Sudden Confusion

Albondigas (Mexican Meatball Soup)

DamonZ — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 12:25:00 GMT

Albondigas (Mexican Meatball Soup)

Ingredients

Meatballs

1 lb. Ground Meat (ground sirloin is my favorite)

¾ c. Dried Bread Crumbs

½ c. Uncooked Rice

1 tbs. Ground Paprika

1 tsp. Ground Cumin

1 tbs. Canola Oil (or Vegetable Oil)

¼ c. Water

Soup Base

1 box (32 oz.) Chicken Stock (or Beef Stock or Vegetable Stock)

1 can (15 oz.) Stewed Tomatoes (stewed Mexican spiced tomatoes is my favorite)

½ Medium Onion (Yellow, Red or White)

4 Cloves Garlic, Minced

1 c. Water

½ c. Chopped Mint

½ c. Chopped Cilantro

4 Green Onions (or Scallions)

Directions

Meatballs

1) Combine all ingredients in a large bowl

2) Form into 1 in. meatballs and set aside

Soup

1) In a large saucepan or small pot combine Stock, Tomatoes, Onion, Garlic and Water.

2) Bring to a simmer

3) Slowly add a couple meatballs at a time, careful to maintain the simmer.

4) Simmer for approximately 20 mins, until meatballs are cooked throughout and rice is tender, stirring occasionally to rotate meatballs

5) Add in Mint, Cilantro and Green Onions.

6) Simmer for another 5 mins.

Puerto Vallarta!

DamonZ — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 10:20:00 GMT

I've finally posted the pics from Puerto Vallarta! Enjoy! Please comment!

Java vs. .NET (From a Java Developer's Perspective)

DamonZ — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 08:36:00 GMT

Interesting read, each fairly short if you don't read the viewer comments... (and the # in the urls don't match the actual part # for some bizarre reason). I don't agree with his conclusions in Part 5, but definitely worth the read.

Part 1: Usability
Microsoft has the upper hand on the usability front

Part 2: The Nature of the Beast
What is Microsoft trying to do?

Part 3: Open Standards
Java’s traditional weapon of choice

Part 4: Java is a language, .NET is not
Java takes a language-specific approach to solving problems, .NET takes a platform-specific one

Part 5: Rich thin clients
Let Java play to its strengths and co-opt Microsoft’s advantages

Interesting

DamonZ — Thu, 12 May 2005 10:21:00 GMT

Your Linguistic Profile:

75% General American English

20% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

0% Yankee

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Oh Yeah

DamonZ — Sun, 24 Apr 2005 09:59:00 GMT

New wonderful quote from a song:

Girl you look like you might be an angel, so I won’t lie
I could love you like the devil, you wanted me to tonight
Dierks Bentley - Lot of Leaving Left to Do

Sorry!

DamonZ — Sun, 24 Apr 2005 09:57:00 GMT

Sorry it's been so long since I posted an update! Been busy with work, school and life!

I got sucked into this huge project on a strict timeline at work. It has 4 of the guys on our team working full time on it (there's only 6 of us!). I'm gonna be busy over the next week or two to get it wrapped up so it can move into testing. Phew.

As far as school goes, I'm taking a class called “Alternative Photogaphic Processes.” We're essentially doing two main processes in this class: Polaroid (both Emultion Lifts and Image Transfers), and Cyanotypes. Just yesterday we did our first take at the Cyanotypes (the last few weeks we had been preparing negatives to use). Then the storm came and took away our sun, and then the sprinklers came on and got everything all wet! So we called it a day and took stuff home to finish up.

Earlier this week, there was a call for submissions for a juried art show at the school. I entered two of my Polaroids (Cheryl and Yavapai County Courthouse). When I went to find out the results they told me I had won the Best of Photography award! I was so excited! They were in the process of hanging them at that point, so I gathered up my friend's one image that they didn't select to display and headed home. Yesterday when I showed up for our Cyanotype Saturday lab, I went and was scanning the list of artists to see who won the other prizes, I noticed that I also took the Best of Show prize! I was (and still am) so excited! If you're interested in viewing them, they are in the Scottsdale Comm. College Art Building (AB). The main lobby has several works, and mine are right around the corner as you start down the hall. They will be on display until Aug. 22.

Anyhow, hopefully I'm gonna start writing more frequently, I've been bad about it lately. Toodles!

Catching Up!

DamonZ — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 22:52:00 GMT

A few quick notes!

1) Pictures from November's trip to Rocky Point are now online.

2) Microsoft has released a beta of their new anit-spyware program. Check it out.

