Married Life

I was in the shower just now (TMI?) when I realized I have been married now for over 4 months. Wow, how the time flies. One minute I am in a tux watching Sarah walk down the aisle... then next I am in Maui...and now it's been over 120 days.

All my life I have been preparing for this horrible transition to married life. As a kid, I learned about marriage by watched the Honeymooners, I love Lucy, Married with Children, and the Cosby Show.

Like any relationship, we each have our roles. These roles can change, and they do constantly.

I have settled into my duties that comes with being a roommate, or in my case, married. Just like a roommate situation, you each have to do certain things to maintain the status quo. We each share many of the daily tasks like dishes and feeding the cats. Some tasks one of us hates, so the other person takes it upon themselves to do that task all the time. We each have started to find our own unique groove.

My "groove" involves certain tasks that I don't mind doing. I commonly find myself doing any fixing of things, moving heavy objects, trash, kitty litter, toilet cleaning, and for some reason, vacuuming. Sarah tends to do the laundry more often than me, cleans the kitchen, and the bathroom counters and mirrors. She also keeps things less cluttered than me. I like large piles of crap scattered throughout the house. She prefers things in their places. I think the piles are their places!

We haven't really talked about all of these jobs we perform independently. When one of us does not perform their usual duties, then the other just takes up the slack. Normally this is not done with much fuss, but we do have our days where I test Sarah's patience with a large pile of clothes on the floor or some other atrocity.

Either way, the things that need to be done get done, by one of us. Sometimes it's as simple as Sarah giving me a subtle hint like, "There is a lot of dirty laundry" or "The light bulb in the bathroom burned out."

Ahhhh....marriage.

The Visitors

I am sitting in the kitchen waiting for my a new batch of pale ale to cool down for fermentation.

It has been a busy week here in the Johnson house. I have been working the oil refinery job every day, but we also have had some guests. A friend, Adil, flew out to visit from Kansas. He was a roommate of mine. He is going to medical school in the Caribbean this January. He wanted to see California, since he never had. It was funny because he is not used to having mountains around, so he was taking pictures of them off in the distance. We went to the beach a couple of times and ate fresh crab, halibut, and other fish. He found a sand dollar. We watched surfers at Pismo Beach. I showed him "real" California things like beaches with "Shark Attack" signs and building that you could die in during an earthquake. See pictures below:

Two days ago, Adil flew back to Kansas as my Dad was driving here from Phoenix. So now my Dad is here. Yesterday we had a classic Thanksgiving dinner that Sarah made. It was great! Today, we went to Solvang, a Danish village near here. I'll put up pictures soon.

Fondue, FON"DON'T"!

I may have committed treason, heresy, and even blasphemy. But, most of all I have done a bad thing. I have committed a sacrilege to the world of fondue cooking. The basic meaning of sacrilege is "An act of disrespect or impiety toward something regarded as sacred."

Maybe you make fondue with wonderfully fresh shredded Gruyere and Emmental cheeses. Maybe you add a nice wine, after taking a sip from the bottle first. Or, maybe you rub a freshly sliced clove of garlic in the bottom of the pan before you add the wine and cheese. Maybe you like a little "Bam" to it and add some Kirsch brandy.

If this is your idea of fondue, then you should hate me. Before you send an angry mob, I too have made the aforementioned fresh ingredients to compose a great fondue.

However I was weak today. I went to the store to buy the cheeses for fondue. They had Gruyere, but no Emmental. Crap, I thought, now what? Then, I saw it, the "BOX."



This box contained all the ingredients for Swiss fondue. It had the cheeses, starch ,wine, and brandy. I thought, "No way, it can't be good, it can't." It said in the lower right hand corner of the box, "Product of Switzerland"...sold. I threw it into the shopping cart and grabbed some bread to go with it.

I got home and threw it together in my recently acquired electric pot. There is probably some fondue rule also about using only flame heaters.




I cooked it up and it was not much different from the norm. In fact, when the daughter of the blog Twelve Two Two Fondue ate my "squeezed out of package" fondue, she said it was an 8 out of 10! In fact, the only real complaint she had was the brandy in it.

I hope my Father-in-Law does not read this...

Tom's Eclectic Ribs

I have never cooked good spare ribs, until today. My plan: Smoke the ribs till they are yummy!

What actually happened was not so simple...

It all started out well. I patted a little rice vinegar on the ribs to help make the meat receptive to the rub. I rubbed the ribs with salt, pepper, garlic powder, thyme, and who knows what else I threw in there. Finally, I brushed on a light coat of BBQ sauce.

I started up the electric smoker and added the wood chunks. I also turned on the BBQ grill.

First thing, I wanted to sear the ribs on the hot BBQ. I threw them on the grill and got them browning up nicely, when the gas ran out! Crap! Well, they went in the smoker a few minutes early .


