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DRY RUB
2 tsp. brown sugar
2 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. onion powder
2 tsp. savory or oregano
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 tsp. paprika
2 TBS. sea salt –ground
2 tsp. dry yellow mustard
2 TBS cinnamon
4 TBS chili powder
BASTING SPRAY
1 cup apple cider
2 TBS. olive oil
2 TBS. balsamic vinegar
6 oz. warm beer
1 large shallot - diced
This recipe is loosely based upon a beer butt chicken recipe, and was sent to me from a good friend of mine.
Preparation Time: 30 mins
Time in fridge: 5 hours
Cooking Time: 90 mins to 2 hrs
To cook beer can cornish game hen, you obviously need to start with 2 cornish game hens, roughly two pounds each. Then prepare the rub in a mixing bowl. Once the rub has been prepared, wash the game hens in the rub. Really work the rub under the skin and into every nook of the hen. Put the prepared hens in a bowl or pan, dump the remaining rub on top of the hens and place in the refrigerator. They should really sit in the fridge for 4-6 hours.
As you are waiting for the hens, go find 2 cans of cheap beer. I chose PBR. Consume the beer (this is my favorite part), but not too quickly. You'll understand why later. When you have finished consuming the beer, grab a pair of scissors and cut the tops off the beer cans.
Now in another mixing bowl, prepare the basting mixture. Combine all the ingredients and mix thoroughly. Make sure you use a good dark beer for the basting mixture. Now fill the empty beer cans 3/4ths of the way with the basting mixture. I mistakenly filled them all the way. Save the left over basting mixture, you'll need it later.
Go make sure the grill is turned on. You want it to be hot when you place the birds on it.
Now take the prepared hens out of the fridge and shove the beer cans up the center cavity of the birds. Yes, it looks weird, but the legs will be used as a pedestal. Now here's the important part. Earlier, I should have taken my good ole time to consume the beer. Instead, I waited until the last moment and chugged the two cans of PBR. I had no lunch, and so the beer went straight to my head. This was not good, as I took the birds out to the grill, they fell over on the plate I had. The basting mixture spilled all over the wall and floor. :-)
Place the birds vertically on the grill. DO NOT PLACE ON DIRECT HEAT. The whole point is to slow cook the birds. I placed the birds over the middle burner of my grill, which was off. I had the first and third burners on at medium heat. Now let the birds cook for 30-40 mins on medium heat.
After 40 mins, take your remaining basting mixture out to the grill and baste the hens. Do this every 10 minutes until the hens are finished cooking. After 90 minutes on the grill, my cornish game hens came out perfect. They were so good...
I was in total food coma after eating these birds and I believe it was contagious. Good luck. This is yummy!
We have 6 Christmas presents that are sitting on just the other side of town. UPS won't deliver them due to the weather, so I figured I'd just go pick them up myself. WRONG. I just got off the phone with UPS, which in itself was an ordeal. It's Christmas Eve, so if you try to call UPS via the normal routine, you will get a message that says "Sorry, we are experiencing high call volumes and can not take your call. Please call back later. Good Bye!". Sweet. You have to cheat the system to get through to an actual person. When you call, don't select any menu item, just keep saying the word "agent" till a real person picks up the phone. Took me a while to figure that one out.
Finally, I talked to a real person. He was exceptionally nice, but not at all helpful. I gave him the tracking numbers for each of our presents. 3 were sent via 2nd day air, 3 were sent ground. All have been in Seattle (actually the Redmond distribution center) since Dec 19th. After talking to the man on the phone, he mentioned that none of these items would be delivered today due to the bad weather. I reminded him of a few things. 1) FedEx has been driving up and down my street all day, so what's UPS's issue? 2) These were Christmas gifts for my daughter, who is going to be very disappointed and 3) no worries, I am a very good snow driver, I'll just go pick them up myself. If I didn't pick them up, he told me they would not be delivered until MONDAY - 4 FULL DAYS after Christmas. Great, I guess I'll drive to Redmond. Not a problem for me.
