NYE

New Year’s Eve.

A reason to celebrate.  An occassion to get dressed up.  Go eat someplace fancy.  Pop a bottle of champagne (or Andre – no judgment here).  A day to sit around and watch all kinds of college sports.

It can also be a day that we take a few moments to look back on the past year – achievements, struggles, good times, and bad times.  We are then able to look toward the year about to come…

The two-headed Roman God “Janus” – god of beginnings and endings. This is where the month January comes from, as we look back at the past year and forward to the new year to come…

It’s a symbol of that metaphorical “fresh start” that many of us look forward to.  A favorite component of NYE for many is the process of making New Year’s Resolutions.  These are often goals and aspirations that people have for the upcoming year – things they will do, improvements they will make, bad habits they will kick, or new hobbies to try out…

The problem with a lot of these resolutions is that people often lack follow through.  It’s full of good intentions, but then again there is a phrase that my mother has been known to say, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions…”

Last year, I wrote the “Resolution Solution” where I outlined a strategy to help make some of these resolutions last instead of fizzling out after just a few weeks.  The highlights:

Make a clear, specific plan.  Avoid abstract goals or ideas.  Make sure that these are reasonable and achievable (for bigger goals, break them down into smaller goals that will eventually land you at your target).

Create accountability.  It sometimes helps to tell a few trusted individuals your goals so that you are then accountable to them as well as yourself.  Actually write down your plan and post it where you (or others if you’re brave) see it every day.

Reward yourself.  Set benchmarks along the way (especially for bigger goals).  Little rewards can be great when meeting these benchmarks – it will remind you that you are making progress.

Regardless of whether you do the “resolution thing” or not, I wish you all a very happy new year filled with new successes and achievements.

 

Any particular resolutions?

Any fun plans to help bring in the new year?

 

Best Thing I’ve Eaten This Week

This post isn’t fair.  It’s not, and I apologize.  I had a whole lot of delicious holiday food, but none of it is featured here.

I had ham, nice steaks, homemade meatballs, taco salad, potato soup, and lots of other things.  That doesn’t even include desserts (even though I’m not usually a huge dessert person, there were definitely some tasty treats!).  Perhaps a Holiday Edition of “Best Thing I’ve Eaten This Week” in future years…

Instead, I’ve decided to bypass all of those holiday eats and go with a recent meal that we made for the first time.  An easy meal, but one that was quite delicious: pulled pork.  It was the first time we’ve done pulled pork, but one that we’ve been looking forward to ever since we got our crockpot about a month ago.

We found a great deal on a pork shoulder at the store and decided to make our move. Here’s how it went:

Put a nice spice rub on the pork shoulder (garlic powder, chili powder, cayenne pepper, salt and a chopped onion). We left that rub on for about an hour before we actually put it in the crock pot.

We put it in the crock pot overnight (flipping it a few times). The next day it was soft enough that we could easily shred it with a couple of forks. We drained the grease (saving some of it), removed the bone, and then shredded the pork.

We then took about a cup of the sauce (grease) that we saved and mixed it with a bottle of honey BBQ sauce. Mixed that in and allowed it to simmer a while longer. We also added a little extra of the spice rub that we had left over.

At this point, our pulled pork was looking, smelling, and tasting delicious. Time to eat!

We threw a few buns in the broiler to toast them.

Added the pulled pork and topped with a slice of tomato!

Now, I know I may be a bit biased, but this was legitimately some of the best pulled pork that I’ve ever had.  The meat was so tender and juicy (I guess that’s what about 18 hours in the crock pot does), it was well seasoned, and the barbecue was great.  Our first time with pulled pork was a great success!

Here is a price estimation of the meal:

$6.25  – pork shoulder (6.25lbs); we got super lucky to find it on sale this cheap!

$.25   – buns (package of 8); we got these on sale too

$1.00  – bottle of BBQ sauce

~$.50  – onion

~$.25  – tomato

$8.25   – Total Price for 5-6lbs of shredded pork.  Pretty cost-effective!

As Always: Eat. Be Happy.

 

Christmas Eve mass, to the masses

I don’t consider myself to be a religious individual.  I was raised Catholic, but no longer participate and disagree with the Catholic Church on a lot of issues.  But around the holidays – well Christmas – I go to mass.  Not for me, but for my (or Em’s) family.

After all these years of attending Christmas Eve mass, I’ve noticed that priests seem to go in one of two directions for their homilies (sermons):

Option 1: Catholic Guilt

“It’s lovely to see all of you made it here to mass this evening…why isn’t the church this packed every week throughout the year?” “It’s your duty/obligation to come, not just today, but every week.” “I certainly hope to see many of you more often.” It’s the one time that priests get a chance to plead with people to come to church more often and so they try to use that infamous “Catholic guilt” to get people to come more often.  

Option 2: Church is good and fun

Again, this is priests’ one chance to convince people to come to church more often.  Instead of relying on a guilt trip, the priest may try to crack jokes, be extra friendly, relate or be extra relevant.  Essentially, they take the “nice” route and try to convince the congregation that church is enjoyable and relevant to the daily lives of people.  They also want to convey the message that church will help you be a good person. 

