What's Happening...
For this year's events from January to now, see this year's archive page
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09/20/08: The Great 2008 Talk Like A Pirate Backgammon Tournament And Scuttlebutt Pizza Barrel
This was the first party after the summer break, so it was great to see a good turnout for The Great 2008 Talk Like A Pirate Backgammon Tournament And Scuttlebutt Pizza Barrel.
Most of us had been playing constantly through the summer, so the games were pretty intense.
And instead of the usual movie of the night, I ran all three of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, complements of Steve! ARRRR!. They started at 5:00 and it was a pretty late night!
We even broke in a new player: welcome Rickey! Nothing like getting involved in a tournament 15 minutes after learning the game, hu? We'll see if he comes back for another run at it.
By the way, a good intro to backgammon that isn't just fluff but shows how the game can get really complicated in both its tactics and strategy really fast, check out Bill Robertie's Backgammon for Serious Players. Everyone that I have introduced the game to I have had read this, and it has accelerated their game understanding and appreciation by a year.
For food, I had pizza delivered. And that was prefaced with plenty of snacks and drinks. It was a great party as you'll see from the pictures!
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09/27/08: Rose School of Karate 2008 Disciple Retreat
I held my 2008 Disciple Retreat for my direct karate disciples here in Dover again this year during the weekend of 09/26. We kicked things off (no pun intended) Thursday night with a workout session and then a gathering up at Applebee's here in Dover.
We worked straight through Friday until early evening, only pausing for about twenty minutes to eat delivered subs for lunch. We broke around 5:30 for some snacks and backgammon, which got pretty rowdy as everyone unwound from the intensity of the day's session. For dinner Friday, we cooked in; it was a marvelous spaghetti and garlic bread feed.
Saturday, everyone reported on site early, and all participated in fixing some terrific omelets for breakfast. As I took some individule time with some of the disciples, I had Yondan Jones work through some Tai Chi exercises and forms work with the others. I had wanted to get some time in to work on Rose Crane with everyone, but wasn't able to get to it; just too many other things on the agenda.
We had subs delivered early so as to save room for our dinner out later that evening to the The Governor's Inn where we had a marvelous time and closed the place down.
At dinner Saturday night, I was presented with a 40 years in the martial arts plaque from all C&S Self Defense Association disciples. It is a truly magnificent tribute, and one which means more to me than anyone could imagine. My deepest thanks to all for your continued participation in our art.
Sunday, we were back at it early and I wrapped things up at noon so everyone could get back home and take care of their normal lives.
Sandan Parker and I continued right on, though, as his flight didn't leave until Monday afternoon. We went shopping and I fixed terragon pork chops for dinner. We had a great bottle of Merlot that he had brought with him, and ended the night just relaxing.
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10/01/08: Celebrating Fall In New England
What better excuse to get together and have dinner at Castaways, play some backgammon, and then the movie of the night than the real start of fall here in New England. So, that's just what we did. The movie of the night was another Brian recommendation, Equilibrium which turned out to be a pretty interesting choice. We have too much fun...
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10/05/08: Finishing Up My Novel
Marissa came over and took this shot of me working away on the final edit of my latest novel Too Late For Later. It's been a long haul, but an enjoyable one.
I woke up in the middle of the night - actually about 2:00am back in Feburary of 2008 - and was just compelled to get up and write a few paragraphs of the scene that had brought me out of my sleep.
That opening scene has blossomed into 380 pages of a really fast paced financial thriller. It's actually my third novel, and I have definitely hit my stride and style with it. It's a keeper!
Now I'll have to see if anyone else on the planet likes it other than the four or five friends who have read it and thought it was good. Good would be fine; publishable would be even better, but that's a whole new effort.
Marissa also sent me this picture of her and Gary. Both pictures were taken with her new super camera, and you can really tell the difference in quality.
I've got a pretty good camera, actually a hand-me-down from her, but it can't compare with this one - particularly when I flub up and forget to make sure the shutter slider focus thingie isn't on portrait mode... Gad, I keep forgetting to check that and then Marissa 'Ansel Adams' there really puts it to me.
Anyway, I think I should be able to finish the book off maybe even next weekend. I've put about 20 hours a weekend into these last scenes for the past few weekends when I didn't have a karate retreat or anything else going on, and have the final 10 or 12 scenes in draft form; it's all a matter of weaving them together and keeping the pace of the story up.
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10/07/08: Marissa Loses A Friend
Marissa's guinea pig and long time good buddy Chewie died today after a thankfully short illness. I think the last time she lost a guinea pig was Bailey back in 2003. Always a sad event, and I know she'll miss him.
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10/08/08: Dinner With Colin
To celebrate Colin's new raise and going to flat rate, I took him out to dinner to The Texas Roadhouse for a steak. Yeah, I overdid it with an 11 oz. serloin, but what can you do...
