Day 8: Cheesecake

A rather uneventful day.  Worked on my essays for my Foreign Service application.  Only one left to write, and one currently awaiting revision.  Not bad at all.  They all must be done by the 19th, so I feel like I’m working at a good pace.  Also did plenty of reading by wrapping off my July/August issue of Foreign Affairs.  I need to find work while I wait to hear about the FS and grad. school so I can start getting the Economist to start filling those long 2 month gabs between Foreign Affairs installments.  Next up will be Fareed Zakaria’s Post-American World.

Other than reading, writing, and a bit of Final Fantasy (finally leveled all characters in my party up to Level 30, meaning I won’t get my ass kicked in the next area), Eric and I got our food shopping for the week done, meaning I have food to eat for breakfast and lunch again!  We’ve gotten very good at making our shopping very affordable.  In the past six months we’ve dropped our grocery bill from about $99/week, to around $50/week.  Right now part of this is because the farmer’s market allows us to get fresh fruits and veggies outside of the supermarket, but a decline in the complexity of our meals and the amount of meat we buy has made a big difference.

On the way to the supermarket I got a call from Jeff Koenig, who I first “met” (we’ve never met IRL) at Broadcast Assassin, a site I still dearly miss.  He was calling to make sure Eric knew to call him, as Eric will be helping him compile information for the upcoming What is a Web Series website: more details available at Jeff’s Tumblr site.  While on the phone Jeff mentioned he was about to get on the train to go find cheesecake, which is apparently difficult to find in his neighborhood.  So while at Wegman’s we happened to pass the bakery, and low and behold, there was cheesecake.  So I did what any wiseass would do: took a picture and texted it to Jeff telling him we’d get one for him, but that he’d have to come to NJ to get it.  So you’re photo of the day is the cheesecake I so thoughtfully sent to Jeff.

Day 7: Clouds

We’ve made it through the first week!  Only 51 more to go!  Well, today was Chloe’s birthday party.  Lots of adorable young children present.  I’ve learned that I can become tired just from watching toddlers play.  I was dozing off in the car when we went home.  Now that Chloe is 2, she’s developing a definite personality that was lacking when she was an infant.  She’s gotten very camera shy, so I don’t have any pictures of her to share.

What we learned from Chloe’s party is that petting zoos may be a bit much for a 2 year old to take in.  She loved the ducks, bunnies, and guinea pigs, was interested in the chickens, but was a bit intimidated by the goats and baby cow, all of which were bigger than her.  All the kids had a great time, and I got to see part of the World Cup Uruguay-Germany game.  I don’t know if I’ll get to watch the final (not having television in the house and all), but I’m rooting for the Dutch.

The forecast for the day had called for nothing but rain, which was worrying since Chloe’s backyard (with pool) and a petting zoo were the main plains for the party.  Thankfully the rain cleared up in the early afternoon and everything went as scheduled.  Next year Eric and I are getting her Here Come the A, B, Cs to go with her 1, 2, 3s.  The sky was once again beautiful as we headed home, and as none of my pictures of the party came out that well, I decided a sky shot would world for you all today.

Day 5: Storms

Ah, the beginning of relief from the oppressive heat.  A couple passing storms dropped a little bit of rain over us.  The first just made everything hot AND humid – humidity had been low during the 100 degree temperatures – but the second actually cooled things off.  Today brought a trip to Barnes and Noble to buy a present for Eric’s cousin’s daughter, who turns 2 sometime this week.  Little Chloe is adorable and completely spoiled, so we figured it best not to try and compete with those so intent on spoiling her.  We settled on introducing her to good music and educational programming with the They Might Be Giants album Here Come the 1, 2, 3s.

We happend to be out at Barnes and Noble when Passing Storm #2 came by.  A casual glance out the front window revealed sheets of rain and shoppers running for dry ground.  Just as quickly as it had started it stopped, and when we finished shopping and browsing, we found a cooler afternoon waiting for us.

Day 4: Gaming

Here’s my real problem with Project 365: I take the pictures, I just forget to post them.  In this case, it’s because I’ve been utterly sucked into playing Final Fantasy XII again, having never beaten it last time and being far too low in level on my old game file to make playing any fun.  I’d literally have to log 10-20 hours of game play running around leveling up my characters.  Boring, if there’s no plot to break it up.

I’ve backdated the picture to when it was originally taken, and will with the rest as well (I’m writing this on the 11th).  I had made fun of Eric a few weeks ago when he went on a 8-hour Super Mario Galaxy spree.  I’ve got no room to laugh at him any longer, because I’m pretty sure I played FFXII for 10-12 hours on the 7th.  I’ve kept playing since, but usually only for 4 hours at a time.  I find it much easier to play Playstation games for long periods of time than Wii games, or at least Mario games.  I find the Playstation controller to be much more comfortable.

I’m reaching a point where I will have to go back and find old FF titles to play.  As you may be aware, FFXII was the last installment made for the PS2.  I don’t see a PS3 anywhere in my immediate future, so once FFXII is finished (and I mean 100% all sidequests, optional bosses, and extras completed), I’ll have to start working backwards.  FFX is the first installment I played, and I actually have the original Final Fantasy on the Wii in all of it’s 8-bit goodness.

Why am I talking about these games so much?  Because other than eating and occasionally getting up to stretch, this was all I did on the 7th.