Jonathan for President - Jonathan Hall's Blog

Going to San Fran again.

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:27:00 +0000

Last May I went to San Francisco for a few days to attend the Google Developer Conference.

This year the City doesn't have any money for conferences so I wasn't planning to go. But being the Google-fanboy that I am, and after reading an article about this years conference and looking at the schedule, I said to myself, "Self, lets go on a vacation!"

So I signed up for the conference as a student, which I am, and bought tickets from Virgin America for $49/each way, and reserved a king size bed hotel room with a view over at the Parc Fifty Five Hotel.

Last year since the city was paying for the hotel I went for just the conference, with a half day to walk around. This year I'm gonna go three days early. Sunday will be checking in, walking around, and maybe seeing a theater performance. Monday will be Alcatraz tour, 2-hour bay area cruise, pier 39 walking around, aquarium of the pacific with behind the scenes tour. Tuesday is culture day, taking the culture bus to city hall tour, museum of modern art, culture arts center, botanical garden, etc. Wednesday and Thursday is the Google IO developer conference.

S.O.T.W Creature Fear by Bon Iver.

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:59:00 +0000

Heard it on Chuck again last night. They must love Bon Iver too.

and again at the end

I was full by your count
I was lost but your fool
Was a long visit wrong?
Say you are the only

So many foreign worlds
So ready for us
So ready for us,
The creature fear

Teased by your blouse
Spit out by your mouth
I was loud by your lowered
Seminary sold

Tear on tail on
Take all on the wind on
The soft bloody nose
Sign another floor...

The so many territories
Ready to reform
Don't let it form us
Don't let it form us
The creature fear

So did he foil is 'own?
Is he ready to reform?
So many torahs
So many for us

State of the Jonathan Address

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:11:00 +0000

Last Friday I worked the State of the City Address presented by Mayor Maryann Edwards at Pechanga Resort and Casino. One thing happens every year without fail...I get corrected on my Pechanga pronouniation. Like I said on my twitter, you cant pronounce it like Topanga, you have to say it as if your were a snobby old bag from Britain.

Schools been going well. Im taking 2 classes this semester at CSUSM and I have abour 4 classes to remaining to get my BA in Communication. Its taken so long because 1) I'm lazy when it comes to school and 2) I've been workin my career job for the past 4 years and its difficult to work full time and go to school. Hats off to the "moms" out there that do it, its super tough. So far I aced both my midterms and aced my first term paper with two to go. I've never done really well in school because I am not as passionate about it as I am my work. I love creating websites, graphic design, photography, and video. I'm glad I have a career that utilizes all my passions.

Work has been going well...with exceptions. The economic situation our country is in due to subprime lending has really affected us at work. I work for the City of Temecula where half of our general fund is sales tax, and as you all can guess, sales across the country have been hit really hard. In December, the city laid off all our project employees. Project employees were full time, hard working people that because they were defined as "project" they didnt get benifits or were represented by our union. We lost 5 people from our department, 2 were crucial losses as they were our helpdesk. Helpdesk is who everyone calls when thier computer/software/phone stops working. We had two people working this job fulltime and lost them. So January was real tough on us. I had to cover part of that helpdesk job as well as my own full time job. I'm not complaining, we all must work together though this, but this extra job has been taxing on my stress levels and energy. Last March we also lost another employee/position due to the early retirements. This landed me another job to do, the AV Room and AV related work. This job, unlike the helpdesk, I'm excited about taking over. AV is one of my passions. Plus we are building a new Civic Center in Old Town Temecula and I will be an integral part in designing the new council chamber's AV Room and Community Rooms. The overall story is works been super busy, super stressful, with no end in sight. Thats whats been consuming most of my life.

