Aniki - you do very well putting up with King Pita!  I have intimate knowledge of various types of dementia, since my mother had Vascular Dementia, father had Alzheimer's, and my ExH (now also deceased) had Lewy Body dementia.  I will probably get it, having both parents with it, buy hey! live for today.  The fish stew recipe looks lovely.  My own choices of comfort food for a cool, rainy day would be a roast dinner, or beef stew with dumplings, I think. 

Eff off to beloved pets getting old. My baby boy has lived 1.5 years longer than predicted, has had ups and downs, but sadly I think he's in his final decline. Just trying to make sure he's comfy and has ALL my loves all day.

It's beautiful weather here for a change, so I'm getting out on my bike later this morning. Took the day off work.

Cold weather comfort food is meatloaf and roasted potatoes with a side of broccolini. Yum.

Good morning from June gloom-ed central coast!

Every time I see you post about PITA, I think of pita bread with sprouts and meat and ranch

Eff off to:

1. Co workers who think its great to automatically exclude me from any and every conversation as soon as they start speaking spanish. Ive tried learning, I just dont practice and feel weird trying to use my few words. I get the pride of culture part, but seriously, this has become a toxic dynamic.

2. Lack of communication or really bad communication at work. Im an admin, Im the keeper of information. Things have been wonky and its because the communication is SO BAD in our tiny little office.

3. Chicken ch!t.

Comfort food for the June Gloomy Days of Summer:

Coconut Curry with Cod.

Using Thai red curry blended into coconut milk, I chop up ginger and crush garlic, add a few bay leaves, add this to the stir fried veggies - bell peppers for sweetness, red onion, mushrooms, some eggplant or squash.

Add codfish (my fave!) and garnish with fresh cilantro leaves (unchopped), fresh lime juice and thai basil (flowers or leaves).

To people making plans FOR me.  I thought that was gone when DBDB was finally out of our lives.

My girlie friends just automatically figure I am going to drive to EVERY event.  Like cant a girl get to drink more than one glass of champs?  At least this time is not MY birthday.

It is super muggy here on the Jersey coast.  Our comfort food the last few days has been broiled talapia, steamed broc and watermelon salad.  Everything else makes me feel like a whale.

Have a great weekend Steppers

Eff off:

Polycystic kidneys and hydronephrosis in my poor, sweet, beautiful, spoiled little guinea pig!  This baby has been through more than any guinea pig should.  She had ovarian cysts, I had her spayed.  Last year she had a respiratory infection that I had treated but it moved to her ears and my last vet didn't catch it.  She started losing weight and that imbecile automatically assumed it was a dental issue.  That was the first time I ever met him, as I usually took my piggies to his wife who is co owner of the practice. Despite looking in her mouth and seeing her teeth were fine, he was still convinced that it was an underlying dental issue. Ok, fine,do the X-Ray so you can see that HER TEETH ARE JUST FINE.  X-Ray showed that she had NO dental issue.  They couldn't see any problems anywhere.  (full body X-Ray) Just give her this pain medicine, it could be arthritis. It didn't seem right. 

I switched to the vet I have now, had my old vet send the xrays to her.  She sends them to her mentor who is board certified exotics and is a radiologist.  Oh, she has a double ear infection.  She was in pain for who knows how long, the poor baby.  We treated her. Now this.  She doesn't deserve this.  I know I shouldn't but I feel like I am failing her.  Probably because I can't fix this for her.  Hopefully my vet can fix the hydronephrosis at least.  I've been doing a lot of praying.  Anyone else who is so inclined I would appreciate it. 

Eff off to the heat!  It's already unbearable due to the heat and humidity and summer hasn't hit yet.  Ugh.

Eff off to grass and weeds in my garden that I can't get rid of because it's too freaking hot to be outside more than a few minutes.  

I did discover a tiny watermelon growing so Princess Popcorn will hopefully get to have some watermelon from the garden this year.  It's her favorite food of all time.  Stink Eye Queen and Princess Chunky like it too but they don't go crazy and start screaming like they're starved to death.  

