Fall Barbecue

Our office had our last (I'm assuming) barbecue of the year. We only had a few this year, but today's was awesome because the weather was absolutely perfect. It actually got just a little bit too warm for me in the sun, but overall it was quite a good day for a cook out.

Getting to Bed Early

Heather will be so proud of me! This is a photo of my alarm clock when I got into bed last night, notice how early it was! Only problem is that I got on the phone and then didn't get to actually go to sleep until 10 ... oh well, at least I'm trying.

(Note: This is my photo from Monday, October 28, 2007)

Staying Warm in Bed

This nifty little device is one of my favorite things about the colder months of the year. This controls the heated mattress pad that we have on our bed. We usually take it off during the warmer months, so this Sunday we put it back on the bed since it finally started getting colder. It is so wonderful to get into a warm bed when it is cold outside.

(Note: This is my photo from Sunday, October 28, 2007)

Eating Through Their Log House

So the guinea pigs have had this log house thing to play in. You can see it in previous photos of their cage, I'm sure. They like to eat this log (they're supposed to, that's what it's made for) and this past weekend they finally chewed through the entire side so the top fell down on itself. I wonder if one of them was inside when that happened. If so, that would be quite traumatic!

(Note: This is my photo from Saturday, October 27, 2007)

Adventure Aquarium

Today I attended the Fall Workshop for the Hudson-Delaware Chapter of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. The topic was Risk Assessment of Metals and it was held at the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ. It was awesome because it was right next to the shark tank. I posted this photo so that Erin wouldn't freak out!! Haha. It was a very informative meeting.

Vanilla Garbage Flower

Chad and I purchased this plant last year (at the Morris Arboretum plant sale I think). It is a perennial bush and the description said that it had flowers that smelled of vanilla. We then looked up more information about the species and a description we found somewhere else said that the flowers smelled like garbage. So we were eagerly anticipating some flowers to smell. Well they finally bloomed this year and what's the verdict??? Much more like vanilla, thankfully. I took this photo on Thursday night. I had to use flash because it was dark out but I couldn't get it to not wash out the flowers. If you look at the large size you'll see the flower had some guests that night!

(Note: This is my photo for Thursday, October 25th, 2007.)

Chad Hair

I was looking down at Chad's head while he was sitting down the other day and just thought how cool his hair looks. So I took this macro photo of it. It looks best if you click on it to see the full size image. Crazy stuff.

(Note: This is my photo for Wednesday, October 24th, 2007.)

Morning Sky

Now that it is dark when I go to work in the morning I get to see some nice sun rises. I took this one on Tuesday (don't worry, Adina, I was at a red light!) on my way to work.

(Note: This is my photo for Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007.)

Vegetarian Chicken?

Ever been to a Chinese restaurant and found "Vegetarian chicken" on the menu? Well they sell this at Han Ah Reum so Chad and I tried it. It's also known as seitan, which is just textured wheat gluten or something like that. Definitely a no-no for Deb! Chad put it in this curry. It was okay tasting but it was very chewy. Wonder if it needs to be cooked differently.

(Note: This is my photo for Monday, October 22nd, 2007.)

Bubby's Pie

Marissa INSISTED that we meet her at this place called Bubby's on Sunday morning BEFORE we went to brunch for the ASIJ reunion. So we met her and her friend Alan there and we had pie. Well, unfortunately the service was pretty bad and they didn't have the pies we wanted and the pie was really overpriced ... but the pie we did have was pretty good! Haha. It's in Tribeca, so apparently that's why it's expensive.

(Note: This is my photo for Sunday, October 21st, 2007)

Rockin' Barista

On Friday night we drove up to New York City to visit with some of my friends from ASIJ. We stayed with Adair at her place in Brooklyn. We got to park right on her street for free all weekend so that was awesome. On Saturday we had breakfast at Cafe Orlin (favorite!!) with Marissa and then we walked all over going shopping. We stopped at Cafe Grumpy to see our friend Cheryl and she made us these AWESOME mocha lattes. Look at the little hearts! She's a master barista now. Check out my other photos over at http://flickr.com/photos/andrewjoslyn. We also had an awesome dinner at Gyu Kaku which is a yakiniku place.

