Booth Shopping - Wishing for Art

This weekend we went to the Mount Dora Art Festival.

I'd never been to Mount Dora's before and I don't know why but I expected it to be small compared to the Winter Park Art Festival but man were we surprised. It was huge! It was well planned, well laid out and super busy. The quality of art was really impressive.

I always take the business cards of the artists that I really like and add them to a growing list so that one day when I can afford to buy art I know who to go to. Here is who I added to the list this year:

John Moran Photography he had all sorts of amazing shots, mostly of Florida Flora and Fauna. I tend to be more impressed by photographers who can capture an amazing shot vs one who can add all sorts of filters and techniques after the shot - John had a little of of technique but most of his stuff is exactly what I like.

Jackson Junge has a sort of etherial style. Some of his pieces are abstract with lots of subtle shapes and colors while others are fun and whimsical representations of themed alcohol.

Lilian's Oils on Canvas - I wasn't in love with the colors she uses but her technique was great, you can't tell in her online gallery but she gives the flowers a great 3D effect with the oils. This was my favorite.

The craziest artist of the day was the couple at Out of Paradise - when you walk up it looks like their frames contain gorgeous paintings with smooth gradients, bright colors and intricate details, but upon closer examination they aren't paintings but embroidery. It's absolutely mind blowing the effect the manage to get, here's a picture from their website but it really doesn't do their work justice at all.

I did buy one thing, an anklet. It's woven of this really sturdy fiber and has delicate silver studs woven in. It has a clasp so I can remove it as well. It's a really unique piece. I wish the artist had a website I could share but all they have is a phone number. Jenna Hirt of Tying Tribes - 352-219-8039.

Our Next Home...

Looks like a normal house in Winter Park only this one is on Key Biscayne. $8.5 mil!

Bowl o' Rum

The cups weren't big enough for 'Chryle' sized rum'n'cokes....

Jimmy Buffett Miami 2012 Set List

List of songs played on 1/28/12:

1. The Wino and I Know

2. License to Chill

3. Cuban Crime of Passion 

4. 5 O'Clock Somewhere

5. Grapefruit Juicy Fruit 

6. Come Monday 

7. Jamaica Mistaka

8. Pencil Thin Mustache

9. Everybody's Got a Cousin in Miami 

10. Volcano

11.  Cheeseburger on Paradise

12.  One Particular Harbor

(break) Creola

13. Knee Deep (cover Zach Brown)

14. Havana Daydreaming

15. Get Drunk and Screw

16. Margaritaville

17. Last Mango in Paris

18. Changes in Latitude Changes in Attitude

19. Son of a Son of a Sailor

20.  Pascagoula Run

21. Pirate Looks at 40

22. Back Where I Come From (cover of Mac MacNally)

23. Southern Cross

Encore:

24. Fins

25. We Are the People our Parents Warned Us About

26. Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season

Last Mango in Paris

Last night our friends Kyle and Rachel arrived for our Jimmy Buffett weekend. Last night we enjoyed 4R followed by Kyle's Key Lime Pie and margaritas.

Now we're about half way to Miami. The concert starts at 7pm, tailgating at 5pm. Rachel is trying to get as much studying done as she can since she has to take a big exam on Monday. The rest of us however plan to chill in Miami until Monday afternoon.

I love mini vacations and maybe after tonight I'll love Jimmy too.

This is your Life

Another Manic Monday

Tonight we felt like being chefs. Earlier Chris went to a new local butcher shop and got some naturally raised and fed, local ground Chicken.  While I made red sauce Chris made us some meat balls.

I started with chopped onion and lots of garlic, added chili oil, salt, pepper and dried spices, once those flavors had mingled (and delightfully filled my house) I added a large can of pureed tomatoes and let the whole thing simmer for an hour.

Chris mixed the ground chicken with some spices and bread crumbs, then placed them in a pan and rolled them around until crispy. Then he covered the pan and left them on low for a bit to ensure the poultry had cooked all of the way through.

We added both of our masterpieces to a bed of linguine and topped it off with a side of garlic sunflower seed bread.

For dessert we made 'ice cream' again. In the afternoon Chris slided a ripe banana and a few strawberries, placed them on wax paper and in the freezer. After dinner we dumped them both into our blender and patiently pureed them into Strawberry Banana 'Ice Cream'. Yummy, though I will say that this combo did taste more like a smoothie. Next time we plan to try Banana Peach.

We paired the meal with the movie Larry Crowne which Chris rolled his eyes through but I thought was great. It was funny and cute, Tom Hanks is such an amazing actor though, it's hard for him to make a bad film...overall not a bad Monday.

