Pocket Coffee is on my list of top 5 candies. In fact, if given a choice, I’d probably rank Pocket Coffee as #1 because of rarity. Pocket Coffee is made in Italy at the Ferro factory in Alba, Piedmont, Italy and is sold mostly in Italy and Germany.

So what is it? Italian Espresso covered in bittersweet chocolate. I’m not sure how else to describe it but it’s chocolate candy with an espresso (liquid coffee) center and I think there’s some kind of wafer/praline something.

This candy wakes you up or keeps you awake all day. At first, it’s very unusual taste/sensation where you’re expecting a chewy or soft center but after the first bite a release of espresso fills your mouth with coffee goodness.

The taste of coffee is pretty intense so it’s not for the faint of heart. However, the chocolate creates a nice balance to the coffee.

I take pride in visiting Guitar Center stores all over the nation starting from San Francisco to Hollywood to Las Vegas and all the way to New Hampshire. In fact, I frequent Guitar Center stores like they are national monuments.

Today marked the grand opening for Guitar Center – Emeryville

They closed their El Cerrito store a few days ago. That was a sad day for me because that store was only 2 miles away. Now I have to make a 6 mile journey. My family and I were able to attend their grand opening and we had a ton of fun. They had a great line up of fun and entertainment. In fact, the neighboring stores stayed open to feed off the crowd. Well, more that the crowd fed off of them.

Guitar Center – Emeryville is located at 5925 Shellmound St. in Emeryville. If you are familiar with the area, it is in the Public Market area next to the food courts.

I’ve been waiting for this opening for at least a year now and it turned out to be a lot more than what I expected.

First of all, it’s Guitar Center so they have their regular setups of guitars, basses, proaudio, and drums. However, this is the first Guitar Center to have a Studio aka “GC Studios”. “This is a state-of-the-art destination that offers music education, professional rehearsal studios and certified Pro Tools and Logic training. Here we will offer our customers the chance to learn guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, vocals and develop their recording skills in Pro Tools and Logic.”

I was reading about the studios a while ago but didn’t expect what I saw. These are fully equipped rooms where you can book at a really great rate and at the end of your session you’ll get a full recording of what you played while in session.

Believe me, you’ll find me booking these rooms daily.

I can’t rate the store just yet. When I left at 9PM there was still a line around the building to get in and some of the staff came from other stores in the Bay Area. For now, I can say:

1. There’s great parking.
2. The store is clean.
3. They have stations where you can test pedals in a sound proof room.
4. GC Studios!!!!

5925 Shellmound St.
Emeryville, CA94608
Phone:  (510) 559-1055

Resources:
http://www.guitarcenter.com
http://www.gcstudios.com
http://edelalon.com/blog/2010/10/bay-area-guitar-center-review

I’ve been watching the unemployment rate drop and wonder what the cause of it might be. Could be the seasonal jobs or that the economy is really picking up. The current unemployment rate is 8.9%.

At the same time, I’ve been reading articles on how to interview and how to make a resume. There’s a little trend on making resumes that I find interesting. The trend is to make your resume fancy with a bunch of pictures and a trendy layout. I did this about 12 years ago. I had a “traditional” resume and then on the side were graphics of things that relate to the job: computers, servers, webpages, etc… It was frowned upon.

Today, we’re seeing more resumes out there that do not follow the traditional styles. The new, trendy, funky layout resumes that companies like LinkedIn and Monster are showing are cool…but if dig deeper into them, these resumes are made by those in the graphic design/marketing industries.

I decided to jump in and make one. Here it is: Edel Fancy Resume

I like to call this style Resume 2.0 after Web 2.0. My fancy resume models my website. I guess the idea is to make a business card that matches the resume so I have a complete package: resume, website, and business cards. The clean look of this resume is easier on the eyes because you don’t have to wander too far to get information.

Let me know what you think about these new style resumes…well, old style for me but are now acceptable by the public.

I’ve been searching for a ‘weekly calendar template’ out there and haven’t found one that suits my needs. I ended up making this template in MS Excel. This calendar template features 30 minute increments from 6am until midnight. 6am to midnight is my general awake time.

I would like to make a 24 hour calendar but those don’t fit neatly on paper.

Here’s the calendar: Weekly Calendar (XLSX)

Enjoy!

A new year is almost year and I’m getting reminded to update my websites with the copyright years at the bottom…you know the Copyright 2000-current year.

Instead of manually doing this ever year, I decided to put in a snippet of PHP code to cover all my bases.

Here’s the code:

<? print(Date(“Y”)); ?>

Enjoy! And Happy New Year!

My obsession with Sanrio doesn’t stop at my Hello Kitty Cakes. In fact, Hello Kitty isn’t my favorite Sanrio character. I’m a big fan of Badtz-Maru…partly because we’re both born in April but there’s more.

Over the years I’ve watched Badtz-Maru go through a couple of cycles. He likes to travel, loves space, into chemistry, plays guitar, plays bass guitar, runs around in a crown and cape, and dreams of greatness. These are things that I’ve been doing for most of my life too. In fact, I’ll visit a Sanrio store just to see what’s he’s doing to see if we’re still in sync. I’ve been tempted to buy the Badtz-Maru bass guitar that they sell in the stores but it’s a little short for me. Instead, I decided to build a custom guitar of my own.

I’ve had a Squire Bullet for a couple years that has been collecting dust and I figured it was about time to put it to some good use. I haven’t decided on the electronics yet but when I do, I’ll feature this guitar in my music section. For now, it’s a glorified art project. Squire Bullets are famous for people buying them and then changing the electronics. Taking a $99 guitar and making it a $500 guitar. For a little history, the bullets before 2007 were made from plywood and the ones after 2007 are solid basswood. The one I modified is pre 2007.