(Note: This is my photo from Saturday, October 20th, 2007)

Car Accident

On my way home from work on Friday I got slowed down by this insane car accident. I couldn't get a great look at it but I did snap a photo. People need to drive more carefully ...

(Note: This is my photo for Friday, October 19th, 2007)

Letters from Gibraltar

Wow! I got a fantastic surprise earlier this week! We brought in the mail and I had a letter from Gibraltar. This is my first piece of mail from Gibraltar and that is quite cool. It was from my fabulous friend Jonathan. Can you tell he's really religious? Haha ... ummm ... yeah ...

Anyway, thanks for the card Jonathan! There was also a postcard stuck in there and a ticket stub from a concert. So fun.

Color!

Chad and I finally got to see my parents' new family room wall color yesterday. My mom chose this awesome blue color. They have slowly started to embrace color - they used to only use white paint. I think this is a great improvement! Too bad my photo is blurry ... not quite sure why.

(Note: This is my photo from Wednesday, October 17th)

Home Networking

For the course I'm taking we have to participate in online chat sessions every week. They are about 40 minutes long and we have to answer questions using a microphone. The first session seemed to go okay, but last week I had some issues with my connection and I kept dropping in and out of the session so I missed a bit of it. My wireless connection seemed strong, but the connection to the chat session was having problems. So this week I ran a long ethernet cord from the router in the next room into the library so I could have a better connection and it seemed to work. But I ended up with this ghetto-looking networking system! Haha. Oh well.

H-Mart Remodel

There's something strange going on with the blog server and I can't seem to upload photos, so I'm going to paste one in from Flickr. This is my photo from Monday, October 15. Chad and I went to Han Ah Reum, now called H-Mart, after work to pick up some Yakisoba fixins. They are doing what looks like an addition on top of the building as well as a remodel inside. It's a bit crazy. They must be doing well!

The Vampire Lestat Comic

Chad and I went to Brave New Worlds (a comic store) last weekend. They have these big boxes full of comics that are 3 for $1.00 so we usually browse through to see if there is anything cool. I found this set of 6 comics that depict Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat. I couldn't resist buying them. I started reading them yesterday and so far they are sticking pretty true to the book. It's quite interesting to see it told in a different style.

The Face of a Building

Chad and I ended up spending most of the day on Saturday downtown. We met up with a few people and had brunch at Mixto and then wandered around and had drinking chocolate at Naked Chocolate Cafe in the afternoon. While we were walking around our old neighborhood (Rittenhouse Square) we saw this building on the north side of the Square. You can see the Barnes and Noble building on the right and then there was this one. All that's left is the face of the building! I've never seen anything like it before! Isn't that strange?

(Note: This is my photo from Saturday, October 13th)

Orange Peel Mouth

Chad convinced me to go out to have Chinese food for dinner on Friday night. We went to a place over near Target. It's called Hunan Village and the food was actually really good. It wasn't too heavy or greasy, so I didn't feel sick afterwards like I usually do with Chinese food. Chad was being silly and stuck an orange in his mouth. Why do they bring oranges with the fortune cookies after the meal?

(Note: This is my photo from Friday, October 12th)

Heroes Obsessed

The first season of Heroes on DVD was one of my gifts from Deb and Bud. Chad and I are addicted to the story! We sometimes come home from work, and start watching immediately after (or sometimes during) dinner and then watch 3 episodes in a row. I have such a hard time waiting to find out what happens next!

(Note: This is my photo from Thursday, October 11th)

Scarf

This is a scarf that Chad made for me. He started it about a year ago when we visited Adina and Steph in Baltimore. He got two different yarns and knitted them together. It's perfectly done.

