As if my world doesn't revolve around wine enough

Griffin Technologies has allowed my love of wine to expand to new parts of my life. Yesterday I received my new iPhone Elanform via UPS.

The case is a polycarbon (or some kind of plastic!) shell with an exterior made of actual cork. Now how about that for a wine lover? It makes my phone a little thicker, and prevents me from using the dock that it came with, but more importantly it will hopefully protect my phone from getting banged and scratched up should I - forbid - drop it at any point.

So I know some might squawk about how this takes away from the aesthetic of the iPhone, the silvery, streamlined, shiny state that Apple has become so good at producing and marketing. I'm not really bothered though because this reflects something more about me Where some other leather or latex case might take away from the product, I think this is an acceptable addition.

I'd love to know what you all think.

My bean pole nephew

I'm sure I've talked about him, but I don't think I've ever posted any pictures. This is my little one year old nephew, Joey. At Christmas there was a picture of him wearing a Santa hat in front of the tree with a gift wrapped in red paper. I Photoshop'd it so it was B&W with the red accents. Mom hung it in her living room, and decided she wanted to rotate different pictures with the same editing, so this is the one I just finished for her yesterday.

I just like showing him off - he's pretty adorable.

That's all I've got.

Soups!

So I got my hands on a stick blender, and made some soups. Here's what I ended up with:

Soup 1
Chicken base
Potato
Turnip
Cabbage
Onion
Peas
Celery
Garlic
Seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, and a little lemon pepper.

Soup 2
Chicken base
Butternut squash
Carrot
Potato
Onion
Seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, chili powder, and a little cajun seasoning.

Yumalicious.

Welcome to 2008

Happy New Year to everyone!

Sorry I've not made any updates in so long. My resolve to write continuously in a journal always fades with time. I guess I should just accept that I'm not a consistent blogger and be happy with that! All in all I have a hard time forming habits – which is good and bad depending on what you're considering.

My holidays went really well and it was great to get to spend time with my family and friends. Our trip to Toronto got put on hold (indefinitely – maybe next year?), so I just passed the weekend with Lindsay and Danielle in Toledo. It was still a good time, and most importantly I got to see them and Libby, just fresh from Spain and looking mighty fine. I'm very proud of her. She too found that the Camino can really make you think about life and see that perhaps your immediate future decisions aren't necessarily the best or only options. She'll do just as well I'm sure.

Christmas was a joy. Mom bought me an iPhone which I'd been coveting since returning home, and now all I have to do is pay the $70/month phone bill. No matter – it's well worth having the little device. A Phone, music, e-mail, web access, weather, stocks, text messaging, a camera, and more. That's a lot for something that's not much bigger than a deck of playing cards.

The rest of my family and my friends got me some great and in many cases very useful gifts as well. A huge box of household goods/cleaning supplies from my grandparents – who also have re-stocked my supply of socks and underwear much to my pleasure – an espresso machine, books, bar stuff, fantastic J. Crew boxers from Hannah, and gift cards. I'm very grateful for everything.

I saw Charlie Wilson's War on Monday with Dan and thought it a very good movie. I like Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman even more so. Julia Roberts took on an interesting religiously driven fundraiser from Texas with an up-do. Very interesting indeed.

I really love our neighborhood and the surrounding area. Shaker Square is less than 5 minutes away and they have a cinema, shopping, and food there. In Coventry there's always something going on, but the streets are generally quiet at night. I'm really pleased with the apartment we moved into, and though we'll look for something in the spring before our lease is up, if nothing presents itself I won't mind staying one bit. If feasible I'm going to look at purchasing something.

Politics have also been relatively exciting lately. The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries are over, and still there is no clear leader in either party. I'm really interested to see how this continues to unfold for everyone, especially people like Gulianni who has taken the approach of winning over larger states rather than the initial more influential ones. Good idea? Bad idea? I suppose we'll see.

That's all I've got for the time being.

R