Ever since ~~reading~~ listening to Timothy Ferris's book "4 Hour Workweek," I've gotten excited about expanding my side project of movie theater websites. Currently I do the websites for 3 movie theaters. Ive been working on weekends re-programming the back end getting ready for a new and improved version of the site that can scale to many more theaters. What this means is that its my hope some day to have the income of 50 or so movie theater websites and afford to travel and spend lots of time abroad emersing myself in thier culture and learning other languages. This project could also open the possibilities of me being a stay-at-home dad if I ever get married and have kids. The beauty of the movie theater website project is that I can work from anywhere that has an internet connection. Although lately I've been lazy at progressing this project as works been real taxing on my energy where I spend most of my off hours playing Halo with Luke, Aaron, and Oscar.

In my spare time I've been re-listening to the Harry Potter books which I forgot how amazing they are, they definately deserve a future post to this blog. The movies are still amazing for the special effects and abridged version of the story but nothing beats the books. The books really go into detail the relationships people had with Harry's father and those get overlooked in the movie, and I think discovering those relationships are real important to Harry.

If you're reading this last paragraph I will be amazed. If I looked at a blog post this long I may not have read it, hahahaha. Well thats my life in a nutshell, a friggin huge nutshell but you get the point.

Kicking the Bucket (list)

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:39:00 +0000

I'm dying...well we all are technically...unless I find that fountain of youth I've been looking for.

Yesterday 22 year old rookie Angel's Pitcher Nick Adenhart was hit and killed by a drunk driver. Im not necessarily an Adenhart fan, actually never heard of him until the news. But it makes you think about when you will die. As my friend Jon put it:

Nick Adenhart isn't the same as a best friend, but the feeling of knowing that he passed before his time is the same as losing one. I have been in that situation already, and I know how it feels. This isn't as close to home, but you still have that feeling of loss, of disappointment, of waste.

So what do I want to do before I die so that my life is not a "waste"? My list (a work in progress):

Learn and speak Spanish, French, and Russian fluently.
Live for 6+ months in a country that isnt the United States.
Sky dive (who's BL doenst have that one)
Get married (learning French may help as I have a thing for French women)
Have my baby son or daughter grab my finger with their whole hand.
Have the last check I ever write to bounce. (Can't take it with me)
Become President (jk, thats way too much work and I'm a huge slacker)
Live a life with purpose.

Living a life with purpose is the hardest thing to do. I think people to often go on autopilot and just go to work and home and to work again. I don't want to get caught in that.

SOTW - Blood Bank by Bon Iver

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:57:00 +0000

I heard this song back a few weeks ago on an episode of Chuck. I love the guitar and melody.

Well I met you at the blood bank
We were looking at the bags
Wondering if any of the colors
Matched any of the names we knew on the tags

You said "see look thats yours!
Stacked on top with your brother's
See how the resemble one another
Even in their plastic little covers"

And I said I know it well

That secret that you knew
But don't know how to tell
It fucks with your honor
And it teases your head
But you know that its good girl
Cos its running you with red

Then the snow started falling
We were stuck out in your car
You were rubbing both of my hands
Chewing on a candy bar

You said "'aint this just like the present
To be showing up like this"
AS a moon waned to crescent
We started to kiss

And I said I know it well

That secret that we know
That we don't know how to tell
I'm in love with your honor
I'm in love with your cheeks
What's that noise up the stairs babe?
Is that Christmas morning creaks?

And I said I know it well
I know it well ...

No One Cares What You Had for Lunch

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 03:27:00 +0000

I recently came across a book called "No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog" and it got me thinking. I do like the blogs that give everyone a glimpse into ones life, which is why I love facebook so much. I love reading stories more than accounts. I find it boring to write about what I did, day to day, which was why the 365 project failed. My life is pretty boring, work/school/a few hobbies thats about it.

After seeing that book title, it inspired me to write yesterday's Zombie post, in which I had a lot of fun doing. Noone cares what I did that day. I ate a bagel for breakfast, wrote a blog post, pulled weeds, finished rereading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and then watched the movie again. Wow, I bet you all are real interested in that last sentence(sarcasm).

