Jumpin' At The Woodside

Hoppy Friday to one and all! Tonight's brew a "hop-licious" double IPA from Avery, their duganA . It was a beautiful day here... lows 80s, no clouds and tomorrow looks to be another warm day as well. As you may or may not have heard the Dave Matthews Band Caravan , a three-day music festival, will be visiting four locations this summer. The first stop will be Atlantic City, NJ. I purchased my tickets this week and already looking forward to seeing some great live bands like Grace Potter and the Nocturnals , Warren Haynes Band , Ray LaMontagne , and Guster to name a few. Not to mention, DMB will be headlining each night of the festival with a full set. Actually, the third night of the festival will be my 30th DMB show - believe it! My DMB tour stats ( courtesy of AntsMarching.org ) In other news... My grass is efforting. The Scotts Lawn Service has killed the weeds and now I don't have a whole lot of anything to make the lawn green. Hoping my seed starts to come in. ...

Happy Friday and a Guinness toast to all y'all! Just as my friends and I got together to celebrate our 40th year with The Big 40 , looks like we are gathering again to celebrate our 45th year much the same way. Planning is underway for the July get together, and I think everyone is already looking forward to it. In Other News... The weather here should be sunny and reach into the low 60s by Sunday, sorry northern peops. I'll leave you with JJ Grey & Mofro performing one of my favorites, "Lochloosa." They'll be here at the U.S. National Whitewater Center in April for their Spring Festival... sweet! - Salud!

I now have a new home for my written pieces, Timmay Pieces . My blog entries about this, that, the other, what I ate, drank, concerts I attended, where, when, why, what have you and what for... will still reside here. My prose consisting of fictional short stories, poems, thoughts, fragments, etc. will now reside on the blog Timmay Pieces . - Salud!

Inspiration comes in all forms, shapes and sizes... and can even come in the gaze and friendship of a beautiful young woman. I had a surprise lunch today with the aforementioned young woman. I was a little nervous at first as we've only had brief in-person chats in the office, but have texted and instant messaged a good deal. She's so full of life and energy. She has a real hunger and passion for taking in as much of the world as she can. She's funny and smart, and I'm thinking why would she want to talk to me? Kidding of course, because I'm an amazing individual... now that's funny! Self-deprecation humor aside, you still wonder... at least I do. Anyway... she inspired me to get back into my writing. She claims to not be a writer, but has taken up her own blog. She has good writer instincts. She starts off with the lead that grabs the reader and then fills in the details from there. I keep thinking how can we have anything in common with our age difference, but...

This past weekend I switched up my chili recipe that I posted back in December. It was basically the same, except this time I went with Grilled Chicken & Sausage along with a few other changes listed below. The recipe called for 2 pounds of meat so I decided to go with grilled chicken and Italian sausage - most likely because I had some chicken breasts left in the freezer. They were small so I had 4 of them, that all together weighed a little over a pound. Once thawed, I marinated them for a few hours in a Caribbean Jerk marinade . I grilled them about 4-5 minutes a side then after they cooled a bit, I sliced them into chunks and set them aside. While I was grilling the chicken, I roasted the garlic in the oven with a little olive oil and some salt and pepper. The roasted garlic is so much easier to work with than cleaning and chopping the raw garlic. Instead of the red and green peppers for the holidays, I went with a red and an orange pepper that I thought would add to the swee...

I flew up to NYC a couple Sundays ago for what seemed like a simple enough 3-day work trip, but turned out to be a little longer than expected. I didn't want to travel during the AFC and NFC Championship football games, but at least I got to see the end of the Jets vs. Steelers game from a sports bar across the street from the hotel. The week started out good, Jimmy Joe Pete and I hit the Mercury Bar and The 5 Napkin Burger again on Monday night. This was after a full day of going through the content for our new web sites in a conference room on the 39th floor of the Paramount Plaza building near Times Square. I thought about trying a different burger from their menu, but had to go with the Original 5 Napkin again and it did not disappoint. Tuesday it snowed in the morning, but there was an ominous calm and lack of snow that afternoon. JJP and I took a cab down to the Village after work thinking we'd stop in at a place like the Slaughtered Lamb for beers and then have dinner...

These photos are from the big snow... well, big for here anyway ... that fell the week of January 10. A little late in posting, but here they are. Our offices closed both Monday and Tuesday of that week and I worked from home. The top photo was taken the morning of Wednesday, January 12 when I was finally able to make it into work... mostly make it up the hill in my neighborhood that troubled many a vehicle on Monday and Tuesday. I regret not shooting some video of cars repeatedly trying and failing to make it up the hill. The photo above was taken the evening of January 10... a Sierra Nevada - Torpedo Extra IPA to end the work day and warm the cold night. - Salud!