Jaminfrog

As you may know, I consider myself quite the connoisseur of french fries. As such, I thought that this easy recipe that Chel and I enjoyed on Valentine’s Day was worth sharing.

Gourmet waffle fries
Serves: 2
2 large orders of Chick-Fil-A waffle fries
1 container of Gorgonzola cheese
Chives
3-4 sides of Chick-Fil-A ranch sauce (served on the side)

Stop at Central Market to purchase Gorgonzola cheese and chives. Circle the parking lot for five to ten minutes, looking for a place to park. Fight through the Valentine’s Day crowds, who have made similar plans to buy their own ingredients and make romantic dinners at home instead of going out to expensive restaurants. Spend two hours in Central Market looking for various other items unrelated to this recipe.

Go through the Chick-Fil-A drive through and order the 2 large waffle fries. Ignore them when they offer to sell you anything else. Be sure to ask for 3-4 sides of their ranch sauce. Do not eat all the fries between Chick-Fil-A and your house.

Go home and find a cookie sheet. Heat the oven to 350. Place the Chick-Fil-A fries on the cookie sheet and liberally sprinkle Gorgonzola on top. Chop chives if necessary, then sprinkle chives on top. Put it in the oven until it looks melty.

Serve with other desired dishes and your choice of beer or wine. Do not watch “Tropic Thunder” with Ben Stiller, instead choosing something more romantic like “Pride and Prejudice.”

Have a happy Valentine’s Day, like we did.

2009 just may be the year that I get in better shape. So far I’ve lost 10 pounds, thanks partially to two of my favorite gadgets — the iPhone and the Nintendo Wii.

On January 2, I began my fitness quest with a little iPhone application called Lose It. It helps me record the number of calories I eat each day and track weight loss (or gain). I can now see why years of eating Jack in the Box for breakfast (meaty breakfast burrito plus coke at 700 calories), Chick-Fil-A for lunch (sandwich, fries and coke for about 1100 calories) and Wendy’s for dinner (burger, fries and coke for another 1000) resulted in my packing on a few extra pounds.

Thanks to calorie counting, my weight chart is like the stock market in our bad economy — sure, it has days when it gains a few points, but the general trend is down, down, down.

A few weeks back Chel decided that the Nintendo Wii would be her early Valentine / birthday gift. She definitely wanted to play the old-school Mario Brothers games, but it was really more of a gift for me than for her. It’s been a lot of fun; we even took it to the farm and Mom and Dad got into the bowling, baseball and tennis.

It was all fun and games until last week, when the Wii Fit started calling me fat and inflated the midsection of my little character. The “balance board” it comes with is a scale that also measures your center of balance. Based on your height, weight and center of balance, it determines your Wii Fit age. My age has ranged from 34 (not too far off!) to 56 depending on the day.

The activities in Wii Fit have actually been pretty fun. You can do yoga (I now know the tree pose and sun salutation), “strength” training isometric exercises, aerobic activities like step aerobics, and balance games like slalom skiing. It’s definitely not a game, and it’s probably not a super-intense workout, but for a couch-slash-desk potato like myself, it’s been a good way to work a little activity into my life every morning. And it’s been fun enough that I’ve done it every day this week, unlike past attempts at exercise when I give up after a couple of times.

I guess I just want to see my poor little Wii Fit character lose his puffed-up midsection. And in the process, perhaps I will lose the real thing, as well.

Standing in the crowd of thousands at the Dallas New Year’s Eve celebration in Victory Park, I learned an important lesson about perspective.

(I also discovered that I don’t think I ever want to go to Times Square for New Year’s, but that’s another story.)

We were really looking forward to going downtown to ring in 2009. We headed there with the promise of live music, meeting up with some friends and perhaps finding Chel a chocolate martini at one of the bars down there.

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So I’m sitting here at the food court in NorthPark mall, wondering if the thousands of people jammed into the aisles and stores have heard that we’re in a recession.

It sure doesn’t seem like it. My favorite store (the Apple store, of course) was jam-packed with laptop buyers and iPhone shoppers, so much so that I gave up on my usual MacBook ogling and retired to the food court. And Chel reports that all the good dresses at Forever 21 have been picked over, leaving only size Extra-Smalls to choose from for her New Year’s attire.

Maybe this is a good sign for the economy and the country. I sure hope so. Regardless, I think I’ll just keep it parked here at the food court and stay out of everybody’s way.

I’ve been meaning to tell you a few stories, dear Blog. So here’s a quick one.

I’ve run the gamut on recent Halloweens, from a famous cow to an everyday pimp. This year, I dressed as one of the most beloved literary characters of our time.

Yes, indeed — I was Waldo.

The elements of the Waldo costume are pretty simple. Glasses? Check! Jeans? Check! A cane? Check! Red beanie? Check!

Red and white striped shirt? Not so much. I was surprised by how impossible it was to locate Waldo’s signature attire at a friendly neighborhood department store. Apparently striped polos are not in style in the year 2-thousands. So we resorted to a plain red shirt and some carefully-aligned white duct tape. Voila! Red and white striped shirt.

Our destination this year was again Cedar Springs, and Waldo was the perfect costume to wear in a large crowd. People kept finding me all night!

They also recognized Chel dressed as Tinkerbell, complete with fairy wings and a wand. (There was no way I was going to do a “couples costume” and dress as Peter Pan. Absolutely no way.)

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve written, dear Blog. But do keep looking for me — I promise you’ll find me here again. Much like Waldo.