Fixing my Cast-Iron Pan

 

Not so much a hack as a fix.

I recently purchased a new cast-iron frying pan....a big one from Lodge. It's been a while since I have purchased a new cast-iron anything, and I was not aware that Lodge has changed how they made & sold their products.

My norm was to take any new cast-iron home, give it a good cleaning, and then start the seasoning process. These days Lodge has gone ahead and started pre-seasoning their products.

Sounds like a good shortcut, no?

Yeah....not so much. 

The pre-seasoning on their products isn't the best. The coating is a bit uneven and the end results are not better than just doing it yourself. Of course I just seasoned over the top of what was there and that was OK for a good bit, but not all, of my cooking. My attempts at seasoning didn't fill-in the uneven areas, just took that uneven profile and basically raised it.

Thankfully there is a fix, which I found here:

Initial Grind

Sanding it down to bare-metalish was easier than expected. I really thought it'd be harder than it was. Cleanup was more difficult, but still nothing to sneeze at. Then I just needed to start re-seasoning. My oil of choice is Grapeseed oil....because it was easiest for me to find at the grocery store.

This is where it started at.

One seasoning later...

After one coat....

Two seasonings later...

After a second coat...

Now I did a total of four coats, and while the bronze color did intensify, it wasn't significant enough in the photos I took. To the naked eye, big difference. I'm not sure if it was the lighting in the kitchen or my camera flash, but the subsequent pics weren't worthwhile.

The finish is nice and smooth now. I'm sure the pan needs to be broken-in and used a lot more, but with a smooth bottom it'll get used more often now.

Just Getting Something Off My Chest

Something has really been bothering me since Saturday and I want to get it off my chest. I'm not going to go into as detailed on the specifics as I'd like to, but enough to be able to express myself.

First off, I know I don't have many friends. A few good acquaintances here and there and I'm definitely closer to some more than others, but generally not true friends. I've probably spent far too much of my life pushing people away or just trying to protect myself. Maybe I wasn't meant to have close friends.....I don't mean that in a self-pitying fashion, just that this usually isn't an issue for me....it isn't a hole I've been trying to fill.

Regardless, I am keenly aware that I don't easily form close relationships and maybe because of this I value my friendships maybe more than I should.

Years ago I did manage to become friends with someone I would never have expected to. In some ways I really felt this friends was a kindred spirit and I ended up visiting him more than I did my own flesh & blood family. We had our own inside jokes, shared a lot of ourselves, and basically were (what I thought of as) close friends despite living more than 1/2 way across the country from each other.

When he had a family tragedy I did whatever I could to be there for him, which was difficult financially for me and stung my family a bit because my parents had a similar event not three weeks prior. Didn't matter, it was the right thing to do.

I don't know when things started to go South, but eventually my friend started lying about me and to me. I told him several times how badly this made me feel, which I'm not sure he ever understood. Eventually I had to make a conscious decision to forgive him, and anyone who knows me knows I'm not the forgiving type. I honestly think I did forgive, which was probably a first for me, but I know I hadn't forgotten. Instead I just stopped doing what I was doing before and removed myself from the activities that were at the crux of everything.....problem solved, right?

We didn't even make it a year before there was more lying. My friend made a big show of force that he was being supportive while all the time he was doing the exact opposite of what he'd told me. While I didn't really care about the underlying "thing" I did care that I was being lied to. That hurt more than some dumb shit I'd never have known otherwise if he hadn't brought it up to me in that lie. Of course I confronted my friend and ended up hurting his feelings. It ends up he'd been drinking and what he heard me say wasn't what I'd said, but that didn't matter. I apologized for hurting his feelings, but didn't invalidate my own.

My buddy then shut me out and ended up trying to twist things so that I was the "bad guy" in everything. He wouldn't even consider the possibility that he might have done something wrong or offensive to me. It was all my fault and he formally ended the friendship.

