Emma asked for a Dr. Who scarf early last week. I finished it this morning. She seems to like it.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Dr. Who scarf #2
Emma asked for a Dr. Who scarf early last week. I finished it this morning. She seems to like it.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Are they sure they want me doing this?
I'm the last person that should be writing Performance and Development plans... I was made team lead (chief engineer) last March, and there is no handbook on file that tells you what you should and should not do.
A couple of weeks ago, I realized that I had to write PDPs for everyone on my team. They had a training for it, I went, and they stressed the importance off being careful what you say in a PDP. It's a legal document, and the HR department claims they read them all.
The online tool contains the last 3 or 4 PDPs for both yourself and your employees. I looked through my old ones. "juggling monkeys" is still in there. My 2008 PDP is mysteriously missing. I don't know why. My PDP last year was redacted before it ever got to the HR department. All it says for employee comments is "I have no comment", but that's not what I said in the first place. The first thing I said was "This year I will try to be nicer to people around me. Except for Gale. The honeymoon's over there." Gale would have appreciated it, I think, but he never would have let you know it...
Anyway, I started writing these things three weeks ago. The week after Christmas I did everything I could think of to avoid working on them. I think they are basically done now, at least I hope. I am sure they are not up the the standards that the HR department wants, but that's what they get for making an engineer a manager. They should just be grateful that there is nothing in there that needs to be redacted.
A couple of weeks ago, I realized that I had to write PDPs for everyone on my team. They had a training for it, I went, and they stressed the importance off being careful what you say in a PDP. It's a legal document, and the HR department claims they read them all.
The online tool contains the last 3 or 4 PDPs for both yourself and your employees. I looked through my old ones. "juggling monkeys" is still in there. My 2008 PDP is mysteriously missing. I don't know why. My PDP last year was redacted before it ever got to the HR department. All it says for employee comments is "I have no comment", but that's not what I said in the first place. The first thing I said was "This year I will try to be nicer to people around me. Except for Gale. The honeymoon's over there." Gale would have appreciated it, I think, but he never would have let you know it...
Anyway, I started writing these things three weeks ago. The week after Christmas I did everything I could think of to avoid working on them. I think they are basically done now, at least I hope. I am sure they are not up the the standards that the HR department wants, but that's what they get for making an engineer a manager. They should just be grateful that there is nothing in there that needs to be redacted.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Comics no more!
For over a year, I have been using an app on my phone called "DailyStrip", which is a comic strip viewer program. This is a pretty good app, you can mark your favorite comic strips, and you can read the strips you have marked every day, or come back every week or so and get caught up.
I kept sort of up to date with comic strips like "Beetle Bailey", "Blondie", "Sherman's Lagoon", "Hagar the Horrible", "Spiderman", "Dilbert", "B.C", and "Foxtrot", among others.
That was until a couple of days ago. The author of the app was recently notified by King Feature Syndicates that he was to cease and desist publishing their comics in his app. Two thirds of the comic strips I used to follow are no longer available on the phone. I'm not sure why. King Features Syndicate doesn't appear to have a subscription pay service on their site, they only provide a week's worth of strips for each title, and those appear to be 6 weeks old.
It's not like my not being able to read comics on my phone will drive me to subscribe to a newspaper, just for the comics. I just won't read the comics every week to 10 days like I have been doing. The worst part about it is I'm not going to find out how Spiderman rescues Aunt May!
In other news, I think my boss often thinks today's punch line in the Dilbert comment. He just doesn't say it...
Sorry, King Features Syndicate. I don't know what you are thinking, but your product isn't worth my time now that you have made it incredibly inconvenient to access...
I kept sort of up to date with comic strips like "Beetle Bailey", "Blondie", "Sherman's Lagoon", "Hagar the Horrible", "Spiderman", "Dilbert", "B.C", and "Foxtrot", among others.
That was until a couple of days ago. The author of the app was recently notified by King Feature Syndicates that he was to cease and desist publishing their comics in his app. Two thirds of the comic strips I used to follow are no longer available on the phone. I'm not sure why. King Features Syndicate doesn't appear to have a subscription pay service on their site, they only provide a week's worth of strips for each title, and those appear to be 6 weeks old.
