Scrappy Blog

So la_directora and drelmo were having a discussion about word usage that made me notice I have some biases about “correct” language.

Given a choice between “This task is hard” and “This task is difficult”, I’d choose the latter.

Given a choice between “He didn’t do it because he was scared” and “He didn’t do it because he was frightened”, I’d choose the latter.

There’s several other similar examples that I’ve noticed recently though they’re not coming to mind right away.

Why do I have these biases?  As drelmo points out, it’s probably not justified by the definitions of the words themselves.  And I don’t generally prefer the long word over the shorter one…

Maybe it’s a specificity thing?  “Hard” has a lot of meanings, difficult has only one.  “Scared” and “Frightened” are about equally precise, though.

Dunno…

There may be little else that’s special about me, but I have amazing friends.

My friends are strikingly intelligent.  My friends regularly accomplish impressive things.  My friends tell entrancing stories and generate breathtaking art and music and prose.  They are attractive and entertaining and caring and loyal and funny and knowledgable.  And they’re stunningly generous.

I stumble through my life continuously awed, bewildered, and overwhelmingly grateful that I am lucky enough to have such astonishing friends. Without them, my life would be dull.  Grey.  Flat.  Sad.

I’m just sayin’.

OK, so I’ve actually been quite good about exercising over the past few months. I do a workout with my trainer twice a week, and average 4 cardio sessions a week.

In order to stay entertained, we (K and I) watch DVDs of TV shows while doing our cardio. Most recently we worked our way through the first couple seasons of the new Doctor Who – unfortunately, that’s gonna run out Real Soon Now as we’re nearly done with second season.  So it’s time to go shopping for other TV.

Good shows have lots of action and humor and aren’t too dialog-intensive, since the combined sounds of a treadmill and an exercycle tend to drown out TV volume… I tolerate some levels of angst but not as much as, say, the last couple seasons of Buffy… perhaps it’s that I want my angst tempered with humor. We have enjoyed Doctor Who, Smallville, earlier seasons of Buffy, some of Angel…  Other than working out, I watch almost no television, so I’m likely to have never seen any of the shows you recommend.

So…  what should I be ordering to watch next? 

The conversation I just had: 
Me:  “Hello, this is Dr (Tubin), answering your page –  I’m covering for Dr (otherdoc) tonight.  What can I help you with?” 
Patient:  “Well, I needed to get ahold of Dr (otherdoc) so I could ask him to input some orders into the system for some labwork to be done Thursday or Friday…” 
Me:  “I’m sorry, I’m unable to take care of that for you right now.  I don’t have access to Dr (otherdoc)’s computer to put in orders.  Why don’t you give his office a call in the morning, so they can take care of this for you?”  
Patient:  “well, could you take a message for Dr (otherdoc)?”

What I actually said was (in falsely regretful tones) “No, I’m sorry, I’m not equipped to do that.  You’ll need to call the office during business hours to handle that issue”. 

What I wanted to say…

“No, I’m a doctor, not a personal message service.”

or

“So, when you run out of toilet paper in the middle of the night, do you call the grocery store manager at home and expect him to get you some?”

or…

“No, I don’t like you enough to be willing to spend any more of my evening helping you with routine business that could’ve been taken care of during ordinary business hours…”

or…

I’m open to suggestions here.  Help me relieve my impotent frustration in a mostly harmless fashion by suggesting some really nicely bitchy things I could’ve said….

Meanwhile I’ll go get on the treadmill and get some use out of all this negative energy.

One of the lectures I attended at last weekend’s alumni college was looking at the impact of the internet on consumer behavior – and hence on marketing techniques.

The lecturer (Dr. Paul Dholakia), a marketing professor at the business school, spoke mainly about his research interest in “Emergence Marketing”, a subtle marketing technique in which customer loyalty and satisfaction are increased by inviting more direct participation in the company.  Examples include chatrooms or listserves where users can advise one another, and product development seminars.

He presented some very entertaining and convincing examples.  For example:

Finally, this guy maintained that more traditional marketing techniques, including junk mail and free samples, are on their way out because they’ve been shown not to work. I found that interesting since I haven’t seen any decrease in electronic or traditional junk mail, and because lots of people seem to be convinced that free samples do work…

Emergence marketing is very different from traditional marketing in that it gives the consumer a voice, and the consumer’s input can’t be predicted or controlled ahead of time.  All of which means all the experts in traditional marketing are highly uncomfortable with this new approach.  Me, I found myself immediately thinking about ways we could use it to improve patient loyalty to the clinic while also promoting better health behaviors and educating the patients…

I spent the past weekend with my family at Rice Alumni College Weekend.  This is an event where you sign up for a variety of interesting classes, which are presented with interspersed breaks for snacks (or meals), socializing, and general fun.  It’s always a good chance to catch up with Mom and Dad as well as a chance to learn new stuff.  I’ll comment on new stuff I learned in other posts, as this helps keep discussion threads a little more understandable.

Also working on a variety of projects and brainstorming about how to meet various challenges.  Some of those will also stimulate posts, I suspect. 

