ben.parmeter

Ok, so I know that you don’t like sappy Hallmark cards, nor do you like any cards at all. They’re expensive and usually quite wasteful. Let’s compromise, and instead I’ll write down my sentiments here – all oohey gooey and extra syrupy for the internet to see. To my wife, here it is, 101 reasons why I love you:

1. I love your persistence.

2. I love the way I know you’ll never give up on me.

3. I love the fact that I wouldn’t ever give up on you.

4. I love the way you look at me.

5. I love how beautiful your eyes are.

6. I love the way I can’t imagine a day without you in my life.

7. I love the way if we were ever separated I wouldn’t know how to go on.

8. I love the way we cuddle.

9. I love the way we finish each other’s sentences.

10. I love how I know you’ll always be there when I need you to be.

11. I love the fact that I will always be there for you too.

12. I love how when I dream of my life partner, the only person that I can see is you.

13. I love how complete I feel when I am with you.

14. I love how we just fit together.

15. I love the way you make me laugh.

16. I love the way you laugh.

17. I love the way you won’t compromise yourself when we are together.

18. I love the way you won’t let me compromise myself.

19. I love your thoughtfulness.

20. I love your tenderness.

21. I love your ability to speak without saying a single word.

22. I love the way we glance at each other across the room and know what each other is thinking.

23. I love the way, how even though we may be miles apart I still feel like you’re right here with me.

24. I love the way you surprise me with the perfect gifts that show you pay attention to me.

25. I love that you enjoy video games as much as the boys do.

26. I love the way you are with my friends.

27. I love your love for the things that interest me.

28. I love the way you let me live my life freely without jealousy.

29. I love how you demand respect but are not controlling.

30. I love how I would do anything in this world to make you happy.

31. I love how you would do anything in this world to make me happy.

32. I love the way your voice sounds over the phone.

33. I love the way your voice sounds when you whisper sweet nothings in my ear.

34. I love breakfast with you in the morning.

35. I love your sensuality.

36. I love how our romance feels like it’s uniquely ours.

37. I love how you are my soul mate.

38. I love the way you handle troubled times.

39. I love the way you respect me.

40. I love the way you protect and defend me.

41. I love how you feel when we cuddle.

42. I love the softness of your lips against mine.

43. I love when you let me eat those unhealthy things, and share them with me.

44. I love when you don’t let me eat those unhealthy things and make me share a salad with you.

45. I love laying in bed at night talking about nothing. (believe it or not)

46. I love waking up to find we’ve been cuddling together.

47. I love the surprises you leave for me.

48. I love your intelligence.

49. I love your ingenuity.

50. I love your ability to make friends where ever we go.

51. I love your phone phobia.

52. I love your passion your career.

53. I love how every time I look at you, you take my breath away.

54. I love how I thank Norlock everyday for bringing someone as wonderful as you into my life.

55. I love that we share our food.

56. I love the special moments that we shared that will remain my fondest memories of you and I.

57. I love spending the holidays with the one person I love the most.

58. I love how my heart skips a beat whenever you walk into the room.

59. I love how you love me.

60. I love how I love you.

61. I love the ways you choose to show your affection for me.

62. I love the way you inspire me to be more than I am.

63. I love the way you spark my creativity and imagination.

64. I love the way you make me feel like anything is possible as long as I’m with you.

65. I love your sense of humor.

66. I love the way you make me feel like royalty.

67. I love the way you dress.

68. I love your understated elegance.

69. I love you just the way you are.

70. I love your spontaneity.

71. I love our life together.

72. I love how if I died right now I would be the happiest person alive knowing I found my one true love.

73. I love the fact that we will grow old together.

74. I love your way with words.

75. I love the way you look when your sleeping. (even if it creeps you out)

76. I love the way you think you look awful when you first wake up when it is actually then I find you the most beautiful.

77. I love your willingness to share everything and most especially your heart with me.

78. I love your strength of character.

79. I love taking walks together

80. I love the way you leave me love notes in my luggage when I go on business trips.

81. I love the way you treat me.

82. I love the way you take care of us.

83. I love your cooking.

84. I love the way you take the time to thank me for doing every day things.

85. I love the way you show your affection when we are around friends and/or family.

86. I love the way you are not scared to show your affection when we are in public.

87. I love your confidence.

88. I love your ability to make me feel better when times are tough.

89. I love the way we make up after a fight.

90. I love that you love gadgets.

91. I love the way you support me when I’m off track.

92. I love the way you take the time to show me how much you love me.

93. I love your amazing hair.

94. I love your amazing body.

95. I love your openness to try new things.

96. I love your ability to talk things through.

97. I love your courage to be you.

98. I love your greatness.

99. I love the fact that you want to be with me and only me.

100. I love how I am and feel when I am with you!

101. I love you for you!

In the interest of full disclosure, I did get help from the internet for this list. But it doesn’t make it any less true!

A short post today as I return from a week long vacation with the parents from up north. While it was great to see the family and friends, a week away from our bed and comforts of home have made us travel weary and happy to be back.

I didn’t want the holidays to pass without wishing the internet well and ushering in the new year. It’s likely I’ll be quite busy in the next year and won’t have as much time to put together any lengthy posts. However, I’m excited about what this year will have to offer for me, my family, and my friends. (and of course my internet friends)

Happy Holidays Internet! And Happy New Year!

The day is finally here! Suzy and I are not-so-frantically cooking and cleaning. We’re getting the place ready for family to arrive. The house already smells of baked thanksgiving goodness. It’s going to be a good day. I hope all you internet peoples are having a great Thanksgiving too. Even those that are in different countries… yup, everyone. Here’s to a full belly and a warm house. Love ya’ll – Happy Thanksgiving!