It's not like my not being able to read comics on my phone will drive me to subscribe to a newspaper, just for the comics. I just won't read the comics every week to 10 days like I have been doing. The worst part about it is I'm not going to find out how Spiderman rescues Aunt May!
In other news, I think my boss often thinks today's punch line in the Dilbert comment. He just doesn't say it...
Sorry, King Features Syndicate. I don't know what you are thinking, but your product isn't worth my time now that you have made it incredibly inconvenient to access...
Restaurant reviews
We've (or just I, in one case) have been to a few new (to me) restaurants in the past few weeks that are worth mentioning, so here they are:
The Happy Sumo (Provo)
I went here last week with a vendor for work. They want us to do a reference call to help them sell their product. I'm pretty sure that was the reason for the lunch. (They dropped the reference call possibility on us on the way back, and talked about setting up another lunch for the reference call. I'm ok with getting two lunches out of sharing my opinions. The opinions are normally free anyway.)
Anyway, there were five of us (three were the vendor), and one didn't eat any sushi, but it didn't stop them from ordering 6 sushi rolls. That was a lot of sushi. It was good, but it was a lot of sushi. I used the terms "post-sushi disorder" and "wasabi overload syndrome" on my twitter feed later in the day.
My favorite was the "frida roll" - inari (not really sure what that is), cilantro, red pepper, avocado, that sort of thing. It had a little spice to it, before you added wasabi.
If I ever go back, I think I would like to try what Karl had, a Katzu chicken plate. It looked pretty good.
Thai Village - Provo
This is a restaurant that just opened last week on University avenue in Provo, where Lon's Cooking Shack used to be. Tara's on a Thai kick, which is just fine, except coconut milk kind of upsets my stomach, so when we go to a Thai restaurant, I kind of have to be careful.
Anyway, why not try the brand new place? We almost didn't go in. The place looks incredibly dark from the outside. It turns out that the restaurant is not that dark on the inside, but they had some sort of light brown tinting put on their windows for some reason.
We tried their 'fresh roll', an appetizer wrapped in rice paper. I have say, it wasn't as good as the one at Thai Mango, also in Provo, that we tried months ago. This one seemed to be mostly lettuce on the inside. Maybe the sauce they bring with it is supposed to improve it, but I passed on the sauce, because I suspected it was a sweet sauce.
Tara just the red curry bowl. When it came out, it was enough rice and curry to feed Tara and several of our children. The children were not with us, so Tara took the rest home.
I got the beef waterfall, two star spicy. It was just the right amount of spicy, and was a pretty good dish. They had some sort of crunchy rice bits in with the beef, which gave it an interesting texture.
Overall, it seemed to be a pretty nice place. Hopefully they can stay in business, they basically gutted the place that was there to remodel for this one. I wonder about the new restaurants that spend so much money to get started, and wonder of the owners have unrealistic expectations about their ability to turn a profit quickly...
La Dolce Vida - Provo
Tucked away just off University in Provo is a little Italian restaurant that's been around for 25 years. We've had people over the years tell us to try it, but it's back behind things, and it's got kind of an 'out of sight, out of mind' thing going on. We almost went several years ago, but for some reason on that day, they were closed. The place looks like a store front restaurant from the street, we were a little surprised at how many tables it had in it when we got in there.
I ended up walking by the kitchen to use the restroom while we were there. In the back was a little old lady making the food. I think they were speaking to her in Italian, but I'm not that good. On the back counter were about a dozen loaves of bread, baked and resting before someone sliced them to serve.
I ordered the potato gnocchi. I had never had gnocchi before, but I've always liked the name. I'm sure it means something like 'dumpling' or something in Italian, but I don't know. All I know is that I liked the thing. My gnocchi came on a platter with both white and red sauces, the sauces were one the plate with a perfectly straight line separating the sauces. It was a pretty impressive thing to see. I have no idea how they got the sauces to stay straight like that.
Anyway, my meal was a good one, I may have to try making gnocchi one of these days. It doesn't sound all that hard, really. Maybe they use pastry bags or something to get the sauce to do that.
Additionally, I think I would prefer to go back to La Dolce Vida well before I go back to Gloria's Little Italy, which is on the same block, but facing the main street. The food is better at La Dolce Vida, the restaurant is not as stuffy, and it just seems to be a nice place. I don't know. The food seemed to be a bit better, overall, I thought.
