ESP is not working

One of the classes I’m taking this semester is about designing instruction in distance situations. The sad-funny thing is that I’ve never felt more distanced from a class. The professor is stretched too thin and is basically absent. If only our ESP were working, then the professor could just beam the information into our brains and we’d be all set.

The lack of information, hell, even the lack of readings, makes it really hard to care about the class. It doesn’t help that we all busted our butts to develop a lengthy instructional plan to turn in and the due date was changed the day it was supposed to be turned in. Yeah, we’re all done because that’s what you told us to do. At this level, no one is waiting until the morning of to start working on a project.

I received an email from a classmate the other day asking me if I knew which groups were presenting on Thursday because none of us have any idea if we’re going to be “on”. He and his partner are going to teach us how to putt so he needs to know if they should bring golf clubs to class and my partner and I are doing a lesson on crock pots–do I lug a crock pot to class or not?

I really like this professor, she’s also my advisor, but this absence and distance is wearing thin. I’m sure I’m not the only one who wonders what we’re paying for–it’s a half-assed class for full price.

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And looked down one as far as I could/

To where it bent in the undergrowth:

Another fine October Sunday spent walking in the woods. This time we went here.

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Beautiful Fall Day

I had a boatload of school work to do today and I got some of it set up while the better-half took an early afternoon nap. When I heard him wake up, I went downstairs and asked him if he wanted to do something. I had no ideas but I really didn’t want to sit at my desk all afternoon.

He asked me if I minded going somewhere and if it was OK to leave the windows open while we were gone. I agreed to both and then he went to check on directions. I changed into a pair of sneakers.

We ended up going for a walk in the other part of our fair county. This picture pretty well sums up the walk:

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I’m on the dole

Updated 10/24–seems the VEC has changed its mind. No checks for me. Assholes.

I applied for unemployment at the beginning of the week and, by god, they’ve already processed my claim. The downer to this is that I have to register with an online job finder service. It works like 50 blind monkeys designed it. Why there’s not an option to “upload resume”, I’ll never understand. Instead there’s some sort of stupid question gauntlet that you have to go through. Because I have to, I went through the gauntlet. Until I’m told I have to go there again, I’m staying the hell away from that site.

I’m a professional with a very specific career goal. I’m not sure that website is really going to be of much help to me. I understand why it’s there, but it’s not really for the whitest of white collar folks. For real, I sit around all day reading a bunch of documents and then I talk to people. Once I’ve gotten all the information together, I turn it into training courses. How is a website that wants to know if I know how to fill out a form* going to help me? Whatever. There’s the hoop and here’s my jump.


*Really, there was a question about if I knew how to fill out a form. As I was filling out a form. Meta? Irony? Stupid shit?

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Cozy evening

image

We were going to have dinner and then a fire pit session, but instead had a cocktail, peanuts and a fire pit session. Don’t know about dinner tonight because it’s much more cozy to stare into the fire.

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Unemployed

It’s over. In one way I’m glad because it has been more than 6 months of exhausting emotional and mental crap and in another I’m sad because good work was just tossed in the trash. I kind of want to sleep for a week.

To quote Miss Scarlett, “Tomorrow’s another day.”

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It occurs to me

It occurs to me that in a week my complaining is going to take a real hit. Without work to grouse about, what am I going to do with my time?

I’ve been kicked off the network 3 times today. Makes it really hard to do the first real task I’ve had in 2 weeks. My task? You’d like to know about my task? I’m so glad you asked.

My task is to go through all of the video that my diva co-worker left in her office. Some of them actually belong in archive boxes and others are either old or who knows what. But I need the network to compare video titles to what’s on her bookshelf.

I was in the office for a couple of hours on Wednesday to move electronic files out of reach so that folks wouldn’t steal as they packed their offices. I heard our Director telling people they could only take with them what they brought in the door.

I’m not sure if I was able to thwart my diva co-worker or not when it came to the electronic files, but she took every single office supply out of her office except a few gimme pens. And, as far as I can tell she took every file off her machine (yes, it’s possible that she deleted and didn’t take the files). I’m not going to miss her.

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The Kitties

As you may remember we have stray cats who congregate at our house. We are eventually going to have them fixed–which should be sooner rather than later because the cat population is insane. Thanks for nothing lame-o dude down the road with all your horny barn cats.

Anyway, there are favorites in the group and one of them is Fuzzy. He and his siblings have decided it is super cool to hang out on the pool cover. I just looked out the window and Fuzzy was out there by himself which is unusual because that little guy loves company.

Seeing him on the pool reminded me of pictures I took over the weekend.

Jim and Fuzzy on the cover. Look at how happy Fuzzy is to have his brother (same mother/different litters) kick him and then lick him and then kick him and then lick him:

Interrupting the fun was the pool pump. It checks for water every few minutes.

Very interesting:

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Day 8

So there are eight working days left at my place of employment. Nearly everyone has been hired by our client except for a few of us that they’ve either actively screwed or are like me and said hell no.

I worked yesterday and actually did some work-related tasks. I also got quite a bit of reading out of the way and wrote a short paper for school. Today I’m off and then for the most of the rest of the week. There’s a quick meeting at work tomorrow that I need to be present for–can’t really blow off meetings when there are so few days left to reschedule.

Next week I’m bringing in a couple of camp chairs because we’re not really sure how long the furniture is going to be around. We have some mischief planned for the furniture that stays. Nothing too dangerous or illegal, but definitely a pain the ass for the client organization. It’s the least we can do to pay them back for being such asshats. Ever wonder how long a piece of baloney will stick to melamine cabinets?

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Mmmm, carnitas.

We had taco truck carnitas tacos while on vacation. The idea of making our own has been lingering (or shouting, whichever) in the back of our minds since that beautiful day in July.

We found a simple recipe and decided to go for it this weekend.

We started by slamming pork shoulder, the juice and sections of an orange, a cinnamon stick, bay leaves and some garlic into a casserole dish:

The meat cooked for 3 1/2 hours. I found myself going outside just so I could come back in to smell that porky goodness:

Don’t worry all that liquid is removed from the meat and separated into juice and fat. Some of the liquid went into a pot to make salsa verde. Some of the fat was added back to the shredded meat:

Then the meat spent some time under the broiler while we finished making the corn tortillas (yes, from scratch). Tortillas are pretty easy to make because it is basically water, salt and masa. Hard to mess up and a brilliant payoff of corny goodness.

Look at that crisp, yet still tender pork:

And, the final product with salsa verde, onions and cilantro, cheese and avocado:

Posted in Eating | 2 Comments