If I'm gonna spend the time to write a blog, I should put some effort into it. So in addition to what I had for lunch and the occaisonal video, hopefully I'll come up with some more meaningful and/or comedic posts.

By the way, I had EZ Take Out Burger for lunch.

This morning I saw a Zombie.

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:42:00 +0000

I know what you’re thinking, “you must be out of your mind! there’s no such thing!” But nay, it is true. He was at the bagel place eating a herb cheddar bagel with cream cheese with two slices of brain on top.

Hahahahaha well not brain, but he was making weird groaning noises and kept talking to himself.

He made me think, what would I do if there was a freak accident at one of the bio tech facilities in Temecula and people turned into zombies and went on a rampage?

First off I get conflicting education from movies. Some zombies are slow walkers with their arms out in front, and some are fast as hell and would easily outrun my as I would make it probably 10 feet before my back let out on me. So what would I do? Where would I go? Who would I stupidly risk my life to protect and end up falling in love with?

To take a page from the xbox 360 game Dead Rising, a mall would be a great place to ride out my last moments as a free thinking, non brain addicted individual. Malls do offer a lot of security, not the Paul Blart type but the control of doors and windows. You could easily lock yourself in or out of a store. There is a food court to keep your non-brain eating tummy desires fulfilled. There’s usually bookstores and video game stores to keep you busy as you wait for the government to send in black ops marines to see if anyone has survived before firebombing the city. The Temecula Promenade mall doesnt have one but should have one would be a gun and ammunition superstore. That would make the remaining hours of my life that much longer. Considering our mall doesnt have a weapons cache, I would have to go MacGruber on their asses. Im sure the discount perfume and cologne store thats owned by that persian dude contains lots of flamable liquid.

It would also be nice to have some non-zombie company. “Non Zombie” being the key word. First I would need the ex-cop or ex-military explosives specialist, because honestly when it comes to blowing up zombies, I’m sorta clueless. I would also need the chubby guy whose full of wit and comedy. I know a lot of you reading this would say, hey that guy is you, I know, but I’m saving myself for another role. I also need a cool black guy, not to be racist or anything, but for the stereotypical reasons they always get eaten first, which gives me more time. Obviously a hot chick that never in a million years would hook up with me, thats the girl I will be stupidly risking my life to protect. In the end we will be lovers, its a given. And last but certainly not least would be me, the brains of the operation, pun intended.

10 Rules of zombie invasions I’ve learned from TV and film:

Zombies don’t care if you punch them in the face, only a bullet to the head kills them.
If your friend gets bitten, don’t hesitate to kill him, he WILL eat you when he gets the chance.
Inversely, if you get bitten, its very important to convince your friends you wont eat them, because after all, your different than other zombies, you’re the same ol buddy they’ve known since high school, just with a very slight hunger for brains. Plus, you don’t want to get shot in the head.
Hot chicks always end up with the main protagonist, which is why I chose myself for that role, I'm not stupid you know.
There’s always some sinister or morally corrupt company thats to blame, find out who, thats always the key to survival and its always makes you feel better to blame someone else.
If you walk around with a limp moaning “Brains” its a good chance the zombies will think you are one of them and will not eat you.
You can destroy an entire mall, steal or break anything you want, set fire to the Gap, ride the lawn mowers a Sears through a glass wall at Macy’s and no one will blame you (hence why number 5 is so important)
Everyone has once in their life wanted to shoot their coworker in the face, now is your chance.
No matter how much of a loser you are in real life, you will look like a badass with ripped clothing and an assault rifle hanging on your back while holding a shotgun.
Don’t let their blood get in your mouth or eyes. If you do, see number 3.

I think I have a pretty good plan for the next zombie invasion. However, if that day ever happens, I’ll be sure to blog about what I’ve learned from the experience, and will post pictures to my Flickr account of me and the hot chick making out.

Dust off the ol' blog cough cough

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 23:12:00 +0000

It's come to my attention that I have seriously neglected this blog.

