Unfortunately, I’m not much of a chef. The most amazing thing about these shows is how the chefs always know exactly what foods and spices and juices will go well together to make something delicious.

I want to know how that works.

For the past month or so, I’ve been telling the family that, one of these nights, I’m gonna just start throwing random things into a frying pan and see what it tastes like. When I was doing the grocery shopping a couple weekends ago, it took forever because I walked up and down the aisles slowly trying to imagine new dishes that I could try to cook.

I finally gave it a try last night. It was delicious! After I finished making and eating this food, I gave it a name: Honey-Glazed Apples. Recipe is below, but first a photo from the middle of my first Iron Chef moment.

Oh man, it was so good. Here’s what I did….

Ingredients

1 Red Delicious apple, cut into thin slices
Honey
Vanilla extract
Sugar

What I Did

1. First, I sliced the apple into fairly thin pieces, sort of like large potato chips. My slicing wasn’t even, though, and as it turns out, the thicker slices seemed a little better to me than the thinner ones.

2. I placed four apple slices in a small frying pan and poured honey over them — not completely covering them, but enough honey so that they’d cook in the liquid. It was about the same amount of syrup that I’d pour on pancakes.

3. I let them cook for about 5-6 minutes on medium heat, until they started getting soft.

4. I added vanilla. Probably used too much, but it sure tasted good.

(The photo above was taken at this point.)

5. Continued cooking until the apples started to brown and the honey/vanilla was getting soaked up.

6. At the last minute, I sprinkled a dash of sugar on each apple slice, turned them over once more and then they were done!

I had to let the apples cool off a bit, but they were really great — super sweet (obviously!) and a good, sticky texture. As they continued to cool off, they started to look a lot like potato chips. I ate two slices plain, and then put the other two on top of vanilla ice cream, which was incredibly great.

All in all, my first Iron Chef moment was a big success and I’ll definitely do this again. Cari suggested I use cinnamon or maybe brown sugar next time, both of which sound good.

Take that, Bobby Flay!

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog.

My First Iron Chef Moment: Honey-Glazed Apple Slices

Sometimes when he’s outside, though, he’ll come sit right in front of the sliding glass door that leads to our backyard. He’ll just sit there, looking inside toward us. Like in this photo to the right.

And he’ll shiver.

It’s simultaneously the saddest, funniest and most pathetic thing you’ve ever seen.

Sometimes, the shivering is justified. It might be 40 degrees, but if the wind is kicking up (as it often does here), it feels a lot colder. Or it might be that we didn’t notice the drop in temperature in the late afternoon, and he’s really getting cold.

But other times, there’s no reason at all for him to be shivering. Sunny, 45-50 degrees, and he just sits there shivering because he wants to come in.

That was the case yesterday morning. It wasn’t all that cold, and he was outside. I noticed him shivering and decided to do a little experiment.

I tested him. I walked into the family room where he could see me, and he was shivering like he wanted to come in. Then I walked out of the family room, out of sight — he couldn’t see me at all. But, I peeked around the wall and could see him plain as day.

As soon as I left his sight, he stopped shivering! He just sat there, looking around, looking at the birds in the trees, etc. I spied on him for 30 seconds – nothing. No shivering at all.

Then I walked back into the family room where he could see me, and as soon as he did … he started shivering again.

My dog is a total actor!!!

He was trying to play me like a fiddle. “Oh, there’s my master. I’ll pretend to be cold now so he can bring me inside.”

It didn’t work. But I have to confess … I admire his acting skills and the fact that he’s smart enough to try acting his way back inside. Well played, Sparky. Well played.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog.

My Dog Deserves an Academy Award

We had some people come to look at our current house on Friday, so we used that as an excuse to go see how the new place is coming along. We were poking around and looking through windows late in the afternoon, when the one worker still inside saw us and invited us in. Sweet!

Turns out that all of the interior walls and ceilings are now in and he was doing … something. (I have no clue, but you can see him below.) And it probably goes without saying by now, it looks amazing! Can’t believe how quickly it’s all coming together.

On the exterior, the only thing left is to paint. The garage doors are installed and even the faux rock on the front is in. Here’s a look at that.

We got to walk around the whole house and see all the rooms. Here’s an interior shot. I’m standing at what will be our dining room table and looking across into the “great room” where we’ll have the TV mounted, etc. They still have a bunch of stuff to install there — shelves on both sides of the TV, a window bench along the right side windows, etc.

And then I’ll share one more photo from outside again. It’s basically the same shot as above, but I tilted the camera a bit. That makes the house darker, but the point was to get a sense of how things will look with the setting sun in the background. After all, the amazing view/sunsets is one of the main reasons we chose this spot.

So that’s where things stand. Since the house is now locked, I don’t know when we’ll be able to go inside again. And there’s probably not much point taking more exterior photos until it’s painted and/or the landscaping is done. And we have no idea when those things are scheduled.

Should be a little more than a month until we’re in … as long as our existing house sells soon. Please cross your fingers/say some prayers for us. Several showings this weekend and everyone likes the place, but no offers yet.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog.

Last Tour Inside the New House?

56% of registered voters said they’d vote yes if their ballot included the option to replace every member of Congress. on.wsj.com/AmP6nU

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) January 26, 2012

Me, too. Just as I said almost two years ago:

If it were up to me, we’d toss out the president and every member of both houses of Congress. Tomorrow. And we’d start from scratch with people who want to lead a country, not people who want to win an election.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog.