As I gave him each of the tracking numbers, he informed me that unfortunately all of the packages are in a secure holding facility which is inaccessible. What? Are you kidding me? So, here we have all the packages are just sitting there in the same city as me and I can't get them. It gets better, 3 of the packages are now officially marked "missing" and I need to call Amazon to run a trace on them.
Well, we did call Amazon. They told us not to worry that all our money, shipping costs, everything would be refunded. They told us UPS would pay to ship the items back, if and when they do get delivered. They are super nice people at Amazon and super helpful. Anyway, so off to the store Ellen went to repurchase everything.
This is so ridiculous. To make matter's worse, I just saw a UPS truck 3 blocks away from my house, yet they still won't come down our street (which has no hills and is pretty accessible).
UPS you are the new definition of FAIL. Thanks for making our Christmas a pain in the ass.
Ella and Ella's boyfriend, Zachary, having fun, plotting against Frosty.
This is from Zachary's cute little blog, BabyHill.
A great way to start the month.
With the shortened work week, Ellen decided to sleep in a little today. As I saw the sun come up, I knew it was going to be a gorgeous day. Little did I know how gorgeous it would turn out to be. Ella had slept the entire night in her crib without waking up at all. I think she's still pooped from her parties this past weekend. Since both girls were rested and the sun was coming out, I convinced them all that we should head over to Lowman Park to see if Emma's swing set was finished.
As you might remember, Ellen asked the Seattle Parks Foundation if we could donate a swing set in the name of Emma last April. Well, as luck would have it, the swing set was complete, right down to the placard.
You can find more pictures from the swing set on Flickr.
It was so nice to see the twins really playing together for the first time. Emma was there shining as brightly as ever while Ella was laughing as she swung back and forth. It was amazing. I'd be lying if I told you I was able to keep it together while Ella played on her sister's swing set for the first time.
The moment was absolutely perfect. I felt like the sisters were united again. What an incredibly gorgeous day.
As everyone on Earth knows by now, Barack Hussein Obama won the election yesterday. He did more than win a contest, he brought hope to millions of us. I said it before and I'll say it again... he's the JFK of our generation. I am no longer ashamed to tell my international friends that I'm an American. Today, I am very proud to say it.
The city of Seattle has been bursting with anticipation for weeks. Well, last night that anticipation finally took to the streets. The entire city was mobbed with celebration. We also celebrated with friends, but once Ella went to bed I headed out to the streets to join everyone else. At Midnight there were about 2,000 people at my location. That quickly became 3,000 people. I found out later that the crowd grew even bigger after I went home.
To see a crowd in Seattle so happy was exhilarating. To see them so happy about our country was incredible. I shed more than a tear last night. The culmination was seeing every single person sing the Star Spangled Banner in unison. There was real meaning to what we were doing and it was a moment I will never forget. I can't wait to share it all with Ella when gets older.
I took a bunch of pix, which can be found up on my Flickr site.
Other pix:
fenderfour with a great photo of Laura, Geoff and I.
After a lot of work, a bunch of us have come together to release an iPhone app to help us with our wine addiction. Cor.kz (found at http://cor.kz) is an application for your iPhone that provides you with the only mobile front end to the massive CellarTracker wine database. We found ourselves having a hard time using the web front end to CellarTracker, so we decided it was time to build a front end that was native to the iPhone and much more friendly.
Now its only been out there for a few days, and we've already seen it installed by wine enthusiasts in over 20 different countries. If you've been following me on twitter, you probably think I'm an alcoholic because you've seen my tweets about drinking wine. Well, our app enables you to share the information about your favorite wine with friends on twitter, thus as I've been testing the app it appears that I'm drinking 10 bottles a day.
Even if you don't have a CellarTracker account, you can still search the massive database to find the community information about a particular wine. I find this is most useful in a restaurant when I'm trying to determine which wine to buy for dinner. Cor.kz will even show you detailed label information to insure that the waiter brings the right bottle of wine.