(Note: This is my photo from Wednesday, October 10th)

Multi Grain Bread

This is one of our favorite breads. I think this is the 7-grain one from Pepperidge Farm. They also have 9-grain, 12-grain, and 15-grain, all of which are good. They are soft and tasty, and probably better for us than white bread. Tonight we had them with portobella and garlic burgers.

Bags Galore

Tonight Chad and I went grocery shopping. We took our own cloth bags to use (trying to do our part ...) and when I went to put them back in the closet, I was taken aback at the number of bags we have in there. This is a little out of control, don't you think? We should really go through them and get rid of ones that are torn or otherwise compromised ...

Shirt Pins

Chad and I have purchased a number of new shirts in the past few weeks because our wardrobes need some updating. This is the bowl where we throw all the pins that are in the shirts. I hope we got them all, or it could be pretty painful!

(Note: This is my photo from Sunday, October 7, 2007)

Belated Birthday Gifts

Deb and Bud ordered some great presents for me for my birthday, but they didn't arrive in time to give them to me when everyone came over for dinner. They finally arrived late last week so Deb wrapped them up and gave them to me on Saturday. Season One of Heroes and a Christopher Dallman CD. They are fantastic and look how nicely she wrapped them!

(Note: This is my photo from Saturday, October 6, 2007)

The Knit-Wit

Every once in a while (and by that I mean about once a year), Chad gets really into knitting where all he wants to do is work on making scarves. He got into one of these moods a week or so ago and he finished up a project (a scarf for me!) that he started last year. He's now working on a very difficult type of stitch that I can't even begin to understand. Wish him luck!

Spaghetti Squash

Yesterday with our CSA we got spaghetti squash. I thought the seeds looked pretty cool when Chad cut it open. If you've never had spaghetti squash, you have to try it. It's awesome with some butter and seasonings. It's almost like real pasta only better.

Unique Birthday Cake

My wonderful office- mate, Heather, baked a cake for my birthday (and Tim, another co-worker whose birthday is the same day) yesterday (Oct. 3). She meant to make a chocolate pumpkin cake, but halfway through making the recipe realized there was no chocolate . . . So, it ended up being a lovely pumpkin cake with walnuts and a very nice icing/glaze on top. The really unique thing about the cake was that since Heather didn't have any toothpicks at home (who doesn't have toothpicks?!?!?), she used some dried noodles to hold up the plastic wrap away from the icing! Sometimes I seriously wonder about that girl ... definitely crafty and creative, but .... who doesn't have toothpicks!?!? Haha. Sorry, Heather.

(Note: This is my photo from Wednesday, October 3, 2007.)

Bluetooth

Something I've been wanting ever since I got my most recent cell phone is a bluetooth headset. The first piece of hardware I had with bluetooth was my MacBook, but I had nothing to use it with. I got my cell phone, which has bluetooth, and I was able to connect it to my computer. Now I got this great bluetooth headset for my birthday and I can finally go hands-free with my cell phone. The sound quality in the headset is better than when I use the phone by itself! The only problem is that I need a direct line-of-sight with the cell phone for the headset to work best, otherwise I get static and pops in the sound. My phone has really good voice recognition technology so I can make calls without dialing numbers or looking up contacts in my phonebook. All in all, I would say this is working out quite well so far!

(Note: This is my photo for Tuesday, October 2, 2007).

Finally Decorating

Everyone who works with us knows that Heather and I have the best office in the building because we set it up in an interesting way and decorated our bookshelves with lights and some of Heather's amazing pottery. However, we've been wanting to put things on the walls (since we moved in a YEAR ago) but never got around to it. We've had frames sitting on our back table for ages. Well, we finally got around to filling some of those frames and hanging them on the wall. Don't worry, this isn't the finished product yet, but we were really excited to at least get some pictures up. Of course, we may be moving soon because the office is expanding and there might be some juggling of office spaces to even things out, but .... whatever. At least it will look nice for a couple weeks!

(Note: This is my photo for Monday, October 1, 2007).