My boss is retiring. While I'm happy for him, I have had the sudden realization that I will miss him greatly.
Also, I do not relish the idea of breaking in a new boss, particularly since that person is likely to be someone who is not eminently qualified for the position. The likely candidate will come from outside the division and will almost certainly be an engineer. Although I highly respect engineers at EBMWU, the best qualified candidates are already internal to the division and do not possess an engineering degree. If a candidate comes from outside the division, that candidate should have extensive experience in distribution system maintenance, including the personnel, safety, and regulatory issues that are omnipresent to the work we do. Our division has the most critical and public facing mission - maintain the distribution system; keep water in the pipe.
Engineers don't have to deal with those issues on a daily basis. Most engineers deal with designing new parts of the distribution system (some of which replace aging and failing portions), or facilities that feed the system (reservoirs, pumping plants, water treatment plants, aqueducts, etc.). Some engineers also work in distribution system planning and there is one senior engineer in particular who does this work in planning and who I respect greatly. But even that person did not apply for the job opening probably because he knows that he doesn't have the background needed to be effective.
Frankly, I'm a wee bit unhappy that senior management has clearly indicated they will select an engineer from outside the division and not someone with the experience needed for a smooth transition. They're setting up someone for failure and for damaging the morale of the division's rank and file. No bueno, to put it mildly.
There will be a very bumpy ride if an engineer is selected and I will not be able to anticipate every issue much less train them properly, even if my institutional knowledge is vast. My own retirement may consequently happen sooner rather than later, which could produce its own bumps. I'm not a happy camper.
Sounds like your boss did not train a successor before retiring. Not sure if that is due to the company culture, or your boss, or something else. But training your successor before retiring is something I've seen as normal at places I've worked at. Sorry my comments don't address what to do in the current situation.
My boss has made mentoring, training, and succession planning an important part of his work. Training is not the issue. Although I will say that retirements played a role in making the feeder class much younger *and smaller* than it was even 2 years ago.
One of his direct reports was a finalist this time around and was a finalist five years ago when my boss was selected (they were both in similar positions 5 years ago). That person is an eminently qualified candidate who was passed over.
As far as I know, the position has always pulled from candidates who have run a service yard. This may be the first time that a person from a different job class has been selected for this particular manager position. For an organization that prides itself on selecting highly qualified candidates, it baffles me.
I am a deep observer of what goes on in this division and I pick up on things rapidly, but I have not lived any significant portion of my professional life in the ditch, nor have I run a service yard.
I would be a hypocrite to decry selecting someone unqualified for the position and then seek the position myself. I have way too much respect for the best qualified candidates. I will support the eventual successor in my current capacity as a jack of all (admin) trades (personnel, budget, paperwork, liaison to other units, etc., etc.), but I am not the person to step into that position.
This, unfortunately, is one of several prevalent routes to poor management frequently being employed these days. Sadly, there are even worse paths being taken, where people who have no idea what they are doing are put in position to make bad decisions, and then blame the rank and file who knew better to begin with, but were not consulted because their lnowledge does not align with the wished for outcome that has no grounds in reality.
Your comment touches upon a rather raw nerve I have at the moment. A nerve that has been exposed because of this hiring/promotion issue and another development which is affecting everyone throughout the entire organization. My confidence in management has been severely damaged.
Came up to Truckee yesterday. Snow was looking sad. Got a dusting overnight (with light flurries still going). It's cold, tho: in the teens (-7C).
Heading to Tahoe Donner – never been there – with 6-yo. Last year was her first days skiing and got her on some blues at Soda Springs by the end. Curious to see how much muscle memory she's retained...
I was in Truckee yesterday too. I go up nearly weekly for work. The pace of snowmelt at the summit is crazy and alarming, made all the more troubling by the lack of any meaningful precipitation in the forecast.
I was going to take No 3 up over spring break (3rd week in March) and get him ski lessons. I guess it should still be fine in about 4-5 weeks. Hopefully the snow isn't bad.
I remember when i was young we used to go to Donner Ski Ranch and Soda Springs. I think my sister learned at soda Springs. They had her going down the green lifts sometime after lunch.
her first skiing was last year at Soda Springs. Small, but a good first place. did the magic carpet the first handful of (partial) days, then graduated to the green lift, and ended up doing some blues that last few days.
her first couple of runs today were dicey, but better than I expected. by #4, she seemed to have here memory muscle back. I was buckling up my boots and she just took off!
