Nerd-dom

This is obviously my first post in quite some time. I think I may try for more frequent, smaller posts in order to not be the guy failing to provide any updates or amusement to the 4 (-ish) people that quasi-follow it. I just figured out that I can now post via the iPhone, so that's a bonus. I'll see if I can work that into parts of my pretty boring existence.

OK, so here are a couple of short story / factoids for someone's amusement. Both are evidence that my nerd factor is higher than I want to accept.

Last week I wrote code in an email that would randomly select a restaurant for lunch to a friend of mine on the west coast. He originally wrote me to see if I had an old program that he thought we had at work that would select a restaurant from a list, and could take into account how much each restaurant was enjoyed by different people and how long it had been since our last visit. In reality this program didn't really exist in that much detail and glory, so I just wrote him a simple one to take care of it. Turns out he didn't really want the simple one, but I didn't know that at the time.

The real nerd in me came out today on the way to lunch. The guys I was eating with were talking about some insane fantasy books where there were parallel dimensions that all contained some variation of earth. One earth was technology-based and the other one was magic-based, or so I'm told. There were strange expeditions going on throughout these universes, and apparently the expedition teams were fighting a war between one another. I seem to remember some details about one universe gaining computers from another universe, but they were unable to maintain them. As the computers were slowing failing due to age the society used the last remaining ones to genetically engineer dragons that could be used to fix the computers, or some shit such as that. I don't really remember what was going on, but it was wild. Anyway, my friend was explaining all of this stuff, and he points out that there were different types of dragons - some could breathe fire, others could shoot lightning, and there was some 3rd power I can't remember. Anyway, he was explaining how the different types of dragons were used for different combat. He said that actually the lightning dragons were used to attack other flying dragons, in a strange sort of aerial combat. My response - "That's stupid. You can't shoot something with lightning that isn't grounded. No current would pass through the dragon."

This may explain why I don't read books like this. Apparently I had suspended all of my disbelief except the part dealing with electron movement.

Unloading some Thoughts

Thought #1 - StubHub is no friend of mine

Well, there's been a complication with the Busch Stadium outing. The most important thing is that we still have all 14 tickets. The unfortunate problem is that we have 2 groups of tickets on opposite sides of the stadium. Grrrrr......

Long story (LLLLLOOONNNNGGGG) short, guy that sold me 8 tickets switched them from the ones I ordered. They are of equal value, just a different section. Since I did not download the tickets and verify the tickets were correct within 7 days, I am not covered by the 'fan protection guarantee'. Call me old-fashioned, but I think that the time limit on this fancy guarantee would be an important fact to include in the email that gives the link to download the tickets. SECONDLY, this time limit should be well-understood by the first three stubhub customer service reps that I talked to (it's not. they said I would be fine.). And THIRDLY, the 1st three customer service reps were a combined 0 for 3 in following through to call me back as they all promised. There was steam coming out of my ears when the forth phone call basically said 'sorry, you are out of luck'. After 20 minutes waiting to talk to a supervisor, the original girl got back on the line and gave my the stubhub buyer's fee back ($50). I never did talk to a supervisor.

Thought #2 - Inventor's Corner

I'm an unlikely source, but I did manage to invent the next generation of newborn baby carseats. The prototype is pending.....pending my master's degree, pending a slower work schedule, pending less traveling, pending a lot of things. But here's the idea - channels that would rotate the baby in the event of a rear-end collision to allow the force to be perpendicular to the baby's spinal column. It's genius! That's why babies have to face backwards now, so that head-on collisions (likely to be a more powerful collision) lead to a force that is more perpendicular, right? But a rear-end collision at highway speeds is still serious trouble. So you have the baby seat swing on impact so that the baby ends up basically in a forward-facing baby seat - feet-up, but that's a minor detail in a crash. It would need to not rotate unless a sufficient force were exerted, but that's easy to do. The mother wouldn't even know it was there, other than the new excuse to raise the prices on babyseats even further! Hopefully my blog counts as some sort of patent.....

Thought #3 - Entrepreneur's Corner

Who wants to use this idea to open a money-making sports bar????? This sports bar doesn't sell chicken wings though. No, my sports bar focuses on PIZZA! Here's the deal - have you noticed how many stinkin' "flavors" of spaghetti sauce there are in the grocery store? Tomato-based sauces are extremely versatile, and that versatility needs to be leveraged......My pizza sports bar has about 20 different sauce flavors, just like the chicken wing sauces. These sauces can give you radically different tasting pizza, just like the chicken wing sauces. You can also use these sauces as options for all the stuff everyone likes to dip in marinara sauce - breadsticks, cheesesticks, garlic bread, fried mozzarella, etc. Everyone likes pizza. This imaginary sports bar is a combination of the foofy 'gournet pizza' places, and Buffalo Wild Wings. It's a can't-miss winner.

Thought #4 - Wendy's needs to fire their marketing dept.

This 'coffee toffee twisted frosty' business has got to stop. They sound delicious, and yet I already hate them due to the onslaught of horrible commercials.

Thought #5 - iPhone 3G S is coming!

And.......AND the iPhone 3g is going to be only $99 (with a contract)! Buy one. Buy two. You can't be disappointed - unless you have Verizon. Bummer....