I have prepared some excuses:

I was gonna try blogging everyday and let myself down, and you know when you disappoint yourself its harder to get back on the horse?
School. I'm working full time and going to school part time. School and homework sucks.
Work has been super stressful with around 100 layoffs and forced retirements. Our department has been cut in half and now I am doing the job of 3 people. So when I get home, I veg out by watching TV or play halo.
Last but definately not least, I'm a lazy bastard. Plain enough and probably the only true reason I've neglected this thing.

I'm real proud of my friend Tara over at http://soapboxfortara.blogspot.com/. Shes been blogging every day since February 2nd, and I've only caught her cheating once. She inspires me.

Credit Crisis Explained.

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 02:30:00 +0000

Best video I've seen about this.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

I want to go on a boat ride now.

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:40:00 +0000

Can you hear me now?

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 03:52:00 +0000

So awesome.

My spy dream.

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:09:00 +0000

Normally I don't blog my dreams (although I should), but my friend Tara just mentioned in her blog she's been having spy dreams so I though I'd respond (read her article first), then it got too big for her comment box.

I had a spy dream last night too. I was a guest at a wedding banquet and bad guys came in, I pulled out my gun and shot two of them and when I got to the main bad guy, I was out of ammo, he pulled a knife on me and we were gonna have a knife fight. My spy buddy distracted him for a second and I replaced clip in my gun. Bad guy started to run, I tried pulling the trigger and my clip was empty. Dang! I put in an empty clip, rookie mistake :). I chased him down with a knife (happened to be my scuba knife that I have in real life. I caught up to him and stabbed him several times in the back.

Weird dream.

Where the hell is Jonathan?

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:54:00 +0000

Installed a new iPhone app called InstaMapper. Trying it out. It uses my iPhone's GPS to place me on a map including my path. So if you've always thought about stalking me, here's your chance.

UPDATE: it doesnt work constantly, only when the app is on, which is pointless because then you cant use the rest of your phone.

GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com

Feedflix.com - justifying my netflix subscription

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:48:00 +0000

Just learned about a site called Feedflix. What it does is accesses your Netflix account and analyses your rentals and returns and gives you an overall estimate about how much money per dvd netflix is costing me.

Looks like its $1.38 per movie. Not bad. Beats blockbuster and Hollywood Video.

oh, and if you do the math, it looks like I've spent $364 dollars over the past 5 years at netflix......shocking.

Business 2.0

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:08:00 +0000

The last week few weeks I was on vacation and problems arose with a few of the local movie theaters websites that I manage. The theaters inform me of changes to movie times, etc, by fax. Faxing is a antiquated technology I wish would just roll over and die. Anything faxing can do, email can do 100 times better. Regardless of the future impending doom I wish to see happen to the fax technology, it's still a necessity in my website updating life.

Up until today, I've used a free version of efax. The free version would allow a certain number of pages(I think 20) per month faxed to me at a non-local fax number. The faxes would then be sent to me via email as a file type only accessible through their efax software. I even had 2 efax accounts to spred the faxing quota between different movie theaters.

It's worked fairly well until recently. Due to special show times during the christmas holidays I maxed out my monthly quota of pages in one week. Plus the straw that broke the camels back, when I was able to get a few unprotected wifi bars on my iphone in Big Bear, the faxes that contained crucial information was not accessible to me as I didn't have the efax software loaded.

So I weighed the pros and cons and realized that since this is such a crucial part of me being able to give my customers the customer service they deserve, I signed up for a faxing service by RingCentral for $7.99/month. It's a local number and they send the faxes to my email via a pdf which I can access anywhere on any computer. Plus now I get 300 pages a month so I'll never run out of fax pages.

With this purchase I've moved another step closer to being able to handle my business from anywhere, vacation or home, at anytime.

