Today is the last day of January, and I have to say my initial resolution of the year has gone pretty well so far. I haven't exactly batted 1,000 on working out three times a week, but there hasn't been a week that I haven't gone at least twice. For a new habit, and one that's been begun in the coldest month of the year, that's not too bad. After all, if a goal was easy to reach, it wouldn't be much of an accomplishment when you do get there. I'm still shooting for thrice weekly, and all signs point to continued progress to that end.
Other positives of the month include my finding a yoga class at the Y that really does challenge me, well beyond the simple stretches of their introductory classes. My cardio health is the one I haven't worked quite as consistently, but I've pushed up my 5k goal and now fully intend to contest the Fight for Air Climb in March, a 36 story vertical stair climb event. And I've formed a team for Live Healthy Iowa, a way for my coworkers and me to log hours exercising and holding one another accountable. As I said above, it's a really good start.
So what next? I've set goals for my physical self, and am on my way to reaching them. And though my body is a good start to Be Greg, it's a very small part of who I really am. Without my mind, this same physical body wouldn't be the Greg that everyone knows. In fact, as a kid, my brain was really what defined me. I wasn't terribly athletic, was fairly reserved, and wasn't amongst the social elites of the school, but everyone knew that I was pretty smart. I'm not sure that I necessarily make that impression as strongly anymore. So I need to work on getting back to the me I once was. To follow in the great Jesse Ventura's footsteps, now that we've covered Greg "the body," it's time to move on to Greg "the mind."
This is a really tricky area to cover, actually. Trying to balance work-related with outside mental activities left me somewhat stumped. For though my work requires a fairly detailed understanding of aerospace structures and analysis softwares, the actual steps I undertake on each project are essentially the same. In six years of college I became accustomed to pounding my brain with new information and knowledge, but today I can largely get by with what I already know. I'm concerned that no longer pushing myself that hard is a poor choice in the long run, and just as I need to extend the limits my body can reach, so too must I for my mind. Here's what I've come up with for this month:
1) Read a book a month - This idea was born over Christmas break at home, when my sister suggested that she and I have a book club of sorts, where we read the same book and discuss it later. Unfortunately her class schedule has been busier this semester than last, and I finished The Devil in the White City before she'd even had the chance to begin. So our club may have to wait for summertime, but in the meantime I still do want to get back into reading. I read like a maniac when I was younger, then it tapered off, and only since my semi-recent discovery of Goodreads.com have I really gotten back into it. If I put my mind to it, I can easily finish one book per month. This is good for building vocabulary, probably some memory retention, and just general mental happiness from the escape. I have one down, and at least eleven to go.
2) Learn to meditate - I have always been an innately nervous person. I could never sleep the night before school started, I clench my jaw while I sleep and grind my teeth, and get jittery when anticipating any sort of big event. There could be a myriad of causes to all of this, but one thing that certainly isn't helping is hanging onto mental stress. Exercise helps a lot with relieving this stress, but for times when I can't work out, having some sort of meditation technique in my back pocket is a great option. I've tried meditating before, but didn't really know what I was doing and didn't see any results. Well, like any activity, you get better with practice, and there's a whole wealth of information out there: books, internet, you name it, for me to consult for guidance. It might be hard to perfect, but it should be very easy to begin. I'll likely start small, with something like a simple focused breathing activity, but in some way I'm going to work on meditation. I'd like to make it daily, but recognize that I'll probably miss a day or two here and there.
3) Watch something educational semi-regularly - When I was a kid, we simply didn't watch television, with a few exceptions. My Dad watched football and old movies, and I watched along. We were allowed to watch Star Trek. And almost anything educational, meaning PBS in our cable-less household. Now with the wonders of satellite TV, I have PBS, various Discovery family networks, multiple cooking channels, and yet I'll end up watching dopey Seinfeld reruns when I don't have anything specific to watch. Not that there's anything wrong with TV for entertainment, but I figure it should be targeted. Mad Men, Dexter, Weeds, etc. from Netflix, sure. But when I'm bored and flipping around, I should try to learn something every now and then. Netflix also has numerous documentaries that I should work into the rotation, and PBS still has some awesome shows. Some recent random viewings of Nature yielded fascinating discoveries about the alien-looking Salar de Uyuni in the Andes and the fascinating intelligence of ordinary crows. There's so much out there to learn, I can surely work in one of these every week or so.
4) Do some mind games - I hesitate to even mention the words "games" and "work" in the same sentence, since it's one of the many keywords that our nanny-web-blocker doesn't allow, but doing some mental games during my lunchbreak at work seems like a good idea. I've always enjoyed crosswords and old-fashioned logic puzzles, plus websites like freerice.com and the occasional sudoku. Lunch is hardly ever social at my office anyway, and I usually spend the time browsing the local newspaper online. But then I get sucked into the overly negative shouting matches in the comments, which really isn't a useful or happy expenditure of my time. I end lunch simultaneously bored and depressed with the state of the world. But scrapping that for a logic puzzle, and I should feel sharp and ready to go. As an added bonus, it gets me away from my screen for a bit, so I feel a little less like an automaton. I'm going to get some puzzle-y books and bring them to the office. If nothing else, it gives me the option to exercise my mind during the day, even if I don't always take it.
There you have it. In order to really be Greg, I want to get myself into shape. Physically, I'm on the right track. Mentally, I'll admit I've been a bit lazy, and it's time to change that. The great thing is that none of these is really a chore; they're all things I'd love to do if I had the time and volition. And most of the time I do have the time, but I get easily distracted and don't push my mental limits. Working a few of these goals in should make a real change in that area.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
My magnificent town, part one
I just finished reading The Devil in the White City, a book presenting the true stories of the buildup of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the simultaneous workings of a serial killer just outside the expo grounds itself. It was a really good book; maybe not perfect, but very captivating. It wasn't written as a history lesson, but rather a narrative. It probably took some artistic license here and there, but it told a story, not just presenting facts. And while I found the cold emotionless acts of the killer to be very creepy, I was drawn in much more by the story of the fair, the lengths to which the architects went to achieve something incredible. Most of the buildings in the White City stood for less than a few years, yet they were gorgeous works of art. And the book described them so vividly that you could just imagine their grandeur. As a probably vastly inadequate sample, here is a view from the Grand Basin, courtesy of the University of Chicago's very informative website.
Oh, to have been there and seen it all. The buildings alone cost more than $8 million, and the total fair was estimated to cost over $27 million... in 1893 dollars! But they did it so they could create something magnificent. It's not a very prevalent mindset these days; maybe wise, maybe not; but it seems in the modern era of pinching pennies, few even dare to dream of such fantasy. I started to think about it, and realized that I've likely never witnessed anything to compare with the spectacle of the White City.
But then I began to think about how simple grandeur can really be. A snowflake, for example, or a flower blossom can truly be fantastic but on a different scale, with a different mindset. So I probed my mind for some of the magnificence I have seen. I thought I'd look at each place I've called home, and think about the beauty of each.