Nothin' Special Here

Before I begin to ramble, I feel compelled to provide just a little more context around the air conditioner story from last week. The only reason that really occurred was because I happened to be home (clay county 'home', not ohio 'home') during one of the first really warm few days of spring. If I had been in Ohio that weekend I would have certainly turned my A/C on, and mom and dad probably wouldn't have turned on theirs. They only turned it on because they love me so much......and because I inherited a lot of advanced bickering genes, which makes me prone to complaining about certain things more than I should....on to random events and thoughts (nothin' too good in here this week).

What do I have in common with Cal Ripkin, Jr.? We both had streaks! Today was the first sunday in May that I did NOT eat breakfast at Cracker Barrel. I did actually send out a text message yesterday looking for some interest from friends to keep the streak alive this morning, but there were no takers. It's probably a good thing, actually. I think if I eat at Cracker Barrel too many sundays in a row my nickname will certainly not be 'The Iron Man', like Cal Ripken. People would probably call me 'Fat Ass', or something to that effect. (The 'affect' / 'effect' grammar rule is the ONE rule I always question myself on. I should just quit using the words. I should also quit using prepositions at the end of sentences, but instead I just blatantly disobey this rule.)

***********NEWSFLASH*************
We can now end sentences with prepositions. That 'rule' was merely a myth, according to the internet (which is always accurate).

http://wordplayblog.com/grammar-myth-1-ending-a-sentence-with-a-preposition/
**********BACK TO THE BLOG********

I played in a sand volleyball tournament yesterday. There's really not much else to say about this. It was men's doubles. I played with a guy I work with. (that was liberating to end in 'with' without feeling guilty!) We didn't win. The top of my feet got sun-burned. Good times.

There is some serious tension in the 'Reserves of Beavercreek' today (that's where I live). I was walking back to my patio from a short run when I stumbled into a heated exchange between my bitter neighbor who lives above me and a girl throwing her garbage away in the dumpster. Rita (my bitter neighbor) was yelling at the girl for not closing the door on the dumpster. Apparently Rita previously put up a sign (that I never saw, is now long gone, and would have been summarily ignored even if she painted it on the door) to let everyone know how she feels about this particular subject. If you are wondering, she feels 'passionate'. Unfortunately, I walked right into the middle of this exchange and they both eventually turned to me, as though I had something to do with it. I said (with far too much disdain, I'm sure) "Let it go, Rita. It'll be OK.".

No, no it won't be OK. She assured me of this. I don't know what all she goes through while I'm at work all day, and she is here. She spent over 3 hours trying to kill all the flies and bugs that flew into her condo the other day. At this point I began to meditate and nod my head in agreement. I'm not sure what else she had on her mind, but 20 minutes later I was allowed back into my condo. (Somewhere in the middle of this the actual perpetrator must have managed to slip away. I'm not sure where she went.....) One thing I do recall her mentioning was "I thought you were a good guy", as though she was a girlfriend and I was breaking up with her. I think she also threatened to start letting her grandchildren run around and make more noise so that I can begin to understand how awful life truly is. She is a really unhappy person, and it's starting to take over the neighborhood. I didn't even know I had such a huge bug problem due to the somewhat nearby dumpster. But now I'm pretty pissed off about it myself. This is the personal side of the housing slump that most people don't see. If the housing market wasn't so shitty she would've already moved on to make other neighbors miserable. But for the time-being we are all stuck together, with far too many bugs that can magically crawl through screens, here in the wonderful sun-shiny neighborhood known as the Reserves of Beavercreek.

Would anyone like to buy my condo?

Factoid

We often hear the saying 'once every blue moon'. Well, what's that mean? I had to look it up. Though it isn't a standard unit of measurement and there isn't exactly a consensus on the definition, it basically means the 2nd full moon of a given calendar month. Basically it happens every other year (-ish). Why do I bring this up?

Because every THREE blue moons, my parents turn on their air conditioner before I do. Actually, 2009 is the first time this has ever happened, and I've REALLY been out of the house 6 years, so that's where my math is coming from. This may only be a big deal to Megan and I, because others may not realize that our parents generally only turn on the A/C when it's over 95 for three consecutive days. Their heat tolerance rivals that of the legendary rabbit-eared bandicoot. And I am nothing like a rabbit-eared bandicoot. See below.

Nothing like me

Things are BUSY

I have been quite over-booked for about the last month. Work has been pretty intense, and last week several people officially hit that magical moment where small things suddenly lead to serious over-reactions and just general irritability. I think maybe 'frazzled' would be a good word to describe the scene. I'm generally pretty calm about it, or maybe I'm just an intense jerk all the time so no one can tell any difference. Either way, I could use some sort of de-compressing time in the near future. I did get all my class work done this week without the luxury of using much time this weekend (wedding #1 for the season). I will probably be attempting to pull that off again this weekend with Megan's big birthday coming up and all.

I'm not a wedding planner, nor an aspiring wedding planner, but I observed some key issues this weekend while sitting through one.

