Conference Memories

In honor of tomorrow's virtual SEC, I figured I would reminisce over conferences of the past. So many great memories and so many pictures to choose from, I narrowed down to some of my favs in the past 4 years.




Meeting Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and being heckled by Gilbert Godfrey is somewhere near the top of the list. I really did like him in Aladdin!






There has always been an ongoing Star Wars theme for us geeks! I am surprised we haven't had a full cos-play event at one of these things yet!






Swing dancing was probably my favorite of the interactive, not that it ever stopped me from dancing at any of the parties. I generally had to warm up the dance floor for a good hour or two at any event before I could convince others to join me (or maybe they just needed that time to have some liquid courage)

I fear (and yet would probably still be very amused) should Jim ever decide to create a video montage of my dancing antics.








Go kart racing was a blast in Fort Wayne, even tho my car got buried in the snow... And who could forget snow doughnuts? Gotta love those vendors!








While most everyone loved their cardiac arrest in the bun in Philly - I really could have gone my whole life without a cheesesteak, but what a great photo op for the Symi-Mafia!







And who could forget the infamous recreation of Milli Vanilli's blame it on the rain in San Diego? That evening set an all new standard for male chest bumping in water!










Or what about JBF's inappropriate care bears in San Antonio?








Or the trip to Sun Studios in Memphis? That's where I officially became a published recording artist with "pretty hair" sang with Elvis's mic and got to play Johnny Cash's guitar!






And the countless karaoke songs sung - I think I covered all of the Madonna "Like A" songs over the years... Virgin, prayer, etc...






Or creepy drunk Santa who wasn't really all that creepy or drunk after all?







And dodgeball!!! Oh how I miss playing dodge ball this time of year!






While I am sad to not be on the tennis courts today, I am looking forward to the next two days and virtually networking with my people. I heart my Symi friends!!! I wonder if we'll crash the chat servers or if there will be a side FB conversation? I'll be playing virtual dodgeball tonight for old times sake and hoping to make new, yet I am thinking somewhat less photogenic memories this year!

Warped Birthday Cakes

Today is the birthday party for a dear friend with a rather warped sense of humor. I couldn't decide between a zombie baby or a cat litter cake, so I made both for tonight's party at the Saucer.


Zombie Baby cake was inspired from the time Josh etched RIP into a cake at work because e thought it was a tombstone cake, come to find out it was a cradle cake for a baby shower at his office.

The cake is a blood red inside with gummy worms that will fall out when he cuts into it.





Cat litter cake is an old Halloween standby of mine. It's german chocolate with chocolate frosting covered in crushed white oreos colored green and blue like cat litter. The cat turds are made from large tootsie rolls with pinched ends and it's a delicious creation that most people never taste because they can't get over what it looks like.

It's served in a new cat litter box with a new cat litter scoop. I promise both were washed and sterilized and it's completely edible and delicious :) I will say this is the first time I have ever spelt out someone's name in fake poop.

cake

Not so little known factoid about me...
My prior career was in the event/wedding planning industry. I used to bake wedding cakes, sew wedding dresses, create floral arrangements, and cater parties. At some point in the late nineties I gave it all up for coding and haven't really looked back since. Dealing with a computer is way easier than putting up with a BrideZilla.

Nonetheless, I get cravings to get back to my creative culinary roots, especially the sugar iced kind. Lucky for me it's birthday/cake party season right now and I have 3 cakes in 1 week.


Cake #1 is for my friend Jen's 30th. We held the party at a sushi restaurant and so what better to theme the cake with than.... SUSHI!

The cake was yellow pound with a fudge filling, butter cream frosting and light almond fondant

I decorated the borders with hand painted fondant bamboo and metallic centered sugar blossoms






The top was sushi created from twinkies and ho-hos wrapped and iced to look like dinner complete with hand sculpted soy dish full of "gel"-soy and fondant sculpted ginger and wasabi. Coconut rice and jelly belly Ikura and all.


I will post cakes 2&3 later this week :) Full pics of the cake construction are on FaceBook

Tastes like RepGen

If you know me.. you know that the two non-human loves of my life are code and food. So is it really all that surprising that I spend a great deal of time posting randomly on those two subjects?

A few years back the two merged and became RG - FOOD. A specfile html decision engine for lunch determination. Lately I have been consumed with other more relevant projects at work, so I use my twitter and facebook outlets to handle my food porn addiction.

While having lunch yesterday, a coworker questioned my iPhone picture taking of a bowl of rather tasy Pho. I tried to explain the food porn/blogging/posting thing and they clearly did not understand. The comment "you're a programmer, aren't you supposed to eat crap/" struck a nerve.

One, that's a horrible stereotype and two, most programmers I know have a great palate and enjoy eating yummy delicious stuff as much as I do.

I also know plenty of people who do get me and my love of being a foodie - and even more who love benefiting from my obsessive need to counter my workaholic nature with marathon kitchen therapy sessions and ten course tasting menus.

So in honor of that.. I proudly post my top foodie finds of the week:
all of the items below have arrived at my desk this week in gift form for random geek performed tasks such as coding work or PC rebuilding in my spare time. It's not even my birthday yet! I feel loved!

I need a sign for my office "will perform geek tasks for food porn inspiration"



Coconut M&Ms... yes it seems that even the candy industry is attempting to re-invent a perfectly good thing into something it's not. Luckily for us the M&M company is good at making exceptions! Coconut m&ms are sweet and tropical. Think island paradise where you are being fanned with palm leaves and tended to by Grecian sculpted bodies.... okay.. maybe not that good, but close.


Wild Cherry! They are made with a dark semi sweet which puts them at the top of my yum list. They are rich and decadent and worth indulging with each luscious bite.

Thanks to anonymous CU gifter for sending me samples of chocolate yum.





Danzka Vodka! Stright of the plane from Norway (Thanks Brenda)
The bottle is "made to chill" and goes great with pool parties.

This vodka is one of my favorites for making martinis.
Try this recipe:
1 part Danzka
1 part cranberry juice
2 parts grapefruit



Pink Oranges!!! I got some of these as a gift Monday and had to run out and buy an entire bag.
I'd heard rumors of this new hybrid fruit and sure enough the local Costco brought in a shipment.
I pulled out my desk paring knife (how weird would it be to carry my chef's knife case to work?) and revealed pink flesh. Pink! Glossy, tiny little sacs straining with sweet citrus. I took my first bite.

You can forget the overdone blood oranges and boxes designer mandarins and Clementines and leave off the plain old orange-oranges. THIS is an orange, if not THE orange to beat all other oranges. My teeth pressed into the rosy flesh, bursting through the skin. Sweet juice squirted into the air hitting me on my nose, running down my lips around my chin and along my neck. The whole fruit disappeared in seconds and I instantly wanted more. Pink Oranges are my new favorite citrus fruit!

random

Don't get me started about the shoe blocking.. I got blocked shoe shopping in PA during symeast.
Shoe store blocking is just wrong!

And no, not moonlighting...
"Adele Services" is the actual merchant... I saw it come up on Digg.com a few months back
http://digg.com/odd_stuff/Adele_Services

They are trying to steal my name :-P
There can be only one.

Although I could be convinced to leave programming forever for Adelle's job on Dollhouse.
http://dollhouse.wikia.com/wiki/Adelle_DeWitt

and I could go on for days about how mad I am over the cancellation. Finale this Friday at 8pmCST. Yay Tivo or else I would have had a scheduling conflict with Star Trek.

Beastie Boys featured in Star Trek? Yes! I can't wait.

ELA projection errors are giving me a headache... I think I need some caffeine to focus.




as seen on SMUG