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Man, I love my family. And the house I grew up in. Going home is always great.

Charcoal Chimney Follow-Up: A Sad Report

I am sad to report that our attempt to achieve glowing charcoal success via the Charcoal Chimney turned out in failure. After two unsuccessful attempts, the charcoal was lit by other means.

Prepped...

Charcoal'd...

Ready...

Smoking (and still confident)...

Less and less confident. This was as good as it got with the chimney.

I remain convinced that the charcoal here just doesn't like to be lit. Plus, the paper here is pretty much plastic, so that doesn't exactly help with the ignition.

We were not, however, deterred from our ultimate objective.

The best of the best

This year, for my 30th, Stacy went all out. I'm sorry, I meant to say all out.

In addition to some pretty epic travels and hikes, she topped it off with this little gem:

When I was in Kenan Flagler Business School at UNC, this image of the Old Well was the B-School's logo - it has now been adopted by the whole university. Either way, I a) love the logo, b) love UNC, c) love the color (obviously), d) love neckties, and e) LOVE this gift!

Happy classy birthday to me!

McSamurai

Yeah, I go to McDonald's in almost every country I visit. Most recently: Japan.

Go ahead, judge me.

Fuel for the Soul

Ice cream. It's what keeps me going.

Stand Up Paddle Boarding - First Try

My lovely wife has wanted to try Stand Up Paddle Boarding, also known as SUP, for quite sometime now. Either we haven't been places where we could try, or our attempts to try have fallen through (Hong Kong in April) and all it's done is increased her desire to get out and paddle.

Luckily for us, we went home for Isaac and Caroline's wedding in Knoxville a few weeks ago, and Knoxville had a "Discover SUP" class, so we jumped all over. Double lucky for us, all my siblings (except the recently betrothed) were all able to join in the fun. We all had a blast.

It's like a stand up paddle board version of Tombstone.

Now, all growing up my father used to say a phrase he learned when working at J.C. Penny's: "Work smarter, not harder." So, to honor my father, I am going to post a few pictures and then include two links - one from the travel website I run, which describes our SUP experience, and one to my sister Hannah's blog.

(If you don't know Hannah/haven't experienced her blog, here's all you need to know - she knows how to post a picture or two. Or twenty. She should have been a photojournalist instead of a guidance counselor...)

Pre-paddle pic

The ladies, still looking glam

This is the face of "I've waited so long" bliss

Everyone's got the hang of it. Well, maybe except Hannah...

Boo-yah!

Who was that?! Let's be honest, it's probably me.

Organized Chaos - Stand Up Paddleboarding. SUP.

Get Out and Travel - How Stand Up Paddle Boarding (SUP) Won Me Over With One Paddle Stroke

Micah can photobomb with the best of 'em...

You Know What You Did...

Yeah you do. You.

We turned 30!

Despite my husband's emphasis on my turning 30, he actually turned 30 also this year, and only A FEW weeks after I did.

For my birthday:

Aaron tried to surprise with an early birthday present of stand up paddle boarding (which I've been wanting to do since the first time I heard about it), but the people he tried to arrange it with, never got back to him.  So we went to a horse race instead (unfortunately we lost those pictures in the water that destroyed Aaron's computer back in April.

We also stayed at one of the nicest hotels in the city....which was super nice (tv in English!!) until we woke up the next morning with Aaron's clothes soaked through because of a leak in the ceiling.

The night before that, though, we enjoyed a walk by the river, eating at one of my favorite restaurants, and having an Arrested Development marathon (since the new season had just been released).

the last picture of me in my twenties

In between my birthday and Aaron's birthday we went home to go to Isaac and Caroline's wedding!

One of our friends blessed us with buddy passes on Delta to fly home, and we ended up getting to sit in Business Elite on the long flight home!!

 In Business Elite, your seats fold down into beds, so I slept longer on that flight than I ever have before.

Thanks Lindsey!!

We came home for these two to get married.  The wedding was beautiful!

And then Aaron worked it out that we actually did get to go SUP, once we got to America.  And I think it was even better than the original plan, because we got to do it with almost all of his siblings.

Classy tanks.....and no Hannah's not really pregnant

And then again later with his parents and Josh!

At home we celebrated both of our birthdays with our families:

At the birthday party with my family it turns out I took more video than pictures...it involved a piñata, how could I not take video of that?

that's me dominating my brother in corn hole

with my grandparents

first time i've ever celebrated a birthday with july birthdays

At the end of our time at home, I surprised Aaron by letting him know that one of the other perks of the buddy passes that we received, was that on our way back to China we were stopping in Japan to hike Mt. Fuji to celebrate his birthday!

Pictures of Japan to come....

The Charcoal Chimney

When we were home this summer, nay even before that, my brother Micah was on a serious grilling/smoking (meat, not tobacco) kick. Apparently, he recently received a smoker as a gift and was thrust into the not-so-secret underworld of obsessed smokers.

From what I can tell, that smoky underworld is mostly composed of middle-aged men. And my brother.

Micah and me, swagged out at Isaac and Caroline's rehearsal

So, while we were home for 2 weeks, I had ample time to talk with Micah about his new hobby. Somehow, it came to light that one reason we don't use my grill here (the one we've used to smoke barbecue a few times) is because the charcoal here is too hard to light, Micah gave me a mini-lecture on the innumerable benefits of the "charcoal chimney."

In fact, he was so disturbed about the whole thing that he gave me some money to go get one. He also told me how I could make my own. I was not able to make it to a hardware store to purchase a pre-made chimney, but I was able to procure an empty #10 can (a big coffee can) which I brought back to Asia with me so that I could make my own chimney.

And for any of you that know me, making my own definitely suits me better than buying one. We'll see how long the homemade one lasts...

The Process

1) Get all the necessary items and tools together

2) Cut the bottom off of the can, so that you have a cylinder with no ends

3) Create a platform to separate the charcoal (which goes above) from the paper (which goes below). Usually, people use coat hangers or buy some sort of metal grate/screen, but I felt like punching holes in the recently removed lid to see if that would suffice.

Part 1 - Score the edge of the lid and remove about 1/4" so that it can fit easily back into the can.

Part 2 - Don gloves and bend the edges down so that I don't cut the fool out of myself on sharp metal every time I use the chimney.

Part 3 - Punch holes in the lid to create a surface through which the flames from the paper (below) can ignite the charcoal (above)

4) Punch draft holes around the bottom of the can, in order to allow oxygen up from the bottom. This will hopefully create the "chimney" effect that ignites the charcoal more easily. Or so Micah says.

5) Add brackets inside the can to hold up the "grate" that I created, and revel in my handiwork.

6) Continue to revel.

And that, my friends, is how it's done.

So much to say

Okay, yeah, we dropped the ball again. But since my last "promise to get this thing started again," so much has happened. Mostly, Stacy turned 30 and I hiked Mt. Fuji in Japan. But also lots of other things.

So, consider this a "renewal of blog vows." We're back. Trust us...