(via swissmiss)

9:30 AM: Breakfast at Panera. Bacon, egg, and cheese Asiago sandwich, half a spinach and bacon soufflé, and a large coffee.

11:15 AM: Avengers in 2D. Large popcorn and a large bottled water.

2:40 PM: Cabin In The Woods in 2D.

5:00 PM: Dinner at Carrabba’s. Veal Marsala, garlic mashed potatoes, sausage and lentil soup, blackberry sangria.

7:10 PM: Avengers in 2D. Chocolate covered pecans we snuck in.

Yep, pretty great day.

It describes itself as:

“A series of mixes intended for listening while programming to aid concentration and increase productivity (also compatible with other activities).”

I’m only as far into the first (of seven) in the series, but it’s an excellent companion to working heads down on a project. If you are tired of listening to The Social Network original soundtrack while coding / debugging / troubleshooting / documenting, give it a try. Each mix is about an hour long. Here is their RSS feed and their subscription link in iTunes.

Denial: A couple weeks ago, Lauren and I were driving home from having dinner with her family and the Check Engine light came on. And started to blink. I had no trouble dismissing it out of hand, because in a 14 year old car with a history of electrical issues (the dome light will stay on during rainy weather), I was sure it was something else I’d just have to live with.

But it happened the next day. I got suspicious. So I pulled out the owner’s manual from the glove box and looked it up:

Light is blinking:
Engine misfire is occurring which could damage your
catalytic converter. You should drive in a moderate
fashion (avoid heavy acceleration and deceleration)
and have your vehicle serviced at the first available
opportunity.

Under engine misfire conditions, excessive
exhaust temperatures could damage the
catalytic converter, the fuel system, interior floor
coverings or other vehicle components, possibly
causing a fire.

Anger: So I took the car to a mechanic for a diagnostic. And they kept it for a whole day without calling me back. And then came the news: 1) cylinder one is misfiring; 2) the presence of engine exhaust was detected in the radiator; 3) this isn’t fixed by a tune-up: there is a crack in the engine. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news”, he said. Like an empathetic defense attorney after a guilty verdict. More like a doctor giving my car 3-6 months to live. Getting a replacement engine (about $2000) would cost more than the value of the car in good condition (about $1200).

Bargaining: I have no idea how long the car can keep running with a crack in the engine block. Some people I’ve talked to are amazed it will even start. But it’s not huffing black smoke and it’s not overheating; it just rumbles a little more than usual. Hey, I’ve seen the movie Uncle Buck and if that car was street legal, well, maybe I could keep driving Mable the Sable forever. With a heart filled full of hope and tags expiring in 60 days, I drove it down to the emissions testing center. Where it failed spectacularly. It was a $9 lesson in humility.

Depression: That was two weeks ago. I’ve gotten the phone numbers to several car brokers and been spending most evenings researching cars and what’s available in the used car market in Nashville. And I’m not happy about it. I remember clearly 6 years ago when I lost my truck, a simple Nissan Pickup that I had driven cross-country and been with me since college. It was totaled in an accident on I-40, and like an illusion, it disappeared out of my life. I wasn’t eager to replace a pickup with a 4 door sedan, but 6 years later, turns out, I’m not eager to replace Mable either.

Hey, we’ve been through a lot together.

Me : Mable :: Han : Millenium Falcon.

People love their cars. And I love mine. There’s a strange connection there I can’t put my finger on. Probably like how my Dad feels about his workshop tools (especially his nailgun). Or the way my friend Travis feels about that excavation tool he brings camping. It would tear you up if you lost it. Tear you up even worse if it broke in your hands. I feel like a cowboy who has to put down his horse. It’s probably silly, but I feel sad.

Acceptance: Coming Soon.

Having mostly supported Sharepoint and ASP.NET applications on a Microsoft IIS front end & SQL backend, I would say I have enough experience to walk into any IT Department that is a Microsoft shop and hit the ground running. And by all accounts, I was taking a job with a fully devoted Microsoft partner. Except the group I’m hired into and the team I’m assigned to uses Oracle WebLogic to run a J2EE platform running JRockIt JVM. That is a (fun and interesting) challenge I didn’t expect. So I’m learning WebLogic.

There is so much complexity, oh the complexity, in this environment. So many moving pieces. I count five completely separate Admin consoles that have completely separate controls. And when doing a deployment, I end up using at least three of them. Even the QA environment has half a dozen nodes and a clustered SQL server. Before two months ago, I had never heard of the file extensions .war, .ear, or .hprof. Before two months ago, I probably had it easy.

