Spice Up Your Life

You know how you have those things you do that you swear that you'll never do again and yet you do them over and over again?

In this case I'm not talking about eating raw cookie dough, even though that applies. (Yes, it says in big bold print on the package that you're not supposed to eat it raw, but who are they fooling? Nobody actually buys that stuff to bake cookies with.)

No, I'm talking about doing something that you know you won't understand later and not documenting it. In this case, I'm talking about my spice rack.

I have one of those pre-labeled spice racks. It's great and I've had it for probably close to twenty years. I've depleted and refilled most of the spice jars multiple times (although not every six months as the charlatan television chefs would have you believe to be necessary).

However, over the years I've occasionally needed a jar for something else and had an empty one available, so I've used it. And every time I've thought "I should change the label" and then I think "No need -- of course I'll remember that the bottle labeled ginger really contains coriander."

So now every time I make a new recipe it's a bit of a crap-shoot as to whether I'm really adding coriander or maybe a spice blend with allspice and cloves that I made for that one Ethiopian curry two years ago. Usually I can tell based on the smell, but sometimes...

The spice of life? In my kitchen you may never know the truth...

In Android training nobody can hear you scream...

For those keeping score at home, here's how the Android training went last week:

Day 1:

- Up at 4:15! Probably should apologize to the neighbors for turning up the music and lights before dawn.

- Took the dogs for a walk in the dark. Remembered too late that I should have brought a flashlight, leading to me finding poop in the wet grass by braille. (I had a bag over my hand, okay?)

- Left the house before 6am and was tailgated by at least five different people during the commute. Really people, if the car in front of me is going the same speed I am, sitting five feet behind my bumper actually won't make me go any faster. All it will do is make me squirt rancid windshield wiper fluid over my car and onto yours.

- Got to work at 7:15. That's just crazy.

- In a place labeled a "tech park", the conference room used for training twenty people (who are all required to have computers to work on) has three outlets that can be reached, located on the wall at the end of the tables. Within twenty minutes there are power strips daisy-chained all over the room. Between that and the ethernet cables (sockets located next to the power outlets) strung all around (because we don't have wi-fi, naturally, at a freaking wireless company), everyone is required to leap over multiple cords in order to get between the door and their seats. Both OSHA and the fire department would have evacuated the building on the spot if they'd dropped by.

- The instructor gets the class started by asking everyone to briefly state their experience and what they hope to get out of the course. This is normally a five day course being crammed into two days and he's trying to make sure that everyone has a solid understanding of java so he can completely skip those parts. Of course half the people in attendance take this as an opportunity to recite everything they've ever done in the last twenty years. Also, they keep starting out with "I'm so-and-so and I work for manager-so-and-so." Do we care? No.

- That one woman finally winds to a close on all of her accomplishments since Eisenhower was president and we get started. In the meantime it has become obvious that the thermostat is set to penguin comfort level. I'm wearing a sweatshirt and I'm starting to lose feeling in my fingers. I feel a little sorry for the guys in the front row who are wearing short sleeves. On the other hand, what kind of idiot goes anywhere in our building without a jacket? Oh, I see, they're from Texas. Maybe the A/C isn't so schizophrenic out there.

- Instead of following instructions and labeling the app button "Update", Jeff labels his "Fart". Just so we're clear, he's three years older than I am.

- In between lessons I try to figure out how to change the path in Windows. I'm a Linux user. I normally only use the laptop to log into my Linux workstation remotely. Turns out that you have to be an admin to change the path in Windows. How is this even an operating system? I don't have time to log out (5 minutes), log in to the other account which has admin privileges (10 minutes), change the path in a window that only shows ten characters at a time (20 seconds), log back out (5 minutes, or maybe 20 minutes if it hangs and I have to power cycle it to get logged out), and log back in under the original account (10 minutes). I decide this will have to wait until the day is over.

- At lunch time I go back to my desk and grab my parka. People make fun of me but I can tell they are secretly envious.

- After lunch the second set of thermostats, which seem to actually have some control over the room, is discovered.

- We work on an app that acts like a twitter client.

- At 5pm we stop for the day. At 6:15 I drive home. I almost make the mistake of getting in the HOV lane (open to anyone after 7pm) because my car clock is still one hour ahead. Stupid time changes.

Day 2:

- Up at 4:15 again. Definitely ought to apologize to the neighbors.

- Rinse off the Tinkle Turf in the backyard in the dark.

- Remember to bring the flashlight when walking the dogs. Naturally neither dog poops on the walk.

- Again, made it to work by 7:15. Took the extra time to change the path on the laptop.

- Question session at the beginning of class. The woman who won't stop talking keeps asking the same question (about cross-platform development and testing) over and over. The instructor keeps answering it. Eventually I want to stand up and say "YES. YOU MUST TEST IT ON EVERY DEVICE." but I don't because I am busy rick-rolling people using the twitter app from the day before. Eric keeps putting in Shakespeare quotations because, well, he had to memorize it so he might as well use it.

- By the end of the day my brain feels like it is leaking out of my ears.