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10/10/08: Friday Night And It's Alright
I left work a little early Friday so I could take the long way home across Rt. 101 from Kittery out to where it meets Rt. 236. It's a beautiful drive, and the leaves were just spectacular. I stumbled onto a really different radio station, WXGR, that plays all sorts of alternative, club mix, dance, etc. type music and was having such a good time that I decided to continue my drive through the fall foliage by taking Rt. 155 from Dover out through into Lee, and then hooking over Rt. 155A to Durham. Just loved it. And, since I was in Durham, I stopped off and got take out Chinese, came home, had a feast, and then a relaxing movie before tumbling into bed as I was beat.
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10/17/08: Another Friday Night And It's Alright
As the leaves are really reaching their peak, I decided to repeat last Friday's foliage adventure over Routes 101, 155, and 155A. And yes, I had to stop in Durham for take out Chinese again. People come from literally all over the world to see this, so I'm not going to miss it just because I live here! How rude that would be...
And by Saturday afternoon I had completed the final run through on my novel Too Late For Later. Done! Okay, so the next step is to ship it down to my brother Alan "The Chainsaw" for the college professor's red pen folly, and then I hold my breath...
Sunday, I was up early with a cup of coffee and situatuated comfortably in the living room with the full splendor of Fall streaming through the windows. I spent a really nice, easy day finishing Stephen King's On Writing, and then headed off to the store for food shopping. I was in the mood to cook, but wasn't real sure what that would turn out to be so I just winged it.
I ended up with what I will call Three Bean Mix in a Harbenaro Pepper, Sage, Parsley, and Cabernet Sauvignon Saute. And for S&G, I did another side of Rosemary Mushrooms with Prosciutto, scallions, sweet red pepper, and Spinnach leaves. And I drank too much of the Cabernet, of course. But it was a grand time cooking away with Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’ booming out encouragement. How much better could it get? Guess what... it can't. Peter - out!
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10/25/08: A Fun Fall Weekend
Fall is closing down with its deep rusts and chocolate browns and many leaves blanketing the ground.
I just had to leave work early again Friday so I could drive out into the country side. And that was just the start of another great fall weekend.
My long time student and disciple, Rick Downs, is always up for a "Road Trip", so when I called Friday, he was up for it, particularly when I told him I planned to have dinner at Dante's Pasta & Vino out in Barrington, NH.
It was a spectacular drive out along Route 9 to Route 125 in Barrington. There were still some leaves that were bright, bright red and yellow and orange. Anyway, too short of a drive, but really nice. Our meal was great, highlighted by our server, Wendy, who took good care of us.
Saturday was a reading day, for the most part. Marissa came over around lunchtime and carved my two pumpkins and made a huge mess of the table. But before she left, she cleaned everything up and you would have never known the disaster area in the picture existed. You can see her artisticness on the great fall weekend page! She's something, she is...
Later that evening a bunch of us met up at Castaways restaurant here in Dover for some backgammon and dinner. After that, we came back to my place to watch the Blu-ray DVD I had rented, The Terminator - the first one.
Well, after we got done with that we just had to watch the second one as well since we were on such a roll. But I threw a flag on the field at midnight when there was some mumbling about watching the third one. Next week, maybe...
It rained pretty hard all Saturday night and into Sunday morning. But the sun broke around mid morning and it was beautiful sitting in the living room, reading, and watching the light pour off of the leaves rustling in a pretty stiff left over storm breeze.
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10/29/08: Dinner With Colin
Colin gave me a call last week and we decided to get together for dinner again. He met me at the house after work, and we drove over to Durham to grab take-out Chinese. Ran into a brief snow shower on the way! That was pretty interesting; first snow of the season. After dinner, we just sat in the living room and chatted for awhile.
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10/30/08: Trick Or Treat
Thursday was Dover's 'Trick-or-Treat' night from 5:00pm - 8:00pm. I scooted out of work early so I could get home.
I didn't want to miss any of the kids as so few come around anymore. I always enjoyed taking Colin and Marissa out, and so I'll always try to be there for any other kids who come out.
I lit up both of the pumpkins that Marissa had carved, and then did the candy thing while chatting with a couple of my karate students who had come over.
To get a really good view of those pumpkins, check out the great fall weekend page. She just really makes my life every year when she carves my pumpkins for Halloween.
Anyway, after Trick-or-Treat ended, we all headed up to Applebee's for some backgammon and food.
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10/31/08: Halloween Dinner Out
Halloween night so what better time to get together and have dinner out! I met up with Rick and Linda at The Muddy River Smokehouse out on Rt. 236 at 6:00pm. They had just got back from walking their dogs down in Kittery, ME, and were ready to eat some food. We had a great dinner; me - a half rack of BBQ Baby Back Ribs. Yeah, baby back...
Then we came back to my place, and watched Resident Evil; how can you beat Milla Jovovich, anyway... Linda hadn't even heard of it, and when she found out there were two more she was all hacked off because she had to leave as she had an early call in the morning for work. But Rick and I stayed and watched Underworld in Blue-ray that Steve had dropped off last week for my party Saturday. Couldn't wait til then; had to watch it right now! Another late night...