I ran across Pat Cassleman’s Stuffing recipe today, as if by divine intervention, just in time to start getting prepped for our Thanksgiving feast. This stuffing recipe is really outstanding and could be a meal all by itself. A delicious, artery clogging meal. And because I’m in the giving spirit, I’m going to share this recipe with the world. (Sorry Pat, hope this one wasn’t a secret family recipe)

Ingredients:

• 14 Slices of Bread (Preferably Wheat) cut into cubes
• 2 Big Yellow Onions Chopped (I like to make these big coarse pieces – not too big)
• 4 Chopped Apples (also cut into cubes)
• 1 lb Bulk Sage Flavored Ground Pork Sausage
• 1 Stick of Margarine or Butter
• Rubbed Sage (may be difficult to find, but sometimes can be found in the bulk section of your local warehouse grocery store)

Step 1: Brown / Crumble the sausage in a frying pan. While doing this, the recipe also calls for melting an entire stick of butter into the mix. Really. No joke. Absolutely no fat is wasted in this stuffing. This dish is going to help us bulk up for the winter and possibly give us a nice cardiac episode for the holidays.

Step 2: In a 13″x9″ baking pan, mix the bread cubes, apples cubes, and chopped onion. Then add the sausage and melted butter to the mix. Mix it all up so the bread absorbs the melted butter and pork fat.

Step 3: Add the rubbed sage and mix in. There is no real set amount of sage that you should add, instead just add this until you feel that it’s fragrant enough to be tasty in your mouth, but not overpowering.

Step 4: Put the entire baking pan in the fridge and let marinate for two (2) hours. Not sure why this is necessary, but hey, I won’t argue with perfection.

Step 5: Bake in the oven at 350F degrees for 1.5 hours or until crusty and brown on top.

Step 6: Shovel into mouth. Nap. Shovel into mouth. Submit to butter induced coma. Repeat.

I dare you not to enjoy this…

This time between Halloween and Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of the year. I’ll explain why in just a moment. But to preface all of this, Suzy and I are having Thanksgiving at home this year. We’ve traveled some distance almost every single year to spend Thanksgiving with family, but not this year. This year, we’re going to cozy-up, get a fire going in the fireplace and host a real Thanksgiving dinner in our own house. It couldn’t make me happier to finally be able to host this event in our own place. Family, friends, you’re all invited (within reason, of course – we only have so much space). We’ll finally have a chance to use our fancy china from our wedding and fancy cookware.

This is the time of year where work starts to slow down and people start to go on vacation. The leaves start falling from the trees, the clouds roll in and dump rain on us. All things that sound sublime to me. It gives me time to curl up on the couch, wrapped in a warm blanket, to sip some egg-nog and read a book. And indeed I would be amiss if I didn’t mention Winter Beer season. I’m talking about the flood of seasonal brews from almost every brewery. This is the time for rich, thick, dark beer drinkers. It’s a veritable cornucopia of double bocks, Jubilales, stouts, porters and dunkels. I’m getting thirsty just thinking about it.

Anyone know how to cook a turkey?

Just a short post to wish you all a Merry Christmas!

From Suzy & Ben

My summer came to an end two weeks ago and I’m back to the 8-6 grind. Back to the 40+ hour work-weeks, the e-mails, the meetings, the customers, the phone conferences and the jet-set lifestyle. Meanwhile, the holiday season snuck up on us, and side-swiped us. Sending us twirling off on a wild trajectory towards stress. If that wasn’t enough, Suzy’s condo tenants recently moved out and left the place trashed. Thusly, we’re left to clean up the mess which has involved the police, the insurance company, contractors, painters, exterminators and more. I will be spending a good portion of the time between Christmas day and New Years working on the place. It’s not all bad though – I’m looking forward to spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Suzy’s folks. I plan on curling up in a ball on a comfy piece of furniture, wrapped in a blanket, sipping some kind of nog (replete with brandy goodness), and reading some Vonnegut. Of course I’ll have the laptop close by so I can browse the internets. I hope you’re doing the same, readers, if there are any of you out there.

Before I leave you for the day, checkout the year in music… some good stuff in these “top” lists. Time to get download’n.

Pitchfork’s Top 50 of 2006 – Not my favorite list anymore, but good to benchmark against.
WOXY’s Top 97 of 2006 – I love this internet radio station. Their top 97 is superb.
Pharaohweb’s Top 10 of 2006 – Lots of respect for Dave’s top 10. Outstanding. Check it out.

That’s it for now. Ben.

Well, it’s true. My summer is nearly over and I’ll have to go back to work soon. I’m certainly not looking forward to it. Strangely, I’m not too stressed about it either. I thought I would be, but I think the memory of work is so distant that I don’t remember it being that bad. I’m kind of looking forward to going back and seeing the people that I haven’t seen in eight weeks. Plus, I’m going back right smack in the middle of the holidays – so it should be a rather slow time at work.

However, I am savoring the time I have left. I’ve gotten alot of projects accomplished while being away from work. Suzy asked me if I felt like I had wasted my vacation, by not spending any extra time travelling and spending most of my time at home. I don’t feel like that at all. I’m much more prone to relaxation when at home than at a sandy beach somewhere. The only exception I would think is hiking and/or camping. That can be truly relaxing too. But being at home, with the choice to do whatever I want, whenever, has been ultimately satisfying. I think if I got too used to this, then I’d probably end up spending all my money on tools and home improvement projects.

For those Santas out there, that just don’t know what to get a guy with everything, here’s a bit of a holiday hint! I have my wish list posted on froogle again this year and it’s filled with great items that I am pretty excited about. No pressure, just, you know, click on through… and buy me something.

Ben’s Wish List on Froogle