Category Archives: Pondside Planner

Purpose, priorities, and progress.
Goals, grit, and growth.
Fundamentals, focus, and frameworks.

Today I choose the right electrical gadgets (TIC00007)

The PolyBlog
July 11 2020

Lots of people are gadget geeks, always wanting the latest toy. My wife probably even thinks of me as suffering from the same ailment, as I do have a lot of gadgets. However, my disease is a little more narrow than “gadgets in general”. I have two strains of the virus running through my blood.

First, if it is a gadget that will let me do something I’ve always wanted to do but had challenges to get going, like maybe baking bread, yep, I’m likely to try it. Because I know if it works the way I want it to work, the way I hope it will work, I’ll use it repeatedly. While most people think of this in terms of physical gadgets, this website that you’re reading is probably the best example. I tried lots of options, and there are even more options out there now. But WordPress is free and it works well for me. Since I committed to it, I’m closing in on 1400 posts and 1.5M words, with 150 hits a day and almost 150,000 visitors since I started keeping track. I wanted a gadget that would let me blog easily and stay with it, and WordPress is that gadget. It works the way it should.

Second, I like utilitarian gadgets to work properly AND make my life easier. It isn’t just about the functionality, it’s about the time I spend dealing with it. I know a guy who is ultra cheap (as he describes it), and he wants to spend a lot of time upfront optimizing a purchase, figuring out the best option before he ever buys. Almost to the point of analysis paralysis or getting labelled anal-retentive by others. I appreciate the thrust, I admire the commitment, but at some point, my brain says, “So I can do 12 extra things to save $2? Are you f***ing nuts?”. About two weeks ago, I saw that some phone chargers were on sale. I was looking for one anyway, but the ones that sit upright were on sale, and so instead of taking up space on the desk to have a lay-flat wireless charger, and that I regularly am trying to put my phone on it in the right position to start charging, I opted for the one that the phone sits in and angles it towards you.

Do I have enough chargers to plug in every phone known to man in the neighbourhood? Yes, with spare cables left over probably. But this one solves a problem I regularly am annoyed by so I ordered the on-sale but slightly more expensive one that cost me an extra $2. However, the bigger example was that on my desk in the basement, I need to charge my work phone and my personal phone every night. I am almost always charging my personal phone every night, and there are lots of times where I don’t have room for the work phone. So I make do, eke out a few minutes here or there so I can keep it “on” when I need to, and generally annoy myself. Is there a solution? Sure, I can run another cable and plug it in manually. Yeah, cuz that won’t get annoying. Screw it, it’s $20, I’m ordering a second one so my brain isn’t worrying about piddly ass crap that doesn’t matter enough to do to avoid spending $20.

Earlier today, I was organizing a couple of areas where I need to setup some electronics. One is in my basement, I’ve moved the main TV upstairs, and the remaining TV will be more about me watching TV at night, a monitor for some exercise videos, and a video game centre. The first two are simple plugs, but I don’t like plugging electronics directly into walls. I much prefer to use powerbars. And with all of the gadgets I have around the house, and that I’ve had over the years, I have a plethora of powerbars.

But over the last few months, as I’ve reorganized things, simplified setups, rewired and reconnected various devices, I’ve stopped using my old powerbars and swapped in any of my newer power bars designed for digital devices. Usually this means three things:

  • It has built-in power spike protection and radio-frequency limiters so that in the event of a power surge, it doesn’t fry the devices, it just fries the power bar, and it isn’t interfering with the devices’ operations;
  • It has more than six plugs, since most console areas that use these types of hubs have multiple devices that need to be plugged in, but they don’t all run at the same time. Kind of like having multiple video games plugged in, but you can only play one at a time anyway; and,
  • They come with USB ports so you can plug in your mobile devices to charge. The chargers I have all run off a USB cable that plugs either into a charging plug or directly into a power bar with USB hubs.

Sounds simple enough, right? Except I’m out of the more advanced power bars that I had been using (which only had the first two options above anyway). But I need to set Jacob up with a good charging station in his bedroom AND I need a powerbar for the video game console. I’m also struggling a bit with a stereo setup that I decided to keep, and I may use one there.

