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Pork Chops with Balsamic Citrus Reduction, Wilted Arugula Salad

Balsamic citrus glazed pork chop, wilted arugula salad, and asparagus
credit: “Balsamic citrus glazed pork …” by Michael Gurski (that’s me!)

This is the dinner I’d planned to make on Friday night, but was just too tired to attempt after a longish week with nights of poor sleep. It started life last weekend with the kernel of an idea that was simply “pork medallions”. I left it alone for a few days, trying to think of what that would mean, how I’d prepare them, what to serve with them. Would I try to find a small pork tenderloin and try to do the piggy equivalent of filet mignon? That was tempting, I’ll admit. But soon I started thinking “orange juice reduction”, too. And that didn’t really seem to mesh well with the whole porky filet idea.

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Improvised Sausage & Peppers Rustico

Sausage & Peppers 3
credit: “Sausage & Peppers 3″ by Michael Gurski (that’s me!)

So Thursday night, I decided I wanted to do something different with sausage. Earlier in the week, I’d taken a kielbasa out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge, forgetting that we had other meals planned for the next few nights already. So, it sat in the fridge for a few days, and I was rather reluctant to refreeze it. I didn’t want to cook it in a pan of water, though that usually turns out well. It’s too cold to grill, and we’re rather low on propane anyway, so that was a moot point. So… what to make that would fit in with my new drive to stop always cooking the same dishes every week? What would be spectacular and different? Sausage & peppers, of course, served over pasta.

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Being “appropriately lazy”

Now that it looks like it will really happen, I think I can post about it…

LAZY DOG
credit: “LAZY DOG” by paddynapper

A little over a week ago, one of the directors where I work asked to talk to me. During the course of the discussion, he told me he wanted me to work primarily on sysadmin projects for his group. The reasoning? He told me that it was because I was “appropriately lazy”. He’d prefaced this statement with a disclaimer that what he was going to say was intended as a compliment. Upon hearing it, I assured him there was no way I could take the statement as anything other than a compliment. Here’s why…
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A Yummy Marinade

Pig
credit: “Pig” by Boston Public Library

This is a marinade that I concocted last week for some pork chops. To the best of my knowledge, this is wholly an original recipe, as everything I googled for my basic idea of “lemon basil soy” only came up with lemon-basil recipes which were breaded, while this is a marinde/dipping sauce (assuming you reserve some before marinating it).

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Automatic Monitoring with Puppet and Nagios

Part of my current push at work right now is trying to get some sort of configuration management system in place, and in a usable state. Part of the reason for wanting to do this is consistency of common configuration among the many systems and virtual machines I manage, especially when several serve essentially the same function (such as webserver VMs). Since I’m a fallible human being, it’s easier for me to get one webserver configured so that the non-content part of the setup always passes our security scans, and then replicated that to all the other webservers. This not only saves me time, and makes me more efficient, but helps when we do system audits, as I can easily prove that all N systems I manage that serve the same role have identical configurations.

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Popularity: 100% [?]

Getting back in the habit

So, in the past couple weeks, with prodding from the wife, I’ve gotten back into a highly addictive and potentially expensive habit. It’s one that requires specialized lighting, heating, and fertilizers, but probably not what some may be thinking. No worries about DEA raids, RICO seizures, or failed random drug tests here, the habit is…

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Popularity: 5% [?]

Mobile Phone Wishlist

It seems that I’m either currently, or will soon be, in the market for a new phone. This is actually a fall-out effect from the marriage, as well as timing on getting my last phone, a T-Mobile Sidekick 3. As I’ve checked the notes I made when I last upgraded, I realized my 2 year contract extension is up in July. In fact, it’s up on July 4, Independence Day. There’s some sort of nice congruity to that.

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Popularity: 17% [?]

Sorry, Ladies!

Sorry to disappoint all the other ladies out there (all zero of you), but a little over 2 weeks ago, I became a married man. My lovely wife has a write-up of the wedding over at her blog, so go check it out.

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Popularity: 18% [?]

Finally back on the air

So when we were looking at houses, one of the primary things I was looking for was DSL access. With the house we finally ended up buying, I noticed that the owner had a DSL bridge up and running. Score! At closing, I asked him if he had DSL, and he said he did. Score! It’s smooth sailing from here on out, right? Wrong. Little did I know just how much of a broadband wasteland Frederick happens to be.

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Holy shit, we are in debt!

So, we did it. We finally did it. This morning at 10am, we closed on our house. After scads and scads of signing and initialing paperwork, and handing over a huuuge check, we’re now both officially in debt. Eeeep!
So, we finished up around 11:30 this morning at the title company then went back to our agent’s office for a bit. After that, we stopped by the Despot of Homes for some minor supplies, and headed up to our house (after a quick lunch).

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Popularity: 29% [?]