3
4
Nov

Awesome Eats // 2 Step Crockpot Chili

Bowl of chili

Chili is the quintessential autumn food, is it not?  Warm, hearty, spicy–I love it to DEF.  Mmmmmnomnomnomnom!  It’ funny because once upon a time, I hated chili.  My mother would make it for dinner and I would require a separate meal.  She was so good to me.  Now chili is firmly in the things-I-used-to-hate-but-now-love category, keeping bell peppers and asparagus company.  One of the best things about chili is that there are a million different ways to do it.  This recipe here is the quick and dirty version that shows up often in the Team Bowman household.  It is LITERALLY two steps.  Could not be easier.

Ingredients

1 pound ground beef, turkey, or whatever
3 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 garlic cloves, diced
1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes
2 15 oz cans of kidney or chili beans, rinsed and drained
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
2 teaspoons yellow mustard
2 tablespoons dale’s steak seasoning or worcestershire sauce
3 tablespoons barbeque sauce or ketchup
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
  1. Brown your meat of choice in a skillet over medium-high heat; drain.
  2. Combine all ingredients in a crockpot and set for 6 hours on high or 8 hours on low.
  3. Top with your choice of chili accoutrements and enjoy!

xo Em

1
3
Nov

On Friends and Loneliness

Do you read Penelope Trunk?  Because you should.  It’s funny though, as a “career expert” she does very little writing that is explicitly about careers.  It all relates to careers somehow, but she mostly just writes about things we don’t want to acknowledge about ourselves and about life.  Like how you shouldn’t do what you love, you should pay more attention to sex than money, and no, women can’t have it all.  Despite sounding like something you don’t want to read, her blog is something you SHOULD NOT MISS.

Penelope Trunk has Asperger Syndrome and just about every other month or so she has me thinking I do too.  This is partially due to the fact that I have a slight case of hypochondria AND that people with Aspergers have a lot in common with introverts, which if you haven’t already guessed, I am.  In her latest article she talks about loneliness.  And about how difficult it is for people with Aspergers to make and keep friends.  Naturally my identification with this trait has me thinking that I’ve gone 31 years without anyone acknowledging that I OBVIOUSLY have Aspergers.  Damn doctors.

Really, though, it makes me want to admit to the internet that I am lonely too.  Cue the tiny violin, y’all!

Not lonely in the “I have no friends, I want to kill myself” kind of way, but rather in the “Make new friends? Ehhh” kind of way.  I already HAVE friends.  Great, wonderfully fantastic friends.  With fancy gang names–like the Gulf Coast Kooter Brigade–and a vast collective memory of good times and wacky aliases.  They just happen to be–with the exception of the hubs–living very far away from me.  And while phone calls, Facebook chats, letters, and care packages can take me pretty far, sometimes a girl just needs someone to hit a happy hour with, ya feel me?

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Here’s my problem: having a long-time, close-knit group of friends who totally and completely get me makes it HELLA hard to find new friends that can live up to my expectations.  Not to go all Virgo on you, but I generally have pretty high standards for the folks I spend my time with.  Must have smarts without arrogance, personal style without being materialistic, and one hell of a sense of humor–ALL kinds of humor.  No self-proclaimed hipsters, born-agains, or all-around douchebags. Anyone who watches The Bachelor on a regular basis or Jersey Shore without shock and disgust need not apply.  Last, but certainly not least, we gotta CLICK, baby.

While I’ve certainly come across a cool chick or two here in Michigan, it’s that last one that screws everything up. Making friends can be awkward, and I don’t play that.  I’m so grateful I’ve got Jeffrey… as long as I’ve got him, I’m good.  Just hoping one day I’ll come across some kindred spirits in Michigan who appreciate my nerdiness, can get down on a decent brew, and can tell a good joke.

What about you?  Have you ever had a hard time making friends–by choice or otherwise?  Where’d you score your posse at?

xo Em

0
1
Nov

Come Play With Me

Thanksgiving 2010
CC BY-NC Flickr user peroshenka

Woohoo!  Welcome to November!  I don’t know about you, but I am SHOCKED that we are a scant 2 months away from 2012.  Let’s hope that whole 2012 being the end of the world thing is a bunch of bull mess or it’ll be here before we know it.

Autumn is my favorite time of year.  The combination of sunny, cool days, bright-colored leaves, and the promise of good times with the ones I love from October 31st through January 1 has me dwelling on my gratitude more than usual.  Well, except for any time I have to go to the mall.  There is NOTHING I loath more than holiday shopping.

But I digress… along with beauty and merriment, this oh-so-glorious time of year also comes with a metric shit-ton of delicious foods in which I love to imbibe.  And while I would NEVER change that (cider doughnuts, fried turkey, casseroles, holiday cookies, mmmmmmm, how could you!?), I’d like to try to maintain some semblance of control over my health as I ride the rest of this year on out. Ya feel me?

