Taming Coffee

Apparently You can Have Too Much Coffee

2008-05-29T03:28:16+00:00

I'm drinking very fine coffee this morning: Colombia Huila San Augustin Micro-lot from Sweet Marias, where I buy all of my green beans. I drank very fine coffee yesterday as well, but then it was Ethiopia Harar Horse DP -Lot 17406. I only bought five pounds of the Colombian, and now it's no longer available. No matter how much I love this coffee, I will have to wait another year and hope that next year's crop is as good as this one, good enough for Sweet Maria's to decide to carry it again. In the meantime, there will be other coffees, from other places, that I will love. I bought 20 pounds of the Harar, knowing that a good Harar always brings me joy, and Tom (the big man at SM), said this was a very good one indeed. As much as I love this coffee, buying 20 pounds of it was probably a mistake because I will have to forgo other great coffees while I work my way through the Harar and the 30 pounds of other coffees that currently form my stash. There is a lesson in there somewhere. While I ponder the downside of my greedy ways, I have to figure out creative ways to do stash reduction. I roast about 2.5 pounds of coffee a week. If I roast another pound a week and give it to friends, I can probably start buying coffee again in about two months. A local caterer would like me to roast for him, and that would solve my "problem" quickly, but I am not at all sure I want to commit to having to roast big time during the winter, not in my unheated garage at least. Hummm, I could buy a roaster I can use inside of the house. Let's see, how much coffee would I have to sell before this would make any sense at all? Maybe I should just leave coffee beans on my neighbours doorsteps. After all, later in the summer, they will be leaving unloved zucchini and tomatoes on mine.

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Out, Out Yellow Spots

2008-05-28T02:23:34+00:00

I'm trying to have a vacation—really I am. I'm just not very good at turning the working me off and going into relaxation mode. Part of the problem is that I returned from Saskatoon exhausted but with all sorts of enthusiasm for my new job and a tremendous desire to talk about what I had learned. The other part is that Idon't really have much in the way of plans for this week, other than to recover from my old job and maybe do a little gardening. I hate gardening. I want to love it; more than that, I know I should love it. Who doesn't love flowers and the smell of fresh turned earth? Apparently me. It doesn't help that I have neighbours who are determined to make their own yard into a showcase and who seem to spend hours staring at my dandelions. Those dandelions were supposed to be gone by the time I returned from the conference. I bought Ron all sorts of chemical poisons before I left and gave him clear instructions regarding my expectations in this area, but he hates gardening too. I am in the process of talking myself into taking a pro-dandelion/anti-chemical position. After spending four days talking to people with high ideals who are working hard on environmental issues as they relate to community building and economic development, I should be able to accomplish this. I'm working on it. I just don't find it relaxing.

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Just a Travellin' Gal

2008-05-18T03:54:49+00:00

Because I have been unable to go downstairs to my own office for or the last couple of weeks, I have camped upstairs in whatever office was free for the day. I felt a bit like Goldilocks. I probably need to add a disclaimer here. I am just a tad nerdish and I am just a tad fussy when it comes to computer equipment. Hark, I hear a snort emanating from my sleeping husband, who, even in dreamland, knows that these are understatements. In any case, because I am a bit, urmmm, particular, I have brought my own keyboard and my own trackball pointing device to work. They are the same as my home set-up. I also have duplicated my Firefox extensions/add-ons, downloaded little programs I simply can't do without, and adjusted my chair so it is just perfect for my 4'11" body. Office etiquette demands that one does not alter another person's computing environment. I was good about this during my first two or three camping experiences. However, when I figured out that I would have two weeks of moving from machine to machine, I decided to get a bit more proactive. My strategy was to surreptitiously check out my co-workers systems a few days before I would be using them, and then approach the owner ahead of time. The conversations went something like this: "Hey, would you like a really good spell checker that works with the HOMES database?" (Who could say no to that?) "Did you know that there is a thing called a Quick Launch toolbar that lets you open programs without using the start menu? Wouldn't you like one of those? (Sure, Taming, why not!) One desk at a time, I tweaked my way through the office setting tab behaviours, downloading programs, introducing people to FireFox and the joys of on-line dictionaries that use the letter "u" in the Canadian way. I am on holiday for the next two weeks (well, I have a few days in Saskatoon at a conference in there someplace). It's nice to know that as my co-workers toil on, they will have daily reminders of my recent visits. After all, it's not as if they really want post cards from Saskatoon. And I am taking my office coffee maker and grinder with me.

