This week in history…

Hi!

My name is Balth. You may remember me from the internet in such things as Gamersledge Blog, Gamersledge Podcast and Gamersledge.com.

So I thought I’d do a small storytime and let everyone know what I’ve been up to since disappearing about two months ago.

But before that, I want to briefly touch on E3. Harmonix has ALMOST sold me a 360 with the Natal/Kinect/Whatever it’s called dancing game. Yes, I’m serious. They may get me to do it if Rock Band 3 doesn’t bankrupt me first, especially since certain people having to do with ponds enjoys the 360.

PS/Move/3D. Meh. Really. I expected Sony to come out swinging, and other than Kevin Butler, they didn’t really wow me.

Nintendo. Again, they move into a space for low cost, exploit the hell out of it until the hardcore guys come in to spend millions of dollars, then they exit the spectrum. I love em.

I picked up Battlefield:Bad Company 2. I am enjoying the hell out of it, but am frustrated there are not more game types. But I feel it is fairly superior to Modern Warfare 2 in nearly every way. As of yet, I have not touched the single player.

I’m also still enjoying Red Dead Redemption. Look for a full review on both of these as soon as I finish them, which might be a while with the new gig. I need to figure out how to adequately pack the PS3 into a carry on. Even the Slim isn’t as doable as the PS2 was.

Ok, on to storytime now:

Once upon a time, Balth worked at a credit union. After much examination, Balth switched data processors at his credit union, because his new data processer was keen. And Balth liked them so much, he went to work for them because he could help MORE credit unions.

And so I did. And it’s been fun, because the division I went to has been me creating my job from scratch. It’s been a lot of long hours, but it culminated in a trade show we’ve been working towards this last week. I went to sunny Orlando. I’m not going to talk about the show so much (it was well awesome), but I am gonna show you a couple of the side things I done did.

First up, surprisingly, in all my travels, I’d never been to downtown Orlando. It’s a pretty awesome district, with lots of cool shops and eateries tucked away.

We drove around for a bit, found a place to park and walked down a few streets.

Leo had never been to a tapas bar, and seeing as I’ve been to many, and it’s one of my favorites no matter which culture you find it in (Spanish, Greek, Italian), I found one in the downtown area that Google had rated five stars.

It was also at this point that I realized after almost a year of owning my iPhone, that google maps was set to pedestrian directions. I had always wondered why it took me so far out of the way sometimes!

Anyways, we found Ceviche. Now Ceviche, as told to us by our excellent server, Brian, does not advertise. No radio, no newspaper. Nada. It is a Spanish tapas bar, and the menu looks like a news aggregator. I’m not joking when I say I think they easily had 150 dishes.

To set the tone, here’s what you see when you enter the restaurant:

Now that’s not the whole thing, if you pan to the left…

You can’t tell me that doesn’t set a tone. They take you through large arched double doors into the main area of the restaurant:

Off to the right is a traditional ‘bar’ where they keep their hanging strings of garlic, sausages and cheeses. Farther to the right is the set of tinted windows which let you look out at the street beyond (it’s really an interesting area), but not so much in. The lights are very low and it’s almost full candlelit.

The food was fantastic, and reminds me why I love to travel and explore so much. Probably the big winner of the night was Mahi Mahi steamed with spinach, butter and lemon juice with squash in parchment (paper!). It was so tender, words cannot describe.

Words speak only so much…

That was the one big outing we had.

I returned back to my comfy doubletree, only to find two warm oatmeal chocolate chip cookies waiting for me, courtesy of the Doubletree staff:

I watched the 10pm fireworks over Disney and called it a night.

We returned this evening, and I just got home after a 9 hour drive. I’ll be home Saturday and Sunday, and then off to work Monday morning, and then onto a plane to Grand Rapids, MI until next Friday.

Now that I’m not burning a candle at both ends to meet this deadline, I shall resume a more normal posting schedule, and I appreciate Neo and Trial for picking up the slack.

Who’s hungry? 🙂
If you’re in Orlando, make sure you find Ceviche, it’s well worth your time.
Ten sweetbreads out of ten sweetbreads.