family

Just want to wish everyone here a very Merry Christmas and prosperous New Year. We'll be celebrating with an Italian traditional Feast of the Seven Fishes. I grew up on this tradition at home and about 5 or 6 years ago, we decided to carry it on down here in Georgia. We're expecting 21 folks on the 24th this year and every year we have old friends, family and new folks joining us for the first time. It's a wonderful evening of food and good cheer. Here's the menu for this year, and yes I pretty much make everything from scratch.

1 Shrimp Cocktail. Served at the table

2 Baked Clams on the Half Shell. Served at the table

3 Bruschetta. Served at the table.

4 Pasta with Fish Sauce

5 Clams

6 Mussels

7 Fish (Flounder / Sole / Catfish / Perch)

8 Shrimp

9 Calamari tentacles

10 Wally's Steamed Lobster Tails

11 Randall's Ordinary Scallops

12 Fried Calamari

13 Fried Flounder

14 Grilled Tuna with Pesto Sauce

15 Pasta with Marinara Sauce

16 Escarole with Pine Nuts

17 Breaded Cauliflower

18 Spicy Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms

19 Cippolinis & Potatoes

20 Italian Meat and Cheese platters. Mix of Italian meats, hard Italian cheese and Prosciutto & Mozzarella slices. Served at the table.

21 Roasted Red Peppers with Fresh Mozzarella & Basil Served at the table

22 Stuffed Hot Cherry Peppers Served at the table

23 Olive Salad Served at the table

24 Coffee

26 Almond Biscotti brushed with Chocolate

27 Struffoli

28 Tortoni

29 Frittelle Ricotta, Uvetta E Cioccolato

30 Assorted traditional Biscardi family cookies.

Now my family did not make quite so many things, but then we didn't have any vegetarians to cook for! My wife is a vegetarian so I added more vegetable and non-fish items to the menu and it just keeps growing.

Each year we change out a few things, like the Grilled Tuna with Pesto and the Escarole with Pine nuts are new this year. The ricotta fritters are also something new and I'll be frying those up at the last minute right before we serve dessert. That will be something new!

My dad got me a set of Shun knives for Christmas and they are making my life so much easier in the kitchen! If you've never had a good, and I mean GOOD, set of knives you have no idea what you're missing. These are the same knives Alton Brown uses on Good Eats and they are the sharpest, and have the best fitting handles of any knife I've ever held.

This year I'm also handing out a recipe book to everyone who attends along with some history of the meal. Someone suggested this a while back and I finally remembered to do it this year. If any of you would like any or all of the recipes we use for the meal, just let me know, I love sharing our family traditions.

From our family to your family, Happy Happy Holidays!!! And if you're interested, here's some history on the Feast of the Seven Fishes

Southern Italians around the world celebrate Christmas Eve with a Feast of the Seven Fishes, also known as La Vigilia (Italian: "the vigil"). It is a meal that typically consists of seven different seafood dishes. Some Italian families have been known to celebrate with 9, 11 or 13 different seafood dishes. This celebration is a commemoration of the wait, Vigilia di Natale, for the midnight birth of the baby Jesus.

The tradition of eating seafood on Christmas Eve dates from the medieval Catholic tradition of abstinence--in this case, refraining from the consumption of meat or milk products--on Fridays and specific holy days. As no meat or butter could be used, observant Catholics would instead eat fish, typically fried in oil.

There are many hypotheses for what the number "7" relates to, one being the number of Sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church. Another theory is that seven is a number representing perfection: the traditional Biblical number for divinity is three, and for Earth is four, and the combination of these numbers, seven, represents God on Earth, or Jesus Christ.

For the first time... in my entire life really... I can hear like most normal folks. 

All through life I've had a pretty significant hearing loss due to essentially dying when I was born. The cord wrapped around my neck as I was being delivered, thus I was a blue baby when I came out. My ears turned out fine, but the nerves that carry the sound to the brain were damaged. I essentially have a 40% hearing loss, especially on the low end of sound range.

