9-30-2011

It's Friday night and we're doing something fun/stupid. Isn't that what you're supposed to do on Friday nights? Well, with every other post on my blog being about my peppers, I'm sure you've figured out that I like eating spicy foods. And considering that all the other post not about my peppers are about grilled cheese, I'm sure you've figured out that I like eating Melt. Well when I found out that they were making a sandwich that you had to sign a legal waiver to eat, we had to go right? This is the Ghost Chili (Bhut Jolokia) sauce that all the hype was about. As you can tell, the sauce was a lot of hype and just a little bit of ghost pepper since we were dipping our fries in it, but it was still really good.

9-29-2011

Soaking drowning flooded dripping though my clothes drenched. Five miles in the rain at night. Easy.

9-28-2011

I've been telling Nicole about this guy ever since we moved into our house four years ago, but never actually got a picture until now. Every few days I see this guy walking along my way to work. He's lost a ton of weight, but that's not the point. Whenever I see him he's walking with a little stick. I call it a "hitter." Unless he's running a relay and I've never seen the hand off, I'm pretty sure he constantly stays prepared to fend off attackers on his walk around the block.

9-27-2011

Two days down and so far I'm still breathing. I don't normally post a lot of details like this on my blog, but here's another version of today's picture in case they find me dead in the street, and this blog is the only way that they can figure out that my cause of death was massochistic and borderline suicidal. This is going to be a really fun month!

9-26-2011

I don't know who we should really blame for this one. It's easy to assume that it was my running obsession that caused us to make such a rash and senseless decision, but if you look a little closer, you'll notice that this race is at a winery. Clearly someone else may have had some ulterior motives in the selection process. No matter who's at fault, we've made a pact to murder our legs and social lives. The countdown to 13.1 starts tonight. THERE ARE NO REFUNDS.

9-25-2011

I make messes. Sorry, Nicole's car.

9-24-2011

I know I post too much about both running and my peppers, but it was really pretty and sunny today, so my favorite things I did all day were going running in the sun (no pictures) and hanging my peppers to dry in the sun.

9-23-2011

So as much as I complain about this place almost all the time, I'm a born and raised Cleveland person. I think anyone who's lived here for any extended length of time has strong opinions on the city both good and bad, but in the end the good must outweigh the bad or else we would all live somewhere else. In any case, the late Harvey Pekar is unquestionably the iconic person from Cleveland with strong opinions, and someone that this city can be really proud of. To this end, I was incredibly proud and totally blown away when I found out that an illustration drawn directly from something that I painted made it into one of the last novels he wrote before his death. I found out months ago, but couldn't talk about it until it was published, then slacked on actually picking up a copy. Well I got my copy tonight and I'm really excited about it. Cleveland.

Speaking of things to be proud of in Cleveland, we went to one of my favorite places to get food tonight. Yeah, even after traveling across the ocean to one of the premier culinary centers in the world, I'm still super happy about going to a divey bar and getting fancy vegetarian hot dogs. Cleveland.

9-22-2011

That's pretty much exactly what it looks like, though I will point out that the guy in the corner came in pushing a woman in a wheel chair, ended up begging us for money, then left with the woman walking and pushing her own wheel chair.

None of that is as interesting, adorable or delicious as the bear muffins that Nicole made for dinner tonight. Are bear muffins vegetarian? Because I'm sure that barbecue isn't.

9-21-2011

I remember I posted a picture of all out autumn leaves from this same spot last year (10-18-10), but fall is just starting to start to get ready to start again this year, and I thought that this was worth stopping to look at on the way home tonight.

9-20-2011

It's been over a week, but I'm still blaming jetlag for coming home and taking naps before running. I'll probably be jetlagged until next summer.

9-19-2011

I bet you money that my family is crazier than your family.

9-18-2011

Yeah, I have a sewing machine and I know how to sew. I also now have new jeans that are the right length.

9-17-2011

Wow, yeahh...we're definitely back in the Midwestern United States when there's chubby girls unironically dressed up as cowboys at the gas station. I can't save plane ticket money fast enough.

While we're here though, we might as well have fun right? So today, Nicole thought it would be fun to finally go try Flip Side for cheeseburgers. 'Cause she likes meat and stuff. After all the Cheeseburger Touring that we've done, I'm pretty picky, and have a lot of experience to compare places to. So at first, I wasn't too impressed and felt like we've already been to (a little too) similar places...then quickly changed my mind. Flip Side might not be the most original place that I've ever been too, but they have a cheeseburger with wild and fried mushrooms with a truffle mayonnaise. We already know my opinion of truffle anything.

I will say though, I probably post about mushrooms a little too often. It's hard not to when I keep having strange experiences involving mushrooms. For example, we came across these today. At first, I optimistically hoped that we came across a free chanterelle garden, but upon closer inspection recognized these as jack-o-lantern mushrooms. They aren't kill-you-poisonous, but they'll definitely make you sick if you eat them. Supposedly they're bioluminescent too, but they didn't glow when we tried to see it. On top of that, Nicole found this little giant puffball mushroom growing in our yard today. Unfortunately it was too old to eat. See, strange experiences involving mushrooms.

I don't think I've posted about Ingenuity Festival on here before because I've been out of town/avoided it the past few years because it tends to be really hyped up and actually pretty lame. Well, we decided to go at least for a little bit this year. It's supposed to be about technology and art doing exciting stuff...but yeah...it's pretty much as artistic and technological as girls with Christmas lights and sparklers. The best part of the whole thing is that they have it at an abandoned subway line inside of a bridge that you can't access the rest of the year. See, bridge. The first time I went, I was super excited about looking down while standing on grates out over the river. This time for some reason even that wasn't quite as exciting. On top of that, we went to see a band that I like. Typical of this festival, the space was awesome (other than the horrible acoustics), but the setup was horrible. They put chairs (full of tired old people who just wanted to sit down apparently) in the front, and left standing room for people who don't even like music to watch from the back. This was literally the singular only lone individual girl that was dancing and looked like she was having any fun at all. In any case, since I went and shot it, here are some pictures from the set.

Spinning keyboard
Lights
More lights
This is the stage
Throwing stuff
Yelling face
Another angle

To save the day, we found a bunch of fair food stands to save the day. It's pretty sad when the best part of an art and technology festival is eating junk food, but to be fair eating junk food is more fun than most activities. This reminded me of Europe. The most interesting parts are the parts that you can't get to. I know I've posted this tripped out punk rock dude on here before because I see him various places dancing by himself for hours at a time. He likes to party. Party!