Turkey

At Christmas I made my first turkey.  I separated the one and dark meat portions and cooked the dark meat longer at a lower temperature.  (From what I read, getting the dark meat done enough is part of what causes white meat to be so dry.)  I also added carrots, celery, garlic, onions, bacon, and apples. The result was the best turkey I've ever had.  I'm not bragging; it was that good!

Since  I'm on the low carb diet I decided to try to replicate my first-time success:

I didn't have any bacon this time but turkey came out fantastic!  Even though it tastes good I know why most people don't cook turkeys this way:  Cutting through the bones to separate the meat is gruesome.  I was in enough of a pre-party panic at Christmas that I must have blocked that out.  This time I heard and felt every bone snap, crackle and pop.  It was enough to make it hard to eat the bird;  after sitting in the fridge for a week I threw half of it away.

Rainy Day fund

When I use the ATM or go to the bank they usually give Dh 500 bills ($135).  When I break them at a store I often get the Dh $200 bills ($54).  I like to save these gold bills.  It's the only bill in their currency that is gold.

Notice the prominent falcon on both sides of the bill.  The falcon is the national bird and raising/training falcons is supposedly second only to raising camels.

Anyhow, my stock of Dh 200 bills is dwindling.  On Thursday a radiator hose broke, the car overheated and a gasket blew.  The good news?  Our repair guy came to my place (15 miles from his shop) picked up my car and took it back to his place.  Tonight he is returning it.  Complete at home service!  The price?  Dh 1000 ($270).

There have been many times in my life where a $270 bill would have been very difficult.  I am grateful that now it is simply an inconvenience.

Today is Flunk Day???

For those not familiar with Flunk Day:  Each spring the outgoing student body president gets to call all classes off for one day.  All tests, papers due, everything is cancelled.  Of course, the tests are made up in the next day. The day to be picked is held secret.  I had the dubious honor of calling it my senior and my Flunk Day was a bit chilly - high of 59 with a bit of gale force wind.

There was a colder day called ten years before me and there have two colder since mine but for some reason most associated with the college believe that my Flunk Day was the coldest.

This year takes me off the hook.  At 1PM Iowa time it is 41 degrees!  According to Donna Spellman people are playing volleyball with winter coats on.

That poor student body president is going to be in therapy for years.

Not feeling like Goofy today

Long story short:  This semester all of my classes are female.  Today I found one class cheating in a stupid way.  My short fuse was lit and I blew up at them, "I expect this when I teach the guys.  I give you more freedom because my female classes don't do this!  Fine.  If you act like the guys and cheat like the guys I will treat you like the guys from now on."  (I thought of typing this in all caps to demonstrate my shouting.)

My rant was quite a bit longer than that but you get the idea.  This is the first time I've had a blow up on the female campus.  On the male campus it is at least once per semester and I use much more colorful language.

The funny thing is that as I was winding down I noticed nearly every one of my good students had a smile on her face.  It was almost as if, "Thank you for finally waking up to the cheaters we sit next to..."  They knew I wasn't talking to them so my blow up didn't really bother them.

When I get angry I know how to make a room quiet; you could have heard a pin drop - and this is a carpeted room, no less.

2011 Wine Tasting

The second annual wine tasting was Friday night.  Last year I purchased a bunch of flute glasses to use for the tasting.

Twenty five people attended.  I had 3 bottles of each of the ten wines to be sampled.

Here are the five reds carefully wrapped.  I used electrical tape on the neck and lid to help protect their identities.  I didn't want people to be biased in their judgement based on name or price.

 The Coke fridge kept the five whites - along with a variety of Coke products and juices (some attendees were not drinking wine.)

 Each taster had the option of recording their impressions.  That way when the names and prices were revealed they could remember which ones they liked and didn't like.

This year I added voting.  The choices were:
"Swill, I tell you!"
"Ho-hum"
"Scrumptuous!"

(One of my British guests pointed out that I had misspelled scrumptious.)

The voting was a huge hit. People seemed to get into the competition among the wines.

The theme this year was "Wines of the Southern Hemisphere."  Of the ten wines I had only tried two of them before Friday night.  The rest were randomly picked off the shelves at the local liquor store.  This may technically be a "dry" country but the wine selection is incredibly impressive.  I could do two more Southern Hemisphere tastings and still have some left over.

Anyhow, a month or so ago I found a wine I *loved* from the first sip.  The problem?  It's Dh 80 ($22).  I kinda choke at the idea of spending that much for wine... but, wow, it is good.  All of the other wines in the tasting were random but I purposefully put this wine as #10.  I kinda hoped most guests would quit long before 10 and leave me with 2 bottles of the stuff.  Nope.  Those that made it to #10 raved about it so everyone else had to try it.  By the end of the night it was all gone.  *sniffle*

So here was is the runaway winner of the 2011 wine tasting:

Will someone in Iowa do me a favor and see if you can find this?  I will bet the price is about half of what we pay here.

