The strip mall near my apartment had a store I had never heard of, A.J. Wright.  I finally decided to see what it was.  You know how a copy of a copy looks a little grainier and isn’t as nice?  A.J Wright is like a TJ Maxx of a TJ Maxx.  There’s a decidedly urban demographic being marketed to with the clothing selection, but the housewares stuff was decent if erratic.  If I ever have little things I need where I don’t really care about quality, I might check them out again.  I will avoid the sale boxes outside, though.  It’s like a herd of chickens fighting over a piece of garbage.

There’s also a Blockbuster in the stripmall, although disappointingly not one of the locations that’s being closed.  I passed by one of the closing ones recently and decided to check it out for any deals.  It was the first time I’d been in a video rental store since college (before, even; I’m racking my brain to think of the last time I’d been in one and it’s at least since high school).  It was odd seeing one so empty, but over all it was lie a crappy garage sale; everything you’d want is already gone and what’s left sucks.  I have never seen so many crappy direct-to-dvd movies and incomplete boxsets.  sidenote: to the person that bought discs 3 and 4 but not discs 1, 2, 5, or 6 of Bones season 4, I hate you.  This goes doubly for the person who left only disc two of Mad Men season 1.

I’ve been twittering more often than I”ve been blogging.  I like the small format, as it allows for more spur-of-the-moment content (although I’m going to try more of that here as well).  A few highlights:

I guess I missed this entering the modern canon:

No magnets at the Museum of Science (WTF), but there was this awesomeness (which is now taped to my fridge):

And finally: food.  Cooking’s become a way to relieve stress and release tension after work.  Even if I leave the office feeling over my head (a feeling which becomes rarer with each day on the job).  Here’s a slideshow of what I’ve been making.  Although I tend to be fairly precise, I’ve suprised myself with the way I’ve been thinking like a cook rather than a baker in terms of flavor profiles and improvisation.  The salad with the roast beef was completely improvised from what was on hand (although I found a recipe for the viniagrette after deciding to make one), and I’ve already turned some of the sauce into a spread for sandwiches later this week.

Have a Kickass Senior Project

Mission Fucking Accomplished.  I couldn’t be prouder of the final product my team produced for our senior project client.  Our client was blown away by the work we did, out adviser was blown away that our client was blown away, and in the end we all got expensive steaks at a very nice restaurant in Terre Haute.  Did we get top senior project, as was my ultimate goal?  No, and while I don’t entirely agree with one of the projects that received the award, I think we got something better.  The week of final project presentations to the juniors, my project adviser (who I have as professor in another class), wouldn’t stop talking about how great my project went.  It came up at least once in every session that week.  I may not have gotten my team on the best project plaque, but I left an indelible mark in our adviser’s memory, and that’s just as good.  I can’t wait to see what’s done with our final product — we were 85% of the way to a professional iPhone app.  The extra 15% shouldn’t be hard to finish on their end.

Get a Job

When Liberty Mutual didn’t work out, I was bummed.  It was the closest I had gotten, but it didn’t go all the way.  I think I knew in the interview, though, that the job wasn’t entirely right for me.  Following up on a job I had applied to using the career center’s website, I got an interview for a QA position with Veson Nautical.  The interview was with a Rose alum, and while things seemed to go good, I had that same feeling of not quite fitting things.  I think my interviewer felt the same way, but he suggested another role at Veson they were hiring for.  I agreed to an interview — the position had the mix of software skills and technical documentation skills I was looking for.  I interviewed for that position a week later, and it went really well.  I knew coming out of the phone interview I was being flown out, and it was confirmed only a couple hours later.  I’ve never had things go that fast with a company.  In mid-April I flew out and interviewed for the position.  I ended up talking with about 1/3 of the company by the end of the day, and had a really good feeling that I had found the right place, even if it wasn’t Seattle like I had been working towards.  After about a week of waiting, I got an offer, which I accepted.  I have a job now!  In an exciting locale!  Everything is coming together and it feels great.  Now to find an apartment.

