done traveling…for a couple weeks, anyway. after our fantastic trip to texas last weekend, i came home for a few days before heading off to kansas city, mo to meet up with my bff, kara. we spent one night there before completing what may be considered an excessive amount of shopping and then making the trek through the flint hills of kansas back to her house in wichita. the flint hills are crazy - its the most rural area i’ve ever seen. there no houses or buildings or people or exits or lights or even trees. for like an hour. but its very pretty. also, comical when set to the right soundtrack…

once in wichita, we had quite the relaxing weekend of sitting around, eating a lot, catching up (since it had been over 2 years!) and watching a gigantic tv, which was pretty fantastic. we discovered our common love for mike rowe, bear grylls, clinton kelly and bret and jemaine. we watched so much flight of the conchords that i feel like i left wichita with a little bit of a new zealand accent. on the to-do list - see FOTC live. if you’re not familiar, watch this -

(0:48-0:52 - that’s just for you, kbs. enjoy.)

we also took quite a few stupid photos, some of which can be viewed here and some of which have been destroyed.

all in all, the past week or so has been the most fun i’ve had in a really long time.

three in five days. is that some kind of record? the one in kansas city has only been open since monday and was full on a thursday night - big selection, too. not a single plate on the wall yet (besides the ones for decoration) and they’ve got booths and big windows that they open like the one in nashville. winner.

went to houston last weekend. we ate a lot of food in houston. in addition to john’s mom cooking us awesome indian food for breakfast, lunch and dinner (you can have spicy stuff for breakfast?! who knew?!) we hit a lot of restaurants:

-luling city market provided me with my first taste of brisket. YUM.

-as if we didn’t have enough meat already, we went to fogo de chao which is basically just a buffet of meat that they bring to you at the table. its pricey, but worth it for those who love to eat meat.

-we hit freebirds for burritos. nicely wrapped and assembled, i must admit. i wore a white shirt and ended up wearing none of my burrito.

-mai’s restaurant got us our fix of vietnamese food

-finally, for dinner on cinco de mayo, we visited guadalajara’s for fajitas.

most surprising thing about texas: i began counting the number of things in the shape of texas that were not maps as soon as we landed at the airport. i only got to 27, i expected to get much higher. who knew that the number of servings of meat that i consumed over the weekend would surpass the number of things shaped like texas that weren’t maps? i was surprised, to say the least.

best thing to say to texans you’ve just met: “i’ve been to texas once before, but i went to {insert name of rival texas city} before, so that doesn’t count, right?” you’ll be instantly popular.

good to know about texas: you can actually get sunburned while sitting in the shade. not like “oh i’m a little pinkish” sunburn. more like the painful kind of sunburn that you know just took a few years off your life. yikes.

idea i had in texas: pictures are so boring when everyone is happy. thus the birth of the we hate cinco de mayo photo series, in which we appeared to be angry in a majority of the pictures for dramatic effect. i think i see the making of christmas card 2008 for the forths here…

learning about friends in texas: just in general, its a good to get to know your friends’ families so they can share helpful information with you that your friend might be too embarrassed to share with you themselves. like, maybe if a person was prone to or had a history of freaking out or panicking and as a result passing out, i mean, that would be good info for friends to have. but an individual might be too ashamed to share that info with you. so, yeah, meeting your friends’ families is always good and insightful, as a general rule.

um, what? its been like a month. yikes. i’m now the lame blogger who has left the blog to fend for itself. i can’t even think of blog post titles anymore.

in case you were wondering…

reading:
stuff white people like

running:
about 3 miles a week. me and running broke up. however, in what can only be considered a severe lack of judgment, i registered for the chicago marathon last night, so i guess we’re back together again. now that the portions of my toes that i lost in the half marathon are back…

cooking:
hot dogs, frozen pizza, burgers, and home made pasta. not too many folks with that mix.

its been a busy month, but fun days ahead. will post pictures. send money.

and happy birthday to bobs.

