Never add water to chocolate, and other news

 Here are some pictures we took last sunday on a foray to Freemont District, dubbed "The Center of the Universe" probably by themselves. It used to be the center of counterculture, but I think now it is pretty much gentrified with a funky feel...pretty much like ann arbor. Above is an old rocket fuselage.

 Here is a statue of Lenin that was salvaged from the red square and brought here by a resident art lover.

 Nathan enjoys a sandwich behind lenin. Also in the courtyard are some fun tile faces!

 There is lots more to see in freemont, but I didn't take pictures of everything, and some things (such as the famous freemont troll) we have yet to visit!

Ok, the last night Toni came over and we made black bean soup and carved pumpkins. Nathan and toni present theirs:

 Mine and Nathan's:

 A close up of Toni's all aglow.

 Nathan's demonic rabbit pumpkin. It wraps around the pumpkin, so you can't see his ears, but they are pretty cool looking in person.

Here is my jolly pumpkin. I was going for some sort of carnival ring master man, but he turned out a little like Colonel Sanders... also if you cover up the mouth and gotee he looks like a puppy (mustache=puppy jowls, eyebrows=ears).

Today I started making some treats for the upcoming party--some coconut macaroons, and some buckeyes (chocolate dipped peanut butter balls). All was going well until I tried to thin the melted chocolate out with water. As a public service announcement: NEVER DO THIS. My nice smooth melty chocolate instantly turned into a 2.5 pound gritty brick of unusable chocolate. This is called chocolate "seizing" and apparently can happen to melted chocolate even with the slightest whif of water or water vapor. SO BAKERS BEWARE. So I got kind of down about that (especially because I burned my macaroons whilst trying to fix the chocolate) and didn't want to go to the store for like the third time today to get more chocolate, so I have yet to complete my project, but when I do it promises to be super delicious. So, learn from my mistakes and never add water to chocolate.

Also, if you read my previous entry you know that I recently auditioned for a company and was among the "top 4-5 candidates" and have been waiting to hear back. Well, I just received a very nice rejection letter from the company's director, so that answers that I suppose.