Let’s get right to it!

Hi Hi Tulie’s Birthday Dinner from LeahAndMark.com on Vimeo.

And so… there were a couple of twitter/blog related gatherings scheduled:

• The Atlanta People With Blogs Who Get Together to Drink (APWBWGTD Group – Seriously.)
• The Twitter + Facebook Meetup @ Cypress Pint & Plate
• Tulie’s Twelper Impromtu Birthday Dinner @ Fontaine’s!

And of course I went to Tulie’s birtday dinner… sadly, Leah’s been so stressed with Grad School + Part Time work that she couldn’t come. 

There are also the new surprise things I’m doing for supplemental um, income. No. I haven’t become the next Asian New jack City Drug Lord of Atlanta. Just odd stuff here and there.

About this video!? I think next time I’m going to pass my camera around and have people snap video themselves – simply for more variation in angles/shots. It IS kind of funny that I make these music home videos with just my Point & Shoot Canon Powershot. Someone should hire me for that. Lol. “I can make really blurry, shaky and out of focus music videos that look absolutely amateur - out of your home movies!”

I will say that I am absolutely, and incredibly fortunate to be in this circle of friends. The support has been much more than I’ve ever had from any group of people in my life. Partly because until this year – I never tried to make friends/be social/or even keep acquaintances. But literally everyone has been encouraging, and have offered what help then can, whether it’s actually taking my resume and passing it on through their channels or simply keeping their ears open for anything even remotely available that I would be a good fit for. So really. Thanks to all of them forever, and ever, and ever.

… and Hello! to any new people that are reading this after being given one of our new moo/friend cards. You’re so awesome.

*
Labor Day Party – LeahAndMark.com on Vimeo.

This video repeats a little bit – but I think the person who made the video wasn’t really sober at all when they did the editing.

And… while we go on and on about our travel wishlist and all the things we’re dreaming/planning of doing – it’s easy to miss everything we’re doing in the here and now and our general present-day joy. I couldn’t have asked for a better weekend after losing my job last Wednesday - so to everyone who took part, I thank you.

The video up above? Taken last night at a Labor Day party at Kit’s house + some Yelpers and then some Twelpers + food. It repeats itself a little but I was… stretching it anyways.

*It’s just a pellet gun.

And now it’s a photo explosion of our weekend, food, new and old friends.

Busy week ahead I suppose. More applying for jobs, more hoping for some callbacks on the ones I’ve already interviewed with – and while all of them are real viable options… I’m not completely sure which one is at the top of my list. Mainly because I can see the direction that each job, which are all in different industries – would guide me towards in the future. Example? One’s a banking job, and then another is for a tech firm – since I’ve guided my career/skills/resume towards being a ‘Financial/Business Analyst with database/computer/systems/ technical reporting skills…’ I can go either way. Of course, I just need someone to finally make an offer.

And while we were having an awesome time – we know others who have friends/family that evacuated Louisiana ’cause of the storm, and Leah was worried about all of them. Fortunately it didn’t hit as hard as it seemed like it would and things didn’t turn the wrong way like they easily could have. During breakfast at ThumbsUp Diner the CNN coverage was on in the background and all of the tables around us seemed to half focus on the storm.

There’s so much to do this week – you know, the stuff I can actually control and not the stuff that’s beyond my control – that I could easily worry about but doing so would just take away from everything else. So After an awesomely extended weekend – we’re going all out.

So. Next time we’ll just reach out to our extended friends of friends and ride one of their horses. Even if we have to make new friends to accomplish this. Sunny Farms North? Generally disappointing. Sure we were probably a bit naive to think it would be anything more than the trail rides offered by… stables of this sort… but damn, their website does specifically say:

“We have fast horses for people who like to ride fast. We have slow horses for people who like to ride slow. We have big horses for big folks & we have little horses for little folks. For those who have never ridden before, we have horses that have never been ridden”.

So I like to think that we had at least some reason for thinking that Leah could at least take off for a short run and not do the usual horse follow horse follow horse routine. Generally disappointing all around. Mind you, I’m probably just bitter about the whole thing – compounded by the fact that we were grouped with other people (and while the people were fine and awesome and no problem at all – it’s a F*cken annoyance when you don’t think that you’re signing up for a group activity. If we wanted a group adventure, we probably would have gone looking for something else instead.)

Basically, if you’ve never ever ever ever ridden a horse, or have kids and want them to ride the type of sad stable horses you feel sorry for – take them here. I could say more, but I have to stop because it’d just all come out really, really mean and completely biased – biased by nothing more than my actual experience with Sunny Farms North in Dahlonega, Ga., just past the end of 400. Oh yes. In order for you to truly get the picture – as Leah was getting onto her horse Max, the owner was holding the reigns – and then Max tried to bite him. Okay, I’m not so naive that I’m surprised by any ‘animal’ trying to bite a human – but this guy, grabs the horses head and loud enough for Leah to hear clearly, in effect says, “If she wasn’t already sitting on you I’d beat your f*cken brains out of your skull” – and you kind of get the feeling that he’s not one to kid about such things. Now, I’m probably out of line and this is how everyone in the um, horse-world treats their animals, but I don’t know. 

After our awesome trail ride we decided to drive into downtown Dahlonega and on our way there we saw this guy selling boiled peanuts on the side of the road! These were exactly how boiled peanuts should be. Their greatness was compounded by the fact (or due to?) that they were prepared on the side of the road, in a huge pot, and with a propane heat source. We’ve been fortunate enough to find one of these both times we’ve gone to Dahlonega – it makes the drive back to Atlanta so much better.

The other ‘event’ we went to last Saturday was the Festival of India – held by the… Indian group of Atlanta… well, that’s not their official name but whatever. Seriously. Like me, you probably understand the depth and general cultural richness of India – so you would expect that a ‘Festival of India’ run by the Indian American Cultural Association – to be better than a sad collection of booths selling cell phone cards, insurance, & vacations. If anything – you would probably think that they’d have some interesting food – and not just 3 sub-par indian restaurants and 1 decent indian restaurant selling up the common goods that the Indian branch of Panda Express will undoubtedly sell at the mall food court in the near future.

Granted – there were a lot of Indians that attended the Festival of India… I’m hoping that they were as disappointed in it as I was. I don’t see how they could find any real value in the whole thing since Anime conventions are more representative of Japan than this was of India. Of course, I could be wrong.