ah, its been that day. possibly that week. and it was topped off with a horrendous technological disaster. after trying to sync my outlook calendar with my gcal, my gcal was wiped out. that’s right - wiped out. let’s be clear - i didn’t have just one calendar within gcal. i had multiple calendars that ran my life, it was like the most impressive robot personal assistant ever. imagine with me for a moment, if you will…an email reminder at 5am to let me know i should run some client reports that day…an entire calendar dedicated to my running and race schedule….text message reminders telling me to take my medicine. its a long and involved story, but suffice it to say that i don’t have any plans whatsoever for anytime after saturday. my schedule is wide open, because i never, ever had to remember anything outside of gcal.

so if i’m supposed to be somewhere, and i don’t show up, you may want to give me a ring.

also, i would like to predict that this is what life will be like after google completes their plan to overtake the world:

last week i went to seattle for a few days, got a cold, flew back in on friday night and got up early saturday to run a half marathon in the pouring rain which has resulted in 1. me spending 2:30:23 perfecting the art of snot rocketing 2. two disfigured toes 3. being able to cross half marathon off my to do list for 08.

no, that is not me trying to do a “cute pose”. i do not participate in such frivolity. i’m standing that way because i thought i had bloodied my foot in such a way that i was physically unable to put it on the ground at that point. and yet, the idea of doing this all over again in just six short weeks has actually crossed my mind. {enter interventionist}

and, contrary to popular belief and photo histories, there are instances when i’m running and both my feet leave the ground. yes, i passed both of those girls, as well as a few others on the homestretch, and i gloated. on the inside, of course. say what you will about height not having anything to do with running speed, but my stride is like 3x as long as those girls’ and in the end, big femurs won. just sayin.

big hass avocados

i finally got around to trying my hand at making a home cooked italian meal. the menu consisted of a not-so-italian salad, home made 3-cheese ravioli, bolognese sauce and tiramisu for dessert.

making your own pasta sounds scary, but it isn’t. 2 cups of flour in the food processor for 15 or so seconds to aerate it, add 3 whisked eggs. process until it forms a dough (adding water 1/2 teaspoon if necessary, or flour 1 tbsp at a time if necessary). knead the dough for 1-2 minutes, let it rest 15 mins-2 hours, then run it through a pasta machine. i got the cheap one, and it worked great:

the filling is equally as simple: 1 cup ricotta, 2 oz parmesean, 4 oz mozarella, one egg yolk, and 2 tbsp basil. mix it up.

we got one of these to help with assembly and it worked great. i was horrified at the thought of going to all this trouble only to end up with a boiling pot of empty raviolis in cheese water. no ravioli explosions, we had pasta success!

as for the sauce, it was an all-day affair, but well worth it.

classic bolognese sauce (from cooks illustrated)

INGREDIENTS

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 c minced onion
1/4 c minced carrot
1/4 c minced celery
1 pound meatloaf mix or 1/3 pound each ground beef chuck, ground veal, and ground pork
Table salt
1.5 cup whole milk
1.5 cup dry white wine
3 - 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes , packed in juice, chopped fine, with juice reserved

1. Heat butter in large, heavy-bottomed Dutch oven over medium heat; add onion, carrot, and celery and sautè until softened but not browned, about 6 minutes. Add ground meat and 1/2 teaspoon salt; crumble meat with edge of wooden spoon to break apart into tiny pieces. Cook, continuing to crumble meat, just until it loses its raw color but has not yet browned, about 3 minutes.

2. Add milk and bring to simmer; continue to simmer until milk evaporates and only clear fat remains, 25 minutes. Add wine and bring to simmer; continue to simmer until wine evaporates, 25 minutes longer. Add tomatoes and their juice and bring to simmer; reduce heat to low so that sauce continues to simmer just barely, with an occasional bubble or two at the surface, until liquid has evaporated, about 3 - 3.5 hours. Adjust seasonings with extra salt to taste and serve. (Can be refrigerated in an airtight container for several days or frozen for several months. Warm over low heat before serving.)

and the tiramisu, which i can’t find the recipe for online right now and am entirely too lazy to type out tonight.