That was over two years ago and I've run into him since then and tried to be civil, but the extent that I've been snubbed/ignored is quite painful to experience first-hand. I think about all this far more often than I should. I don't know if this is because of a defect of character on my part or some deep-seated desire to re-kindle what was obviously not a healthy relationship.

Trying to bring this whole thing full-circle.....Saturday I came across some of my old friend's writing that...well, just plain hurt. He was writing about a fictional character, explaining why some other characters haven't gotten rid of him:
"We all have friends with a certain degree of jerk-factor. At least I do. ;).......or simply because he's a friend and you don't quit friends."

Well, the characters in your fictional world might not quit friends, but you certainly do.

Too much Arm-Chair QBing Going on Lately

Now I generally try to avoid some current hot-button issues because, well face it, people are assholes that cannot distinguish fact from fiction and cannot tolerate views dissimilar from their own for any reason. Everything is binary and unless you back them 110% you are wrong.

Now I assume that any given news story has some bias and I'm probably not given the appropriate facts. Usually when I'm being binary is comes down to actual facts because I over-simplify and equate facts to the truth. Please don't get me started on conditional truths or things people assume as facts because it is true for them. I'll just over-simplify and lump people believing what they want as part of their own personal bias.

Tree City Comic Con Sniff Test

We are essentially a week out from the Tree City Comic Con, which I predicted last June would be an Epic Fail. I've been loosely following the comings and goings as I could just being a local boy. Now in the interest of fairness I do have a couple friends who have  run another convention here in the Treasure Valley and gotten some general insight from them and I have another friend out of state who has much more business-side experience running larger conventions. That person has been insightful as well.

Near Useless Request for Information

Today I received an email from the Idaho Department of Labor with a request for information from one of my State Senators. My Senator is collecting Veteran's stories regarding interaction with the Veteran's Administration.

While the focus was obviously on medical issues, the survey being used to collect information was about the VA in general, so I had to relay my only real interaction with the VA, which would be my "fun" with the VRAP program.

I won't go too much into detail since you can always search "VRAP" on this blog, but to sum it up in a sentence: I took on debt for a worthless Associates Degree because I was promised special employment assistance once I completed my degree, but there is no special assistance.

Of course, wouldn't you know, after typing the much longer version out and hitting "submit" the survey database errors out. Seriously?! I guess the information wasn't really that important.

Fortunately, and I'm probably pushing things using that term, I half-expected this and did a little Ctrl+A & Ctrl+C on that form field before hitting submit. I just pasted it into an email for the good Senator, but I doubt I'll get anything more than a form letter from some intern.

My Crap-O-Meter Was Pegged by a "Friend"

[Author Note]I don't really expect a whole lot of attention to this post, but please realize this is being written for me, not for you. I've been bothered as of late about a situation that has been ongoing and I have a need to vent that isn't going to degrade into a shouting match with my wife, who has absolutely no horse in this race other than the misfortune of living with me.[/Note]

This TV Station is Hiring for What?

It isn't a secret that I've been looking for work for far too long now. I've complained about it enough and for the most part I'm not trying to go there.

During my job search I've seen a lot of things I consider a bit messed up. Some are just the evolving nature of today's job-seeker environment, while others have just been a lack of basic professional courtesy. I've rallied on about the change in certification for the Human Resources field and how it seems nobody acknowledges that change.

One thing I haven't really mentioned before is just how many people working within HR don't have the education or experience in the field, but they manage to get HR work nonetheless. This is one of those things that really isn't discussed much and I think it is also a reason for the underlying changes to the HR certification. The powers that be want educated & experienced personnel taking their certification exams and on several levels I cannot blame them. To do anything less dilutes the value & importance of the certification.

