I'm not sure why I initially started writing this blog, and I'm not sure why I continue to do so. In aggregate, it is one big non sequitur. Besides, blogs are soooooo 2002.
Five years ago, on this date, I poked around on Google's Blogger and started typing. It was a blissful time, with the newness of the new house providing an ongoing elixir. But it was also a very stressful time as the fate of the old house was a big unknown; it is amazing how transformational that move remains even after all this time. At the time I started the blog, I guess I was just looking for some kind of outlet, maybe any outlet.
The original goal of once per week was (predictably) quite optimistic. I've at least mentally pared that down to "about every other week" - with major exceptions being when other stuff, noteably vacations, takes significant time. Over the last five years, I've averaged close enough to 26 per year to be content.
The stats would suggest there is little readership, which is fine. Doing things for the self is far more important than what any kind of external validation can bring. I'm surprised how few people live this. I'm somewhat puzzled that a small number of posts have resulted in a large number of hits. I often wonder how many of these are just bots... I think monetizing the blog would overall cheapen it, take something away from the phantasmal existence. My consiracy-theory hunch is that the searchability (or findability?) of tjvbeagle.blogspot.com is affacted by search engines prioritizing monetized pages.
Still, some reviews have received numerous hits, and continue to do so.
Apparently, quite a few people want to see an oil change on a Toyota Tacoma.
There are several things I don't write about ... but I do.
Some topics are so current-time limited that care should be exercised. Cecil's death gave him a few minutes of fame that has faded very quickly. Predictably, there is no lasting change. His carcass remains rotting in a corrupt-African-government warehouse somewhere; all those good intentions and monetary donations are rotting along with it.
I need to work to live, but I don't need to dwell on it outside of work. So I never write about work?
Too much is already penned, typed, memed, etc. about politics. I don't need to contribute to this?
Some of what was written here led to bigger and better things. I never really anticipated this.
My first magazine article was published, somewhat indirectly, as a result of some thinking and pecking away at the Blogger keyboard.
On a much larger scale, my self-published book would likely have never been written if it weren't for this blog. Of course most of it was written mentally first while walking dogs.
I've committed to thinking before writing, and thinking again before hitting that terrifying "Publish" button. In addition to spelling and grammar issues that I wince at, there are some regretful posts. I've also committed to leaving them largely as they were, belated edits are rare. Do not delete the snapshots in time, no matter how ungraceful.
There are some I would probably rewrite as I don't think what I was trying to convey actually was. So it goes.
A few might be very questionable if someone, often a particular someone, might end up reading between the lines; or someone reads between the lines when they shouldn't.
A couple are regretful to the point that I have a hard time rereading them.
There are some that feature borrowed or stolen content. I love using quotes from interesting people, sometimes out of context. At least one is almost completely stolen, but oh how I wish I could find the Outburst extolling You Do Not Have a Constitutional Right to a Washing Machine. Actually, I recently did (and stole it too).
Some of what has been written is almost too personal to actually publish.
A few might be interpreted as a veiled cry for help. They probably aren't.
Some posts are so sad that I have a hard time rereading them.
Others are just too personal, but need to be written anyway.
This post is beginning to look like an 80's sit-com clip show - a cheap way to create a TV show without actually filming anything new.
And as I look over the 150 posts to date, I begin to see three themes emerging:
Much of what is written relates to Generation X, what happened to us. What is happening to us? But history is doomed to repeat itself since we pay so little attention to it the first time. The Baby Boomers and Millennials continue their love affair.
Getting older is brutally inevitable. Solidly middle class in middle age, I shudder when I look at reality. But I just about scream in terror, clawing at the dashboard of life at the thought of what could have been.
Life in the rural Midwest is wonderfully underrated. Bridging the first two themes, I can't imagine, at this stage, living anywhere else. Definitely not in the wretched overpopulated coastal ribbons. Still, sometimes I hear new places calling. Maybe New Mexico, or Oregon. Maybe Niue?
"In a faraway land called 'pre-2000,' what Earthlings now call blogging was called 'keeping a diary.' It's hard work to do well. I tried doing it in the early 1990s but had to stop because I no longer had a life - instead I had this thing that generated anecdotes to go into my diary. The diary took over and I had to stop." - Douglas Coupland
Sunday, October 9, 2016
Saturday, October 1, 2016
Washing Machine (or Outburst II)
Stolen before it returns to the vacuous ether (again). Presented without commentary for your own conclusions to be drawn.
The context is an American teaching in a formerly Eastern Bloc Country, originally published in March, 2001:
There Is No Constitutional Right to a Washing Machine, by Mark Lovas:
As part of its pre-election campaign a local political party is offering working mothers one day off per month. The cynicism implied by this offer is, perhaps, not astounding if one considers that this is coming from a party headed by a man whose chief contribution to public debate seems to be vague accusations of corruption directed at other politicians.
The other night on the local Monday night political chat show, one member of the audience produced a newspaper article showing that this particular leading light had once been the recipient of special training in Russia. The political leader looked unhappy and did not respond. The moderator wanted to ignore it too. It wasn’t part of the planned discussion.
But, there’s something here worth noting. This country never had a lustration law—a law which banned former Communists from participating in politics. Had there been a lustration law many of today’s leading politicians would have been prevented from participating in politics. (A friend recently told me about a case in a neighboring country where a member of parliament who has responsibility for the media turns out to have been a censor during the communist period. When reporters tried to ask him about this, the former communist censor responded with belligerence and threats.)
In any case, the cynicism implied by the one-free-day-off bait is not restricted to the political realm.
My current employer recently offered a night of free bowling at the local shopping mall. The very same employer (speaking to me through the mouth of the most low-ranking local administrator, a man whose salary is certainly at least double my own) once told me that I shouldn’t complain about the ancient washing machine in my school-provided flat. He flatly stated that while my contract promises me a flat, the school is under no obligation to provide a washing machine. (Let us ignore the fact that this is a city where there is not one laundromat.)
This particular bureaucrat then went on to inform me that during his first six months at the school he had washed all of his clothes by hand.
I suppressed the thought: Well, when I worked for a different local University I washed my clothes by hand for 18 months. So, there: I’m more macho than you.
Had I said that, there would have been a race to prove who was more macho. I was speaking to a man who in his mid-thirties was living in Eastern Europe and is a quarterback for an American-style football team in the Exotic East. On top of that, his name appears above mine in the organizational chart for the local branch of an America-based university.
Praise God for the American Empire! Look how they send talented people to the poor part of Europe to help out. Such a generous country.
[Tracing the history of my washing machine—a mundane item if ever there was one– is instructive. When I spoke about its run-down condition to a member of the academic staff (a woman whose calling card identifies her as a “Site Manager”) she responded with surprise, telling me that it was her old washing machine and worked very well. In fact, her candid remark confirmed my suspicion that every local resident has a newer washing machine than I do. I have visited the homes of more than a few people who are citizens of this country, and every one of them has had a newer washing machine than I do.