Cook at least once a month

This wasn’t a goal so much as a reminder to keep being awesome even when CS’s cooking got me down.  I made awesome tacos, shepherd’s pie, chicken soup, and all sorts of other wonderful recipes.  Going to keep this up as I start living on my own, probably with even more frequency.  I should start taking more photos of what I make, though.  That’s a good new goal: more food photos.

Be More Social/Go Out More

I’m still working on this.  SNL Saturdays are good, but as I move to a city where I’m unfamiliar with most people, I need to start doing more to meet people.  Here’s to another year of going outside my comfort zone.

And that’s it, for now.  More blogging when I’m less consumed by packing and moving.  And graduation.

I can’t believe how fast the end of my time as a student at Rose-Hulman is approaching.  I’m still working on the whole getting-a-job thing (to make a long story short, Liberty Mutual Seattle said no, but I’ve got other prospects–I’m flying to Boston Tuesday for an interview), but for now, I’m going to focus on another area of my life: cooking.

See that picture above?  I made that, about a week ago, for dinner.  Pork Tinga tacos with avocado and Queso Fresco (fresh cheese–it’s mexican.  basically like feta, but less pungent).  Cooking is a release for me.  Regardless of how irritated CS makes me (which has been more frequent lately — clearly a week of spring break was not enough), no matter how stressed all the projects going on are making me, time in the kitchen is a way to calm down, re-focus, and relax.  I think that’s why the way CS cooks irritates me so much.

Let me set things straight: CS is not a bad cook, but he’s not a good one either.  It’s clear he could be a good cook, but his focus is in the wrong place.  Two of the people I look up to in terms of food (yes, I have those) are Alton Brown and Rick Bayless.  Both advocate the use of fresh ingredients where possible, and stress the whys of the the techniques you’re using as much as the steps of the recipe.  The crew at America’s Test Kitchen is good for this too (especially since they rigorously test each recipe until it’s perfect).  Between the three of them, it’s a great resource for an engineer that likes to cook–everything is precise and has a purpose behind it.  That’s where I try to focus when it’s my turn to cook for the apartment: fresh ingredients (and less of a reliance of canned/processed goods) and a strong sense of flavor.

CS does not think this way.  His only concern is cost and how quickly things take to make.  There’s been a number of times when he’s come home from Kroger with stuff just because it was on sale (a horrible way to just add more to the pile of things in the freezer that he’s bought like that.  apparently the freezer is a magical box which keeps things good forever.).  I’m fairly certain he’s never made a recipe that’s taken over 30 minutes to make start to finish (the one exception to this, when he wanted to make something “American” for our new suitemate to try, meatloaf, he used my recipe from America’s Test Kitchen.  He didn’t read the instructions ahead of time to see how long it would take, and I ended up making the meatloaf to ensure we had dinner on time.)  This focus on the quick and the cheap means we eat a lot of bland casseroles barely modernized from the 50s that consist of a lot of canned soup and hamburger.  He’s served green bean casserole, a perfectly alright side dish, as the only dish for dinner.  TWICE.  This goes directly against my two principles when I cook.  I don’t mind focusing on cost (we’re in college — I try to cook two dishes with similar ingredients over a two week period so I only need to shop once), but the time thing angers me — I take whatever time is needed to make something the people I live with will enjoy.  I don’t get that feeling when CS cooks.  We’re not forcing him to make anything for us — he signs up for when he wants to cook on a whiteboard in the room.  There’s no visible passion behind what he makes; there’s an attempt to impress us because he thinks so highly of himself, but its not reciprocated when the end product always looks so disappointing.  I don’t want to crush his desire to cook, but I just wish he’d listen to the feedback he’s gotten.

I’m not asking for anything as elaborate as the tacos above (which aren’t really that elaborate–pork slow cooked with tomatoes/peppers/garlic served with chopped up avocados tossed in lime juice and crumbled fresh cheese).  Just something that’s been made with a sense of love or passion behind it.

Not that I have a bucket list, but if I did, i could now cross this one off of it: eat fake meat.

