Gachis.net

As some of you know, I got a new car! I decided to be all yuppie and get a Mini Cooper =] I love it.

It may be small, but it as a voracious apatite! (My attempt to make it look bigger than it is)

So there you have it! Our new car. It’s very fun to drive and gets great gas mileage–I got a little over 42 mpg on the way home! We’ll try to post more soon, I know we’ve been slacking.

We made it safe and sound, in spite of the inevitable delayed flight due to fog in San Francisco. We had a fun Fourth with friends from our WoW guild: Blotto, Machy, Fallee, Shrug, Yog, Darv, Towelie, Smidge, Valefica, & Bivins. Food was awesome, company was fantastic, and couches were comfy (no point in blowing up the air mattress when there are perfectly good couches to use!). We didn’t bring the camera cord, so you’ll have to wait until we’re home for pics. I think we’re going out for real Mexican for dinner and hanging out on the beach in a bit… yay!

Quite possibly the best combination ever conceived by man…

Above is the aforementioned combination (but you already knew that didn’t you!?). It’s a Jerry Garcia tie and low-top chucks. Just as it was in Holmen, everyone at “the board” (the short way of saying the Washington State Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals) absolutely loved them but when they noticed the tie WITH the shoes it was a combo I don’t think I can ever beat–that is until I find a blue pair and some crazy awesome blue tie to go with!

The day went great, I’m going to love working there. My supervisor, Melinda, is wonderful–we’ll get along great. As well, the other head-honchos/bosses/whatchamacallems were great–Bob is highly entertaining, we’ll work quite well together.

As you’ve guessed, it is a state job, so the benefits are hands-down amazing. I’m excited at the opportunities we’ll have to innovate over the next few years to help bring the staff more into the 21st century of technology. The staff is very energetic and genuinely love what they do/where they work. They’ve done a great job at making the work environment a place where everyone feels welcome.

As for my role, my primary job is centered around the Exchange server and it’s functions; however, I’ll also be working significantly with my co-workers, cross-training in what they do, working in with systems, networks, servers, etc… It’s a fairly diverse roll, exactly what I’m use to! It feels like a good fit.

So at the end of the day, I’m happy. I’ll like it at the BIIA, what more can you ask for?

Several of the muffin recipes I received from a friend called for a cake mix. This makes very delicious, but not very healthy, muffins! So I looked around and found this recipe to substitute for a cake mix:

Ingredients:

• 6 c. flour (you can combine wheat and white — try to keep at least a 50/50 mix or less wheat to avoid “heavy” muffins)
• 4 c. sugar
• 3 tbsp. baking powder
• 2 tsp. salt

Directions:

1. Stir all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl until well-blended.
2. Store in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag for easy use.

Variations:

To make chocolate muffins or a chocolate cake mix, add 6 tbsp. cocoa to this flour mix.

When I made the peanut butter muffins I posted, I made the flour mix using 4 c. wheat flour and 2 c. white flour, then combined 1 1/2 c. of the wheat muffin mix with 1/2 box (1 1/2 c.) white cake mix.

This recipe is a variation on our friend Che’s blueberry muffin recipe (to be posted the next time I make them). This batch was made with peanut butter chips — I’ve also used chocolate chips, peanut butter/chocolate chips, and with a “surprise” Reese’s peanut butter cup in the middle.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 c. milk
• 1/4 c. oil
• 3/4 c. creamy peanut butter
• 1 egg
• 1/4 c. brown sugar (if desired for sweeter, more cupcake-like muffins - can omit)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 package white cake mix (or 3 c. wheat muffin mix for a healthier version)

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees (350 for jumbo muffins).
2. Grease muffin tin cups with shortening or cooking spray, or line with baking cups.
3. Beat milk, oil, peanut butter, egg, brown sugar (if desired) and vanilla on low speed until smooth.
4. Add cake or flour mix and beat on medium speed 2 minutes.
5. Fill baking cups 2/3 full.
6. Bake 15-20 minutes (25-30 minutes for jumbo muffins) or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
7. Cool in pans for 2-5 minutes on cooling rack. Remove muffins and serve warm or cool and store tightly covered at room temperature.

I got to see a monkey puzzle tree today!  I love monkey puzzle trees, but I hadn’t even given a second thought to the lack thereof in Wisconsin…  crazy!  (If you don’t know what one looks like, look it up on images.google.com.)  Think “happy thoughts” at Alex, as he’ll head out on his first day of his new job tomorrow!  The Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals won’t know what hit them…  ;o)

Ok, so I finally went through and added more pics to the gallery (some recent, some not-so-recent… ok, yeah, more of the latter) — you can check it out at gallery.gachis.net. We’ll have more once the apartment is in decent-enough shape to take pictures, and after our trip to Cali next week. So keep checking!

This will be the first in what we hope will become a rather common set of entries for us.  As with most people in the world, we have to eat.  As this is the case, we enjoy eating food that we consider good [mind you I consider corn dogs good, but don't let that turn you off to this section].  So without further adieu, I give you, Grilled Shrimp!

