Coffee and Google and Cars, OH MY.

So.... yesterday I uploaded this photo:

And I think it about describes the amount of coffee I need for each leg of this roadtrip. Today was not a good coffee day. It started with the the in-room coffee at La Quinta -- Maxwell House, which I made with 3 cups instead of 4 to make it stronger (sadly, that was my best coffee of the morning); then the breakfast bar served some barely-drinkable swill (which I drank) and then I stupidly followed that up with McCafe(TM) on the road. I think I finally found a Starbucks at around 3:00 which I followed at the next Starbucks with a mediocre iced coffee. Ugh.

At least today's travel was (mostly) less taxing than yesterday -- wide straight stretches and, once we left the I-5, almost no transport trucks to jockey around. We made our way to Mountain View, to see the Google campus. Alas, though we pulled into the visitor parking, the lobby was closed today . We did poke around the outside of the main buildings, though, and I was very pleased to see a row of containers full of herbs and edible flowers growing around the patio adjacent to the cafe.

Back on the road after Google, we headed for the hotel. All was going fine until our GPS told us to turn left and we ended up one lane over -- I thought it was two lanes that both went left. Unfortunately, one went sharp left (where we wanted to go) and one went on to the Bay Bridge. We had no choice but to drive allllllll the way across and back -- in rush hour -- paying the toll in the process and adding an hour (to go on a 16 km round trip) to the travel when, had I actually not misjudged the lane we could have been at the hotel in about a minute's time. I tell ya, that GPS narrowly avoided a watery grave. It was saved only by our being sandwiched in the centre lane between many, many other cars.

Sigh.

However, once we arrived at the hotel, handed the keys to the valet, and checked in, things started looking up. We called Kiddo (we miss her SO much) and went for dinner (Thai food, including a very tasty curried fried rice (with pineapple, chicken, shrimp and cashews... mmmmm) and tofu with a sweet and sour dipping sauce. Now 4 hours (and most of an in-room movie) later, I feel much, much less tense.

And then, there's the view, too:

New Coffeemaker

Yesterday I came home and noticed that there was coffee left in the coffee maker. I asked Hubby if he'd made another pot in the afternoon. He said he hadn't. Unfortunately, the carafe was just a few degrees cooler than molten lead and from this I surmised that the "auto off" feature had failed, completely. I unplugged it and the clock stayed on for 30 minutes -- about 3 times longer than it should have. I decided it was possessed by a boggart and we made a note to use the French Press in the morning.

This morning I realized what I thought was our French Press on the shelf was in fact our Bodum milk frother. Doh! Since I really needed coffee, we gave the possessed coffee maker one last go (but I made Hubby promise to unplug it when the carafe was empty). Tonight we bought a replacement. We had actually looked at coffee makers on the weekend (maybe ours knew it was doomed) -- and had come home with a new grinder -- so we had already narrowed our choices. Big bonus, one of our front runners was priced $30 lower at London Drugs so we went with that one (this Oster model).

I threw caution to the wind and brewed some coffee when we got home. It was gooooood. I'm enjoying it now and will be cursing it at 1:30 a.m. when I am still awake.


Speaking of awake, the sunrise this morning was lovely:

Contest Update:
To everyone who added a heart to my Etsy store, Thank You! -- Anne was #100 and will be getting a special something in the mail.

Good old-fashioned Garden City rant.

To quote the Joker in Tim Burton's Batman, "This town needs an enema!"

Yeah, it's been said before but in trying to do our civic duty tonight -- just getting to the open house that City Hall was hosting on the ridiculously costly infrastructure project to replace the Johnson Street Bridge -- it took us about 4 minutes to get close to City Hall and 20 minutes to find a place to park. Even the nearby parkades were packed because of an event at the McPherson Theatre -- in fact one parkade was the biggest part of the delay as idiots blocked the road for no fewer than 5 traffic light signals trying to enter. We finally got around that mess and found a spot that was barely big enough to pull into but Hubby managed it.

The meeting itself was a mix of boosters, detractors, and people who wandered in off the street to get free coffee. Local media was there as were a few councillors (no sign of Mayor Fortin though. Too bad -- I'd have told him how hard it was to park on a Monday) watching a powerpoint presentation and looking at the same drawings that have been circulated for months -- all of which were drawn up by a UK based architect (what -- Victoria, BC, and even Canada didn't have an architecht available???). Council will vote this Thursday. I'd be tempted to go but they rammed through the funding issue at nearly midnight last time and frankly I don't have much faith in this council to do what its citizens want.

There has been NO consideration of repairs to the existing bridge, only talk of the $63 million (some of which may be a Federal Funding carrot) to build a new bridge (that may still be subject to a toll). We took Kiddo to put in her vote because she will likely still be paying for it when she is our age if she stays in the city.