With high hopes for this event, Leah did wear her salwar kameez that she got in Nepal. See? We were totally hoping this would at least be better than the dealer’s room at a SciFi con. Next.

What did make the day better was that our friends Anna & Chris called us and invited us out to dinner with them. First we tried the Vortex down the street in L5P – that was a no go with the 45 minute wait (we don’t wait 45 minutes – not with SO MANY other places in Atlanta to go to). So then we drove over to Los Loros and had some good mexican food. That was our Saturday and Sunday was quite easy and sleepy and like I say every weekend – here comes Monday.

This was the ‘fish in oil’ dish at Frank Ma’s South – we had dinner there last week with some friends and yeah, it’s good stuff.

Although it’s well known among the Atlanta Yelp folks – any place connected to ‘Frank Ma’ will be god. He’s a chinese restaurant consultant and he basically goes to a restaurant, teaches the staff how to cook great chinese food (closer to the stuff you would actually find in China) and then eventually leaves – and Yelpers pretty much follow.

His latest spot is just a few miles up the road from us so we really should go there a little more often than the last place which was almost OTP (outside the perimeter.)

Oh. It’s good stuff. And not really anything weird like you’re probably thinking – just more authentic (oily) and flavorful.

Part of the reason we’ve been stretching these entries (and writing late) is that… we just haven’t been doing that much. Or rather, we’ve run into a blank spot where everything is more stressful but not that exciting + we just aren’t able to talk about it until long after the fact.

I know, you’re probably thinking well just don’t blog, problem solved. But clearly that’s not us, or rather, that’s not me… I’ll struggle thru the ambiguous statements and vague sentences. Because long after y’all are done reading us, and have moved onto only reading Perez Hilton or Gawker, we’ll still be regularly reviewing our own lives on this blog.

Oh. I was telling Leah how impressive I am these days since I have actually made some small effort towards being social and having regular acquaintances and possibly even people I would almost accept as calling friends – mind you it’s a very small effort and my primary method of communication with these people is still thru online means such as twitter/yelp forums/text/email (people who live here in Atlanta - and many who live less than a mile away.)

But it’s an improvement. Oh. Did you know about this?

At the section of the Great Wall of China that we visited – THERE IS A SLIDE TO GET BACK DOWN THE MOUNTAIN! It’s actually kind of fun – and way cooler than walking. Sure I know, it ruins the whole ‘epic greatness’ of the Great Wall of China – but again, if you’re at any of these locations where it looks ‘perfect’ then you’re at a rebuilt portion and they’ll eventually have the same thing in Las Vegas – so don’t get all ‘authentic’ on me. The slide was fun.

Horseback riding tomorrow. Video-ing that will be interesting. We’ll see how that goes. Oh. And then the India Festival. I hope it’s a big deal. One of my co-workers is going to be there with her family (they’re Indian) so it’ll be cool to see them. And the food. And um, the food again.

The problem. Or, one of them – is that we’re having to deal with more and more problems. General normal stuff brought about our own decisions, but still… after such a relatively easy couple of months… I had forgotten what climbing up hill (metaphorically) is like.

And then I have to remind myself that I’m well beyond my old self who would’ve quit early on – or at the very least, done nothing. So clearly the only choice left is to go all out. To whip myself up in this deliriously mental frenzy where I can do anything and believe so with unrelenting conviction to the point of… ah nevermind on that. I know.

Still. Tomorrow is Saturday and Monday comes fast. I’m hungry. I’d forgotten that.

Have an awesome today and take some photos.

Oh. And thanks to everyone who posted  a suggestion on where else we should go/put on our list of places to go. Seriously.

I know. I know. I know! I’ve been day dreaming and forever trying to not be present – because it’s just been… I don’t know what it’s been. Still. We’re here today to give you an update. Okay not really, but to post some photos of us, Atlanta, and our friends here. New and Old. Up above? from our sushi dinner with the SuperCute! -1 due to circumstances. Still. An awesome time.

I am quite sure that Shelli will be very pleased that I posted this photo of her. This was taken… last week? the week before? But I also ran into them tonight while at the Kroger getting some food. It’s like a magical Kroger where we actually run into people we know. Okay look, I’m not used to really knowing a lot of people, so that meant my chances of running into someone I knew was waaay low. But now? I know (sort of) more people so we run into more people we know. It’s all fun – but don’t tell anyone I’m anywhere near nice or friendly.

While Leah was in Phoenix, I went to a birthday party for our friend Lauren. A few days before the party she painted one of her walls with chalkboard paint. So… I wrote on it. Dot Com!

This would normally be a photo of OneTwo cuddled up with Leah, but this time it’s ThreeFour! He’s a big cat too and he seems to only want to drink warm water as it drips, right out of the faucet. And we believe that’s partly why he got a UTI soon after we moved here. He just wasn’t drinking much water. (Our old place did have a small dripping faucet that he would always drink from  – here? well this is a good place so no dripping faucets.) So now, every morning when I wake up I spend a few minutes letting him drink as much as he wants with his head under the faucet. And then if he tells us, again in the afternoon. I’ll eventually get a dripper and set it up to recycle the water in a self contained unit (instead of those water fall automatic water things that they already sell for pets.)

Ah. I can’t resist. Anyways, time for some vague-talk.

Something’s gotta happen soon. I’ve been waiting for a few months now and still. I will admit that I’ve gotten a bit more help but… So anyways, Leah’s starting school and I’m continuing school and it’s crazy hectic again. Oh yeah. Horseback riding on Saturday and then the India Festival! Saturday nigh will probably consists of us staying home because we’ll be so tired. But who knows. Oh. Leah used to ride horses quite often and I’ve gone riding… maybe twice? This is gonna rock! ha. Well, hopefully this ranch is exactly like their website feels/looks and everything goes well. Sunny Farms North.

All I gotta say is… I am not giving up coffee anytime soon.

So. While we had a big long adventure yesterday (Sunday) that involved a boat on Lake Allatoona, said boat’s engine not starting after we were out in the middle of the lake, and then eventually (and I do mean eventually) getting another boat to slowly tow us back to dock – we’ll get to that later I suppose.

After the past weekend and everything else, we had kind of decided to lock ourselves in this week and generally be hermits and not go out at all. However, early this afternoon we received an email from the SuperCute! group to meet up for Sushi tomorrow night – which would be totally cool since well, you know, we’ve never actually met these people in real life… unless you count me staring at the three of them staring at Leah and me as we pass each other in the cleaning supply aisle at the grocery… and not saying anything to each other.