My suspicions were reinforced by a conversation I recently had with a washing machine repair man. Apparently unable to place me from my accent alone, he asked me where I was from. When I told him I was American, he immediately responded with the question, “Why don’t you buy a new washing machine?”. Plainly the repairman would be surprised to learn that a native speaker of a prestige language, citizen of the world’s only super power, and someone working for a company with a “home office” within the territory of that super power, might actually be receiving a salary less than the average paid to local residents working for foreign companies.]
Then there is the case of a free trip to the local ski resort. Another case of bread and circuses — Yes, we should regard this as a free gift from our lord and master the Distance Learning University, which gives American Academics a chance to strut their stuff in the Exotic East of Europe.
The purpose of the Free All-Expenses Paid Trip to the local version of the Alps was to encourage Team-Building and reward the hardy workers. It also allowed “Senior Professors” based in the United States a chance to pontificate on the sin of plagiarism and the fifteen ways to skin (whoops, I meant evaluate) a student.
Hmmmm.
The globalization of education. Is that what it is? Or, mightn’t we speak more accurately of the Will to Power? If you can’t dominate at home, go abroad. If people who speak your own language don’t admire and respect you sufficiently to satisfy your dreams of being a guru, go abroad to a place where people want to speak your language, and you can have a head start, an advantage over them in the form of your native-speaker status. By all means, find someone to dominate. If you can’t be a winner at home, you can at least be the quarterback of a team in the Exotic East.
But by all means, you must be a quarterback!
Note on Distance Learning (DL): Thanks to the Internet, if only one has a computer and money, one can study with a university anywhere in the world. In the above rant, the author exaggerates a bit when he describes his school as a DL school; the school is not exclusively devoted to distance learning—it actually does have “day students” as well. On the other hand, distance learning is an important part of the school’s activities, and with the help of a grant recently awarded by the US government, the school plans to expand its DL activities in Eastern Europe.
One of the most horrific aspects of this new institution (as Phillipson 1999 points out) is that educators ignorant of a student’s culture, environment, and language are, in effect, marking out what is important and what is not.
It may, perhaps, be possible to have distance education of some quality in an extremely abstract mathematical subject, but in the humanities as traditionally conceived, discussion is essential. And discussion means face-to-face contact. And insofar as good (relevant, local) examples are the life-blood of any lecture, it is difficult to imagine how a distance teacher can overcome the inherent limitations of the medium.
It would appear that what is now on offer is (yet another) version of education for the masses. Just as mass production meant a decline in quality for the sake of wider availability of the product on offer, so education in enormous lecture halls at America’s state universities meant a de-humanization of education. And distance learning continues the trend with its promise of wider availability, and an unadvertised accompanying decline in quality.
Distance learning is a means for English-speaking countries to assert and expand their cultural hegemony. It is a vehicle of cultural imperialism, the McDonaldization of education.
The context is an American teaching in a formerly Eastern Bloc Country, originally published in March, 2001:
There Is No Constitutional Right to a Washing Machine, by Mark Lovas:
As part of its pre-election campaign a local political party is offering working mothers one day off per month. The cynicism implied by this offer is, perhaps, not astounding if one considers that this is coming from a party headed by a man whose chief contribution to public debate seems to be vague accusations of corruption directed at other politicians.
The other night on the local Monday night political chat show, one member of the audience produced a newspaper article showing that this particular leading light had once been the recipient of special training in Russia. The political leader looked unhappy and did not respond. The moderator wanted to ignore it too. It wasn’t part of the planned discussion.
But, there’s something here worth noting. This country never had a lustration law—a law which banned former Communists from participating in politics. Had there been a lustration law many of today’s leading politicians would have been prevented from participating in politics. (A friend recently told me about a case in a neighboring country where a member of parliament who has responsibility for the media turns out to have been a censor during the communist period. When reporters tried to ask him about this, the former communist censor responded with belligerence and threats.)
In any case, the cynicism implied by the one-free-day-off bait is not restricted to the political realm.
My current employer recently offered a night of free bowling at the local shopping mall. The very same employer (speaking to me through the mouth of the most low-ranking local administrator, a man whose salary is certainly at least double my own) once told me that I shouldn’t complain about the ancient washing machine in my school-provided flat. He flatly stated that while my contract promises me a flat, the school is under no obligation to provide a washing machine. (Let us ignore the fact that this is a city where there is not one laundromat.)
This particular bureaucrat then went on to inform me that during his first six months at the school he had washed all of his clothes by hand.
I suppressed the thought: Well, when I worked for a different local University I washed my clothes by hand for 18 months. So, there: I’m more macho than you.
Had I said that, there would have been a race to prove who was more macho. I was speaking to a man who in his mid-thirties was living in Eastern Europe and is a quarterback for an American-style football team in the Exotic East. On top of that, his name appears above mine in the organizational chart for the local branch of an America-based university.
Praise God for the American Empire! Look how they send talented people to the poor part of Europe to help out. Such a generous country.
[Tracing the history of my washing machine—a mundane item if ever there was one– is instructive. When I spoke about its run-down condition to a member of the academic staff (a woman whose calling card identifies her as a “Site Manager”) she responded with surprise, telling me that it was her old washing machine and worked very well. In fact, her candid remark confirmed my suspicion that every local resident has a newer washing machine than I do. I have visited the homes of more than a few people who are citizens of this country, and every one of them has had a newer washing machine than I do.
My suspicions were reinforced by a conversation I recently had with a washing machine repair man. Apparently unable to place me from my accent alone, he asked me where I was from. When I told him I was American, he immediately responded with the question, “Why don’t you buy a new washing machine?”. Plainly the repairman would be surprised to learn that a native speaker of a prestige language, citizen of the world’s only super power, and someone working for a company with a “home office” within the territory of that super power, might actually be receiving a salary less than the average paid to local residents working for foreign companies.]
Then there is the case of a free trip to the local ski resort. Another case of bread and circuses — Yes, we should regard this as a free gift from our lord and master the Distance Learning University, which gives American Academics a chance to strut their stuff in the Exotic East of Europe.
The purpose of the Free All-Expenses Paid Trip to the local version of the Alps was to encourage Team-Building and reward the hardy workers. It also allowed “Senior Professors” based in the United States a chance to pontificate on the sin of plagiarism and the fifteen ways to skin (whoops, I meant evaluate) a student.
Hmmmm.
The globalization of education. Is that what it is? Or, mightn’t we speak more accurately of the Will to Power? If you can’t dominate at home, go abroad. If people who speak your own language don’t admire and respect you sufficiently to satisfy your dreams of being a guru, go abroad to a place where people want to speak your language, and you can have a head start, an advantage over them in the form of your native-speaker status. By all means, find someone to dominate. If you can’t be a winner at home, you can at least be the quarterback of a team in the Exotic East.
