Jo Mamma's Italian Deli, Ali Baba & Pete's Pub

As we introduced ourselves through an activity to find common cultural ties, I realized what a "foodie" I am. I love visiting new placed and finding the restaurants, coffee houses, pubs of "local culture." During my first day on campus, my cohorts and I found three wonderful local spots.

I had lunch with Jane, Cara and Cindy at Jo Mamma's Italian Deli. I would definitely recommend the sandwich wraps and anything Italian.

Dinner was at Ali Baba's with my adviser, Mary Kay Biagini, Maureen (fellow True God), Rhonda, Cindy, Sree, Catherine, Jennifer, Jennifer and Erika. Although I have tried much Middle Eastern food in the past which I love, I opted for a new option: Sleek. It is an amazing dish with swiss chard, black eyed peas, and caramelized onions. The recipe below isn't quite what was served. It's the same idea; however, caramelized onions are a must!

Sleek
Servings: 3-4

500g Spinach, roughly chopped
500g Swiss chard ('silek' in Arabic), roughly chopped
4 spring onions, chopped
2 big onions, sliced
1 bunch of Fennel chopped (Shoumar) or Dill
1/2 cup Bulgur
2tbs lemon juice
1/2 tsp mixed spices (The mixed spices used here are the traditional '7 spices' you can buy off the shelf.)
2-3 tbsp olive oil
Salt & pepper

Soak the bulgur with water for 1/2 hour.

Put the oil in a deep pan and fry the sliced onions till brown. Add the spinach, Swiss chard and spring onions. Stir-fry for 10 minutes.

Add the fennel, bulgur, lemon juice, salt and pepper, mix well. Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Adjust seasoning if necessary. Serve hot, warm or cold.

Then it was off to Pete's Pub for a relaxing drink with Maureen before heading back to the hotel. The pub was smoky but had a great atmosphere.

The best part of all of these "food" experiences was meeting with the people from the Pitt LIS program.

Shot Gun Navagitor

I just arrived in Pittsburgh after driving with two fellow fast-trackers. After only one or two...or four detours (highway closed - second highway closed - bridges mismarked - u-turn in Little Italy), we finally found our way.

I feel so lucky to have met these two people and can't wait to meet the rest today. It's amazing how many names and on-line personalities I already know just from interacting on the discussion boards.

Moving Day

Yesterday was moving day for me. My family and I moved my boxes from my garage into my new library. I can't wait to unpack and enjoy my new job. I have lots to learn.

First Attempt

This morning I finally figured out how to publish my web page (see link below). I tried to add images linked to some websites of interest, but for now only the text is showing up. Getting the images to show up will be one of my goals for next week.

Mackley Webpage

For now...I'm off to Altoona for a wedding. I'm the maid of honor. I can't imagine what the pictures will look like with these bags under my eyes!

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Worth the Blisters...

Last night was the first night of a family mini-vacation in NYC. We kicked off our visit with a ride on the Yankee Clipper ferry to Yankee Stadium where we watched Roger Clemens win his 350th game!

The Official Site of Major League Baseball: News: Game Wrapup

Today was busy...

• lunch at Senendipity 3 (YUM! Frozen Hot Chocolate)
• subway ride to South Street Seaport
• Chinatown
• dinner in Little Italy
• Rockefeller Center
• Times Square

...all this with a 11 year old, 12 year old and 16 year old.

I think I may have visited every Starbucks in the city. Caffeine helps.

Living on a Glass Microscope Slide

Last night my husband was on his fantasy baseball site and questioned me, "So...does someone outside of my baseball league know what I'm doing right now?" He's been hearing me talk about privacy issues for the past few weeks. His naive perspective about privacy is scary. How "private" is my life? I'd say, "...not very."

Today's Patriot News editorial, "Everybody's Watching-Electronically" by Thomas Friedman addresses this issue of privacy. He claims that we don't live in glass houses in which the world knows our business; we are on glass microscope slides. The article quotes Dov Seidman, founder and CEO of LRN, a business ethics company.

In this transparent world "how" you live your life and "how" you conduct your business matters more than ever, because so many people can now see into what you do and tell so many other people about it on their own without any editor[blogs, wikis, cell phone cameras] ...For young people, this means understanding that your reputation in life is going to get set in stone much earlier. More of what you say, do or write will end up as a digital fingerprint that never gets erased.

Stuck on You

I like the idea of Zoomclouds, but I'm not as thrilled with it as I originally was. I'm not sure why it doesn't use my actual tags from del.icio.us and Connotea. It just pulls words (regardless of significance) from the articles that I bookmarked.

I do, however, really like SuprGlu as a feed aggregator. I am able to keep track of my Fireflies blog, my bookmarks on del.icio.us and Connotea. SuprGlu creates a SuprCloud, but it's still not nearly complete. I'm still looking for a better way to manage my information.

SuprGlu doesn't offer a lot of design templates that Blogger offers, but I'm stuck on it for now.

Firefly on SuprGlu