Shrimp with rosemarie sauce

This is a snap to make: it takes us less than 15 minutes to cook, start to finish!

It takes us even less time to eat it!

San Francisco, Day 1 (our first real vacation together = a very long post)

Oscar and I took our first far-away vacation together to San Francisco. Sure, we went to Milwaukee for a weekend alone, and we've gone across the country to see each other's families, but we hadn't gone across the country with only each other. We went to San Francisco because Asian Man Records was having its 15th anniversary celebration, and several bands that Oscar really, really wanted to see were playing reunion shows. I agreed because I had been to San Francisco for a conference last year and thought it was cool, but I didn't have much time to explore.

We arrived at SFO on June 14th (this post is very late!) and took a BART train over to San Francisco. We were staying at the Hayes Valley Inn. It is not a typical hotel because each floor shares the bathrooms and a shower, but it was inexpensive (for SF) and we had a sink in our room. Our room was pretty nice, and looked more like someone's spare bedroom than a typical hotel room.

Our room at Hayes Valley Inn.

Plus, we had free breakfast in the morning (fruit, cereal, waffles, muffins, bagels, coffee, etc), which was much nicer than most complementary hotel breakfasts. The breakfast rooms have shared tables, so we talked to people from nearby cities (most of them were in town for an opera) and got their opinions on what to do.

We managed to do a lot every day, so here is the recap.

DAY 1: Land's End Trail, Golden Gate Bridge, (WOAH HILLS), Sushi, Concert, Accidental Family Reunion

After breakfast, we took a bus westward and another bus north to the Land's End Trail. Although we are pros at public transit in Chicago, we got off the first bus to transfer to the second, and were confused because we couldn't find a sign for the next bus stop. We started walking, and then we saw it:

This telephone pole is actually a bus stop. Well, now we know.

The northbound bus came, and it was packed with about 150 little kids at summer camp. We tried to get on, but the bus driver said no space (in Chicago, they let you ride in front of the yellow line [standing next to the bus driver right by the windshield] if the bus is crowded, but in SF, I guess they are more concerned with that technicality). We shrugged, and since the next bus was in 20 minutes, we started walking north. We crossed the street, and noticed that a block ahead, the bus was letting most of the kids off! Hooray! Since it takes a lot of kids a long time to get off the bus, we were able to run and catch the bus!

Unfortunately, google maps put us in the middle of the trail, so we decided to head west to the ocean, and then double back and walk to the Golden Gate Bridge. The trail had some great views:

Oscar near the beginning of our hike.

We found a pretty rocky beach that had views of the ocean and of the bay with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

Us on the beach.

Looking towards the Pacific Ocean.

The bay and the Golden Gate Bridge

Flowers and the beach in the background, because I like flowers.

We doubled back and headed towards the Golden Gate Bridge. On the way, we stumbled through the Presidio neighborhood, where there were multi-million dollar mansions with bay views (wow), and across the Coastal Defense System from WWII. We climbed around on them, and it was pretty neat to see the remnants. (After I got home, my grandma told me that my grandpa was stationed in San Francisco on a ship for a while, although he wasn't a part of the Coastal Defense System.)

Coastal Defense System

 

Oscar looking tough inside the Coastal Defense System Buildings

 We finally reached the Golden Gate Bridge, and hiked about halfway out. The bridge is 1.7 miles long, and in the middle, it is really cold and windy! 

Distance walked so far: 5.2 miles, after walking across the bridge.

I wanted sushi for dinner. So we yelped, found a highly-rated, cheap sushi place, and hopped on a bus. 10 minutes later, Oscar says "wait, this bus is going in the wrong direction!" A rookie mistake, whoops!

Unfortunately, I get loopy and grouchy when I don't eat. Fortunately, there was a Taco Bell nearby, which are sparse in Chicago. So we had a couple tacos, regrouped, and found a sushi place in Japantown.

This place was a sushi boat place, which means that you sit around a little island, the sushi chefs are in the middle, the sushi floats around on plates on boats, and you grab the plates you want!

Sushi floating by on boats

We got to try a whole bunch of new stuff, and since it was Happy Hour, we got beer and sake very cheap!

We ate a lot of fish, but it was pretty cheap!

We headed back to our hotel and re-couped for half an hour before our first show.

Distance walked so far: 7.7 miles, including crazy hills

The show was the Chinkees, MU330, and Slapstick. There were a lot of hijinks at the show, and Oscar has a recap on his blog.

We also found Oscar's cousin, who he hadn't seen in years, at the show!

Total distance walked so far: 9.3 miles

Oscar goes family camping

My family goes camping in New York State every year (my mom's family has done this since they were kids) in one of the few places in the US that still does not get cell phone reception. This year, Oscar came along for the ride. I was a little afraid that he'd be overwhelmed by all my family (I have a LOT of family), but he was a good sport about it.

Oscar and my dad relaxing.

