Winter’s here and I’m determined to have more fun with this one than the last one. Actually, I already have. Here are some things that I’ve done this winter that I didn’t get around to last winter:
- Took the kids out for more than one hour at a time
- Built a snowman
- Drove to Augusta to Christmas shop during “The Season”
- Started tutoring in math locally
- Made a trip to SW Harbor in “potential snow” weather
- Saw Santa delivered in a helicopter
It’s been a great year for us. Enjoy the slideshow =)
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Long Trip, Short Walk
Once again October brought about a long separation from home for me. I missed the trees changing here in Maine as the boat left on the first for a three week trip. Our first stop was New London, CT, home of the Coast Guard Academy, on Tuesday the 2nd. We pulled into the city pier right next to the downtown train station.
After getting most of Wednesday off, our mission was to spend time with the cadets, showing them buoy tender life while gaining perspective on their training. This consisted of long days at work waiting around to give tours, or in my case, cooking a lot. We wrapped this up on Friday afternoon, and a good number of us headed to the campus to watch the Academy Bears football team take on the Fitchburg State Falcons. The game was an absolute treat as 8 of our crewmembers ran the chain gang, and the Bears set the school and conference records for total offensive yards (684). You can read more here http://www.uscgasports.com/content/view/689/76/
On Saturday the 6th we made the 12 hour transit to New York City and its surrounding waterways. We stopped in the East River to decommission a buoy in the shadows of the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings. After snagging the buoy we made our way to Bayonne, NJ – our homeport for the remaining time of this trip, moored up outboard of the Katherine Walker.
Although it’s right around the corner from the Statue of Liberty, the Coast Guard moorings in Bayonne are not all that fascinating. The water looks funny, it’s surrounded by cargo facilities, and there are landfills everywhere (including one cleverly disguised as a links style golf course). However …no, that’s pretty much it for Bayonne.
After an eventfully uneventful week (lots of stuff I’d rather forget, including a 5am tour of Chinatown and a hospital emergency room), we pulled into Manhattan on the 12th, a Friday. We stayed at a cruise ship pier near 12th Ave & W 52nd St. I stood duty that night, and it was a ghost ship. Nearly everyone was off the boat, and no one returned until well after my 8pm-12am watch ended.
On Saturday I wanted to get out and stretch my legs (but not so much spend my money). After cooking breakfast I set out with John and Justin. We wanted to see the World Trade Center and Ground Zero. What an incredible walk! I was floored at how much I enjoyed every aspect of it. We passed a huge post office, portions of Times Square, a street fair, Madison Square Garden, a zillion people and pets, 6 zillion pizza places, Greenwich Village, The Bull, and of course Ground Zero, which was heartbreaking.
Five miles we totaled as we arrived at the Staten Island ferry terminal and Battery Park. We rode the subway back. John and I got off at Canal Street for a proper tour of China Town – the not-5am version. Justin was tired and rode back alone, only to make a wrong turn and walk all the way to the East Side and back. After Canal Street John and I went to the boat for free food, and then I went off to Times Square.
Times Square was a let down of sorts. Too many people were gawking at everything like I was. The highlight was seeing the video of Geoffrey the Giraffe outside of Toys R Us. I had a discussion with some of the shortest of our crewmembers the previous week about how they thought he resembled me. They said it was the eyes; I was convinced it was my relative towering stature. They were right – he’s not that tall for a giraffe.
Our day wrapped up nicely. I had walked over eight miles and spent a whopping $24 thanks to the subway and three of Geoffrey cross-dressing as the Statue of Liberty for the girls. The next morning we needed to be out of the way, so we got underway at 0530. We went back to Bayonne for fire school after a stop to see the real Statue. I got lost in Staten Island with a group from the boat. We found a bar though. On Saturday the 20th we started the 36-hour trip home, arriving after 1am on Monday. And that was our trip, minus the anchoring, the fans, the imploding A/C, the floating vinegar, the holding position, the spilled fruit punch, the missing fuel sheet, the free t-shirts, the Mexican, Asian, couple of white guys, and the molester, and the HD PS3.
I took a couple of pics, but I left the camera at work. So here’s something I missed: costume tryouts -
After getting most of Wednesday off, our mission was to spend time with the cadets, showing them buoy tender life while gaining perspective on their training. This consisted of long days at work waiting around to give tours, or in my case, cooking a lot. We wrapped this up on Friday afternoon, and a good number of us headed to the campus to watch the Academy Bears football team take on the Fitchburg State Falcons. The game was an absolute treat as 8 of our crewmembers ran the chain gang, and the Bears set the school and conference records for total offensive yards (684). You can read more here http://www.uscgasports.com/content/view/689/76/
On Saturday the 6th we made the 12 hour transit to New York City and its surrounding waterways. We stopped in the East River to decommission a buoy in the shadows of the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings. After snagging the buoy we made our way to Bayonne, NJ – our homeport for the remaining time of this trip, moored up outboard of the Katherine Walker.
Although it’s right around the corner from the Statue of Liberty, the Coast Guard moorings in Bayonne are not all that fascinating. The water looks funny, it’s surrounded by cargo facilities, and there are landfills everywhere (including one cleverly disguised as a links style golf course). However …no, that’s pretty much it for Bayonne.
After an eventfully uneventful week (lots of stuff I’d rather forget, including a 5am tour of Chinatown and a hospital emergency room), we pulled into Manhattan on the 12th, a Friday. We stayed at a cruise ship pier near 12th Ave & W 52nd St. I stood duty that night, and it was a ghost ship. Nearly everyone was off the boat, and no one returned until well after my 8pm-12am watch ended.
On Saturday I wanted to get out and stretch my legs (but not so much spend my money). After cooking breakfast I set out with John and Justin. We wanted to see the World Trade Center and Ground Zero. What an incredible walk! I was floored at how much I enjoyed every aspect of it. We passed a huge post office, portions of Times Square, a street fair, Madison Square Garden, a zillion people and pets, 6 zillion pizza places, Greenwich Village, The Bull, and of course Ground Zero, which was heartbreaking.
Five miles we totaled as we arrived at the Staten Island ferry terminal and Battery Park. We rode the subway back. John and I got off at Canal Street for a proper tour of China Town – the not-5am version. Justin was tired and rode back alone, only to make a wrong turn and walk all the way to the East Side and back. After Canal Street John and I went to the boat for free food, and then I went off to Times Square.
Times Square was a let down of sorts. Too many people were gawking at everything like I was. The highlight was seeing the video of Geoffrey the Giraffe outside of Toys R Us. I had a discussion with some of the shortest of our crewmembers the previous week about how they thought he resembled me. They said it was the eyes; I was convinced it was my relative towering stature. They were right – he’s not that tall for a giraffe.
Our day wrapped up nicely. I had walked over eight miles and spent a whopping $24 thanks to the subway and three of Geoffrey cross-dressing as the Statue of Liberty for the girls. The next morning we needed to be out of the way, so we got underway at 0530. We went back to Bayonne for fire school after a stop to see the real Statue. I got lost in Staten Island with a group from the boat. We found a bar though. On Saturday the 20th we started the 36-hour trip home, arriving after 1am on Monday. And that was our trip, minus the anchoring, the fans, the imploding A/C, the floating vinegar, the holding position, the spilled fruit punch, the missing fuel sheet, the free t-shirts, the Mexican, Asian, couple of white guys, and the molester, and the HD PS3.
I took a couple of pics, but I left the camera at work. So here’s something I missed: costume tryouts -
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Goodnight
Today I worked hard. I had duty last night, so the day started for me at 0330. Both of my watchstanders happened to be my roommates, so I woke up when St. Mo woke up Butch. Then I stayed awake for their near five minute conversation. My actual day started when Butch woke me at 7am. After getting suited up, I went to make a round, finalize the logs, and hand over the watch.
Promptly relieved at 8:45, I changed into my civvies and headed to the grocery store. I had prepared a list for our week’s worth of food yesterday, so this trip shouldn’t be any sweat. I took care of the dry items in no time. I even fit them into one cart. And I only had to go backwards once (Hannaford puts their stupid baked beans on the stupid wrong side of the stupid wrong aisle).
I turned in the second and third cart in record time, spending less time on those two than at least one young couple spent haggling over their first. The fourth cart was nothing but frozen items: ice cream, garlic bread, and very few frozen vegetables (the new captain is adamant about fresh and fancy). Checkout was a gloriously quick 35 minutes. It was so fast that I barely got to marvel at how efficient my cart packing was. My 4 carts turned into 6 carts of bagged groceries. The damage was a mere $1190. It should last our 24 about 4 days.
Having left the boat at 9am, I wanted to arrive back with the groceries at 12. As I started up the van I glanced at the clock. 11:15. Amazing! Two hours and 15 minutes for four carts of groceries! I had the entire load (thanks to today’s duty section) on the boat and put away by 11:45.
