If you don’t have any exciting plans for tonight I would like to invite you to come check out my dad’s band TABASCO FIASCO in MA. The show starts at 8pm. Fire me an e-mail if you’d like more details: mikedidonato AT gmail DOT com

I can promise good times.

The fried rice recipe that I mentioned briefly in yesterday’s post ended up being very simple, quick, and delish.

Chinese Fried Rice

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1 med onion (cut into 8 wedges)
4 scallions (cut into small pieces on the diagonal)
8 oz. ham (sliced into long thin strips)
3-4 T peanut oil
2 T soy sauce
1 3/4 cup long grain brown rice
1/4 Cup frozen peas

STEP 1: cook the rice, then chill the rice. The recipe says chill it overnight… I settled for 20 minutes in the freezer.
STEP 2: throw 2T of oil into a wok.
STEP 3: mix the eggs, adding some salt and pepper to season
STEP 4: throw eggs in wok. spread the egg out by swishing it around the wok until it just starts to solidify into a thin patty. Then separate with a spatula, scrambled eggs style. Remove eggs and set aside.
STEP 5: Throw in the onion. Keep ‘em in there until they start to become transparent.
STEP 6: Add ham. Fry for 1 min.
STEP 7: Add the rest of the oil, then the rice and peas. fry for 3 min.
STEP 8: Add scallions, egg, and soy sauce. Cook until heated through.
STEP 9: Serve, and enjoy.

It should be noted that I ended up using white basmati rice instead because we had it on hand. Also, the real recipe called for prawns to be added. I did not. It was still excellent.

Mike D’s food climbing ratings:
Deliciousness: 5.8+
Difficulty: 5.5

MSPaint wonderment!

A penalty shot.

Even after a huge feast of pulled pork earlier this week, I decided to make a ham last night. It came out great! 10 pounds of delicious delicious ham.

Now we have all sorts of leftover ham. And I’m excited to say that I’ll finally be able to dive into my new Asian cookbook. Tonight I’m going to pick up a few scallions from the food store on the way home from work and then I’m going to make some fried rice. It looks simple enough: egg, diced ham, brown rice, peanut oil, etc.

If I can remember, I’ll snap a few photos and post about it tomorrow.

In other news, this past Tuesday I hit up the climbing gym with Irene, Pete, and Jesse. While there I tried a frighteningly difficult climb that is rumored to be somewhere in the high 5.12 low 5.13 area. There’s one move near the top that requires a powerful left hand bump from one sloper to another. I tried the move about half a dozen times unsuccessfully.

This morning, two days after those 6 attempts, my left arm still feels destroyed.

Each Christmas I try to carve my mother a little Santa out of wood. I’ve been doing this for the last 4 or 5 years and have made a bunch of different Santas…. everything from a Banjo playing Santa to a Santa painting a candy cane. This year, I decided to make a Rock Climbing Santa climbing a chimney. I took pictures to document the process.

The process starts with a block of wood. After I sketched the basic top, front, and side views onto the block I used a band saw at work to cut the basic shape.

Once that was done I brought the wood home and used my dremel to carve out the basic shape. I used a coarse bit to remove most of the excess wood and then a sharp end mill type bit to clean up.

Unfortunately my pictures of the carving process itself came out pretty poor. This one shows the later stage after I had separated the arms and cut between the Santa and the chimney but before the details of the harness and face were added.

Once the carving was complete, I sanded down the figure with a sanding bit and a few strips of sand paper. Then I applied one coat of white paint to the whole piece.

After that dried, I painted the brick with a dark red paint. I kept my brush very loose to keep the red out of the carved area that defined the individual bricks. This gave the brick a really rough look.

Finally I painted Santa himself. He got a bright red coat with ivory white details.

He also got a festive green harness.

The only real problem was that Santa’s left foot is magically passing into the chimney. We can either pretend that:
1) there are some missing brick’s where Santa’s left foot is.
2) Santa is magic
3) Mike D miscalculated the size of Santa’s left foot.

Either way, I consider this Santa a success.

Wow, two skyline features in a row. Crazy!

I congratulate Patrick and Tyler* for making the connection between my clue (it mentioned light and wonder) and the satellite image’s unique northward facing beach to correctly identify the location as Pharos, an island off of Alexandria, Egypt. This was the location of the Lighthouse of Alexandria (one of the seven wonders of the world).

No one got the skyline. It was Rochester, NY.

So this brings us to this week’s puzzle.

Skyline

Satellite

Good luck!

*no proof was provided from Tyler, but his comment made it seem like he knew the answer

Merry Christmas!

And what a Christmas it was. Saturday night, after a wild day of kung fu and present buying, I returned to Massachusetts where I attended my sister’s hip dessert party. I met some wonderful people and was entertained by hilarious videos and equally hilarious British people.

