The World of Scott Mindeaux

My friend Mike

Well someone started sawing on a table saw at around 9 this morning and it damn woke me up. Then the dog next door, who always howls when his master is gone, was at it again. So I lay there..contemplating what to do and get up. I started flipping thru channels in desperate search for a home improvement show. None to be found that early on a Sunday. I went online to do the roommate hunt thing and found a few leads. 10:30am came and Mario left for the gym. I watched an old episode of Stargate. It was the one where some rich guy on Earth kidnaps Carter to find out her secrets about a safe Go’aould extraction process. In case you don’t remember, Carter was able to have her symbiot removed. The symbiot this guy wanted was someone who came thru the Russian Stargate. Suffice it to say, the team saved Carter, but the symbiot was implanted in the rich guy and he is now evil.

I had Pro Baking to TA today. I got ready for class. When I got there, Carol had a big smile on her face and she said…I hear you have some news! I stared at her blankly and with a quirky smile I said “you did???” I told her about Sur La Table. She was happy for me. There were other students there, and they were happy for me as well. We talked about the job and I mentioned some of the chefs that have taught at the school. I mentioned Bonnie Moore and her eyes opened up! Carol knew Bonnie! Carol used to live in Wash DC so she knew a lot of people. Today in class we were concentrating on chocolate cakes. We made a Chocolate Buttermilk Cake, a Chocolate Decadence Cade, Chocolate Buttercream Frosting and Ganache. I wish I wasn’t so allergic to Chocolate.

Class went a little long today. We were in class until almost 7:00 tonite. When I got home, I called my friend Mike Freedman in Florida. He actually called me during class and I told him I had to call him after class. It was so good to hear form him. Mike and I have known each other now for over 6 or 7 years now. Mike’s kewl. He works for Eckerd Drug Store in their HR department down in Florida. He and I have been cyber friends and haven’t actually met in person yet. He doesn’t travel much out of state and I haven’t been down to Florida since I was about 9 years old. But someday I will see him. We talked for about 2 hours tonite. Catching up on old times and just enjoying each other conversation. It was getting late for Mike so we talked about all the fun talks we had in the past. We used to talk like everyday with each other.

Halfway thru talking with Mike, I realized that I was missing the season premiere of Sex in the City. OH well…I’ll have to catch it later in the week. After talking to Mike I headed upstairs to make some dinner. I made some real quick chicken stir fry.

After dinner I watched a little TV (Buffy) and headed to bed. I’ll talk to y’all tomorrow!
P.S. Wish me luck. I find out about the Sur La Table job tomorrow.

P.S.S. Mike, never, ever, ever again tell me the story about the roach falling on your roommates face in the middle of the nite. EWWWWWW!

Saturday, need I say more?

It was an early morning for me. I sat up in bed and wanted to go back to sleep. I went online to start looking for rooms for rent in Arlington, VA. Lots of prospects. I also went online to check out moving companies and the like.

I had to TA a class today. It was the 2nd of 4 classes for Basic Cooking. THis week we prepared Fish. This is such a good group. Rick and David did the Thai Curry Red Snapper, while Tara and Amber worked on the Grilled Salmon with Tomatillos. Teri and Michael worked on some good crabcakes while Marc and Noah did the Kung Pao Shrimp.

When I got home I took a nap and went online to do more roommate searches. I watched two episodes of Trading Spaces and Iron Chef. Today on IC the secret ingredients was 30 year old Giant Lobsters. Oh my god..these lobsters were HUGE. We talking bigger than a small poodle!

I wanted to go out tonite and I still may. We’ll see how I feel. OH well… we’ll talk to y’all tomorrow!

A secret meeting

Then and I got into the office around the same time and found the IT room dark and lifeless. It was like a bad Star Trek episode. The lights were off and columns of light were peeking thru the removed ceiling tiles. You could hear computer fans running and screens on, but no one sitting at their stations. Scott to Ken: “Is everyone eating already?” Ken replies “Let’s head up”. We both walked up to the front to find part of the gang already completing their morning breakfast. John and Josie were on their way. I had my usual tomato, onion and bacon omelets. John and Josie showed up and grabbed some food as well. Joe left with Ken following shortly. Then Dave and John left. Josie, Dan and I stayed behind to finish our food and chat.

When I got back to my desk I had several tickets that I had to get to. Kelly Matheny has been desperate for her scanner. Now, the scanner only got in last Friday, but she placed the order back in June. I went into the cage to get it out. Meanwhile, Matt Harris called out my name and he was accompanied by his new boss, Robert. Robert and I shook hands, intro’d ourselves and talked about upcoming projects.