3) I had a *BLAST* in Houston for NYE, and those pics should be going up before too long. I can't wait to go back in a couple weeks for K&J's wedding! ;)

Faces

DamonZ — Sun, 26 Dec 2004 22:20:00 GMT

My most recent b/w photo project, FACES, is now online. Let me know your thoughts!

Biculturalism for Developers

DamonZ — Fri, 26 Nov 2004 11:50:00 GMT

I just stumbled across an interesting article about the cultural differences between Windows developers and Unix developers by Joel Spolsky. A snippet from the article:

There are too many monocultural programmers who, like the typical American kid who never left St. Paul, Minnesota, can't quite tell the difference between a cultural value and a core human value. I've encountered too many Unix programmers who sneer at Windows programming, thinking that Windows is heathen and stupid. ...[snip]... It's rather rare to find such bigotry among Windows programmers, who are, on the whole, solution-oriented and non-ideological. At the very least, Windows programmers will concede the faults of their culture and say pragmatically, "Look, if you want to sell a word processor to a lot of people, it has to run on their computers, and if that means we use the Evil Registry instead of elegant ~/.rc files to store our settings, so be it." The very fact that the Unix world is so full of self-righteous cultural superiority, "advocacy," and slashdot-karma-whoring sectarianism while the Windows world is more practical ("yeah, whatever, I just need to make a living here") stems from a culture that feels itself under siege, unable to break out of the server closet and hobbyist market and onto the mainstream desktop.

I agree!

DamonZ — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 13:11:00 GMT

Today, in Eric Sink's “Miscellaneous Stuff for a Friday” post, he says: “A photographer is just a different flavor of geek, substituting glass and light for chips and logic.”

I happen to agree!

Seattle Pictures

DamonZ — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 21:51:00 GMT

Ok, well the pictures from Seattle are now uploaded!!! ENJOY!!!

Random Thought

DamonZ — Tue, 28 Sep 2004 13:31:00 GMT

It's no wonder we have to keep creating new words... all of our perfectly good ones are being diluted right in front of us!

Art & Fear

DamonZ — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 22:28:00 GMT

Ok, so my photo instructor assigned us to read Art & Fear by David Bayles & Ted Orland. A very interesting read, and all artists or aspiring artists, or wanna-be artists should read this one. I'm going to type out a couple paragraphs (from towards the end of the book) that really struck home with me.

Provocative art challenges not only the viewer, but also its maker. Art that falls short often does so not because the artist failed to meet the challenge, but because there was never a challenge there in the first place. Think of it like Olympic diving: you don't win high points for making even the perfect swan dive off the low board. There's little reward in an easy perfection reached by many.

But while mastering technique is difficult and time-consuming, it's still inherently easier to reach an already defined goal -- a “right answer” -- than to give form to a new idea. It's easier to paint in the angel's feet to another's master work than to discover where the angels live within yourself. If technique were the core issue in art, our nominee for the Famous Artists Wax Museum would be the lifer at San QUentin who spent twenty ears constructing a perfect replica of the Eifel Tower from toothpicks. (And well, yes, in its own way it was pretty impressive!) But that's not the way it works. Simply put, art that deals with ideas is more interesting than art that deals with technique.

In routine artistic growth, new ork doesn't make the old work false -- it makes it more artificial, more an act of artifice. Older work is ofttimes an embarrassment to the artist because it feels like it was made by a younger, more naive person -- one who was ignorant of the pretension and striving in the work. Earlier work often feels, curiously, both too labored and too simple. This is normal. New work is supposed to replace old work. If it does so by making the old work inadequate, insufficient and incomplete -- well, that's life. (Frank Lloyd Wright advised young architects to plant ivy all around their early buildings, suggesting that in time it would grow to cover their “youthful indiscretions.“) Old work tells you what you were paying attention to then; new work comments on the old by pointing out what you were not previously paying attention to. Now this would all be smooth and lovely except that new work can turn to old work in an instant -- sometimes, indeed, in the instant immediately following the work's completion. Savoring finished work may last only an eye-blink. This is certainly unpleasant -- but its a good sign.

Making art depends upon notising things -- things about yourself, your methods, your subject matter. Sooner or later, for instance, every visual artist notices the relationship of the line to the picture's edge. Before that moment, the relationship does not exist; afterwards it's impossible to imagine it not existing. And from that moment on every new line talks back and forth with the picture's edge. People who have not yet made this small leap do not see the same picture as those who have -- in fact, conceptually speaking, they do not even live in the same world.

In the end it all comes down to this: you have a choice (or more accurately a rolling tangle of choices) between giving your work your best shot and risking that it will not make you happy, or not giving it your best shot -- and thereby guaranteeing that it will not make you happy. It becomes a choice between certainty and uncertainty. And curiously, uncertainty is the comforting choice.