But by all means, you must be a quarterback!
Note on Distance Learning (DL): Thanks to the Internet, if only one has a computer and money, one can study with a university anywhere in the world. In the above rant, the author exaggerates a bit when he describes his school as a DL school; the school is not exclusively devoted to distance learning—it actually does have “day students” as well. On the other hand, distance learning is an important part of the school’s activities, and with the help of a grant recently awarded by the US government, the school plans to expand its DL activities in Eastern Europe.
One of the most horrific aspects of this new institution (as Phillipson 1999 points out) is that educators ignorant of a student’s culture, environment, and language are, in effect, marking out what is important and what is not.
It may, perhaps, be possible to have distance education of some quality in an extremely abstract mathematical subject, but in the humanities as traditionally conceived, discussion is essential. And discussion means face-to-face contact. And insofar as good (relevant, local) examples are the life-blood of any lecture, it is difficult to imagine how a distance teacher can overcome the inherent limitations of the medium.
It would appear that what is now on offer is (yet another) version of education for the masses. Just as mass production meant a decline in quality for the sake of wider availability of the product on offer, so education in enormous lecture halls at America’s state universities meant a de-humanization of education. And distance learning continues the trend with its promise of wider availability, and an unadvertised accompanying decline in quality.
Distance learning is a means for English-speaking countries to assert and expand their cultural hegemony. It is a vehicle of cultural imperialism, the McDonaldization of education.
Sunday, September 25, 2016
"Look What You Did!"
I was on my way home from work, driving along a semi-rural road; newer housing development on one side, wooded area bordering the river on the other. Up ahead, I saw a large bird exhibiting some very strange behavior. The bird was hopping backwards, dragging the carcas of what turned out to be a dead raccoon across the road. Then I realized that the dead raccoon was the one I had hit that morning on the way to work.
The bird flew off before I could see whether it was a very large crow or a very small buzzard. Either way, it was impossible not to anthropomorphize the bird, with the it clearly screaming, "You killed this raccoon, MF! Look what you did! Just ... Look ... At ... What ... You ... Did!"
My morning had been like any other. I drive to work in the dark and always see at least a couple animals: possums, deer, raccoons, the occasional skunk. There are very few streetlights during my commute, so often I just see their eyes ghostly reflecting the light from my headlights.
I just requested The Straight Story from the library... It seemed appropriate.
But that morning, a raccoon had been on the side of the road. He saw me, I saw him. We both took evasive action. Unfortunately we both took evasive action right into each other. My front left tire made direct contact into dire consequences to the raccoon.
I felt bad.
I do hunt, so it may seem surprising that killing the raccoon made me feel bad. Our rural roads are littered with road kill - it happens all the time. But I don't like indiscriminate killing, killing for killing's sake. Maybe it is because I hunt that I'm sensitive to this. Killing an animal as a deliberate act to take it home and eat it is entirely different from killing an animal on my way to work. Thud-thud. The raccoon dies. So it goes.
The year I started hunting, a deer I shot was not recovered. This made me feel very, very bad at the time. The next season I found a deer skeleton about 100 yards beyond where I, and my neighbor who I was hunting with, stopped looking for the doe. I've always wondered if that was the same deer. I learned two lessons. One, don't take iffy shots (it wasn't, but I was excited). Two, if in doubt, always look a little more.
But there is an even larger lesson from an old deer skeleton. From the road kill that lay strewn across the roads. From the thud-thud of my truck's tires in the early morning hours. These dead animals don't lay around in perpetuity. Our roads are not strewn with an ever increasing pile of carcasses. Nothing in nature ever goes to waste.
From the putrid, road-kill skunk to the ground hog shot by a pellet gun after the third attempt to dig his hole along my house to the enormous dead whale on the bottom of the ocean, everything gets eaten. Everything dead feeds something else.
No, maggots and flies, coyotes, and turkey vultures may not be the most cute and cuddly of wild animals, but they all thrive on the dead. I've seen road-kill deer be turned into scattered bones within a matter of days in the heat of summer. The last remnants may go slowly, but feed a rich biome of microorganisms to trees.
So maybe that odd bird, hopping backwards across the road dragging the raccoon remains wasn't screaming how evil I am. Maybe that anthropomorphized avian was saying, "Look what you did! You made me dinner. I'm gonna eat well on this dead SOB!"
The bird flew off before I could see whether it was a very large crow or a very small buzzard. Either way, it was impossible not to anthropomorphize the bird, with the it clearly screaming, "You killed this raccoon, MF! Look what you did! Just ... Look ... At ... What ... You ... Did!"
My morning had been like any other. I drive to work in the dark and always see at least a couple animals: possums, deer, raccoons, the occasional skunk. There are very few streetlights during my commute, so often I just see their eyes ghostly reflecting the light from my headlights.
I just requested The Straight Story from the library... It seemed appropriate.
But that morning, a raccoon had been on the side of the road. He saw me, I saw him. We both took evasive action. Unfortunately we both took evasive action right into each other. My front left tire made direct contact into dire consequences to the raccoon.
I felt bad.
I do hunt, so it may seem surprising that killing the raccoon made me feel bad. Our rural roads are littered with road kill - it happens all the time. But I don't like indiscriminate killing, killing for killing's sake. Maybe it is because I hunt that I'm sensitive to this. Killing an animal as a deliberate act to take it home and eat it is entirely different from killing an animal on my way to work. Thud-thud. The raccoon dies. So it goes.
The year I started hunting, a deer I shot was not recovered. This made me feel very, very bad at the time. The next season I found a deer skeleton about 100 yards beyond where I, and my neighbor who I was hunting with, stopped looking for the doe. I've always wondered if that was the same deer. I learned two lessons. One, don't take iffy shots (it wasn't, but I was excited). Two, if in doubt, always look a little more.
But there is an even larger lesson from an old deer skeleton. From the road kill that lay strewn across the roads. From the thud-thud of my truck's tires in the early morning hours. These dead animals don't lay around in perpetuity. Our roads are not strewn with an ever increasing pile of carcasses. Nothing in nature ever goes to waste.
From the putrid, road-kill skunk to the ground hog shot by a pellet gun after the third attempt to dig his hole along my house to the enormous dead whale on the bottom of the ocean, everything gets eaten. Everything dead feeds something else.
No, maggots and flies, coyotes, and turkey vultures may not be the most cute and cuddly of wild animals, but they all thrive on the dead. I've seen road-kill deer be turned into scattered bones within a matter of days in the heat of summer. The last remnants may go slowly, but feed a rich biome of microorganisms to trees.
So maybe that odd bird, hopping backwards across the road dragging the raccoon remains wasn't screaming how evil I am. Maybe that anthropomorphized avian was saying, "Look what you did! You made me dinner. I'm gonna eat well on this dead SOB!"
