CB Space!

Colorado Q&A

It’s Thursday, December 22^nd. My one day off this Christmas week. I’ve just consumed an entire pot of coffee while typing up the final draft of the latest Two Broke Nerds Eat Well post. It took a week longer than I anticipated to get my lazy ass situated in front of a keyboard. Now that I’ve finally done it, the writing bug compels me to update this blog as well.

So what’s been up CB?

Well, me at 10,000 feet I guess. Work up here at the Ski Resort is starting to go into full swing as the Christmas crowd has drifted into town. The snow isn’t really quite ideal yet, so business has actually been light all things considered. But every day we get closer to Christmas, the more the skier count goes up.

Speaking of the holidays, I’ll just announce this publicly here. If you contact me on Christmas and don’t hear back from me that day, don’t be offended. I’m not avoiding you, or saying “Bah Humbug”. I’m just busy at work. I’ll be working 12-15 hours on Christmas day depending on how busy it gets. I’m not complaining, as I’m about to make some decent overtime, but just letting you know what my holiday plans are.

So CB, how do you like it out there?

I love it! Working at a resort has it’s ups and downs, but I will say when the day is done and I ride the ski lift down I feel empowered by the natural beauty of the mountain landscape around me. Then when I get to the base, I almost feel like I’m on vacation hanging out in the resort. The cold isn’t so bad, as it’s very dry up here. Besides, cold is cold. Once you get below 15 degrees, it’s really not noticeable how severely cold it is. It’s just cold. I will comment though that I haven’t worn less than two layers in a month’s time, both inside and outside.

The isolation out here sometimes gets to me. Not that I’m lonely. Living with my friend Casey has been great. But the lack of internet and TV has taken some getting used to. It’s been some effort to get over not knowing what’s going on in the world outside our valley. For all I know, the world could be turning to shit politically right now. But then again, when is it not in the little shadow puppet theater our national media puts on. It’s kind of nice not to care or feel affected by it.

So what do you do out on the mountain?

I wish I could say that I take advantage of my surroundings by Skiing or Snowboarding. But not yet. Soon though. The snowboarding bug is beginning to bite me. I just got to get some spare cash to rent a board. Plus I’m waiting for more snow. Right now the mountain slopes are more ice than snow. I don’t really want to fall on that.

Besides work, my roommate and I have been spending our time embracing our inner geeks. Painting Heavy Gear Miniatures for gaming. Reading (I’m currently on book three of Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle). And yes, Dungeons and Dragons. Then there’s the cooking. I can’t express how grateful I am to Casey for being willing to cook a quality meal at home after a long day of work. I’ve been eating like a King, which you all will slowly see as we post more to our Two Broke Nerds Eat Well blog.

So life is good up here, as I hope it is down wherever you are. Merry Christmas, and all that Happy New Year stuff.

Two Broke Nerds Eat Well

          Just in time for Thanksgiving, I moved away from my family home of Georgia to the Rocky Mountain Valley town of Fraser Colorado to live and work with my close friend and personal culinary inspiration Casey Leamon. Despite the fact that I was moving in with a professional chef, I anticipated a very humble cuisine due to the limited budget we both were now living on. Thanks to the impeccable culinary knowledge and skills of my friend and roommate, I not only ate well on Thanksgiving but every day before and after. 

          At first I was convinced Chef Leamon was over spending getting all these whole meats and produce. To my surprise, he had only spent $35 dollars for all the ingredients that made our first week of meals. He informed me of his new drive and passion to cut out processed foods as much as possible from his diet, trying to arrange it to the new USDA “My Plate” recommendations, all while keeping his budget within the five dollar a day challenge. While the menu is still being worked on to incorporate enough whole grains and fruits to meet the USDA recommendations, I can attest that with the last two weeks of eating fresh vegetables and non-processed meats I feel fantastic.

          Don’t let this health stuff dissuade you. I’ve also been eating some of the most delicious dinners I’ve ever had at home. Chicken Fried Rice, Hearty Beef Stew, Authentic Beef Tacos with Guacamole Pica, and my favorite thus far being last nights Chicken Fried Steak with Stewed Vegetables and Gravy. All these meals were made under our combined weekly budget of $70 a week. All produce is bought whole and fresh, never from a can. All meat is bought from the butcher department, nothing is bought frozen. Every chicken meal is cut from a whole chicken, the remaining parts used for stews and soups.

