Now, I’m not one to condone drinking excessively, or requiring it to have a good time.  I’ve seen how destructive it can be to people’s lives.  That said…getting drunk can be fun as hell!

So when I heard that line a few weeks ago, I happened to also be trying to think of new adventures to have, and boom!  What if I drank a bottle of wine as I started writing a story?  Just sort of see what happens?  Yeah!  Do it!

This adventure will be good for me for two reasons.  The first is that I’m not a fan of wine.  I have tried countless glasses with friends over the years, and I have never found a wine that I would enjoy drinking, like, at all.  So, by making myself taste an entire bottle, I hopefully will be one small step closer to acquiring a taste for wine.  And if not, maybe the more drunk I get, the less I will care about how disgusting it tastes.

The second thing is that oftentimes I can come up with great story ideas, great plots, but I never actually sit down and put the pen to paper and write.  But a good friend of mine from college taught me a way to get through writing difficult analytical papers…you take a shot of liquor, then drink beer as you write the paper.  Make sure you do this a day or two before the paper is due so that you have time to edit out possible drunk ramblings, and the many misspellings or dangling modifiers.    So maybe drinking while trying to at least start a story, or create a new one, would be beneficial?  We shall see.

Now, I am writing this Saturday night (February 18th, 2012).  But I will most likely edit it tomorrow afternoon, throw in the random pictures I may take, and then post it tomorrow night.

So, without further ado, here we go.

A sultry smoke fills the air, cascading down the walls as it surrounds the booth.  It’s patrons wave it aside, annoyed by the smell of cheap cigarettes from the teenagers sitting behind them.  The smoke can be tolerated, can be ignored.  What can’t be ignored is who these kids are.  All of them never worked a day in their life; just road the wave of daddy’s pocketbook.

Berton Campbell, age 18.  Son of the largest owner of Lexus dealerships in the metro area.

Thomas Kennedy, age 17.  His father ran the books for Campbell’s dealerships, making adjustments here or there across all aspects of their files.

And last, Patrick Burns, age 19.  His dad was the one who actually ran the whole business.  He’s the one who connected the underbelly of society to Campbells dealership.  And of course, his son assumed that meant he ran the two kids sitting across from him.

Burns was telling another story, laughing about some girl he met, fucked, and then walked away from at a party last night.  Kennedy and Campbell laughed at all the right parts, asked the right questions about how much she moaned during the sex or despaired when he left her.  They were good soldiers; they already had learned how to keep their boss happy.  They already learned that they had to protect him not only from toughs but also from a belief that he is like mortal men.  Kennedy and Campbell were the ones that the gentlemen sitting at table 42 had to worry about. Young as they were, if they knew their role, they wouldn’t go down without some form of bloodshed.

But for as good of soldiers as they were, it was all over in a flash, just as it should be.  They are followed outside.  Number 1 asks for a light.  When casually reaching in his pockets,  Burns is thrown to the ground by Number 4.  Number 3 punches Kennedy in the throat as Number 2 hits Campbell on the kidney, then temple.  He goes down quickly as Kennedy tries to scream out but can’t.  Number 1 walks up to him and gives him the envelope as the rest of them carry Burns away.

The only surprise is that Kennedy still reaches for his gun.  Even though he is gasping, can’t breathe, wheezing nothing into his lungs, he still reaches for his gun and tries to shoot at these people that are taking away the only thing that protects his existence.  Number 1 has to knife Kennedy’s trigger finger off, quickly and with precision, before walking along with the rest.

In the van, the Numbers don’t speak.  There’s no need to; it has been accomplished with success.  There may have been blood shed, which is to be avoided.  But that isn’t the worst outcome.  Zero will be happy; he has his ransom without harm.  He can stop this syndicate and worry about the next.  He can move onto Phase Nine of the Tenth Plan.  Number 1 didn’t know much about Zero, but he knew that Phase Ten was the ultimate goal, what Zero had been waiting years to achieve.

And that is where I stopped writing.  I may have drank it too quickly.  I think I finished the bottle in about an hour and a half, and I started drinking around 3:30am.  So I was tired and very quickly drunk.  But I’m fairly pleased with the short few paragraphs I created.  And I’m curious where it will lead.  I think I will have to continue this tradition to continue this story.

And side note, but does the wine cork remover look like Johnny 5 to anyone else?