And will start with a request for advice.  I am looking at a variety of present and future tasks for both me and K.  I notice that many of those tasks involve managing someone else’s work in addition to my own, and recognize that I don’t have a lot of great inspirations about how to do that.  Too often, delegating work to someone else (say, a grad student) is something that ends up taking as much time as energy as it would’ve taken to just do the work myself.  There’s gotta be people who’ve looked at this problem and come up with some concrete suggestions to avoid it.  Can anyone recommend some resource (book, class, etc) on the topic?

Exercizin’ – I’m shamed to say that I haven’t worked out since Wednesday – first time I’ve skipped this long in over a year.  Am planning to do both cardio and weights this afternoon and then will stay on the wagon from there!

So have spent my morning accomplishing a few things, each of which required maneuvering through the questions and suggestions of idiots.  Or perhaps just people who are more ignorant than they should be…

I think I need to spend the afternoon on a project that doesn’t require the input of other people…

Just got off the phone with my insurance company – we stand to save some $$ by combining our auto insurance.  But it was a little of an unusual experience, because the agent was… well, slow.  And her speech was sort of slurred, maybe?  It was hard to make out what she was saying, as if she wasn’t really enunciating.  So the phone call took a lot longer than it would have, because we kept having to go over stuff that had already been covered.  My usual experience with this insurance company (USAA) is that they’re really sharp.

Which is of no interest to anyone, probably, but just felt like commenting….

Ever wake up grumpy?

I have every reason to be in a good mood today.  My sweetheart has the day off, as do I.  Work-wise, I have interesting projects on my plate, things I enjoy doing.  I have a couple writing projects that are high-likelihood for publication nearing launch.  At home, I have a variety of ideas for cool stuff to do and some time to get to those ideas now that the wedding’s over.  My family comes into town later this week for a long weekend, and I’ll get to enjoy them without dealing with a Major Event.

But I woke up this morning grumpy. Lay there, couldn’t think of a single reason to get out of bed.  Nothing excited me, nothing tempted me. Didn’t want to be social, didn’t want to play, didn’t want to work. The cat came over to snuggle and I didn’t want to do that, either.

Slept in a bit, then spent the morning doing silly stuff that usually puts me in a good mood (e.g. reading fiction, solving puzzles, eating) and then worked out.  No go.  I feel just as grumpy as before; in fact, now I have a headache on top of my grumpy angst. 

After spending the first part of the day trying to tempt me into a better mood, K has just given up and gone in to the office. So now I feel guilty on top of grumpy and headachy.

Bleagh.

So my cooking activities are limited.  That is, I make about a half-dozen interesting recipes and K, who is generally happy to do the same thing over and over again, never asks for anything different.  And since he does the grocery shopping, my kitchen is generally stocked with just the ingredients for those same half-dozen things.

So last year on Valentines, I launched a new recipe – chicken, with a cheesy spinach sauce over chicken and mushrooms. Decided to create a tradition this year, by fixing K something new on VD (which we really don’t bother to celebrate otherwise)…

Tossed some rice and water into the rice cooker before getting started.  Began with chicken breasts; cut strips, browned them in chili oil, and set them aside. Then cooked up mushrooms and some fresh garlic in the same skillet, also with chili oil, and set them aside. Next were onions cut into good-size chunks and fresh green beans, again in that same skillet, with more chili oil, then set aside (but kept separate from the chicken and mushrooms).  I had pre-cooked the veggies a bit in the microwave so they just needed a quick saute.  At this point I put a cup of orange juice and a cup of chicken broth in the skillet and brought it to a simmer, added about a cup of shredded carrots, the pulp and juice of a whole orange, a heaping tablespoon of brown sugar, a heaping tablespoon of corn starch, and a dash of salt.  Simmered that for a few minutes to get the carrots started towards cooked/softened, then put the chicken and mushrooms back in and let that simmer for 15 minutes.  Tossed in the veggies and about a cup of caramelized walnuts.  Served it over the rice.

It was nice.  There was nice flavor contrast – the sweet of the brown sugar and carrot, the tangy of the orange juice, and the hint of spice from the garlic and chili oil.  There was texture contrast, since the walnuts and beans were crunchy, the chicken was meat-y, and the rice and onions were soft.  I felt good after eating it, as I usually do when indulging in lots of fresh veggies.  And it didn’t take terribly long to cook overall – which is a major criteria for acceptability in my household.

I made a few mistakes – like, initial skillet was too small to hold the final mixture, I’ll use a stewpot next time.  And I simmered at slightly too high a heat so the orange juice and sugar caramelized a bit at the bottom of the pan – I think it’d be better without that trace flavor. I don’t think the orange pulp added anything noticable to the mix, and it’d have been easier to use just orange juice.  And

nicoleallee

pointed out that it would benefit from some ginger, so I’ll try that.

K informs me that I should give him the ingredients list for this one, so I will have the chance to correct those mistakes and I’ll have another tasty dish in my repertoire. I’ll never reach the level of expertise of someone like

kcarp

or

tksan

, but it feels good to be slowly expanding my range.

Of note… I actually am capable of cooking a bunch of other things that we never eat around here.  But, K is pickier than me and I try to avoid the ingredients that he isn’t fond of. I wouldn’t be so accomodating to kids, but I figure K’s old enough that it’s unlikely his eating patterns will change at this late date…