Today I saw a job posting I normally wouldn't even bother to read because it is for a specialized position I do not have the education & experience for.....or at least I shouldn't have the requisite experience:
Senior Accountant      ID#######


Senior Accountant
KXXX News Group, a Belo station, has an immediate opening for an individual to work as a Senior Accountant in the Business Office handling Accounting and Human Resources activities.
Accounting Duties
Responsible for accounting functions including but not limited to completion of monthly close, account reconciliations, fixed assets, balance sheet management, account analysis, various statistical reports, and collections. Also coordinates internal control procedures, Sarbanes Oxley testing, and assists Controller with special projects.
Human Resources Duties
Responsible for local HR administrative duties, including but not limited to new employee orientation, EEO tracking and reporting, job and career fair exhibitor, recruiting, workers compensation coordinator, local contact for HR and benefit questions.
Qualifications 
Position requires excellent organizational skills, strong verbal and written communication, ability to multi-task and work under strict deadlines. Ability to maintain confidentiality is imperative. Individual should be proficient in MS Word, Excel, Outlook and automated financial systems. BA Accounting degree and minimum 4 years experience preferred. Knowledge of PeopleSoft a plus.
KXXX is an equal opportunity employer. Applicant finalists will be required to furnish evidence of employment authorization and identification.

Do you see anything wrong with this job position? No wonder I cannot get an HR position....I should have been working towards CPA Exam!

Fun Finding Work (Week 148)

Since I've been out of work....for far too long, I've almost gotten used to a bunch of absurdity when it comes to applying for work. Jobs that don't really exist, employers who are only going to hire internal applicants, not finding out about your application even after you've interviewed, I've about seen it all.

I've even seen being notified with regards to an interviewed position when the workplace said they'd send out notifications!

Last week I got a peculiar email from the Department of Human Resources regarding an application I made for an open position. Evidently they scored my application a perfect 100 (probably also counting Veteran's Preference Points) but they wondered how I was able to answer the questions the way I did when they read my resume.

Ok, no problem......they have some questions...I should be able to deal with this, but I can't. See the thing is most DHR applications have an exam where you get a couple thousand characters to give a response to a specific question. This application was a simple choose options A through D kind of exam. Still, this shouldn't be a problem for me to back up my responses, but......and this is a big but....I'm not allowed to supply any new information in order to be "fair" to the other applicants.

Wait...what? How can I give you clarifying information without giving you more information? This is oxymoronic on its surface. I have until October 3rd to not give them additional information before they (obviously) just flag me as a fail on this application (and hopefully nothing else).

I respond to their email asking how I am supposed to comply and today I get a response that I'm supposed to update my system resume. The problem with doing this is that the system resume is a "generic" resume. It even states it right on the application, "This is a general resume applied to any position. If you modify it, that change is for all positions. It is not position specific."

Hmm....I have open applications in the system....and I do plan on applying for more positions with the State. By changing my generic resume to a position-specific resume I'm basically agreeing to not look for other work...and I'm getting interviews for at least one of those open applications.

Basically, as I see it, the DHR application process, for this position at least, is fundamentally flawed.

2013.10.11 Edit
I just got an email saying this job posting announcement had been cancelled.....so all of this headache for nothing.

Finally Got My iPad Working!

OK, I have finally gotten my iPad squared away, but the process has been messy and a complete PITA.

Today Carolyn and I went to the local Apple Store's Genius Bar to get my iPad fixed.....and we had to leave without getting things resolved.

After several employees looked at the device the best they could do was surmise how the unwanted music got on the device, after a series of "dumb" questions. Now I realize they get a lot of dumb customers, but I have never:

a) Used iTunes Match
b) Shared my Apple ID
c) Let my fictional child use either my laptop or my iPad
d) Downloaded a bunch of free music from Starbucks

Regardless of whatever method they may have decided that this unwanted music got onto my device, I just want it off of my iPad. This simply fact seems to elude the Genius Bar staff, as does the fact that this wasn't a problem until the last iOS update.

They end up reformatting the iPad and putting a clean iOS 7 install on it, but sure enough there is a bunch of unwanted music waiting for me once I login with my Apple ID. They tell me to go ahead and open up iTunes on my laptop & look for my purchased music.

That doesn't help much......

....and neither does looking at my "Hidden Purchases". Of course, as these things have been happening, the second time I look at my Hidden Purchases all of my unwanted music shows up. WTF?