Special Considerations - WIND

• Unity Candle - This just isn't going to work in the wind. I recommend cutting this stupid step out completely, but if someone feels strongly about the symbolism behind the mothers lighting a candle simultaneously, it's going to need to be within the safe confines of a banquet hall or some other building. The unity candle thing actually blew off the table saturday, and they had the people go through the motions to 'contemplate' the whole pretend process. It lost something with the lack of fire, in my opinion.
• Photographer - DO NOT WEAR A LOOSE DRESS. YOU WILL NEED BOTH HANDS TO HOLD THE CAMERA. Enough said.
• Mud - Maybe there needs to be a large tarp placed on the ground, or maybe they could hover some helicopters over the sight that morning or somethin', but mud is not welcome at weddings. I wasn't even wearing high heels, and it greatly annoyed me.
• Tee boxes in close proximity - "Dearly beloved, we gather here today........*PING*..........."Derek, do you take....*PING*.....Kayley to be your wife? *PING*. This can be distracting.
• Crappy preacher guy - This actually has nothing to do with the outdoor / wind issue, but was disheartening all the same. I learned two things from this guy. The first thing I learned is that I can't get into heaven because I'm not married. This is disappointing to say the least. (He gave a power-writing speech, identifying 3 things that the couple need to focus on -1. I need you. 2. I need to understand you. 3. I need you to get in to heaven.) I am still investigating these legalities, and need to know more about this policy. But in the meantime, Kacy (my other single friend) and I have agreed that if there is some sort of card that we get to let someone else in that we will use our cards on one another. If anyone knows about this policy, I think it's a little late for me to hear about it now. Why did no one else tell me?????? The other thing I learned from preacher guy is that it is NOT FUNNY to make jokes about marriage. Single people can talk about 'the old ball and chain' or losing freedom, but that just makes us look petty. This leads in well to my last wedding-related thought.....
• There is a serious market void out there that needs to be filled. Where are the humorous wedding cards? I never see them. I want a card with depressing stats about marriage on the inside, or some comment about "everybody needs a starter" or somethin' like that. Maybe someone can make a card with the shocking mother daughter picture combinations where the girl looks AMAZING at 21 and SCARY at 35, and then a note on the inside that says "I hope you did your homework....". That's funny. I would definitely give that card to my friends.
• Micro-brewery note - If anyone reading this is a beer snob, I recently ran across one of the best beers I've ever had. It is from Goose Island Brewery, and it is called 'Pere Jacques' (like the song, I think). Buy it. You will thank me.
  

Lacking for Good Blogging Material

I have trouble coming up with good stuff to say on here because I don't talk about work at all. And since I'm really dragging, I'm just gonna try this whole '8 things' excitement originally brought into my blogging world by cousin Lindsey...here goes.

8 Things I'm Looking Forward To:

1.) Paying off the loan on my truck (hopefully in June!)
2.) Finishing my master's degree (hopefully in December!)
3.) Reading books I actually pick out on my own, once I finish #2
4.) Going home next weekend, and possibly seeing a few long lost friends while I'm there
5.) A vacation. I don't even care where I go, as long as it isn't my desk.
6.) Less responsibility AND more pay. Strangely, that is probably going to happen soon. I wander why I feel like I need a vacation right now.....
7.) Soccer going extinct :-)
8.) Self-cleaning bathrooms. That's gotta be coming soon.


8 Things I Did Yesterday (I'm expanding this to 'the last couple of days'):

1.) Caught a foul ball at a Dayton Dragons game
2.) Ate dinner with people from 5 different continents
3.) Wrote a paper on Lewin's stages for implementing change
4.) Picked up a handgun that was lying on the floor
5.) Told my friend not to drink her 5th 'sex on the beach' in an hour (she should have listened. It ended poorly for her.)
6.) Watched the fireworks following the Reds defeat of the Cardinals
7.) Formally withdrew my name from 2 softball teams this summer in order to concentrate more on my master's classes
8.) Ate at Moe's, the most amazing southwestern grill restaurant less than a mile from my place.


8 Things I Wish I Could Do:

1) See my abs?
2) Jump-serve
3) Live in non-midwest climate while being close to the family
4) Stop my fingernails and toenails from growing
5) Freeze time
6) Retire?
7) Think of two more reasonable things I wish I could do
8) Eliminate discussions and requirements for wishes


8 Shows I Watch:

1) Pardon the Interruption
2) Baseball Tonight
3) 24
4) SportsCenter
5) The Daily Show
6) The Universe
7) Survirorman
8) The Dog Whisperer


8 People I Want to Tag:

1) Landon
2) Albert Pujols
3) Milli
4) Vanilli
5) Jack Bauer
6) Edward Cayce
7) Stephen Hawking
8) Scarlett Johannson

Would you like some free money? Yes, please!

There's a long story about this, but it's just as boring as it is long. In summary, I bought new tires last summer that had an incentive to 'get $500 in free gas'. The company running this incentive was cheating (shocking, I know), and got shut down in the midst of legal actions against them. I got a piece of mail that now should provide me with $100 (no strings attached, unlike the 'free gas' shenanigan-plan). A nice little unexpected bonus....

I plan to buy our June Cardinals tickets tomorrow night. An email with all the details is forthcoming.

Did everyone see the movie 'Lucky Number Slevin'? I bought this one as my first blu-ray movie, and it is an underrated flick. It's a little dark, but it's one of my favorites. Think 'The Usual Suspects' - this one is very similar.

This is hardly a full blog, but I've seriously been swamped and this coming week is going to be at least as busy. More useless blogging sometime in the near future.

