My July Habit

At the end of June I acquired a free T.V, and gift that resolved my inner debate on whether or not I should purchase one. Considering it would take a kind benefactor to buy one, I was quite pleased that I found a benefactor who was willing to give me one. For free. (This lady was leaving Dubai for good, and I received a whole bunch of free stuff as well. Yeah!) The television set also came with a DVD player and I was content enough to sit at home watching all the DVDs I brought from the states (or borrow the ones available for rent at my gym--that's right my gym where I exercise), but my landlord thought this was not good enough and arranged for me to get a box that would hook up to the satellite dish.

I wasn't too sure I wanted it. First of all, the satellite box-thingy was not free, plus I could easily see myself flipping channels for hours on end in the evening--not writing the blog, not reading good literature, and not going to bed on time. But the Tour de France was quick approaching, so I consented.

When the Tour began on July 4th, when you all were celebrating Independence Day with barbecues and ice cream, I had to go online to read the first stage--as it unfolded--on velonews.com. It wasn't the ideal way to watch my favorite sporting event, but better than nothing. I even figured I would fare quite well without a satellite connection after all.

Luckily for me, my landlord came through, and one evening a Pakistani gentleman not only hooked up my box, but he also found all the English language channels and moved them up to the front of the dial--as well as including a French channel for me--and deleted the surprisingly large number of porn channels. (It was astonishing since the country blocks Web sites like Flicker and other relatively harmless sites because there may be innapropriate images, yet they had not managed to get rid of the actual harmful content on the satellite. I guess that's harder to block...).

The very next day I was watching the Tour in French, and that day's stage was a mighty thrilling one to watch. Cervelo Test Team's Heinrich Haussler was in a solo breakway for a large portion on that rainy, hilly stage, which he was able to win by a large margin. Actually being able to see his face holding back victory tears as he crossed the finish line nearly made me well up with joy for him. Reading does not make up for watching moments like this.

I am pretty sure there are only about two of you who care about my Tour fascination, but I will write a little bit about this year's Tour anyway.

1. This year I officially stopped worshipping at the Church of Lance. Oh sure, I am very grateful to him for helping me love professional cycling, and his organization does wonderful things for cancer patients, but he's been gone from the peloton for a while and I met other cyclists that I prefer. And other teams with a lot less drama...

2. I got very annoyed with the goings on at Team Astana. Everyday Velo News was full of the latest "who's the team leader?" drama. First it's Alberto Contador, next its Lance Armstrong, then it's whoever is strongest. And then when the strongest contender (not Lance) exerted himself, it was all about that awful rogue Contador. Enough already! Go Bradley Wiggins! Go Schleck Brothers! Go anyone else!

3. The Schleck Brothers, Team Saxo Bank's powerful duo, were very entertaining to follow on the last week's mountain stages. I loved how they worked together. Sadly, they weren't strong enough to topple Contador, but Andy Schleck did get 2nd place and the white jersey (best young rider). He'll win the Tour soon.

4. Garmin-Slipstream is not responsible for George Hincapie not getting the yellow jersey. This was a seriously lame piece of drama. Hincapie misses out on the yellow jersey by five seconds and everyone wants to blame Garmin because they moved up to the front of the peloton. So what. The only reason it was such a big deal is because it happened to George Hincapie. If someone else missed it by five seconds, the media would have said "Oh well, tough loss, better luck tomorrow." But no, since it was Lance's supposed "best bud in the peloton" it became a major inconsequential issue.

5. Fabian Cancellara proved once and again that he is an awesome cyclist. He can time trial, he rides in the breakaways, and he can help get his fellow teammates (the Schleck's) up and over the mountains. And he's not ugly.

That's it. Now what am I going to do with my time?

This Is How I Make the Big Bucks...or Just the Bucks

I thought I'd share some photos of cakes that I've done. The one above was a going-away cake for a guy that was a total Metalhead. It had the looongest inscription I had ever written. It practically covered the top of this 12" red velvet cake. I drew a chain border on the bottom and added spikes to complete the heavy metal look. I am really glad the spikes worked out. Our frosting has a tendency to get a soupy the longer I work with it. Thanks to a whole bunch of powdered sugar, the spikes worked!

I didn't want to do this design, but the customer insisted. Since I wasn't at the bakery to put my foot down, I got stuck with it. Generally I try to avoid drawing people on cakes. Cartoons, yes. People, no. I searched for a long time online to find a really cartoonish girl with a shopping bag that could be pulled off without massacring the face. I found an all-black sillhoete, and improvised. I was happy with the results, but at the same time totally frustrated. Now I can't tell people "no" when they want a person on the cake.

This cake was for the birthday of one of Dubai's gossipy magazines. I hate icing rectangle cakes.

The birthday girl brought in a picture of this beach/sea-themed cake. I tried to follow her drawing exactly. I have done better aquarium-type cakes. I just don't have a picture of said cake.

I was worried about this one as well, because the lady who ordered it would not listen to me. I had to tell her five times that we didn't use marzipan, fondant, or airbrushes. Luckily she liked it!

Here's the top view of the map I made.

This little face belongs to Princess Lillifee. Yeah, I haven't heard of her either. I think she's a Central European cartoon character or something. This was also rather nervewracking because 1) it's a face and 2) all I had to go on was a 1" square image. Normally when I draw on cakes, I make a stencil and trace the image on the cake because I don't draw with pencils particularly well, and buttercream poses more of a challenge. This character was a series of stencils that when laid on top of eachother made the face of Princess Lillifee. I was quite pleased with myself over this one. And it marks the first time the customer called me to tell me how much she like it.

Anyway, that's pretty much what I do. Along with icing cupcakes, ordering supplies, tracking inventory...I don't have pictures of the rest of my tasks.

Wanted: One Kind Benefactor

Chef Aaron downloaded some new music that I want (Diane Birch), and he is more than willing to burn me a copy of her album, except there is one small little problem: my computer's disc drive refuses to open. I think this happened when my computer slid and fell off of the security table of the airport in Beirut. Sadly, the busted disc drive is just one of the many problems my computer is having: it gets tired easily and will just shut down mid-use; it doesn't want to play any form of media found via the world-wide web; and I can't access any document I have saved in Microsoft Word or Adobe (all of my recipes). So, I think it is time to get a new one.

However, I can't really afford a new computer, especially since I would really, really, really like to get a MacBook Pro. I am trying to save as much money as possible, but considering I still have to eat and buy toilet paper, as well as save for any future life endeavors, this whole saving extra money thing isn't going as quickly as I would prefer. I may have enough saved in about 5 years. By my calculations, that's about 4 years and 3 months too late.

So in times like these I think back to a nice book I read I've read a few times: Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster. For those of you unfamiliar with the book, it's pretty much a series of fictional letters sent by an orphan to the kind benefactor who paid for her to go to school. Wouldn't it be nice for some mysterious person to provide for these material wants that I kinda would like to have. Or to pay my student loan. Are there any kind benefactors out there who could spare a few dollars for my technology fund?

If you've had a chance to read Daddy-Long-Legs you will recall that the book's heroine ended up marrying her benefactor. I am not looking for that. Just money for the computer (and possibly a new cell phone, which also doesn't work too well) would be plenty. However, if he just so happens to be in his 30's, tall, dark hair, fair-skinned, devlishly blue eyes, and a British accent...well, that would be another story.