I found a place to buy it online for $12.99/bottle.  At $12.99 it's worth ordering a bottle case.

Pre and post wine tasting video

I took a short video of the setup before the party and after the party.

I learned from this that my cheap camera leaves much to be desired in its autofocus.

And here is the post video:

Casualty of the night

A Greek colleague parked on the street and wisely didn't drive home.  I picked her up the next to bring her back to her Jeep.  Much to our surprise her Jeep was egged overnight.  

This is very upsetting and very, very surprising.  I park my car on the street 3 or 4 nights a week and I've never had anything done to it.  I live in an Emirati neighborhood.  (In this neighborhood the people in my apartment building are the poor western trash compared to sprawling villas we are surrounded by us... in other words, this is not the neighborhood where one would expect this.)

Wine tasting

I don't often wonder what someone else thinks of me; long ago I learned it is out of my control and 9 times out of 10 it really doesn't matter.

I do wonder, however, what the clerk at the local liquor shop must think.  Every day for the past week I've gone in and bought 6 - 8 bottles of wine for a wine tasting I'm having this Friday.  He's never asked questions or even raised an eyebrow, but he knows me:  I don't have to show my gym membership to get the discount.

Yes, I live in a place where having a gym membership gets a discount on alcohol.  I wish there was such a deal in the US!

Do what you do do well, boy

The old song and a quote from Star Trek II have been on my mind.  In the movie Spock says to Admiral Kirk, "If I may be so bold, it was a mistake for you to accept promotion.  Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny.  Anything else is a waste of material."

I am lucky to have a job that I love and I'm good at it.  Why would I possibly give that up?  It's looking increasingly likely that I will.  I can't write more because nothing has been finalized and I'm superstitious enough that I'm hesitant to publish this post!  I'm in a great position because if everything falls through I'm OK.  Gee, I have to go back to a job I really like.

Camel farm

A friend who edits a local magazine asked me to write an article about camel racing.  Let me preface this by saying I know nothing about the sport or even when they race.  I had never even been to the camel racing track. I took my friend Abdelrahman with me to translate.

We came across many groups of camels like this one.  The color of the sheet on the camels designates the tribe (family) the camel belongs to.  "Wouldn't it be hotter under the blanket?" I asked.

"Yes, it helps them sweat."  These camels are being bred for racing, and just like wrestlers you don't want them to get slow and fat.

It was my lucky day.  The very first people we talked to were two brothers who had both went to college in California.  They invited us to their farm a short distance away.  In this picture they are posing with their younger brothers and cousins.  I didn't see - and didn't expect to see - any women on the camel farm.

 I think camels are incredibly beautiful animals.

Here's a young camel being taken to dinner by her(?) trainer.  Since the guys travel and have school the family has hired people from other countries to train the camels.

The prime season for racing is November through early April.  From now until November only the young camels will race - and race at 6:30 AM, before it gets too hot.  They raise and race two kinds of camels:  The purebreds that come from a lineage of camels from this region and the mixed breeds from other regions.  The racing season spans across the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.  One of the jobs in the first year of a camel's life is getting them used to travelling by truck.

I'll write more about the racing after I actually go to a race this Saturday or next.

Having grown up on a farm I have to say, camels are much more dignified in the way they eat than most animals.  I did, however, almost get in the way of an excited camel running for his food.  I thought, "Death by camel trampling.  For you, Steve, that seems plausible."

The sun is extremely intense here.  During the heat of the day the camels are kept under these metal sheets.

My hosts joked as they were showing me around:  "Here is the dining room. Here is the kitchen.  And here is the bedroom."

I asked about the rocky ground they sleep on.  The reason for the gravel is to keep sand from burrowing in between their toes and causing irritation.  By the way, camels sleep on the ground - unlike cows.  So farm kids here will never know the joy of the horrible sport of cow camel tipping.

I spent a little over an hour visiting with the family and seeing their camels.  They were incredibly generous with their time and answering a hundred of my questions.  I may have lived here for three years but as long as I get to see and do cool new things like this?  I can stay for a while longer!

Getting stuck in the sand

After we left the camel farm we got stuck.  Farmers here are like farmers in Iowa, perhaps everywhere:  When someone has a problem they'll all pitch in to help.

With the aid of the pickup and four of us pushing we were able to get it out.  My friend (and driver) Abood asked me later if we'd get the same help in the US.  I replied, "In Iowa, yes.  In New York City?  No way."

Skype

I had a fantastic day visiting a camel farm.  I intended to blog about it tonight but as I started to download the pictures I received a call from my sister on Skype.  Two hours later is time for bed.

