Recent blog entries for rooneg

So Joanna and I went to the "Futures at Fenway" double header yesterday.

Well, we went to the first 15 innings of it anyway, the first game (Lowell Spinners versus the Hudson Valley Renegades) went 12 innings until Lowell managed to drive in the game winning run with a bases loaded single, and since we're dog sitting this weekend and needed to get home in a fairly reasonable time we decided to bail early on the Paw Sox.  We figured that we were going to have to leave early in order to get home in time to let the dog out before her bladder exploded, and if we weren't going to be able to stay until the end of the game we might as well bail after the third inning, since at that point we'd been sitting in the sun for over 5 hours.

In any event, things we learned from the game:

1. Man Fenway park really lets you get up close and personal with the players.  We had seats a few rows back from the visitor's duggout, and it's astonishing how close that really is to the action.  It's easy to lose track of that from the bleachers or grandstand seats we usually end up in for Red Sox games.
2. Minor league games are fun, although the number of silly games and distractions they did between innings for the first game were a bit much in my opinion.  I mean are people there to watch baseball or to see some kids dance with the mascots?
3. Wow the single A players look young.  The triple A guys look pretty much the same as any major league player, but the single A guys look like they're practically right out of high school.
4. This is probably the most cost effective way to see a game in Fenway park from the really nice seats.  We payed 30 bucks a ticket for our seats on stub hub (face value was 20), and the closest equivalent seats I can find there for the next Red Sox home game are over 400 dollars each.

Anyway, well worth the money, and a good time was definitely had.  I'll post some pictures on Flickr once I've had a chance to get them off my camera.

Well, as of this morning Joanna and I are now officially home owners.  After far too much stressing over the last few months about obtaining a mortgage and getting appraisals and whatnot we finally closed on our house.  We signed and initialed a ridiculous number of forms ("Here, this one is in triplicate, please initial all 15 pages and sign and date at the bottom of page 14"), and handed over the largest check I've ever held, but it's done and we're extremely happy about it.

It's a little weird, we've been living here since November so we don't have the traditional "get the keys at the closing and run over to unlock the door and go into your house for the first time" kind of experience.  On the bright side, we don't actually have to move anything in, which is always nice ;-)

So, I don't know what the odds are of this happening, but I've gotta think that they're pretty slim.

Joanna and I just got back from seeing our second consecutive no hitter at Fenway Park.  The final game we went to last year was Clay Buchholz's no hitter, and today's no hitter by Jon Lester was the first game we managed to get tickets for this year.

We're pretty sure that it goes without saying that the Red Sox should really start sending the occasional pair of tickets our way, just to see if we can keep this streak alive ;-)

Joanna and I got married on Saturday, and despite some weather related drama the evening was a resounding success.  Hopefully I'll find the time to post some more detailed recollections later, but for now I just wanted to point people to some preliminary pictures.

We had our reception at the Museum of Science in Boston, but the museum itself was closed by the time the reception started, so we couldn't take any of the obligatory "Bride, Groom and Dinosaur" pictures.  Not ones to let something like that get in the way, we went back on Sunday afternoon, and here are the results.

Anyway, we're off to San Diego tomorrow for our honeymoon.  Talk to you guys when we get back!

Is it just me, or was today's Red Sox v Blue Jays game just a textbook example of why it's freaking stupid to save your best relief pitchers for the 8th and 9th innings.  I mean for crying out loud, Okajima and
Papelbon were used anyway because they needed the work, is it too much to ask that you put one of them in for the bases loaded situation in the 5th?  Instead we get Manny Delcarmen who happily gives up a grand slam, and by the time the decent pitchers are put in the game is already out of hand and there's nothing they can do to help win it.  Sigh.  I mean we're talking about a team that employs Bill James, you'd think that this idea would at least be kicking around in their heads, and in situations like today when there's zero down side to trying it out they would at least give it a shot.

Why is it that people in the various industries associated with weddings lack the ability to a) give a clear answer to questions when asked and b) actually answer more than one question at a time.  This doesn't seem like too much to ask, but clearly we're setting the bar a bit too high for these geniuses...

