Category: Personal

It seems I may have rodents again in the house.  The normal response previously would be to watch my friend’s cat for a weekend while the friend was gone.  Bitter is allergic though, so I may have to look for alternatives.   The problem with traps is I have to remember to check them, and I’m kind of absent minded about things like that.  They need to make a trap that beeps when it has a captive.

Maybe I should pick up a black rat snake the next time I see one while hiking.  I’d be willing to bet they are effective at dealing with rodent problems, and I’m sure Bitter isn’t allergic to them.  But I doubt she’d want to visit in that case.  I doubt my neighbors would appreciate the rodent reducing utility of having a giant contstricting reptile in the neighborhood either.

Sorry for the light posting.  I actually had a job interview today.  The position is contract to full time employment.  Probably not something I’m willing to do, though, and given that it’s an hour and ten minute commute each way, that’s making me think no.  I’m not willing to leave full time employment for a contract job.  Once I quit my job, and start working for them, I have little in the way of negotiating position when it comes to the final package.  If they want to hire me away from my current job, they need to negotiate full time employment with me up front.

I am anxious to get out of my current job.  I’ve been here for six years, and the company’s long term prospects are very doubtful. I’ve also inherited, through layoffs and attrition, the work of five other people.  Some of the work is good, but some if it is awful.  The work environment here is pretty bad.  Employees are routinely debased and disrespected, management is incompetent, and the culture values egos above accomplishment.  Not things that motivate me to get up and go to work every day.

I want to stay in a research environment though, and this opportunity would do that for me.  I like working with scientists, and in that type of environment.  I’d hate to pass it up, then have something happen to this job, and be forced to hastily go for a job in generic corporate IT, where, quite honestly, I’d be bored to death.

I’ve been trying today to get a new firewall set up and functioning properly at work.  It’s required some work at home to get remote access stuff working properly, so I haven’t had time to queue up posts or post when I get home too much.  Tomorrow I’ll be heading down to Northern Virginia to visit you know who.

Today is a day to celebrate the earth by killing, grilling, and eating a small part of it. OK, well, I’ll have to leave the killing to the butcher, since I don’t have any live chickens handy to do the killing myself. But on the menu today is:

1. Beer Can Chicken
2. Baked Potatoes
3. “Oh Yeah Baby” Glazed Carrots
4. Italian Herb Bread
5. Green Bean Casserole
6. Jalepeno Corn Muffins
7. Chocolate Lava Cake

And of course, I will be mixing up some margaritas. Yes, nothing says “I love the Earth” more than conspicuous consumption. Now, if you’ll excuse us while we drive to the store in our SUV to round up ingredients.

My flight in was on an Embraer ERJ 145, which is smaller than your average family sedan.  I’m six feet three inches tall, and weight 235lbs.  I have a difficult time fitting in the seats of a Boeing 737, let alone a tin can with wings.  Pretty soon, if trends continue, it’ll be easier for me to box myself up and FedEX me to my location rather than endure the ever shrinking planes and seating the airline industry is offering.

One thing I notice in talking to libertarian minded people, is there always seems to be one or two issues that make you stray from the puritanical conformity of the movement.  For me the intellectual caveat I had with libertarians is the inability of libertarian philosophy and thought to deal with the issue of tragedy of the commons.  I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older, while I still adhere to libertarian principles, I generally accept many elements of the dogma just aren’t practical for a functioning society.

It’s April, I’ve been hanging around in DC all weekend, and I’m really pissed off I didn’t bring my winter coat.  We went into DC to catch the last weekend of the cherry blossom festival.  I didn’t come dressed appropriately for close to freezing temperatures and high wind, so we decided to head over to the National Mall and go to the Smithsonian.  Unfortunately, everyone else who was visiting DC that weekend I think decided the same thing, and the lines were unforgiving.   There were the people at The Mall participating in the rally for the 50 Million Pound Challenge, but lacking similar insulative qualities of this demographic, we decided taking the Metro back to the car was probably the best idea.

That put us back earlier than we intentioned, so Bitter baked some sweets to fill in the time.  Yum!  After that it was on to dinner with my evil twin.   The real Sebastian (I’m the fake Sebastian) seems like a pretty cool guy.  But I have to say, he’s not like the other progressives I know.  I think I would have called him “Pro Gun Left-Libertarian”, but I’m from Philadelphia, where progressive probably has some different connotations, and Republicans tend not to think too highly of George W. Bush or the current direction of the party.

Tomorrow Bitter is making her taco ring, which I do so love.  After the NRA convention next week, I really need to start exercising and  getting my weight down.

I made it down to Bitter’s in three hours, which generally isn’t possible on a Friday evening.  I guess most people were already on holiday.  Last time it took me five hours.

It’s April 5th, and yet I look out a window at work and see snow coming down.  I don’t have windows in my lab, which is good, because I’ve quite enough of winter, and don’t want to look at it anymore.   This late frost is going to suck for gardeners.

Bitter and I actually attended a concert of the Philadelphia Orchestra this weekend, rather than getting hitched in Las Vegas. The performance was of Schumann’s Piano Concerto, a piece I’m pretty familiar with, and Schmidt’s Symphony No. 4, which I’ve never heard in my life. Before that we went out for some German at Ludwig’s Garden, one of my favored center-city venues. Ludwigs regularly serves game, and Bitter got some quite tasty venison.

A fact about me: I used to be an amateur classical pianist. I say used to, because it’s not like riding a bike. I haven’t played for 12 years. From age four to twenty one, I took lessons. Some things I played were Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 11 in A-major, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 14 in C# Major “Moonlight” (did all three movements), Several Chopin pieces, including Polonaise No. 1 Op. 40 in A-major “Military”. I can only play bits now, and not very well. Memory and fingerings fade. At twenty one, for some reason, I just lost interest in it.

I also decided I needed to spend some time to top off my beer reserves before we head to St. Louis, where in addition to attending the NRA convention, we have a VIP tour of the Anheiser-Busch brewery. I adjusted my British India Pale Ale recipe to an American IPA, and went through the whole process with Bitter. This IPA will even be called the “Bitter Bitch IPA”, or maybe just “Bitchy IPA”. I ran through the whole process with Bitter, ending with pitching the yeast a few minutes before she had to go home. With an original gravity of 1.067, this is sure to be a decent IPA. That will translate into about 6.7% ABV. Definitely something that will kick your ass if you drink too much of it. But I like my beer strong.

Hope you all had a good weekend too, and thanks for the many congratulations on our non-wedding. If we ever do have a real one, we’ll have to invite some of you to make up for it ;)