Paddling Away a Sunday

We spent a couple hours kayaking around Lake Ivanhoe in the shadow of downtown Orlando today. Since it's more like three connected lakes there's plenty to explore in theory, our challenge was that we really enjoy the wildlife and since Ivanhoe is so polluted there really isn't much. We did spy plenty of birds though, I even managed to capture several in flight.

Even without any gator or turtle spottings it was still nice to get outdoors and get moving. Next time I think we'll take the time to drive out of the city though where wildlife is more abundant.

Butternut

Guess what I made tonight... It has a kick this time! Recipe is here.

Banana Goodness

Tonight we tried Banana "Ice Cream", a recipe from the Esselstyn cook book.

• Take super ripe banana (we used 1.5 larger) and slice.
• Place slices on wax paper and freeze.
• Place frozen banana in a blender and blend.
• Result is Banana "Ice Cream".

We were quite dubious, as I'm sure you can imagine. It was AMAZING! Creamy and sweet, almost too sweet for me. We at it with sliced strawberries and it was devine. The 1.5 bananas made just enough for us to split.

Next time I'll freeze some peaches as well and try adding other fruit flavors in. Apparently any fruit that is softer (peaches, berries, mango etc) can be mixed in to add flavor.

I highly recommend trying this. It's awkward to blend, you'll want to add milk or water or something, but just stick with it - it's well worth the effort.

A Pilot's Diet for Him

I am so proud of Chris. Being a pilot eating well is an incredible challenge. He's constantly in airports and hotels which means eating at restaurants. But with on new commitment to a lifestyle change he's had to really step it up.

We committed to get meat out of the house, but he does still eat chicken while on the road occasionally. He's nixed the cheese all together though! For the most part he's been getting salads and veggies, wraps and he's even been taking fruit and trail mix with him when he leaves.

Since he's spending a lot of time in his crash pad, being on reserve, he's also been taking left overs from home, life the veggie chili I'm sending him off with this trip. Last trip he took a huge ziploc full of salad and the time before that a bag of curried cabbage.

Being surrounded by other pilots who eat poorly, and with things like a TGIFridays deal of a $5 to-go burger for pilots I know it's not at all easy to stay committed. But he has and it shows, he's pants are all hanging on him, he's out of belt notches and his collars all loose.

As for me, I'm quite annoyed at my body, I lost 20lbs in the first two weeks and nothing since. It's been nearly 3 months! BUT my pants are all loose, my shirts fit better and I can actually see the slight outline of my clavicle again so there's definitely some sort of shift going on. I just wish it would make itself apparent on our scale!

On another note, while Chris and I may be moving toward a healthier lifestyle, Roger has become quite the addict. He actually sleeps with his catnip filled Christmas mouse doll...he's licks it until it's a soggy mess, it's quite disturbing.

New Home Away from Home

I started a new contract mid-December which came with a new office. It's a really cool building and I'm lucky enough to sit on the ground floor right near the lobby. Not only does this mean I have a short walk to my desk, but I also get super duper vaulted ceilings. I sit in an area referred to as The Fishbowl because it is just a mini cubicle farm encased in glass. Above the fishbowl is a massive skylight and the backside is all windows that are literally on the water of the lake.

The fishbowl is inside the smaller box to the left, the red box is the skylight. I can walk about twenty paces and be on the back patio which leads to delightful walk around the lake. If I skip the patio and walk to the end of the building there is a full cafeteria with very reasonably priced food which includes a salad bar, sushi, sandwich bar and two hot meal stations.

I went through the building as a child with my grandfather and for school my mom had us sketch the building so it's nostalgic as well. Add that to the fact that I have several work buddies who sit in the building AND my consulting firm has a strong presence so I have firm buddies now it's an overall nice working environment.

Now if I could only wrap my head around my new job I'll be set! :) The new job is intense. I'm a Program Manager, managing the release schedule for a team that provides services to a massive composite of applications which support all of the reservations and sales for the business segment. There are so many moving parts and teams involved, I have much to learn. But I'm excited to have the challenge, it's like my brain is working out every day. The upside is that I can put in a solid 45 hours and be done (vs my last contract where 60 hours was a standard week) so I've actually had time to go to the gym, ride my bike, do Pilates and knit again! We'll see if this lasts but I'm really hoping so.

Childlike Men

My mind is a scary place and goes down all sorts of random tangents. Often I find myself trying to envision those around me as children, partly because I enjoy the challenge of seeing through their current features and partly because I find pleasure in picturing adults as wide eyed, innocent, energetic children. It seems that this is easier to do with elderly folks, and some people are nearly impossible to do this with.

