I went to the mall today. Why? my roommate thought it would be a good idea and there were lots of sales. Um, yeah. Bad idea. I have NEVER seen the mall that crowded, ever! It took us forever to find a parking spot and the parking was all the way out to the boonies area where I normally would park when I took a trip to the mall. You know the area, where no one parks..... Needless to say, we walk in, and it is crowded beyond our expectations. Almost like Canal Street during lunch rush hour in Manhattan. Anyway, we pushed through Macy's, which didn't really have a sale. I'm sorry, but a purse originally priced for $300 on sale for $200 is not really a bargain in my mind. We moved on to Banana Republic, where I did find a nice shirt, only $23 (that is a sale!) and then we wandered out towards the door, avoiding the mass crowds. I was disappointed in the fact that the "great sales" were lukewarm at best and some stores didn't have a real sale to save them selves. Really.
As far as the holidays are going, have gone, etc... all is well. I am tired of hearing the Xmas music by this point, and am hoping that this is the LAST day they feel the need to play Jingle Bells. At least for the next 300 some days.... It gets to be a bit much after a while and you just don't want to hear it again. Of course there will always be that house on some street that won't take down their decorations until like February.... Oy....
We did get a chance to relax and go out Xmas eve. A few of us have made it a tradition to go out to dinner somewhere for that night. This year we topped it off with some s'mores! Timothy's of Newark has this on their menu, a huge fav of mine. We enjoyed our dinner and then played with fire at the table, I'm sure our waiter thought we were crazy, but we had fun. :D What else can you do with that much chocolate and marshmallows?
Happy Holidays Everyone, Whichever one you celebrate, or all of them if you so choose, Enjoy!!
No more Xmas music please!
A quick second entry today...
As I was looking at today's entry, and adding to my blog list, I was chatting w/my friend Ms. Kitty. And I realized it's been some time now since our adventure to Northern Ireland. If you haven't yet read it, or are bored and need to pass some time, click on the blog link on the right side of the page that says "Yes, Quite" and read a bit about our trip. Just talking with her brought back lots of memories. :)
The Holidays Have Arrived
So yes, The holidays have arrived. All of them at once, Yule, Hanukkah, Xmas, the whole lot of them. I only did a little shopping this year. I hate feeling compelled to buy things for people but at the same time I feel like I need to do something to let them know that they do indeed mean something to me. I sent off Ms. B's and Mr. B's presents, they got to them on Saturday. Since they were technically Yule presents, I told her she could open them, but she insists on waiting til Xmas... not sure why? Tradition I guess. I opened my Yule/Hanukkah present from Jeboleth Sunday. It was the Firefly DVD collection. A very nice gift. I got him a new pair of sweat pants (his were from his high school days) and some Bacon Salt. He is a bacon fiend so this was a fabulous gift for him. I got some chocolates (sugar free) from Ms. and Mr. B. in the mail today, yummy.
And my roommate got me a bunch of Joie eggie products, yes, I'm an addict now, I must own all the eggie products!!!! I have the Yolky Egg Separator, the Yolky Egg poacher, the L'il Flip Egg Spatula, Kitchen Timer "Mech-Timey," Kitchen Scraper "Scrape-Ease," Mini Fry Pan "Small Fry," Whiskie Egg Whisk, and the Omelet Ease Flip pan. There are more to be had, even some that aren't listed on this web page that I've seen in Marshall's or on Amazon. I *must* have them..... And she cannot complain about this addiction, because she bought me my first eggie item, thus she created this addiction. :) I tell you, I must own them all!!!
Continuing on.... Its cold here, 22F right now. It was 16F this morning. I haven't ventured out, no reason for that today. I stayed in and made a German's Chocolate cake. 
It turned out pretty darn good, but it takes quite a while to make! And there are so many eggs in this recipe! I'm glad I used healthy cholesterol reducing butter and Splenda mixed w/sugar to cut some of the badness to the cake. I'm sure it will still taste yummy! I followed the "original" recipe that I found from the Baker's chocolate website. An interesting note, the cake has been incorrectly called "German Chocolate" cake for years, but it isn't German at all, read Here to find out its history. I like to know a bit of the history about things, my cooking, my science, you name it I'll delve a little deeper to find out why something got named this way or that way just because of my own curiosity.