Posted by taming | Comments (1) Tags: tech, work

We Like it Hot (Not)

2008-05-13T05:34:03+00:00

Luck, it appears, is relative, as in, "We are lucky that our furnace died in May instead of in January." Even in Central Alberta, it is unlikely that one will die of exposure if the furnace craps out in May. I'm guessing that heating and cooling emporia have business models that don't take May furnace sales into account. Sure, they know how to sell you a furnace if you call them in a state of panic because it is -40 and your furnace has died. They know that you will not be comparison shopping and that you are willing to sell your first born, if necessary. Call them on May 8 and ask that someone come by to give you an estimate, and these same companies are entirely perplexed. It shouldn't be this hard to find someone to write a check to for something you really don't want to buy at all—especially when it is for $6700. We finally were able to get three companies to come out, look at our house, and grudgingly write up estimates. Looking at the weather forecast, it appears that we will be having the furnace installed and putting the window air conditioner in our bedroom on the same day. Aren't we lucky!

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Nicole and the Donut Hole

2008-05-12T03:52:17+00:00

I'm probably not Canadian enough to blog about Tim Horton's. No doubt one has to be born and bred to understand the role this iconic purveyor of bad coffee and fried dough has on the Canadian psyche. But it's Monday, and I'll give it a try, anyway. Some background... I tried a cup of Tim Horton's coffee in 2001, shortly after I immigrated. I found it to be insipid and never went back. I didn't make a big fuss about it because I understood that Timmies is a Canadian Institution (in the big "C" big "I" sorta way). I worried that I would appear ungrateful, or worse, too American, if I said anything. And then, after all, when the US has offered up Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts to the world, there really wasn't much I could say. I simply had my coffee elsewhere (urmmm, that would be at home) until last year when I went back to work doing case management and found that my clients considered a trip with them to Tim's, periodically, to be part of the job. I'd order a small black coffee and pretend to drink it whilst my client had a huge double double and the requisite piece of fried dough. At meetings, people would bring in TimBits (aka donut holes), and if I needed a little sugar shock to get through the event, I'd indulge. I never really did get why millions of Canadians would stand in line daily (sometimes numerous times each day) to order something inedible and then wash it down with something impotable, but culture is like that. Despite all of this, I really did understand the national outrage when three thugs posing as Tim Horton junior managers fired a worker because she gave a free TimBit to a child. The story was movingly told in every newspaper in the country. I could picture the young child, snot coursing down her cheek, as she accompanied her mother in search of her third Timmie fix of the day. I could imagine the smiles of those in line as the worker held out the bit of dough. Heck, I could even see the pimples on the faces of the managers who whisked her in the back and insisted she sign an admission of guilt before they fired her from her $9.05 an hour job. Her reinstatement was also foreseeable, as was the public apology—behold the power of the press. The part that surprised me was how ungrateful, how unCanadian, this single mother of four would be now that she had her job back. Imagine that. Nicole says her career with Tim Horton's is over and that she will have to look for another job because "no one will like me." Rumour has it that a smoothie shop has already offered her a new job.

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Am I Annoying You? Here, Have Some Coffee

2008-05-08T04:16:00+00:00

After a day of cane practice, I'm off to work this AM and hoping to make it through the day without any further mishaps. I'm also hoping that someone takes pity on me and helps me carry things from my car to the office as I seem to have quite the bundle of shtuff. Asking for help doesn't come easy to me. Fortunately, I work for a social service agency, so I am pretty much surrounded all day by professional nurturers. I'm figuring that if I look perplexed and/or pathetic, someone will come to my aid. The reward for whoever helps will be a wonderful pot of coffee, once the new coffee maker actually enters the office. On Sunday I roasted Colombia Huila - Las Piedras de San Augustin and now, with four days rest, it is truly magnificent. I am itching to share it with my co-workers, several of whom are definitely coffee fiends. In his review, Tom (of Sweet Marias) says: "I would rank this as a top "crowd-pleaser" coffee." That's what I was going for today, and I think I nailed the roast. I drink coffee like some people drink wine and all too often, what I like about a particular bean is just not what folks think of when talking coffee. And while people generally are amazed when they find that some coffee I am sharing has a hit of blueberry in the cup, it seems that there are a whole lot of folks who are looking for something more archetypically coffee like. This is the coffee for them. And given that I am going to be a bigger pain in the butt than usual for the next two to three months, bringing in crowd pleaser coffee, from time to time, seems like a very wise move.

