Have Coffee, Will Blog

Big Day Out

2009-06-29T02:14:55Z

Just a brief update- I barely have the energy to sit up. The sun has sucked the life out of me.

Picked blueberries this morning in Stockbridge. Got 7 pounds. And more than a little sun.

Crushed three pounds of the berries and started the process of making wine with three pounds of them. The rest of the berries will end up as jelly.

Also mixed four gallons of shiraz and zinfandel grape juice in another bucket and threw some yeast in.

Watered all the plants twice. The bigger hibiscus plants are getting really thirsty. I've gotta rig up my automatic watering system again.

I had meant to go by Whole Foods and get a gallon of whole milk to make another go at mozzarella. I've decided that the failure of my previous attempt is because I used Kroger milk, which is apparently ultrapasteurized, despite not being marked that way on the jug.

I'm enjoying the winemaking.. unfortunately it'll be months and years until I know how they've really turned out.

Stripping cast iron

2009-06-01T13:39:50Z

So, Heather has an old cast iron skillet. The inside was nice and seasoned, but the outside was in really poor shape. So, I decided to strip it completely so I could get the rust off that had to be hiding under the seasoning, clean it, and reseason it.

There's a lot of information out there on the Internet about doing this. Some people put skillets in a lye bath for a week, others use oven cleaner. The lye bath seemed like more trouble than it was worth, and I've tried oven cleaner before. Oven cleaner doesn't do much for the layers of crud, it just removes some of the oils and seasoning (which can be useful on cast iron that isn't as bad as this skillet was). And I've also used Chore Boy scrubbers on them before, and it sometimes seems that they take more skin off my hand than they do crud off of cast iron.

This morning, I stuck her skillet (along with two others we found at thrift stores this weekend) in the oven and ran it through a cleaning cycle. That did the trick. The thick (and I mean thick) layers of crud on the outside are ash now. The skillet is completely grey and clean now. I'm incredibly happy with how they look. Once they completely cool, I'll scrub them with salt and oil to get the remaining rust off, and then reseason them. Heather is going to be really happy when she gets home and sees the skillet!

Limbaugh on reverse racism

2009-05-26T20:25:01Z

Apparently Rush Limbaugh went off on Obama and his SC nominee today. He's upset that they're both "reverse racists". He claims that the SC nominee is a huge advocate of "reverse racism".

I don't know how to parse that. Is that like a reverse vampire? Is Limbaugh saying that he'd rather have a racist in the White House appointing racist judges? Would that make him happy? Or is he still strung out on painkillers and has no clue how the English language works?

"We're changing for you!"

2009-05-26T19:52:44Z

The huge Baptist church down the road from me (Rehoboth Baptist on Lawrenceville Hwy) has covered their sign with a huge under construction-style banner that says "WE'RE CHANGING FOR YOU". That's all it says. It's been up there for a month now.

I'm hoping they're ditching the whole Christianity thing and opening up a huge bar. I'd be totally down with that. I mean, they're changing for *ME*, right?

Unfortunately, I doubt that's what's going on. Especially since they're one of the churches around here who has been fighting against letting restaurants on Main Street serve alcohol.

Still, one can hope...

Technical recruiters

2009-05-12T13:12:11Z

Why do people hate technical recruiters? Some recruiters seem to think that geeks don't appreciate the sales and marketing side of job hunting, and that explains the disdain for recruiters. I think they're wrong. Here's why I hate recruiters:

1) They cold call with jobs you're not qualified for. Do you see "Windows Server" or "Weblogic" on my resume? Then why are you calling me about a job that requires experience with either of those things? This frequently happens with crap recruiting companies like Pyramid and Artech that use offshore "recruiters".

2) They use your references as a sales resource. Well, most don't, but some do. I've seen a recruiter who wanted twelve references. If you think they're really going to use the references you send them for anything other than data mining for their own purposes, you're crazy. And if you're a recruiter that thinks I'm giving more than a handful of reference contacts, you're nuts.

3) They don't do the little things they promise you. Did you say you were going to call me this afternoon? Then call me. Or at least send an email. A recruiter at one firm has been promising me a call from another recruiter in his office for two weeks now- she's supposedly very interested in submitting me for a job, but hasn't yet picked up her damn phone. Yet the other recruiter calls me every other day to tell me that she'll be calling any day now.