I've recently discovered (and I hope this doesn't sound racist because I truly don't mean it that way) that when I look at people from the middle east it's incredibly easy. In fact most Indian men look like little boys with mustaches to me. I really like this quality.

Just a little window into my wacky mind.

My life on a tree

For a long time I've joked about opening or joining a commune. For the past year or so I've talked more seriously about it and those around me have begun joking about joining me.
Since birth my mother has bought all her children an ornament each year. Typically something with a link to their life theme for the past year. The original idea being that when each child reached adulthood they could take their ornament collection with them so their own tree wouldn't be barren. Now that I have my own collection on my own tree she still gives me, and now my husband, an ornament each year to adorn our own tree. I have ballet slippers, a piano, a teddy bear life guard and snorkeler, a secretary, flip flops, a suitcase and more. If you line them up by year you can see my life's story on my Christmas tree.
This year, of course, she managed to find me a commune themed s'more ornament!

2012 - The Year of the Vegetarian?

Over the past few months Chris and I have managed to enact a lifestyle change.

It started the week after Thanksgiving when we both committed to a Raw Diet Cleanse. We agreed to eat only raw fruits and vegetables for as long as we could. After some research we decided that at least 7 days was required. We found some quick and easy raw recipes on about.com which got us started. For me I had a headache on day 4 but suddenly on day 5 I had tons of energy and felt amazing. After 7 days we decided to allow cooked fruits and vegetables, but still no meat dairy or really any carbs. After 14 days I had lost 20 lbs, I was more clear headed, I was sleeping better, waking up easier and felt great.

Some friends recommended that we check out the documentary Forks Over Knives. We always try to be subjective when watching documentaries, keeping in mind that they have a natural bias etc, however we found the studies and evidence presented to be very persuading. They suggest that consuming a 'whole foods plant based diet' is not only healthier but can prevent and even reverse heart disease and cancer. That combined with the dietary changes we'd already made led us to decide to give the whole foods diet a chance.

So for Christmas Chris bought me the book by one of the scientists featured in Forks over Knives, Dr. Esselstyn, in it they outline the dietary 'Rules' and about half the book is recipes that fall within the Rules. However, we believe strongly in the 'moderation' philosophy and the Rules are pretty darn extreme.

We've been watching other documentaries as well such as Food Inc and Ingredients. All of which also have us thinking about where food comes from and the amount of energy used to get it to us and the hormones and pesticides used on our foods.

My brother and his wife took on a food experiment about a year ago and started a blog - withrespectforfood.com - and I think over time we're growing more toward a slightly moderate version of their way of thinking. Stuff we've learned from them, combined with reading, documentaries and simply how we feel on our new diet has convinced us to make the following changes in our house going forward.

•  Meat has been rare in our house for years, ever since I went back to a vegetarian diet, however going forward our house will be entirely vegetarian. On rare special occasions I will get meat for Chris from local sources only.
• Carbs are now a treat, especially complex carbs like bread and pasta, when they make an appearance we stick to wheat or whole grain
• Whenever possible leave fruits and veggies raw
• No more milk or cream - we've both switched to Almond Milk
• Cheese is now a rare treat - we thought about no dairy but yogurt and cottage cheese have stuck around

Because we've cut back so drastically on carbs and meat is gone, most of our meats are completely vegetables. We keep trail mix around for snacks, and have experimented with lots of new recipes and spices.

It's been fun in some ways though it can be challenging when I've worked a 10 hour day and just want something easy. But we're learning new tricks and recipes to fill the gaps we find.

I got my parents to watch ForksOverKnives and they surprised everyone and decided to cut out all meat and dairy as well. John and Laura only eat local, happy meat so now the whole family is basically vegetarian which makes it even more fun since we're all on the same adventure together.

Digressing from Facebook back the 'Old Fashioned' blog

I think the use of social media is astounding. It's endlessly amazing to me how I can click around Facebook and see photos and details about the life of someone from India or Australia. I think the fact that it has become so common place to use social media to stay connected is a positive thing for society....in theory.

Twitter and Facebook have become commonly used verbs. People 'check in' at Loews and Wal-Mart. Teenagers bully their peers on each others 'walls'. There are clear downsides to having a virtual world to play in.

You log in to Facebook and are bombarded with advertisements based on photos you've uploaded, movies you have mentioned. The amount of data about you sitting on their servers is mind blowing.