The Happy Sumo (Provo)
I went here last week with a vendor for work. They want us to do a reference call to help them sell their product. I'm pretty sure that was the reason for the lunch. (They dropped the reference call possibility on us on the way back, and talked about setting up another lunch for the reference call. I'm ok with getting two lunches out of sharing my opinions. The opinions are normally free anyway.)
Anyway, there were five of us (three were the vendor), and one didn't eat any sushi, but it didn't stop them from ordering 6 sushi rolls. That was a lot of sushi. It was good, but it was a lot of sushi. I used the terms "post-sushi disorder" and "wasabi overload syndrome" on my twitter feed later in the day.
My favorite was the "frida roll" - inari (not really sure what that is), cilantro, red pepper, avocado, that sort of thing. It had a little spice to it, before you added wasabi.
If I ever go back, I think I would like to try what Karl had, a Katzu chicken plate. It looked pretty good.
Thai Village - Provo
This is a restaurant that just opened last week on University avenue in Provo, where Lon's Cooking Shack used to be. Tara's on a Thai kick, which is just fine, except coconut milk kind of upsets my stomach, so when we go to a Thai restaurant, I kind of have to be careful.
Anyway, why not try the brand new place? We almost didn't go in. The place looks incredibly dark from the outside. It turns out that the restaurant is not that dark on the inside, but they had some sort of light brown tinting put on their windows for some reason.
We tried their 'fresh roll', an appetizer wrapped in rice paper. I have say, it wasn't as good as the one at Thai Mango, also in Provo, that we tried months ago. This one seemed to be mostly lettuce on the inside. Maybe the sauce they bring with it is supposed to improve it, but I passed on the sauce, because I suspected it was a sweet sauce.
Tara just the red curry bowl. When it came out, it was enough rice and curry to feed Tara and several of our children. The children were not with us, so Tara took the rest home.
I got the beef waterfall, two star spicy. It was just the right amount of spicy, and was a pretty good dish. They had some sort of crunchy rice bits in with the beef, which gave it an interesting texture.
Overall, it seemed to be a pretty nice place. Hopefully they can stay in business, they basically gutted the place that was there to remodel for this one. I wonder about the new restaurants that spend so much money to get started, and wonder of the owners have unrealistic expectations about their ability to turn a profit quickly...
La Dolce Vida - Provo
Tucked away just off University in Provo is a little Italian restaurant that's been around for 25 years. We've had people over the years tell us to try it, but it's back behind things, and it's got kind of an 'out of sight, out of mind' thing going on. We almost went several years ago, but for some reason on that day, they were closed. The place looks like a store front restaurant from the street, we were a little surprised at how many tables it had in it when we got in there.
I ended up walking by the kitchen to use the restroom while we were there. In the back was a little old lady making the food. I think they were speaking to her in Italian, but I'm not that good. On the back counter were about a dozen loaves of bread, baked and resting before someone sliced them to serve.
I ordered the potato gnocchi. I had never had gnocchi before, but I've always liked the name. I'm sure it means something like 'dumpling' or something in Italian, but I don't know. All I know is that I liked the thing. My gnocchi came on a platter with both white and red sauces, the sauces were one the plate with a perfectly straight line separating the sauces. It was a pretty impressive thing to see. I have no idea how they got the sauces to stay straight like that.
Anyway, my meal was a good one, I may have to try making gnocchi one of these days. It doesn't sound all that hard, really. Maybe they use pastry bags or something to get the sauce to do that.
Additionally, I think I would prefer to go back to La Dolce Vida well before I go back to Gloria's Little Italy, which is on the same block, but facing the main street. The food is better at La Dolce Vida, the restaurant is not as stuffy, and it just seems to be a nice place. I don't know. The food seemed to be a bit better, overall, I thought.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
A few goals
Last year, I ignored making goals with the turn of the year. On purpose. I don't know why, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Kind of like majoring in Mathematics in college. The year before instead of making what I called goals, I created an 'unfinished project' list, some of which I never finished. I think it's finally time to get back to it. I've got some things I need to do around here, and need some motivation to get it done. Having said all that, here's the long awaited 2011 goal list:
- Do something significant I've never done before. Right now I've got my sights on a demolition derby with the truck, but I don't have all the correct approvals in place yet. (More on that another time.)
