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Category Archives: Dishing with Dee

Dishing with Dee…San Fran Part 1

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So i’m going to break my Dishing with Dee posts about my trip to San Francisco into two posts, in part because I have some great pictures that I want to share with you guys and in part, because I want to draw out the torture of why I was in San Francisco, a little bit longer 😉

REX_Exterior-600x600So after leaving a very wet Washington DC and flying for 5+ hours (thankfully, I wasn’t overly crowded on my flight), I arrived in San Francisco at like 8pm (which for you who can do time zone calculations is about 11pm my normal time). One of the best things about traveling when its an all expenses paid trip (yes, you read that right), is the cool places you often get put up. Case in point, those of us who were attending this event in San Francisco were put up in the Hotel Rex. If you look closely at the picture, you can almost see my room, i was up on the third floor, but had a great view of the street and the fire escape (although it did get a bit loud at 5am when the trash guys came around).

REX_LibraryBar_Overview-1200x800What is great about this hotel, especially since all of us who were in San Fran were heavy readers, was that the bar is called the Library Bar where all the food and drinks on the menu were all american classics, like a Rob Roy or a West Side. Unfortunately with our schedule i didn’t get as much of a chance to check out the area as I hoped. But my kind of funny story, when I got there Thursday night, I went down to the bar for food and a drink, and the bar tender started speaking french to me and while I know a smattering of it, for the most part I was completely lost. When I said I didn’t speak French, he was like, oh, aren’t you here for French club…once we clarified that i wasn’t, I was able to order food and move on. The other bonus of being in a hotel with a bar called the Library bar, is that the hotel has its own little lending library – its one of those borrow a book, donate another book kind of set ups (and I did my due diligence but donating a couple of romances to the shelves, since they were lacking in that forum).

And last but not least, as you walked up each landing to the next floor (because I personally hate taking elevators), there were these cool quotes from different authors…and being the dork that I am, I had to take photos of them!

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Stay tuned for more of my adventures from San Francisco…coming soon!

 
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Posted by on October 8, 2015 in Dishing with Dee

 

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Dishing with Dee….helloooo, San Fran!

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Yes, its true – I decided to escape the horrible weather that is currently hitting the DC region (although i did have to drive to the airport in it yesterday) and in the words of John Denver, I’m leaving on a jet plane (although i do know when I’ll be back again…lol). I’m in San Francisco for a couple of days – part work, part pleasure – I’ve never actually been here before, so its totally new to me and i’m looking forward to seeing some of the sights!

Of course, with it being 3hrs behind east coast time, i was wide awake at 5am…and what do you do when that happens? you get up, throw on your running shoes and do some hill repeats of those iconic hills in the area – you know, the ones you see on the movies with the cable cars? there was a nice one just outside my hotel, so I did a few on that – it felt really nice after not really running for a few months 😉

So stayed tuned, I’m sure i’ll have some more updates for you while I’m enjoying my travels here!

 
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Posted by on October 2, 2015 in Dishing with Dee

 

Dishing with Dee….well, September is nearly over…

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You’ll notice that my blog has been fairly quiet for the last couple of weeks (well, in fact, most of September). I wish I could say that I had a good reason, but honestly, its just been a rough month. I don’t talk a lot about my other non-blogging life, but I found myself unemployed (hopefully only briefly), when the contract I was supporting expired and wasn’t renewed and with it being the end of the Fiscal Year, no one is really hiring right now. On top of that, bad month on the Academic side of the house, when I f’ed up in a major way and didn’t get goals accomplished in my dissertation – that I am now working to overcome for the next semester; and finally, the 5k open water swim I was training for…cancelled because of weather…

anyways, hopefully, October will be a much better month on the blogging front 😉

 
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Posted by on September 29, 2015 in Dishing with Dee

 

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Dishing with Dee….Deceptive Book Covers

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Ok, so this is going to be more of a rant, than an actual post, but I just came across a book that seriously irks me…however, I’m not going to post the name of the author/title (at this time…there will be a review in the near future however). I’ll also preface this with I know how little control authors potentially have over bookcovers.