Hence the dilemma of choice. I have old powerbars that work just fine. They only meet the first bullet above, power surge protection, but not much else. They’re pretty basic. Great if you’re plugging in a lamp, a clock radio and a white noise machine or something, but once you start attaching e-devices that run $1000+ each, you kind of want to ensure the breaker in the power bar doesn’t save itself and let a surge make its way to your devices.

Do I need new power bars? No. Do I want new power bars? Not really. Couldn’t care less. It’s functional, utilitarian, not a fun gadget. Do I have an eavestrough on my house? Yes, but it isn’t like I’m excited to have one. I need to funnel water to specific places, that tool does it. Great. This is a tool. And if I can set it up so that it is behind the desk, couch, or bureau and I never see it again or think about it again, all the better.

So I went to Canadian Tire and picked up three of the newer powerbars on sale this week. And it will mean when I’m done all the wiring and reconfiguring, I’ll have a bunch of the old powerbars left over to donate for something or somewhere.

But today I choose the right electrical gadget that makes my life just a little bit easier. Not very exciting, it’s just a powerbar, but it’s a choice, not something I must do.

What choices are you making today?

Today I choose flexible meal options (TIC00006)

The PolyBlog
July 10 2020

We are fairly fortunate individuals, with a roof over our heads and good jobs with the ability to work from home, our son is safe with us, we have working internet, and our fridge and freezer are reasonably well-stocked. Once a week, I make a grocery run and we can make outings to vegetable/fruit stands to get some fresher food than the grocery store too.

We also know how to cook, with my wife doing the vast majority of the meal planning and cooking, with decently healthy choices, particularly with her Epicure options. In a non-pandemic world, Andrea and Jacob would have breakfast together, and I may or may not grab something in passing. I rarely sit down for a full meal with them in the morning. Dinners, as I said, are usually in Andrea’s domain and my job is to fetch the groceries she needs in order to cook. Lunches were more of a hybrid option. I would make something the night before, almost always some form of sandwich for Jacob, different ingredients, and we would often order him something from the school programs like pizza one day or subs another. Andrea would handle the fruits and vegetables to be added.

But I frequently crave more spontaneous choices than what’s on tap in our fridge. I am not a huge fan of leftovers, but even I get tired of sandwiches all the time too. At work, I would just pop down to a restaurant or the food court. At home in the pandemic? Fuhgeddaboutit.

We still do take-out at least once a week, maybe twice in ten days on average, and we’ve gotten pretty good at giving everyone a chance to choose WHERE we are going. Harvey’s is acceptable to all, McDonald’s for me and Jacob only if Andrea is doing something else, we can all eat at Wendy’s. Subway is popular with all three of us but we’ve been a bit leery of the openness of their food prep during the pandemic, so we only recently returned to eating there. We used to go once a week after piano, we’ve now gone twice in five months. Swiss Chalet is popular with me, not so much with Andrea and Jacob. I’ve enjoyed more Tim Horton’s in the last few weeks than in my entire life, I usually avoid them for slowness but I’m not hating the drive-through. We’ve also done Lone Star, Local Heroes, Baan Thai, Edo Japan, Montanas. Pizza is popular for all three of us, particularly Pizza Hut for Jacob, but Colonnade more for myself. We’re planning to expand to a few others too.

So why do I mention all those? Because they are almost ALL dinner options. We did do Edo Japan and Tim Horton’s for lunch, but only on weekends. Everything else is generally a nighttime option when we don’t feel like making anything, or just not what we had planned when we did the planning three days before. I like to BBQ, but not so much when it’s raining or when lava is melting in the shade. We need a bit more variety and the flexibility to change from time to time.

Today, we made two outings to help with that variety. First, very simple, I ordered Pizza Hut for lunch. Andrea wasn’t interested, but I’ve told Jacob that at least once a week, for something different at lunch, I’ll make a run out for something of his choosing. Not surprisingly, he went for pizza immediately. But not something like Pizza Pizza, he wanted real pizza at Pizza Hut. Personal pan pizza, thick crust, Hawaiian, ham, and I even added chicken. I opted for wings and a Caeser salad, two things I rarely have at home on our own. It was a nice change of pace.

