Thanksgivings, Dining Out, New Sink, Cincinnati Zoo, Scrum

Thanksgivings

We finished our two Thanksgiving dinners this year and they were excellent. The food at my wife’s family’s house was very good. The food we made at our house for my side was tremendous! I smoked a turkey, two pork tenderloins, and a bunch of sausages. The meat temped perfectly which is the absolute key to making good proteins, there are no other exceptions. Put in as much seasonings or whatever you want but if that turkey gets over 165 forget about it. I’m not sure how I timed it so well, it was just really by luck. I went out and put in a thermometer and it hit the mark perfectly.

Dining Out

We ate at Pepp and Delores for my wife’s birthday and it was very good. This is an Italian style restaurant in downtown’s OTR district. The pasta is homemade and very good. I ordered the Sunday Sauce, which is spaghetti, two meatballs, tomato sauce, and cheese. We also ordered the bread service which came out with some very fresh ricotta. I would say if this were dinner we’d feel a little hungry and would’ve ordered a few more sides to go with it.

New Sink

I really don’t want to write too much about this because I am still kind of smarting from it. My wife noted a bad smell from below the sink. I looked and saw mold and water damage. I removed everything and found the leak, a broken zinc nut that connects the drain to the sink. I then noticed that the garbage disposal was not seated properly (had become unlocked) and was leaking also. I then noticed a third leak under the faucet itself. All of this was a little too much so I decided to replace all of it. This lead to using my few days off during Thanksgiving to rip out the sink and replace with a new one, install a new faucet, garbage disposal, and finally the plumbing for the drain. It was a little complicated but it worked out in the end. I ran into an issue as the new sink is deeper and has only one drain but luckily the fitting I had to put together was fairly straight forward. Finally I knocked out the bottom of the cabinet and luckily found no water damage there. Finally at least one win! I would like to thank all of the countless generic YouTubers who created amazing how to videos I used to accomplish this project.

Cincinnati Zoo

I like to visit the Cincinnati Zoo once a month. The winter time is probably the best time of year to visit. It is often not very crowded, in fact you may have the zoo to yourself. The animals though, at least the ones comfortable with the weather or indoors on display, are typically very interested in seeing people. I think in the summer they get kind of tired of gawking at everyone and they like to hide and sleep. During the winter it won’t be rare to have them come up to the window and interact with you as was the case with the silverback gorillas. I came in to that exhibit acting like a gorilla and the alpha male came down to the window to look at me. I felt kind of bad getting him to react so I stopped but I felt like he was sizing me up which was incredible. We also had a rare look at the puma. Typically these brothers are hiding in their exhibit but they were on full display for us. It was great!

Scrum

I am full on the way to getting my Scrum certification. I know most developers would roll their eyes at the thought of someone getting a designation in something that is supposed to be free from managerial prodding, but I would like to know more about this concept. I’ll have more on this in my monthly tech learning roundup post.

Notes

We are trying introducing vegetables and fiber into the boy’s diets by giving them a small plate of well cooked vegetables that they must eat before they get their full dinner. We are starting small in the portion size and will work our way up slowly. I just feel they are not getting enough fiber and this increase in colon cancers in young people is starting to make me wonder if diet is involved. I should also add in this front we are backing off our use of plastics, especially making sure nothing gets heated in a plastic container or hot foods put into them. We are opting for glass instead.

I also finished up my first head cold of the season. I will admit my operational security became lax and I paid for it (not adamant enough about distancing, hand washing). I am sure it was brought home by one of the boys as they both had it at the same time. I will note this is late in the season for it, I used to get these and they would last months, especially when the boys were much younger and constantly bringing home the plague.