No not the Software kind, the guys who attack and board ships. I found this interesting blog the other day. Eagle Speak is written by a former US Naval Officer and recounts the news about modern piracy. One note, the guy writing the blog is somewhat right-wing and pro-war. Some of the links involve pictures of real pirate attacks, not for the faint of heart by any means.
December 2008 Archives
The CEO at my company sent out an email today. There will be no raises next year and no matching funds for the 401k. Ouch. The CEO himself is taking a 25% paycut and will receive no bonuses next year. They didn't say anything about our bonuses for this year but I'm guess that is because they are expecting them to be pretty low anyway so no need to cancel them. No layoffs were announced though so that's good, at least for now.....
Last night Ellanna and I tried making a new healthy dish we got from Nener. It involves wrapping chicken and veggies in tin foil and baking the whole thing in the oven at a high temperature.
The recipe also specified using a metal sheet to cook them on. That's important.
We didn't have a metal cookie sheet so we used a pyrex baking dish. Now our oven kinda sucks so it didn't get done in the time it was supposed to so we baked it little longer. Now it's pretty cold here right now but not so much in the house. In any case, as soon as I removed the pyrex from the oven it EXPLODED. Not a little crack either, it completely shattered, with quite a loud pop, and threw glass into the oven and onto the floor. Man getting little shards of glass out of your oven is a pain in the ass. The Dustbuster rules.
The food however, was fine, it was all wrapped in tinfoil so it was safe from the glass. It was quite good too, we'll have to make it again. Without exploding dishware.
*Or quite possibly the Laws of Therodynamics
I'm back in Florida this week. My third trip in 2 months, but that's all for this year. Just one week left and then the whole of the corporate world is off for the holidays. Whew...
We put up the tree this past Friday. We try to make an event out of it fixing a nice dinner to go along with it. We even went by the new German Deli by our house and picked up the makings for spiced wine. It was pretty good, I think i lke making it with mulling spices better though.
Saturday we finished up most of the Christmas shopping and then hung out with the Dallas crew for dinner at cheescake factory. We then proceeded to invade Reptile's home and drink his liquor for a while and pet their cute new puppy.
Sunday was a lot busier than I planned. I had to get ready for my trip this week and Reptile and I had planned a game of 40k. However, Elanna discovered that we had accidentally washed her cell phone. That pretty much did it in so we spent a good part of the afternoon at the Verizon store getting a new phone.
The 40k battle went ahead as planned if not slightly late. Tau Vs. Orks It appeared that I had the upper hand most of the battle but as it turned out I only won by a scant 15 victory points, which is a draw. It was a good game though. It made me sit down and actually think about what minis I need to get ready for the big 40k Tourney in January. More DethKopters!
I started reading the Horatio Hornblower series last week. This is one of those books that many people said that I would enjoy but I never got around to reading. It's about the career of a British Naval officer during the Napoleonic wars. Whoever told me to read it was right. It's a great series. It's inspired quite a few other books as well. Both the Aubrey-Mautrin series and Honor Harrington were inspired by it. There is even a series of TV movies that were made from the books that you can get on DVD. I highly recommend it, though I think I may need a book on British Naval history now or at least one that describes all the parts and pieces of sailing ships. (sternsheets? kedging?)
Whoah, where'd that week go. I've really got to keep up with this more. It's interesting to go back and read over my old entries. It's like some other person wrote them. The online crew really seems to be into facebook for the moment, even the Rev. got into it. I read an article the other day, from wired, that talked about how "blogging" was dead and that is for professionals now. All us normal folks just use myspace or facebook or some such thing to do our internet writing stuff. I do have to have to admit, more people see and comment on my blog entries when I cross post them to facebook, which is mercifully easy. I do still like the blog though, it gives me somewhere to store all my digital "stuff" and I have complete control over it. Besides, who on facebook really wants to see all my ramblings about D&D campaigns or new combat rules for Dark Heresy
The wife and I spent Thanksgiving in Florida with her family, which was nice. We got to spend time with the niece and nephew who we don't get too see all that much. 3 weeks from today, we head home for Christmas, sheesh...
