I just saw a Saturn car ad. Wow.

If I sell my current car, right now, I can buy a BRAND SPANKING NEW car that gets 32MPG. 32!! Imagine what i could do if I got 32 miles per gallon!! i could go at least 70 more miles per tank of gas than I currently get - the tagline the ad used was “Rethink MPG”.

Rethink? Hell, I’ve never given two shits about MPG before, so let’s take a minute to think about it for the first time. Maybe later on, we can rethink it.

In 1975, congress set the first fuel efficiency standard in that over the next 10 years, by 1985, fuel efficiency standards would be raised to 27.5MPG. I was born in 1975.

Somewhere along the ride, congress managed to stop all fuel efficiency standard increases and set the bar a little lower until 1990. When Clinton got into office, he tried to get fuel efficiency standards to rise again but was effectively neutered in this campaign and fuel efficiency standards remained stagnant until 2000. Congress prevented fuel efficiency standard changes until the year 2000.

Surprisingly, when Bush got into office, he raised fuel efficiency standards. But there is a catch - those standards don’t change anything until model years 2008-2011 and it only amounts to a 2% raise.

So let me rethink this for a minute… I am 33 years old. In 33 years, the fuel efficiency of cars has uncreased only 100%. AND…. 95% of that increase came within the first 10 years. The measure would have been fulfilled sooner had GM not lobbied the Reagan administration to lower fuel standards goal set a decade earlier. So in 33 years, we could have actually had, if we maintained a level of improvement that was proven possible from 1975-1985, cars that doubled efficiency rates every 10 years, or had a 7% efficiency increase each year. This means that today, we could be driving cars that would get over 100MPG.

So… 32 miles per gallon. Rethink MPG. Brand new cars. Yeah… you really have to rethink MPG if you want to think that Saturn is making any good attempt at exceeding expectations here.

Early this morning, Randy Pausch died after living with pancreatic cancer for nearly a year. His Last Lecture at Carnegie Mellon last September is one of the most inspiring and uplifting lectures I have ever heard.

I’m teary eyed as I write this letting the video play in the background.

Today, I am a Tigger.

Well i seem to have gotten sucked into a time warp. The past two weeks have flown by and I have yet to have a solid chunk of time available to write a blog post. But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t had anything to write about. In fact, there has been so much going on that I could write a whole hell of a lot on all the little adventures that I’ve been having. But instead, I’ll try to be brief.

White Mountain

On July 4, I went hiking with a couple of co-workers, Geoff and Ryan, out to Red Rocks to hike the White Mountain Loop. This is a 6ish mile loop that goes around a really pretty white mountain. The front side of the mountain isn’t so interesting, simply desert hiking. The back side, however, is far more interesting, in my opinion. Once you round the mountain on the north side, you descend into a canyon between White Mountain and the mountain range just to the west. There, the rock face is much more dramatic and the slow downhill through the canyon makes it a nice second half of a loop.

Icebox Canyon

I hiked Icebox Canyon on July 12. This was a solo hike and a relatively short one. Around 4-5 miles out and back. This canyon’s name comes from the incredible temperature change I, and most likely others, experience upon entering when you descend into it. Most of this hike was rock hopping with a bit of scrambling and a very easy climb at the end up into the waterfall. There was only a couple stagnant pools up there but I can imagine that the waterfall is quite beautiful when it is flowing in the spring. However, the flow would make actually accessing it nearly impossible.

Perry Ferrell and Jane’s Addiction

Last Saturday, Zappos.com gave us free tickets to see Perry Ferrell at the Red Rocks Casino. David Navarro was playing along with him.

They played four fucking songs. Seriously. by the time I had made my way up to the front, they were singing Jane Says and the show ended. There was no band, just a bass player, some Asian chick, Dave Navarro and Perry. No drums, just a mac with a drum track. Dave Navarro only played two songs. The asian chick strutted around with a microphone and sang on one song. Then after the fourth song, Perry decided he would bless us with some techno crap. That techno crap sucked. This concert was a glorified karaoke performance by a washed up has been.

That dude is a dickhead.

What’s Next?

Well that was just scratching the surface, actually. But the next few weeks appear to be just as filling as the past couple have been. I miss my friends in Austin and hope to see them soon. And hopefully my roommate will decide to wash his dishes at some point so I can do some cooking!

Useful tips for just about anyone.

