Basic Dill Pickles
My favourite purveyor of pickles closed up shop recently. Their product, while expensive, spoiled the very idea of store bought pickles for my family forever. With their shop shuttered and my kids clammering for decent pickles, I was left to go it alone on a grand pickle excursion earlier this year. Turns out pickles are trivial to get right. Thanks to a short turnaround time it is also trivially simple and cost effective to experiment.
Cinnamon Raisin Oatmeal Loaf
I’ve spent years trying to make a decent oatmeal raisin loaf. I’ve finally succeeded and I couldn’t be more pleased. This loaf is quite sweet and best for breakfast with jam or butter. I haven’t yet tried french toast with it yet but I imagine it would work well. For this loaf be sure to pay attention to process and refrain from hastening rise times. Soaking the oats and raisins in water is critical to creating the correct texture and ensuring nothing dries out or burns near the surface.
Motivation begets motivation
The older I get the more I find that motivation is the limiting factor to starting just about anything. There seems to be a minimum amount of motivational momentum or fuel required to learn something new. Paradoxically, the only method I’ve found to generate motivation is through motivation. I don’t think I’m unique in this either. Looking around it seems the older and more comfortable humans get the less motivation we have to challenge ourselves either physically or mentally.
The Trouble with Smart Home
This year I used the extra COVID time at home to experiment with smart home products. The goal was to identify rooms and spaces I used often, make them smart~ish, then simply live with it for a while and develop an opinion on the product space (e.g. setup, maintenance, reliability, troubleshooting, value-add, etc). There are plenty of obvious drawbacks to the tech including fragmented apps to control the devices and cost to name a couple.
How to make great pizza sauce
Last year I shared my [family’s pizza recipe] ( https://miketheglum.com/post/2019/authentic-italian-pizza/). We’ve been working on that recipe for close to a decade now. Last year I posted a how-to of sorts for the dough, but in my negligence have yet to follow up with the sauce recipe. There isn’t a secret to pizza and pasta sauce. It really is dead simple to make and requires very few ingredients. The right ingredients however are important.
What I'm Drinking: Bearface
As fall turns to winter, my liquor cabinet fills up with brown liquors, usually scotch. This year I decided to fill it with whiskies of the Canadian variety. The cabinet was looking pretty bare, so the purchase of a cheap everyday whiskey was prudent. I know nothing about Canadian whiskies, so I blindly perused the shelves and picked bearface based purely on packaging and gut feel. I was surprised at how easy drinking the whiskey was.
Working Remotely: Lessons Learned
I’ve worked my entire career in tech from either a satellite office, as a remote employee, or a combination of the two. Through several life events, working remotely has been both a blessing and a curse, and this post is to highlight some of the ups and downs of working remotely as a tech employee as well some lessons learned along the way. To set the stage, my experience has been with two of the four FANG companies (doesn’t really matter which ones, just that these are big shops), working in satellite offices, for remote teams, but in major US and Canadian cities.
Making golf fun again
My five year old showed interest in golf this year. Excitedly, I did exactly the wrong thing and took her to a local pitch and putt. After some reflection I came to the same conclusion my daughter did: golf is objectively boring, especially for a child. After a few swings she was more interested in naming the worms than playing golf. The good news was that I now had a problem to solve: how to make golf less boring for a kid.
Traveling With Golf Clubs
I recently flew to California to visit my dad and brought my clubs so we could play golf during my visit. Before this trip I had been renting clubs on my visits and simply got fed up with the worn out clubs that the vast majority of courses and even country clubs provide. I decided it was time to start bringing my own clubs on these trips. After a couple weeks of research I purchased the Club Glove Last Bag collegiate travel bag.
Traffic Avoidance - Victoria Day
I’ve been crossing the Peace Arch and Pacific Highway border crossings on a regular cadence for over a decade now. In fact, I’ve crossed the border so many times I know a few border guards at Pacific Highway by name and have learned which days/time slots to avoid. But regardless of how much experience I might have crossing the US/Canada border, some days just suck. Victoria Day, unsurprisingly, is one of those days.