Thinkgs have been busy lately! I rewrote every single requirements specification for our largest product so that the requirements were testable and included all needed info. Then I imported them into our testing tool and linked them to tests with the help of some fancy little scripts. I probably saved us a couple hundred hours of work! But I got yelled at for not “making the engineers eat their own dogfood.” And yes, that is a direct quote. The problem is that nobody understands it’s not the engineers that end up eating it, it’s everyone else. Go figure.

2007 is going to be a better year at work, some changes are being made for the better, we firing some slackers and hiring some top talent. For 8 straight quaters our orders have increased faster that our installs. The biggest challange this year is to simplify the install process so that we can start recognizing more revenue. This is tough because 1) The install people do not, generally speaking, have the same technical appitude that engineers do and 2) It’s hard for the business to say that we’re not going to work on any new features and innovative products, instead we’re going to work on install and service tools. The average install time for this particular product is nearly 200 days. And that’s average. The normal installations take less than a week (it really takes about 2 hours, but things move slowly in a hospital). There are a few installs going on 400 days, but these involve complicated HIS (hospital information systems) integrations that will always take longer, but should probably take less than 30 days.

So it’s Sunday morning, I woke up, took the cinnimon rolls out off the fridge to rise, went back to bed, played with the dogs, got up when my fancy new coffee pot automatically made me coffee at 8am. Put the rolls in the oven, fed the dogs, let the dogs out, let the dogs back in (story of my life). Made orange cardomon frosting for the rolls, and sat down with a roll and coffee and turned on the TV. Flipping through channels I landed on “Gay, Straight, or Taken” a new game/reality dating show. Basically the contestant has to choose one of three potential daters to win a vacation/luxury date/etc. The catch is that one of the potential daters is gay and taken, and another is straight and taken. Only one potential dater is straight and available. Whoever gets picked, they win the vacation, whether it be with the contestant or their boy/girlfriend.

So I thought this would be the worst thing ever to watch, but in reality, it is hilarious. All three contestants want to win the vacation so they act it up, trying to act as “straight and available” as possible. So it’s funny. There’s that “why am I watching a show about stereotypes” feeling, but in reality neither my wife or I have guessed any of the people correctly (watched 2 episodes). And let me tell you, I KNOW gay. Wait. But it has that opposite effect you know, you wait to stereotype the contestants but when you find out you’re tottally wrong, it puts a good spin on it.

Anyway, it’s hilarious. Watch it, you’ll laugh. It would be great for a drinking game!

We finally got a renter for our duplex! One year lease too!

I typically haven’t carried a credit card balance ever, even though I use it for everything. By everything, I mean everything – my wife is sometimes embarrassed by the small amounts I charge on the card

But October – January is a long time not to have a renter, and with Christmas and a few emergencies (car tires cost alot of money), it’s been stressful to know I’m contributing to CITIbank profits. But now it’s time to pay this sucker off! Yeah!

The theme was new/old pairings on dishes. Some traditional recipes followed by new interpretations.

The morning started out with baking bread:

Then there was drinking.

Then there was an amuse course. Cucumbers, olive oil, salt pepper, vinegar, cream fraiche and dill. Jicama, carrot, beet, blood orange oil, lime/lemon zest and juice, and tangerine supreme:

french onion soup, onion bread, gruyere

french onion tart, smoked bacon, goat cheese.

Venison sous vide, apple, bacon, cinnimon, red wine, rosemary, olive oil. Five cheese cauliflower cream sauce.

Boeuf Bourguignon

Veal stuffed with mushrooms, shallots, marscapone

Dessert. Chocolate pots de creme, petit four, hazelnut sauce. Irish Cream. Chocolate praline tart, caramel, butterscotch, chocolate sauce.

More Drinking