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11/01/08: The Great 2008 Halloween Backgammon Tournament And Witches Stew Brew
The The Great 2008 Halloween Backgammon Tournament And Witches Stew Brew on Saturday Nov. 1st was my 45th backgammon get together dinner party since moving here to the Garrison in June of 2004. And this one was just great; too much fun!
I started cooking the Witches Stew Brew (actually, a marvelous thyme based Italian Beef Stew) at 4:00pm with the movie Van Helsing running as background.
We broke for dinner around 7:15pm, and then at 8:00pm I put the movie of the night on: 30 Days of Night>. Now that's a scary movie...
Only Scott, Steve, Rick and I bore up under the pressure, and finished the movie. That ended about 9:45 and everyone except Steve left and we watched 'Underworld 2' but he was nodding out toward the end and he left so I had to finish it all up on my own...
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11/07/08: Weekend Adventures and Movie Night At The Garrison
I started the weekend off with a wonderful dinner out on Friday night at Dover's Blue Latitudes. First time there, and had a great meal. I'll be going back there for sure. I had the Chicken Piccata and found it one of the best I've had, though with all of the capers I suspect the salt content was way up there.
Next time I'm in, I'll have to ask about that.
Actually, I've been amazed at the salt content that our foods have that I've tried to be alert to prepared foods that have additional salt added. Oh sure, capers are packaged in salt brine so there's not much you can do there. But if the sauces that are made for the dish also have a high salt content then that's just not healthy.
For example, without much thought the other day I pulled a can of Progresso soup off the shelf. After I finished, I looked at the can. 960mg of Sodium! And that's them assuming you're going to get 2 servings. Holy crap, Angus! Are you guys kidding me? The whole can wouldn't feed a gerbil... That is the last can of Progresso soup that I will ever have.
Oh, I knew some of them were a little high in Sodium. But 960mg? Screw you guys...
Okay, off the salt bandwagon... Got up Saturday morning around 9:00am and did some more editing on my book, Cane Use For Health and Protection as I will be using that for some of the Intermediate level classes that I will be teaching.
That went pretty smooth, and I was able to finish up by mid afternoon. No pictures as yet, but at least the text part is pretty well nailed down. Anyway, after that, I was able to catch some reading time before folks started showing up for another Movie Night At The Garrison.
Saturday night was the Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and then the 2nd in the Resident Evil series, Resident Evil: Apocalypse.
Both mindlessly entertaining with great special effects.
Even though it wasn't planned, everyone jumped on the backgammon boards for awhile until the pizza came, and then there was silence for about 15 minutes. Marissa shut all the lights off, and we enjoyed the show on the big screen.
I had Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines on regular DVD, but Steve had loaned me his Blu-ray of Resident Evil: Apocalypse. And that was just spectacular. But my Sony Playstation-3 did a great job of up-converting the Terminator DVD as well; sometimes it's so good, it's hard to tell it's regular DVD until you put a Blu-ray in and see the difference.
Sunday, I just kicked back and relaxed for the day. The sun finally broke out late morning after being hidden by several days of rain.
Most of the leaves have now fallen to the ground, the rain weighing them down making them easy prey for the winds that have been racing around us. Fall has just about fell.
Since the day remained nice, I decided that it would be a good time for my annual 'UNH Walkabout'. I got a late start and then just had fun driving around campus and the town seeing all of the trees that had changed just in the last week. So, I didn't have time to get out and walk the campus as I usually do. But I did roll through town and grab this shot, which seems to have become the picture I take every year. It's a little poor because the sun was setting behind the building and I had to snap quick because of the traffic. But, there it is anyway... Leaves all but gone, and scattered across the lawn.
And then... there was "Peter's Sunday Party For One". Sorry, I just can't help myself; can't follow the recipe, gotta mess with it.
You know, as I mentioned I had such a great Chicken Piccata at the Blue Latitudes Friday that I wanted to give it a shot of my own. I have to say... well, I locked this one down, baby!
Besides messing somewhat with the basic recipe by seasoning the breaded chicken with Rosemary, I fixed a white wine and thyme based mushroom, cherry tomato, and spinnach side that was out of this world.
Yup, had quite a great time of it I did as can be seen from the shot of the meal ready to dive into. James Taylor sang in the background as I cooked and sipped my Chardonnay. A great end to a very peaceful, relaxing, and productive weekend.
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11/15/08: Movie Night At The Garrison
It had to be done. We just had to make a spaghetti dinner and watch The Fifth Element. Yeah, yeah - I know: it's pretty trite and stupid. But... it had Milla Jovovich... Nuf' said
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11/16/08: Dinner Party At The Garrison
I had my neighbor Ann and her mother Dot over for dinner tonight. I had told Ann that when the all of the remodeling work was done on her unit, I'd have them over. I fixed an Italian thyme beef stew with small red potatoes and onion. For sides, I did rosemary and sage steamed Brussels sprouts, and had a boxed rice. And lots of Merlot, besides what went into the sauce for the stew.
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