I do love to travel and I hop on a plane every month or so taking closer trips to the West Coast and to my favorite city of New York. I am also anal about traveling and always keep a very detailed itinerary down to the flight specifics, restaurants, activities, etc., usually maintained in Microsoft Word on my home machine. That is so yesterday... as I have been using TripIt now and it is an awesome piece of software. I can use OpenTable, TicketMaster, my work's Flight Reservation system, etc and every standard email response from these systems can be forwarded to the site and build my trip with every detail organized by trip date and all I do is add a few uber details. I can have that itinerary forwarded to my phone, get alerts, etc. I highly recommend this site as it has saved me a bunch of time.

I have lately been evaluating my habits and thinking more deeply about money, gas, food and my relationship with these vital things. I love good food, old Scotch and eating out and yet... I am sure you are seeing it too, the food bill is up 25% at the least. My wife and I have always been solid cooks and we eat little prepared food which saves us money and puts excellent food on the table. I have been doing things differently for the last year when it comes to meat (I am an omnivore) and ordering from local producers and only from farms with natural feeding and humane practices. So I am on track and being more aggressive in how we buy and who we buy it from.

Next is GAS! Whoa, my weekly commute costs have been pushing 95US bucks a week. I don't have the most efficient car, but it is more complicated than that as driving to work from "Seattle to the Eastside" makes me completely stressed and pissed off a couple times a week. Thanks to Microsoft, they have adopted a progressive approach and built their own bus service. This last week I started riding it from the south of Seattle and my commute has gone from 65 miles a day to 17 and the drive to work at 6:15AM is on back streets with little traffic. This has been great. It extends my day at work a bit to 10.5-11 hours a day, but it is more productive and I am feeling better.

That is a long winded diatribe on my Sunday dinner of Organic Turkey Tenders, Corn and Quinoa (Keen-Wa). I love Quinoa as it is my favorite protein grain (along with Bluebird Farms Farro) and it is super easy to cook just water, a Knorr-Swiss Vegetable pellet, simmer and you are done. I also pulled out my favorite quick grill, my Binchotan which requires just 3 oak lump charcoal hunks and in 15 minutes you are grilling with minimal hassle. Some Larouex BBQ Sauce (the Best!!!) on top and it was mighty fine.

Bumbershoot.org announced the first peek at the lineup and some real talent is coming this year. I am most interested in Lucinda Williams, Jakob Dylan, Joe Bonamassa, Neko Case and Beck. The Stone Temple Pilots will be there, but Scott...