But that would be boring to read about (I know, because it was boring to try to write), so I decided to write about cooking instead.

I have done quite a lot of cooking since the last entry. I've decided, actually, that it is tremendous fun -- when it isn't maddening or stressful. Maddening mostly comes from doing it wrong, stressful from trying to do too many new things at once and struggling to keep it all going at once.

It's about 100 times more fun to cook for other people than to cook for just me. Thus, I typically try out new recipes for things like family gatherings and holidays. The first holiday that I brought something to was Thanksgiving last year (about a month after episode IV in this series). I whipped up the Hawaiian-style sweet potatoes again... because I really like them (butter, brown sugar... what's not to like!), and sweet-potatoes are a rather Thanksgivingy dish.

Well, everybody loved them. They were a huge, huge success. Only half got eaten -- but considering that mine was one of 4 different sweet potato dishes at the event... that's understandable. But everybody tried them, and everybody liked. Yay! Go me!

For the next gathering, I decided to do dessert. I went the simple route: chocolate-dipped fruit. I went to one of the better chocolatiers in the area (specifically Chuao, in case you were curious), and bought some spicy dark chocolate and some sweet dark chocolate. I also grabbed some milk & white chocolate from Trader Joes -- and then got strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries from the local farmer's market.

Mix them together, and you have... well, you have me officially appointed as bringer-of-desserts for all future family gatherings, actually. Which is cool, because it's really easy to dip fruit in melted chocolate (except that white chocolate doesn't work so well)

Fast forward to this Thanksgiving. I'm still dessert-bringer -- and so far, I've always done something involving chocolate, and it's always been a big hit. So, I'm thinking... chocolate!

I recall an interesting looking recipe that Dan sent to me once -- a recipe for Chocolate Guinness Cake -- that is, a chocolate cake made with Guinness beer. I've never baked a cake before... but that sounds awfully yummy, so I give it a go.

If you've never made a cake, you might not appreciate how unhealthy they are. The recipe called for 4 cups of sugar and 4 sticks of butter (among other things). Now... 4 cups of sugar may not sound like that much -- it didn't sound too bad to me. But, when I was measuring it... I used a cereal bowl to hold it. And, when I'd scooped in 4 cups, the bowl was completely full, with a huge mound over the top. You probably know about what 4 sticks of butter looks like (it's an entire box -- 1 pound). Anyway, that's quite a bit.

The recipe was really pretty simple.

Put butter and beer in a pan, simmer. Add cocoa powder, whisk until mixed well.
put flour, sugar, baking soda in big bowl, mix
put eggs and sour cream in big bowl, mix.
pour beer/cocoa/butter mix into egg/sour cream. mix well.
mix in flour/sugar/baking soda into everything-else bowl.
take cake pans, line with butter, then add parchment paper. then grease paper with yet more butter.
pour batter in, bake.
take 1 pound of bittersweet chocolate, and chop it very fine.
pour cream into pan, simmer, add chopped chocolate, mix well, refrigerate, stir frequently, when it's the consistency of icing, it's done.
take cake layers out of oven. when they are completely cool, ice and stack. slice and eat!

(the whole recipe is here )

Anyway, it turned out really fabulous. There were a few moments of amusing tension along the way, such as when I realized that I had no plates large enough to put the cake on for stacking and icing. I ended up going with a pizza-pan, because Target had run out of cake plates, but they had pizza-pans left. This was interesting, because the pizza pan has holes in it. so i lined it with waxpaper, which worked fine, except that the pan was nonstick, and waxpaper on nonstick is very nonstick, and so while driving to dinner it almost ended up all over the car several times.

There were 24 people at the dinner, and most of them had a slice... and that was only half the cake. I was cutting slices as thing as humanly possible, which was fine, because the cake was really rich. (Not overly chocolatey, just really heavy).

Which turns out to be a good thing, since I later found out that the cake has about 14,000 calories in it, and that the tiny slices I was cutting were about 400 calories a pop, which is fine, and that a normal-sized slice would have been about 1200 calories, which is obscene.

Next time I'm going to break with the chocolate tradition, though, because I found a recipe for a peanut butter cake that looks fantastic, and I haven't had a peanut butter cake in about 18 years. That recipe looks more complicated, though... so... we'll see how it goes.

That's a long title... but that's OK, because I have a long story tonight...

You see, about 4ish hours ago, now, I left my apartment, figuring I'd try and do a long (for me) distance bike-ride. For extra motivation, I set my destination as Shin-Sen-Gumi as the destination... that's about a 10.5 mile ride each way. The 21 mile round trip was well beyond my personal record... but... I was feeling good... and if I started to hurt, I could always stay at Shin Sen Gumi as long as I needed to recover for the return trip.