4) They send you to clients they haven't properly vetted. This is my biggest gripe. I've gone out for several interviews with several recruiting firms over the last two months. Each time, I'm told that I'm the top candidate and they want to hire me. Then nothing happens. In one case, the client isn't returning the recruiter's emails, phone calls, or text messages. In another case, the client keeps telling the recruiter they want to hire me, but their VPs are sitting on the approval for the position. Look, if your client hasn't gotten approval for the headcount, why are you working with them to fill it?

5) They're disorganized. A large, international, well-respected recruiting firm had me in for an initial interview a few weeks ago. I was treated like a rockstar. They submitted me for three different positions. Then the recruiter I was working with there stops returning my calls. Turns out he got fired. And nobody knows what's going on with his clients. Nobody there can give me a status about the three jobs. Look, you're a huge recruiting firm with a reputation. Don't you have fricking contact management databases?

Or how about recruiting firms that have two or more recruiters call you about the same job?

In any other line of business, you'd dump any vendor that was this flaky. But when you're looking for a job, you're forced to deal with them. It's crazy that something as important as job hunting is in the hands of people who might not be able to find their own asses with both hands. Maybe I need to be a recruiter..

Red House Furniture

2009-05-09T00:07:18Z

It's a furniture store for all people! (yes, this really appears to be a real ad for a real furniture store- their website has a link to a behind the scenes video that's also funny)

Nathan Deal and voter disrespect

2009-05-02T16:59:48Z

Dear Nathan Deal (and other Georgia political candidates who think spam is a great idea):

Sending unsolicited email to voters isn't going to make us more likely to vote for you. It just makes us think that you're an inconsiderate asshat who doesn't care about filling inboxes with content-free messages.

Sure, I'll remember you on election day. But certainly not in the way you intended.

Love,
Robbie
(who won't be voting for Nathan Deal)

Old Lonely Planet

2009-04-24T14:58:21Z

Today I got the first edition (1977) of Lonely Planet's "Africa on the Cheap" in the mail. I found it for only a few dollars- surprisingly, I've seen copies go for $50 or more on Ebay!

At the end of each country chapter, there's a section on where to buy pot. And there are lots of notes on where to stay cheaply "if you look and act straight and not like a freak".

Bad idea: reporting a fake crime to the police

2009-04-22T00:56:21Z

Georgia State U sent this out at about noon today:

Campus Alert
Kidnapping
E-Lot
04/20/09 6:45 p.m.

A Kidnapping was reported to Georgia State University Police, at 2:18 a.m. on Tuesday, April 21, 2009. A GSU student reported that on April 20, 2009 at 6:45 p.m. she was approached by a man who snatched her purse. She chased the suspect to his vehicle and attempted to retrieve her purse from the vehicle. The suspect then pulled her in the vehicle. He drove the victim to 3480 Greenbriar Parkway where he threw her belongings out of the vehicle. The student then exited the vehicle and called for a ride home. There were minor injuries reported.

The suspect is described as a black male with brown complexion, approximately 20-25 years of age, about 6’1” to 6’2” in height, with a slim build. The suspect was wearing a dingy white T-shirt with blue-green jeans, with socks and flip flops. He also had two earring holes in his right ear.

The vehicle is described as a gold or tan SUV with dark windows and a Georgia tag.

If you have any information about this incident, please contact the Georgia State University Police at (404) 413-2100. You may also call the Police Tip Line at 404-413-3211.

You may request a safety escort on campus by calling the GSU Police at (404) 413-2100. A police officer or a security guard will drive or walk you to your destination.

Please contact Crime Prevention at (404) 413-3213 for Safety Tips and Safety Programs.

Then, just now, an update:

In reference to the Campus Alert that was reported on 4/21/09 at 2:18
a.m., the complainant was interviewed by investigators with the Georgia
State University Police Department on 4/21/09 at 5:00 p.m.

During questioning and video evidence, the complainant recanted the
reported kidnapping. The alleged suspect was an acquaintance of the
complainant.

The complainant has been charged with filing a false police report.

Connie B. Sampson
Interim Assitant Vice President/Chief of Police
Georgia State University
(404) 413-3230
(404) 413-3231
csampson@gsu.edu

It's over

2009-04-16T13:16:16Z

Finally, our national nightmare of men teabagging each other in the streets is over.

Gardening time..

