Went to look at the Civic today, it was a piece of junk. I wouldn't give him $2000 for it let alone $4000. Oh well.

After that I had nothing much else to do all the rest of the day so I started making a king cake. For the uninitiated, King Cake is a New Orleans Mardi Gras tradition. No, it's not Mardi Gras yet, that's the day before Ash Wednesday. However, the Mardi Gras season starts the day after Epiphany (or on Epiphany, I can't remember for sure) or 12th night.

The King Cake is a sweet bread similar to coffee cake, shaped into a ring, often filled with cinnamon, cream cheese, or fruit fillings, and iced and covered in purple, green, and gold coloured sugars (the colours of Mardi Gras -- also the colours of New Orleans).

There is usualy a small plastic baby or nut baked into the cake. In the old traditions there were Mardi Gras parties or balls and the person who got the piece with this item in it was crowned the king or queen of the ball and often was expected to host the next ball in the season. In modern tradition where King Cakes are consumed in small groups of family, friends, church gatherings, seances, satanic rituals, highschool reunions, the passerby on the street, or office parties the person who gets that piece is usualy expected to buy the next King Cake -- assuring that there will be plenty of King Cakes for the whole Mardi Gras season.

The bottom line is that King Cakes are GOOD. Amazingly good most of the time. There were a number of great bakeries in New Orleans that made King Cakes every year and a few in Mississippi (Paul's in Picayune has good ones that spread northward into the rest of the state). However, no one in the CSRA (Central-Savannah River Area) makes King Cakes. So I made one. I have no idea how good it is yet, saving it for lunch with my family tomorrow. But it sure LOOKS good, and the cream cheese filling was GOOD before I cooked it and I'm sure it's gotten gooder.

Here are pictures:




I used an almond since I don't have any babies here, but we have lots of almonds right now.
- posted by Nick @ 1/14/2006 06:04:00 PM | 0 comments

 
So yesterday I'm at work serving up coffee. It's a really slow day and I've been sitting in the big overstuffed leather chair reading the paper it's so slow. In comes one of our regulars, Larry Lynn, he owns a print and imaging company just down the road from us and is in there twice a day for coffee for him and his wife who works with him.

So after our normal greeting/banter I give him his coffee and while he's fixing it up he says if I know anyone looking for a job and they are hardworking/trustworthy to send them his way that he's looking for someone.

So I ask him a few questions about it and he goes on his way. This is a place I had considered stopping in before and asking if they were looking for anyone but I never had done it. I know Larry, I know his wife Rosemary, and I know one of the other people who work there. I've been giving them coffee for nearly two years now (two years next month).

As soon as I got off work I stop by their place and talk to Rosemary, she gives me an application and Larry comes in and talks with me for a while about the job, what they do there, and that kind of stuff. I tell him I know computers pretty well and that I tend to fit into that kind of job (working with copiers, folders, and other machines) pretty well and I get a good flow down with tasks like that, that I'm looking for more of an 8-5 job (which this would be).

He asks me what I make and I tell him. He says they would pay more, and have a health plan.

So I go home and fill out the application.

Last night I looked at a Nissan Maxima, 1996. She wants too much for it but will be leaving the country in Feb, so maybe she'll come down off her price some before that if I haven't found anything else. It was green just like my parents one that I've been driving, same trim edition or whatever you call it and everything, 20k more miles on it.

Today there was a Honda Civic at a good price in the Iwanta and the guy was supposed to call me back over an hour ago. I'll have to try in the morning. 1997 honda civic LX with 118k on it.

Spent today with mom, she has to take the twins to piano and so needs the car. I went with her and dropped off the application with Larry. He told me there was one other person he needed to talk to so it'll be next week. Stopped by the shop and had a drink and something to eat while we waited on it to be time to get the girls again.

Afterwards we took the girls to my house so my grandmother could watch them while mom and I bought groceries, combining our two trips into one. Also got grandma a new TV since the one in the den died yesterday. The TV didn't fit in the trunk or back seat or the front seat in the box so we had to take it out of the box and put it in the front, fold the box up and put it in the trunk. We managed to fit both of our groceries in around all of that and get both of us in the car also! Honda's have larger trunks than Nissan's it seems!

So anyway, the car search continues and I might have a new, better job!
- posted by Nick @ 1/12/2006 10:09:00 PM | 0 comments