Good Day at Work

I rarely talk about work on the old blog. In part, I want to keep my work life from invading my home life. Also in part, I don't want to inadvertently let slip something which will cause me or my employer grief. But today, I'm so happy, I just had to write about it.

Back when I worked for my old employer, we used to do such modern things as set yearly goals. One of said goals pertained to percentage of "valid bugs" bugs filed per project. A "valid bug" is one that, at the end of a release, is resolved or closed as fixed, deferred or unfixable due to some constraint of technology. "Invalid bugs" are bugs that are duplicates of bugs that are already filed, or bugs that aren't really bugs (working as designed), or that can't be replicated. My goal with my previous employer was 90% valid bugs, something that I never hit, largely because I wasn't the only one filing bugs against the projects on which I was working.

Now, I don't have any goal like that at my current employer, but today I was curious how we were doing on our current project. Besides me, there's one other dedicated tester, and a small handful of others that pitch in. I figured that we'd be somewhere in the 75-80% valid range on our bugs, but to my great delight, we are currently at 87%! That's slightly better than the projects I'd been on with the previous employer, which typically hung around 80-85%. So today, I have been a happy, happy boy.

New Blogger...?

Hmmm... I was forced to switch to the new blogger this morning, and it looks like I'm going to have to do a little exploration. I have always used HTML to create my entries, but it looks like I'm not set up to do that anymore. Any suggestions from those of you out in Bloggerville?

Update: Well, that's unusual. The problem appears to only be with the Safari browser, which I use at work (since I have a the Mac Mini). I switched to Firefox in WinXP in Parallels and my HTML editor is back. Which is good for me, but bad for the Safari users. I wonder if it was always that way...?

A Little Experiment

With Amelia out with her girlfriends for dinner, I was left to fend for myself. Since she's not a fan of spicy/hot foods, I'll usually cook up something spicy for myself on such a night as this. Tonight I decided to make myself some chili. I have a pretty good recipe already, but I've wanted to try Texas-style chili, which typically doesn't have tomatoes and is more of a stew. So, I read several recipes on the internet and then tried to come up with my own. It actually came out pretty good, so I'm blogging it so I can remember for the next time.

Bald Man Tom's Skillet Chili

The Players

The Pan	9" cast iron skillet, well seasoned
The Ingredients	~ 1 lb. chuck roast, cut into small cubes salt 2 oz onion, finely diced 1 clove garlic, minced 4 oz can of diced chiles 2 tbsp chili powder 2 tsp adobo paste 2 c beef broth, plus 3 tbsp 3 tbsp masa harina Vegetable oil

The Method

Season the meat with a few pinches of salt about 5 minutes before cooking begins. Heat the skillet over high heat. Coat the skillet thinly with oil, then sear the meat in two batches (recoat the skillet with oil between batches if necessary). Set the meat aside. Lower the heat to medium, then sautee the onion and garlic until softened a little, about 2-3 minutes. Add the meat back to the pan with 2 c of the broth, chili powder and adobo paste, mix and simmer 5 minutes. Make a slurry with the masa harina and the remaining 3 tbsp of the beef broth, then add to the pan and give it a good stir. Place in a 350 degree oven for 90 minutes.

Makes 2 servings.

The Verdict

Pretty darned tasty! It was definitely a good first effort. The meat was nice and tender, so I'm glad I used a cut of meat with a little fat. If I'd used something lean like sirloin, I think it might have dried out during the stewing process and gotten tough. The heat was a little too subdued, but I can ramp it up in later batches. It was also pretty thick, not as much a stew as I was trying to make.

Lessons Learned

Next time, I'll want to bump up the heat. I'll add another tbsp of chili powder, swap diced jalapenos for the chiles, and add another tsp of the adobo paste. I might think about using less masa harina slurry, though the more I think about it, the more I'm liking the overall thickness of the stew, so maybe not.

As a side note, I made a batch of corn bread to accompany my chili. I used the recipe pretty much straight off the box of Kroger-brand corn flour (I just added 1 tsp chili powder to kick it up a bit). That, also, came out pretty darned good.

Happy Valentine's Day

xoxo

Game Night with Bald Man Tom and Amelia

Yet again, Amelia has beaten me at my own game. She won cribbage, two games to one.

Red Beard, I think you have something with Talisman.

Mom Knew Best

When I was a kid, my mom made me wear long johns when it got cold out. I never liked wearing them, of course. They were bulky and uncomfortable, and I felt like a total dork. Today, however, I found myself wishing I had a pair of long johns. It was really flipping cold in my office. My fingers were so cold that they hurt and I could hardly bend them, and I couldn't get my limbs warm at all. So Mom, you were right.

Date Night With Bald Man Tom and Amelia

We're just wild and crazy people...

Fun with GMail's Sponsored Links

I use Google's GMail for my work mail account, because I want my mail available both at work and at home, and I need LOTS of storage. If you've never used GMail before, it's pretty slick though it takes some getting used to. A minor annoyance is that "Sponsored Links" display next to the content of messages you're reading, similar to how they display next to search results when you run a Google search. Mostly I just ignore them, but for some reason this one caught my eye and I thought I'd share. Click the picture to see what made me chuckle. Note that the original message was from a coworker whose son is selling magazine subscriptions as a school fundraiser.

Presenting this month's cross-stitch