Month of February, 2008

New Camera Flash

My 31st birthday is a couple weeks, but Chris gave me my birthday present early! He got me a new flash for my camera. I've got a Nikon D70s that my parents bought me for graduating with a master's degree. Now I have a Nikon SB-400 flash to go with it!

I got this present early because I'm going to South By Southwest and really, really wanted it for that trip. I know, I'm spoiled!

We played around with it a bit last night. This first picture is with the flash directed at the dogs. The second picture is with the flash directed at the ceiling. Since we've got a white ceiling, it diffuses the light nicely.

Thanks, Chris, for such a lovely gift!

Coworker Love

My coworkers love the women in the office. What other explanation could there be for such a lovely piece of art that showed up in the ladies room when Lindsay and I were away for a few days?

My favorite part is that you can see it in the mirror as you're walking in the door.

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Links to People I've Met

Today I went through a stack of business cards that I've collected over the past few months. It's exciting to see how many people I've met lately! Life is good and full of interesting people. Thought I would share some of the links.

http://kreepydollfactory.com/
I met Daniel Baxter in New York City where he was selling his dolls at the park. Any man who makes dolls is cool in my book!

http://artforthebody.com/
I met Erik Stewart at the Barrett-Jackson where he had a booth selling his jewelry. His work is gorgeous and the craftsmanship is amazing. We chatted for a bit and learned he works in Tempe. Maybe I need some new jewelry. Chris?

http://www.idoitdigital.com/
Clintus is a major Twitter player in the Phoenix area. He recently put together a Twitter meet-up, which is how I became aware of him. I didn't make it to the meetup, but I met him a few weeks later at Refresh Phoenix. He even sat next to me at dinner! Check out Clintus McGintus's hilarious videos at his site.

http://www.thesimexchange.com
Brian has been coming to Refresh Phoenix for awhile now but we only officially met recently. His company "applies prediction market technology to the video game industry to generate better quantitative and qualitative indicators to what's coming in the video game world." It's not really my thing, but I have some friends in Austin at Red Fly Studio, who might find it interesting.

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Wine and Jazz at Kazimierz

Last night Chris and I had an unusual outing on a "school night." Ryan got a group together to drink wine and listen to jazz at Kazimierz in Scottsdale. Wayne met up with Chris and I for dinner. Later Ryan, Aeree, and Matt joined us. We had a very fun night!

It's been awhile since I've been to Kazimierz, but I was very impressed. We had great service (from a waiter whose name I don't remember but who had great hair). The jazz, with Dennis Rowland, was really, really great too! This is definitely a bar I need to visit more often on Thursdays.

Extreme Fashion

I've been thinking my wardrobe could use some rework. These days I dress very casually - almost only jeans and t-shirts. While I love how easy it is, I sometimes think it would be nice to spice it up. Plus appearance really is important.

Recently I discovered Steampunk. Pictures and the wiki entry can do it much better justice than I can. But my understanding is that it's as if Victorian and steam-technology made it to the future. I first read about it at Offbeat bride. Having discovered Steampunk, I started thinking about how cool it would be to dress like that. All the time. Or Victorian. All the time.

Wouldn't that be cool?!

Yeah, but there's a huge up front cost to going completely Victorian or Steampunk. I'd have to do a lot of sewing. A lot.

Today I came across an article about New Yorkers who are monochromatic. They only wear one color. The pictures in the article are lovely. Now I'm thinking about changing my wardrobe to just one color.

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Christian's Croissant Recipe

Christian, a good friend who lives in Athens, GA, and is the most amazing cook, shared a recipe with me for croissants. He was actually writing it for someone else, but then we started talking about it and offered to send it to me. While I may never make them, I like the idea that if I ever want amazing croissants from scratch, I've got a recipe. Christian said this is his version of Julia Child's recipe so she should get some credit too.

If you make these, be sure to send me a picture!

