Google Calendar
Monday, January 28th, 2008
Google Calendar has become my calendar app of choice. Because it is web-based, there is no client, or OS dependencies. It does a fantastic job of sharing and displaying multiple calendars. It also worked very well for me on the iPhone until, well, Macworld. It turns out the Google mobile crew updated the Google Calendar GUI for Macworld, giving it a monthly view option, and a slicker look and feel, but at the cost of removing what I consider one of its strongest features–view multiple calendars. Fortunately, I uncovered a work around: From the iphone, tap the “mobile” link at the bottom of the Google Calendar page. Once the Google Mobile page loads, tap “Calendar.” Voila, the old multi-calendar page loads.
I was reading about Polenta in Marcella Hazan’s book, “Essentials of Italian Cooking” (available at the Deli) because I’ve always enjoyed grits, and polenta is like yellow grits. She has an extensive write-up on Polenta and admonishes that the best way to cook it is by stirring in an open pot for 45 minutes. I was aghast. I’d never spent that long on polenta or grits and they tasted fine! Besides my limp geek wrists would give out long before the end. Then I saw that she had a cheater recipe that called for stirring for a minute every ten minutes of cooking - that I could do! So this morning I put 3 1/8 Cups of water, 3/4 Cups coarse italian polenta, and 1/2 Tablespoon salt in a pot and brought it to a boil. Her ratio for polenta to water is 1 x 4.2 which I honored and it worked great. I set the heat and my timer and walked away. First ten revealed soupy lava. Ouch, it’s amazing how hot polenta is when it splashes on you! Second ten pretty much what I’m used to seeing. Third ten same thing. Then something happened between 30 and 40 minutes - the polenta went from grainy to creamy and soft. I did another 10 minutes with an open pot stirring every few minutes and it thickened up a bit more. Though it did NOT pull away cleanly (!) from the sides of the pot, as she writes, it seemed ready to my hungry self. I added some butter, grated Parm, and half a tin of warmed Ortiz spanish tuna. Wow. Unlike any polenta I have ever made - there is something definitely magic that happens around 45 minutes in to the cooking and it is so much better I don’t think I can ever go back. The yield was a bit greater than 2 Cups which is perfect for me.
Until recently I would end up in travel situations, that were otherwise going along swimmingly, sitting in frustration in a hotel room, or a friend’s guest room, trying to figure out where to plug in my various electronic gear to charge. Then I spotted one of these mini power strips from Monster called Outlets To Go. The first one I ran across had four outlets but they make them in 3 and 6 outlets as well. My favorite is the 3 - it is the smallest and lightest and I rarely have more than three items to plug in. I was so happy with it that I bought one for both Jillian and for my Mom. They run around $12 at Amazon. I think we may carry a few in the IT “store” with our USB flash drives and extra power supplies that staff can pick up from us.Oh, and I’m not sure whether to share this last part or leave it as a surprise, but the connector that goes into the wall has a soft blue nightlight built-in.
In July, 2005 the IT department started using a help desk. The help desk lets us manage the requests that come in each day; we track progress on issues, communicate with clients, document solutions and share our knowledge. It’s a good thing, and I can’t imagine doing our work as well as we do without it. One of the first entries in the desk was a vision for how IT and the ZCoB would use it. (The vision also had winning a D$E award or two for it, which has become reality.) Since then we’ve averaged 170 tickets/month. We’re pretty durn proud of that, and especially proud of the ZCoB for embracing our system. We thought 5,000 was an impresssive, round number worth commemorating, so to celebrate we had a trophy made up (thanks 
