NaBloPoMo - Day Last

Hooray! I made it. It ended up being mostly about my job, but a man is defined by his work, right? Unfortunately, as I have detailed, this blog felt a little bit like work. I had some topics that I wanted to write about but never got to. I'm not sure why; perhaps if I spend a lot of time a few days a month, it will be easier than a little bit every day. I am going to try and enjoy this whole month, besides Christmas it is my 40th birthday, and it will be busy at work, but not as busy as last week. In case you're wondering, I have no problem turning 40, life begins at 40 and all that. I embrace it.

So you won't be seeing me for awhile, writing anyway. Maybe I'll be moved enough to write something at some point, but it certainly won't be everyday. If I win a prize I'll let you know. :)

I hope I'm just tired.

I have been pretty cranky for the past few days, sorry about that. I'm hoping it's just work and not sleeping well that is making me that way. This year I didn't upend my schedule like I did the last two years, which I think is helping a lot, but it's not making the crank unavoidable. I don't think anything can do that, save for quitting my job and devoting myself to a life of leisure. That probably isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Being the manager now is part of it, because I hate being in charge, and I don't see any way out of it at this point. I'm not a born leader, as leaders are, I like to go with the flow I guess. I think being the manager is more stressful than the actual work volume in November and December. I wonder if that's why I'm not sleeping well. I've been having a lot of work-related dreams lately, but they all center around baking and not managing. Who knows.

This Saturday Sarah and I and my sister and her husband are going to Christmas in Odessa. Odessa is a very small town in DE to the north of us. For the past 40-odd years, they get a lot of people in town to decorate their homes (most of which are very old), and they open them to the public. We saw the sign the first time we came to DE in 1997 to scout out living locations, but we didn't make it until last year. It was everything I had built it up to be in those 10 years, and I had a really good time. We stayed overnight on Christmas Eve at Sarah's parents' house last year, and we made donations in all the adults' names instead of giving gifts (her parents did not strictly adhere to this). Aside from my stupid schedule at work, it was one of the best Christmases I've ever had. It came very close to the vibe of Christmas when I was a kid, which I really enjoyed and missed, because most of my family from then has passed away and the rest of us are all over the states. We are doing all these same things this year, so I think it will be even better. I don't really get into the religious side of Christmas; I like the togetherness and the giving part of it, and I try to stay away from the commercial aspect. These days it's hard to avoid.

Slow.

Today was one of the slowest Saturdays we've had in awhile. I can't really judge it though, since I left 3 hours after we opened, and there were 8 hours left to go. It's usually very busy for the first hour on Saturday, and then it gets extremely busy around 10.30-11. Neither of those things happened. I was hoping to get out after 8 hours, but that didn't happen either. It rarely does.

I have had a nap already, but I still feel pretty crappy. I'm going to sit my ample butt down on the couch and do nothing. This is basically how I feel:

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Is it over yet?

Boy, I'm glad this month is almost over. I don't know if it's because I've been busy at work, but I have grown to hate writing my blog. I never feel I have anything to say. When I do have something to say, it never comes out the way it is in my head. It's like work now, and I dread it and either push it off for awhile, or get it over with fast.

It's weird, because when I was a kid I wanted to be a writer. I think this is because of Richie Cunningham. "Happy Days" is where I learned the word journalist, and Richie was my favorite, so naturally I wanted to be like him. I never really pursued it though. In school when I would have to write papers, I would always do it at the last minute, and I almost always got a good grade. Now it's voluntary and I feel like I suck at it. I know I just need practice, but I just don't want to do that.

After my grandfather passed away, I was talking with Sarah about writing something about him. That same day, I looked at my horoscope in the newspaper, which said something to the effect that I had a great idea for a book and should get to work. It's almost 20 years later and all I have to show for that is a melodramatic first chapter that I wrote here in my blog. I loved my grandfather very much, and I'm the kind of person that feels like I would be disappointing him if I didn't finish the book. But I just don't know if I can do it.

I like to read a lot, and this time of year I don't normally get to do too much of it, but this year I have. Maybe I'll just stick to that.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have finished cooking Thanksgiving dinner for Sarah and myself, and we are done eating it. It came out pretty good. I was supposed to get a 16 pound turkey, but they brought out a 12 pounder by mistake, and I thought that might be enough. We have a LOT of meat leftover, but that's okay. I'm going to make some stock from the leftover bones and stuff. I hope everyone else had a great meal today!

Things I am thankful for: Sarah, the rest of my family, our house, our jobs, and yes, even our pets. Everyone enjoy the rest of the day. :)

My busiest day of the year.

Well, it's finally over. I made it through another Thanksgiving. Everyone of my co-workers (and Sarah) did a great job, and we had a lot of stuff to put out for sale today. I made 125 dozen dinner rolls today, among other stuff (if I haven't mentioned before, a big day for dinner rolls is 9 dozen). I got an e-mail from my supervisor after work, saying that all the rolls were gone and that there were not too many pies left. That was nice of him to do that, becuase it was going to drive me crazy waiting till Friday to find out how much we sold. I am actually off on Friday this year, but my co-worker was going to call me and let me know (I did the same for her last year, it bugs her too, not knowing). It's going to make her job harder on Friday, but she'll be there early and I didn't want to have too many leftovers (one year we had around 35 dozen rolls left, that was a nightmare).

Yesterday I had trouble sleeping, I guess I was anxious about the work, because I was having dreams about multiple pans of burnt dinner rolls. I got up an hour early and went into work a half hour early. At around 11 pm I started getting really tired, I was floundering and having trouble focusing, and it took a few hours to snap out of it. At least this year I didn't forget the yeast in anything. It's almost a tradition that I forget the yeast in something on Thanksgiving; one year it was a mix of 42 dozen rolls. That was not a fun time. Hopefully I have broken that tradition.

So now I have two days to relax. Tomorrow I am making Thanksgiving dinner for Sarah and I; this will be my third time making everything by myself. The turkey is currently swimming in brine, and I'm going to make mashed potatoes, apple sausage stuffing, green bean casserole, and a few pies. I brought rolls from work. :) There will be napping, since we'll be alone and we don't have to feel bad about napping, and Sarah is going to watch the parade because she always misses it. We have to take care of our cats- and bunnies-in-law, but other than that and maybe some Beatles Rock Band, we are doing nothing. Hooray!

Oy.

The last month or so did not prepare me for yesterday. I made less than I did last year, and they cleaned me out. And they didn't start getting orders in until late last week, and I have a lot more orders for tomorrow than I did last year. Today I made 99 dozen dinner rolls altogether. I forgot to mention yesterday that the dinner rolls are all rolled by hand, two at a time. So it takes awhile (it's just me doing them). I had help today, Sarah came in and set everything up for me (thanks sweetie!) and my co-worker picked up the fruit danish and quick breads. That turned a 14 hour day into a 12 hour day. Every little bit helps!

I am all showered already and I'm going to make my breakfast and set up the coffee maker. Good night!

A Quick Blog (While He's Awake)

This week at work, the top selling item I make is dinner rolls. I make four kinds, white, wheat, pumpkin, and sweet potato. Today I made 28 dozen altogether, but there were no orders. I have a few tomorrow, and many more on Wednesday. Both Tuesday and Wednesday we get a LOT of walk-in sales for dinner rolls. I will most likely make over 100 dozen on Wednesday. I will be going to sleep soon, and I'm getting up at 8.15 to eat, and I should be back at work by 10 (I got home about 90 minutes ago).

I picked up my co-worker last night and I needed to stop at the gas station before work. It's one of those big ones with the huge parking lots, and it was swarming with Amish ruffians when we got there (with their buggies). One of them leaned over and tried to touch the car while I drove past, which is an idiotic thing to do. Unfortunately, the Amish stop going to school after 8th grade, and I didn't learn common sense till 9th grade, so maybe that's it. I like the word ruffians, don't you?

Here We Go!

Today was a busy day for me, I went to the store this morning to finish my Thanksgiving shopping (which is unfortunately not finished). Then I cooked some stuff for the next three days, which included a meatloaf, goulash, and some gravy and mashed potatoes (the box kind, but I won't cheat on Thursday). Sarah is having a Thanksgiving lunch at work tomorrow, and she ordered a pumpkin and apple pie from my work. I don't like our pie crust, so I made those myself today too. Usually during Thanksgiving week, I eat a lot of sandwiches at work. Not this year, dammit.

Sarah was going to come in to work and help me tonight, but she is out this afternoon and I didn't want to go in too early, so I told her to stay home tonight. She will come tomorrow and Tuesday night though. She saves me a lot of time when she does that. :)

I have to go take a shower and take care of the animals while the food is cooling, then I'll pack it all up before bed. I have to hurry, because I'm getting up at 11 or so. There will be truncated blogs the next few days, probably about work. I know all both of you are on the edge of your seats.

And again.

Today was a long day at work, I was hoping to get a lot of stuff done in advance for next week. I got most of it done, I had to leave some of it. I can probably get some of the ladies to do it if they have some extra time. I haven't decided what time I want to go in on Monday (or Sunday). I probably should go in late Sunday night so I have enough time to sleep Monday afternoon.

