Okay, initially I chose WordPress over Blogger because I couldn’t figure out how to to make the Blogger template look the way I wanted it to. But when WordPress was irritating me tonight (I finally found out you can’t edit the HTML) I managed to get Blogger to work. So one more blog transfer:
What I Had For Dinner December 29, 2009
After a long day of mostly unsuccessful outlet shopping (three pairs of pants at Banana Republic and a garlic press, when I’d gone for boots and tops) I stopped and did some errands (getting two Noah’s bagels to confirm I like them better than the local non-chain store and the library for White Tiger, which the book club at work is reading), and then I made dinner.
Lemon pepper salmon, Hungarian cabbage noodles, red curry green beans
I knew I wanted something healthy (I also bought fibrous cereal at Trader Joe’s after an associated aborted boot attempt this afternoon). I had salmon, so I put lemon pepper on it and baked it. I also had half of a small cabbage left, so I made Hungarian cabbage noodles (boil noodles, saute cabbage in a little oil, combine, add butter, salt, and pepper). And I had some green beans, so I tried something new.
Going off a recipe in the Ken Hom Thai cookbook for broadbeans I parboiled the green beans in the pasta water, then fried about two cloves of garlic in a little oil, then added the green beans, 1/2 T fish sauce, 1 T water, 1/2 tsp curry paste, and 1 tsp sugar. Fried a little bit, and voila! I was surprised how good it was! Now I know another good way to make green beans. And I bet it would work with other vegetables too.
Father Daughter Day December 28, 2009
Today my dad came out to visit. We went to the range for a class, then saw Sherlock Holmes. I was confused because the whole movie was about Holmes tracking down an evil Lord who was killing people with black magic. Since I didn’t think Sherlock Holmes was about magic that didn’t make sense to me. But then at the end in a very quick one minute summary Holmes explains how the guy did everything through science and trickery, not magic. Too little, too late. And too much Rachel McAdams, she is starting to get on my nerves. But besides that it was an entertaining movie. Robert Downey Junior did a very creditable English accent the whole time.
Besides these adventures my vacation has been quite tame. Christmas Eve with my mom’s side of the family, with the first name draw including my generation and featuring accidentally racist c0okies from my cousin Janelle. Christmas morning with the nuclear family, then Christmas afternoon with my dad’s side of the family featuring the first name draw including my generation which is the first time in several years we’ve actually had presents, which was nice. Saturday I went with my dad as he bought a big screen TV, Sunday I went shopping (largely fruitlessly). Tomorrow I’ll go shopping again – I’m making the trek to the Gilroy Outlets. I want knee-high boots to wear with skirts, and there’s a pair at Naturalizer I think might work (embarassingly I have determined I need the “wide calf” size of boots only a few stores offer). Also, I want more of the trouser jeans I got at the Banana Republic outlet last year. I really hope they’re still there.
Now, I will continue my vacation by having ice cream. Though Allison brought me a whole box of Ferrero Assortment went she was out (which I perhaps was not as overtly enthusiastic about at the time as I normally would be about Ferrero candies, not understanding they were all for me) I am savoring them by having one of each flavor each day. So with three down, now to ice cream!
Christmas Is Coming December 20, 2009
At last work is winding down. My project has been having two manufacturing runs in the pilot plant, which have had more problems than I thought possible, but the last one finished on Wednesday. One way or another it’s out of my hands. If something goes wrong now it’s definitely not my fault, which is very reassuring. I’m supposed to check in with my downstream counterpart on Tuesday that all the post-processing went well, and if it did we’re golden.
I’m taking advantage of things winding down and starting my Christmas break on Tuesday. I’ll just have to do a few emails to take care of some final stuff, but I’d rather do that from home because if that’s a vacation day rather than a work day I can sleep in. That is a deciding factor. Even Monday I won’t have too much to do, a different experiment is starting in pilot plant and I’ll essentially just be waiting for the email that that went okay. It’s really nice for things not to be crazy.