Anyway, this app has become a labor of love for us. I've added a few more screenshots to my flickr account. If you have questions, feel free to ping us at support@cor.kz .
I'll be blogging about the whole iPhone dev experience in the next couple days. It has been eye-opening to say the least.
Now I'm off for some more wine....
My grandmother holding my sister and I in 1972. I love the smirk on my sister's face.
As you know from my post last week, I attended my grand mother's memorial service in Boswell, Pennsylvania a couple days ago. It was a rough visit and one of the few I've made to my father's hometown in a long while. I was given the nod to write an eulogy for my grand mother and as promised you can read it here. Unlike the last eulogy I gave, I did not make the same mistake about rehearsing this one. I purposely only read it a couple times prior to giving it so that my emotions could be genuine. I cried and I felt like it really meant something. Whew. Oh, I almost forgot to post the link to Thelma's obituary.
While in Boswell, I got to see a bunch of places that I haven't visited in a long time, such as the house my grandfather built and my dad grew up in. I also had the joy of looking at old photos of my family that I've never seen. Such as this one....
This pic was taken for my grandfather while he was serving in WWII. The back
of the photo reads in her handwriting "at the Art Museum. Hope you like it! -Thelma"
I learned that my grandfather's nickname was "Fat", not because he was fat, but due to him going to the store to order a "Fat Boy" coffee each day. Now I know where I get my coffee craving from. I also learned that my grandfather died on a leap year, which was kinda neat.
The day was sad, but as luck would have it...ok, who am I kidding, it wasn't luck. The sun came out as we made our way to the cemetery. Emma was near. She wanted to be part of the day...Sure enough, a bee buzzed by and I knew it was her. It was a little overwhelming and I had to take a walk after the service to keep myself from breaking down. It was cool to have her by my side when neither Ellen nor Ella could be there.
After the service, I made a quick stop at the Flight 93 Memorial which is only a few miles away. Memories of my close friend who died on 9/11 came back to me.
The next day I flew home to Seattle, and I took a day to basically do nothing. I went out that night to a big party and got home about 4 am. For some reason, I woke up the next day at 8:00. I have no idea how, but I rallied my body to run in the TTTS Race for Hope in Kirkland which started at 9am. It was the easiest 5K I had ever run, but seeing all those families with twins and other surviors of TTTS was draining. I really missed my little girl. Emma woke me up early to make sure I participated in this and to do what I can to help others. After the race, it was so beautiful she and I headed out to the mountains. It was a special drive. Emma led the way as she took me thru all kinds of switchbacks into a magical wonderland of alpine roads. 500+ miles and 9 hours later, I was back home. Exhausted doesn't begin to describe how I felt, but it was worth it.
Again, Emma helped me thru a rough week and I am grateful for it. Thanks Em, I know you will continue to look out for me.
As you may have seen from my Twitter or Facebook updates earlier in the week, my grandmother passed away suddenly a few days ago. She lived a great life to the ripe old age of 90, but her death was sudden due to a freak accident that occurred in Ohio. Well today I flew from Seattle to the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania to say goodbye to her. It's funny, I really miss her, but I don't feel remorse or sadness because I knew she was ready. You could just tell. As Ellen mentioned, the last time she said "goodbye" there was something different. Grandma knew her time was up.
The weirdest thing happened as I met up today with relatives and friends that I've never really known. They all knew me and knew me intimately. It felt like the entire tiny town of Boswell has been hanging on every word from my blog and our recent tragedy with Emma. It was incredibly touching but odd. I don't know these people, but I now feel a strong desire to learn who each and every one of them are and how they have effected my father and my family. Hopefully, I can come back with Ellen and Ella to learn all about them.