In other exciting news, I ordered my fresh turkey today. I got a 16 pounder so we would have lots of leftovers. I am going shopping tomorrow morning for the rest of my Thanksgiving stuff, hopefully I won't forget anything. I am going to do the brine thing again this year, I've done it twice in my life and it has come out great both times. I am going to have to brush up on turkey carving online, as I have never done that. I also have to figure out what to make for breakfast; obviously something that doesn't need to go into the oven.

Sadly I will be Pookie-free almost all weekend. She was collecting canned food at the supermarket today with her mom and sister, and she's going to the Avon club meeting this afternoon, then to an outing with her boss tonight. Tomorrow she is going to the Penn Museum in Philly for Harry Potter day with her mom and sister and our niece. We went to the first one, and it was really very cool. They had Potter-related displays and classes and also tied in the museum displays to Harry Potter, where they could. They have college students playing the characters from the books, and at one point we passed Professor Snape in a stairwell. He actually glared at us and was very scary! It was a great day and I'm sad it's this weekend, because I cannot go.

I was talking with a co-worker today who just turned 21 last week. She was upset because she will be 30 in less than 9 years! I told her I will be 40 in less than a month. She said that was okay for me, because I am used to being old. That's always nice to hear. :)

Another post about work

Since this is the busiest month of the year at work (which I believe I have mentioned ad nauseum), this is getting to be a bit difficult coming up with something everyday. Next week will be even worse, look forward to it!

I have been pretty tired lately, and I think I know why. Besides getting up at 12.30 on work days, and going to sleep around 7 each night, and having sleep apnea and a CPAP, I think lack of singing is a problem. I worked by myself for a very long time, I was usually there alone for more than half the day. But this year I finally got some help, I pick up my co-worker every day, and she does a lot of stuff that I usually do, so I can do more bread and rolls. It really is a big help, because usually I have to bring my own help from home, and then it's only on holidays (that would be Sarah).

When I was by myself, I had my music up loud and I would sing along loudly, without worrying about people hearing me. Now, I can't do that anymore. I do have music on, but I have to turn it down, because I can't hear my co-worker talking if it's too loud (and she enjoys talking). That means no singing too, because I feel weird about that. I also had to make a non-cursing playlist on the iPod, because she is Amish and I have a little respect, I guess. So like Butthead says, you gotta have stuff that sucks in order to have stuff that's cool. I am looking forward to the Saturday after Thanksgiving, which is the next time I'll be by myself at work. Let the cursing resound!!

Happy Anniversary To ME.

Today is my work anniversary! I started working at Byler's in 2001, while I was still working in the 13th circle of hell (Sam's Club). The only other place I've worked as long was for my dad, which was 9 years and 4 months.

The bakery actually opened the day I started working there. The store was expanded in August I think, but the bakery wasn't finished until November. We opened on the Monday before Thanksgiving, which I really tried to talk them out of. We had what seemed like a huge space back then, and it was me, my supervisor, her husband, and another woman who made up the bakery. We started at 7 in the morning, which was horrible because it was so late (I convinced them to start at 4 the following week). We didn't really have a plan, we just baked stuff and put it out for sale. We did have a few pie orders for Wednesday, because they had advance notice throughout the store that the bakery was coming.

That first week made Sam's Club look really good. None of us knew what the hell was going on, the ovens weren't working right, and we were using expired closeout crap for some of the ingredients. But it was kind of exciting too, because as the weeks went on, I could see that I could really make a difference and help make the bakery into something special, which I think I have accomplished.

Over the years there have been so many changes in the bakery, and it's gotten bigger (and smaller, if that makes any sense) and a lot busier. I'm the only one left of the original four people who is still in the bakery (my supervisor went back to her office upstairs a few months after we opened), and I hope that will be the case for many years to come, as I don't know how to do anything else.

Turnips and antifreeze!

I wasn't planning on writing all that yesterday. Maybe my subconscious knew that I wanted to get a lot of things done today, and sitting at the Mac trying to hash out a blog wasn't going to help. So today is short and sweet; if I come back here after Sarah goes to work, that is the death knell for the entire day. Here is a video I like, enjoy!

BUY SOMETHIN' WILL YA!

It's been kind of slow at work lately, I think people are finally realizing that we are in a recession and are acting accordingly. It was a lot busier last year, but it was also colder last year and we even got a little snow around Thanksgiving. When the forecast is for snow here in central DE, people panic, and we sell lots of bread and milk. It's getting a little colder now, but not much. From what I have seen, people will eat more baked goods when it's cold, which makes the holiday placement very fortuitous for a baker.

The three days before Thanksgiving are the busiest of the year for me. Last year I went into work at 10 pm Sunday night (we are closed on Sundays). I don't remember when I left, but by the end of Wednesday, I almost had my 40 hours in. That may not happen this year, but I'm okay with that. I won't be getting the overtime, but I may enjoy the holiday more. I am cooking for just Sarah and me, and I have off on Friday, so it will be a lot of fun. Sarah has been sick though for the past few days, and I hope she gets better in time for Thanksgiving so she can enjoy it too.

I don't want to give the impression that we throw a lot of stuff away; we don't. When the shelf life is reached, we put it out on a rack by the registers for half price, and 99% of the time, there is nothing left (we do throw it out the next day if it doesn't sell for half price). This has only been the case for the past year or so, which again is due to the economy in my opinion.

A few weeks ago we got a new label machine for our stuff, and the labels now print the pack date instead of the ordinal date (which is what day of the year it is, in numerical order. For instance, the ordinal date on our price sticker for Christmas this year would be 9359; 9 being 2009 and Christmas being the 359th day of the year. Sorry if my explanation insults your intelligence). With the ordinal date on the package, a lot of people didn't know what it meant, and most didn't ask. Now they can see the actual production date, which had me a little worried that people wouldn't buy bread if they thought it was old. I changed the shelf life to 3 days from 4 just to be on the safe side, and we're staling a lot more bread because of it. I've been trying to make less bread, but I've been doing it one way for so long that it's hard to break the habit. One bread that I don't have to worry about is sourdough. It has been selling out everyday (which is only 6 loaves, we are a small volume bakery, unless it's a holiday), and we also recently lowered the price.

I would love to sell more bread; I love making it and I'm pretty good at it. I wish I could concentrate on just that, but we don't have the help (or the sales, so I'm told) to make that happen. We also don't have the equipment. I've mentioned before that our ovens are crappy and we don't have steam in them like regular bakeries do (Sam's Club has steam, for God's sake). Steam gives you a chewier crust, which I like, but the boss doesn't like, or didn't. All the bread had to be soft when I started working there. I have taken to putting bread pans in the oven and filling them with water when I put the bread in to simulate steam, but it doesn't work as well. I wish we could have gotten a rack oven like I asked for for 4 years, instead of the convection ovens that we did get.

Sarah took the week off next week to come in and help me, which she's been doing for a few years now. She usually sets everything up and does the pull so I can start mixing the dinner rolls right away. It's nice, because I normally wouldn't see her those three days for more than a few minutes at a time. Plus she says it reminds her of when I worked for my dad and she would come and visit me when we were dating. I just hope that I'm going to need the help next week.

:(

Sarah and I were coming home from the doctor today, and we saw a garbage truck on the opposite side of the road. From the front I saw a large pink teddy bear fall to the ground behind the truck. The guy in the back picked it up and threw it in the back of the truck, its head lolling back the whole time. I looked in the rear view mirror as we passed it and saw it among the trash, waiting to be compacted. We were quiet for a minute, and then I asked Sarah, "That was kind of sad, wasn't it?" She said "It was."

Video Game Music.

This is how much of a geek I am: I like listening to video game music, independently of playing the game that the music appears in. I also listen to game music from games I have never played or have never made it through. I have a bunch of CDs with game music on them, and there is game music in my iPod and iTunes. For awhile, most game music was not in mp3 format, so you couldn't burn it to a CD or listen in Winamp (this is way before iTunes) without lovingly converting it to mp3. This took a long time of sitting in front of the computer, and I did dozens of soundtracks this way, which I still have. Lastly, most of my favorite soundtracks are from the 16 bit era and before, as I never had a Playstation or Sega Dreamcast or anything from the mid to late 90s.

I think a lot of the appeal for me is nostalgia. I played a lot of these games when life was uncomplicated and I didn't have any worries. But some of the music is very beautiful. I have the Secret of Mana game for the SNES, but I didn't get very far into it. I found the music for it (under its Japanese name, Seiken Densetsu) on Usenet, and it's probably one of my favorite soundtracks ever.



Nowadays you can find a lot of these soundtracks in mp3 on various torrent sites, but I try to stay away from those. I'm also too lazy these days to convert the files to mp3, but I will make one exception. Back when I was in the thick of gaming music, there was one soundtrack I was dying to have, because it was one of my favorites and I had logged a lot of hours playing it. Unfortunately, no one had ripped the files from the game back then. I tried to learn how to do it myself, but laziness pervaded. On a whim, this morning I went to a game music site I haven't been to in a number of years, and sure enough, someone had ripped the soundtrack in my absence. I downloaded it and listened to it, and it made me very happy. What game was it? Why, Monopoly for the NES of course. I told you I was a geek!