If I had more time, I'd mention more of the details of the US Navy publishing supposed findings of 'cold fusion' (aka 'low energy nuclear reaction'). Google it.

Tech Watch

I feel compelled to keep you all up to date with some of the note-worthy tech-geek things going on in the world today....and I'm not talking about TWITTER, damnit! Why won't that go away? Twitter is like a talentless pop start that won't fade into anonymity. Anyway, real tech issues.

Who needs a wireless router? My house is already wired!

It's called 'powerline communications'. This isn't new, but 'standards' are being approved and published now which would bring this technology to the mainstream. The concept is that you can use the electric wiring in your house to also network your computers (and anything else you want to connect to the internet). You literally buy something roughly the size of a Glade AirWick Plug-in, plug your CAT-5 cable (standard DSL cable) in to one end and the other end into an outlet. Then you can use the same device at any other electric outlet (that is obviously electrically connected. won't be a problem in your house) - and you have a wired connection - TADA! The primary issue is 'speed', but it is already faster than typical internet service so the only speed issue is really longer term speed increases from your service provider. (You probably have 3 or 6 Mb/s and powerline communications can go upwards of 100 Mb/s now.) Unless you are concerned about high speed computer-to-computer connections on your own network, this speed is fine. Here's an example - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GR1CBI

The War for Communication / TV Dominance Continues to Heat Up

One of the main discriminators between cable TV and satellite TV has been that cable could provide shows 'OnDemand' while satellite TV could only broadcast out signal on a pre-determined schedule. It's why you can order a PPV movie on cable and it can start playing immediately, but if you order one on direcTV they will just let you have access to a channel for 24 hours that is playing the movie continuously. You have to time it so you start watching at the beginning. Well, DirecTV has thrown a glitch in that system - they will provide things 'OnDemand' by letting the customer connect the receiver to the internet so that you can download the program / movie and start watching it whenever you want. This isn't as 'OnDemand' as cable, but you can pre-load these downloads. Say you might want to watch a movie that is on PPV. Put it on your list and your receiver will download it. If you don't actually watch it; you aren't charged. This is awesome for DirecTV because it not only gives their customers more flexibility, it KILLS cable companies that are providing that internet service (and thus have to carry the burden of all this extra data moving around.). Time Warner planned a pilot program to start charging internet service based on total downloaded data, which would be a way to curtail this problem for them. But it's so wildly unpopular that consumers won't put up with it. Unless they can get ALL internet providers to make this change they will just lose their customers. They canceled the pilot program.

On a related note, Adobe (the company that makes 'Flash', the plug-in for basically all streaming video on the internet) is working with TV makers to install Flash directly onto the TV. It is becoming more and more popular to stream shows through the internet (look at Comedy Central or Hulu), but you have to watch it on your computer unless you have a way to support streaming it to your TV somehow (most people don't). With this idea you could just plug your internet cable into your TV and watch your shows through the internet....

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Chuck tried to attack me this weekend. I bravely took some fuzzy pictures during the attack via my iPhone. I will load these up soon. What you're about to see may disturb you.

Ramblings

• There are strange happenings with mother nature in the neighborhood. There is a goose in my neighborhood that thinks she is Chuck Norris. She will start charging you from a good 50' away. This is a problem for everyone because SHE LAID HER EGGS BESIDE THE SIDEWALK. She'll charge cars, people, dogs, gay ducks - anything. Crazy.....

• ALSO, I'm no duck expert, so this is probably not unusual but I will say my concern is growing. About a week ago I noticed a single male duck hanging out in one of our wonderful drainage ponds at the front of the neighborhood. No big deal, but I thought ducks usually hung out in pairs. Well, then I saw two ducks (both male) hanging out there. Now this morning we are up to 4 male ducks in this pond. Did they start a gay male duck commune there? Seems odd.

Request for Female Insight

I'm going to predict that every female family member that reads this will give the same (correct) answer to this question. I guess this is just a sign that guys and girls think very differently. I'll have to give you all some background, because unless you are cheating on your spouse you aren't on eHarmony. Here's the deal: on eHarmony you fill out a profile and answer all the basic stuff you would guess is in there. What's your age? Where do you live? Do you drink? Do you smoke? Do you want to have kids? What are you most passionate about? What are you most thankful for? What are you looking for from a partner? yada yada yada. Then every day they send you some "matches" based on their 4 billion dimensions of compatibility (which is ridiculous, because they send you 5-8 a day from the day you start until the end of time. I can't be that good of a match with these people or the whole gig would be over by now. Here's what I've learned - they send you the ugly matches first. Probably because they've been on the website the longest.)

Also, I have one other sidenote. The question "Do you want kids?" can only be answered "yes", "no", or "maybe" (no write-in answers). Without fail, if someone answers "maybe", this is code for "I already have at least one". Guaranteed. I don't know if these people really want to answer "sometimes", and "maybe" is the closest they can get. Or maybe having kids is that horrible and if you wait too long after your 1st one you'd have to be insane to have more. It looks ominous.....