Sunday, September 18, 2016
The Sounds of Summer
I've tried to listen to summer more this year.
Watching a local outdoors show in the depths of winter, it isn't unusual to have a summer scene come on. Sometimes I'll quit watching whatever the actual show is, and just listen to the background. Crickets. Tree frogs. Katydids. And of course cicadas.
I just got back from a vacation - a 6000 mile road trip out west. The two weeks of time spent motorcycling throughout the country was glorious. On the road every morning near daylight through some of the most amazing scenery in the country; a different town almost every night.
Outdoors sounds different in different places. The upper elevations, through mountains and high deserts are often quieter. Cooler, sometimes cold temperatures don't support the same kind of cold-blooded life; there was one morning where temperatures were near freezing while most of the Midwest was still in the pressure cooker of heat and humidity.
There is a lot to see in a seemingly parched desert, the landscape and geology is nothing short of amazing. But the invertebrates seem to live quieter, more solitary lives. I bet this changes during wet times, but I've never consciously experienced that.
The summer music has probably been more boisterous than many years, since there has been a lot of rain. The swampy part of the back yard has remained wet much of this year; the amount of life back there has been astounding.
As I let the dogs out first thing in the morning, I often pause, especially on clear mornings, and look up at the stars. I generally don't turn on the outside lights when I let the dogs out, and the stars can often be dramatic. The sound from the crickets and tree frogs is wonderful music. It accompanies the specks of light above in a way nothing else can. I often think about how fortunate I am to live in the Midwest - how fortunate I am to live in a rural area without cars buzzing around and artificial light to spoil the sky.
The neighborhood is rarely quiet when I get home from work in the afternoon. Over the din of distant lawn mowers or farm equipment, katydids are often squeaking, sounding like rusty springs. And the cicadas - oh the cicadas. Even though there aren't very many mature trees nearby, they still scream with the heat of the late summer day. Walking the dogs or riding the bike by areas with a lot of mature trees, things get even louder. What I'm always amazed by is how easy it is to tune this out - how this background noise becomes just that, background. And yet, stopping and listening, it is surprising just how deafening this often is.
Evenings wind down the singing of the day; at times there may be a period of almost complete stillness where everything collectively decides to shut up for a while. Maybe even the insects need a few minutes of quiet before the tree frogs start their nightly chorus.
On the road home from the recent road trip, I knew I was getting nearer to home by the sound (and the smell - the mowing of a roadside ditch filled with Queen Anne's lace). Above the whirring of the engine and buffeting of the wind on the motorcycle, I could hear cold-blooded creatures of all sorts creaking and buzzing while riding down a nearly empty road. I was somewhat pensive since the trip was almost over, but the noise kept me anxious to be home at the same time.
The stillness and quiet of winter is its own mystery to witness. Especially if there is snow on the ground to further muffle any sound, an eerily quiet winter morning is another phenomenon that should be experienced consciously. It is hard to compare this to the cacophony of summer.
The sounds of summer on TV in the depths of winter often seem louder than they are in real life. They aren't, it is just the wistful look forward and backward to what summer has provided and what it has to offer ... if we take the time to listen.
Watching a local outdoors show in the depths of winter, it isn't unusual to have a summer scene come on. Sometimes I'll quit watching whatever the actual show is, and just listen to the background. Crickets. Tree frogs. Katydids. And of course cicadas.
I just got back from a vacation - a 6000 mile road trip out west. The two weeks of time spent motorcycling throughout the country was glorious. On the road every morning near daylight through some of the most amazing scenery in the country; a different town almost every night.
Outdoors sounds different in different places. The upper elevations, through mountains and high deserts are often quieter. Cooler, sometimes cold temperatures don't support the same kind of cold-blooded life; there was one morning where temperatures were near freezing while most of the Midwest was still in the pressure cooker of heat and humidity.
There is a lot to see in a seemingly parched desert, the landscape and geology is nothing short of amazing. But the invertebrates seem to live quieter, more solitary lives. I bet this changes during wet times, but I've never consciously experienced that.
The summer music has probably been more boisterous than many years, since there has been a lot of rain. The swampy part of the back yard has remained wet much of this year; the amount of life back there has been astounding.
As I let the dogs out first thing in the morning, I often pause, especially on clear mornings, and look up at the stars. I generally don't turn on the outside lights when I let the dogs out, and the stars can often be dramatic. The sound from the crickets and tree frogs is wonderful music. It accompanies the specks of light above in a way nothing else can. I often think about how fortunate I am to live in the Midwest - how fortunate I am to live in a rural area without cars buzzing around and artificial light to spoil the sky.
The neighborhood is rarely quiet when I get home from work in the afternoon. Over the din of distant lawn mowers or farm equipment, katydids are often squeaking, sounding like rusty springs. And the cicadas - oh the cicadas. Even though there aren't very many mature trees nearby, they still scream with the heat of the late summer day. Walking the dogs or riding the bike by areas with a lot of mature trees, things get even louder. What I'm always amazed by is how easy it is to tune this out - how this background noise becomes just that, background. And yet, stopping and listening, it is surprising just how deafening this often is.
Evenings wind down the singing of the day; at times there may be a period of almost complete stillness where everything collectively decides to shut up for a while. Maybe even the insects need a few minutes of quiet before the tree frogs start their nightly chorus.
On the road home from the recent road trip, I knew I was getting nearer to home by the sound (and the smell - the mowing of a roadside ditch filled with Queen Anne's lace). Above the whirring of the engine and buffeting of the wind on the motorcycle, I could hear cold-blooded creatures of all sorts creaking and buzzing while riding down a nearly empty road. I was somewhat pensive since the trip was almost over, but the noise kept me anxious to be home at the same time.
The stillness and quiet of winter is its own mystery to witness. Especially if there is snow on the ground to further muffle any sound, an eerily quiet winter morning is another phenomenon that should be experienced consciously. It is hard to compare this to the cacophony of summer.
The sounds of summer on TV in the depths of winter often seem louder than they are in real life. They aren't, it is just the wistful look forward and backward to what summer has provided and what it has to offer ... if we take the time to listen.
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Mr. Smith Goes to a TED Talk
There was a TED talk posted on a technology oriented page at work a short time ago. The talk itself was not terribly interesting or relevant; it was the kind of talk that a corporate environment doesn't find very threatening, while trying to promote some claimed new type of thinking.
But all TED talks have links to other TED talks below them that seem to be relevant according to some key words or computer algorithm or something. One link led to another and after listening to a few more talks, I came across Larry Smith's talk on Why You Will Fail to Have a Great Career. I listened to it with mild interest before moving on to efforts more focused to current work, but that talk kept lurking in the back of my brain.
I've listened to it a few more times. Some of the posted discussion after the talk centered on more of the minutia of why Mr. Smith is saying we won't have a good career - his specific examples are not what I think he is actually talking about. It is unfortunate that one must wade through the plebeian "Best TED ever!" comments to get to some of the more interesting discussion...