2009-04-08T19:28:10Z

I hereby declare it Spring. No more freezes in Atlanta are allowed. It's time for the front of our condo to look like a jungle again.

Today I moved the citrus outside. Fortunately, all but the kumquat made it through the winter alive. For some reason, the kumquat (which is usually very hardy) died above the graft. Whatever is below the graft has put out new shoots, so I might let it grow a little and see what comes from it. I've already got a small replacement kumquat. It won't bear any fruit this year, but maybe next.

I've got some other new edible tropicals this year. I've got a couple of miracle fruit plants that I'm still waiting to put outside. One of them came from a nursery in Florida that I've used before, another came from a guy in Thailand. I didn't expect the Thai plants to arrive, but yesterday they appeared at the post office. They were shipped bare root, and the plants are known for being very particular about their environment, so the jury is still out on whether the Thai ones live... but if they do, I expect to see some berries this year, because they're pretty large, mature plants. Right now they're potted and tied up in a large plastic bag so they can have a humid environment. Later this Spring, I'll put 'em on the back porch.

And, I'm also trying out a dwarf mango (cogshall variety) tree. I don't know what to expect, maybe it'll fruit this year, maybe not.

Sadly, my crazy neighbor still lives next door, so I can't do my container vegetable garden. I had considered putting out tomatoes and peppers in the upside-down planters and hanging them like hanging flower baskets, but I think I'll use that space for the citrus instead. Maybe next year she'll move away and I'll get a new, sane, neighbor.

My parents have offered to let me put out some veggies in their backyard, and I might take them up on that. I really wish there was a community garden in or near Tucker.. But at least I'll get some tomatoes and hot peppers.

Vintage Lonely Planet

2009-04-02T02:32:11Z

(Crossposted to the expats_in_africa community)
I've discovered that going through old Lonely Planet travel guides can be fun. Yes, I'm a total nerd. Today, the second edition of Lonely Planet's Africa guide ("Africa On The Cheap" by Geoff Crowther) from 1980 arrived. Some interesting points.. if you're interested in Africa. If you're not, you can just skip this post.

Many of the maps are hand-drawn. Several countries (Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville, one or two others) have only two pages of detail, as they can't find anyone who's been there... though in the third edition (which finally gets the name "Africa On A Shoestring") Crowther talks about getting a tourist visa to visit Equatorial Guinea, and discovering that it's Tourist Visa #001.

All of the country chapters are fairly brief on detail. Occasionally you'll see editorial comments that would never make it into a modern LP book- in the section on getting visas for other countries in The Gambia, Crowther notes that "the Secretary at the Sierra Leone High Commission is a real bolshie bastard".

Crowther says Lagos, Nigeria is a hellhole, but that "if you are crazy, do not miss this place". Roads in Nigeria are "very good and most are sealed" and "journeys are relatively short". How much has changed.. There are details about taking trains around the country (try that now!), and even information about sleeper cars and first/second class seating.

In the third edition, things have changed a bit- Nigeria has hit its 1980s economic bust and has finished its mass expulsion of Ghanaians and other foreigners. All of its land borders are sealed, and the only way in or out of the country is by air. And that's not a very happy way to enter the country either- Crowther warns that you absolutely do not want to be the last person off of an arriving international flight, otherwise you're going to have to hand out bribes right and left.

I still haven't found the first edition for sale yet, but I'm looking....

Restaurant reviews

2009-04-01T19:37:01Z

OK, first off, I understand that Yelp is a fairly worthless site for posting reviews. I occasionally post a review there, but since they blackmail restaurants into paying them to get rid of bad reviews, I don't put much faith in their reviews anymore.

Still, there's something going on I need to rant about. WHY DO PEOPLE LOVE EATING AT BAD RESTAURANTS?

Here's an example: Country Cafe Too in Tucker, GA. It's awful. I mean, horrible awful bad food like you can't imagine. It's a buffet where they dump the food out of cans early in the morning and it sits under heat lamps for the rest of the day. If you go there for dinner, the stuff on the steam table will have turned into a science lab experiment gone awry. As I said to Heather- the sign says "all you can eat", and by god one forkful was all I could bring myself to eat. Aside from that, the restaurant is dirty and run down.

