Thursday, September 25, 2008
You are what you eat
Which should make me a delicious Alfredo's artichoke pasta today, but alas no luck there. I'm still a person and still have a job. Boo Hoo. Kitty however enjoyed his tiny scrap of Huntsman's cheddar and is right now at this very moment wrestling his second sock of the day to it's death. The first one was summarily killed and dropped at my feet. This second one is his prize though, and he apparently intends to make it suffer. I feel a bit like the dude in the Geico commercial, will try to post pics soon. Because I know what you like.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Screw you Gwyneth Paltrow!
So I'm having my coffee this am and I see some thing about how Gwyneth Paltrow is going to have a life makeover website and one of the things she says is "clean your space" Looking around, I realize I have some dishes built up, so I start to do them and then cut ANOTHER chunk of my thumb off with the veggie peeler of doom. What a crap idea!
Monday, September 15, 2008
MORE economic stimulus
I don't know what our shady governor's up to these days, but I like it. I logged in to pay my gas bill and saw this bulletin:
All residential electric customers with active accounts on 8/29/08 will receive a one-time credit of $170 on their September bill. There is no need to speak with a representative to obtain the credit. It will automatically appear on your bill. For more details, read the information below.
I don't know what's going on, but ok! That's like 3 mos of bills for me, and you know I hate paying bills.
The weekend was pretty fun, very laid back which I needed in the middle of the birth/wedding/birthday extravaganza that has been my fall.
Sat morning HN and took his niece and headed west to put her to work in the fields. She's 4, has way lots of energy and is too smart for her own good. All of these things combined make her an absolute riot on a good day, and Sat was a good day. We taught her about popping a squat if you have to pee and are in the middle of the woods. She had an interesting take on the potential for splatter, and pretty much thought completely disrobing was the way to go. We managed to keep her dress on, but shoes and scooters were neatly folded and laid out of range before she could relax and pee. Re-robing was just as interesting, as her balance is not that great so she sits down and makes a big production, all the while announcing at very high volume everything she is doing. Sorry other fruit pickers about all that information you didn't want!
Our eventual haul was 2.5 lbs of raspberries (a gorgeous mix of red and white which are really champagne colored) and 25 lbs of peaches. It sounds excessive- ok it is excessive- but we gathered that many peaches in about 10 minutes. The trees were just *throwing* peaches at you, and they were all huge and beautiful so we had issues resisting. Both HN and I use them in our smoothies though, so we just cut them up and froze them. We also sent a bunch home with the kid, as her parents are big fruity people. (ha!)
Then while walking around the neighborhood trying to discover the source of music we could hear, we found a pretty bad ass block party. There didn't seem to be any cover or invite list, so we went home, grabbed a bunch of Natty Bohs as a cover and ambled on it. It turned out to be a really good time, and there were some great bands! The Mishaps were awesome (rock keyboardist!) as were The Desert Boys. I'm not really sure how to describe them, but we were psyched we crashed and stayed. In the end, we found out that the block party was hosted by the new Pie Man. I've been wondering about the new pie store in my hood, but have not gone in yet. HN and I have tried a couple of times but keep missing their hours. After Sat, I have every intention of going to chat up the pie man. He was very cool, pretty f*cking funny, and there was a keg inside where if you knew the pie man you could go get more beer. I WILL know the pie man by the time of the next party, which hopefully will be soon. Either that or dude was just drunk talking, but he seemed ok so I think there might really be another one.
Yesterday I cooked and quilted. Just call me Martha Stewart. Sweaty Martha Stewart. It was just one of those days where you wake up and know you're going to sweat. You either spend some time in distress or just own it. I owned it, and I was not afraid. I braided my hair and let it happen. This inner peace makes spending time at the stove much easier, because it is f*cking hot over the stove and if you've already given in to the sweat, you just cook. And that's what I did. Raspberry muffins, meatballs and sauce, pasta, roasted garlic. It was deluxe.
And with that I'm off to work.
All residential electric customers with active accounts on 8/29/08 will receive a one-time credit of $170 on their September bill. There is no need to speak with a representative to obtain the credit. It will automatically appear on your bill. For more details, read the information below.
I don't know what's going on, but ok! That's like 3 mos of bills for me, and you know I hate paying bills.
The weekend was pretty fun, very laid back which I needed in the middle of the birth/wedding/birthday extravaganza that has been my fall.
Sat morning HN and took his niece and headed west to put her to work in the fields. She's 4, has way lots of energy and is too smart for her own good. All of these things combined make her an absolute riot on a good day, and Sat was a good day. We taught her about popping a squat if you have to pee and are in the middle of the woods. She had an interesting take on the potential for splatter, and pretty much thought completely disrobing was the way to go. We managed to keep her dress on, but shoes and scooters were neatly folded and laid out of range before she could relax and pee. Re-robing was just as interesting, as her balance is not that great so she sits down and makes a big production, all the while announcing at very high volume everything she is doing. Sorry other fruit pickers about all that information you didn't want!