What I actually think Mr. Smith is saying is just that most of us have more general reasons as to why we won't have the great singularly career-focused life, and this is far more dangerous - more along the lines of career is all that matters, and everyone outside of those obsessively focused will fail at life by design.
Mr. Smith references the revered Steven J(obs) - do you think Steve Jobs was ever able to go on a vacation without his iPhone?
Mr. Smith goes so far as to denigrate the inventor of Velcro, not acknowledging the huge impact wonderful things like Velcro have had on life; more broadly denigrating those who create and invent small improvements that make every day life easier and better, more interesting (I'm baffled by his issue with interesting)! He is looking down on those whose ambitions don't start in the clouds - he is criticizing one brand of passion at the expense of another, by only his own nebulous distinction. Within a few feet of me as I type this are probably at least 10 hook and loop fasteners quietly doing their jobs - quietly when not being opened. Even disposable diapers now use a very inexpensive but surprisingly effective form of hook and loop to fasten. But Mr. Smith patronizes Velcro as worthy of only derision. A great career can only be one on the scale that creates a grand unifying theory of physics and a Nobel prize? Great ideas are almost never huge, grand eurekas, but are more likely due to an inquisitive person staring down at something and saying, "Geez, that is funny." This is then followed by an interesting idea that builds to something else that seems so simply obvious after the fact that everyone else says, "Why didn't I think of that?" How often is something new compared to the exceptionally mundane "sliced bread" - I've never heard anyone say, "That is the best thing since Loop Quantum Gravity Theory!"
In a subsequent interview, Mr. Smith advocates looking for a passion. Life is littered with people who look for, and invest in something, only to watch it whither with time or realize that personal passion translates poorly to the outside world. I'm quite convinced that "looking" for passion is as likely to fail at greater expense than not having it in the first place. Passion is created organically over time, and the investment to go from an interest to a passion is enormous. And there lies the paradox: passion requires investment, sometimes significant investment, but investment does not guarantee success ... or passion.
I'm reminded of what Bill Withers said, "One of the things I always tell my kids is that it's OK to head out for wonderful, but on your way to wonderful, you're gonna have to pass through all right. When you get to all right, take a good look around and get used to it, because that may be as far as you're gonna go."
I realize this must devolve into talking about work, which I don't do. But best to let this bell ring down naturally at this point.
I've eluded to the job change over the last few months. The extended transition has now run to completion. There is excitement at starting something new, but this transition has had some moments of second guessing as well. Things were both safe and frustrating at my old job, and that may not be the best place to work. My new job (location, focus, coworkers, etc.) is not home though, and a coworker who came from and went to the same organizations a few years ago said it still isn't for him either. This is troubling.
PBS had a short series on the History of the Elements that I caught a few months ago. For all the mired-in-details work, it was an absolute joy to watch as it brought me back to why I got interested in science in the first place. It brought me back to the steep side of the learning curve in high school and as a Freshman in college. It wasn't a Smithsian passion at the age of 18, but the three hours of time spent watching the documentary came at just the right time. And yet, I'm just as happy doing what I am as I would be doing grand first principle theoretical work. I was recently awarded two more patents, for inventions that are probably less life-changing than Velcro. Warp drive indeed...
There are no shortage of people who complain about TED Talks - either generically or specific talks. I like Ted talks; many make me think. The short format is a good contrast to dictatorial diatribes, and if any given talk doesn't turn out to be interesting or as advertised, not listening to it is as easy as listening. Just one click.
Susan Cain's talk on Introverts is one that I've listened to a few times. This has also surprisingly been used at work. I say this is surprising, not because it isn't a great talk, but surprising since cubicles are ever-present, and being replaced by the even more heinous "agile office space." Her comments on group work are almost too on target. Sadly, teamwork can devolve into group-think of the loudest voice, or often the best interrupter.
After watching many TED Talks, I think the best TED talk may not actually be a TED Talk at all. Parody as art form, but the format is more a caricature of the intellectualesque bourgeoisie than of TED Talks in particular.
With all deference to Mr. Smith, who is a respected economist at the University of Waterloo, I don't know if I have a good career, a great career or a lousy one. And I don't care. My job should work for me as much as I do for it.
Whether anyone has a great career is secondary to whether that person has a good life. A job, a career, should be a tool, one of many, to lead the interesting life. Anything on top of that is just a bonus.
I'll end by turning to Bronnie Ware, as I have before, and suggest that very few people at the end of life will lament that their career wasn't great enough. If only...
But all TED talks have links to other TED talks below them that seem to be relevant according to some key words or computer algorithm or something. One link led to another and after listening to a few more talks, I came across Larry Smith's talk on Why You Will Fail to Have a Great Career. I listened to it with mild interest before moving on to efforts more focused to current work, but that talk kept lurking in the back of my brain.
I've listened to it a few more times. Some of the posted discussion after the talk centered on more of the minutia of why Mr. Smith is saying we won't have a good career - his specific examples are not what I think he is actually talking about. It is unfortunate that one must wade through the plebeian "Best TED ever!" comments to get to some of the more interesting discussion...
What I actually think Mr. Smith is saying is just that most of us have more general reasons as to why we won't have the great singularly career-focused life, and this is far more dangerous - more along the lines of career is all that matters, and everyone outside of those obsessively focused will fail at life by design.
Mr. Smith references the revered Steven J(obs) - do you think Steve Jobs was ever able to go on a vacation without his iPhone?
Mr. Smith goes so far as to denigrate the inventor of Velcro, not acknowledging the huge impact wonderful things like Velcro have had on life; more broadly denigrating those who create and invent small improvements that make every day life easier and better, more interesting (I'm baffled by his issue with interesting)! He is looking down on those whose ambitions don't start in the clouds - he is criticizing one brand of passion at the expense of another, by only his own nebulous distinction. Within a few feet of me as I type this are probably at least 10 hook and loop fasteners quietly doing their jobs - quietly when not being opened. Even disposable diapers now use a very inexpensive but surprisingly effective form of hook and loop to fasten. But Mr. Smith patronizes Velcro as worthy of only derision. A great career can only be one on the scale that creates a grand unifying theory of physics and a Nobel prize? Great ideas are almost never huge, grand eurekas, but are more likely due to an inquisitive person staring down at something and saying, "Geez, that is funny." This is then followed by an interesting idea that builds to something else that seems so simply obvious after the fact that everyone else says, "Why didn't I think of that?" How often is something new compared to the exceptionally mundane "sliced bread" - I've never heard anyone say, "That is the best thing since Loop Quantum Gravity Theory!"
In a subsequent interview, Mr. Smith advocates looking for a passion. Life is littered with people who look for, and invest in something, only to watch it whither with time or realize that personal passion translates poorly to the outside world. I'm quite convinced that "looking" for passion is as likely to fail at greater expense than not having it in the first place. Passion is created organically over time, and the investment to go from an interest to a passion is enormous. And there lies the paradox: passion requires investment, sometimes significant investment, but investment does not guarantee success ... or passion.