I got to Shin Sen Gumi just fine... I wasn't even that tired. I had a yummy dinner, talked to some interesting people sitting next to me at the counter, and left... On my way home, it started to rain... then to pour... Rainwater collected, flooding out the bike lane. After a car nearly didn't see me, I decided to pull onto the sidewalk, up a driveway... Big mistake. The curb was much higher than I thought, and there was tons of water. I lost control, flew off my bike, and went sliding along the pavement on hands-and-one-knee. I don't recall it, but apparently my head hit the ground, because I broke my helmet. (My head is completely uninjured... just with the sheer terror of trying not to die, I didn't notice bouncing my head off the ground... the helmet was rather poorly designed... a well-made helmet would not have broken, I don't think)

I attempted the ride today because... after hearing about other really hard stuff that other people (including some guys more than twice my age that I met at a networking event), that went way, way beyond what I'm capable of... I was feeling weak. I decided to prove that I was stronger than I thought. I wasn't about to let a little crash and minor injuries stop me!

About a mile later I decided I must not be terribly hurt... because I was still going. About 2 miles after that, I decided that I had better find a starbucks or something to stop and rest because my fingers were starting to go numb, and I was still really far from home. And some warm liquid would be very helpful.

I eventually wandered into the Carrow's Restaurant at Bristol and MacArthur, which turns out, amusingly, to be an almost perfect halfway-point between home and Shin-Sen-Gumi. I walk in, feeling like a drowned rat. I look at the manager, who welcomes me... at first I'm just shocked he let me sit down as drenched as I was. He brought me a mug of hot tea, asked if I was OK, and left me to recuperate. As I sat, absorbing as much warmth as I could suck out of that mug of tea (and the 3 or 4 more they brought me), I decided I'd better not try riding the rest of the way home in the pouring rain. Stronger-than-I-thought or not, I wasn't going to press it any further. I was absolutely frigid. Apart from that, the road was flooded a bit, and I knew that up ahead was a 2-mile stretch with no sidewalk... I'd be stuck riding in the middle of the road at night... a sure recipe for making the morning news as the latest grotesque roadkill...

Lupe, the manager at this Carrow's restaurant, called me a cab. I paid for my tea, left a large tip, thanked Lupe, and ran out to the cab. Less than 10 minutes later, I'm home... I reach in to my pocket, FUCK I LEFT MY WALLET AT THE RESTAURANT!!

Well... the cab driver didn't want to leave without collecting his fare... all I had in my pockets was 2 bucks, a few coins, and some crappy earbud headphones... and my iPod...

So... the driver took me back to the restaurant to get my stuff. I'm somewhat annoyed, but since I was honestly just grateful to be in a warm car, I decided that I'd go ahead and let him drive me there and back again... even though it'd cost a bit. In the end, the extra $30, while way too much for a cab ride home, seemed a small matter... I was still in that mode where only really big things matter... and at that moment $30 wasted was not a very big thing. Let the driver have a little extra bonus for coming and getting me at 11:30 and driving me all over...

I got back to Carrow's... they were closed, but Lupe let me in, gave me my wallet (and my cellphone, which I left there as well...). He then insisted (quite vehemently... I really tried to leave it for them) that I take the tip I left back... he wouldn't accept one penny more than the $1.89 for my hot tea. I left, got back in the cab, and came home, where I turned the heater up to about 80 for a bit to try and warm up.

Then I decided to write this on my blog, because I just had to tell someone my story to get it out of my head... I feel much better now with it all on (virtual) paper... I think I'll be able to sleep now...

All in all, a very expensive dinner at Shin-Sen-Gumi... expensive cab ride, new bike helmet, and a few scuffs and scratches...

But I'm home. And I broke my distance record, even with the stop halfway home. I thought it was 9 miles each way. Turned out to be about 10.5 out, and about 5.25 back to the Carrow's. That's just shy of 16 miles. While other people may not think that terribly far, it's a good 3 miles past my previous record. And I did 5 of it in a downpour. So I feel good about myself... even though I feel stupid at the same time for not thinking to just go back to shin sen gumi and wait for either the rain to stop or a cab there... riding in that kind of weather, especially on streets, is suicidal! But, I made it. And if it hadn't been raining, I totally would have made the other 5.25 miles home. I'm going to cool it for a day or two... but then I'm going to buy that new helmet and start riding again. More carefully.

As far as proving myself... well... it didn't go nearly as planned... and I had to rely on the kindness of other people to make it. But I did ok. Not awesome. Not great. Maybe not even that good. But: I made it farther than I would have expected. (The whole ride out, I kept expecting to stop and turn around at any moment... it wasn't until I could see my destination that I knew I'd really go the full distance). I didn't totally lose my head when it got tough. I came close... but I didn't... and I did get back up and keep going... for almost 4 miles... that counts for something in my book.

Oh... and... my iPod got a bit wet, like everything on me (well... everything in general... I was soaked!). I'm going to leave it alone for the evening... we'll see if it still works in the morning. It looks like it will, but who knows... I really hope so, because it's brand new, and that's a really expensive dinner if I need a new one.

And if, tomorrow, you find a piece of a bicycle helmet laying on a sidewalk along Talbert up around Euclid... it might have been part of my story this evening.

So, Sunday, I return from iHop... despite the yummy sauce, I feel let down. But mostly frustrated. That was definitely the primary emotion.

Fast forward about 2 days... it's Tuesday night, and I'm recovered... ready to try again. (Monday night I was exhausted when I got home... Pizza was all I could manage...)