Still. The earlier entry mentioning the occasion is HERE at the bottom of the entry.

Has watching the Olympics and all of the coverage on China/Culture/Beijing/Life made you want to go visit China at all? We’ve done so much lately, and if I was any sort of reporter you’d totally get a day to day up to date account of everything we’ve been doing. But in reality? There are only a few main things that take up the majority of space in my blockhead these days. More than half of them I cannot mention or speak of until some official knowledge is made known. So until then. I’m just gonna have to fabricate better entries… starting tomorrow.

I seem to have gone a bit off the reservation here. I’ll get back to ‘normal’ photo sizes sometime. It’s just that the recent review of everything China + general upheaval at work = me wanting to escape. Except it’s more different (or just different) than it has ever been. I blame Leah.

Whereas just a few years ago (pre-Leah) I was more than content to never leave the U.S. – I didn’t even have a passport enabling me to leave. But now? Now the world has opened up. And while there is always that urge to just run off and go – to leave unprepared is… there’s just more that we have to do before we can really leave, finishing our next steps in school being the primary factor. More than wanting to be ex-pats wherever we go, we want to immerse in that society and help. So our goal isn’t to simply escape. It’s to go somewhere else and help things there. While it may come off as a bit messianic… it’s closer to following a deep interest – which I am still only beginning to internalize – Leah’s been at this game far longer than I have.

This was lunch at the edge of Tiger Leaping Gorge – after we had hiked 2 hours thru the 24 bends (a steep series of switchbacks) and eventually arrived at the next main guesthouse on the mountain side. I feel like… I feel like I have been reminded that people (bosses/work) are always going to be there and jobs are primarily not for us. While some of us are fortunate enough to be in a position where we live to work – the rest of us are stuck working to live. The switch many don’t make (or are unable to) is to get to that live to work point where they are doing what they truly want/purpose in life and all that. Not merely receiving a paycheck large enough that it enables us to… buy things that distract us with the illusion of satisfaction.

Lately I’ve been dwelling on things as they are (work) and when you have no other focus – inconsequential things and people start to weigh heavily – and I let this happen to me in the last month, as shown by my recent string of vague/emo/moody posts. My situation isn’t even that bad – not nearly worth mentioning when I put it in perspective. But without a clear view of the situation, and only being focused on the now – I really allowed everything not important to sideline me and push me back to those far too internal thoughts of panic, worry, and woe.

Today is Friday, August 1st, 2008.

Clearly there are many things beyond my control. If you know me, I’ve clearly spent most of the past decade trying to control the few things that I can control. Whittling down the stream of consciousness to a mere three focuses – work, school, and exercise. That was a few years ago and these days – they are still a focus but not nearly as all-consuming as they once were. More and more I’m having to catch up and read and learn and generally increase the rate of information cramming – and I’m not even talking about the subjects they teach at school. I don’t know how I feel about things. We’ve said it before – but this blog has helped to remind us of everyday and stopped the constant rush of life passing by without us noticing. So I remember more. I remember part of what I was thinking or doing last week, two weeks or three months ago.

And I know I take many photos, and Leah’s always telling me to put the camera away, and I don’t – but there’s so much life that we capture while we’re living it and it’s just… I know that at some point I’ll probably fall out of the habit of keeping up with the photos and the blogging so religiously – and I’ll wish that I hadn’t ever stopped. So while we’re on a roll, while I’m on a roll, there’s no stopping. I’m still dealing with trying to keep the separation between showing our lives, protecting privacy/things that could come back to haunt later – while sharing something more meaningful than a steady list of ‘I did this, and then I did this, oh, and then that…”

And while I’m rambling and trying to spit something out – I suppose the summary is always simple. My summary to all of those printed thoughts up there is that I feel more aware, alive, and hungry for everything. To learn, to make stuff, to keep going with direction and purpose and knowing that it’s a real fight, a slight struggle to not get overwhelmed by work, by other people, by the insides of my head – life in general. And whereas I once spent my days distracting myself waiting for the weekend, waiting for the next job, waiting for something else to come along and change things… nevermind.

What did I do during all of those years that I can’t remember?

It’s okay. I’ve got other things to do.

Even though this is only a four day work week – it’s still Monday – so we’ll begin with something that makes us happy – Baklava! Honestly, I hadn’t ever eaten ANY baklava until… about 3 years ago when Leah’s grandparents? sent her some in the mail (well, you know, ordered it and had it delivered so it was still relatively fresh – and absolutely awesome.) Baklava has got to be in my top 10 ummm… dessert/pastry/type things ever. Seriously. Unfortunately, I could eat it for days. If by some unfortunate circumstance you’ve lived without ever having eaten any baklava – go and get some right now. Like RIGHT NOW.

As mentioned in an earlier post, we made our way to Ikea this past weekend. We bought a new sofa and a new bed/mattress. In the picture below, Leah’s pushing the Sofa and I’m pushing the bed frame parts. It was a good thing I had so much practice pushing our other sofa/bed combo to the curb the other day because I had to pull this down from the shelving and onto the cart since there were no Ikea reps around in sight. (On a completely side-note, I wasn’t sore or hurting at all after any of the furniture moving and hauling – and I normally would be all screwed up someplace, probably my back and shoulders area – except I’ve been doing workouts that mostly consist of running a lot, and using heavy kettlebells that they have my gym now. Ummmmmmm. Offtrack.)

These are Leah’s vegetarian Chiknuggets – which we ate at around 2am on Saturday night because she couldn’t sleep and was watching the 2nd season of Dexter (you have GOT to see this show) and I was attempting to work on some homework. Which brings me to another subject – how we don’t really have much actual FOOD inside of our fridge. It’s that weird situation where our fridge is FULL of stuff… but nothing to eat. We do have a large collection of condiments and parts – oh yeah, and of course Eggs… but not much real food.

Sunday morning? Belly of course! But I’ll spare you the latest pictures of the latest Nutella & Banana Panino sandwich. We also bought two Sunday papers for packing paper (and then realized that I could’ve just grabbed 4 or 5 of those ‘free’ papers like Creative Loafing or… Sunday Paper.