All the "Business 2.0" services I use and can access from any computer, anytime:

Mint.com to manage my finances, bugeting and account balances (FREE)
San Diego Credit Union online bill pay, I never have to write checks (FREE)
BlinkSale.com to manage my invoices for services and products (Subscription)
RingCentral.com for pdf online faxes (Subscription)
Google Docs to manage and host my letters and various documents (FREE)
Gmail For Domains for free email with the best spam filtering (FREE)
Blogger.com for personal/business website information updates (FREE)
WebHost4Life for website hosting (Subscription)
ConstantContact.com for newsletter and subscriber management (Subscription)
flickr.com pro account for image and photograph hosting (Subscription)

LCR, my new gambling addiction

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 06:33:00 +0000

The last night at the cabin we played a game called LCR, short for Left, Right, Center, with one variation: Instead of chips, we used $1 bills! Anyone at any age can have fun winning and has the potential to win, no strategy just luck and tons of excitement.

Everyone starts out with 3 dollars laid out in front of them. Taking turns clockwise, each player rolls a dice for each dollar they have up to 3 dice. Each dice either has an L, C, R, or a dot. If you roll a L, you pass one dollar to the left, R passes to the right, C puts the dollar into the "pot" and a dot means you keep that dollar. If you loose all your dollars you're still not out, a neighbor may roll a R or a L and your back in. The game ends when all the dollars are put in the pot and only one dollar remains, and that person wins the pot.

We played two games, the pot was around 80 bucks each time, I didn't win but had a fun time playing.

Chances:
C: 1 in 6, 16%
L: 1 in 6, 16%
R: 1 in 6, 16%
Dot: 1 in 2, 50%

Snow Day!

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 06:18:00 +0000

On Friday Aaron went snowboarding with a few people from the cabin, I stayed back as I'm still not confident with my herniated back situation. I spent most of the day outside in the snow. There was tons of snow on the ground, and all the little kids staying at the cabin wanted to go sledding. So I grabbed a shovel and and started to engineer a sweet sledding course. I started with a jacket and gloves but quickly shedded them as shoveling snow is a great workout.

Heres one of my "Risk Takers." She was fearless, always willing to attempt my turns and jumps.

Heres my friend Steph, Margies daughter, probably 3 seconds before getting hit by a snowball, look at all that snow!

My friend Becca, Margie's other daughter, brought her friend Briana up for the week.

And here's Becca attempting to go down my sledding course:

Big Bear Vacation

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 06:10:00 +0000

My most favorite coworker Margie invited me and Aaron up to Big Bear with her family for the week. Her family rented a cabin for the week and we joined them on Thursday through Saturday, and thanks to the winter storms the past few weeks, there was a ton of snow.

When we entered the door we were greeted with the best tacos, tamales, and homemade spanish rice. Needless to say we didn't go hungry all week. Also played a few rounds of Bingo, one of which I won, taking home the "Spice Rack" prize. Games with prizes are always fun!

The cabin was quite large, I should have counted but there was around 25 people staying there, yet it didn't seem crowded at all.

New Years, a time to start off on the right foot.

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 17:51:00 +0000

I have been neglecting this blog for quite some time now as my facebook.com addiction has grown.

Also during the past year I've seen a gimmick people do sortof called "365" where they post a picture a day and talk about it for a year. I'm gonna try that. Whether it be a picture, video, or just a text blog posting, I'm gonna attempt at least one blog post a day. It could blow you away or bore the hell out of you, you'll never know! And with all New Years "Resolutions," I bet this one lasts 3 weeks.

And since I've been phone and internetless for the first 3 days of the year, I'll cheat and postdate the last three days.

My internet connection sucked, now it doesn't

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:22:00 +0000

The last two weeks I have been convinced that my internet usage had been limited. I had previously watched 4 entire seasons of "It's always sunny in Baltimore" in High Definition streaming from Hulu. When I got down to the last few episodes, the show would constantly stop to buffer, 6 or 7 times an episode. I also noticed videos from CollegeHumor.com and Youtube doing the same, my internet was slowed down. I decided to speed test my connection....500k when I was supposed to be getting 6mbs. That prompted me to give a closer look to getting FiOS and turned out, with a special, FiOS would be the exact same cost, except 20mbs compared to 6mbs, and tons more HD channels compared to like 15.