          Being the Internet junky that I am, I couldn’t resist sharing Chef Leamon’s meals and home cooking wisdom with the world. So we present here Two Broke Nerds Eat Well. Over the next five months we will share recipes along with the ingredient costs so that you and a friend can eat like royalty for just ten dollars a day. Time to time, we will post some articles on various culinary subjects expressing Chef Leamon’s knowledge and opinions. And who knows, maybe we’ll have some fun on the way with some “Nerd” inspired meals. So grab your 20 sided die, a copy of Firefly, and cook along with a couple of broke nerds who eat well.

Heavy Gear Terror at 8,500 Feet

Up in the little mountain town of Fraser, CO, there lies a cave. A nerd cave, recently formed inside an inconspicuous trailer where two Generals of science fiction warfare have set up camp. I, Lieutenant Bargeron, lead a squad of CNCS Hunter Gears against the Port Arthur Korps GRELs and Hover Tanks of Colonial Leamon. Our dining table is converted to the dessert terrain of the Terra Nova Badlands. The sound of rolling dice echos like the sounds of gunfire in our miniaturized battle zone.

Game on!

Heavy Gear Blitz is a table-top wartime strategy game where two or more players control armies turn by turn to achieve battle field objectives or just attempt to completely destroy each others army. The game takes place in the fictional Earth Colony of Terra Nova, long abandoned by Earth and left to survive on their own. The colony has now formed a few warring governments, namely the Confederated Northern City-States and the Allied Southern Territories. Their armies are mainly supported by Heavy Gears. Gears are armored combat walkers that offer a nice compromise of an infantryman’s flexibility and an armored vehicles resilience and firepower.

Half of the fun of this game is in building and painting your miniature Gear figures. In fact, most of the “game time” my roommate and I have spent so far has been in painting Gears and terrain. We had our first match last week, which I will share photos of here. Long story short, my roommate had superior positioning and tactics through out the game. It wasn’t even close. But next time …

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Colorful Colorado

Greetings from my new home in Colorful Colorado. Well technically, greetings from the internet port of my local library here in Fraser, CO. No internet access in my new place yet. While, yes, I am feeling a little cut off from the world community and out of touch with what’s going on in current events, I’m surprised to admit I actually feel more in touch with the natural world than I have in years. The scenery up here is gorgeous, the air is crisp and clean feeling, and the local community is quite friendly. As cheesy as it reads, I feel like I’m on top of the world here … because I am.

          Getting here was a journey of it’s own. My Aunt Marcy, bless her kind heart, drove us out north from Georgia to St. Louis, IL, then west across the never ending farmlands of Kansas until we ended up in the 8,500 feet high Rocky Mountain town of Fraser, CO. I have some pictures of the trip posted here. Unfortunately most of them I’ve decided to not include, as they’re mostly of fog. For the first two days of our trip, it seemed as if the entire Midwest was covered in dense clouds. After we left Atlanta, we didn’t see the sun again until midway across Kansas two days later.

          As for our arrival here in Winter Park and Fraser, I’ll let the pictures do the talking. The only statement they can’t express is the immediate reminder I received of my fear of heights once we started driving up the mountain. A fear I now am learning to control on a daily basis. Every day I ride a ski lift to and from my Sunspot Lodge cooking job located at about 10,700 feet in the Winter Park Ski Resort. I can feel my death grip loosening a little bit each time I ride up or down. However, I doubt I’ll ever be able to ride with the guard rail up. Once I get the courage to hold my phone on the lift trip I’ll share some photos. The view, while scary, is incredible. I literally can see my house from up there.

 So as I get to know the Ski and Snowboarding community better, I do intend to have my first attempt at snowboarding before the season ends. It is kind of weird working at a ski resort and never having skied before. So I hope to document that, if anything, to provide the internet with some good fail videos. And yes, I’ve already eye witnessed a few good ski fails already. It still looks like fun though, despite the broken collar bones.

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So Long Georgia, and Thanks for All the Fish

My journey on this plane of existence began in the port town of Savannah, GA on Thursday February 11th, 1982. A town I would not get to experience again until the adult age of 28. 

You see life for me, as seen from through childhood eyes, was nomadic.

A year after my birth my family moved to Oklahoma, where my brother was born. Shortly after I finished kindergarten, we moved again to Phoenix, AZ. In the 5 years we lived there we changed homes three times. Now we didn’t move very far, but as a kid it was far enough. I, due to my own childish ignorance, lost contact with friends and continued to just make new ones. A pattern I repeated frequently through out my life. Soon as someone got to really know me, I was taken away.

Then came Florida.

Just over a year later, as another childhood friend came and went, we moved back to Georgia. We moved a few times over the first three years before we finally resided to the one town I’ve lived in most of my life. A city that will always be “Home”.

Marietta, GA.