Looking back – it was a really, really long weekend – partly because we had the moving/packing/boxing job looming over us the whole time. We did get a whole lot done – about 3/4ths of the stuff and we even did yard work. Part of the problem is that I feel the need to box EVERYTHING. I mean almost EVERYTHING – and anything that’s not in a box… well, then it’s in a bag that we’re taking over and not having the movers bring over.

I just have this whole thing about having movers move anything that’s not big enough to be considered furniture, and stuff that’s not in a proper box that’s been taped closed. So that means I want to pack EVERYTHING in a proper box that can be taped shut and stacked. Other wise I feel it’s like… handing them a rolling cart full of loose items. I don’t know. Plus, we’re also trying to cut down on the time that the movers have to be there so the more ‘packed’ we are, the less ‘packing’ that actually has to go on when they get there – saving us money.

We ate a spot called ‘Tin Drum’ over in Sandy Springs this weekend and it was a good choice – not anything adventurous, but after our relatively terrible lunch at Saigon Cafe in Decatur… yeah, Tin Drum was awesome in comparison.

Penang chicken up above. Seriously. Lately I’ve been on this big um, ‘penang’ kick. It’s such a good flavor!… and I’m sure the coconut milk has relatively few calories right? I mean, like none. And fat? zero. Definitely. Well. Um. I guess I’ll take comfort in that it’s not ‘breaded and fried’ chicken right?

So. Work today. Homework. Yeah. Like every class, this latest one is really a bit of a struggle only because of the timing – but about half the time it’s really inconvenient anyways. I can’t not do the paper this week because it’s worth double the number of points of last week’s paper (which I did not due after the cost/benefit analysis of time vs. paper) so… this week’s paper, a MUST do. Hopefully I can knock it out relatively easy. Sometimes… it’s a real battle. Tonight? It’s the battle of me against the clothes.

It thunder’d/lightning’d/rain’d hard here in Decatur for about a second – long enough to knock out the power in our house and the entire block around us – so after attempting to wait things out and sweating thru the humidity – we abandoned that idea, grabbed our laptops and headed over to Breukelen Mojo cafe down in Kirkwood.

However, these shots are from dinner last night at Carpe Diem down the street, in Decatur. We seem to always go there for an early dinner (early by mostly everyone else’s standards) and the place is usually pretty empty – compounded by the fact that it’s quite spacious. Whatever, we like the food most of the time. Of course, I’ve only ever ordered one thing from their menu – over and over again. The Salmon Ciabatta sandwich.

Sure this shot isn’t a stellar presentation – but the better sandwiches out there aren’t pretty sandwiches. At least not once you start biting into them. You want the ingredients to go together, to mix, to be cohesive and not slide apart, not fall away, but to coordinate their flavors so that they hit you with an overriding force that causes the fastest eater, the one who barely manages to taste his food – to slow down, take smaller bites and pay attention to every moment of that sandwichs’ existence.

Or, like the Nutella & Banana Panino sandwich, I could just say that I like this sandwich so much that I’m afraid I’d regret ordering anything else off the menu when this is a sure bet.

Oh yeah. So while the power is out – that also means that the packing is on hold – which kind of sucks. Even though everyone’s probably tired of hearing us procrastinate on the packing. We also went to IKEA today, dropped 1k (picked up 1k in debt) and got a new sofa, and a new bed. They’ll be delivered on Tuesday afternoon at the new place. Awesome.

Up above? Calamari. Good stuff too. Not the usual ‘fried calamari’ appetizer – these were great ’cause they weren’t greasy at all + the sauces were awesome, a teriyaki dip and a yogurt curry type thing. Awesome.

I keep holding onto the idea that it’ll be fun to stay up late, packing and getting things done when things cool down. It’s Saturday night – the only night other than Friday when you can stay up as late as you want, and not really have to worry about work as a consequence the next morning – unless of course, you go to church and if you do, well, you probably have many other things to worry about that we don’t. Still. Whenever Friday or Saturday night come around, I feel possibility opening up – because it does. Hours that are normally off limits, are all of a sudden freed and available for use.

Back in March when we began this blog, I wasn’t quite sure how it was going to survive after our trip to China. That was the primary reason for its creation – even if we said otherwise – but fortunately, we’ve lived enough life on a daily basis that we can fuel a daily entry. And while some posts/activities are contrived and planned (saying stuff like ‘we can take photos and post them!’) – even that excuse has helped greatly because it gets us out of the house. It gets us to do things we may not otherwise do.

But in conjuction to doing more due to the thin excuse of ‘for our blog’ – everything has served as a great reminder that our lives can easily pass us by without us paying attention. And different from our personal/individual/private journals, this one doesn’t even house our random thoughts and ‘deep thinking’ essays – we can barely fit in the actual things we do, let alone all of the things we’re thinking about. Although I’m sure I squeeze it in on the slow nights.

We didn’t realize that we already had two dozen eggs so Leah bought another dozen – so we’ve been eating eggs every morning lately + avocados! We didn’t buy bread so it’s just the two items + coffee! ‘Cause obviously, more than anything else, coffee is a breakfast staple (for me at least!)

Okay look. I just haven’t had the time to cook-up my 3 small meals that I eat while at work (all part of my six small meals a day-lose-weight-build-muscle-plan) so, I’ve been cheating and splitting up panda express food. But wait! Before you all out laugh at me, let’s look at the nutritional facts… ah nevermind. Ah um. Okay. The short run-down. Compared to their Orange Chicken which is about 500 calories + like 14 grams of fat per serving.

If you choose mandarin chicken or kung pao – that’s roughly 250 cal per serving + white rice which is something like 380 cal per – SO. If you get the lunch combo with 2 entrees and white rice, then divide it into two – that’s two ‘meals’ at roughly 600 calories… um. Okay. When you do the math it’s a lot I guess – but not compared to eating the whole thing at once. 1,200 calories in one sitting? AND that’s with the lighter entree options – just think if you get the orange chicken for lunch, the math works out like this: 

(500 cal per serving X 2) + (760 cal. 2 servings of rice in a to-go container) = 1,760 calories for lunch.

And now to negate all that ‘health’ talk – up above is the ‘Sunrise’ bagel sandwich – Oh, it’s so good - from my usual coffee stop before work – Bagel Boys Cafe.

This is a sea salt bagel sandwich from Belly the General Store in Virginia Highlands. Leah gets these and loves them. Oh. Below is a picture of the ‘General Store’ – look, it looks all vintage and ‘old time’ – kind of like the Cracker Barrel except this place isn’t full of ‘vintage’ garbage and knick knacks that you shouldn’t ever buy.