After the open house, we decided to detour to Serious Coffee -- generally a great place to get a quick coffee. Unfortunately, it seems that their management does not pay staff long enough to allow them to properly clean up so they shut down the espresso machines and stop brewing coffee long before closing time -- tonight nearly 20 minutes before closing. To make matters worse, we had ordered a "child's hot chocolate" -- most places will steam this at a lower temperature or add cold milk to temper it. Instead it was scalding hot and Kiddo was brought to tears burning her tongue. At least when Hubby asked, they brought her some ice water. (She was still crying when she went to bed.)

On the way out there were four people headed in for coffee. Hubby told them, "They've already shut down" and they turned and left. While they might have put up with what the dregs left from the day's brew, we didn't think it was fair that anyone pay for that.

Further up the street, three bewildered tourists were trying to figure out where to eat. They were standing on Broad Street outside the fish and chips place that had closed for the night sometime between 7:30 when we walked past the first time and 7:50 when we returned. We directed them to the Irish Times Pub after explaining that the city kinda rolls up its sidewalks weeknights.

It comes down to this: if you can't find many businesses open and you still can't find a place to park in the city, something's broken and a new bridge is not going to fix it.

A Prize and A Giveaway

Today, I got this:

(There are more photos on Flickr.) I haven't played with it yet... but soon. In the meantime, read what Colin thought.

Aside from that, we've been busy with work and camps and getting ready for back-to-school, and working on other projects -- including a zine that Kiddo and I are putting together to sell on Etsy and hopefully in a few places locally. We are calling it Bümfmag. Would you like a copy? Tell me why in the comments and I will send a copy out to at least 5 commenters (maybe more... depending on how many overseas comments I get...).

OTTO? OTTO!

On Friday, I checked in with CoffeeCrew.com to see who won the OTTO vote. Turns out there was a tie -- me and another author. The editor decided the fairest way to deal with it was to email everyone who had voted for someone other than the top two and ask them to pick one -- he called it a vote-off, I pointed out to him that it seemed similar to BC-STV.

When he later told me people started pushing back and saying "No way! We want the person we voted for to win, that's why we voted for them," I told him, "and that's why BC-STV failed."

However, enough people re-voted that I ended up the winner.

By a single vote.



So, I won't have the OTTO for a couple of weeks yet but when it does arrive, I promise you a review and plenty of photos. Thanks so much to those who voted for me; I owe you an espresso.

Seeing new things in the city

I completely forgot to mention what we did last weekend -- we popped out to Sidney to check out the new Shaw Ocean Discovery Centre. It is very much what we've been missing in the region: a decent ocean-themed attraction, well-designed and executed. Kiddo loved it. There's a review on the Victoria Guide if you want to see more.

This weekend, we will be checking out two new things (new to us, anyway) the plan is to tour Glendale Gardens (they have the Art & Music in the Gardens event this weekend) and have afternoon tea at White Heather in Oak Bay for my Mom's birthday. Both will be part of larger articles on the region's gardens and tea rooms, respectively.

And speaking of articles, the deadline to vote in the Win OTTO contest is quickly approaching (if you missed it, I have a story in the running) -- the voting closes at 5 pm Pacific time Friday August 7th.

OTTO Contest update

OK, there are 12 entries in CoffeeCrew.com's Win OTTO contest so in theory I have a 1/12 chance... that's pretty good!

Here's how to vote:

OTTO Rules - There are 12 stories, numbered 1 through 12. You may register a vote by picking 1 story based on the number or the author and send me an e-mail. The subject header or body of the e-mail must contain the words OTTO and the number of the story. You may not vote more than once. One e-mail address = one vote. If I detect that someone is registering multiple e-mails to vote for the same story, this could result in the disqualification of the author... so don't go there! The person with the most votes by August 7, 2009 will be declared the winner. It is simple as that. I will also pick the 2nd and 3rd place winners for EspressoParts.Com T-shirts and other nifty prizes.

My story is #2, A Rebellious Act. I promise to let you come over and play with the OTTO if I win. :)

Zucchini Season!

It's been so hot I haven't wanted to go outside but the veggies kept growing anyway...

I picked all of these last night -- four green zucchinis the size of my forearm and one yellow one, slightly smaller. There are several more just about the same size still on the bushes.

Meanwhile, Frugal Victoria is finding more followers and fans on both Facebook and Twitter (yes, I went to the dark side of 140 character updates. Sigh.) -- the upside of which is that people are now sending me tips. Hurrah!

I also entered a contest to win an OTTO espresso maker (this is one beautiful piece of machinery that retails for about $600!) -- I had to write about how specialty coffee changed my life so I whipped up a little creative non-fiction, "A rebellious act."

