one of my favorite beers, Delirium Tremens) I was excited. Delirium makes lambics?! AHHH!! YAY!

From Delirium.be:

In 1993, the production of fruit-beers of the “Floris” range was started. It contains, for example, beers made from cherries, raspberries or apples.

They’ve been making them for quite some time and I never knew!

list of Delirium beers, scroll down for all the lambics. They have LOTS!

So on Saturday night we met up with Bob and hit Northside. The ones they had in stock were the raspberry and apple. The raspberry was a bit less sweet than the Lindemans lambic, but certainly on the sweet side as far as raspberry lambics go. I generally prefer my raspberry lambic to have some bite, but I enjoyed this one. The apple was good and sweet for the first half of the bottle, but the second half made me rethink my evaluation, it was too sweet, I had trouble finishing it.

I hope they get more in. I’d love to try the cherry sometime.

I was in bed this morning staring at the curtains we bought a few months back and wondered how much a decent sewing machine would cost.

When we bought the curtains a few months back I was surprised at the cost. They’re nice curtains, and we bought them with a gift certificate a relative gave us after our engagement, but I figured I could probably make myself some for cheaper if I had a sewing machine and a clue about sewing.

When I was growing up my mother sort of tried to teach us to sew. I was terrible at it, Heather did pretty well. Eventually I gave up and my mother graduated Heather to the sewing machine. I’ve watched both her and my mother use it, even tried it once or twice, so I knew the general idea, but as far as actually using a sewing machine I was pretty much a newbie.

So today I hit google for some recommendations for a reasonably priced sewing machine for a newbie. I had a difficult time finding very many reviews of sewing machines. Sewing machines are expensive items that you only buy once or twice a lifetime, but I’ve found plenty of reviews for other appliances I’ve bought over the years. I guess sewing machine people just don’t like writing reviews at sites that were highly google-accessible.

Anyway, I did find a few reviews and decided that I could probably be safe going with a Brother or Singer machine over $150. Pretty much everything less expensive had lousy or mixed reviews and I figured I shouldn’t take a chance.

So I headed to Target.

And came home with a Singer 7444 120 Stitch Function Sewing Machine.

I had it unpacked from it’s box around 5:30PM.

It’s shiny.

I had it threaded by 5:50PM.

Spent the next hour or so playing with bits of fabric.

I can make it sew straight!

I can make it sew zig-zags!

At 8:30 I successfully sewed a button back on a pair of khaki pants.

Now this all might not seem much to grand master sewers out there, but I was never any good at this sewing thing. The fact that I could sew buttons on with this machine 3 hours after pulling it out of the box is mind-boggling. I’ll certainly need tons of practice to get any good with this (even to get to curtain making), but it’s fun and shockingly relaxing.

And now I am going downstairs. It’s past my bedtime and I’m all wound up from playing with my new toy. I downloaded the first couple episodes of Eureka this evening, it’s a new show on SciFi that a co-worker recommended. I watched the first 10 minutes or so of the pilot a few minutes ago and it actually doesn’t suck too bad so far. It’d be nice if this was some good scifi, I haven’t been impressed with anything the SciFi has released as far as TV goes recently (no, not even BSG).

was right, Clerks II is funny.

As we all know, Michael and I don’t go to the movie theater much because we don’t like them. But last night I was feeling burnt out from another 9+ hour day at work and I wanted to watch something funny. There was nothing saved on the MythTV box that was sparking my interest, so somehow in the evening I happened to mention that I’d heard Clerks II was funny.

“Let’s go see it,” says Michael.
“Now?”
“Sure.”

So we drove down to Oaks and caught a 7:45 showing. It actually wasn’t a horrible experience – didn’t get run over by and children wearing roller skate shoes, didn’t get harassed by women selling credit cards, didn’t have anyone near us talking through the whole movie. And the movie did its job in cheering me up. We managed to get home by around 10 so we could get to sleep at a reasonable time, like the old people that we are.

I’m having a long week (lots of those lately…), I’m so glad it’s Thursday.

Happy Birthday !

is my sister, she just got a LiveJournal about a week ago after the nagging of family members. It’s amusing to me that having an online journal has become popular enough that family members encourage each other to have them. I still think about how funny it is for me to go to family reunions and learn that several people in my family read my journal – and I didn’t even know they knew about it!

