Muchacho Polaco

Another day at the range

Posted on August 13, 2006 by Ryan

Yunuen and I went to the range this morning with Ben, Lis, Aaron and Christina. We pay $6 each person every time we go so we really need to consider the $45 yearly family pass. I shot Ben’s .357 today which I like a great deal. The .44s are a bit much and the .22s are a bit light. I like his Glock .40 a good deal as well.

Our house is tiled throughout now and we really enjoy that. The floors look a great deal better. Yunuen’s uncle from California came out and we worked really hard to get that done in a couple days. I really don’t enjoy the process much. We purchased some trim for the base board as well that looks pretty sharp, so things will look much better when we get a chance to get that up.

We got out tickets to Thailand last week and we’re really excited about that. We leave December 9th. We plan to head to San Carlos Labor day weekend which is coming upon us. We have booked our condo on the beach and are heading down with a group of 8 people. I hope to get some scuba diving in this time and I am really looking forward to that.

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Yunuen shoots a gun

Posted on July 8, 2006 by Ryan

We woke up early this morning to head out to the desert with Ben, Lis, and Liam to do some shooting. Ben brought most of his arsenal. For handguns he brought two .22s, two .40s (one was a glock), and a .44. He also brought a couple rifles; a .22 and a .44. Yunuen started with the .22 rifle and shot the silhouette animal (a chicken) on her first shot (and everyone after that I think). The rifle has a nice scope, so that was a good place for her to start. I tried both of his .40s today, a glock and a smith and wesson. I really preferred the glock as the grip on the smith and wesson was pretty short. Yunuen and I spent most of the morning shooting the .22 pistols which are my favorite for practicing to hit the targets. We had a lot of fun and Yunuen is very interested in getting guns of our own. We also saw a lot of these nasty giant black millipedes all over on the range. They were fairly quick and about 8 inches long, 3/4 inch in diameter. We didn’t attempt to pet them.

We got back just in time to head off to our meeting in the north of Tucson for our Thailand trip on October 9th. We plan on getting our tickets this week.
After that meeting we went tile shopping as we are tiling our house in 2 weeks. More precisely, Yunuen’s uncle is visiting and will be directing that project. We have found a number of types of tile that we like, but we’re undecided if we should go with the smaller 12×12 or the larger 18×18 size. We’re also hoping to add a tile mosaic near the front enterance as well as some other neat border pieces. Should things go really well, we may even have the opportunity to extend a wall in our kitchen which we’ve really wanted to do ever since we moved in. This would allow for a lot more cabinet space in the kitchen which we would really like to have.

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Thai Food and Shisha

Posted on July 1, 2006 by Ryan

Yunuen and I went out for Thai food last night at Bangkok Cafe with Dave and Viviani. The food was excellent and the atmosphere and service was much better than Char-Thai where we have been going out for Thai food in the past. As would be expected, they had Singha, which even Yunuen admits is good beer.

After dinner we strolled over to a Middle Eastern place and were happy to find that they sold Hookahs (Shisha). A Hookah is a Middle Eastern water pipe used to smoke fruitty tobacco. Yunuen had smoked one years ago in Switzerland and I had tried it not long ago with her at a Mediteranean place in Kansas City, so it’s a treat to have our own.

We went to see Mission Impossible 3 last night as well which we enjoyed. It’s pretty fast paced.

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lasagna, yum!

Posted on June 27, 2006 by Ryan

Yunuen made lasagna tonight from a recipe that my mom gave me. It was pretty good and so lunch tomorrow should be the highlite of the day. It rained hard tonight, which was deeply needed. Our backyard is solid yellow/brown now that the grass has died. It’s a tragedy, but without an underground sprinkling system, there’s really no way to keep it green. Now that the monsoon season is coming, perhaps it will revive. The garden is doing well. I planted a zucchini in the center which has now pretty much taken over most of the garden. It has grown quite rapidly and is doing better than most other plants. The tomatoes continue to produce, but I have blossom end rot disease and so many of the tomatoes are grotesque and unedible