To me, though, all of this is just the price of technology. They are all simply tweaks to life that we have to adjust to as the world around us changes and moves more and more virtual.

What I am not okay with is the rapid move away from true and meaningful communication. To look at it from the most extreme perspective, writing in cursive is becoming a lost art. People don't hand write letters or even notes during classes or meetings any longer. With the flood of increasingly abbreviated communication avenues, even the idea of sitting down to type out a well worded and fully formed thought is becoming more distant. As a society our ability to write, even type correctly, use our language to it's fullest and most eloquent extent and ultimately truly connect with one another is fading.

I'm just as guilty as the next of falling prey to this 'easy and quick' mentality. For the past year, rather than taking the time to formulate my thoughts or stories of my travels into intelligent paragraphs I've been distilling them into one liners with a photo taken on a mobile device to post on Facebook.

I don't usually make New Year's resolutions, however this year I think one is necessary. I'm going to commit to myself to go back to using this space to document (and share if anyone cares) my life, my thoughts, my rants, my photos and even my one liner quotes etc.

Let's see how I do...

A year later

I think it might be time for a change of purpose.

Everything is moving so quickly and thoroughly to snack sizes. While I have managed to avoid the twitter craze I've definitly found myself gravitating to Facebook. I know, I'm ashamed. but really it's become necessary to stay in touch with society as a whole. These days no one has time for something as cumbersom and old fashioned as a blog they want something quicker and easier to digest, like quick messages on a networking site.

Sometimes I ponder things like who are those 'people' that are my 'friends'? How many of them really care about my 'status'? Realistically though, it doesn't matter because I've been sucked in. It's been a year since I posted here :( So, what does that mean?

It means it's time to re-evaluate my blog and why I have it. I will ponder and be back with more soon.

Midterm Results

Apparently Florida wants a different kind of change in 2010 - the results are overwhelmingly Republican. Which I'm okay with - balance is so important. I do get nervous about the Tea Party folks though - they're just another form of extreme and I don't think they would take our country toward the goal of balance.

All that said - here are the results so far. The amendment results aren't for sure yet since not all county's have reported in yet. Governor still isn't in, Scott is in the lead by 3% but I still have my fingers crossed for Sink.

We'll have to wait until tomorrow to see what impact there has been to the balance in Congress overall.

Positions

• Senate REP - Marco Rubio
• House (24) REP - Sandy Adams
• Governor Still Unknown
• Attorney General REP - Pam Bondi
• CFO REP - Jeff Atwater
• Agriculture REP - Adam Putname
• State Rep (38) REP - Bryan Nelson
• Supreme Court All - Yes to retain
• District Appeals All - Yes to retain
• Mayor Orange County Teresa Jacobs (REP but couldn't verify)

Topics

Amendments

• No 1 : No - 61% Repeal of public campaign financing requirement
• No 2 : Yes - 78% Homestead ad valorem tax credit for deployed military
• No 4 : No - 67% Land Use
• No 5 : Yes - 62% Legistlative redistricting
• No 6 : Yes - 62% Congressional redistricting
• No 8 L Null result - 55% yes, but 60% needed Revision of class size for public schools

Referendums

• Yes - 72% Balancing the Federal budget
• Yes - 55% Orange County School Ad Valorem Millage

Here are a few resources for checking the results in your district:

• Orlando Sentinel
• MyFlorida.com Election Watcher - this is handy for all elections, you can create an account and add your favorite candidates to receive updates or see a view of just them when you return.
• Google News - on an election night they put up a nifty gadget that allows you to hover over a map to see the major results in the districts.

Voting for my FL Friends

Mid term elections are next Tuesday and in Central Florida early voting ends next Saturday. I invested quite a bit of time researching the candidates and amendments on the ballot in Central Florida and that I would like to share.

To see a sample ballot for you area go here.

NPR is always a good place to start. They held debates between local candidates on the local broadcast called Intersections. You can look at their archives and listen to those 30 minute debates for your self here. The one between Jacobs and Segal was especially interesting, Kosmas and Adams basically spent their entire debate mudslinging which is always disheartening.

While their name is sill, I found Ballot Pedia to be very helpful. They lay out amendments in lay man's terms, list out what those for and against the amendment say and then try to outline how it will be funded and what impact it might have. I felt like I was getting the straight story instead of looking at extremist websites. They also do something similar for candidates.

An especially interested source was PolitiFacts.com. You can search for a candidate and see all of the commercials related to that candidate with a summary of how true or false the statements are as well as who funded the ad. Its a great resource in trying to sort through all of the mudslinging on TV.