Home by 12, I started in on mowing the lawn. I only massacred 3 bees and 2 frogs (I thought those things could jump farther!). A quick shower and I went back to the grocery store to tackle a new recipe for Mary: Mango Martini a la Applebee’s. The liqueurs were stowed and I was on the couch minutes before Tiger’s 3pm tee-time. I watched most of the final round of his 13th major championship before heading out to my family’s cookout in the front yard. Thank God for DVR, because I was able to pause live TV and come in to watch Tiger’s shots (which is all I EVER watch golf for).
The cookout was grand. Afterwards I did the easy part of teaching Abby how to ride a bike. That is, I pretended to hold on to her while she did exactly what Mary and Mim had already told her how to do. She can now go from a stop all the way down the driveway and then use her brakes to stop herself before ending up on Route 17.
Once the bugs realized how good of a marinade we had on, we moved inside. Now the kids are in bed and I can start my day off. Or I can go to bed. It’s late.
Promptly relieved at 8:45, I changed into my civvies and headed to the grocery store. I had prepared a list for our week’s worth of food yesterday, so this trip shouldn’t be any sweat. I took care of the dry items in no time. I even fit them into one cart. And I only had to go backwards once (Hannaford puts their stupid baked beans on the stupid wrong side of the stupid wrong aisle).
I turned in the second and third cart in record time, spending less time on those two than at least one young couple spent haggling over their first. The fourth cart was nothing but frozen items: ice cream, garlic bread, and very few frozen vegetables (the new captain is adamant about fresh and fancy). Checkout was a gloriously quick 35 minutes. It was so fast that I barely got to marvel at how efficient my cart packing was. My 4 carts turned into 6 carts of bagged groceries. The damage was a mere $1190. It should last our 24 about 4 days.
Having left the boat at 9am, I wanted to arrive back with the groceries at 12. As I started up the van I glanced at the clock. 11:15. Amazing! Two hours and 15 minutes for four carts of groceries! I had the entire load (thanks to today’s duty section) on the boat and put away by 11:45.
Home by 12, I started in on mowing the lawn. I only massacred 3 bees and 2 frogs (I thought those things could jump farther!). A quick shower and I went back to the grocery store to tackle a new recipe for Mary: Mango Martini a la Applebee’s. The liqueurs were stowed and I was on the couch minutes before Tiger’s 3pm tee-time. I watched most of the final round of his 13th major championship before heading out to my family’s cookout in the front yard. Thank God for DVR, because I was able to pause live TV and come in to watch Tiger’s shots (which is all I EVER watch golf for).
The cookout was grand. Afterwards I did the easy part of teaching Abby how to ride a bike. That is, I pretended to hold on to her while she did exactly what Mary and Mim had already told her how to do. She can now go from a stop all the way down the driveway and then use her brakes to stop herself before ending up on Route 17.
Once the bugs realized how good of a marinade we had on, we moved inside. Now the kids are in bed and I can start my day off. Or I can go to bed. It’s late.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Casa
I love having family in town. I love hosting people at my house. I remember in college my mother bought a hot plate so I could mix up hot chocolate in the dorms during the anticipated cold Indiana winter. I was so excited to be able to invite my good friends over to enjoy a cup with me. It was thrilling, anticipating their arrival.
Visits were always electrifying as a child too. My Grandma and Grandpa Watson used to travel into town in their oversized RV. In my earliest memories they would stay at the KOA campground. Swimming pool, recreation center, and playground – what an adventure! At the house we would enjoy rolled tacos from Lolita’s whenever my Grandpa “cooked”. Eventually we would all sit around and enjoy my Grandfather’s best anecdotes and road stories. Sometimes we would be privy to his sea stories from life on the submarine. He was always the best at telling jokes. His sense of humor was so refined. At times he would pause at the end of a joke, his hands frozen where he had delivered the punch line, waiting for the subtlety to sink in.
We lived on the corner of Montclair and Melrose in Chula Vista. Our main thoroughfare to either freeway and to downtown CV was L Street, straight down Melrose. One day Grandpa was giving me a ride to the movies. Perhaps it was the re-release of the original Star Wars, before that crappy prequel. We were driving on Melrose, coming up the hill from Inkopah. Grandpa asked for directions. I told him to go straight to L and take a left. It took me a full minute to realize why he was pretending to be so biblically offended.
The Coast Guard has shown me more of how much I love hosting people at my house. In Sitka it was poker games. Any time I have ever sat down to play a game of poker I have sat down with my stomach full of butterflies. The only evasion of this problem has come from preparation as a host. My favorite lonely pastime is brewing coffee and sorting poker chips. I truly enjoy having visitors comfortable in my home. Here in Rockport that translates into Super Bowl parties, cookouts, and Wii Bowling Tournaments. Well, not so much that last one… yet!
So as Mike leaves to head back to work, I realize how incredibly short this packed summer will be – how I need to treasure every moment of my time with family and my new friends. I am so excited to see how much fun the remainder will be, as I am having the time of my life.
Visits were always electrifying as a child too. My Grandma and Grandpa Watson used to travel into town in their oversized RV. In my earliest memories they would stay at the KOA campground. Swimming pool, recreation center, and playground – what an adventure! At the house we would enjoy rolled tacos from Lolita’s whenever my Grandpa “cooked”. Eventually we would all sit around and enjoy my Grandfather’s best anecdotes and road stories. Sometimes we would be privy to his sea stories from life on the submarine. He was always the best at telling jokes. His sense of humor was so refined. At times he would pause at the end of a joke, his hands frozen where he had delivered the punch line, waiting for the subtlety to sink in.
We lived on the corner of Montclair and Melrose in Chula Vista. Our main thoroughfare to either freeway and to downtown CV was L Street, straight down Melrose. One day Grandpa was giving me a ride to the movies. Perhaps it was the re-release of the original Star Wars, before that crappy prequel. We were driving on Melrose, coming up the hill from Inkopah. Grandpa asked for directions. I told him to go straight to L and take a left. It took me a full minute to realize why he was pretending to be so biblically offended.
The Coast Guard has shown me more of how much I love hosting people at my house. In Sitka it was poker games. Any time I have ever sat down to play a game of poker I have sat down with my stomach full of butterflies. The only evasion of this problem has come from preparation as a host. My favorite lonely pastime is brewing coffee and sorting poker chips. I truly enjoy having visitors comfortable in my home. Here in Rockport that translates into Super Bowl parties, cookouts, and Wii Bowling Tournaments. Well, not so much that last one… yet!
So as Mike leaves to head back to work, I realize how incredibly short this packed summer will be – how I need to treasure every moment of my time with family and my new friends. I am so excited to see how much fun the remainder will be, as I am having the time of my life.
Friday, June 15, 2007
The New England Experience
We had guests at the house recently. My brother Erick was in town. The kids loved him and called him Uncle Ick (well, the shorter ones did anyway). His visit was overlapped by my parents, Bill and Jane. We tried to give them as much New England as we could.
Here's Bill with a 3.5 lb Lobster and a Sam Adams.
We ran out to Kevin and Jodie’s to see Owl’s Head Light. Since we know the “keepers” we got to show them inside.
Then we showed them around the Mighty Warship Abbie Burgess.
Later we ran to Acadia on Mount Desert Island:
Wii pretty much did everything that New England has to offer… except Candlepin Bowling. Wii hate Candlepin Bowling. Instead Wii found a different form of bowling. One the kids could enjoy.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Is it Friday yet?
I nearly fell asleep getting my hair cut today. I worked only about five hours this morning. This doesn’t usually wear me down so much. However, we almost got the day off, so the five hours seemed like an eternity. Not to mention that I had only seen my children for about two hours this week at that point. My total sleep hours from Monday night totaled about 22. This doesn’t count the times I fell asleep on the couch trying to spend time with Mary.
Come to think of it, the boat worked more buoys than my 22 hours. I think we did 23 this week. That includes the one we accidentally worked. While we were hauling chain on Grave’s #13, we snagged the chain from the 1992 version of Grave’s. After 15 years sitting at the bottom, that thing was ripe. It still is. When we pulled in yesterday, Deck Force parked it over by the Thunder Bay. It smelled even worse in the 70 degree sun at 7am this morning. Thank God the wind picked up eventually.
I had duty on Tuesday. I only had my signature twice in the logs because we didn’t get in until 9pm. It was my shortest duty day ever. Keven is still breaking in as a watchstander. If I had a long week, he had an unbearable week. He had duty on Sunday and Wednesday, and he’ll have it again tomorrow. He also had to learn how to cook all week. He’s progressing well. Thursday night he served his first meal that was entirely his. It was Baked Ziti (or, more properly a Fake-Baked Ziti as Rachel Ray would put it). He did a bang-up job and the crew loved it.