So... Recipe du jour? Kahlua Jerk Chicken with Hawaiian-style Sweet Potatoes. Sound delicious? Again the recipe isn't that complicated -- about 7 ingredients and 3 steps. Let us begin:

Take some chicken breasts (boneless-skinless), coat them lightly with flour. Easy. Although, just a thought, but why does flower come in big paper bags with no way to reseal? Just opening the thing I got flour everywhere... anyway...

Then, dump the chicken in a skillet w/ a bit of olive oil... while the chicken was cooking (I had several 3ish minute intervals), I started the sweet potatoes. That recipe is pretty simple... take out all the ingredients and dump em in a pan. The only thing that took effort was slicing the bananas... and that's pretty darn easy.

OK, chicken's done! Actually, I think I burned one side the tiniest bit... (remember, coated in flour... that can actually burn). OK, take the chicken out, put it on a plate, and grab the rest of the ingredients to make the jerk sauce. 3/4 cup of Kahlua? Oh Yeah! Half a bottle of Jerk Marinade? Well, that's why the recipe's considered fast & easy. Brown Sugar? sweet! (sorry, couldn't resist), and... wait... am I reading this right? 2 tablespoons of Chunky Peanut Butter?!?!. O. K. Whatever, let's try it...

Mix it up... until you cook out the alcohol, then dump the chicken back in and finish cooking. Back to the potatoes I go... oops... too hot... dried up the liquid... ok... uhm... let's add a bit of water. Done. Now, drop in the macadamia nuts, and try to keep it hot till the chicken's done.

All told, cooking took 50 minutes -- way longer than the "20 minutes or less" advertised by Ms. Sandra Whatever-her-name-is-who-wrote-the-book -- but not as bad as Sunday. And now... Drum Roll Please...

Hmm... who'd have ever guessed that chunky peanut butter was just the thing to go with the coffee liqeur and the jerk marinade... but it sure is! I declare this dinner to be a complete and total success! Chicken is awesome. The hawaiian sweet potatoes are even better. The garlic bread's very meh, but whatever... I'll just eat extra potatoes.

The coolest thing about the dinner, aside from being delicious and having enough leftovers for two average-size meals, was that I honestly felt it was substantially better food than what I would have ordered had I gone out to eat. So, I didn't feel like I'd "compromised" in order to cook at home (which, while theoretically cheaper, really costs a bit more).

So... Things Are Looking Up.

Oh, and I lied.. .the coolest thing about dinner was that it didn't involve iHop.

So, this is starting to look just a bit less like a complete misadventure after all.

— The Shelanman

So, last time, we ended with the sad, sad faded sign at the local iHop. Incidentally, that's the one near the John Wayne Airport here in Irvine. I've been there off-and-on since I moved here... I think they sometimes recognize me... anyway, they treat me pretty well, at least... they were very nice to me Saturday, which helped, because I felt like crap.

So.. on to Sunday! I've got the gear... LETS COOK!!!

So, I crack out my recipe list... what are we thinking... Aha! How about "Penne A La Vodka" -- penne pasta in a vodka-tomato-cream sauce. To be served with "Killer Shrimp Soup" and some crusty french bread. Doesn't that sound delicious? (I'm telling you, the recipe book is cool... simple-seeming recipes that sound damn good)

I learned very quickly that cooking is much harder when doing 2 things at once... The sauce required paying attention to... the soup required paying attention to... the noodles... well. they need to be stirred every 2 minutes and dumped out in 10. Sounds simple, but I was running back and forth across my (smallish) kitchen going nuts trying to keep up with the different timers and getting all the ingredients in the right pans, and remembering which spoons had gone in what. And where did I put... oh, over there...

It's kind of a shame my roommate wasn't here... he missed a hell of a show... it was just me, but it was an absolute mad house.

So... the sauce... dice some pancetta (I tell ya, the guy at Gelsons knows his stuff... I asked for the pancetta sliced kinda thin -- he said "your recipe's gonna want you to dice it... you don't use sliced pancetta" so he made thickish slices that would be kinda-ok if you diced it, but still ok if you left it as slices. smart guy. And pancetta is expensive -- good thing I only needed 3 oz... at something like $15.99/lb...) brown it in olive oil... mix in some vodka... some sauce... some cream... some parmesan. That's actually it, though on Sunday it seemed really, really hard to do.

The soup... well... the recipe seemed strange, but I don't really know... so... I'll just do what it says. Chardonnay and Clam Juice, chicken broth and red pepper... Oh No! My new spice rack doesn't have red pepper flakes... uhmm... let's try chili powder. OK... back on track... next... Italian Seasoning... sounds vague, but it's in the spice rack -- I checked -- and some pepper... and a big scoop o' garlic (yum!) mix, stir, boil, stir, ... OK, now for some Condensed Cream of Shrimp soup.

In went the soup. I was supposed to stir slowly, allow the condensed soup to decondense and thicken/make creamy the soup. Well... that's not exactly what happened. What happened instead was that the condensed soup goo (condensed soup is basically soup concentrate with a gelatinous consistency... becomes creamy in hot water) simply broke in to small pieces and floated around the pot. So, I made it hotter... stirred faster... used a fork instead of a spoon to stir... After about an hour (and with about half of the not-actually-a-soup-nasty-liquid on my, I gave up. Into the sink it went.