Stupid cats!

Just now our cat Toby managed to knock over our free standing halogen lamp, which shattered the bulb all over the floor. I had no less than three cats jump on me and scratch up my legs because of the loud noise. Then they all had to go over and see what the broken shards were before we could go and get the vacuum cleaner. Luckily none of the cats stepped in the glass (luckily meaning unfortunately in this case).

They say that having pets lowers your blood pressure, but they didn't give a maximum allowable amount, which is what the problem is. Sometimes I would rather take lisinopril for the rest of my life than have cats. But I love them anyway, because I'm stupid too.

7 (Cats of Gloom)

You must do a lot of loafing

Being a baker, that's one joke I NEVER EVER get tired of when people ask me what I do for a living. Oh my yes. :P

Tomorrow at work, I have what I think is the biggest single bread order that I've ever had in the almost 8 years I've been there. 65 loaves of sourdough bread, sliced, for 9 am. The hard part is going to be the slicing and bagging, which sadly I will probably not be a party to. It's Saturday as well, which is the busiest day of the week, so it's going to be a little hairy. But I'm only going in a half hour early, because I don't feel like messing with my schedule too much today. Not that I have important things to do, but Sarah is not feeling well and I want to pick her up at work at 5 so she doesn't have to walk home in the rain. Well, I don't have important things to do besides that. My work ethic has made me miss a lot of time with her in the past, and I also missed a lot of things that I now wish I hadn't, so no more slave to work, unless it's obvious like the holidays. But it's been kind of slow so far this year, and I kind of half hope that it doesn't get any busier so that maybe I can enjoy them a little bit more, which would be nice.

VII

On a slightly related note, I'm really looking forward to making Christmas cookies this year, even though my mixer broke. I won't be doing it overnight like the last two years, so Sarah and I are doing them together. She has already promised to decorate the gingerbread cookies for me. She's very creative, so I'm going to let her do them however she wants. I can't wait!

Nablopomo Day 12

Good day, and welcome to Day 12.

My friend Monica has a few regular features on her blog. One is Haiku Thursday, where she writes her blog in haiku. This is too much thinking for me today, since it is Thursday. She also does Friday Shuffle, where she takes her iPod and puts it on shuffle and takes the first 10 songs and writes something about it. She usually puts lyrics up, but again, too much work. So I present Thursday Shuffle! I have to go get my iPod, be right back.

Okay, here we go. Please bear in mind that I have about 1000 cds, and only a fraction of them are on my iPod. The burner on the iMac broke after I started putting music onto the iPod. Pleh.

1. Louisiana Redbone, Paul Revere and the Raiders - This is from the Alias Pink Puzz album from 1969, which is long past their peak of popularity. I love the album, but this is not one of my fave raves. I think it's lazy when the same phrase is rhymed over 2 lines.

2. Hang On To Your Ego, The Beach Boys - This is the alternate version from the Pet Sounds Sessions box. I prefer this version to I Know There's An Answer, which I believe Brian wrote new lyrics for after Mike Love complained that the original lyrics (Ego) were too heavy. I may be oversimplifying or totally incorrect.

3. Speed Racer, Devo - From the Oh No, It's Devo! album, which is what many people say, including my wife. I never liked Speed Racer when I was a kid, so this song is also not a favorite. But Devo has feelings too!

4. She Knows Me Too Well, The Beach Boys - This song is kind of typical for post-surfing and pre-drugging Beach Boys; beautiful harmonies, but simplistic lyrics. I still like it though.

5. The Longest Time, Billy Joel - I was 13 when the Innocent Man album came out, and I was heavily into oldies at the time, so I was crazy for this album. Not so much now, but he does a good job doing all the singing by himself.

6. Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway), Billy Joel - This is a live version, from the 12 Gardens album. My first impression of this album was that they detuned all the instruments to accommodate Billy's voice. I prefer the earlier live versions that I have, but he pulled out a lot of obscure stuff on this tour. The song is originally from Turnstiles, which is my favorite album of his.

7. Through The Long Night, Billy Joel - Jeez, the shuffle is broken I guess. This is a beautiful sparse song that always reminded me of the Beatles. I love the harmonies on this one.

8. She's Goin' Bald, The Beach Boys - I think the tune and melody are from the aborted Smile sessions. What a crazy awesome song. "You're too late mama, ain't nothin' upside your head." Genius.

9. Glad Girls, Guided By Voices - This is one of their "hits," as far as you can use that word with Guided By Voices. To me, they seemed to get a lot poppier towards the end. I think this was in a Buffy episode or something like that. Great song.

10. Sportin' Life, The Lovin' Spoonful - It's seems like such a shame that they only released around 5 or 6 albums worth of material. I think all of their stuff with John Sebastian is awesome. This is a nice slow blues song with a great wailing harmonica. Zal Yanovsky is a horribly underrated guitarist, probably because he was also a goof.

Some of you may be wondering where the Beatles are. They didn't show up until song # 24, which is very strange, considering they make up almost 25% of my iPod. Next time I guess.

7.

Veterans Day SALE!!!

Today is Veterans Day (formerly Armistice Day). It is a day to honor United States veterans of all wars. But like most American holidays, it's just an excuse to get a day off work and/or shop. As we all know, Christmas starts in October now, and not everyone celebrates Christmas anyway (I won't even go into the recent War on Christmas here). Thanksgiving is basically for eating and watching football, and I think FDR moved it back a week to kickstart the Christmas buying season. Valentine's Day is a terribly commercial holiday that starts right after Christmas is over. Easter's religious themes have given way to chocolate, eggs, and gifts. Gifts! I never got gifts on Easter, just chocolate. I'm not religious, so many of these holidays mean spending time with family, as that's what is important to me. Last year for Christmas, for adult gifts, we gave money to a charity in their name, but we gave my niece and nephew toys.

Am I also guilty of being a holiday commercialist? Of course, I make food for a living, and I will cater to whatever holiday is coming up. I will take my wife out to dinner on Valentine's Day, and I have gotten her chocolates. But Veterans Day (and Memorial Day) shouldn't be treated this way, as those days are honoring the people that let us commercialize these holidays in the first place! So if you haven't already done it, please thank a vet today. They deserve it.

What, me worry?

If there's one thing about myself that I would change, it would be worrying. I have always been a worrier, but at this point in my life, it's actually physically hurting me, as well as mentally. I think butterflies in the stomach is due to worry, but sometimes it goes father than that, like maybe you feel really sick or throw up.

When I get worried, I hunch my shoulders, so much so that it is second nature. I have to actually realize that I'm doing it in order to relax, but it doesn't last long. A couple of months ago, we had our Customer Appreciation Day at work. It's usually a very busy day, and it's also a long day for me. I guess that I was super hunching, because by the end of the day, I had a terrible pain in my neck and right shoulder, which went down into my arm. When I left for the day, I could barely use my right arm because it hurt to put any pressure on it. It hasn't hurt like that since then. It's flared up a few times when I've been stressed about something, but never as bad as that day.

I know that I can avoid this. I couldn't change the fact that Customer Appreciation Day was coming, and I can only do my best at work, so worrying is for naught. I don't think worrying has ever helped me in any situation before, yet I do it constantly. Many people worry constantly for no reason at all, usually hurting themselves in the process. Why?

I had a neck pain flare-up today while I was at work. Two weeks ago I read somewhere about male breast cancer, which I don't think I ever heard about before. Friday night when I got out of the shower, I noticed that I had a painful knot underneath the skin on my chest. I thought it was probably a pimple that hadn't surfaced yet, but the breast cancer angle was in the back of my mind, and I started worrying a bit. It got stronger after a few days when the knot didn't go away, and I worried about telling Sarah because I didn't want her to worry. I told her on Monday when I got home from work, and I told her I was going to call the doctor (which is the reverse of what usually happens). The doctor's office told me to call back on Tuesday morning, so naturally my neck and arm started to hurt once I got to work this morning and started thinking about it. Along with worrying, I tend to assume the worst is going to happen, and I make up scenarios of doom in my head. That's what I occupied myself with during work, so I was good and frightened when I got to the doctor's office.

The doctor basically said that my first instinct (the rogue pimple) was probably correct, and that cancerous lumps aren't painful at first, and the fact that it didn't hurt as much now was a good sign. All stuff I could have found out on the internets, if I had stopped worrying for a second and thought about doing that. The doctor is not ignoring it though, I go back next month regardless of what happens to it in the meantime. But it was a relief to hear.

It seems abnormal to live my life without worrying about something, which itself is probably abnormal. I just don't know how to stop.