I haven't lived a lot of places, but the first was the Chicago suburban village of Carol Stream. We must have moved before I was 6 or 7 years old, so my memories from this era are foggy, mostly reinforced by places we've been back to since. Here are some of the best parts of magnificent Carol Stream.
1) I loved our house here and have many pleasant memories of it, but I don't know if I can truly call it magnificent. This picture isn't of our home, but it was very similar. A small townhouse, big enough for our family of four, with a cozy kitchenette I remember eating lunch at, a sandbox in the backyard, and pretty landscaping along the side of the lot. My favorite memory is just the carefree feeling of summer at this house: warmth in the air, birds singing, the smell of cookout smoke throughout the neighborhood, and me pedaling my Big Wheel along the narrow walk that ran alongside our house. It was great, but admittedly, probably not magnificent, at least not in the usual sense.
2) You think that anything you can imagine is available on the interwebs, until you search for something from your past that has since been replaced. Such is the case for Stratford Square Mall, pre-renovation. Stratford Square was the mall closest to home, so we were there fairly occasionally. In many respects it was a typical mall: the usual stores, a food court, a movie theater. But there were some aspects to its design that I with were still around. Specifically the water features. Many malls have water fountains or waterfalls of some sort, but the Stratford Square one was... special. It fit into a corner near the escalators, was golden-hued, and comprised of individual triangular spikes routing the water down in some sort of aqueous plinko game. It surely wasn't designed with the architectural forethought of the World's Fair, but there was something mesmerizing about the water movement down that one ramp that I loved to watch. Sadly, it has since been removed as the mall was redesigned into some prairie-school design for which it wasn't needed.
3) This is probably the most truly magnificent item in Carol Stream, which gives you some idea how fancy a town it truly is. ;) Actually, all kidding aside, this location forms some of my most enduring childhood memories, and is a place I always try to go back to when I'm home. Portillo's Hot Dogs in Bloomingdale. Here it is from the outside.
Wait, what? This is supposed to compete with the White City? No. No, it's not. But in a small sense, the inside is. For when you step through the doors to this restaurant, you are transported to a different world, not unlike the new world of the Columbian Exposition. You walk in and suddenly find yourself on a cobblestone street, staring up at a blinking stoplight and a revolving barber pole. As you look around, you see the street ahead of you leading toward the counter, past the glass windows behind which workers feverishly assemble hot dogs and Italian beefs, through the dim little beer-selling cubbyhole, and past the pasta line back to the stoplight. Up from the curbs lining the streets are seats reminiscent of park benches, and faux storefronts line the walls. It may sound kitschy, but to a 5 year old kid who loves burgers, it's a fantastic new world. Not that pictures do it justice, but here's a view looking back toward the traffic light and the entrance, along the "road."
As I said, I only lived in Carol Stream for a handful of years, so I didn't have time to gather that many memories. There was the pond my Dad and I fished at a couple times, the nearby grocery store I used to love going to (Busy Bee or something like that), my brother's room with the antique car wallpaper on the walls. And though I'd never even try to pick favorites amongst my memories of this time, I know the place that I thought was the most magnificent was that Portillo's. Sure, I may have never seen the White City, but no one who saw the White City lived to see my favorite Portillo's. And it may not have drawn millions of visitors, but while my family ate dinner there, it let us all in to a unique and different world. Those times really were incredible.
After we left Carol Stream, my family moved to Elgin, where I lived for many years thereafter. Next time, I'll look at some of the places in Elgin that rose above the standard suburban fare, to really be something spectacular.
Oh, to have been there and seen it all. The buildings alone cost more than $8 million, and the total fair was estimated to cost over $27 million... in 1893 dollars! But they did it so they could create something magnificent. It's not a very prevalent mindset these days; maybe wise, maybe not; but it seems in the modern era of pinching pennies, few even dare to dream of such fantasy. I started to think about it, and realized that I've likely never witnessed anything to compare with the spectacle of the White City.
But then I began to think about how simple grandeur can really be. A snowflake, for example, or a flower blossom can truly be fantastic but on a different scale, with a different mindset. So I probed my mind for some of the magnificence I have seen. I thought I'd look at each place I've called home, and think about the beauty of each.
I haven't lived a lot of places, but the first was the Chicago suburban village of Carol Stream. We must have moved before I was 6 or 7 years old, so my memories from this era are foggy, mostly reinforced by places we've been back to since. Here are some of the best parts of magnificent Carol Stream.
1) I loved our house here and have many pleasant memories of it, but I don't know if I can truly call it magnificent. This picture isn't of our home, but it was very similar. A small townhouse, big enough for our family of four, with a cozy kitchenette I remember eating lunch at, a sandbox in the backyard, and pretty landscaping along the side of the lot. My favorite memory is just the carefree feeling of summer at this house: warmth in the air, birds singing, the smell of cookout smoke throughout the neighborhood, and me pedaling my Big Wheel along the narrow walk that ran alongside our house. It was great, but admittedly, probably not magnificent, at least not in the usual sense.
2) You think that anything you can imagine is available on the interwebs, until you search for something from your past that has since been replaced. Such is the case for Stratford Square Mall, pre-renovation. Stratford Square was the mall closest to home, so we were there fairly occasionally. In many respects it was a typical mall: the usual stores, a food court, a movie theater. But there were some aspects to its design that I with were still around. Specifically the water features. Many malls have water fountains or waterfalls of some sort, but the Stratford Square one was... special. It fit into a corner near the escalators, was golden-hued, and comprised of individual triangular spikes routing the water down in some sort of aqueous plinko game. It surely wasn't designed with the architectural forethought of the World's Fair, but there was something mesmerizing about the water movement down that one ramp that I loved to watch. Sadly, it has since been removed as the mall was redesigned into some prairie-school design for which it wasn't needed.
3) This is probably the most truly magnificent item in Carol Stream, which gives you some idea how fancy a town it truly is. ;) Actually, all kidding aside, this location forms some of my most enduring childhood memories, and is a place I always try to go back to when I'm home. Portillo's Hot Dogs in Bloomingdale. Here it is from the outside.
Wait, what? This is supposed to compete with the White City? No. No, it's not. But in a small sense, the inside is. For when you step through the doors to this restaurant, you are transported to a different world, not unlike the new world of the Columbian Exposition. You walk in and suddenly find yourself on a cobblestone street, staring up at a blinking stoplight and a revolving barber pole. As you look around, you see the street ahead of you leading toward the counter, past the glass windows behind which workers feverishly assemble hot dogs and Italian beefs, through the dim little beer-selling cubbyhole, and past the pasta line back to the stoplight. Up from the curbs lining the streets are seats reminiscent of park benches, and faux storefronts line the walls. It may sound kitschy, but to a 5 year old kid who loves burgers, it's a fantastic new world. Not that pictures do it justice, but here's a view looking back toward the traffic light and the entrance, along the "road."
