Posts

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Kidney down and uninsurable

Elise has a really bad kidney infection (it might just be a urinary tract infection). She’s had them in the past but this one is the big daddy. This one has her out for the count. She had to leave work early today to come home to lay down. In the eight years that I’ve known Elise I think she’s missed two days of work due to being sick.

I stopped at Central Market on my home from work today so I could buy her a bottle of pure cranberry juice. She’s laying relatively flat and comfortable on the couch right now. She’s still in a lot of pain and is hoping it will go away on its own before her doctors appointment tomorrow afternoon.

To add insult to injury I got a letter from Humana today. I’m not insurable because I’m an expectant parent. Me. The father.

So when we have our child, will I be uninsurable because I’m a parent? Will the auto insurance company call and tell me I can’t have insurance because I have a car? Then what? A dropped homeowner’s policy because I have a house?

I never really paid attention during political debates when the topic was healthcare and insurance. I will now.

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FCUK Him

I love the smell of green peppercorns. I love the smell so much that I did some poking around to see if I could find a cologne that contained green peppercorns.

Here’s what I found:

FCUK Him contains head notes of sangria, basil, rosemary and lavender, a heart of hemp, New Mexican black sage, green peppercorns and tea leaves and a drydown of black suede, CO2 vanilla, ebony wood and patchouli. [link]

“Josh, you smell fantastic. What are you wearing?”

“FCUK Him!”

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Janicek nano

For those who don’t frequent Apple.com:


Apple's iPod nano
The inspiration

Apple's iPod nano
The website

The iPod nano is one of the hottest consumer electronics on the market right now. I thought it would be cool to do a spoof on Apple.com’s current incarnation to make public the news that Elise and I are expecting.

Janicek nano — Millions of cells. Impossibly small.

No, we’re not going to name our first-born “Nano” and “Maly” hasn’t been discussed.

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New York Strip

Tonight I grilled New York strips topped with smoked mustard seeds and green peppercorns as well as sauteed cipollini and garlic. On the side: garlic mashed potatoes with bacon drippings.

This meal was inspired by our recent anniversary dinner at the Driskill Grill here in Austin.

Staples in steak grilling now are smoked mustard seeds and peppercorns. If someone hasn’t already created a cologne based on green peppercorns, I’m doing it… they have an amazing aroma!

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iBook uh oh

I left work yesterday afternoon and headed to Fry’s in north Austin via Hwy 1431. Traffic was a pain in the ass once I got to northwest Austin and 1431 is a road that’s best driven in a low profile sports car. Not a early-90s mini truck with no power steering.

I was on a mission to buy supplies in which to fabricate my own bus-powered external hard drive. Fry’s has clunky and ugly bus-powered enclosures and their 2.5″ hard drives are more expensive than I expected for Fry’s. So I held off on making any type of external storage purchase. Since I was there, I had to look around. I didn’t find anything that struck my fancy nor that I thought I had to have so I left.

I stopped in at the dollar store next to Fry’s. I needed some empty spray bottles for household and auto cleaning products. I picked up three of them. I walked to the register to find that there was a $7 minimum on purchases made with a debit card. I had to find four more items. Bandaids. Twizzlers. Air freshener. Shaving cream.

My debit card didn’t work. Our bank sent us new debit cards and I activated both of them. Apparently I have to have the PIN set. Wouldn’t you think your PIN would carry over?

So my Friday evening was a total dry run and waste of time.

I went home and pulled out my old external drive so I could backup the iBook. The iBook wouldn’t recognize the drive. Ugggghhhh! I plugged said drive into Elise’s laptop. Worked great. I messed around with this drive for at least an hour. I still couldn’t get it to mount on the iBook. I’d walk away and try again occassionally. It finally mounted and I started a backup.

Elise came home and I exlained my recent woes. I told I really didn’t want to, but it was looking like I was going to have to invest in quality, manufacturer-built external hard drive. She understood and agreed that this would be a worthy investment as I have, in the past, lost some important documents, website designs, photos, music, etc.

I left the iBook to back itself up and went to bed. I woke up this morning excited thinking I would find my external drive sitting on the kitchen table, where I left the night prior, with all of the iBook data backed up. Nope. It didn’t complete the backup. After a quick investigation I realized that the drive was full. So I started deleting older backups.