I go ahead and unhide, then re-hide these unwanted items.....but they are still on my iPad. After syncing, re-starting, trying to remove all the music.....nothing has changed. I cannot remove all of the music (wanted or unwanted).

Basically I'm back to square one.

Ugh....

I go back to that settings page and flip that "show all music" switch and......FINALLY it actually shows only the music I wanted on the iPad.

How many hours has all this taken?

iOS 7 Music Even More Messed Up Than Imagined (ie. Still Sucks Balls)

I'm getting to a point where I may just go ahead and do away with iTunes for my laptop and use an alternate music manager for my iPad.

I know a lot of people have better alternatives to iTunes, but for me it was a matter of something simple that worked. Now with iOS7 it is neither simple or working.

This morning when I "upgraded" to the knew OS I was "gifted" with a bunch of music that I didn't want and cannot get rid of. I've tried finding the music in iTunes (not there), searching my laptop's music directory (nope), and even went so far as to see if telling iTunes not to sync music and then re-syncing would help (you guessed it). The last bit was kind of comical because I get a warning that "Are you sure you do not want to sync music? All existing songs and playlists on the iPad 'Christopher's iPad' will be removed."

YES FOR THE LOVE OF PETE YES! GET RID OF EVERYTHING AND LET ME HAVE MY OWN ^%^&%@$#! MUSIC! Of course choosing this option does absolutely nothing....all my music and all of the "bonus" music is still on the iPad.

Now I've checked online to find nothing about this "bonus" music. I even checked my iCloud account, which I don't use, and there isn't even a spot for music there. This occurred to me because all of these freebie songs show some icon that I have to presume is "download from the cloud".

Wait a second.....I remember seeing something in the settings that is related.....there is a "Show All Music" switch. The notation shows that when on "all music that has been downloaded or that is stored in iCloud will be shown."

Well.....I couldn't find squat for music in my iCloud account.......not even a placeholder.

I just went ahead and deleted my iCloud account since I wasn't using it for anything.....and that didn't fix the problem.

Ok, back to this "Show All Music" switch. When switched "on" this is my album listing:

Ok.....nothing has changed. Not really unexpected since this was the default setting. I did delete my iCloud account so these "bonus" songs should be on my iPad....but they still show the download from cloud icon and they don't show up in iTunes....


















Now let's see what happens when I turn the switch to "off":

Well, some of these bonus songs are missing....along with my entire fricken library! The only songs left are some of the unwanted songs! Seriously?!! WTF?

I didn't buy these songs and I didn't download them to my iPad.

I thought maybe they only mean "purchased" music instead of "downloaded", but there are four or five songs I purchased straight through iTunes and not one of them shows up.

What I have going on right now is a device that has items on it I didn't ask for and cannot get rid of. I cannot even use iTunes to get rid of the items I do want, so it looks like, at best, is that I can add new items to the iPad (verified I can still add items), but that is it.

At this point I don't even know if a third-party music manager would work unless it can take out the stuff already on the iPad.

Maybe this is just me.....but last I checked Apple is kind of a big company. Don't they have people to alpha and beta test these things?

Empty Promises to at Least This Veteran

I just have no freakin idea who is in charge of the mess that is the Veterans Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP), but I'm thinking it was one of those initiative intended to make people feel good and not really intending to actually help veterans.

I spent time & money attending school towards a "high-demand" occupation. I graduated last May and you know how many of these "high demand" jobs I've seen come up in this field? One....well technically two, but one required a Masters Degree and a bunch of experience.

Now the whole idea behind VRAP is giving unemployed Veterans help & opportunity for employment. I just wonder how they intend to actually accomplish this task. Today, more than three months after graduating I receive my first contact from the Department of Labor.....the Dept. "in charge" of VRAP:

June 20, 20131

Dear Christopher Stogdill,

Thank you for participating in the Veterans Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP).