As I said, I only lived in Carol Stream for a handful of years, so I didn't have time to gather that many memories. There was the pond my Dad and I fished at a couple times, the nearby grocery store I used to love going to (Busy Bee or something like that), my brother's room with the antique car wallpaper on the walls. And though I'd never even try to pick favorites amongst my memories of this time, I know the place that I thought was the most magnificent was that Portillo's. Sure, I may have never seen the White City, but no one who saw the White City lived to see my favorite Portillo's. And it may not have drawn millions of visitors, but while my family ate dinner there, it let us all in to a unique and different world. Those times really were incredible.
After we left Carol Stream, my family moved to Elgin, where I lived for many years thereafter. Next time, I'll look at some of the places in Elgin that rose above the standard suburban fare, to really be something spectacular.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Having Some Work Done
In the summer of 2004, I was living with Stacia in a posh little apartment in north Ames. Oh, we had it made up there. Sitting on the banged-up futon, watching the 13" TV-VCR combo. Cooking in a cramped one-way galley kitchen that made us swear we'd never settle for a small kitchen again (spoiler alert: we did and it was silly). And when we weren't sprinting to catch up to the CyRide bus we were invariably late for, we had a 1992 Chevy Corsica to get us around town. It looked a little bit like this one:
All things considered, it was a great car. Except that it had previously been in an accident that somehow bent the frame vertically (how?), which in turn caused the radiator to spontaneously crack and leak antifreeze everywhere, and occasionally it just didn't start, and stalled in the middle of the road on at least one occasion, and all of which I might have noticed had I not been consumed by an extreme need to own my own car, purchasing the first thing I could afford in the middle of winter. It was real nice.
So, much as I may have loved that horrible beast, when one day it decided not to start, it was time to look for something new. After test driving some rather bad options, Stacia convinced me to spend the money and finance something that would actually run and last. I relented and began compiling a list of pretty much all the late model cars for sale in Ames. We looked at some, kicked some tires, did a few test drives, actually heard the line "what will it take to get you into this car?" to mixed results. When what to our wondering eyes should appear, but an azure beauty on four wheels. The Saturn SL1.
It was small. It had no power door locks or windows. For that matter, it didn't have much power under the hood. It had an AM/FM stereo and plain cloth seats. In short, it was fantastic. Naturally, we bought it. It looked pretty much like this:
Over time, I grew to really appreciate the Saturn. Underpowered, sure, but you learn how to use momentum to keep up speed without engine grunt. And with that timid little engine came great gas mileage. Gas mileage, I should note, that few small cars today, nearly a decade beyond the 2002 model we own, can match. And when your commute is about 5 miles on your own, you don't really need anything bigger. On most days, I love this car.
But just the other day we had to take the car in for service. And nothing flips the Jekyll/Hyde switch in me for this car like having a minor problem. We had to replace a head gasket fairly early on in our ownership of the Saturn, and I remember angrily suggesting that we should just replace the damn thing. Then we bucked up and paid for the repair, after which I quickly forgot how certain I had been that the car was shoddily designed and built. More recently, the past oil change, the shop had discovered an oil leak, necessitating a valve cover gasket change. I was measuredly okay with that, but when I discovered that I was still losing oil afterward, man, was I irked.
So I dropped the Saturn off for repairs that ended up being a decarbonization of the cylinders, which we hope works to stop the leak path of the oil. Two sets of repairs, two oil changes in a row. Then, to top things off, the car needed to be in the shop overnight, so I got a loaner. A sleek, svelte Mazda 3. A car with some oomph, with a really nice stereo, and a fun "manu-matic" transmission that lets you pretend you have a manual transmission. What a horrible flirt, that car. And while my old Saturn was in the shop, no less!
I'll admit, it was a sexy little car, and it was fun to drive around on the day that I had it. But there was something comforting about getting the Saturn back. Once I turned the too-heavy steering wheel to pull out of the shop and pressed the too-squishy brake to stop at the light, I felt at home again. And when it did some engine shuddering during a stop at the grocery store (a now-familiar occasional quirk, that no shop has been able to repair), I will admit to getting pretty irritated, but at the same time, you'd have a hard time convincing me to give it up. I haven't seen anything better out there, and the Saturn has stood by me for a long time. Like the mug they gave me at the dealer says, "I <3 My Saturn."
* The old car started up just fine this morning, even in sub-zero temperatures. I don't know if the decarbonization will work out or not, but at only 8 years and 112,000 miles old, I plan to have this car for many years to come.
All things considered, it was a great car. Except that it had previously been in an accident that somehow bent the frame vertically (how?), which in turn caused the radiator to spontaneously crack and leak antifreeze everywhere, and occasionally it just didn't start, and stalled in the middle of the road on at least one occasion, and all of which I might have noticed had I not been consumed by an extreme need to own my own car, purchasing the first thing I could afford in the middle of winter. It was real nice.
So, much as I may have loved that horrible beast, when one day it decided not to start, it was time to look for something new. After test driving some rather bad options, Stacia convinced me to spend the money and finance something that would actually run and last. I relented and began compiling a list of pretty much all the late model cars for sale in Ames. We looked at some, kicked some tires, did a few test drives, actually heard the line "what will it take to get you into this car?" to mixed results. When what to our wondering eyes should appear, but an azure beauty on four wheels. The Saturn SL1.
It was small. It had no power door locks or windows. For that matter, it didn't have much power under the hood. It had an AM/FM stereo and plain cloth seats. In short, it was fantastic. Naturally, we bought it. It looked pretty much like this:
Over time, I grew to really appreciate the Saturn. Underpowered, sure, but you learn how to use momentum to keep up speed without engine grunt. And with that timid little engine came great gas mileage. Gas mileage, I should note, that few small cars today, nearly a decade beyond the 2002 model we own, can match. And when your commute is about 5 miles on your own, you don't really need anything bigger. On most days, I love this car.
But just the other day we had to take the car in for service. And nothing flips the Jekyll/Hyde switch in me for this car like having a minor problem. We had to replace a head gasket fairly early on in our ownership of the Saturn, and I remember angrily suggesting that we should just replace the damn thing. Then we bucked up and paid for the repair, after which I quickly forgot how certain I had been that the car was shoddily designed and built. More recently, the past oil change, the shop had discovered an oil leak, necessitating a valve cover gasket change. I was measuredly okay with that, but when I discovered that I was still losing oil afterward, man, was I irked.
So I dropped the Saturn off for repairs that ended up being a decarbonization of the cylinders, which we hope works to stop the leak path of the oil. Two sets of repairs, two oil changes in a row. Then, to top things off, the car needed to be in the shop overnight, so I got a loaner. A sleek, svelte Mazda 3. A car with some oomph, with a really nice stereo, and a fun "manu-matic" transmission that lets you pretend you have a manual transmission. What a horrible flirt, that car. And while my old Saturn was in the shop, no less!
