After winning last year's bake off, I was pumped to give it another go this year. This year I organized and participated in Windstream's second annual Bake Off. There was a good group of us that participated and some really great items that were baked.
My entry was a spiced pear bundt cake and I won Best Presentation. Woo hoo...that's three in a row! Watch out Martha Stewart...
I came upon this map* while browsing today...
...which shows where tornados have touched down in the last 60 years. I'm absolutely amazed, to say the least, that touchdowns have been recorded across so much of the country. What I'd like to see now is a frequency heat map of sorts overlayed onto this map so that I can see if there really is such thing as Tornado Alley.
Here's a link to some more maps from NOAA, which are also fairly interesting (if you're a dork like me). From all the maps I learn one thing...I need to move out west!
*Tornado touchdowns from 1950-2010, courtesy of NOAA
Shortly after joining The Media Kitchen back in 2008 I was exposed to my first bake-off. I didn't get around to participating that year for many reasons...small kitchen, short memory, industry event the night before. The next year, however, I was all-in and it paid off. I made Chocolate Covered Cheesecake Bits as my entry and I walked away with two "golden spatulas" for my efforts...one for most original and one for people's choice.
After joining Windstream I decided that I was going to hijack the idea and bring the bake-off to Arkansas. Things got a little hectic around the holidays and the bake-off got pushed to the back burner. I figured Valentine's Day would be the next best time to give it a go...there's still talk of sweets and goodies, but without the surrounding stresses of the holiday season. Although there was some uneasiness at first, the team took to it and really embraced the event and put their best dishes forward.
There was so much good stuff and it all looked (and sounded) so good! I was pretty sure that I had no shot at winning anything. In the end, though, I was lucky enough to pull through and take home the Best Overall award. No golden spatula this time...instead I got a great framed award and a gift certificate to a local kitchen store!!! The pressure is ON for next time...whenever that is!!
For those interested, here's the recipe...Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake
This past weekend we had our first family visitors...Dr. MacNab & Marushka! They flew in late Saturday night and left late Monday afternoon. It was a quick visit, but busy nonetheless. Caroline made a great breakfast for us Sunday morning and then we ventured out to get a look at, and walk along, the Big Damn Bridge. Then we were off to Burns Park in North Little Rock for my first soccer
game of the season...which was also my first soccer game in over 10 years! The weather was amazing and while I was sweating my tail off in my game, the three of them took off with Kira to explore the park. On the way home we took the scenic route for a quick driving tour of west Little Rock. We all had dinner on Saturday night at a great little place (about the only place open here on a Sunday night) called Loca Luna and then it was back for a competitive night of Boggle! Unfortunately I had to work Monday, so it was up to Caroline to serve as tour guide for the day and provide the tour of downtown...and the little rock. It was awesome having visitors here and hopefully we'll get some more soon!
Wow, it’s been just short of 5 months since I sat down last to seriously update this thing. I say it each and every year, but hopefully this will be the year that I actually update it more often. Well, a lot has happened in the past 5 months and I will do my damndest to not only remember it all, but to get it into writing.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the one real shitty part of these past few months. A great friend and a true inspiration lost his fight with brain cancer at the end of September. Nick touched many lives and his memory will live on in the minds and hearts of many.
So I guess stop number one on the looking-back train would be the wedding and all of the craziness surrounding it. Shortly after packing up for good in NYC and unloading all of our crap in Mom & Dad’s garage, I packed up the car (and I mean PACKED) with all of the ‘stuff’ we’d need for the next week and the four of us (me, Caroline, Tyson & Kira) hit the road en route to Raleigh.
I thought I was done with the City when I packed up the Uhaul and drove it from Brooklyn to Saratoga. Nope. Our first stop on the long road to Raleigh…the City! We had to pick up Caroline’s dress on our way. I think we were both extremely happy that this would truly be our last time driving through that place in a long, long time. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful…which means I’m either forgetting something or I have purposely blocking it from my memory.
We spent a couple of days in Raliegh with my parents getting some final things in order for the wedding. Kira got her hair did, Dad & I finished up the wedding favors, Mom & Caroline were busy doing what they were doing. The biggest “Oh, shit” moment of the Raleigh layover was when the flowers didn’t arrive on time. So…Ryan to the rescue…long story short, we had beautiful flowers at the wedding.