Unfortunately, this is an ad sponsored by the milk industry. I can’t tell if it is genius or a level of lame that surpasses a Tom Greene poetry reading session to marmots.

Getting Settled In?

I am now a resident of Nevada. It still says Texas on my driver’s license, but I am now in my second week of work and living in Sin City and with that all the benefits of living here in July apply… including the 111°F bath of warmth that gently caresses us each day.

But the heat complaints aside, I’ve actually been having a bit of fun here! Working at Zappos has been a blast so far! I have a great team of people that I work with and our “manager” (I only apply quotes to this because the hierarchy is not felt that much at all) is a really great leader that is recognized in the organization for his demonstrated care for the team he leads. Quite a change from the last place I worked! Aside from Alex, the rest of the team is a very friendly, fun, and intense group that I seem to fit in pretty well. I get their jokes and they get a few of mine. Every day is a little something new in terms of what I learn about the job and what I learn about the people I work with. In the short time that I’ve been there, I feel that I have found people in that group that I resonate with really well and am still getting to know the others. I do feel that the possibility exists to forge more than a working relationship with all those I work with. There is a very familial atmosphere there.

In addition to a new job and people around me at work, I am also living with a new roommate! His name is Colin and he does custom cabinetry from his home workshop. He has two Bassett Hounds named Sammie and Hoover. They are finally beginning to think of me as a resident and not bark at me every time I disappear for 5 minutes into a new room. Colin is very nice and every friend of his he has acquainted me with has been very friendly and very welcoming. Colin is also a very deep sleeper.

So what have you done since you’ve been there?

Happy Hours. A couple anyway. Not to much I want to reveal about that other then I made to work before my coworkers on Friday. Over the weekend, I took the morning to explore some of the wild nature that I have been internally raving about — the parks.

Red Rocks is a twenty minute drive from the house I live in, including the traffic lights. Despite its proximity to Vegas, Red Rocks is surprisingly pristine. I contribute this largely to the dry, desert atmosphere and the landscape shaping flora. They say everything in the desert either scratches, stings, or bites and this definitely includes plants and rocks. The rocks are sharp to the touch and the plants are even sharper to the graze. But aside from the dangers of the desert in the summer time, the hike i went on was about 4 hours long starting at 9am and never got too hot at all. After all, it is a dry heat!

So… let’s get started on Turtlehead Peak Trail!

This is about a mile into the Turtlehead Peak Trail. You can see the peak poking its head over the bare rocks of Calico Tanks.

This is apparently what sprouts out of cacti or plants of this nature. I wonder if the fruit are edible?

After a little more walking I noticed the peak wasn’t getting any smaller.

Once I started the uphill, I started noticing little patches of these white little fluffy blooms similar to what I found outside the shooting location of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre in north Austin.

The valley of the red rock scenic area was visible from about a third of the way up the hill.

A bit of time and a few rests later, I reached the summit. One thing I have to admit is that the trails in the deser are not always easy to follow. Luckily the landmark of the huge fucking mountain in front of you is a good indicator of which way you should go. At the summit was an old ammo box with a sign-in log. The temperature at the top was considerably cooler than I had experienced all week and was a nice place to sit and hang out for a while. A butterfly landed on my knee while I was signing the log book.

This is looking over the Las Vegas area. If you go to my flickr page you can see the strip pretty clearly in the larger pics.

Just over the south ledge of the peak was this reall cool looking little plant. I climbed down about 20ft and laid on the ledge and took this shot

Back on the peak, this looks back over the trail leading up to the peak. Here is my foot for reference. The parking lot/trailhead is just about dead center. ith about 15-20 cars in it. I promise.

Rotating a bit to the left from the previous picture gives a better view of Calico Tanks. The majority of people that go through Read Rocks and get out of their car do so in Calico Tanks. The road goes right up to the rocks and is family accessible. Even up to the Sandstone Quarry people can get out of their cars and wander with their kids and pets. But for the most part, once you get beyond an easy walk away from the trailheads, the real beauty of the park starts to show.

This is the only hike in Red Rocks listed as strenuous and for good reason. I was breathing hard a couple times and got to do some scrambling and an instance or two of some bouldering. I have an idea for my next hike on Saturday, and who knows, I might even get somebody to go along.

Kids, let me tell you something:  don’t play with razor blades.  You might think that goes without saying, but apparently not.