I'm reminded of what Bill Withers said, "One of the things I always tell my kids is that it's OK to head out for wonderful, but on your way to wonderful, you're gonna have to pass through all right. When you get to all right, take a good look around and get used to it, because that may be as far as you're gonna go."
I realize this must devolve into talking about work, which I don't do. But best to let this bell ring down naturally at this point.
I've eluded to the job change over the last few months. The extended transition has now run to completion. There is excitement at starting something new, but this transition has had some moments of second guessing as well. Things were both safe and frustrating at my old job, and that may not be the best place to work. My new job (location, focus, coworkers, etc.) is not home though, and a coworker who came from and went to the same organizations a few years ago said it still isn't for him either. This is troubling.
PBS had a short series on the History of the Elements that I caught a few months ago. For all the mired-in-details work, it was an absolute joy to watch as it brought me back to why I got interested in science in the first place. It brought me back to the steep side of the learning curve in high school and as a Freshman in college. It wasn't a Smithsian passion at the age of 18, but the three hours of time spent watching the documentary came at just the right time. And yet, I'm just as happy doing what I am as I would be doing grand first principle theoretical work. I was recently awarded two more patents, for inventions that are probably less life-changing than Velcro. Warp drive indeed...
There are no shortage of people who complain about TED Talks - either generically or specific talks. I like Ted talks; many make me think. The short format is a good contrast to dictatorial diatribes, and if any given talk doesn't turn out to be interesting or as advertised, not listening to it is as easy as listening. Just one click.
Susan Cain's talk on Introverts is one that I've listened to a few times. This has also surprisingly been used at work. I say this is surprising, not because it isn't a great talk, but surprising since cubicles are ever-present, and being replaced by the even more heinous "agile office space." Her comments on group work are almost too on target. Sadly, teamwork can devolve into group-think of the loudest voice, or often the best interrupter.
After watching many TED Talks, I think the best TED talk may not actually be a TED Talk at all. Parody as art form, but the format is more a caricature of the intellectualesque bourgeoisie than of TED Talks in particular.
With all deference to Mr. Smith, who is a respected economist at the University of Waterloo, I don't know if I have a good career, a great career or a lousy one. And I don't care. My job should work for me as much as I do for it.
Whether anyone has a great career is secondary to whether that person has a good life. A job, a career, should be a tool, one of many, to lead the interesting life. Anything on top of that is just a bonus.
I'll end by turning to Bronnie Ware, as I have before, and suggest that very few people at the end of life will lament that their career wasn't great enough. If only...
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Summer's First Bounty
They spring up this time of year, seemingly overnight. Zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, maybe some misshapen bell peppers. Nope, I'm not talking about the garden. I'm talking about produce at the office.
Every place I've worked at in my adult life has collection spots where food converges. Often this is leftover food from meetings, with clear indications of what people do not like. But this time of year, vegetables start to sprout up that were brought in from home.
Gardens start out with good intentions, but painfully don't meet even meager intentions. More often, the most anticipated fare is coaxed into producing only a few delectable morsels while the general haul is filled with far too much of some other edible that begins to take on weed status, crowding all others out.
My 2011 garden was my last really ambitious one. In what can only be described as exceedingly poor planning, I created that garden just outside of the reach of the closest garden hose. I also started many of my plants in peat containers that I failed to heed the directions and rip the bottom off of when planting outside. Between the subsequent poor root growth, questionable clay soil, difficulty watering, incessant invasion by weeds and rabbits, and my general laziness, that 2011 garden produced basically nothing. A big garden seems like a good idea on those cool spring afternoons, but weeding takes on a hateful attitude in July's heat and humidity. That 2011 location just out of reach of the garden hose has now been reenlisted to general lawn duty. Not that the lawn is that much better than the garden, but it doesn't come with the same sense of acute failure every time I look at it. I'm content with the chronic sense of failure that the lawn elicits.
More recently, the flower beds have been reenlisted for garden duty. SO had the great idea to employ landscaping fabric and mulch, also using much sturdier garden stakes that can actually hold up to a tomato plant. Regardless of one's belief in mixing flowers and produce plants, the beds look as good as they ever have.
Three of the four tomato plants are producing well. The small sweet red cherry tomatos are great for drive-by eating. The medium Cherokee Purples have grown to unexpected proportions. The larger Cherokee Purples are overlaiden with green fruit - oddly warped in a way that only heirloom vegetables can be proud of.
I impulsively planted seeds taken from store-bought Kumatos. Only one sprouted, and I discarded the rest only to see that dumping them may have been premature as new sprouts were evident a short time later. Perhaps that was prescient; so far the Kumato plant has happily created copious flowers, but not a single fruit. I am beginning to suspect that Syngenta has played some gene warfare game on Kumatos. And I thought eugenics had been discarded in Europe?
In a fit of depression, the one lone pumpkin plant appears to have committed suicide. Sad to see life cut so short when it had so much more to live for.
Someone's garden cucumbers showed up at work last week. I've never understood why "burpless" cucumbers were marketed until I ate one of those gratis cucumbers over the next few days. Yes it was tasty ... the first time. Since they sell burpless varieties, I'm now searching for where the burps go. There must be a cucumber variety sold as super burpy - there is a market, however niche, for everything!
I have contemplated in the past bringing a durian in to work and placing it at the food location. It would be interesting to see the reaction of those who know what it is, as they recoil in horror and wonder where it came from, compared to those who have never been exposed to it and wonder what to do with it. Cutting into it at work may result in new rules for office-appropriate food.
Summer will soon give way to fall and more overripe vegetables that seem to whither and rot within the time span of a work day. November 1 will eventually arrive, when leftover Halloween candy pushes away anything healthy and green in the office food spot. The candy disappears quickly. Except those few hard candies with partially open wrappers or broken lemon suckers, which seem to linger until they are mercifully discarded.
Every place I've worked at in my adult life has collection spots where food converges. Often this is leftover food from meetings, with clear indications of what people do not like. But this time of year, vegetables start to sprout up that were brought in from home.
Gardens start out with good intentions, but painfully don't meet even meager intentions. More often, the most anticipated fare is coaxed into producing only a few delectable morsels while the general haul is filled with far too much of some other edible that begins to take on weed status, crowding all others out.
