DECEMBER 2013
Monday 2013.12.30
New and Improved
This week I uploaded a major upgrade to this web site. It really is major, although I maintained the look and feel to keep the familiar. My web site formerly had seven HTML pages along with a Blog Archive with 45 pages stored there—all my past blogs. For this upgrade, the Recipe Archive page was divided into nine pages, each a food category, plus an index. A recipe folder was added, with 352 recipe pages. Every recipe now has it's own HTML page, including a photograph of the food, and a printer-friendly page. The Food Photos folder has nearly 185 photographs in it. So my web site jumped from about 50 pages to more than 400. As you explore you'll see there is a lot of content. It really is a major upgrade.
I've been clicking buttons and links for days and days, testing everything. I think I have every issue resolved. Famous last words? If you find an error, please take a moment to click the "Contact" button on the left panle and tell me about it. You can use a phony email address in the form if you want to protect your real one.
What has been added?
1. Every recipe (nearly 180 in total) has it's own web page with photograph. Now you can see a picture of the food and read the basic recipe before deciding to download the recipe PDF.
2. Below the photograph there are three buttons. Two of them are already familiar—"Get the PDF" and "View the Video". These buttons were in the former Recipe Archive page and they still perform the same function. The third button—"Print Friendly"—opens a similar recipe page, but it is mostly text—no buttons and no panels. I created this for people who want to print the basic recipe without downloading the multi-page PDF document.
3. The Recipe Archive is no longer a huge list all on one page. The Archive page contains category links—Appetizers, Main Courses, Desserts, etc.—for better organization. The recipes are in their appropriate categories. A few recipes appear in more than one category. For example, Eggplant Parmesan makes an excellent side dish for a dinner, but it also works well as a main course for lunch. Some side dishes might also work well as appetizers.
4. There is one page on which all the recipes are listed—the Alphabetic Recipe Index. They're all there, in alphabetic order, in case you know what you want and simply need to find it quickly.
5. I also added a "Quick Click" section to the left panel on the Recipe Archive pages. You can jump from one section to another without having to return to main Recipe Archive categories page.
What has been removed?
1. There is no longer a product reviews section. Most of the items in the reviews were old enough to be no longer available. My food processor, for example, is a "Limited Edition Metal Cuisinart." It's a beautiful food processor. The base is metal, not plastic. Sadly, it really was a limited edition. You can no longer find them for purchase.
2. I also removed the "About the PDFs" page. There was nothing there that isn't already stated in the "About My Recipes" page.
What is the same?
The Home Page is the same, as are nearly all the other pages. This major upgrade was only done to make the recipes easier to organize and navigate—and to provide pictures of each dish.
The hope is that visitors will find the web site easier to use. You can quickly look at a recipe and a photograph before choosing to download the PDF. If you enjoy the YouTube videos, you still have the same access to them.
For my part, I am hoping this elevates my web site from a simple little vanity site, in which I shared my recipes, to a larger Internet presence. I still do not display any advertising. My aim is not to make money from this site. The mission is still about sharing. (However, if someone offered me a gazillion dollars to purchase my site, I wouldn't need to think about it for long.)
Sunday 2013.12.29
Another Year is Coming to an End
This could possibly be my last blog for 2013. I might, however, blog tomorrow or Tuesday to detail the improvements to my web site. If all goes well, I'll upload the enhancements over the next day or two. I have actually been uploading some items—screen buttons, headers, and photos mostly—things you won't see yet, but which will make it easier to complete the upload. With the advance uploads done, I won't need to transfer a huge volume of files to the server in one day. I'm hoping for a smooth and clean transition.
After Tuesday's debacle with backups and archives, I added yet another few steps to my checklist of items to complete for each week's upload. At one time, all the steps fit easily on one page. Now it fills two pages. I've been updating my web site weekly for more than three years, and still I am finding new steps to add to the process to eliminate potential problems in the future.
And so I added to my checklist the step to perform a full backup of the entire video project before I end my Sunday updates. I might be a little obsessive about security and backups, but I've also suffered some very frustrating days when I needed something and both the backup and the archive couldn't help me to recover everything I need. I hate when that happens.