So, I just bought tickets to a San Diego Padres game, since Joanna and I are going to be out in San Diego in April for our honeymoon, and it turns out the team will be in town.

As a Red Sox fan who's been frantically trying to buy whatever tickets were available over the past few years, can I just say that this was a totally different experience.  I mean, tickets went on sale today, and I was actually able to buy them!  Field box seats, third base line, right up close, and actually paying face value, this is a bit of a change of pace for me.  I know in theory that there are places where it's actually possible to buy tickets for a baseball game without having to take out a second mortgage or sell your first born child, but every time I actually encounter it I'm completely blown away.

Anyway, since we're saving for the down payment on the house it's looking like we won't be getting many chances to see the Red Sox this year, so at least we'll be getting some in person baseball in, even if it's the Padres versus the Rockies.

I'm in the process of switching my main email setup over to Google Apps for Domains, which means there are currently some DNS changes making their way through the internet.  So if you have trouble getting in touch with me via email over the next day or so that's probably why.

So, for Christmas Joanna and I got a copy of the New England Soup Factory Cookbook.  We've been a big fan of the restaurant  (which has a location right down the street from her office) for a long time now, and were anxious to give some of the recipes a try at home.

So far we've made their Chili Con Carne (short version: it came out great, although you have to mess with the seasoning a bit to get the flavor they have in the store.  It was also better after freezing and thawing out a few weeks later) and their Spicy Chicken and Rice Flu Chaser (short version: awesome, it tasted great, and while it wasn't as spicy as the version from the store I'm almost convinced that was better, as the store's version may be a little too spicy).  Anyway, last week we decided to try out the Hearty and Rich Beef Stew.  Here are a few notes on how the process went.

First note:  It turns out we didn't have the required equipment.  They want you to precook the meat in either a dutch oven or a braising pan, which you will later use to cook the actual stew.  So, we ended up cooking the meal at Joanna's parents house.  They did have most of the required equipment, and were going to be getting home from a vacation that night anyway so we were able to surprise them with a nice dinner when they showed up.  We did vary things slightly by cooking the actual stew in some large casserole dishes instead of in the same pan we used for the meat though.  It still worked.

Second note:  It's annoyingly easy to end up with an overly smoky kitchen searing the meat.  Make sure the olive oil doesn't burn, or you'll be venting the room out for a while like we did.  I think it was a combination of the stove being hotter than the recipe intended and the cast iron pan we were using to brown the meat being less than entirely level, resulting in some parts of the pan with way less oil on it than intended.

Third note:  The recipe (this holds true for all of the NESF recipes actually) makes a LOT of stew.  We ran out of room in the first dish we were cooking it in and had to use two.  Good thing Joanna's parents have a well stocked kitchen.

Fourth note:  Next time we might go with the frozen onions instead of fresh ones. The fresh ones require substantial time spent peeling, and since we don't like onions overly much it seems like a bit of a waste.  On the other hand you do cook everything with them when they're fresh, so they may add some useful flavor.  The frozen variety get added in at the end, so you get less of that.  We''ll see.

Anyway, other than those small issues everything worked out well.  It tasted great, both the day of cooking and the next day reheated.  We'll definitely make this again.  On a sort of meta note, this is an awesome cookbook, and I highly recommend it.

Joanna's parents are out of town this week, so we're dogsitting.

It has become somewhat clear that our house is not well equipped for a dog.  There are far too many things at mouth level, so Sierra keeps ending up chewing on things that really shouldn't be chewed on.  It's not her fault though, I mean she is a dog, and she at least makes up for it by being really cute.

Particularly amusing is when she stands over the vents in the floor looking down into the heating system.  She seems convinced that there's something interesting down there, and if she looks hard enough she'll find a way in.  Similarly she is very very interested in finding a way up into the loft above our bedroom that doesn't involve the not-available-to-dogs spiral staircase.  There isn't actually another way up, but that hasn't kept her from devoting some serious time to the problem, when she hasn't been occupied with sniffing every square inch of the house.