Blogging Ottinger (tim)

I’ve been slow to blog lately, partly because of the many goings-on in my life.

My work life has kept me very busy. I’ve had a major customer in a major Agile transition, so I’ve been very busy there. Recently I was given responsibility for a team that involves only three people, but who are in charge of administering and rolling out the new version control system, the new trouble system, the new CI system, and all of the deployments of the application to about a dozen servers. They’ve been too busy reacting to demands to really get a handle on things, though they’re all good people and well-intentioned. I’ve been trying to get them enough breathing room to do some automation. I brought on an extra member and did some automation and planning, and approved of their changes. I think that sometimes we put tail-end development processes in an oxygen-poor environment. I’ve managed some advances, but we’re still behind where I hoped to leave them at the end of month. Limited success, but it’s been a good ride. I have many more improvements planned and the tools I need to implement them, but ran out of month. Now I’m picking up a second client and will be alternating between the two with less intense contact with each. I’m going to have to have intensity of effect rather than intensity of contact.

Recently, my Thinkpad died, and I’ve just received my first ever Mac Book Pro after a few weeks of suffering through windows. I’m not really sure how to deal with a Mac, but I’ll be learning. With the mac and with windows, I really miss Linux, and particularly the Debian package manager. There is really nothing like APT that I’ve found for other platforms (YUM comes close, but isn’t quite as good). Still, I’m looking forward to having a four-to-five hour battery life. I’m happy to have a machine that has a Unix under it again, too. I’ll be enjoying it on the train rides each morning.

Church life is good, as always. I’m told I’m now the chair of the worship committee. Cool.

The worship band is still performing each Sunday before the service, and I’ve been enjoying my guitar collection and the loaner pedals I’ve been using. It’s a good time. I’ve noticed that a lot of the P90 guitars I’ve been craving from RondoMusic are now out of stock. I may have to save up some bigger change for a Godin LP90, an Epiphone Casino, or the like. I hear rumors that the Fender TC90 is gone now, too. That bums me out. I may have to pony up for the Godin.

Family is exciting, though I don’t get enough time with them. I’m back to the original four members, just Libby, the boys, and myself. We’ve played frisbee golf together last weekend, and we’re now going to spend three weeks in a row together now that the kids are out of school and can travel with me a bit. It’s going to be awesome.

You know how you get spam, and you barely read the title before deleting it? I got one suggesting that you can “Please more women! Guaranteed!” That is an interesting and noble proposition, but sadly I deleted the message before I got a chance to read the author’s recommendations. It’s sad that vital information like this may have been flushed down the old spam drain by not only myself but also my many (several?) blog readers. I scrambled to my blog to provide my own sure-fire instructions.

If you try these tips, you are guaranteed* to please more women per week than ever before.

• Call your mother. Extra points if you don’t complain about anything. Double points if you brag on your wife.
• Take your daughter to a chick flick. Even if it’s one of those “high school musical” nightmares.
• Dove chocolate.
• Make eye contact with your female coworkers. Listen to what they say. Ask their opinions.
• Tell your wife you love her. “Me too” doesn’t count.
• Act your age around younger women.
• Hold the door for an older lady. Younger ones may sometimes resent it, but those with ambulatory problems or full hands seldom object.
• Why don’t you fetch her a drink for a change?
• If your wife/girlfriend asks where you want to go to eat, try making a decision. Points if it’s not a hot dog or burger joint
• Try tipping instead of flirting.
• Put off a purchase so your wife can make one instead.
• Let her drive.
• Get the kids ready for school so she doesn’t have to.
• The next three sexist jokes that come to mind: swallow them instead of telling them.
• Hand over the remote every now and then.
• Ice Cream.

I’m interested in hearing how you make out with these tips.

*Guarantee: I’ll refund the price I charged you to read this blog article. Heck, I’ll double it.

I’ve got another take on the soup. This time it is closer to my first batch. Simpler is better, most of the time.

2 Green Bell Peppers
5 Seranno peppers
1 Qt Chicken Broth
1 medium onion
1 pt heavy cream
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp garlic powder
Oil (I didn’t measure, but I doubt over 1/2 cup)
Flour (about one cup)
Cilantro (to taste)
Salt and Pepper to taste

I didn’t put extra liquid in as I did the last two times, and cut back on the ingredients. I really wasn’t too keen on using green bell peppers, wanting something more like a poblano or anaheim but apparently peppers have just started selling for USD$133.00 just like oil. We didn’t want to spend over four dollars per pepper, and the local store had only bell peppers at reasonable prices. That reminds me that I need to plant my pepper seeds. It may have been a lucky break, though, since this was a good batch.

Again, chop peppers and onion and sweat them in oil in a medium saucepan.

Add the garlic powder, then make a good, thick roux with the oil and flour. You want this to be thick like a gravy.

Let the roux brown a little, then pour in the broth while stirring. Bring it to a nice boil, reduce heat a bit and add the heavy cream and cilantro.

Let the flavors cook together in the pot for a few minutes, maybe ten or fifteen. Keep the heat down so you don’t scorch it, stir it now and then.

When the house smells really good, hit the thick soup with an immersion blender.

Finally, stir in the milk and add salt and pepper to taste.

This made enough for my family of four, and was not excessively spicy. Some of us got seconds. We used quite a few crackers, but it was yummy. Next time I want to try adding sour cream instead of heavy cream. I might go back to adding avocados again, because that was a nice touch, but this is probably the right starting point for any further experiments.

On Thursday night, the fan died on my P42p thinkpad. If I am a bit unresponsive in email, or don’t have information I should have, you know why. Hopefully we can get it resurrected, else I’m looking at maybe getting a new laptop.

The T42p has been my constant companion for about three years, and runs Ubuntu. I upgraded to Hardy Heron without a hitch. It is very snappy, and has a lot of tools and programming languages on it. Even though it would be underpowered (and the 80GB drive too small) for windows, it is quite pleasant as a Linux box. It tends to outperform my friends’ much more powerful Windows and Mac boxes, and the updates are much easier. I did have some trouble learning how to use it with different monitors, and of course my usual problems getting different IDEs all squared away, but it is a very fine box when the fan isn’t dead.