Spatula Ponderings

"What is this?"



"What about this?"



"Now, this one?"



"What do we call this thing?"


"How about this one?!"



Is it just me or are half of all kitchen utensils called Spatulas? What is that all about!? How many different items are so unimportant they all get the same name. What someone just spent?

"Okay, were almost done here today, lets see.... we'll call this a bowl, that thing over there a knife. But we'll spell it with a 'k' to drive everyone crazy. Okay that leaves us with this... I was thinking 'colander' or we might just lump it with the sieves. What else?

"We haven't even gotten to the utensil drawer."

"You're kidding me!? How long have we been at this?! Okay you know what...everything in there is a...a...spatula!"

"All of them?"

"You want to stay here all night, or head home?!"

"..."

"Well?"

"How do you spell that?"

Judgment

"Where you heading friend?"

Planning

Well this is fun. Now what?"

Order Up!

Some things are worth dying for. Where is your sense of duty?

20 Things I Learned From Outages

Now is a perfect time to panic.

No matter what you may think, everyone knows it's your fault.

Everyone is always losing 'thousands of dollars' during outages.

When the network is down, you burn calories at an exponential rate.

People who haven't worked in the last year are suddenly desperate to get busy.

How many managers can you cram into your workspace?

When the network is down, you'll have your answer.

Manager love to take up space and offer valuable 'suggestions'.

Ignoring these 'suggestions' proves you don't have what it takes for management.

It also means the network might be fixed sometime soon.

No matter what, payroll gets fixed first. There is no exception to this rule.

The answer to all other inquires is, "Yea, I'm working on it."

Time passes in two modes during outages. 'The crawl' and 'freaky lighting mode'.

Freaky lighting mode is while you are troubleshooting.

The crawl occurs after you think you've fixed it.

More than likely, it's worse than you think.

Never say 'it's fixed.' This is a sure sign you have failed.

Once you send the 'all clear email', is when the second shoe will drop.

For some reason you never expect that second shoe. No matter how many times you've done this.

Get comfortable. You are probably going to be here for a while.

Deadly A-Salt

Harvested from almost every corner of the planet, used extensively in homes of millions if not billions of people worldwide. It's obvious that this foe is not going to loosen its grip anytime in the near future. It has you where it wants you, always shaking and thirsting for more.

Lets face it, salt is a naughty spice. Is it a spice or a seasoning? Is there a difference? I want to say spices come from roots, but I'm not sure. Regardless, I always think of spices as exotic, like nutmeg, coriander or galangal. Salt is just so familiar. Like your friendly neighborhood grocer.

#START: OFF THE BEATEN PATH RANT
What is up with the name grocer. Could there be a worse occupational title? Hello! It sounds, from his title, that this man is just mired in filth all day long. "Rotten Produce! Get your rotten produce here!!"

Maker of barrels: Cooper.
Exchanger of monies: Banker.
Liar and kisser of babies: Politician.
Purveyor of food goods: Grocer.

Personal I think someone drew the short straw on this one!
#END: OFF THE BEATEN PATH RANT

Anyway...

Salt is just so familiar. Like...well...like a close friend. You just couldn't imagine the world without them. Little did you know that this close friend of yours, was an evil fiend of the highest order, ready to stab you in the back.

1. Salt makes you thirsty. Easy proven, eat salty foods, and you get thirsty.

"Well, it still really tastes good. I suppose I can let this one go. So I'll drink a bit more water, soda or grape Kool-Aid. I'm certainly not giving up salt!"

2. Salt bloats you. Even in small amounts, you require more liquids, but salt is a greedy master and will not relinquish that liquid willingly.

"So I retain a little extra water, it's just salts nature. It's not like it's doing it on purpose. What do I care if I can't spin my wedding ring anymore."

3. Salt makes you hungry. A common tool by enterprising restaurants who give out free appetizers loaded with salt, to further their own food sales. They even go so far to put a shaker on the table, so you can 'have a bit more'. Bit by bit, you eat yourself into a bloated stuffed salt surrendering trophy piece.

"It's not salts fault that I eat too, much. I'd probably overeat even without salts loving nudges. Salt is a friend of mine. There is no way you can make me stop salting my fries!"

Salt can kill you. This fact long known by snails, slugs and dandelions, salt is a low down murder disguised in your fancy ceramic pug dog shaker! Excessive salt can raise your risk of hypertension, edema, ulcers and stomach cancer. In fact if you consume enough salt (about 1 g per kg of body weight) you can just die from that. Salt isn't your friend, in fact salt will only be truly happy if you are dead, smiling out from the Morton's cylinder with glee and joy.

"Salt is Evil!"

Yes my friends, your best friend might be your worst nightmare. Salt is evil. Now... where did I put my sea-salt and vinegar chips?!

Reincarnating Inanimate Objects

With a title like that, you just had to click and see.

"Okay Peter, what nonsense are you going to start driveling on about now?"

No, it's true. I'm reincarnating inanimate objects with the hope of monetary gain. I've reincarnated a rather unattractive wood pallet into, what I believe is a very cool table. How's that for a step up in caste? Sure beats coming back as a cow.


Patricia and I have been trying to figure out what to call this table creation. She thought it reminded her of a tiki stlye. I was going for green, or recycled. This might surprise some of you out there, until it occurs to you, that down deep I'm a capitalist. This means that I believe everyone's money spends the same. My goal is to try and get some of it and test that theory. So if it sells tables, I'll cave.

After a good deal of 'discussing' we compromised. Its a rustic/'green'/tiki bar/western/reincarnated pallet table. Well. I hope that helps to clear it up for you. It's definitely rustic. I didn't plane down the top to a smooth surface. That might be because I like the cool ridges and small bumps that let me know where the wood came from. Sort of it's soul. Or it might be that I don't own an electric thickness planer and after three hours with a hand rasp and sheet of sandpaper I passed out in a sweaty heap at the base of my workbench, thus declaring that stage, 'completed'. I'll let you decide which is true.


I have to say for my first table, and given the state of the raw materials, it is very well built. I came out square and level. It's a little wobbly at the edges, due to the fact I made the base a bit to small. But all in all, I tried to apply good techniques while building it. Patricia found me a really cool cabinetry book published back in the mid 60's. It has really given me a base for understanding furniture construction and classic methods. Its also cool to see men with Vitalis in their hair, wearing slacks and dress shirts assembling furniture.

Besides a small piece of plywood used to attach the tabletop to the center post, every bit of this table was recycled from a pallet. I took said pallet, and a couple others, from my office. After a number of weeks, a fistful of slivers, cuts, and a good deal of fun. This table appeared on my workbench. This table just oozes interesting. And it's an instant conversation piece.

I posted it up on craigslist this morning. So now the hope is that someone, somewhere will think to themselves:

"You know what I need? I sturdy, rustic table with an uneven surface, made from the remnants of a shipping pallet, to put all my really important stuff on. I wonder if I can find one of those?"

"Guess what? I might just know where you could find something like that!"