Tuesday, March 19, 2024

COW: Prayer after soccer games

My Crisis of the Week is this:  after the game, my daughter's soccer coach gets the kids together in a post-game huddle.  He says a prayer.  Of course, anyone who doesn't want to participate can sit there quietly.  

If I say anything, my daughter might be targeted. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I came along and uttered a Muslim or Jewish prayer. God, I hate this state.  maybe I should find a church down here and start playing soccer during the homily. 

Playing in the rain...and mud

I acknowledge that I'm disproportionally upset about this.  I've known about it for a few weeks and Natasha is fine with just sitting there silently.  I think I'm really upset because of all the other things going on. 

I'm not allowed to vent in the traditional ways.  I don't even have anyone to vent to down here.  And Nightingale has censored me and chided me when I do rage out.  

We have snakes

 On Saturday Natasha and her new BFF were playing in the backyard and they saw a snake.  When we first moved in, Natasha told me that she saw a snake in our back forty.  I didn't, not believe her.  Still it has been 3 years and this is the first confirmed sighting of a serpent-type creature.



As much as I loathe killing any of God's living things, I couldn't take a chance and decided to put the snake out of my misery.




BIL Confederate Jethro confirmed that the snake was not venomous but also shared that he kills all snakes he encounters as well.  


Monday, March 18, 2024

Herb Roasted Chicken with Lemon Orzo

 This Herb Roasted Chicken with Lemon Orzo from @kaylasbeencooking is the perfect way to try our NEW House Blend Chicken All-Purpose Seasoning. 🍗

 I did skip/substitute a few things but it turned out fine.  Didn't use their Signature Chicken Blend, but some other poultry blend that we got from a place in Grosse Pointe, MI.

Didn't have Orzo so I used these Goya Alphabet macaroni that we bought a ton of because it's something Moose and Squirrel will eat.

And I used vegetable broth instead of Chicken because that's what we had. 

Our signature chicken blend features the perfect mix of sage, porcini, rosemary, bell pepper and more, taking your everyday chicken from good to great.







 

Ingredients:

2 TB The House Blends Chicken All-Purpose Seasoning

4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs

Salt and black pepper, to taste

2 TB olive oil

1 cup orzo pasta

1 onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup or more chicken broth

Juice of 1 lemon

Zest of 1 lemon

Fresh parsley

 

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Pat the chicken thighs dry. Season both sides with salt & pepper and The House Blends Chicken All-Purpose Seasoning.

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Sear the chicken, skin side down, until golden brown (about 4-5 minutes per side). Remove the chicken & set aside.

In the same skillet, add onion and cook until soft. Add garlic and cook for an additional 1-2 minutes, until fragrant.

Stir in the orzo pasta and cook for 2-3 minutes until lightly toasted. Pour in the chicken broth, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Bring to a simmer and return the seared chicken thighs to the skillet.

Transfer the skillet to the preheated oven and roast for about 25-30 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Garnish and serve!

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Voting Against my best interest

For some reason, this story from deep within my memory banks rose to the surface recently.  One semester at NMSU, I was in a Differential Equations class. This was a class that was mostly comprised of Physics Majors like my friend B-Gill, and Engineering Majors like myself.  There might have been a math major or two, although I don't think it was a requirement.

Anyway, the Prof decided to let the class decide how the final exam would focus: Physics problem heavy or Engineering problem heavy.  I think that meant that more questions would be Physics-oriented than straightforward Engineering problems.  

I was struggling with the Physics type problems but doing fine with the Engineering ones.  Most of the Physics students could go either way, including B-Gill.  When it came time to vote, I don't remember how close it was, if we were told at all, but B-Gill chose Physics.  

That our exam was Physics Heavy cost me an A.  Meanwhile, B-Gill, who had missed some exams because of sickness, had a chance to score an A for the semester just by getting an A on the last and most important test of the class.  

I don't know why this came up in my MindFeed upon waking up in the middle of the night as I often do.  I'm sure I displayed some disappointment at B-Gill for not casting a vote to help me out.  He was gonna get an A no matter what the questions were.  



The Polish Calculus

This beats any Chem Test
In the Spring Semester of my freshmen year at NMSU, I had a solid B going into my Chemistry Final Exam.  As long as I got a few questions right, I would get a grade of B for the semester.  To get an A, however, I would need to have scored 46 out of 50*.

It was a three-hour test and only the TA was there.  On the first pass, I answered all the easy, soft questions 101 exams are often peppered with.  On the next pass, I knocked out a few more tougher questions.  At about the 1-hour mark, I determined that I had comfortably answered 40 out of 50* questions correctly, give or take a question.  In other words, my B grade was secure.    

But I also realized that there was no way I was gonna get 8 more questions correct in the next two hours.  If I hadn't learned it by now, there wasn't gonna be a Finals Miracle.  I probably did my best to make educated guesses and then just picked random answers which might have given me 1-2 lucky guesses but still not getting my A.