This is easy camping (we sleep on cots in a cabin that has electricity and there is a central showerhouse), but it is a lot of fun. We ate a lot of food, drank beer, and went on a couple cool hikes. One hike was up one side of a gorge, past three waterfalls, over a bridge, and down the other side, a total of maybe 8 miles. We also hiked down to the river and skipped rocks, and hiked the ridge trail, which is literally on the ridge of a gorge, with steep falls.

The beginning of the ridge trail, in the woods

My sister on the trail

On our way between the park and Buffalo, we got cell phone reception back, and we found out that my cousin Molly and her husband Johnny had a baby! So we gained a new, very cute family member!

We had a fun time camping, and we stopped in Buffalo to hang out with my dad's family for a couple hours on the way back. Oscar had real Buffalo Wings and Buffalo-style pizza, and I think my family liked him, too! What a great trip!

I have a birthday

I turned 24. So I feel kind of old--when I was little, 24 was a very "grown-up" age (since it is older than drinking age by a few years, and divisible by 2,3,4,6,8, and 12 [nerd] )--so I've spent a little bit of time panicking about my age lately. Ha?

For my birthday, Oscar got us tickets to The Lonely Forest and Death Cab for Cutie's concert at the Metro. Death Cab was one of my favorite bands in college, and I listened to them on repeat for years. I saw them in 2005 at Foellinger Auditorium at UIUC, where I also had my ECON 103 and MCB 250 classes. It seats 1750 people, so it was actually a bigger venue than the Metro! (It is worth noting that many people couldn't get tickets to this show, but Oscar managed to get us two!)

I first heard the Lonely Forest when we were in Austin at South by Southwest this March. They were playing a free show at a medium-sized bar in the middle of the day, and there were only about 20 people there, but they totally rocked. Here is a video of one of my favorite songs:

The concert was great: the Lonely Forest was great as always, and Death Cab played a good mix of old favorites and new stuff.

Here is the Lonely Forest

And Death Cab

Salsa, with anchos

Today, Oscar and I made our first attempt at making salsa using dried chiles.



Our recipe (loosely based on several recipes that came up in google):

De-seed two ancho chiles and tear into small bits. Chop 3-4 cloves of garlic and an onion; sautee. Add two tomatos, cook 10 min. Add 2 c water, simmer 20 min.


Add a little more than 2 tbsp oregano from the plant (thanks, mom!). Cook a minute or two, then blend lightly. Add a small handful of fresh cilantro.



The final product is sweet and a little smoky, kind of like something Rick Bayless would make. We like our salsas spicier, so we are discussing keeping more seeds and adding a habañero, jalapeño, or chipotle next time.

BATHTIME IS TERRIFYING!

Rosie is not pleased.

Food

We have made a ton of awesome food at home lately: smoked salmon on eggs benedict with spinach, roasted red pepper, and feta (I made a hollandaise sauce! I did it!) and oven potatoes and bloody marys; steaks on the grill; severalv arities of shrimp; grilled chicken and veggies; bbq portabellas; bacon-egg-potato skillets...

But I haven't managed to take pictures of any of that. Instead, here's tonight's tasty Greek salad.

This bowl is actually like a foot in diameter.

City Birds

The city pigeons are resourceful in the cold. This is from February:




This is a people-heater in a CTA station. The pigeons also cluster around the Eternal Flame (not my photo): http://www.fotothing.com/photos/8a4/8a46d88e35d960752a0f51acfc58e15e.jpg. The pigeons leave their, uh, condolences by the memorial.

Spring in Chicago, part two

Today is cold and rainy. It is slightly above freezing. It was that kind of fine-mist rain that makes you umbrella totally useless. The fine mist gets onto your face and into your clothes, and the cold, gray feeling sticks in your bones for the rest of the day.

To add insult to injury, your umbrella is not only useless, but slightly more damaged from being flipped inside out from the ridiculous, gusty wind.

Our weather has literally jumped 50 degrees in a couple days, and then fallen 40. What have we done to anger the weather gods?

KBS? KBS!

Not that I'd be drinking on a Thursday, but........ KBS is Kentucky Breakfast Stout from Founders Brewery. It's legendary, and legendarily difficult to find.

Binny's Beverage Depot in the South Loop has a tasting room, the tasting room had a Founder's night with KBS.  We liked it, but I liked their "Backwoods B*stard" (sorry, mom) more. The later beer has a caramel aftertaste. It is a dessert beer, if there is such a thing. It's great, and not impossible to find like KBS.



It's not me in the picture, but that IS the Sears Tower in the background! (I can't change. Sorry. Willis just doesn't have the same ring to it.)

Spring in Chicago

It was 80 outside. Really. Actually. It was a shocker for me, too.




Have a haiku.
Hyde Park is the neighborhood where University of Chicago is located. It has a lot of intellectuals and nerdy undergrads.

Ratas need exercise, too

This is Epi.

Another trip to Flat Iron

I always confuse this place with Iron Post, a bar that I never went to in Champaign. So it's mind bizarre that I can never get the name right.