And yes, in case you're wondering, I did indeed take my camera in for cleaning. It will be out for the next 7 - 10 days getting its CCD chip cleaned and inspected. :( So I just have my little point and shoot, well, also my other non-digital SLR, my underwater one and I think I have anther digital hand-held somewhere around here too.... I was looking online at some new lens, drooling, and also checking out some tripods too. I may be doing some investing after the new year in some new toys to expand my hobby. :) It will be my present to myself!!!
I'm home
Okay, I've been home for a few days now. But as with many things, writing the blog could wait a few days.
Our last day we waited for the dry ice to show up so we could pack up our samples in the coolers. It seems like everything went so quickly between noon and 2:30, the ice was there, the coolers packed, the labs cleaned, the bags moved to the dock and the hugs goodbye. We said bye to several people, piled into the cars to be driven to the gate to meet the taxis. It is here where we realized Maddhatter's bag was still on the ship. Doh! Luckily one of the crew was still with us, drove him back to the ship, got the bag and got back to the taxis. We loaded up and headed to the airport. One of the people on the ship said it was 10 minutes away. They lied. It was more like 30 - 45 min away. But the ride in the back of the taxi wasn't too bad, I took lots of pictures of the buildings going by and tried to envision the trip home. :)
Arriving at the airport, which was more or less a 2 room building with glass windows everywhere, we took all our bags inside. The desk clerk for the airline we were flying on wasn't the nicest, she charged us $52.00 for one of the bags that was a little over 2 pounds over the 50 pound limit. Really, I kid you not. I got called over to the security screening for my bags, apparently a rock I packed set off the alarm, okay....., and the computer monitor also set off the alarm. Why me? But in my broken Spanish I was able to get the security guy to say okay to my bags and send them on their way. I stepped through the personal security, walked through the doors and sat for another hour. Luckily on the cold marble floor. I realized my iPod battery was low so I sat on the floor, chatting w/Ms. Ed staring out the window while it charged. Mainly to just see when our little plane would arrive. It finally did and we loaded up and headed to Phoenix.
Welcome to Phoenix, the second most unfriendly place to vegetarians next to Texas. After going through customs and immigration (is it really immigration when you are a citizen of the country?) we went hunting for food. I thought, hey a brew pup would be nice. Right? Ehhhhh. I searched the menu for something to eat, when I asked the waiter if they had a veggie option his reply was, "We have nothing vegetarian." Okay.... Well, since the other two with me were in fact ordering, I asked if I could go forage for food and bring it back? Yup, all good. Gee thanx. I went off to search for food. Did I tell you Phoenix sucks for vegetarians? I found a cheese pizza, that's it. I brought it back, ate my pizza, sipped my bloody mary and watched a football game. I have no clue who was playing or what the score was, I'm a hockey fan so this is foreign to me with no ice!
They kicked us out at 9pm, our flight didn't leave until 11:30, but all the stores and restaurants closed at 9. Nice. We moved over to the seating area, and I curled up on the seats and fell asleep. Hard asleep for ~2 hours. They had to physically shake me to get me to wake up to get onto our plane. I like sleep. I feel asleep more, about another 2 hours on the flight back to Phillie. We landed, did all the baggage stuff, got the shuttle home and arrived to the drop spot. I got out of the van and walked briskly over to Jeboleth and hugged him. It was quite possibly the best hug ever. :)
In the last few days I've unpacked, cleaned my room (killer dust bunnies formed while I was gone!), did loads of laundry, slept, went shopping for a new rug in my room, watched lots of TV with Jeboleth, and even stopped into work for a few hours. The cruise is over. It was good for the most part, lots of good samples and science, new friends were made and I got to see more of the bottom of the ocean than most people will ever see. But there is something to be said for being home, and being with those you love. Being able to pick up the phone and call Ms. B., hug Jeboleth, play with Leo, these things are the things I missed. Oh and I cooked already too! I made salmon croquettes with couscous. The recipe is Jeboleth's mom's, and it turned out very yummy! :D Happy to be back in my kitchen!!! Oh, and I noticed something. When I left gas cost $2.39/gallon, it is now $1.69/gallon. Cool!