I could have sat there for two more hours pretending to work on the problems and maybe, maybe I'd get one or two more, but I wasn't getting the eight I needed to get into the A zone. 

I turned in my paper and went back to my dorm room and loaded up my mom's car, allowing us to leave 2 hours earlier on the 7+ hour ride back to Chicago.  

People don't like to hear stories like this because they feel you are giving up or taking the easy way out.  What they fail to understand is that is how a Greedy Algorithm works.  You make the best decision/select the best choice based on the information/options you have at the moment.  You cannot hope something will change down the road or expect a last-minute miracle.  

* I'm going off very old memories about the exact point differences.  Suffice it to say, I was sufficiently out of range for an A that nothing less than a perfect test was gonna convert my B into an A.

Monday, February 26, 2024

Back to the Beginning

 On Friday I got a phone call from the agency that "represents" me on my contract gig at No-Name Software Company Adjacent Company.

They told me that No-Name Software Company Adjacent Company is not renewing my contract and that my last day would be Feb 26th.  

While I'm not terribly upset that it ended, I wish it had gone on longer so I could use the experience to make my resume and LinkedIn profile more stable.  Because I've worked a few short-term contract jobs, I get penalized because:

  • Recruiters want me to list every job to show I'm hireable;
  • But the tasks and responsibilities are so mundane that no one would be impressed enough to choose me over another No-Name Software SME candidate.  

It is no coincidence that my Manager (Mel) rescheduled and canceled my One-On-One with her.  She, and our boss, don't like conflict and are just trying to hold onto their Corporate America jobs until they can retire.  They are on borrowed time because the Corporation that acquired their smaller company is not making money off their product.

What does irritate me is that Mel tried to pin it on me.  They could have, and did, go with Budget cuts.  But she also tried to put it on me that I didn't Step Up and In enough.  I should have been more of a self-starter.  let's ignore the snafu of my start date, or starting just as everyone is going on vacation after a long year of consulting.  

Translation:  I didn't realize I was going to have to be responsible for your Onboarding and be expected to help you succeed.  

Could I have been more aggressive?  Sure, but what would that have really accomplished when a company -- and by extension a team -- is somewhat dysfunctional?  I did my best to walk the line between asserting myself and respecting other people's downtime.  


  I'm writing these entries as they happen and as I have time to jot things down but I may not publish until months from now (or ever). Note: This post was written when the events were still fresh.  I waited for a while to post this because I didn’t want to risk my job-hunting efforts.

Monday, February 12, 2024

2024 Bears Playoff Prediction: early, optimistic edition

Even the Experts don't get it right
Now that the Super Bowl is over, we can turn our thoughts to next season.  A lot depends on what the Bears do and I have a decision to make.

I believe the Bears should stick with Justin Fields.  My theory is that each play a coach calls has a certain percentage of success based on practice and live games.  I believe the coaches willfully have
been calling up plays with lower percentages when there was a danger of winning a game in 2022 and 2023.  

If the Bears pick a QB in the first round then they are resetting and it probably isn't worth buying the expensive YouTubeTV package to watch games down here.  It's especially wasteful because most games are at noon on Sundays and that is the middle of the day, so watching them is problematic.


Two games each NFC North opponent (3 -3 )

I'm optimistic here and say they split.  Yeah, Green Bay will probably continue to own and sweep the Bears, but I want to be positive.  The Bears improved in the second half last year, not as much as the 2022 Lions, but there was improvement.  Also, they blew 3 games with double-digit leads.  If they can not do that this year, they have a better record.  Heck, maybe it's their turn to win a few games when they are behind by double-digit leads.

NFC West: vs. Los Angeles Rams, Seattle Seahawks / at Arizona Cardinals, at SF 49ers (2 -2 )

I believe the Cardinals and Seahawks are trending up and the Rams and 49ers are going in the other direction.  As always, it depends on when they play each other.  In 2022, the Bears beat the 49ers early in the season, yet San Francisco went on to the NFC championship.  

The Cardinals looked better at the end of last year so don't expect another Miracle in the Desert.  

AFC South: vs. Tennessee Titans, Jacksonville Jaguars / at Houston Texans, at Indianapolis Colts (1 - 3)

I am being really optimistic here because it could easily be 0-4.  All of these teams are better than their records indicate, and Texan exceeded expectations by actually winning a playoff game with a rookie quarterback.  The Bears will be lucky to steal a win from one of these teams.

NFC South: vs Carolina Panthers,  AFC East: vs New England Patriots, NFC East: at Washington Commanders

(3 -0)

On paper, all three of these should be winnable games.  Two of the Three have new coaches so they can "afford" to lose games during their rebuilding season.  I would wager that the Panthers are done losing, especially if they don't get the number one draft pick for their effort.  The Commanders are now in rebuild mode and we'll see what they do with the draft.  The Patriots are gonna Patriot.