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IBM had its second annual (at least for me) car show. There were a lot of Corvettes (big surprise with rich IBMers), a DeLorean, a Ferrari, and some sweet Mustangs.

I went to My Thanh Supermarket to buy my yearly supply of rice. Twenty five pounds of rice for $12.49! I used to buy Texmati rice, but this is far cheaper. I will have to find out how much it is at HEB.

While I was in the checkout line, News 8 Austin was there filming! Fortunately, I must not have been what they were looking for. They filmed the Asian man ahead of me...

Central Market twisted my arm when they sent me coupons. One of the coupons was for $10 off on their selection of prepared foods. So, I bought what they call "Tamal Azteca" and it was good.

Tonight, I decided to get creative and make my version of that dish. I bought: a HEB whole smoked chicken, Timpone's salsa muy rica, Monterey Jack cheese, Carique Crema Mexicana Agria, corn tortillas, poblano peppers, and tomatillos. I shredded the chicken; roasted the peppers and removed the skins; and roasted the tomatillos and mixed them with the salsa. Once every thing was prepared, I assembled the casserole and baked it.

It turned out pretty good. For the next time, I will add some diced garlic, sliced jalapeños, and more cheese. More cheese!

Good job... although it should have been clearcoated back when it was done...

I am working at home today (much like I did over Saturday and Sunday, sadly enough) in order to sign for a package. I ordered 200 Tyvek CD/DVD sleeves from All Things CDR. So, on package deliver attempt #1, I find out that I must sign for it. Ok. Like I care if people steal this package. I sign the piece of paper that UPS left on the door and hope that it will be delivered. The next day, I find out that, for some packages you can sign the paper, but for this package, it must be electronic. Gah! I do not want to drive to south Austin to pick it up, so I work from home. Today is day 3 and I signed for it.

When I open it, I find way too much padding. There is the foam for the empty space. And there are two bubble wrapped packages protecting the paper sleeves from damage.

What a waste!

I have lived here four years, and this is the first time that I have seen a street sweeper here in Round Rock. What a narrow focus of my home town I have...

After the cooking class, I was finally able to buy some rendered duck fat at Central Market. This is a cup of the fat and one and a half cups of flour after cooking for about twenty minutes. I would say that looks like it is peanut butter colored. Now, I need to wait until it has cooled down.

Mmmmmm, my house smells like heaven! I need to search for some pantone color samples of the different stages of roux.

Sadly, my beast is getting older. I hate the fact that Austin is so spread out. I wish it was more compact.

I spent the day in the sunshine, taking pictures. It feels good to be out and about. At least Thothhrod can't give me grief about not taking pictures with my expensive toy...

I have noticed one piece of junk car towing another piece of junk car travelling south on IH-35 many, many times. I wonder why I have seen so many of these vehicles during my stay in Round Rock. Some times, there is a small convoy of three or four vehicles. I suspect that Mexicans go buy used cars somewhere up north and then bring them to Mexico to sell at a profit. Any other ideas?

A bunch of people from Russcon got together and played some putt-putt golf. There was a contest where the winner got the prize of designing the next meta-game (weird, huh?). I was not in the running at all. I did get two holes in one. When the first one happened, my blue colored ball matched the blue colored light (that rotates between the 4 possible golf ball colors) that was currently showing. Because of that, I traded my blue ball for a orange ball and a coupon for one dollar off the next game.

All in all, it was a fun time.

Boy, this kite is tempermental! The high wind is not helping my life any... And trying to frame a good picture with my phone in one hand and really bright sunlight and one moody kite was, shall we say, interesting.

In preparation for the Zilker Kite Festival, I unpacked my small stunt kite. As I dusted off the Florida sand and sandburs, I savored the long forgotten memories.

I used to own two kites. My other kite was a bigger, plain Jane version. I am rather embarrased to recount the story of why I no longer own that kite. My friends and I decided to see just how high we could get it to fly. After reeling out the thousand foot string, we were depressed that the wind was dragging it much farther downwind than it was giving it altitude. Rather than reel it back, we decided to cut it loose. I just hope that whose ever house that kite finally landed on did not mind so much, and reused it in a much better and more dignified manner.

P.S.Man, how I hated sandspurs! Those spikes were long and just tough enough to puncture skin but weak enough to occasionally break off when you tried to remove them. And they where everywhere!

Ahhh, Spring is in the air! The first of the Blue Bonnets have started to bloom. Hopefully, this year will be a good one. I would like to take more pictures of them.

The foil protecting the jar had some small slits punctured in it. These were the words of explination.

Well, this morning, I pulled a Jon. I woke up at 3:00 am when it started raining outside and the dripping water causes the metal gutters to make a racket. Since I was thirsty and my mouth was dry, I drank some water. I have noticed that doing that at night sometimes causes my digestive system to become active ("Hey, I've got water. Let's process something!"). Now I can't get back to sleep, so I decide to go to work instead.

As I drive in to work, I find it pretty convenient that I can dial into the building and turn on my floor's lighting and cooling systems. When I arrive, I can find my office and everything is comfy. What is not so convenient is that you can only badge into the doors on one side of the building and the lights turn back off after a certain time.

As I drove out for lunch, I passed this sight. A Round Rock fire truck was spraying a lot of water behind a building. So, I decided to stop and take a picture. But when I got there, they had turned off the water. I wonder what they were up to?

A couple of weeks ago, I passed a somewhat new Hummer H2 towing a brand new black Corvette. This is obviously someone who has money to burn. Unfortunately, because it was the morning rush hour on IH-35, I was not able to take a picture.

Now, I come across this brand new black Corvette and wonder if that is the same person. But I do not ponder for long since the call of the hatch chile sauce is calling to me.

Update: This evening on my drive home. I passed a white van that had painted on the side: "Royal Norwegian Air Force Training" and towards the end of the van: "Apache division". How odd! What did they do? Drive here?!?!

I went to Central Market's cooking school tonight to learn how to make gumbo. This is a hands on class that has 16 people in it. They are divided up into four teams that will make: seafood gumbo, chicken gumbo, duck gumbo, and venison gumbo. I was on the team that made the venison gumbo. We cut the vegtables and followed the recipie, but due to time constraints the roux (4 different stages: blonde, peanut butter, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate) and the marinated meat were already prepared.

And this is the result! I think that this class is well worth taking. You definately eat a lot of food. We started out the night with spicy shrimp in remoulade sauce. They served Louisiana beer and played Cajun music. We then cooked and ate the four gumbos. After that, we topped it off with Blue Bell Mardi Gras ice cream and a cookie.

This tree speaks to me as I feed my beast. There must be hundreds of birds that live in the tree. They spend most of their time at night bickering amongst themselves. Or, could they be hurling insults at me and my beast and compete for the prized worm?