I have to say that as a 55-yo – who used to do 20+ days/season in my 30s – being "forced" to take it easy skiing with my daughter is not the worst thing in the world. pretty sure that I'll avoid any big injuries.
i watched this last night. was amazing to watch her ski that fast especially given the injuries. apparently she just skis every run with reckless abandon ...
Olympic competitors are hyper aware of what they eat, drink, and breathe. If you were the world's top competitor and could get tagged in a drug screen by anything as casual as sharing a glass, the last thing you would do would do is share a glass. But that's not how you get a banned drug in your system and that's not how a 15 year old would react if innocent.
Oh man. You've inspired me to do an experiment. I knew of smash-burgers and know that they are tasty because of the nice crust on them. But the question is why? I mean, I know the crust is yummy because Maillard reaction browns the meat and transforming meat sugars into amino acids with more umami.
Thesis: One starts with a purposely looser ball of ground meat and then presses down on the meat. The irregular shape of the meat encourages larger surface area that can have that chemical reaction. The smashing down has the double benefit of increasing the surface area that can touch the grill but also extrudes water out of of the beef. Water boils at 212, below the Maillard sweet spot. What if I prepped the meat better. Rather than having a wet ball of beef out of the package and slapping them into a ball, I actually unwrap it, salt and dry age it a towel over on a wire rack for - say, a day. And then I smash and shallow fry it in oil to maximize the amount of burger that is in the Maillard zone rather than just rely on the traditional way (ie, steam, which isn't hot enough) to cook my burger.
BRB: I'm taking a pound of beef out of the freezer.
What do you guys season your burgers with? I just do some salt, pepper, and a little soy sauce. For No 2 and 3 I also add in some shredded cheese in the middle (similar to the Jucy Lucy). This means that their patties have to be thicker.
i use fajita seasoning (which is basically salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, etc). Also Worcestershire sauce, chopped onions, jalapenos and minced garlic
Do you mix it in or just put it on top? I mixed all mine in. I have thought about just shaping it with a little soy sauce and then do the fresh ground salt and pepper only on top.
For a smash-style, just salt and pepper. Use more salt than you're comfortable with, then let it rest on the counter and come as close to room temperature as possible before throwing it on the hot surface.
For more tavern style thicker burgers, I add garlic powder, sometimes a spice mix like TJ's 'everything but the elote'. My preference is to leave out soy sauce and other liquids as I want a dryer patty to crust up quicker. That said, I steam the burgers at the end to melt the cheese to make sure it also gets cooked all the way through.
This is the primary reason I got a good cast iron skillet last year - to do smashburgers on a hot skillet with very high heat. Now I know what I'm doing for dinner tonight.
Imma do 4 burgers. Burger in a pan (control). Smash-burger in a pan. Smashburger - 24 dry age in a pan. Non-smashed loose-burger in a 350 degree airfryer to maximize Maillard-zone temperature control and surface area.
I set my air-fryer to 390 to make some Nashville hot chicken cutlets for lunch. Then I'm thinking, I should calibrate my air fryer to see if it's actually 390 degrees. Then I'm thinking "wait a second, 390 is way too hot for something breaded. The breading would burn very quickly if it was actually 390 because bread toasts between 240-280 degrees. So I thought I'd measure the airfryer's actual temperature with a digital thermometer. The element is obviously really hot (above 600). About an inch under the element is about 330 degrees. The surface of the chicken, the inside surface of airfryer itself, and the air right above the chicken was about 290. In retrospect, probably no oven is the temperature you dial it to. It gets relatively hot, you see how food performs in it, and you adjust.
SGBear: this is why I love this site...it's ostensibly a sports site, but a discussion of burgers ends up talking about Maillard reactions (which for me, as a mech engineer, is a TIL). Find that on any other sports site!
flat iron steak au poivre with asparagus topped with bernaise and crab, and pomme gratin for dinner last night. I haven't made bernaise in about 20 years.
Seems like this is true in most places around the country. It's basically the same duration we saw for the Omicron wave in South Africa and elsewhere: very fast peak, very fast decline.
I was curious to see if that really panned out here in the US - my impression was that we were sort of midway between South Africa & western European countries in terms of monitoring and availability of healthcare / vaccination rates, so I wasn't sure if we'd track the same way. Kind of amazing that you get the same general trend lines regardless.