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camping on Mt. Graham

Posted on June 11, 2006 by Ryan

Yunuen and I went camping with Ben and Lis this weekend up Mt. Graham in the Coronado National Forest. It’s about 9000 feet above sea level, so the drastic change in temperature was a nice change. It’s been in the 100s for weeks now. It was in the 50s-70s on the trip, which we weren’t exactly prepared for. It was a little cold at night to say the least. We had a lot of fun hiking and sitting around the fire. We did really well with the food. Friday night we had salmon with rice and on Saturday we had steaks with sauted vegetables (squash, peppers, scallions, onions, zucchini). It was yumlicious. Carl, the camp ranger, was quick to warn us of the bobcats, black bears, and rattle snakes. We were attacked our first night by a mouse. I had my machete, so we were safe. Ben and I chopped wood with his new axe nearly sufficient to supply the entire campground. Chopping wood is fun.

We definately hope to return soon or find another equally tranquil location.

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Memorial Day Weekend

Posted on May 27, 2006 by Ryan

I love long weekends, especially hot and sunny ones. Dennis, my uncle from Vancouver was here last week for flight training, so we had the opportunity to eat together a few times. Yunuen made chile rellenos last night for dinner and we drank Pacificos. Yunuen’s parents came up today and they are all presently at Sam Levitz looking for new furniture for their new house. We just got a new couch this weekend which is a welcome addition to a rather sparse living room. We have yet to tile the place. Yunuen just called from the furniture store to advise she found a nice recliner to match our couch – but we’ll have to pick it up tomorrow as it appears her family found a new living room set. The lemon and guava trees are pretty much scorched from the heat. It’s not even summer yet and they are, for the most part, dead. The garden too seems to be having a tough time with the sun, so I constructed a covreing for it with a material that reduces the amount of light.

We’re planning a trip to Mexico to La Roca for lunch tomorrow with a number of friends from church. That should be fun. Not sure what the plans are tonight. Our shredder is shredded, so I am presently burning the stuff we would normally shred in the backyard in our old grill. Hopefully I won’t start the house on fire.

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anniversary weekend

Posted on May 19, 2006 by Ryan

It’s a few days short of our first year wedding anniversary and the 100 plus temperature today reminds me of our wedding day when I was wearing my thick black suit in the 100 plus weather.

The photos at the bottom of a few of the ‘golden boy’ tomatoes I picked today. I found a little beast eating my lemon tree leaves the other day and some birds I saw in Mexico a few nights back.

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out of control

Posted on May 10, 2006 by Ryan

The garden is growing out of control – I’ve obviously planted things a little too close. Next year I will definately have to increase the size – perhaps twice as wide and twice as long. I’ve been getting a number of seed catalogs in the mail so I will be looking forward to ordering exotic vegetables.

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first fruits

Posted on May 6, 2006 by Ryan

I tasted the firstfruits of my garden this week with a couple salads. It was quite tasty. Jane and Mark came over for dinner last night and we had carne asada. We’re going to Ben and Lis’ house tonight for some Brazilian food. We bought a new trash can today which was very exciting. We also bought a ladder in order to make our way into the attic. We’re having issues with the air conditioning these days which isn’t exactly ideal given the hot weather (only to be hotter in the near future). Hopefull we’ll be able to resolve this on our own.

We went to look at some landscaping rock today. It amounts to about $25 a ton and we’re looking to put about 4 ton in the back yard to border the grass. Yunuen re-painted the bedroom today.

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another sunny saturday

Posted on April 29, 2006 by Ryan

Today was spent mostly outside sipping the cerveza in the hot sun while reading a book by John Owen. I did have a chance to weed the yard some, but the sun was pretty intense. Then I fell asleep on the couch for about 3 hours, so the day was well spent.

We made roast for dinner Thursday night. It was so good that I took a photo. Yunuen spent the day in Mexico and when she got home tonight we noticed the gardenias by the front door have blossomed pretty thoroughly.

Below is a picture of me and Warren Buffet (the legendary second richest man on the planet) at a work function a few months back.

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