Ever since I found out such a thing exists, I’ve been slightly curious as to what a “tofurkey” tastes like.  The last time I was home, around Thanksgiving, when shopping at Trader Joe’s with my mom, we passed the larger-than-usual selection of tofurkeys and picked one up.  I was joking that we should get one–my mom was adventurous enough to go along with it (and they were only $10 for the entire kit that includes the tofurkey with stuffing and gravy).  We didn’t get a chance to make it until Monday.  It was an interesting process, to say the least.

Cooking a tofurkey is similar to cooking a regular turkey breast.  You put it, along with some potatoes/onion/carrots (for aromatics/flavor) and a baste made from olive oil, sage, and soy sauce into a casserole/roaster and cook it the required length of time.  The box shows it sliced thick with sections of stuffing the middle of each piece, but they actually suggest you carve it like a typical turkey, thin shavings on the sides with the stuffing removed later.

I’m not sure what I was initially expecting, but I was prepared for the worst.  I’m not a fan of tofu as it usually comes–there’s something creepy about its sterile whiteness and texture that generally doesn’t appeal to me.  The tofurkey is actually a mixture of tofu and wheat gluten (seitan) that’s closer to a loaf of bread than the gross assumptions I normally have with tofu.  On the other hand, the company’s been in business for a number of years–if the product sucks, no one’s going to buy it.

I think the thing that surprised me most was the fact that the flavor of the tofurkey wasn’t all that bad.  I’m not saying it’s good–it’s a little dry and nothing to write home about, really, but had I not known beforehand that what I was eating wasn’t meat, I could’ve easily believed it was (especially with the provided gravy covering the pieces).  The other off part is the color–it’s a little too tan/yellow to be truly believed as turkey.  Would I get it again?  maybe, maybe not.  If nothing else, should we encounter some sort of meat-apocalypse where only fake meat products remain, I wouldn’t hesitate to go for the tofurkey.

Have a kickass senior project

I am doing amazing at this goal.  Our client is awesome–while he’s not always immediately available because of his heavy travel schedule, he’s always quick to respond by email and has even agreed to help us develop our public presentation materials (eliminating some of the worry of what we can/can’t say at these things).  I couldn’t have asked for a better team–we’re committed to working together successfully and we seem to be able to cover for each other’s weak points.  I feel like I could be actually “managing” a bit more — we’re not meeting as often as some of the other project groups.  On the other hand, we don’t need to meet as much–I can generally trust that what my teammates claim will be done will be done by the time it’s due.  Dr. Bohner is proving to be an excellent advisor–while he has the tendency to get off on tangents when we discuss our project with him at our meetings, he’ll be the first to poke us if something needs to get done and offers generally good advice.  I’m glad he’s a bit looser with grading than Sriram was with his teams last term–as much as I like Sriram as a prof, Dr. Bohner’s slightly more laidback attitude as our advisor is a better fit for us.

The tough part, development, starts when we get back.  I’m looking forward to it, though–we’ve broken everything down week by week and should be able to have all of the major necessary features done by the expo, with a few to add spring term before going for some of the more out there “if we have time” features and completing things

Run a puzzle hunt

This one’s completely fallen apart.  It was a good idea, but I find I don’t have the time, and I like being a participant of puzzle hunts much more than a writer.  I’ll add another goal to make up for this one being a bit of a bust.

Get a second-round interview with Microsoft/a job in general

Last year, I got a first-round interview with a Microsoft rep.  I got one this year too, although by phone rather than in person.  It was pretty cool–I got to talk with the head PM of Microsoft Project for an hour, and although I was mixed on how the interview went, I was positive for the most part.  Whether I botched the interview or whether they’re only hiring past interns because of the economy (a rumor I had heard), I didn’t get to the second-round, we-fly-you-out-for-a-few-days interview I was hoping for.  It hurt to get that e-mail; I didn’t even need to open it to know what it said (it came too quickly to be good news).  It couldn’t have come at a better time, though: I was at D’s house for fall break and had to push past the initial shock/sadness (there were tears over that e-mail, in all honesty.  Not many, and not for long, but they were there.) to resolve to enjoy that weekend, and it worked.  Que Sera Sera–whatever will be, will be.