Well, thanks to the constant persistence of my lovely wife, yesterday I became the proud owner of two brand new digital hearing aids. I feel like i'm starting my life all over again! I cannot believe not only how much I was missing, but just how amazing digital hearing aid technology is today.

What's incredible about these things is they no longer have a volume control. They auto compress loud sounds and turn up in quiet settings. So instead of just everything around me getting 50% louder, only the immediate area around me is raised up while everything else is normal. And anything that's loud is just reduced to normal level.  They're just like some of those really expensive microphones we all see in the magazines.

So if any of you have a hearing loss, or know someone who has one and they're resisting hearing aids, encourage them to get a test. These things are just awesome and very comfortable. 

Oh and if you want to save some money, I got mine at Costco believe it or not!

Folks I'm a big dog lover and the happy new father of a 4 month old Labrador mix named Molly. We found her through a local Lab Rescue society called the Labrador Friends of the South. These folks rescue labs from local shelters where death is their next option.

Now today I found this incredible website that seeks to save animals of all breeds from local shelters across the nation.

http://www.dogsindanger.com/

The site's only purpose is to expose dogs who are about to be euthanized to see if anyone out there can adopt them before they are put down. It's a great idea and if anyone out there is looking for a dog or knows someone who is looking for a dog, certainly go to your local shelters first and also look at this site to see if there's someone perfect for you.

Our little Molly has been a welcome joy to our lives after losing our other two "children" last year. A greyhound mix named Niki and a Chocolate Lab named Baxter. And just this past week we lost our oldest, a cat named Peabody who was 15. Maybe the rest of us can help other dogs find a happy life too.

Oh and for you folks in the Atlanta area, here's the Labrador Friends website too!

http://www.labradorfriends.com/

Man, I'm soooooo cute! 

For those last minute holiday shoppers, GameStop in introducing an idea that is long overdue. On Dec. 20 and 21 they will issue rain checks for the Nintendo Wii at the standard console price of $250. This will guarantee the holder a console no later than January 29th.

With the difficulty in finding these units at normal times, let alone the holidays, I'm not sure why they didn't come up with this idea sooner. We have one and I have to say it's the most fun gaming console on the market today.

So if you're looking for one for the holidays, it may not be under the tree, but at least your family will know it's on the way. And you don't have to purchase a $650 "bundle" from any other online retailers.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22261557/

So MSNBC.com has a story about Comcast pulling the accounts of internet users who "hog too much bandwith." Wait a minute. How many of you have seen those ads on TV or in your magazines / newspapers?

Cable offers you Unlimited Access. High Speed. Downloads 50% faster than dial-up. And so on.

But now if you actually try to use too much of these services, you might get cut off. Comcast says they're trying to make sure everyone can access the internet properly. Well, then either improve your bandwith capabilities or make it VERY CLEAR what you are and are not allowed to do each month on the internet.

"Unlimited Access" apparently doesn't truly mean "unlimited." If there are going to be restrictions on internet access, then they need to be very clear about this. Don't advertise that you have the 'fastest connection available for unlimited downloads' and such if you're not going to support that.

What's going to happen when folks really start downloading feature films for products such as Apple TV? Two movies and your account is suspended? Maybe community-wide Wi-Fi is going to be a better answer to the Cable companies? Would be interesting to see how that develops.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20633771/ 

Now here's a guy with a serious love of All Things Apple!

Over 100 Apple computers from the classics to today in his basement!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/08/08/mac-collector.ap/index.html

I was really looking forward to seeing the new Harry Potter film in IMAX next week and even the fact that they had digitally enhanced it into 3D wasn't all that disappointing. Until I read an article about how once again, as they did in Superman Returns, only approx. 20 minutes of the film is actually in 3D. The finale.

So I'm going to skip the IMAX presentation because quite honestly, putting on 3D glasses at the end of a film (on cue) will simply break the experience for me. Either make a film in 3D or don't. I'm not going to justify a $12 - 15 IMAX 3D ticket when only 10% of the film is actually IN 3D.

