Grilling Improvisation

Jason here. It's been too long since I've done our blogging...

Well, it seems that they've closed the pool areas here. We had planned on grilling today, but no pool = no grill or at least no nice grilling and sitting area. Thus, we moved back to our apartment and were rewarded with the option of enjoying alternative beverages, that is, beer. Steak and beer are a marvelous combination. It's a wonderful way to spend dinner Saturday evening, or any evening for that matter. Chantal made a wonderful cheese sauce. She was excited that it didn't clump. It was delicious. (See below left.)

The next picture (below right) shows the latest beer I'm trying. I tried to go with the artistic shot here, I call it "Beer upfront, steak in the back." Maybe I can convince Chantal to do a meat-and-brew themed series in charcoal...

The beer is called Skinny Dip and comes from one of my favorite breweries in the world: New Belgium Brewery. It's a lighter beer with plenty of hops and a hint of lime. If you get some, do follow the on-bottle directions suggesting you drink it at slightly above refrigerator temperatures (45 deg. F). It's not as good as their Abbey though. Yum!

Chantal's dishing up the cheese sauce below. Thanks for teaching her how to make that ma! Anyway, enough about food. It was a good meal.

I've been trying to work on my thesis recently in my "spare time." You can see my first draft below along with some editing marks. (I'm hiding the bleeding red and blue pages.) It's going well. I'm actually decently enthused about working on it now. I think having a printout helps.

I don't think it will be long and it'll be done, so if you still are wanting to get your name in the acknowledgments section, there's still time. Drop me a line and I can hook you up!


Work has been going well. I'm going to miss it when I'm gone. I am excited about getting back to Illinois though. We miss our friends, our own place and familiar things. We're both really excited about going camping in a couple weeks though. It seems like it's been forever since we've been camping.

For those of you who have been wondering, we'll be back in Urbana on the weekend of August 18th, probably Sunday.