I know it has been quite a while since I last posted a blog. I got really sick. It started with a bad case of the flu which was piggybacked by bronchitis. UGH. My doctor thought it could have been Valley Fever also. Luckily for me it wasn't Valley Fever. One of my office roommates had Valley Fever a couple of years ago and it knocked him out of commission for over 8 months. It is nasty. So I am over all of that now and feeling much better.
Yesterday was the first day that Kim and I started taking Chantix to help us quit smoking. Kinda nervous about it but......hopefully the Chantix will help the process. We have to take one pill for the first three days, and then two pills the rest of the time. We continue to smoke for the first seven days. Our official quit date is Saturday May 17th. Wish us luck.
Brian moved out here April 26th from Michigan. I am so excited about that. We have been really busy getting him situated in his new home state. We got him into his own apartment, renters insurance, AZ ID, supplies for the new apartment...... and that was the first Monday he was out here!!! The last thing that we have to do is get him a job. We thought we had two jobs lined up, but Target T363 at the Scottsdale Pavilions really screwed up. He did his application, it took forever for him to get acknowledged that he was waiting for his interview. Then he got his interviews and the executive told him that he would be perfect for the 4am presentation team. Told him about the process and we thought he was in. Someone dropped the ball in the HR department. He called them several times in order to follow up. The HR exec never seemed to be around. When he finally got a hold of her 11 days later, she said that he should be getting something in the mail. That means, turned down. I am still upset about that whole process. Fry's is waiting for his background check to come back and he will have a job there.
After much deliberation and research, I have decided not to open the personal chef business. Like real estate, the personal chef business won't bring in a consistent enough income, and that is what we need. Like I have said before, I am still going to keep my license for my past clients and their referrals, and for my own personal investing. I checked out culinary school and the 8 month certificate program was going to be over $23,000!!! Ouch. So Kim and I decided that I am going to get a real job and she is going to go back to school instead. So the last couple of days I have been hitting the pavement with Brian looking for a job. If anyone knows of a full time job opening with benefits, please let me know.
On the poker front, we have found a new place to play free bar poker. Pranksters 2 on Hayden and Thomas. It just started last week, but it looks like that will be the new place for us to play. We played at the Fort the first Sunday that Brian was here. I had a horrible night. I got felted twice in the cash game before the tourney by some really bad players. Then went to the tourney and my big hands ran into bigger hands. It was a brutal night. I didn't even make the first break. Oh well, maybe next time. As far as online poker goes, still playing in the donkaments.....not getting very far with them. Won a few of the round one's, went deep in the round two's but not top 2 positions. Mark my words, I will get a big score this year I can feel it in my bones.
As most of you know Caylyn goes to Young Chefs Academy for cooking classes. The owner chef Allan called us a couple of weeks ago and asked if Caylyn would like to be part of a special class that 3 TV was going to film. Of course we said yes. Last Monday we let her skip school and go to this special class. (She is getting straight A's in school so we thought she deserved to miss one day). The class went great and at the end they interviewed her. Now this week the 3TV reporter and camera guy are coming to our house to do a follow up story. They want to film us cooking at home and interview me about how YCA has changed our eating and cooking habits. I will let everyone know when the piece is going to air when I get the date. Good stuff.
That's about it for now. It is about 8:45am on Mothers Day and the kids and I have to start getting breakfast in bed ready for Kim. We are making heart shaped french toast with strawberry sauce. DOH!!! She woke up early... Gotta go.... HAPPY MOTHERS DAY to all the mom's out there. Talk to you later.
Showing posts with label cheffing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cheffing. Show all posts
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Spring break is over!!!
This past week was spring break for the kids. UGH!!! Thank god it is over. Today is Monday and they have gone back so that means I can get back to the Personal Chef Business Plan. I have talked to a few more people about my plans, and I have been getting pretty good feedback on it. I even have a friend at the real estate office that has a house cleaning company and he said he was going to mention it to some of his clients. This week I have to get going pretty quick.