To make backups and recoveries easier, I bought myself a Christmas present: I ordered an external component—a hard disk drive (HDD) dock—for this computer. It plugs into a USB port at the back of the computer and it has two slots into which I can drop hard disks, up to 4TB each in size. Formerly, when I needed to recover something from my backup 4TB HDD, I needed to open my computer's case and hard wire the drive with cables. It was a nuisance.
The purchase of the HDD dock was necessitated by the archive failure I mentioned earlier. During the past several weeks I've been testing all my archive DVDs. I tested more than 600 disks. I only found a few "read errors," but even one is unacceptable. With this HDD dock it was easier to recover the original files, create new archives, and burn them to disk. Additionally, yet another of the steps I added to my checklist is to always test every new archive before putting it in storage. Sadly, the latest cake box of TDK DVD blanks purchased at the warehouse store has a high failure rate, about 30%. The last time I looked, the warehouse store had marked this brand of DVD blanks as "to be discontinued." Now I know why.
As for the HDD dock, I had an opportunity to use it on Friday afternoon. It works beautifully. Anything that makes my task easier, whether it be a kitchen gadget or a computer component, is a welcome addition to my home.
All in all, it was a peaceful and enjoyable Christmas. I look forward to the new year.
One sad event to mark Christmas day: A friend and former employer passed away during the evening. It was not unexpected. He had been declining for several years and the past few weeks saw a precipitous deterioration in his health. On the bright side, he died peacefully at home with his family near him. Rest in peace, Tommy.
Wednesday 2013.12.25 Christmas Day
Merry Christmas
I slept in late this morning, not waking up until nearly 9:00. I can't imagine many households enjoyed that pleasure, especially those with young children.
My day before Christmas wasn't a bright one, I must admit. An astute viewer reported some mistakes in the written ingredients at the end of my Quadruple Rum Cake video on YouTube. I checked and, sure enough, there were some major errors—enough that I decided to replace the video with a corrected one.
I have everything—almost everything—backed up on a 4TB hard disk kept exclusively for this purpose. When I opened the original video, two clips were missing. Those were pick-ups I shot later for a better way of plating and garnishing the cake. Evidently, I failed to back them up. No worries, I then turned to the archives on DVD.
Besides the hard disk backups, I also archive all my video projects and burn them to blank DVDs. Although I hadn't saved the pick-ups to the hard disk, they were in the DVD archives. However, when I tried to extract them to my hard disk, the one and only place the archive failed with a dreaded "Read Error" was during the one pick-up I needed. Out of hundreds of files filling five DVDs, the one file I needed was the only one to fail. I couldn't have planned a catastrophe this well. I wasn't filled with Christmas spirit. In truth, that might be a gross understatement of the facts.
I can laugh about it now, but yesterday wasn't a pleasant day. Nonetheless, I had enough video clips, including the former plating that I didn't like, to create a corrected video, which I uploaded to YouTube this morning. I'm sure it is just coincidence, but it tickled me to see that the video's URL ended with "nog" on Christmas day. Now onto bigger and better things.
This week I videoed the process of making vegetable stock. It fills a whole in my web site. When I upload all the new upgrades to this web site, one recipe will be removed from the archive and replaced with a vegetable stock recipe. The recipe I removed was my least favorite. I never liked it. I don't even want to mention it by name. The video will remain on YouTube, but I had wanted to pull the recipe from the archive for a long time. The vegetable stock recipe gave me the excuse. However, it had no corresponding video to go with it. That will be uploaded to YouTube on Sunday. That leaves only one fix remaining to be done.
When I first videoed Roma Cheesecake, one of my earliest videos, it was too long for YouTube. Back then, YouTube limited us to 15 minutes. I simply couldn't cut the video down to the time limit and cover all the steps properly. So I uploaded it to Vimeo and used that link on my web site instead. Now that YouTube has granted some of us unlimited video time, I can finally upload the Roma Cheesecake recipe. I hope to do it next week.
I am still sticking to my goal of uploading all the website enhancements next week. The plan is either Monday or Tuesday. I've been checking pages and links for errors. Earlier this week I found another mistake, replicated nearly 180 times because it was in the template I used for creating my recipe pages. It was, however, fixed easily enough. It took less than an hour to make all the corrections.
