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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Terry Karney's LiveJournal:
| Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 | |
| 7:25 pm | Back in the saddle again Today I taught my first class in more than a year (unless one counts my presentations on interrogation as classes). Two people got a demo on how to carve fowl, and a quick touch on how to maintain/use knives. They didn't get to do any hands on; and there was damn all for publicity, but it was a class. It was also a chance for me to look good, because it was without planning, and I did it on really short notice (I got an e-mail on Monday, saying corporate wanted to have such a thing; could I do it). It was fun, even if it meant my week got even more hectic than it already is. |
| Monday, November 23rd, 2009 | |
| 10:18 pm | Me, on the radio For any of you who want to hear me in a radio interview (which I thought was decent, but not great... I had to do a lot of making sure his assumptions/ideas didn't end up appearing to be mine), can download a zipfile of it here Terry Karney on KRXA AM540 |
| Saturday, November 21st, 2009 | |
| 9:37 pm | |
| Monday, November 16th, 2009 | |
| 11:03 am | On playing a role I was invited to a "mystery party". The sort where someone gets murdered and one of the guests did it. The theme was English country life, between the wars (think Christie, Sayers, and Wodehouse). The hosts didn't know me, and I was cast in a "moderate" role; the family chef; a french cook. I borrowed a whites jacket from the head of culinary, rolled my knives up, grabbed a waterstone, packed some spices and CG and I bought the needed ingredients for some vegetable dishes, and a veggie stock. When we got there I asked how free I could make myself with the kitchen (appointed with a 6-burner Viking range, with some workspace to the sides; the "galley way" between the wraparound sink/cabinitry. The ovens (dual full-sheets) were opposite the island. Not the best production arrangement; good for baking, but a lot of walking around to get to the ovens if one is making roasts/cassoulets/custards/puddings, etc. and and doing stovetop work; this would be obivated somewhat if one had a staff). I was told to make as free as I wanted. So I pulled out a stock pot and set to work. It was great. The veggies made the place smell as though it were a working kitchen, the knife sharpening (mostly of the host's knives. They were in good shape, but almost no one maintains as well as they might, and very few people [even those who hone regularly] get knives sharpened) got people's eye (I didn't know if the murder was going to be by knife; all I knew, about the killing, was I didn't do it), and filled the time when I wasn't sticking my nose in the pot, slicing veggies, or pounding spices. Because I also figured I could make a pot of chocolate to close the evening with. So I brought a about 3 cups of cream to make ganache. I was well into that (I'd put a pint in, had sherried and sugared it, was pounding pepper and allspice when I realised there was no milk. I'd not bought any... d'oh. Someone ran out for some). So I make some cucumber slices, with black pepper and a balsalmic drizzle. Sliced a multicolored plate of tomatoes (yellow, red, green) and minced some shallots (needed salt), dipped a couple of strawberries in the ganache to share with the rest of the "below stairs" staff, ranted about the low diet the lord of the manor's doctor prescribed (la nouritture des l'apins... he would not have a man die of old age, but kill him with malaise!," etc.), and dropped in snide asides about various people bragging up England or the States. Praised some British Cooking (the meat pies, the steamed puddings), mocked the Americans (they have boiled dinners, and fried meats, everything else they borrow (I wanted a copy of Fer de Lance to lay on a counter, but the copy I have wasn't quite the thing for a prop), and generally played it semi-straight. At the very last I decided to toss a splash of Guinness into the cocoa. It worked. The sherry and vanilla carried the allspice to the pepper (mild, the pot never gt hot enough to make the pepper bitter and I didn't use much more than 3/4 tbsp), which had a nice hint of bite. The Guinness gave it an earthy, sort of mushroom note. I don't think, however it would work a pot of less than a half gallon of chocolate. I used about an oz. It was a very good evening, and I was able to leave a kitchen in good order; clean pots (I used two; one for the stock, and then the cocoa, one for the ganache), and all the mugs in the dishwasher. Counters wiped, and everything packed away, with about a half gallon of vegetable stock left behind in the fridge. |
| Sunday, November 15th, 2009 | |
