From the Mind of Chris Davis

Finally Some Good News

So instead of getting discouraged (ok, after a brief period of discouragement) after we got shot down on our third house, we rallied.  We went to the company and demanded our money back (there has to be something shady going on.  We applied for 2 houses only to get told they were being foreclosed or sold after we applied.  I think they were just trying to make money off of rental applications.), then we went to see 3 more houses.

We found one that’s the right fit, got the money back, went to get an application at the new company, filled it out, and turned it in all in less than 2 hours.  It was hectic, but I’m glad to say we finally signed the lease on our new house today.

Now only 10 days to pack…

Taste the Blendsation

First day at work at Keva was fun.  Pretty slow though, only made about 20 smoothies all day.  Had to do a wheatgrass shot which sucked.  Think I’ll be a shift leader in no time.

Is This Meant to Be?

House #1 - Somebody signed the papers on it the day we planned on going down to sign the papers and put down our deposit.

House #2 - We put down our deposit and and put in our application.  The next day, they called to tell us that the house is going into foreclosure.

House #3 - We put down our deposit and application last Wednesday.  Their policy is telling you if you are approved or not in 48 hours.  They called us TODAY to tell us that the owner has decided to sell the house instead, which they found out about on Friday.  So on top of being mad about my bad house luck, I’m pissed I lost out on an extra 2-3 days when I only have less than 2 weeks to find a house.

Is it a sign that I should stay put?  Or is my faith just being tested?

A Force To Be Reckoned With

So I just finished writing a second short script for my Intro to Screenwriting class, and I’m finding that I really love to write screenplays.  I’ve always been told that I’m a fantastic writer and I’ve never really bought into it.  I still don’t think there is nothing special to my style of writing, but I think its the way I was writing that never appealed to me before.  Papers and critical responses and analyzing things for school always seemed so boring and tedious and really took the fun out of writing, and how can anybody be good at something they don’t enjoy?

But screenwriting is really starting to have an effect on me.  Everything just flows and makes sense, and its an incredible feeling to have this story unraveling in my head as if it were a film playing onscreen and be able to structure it and format it the way I want to see it on paper.  Not only that, I’m starting to feel an extreme boost of confidence in the things I’m creating for this class (available upon request, haha), and that’s a feeling I’ve never had before with any of my writing.

Is this the beginning of a possible career path in the future?  I guess only time will tell.

New Year's Resolutions

I need to take control of my life and be a better person all-around.  These are things I need to do for myself and for a better life, as well as some things I want to do just to have some fun.

I need to be healthier.  I need to take control of my life and realize what goes in my body usually isn’t the best for it.

1) Going Vegetarian for one month (at least)

I know its a huge step to go cold turkey, and vegetarianism isn’t really the best diet, but I really feel like my body takes in way too much red meat thats not good for it (in large portions).  One month of healthy fruits, veggies, grains, etc. and all of the vitamins and benefits from them will help my body detox, I think.  I know meats not bad in the right portions, this resolution is also to see if I can exercise self control by sticking to vegetarianism for a month.  (Thank God WhichWich has black bean burgers…)  So January 1st I’m officially off meat until February 1st, whereupon I will most likely have the most delicious cheeseburger of my life.  But I hope that this experience teaches me a lot about the way I eat and how I can improve.

I feel like I used to be smarter, and I think I owe a lot of it to reading constantly when I was younger.  I remember checking out 15+ books at a time when I was little, and thats really stopped since high school made reading a chore.

2) Read (at least) one novel every 2 months

I was gonna one a month but that might be too hard to find time to do between school and the family life, so I want it to be realistic and not a deadline I have to rush to meet to satisfy it.  Thats only six books, not a whole lot to ask at all.  Any more on top of that is icing on the cake.