Elise woke up and needed to check her e-mail. I was kind of using her computer as well as the iBook. I handed over her laptop and she tried to open Firefox. “I can’t get online. Fix it!” So she handed over her laptop. I set her computer down in front of me and in doing so I accidentally bent the USB cable just perfectly so that it hit the power button on the external hard drive and turned it off.

Uggghhhh!

I started it up again and once again, the iBook can’t recognize it. I plugged it into Elise’s laptop and it’s recognized. Now I’m deleting 100 GBs of old data using Elise’s computer to see it will then be mountable on the iBook.

“But I still love technology.“

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Ride the spiral

If you read Janicek.com via a news aggregator, open your browser and visit the new site.

Elise and I are happy beyond words!

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Awesome veggie pizza

Here is a photo and simple description of an awesome vegetarian pizza that I made tonight for Monday Night Football!

Roasted fennel, garlic, cipollini onions and red bell pepper. Asiago, mozzarella and provolone cheeses and fresh basil from the garden. Mmmmm, good!

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Friggin\’ Hot

The AC in my monster truck went out on me this past Friday. I was driving home from work and I heard a “Thunk”, followed by a long “Flap”, and then a “Whizzzzzzzz”.

I figured I’d wait until the Spring before I get it looked at as I really won’t need it for quite a while. Or so I thought. I drove to work this morning as the temperature outside was a cozy 73 degrees. Driving home was a bitch. Black truck, no window tint, vinyl seats, black shirt and khaki pants.


Fall afternoon in Austin, TX

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Great pizza with roasted veggies

Here is a photo and simple description of an awesome vegetarian pizza that I made tonight for Monday Night Football!

Roasted fennel, garlic, cipollini onions and red bell pepper. Asiago, mozzarella and provolone cheeses and fresh basil from the garden. Mmmmm, good!

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More Than Meets the Eye

I was driving home this evening and for some reason had a vivid recollection of a conversation that I had with a classmate in the 4th grade.

Josh: Hey, Andy, we’re going to play Transformers during recess. I’m going to be Optimus Prime. Do you want to play with us?

Andy: Coooool! Yeah, I’ll play with you guys.

Josh: Cool!

Andy: My dad bought a new Nissan Maxima last week. Would it be okay if I was a Nissan Maxima?

Josh:

Andy: ?

Josh:

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4th Anniversary

4th Anniversary Creme Brulee
Happy Anniversary!

Elise and I celebrated our 4th anniversary yesterday. I took Elise out for a nice dinner at the Driskill Grill, a restaurant I’ve been wanting to try for years now.

Elise started the evening with a fine San Pellegrino while I opted for the Calera Pinot Noir.

We were then treated to an amuse-bouche. For the ladies it was a fingerling potato, green onion and korabuta bacon shooter. For the gentlemen a mint vinegar vichyssoise of halibut, hamachi and baby pearl onions.

For starters we shared the Hot Smoke Bandera Quail with Coriander Orange Curd, Patron Granita and Microcilantro. Elise liked the orange curd so much she thought about having a larger order later for dessert. The microcilantro was so amazingly fragrant (cilantro is my favorite herb) that it got me thinking about fabricating my own hydroponic herb garden.

Elise had the Charred Beef Tenderloin with Black Truffle Purée, Buttered Leeks and Smoked Mustard. I had the Mint and Peppercorn Crusted Rack of Lamb with Carrot Risotto and Cippolini Onions.

I don’t know why but I keep trying to convince myself that I really like lamb.

  Note to self:
You do not like lamb as much as you think you do.		  

Both meals were fantastic and the service was beyond anything we have ever experienced. Being a waiter at the Driskill Grill has to be an awesome job in that you have to eat everything on the menu, you have to know every ingredient and wine recommendations.

The two downfalls:

  1. We were at the restaurant for 2.5 hours, not by choice but by fine dining service standards. I would have liked to have been in and out in half that time.
  2. The experience was to “uppity” for us. We’re casual people.

We had a nice anniversary though. It was very quiet and layed back. We came back home after dinner. I watched the first episode of The Apprentice that I recorded and Elise conked out on the couch.

We’re such romantics.