ask-mark.com

Or what I did on my summer vacation. So, it’s been a while since I last posted anything of meaning here. The summer has been pretty good so far. I have enjoyed having my Saturdays to myself, free from the troubles obligations of grad school. I’ve also enjoyed many Sundays watching NASCAR and IndyCar races regularly for the first time ever.

Speaking of TV, let me start by saying that I have now picked up a few series over the past two months. The biggest series I’ve been watching all summer is NCIS. With USA airing 3 reruns back-to-back-to-back every weekday, I started watching the show with Chris when I would get home from work. We’ve completed the first season thanks to Netflix. I’ve even gone so far as to create episode lists in Evernote to check off episodes as I’ve watched them. I have also gotten hooked on Burn Notice, Big Love and True Blood. I don’t know that I will get very far into these shows before I kiss my free time goodbye, but they certainly are entertaining me until then.

At the end of June, Chris and I flew out to DC for NECC 2009, an educational technology conference. While I had my trip paid for by work, we had to pay for Chris to attend the conference out of our pocket. The conference was pretty good, and we got to see a little more of DC once again. If you’re in DC, I would recommend Matchbox – not for their mediocre pizza, but for their delicious mini burgers. While we were out there, we also saw the Independence Day fireworks on the National Mall. I was disappointed, especially when compared to the Taste of Chicago fireworks. Hell, I think even the Septemberfest fireworks were better, even with the historic surroundings of DC. You can check out my Flickr photo set to see what I mean.

Shortly after returning from DC, we spent a weekend downtown at the Omni Hotel for our anniversary. Over the past few years I have stayed at all sorts of hotels, and I was very impressed with the Omni Chicago. For starters, @OmniHotels was quick to welcome us after I tweeted that we were heading to the hotel for the weekend. When we were at dinner the first night, Jennifer Avellana, the Loyalty Ambassador, surprised us with a bottle of champagne and a slice of chocolate cake for our anniversary.

The day of our anniversary, we had a couples massage at Asha Salon Spa at the James Hotel. It was very relaxing, getting us ready for our anniversary dinner. That night, we went to dinner at Smith & Wollensky, with a great view of the Chicago River. Since it was our anniversary, we went all out, of course. We split a bottle of wine recommended by the somelier. The wine was a perfect pairing with Chris’s rib eye and with my fillet mignon and lobster. We passed on dessert because we had stuffed ourselves. Later that night, while watching a movie, we ordered ice cream from room service. The lavishness of the day brought us back five years to our honeymoon cruise.

As summer is starting to wind down, I am playing catch up with several things I want to accomplish before the fall. For example, I am still slowly cleaning my office, a painstaking task that is three years old. I am also prepping my computers for OS upgrades. Outside of my office, I am trying to be social, helping out with Normal Moments publicity (want to buy a raffle ticket for The Little Things in Life walk?), and just enjoying what’s left of my free time. The other day I spent most of the day downtown with Herschell and Liana, seeing the sights, taking some photographs (which I promise will be posted soon). I’m hoping I will have some more days like that before classes start up, because I’m sure that I will once again have zero free time.

Anyway, my rambles have gone on long enough. After I finish assisting Chris with an Access project for RtI, I’m heading to bed.

Note: This was supposed to be posted originally on November 16, 2008. Obviously there has been a slight delay. I hope it reads OK, but in case it doesn’t, now you know why. Oh, by the way, Happy New Year!

Just over ten and a half years ago I graduated from high school. Saturday, November 15, was my ten year high school reunion. First, Chris and I found it quite humorous when we signed in and received our name badges, complete with our senior pictures. Chris later recalled to me the episode of Psych where Shawn and Gus go to their reunion, and Gus is ridiculed throughout the evening for making the name badges with their pictures on them. It was so totally cliché, but there was at least one time it did come in handy (not that I recall talking to the person whose badge I needed to read to remember her name).