Oh Crap! The Noodles! (Actually, I remembered them long before the hour... don't worry... but I was a few minutes late). They were only slightly overcooked. So, I grab the collander, and dump out the penne. Out of the old crappy pasta pot comes the penne... and then the "non-stick" coating... That's right, folks! The teflon coating on the pot stuck to the noodles (and not the bottom of the pot) and ended up in the collander. Great! I can't eat teflon! It causes cancer! (I know, everything causes cancer... but do you want to eat teflon-encrusted penne? didn't think so). So, into the trash goes all but a single large handful of my noodles.

Fortunately, however, I gave up on the soup before dumping in the cooked-peeled-ready-to-eat shrimp. So, into my bowl went the handful of noodles, then a small handful of shrimp. Then I poured on the Vodka sauce, said a little prayer (well, actually, I probably said something like "this damn sauce had better be good").

And I sat down, depressed, to eat.

The thoughts running through my head went something like this: "$250 of ingredients... 7 dinners... that's $35 apiece... Great... I just wasted like $30 on this crap"

So... I viciously stabbed some noodles with my fork, and stuck it in my mouth. Damn! that sauce is awesome. Over the following 10 minutes, I regained some of my calm, as I enjoyed what ultimately became an awesome shrimp-cocktail-like appetizer.

Afterwards, my brain did the following unhappy math... "$35 worth of ingredients... became an appetizer... sure, and awesome one... so... $10? $12? Net Loss: $23-25"

To make matters worse, it's now... you guessed it... after 10:00. And I've only had an appetizer. I'm hungry still! Damn it, I'm going to get an ice-cream sundae... I need it... Wait... it's late... great... you know what that means

Yay! iHop! Cause It's So Tasty And Not Overpriced!

Damn it! Again!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Yes, that's right... iHop it is.

For the record, although the sundae tasted pretty bad (not enough fudge), it made me feel much better. Well, it and the cup of coffee.

So, I came home, exhausted -- mentally, anyway -- and decided to go to sleep.

Thus concludes Misadventures: Part III.

There's more... one more episode worthwhile has already occurred... then I'll be caught up to the present... should be up tomorrow, but we'll see.

until then, I leave you with this excellent quote from Warren Buffet that has nothing to do with food, except possibly on being able to afford more of it:

"If you can eliminate the government as a 39.6% partner, then you will be much better off."

— Warren Buffet

— The Shelanman

So, I awoke Tuesday morning, to the not-necessarily-uplifting sound of Luca Turilli blasting over the iPod. (hey, whatever works, right?) Once I shook off the crazy dreams, I jumped up out of bed, eager to get the day going. After all, today I was going to become awesome-gourmet-chef-Shelanman, instead of just usual always-eat-out-somewhere-Shelanman.

Off to work I went, where I was only somewhat successful at getting the picture and imagined smell of dinner out of my head. What can I say, I like my food. (Hey, you haven't seen my family talk about food, have you? Under the right circumstances, the conversation over an upcoming meal could run for hours.)

While I was working, I inevitably strayed over to google... where I asked about knives... I knew I wanted a good set. Well... did Google ever have a story for me... a set of 8 knives could run as high as $2500! Worse, though, all the sets under $200 looked cheap. Hoo boy... this cooking thing wasn't going to be cheap... maybe I'd better reconsider. No Way! I was not going to give up so easily! Besides... my birthday is coming up. Maybe I can suggest some cutlery as a good gift. But that meant waiting 3 more weeks.

The decision was taken from me for the moment though, as work ran late... in what would turn out to be a week full of long and tiring (good and successful, but long and tiring) days. Alas, but becoming awesome-chef-Shelanman had to wait... until... Saturday!

I awoke Saturday morning eager to begin my new adventure. I had taken stock of the kitchen, and made a list of gear and gadgets I needed, and ran off to shop. I swear, the entry seemed simple enough "good large skillet, with lid" But what the hell is a good skillet. Is it non-stick? Teflon? NSF Certified? Stainless Steel? Anodized Aluminum? "Infused-Anodized?" (I'm not sure what it is that's anodized, or what it's infused with... that's just what the $120 skillet said on the box...)

After much consultation with people who cook, I decided on a Hard-Anodized-Aluminum Non-Stick skillet that happened to be on sale for $40. For cutlery... I settled on a spiffy set of J. A. Henkels knives, because they came with a set of steak knives for just $10 extra as a bonus (and because several people had recommended that brand -- though I couldn't tell what made one line better or worse than another).

Off I went through the kitchen gadgets, faithfully buying everything on my list... and everything else that looked useful "ooh! cool spinning spice rack. Comes with all the spices already! add it to the pile!

Well... at the checkout counter, they tallied my results... after about 2 and a half hours of somewhat frustrating (too many options, not enough knowledge) shopping, I'd spent $450 on kitchen goodies! Yeaouch!!! Ah well.. now for the funner part: buying all the foods to make my dinners.