| 11:17 pm | The more things change Much of what I did in the Army was teach. If it wasn't formal classes (MOS acquisition, etc.) it was, "hip-pocket training", or things at the local level. A lot of what I do online is teach. The seminars I've been speaking at (which includes the one in Monterey this next Saturday) is teaching. And, it seems, I'm about to start teaching at work. Sur la Table is two companies, one is retail sales of cookware, one is hands on classes. I am scheduled to teach a basic knife skills class on 29 Nov. (The November Calendar shows the sorts of things we teach). That's the Sunday after Thanksgiving. It's just what it says, basic. How to hold a knife, how to perform basic maintenance on it; perhaps some of the differences between styles. It will also be basic cuts; vegetables, no meats; that's intermediate. How to julienne, how to dice; the difference between mirepoix and bruinoise. How to cut onions (which will touch on some of the other things onions are goood for). How to most easily do bell peppers (and how to deal with hot peppers). We'll start a stock, and make a salsa cruda. It's the cheapest course we have ($59), and you get a discount on anything you buy (IIRC it's 20 percent on most things, and 10 percent on electronics), which includes cutlery. There are seats available. Right now there is one person in the class, and two people (Les, and CG) planning to enroll. Which, sadly, isn't enough to (quite) guarantee the class will go on. If it's not filled by Weds (because of the holiday), it will be cancelled. So, if you have any interest; and are going to be in the Bay Area, this would be a good time to take a class, you can even enroll on line. |
| Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 | |
| 11:39 am | And now for something not so very different. A small retrospective, in pictures. I'll post a few, and cut the rest. None of these are new, but I don't think I've posted all of them.  Guys I was in Scotland with, Brits, and Canadians.  Humping the hills.  Per-Eric Estjes, talking shop in Ukraine. His last hurrah.  Far, far from home. ( The ) |
| 11:00 am | 11.11.09 It's been 91 years since 11 Nov. became a date of fame. It's been 95 since the start of the reason that date became so known, to so much of the world. In the States we've made it into, "Veterans' Day", which appalls me. We have a tradition of that. Memorial Day was originally to recall the dead of the US Civil War. Which is what so galls me about the change in this day. It wasn't about us. It's not about the veterans, not the living, not the dead. Not the famous ones, like Roger Young, nor the lesser known like Michael Vega or even the mytholgised, like Willie McBride. It's about life, and death and the birth of hope. War, I suspect, like poverty will be always with us, but for a brief chunk of time a huge part of the world thought they might manage to keep alive the horror of this war, to prevent the horror of another one. Go to Google Canada and be reminded that this isn't a US holiday. Sunday in Britain they had two minutes of silence, broadcast from The Cenotaph; in Canada they do much the same today. Yes, they have incorporated all the dead, of all their wars, but the poppies on the field, and in the lapels, and on Google.ca today all point to that moment, the moment in 1918 when the guns fell silent, when men could again rise up from the mud of their giant living grave and look to each other as people, not targets. My campus, where I am writing this, has lots of hummocks, where the spoil from flattening the hill to put classrooms has been heaped. I can look from the first one I come to when I am done mounting the steps to the top, and see to the one before the library buiding I am in now. It's about 200 yards; which is about the furthest the front lines were. It's the space across, "no man's land". The gap which millions of men failed to cross, in more than 4 years of killing and dying, 200 bloody yards. The little hillocks make it more real than any attempt I've tried in the past. Seeing it as rolling ground, limited in sight by buildings, and isolated from expanse by virtue of no more land than the 1/2 mile of the hilltop keeps the far distance from making the battlefields of Verdun, the Somme, Belleau Wood, Passchendaele, Gallipoli, and all the lesser names, known but to those who lived in them, unreal. 600,000 men died in the fight to get across the Somme battlefield. I look across 200 yards and I can't imagine 20,000, much less that 20,000; British, died in the first day. And we've lost that. We make it about, "veterans", which perverts it twice. Not only does it lose the sense of hope and remembrance which was meant when we declared a holiday to remember the Armistice, it also shifts the focus to living people. I can go to Applebee's and get a free lunch, or to Knott's Berry Farm and get in for free. Big Whoop. It's not about me. It's about not needing to sing this again. |
| Monday, November 9th, 2009 | |
| 8:51 pm | Work So, I have been remiss. Until Wednsday there is a "friends and family" sale for my work (Sur la Table). There is an online code. I don't know if it requires my name to use. If you are interested, let me know. I'll be at work (Embarcadero and El Camino Real) from 0900-1400 tomorrow, and (if you get word to me before I leave, or call the shop) I can probably be persuaded to stay. |
| Saturday, November 7th, 2009 | |
| 10:07 pm | Writer's Block: Forgive and forget? Situational. The longest grudge I'm presently holding is about 10 years old, and barring the other person's death not likely to go away. But that's because it takes a lot to get me to have a grudge; once it's in place, it takes work to remove (and since that person thinks I am evil incarnate on the face of the earth, I suspect it's not going to happen). Lesser grudges attentuate, but the end result depends on the nature of the relationship as to whether it was a serious one. If it was a serious one (ideally of some time) I'll probably get over it, but it may take time. I won't be nasty, or rude, but I won't be very trusting, and am likely to be a bit distant. |
| Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 | |
| 9:57 pm | Ye gods and little fishes A couple of weeks ago CG decided she wanted fish for supper. Specifically she wanted something high in Omega 3 fatty acids. Salmon is top of the mark, but I don’t care for it cooked (link to old post). Doing some research we found sardines are pretty good too. Like mushrooms I’ve always thought I should like more of them then I do. Reading accounts of people eating (say Preserved Killick frying up pan after pan of fresh flying fish, or mackerels, etc.) makes me drool, but the real thing, not so much). We decided to be adventurous and began to call around for fresh sardines. Sardines because I like mackerel, and because I’ve used them (and more generic kippers) in the making of (insert post about sandwich) No place had them. The only recommendations we got were for places in San Francisco. Feh. In the course of a rainy day we decided the hell with it (because the mackerel we found in various parts of the search, was all frozen), and swung by Whole Foods to get a steak. Lo, and Behold, they had fresh sardines. The fishmonger was amused at our description of the search, telling us they get 20 lbs of them everyday from Monterey (which fishery the proximity of had caused me to think finding fresh sardines would be almost trivial). When she found we’d never had one, she gave us the one we’d asked for as a lagniappe. I took it to her house, taught her how to gut/clean/butterfly them and tossed it in a pan, with a bit of olive oil. The three of us thought it was a swell idea. The meat was firm, with a bit of the tooth one gets from good canned tuna. The browned bits (esp. near the tail, where the flesh was more done) were sweet, and crunchy. But one wasn’t enough. So CG found a Moroccan recipe, basically a condiment (parsley, onions, garlic, cumin, lemon juice, paprika) which was to be used as the filling in a “sandwich”. We headed back to Whole Foods, and thanked the fishmonger for the sardine. She and I talked about gutting/filleting. Because of the issues of time/volume (it’s about 6 sardines to a lb) they will gut, and remove the heads and tails, but boning is left to the buyer. I told her it was easy, remove the head, and tail, flop the cleaned fish open, and place the heel of a knife beneath the spine (at the tail end), slide a bit toward the head (so at least one, two is better, vertebra is on the blade), pinch the spine to the knife, and lift. Me, I do it with my fingers, pinching the spine and then lifting. The dorsal spines will want to be peeled out, which may give you two fillets, or they can be ignored; providing a small bit of crunch. She seemed to be taking a long time to clean 6 fish (I was being lazy, which is how we got to the conversation on filleting sardines), and brought out 6 butterflied fish. She said she had the time, so she’d felt like trying it. She agreed, it is easy. They were a bit of a disappointment. The garnish was too pungent for the fish. I reduced the cumin, and the paprika, and it was still very forward. Sardines, contrary to general expectation/understanding, are not really strongly flavored, poorly canned ones are as strong as they get, and they are still pleasant spread on toast with a bit of butter. Tonight we try it again. This time closer to the first time. Butterflied fish, pan-fried in olive oil, and dressed with caper butter. A side salad (romaine, tomatoes, english cucumbers and minced shallots, asparagus; pan fried in bacon fat), Rice and a gewürtzraminer. For everyone else I tossed the asparagus with the crispy bacon from rendering fresh fat for the asparagus. Me, I was feeling the need for different variety, and used the bacon in the rice. The verdict is... cook them more than you think is ideal; they are oily, and can take it. Get them crispy brown on the flesh side, and then flip them for a moment to crisp the skins a bit et voila |
| 9:50 am | The Torture Tour Continues I'll be speaking on the topic again, at the 4th Quit Torture Teach-In & Vigil, in Monterey. I am the keynote speaker; Nov. 21, at the Irving Auditorium, Monterey Institute of International Studies, just down the road from DLI. It's going to be an interesting homecoming. I've not been to Monterey in about eight years. I wonder if the St. John's Episcopal has the same pastor. I wonder if Peter will still remember when I come in for supper. I wonder who might come down from the Presidio to see the presentation. I wonder how well I'll hold the crowd for 2 hours (and if I ought to try making a more formal presentation, instead of my usual off the cuff structuring). I don't wonder what I intend to say. I'll be saying the same things. The problems it causes to the information stream, that any system which uses it is hopelessly corrputed, that it debases those who use it. That the ticking bomb is a forced falsh choice; which is, like the Lernean Hydra, almost impossible to kill because it resides in the part of the psyche where lives story, and narrative. It so strongly taps into those aspects of the mind that it seems it has to work, and that we (as members of a state with a tradition rooted in liberalism, and based on the idea of the stalwart individual) are easily seduced by the implicit corrolaries to the aspects of the story which go unstated. Everything else will be elaboration, explanation and giving a face to the abstractions which are interrogation. If you can make it, I'd be glad to see you. |