Republicans probably didn't want her to actually win this one. Because if such a case can be won against the NYT, it can easily be won against Fox News or any number of other conservative outlets. Not a good precedent for them.
On the one hand, the public has a right to know about shenanigans that aim to overthrow a legitimate election and install a president who has dictatorial designs on the presidency. The press in its various media has a responsibility to report on this kind of treasonous action.
On the other hand, a report like this amplifies the crazy and gives some credence, no matter how small, to the notion that action to subvert US election law in the interest of installing a dictator is somehow respectable. It's enough to turn one's stomach.
i almost forgot that i was a think until i was talking to someone at work about it. he is taking some time off from work and says he "will be pissed if the one year when he can go to a lot of baseball is the year there is a lockout"
There is a loose deadline of 2/28, which would allow for a month of spring training. It’s really tough to see the regular season NOT being delayed, considering how infrequently the two sides are meeting and how little progress has been made.
Jeff Passan on ESPN is finally saying the concern level should now be incredibly high...neither side seems to care about the optics, tho, which is a problem.
i got this note internally about undergrad admissions for the upcoming year because of a court order. looks like they might accept almost a 1/3 less students. it is a result of a local community group that challenges the university's environmental impact analysis.
In a ruling issued by an Alameda County Superior Court judge in August 2021, the University of California, Berkeley, was ordered to freeze student enrollment at the 2020-21 level — an abnormally low enrollment year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
.. the campus is currently estimating that it would be forced by the court order to reduce the number of new undergraduate students enrolled for the 2022-23 academic year by about one third.
apparently one of the people driving this made unflattering comparisons to Berkeley's expansion and sprawling Asian cities with bad transit, specifically citing three Asian cities that actually have pretty good public transport.
the dumbest twitter comment i saw on this story was saying that the UC system should be forced to return higher tuition for out of state students over to the state's general fund - as if reductions in state funding hadn't created the incentives to accept students paying those sweet sweet non-resident premiums.
When people learn just how little funding the state provides to UC they are generally dumbstruck. They think the state funds the whole thing, rather than the 10% they current chip in.
No. Panoramic Hill Association (PHA) sued to stop the stadium retrofit (aka Westside Improvements Project).
However, I think that Save Berkeley Neighborhoods (or whatever it's called) membership certainly includes folks who are or were part of PHA.
EDIT: Save Berkeley Neighborhoods may be an umbrella organization that includes smaller neighborhood groups like PHA. I'm not absolutely certain about that, though.
I just read the link. Thanks for sharing. Usually, the remedy for violating CEQA is to halt the project, as they did with the Upper Hearst Project. It is pretty wild that trial court froze enrollment too. That does seem beyond the jurisdiction of the Court, at least based on the facts outlined in the memo UC is circulating.
Was reading about this last night. Just crazy. This seems to have been advanced by a group named Save Berkeley Neighborhoods, who, among other charges, have argued that increasing enrollment has created unacceptable noise levels. Berkeley NIMBY-ism at its finest.
NIMBY groups anywhere in California are a plague. Using CEQA suits to create worse environmental outcomes should be punished by a 100% property tax rate if they lose.
I think that folks in Santa Cruz would dispute that notion (antagonism towards the campus is something unique to Berkeley).
This is a problem with more college towns than one might imagine. Town-gown relations are a problem in many towns. San Luis Obispo is no exception, as I found out during the time that CJay and Double D were in school there. I would expect that this is probably true in towns where a university or college has an outsized presence or influence.
Santa Cruz feels less defined by opposition to the UC, maybe because that town would still have something going for it even if the university wasn't there. Berkeley would be nothing special without the UC, just another East Bay suburb.
Don't discount the anti-campus feelings, though. There were very strong anti-campus feelings among certain segments of Santa Cruz residents when I attended from '81-'85. Granted, the campus only opened in 1965. So, for many of those folks the enmity was still a bit raw and unhappy.
Think again. There is an anti-university element in a lot of towns with a college in or near it. Usually composed of people who do not have any dependency on any kind of local economy or services.
Absolutely correct. It's written into the California Constitution - the University of California (and Stanf*rd University!) is not subject to the laws of their host communities. This was an impetus for Palo Alto to deannex Stanf*rd from Palo Alto. Stanf*rd is, however, subject, to Santa Clara County ordinances.
Yup, that's my thought as well. Sure, other towns and their colleges have political issues with each other, but Berkeley takes it to a whole new level.