Off to the market I go. Down this aisle "hmm... I don't even know what pearl onions are... ooh, here they are" to "what's the difference between crushed chili, chili powder, and chili rub" which became "hmm... where to they keep the garlic, anyway" , and then "damn... the meat counter's closed already" , and then... eventualy "What the $%&#... they're out of lettuce and cauliflower!?!"

It's now about 9:30... I've been out buying stuff for like 5 and a half hours... I'm still missing like 15 ingredients... (everything from lettuce to shrimp, to a particular flavor of campbells soup to corn meal to something called Pancetta which turned out to be the Italian version of Canadian Bacon) but I've scoured the store, and they don't have any of them... So I head to the checkout counter, where I place my 50 different cans of stuff, piles of meat, packages of pasta on the conveyer, followed by the alcohol: 1 bottle cheap red wine (beef burgundy), one bottle cheap Chardonnay (shrimp soup), 1 bottle vodka (Penne A la Vodka), 1 bottle Kahlua (Kahlua chicken), 1 bottle dry vermouth (what, exactly *is* dry vermouth... anyway... for... something... I forget), and 1 bottle Jim Beam Bourbon (Bourbon Baked Beans).

The guy gives me this look... "well, what are you doing tonight" he asks, with a bit of a smirk on his face... Now... I admit, that is a rather bizarre selection of alcohol... 1 bottle of each, and not a good mix... certainly not the right collection for bringing to a party... but then, I wasn't going to a party... and you wouldn't bring a 50oz can of Swanson's Low Sodium Chicken Broth to a party either... or, at least, I wouldn't. So I look at the guy and say "actually, it's for cooking. He just rolls his eyes at the idiot who can't pick out liquor for a party and says "yeah... right." He shakes his head, removes the little security things from the top of the bottles, and says "got a Ralphs card? good... that'll be... $219.50"

!!

I just spent over $200 on ingredients to make seven dinners and I'm still missing all sorts of stuff And, to make matters worse, it's now 10:20... too late to start cooking dinner... and I'm too tired anyway... great, by the time I put all this away, it'll be too late to go anywhere but...

Yay! iHop! Cause It's So Tasty And Not Overpriced!

but it's "OPEN HOURS", according to the paper sign whose red "24" faded years ago...

Oh well, there's always... tomorrow... at least I only spent... oh... wait... I spent just a few bucks shy of $700 today... tomorrow, then...

to be continued

I'm going to keep going... I'll post again tomorrow -- daily until I catch up, then only when something interesting happens.

—The Shelanman

I'm going to start writing again, both because I need the practice, and because I think I have something interesting to talk about again. Well, it's interesting and funny to me... we'll have to see if any of you find it so.

You see, having finally solved the roommate dilemma, I decided to try my hand at cooking again. I figured this time, I'd go for a bit higher-quality food, even though it meant more effort, because the main reason I gave up cooking the last time is that it was a lot of effort for food that really didn't taste all that good anyway...

It all began on Monday, October 8th. I was riding home from work, feeling all excited about my newfound take on cooking... I was eager to begin. So... I said to myself... what should I make? Well, myself responded... I don't really know how to make anything good (except for that pasta sauce with sausage that seems to have become a staple in my family. Aha! I know, I thought... I'll go buy a cookbook... one that has things that are fairly easy to make, but still taste good!

And thus the journey began; I turned my car around, and headed for the nearest Barnes & Noble, where I bypassed the usual Science Fiction and Fantasy aisle for the "Home" section. As I left the center of the store, I noticed that guys became suddenly scarce... at the same time, the number of books with pink covers was growing precipitously... I had entered the chick section. Well... I wasn't going to let a thing like being the only guy in sight avert me... and so, I found the cookbook section. After much browsing, I settled on one that promised great-tasting "Semi Homemade" dinners in 20 minutes or less. I flipped through the pages, and saw tasty (and, of course, beautiful) dish after tasty dish...

I grabbed a few other books to compare... while some of them looked fancier, and others looked simpler, I didn't find anything else that promised the tastiness of the semi-homemade book in anywhere near the time... most of the "easy meals" books were either 30 or 45 minutes... and most of them had dishes that looked more boring... (OK, maybe it's just the pictures and the names... I mean... the Killer Shrimp Soup looked really, really good... as did the Kahlua chicken dish... so I left the store, eager to begin.

I was on my way to the grocery store, when I realized that I had no idea what to buy... and that I needed to buy some kitchen gear. I had one pot, no knives, no kitchen tools... my roommate brought stuff, but I hadn't looked at it yet. So, I settled on the next-best course: have one last dinner eaten out, and flip through the cookbook, choosing recipes and making an ingredient list. Then I'd go to the store on my way home, and then get kitchen goodies on my way home from work the next day.

All excited, I sat through a mediocre meal at Pat & Oscars looking at the yummy things I was going to cook for the rest of the week... Gnocchi with chicken in a Gorgonzola mushroom cream sauce... Penne in a tomato-vodka-cream sauce, served with the Killer Shrimp Soup and fresh bread, Chili-Rubbed BBQ Pork Chops with Bourbon Baked Beans and Cheesy Cauliflower Au Gratin... I planned out 7 dinners (expecting to have 1 full serving of leftovers after each (the recipes looked to be for about 3-4 people... so even if my roommate shared, there should be enough for me to have a second meal)...