| Monday, November 2nd, 2009 | |
| 11:27 am | Some cooking stuff I’ve been cooking lately. Picking up a knife case from the discount bin at work helps. A knife case is more than just a handy way to store/transport knives (and it’s a very handy way to transport them. People on the train/bus think I’m carrying an instrument case. They are right, but not in the way they think). It’s also a sort of portable kitchen. The primary purpose is to keep knives, and at least one steel, in a handy package. A compact package. But aside from the knife pocket, there are, usually, pouches and pockets suitable for other gadgets and spices. Which means one can have the saffron, or nutmegs, or cloves, or nigella, etc., which the kitchen to which one is going might not, as well as one’s preferred whisk, etc. I’ve been spending a couple of nights a week at CG's. It happens that another friend of theirs has been wanting to reduce her commute, and is staying over every so often on nights I am going to be there. So I’ve been cooking, and it’s been fun cooking, because she has a number of allergies. Last week we made butternut soup. Dead simple. Take a couple of medium squash (when I grew them at home they were much larger, and I could have done with just one). When selecting a butternut look for one which is more squat. Those tend to have more meat in them, esp. if you are going to be lazy and just slice of the shell. Cut the squash into chunks. Steam until a fork slides easily into the pieces. If you left the rind on, use a paring knife, or vegetable peeler (though a grapefruit spoon will work), to remove the skin. You’ll need to let them cool a bit. While the squash is steaming cut some onions fine, and sweat them (olive oil, or butter are fine; we used bacon fat because of dairy allergies), and toss with a moderate amount of curry. Drain the pan, and return the squash, with a can of coconut milk, and the curried onions. Bring back to a low boil, and serve. |
| Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 | |
| 11:58 pm | Well said that man. WW2 Vet on Gay Rights (transcript) Good morning, Committee. My name is Phillip Spooner and I live at 5 Graham Street in Biddeford. I am 86 years old and a lifetime Republican and an active VFW chaplain. I still serve three hospitals and two nursing homes and I also serve Meals on Wheels for 28 years. My wife of 54 years, Jenny, died in 1997. Together we had four children, including the one gay son. All four of our boys were in the service. I was born on a potato farm north of Caribou and Perham, where I was raised to believe that all men are created equal and I've never forgotten that. I served in the U.S. Army, 1942-1945, in the First Army, as a medic and an ambulance driver. I worked with every outfit over there, including Patton's Third Army. I saw action in all five major battles in Europe, and including the Battle of the Bulge. My unit was awarded Presidential Citations for transporting more patients with fewer accidents than any other unit I was in the liberation of Paris. After the war I carried POW's back from Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, and also hauled hundreds of injured Germans back to Germany. I am here today because of a conversation I had last June when I was voting. A woman at my polling place asked me, "Do you believe in equal, equality for gay and lesbian people?" I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her, "What do you think our boys fought for at Omaha Beach?" I haven't seen much, so much blood and guts, so much suffering, much sacrifice. For what? For freedom and equality. These are the values that give America a great nation, one worth dying for. I give talks to eighth grade teachers about World War II, and I don't tell them about the horror. Maybe [inaudible] ovens of Buchenwald and Dachau. I've seen with my own eyes the consequences of caste systems and it make some people less than others, or second class. Never again. We must have equal rights for everyone. It's what this country was started for. It takes all kinds of people to make a world war. It does make no sense that some people who love each other can marry and others can't just because of who they are. This is what we fought for in World War II. That idea that we can be different and still be equal. My wife and I did not raise four sons with the idea that three of them would have a certain set of rights, but our gay child would be left out. We raised them all to be hard-working, proud, and loyal Americans and they all did good. I think it's too bad if they want to get married, they should be able to. Everybody's supposed to be equal in equality in this country. Let gay people have the right to marry. Thank you. |
| Sunday, October 18th, 2009 | |