Bah went to move my car at 3:04. I'd gotten a ticket at 2:24.
I guess this is a sign that I DON'T need that $50 blanket from Jeni's (since the ticket is $58)
Sympathy.
My closest call in Berkeley was when I was a senior, and I got to my car 3 minutes after getting ticketed.
Bummer
Prince Andrew settles with Virginia Giuffre's civil suit. Amount sealed and will go to charity.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/15/us/prince-andrew-virginia-giuffre/index.html
My boss is retiring. While I'm happy for him, I have had the sudden realization that I will miss him greatly.
Also, I do not relish the idea of breaking in a new boss, particularly since that person is likely to be someone who is not eminently qualified for the position. The likely candidate will come from outside the division and will almost certainly be an engineer. Although I highly respect engineers at EBMWU, the best qualified candidates are already internal to the division and do not possess an engineering degree. If a candidate comes from outside the division, that candidate should have extensive experience in distribution system maintenance, including the personnel, safety, and regulatory issues that are omnipresent to the work we do. Our division has the most critical and public facing mission - maintain the distribution system; keep water in the pipe.
Engineers don't have to deal with those issues on a daily basis. Most engineers deal with designing new parts of the distribution system (some of which replace aging and failing portions), or facilities that feed the system (reservoirs, pumping plants, water treatment plants, aqueducts, etc.). Some engineers also work in distribution system planning and there is one senior engineer in particular who does this work in planning and who I respect greatly. But even that person did not apply for the job opening probably because he knows that he doesn't have the background needed to be effective.
Frankly, I'm a wee bit unhappy that senior management has clearly indicated they will select an engineer from outside the division and not someone with the experience needed for a smooth transition. They're setting up someone for failure and for damaging the morale of the division's rank and file. No bueno, to put it mildly.
There will be a very bumpy ride if an engineer is selected and I will not be able to anticipate every issue much less train them properly, even if my institutional knowledge is vast. My own retirement may consequently happen sooner rather than later, which could produce its own bumps. I'm not a happy camper.
Sounds like your boss did not train a successor before retiring. Not sure if that is due to the company culture, or your boss, or something else. But training your successor before retiring is something I've seen as normal at places I've worked at. Sorry my comments don't address what to do in the current situation.
My boss has made mentoring, training, and succession planning an important part of his work. Training is not the issue. Although I will say that retirements played a role in making the feeder class much younger *and smaller* than it was even 2 years ago.
One of his direct reports was a finalist this time around and was a finalist five years ago when my boss was selected (they were both in similar positions 5 years ago). That person is an eminently qualified candidate who was passed over.
As far as I know, the position has always pulled from candidates who have run a service yard. This may be the first time that a person from a different job class has been selected for this particular manager position. For an organization that prides itself on selecting highly qualified candidates, it baffles me.
Do you not want to be promoted to fill the vacancy?
I would love to pick your brain on water system maintenance, management and the future of industry.
I'm not qualified for the position.
I am a deep observer of what goes on in this division and I pick up on things rapidly, but I have not lived any significant portion of my professional life in the ditch, nor have I run a service yard.
I would be a hypocrite to decry selecting someone unqualified for the position and then seek the position myself. I have way too much respect for the best qualified candidates. I will support the eventual successor in my current capacity as a jack of all (admin) trades (personnel, budget, paperwork, liaison to other units, etc., etc.), but I am not the person to step into that position.
This, unfortunately, is one of several prevalent routes to poor management frequently being employed these days. Sadly, there are even worse paths being taken, where people who have no idea what they are doing are put in position to make bad decisions, and then blame the rank and file who knew better to begin with, but were not consulted because their lnowledge does not align with the wished for outcome that has no grounds in reality.
Your comment touches upon a rather raw nerve I have at the moment. A nerve that has been exposed because of this hiring/promotion issue and another development which is affecting everyone throughout the entire organization. My confidence in management has been severely damaged.
Came up to Truckee yesterday. Snow was looking sad. Got a dusting overnight (with light flurries still going). It's cold, tho: in the teens (-7C).
Heading to Tahoe Donner – never been there – with 6-yo. Last year was her first days skiing and got her on some blues at Soda Springs by the end. Curious to see how much muscle memory she's retained...
I was in Truckee yesterday too. I go up nearly weekly for work. The pace of snowmelt at the summit is crazy and alarming, made all the more troubling by the lack of any meaningful precipitation in the forecast.
