At This Point

Wow, fall quarter ended, winter break ended and winter quarter is now in its third week. I'm technically taking two less credits this quarter, but the workload almost seems harder. So what am I taking?

Unix/Linux system administration

Intro to forensics

Network intrusion detection

Data network design/management

Oh yeah and I'm still doing the work study thing at the school. Jeremy has night class the opposite days that I have night class so it's been a bit of a challenge and it will only get worse as the quarter progresses (tests and midterms and papers oh my).

High Horse or Short Pony

What makes you think you have the right to judge situations when you walked into it less than 3 minutes ago. You haven't been there, you don't know what happens, so what makes you the resident expert? You are so quick to criticize that the words that come out of your mouth end up being lies.

You're quite obviously better than everyone else and know exactly what and how things should be done, but wait, you're qualified how? Oh that's right, the mental sitcom that plays out in your head translates directly into reality.

Well I'm not going to play victim to your games. There is a fine line between sticking up for one's self and being rude and frankly, I don't care how you perceive it.

You may have ridden up on your high horse, but you need to leave with the tail between your legs on a short pony.

Merry Grinchmas

So I'm not sure if I'm feeling Grinchy from the lack of winter vacation snow, lack of funding around holiday time, the fact that Christmas seemed to sneak up on me, the lack of Tobby or a combination of everything. I have managed to make quite a few batches of peanut brittle, bake a loaf of bread, make chocolate crinkle dough, take a delightful Christmas card photo and prep my garden for the spring. I have plans for more baking tomorrow, it's been almost a week and I can see most of the floor in my room (removed 2 full trash bags of trash and 2 trash bags of clothes to donate) and I have to finish Christmas shopping. When is Christmas? Saturday, yikes.

Fall Quarter

This past quarter at school was supposed to be my hardest quarter yet. Not only is the quarter 2 weeks longer than the other quarters, but I took 20 credits (my last 3 quarters will be 18, 18 and 10 respectively). In addition to being at school for physical class time, I was also at school working. My internship that I had over the summer turned into a work study position so I was getting paid to get experience (bonus!). Somehow I made it through but my g.p.a. went down. Jeremy seems to think if I turned in one of my assignments (the only one out of 4 classes that I "didn't feel like doing") I might have gotten a better grade. Can I object on the grounds of speculation? Here is my final tally:

Unix/Linux 4.0

Intro to data recovery/forensics 4.0

Wide Area Networks 3.8

Operating System Principles 3.1

Winter Gardening

So this past 'sprummer' (late spring, early summer), Jeremy and I attempted to create a garden. We spent the better part of one evening trying to dig up grass on a 10 x 6 plot in Jeremy's back yard. We only got about a foot border dug up before we called it a day and subsequently quit the whole process. Our plan was to plant peas, Roma tomatoes, beans, peppers, multi-colored carrots, strawberries and perhaps potatoes. Well, we did "plant" my Roma tomato plant naked in the light of the full moon. Well, technically I was in a swimsuit on my deck putting it into a topsy-turvy with the deck light on, but it was still a full moon! The strawberries ended up getting planted in a planter on my deck. Neither the tomato plant nor the strawberry plants turned out to be fruitful.

Skip ahead a few months and it brings me to November when our teacher decided it was more important for us to attend a seminar during "Green Week" at school than to learn about 'wirtualization.' I learned a few things at the seminar I attended, Urban Agriculture, which was put on by Seattle Tilth (go to their website!). I learned that planting garlic in the winter is just fine because it'll "hang out" until spring when it is time to sprout. The second thing I learned (and I found most interesting) was how to prepare your garden for spring. See my layered word diagram:

burlap

compost/leaves

newspaper or cardboard

grass

The cool part is the newspaper/cardboard will kill the grass and the compost/leaves will start to make new soil on the disintegrating paper product. The burlap is there to not only protect the under-layers from flying away due to wind, but keep moisture and heat trapped underneath. So Sunday after the Seahawks "game", Jeremy and I put down newspaper, leaves (mixed with some random grass clippings) and put burlap over the top. Now we wait.

Birthday

Earlier this week I made a chocolate zucchini cake. Why? Because this is around the time of Tobby's birthday and she loved chocolate and vegetables. I miss her like crazy and today is her birthday so it's been hard. I hope she's happy.

Power Cooking

Last month I took a "power cooking" class. In a nutshell, you plan a months worth of meals, shop and prep in one day, cook and freeze the next day so you can just pull the meal out of the freezer and heat it up. I sampled 4 dishes and they were good so I got excited about trying it out.

Last Sunday Jeremy and I decided to go for the gusto. We spent approximately 11 hours shopping then cooking and I still ended up having to finish two more meals later that week. So far we've had Mediterranean chicken pockets (AMAZING!), macaroni and cheese (different flavor, but good), lasagna (jury is still out) and paruskys, beef filled pockets (just ok).

I just realized that between what was incorporated in the meal and side dishes that were prepared, I have eaten a significant portion of vegetables for the last 7 days...in a row! Granted, today we had a really fun "extended family" Thanksgiving and I had 2 legit sized helpings of salad, not related to power cooking. My only regret was not eating more salad.