Anyways, back to my rant…as part of ARC August, I picked up one of the romances I had planned to read last night. The cover of said romance had a guy in a cowboy hat, with what looked to be horses and oil drilling platforms in the background – so silly me, I was expecting a western-ish type romance, or something where they were outdoors, doing stuff like you would expect from the cover…however, to my disappointment, there was NONE of that in the book. The book itself revolves around a doctor and an ex-olympic swimmer…no sign of horses, oil platforms, cowboys etc in the book.

So in my curiosity (since I knew this book was a re-edit/re-release of a previous book), I decided to do some research – the previous edition of the book, a cowboy on the cover of a horse that appears to be riding (as in a rodeo). It wasn’t until I went back to what looks to be the first cover of the book (when it was picked up by Ellora’s Cave), that it appears the cover actually fits the theme (two people in the water)…I mean, it is too much to ask to actually have a cover even slightly resemble the book – it doesn’t need to be perfect, but at least attempting to capture some of the elements would be awesome. What makes me doubly disappointed, is that I’ve read and enjoyed this authors works before – but I’m struggling so much with the cover mismatch that I can’t enjoy the story (although there are other issues in the story that I am also struggling with)…

what about you – have you guys ever come across a cover that was so unrelated to the book that you struggled to read it – because you felt as though you had been deceived?

 
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Posted by on August 11, 2015 in Dishing with Dee

 

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Dishing with Dee….Reoccurring Characters and descriptions

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So originally when I thought about the idea of Dishing with Dee, I wanted to talk about things in books (etc) that bugged me and I did for a while and then got distracted with other stuff. But never fear, I’m back. Today I wanted to talk about descriptions of frequently reoccurring characters in book series – I’m talking the characters who show up in every book in the series (or a significant amount) – they may not play a key role, but they are present. Case in point, I am trying to tackle some of the audiobooks I have bought over the years and since it was short, I picked up Haunted in Death to listen to.

Now this audiobook was number 22.5 in the series (yes, you read that right!). So I was kind of disappointed in the fact that every time one of these reoccurring characters made an appearance (I’m talking about Ian McNab/Dr Mira), the author felt the need to tell us who they were, like we were brand new readers and it was really frustrating to me. Mostly because I felt, at times, like the mystery took a backseat to some of these descriptive portions. At the same time, I understand that authors have to walk a fine-line between being descriptive (in case someone not familiar with the series is reading) and just going with the flow (for people who have been invested in the series for a while). And unfortunately, it wasn’t just this installment in the series that I’ve noticed it but all of them (either novels or novellas) contain similar scenes.

Admittedly, its not enough for me to give up on reading the series, because I do enjoy it – but it is a pet peeve of mine.

 
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Posted by on July 20, 2015 in Dishing with Dee

 

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Dishing with Dee….I cut the cord

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I’ve been talking about it for a while, but today I FINALLY made the jump and cut the cord, or is that cable – I cancelled my cable TV service. I’ve had cable for years, and every year the cost has been slowly creeping up, just a few dollars here and there, but when I looked at my cable bill this last month, I realized that I was paying over $200 (for internet/TV and phone) and probably only using one of three parts of the package (the internet). So while I was out running errands today, I swung by Best Buy and got an Amazon FireTV stick. This will allow me to access Hulu, Netflix and SlingTV, as well as all the TV shows available via Amazon Prime…then I called Comcast and cancelled my cable. I will admit, I was surprised how easy the woman on the phone made it – I’d heard these horror stories about people trying to cancel and honestly, I’ll withhold judgement until I get my bill next month – but it was fairly pain free.

So the current status of TV in my house – Hulu, Netflix, SlingTV (a basic package that has Food Network, ABC Family, Lifetime, a few sports channels) and Amazon Prime. I’ve gone frmo $217 a month to about $110 (not including my Amazon Prime that I pay on a yearly basis). Which means, more money for triathlon fun 😉

What about you – would you be able to take the plunge or have you already?

