Indian Food!

 So about two weeks ago I went out to eat with my good friend Chris. Whenever he comes into town we always make sure we try something new or have an adventure.

 

Our first adventure started by going to a museum about O. Winston Link. It was a small museum dedicated to this guy who took pictures of steam locomotives for a living. It was very cool. We saw some art, some train parts, a small video and called it a day.

 

When we were done we decided we were hungry. So after going through the normal, burgers, salad, Mexican, seafood, etc. I told him we had an Indian restaurant, but I had never been. Chris was like then there are no other options, we must go!

 

Our adventure was on a sleepy Sunday afternoon and the place was mostly empty. When we sat down we were told about the buffet. After ordering waters we asked for menus just to see if anything jumped off the page. Seeing as I have never tried Indian food before, I really didn't know what I was reading or pictuing in the head. After about 2 minutes, we decided the small buffet would be the best options. Try a little bit of everything.

 

After handing our menus back to the server we headed up to the line. The picture below what I had on my first round. 

 

 

 

Book Review - 30 Lessons for Living, Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans, by Karl Pillemer, Ph.D.

For the last few months I’ve been trying to bring reading back into my life. Partly because I got rid of my cable so I just have the basic channels. Do you know how few channels are available late at night with anything even remotely interesting? The selection is so poor that lately I’ve just kept it on a channel that tells me about local weather. Funny thing is I still have no idea what it’s supposed to be each day.

Anyway, not only did I want to get caught up with what all the cool kids were reading, like The Hunger Games series, or The Immortal Instruments series, I figured between my entertainment books I should read some non-fiction. If you remember form my adventure to my local Library finding books, good books is actually quite hard when you have been out of the what books are good to read loop.

Sure, you go could on line and try and find a list that has the top selling books. However, there are about a million lists out there. So that doesn’t really help. So I put my faith in my local librarian and just walked over to the new arrival section and looked for something that had an interesting title or picture. This time it was the title, it sounded interesting and so did the front cover flap thing. So I checked it out.

What is 30 Lesson for Living, Tried and True Advice from the wisest American, all about? Well, the author, Karl Pillemer, decided to go around and interview thousands of what he calls “experts.” They were men and women from all walks of life that were/are 65 years old and older. He asked the experts questions and advice about marriage, child rearing, careers, living without regret, choosing happiness, and about aging in general.

This was a fantastic book that I highly recommend. I thoroughly enjoyed the way it was written with examples, quotes, true stories, which were all easily broken down into sections. Over all, this was a very well put together book.  

Part of me is jealous of Karl Pillemer experience of talking with so many people about their lives. This is because I am such a huge fan of stories. He was able to talk with them about all the good bad, sad, and happy stories, alone is amazing.

Call me Paul

So, this weekend, with the help of my parents, we started to cut up a big oak tree that fell during a big storm we had about a month ago. This oak tree first caused us some concern when after another storm one of the branches had fell. At first glance, it looked like a tree had fallen in my yard, but no, it was just a branch. Yes, the branch was that big we had to question if it a tree was donw. We cut that one up, and created a small pile of wood in the back yard and called it a day.

The big storm that ended up taking down the rest of the tree. The picture about is the downed oak tree. I first thought there was the possibility of a tornado. 

When the storm starting to hit I was freaked out by all the winds, leaves and branches hitting the windows, and just the trees bending like gymnastic stars. I quickly lost power and found myself in the basement with no power, a few small candles, my phone thankfully charged, and wondering if I should take cover under something heavy? That or start looking for some buckets of water. I figured it would be a safe way to protect my friends when we met the Wicked Witch of the West. “Give me your Chuck Taylor's!” “No!” Throw the water on the witch, “I’m melting! I’m melting!” They story would end faster but we’ve all seen it so that’s like 3 hours of time saved.

During this storm, which caused millions of people to loose power and even more money lost due to damages. Luckily, only this tree came down. It missed my porch probably by only like 4 inches, but still, no harm no foul.  Not owning a chain saw, and not really one to play with power tool by myself, I waited until my parents came to visit and with their help chopped up the tree. I did ask, at one point if I could use the chain saw. Whenever the parents are around, I always feel like I'm 16 so asking is a must. After a few minutes of debate and hesitation my step dad gave in.

He told me how to hold the chainsaw, where to push the little power button to make the chain move, and was standing next to me advising me to move my feet and how to try and cut this big branch etc. Wow, chains saws are hard work! I had no idea all the body parts that were engaged when cutting stuff down. At one point I thought I was going to have to stop because my abs were starting to cramp. ABS! How in the world are those things  being worked? Everyone else always makes it look flawless and easy and I'm about to be bested by a dead tree branch. My arms were straining, I think I stopped blinking and breathing trying to push this spinning blade through this tree.

I cut two sections and gladly gave the chainsaw back to my step-dad to let him use his skills. I'll drag any tree or branches to the side of the road. I can now say I've used the chain saw, and I'd try it again but on anything big like this oak.. I might pass.

Good news, I have lots of firewood for camping!