I'll admit, it was a sexy little car, and it was fun to drive around on the day that I had it. But there was something comforting about getting the Saturn back. Once I turned the too-heavy steering wheel to pull out of the shop and pressed the too-squishy brake to stop at the light, I felt at home again. And when it did some engine shuddering during a stop at the grocery store (a now-familiar occasional quirk, that no shop has been able to repair), I will admit to getting pretty irritated, but at the same time, you'd have a hard time convincing me to give it up. I haven't seen anything better out there, and the Saturn has stood by me for a long time. Like the mug they gave me at the dealer says, "I <3 My Saturn."
* The old car started up just fine this morning, even in sub-zero temperatures. I don't know if the decarbonization will work out or not, but at only 8 years and 112,000 miles old, I plan to have this car for many years to come.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Kitchen Zink - Throwing it down (again)
So if you like cooking so much, how come you never write about it? I can hear you thinking that as you read post after post about boring New Year's resolutions and movies no one's ever heard of. (Kidding, of course. Sometimes I make Stacia watch these movies with me. ;) Well, the short answer is that I haven't actually done a lot of cooking the past few months. Things get so crazy around the holidays, plus we took two winter trips to follow the NCAA volleyball tournament. Add that all up and there weren't a lot of weekends we were home to shop and meal plan. Fortunately, we did make a plan this past week, shopped, and were able to cook almost everything on the list.
The meal plan for last week included:
- Margherita pizzas, using our pizza stone and new pizza peel
- Cajun shrimp and rice
- NY Strip steaks with spinach salads and oven-roasted potatoes
- Coriander-crusted pork tenderloin with garden green beans and mashed rutabagas
- Turkey thigh mole with rice
Looking back, there were a lot of revelations this week. Among them, we have a long way to go to perfect making pizzas; mole takes a heck of a long time to make; rutabagas are not really that tasty; we can preserve our harvest without getting botulism though the beans were pretty mushy; and Better Homes and Gardens' version of Cajun is quite a bit different from mine.
Perhaps the coolest lesson, though, was the new method to cook steaks, learned from the helpful folks at America's Test Kitchen. Assuming you're not a fan of grilling in January, the trusted method is to sear the outside of the steak in a pan, then finish cooking in the oven. It's one of those "restaurant secrets" that, once you learn it, you wonder why you haven't been doing it that way all along. Anyway, as great as that is for many foods, the ATK guys flipped it on its head for steaks. They have you start in a 275 oven until the steak is 90 degrees (or you can estimate - we did about 8 minutes for a 1/2 to 3/4 inch steak). After that's done, you pull it out and sear it off in a pan. The result was incredible - the most evenly cooked medium-rare steak I've ever had. Not to be too superlative, but it could well be the best steak I've prepared myself. We don't eat steak often, but we're gonna try this method again next time, and if it bears out, it's the new Zink family technique.
That's not what I came here to write about, though. I was going to talk about this past weekend's breakfasts, the unwitting subject of another Zinkthink Throwdown! It all started some time ago, in the long-since forgotten era when you could dine outdoors. Stacia and I were grabbing breakfast on the patio at Panera, and we each, for the first time, ordered the "souffles." (Note: these are not even remotely soffles. They are more like pastry crust baked egg dishes, but that doesn't sound anywhere near as sexy. If you've been to Panera, you know the things I'm talking about.) We'd always tended toward the breakfast sandwiches before, but a fresh batch of "souffles" came out whilst we were in line, so we gave them a shot... and they were yummy. We immediately decided we needed to learn how to make them on our own.
And we did. We replicated them quite well, then naturally we entirely forgot about it and kept to our usual morning staples of cold cereal, steel-cut oats or fried eggs on toast, month after month. Then this week Stacia decided she wanted our egg souffles again, and we had to figure it all out from scratch. Saturday's result was okay, but it ended up needing a last-minute zap in the microwave to fully set the eggs. Sunday went better, but we still need to refine things. Here's how things stand at the moment:
First, you get your mise en place (haha) by prepping the fillings. Part of the fun of doing this yourself is you can put whatever you want into the souffle. The first time we sauteed some peppers and onions, which was great. This time, we had fresh spinach and Van de Rose bacon on hand, so we used that. I simply tore the spinach into pieces while Stacia fried and cut up the bacon into bite-sized pieces. Next, Stacia took a couple of regular refrigerator biscuits, and rolled them out with a rolling pin. I scrambled up some eggs, and (on Sunday anyway - lesson learned) cooked them partway on the stovetop. This was pretty key, since our first batch, cooked from raw in the oven, never set up quite right. Once the eggs started to congeal a bit, we threw in the fillings.
We pressed the flattened biscuits into a couple of ramekins sprayed with cooking spray (pretty vital if you don't want yours to stick like ours did on Saturday!) and poured in the egg mixture. For a standard-sized ramekin, one biscuit makes a nice shell, and two eggs pretty well fills up to that crust level. Then you just throw it in the oven at some temperature for some amount of time. As you might guess, that's one of the areas yet to refine. On Sunday, which worked okay, I think we were at 350 and cooked for 15 minutes, threw on some shredded cheese and did 5 minutes more. They came out decently, but there were some isolated soft places in the biscuit crust. Using a couple of forks, you can pull the "souffles" out of their ramekins, and presto! you have your own homemade customized Panera breakfast! A slight temperature/time change might help that, and will be explored in the next go-round.
Now, this was never intended to be a throwdown at first, but that all changed as we ate our tasty egg bake thingys on Saturday morning. Our initial effort needed some work, and that batch had only used two of the eight biscuits in the tube. With another weekend day and a few more biscuits, why not try to get it down pat? As I documented, the results were better on Sunday, but not good enough to get me to write down and keep the recipe. There are still four biscuits left in the tube and a few more mornings this week before they get funky. I think with two more efforts, we can nail this one. If I do, I'll be sure to post the updated recipe.
I know it's nothing fancy; you may expect a cooking fan to make much more elaborate meals. In many ways I do, but very seldom of my own creation and from my own mind. So starting with a simple dish seems like a good way to kick off my learning-by-doing process for '11. If we can replicate what Panera makes, that's an accomplishment in my book. And if it saves us a few bucks in breakfasts out, all the better. Stay tuned for updates from this throwdown, and some hopefully more exciting dishes as the year progresses!
The meal plan for last week included:
- Margherita pizzas, using our pizza stone and new pizza peel
- Cajun shrimp and rice
- NY Strip steaks with spinach salads and oven-roasted potatoes
- Coriander-crusted pork tenderloin with garden green beans and mashed rutabagas
- Turkey thigh mole with rice
Looking back, there were a lot of revelations this week. Among them, we have a long way to go to perfect making pizzas; mole takes a heck of a long time to make; rutabagas are not really that tasty; we can preserve our harvest without getting botulism though the beans were pretty mushy; and Better Homes and Gardens' version of Cajun is quite a bit different from mine.
