Arnold, Cyclists and Hamantaschen - A Signs of Spring MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Hi Special1!! Of course we missed you.

OW, doggio! I’ve done that before and it hurts. And the toes hurt for a long long time after that.

Yeah, FCM, chicken’s not really the best crock pot meat. Pork shoulder/butt, beef brisket, or other tough cuts of meat are best (including some of the “weird” ones that we’ve been trying lately - heart, oxtail, and tongue all work really well) because they have connective tissue that softens with the long cooking time to make really tender meat. And they have gelatin in them so you end up with that lip-smackin’ goodness that slow cooking is known for. Tender cuts of meat just don’t benefit from long cooking times. Save your money and buy a cheap, tough cut of meat for slow cooking. [This post brought to you by too many episodes of Good Eats.]

I finished another baby blanket this morning. No time for pics yet but I will try to post some later.

It’s very snowy here. We’d lost most of the snow except where it was piled up, but now we’ve got a few new inches on the ground and more falling. I think it’s going to be a skiing night tonight!

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Howdy Special1 although I do say Good Afternoon to ya every mornin’ on fb.

Howdy everybody else too! Sneakin’ in a lunch time post. I am happy to report that I have scored the earliest in the year I have ever scored in the celebrity death pool. Though I am saddened by the news of the death of Elizabeth Taylor, I get 21 points. Yes its awful. Yes, it’s morbid. Yes, it’s even worse than bein’ naughty with one’s Priest. :smiley:

Ok, back to irk. Playtime is over.

Later Y’all!

63

Stoopid weather, after today we are going back to #$%^&! winter. :mad:

GT I am in the North end, between Worthington And Westerville…

64

We’ve got three inches of snow and it’s a blizzard outside.

Aargh.

65

Red Robin is cooking for us tonight. We had to go pick up our mower from Amish Dave and, frankly, I didn’t feel like cooking anyway. So as soon as daughter feeds her zoo, we’re heading to California. Then to Petco to get some fishies for her fresh water aquarium. Then home.

Tomorrow, I’m picking up an inversion table for FCD. A guy at work was selling it for cheap and I figured it’s worth a try. Neither of us wants him to have any more back surgery, nor does Blue Cross, I’m sure.

Not much else. It’s overcast with threat of rain tonight. Yep, excitin’ doin’s in FCEstates…

66

MOOOOOOM why are you goin’ to California for an overpriced hamburger, to pick up a lawn mower or buy cat litter. Seems to me like you could find all three in Merryelande. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’s hongry! Soon we shall leave to go eat soup 'n sammich. I might starve in the next 33 minutes. I may need a snack.

67

I think I’m finally getting the Project From Hell wrapped up. I’ve moved past the worst stage and now just have a couple somewhat-long-but-not-complicated steps left to get it wrapped up. I talked to the person who did it before moving to another team and giving it back to me, and we agreed that my numbers look reasonable and my methodology is sound. I don’t know how the rest of you who write code feel, but we’ve found that you can’t take someone else’s code on extremely complicated jobs and just modify it and run it. You have to start from scratch on your own code (this is database code, not “real” programming), pull the data in a way that makes sense to you and then validate against what was done in the past, allowing for improvements in the code, which will change the results. I’ve taken over other people’s code in the past and tried to run it, and it always bites me in the butt because someone will come back later and ask why the numbers look like this and I have no explanation because I have no frickin idea how the code works. It’s way faster, safer, and more effective for me to see what the end result should be, know what my starting data is, and write the code in the middle than to attempt to use someone else’s black box. It’s just that this time, the black box in the middle was extremely convoluted. If these 15 different things are true, then it’s group 1. But if only 14 of those things are true, then you have to go down a different path, and do something else. But if 13 of the things are true, then it’s also group 1. ARGH! (OK, I’m joking. I know that my logic there is, well, illogical, but that’s how it felt.)

::deep breaths:: Going home now, feeling almost victorious on this. Then going snowshoeing because we got enough snow to make that worthwhile.

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**swampy **- California and Hollywood are between me and BBBobbio! :smiley: And I didn’t get a burger - I got fish-n-chips. And we didn’t get cat litter, we got fishies for the classroom. so there. :stuck_out_tongue:

And shortly from mow, I will assume the knit position and try to finish my sweetie’s afghan. Good times.