Science and Alvin crew of the Xtreme 2008 Pacific Cruise
We have arrived in Mexico
This is a day late, but no matter. We arrived in port yesterday to Guaymas, Mexico, around 7:30 am. It was nice to see land so close, and the cactus covered hills and islands were a beautiful sight. I had the unfortunate event of waking up at 4:21 am. Why? Heck if I know! I wasn't even used to waking up that early, so why my body said time to wake up, not a clue! I did force myself to do the fake sleep thing until I gave up around 6:30. I got up, went down to the deck and watched us coming closer to our final port. We cleared off the decks when the ship was getting ready to actually dock. Its safer that way, heavy lines (ropes) are being tossed about and people scurry to help tie the ship up, so its best to not be in the way of anyone.
For most of the rest of the day, we packed up the remaining parts of the labs to get ready. Strawberry Shortcake and Mookie had a potentially bad issue arise. Their flight out was scheduled for the 30th, but when the immigration officials came to the ship, they forgot the stamp, and said, "see you tomorrow" as they left. Hmmmm. Problem!!! Luckily some swift moving people were able to round up the immigration people, get the problem resolved and they were able to leave Mexico as scheduled. Not before we took a group science picture though. I'll have to post all the pics later, I seemed to be an eager packer yesterday and packed all my cables to transfer my photos from my camera to the computer. Ooops. It was very sad to see them go, we had gotten so used to having the group of us hang out together that it seemed extra quiet after they had gone. Even Maddhatter had a hard time looking up from his computer and not seeing Mookie sitting across from him. We miss you guys!
We got all of the equipment from the wet lab moved down to the computer room. Made up some ice bricks (okay I filled bags with water and stuck them in the freezer!) for samples. I scrubbed clean the wet lab, soap and water washing all the benches, sweeping and mopping the floor and making sure we didn't leave anything important behind. It looks very clean in there now, quite a difference a little hot water and soap can make! We have all the stuff now in here, the computer room. Which for some reason, when its packed doesn't seem like a lot. We'll move all the boxes into the cargo hold today.
The rest of the time we waited. Waited to find out what to do next. Waited to find out where the after-cruise party would be and just waited. I chatted with Jeboleth online, played with my Facebook page and took a few more pictures. We had lunch and dinner on the ship, then around 5:45 pm we disembarked from the ship, piled into cars, and went into the town to find the party. It was quite a nice place. It had a hut style roof, was circular in structure and had a little water garden outside in an atrium style area. It was breezy, cool and beautiful for the evening. The crescent moon was out with 2 very bright stars near it (some were arguing they were planets, others said stars... it was pretty nonetheless).
The margaritas here weren't nearly as good as the ones in Manzanillo. In fact I think the bartender was making them with lemon/lime soda versus real lime juice. We had some tortilla chips, salsa and guacamole with some cheese quesadillas for snacking on. It wasn't too bad of a party, a few got a little more liquor in them than the rest, and I was falling asleep. It was 9:00 pm and because I had been technically awake since 4:21 am, I was ready to fall over. I hopped a ride back to the ship shortly thereafter with some folks heading back. It was a much shorter ride this time since our cab driver knew where the heck he was going!
Back on the ship, I took my shower, cleaned up my room and decided to pack up a little. Of course, when I say "a little" that means my OCD kicked in and I packed and cleaned everything. I left out my clothes for today and had everything, including the shrunken cups, t-shirts and a chimney pieces all nicely packed and secured away. Luckily, I had thought ahead to use my vacuum packing bags, and since there are vacuums on board, I was amble to pack up everything in a small space. Too bad shoes can't vacuum down too! After all that fun, I went to bed around 10:30 pm, and slept soundly on my last night on the ship.
This morning, I thankfully did not wake up until 6:15 am. Thank you!! Breakfast was great, fresh fruit!!! And we moved the ice bags to the -80 freezers to get a little colder. Quite a few of us are leaving today, heading home. Those who live on the west coast will be home later tonight, those of us who live on the east coast will be home early tomorrow morning. No matter, we'll all be there soon. Since most of the rest of the day will be either moving stuff into the cargo hold or traveling, the next post will be possibly tomorrow or the following day. I'll post more pictures of the area, one of the whole science party and any others I've forgotton. I'll also post those video tours I did of the ship early on out here. Until then, Ciao!!
