Friday Five

First and foremost, thank you to everyone for your well wishes. I do appreciate it.

This week was a bizarre week. Through a couple of interesting twists, I wound up only teaching 1.5 days this week. In fact, it's currently 9a Central and I'm on a flight headed home. Yes, you read that correctly. I'm already on my way home. Just a crazy, crazy week. I don't like posting specifics about classes here, but if you see me I'd be happy to retell the story over a beer.

This also marks the last time I'll be in Houston for a couple of weeks. It will be nice to have the break. I'll also have a couple extra days off before heading off to Orlando.

I made a very concerted effort this week to try places I hadn't been to. As it turned out, I wound up having a lot of Latino/Cuban inspired food. Sunday was sushi at Miyako (decent, but not great), Monday was The Red Onion, which is a Latino-fusion restaurant (pretty good, sangria could have been much better), Tuesday a small family owned Cuban place that I can't remember the name of (very homey and very tasty), Wednesday was Churrasco's, a chain that does a lot of South American/Cuban influenced food (good, but overly pricey), and then Thursday brought me back to Landry's for seafood which has become a bit of a tradition for me (had flounder, which was the first thing that wasn't very good I've had there). I've said it before and I'll say it again - go find non-chain restaurants and eat there as often as possible. You're more likely to get locally grown food, better food, better service, for a similar price. Granted, you'll sometimes be disappointed, but you'll more often than not find a gem.

My travel note was actually from waiting for my flight home on Friday. I was sitting at the bar enjoying a beer, just to the side of the beer taps. Sure enough, the bartender comes over and pulls what turns out to be the last of the Shiner Bock (a local, rather mediocre but decent "safety" beer). The tap exploded with beer going all over me and my laptop. Fortunately, I was able to wipe off my laptop fast enough that no damage has been done. Well, the semicolon key seems to be a tad sticky, but once I start writing more code again I'm sure I can work the stickiness out. (And for the small handful of people who read this and grok why writing code will work out the semicolon key, thanks.)

I've been on a pretty big podcast kick recently, so the five this week is going to be the 5 podcasts I've been listening to most often.

1. Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me - This is the "weekly NPR news quiz". They have a rotating list of guests and they take a humorous look at the week's news, including having people call in and answer questions to win a rather un-prize - the announcer's voice on your home answering machine (or voicemail). They also get some amazing guests as well.
2. Pardon The Interruption - Simply an audio only version of the ESPN show by the same name. Allegedly created because of the debates Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser would have at work (they're sportswriters at the Washington Post (well, Tony was until just recently)). Great sports banter, and even Karin enjoys it.
3. The Tony Kornheiser Show - I find the man entertaining, intelligent and funny. When his show on ESPN Radio went off the air I was rather disappointed. He's now on a local station in the Washington, DC area, but a podcast version is available.
4. Windows Weekly - This is really nothing more than a couple of technology writers and wanna-be uber-geeks chatting about whatever comes to their minds over the course of an hour. As a geek myself, I find the show rather enjoyable.
5. Around The Horn - Just a podcast version of the ESPN show of the same name. Yeah, it's annoying. Yeah, they're obnoxious. But for some reason I can't not listen.