One final point: Again, the YouTube comment reply button isn't working. Those who asked a question or commented on my videos, who expected a response, won't be getting one. I apologize. Google is simply getting too big.
Other than all the above, I celebrated my Christmas the usual way. I read Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, a chapter each evening, starting on December 21st and reading the last chapter this morning. I hope the holiday is pleasant for you too.
Sunday 2013.12.2
Is Ungifting Okay?
In this month's edition of Costco Connection magazine they published a debate that asked the question: Is regifting tacky? Pros and cons weighed in on the subject. What about ungifting?
I normally don't do Christmas gift exchanges. I think it's performance anxiety. I'm not good at picking out gifts for friends or associates. I might think a beautiful leather bound journal would make a nice gift, only to find out later the recipient can neither read nor write. Or I fear the recipient will be all smiles and gracious "thank you"s, only to say to their partner or marriage mate after I leave, "Let's give this thing to my grandmother. She has Alzheimer's and won't remember who gave it to her."
What do you do with a gift someone evidently does not want, even before they know what it is? A friend said she had bought me something. Thinking it was supposed to be a Christmas present, I ordered something I knew she wanted and needed. I asked in an offhand way, so that she wouldn't suspect. I later told her I had a present for her.
"For me? Why?"
I explained that I wanted to get her something because she had said she bought something for me. I haven't heard from her since. I emailed her. No response. Sometimes I think she avoids answering emails in order to create plausible deniability. "You sent me an email about that? Really? I must have missed that one." It wouldn't be the first time I witnessed her tell a lie. When I asked her about that lie, her response was, "He doesn't need to know about everything I do." The he was the man she lives with.
I even tried to lure her here with the promise of Christmas cookies. "Oh yum," she said. There has been no word since. Meanwhile, some neighbors, friends, and even the garbage collection guys got plates of cookies. I nibble occasionally at the few that remain wrapped on my kitchen counter. They're already getting stale and there aren't enough left for a gift.
Of course, the performance anxiety could be on her side too. Maybe she bought me a No. 2 pencil and meanwhile she thinks I bought her diamond earrings. She might fear that her gift is inadequate. Maybe she is madly Christmas shopping right now, trying to find the perfect gift for me. What if she gives me a full set of All-Clad cookware, only to receive a plastic egg storage box in exchange? It's not a romantic gift, but a practical one, because she raises chickens and she told me she needs egg cartons.
The gift is wrapped in festive Christmas paper, with a bow on it. I even created my own card, as I had an idea that was amusing and appropriate for the gift. I have since moved it several times to get it out of my way, finally stuffing it under a desk. If the storage shed is built before she picks it up, her present will go out into the shed—and maybe be forgotten.
What is the rule for holding onto an unwanted Christmas present? Wait until after New Year's day? Valentine's Day? The Fourth of July? Next Christmas? At what point do I tear off the wrapping, open the box, and fill the tray with eggs and place it in my refrigerator? It's a nice storage container. I own three of them (because I buy the 60-egg carton sold at the warehouse store and each egg storage box holds 21 eggs). What if she asks about it after I adopt it for my own use? Such dilemmas.
Maybe this is the reason I don't like doing Christmas gift exchanges. There are too many questions and too many anxieties and too many dilemmas. I'm no Scrooge, but I do enjoy a little peace of mind.
Wednesday 2013.12.18
Another Debate Decided
To disable YouTube commenting or not to disable them? I heard from one person who said we don't need to police the universe. I agree. And, in fact, I should feel strongly about it because I live in the USA and sometimes I believe our country goes too far trying to police other nations when we have problems that need addressing here at home. If I remember correctly, this country wasted more than $800 billion dollars invading and occupying Iraq. Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, yellow cake, nor "nukular" capabilities. And for what? If I heard correctly, China won most of the oil contracts in Iraq, not the USA.
I sometimes feel responsible for keeping the comments on my YouTube videos clean. YouTube catches some and deletes them. Too many, however, get through. The one person who said I should not disable comments said it was easy to ignore the stupid comments from trolls.