I got in my car, all excited to get started, when I realized it was 10:00, and I hadn't even been home yet... So, I just headed home, figuring I'd go shopping on Tuesday... Sure, I'd had a lousy Pat & Oscars meal (I never love Pat & Oscars, but it was particularly disappointing that day... although it may have been due to the delicious pictures in my book), but, as an animated Indian liquor store clerk once said, "tomorrow is the next day," and the new gourmet-chef version of me was about to rise. I got home, rolled in to bed, and dreampt of... actually, I don't remember... other than a vague impression that the dreams were disturbing...

to be continued

I'll try to write up the next part tomorrow... until then. good night, and good eats.

—The Shelanman

I've got a 2 bedroom 2 bath (1100 sq. ft.) apartment in Irvine, CA. It has all the upgrades... granite countertops, hardwood floor, gas stove, washer & dryer on the balcony, ... all that good stuff... It's one of the nicer places I've found -- which is why I moved in.

I am looking for someone who wouldn't mind commiting to 12 months, and can handle Irvine rents. Oh, and of course, you have to be cool like me! (The rent's $999 per month)

If that number doesn't scare you away completely, and you'd like to come see this spiffy apartment I've got... leave a comment, or send me e-mail to needaroom _at_ shelanman _dot_ com . I'd be happy to show you the place! It's available NOW, so if you're in a hurry, that's just fine.

So far though, my theme seems to have ended up being testing. You see, at work, I write lots of code... we do pretty good requirements analysis, design, and implementation... but when it comes to testing and code control, I knew we were a bit weak... it's really hard, because we're short on manpower, as always. Besides... how fun is it to try to break something once it works?

So... we always test... and we catch the majority of stuff... but every now and then we uncover a bug that we should have noticed sooner...

Well, anyway, at this convention, I've attended a number of classes that talked about one or another aspect of testing, and I'm determined to improve how we test our code The first step, of course, it to try and build some automated test suites... Instead of just testing feature X, we'll write some tests for feature X -- that way we can save them and run them later.

Then I took a class called "Mind Like Water, the Path to Perl Bliss." I wasn't sure what I'd get out of that somewhat Zen-sounding class. Well, there were a number of different subjects covered -- all centered around the different perl "personalities" that might be present in you at different times. For me, though, the key moment was a good convincing argument for writing tests for your code before you write your code. You see, I've resisted this notion strongly since I first heard it... it always struck me as one of those crazy things only an academic could think up.

I'm still not totally convinced, but... (and this also comes from that class) I'm going to force myself to do it for one month. Everything I write for the next month I'll write Test-First. At the end of the month, if I hate it, I'll stop. If it's better... I'll keep doing it.

It's lunch now, but after lunch, I'm in "Leveraging Mono" , and a couple more talks by Amy Hoy -- this time on user interface design. Hopefully she's feeling better (she was sick Monday morning, which couldn't have helped...). Tomorrow afternoon, after the conference, I'll head to Seattle, where I'll spend most of the week before heading out to Defcon.

I guess I'm just all over the place these days.

For example, she showed us a typical while loop and a do...while loop, and talked about how there was no difference, but she liked do...while better, though you can do whatever you want. Well, in reality they aren't the same... Also, it was apparent that our presenter was really, really nervous up in front of the group... though she actually did do a pretty good job with her material (do...while mistake aside).

I then spent the afternoon having my brain twisted around in a class called "Higher-Order Perl" -- which basically talked about stuff you could do by using the functional-programming features availabe in Perl. Basically the class was divided into three topics: function caching; iterators and streams; and parsing -- all largely using closures -- functions that create and return functions

Right now I'm in a break in the middle of a not-terribly-interesting course on marketing to people who hate marketing. There's some good material, but... it's not as interesting as I'd hoped, and I don't think it's going to be as useful, either... talking about "The intention economy" and finding people who've already decided what they want... which is great so long as people already know about what you do.

So, that's what's going on in my little corner of OSCON.

These young individuals are upset, they claim, because this new law will make it too easy for companies to fire young workers at a time when it is already nearly impossible for young people to find work. According to one report, the under-26 demographic sports a daunting 20% unemployment rate!

So, as an under-twenty-sixer myself, I'd be in favor of lowering the risk involved in hiring young workers, even at the expense of "job security."

Why? Because I know that I'm a valuable asset to my employer — and would never take a job otherwise &mdash so I'm not afraid of being fired (in fact, I live in a state where you can be fired for any reason — or no reason &mdash and yet I've held my current position for over four years!). I'd want to encourage potential employers to "take a chance" on me by lowering the risk. This way, they might hire me figuring if I didn't work out, they could always send me on my way.

If you make firing hard, you make hiring dangerous, and thus rare. The young workers in Paris should be protesting against the misguided social policy that is the direct cause of the outlandish 20% unemployment rate, rather than protesting a law that will, in all probability, result in more young workers being able to find higher-paying jobs and decreasing unemployment among young workers.

