which is the couch to beat?

we finally decided that our loveseat couch is too small. we need a couch for grownups.

picking out furniture always seems to be a torturous process, deciding on style, size, shape, pattern, color, cost. and the couch issue is kind of like when i was looking at getting a new bike; what i like and what i would like to spend seem to be 2 very different things. I wish i just had cheap taste, we could pick up a new couch at the Living Spaces monster store and be done with it. But that is not the case.

So we gotta decide. we like leather, we've got an idea of size & style, sorta. Now color and price seem to be the biggest stumbling blocks. Maybe technology will come to our rescue. I took some photos and did a cheap & dirty job of superimposing different colored couches into the room. Comment on the options below:

"pick all new other furniture" is not a valid suggestion, we're only getting a couch right now.

Dark Brown


Light Brown


Beige / White


Black

paris part II

A follow up to the original post about our Paris vacation. We got all the photos sorted through, here is a selection.

At the Arc de Triumphe, surrounded by the largest traffic circle in the world. Crazy drivers, but it looks pretty good in the light of the sun setting.


Here we are in the Musee D'Orsay, with out iPod headphones on, listening to a little commentary on the place. The building was a train station before becoming a museum 20 years ago. The collection is overwhelming, the building impressive.


Sarah in front of the massive Monet Waterlily paintings which surround two separate rooms in the Musée de l’Orangerie in the Tuilleries garden.


And all the rest of the photos on Flickr

Little Armenia

I went to go pick up my car for service today at Hollywood Ford, which is basically in Little Armenia in Los Angeles. There are many Armenian immigrants in LA, Glendale has I believe the largest Armenian population of anywhere other than Armenia. What I failed to realize was that today is the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, and the official march was in Little Armenia.


On the commemoration day, people decorate their cars with Armenian flags. Sadly, the first time I saw this I had not idea which country's flag this was and figured some big soccer match or something must have been won and people were celebrating. Now I know.

The Armenians have done well in Los Angeles, here was a big Rolls Royce Phantom decked out in Armenian flags... probably a $300,000 car. I hope those flags don't scratch the paint.

road bikin'

After having an old road bike in a non-working state for months, I finally bit the bullet and got a new (to me) road bike. The old Cannondale had done me well for a long time, but pretty much everything was starting to wear out, and the minor eccentricities of it had started to grate on me.

You can spend as much as you feel like it on a bike these days, and being of a frugal mindset, i wanted a good deal. I monitored craigslist and ebay... and eventually got this Scattante (performance bike's in house brand) with nice 10 speed ultegra components and everything. All I had to to was battle rush hour LA traffic to get there.

So that's the new ride. I will probably take it out for a good distance jaunt this weekend.

paris part I

Our trip to Paris was great!

we tried to see all the main sites, and do a good job of following the "must see while in paris" lists. We walked ourselves tired each day, got to know the Metro system fairly well and shivered in the non-Socal weather. There will be a Paris part II posting later, when Sarah gets back from the germany/work part of the trip.

some of the highlights were going to the palace and gardens of Versailles, the Eiffel Tower (of course), the Louvre, the Musee D'Orsey (probably our favorite museum of the trip), Sacre Couer Basilica, the Arc de Triumphe, the Pompidou Centre, Cathedral of Notre Dame, St. Sulpice chapel and too many more to keep track of.

The collections of the museums in Paris are just stunning. For example; in most museums, of they even have a Van Gogh painting it is a star of their collection and is called out in all materials. At the Musee D'Orsey, there is an entire gallery of Van Goghs, 4 of which would be considered some of his key works, included in about every article written on him. Kinda blows your mind.

I had collected and downloaded a bunch of audio walking tours and audio guides of things in Paris for our iPods before we left. I had done this before for some walking tours in Sydney, and I thought it might work well for Paris. It really is a nice way to be a tourist.

1. It's cheaper & faster than getting audio tours everywhere you go.


2. You look less like a tourist, but you do look like some sort of aloof american who wants to listen to their iPod more than see the sites.


3. The walking tours bring you to places you may not have visited.


4. It gives you some additional flexibility when touring: you can go in whatever order you want, people can navigate at their own pace... all good stuff.

Some of the tours we enjoyed were:

• Rick Steves audio tours - free! for both France & Italy


• Tourcaster - the Rick Steves guides were a bit more polished, but there is a far larger selection of the tours on Tourcaster... and they are worldwide. These are what I had picked up for Sydney.

and fyi - the Paris Playlist worked well... Sarah was less excited about the Jimmy Buffett inclusions, but overall it was good.

paris playlist

We leave for Paris tomorrow. For the trip i decided to make a playlist for our iPods. I tried to find typically "frenchy" music. It was kind of fun, hunting around. I bought a few songs off Amazon, now that they offer DRM free mp3 songs. Some of the songs we already had, and Les gave helping hand. I also drew from a couple of similar playlists I found;
* Postcards from the Trail
* The Best Trip Ever

I've got a whole pile of stuff in here, I tried to be a bit eclectic, but still include music which was familiar. So here we are, the playlist for Paris.

