Maple Syrup makes ticks almost tolerable

No I don't mean to eat.. though if I had to choose a topping....

We have been enjoying a few days of nice weather for the end of our stay in NH. Michelle got to get out into the woods for a short hike with her sister Eran and Eran's boyfriend who came up to NH to visit for a couple of days. Was fantastic seeing them and refreshing to get someone to come see us instead of us driving 2500 miles to then have to drive 200 more just to see people. Earlier in the week Michelle's brothers also came up to visit for a couple of days and that was a nice visit too, so this wasn't a unique visit but rare. You might think I am being a bit bitter here given that everyone is busy and this is MY vacation but we invest a lot to get into the area and it is sometimes disappointing when people can't (and understandably so) arrange to travel a little bit to spend some time with us. Times are hard and we understand that but taking a look just at miles traveled... The math supports my position of disappointment and bitterness to a point. A point I am not overly invested in and like I said it was nice to get to see people and get a bit of a visit on my own turf even if it is very boring (pretty though) turf. (Guess i should get off the soapbox now... it is so handy though).

While Eran was here, we were out one night strolling around the family property while various members of the party were inhaling toxins from major tobacco manufacturers (not allowed in my personal habitats, sorry is just how it is) I ended up with 13 ticks on me. I HATE TICKS! (The Tick is a totally different thing and anyone angry at me for hating on something that is so funny has never had one of these little freaks of nature on them) I mean I REALLY hate these damn things. The ticks removed and still feeling totally covered in them we showered and headed to The Muddy Moose in North Conway for dinner. It was great, they cooked my steak exactly how I ordered it and the ribs Michelle got were very good too. The next morning we headed up to Monroe's Family Restaurant in Carrol NH for a great breakfast and to say goodbye to our visitors (we were very close to the ONE major highway in NH this far north and it was convenient for them to head back towards Boston from there). Was a nice visit.

Today, we went up to see my cousin Jeff Parker and his wife Maria Neal at their 'off the grid' house in progress. Both Michelle and I were blown away by how scaled back Jeff and his wife have gotten themselves living and I think if we could afford it we'd start in on building a very similar (though perhaps different building style, we have long wnated a log cabin) house in a close by location. We were and still are very jealous of their amazing house and property sitting in the middle of one of the most wonderful forests that NH has to offer. Getting to see Jeff and Maria was great but we had a secondary motive for visiting them. Jeff makes the absolute best Maple Syrup I have ever had and I have sampled many. Our supply of the good stuff was dangerously low when we left TX but upon return we will be bringing back plenty for the next year or so. If nothing else, obtaining a gallon of NH's finest Maple Syrup made the tick encounter (even though unrelated) completely tolerable.. I think. *twitch*

Vacation Issues but dogs make work better!

Our trip to New England has been good overall, but it has not been 100% satisfactory. The weather has been much more like what I would expect from April (cold and wet) and our RV has had a few small issues.

Issues: I am going to treat this like a laundry list of complaints.
1) the weather just plain sucks, we haven't been able to spend more than a few minutes outside of the camper because its cold and rainy.
2) The microwave/convection oven broke lose from it's mount on the drive up here and I had to fix it so we could use it. Luckily nothing actually broke it was just that the utterly brilliant mouth breather who put the screws in securing the top to the cabinetry thought that screws going between the cabinet (yes between not INTO) and a piece of wood stapled (not screwed, stapled. I pushed these back in wish finger pressure) to the back side of the cabinet top, would hold. It didn't.
3) Did i mention the rain? Coming from Austin now rain is a welcome sight, even if its to much in a short period of time we always need more water in our lakes(rivers with dams, there are no natural lakes in central TX but that is another topic for another day) and streams. This is a bit much though.
4) The heatpump/Air conditioner unit is having issues working correctly. We do have a propane furnace for when it gets below the heat pumps operating temperature but its may, that should be in some of the time, not most every day. So we have heat but when we get home the RV needs warranty work already. Disappointing but not unexpected when you buy something "Made In America" I am unsure why as a nation we put up with half ass workmanship for top dollar. There are a lot of people out of work right now and it seems to me like it would be a good time to clean house and make sure that everyone who DOES have a job takes some pride in the final product they are producing, I know that if I started slacking off and producing crap at work I'd be replaced in a heartbeat by 3 recent college graduated from Brazil or India. I hate offshoring work but it certainly does make me conscious about the quality and quantity of my work output. Maybe it's time we legalize some of the Mexican labor in the country and train them to do automotive work and let the lazy ass bottom feeders (this include the plant managers who are more concerned with their bonus than the quality of their workers output btw) pick lettuce for a couple dollars an hour for awhile. The end product might not be anymore reliable but it would certainly be cheaper to produce and thus more accessible to the folks who do work hard to buy luxury items. Okay that was a rant I didn't mean to go on but there it is...
5) have I mentioned that it's been raining?