One thing I have noted as Keven’s been working to learn his job: staying out of the way to let people learn can be extremely difficult when quality might suffer. The last thing I want for the crew is for them to work a 10-hour-pre-dinner day, come in to a crappy, cold, or late meal, and then go out for another 4 hours of work. The last thing I want for Keven is to feel like crap after it happens. But this is all part of setting his feet on fire; he needs the experience, he needs the confidence, and he especially needs the built in pressure that the meal hours naturally create.
Meanwhile I need to have patience and discipline. I have to keep out of the way most of the time to let him work through things. I also need to step in before he gets crushed by an experience that would retract from his development. It’s a very fine line. I imagine this is what a baseball manager might go through with a pitcher struggling on the mound. When do you pull him when waiting to long might destroy his confidence, and acting to quickly might do the same?
Come to think of it, the boat worked more buoys than my 22 hours. I think we did 23 this week. That includes the one we accidentally worked. While we were hauling chain on Grave’s #13, we snagged the chain from the 1992 version of Grave’s. After 15 years sitting at the bottom, that thing was ripe. It still is. When we pulled in yesterday, Deck Force parked it over by the Thunder Bay. It smelled even worse in the 70 degree sun at 7am this morning. Thank God the wind picked up eventually.
I had duty on Tuesday. I only had my signature twice in the logs because we didn’t get in until 9pm. It was my shortest duty day ever. Keven is still breaking in as a watchstander. If I had a long week, he had an unbearable week. He had duty on Sunday and Wednesday, and he’ll have it again tomorrow. He also had to learn how to cook all week. He’s progressing well. Thursday night he served his first meal that was entirely his. It was Baked Ziti (or, more properly a Fake-Baked Ziti as Rachel Ray would put it). He did a bang-up job and the crew loved it.
One thing I have noted as Keven’s been working to learn his job: staying out of the way to let people learn can be extremely difficult when quality might suffer. The last thing I want for the crew is for them to work a 10-hour-pre-dinner day, come in to a crappy, cold, or late meal, and then go out for another 4 hours of work. The last thing I want for Keven is to feel like crap after it happens. But this is all part of setting his feet on fire; he needs the experience, he needs the confidence, and he especially needs the built in pressure that the meal hours naturally create.
Meanwhile I need to have patience and discipline. I have to keep out of the way most of the time to let him work through things. I also need to step in before he gets crushed by an experience that would retract from his development. It’s a very fine line. I imagine this is what a baseball manager might go through with a pitcher struggling on the mound. When do you pull him when waiting to long might destroy his confidence, and acting to quickly might do the same?
Friday, May 4, 2007
Jalapeno Jack and the Great Day
Today was going to be a good ending to a good week. Heading into this morning, I had a great feeling of excitement. I finished week 7 yesterday in school. I have two weeks of work in front of me (most of it done already) before I get my degree. Also, Keven was working breakfast for the first time on his own; I had 45 minutes of extra sleep because of it. This Friday was going to be a morale softball game with the Tackle guys. So after breakfast, I had only shopping and paperwork on my task list. I was more excited about today than I have been about any work day in a long time.
The morale event was cancelled almost immediately. Two of our three department heads were not onboard with having their people leave an hour early on a Friday. With only about seven people playing from our crew (the Tackle has about seven total crew members), there was no way we would be able to field a game. So I ordered tuna steaks from Jess’ Market. As soon as I did, plans changed and lunch was off again. I had to settle into some paperwork and wait for everyone to figure out what the hell was actually going on.
Paperwork was the one thing that went as planned today. I had a lot of issues come up in my recent compliance inspection. As of today, each one of them is resolved. I would actually go as far as to say that it was overly-resolved today. I don’t want any of these issues to ever arise again, so the last two weeks I have been organizing something that I have become somewhat of a specialist in lately: automation. Today was the icing on the cake, and it felt great putting it together.
We finally got the okay to cook lunch on time, and I ran off with Keven to pick up groceries. We went to Jess’ for the Tuna. It was $14.99 per pound. That’s more than the lobsters cost. Speaking of lobsters, I showed Keven how to properly play with the live lobsters in the tank. Then we went to Hannaford, and Keven had some beautiful woman ask for his phone number. No, I’m not kidding.
Back on the boat, we started chopping veggies. We had a lot to do. Today’s menu: Grilled Margarita Marinated Tuna Steaks topped with Fresh Salsa, Black Bean Salad, and Southwestern Corn. Keven started working on the salad, and I got to work on dessert and the marinade. Somewhere in the middle, Keven started in on the Jalapenos. Somewhere in the middle of that, the Jalapenos decided to squirt him in the eyes. He tried the classic rub-the-bad-stuff-out-of-my-eye technique. After 15 minutes of flushing his eyes in the emergency eye washing station, he was ready to return to work.
After the first aid ordeal, Keven and I were looking at about 50 minutes to complete a meal that would take 45 minutes. It was great to have him in a situation like this in his first week; we were rushing to complete a meal that we had no intention of cooking at the start of the day. We blitzed through it, the fish was excellent, and the overall meal was the best I had cooked without Christine in a very long time. Keven got his hands (and his eyes) in it quite a bit. More importantly, he learned how hectic in can get in a galley when it hits the fan, and the importance of being prepared. This was by far the best week I have had at this duty station.
Alas, that was not the perfect ending to a perfect day; as I was writing this, the Sabres tied the Rangers with 7 seconds left in the third. In overtime, the healthy scratch from game 4 put the Sabres up 3 games to 2 in the best of 7 series. Go Sabres!
The morale event was cancelled almost immediately. Two of our three department heads were not onboard with having their people leave an hour early on a Friday. With only about seven people playing from our crew (the Tackle has about seven total crew members), there was no way we would be able to field a game. So I ordered tuna steaks from Jess’ Market. As soon as I did, plans changed and lunch was off again. I had to settle into some paperwork and wait for everyone to figure out what the hell was actually going on.
Paperwork was the one thing that went as planned today. I had a lot of issues come up in my recent compliance inspection. As of today, each one of them is resolved. I would actually go as far as to say that it was overly-resolved today. I don’t want any of these issues to ever arise again, so the last two weeks I have been organizing something that I have become somewhat of a specialist in lately: automation. Today was the icing on the cake, and it felt great putting it together.
We finally got the okay to cook lunch on time, and I ran off with Keven to pick up groceries. We went to Jess’ for the Tuna. It was $14.99 per pound. That’s more than the lobsters cost. Speaking of lobsters, I showed Keven how to properly play with the live lobsters in the tank. Then we went to Hannaford, and Keven had some beautiful woman ask for his phone number. No, I’m not kidding.
Back on the boat, we started chopping veggies. We had a lot to do. Today’s menu: Grilled Margarita Marinated Tuna Steaks topped with Fresh Salsa, Black Bean Salad, and Southwestern Corn. Keven started working on the salad, and I got to work on dessert and the marinade. Somewhere in the middle, Keven started in on the Jalapenos. Somewhere in the middle of that, the Jalapenos decided to squirt him in the eyes. He tried the classic rub-the-bad-stuff-out-of-my-eye technique. After 15 minutes of flushing his eyes in the emergency eye washing station, he was ready to return to work.
After the first aid ordeal, Keven and I were looking at about 50 minutes to complete a meal that would take 45 minutes. It was great to have him in a situation like this in his first week; we were rushing to complete a meal that we had no intention of cooking at the start of the day. We blitzed through it, the fish was excellent, and the overall meal was the best I had cooked without Christine in a very long time. Keven got his hands (and his eyes) in it quite a bit. More importantly, he learned how hectic in can get in a galley when it hits the fan, and the importance of being prepared. This was by far the best week I have had at this duty station.
Alas, that was not the perfect ending to a perfect day; as I was writing this, the Sabres tied the Rangers with 7 seconds left in the third. In overtime, the healthy scratch from game 4 put the Sabres up 3 games to 2 in the best of 7 series. Go Sabres!
Sunday, April 29, 2007
The New Kid
The new kid arrived at work on Friday. I use the term “kid” loosely, as he is nearly 30-years-old. But he’s new, and they always seem like kids when their new. I think it’s the apprehension. He was in the Army before, so he graduated school as an E-4. He’s originally from L.A. and he’s a big time surfer. His accent would tell you if I didn’t. Much like Keanu Reeves in any movie since “Bill and Ted’s…” you keep expecting him to say “Dude” every time he talks. His name is Keven.
He had never been on a ship before Friday. He also has very little in the way of cooking experience. These two things tell me that a) we have a lot of work in front of us, and b) I am going to find out exactly what kind of boss I am.
I briefed him on roles and expectations, the ship’s routine, and my philosophies about how the galley will be run. I’ve covered some of these things in earlier blogs, but here is what I highlighted:
1. Customer Service – Our ultimate mission in the galley, it’s why we exist onboard. This covers everything from serving good food to creating an uplifting atmosphere.