I have never had Ethiopian food.  Hell, I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen seen ANY kind of African cuisine.  Do they base their meals on rice, similar to Asian cultures?  Do they have bread?  Something like the Indian dish naan?  Do they use lots of meats, veggies, spices?  I really had no idea what I was getting myself into.  And to be honest, the outside of the store didn’t make it look terribly impressive…

Now, the above picture is the street view of Fasika (it is the establishment on the corner if you can’t see the sign well).  What you don’t see is that around the corner (where we parked) is an empty lot full of dead grass and broken bottles.  Not exactly the kind of place you want next door to a raved about food joint.  But once we got inside, my opinion changed IMMEDIATELY

It smelt so good!  Like…wow.  The air was just full of spices and freshness.  I don’t know any other way to describe it.  It just smelled like an amazing kitchen.

It wasn’t an overly large restaurant, but there was ample space.  So after we were led to our table, we looked at the menu.  And sure enough, I had no idea what any of the things were based on their names.  They had a few small descriptions, but even in them, they used foods with names I didn’t recognize.  So first we ordered some Ethiopian tea to mull over our decision.

If anything, the tea fit right in with the atmosphere.  It tasted very similar to a chai but with even more of a spice flavor to it.  It made me ready to dive into the menu.

The only common word used throughout the menu options was “injera” which I took to be the sort of base for all of their meals.  I looked around at what people at other tables were eating to figure out if injera was a kind of rice, bread, or what.  It looked similar to naan, but very large and somewhat spongey.  Interesting.

Since I had no idea what I would be ordering, I thought I would just go all out crazy and order whatever would be the most difficult to pronounce.  Sounds reasonable, right?  Well, when I tried to order the Qunta Firfir, the waitress just gave me a shocked stare.  She asked, “Have you had that before?”

“No, I’ve never actually had any Ethiopian food before,” I admitted, somewhat bashfully.

“Well, do you like spicey foods?  Like hot things?”

“No, actually, I don’t handle hot spices that well.”

She gave me a stern look, which kind of surprised me.  “Well, then you aren’t going to order that.  You want the Tibs.  If you haven’t had Tibs, order the Tibs.  You’ll love it.”

“Um…ok.  Can I please have the Tibs?”

“Yes, you’ll love it.”

Apparently I wouldn’t be ordering the most challenging thing to pronounce.  Oh well.

After Jamison ordered some kind of chicken entree, we sipped our tea and conversed about times past and hopeful future adventures (we both realized we were interested in acupuncture but had no idea where to go.  Anyone know a place in the TC?).

After only like five minutes, our food arrived.  Speedy service at a sit down place is always nice!  And man…the plates were HUGE!

It was just…so big!  (that’s what she said).

What we were treated to was an amazing lunch.  The food was as delicious as it was large. Tibs is apparently cooked beef with peppers and onions in a delicious broth.  It also came with a small salad with a dressing similar to Italian, and of course injera.  Jamison’s was something like a chicken mix, paste, curry type thing with a hard boiled egg, some kind of a thick cottage cheese, injera, and a salad.

Jamison and I both barely ate half of our meals, which meant some amazing left overs for later in the week!  I for sure would recommend Fasika as a place for trying new food, or for great food in general!  I can’t wait for my next new food adventure!

I can’t imagine that’s a standard Friday for most, but working for MIT, it curves toward the normal.  Adventure could be found in the construction of the activity.  I had to join a group of unknowns for meet and greet games, a luncheon and the aforementioned 4 hours of community service activity.It should be noted that I am almost 30 and signed up for this.  I shouldn’t be so introverted and awkward.  I should be able to have a working lunch without feeling the fear, dread and panic that small talk often breeds in me.  The easy thing to do would be not to.  I didn’t have to go.  The billed, “Day of Service” actually had to be approved by my boss.  But I wanted to help.  I wanted to meet other people that wanted to help.  I truly wanted to feel like something I did in my everyday professional life amounted to something more than money and administrative arguments (see: I am a financial administrator). 

And wouldn’t you know, there was truly nothing to fear.  NOTHING.  It helps that MIT is an environment that attracts passionate people.  By passionate I mean to suggest people who are intensely interested in their line of work.  Often these people are focus.  So focused that they may exhibit tendencies similar to mine – introversion, reluctance to make a move, small-talk aversion.  This is a generalization, but one that is comforting to me.  Because it just so happened that my foray into professional meet and greets was well accepted.  People were anxious to serve and seemed duly dedicated to the task at hand. 