But still, this place is one of my favorites because of one thing. Their Nutella & Banana Panino sandwich. Forget doing the math (’cause I’d die) – I don’t see a reason for ordering anything else on their menu. I haven’t ordered anything different and I won’t – simply because I know that no matter what, I’ll wish that I had chosen to get this sandwich instead. In fact, here’s a link to our first post + video about Belly.

It’s Thursday! Just one more after today and then we’re free for the weekend… free to pack, do homework, sleep in, eat more food, workout, and just generally rock this life.

Mi Barrio Mexican Cantina in Grant Park, on Memorial Ave., across from Oakland Cemetery and down the street from Six Feet Under – truly has some of the best, home-made/authentic SouthWest Mexican food in Atlanta. The GOOD stuff that you would have at any family gathering if you have any hispanic heritage in ya, and live in Arizona, New Mexico or Texas. Well – actually what you have here is a better version of the good junk you can get at any of the ‘-Bertos’* Mexican food shacks back in Arizona.

And the rambling begins.

If you have only one cat, I kind of understand letting it go out and about outdoors. Especially if you’re not home all day, or just too busy to hang out with your cat all day. It kind of comes back to having only one pet (cat or dog) that you leave at home all day alone. It’s just kind of sad. Especially when you could get two and then they could at least entertain each other when they wanted to, as opposed to one pet just zoning out on nothing – unless they actually like to be completely alone. I just think about if we only had one cat and not two – but I’m just going on about nothing really because some pets, just like people, want to live alone.

But for the sociable ones, like our cats – being alone all the time would suck. Especially since our cats actually like each other (most of the time) and play and fight and sleep next to/on top of each other/with us. But what am I going on about? I don’t know, I’m just waiting for the laundry to finish.

Warm, golden chips + good salsa are a requirement for a good Mexican restaurant right? – even if we try to not eat them – when you get a bad set of chips or salsa before you meal, it just starts everything off on the wrong foot.

I know we mention some blog(gers) quite regularly, so I figure today I’ll mention our friend YogaGirl! She used to work hardkore in a lab and then she started teaching yoga/fitness part time and then she quit her lab job and became a master instructor of all things fitness-class. I ‘met’ her while she still lived in Houston and then she moved to Oregon a few years ago with her husband where they do A LOT of house remodeling – so much so that her blog is about half fitness and then half HGTV. Still. I’ve known her since back when I had a blog @ blog-city.com, and then through all of my different incarnations of MarkRoX. Fortunately, she’s relatively slow to update her links and she kept me listed during the months(years) where I would stop blogging and just kind of do nothing online or off. (Is there life offline?)

So. I’ve been in school for a while now (this round) and I’ve been thinking about the whole idea of pulling an ‘all-nighter’ and how, I haven’t done one of those this time around. I mean, sure I’ll stay up late to finish a paper, or the ‘participation posts’ (it’s online school – and um, well, it’s at least a degree) but I haven’t had to pull an all-nighter. I suppose that’s because I also don’t have real tests. They’re all take home. So there’s no need to really ’study’ in the same manner. And even then, everything else? It’s just measuring the hit I’ll take (10 points off for each day late)  and how much I’d rather be sleeping – mostly when it gets past midnight, sleeping is worth more since I still have to go to work the next morning.

My Chimichanga (and I know, they don’t really have these things in Mexico – but thank god they do in the border states – because damn, a fried burrito? Genius.

I LOVE the fact that I finally bought a replacement laptop battery for my larger HP laptop – now it functions as a laptop again and I can take it places since the battery holds a charge now. Now if I could only get the USB ports repaired and actually connect things to it…

*-Bertos’ mexican food shacks are these things we have in Arizona where basically, you take some sort of small rundown food spot (often times in a strip mall) – add a window for people to walk up or drive up to and order – and just keep it open 24 hours day, serving the largest burritos possible and other magical mexican foods back in the hole of a kitchen that barely passes the health inspections – and the food is probably better for it. Of course, you don’t have to listen to us, remember we LOVE street food and everything that that entails (the mystery, the dirty, and the fact that many people won’t touch the stuff.) Oh, and they all have a naming convention of where, you can choose anything you want in front of the ‘Bertos part, but you MUST have the Bertos in the name. Some examples are FiliBertos, RigoBertos, JuanoBertos, MarkRoXBertos…

We have boxes, and now we’re fighting the urge to just let a Sunday afternoon slowly ease away like it should – without too much trouble or work… but we all know that’s not what we should  do. So. Like the list has been saying to us for the past week – Laundry, Packing, Cleaning, Packing, Homework, Packing.

Last Thursday after getting home and then taking a short nap on the floor, Leah woke me up so we could go to an art gallery showing @ Dresscodes, the clothing boutique owned/operated by our friends Karen & Brett. They have an art showing about every few months with a new artist each time. We haven’t been to one since the first one but this one definitely had many more people and it was a lot of fun to stop by, check things out, and catch up with the two of them. As usual, the clothes are fun to look through and they also have some cool accessories and hard to find jeans and um, other things I mentioned in the first post about them that night we had dinner together.

These are always nice ’cause like any art showing, they have free beer (or wine) and cheese and crackers! Okay. Sure, it doesn’t sound like much to get excited about, but Free is FREE! And I’m always in a good mood for free alright?

Karen is the one in Blue and Brett is over there with the polka dot hat on.

Afterwards, we went across the street and had some thai food @ Amaryn’s – it’s decent enough there with no real surprises, but it’s our default place lately when we don’t feel like thinking. Still, rarely do we get all out disappointed.

Just a few more days house sitting @ the big house. Good. Great.

Mi Barrio last night and Highland Bakery for breakfast today. The Good Food Never Stops Here.

These are shots we took when we visited our friend Anna (of Anna & Chris!) back before we went to Summerfest – I never got around to posting these shots ’cause um, well it happens often and we keep doing things and then those get pushed to the front and shots from days like this get pushed to our filler days or when we simply just haven’t had the time to edit/upload the new photos (like ones from last night’s art show @ Dresscodes.) But still! It’s Friday! Seriously. Seriously, thank goodness it’s… well, close to the weekend.