2. Time Management – The amount of success we have in the galley depends heavily on our skills at time management. I am a proponent of getting as much done as possible as early as possible. This leads to less panic when it becomes crunch-time, allowing for more quality in a safer environment. I’ve always been a fan of less cuts, burns, and bruises.
3. Focused Learning – Here’s the thing: I need this kid to be able to do my job – almost completely – before I can go on leave. And for the first few weeks, he won’t be able to do much of anything on his own. That is fine, and I should expect as much from anyone new. In order to get him where he’s going, I’ll be tasking him with jobs that I would normally (at least) assist with. But he’ll be on his own, with me in the general vicinity. This doesn’t mean that I’ll be kicked back on the mess deck napping [even though I often dream of such things and, most days, would absolutely love to. I like naps.]. I’ll find something for myself. Helm/lookout and Quartermaster qualifications are pending for me. Basically, I need to get this guys feet wet for a couple of weeks, and then I need to set fire to them after that [figuratively Mom, I promise!].
4. Goal Setting – I want to find out what he wants out of this job. Once we get that out of him, it’s just a matter of picking them off of a list. If he sees these things accomplished, his confidence and ownership will rise, and I’ll have a really easy job… again.
I am so freaking excited about this. The whole reason I picked this job was the potential for developing someone brand new. It’s coming at a time where I am finally “settling down” from our transfer that happened oh-so-long ago.
He had never been on a ship before Friday. He also has very little in the way of cooking experience. These two things tell me that a) we have a lot of work in front of us, and b) I am going to find out exactly what kind of boss I am.
I briefed him on roles and expectations, the ship’s routine, and my philosophies about how the galley will be run. I’ve covered some of these things in earlier blogs, but here is what I highlighted:
1. Customer Service – Our ultimate mission in the galley, it’s why we exist onboard. This covers everything from serving good food to creating an uplifting atmosphere.
2. Time Management – The amount of success we have in the galley depends heavily on our skills at time management. I am a proponent of getting as much done as possible as early as possible. This leads to less panic when it becomes crunch-time, allowing for more quality in a safer environment. I’ve always been a fan of less cuts, burns, and bruises.
3. Focused Learning – Here’s the thing: I need this kid to be able to do my job – almost completely – before I can go on leave. And for the first few weeks, he won’t be able to do much of anything on his own. That is fine, and I should expect as much from anyone new. In order to get him where he’s going, I’ll be tasking him with jobs that I would normally (at least) assist with. But he’ll be on his own, with me in the general vicinity. This doesn’t mean that I’ll be kicked back on the mess deck napping [even though I often dream of such things and, most days, would absolutely love to. I like naps.]. I’ll find something for myself. Helm/lookout and Quartermaster qualifications are pending for me. Basically, I need to get this guys feet wet for a couple of weeks, and then I need to set fire to them after that [figuratively Mom, I promise!].
4. Goal Setting – I want to find out what he wants out of this job. Once we get that out of him, it’s just a matter of picking them off of a list. If he sees these things accomplished, his confidence and ownership will rise, and I’ll have a really easy job… again.
I am so freaking excited about this. The whole reason I picked this job was the potential for developing someone brand new. It’s coming at a time where I am finally “settling down” from our transfer that happened oh-so-long ago.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Yay, School
Another great discussion at school:
Instructor:
I agree. You make good points here. How would you approach designing something so sophisticated like a Chess game or Poker?
Me:
Not that I have ever thought about this before… ;-)
I don’t know what goes into a good Chess AI, as I don’t know much about the game (except the rules).
As far as poker, sophistication would be the key. I think this is why it is never done right. It would take a lot of time and energy (money) away from things like graphics to get a poker game right. You have to pick and choose when you make games sometimes, and I think that developers of single-player poker games have always been fighting uphill against the online poker community. If I want to play poker for no money and I am looking for realism, why wouldn’t I pursue an online game at one of the .net sites that are all play money?
That being said, I think that a successful poker game will rely more on a good “story” as opposed to a believable experience. What I am thinking of is somewhere between Madden’s Superstar mode (where the player manages certain attributes for the avatar so that it has a tendency to perform a certain way during gameplay AND simulation), and the NES’s Vegas Dream, where certain events outside of your avatar’s control influence the “action”.
The AI would ideally need to mimic the spontaneity of real-life players without being cursed with “stupid” decisions that are supposed to be signs of an “aggressive” player. The problem with today’s games is that players expect Gus Hansen to be modeled in the game world as a guy who will push “any two cards”. Any person who plays and pays attention to poker knows that Mr. Hansen takes more into account than just that. He takes in evidence from his environment: the other players’ signs of strength/weakness, his cards, and his position at the table relative to the “dealer”. When he pushes mediocre cards, he usually knows he can push a person to fold.
I learned about the way Lionhead Studios pursued AI in Black and White, and I like their approach to it. [http://www.gameai.com/blackandwhite.html]Basically, their creatures “learned” from the user how to act. They would basically rate each experience in a database of ratings.
Here’s the basic principle:
Eat a rock – “ouch”, -1 point.
Eat a sheep – “tasty”, +1 point, “master slapped me afterwards”, -2 points.
Eat a guy from the other tribe – “yum”, +1 point, “master scratched my ear”, +2 points
I can relate this to poker like this:
Pre-flop hand, points:
A-A - +20
K-K - +16
Q-Q - +16
J-J - +12
A-K suited - +12
A-K off-suit - +11
A-J off suit - +6
Q-J off suit - +6
J-T suit - +8
2-3 suited - -10
2-9 off - -27
You can also have number ratings for things like aggression, player-reading, position play, odds knowledge, etc. For example, an aggressive player might raise with the more mediocre hands before the flop occasionally. Any sort of resistance and he is willing to drop the hand unless there is major improvement after the flop.
Also, priorities can be assigned to different aspects of the game. A player with high odds knowledge might count on his player reading skills more because that is his style of play.
Obviously this would take a lot of work, trial, and error. You would have to do a lot of tinkering to get the bots to be that nice mix of computer logic (which is a desirable poker trait), and spontaneity. I think it would be worth it though. This would also prove to be something that you can have “learning” AI with. Whether in a long tournament or a season, an AI bot can learn a little bit about what a player does in a given situation, and factor that information into its database.
Instructor:
I agree. You make good points here. How would you approach designing something so sophisticated like a Chess game or Poker?
Me:
Not that I have ever thought about this before… ;-)
I don’t know what goes into a good Chess AI, as I don’t know much about the game (except the rules).
As far as poker, sophistication would be the key. I think this is why it is never done right. It would take a lot of time and energy (money) away from things like graphics to get a poker game right. You have to pick and choose when you make games sometimes, and I think that developers of single-player poker games have always been fighting uphill against the online poker community. If I want to play poker for no money and I am looking for realism, why wouldn’t I pursue an online game at one of the .net sites that are all play money?
That being said, I think that a successful poker game will rely more on a good “story” as opposed to a believable experience. What I am thinking of is somewhere between Madden’s Superstar mode (where the player manages certain attributes for the avatar so that it has a tendency to perform a certain way during gameplay AND simulation), and the NES’s Vegas Dream, where certain events outside of your avatar’s control influence the “action”.
The AI would ideally need to mimic the spontaneity of real-life players without being cursed with “stupid” decisions that are supposed to be signs of an “aggressive” player. The problem with today’s games is that players expect Gus Hansen to be modeled in the game world as a guy who will push “any two cards”. Any person who plays and pays attention to poker knows that Mr. Hansen takes more into account than just that. He takes in evidence from his environment: the other players’ signs of strength/weakness, his cards, and his position at the table relative to the “dealer”. When he pushes mediocre cards, he usually knows he can push a person to fold.
I learned about the way Lionhead Studios pursued AI in Black and White, and I like their approach to it. [http://www.gameai.com/blackandwhite.html]Basically, their creatures “learned” from the user how to act. They would basically rate each experience in a database of ratings.
Here’s the basic principle:
Eat a rock – “ouch”, -1 point.
Eat a sheep – “tasty”, +1 point, “master slapped me afterwards”, -2 points.
Eat a guy from the other tribe – “yum”, +1 point, “master scratched my ear”, +2 points
I can relate this to poker like this:
Pre-flop hand, points:
A-A - +20
K-K - +16
Q-Q - +16
J-J - +12
A-K suited - +12
A-K off-suit - +11
A-J off suit - +6
Q-J off suit - +6
J-T suit - +8
2-3 suited - -10
2-9 off - -27
You can also have number ratings for things like aggression, player-reading, position play, odds knowledge, etc. For example, an aggressive player might raise with the more mediocre hands before the flop occasionally. Any sort of resistance and he is willing to drop the hand unless there is major improvement after the flop.
Also, priorities can be assigned to different aspects of the game. A player with high odds knowledge might count on his player reading skills more because that is his style of play.