So, "Robert M" posted a review raving about their meats. He says "the real draw are the vegetables". He goes on to describe them... even claiming that they have "better-than-average homemade salad dressings" and "fresh ripe lettuce". This is where I call bullshit. There is NO way someone could look at that salad bar and rave about their Sysco canned salad dressings and old wilted lettuce. "Robert M" is either blind with no taste buds, or he owns the place.

Here's another example: Heavy's BBQ in Crawfordville, GA. It was also bad. Bad. Heck, read my review for the details. But also read the other reviews- from people that supposedly love it. What are these people SMOKING? "Kristin B" seems to respond to my bad review by pointing out that even though the meat was "mushy", it's North Carolina style. If I was Kristin, I'd avoid traveling through North Carolina, because I think they'll take that as a grave insult. She also opines that "a 'que joint cannot be judged by meat alone". So, I can water down some dog food, add some liquid smoke, and serve it with a fantastic sauce and fresh veggies?

I can go on. People actually recommend that you eat at Oga's on Peachtree Industrial. I assume they mean it seriously. How can these restaurants stay in business? Seriously!?

An aside: there seems to be a common theme to many of the bad southern restaurants in Atlanta.. they're all owned by Koreans. I won't eat at a Korean-owned Southern restaurant anymore because of this (think Oga's, Country Cafe, Kaycee's Country Cooking, and countless other places I can't remember the names of now). Anyone else notice this?

Total Wine update: new location, tastings, and classes.

2009-03-29T22:37:48Z

For those in ATL who care.. Saturday Heather and I talked to the wine manager at the Perimeter Total Wine store.

In April, the Perimeter Total Wine store will no longer carry liquor. There's apparently a (stupid) Georgia law that prohibits liquor stores with multiple locations from carrying liquor in more than two of them. So, when the Alpharetta store opens in April, the Perimeter location will become wine only. This is also why there are only two Green's and only two Tower Liquors.

The good news is that they'll be able to start offering classes and wine tastings then. It seems there's another (stupid) Georgia law that prohibits stores who carry liquor from offering tastings- even if the tastings are only wine and beer. Once they get rid of the liquor, they can start tastings.

I also learned that the Kennesaw and Perimeter stores have the exact same inventory. Previously, I thought that the Perimeter store had a smaller inventory, but it only seems that way because of their bizarre store layout (which was necessary because they knew they were eventually going to wine-only). The Alpharetta store will be in the old CompUSA location across from North Point Mall. They expect it will have the same inventory as the Kennesaw store.

...and we care about this why, exactly?

2009-03-25T19:35:51Z

The press has been going on and on and on about Obama using teleprompters and big screen TVs to deliver his speeches. What's the problem? Do people really think that presidents haven't been reading prepared speeches all along? That the text to a president's speech is sometimes released during or even before the actual speech?

So, what's wrong with Obama using modern technology to help him deliver his speech? Lord knows Dubya sure could have used a prompter.

Ghana job, part 2

2009-03-20T00:13:13Z

They passed on me. Which is probably just as well... after doing a little more research on the company this morning, I'm not sure I'd want to be associated with them. There are all sorts of allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct (apparently they have no HR department, so it's anything goes), and they seem to burn through their employees... and they compensate for it by luring new candidates in by promising them an "international management trainee" program, then putting them in a cubicle with a telephone and having them make cold calls twelve hours a day.

The group I was interviewing for wasn't the for-profit side of the house with a bad reputation, but I have to imagine that the corporate culture of the parent is going to apply to their nonprofit as well. I'm also concerned with something I mentioned in the earlier friends-only post- their goal isn't to help Ghanaian entrepreneurs, it's to prove that the ideas of the company's founder will work anywhere in the world. The differences between those two goals are vast.

So, I'm actually relieved they passed on me. I don't have to make the decision myself. And, as Heather said tonight, even if their motives for being in Ghana are skewed, at least they're providing free training to Ghanaians.

So, I'm still on the market for work, either part time consulting or full time. I'm willing (and would prefer) to travel, and I have no problems going to places that most folks would never go to. Know anyone that might need IT help? Have passport, will travel.

Bailout / AIG

2009-03-19T13:05:36Z

Heather and I were talking about the AIG bailout this morning. Some (well, most of us) are upset that AIG is paying out million-dollar bonuses to its staff while it's on the dole (in a corporate sense) to the US Government. Congresscritters are banging their fists and demanding special taxes be enacted to hit recipients of the bonuses. They use words like "disgusting" to decry AIG for paying out the bonuses.

