52 weeks and the first four

1/52 Deck dusting
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Yes, it's been a while since I've posted here. Lots going on keeping me busy and it seemed hard to justify the time to sit down and compose something worth posting when there were so many things that needed to get done.

So anyway, the other day, I wandered over to my Flickr stream and ended up wandering through a bunch of my Project 365 pictures and it made me remember how cool an exercise it was. The downside, of course, is that it totally burned me out on taking pictures and 2010 was largely a wash. I also found I was trying to take "interesting" pictures, which was great in that it was a great way to work on my creativity and sense of visual composition, but also a problem because I'd often find when we saw friends that afterwards I'd have a bunch of pictures of food or things I'd see in our surroundings but no pictures of our actual friends. Oops.

I decided that it was worth doing *something* this year and I figured I'd take what I learned from the last experiment and take the pressure down a notch. So this year, I'm going to try and have at least one postable picture a week and cut myself some slack when it comes down to what I mean by weeks. (I'd say that I might get creative, but I'm pretty sure there's that OCD part of my personality that isn't going to let me pull any fast ones, except maybe the first week which actually worked out to 9 days.)

So here are the other pictures from the first four weeks:

2/52 Fenced
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

3/52 Arrivals
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

4/52 Leaf in the Snow
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

OH HAI...

Busy
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.
So, yeah, haven't really been doing much with the blog in a while. I think the Project365 business really burned me out on the whole post every day thing, even if I was only generating a post for every day and not *actually* posting everyday. (details, details) Tweets have still been happening, so if you're really craving that tall, asiany goodness, peek on over there, since things are still going to be sporadic over here for the time being.

For those keeping score at home, I did finally finish the acorn flour project, although there still needs to be a post about that. Or at least a recipe. Perhaps I'll put that up over on FoodNerd's site. I mean, it's hers, but y'know, I get some privileges for setting it up at least.

I guess I do owe y'all a quick recap, so here's a quick list of what I've been up to:

• Dancing -- I'm trying to get to more of the local dances on a regular basis, but we're also attending local workshops as well as traveling for workshops and exchanges in other cities.
  
• Running -- I was getting my mileage up in preparation for running the Chicago Marathon this year, but that fell through when some friends decided they were going to get married that same weekend. Nevertheless, I was reintroduced to a few guys who work locally and have been running pretty regularly with them for the past few months.
  
• Guitar -- been working on my finger-style country blues using this book. Good so far. Occasionally picking up the Uke, but it's been mostly guitar recently.
  
• Massage Therapy -- happy to finally be covering expenses this year, but still not a practical source of income, but enough to keep my hands busy, so to speak.
  
• Studying up on my perl and C++ to work on a random OCD data-collection project focused on shopping for organic food. I've been collecting the data and building a back-end perl-based parsing app, in part to exercise some of those coding muscles I haven't used in a while, but also because I'm tired of keeping all the data in my head. Obviously still a work in progress.
  
• studying Chinese -- some nice online services have popped up making it a lot easier to practice listening and reading skills. I'm currently using Popup Chinese, although it's taken a bit of a back seat recently since...
  
• I started a new job last week -- engineering, 3 miles from the house, nice people who run (same guys I've been running with, actually. Worked out quite nicely.) Still getting up to speed, but interesting to observe how my body is adjusting to the new schedule. (or rather, how it's not)
  

So, yeah, kind of busy. And we've also been having a lot of work done with the house -- blown-in insulation and a new roof while exterior painting in the queue and plans to rejigger the back deck. And jeez -- disc started a few weeks ago and there's some more travel coming up, a couple of weddings and... well, you know the drill.

Hopefully I'll see you guys around, even if it takes a bit of time for me to hit equilibrium again.

365/365 The Dome

365/365 The Dome
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Reluctantly saw Avatar, and yeah, inconsistencies, plot holes and the potpourri of tropes and cliches, was still kinda awesome. Damn.

In other news, that's a Project 365 wrap. Worthwhile, but kinda glad to be done.

Off to the next project which will get rolling once we get back to Massachusetts.

364/365 Soupy San Ji Bao

364/365 Soupy San Ji Bao
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

We usually expect our xiao long bao to have a bit of broth, but even the guo tieh and san ji bao (shen jian bao?) dumplings at "Shanghai Restaurant" in San Gabriel are soupy enough to squirt on your shirt, into your teacup or up your nose without proper eating technique. All dericious, but our favs were definitely the pan-fried guo tieh.

363/365 Tempura at 1000 Cranes

363/365 Tempura at 1000 Cranes
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

362/365 Not Your Average Joe's

362/365 Not Your Average Joe's
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

LA Balboa Night at Great American Joe's Bar and Grill in Burbank, CA. (not to be confused with the New England "Not Your Average Joe's" regional chain or the national and thoroughly average Joe's American Bar & Grill franchise.) Live band, no cover (2-drink min, donations accepted by band), great dancing.

361/365 Dancing at the Cicada Club

361/365 Dancing at the Cicada Club
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Finally got to one of the dance venues in Los Angeles.

360/365 Friend and Fam

360/365 Friend and Fam
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

359/365 Holiday Treats

359/365 Holiday Treats
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

358/365 Flight Distraction

358/365 Flight Distraction
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

357/365 Hung and Lit

357/365 Hung and Lit
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

356/365 Actually, I had them all cut...

356/365 Actually, I had them all cut...
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

10...

Yes, I still make this joke all the time.

355/365 This Blows

355/365 This Blows
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Blow test before the blow-in cellulose insulation installation. Actually, it's pretty awesome -- the house was noticeably warmer when the work was completed.

10 days to go...

354/365 Here we go again

354/365 Here we go again
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Third snowfall, but first serious storm this winter -- probably about 16" and about 2 hours of shoveling.

353/365 The Tree

353/365 The Tree
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

352/365 A Silly Wine

352/365 A Silly Wine
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

In 1996, I worked on a project with a Camelot theme -- and at its completion, all the members received a bottle of this wine. I was never much of a wine guy to start with and lost my taste for chardonnays shortly after college, and it was too dorky a brand to be regifted. (seriously, Camelot wine?) We finally opened it up as a lark at a friend's birthday gathering -- a 16-year-old poorly-stored, no-name chardonnay. It was... interesting -- kinda weak and flat with some dried fruitiness you'd associate more with a port or brandy, I guess. I think I found more entertainment in it than anybody else who tried it, of the few who did.

People really didn't want to go there -- because after all, it is a silly place.

351/365 Too Many Cheesey Choices

351/365 Too Many Cheesey Choices
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Picking out cheese and cured meats at Formaggio Kitchen in Huron Village for a birthday meal. Really, it's more difficult to go wrong than it is to get carried away.

350/365 Candying Oranges

350/365 Candying Oranges
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

UPDATE: The dried oranges were actually more photogenic, but you take what you can get on a given day.

349/365 Portrait Day

349/365 Portrait Day
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Finally got a decent close up of the scaredy-kitteh, needed for another project.

348/365 The burden

348/365 The burden
Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

17 days left.

I'm kind of ready to be done with this project.