For Valentine’s Day weekend, Christina and I were really excited about staying at home and cooking instead of going out. We love to cook because we feel happier and closer when we make our own food, and we like being creative with our meals. For dinner on Saturday, we had a lot of fun making a vegetarian heart-shaped pizza, but we had even more fun making some mini-quiches the next morning with a Xpress Redi-Set-Go cooker that a coworker let us borrow.

The Redi-Set-Go indoor grill is very lightweight and really easy to set up and use. It’s electric, heats up fairly quickly, and has a timer that goes up to 15 minutes at the top. It might not seem like a lot of time, but you really don’t need any more than that, because the cooker makes food very fast.

It comes with a Meals in Minutes recipe book and bonus recipe booklet, a divider pan so you can cook two things at a time (good for keeping quesadillas separate too), a dual-sided spatula, and a mini food pan that has contoured slots that make it easy for making stuff like mini-quiches. We didn’t really need anything but the mini food pan, and the slots were the perfect size for the Mini Filo Shells we used.

Our quiche mix was very easy to make. Here are the ingredients that you’ll need:

• 1 package of 15 Athens Mini Filo Shells
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 1/2 roma tomato
• 1/4 zucchini
• A few leaves of baby spinach
• Shredded cheese (we used a blend of Italian cheeses)
• Salt and pepper to your taste

Simply mix eggs and milk; dice the tomato, zucchini and baby spinach; and add as much shredded cheese, salt and pepper as you’d like.

Once you’ve got your mix ready, use something that makes it easy to pour the contents into the shells. Otherwise, they won’t turn out so pretty. And pour carefully! All of the contents of the mix can pour out quickly sometimes. After all of the shells are full, close the cooker and set it to 10 minutes, which is the perfect time.

Since it was our first try, the first batch was a bit quirky. I over-poured some of the shells, so they weren’t perfect, but they still tasted great!

We were a bit more careful with the second batch, and we were very proud to see that they turned out so great.

These were creamy and very delicious. The veggies gave them a tangy taste, and the tomato especially fills them with a rich flavor when you bite into them. They’re great for a light and fun breakfast, or also as bite-size treats for guests when you throw a party. We really had fun making them, and we definitely recommend the Redi-Set-Go cooker, because it helps to make cooking extremely easy when you’re short on time, which we always are!

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Now that we’re finding more time, we’re aiming to make the best use of this space by posting more often about our adventures and experiences, with lots of great pictures and stories.

Also, I’m a big Twitter user, but Christina is just getting started. Look out for tweets from her as soon as she signs up.

Lastly, the theme we’re using is a modified version of Infinity for Wordpress, a freebie from Smashing Magazine. So far we’re liking it a lot, but there’s a few tweaks I have to make here and there to really make it work for us.

Out for now, keep checking back for updates.

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That being said, we do need a bit of help still, and would appreciate volunteers for the following:

Cake Pickup and Delivery to Reception

We will have two cakes at our place on 11th and Sherman St. We just need someone to pick them up sometime after our ceremony ends at 4:30 p.m., and bring them to our reception at the Montclair Center.

Music Equipment Pickup and Ride for DJ

My friend Alan will be providing music at the reception. He will need a ride to our place to pick up two monitors (each about the size of a large storage bin), his mixer, records and cables. You will probably need a good-sized trunk.

If you are willing and able to help out with any of the above, please leave your name and which task you can take on in the comments below. We’ll contact you soon after to check if you have any questions, and to work out details.

We are very fortunate to have all of you as coming to our wedding, and would be grateful for any help you can provide.

Thanks everyone,

Joe and Christina

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Environmentally-related content has enjoyed a great deal of success lately, and it’s rare that an eco-centric story doesn’t hit the front page of Digg. But more niche Green-friendly social media sites are on the rise, and they’re becoming a great place to share conscious living content that would otherwise get lost in the pile on bigger sites.

Four of my favorites are:

• Hugg
• MindBodyGreen
• Kirtsy
• Care2

From stories about fruits and vegetables, the difference between vegans and vegetarians, to green weddings, it’s easy to get Green content to the front page.

Whatever your motivation - whether you’re looking to promote a good story you’ve found or just looking to take a break from usual news - they’re great sites and I highly recommend checking them out.

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If you live in Denver, you’ve probably been approached by someone looking for change or have seen people standing with signs at strategic positions (usually intersections in high-traffic areas that get congested at rush hour).

They’re everywhere, and no matter how awesome the city of Denver thinks it is by saying they’ll get rid of homelessness in 10 years, we all know it’s not gonna happen. “Homeless” people are here to stay, and we’ll continue to get hounded no matter what.

And no, putting money in the homeless meter is not going to help. Especially when the dude is standing next to you as you’re reassuring him that putting money in the meter is going to help end all homelessness, including his.

I’ve been taken advantage of quite a few times by panhandlers. Usually it’s been by the aggressive ones - those that use intimidation or create a high stress situation from which you really badly want to escape. They know that by making you really uncomfortable or freak out, you’re more likely to hand over whatever change or cash you personally know you have. Guilt is a very powerful tool, especially for panhandlers.

Because of some bad experiences in the past few months, I’ve made it a point not to give out money anymore. Frankly, I’m tired of doing it.

It’s not that I’m not sympathetic, but I simply don’t feel that it helps much at all, and I never know what they actually do with it. Plus, it sucks to lose the quarters that I’ve been saving to do laundry with, and I have to pull out another $20 from the ATM, go to a grocery store, and get change all over again. When possible, I do buy food if we’re close to a corner store or fast food place.

Anyway, not all supposed “homeless” people are liars who simply want to kick back and let society do the rest of the work while they reap the benefits. But if you’ve ever wondered if some people do it just so they don’t have to work, the answer is yes, and if you’ve suspected they can make a lot of money from it, yes again.

Here’s a perfect example, and one that will make you think twice before you hand out your change the next time you’re on the street:

It would be wrong to assume that every panhandler is a fake. There really are some people out there who got dealt a rough hand in life. Some suffer from severe mental illness, were cast out by their family and friends, and are doomed to wandering the streets with just enough knowledge of how to feed themselves and survive each day. Those are the people that need help the most.

But how can we distinguish the fakes from those that really need help? And should we always give money, hoping they really needed help and we did the right thing? As unfair as it may sound, I personally don’t think it’s possible to always make the right judgment, and we shouldn’t feel obligated to give money.

For the foreseeable future, I’m going to stick to my no-to-money, yes-to-food policy. However, I’m sure that others may have a different opinion and different strategy for dealing with panhandlers. What do you do when asked for change on the streets?

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So far, the Denver/Boulder area has been consistently bringing in big DNB headliners and bringing Makoto is huge. In the past few years, I’ve seen LTJ Bukem twice, AI, Goldie (even got to take a shot from Mr. Metalheadz himself :D), Marcus Intalex, and more.

Definitely gonna get my tickets ahead of time. If any of you want to get tickets too, you can buy them here.

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It’s really awesome that there are so many free resources available to Web designers and I’m very grateful to the above for helping us update our site.

I hope you guys like it and feel free to give us some feedback :)

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Still working on the site. Been really busy with the design of our Wedding site and now I’m moving on to integrating it with Wordpress, if it’s worth the trouble.

Anyway, I got tired of the Headsetoptions theme and switched over to the very awesome Futurosity Vero, by Robert Ellis at Futurosity.com.

More to come…

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Stay tuned for a new design and also a new section for that will have all the details for our wedding, coming up on July 19 :)

- Joe

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See more progress on: open my own non-profit

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