Fall, we hardly knew ye

A couple of days ago I had the heat on in the house and it was cold at work. Today I had the AC on in the car, and I'm going out to cut the grass in shorts and a t-shirt. I hope we get back to fall before Thanksgiving, because I am making a turkey for Sarah and me (it's just going to be the two of us for the first time), and I like to brine it. I don't have room for a turkey bucket in our refrigerator. The last time I did it (2001), I was able to brine the turkey in the attic for three days, because the temperature in the attic was well below the green zone. I don't think it's been that way since then. And it would be fantastic to have snow on Christmas, even though we may be driving to be with my sister and her husband. I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but I really like this time of year, but it's not right if it's this warm out. I will keep my fingers crossed.

Old Friends

This morning I had a friend request on Facebook. It was my childhood best friend Steve, who moved to Ohio in the summer after 5th grade. I was very sad to lose him, but it may have been better than what happened with a lot of my elementary school friends. We ended up drifting apart and hardly speaking once we got into middle school and high school. The same thing happened to Steve and I, but I chalked it up to being a distance problem. When you get to middle school, you're no longer with the same people that you've been with for the last 5 years, and there's a lot more people to talk to. So you do drift apart, but I think you get more life experience that way.

Back to Steve. I don't know if we met in kindergarten or first grade. We didn't become really close till probably 3rd or 4th grade. I could be wrong, because short periods of time when you're 10 seem like they lasted an eternity when you're approaching middle age. I think it might have been the Beatles that brought us together. We were both big fans, and he had a lot more of their records than I did. He made me some tapes of them, and I remember him loaning me his white vinyl copy of the White Album, which I didn't have because it was a double album and therefore cost prohibitive. One of my most vivid memories of Steve was on the morning of December 9th, 1980. My mom had left me a note that John Lennon had been murdered the night before, and I went downstairs to watch it on the news. I was sad about it, but I didn't really know yet what had been lost. After awhile, I thought I would go to the school early (it was across the street from my house) and see if Steve was there yet. He apparently had the same thought, as he was walking up my sidewalk when I went out the door (the only time that I can remember him doing this). He managed to look stricken and angry at the same time. I don't remember what we said to each other, but it was good to be together then.

We spent a lot of time together. We would wait outside the school in the mornings, and many times we would cross Hamilton Blvd. and go to the Corner Deli to get baseball cards or Jolly Rancher Apple Stix. We made up a band called the Jumping Doodles, and I had a tape recorder and we recorded a song that Steve had written called "We're All Going To Camp Gitchee Gumee." Another classic was "Lick Your Hand and Smell It." This is what 10 year olds do, I guess. He had a blue hoodie that had the string in the hood, which I coveted. I had to get my clothes at Sears, and they apparently didn't have any blue hoodies or my mom wouldn't get it for me. I finally got my own blue hoodie last year, and it makes me think about Steve whenever I wear it.

If I'm remembering correctly, his moving was a sudden thing, because I remember it hitting me like a ton of bricks. I was very upset, I may have even cried about it. I was moved enough to get him a going away present, which was AC-DC's Dirty Deeds album. I went to his house to give it to him a day or two before he moved, but he wasn't home.

I suppose we did actually drift apart. His moving meant we didn't see each other everyday anymore, but we could write letters to each other. He wrote me a letter, but I don't think I ever wrote him back. I was never much of a communicator, which extends to my adult life. I did call him once when I was on a trip to Michigan, and I think that's the last contact we had, until this morning. It's much easier to keep in touch with people these days with the internet. Steve still lives in Ohio, but Ohio is a lot closer these days. When I was a kid, I had to get permission to call someone who was that far away, and visiting was pretty much out of the question unless we were taking a vacation in the area (I didn't make it to Ohio until 2005, on a Beatles related trip, and I think we were very close to where Steve now lives. Dammit). But now, I can email, or catch up on Facebook, or call (which I probably won't, as I hate the phone, sorry Steve). I can even drive out there and see him if I want, which is not a bad idea at all.

Filler

Just doing my nablopomo obligation today, sorry about that. I know you were expecting some meandering sentences without a proper resolution today. Sorry to disappoint. Saturday is usually relaxing day, I work the most hours of the week (usually) and I have a catch-up nap. Then Sarah and I eat nachos for dinner and watch television. We are watching the IFC Monty Python documentary, and we are just getting to the part where they start making movies, which is what Sarah has been waiting for. My coffee is ready now, so I'll see you tomorrow.

Christmas Foods FTW!

You know how when you watch the Food Network this time of the year, and they have promos that say "Season's Eatings?" I take that to heart. Archway Cookies (which briefly went out of business last year and scared the crap out of me) makes a Holiday Assortment every year, and they're usually the only way I can get pfefferneusse (sometimes I can find Stella D'oro, but they're not as good). I am a fan of Archway on Facebook, and they announced that the assortment was now available. Today I went to the only store that I have found them in, but they did not have them yet. They did have a Christmas food half aisle, and they had those giant Panettones and Jane Parker fruitcakes. I bought a dark fruitcake, and ohmygod is it delicious. I bought some egg nog too. I usually get Southern Comfort egg nog, but they didn't have that either, so I got some Lehigh Valley nog. I put some bourbon in it when I got home, which made it a little tastier. This store had these great marzipan-filled stollens last year, but not today. They had a lot left over last year, so I'm worried that they won't have them this year. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

But you're a baker! I hear you cry. You can make this stuff yourself! Yes, I can, but I've never had any luck with pfefferneusse. I make stollen at work, but I have grown disenchanted with the recipe I was using. I've been trying some new recipes out in the last couple of weeks, and the first one was actually pretty close to the one I got at the store. I'm going to try a few more; I have some old bakery formula books from the 40s and 50s that have stollen recipes in them that I need to reduce in size, which I'm afraid might make a difference. Plus they have weird stuff in them that would be hard to find these days (does anyone still use powdered ammonia?) I do make a good fruitcake (which I need to get started on, actually), but it takes awhile to absorb all the bourbon and cure. I DO have one that I made over a year ago. I was supposed to send it to my dad, but I never did. I really want to eat it but I would feel bad. I can't believe I haven't eaten it already. It taunts me everyday.

Untitled

My blog really sucks this month, I can't put cohesive sentences together anymore. Sorry about that, fair readers.

In exciting news, we got our new scale at work, and now the process of labelling baked goods is more precise and streamlined. If only we could get the baking to that point. We have two old 4 door deck ovens (basically pizza ovens). I'm pushing 40 (holy crap, that's the first time I've had that thought!) and those ovens are older than I am. Earlier this year we got a 2 door convection oven. I had been asking for a rack oven with steam for many years, but we got the convection oven to implement the crappy ones we already had. I had never used a convection oven before this, and I told them that. We got it anyway. I was told that it would be good for pies and cookies, but not for yeast-raised stuff, which is my department. A convection oven, for those who don't know, has a fan in it to blow the hot air around, baking everything evenly as well as faster than a regular oven. It baked evenly for awhile, but now, not so much. One of the problems with the deck ovens is that we have to turn almost everything around halfway through baking, which gets to be a large pain in the ass (and my back too, the bottom doors are about 10 inches off the floor). The convection oven was supposed to correct this, but lately we have started turning pans around in there too. Lovely.

When we first got it, we had to figure out how to use it, because the manual was not really forthcoming in this department. We figured out the pies first, they come really nice now. We had trouble with the cookies and bar cookies (brownies et. al.), and people would complain about the cookies that were baked in the convection oven. So now, we don't do any cookies at all in there. I experimented with some of the yeast raised stuff, and the bread in the loaf pans comes out great, as does the cinnamon rolls. I bake the pastries and danish in there too. All in all, I think the convection oven was a bad idea. If I had known more about it or worked with one before, I could have told them, but I was assured that it would be great. I learned after the oven came in that many convection ovens have a switch where you could turn off the fan. This would be great if ours had that, because we bake a lot of cookies, but we can only bake 4 pans at a time in the regular ovens. There are only 2 doors where the cookies come out right, even when messing with the temperature. It's very strange.

Thanksgiving is almost here, so the convection ovens will be very busy with pies, so we'll get our money's worth out of them then. But come January, when it gets slow, we won't be using it very much. Some days it probably won't be worth it to turn it on.

Day off.

Wednesdays are my usual day off from work, along with Sunday (the store is closed then). I've been off on Wednesdays for as long as I remember, because that is the day that was the least busy in the old days when there were bakeries everywhere. That's not always so these days, but it works out pretty well for me, work-wise. Sarah is not off on Wednesdays, so I am home by myself from 9-5. I usually wake up and take care of the animals, and most times I make breakfast for both of us. This morning I made ham omelets and toast. It was pretty good.

After Sarah leaves, I have trouble focusing on what I need to do that day. I make a lot of plans but hardly get any of them done. I often end up sitting on the internets for most of the day, or I am constantly breaking up my tasks with visits to Facebook. This is actually what I'm doing right now. I have laundry going that I should be folding, but I'm here instead. I am also ripping CDs on my slow PC to put on iTunes on our Mac, which really isn't necessary. But it also breaks up the tasks. I have finished putting out the recycling, but I still have to vacuum, which I'm not looking forward to.

This happens every Wednesday, and I don't know how to buckle down and just do what I have to do, and I'm not sure if I ever will. I have found a program for the Mac that will shut down the internet for 8 hours, but I think that would drive me absolutely crazy, and I don't know if it would work. There's still the tv, and I can still use the Mac for other stuff. I guess I'll get my tasks done eventually, right? How do you stay off the internet or avoid distractions?