Now for some photos from last week I never got to post. Between crawling around our basement crawlspace on the hottest day of the year, Michael took some pictures while the Verizon guys were here installing the FiOS.

One of the two Verizon trucks in our driveway

They didn’t have a ladder truck, so used a rope contraption to string the FiOS line from the street to our house.

Junction box! This is where the magic happens. It’s mounted in our basement and has hookups for internet, television (coming soon) and some sort of digital telephone service they’ll be offering.

Battery backup and primary internet FiOS box (I’m pretty sure…).

And the FiOS connection has been going strong all weekend, I’m delighted. I spent some time downloading some MST3K episodes this weekend, and was happy to learn that there are a few on YouTube.com, just search for Mystery Science Theater 3000. They come in 10 parts, so you can watch them one at a time. I used the Video Downloader extension to Firefox to actually download the youtube videos (probably broke TOS for YouTube). It downloads them as .flv files, which mplayer played with no problem, but it didn’t work when I catted all 10 of the files together, d’oh. The quality isn’t the best either, but it’s tolerable, especially since you can’t get these episodes on DVD yet, so it’s still old tape trading.

The weekend was nice. Saturday we spent with Michael’s family, a nice outdoor event that I managed to enjoy, even if everyone in the family wants us to have babies ASAP (“Ooooh you’re getting married? When are the kids coming along?” *smile, nod, chuckle, screaming inside*)

First off, we got the FiOS installed yesterday. Michael worked from home all day so he was able to meet the Verizon techs and stick around for the 3-4 hours the install took. The install was pretty labor intensive, they had to run a cable from the FiOS box on the utility pole to our house, into the basement, mount the equipment in the basement (3 boxes, we’ll have to take pictures, Michael can identify them all), get an Ethernet wire run from the basement to our computer room on the second floor (Michael crawled around in the basement to fully acomplish this). Michael said he was bombarding the techs with questions and they were able to answer them all, either they knew the answer or knew how to obtain it – quite a difference from the Comcast techs Michael had to deal with this month.

The speed? We confirmed that it is 15/2mbps. It is fast. Big sites (Livejournal, Yahoo!…) pop up immediately – no noticeable image loading lag. We’re now pretty much at the mercy of the upload speed of the servers serving us, which is a pretty cool feeling. And since we’re still hosting our websites from home they’re much faster now too – yay! I’ve been pining for faster speeds for my websites for a while and was seriously considering paying for hosting again, now there is no need. Unfortunately I couldn’t enjoy the new found speed for very long last night, we had a nasty thunderstorm and after the power flickered a few times I decided it was best to turn off my computer and chill out in my bedroom with a book instead.

Monday was a busy day. I took it off from work to run a bunch of errands. In the morning I was on a Secret Mission, which will not be discussed until a later date!

I came home around 11AM to meet Michael and headed to Norristown to get our MD marriage license application notarized. This was a surprisingly pleasant experience aside from the typical downtown Norristown traffic. The security guard at the courthouse door was nice, the women we asked for directions from in the courthouse were delightful, the woman who notarized our application was efficient and friendly, even the toll-taker at the parking garage was in a pleasant mood. It feels so good to have such an experience on a hot day, especially when I expected the process to be much more difficult and time-consuming.

From the courthouse we headed to Montgomeryville, grabbed some lunch, and then Michael dropped me off at the Montgomery Mall so I could go to LensCrafters, he headed into the office for a bit. I’ve needed new glasses for a couple months now, and finally got tired of squinting. I got an eye exam and got a new pair of glasses and a pair of prescription sunglasses. The new glasses are very similar to my old ones, a bit smaller. The sunglasses are a great thing, no more sun glare headaches while driving! The world is much nicer when the sun isn’t burning out my eyes.

My glasses were finished around 5, Michael picked me up and we went home to feed Caligula and then went out again – this time to Sly Fox for the MontcoLUG meeting. Michael was able to get a projector from work to use for the meeting (yay!) and 9 people showed up, which is not bad for one of our meetings. The presentation on SVN went well and it was a great meeting. It was really nice to see , he lives in the area but it had been at least 3 years since we’ve actually met up. The meeting wrapped up around 9:45 (Sly Fox closes at 10 on Mondays).