OpenSecret.org is a smart place to check if you're interested in how a candidate is funding their campaign.

Finally, when researching Senate and House Rep candidates I tried to put the facts into a comparison type of spreadsheet (which was challenging since there's no continuity) which I don't mind sharing here. I tried to keep it unbiased where possible.

Finally, I shamefully found myself having to research the differences between the House and Senate to understand the importance of my vote.

Something to keep in mind: An Incumbent (someone who already has the position and is running for re-election) has an 88% chance of keeping their seat.

House:

• House of Reps is the 1st group to vote on legistalation that will effec the entire nation
• Fixed total of 435, with number from each state determined by state population
• Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands each have 1 Representative included in that 435 as well
• 2 year terms with no term limits (person can continue to run every election)
• Qualifications: Must be 25 years old, must be US citizen for at least 7 years, must live in the state they want to represent
• They earn $174,000 per year (plus many benefits)
• Based on the population, Florida currently has 25 House Representatives
• I am in the 24th District - which encompasses Orange, Brevard, Seminole and Volusia Counties
• The House is currently in a Democratic Majority with Nancy Pelosi as the House Leader
• Due to retirement etc. many incumbents are NOT running for re-election
• The 2010 Mid Terms have more House seats up for a new candidate than there have been for decades

Senate:

• Senate is the 2nd group to vote on legislation that will effect the entire nation (after House)
• Every state has 2 Senators (regardless of population)
• Unlike the House, the Senate also has to consent to Cabinet memebers (who the President surrounds himself with), Federal Judges, Amassadors and more so they have more responsibility
• Qualifications: Must be 30 years old, must be US citizen for at least 9 years, must live in the state they want to represent
• Serve staggered 6 year term - every two years approx. 1/3 of seats in Senate are up for election with No Term Limits
• They earn $174,000 per year (plus many benefits)
• Florida currently has one Republican and one Democratic Senator
• Incumbent (Democrat Bill Nelson) that would be up for re-election this mid-term is not running again
• Senate is currently Democratic Majority so this Open Seat election could effect the majority

Don't forget to vote!

Google Confusion

I have never claimed to be a super political person, in fact if you read my limited postings on Politics you will see that I state this frequently. I often find myself getting fired up about politically motivated issues but not having the cause or place to pour my passion into. Lately my soap box has frequently involved Network Neutrality. Yes, I'm still on this.

Today I had the time to read through Google's Public Policy blog in an attempt to better understand their latest announcement regarding a joint proposal with Verizon. To be honest, I'm still not so thrilled with Google and I am still seriously contemplating a breakup - I've already started researching alternative services and ways to migrate my life away from them.

In their post summarizing the proposal Google frequently references how the proposal would require the FCC to do this, or allow the FCC to do that. There is so much that I don't understand (and I mean, really don't understand - as in, if you can help me to better understand this, please comment or email me because I really do want to understand) so I'm going to try to break it down.

1. Why is the FCC so heavily involved? Network Neutrality is a global, international issue. So much of our current culture as a global community depends on our connection to each other via the Internet. The concept of keeping the Internet an open media requires that ALL governments keep their involvement to a minimum. Now I'm not naive, I understand that the US was the driving force behind the internet. The technological breakthroughs that allowed it to grow so quickly all happened here, many if not most of the main servers and connection points for the internet lie in the US. I also understand that the data that makes up the www travels over pipelines and that ultimately those virtual highways are either owned, maintained or subsidized by the US government. That said, someone from the US Gov't should be involved. However if you research the FCC's history, budget and responsibilities - I'm not so sure that they are the ones to do it....
2. Why are Google and Verizon telling the FCC what to do? Here is an example

   "...both companies have long been proponents of the FCC’s current wireline broadband openness principles... Our proposal would now make those principles fully enforceable at the FCC"

   How is it that two major corporations can tell the government what to do? Shouldn't there be some sort of vote, or process before this happens? How a company go from being such a strong proponent of Open Source and User Controlled to thinking it is their place to dictate legislation confuses me.
3. Why isn't this magical Proposal available to the public? The language in the Proposal summary and Google's response to it are both vague. I've searched and been unable to find the actual Proposal - at this point all we know is what Google is telling us.
4. What can I do to learn more and encourage legislation to move in a direction that I believe in? I've sent the letters, I've joined the support groups and email groups. I still haven't been told of any action I can take, any activity I can participate in to help raise awareness and make my opinion known.

From what I can read - it's complicated. I need more information to decide - expect more to come.