Ingredients:
4 1/2 sticks butter (not added until about 5 hours in)

combine in bowl A:
1t yeast
3/4 cup plus 1 1/2 T warm H2O
1 1/2 T sugar

combine in bowl B:
3T sugar
1 1/2 T salt
3 cups warm milk

add to 36oz flour with 5T vegetable oil
note: you will need more flour for the table and some extra oil to keep the dough from sticking. also, an egg is needed if you decide to do the eggwash- described at the end.

stir just until combined in a mixing bowl. pour onto a table; let sit for 5 minutes (i usually wash the bowl in this time). gently knead 8-10 rotations; just want it to hold together, but no serious gluten formation. (i find using latex gloves and a bench scraper invaluable at this point. the dough is a super sticky mess at this stage.)
pour a little oil in bowl to prevent sticking. move dough back to bowl and cover. let sit 3.5 hours.

pour on a floured table. fold in thirds and return to bowl. cover and let sit for 1.5 hours.

let butter warm to a workable temp.
pour out dough onto floured table. push into a rectangular shape like a giant piece of newspaper and about as large.
spread butter onto top 2/3 of dough. (i like to start this between parch paper or film and then lay it on top of the dough.)
fold up the bottom third of the dough and then fold the top third over the remainder. rotate the dough 90 degrees, so the length is pointing out from you. (this is the first turn.)

roll the dough out to about 24x16 inches and fold again in thirds, starting from the bottom. (this is the second turn.)
place the dough on a sheet tray in the fridge for 2.25 hours. this is the perfect stopping point if you want to leave it overnight. just weigh down the dough so it does not rise too much.
pull the dough and let warm a little for 15 minutes (longer is it stayed in all night).

lay the dough lengthwise away from you on the table and beat gently with a pin if the butter is still tough. (if it is especially cold, you may need to wait longer before working with it. trying to roll out too early, the butter will break through all the layers. it's not a disaster if this happens. it will still bake up nicely, but some flaky layers will be lost in final product. ) roll out to 24x16 inches; fold; rotate. (third turn.) roll out, fold (fourth turn), and put back in the fridge. let rest 1.5 hour.

cut into 3 portions. taking each portion one a time, roll out on a floured surface and cut in half, making two squarish rectangles. cut each half into halves again. this final rough square, cut on the diagonal. roll it out a little thinner and grabbing two points in your hand roll toward the third point. tuck the third point under, bend in the two other ends (making the classic croissant shape). place this croissant on a greased pan to rise for an hour. repeat for rest of dough. let rise one hour, until about double in size..
brush with egg wash (egg and water beaten together. this is optional but makes a shiny crust). bake at 400 15-20 minutes.

makes 24 roughly 7oz croissants

Quote of the Day

"The concept of two people living together for 25 years without a serious dispute suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep."

- A.P. Herbert

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by the Arizona Theatre Company Sponsored by Yelp.com

Last week Chris and I saw the play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at the Herberger Theater. We received free tickets from Yelp.com, which was great! I really enjoyed the play. The production was extremely creative and in my opinion good. To my surprise a number of people left at intermission (one couple in front of us and another behind us). I suppose that means they didn't care for it as much as I did. But everyone has different preferences. Plus, the last live theater I saw was so horribly amateur and this one far superior.

If you're interested in seeing the play, you can get discount tickets by calling the Arizona Theatre box office at (602) 256-6995 and mention the code word YELP. You can see Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for just $20! (That’s over 50% off the regular box office price.) Hurry because it's only around through February 24th.

Yelp.com is a review site that I've been using for awhile now. (Check out my reviews at http://ericalucci.yelp.com I've always been very impressed by the quantity and quality of reviews on it. Plus, I have a few friends in Austin who are very active in the Yelp community and speak very highly of it there. So I'm trying to get more involved here. Unfortunately, my first in-person Yelp experience was poor.

The play was great and getting it for free was really, really awesome. So Yelp gets a big thumbs up from me for that. However, they lose when it comes to the dinner before the play. First, the posting about the event was confusing...it wasn't clear that dinner was in a different place than the theater. Second, no one from Yelp was there to actually host the dinner. So when Chris and I arrived at the restaurant, no one greeted us. We didn't see any signs or other indication that we were even in the right place. As we stood around looking confused, someone from the restaurant finally pointed us in the direction of a small buffet. The only indication that it was Yelp sponsored was a yellow legal pad on the table asking for us to sign in. The Yelp community organizer for Phoenix apparently couldn't make the event and disappointingly didn't get anyone to stand in. The food was completely disappointing and certainly shouldn't have been served to a bunch of people who write restaurant reviews in their spare time. It's a shame too, because I have a client across the street from this restaurant and would have actually tried it for lunch someday.