Here’s a secret that I have not made very public until now. After work I was meeting with a representative from Sur La Table. Sur La Table sells kitchenware and some of their stores have cooking schools in them. I have been interviewing to be a Culinary Program Coordinator for a store back in Washington DC. Arlington, VA to be exact.

Yep…you read right….back in Washington DC. After being back in Los Angeles for 3 years, I have decided that I want to return to the Washington DC area. As far as the interview went, I think it went very well. I met with Carolyn Mullaney, an area manager for Sur La Table. I went to their Santa Monica location off the 3rd street Promenade and met with here for over an hour. Suffice it to say we’ll find out how my interview went on Monday morning.

Michael Shanks returned to Stargate SG1 this week. Jack who was hosting a symbiot that went to a system lord fortress to get his Lotor… On Farscape, Creighton (sp) is able to predict his first and second wormhole appearances. Then they run into this “plant” in space that ate metal.

Well its been a long day….time for bed. Nite!

Here a ticket, there a ticket, everywhere a ticket ticket

The last two days have been a whirlwind. So much going on. Ticket here, ticket there, everywhere a ticket it seems. Yesterday was your normal work day. Had lunch at the Richmond Grill in El Segundo and had those kewl chips. I had the Killer Burger again and paid for it later when I started getting acid reflux. Yech….

Today went by pretty fast. This morning came to find that Dan and Robert were spatting over Robert’s over-use of the carts. He sorta has a habit of putting equipment on a cart, then never remove it. Dan was in search of a cart and they were full. Then they both had a food tray throwing contest it seemed. This morning was the release of Mattel’s 2nd quarter numbers. We apparently met expectations, but sales were down. Normal for 2nd quarter. There was an Employee Update, but no one knew about it. I started a campaign to outfit the rear back entrance of the Design Center with a communication center. They’re going to put up bulletin boards and an easel for announcements. I had to run an errand for lunch. Headed over to the Mall to pickup a couple of things. Stopped by the house before heading back. The afternoon was spent trying to fix a video editing system. When I got home I decided to take a nap. I was really tired. I watched some Buffy, Changing Rooms and ER. Its time for bed…. nite!

Creating Fonts

Well off to work I go. Straight to my desk and before I even get my stuff put down, the cell phone goes off and 2 people walk up to the cube. Then at 9:00am we had our weekly Macintosh meeting. We all showed up and went over how the move was progressing upstairs, Dan wanted to talk about ARD and OSX. We had 7 pages of tickets!! We painstakingly went thru all the tickets. We ended u with about 14 tickets a piece. Dave was concentrating on the 2nd floor, Dan in Maple, Ken on printer nightmares and me with all the rest.

A good portion of my morning was trying to fix a font problem. We had some fonts that were created for a particular project. The fonts would not bold or italicize. On the screen it would bold and italicize, but when we tried printing, it wouldn’t. After a couple of hours, I had a revelation. What was different today from before. They just recently starting printing to a postscript printer. So, as a test I printed to a non-postscript printer. IT WORKED!! THis font, evidently, wasn’t created properly. I tried to contact the author of the font, but haven’t heard from him yet.

Lunch was pretty quiet. John M, Joe and I went to Sizzler and had Soup and Salad bar. I had 2 salads, some chicken wings and onion rings. Quite a filling lunch. Better than the one I had last Friday!

After lunch was back to ticket world. By the time I looked up it was 4:45 already. I left work at 6:15 and headed for home. Mario was home and was getting ready to head out for OUTFEST. The rest f the night was watching Buffy and that new show on FoodTV: The Thirsty Traveler. Then I watched an old Star Trek TNG episode.

Time for bed…..nite everyone.

Bad Mexican, bad Mexican…food

Ok. Last nite I went and had Carnitas as a Mexican restaurant down in Hermosa Beach and it starts with an R. They tasted fine at dinner. It had the basic sides: beans, rice, Pico de Gallo and flour tortillas. I got home last nite around 8ish. About an hour or so after dinner I started having major cramps. Cramps then turned into turning my internal plumbing into a nightmare. Suffice it to say, I had to stay home to avoid any “accidents” at work. I stayed in bed most of the day, say, to go to the “banos”.

I finally got out of bed around 7:30ish. I started to make some dinner, reluctantly. But I was famished and dehydrated. After dinner I got a call from my friend who I affectionately call “Abercrombie Boy”. Mark came by after his softball game tonite and we caught up on things. I haven’t seen Mark in over a month. It was good to see him. Especially in his baseball get up!

Well off to bed I go. I spent a good chunk of the nite drinking Ginger Ale…. too many bathroom breaks. See you tomorrow.