Sometimes the comments are misleading. Someone commented on my French Bread video, advising people to forget about weighing flour. Just use a measuring cup. I defer to Julia Child. She taught the importance of measuring flour by weight, not by volume, when baking. I think Julia Child knew a thing or two about cooking, certainly more than a troll with a measuring cup.
Another problem is that I don't get notifications like I used to. At one time, YouTube would send me an email whenever anyone commented on my videos. I probably have too many now. My YouTube channel currently has more than 180 videos and some are so popular (French Bread has more than 60,000 views), it might not be possible to keep up with all the comments. Additionally, my email service now treats YouTube notifications as spam, even though I indicated they are not. Sometimes even the messages from this web site (using the Contact button on the left panel) end up filtered out by my email service's spam filter.
It's like the NSA (National Security Administration). We balance our need for privacy with our desire for security. I don't want spam in my email in box. If that means some legitimate messages are lost as spam, oh well. I do the best I can.
So be it. I am content to let the traffic police itself. It makes things easier for me. The comments that do reach me are mostly fun to read. In Sunday's video (Steak Sandwich) there was an error at the end of the video. I said I would enjoy an early lunch. The clock on the wall said 4:17. I saw that mistake and wondered if I should dub in the word "dinner." I decided to let it go, to see if anyone would notice. They noticed. It's amusing how many people pay attention to that clock.
At one time I wanted to hide it. For a while I used a wet-erase marker to color over the numerals, making it impossible to see the time. No one complained, but when I wanted to hide the clock they rebelled. "Don't hide the clock! We love it!" One person even commented on how the time jumps all over the place in some videos. That's because I sometimes go back and shoot pick-ups and cutaways on different days and at different times to fill out a video for a TV show or to fix errors.
And speaking of TV shows, although I haven't yet made the commitment to a second year of shows with the local TV station, I have 10 shows in the vault, ready for broadcast. The first season of 2014 begins around January 20, I believe, and if I have the entire season of 15 shows done, I might sign a contract. The shows will still be uploaded to YouTube as usual.
Sunday 2013.12.15
Excited About My Web Site—and stuff
It feels good to be excited about my web site again. After more than three years of cooking, writing, photographing food, and adding recipes and to my web site, things kind of got a little stale.
This entire week I've been testing, testing, testing all the new enhancements. Last week I found a lot of major errors. Those were fixed. This week I've been checking links, making sure they all point to the correct HTML page. So far the testing has been going well. No broken links, no orphaned pages; although, a few links pointed to the wrong files. Those were easily fixed. Now everything appears to be working perfectly.
There is a "link checker" in the software I am using. It will check the entire site for broken links. It never reports any, but I like to manually check anyway. I'm not being obsessive about it; I'm looking for working links that lead to the wrong page. The link checker wouldn't catch those. So far, every link is working correctly.
Of course, when it goes on line, there will no doubt be problems. A lot can happen during an upload. Recently someone reported that a recipe link on the main page led to the wrong recipe PDF. I checked it. The code in the web page was correct. However, the link on the server somehow got changed. I uploaded the page again and that fixed the problem.
I'm not sure when I'll upload all the new stuff to the site. I'd like to keep checking everything, just to make sure I minimize the problems. I'll probably do the upload between December 29 and January 1.
The excitement about my web site has also given me more enthusiasm about cooking in front of the video camera again. On Friday I videoed a basic Tagilatelle and Cream Sauce recipe from one of my Italian cookbooks, with the intent of demonstrating how a simple noodle and sauce idea can be easily expanded into a more complex dish. I then demonstrated that idea by using the sauce and noodles to make Chicken and Mushroom Tagliatelle. My Seafood Fettuccine recipe is built on the same idea.
I'm also excited about having a new storage shed. I've been packing seldom-used items (computer hardware, power tools, metric wrenches, etc.) into storage bins that will eventually go onto shelves in the shed. This week I plan to pack a bin with seldom used kitchen tools—extra bread pans, my rectangular springform pan, food mill, etc. I don't plan to buy anything new, but it will be enjoyable and convenient to take something out of the cupboard, like a colander, without first having to remove all the stuff stacked on top of it.