For our second outing, Andrea and I went to Supperworks. For those of you not familiar with it, it is one of those places where normally you make an appointment, you go in, they have a number of work stations set up around the storefront, and you assemble a series of meals. For example, if they have lime chicken kebabs, you go to the station, put two kebabs with chicken on them in a bag, then add all the sauce ingredients, a bunch of spices, etc., and mix it all up, before sealing the bag. All the food prep is basically done — everything is chopped, diced, sorted, and good to go. You have to measure ingredients for sauces and spices, but they have all the spoons ready to use. When you’re done, your food goes in the fridge while the spoons and bowls go in a dishwashing bin. Then on to the next station. They usually have about 10 different meals of the month going, and you can choose all of them, or some of them. A default meal package serves about 4-6. We do a “split” option that is enough food for three of us, but just enough usually with no leftovers. It’s good for a meal, and that’s it.

Obviously, in a pandemic world, you can’t do this. While normally you save money assembling everything yourself, it’s not cheap, you’re basically paying for them to chop everything for you, buy all the ingredients, wash your bowls, etc. But we go home with 5-6 dishes usually and double options for each, so 12 meals. And they’re complete meals with rice, noodles, buns, etc.

Their current options are a bit more expensive, as they assemble everything for you into the bags, and they’ll even deliver it all to you for a fee (like lots of the companies that deliver assembled meals ready to cook or others that deliver the ingredients but you still have to prep everything). But you can go and pick it up, which we did today. We’ve done it once before during the pandemic, but we don’t often eat it up fast enough to do it every month. If you repeat month after month, you can get discounts for the subsequent months. We tend to want it maybe every six weeks or so. It IS 12 meals and it is usually way more complex than we would normally do for choice of meal.

Today we went for some lime chicken kebabs, tarragon chicken burgers, bacon pineapple wrap burgers…those are all for the BBQ and sure, we could do it all ourselves if we felt like doing all the prep too. Often it isn’t very economical though, as some of the spices or sauces they use are things we would use once every six months and the recipe only calls for a tablespoon or two. We also got a creamy Thai coconut chicken, a beef stew-like mixture with noodles, and a big bag of chicken wings as an extra one. Oh, and a Mexican shrimp skillet option. Three of those are likely ones we would never make on our own, we’re venturing out of our weekly grind.

Don’t get me wrong, we have some fantastic dinners on our own. Andrea is a great cook, and we try to do meal planning regularly to give us some variety without increasing the workload too much. And if I can BBQ, all the better. But our Supperworks meals tend to be as much about variety as it is about avoiding eating out, while still giving us something “different’ that feels like a treat since we only have to cook it, not prep it too.

But it is often easy to forget about the choices available, and it’s not like you pop over to Supperworks and pick up those meals, or swing by Pizza Hut today at lunch. It’s good to remind ourselves that there are still options that are light, fun and a treat in a Covid world.

Today I choose more flexibility in our meal options, even when it requires some advanced planning and booking.

What choices are you making today?

Today I choose to support some social communities (TIC00005)

The PolyBlog
July 8 2020

Whenever someone is doing some fund-raising, I’m usually fine to support their efforts. I don’t often care too much what the organization is, as long as the person doing the fund-raising isn’t a whackjob that makes me suspect the outcome, I’m happy that they are engaging with some organization and want to support it. I don’t necessarily support the organization, or even care about it, to be honest, I’m doing it to support my friend.

$20 here, $50 there, whatever. It’s a social decision. Recently, our local astronomy group was wondering about membership fees for a number of members who might be struggling with their finances right now, so an option was created to allow others to give a bit of money to help cover those fees, since most of them are not waivable but go to cover per unit costs for magazines, books, etc. So I slipped them a couple of bills to help out.

But as an introvert, I am a bit leery when it comes to personal commitments of time. I have been the star party coordinator for RASC Ottawa for the last two and a half years, although this year is basically a bust. I suspect it will be my last as I have other areas to devote my time and interest. This past week, I started to canvas RASC members looking for people with scopes like mine who need help getting going. A bunch of people stuck up their hands who need other help than I can provide, but I was fine to do the survey. For those with scopes like mine, I’m going to set up a socially distanced night where we can all go to a parking lot somewhere and set up all our scopes, to see what we are all doing right / wrong and get everyone going. Someone else can help those with other types of scopes. One woman wants help with her husband’s scope out in Merrickville, and I’ll do that as a one-on-two type training. Happy to help.