Perhaps the coolest lesson, though, was the new method to cook steaks, learned from the helpful folks at America's Test Kitchen. Assuming you're not a fan of grilling in January, the trusted method is to sear the outside of the steak in a pan, then finish cooking in the oven. It's one of those "restaurant secrets" that, once you learn it, you wonder why you haven't been doing it that way all along. Anyway, as great as that is for many foods, the ATK guys flipped it on its head for steaks. They have you start in a 275 oven until the steak is 90 degrees (or you can estimate - we did about 8 minutes for a 1/2 to 3/4 inch steak). After that's done, you pull it out and sear it off in a pan. The result was incredible - the most evenly cooked medium-rare steak I've ever had. Not to be too superlative, but it could well be the best steak I've prepared myself. We don't eat steak often, but we're gonna try this method again next time, and if it bears out, it's the new Zink family technique.
That's not what I came here to write about, though. I was going to talk about this past weekend's breakfasts, the unwitting subject of another Zinkthink Throwdown! It all started some time ago, in the long-since forgotten era when you could dine outdoors. Stacia and I were grabbing breakfast on the patio at Panera, and we each, for the first time, ordered the "souffles." (Note: these are not even remotely soffles. They are more like pastry crust baked egg dishes, but that doesn't sound anywhere near as sexy. If you've been to Panera, you know the things I'm talking about.) We'd always tended toward the breakfast sandwiches before, but a fresh batch of "souffles" came out whilst we were in line, so we gave them a shot... and they were yummy. We immediately decided we needed to learn how to make them on our own.
And we did. We replicated them quite well, then naturally we entirely forgot about it and kept to our usual morning staples of cold cereal, steel-cut oats or fried eggs on toast, month after month. Then this week Stacia decided she wanted our egg souffles again, and we had to figure it all out from scratch. Saturday's result was okay, but it ended up needing a last-minute zap in the microwave to fully set the eggs. Sunday went better, but we still need to refine things. Here's how things stand at the moment:
First, you get your mise en place (haha) by prepping the fillings. Part of the fun of doing this yourself is you can put whatever you want into the souffle. The first time we sauteed some peppers and onions, which was great. This time, we had fresh spinach and Van de Rose bacon on hand, so we used that. I simply tore the spinach into pieces while Stacia fried and cut up the bacon into bite-sized pieces. Next, Stacia took a couple of regular refrigerator biscuits, and rolled them out with a rolling pin. I scrambled up some eggs, and (on Sunday anyway - lesson learned) cooked them partway on the stovetop. This was pretty key, since our first batch, cooked from raw in the oven, never set up quite right. Once the eggs started to congeal a bit, we threw in the fillings.
We pressed the flattened biscuits into a couple of ramekins sprayed with cooking spray (pretty vital if you don't want yours to stick like ours did on Saturday!) and poured in the egg mixture. For a standard-sized ramekin, one biscuit makes a nice shell, and two eggs pretty well fills up to that crust level. Then you just throw it in the oven at some temperature for some amount of time. As you might guess, that's one of the areas yet to refine. On Sunday, which worked okay, I think we were at 350 and cooked for 15 minutes, threw on some shredded cheese and did 5 minutes more. They came out decently, but there were some isolated soft places in the biscuit crust. Using a couple of forks, you can pull the "souffles" out of their ramekins, and presto! you have your own homemade customized Panera breakfast! A slight temperature/time change might help that, and will be explored in the next go-round.
Now, this was never intended to be a throwdown at first, but that all changed as we ate our tasty egg bake thingys on Saturday morning. Our initial effort needed some work, and that batch had only used two of the eight biscuits in the tube. With another weekend day and a few more biscuits, why not try to get it down pat? As I documented, the results were better on Sunday, but not good enough to get me to write down and keep the recipe. There are still four biscuits left in the tube and a few more mornings this week before they get funky. I think with two more efforts, we can nail this one. If I do, I'll be sure to post the updated recipe.
I know it's nothing fancy; you may expect a cooking fan to make much more elaborate meals. In many ways I do, but very seldom of my own creation and from my own mind. So starting with a simple dish seems like a good way to kick off my learning-by-doing process for '11. If we can replicate what Panera makes, that's an accomplishment in my book. And if it saves us a few bucks in breakfasts out, all the better. Stay tuned for updates from this throwdown, and some hopefully more exciting dishes as the year progresses!
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Filmfest 1927-1933 - Conflict!
Back in the CD-ROM days, we had a great little game for our family computer. It was called Opening Night, and I have never since seen a game that so inspired creativity and imagination. The concept was pretty simple; you, the player, direct a play. That's it. The rest was totally up to you. Put in one of the various backdrops to set your scene, add some of the characters, animate them around the screen using the game's built-in motions. Add props, and move them as you see fit to make it look like they're being held or used. Dialogue was typed in, and one of the various 90's-quality voice synthesizers would read your words. It was incredible.
If you think about it, there are few games that allow you such freedom. Maybe Sim City or one of its analogues, but even then you were limited to making a city. In Opening Night, you could bring any story you could imagine to life. I enjoyed the heck out of it, but sometimes struggled to come up with a compelling story. I remember well my biggest and best production had something with a witch casting spells on other characters, appearing and disappearing in poorly animated puffs of smoke. But I also remember the conflict that brought her into the fray, a very arbitrary argument between a husband and wife.
(Written phonetically to assist the old synthesizer)
- Baht, baht, waht evair is zee matter, dar-ling?
- It's just zaht, I want a new house.
For some reason this set the guy off, he stormed away, encountered the witch and all went crazy from there. Not exactly a compelling conflict. Unlike this batch of five movies, all with excellent character and plot conflicts, whether serious or zany, embodied by war or the internal struggles of love. Without further ado, here are the next five films.
Movies 6-10
1927 - Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (#82) - This is a prime example of why I rewatch some movies that I've already seen. On first viewing, Sunrise got maybe 3 stars, and I didn't think too much of it. On second viewing, I think it could be a favorite, certainly from this era. My issue was with the way the wife (no one has names in this film) responded to the man after he does something pretty terrible (vague so I don't spoil it), which I had a hard time looking beyond, at first. The story is about a couple who lives in the country, though the husband is quite taken by a woman of the city, the allure, glitz and glamor of that life. This leads him to do something that, as TCM puts it, "almost destroys his life." It's interesting, and moves along nicely, but the reason I like it so much now is how beautiful the filmmaking is. There is such a unique visual style throughout, with interesting special effects, and almost no break of the flow for title cards. On top of that, the reactions to the struggle the couple faces is conveyed with such brilliant emotion that no words or sound are needed. From fear to joy, sorrow to love, the expressions of the two main players pull you right in. As they say in the famous (yet still unseen by me) Sunset Boulevard, "We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!" Sunrise breathtakingly proves it to be true.
