Weekend Update

Greetings and Salutations...

Another fun-filled Saturday as we met up with D & C at their resort in Scottsdale, the Valley Ho. No, silly, it's not a call-girl service, it's a brilliant play on words. Or something. Anyways, the local resorts have great rates over the summer because, honestly, what kind of idiot would vacation to the desert this time of year, but Danstina took advantage of it and spent the day lounging about poolside. I ran about 5 miles, then went and played a round at Vista Del Camino and decided I was not entirely up for looking at the beautiful people - I let D&C have their nice relaxing day and waited for the Beck to come home from work and working out. So she got here and THEN we headed over to eat at Trader (no relation to Joe) Vic's, the Valley Ho restaurant. And now I have caught up with the beginning of my own paragraph.

So first we walked into the wrong restaurant / bar - apparently Tally Ho is so schwank it has a north and a south wing - so we had to walk through the hotel grounds to get to Trader NRTJ Vic's. And boy are we glad we did. A word to future visitors of Tally Ho - there are two sets of curtains. One is opaque, one is sheer. One first floor couple, let's call them Raider Rick & the Sally the 'Ho, chose option B. Milk is not the only bad choice. Future visitors, please consider passers-by sensitive eyes before you get your unsightly schwerve on, or at the very least blast some umpa-chinka-wah-waoooow music so we can have a heads up as to when to avert. Gracias.

So, after a rather unsettling free-per-view special, we headed over to the restaurant to meet out Zonan friends. It turns out that it was Real Estate and/or Plasticine parts night at Vic's, and having neither for sale property nor implants we were a little out of place. Scottsdale, it seems, is Far East L.A. and has a few of the beautiful people. Cool. Dan noted that no one else was reading a book at poolside that PM, and it was more of something resembling a flirting skills exhibition. How you doin', indeed. But that's not where the fun stopped - we had Waitertron 5000, a really freakishly cheery guy with angular movements who will probably end up playing a robotic gigolo in A.I. Part 2. And we had three foot straws for drinks that came in large wooden bowls with leg supports that the restaurant menu claimed were "authentic replicas of Polynesian gods." Ahhhh... thentic replicas. Love it.

Good food, though ridiculously expensive, and all in all a great night with XtinDan (It doesn't work as well that way). The Beck bowed out after a long tiring day, and we headed back to Rancho Condonero.

Sunday we slept in a bit; Beck went to the gym (I opted out with Ultimate later that day) and headed down to the Phoenix Art Museum which, it turns out, IS open on Sundays. Cool museum with a Southwestern Art focus along with the usual high art period collections and traveling exhibitions. VERY cool installation of work by a contemporary Scottsdale artist Philip Curtis and a nice modern art collection taboot. I unfortunately neglected to take any shots of Curtis's works (I'll get some next time), but here is one from the Phoenix Art Museum website:

And here's an assortment of unlabeled, mostly contemporary art from the museum (and no, I'm not leaving it unlabeled because I am lazy, it's because art should speak for itself independent of context blah blah blah etc.) (or I'm lazy, your call):


That's the news and I... am... outta here.

Links and Mints Addendum

Frank has supplied me with the original recipe in photo-digital form (click to embiggen):

And in an addendum to the golf crap, I just went to emerald park and shot a +2 and then a -3. And an unheard woohoo went clanging through the breeze...

Links and Mints

WARNING: UBERNERD CONTENT BELOW. IF YOU ARE NOT INTO NERDY FAUX SPORTS STUFF, SKIP AHEAD TO THE SECTION THAT STARTS WITH A PICTURE OF "THE MASSACHUSSETTS PLAYER"

Disc golf - Ultimate's even more hippified, lazy and generally scuzzy cousin. It's pretty hot in the desert to be running around playing Ultimate, and the scene in Arizona, at least during these summer months, has been less than impressive. So after some fun in Rochester at Ellison Park, I've picked the game back up a little. I took a disc golf class at Rice, so I'm a little more competent than the average moron - the throws required are fairly different from Ultimate throws, so that presents a challenge and wrecks my Ultimate game a little bit. But the short of it is, I've picked it back up and am starting to approach something resembling a mediocre amateur - my handicap is probably in the 3 or 4 range for the courses I've been playing (which is not really that good for disc golf, probably the equivalent of 12 or so in the real sport).

If that were it, we'd be fine. But no, nothing is done half-assed in the Nyetverse, or really, nothing is done half-nerd. I photo-documented the courses - you can check them out over at nyetjones.org in all their glory. You can click on each of the courses for eighteen holes of pictures and reviews - it's pretty self explanatory and has backwards and forward arrows and such, but just click on the picture thumbnails if you get confused and then start using the arrows at the lower right to navigate around.

