There is a challenge when looks for new employment that is subtle but insidious. I received 4 formal offers of employment over the last 5 months as I looked for a new opportunity. In a perfect world, I would have been to look at all the offers and compare them and pick the one that looked the best for me. But that is not what happens. Like a more stressful version of Deal or No Deal, you get each offer by itself and you have to weigh the quality of it against the possibility you might get something better later. Thankfully for me, I am glad I passed on the first 3.

I have accepted an offer from Swisslog to eventually be the Director of Software Implementation for the North American division of their Warehouse and Distribution Solutions division. As this is a bit to bite off and chew immediately, I am starting by managing the technical aspects of their largest project. I will be using this project to learn the business, software, and process in more depth than would be possible if I tried to run the whole group right away. After a few months I will then expand my role over the whole operation. I am very excited. Having a company that is truly interested and willing to create an environment where one is set up to succeed is a rare find.

I’ve got a week or so before I start so I am going to be enjoying the last bit of work-free time by trying to get ahead with my school and house projects. More updates when I start.

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I can’t believe I just put a flash player on my blog, but whatever, just watch the damn trailer.

As many of you know, I have been working free-lance since I left GuardianEdge as I take my time trying to find that perfect (or as close to perfect) new job opportunity. This has obviously meant that I have spent considerably more time at home without the regular daily schedules that come from being employed at a 9-5 job. Especially over the last few weeks I have started to notice that my sense of time and the passage of time has become, shall we say, less than good. It is as if time has become drawn out and events that feel like they took place several months ago in fact only took place weeks ago. I find myself having to pull up my calendar to recalibrate my sense of when events actually took place.

This is a very odd experience to undergo. On the bright side, subjectively I am not getting old as fast as I was before.

This morning in looking over the various blogs I read, I came across this challenge. Take

• The first entry on Wikipedia’s random page.
• The end of the last entry on this random quote page.
• And, the fourth image from Flickr’s Creative Commons Attribution License random image page.

Now use those three items as a band name, album title, and cover image for a CD cover.

I got quite lucky; I came away with my band as Daredevil, a quote from Robert Heinlein: “A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.” and this image.

I was amused. Now it is your turn!

I suspect this link will excite some of my readers more than others. You know who you are.

Who Needs Friends…when you have pens.

Ruins of the old Williamsburg Hospital

Just a quick hello between Christmas and New Years. I hope everyone had a great Christmas, I know I did. While my family history has often been rocky, it is amazing and humbling the kindness I have been shown by so many families throughout my life. This year was no exception.

A few photos were taken. They can be found through the picture linked above.

Black and white photography is something new to me. Those with more official training in photography usually start shooting only black and white and I think that I see why. It is the same as working with a prime lens in that it removes a variable from the equation of taking a good shot. Rather than having a multitude of variables, I am forced down to just focus, aperture and exposure. That leaves more of the brain able to concentrate on framing the shot.

I don’t think I will start shooting exclusively black and white to practice, but as we exit fall and enter winter, there are not very many colors to speak of and I think it will allow me to explore other aspects of my picture taking.

A few more pictures from the same set are on my flickr page. I didn’t make a set, so it is probably easiest to click on the one above and just go backwards and forwards.

Well, as you may have noticed (unless you are using an RSS reader), I have changed the look of my blog. I wanted something cleaner. Some things are still a work in progress, but it is getting there. Hope you like it. If it looks broken to you, shoot me an email. Thanks.

Updated: If it looks like crap in IE, I’m sorry. IE is a stinky browser, please use Firefox or Safari.

Before I headed out of town last week, I looked at the three bananas I had sitting on the counter and wondered what to do with them. I realized they were already past their prime and would be goners by the time I got back. Then I had a thought; BREAD!; BANANA BREAD! So I tossed them in the refrigerator so they would not be fuzzy when I got back.

You know I hold Alton Brown in very high regard, so I pulled out his second tome, I’m Just Here for More Food. Pages 98-99, Banana Bread. Muffin Method, here I come.

I got back in town last night and swung by the grocery store to complete the ingredient list. One special note, backing soda with an expiration date 9 years in the past won’t cut it. Yes, I tested it. Get some new.

And lo, the book decreed that this was to follow the Muffin Method. What is the Muffin Method, you ask?

• Mix the dry team together.
• Mix the wet team together (yes, that includes sugar)
• Combine the two items and mix until just combined.
• Do Not Overmix!

The ingredients:

• The Wet Team - Squad 1

  *   Overripe bananas - very overripe; black but not fuzzy *   1 cup sugar
  

• The Wet Team - Squad 2

  *   1 stick unsalted butter - melted and cooled *   2 large eggs
  

• The Dry Team

  *   2 cups AP Flour *   1 teaspoon baking soda *   1 teaspoon salt
  

The preparation:

First step was to prepare the pan. Alton has a good section on doing so. The first step was to cover the ends of the pan (but not the center) with shortening and flour. Then, using parchment paper (not wax paper), cut a piece and use it as a “sling” over the middle of the pan. This allows for very very simple removal of the bread from the pan upon completion.

Also, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Make sure it is actually at 350. I found that my oven heated to 400 if the knob was set at 350. Use an oven thermometer; trust the oven thermometer not the knob.

Melt the butter and let sit aside to cool. Microwave is your friend here, just go low and slow. (For me it was maybe 2 minutes on power level 3.)

Unskin the bananas into a bowl. Mine were almost falling apart. That is the way you want them. Think mush. I added the sugar to them and used a fork to mix them all together. The recipe suggested a potato masher (which I do not have). I could see that being better for not so mushy bananas, but mine were so ripe that they just fell apart. They turned into a soupy goo as seen in the larger picture below.

Next, the cooled butter and eggs get mixed together in their own bowl. Once combined, mix all the wet ingredients together in one bowl.

Now for the dry team. Put the flour, baking soda, and salt into the bowl of your food processor. We are not using the food processor to mix the batter together, just to aerate and combine the dry ingredients. Pulse them together for a few seconds to combine and then move them to a big mixing bowl. Big enough to hold all the ingredients together.

Now we reach the critical stage of the muffin method; Mixing!

Pour the wet goods on top of the dry goods. Do not stir the mixture, fold it together. And as I said at the beginning, the key here is to not overmix the ingredients. I am sure it has something to do with gluten production. I found a rubber spatula did the trick quite nicely.

When it just comes together, stop mixing. It will be lumpy, but that is ok. Really, I was dubious, but it turned out ok. I tried to check to make sure there weren’t huge balls of dry flour, but that was about it. Pour the mixture into your prepared pan and into the over it goes!

The recipe says to cook for 50 minutes to an hour or until the internal temperature of the bread is 210 degrees. I found that this took over an hour (1 hour, 10 minutes). I started checking at 50 minutes and then every 10 minutes or so.

As it cooked, the whole house started to fill with a wonderful aroma. Sadly, the ability to convey that to you over the web is, um, lacking. Sorry.

When it was time, out of the oven it comes. Let it rest for 15 minutes in the pan and then move it to a plate. The recipe says it will last 5 days tightly wrapped. I doubt mine will survive that long un-eaten.

I’ve included a few more pictures below, but the full set can be found on my flickr page, here. Thanks for reading.