We cooked six times this past week. Monday we had pasta with meat sauce. This time Kim decided to change the recipe and add some of the spicy italian sausage and some other seasonings to the sauce which made it really good and of course our homemade garlic-cheesy bread. Wednesday we had the herb crusted pork tenderloin with the red potatoes, shallot wine sauce and asparagus (quickly becoming one of our favorites). Thursday was personal pizza's. We made the dough from scratch and everyone got to create their own masterpieces. Friday was beer brats and onion rings. This was a Paula Dean recipe that we just watched her and her son make on Paula's Party. The brats were pretty good and the onion rings were really good. The only problem is we don't have an exhaust hood over the stove so we have to open the windows and doors to help get the smoke out. The smell of the cooking onion rings filled the house and didn't leave until we started cooking on Saturday. Mexican pulled pork (Tinga Pueblana) is what we made on saturday. The recipe sounded so good....garlic, chorizo, onion, chipotle chiles in adobo....... It just sounded really good. We made homemade guacamole and when the pork dish was done..........it was just okay, kinda boring actually. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but it was boring. Then last night was Chinese 5 spice beef and peppers with Jasmine rice. Again, it was good, but boring. Tonight we are trying a Jambalaya....the recipe looks good so hopefully it isn't boring also.
Played in the Casino Arizona tourney on Friday. It started off pretty good. Raised in middle position with 55 and had three callers. Flop came 10-5-4 rainbow and bet 400 into a pot of 600, the guy after me raised to 800 the other guy folded and I put the raiser all in. He called and said "Do you have AK?" He turned over A10o and thought he had the best hand. LOL. I turned over my set and after the J on the turn I had him drawing dead. That table broke not too long after that and moved to my second of three tables for the day. I stole a couple of small pots after that and at the first break was at about 4500 and the average was 3100. After the break I went card dead. Made a couple of moves and got caught once keeping me at about 4500. The problem with the second table was a guy that took FOREVER to act on his hand. He would get his cards, squeeze them out to look at them. Each time it took in 10 seconds to look at his cards, he would then cap them, look at the table for another 10 seconds, and then fold. He litterally took 30 to 45 seconds to act on his hand everytime. He tried playing the Chris Ferguson style and it really got annoying. The blinds are only 20 minutes long and he is wasting so much time on each hand. Then another guy thought that he was Daniel Negreanu. Talk talk talk talk talk. Daniel can talk about hands and figure them out seemingly with ease. This guy was talking, trying to do the same thing and was failing miserably. Everytime he tried to call out someone else's hand, he was waaaay off. He would flop bottom pair with a crappy kicker and drag it out when he and everyone else at the table knew he was completely dominated if not drawing dead. So brutal. The hands per hour went down by half. When the blinds go up so quickly, my style of game depends on playing as many hands an hour as I can. We finally broke that table, but it was too late for me. I had dropped to 3000 in chips and a couple of hands into my third table the blinds were 300-600. A guy raised to 1500 in mid position and I looked down at AK and shipped it in. He insta called with JJ and hit a J on the flop to make me go runner runner for the str8, but it didn't come and I was out. Oh well. I feel I played well and am really confident in my live game right now.
Now online poker this weekend was BRUTAL!!! Brian and I have a standing last longer bet going on. Every tourney that we are in together the bet is on. Coming into this weekend I was up by 1. I had been up by as many as 3 at one point, but he battled back and won twice. I am not going to give all the horendous details, but the short of it is I am down by 4 right now. In the 8 tourney's we played, the first 5 I was knocked out by flopping top set or top two pair and loosing to runner runner str8's. The 6th I lost top pair to bottom two pair on the river, the 7th was flopped set lost to runner runner str8, and the 8th was a set beat by runner runner flush. So brutal!!! Oh well, I always got it in with the best of it.