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SO! Of course we missed you. Wished you a happy Purim last week, in fact. How are things? (Other than busy, obviously.)

taxi, yay for conquering the project from hell!

Hope things are getting better, LiLi.

Bumba: Somewhere along the line you asked if I followed Doug Wheelock on Twitter. Yes, indeedy. I linked to several of his pics when he was on the ISS. He just started tweeting again, I’m glad to see. I’m also following several other astronauts and space-related types. Paolo Nespoli, who is up on the space station till May, has been sharing some really cool pictures lately (see below).

Which reminds me, a couple of pictures that I wanted to share: 1) The awful: before and after pictures of Japan from Australia’s ABC. They present the before and you hover over it to see the after. It’s the most effective presentation I’ve seen of this. 2) The awesome: Cool moon pictures of last week’s “supermoon”. Start here and look at older pictures.

FCM, I’ve seen recipes where they recommend using frozen chicken in the crockpot.

Long frustrating meeting today. My reward: haircut and ice cream. OK, so the haircut was previously scheduled. Ice cream was spur of the moment. And yummy.

Off to feed fish at Local Best Friend’s. Then some knitting and watching something online, I think.

Weather was awful earlier, but now it’s gorgeous out. Maybe I’ll walk around a bit, too.

ETA: Sorry about the toes, doggio. And, how was the walk with the possible Prez, Soapy?

Hugs all.

GT

70

Yanno, the idea behind our Lenten soup 'n sammich is a simple meal. Taco soup, though easy to make is anything but a simple soup. It be a hearty soup. Also, chikin sallit sammiches ain’t example “simple” either. However, it was gooooooood! :smiley:

That’s all I got. I’m still confused why MOOOOOM posted that she’s mowin’ an afghan. :stuck_out_tongue:

Nitey Nite Y’all!

71

What she said…

We just had a rather vivid thunderstorm that lasted maybe 10 minutes, but left pea sized hail on the back deck. The main event is yet to come…

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Thinking of making some over-buttery, extra salty popcorn. Just cuz.

People where I used to work are turning into idiots. Or else they were and I hadn’t previously noticed. I suspect that.

In other news: Firefox 4!

73

Snow? Really? WTF? Whose bright idea was that?

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Not mine. Really. I promise!

We apparently had hail. I missed it.

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Thank you for the links GT

Had Chalupas (kind of a deconstructed chicken enchilada casserole) and green salad with strawberries and jicama tonight. Num!

Taxi, I feel your pain. I spent 30+ years programming on IBM mid-range and mainframe computers. Other peoples’ code is the worst.

76

I hobbled my way though work. I guess it would have hurt a lot less, but right after I posted, Nelly sat on my foot.:eek: Thunderstorms tonight.

taxi, congrats on almost getting out of Hell.

: waves frantically at Lunch :

77

Haven’t read yet, promise to do it later.

A friend is running a prize for local enterprises; one of the things he’s set up is a facebook page, but he needs 25 “likes” to get a short facebook addy - I can’t access facebook from work, but my inner imp is feeling particularly feverish today (didn’t come in yesterday because I woke up with a fever, even) and thought of y’all. If anybody wants to practice Spanish, search for “Premio Empresa 2.0” :slight_smile:
Gotta love that people consider facebook as the poster child for “pages where you must use your real name”, when names like mine are rejected (too complicated, too many spaces, too long) and more and more of the pages are for associations, companies and other “legal entities” rather than “physical persons”.

78

Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffienatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 67 Amurrkin with a predicted high of 80 for today. Sattidy I get to spend the day in large and in charge Blakely, Jawja at a Peanut Festival. It’s irk related and I didn’t just have to volunteer but our presence at such things is good PR so there ya go. It’s also gonna get kinda hawt with a predicted high of 87 Amurrkin. Then, we allegedly will get rain beginnin’ Sunday and goin’ through Tuesday.

Country fried steak for dindin tonight with smashed N.O.T., squash, field peas and corn bread. I got me a gnawin’ and a cravin’. Plus I just happen to know this one of OYKW’s favorite dindins so it’s a spoil the squeeze meal as well. :smiley:

I need more caffiene and rumbly tummy is gettin’ real demandin’. Irk purtification must also commence.

Happy Thursday Y’all!

79

snow . . . blurf . . grumble . . . snow . . . :stuck_out_tongue: . . . bleh

80

Blurf.

That is all.