Went out to dinner with the other Tyler after golf yesterday at a place he described as a "classier Hooters." It's not an inaccurate description, but I feel I need to clarify. If Hooters is a "2" on the classy scale, then this place is an "8". They just seem to hire really attractive waitresses and have them dress in all black. It feels out of place for Seattle... it feels like a place you go in Vegas before gambling for 9 hours.
Anyhooo, we stayed at the restaurant bar after dinner for a drink, and I had the following interaction with the bartender after ordering drinks:
Me: I'll have two beers. [Hand over my Amex] You can keep it open.
Bartender: [Stares at my Amex]
Bartender: Um, is this supposed to be your ID?
Me: Um, no, it's my credit card.
Bartender: Oh duh, I'm such an idiot. I need your ID.
Me: [Handing over my ID]
Bartender: Oh wow, you've aged well.
Hobbs: [Coughs as he is clearly stunned by this statement] Haven't I aged well too?
Bartender: [Nothing]
Me: [Approaching 1000 on the self-confidence scale]
Sadly, I never saw this particular bartender again, so I couldn't thank her/ask her out/get her to sign an affadavit that I've aged well. That said, I am disappointed that being 30 means that I'm considered "aged." Oh well.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Golf blogging
Golf stories stink. I say this despite the fact that I love sitting around and retelling them over and over (and over and over) again. But for people who don't play, or really even people who didn't play in the round under discussion, golf is a painfully dull sport. There's no poetry in the 75 foot lag putt. There's very little romance in the wedge that spins back for a kick-in birdie. There are only so many times one can say "Chicks dig the long ball" after you nail a 300 yard drive.
But I'm going to spit in the face of popular opinion and write about golf. I'll start by detailing my best round ever, which happened yesterday. I shot 82 at West Seattle, which ties my low score in absolute terms, and is my best score relative to par ever (+10). It lowered my handicap to 11.6, which is the best its ever been. You would think that I'd be jazzed, but to be honest, I'm pretty confused about the status of my game.
(West Seattle is a pretty cheap muni, but it has amazing views of the city. The first 16 holes were designed by the guy who designed Pebble Beach, so it has some nice old-school design elements. See pics below.)
Why am I confused? Normally I'm good off the tee and hit decent irons, and I can be a streaky good putter, but I'm terrible at chipping the ball. I hit exactly one fairway yesterday (on #17 after being mocked by my playing partners for threatening to hit 3-wood). Well, that's not entirely true... I probably hit 7 fairways, but 6 of them were on the wrong hole. But I managed to hit back into the greens complex, make a decent chip, make a short putt, and get out with par or bogey. I was never really in trouble. It was a stressful 82.
In the end the score is a partially a function of luck... West Seattle is designed with rows of trees separating fairways, so there isn't much of a penalty for being wild off the tee. But between this round and the WaDuke round I really like the way I'm striking the ball. I finally think I'll be able to hit my New Year's resolution of breaking 80 this year.
The round in stats:
Score: 6, 5, 3, 6, 4, 3, 4, 6, 6 (43, +6); 4, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 4, 5 (39, +4)
GIR: 5
Fairways: 1
Putts: 30
Birdies: 1
Pars: 7
But I'm going to spit in the face of popular opinion and write about golf. I'll start by detailing my best round ever, which happened yesterday. I shot 82 at West Seattle, which ties my low score in absolute terms, and is my best score relative to par ever (+10). It lowered my handicap to 11.6, which is the best its ever been. You would think that I'd be jazzed, but to be honest, I'm pretty confused about the status of my game.
(West Seattle is a pretty cheap muni, but it has amazing views of the city. The first 16 holes were designed by the guy who designed Pebble Beach, so it has some nice old-school design elements. See pics below.)
Why am I confused? Normally I'm good off the tee and hit decent irons, and I can be a streaky good putter, but I'm terrible at chipping the ball. I hit exactly one fairway yesterday (on #17 after being mocked by my playing partners for threatening to hit 3-wood). Well, that's not entirely true... I probably hit 7 fairways, but 6 of them were on the wrong hole. But I managed to hit back into the greens complex, make a decent chip, make a short putt, and get out with par or bogey. I was never really in trouble. It was a stressful 82.
In the end the score is a partially a function of luck... West Seattle is designed with rows of trees separating fairways, so there isn't much of a penalty for being wild off the tee. But between this round and the WaDuke round I really like the way I'm striking the ball. I finally think I'll be able to hit my New Year's resolution of breaking 80 this year.
The round in stats:
Score: 6, 5, 3, 6, 4, 3, 4, 6, 6 (43, +6); 4, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 4, 5 (39, +4)
GIR: 5
Fairways: 1
Putts: 30
Birdies: 1
Pars: 7
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Salsa redux
Huan and I have become somewhat infamous amongst the Harvard MBA/Microsoft crowd out here for our salsa exploit back in February. It's nice to make your mark early on... now everyone is terrified we're going to walk out of their party with their wedding china.