Oh, I weirded out the director again the other day. I’d asked if this project is going badly enough to need a “practice” full-scale manufacturing run (in the real manufacturing facility, not the pilot plant). One option was to start the run at manufacturing scale but do the longest part in the little reactors we use all the time. I pointed out that since the manufacturing is scheduled for our plant near San Diego either we’d have to ask our counterparts down there to run the reactors or the company’d have to pay for me to stay down there for two weeks. I’m actually looking forward to an opportunity to stay in San Diego because the company’s travel guidelines say that no one can stay at a four star hotel because they’re too expensive, unless you go to San Diego because the company has some deal with the Four Seasons such that you have to stay there if you go to San Diego. So being sent there for two weeks kind of sounds like a sweet deal. When I asked if the director would be willing to pay for me to stay down there for two weeks he actually said that if it ensured the success of the manufacturing campaign he’d be happy to, it’d be more of a question of whether I wanted to, some people have personal reasons and commitments yaddah yaddah. So I said, “Nah, I’m single and carefree, I can do it.”
For some reason he actually stepped back from my cube and laughed and said “I’m not going to touch that with a ten foot pole!” so I knew that was not a normal thing to say. And then my boss showed up because someone had seen the director outside my cube and told her. So – awkward.
Bonnie and Allison came out for lunch yesterday. I made turkey, which was quite an involved process. I wanted to try the recipe in my latest Cook’s Illustrated where you drape the turkey with salt pork because A. it sounds really interesting and B. my mom had bought me the salt pork so I was kind of committed. I took the turkey I’d bought on sale before Thanksgiving out of the freezer last Sunday because somehow I distrusted the internet’s assertion that a 12-lb turkey would thaw in two days. Sure enough when I poked it Tuesday it didn’t feel thawed. And went I went to salt it on Thursday (early in the morning, before work) it was still pretty frozen. And it had a lot of organs in it. It was really hard to get the neck out because it was attached by ice. Thursday night I cut up the bread for the stuffing (half store-bought, half Challah I’d made but kind of burnt and didn’t want to eat straight). Friday night I toasted the bread and cooked the vegetables for the stuffing. Saturday morning I rubbed the turkey with salt and baking powder, stuffed it, and draped it with salt pork before putting it in the oven. Then I ran around trying to clean because I’d put that off, and made green bean casserole (from scratch rather than cans, except the french fried onions because those are delicious and you can’t do without those) and mashed potatoes. Then the salt pork came off the turkey, the stuffing came out (which really grossed me out), it was flipped breast-up, and baked more. And it looked like:
Allison brought cute little gingerbread men and Bonnie brought corn in a cream cheese sauce that was very rich and delicious. So we had our mini Thanksgiving and talked and walked around the downtown a little.
Today after church a crowd of people went to lunch at a place in Redwood City that is some sort of venture either by Safeway grocery stores or someone who really, really likes advertising Safeway products. I had my first margherita pizza. All right. I like sausage and pepperoni better. Let’s face it, I’m a carnivore. Then three of the other girls and I went to see Up in the Air. We were supposed to see Precious, but the other girls changed their minds. As enjoyable as it is to watch George Clooney for two hours I think Precious might have been less depressing, and if you know the plot of that movie that’s saying something. I wasn’t really a fan. So watch – it’s going to get a lot of Oscars. That’s how it goes.
Oh, also of note. Thursday was the Christmas party at the 20s group at church. I wore hose and heels and found out that combination makes walking in heels much harder because the hose is slippery (why do I feel as if these are lessons most women learn much earlier?). This became most evident when the main activity of the evening started – ballroom dancing. One of the older church ladies teaches ballroom dancing for a living and taught us a few swing dancing steps. At first she had a system to assign us partners but then it went to junior high style guys pick the girls thing which wasn’t great. But that wasn’t what I meant to talk about. After the official dancing had ended one guy I didn’t know (who was wearing a full tuxedo) kept sweeping girls onto the floor and he actually knew how to ballroom dance. Today one of the girls told me he went to Georgia Tech! From the little information I had (wore a tuxedo, was very confident in his dancing abilities) I correctly guessed he was a computer science major. Do I know my GT nerds or what?!