Enter: Health Month.  It’s a health-related goal setting game that you can play with your friends!  There are points and spirit animals, teams and badges… it looks like a ton of fun and a very simple way to stay motivated to at least do a few things right by your body through the holidays.

There are different brackets for people who set different numbers of goals, so you are only competing with folks that you could actually beat.  I’m only doing 3 goals, because it’s free and easy.  I mean, why take on more than you have to? Here’s what I’m workin on this month:

  1. Limit soda to 7 glasses per week.
  2. Drink 56 glasses of water per week.
  3. Track my food intake each day.

Easy enough, right?  Actually, it’s probably gonna be hell.  I have a serious diet coke addiction that needs cracking.

Think you got the goods to battle me? Come join me on Health Month!

xo Em

0
26
Oct

Awesome Finds // 10.26.11

I mentioned testing out new web content curation tools to improve the standard link roundup, and this here is my first test subject: Bundlr. I’ll be moving on to other tools next week, so be sure to tell me what you think about Bundlr in the comments!

xo Em

0
19
Oct

Awesome Finds // 10.19.11

So the past few weeks have been CRAY-ZAY y’all. I’ve been missin out on all kinds of blog posts, and I haven’t had a most awesome week ever in over a month! But I did manage to find a few awesome things over the past couple of weeks that can tide you over until my next rant. Enjoy!

So, what do you think about these Bundlr link round-ups?

xo Em

0
5
Oct

Awesome Finds // 10.5.11

I mentioned testing out new web content curation tools to improve the standard link roundup, and this here is my first test subject: Bundlr.  Tell me what you think about it in the comments!

2
4
Oct

Using Web Tools to Curate the Web

Tools, part 1
CC BY-SA Flickr user scjody

As I may have alluded to, one of the focus areas in my graduate studies is digital collections and curation.  In fact, one of my jobs at the University of Michigan is in the Digital Curation department at the Bentley Historical Library.  While most of my time there is spent performing QA on the web archives and processing digital collections, a lot of my cognitive energy is spent contemplating how to curate massive collections so that the best of it makes it out of the depths of the repository and into your eyeballs.  And then, into your brain!

As you may recognize, the web is a vast and dynamic collection in and of itself.  How do we find what we’re looking for?  Better yet, how do we find what we don’t know we’re looking for?  Enter: the social network.  While the social web may have been built around our desire to connect, its growth can clearly be attributed to our reliance on our networks to help us find the best, most relevant content.  Obviously, there is no shortage of tools to share interesting content in a one-off fashion: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, take your pick.  But for carefully curated collections of web content that are explicitly relevant to users, no tool has met the need as well as the blogosphere’s link round-up.  It’s as effective as it is pervasive.  As simple as it is extensive.  The only problem?  It’s always done the same way.

I came across Digital Inspiration’s Best Tools for Content Curation in my feed reader one day and I knew immediately it deserved another look.  Outlining the pros and cons of several content curation tools, the article helped me to rediscover tools I had long forgotten (what up Delicious!), as well as new ones I had yet to try.  With all the growing options for content curation tools, I figured I would test some of them out to see if I could add a little sumthin sumthin to the blog’s oldest content curation mechanism (besides the blog itself): the link roundup.

Over the next month or two, I’ll be adding a new weekly link round-up feature utilizing a couple of the tools I’ve found to be the best fit for this particular service.  First up is Bundlr.  It’s simple to use a la Firefox extension, supports a good number of web services, and can be embedded.  Which Storify–the next on deck–does as well.  I’ll be looking out for several things as I conduct this little experiment: usability, service integration, ease of sharing, and probably some more stuff I encounter along the way.

So stay tuned every Wednesday for some awesome web content coming your way courtesy of yours truly and these (possibly excellent?) tools.  I strongly encourage you to share your feedback.  Do these tools suck?  Do they make a link roundup better?  Do you think I suck at picking out interesting web content?  Whatever the case, holla back in the comments!

Em xo

 

 

 

0
27
Sep

Awesome Summer Adventures // Part 3

I’ve already told y’all about my trip to Chicago. And my trip to Cleveland. So all that’s left of my summer adventures are my trips to Baltimore and Pensacola. And since Pensacola is my home town, I don’t have a lot to share aside from the things I alluded to in my (sometimes) weekly gratitude post. If you don’t mind, I’m just gonna combine these two trips into one post or I’ll never get this series finished. So let’s do the damn thing.

