Halloween, Part 1

I'll be doing some quick updates this weekend to document the Halloween festivities. First up today: the Epic website.

http://www.epic.com/

The IT team has had a bit of fun changing around all of our screens today, so I though I'd show you one of them. Check it out before it goes away!

More stuff later...

Meat Cupcakes!

And my posting continues to slip... so first, some life news. I have a string of certification tests over the next couple of weeks with the first one tomorrow so I may be distracted and posting may suffer. My apologies in advance.

But to make up for it... meat cup cakes!

Rachel: I think we should make meatloaf this week.
Me: What about meat cup cakes?
Rachel: ... what?
Me: It's meatloaf... but CUP CAKES! We can use mashed potatoes as frosting!
Rachel: ... OK, I'm in.

So, we (and by we I mean Rachel, thanks honey!) made meat cup cakes... which it turns out is actually EASIER to make than meat loaf.

Step 1: find a meat loaf recipe
Step 2: make meat loaf mix
Step 3: put mix into cupcake wrappers and/or into cupcake tin. REMEMBER: meat doesn't rise, so if you want a dome shape, you have to make it!
Step 4: bake for 1/3-1/2 the normal meatloaf time
Step 5: Profit! I mean, Cup Cakes!

The little red bit on top is ketchup, but you could probably also put that in the core for molten goodness. Add other toppings like mashed potatoes, cheese, etc. as desired.

Plus, our meat cup cakes were actually HEALTHY. Did you hear that? HEALTHY MEAT CUP CAKES.

My mind, is blown.

Until next time...

"But when the time comes that a man has had his dinner, then the true man comes to the surface."
- Progress in Medicine speech by Mark Twain, 1902

Epic in the Mist

Before we get to the mistiness, update on the week. I finished learning one programming language last week and am now halfway through another- we move pretty fast around here! I have a pretty good grasp of the languages but today I seemed to be slipping a bit more than usual... not a good sign since I need to take the certification test in these languages in two weeks. Might've been because my old friend Insomnia has been hanging around, but I blame stupidly intriguing game systems and Tom Clancy for that. Stupid interesting things keeping me up...

Also this weekend Rachel and I went to our friend Dwight's house for brunch and it was a delightful experience. Dwight is a guy that we met at an English party even though he is only tangentially related to the department. Now we're hanging out all the time cuz he's a pretty cool guy who knows how to do EVERYTHING. Heck, the man even makes his own Limecello... Anyway, every so often he has a small group of friends come to his house for amazing brunch and conversation, mixing around the group each time to hear more interesting ideas. Really cool concept and the food was delish. Now if I can just get him to fork over the Bread and Beer party pics...

I'm also getting to know my coworkers better, and in pursuit of that goal I'm going to the Madison Brewfest this Saturday. I know, big sacrifice for me :) I'll give you a rundown of the different beers come next week. For now, pics!

 These pics came about because the entire campus was wreathed in fog one morning a couple of weeks back. I thought the campus looked really cool, so took some pics. Enjoy!

Until next time...

"Diligence is a good thing, but taking things easy is much more--restful."
- Speech by Mark Twain, 3/30/1901

Non-Epic Things: Bread and Beer, paint ball, and a special guest

So I've been posting a lot about Epic, and I'd like to say that no, that is not all that happens out here... though that is a lot of it. A lot of my time has been spent doing hobby things that you can read about on my other blog, but there has been some other stuff. For instance, two weekends ago Rachel and I hosted a very successful Bread and Beer party at our house, celebrating two of life's greatest carbohydrates. Lots of people showed up and brought delicious beer and bread that we are still eating to this day. Man, I love generous people who don't take their stuff away again... I made a pair of loaves of heffenzupf which were devoured quite quickly while Rachel made delicious red velvet cupcakes with homemade icing. Yum!

We've also been working out pretty much daily (well... until this week...) at our gym downtown. It's great because there's almost never a crowd there when we go to work out so if we see a machine, it's ours. Plus they have cable and are very friendly about switching the channels... yay!

This weekend I went paintballing with some coworkers at Apocalypse Paintball. It was a lot of fun and very welty, though I seem to suck at the actual shooting bit. Oh well, just need to practice I guess..

A bit blurry, but that faint pinkish bit is still some paint stuck in my hair. Yay!

Last but not least Rachel Carroll, Girl Reporter saw OBAMA last Tuesday. OBAMA!

He was speaking at the campus and Rachel and a couple of her friends (plus about a hundred thousand other people...) went to go see him speak. Pretty cool, huh? Anyway, some pics from the party hopefully later this week, as well as maybe some pics from around Epic again.