— The Shelanman

Last night, after having been unable to get anyone from A.B.E. to return my phone calls or e-mails for over a month, I received a call from the A.B.E. Delivery guy, telling me he had a pair of doors to deliver.

Today they arrived. The doors looked to be both the right color and the right size. They were even properly handle-free.

But, they were lacking the necessary hardware for installation! So, the delivery guys took both the old doors and the new doors away, and promised to return with the proper parts in 15 minutes.

Here's hoping the idiots can get it right this time...

(for the previous segment of the story, see Customer [un]satisfaction from January)

— The Shelanman

Update: The installers returned with hardware already installed in the doors. Of course, the hardware was in a different place on the new doors than it was on the old, so naturally they had to drill fresh holes in my hutch to attach them.

They gave me no warning or indication that they were about to drill four more holes into an already-hole-riddled piece of furniture... so I didn't have the opportunity to stop them. The desk is now complete. I find that the frame of the desk -- the desktop, the sides, the bookcase -- are all of excellent quality and craftsmanship. The hutch, the doors, and the drawers, however, would not be out of place on a rack in an IKEA -- they are poorly constructed, not all the same shape or size, and fit together only "fairly well." The doors on the hutch are so absurdly wobbly... I've leaned on them, and I don't think they will fall off... but there's a lot of vertical play in the hinges...

All in all, not worth the $1400 I paid, or the 6 months and 4 trips it took to get it set up.

— The Shelanman

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/682921.html

I am continually amazed at the degree of evil in the world.

What is truly amazing to me, however, is that there are people; many prominent people; who sympathize with these beasts. What do we have to do to convince the world that these are not Diplomats and Politicians, not Fugitives and Refugees, but Butchers and Murderers?

How can anyone feel anything but disgust for someone who could say this?

"We will not leave you alone until we quench ourselves with your blood and we will quench the thirst of our children with your blood. We will not rest until you leave the lands of the Muslims."

or this?

"My message to the hated Jews: There is no God but Allah. We will hunt you everywhere, when you wake and when you sleep. We are a blood-drinking people and we know that there is no better blood than Jewish blood."

or this?

"By the life of Allah, we will destroy you. We will blow you up. We will take our revenge on you. We will purify our land of you, pigs, who have defiled our land. By the life of Allah, we will take our vengeance. We are carrying out this operation as harsh revenge against the sons of monkeys and pigs."

I understand that I may not be entirely neutral on the issue... but just look at the rhetoric:

Israel wants peace within it's borders, and a democratic, Jewish state in which all (Muslims included) are welcome (even if Jews are, perhaps, more welcome than others).

Hamas wants to kill every living Jew and drink their blood... I rest my case...

— The Shelanman

Little Thelma comes home from first grade and tells her father that they learned about the history of Valentine’s Day. And, “Since Valentine’s Day is for a Christian saint and we’re Jewish,” she asks, “will God get mad at me for giving someone a valentine?”

Thelma’s father thinks a bit, then replies, “No, I don’t think God would get mad. Who do you want to give a valentine to?”

“Osama Bin Laden,” she says.

“Why him?” asks father, shocked.

“Well,” says Thelma, “I thought that if a little American Jewish girl could have enough love to give Osama a valentine, he might start to think that maybe we’re not all bad, and maybe he’ll start loving people a little bit. And if other kids saw what I did and sent valentines to Osama, he’d love everyone a lot. And then! And then he’d start going all over the place tell everyone how much he loved them and how he didn’t hate anyone anymore.”

Her father’s heart swells and he looks at his daughter with newfound pride. “Thelma, that’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I know,” Thelma says, “and once that gets him out in the open, the Marines could blow the hell out of him.”

Hope you enjoyed that... I know I did!

— The Shelanman

What I'm trying to figure out is how this accomplishes anything for anybody besides creating extra work in the hiring process. We're under the 50-person mark, so it won't effect us, but I just don't see how this could possibly accomplish it's goal (ensuring "diversity" in the workplace).

The basic idea is that employers are supposed to look at "qualifications" only -- they're not supposed to (or, really, even allowed to) consider anything other than job requirements, and they're not allowed to hire people that don't already fulfill 100% of the requirements. If a job description asks for "three years of X", and you have two-and-a-half... they're apparently not legally allowed to even consider you for the position.

Since I've yet to see the job description that didn't ask for way more than any one person could possibly have, it sounds like large companies are going to be doing essentially 0 hiring until they rewrite all their job descriptions. (That's not going to happen, which means, more likely, that just about everybody will either ignore, or partially ignore, the law... and some examples will be made, and then we'll probably just get back to business...).

And all this is so that the federal government can supposedly protect all the minorities from unfair managers who won't hire them. Except that people aren't machines... most positions seem to require more than a robot-with-X-qualifications...

I just don't know what the government was thinking... or if they were at all... And why haven't I heard about this before?

America just keeps sounding more and more like the EU and less and less like the America we used to be...