I was going to take No 3 up over spring break (3rd week in March) and get him ski lessons. I guess it should still be fine in about 4-5 weeks. Hopefully the snow isn't bad.
was slightly snowy or overcast most of the day. I expect tomorrow to be an icy-nice-slushy spring-skiing day, even tho it's still cold.
supposed to be some snow this coming weekend, so hopefully in march it'll be ok
I remember when i was young we used to go to Donner Ski Ranch and Soda Springs. I think my sister learned at soda Springs. They had her going down the green lifts sometime after lunch.
her first skiing was last year at Soda Springs. Small, but a good first place. did the magic carpet the first handful of (partial) days, then graduated to the green lift, and ended up doing some blues that last few days.
her first couple of runs today were dicey, but better than I expected. by #4, she seemed to have here memory muscle back. I was buckling up my boots and she just took off!
see what happens over the next 4 days...
the muscle memory came back to HAG pretty easily after not skiing for 27 yrs. the muscles themselves apparently need some work ..
heh...yeah the muscles themselves have not been used much recently. Luckily muscle memory is a thing.
I have to say that as a 55-yo – who used to do 20+ days/season in my 30s – being "forced" to take it easy skiing with my daughter is not the worst thing in the world. pretty sure that I'll avoid any big injuries.
I was happy to just take it easy on the blues. The blues at Squaw were tougher than the blues at Northstar. Either way, I was good with it.
If No 3 does lessons I may just do the same blue trails while he does his thing. Then try to figure out if he's ready to try the greens.
Why does everyone, including the golden retriever, have a damn firearm?
Because it would be silly (though probably more accurate) for each of them to have two?
Merika!
that's my favorite part!
Plus extra ammo.
I'm concerned about how they're planning to get those burgers onto that plate.
Shoot below the patties/links and the ricochet of the air and charcoal blast the patties/links up in the air.
Olympics
While Jamaica qualified for the Olympics, they came in dead last during qualifying heats - even behind Trinidad & Tobago.
https://results.nbcolympics.com/bobsled/two-man/run-2/2411652
Cool walkings
I remember watching one participant do the Giant Slalom, maybe from Jamaica. I probably could gone faster than that person.
With all the cornhole tournaments I see on ESPN during the off hours, I'm waiting for cornhole to make it to the summer olympics one year.
i thought that it had to be played in a certain minimum number of other countries ...
Heck, send them some plans to make some cornhole sets. Just some wood and beanbags.
maybe we'll find out that cornhole is a variant of some game they used to play in ancient China.
There is tough. And then there is Soffia Goggia, who won a silver medal in Downhill skiing on a broken fibula and a partially torn ACL.
https://sports.yahoo.com/sofia-goggia-racing-on-torn-acl-and-broken-leg-wins-olympic-silver-110012030.html
i watched this last night. was amazing to watch her ski that fast especially given the injuries. apparently she just skis every run with reckless abandon ...
I think downhillers have to ski with reckless abandon.
skiing 80 mph on mostly ice is nuts.
Russian 15-year-old figure skater Kamila Valieva blames her grandfather for somehow contaminating her with his heart medicine. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
https://sports.yahoo.com/kamila-valievas-camp-claims-failed-doping-test-caused-by-grandpas-medicine-070302466.html
Grandpa Vladimir Putin?
Kamila Valieva Leads After Short Program
3 of the top 4 are Russian
Tanya Harding and her untied boot laces.
Sure, Tanya, er, Kamila. Sure.
Olympic competitors are hyper aware of what they eat, drink, and breathe. If you were the world's top competitor and could get tagged in a drug screen by anything as casual as sharing a glass, the last thing you would do would do is share a glass. But that's not how you get a banned drug in your system and that's not how a 15 year old would react if innocent.
maybe the grandfather gets the gold medal instead
dog ate her homework too
Doneness
burger - whatever comes off the grill at Five Guys
Steak - I don't think I've had a steak as such since the last wedding I attended, which was in '17. I suppose medium - medium rare.
Burger 13, steak 5.
Steak, medium rare, burgers, medium
0, since I'll be keeping the burger inside the cow and eating the Beyond Burger instead... ;-)
If given the choice, medium. However, IIRC, a place like Five Guys cooks their burgers well done, and they still come out great.
Ever since getting a horrific, 36-hour bout of food poisoning from an underdone burger about ten years ago, I default to medium well.