For comparison, when my connection was "good":
August 5
Los Angeles:

November 17, a few days after noticing a "slowdown":
San Diego:

Los Angeles:

San Diego:

Friday November 28, 11:50pm
San Diego:

Los Angeles:

the day before my FiOS gets installed and I'm back to normal speed? It's as if they know they are getting canceled the next day, hahaha.

Wednesday December 3, 10:16pm

But wait! after an hour of watching CollegeHumor and DiggVideos:

back to slow speeds! Time Warner (Road Runner) officials sucks!

And the morning before FiOS, lets see for giggles
December 4, 08
San Diego:

Los Angeles:

San Fran:

FiOS installed! Drumroll please.......
December 4, 10:20am
San Diego:

Los Angeles:

Wooohooo Verizon kicks ass!

Aaron graduates from the Fire Academy

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:39:00 +0000

Aaron's Graduation from the Fire Academy was AWESOME. They had a Bagpipe and Drum band play, the graduates chanted, awards were given, got to see a video with pics and clips of some of the exercises they went through.

Congratulations Aaron, we all know how tough it was and you made it!

VIDEO: The start of the show: San Diego FD's Bagpipe and Drum band:

Aaron is smack dab in the middle.

Video: Mikael brought us Air Horns to blow when Aaron's name was called. We were definitely the loudest.

Congrats Aaron! YOU'RE A WINNER!

Jonathan the Chef (Bork Bork Bork)

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 19:03:00 +0000

props to cazi for the sweedish chef joke.

So not this weekend but the one before, I was invited to visit my friend Becca up at her place in Riverside. We chat a lot online when shes at work and home (she works for the apartment complex where she lives) and now after visiting I can actually picture what shes talking about. Anywho, while I was there I stubled across a cookbook titled "Food Network Kitchen's Favorite Recipes."

As a big fan of anything Food Network, and a desire to learn how to cook more than pasta or mac and cheese, I asked to borrow the cookbook to try out my skills as a cook.

Last Monday I gave it a go for dinner and opened up the book, the first recipe I ran across was a breakfast recipe, "Baked eggs with farmhouse cheddar & potatoes" and I thought, hey! I have all those ingredients (almost)

I substituted red potatoes for the normal ones I had, and the farmhouse cheddar with some Chipotle Cheddar(which is AWESOME). Bake'd it up.

Presentation is key (I can hear Gordon Ramsey saying "wipe those edges!")

It was delicious. I know this recipe was super easy, hashbrowns, eggs, and cheese. But I needed a starting off point.

Yesterday I kicked it up a notch. This weekend Becca was in town visiting her family and came by for dinner to help make another recipe from the book. We chose the "Turkey Enchilada Casserole" but sub'd the turkey for chicken as I imagine I'll get my fill of year's quota of turkey this week.

It was lots of fun following this recipe. One thing we learned is to prep all the ingredients first. Butter and oil was ready before we got the onion, garlic, and jalapeno chopped. And that was cooking well when we found out one of the incredients was "cooked" chicken, so we had to remove mixture until our chicken could cook. Live and learn, rookie mistake. Read the entire recipe again before you start and have everything chopped and ready to go before you start.

A small onion, a couple cloves of garlic, a jalapeno, and a touch of cumin and salt joined with some green tomatillo sauce:

Add some cooked chicken: (thanks to the speed of the george foreman grill)

(Side note on the chicken. Do your shopping. The butcher had chicken breasts waaaay cheaper than the pre packaged chicken. Also Stater Brothers has the best premade hamburger patties in the butcher's window, they are to die for.)

Add some corn torillas cut into small strips and some cheese:

Bring to a boil:

Top with cheese and bake it in the oven for 10-20 minutes:

And the presentation:

Becca and I had fun, and it was super delicious. Bummer everyone else had plans, they missed out on some great Chicken Enchilada Casserole.