Why did I do it? Because I choose to engage. I could ignore it, I could ignore the need, but a few years ago, I was in the SAME situation and drowning. I finally had to wave my hands big and high to get the equivalence of a lifeguard’s attention to help me, and I want to both pay it back, and help them pay it forward by engaging them now to help others in the future.

I also run a small book club for friends and family. It’s not extensive, we don’t discuss all the books in detail, it’s really just a FB group with about 10 active members and another 10 followers. I choose some themes each month, there’s always a reader’s choice option, and I track everyone’s progress at the end of the month and award simple little badges for their efforts.

Why do I do it? Because I choose to engage. I don’t “have” to do it, and even over the last few months as I have been overwhelmed or busy, I have let some stuff slide. Not keeping up with tracking, not awarding the badges. Basically, just noting what the goals are for a month and that’s about it. Remembering to like people’s posts when they post an update of a book they read. Yet I like the club, I like seeing people who don’t know each other except through Andrea and I interacting and finding common books they like or have read. Or others to read in the future. It’s fun. Work goes with it, but it’s fun. So last night I went through and did all the updates for May and June to catch up.

I am a member of the AstroPontiac board, mainly because I want to support my friend Stephan’s dream of building an active astroparc in Luskville, and because I have some computer skills to offer to run the website. Could someone else do it? Sure. But it’s easy to include on my website and host an active site for nominal cost. It’s not the fanciest design, but it’s functional, it meets the need. In English AND French.

Why do I do it? Because I choose to engage. I choose to help my friend, I choose to help build an astro community.

And then something showed up in my inbox yesterday. One of the big huge astronomy sites on the internet for amateurs and hobbyists is called Cloudy Nights. In other words, if you can’t do astro tonight because it’s cloudy, you can go to this site (on Cloudy Nights). If the people on the site can’t help you, the info you are looking for probably isn’t available anywhere. There are tons of sub-forums for outreach, technical discussions, photography, classifieds, reviews, etc. It has a formal sponsor from an astro equipment sales company, but it is pretty commercial-free. It looks a lot like an old-time bulletin board forum. Very much a 1980s, DOS-style design to everything. Millions of posts on there. Literally, an astronomical site for discussion. And sometimes? The friendly voice in the dark who tells you what you missed when your gear doesn’t work the way you thought it should.

The inbox visitor was a message from one of the big admins to all the members noting they were looking for new moderators to help run the site. One of my FB groups is also looking, but the CN one intrigues me. Most of the site is pretty well-defined, people know what is where, and you don’t often see an admin playing a heavy hand except perhaps to move a discussion from one forum to another when someone goes too far off-topic with a question. So CN interests/intrigues me in ways that the FB chaos does not. I set it aside for a day, and then today, I looked at it again.

They want people who have been members for more than a year; check, I’ve been there for about 7-8, the same length of time as I have had my scope, and even a bit before when I was choosing a scope. They would like people who are involved in several forum sub-groups, which I am, including Celestron mainly, but also some astrophotography, some other gear elements, etc. Computer expertise doesn’t hurt, although it wasn’t explicitly required, and they have training. But the only kicker was they would like an active member who has over 500 posts. I have around 100 topics that I’ve started and about 300 posts in total. I’m a bit shy of their desired total, but it’s not a mathematical eligibility requirement.

So I said, “Sure, here’s my specs for consideration.” Don’t get me wrong, they didn’t single me out and say, “Hey PolyWogg, we’ve seen your posts and you’re amazing, how would you like to be saddled with a bunch of behind the scenes admin/grunt work?”. They’re just doing a cattle call to see if they can help spread the workload. And maybe they’ll take me, maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll put me on a list for later.

Did I have to volunteer? Nope. So why did I?

Because today I choose to engage in a number of social communities and see if I can help.

I’m not saving the world, I’m just offering a helping hand. What choices are you making today?

Today I choose to build a T-Rex (TIC00004)

The PolyBlog
July 7 2020

A few months ago, as part of the “work-from-home” lifestyle that includes more time with my son during the day so he doesn’t have to spend all of it entertaining himself, we started doing small projects together. We worked our way through a few little things here and there, and then we moved on to a big Lego project — a Millennium Falcon. Then a wooden version of the ship, much smaller. We’ve done plastic model cars here and there, lots of gaming, a few other things, some practical set up stuff for electronic wiring, etc.