 
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Posted by on June 27, 2015 in Dishing with Dee

 

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Dishing with Dee…post triathlon weekend thoughts

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It was a long weekend in my neck of the woods – I had planned on swinging by and posting something, but as usual, I got distracted and failed big time…lol. This weekend was my first triathlon of the season – a half ironman in Lake Anna, Virginia. For non-triathlon types, a half iron is 1.2 mile swim; 56 mile bike and then 13.1 mile run for a total of 70.3 miles (and yes, I’m insane enough to do these things not only once or twice, but multiple times…). Let’s just say my weekend didn’t go as planned, starting with a series of events on Friday night that just fustrated and distracted me and I left that affect me down the road. While I wasn’t happy with how I did, I know that I was successful in the simple fact that I finished – I may not have been fast, in fact, I think I was slower than a turtle in peanut butter at times – but I persevered when I just wanted to quit on the run. 7hrs 23min and some odd seconds later – I finished – and I know that I can only go up from there.

But I had a funny thought while I was driving home the other day – we are always taught to not ask a woman what her age or weight is, but in triathlon, we proudly walk around with our age written on our legs (unless you are doing the relay’s because then you get an R).

kinetic half

 
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Posted by on May 11, 2015 in Dishing with Dee

 

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Dishing with Dee….Outlander

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I’ve been a fan of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series for years – i think my mom originally handed me book 1 when I was about 15 (her version was called Cross-stitch, rather than the more common Outlander) and I devoured it. Thus launching an obsession with the series. When it was announced nearly two years ago that Starz was going to be making it into a TV show, I was excited as the next person. I mean, I had reservations – would the person they picked for Jamie live up to my imagine (thankfully, yes he does); how will they handle key scenes (like the spanking one). I sought out online facebook groups of fans dedicated to the show and participated frequently…

Then, something unintended happened…I found myself losing interest. i love the show and the work that Ron Moore and his crew are doing, the cast is brilliant and yet, I find myself not wanting to sit down and watch the episodes as they air; leaving them sometimes for weeks upon end before I end up watching. Here is my confession, I didn’t watch episode 8 (which originally aired in December) until right before the second half of the season started back in April. It’s not that the books have spoiled me, but as I started thinking, I think its been my interaction with the other fans. Yes, I know, some of you are probably saying, don’t let other’s enjoyment/dislike ruin your experience, but even if i try to avoid it, it has a profound effect.

Take for example, and I didn’t know this, but for the second half of the season Starz has opted to make the new episode available on demand prior to air time – at like 2am the night before. That is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but personally, the thought of getting up at that ungodly time of morning to watch and episode, in an effort to avoid being potentially spoiled is just distastful to me. I will say that for the most part people are careful about spoilers when they do watch the early release version, but its hard to avoid them completely, unless (as I was advised), I stay off Facebook and out of Outlander groups…that just leaves a bad taste in my mouth – I can understand avoiding after the show has aired officially, but for an early showing…not so much

As of right now, I haven’t even started to watch the second half of the season – which is now in the 5th episode and rapidly approaching the end of the book…hopefully, I can once again find enjoyment in the series, but I’m worried I won’t…

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2015 in Dishing with Dee

 

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Dishing with Dee….GNO (the May edition), AKA, I have very sneaky friends

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So it took me a little while to get this post up, mostly because I failed epically in the taking photos aspect and had to hit up some of the participants to see if they had any from our awesome GNO evening. Sub-title of this, should be, I have some very sneaky friends who probably need careers in the spy industry. the plans for GNO started out like they do every month – the 4 (or 5) of us getting so busy that we forget until a few days prior; Jamie setting up an invite on Facebook (even though we had been smart enough to do that the previous month) and finally settling on a place – previously, we’d done a chocolate bar and then a farm to table type place, so for May we decided on Sushi. I will admit that i’m relatively new to the sushi eating world- its only been a couple of years since I tried it, but when I do manage to drag friends out with me to have it, my goal is to always try something different – so I was excited to have a group of people going with me. Fast forward to Saturday night, and after a hectic day of workouts, errands and an insane desire to skip because I was so exhausted, followed by a hike from the metro – I showed up at MoMo Sushi in Old Town Alexandria.