Thankfully Mat made his way to Raleigh a day early so that we could pack his car with some stuff that would’ve otherwise been left behind. We managed to pack two SUVs and a Jeep Wrangler to the gills with everything from flowers and candy, to toiliet paper and booze (lots of booze). And then it was off to the Outer Banks to start the party…oh, and get married too!
We arrived mid afternoon on the 9th to Corolla. Lucky for us our house was the ONLY one that was still not ready to be checked in to. Our house was also the location for ALL of the evening’s festivities, we had to unpack these cars, get cleaned up, get settled and then get ready to host everyone for our welcome dinner. We did this pretty well and everything ended up coming together nicely. I am sure there were things we missed, things we forgot, or things we just gave up on…but all-in-all it was a success.
The house that we rented for the week was amazing. It was right on the beach, had 3 floors & nine (I think) bedrooms, a pool table, a pool, a hot tub, a pool house, amazing views of the beach and ocean, a couple wet bars, a great guest house (our home for the week!), and an awesome kitchen!! Hopefully one day we will be able to return and be able to indulge ourselves once again!
Wedding day was a blur for me. It started off with a slight headache and a great breakfast with friends. We headed over to Walmart to stock up for breakfast the next morning and try to refill our booze stock that was pillaged the night before. We succeeded on the breakfast food…unfortunately it was Sunday and we couldn’t get any more booze.
We got back to the house and things were coming together. There was a lot to be done and Caroline was doing a good job of directing and making sure that they got done. At the end of the day everything got set up and ready to go thanks to the amazing friends and family that helped…couldn’t have done it without y’all!
The actual wedding was amazing and will be a day that lives on in mind for a long, long time. We couldn’t have asked for a better day to get our closest family and friends together on the beach to see us tie the knot. The reception was nothing more than a fancy house party and it was incredible; just the way I had hoped. I don’t think there was a single person who didn’t have a good time. The pictures are finally in and we will be sure to post those in due time on Facebook. (We have full rights to all photos, so if you see any that you like, let us know and we can get you a copy.)
The rest of the week flew by way too quickly. We were lucky to have many people be able to spend an extra few days with us at the house. Again…we are so lucky to have such great family and friends and we had a blast with everyone. Being that I had to catch a plane early Sunday morning we decided to head out a bit early and hit the road Friday evening instead of Saturday. It was a LOOOOONNNNGGGG drive and after 14 some-odd hours and just as many Red Bulls (no joke) we were finally back to Saratoga.
I used Saturday to unpack from the Wedding and then re-pack for the adventure to come. I managed to get myself packed and ready to go with plenty of time for some last minute relaxing, a final NY dinner and a good night’s sleep. Early the next morning Caroline drove me to the airport for my flight to Little Rock.
Sunday, October 17th marked my first day in Little Rock, AR. After getting my car and checking into my hotel (home for the next 3 weeks) I took a few hours to just drive around the city. I hit up Buffalo Wild Wings to watch my poor Cowboys lose and have some dinner. I was so wiped from the drive Friday night/Saturday morning and the early flight Sunday morning that I called it an early night.
I started work the following day at Windstream Communications. Windstream is a telecom serving rural America. I work in the marketing department and primarily focus on digital media and customer analytics…basically I work to get people to our website and then dig in to data to see what they are doing once there. So far I am really liking it...my team is great, the company is great, and the job itself is great. Oh...and I won 'Best Overall' at our recent bake-off!!
Caroline packed up the car once again during the first week in November and made her way to Raleigh via Philly. I flew out to Raleigh and, after a nice couple nights with the folks, we were on the road again to start our life together in Little Rock. It was a nice drive…Tennessee is a long state and never seems to end, but at least it’s got some pretty sights to see. Caroline managed to fall asleep about 35 minutes before we hit Little Rock, so she missed the whole grand entrance and the (not so) big Little Rock sign that welcomes folks to town.
We spent the next 2 or 3 weeks living on the air mattress that I had bought when I was here alone, and some great air furniture that I got at work (Thanks Shelley!!). It was a bit rough, but we made the best of it…I mean we had a new tv and cable, so it wasn’t like I made Caroline read books or anything; she still had E! and Bravo.
