Peanut Butter Chocolate Banana Smoothie

Yes, its such a long name for such a simple food.  After visiting the Haunted Game Cafe, and tasting the delicious Zombie Elvis (basically a peanut butter chocolate banana smoothie), I had to try to recreate it at home!  After all, I can't visit that awesome place every day (okay, I promise I don't eat these every day,). But still, I found a very similar recipe to the Zombie Elvis that is just as amazing.  And it has protein too!

1 Cup of milk (any milk will do, regular, almond milk, coconut milk, etc.)
1 Banana, more brown than yellow, for sweetness
2 Tbs peanut butter
2 Tbs chocolate syrup
2 Cups of ice cubes (about 12 cubes)

Add the milk, then banana, then peanut butter, then chocolate syrup to the blender.  Puree until smooth.  Add the ice cubes and blend until smooth.  If you want the smoothie to be sweeter, add a bit of sugar to taste.

Enjoy the smoothie!

Music of eLeMeNO-P

Alright guys, these people are hands down amazing.  Their a capella blending is terrific, and what's more, I know two of the people here!  Dan Hoeye and Jalyn Webb are some of the best teachers I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.  I really miss having Encore group with them! Anyway, those of you who don't know about eLeMeNOP or Dan, or Jalyn, please check them out.  They're fantastic.

Quote of The Day!

So I need something to get me on here every day to post.  I don't know WHY I think this will help, but I do, and maybe it will.  I'm starting a "QOTD," Quote Of The Day.  These will probably, most likely, be funny quotes I've collected over the years, or random philosophical ones I've also collected.  Because that's what this blog is: funny, and filosophical.  Double f's.  Just kidding.  I do know how its spelled ;) Anyway, I hope this new series gives some of you some inspiration, even if its weird and wacky!

QOTD:  "I think that when Pandora asks you if you're still listening, there should be an option to say no."

Keurig Vue Leaking SOLUTION!

Hey everyone, quite a while ago we got a Keurig coffee machine, and its really cool.  Although picking the cups apart to recycle them is relatively annoying (especially when you have a whole stack of them to peel apart.....) It is nice to be able to just make one cup of tea or one cup of coffee instead of a whole pot.  Now I can make recipes with, say, one cup of coffee in them and not have to waste a whole pot!  Yay! Not that I make a lot of things with coffee in them, BUT NOW I CAN!

Anyway, we decided to get the Keurig Vue, a newer model of Keurig coffee makers.  Its got some nice features including a touch screen and multiple settings, but after we started using ours, the machine would start peeing water all over the counter top.  My dad, being the engineer he is, decided it was because of me making hot chocolate and clogging the head up.  But even when I wouldn't make hot chocolate, it would leak everywhere.  We searched and searched, and we couldn't find a reason why it was leaking.  We even sent Keurig the head (which we thought was the problem) and they sent us a new machine.  The new machine did the same thing.  So finally my dad figured out the problem because of one very hard to find post on the internet.  Apparently it has a lot to do with the shape of the coffee you're putting in the machine.

Because we live at a high altitude and the coffee pack things are made a different altitude, the pressure in the lids causes a change in the shape of the lid.  The water pouring into the coffee pack things would run off the rounded foil lids and down the back of the head, resulting in a huge mess on the counter, and very little coffee in the cup.  As it turns out, if you take a paper clip and poke through the foil lid to depressurize it before putting it in the coffee maker, it changes the shape of the lid so that the water doesn't run out!  It works the right way now!  Hooray!

Horsetooth Hike!

I am happy to announce that I have crossed off number 14 on my bucket list! Yesterday, Saturday July 20th, I hiked Horsetooth Mountain with four great friends all the way to the top!  The hike was pretty steep, and today my legs are somewhat sore, but it was a beautiful hike all the way up.  The top was very worth the effort.  I hope to hike it again sometime this summer.  I've also learned that my cardio seriously needs some work.  I'm not terribly out of shape muscle wise, but apparently stamina is something I really need to work on.  Thanks to everyone for being so patient every time I needed to take a breather!  Here are some pictures of the fabulous time we had!

: )

Things Not to Do During A Rainstorm!

Sooo... I learned a few things from last night's massive storm.

1. Don't run outside in the hail to cover your plants with towels.  (Hazardous to personal well being.)
2. Don't cover your plants with towels when its raining or will rain. (Hazardous to plant well being.)
3. Don't try to drive in water.  Your car is not a submarine, even if it looks like one. (Hazardous in multiple ways.  DO NOT DRIVE OR OPERATE MACHINERY IF YOU ARE... UNDERWATER.  If you have any serious changes in mood or behavior, or thoughts of suicide... please pull over.)  

So to go into more detail, I was getting ready for work yesterday afternoon, and it started raining really hard.  I decided to wait out some of the storm because I was getting reports of hail, and OH! ANOTHER THING!