Anyway, my beautiful Grandmother will be forever known as the person who woke up at 6am to a smaller version of me, begging to play UNO. She never once said no. She never once said go away. Each and every time she played games with me until I was bored with them. No complaints. She loved her family unconditionally. It has been heart breaking to see her old age tear apart this loving demeanor and bring on depression. She had dealt with some hard times recently and I only hope that I could handle it as gracefully as she did.
As I studied old photos of her today, my sister mentioned something to me that I never really realized. Grandma always dressed well, I knew that...but she was purposeful in her outfits and her photos. Each photo was a pose. Each photo was her special opportunity to show people who she really was. I now had a special appreciation for her that I haven't had in the past. I'll post these photos of her later.
My one regret is that I don't have a record of her stories. The last time I was with her, she discussed a relative who had served in the Civil War. Really? The Civil War from the 1800's? Holy Crap! She was loaded with this amazing family history and now most of it is gone.
Tomorrow I am to give a eulogy for my Grandma Thelma. I have no idea what I will say. I'll post a copy of it up here afterward. Grandma K will be missed for sure, but I'm happy for her. Her pain has ended. I am extremely thankful that Ella met her a few weeks ago. And on Monday she met her other granddaughter, Emma.
I can picture Emma with Grandma now.... and of course Grandma is already teaching my little girl how to play UNO.
This past weekend was Ellen's birthday and as usual, we had to throw a party. Now, we've done the redneck thing, not once but twice and we've all become Canucks for the night, so what were we to do this time... Maybe someone should have told her that it was her 21st birthday, but alas we missed that. So this time she decided to go punk rock with a little princess stuff thrown in for good measure.
We had a smaller party than usual, about 50 folks, but it was great. Ellen baked the crazy cake you see above and even Sasha go into the act by making Sid Vicious-soise. After a night of drinking, I think I ate 5 bowls of that great soup. Of course, we also had Ella dress up in her cute punk rock princess outfit.
It's been a while since we hosted parties and I forgot how much fun it is. I think we'll be doing more of that in the future.
My Flickr pix can be found here: http://flickr.com/photos/nomadicentrepreneur/sets/72157607238170429/
Allison's pix can be found here: http://flickr.com/photos/alison-velvetgarden/sets/72157607237837045/
Jaime's pix (Facebook) can be found here: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=69808&id=542806092
Peter has just sent more photos from our climb up Mt. Rainier. They are included in my set on Flickr, and they begin with this photo. There are some real doozies in there, including this great video from Camp Muir.
...and don't forget Chad has his photos available too.
Wow, that was only just a week ago.
The inaugural climb for Climb For Kids was earlier this week and it was definitely an adventure. The climbers on this first trip included James Goodman, Chad Behling, Peter Wall, Kevin MacDonald and myself. We all were in great shape and had our sites on the summit, but it appeared that mother nature had other plans for us.
As we arrived at the pleasant confines of Paradise at 5460 feet, we noticed a thick cold fog had overcome the entire mountain. The weather had even frozen Kevin's hair. Nevertheless, we spent the first day climbing with our 50 lbs packs up to Camp Muir at 10,080 feet. If you have never been to Camp Muir then you haven't had the pleasure of viewing the South Cascades from above. You really get to see the detail in Mt. St. Helens too. Looking in the other direction at Camp Muir, you can view our route over the Cowlitz Glacier onto Cathedral Gap. The digs at Camp Muir are not all that special, except that we had great guides as our cooks, a hut to sleep in, and an outhouse to relieve ourselves (which is a luxury at altitude, though your nose wouldn't agree).