We at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) would like to take this opportunity to wish you well as you begin your job search2 for the high demand occupation of General and Operations Managers3.  We would also like to inform you that as you begin your career search, you are not alone4.  DOL supports nearly 2,800 American Job Centers, sometimes known as One-Stop Career Centers, across the country that can provide you with high quality career services at no cost to you.

Whether you are looking to explore new opportunities, update your resume featuring VRAP training, receive tips on interviewing techniques and preparing cover letters, find out more information about salaries and benefits in various occupations, or receive assistance with your job search, American Job Centers are ready to provide you the career services you want!  In addition, your military service entitles you to Veterans’ priority of service in all of our American Job Centers!

To find out more about the services available at American Job Centers and to search your state’s job bank we encourage you to visit, http://www.careeronestop.org/.  To find the American Job Center nearest you please visit, http://www.servicelocator.org/ where you will be able to find the nearest American Job Center location by entering your zip code or city and state. Also, visit DOL personnel collocated at your local VA Benefits Regional Office. To find the Regional Office nearest you please visit, http://www2.va.gov/directory/guide/home.asp.

Again we want to thank you for your participation in VRAP, and encourage you to take advantage of all the career services currently available at your nearest American Job Center.  An American Job Center staff member will be in contact with you to offer assistance and help you achieve your career goals.

Sincerely,

The US Department of Labor

1) June 20th?! Still a whole month after I graduated. Some help then would have been useful......
2) "As I begin my job search"? If I didn't need the help this would all be a moot point.
3) Umm.....while I have a degree and experience in that field, that isn't the one I entered VRAP for.
4) I've been alone so far........ 

Setting a New Standard for Bad Night of Sleep

This weekend I did something I haven't done in ages.....I went camping. In my youth I went camping a lot. Not only as an active Boy Scout, but just as something we did as a family.

For about half the time I was in the Air Force I served as a Scoutmaster with a local Boy Scout Troop and I camped then as well. When I went to the field I usually brought along a significant amount of my own gear instead of using issued equipment. My deployment to Bosnia went much smoother because I used my own nylon-fill sleeping bag instead of the cloth & down bulky GI bags. Every week I wiped it down with a wet washcloth and made sure to air it out in the sun. My bag never got "ripe", which is more than I could say for everyone else I knew.

Anyway, deployments and military exercises not withstanding, I haven't been camping in probably 17 years. I still have a bunch of gear and have even bought several new (and unused) tents expecting to go camping again, but it just hadn't happened. This weekend we were invited to a party up in Crouch, Idaho and some friends asked if we wanted to camp out Saturday night after the party. It was a pretty casual affair. All we really needed to do was thrown a tent and some sleeping bags in the trunk of the car.

We had a good time (some of Carolyn's photos on Facebook) and the only issue I had was trying to sleep. I had pulled a back muscle earlier in the week and thought I was better, but sleeping on my 20+ year old backpacking (ie, small and thin) camping pad left me feeling worse than I had when I first pulled that muscle. I think it was my worst night of sleep outdoors I had ever had, which is saying quite a bit. In trying to relate that painful experience the next morning it occurred to me that it surpassed my own standard for poor sleep, which is actually the point of this otherwise long-winded blog post.

Back in the day, when I was much younger and dumber, I volunteered to take part in a training exercise with the 7th Duke of Edinburgh's Gurkha Rifles. Two Staff Sergeants and my 22 year-old Airman First Class bad-ass wannabee self decided we'd go on a 20 mile ruckmarch with the Gurkhas out at the Yakima Training Range. It was February so in addition to our normal gear we needed cold-weather clothing and some heavy-duty sleeping bags. Fortunately for me the two Staff Sergeants were of the high-speed (ie squared-away....they were very fit and knowledgeable) variety and while we didn't have to ruck in our sleeping gear they both told me to make sure I did carry a poncho, poncho-liner, and space blanket with me.

We met our English counterparts at the designated time and place only to find out that the Regiment had mustered out hours earlier and were already well on their way through the ruckmarch. They took our A-bags which contained our sleeping bags and extra cold weather gear and threw them in the back of their supply truck. We were driven out to a rendezvous point and allowed to hike in the last five miles with some of the Gurkhas.