Humidity Hair December 12, 2009
I know I haven’t been blogging much lately. Work has been incredibly, incredibly busy. And since I try not to talk about work that doesn’t leave much left.
Anyway, today is Christmas shopping. I’m already done with the extended family that I’m buying for for the first time because my generation has entered the name draw rather than being considered children. But that still leaves my nuclear family, and since someone at work pointed out it’s less than two weeks till Christmas my Saturday plans have changed from lounging on the couch until the work Christmas, excuse me, “holiday” party has turned into a shopping day. And after a quick trip to Sephora down the street I wanted to post something.
At the last family dinner there were some doubts expressed that my hair could go crazy in humidity, since it’s pretty straight.
To the naysayers, Exhibit A:
What Happens to My Hair in Humidity
That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. And that’s why I flatiron.
Freaking A November 21, 2009
I’ve known how much my company pays for my health insurance since before I started there. However, it didn’t really register that the quoted amount was per pay period – which means twice a month, not once per month.
That difference means that I have a freaking “Cadillac” health plan that Obama’s going to tax to kingdom come.
I have an HMO. I go to the doctor maybe four time a year and don’t have any prescriptions that aren’t for acne. I would love to be able to buy an insurance plan that only covers really huge things (car wrecks, cancer, having a kid) and pay that maybe $1000 of medical expenses a year that I normally use out of a health savings account and be able to keep the rest. But no, it doesn’t work like that. I can’t choose how to use the money I earn with my work that way. It makes me so freaking mad.
We are getting screwed people, screwed.
Bless Your Heart November 12, 2009
Since our company was official bought out by our Swiss overseers we’ve gotten merger/reorganization emails on a regular basis. For instance, we’ve had three CEOs since the beginning of the year. Sometimes they show our division as working along side our Swiss counterparts, sometimes halfway merged, sometimes fully merged, sometimes they show new org structures, more often they send big long descriptions of things I don’t understand, anyway there’s plenty of emails.
So today at our department lunch meeting the presenter ended early and our director solemnly asked us if we had any questions about the big important reorg email our VP had sent earlier in the week.
Deafening silence.
The hamster wheel in my head is spinning. Oh crap, there was a big reorg thing and I didn’t even notice? I’ve been glossing over all the emails that don’t pertain to my insane project for months now. Uhhh, was it that one this morning I barely looked at about how we have to take some new online training? Oh crap, I have to take that online training. This is so major everyone is being quiet about it?
Perhaps to fill the silence, perhaps out of the sheer curiosity I asked, “Which email was this, specifically?”
To which the director replied, “Abby P, bless your heart” and then went on to address the department, “Abby’s been very busy with Project X for the past while so she has a good reason for not paying close attention to all this.” And then he said it was the VP’s email Tuesday that said our division is splitting into different sections one of which is US Biologics, at which point I remembered I had actually seen that email and I had ignored it because the revelation that we’re going to be considered “US Biologics” isn’t shocking considering we’re in the US, and we do biologics.
So that was definitely the first time I’ve been told “bless your heart” outside of church, and outside the South. And it was from my director. In front of the entire department. Hm.
October 16, 2009
The conference is over! Four days of Cell Culture and …something else… goodness! “Scaling Up from Bench through Commercialization”, that was the other topic.