The storage shed project is turning into an obsessive-compulsive's wet dream. I've been organizing the storage bins meticulously. I have some 8½x11 card stock onto which I am printing, with my laser printer, the contents of the bins in very large letters. Power Tools, Metric Tools and Large Hand Tools—you get the idea.
In more ways than one this really is feeling like a holiday month.
Wednesday 2013.12.11
Haul-away Holiday
This past weekend was the trailer park's Haul-away Holiday. A very large dumpster was positioned at one end of the park and residents were invited to clean their yards, garden sheds, etc., dumping large objects that would not fit in their home garbage bin. It was free.
I heard a noise across the street from my home. It sounded like a large kitchen appliance being loaded onto a truck. I don't know how to describe that sound. What sound does a major home appliance make when it is being loaded onto a truck? I don't know, but when I heard the noise, I knew. I walked across the street and asked if they hauled away washing machines. Yes, and for free. They recycle them—repairing them, or salvaging the parts, and selling the machines in Mexico.
Before I moved into my current home I had a washer. Doing my own laundry was a pleasant convenience, and I had a place to hang my clothes on the line to dry. When I moved to my current home, I took my washer with me, storing it in the shed. Then I learned how difficult it is to have a mobile home plumbed for a washer. I would need to get a permit, use a licensed contractor, and an inspection might be required. The machine has been in my shed for 18 years. It was hauled away on Sunday. (And I gave the people $30 for taking it. They deserved it.)
I also hauled up to the dumpster two old furniture-like things that were in the shed when I moved here. One might have been a chest of drawers at one time (there were no drawers—just the frame) and the other looked like a custom made cabinet. Both were useless junk taking up room.
The next major task was to ask a carpenter to build me a new shed. I've been wanting one for years, but there was that washing machine to deal with. We have two licensed contractors living in the park. My reason for a new shed is simple—mobile homes have very little storage space. I can't buy a food processor or a bread pan or a serving plate until I first figure out where to put it. People have told me to buy one of those countertop slow cookers and write recipes for it. Nice, but where am I going to store it? They take up too much space. The plan is to store all my seldom-used kitchen items inside plastic storage boxes and on shelves in the shed.
As for the construction of the shed, I spoke with one of the contractors on Monday. He looked at the existing shed. He knows what is allowed by code. Most exciting: He will build to the largest size allowable in a mobile home park. Total square footage will be 120. My current shed is only 48 square feet, less than half the size of its replacement. The height can be up to 12 feet. I'll have about a thousand cubic feet of storage space. (For those of you in metic countries, that's about 28 cubic meters.)
I asked around. He's a good concrete man, so the slab will be done right. He will even include a concrete ramp leading up to the door. I'm excited. Meanwhile, I'm moving things into plastic storage bins.
Sunday 2013.12.8
DONE! (sort of…)
At 8:00 Friday evening I finished the last of the upgrades to this web site. The task I started at the beginning of November is finally finished—at least the construction part of it. It took five weeks, and it feels good to see it completed.
Phew!
Next comes the testing. I hope to do all the testing during the next few weeks, such that at the beginning of January I'll launch the upgrades. As I've been saying: The look will still be the same. There won't be a new site, nor a new domain name. The enhancements will make the site easier to navigate because it will be better organized. Best of all, everyone will be able to see a photograph of the food and look at the basic recipe before deciding to download the PDF.
Another benefit of all this work is the HTML code that operates behind the scenes to give you these pages. During the past three-plus years I've been adding things here and there—recipes, buttons, pdfs, etc.—without paying much attention to the code. If the web site works, I'm done. Go take a nap. Web sites are not always so easy.
Some spurious code crept in. It doesn't cause any malfunctions. You don't even see it. It just sits there, taking up space, about as useful as a handbrake on a living room chair. It turns out that a lot of those little things crept into the code. For example, each of the buttons on the left panel has an internal name. The "About My Recipes" button was only known internally as "Image10". As I said, it doesn't cause a malfunction; however, if the other six buttons have their own meaningful name, why not the seventh button too? That was fixed. It is now named "about_recipes_button".