Originally the ruckmarch was going to be an overnight "thing", but with the time change we finished those last five miles by the late evening. It was probably 8 or 9 PM when we stopped at one of the many concrete turning pads out at the tank firing range. When marching you don't try to work up a sweat because in the cold weather that is dangerous. To that end we were relatively lightly dressed with a little back-up clothing. Camping out overnight on a thick concrete tank turning pad....in February means you have to be prepared. We did bring appropriate gear so we went for our bags which were stowed with those that the Brits had dropped off with their supply truck hours before we arrived.....

....or so we thought.

Our A-bags were quite distinctive compared to the British Bergen bags and we shouldn't have any problem picking them out of the pile. Of course our bags weren't in the pile. They never made it off of the truck. The truck that was now miles in the distance and not coming back. In short...we were screwed. The Brits expected us to "soldier on" and make due. Due to some specific Gurkha beliefs/taboos we all had to sleep separately, so no huddling together for warmth.


Thanks to the foresight of my two SSgt's I had purchased a space blanket for my butt-pack and coupled with a poncho and poncho liner I was able to survive through the cold desert night. I'm sure I dozed off now and then, but I didn't really sleep. Morning and the weak February sun could not come fast enough.

Until last Saturday night that Yakima evening was my de facto standard for a crappy night of "sleep". Still, the trips 20 years ago and just last weekend were still worthwhile despite the sleep situation.

Managed to "Save" $100 Today

Image Courtesy of iStock Photo

I'm somewhat fortunate and unlucky today.

Starting from the top today someone who I can, at best, speculate as an individual requiring some level of mental heath care, decided that all of his personal problems trying to relate to others within a small hobby community are all my fault.

I have had no interaction with this individual for months now, and have had severely diminished interaction with those he's currently feuding with.

Have You Seen Your Online Reputation?

For a couple of years I have had to put up with this individual attacking me, privately and publicly, all the while claiming to be the victim. I'm strongly reminded of my childhood where my little brother liked to shout "MOM!" right before striking me. Of course he had great timing and my mother would invariably just come around the corner around the time I finally get my hands on him.

My brother had a few other tricks up his sleeve, as does this guy.

I've been PO'd, gotten angry, felt sorry for this guy....you name it. If it were possible to share the full, detailed & documented history here, I'm willing to be most of you 12 readers would agree, "That boy ain't right". Part of my problem is that while his railing and rallying on about the grave injustices he's imagined have been made public, the truth of these matters has consistently been kept private.

Fast forward three months and now, all of a sudden, there is a HUGE blog post from the guy where he   names me, repeatedly, and decides to attribute all of his personal problems as stemming from me. The whole post is a piece of fiction that I found depressing and amusing at the same time. Normally I'd not really care but the only truth to the long post I could find were the proper nouns used.

Anybody wanting to look for work these days needs to be mindful of their online reputation. This huge piece of defamatory fiction was too much. My only course of action would be to sue this blog author for libel, a suit I was all-but guaranteed to win. I'd have to take this action because the only way to get Google to remove defamatory content is to provide a court judgment proving libel.

Luckily someone was able to convince this guy to remove my name, which saves me a Benjamin in filing fees. It is a bit back-handed, but that was my good news today.

BOHICA

Right now I don't know if I'm more disappointed or outraged, but seeing how one emotion is essentially a depressant and the other a stimulant I'm guessing that I'm close to an even keel between the two extremes.

It isn't a secret that I've been pretty much unemployed for a couple of years now. During this time I managed to finish my Human Resources Degree, get the appropriate level of certification, and I went back to a local community college to earn an Associate's Degree in Library and Information Science.

Now this brings me to a total of four degrees: 2 Associate's (Information Systems Management & Library and Information Science) as well as 2 Bachelor's (General Business Management and Human Resources Management). A reasonably smart person would wonder why I would be dumb enough to go back for a fricken Associate's degree when I already had two more (relatively) advanced degrees. If you've already got a BA and a BS, the normal next step is to work on a Master's, not an Associate's.