I didn’t really get nearly as much as I had hoped last night, what with the thing and then also having to go over to the house sitting place and turn on the lights, try to convince the cat to come inside and feed her – which we didn’t do since there was another cat in the yard and so the rightful cat decided to fight/scare off that other cat away – since y’know, it was encroaching on her property. But we left food on the back porch (as instructed) and I checked it this morning – all gone so she probably ate it.

This whole letting your cat outside for the day or night is crazy to me – simply because I’ve never let One-Two or Three-Four out and about. Never. Which is good and bad for reasons I’m unaware of, but at this point, they’re not going out there – even if they think they want to – and the few times they have escaped for a second – they freeze once they’re outside and run back inside anyways.

Photo Removed

This shot and the 1st one up above are my imitations of Jan Vermeer paintings and his window lighting.

I’ve been going to the same spot for coffee in the mornings – Bagel Boys Cafe – near work and recently, they’ve started giving me the whole ‘regular customer’ treatment – which isn’t hard since I usually only get a large coffee, and rarely get a sandwich (they’re good there by the way) – but yeah, I forgot how nice it is to be a ‘regular’ somewhere and have the staff actually remember you. Even if they don’t know your name (even if they did, they’d probably only remember my drink anyways – you know, that’s just how it is when you serve coffee or drinks all day) but still, I’m apparently sucker for any amount of recognition. It also helps that they have really good flavored coffee (I’m over being a coffee purists and wanting to only taste the natural flavors of coffee.) They have this chocolate macadamia nut flavored blend… and then a good vanilla hazelnut one… just add half & half and I’m good – I don’t even need to add my usual 2 cups of fake sugar.

Okay. I just got the hang of Twitter – but now I’m lost on how useful/accessible plurk is going to be – of course, that could just be me since um, it took me until yesterday to upgrade the WordPress version around here – and it was only a matter of two clicks since we use Bluehost.

Enough rambling, let’s get to the end of the work day already!

No More Photos on this blog!

No just kidding. I do have questions though.

Well, mainly just one. Are you generally confused as to who writes each entry (is it Leah? is it Mark?) or can you generally get the gist of things from reading the text? Either way, how much does it really matter to you? – since the writing is done at about a 9/1 ratio. Okay. I guess that’s two questions.

In an attempt to figure out how I met MelMaples and how long I/we’ve known her, I went through my LJ account and realized that I used to make blog entries with no photos. Entire paragraphs with nothing in between them except space. Who knew I could get so wordy? Maybe I had more to say back then. Oh yeah, we also didn’t have cameras that work as well as the current ones.

Is it bad when you have to move in 12 days and you haven’t packed ANYTHING? Seriously. Is that bad? Because it’s true. True enough that I could feasibly stress out about the whole thing except I take solace in the fact that I could technically throw everything into boxes and sort it all out later – as long as I had enough boxes – which I do not. It’s just that collecting/buying all these boxes so that we can pack everything and move 6 miles down the road seems like a big hassle. Sure, we’re hiring movers and that’ll make EVERYTHING easier, but we still have to pack it all up so that they can just carry the boxes over with the furniture. Pack. Pack. Pack.

Actually. It’s going to come down to a simple matter of throwing out everything we don’t need and throwing everything else into boxes. Which again, is simple enough as long as we have enough boxes. And ‘collecting’ enough of them could feasibly cost as much in time as it does to just BUY them. So. Um. The end of that thought.

Tonight we’re stopping by Dresscodes - the clothing boutique in Downtown Decatur that our friends Karen & Brett own/operate. They’re having another gallery showing for an artist who is showing art in their store (they rotate them on a regular basis.) So ya know, if you’re bored around 6pm and happen to be in Decatur, stop in and let me take a picture with you! Oh. I suppose you should also check out all of the clothes and art and stuff that’s there too. I guess, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Okay. Just one photo. Have a great day.

One-Two! Three-Four!

***Edit***

Ah nevermind. Following Melissa’s instructions, ‘Posted by’ is clearly added at the bottom AND I even finally got around to updating the Wordpress version we’re using here.

***Edit*Edit***

Now I wanna do more coding edits! and throw more junk on this place! (I regularly try out different widgets/plugins on the sidebar – to see how they look/usefulness/interesting and stuff like that. That’s why some things appear and disappear every now and then. PLUS – obviously if it’s too wide then it can’t go in the sidebar no matter what. And every now and then, I even think about changing themes! But then I look around and there’s just nothing else compelling/looks good enough to change it up – besides, we’ve only existed four months. Ah. I guess I’ll leave it alone.

Let’s just accept the fact that today wasn’t the most healthy day in our food history so far. Granted, we’ve eaten lots of fried food and stuff that is generally considered ‘bad’ – but for some reason I put pizza that is not home made, and Chinese food from Panda Express in the same do-not-touch zones as say, McDonald’s or any other fast food chain. I/we just consider them worse, even if mathematically/calorie-wise, they are not. (Did you know that McDonald’s owns Chipotle?)

And while it may seem like all we ever do is post photos of food (and you’d be close to correct!), we do post photos of other things ya know?… AND food. But still, I have to admit, it gets rough to find subject matter during the week. Yet we eat Everday so that’s an easy topic to get into.

Currently, we’re spending every other night @ the site we’re house sitting at in Inman Park. An old home built at the turn of the 20th century (1900’s for you kids who don’t know any better.) Sadly, this house is over 100 years old and has central air – while ours, has none. Also, this house has a monster kitchen.

Sadly (okay not really) this was breakfast – fluffy eggs & cheese on an asiago bagel. I wouldn’t say it was bad – because it was great!

Aha! The flickr photo editor is working again so I can show this photo of the kitchen now -

Those are the big doors to the fridge and the freezer on the left – then the gas stove top/oven/convection oven/grill – I also like the overhead superfan to pull away all the smoke when I let the oil heatup in the wok too fast and burn! But there is a lot of room, and like I said in an earlier post – nearly every utensil and spice you would ever need to cook something – plus the woman of the house has a lot of asian cook books – so she also has quite the spice collection.

In fact, Leah cooked these for breakfast yesterday. Blueberry muffins and they were obviously quite good. Hopefully we’ll find the budget to cook some more things and just use this kitchen as much as we can while we’re here. Oh, we’re also trying to gather some friends for a little get together this weekend, pot luck style – yes, a small group hanging out in this big house with the 20 foot high ceilings. I’ll take some photos during the day when the light is better and then post them – right now we’ve just been getting here too late and at night so it’s all indoor lighting and the shots just aren’t working out.