But wait, that's not all! I also played one of the courses, Emerald Park in nearby Mesa, AZ, and took a photo before more or less every shot I took. I had a pretty good day - shot even for the round - so I posted the pictures on flickr and put them in a little sideshow (complete with play-by-play!). To view it, click the picture below (and be sure to click the "i" in the middle of the screen to read my commentary; you'll see what I mean when the slideshow loads). And that is all about the disc golf - I will post more if anything interesting happens, but just know that it's a new hobby I've picked up that's fun, gets me out walking the courses an doesn't have the same propensity for the induction of reconstructive knee surgeries. I'll also keep posting course pictorials if anyone's interested. Here's the slideshow link:

And now, to target other interest groups...

So I got a request from Malcolm, presumably via his mom Sarah and then via the iPMM, for my grandma's recipe for the mints that we had at the wedding. So don't get accustomed to this kind of thing, but I will post the recipe here as penance for the above trip into disc golf dorkiness. So here you have it - enjoy, and my mom recommends that you use peppermint instead of mint extract:

Mom's Mints



Recipe by Grandma "Mom" Kell

Miscellaneous Commentary by the iPMM

Mom's Mints (Mom being Kell?)

1 8-oz pkg of Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1 tsp mint flavoring
2 lb package of powdered sugar (maybe less)
coloring

Mash cheese, add flavoring and coloring. Mix in powdered sugar. Knead with hands until like pie dough. Talk a lot about having a glass of wine. Add more powdered sugar if dough is too sticky. Roll into balls about the size of marbles. Worry about being late for the Bishops' party because of getting started late. Place balls on a waxed paper cookie sheet. Let set until you have all balls formed. (Pat's note - I put in refrigerator). By this time you are ready to form your mints because they have started to harden slightly.

Place mints on waxed paper and let stand overnight or for several hours. They are then ready to serve or to place in freezer for future use (like at the PWOAT* on Saturday). Be sure to put waxed paper between your layers of mints for freezing. (Here's a question: how many does this recipe make?)

P.S. Molds should never be greased. Keep them in a plastic bag or small jar. After two years, reglycerine them. Run five miles a day for the next ten years after consuming mints.

*Prettiest Wedding of All Time

Review Revue

Welcome to the quick hits edition of some Jonesian reviews. I'm gonna spend one short paragraph (and try not to be my usual long-winded self) on each in the five books I've read in the last few weeks and the three movies I've seen (not counting The Bourne Supremacy which the beck and I watched on the tele the other night which was SWEET - one of the coolest, most implausible car chases in recent movie memory - but a 2/3 viewing on TNT doesn't really warrant a review). Here goes:

Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger: 74

An excellent love story that doesn't over-rely on its central gimmick yoo much, even though it is a superb gimmick - the interwoven lives of the two principles and the beautiful family / friend backdrops work great, and I love the "ships passing" aspect of their antiparallel lives. I did find the Gomez character ridiculous and the entire "let's incorporate hip 90s alterna music - specifically the Femmes concert - was horrendously executed. And Clare's failure in post-Henry life was a disappointing - actually, for a book named after her character, she reeked of wet-blanket. But otherwise a warm and intricately crafted romance.

Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo: 75

This book gets the halfway between very good and great rating specifically because it middle-roads by definition: the characters are ice-cold, the action brutally and artificially episodic, the plot stagnant and haphazard, and the entire schmeel unrealistic. But all of these things can be excused by artistic intent, as its all seemingly a statement on the times and not misplaced writing. Still, this narrative featured a hokey assassin and lacked the meta-artifice meets reality of White Noise - sans warmth, a cynical co9mmentary on our postmodern finance-driven present comes off as tragically cold and uninteresting. It's easy enough to excuse all of Delillo's sentiments as the pointed commentary of a master, but in the end the simple fact that the story just isn't the "grand" and the characters imminently un-sympathetic/interesting leave this one short of greatness.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen: 70
A novel that contains a trite love triangle, a far-reaching but failure at biblical allusion, but ultimately enough realistic setting and backdrop to make a circus romance worthwhile. A+ on the research / world created, C on the plot...

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides: 76

Beck was entirely correct about the fact that the half-assed Haight-Ashbury, strip club sleaze ending killed this book. But up to that point, it was an epic familial tale of the collusion of incest and genetics to create an utterly nonstandard existence. "The Other" section of the book was by far my favorite and vindicated the entire work with its lovelorn beauty; the historic Detroit section had its value, too, but I did not hook-line-sinke rthe book's epic quality the way others have.

