Been a while since I’ve written here, mainly because I’ve been so jammed up with various nonsense but also because none of the nonsense has really been worth writing about. Let’s take a look at the variety of things that have been going on, shall we?
Work- Holy shit it has been crazy. One big project is going to be overdue, so we’re asking for a one month extension. Another hugely high profile project has kicked off which I’ve been nominated by the powers that be to act as the technical lead. Very cool that they think highly enough of me to give me that big of a responsibility. It was kind of a shock really, considering that I don’t work directly with them and they are halfway across the country. But while it’s nice to get the props, it’s a bit rough getting the assignment while I have a ton of other things on my plate. Part of my resources are teams out in Asia, so that means more crazy middle-of-the-night work for me in order for me to reply to provide timely decision-making so that I don’t become the bottleneck that stalls activities in the middle of their workday. The worst part is that more and more of my days are being spent on conference calls and directing people rather than actually coding and building stuff myself. For a techie like me, it really leaves me feeling like I’m accomplishing less and less each day. No fun.
Condo- Got my closing date moved up to 4/17! Woo hoo! But I haven’t found furniture I love yet, and the pieces I do like will take 16 weeks to order. Booo! So I think I’m gonna have to start by moving my crappy furniture into the new pad while I take my time finding and ordering my new stuff. FYI, the Modern Furniture Barn in Armonk has a really sweet selection of stuff. Some of the furniture can be found cheaper elsewhere, but most of it is just kind of hard to find, period. I intend to buy most of my stuff between there and DWR, with maybe some cheaper stuff from The Door Store, like a cheap dining table that I can use temporarily while waiting the 16 weeks for my nice one. The total cost is going to be punishing, but I gotta say, I really love the shopping. Plus all the sitting and standing I do while checking out sofas and chairs is about the closest thing I’ve done to doing squats in about five years.
Competition- 8-ball league continues to go well; our team is still in first place and there’s not too much else to report about that. I have also found a new channel for unleashing my competitive fury- Darts. I was recruited to play in the local dart league by my friend Hector because he needed enough players to fill out his roster so I said ok, why not. After all, I seem to be able to pick up just about all things that aren’t quite sports- pool, bowling, shooting, poker, etc. Plus darts has the added allure of having equipment that I can geek out over. After a little internet research, I ended up buying some Black Widow darts, 22g with movable points, and replaced the stock flights with 8-ball ones. Sure it’s cheesy, but you haven’t seen some of the bars we will be playing at. Besides, you never know when someone may see them and challenge me to a game of pool for a beer or something. Anyway, considering I’ve really only been playing darts for about 2 weeks, I think I’ve gotten a pretty good hang of it. We had our first match on Tuesday against what was supposedly a pretty good team and we ended up whalloping them 16-4. Booyah!
Poker- I’ve been slacking in trying to qualify for the WSOP. I dunno if I’m gonna have the time to pick things up anytime soon either, with all the packing and moving I’m going to have to do. Plus I’ll have to squeeze in a business trip to Denver sometime soon. This month is just way too busy to be burning 5-6 hours each time I want to play an online qualifier. I’ve also been spending most of my poker time playing in R & L’s home game. Not quality poker since it’s a very loose game, but I like it just because they’re good peeps and it’s always pleasant to just get together with good friends to play cards, drink wine and most importantly, talk smack. 🙂
Food- No special meals recently, but I have been doing some experimenting in the kitchen with good results. The two items I’m most pleased with are a roasted garlic flan and a bacon dust, which conveniently go together nicely. The garlic flan is just a spin on my attempts to recreate the “asparagus cheesecake” that my boy Wes used to make when he had his restaurant in Boston. It was not a cheesecake of course, but more of a custard with a healthy dose of Parmeggiano (or maybe it was Pecorino, I’m not sure). I haven’t been able to recreate that dish the way I remembered his version, but along the way I discovered how awesomely easy it is to make flans out of anything. Then when I had my bad cold, I was trying to figure out tastier ways of eating more garlic, so I tried making a garlic flan and it came out superbly. Lots more flan variations I will try, and naturally I’ll get to some more traditional dessert varieties at some point too. The “bacon dust” comes from Wylie Dufresne’s recipe in this month’s Art Culinaire. Just bacon and panko crumbs ground in a food processor and then baked. So simple but so off-the-charts good. Sprinkle your garlic flan with magic bacon dust and you’re good to go!
The only other observations I wanted to write about are regarding words, words, words. Over the past few weeks, there’s been a lot of really cool material from television, books, magazines and online which have made an impression on me. Usually it’s only about once every couple months that I will run into a quote or an article or something that really grabs me, but the past few weeks there’s been a ton. Stuff from Anthony Bourdain, Michio Kaku, miscellaneous technology writers and even a couple of items from my friend Tree. But I’ll save those details for another time because I want to get a hold of a copy of Bourdain’s Japan/China episode of No Reservations first, just to review all the funny and profound lines he had in there. All that stuff really deserves its own post anyway. Ok, back to the grindstone…