Monday and Tuesday were plagued with highs in the upper 90s, the humidity was terrible. The thunderstorm last night seemed to take all the super hot weather with it when it left. They are saying the high today will “only be 86” phew. There is some stuff I need to do around the house that really didn’t feel like doing in the super hot weather, we haven’t even eaten at home in a few days.

The Skippack Strut on Sunday was fun.

It began at Road House Grille at 1:30 in the afternoon. The temperature was hovering around 90, but there wasn’t too much humidity so it was decent in the shade and generally tolerable in the sun.

First course:

Road House Grille

Assorted hors d’oeuvres paired with McWilliams Riesling

The food served included little potato pancakes, meatballs in a pastry, little cheese and spinach quiche, and hummus on pita – all were good. The Riesling was a nice summer wine that I enjoyed. We sat out on the porch of Road House for this, but we were mostly able to get into the shade.

Second course:

Black Dog Cafe

Honey Walnut Shrimp-Toasted Honeyed Walnuts tossed with Shrimp and Cantaloupe paired with Red Bicyclette Rose

This dish was a bit much. It was battered and fried shrimp put into half a cantaloupe (insides scooped out and some little balls put back in) with the honeyed walnuts and coconut milk. The sweetness of it all caused me not to be able to finish mine. The Black Dog Cafe is an Asian fusion restaurant, not really my thing anyway, I don’t think I’ll be going back. The wine was not bad though, it was pretty mellow compared to many others I’ve had at wine tastings, but it was a red that was surprisingly decent to drink on a hot day. Again we were outside for this course, this time unable to avoid the sun! I was pretty hot when we left.

Third course:

Parc Bistro

Spicy Grilled Smoked Quail on Summer Melon Salad, with Heirloom Tomatoes, Red Onion, Ricotta Salada Cheese, Lime Essence, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and Fig Balsalmic Vinegar paired with Writers Block Grenache

This was the first time I ever had quail, it was a lot like chicken, perhaps a bit more tender. It was nicely prepared and the portions were small. The wine was not my favorite, it had that wood barrel conditioned flavor but not enough other flavor to balance it properly – and it was a pretty heavy red for a summer afternoon. They brought us inside an air conditioned room for this course, which I think was a mistake since it was *so loud* with everyone talking in the small room and the air conditioning made us feel so much worse when we had to go outside again.

This was a nice restaurant though, we’ll be going back.

Fourth course:

Brasserie 73

Baked Salmon Roulade stuffed with Tarragon and Roasted Pepper Compound Butter, served over Lobster Mashed Potatoes with Arugula Salad and Saffron Hollandaise pared with Red Rock Merlot some Zinfandel

The salmon was GREAT, pretty obvious that the same chef works here as at our beloved Road House Grille (the restaurants are separate establishments but owned by the same guy and sort of connected). we’ll certainly be visiting this restaurant again. Apparently they were going to pair it with a Merlot (I like Merlot, but with fish on a hot day?), but ended up bringing out a boring Zinfandel instead (I’m not much of a Zin fan), I wonder if the heat had something to do with the change in choice. The fantasticness of the salmon made up for the less than perfect wine pairing. We sat outside for this too, Michael had a bit of sun for about half the meal, but I was able to hide in the shade.

Fifth course:

Basta Pasta

Sweet Zabaglione with Wild Berries and Vanilla Essence, topped with Biscotti and Fresh Whipped Cream paired with II Moscato

The dessert was fantastic. Light, fruity, refreshing. The wine was less so, I know dessert wines are supposed to be sweet, but this one went overboard, it was like I was drinking juice. The restaurant itself was less formal than a sit down Italian restaurant where you are served but more formal than a generic pizzeria, not really our kind of place.

The company we had throughout the day was amusing. They were a family consisting of a mother (who was absolutely mad) and her three daughters (mid to late 30s, two of them were parents) and a couple of their husbands. They were the “loud group” of the whole production, gaining snears from the snobby people on the tour and laughter from the organizers who could tell they were having a blast. As Michael and I are very quiet it may seem odd that we’d wind up staying with these people, but they really were fun. We even got our first wedding gift, while leaving they handed us a napkin that turned out to contain salt and pepper shakers that they had lifted from one of the restaurants – AHAHAHA! Terrible.

The Strut ended around 5:30. Somehow, after finishing 5 glasses of wine, I felt fine. I think it had something to do with the heat, I drank at least one glass of water at each place we stopped at.