Now off to the positive side of things. Another list because I am apparently into lists today.
1) lobster rolls are awesome, expensive these days but awesome.
2) Having a dog snuggle your feet while you work makes every work day better.
3) Even if it is rainy the rolling hills and little mountains of New England are beautiful and the air is cleaner.
4) Dunkin' Donuts beats the snot out of Krispy Kreme (if you don't agree, you are wrong and you know it even if you aren't willing to admit it to yourself)
5) Why can't someone in Texas learn how to make good Pork fried rice and chicken fingers with duck sauce? It's obtainable here even in my small valley in the middle of NH.
6) Rain is a wonderful thing (in moderation)


Okay, thats all I have for the moment, some ranting and a few things I have been enjoying. The vacation has been good and the ability to work remotely is just awesome. I love that my job allows me these kinds of freedom. IBM has grown as a company in many ways over the years and adapted, i can't say that I always agree with some of the changes but I am certainly a very happy IBMer right now.

Tchau!

A trip!

All 2 of my readers already know this but here goes, to summarize recent events.

We went to the Noble Pig a lot. Ate a lot of TexMex. Cooked at home very little. Went to a couple of Noble Pig Sandwiches Dinners. Went on a precrawl BBQ crawl that was really a full on crawl but if you don't understand that well, we went to 4 BBQ restaurants in one day (for those of you not in TX a a BBQ restaurant isn't hotdogs and hamburgers its a type of food that is generally smoked slowly over a long period of time resulting in meat ambrosia). Had a BBQ. Signed up for what amounts to a second mortgage.

We bought a Class C RV a few weeks back and have driven it to NH on our first real vacation in a couple of years. The drive to NH usually takes about 3 days and covers about 2100 miles. This time it took 4.5 and was closer to 2500 because the middle of the country got flooded and with the RV I decided to stay on major highways as much as possible. We got to see way more of Arkansas and Missouri than I had planned. The drive went well otherwise though the roads in Indiana are probably the worst I have driven on in a long time considering we were on a major Interstate highway. The RV gave us the opportunity to stop a lot more for rest and we did spend 3 nights sleeping in it along the way. That made for a much safer drive in many ways but I still pushed way to hard a couple times and pushed Michelle and myself into a state of being so tired we were ready to strangle each other over the dumbest things. Food was a lot more healthy but still could have been better. Only actually ate fast food once though there was some snacking on Munchos that was probably a bad idea, the second bag of them was definitely a bad idea.

Now that we have been at my parents house for a couple days and have recovered it's time to start to get back to my normal foodie ways and hit a few restaurants in the area and report back on them eventually but it will likely be a somewhat subdued food adventure series because we just paid for gas at $4+ a galllon over 2400 or so miles for a vehicle getting between 7 and 8 miles per gallon. Some cheaper food is likely to be the price of driving a small house across the country. Luckily cheap doesn't always mean bad or even not interesting. I suspect we will be searching out some inexpensive but very fresh and tasty seafood very soon.

For those of you who haven't already found it Michelle is keepping a much more detailed and better written blog at: miceblank.blogspot.com