Either scenario illustrates the same underlying theme – a lot of people don’t seem to consistently attend church even though they may consider themselves Catholic.  It’s those “C and E” Catholics that come out of the woodwork and show up in force on those two days (“Christmas and Easter Catholics”).  An interesting statistic that Em’s dad (a devout Catholic) read in a new book on Catholicism stated that only about 7% of Catholics actively participate and contribute to make the church function.  That’s a pretty low number, but it doesn’t surprise me one bit.  And it probably doesn’t surprise anyone who has been to a mass on Christmas Eve.  The church and priests know it and know that this is their one chance to reach a lot of these individuals…the question is whether either of these two homily strategies are working.

 

 

PBA Gets Sexy

I’m not sure who at ESPN thought of this unlikely marriage between Busta Rhymes of 10 years ago and the 2012 PBA (Professional Bowler’s Association) tour.  But this commercial is a beautiful thing.  Making the PBA a sporting sex symbol for all to enjoy!

 

 

REACHER

On December 21st the movie, Jack Reacher, starring Tom Cruise is coming out.  The movie is based off the character Jack Reacher, who is the character in a popular book series by author Lee Child.

Child’s first “Reacher novel”

I first discovered these books early in high school and really enjoyed them.  I quickly read through all of the books in this series that I could get my hands on (unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to keep up with them more recently).  The books are intelligently written, full of action, and very entertaining.  As a reader, you grow to love the character of Reacher – a renegade avenger who takes justice into his own hands with a deadly combination of physical strength and shrewd intelligence.

Which is exactly why I CAN’T STAND the idea of Tom Cruise playing Reacher in the films.  The selection of Tom Cruise is about as disingenuine to the character of Reacher as one could possibly be.

Oh, looks like a decent movie?  Allow me to explain…

Reacher is an ex-military MP who is a travelling loner.  He is described as a lumbering, gruff individual who is physically intimidating – approximately 6’4″ and 250 pounds.  He is unkempt and rugged as he roams from place to place with few personal ties, stumbling into various situations which he tries to make “right”.  He’s a brawler who is able to intimidate and dominate in hand-to-hand combat.  He’s willing to break the rules and do what it takes to track down and bring individuals to justice – his version of justice, that is.  He’s not one to make things “pretty” or go for “style points” in this process.  At the same time that he is this physically tough individual, he’s also extremely cerebral.  He assesses and anaylzes situations in the blink of an eye to gauge what his best move will be in certain situations.  He uses this against his enemies to give himself an advantage in nearly every situation.  So while he often ends up overpowering people, much of the legwork is done ahead of time by his astute logic and analytical reasoning that put his opponents at a decided disadvantage.

Tom Cruise contradicts nearly every characteristic that I mentioned above.  Physically, he couldn’t be further from the character of Reacher.  Cruise is one of the smaller Hollywood stars out there.  He is clean-cut and seems to be “slick” or all about the “style points” in his action movies (and in the trailer for this one).  He wants to ride in slick, fast cars and appears to be all about the ladies.  He doesn’t seem to have that loner, lumbering, renegade mentality in which he is in pursuit of justice in the name of justice nor is he willing to “ugly it up” in the process.  The whole thing reeks of trying to grab a big-name star to bring in ratings while completely betraying the integrity of the character that Lee Child created.

Tom Cruise as Reacher.

Will I watch the movie when it comes out?  I haven’t decided.  I’ve seen several trailers and obviously have decided that they are doing a disservice to the books that I greatly enjoy.  I have little faith that they will remain true to the books.  At the same time, I am still curious to see the whole thing for myself.  We’ll see…

 

OXP [Office Xmas Party]

This weekend we hosted the annual Office Christmas Party extravaganza – a holiday tradition.  This dates back to our college days and is now the 5th time we have kept the tradition going since graduating.

Everyone comes to the party wearing their “best” Christmas attire.  This generally means the ugliest/most outrageous Christmas sweaters or Christmas business attire that people can get their hands on.  We then make name tags with our position in the “company” and take on these aliases for the duration of the party.

Christmas blazers. Terry with a “y” and Terri with an “i”. I was the CEO/boss man.

Now that we are older and more closely resemble adults, we have upgraded and have a pretty decent spread of snacks and treats.  We also had some delicious holiday dranks – wassail, hot chocolate (spiked with peppermint schnapps), and rum and egg nog (not delicious).

Wreath cookies, Chex mix, cookies, and meat balls.

So festive!

All in all, it was another great holiday party!

 

 

 

Those who have nothing to hide…

Someone posted the following quote on Facebook a few weeks ago that I happened to notice:

“Next time someone hauls out that cliche of ‘if you did nothing wrong, you’ve nothing to hide,’ ask for all their passwords & put them online.” – Glenn Greenwald

It is an interesting quote…I’m not sure that the analogy is not perfect, but I do think it is illustrative of the point that Greenwald* was trying to get across: we shouldn’t feel forced into revealing any and all information that is asked of us based on the logic of “well if you’re innocent, then you’ll be fine.”  In fact, that’s one reason why we have some constitutional rights that protect us from illegal search and seizure and grant us due process (disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer!).