Sanding down the original finish took a while. I wasn’t aware of the thick coat of clear coat. Removing the clear coat took a while.

Guitars are almost like artists’ canvass. After sanding, I used 80, 100, 160, 220 grit, I put on a layer of black and left it like that for a few days because I didn’t have a bigger plan. I ended up commissioning my brother-in-law to help me out with design. After a few hours of brainstorming, we came up with the design below.

He went for it and I clear coated it. The next step is to setup new electronics.

My plan is to throw in some Dimarzio pickups. Stay tuned.

I love summer because of the long days and short nights. The long days are great for tans and even better for gardens. Every summer, I’ll receive an email from a coworker that says, “Dear Edel, I have a bunch of ______________ from my garden, please come by my desk and get some.” I’m usually there about 30 seconds after it was sent.

This round, one of my coworkers brought a bag of rosemary. Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) is a woody, perennial herb with fragrant, evergreen, needle-like leaves. It is native to the Mediterranean region. It is a member of the mint family Lamiaceae, which also includes many other herbs.

After grabbing a few sprigs, I started to think about what I’ll do with it. I like to use herbs when they are fresh so I thought of using it in a baked chicken or baking it in some focaccia bread. I believe fresh herbs deserve fresh ingredients so I headed to the grocery store that same night. I looked at chicken, beef, and pork but I didn’t find anything worth the fresh rosemary (I did shop at midnight). Then I came across some really great looking lamb t-bone chops.

I decided to go traditional and put rosemary on some lamb.

Roasted Lamb T-Bone Chops

Ingredients

4 lamb t-bone chops
3 teaspoons chopped rosemary
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons chopped parsley
2 teaspoons chopped sage
1 clove minced garlic
¼ cup olive oil

Method

Combine the rosemary, salt, pepper, parsley, and sage. Sprinkle evenly on the lamb chops and rub it into the meat. Add the garlic and rub it into the meat and bone. Put the chops into a plastic bag and add the oil. Let the meat marinade in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours before cooking.

Before cooking, take out the meat from the refrigerator and let it come close to room temperature as possible (about 15-30 minutes). Grill the meat until the internal temperature reaches 120 degrees–about 4 minutes per side. Now, let the meat rest for 10-15 minutes before cutting into it.

Notes

The question I usually get is, “Do I season before oiling or oil before seasoning?” I say season then oil.

If you have a chance to speak to the butcher, ask the butcher to leave a nice layer of fat on the chops. Then score the fat before marinating.

About 9 years ago, my 3^rd IT job surprised me by telling me to make my own ethernet cables. Normally, I pick up a catalog and order but I guess making cables adds to my skill set.

Where to begin? Ask someone who’s done it before. I was given a hands on lesson. Then it was time to make one. I guess I’m a good fast learner because it worked.

Today, I don’t remember what wire goes where so here’s my documentation/guide on making your own.

Step 1. Cut off 1” of the outside wire to expose the smaller wires inside.

Step 2. Straighten the wires in the middle.

Step 3. Arrange the wires and work them back and forth until they stay in order on their own.

Step 4. Trim the wire.

Step 5. Insert into connector.

Step 6. Crimp.

Step 7. Test

Here’s how to arrange the wires:

References:

http://www.groundcontrol.com/galileo/ch5-ethernet.htm

WordPress 3.1.4 & Arthemia Premium are compatible. I always get scared when updating WordPress so I do a full backup of my files and the database right before hand.

At the same time, I clear out the next 3 hours just in case something goes wrong.

July 4 is coming up and I’m sure people will start to get their grills ready to cook up a feast. What kills me is that sometimes I’ll attend parties where the person at the grill clearly doesn’t know what they are doing where your options are burnt meat or raw meat.

I’m going to go over two styles of charcoal layouts that help me grill. First we need to talk about lighting. I like to use chimneys to get the coals started. This technique does not use charcoal lighter fluid. Some say they can taste the fluid in the meat. Tasting the fluid in the meat usually happens when you don’t let the fluid soak into the coals (when it says wait 15-20 minutes, wait). Also, as a warning, do not use the charcoal that has already been soaked in fluid such as Matchlight in starter chimneys. I mean, it works, but the chimney is not needed.

Secondly, what kind of charcoal should you use? I’m a big fan of wood coals. Wood coals, sometimes called lump coals, tend to burn hotter and faster than charcoal briquettes. The formulas I use when picking coals are: What’s in stock at the store and what am I cooking? “What am I cooking?” is the main question. I tend to use charcoal briquettes if I’m cooking chicken, pork, or fish. I use lump coal when grilling beef, lamb, or another meat that could use a nice sear. Oh vegetables…I like charcoal.

I’ve chosen two of my favorite layouts I usually do for grills. Here are the pictures:

I’m not sure what these are officially called but I call the one on the left, Warm/Hot. The other is Hot/Warm/Hot.

The Warm/Hot layout is useful when you want a quick sear on the meat but then need some time for it to cook through. I use this method when grilling chicken. I also like to use it when making Tritip.

The Hot/Warm/Hot layout is just like the Warm/Hot layout except it’s hotter in the middle. I use this layout when making burgers or steaks. This layout is helpful if you want that crispy sear and you’re managing thinner cuts of meats where you just need a few minutes before serving.

Whatever layout you choose, I always recommend creating a cool safe spot. This safe spot will save you from burning meats and gives you time to rest. I used to be full charcoal grill person…ask my dad. He used to laugh at me when I did that. Sure enough I had burnt meat.

Happy grilling!