Medium-well +. There are no positives to the problems with undercooked ground meats.
Some people, including some relatives of mine, love the very rare taste. For me it's not worth it. Or that tasty.
Medium for burgers.
5 - i generally like my burgers and steaks about medium rare.
but the burger patty typically has to be thick enough for such a thing to work properly. the thin patties, just cook thru very quickly.
a good crust is more important to me on a burger than the doneness honestly. I do like the smash burger style.
Oh man. You've inspired me to do an experiment. I knew of smash-burgers and know that they are tasty because of the nice crust on them. But the question is why? I mean, I know the crust is yummy because Maillard reaction browns the meat and transforming meat sugars into amino acids with more umami.
Thesis: One starts with a purposely looser ball of ground meat and then presses down on the meat. The irregular shape of the meat encourages larger surface area that can have that chemical reaction. The smashing down has the double benefit of increasing the surface area that can touch the grill but also extrudes water out of of the beef. Water boils at 212, below the Maillard sweet spot. What if I prepped the meat better. Rather than having a wet ball of beef out of the package and slapping them into a ball, I actually unwrap it, salt and dry age it a towel over on a wire rack for - say, a day. And then I smash and shallow fry it in oil to maximize the amount of burger that is in the Maillard zone rather than just rely on the traditional way (ie, steam, which isn't hot enough) to cook my burger.
BRB: I'm taking a pound of beef out of the freezer.
What do you guys season your burgers with? I just do some salt, pepper, and a little soy sauce. For No 2 and 3 I also add in some shredded cheese in the middle (similar to the Jucy Lucy). This means that their patties have to be thicker.
I use Jane's Krazy Mixed Up Salt, which is my go to salt for anything savory.
What spices/flavorings are in that? Looks interesting.
Unless I'm going for a specific flavor (more savory, more spicy, etc.) just freshly ground pepper and kosher salt.
i use fajita seasoning (which is basically salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, etc). Also Worcestershire sauce, chopped onions, jalapenos and minced garlic
Just sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper.
Do you mix it in or just put it on top? I mixed all mine in. I have thought about just shaping it with a little soy sauce and then do the fresh ground salt and pepper only on top.
For a smash-style, just salt and pepper. Use more salt than you're comfortable with, then let it rest on the counter and come as close to room temperature as possible before throwing it on the hot surface.
For more tavern style thicker burgers, I add garlic powder, sometimes a spice mix like TJ's 'everything but the elote'. My preference is to leave out soy sauce and other liquids as I want a dryer patty to crust up quicker. That said, I steam the burgers at the end to melt the cheese to make sure it also gets cooked all the way through.
This is the primary reason I got a good cast iron skillet last year - to do smashburgers on a hot skillet with very high heat. Now I know what I'm doing for dinner tonight.
Imma do 4 burgers. Burger in a pan (control). Smash-burger in a pan. Smashburger - 24 dry age in a pan. Non-smashed loose-burger in a 350 degree airfryer to maximize Maillard-zone temperature control and surface area.
MY LIFE IS A LIE.
I set my air-fryer to 390 to make some Nashville hot chicken cutlets for lunch. Then I'm thinking, I should calibrate my air fryer to see if it's actually 390 degrees. Then I'm thinking "wait a second, 390 is way too hot for something breaded. The breading would burn very quickly if it was actually 390 because bread toasts between 240-280 degrees. So I thought I'd measure the airfryer's actual temperature with a digital thermometer. The element is obviously really hot (above 600). About an inch under the element is about 330 degrees. The surface of the chicken, the inside surface of airfryer itself, and the air right above the chicken was about 290. In retrospect, probably no oven is the temperature you dial it to. It gets relatively hot, you see how food performs in it, and you adjust.
After reading this my curiosity demands that I break out the IR thermometer and check the calibrations next time I use the air fryer.
grind the meat yourself for better results
SGBear: this is why I love this site...it's ostensibly a sports site, but a discussion of burgers ends up talking about Maillard reactions (which for me, as a mech engineer, is a TIL). Find that on any other sports site!
GOs smashburger at one of the tailgates was SO good.
But you can only smash on a griddle. What about on a BBQ grill?
those are coming back for next season
Those were epic...hag fixed me a delightful one that was the highlight of the weekend.
YAY!!!!
i did not know about this Maillard zone
Same. As usual, SGBear continues to be a fountain of knowledge for all things culinary.