1930 - All Quiet on the Western Front (#54) - As you may know, I don't typically like war movies. I think war is awful, and in general believe that we have much better ways to settle our disagreements. Certainly I don't really go for the triumphant, hawkish movies that sometimes occupy this genre. All Quiet on the Western Front is definitely not one of those. Made in 1930, this film is set in World War I, and lays bare the horrors of trench warfare and war in general at a time when many of its veterans could still remember it and a whole new generation needed the warning. The protagonists are a group of German schoolboys, swept up in the fervor of going to war, and who end up enlisting in the army. Over the course of the film, we see how exposure to that harsh environment has changed them, exemplified by a few brilliant scenes: one where Paul, the main character, is trapped under rubble with an enemy soldier, and another where he returns to his hometown on leave. The film intersperses the camaraderie of the men with the agony of death or dismemberment, the juxtaposition showing how people must adapt to such a strange world. It's horrible and pretty sad, but it's a good reminder as to what war really means when we insularly talk about it thousands of miles away.
1931 - City Lights (#11) - Chaplin film number two since the reboot, and although it was significantly better than The Gold Rush, it still didn't live up to my memory of Modern Times. Hopefully I'm not just remembering that one with rose-tinted glasses, but so far it seems to be my favorite of the bunch. Anyway, City Lights is pretty good, again starring Chaplin's Tramp character. This time he begins simply trying to help out a blind flower seller, but after a short time with her he begins to fall in love. Their love is complicated by her blindness and their lack of money, but through it all they remain hopeful as the Tramp tries to wrangle his way out of one outrageous situation after another. There were some outright laughs, though City Lights is probably more of a sweet movie than a funny one. That said, the scenes preparing for and during the boxing match were really clever and I caught myself smiling almost the whole way through. The ending is famous in film history as one of the most touching or poignant ever, and I can agree that it's up there, but perhaps not so much as I'd built up in my head after hearing that. The main downside was with some of the gags, which became overused to the point where they were no longer funny. The millionaire's memory just got irritating after a while and wasn't believable. It's flawed, but it's pretty amusing and very cute.
1931 - Frankenstein (#87) - I started to rewatch this film, saw why I hadn't much liked it the first time, and decided to opt out, retaining my previous review. I think it's because I read and rather liked the Mary Shelley novel in school that I find the movie so disappointing. The book was great, and did an excellent job in making the "monster" a sympathetic character. He is monstrous in appearance, but largely just misunderstood as he struggles to make sense of a confusing world. It's very well done, very thought-provoking, and something I'd have hoped the movie would have stayed true to. Instead, we have the well-known and oft-satirized aspect of the criminal brain. One of the most famous scenes is Igor (or Fritz, as he's known in the movie) dropping the "good" brain and substituting it with one from a deranged criminal. Well, you do that, and you take out any ambiguity about why the monster is the way he is. It's a convenient excuse for him to be pigeonholed as a monster, one we should be happy to be rid of. Outside of that, it's not that great of a film - it just has some classic scenes that everybody knows, but it's quite choppy throughout. Maybe I'd think differently if I hadn't read the book, but I just can't love this one
1933 - Duck Soup (#60) - What can I say about this that I haven't already? The Marx Brothers were comedy geniuses, among the best of all time, and this is perhaps their best work. If you've never seen it you need to, and you will be shocked at how much you'll laugh. Not that plot matters much, but this is the movie where Groucho takes over as leader of Freedonia, and eventually ends up going to war with neighboring Sylvania. Along the way, he woos and simultaneously insults the wealthy Mrs. Teasdale, mostly unbeknownst to her, and enlists the various services of Harpo and Chico, who are secretly spies from Sylvania but really bad at it. Again, that doesn't matter much, as the real strengths of this movie are the snappy one-liners from Groucho, the banter between he and Mrs. Teasdale or Chico, and Chico and Harpo's zany antics. This film is filled with ridiculous situations and classic scenes. Chief among them are the famous mirror scene, which has since been parroted in various forms over the years. Trust me, this is funnier than anything you'll find today, and it's definitely a keeper.
That's it for this time. See you after the next five!
If you think about it, there are few games that allow you such freedom. Maybe Sim City or one of its analogues, but even then you were limited to making a city. In Opening Night, you could bring any story you could imagine to life. I enjoyed the heck out of it, but sometimes struggled to come up with a compelling story. I remember well my biggest and best production had something with a witch casting spells on other characters, appearing and disappearing in poorly animated puffs of smoke. But I also remember the conflict that brought her into the fray, a very arbitrary argument between a husband and wife.
(Written phonetically to assist the old synthesizer)
- Baht, baht, waht evair is zee matter, dar-ling?
- It's just zaht, I want a new house.
For some reason this set the guy off, he stormed away, encountered the witch and all went crazy from there. Not exactly a compelling conflict. Unlike this batch of five movies, all with excellent character and plot conflicts, whether serious or zany, embodied by war or the internal struggles of love. Without further ado, here are the next five films.
Movies 6-10
1927 - Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (#82) - This is a prime example of why I rewatch some movies that I've already seen. On first viewing, Sunrise got maybe 3 stars, and I didn't think too much of it. On second viewing, I think it could be a favorite, certainly from this era. My issue was with the way the wife (no one has names in this film) responded to the man after he does something pretty terrible (vague so I don't spoil it), which I had a hard time looking beyond, at first. The story is about a couple who lives in the country, though the husband is quite taken by a woman of the city, the allure, glitz and glamor of that life. This leads him to do something that, as TCM puts it, "almost destroys his life." It's interesting, and moves along nicely, but the reason I like it so much now is how beautiful the filmmaking is. There is such a unique visual style throughout, with interesting special effects, and almost no break of the flow for title cards. On top of that, the reactions to the struggle the couple faces is conveyed with such brilliant emotion that no words or sound are needed. From fear to joy, sorrow to love, the expressions of the two main players pull you right in. As they say in the famous (yet still unseen by me) Sunset Boulevard, "We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!" Sunrise breathtakingly proves it to be true.
5 rowboats out of 5
4 butterflies out of 5
4 bowler hats out of 5
2 brains out of 5
1933 - Duck Soup (#60) - What can I say about this that I haven't already? The Marx Brothers were comedy geniuses, among the best of all time, and this is perhaps their best work. If you've never seen it you need to, and you will be shocked at how much you'll laugh. Not that plot matters much, but this is the movie where Groucho takes over as leader of Freedonia, and eventually ends up going to war with neighboring Sylvania. Along the way, he woos and simultaneously insults the wealthy Mrs. Teasdale, mostly unbeknownst to her, and enlists the various services of Harpo and Chico, who are secretly spies from Sylvania but really bad at it. Again, that doesn't matter much, as the real strengths of this movie are the snappy one-liners from Groucho, the banter between he and Mrs. Teasdale or Chico, and Chico and Harpo's zany antics. This film is filled with ridiculous situations and classic scenes. Chief among them are the famous mirror scene, which has since been parroted in various forms over the years. Trust me, this is funnier than anything you'll find today, and it's definitely a keeper.