And we started working on a wooden model of a T-Rex. You’re given a large wooden sheet, 3 of them actually, and all the little parts are pre-cut/punched and just need to be separated from the main sheet. Then you take all the little pieces, and without gluing, nailing, or any sort of adhesive whatsoever, you put the pieces together. Sometimes it’s a little joint that holds four other joints in place. Or a shim between the toes and bottom of the foot that wedges into place and holds all the “bones” in place.

We did the first part of it over a month ago, assembling the feet and legs; after 30 minutes, I was ready to pitch it at the wall. And getting it together, holding eight pieces in place until the “lockpin” wedges into place was tricky. I felt it was near impossible, and I expected it was going to quickly turn into a project for just me rather than one Jacob and I could do together. About a week later, we tackled the second foot, and Jacob could do the first 90% of the leg until it came time to get the lynchpin/lockpin/wedge into place. I took a deep breath, examined the pieces REALLY carefully, went at it in a slightly different way, and CLICK. It snapped into place perfectly. No muss, no fuss. A second one did the same. THIS was the way it was supposed to work but the first one was off probably by a mm or two and it just didn’t “click”. After I saw the second one, I went back and adjusted the first one…it’s still a REALLY tight fit, but closer.

After that, it was mostly smooth sailing. There are only 85 pieces in total, but each step would wedge four or five in unique ways, and a couple of steps was about all our brains could handle at a go.

We did a marathon about 2 weeks ago, and burned ourselves out. So we’ve sat on it for a bit. Today, I wanted to get going again. We were close and I wanted to finish so Andrea and Jacob could have that table for another project that is pending. Jacob and I started working on it, went through a couple of steps, all good, and … wait a minute … that piece CANNOT go on THERE. That isn’t the way it is shaped. We were on step 16 or so, and waaaay back in step 5? I put a piece in upside down. A cross piece that now has other pieces that have to attach to it and it’s in the wrong way. PITA.

Jacob wanted to just keep going but we couldn’t. There was no way the piece would fit. So we backed off 11 steps, breaking one of the pieces in the process (grrrr…), readjusting that piece, reassembling a bunch of other pieces, all the way back to step 16 relatively quickly, then on to 17, 18, 19. And it’s done. Except it should be more upright, shouldn’t it? Oh crap. Way back at that same step 5, one of the pieces did NOT go into a groove the way it was supposed to…I can see it now, but the diagram in step 5 does NOT show that happening. So I didn’t do it, which means our T-Rex doesn’t quite stand completely upright. It is more a head-to-the-ground kind of T-Rex. But when you add batteries and a small noise pack, it DOES growl, roar and shuffle it’s wooden legs forward. Jacob’s view is “good enough, move on”, and I don’t blame him. But I’m stubborn enough that at some point, I will indeed back off 14 steps, fix the piece I messed up, and reassemble the rest just so I know it’s done right.

It was challenging and frustrating but a cool design. And we did it together. I wish it was more me helping him than him helping me, but we finished. And I could have gone in another way, set it aside, forgotten about it, but we didn’t.

We made a decision that today we would choose to assemble a T-Rex by hand and to finish the project.

What choices did you make today?

Today I choose to make a complicated dinner (TIC00003)

The PolyBlog
July 6 2020

Back in about 2003/04, Andrea and I took a cooking course through the continuing education section of either the City of Ottawa or one of the school boards. It was a six-week course or so specializing in tastes of Asia, and each week was recipes from a different country.

Generally, as I recall (or as per Andrea and I talking about it tonight, while trying to explain to Jacob why I like the recipe), the class ran from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.-ish. It was over at a high school on St. Laurent, and we would leave work and take a bus to get there just in time. For the first 45 minutes or so, the instructor would walk everyone through the recipes and demonstrate some of the techniques to try that night. Then, we would break into about 5 or 6 teams and we would all make 1-2 dishes each, with lots of repetition. Sometimes it was 4 of us on the same dish, most of the time it was Andrea and me as a team making a dish or two. Since Andrea and I were still dating, and often ate out on “dates”, this was one of the first times we really made an effort to cook “together” and were happy to see we were compatible in the kitchen.