Three Junes by Julia Glass: 80

I love the idea of novel as triptych, as a mirror of a work of art. This is a beautiful overlapping work of familial and personal love that breathes its creations to life. Its undoubted power is the treatment of a heavy-handed subject with subtlety - AIDS is a roaring dragon in the book, but Glass does so many great things to keep it grounded that we are merely left with the heartfelt tales of life external to it but still suffering at its presence. I will fault the book because each section was a seaweed drag to get into, but once the tales were rolling, it was near impossible not to feel these characters and families through and through. Fenno is a perfectly illustrated character if not the most interesting in the history of lit; still, its this realism that makes Glass's artful world stand out.

Pan's Labyrinth: 65

Special effects: great; story = trite cliched account of a sadistic general and do-gooder rebels. Boo-urns; I was let down.

Babel: 66

AS Dan said, meh. I appreciated the interwoven and poignant story but not its shovel-upside the head nature. Still, the Asian universe treatment was enthralling.

Knocked Up: 70

Sophomoric and I don't think this was as good and/or as funny as a lot of critics have claimed. I mean, it was ridiculously funny, don't get me wrong, but a ton of it was in a somewhat weak, stoners being funny genre that I just couldn't be wowed by. Highly enjoyable, very good indeed, but nothing near an A.

That's about it. Pretty lame, I know, but that's what you get when I'm suffering severe undermotivation and a general lack of willingness to wax on and on about things experienced a few weeks past. Until next time...

Pr-pr-pr-Prius

So being in the Southwest, natural habitat of all-that-is-granola (okay, maybe the Northwest has us beat, but there is a lot of hippified environmental responsibility around here), we decided to go ahead and save a polar bear and buy a Prius , Toyota's Hybrid 50 mpg super-car. Actually, to be precise, *Beck decided*, but I'll go ahead and let her explain that one. But a brief word to the newlywed wise - if your betrothed asks you if you want to go "test-drive"(please join me in a general session of hyper-finger quotation-marking) a car with her, the answer is YES. YES. YES.

The car is totally freaking SWEET. Zooms around, doesn't use fuel, nice stereo that even has a mp3 aux jack (which we admittedly haven't used yet). It uses an auto-system to determine when to use electrical power and when to use the gas engine and uses the turning of the wheels to generate electricity / recharge the elec motor. We (obviously) have to use the AC all the time which requires a little bit of gas motor, but when it cools down here a bit, we'll roll down the windows and enjoy the weird phenomenon of the engine turning OFF instead of idling at stops. There's no ignition, so it operates with an ON switch that only operates if you have the remote key inside the car. The door locks also respond automatically to the presence of the key, so you don't even have to unlock the car, you just walk up and open it. I mean, it's not scanning retinas or anything, but it's pretty cool. I could blah on and on about it, but it's generally sweet and we're quite happy with it. So ON to the pics!!!

The next couple of shots show off the keylessness AND something I forgot to mention, that it has a camera for backing out of parking spaces. SCHWANK!

We'll cap a silly "new car" post with a cutie pick of its primary driver, some Prius-based proof of
the daily misery, and finally, proof that the Mass days are behind us...

Last Leg

So we left the quartet (The B tireds?) in San Antonio, and after a long day's drive, they ate some burgers and then slept like dogs (though in S & W's case, that's just called "sleeping"). There was some highly ambitious talk of checking out some local disc golf action in SA, but this would have required Aaron waking up sometime before noon and it not being nasty thick humid and HOT out. None of which happened. So instead, I got up early and ran the LEGENDARY four mile route around my neighborhood and then lounged about all day, letting Wrigley run her laps around the yard (which were impressive but indeed, not as large nor quite as psychotic as Little Ann's Honey Putter aka Lightning Mop). After a hellacious amount of very complexly interwoven planning involving GPS satellites and no fewer than fourteen wedding / party event coordinators, we decided to get the whole family (Dad, Mom, Deb, Pat, Aaron, Beck, Tim and me) to go to see the romp-fest "Knocked Up." We headed to the new Santikos Palladium Cineplex and knew even before entering the theater that this would be a momentous occasion, as my dad had a patient , a little 9 year old blond patient, say hello and give him a hug in line for tickets immediately before Dad had the pleasure of ordering tickets for "Knocked Up" in front of his patient and her dad. Ah, when Worlds Collide, said George Pal to his bride, I'm gonna give you some terrible thrills - or at least a whole lot of movie queue awkwardness.

I'm sure by now your brain is wondering "Wait a minute, who is the Tim in the Johnson clan?" Surely not Home Improvement era "I don't think so, Tim," or South Park's martyr? Of course not, sillies, those are lesser Tims. This Tim, when walking around a movie theater for a matinée showing on a Thursday afternoon, invites gasps and prompts my brother to ssay, "Hey, is that Tim...