5 Grouchos out of 5
That's it for this time. See you after the next five!
Monday, January 10, 2011
Be Greg in January
Last week on Zinkthink... I decided to start a new year's resolution of sorts and try to spend a year really being me, maximizing the me that I can and want to be. And since that's so nebulous, I needed to break it down into distinct subsections for each month. Naturally, the first question that came up was, where to start?
I thought I'd begin by looking at the basics. If I want to be me, improve me, just what is this "me" I keep talking about? Depending on how philosophical you want to be, it could mean a lot of things, but think about it this way: if I were to decide to build a Greg, the first thing I'd need would be a human body. You could argue that "me" is my mind, my occupation, or my interests, but without a body I would have a hard time doing any of those things. And seeing how many resolutions are built around the concepts of exercise or fitness, I thought I'd start by working on the physical Greg. Yep, it's gonna be a fitness post. Hey, if you want interesting, read a real blog. :)
So what do I need to achieve, fitness-wise? Fortunately, I have an incredible metabolism so I don't actually need to lose weight. I am beginning to realize how lucky this makes me, but it does belie the fact that though I am thin, I am not actually as fit as I should be. In college, I participated in every intramural sport offered, but since then, all I've done is yoga and intermittent running. It's all good, but recognizing that fitness is not just about a number, I realize I should and want to do more.
Before I go into specifics, I need to caution that I very much do not intend to become a gym rat, downing creatine shakes and feeling like I need to exercise on vacations or the like. Not that there's anything wrong with doing so. I know some people like that, and it really works for them, but I am just not that kind of a person. In line with being Greg, I am not going to suddenly become really muscle-y and strong, or run a marathon, and I'm A-OK with that. I want to make some small improvements so I feel like I have a healthier physical presence. To achieve this, I've broken it down into three sub-goals.
1) Flexibility - You didn't really think I'd write about fitness without mentioning yoga, did you? My time without yoga made me realize how much I really need it (almost like the mythical "runners high"), so it's going to be a big part of my new fitness plan. I'm still in the process of finding a new practice that comes close to the quality of my old place, but the best way to do that is to keep trying. I'm on to a class called "Power Yoga," which sounds promising. Until I find a certain class I want to attend, my minimum goal is to go to one yoga class per week, which shouldn't require much extra motivation. I also really want to focus on hip and hamstring flexibility, even outside of class, since these have been long-running tight areas for me. If by the end of the year I can do basic seated runner-style stretches in anything resembling the right way, that will be a major success.
2) Cardio - Although I'm looking for a higher-powered, flow-based yoga practice, my brother has pointed out that one hour a week of this is not sufficient cardiovascular exercise. I'm inclined to agree with him, and plan to make extra exercises beyond yoga a regular part of my fitness life. The trouble is that currently I don't really like running (perhaps because I'm not very good at it), so my motivation quickly lags. My goal is to do some cardio exercise, most likely at the gym this time of year, twice a week beyond the yoga class. Hopefully if I incorporate enough variety of exercises, I won't get too bored and try to find excuses to quit. I can run, cycle, row, swim, or more, so there's no easy cop-out there. And as an extra push to keep me on track, I'm now vowing that I'll get in good enough cardio shape that I will run a 5K race sometime this year.
3) Muscle building - But, I said I'm not going to become some heavy-grunting weight lifter, right? Right. Be Greg, and realize that's simply never going to happen. However, another part of being Greg is recognizing that right now I'm borderline underweight for my height, as per the BMI scale. I don't think that's too terrible, but it's probably not healthy. And as I understand it, simply adding more cardio exercise surely won't help me gain weight. That needs to be muscle, so I need to start incorporating some weight lifting into my routine. Nothing too crazy, but those trips to the gym to run on a treadmill or pedal a stationary bike are now going to be accompanied by a weight machine or two. Spending the extra 10 or 15 minutes to work one muscle group per trip isn't a lot, but put it all together over a year and it could have a decent impact. The goal - get myself firmly into the "normal" section of the BMI chart by the end of the year.
The first week of January, under this plan, went pretty well as I hit all of the "small" goals. One day was nice enough that I ran outside, followed by some pushups/situps; I went to a far-too-basic yoga class (but I have a lead for a better one this week); and I went to the gym for an elliptical/weight machine session. It's a great start, but it's only one week. Let's see if I can keep this going for 51 more.
I thought I'd begin by looking at the basics. If I want to be me, improve me, just what is this "me" I keep talking about? Depending on how philosophical you want to be, it could mean a lot of things, but think about it this way: if I were to decide to build a Greg, the first thing I'd need would be a human body. You could argue that "me" is my mind, my occupation, or my interests, but without a body I would have a hard time doing any of those things. And seeing how many resolutions are built around the concepts of exercise or fitness, I thought I'd start by working on the physical Greg. Yep, it's gonna be a fitness post. Hey, if you want interesting, read a real blog. :)
So what do I need to achieve, fitness-wise? Fortunately, I have an incredible metabolism so I don't actually need to lose weight. I am beginning to realize how lucky this makes me, but it does belie the fact that though I am thin, I am not actually as fit as I should be. In college, I participated in every intramural sport offered, but since then, all I've done is yoga and intermittent running. It's all good, but recognizing that fitness is not just about a number, I realize I should and want to do more.
Before I go into specifics, I need to caution that I very much do not intend to become a gym rat, downing creatine shakes and feeling like I need to exercise on vacations or the like. Not that there's anything wrong with doing so. I know some people like that, and it really works for them, but I am just not that kind of a person. In line with being Greg, I am not going to suddenly become really muscle-y and strong, or run a marathon, and I'm A-OK with that. I want to make some small improvements so I feel like I have a healthier physical presence. To achieve this, I've broken it down into three sub-goals.
1) Flexibility - You didn't really think I'd write about fitness without mentioning yoga, did you? My time without yoga made me realize how much I really need it (almost like the mythical "runners high"), so it's going to be a big part of my new fitness plan. I'm still in the process of finding a new practice that comes close to the quality of my old place, but the best way to do that is to keep trying. I'm on to a class called "Power Yoga," which sounds promising. Until I find a certain class I want to attend, my minimum goal is to go to one yoga class per week, which shouldn't require much extra motivation. I also really want to focus on hip and hamstring flexibility, even outside of class, since these have been long-running tight areas for me. If by the end of the year I can do basic seated runner-style stretches in anything resembling the right way, that will be a major success.