Obviously this would take a lot of work, trial, and error. You would have to do a lot of tinkering to get the bots to be that nice mix of computer logic (which is a desirable poker trait), and spontaneity. I think it would be worth it though. This would also prove to be something that you can have “learning” AI with. Whether in a long tournament or a season, an AI bot can learn a little bit about what a player does in a given situation, and factor that information into its database.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
…Service Specialist, Part III
Impact
They always say that the food has a large impact on the morale of the crew. Wrong. The Cooks have a large impact on the morale of the crew. This is by far the most important part of our job, and it’s the key to pleasing all the people all the time. It is also the most rewarding. By being able to shake off the stresses of the day when it matters most - when your customers are taking a break - you can have a mammoth impact on the morale of the entire unit. Mediocre food will maintain.
This is nearly impossible for some people, and I think it is why my rate is at the forefront of suicide, divorce, and alcoholism. When the complaints of others hit close to home, it’s really easy to jump in and start whining too. There’s a time for misgivings to be aired. I usually find a close friend that I can go bug in his office, when he’s trying to work. But a cook needs to stay above the fray as much as possible. Play the neutral, “I’m here to listen” role. Actually, it’s exactly like the role the bartender plays in modern day fiction. A little well timed advice here and there goes a long way.
By not jumping off of the bandwagon of hatred and discontent, a cook gives off nothing but foul mood. Foul mood begets foul mood. It’s so easy to build off of negativity. As sarcastic and quick witted as most crews are, a small flicker of grumpiness can quickly turn into a raging forest fire of disgruntlement. Crew members who came to the galley to unwind just get more wound up. Eventually this will snap back at the cook who is throwing fuel on the flames. It’s inevitable. It’s expected. It’s detrimental. Foul mood begets foul mood. Disgruntled cooks cook disgruntled food. An “I don’t care” meal is so much worse than mediocre. It’s worse than disgusting.
Energetic and optimistic. I strive for these ideals daily. The impact is felt throughout my cutter. Meeting people at the door with that attitude makes everyone circle the wagons for each other. Instead of grumpiness being met with unrelenting sarcasm, it is simply stepped around with caution. Respect flies around the room as if it actually belongs.
It’s amazing how people will jump onboard a program that seems to work. Positive moods are just as popular as the negative. It’s remarkable the reaction you get the first time you clear the plate of someone who had every intention of getting up to do it himself. The initial argument gives way to the fact that he can now sit and talk longer with his friends, or catch just a little more of The Price is Right before heading back to work, or home for the day. I always play it off that I am just trying to get the dishes done so I can scat, but that smile you get back… Or when I you bring up fried egg sandwiches to the watchstanders while your patrol boat’s on a night time SAR case. The giddiness they show when you waltz up there smelling of sausage and American cheese….
I may be slightly narcissistic, but all I really hope for in life is to have an impact of the people around me, to have them remember me when I am not around. No other job affords me the opportunity that this one does. That’s why I am a cook. That’s why Service will always be a part of my job description.
They always say that the food has a large impact on the morale of the crew. Wrong. The Cooks have a large impact on the morale of the crew. This is by far the most important part of our job, and it’s the key to pleasing all the people all the time. It is also the most rewarding. By being able to shake off the stresses of the day when it matters most - when your customers are taking a break - you can have a mammoth impact on the morale of the entire unit. Mediocre food will maintain.
This is nearly impossible for some people, and I think it is why my rate is at the forefront of suicide, divorce, and alcoholism. When the complaints of others hit close to home, it’s really easy to jump in and start whining too. There’s a time for misgivings to be aired. I usually find a close friend that I can go bug in his office, when he’s trying to work. But a cook needs to stay above the fray as much as possible. Play the neutral, “I’m here to listen” role. Actually, it’s exactly like the role the bartender plays in modern day fiction. A little well timed advice here and there goes a long way.
By not jumping off of the bandwagon of hatred and discontent, a cook gives off nothing but foul mood. Foul mood begets foul mood. It’s so easy to build off of negativity. As sarcastic and quick witted as most crews are, a small flicker of grumpiness can quickly turn into a raging forest fire of disgruntlement. Crew members who came to the galley to unwind just get more wound up. Eventually this will snap back at the cook who is throwing fuel on the flames. It’s inevitable. It’s expected. It’s detrimental. Foul mood begets foul mood. Disgruntled cooks cook disgruntled food. An “I don’t care” meal is so much worse than mediocre. It’s worse than disgusting.
Energetic and optimistic. I strive for these ideals daily. The impact is felt throughout my cutter. Meeting people at the door with that attitude makes everyone circle the wagons for each other. Instead of grumpiness being met with unrelenting sarcasm, it is simply stepped around with caution. Respect flies around the room as if it actually belongs.
It’s amazing how people will jump onboard a program that seems to work. Positive moods are just as popular as the negative. It’s remarkable the reaction you get the first time you clear the plate of someone who had every intention of getting up to do it himself. The initial argument gives way to the fact that he can now sit and talk longer with his friends, or catch just a little more of The Price is Right before heading back to work, or home for the day. I always play it off that I am just trying to get the dishes done so I can scat, but that smile you get back… Or when I you bring up fried egg sandwiches to the watchstanders while your patrol boat’s on a night time SAR case. The giddiness they show when you waltz up there smelling of sausage and American cheese….
I may be slightly narcissistic, but all I really hope for in life is to have an impact of the people around me, to have them remember me when I am not around. No other job affords me the opportunity that this one does. That’s why I am a cook. That’s why Service will always be a part of my job description.
Friday, March 16, 2007
…Service Specialist, Part II
The Heart
Every boat I have ever been on – every diesel-stinking, pitching-rolling, gut-busting, rib-bruising, salt-spray-settling-in-your-razor-burn boat I have ever been on has one thing in common: The galley and mess deck are right smack in the middle. Now this may only be a Coast Guard thing, but I think they do it for a reason. The galley is the center of the heart for any unit. Everyday the mess deck becomes the escape for every single non-cook crew member. At least once a day each person may choose to walk through the line, pick up their food, sit down and eat it. Through the whole process they are getting a hugely critical release from the everyday stresses of whatever their job entails. Even if they have to take their food off the mess deck, or if they take a box lunch with them away from the unit, there is always a measure of solace in that food.
Every boat I have ever been on has something else in common. A cook reports aboard and is told the same two things by the command. They always say that the food has a large impact on the morale of the crew, and that the cooks have a thankless job. I never understood these things (and I am not sure they did, either). First of all, I am thanked numerous times a day. I am thanked so much that I get bored with my response to it. Almost without exception every single crew member will thank you at least once per meal. It is simply because they are told the same thing when they get to a unit: “No one ever thanks the cooks, so you better say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ every time. After all, we don’t want our food to taste like Scope.”
I once cooked potatoes on my first buoy tender. They were roasted red potatoes. Now potatoes were something that I always hit out of the park, and my first trip on this boat I had the crew chant Three-Cheers because I didn’t serve Golf-Ball-Chunked-Mashed-Potatoes to them (apparently this was a problem before my arrival). These red potatoes were not my ordinary potatoes. Apparently I stayed to watch the Cubs game too long and these were more the texture of red apples instead. They were rock-hard undercooked. My department head walked up, as he always did, to thank me.
“How were the potatoes sir?” like I didn’t know.
“They were great Brandon!” trying to pretend like his jaw wasn’t sore.
Now I am not trying to say that no matter how lousy the food is, the crew won’t react negatively. The same guy that lead the crew in Three-Cheers also lead them in throwing of overcooked chicken back into the galley at me once….ONCE. The fact is that there are bound to be numerous occasions when negative reactions are bountiful. That’s the chemistry that is created when you put wound up people in a place where they can unwind. Their reaction to the environment – whether it be the food, the mood, the other crewmembers, or the TV – is clearly going to be over the top at times. It’s the moments when this boisterous activity is met with bad food that people remember as the cooks “really gettin’ it”. Thankless job? Hardly. It’s just rough and tumble sometimes.
Now for the morale – and this is where my answer always lies. Why am I a cook? Why am I still a cook? Why am I a Food Service Specialist?
Everyday people break for lunch. They file through that line to unwind. On a boat they also stop by the galley door to see how the cooks are doing occasionally. It’s bound to happen; the galley’s in the center of the boat, remember? Most mess decks also, even though discouraged in regulations, act as a main passageway through the ship. What’s for lunch? What time’s lunch? What’s dessert? What’s the soup? Can I have a cookie? Can I have the cookie dough!?!?! The milk machine’s empty.
Everyday people break for lunch, but the cooks never do. They simply can’t break for lunch. Even though they may sit down to eat, they never really leave their workspace. Nor do they step away from those they work with. So no matter how their day is going, they can’t simply go off to lunch to recharge or relax.
