We had a really good dinner on Saturday, with a couple new recipes from nibbledish. For the pasta course we had Tagliatelle of Mushroom. I used cremini, shiitake and oyster mushrooms (and some leftover king mushrooms). Cooking the mushrooms in a really hot pan works great -- the mushrooms fry rather than boiling, and so come out nicely browned. For the meat course we had Argentinean Strip Steak. I still prefer steak with just Montreal Steak Spice, but this was pretty good for variety. Our favourite LCBO guy (Grant) recommended a malbec from Argentina, Alegoría, which went really well with both courses.

On Sunday I re-did the flagstone that runs beside the house. We had a lot of rain on Friday night, with predictions of up to 50mm. The weather station in Leslieville doesn't show any actual data for rain (maybe it was off the chart?). Anyways, I originally built the flagstone beside the house (the downspout empties into this) (it's 3' wide), in a "V" shape, with the mid-point about 2" lower than the sides. When it's raining hard, the water was running over the edges, and eroding the limestone screening. I re-lay the flagstone so that there's now about a 4" difference. I was trying to figure out the water volume based on the roof size and rain peaks, but there were too many variables I couldn't estimate.

Well I should start making dinner. We're having grilled lamb (it's my own recipe, so I can take a picture and post it to nibbledish.com)

I have a new favourite website for recipes, nibbledish.com. I found it while looking for a recipe that included king mushrooms (we had some leftover). Ended up making basil chicken that didn't even have king mushrooms, but it came out pretty good. I really like the pictures with the recipes -- looks like most posters are into photography as well.

Yesterday we made tacos, sort of based on one of the recipes. I didn't realize how easy it is to make the meat mixture -- I just used tomato paste, along with cumin, paprika and chili powder. I was going to make the tortilla shells too, but ended up buying some from Loblaws. Next time I think I'll make the shells.

We won our playoff game last Sunday in Ultimate, so we're in the finals this weekend.

Well I should start making dinner.

Heather's back has been flaring up the past couple weeks and I've been working from home about half the time to help her out.

On Thursday there was a big storm that blew through. A couple branches (about as thick as my leg) broke off the tree at the entrance to our street, one of them falling on a parked car. The other branch took out an electrical wire, so we had an emergency vehicle outside for a while. The clean-up crew came around midnight, and in about five minutes had wood chipped all the branches, fixed up the wire, and moved onto their next job. They were very efficient.

I barbecued chicken on Thursday for dinner, and so had to wait for the storm to finish. Heather suggested using the cornmeal to coat the chicken pieces, so I made up my own recipe of five herbs and spices (cayenne pepper, garlic salt, paprika, cumin and pepper, plus the cornmeal). It turned out pretty good.

We had some chocolates from Ambiance Chocolat again. They have some new flavours, my new favourite is the caramel and jalapeño truffle. Mmmm good. Heather's favourite is still the caramel and fleur de sel.

With Heather's back sometimes keeping her in bed, I was surfing around for audio books for Heather, so that she could listen to them on her iPod. I found out that the Toronto Public Library allows you to download audio books for free! First I had to actually go in person to a library to renew my card, which was pretty quick. The audiobooks have DRM on them so they "expire" after a set period of time, and you can have a maximum of 10 books checked out at a time, which is pretty reasonable.

It wasn't too hard to download a book, but I had to manually import it into my iTunes library. It wasn't that complicated, but now that I'm used to the iTunes Store, moving files around manually seems a bit archaic. Also, it's downloaded in a mp3 format which iTunes 7 doesn't recognize as a book (time for me to upgrade to iTunes 8?). Some googling showed there's an option in iTunes for each track to remember playback position, so if you start playing a book, it will remember where you left off. Anyways, Heather selected some books and now they're on her iPod.

I finally gave up on trying to finish Don Quixote. It's taken me six months to get a quarter of the way through. It's way too repetitive, like a Saturday Night Live skit where the same joke is used over and over again. Craig said the second half of the book is even worse, because the author just criticizes other people who have copied his format, and shows why his is the real thing. Maybe I'll come back to it one day, but for now it's back on the shelf along with Catch 22, another book I struggled with and never finished.

I went golfing with Doaner, Craig and Chris on Saturday at Dragon's Fire, about an hour west of Toronto. The course is only a year old, but looks great. It was also a great day, sunny and 27C, one of the warmest days this summer. The course had the best greens I've played on this year. I was erratic, shooting over 100, but with a couple pars. I almost birdied the par-5 18th, I had a 10-foot putt that I missed. It took a while to get back home, I had to drop Craig off in King West, with Caribana going on.

Yesterday and today I worked a bit more on the backyard:



The gate's attached to the old fence post between us and our neighbour. I'm not sure yet if it will hold the gate, but I'm hoping the crossbeam above the gate will help support the weight. I still have to attach the lock (I need to borrow Maricar's circle drill bit), so for now I've jammed a piece of wood underneath.

I was shopping for groceries yesterday at Loblaws, and tried a sampling that I liked, so made it for dinner, pan-fried catfish with arugula-orange salad, with rice tossed with toasted pecans, broccoli and garlic. It turned out pretty good. The catfish was dredged with a mixture of cornmeal, salt and cayenne. I hadn't used cornmeal before, it's pretty good coating for fish (instead of say breadcrumbs).