DBD Cooking Academy
flat iron steak au poivre with asparagus topped with bernaise and crab, and pomme gratin for dinner last night. I haven't made bernaise in about 20 years.
Yeah, but making bearnaise should be like riding a bike. Even if you haven't done it in a long time, you never forget how.
Oh that sounds good, I hope you had the lady friend over to share.
yes, with a bottle of Pierre Joulet Belle Epoque, tasty
was waiting for the wine pairing selection. so thanks
Reverse-seared some NY Strips from Costco for Valentine's Day dinner...man that is a good technique and I wish I had learned it earlier
DBD AV Club
Today in Covid
Our local case rates are at the lower end of a pretty dramatic plummet, which is nice
https://montgomerycountymd.gov/covid19/data/
Seems like this is true in most places around the country. It's basically the same duration we saw for the Omicron wave in South Africa and elsewhere: very fast peak, very fast decline.
I was curious to see if that really panned out here in the US - my impression was that we were sort of midway between South Africa & western European countries in terms of monitoring and availability of healthcare / vaccination rates, so I wasn't sure if we'd track the same way. Kind of amazing that you get the same general trend lines regardless.
Indeed, MD is the lowest state as well.
a little surprising, given that we do have some counties that you'd expect to resist for cultural politics reasons.
https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/33293456/novak-djokovic-says-opt-future-grand-slams-covid-19-vaccine-mandates
bold move, Cotton
Guess he's OK with Nadal having he record for the number of GS wins.
Elsewhere in college
Luke Fickell contract: Cincinnati coach grabs Power Five-level extension at $5 million annually, per reports- Cincy was a surprise team this year.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/luke-fickell-contract-cincinnati-coach-grabs-power-five-level-extension-at-5-million-annually-per-reports/
really looking forward to the Big 12 the next few years to see who can assert themselves b/w Cincy, Baylor, Oklahoma St
OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY
Poll has Dr. Oz having a plurality of support for GOP nomination in PA Senate race.
https://twitter.com/robertcahaly/status/1493329723904114688
of course he does 🤨
Oh boy
Palin loses her libel case against the New York Times. At least she got at least one nice meal and Covid for her efforts.
https://twitter.com/KaivanShroff/status/1493320602916036612
Jury agrees.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jury-rejects-sarah-palin-s-lawsuit-against-new-york-times/ar-AATTBKw?ocid=msedgntp
Republicans probably didn't want her to actually win this one. Because if such a case can be won against the NYT, it can easily be won against Fox News or any number of other conservative outlets. Not a good precedent for them.
When asked for specifics about the libel, she responded by saying she didn't have any examples with her.
She fundraises off of this stuff, it's fuel, not harm.
Palin should have been rebuked by the trial judge for wasting everyone's time. Maybe she was; I don't know.
What the GOP meant when it called Jan. 6 ‘legitimate political discourse’
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/15/gop-meaning-jan-6-legitimate-political-discourse-00008777
I cringe when I read articles like this.
On the one hand, the public has a right to know about shenanigans that aim to overthrow a legitimate election and install a president who has dictatorial designs on the presidency. The press in its various media has a responsibility to report on this kind of treasonous action.
On the other hand, a report like this amplifies the crazy and gives some credence, no matter how small, to the notion that action to subvert US election law in the interest of installing a dictator is somehow respectable. It's enough to turn one's stomach.
Interesting, I assumed it was just a stupid self-own.
PRO
MLB lockout ..
i almost forgot that i was a think until i was talking to someone at work about it. he is taking some time off from work and says he "will be pissed if the one year when he can go to a lot of baseball is the year there is a lockout"
i cant tell if there is any progress or not.
There is a loose deadline of 2/28, which would allow for a month of spring training. It’s really tough to see the regular season NOT being delayed, considering how infrequently the two sides are meeting and how little progress has been made.
Jeff Passan on ESPN is finally saying the concern level should now be incredibly high...neither side seems to care about the optics, tho, which is a problem.
I can't tell either. I do love baseball but MLB can just flame out for all I care. I'm just as happy going to college or semi-pro games.
49ers hit by ransomware
https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/14/49ers_ransomware_blackbyte/
CAL
i got this note internally about undergrad admissions for the upcoming year because of a court order. looks like they might accept almost a 1/3 less students. it is a result of a local community group that challenges the university's environmental impact analysis.