avery selfieAs I walked up the stairs to the restaurant, I realized that there was not only 1 but 2 extra people at the table from our normal group. I knew about the one (a friend bringing her sister who was in town), but the second was a total surprise and thus the comment about my sneaky friends. An author that I love (Kelsey Browning) had been touring the country as part of a Free Little Library tour with her writer cohort in crime and she just happened (magically of course) to be in the DC area on the same night as our Girl’s Night Out (funny how those things work out right?). And Jamie in all her secret squirrel wonder had invited her along as a surprise for me (because I had been asking her when Kelsey was going to be here). I’m amazed that none of the people spilled the beans…I mean, that was some serious secret keeping…lol! Not long after that, we were joined by our pseudo party-crashers (they were expected, we just didn’t know when), Kimberly Kincaid and Avery Flynn – both authors who I totally fangirl over, if you have read my reviews of their books). Avery even managed to get a selfie with all of us in the picture – which took some considerable skill since she didn’t even have a selfie stick!

sushiOf course, it wouldn’t be a sushi meal without a funny sushi story – which of course, revolves around me being an idiot/nearly choking on a piece of sushi. but first, an awesome sushi picture (this wasn’t my roll, because I ate it too quickly to take a photo) – but mine was as visually pretty as this one that Kimberly and Avery shared. but back to the funny sushi story – although, I can safely say, that is wasn’t actually my fault…I blame it all on Kelly! There I was, sitting innocently next to Kelsey, working on my Spider Roll (which was awesome BTW). Jamie/Kelly and Kelsey had just gotten done talking about kids antics and a comment had been made about people and how they deal with visual sighting of half eaten food. But back to the story, I had literally just managed to pick up a delicious piece of sushi from my roll and shove it, in its entirely into my mouth when Kelly turned to me and asked me a question about the shrimp in the roll, I think, whether it was tempura shrimp. For some reason, this was insanely funny (i have no idea why) and I started laughing, while I had a piece of sushi in my mouth. Comments were made about people being waitresses in former lives, because of their ability to ask questions as soon as you try to eat. In the meantime, I’m laughing so hard, I was trying to not choke on my sushi or spit it up into somebody’s lap and the folks down the other end of the table were trying to figure out what I was laughing about. Never fear, I did survive both the laughing bout and the piece of sushi.

A fabulous night of frolicking fun was had by all and I can’t wait for the next edition, even if it will likely be back to our smaller group

kk af dee
GNO all

 
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Posted by on May 6, 2015 in Dishing with Dee

 

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Dishing with Dee….i have a confession to make…

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My name is Dee and I have a confession to make – i’m a gadget-o-holic! I really believe that someone needs to start a Gadget-O-Holics Anonymous! I’ve probably have 4 different GPS devices over the years; bike computers; stride/cadence sensors for running – you name it, I’ve probably tried it at one time or another (and that is only looking at triathlon stuff, don’t get me started on kitchen gadgets). And yet, when I want something new, I just add to the stash…so I’m super happy to introduce you to the new member of my gadget family – the Polar V800 Multisport Watch. It arrived in the mail yesterday and I’m super excited to start using it!

gadget geekThe main box is the GPS watch which while biggish on my itty-bitty wrists, doesn’t make me feel like I’ll give myself a concussion with it, should I whack myself in the head (yes, I’ve done that before)…and the bottom box is the stride sensor, so I can see what my foot cadence is while out running. This is something new to me, I’ve never really paid attention to that before, but a friend of mine who just finished the Bostom Marathon (in a sub-3 hr time), swears by it, so I figure what is the harm in trying – right?

Anyways, I’d write more, but its time to get and test out the new device – but I’m sure i’ll be back in the future talking about the stats, but i’m also a stats junkie 😉

 
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Posted by on May 2, 2015 in Dishing with Dee

 

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