The smoker was up to temperature, so I put the ribs in and planned on about 3-4 hours of waiting and chillin'. I went into the house loaded the dishwasher and started it up. I went about my business around the house.

I notice it was quiet in the house about 20 minutes later. I checked the dishwasher. No power to it. I checked the circuit breaker and noticed it had tripped. I reset it then the whooshing sounds of the dishwasher started up again. Ten minutes later, again, the dishwasher was silent. I reset it again and checked the smoker. It was cool, not hot like it should be. Wait a second, it can't be, the smoker and the dishwasher are on the same circuit? Sure enough, the smoker had only smoked hot for about 20 minutes of an hour. The meat needed to be cooked still, so I turned on the oven inside to 300 degrees and when it was heated, I covered the ribs in BBQ sauce and put them in for another hour.

I used 3 "ovens" to cook this one rack of ribs, but let me tell you...mmmmm they were so good that even Sarah, from Texas, thought they were delicious.

The Gifts That Keep on Giving

Everyday we are using the wedding gifts we got from our generous family and friends. I use a 12 inch Circulon deep skillet several times a week. I've made Bombay Curry, pork dumplings, and many other dishes in it.

We use a fancy stainless steel coffee maker every morning. The coffee stays hot for hours after you make it, with no heating coil. When I say hours, I mean four or five.

We use our Noritake dinnerware set everyday.

We got so many gifts, it was unbelievable! I have never used so many nice things in the kitchen. We constantly use so many of these gifts that I am reminded of how much my friends, family, new-family, and my new companion for life, Sarah, mean to me. Thanks.

I have one full week of solid work under my belt. Yep, feeling pretty good.

Some of my accomplishments this week:

1) I found out I look good in coveralls and a hardhat

2) I ate homemade lunches for 5 days in a row

3) I only played solitaire for 10 minutes one day

4) I managed to screw up everything I touched, but I'm still employed

...and finally, I found out how to reuse rubber gloves 5 times before throwing them out (My boss is very frugal)

It was an interesting week. The company's motto is "Working For A Profit." Mine too

Orientation Day

I was stood up!!!...by a company...who wants me to work for them...

I recently took a job with an oil company.

Today was Orientation Day!

I was given an address to a building in the middle of some oil fields.

I pulled up to a yellow gate that appeared locked with the address I was given on it. No sign of life. I sat for a minute to contemplate my options. Was the gate actually unlocked? Should I check? Since I once worked for a pig farm, I knew that many times the gates were to be opened and closed with each vehicle, giving the appearance of it being locked and keep in livestock. I got out and checked the gate. It only appeared to be locked.

So, I drove out into the oil field, closing the gate behind me. I came upon a work truck behind a horse shaped oil pump. Here I met a pump mechanic named Bitter Bob. He pointed to a building behind a storage tank were I should go.

I drove up the muddy road and checked it out. It was locked and again...no sign of life. I checked my watch, 8:55...9:00...9:10...damn, no cell reception. I went to talk to Bitter Bob. He told me that nothing here is done on time. I asked him how he liked working for the company and he said, "They are chicken shit!" He went on to tell my how he was looking for better job and the Mexicans were stealing his tools and lazy. Then he told me that he wasn't going to hurry to fix this pump because everyone else was lazy.

I took off to the main office. They told me they forgot me.

To make a long story short, I went to brunch at Subway and returned for orientation.

A witty British man in a Jaguar met me at the site for orientation. He said, "We're going to do this bloody fast because I have already wasted too much of your time." That he did.

Hydrogen Sulfide gas will kill you. The Coast Guard is now responsible for inland oil spills. We took a walk through the fields and he showed me how the process of oil and gas collection worked.

The last thing the trainer told me was, CYA or Cover Your Ass.

wish me luck

Beach Bum Tom is Dead!

Beach Bum Tom (me) is dead!

My days of bumming on the beach are over. Today is my last day of "freedom." I got a job. Coming out of retirement is harder than I thought. Now when people ask me what time I am available, I will actually have certain times!

I always loved the spin people put on being jobless. It's embarrassing. My neighbor asks me if I got a job yet. My family, friends, wife, Mother in law, even my cats ask me if I found anything yet.

Some people say, "I'm between jobs" or "I'm self-employed." I prefer the following:

- I am Experimenting with real-time time travel
- Social Network Engineer
- I am waiting for the Cable Guy
- Pro-Bono Video Game Tester
- Cat Whisperer

The phone rang this morning to tell me they accepted my offer and want me to start tomorrow.

I have company orientation tomorrow, then I start work at the plant on Wed. I will be doing laboratory testing and quality control at an oil refinery.

I would go to the beach today, but it is cold and overcast. Maybe I'll go anyways...my last day to beach bum!