"Seed catalogs are responsible for more unfulfilled fantasies than Enron and Playboy combined." - Michael Perry
Someday nobody will remember what an Enron is and will have to read on Wikipedia to be reminded.My 2011 garden was my last really ambitious one. In what can only be described as exceedingly poor planning, I created that garden just outside of the reach of the closest garden hose. I also started many of my plants in peat containers that I failed to heed the directions and rip the bottom off of when planting outside. Between the subsequent poor root growth, questionable clay soil, difficulty watering, incessant invasion by weeds and rabbits, and my general laziness, that 2011 garden produced basically nothing. A big garden seems like a good idea on those cool spring afternoons, but weeding takes on a hateful attitude in July's heat and humidity. That 2011 location just out of reach of the garden hose has now been reenlisted to general lawn duty. Not that the lawn is that much better than the garden, but it doesn't come with the same sense of acute failure every time I look at it. I'm content with the chronic sense of failure that the lawn elicits.
More recently, the flower beds have been reenlisted for garden duty. SO had the great idea to employ landscaping fabric and mulch, also using much sturdier garden stakes that can actually hold up to a tomato plant. Regardless of one's belief in mixing flowers and produce plants, the beds look as good as they ever have.
Three of the four tomato plants are producing well. The small sweet red cherry tomatos are great for drive-by eating. The medium Cherokee Purples have grown to unexpected proportions. The larger Cherokee Purples are overlaiden with green fruit - oddly warped in a way that only heirloom vegetables can be proud of.
I impulsively planted seeds taken from store-bought Kumatos. Only one sprouted, and I discarded the rest only to see that dumping them may have been premature as new sprouts were evident a short time later. Perhaps that was prescient; so far the Kumato plant has happily created copious flowers, but not a single fruit. I am beginning to suspect that Syngenta has played some gene warfare game on Kumatos. And I thought eugenics had been discarded in Europe?
In a fit of depression, the one lone pumpkin plant appears to have committed suicide. Sad to see life cut so short when it had so much more to live for.
Someone's garden cucumbers showed up at work last week. I've never understood why "burpless" cucumbers were marketed until I ate one of those gratis cucumbers over the next few days. Yes it was tasty ... the first time. Since they sell burpless varieties, I'm now searching for where the burps go. There must be a cucumber variety sold as super burpy - there is a market, however niche, for everything!
I have contemplated in the past bringing a durian in to work and placing it at the food location. It would be interesting to see the reaction of those who know what it is, as they recoil in horror and wonder where it came from, compared to those who have never been exposed to it and wonder what to do with it. Cutting into it at work may result in new rules for office-appropriate food.
Summer will soon give way to fall and more overripe vegetables that seem to whither and rot within the time span of a work day. November 1 will eventually arrive, when leftover Halloween candy pushes away anything healthy and green in the office food spot. The candy disappears quickly. Except those few hard candies with partially open wrappers or broken lemon suckers, which seem to linger until they are mercifully discarded.
Saturday, August 6, 2016
REC TEC Pellet Smoker!
After two failed attempts to find a lunch spot while on a cross-country motorcycle trip in 2014, I ended up getting a Burnt Ends and Pieces sandwich in Chariton, Iowa which ranks as one of the best lunches I've ever had. The sandwich contained smoked chicken, pork and beef bits on a bun - simple, but exquisite as real barbecue should be.
That cross-country adventure had an inordinate amount of smoked meats, with another barbecue joint in Farmington, New Mexico also quite memorable.
I already had an inexpensive water smoker, given to me from a former coworker's husband over a decade ago. I've used it a few times, but it has terrible temperature control and the charcoal tends to extinguish itself after the ash reaches a certain level.
A few times over the last couple years, I've looked at pellet smokers, and golly some of those things are expensive. But one of the 10 Rules of Life is that the cheapest bid is almost never the best deal.
Traeger used to be the only game in the pellet smokin' town, but once their patent expired in 2007, many competitors came on the scene greatly accelerating improvements to the overall design and features available in pellet smokers. Around the same time, the original Traeger Company was sold to a conglomerate, and has been resold a few more times. Now pellet smokers are available below the bargain basement price of $300 with seemingly no upper limit to fully customized units. Sadly, it seems the entry-level Traeger smokers have cost saved themselves into second tier.
Reading reviews of smokers is much like reading reviews of lots of other products. There are lots of good grills and smokers available; I use the term smoker since for actual high heat grilling, I still prefer a raging-hot charcoal grill. People are more likely to complain than they are to praise, and many reviewers give very low ratings for things that others might find trivial, or will give one star solely due to something being made in China.
Off shore manufacturing doesn't necessarily equate to low quality. There may be a tendency for Asian manufacturers to have issues, but quality is still something that can be controlled regardless of where it is made. There is one pellet smoker which is manufactured in the US that I didn't want to touch at even half the price - mostly because of inadequate support for some real observed issues. Witness what happens when poor quality and lack of support combine.
What I really wanted in the pellet smoker was small size, good build quality and I definitely wanted a solid temperature control system since that is the heart of the smoker. The cheapest units' slow/medium/fast augers wouldn't cut it. PID controllers would be best, but not an absolute necessity since it sounds like some of the intermediate options actually worked pretty well.
I finally had the choice narrowed down to three units, each with strong and weak points. These were all smaller units in the middling range of price and features. I probably would have been happy with any one of them, but eventually narrowed it down to the REC TEC Mini. While still deciding, I had started to create an order only to second-guess myself on it and think a little more. REC TEC happily sent me an email reminding me I had an unfinished order. Shipping was much cheaper when ordering directly from REC TEC so I went that route instead of Amazon. The smoker arrived quickly although somehow the FedEx driver got up and down my driveway in the evening without me seeing him. The smoker arrived in great condition. My starter box of hardwood pellets ... not so much.
Even if the box had been bumped around a bit, the smoker is packed very well. In addition to a functionally brief manual, there was a business card including the direct contact information for the REC TEC owners, should it be needed. This was a nice touch and is evidence they stand behind their products.
Once unpacked, the smoker only takes a few minutes to set up. I'm a strong believer in function over form, but the unit sure does look neat.
REC TEC advises that an initial burn be used to give the powder coating a final set, as well as burn off any manufacturing effluvia. Once that was complete, I was ready to smoke.
When done right, ribs are probably my first choice for meat. Even mediocre ribs can be pretty good as long as they are not boiled. Pre-smoker, my typical method of cooking them was to wrap them loosely with aluminum foil and bake them for a few hours, finishing them on a charcoal grill with sauce as a glaze. Some sauces are OK, but I've always believed that really good smoked meat needs, at most, a very small amount of sauce. My first meal on the smoker had to be baby back ribs with a simple dry rub.
I made a dry rub from sea salt, paprika, fresh ground pepper and brown sugar. Setting up the smoker, I smoked those babies for four hours at 230F, spritzing them at hour two and three with a mixture of cider vinegar, olive oil, garlic and just a touch of soy sauce. The REC TEC smoker worked very well, holding temperature rock solid as long as I didn't open it up for too long. Given that this was the first use of it, it was hard not to frequently peak inside.
The results were very good. I was really surprised how much honest smoke flavor was well-incorporated into the meat. I probably had a bit too much salt in the rub, and that demonstrates the fun I'll have in the near future as I tweak the ribs ... and eat them all.