Jonathan the Baker

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:41:00 +0000

First off let me tell you again how great WinCo Foods is.

WinCo Foods has a section in the back corner of the store that sells stuff in bulk by weight, like a candy store.

They sell nuts, rice, grain, granola, flour, coffee, sugar, cereal, salt, candy, even dog food, and anything else you can imagine. Oh and you can make your own peanut butter too. It's amazing. I bought a crapload of sugar for like 80 cents. It's definitely the only way to shop.

So I had gone to WinCo to pick up some sugar, backing soda, vanilla, pumpkin, and other stuff I have yet to purchase and amass in my baking needs cabinet. I also saw pre made pumpkin pies for like $2.00, but really, whats the fun in that?!?

Its funny to mention that since I'm new to baking, I lacked a few kitchen tools that are required of bakers, especially if I was taking advantage of WinCo bulk ingredients. I didn't have storage containers for flour, sugar, etc. I first stopped by Linen's N Things hoping to get a great going out of business sale only to be again disappointed that 20% off 20 bucks is 4 dollars, and not a great deal. Then I cruised the mall, Robinson's May, Sears, no containers there. Was this such a hard request? Next I tried Costco, at this point I was getting very thirsty but remembered the Hot Dog place doesn't accept ATM cards, just dolla bills y'all. So anyway they did have a set, but it was all stainless steal and more form than function, plus I have a small kitchen and counter real estate is high so I wanted function more than form. Then I found what I was really looking for, at a place I knew from the beginning that would have what I wanted but was lazy to drive there first, Kitchen Fantasy in the Temecula Target shopping center.

At Kitchen Fantasy I found air locking containers by Oxo, they are easy to open and seal and come in a ton of different sized containers. My rating is five stars.

My whole inspiration to make pies comes from my new KitchenAid mixer, I made homemade pizza dough the night before and I can say with confidence that it was the best pizza I have ever made.

So back to making the pies. Got all the ingredients and was ready to start. First I mixed up all the different spices and ingredients for the filling. The recipe said I can buy pumpkin spice instead of all the spices but again, whats the fun in that, plus I imagine all the different spices will taste better, and really, when am I ever going to use pumpkin spice again, its a waste. So after I mixed all the ingredients, I transferred them to a bowl.

After I made the filling I made the crust from scratch following a recipe from the KitchenAid mixer, Once I made the dough I rolled it into two circles and chilled in the fridge for 15 minutes.

After chilling I put them into two pyrex pie containers that my grandparents gave me when they moved to my moms. Next I poured in the filling.

And put them in the oven, watched a little tv and bam! I've got pie!

Looks really yummy. I'm gonna make some homemade coolwhip later today thanks to Tara (aka soapbox Tara, aka my baking inspiration) and my other friend Ruth (A missionary friend I support who's now living in Indonesia learning the language so that they can share the gospel with people who have never heard of Jesus, learn more here) for giving me some recipes on making coolwhip. I'll let everyone know if they turned out to be delicious.

Goal for the day: Homemade Pumpkin Pie

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 18:06:00 +0000

Thanksgiving is this Thursday, and I am in charge of bringing 2 Costco pumpkin pies for the fam to feast on. Normally I would rush out and buy 2 delicious pies from Costco, but not this year(i hope). Today I plan on making a test pie using my new Professional KitchenAid mixer I've had my eye on for the last year, and thanks to Tara for linking me to a deal for one that was pretty much half off.

The test pie is important. I've never made a pie before in my life. I'm even going to make the crust myself. I hope mine turns out like the photo above. Today will determine whether or not I end up going to Costco for pies, I hope mine turns out delicious because showing up with 2 homemade pies is way better than showing up with 2 store-bought pies.

Can I make my own cool-whip too?

Hahahaha it shivers! Best car commercial ever.

jonathanhall@gmail.com (Jonathan) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:26:00 +0000

Thanks Tara for sending this video to me!