Don't knock it till you've tried it

I think we all grew up saying "EEEEEWW GROSS" at the mere mention of anchovies on pizza.

But I had never tried them, so how did I know? In my defense, every other kid I met shared the same impression so how could they all be wrong?

Well - kids are kids and peer pressure is a fierce thing.

The other night I decided to give the anchovies-on-pizza thing a try. And you know what? I actually liked it!

Conference Call Funny

A funny exchange had me laughing out loud
during a conference call yesterday. Good thing my phone was on mute!

Scenario: a question was raised about a preceding slide in the presentation

Presenter: What slide are you referring to?
Meeting Attendee: Slide number 27 in the presentation. It's the one with a picture of a river on it.
Presenter: It's a fjord actually.

LOL - this totally cracked me up. Even today, a whole day later I can't help but smile to myself when I think about it!

Philadelphia

This week I went to Philly to visit a potential customer. I had connected through the PHL several times before, but had never been to the city as a final destination.

I drove in and made good time so I had a couple of hours to check out the downtown area. I went to Reading Terminal Market grab a bite to eat (not a cheesesteak, but a yummy roast pork sandwich with greens & sharp provolone from DiNic's) and then from there walked over to check out the Liberty Bell & Independence Hall.

Brooklyn: a Study in Minimalism

This past weekend we moved Christopher into his apartment in Brooklyn. It's a small studio, rented to us by a very nice musician who is on tour for the next 3 months.

The apartment is the perfect size for Christopher and has a comfortable amount of space for a week's worth of clothes, frozen food from BJ's (Costco-equivalent), and the Xbox + games. But moving in there it really made us think about all the "stuff" we have back home. From ski/golf equipment stashed in our attic, to bookshelves filled with paperbacks, and textbooks from our student days. We have even gotten into the habit of buying things like shampoo & deodorant in multiple quantities from Amazon for cost savings

But this suburban style of living - where we can park our car steps from our front door, and we think nothing of buying 4 cases of soda when it's on sale, along with buying jumbo packs of paper towel & toilet paper is definitely not conducive to city living - especially in NYC.

I find it pretty cleansing to have a clean space. Sometimes when I go into our attic and am surrounded by all the clutter it makes my pulse race. And I know that my closet is definitely in need of a good spring cleaning. But when I think about giving/throwing away my stuff, I can't help but feel a little protective... What is it about "stuff", especially the stuff we don't use, that we're so attached to?

Energy Efficiency

Wintertime in New England, living in a home built in 1916, certainly raises some questions about our energy efficiency. We use heating oil to heat our home, and natural gas for our hot water. Since the price of oil is way lower than it was last winter, we turned our focus towards our natural gas consumption.

I dug out the folder containing our past Connecticut Natural Gas bills and whipped up this chart using my good friend Excel:

Christopher and I are always looking for ways to improve the energy efficiency of our home. From what this chart indicates, it would appear that our gas consumption is significantly lower during the summer months. So, we're gonna look into an insulation blanket for our hot water tank (new in August 2007) since they are relatively inexpensive and we already insulated our pipes last year.

As a side note - I am feeling a mixture of pride in the geekiness of my analysis combined with embarassment of the fact that I am proud. And I did this whole thing on a Friday night to boot - definitely a sign that I'm getting old, or that I need a hobby!

Ski Weekend

The timing couldn't have been better really. I was asked to visit a customer in Denver the week before Christopher was scheduled to start his new job. So we decided to buy a flight for him on points and do some skiing over the weekend.

We hit up Arapahoe Basin, Keystone & Copper. We didn't have any new snow while we were there, but enjoyed beautiful weather. Is it wrong to show up to business meeting with a goggle-tan?