While this was a disappointing event, I'm not going to write Yelp off just yet. It's still a great place to get restaurant reviews. Through Yelp, I've been invited to a fashion show this weekend. I'll give that a try and look forward to meeting some new people in Phoenix. Hopefully the next Yelp event will be better than this one.

Stewie - The Newest Member of the Family

Chris and I recently acquired a new member of the family - Stewie! He flew in from Pennsylvania on Saturday, February 2nd. He used to live with Kristen, my sister, but the situation wasn't ideal. She had a lot of things on her plate with a 1 year old and a career! So I offered to take Stewie to lighten the load. Luckily, Chris agreed.

We picked him up at the airport where we got to enjoy seeing other people pick up their animals. Normally you go to cargo to pick up animals, but the plane came in after cargo closed. So we picked him up in baggage claim. When they brought all the other dogs, I was slight concerned that they didn't have a big cage. The airline employee reassured me they had another dog in cargo and that he'd arrive shortly.

It had been a super long day for Stewie. He left the Baltimore airport in the morning and arrived in Phoenix at night (considering the time difference it was a long time). He seemed to recognize my voice and was happy to see me. After the paper signing and disassembly of the crate, we took Stewie home.

To our great pleasure, he and Mac, our black lab, got along fabulously. In fact, almost as soon as we arrived, they started playing. They played non-stop until we forced them to go to bed because we wanted to sleep! The next day the playing started again as soon as they woke up. It lasted most of the day then they crashed in exhaustion. Since then they've calmed down a bit. They're still playing a lot but it's not constant (thank goodness!). I had no idea that Mac would be so happy with Stewie. I guess he needed a friend and we didn't realize it! Bentley, our terrier, isn't quite so keen on Stewie, but Bentley doesn't like other dogs much.

So far we're having a blast with Stewie and his biggest crime to date is a small hole dug in the backyard. For a little over a week, I'd say that's an awesome track record. Kristen did a great job training him and with a little more training from us, he's going to be a wonderful, wonderful companion. I'm so happy he's a part of our family!

Video of Mac & Stewie playing.

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Valentines Day

Chris and I kept things laid back for Valentine's Day. We exchanged gifts earlier in the week. He bought me a picnic backpack complete with wine glasses! I got him some new after shave and cologne. Last night we stayed at home and had a simple pasta meal. It was nice...really nice.

We're pretty focused on wedding planning at the moment so we also made some wedding to do lists. The best part of the night was talking about our wedding vows before falling asleep. Hearing Chris tell me why he's going to marry me was the sweetest and most touching Valentine's Day gift ever.

Birthdays!

On February 11th, my nephew, Braydon, turned 1 year old.

On February 14th, my father, turned 61 years old.

I hope they both had very, very happy birthdays! I'm lucky to have both of them in my life and I love them a lot!

Bay Area Girl Geeks Dinner

Lindsay, my only female coworker, and I went to San Francisco for the first Bay Area Girl Geeks dinner on Thursday, January 31st. These dinners were first put together in London and have been spreading around the globe. Angie Chang, of Women 2.0, organized this event and had it sponsored by Google. It was a great party! We were given plenty of space in both an outdoor tent and a lecture hall on the Google campus. They spoiled us with appetizers, sushi, open bar, and schwag!

The night was kicked off with some humor from Ellen Spertus, a research scientist at Google. The panel was moderated by Katherine Barr, a partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures The women on the panel were Leah Culver, Co-Founder and Lead Developer of Pownce; Sumaya Kazi, founder of The Cultural Connect and Sun Microsystem’s Social Media Manager; Irene Au, Google’s Director of User Experience; and Rashmi Sinha, CEO of SlideShare.

More than anything else, I was so impressed with the kindness of everyone I met at the dinner. It seems that San Francisco is a great place to network and people are really available to help each other. The panelists really reinforced relationship building. While they all use a lot of technology, they all rely primarily on personal connections.