2) Cardio - Although I'm looking for a higher-powered, flow-based yoga practice, my brother has pointed out that one hour a week of this is not sufficient cardiovascular exercise. I'm inclined to agree with him, and plan to make extra exercises beyond yoga a regular part of my fitness life. The trouble is that currently I don't really like running (perhaps because I'm not very good at it), so my motivation quickly lags. My goal is to do some cardio exercise, most likely at the gym this time of year, twice a week beyond the yoga class. Hopefully if I incorporate enough variety of exercises, I won't get too bored and try to find excuses to quit. I can run, cycle, row, swim, or more, so there's no easy cop-out there. And as an extra push to keep me on track, I'm now vowing that I'll get in good enough cardio shape that I will run a 5K race sometime this year.
3) Muscle building - But, I said I'm not going to become some heavy-grunting weight lifter, right? Right. Be Greg, and realize that's simply never going to happen. However, another part of being Greg is recognizing that right now I'm borderline underweight for my height, as per the BMI scale. I don't think that's too terrible, but it's probably not healthy. And as I understand it, simply adding more cardio exercise surely won't help me gain weight. That needs to be muscle, so I need to start incorporating some weight lifting into my routine. Nothing too crazy, but those trips to the gym to run on a treadmill or pedal a stationary bike are now going to be accompanied by a weight machine or two. Spending the extra 10 or 15 minutes to work one muscle group per trip isn't a lot, but put it all together over a year and it could have a decent impact. The goal - get myself firmly into the "normal" section of the BMI chart by the end of the year.
The first week of January, under this plan, went pretty well as I hit all of the "small" goals. One day was nice enough that I ran outside, followed by some pushups/situps; I went to a far-too-basic yoga class (but I have a lead for a better one this week); and I went to the gym for an elliptical/weight machine session. It's a great start, but it's only one week. Let's see if I can keep this going for 51 more.
Monday, January 3, 2011
New Year's Resolution - Be Greg!
As my little blue Saturn streaked through the night on Interstate 80 about a week ago, my mind wandered, as it tends to do. The drive from Des Moines to the Chicago suburbs is a long one, and between bouts of NPR and Top 40 music, I thought about a few things. I was heading home for Christmas, and looking forward to it, but also looking ahead another week to the start of the new year. I always say that I'm not a big fan of making resolutions, but then go ahead and make a bunch of them anyway. It's time to face the facts and accept that I'm pretty much going to make resolutions each year.
But this year (as I described in my previous post) I was struggling to nail down resolutions for the multiple different categories that I wanted to improve or make changes in. How many resolutions can one person make in a year? And if there are a large quantity of them, what are the odds that any of them will come to fruition? Well, somewhere along the way, while frozen cornfields slumbered outside my car windows, the solution came to me.
My resolution this year: Be Greg.
I confess, this is another stolen idea from Gretchen Rubin and her Happiness Project. I read her book last year, thought at the time that it was okay, but have come to realize that I vastly underrated it, and that there's a lot in there that I would do well to think about. The first personal commandment of Ms. Rubin's Happiness Project is simply "Be Gretchen," and I have decided to commandeer it for my own. There are many subsets of this concept that I intend to explore throughout the year, but through it all, I intend to Be Greg.
So that's all well and good, but what the heck does it mean? In a literal sense, I have achieved this goal simply by existing. I am Greg, therefore I met my goal and can lounge around on the couch the rest of the year, right? While that is okay, to a certain extent, my take on it is a bit different. To me, it is largely about prioritizing. As Greg, I have certain things that I am interested in, various things that I want to achieve, but without putting this proper focus on me, it gets lost in uninspired evenings watching junk on TV or lazy afternoons mindlessly browsing the internet. Of course, those things are part of being me, too, and aren't by any means disallowed now. But they shouldn't be such a part of me that they take precedence over what I think of as the "real" Greg, cooking, exploring and just doing.
It's an interesting balance, working on actually being yourself. On the one hand, this whole mindset allows you to accept who you are, realizing your limitations and being okay with them. But at the same time, another part of it is about making the most of your potential, pushing yourself to be the better you. It's kind of like the Army's old motto: Be All You Can Be. If there are some things I simply can't be, that's alright, but for the things I can, I want to make the most of them. This may be tough to conceptualize without a concrete example, but I don't want to give away any of the ones I've thought of just yet. For the moment, you'll have to be patient, at least a little bit.
Each month, I intend to explore one aspect of being Greg, setting out concrete goals and making changes to get myself closer to the me I want to be. In the end, it's not that different from a regular resolution (or set of them), but I have this overriding concept to guide it all. I've already selected an aspect of me-ness for January, and begun to take action on it, but I probably won't get around to writing about it 'til later this week. For now, I'm just going to be me.
But this year (as I described in my previous post) I was struggling to nail down resolutions for the multiple different categories that I wanted to improve or make changes in. How many resolutions can one person make in a year? And if there are a large quantity of them, what are the odds that any of them will come to fruition? Well, somewhere along the way, while frozen cornfields slumbered outside my car windows, the solution came to me.
My resolution this year: Be Greg.
I confess, this is another stolen idea from Gretchen Rubin and her Happiness Project. I read her book last year, thought at the time that it was okay, but have come to realize that I vastly underrated it, and that there's a lot in there that I would do well to think about. The first personal commandment of Ms. Rubin's Happiness Project is simply "Be Gretchen," and I have decided to commandeer it for my own. There are many subsets of this concept that I intend to explore throughout the year, but through it all, I intend to Be Greg.
So that's all well and good, but what the heck does it mean? In a literal sense, I have achieved this goal simply by existing. I am Greg, therefore I met my goal and can lounge around on the couch the rest of the year, right? While that is okay, to a certain extent, my take on it is a bit different. To me, it is largely about prioritizing. As Greg, I have certain things that I am interested in, various things that I want to achieve, but without putting this proper focus on me, it gets lost in uninspired evenings watching junk on TV or lazy afternoons mindlessly browsing the internet. Of course, those things are part of being me, too, and aren't by any means disallowed now. But they shouldn't be such a part of me that they take precedence over what I think of as the "real" Greg, cooking, exploring and just doing.
It's an interesting balance, working on actually being yourself. On the one hand, this whole mindset allows you to accept who you are, realizing your limitations and being okay with them. But at the same time, another part of it is about making the most of your potential, pushing yourself to be the better you. It's kind of like the Army's old motto: Be All You Can Be. If there are some things I simply can't be, that's alright, but for the things I can, I want to make the most of them. This may be tough to conceptualize without a concrete example, but I don't want to give away any of the ones I've thought of just yet. For the moment, you'll have to be patient, at least a little bit.
Each month, I intend to explore one aspect of being Greg, setting out concrete goals and making changes to get myself closer to the me I want to be. In the end, it's not that different from a regular resolution (or set of them), but I have this overriding concept to guide it all. I've already selected an aspect of me-ness for January, and begun to take action on it, but I probably won't get around to writing about it 'til later this week. For now, I'm just going to be me.
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