Artist, graphic designer, & tech consultant in Nelson County, VA
Author:lemsy
John LeMasney (lemsy) is an artist, graphic designer, and technology creative. He is located in beautiful Nelson County, VA, but works remotely with ease. Contact him at: lemasney@gmail.com to discuss your next creative project.
While I was in Chicago, I had the opportunity to try a Hunan fusion place for lunch one day. I love spicy, and enjoy vegetarian dishes, but often only find the combination in Indian cuisine. I deeply heart Indian food for this and many other reasons. See also Roti. In the menu was the golden duo of the symbol for spicy, a little pepper icon, and the symbol for veggie, a little broccoli icon. The name of the dish was Vegetable Manchurian.
Anyway, I ordered Vegetable Manchurian, and expected something like a spicy Pad Thai without noodles. When the meatballs in gravy showed up, i was sure there had been a mistake. It was my very delicious mistake. I figured that it was an invention of this place, but in a quick search for the calories in Manchurian veg, I was amazed to find it was a common and stylized dish!
“There are two different variants of it, dry and with gravy. Both variants are prepared by using common ingredients like cauliflower, corn flour, maida flour, spring onion, capsicum, soy sauce, chili sauce, minced garlic, ground pepper, etc. and has typical garnish of spring onion. Few recipes even call for use of Ajinomoto (MSG) to increase the taste profile however many prefer to avoid it due to health reasons. Its taste can vary from mild spicy to hot and fiery based on the recipe and personal preference.” – Gobi manchurian – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – http://goo.gl/gK1PiV
I have never had nor seen these batter based veggie bites in spicy gravy before, but I will most certainly be seeking them out here in Pan Asian food heaven, aka greater Princeton. Mine were served with rice, and were filled with cilantro, sprouts, and legumes. Amazing texture and flavor. I’m hooked.
I have been traveling, and just came home, and walked in, and it’s joyous. I decided to make a record of how I feel and why I feel that way. It’s important to note that I enjoyed my trips away, and it’s also important to note that I was not especially homesick. Nonetheless, there are certain things that I really enjoy inside these four walls (and nearby) that I just can’t get in the places I’ve been recently, namely, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C..
High speed Internet connectivity.
When I am at home, I’m enveloped in bits, and it feels amazing to be back in that digital bath. Â In the ORD airport, you get 20 minutes free if you sit through an advertisement. Some airports do not have free Internet at all. In the hotels, when you get Internet access for free, which is less and less, it’s spotty at best.
I feel like Internet connectivity is to productivity as water is to the body. I feel like we need to seriously consider some level of high-speed Internet connectivity as a basic human right.
When you don’t have it, you crave it. When crave turns to need, you’re in trouble.
My media collection and services.
Even if I have no Internet at home, which is seldom the case, I have books, movies, TV shows, and lots of other media sources. In fact, with a good Internet connection, I can get to most of them remotely. Away from home, I have none of it. If I’m lucky I can get YouTube or Netflix over the lousy wi-fi. See also point one above.
Chromecast.
If there’s one flaw to a Chromecast, it’s that it will not work if you try to connect to WiFi that has an agreement screen. I really need to invest in a travel router or run OpenWRT on my Raspberry Pi so that I can start bringing my Chromecast with me and using it. But even if I did, I’m sure the media would stutter because of the low-bandwidth in the hotels. Also, as a cable cutter, I’m happy to not watch TV anymore, and this is the one amenity available in every hotel. I’m rather have the ability to just use my Chromecast. You can keep the 40 channels of nothing.
A ‘comfortable’ bed.
Don’t get me wrong, the hotels I have stayed at have had incredibly fluffy, well maintained, 1200 thread sheeted, super soft, and therefore incredibly uncomfortable (to me) beds. The main reason I have a very soft futon is because I sleep especially well on a very soft futon.
I like my 10-year-old pillow, my comforter that’s beyond repair, and the particular distance from the TV to the pillow.
I can’t wait to crash tonight.
Expectable weather.
Recent travel by John LeMasney in 2015 (Google Dashboard)
I never know exactly how to pack for a trip away. It’s hard at the moment because the country is entering Spring, and as a result, it can be 28 degrees in a Chicago morning, and 57 degrees by dinnertime. But I’m not packing a puffy coat for a chance of snow. On the other hand, I was pretty cold walking to work in my hoodie this week. In this part of the world, it’s easy enough to leave your jacket in the car. When I travel, I seldom have a car. I’m glad I don;t have to worry about it for a while.
Local restaurants.
I really enjoyed some of the restaurants I visited while I was traveling, but I’ll never be a regular there. I like having a ‘Cheers’ moment when I walk into a local restaurant like Michael’s in Lawrenceville. In a place where you are generally alone, like we tend to be when we travel, it makes those ‘Cheers’ moments seem far more distant.