Paranormal Activity - WTF?

Sarah and I went to see Paranormal Activity tonight. We were expecting a good movie, what with all the giant hype that surrounds it. It was really, really bad. People keep saying that it is the new Blair Witch Project, but it really isn't, unless you mean ripoff. I can't understand how people were so scared by this movie, I didn't find myself feeling scared like I did at Blair Witch (which maybe isn't a fair comparison; we saw PA at a multiplex, and BWP in a drive-in, surrounded by trees, and the drive-in owners made up some of those tree-branch figures in the movie and hung them up all over the place. It was very cool). I guess I was just expecting a lot more based on the hype. I remember reading about the movie a few years ago, and even then reviewers were saying it was the scariest movie ever made. I'm a big chicken when it comes to that stuff, and I figured I would have to sleep with the lights on tonight (which happened after Blair Witch). I think the ending (suggested by Steven Spielberg, thanks a lot Steve) instantly negated that feeling for me. I just watched the original ending, and it was better, but not something we haven't seen before in a George Romero movie (spoilers, I guess). Two guys behind us said "You've got to be kidding me" and "Horrible movie" as they were leaving. My sentiments exactly. Sometimes too much hype can be a bad thing, but not in the money department for the writer/director! A sequel has been announced! Let's hope the actors can make more of this than their Blair Witch compatriots did.

Random weird thought for the day: At work this morning, I was walking back to the bakery from the bathroom, and I had to walk through the gift shop stockroom to get there. There was a section of the floor that had a lot of glitter on it. My impulse was to draw a chalk outline of a fairy in the middle of the scattering of glitter. Alas, no chalk.

Day 2

Hmm, I'm already cutting it close (I should be getting ready for bed now, I usually wake up to go to work at 12.30 am), and I don't know what to write about. I had a crappy day at work which started at home. We were away for the weekend and got back Sunday night in time to start getting ready for bed. I changed all the clocks downstairs that didn't change themselves, then went about my evening ablutions in addition to unpacking the car (does anyone say ablutions anymore?) (addendum to yesterday's blog: I love parentheses). I went upstairs to bed. I put my CPAP mask on (I'm fat and have sleep apnea) and set my clock for 12.30. Yes, without setting it back. So I was up at 11.30 and not real happy about it. But I got ready for work, I didn't want to disturb Sarah by going back to bed, and I was afraid of falling asleep on the couch. Mondays are usually kind of busy, because Saturdays are very busy and we usually get cleaned out. Today was the exception, of course. I got all my work done quickly because when I get annoyed, it quickly turns to irrational anger, and it makes me work faster for some reason. I took some stuff I made down to the freezer, and one of the bagging room workers left a cart kind of in the pathway. The cart had small bottles of soda on it, many of which fell on the floor when I tried to get past (no mess, just lots of bubbles which equates to flat soda down the line. Sorry, customers). When I came back, the woman had moved the cart, but she was up on the ladder and dropped a box of potato chips on my head (it was an accident, but it did not help me calm down). Then I had to do administrative bullshit work, which I don't have to do a lot of, but I hate hate hate doing it. I do love my job like I said yesterday, but just the baking part of it, not the administrative being the manager of the bakery part of it. I'm not built for that; I learned that long ago, but I have failed to apply this to my actual life. Twice now.

We are getting a new label machine in the bakery, and all of the labels have to be input all over again by hand. I'm not responsible for that; I am responsible for going through every label to make sure the weight, ingredients, and price is correct. There's more than 300 items, and it took me 9 hours. That's a whole day of not baking! Not in a row, over 4 days. Yes, I do realize that this is an entire job for some people and I should be happy that I don't have to do it all the time, blah blah blah. Sometimes it just feels good to be pissed off, you know? It gave me a lot of energy today. Usually it ends up badly, but it's hard to just shake it off. It's something I inherited from my dad. He managed to get rid of it somehow, but for me it feels like it's getting stronger.

This is another thing you can expect from my blog: confusion. O_o

Grand Re-Opening

Hello, welcome to my blog, if you're coming from the NaBloPoMo Randomizer. It is mainly a personal blog, so you will read all about stuff that happens to me and stuff that I like or don't like.

If you have already read my blog, you may have learned the following things about me:

-I love my wife. :)
-I love my job (being a baker), but I did not always love my job.
-I love to eat.
-I love adverbs.
-I love my pets (7 cats and a dog), but they can be infuriating. Right this minute my cat DD is really invading my personal space. :P
-I love emoticons. :D
-I hate paperboys. :(
-I don't update my blog much anymore, unless there's cash on the line.

For those of you who don't know, November is National Blog Posting Month. If you go to nablopomo.com and register today, and you post a blog every day this month, you could win something. I don't know what the something is, I have not checked yet. I'm not in it for that; I do enjoy writing here but I need an excuse to do it, so thanks to nablopomo.com for that.

I must warn you, I do tend to get a little long-winded. I'm not much of an editor yet. But since November is my busiest month of the year, there will probably be a lot of short entries, so don't get too discouraged. After the month is over, if I make it, I will most likely drop off to 2 posts a month again, but who knows. I like Christmas a lot, so maybe I'll talk about that.

If you like or don't like what you read here, please leave me a comment. I think getting comments from strangers would be pretty neat, but I haven't gotten any yet. And lastly, if you are a nablopomo blogger, good luck!

Content Coming Soon!

So yeah, I haven't been updating my blog, but that's about to change. My friend Monica reminded me that November is National Blog Posting Month (www.nablopomo.com, I'm much too lazy to make html tags, sorry). If you register on the site and post every day during the month, you could win something. I don't care about that, I just need an excuse to write more. Plus Monica told me that the number of hits that my blog gets could go way up, because I registered my blog at nablopomo.com, and they have a thing where it points you to various registered blogs at random (called The Randomizer, natch). It's going to be tough for me to post something everyday, because November is my busiest month at work, but I will try. I have been thinking about a few subjects to write about for the past few weeks, hopefully I can make those happen. The other problem I have is writing a short entry if I have a specific subject. Maybe I'll do installment blogs. Or maybe I'll save the short ones for Thanksgiving week. They'll probably be one-sentence blogs then. I'm excited about it, quite possibly you are groaning at the prospect of my writing. But at least there will be something new here to look at!

Should we talk about the weather?

It's beautiful outside, in the 70s with a nice breeze going. I'm going outside to play. If you consider cutting the grass playing, YMMV. Ta!

Neglect.

I'm not sure what, if anything, I'm doing with my blog. My updating has severely fallen off this summer; I suppose I need the structure of NaBloPoMo to actually write something on a daily basis. Without it I write less and less, but with it, I am stressed for absolutely no good reason. I look at the blog from time to time and think, I can write something quick, but I'm too lazy to even be sitting at the computer (which I do incessantly) writing; just clicking on Facebook stuff is enough for me.

What is it about Facebook that, if I manage to tear myself away from it to go and do something constructive, I have to take a break after a half hour and check it again? I sit and wrack my brains, which must be slowly turning to mush, for people's names from my past that I can look up on Facebook. I said to my father in law the other day, a new Facebook convert (who already understands its time-sucking ability), that probably 2/3 of my Facebook friends are people whom I don't really associate with, don't comment on, or I skip their updates (I haven't gone as far as blocking anyone, but I have dropped one "friend"). So with most of these people, we became friends, said hello in a brief message, and that was it. Why? Is it just me? I would consider dumping these folks as friends, but then I wouldn't want to offend anyone, which is even more ludicrous when you think about it. Don't get me wrong, it is a great tool for getting people together and keeping them informed of what you're doing, down to the most annoying details. But when you finally find that kid that moved away in first grade, and feel the triumph of having solved a mystery of some sort, what happens after that? Usually nothing. You may have had many things in common when you were 8, but probably not much 30 years later.

Wow, what a tangent. I'm neglecting many things I want to, and should, do. I'm running out of time and excuses to justify sitting in front of the computer when I get home from work. I always told myself that I wouldn't be on the internets when Sarah was at home, but that's happening a lot now, and I feel the worst about that. I think I could use a support group for this. I'll have to look on the internet for one. :/

Unexpected Emotions

As I say almost every blog now, I am a baker. I can do cakes, but it's not my strong suit. I have done a few wedding cakes, but to me they are not worth the mental stress (I have had a few bad experiences). I have started saying to people who ask that I will only do wedding cakes for blood relatives, the last one being my sister. But that one wasn't so bad, because my dad and I made it together (I made the cake and icing and did the basket weave, and my dad did the rest).