Day 2 on the mountain was a rest day, where we enable our bodies to acclimatize to the lack of oxygen. Most of us had head aches sleeping the night before and one of us even became nauseous and vomited. Thus, we were happy to be taking it easy. After a lazy breakfast, the guides took us through mountaineering basic training - walking in snow, rope work, self arrest, etc. After lunch, we took advantage of the break in the weather and headed out to high camp at Ingram Flats. Once at camp (pay special attention to the lack of snow around the tents in that last picture), we had the summit talk, ate dinner and went to bed around 4:30 pm. Our plan was to wake up at midnight and start climbing by 1:00 am. Doing simple things at altitude can be difficult, like using the rest room. Since we no longer had the luxuries of Camp Muir, I had to use a bucket with a bag as my outhouse. You end up relieving yourself in front of god and country, but you have a great view that goes along with it. To top it off, you get the joy of carrying your waste off the mountain with you.
A storm starting coming in late on day 2. With it came 60 mph winds that created such a loud racket with our tents flaps that sleeping was impossible. The wind brought snow and snow and snow and snow. I mean it really snowed. You would not be able to tell that it was August by the amount of snow that fell on us. Seriously, we received 2 feet of snow between 10pm and 6am the next morning. Given this storm, a summit attempt was impossible. We all slept in til about 7am when we decided to pack up and head down the mountain. It was still snowing and the wind was howling.
The way down to Paradise was an adventure. First, we left Ingram Flats and had to carefully maneuver our way around the buried crevasses. Then once on top of Cathedral Gap we had to gingerly walk on the snow covered slopes down to the Cowlitz Glacier. Apparently we weren't ginger enough, as one of our rope teams got caught in a slab avalanche. We all just sort of watched them slide away and there was nothing we could do to help. They were lucky enough to stop themselves in time before being pulled off the mountain, however it was pretty scary. Once at Muir, we quickly ate some lunch and headed down to Paradise. The snow from Paradise to Muir had hardened over the last day turning the entire snowfield into an ice rink. There was a thick layer of ice covering the snow, and JJ, our guide who has led over 300 attempts up Rainier commented that he had never seen the snowfield in this condition.
We all got back down the mountain safely, and unfortunately did not reach the summit. However, we certainly had an adventure and raised $35,000 doing it. All the climbers commented that it was so much fun that they couldn't wait to try again next year. You should join us!
The rest of my pictures can found up on Flickr. I'll be linking to other team members' photos as they come in.
Thanks to everyone who made this possible. Your donations really made a difference.
Those of you who receive the news letter for Climb For Kids, already received this message, but I am posting it here again for those who might have missed it. I may try to send out updates via twitter, but coverage on the mountain is very spotty. Wish us all luck!
-----------
Friends,
The Climb For Kids 2008 Mt. Rainier Climb is upon us. Chad Behling,
Kevin MacDonald, Peter Wall, James Goodman and myself are all about to
head to the mountain to try our hands at reaching the summit. We are
all very confident and nervous about the climb, but with you all in our
corner I am sure we will perform well. The team is ready and strong.
The journey for all of us started just a few months ago and has reached
its apex today, with approximately $32,000 raised so far. This is an
amazing accomplishment and could not have been achieved without your
help. The money we have raised will be going to our good friends at
Fetal Hope (http://www.fetalhope.org) who will be able to divvy the
money to those in need. Special thanks goes out to the two very
generous corporate sponsors who have helped us as well.
As you know, my family has felt the effects of TTTS and what it can do.
I will be on a personal journey these next three days, as I dedicate
this climb to the memory of my daughter Emma. Whether or not we reach
the summit, I will be thinking of her, knowing that we are doing all
that we can to help prevent future tragedies.
Take care and thank you. You are all very special people. I will update
the website and will send out a trip report once we return from the
mountain. Wish us luck.
-Matt Kowalczyk
Executive Director
Climb For Kids
It's been a while since I blogged. Sheesh have I been busy and on top of that my Tablet PC died. It had a good run for 4 years, so it was about time I replaced it. Yes, the rumors are true, I did buy a Mac to replace it, but I'll save that story for another post.
Next week, Monday thru Wednesday, 4 other climbers and myself will be attempting to climb Mt. Rainier to raise money for my new non-profit group, Climb For Kids. We are all in great shape and anxious to go. Today we have released a joint press release with our beneficiary, Fetal Hope. The press release is below... I'll update you all tomorrow to see if any one picks up the release.