3) Watch every Akira Kurosawa movie

I’ll admit this one is totally just for fun.  Akira Kurosawa was a monumental director.  I have only seen Rashomon, Ran, and Yojimbo so far but they were incredible, and he really pioneered a lot of techniques for the film industry.  He was the first filmmaker to point the camera at the Sun.  He was dedicated to his art, sometimes waiting for weeks at a time for rain to come so he could continue to film a scene in the rain instead of just using fake rain in a studio.  Something about his films just suck you in and make you watch, and there is hardly a director alive today that wouldn’t cite him as an inspiration in their work.  He truly was a genius.  Not all of them are still in print, but even just the ones that are will give me somewhere in the 30 range to watch.  I’m gonna begin with The Seven Samurai and I just want to have fun with this one, but an upside is I will probably learn a lot of creative film techniques from watching all of these.

A Note to my Dishwasher

Dear Dishwasher,

I feel like I find myself waiting in vain for a day that will never come - the day when you finally clean an entire load.  I don’t know how much longer I can take having to rewash half of the dishes I gave you to do to begin with.

What’s wrong?  Why don’t you take any pride in your work?

Sincerely,

Chris

Book Review: Angels & Demons by Dan Brown

This book.  Damn.  Wow.

Picture a mix between Da Vinci Code, Se7en, and 24 and you have the premise for this book.  Robert Langdon, a professor of symbology at Harvard, is called to Rome to investigate a murder that seems connected to the Illuminati, an ancient cult believed to long be extinct.  This leads Robert on a huge adventure across Rome and through Vatican City as he learns that the Illuminati plans to destroy the entire Catholic faith - that’s right, the ENTIRE faith - through the entire annihilation of St. Peter’s Basillica, on the night of conclave where all the cardinals of the world are present inside the Sistine Chapel to elect the new Pope.  The Illuminati plans to execute one of the preferiti - one of the four cardinals in the front-running to the papacy - every hour until midnight, culminating with the destruction of the Vatican by an anti-matter bomb.

If that doesn’t sound awesome then there is something wrong with you.  I breezed through this 600+ page book in just 3 days.  It is always fun to find one of those books thats more fun that anything else you want to do, like watch movies or play video games.  When the first thing you do in the morning is reach for a book, that really says something about it.

Off to a good start

So today I (accompanied by my beautiful wife and drooling infant son…well, they both drool) went out on my quest to make my kitchen a place that I can create.  I went to Kohl’s to try and find some stuff for my kitchen because I have a lot of problems with some of the utensils I already have.  I have 3 spatulas, 2 of which are slightly melted and 1 of which is metal and scratches up my pans.  My tongs are also slightly melted.  I think the problem is they are made of silicone.  I’m gonna try to find some nice sturdy nylon utensils in my price range (which, lets be honest, is pretty cheap).  I ended up leaving the store with a pyrex baking dish and a bamboo spoon thingy to serve stuff from it without scratching it up.

Then we went to to World Market where I bought 4 more spices, some different candy for Amanda and I, and these really cool magnetic spice tins.  We both wanted to clear out our kitchen to make room for new stuff and get rid of a lot of stuff we don’t need and this will definitely help.  These tins have clear lids so you can see the contents of the jars, but I’m gonna put some small labels on them anway.  We were able to clear out an entire shelf in our pantry, which is nice, and now my spices are all easily accessible on the side of the fridge.

I’m looking up recipes for stuff I want to make soon, and having done the renovations to our spices as well as adding more to what I have, I feel a lot more confident in what I can do.  I checked out a recipe for some Chicken Tikka Masala and I’m only missing one spice and two key ingredients, so its comforting to know that I have the foundations to make ALMOST anything I want to.  Sure I’ll have to run out when recipes call for some less likely spices (damn cumin), but I think I’m off to a good start (Oh man thats the title of the blog!)

Ratatouille doesn't sound delicious. It sounds like "rat" and "patootie." Rat-patootie, which does NOT sound delicious.