| 9:30 pm | Work is a dangerous place for me I spent today at work, being taught; by the vendors, how to sell. The coffee machines were nice, and I now know how to run the self-contained machines which do everything. I can even do some visually dramatic things (like an actual cappuccino, with equal layers of milk, foam and slightly milked espresso). But it was the knives which I was really interested in (I like the coffee machines, but I’m not interested in buying one of the do it all models, which pretty much means my attention was on the details needed to answer customer questions). The Kai Rep (makers of Shun, Ken Onion Knives, and the exclusive to Sur la Table line of Bob Kramer Knives) was interesting. I like Shun. I also liked that he (and the woman who came from Zwilling; which is the same as Henckels, it’s a branding decision), really likes knives. Kai sells only knives (while Zwilling has acquired some cookware). I got some answers to things I’d wondered about (is the patterning on the Shun knives merely an aesthetic element, or does it reflect an actual use of layers in the manufacture. The answer it, they are using layers. They forge a lot of of very thin sheets, using a roller-set up, to get some differential hardness, and appeal to the people who think “The Katana is just better.” It’s not that they are bad knives (I bought one last week), it’s just that they sell better for being made that way. More relevant, he wanted people to be satisfied with the knives they buy. He was asked, “what makes a good knife?”, and he gave the answer I would have, “the knife that feels right in the customer’s hand.” He followed that by saying he was glad to be a rep for Williams-Sonoma and Sur la Table, because in neither chain is there a bad knife. After he was done (it was about an hour), the Zwilling rep showed up. She had more things to show, but started with the knives. She’s been asked to do a demo (since she had cookware, and we had to eat; lunch was on Sur la Table, and it was paid training, a good day). So she showed off the cutlery, which included a knife I’d seen in the case, but not handled. At $450 (for the 8” chef, and the 7” santoku-ish) it seemed a bit overpriced. So she told us how it was made (really fancy steel [Cronidur 30]; light, strong, and corrosion/wear resistant. It’s an alloy used in high-load bearings in the shuttle. They went from about 4 launches per bearing, to about 40), and how it was designed (an Italian architect. Seems reasonable since the Ken Onion knives were designed by an engineer, looking at film of a really big right-handed chef, and a really small left-handed one). It’s got really nice (and limited) wood, Makassar Ebony, harvested from branches, not trunk), smooth bolsters, a snick and a very smooth edge. The same guy designed the “Profection” line, which has similar design elements, at a much lower price (and doesn’t have the fancy steel, or the rare wood). They also have a Japanese line (which one of the Iron Chef’s has endorsed). Like the Shun guy she was just fine with selling any of the knives (we carry Wüstof, Kai, and Zwilling lines) we have in the shop. Then she asked for volunteers. I like knives. I like to cook. I was in the front row. I was told to slice an onion. It was going into the lunch salad, and I was doing it under the big mirror (we were taking class in the demonstration kitchen). I took the 1731 (the expensive knife) because I wanted to see how it felt. Oh My God. It was not overpriced. Expensive, yes, but not ridiculous. It cuts smoothly, it balances well. It’s not a classic santoku; the belly is a bit deep. It’s the answer to a problem I’ve had for years; I’ve been unable to find a chef’s knife which feels right. This does. I tried some of the other knives (one of the quirks of the law is no knife which is going to be sold can have been in contact with food. The explanation [which I can’t verify] is someone got sick from one which had been used, and not properly cleaned. Regardless it means the only way to try a knife is for it to be in the kitchen stock. Needless to say the 300-450 dollar knives aren’t). The Miyabi were nice, but I have knives like that. I don’t have one like this one. And it’s pretty. To ice the cake, the only place to get one, over the counter, is Sur la Table. The cookware, also very good. She had cutaways (the Shun guy had a cutaway too. Shun doesn’t have a full-tang, what it has is a tension bar running from the bolster to the butt cap. Just as strong, and allows for some of the balance issues (the blades on the Classic line are a little offset, to keep them in line with the handedness of the handles, which are asymmetric). She did demos. The Belgian-made line (Demeyere) won me over when I saw it has no rivets. Nothing to get in the way of the utensils, nothing to trap food/make cleaning harder. Both the clad aluminum and the copper-bottom were well made, had good weight, looked good and, so far as I could see, had no design flaws. The enamelware looks to be at least as good as Le Creuset. Which brings me to the advertising aspect of the post: if you are thinking of buying a Zwilling/Henckels knife, or are in the market for cookware, and live in the Bay Area, swing by my shop to look at them. Drop me a line, and let me know, because I’d like you to do it while I’m at work. If you do buy something I get credit toward buying a Zwilling product, and I’d really like to not have to pay full-price for that knife. |
| Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 | |
| 11:22 am | Unto everything there is a season I don't know where to start this. A friend of mine died. She was sweet, and demanding, and loved without reservation. La Doña de Que Será Será, aka Sarah, June 1999-October 12, 2009. She was a great dog. Shy around people she didn't know, and espcially so to men. I recall the first time I met her, about Nov. 99. She was a puppy, and came skittering around the corner because she heard ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} akirlu's voice. She saw me, stopped as dead as she could; skittering on the tile, and quivered, as she piddled on the floor.By 2003, I was acceptable. Then as I spent lots of time with hal_obrien and akirlu while at Ft. Lewis, I was even liked. In 2004, when Hal broke his leg, and I went up to lend a hand, I was adopted. A full-fledged member of the pack, to be greeted with joy and bounces at the door, and looked after when we came back from trips; lest I get lost. Dogs go in first, but people are not to be left behind.She wasn't my dog, but I missed her. Walking about SF, or Tennessee, or Los Angeles, or SLO I'd think about her, and wish she was about, tugging on her halti, wanting to go play with the bigger dogs, and snurfle through the grass, and the tide. Ave atque vale Sara, Ich hatt' einen kamaraden, besseren findst du nit. |
| 11:14 am | An actual sale. Zazzle is having a sale: Through the end of the day things all the things they sell will be 14.92 percent off. My stuff (four calendars and a political comment from a year ago) can be found here. The sale runs to 11:59 p.m. PDT, and the promotion code to enter is 1492COLUMBUS. I've seen the calendars now (well one of them), and the production values are decent, if a bit spare. The smallest is a little on the not quite large enough side (if you ask me), but the images are clean, and the calendar more than adequate for keeping track of the days. So, go take a look at the calendars, and; should you feel the urge, poke abot in some other people's shops too. There might me something you want. |
| Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 | |
| 11:42 am | The Reserve Component gets screwed, again. Yesterday I got my, "Certificate of Eligibility" for the GI Bill. No surprise I am eligible. I did 416 days of Active Duty since 11 Sep 2001, and so I am entitled to 60 percent of the full benefit. So far so good. It's what they said they were going to give me, and it's what they delivered. Mostly. The deal, as explained was, 60 percent of the cost of tuition at the most expensive school in the state you live, and 60 percent of $1,000, per school year, for books, and 60 percent of the Basic Allowance for Housing for an E5; living in the zip-code of the school being attended (so if I live in SF, and go to Cal State East Bay, I don't get SF BAH, I get Oakland; I can see that). Which means, mmy tuition for a community college, ought to be covered? It's a whole lot less than the 1,700 my certificate says I am eligble for. Nope. Seems the way the GI Bill was written, I am only entitled to 60 percent of my tuition covered; up to a maximum of 60 percent of the cost of attending a UC. So I owe my school 40 percent of my tuition; even though the full cost is less than a quarter of what I could be collecting. The reason this screws the Reserves is that; with the exception of those people who were in the service on 11 Sep 2001, and left the service before 11 Sep 2004, the only people this is biting is National Guard, and Reserve (Army/Marines/Navy/Air Force). It's bullshit. Why? Because a reservist who spends 14 months deployed is in a lot tougher spot than a someone who spent 36 months stateside in the Active Army. Yes, it is that stark a difference. If you are in an M-Day (i.e. reserve) slot, you are away from home when you get deployed. I know units who spent 12 months at Dugway Proving Grounds. They had all the financial hardships of not being able to maintain a business, lost money from pay differentials, time away from home/family (and some couldn't afford the money to arrange for visits, to the only thing which made it better than Afghanistan, or Iraq, was the sense of dread every time the news came on wasn't quite the same for the families). But no. The reserves are second class. The money is budgeted, but it's not all going to be spent. A lot of people are doing just what I did; figuring out where to go based on the idea they could eliminate, or at least reduce, the amount of the gap between what was owed to them, and what the school cost. I'd love to be at a UC studying Geology. Hah. I'm luckier than many. I am single. I have no dependents, no mortgage. I didn't have to file bankruptcy when my business folded because I was deployed. I am also a returning student. That's a big hurdle. Go look to see what money is available for grants and scholarships. The vast majority are limited to high-school students. So making up the couple of thousand bucks required to cover the 60 percent gap, harder. I was looking at CalState schools because they are just as good (with the usual caveats of looking at the school) as the UC, when it comes to education (though not the reputation), and I was expecting to be able to cover pretty much everything, by way of tuition, from the GI Bill. I earned it. I spent 416 days away from home. I had people trying to kill me. I did long hours, in uncomfortable surroundings. I have a permanent condition as a result. I know guys who lost businesses, homes, marriages. And to save a few bucks some penny-pinching politician decided to screw us over? The best part... they are patting themselves on the back, and getting all sort of praise for this, because the screwing over is quiet. It's lost in the fine print. I am able to go back to school because of this. So they can point to all the good it does; and who is to gainsay them? But they're being cheap. It's pulling a Tommy on us, and it sucks. You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all: We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational. Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace. For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!" But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot; An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please; An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees! |
| 11:09 am | This is going to be a slightly posty morning. For all that my last post said the spectre of searching the gutter for pennies was no longer looming in the near distance, money is still tight. The holidays are coming. I have a printer, and I have lots of images, which can be printed up. You can also order cards But, for those in the market for immediate gratification, I retrieved, from Los Angeles, the mounted prints I offered up in my Moving Sale |
| 10:17 am | The state of the me Because it's all about me (well, sort of, it's my blog, and I write about things of interest to me, and that's reflective of me; and I write about me, and what I do). Money. I am still short of it, though I am not presently desperate. I made the trek to Oakland yesterday and got an advance against my GI Bill payments. It's a gamble. I am taking money now, against money owed. I have a statement from Muskogee telling me what I am entitled to, so I had information to base the decision on (someone objected to my referring to the GI Bill as extracting my pound of flesh; well it is. I made an offer [my time, service and self] they made a promise [educational benefits: they saw fit to increase the offer, but it was still part of the deal], and I, by God, am going to collect. As a Sergeant Major said, 16 years ago; if the Army offers something, take it; because they will never give back as much as they get, but I digress). From converations with the GI Bill folks (the helpline is pretty well managed; not too much phone tree nonsense, and the people on the other end seem both knoweledgable about the program, and able to get at personal details with ease), I can expect my checks to start arriving not later than Nov. So I took 1 1/2 months worth of stipend, and trust that the worst I have to deal with is a couple of weeks of short rations. Which, by virtue of good timing, and predeliction, I should be able to survive. I, you see, have seasonal work. I landed a part-time job at Sur le Table CG spotted an ad for kitchen assistants, and I applied. It turns out I was fortunate. The Assistant Job isn't really what I needed (no matter how interesting it might be), because it doesn't guarantee more than 16 hours a month. But my app was reviewed by the sales side of the house, which needs people for the Nov/Dec period. As one might imagine, Thanksgiving is a big sales time for the chain. I've long said all I needed was an interview. I got it. It was a good interview. I had a few moments of, "Oh my god, what if blow this", because one is selling oneself at an interview, and going overboard is not the best thing, but underselling is worse. Once the questions started, all worries were removed. I understand questions. I can follow leads, engage in attentive listening, and use my strengths. By the time we sorted out what job I was interviewing for we had a decent working relationship. By the time we got to the meat of the interview, I was comfortable with the level of me I was putting forward. That's the me side of the interview. On the store side, it was one of the best set of specific questions I've seen in a long time. Really. I'd say the real interview (apart from the attempts to see if the subject and the prospective employer can get on; which I was tolerable sure of from the three visits I'd made to the store in advance; one to buy some glassware with CG, one to get something I needed/get a better feel for this store (I've been in a number of Sur le Table, and always been favorably disposed to them as a store. The things they sell are of good quality; in a good range of prices, from inexpensive to top of the line. None of it looking shoddy) was three questions. Which, in my professional capacity as one who teaches people to ask questions, were good questions. 1: If I gave you a $500 gift certificate to this store, what would you get? Great question. It gets at a bunch of things. How well does the subject know what the store sells? Both diversity of product, and price. It also, in a place like this, shows the interests of the subject (I said, "A Shun filet knife; mid-range, a Le Crueset Casserole, some Bodum Thermal glasseware; because they are cool, and I like them, a mortar and pestle, a cutting board, a peel and some hot mitts). 