A few months ago I was chatting online with a friend (I'm not using any names, just in case), and she asked me if I did wedding cakes. My guard instantly went up, but instead of saying "no" I asked "why?" She told me that she had a friend who was a cancer survivor (let's call her Jane to alleviate confusion) and was getting married in the fall. Jane was on a tight budget and lived close to me, and my friend thought it would be a nice gesture to help out with the wedding cake. I gave her my blood relative line, but I told her I would think about it. Meanwhile, I looked Jane up on Facebook. I could only see her photo because of privacy settings, but it was a picture of her and her fiance, and they looked so cute together. I think it was that picture that convinced me to help. I emailed my friend back and told her I would do the cake, but I also stipulated that the only good thing about the cake was that it would be cheap. I don't have as much confidence in my cake making as I do in my bread baking, so I really undersold myself in the email. My friend said that she didn't want the wedding cake to be torture for me, so she didn't let Jane know, and I didn't try to convince her otherwise. I think that same week I started watching Cake Boss, and the show hit a little close to home for me with the bad parts about making cakes, so it was a relief to me that I wasn't going to make the cake.

This wedding cake was still in the back of my mind though, and last week I decided that I would do it, confidence be damned. I just hoped that I wasn't too late, since it was a little over 2 months until the wedding. I let my friend know, and she told me to go ahead and email Jane through Facebook. I went through my friend's Facebook friend list, but I didn't find her. I searched for her on Facebook, but I couldn't find her that way either. I knew her fiance's last name, so I searched for that in the region he lives in, but he also disappeared from Facebook. I Googled Jane and her fiance, but I couldn't find anything recent, and I was panicking because I thought something bad had happened to her. I spent a good part of the afternoon searching for her on the internet, but no matter what combination of words I used, I found nothing. I was really worried at this point, and I emailed my friend to tell her that Jane was no longer on Facebook. She emailed back later that night to tell me that she was there in her friend list, and she sent me the link to her page. I clicked on the link and got my home page, and I then figured out that she had changed her privacy settings to friends only, which never occurred to me while I was searching for her, afraid of what I might find out.

I did eventually get in touch with Jane to let her know that I would be willing to do her wedding cake. She sent me a reply and was very sweet about it, and she told me that they had a cake as a package deal with the reception hall. I was again relieved that I didn't have to make the cake, but I was also disappointed more than I was relieved, possibly because I felt a connection with her after my alarming few hours of fruitless searching.

I have never met Jane, and now I probably never will, but for an afternoon it felt like a friend was slipping away from me. I really don't know why I felt that way, is it strange or normal? Has anyone else felt like this before? I don't mean with a celebrity either, just a regular person. I suppose this kind of chance encounter doesn't come up very often.

Hawt.

Since I'm a baker, I get to deal with ovens and a proofbox (which doesn't give off heat, but a nice brief sauna when you open the door). Luckily I don't have to work with a fryer, which is the worst. You kind of have to lean into it to flip the donuts and get them in and out, and you have to watch out if you're sweating and it falls into the fryer (I know that's gross, but it happens, probably very often during the summer).

When I was a teenager working for my dad, I worked by myself overnight on the weekends, and despite the ginormous exhaust fan over the oven, it was boiling in that place. A lot of times I would just wear sneakers, shorts and an apron. If you've seen me lately, you're probably throwing up a little in your mouth picturing that (if you've gone that far), but fear not, I was pretty svelte in high school. That's when the sweaty donuts happened.

The only relief from this was either sitting in the walk-in freezer for a few minutes (which didn't really help in the long run, it just gave me a chill because it froze my sweat), or I put on the cold water and used the sink sprayer to spray down my head. I did the water spraying more often, and that's how we get the phrase "go soak your head." Now you know the REST of the story!

At my current job, they added on to the original building and put the bakery in the new part, back in 2001. We've had some problems with air flow in there since then. We have an exhaust fan over the ovens, but it is on the roof, above the hood (we could see the one in my dad's bakery). We found out 2 years ago that it was broken. We could hear it power on, but it wasn't turning. It broke again early this summer, and they said it would be fixed permanently this time. I listen closely when I turn it on now, just in case it sounds different.

The other problem is air conditioning. I only worked at one place where air conditioning was effective, and that was at Rutgers. Other places had it, but it was instantly negated by ovens, and at Aramark, by the 4 giant open steam kettles that they made soups and sauces in. When I first started at Byler's (where I am now), if you walked from the bakery into the store proper, you could feel the temperature drop about 20 degrees. About 4 years ago they put an AC unit in our back room, which was only good in the back room and the warehouse behind that. We put a giant fan in the back room to blow the cold air into the bakery, but it didn't really help. There was a lot of head soaking going on in those years.

There is a thermostat, an air intake, and diffusers in the ceiling of the bakery. We found out last year that the hoses for this AC were screwed up, which is why we weren't getting any air. They fixed that, and lo and behold, we had AC in the bakery! After 6 and 1/2 years! But like I said, it does get negated by the ovens, but it's much more bearable.

Until we got our new convection oven, and I had to move stuff around to make it fit. My back is now to the ovens, and it gets pretty hot. You can see the salt stains in my shirt at the end of the day. Last week, I moved the benches a little further away from the ovens, because we had the space on the other side. Thankfully, it made a big difference.

Thanks for making it to the end of today's disgusting topic. Tomorrow, all about pus!

MORAL: Don't eat donuts in the summer.

On Being Cranky.

I am a baker, as you may know. I've known lots of bakers in my time, and my experience has been that when bakers get older, they get crankier, a "crusty baker" if you will. I always joked with Sarah that I was going to go this route, neither of us thinking I ever would, since I am pretty happy-go-lucky and I like to goof around. You know where this is going, especially if you read my last post.

Let me clear that up; I was exaggerating a bit. I did almost hit one of my co-workers with a plastic spatula, but it was not thrown in anger. The sink is in the back room, and if I have a soft or light object that needs to be washed, I will step in the back room, lob it into the sink, and turn right back around again. That's what I did, but I didn't realize until it was too late that my co-worker was washing a mixing bowl at the time. I had too much forward momentum and I couldn't stop, and the spatula ended up in her bowl. I did apologize to her after, but she didn't seem fazed by it. My last post was just stupid, but I feel dishonest taking it down now.

Have I torpedoed stuff into the sink in anger? Yes I have. I am not proud of this and I am not making excuses for it. I get my temper from my dad, he had a hair trigger and could be quite destructive at times. He has grown out of it while I seem to be growing into mine. Not that long ago I hated to have people see me like that, but now it seems that I don't care how they see me, which is bad.

My problem is lack of sleep. I don't go to sleep when I should, and when I do go to sleep, I don't sleep well because I'm overweight and don't exercise. I use a CPAP, but I think it's only because I'm overweight. Right now I think I'm the heaviest I've ever been, but I'm not sure. I bought a scale today so I will have to check that out.

I've complained about this before, I hear you cry. Yes I have, and I haven't been doing anything about it. I have a new plan this time that I'm hoping will work, and I hope that I can drag Sarah with me, as both of us would feel a lot better if we lost weight. I have a friend from years ago on Facebook now, and he is also trying to lose weight (he was mentioning exercising and eating healthier in his status updates), and I was asking him about it. I actually asked him if he wanted to race, and he said he would (that's why I bought the scale). People do this all the time I guess, but I never tried it before. I can't really have a weight-losing competition with Sarah, because we tend to enable each other too much, so we both lose. I think it will be easier with my friend Chris, and maybe Sarah can get some benefits out of that, since I do the cooking (no benefits tonight though, I'm making some chicken smothered in a condensed chicken soup and cream cheese sauce, the sauce is awesome).

Meanwhile, I will try to be cheerier at work until I can sleep better. I need to get started before the holidays hit, because then my schedule goes crazy and I don't have enough time to sleep. only 148 shopping days till Christmas!!

You know what sucks sometimes?

When you're having a bad day at work, and you're surrounded by people so you can't throw stuff or curse loudly. Even worse is when you work with mostly Amish women, and you feel bad if you curse accidentally (on purpose). The absolute worst though, is if you DO throw something and almost hit someone, and you have to apologize. That sucks.

Apparently, making a nice chocolate chip cookie eludes me.

Yesterday I made a bunch of cookies for a dinner that my in-laws were doing for their church's homeless shelter (I'm not sure if that's exactly right, but the church provides a lot of food for this particular shelter). Sarah and I went to help out, which was the first time I've ever done anything like that. It felt good, except when we sat down to eat with them. I didn't mind sitting with them (they were all men), they were all very nice and we were chatting with some of them about what they did before they became homeless, and what they wanted to do in the future. The thing that made me uncomfortable was eating. I felt like I was taking food away from them, even though there was plenty of food there. I often have seconds when I eat (which you can tell by looking at me), but this time I didn't, for obvious reasons.

Sarah's parents were responsible for breakfast and dinner each day for an entire week. Sometimes they used the food that was there, and sometimes they made stuff at home and brought it with them. Last night was a bit of both. The kitchen/cafeteria was in the basement of a church that was built in the last few years. Apparently they had some Code problems, because the only thing that was hooked up in the kitchen was a 3 door refrigerator. There wasn't even a sink; luckily there was a bathroom in the basement, and we used the sink in there if we needed water (they took all the dirty dishes home to wash). There was a lot of equipment in the kitchen, and they are hoping to get it all installed and running by November, when the shelter gets more people for the winter (there were about 25 men there last night, they had up to 40 over the past week). I was actually wondering why Sarah's parents didn't ask us to help them before this. I have always wanted to help in a shelter on Thanksgiving, but I remember reading somewhere that everyone wants to do this, but no one wants to help the other 364 days of the year. So I guess this is a start for me.