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Note From an Old Hippy

2008-05-07T03:34:32+00:00

I tend to ignore it whenever my body misbehaves by showing its age in the form of creaks and pains. Sure, I'm inching up toward 60, but I've always figured that I can ignore that teeny tiny bit of truth. The result is that I sometimes ignore things that I should pay attention to—for example, a (slightly) fractured hip. About ten days ago, I fell on the ice. It was what, in the world of babies learning to walk, is known as "fall down and go boom". That is, I landed directly on my not-very-well-padded bum. At the time, I congratulated myself for not having stuck out my arm and ending up with a sprained wrist. In fact, I felt just fine for about three days. When I woke up on day four, it felt like someone had hit me on the hip with a curling rock. I blamed it on the nighttime accommodations made to my bed partners (that would be two cats and my fella). When it hurt worse after a trip down the stairs, I figured my body was looking for an excuse to call in sick to work. I didn't, of course, and I have been trudging to work each day as the pain got worse and worse. Yesterday I realized that it was nigh on time for this to be over, no matter what the cause, and I went to the doctor and then for x-rays. Yup, I had a fracture, and no matter how much I tried it wasn't going away any time soon. I may be moving out of the downstairs cave and into the upstairs cave for a few weeks. Stairs are a real problem just now. At home, it means the moving of my desktop computer from our subterranean office/family room to the above ground portion of the house. I could do the laptop in bed thing, but I am a desktop kinda gal. It also means a part-time separation from Ron. It's one thing to move my computer and associated paraphernalia, but it's quite another to move his set-up too. That would mean moving not just a computer, but also a big screen TV, the TiVO, and all the other techie toys associated with his life. I, however, get all of the coffee making equipment. Fair is fair.

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Clan of the Cave Bean

2008-05-05T02:45:48+00:00

I'm in the process of moving into my office at work. Now, I've had that same cave-like space for over a year, but up until now, I haven't actually worked in there for more than a few hours a week. It's not that I didn't have scads of paperwork that I could have done in the office; I just didn't have enough time during the day to do my work with clients in their homes and get into the office as well. I did my paperwork on-line at home. This is changing. Beginning next week, I have what appears to be a regular job. That means I will be working 8-4:30, Monday through Friday and most of the time, I will be a cave-dweller. And, it is truly cave like. There are no windows in any of the offices. My office is down in the basement, toward the back of the building. On the plus side, that means my office is fairly cool in the summer (Air conditioning? This is Alberta, we don't need no stinkin' air conditioning.) and it doesn't turn into a steam bath when the heat is on in the winter. It is also quiet down there. Very, very quiet. On the minus side, the office kitchen, where the coffee is located, is upstairs. I pondered this sorry state of affairs for almost seven minutes before I came up with a solution. Now, it's not like the office coffee is drinkable, because it's not. We have a second rate coffee pot and big red plastic bins of Folgers. It took me seven minutes to arrive at a solution only because I was not sure if I could be considered a team player if I ran out and bought my own coffee equipment before I actually moved into my space. I also had to think of a sensible way to explain to my husband that I was about to spend in the neighbourhood of $300 on yet more coffee equipment when I wasn't actually getting a raise. It turned out that this wasn't all that difficult. When I called my husband and told him that I was being brought "inside", he asked me if I had ordered the coffee equipment from work, or if I was planning on waiting until I got home that night. I guess the man knows me pretty well.

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Hi There

2008-05-03T02:18:08+00:00

Yes, I'm alive. It's been such an odd few months, with so many long days filled with things I can't talk about publicly that even trying to blog was beyond me. I still can't talk about them, but, at long last, my job has changed and since my work will not consume 60 hours a week or be entirely confidential, I might even be able to write here occasionally. Coffee continues to be an obsession. This morning's cup is Idido Misty Valley roasted to FC+ on five days rest. I have annoyed the heck out of some of my roasting buddies by not being in love with this bean roasted light. See why I haven't blogged? I've had moments of techie joy and came close to writing about my love affair with my MP3 player and my frustration with my cell phone. Close. In any case, I'm writing this AM, and I might even write again fairly soon.

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My Low-Tech Life

2008-01-06T05:17:40+00:00

In my perfect world, I'd be at CES this week planning my future technology purchases and loading up on swag. In my perfect world I'd also have 20/20 vision and a bottomless bank account. In my real world, I will be working my decidedly low-tech job and juggling the three digital compromises that make my day tolerable. I used to work for a big mental health centre in the states. The workers there have access to all the neat toys that can make my kind of job easier. I now work for a small not-for-profit and all they gave me was a truly lousy cell phone. There is an acceptable computer in my office, but I am almost never there, and even if I were, my office is pretty much unusable from January through April. I've been promised a heater any day now, so that may be changing. My life is ruled by my Palm TX, a definitely not-an-iPod MP3 player, and that truly lousy phone I mentioned earlier. Yes, I am one of the 267 people in the world who still use a stand alone PDA rather than a smart phone. I paid for it myself. The non-iPod decision was intentional. I haven't owned an Apple product for 15 years, and I don't expect to any time soon. In any case, I spend my days driving around in a ten year old car that was never sold in Canada (and thus is a joy to get parts for), listening to music of my own choosing, and wishing for Wi-Fi, so I could upload my scheduling changes to Google calendar and do my casenotes between client visits. This is somewhat of a challenge, as I work and live in a city with only one public hotspot. It would be less of a challenge if my phone could do something other than the phone thing, but it can't. Damn, I wanna be at CES.

Posted by taming | Comments (6) Tags: tech, work