My job search outside of Microsoft hasn’t been doing much better.  I got an interview with Epic on the spot at the career fair–that was really exciting, as that hasn’t happened before.  I enjoyed going through the interview process with them (unusual as it was), even if things didn’t work out — I’m not going to be a perfect fit with every company.  Google hasn’t responded to the application(s) I sent, although I have a contact with one of their people through a cousin, so I’m trying to see if I hear anything back that way.  I figured it couldn’t hurt.

My primary job search sources right now are the Career Services website and Craigslist.  I was wary about Craigslist, but the Software/QA/DBA section is surprisingly good for finding positions.  I have to sift a bit more to find things I qualify for, but I’m at least hearing back from more companies (usually with a “we’ll keep you on file” since they’re looking for someone on shorter notice) than I was with other search engines.  At this point, tenacity is the best thing I can have–if I keep applying, I’m bound to find something.  And if I don’t?  Just like last year, I’ve got a plan B started–it seems like it could be a rally good idea if I can find the customer base and get my feet off the ground

Cook at least once a month

This goal hasn’t been a problem either.  I’ve gone from thinking I was probably a good, not great, cook to realizing that I’m way above average compared to my (current) suitemates.  The years of practice have made me completely at home in the apartment’s kitchen, and while I wish I had some more counter space than I do, I’m really enjoying having the facilities.  One thing that hasn’t changed though, is people who use the kitchen and don’t clean their shit up.  I’m looking at you, CS.

Be More Social/Go Out More

I suck at being social.  I am all too happy to spend hours in my room reading/noodling around on the net instead of hanging out with people doing awesome things.  Unfortunately, I used D as a crutch–he was someone familiar and I could count on being able to hang out with him most of the time, whether in the room or going out to eat on the weekends or doing the radio shows.  With him having left Rose, I need to push myself to not completely alienate myself from others.  I’ve started some of the steps to change this already–even though he’s not here, I’ve still been getting together with the SNL group we started meeting with Fall term–but I need to do more.  I’m going to start by spending more non-project time with my project group–lunch/dinner on the weekends or something.  My academic life is great, but my personal life is in bad need of attention.  This is more of a long-term thing, but it’s a bit more reachable to the puzzle hunt thing.

and that’s where things stand.  More (on the start of winter term/christmas break) later.

CS made steaks again.  Clearly, last time failed and he has something to prove, but making the exact same thing as you did last time doesn’t exactly instill confidence in your audience.

I guess, to be fair, I should explain other things that have built this feeling up.  CS and his girlfriend rarely, if ever, try/eat any sort of sweet baked good that D, D’s girlfriend, or myself have made.  There’s been a few exceptions (he had a piece of the bread pudding I made last night), but for the most part there’s been no reciprocation for us eating what they’ve baked.  This is strike 1.

There’s also been a constant debate about the oven.  CS is a perfect cook–it is the equipment he uses that is to blame.  When the oven is set to 350, it clearly isn’t at 350, because the oven thermometer that he placed in there to check says it isn’t at 350.  Nevermind the fact that an oven circulates around a temperature rather than staying directly at that temp (I haven’t had to take heat transfer and even I know how an oven works).  Nevermind, even, that D, D’s girlfriend, and myself have baked cookies/a cake/biscuits/bread pudding at the listed temperature in our various recipes and had things come out fine; occasionally, things take an additional minute or two, but this is par for the course with any oven.  Clearly it is the oven that is broken, and not the baker.  This is strike 2.

Then there’s communal groceries.  One person buys, everyone pays for food that the entire group will be eating/drinking.  Everyone’s been pretty good about paying, except for CS.  CS “doesn’t carry cash” and tries to pay me in groceries/stuff/whatever–this is not the same.  When reminded of a mythical machine somewhere on campus that provides money with the swipe of a card, CS is hesitant to go.  When I remind him that they take credit cards too, he mentions something about interest rates (he’s always quick to use his card, but at the slightest mention of using it to pay me back, suddenly interest is an issue).  When I mention another rumored device, pieces of paper issued by a bank that work similar to cash when written on and given from one person to a merchant or other person, CS replies that his are at home.  I finally get a promise to get me cash tomorrow using a debit card and an ATM.  This is strike 3.