I don’t think I can honestly assess how many were interesting and how many weren’t, because with the time difference and having to get up early since session started at 8 there are a few I unintentionally slept through. Well, I did start listing cheeses as least twice. I missed Gouda. Yael, who was also at the conference, asked why cheeses, and the honest answer is because I can name more cheeses than grains, pork products, or presidents, so it lasts longer. One of the most interesting presentations was this afternoon, about another company’s problems with moving from little to big reactors. He had data saying it was one cause, but I think there was a major confounding factor, which I know about from my work. Either way, it could still help us with similar problems we have.
It was nice spending time in the South. People are just friendlier here. The guy on the phone at the Chinese place, the staff at the Chik-Fil-A who not only offered to “refresh our drinks” but bussed our trays (unfortunately in my shock I forgot to save the brownie I hadn’t eaten all of), the helpful hotel staff, the gentleman who opened the door to the conference center for me and then asked if I wanted a taxi ride to the airport later.
The conference center itself was huge, beautiful, and a remarkably inefficient use of space. It also had chairs that, if you sat down incorrectly, could give funny high-pitched squeaks or more frequently, lower, ruder noises that made it unclear for almost two days that it was actually the chairs.
The food we ate has been surprisingly international. The first night Yael and Kristi, a post doc I know from church, went to a tapas place (it was all right but I’m not a tapas person – I’ve never had small plates of phenomenal quantity and I usually end up hungry), then a Thai place with a larger group of people from work (very good but individual servings, not family style, forgot this was the South), then a fish place last night with an even larger group (pretty good but expensive and they did something wrong and brought my food out after everyone else’s, though I think they didn’t charge us for it after that), and tonight I got take-out from a Chinese place (very good! I got their house chicken entree and it had reputable cuts of chicken! But I also got soup and they didn’t give me a spoon…That was kind of awkward…).
Though breakfast hasn’t been too diverse. Starbucks every day. I did try to branch out yesterday, I looked up a local non-chain coffee shop on Google maps, but after not finding it (freaking Google maps) I went back to Starbucks. I am using Roche money to try new and exciting Starbucks drinks I’d never pay for myself. Well, I guess I’d buy a white mocha for myself again, since that was good, but yesterday I learned that the chocolate espresso truffle isn’t that great. Tomorrow I’m going to risk it all on a pumpkin spice latte, because that sounds horrible but apparently the other girls at church look forward to them all year. And maybe crumb cake, because it’s not like muffins have nutritional value so I’m just going to stop pretending and go for what I want.
I have discovered Modern Family online and will now use the rest of the “I can’t fall asleep because of the time change” time to watch the remaining three episodes available on Hulu.
Weeklong Blahs October 6, 2009
Work has been very busy lately, which is my excuse for not posting. There isn’t much of interest to say when you work ten hours a day, come home, eat, and go to bed. I did see Zombieland last weekend with Christy from church. It was awesome. Lot of zombie violence and hilarity. The zombies did keep barfing, which I had to look away from. I can take them being shot, but not them barfing.
Part of what made last week blah was that I tried making red beans and rice. The red bean recipe took some special ingredients like kielbasa, and was from America’s Test Kitchen, but ended up not fantastic. Maybe the first day it was all right, but after that it got old really fast.
On the other hand it was full of fiber. Still not worth it.
See, I have the best of intentions to eat things that are good for me. Beans, fish. But then I just don’t like them! I’m much happier with a bowl of plain boiled noodles with parmesan cheese on top. Mmm, white, nutrition-less flour.
Stain Removal Triumph September 19, 2009
I have found a solution for underarm stains! At least, it’s proved itself on two shirts so far. Completely got rid of them.
What I did was wet the area and scrub in dishwashing soap, specifically the Method dishwashing soap from Target. Then I soak the whole garment in a lot of Oxiclean for a while. And it’s worked! And better than just Oxiclean, I’ve done that before and it kind of helps, but not completely.
See, I need more T-shirts, but since I started looking I’ve only bought one. So when I noticed bad stains and a ripped seam on one of my free Georgia Tech T-shirts I did stain removal and a repair rather than just designate it for rags.
I enjoy figuring stuff out like that.
