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Sunday, November 23, 2003

Beer & Underappreciated Barmaids

Suzette and I went to the Saucer tonight. There was a guy there who ordered what he thought was a $2.50 draft—all North Carolina pints are $2.50 on Sundays—but the computer was wrong. Now, I'm not going to get into bashing the Saucer's sofware and web site tonight, no matter how easy that would be to do, but let me just say that it's wrong to charge the waitress for obvious mistakes. The brew was in the system as a draft, but it was a $15 bottle. The guy who ordered it probably figured that was his whole bar tab, and then some, for the evening.

Enter Fritz, the nice guy. I took the waitress aside and told her that if she was going to be hit for the compter's mistake that I'd just buy the thing. So I walked out with a 1-liter bottle of beer. Fun, but not what I'd planned.

Anyway, I got bonus points with the waitress (yes, I know her name, but that's not what this site is about) for doing the right thing. Do me a favor: overtip next time you're out. Those folks put up with far worse assholes than you, and they deserve a break once in a while.

By the way, Highland's Cold Mountain Winter Ale is a very pleasantly malty, somewhat spicy brew reminiscent of hazelnuts. And it comes in a big-ass 1-litre bottle.

Posted 11/23/2003 22:29 by Fritz | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Halloween backdate

I posted a few pics from Halloween. Please see this link.

Posted 11/23/2003 22:05 by Fritz | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Geek & Graphix is Live

I have finally finished the geek stuff for Geek & Graphix, my startup venture with my friend, Catherine Whitten. Take a look around, and let me know what you think.

Posted 11/23/2003 16:55 by Fritz | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Monday, November 17, 2003

Johnathan's Birthday

Posted 11/17/2003 20:30 by Fritz | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, November 16, 2003

Mike's 7th Birthday

Posted 11/16/2003 20:00 by Fritz | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, November 15, 2003

Backdating

I have caught up with a couple of posts: Binky's visit and my new seasonings.

Posted 11/15/2003 11:18 by Fritz | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thanksgiving Planning

Mom asked what she could bring, so it probably makes sense to figure out what all we're going to have and go from there.

Of this, I get to do the turkey, stuffing, and gravy this year because I'm hosting it. I've also already bought the olives and pickles for the relish tray as well as the jellied cranberry sauce. I have also prepared and frozen the yelllow squash, and I am going to make another batch of the German red cabbage, because we ate more of it than I expected when I fixed it a month or so ago. I'll also get the refrigerator dough going by Monday or so of Thanksgiving week for the rolls and sticky buns.

Still to be decided is whether we want to make a tradition of Mama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish. We have a bottle of "gourmet" horseradish cranberry stuff for sandwiches, but I don't know if we've decided yet whether to have the original on the table.

Mom is fixing the ham—very untraditional with my family, but I'm learning to be flexible with respect to Suzette's. Suzette's tradition also includes the macaroni & cheese (I love adding new side dishes to the table), so I'll leave that to her.

As for stuff to make the day before or more ahead of time, I guess that leaves the whole berry sauce, desserts—I prepared some fresh pumpkin, which was typically disappointing, so I have bought a can of the stuff—and deviled eggs. The potatoes, green beans, and peas can't really be made until that day.

I know I'm being greedy. Except for the ham, I'm really pretty content to do it all myself. :-)

Posted 11/15/2003 09:48 by Fritz | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Thursday, November 13, 2003

Slacking

Just too damned lazy to post lately. I have a few things to add; it's just a matter of getting myself to do it. I worked a couple of weeks ago on what will be a new home for my side business, but my business partner has been laid up, so I've been spending time with an old flame. I'll catch up eventually and backdate accordingly.

Posted 11/13/2003 07:18 by Fritz | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, November 10, 2003

snurgy

I spent the day in an off-site meeting to work on a "mission statement" and come up with a new name for my department. The other thing I got out of it is a word I've decided to coin:

snur · gy adj. The emotion one experiences after spending a day narrowly avoiding non-sarcastic use of business speak.
etym. Snurgy is a vaguely onomatopoetic word, reminiscent of the sound one makes as his small intestine squeezes all the air out of his lungs to prevent inane utterances such as "shifting paradigm", "value add", "thinking outside of the box", or referring to questions about unexpected relocation of constipatory dairy products.
Ex. Wow! I'm glad that reorg announcement meeting is over. If it had gone on another 15 minutes, I would have had to call in to work snurgy tomorrow.

Posted 11/10/2003 16:00 by Fritz | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, November 2, 2003

Binky!

My old Air Force roommate and long time friend, Craig "Binky" Doubt, came up to visit for the weekend and brought his son Craig (a.k.a. "Man"). Binky had a wedding to attend at the Renaissance Festival just up the road, so it was a good excuse to get together. The usual stuff: up late talking, a trip with other friends to the Flying Saucer, and so on.

At some point in going through pictures after the late unpleasantness, I stumbled across an old picture of Binky and me holding our baby boys back in 1989. Things have changed.

I just noticed that Binky's shirt in 1989 is from "Drunken State University", while mine is 2003 is from the Saucer. With a little luck, it won't be so long until the next shot that the young guys are wearing the beer shirts.

Posted 11/02/2003 19:00 by Fritz | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Spices

Every year or so, I head to a bulk natural food store—these days it's the Home Economist in Davidson, North Carolina—and replace my herbs and spices, wash the bottles, make new labels, etc. It's always a good chance to get back in touch with my love of cooking, and I'm invariably inordinately proud of the result. And now I have a digital camera.

Posted 11/02/2003 11:00 by Fritz | Comments (0) | TrackBack