Baltimore

Ahh, Baltimore. The land of crabcakes and more bars per capita than anywhere else in the union (not a scientific fact really, just my observation). This wasn’t officially my first trip there, but since I was like, 8 the last time I went, we’re gonna call this my first visit to B-More. Can ya dig it? The purpose of the trip was to visit Jeffrey’s old friends Luke and Jojo, who he hasn’t seen in nearly 15 years or something insane like that. They own an adorable little record shop in Hampden called Jojosouth and I highly recommend you visit if you’re ever in the area. I think they primarily deal in collectible and old-school stuff, but you can find some new releases, too. Ain’t it cute:

 

 

 

We spent most of our time kickin it in the shop and on the porch above the shop, but we did get to do a little touristin’ around in Hampden and Fell’s Point. Which reminds me… Fell’s Point, the oldest neighborhood in Baltimore–like, 1600′s old–has got to be the best pub crawl destination I have ever encountered. It is this neighborhood alone that has me thinkin that Baltimore has the most bars I’ve ever seen in one town. I think I stopped counting at 27 within a two-block radius. They really love their beer in Batimore, y’all.

Anyhoo, the hubs and I weren’t really in a pub crawl kind of mood, so we spent most of our touristin time wandering in and out of thrift shops. Check out some of the awesomeness we came across:


The original 3D!  Circa 1865.

 


Wax cylinder records.

 


The most bizarre painting I have ever seen.  I should host a caption contest for this one.

 

Overall, we had a FABULOUS time in Baltimore. Although, I think that was mostly due to the company we were keeping. Since y’all probably aren’t lucky enough to be friends with our friends, you can make up for it by visiting a few of the places we enjoyed while we were there, like the Annabel Lee Tavern, the Golden West Cafe, Holy Frijoles, and Atomic Books.

 

Pensacola

Like I said, Pensacola is my home town and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it there. Mostly for my people that are still there and the nostalgia that one’s hometown inevitably brings.  The beach helps, too.  I mean, could this be any more beautiful?

Pensacola Beach
CC BY-NC Flickr user theo0023

 

My trip mainly revolved around hanging out with my mommas and celebrating this girl’s 30th birthday:

 

and making a fool of myself in bars:

 

 

Long series short, I had a kick-ass summer what with all the traveling and all.  Not that I don’t love Ann Arbor, but sometimes a girl’s just gotta get away.

xo Em

1
22
Sep

Awesome Summer Adventures // Part 2

Hey y’all!  Remember that little post I did about my trip to Chicago this summer?  And remember how I kind of implied that there was more to come by naming it “Awesome Summer Adventures // Part 1“?  Well, since autumn is right around the corner, it might be about time to introduce the next episode.  So I’ma gone ahead and do that…

Cleveland

Yes, you read that right.  Cleveland.  Perhaps not the summer adventure you may have thought of when you read the title of this post.  In fact, Cleveland was not my idea of a summer adventure either.  But some old school friends of the hubs from Florida were gonna be there for a week or so and Jeffrey and I had a long weekend to spare, so off we went.  To Cleveland.  Horray.

As it turns out, Cleveland wasn’t nearly as desolately boring as the 5 hours of Ohio we usually drive through in order to get the hell out of Michigan.  It was green and lush, had a glorious breeze, and was home to some surprising swankiness.  In case you don’t remember your geography, Cleveland is lakefront property.  Actually, more like oceanfront property if you’ve never seen a great lake before.  As a Michigan resident, OF COURSE I’ve seen a great lake before.  But not one as vast, serene, and beautiful as this one.

Another really awesome thing about Cleveland is all of the charming little neighborhoods and old brick buildings.  I’m a sucker for old ass buildings.  Especially old ass brick buildings.  And boy, does Cleveland got em.  We dined in Little Italy (and overdosed on cannolis) and drove around the old downtown areas that have clearly been there since god was a boy.  Since the whole point of the trip was to spend some QT with Jeffrey’s friends, we even had some time to get some silly kodak moments with our buds.  FYI, this is generally what life is like in Ohio:

IMG_1610

The absolute best part of our trip to Cleveland was our day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I must admit, when I first learned that it was in Cleveland I was like, “WTF! You mean to tell me that the world’s largest rock and roll museum is in some BFE town like Cleveland?  Cleveland, OHIO?!”  But y’all, for real.  Even if the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is the only reason you visit Cleveland, it will be worth every minute, every dime, every boring mile you spend driving through the state of Ohio.  (Sorry for all the anti-Ohio stuff… I am a Wolverine after all)

The one shitty thing about that place was this: NO CAMERAS ALLOWED.  Seriously.  Even cell phones.  But, being the outlaws that we are, we snuck a few.  Like this one:


Johnny Cash’s git-fiddle!

And this one:


Jimi Hendrix’s quilted outfit of awesomeness!