For 16 years, North Atlanta was my home ground. For the first time, I got to know people for longer than a few years. Even scarier, people got to really know me. I couldn’t change myself without people noticing. Looking back, I now realize various mistakes in friendship behaviors I had made. 

I also notice some nomadic behavior from myself. At times, I would suddenly take off on travel adventures. In my mid twenties, I went through a period where I moved every year. I changed my circle of friends quite a few times too. Frankly, I turned my back on people when I shouldn’t have.

Then last year I took off back to Savannah. To rediscover myself, explore my roots, and “Straighten out”. To summarize my year here in Savannah, I’ve realized people, places, and things aren’t to blame for my troubles.

I am. 

If anything, the people in my life have helped immensely in protecting me from myself.

We never know what good we have in our lives until we take it away.

I write this blog entry as a Thank You to all my friends of Marietta, Kennesaw, Alpharetta, Roswell, Sandy Springs, and Atlanta. You all have been the first friends I ever got to know well enough to love. Thank you all.

For the first time in my adult life I now set out to successfully live outside of my home state of Georgia. Back to the west, to cook in the frigid Rocky Mountain Ski Resort of Winter Park, CO. I don’t know where exactly I’ll be six months from now. I’m exhilarated and frightened by that in a way I haven‘t been in over a decade. One thing is for sure though …

This will be a most excellent adventure!

We Fear Change

Just wanted to announce a major change in my life that is about to effect this blog.

Thanks to the graciousness of a close friend of mine, I’ve gotten an opportunity to cook at a Ski Resort in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. 

An opportunity I’m about to fully embrace.

However, my new home will lack certain commodities that I sometimes take for granted. Namely, Internet. I would assume since my postings here while I’ve had internet has been sporadic at best, my postings in the future will decrease significantly. Yet something in my gut tells me I will have more interesting tales of adventure to share than ever before. 

I hope to start to catalogue those adventures here.

I’m sure I’ll still have my usually bits of nerdy critique and opinion. In fact all this sense of adventure I’m feeling in preparation has lead me to watch a ton of classic Star Trek. 

I promise though to stray away from the political garbage (which when that occurs again it’ll occur on another blog site I‘ll create eventually). 

So thanks for reading thus far, and I hope to soon provide something a little more exciting for those interested in the outdoors.

Live Long, and Prosper.

Got 5 Seconds to Spare This Halloween? Spend it with 5 Second Films.

If you've never heard of the independent film group 5 Second Films, well ... what can I say that their name doesn't imply? They make films, that are five seconds long. They are awesome, if not entertainingly bizarre.

Around the holidays, they release films that inspire the spirit of the season. Enjoy!

HALLOWEEN COSTUME

BLOODY MARY

PINATA PARTY

Clever Chaos We Create - A Review of Phavian's Meridian I

I had a wild dream last night. I became motivated by visions of grandeur, convinced that I could lead humanity to a state of peace, calm and happiness. I became obsessed with bringing it to fruition. I traveled from town to town, spreading word of my vision to all whom would hear it. Eventually, the numbers of willing listeners grew. Even sooner, those evolved into ones willing to follow. Before I knew it, I had gained the power of voice over many. Yet, there was a constant shadow growing underneath it all. A shadow growing into disdain, anger and finally violence. 

I lost control; fleeing into my own darkness …

Oh wait, that wasn’t a dream. It was Phavian’s new album, Meridian I.

Meridian I, the first of a four album wide concept, is the second album to be independently produced by this progressive metal quintet. While their music is primarily powered by a heavy metal guitar duo, it’s melismatic vocals and dynamic rhythm section combine for a provocative, organic sound. 

Clocking at about 38 minutes, Meridian I features six songs, each a musical expression of the story I described earlier.

01 Slate (5:28)

02 Cobalt and Crimson (8:14)

03 Stil de Grain (5:12)

04 Tyrian (10:01)

05 Feldgrau (5:36)

06 Obsidian (2:58) 

Opening with the rifftastic Slate, Puyan Hassani’s guitar kicks the front door wide open with technical shredding that teases of his performances due ahead. Representing what I believe is the protagonist's guiding dream, we awaken from Slate into my current favorite song. 

Cobalt and Crimson starts out smoothly with the introduction of Elizabeth Matson’s melodic vocals. Soon we’re guided smoothly through time signature changes by the meticulous percussion of Patrick Hassani. The band displays their talent for symphonic performance as they decrescendo into a beautiful acoustic mid-section accompanied by a superb bass line from Jason Lobell. Just as your ears are slipping into comfort, they’re accosted by a wall of dissident chords and vocals that catapult the track to it’s rocking conclusion. My only complaint is it ends on a fade out (while my ears cry out for more of Hassani's lead guitar). I can only imagine how this ending could sound in a live performance.