The following day I tried boneless country style ribs - really just a smaller version of pork shoulder. I had to start these before I started to mow the lawn, so I smoked them at a slightly lower temperature of 220F for five hours. I frequently caught a whiff of the smoker when I got near it while mowing, and they continued to smell better and better through the afternoon. As with the ribs, the smoke flavor - good smoke flavor - made these extremely tasty.
With only two meals made, I'm not sure I'm ready to pronounce the smoker a total success nor myself a pitmaster, but it is an excellent start. I can only assume that it will get better with time as I explore new meats, rubs, sauces and ways to use these.
Two things that I'm not enamored with: I like the digital PID Controller and it works great, but it can be hard to see in the bright sunlight.
The wheels on the REC TEC Mini work great when moving the smoker around in my pole barn where it is stored, but my driveway where I use it is gravel and the wheels are pretty useless there. I had an old piece of scrap barn siding and I employed this to easily roll the unit to where it will sit when I'm creating smoke magic.
Both of these issues are minor with solutions easily found. I'm quite happy with my choice of pellet smoker.
I'm not sure I'll be trying to make a burnt ends and pieces sandwich anytime soon. The memory of that lunch is seared in my brain and I don't want to try to compete with it. Besides, food tastes better on vacation and food after hundreds of miles on the bike is even better. Still, as I was eating leftover REC TEC ribs at lunch at work I remarked, "I bought one of those pellet smokers and I'm not sure my life will ever be the same."
That cross-country adventure had an inordinate amount of smoked meats, with another barbecue joint in Farmington, New Mexico also quite memorable.
I already had an inexpensive water smoker, given to me from a former coworker's husband over a decade ago. I've used it a few times, but it has terrible temperature control and the charcoal tends to extinguish itself after the ash reaches a certain level.
A few times over the last couple years, I've looked at pellet smokers, and golly some of those things are expensive. But one of the 10 Rules of Life is that the cheapest bid is almost never the best deal.
Traeger used to be the only game in the pellet smokin' town, but once their patent expired in 2007, many competitors came on the scene greatly accelerating improvements to the overall design and features available in pellet smokers. Around the same time, the original Traeger Company was sold to a conglomerate, and has been resold a few more times. Now pellet smokers are available below the bargain basement price of $300 with seemingly no upper limit to fully customized units. Sadly, it seems the entry-level Traeger smokers have cost saved themselves into second tier.
Reading reviews of smokers is much like reading reviews of lots of other products. There are lots of good grills and smokers available; I use the term smoker since for actual high heat grilling, I still prefer a raging-hot charcoal grill. People are more likely to complain than they are to praise, and many reviewers give very low ratings for things that others might find trivial, or will give one star solely due to something being made in China.
Off shore manufacturing doesn't necessarily equate to low quality. There may be a tendency for Asian manufacturers to have issues, but quality is still something that can be controlled regardless of where it is made. There is one pellet smoker which is manufactured in the US that I didn't want to touch at even half the price - mostly because of inadequate support for some real observed issues. Witness what happens when poor quality and lack of support combine.
What I really wanted in the pellet smoker was small size, good build quality and I definitely wanted a solid temperature control system since that is the heart of the smoker. The cheapest units' slow/medium/fast augers wouldn't cut it. PID controllers would be best, but not an absolute necessity since it sounds like some of the intermediate options actually worked pretty well.
I finally had the choice narrowed down to three units, each with strong and weak points. These were all smaller units in the middling range of price and features. I probably would have been happy with any one of them, but eventually narrowed it down to the REC TEC Mini. While still deciding, I had started to create an order only to second-guess myself on it and think a little more. REC TEC happily sent me an email reminding me I had an unfinished order. Shipping was much cheaper when ordering directly from REC TEC so I went that route instead of Amazon. The smoker arrived quickly although somehow the FedEx driver got up and down my driveway in the evening without me seeing him. The smoker arrived in great condition. My starter box of hardwood pellets ... not so much.
Even if the box had been bumped around a bit, the smoker is packed very well. In addition to a functionally brief manual, there was a business card including the direct contact information for the REC TEC owners, should it be needed. This was a nice touch and is evidence they stand behind their products.
REC TEC advises that an initial burn be used to give the powder coating a final set, as well as burn off any manufacturing effluvia. Once that was complete, I was ready to smoke.
When done right, ribs are probably my first choice for meat. Even mediocre ribs can be pretty good as long as they are not boiled. Pre-smoker, my typical method of cooking them was to wrap them loosely with aluminum foil and bake them for a few hours, finishing them on a charcoal grill with sauce as a glaze. Some sauces are OK, but I've always believed that really good smoked meat needs, at most, a very small amount of sauce. My first meal on the smoker had to be baby back ribs with a simple dry rub.
I made a dry rub from sea salt, paprika, fresh ground pepper and brown sugar. Setting up the smoker, I smoked those babies for four hours at 230F, spritzing them at hour two and three with a mixture of cider vinegar, olive oil, garlic and just a touch of soy sauce. The REC TEC smoker worked very well, holding temperature rock solid as long as I didn't open it up for too long. Given that this was the first use of it, it was hard not to frequently peak inside.
The results were very good. I was really surprised how much honest smoke flavor was well-incorporated into the meat. I probably had a bit too much salt in the rub, and that demonstrates the fun I'll have in the near future as I tweak the ribs ... and eat them all.
The following day I tried boneless country style ribs - really just a smaller version of pork shoulder. I had to start these before I started to mow the lawn, so I smoked them at a slightly lower temperature of 220F for five hours. I frequently caught a whiff of the smoker when I got near it while mowing, and they continued to smell better and better through the afternoon. As with the ribs, the smoke flavor - good smoke flavor - made these extremely tasty.
With only two meals made, I'm not sure I'm ready to pronounce the smoker a total success nor myself a pitmaster, but it is an excellent start. I can only assume that it will get better with time as I explore new meats, rubs, sauces and ways to use these.
Two things that I'm not enamored with: I like the digital PID Controller and it works great, but it can be hard to see in the bright sunlight.
The wheels on the REC TEC Mini work great when moving the smoker around in my pole barn where it is stored, but my driveway where I use it is gravel and the wheels are pretty useless there. I had an old piece of scrap barn siding and I employed this to easily roll the unit to where it will sit when I'm creating smoke magic.
Both of these issues are minor with solutions easily found. I'm quite happy with my choice of pellet smoker.
I'm not sure I'll be trying to make a burnt ends and pieces sandwich anytime soon. The memory of that lunch is seared in my brain and I don't want to try to compete with it. Besides, food tastes better on vacation and food after hundreds of miles on the bike is even better. Still, as I was eating leftover REC TEC ribs at lunch at work I remarked, "I bought one of those pellet smokers and I'm not sure my life will ever be the same."
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