Local groceries, a stove, and a full fridge.
Sunday is grocery day in my house. I go to my local farmer’s market, stock up on fruit, veg, and bread, and eat like a king for a week. In 3 out of the 4 recent trips, I walked to the places I was going, or I did not go, and more often than not, the nearest grocery was miles away. The walk there would have been okay, the walk back would have been much harder. In 2 out of the 4 hotels I was at, there was no fridge, and 3 out of the 4 had no stove. The one with the full kitchen was also the one with the grocery within walking distance, luckily. I love to shop for groceries, and I love to cook, but it’s often impossible to do either when you travel.
Local convenience stores.
We absolutely must talk about the difference between the United States’ Eastern coast convenience store, and the rest of the world as two separate categories.
Wawa only exists in 5 states.
7 Eleven is mostly everywhere, but please, don’t try to tell me that the experiences are similar. No QuickChek or Sheetz in most of these places, though San Francisco had some amazing green corner delis.
The rhythm of home.
If I’m away, these days, it’s for business. That usually means a 9-5 job for a few days or a week. I’m grateful for my employers’ generosity, that they would give me such amazing opportunities. But it’s a lot different when I get back to my normal schedule. Part of the reason I was so excited about making consulting my living is that most days I work until 3 am, wake up around 10 am, and work as I please in between. I always make my 8 am meetings, when they are scheduled, but they’re not scheduled everyday, and most people are just as happy to meet at 1 pm as at 7 am. I’m so happy I can get back to the rhythm of this place.
I’m really happy to be home.
I hope this article does not come off as kvetching. I really do not mean it to. I really enjoyed my recent travels, and as I said, I thank my employers for the opportunities and all that goes with them. I just wanted to sing the praises of home a bit. I hope you see some of what you love about home written here, and that it helps you to look around and notice all the nice stuff you have going on. I was taking it for granted, until some travel reminded me of what I love about this place.
This is Jack’s sneaker. I asked him to choose something for me to draw for this project, and after some careful thought, he chose his sneaker. It has the most beautiful lines, and this bright orange color offset by a deep gray. I made the illustration using the open source digital illustration program called Krita.
If you’d like an illustration of your favorite shoe, you can get yours here. Just email me at lemasney@gmail.com.
This is one of my favorite coffee mugs. It holds a full 20 ounces, feels heavy and right in your hand, and is easy to find, even in the dark. There’s something solid about it; it’s reassuring. Sometimes, I even feel just a little more assured of my progress when I use it. Other coffee containers I have pale in comparison. Even when you put it down, there’s a small audible thump, reminding you of its gravitas. It’s solid, clean and sound.
Drawing of a tall coffee mug was made in the open source digital painting application named Krita by John LeMasney. If you’d like an illustration of an object, just email me at lemasney@gmail.com!
I had surgery on my eyes in the last ten years to correct early onset cataracts. I’m 41 at the time of this writing. Along with the surgery to repair my long sight came the need for glasses for my short sight. Even though I only need them in very specific screen viewing situations, every time I put them on, I rejoice a little bit at the gift of clear sight. Having lived without it for about a year, I will never take it for granted again.
I made this illustration using the open source digital painting application Krita. If you’d like an illustration of your own, please contact me at lemasney@gmail.com
I spent most of my life obese. Since I lost over 100 pounds in the second half of the 2000s, I have been able to maintain it fairly well, very easily, and without any monetary cost. It all started for me with a free book:
“The Hacker’s Diet, notwithstanding its silly subtitle, is a serious book about how to lose weight and permanently maintain whatever weight you desire. It treats dieting and weight control from an engineering and management standpoint, and provides the tools and an understanding of why they work and how to use them that permit the reader to gain control of their own weight. The book is intended primarily for busy, successful engineers, programmers, and managers who have struggled unsuccessfully in the past to lose weight and avoid re-gaining it. Computer-based tools and experiments in Microsoft Excel or the Palm Computing Platform are available, as well as an online Web application, but a computer is not necessary to use the techniques described in the book; paper and pencil alternatives are provided.” – The Hacker’s Diet – http://goo.gl/tsnjph
TL:DR: We gain weight, in great part, because we do not know what we are eating or burning, and we do not know where to start to learn how to know these things. The book says many things, but among them are the ideas that if you drove your car without a gas tank gauge, you would have a very hard time knowing when to refill, and your body is the same. As a result, we often eat more than we need, which turns into stored fat. With gauges, we are able to assess whether we should be eating more fuel or not, whether we need to get more exercise, and whether we are done fueling for the day. This was an incredible revelation to me: the idea that I was essentially guessing at what I was eating, calorie wise, what I was burning, calorie wise, and how much I was supposed to be doing of both. Another incredible revelation for me was that I did not need to exercise to lose weight. If you are looking for a place to start to learn to lose weight, I can not possibly recommend this book any more strongly.