The whole album flows well into each new piece of music. Even the end of the album repeating back to the beginning seemed smooth. I wonder how this will all tie in to movements and medleys in the future releases.

I could go on but I don’t want to spoil it for you. You’ll just have to enjoy it for yourself. So if my complimentary prose here hasn’t convinced you to get Meridian I (if you pre-order it before Halloween you can get a limited edition T-Shirt), Phavian has a free demo album out called Foreword that previews a song from each of the forthcoming albums. Download it here.

Merdian I comes out October 31st. Order it here.

Oh Captain, my Captain - A review of Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America was never one of my favorite Super Hero’s. I’ll admit I grew up with a prejudice against things Patriotic or obviously militant in nature. Never was into G.I. Joe, preferring Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So Marvel’s first Avenger has always been a bit of an undiscovered mystery to me. Was he even a Super Hero, or just a costumed soldier?

Perhaps this lack of interest and knowledge helped my experience of the new Captain America movie. Frankly, I was highly impressed.

Captain America: The First Avenger was a very refreshing tale. Steve Rogers is a hero from scene one to the final act. The only change is physical, rather than mental, when a scientist gives him a serum that turns his frail body into to that of a super soldier. 

He doesn’t lose something important to him in order to gain the strive to fix the world. He doesn’t discover the importance of responsibility through the gaining of his powers. He never goes through that now popular “emo phase” where he questions who he is and if he should sacrifice himself for the good of all. 

No, Rogers always knew what he thought was right and was always willing to stand up for it.

That's mostly what made this film so enjoyable to me. Seeing a strong consistency of heroic character being portrayed throughout the entire movie.

Before the viewing, I had many doubts with the casting of Chris Evans, as he was type casted by me as the flirtatious Human Torch. I didn’t expect he could put on the serious face of heroism required for this role. Kudos Mr. Evans. I don’t even need to describe how great the villainous Red Skull was portrayed. All I have to say is Hugo Weaving. Hugo freaking Weaving.

I could go on and on, but honestly it would all just be superfluous verbiage that I could simply edit down to one simple sentence.

Go watch Captain America: The First Avenger.

Why I Play Tabletop Role-playing Games

The other week I watched a great video of Wil Wheaton and the Penny Arcade crew playing a D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) game run by Dungeon Master Chris Perkins. Now before I lose you, as I can predict your judgment on someone watching a video of a D&D game, let me inform you I’m not alone in viewing interest here. In fact, the game was played live on stage to a packed theater audience. The youtube rebroadcast has, by today, gathered 8,000 views. Sure, not as high a count as some of the more popular cat videos, but still it’s not bad for a video of a group of nerds collectively storytelling while rolling 20 sided dice.

Here's a link to the whole game.

PAX 2011 D&D Game

And a little section of the action here, with Wil freaking Wheaton.

Before I assume you know what Dungeons and Dragons is, here’s a couple of links to the Compendium of Knowledge’s pages on D&D and Role-playing Games. 

What are Tabletop Role-playing Games?

What is Dungeons and Dragons?

Shared storytelling. A geek’s dream. Often I’ll read literature and day dream of myself coming up with similar tales of excitement and intrigue. Role-playing Games give you that same sensation of creation in the fun social atmosphere of board gaming. While D&D has grown a huge cult following, I still wish for it to become more wide spread. 

It’s hard for someone who’s gone to a new town to find friends willing to play tabletop role-playing games. It surprises me too, with the generation I reside in. We’ve been raised by Nintendo games, and most people who I explain D&D to realize soon that they’ve played one of it’s video game offspring before. But that’s not the same. It’s watered down.

The biggest difference lies in players choice. On computer you’re limited to what actions the game has programmed in to allow you to choose from. In tabletop gaming, your imagination is your only limitation. You can try anything. Your character may not succeed, but you can still try it. Not only that, but the game can go in directions unimagined. In D&D, there is no invisible wall (usually) preventing you from going to an area due to it not being a part of that level. You see it, you can try to go there.

If fantasy isn’t your genre of choice, there are countless alternative games that offer a different rule system and world to explore. The World of Darkness for the occult fans, Serenity and Star Wars for the Science Fiction fans just to name a few. There’s even a system called GURPS that is open to any game world idea you can come up with.

I miss playing RPG’s, and seeing that Penny Arcade video brought my desires back into full swing.

So I guess the question really is, does anybody want to join in a game?