Duncan!!?!?!?!?!"

Why yes, yes it is. Tim, Timmay, The Big Fundamental, etc., joined us for Knocked Up with his wife, who looked perhaps not coincidentally titular. So that was sweet. Everybody and their mom stopped him in the foyer to congratulate him on the Championship - actually, not everyone and their mom, because we didn't (even though we watched the actual games in the Caribbean and on our honeymoon - sheez, I'm really disappointed that Tim didn't give us a shoutout). I just cracked the requisite "do NOT sit behind that guy" jokes and we all kind of stared in awe. Nice. And after the movie, Tim bolted and did not clean up his area at all. Takes a little of the luster off those rings, Mr. Didn't Even Finish his Jumbo Popcorn.

So we vaguely recovered from that brush to dine at Alamo Cafe with really the whole fam - Pat, Ron, Grandpa, Jordan, Frank, Paige, Mom, Dad, Aaron, Deb, Beck, Tim and me. Oh, wait, that's right; Tim couldn't make it. He was busy littering. But Grandpa ordered Margaritas and Aaron ordered Nachos and we all ordered way too much food. We then returned home to learn that Paige and Pat have been taking a cake decorating class and lucky us got to enjoy the result:

Those heads are theoretically representative of the family members, though I'd be the first to admit I could only pick out Grandpa (bald) and Aaron (goateed). But the cake was yummy, and we got to bed at a reasonable hour for the 6 AM headout the next day.

The poor, poor dogs had the incorrect impression that the driving was done, and they were a pair of sad puppies on that last 900 miles. Fortunately the speed limit in West Texas from pretty much Boerne to El Paso is 80 mph, so we blazed through the countryside in record time. I'll spare you the gory details other than to say that this time I took the morning shift, there is NO radio in West texas, and sunny sunny desert has the unconsidered effect of making the sidewalks so hot that the dogs can't stand to walk on them. The dogs actually go tpretty wigged out on thsi last leg - Wrigley panicked at one point and jumped into the front seat; Sparkle yelped for no apparent reason at another. No fun - this "oh my god when the hell are we going to get there" look from Wrigley puts a nice stamp on the day:

Well, after that huge drive to El Paso and another unceasing jaunt through only a swath of New Mexico, we finally started to see something resembling a destination. Not *really*a destination, since these pics were snapped a solid four hours away from Phoenix - but still, the end was in sight. I think in some moment of idiocy we had actually considered having our stuff shipped to the condo on Friday night; goodness goo that would have been silly. Anyways, the aforementioned pics:

I should clarify - those last two are pics of the Mr. Mackey action figure (Mr. Mackey of South Park fame, m'kay), a gift from one of my students, Danielle. I am supposed to take Mr. Mackey with me wherever I go - he's due to reside on the next desk of my professional existence - so I thought it appropriate that he get some early showing as we crossed into our new home state. Plus, I just like the ubergoofy Mr. Mackey on celestial backdrop show - you can almost hear the chorus of angel.

(Yes, that's "angel," singular).

So we rolled slowly into town, got some directions from Dan and didn't actually hit too bad of rush hour Friday traffic. That first night we just dragged our stuff up from the car and slept that night (and the next two, ugh) on our inflatable mattress. That Saturday we got our wedding gifts from D & C - and I got to meet this guy for the first time:

That's Elliot, Dan & Xtina's whirlwind of black. That's actually a puppy picture of him; we'll get a more recent one up there soon. That first day he tried to make a break for it, and Dan and I tackled him. So he didn't even make it past the first set of cuts for running backs. Oh, well. But he's a goofy, energetic pup and he keeps the days exciting.

That more or less catches us up - that Monday it was 115 degrees and beck and I spent the afternoon carrying our stuff across the parking lot while bikini-clad onlookers, um, looked on. The dogs are just now starting to get relaxed around the apartment - after three days of driving, though, you would be exhausted, too. Remember, they're only two feet tall, so 2900 miles is like 9000 miles to them. I'll leave you with their typical behavior on these sunniest of sunny days, again best exemplified by the WD:

The Museum is Closed and We Be Bally Hos...