Peter took his engineering licensing exam yesterday, so we went to Revolution brewery to celebrate/commiserate. Revolution is a surprisingly cool place, and they have good house-brewed beers and mixed drinks, too.

Then we went to Flat Iron. And drank PBR. In cans. And woke up with a headache. As is always the case at Flat Iron. And by "always," I mean "the only other time we drank there, when we were drinking with a rockstar."

that is actually what is on the walls.

Oscar's backyard

The hair is Oscar's. It was 55 degrees outside. We walked about 3 miles from the bus stop downtown, through the Loop, to get ice cream and finally to Oscar's. Then we chilled on the porch, drank beers, and ate five cheese garlic dip. Awesome.

Texas: Meet Family and SXSW

Oscar and I recently flew to Texas. We flew into Houston to stay with his family, borrowed a car and drove to Austin for South by Southwest, and returned to Houston.

While packing, I realized that it was going to be 80+ degrees in TX, and got way, way too excited.  Typically, I can pack for more than a week in a carry-on suitcase, but not this time: I over-packed summer clothes: skirts and tank tops and leggings and tunics and dresses... it was a little nuts. And I got to wear flip-flops!

We had awesome family style barbecue food at a place called Salt Lick. The brisket was incredibly tender. I want more.

Oscar's family was nice, and a lot like my family. And (phew) they brew good, strong coffee. That's a pretty important thing...

Oscar has the recap of music and photos of things here

Baltimore

I was in Baltimore for a nerd-science conference. I learned some useful nerd stuff that will save me time in the lab, so it was totally worth it. I had heard that Baltimore was kind of a crappy city, but I thought it actually wasn't so bad. Baltimore seems like a microcosm of Chicago (take Chicago and shrink it): there are sweet bars and cool things to do, there are really bad areas, the best stuff is not near the conference center, and if you can walk a mile and a half, your opportunities expand.


The view from (the hallway in) my hotel.

Some friends and I went to a tiny restaurant along the bay and got a dozen blue crabs and two pitchers of beer. They cover your table in butcher paper, dump the crabs on, give you a bucket for all the discarded shell bits, and show you the whole multi-step procedure for pulling the crabs apart to get the meaty pieces.



Very good crab soup.

I also took a trip to the National Aquarium, which was really cool. I went on a weekday near closing time, so it was almost deserted. I watched the dolphins make bubble rings (like smoke rings) that travel through the water, and watched the dolphins play with them. I got to talk to a worker as she fed the fish (and she pointed out when the fish were going to jump out of the water to get the food), and watched a lizard jump over our heads in the Australia exhibit. In another exhibit, one of the docents pointed out a Monterrey eel named Oscar, who was (I swear) winking at me. I showed the video to Oscar the human, but he was pretty unimpressed, and less jealous than I was hoping.



Views of the harbor:




Meanwhile, at home, the ratas got fed up with being stuck in their cage, and escaped twice in one night. My roommate went to investigate the noises in my room, and found them looking guilty on my desk.

Proper Use of Laboratory Equipment

Couples Mittens

Unbelievably, it's real. When we part ways in the 3F weather, who goes mittenless, and who gets the mutant mitten? 

http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/smittens

The Dangers of Soccer

Correlation

Every time I go out in public looking terrible after being in lab all day (lately wearing glasses and snow boots), I run into someone I knew in high school.

When I take the time to look nice, I never run into anyone. Maybe people who knew me 10 years ago only recognize me when I look crappy? Uh oh... :(

What a strange and obnoxious correlation.

(Obligatory) Chicago Snowpocalypse 2011 Post

I walked home the mile and a half on Tuesday (blizzard beginning) night because I had to run an errand located off the bus routes. Although I wanted to be a pansy and avoid the outside except for the short distance between the door and the bus stop, this errand forced me to experience the blizzard first hand. It was mostly rough and a little cool. The wind kicked snow up into my face constantly, and it hurts way more than I ever imagined to get whacked by 60 mph tiny snow pieces. I nearly got knocked over by wind gusts about 15 times (it doesn't help that I live close to the lake). It was a little cool that I could turn around and lean backwards (no joke, like that trust fall team building activity) and let the wind catch me. I thought about taking pictures, it would have ruined my camera.

Once I got inside (and my face and legs stopped burning), it was pretty easy. Our power lines are underground, so we had power and heat the whole time.

We went out to the lake on Wednesday (the entire city of Chicago has a snow day!). The whole lake was snowed over and frozen over. Here are some pictures.

Looking at downtown over the lake.

My street (note the snow height on the construction barrels).

Standing on the frozen lake!

Hahaha... it says no diving... OK, fine, well I think I'm funny.

My friend said it took him two hours to dig his car out.

On the bright side, I am no longer curious about visiting Antarctica. 

As a scientist, I can confirm that this is true

Note: I didn't make this. If you know who did, let me know so I can give credit where credit is due!