Anyways, I was at a (mostly Microsoft) BBQ on Derby Day with my friends Pat, Krim, and Cathy. We were standing around on the patio trying to huddle for warmth. Cathy brought over a plate of various snack items... some cheese, some chips, smoked salmon, and some salsa. I didn't recognize it by sight, but as soon as the salsa hit my taste buds I knew its origin. Within seconds the beautiful concoction of tomatoes and onions and cilantro and other goodies was coursing down my throat. I was in heaven. I'm quite sure my eyes rolled back in my head.
It was the Costco salsa.
Pat's a blog reader and so he pretty quickly caught on that we were dealing with the salsa of the gods. I don't remember if anyone encouraged me to try and sneak some out of the party, but I had met the hosts (who were quite nice), and guilt quickly convinced me to leave the salsa be.
But if I'm at another party with an anonymous host... the salsa is fair game. I've got a rep.
Anyways, I was at a (mostly Microsoft) BBQ on Derby Day with my friends Pat, Krim, and Cathy. We were standing around on the patio trying to huddle for warmth. Cathy brought over a plate of various snack items... some cheese, some chips, smoked salmon, and some salsa. I didn't recognize it by sight, but as soon as the salsa hit my taste buds I knew its origin. Within seconds the beautiful concoction of tomatoes and onions and cilantro and other goodies was coursing down my throat. I was in heaven. I'm quite sure my eyes rolled back in my head.
It was the Costco salsa.
Pat's a blog reader and so he pretty quickly caught on that we were dealing with the salsa of the gods. I don't remember if anyone encouraged me to try and sneak some out of the party, but I had met the hosts (who were quite nice), and guilt quickly convinced me to leave the salsa be.
But if I'm at another party with an anonymous host... the salsa is fair game. I've got a rep.
Free fries
The weather the past week has been pretty fantastic, so I spent a lot of this past Saturday outside. In the evening I went to the Mariners-Yankees game (Yanks spanked the home team 7-2 in a fairly uninteresting game), but I spent most of the day on a hike of Mount Si. Or, at least while we were driving there I thought we were going to do Mount Si, which had me a little nervous. My friends Chris and Sarah do pretty much every extreme sport known to man and they rate Mount Si as "fairly strenuous", and while I'm getting in better shape, I'm not sure I'm up for fairly strenuous yet.
Luckily, neither were my hiking companions, who directed us to Little Si, which is a much easier hike and was quite pleasant given the weather. Here are some pictures from the top of Little Si:
The handsome devil with the sunglasses is, of course, me. You'll note that I'm pretty much completely draped in technical wear, but I still found reason to hit REI on Sunday. I mean, it was their anniversary sale. You'll also note that I'm looking a bit shaggy, but I managed to get a haircut after the hike.
Anyways, the title of this post is "Free Fries". Mount Si is in North Bend, which is notable for having something to do with Twin Peaks. (It's also not very far from Roslyn, WA, which is the fabled Cicely, Alaska from Northern Exposure [which, oddly, is on one of the HD channels out here]). North Bend has a restaurant that offers unlimited french fries if you eat their Mount Si Burger. Now you might expect this to be a difficult task, but it's simply two 1/3 pound patties with cheese. I was nearly convinced into eating it and thus earning the table unlimited fries. I figure there are better competitive eating deals than that, so in the end, there were no free fries.
Luckily, neither were my hiking companions, who directed us to Little Si, which is a much easier hike and was quite pleasant given the weather. Here are some pictures from the top of Little Si:
The handsome devil with the sunglasses is, of course, me. You'll note that I'm pretty much completely draped in technical wear, but I still found reason to hit REI on Sunday. I mean, it was their anniversary sale. You'll also note that I'm looking a bit shaggy, but I managed to get a haircut after the hike.
Anyways, the title of this post is "Free Fries". Mount Si is in North Bend, which is notable for having something to do with Twin Peaks. (It's also not very far from Roslyn, WA, which is the fabled Cicely, Alaska from Northern Exposure [which, oddly, is on one of the HD channels out here]). North Bend has a restaurant that offers unlimited french fries if you eat their Mount Si Burger. Now you might expect this to be a difficult task, but it's simply two 1/3 pound patties with cheese. I was nearly convinced into eating it and thus earning the table unlimited fries. I figure there are better competitive eating deals than that, so in the end, there were no free fries.