Our eventual haul was 2.5 lbs of raspberries (a gorgeous mix of red and white which are really champagne colored) and 25 lbs of peaches. It sounds excessive- ok it is excessive- but we gathered that many peaches in about 10 minutes. The trees were just *throwing* peaches at you, and they were all huge and beautiful so we had issues resisting. Both HN and I use them in our smoothies though, so we just cut them up and froze them. We also sent a bunch home with the kid, as her parents are big fruity people. (ha!)
Then while walking around the neighborhood trying to discover the source of music we could hear, we found a pretty bad ass block party. There didn't seem to be any cover or invite list, so we went home, grabbed a bunch of Natty Bohs as a cover and ambled on it. It turned out to be a really good time, and there were some great bands! The Mishaps were awesome (rock keyboardist!) as were The Desert Boys. I'm not really sure how to describe them, but we were psyched we crashed and stayed. In the end, we found out that the block party was hosted by the new Pie Man. I've been wondering about the new pie store in my hood, but have not gone in yet. HN and I have tried a couple of times but keep missing their hours. After Sat, I have every intention of going to chat up the pie man. He was very cool, pretty f*cking funny, and there was a keg inside where if you knew the pie man you could go get more beer. I WILL know the pie man by the time of the next party, which hopefully will be soon. Either that or dude was just drunk talking, but he seemed ok so I think there might really be another one.
Yesterday I cooked and quilted. Just call me Martha Stewart. Sweaty Martha Stewart. It was just one of those days where you wake up and know you're going to sweat. You either spend some time in distress or just own it. I owned it, and I was not afraid. I braided my hair and let it happen. This inner peace makes spending time at the stove much easier, because it is f*cking hot over the stove and if you've already given in to the sweat, you just cook. And that's what I did. Raspberry muffins, meatballs and sauce, pasta, roasted garlic. It was deluxe.
And with that I'm off to work.
Friday, September 12, 2008
I am in SQL report nirvana
I got taught quite a neat trick today by my senior dev man about writing reports that need to display multiple columns of values comprised of cherrypicked bits of information stored in the same column in a table. Yahoo! His query is about 1/3 the length that mine was shaping up to be, and MUCH easier to manage. He may be not so thrilled he helped me though as I picked it apart, asked him 20 questions about every line and made him make me understand his logic. I think he thought writing the report was going to be the quick and painless way to get me and my item off his plate. Haha, so sorry! You've given me more fodder and I will make you live to regret it methinks. I've never met a smart person I didn't pester, but I like to think it's flattering that I recognize one's expertise at a subject, no?
I do however think I've finally wrapped my head about the concept of a join, hallelujah. I always knew how to employ them to a degree, but I never understood the left/right/theta/outer/natural bits. Now I pretty much know I never have and likely never will ever use a kind other than the natural or outer joins, but should I want to I will know how to refer to it when looking up syntax for execution. This knowledge was gained during my daily hour of knowledge increasing. Did I tell you about that? Since my mentor dude got chucked, and seemingly my approval to go for my MS cert bits went with him, I decided I have all the resources to learn this shit myself and that I would spend one hour a day just messing with stuff and learning. However, when I sat down to begin this learning I realized it had been months since I logged into my test system and I have no idea what iteration of my standard password I was using when I set it up. So the actual "setting up of the SQL Server" has to wait until I have a day to rebuild the entire machine. Instead I've gone back to the basics and have been reading a SQL book, thinking I should solidify my hacky pattern matching based foundation so that when the time comes and I do have this server up and going, I'm not wasting time trying to understand the SQL part of the instruct and can concentrate instead on the "server" and "management" parts. Bored yet?
I'm all work and no play this week, so I have nothing fun to report. Except ooooh! Did I show you this ? Check it out! New toy!
That is a picture of my eye. The dinosaur skin looking bits are the endothelial cells of my cornea, and the little charts below are automatic analyses of the counts of my cells. AWESOME. The old way they did this was to take a picture, print it, lay a graph over it, take counts from 10 areas of the graph and average it out. The new way? "Stick your head in this tube thing and push a button" Out comes the above image and Bob's your uncle! Oh the humanity!
Also in work related news, in 2 weeks the dudes from NSI are going to be going into the OR to do a tableside FA, which I find pretty exciting. We walked through some of the setup yesterday, and we're going to have a dry run next week so I can make sure everyone knows what their part will be and how many f*cking wires are going to be involved. Other than that, it's going to be awesome. If I wasn't such a pansy/fainter with all the blood I think I could score myself an invite but as it is I don't want to steal the show by passing out and landing on the patient. How embarrassing!
and with that, I'm back to my normal operations. "WFH" today, so the potential for nattering updates/time wasters is prime. Expect great things!
I'll leave you with another picture from another new toy we got at NSI. This little dude is a bit jacked up on the inside, but has normal vision and an incredible disposition. This picture is from the Canon wide angle camera, which is just the most beautiful thing I've seen in weeks. I love this camera! (note: I may have already uploaded this, but I didn't see it at a quick scan. If I did, deal)
You have to see this picture at full size to appreciate it. Dear lord, that's a nice picture.