Very disappointing for me when IMAX pulls a stunt like this. We've seen about 8 films in IMAX now with Batman Returns, Harry Potter and several Disney films just being flat out amazing on that screen with the sound system. The films are just so amazing in regular IMAX presentation they really don't need to junk up the show with a gimmick.

So I'll be the first to admit, I'm not a fan of the Blackberry. Really don't need that thing strapped to my waist at all times so I can answer an email at a moment's notice. Don't want to deal with that little tiny keyboard and besides, better than half the emails I recieve require some sort of document to be sent back to the recipient, which resides on my laptop.

My wife convinced me to take some needed time off and we traveled to the Pittsburgh area for a great visit with her grandparents. They live in a small, very rural town outside the city and have absolutely no internet connectivity. Connection to the internet and email is critical to my business success and even being away, I had to be able to connect with the office, vendors and clients.

Now in researching wireless broadband for my spiffy MacBook Pro laptop, I quickly learned that almost nobody supports the Mac platform with the express 34 cards. Sure the cards were out there, but no carrier was accepting it. Least of all the company I've used since 1999, Cingular / AT&T.

Enter Sprint and the Novatel Wireless Merlin EX720. In my research, Sprint is the only major carrier (actually the ONLY carrier I found) supporting the Mac OS platform and I have to say it performs brilliantly. Download speeds are in the neighborhood of 1.5mbps which is about half of my current cable modem speed at the office. But for email, it's plenty fast enough and even the internet surfing is just fine with this card.

But there is a major catch with this card. Even the Sprint Technical Advisor laughed at this one when we found out. The card must be activated in a Windows PC. So you don't want to purchase this card online via the Sprint store if you don't have access to a Windows laptop with an Express 34 slot. I purchased the card and the internet plan through a local Sprint Nextel dealer and she used her own personal Windows laptop to activate the card for me. The Technical Advisor said to give it some time and we should be able to activate the cards directly in the Mac in the near future.

Other than that little glitch, I have to say I've been extremely pleased with the connectivity of the device. I simply click on the Modem icon next to my Airport icon and say "Connect". It's that easy. I have found that if I'm connected for longer than 30 minutes it can sometimes lose the signal, but I simply disconnect / reconnect and keep going. A minor annoyance for connectivity pretty much anywhere I want it. Heck we stopped at a Wendy's in the middle of nowhere Virginia and were able to check emails no problem. From what I saw on the Sprint coverage map, the Data coverage area is much larger than the voice coverage area.

If you have an older G4 PowerBook with a PCMIA slot, Sprint has you covered there too with the Merlin S720.

So now I have the connectivity I desire, without a Blackberry hanging on my waist, and I have total control of when I retrieve my messages along with my entire hard drive full of documents, graphics and even movie clips. Can't recommend this service enough if you're in need of internet connectivity pretty much anywhere with your Mac laptop. In fact, this entire blog was written while connected to Sprint.

Here's a link to download a PDF on how simple it is to install the Novatel software.

http://www4.sprint.com/pcsbusiness/support/downloads/index.jsp

Simply select Mac OS in the drop down box. 

Very interesting article posted on CNN.com that iPods can potentially interfere with pacemaker monitoring equipment when placed too close to the chest. In some instances as far away as 18 inches. As the article notes, most people with pacemakers are not the iPod listening audience, but still a very interesting development here. As the study notes, only iPods were tested to date and it will be interesting to see if they get around to testing other audio and small electronic devices.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/05/10/heart.ipods.reut/index.html

At long last, my Creative Genius will be unleased on national television. I will be appearing as the Negative Guy in a scene to be shot Friday, March 8, 2007 for an uncoming episode of Good Eats on the Food Network. The scene will actually be a family affair as my mother-in-law, father-in-law and brother-in-law are all in the scene with me along with my current edit assistant, Aaron.

It should be a lot of fun and hopefully I'll have some photos to post in the next few days. Can't tell you the episode details yet, but as soon as I'm permitted, I'll fill you all in!