I'm Off to See the Endodontist

I'm off to get my root canal hacked into by a specialist, an Edodontist.

Good times....

....ok, actually the stuff of nightmares for me. It'll be nice to get this tooth infection taken care of and off the narcotics. Why anyone would consider taking this stuff recreationally is beyond my comprehension.

If I can I'll get a pamphlet so I can show the interwebs what I had done. Gotta share the nightmares......

Not Feeling So Well

It is finals week and I still have two tests and a project to finish up by this Friday. I was all set to get the one take-home test and my project done this weekend, specifically Sunday, when I had an almost literal kick in the teeth.

A toothache started up Friday and was pretty benign until Sunday. Since I had stayed up until 3 AM on Thursday and got up at 7 on Friday I just assumed I did something stupid like sleep on my face. I tend to get really loopy when I'm sleep deprived and dumber things have happened. My lip was swollen just a tad so it made sense and I assumed hoped it'd just go away....

.....but it didn't. Yesterday I was a near vegetable just trying to keep from extracting the painful tooth on my own. Carolyn was at work and I wasn't willing to go to an emergency dentist. All I wanted to do is suffer as little as possible until I could see my dentist. A few drinks in me combined with as-close-to Ranger Candy as possible only went so far. Soaking a cotton ball in vodka and sticking it in like a wad of chew helped a bit more. Only when Carolyn came home with some Oral Gel did things ease up enough so I could sleep.

There was no way I was good enough to work on my test or school project. To put things in perspective, I had the TV on yesterday showing my Xbox Live home screen....for 9 hours. I didn't flip it over to Netflix or play a game until after 10 PM when I was finally a bit on the buzzed side.

I'm sure I was a joy to listen to when calling home for Mother's Day.

We were at the dentist office just after they opened at 7 AM. I have an infection all right, but they want me to see someone who specializes in dealing with root canals. My appointment is at 3:30 PM today. Ugh.

At least I got a script for some antibiotics and pain meds. The bad part then was my pharmacist doesn't open up until 9 AM and while I know we have a 24 hr pharmacy or two in town, I have no idea where it is at. We'd probably spend just as much time driving to it and back as we would just waiting for the local pharmacy to open. Carolyn and I got to go out and eat breakfast together, which was a nice (albeit painful) treat.

It took far too long, but at least I'm safe at home in the process of being doped up. At this point I'm just waiting for the "good stuff" to kick in and hope it doesn't turn me into a zombie like it did last time. I had oxycontin last time and made sure the dentist new about my reaction, so this stuff is dialed back a notch.

If I'm lucky the drugs and the next dentist visit will do the trick and I can get back to my school work and real blog posts.

Fixed Something With Minimal Blood Loss

Yesterday after I mowed the lawn I went to hook up the Ghetto Sprinkler System we have for the front yard and it didn't work. At first I thought that maybe something had gotten lodged in the hose.  All I got was a weak stream.

I took everything apart, played around with it, swapped out pieces, but nothing seemed to work.  When I had the faucet on I was able to push it in a bit and a gush of water sprayed out.  My faucet (unfortunately) has always leaked a little bit, and I mean only a little bit.  It wasn't enough warrant a lot of trouble.

Water gushing all over the place....that is worth some trouble.

Programs that Help with Using iTunes

I've been using iTunes to manage my music library for a while now. While I'm not a big fan of the program for getting files in and organized, I'm usually using my iPad to listen to my music, so the bulk of the experience...the listening part, works reasonably well.

I don't let iTune automatically organize everything for me, so I have a lot of initial legwork to do.  Normally I'd let iTunes rip the disc, manually move the files over to my data disc, delete the CD from iTunes, and then find the new file location and import the music back into iTunes.  My last task is usually to find the appropriate album artwork and affiliate it with the music.

It sounds like a lot more work than it really is, unless the original rip is bad.  Lately I'm finding that iTunes is horrible when it comes to ripping my music.  I would think that a digital file would either work or it wouldn't, but all too often my songs sound like they came from a badly distorted LP.  It is also taking far too long.