Still without our ‘stuff’ delivered by the movers we headed to Cleveland to spend Thanksgiving and celebrate Grandmother’s birthday with the MacNab clan. It was a great long weekend, as usual, with plenty of food, board games, and fun. Thanksgiving is surely a time that we all look forward to every year. There was no Turkey Trot this year, but maybe, just maybe, we’ll pull together and start the yearly tradition next year.
Our furniture finally came the week after Thanksgiving and we spent the next few weeks unpacking, sorting, and settling into our new digs. It is so nice to have space again and actually have room for all of our stuff.
We flew to Raleigh to spend Christmas with my parents, as we usually do. We had only planned on being there for a couple of days, but, as luck would have it, a snow storm blanketed the coast with a nasty storm that shut airports down and delayed us for a couple of days. It was nice to be able to spend the couple extra days with my parents.
We made it home from Raleigh eventually and then got our own dose of winter weather here in Little Rock. Our first taste of Arkansas winter came sometime in early January (I think) as we received all of 4 or 5 inches of snow. This place SHUT DOWN! There can’t be more than a single plow that services all of Little Rock because the roads were snowy and icy for days. There were accidents
everywhere as people just don’t know how to drive in snoy weather. The best part…people actually just pull over (or sometimes just stop in the middle of the road) when they’ve had enough driving in the weather, leaver their cars and come back once the roads clear. Being from Upstate NY, the way they deal with snow here is a joke. But…it is nice to be able to work from home when it snows!
We’ve had some visitors so far too. Caroline’s brother made his way down from Boston in early January. He spent about a week with us and got to see some of the city with Caroline. Mat made his way down a couple of weekends ago. We caused some trouble…as we usually do…and played some golf. I can now say that I have played golf in February! Hopefully the coming months will see many more visits our way…everyone’s welcome!
So I guess that brings me up to date. We are all just plugging along, getting used to life in Little Rock. I’m hoping to get back out on my bike one day soon to check out the pedestrian trail that loops around the city and over the Big Dam Bridge (had to get that one in there…it’s a bridge over a dam, so that’s it’s name). I’ve joined a soccer team and am looking forward to getting back into playing…it has been so long I am worried that I won’t remember how to play!
As I said initially…I am going to do my damndest to keep this blog updated. I’ll keep y’all posted on my soccer adventures, my travels along the Big Dam Bridge (that’s twice!), any triathlons that I do (I already have a couple in mind), and anything else that comes along…
Like Baby news!!!!! (stay tuned)
The Saratoga Palio: Melanie Merola O'Donnell Memorial Race - September 19, 2010 - 13.1 Mile Run
I am happy & proud to have completed my first half marathon. I am not sure how exactly I came across the race, but luckily I did while my self-confidence was at a high. I wasn't sure what the race was benefiting...but it looked like a good cause. In typical Ryan tradition I decided to jump head first into this one...
I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've been out running since the last race I completed...and one hand would also suffice to count the number of miles ran on each of those runs. But that didn't stop me. Oh, no it did not. I hot-tailed it right over to the registration and signed myself up for the half marathon (bypassing the much more reasonable 5k option).
Fast forward to race morning. I tucked myself into the way back of the crowd with the two goals of finishing and not finishing last. Taking some very good advice to heart I started as slow as I could..."you can never start too slow," I was told. Thank God I listened! After a couple of minutes I came upon one of our neighbors from the old 'hood. I ended up spending the next 10 or 11 miles catching up with her and her running partner on everything that's been going on in life. It was a Godsend to have such great company throughout the race...and probably the only reason I actually finished the damn thing! The three of us came in at 2:35 and change...well below their goal of 2:45...and well above my goal of not last!
While running, I found out the race is in memoriam of a mother of one of kids that The Blonde One used to have in her class. Her and her husband had just dropped their son off at school and were headed to work...at 7:30 in the freaking morning...when they were hit by a drunk driver. She lost her life and this race raises funds that go towards scholarships in her name. After hearing the story and discovering the almost-personal connection I am very glad that I chose to throw caution to the wind and go all in.
Now...I'm looking toward the Goofy Challenge in January. As boring as 13.1 miles it to run and as boring as a full marathon can only be, I still want to give this a shot...with some training this time!!