Every boat I have ever been on – every diesel-stinking, pitching-rolling, gut-busting, rib-bruising, salt-spray-settling-in-your-razor-burn boat I have ever been on has one thing in common: The galley and mess deck are right smack in the middle. Now this may only be a Coast Guard thing, but I think they do it for a reason. The galley is the center of the heart for any unit. Everyday the mess deck becomes the escape for every single non-cook crew member. At least once a day each person may choose to walk through the line, pick up their food, sit down and eat it. Through the whole process they are getting a hugely critical release from the everyday stresses of whatever their job entails. Even if they have to take their food off the mess deck, or if they take a box lunch with them away from the unit, there is always a measure of solace in that food.
Every boat I have ever been on has something else in common. A cook reports aboard and is told the same two things by the command. They always say that the food has a large impact on the morale of the crew, and that the cooks have a thankless job. I never understood these things (and I am not sure they did, either). First of all, I am thanked numerous times a day. I am thanked so much that I get bored with my response to it. Almost without exception every single crew member will thank you at least once per meal. It is simply because they are told the same thing when they get to a unit: “No one ever thanks the cooks, so you better say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ every time. After all, we don’t want our food to taste like Scope.”
I once cooked potatoes on my first buoy tender. They were roasted red potatoes. Now potatoes were something that I always hit out of the park, and my first trip on this boat I had the crew chant Three-Cheers because I didn’t serve Golf-Ball-Chunked-Mashed-Potatoes to them (apparently this was a problem before my arrival). These red potatoes were not my ordinary potatoes. Apparently I stayed to watch the Cubs game too long and these were more the texture of red apples instead. They were rock-hard undercooked. My department head walked up, as he always did, to thank me.
“How were the potatoes sir?” like I didn’t know.
“They were great Brandon!” trying to pretend like his jaw wasn’t sore.
Now I am not trying to say that no matter how lousy the food is, the crew won’t react negatively. The same guy that lead the crew in Three-Cheers also lead them in throwing of overcooked chicken back into the galley at me once….ONCE. The fact is that there are bound to be numerous occasions when negative reactions are bountiful. That’s the chemistry that is created when you put wound up people in a place where they can unwind. Their reaction to the environment – whether it be the food, the mood, the other crewmembers, or the TV – is clearly going to be over the top at times. It’s the moments when this boisterous activity is met with bad food that people remember as the cooks “really gettin’ it”. Thankless job? Hardly. It’s just rough and tumble sometimes.
Now for the morale – and this is where my answer always lies. Why am I a cook? Why am I still a cook? Why am I a Food Service Specialist?
Everyday people break for lunch. They file through that line to unwind. On a boat they also stop by the galley door to see how the cooks are doing occasionally. It’s bound to happen; the galley’s in the center of the boat, remember? Most mess decks also, even though discouraged in regulations, act as a main passageway through the ship. What’s for lunch? What time’s lunch? What’s dessert? What’s the soup? Can I have a cookie? Can I have the cookie dough!?!?! The milk machine’s empty.
Everyday people break for lunch, but the cooks never do. They simply can’t break for lunch. Even though they may sit down to eat, they never really leave their workspace. Nor do they step away from those they work with. So no matter how their day is going, they can’t simply go off to lunch to recharge or relax.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
…Service Specialist, Part I
Argumentative
One of the reasons I like sports so much is the overwhelming urge that comes over fans to discuss its happenings on an everyday basis. Yesterday part of our duty section was watching Pardon the Interruption on ESPN on the mess deck. The junior member of our group, no doubt disgusted with the argumentative nature of a subject that was pointless in her mind, asked us how we can stand to watch a show like that. The question struck me as funny because the show was covering basketball at the time, and even though I don’t ever watch basketball I was glued to the bantering.
The reason shows like PTI and Around the Horn are successful is the same reason that news shows are so successful: displaying opposing viewpoints on a topic allows people to jump on a side and feel passionate about the topic. Sports provides an even more charged atmosphere as you add in the good-guy/bad-guy mentality that naturally comes from having a favorite team or player. The innate counterpart of a favorite is something disliked or even hated. Pile on to this a rabid excitement that usually accompanies “life-long” fans and you have a recipe for great conversations into the night about SEC football vs. Big Ten football – or, Yankees: Dynasty or Best Money Can Buy – or, should Ryan Leaf have been drafted before Payton Manning. Okay maybe the last subject would never come up. You know what I am getting at.
The fact is that any amount of logical argument or debate over a subject will make the participants, at the most, more knowledgeable of the details. At the least, it makes them more aware of the topic itself. It is the same reason that 6 of my last 9 weeks of SQL and RDBM class dealt with planning and not coding. Planning also makes its contributors more intimate with details and aware of the situation.
I was asked once why I became a cook. This question comes up quite a bit, actually. The response is usually a well rehearsed “Well, I did the whole Mac & Cheese and Top Ramen thing pretty well… and I used to serve people hot chocolate in college…”. This particular time was different. This time it was with the inference that I am above this job – that I am smart enough to be anything, so why this? Let me break it down for you:
At its core, and in its generally perceived state, a Food Service Specialist has a very simple job: put out decent quality food on time, clean up, and go home. I can’t put it any more mundanely simple than that. Now let me tell you what I do.
I come in to work early – it’s not always as early as the horror stories claim either. There’s a rough sketch of a plan when I get there. A finite amount of meals need to be prepped and served before the day is up. Recipes may be needed for these meals. There is a certain amount of food that may (or may not) need to be procured. Cleaning needs to get done. Paperwork that tracks all of this will need to be updated. From the moment I wake up, and sometimes from the previous day, I am working through all of these details, trying to picture how I will pick through these various tasks. Mind you, this is not a dwelling on the details, but merely a constant ambient thought of things that must be done.
Early in my cooking days when paperwork and procurement were not a part of my daily routine, most of my planning and thought came from recipes. I have to get this item in the oven by this time, which means I need to start prepping it at this time, which means I have to stop watching the Cubs game at 3:30. My focus on planning in my recent career springs from two places. First, I have a need for survival. Once the day starts there is a pending list of quandaries that will be encountered. Whether it be from missing brown sugar, a dropped bottle of cooking wine, or 8-12 foot seas, there is always something that comes up requiring me to know what to do next. By planning ahead – or rather, by knowing the details as a result of planning ahead, I can use my built in problem-solving, crisis-management machine to work things out.
Second, somewhere along the line, (and I blame this on FS1 Faria, a handful of non-rates, and a spackling of Boatswains Mates) I developed a sense of ownership over my work. At what point this took over for my laziness as the controlling factor in my work ethic, I’m not exactly sure. The fact is, I can’t stand to have my food suck. I need to have it be great. People say you can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time. Bullshit. That’s like saying I can’t get a 100 on a medical inspection. Maybe they should reword that to be a little more half-full. You can’t please all the people all the time, but you damn sure better be trying if you’re their cook.
One of the reasons I like sports so much is the overwhelming urge that comes over fans to discuss its happenings on an everyday basis. Yesterday part of our duty section was watching Pardon the Interruption on ESPN on the mess deck. The junior member of our group, no doubt disgusted with the argumentative nature of a subject that was pointless in her mind, asked us how we can stand to watch a show like that. The question struck me as funny because the show was covering basketball at the time, and even though I don’t ever watch basketball I was glued to the bantering.
The reason shows like PTI and Around the Horn are successful is the same reason that news shows are so successful: displaying opposing viewpoints on a topic allows people to jump on a side and feel passionate about the topic. Sports provides an even more charged atmosphere as you add in the good-guy/bad-guy mentality that naturally comes from having a favorite team or player. The innate counterpart of a favorite is something disliked or even hated. Pile on to this a rabid excitement that usually accompanies “life-long” fans and you have a recipe for great conversations into the night about SEC football vs. Big Ten football – or, Yankees: Dynasty or Best Money Can Buy – or, should Ryan Leaf have been drafted before Payton Manning. Okay maybe the last subject would never come up. You know what I am getting at.
The fact is that any amount of logical argument or debate over a subject will make the participants, at the most, more knowledgeable of the details. At the least, it makes them more aware of the topic itself. It is the same reason that 6 of my last 9 weeks of SQL and RDBM class dealt with planning and not coding. Planning also makes its contributors more intimate with details and aware of the situation.
I was asked once why I became a cook. This question comes up quite a bit, actually. The response is usually a well rehearsed “Well, I did the whole Mac & Cheese and Top Ramen thing pretty well… and I used to serve people hot chocolate in college…”. This particular time was different. This time it was with the inference that I am above this job – that I am smart enough to be anything, so why this? Let me break it down for you:
At its core, and in its generally perceived state, a Food Service Specialist has a very simple job: put out decent quality food on time, clean up, and go home. I can’t put it any more mundanely simple than that. Now let me tell you what I do.
I come in to work early – it’s not always as early as the horror stories claim either. There’s a rough sketch of a plan when I get there. A finite amount of meals need to be prepped and served before the day is up. Recipes may be needed for these meals. There is a certain amount of food that may (or may not) need to be procured. Cleaning needs to get done. Paperwork that tracks all of this will need to be updated. From the moment I wake up, and sometimes from the previous day, I am working through all of these details, trying to picture how I will pick through these various tasks. Mind you, this is not a dwelling on the details, but merely a constant ambient thought of things that must be done.