- Go somewhere I have never been before. You know, show up, look around, go home. Eat good food in between.
- Read twelve books. I've got quite a list already, some of the books are really quite big. I need to get back into the habit again.
- Do twelve small projects around the house. There are more than twelve available, no need to list them here. If I remember, I will try to take 'before' and 'after' pictures.
- Walk 200 miles. Walking from my desk to the water fountain doesn't count. I figure the walk has to be at least a half mile to count it. Frankly, I'm not even sure I can do this in a year at this point. Every time I try to start walking regularly, I'm thwarted by my ankle. So far this year, I've racked up a grand total of 2.5 miles. At this rate, I'm gonna be a bit short, but then again, it's been cold and snowy as well. My progress can be followed at runkeeper.com
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Tara's new scarf
After the frenzy of hat making was over here, Tara told me she wanted me to make her a scarf. I figured if I was going to make her a scarf, I was going to make a Dr. Who scarf.
I have this vague memory as a kid of watching Dr. Who on a little black and white TV. I don't remember a lot, but it was the forth doctor, with his curly hair and ridiculously long scarf. Maybe it's a fake memory. Maybe I just spent too much time as a kid watching my Dad's oscilloscope.
Anyway, I finished the thing today. It's over twelve feet long, and seven different colors. Hopefully it keeps her warm, and if she ever ends up in a room with a deranged computer in control of a high powered laser, she can use it to distract the computer and get away.
I think Emma *might* want one as well, but she hasn't yet come right out and ask for one. This one is clearly too big for Emma.
For now, I plan to get working on the dozen books sitting around waiting for me to read.
I have this vague memory as a kid of watching Dr. Who on a little black and white TV. I don't remember a lot, but it was the forth doctor, with his curly hair and ridiculously long scarf. Maybe it's a fake memory. Maybe I just spent too much time as a kid watching my Dad's oscilloscope.
Anyway, I finished the thing today. It's over twelve feet long, and seven different colors. Hopefully it keeps her warm, and if she ever ends up in a room with a deranged computer in control of a high powered laser, she can use it to distract the computer and get away.
I think Emma *might* want one as well, but she hasn't yet come right out and ask for one. This one is clearly too big for Emma.
For now, I plan to get working on the dozen books sitting around waiting for me to read.
Monday, December 20, 2010
New family rule - "Don't water the fake Christmas tree"
This morning early, Ruth and Lily had one or more cups of water (we suspect more), of which one or more got spilled (we suspect more) by Lily and or Ruth (we suspect both) into or near (I suspect into) one of our Christmas trees. Tara called me this morning explaining that there was a large puddle of water over there, and all the presents the Grandma and Grandpa Payne brought were soaked.
We ended up opening these presents tonight with the girls, I hope they don't get any bright ideas in a day or two. All the presents ended up being ok, lots of boxes were wet...
We ended up opening these presents tonight with the girls, I hope they don't get any bright ideas in a day or two. All the presents ended up being ok, lots of boxes were wet...
Lily and her giraffe puzzle
Kate and a new reading light
Adam and trucks
Mary and a bracelet weaving kit
Emma and a wooden dragon sculpture - some assembly required.
Ruth and a crocodile game
And finally, my Mom made all the kids sweaters. The girls really like them...
Friday, December 17, 2010
More Christmas stuff
We've been a little bit busy this week. Hopefully things settle way down in the next seven days so everyone around here can relax. Normally we give out Christmas cards to people with plates of cookies every year. This year I don't think we are going to make it. I haven't had the time or energy to focus too much on it, and lots of the people around us are about to leave town for the holidays. I don't think I will get around to mailing out Christmas cards, either, sorry everyone. We have the cards, I'm just too lazy to deal with them right now. I think we will maybe do a limited Christmas plate distribution in a couple of days, the girls really like going out and delivering plates of stuff.
Every year, the University has a Christmas party for employees. Well, their kids, really. The thing always has a playland, with all kinds of games, a craft area, doughnuts, Santa, and performances from singing and dancing groups. The girls like this thing every year, but there are so many people there every year, it's kind of hard on the parents. This year, I took the girls early so we would get there before all the crafts were done. The girls really like the crafts. This was the best picture I could manage. After crafts, they ate (a lot) of doughnuts, we did one thing from the playland, and called it good.