Eff off to the idiots who will inevitably be on the road to get in my way today.  Please just move.  

When it comes to forn....expensive chef curated dishes are my guilty pleasure. 
 

And yeah I'm disgruntled these sociopathic employers have everyone brainwashed into their modern day plantation mentality that we look forward to Fridays like a cr@ck fiend looks forward to pulling up to the trap house 

I have had multiple visions of running off from the "sl@ve planatation" in the form of a random no call no show. 

Eff-0ff to:

1. Yet another former employer.  3mos is my shortest run in my career. I proposed to my boss a month ago that to maximize asset performance we should consider merging Engineeing and Maintenance. I have led very large Asset Management, Maintenance, Reliability, and Engineering organizations.  The company froze hiring a month after I started as a cost savings element.  After approving my staffing model and posting the Reqs.... crickets for weeks after I screened at least 100 resumes, phone screened a dozen+ candidates and initiated offers to 7.  All were frozen after being approved and offers generated.

The company losts it's shorts on a naive selection of an OEM equipment manufacturer that the young engineers and procurement team chose, pre paid in full upfront

for $14Mil in equipment for a $250K discount, and ended up losing the money and the equipment to the OEM going bankrupt. One of my engineers and a production supervisor was at the OEM factory doing the functial demonstration source inspection and got locked into the factory when the Sheriff padlocked the factory.  The company emptied the factory and no one told my team because... they were not employees and the OEM company leaders forget that they were in the OEM factory.  $14Mil down the crapper.   It took a couple hours after calls to the owners of the bankrupt company to get the doors unlocked so my team could get out.

2. Eff-0ff to leading a major contractor initiative and having to be at the plant at 05:00 coordinating a construction contractor filling in a maintenance access pit (part of the prep for the never to be delivered $14mil in equipment) in order to expand 1.0 product production since 2.0 is a pipe dream due to idiocy.  $285K to do the structural work for the crane supports and the pit to start with.  $15K to fill the pit and cap it with concrete. A pit that was never used.  Then having a controls contractor in to verify the root cause of a dust collection system failure that I did the troubleshooting on yesterday.  I have not had my wire head geek tools in hand in decades..... I was right.

So, get Rags in at the butt crach of dawn sweating his ass off in a non climate controlled factory then... fire his ass after a nearly 12hr day.

They hired me to build the systems, practices, and staff managing and maintaining the production assets  then replicate it at future factories. No need for that or me when the leading edge automated manufacturing equipment requiring a state of the art Computerized Maintenance Management System, Work Management System, and Reliability and Asset peformance data systems goes POOF! 

The broad on line scuttlebutt is that the company is on it's way down the crapper. I agree. I knew it was a risk  from my pre accept the offer research.  The product is visionary.  The leaders do not have the business or manufacturing acumen to deliver.  I am the 4th Sr level leader gone since I started on Feb 26th. First was the Engineering Manager (left just before his RSUs vested due to repeated character driven issues demonstrated by the founders), next the largest non founder stock holder who joined the company to lead investor relations (due to moral issues with the misrepresentation the founders are broadcasting the the investor and customer markets), Third the only experience Sr. engineer in the manufacturing engineering team who joined to lead the automation integration of the $14Mil down the shitter automated equipment set, and then ... me. 

3. 110*F+ temps on June 6th.  Pretty early to be nearly in the one teens.

F0rn:

Caprese salad.  When it is hot as hell, a cold light salad is the way we go. Last night I diced Mozzarella balls, cherry tomaties, basil, added Garlic, Herb, Parmesan oil and pizza herb seasoning.  We both enjoyed it very much. 

Here is to once again being a kept man!!!

Update:  I have two interviews on Monday.  I am done with leading horses to water and begging them to drink. Both roles are far Sr. to the role that ended yesterday.

I'm not sure I have another round in me.  Retirement may have started yesterday.