If all of this seems a little OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), it is. I learned some programming many years ago when I hacked (when hacking was a good thing, not a mischievous thing) a mainframe computer program in order to make it work for a bookstore. To avoid the dreaded "syntax error" message, every single character in every single line of code had to be perfect. Back then, computers weren't very good at guessing what we might mean. Now, when I enter the first character to begin a code word, the program offers a list of possible options from which I can select what I want.
I did get to cook this past week. A friend and her step-son came by for a visit. I made a big pot of Clam Chowder. I love this stuff. She brought two loaves a crusty bread, one of them a ciabatta. Her step son, being a teenager, is a big eater. There were no leftovers. I remember when I could eat a whole pizza by myself and then search the freezer for ice cream. These days, if I eat half a pizza I make myself sick.
I finished the evening off by giving her a little gift. For months she's been searching thrift stores for a DVD of Rocky Horror Picture Show. I have it. Although I broke a copyright law doing it, I ripped and burned a copy for her. I didn't feel bad about it because she would never have purchased it new. Money is tight. A used copy for a dollar is the most anyone could hope for. So the motion picture studios weren't denied a sale this time. Instead, I did something thoughtful for a friend. After all, it is the holiday season.
Wednesday 2013.12.4
Light At the End of the Tunnel
I missed one goal. That was because one friend encouraged me to create an entirely different web site with a new domain name. After wasting several days on that idea, I returned to upgrading this one. The fans made up my mind for me. However, that new web site idea put me behind schedule. I wanted to have all the upgrades finished by the end of November so that I could spend December testing.
All is not lost, however. I'm just a little behind. I hope to be done by Friday.
As I mentioned last month, the major upgrade will be a separate web page for each recipe, with a picture, and a printer friendly page. All the recipe PDFs will still be in the Recipe Archive. I will, however, be adding more than 350 HTML pages to the site, along with almost 200 food photographs. With all the Blog archive pages, the site only has 50 pages now. If everything goes according to plan, this site will quadruple in size in January.
The hardest part is reading all the recipes again. I want to cook everything all over again. I even went so far as to prepare a shopping list to get the ingredients for Tomato and Mushroom Crostini before I talked myself out of it. It helps me to realize what I accomplished during the past three years. I have cooked, videoed, and written recipes for 180 different foods.
By the way, not to change the subject, I just had an epiphany. As I was writing the above I had the flavor of eggnog on my mind. What is it about that flavor that I like so much? I realized it is the sweet flavor of nutmeg. I'm thinking of researching eggnog recipes and avoiding those that do not incorporate nutmeg.
As for progress made: So far I replaced 140 of the recipe PDFs with new ones. I corrected a few typos, added metric equivalents where they were missing, and improved some of the wording. Along with those PDFs, I created (but they are not available yet) 140 recipe HTML pages and an equal number of printer friendly pages. When available, you'll be able to view a photograph of the dish and look through the recipe before choosing to download the PDF or watch the YouTube video.
I can do 10 to 15 recipes per day. I did 16 yesterday. Each one takes about 30 minutes to read, edit, and work into HTML pages. At 140 done so far, that's 70 hours of labor.
I only have, however, 38 more recipes to work. Then I can begin testing.
There have been a few setbacks. I'm dealing with a big one today. When creating one of those roll-over buttons you see on these pages, the program offers to give it a name—Image19—which you can accept or assign a name you prefer. I was accepting the names. That's fine on one page, but I was copying and pasting the code to another page where the same button is used. However, if there is already an Image19 on that page, then there is a conflict and the button doesn't work. Ahh, so that's why you can assign a name you prefer. Thankfully, each recipe has its own unique name, so giving the button the same name makes sense. Meanwhile, I have more than 250 buttons to fix.
There will be some problems, even after all the testing. I can't catch everything. I run the "link checker" occasionally and, so far, it reports no broken links. And I do at least one backup each day. 70 hours is too much work to lose if something crashes. I don't know if I could start again.
I am even setting aside my upgrade to the other computer to get this project done. That computer is working, but the new hard disks arrived yesterday. I can begin the next phase, when I'm ready.
So, the work is proceeding. Soon I hope to get back to cooking. I'm still getting requests. Someone requested Christmas fruit cake yesterday. I have no objection to fruit cakes. I know some people use them as wheel chocks, but I like fruit cake. I'll work on that.
