Webcam

You know is cool? Web cams. See picture at below. This was taken with a web cam that I have set up on top of my computer.

The web cam allows other people to see you while you communicate with them. My family and I have been using Window Messenger to use the web cam feature.

Sometimes I like to mess around with the camera.

This is reading like a children's book. Which is ok because my Sis is about to have a little one come out of the ol' oven. Could be a boy or a girl. No one knows. Holly and I are going to Aunt Joe and Uncle Holly. Wait a minute! Either way, Holly and I went and bought some little outfits for the baby. It should be any day now. I am waiting to get the call and fly up to Chicago on the weekend to see my little niece-phew.

I made the Bacon Explosion for the Superbowl. It was amazing. I used a 6x5 bacon weave as opposed to the 5x5 recommended on BBQAddicts.com. Pictures to follow once I can get Holly to let me know where they are.

We booked our flights to Alaska. Pumped! Holly and Mark have done most of the planning so far. I am going to read a little about the state prior to flying there. We have a nice agenda set up. Nothing says vacation like agenda. Seriously. About +6 years ago, I went to Disney World (DW) with my family and we stayed in one of the hotels in the park. DW would open the park early (maybe 7am) to people who stayed on the property. My Ma was a Drill Sergent about us getting to the park. We got up every day at 6am, sometimes earlier, just to get to the park earlier that everyone else. It was nice to be able to get on all the rides with no line, but sometimes you lose the thrill at 7am because you are half asleep. Anyways, we have a great trip to Alaska loosely planned. I am sure pics will follow.

Busy season is moving along. I hit my first 60 hour week. It was easier to do because Holly was gone and I worked until 5pm on Saturday. Didn't really have anything else to do other than work. Never felt like going home and watching TV. On Saturday I rode my bike (bicycle) to 75th Street Brewery. Locked up my bike at the bike racks they have there and spent a good two hours talking to an interesting gentleman who told me a fair amount about his life. I had my mug club Bears mug at hand and I was ready to listen to anybody and not think about work. I must look like a good listener, because every time i go into 75th someone always tells me their life story. Also, their lives are way more interesting than mine. My story is that I grew up in the 'burbs of Chicago and finished high school and went to college at Missouri, graduated, and got hitched last summer. I was able to relate to the guy because, 1) He was a chef and likes to talk about food and cooking, 2) His wife is a tax preparer/bookkeeper. We had a rousing conversation about Cajun/creole food, dealing with clients and their books, and John's life. After having about two massive beers I said adios to John, paid my tab and left for my bike. Outside it was cold and I realized that I went into the bar knowing the combo to the lock, but coming out blank. I had to call Holly to get the combination. Some guy smoking outside saw me and was laughing. It was a pretty ridiculous situation. I made it home safe and went out with Winiarski to have a beer. Got home around 2am. It was a relaxing Saturday after all.

Michael's White Chicken Chili

The other night I made a delicious treat for Joe and I using a few simple-to-aquire ingredients. The idea came from Michael Hannan, who as an intern at the firm, won the office-wide Chili Cookoff with this recipe. It can be tweaked as necessary and makes enough to fill a 6 quart Crockpot.

• 1 can navy beans, undrained
• 1 large onion, chopped small
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter – separate into 2 T & 6 T
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup chicken broth
• 2 cups half-and-half OR substitute 2% milk
• 2 T Tabasco, or to taste
• 3 t chili powder
• 2 t ground cumin
• 1 t salt, or to taste
• 1 t white pepper, or to taste
• one or two 4-ounce cans whole mild green chilies, drained and chopped (depends on how much you like them)
• 1 can whole corn, undrained
• 5 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (about 2 pounds), cooked and cut into 1/2-inch pieces OR 1 large rotisserie chicken, shredded
• 1 1/2 cups grated Monterey Jack (about 6 ounces)
• 1/2 cup sour cream

1. In a skillet cook onion in 2 tablespoons butter over moderate heat until softened.
2. In a 6- to 8-quart heavy kettle, melt remaining 6 tablespoons butter over moderately low heat and whisk in flour. Cook roux, whisking constantly, 3 minutes.
3. Stir in onion and gradually add broth and half-and-half, whisking constantly.
4. Bring mixture to a boil and simmer, stirring occasionally, 5 minutes, or until thickened.
5. Stir in Tabasco, chili powder, cumin, salt, and white pepper.
6. Add beans, chilies, chicken, corn, and Monterey Jack and cook mixture over moderately low heat, stirring, 20 minutes. Can also put it in a Crockpot and let it sit on low for a while.

7. Stir sour cream into chili & serve.

It is delicious and really easy to make, especially if you have rotisserie chicken available from your local grocery store.

Enjoy!

Admire the view

Ahhh, the scenic views of busy season. Take in the sights, smell that recirculated air. Honestly, who would want a window? Seriously! I would always want to be outside as opposed to inside. You know what they say...ignorance is bliss. This is the beginning of a few months of long hour days and little free time. Awesome.

On the plus side the weekends are more precious and have more meaning. On the down side I have to be here on Saturday. Waaa Waaa.