It was great to see people like Sam, Ilyse, Jenny, Tina, Melissa, Katie, Briony, Lindsey, Shilpa, Ami, Dennis, Grant, Chris (the other one), Al*, and I am sure there are others I am forgetting (or I had a fairly anti-social night limiting myself to talking to a dozen or so people). It was great to get a chance to talk to you all. There were many people I had not seen since graduation or prom, and Facebook stalking can do only so much as compared to meeting face to face.

To Laura, Robyn, Shilpa and Lindsey, you put on a good party. Thanks for taking care of it all. I just wish I could have stayed a little while longer, but it had been a long day, starting with 8 hours of graduate school.

Overall, I can say I enjoyed myself at the reunion. Do I feel like I am old enough to be attending reunions? Not really. Am I looking forward to future reunions? More so than I looked forward to this one.

Just last week, we missed the unofficial Reunion II at Easy Street Pub, just a brisk walk from our house. We had to miss it because of our own annual holiday party. I hear it was good times for all, and I do wish I could have been there. I guess I’ll have to wait for Reunion III to catch up with people again.

* Al was not in our class, but she knew just as many, if not more, people than Grant, Chris and I. That was one of the best parts of the night for me.

Today, Hersch and I went to the Chateau Ste. Michelle winery and took a tour. Chateau Ste. Michelle makes some of my favorite wines, including a Reisling and a Pinot Gris. Liana joined us for dinner at The Pink Door, in the Pike Place Market. The restaurant features Italian-American fare with a very intimate dining room.

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We just came back from dinner at Quinn’s. After ordering drinks, we ordered braised meatball sliders; duck and duck rillette; oxtails with potato gnocchi and crispy marrow; and a side of marinated olives. The meatball sliders were pretty good, but they were tiny. Take a look at your keyboard. The sliders were about the size of four keys on your keyboard. The duck and duck rillette also included foie gras on top of a chicken mousse. Served with pieces of toast, the dish was quite tasty.

The highlight of my dinner was the oxtails dish. It had a really rich flavor which paired with the gnocchi quite well. The crispy marrow added even more to the already great combination of flavors. If you’re not into rich foods, you may find it a bit on the salty side. For me, however, it was so delicious. In fact, it was delicious enough to order a second plate.

If you’re in Seattle, I would recommend a visit to Quinn’s. I wouldn’t say that it is a must, but it is definitely worth a visit.

A number of people have asked me about this Twitter thing that I do now. I try to explain that it is sort of like a mini-blog or a collection of away messages publicizing what I am doing at the time. Sometimes they get it, other times they don’t. Robert Scoble (a.k.a. Scobleizer) tweeted a link to this video: Twitter in Plain English. Check out the wonders of Twitter:

I have enabled OpenID support for the blog thanks to VerseLogic’s OpenID plugin. With OpenID you can authenticate to supporting sites using a URL you control. As long as you are authenticated to your OpenID provider, you can quickly authenticate with any other OpenID site. The first time you log into a site with OpenID, you can quickly create a profile by sharing information with your OpenID provider and the new website.

I did not opt to manage my own OpenID yet, but if I like phpMyID after taking a good look at it, I might just manage my OpenID with it. I am going to see about implementing OpenID on blogho.us, but that looks like it will require some extra effort. Perhaps it will be worth it, though, if I migrate over the other blogs hosted here. I have been wanting to do that for some time, since ask-mark.com was never really meant to be anything more than a place for me to vent. I think it would serve the other blogs better to be on their own domain. Maybe blogho.us isn’t it, though. I’ll have to figure that out later.

Right now, I’ve got to get ready for Cristina’s birthday party.

I know this is late, but on Saturday, February 2, Audra Martin, sister of our very own Allison, was crowned Miss UCF (I would link to a Miss UCF page, but the official pages have not been updated since 2006!).

The Daily Herald reports that Audra won more than $3,000 in scholarship money and gift certificates. As a local Miss America winner, Audra will also spend a year promoting her cause: combating cyber bullying.

Congratulations to Audra on all of her hard work, and good luck to her in July, when she competes in the Miss Florida pageant. Perhaps Miss America 2009 will be on my must watch list for next year.