I’m glad we had the experience, but I don’t think we’ll be doing this again next year. July is too hot a month to have such an event, and although some of the food really hit the spot, I really wasn’t impressed with the wine selection. There are always plenty of wine and beer events throughout the summer, so on to checking out more!

I hate summer. I seem to forget every year how miserable and exhausted prolonged humid, hot weather makes me (although, I’m pretty sure people close to me don’t forget how cranky I get!). This is even true when I can hop from air conditioned place to air conditioned place, being stuck inside sucks. I hate avoiding the outdoors and I miss hugging trees when the air feels like hot soup. We are going to have to move north or to the mountains someday. I’m such a Mainer.

This weekend the forecast is showing highs in the upper 90s that will last at least through Monday – UGH!

Heat aside, we do have some plans for this weekend.

Saturday: Hide from heat in air conditioned rooms. We’ll probably go to the gym too. I was planning on going to the gym this morning but wasn’t feeling so great when I woke up :\

Sunday: Skippack Strut – “Progressive dinner involving some of the great restaurants in Skippack Village” – I am kicking myself now for not grabbing a copy of the menu when we got our tickets, it’s not online anywhere! It’s 5 or 6 courses at 5 or 6 different restaurants in the Skippack Village, food and a glass of wine at each place. Hopefully I’ll be too full of fantastic wine and food to mind the 97 degree weather we have to endure while walking to each restaurant.

Monday: I took this day off from work, I have a lot of errands to run, including getting to the courthouse in Norristown to get our marriage license application notarized (the courthouse is only open during normal business hours, of course). In the evening we’re having the MontcoLUG meeting at Sly Fox Brewery (So local people come along! There will be BEER!).

I keep blabbering about how much I love listening to podcasts at work, I’m so much happier now. Below is a list of what I am enjoying these days:

Speaking of Faith
Security Now
This Week in Tech
Planetary Radio
Quirks and Quarks (great archives in mp3 format too!)
Escapepod (Science fiction short stories)
Penn Radio
Science Magazine Podcast

Most of these I got via recommendations from people (thanks again!). Sorry , I know you love the SubGenius Hour of Slack but the whole “Church of the SubGenius” is not my thing.

I also regularly listen live to the stream for WHYY that has good programs throughout the day. But I’m listening to it less than I used to, there is so much political blabber that is annoying me (I mostly can’t stand Talk of the Nation these days unless it’s Science Friday). And when I’m in the mood for music I tap into the library of ripped music on my computer or hook up to the stream for XPN.

So, anyone have other recommendations?

Archaeologists: Ancient Brewery Tended By Elite, Female Brewmasters

Outfitted with fire pits and large stones that supported huge ceramic vats, it had the capacity to churn out weekly batches of hundreds of gallons of brew – a highly impractical alcoholic delicacy, given the city’s perch thousands of feet above the nearest water source.

“There’s a lot of equality in terms of how men and women drink in the highlands of Andes,” she said. “Women will get as rip-roaring drunk, if not more so, than men.”

Hee.

Quite different than today. There are only a few female brewers in the industry, the only one that comes to mind is Hildegard van Osta of Urthel Brewery in Belgium.

Sunday afternoon we ended up at Michael’s brother’s house for a BBQ celebration following the Christening of Michael’s niece. We had a nice time in spite of the heat. When the heat got too bad we went inside where there was AC and the overtime bit of the final game of the World Cup. I was in a house full of Michael’s Italian family – who do you think we were rooting for?

As Michael posted the fun news for us this week is that we’re getting FiOS put in next week. Perhaps as an omen, our DCA.net connection went out last night – along with what they claim is ALL DCA.net ADSL customers:

We are currently experiencing a problem with the Verizon ADSL platform. This affects all DCANet/Verizon ADSL endusers. DCANet engineers are on site and investigating the cause. We believe it is a problem with Verizon's ATM network. We will follow up with more information as soon as it is available.

UPDATE: Verizon has confirmed that it is a fiber cut and they are working out in the street to repair the problem.

Ouch. This is especially unfortunate because Michael needs that internet connection to work from home, he’s stuck working at the office until it’s fixed. And all our sites are down until this is fixed, when Michael called this morning they were hoping to have the repairs completed by tonight.

Mmmm, I’m now enjoying a yummie roast beef and brie sandwich on fresh baked rosemary bread that Michael made me for lunch.