Oh, we met with a possible DJ for our wedding – it looks good so soon that’ll be one less thing to worry about.

The weekend is almost here.

This post was initially going to simply be about our lunch today. Leah left work early and drove the distance up to where I work in Alpharetta, where we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant down the road. But then I actually took some photos tonight @ the regular Wednesday night StandUp for Kids Outreach Center. Leah volunteers there every Wednesday night, while I only volunteer about every other Wednesday. It’s five hours where the kids come in, and we give them food, supplies, help with documentation, education – whatever is missing… I’ve posted it before, but for the new people who don’t know about the organization – Click here for a description/summary.

Tonights’ dinner was provided by a church group, one of which is also a regular StandUp for Kids volunteer. Although StandUp is not a faith based organization, every month there are several church groups that provide the dinners, along with the occasional restaurant donation.

These photos of the kids and the volunteers are blurred because we’re not allowed to show their identifiable faces. The center is a ’safe’ place and unfortunately, there may be people out there looking for these kids – people who may or may not mean to do them harm.

Whereas just a few months ago things were generally quite chaotic – the leadership has implemented a good structured schedule for the night with activities and other things that keep the kids focused, and more or less out of trouble while they’re in the center. Tonight they were making collages of things that ‘represent them, or how they feel, or some other meaning of themselves’.

For reasons too long to write, every Wednesday volunteers haul the donated clothes and supplies from out of the trunks of their cars where they are stored and bring them into the conference room where they are divided up into clothing, hygiene and food packs to hand out to the kids when the night is over and they have to go back to wherever they came from.

Tonight was Becca’s birthday. She’s the Director of the Atlanta Chapter (I think that’s her title, but either way, she’s the one who’s in charge and arguably the most dedicated and has been for years and years when many other volunteers long ago left.)

At the end of the night after all the kids have left, we meet and talk to update each other on the goings on of each kid, things to work on, and areas we need to follow up on next week. Working with these kids is not that same feel good feeling you may get from a one time volunteer “project”. Once-a-week-volunteer-social-work is closer to the truth and the payoff is honestly, rarely there. I’m not sure if you could really pry an answer from any of the hardcore volunteers that would possibly convince anyone on the outside to logically commit to this on the level that they have. And while it’s easy to simply say that they are, ‘better people’ – it’s not a real answer to why we/ourselves are not as committed or feel only half as empathetic as these volunteers. Obviously I have no answers and even fewer good questions. I count Leah in that group of committed volunteers who operate for reasons beyond simple logic. However, it must clearly and easily be noted that there are very few males in this group – as you can see from the photo above.

Goodnight.

Sunday was rather low-key, but still HOT! We went to Target, played around with some stuff, bought a kettlebell to workout with, and then spent a few hours reading @ Barnes & Noble – more on that kettlebell some other time.

But reading makes you (us) hungry! So with little cash to spend and an urge for some sushi, we decided to just walk across the street over to RuSans and get some regular sushi. (Shhhh, don’t tell the Yelp Elite crowd that we eat sushi @ RuSans! They’ll ban us from the club!)

Insert Words Here

Do not be deceived, I have a little bit of luck when taking photos and the sushi does not actually look this good. (The mess of a plate setting is all me though.)

Leah almost always gets the Olympic Five Rings – here’s the thing about RuSans, other than the relative quality of their sushi – their menu has about a billion options and different made up types of sushi rolls. Seriously. You think I’m kidding – you’ve never been to RuSans. While it’s good to have some innovation in your food, they really do take it kind of beyond what’s needed, I’m sure most people never make it past 1/5 of their menu – but you probably shouldn’t really try anyways. Their ’spicy’ sauce is of the cheaper burning variety too. But for the price, it’s nice to not have to worry about the money you’d spend at a sushi place, just to get full. RuSans at least does that, fills you up for a relatively cheap price – granted, not all locations are equal.

I Really. Really. Really love my camera. It’s a Canon Powershot A570 IS – Sure I don’t really know how to use it – I barely just now learned about that flower icon setting that lets me take really close photos – see, I don’t even know what that term is called. There are so many settings that I don’t usually mess with them and most of the time, I use ‘auto’ and turn off the flash ’cause I don’t know how to take good photos with the flash on – all of mine look like they are photos taken with the flash turned on and I get that washed out effect. But back in… sometime around late 2002 I think, I bought my first digital camera which was the Canon Powershot A10! – Yeah b*tches – requiring 4 AA batteries for a total 0utput of 1.3 glorious megapixels!

I used that camera up until last March when I bought the new one for our China Trip – and the motor was dying for about 3 years, it made this really tired, dying sound as it retracted – but that camera was also indestructible, which is one of the reasons why I bought my current one – for the same reason that I had to get a Nokia brick phone with rubber buttons – I drop electronic things. So anyways, in a few years, when I have an extra thousand dollars and then some, I’ll get a digital SLR and ummm… take some classes and learn more than basic composition – but until then, what else am I to do but keep taking photos. And right now, I like it that way… I think too many people let ‘not knowing how’ get in the way of their doing… especially in creative areas, but if I let that get in my way, I’d never get anything done.

We’re house sitting – and oh, you have got to see the kitchen in this house – it’s insanely great with the professional fridge and freezer, pro stove top, convection oven – and any pan/pot/dish/utencil you would ever really need to cook something great. SO. Since our kitchen is… well, even if it was great, it’s 90 degrees in there without turning on the stove so we’re probably going to be cooking lots at this place we’re house sitting at. I can’t wait to try some stuff out… now if only I had some money to buy groceries with… ah, I’m sure I’ll find something.

So while it’s taken us forever to start this out – here is the first of our posts of resources/info about our trip in China. Since it seems like nearly everyone (including taxi drivers) has a very hard time finding Mama’s Naxi Guesthouse/hostel in Old Town Ljiang, we figured that we’d post a printable map for other travelers – especially since we had such an awesome time there.

The description you read about in Lonely Planet is dead on, with the free tea and bananas, and then also the cats and dogs that just wander in and out of the place at all hours.

Map of How to get to Mama’s Naxi Guesthouse in Old Town Lijiang, China, Click to Download.