Just some of the few examples from within the book. Like I said, if you are an artist, you should read this book!

Is anyone ever really qualified?

DamonZ — Fri, 27 Aug 2004 21:42:00 GMT

Ok, so reading my book tonight (Donorboy, BTW, which so far is a great read), I came across this line, “I think it's incredibly arrogant for you to assume that the fact that you provided some ejaculate fifteen years ago makes you in any way qualified to act as a parent to a child you don't already know.”

So, I'm taking it a bit out of context here, and you'll have to read the book or at least the back cover to figure out what this REALLY applies to, but is one ever really to become a parent before they are one? I think that parenting is more learned than inherent. But being childless, I could be wrong here. Anyhow, I just was thinking about that. Besides, its a really funny line.

One & Only One - Paul Brandt

DamonZ — Sun, 15 Aug 2004 23:02:00 GMT

One & Only One
Written By Rick Bowles/Josh Leo/Paul Brandt
Performed by Paul Brandt

I thought love at first sight was a fate for someone else
And you’d never catch me fallin’ that fast myself
But I didn’t even need two seconds alone with you
All it took was one and only one

Now, I see me bein’ faithful, me bein’ true
Holdin’ on and never lettin’ go of you
Girl, look what you’ve done
The only thing I want is you lovin’ me
And from now on the only thing I want to be
Is your one and only one, one and only one

You’ve got a heaven sent heart and an angel’s touch
Not to mention your kiss that I can’t get enough of
And when I see your smile this feelin’ deep, down inside
Tells me you’re my one and only one

I didn’t even need two seconds alone with you
All it took was one and only one

Figured You Out - Nickelback

DamonZ — Wed, 11 Aug 2004 22:26:00 GMT

I still love this song!

Figured You Out
Nickelback

I like your pants around your feet
I like the dirt that's on your knees
And I like the way you still say please
While you're looking up at me
You're like my favourite damn disease

And I love the places that we go
And I love the people that you know
And I love the way you can't say no
Too many long lines in a row
I love the powder on your nose

Ooooh
And now I know who you are
It wasn't that hard
Just to figure you out
And now I know who you are
It wasn't that hard
Just to figure you out

I like the freckles on your chest
And I like the way you like me best
And I like the way you're not impressed,
While you put me to the test
I like the wine stains on your dress

And I love the way you pass the check
And I love the good times that you wreck
And I love your lack of self respect
While you're passed out on the deck
I love my hands around your neck

And now I know who you are
It wasn't that hard
Just to figure you out
And now I know who you are
It wasn't that hard
Just to figure you out

I love your pants around your feet
And I love the dirt that's on your knees
And I like the way you still say please
While you're looking up at me
You're like my favourite damn disease

And I hate the places that we go
And I hate the people that you know
And I hate the way you can't say no
Too many long lines in a row
I hate the powder on your nose

And now I know who you are
It wasn't that hard
Just to figure you out
And now I know who you are
It wasn't that hard
Just to figure you out

King Banana Birthday Party Pictures!

DamonZ — Tue, 03 Aug 2004 23:33:00 GMT

Ok, so I finally got the pictures posted from the King Banana Birthday Bash. Check 'em out. What a great time that was!

Making Memories of Us

DamonZ — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 20:11:00 GMT

I stumbled across this album today at Virgin and this song immediately struck me... Awesome... Apparently Tracy Byrd recorded it previously, but Rodney Crowell wrote it. I HIGHLY reccommend this ablum, btw!

Making Memories of Us
Written By: Rodney Crowell
Performed By: The Notorious Cherry Bombs

I'm gonna be here for you baby I'll be a man of my word
Speak the language in a voice that you have never heard

I want to sleep with you forever I want to die in your arms
In a cabin by a meadow where the wild bees swarm

Now that I found you I want to surround you
I'll win to steal your attention like a bad outlaw

I want to stand out in a crowd for you a man among men
I want to make your world better than it's ever been

I want to know you like nobody knows you
I'll win your trust making memories of us

I'm gonna be here for you from now on this you'll know somehow
You've been stretched to the limits but it's alright now

I'm gonna make you a promise if there's life after this
I'm gonna be there to meet you with a warm wet kiss

Cause I'm gonna love you like nobody loves you
I'll win your trust making memories of us

I'm gonna love you like nobody loves you
I'll earn your trust making memories of us

Niki

DamonZ — Mon, 26 Jul 2004 21:38:00 GMT

I just uploaded some images that I shot of Niki in April. It took me a while to get them uploaded, but I finally got around to it! :)

New Pictures!

DamonZ — Sun, 25 Jul 2004 21:26:00 GMT

Hey! I just uploaded some pictures that I took this weekend while camping up at Big Lake. Let me know what you think!