Of course, I now think I may have got some details wrong (was the Old Towne actually on Yates, not Johnson? Had it closed before I left for England?) but the overall feel is still there. I also found, on re-read, that I had repeated myself... but there's not much I can do about that now. The prize will be awarded by "popular vote" so go have a look at the other entries, too. Oh, and before you ask, the editor of CoffeeCrew selected that photo from my Flickr stream; I sent a different shot. ;)

Friday Follies undead edition

Star used to regularly write "Friday Follies" posts and seldom a Friday goes by when I don't think about them and how wise she was to post every Monday and Friday (coincidentally the days when my page views here are also highest.) So, here for you are some fun, silly, and interesting things out there on the web:

• Spelling with Zombies. Much better than those glitter words applications and you get results like this:
  
  Zombie Letters from e-zombie.com
  



• Speaking of (un)dead... how about bookshelves which convert into a coffin after you're gone?



• Or maybe you just feel a little undead and could use some caffeine. I'm looking forward to trying out this method of cold-brewing coffee concentrate for summer iced coffees. However, I really want to point you toward one of the most beautiful espresso maker designs ever: the Otto. I love designs that are so bold they look like nothing that has come before; the Otto definitely fits that bill.
  
  
  
• And finally, some video fun....classic Ray Harryhausen stop-motion skeletons from 1963:
  
  
  

Cozies Redux!

After many months of procrastination, I finally took the time to refresh the website for my CuppaJoe Cozies and Wradical Wraps. I removed some excess, tidied up some info, and totally reworked the order page. Hooray!

Of course, the trigger was another shout-out by Colin over at his CoffeeCrew blog... and today, I got an email from a local area cafe interested in selling my cozies as "a Christmas impulse item." Woo! I'll let you know how that works out.

---

In other follow-up news, my review for Chuzzle Deluxe is up at Game-Boyz.com

Much Better.

Today, there is some airflow through my office -- a light breeze, open doors and windows, and fans. This, coupled with a 10 degree difference in temperature (currently it is not quite 20°C outside) and a fabulous cup of iced coffee from the Munchie Bar in the SUB is making today a much more reasonable day at the office.

Interestingly, the Munchie Bar now features corn-based coffee cups which are completely biodegradable but are no longer insulated... so I'm thinking I need to take over some CuppaJoe Cozies and Wradical Wraps!

Polly Wanna Coffee!

polly_wanna_coffee
Originally uploaded by triviaqueen.

Last night Kiddo said this at some point and it made me laugh. I got this image in my head... so I spent a good chunk of today creating it. Now it's for sale on shirts and mugs at cafepress.com.

And if you wanna buy it on a mousepad or a canvas bag, lemme know; I'll add it to the shop!

Bonus "Couple Time"

We ended up with a bonus night to ourselves on Friday while kiddo spent the night at her Nana's.... what did we do? Not much Friday night... we did go out and buy a new palm sander so hubby could continue work on the Sculpture of Cthulhu (SOC). We made a few other stops then came home and puttered.

This morning, we went out for breakfast at John's Place. I love that restaurant, but I have one complaint: they've changed their coffee. They used to serve Canterbury roast (mmm); now they serve Lavazza, which claims to be Italy's favourite coffee. I just have to say, if this is true, I'm not going to Italy any time soon. What I suspect is that it isn't being brewed quite right, because we ordered dark roast and got something that tasted like dishwater with coffee overtones and a slight hint of mud. That said, breakfast was good (too big though; I should have asked for a half portion).

The weather was amazing today, too, blue skies... puffy clouds... windy and sunny. Hubby was not sure what to do with the "happy-before-breakfast" version of me.

After breakfast we headed over to Michael's/Future Shop, etc. Hubby had a meeting at 10, so I went to Michaels -- after walking about a mile all the way around Mayfair Mall and back down Cloverdale. I have decided that the only way to make sure I exercise is to do something every day -- I am on day 4 of that plan and so far so good... but we'll see how I'm doing in a month. To that end, I have also signed up with SparkPeople.com... so I can track exercise along with nutrition.

----
I just have to add, right now hubby is playing with a particularly lame video game... he figured out how to make the character jump and is making him jump in place while the character's father delivers some tedious monologue...what's even funnier is hubby saying "Yay! Yay! Yay! Are those my barrels? Yay! Yay! Oh, this is purple! Yay! Yay!" etc...
----

Didn't buy much at Michael's, but I did get some new rubber stamps for greeting card production so I can finally make a dent in all the cardblanks we bought last year! I also got some ribbon that was on sale... I have plans to use it for more bottlecap pincushions.

Tomorrow we're hosting brunch and later we may attend the Regional science fair. I have a major soft spot for the science fair, having made it to the regional several times through school but we took kiddo last year and she got a kick out of it, so we're hoping to repeat that.