I met an Institute retiree, Betty Davis (her actual name) that chatted me up for hours.  Each word I spoke served to relax me more and come the end of our service task I knew Betty’s favorite books, had a standing date to go water jogging with her at the community pool and was regaled with stories of her tenure at MIT. 

I found that once I stopped worrying what people thought of me I had time to focus on what I thought of people.  To learn from them, better understand them, and best yet, befriend them. 

This was no great breakthrough for me.  I’ve been making active strides to be less hidden, especially in the campaign of 2010, but it’s good to again get out on the ledge.  Because sometimes, the view changes.

But life is an adventure, right?  That is what I’ve been telling myself so that I don’t overly stress out about it, at any rate.

So my adventure for this week was been to begin the job hunt.  Not an exciting adventure, or one that I enjoy being on, but it is surely one that I am dedicating all of my time and energy towards.  In the past week, I’ve applied to around twenty-three jobs at colleges alone.  This week I plan to hit the school districts hardcore.  Then will be state / county / city jobs, and if nothing happens after that, go back to the service industry.

Now, I’m not referring to comic books.  I mean, I do still read those.  I have a fairly large comic book collection.  Peter Parker is my best bud.  I am going to name many of my children after X-Men characters.  But no, I am currently referring to comic strips.  Like Dilbert or Calvin and Hobbes.

Now, fun fact: Charles Schulz, the creator of the Peanuts strip, was born and raised in the Twin Cities.  So to honor him, the city of St. Paul hosted something called “Peanuts on Parade” in 2000.  Originally, a total of 101 statues of Peanuts characters were strewn throughout the city.  However, after 2004, the city auctioned many of them off to support local artistic charities, as well as to commission several permanent bronze statues that would be in St. Paul city parks.  Some of the originals are still around the city.  But because they are now privately owned, there isn’t an official map of their locations anymore, nor a well known number of how many.  So for this adventure, a good friend of mine and I went out to look for the non-bronze ones!

It was quite the random trip.  We weren’t sure where many were.  We had a few hints from friends, but not many.  So here was our plan of action: we printed off the original map with the statues locations as of 2000 (12 years ago…).  We then went to the local businesses near the original locations and asked if they knew where any had ended up.  Needless to say, many random conversations were had (and almost all of them were awkward too).  But we found a total of eight statues in one Saturday afternoon, which I think was quite the success!  So here is some photo evidence of the achievements and a small description of how we found it:

The first two statues we tried to find were misses!  There were supposed to be two near the Ford Plant, but alas, none to be found!  However, as we were driving to our next location, we see a Snoopy doghouse on the side of the street next to a bookstore!  Random and awesome!

Our map indicates that there should be one at St. Catherine’s University.  As we check it out, we can’t find anything!  But a campus security guard, who at first looks at us strangely, calls over to her base for help once we explain our plight!  She directed us to the student union.  Inside, we asked the front desk where we could find one, and of course at an all girls university, we find Lucy!

We next head to a bar.  Yup, a bar!  There is supposed to be one at St. Paul’s famous O’Gara’s.  Inside, we ask the bartender if he knows where it ended up.  He directs us across the street to the lobby of a bank, where we found the jackpot!  Four total statues!

We then were close to one that two friends (Whitney and Trevor) had first hand knowledge of: one on the Hamline University campus.  This one was earier to find.

Our last statue was probably my favorite one.  The map said there would be on at the Saint Paul Saints Midway Stadium, and it was still there!  Baseball and comics; two of my favorite things!

Overall, a great Saturday afternoon.  But now that the hunt is on, I need to find more!

I ended up having a total of five adventures in the month of January. The next two were unplanned. Not that adventures need to be planned or anything. I find that most of the time I realize I was adventuring in hindsight. Anyway, I decided to change my ‘do and go for the “ombre” look: dark roots faded to lighter bottoms. It did NOT work for me. I went from a reddish brown to orange to yellow to dark brown…in the course of two weeks. Not good. As a result of my whimsical behavior I did a little damage to my hair by processing it so much. But now I know. I should not be blond.

And lastly, to round out January I started the Body Rock TV 30 day challenge (there’s a website for those of you who are curious). I’m currently on day 3, and I can say that it is not easy. It is definitely not easy. I have been practicing yoga for almost two years, and I love it. I haven’t found a form of exercise that I can stick to religiously other than yoga. However, I need to lose weight. While yoga has definitely made me stronger and toned me up a bit, I’m looking to slim down. And the only way that can be done is crazy cardio. Body Rock is pretty crazy to say the least. Hopefully I will come to love it as much as yoga, and mostly I’m aiming for more physical results. I’ll update when it comes to day 30.