Monday, May 7, 2007
Easy as bagged lettuce
I'm not sure what started me thinking about this (it was probably being at the grocery store), but I wonder what my generation's "As easy as sliced bread" metaphor will be.* I thought about this while walking home with seedless grapes, bagged and washed lettuce, and peeled baby carrots. None of these are particularly sexy sounding, but in terms of making food preparation remarkably easy I think they are amongst the big players. I mean, who buys a head of lettuce these days?** When is the last time you peeled a carrot? Every now and then I see a real carrot in the grocery store and I wonder what kind of growth hormones it must be on to get that big.
Anyways, the real genesis of this post was my newfound love: butter lettuce. How did I not know about this until two months ago? The trick with bag lettuce was always finding a kind that would last more than two hours after being opened, which wasn't terribly difficult if you didn't mind eating lettuce that tasted like shoes. But this butter lettuce stuff (BTW, just fabulous branding... if more vegetables had butter in their name we might not have an obesity problem in the US. Butter broccoli, I'm looking in your direction) is just fantastic. It lasts a full week, it has a nice taste, and, I can't believe I'm writing this, a very velvety texture. Who knew lettuce had texture. Props to butter lettuce.
On the downside, I can't get decent yogurt out here. I became very attached to Stonyfield Farms (or Stonybrook, or Stonysomethingorother) yogurt during the past year. It had a nice mix of fruit and yogurt, a decent texture, and it was never cloyingly sweet. It was also organic, which I'm a big fan of. I can't find an organic yogurt out here that is any good, and that's very disappointing.
Update: Yup, I was right. I don't know how to ID a metaphor. Saying that simile was my 2nd guess probably isn't very believable, but it was my 2nd guess.
* Please let me know if this isn't a metaphor. I know Mrs. Lange hates that I got a 5 on the AP Comp exam without knowing this.
** I do know two people who actually cook who buy real lettuce, but I'm not sure they read the blog.
Anyways, the real genesis of this post was my newfound love: butter lettuce. How did I not know about this until two months ago? The trick with bag lettuce was always finding a kind that would last more than two hours after being opened, which wasn't terribly difficult if you didn't mind eating lettuce that tasted like shoes. But this butter lettuce stuff (BTW, just fabulous branding... if more vegetables had butter in their name we might not have an obesity problem in the US. Butter broccoli, I'm looking in your direction) is just fantastic. It lasts a full week, it has a nice taste, and, I can't believe I'm writing this, a very velvety texture. Who knew lettuce had texture. Props to butter lettuce.
On the downside, I can't get decent yogurt out here. I became very attached to Stonyfield Farms (or Stonybrook, or Stonysomethingorother) yogurt during the past year. It had a nice mix of fruit and yogurt, a decent texture, and it was never cloyingly sweet. It was also organic, which I'm a big fan of. I can't find an organic yogurt out here that is any good, and that's very disappointing.
Update: Yup, I was right. I don't know how to ID a metaphor. Saying that simile was my 2nd guess probably isn't very believable, but it was my 2nd guess.
* Please let me know if this isn't a metaphor. I know Mrs. Lange hates that I got a 5 on the AP Comp exam without knowing this.
** I do know two people who actually cook who buy real lettuce, but I'm not sure they read the blog.
I'm shutting up about the weather
So today was the kind of day when people who complain about the weather (i.e. me and me) in Seattle shut up and say "Oh, that's what you mean when you say the weather is perfect in the summer." It was stunning today... low 70s, light breeze, and more than enough sun to rejuvenate everyone who's been indoors for 6 months. I'm pretty excited about the idea of playing 18 holes of golf after work, which is a legitimate possibility here.
That said, it wouldn't have hurt anyone to sprinkle in a day like this here or there in March.
Another benefit of so much sun is that I found out that I had a view of Mt Rainier from my bedroom (sadly, our balcony is blocked by other apartment buildings, so we can't see Rainier from there). I've lived here for three months and I'm not sure I knew that before. My buddy Pat is in town for a couple weeks and he was bowled over by how impressive the mountain is. Like an idiot I didn't think to take a picture until it was dusk, so even with some Photoshop work it doesn't appear as impressive as it is in person. Still, not something you see in DC.
That said, it wouldn't have hurt anyone to sprinkle in a day like this here or there in March.
Another benefit of so much sun is that I found out that I had a view of Mt Rainier from my bedroom (sadly, our balcony is blocked by other apartment buildings, so we can't see Rainier from there). I've lived here for three months and I'm not sure I knew that before. My buddy Pat is in town for a couple weeks and he was bowled over by how impressive the mountain is. Like an idiot I didn't think to take a picture until it was dusk, so even with some Photoshop work it doesn't appear as impressive as it is in person. Still, not something you see in DC.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Weather Update
I had to turn on the heat this morning. For those of you without a calendar handy, it's May 3. Heat. Because it was cold. It was almost more of a kick in the pants when I opened the shades to find that it was gloriously sunny. But that didn't warm anything up.
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