Early in my cooking days when paperwork and procurement were not a part of my daily routine, most of my planning and thought came from recipes. I have to get this item in the oven by this time, which means I need to start prepping it at this time, which means I have to stop watching the Cubs game at 3:30. My focus on planning in my recent career springs from two places. First, I have a need for survival. Once the day starts there is a pending list of quandaries that will be encountered. Whether it be from missing brown sugar, a dropped bottle of cooking wine, or 8-12 foot seas, there is always something that comes up requiring me to know what to do next. By planning ahead – or rather, by knowing the details as a result of planning ahead, I can use my built in problem-solving, crisis-management machine to work things out.
Second, somewhere along the line, (and I blame this on FS1 Faria, a handful of non-rates, and a spackling of Boatswains Mates) I developed a sense of ownership over my work. At what point this took over for my laziness as the controlling factor in my work ethic, I’m not exactly sure. The fact is, I can’t stand to have my food suck. I need to have it be great. People say you can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time. Bullshit. That’s like saying I can’t get a 100 on a medical inspection. Maybe they should reword that to be a little more half-full. You can’t please all the people all the time, but you damn sure better be trying if you’re their cook.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
End It All
It’s tremendously sickening. I can’t stand it, and I wish it would just end all together. Each day it scratches my nerves and makes my insides flip over. I simply cannot take any more. If I didn’t only have three months of school before my degree I might quit right now and never go back. I hate it.
Right now I am in Ethics class (3 hrs) and SQL and Relational Database Management Systems (9hrs). Ethics is okay. I am learning some things. It’s important to remember that an ethics class isn’t like a church sermon; they don’t tell you what is right or wrong. As a matter of fact, they almost tell you that nothing is right or wrong. The author of this text is pretty adamant about pointing out that she is not attempting to do that. http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Story-Introduction-Ethics/dp/0767429109
The discussions are also okay. They were really good early on. I got in a huge argument with someone (we’ll call him Cooper) over Andrew Carnegie. The discussion was about whether we thought he was an altruist or an egotist. Cooper had the notion that he was an egotist, but all he cited was Carnegie’s trouble with unions, specifically the Homestead Strike of 1892. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie#1892:_Homestead_Strike
The problem I had with his post wasn’t that he was necessarily wrong. He was simply stating what every other classmate was stating. Since the Homestead Strike (sometimes seen as a lockout and not a strike) was made against Carnegie’s business, and since strikers died in the incident, Carnegie must have been driven to succeed at the cost of others’ lives. I struck against Cooper with all I was worth because he made more sense of this slippery slope argument than anyone else. I had a very strong urge to show the class that not everyone who is rich is also evil.
I am good at arguing. Ask any one of my friends who have “had it up to here” with my stubbornness. Ask that guy at work who now knows that Carmello Anthony led the NBA in scoring when he wasn’t elected to the All-Star game, even though I don’t follow basketball.
So I struck against Cooper. And I won. Anytime I get someone to point out that Mussolini, Stalin, and Castro were doing something right, I win. I had some really good points that centered on the fact that Carnegie publicly supported unions, and that he was out of town (home in Scotland) when Homestead took place. http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~phall/05.%20Wealth.pdf They didn’t exactly have the modern rush back in a jet when you get an email saying something’s wrong ability back then.
After a brutal week 4, I have simply not been generating any responses to my posts in other discussions. It’s my own fault because of my arrogant slamming of Cooper in such an efficient manner. No responses make my respond once by Wednesday and twice more by Sunday requirement extremely difficult.
But that’s not why I hate school. I get sick of posting in every class by week 6 anyway.
No, the reason I hate school is my Database class. By Sunday I will have had to post on these topics 24 times. Please keep in mind that I have ZERO database management experience, and that in week one I posted ALL of my ideas about why good design is important, and bad/no design is bad. Enjoy:
Week 1: “…give us a short background of your experiences.”, “…post your thoughts about why database design is so important.”
Week 2: “How can better database design assure accurate information…?”
Week 3: “Please, share with us one or more of your experiences with bad database design (no normalization)...”
Week 4: “…give us an idea of what you believe to constitute good database design… Please, share a few personal experiences and/or observations...”
Week 5: “…please give us a short background of your experiences with normalization…, Please share a few real-life examples.”
Week 6: “Describe the importance of creating the physical database properly from the database design…”
Week 8: “…please elaborate on the pitfalls of creating a database or a system without a plan in place”, “…backing up your idea with real life examples when a plan was, or wasn’t used, and what happened to that project...”
Right now I am in Ethics class (3 hrs) and SQL and Relational Database Management Systems (9hrs). Ethics is okay. I am learning some things. It’s important to remember that an ethics class isn’t like a church sermon; they don’t tell you what is right or wrong. As a matter of fact, they almost tell you that nothing is right or wrong. The author of this text is pretty adamant about pointing out that she is not attempting to do that. http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Story-Introduction-Ethics/dp/0767429109
The discussions are also okay. They were really good early on. I got in a huge argument with someone (we’ll call him Cooper) over Andrew Carnegie. The discussion was about whether we thought he was an altruist or an egotist. Cooper had the notion that he was an egotist, but all he cited was Carnegie’s trouble with unions, specifically the Homestead Strike of 1892. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie#1892:_Homestead_Strike
The problem I had with his post wasn’t that he was necessarily wrong. He was simply stating what every other classmate was stating. Since the Homestead Strike (sometimes seen as a lockout and not a strike) was made against Carnegie’s business, and since strikers died in the incident, Carnegie must have been driven to succeed at the cost of others’ lives. I struck against Cooper with all I was worth because he made more sense of this slippery slope argument than anyone else. I had a very strong urge to show the class that not everyone who is rich is also evil.
I am good at arguing. Ask any one of my friends who have “had it up to here” with my stubbornness. Ask that guy at work who now knows that Carmello Anthony led the NBA in scoring when he wasn’t elected to the All-Star game, even though I don’t follow basketball.
So I struck against Cooper. And I won. Anytime I get someone to point out that Mussolini, Stalin, and Castro were doing something right, I win. I had some really good points that centered on the fact that Carnegie publicly supported unions, and that he was out of town (home in Scotland) when Homestead took place. http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~phall/05.%20Wealth.pdf They didn’t exactly have the modern rush back in a jet when you get an email saying something’s wrong ability back then.
After a brutal week 4, I have simply not been generating any responses to my posts in other discussions. It’s my own fault because of my arrogant slamming of Cooper in such an efficient manner. No responses make my respond once by Wednesday and twice more by Sunday requirement extremely difficult.
But that’s not why I hate school. I get sick of posting in every class by week 6 anyway.
No, the reason I hate school is my Database class. By Sunday I will have had to post on these topics 24 times. Please keep in mind that I have ZERO database management experience, and that in week one I posted ALL of my ideas about why good design is important, and bad/no design is bad. Enjoy:
Week 1: “…give us a short background of your experiences.”, “…post your thoughts about why database design is so important.”
Week 2: “How can better database design assure accurate information…?”
Week 3: “Please, share with us one or more of your experiences with bad database design (no normalization)...”
Week 4: “…give us an idea of what you believe to constitute good database design… Please, share a few personal experiences and/or observations...”
Week 5: “…please give us a short background of your experiences with normalization…, Please share a few real-life examples.”
Week 6: “Describe the importance of creating the physical database properly from the database design…”
Week 8: “…please elaborate on the pitfalls of creating a database or a system without a plan in place”, “…backing up your idea with real life examples when a plan was, or wasn’t used, and what happened to that project...”
Sunday, February 4, 2007
The Rhinoceros and the Savanna
Recently I had to write a fable for Ethics class.
Here's the assignment: Project 1 requires you to develop and write your own fable. A fable is a short story that is used to teach a lesson about morals or values. The fable usually has animal characters that speak and act like humans.
The Rhinoceros and the Savanna
On a hot sunny day in the African savanna, a young white rhinoceros named Marie sat in the shade of a rustling tree. The breeze blowing from the East did little to cool her thick grey skin; it carried only hot air to her. Her belly grumbled with a great hunger, yet she had no desire to rise up and start grazing on the crunchy, dried grass. She glanced over toward the tree line. The family of wild dogs was stirring in the cool temperatures. Her friend Elizabeth was prancing around barking at her younger sister.
Suddenly Elizabeth caught Marie’s gaze. Her mood instantly changed and she sprinted over to the shade tree. “Oh great,” Marie muttered to herself. “Why aren’t you eating? The grass is long today, and the hot wind is blowing!” Elizabeth was obviously upset at Marie. A Great White Rhino had an obligation to the creatures of the savanna to keep the grass short. Without the rhino a fire would easily whip through and ignite the dry timbers of the woodlands.