We found out a little about what the men like and don't like (no diet anything, and no decaf!), so I think that I will get some giant cans of coffee to give to my in-laws for the shelter. I will ask to help them next time it is their turn, or if they are helping other parishioners. I don't do a lot of volunteer work (none, actually), and I feel bad about that. I suppose that I was afraid, but I see now that there is nothing to be afraid of.

I also see that I veered from my blog title. I made bigger cookies than I usually do, because I baked off 2 different sized chocolate chip cookies and let Sarah pick which size to make. I baked these 2 cookies in the toaster oven, and they were beautiful. I had my regular oven preheating, so I scooped out the cc cookies and put them in. My regular oven seems to be much cooler than my toaster oven, because the cookies turned out to be a flat mess (the other 3 kinds I made were fine). Maybe it's just the oven, I don't know. But my cc cookies are always too flat, like an halibut.

I need to find synonyms for "apparently."

Yay! New Oven at Work!

We have a lot of space issues at work (meaning we don't have enough), and this also extends to our ovens. We have two Blodgett deck ovens, which for one thing, are way older than I am. They are also very erratic in the heat department, and since they are deck ovens, they have way too much bottom heat (you usually see them in pizza places). We have to turn the pans around halfway through baking time on pretty much everything, and some stuff can only be baked in certain spots, or it comes out like crap. With the deck ovens, we have space for 16 sheet pans. This may seem like a lot, but it really isn't. We have been asking for new ovens for years.

Finally, earlier this year, the managers told us that they were looking into a convection oven for us (the deli recently got one of their own, as they're making hot foods now, and we didn't always have the space for them to use our ovens when they wanted to). I had never used a convection oven before, and neither had any of my coworkers. So I was hesitant, but it was a new oven, so I was more than willing to try it out. One of my managers had a lot of experience with it (she used to work in a restaurant), and she told me that most of my stuff would probably not be able to be baked in it (I do the breads and other yeast-based items). It would be mainly for pies and cookies, but this way, I wouldn't have to rush to get out of the way when the next bakers came in, which is partly why we wanted new ovens anyway.

It took awhile before they pinned down if and when we were getting the oven, but it finally came in 2 months ago. It took so long because they were refurbishing it. Unfortunately, it was missing parts that we needed, so we had to wait until this week for it to be put in. I didn't totally understand that part. Another problem was that it was not replacing one of our ovens, it was going next to the other ones, which added to the space problems that I mentioned before. We had to rejigger the bakery a lot, which I'm still having problems with, but the oven is totally worth it.

The Stove Shop guys put it in on Thursday night, so I got to be the first person to use it. My basic understanding of convection is that it bakes in less heat and less time than regular ovens, because of the fans that blow the hot air through the oven. This also causes everything to bake evenly as well. The first thing I baked was tea biscuits and scones, which were apparently on too high a temp because they came out too dark. I tried them again the next day on a lower temp, but it was almost the same. I'm giving it one more shot on Monday, and if it's not right, they'll go back to the deck ovens.

I put puff pastry in there next, and after finding out that I have to put the items in the four corners of the pan to keep the parchment paper from blowing over and fusing to the pastry, they came out really nice.

The items I really wanted to try were the danishes, which are yeast based. They were perfect when they came out! They even have more body than they did in the deck ovens. I also made some of the frozen rolls in there, and I'm not sure if I will do that, because they got more top heat than bottom heat, so there was no support, and they eventually got squashed in the bag because of this. I put some yeast breads in there too, and they were absolutely beautiful. I've had trouble with the loaf breads being more than done on top, but not on the sides, so they collapse under their own weight like the frozen rolls did. But these were the same color on all sides, and they maintained their shape, and remained nice and soft on the inside.

My coworkers are having some trouble with the cookies. The pies are coming out really nice, but they're having a lot of problems getting the cookies to come out. Usually they ask me for advice since I've been in the business a lot longer than they have, but I was kind of stymied this time. I'm in the same boat, I have to try it every which way to see what works.

All in all, it's worth it to me, being cramped in the bakery in exchange for the new oven. I am afraid that they are still going to have to wait for me to get out of the convection oven now, because it's awesome!

Hey, wait a minute (I'm writing a book)

I have been wanting to do this for almost 20 years. I got the idea of writing a book about my grandfather (my dad's father), after he passed away in 1990, and I finally have started it. It's going to be a slow process, but I hope to finish it at some point, perhaps by next year. I think what kept me from doing it until now was the whole getting-it-published thing. Now, I can do that myself online, so that's my plan. I have given up on traditional publishing and I don't care if anyone outside of my family sees it.

I'm not a writer by any stretch of the imagination, but that's because I don't write. I was hoping to practice a bit here, but it kind of fell by the wayside. I'm sure I will be endlessly revising this book. It has already morphed into a book about both of my grandparents, as I didn't think I would have enough material with just my grandfather. I'm sure that when I get into it it will be easier, but I'm still a little scared.

I have written the opening chapter, which was also a giant stumbling block, and I feel relieved that I figured out how to start it, which as you'll see, is at the end. I'm going to post it here, but it is an embryonic version, so please be forewarned. I would also love to hear any feedback you have, good or bad. I can always use the help.

I don't have a title for the book yet (I was considering "Southern Gentleman," but that won't work now since it's about both of my grandparents), and I probably won't have chapter titles either. It's pretty long, so you can leave now if you want to. Here goes.

*****

It was 8:30 Wednesday morning, and I was still in bed. Wednesday was my only day off from my job, which was at my family’s bakery. When I say my family’s bakery, I mean just that: it was my parents, my sister, and myself and that was it. We had other employees at one time, but they had to be let go, because standalone bakeries were becoming obsolete in the early 1990s. My parents had recently sold the second bakery they had bought five years earlier. That bakery proved to be a financial disaster.

That Wednesday was also my day off from driving my sister and her friends to school. My grandfather Vance was living with us then, and he drove them that day. He was in the hospital the previous fall for almost three months. He came to live with us after he was released in December, which is partly why I dropped out of college. I was to take care of him in the morning, then go to work in the bakery in the afternoon. I would sit with him some nights and watch television until he went to bed.

At first he had trouble doing anything for himself, but gradually he became stronger. I helped him with his morning ablutions and made him breakfast and lunch. After a few months, he was able to go out, so I mostly took him grocery shopping. I think I took care of him in this way for six to eight months before he was able to do everything for himself, including driving, which was pretty good for an eighty-year-old man. Out of all the things we had to do for him when he was recuperating, I think he missed driving most of all.

I heard my grandfather come in on that Wednesday morning. I was still in bed, but awake. I was feeling lazy that day and I didn’t want to get up. I heard him walking from room to room downstairs, and I heard him scolding one of the cats. I don’t think he actually hated the cats we had at the time (there were four of them), but they always seemed to be in his way or shedding on his things. He used to say to them, “Get outta here!” the same way I hear my dad, Vance’s son, do now when I talk to him on the phone.

It was quiet for a few moments, and then I heard a loud thump. Having four cats, this was not an unusual sound, so I stayed in bed for a few more minutes. I realized that I didn’t hear my grandfather scolding the cats, so I reluctantly got out of bed to investigate. I had on a pair of shorts, but I didn’t bother putting any other clothes on, because I planned on going right back upstairs to bed after I found out what happened.

It was not the cats that made the loud thump. I saw my grandfather’s legs on the floor as I came off the stair landing. He had fallen on the kitchen floor, and he must have been trying to steady himself with one of the kitchen chairs, because he pulled it down on top of him. His nitroglycerin pills were scattered all over the floor. I can only assume that he felt what was coming and tried to stop it, but he was too late. I was starting to panic at this point, and I called out to him, but I received no response. What made me panic even more was the sharp, raspy, and loud intake of breath that came after I called his name. I could see that he wasn’t breathing aside from this, and I was frightened and I didn’t know how to help him. I did have the presence of mind to dial 911, and I called my dad at the bakery right after that. In the first of many regrets I have about that day, I left my grandfather on the floor in the kitchen and went upstairs to put a shirt on. I am still amazed that despite my terror at my grandfather’s situation, I was selfish enough to do this.

When I came back downstairs, I noticed that the fedora that he was wearing was still slightly on his head. I gently removed it and put it aside. Soon after that, the first police officer arrived, less than five minutes after I called 911. I explained the situation to him, and he tried resuscitating him. A second police officer arrived within minutes of the first, quickly followed by an ambulance crew. They brought a stretcher in and cut through his clothes to try to revive him. He was wearing a dress shirt, along with a vest and a sport coat, which is what he normally wore. He used to tend his garden in a dress shirt and pants in the summertime.

The ambulance crew decided that they needed to take him to the hospital, so they put him on the stretcher and took him outside, which is when I saw my dad pull up in his truck. I don’t know how he didn’t get pulled over, because he made the trip home from work in half the time it usually took. He got on the ambulance with my grandfather and went with him to the hospital. The police also left, and then I was alone.