Let's look at this for a minute. AIG is now partly owned by the US Government, thanks to Bush's bailout of them. Is Congress telling us that they invested money -- taxpayer money -- OUR money -- in a company without doing any due diligence? These bonuses were contractually obligated, and those contracts were written long before the bailout occurred. So, either legislators were naive/ignorant and completely missed the fact that AIG was going to have to pay these bonuses (and if so, what ELSE have they missed?), or legislators knew that they would be paid out, but decided to keep quiet and cynically pretend to be outraged when news about them hit the media. Either way, this is yet another example of how politics and business don't mix.

Update: The truth is finally starting to come out. After denying he had anything to do with it, Sen. Dodd is now admitting that he and the administration knew all about the bonuses and had pushed to protect them. So, it turns out that the gubmint wasn't ignorant about it after all- it just let the companies do what they liked. And if/when the bonuses became public, the legislators decided to join the public outrage and hope that they'd be protected from scrutiny.

Democrat, Republican, whatever. It's all the same mess.

Mugabe follies

2009-02-28T18:14:16Z

Let's look at some of the recent headlines out of Zimbabwe..

Zimbabwe asks for $2B amid more political problems
"Zimbabwe's request for a $2 billion loan to salvage its collapsed economy and infrastructure was expected to dominate a two-day conference of the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Cape Town, South Africa."

African nations pledge to press for aid to Zimbabwe
"Instead of pouring in money to support the unity government brokered by southern African leaders, the region will press donors and international financial institutions to bail out Zimbabwe."

Mugabe begs his neighbors for money. His neighbors take a long look at him and decide that they'd rather not make him any richer (knowing that any aid would actually go to him and his cronies).

So what does he do?

He throws a $250,000 birthday party for himself with a 200-pound cake. And he's going to continue taking farms away from farmers and giving them to his friends.

I have low hopes for the unity government being successful. The only bright spot on the horizon is the fact that, well, he is 85...

Atlanta Airport train robot voice

2009-02-16T19:38:09Z

I'm trying to find a recording of the electronic "robot" voice that the trains in the Atlanta Airport used in the 80s. I know there has to be a recording of it *somewhere*. There's nothing on Youtube, and Google has failed me. Any ideas?

"The next station is concourse D. The color-coded maps and signs in the vehicle match the station colors. Please move to the center of the vehicle and away from the doors. Please hold on. This vehicle is now leaving the station"

Twitter and the Shorty Awards

2009-02-13T15:10:24Z

Wired: The Shorty Awards: Why Nerds Hate Twitter

Do you want to know why nerds (and other people) hate Twitter? It's because of pretentious, pointless, masturbatory awards events like the Shorty Awards. Does the world really need an event where the best tweets of the year are recognized in red-carpet style?

I used to not see the point of Twitter, but I've come to appreciate it (thanks to the status feature of Facebook). I still don't think that it's the end-all, be-all thing that lots of marketing folks seem to think it is. And there's another thing that can be annoying about Twitter- it's all about marketing. Sales and marketing people have latched onto Twitter with a deathgrip. There are websites telling you how to promote your business on Twitter. Seriously. Folks, if you're trying to drive customers to your business via Twitter... if that's your big marketing plan... you're screwed. Just give up now.

There are some choice comments in the article:

"The nerds hate it, because they don't get it. It's out of their control," explained Howard Lindzon, of StockTwits, which won the best finance Twitter award. "If you can't say it in 140 characters, you probably don't have much to say. Those are the people who don't like it."

This is a really nonsensical thing to say. "The nerds hate it [...] It's out of their control". What does that even mean? Is there a secret cabal of nerds that censor other forms of media? Who are the evil nerd overlords who are keeping Howard from fully expressing himself elsewhere? "If you can't say it in 140 characters, you probably don't have much to say". Does he even listen to what comes out of his mouth? Does he think that sentence makes any sense at all? I really do appreciate the 140-character limit of Twitter, and think that it makes Twitter more useful. But look at a day's worth of typical tweets- they're loaded with links to websites. And those websites are frequently the Twitter user's own blogs. So obviously the people posting on Twitter have more to say than what will fit in 140 characters. In fact, looking at Howard's own Twitter page, I see at least four links to other websites. Apparently he doesn't have much to say. And then, after talking about how Twitter lets him say what he thinks and then get on with his life, he (and another winner) apparently couldn't even be bothered to put their phones down for ten seconds for a photo.