This recipe was discovered by/given to me by my good friend and former boss Jan Wee.  A few days before we left Wisconsin Jan and her husband graciously invited us over for dinner and prepared a number of grilled delights for us; these shrimp were included.  After discovering the phenomenal taste of these little guys, we had to have the low-down on how they were cooked.  Jan told us she found the dish on the web via Allrecipes.com [see below for the direct link].  They’re quite easy to make and delicious to boot!  I highly recommend them.

Ingredients:

• 3 Cloves of garlic, Minced
• 1/3 cup of Olive Oil
• 1/2 teaspoon of Salt
• 1/4 teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper [Substitute something spicier if you like]
• 1/4 cup of Tomato Sauce
• 2 pounds of Fresh Shrimp (peeled and deveined of course!) [use fresh water shrimp if you want larger ones!]
• 2 tablespoons of Red Wine Vinegar
• 2 tablespoons of Chopped fresh Basil

Directions:

1. Throw all of the above into a mixing bowl and, well, mix!
2. Throw it into the fridge for at least 30min to an hour; however, we do ours overnight.  We also put it into a gallon sized zip-lock bag [and push the air out!] so that it stays coated better.
3. Throw some oil on the grill and preheat it.  I cook the shrimp at a lower temp, Medium-Low, I’d say and turn them a few times, it ends up cooking them longer this way but it’s what I prefer.  You could also put it around Medium and just do a few minutes per side.
4. Skewer them if you want instead of just tossing them flat on the grill; however, I’m a bit too lazy for that!  Also, fair warning they’re pretty messy on the grill so you’ll need to clean it up nice before/after!

They go great as a side dish or on a green salad of sorts.  Jess has tossed them on a Caesar Salad with large success.  The first time I had them, we ate them along side Grilled Chicken, Grilled Steak, Twice Baked Potatoes, and a Spinach Salad–also quite good!

Giving credit where credit is due, you can find the original posting on All Recipes at http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Marinated-Grilled-Shrimp/Detail.aspx

Sorry it took me so long to get these posted!

Monday’s drive went great — here are some pics for the benefit of my Wisconsin/Minnesota friends:

Alex in the driver’s seat

My “first” glimpse of the Cascades

Purty

And these are only foothills!

Waterfalls

On the West side

It was cloudy by the time we rolled into town on Monday, but on Tuesday I could see Mt. Rainier:

THE Mountain

After staying with our friends, the Onkens, on Monday night, we “caravanned” down to the new place with our friends, Matt & Chris, and Alex’s family (his grandparents, parents, and sister all came down to help out!) on Tuesday. With so many sets of hands it went pretty quick and easy! Matt & Chris hung out to help us start unpacking:

The green mover’s wrap has many uses…

Argh!

Twins vs. Alex

Is that really unpacking?

Chris finds a home

The finished abode

What’s the use of moving if you can’t have a little fun once you get there??? :o)

So yeah, Wednesday we ventured down to Oregon, Thursday we drove up “north” to try out Alex’s commute (1 hour, 5 minutes door-to-door) and then went car shopping. He likes the mini the best, but we may hold off and just use my Subaru for the summer. We got to see Grandma and Grandpa Barlow in Puyallup while we were up there, then ran a few more errands. On the way home, Washington welcomed us back with a gravel spill that closed both lanes of southbound I-5, where we got to sit for 45 minutes to an hour (they were diverting traffic off onto route 12, but we never crept far enough forward to take advantage of that). People were getting out and taking their dogs for walks! We were about 7 miles back in what ended up to be about a 16-mile backup, but fortunately they got the freeway cleared and we were able to make it home without getting lost on a back-road detour.

Yesterday I got to meet my new administrator, Mary; had a tour of my school and the district administration center; got to see my classroom; and met a few of the other teachers with whom I’ll be working. It looks like a great program with a wonderful staff! Then one of Alex’s old high school friends, Lynsey, came over for a Voyager-fest and dinner, which was fun.

So that takes us to today, and the washer just quit, so I suppose I’d better sign off. The laundry and all those boxes are calling my name…

Sorry I don’t have any pictures up, but the cable is in a box… somewhere… :o) The last bit of the trip went fine (minus a flat tire on the car carrier in the parking lot of the new complex… much better than in Nowhere, South Dakota!), and thanks to Alex’s family and his buddies Matt & Chris, we got everything in with ease.

Today we returned the truck and car carrier (yay! thank you Les Schwab guy, who came out to replace the tire yesterday and now evidently might rent an apartment here). Since we were in Vancouver anyway, we hopped across the state line for some tax-free shopping at IKEA and Costco. We’d forgotten that many people live in one area… at the Sam’s Club in Wisconsin, it was crazy busy if there were 4 registers open and each of them had 2 shoppers in line! We had to get used to being aggressive drivers again, too.

Since I’m brain dead, that’s it for now. Hopefully tomorrow the cable will be unearthed, and pictures and more thorough details will be posted. ‘Til then…