#	Artist	Title	Album
1	Madeleine Peyroux	You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go	Careless Love
2	Edith Piaf	La Vie En Rose	La Vie En Rose
3	Shawn Colvin	You And The Mona Lisa	A Few Small Repairs
4	Pink Martini	Veronique	Hang on Little Tomato
5	Eartha Kitt	Under the Bridges of Paris	That Bad Eartha
6	baguette quartette	en douce	Putumayo Presents French Cafe
7	Diana Krall	Let's Fall in Love	Live in Paris
8	Paris Combo	Touriste d'une Vie	Motifs
9	Nat King Cole	Mona Lisa (2003 Digital Remaster)	The World Of Nat King Cole - His Very Best
10	Pink Martini	Sympathique	Sympathique
11	Toots Thielemans	Sous Le Ciel De Paris (Live)	Chez Toots
12	Paris Combo	Reflet	Motifs
13	Feist	1234	The Reminder
14	Toots Thielemans	Ne Me Quitte Pas	Chez Toots
15	Edith Piaf	L'Etranger	La Vie En Rose
16	georges brassens	je m'suis fait tout petit	Putumayo Presents French Cafe
17	Lee Phillips	Mona Lisa - Grant	KFOG Live from the Archives 11 (Disc 1)
18	Diana Krall	Maybe You'll Be There	Live in Paris
19	Camille	Le Festin	Ratatouille
20	Jimmy Buffett	Last Mango In Paris	Meet Me In Margaritaville (Disc 1)
21	Toots Thielemans	La Vie En Rose	Chez Toots
22	Eartha Kitt	Je Cherche Un Homme	Something's Gotta Give
23	Toots Thielemans	Moulin Rouge (Live)	Chez Toots
24	Count Basie	April In Paris	Verve's Grammy Winners
25	jane birkin	elaeudanla téïtéïa	Putumayo Presents French Cafe
26	Louis Armstrong	La Vie En Rose	The Essence Of Louis Armstrong
27	Madeleine Peyroux	J'Ai Deux Amours	Careless Love
28	Diana Krall	I've Got You Under My Skin	Live in Paris
29	Ella Fitzgerald	I Love Paris	The Complete Songbooks: The Cole Porter Songbook- Disc 2
30	Paris Combo	High, Low, In	Motifs
31	Jimmy Buffett	He Went To Paris	Meet Me In Margaritaville (Disc 2)
32	polo	la fée clochette	Putumayo Presents French Cafe
33	Toots Thielemans	For My Lady	Chez Toots
34	Paris Combo	Etoile Pâle	Motifs
35	Grateful Dead	France	Shakedown Street
36	sanseverino	mal ô mains	Putumayo Presents French Cafe
37	Nat King Cole	Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup (2003 Digital Remaster)	The World Of Nat King Cole - His Very Best
38	Madeleine Peyroux	Don't Wait Too Long	KFOG Live from the Archives 12
39	Etta James	There Is No Greater Love	Blue Gardenia
40	Diana Krall	Devil May Care	Live in Paris
41	mathieu boogaerts	ondulé	Putumayo Presents French Cafe
42	Edith Piaf	J'Ai Dansè Avec L'Amour	La Vie En Rose
43	Pink Martini	Dansez-vous	Hang on Little Tomato
44	Madeleine Peyroux	Dance Me to the End of Love	Careless Love
45	Eartha Kitt	C'est Si Bon (It's So Good)	That Bad Eartha
46	Madeleine Peyroux	Careless Love	Careless Love
47	Geno Delafose and French Rockin Boogie	Bye Bye Mon Neg	Putumayo Presents: Zydeco
48	Pink Martini	Autrefois	Hang on Little Tomato
49	Paris Combo	Aquarium	Motifs
50	Charlie Parker	April In Paris	Bird: The Original Recordings of Charlie Parker
51	barbara	si la photo est bonne	Putumayo Presents French Cafe

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

We got rhubarb and strawberries, among other things, in our CSA box this week. I had been wanting to make a strawberry-rhubarb crisp for a while, and this was the perfect opportunity. Sarah had claimed to be no fan of rhubarb, but strawberry-rhubarb anything is a whole different thing - the tartness is gone from the rhubarb with the included strawberries.

My mom used to make lots of peach, and blackberry, as well as strawberry-rhubarb cobblers and crisps, especially in the summer. I think I prefer a crisp to a cobbler these days, the crunch is nice. Some time ago I made a fig-raspberry crisp which was great, i made a cranberry-cherry crumble also, which was not so hot.

I used a combination of my grandmother's recipe from the "Minnaert family cookbook" and a recipe from Emeril.