If you even begin to think what you are doing is stupid, STOP!!  Most likely,  it is and will result in the addition of 5 stitches and the embarrassment of having to avoid telling out of town guests (in this case my dad and his wife) what feat of stupidity that you embarked on all the while igoring the warning signs of inevitable bodily damage.

And, no, I will not say what I was doing to cut myself.  It was pretty fucking stupid though, I will tell you that much.

I don’t at all feel this way…

I saw this on my friend Ran’s site and decided to post were I am in the world:

I’m loaded. It’s official. I’m the 58,641,004 richest person on earth! How rich are you?

So now after looking at that check this shit out: I don’t have health insurance. And I won’t for about a month!  This totally sucks because today, I just got 5 stitches in my hand for being a dumbass around sharp objects.  There went any fun money for the next 6 months!  And, yes, I am typing this whole post like Antonio Banderas in Assasins, with one hand.

The Monster Rock

Last week was the celebration and the last rock out in the live music capitol.  Thanks to Henri, Sarah, Kevin, Nick, Laurie and my sweetie, Heather, for rockn it all night long!

So this was it! My last cooking dinner party in Austin, TX for a time to come. I invited over friends of mine who have suffered through my attempts at cooking for the past 7 years and made them sit through one more evening of shameless food debauchery. However, this evening, I wasn’t about to put the brakes on. I asked everybody who was going to come to bring whatever type of seafood they wanted and I would design recipes around their food. I only had 24 hours notice for most of it and for some of it only about 3-4. (I’m looking at you Farbe and Lamplugh.)

The Dishes

First up was pan seared scallops served over a watercress coulis with grilled corn and Mediterranean micro-greens tossed in white truffle oil.

This dish was really good and a great starter. The watercress coulis was very earthy tasting which complimented the white truffle oil. Both set up a great contrast to the sweetness of the corn and the nice meaty texture of the scallops.

Second was grilled shrimp and baby bok choy glazed with peach nectar and satay sauce.

The peach nectar was used in part with the satay sauce and brushed on during grilling. A nice sweet and nutty sauce with a little kick made this really stand out.

Third was a grilled Ahi Tuna steak with a mango salsa purée.

This was by far the simplest of the dishes yet one of my favorites. The tuna was a really nice cut and tasted excellent when grilled. The mango salsa was loaded with cilantro and made by Meg - absolutely a wonderful, sweet and cooling addition to this meat. Thanks Meg!

And the last dish before the dessert was a wasabi encrusted steelhead trout with an Asian slaw and eel sauce.

I was tired by this because I had been cooking and prepping for about 6 hours. The saki was setting in a little bit and I wasn’t sure how this one was going to go over - but to put it bluntly: it rocked. Yeas the slaw really is that color. It is BRIGHT purple cabbage with a little saki and rice vinegar marinade. The trout was fantastic and the wasabi creme had a nice amount of kick. The sweetness of the eel sauce along with the toasted sesame seeds and the acidic slaw worked a wonderful magic in my mouth. This one is easy and cheap to make and will be cooked again soon.

The Mess

I do think it is appropriate to point out my inability to keep a kitchen clean while cooking. I blame this in large part to the small size of my kitchen. I can’t wait to get into a real kitchen to screw it up like this.

In the picture above and below, you can see the ENTIRE amount of counter space I have.

My future kitchen will have a steel back splash behind the prepping area where I can put a magnet up with my recipes or have a shelf for a recipe book.

The Friends

Friends are so good to have.  I really do enjoy cooking for people and seeing the full on food and wine and laugh and tell stories. Check out Posh Pants as she might be posting some more pics.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get the camera on people until after Meg and Dusan already left. 

Next up… the trip across the great nation of Texas!@

Okay, so I am a pretty liberal guy. No secrets here. I also pay attention to politics, again, no secrets. So as I look for a place in Las Vegas/Henderson NV where I will be living in under three weeks, I thought it might be a good idea to put into my Roomates.com profile as much. I put into my profile, which anybody who was searching for a roomate or anybody that I contacted to be a roomate would see, that I voted Obama. Pretty succinct, I thought. I don’t lay out a litany of issues and where I stand. I don’t express hatred for the people in the world who vote differently than me. I just put that I voted Obama.

I think mostly whi I put it in is that I have a glimmer of hope that in November, I want to live somewhere where I can celebrate Barack becoming president and not feel too much like I’m rubbing in somebody’s face. So I put it in my profile. If it really offends you that I put it in there, well then, I guess we’re not meant to live with each other.

