A Good Breakfast... and more cooking

I saw this in my head while reading the newspaper's food section this morning, so I thought I'd make it for breakfast. What's this "it" you ask? It was a fried egg, two thin slices of tomato on a one piece of buttered honeywheat bread. I cooked it in one pad or Nucoa and seasoned the egg with Morton's Nature's seasoning. It gives food more flavor than just salt or pepper would. I could of added a piece of Danola ham, but I was out. I was out of tomato, too, for that matter, so after I dropped my son off at school, I took a drive over to Sprouts in Irvine and gathered some fresh ingredients for breakfast and dinner. I wish I lived in a more temperate climate so that the fruit and vegetable prices would not fluctuate so much because of the cold winter months. I bought lemons for .50 cents each. Why am I not growing a lemon tree on my patio?

So the recipe I'm going to try out is one for some sort of lemon bars I clipped out of the newspaper this morning. I have to make it with Nucoa because I can't have milk so it's questionable whether it will turn out O.K. or not. Sometimes it does, and sometimes I have to tweak it a little for my non-dairy life. It seems you're destined to live a bakery-deprived life when you cannot tolerate milk and that just somehow seems wrong to me.

On Thanksgiving Day

So today is Thanksgiving Day; a time to celibrate what we have been blessed with and thankful for as another year goes by in our lives. The menu is supposed to be representative of the first harvest festival in October1621 held by settlers at Plymouth, Massachusetts (1). These same folks were the survivors of the Mayflower crossing in 1620. Turkey, corn and greens, I imagine.

This is my menu for Thanksgiving 2007:
turkey
stuffing
cranberry gel
turkey gravy
mashed potatoes
baby peas and pearl onions
herbed sourdough bread

...and for desert...
apple pie
pumpkin pie

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Citations:

(1)Pilgrim Hall - The First Thanksgiving http://www.pilgrimhall.org/f_thanks.htm

My .99 Cents Only Store is the shit...

Today's .99 Cents only shopping spree:

16 month calendar - "Lighthouses" MSRP $9.95
(2) cooling racks - (says Walmart on the label)
Hunt's brand Meat Spaghetti Sauce
Sugar in the Raw - 25 packs
Heavy duty foil - 30 ft
coffee scoop - Everyday Values
collapsible plastic organizer
clear blue recycling bags w/ draw string, 10 ct, 30 gallons

When was the last time you bought a new TV?

This blog was spurred by the fact that on October 1st, 2007, Best Buy pulled all analog TV's from it's store shelves and stopped selling them. See: Best Buy pulls plug on analog TVs.

When was the last time you bought a new TV? Do you have a high definition receiver? If you do, then well good for you. But if you do not, then I might suggest that you get one sometime in 2008. Why the rush? Well, it's because your big, boxy television set will be of no use to you after February 18th, 2009. This is the date mandated to be the cut-off point for your analog television signal. Without a converter set-top box or a television that can handle a digital signal, you're going to miss the boat.

Do you remember when they used to call TVs television sets? A set of what? I thought maybe it was a set because it had a received and an antenna, but I could be wrong. Now in today's world, the only people with antenna are those with the satellite subscriber service. When was the last time your friends talked about installing a big, bulky black wire mesh bowl of a satellite dish in the back yard? Personally, I've only seen one in my lifetime up close and that's because my father loved that kind of cutting edge stuff as much as I now do.

Probably in 2001, I think, I purchase a rear projection TV from Howard's as a Christmas gift to me. It was delivered on NYE, and for my first full day of use, I sat on the couch mesmerized by the sight of the Pasadena Rose Parade on my 47 inch screen.

This past summer, I got itchy for HD radio, but my son talked me out of it. So instead, I looked for a HD digital receiver set-top box to accompany my huge ass TV. I found one at Circuit City in Brea for less than $200. Took it home and hooked it up and again, it was that same gaze in my eyes of wondering how the make the picture so amazing.

What is going to top this, I wonder. The highest picture quality now available to the consumer is achieved at 1080i.

Los Angeles Water Patrol

On November 12th, KABC Channel 7, Los Angeles, had LA Mayor Villaragosa talking about water conservation and how the DWP, which is the major supplier for water and power in Los Angeles county, will be conducting patrols to advise residents about water conservation.

LA does have water usage rules. Did you forget? They are not as severe as other areas like New Mexico or Georgia, but it's important to know that:

1. You cannot water hard surfaces such as side walks, walkways, driveways or parking areas.

2. You cannot water your lawn during these times:
April 1st to September 30th - 10Am to 5PM
October 1st to March 31st - 11Am to 3PM

3. Allow excess water from your sprinklers to flood the gutters.

4. Use water to clean, fill, or maintain fountains unless it has a recirculating system.

5. Serve water in eating establishments until the customer asks for it.

6. Allow water leaks to go unattended.

In addition, LA residents are also encouraged to:

1. Fax leaky faucets and install an airator.

2. Use a broom instead of a hose to clean paved surfaces.

3. Shorten your showers and install a water restrictor.

4. Adjust your sprinklers to water the greenery only, not the sidewalks, street or drive way.

5. Run only full loans in your dishwasher and laundry machines.

The goal is to reduce the city's water usage by atleast 10 percent. If this can't be achieved, you better bet they will whip out the ticket system and fine you... you-you-you water waster.