Again, I'm not anti-Twitter. But the holier-than-thou attitudes of some folks on there are pretty annoying.

Run run run

2009-02-11T23:47:47Z

So I'm four weeks into my restarted fitness program at the gym. Back in October Heather and I started doing the Couch to 5k running program. Things went well until November, when I spent a couple of weeks traveling to Baton Rouge for consulting work. That really threw me off the program. We did run the 5k we had set as our goal in December, but Christmas holidays ended up derailing me. And after the holidays were over the gym was packed with the New Years Resolution people, so I didn't want to start back until they had all given up.

Right now I'm doing C25K every other day. Tomorrow will be week 4, day 2. Today I started working out on my running rest days. I did 24 miles on the recumbent bike. Assuming my legs don't protest tomorrow when I run, I'll alternate biking and running like that.

I'd like to be in shape enough to do a 10k later this summer (though I may wait until the weather cools off before I actually try it). I'd also like to be able to do some bicycle touring. Bicycle Africa has a tour in Mali that I'd love to do. And there are some cool sounding bike-and-camping trips around central and southern Mexico that also look very interesting.

Beer bread

2009-01-23T21:50:25Z

I have a breadmaking question.

I've got a recipe for fantastic bread machine beer bread. It's really good.
I've got another recipe for a generic hand-shaped artisan-style loaf (from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day).

After looking at the two recipes, I wondered if I could replace the water in the artisan loaf with flat beer. The bread machine beer bread recipe only calls for beer- no water. So I'm trying it now, and I'm waiting on the dough to rise. I'm a little concerned, though, because the dough is much drier than it was with water. The Kitchen Aid mixer actually had some problems mixing it.

We'll see how it comes out. But, is there something different about the composition of beer that makes it "drier" than water in dough? What am I missing?

Satellite fun

2009-01-23T21:44:35Z

Dish Network sent out another repair crew today to try and fix our sporadic TV outages. We got *two* trucks this time. The crew was surprisingly competent- I think that they must have noticed that it's a repeat call, so they sent out clueful folks.

They came to the conclusion that our original installer was a moron (we decided that partway through his install- it took him an entire day to set us up) and that they'd need to reinstall everything from scratch. Except that there's a problem- Dish has a new policy where installers can't get on the roof. The installer said that it's an instant termination if they're caught on a roof. Our dish is (badly) attached to our chimney.

The repair guys wanted to put a pole in the ground behind our neighbor's unit... which is a no-no- that's her property, not ours. Plus, when the trees get their leaves back in the Spring, we'd lose our line of sight to the satellites. Any dish on our building needs to be high on the roof.

After the repair guys left, Heather called Dish back and yelled at them a bit. They're going to send another crew out Sunday morning... with a ladder to get on the roof. :-) If they can't get things working, it looks like we'll switch to DirecTV (Comcast is much more expensive).

Spelling bee time..

2009-01-16T20:02:06Z

This is a reminder that 7PM on February 21, 2009 is the time of the annual spelling bee for adults (the 39th Annual Atlanta Open Orthographic Meet) at Manuel’s Tavern, 602 North Highland Ave, Atlanta GA 30307, where N. Highland Ave. intersects with North Avenue.

Bring a pencil or pen, though we’ll also have pencils available if needed. We’ll provide paper.

Come early to order food and drink from Manuel’s, and let them know you appreciate them for hosting the event.

There is no cover charge and everyone is eligible for the first round.

If you know others who would be interested, please do forward this and invite them to come. You can also post this on relevant literate websites. Let us know which ones we should add to the list for future notices.

Our website with Margaret’s gorgeous photos from last year’s event and with historical information about the event is:

http://atlantaopenorthographicmeet.org/

Manuel’s website is:

www.manuelstavern.com/

We hope to see you there and that you enjoy the words we have to offer this year.

The AAOOM Committee

Goals for 2009

2009-01-05T00:53:35Z

Spend at least two weeks out of the country in a Spanish immersion program.

Get back into a regular gym workout program. The trip to Baton Rouge early in November derailed my workout routine, and the holidays made it hard to get going again.

Go on two weeklong vacations with Heather (or one two-week-long vacation).

Do more weekend roadtrips with Heather.

Visit two new countries.

Get Apple CSA certified.