I've been busy since about Halloween making hats for the kids, and all their cousins. Here is a small sample. (I wrapped a large pile of them before thinking about taking a picture.) I still have a few to go, it's been taking up a lot of time...
It wouldn't be Christmas without (obligatorily) fuzzy pictures of the annual school Christmas concert. I think we are less fuzzy than we have been in the past, but it's still fuzzy, none the less. Mary and Kate were in the choirs this year.
Emma's performance at the house was a warmup to the performance at the school today. I only got one of the songs, the phone didn't have enough charge to do more.
Note: Dear Verizon, I don't know if it was Google or you that did it, but I really would like a zoom feature back on my phone's camcorder function...
Emma's performance at the house was a warmup to the performance at the school today. I only got one of the songs, the phone didn't have enough charge to do more.
Note: Dear Verizon, I don't know if it was Google or you that did it, but I really would like a zoom feature back on my phone's camcorder function...
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
New Suitcoat
This is not the start of a talk for church...
Several months ago, I was called to serve in the Bishopric. I may not have mentioned it here before, but there it is. I was called on a Tuesday, and put in the Bishopric 11 days later. The Sunday before I was put into the Bishopric, I wore a white shirt, sleeves rolled up, no suitcoat, just to give myself one last chance before I wore a suitcoat every week.
Anyhow, I quickly came to the realization that owning only one suit, and no extra suitcoats was eventually going to be a problem. I've been fairly busy at church every week, and have only been able to get the suit cleaned once since being called. My suit was starting to look like it really needed to be cleaned.
I've have a new suitcoat or two on my "buy" list for several months, but didn't really look forward to shopping around for one. There are also deals every once in a while, I kind of wanted to get a better bang for my buck. Last week, Men's Warehouse had an online clearance sale (found out about it from slickdeals) on suitcoats. I went online, added a few to my cart, then went out grocery shopping with Tara without making the purchase. I figured that I wasn't completely confident that buying a suitcoat online was a good idea, and wanted to let it sit for a couple of hours to see if any suitcoats were still available. (Usually things on slickdeals start selling like hotcakes. Letting a purchase mature a bit usually isn't the best plan when you find things on slickdeals.)
Anyway, one of the suits I had added to the cart was still available. It arrived in the mail yesterday, and fits pretty good. I wore it tonight. It's lighter weight that the suitcoat I already had, which is good, because I still bake inside my suit on Sundays.
Turns out that shopping online for suitcoats may be a viable alternative after all. Or maybe it's just that "You're gonna like the way you look"...
Monday, December 13, 2010
Adam mows through a meatball
Keep in mind - these meatballs are bigger than his fist, and this is his second one. The first one was "gone in sixty seconds"...
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Friday, December 03, 2010
Too much chili
Tonight we had a ward party and chili cookoff. I made a fairly straightforward and standard (for me, at least) chili, but this time made it in a roasting pan, covered it, and cooked it at 425 for an hour. It was pretty tasty. Before we left for the party, I had a big bowl of it, and most of a bag of tortilla chips.
When we got the party, I put my chili on the serving table, and they told me my chili couldn't be in the contest, because I was one of the judges. I only wish I had known that before I ate the pre-festivities bowl. I am now stuffed. Eating so much chili while trying to pick a winner will do that every time, I guess. I would say over stuffed, but I must not be really, since just just stuck something in my mouth. Maybe I'm just a glutton.
There were many different flavors, the two I liked best were both disqualified, but that's ok. I just should wait until I get there next year, before I start diving in to it. I was still up to the challenge. Like I told my friend Rich tonight, "I've been preparing all my life for this moment..."
When we got the party, I put my chili on the serving table, and they told me my chili couldn't be in the contest, because I was one of the judges. I only wish I had known that before I ate the pre-festivities bowl. I am now stuffed. Eating so much chili while trying to pick a winner will do that every time, I guess. I would say over stuffed, but I must not be really, since just just stuck something in my mouth. Maybe I'm just a glutton.
There were many different flavors, the two I liked best were both disqualified, but that's ok. I just should wait until I get there next year, before I start diving in to it. I was still up to the challenge. Like I told my friend Rich tonight, "I've been preparing all my life for this moment..."
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