I do however think I've finally wrapped my head about the concept of a join, hallelujah. I always knew how to employ them to a degree, but I never understood the left/right/theta/outer/natural bits. Now I pretty much know I never have and likely never will ever use a kind other than the natural or outer joins, but should I want to I will know how to refer to it when looking up syntax for execution. This knowledge was gained during my daily hour of knowledge increasing. Did I tell you about that? Since my mentor dude got chucked, and seemingly my approval to go for my MS cert bits went with him, I decided I have all the resources to learn this shit myself and that I would spend one hour a day just messing with stuff and learning. However, when I sat down to begin this learning I realized it had been months since I logged into my test system and I have no idea what iteration of my standard password I was using when I set it up. So the actual "setting up of the SQL Server" has to wait until I have a day to rebuild the entire machine. Instead I've gone back to the basics and have been reading a SQL book, thinking I should solidify my hacky pattern matching based foundation so that when the time comes and I do have this server up and going, I'm not wasting time trying to understand the SQL part of the instruct and can concentrate instead on the "server" and "management" parts. Bored yet?
I'm all work and no play this week, so I have nothing fun to report. Except ooooh! Did I show you this ? Check it out! New toy!
That is a picture of my eye. The dinosaur skin looking bits are the endothelial cells of my cornea, and the little charts below are automatic analyses of the counts of my cells. AWESOME. The old way they did this was to take a picture, print it, lay a graph over it, take counts from 10 areas of the graph and average it out. The new way? "Stick your head in this tube thing and push a button" Out comes the above image and Bob's your uncle! Oh the humanity!
Also in work related news, in 2 weeks the dudes from NSI are going to be going into the OR to do a tableside FA, which I find pretty exciting. We walked through some of the setup yesterday, and we're going to have a dry run next week so I can make sure everyone knows what their part will be and how many f*cking wires are going to be involved. Other than that, it's going to be awesome. If I wasn't such a pansy/fainter with all the blood I think I could score myself an invite but as it is I don't want to steal the show by passing out and landing on the patient. How embarrassing!
and with that, I'm back to my normal operations. "WFH" today, so the potential for nattering updates/time wasters is prime. Expect great things!
I'll leave you with another picture from another new toy we got at NSI. This little dude is a bit jacked up on the inside, but has normal vision and an incredible disposition. This picture is from the Canon wide angle camera, which is just the most beautiful thing I've seen in weeks. I love this camera! (note: I may have already uploaded this, but I didn't see it at a quick scan. If I did, deal)
You have to see this picture at full size to appreciate it. Dear lord, that's a nice picture.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
delicious empanadas del horno
So last night HN and I were deciding what to do. He wanted to "leave the house" and I "refused".
We settled on "active quality time" and whipped out his family cookbook and made some serious work of one of his mother's traditional Chilean recipes, empanadas del horno. This is pretty much the same recipe we used, including meat, chicken, olives, eggs and raisins. It's a better combo than it sounds like (well to me anywayit sounds pretty rank), and there are a million left over. I had one for breakfast, am eating one right now, and will probably kill another one in the name of dinner. There is nothing about a hand carried pocket full of meat that I don't like. and now not only do I have another skill to add to my domestic goddess resume (now stretching into multiple pages) but we have a ton of meat and olives leftover for another one of my chilean favorite dishes, pastel de choclo. (I just realized while surfing for a good recipe that it's basically shepherd's pie from another region. Makes a lot of sense why I love it)
I could eat that stuff all day long and die happy at the end. Neither of these recipes is "right on" but both are pretty close. The ones HN has call for special Chilean spices that his mother brings up every time she comes to visit, although I think the main one is basically a mix of Oregano, Cumin, Paprika, and 2 kinds of Pepper. I should have blogged the empanadas but I didn't. I WILL take pics of the pastel though, because we're going to make it in Chilean dishes and it will be gorgeous.
We settled on "active quality time" and whipped out his family cookbook and made some serious work of one of his mother's traditional Chilean recipes, empanadas del horno. This is pretty much the same recipe we used, including meat, chicken, olives, eggs and raisins. It's a better combo than it sounds like (well to me anywayit sounds pretty rank), and there are a million left over. I had one for breakfast, am eating one right now, and will probably kill another one in the name of dinner. There is nothing about a hand carried pocket full of meat that I don't like. and now not only do I have another skill to add to my domestic goddess resume (now stretching into multiple pages) but we have a ton of meat and olives leftover for another one of my chilean favorite dishes, pastel de choclo. (I just realized while surfing for a good recipe that it's basically shepherd's pie from another region. Makes a lot of sense why I love it)
I could eat that stuff all day long and die happy at the end. Neither of these recipes is "right on" but both are pretty close. The ones HN has call for special Chilean spices that his mother brings up every time she comes to visit, although I think the main one is basically a mix of Oregano, Cumin, Paprika, and 2 kinds of Pepper. I should have blogged the empanadas but I didn't. I WILL take pics of the pastel though, because we're going to make it in Chilean dishes and it will be gorgeous.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Love
My new pants. I will take a pic of them soon
I'm not sure I would go so far as to dress them up and take them out like that brave girl, but they are f*cking comfy.
Becky, do this!
I'm not sure I would go so far as to dress them up and take them out like that brave girl, but they are f*cking comfy.
Becky, do this!
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