What I’ve really learned in the last two months is that the world is so much bigger than I imagine it and my ability to compartmentalize can work against me. That what I know is less important than I can learn. That hard work might not get noticed but usually pays off, and being nice to people pays off at every turn. That new and scary usually means interesting and undefined, that it takes bravery (actual heroic bravery) to do this everyday, and that the poison to all of this is the desire for safety.

So I made a survey. If you want to take it, go here.

From the responses I’ve already gotten, here are some of the interesting tidbits:

• There was a general consensus that the right age for the Star Wars trilogy is 5 years old. There was considerable dissent over the Star Wars prequel trilogy, with a common thread of parents waiting a few years to show their kids the prequels.
• Most people would show their kids the first 2 Harry Potter movies before reading the books. I guess those first 2 movies really are kid friendly.
• Most people would show their kids the Chronicle of Narnia movies before reading the books.
• Nearly everyone said they wouldn’t show the James Bond movies to their children until 10 or older. That’s probably smart.

Here are the median ages from all the books and movies in the survey:

I don’t know where it came from, but there’s been a frozen turkey in our freezer since Christmas. In the first week of January, I bought an aluminum “use it once and throw it away” roasting pan and it’s been sitting on the top of our fridge.  Thursday I put it in the fridge to thaw out and I got on the Internet and read about 30 “how to cook a turkey” recipes.

When I got it out of the wrapping Sunday afternoon, there were parts of the “insides” that were still icicles. Turkcicles. And I’d never ripped the neck out of the turkey cavity before (it was a visceral experience) and had Lauren to pull up a YouTube video on her phone of someone demonstrating how to do it so I felt a little more comfortable with the whole process. Separating the skin from the meat was also a little uncomfortable. And I had to run to the store because we didn’t own a meat thermometer. And I’m not that good at carving a turkey. I ended up using my hands for most of it.

Next time I am doing a few things differently:

1. stuff the bird with onions, celery, and rosemary.
2. lay it breast side down, so the breast meat stays moist.
3. find a better use for the wings, since they have so little meat on them.
4. two words: flavor injector.

Here’s the best part: on Sunday night we had a tupperware container in the fridge holding about 8 pounds of cooked meat and it’s been easy to make lunch all week. Last week I made about 8 pounds of pulled pork in the crock pot, which lasted us about 15 totals meals (dinner for both of us 5 times and several lunches). Week before that I made sausage and lentil soup that was about 7 meals. I can make a batch of red beans and rice that is about 8 meals. It’s a nice way to live.

When we first got married, I would make dinner and it was just enough. No leftovers. I would cook 1 meal. My tune has changed. I would much rather cook for 10 meals at once. Our fridge is filled with leftovers these days, and it makes making dinner during the week much easier. I’m not to the scale of cooking cafeteria-sized recipes, like this one for Elvis Presley’s favorite fried chicken, but maybe one day.

• Read more novels. I haven’t been an avid reader since I lived in Seattle in 2005. Back then I would go through a book a week. I want to do more of that.
• Shoot more video. We got puppies in June of last year and I’m already surprised at how few photos and video I shot. And a little regretful.
• Lose some weight. In the last 2 years I’m up 15 pounds. I remember when I weighed over 300 and that Scott is never coming back. This year I’m going to swing the pendulum back.
• Stop drinking soda. I’m not yet convinced diet soda hinders weight loss, but Alton Brown believes it. So I’m stopping cold turkey.

And I just finished my first week at my new job. I think I’m really going to like it, but it’s a long walk to the coffee maker.

• ifttt.com and Evernote. The best way I’ve seen to create a searchable repository of your “Likes”, “Faves”, “Reblogs”, and “Stars”.
• Multigrain Tostitos Scoops. best chip on the market.
• Hypercritical, Back to Work, and The Incomparable podcasts. These podcasts have introduced me to new ideas, reinforced and also debunked long held opinions, and made me a fan of the medium.
• Frozen Butterbeer. Only available at Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando. I need to learn to make this at home.
• Nylabone and Kong dog toys. Especially the durable toys for active chewers.
• Ender’s Game. I had never read it. I might just re-read it in a couple of months.
• AppleTV Airplay. THIS. more of this, lots more.
• Clay Christensen’s lecture on successful innovation. He gave it at an IT Symposium in October and it is the best hour long video I’ve watched all year. Changed how I think. Watch it here.
• Keurig. I’m not a coffee snob, so it’s perfect for me.
• Married Life. So great. Not always easy.