OK, I'll eventually get to my question. If you get a "match" that you are interested in, you go through this "guided communication". You can't just write them. That's fine. First you do these multiple choice questions, then you send a list of "Must Have's" (intellect, ambition, etc.) and "Can't Stand's" (drug user, lazy, etc.). Then you ask these "short answer" questions where the person responding can actually type in their own words. After that everything is open.
When you ask a question it's for a specific purpose, for both the multiple choice and short answer questions. For instance, during the multiple choice questions (that you pick from a list. You can't write your own) I ask "When going somewhere, are you usually:" "early / on time / late / so late that sometimes I don't show up at all". It's obvious why I ask this question - because if you consistently can't plan ahead in minutes and can't make it to a movie before the 30 minute previews are over, you're going to stress me out and piss me off. So maybe we shouldn't bother dating. Likewise, I'm pretty much ALWAYS on time and plan ahead in weeks, months, and years, so I will probably annoy you, though your life would probably be more successful if I was in it ;-) You would also 'get' more movies because we would see the beginning of them even if your hair is in a ponytail because I was complaining that you weren't going to be ready on time. I digress.....

Here's where my question comes in. There is a 'short answer' question that gets asked A LOT, and I can't figure out what the purpose is. There are 2 variants to this question - here they are:

Tonight you can do anything you want, no penalties, no reprisals, and the cost is unimportant. What are you going to do?

If you had three wishes, what would they be?

So, what is it about how I would deal with magical wishes that can help a girl determine if they would be interested in me? Seriously, I don't get it, but any normal girl can probably shed light on this with some obvious answer that doesn't hypothesize that witchcraft is becoming trendy in the Dayton area. Are they looking for creativity? Are they trying to catch me "cheating"? (a night with Scarlett Johannson could be one potential good use of a wish, but it's not like I would list this....) The truth is, I don't want any wishes. Was I the only person that saw the (horrible) movie BeDazzled? Well, hello there, unintended consequences! (They were probably late to the movie and didn't understand what was going on.) I DON'T GET IT....

(I know, I'm ridiculous)

The Pork Trilogy - Recipe #2
Lime Pork Tenderlooin

This also comes from the Good Housekeeping 'Grill It!' cookbook (though I'm simplifying it here), and is incredibly easy to pull off. The hardest part is remembering to buy a lime at the grocery store. You will need:

1 pork tenderloin
1 lime
1 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp honey
pinch of ground cloves

1. Fire up the grill to medium heat
2. Cut the tenderlooin in half, lengthwise
3. Grate 1 tsp. of peel from the lime and mix with the salt and pepper
4. Rub this mixture on the meat
5. Spray the pork with nonstick cooking spray
6. Grill 12-15 minutes, turning once.
7. Meanwhile, mix honey, cloves, and 2 tbsp of lime juice in a bowl. Serve this with the pork
   

Technically you are also supposed to grill plums and add that to the honey/lime juice mixture. I'm just not a fruit-griller. It's not my style. Don't take the measurements on salt, pepper, or lime peel too seriously. Just salt/pepper however much you want, and then grate the lime peel onto the pork until it looks like you 'have enough'. Everybody likes lemon pepper seasoning, right? This is just lime pepper instead. And then you're basically dipping it in honey - what's not to like about this?

Following Through on My Recipe Promise

So, I'm posting again just 2 days since my last post! Woo-hoo, er, I guess that's good. Who knows.....

In any event, before I get into any cooking details I'd like to provide some (unneeded) free advertising for the iPhone. Apple announced their new OS (that's an operating system to you and I.) that is going to be pushed out this summer. They claim to have over 100 new features / improvements. I looked through it and it mostly looked like obvious things that aren't earth-shattering (multi-media texts, copy/paste functionality, a map API that will let someone build a turn-by-turn GPS application, which I will immediately buy), but to me this just shows why the iPhone is so awesome. Apple comes up with a great idea, and then doesn't eff it up with stupidity. They make it easy for external developers to build applications so that they don't have to come up with all the great ideas on their own, and they add the stuff that people want. An iPhone will change your life. And that's coming from a guy that only has access to his phone about 6 hours a day (subtracting work and sleep).

Anyway, this is the 1st of 3 recipes I plan to provide shortly. One might call this the 'holy pork trilogy', or something dumb like that.....

Southern Peach Pork Chops

(This recipe comes from 'Grill It!' by Good Housekeeping)

(Technically the recipe also says you should cut 4 peaches in half, cover them in peach jam, and grill them for 5 minutes. In my opinion, this is a just great way to ruin a peach.)

What you need:

1 tbsp curry powder

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

pinch of black pepper

1 garlic clove (pressed)

4 pork chops

1/2 cup peach jam (or apricot jam)

1. Fire up your grill to medium heat
2. Stir curry powder, brown sugar, oil, salt cinnamon, pepper, and garlic in a bowl until blended. Rub this mixture onto both sides of each pork chop
3. Spread some of the peach jam onto ONE side of the pork chops
4. Place chops on the grill, jam side UP for ~5 minutes
5. Turn chops and then spread jam onto them - grill ~5 minutes
6. Repeat previous step, but only grill for another 2-3 minutes

Tips based on my experience:

• Go heavy on the '1 tbsp of olive oil'. That rub mixture is kinda hard to work with, in my opinion.
• Be quick on the 1st turn of the pork chops. 4 minutes is probably enough
• Be slow on the 2nd turn (~6 minutes). I think the fact that initially the bottom side has no jam makes it cook faster than after you make the turn.
• I'm not really sure that step #6 is even necessary. But in the end you're just putting more jam on, so I guess it's hard to make an argument that this is a bad thing.