After the panel, I met some great women. The ones that stick out in my memory are Erica, because she's my namesake! Plus, she recently sold her hosting business and temporarily retired. She told me she blogs a lot. Wow, I'm SO jealous. How I would love to be able to write all day. I also met Angie Chang, the organizer. She was so nice and very popular! (Do you see the stack of business cards in her hand? Everyone wanted to meet her!)

Finally, Lindsay and I met Arena who is a designer at Pivotal Labs. We had so much to talk about since our companies are in the same space and both using Agile methods. Arena invited us to their office the next day where we had breakfast and spent some time with Edward and Alex talking about Agile. It was a great learning experience! I was so, so impressed with the helpfulness and sharing from everyone at Pivotal. It will be great to see Arena again in March when we're both at SXSW.

Naturally, Lindsay and I took the opportunity for some sightseeing in San Francisco. I haven't been to San Francisco since 1995 when I visited a friend in Oakland. It's such a beautiful city (despite the rain). At the end of the day, we met some of my blogger / SXSW friends for dinner - Kristin, Jessica, and their significant others.

This was the perfect trip to me - a lovely mix of a little work, meeting new people, connecting with old friends, learning new things, and just a dash of sightseeing. Look at the set of all my pictures from San Francisco.

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Exterior Designer Needed

Dear Internet,

We know you're smart. In fact, we know you're smarter than us. So we're asking for help.

My parents want to spice up the entrance to their house, but they don't know exactly what to do. They're open to any suggestion and we'd love to hear what you think. Should they paint? Get a new door? Put in new lights? What style(s)?

Here's what it looks like right now.

If you want to, feel free to grab these images off Flickr and edit them. Show us your idea! Feel free to comment or email me. My parents would really, really appreciate it!

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Redesign

I owe a HUGE thank you to my two amazingly awesome coworkers for helping me with a site redesign. You both have my unending gratitude! Every time I look at this site, I will smile and think of you. Thank you!

Matt Gist designed this amazing theme. Doesn't it look awesome?!

Josh Huckabee implemented the theme, installed Drupal, and moved all my old content from MovableType. What a lot of work and definitely something I couldn't have done on my own.

When I started this site in 2001, I was on a free Blogger account (Blogspot maybe?). I upgraded to a Pro Blogger account in order to get my own domain name. (At least I think it was a Pro account...hard to remember the details now.) Soon I met the amazing couple, Mena & Ben Trott, the developers of Movable Type and founders of Six Apart. I was so impressed with what they were doing that I migrated to Movable Type. For the past 5 or 6 years, I've been using Movable Type and I've been very happy. I know Six Apart worked very hard to continually improve the product even though I didn't personally use 1/3 of the features. I was always impressed by how easy they made upgrades, especially for someone as non-technical as myself.

For awhile now I've wanted a new design on my blog. Matt was wonderful enough to take on the task. I absolutely love the cactus graphic! Perfect for my love of the desert. Matt even helped with the HTML and CSS. Then I tried to implement the design into a Movable Type template. Unfortunately, this task turned out to be far, far above my technical abilities. I simply didn't have the knowledge of Movable Type any more and I didn't have the desire to learn. I'm just not a template designer.

The design languished on the back burner until Josh heard my frustration and offered to help. He's been working with Drupal for years and said it wouldn't be hard to integrate Matt's design into a Drupal template. The hardest part was migrating all my old posts and comments. But he worked hard and here was are! I'm still learning the application and tweaking things, but mostly I'm excited. It's great to have a shiny new page for my little corner of the web.

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Obama Rally

Last week I went to my first political rally. I heard Barack Obama speak in Phoenix on Wednesday, Jan 30th. It was a wonderful experience and I can thank Curtis and Josh for encouraging me to go. I was very, very impressed by the speech Obama gave, especially because he didn't use a teleprompter or notes.

Obama talked about wanting to get rid of the huge corporate influence on Washington. I agree completely. I'd like to see this country run by the people and for the people, not by and for corporations. It's good to hear that Obama lives by example and has not taken corporate money for his campaign.

The thing that impressed me the most about Obama was his humility. He talked about how amazing it was for him to have gotten this far in the race. He said it's unbelievable especially considering where he came from - raised by a single mom and his grandparents who worked hard to give him an education. When he started the race last year he wanted to start a conversation and boy has that conversation gotten big!

See all the pictures of the Obama rally.

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