Instead of scanning the large map and drawing on top of that – here’s a more simple, hand drawn map that should give you enough direction/information to enable you to arrive there safely and without too much trouble (but a fair amount of walking.) And even if this is technically the longer way around, it’s the most simple and direct route for anyone who doesn’t know how to get there – including your taxi driver. Actually, you’ll want your taxi driver to drop you off near the water wheels since they’ll at least know that landmark – and then just follow the water/river down deeper into Old Town Lijiang until you reach “Square Market”.

These are just south of the waterwheels – you can’t miss them, and you’ll probably hear people going past them making that wooden clacking sound all the way down.

But no matter where you are in Old Town, all of the signs will tell you how to get to Square Market/ Market Square. From there you go down Qi Yi Street which as you can see on the map, also follows a water way. Go down until you see  Wanzhi Bridge on the left – it’ll be tucked in an alley so keep your eyes open or else you’ll miss it. Go over the bridge, follow the road as it turns left over the bridge, then right again – you’ll be in Congren alley and from here you simply walk all the way down until you see a relatively long glass window that looks like a common area for a hostel (if you’ve been traveling for any amount of time, you’ll know what I mean.) If there is any sign that says restaurant or bar/cafe – that is NOT Mama Naxi’s, so just keep walking.

This is the bridge you have to cross over to get to Congren Alley – this view is from the otherside – if you’re going down Qi Yi Street, you’ll turn left and then come out on the right side of this picture here. Then you’ll cross the bridge and go out the left side of this picture and then you’ll be on Congren Alley – make sense?

This is Mama Naxi herself.  and below is a picture of Baba – the gentleman who runs Mama Naxi 2 – the main building is actually Mama Naxi 3.

If you DO hit the end of the road and have to go either left or right, then you’ve gone too far and back up about 100 feet.  We hope this helps and we hope you have a great time in Lijiang, China.

You probably won’t reach the guesthouse by email – so just give them a call.

0888-5185930 / 5100700
zhao_gang1982@yahoo.com

For our earlier entry + video of when we were actually there – Click here.

So while Leah is at the hospital waiting for her mother to get out of knee surgery and generally making sure she’s alright – I’m at home – or rather, I’m at Dancing Goats Coffee bar just around the corner from our house.

It’s too hot in our house to really stay there (unless I wanna hangout all night in the bedroom – but there’s no cable tv in there) so I’m out and about for a quick hour to cool off before I get back and hangout with One-Two and Three-Four.

Plus, I made this genius break through in some production metrics/trend forecasts that I’m building – so I feel all genius now – but that’s one of things I really like about my job – they let me make these things that allow me to feel genius (even if they’re actually elementary concepts in my statistics class – but the application to real life is sometimes trickier than text book.

Yesterday, we had a good Sunday morning breakfast on the patio of this place:

It’s actually across the street from where I sit now at Dancing Goats and just next door to Watershed. But we went there for one reason and one reason alone – they have beignets. Again, there are a few places here in Atlanta that do a decent job of making them while there are none in Phoenix (I’ll stop bashing the food scene in Phoenix someday – I will…)

Everyone keeps saying they’re like square donuts…but they’re better. They look like this:

Well, that’s what they look like after I bite into one. They actually looked like this on the plate:

According to Leah, these were pretty good beignets – that’s chocolate sauce there, but just think if they had Nutella! That would’ve rocked even more – but no.

We also had a crepe/omlette which was quite nice – and even though clouds started rolling in – it didn’t start raining so they kept it a little cooler than it otherwise would have been. Everyone that morning was out on the tiny patio with us, watching the people walk by with their dogs.

No, we have a question for anyone in Atlanta out there reading this (come on! both of you!) – we always see a huge line outside of Taqueria Del Sol – and the place isn’t small so there’s a good amount of seating, but people STILL pack this place and line up outside – why? We’ve seen the menu and it’s… alright, it doesn’t even really have that many options. What’s so great about this small chain of mexican restaurants?

Oh. Last night we also met up with Leah’s friend Lauren – she’s the Maid of Honor in our wedding and we got together to go over wedding stuff like dresses and junk – so you know I was totally, totally… semi bored.

See how intensely they’re studying that wedding magazine? Ha! Well. It was still nice to see Lauren (she lives up in the crazy city of Baltimore) ’cause she’s quite awesome – like all of our friends that we hang out with.

And still – new class starts tomorrow, more school, and I think I’m going to need to double up my schedule so I can finish sooner. Couple that with my semi-lousy attempts at learning Chinese + Business Analysis junk I’m trying to learn for work + moving + working out (so i don’t get huge from all of this food we keep taking pictures of) + saving money… and ummm… well at least we take lots of pictures so that we can remember everything we’re doing.

Actually – we’ll be honest with you… WE LOVEOUR BLOG. Seriously. We’re this blog’s biggest fans! Every morning it’s like… let’s update ourselves on our own lives ’cause man, we do fun things! – and I don’t always remember what we did until I check our blog and it REMINDS us! You’d think that it wasn’t US who was doing all this stuff.

But it IS nice to have even the small post with the photos – because I have hundreds of photos that I rarely look at in the files on my computer and for many of them, I don’t get the same feeling/experience/nostalgia as I do from even the short time that we’ve been posting on here… hey, it’s kind of like that effect that you get from having a j0urnal eh?

Brilliant. AND we even post practically everyday – much to the dismay of casual readers who visit once a week and have 9 entries with 8 photos each stretching their browser window down about 10 feet. Of course if you simply subscribed to our RSS feed your life would be that much simpler – just give in – do it! No really, we’re amazed that anyone’s signed up, and to them we thank you! Because ummm.. it’s fun? Well, clearly this isn’t a proper blog that’ll attract thousands of hits a day since most of the time we just post what we do – but again, we’re happy that our Friends and good acquaintances read – and we read their blogs. So if you have a blog that we read – keep writing and do it often gosh.

Still. It’s Monday night, the house is a mess and I need to clean up. Four more days until the weekend but I have a feeling this week is about to go really fast… not sure why, and maybe I’m wrong, but maybe I’m right!

It was my brother Ryan’s birthday yesterday. He turned 26 – AND he finally got on Facebook! Now I can… aw nevermind, I don’t really use facebook. This picture was earlier this year when it snowed here in Atlanta. Like my hat? It’s Leah’s.

And now.. I have to get back to the h0use and AT LEAST wash the dishes – so here are some pictures of One-Two and then Three-Four. They’re the best giant house cats we could’ve ever asked for.