Sunday I finished up my shopping (procrastination all around!) and spent some time with the family eating Chinese food, watching Spinal Tap, and going to midnight mass.

Christmas day was a surplus of merriment (and gifts!)

let’s talk gifts. There were definitely some highlights this year.

The Lunch Box of Legends
This thing is imposing. It instills fear into all who witness its storage capacity. In the words of an astute friend “Good God. You could feed yourself AND sander from that lunch box.” I have no doubts that I will be able to fit my entire lunch into this box every day. Even on fat days. Especially on fat days.

additional picture - check out my lunch box of legends as it dominates over jesse’s measly lunch box of lameness

Rock Climbing Equipment
Mainly, a rope and a rope bag. These won’t arrive for a couple weeks, so the pictures are delayed.

Thor T-shirt
He’s swinging his mighty hammer of supremacy.

Asian Cookbook
Recipes from this book will likely be highlighted over the coming months in any “Mike D Eats” features.

Monogrammed Towels!
no description needed.

Other highlights included beautifully warm thick socks, oatmeals of many types, foodstuffs from everywhere, a few key tools, starbucks gift certificates, and much more!

Also, my dad got a new cappuccino machine that makes the most glorious coffee beverages you could ever taste. It’s making me wonder if I should consider it as a potential for kitchen appliance 2007.

Overall, Christmas was a great success. It was awesome to spend time with the family and exchange presents and joy.

Roland found this.

So far my best time is 35.9 seconds.

I hit up the dentist this morning.

I have a slight regression of the gums above one of my teeth and a few small pits that should be watched over time, but overall Mrs. Marzullo says my mouth is in great shape.

Thanks Mrs. Marzullo!

(a Christmas update is in the works)

how many people here bring their lunch to work rather than buy their lunch at work?

I’m hoping to work with Ryan Schenk to develop an online pool that will allow us to put our vote in for which state’s Miss USA contestant or Miss Teen USA contestant will be next to party herself into the mayhem of the media spotlight.

Stay Tuned!

Remember this guy? Anyone? (from S. McQuaid)

3 cheers for me

Advanced Dynamics: C

comments: it’s a fair grade. Bummer that I couldn’t pull off a B. I’ll have to put in more effort next semester.

It’s not looking good. I don’t know my Advanced Dynamics grade yet, but I do know that one of my classmates who consistently performed better than I did got a B-.

At least I won’t have to bake any cakes.

The Trailer!

I can’t wait!

SIDE NOTE: I wonder why it’s called a trailer.

My sister Alicia sent out an e-mail to my family with the following text:

Merry Christmas from Mike D!

Hilarious!

Miss USA making out with Miss Teen USA is really what makes me love being American.

So let’s not punish these American icons, let us instead shower them with fame and fortune.

I attended Kung Fu last night. It was a very productive session. We discussed sparring techniques and I learned that I have a tendency to get a little too close during sparring and it results in an increased risk for kneeing and elbowing (both are frowned upon in non-full contact fighting.) But I got a few good matches in. It was a good night.

Does anyone else procrastinate with their Christmas shopping? I might start shopping Friday night.**

Hmm. ‘Kung Fu Christmas’ might be a decent name for a band.

**I’m an idiot. see comments.

For a tasty breakfast saute some red peppers and add one full eggs and two egg whites. Scramble a bit and then add a teaspoon or two of honey.

Simple and delicious.

Jon Abad and Roland took the glory this week with their successful identification of Blood Gulch and the WoW Thunder Bluff. Great job dudes!

This week we’re back to ‘real’ skylines and satellite images. So check it out:

Skyline 20!

Satellite 20!

And, if you can shed some light on the significance of the satellite image you’ll be a mikedidonato .com wonder.

Good luck!

Masters of Business Adventure Grades:

Org. Behavior: A
Business Stats: A

Mech Eng Grades:

Advanced Dynamics: ?

This weekend was a good one. After the gunk thrills I returned home for some Accounting and got some sleep before a saturday of kung fu and Shaun McQuaid.

Jesse and I drove up Saturday evening for a festive night of gifts, food, and games. The best gift was by far the Avenging Narwhal which roams the seas and rivers of the world avenging its species for the atrocities of the koalas and sea pups by spearing them violently with magical horns of justice.

Sunday after a House of Rock dinner, Jesse and I went climbing with Pete and Irene. We were pretty destroyed by the end. So much so that I had absolutely no problem falling to sleep just after 9pm.

This week should be wonderful, if only because I probably won’t have to go to Texas… and I have no classes.

I’ll probably have no idea what to do with myself.

The sound quality is pretty poor and you tube may make the sound a little out of sync, but you’ll get the picture.

Happy Holidays to you from MikeDiDonato .com