Kitchen Aid Artisan Mixer

Growing up I did a lot of cooking with my Mom and then later on my own. For most of my life my Mom owned a Kitchen Aid stand mixer. It was fabulous! Anyone who has used one knows what I mean. They work and they work well.

When I went out on my own I was moving around too much to buy a big and heavy (and EXPENSIVE) mixer I thought so I just made due with a hand mixer (also from Kitchen Aid—only after trying other cheaper brands and finding out they were CRAP.) However if you grew up with a Kitchen Aid stand mixer it is IMPOSSIBLE to go back to a hand mixer only and be happy. I found that I hated using my hand mixer so much I often didn’t bake because I didn’t like using it.

Recently after going on a passionate rant to Kevin’s Mom about the virtues of the Kitchen Aid stand mixer and Kitchen Aid the company (their claim about “Hassle free” replacement warrantee is totally true—I had a problem with my original Kitchen Aid hand mixer mentioned above and they replaced it with little effort on my part and I got to choose the color of the replacement too.) I convinced her to buy one for herself. But I also rekindled my intense desire for one of my own.

Luckily last weekend they went on a good sale on the Herberger’s website and I bought one! I went into the store, where they were not on sale (I didn’t know that) but the guy in house wares didn’t bat an eye when I asked if they would match the price from the web in store. So I am now the proud owner of a metallic silver (looks like an Airstream trailer!!) Kitchen Aid Artisan stand mixer.

I’m going to a party this weekend and I’m going to use the mixer for the first time to bake something for the event. Plus next week I have to make a bunch of pies for Thanksgiving at my family’s house.

The Mixer Era of my life has begun!!

Juut Salon Roseville

I had a coupon for the Juut Salons and I decided that I would go and get my hair cut there. I normally go to the Aveda Institute for hair cuts where, including my student discount, the cuts cost $11.25...so to go to a place like Juut where the cuts cost substantially more than $11.25 was a little frightening to me. I wouldn't have even gone if I didn't have that coupon, but I’m glad that I did.

I went to the Roseville location which is right across from Rosedale Center (for those of you in/from the Twin Cities) and saw "Master Stylist" Faye S. She was great and really listened to what I wanted before cutting. She then described in detail what she was planning to do before going to shampoo my hair to make sure that it sounded ok. After she was finished cutting and was styling my hair she made sure to explain how she was doing it and what tools she was using and why. I still can't make it look quite as good as she did, but her tips were helpful. I think the hair cut turned out GREAT. I really don't have to do much to it at all and it looks good--this was about two weeks ago so I've had time to "deal with it". That's the kind of haircut that I like!

Plus as a "thank you" for new customers I got a coupon in the mail from Juut for a free bottle of Aveda shampoo with my next visit which I thought was a nice touch. If you're an aveda pure privilege program member you can use your rewards gift certificates at Juut Salons, so I'll be going back in a few months with my reward certificate...because the price still gets me a little!

But the bottom line is that I would recommend Juut Roseville and Faye S. to anyone looking for a good, fast and quality haircut that really is a good value for the money.

(Just in case you were wondering, I don't think Juut has a referral program so I'm not "getting" anything by recommending Faye.)

Turning into my Advisor...

I'm not sure how many times over the years I've come out of a meeting with my advisor or a lab meeting thinking, "Man, he has some wild theories about stuff."

After some thinking in about the general topic that I work on, experiments that I did and work that I've read in the literature I came up with a wild theory of my own. If my hypothesis were true (and I really hope that some of the junior grad students working on this topic in my lab will do some of the experiments that I have in mind to test this idea) it would be a semi-major paradigm shift in Enterococcus biofilms. But before you all get your hopes up I need to remind you that at the moment it is still just a wild idea.

BUT

Where this gets a little funny is that this morning I shared my crazy idea with my mentor just to see what he thought...and so that hopefully someone will pursue those experiments once I leave. After I was finished he said, "I've been thinking about a scenario a lot like that."

So apparently I've become a lot like my advisor...right down to independently coming up with the same crazy theories about stuff. I guess it really is time to graduate!

Suit up!

Barney Stinson, my favorite character on the TV show, "How I met your mother" is always encouraging his friends to "Suit Up!"...which is something I have NEVER done before. So I was pretty happy to finally have the opportunity to use that phrase early Monday morning before leaving for my interview.

The interview went well. I have no idea if it was in part because of my fantastic suit or not. But I had Kevin take a few quick pictures before I ran out the door because I knew that at the very least my Mom would be interested to know what I look like when I suit up.

I was lucky!

As an update to the new tire post I found out that the "slow leak" I had assumed was from corrosion of my aluminum rims was actually caused by a 4 inch nail in that tire. We were all shocked that the tire had never gone completly flat and that it had lost air so slowly over such a long period of time. I'm just really lucky that it never went flat while I was driving somewhere! Thankfully the old tires and the nail are now long gone and hopefully I won't run over another nail anytime soon. I'm sure I wouldn't be that lucky twice.

New Tires

It's time to buy new tires for my car (2004 Mazda 3). It's both good and bad. Bad obviously because tires are expensive! But good because the tires that came with my car are horrible in the snow...and since I drive around MN and WI a lot that's a problem. Kevin did a bunch of research on tires for me and found me the best tire for my needs at the best price. I'm so glad that he helped, I normally love online shopping but the idea of trying to compare tires just didn't sound interesting, plus I was pretty busy putting together an interview talk. This weekend I'm going to go to Sam's Club to purchase the tires and have them put on. The other nice thing is the Sam's guys said that they would grind down my rim and add a sealant on the one tire that has had a slow leak for the past year. By Saturday afternoon I should be ready for whatever winter in the Midwest is going to throw at me.

Why I love Aaron Rodgers:

That boy can take a hit or 50 (and since he's younger than me I can call him "boy"). The Packers offensive line was missing a big piece (literally and figuratively) of their offensive line with Chad Clifton out with an injury. His replacements (yes, that's plural because his original replacement got injured too) were no match for the D-line and Jared Allen of the Vikings. Aaron Rodgers isn't going to be able to play when he's 39 if he keeps getting beat up like he did tonight.

Still despite the loss it was nice that the Packers kept Adrien Peterson from being a factor in the game. It was also nice to see Aaron Rodgers step up and make some great throws despite getting no protection. That takes what the Spanish speakers would call, cajones.

At any rate it was still a loss and that stung. However unlike some teams fans that I know of that have to get extensions from the NFL to sell out their PLAYOFF games Packer fans are loyal. We know how to support our team through the high times and the low times. And that my friends is why I will still wear my Cheese head with pride next week, as will the rest of the Packers' faithful.


Oh and again, even though it stings, Congrats to Favre for now having won against every team in the NFL. That's kind of crazy.

Better Luck Next Year...

Better luck next year Gophers. ON WISCONSIN! (Photo from the UW Football Website)