2: "Ok, looking at this stuff, if I say you can only have one things, which do you take?" No brainer, "The Shun knife". To which the response was a knowing nod of the head, and I added, "If I couldn't take the knife it would be the casserole, because all the other things can be worked around, but if I need a specific knife, or pot, and I don't have it, I'm out of luck." That was probably the riskiest thing I did in the interview; it was volunteering, and it was, slightly, breaking up the flow. I was, by this point, just following leads, and it seemed worth explaining. I don't think that the knife was less expensive than the pot actually made a difference. This question is really good; because of the first question. That first one tested a whole lot of things. If it stood alone the sense of how well the store, the prices; and in this case the ways in which people (the customers, in a grand sense) use kitchens and value things, isn't as obvious. 3: "If a customer came in, looking to buy this knife, how would you sel it to them?" Brilliant. It gets at the attitudes of the subject on sales, without leading them. I am sure Sur le Table, just as a car dealer, has a philosophy of sales/customer service. I am also sure each store has it's own subculture on how to do it. Getting a feel for how well a prospective employee fits inside that mold is tricky. A question like this one puts them in the position of explaining how they would sell something. I got lucky. Knives are a tricky sale. The least expensive line (and very good knives they are, I bought a Shun utility knife in the "Classic" line) costs about $80 for the knife I mentioned. The "Elite" is about $225. There are more differences than just the steel, the handles aren't the same either. So talking about how to sell them (which involves, the first question, "what do you want to do with it", and then the second step; letting them handle it, and other knives of similiar purpose, and then asking what they want to spend. Because I don't want someone to feel oversold. If they think I pushed a knife on them which was too pricey, they will either bring it back, or be annoyed with me; and the store, when they use it), was a good way to show what I know about sales (which I learned a lot about working in a used bookstore for four years), and about one of the more complicated subjects in a kitchen supply (about the only other thing I can think of, off the top of my head, which in the same level of specialised knowledge/complexity is coffee equipment, esp. when one gets to the various types of espresso makers; I am informed about what one desires them to do, I can't tell you which one is really better than another). So that was my Thursday. Things which didn't hurt me; my asking wage. I figured Kitchen Assistant was in the "skilled labor" set of things, and asked for 12. I was offered 8, and that's fine. I don't think I'd have balked at State Minimum. No, I have no problem with seasonal work at State Minimum. I don't know that I'd have taken that for the Kitchen Assistant job, but they weren't offering that, so it's not an issue. I go in this afternoon to fill out the I-99 paperwork, and start into the rotation. It's, oddly enough, not enough work to qualify me for food stamps, but with the tide-me-over from the VA, and the income from the job, I would probably be above the threshold anyway. |
| Sunday, September 27th, 2009 | |
| 3:37 pm | Why do we need national health care? Because a lack of insurance kills people OXFORD — Friends say the Miami University graduate who died this week after reportedly suffering from swine flu delayed getting medical treatment because she did not have health insurance. News of Kimberly Young’s death Wednesday, Sept. 23, came as a shock to those who knew the vibrant 22-year-old who was working at least two jobs in Oxford after graduating with a double major in December 2008. Young became ill about two weeks ago, but didn’t seek care initially because she didn’t have health insurance and was worried about the cost, according to Brent Mowery, her friend and former roommate. Worried about the cost of one visit to the doctor. That sort of worry kills a lot of people every year. How many? 45,000 deaths a year for lack of insurance. That's more than drunk drivers. That's more than murders. That's more than both of those combined. It would take 13 Sept. 11th events to equal one year's worth of those numbers. Want to know something even better? The constitution we shoved down the throat of Iraq, requires healthcare for everyone. Pretty good inn't? George Bush, and his neo-con cabal (the folks who believed the parades would last, even after the random raids and the abuductions started) insisted that First: Every citizen has the right to health care. The State shall maintain public health and provide the means of prevention and treatment by building different types of hospitals and health institutions. Second: Individuals and entities have the right to build hospitals, clinics,or private health care centers under the supervision of the State, and this shall be regulated by law. But here, in the wealthiest nation on the planet, with (we are assured) the "best healthcare in the world,"people die from the flu, because they can't afford to see the doctor. |