A few days ago, I got a notification in my email that said I have a new message in my Roomates.com account mail center box. Mind you, in order for me to see this message, I have to pay $25.00 for a month. So I log into my account and look at the message from a user named Roomview and it says the following:

obama-sama is the most dangerous person ever! Hillary’s not my pick, but she’s better, she doesn’t hate Americans like he does.

Wake up

You put that you voted for bama, this is a clean site until now.

For a minute, I thought that this has to be somebody I know messing with me or one of my Hillary supporter friends throwing a little mud at me for fun. Then I thought, “Wait a minute… what if I had sent a message to this person inquiring about a listing and this is their response?” So I looked at their user profile. This name didn’t sound too familiar, so I checked my sent items. Nope, didn’t send them a message. Went back to their profile and looked more closely: 46/F/Non-smoker/Lives in an area that is too far away from where I want to live . This is outside of my search range - Weird… So I look at her profile a little closer and see she has pictures. So I click on one:(I photoshopped the image to remove the identity of Roomview - I figured it would be in poor taste to not do so.)

Holy shit… somebody went to a lot of effort to mess with me. I have to find out which one of my friends got their Aunt/Mother/BeerGoggle Cougar Girlfriend to snap a pic with Sean Hannity to post onto a fake profile on Roomates.com to email me to screw with me about the fact that I voted for Obama. An “A” for Effort, folks. Seriously, good freaking job.

Then it occurred to me: this lady is for real. She really was sitting at home looking up peoples’ profiles when she found one that had three words in it that enraged her so much that she had to take time to send an ugly email to a person who isn’t looking to live with her, never contacted her, and is admittedly part of the largest political movement since RFK to bring this country together.

Tit for Tat, eh? Way to carry the torch, bub.

So I do feel a bit hypocritical about this post. I mean after all, Obama is trying to bridge gaps and create a different America of acceptance and empathy. I guess blogging about some Hannity-groupie isn’t the best way to achieve this. However, I did send email to Roomates.com asking if sending abusive email that marginalizes a person based on the content of their paid profile was cool. Their response was essentially that they can’t/won’t do anything.

Now, I am embarking on the war against vegan smokers with dogs on Roomates.com. You better watch your backs, vegan smokers with dogs. I’m using a search tool to flush you out and unleash my verbal wrath of mild discontent. I mean seriously, there isn’t a bridge long enough to get to those people…

I think this post just made me dummer.

There’s a point, I promise. The population of the USA at this moment is 304,183,535. Which means that there are 304,183,535 different views of how this country should be run. None are more valid than any other. To belittle another person based on their views is mindless as best. But to call somebody out on their actions, totally acceptable in my book.

As I stated earlier, I pay attention to politics. I am also constantly looking to clarify my political views by looking at, not just both, but ALL sides of an issue before I make a stand with either inventing my own or agreeing with another. When I talk about politics with people, it is to not only challenge myself, but to challenge the ideas I encounter for their validity. It is so easy in this world of main stream media to simply repeat what you hear if you don’t really think about it. There is a term for people like that: Sheeple.

I can appreciate just about any viewpoint. But I can’t appreciate the viewpoint of a person who is a fan of Sean Hannity and thinks my vote for a black man renders a website unclean. That’s not using your brain, its using your hate muscle.

This was an excellent little spur pf the moment meal.

Below are some roma tomatoes prior to going into the oven for baking. They were coated in olive oil, salt, pepper, rosemary, and thyme. Garlic wedges were stuffed into them. As cool as it might look, in the future the garlic wedges will be inserted into the tomato and not stick up. I broiled them on a low broil for about 7 minutes and then oven roasted them for about 10 minutes more.

In the meantime, I took some shallots and garlic and sauteed them in olive oil and salt and pepper. I added some cut mild italian sausage links and sauteed them until no no pink was showing on the outside. I then added a cup of orzo and stirred until the orzo looked like it was turning almost translucent, much in the same was aborino rice looks when you are making risotto. I then added 1 cup of white wine and some oregano. I also put a splash or two of marsala wine in there and some oregano. Stir and let simmer. When the orzo was almost done, so were the tomatoes. I removed the tomatoes from the oven and peeled them and threw them in the mix. I added a little Herbes de Provence and fresh basil and let the orzo finish cooking.