1. Don't drive in hail.  No bueno. 

So as I heard it start hailing on our house, I suddenly remember "Oh no! Not my rose bushes!!!" So I ran to the closet, grabbed the ugliest towels I could find, and ran outside barefooted into the hail, covering my head with the towels.  Of course, about halfway to my bushes I'm starting to realize that once I cover my bushes with the towels I won't have anything to cover me with, but ya know, health, who cares (point number one).  I covered them up carefully and bolted back inside.  Thankfully the hail didn't get any bigger, and I wasn't really at all affected by the hail. About 2 minutes later, the sun is out.  Thanks Colorado.  By then I was late for work, so I decided to leave the towels on the bushes and take care of them when I got home.  After work, the three employees closing the store with me locked up, and we walked outside.  The storm was back with a vengeance.  It was pouring rain.  We all stood under the awning and decided whether to run out to our cars. The employee closest to the building decided to make a run for it, and then she picked us up and dropped us off at our cars which was very kind.  

I started driving home, and about 1/3 of the way home I had my wipers going as fast as they could, and I was slowly losing sight of the lines on the road.  Not only that, but there was at least an inch of water on the road itself.  I pulled over and waited (because I knew my car wasn't a submarine!! YAY!).  After it had slowed and then picked up again, I decided to try to get home again, and I got back on the road.  Despite having seen the 'FLASH FLOOD WARNING' messages on my phone, I kept going.  At one point, the rain started falling in heavy waves, and every time I hit a huge rut of water it scared me half to death.  Then I came to an intersection which, in the dark, looked just like all the others.  Wet, and black.  (Quite the description, I know.  *Bows*) But as I drove into this one, it turned out not to be road at all, but about 12-14 inches of deep running water.  Of course as the car splashed into this one it scared me even more and several things flashed into my head. 

1. AHHHHH!!!
2. Oh yeah, I can get out of this, its just like skidding or hydroplaning.  No big deal.  Wait, yes it is.  I COULD BE FLOATING!! WE NEVER WENT OVER THIS IN DRIVERS ED! AHHHH!
3. Why on EARTH don't they have police here with traffic cones so people don't FLOAT AWAY?!?!
4. I should call the police and tell them to get over here.
5. But wait, I'm driving in a foot of water, I can't call anyone, I'm awful at multitasking. 
6. Why haven't they said anything about flash flood warnings on the stupid radio yet?!
7. Can water get IN the car? Maybe I should have brought a swimsuit. 

Yeah.  Adrenaline makes your brain work about a billion times faster.  I didn't actually start floating, I didn't hydroplane (strangely...), I never drowned in my car, and I never called the police.  But the lesson here is, just don't.  Don't drive in a storm like this. Ever. You could float, you could hydroplane, and you could drown.  Okay probably not drown, but yeah. (Point three).

Lastly for point two.  When I finally did get home, I went out to take the towels off my roses, and found them to be completely waterlogged and weighing down my rose bushes.  I carefully peeled them off and found some of the new growth on them broken off because of the immense weight.  Thus, don't put towels on plants, but tarps instead.  Tarps don't absorb water.  Towels do.  There's my helpful spiel of the day! Enjoy :)

Solution to Riven Freezing

Hey everyone!  With the relaxation and time off provided by summer, I've had time to actually play some games!  One of my favorite game series is Myst.  Some of you may have heard of it, others probably not.  It is a pretty old series, but its basically the mother of all escape games.  If you want to find out more about it, please visit this article.

Anyway, after already completing the first game of the series, Myst I, I started playing Riven, the second game of the series (I know right, playing games chronologically?? Who would do such a thing?!).  Although both of them are old, and both of them need to be run in 'compatibility mode' on Windows 7, they should both run fine.  Or so you would think.  For me at least, Riven wasn't working very well.

I would start up the game, it would run for a little while and work just fine, and then, very randomly, it would freeze.  It would lock up so bad that I had to go to Task Manager and end the process to kill it.  But I was always able to restart the game and run it for a little while again before it repeated this.

But for those of you reading this for the solution and not just to hear me yammer on, good news!  A solution is here! Thanks to the help of one of my friends, I was finally able to fix this problem!  I believe the problem occurred because I run a 64 bit system and not a 32 bit.

1. Start Riven as you normally would.
2. As soon as it gets to the main menu in the game, hit CTRL+SHIFT+ESC.
3. This should bring up Task Manager.  Click the "Processes" tab.

1. If you are not already running as an Administrator, click on the "Show processes from all users" button near the bottom of Task Manager. 
2. Once that loads, look for "Riven.exe" and click it.  

1. Now right click it, and then click "Set Affinity..." 
2. De-select all of the CPU processors except for CPU 0.  It does not have to be CPU 0, it could be any of them, but make sure you only have one of them selected.  Riven is an older program, and it does not know what to do with more than one CPU processor running it. 

1. Click "OK" and return to the game!  Simple as that.  

Hope this helps somebody!  Please comment!