Around 8:00 p.m. or so, we would all get back together and share our combined efforts and eat. Supposedly there was supposed to be a bunch of conversation but by 8:00 p.m., we were all pretty hungry so it was more like wolves sharing a carcass of a hyena.

Each week, I think there was about 3-4 recipes in total and not all of them were keepers for us. Usually the result was good, but it was either too complex or too finicky for a technique or simply just not tasty enough to want to make regularly. However, there were two big exceptions to that.

I’ll mention the second one first. We have a recipe for siu mai i.e., a form of Chinese dumpling. Also written as shumai (and often pronounced that way too). Lemongrass, green onions, pork in tiny pieces, wonton wrappers. They were even fun to make and also easy to cook in a steamer. I have no idea why I don’t make them monthly other than I think a couple of other ingredients were hard to find at the time.

Our favourite story though is not about their taste (which is good) but rather about how we made them one night at Nelson Street, and the next day, with ingredients left over, I made up a bunch more. You know what? Chopped up lemongrass looks a lot like chopped up green onions. And when you use lemongrass in place of green onions and in the same quantity as the green onions, the resulting dumplings are rather potent. I can still feel the reaction. We ate them, but it was a bit deadly.

However, the real big recipe was a curry chicken. I have it on the website, although it needs to be edited aggressively for order and content. Plus add some pictures. (See https://polywogg.ca/green-curry-chicken-pwr00001/).

It is, arguably, one of the best recipes we ever make. But it is generally also the most work. I describe it as complicated, but really that is just because there are so many ingredients and so many steps. Although we have had the recipe for almost 17 years now, we probably haven’t made it 15 times in total. We did at first, maybe once or twice a year, often for special dinners like anniversaries. Since Jacob arrived, and given that it is a curry, we haven’t made it very often recently, maybe once or twice in the last 11 years. So we were due for another effort.

We tried making it yesterday, as it is really a weekend-type meal rather than a quick weekday one. Lord only knows what it is in a COVID, work-from-home world. But I wanted to do it. To make the effort. To say, “Today I choose” to do something other than what is easy, available or quick. I forget that it makes enough to feed an army and we’ll have leftovers out the wazoo though for future nights.

Our first problem for yesterday was groceries…I ordered an eggplant, but sometimes the website glitches if I go too fast, and while I know I clicked on it, it wasn’t on my order / receipt / pickup. We substituted bamboo shoots and water chestnuts instead. Our second problem was right at prep time. The last thing to chop was some chicken, and we had left it in the fridge a little too long. Normally, our fridge more than keeps things chill, but as I was cutting, I didn’t really like the smell. I have a very sensitive nose, and often overly sensitive enough to create false positives, but even Andrea didn’t think it smelled right. We had everything prepped and ready to go, and no chicken to put in the pot. Herbert Hoover would not have been happy with us.

We could have tried switching to thighs and defrosting some stuff, but we really didn’t have a good freezer option to thaw in the microwave. So we cooked the shoots and chestnuts, put the potatoes in water, put everything in the fridge, and ate pizza yesterday for dinner. Today, I ran out to the Metro and grabbed some fresh chicken breasts plus a few other things that I wanted for later in the week, as well as ran to Canadian Tire for garden hose (no, that’s not related to dinner!), and a local vegetable kiosk for some other things, now that they’re FINALLY open. It’s like there was a pandemic or something keeping them closed.

Interestingly, I chopped the chicken tonight, and then Andrea did most of the cooking with my handing her a few spice jars here and there and monitoring the recipe. It actually worked out okay that way, splitting the workload over two days. Something to think about for the future. I am determined to eventually adapt it to something we can nuke in a silicone steamer, but we’re not there yet.

It was different than usual, with a different consistency to our sauce, more potatoes, no eggplant, with water chestnuts and bamboo shoots. We even went easy on the curry as we wanted Jacob to try it. Not only did he try it, he liked it and ate it up. It turned out really well. Hopefully, it’s a promise of curries to come. 🙂

But mostly it’s a positive act of defiance. In a world where we get beaten down by time, workloads, other demands, once in a while we say, “Enough. We’re going to do a big recipe, with lots of ingredients, preps and steps. Because we choose to do so, not because we have to or that we should. We just decide.”

Today I choose to make a complicated dinner with my family.

What did you choose to do today?