Try it.

You're welcome. :-)

Re-thinking my Blog Posting Goals

I apparently am incapable of a weekly blog. Either my life moves too fast to make time each week, or my life is too boring to justify a weekly post. Anyway, I'm officially retracting any stated goal for timely publication. I'll just blog whenever the heck I manage to set aside 20 minutes AND have something reasonably interesting to say.....

Short Ramblings

• I spent the week in the Ft. Walton Beach, FL, area for work, and it was incredibly foggy. Being a midwesterner boy, I have no idea if this is normal beachfront behavior. But it was 80 degrees everyday, so that was nice.
• I spent an extra BONUS night in Atlanta because we (everyone that flies in the US) have an air traffic control problem. I have some choice words for the airline industry as a whole, but I'll hold back and just say "wowzy woo-woo, you guys should not suck so bad".
• I went to 2 different driving ranges today - BOTH CLOSED! (*confused*)
• My still unnamed sweeping slave (the iRobot Roomba) is an awesome gizmo. I eagerly await the arrival of my SlapChop....
• 'Spring' Oreos are, for some mysterious reason, noticeably tastier than normal Oreos
• I took my nerd-dom to another level this week and put a wood-grain skin on my trendy little netbook laptop. At least I'm amused by it....

My Bowling Career is Launching

I normally wouldn't share too many bowling details, as that's not what I'd call 'riveting material'. But since I already embarassed myself I might as well let you in on the fun too.

I bowled the series of my life 2 weeks ago - 710 (scratch)! I had a 235 the 1st game, then ALMOST bowled 300. I had a spare in the 2nd frame and strikes in every other frame........until the 3 ball of the 10th frame when I unceremoniously threw a gutter ball. Ouch. I think that seriously may have been the 1st time in the history of man that someone bowled a 270 and threw their last ball straight into the gutter. Apparently the pressure of the 'pizza and beer' league was more than I could handle. But I did recover to throw a 205 the 3rd game to reach my final tally.

I intended to post a grilling recipe on here, but got distracted by the drama of an eBay auction (I'm patiently stalking a playstation 3). I'll toss the recipe up next time I blog.

LISTS

BLOGGER NOTE - I went to Rome, NY, again this week, which some of you may remember was such a horribly boring place that it inspired me to start my blog this past fall. To commemorate this experience, I'm changin' up my blogging habits - FRIDAY is new blog day in Dayton, OH. Sundays are just bad news for me. Now, on to my blog, fully composed of lists.

LIST #1 - 6 Things I'm Thankful For (omitting the uber-obvious family / friends)

1. The US Government - "WHOA", you say, right??? The government is horrible and wastes money and doesn't get anything done, right? Well, yeah, that's sometimes true. BUT, our system is the no kidding real deal. We are inefficient because we have checks and balances (and because approximately 46% of civil servants are worthless), but we are incredibly stable even in this unprecedented economic downturn and still have the strongest military in the world. Next time you think it sucks here, ask Iceland (their government failed this year due to the economic problems). Or ask Zimbabwe (they suffer from hyper-inflation - a loaf of bread costs no kidding over a BILLION Zimbabwe dollars, and in the time it took me to type this the price probably doubled).
2. The internet - Its impact can hardly be overstated. Google it. (Fun fact - Google actually searches less than 10% of the internet. Holy IP addresses, batman!)
3. My career - I am probably part of the less than .01% of the population that is not concerned about losing their job, and is even thinking about a promotion. My job is solid, even if it pisses me off a fair amount of time. I really think I've noticed less whining about things at work because of the massive lay-offs and general job uncertainty in the population. And one consequence of my job is that I can PRACTICALLY transfer to anywhere in the country. I often wish I didn't live so far from home, and maybe sometime I will get a little closer.
4. The Human Psyche - I think that I've taken my math/science expertise as far as I care to (which isn't to say I'm some awesome expert. I've just lost the passion to proactively progress based on my own motivation.). But I am now much more intrigued by what motivates people, and how people make decisions, and other crap such as that. It's much more complicated than thermodynamic laws, cuz we (humans) still haven't really figured it out. If we ever knew how to predict human behavior we'd be done. Shut down the patent office!
5. Sports - Clearly I have spent an incredible amount of time honing my sports skills. Sports don't play a central role in my life anymore, but they are still a great way for me to relax and unwind. Watching Illinois basketball or Cardinals baseball is at the very least a great distraction from life stress. And I continue to play basketball, ominously awaiting the inevitable knee injury that will end that career. Volleyball has kind of turned into my high-action sport, because recreational basketball stinks (I'll complain about that in some other blog.) BUT, I'm also transitioning to 'old people' sports, like golf and bowling. Turns out these are a good time, and I think I can do them when I become fat from too many hours in front of the computer. Everybody wins! Well, everybody but my imaginary wife of the future. She'd better show her ass up quickly if she wants to make any bold requests like "don't get fat". That doesn't just not happen on its own.
   
6. Oliver - A dog? Seems trivial, but he's seriously one hell of a roommate.

This list is longer than I thought. I think I'll make 2 more (surprise) lists later in the weekend....

Note to Self

I owe Megan a '6 things' list next week. I forgot until I read Lou's blog....

