Up late; off to my grandfather’s house for a Memorial Day cookout. Mostly it consisted of my uncle outside at the grill while the rest of us stayed in the air-conditioned house. We had the usual fare of burgers and hot dogs, plus potato salad and fruit. My mother brought her broccoli salad, to which I’ve become addicted in recent years.
Home. Watched some episodes of Bones from Netflix streaming.
Up somewhat early. To church. Interesting sermon on Alzheimer’s patients.
Brunch at Double Wide Grill. Waitress was new and didn’t quite get my order (barbecue burger with a portabella cap instead of beef) right, but I didn’t communicate it clearly enough and failed to clarify when an opening came up. Ended up with a beef patty plus a portabella cap. Still tasty.
Ventured down into the back yard and hosed down the jungle of poison ivy that covers it with Round-up. This was not our first choice for a solution but the problem has become so bad that we felt we had few options. I take full responsibility and will turn in my liberal card at the next meeting.
Greg came over and the three of us headed to the new Mad Mex location in Shadyside. The Thai curry burrito is still top-notch. Also tried some Atwater Vanilla Java Imperial Stout. Much like the similarly flavored porter the stout was smooth and went down easy for an imperial, but also like the porter the vanilla flavor was really strong from the draft. Maybe a bottled version would be more balanced.
Ted joined us back home, originally to play “Last Night on Earth”. However, since none of us actually remembered how to play we ended up going with “Settlers of Catan” instead. We got through two games, the second of which was a monster.
Emily made a wonderful brunch of cheese omelets with bacon.
Off to the South Hills for a Sweeny family barbecue. Lots of great food along with a bean bag game, an RC helicopter, and the usual unwise political discussions. I got to see a couple of my aunts who live out of town and as an added bonus I didn’t even get sunburned.
After we got home we took a walk around the neighborhood and checked in on our friends’ cat. He was fine, if utterly uninterested in us.
Investigating more interesting problems with my current project. Good to feel like I’m getting ramped up and contributing.
Walked to the Squirrel Hill business district with Emily to get dinner. We ended up at Sababa Middle Eastern Grill, which we had been meaning to try for some time. We had grape leaves as a starter. Emily’s main course was the Sababa Salad, which she said she enjoyed. Mine was the schwarma, which was delicious. It came with an interesting curry sauce and majadra, which is a mix of rice and lentils. Yum.
After walking around a bit and checking out some of the shops we grabbed some iced tea at Té Café and made our way to Frankie and Georgie’s (formerly P.D.’s Pub) to see Chet Vincent and the Big Bend. It turned into a bit of a West Allegheny reunion with several tables full of people from my alma mater (it helps that two members of the band went to West A). The set was awesome but it ran until almost 2AM, and by the time we finished our post-set BSing it was nearly 2:30.
Hit a breakthrough in my software research thanks to some kind folks on IRC. A little more testing to do before I move on to the next task.
Dinner at Blue Dust. Portabella wrap is awesome, as is fried zucchini with horseradish sauce. Had a Duck-Rabbit Imperial Brown IPA. I always end up going for the beers that come in the little fancy glasses.
Spent the rest of the evening cleaning up the basement, going through boxes of stuff that I mostly don’t need or want anymore. The pile of stuff heading to Goodwill is daunting. On the plus side, I now have room for the love seat that my parents are hopefully bringing over this weekend.
Spent much of the day dealing with some new-job-related administrivia I’d been putting off. Health insurance, 401k, etc. Finally got it straightened out.
Also submitted feedback on the training materials. Impressed by how quickly my comments were addressed.
Spent the rest of the day attempting to reproduce a certain software configuration from a previous project. The mechanics are easy. The more challenging aspect is coming up with useful and interesting test cases.
Walked to Giant Eagle after work to get some exercise and some groceries. This could be a good habit to get into.
Short call with manager and mentor to get me rolling on a new project. My current task is to try to duplicate some software shenanigans from a previous project and document how to do it for posterity.
Final guitar lesson of the season. Rehashed some 12-bar blues and boogie-woogie. A few minutes of one-on-one time with the instructor to go over Jeffrey Gaines’ version of “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel. Pretty interesting cover, and much easier to play than the original.
Rode in the 2011 Pedal Pittsburgh event. 15-miles this time, as Emily’s dad joined us. Tour took us through Downtown, the North Side, the Strip District and the South Side. Great fun and a tasty burger at the end.
Up somewhat late. Managed to miss shelves being installed in the cellar under the porch.
Lunch at Smallman St. Deli with the in-laws. One of Emily’s friends from high school was there… he’s going to be spending some time at CMU and was in town scouting living quarters.
The Smallman St. Deli Rachael is a modern marvel.
Stopped at Lowe’s to pick up some poison-ivy poison and a storage box for the porch. I put together the storage box while my father-in-law installed a partition on the lower deck — precursor to an eventual hammock situation.
Dinner on the deck. Grilled flank steak and vegetables. Wonderful food, wonderful times.
Saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Pretty entertaining and better than the last two but still not as awesome as the first.