So, anyhow, the instructor was excellent and the material was interesting. Unfortunately I don't work on anything where I'll actually need to use it, but no knowledge is wasted. Or something like that.

Those aren't the Android's you're looking for...

So I broke down and spent a bunch of money in the last couple of weeks. I'm claiming the iPad as a birthday present to myself, but the rest of it was clothing, and I refuse to call that a birthday present. Actually, if I could find a pair of sweat pants just like the ones that I have that are disintegrating and have no identifying tag, I would claim that as a birthday and Christmas present, but that's looking unlikely.

Anyhow, as a computer professional I could probably come up with some malarkey about how the iPad is work-related, but really it's just a toy and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. So far I've used it to watch television in bed and to list a recipe in the kitchen (vegetarian chili from epicurious.com in case you're curious). Other than the fact that it kept going to sleep while I was cooking, it worked really well. I'm guessing there's some setting to keep it from going to sleep -- if I were really a professional I'd figure it out. Maybe next time.

In a further test of professionalism, I have two days of Android training (whatever the heck that is) coming up this week. Aside from the fact that we have a deadline on Friday for some features that have yet to be started, the big problem is that the training starts at 8am and we all know how I feel about getting to work four hours early. Grumpiness might be evident. I realize that many of those people who work with me are asking themselves how, exactly, that might be different from normal.

Ha ha. Trust me. You'll find out.

Potted Luck

As I've gotten older, my views on a few things have evolved.

I now realize that it's my duty as a citizen to vote just to cancel out one vote cast by someone who's stupider than I am.

Also, I now consider the fact that maybe my big dog isn't as stupid as she appears and that she's really doing everything she does just to mess with me.

And most importantly, I now know that work potlucks are a great place to cement a reputation as someone who is just odd enough that she should be avoided by everyone without going overboard and being escorted out by security.

For this year's Halloween potluck, I've decided to forgo recipes completely and just make sure the colors are what I want. I figure as long as I don't actually poison anyone it's all good. And if I do poison someone accidentally, they'll never figure out what dish it was anyhow. That's the beauty of potlucks.

So yeah, if you're in building eight this Wednesday, think twice before taking a large serving of the orange and purple food.

And don't forget to vote.

King of the Castle

In our annual tradition, Jeff and I made a "cake" for Liam's birthday (number eight and he learned how to tie his shoes just in time!).

This year he wanted a castle, so with a combination of fake Rice Krispies and "Coco Dyno Bytes" (fake Coco-puffs), we made stone walls. Never let the two of us loose in the kitchen -- what inevitably occurs is that we start talking about something while we're stirring marshmallows, and the next thing you know half of the ingredients end up without the proper food coloring. But really, it allowed for some contrast between the walls and the towers, so I'm claiming it's not really a mistake.

Anyhow, I think this year's version can be considered a success, especially compared to the tank we made last year.

Of course, when we finished Liam asked where the actual castle was...

A Gentlewoman of Verbena

(The title is supposed to be a Shakespeare reference, for those of you who didn't make it past the sex scene in the movie version of "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter"...)

Over a year ago I got a sprig of lemon verbena in my veggie box. I'm still not sure what you're supposed to do with it in the kitchen, but it smells great to me -- a bit like Lemonheads candy. (I know it's a little weird that I think a plant smells like some processed sugar snack. I'm probably supposed to think that Lemonheads smell like lemon verbena. So sue me.)

Anyhow, I've been trying to find a lemon verbena plant in the store so I could have my own growing Lemonheads-scent factory, but I haven't had much luck despite the fact that my neighbors had a plant growing in their backyard that they ripped out because it had gotten bigger than they wanted in the spot they had it planted.

I finally gave up looking for it locally and ordered it on-line. And because I had to put a number in the box to indicate how many I wanted, I ordered ten of them. That sounds like a lot, sure, but to put it in perspective, I accidentally planted twenty brussel sprout seedlings a few weeks ago, all of which are still alive and thriving.

So I spent the weekend planting twigs of lemon verbena in my back yard. Hopefully at least one of them will live.

I also ripped apart the back of the couch on my patio, and tried to find additional artificial turf for the dogs to pee on so I don't have to spend a bunch of money on another "Tinkle Turf" to put in the other spot they like to pee.

Actually, it's not so much the money as it is the gigantic box with the words "Tinkle Turf" on the outside being delivered to my door.

Maybe I can get them to gift wrap it before delivery.

The Unmaking

Well, my neighbors failed to take the bait, so I'm taking the couch apart, and it's actually pretty interesting.

I'd always assumed that couches were made of... well, I'd never actually thought about it, but I guess I was expecting something more expensive, or at least durable.

What I found was a thin layer of foam, another thin layer of stuffing, and then cardboard.

I'd also assumed that it was mass-produced in some way. But on the back of the cardboard it looked like hand-drawn schematics.

And then there were the calculations:

So I'm thinking now that it was a one-of-a-kind couch, an artisanal thing. Maybe I shouldn't have destroyed it. Maybe it was worth something.

But I still didn't want it in my living room.