A Week Late......

I missed last week (obviously). I blame my master's class and the Super Bowl. Now that that's out of the way.......



Last weekend seemse like a long time ago, so I'm a little short on details. I think maybe this is a good thing. If one can't remember it happening a week later it is probably unworthy of blog-dome. Maybe we should all wait a week before blogging. It might take our posts to the next level. Soon strangers will be reading our blogs because our lives sound so interesting!

Ice Storm From Hell

That doesn't even make any sense. It's hot there. Wherever that storm came from, it dumped a boatload of snow, then ice, then more snow on my little corner of the world in Dayton. We missed 2 days of work. Luckily the bowling alley stayed open, so the important part of my week was uninterrupted. :-)

Here's a picture (snapped from the iPhone) of deathly icicles hanging 3 stories above my condo last weekend. The photo doesn't seem to do them justice, as I am estimating the longest one at 9'. Monsters, seriously. They actually woke me up sunday morning when they fell. That wouldn't hold up in a court of law, but at the very least I was awakened by the shattering of ice outside, and when I took Oliver out to pee the icicles were gone. Thankfully my DirecTV dish was spared.

*flash forward to this week*

The Germ From Hell

Actually it's just a slight cold, but I'm stretching for a 'title theme' this week. I left work early monday, stayed home and slept all day tuesday, and left work early again on friday. I've been hitting the meth pretty hard to fight it off. That's what I call pseudoephedrine. It's an important ingredient for meth, and it's practically more difficult to purchase the stuff than it is to rob a bank. These precautions seems quite misguided, sort of like making me take my belt off before being allowed to board a plane. I think the people that make these rules have to know that we now have radars capable of looking through clothes. So why do I have to get down to my boxers to go through a metal detector? Why is the metal detector there at all anyway? Explosives aren't metal, and everybody puts 7 different electronic devices (GPS navigator, cell phone, watch, laptop, etc.) through the other scanning device. Any of these things could just as easily be a detonator. I think we're afraid to throw the metal detectors away because it would make people feel vulnerable. This paragraph was supposed to be about me being sick..............

The Season from Hell....

....is over! My 8th graders mercifully lost in the tournament this afternoon, ending a 2-10 campaign. Miraculously, we actually won in the 1st round of the tournament yesterday. It was a very dramatic and painful victory. Offense was difficult to identify for even the most focused observer. It was tied 13-13 at the end of regulation (yeah, really), but our offense caught fire in overtime, winning 17-13. Unfortunately reality came a-knocking today as we got beat down to the tune of 44-11 (-ish).

The Robot from Massachusetts

I got my iRobot Roomba in the mail this week. She needs a name. I'm not as blessed as many of you all in the creative names department, so please send inspired names to me. Here is a picture of her apparently eating Cap'n Crunch for breakfast, but this isn't at my house. Oliver would never allow that. As a matter of fact, Oliver needs to learn to respect *name here* a little more. He's been ran into by her no less than a dozen times. Each time Oliver reacts with subtle annoyance, if not full-blown disdain. This much is clear - "he's not frickin' movin' for no robot vacuum. Go around, *name here*!" I eagerly await my other recent (foolish) purchases, the SlapChop and ShamWows. But if you've seen the commercials, you know they are coming from Germany, so I wouldn't expect them for at least another week.

A Cautionary Tale for Body Hair

(Intriguing title, no?) First, I should say that I really appreciate all the fine gifts I received for Christmas. Sadly, one of them is torturing me daily. The fancy belt Megan bought me is reversible. The buckle side has a spring-loaded joint that lets you flip it around so that you can have either black or brown showing on the outside. It's genius. The downside is that it pulls out hair in the vicinity of the bellybutton with reckless abandon (specifically left of the belly button). The life lesson here is to keep your shirt tucked in, but I'm a slob sometimes. If I don't pull myself together I'm going to have assymetric body hair. Symmetry has been strongly tied to how attractive one is perceived by others, so if I ever plan to find a wife I'm gonna hafta address this situation before it's too late. If I'm 40 and still single, I will now blame Megan..........

:-)

A Week Worth Blogging About

Hooray, I actually did something this week that is blog-worthy. So I won't have to fill this one with junk just to say that I posted for the week.....

Burns' Supper

This friday was the annual Robert Burns' Supper formal event. This is an event orchestrated by the British guys stationed here, as a sort of token of appreciation for us hosting them and working closely on various projects. The other event they have is the British Open Golf Scramble, held the friday of the actual British Open tournament. Sadly that friday isn't coming up anytime soon as I look out the window at all the stupid snow that's back on the ground today....


Anyway, if you aren't aware, Robert Burns was a Scottish poet in the 18th century. The event is to celebrate his birthday, which was January 25th. I'd never heard of him before I got invited to my first party in his honor 5 years ago, but I'm sure you've heard some of his work - he wrote Auld Lang Syne. And since it was written by a Scot and read first by Scots, it now makes sense to me why people just mumble through it, swaying back and forth looking drunk - that's the authentic replication of how Scots do it! :-)


This event is really just a prom for adults, which probably can be used to describe just about any event that requires a tuxedo. Burns Supper is the lone reason for me to own a tuxedo, and this is the 4th time I've worn it. Happily, this is the 1st time that I have truly grasped the black magic / art of tying a bowtie. That is no small task, and for the last 3 years I've probably stood in front of the mirror for over 2 hours trying to get that stupid thing to look reasonably close to normal. This year I unlocked a magical extra step that makes it work out in the end. I jokingly said that I might start wearing bowties to work just so I can stay in practice for next year.