I think my favorite part of the museum was the special exhibit they had goin on entitled “Women Who Rock”.  Of course, all of bitchin ladies you’d expect were highlighted… Debbie Harry, Joan Jett, Kim Deal, Tina Turner, Madonna, Siouxie Sioux, Patty Smith, Janis Joplin, etc, etc.  I did have to do a major double take when I saw some imposters in there though.  Nelly Furtado?  Rhianna?  Are you KIDDING me?  I’m not saying they aren’t good at what they do.  I’m just sayin they ain’t worthy of the adoration true female rock and roll icons are.  At least they had the good sense to include my teen idol Kathleen Hanna in there:

Anyhow, it was fascinating to be within a mere 6 inches of rock and roll–nay, AMERICAN–history and I highly recommend a trip to anyone who can make the drive.  Chances are, Cleveland will surprise you just as much as it did me.

xo Em

PS – Oh yeah, and since I’ve never done more than get out of the car to pee in Ohio, I considered this a visit to a brand new state.  Which means, I crossed off #84 on my 101 in 1001 list.  Hells yeah.

4
19
Sep

How to Protect Your Digital Photos from Ruin

Do you have a back-up plan?
CC BY-NC-ND Flcikr user Images by John ‘K’

If there is one thing that I’ve learned in my coursework at SI, it’s that LOTS OF COPIES KEEP STUFF SAFE.  This is also the tagline of LOCKSS, a Standford University digital preservation project, but nevertheless.  It’s true.  Let me tell you a little story about how I almost lost 10 years of photographic memories…

Five years ago I realized that the digital photos that I was amassing were filling up the 128Mb hard drive of my old HP desktop at an alarming rate.  Since upgrading that beast was outside of my budget at the time, I purchased an external hard drive on super blowout from Best Buy.  Problem solved!  I’d been using that hard drive for my primary storage of photos and videos ever since.  Fast-forward 5 years later and I’ve got close to 200Gb on that sucker.

After getting a new laptop and moving a couple of times, that old external spent a good year or so locked up in a box until the day that I needed to dump the photos from my phone and my laptop on it.  Never backed up.  Not even once.  So, I dig it out, plug it in, and–as you can imagine–nothing.  It powered on, but my computer wouldn’t recognize it.  It made weird sounds.  It blinked and buzzed.  I tried a new cord.  Nothing.  Scoured the internet for troubleshooting tips.  Still NOTHING.  At this point I was hyperventilating.  Photos and videos of nearly every memorable event of the past 10 years gone for good.  ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

So I think, “Okay, there’s got to be a data recovery service I can use.”  Newsflash!  Data recovery services are HELLA EXPENSIVE.  Best Buy, the least expensive service I could find, charges $200 just to see if it’s possible to recover your data.  If they can, you’re lookin at a grand, baby.  This, I could not afford.  Long story short… after wallowing in depression for a few weeks, I decide to try one more time on my Mac.  After giving it a couple of swift kicks to the groin (figuratively speaking), it worked!  HALLELUIAH!

My point here is this: BE YE NOT SO STUPID!  You best be makin lots of copies of your stuff or you might find yourself in a similar situation.

Here are a few tips for preserving your photographic memories for a lifetime:

  1. Know what digital photos you have.  You may not want to go as far a complete inventory, but keeping a list of what you have–and where–is helpful in making sure you keep them all preserved over time.  Honestly, I find it easiest to keep them all together in one directory.
  2. Organize your files.  Use whatever method makes the most sense to you.  I’m a fan of organizing by date, but you can also categorize your photos according to their content.  An easy way to do this is by using a photo management software like Picasa or iPhoto.
  3. Make copies and store them off-site.  Whether on an external drive, CD/DVD, or in print, you should always maintain at least 2 copies of the photos you want to preserve.  One of those copies should be kept elsewhere… a friend’s house, a safety deposit box, a storage unit (climate controlled, please!).
  4. Back-up your files!  Perhaps the most important (and easiest) thing you can do to preserve your photos is to utilize an automatic back-up service for your machine.  There are plenty to choose from… I use the CrashPlan Unlimited Family Plan so that all of our computers are backed-up online to the same account automatically, no matter how big our directories get. They can also back-up external drives!  At $119 a year, it’s worth every penny.
  5. Still have analog photos?  Digitize!  I fancied myself a photographer way back in the pre-digital camera days and I’ve got TONS of prints that I want to preserve.  I’ve started sending small batches of photographs to scanning service PeggyBank to digitize and back-up.  If you have a lot of prints, it may be a little costly to do this all at once–which is why I do a little here and there.  You could, of course, do this yourself with a quality scanner.  I highly recommend PeggyBank, though.  They sent me a hand-written thank you note for my order!  How awesome is that?
  6. Protect your files from data loss.  Did you know that digital files corrupt over time?  It’s called bit rot.  To protect your files, check them every year to make sure that they can still be read.  And every five years, make new copies.

It may seem like a lot to do, but just think of how awesome it will be opening up your photos from college when you’re on your death-bed!

xo Em