Absolute BS

Tonight we didn’t feel like going to the store so I thought I’d play a little Survivor: Kitchen. I found a chicken breast in the freezer, so I let it defrost in some teriaki/peanut oil/salt/peper and then sauted it with onion, red and green peppers, and an orange. The sauce was mostly (and probably too much) orange juice with a little plum sauce (no idea why I have this) and sriracha. I added a little brown sugar at the end because it wasn’t sweet enough. The chicken was a little over cooked because I left it in the wok while the sauce was reducing, but overall it was pretty good and it didn’t get voted off the Island.

I’ve blogged before about how horrible the AT&T service on my iPhone is, and how unrepentent they seem to be. Well JD Power has a press release out today, optimistically titled Overall, Wireless Carriers Reduce Dropped Calls, Failed Connections and Static, Driving an Improvement in Call Quality Performance. What’s funny (sad?) is that AT&T isn’t mentioned even once in their press release. I guess they’re heeding the old advice, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all,” because AT&T ranked DEAD LAST in call quality in the West, Southwest, Southeast, and Northeast. They did rank 2nd in the Mid Atlantic and North Central (3-way tie), but that doesn’t help me living in Arizona, or anyone else living anywhere outside of Maryland or Ohio maybe (what is the north central anyway?).

This is not a surprise to me, because this is the reason I’m planning on leaving AT&T as soon as my original iPhone contract expires next month. What is a surprise is that they’re still allowed to advertise as having “More bars in more places.” I think they get away with this by crafting their messages to emphasize that they have better coverage “worldwide.” Which is not really true anyway since they just piggyback on other carriers’ networks, and then charge outrageous rates that range from $0.79/minute in Canada, $0.99/min in Mexico, $1.29/min in most of Europe, all the way up to $2.29/min in Japan, and $2.49/min in the U.A.E., which has the most cell phones per capita of any country in the world. But hey, they just say they have the bars, not that you can afford to use them.

Not that I am a much of a globetrotter, but T-mobile has probably the same international coverage as AT&T (since AT&T likely uses T-mobile’s European network extensively), and their international roaming rates are mostly cheaper as well, $.49 in Canada, $0.99 in europe, $1.49 in Mexico, $1.99 in Japan, $1.99 in UAE.

So my plan is to switch to T-mobile as soon as possible and give the HTC Magic/MyTouch Android device a try. And if I don’t like that, I can always fall back to my trusty 2G iPhone, which is already unlocked for use outside of AT&T’s crappy network.

I’ve always loved pizza, and in my quest to make pizza at home that tastes better than pizza I can buy, I purchased “American Pie” by Peter Reinhart. The book is an interesting read about Peter’s search around the globe for the perfect pizza (which, incidentally, he finds at Pizzaria Bianco in Phoenix), but it also contains recipes for every type of pizza crust imaginable. I tend to agree with Mr. Reinhart as I usually prefer thin, crispy crusts, ala Napoletana. But I though I’d try something different the other day, so I made his Chicago-style cornmeal deep dish crust in a 9 inch cake pan. It was the best pizza I’ve made at home so far. The cust wasn’t too dry, it was oozing with cheese, mushrooms, sausage, and pepperoni, and I could only eat a slice of it before I was full.

The nice thing about this crust is that, according to Reinhart, it doesn’t benefit from a night in the fridge, so you can make this one on relatively short notice (only about 3 hours of total rise time). I’m glad I made enough dough for 2 pies

I read an interesting idea about budgeting spending money last week, and I was waiting for a new pay period to give it a try. So I started April 25th by going to the bank and withdrawing 14 tens and 14 fives ($210 total). I happened to have $39 in my wallet so we’ll see how cheap I have to be when we go out tonight

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Updated Monday 4/27
Starting on a Saturday was tough. I put golf on the credit card and proceeded to spend all $54 at the course, dinner, and the bars after, although that’s probably less than I would have spent if not on this budget. And since I didn’t spend anything on Sunday, I helped myself to coffee and a danish from starbucks today, and I’m left with $26 in the wallet on Monday night. Not too bad.

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Updated Friday 5/1
This week went pretty well. I had a few lunches out and a happy hour on Thursday, but I’m sitting here at 5:22pm on friday with $21 in my pocket. And I even loaned a buddy $20 that he’s paying back tonight, so I’ll be off to San Diego tomorrow morning with a little over $50!

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For valentine’s day this year, MB and I went backpacking for 3 days/2 nights down on Mt. Lemmon in Tucson. We were joined by my buddy Simmons, another couple, Eve and Eric, and the new dog, Barñardo. It was quite a fun trip, and we want to go back once it warms up so we can jump in some of the pools. We found a couple great campsites, but the best was the second day where we were off-trail a little, perched on a cliff overlooking Bear Canyon towards Tucson. It’s pretty neat that you can be this close to a huge city and still feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere.

More pictures here

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I’d like to introduce everyone to the newest member of the family, Teavie:

MB has been begging for months, and I finally relented and got her a new friend for the house for Christmas. I looked around for a long time and I think she’s the best possible kind available, and will be a good fit for our lifestyle. Isn’t she beautiful? She’s my new best friend, and I spend at least 4 hours a day playing with her. She loves playing football with me all weekend, and she gets along great with all my friends (although the men seem to like her more than the women). She doesn’t like to go on walks, but she seems right at home if we’re all just sitting around in the same room with her.

She’s just under 50 pounds; gorgeous black with a just a few highlights. She was born February 14th, which makes her almost a year old, but that’s ok because I read that their lifespan is at least 10 years. And since I work from home, we get to be together almost all day long! To anyone out there who’s been thinking about adding to the family, I have to say this was the best purchase I’ve made in years, and I fully recommend it — just do your research before hand because it is a major responsibility. Our lives haven’t been the same since I brought her home, and I don’t know how I ever lived without her in the first place!

Oh yeah, we got a dog too. He’s a border collie named Barñardo.

I ordered a macro lens for my camera this week for taking pictures of bugs, and it arrived today, so I went out back to try it out. I ended up finding one of the weirdest looking bugs I’ve ever seen. Looks like some kind of a tick or mite, and there were 2 or 3 of them (including this one which was a baby I think) on a cactus outside.

Up close and personal with a cactus:

I think I’m going to like this lens.

After stuffing my face with ribs on July 4th I grabbed this shot of some clouds coming as the sun started to set.

This woodpecker has been living in my palm tree for a month or so, and he’s usually quite camera shy. I managed to snap this picture over Memorial Weekend.

I caught this photo of some bees romping in the cacti flowers and couldn’t resist the voyeuristic urge to snap a photo. Way to go, you two!

(click for big)