So, the piano was delivered today to my parent's house. I talked with my mom today about gardening, shipping errors, work, my sister's pregnancy, and other general stuff. There may be a chance in her coming to visit and help me plant a bunch of trees. Our ugly fence needs to be covered up somehow. I think maybe a natural fence on the side of our house would look nice and inviting.

I have decided that when I get an office, I may not wear pants. I will however wear a dress shirt and tie. Maybe even a bow tie. I will call it the "drullet". In order to understand the drullet, you must understand the mullet. The mullet is a haricut I will never be able to achieve, but still can laugh at it. Having a mullet means you have cut your hair short on the front half of your head and you have let the back just grow out. The theme is "business in the front, party in the back". Do som research on google or your choice of web search engine. Someone tossed out "Dogpile" as an option. Must be a Kansas thing. Anyways, the drullet is a dress mullet. Business up top and party down below. Whoa! Maybe better redefine party. Ok. Party = Comfort. If someone comes to get me for lunch I would have to respond, "Umm...give me 2 minutes, I just need to finish this client call." Fool proof, and no one will be the wiser.

The best posting...ever...until my next

Hello Inter-web! The lady and I have decided to post things to a website. I have been wanting to blog for a while, but like most things I am a year or more past the "coolness" of telling people you have a blog. It won't even be good to use as a pick up line because all I will be picking up is my wife. Maybe it is a good line, she is kind of a tech nerd. Blogging stilll good.

Today's topic is about disappointment. Dissapoinment about the football games being played today. There are currently four teams competing for a spot in the Superbowl. The worst part about this is not that football is almost over, but the fact that none of those teams are the Bears.

My next disappointment of the day came when I realized Musician's Friend messed up my order for a piano. I got Holly a piano for X-mas. Ordered it with plenty of time prior to X-mas to get it shipped to our KC home. Well, the item that was labeled as "in-stock and redy for shipment" was actually on backorder until 01/17/09. Additionally, only recent noted by me the checkbox that says "Shipping address is same as billing address" does not work. The last known shipping address was to my brother when he was living at my folks home. So currently there is a paino en route to my parent's house in IL w/ attention to my brother. Merry X-Mas Jeff, you are getting a piano!

We celebrated our friend Katie's b-day on Friday by going dancing and staying out until 3am. Holly and Katie did enough dancing for everyone in the bar. I know it is usually going to be a long night when the bar we are at is serving beers in cups which are the size of 7-Eleven Big Gulps.

On Tuesday or Wednesday night we went on a welcome home mission for the Patriot Guard. As in the KC Giammanco Clan fashion, we went and bought things for an event that we didn't use. We planned on riding the motorcycle up to the airport so we we went and bought leather chaps. After we bought the chaps I mentioned to Holly that we needed another American Flag. So I went to H-Depot and bought two big and beautiful American flags. We ended up driving to the airport and leaving our flags in the car. In the end, the chaps got used today and the American flags will get used at somepoint. The best part was that the Marine made it home! We had about 20-25 people that lined up in a flag line to welcome the hero home. The Marine's wife was present to see her husband get off the plane. Hopefully we will be able to make many more welcome home missions. We will be there for the other missions as needed.

I went for a long ride on the motorcycle today. It was 40 degrees so I wore the new chaps, my leather jacket, leather gloves, and full face helmet. I was smoking hot while in the house, but once I was on the road I wish I had worn long undies. I was gone for 2.5 hours in the cold. It took me a while to get warmed up once I got home. Holly and I went and got Chinese food at Bo Lings (Holly's fav Chinese food). I pummelled the hot tea.

Have you started it yet?

So Joe has been bugging me for about 6 months now that we need to have a blog. In response to his insistence, I drafted this site about 5 months ago, forgot about it for 4 months, and then got flagged by Google as a potential spam website resulting in an email to confirm our existence or be terminated. At that point I figured it was probably time to come up with a firm concept for this blog or all my work would be deleted by the fine folks in Mountain View, CA or wherever they are. (I'm assuming that their threat of termination was limited to just the site - not the two of us.)

I am a regular reader of blog postings. Go Fug Yourself, TVaholic, Plan B, Caleb's - I read 'em all regularly. I'm also into facebook, myspace, and reading The Onion on my cell phone. I think it has to do with the fact that I like the Internet, computers, and technology in general more than Joe does, even though this was his idea.

This blog will probably be of interest only to our family and close friends. As much as I love the Internet and reading, even I don't go out and read stranger's blogs for fun. Other people's lives? Boring! We don't even watch reality TV. So if you're here because you know us and like seeing what we're up to, welcome. If you're not, well, hello anyway while you're passing through.

We will both try to keep up with this, but like 95% of the other blogs out there, we'll probably only write when we get around to it or when something interesting happens. I do promise that we won't apologize at the beginning of every posting for "how long it's been since we last wrote". Real life will get in the way of writing in (on?) this, but I think that's how it's supposed to work.

For content, this blog will probably contain updates of our activities, our trials and successes while geocaching, insights into each of our personalities, and the occasional recipe. But who knows - I guess you'll just have to wait and see!