“Good food is like music you can taste, color you can smell. There is excellence all around you. You need only to be aware to stop and savor it.  You must be imaginative, strong-hearted. You must try things that may not work, and you must not let anyone define your limits because of where you come from. Your only limit is your soul. What I say is true - anyone can cook… but only the fearless can be great.” - Chef Auguste Gousteau (figment of rat-chef’s imagination)

I think its important that people have hobbies in life to keep them from going nuts.  Some people collect stamps or go fishing - its that passion in the world that keeps them going day in and day out.  I feel like a lot of my time just goes nowhere when it could be spent doing something. I try to read when I can, sure, but I’m not drawn enough to it that I could consider it a “hobby.”  If there is a show marginally more interesting then most of the time its a no-contest.  I play video games, but that only lasts so long before the games lose their flair.  But I think I’ve finally found a hobby, something that I’ve always enjoyed doing but never took the time to fully explore the playing field.

I freaking LOVE to cook.  It might sound cheesy but there’s just something satisfying about taking a lot of things and bringing them together in different ways to make something extraordinary.  And if you’re making it for a group of people that are blown away by something you MADE, then even better.  I’m researching different spices and making a list of must-haves.  I’m fascinated by the way a single kind of space can take control of a dish and move it in a whole new direction.  I took the time today to smell what I was cooking with, something I never really took the time to do.  I never took the time to appreciate the gritty, earthy smell of potatoes or the fresh, crisp, watery smell of celery.  I want to take control of my senses of taste and smell because they’re taken for granted.

So my kitchen is my new studio to explore my creativity with.  I want to invest in some new knives, ingredients, and other gadgets as soon as possible and just get going and CREATE.  I want to explore all kinds of food - from Italian to Thai, from Indian to French, Chinese to Greek and everything else in between.  I want to try all six kinds of curry and see what the big deal is about saffron.  I want to explore everything I can with cooking.

On top of that, its relaxing.  Maybe its the bubbling of boiling water sounding reminiscent of a river, I don’t know.  But I love it.

Book Review: Into The Wild by John Krakauer

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”-Chris McCandless

This is just one of the many insightful ideas put forth by Christopher McCandless.  Chris grew increasingly tired of being confined in a capitalistic society that he felt was poisoning humanity and a family that cared more about money than each other, so after graduating from college he donated the balance of his bank account to charity and set out on the open road.  In Arizona his car became caught in a flash flood and so he abandoned it and set out to live the life of a “leather tramp.”  For the next couple of years he hitchhiked across America, doing whatever his spirit lead him to do, such as kayaking down the Colorado River all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and holding various odd jobs around the country to save up money for what he called his “great Alaskan oddyssey.”  His goal in life was to hike into the Alaskan bush with minimal gear and just live off the land for a few months, away from society and people.  He does make it to Alaska, but after months and a series of disasters the trip becomes fatal.  The book relates the stories of the people he met along the way, all of whom sang his praises as the kindest and most intelligent soul they had ever met.
While I think that Chris McCandless had some ideas that were ultimately a little too radical, he did have a lot of opinions that really could inspire people to think and make a difference.  He always hated the idea that people could go hungry, especially in this country of abundance.  He hated money, believing that ultimately it was indeed the root to all evil and that it supressed humanity because people will do anything for it.  I think the quote above is the most inspiring though.  He believed that people should just follow their dreams and do whatever it takes to achieve them.  He just gave up everything he had and just went out into the wilderness and LIVED.  Thats not everybody’s dream, but he wasn’t telling people to live in the wild.  He just wanted people to experience life, which isn’t something most people do.

Beginnings

So I guess this is my blog.  I know I’m late to the game and I don’t know how well I’ll be able to keep up with this but its worth a shot.  Here I’ll post random/crazy/funny things that happen to me, reviews of books I read, movies I watch (both old and new), quotes or ideas that inspire me (or make me laugh), or just ramble about my thoughts and ideas on different things.  Hope you keep checking back and thanks for reading!