The Haps (or, Blame Twitter)

Looks like blogging is becoming a monthly thing for me. This is largely an effect of the fact that I am now on Twitter. If you use Twitter, or would like to keep up with what's going on with me, you can follow me @aynsavoy. I've also put a tweet feed over in the right margin of this blog.

Anyway, if you haven't been following me on Twitter, here's a run-down of the past month (if you're here for food photos, skip to the end):

Travel

We were all over the place in July. We visited our folks in St. Louis over 4th of July weekend, also taking the time to check out some wedding stuff. It was a short, hurried trip. Toward the end of the month we headed to Comic Con, met up with old friends, saw some panels (highlights: Stephan Pastis, creator of Pearls Before Swine, Henry Selick and Neil Gaiman discussing Coraline, cartoon voices panel, and the creative team of Doctor Who + David Tennant!), and bought some books and artwork (I got a personal sketch from Dave McKean!). Finally, I closed out the month by traveling back to St. Louis for work--Reasoning Mind is expanding to a few campuses there and I'll be supporting them.

Work

Speaking of work, my department has been superbusy preparing for the upcoming school year. Mainly this has meant training teachers. We've had at least one training a week since the end of July; next week there will be three simultaneous trainings. It's been pretty nuts, but we've pulled through. Which is good, since school's about to start.

Play

I've also become thoroughly engrossed in my current hobby: food. Being a foodie came pretty naturally to me, espeically now that I know other people who photograph all of their meals. Twitter has been really instrumental helping me meet other members of the Houston food commuity and learn about events, happenings, and tasty places to go. At the center of all this is my current fixation: a place called Anvil Bar & Refuge.

Anvil makes the best mixed drinks I've ever had--which doesn't seem to say a whole lot considering that I'm mainly a beer drinker...until you consider that the drinks at Anvil are coaxing me away from beer and toward spirits. I'm addicted to the place--the feel of it and the people who work there as much as the drinks themselves. The staff have real passion for what they do, and it shows. And through Twitter, I've met up with other Houston foodies at Anvil.

In addition to Twitter, the best way to keep up with me is to check out my Flickr account. The majority of the photos you'll find there are of food (and drinks from Anvil), but considering that my social life these days consists of eating and drinking, it's a pretty accurate representation. I'm not going to post all my recent favorites photos here right now, but here are links to photo sets from some of the awesome things I've done/eaten recently:

5 Course Dinner at Reef with Cocktail Pairings by Anvil

Dinner at Jeannine's Bistro

You can find more photos of my dining exploits in my Houston Food set on Flickr.

I'm also easing my way back into cooking (lots of travel is not conducive to kitchenings). Most recently, Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic:

Before that (and before San Diego and St. Louis), I had a few other tasty experiments:

Thanks for reading! See you next month ;-) or on Twitter.