I am currently working part-time as a barista at Starbucks.  It’s a pretty sweet job for a full-time graduate school student.  I usually work only five hours a day, and get done by 10am.  I can take a nap in the afternoons, then do homework all before my wife gets home from work!    Bonus!

The Starbucks store that I work for does community work maybe once a month.  This month, some of my co-workers and I worked with Habitat for Humanity for a day.  And it was so awesome!

We, for the most part, were just painting the interior of a group of town homes that were being built in Northeast Minneapolis.  And the group of people that I was working with was awesome.  I only knew the three people in the picture above with me, but there were maybe 50 people there.  Everyone was very joyous, constantly joking, smiling, chatting.  And all while doing this great thing to help those less fortunate.

I think I’m going to do more community outreach with my Starbucks.  I’m not sure when, but I think next month or the month after, we are going to be working at a Feed My Starving Children event.  I hopefully can make it!  But since all three of my graduate classes have started, I may be pretty busy.  That won’t stop me from adventuring!  I just hope that the timing and scheduling works out.

*Fun fact: did you know that every house that Habitat for Humanity builds across the world is all painted the same color on the inside?  Every single house, the same color.  That’s so cool!  Kinda boring, but cool!  It’s mostly because the paint is, for the most part, all donated to them.  And you can’t complain about the color when it’s free!

Ok that was a slight tangent, and my point really is that for some reason it’s easy to find adventure in an unfamiliar place. My second adventure involved the whole “being a tourist in your own city”. It’s funny that I’ve seen more of Seoul than my hometown of Chicago. I even know directions and the subway better in there than I do here. We easily take for granted familiar surroundings and don’t always take advantage of the things our own city has to offer. So last week in an attempt to do something touristy, I went to the Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium with my sister and nieces. We went on a “free” day, and lucky for this gal on a budget, they have about ten of these per month. I got to see some marine life and learn about some stars. It was a nice little something out of the ordinary!

Where we haven’t funds, we have imagination.  I know that imagination doesn’t pay the bills, but it does!  Here I will confess to rarely cooking.  And what little I cook it usually belly-full of preservatives and/or found pre-made requiring some heat.  I didn’t know how to al dente.  Or pan sear.  The only thing I could do, or thought I did well, was to ice cakes, and even then I paid little or no attention to the resounding taste.

My new test kitchen

So now that we’ve a home, with a large kitchen and combined cooking supplies, I took to the kitchen.  My kitchen.  And it was there I began to realize why chefs are so brazen, and why cooking is often referred to as an art.  I see that it’s more than the sum of a gaggle of ingredients.  It takes brains, brauns and inventive thinking to churn out a successful dish.  I’m not near there, but the journey is increasingly tasty…Since we’ve moved into our new little rental home, I’ve been continuously cooking.  We use up all the ingredients we buy, so as not to waste.  I try and be creative with spices and sauces.  Every meal is served with fanfare so we may appreciate the effort that went into it.  Hiro likes the new arrangement.  And I, hating dishes, like that he likes to keep a tidy kitchen.  EVERYONE IS A WINNER.

We moved, appropriately, on December 31, and here are some half decent contributions to come from the kitchen since then:

• Homemade beef curry and vegetables
• Eggplant parmesean
• Breaded chicken
• Barbeque chicken
• Meatballs and risotto
• Quesadillas
• Homemade tortilla chips and salsa
• Sweet and sour meatballs
• Pasta Bolognese
• Eggs made in unrecognizable ways (HAPPY BRUNCH!)

But the real adventure comes in the form of leftover presentation.

May I present to you, my foray into the world of Bento Boxes!

Bento box cozy

True, what’s shown is not an authentic bento box, but I hope forthcoming attempts will showcase some progress.  In the interim, I packaged Hiro a lunch reminiscent of what he’d carry as a kid in Japan.  The art of the bento requires a lot of the maker.  There is presentation to concern yourself with.  Flavor profiles.  Heat transfer.  I’m only just tipping the scales with what I understand of bentos, but the craftsmanship is like a personal stamp.  And I’ve been in the mood to further brand.

Itadakimasu! (in thanks for eating)