Food

When I first moved here I consumed 157 servings of Lean Cuisine. That's an estimate because I only saved about a third of all the plastic trays. In the early months of residency I had no friends to eat with and had no desire to prolong dinner with myself so 4 min. of heating + 3 min. of eating + 30 seconds of cleanup was drawn out enough. I've since evolved my eating habits and have had much more moving food moments. One particular moment was the first time I was treated for dinner at French Friend's house, yes, quiche that didn't come from a box and salad dressing that didn't come from a bottle. She'd made everything from scratch and it was so good that I don't think any other quiche will come close, in fact, I've had to force down every other quiche I've eaten since that day. Fantastic food experience #2 happened on Swiss National Day: a specific kind of swiss sausage hot off the grill smuggled into the country in a clever way, perhaps hidden in a David Hasselhoff doll or a bust of Elvis. I think the supply has dried up now. I will have to go to Zurich for more. Another great moment was going to Sushi Ono with a friend who's a total regular there. She got the sushi guy "Jay" to make us something unique and special - tuna roll that he seared ever-so-slightly with a small torch. That was the best roll I've ever had. I hope nothing ever happens to Jay. AND, this is the last one, yesterday I had the Zen Breakfast at the Mission Cafe - brown rice, tofu, eggs over easy and a medley of vegetables, it sounds too healthy but the combination was great! I need to stop writing and go eat now.

trying out a new color

Two months ago I finally made the switch to a water pitcher with filter and I bought a shatterproof waterbottle to port my h20 in. I will no longer be giving money to Dasani or contributing as much plastic to the landfill. I also take the bus every day to work and have not had to put gas in my car for almost 4 weeks. I've also stopped washing my hair, showering or brushing my teeth.

(Ok, I'm not that green...or, i probably would be able to grow things on myself.)

This saturday, I'm going to take a self-guided green design tour in San Diego.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20070923-9999-lz1h23green.html

http://www.greenbuilt-sandiego.org/

There's also a Women In Architecture meeting next week on how to get involved in the San Diego green scene AND I found out through research I had to do at work that the City of San Diego has a Green Building Ordinance! - meaning, any new municipal buildings over 5,000 SF must meet the LEED Silver rating. Does anyone know if Minneapolis has a Green Building ordinance? Well, Mpls should get one!

The dreaded E50 error

I've had my canon Powershot S400 for less than 4 years. Last week the memory refused to work and it refused to take a picture. This has happened before so I re-format the memory card and voila! It works again! However, this time the re-formatting function in the camera refused to work and the camera would shut itself down and say E50 on the screen and then the overwhelming sense of "the world is against me" sets in. This time I hooked Canon up to my less than 4 year old laptop that's already had it's hard drive replaced and through the WinXP camera wizard, took a picture with the camera using my computer keyboard. I felt like a dangerous hacker! And, I don't know why but it worked! My camera now works again! I don't have to give more money to Canon. So why doesn't my 20 year old toaster oven ever need to be re-formatted? You just turn it on and it puts a nice golden brown on everything (unless you forget and start doing something else). Also, can I control my toaster oven from my laptop? I bet one trip to Ace hardware and some speaker wire and a phone call to my brother @ the U would make it happen.

moobs, smells, trolley

Monday - Friday I engage in a 6 minute, 1 block walk from the No. 7 to the office taking in gaslamp quarter sites, sounds, and smells. Today it was Mr. Moobs* topless and 26-34% overweight, possibly inebriated, walking down the street at 8:15am in the morning and still circulating in the same area at 5:45pm. At least he had an even tan. Last week I stepped onto the Trolley and in 6 minutes I was back on the sidewalk again but in Little Italy inhaling smells of prosciutto, pizza, and peppers floating from doorways and patios eating establishments. There was a non-descript sandwich shop that had especially good smells coming from it. Sometimes over the noon hour I've taken strolls to the San Diego library which has a terrible smelling sidewalk as one approaches. The Mpls library had that issue too. Libraries have a strange attraction. In a 1 block radius of my new 9-to-5 there's a tattoo shop, a chinese and fried chicken place, an NY style pizza place, an old abandoned theatre, a luxury condo-tel under construction (see picture below), Mr. Moobs, the red trolley, an upscale sushi bar and a Rite-Aid - one small snapshot of downtown San Diego.

*man boobs

5th Avenue and C Street

I asked one of the construction workers how much it costs to run this crane, he said about $10,000 a day.

urban markup

I'm not going to say who or why or where but this urban mark-maker's work is amongst my all-time favorites.

Silver Strand State Beach

The blog went on pause for a while due to switching jobs, fixing up the condo, going back to the midwestern homeland and acquiring a super-cold/flu on the plane ride back. Yesterday, I attempted to bake out my ailments and chose a new beach to visit - the Silver Strand State Beach near Coronado. I love going over the Coronado bridge. It's even more fun when someone else is driving because then I can look out the window and take in the views of the Navy shipyards, boats in the harbor and rapidly changing San Diego skyline. When I got out to the beach I found the south end packed with people doing something called "Kite Surfing". It looked like a lot of fun and I want to try it so I consulted with one of the born-and-raised Californians I know here and she said knowing how to surf would help and then she added that having good balance is necessary for surfing. So maybe I'll start with a skateboard and work my way to the water. Kite Surfing looks like it requires a lot of upper-body strength to control the sail rigging and a lot of lower leg strength to carve up the waves. There must be some formula for sail-size to human body weight because I didn't see anyone soaring into the atmosphere from a gust of wind but I also was not watching the whole time.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts

I am small. Art is Great!

War Mediated - Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Opening Reception of War Mediated at the Mpls Institute of Arts
(work shown by Camille J. Gage)

http://www.artsmia.org/index.php?section_id=2&exh_id=2583

Air Mail

NWA Flight 185: San Diego to Mpls

If you ever sit next to me on an airplane you'll mostly see the back of my head. I always choose window seats and the movie outside the window is different every time.