— The Shelanman

A few months ago I spent about two hours in the Custom Comfort store before ordering a brand new bed for myself. I tested out every bed in the place before making my decision. I paid a large sum of money, and received a yellow slip of paper promising delivery 4 days later.

A few months ago I spent many hours in the ABE Office Furniture store, over several trips, evaluating desks. I tested out every desk in the place, before sitting down with a salesman. About an hour later I left with the promise of a quote via e-mail. That quote arrived. It was for exactly what I wanted, so I ordered the desk, and received a promise that in 4-6 weeks I'd have my desk.

Four days later, the new bed arrived. It looked beautiful. It was exactly what I ordered. I put the new sheets on it, and, later that night tried to sleep. It was terrible. After 5 minutes of laying on it, I hurt. Badly. It took hours to fall asleep. Over the course of the next 3 weeks, I adjusted to the bed, and it went from terrible to uncomfortable and disappointing.

Then, the desk arrived. It was beautiful. It was also wrong. Oh, sure, it was the right shape, and even the right size... but all the details were wrong... the drawers had the wrong handles, the edging was wrong, the bookshelf was the wrong color, the drawers were damaged, and the credit card bill showed the wrong price (I was overcharged -- by about $75).

So, twice in one month I ordered expensive pieces of furniture, and twice I was left disappointed... Well, that was months ago, each company has had their chance to fix the problem...

I called up Custom Comfort, and said that my bed was very uncomfortable, and that I needed help. I was very calm, very polite. I got exactly what I ordered, so I knew that there were limits to my recourse if I couldn't convince them to help me out.

They invited me to return to the store, and, having now experienced a "really soft bed" and hating it, to try and find a different bed I liked better. I spent 2 hours at the shop trying first one, then another, then the first again, then a third... I picked one out. I left 15 minutes later with a yellow slip of paper promising that the next morning someone would pick my mattress up from my apartment, take it to the factory, alter it so that it felt more like the one I liked and return it to me by 6:00pm that same day.

They lived up to that yellow piece of paper, and I now have a bed that I love. As they were leaving, having returned my mattress, they extracted a promise that I try it for two weeks, and if I still don't like it to call again. They didn't promise another same-day-alteration would be free, but they did promise to help me out if ever I needed, and to continue to "be reasonable with me so long as I was reasonable with them."

And I heartily recommend Custom Comfort Mattress Company if you are in the market for a new bed. They have all prices, all sizes, and it's all built to order. And apparently they stand behind their products.

ABE Office Furniture

I called up ABE Office Furniture, and received a promise that "it will be fixed."

About two weeks later I called ABE up again... no response... Eventually, I found out that the guy who sold me my desk has since been fired. Seems mine wasn't the only expensive desk he botched. So, the store manager e-mailed me, and asked to hear my story.

He came to visit my apartment, and looked at the desk. Then he looked an order form that was apparently used to order my desk. He told me that I got exactly what I ordered, and that he's very sorry that I'm not happy, but that contracts are contracts, and he'd be happy to fix it for a price.

I asked him to show me my signature on that order form, since I'd never seen it before... it had, written in cursive and not in my hand, "Phone Order" on the signature line.

He changed his tune, promised to set things right, told me to expect a phone call from him in one hour with options, and he left.

Three weeks later, I finally got ahold of him again... His tune had changed a little bit. Sure, I'd get new drawer faces and new doors... He wouldn't replace the damaged drawer-interiors, though -- so that in addition to the minor damage that's present now, there'd be extra holes drilled in for the new drawer faces. We decided not to deal with the bookshelf color or the desk edging, because they were minor to me, and extremely expensive to fix. I even decided not to fight over the extra charge -- at this point, I was willing to compromise to get a desk that I wanted.

I wasn't pleased, really, but I figured it was better than nothing, and that if he actually made good on all his promises, I'd end up with a desk I could be somewhat happy with, and while $75 is a lot to overcharge me, compared with the price of the desk it was minor... I decided to let it slide if he fixed the rest.

That was about four weeks ago. Today, some delivery guys from ABE showed up with replacement doors and drawer faces... They were beautiful. They were also still wrong. Oh, sure, the handles were right now. In fact, the drawer faces were fine. But the doors... they didn't fit! They were about 6 inches too narrow!

I called the store... they gave me the manager's cell-phone number. I called the cell-phone... no response... so I left a voice message... a very calm, courteous, polite voice message. (remaining calm took real work, by the way) The delivery guys installed the drawer faces, measured the doors, wrote down the measurements, marked up the delivery form to show that the doors were not delivered in satisfactory condition because they didn't fit, and asked me to sign. With all the conditions, alterations, and caveats he and I added to the sheet, I could sign it. So I did.

I've still not gotten ahold of the manager... it's been about a half hour since the delivery guys left. I'm very unsatisfied.

I strongly recommend against buying from ABE Office Furniture because of the extreme incompetence and carelessness their employees exhibit.

So... two companies that delivered unsatisfactory products. One of them I now trust and recommend; One of them I would never do business with again... Who says customer satisfaction isn't important?

— The Shelanman

PS: I'll update this if things change soon... must give ABE the opportunity to redeem themselves (to the extend redemption is still possible) — TS

— The Shelanman