My 'date' this year was Kacy, who has been a close friend since before high school, and lived over here in dayton for over a year (but is back in Illinois now). She came over thursday night, and we've goofed off all weekend, mostly playing Guitar Hero 4 (the one that's just like Rock Band2). It's amazing how much fun those dumb games are - they are real life-suckers. You'll look up and realize you've been playing for 4 hours. The Guitar Hero - like video games are probably the least advanced games that have come out in 15 years (from a graphics / technology standpoint), but no one had the awesome idea to make a guitar and drum-set into a video game at the time.

The only bad thing that happened this weekend occured early saturday morning. Following the LATE night (3 a.m.-ish before we got home) that always happens the night of Burns' Supper, I struggled out of bed before 7 a.m. to take my truck to get it's windshield replaced. Sadly, the guy who was supposed to do the work came back out of the shop after I sat in the waiting room for about 10 minutes and told me they had ordered the wrong seal. So I get to take it in next saturday for another 8 a.m. appointment. Bummer......but if that's the worst thing that happens in a weekend, then I'm doing OK.

My authentic Scottish friend in his authentic Scottish kilt

We pretended to act presentable and mature.....

...but then cleavage jokes ensued.

One Day Late - That's no SO Bad.....

OK, so I'm getting closer to this whole 'weekly' (-ish) blogging. It's been a very uneventful week. I really don't have much of anything to report. I didn't have to work today, and got lots of routine, boring crap done - called All-State to schedule for a new windshield to be installed in my truck, did the paperwork to get my transcripts from Rose-Hulman sent to Colorado State from my master's program, vacuumed my carpet and cleaned all the salt (from the sidewalks/roads) off of my hardwood floor. Yep, some readers are no doubt finding their eyes losing focus as I put them to sleep with random lame tasks.

So instead of talking about anything people legitimately care about, I'm going to make a couple of random commercial observations.

1. The latest Dodge truck commercials reach a new low
Really all the recent commercials from the main truck makers have gotten absurd. I'm ready for them to take Denis Leary (Ford), Howie Long (Chevy), and the dude with the stupidly deep voice (Toyota), and somehow make them part of these ridiculous tests. Maybe something will go wrong. Here's part of the Dodge commercial series, where four teams (identified as FIREMEN, MILITARY, COWBOYS, and CONTRACTORS - very tough, indeed) do stupid things with trucks and pretend that it's a good idea.



2. SlapChop - If you've been watching the national geographic channel you've probably seen the SlapChop commercial. If the guy doing the commercial wasn't such a terd I probably would've already bought one of these do-dads. It's safe to say I'm very intrigued.....I know, they never work like the commercial shows.

www.slapchop.com

Other Items to Fill my Blog

(whoa, my keyboard just went into 'Chinese' mode due to hitting Ctrl+something. I recovered....)

My 8th grade basketball team got beaten badly again this week - 28-7

I bowled quite poorly this week - 146/162/154. That'll hurt the ol' handicap

The Fightin' Illini basketball team looks WAY better than expected this year. I think this is a classic 'addition by subtraction' situation. It's amazing how much better we are NOT throwing the ball to Shaun Pruitt or watching Brian Randle turn the ball over.

Work has been very hectic the last 2 weeks. I'm hoping it slows down, but deep down I know it's going to be a hectic couple of months.

To keep this post from being a total stinker, I'll post the family pictures from Xmas. I'll try to be less boring next week.

Back to Business

Yeah, so it's been almost 2 months since I updated my supposed weekly blog. I'm going to get back to these sunday updates. Here it goes.....

First, the boring stuff. I completed my first stock transaction this week. I bought Ford stock in November for $1.27/share, and luckily sold it for $2.66/share. Probably the most successful trade I'll ever make. I also refinanced my mortgage. I got 5.0% (had 6.25% before), and didn't pay any 'points' (whatever those really are).

My 8th grade team is struggling. We were behind 18-0 after the 1st quarter today. We are now 1-6. There are 3 games left, and I think they are ready for it to be over. In the end, there's only so much you can do. We are shorter, slower, and have less basketball skills than the other teams. I'd be ecstatic if we won one of these last 3.

I had my 1st week in the 'pizza and beer' bowling league (i.e., not a serious league at all). Even though I didn't get any practice in before the 1st week, I managed to bowl 212, 146, and 202. That's probably better than I will do most weeks, and is going to kill my handicap. Maybe I'll manage a 600 series this year....

Work was particularly busy last week. I'm 'the boss' for the next couple of months, and there is a lot to get done. I may get a crack to do this more permanently later this year, but we'll see if it's something I actually want to do before I get too wrapped up in that possibility.

Yep, I just read through this post, and it's pretty boring. I'll try to get more exciting next week. Thanks to everybody for the Birthday and Xmas cards!

This is probably most entertaining for dad, but anybody that wants to watch guys do silly things to silly cars will enjoy these british guys trying to see if british cars were any good in the 70's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf7q8lWEd-o