A copy of the release can be found on Fetal Hope's site too.
CLIMB FOR KIDS CONQUERS MT. RAINIER IN HOPES OF CONQERING FETAL SYNDROMES:
FAMILY BATTLED RARE FETAL SYNDROME, NOW TURNS THEIR PASSION OF CLIMBING TO EFFORTS OF RAISING MONEY AND AWARENESS
SEATTLE, WA – It takes a lot of courage and physical ability to take on a mountain climb to the top of peeks such as Mt. Rainier, but for one man and his crew, it started with a passion for life and those lost. On Monday, August 25, 2008, Climb for Kids will make its inaugural climb up Mt. Rainier in efforts to raise awareness of and fund research for fetal syndromes such as Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS).
Matt and Ellen Kowalczyk know all too well what it is like to experience the joy of being pregnant with twins, but unfortunately, have also shared the ups and downs of experiencing a lesser known about fetal syndrome called TTTS. At 15 weeks into their pregnancy, the Kowalczyk’s twins were experiencing discordant blood and nutrient flow through shared vessels across the placenta that causes one baby to receive too much, while the other receives too little. Most research shows that the disease is approximately 90% fatal if undiagnosed or untreated.
“I realize how incredibly fortunate our situation was [with] the doctors, the facilities, the successful surgeries and, most of all, the amazing amount of support provided by our family and friends. On top of all that, we were fortunate enough to have the best medical insurance in the world. Ellen and I have read horror stories of doctors not properly treating TTTS and incorrectly advising mothers to terminate a pregnancy. On top of that, a lot of medical insurance won't cover the costs,” said Kowalczyk, Founder and Director of Climb for Kids.
After a minimally invasive in-utero surgical procedure that would laser the shared vessels closed, at 29 weeks gestation, the Kowalczyk’s twins, Ella and Emma were born. Upon celebrating their miracles, the Kowalczyk’s created Climb for Kids as a way to increase awareness of TTTS and to give back to organizations that fight it and other fetal distresses. However, their celebration of defeating TTTS was short-lived, as the Kowalczyk’s experienced the tragedy of losing Emma at 4 months old to an infection caused by surgery to repair a hole in her heart.
“[Emma] gave us a great many gifts. Some are harder to realize than others. She was the poster child for perseverance and strength. Her lessons need to be passed on as far and as wide as possible,” said Kowalczyk.
After a very emotional few months, Kowalczyk is now focusing his attention on promoting and building the Climb for Kids organization and will join five other climbers in attempting to reach Mt. Rainier’s summit on Monday, August 25th. Together the team has raised nearly $32,000 for fetal support and research. This year’s sole beneficiary is the Fetal Hope Foundation of Denver, Colorado whose mission is to provide support, provide information, fund research, increase awareness and be an outlet for leading medical information pertaining to fetal distresses and syndromes.
“We are honored and grateful to be the beneficiary of this event. My hopes is for us to further partner on fundraising efforts and mutual support in our missions that allows us to more effectively strive towards helping those in need, in education for both families affected and health professionals,” said Lonnie Somers, CEO and Founder of the Fetal Hope Foundation.
Kowalczyk’s vision for Climb for Kids is to host 4 climbs throughout the United States with over 30 climbers pledging to fundraise $5,000 each. Including sponsorships, this amount would surpass his organization’s fundraising goal of $100,000 per year.
“We first learned of Climb for Kids through our relationship with Evergreen Hospital, our Seattle TTTS RFH title sponsor and facility where Matt and his wife were treated. Our organizations share the same mission and with their generous support and friendship, we will make a major impact in changing the course of fetal distress and syndromes, much the same way that Susan G. Komen has done for breast cancer,” said Lonnie Somers.
For more information on Climb for Kids or the Mt. Rainier climb on Monday, please visit www.climbforkids.org.