That quote in and of itself is interesting and perhaps deserves some attention and discussion…

But what made me think of it was hearing about the recent Saints’ “bounty gate” scandal developments.  In a sense, this is what Jonathan Vilma of the Saints stood up for.  Early on, Vilma refused to go talk to NFL Commissioner Goodell about this scandal because he believed it was a “witch hunt”.  As someone who proclaimed his own innocence, Vilma didn’t feel that he should be obligated to take part in such a “witch hunt”.  Many in the media said that if he was innocent, he would have gone immediately.  They then assumed that his refusal to go was evidence of his guilt.  “Otherwise, why would he hide…”

As it turns out, his suspensions and fines were just lifted.  In doing this, the NFL essentially admitted that they don’t have any hard evidence tying him to what they claimed he was doing as far as bounty gate went**.  Vilma decided that he wouldn’t give in to the “if you’re innocent, then you have nothing to hide” logic.  He was punished, but he fought back and he won.  I’m sure that it was more frustrating and tedious than he possibly could have imagined, but it seems to have paid off for him (quite literally – fine money and salary).  He also took a stand that may help serve some who come along later; his actions also may help combat that “if you’re innocent you’ve got nothing to hide” cliche.

I know that this scandal is complex and there is more to it than this, but I do think it’s an interesting aspect to think about.  The quote above may not be a perfect analogy, but it does seem to be an interesting parallel in some ways.

 

 

*I hadn’t heard of Greenwald until I saw this quote.  After a brief internet search I found out that he worked as a civil rights litigator and now writes on many political issues (for the New York Times, Salon.com, and the Guardian to name a few). 

**This is saying quite a bit since under the new CBA, the NFL doesn’t really need any evidence at all; Goodell can basically act unilaterally based on whatever he thinks is best for the league.

 

Myers Briggs: Blog edition [a companion post]

After my previous post on the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, I stumbled across several other blogs posting on that or related topics.  One of them had a fun twist on this scheme by providing a classification scheme for your particular blog.

Like the MBTI, there are four different scales that you (your blog) is rated on:

Introverted — Extroverted :  (outreach and community)

Development — Gain :  (motivation and purpose)

Multiple topics — Single topics :  (topics and interests)

Citing — Theorizing :  (style and form)

Naturally, I decided to take the quiz and find out what type of blog I have.

As it turns out, my blog fell into the category: EDMC

Kind of fun and interesting, though I’m not sure how disciplined I am as a blogger, and I am not a fan of raisenettes…

 

 

MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator)

I had a lovely dinner this evening with a friend who has just finished up her graduate work here and is moving on to Chicago in pursuit of bigger and better things.  While at the dinner, I met several of her friends who I didn’t know beforehand.

One interesting topic that came up a couple of different times was that of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (essentially a personality type classification scheme).  Apparently, a couple of them are really interested in it.  I then go home and find out that Em had just read a few articles about the MBTI test and librarians.

I had taken this at least a couple of times, but it has been a while (years).  But since it happened to come up twice in the same night, I decided that now was as good a time as any to find a free online test to give me my personality type.

So it turns out that I am an ENTJ:

• Extrovert over introvert – distinct (67%)
• Intuition over sensing – moderate (25%)
• Thinking over feeling – slight (12%)
• Judging over perceiving – moderate (33%)

Now, of course, there are problems with these kinds of tests.  Sometimes individuals answer how they think they are or how they want to be instead of how they are.  Many of these questions could be interpreted in multiple ways – given a specific situation for some of the questions, I could have easily answered many of them in different ways.  Some of them are worded in ways which might bias individuals in one direction of another.  This also doesn’t address a lot of the complexities of different individuals (though a 16-type scheme is fairly complex).

All that being said, it was still a fun and interesting little test to take.  According to the website, I should be pursuing business management, management of education, politics, law, counseling, or higher/post-secondary education.  Seems fitting?

Try out the test!

What are you??

Do you buy the whole idea of the MBTI?

 

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree…

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here on the home front.  At the beginning of the week, we decided to take a trip out to a local Christmas tree farm to pick out a tree.  It was a bizarre experience in that it happened to be nearly 70 degrees that particular day…wandering around looking through trees in that weather was a first for me.  This also happened to be Em’s first trip to a tree farm, ever – whoa!

Bundled up in the trunk.

Setting it up in the corner.

Adding the lights.

All decorated.

So there you have it, a lovely Christmas tree in the living room.  It really adds to the Christmas spirit and helpes to make it smell like Christmas in the house as well.  We also decorated the mantle, which adds to the holiday spirit:

And now, enjoy a little Christmas jingle from one of the best Christmas movies of all time, Ernest Saves Christmas.