I Would Totally Vote For This, Too

Cari watched it, too, and we’d occasionally talk about how cool it would be to get on the show, which room we’d want our neighbor to tackle, which neighbor we’d choose, etc.

And in the years since then, we’ve watch all kinds of similar shows — HGTV, TLC, DIY Network, Food Network and others. And the same subject comes up: Wouldn’t it be cool to get on one of those shows and get a new kitchen, or a new mancave, or whatever the show’s theme is/was? Yes, it would be cool.

But those shows never, ever had any people on from Washington state. And they never visit Washington state.

Fast forward to today, when we still watch some of those shows and still think it would be cool to be on … like, wouldn’t it be fun if Cari somehow was chosen to be on House Hunters??

Every day, I get email alerts with PR opportunities from HARO and several of the recent newsletters have been advertising opportunities to appear on upcoming cable TV shows — mostly from TLC. And every time, I read the show description and then the requirements. And every time, the requirements are this:

Every show! You have to live within an hour of New York City??!! Does TLC know that it’s a big country out here? So frustrating.

Hey New York … and hey, TLC:

Thhhppfffftttttt!

(Thanks. I feel better already.)

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog.

Thhhppfftttt to New York City (and TLC, too)

The storm’s timing was actually pretty perfect — all of the roofing had just finished and the siding was being finished just as the storm arrived. (Cari and I went over to the house as the winds started picking up last Tuesday and we nearly saw one worker get blown off a truss. Yikes!)

We had a walk-thru with the electrician a couple weeks ago and then another one with the supervisor last week. Both of these were done before the walls were installed, so we could see where all the wiring and plumbing goes.

Meanwhile, I went over today (now that the roads are getting back to normal) and grabbed another shot from across the street. Sure is looking great, don’t you think?

At some point soon, they’ll be installing the garage doors and putting locks on all the other doors, so we won’t be able to get inside without an appointment. No more Sunday strolls through the house for me!

At this point, seems like the most important we need to do is get our current house sold — and soon! (If you know anyone looking for a great house in wonderful neighborhood, let me know….)

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog.

New House, Still on Schedule

Cari and I did a walk-through earlier this week with the electrician to choose where TV, Internet and other cables and wires will be placed, along with lighting and everything else involved with an electrical signal. We have another walk-through next week that will be the last time (I think) before they start putting in walls. So they want us to be able to take photos first so that we have a record of where all the plumbing, electrical and other in-the-wall stuff is before they cover it up. Pretty cool, that may come in handy down the road.

Meanwhile, there’s THIS!

That’s (obviously) the back of the house, where they’ve finally removed the plastic covering on the ground and we can see how big the back patio is – SWEET! This is where we’ll be enjoying sunsets and barbecues, and doing our outdoor entertaining when you come to visit.

That red circle? On the other side of that small wall/pillar — the side pointing in toward the house — we’ll have a fireplace to help keep warm in the spring and fall, or whenever it gets a little chilly. No indoor fireplace for us, but an outdoor fireplace. Very excited by that!

Oh, and that bland/ugly yellowish color on the house now? That’s just the base siding. It’ll be painted gray when the house is done, and then there’ll be some black paint around the front side of the house to complement it.

Sigh…ready to move in now if we could.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog.

Sunsets, Barbecues & Outdoor Entertaining

If I unfollow you sometime this year, please don’t be offended. It will probably have nothing to do with our friendship and everything to do with politics.

I respect you and your opinions on politics, candidates, elections, and so forth; I’m just not interested in hearing about them on Twitter. I’m not trying to stop you from bashing or making fun of Obama, Romney, Santorum or any other candidate — you’ve every right to do that. I just don’t want to see/hear it. There’s way too much political noise out there already, and I don’t care to suffer through even more of it on Twitter.

This is not a threat!

I’m seriously not posting this to make anyone quake in their boots about possibly being unfollowed; why should anyone care whether I follow them or not?!? Plus, chances are very good that I’ll follow you again when the election is over, just like I did with many friends in 2008 and 2010.

I’m posting this because, when I did that in both of those years, I got more than a few angry emails/tweets from friends about being unfollowed. I’d like to avoid that this year, or at least be able to say “Hey, I’m sorry, but here’s why…” and point them to this post.

Again, it’s not about you. It’s about politics.

Thanks for understanding. Still friends. But if I unfollow, you know why. And I’ll see you in 2013.

Matt

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog.

Open Letter to my Twitter Friends re: Politics

Here’s the deal: Last week, I posted this Google/Facebook article on my search marketing blog. I made an image with the two logos and used CSS to make it show up on the right side of the text, justified to the side of the available space. Like this:

That’s exactly how I want it to look on my blog. But when the same article shows up in my RSS feed, the image is NOT justified to the right. It looks like this, which is to say — it looks terrible:

I want the RSS feed content to look like the actual article, with the CSS controlling how the image displays.

Is that possible? It’s probably brain-dead simple and I just missed a memo on how to make it happen. At least that’s what I’m hoping….

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog.

How Do I Get CSS to Display/Affect an RSS Feed?

There must’ve been 8-10 guys all working at once on various things while Cari and I were over there today. In the first picture below, you can see two window openings on the right side of the house — by the time we left, both of those windows were in.

Aside from the fact that it’s OUR house, it’s still just empirically fascinating to watch this thing get built.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog.

Now it REALLY looks like a house