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I had an awesome dish of BBQ Shrimp at Bubba Gump Shrimp Restaurant in San Francisco, and I’ve been scouring the net looking for a good recipe.

Also, any idea what Creole Seafood Seasoning is? Can I buy that at Albertson’s?

The one that sounds the best so far is this one (If you know the actual recipe for the dish they serve at Bubba Gump’s, please let me know!):

New Orleans Style Barbecue Shrimp
24 each 36-42 count Gulf shrimp
2 tablespoons Creole Seafood Seasoning
3 tablespoons olive oil
15 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary (1 1/2 teaspoons dried)
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
3 tablespoons hot sauce
3 lemons, juiced
½ cup beer (an amber like Abita preferred) (I use dry white wine)
Kosher Salt to taste (watch the salt, it can become very salty!!)
1 stick butter, room temperature (NO MARGARINE!!!)

Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat. Season shrimp with 1/2 of Creole seafood seasoning and lightly toss. Place garlic and rosemary in pan and stir to brown the garlic. Be careful not to burn. Add shrimp and carefully stir. Add Worcestershire, hot sauce, and lemon juice. Deglaze with beer and reduce, while shaking the pan. Allow the shrimp to cook (timing will depend on size) and add remaining seafood seasoning and salt and pepper to taste. When shrimp are finished cooking, the liquid will have a sauce consistency. Reduce heat to low and add butter. Sauté until butter is emulsified and sauce is thick. Adjust seasoning.

Kristen and I just got back from a great trip to San Francisco. I’ll blog more about it tomorrow, and maybe with some luck I’ll get pictures up before the end of the week.

Cheesiest thing anyone said to me: “What was Forrest’s last name?” (@ Bubba Gump’s Restaurant as the waitress quizzed us on our Forrest Gump trivia knowledge)

So as my earlier post indicated, I rented Anchorman to distract me from the drippy faucet that has replaced my nose… and even with low expectations, walked away wanting much more. I think the concept of a chauvinistic 70s anchorman learning that his world is changing was good, but the film makers executed on the idea quite poorly.

If only they could ’stay classy’ they might have redeemed the film.

I came across these three links in Fast Company of Blogs worth reading:

1. Found in the Footnotes
2. Marketing at Microsoft
3. Decent Marketing

I haven’t looked at them yet, but I didn’t want to lose track of them before I had a chance to check them out. If you happen to see them before I do, let me know what you think!

As promised, I ran around and took some quick pictures of our place now that things are starting to settle from our home improvement rampage. You can look at the before pictures here.

1. Dining Area
We were able to hang the ceiling light much easier than anticipated, but had some drywall patching to do after digging around to try to evaluate the situation. Also, you get a good look at the red wall — we painted the walls downstairs a light golden color, but painted the main wall that leads up the stairwell a nice brick red. You have to see it to appreciate it fully.

2. Stairwell Area
We re-carpeted and refinished the stair railing by sanding and painting.

3. Living Room Area
The main project here is meant to be invisible. We ran a gas line from just to the right of the window all the way to the kitchen — inside the wall. After patching and painting, you’d never know we did it!

4. Kitchen Area
The major project here was painting the kitchen cabinets. Kristen’s mom did a wonderful job on this, and our dad’s helped a ton with fixtures, water lines, and the rest.

5. Bedroom
The majority of the bedroom is going to be used as a home office, with the bed tucked away in this nice nook area. We haven’t pulled everything together to make the office look how we’d like, but it will come soon enough. I have ambitions of building a desk or two, so it may be a bit before you see pictures of that project.

All in all, we love our place, and are so grateful for all of the help we received. It was truly a team effort to transform our place, and now it feels like we have a new house!

Come by and visit! Unless I don’t know you. Then don’t. You might creep me out.

I was organizing a bunch of files on my computer today and ran across this image - one of my favorites:

I took the picture while on vacation in Montana a few years back. I couldn’t believe someone would put up a billboard like that as I drove by it — and later came back to take a picture. It still cracks me up.

Click on the picture for a full-size image (or click here)— you could even set it as your computer’s background if you like it enough.

I promised some pictures of our place, both before and after shots of the changes we made once we moved in. Here goes!

1. Dining area
We initially thought we’d have to run electrical conduit up to the center of the room in order to hang a light over the dining room table. Turns out the wires were already there, just covered up by a previous owner. Of course we didn’t discover this until we’d taken a good chunk of drywall out - oh well!

2. Living Room area
The plan here was to take the gas line that ran to the fireplace (er, the old fireplace that was removed by a prior owner) and run it to the kitchen so we could put a gas stove in at a later date. This actually went much easier than expected, as we ran it just above the baseboard behind the drywall. We had some patching to do, but it really came together nicely.

3. Kitchen area
Another large project was to repaint the cabinets in the kitchen. Kristen’s mom spent a ton of time tackling this one, and did a great job. We also painted the walls, cleaned the light fixtures, installed our fridge (and ran a water line for our ice maker), installed an RO unit, and installed a new faucet.

4. Stairway
We spent a good bit of time with the stairway, but not until much of the other work was completed. My dad painted the metal railing white (it was black in this picture), and we painted the hand-rail and runners a khaki color. My dad and I re-carpeted the stairs as well, and they turned out really nice. I learned a ton on this part of the project, and think I could probably tackle a similar one on my own next time.

5. Upstairs bedroom
The entire upstairs is the master bedroom area, including a walk-in closet and master bath. As with the rest of the place, we scraped off the acoustic ceiling (popcorn texture), and re-textured and painted. We also installed new baseboards throughout, but these pictures give you an idea of what the upstairs looked like before we started.

The second bedroom will soon be a nursery, and the bathrooms will also need a little updating, but for the most part, we are extremely happy with the way everything came together. We had tons of help, and could not have done all of this work without the help of our parents and some key friends.

Thanks!

Today marks the first studio album in three years for my favorite band, creatively named “The Dave Matthews Band.” The album is titled “Stand Up,” and I’ll be picking it up today if possible, tomorrow if not.

I’m not a fanatical fan, but I enjoy DMB’s music and their excellence as a live band. I’m always impressed when a band’s performance gets better on stage than in the studio. So many artists today (ahem) can’t even sing on stage without the vocal track playing in the background. It’s crazy.

I’m almost done unpacking the house. We’re having company over tomorrow night, so the deadline is almost here!

The office area is still a bit cluttered, but at least the living room, kitchen and dining areas are all coming together now.

I found some pictures of what the place looked like before we bought it, before we started fixing things up, and before we moved in. I’m hoping to take some pictures of things once the furnishing and decorating is complete. Then you’ll be able to see the process from beginning to end. Won’t that be fun?

I watched Hotel Rwanda last night. Wow. I haven’t had a movie impact me so deeply since Life is Beautiful.

Don Cheadle was up for an Oscar for his role in the movie, and it had received some good reviews, so I thought I’d check it out. It turns out I was in for more than I bargained for. If you haven’t seen the movie, push it to the top of your “Must-See List.” It really carries that big of an impact.