Nothing like a CD taking 30 minutes to rip and then half (or more) of the songs come out like crap.

The only thing that is worse is when ripping an audiobook and your files come out all gobbledegook.  A single audiobook might come on a dozen CDs, each containing 30 files.  Sometimes the file names make sense, others might be some odd alpha-numeric combination.  Now I prefer to have all the files for a single audiobook in a single directory...in order.  Just because a CD is limited to 70ish minutes, it doesn't mean I want my digital files forced into that same structure.

Thankfully I've recently discovered a couple of programs that make my life a lot easier.

The first is called FreeRIP and it quickly rips tracks at a fraction of the speed that iTunes was doing it.  I'm sure some of the speed is due to slightly easier rip settings, but that only accounts for so much.

The second program is Mp3tag and it isn't as straight-forward and easy as I'd like, but with a little figuring-it-out-as-you-go-along it works great.  One issue when dealing with an audiobook spread out across multiple discs is getting the play order right.  Most players know to move down the track list in numerical order, but will get confused if there are multiple tracks with the same number (which would happen if you simply dump the files from multiple CDs into one folder).  With Mp3tag I can open up multiple directories in one window (preserving the original play orders), re-tag all the tracks so they are sequential, do any other tag conversions, and then have the program consolidate all the files.

Basically this post is a little shout-out to a couple of useful programs and hopefully point them out for someone else who might be needing similar assistance.

My Story is Published on Gawker.com and I Don't Know if I Should Feel Flattered or Not

Images Courtesy of Gawker Media

It hasn't been a secret that I've been unemployed (or underemployed depending on your POV) for a while now.  I've told a few people why I quit my good-paying job with a relatively low amount of responsibility.

There were a lot of factors, but things were basically going South and I there were a lot of things that I was oblivious to, either through design or naïveté.  All I needed was one good spiritual kick to the head, a shakabuku if you will, to do a reboot to the 'ol brain-pan.

For me that kick to the head came when my boss sent me on an errand to his Palm Springs vacation house to supervise the delivery of some big-screen TVs and the installation of cable.  On the flight out my plane had to declare an emergency where we had to prep for a crash landing on the runway.  It was some pretty heavy shit and while the stewardess was screaming a mantra of bending over, heads-between-the-knees and "BRACE, BRACE, BRACE" over and over again, I kind of expected my life to flash before my eyes.  Instead I got a realization that there was something seriously fucked about my working conditions.  This realization really opened my eyes to issues I should have seen quite clearly before, but didn't.

Anyway....that was about two and a half years ago.  A little closer to current events, a couple of months ago, I sent in my tale to Gawker for possible inclusion in their "Unemployment Stories", basically tales of woe regarding being unemployed.  There are a host of reasons people become unemployed and a ton of crap regarding dealing with the problem.  I never expected my story to get used, but I was wrong.

It's weird seeing your story edited and posted up for the world to see.  Sure, I do it here on my blog regularly but it is quite different. I'm still trying to get my head around it.

Wealth Distribution in the US

Mr. Moneybags is Property of  Hasbro

Now I'm not advocating any specific social changes or the re-distribution of wealth, just a clear picture of the "lay of the land" that might prove useful for this tough combination of economy, deficits, and sequestration.

I believe that part of our problem as a people is that we aren't really all on the same page when it comes to discussing important issues.  Whether it is same-sex-marriage, gun control, or taxation, the overwhelming majority of our population, (unfortunately) including our legislators, simply don't have a clue about the reality of the situation or even the basic terminology in some cases.

I'm hoping this video will help fill a few cluebags.  There are a list of references at the end.  Now I don't expect anyone to actually go through and try to type out the references from the video, so I've done you a solid and listed them as hotlinks.


MotherJones
Dan Ariely
ThinkProgress.Org
I kept getting a 404 error from the last link, but the MotherJones article is well-referenced for further reading.