In a ruling issued by an Alameda County Superior Court judge in August 2021, the University of California, Berkeley, was ordered to freeze student enrollment at the 2020-21 level — an abnormally low enrollment year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
.. the campus is currently estimating that it would be forced by the court order to reduce the number of new undergraduate students enrolled for the 2022-23 academic year by about one third.
https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/02/14/uc-berkeley-statement-on-court-decision-affecting-2022-23-academic-year-enrollment/
Just read they are taking it up to the California Supreme Court.
https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/1493442665504927747?s=20&t=3y2gs73-YiTM4Cb-Lgxwag
apparently one of the people driving this made unflattering comparisons to Berkeley's expansion and sprawling Asian cities with bad transit, specifically citing three Asian cities that actually have pretty good public transport.
needless to say, my daughter's already slim chances of getting into Cal from out-of-state dramatically plummeted unless the appeal is upheld.
the dumbest twitter comment i saw on this story was saying that the UC system should be forced to return higher tuition for out of state students over to the state's general fund - as if reductions in state funding hadn't created the incentives to accept students paying those sweet sweet non-resident premiums.
When people learn just how little funding the state provides to UC they are generally dumbstruck. They think the state funds the whole thing, rather than the 10% they current chip in.
That much? I thought it was down to 8%. Seriously.
Is this the same neighborhood group that sued to stop the Memorial retrofit?
No. Panoramic Hill Association (PHA) sued to stop the stadium retrofit (aka Westside Improvements Project).
However, I think that Save Berkeley Neighborhoods (or whatever it's called) membership certainly includes folks who are or were part of PHA.
EDIT: Save Berkeley Neighborhoods may be an umbrella organization that includes smaller neighborhood groups like PHA. I'm not absolutely certain about that, though.
two different groups but probably some overlap in membership
I just read the link. Thanks for sharing. Usually, the remedy for violating CEQA is to halt the project, as they did with the Upper Hearst Project. It is pretty wild that trial court froze enrollment too. That does seem beyond the jurisdiction of the Court, at least based on the facts outlined in the memo UC is circulating.
Was reading about this last night. Just crazy. This seems to have been advanced by a group named Save Berkeley Neighborhoods, who, among other charges, have argued that increasing enrollment has created unacceptable noise levels. Berkeley NIMBY-ism at its finest.
The NIMBY groups in Berkeley drive me crazy.
NIMBY groups anywhere in California are a plague. Using CEQA suits to create worse environmental outcomes should be punished by a 100% property tax rate if they lose.
You know, even calling it NIMBY-ism seems a bit off, the university isn't going anywhere, it's not new, it's been there 150+ years.
It's just plain antagonism, something that seems unique to Berkeley.
I think that folks in Santa Cruz would dispute that notion (antagonism towards the campus is something unique to Berkeley).
This is a problem with more college towns than one might imagine. Town-gown relations are a problem in many towns. San Luis Obispo is no exception, as I found out during the time that CJay and Double D were in school there. I would expect that this is probably true in towns where a university or college has an outsized presence or influence.
Santa Cruz feels less defined by opposition to the UC, maybe because that town would still have something going for it even if the university wasn't there. Berkeley would be nothing special without the UC, just another East Bay suburb.
Don't discount the anti-campus feelings, though. There were very strong anti-campus feelings among certain segments of Santa Cruz residents when I attended from '81-'85. Granted, the campus only opened in 1965. So, for many of those folks the enmity was still a bit raw and unhappy.
Think again. There is an anti-university element in a lot of towns with a college in or near it. Usually composed of people who do not have any dependency on any kind of local economy or services.
This is partly driven by the fact that the UC system has near complete autonomy from the local municipality over land use decisions.
Absolutely correct. It's written into the California Constitution - the University of California (and Stanf*rd University!) is not subject to the laws of their host communities. This was an impetus for Palo Alto to deannex Stanf*rd from Palo Alto. Stanf*rd is, however, subject, to Santa Clara County ordinances.
Sure, but I challenge you to name one that is the near constant recipient of lawsuits from members of the town, or the town itself.
Yup, that's my thought as well. Sure, other towns and their colleges have political issues with each other, but Berkeley takes it to a whole new level.
Berkeley is the league leader, no doubt about that.
Wow that's surprising. Things also will be different as they are abandoning standardized admission tests which I see as a big mistake.
Go Bears!!!