We've been using the firepit the last couple nights. It's actually quite nice in the backyard, with the fire going, and music and the big trees in the backyard. Next is figuring out the patio furniture. We want to get a sectional, but the ones we like cost around $7000. I'll probably end up building one.

We're having pork and shrimp steamed dumplings for dinner, I should start cooking.

I was calling around about extending and burying the hose from the propane tank to the PatioFlame. It looks like it's a job for a professional gas fitter, that will cost about $300. I didn't search too much, but I suspect it's also required by code in Ontario. So for now the propane tank will sit as far as the existing hose will allow (about 6'), and maybe build a little table over it. I didn't know this before, but propane is heavier than air.

Last week I had a flat tire at work (at least, the tire was flat after work) (the front passenger side tire had a nail). I didn't want to wait around for roadside assistance to put on the donut tire, and I was in my suit, so I left the car at work and TTC'd it home. The next morning I went in in jeans and changed the tire, and drove over to the new Audi dealership (I had made an appointment first thing in the morning). The service was excellent. They washed the car, packed away all the tire tools properly in the trunk, had free beverages and WiFi access. I had taken my laptop and so just worked away while they put on a new tire. They also did the maintenance that was due in 900km, and checked the other tires (there was a nail in the driver-side front tire which they were able to remove). I was very impressed by the whole process.

It was my birthday yesterday and so I took the day off. My parents had everyone over for dinner (it's my birthday tradition). It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately Heather couldn't make it, she re-injured her back last week. It was the coolest July 20th that I can remember, but quite comfortable. We always have the same dinner: samosas, then Dad's caesar salad, then masala chicken wings, rice, lentils, tomato curry, and Mom's potato dish, and then apple pie and upside-down-pineapple cake for dessert. Mmmm good. Maricar and Robin brought some of their red wine that they made (and had just bottled on Sunday).

We won at Ultimate on Sunday, one of the best games we've played as a team. The offense was working really well. We have some set plays, which if we run them properly are very hard to defend. Our plays rely on us all reading the play the same, and on the Sunday team everyone sees the game the same. It's pretty cool when it works, although maybe not for the other team.

I went to the Home Depot at 427 & QEW to see if they had double-cylinder locks from Weiser. They did have one, but it was a polished brass colour. I had to ask a sales person to help find it, and then had quite the discussion about whether it would fit on a 2'x4'. The specs on the back of the lock said it fit door widths between 1 3/8" and 1 3/4"; and I spent about five minutes trying to convince the two sales folks that 1 1/2" (the width of a 2'x4') was in fact between 1 3/8" and 1 3/4". I gave up.

Well I should get ready for bed. I have to be out in Hamilton tomorrow morning for 9am.

The backyard is coming along. I finished the fence, and the firepit is nearly done.





I'm looking for a double-cylinder lock before I build the gate, preferably a Weiser so I can key it the same as the back door. Our little Home Depot doesn't carry any, and neither does the Canadian Tire on Leslie. Also, I'm trying to find a 15' hose extension for a propane tank so I can put the tank behind the fence. I don't even know if such a thing exists. Ideally I'd like to bury the hose under the flagstone encased in cement.

We had breakfast last weekend at Lady Marmalade. There were eight of us, and we were fortunate to get two tables of four beside each other (which the staff then pushed together). It was quite busy at 10am on a Saturday. Heather and I just missed getting soaked in the rain, it came down in buckets a couple minutes after we arrived. (It's the 2nd time it's rained hard since I disconnected the downspout, and both times I've been out of the house, so I haven't seen how the water flow works. Heather was home the 1st time and said it worked great.)

The breakfast was pretty good at Lady Marmalade. I had the eggs benedict, which they make with bacon. I still prefer the eggs benedict at Leslieville Diner, where they use peameal bacon. They do have a number of healthy options though at Lady Marmalade which Heather liked.

I took a vacation day last Monday and went golfing with Craig, and Jim and Scott from hockey. Jim's a member at Carry Place, a private course up the 400. It was a pretty windy day, which didn't help my driver. I ended up shooting an inconsistent 103, parring a few holes and blowing up on others. After we went back to Jim's place and had dinner. It was a fun day.

I should get ready for Ultimate.

I framed in the fence yesterday. Here's a pic from the office window:



If it doesn't rain this weekend, I'll put up the fence boards.

We decided to stain the fence a darker colour, so that it contrasts with the deck and flagstone. Both the deck and flagstone are / will fade to a washed-out grey / beige, which is what we wanted. However we thought it would look too dull if the fence was also faded. The Home Depot folks said I need to wait till next season to stain the fence, to give the pressure-treated wood a chance to dry out.

We dropped into The Ceili Cottage a few days ago to check it out. It has one of the better street-side patios in Leslieville (on my list, Strat's and B-Side are one and two). The inside has warm ambience -- whoever designed it did a great job. It feels like the place has been there for a hundred years (unlike The Roy which looks too forced). Tried a few things from the menu (they'd only been open for less than a week and didn't have everything yet).

Came up with a new standard joke, to be used on all statutory holidays "I need a holiday, stat".

Anyways I should get ready for hockey. We have a late game tonight, 10:30pm.