Sunday 2013.12.1
At the Risk of Seeming Like a Complainer…
How was your Thanksgiving? And how was your shopping experience?
I'm not a big shopper on "Black Friday." For those of you in other countries, it's called Black Friday because that is the day on which many stores see a jump in profits, into the black ink (as opposed to red ink) due to early Christmas shopping or just taking advantage of sales. Most Americans have Friday off from work. Thursday is Thanksgiving, Friday is Thanksshopping. Okay, I made that name up. But people do rush around on the day after Thanksgiving, taking advantage of sales and promotions. For many, it's a way to do most of their Christmas shopping at discount prices. If I think about it long enough, there seems to be something anit-Christian in that, but I won't dwell on it.
I did take advantage of one Black Friday promotion, but it was for something I wanted anyway. It happened to be discounted. I've been blogging about one of my computers. I completed the re-load by noon on Thursday. Total updates from Microsoft were nearing 200. I also got the program that allows me to make an image of my hard disk. However, I need a hard disk drive (HDD) onto which to write the image. I have some old HDDs and they're too small. I disassembled the three oldest and smallest ones, tossing the metal into recycling and disposing of the electronics properly. A fourth HDD is dead, but still under guarantee; so it was mailed back for replacement. Another, assembled in 2003, is still working fine (but for how much longer?).
So, the old HDDs are not an option for an important thing like an image. I ordered two new hard disks. I got two because they were discounted more than 30% for Black Friday and they are Western Digital Carvair Blacks, the brand I trust most. They are two terabytes each. Here's my plan: Put an image on both of them and use one in the computer now. Next Thanksgiving, swap hard disks, format the first one, and then put a new image on that one. In this way, each November I won't need to spend two to four days re-loading a computer. Swapping a hard disk takes minutes. If the image takes a long time to create, I can start it before I go to bed. As for the hard disk in the computer now: I'll put that one away as a critical backup, just in case I ever need it.
There is another reason to do this image thing. If I read correctly, in April 2014 Microsoft will finally cut the cord to Windows XP. By having images, I should be able to keep that computer running XP long enough to keep me going until I finally decide to build new computers. It will always have an updated version of Norton Antivirus on it, plus good firewall software. Hopefully that will be enough to keep it safe.
So where does the complaining come in? Thursday I received a phone call from an occasional friend:
"Cooking anything special for Thanksgiving?"
I told her about my computer reload, started on Monday, and that I was thinking of making my Seafood Fettuccine to celebrate my having completed the task. I told her about the dish.
"Oh, that sounds delicious!"
I can take a hint. I invited her to dinner.
"Okay, but I need to take a nap first," she said. "Call me in a couple of hours." That would be about 4:45.
Meanwhile, I went shopping, bought the shrimp, along with everything else I needed and I also purchased the ingredients to make Clam Chowder, because I had been wanting it. I arrived home, assembled the pasta dough (it needs to sit for a while) and started the Clam Chowder.
By 4:45 all the prep work was done and water was boiling on the stove, ready to cook the fettuccine; so I called my friend and asked her if she was ready to come over for dinner.
"Well, I'm not really hungry. I ate a bowl of oatmeal a little while ago. But maybe I could come over later for a little visit."
Now I'm thinking: I invited her to dinner and she eats a bowl of oatmeal instead? She thought the Seafood Fettuccine sounded delicious. Less delicious than oatmeal?
So dinner with her was cancelled and I quickly got off the phone. I was hungry. I divided everything in half, putting one part in the refrigerator, and I made a nice dinner for myself. Both the Clam Chowder and the Seafood Fettuccine were delicious. It was a satisfying meal. I was delighted, even without her company.
An hour and a half later she called back. "I'm starting to feel hungry again. If I were to bring a plate over, could I take a plate of food home for myself?"
I politely told her, "There are no leftovers. I cooked only enough for myself. Maybe another time…" (—if ever).
It's difficult to be angry with someone who says "I love you" a lot. Still, it wasn't polite. It was like saying, "I want your food, not your company." It wasn't intentional; so, it's already forgiven (but maybe forgetting will take a while).