Time to get back to work. Talk at ya'll later.
We cooked six times this past week. Monday we had pasta with meat sauce. This time Kim decided to change the recipe and add some of the spicy italian sausage and some other seasonings to the sauce which made it really good and of course our homemade garlic-cheesy bread. Wednesday we had the herb crusted pork tenderloin with the red potatoes, shallot wine sauce and asparagus (quickly becoming one of our favorites). Thursday was personal pizza's. We made the dough from scratch and everyone got to create their own masterpieces. Friday was beer brats and onion rings. This was a Paula Dean recipe that we just watched her and her son make on Paula's Party. The brats were pretty good and the onion rings were really good. The only problem is we don't have an exhaust hood over the stove so we have to open the windows and doors to help get the smoke out. The smell of the cooking onion rings filled the house and didn't leave until we started cooking on Saturday. Mexican pulled pork (Tinga Pueblana) is what we made on saturday. The recipe sounded so good....garlic, chorizo, onion, chipotle chiles in adobo....... It just sounded really good. We made homemade guacamole and when the pork dish was done..........it was just okay, kinda boring actually. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but it was boring. Then last night was Chinese 5 spice beef and peppers with Jasmine rice. Again, it was good, but boring. Tonight we are trying a Jambalaya....the recipe looks good so hopefully it isn't boring also.
Played in the Casino Arizona tourney on Friday. It started off pretty good. Raised in middle position with 55 and had three callers. Flop came 10-5-4 rainbow and bet 400 into a pot of 600, the guy after me raised to 800 the other guy folded and I put the raiser all in. He called and said "Do you have AK?" He turned over A10o and thought he had the best hand. LOL. I turned over my set and after the J on the turn I had him drawing dead. That table broke not too long after that and moved to my second of three tables for the day. I stole a couple of small pots after that and at the first break was at about 4500 and the average was 3100. After the break I went card dead. Made a couple of moves and got caught once keeping me at about 4500. The problem with the second table was a guy that took FOREVER to act on his hand. He would get his cards, squeeze them out to look at them. Each time it took in 10 seconds to look at his cards, he would then cap them, look at the table for another 10 seconds, and then fold. He litterally took 30 to 45 seconds to act on his hand everytime. He tried playing the Chris Ferguson style and it really got annoying. The blinds are only 20 minutes long and he is wasting so much time on each hand. Then another guy thought that he was Daniel Negreanu. Talk talk talk talk talk. Daniel can talk about hands and figure them out seemingly with ease. This guy was talking, trying to do the same thing and was failing miserably. Everytime he tried to call out someone else's hand, he was waaaay off. He would flop bottom pair with a crappy kicker and drag it out when he and everyone else at the table knew he was completely dominated if not drawing dead. So brutal. The hands per hour went down by half. When the blinds go up so quickly, my style of game depends on playing as many hands an hour as I can. We finally broke that table, but it was too late for me. I had dropped to 3000 in chips and a couple of hands into my third table the blinds were 300-600. A guy raised to 1500 in mid position and I looked down at AK and shipped it in. He insta called with JJ and hit a J on the flop to make me go runner runner for the str8, but it didn't come and I was out. Oh well. I feel I played well and am really confident in my live game right now.
Now online poker this weekend was BRUTAL!!! Brian and I have a standing last longer bet going on. Every tourney that we are in together the bet is on. Coming into this weekend I was up by 1. I had been up by as many as 3 at one point, but he battled back and won twice. I am not going to give all the horendous details, but the short of it is I am down by 4 right now. In the 8 tourney's we played, the first 5 I was knocked out by flopping top set or top two pair and loosing to runner runner str8's. The 6th I lost top pair to bottom two pair on the river, the 7th was flopped set lost to runner runner str8, and the 8th was a set beat by runner runner flush. So brutal!!! Oh well, I always got it in with the best of it.
Time to get back to work. Talk at ya'll later.
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