overall, it was very tasty. the bolognese sauce would be better suited for plain pasta, and i’d try a marinara sauce with the ravioli next time. tiramisu had a great flavor, but the ladyfingers were definitely over soaked and i’m not sure how to soak them any less than we did.

oh, and i realized i forgot to post recipe links to last month’s hungarian adventure. find them here.

in queue: irish, belgian, spanish and thai food. in no particular order…

reading:
almost 600 pages of deliciousness that are going to make me fat add so many items to my to-cook list that i’ll never finish:

started this in 02 when i nannied for one baby. turns out, you have a lot less time to read on the job when the second baby comes along. anyway, i finally got around to picking it back up last week, just in time to be invited back to my old nanny job for new baby #3 and an “1100 square foot guest house with my name on it”. it really is tempting. but i need to finish the book this time guys:

sniffing:
wait til they go on clearance, you get them for like $5

seriously, if you have allergies, get some of this stuff and try it for 2 weeks. since i started working from home, my dog allergy has gotten worse from being exposed to it more. from about october-january i couldn’t sleep through the night without waking up to sneeze and blow my nose. i tried air purifiers, antihistamines, sudafed - nothing worked. couple days of this stuff, and i don’t sneeze at all and only take my antihistamine every now and then. brian’s dad, who is allergic to everything and has had years of allergy shots also tried it and is having great results:

drinking:
sorry, fido, you got one-upped. not only is the coffee at crema delicious, i bet their internet connection is better, and i don’t have to look at everyone i went to college with doing things like networking or talking about synergy among team players who think outside the box. i went to college with some oh-so-important people, none of whom have been spotted at crema. plus, mon-fri happy hour 3-5pm $2.50 for a cookie and coffee! YAY!

admiring:
speaking of crema, friend ours has some art opening there this weekend. free coffee, wine and cheese from 7-10pm friday night. i heart this picture:

attempting:
homemade ravioli. i’ve got the ravioli stamper, and the pasta machine is on the way. wish me luck…

getting sucked into:
goodreads.com - keep track of what you’re reading and see what your friends are reading…this is the only form of social networking i can condone

tastyplanner.com - haven’t used it yet, but i’m sure it’ll suck up a few hours this weekend.

i don’t blog much about work-related stuff for a couple of reasons. few people really know or care to know about the intricacies of what i do. its a niche. i like it. that’s all that really matters. sometimes i do blog about work topics because its hard to find up-to-date info on some of the stuff i do. other times, i write about goofy stuff because i’m a dork and i like to see if i can make things i blog about show up in search engines. (*cough*best running playlist ever*cough*)

however, today you will not be spared, i’m sorry. i have a few tips for those placing ads using any online keyword-based advertising platforms that may stumble upon this blog:

dynamic keyword insertion:
so, when you write ads, you can set the ad to automatically insert the term you are targeting. for example, all those ads you see when you google something that have a headline that reads exactly the same as what you just typed in - no, target.com doesn’t read your mind. they use this feature.

exhibit a:

note: no, i didn’t do a search for this particular term. its a contextual ad, so if a certain keyword appears in an article, you can hover over it and an ad shows up. just so happened this article mentioned it. ew.

wow, bizrate.com, i bet you do have the best deal on menstrual cycles.

anyway, this is a typical example of a horribly managed campaign. i guarantee what happened here was that someone set up a gigantic campaign, with hundreds and thousands of keywords that they used a keyword research tool to generate. then they created ad groups for every keyword generated and used the same format for every single ad group. unfortunately, the ad format for something like “cookware” which would have worked in this case, doesn’t work so well for “menstrual cycle”.

so, the point is, automating and working fast are good. but maybe double check on what you’re actually doing?

typos/consistency
seriously, read your ads before you make your campaign live

exhibit b (click to make it bigger):

here’s a secret: why are you tring to sell me adwords tips if you can’t proofread your ads? why..?

here’s a tip: buy www.27adwordssecrets.com and put a bunch of adsense ads on it - guarantee some people see this ad, try to remember it later, and end up at www.27adwordssecrets.com

that is all, enough work talk.