Another failed attempt at culture out here in the desert - The Beck swears that this wasn't here yesterday morning, but for everyone else planning on visiting the Phoenix area, I highly recommend following this link and noting that the Phoenix Art Museum is not open on Monday. This will save you a 30 minute drive downtown already made by the veritable Lewis and Clark of Internet Illiteracy, Beck and me. On the plus side, there was a nice little putting green, I mean "garden" between the Museum and the Theater, so I snapped some pics of these cool bronze statues:

I mean, seriously, check out that last dude(tte), Rider on Horse. That is SWEET. Really, check again, closer in:

Because yeah, that's all we saw. Toyed around with the idea of hitting a movie instead, but ended up putting away clothes in the bedroom instead. Sigh...

The day was not a total waste, though. Beck and I joined the masses of beautiful Phoenix people and joined the Bally's gym around the corner* from us. Ah, Bally's - you know their silver sports-bra centered New Year's Day ads, their incessant promises that if you join now, they will politely waive the ridiculous 100 dollar sign up fee. It's exercise as the corporate experience, complete with the requisite bureaucracy - signing up for the membership was itself a half hour process, despite the fact that there was no "sales" process involved (Beck and I already wanted to join) AND we skipped the tour (that's a weight machine. And there's another one. And another. And now, here's a treadmill. And another. And another. Etc.). On the interminable plus side, we learned that Beck's birthday is "cute," she has a "cute" driver's license and she takes great pictures. Probability that the Bally's sales lady was hitting on my wife with me standing right there: 67.3%. Of course, they're probably told to do that in the Executive sales bible over there, which also apparently specifies the manner in which they are supposed to staple our receipts to our application ("They are very particular about that" the sales lady said cautiously, as though Bally's were the real-world embodiment of Wolfram and Hart. We turned down the personal training sessions accordingly, not wanting to get blood-sucked if we didn't meet our personal goal or something). We eventually were handed our membership cards, and now can join the bodybuilders and ultra buff soccer moms at our leisure. Which is cool, to be honest; it's a nice place, and it's only $24 per month,cancel-able at any point, which is even better than the $35 per month we paid at Omega in Grafton and comes with, gasp, showers (though no towels). The probability of seeing people workout in jeans and construction hats has been replaced with ill-advised Spandex, though, so not everything came up roses. Anyhoo, mission accomplished, and beck and I now have one hurdle to our inevitable flabbiness firmly in place.

Two more things about Bally's - the sales lady did not use an office chair, but instead used a giant abs ball as her chair. I actually think this is an awesome idea, and will implement it soon (soon, of course, being some time after I get a desk and drop the Schroeder-on-piano pose I am currently using to blog - my back pain is for your pleasure!). Second, at one point the sales lady, probably on some kind of meta-commission scam, asked us if we had anyone we could refer to the gym. Beck and I laughed, because we only know two people in Phoenix, and they are more in the sit and be fit realm of the world (No offense, D & C, but as little as Beck and I belong in a Bally's, you push that envelope farther). So we told the lady no, that the only people who were in Phoenix weren't really "work out" types, and she said something almost exactly like "Well, it's okay, we all have friends like that." With this hush-hush tone, like Dan and Christina were our gay alcoholic cousins we would rather not mention at familial meals. Huh? No, actually, Bally soul-less lady, some people just don't do this. It's okay, really. At which point I think we had violated one of her cyborgian Prime Directives, and her head exploded.

Which reminds me, side tangent style, that I saw a commercial for a home air filter that through crazy nightmarish sci-fi-graphics of bacteria, parasites and dust mites and informed me that my current air filter was only cutting out 40% of these bugs, but theirs would cut out 90%. And... so what? What does that accomplish, other than creating higher rates of asthma and allergies? Was I suffering at the malicious hands of unseen foes before this commercial? F U, crazy ass air filter marketing team!!! My dog hair and dust mite dropping drenched air is doing me just fine, thanks.

* - "Around the corner" if you run in normal, straight lines. I ran there using the Green Belt this morning and it was quite a jaunt... so for now, we'll be cutting across the Home Depot parking lot. NOT doing this (Bally's is at the upside down U just after mile 2... ugh):

So the day wasn't completely lost, and I even got to settle in and watch the Yawn Run Derby won by Rynomite Sandwich (my fantasy baseball team) All-Star Vlad "The Impaler" Guerrero. The real deal, this time it counts, is tonight, so I'll be catching that at the ultra-inconvenient 5 o'clock start time. For the Record, I am rooting for the NATIONAL LEAGUE, where they still play actual baseball (I politely refer you to Rule 1.01). Even if the Cubs are terrible and the Diamondbacks started sucking precisely when I crossed the border into this Daylight Savings-less state, I still have my irrational loyalties. All of this, natch, after the poor Wriglinator makes a trip to the vet... the vet which is Beck!!! I think this constitues a momentous occasion. Dog biscuits all around. More later (and don't worry, I am still going to catch up on that "I owe you all" checklist).