Yesterday was the new faculty orientation and I was confronted with way too many decisions concerning things I know very little about. First, I had to pick my annuity fund. That wasn't terribly difficult since I had sone some research and generally knew what percentages of different types of funds I wanted. Then I had to set a designee for my life insurance. Thus, if I die in the near future in some sort of weird accident, come looking for the boy. Next began the health insurance excitement. First, picking between two different types of insurance and then choosing the network within each type. And while everyone else was looking through to see where their general practioner was included, the booklet with the "Shrinks included in each network" was not passed out so I have not yet chosen one, especially since it seemed like a bad idea to start off my job by raising my hand an saying "Umm, excuse me, I don't see my analyst in any of these." This reminds me that I like the word "analyst" and will start to use it.
Today we went to Costco and grocery shopping and cleaned a lot. Each Saturday night is our night to make a good dinner and eat in. I made a rich saffron broth and spooned orzo in it and that was very good. We also bought scallops and that is where the night turned into one of those bad phonecalls I can imagine between 1950s women and their mothers. I.E. I had absolutely no idea how to cook scallops, and after dutifully consulting Mark Bittman, I had an idea, but that failed since the scallops were still frozen in the middle. Needless to say, after what seemed like an hour of cooking, they were tender in the middle and tough on the outside.
We went over to Dave and Amy's tonight and they just got a firepit and we made smores in the backyard which was phenomenal and it was nice sitting in the cool outdoors with the fire burning, eating gooey marshmallows.
We went to the library this week and I have been reading a Suze Orman book on personal finance for the "young, fabulous, and broke," a Mark Bittman book where he compares recipies with other chefs who do wilder, more radical versions of traditional dishes, a Laurel Hamilton book in her Anita Blake series (it is like 1/3 romance, 1/3 mystery, and 1/3 horror). Any book where the sexual interests include werewolves, vampires, and such, is my trashy pick de jour. FInally, I picked up "Bush's Brain," a book on Karl Rove that I am excited about. Finally, I have found the world's greatest software. Sticky Brain. It have only been playing with it for a day but am impressed and am using ity for all of my info (along with iCal).
Posted by woodw032 at August 20, 2005 11:48 PM