I thought that my grandfather would be fine; that my dad would call in an hour or two and tell me that Vance was okay, that he just had a minor setback. I was in a bit of a daze, but I decided to hang onto these thoughts and do something normal. It was breakfast time, so I decided to make some pancakes for myself. I had the batter all made up when the phone rang. It was a lady from the hospital. I don’t remember what her name was or in what capacity she worked for the hospital, but I did know from the fake tone of her voice that my grandfather had passed away, which she confirmed for me seconds later. I know she was just doing her job, that she probably had to make dozens of these calls every week, but I wanted to jump through the phone and punch her in her face. I didn’t want her talking about my grandfather like that.

I started to cry when she told me that my dad wanted me to come and pick him up at the hospital. To me, this meant that the world was not going to stop now that Vance was gone, which made me feel worse than I did. I attempted to compose myself so I could go and pick up my dad. He was waiting outside where the lady said he would be, and his eyes were red and puffy. I had only seen him cry twice in my life. He told me that he went in to see my grandfather after they pronounced him dead.

I drove back to our house, which seemed very empty. I saw the pancake batter on the counter, so I made the pancakes for my dad and I. I didn’t know what else to do.

Public Bathroom Hijinx!!!

Not of the George Michael variety, that's a whole other blog.

This is probably going to be just for the guys, since I don't normally go into the women's room. Maybe the womens will appreciate it, but I'm thinking not. I usually get the frowny face when I start talking about bathroom stuff, which is often. But I digress.

Have you noticed that you never see floor length urinals anymore? Have you EVER seen them? The last floor length urinals I used regularly were in my elementary school, and here's why you probably don't see them anymore: they are very easy to stop up and flood the bathroom. And yes, I speak from personal experience. When I was in 1st grade my friend Mike and I were in the bathroom, and it seemed to be a good idea to fill the urinals with toilet paper and flush them numerous times. This was in the 70s, so there wasn't any crap about conserving water, so there was a lot of it all over the floor quickly. I guess we brought wet footprints into the class because we got busted, but instead of giving us detention, they made us apologize to Mr. Hermanns, who was the custodian that had to clean it up. I felt terrible after that, which I guess was the point, and I never did it again. (As a side note, I later found out that Mr. Hermanns was a twice or thrice decorated WW II veteran. And now that I think about it, there were other custodians in the middle school and high school who were also veterans from Korea and Viet Nam. Maybe they were isolated incidents, but it doesn't seem fair.)

Remember the classic hand dryer instructions?

1)Push button.

2)Rub hands gently under warm air.

Did you ever see a dryer that actually had this printed on it? Maybe if you were installing the dryer, but if not, you probably did not see those words. What you actually saw was words and letters scratched out, so it read

1)Push butt.

2)Rub hands gently under arm.

It was the same on every single dryer that you used in any bathroom that had a hand dryer in it. Maybe this even spread to the women's room at some point, but I don't know. I wonder if the company that made them gave up after awhile and scratched the letters out themselves, just like Wheel of Fortune gives you the R S T L N and E for the last puzzle, since those were the only letters that anyone ever picked. But now they have circumvented this problem by having pictures instead of writing. There's the pressing the button picture, the rubbing the hands under the warm air picture, and then the picture I can only describe as peeking inside the dryer and getting acid thrown in your eyes. What does that one mean? Can you actually pull down the dryer thing and dry your eyeballs out? I haven't found one yet where you could do this.

One ineluctable (I had to look that up) part of the men's bathroom is the graffiti. There are web sites and blogs devoted to this, but I want to mention something you don't always see, which is corrected graffiti. If you're a Mad Magazine fan from way back, you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, there's a public bathroom that I go into quite often which apparently is also frequented by a member of the KKK, since it has been carved into the stall twice. Some very nice person (probably not in the KKK) has disguised both of these carvings. The first one now says "CHICKKKENS," which is kind of odd because you don't see a lot of chickens using the public restroom. The other one now says "BOOKKEEPER," which is much more clever, because there definitely could have been a bookkeeper using this particular stall, and the KKK is just a little more hidden than in the previous example. This kind soul may also have been the one who carved "PLEASE DO NOT WRITE ON THIS WALL." He said please, right? We must listen to a man that says please.

Finally, a word of advice to manufacturers of public bathroom products that have their company name emblazoned on said products: if your company name has the word "ass" contained in it somehow, PLEASE consider changing the name of your company. Seriously, you're just asking for trouble. I have been in a bathroom where they have the tissue paper rings for the toilet (and really, what a waste of an invention) in a plastic dispenser, with the words "REST ASSURED" written across it. They are raised letters in the plastic, but someone will see it and bring some sandpaper with them next time, and perhaps make it say "REST ASS HERE." I know someone will do this because I have already thought of it. It may take awhile though, because the dispenser was put in upside down. Maybe to discourage the inevitable defacing.

The 16 year old me would be horrified by the 39 year old me.

Do you remember the song "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)," that came out in 1999? Had lots of nifty life-living advice in it and was NOT written by Kurt Vonnegut? Yeah, that's the one. One of the lines in it is "You're not as fat as you imagine." When I was in school, I considered myself to be fat. I tried to wear long shirts to cover up my gut and I never wore shorts, so I wouldn't expose my thunderous thighs to anyone. But the song is right, and has been proven by the old pictures of me that have been posted on Facebook by my school friends. What the hell was I thinking? NOW I am fat, or at least overweight, and it's a lot harder to do something about it these days. Sometimes I actually pine for the days of mandatory twice-a-week aerobics.

The other day at work, I went into the bathroom about halfway through the day. I then noticed that I forgot to brush my hair that morning, and I wasn't wearing a hat, which is de rigeur for me. I couldn't brush it then because I didn't have a brush with me. So I said "meh" and went back to work. This would have been INCONCEIVABLE to me in high school. I always took a shower in the morning and blow-dried my hair, in order to get it to do what I wanted (which rarely happened). I always had my brush sticking out of my back pocket, and I spent copious amounts of time in front of the mirror in the assistant band director's office trying again to get it right. You would think with a hair obsession like mine, that I would have caved in to men's hair products, but I never did. Nowadays I can't be bothered with a blow dryer or carrying a brush, and the only time I use a product in my hair is when my hair is getting too long and I'm too lazy to make a haircut appointment, so I put some Frizz-Ease on the sides so I don't look like Wolverine. But you know what? I'm the only one who cares.

If you read this, then you'll know that I hated working in my dad's bakery when I was in high school. I would rather have been spending time with my friends. I guess MORE time would actually be correct. You wouldn't have been able to convince me back then that I would still be a baker 20 years later, plus the fact that I love doing it and I put everything I have (and sometimes even what I don't have) into it. I was planning on becoming a rock star, thank you very much. Rock stars don't bake. Well, not in that way.

The only tolerable thing about my loathsome job was the money. I always had money, and I always wanted more. This wasn't just in high school, it lasted well into my 30s, which I think was because I didn't have as much as I did when I was a teenager. I don't know what caused my turnaround regarding money, but I'm glad it's not as important to me as it was. Don't get me wrong, it is of course important to live and eat and all of that. If we lost all of our money tomorrow, Sarah and I would still have each other, and as cliche as that may sound, it's true. My relationship with Sarah and the rest of our family is much more important than our bank account. You can always get more money, right?

I sometimes think that I haven't changed much over the course of my life. I wonder if I think that because almost everything about me has changed? Good thing too, because I was really obnoxious in high school.

Yes, I'm going with the past tense there, thanks. 

Too much television

As I said in my previous post, I was sick for over a week and I stayed home from work for four days. I was too weak to do anything, and I couldn't get too much sleep, so mostly what I did was watch tv. I haven't watched that much tv in a long long time. I thought I might be on the internet more, but I couldn't sit back and maybe fall asleep while I was on the internet, so I stayed on the couch.

We have Comcast, so the On Demand channel got a hefty workout this week. I went through all the South Park episodes they had, and most of the stand-up comedy shows, which weren't as funny as I had hoped (that could have been me being sick, but I ain't watching 'em again). I also watched Talladega Nights, which was absolutely terrible. I love Will Ferrell, but it seems that I only like him when other people write for him, because I loved Stranger Than Fiction and I hated Anchorman. I watched the Man vs. Wild with him as a guest, and that was pretty good. I did not feel bad enough about myself to order episodes of the Facts of Life, even if they were free.

Sarah went out and got some movies for us to watch when she was home. She had a lot of stuff to do this week, so she wasn't home a few nights. She got Blade for us, which wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. We also watched 1408, which was alright. She got me Role Models to watch by myself, and that was the best of the bunch. Very very funny. We also watch what was left of our DVR shows, which was mainly the Unusuals. It got cancelled, which is a shame. It's like a cross between Homicide:Life On The Street and Barney Miller, with a little bit of NYPD Blue thrown in for good measure. I hate it when they cancel good shows.

My blog is getting more interesting with each post. I am destined for greatness. :/