“I’m too tired, and it’s so hot! I’d rather just lay here and sleep if it’s all the same. Besides, I’m not the only one who can keep the grass short. Why don’t you eat the grass?” Marie watched as a dejected Elizabeth wandered back toward the tree line. Sure enough she started eating grass along the way. Her sharp teeth were meant for eating meat. She didn’t have the wide mouth with large lips like Marie, an animal that was perfectly suited for grazing on the flowing grass.
Eventually Elizabeth drifted under another tree, a little closer to the woodlands. She lay down and crossed her paws, her stomach feeling horrible from all of the grass her poor body had consumed. After glancing over at Marie she laid her head on her paws and let out a little whimper. Her eyes settled on a small boy from a nearby human tribe that was playing with some branches in the grass next to the Rhino.
The boy was young for a human. She had seen him before, being scolded by his mother while throwing rocks at nearby wildebeests. Elizabeth thought to her self, are those branches on fire? Sure enough, the boy had managed to start a fire and now was trying to cook a snake. When he finished cooking it, he ran the snake – still skewered by a branch – into the woodland. Elizabeth noticed that his fire was still burning, but her stomach hurt, and she was still upset that Marie was not doing her job. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
With a hot East wind blowing, the fire didn’t just stay put. Eventually an ember ignited a blade of already dry grass. Quickly, the flames zipped up underneath the tree that Marie was resting under. They nipped at her heals, heating the armor that her thick skin provided. “Fire! Help!” Marie quickly hoped up and started stomping the grass with her massive, flat feet. The flames darted from underneath her and raced for the tree line, and the family of wild dogs.
Hearing cries for help, Elizabeth hoped up and started howling for her family. Seeing the white rhino stomping out the flames, she was encouraged. She raced toward Rose, an enormous African Elephant that was eating near the tree line. Seeing the flames, Rose reacted before Elizabeth could warn her. She sounded an alarm and raced to help stomp out the flames. More elephants and rhinos came upon hearing the great fuss. Together with the other, smaller animals, they managed to stomp out the fire before it touched the precious woodlands.
Elizabeth walked toward Marie, who was hanging her horned head in shame. “I’m sorry Elizabeth; I should have been working today.” Elizabeth licked Marie’s face. “It’s okay. We’re all safe now,” She reassured. Rose strolled up and laid her trunk on Marie’s back. “Remember,” she advised, “Never expect someone else to do a job happily when you are unwilling to do it yourself.”
From the Author
As this is an original work of fiction, there were no citations. However I drew inspiration from many sources. For more information on:
Rhinoceros Legends
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros#Legends
White Rhino
http://www.rhinos-irf.org/rhinoinformation/whiterhino/index.htm
Savannas and their neighboring woodlands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savanna
Wild Dogs
http://www.zoolex.org/zoolexcgi/view.py?id=511
African Elephants
http://elephant.elehost.com/About_Elephants/about_elephants.htm#AfricaElephant
Here's the assignment: Project 1 requires you to develop and write your own fable. A fable is a short story that is used to teach a lesson about morals or values. The fable usually has animal characters that speak and act like humans.
The Rhinoceros and the Savanna
On a hot sunny day in the African savanna, a young white rhinoceros named Marie sat in the shade of a rustling tree. The breeze blowing from the East did little to cool her thick grey skin; it carried only hot air to her. Her belly grumbled with a great hunger, yet she had no desire to rise up and start grazing on the crunchy, dried grass. She glanced over toward the tree line. The family of wild dogs was stirring in the cool temperatures. Her friend Elizabeth was prancing around barking at her younger sister.
Suddenly Elizabeth caught Marie’s gaze. Her mood instantly changed and she sprinted over to the shade tree. “Oh great,” Marie muttered to herself. “Why aren’t you eating? The grass is long today, and the hot wind is blowing!” Elizabeth was obviously upset at Marie. A Great White Rhino had an obligation to the creatures of the savanna to keep the grass short. Without the rhino a fire would easily whip through and ignite the dry timbers of the woodlands.
“I’m too tired, and it’s so hot! I’d rather just lay here and sleep if it’s all the same. Besides, I’m not the only one who can keep the grass short. Why don’t you eat the grass?” Marie watched as a dejected Elizabeth wandered back toward the tree line. Sure enough she started eating grass along the way. Her sharp teeth were meant for eating meat. She didn’t have the wide mouth with large lips like Marie, an animal that was perfectly suited for grazing on the flowing grass.
Eventually Elizabeth drifted under another tree, a little closer to the woodlands. She lay down and crossed her paws, her stomach feeling horrible from all of the grass her poor body had consumed. After glancing over at Marie she laid her head on her paws and let out a little whimper. Her eyes settled on a small boy from a nearby human tribe that was playing with some branches in the grass next to the Rhino.
The boy was young for a human. She had seen him before, being scolded by his mother while throwing rocks at nearby wildebeests. Elizabeth thought to her self, are those branches on fire? Sure enough, the boy had managed to start a fire and now was trying to cook a snake. When he finished cooking it, he ran the snake – still skewered by a branch – into the woodland. Elizabeth noticed that his fire was still burning, but her stomach hurt, and she was still upset that Marie was not doing her job. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
With a hot East wind blowing, the fire didn’t just stay put. Eventually an ember ignited a blade of already dry grass. Quickly, the flames zipped up underneath the tree that Marie was resting under. They nipped at her heals, heating the armor that her thick skin provided. “Fire! Help!” Marie quickly hoped up and started stomping the grass with her massive, flat feet. The flames darted from underneath her and raced for the tree line, and the family of wild dogs.
Hearing cries for help, Elizabeth hoped up and started howling for her family. Seeing the white rhino stomping out the flames, she was encouraged. She raced toward Rose, an enormous African Elephant that was eating near the tree line. Seeing the flames, Rose reacted before Elizabeth could warn her. She sounded an alarm and raced to help stomp out the flames. More elephants and rhinos came upon hearing the great fuss. Together with the other, smaller animals, they managed to stomp out the fire before it touched the precious woodlands.
Elizabeth walked toward Marie, who was hanging her horned head in shame. “I’m sorry Elizabeth; I should have been working today.” Elizabeth licked Marie’s face. “It’s okay. We’re all safe now,” She reassured. Rose strolled up and laid her trunk on Marie’s back. “Remember,” she advised, “Never expect someone else to do a job happily when you are unwilling to do it yourself.”
From the Author
As this is an original work of fiction, there were no citations. However I drew inspiration from many sources. For more information on:
Rhinoceros Legends
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros#Legends
White Rhino
http://www.rhinos-irf.org/rhinoinformation/whiterhino/index.htm
Savannas and their neighboring woodlands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savanna
Wild Dogs
http://www.zoolex.org/zoolexcgi/view.py?id=511
African Elephants
http://elephant.elehost.com/About_Elephants/about_elephants.htm#AfricaElephant
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Starting Linebacker
I started my pursuit of knowledge for coaching linebackers in football recently. I got a book from my Dad for Christmas. Coaching Linebackers: By the Experts from Coaches Choice. It features a bible compiled from various coaches throughout the NCAA including Wisconson's Barry Alvarez and Jerry Sandusky from Penn State (aka "LineBacker U").
I realized right away that I lack a lot of the very basics of football knowledge. The book started talking about "a 9 and a 5 technique, and the nose guard is in the 1 gap on the strongside". What?? I figured out the 1 gap on the strongside, but I always thought that defenses called it the Strongside A Gap. And 5 technique?! I am lost.
So I hopped on Google. I found out that the gap numbers are actually used for the alignment of defensive players. If I have a nose tackle in the 1 gap on the strongside, he is lined up on the center, but shaded to the strongside (side of the tightend) gap between the center and guard. The gaps are indeed lettered A, B, and C, and are used to assign responsibility, and not alignment. Here's a MS Paint Original Diagram -
The only thing I can figure for a "9 technique" is that the outer-most alignment must default to a nine technique. On the weakside above, where the 5 should be would actually be a 9. On the strong side, the 7 would become a 9. I am not to sure on this, but it seems to add up.
Once you know where your D-line is going to line up, it seems easy to coach the linebackers on what needs to be filled. If we have 4 D-Linemen at the 9-5-1 strong and 3 weak, we will have the strong side B and weak side A and contain(9 or C??) gaps uncovered. Another wondrous piece for you:
I am not sure if this is a legitimate formation or not, but you can see how the linebackers need to adjust according to their reads at the snap. A strongside run would bring this Middle LB into the strong B gap. What reads these linebackers have and how to train them to react to these reads I don't know yet. That's for another day.
Brandon
Edit 1/8/2007:
So this might be the actual numbering that the book was using. Odds on the left side, evens on the right, with 9 technique representing a "contain" outer most rush. Not quite sure though.
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