As you can see, I have plenty to be irritated about.  I’ve been pretty patient about all of this, but something finally snapped tonight after dinner.  CS and his girlfriend were making chocolate chip cookies.  The last time they did this, the cookies were semi-burnt and tasted awful, but CS, girlfriend, and some friend of CS thought they were FANTASTIC and wouldn’t shut up about how great they were.  Because these cookies were “like crack”, CS and his girlfriend started on another batch after dinner.  When I walked out into the main room, they were discussing oven temp.  I don’t know why this of all things incited me, but it did.

I suggested they bake the cookies at 350 like their recipe said.  CS argued with me using the arguments from last time of “the oven doesn’t heat up…I know it’s supposed to circulate, but ours is still off”.  I brought up the track record, amongst other reasoned arguments, but everytime I’d bring something up, he’d start up again with “Actually,…”.  I have enough fun playing the “Actually,…” game with my sister at home; when it happens, it usually ends with me saying “Actually, [sister], I don’t care.”  but those weren’t the words that came out of my mouth when CS and I were talking.

Instead, what I said was “Actually, CS, I don’t give a shit.”  Something like a “Then why are you making a fuss about it” came out but by that time I had started going back to my room, too focused about getting away from the negative energy to throw out a “because I have to suffer through your terrible baking” or something similar, but more vulgar (given the mood I was in, this is likely).

Do I feel bad about saying this? Yes.  Did it feel good to say it? Yes.  I just wish I could have thought a bit before shooting my mouth off.  Oh well.  Time to let it roll off my back and move on with a more positive outlook.

I’ve needed to go to Walmart since I moved in.  While I brought plenty for the kitchen, as did others, there’s some stuff that we all just forgot and needed to purchase at Walmart.  D and I had planned to go after we both woke up.  When I got up at 11:30 and left the room to use the restroom before planning my part of the list, CS cornered me, wanting to know if I needed anything from Walmart, as he was going.  Half-asleep, I told him I was planning on going, as I needed to get some supplies for dinner that night, since I was cooking.  It was agreed that D, CS, myself, and CS’ girlfriend would go together rather than separately so as to not get items twice.  CS offered to pay with his credit card, and here is where things began to get a bit frustrating.  Actual conversation:

“I get 2% back when I buy groceries.  So if we have $100 worth of groceries, I get $2 back”
“I know how percentages work, CS”

I don’t like shopping with CS.  D and I are aiming to fix it so it’s only the two of us because of this last time.  I make lists for what we need, and adhere as closely to that as possible.  CS makes a list as well, but then buys a bunch of stuff besides, raising the total of our communal total (items are separated into “individual” and “communal”–everyone pays for their individual plus their portion of the communal).  Of course, despite whether we will be using it/eating something made with it or not, it seems like most of CS’ stuff counts as “communal”.  He tried to claim the beer was communal.  D and I both informed him that if we weren’t going to be drinking it, we weren’t going to be paying for it.  These became part of his individual total along with word from me that if I wanted one (and I probably won’t), that I would gladly pay him for the one I took.

For my first shared meal in the apartment, I wanted to do something that I was familiar with that I knew would go over well, so I made Chicken Tikka Masala with the Masala sauce I brought down with me from Trader Joe’s.  The recipe is right on the jar–cook some (preferably Basmati) rice in another pot according to its directions.  While that cooks, take about 1 pound of chicken (I used pre-cooked fajita-seasoned strips) and cut it into 1-inch cubes.  Place in a pan with the jar of sauce and about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of water and let simmer, covered, for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  When done, serve on top of the cooked rice.  It’s simple, unpretentious, and really really good (particularly if you add some red pepper flake to the sauce for just a little bit of heat).  It went over really well with the group, but CS’ behavior while I was cooking, and while everyone was eating, seemed really rude.  Rather than talking about what we were having and talking about the smell coming from the simmering sauce, as most others were, CS was taling instead about what he was doing the next night–steak and a vegetable.  He talked about what cut of meat he got (a crappy one, to be honest), how he was going to season it, how his dad could make a cheap cut of meat better than most steakhouses, isn’t it going to be just great.  This continues all through dinner, and felt like a slap in the face.