The job search is on

This is my first weekend knowing that on Monday morning, I have no job to go to. I was laid off on Tuesday from one of those subprime mortgage companies you've heard all the bad news about. Well, now that bad news has spread itself on my piece of bread and I'm not happy about it. Who would be happy about loosing their job anyway unless you absolutely freakin hated it.

The OC Register has few prospects for me. I don't like the fact that when I read an ad that is even mildly appealing to me, and my skill set semi matches the set they are looking for, the wage is grossly lower than mine was. ACK. You could say I was a sort of a person that wore a lot of diffferent hats - MERS Administrator/Specialist/Data Analyst and working with the Servicing's correspondence as well as in the end began to learn the customer complaints deskas part of Compliance, too, and performed the per diem interest refunds for new loans. I was somewhere between an operations unit secretary and a paralegal. So when I read an posting for paralegal, I'm under qualified but if I read a posting for a administrative assistant, I'm over qualified. It's frustrating to say the least. If there was a chance that a job in the financial servicing industry was available again, I'm quite squeamish about taking it note the experience with this company. I know I shouldn't be, but the industry won't bounce back from the credit woes for about two years - my prediction. All of the adjustable rate loans need to reset or cycle out and resolve, either by refi/payoff or FCL/REO.

So online, I've been hitting the EDD quite hard to glean information about employment opportunities through that website. I'd like to know if because of the industry I was laid off from, if there is any opportunity to get retained for one that at least I can get a comparable pay in. The site listed training classes from June? But I don't remember seeing one, again, with the same pay rate I was getting, so why would I even want to consider retraining if the prospects are low wage jobs?

So I'm continuing my search...

The sky is falling

So now that I have all this damn ass free time, I decided that I absolutely hate my drop ceiling in the kitchen area and want to tear it down. I've been contemplating it all week. Actually, I've been contemplating it for a while, but only recently, have I made plans, like repairing the ceiling and replacing the light.

So after three days of semi-idleness, Saturday morning is the day I decide to tear it all out. I wake-up early, and start to remove the acoustic tiles. I started by the sink and worked my way out toward the frig on the other side of the room. So by the time I get to the last tile, my back is turned to the light fixture that is suspended in the middle of the room and I hear this huge crash behind me. I turn my head to see the light now positioned face up on the kitchen floor. I think of how many thousands of times I have walked under that damn thing and now that I'm so glad its gone. I still have to remove the railing, but the hazard is no more.

Once all the railing is removed, I have to patch the holes and then apply the knockdown texture to the ceiling area that never got any-thank you. Then I can paint. I'm thinking ceiling white and then after the cabinets get stripped, I'll pick a real color like egg shell or cream... something a tad warmer than the stark white I started with in each room. I'm looking at new products made out of portland cement and recycled colored glass for a solid counter top surface because I think a tiled one makes the room look smaller. I think it's called ice stone. Anyway, wish me good luck with the project. One of many that hopefully gets more into a completed state because we use the kitchen too much for it not to be nice and done.

Doomsday

The feeling of impending doom in the pit of my stomach finally occurred, as expected. Yesterday, I was laid off from my job. I worked for this company for approximately 4 years and 184 days, give or take holidays, sick days, and rare personal day. It also was the same length of time I have been in the mortgage industry. Not many left can say they worked there longer than I did. As my friend would say, I wore many hats. I was the collateral control manager at one time, the vault manager, a supervisor. I handled trailing documents, collateral files, credit files, imaging, shipping, document exceptions, notary, MERS, assignments, and in the end, customer complaints, per diem interest refunds, and correspondence processing for the Legal Dept. and Servicing. I set-up processes and defined systems, programs, and wrote procedures. I learned about things I would not have thought I would of ever needed to know, like FIPS, geocoding, census tracts, crystal reports, and more SQL queries than you can shake a stick at because for the most part, I was my own report writer, too.

Prior to this, the company and it's investor were my clients. I networked to get into this job and now it's basically gone because the funding faucet was turned off yesterday. No fundings means no job for me.

So now what? Well, I have a few things I want to get done this week around the house. I'm working on my budget, I have to make a doctors appointment while I have my medical insurance and I'm networking again to see if my friends can get me a job, too. I will temp again, if I have to, but all in all I'm in better shape than most financially. I am hopeful because right now, the doom is gone and hope and looking forward is all I've got.