I had a little reason to be concerned.  CS and his girlfriend had made cookies that afternoon.  Peanut butter blossoms (basically a standard PB cookie with hershey’s kisses in the middle after they’ve baked) are a fairly simple cookie to make, but somehow they screwed up.  After 10 minutes in the oven, CS wondered why they hadn’t flattened out.  This was blamed on the oven not being the proper temp, but when I asked, they hadn’t pressed down the cookies with a fork beforehand–something I’ve seen in every PB cookie recipe I’ve seen, even for the ones with hershey’s kisses.  I suggested this, but apparently I know nothing about baking PB cookies.  When the cookies were done, they were okay, but nothing overly special–there wasn’t enough of a peanut butter flavor to them and they seemed a little bland, like more sugar was needed.  This was enough to make me wary when CS said he’d be doing breakfast as well, but I agreed to wake up when he said he’d be making them to give him a fair chance.

When I woke up at 9 that morning, I didn’t hear anything going on in the kitchen.  I walked out into the dark living room to find that CS was just coming out of his room as well!  CS said that breakfast wasn’t going to be made for at least another half hour to an hour since no one was up.  This ticked me off, since I usually don’t set my alarm on the weekends and was a bit tired.  I crawled back into bed for 30 minutes and joined everyone in the main room of the apartment.  Once made, CS’ breakfast sandwiches were good–the eggs were nicely scrambled and the italian sausage was a nice counterpoint that added a little heat/flavor to it.  Maybe I had been wrong to judge CS’ cooking skills based on just the cookies.  Maybe he was more than just talk.

While D and I played on the Wii that afternoon, CS began to prep the steaks, tenderizing them and coating them with a rub that included meat tenderizer and lemon pepper.  I wasn’t really paying attention to how he was doing it or how much rub was going on the flatiron steaks he had bought, as I couldn’t see from where I was sitting.  He began to grill them, and the first batch (of two) was soon ready.  As they were cooking, I could smell pepper in the air–I was worried, but knew that a peppery flavor is sometimes good on a steak.  D’s girlfriend got the first steak since we still had our hands full with the game.  After she took a bite, a look came over her.  This could not be good.

After finishing the level at hand, I went to grab a steak, which CS was patting with a paper towel to remove excess rub.  It didn’t seem like a good sign that, post-cooking, the steaks looked like hamburger patties rather than steaks (although that could have just been the cut he got–a quick wiki search reveals flatiron steaks are cut from the chuck region of the cow).  I cut a bite off and put it in my mouth.  I nearly spit it out.  It was too salty, too peppery, and too lemony–alltogether awful.  D’s girlfriend realized this about the same time, and we asked how heavily the steaks had been seasoned.  These clearly didn’t need a heavy dry rub like they had been given, and no amount of scraping rub off would help the flavor–the great job of tenderizing CS did made sure the meat was permeated with the flavor.  It was all I could do to choke down the steak and veg (which got saturated with the juice from the meat and tasted salty) with a glass of water.  CS chose to do something he couldn’t quite remember in an attempt to impress us all and had fallen flat on his face.  While it seemed a bit mean to feel this way, the schadenfreude of this after all the disrespect I had been given the night before made up for this.

D, his girlfriend, and I went for a walk that turned into a drive down to Sonic to cleanse our palates with some cherry limeades (note to Sonic: have your free limeade coupons distributed to mailboxes.  Leaving a pile outside the ARA leads to students (self included) taking stacks of them to create a never-ending limeade source.)  It ended up not helping with the gastrointestinal woes we were suffering as a result of the salty steaks, but at the time, it tasted good, as did the feeling of retribution.