Until tomorrow I'll leave you with post of a camel wondering why I am taking her picture while she's trying to eat.

Student evaluations

The fall evaluations are in and - as always - I love the comments.

I think these are the best set of comments I have ever received.  Many make feel like I should walk with a swagger:

• he is a fantastic doctor
• He is perfect doctor and he makes the subject very easy .
• the best teacher in the uni
• In my opinion he is the best teacher
• very good teacher ! awesome!
• The subject is difficult, but the instructure is super educational teacher...
• Dr. Steve is an IMPRESSIVE Man , I hope if all the Doctors follow his method in teaching :)

Fantastic, perfect, best, super, awesome and IMPRESSIVE... My head's gonna have trouble making it through doorways.

• he has an attractive personality which help student to learn from him

*blushing*  Nobody's ever called my personality attractive before!

• In short he make the subject free simpel and easy for me, and i think he is the best of who is teaching mgmt, i liked the way he act in the class he make us luagh and i can say he is gorges.

Seriously blushing.  I'm assuming the writer meant I'm gorgeous and not that I gorge.  (Actually, the comment makes me feel uncomfortable.  I don't think I ever thought about my teachers as attractive - or ugly, for that matter.  It's just not something that enters my mind when I'm trying to learn.)

• Was a pleasure being your student experiencing a new, enjoyable and fruitful type of teaching. Keep it up :)
• wish you all the best
• Thank you, Mr.  I wish you a happy life

Emiratis are an amazingly polite people... until, of course, they get behind the wheel of a Landcruiser.


And my absolutely favorite comment

• the pest doctor I ever had

That will have to go on a name plate:  Steve Kranz, pest doctor.

Strolling down memory lane:  Previous semesters' evaluations here and here.

Things that make you go "Eww..."

Now that I'm back to full time blogging with fingernails clipped and ready to type...  I just have to post a link to this:  Pregnancy pictures.

Click on the link above and comment on which picture or pictures you find the most disturbing.  I can't vote because I find pretty much ALL OF THEM disturbing.

Today, by the numbers

2 cups of coffee
8 Coke Zero's
9 hours straight of teaching/training

I was gonna go for another Coke Zero but I held back.  Sometimes my restraint impresses me.

Going into to today I thought I would have one group of people for one training session and a different group for another.  Nope.  It was a group of totally new people and they were with me for six hours.  I felt bad for them;  *I* don't want to listen to me for six hours.

Anyhow, it went well.  In fact, training was fun compared to students who returned from spring break looking like zombies.  On Thursday I have an interview for a training position in Abu Dhabi.  I have very mixed feelings about the position.  A year ago I wouldn't have considered it because I love teaching.  For me teaching is like a drug and I get my fix by standing in front of a group of students.

My experience in training over the past six months has made me reconsider.  In training I am working with people with actual work experience.  Teaching a management class to students who have never worked is like teaching physics; I'm teaching something that sounds like theory to them.  Teaching management concepts to those with real-world experience is much more fun.  (This is why I liked teaching at Hamilton - where most students held a job - more than at Coe... Most Coe students never had more than a summer job.)

The good news about going for this interview is that I'm perfectly OK if it all falls through.  From what I know it would be a chance to be part of a new, growing organization.  The chance to develop something new is very exciting!  But if it doesn't work out my gig of teaching and training on the side is a pretty sweet deal.

Iowa politics

In short, Eastern Iowa votes for Democrats.  Des Moines also votes for Democrats but western Iowa is very, very Republican.  With that in mind here is a look at the proposed new congressional districts:

Incumbent Democrats will go for re-election in District 1, 2, and 3.  Two Republicans live in District 4.

Now for the rest of the story...

This map was drawn by a non-partisan body that has the goals of making the districts as compact as possible and as evenly populated as possible.  With this map they scored on both counts.

If the legislature or the governor veto it the non-partisan group goes back to the drawing board.  If it keeps getting shot down it ends up with the Iowa Supreme Court, an option no politician wants.

Iowa is losing one congressional seat because the state didn't grow in the past ten years while the rest of the nation did.  There are five incumbent congressman - 3 Democrats and 2 Republicans.  Before the new map was released it seemed likely that one of the Democrats (Bosswell in Des Moines) would get thrown in a district with one of the Republicans (Tom Latham from northern Iowa).

Instead the new map put Latham in the same district as Steve King.  King is a tea party hero and would easily crush Latham in a Republican primary.  Latham is well liked by the powers that be in Washington.  I assumed they'd push the state legislators to come out against this map.  

They haven't and by most accounts it looks like this map will be adopted.  Poor Congressman Latham.

This does not mean the Democrats will retain 3 seats and the Republicans lose one.  Congressman Boswell's new district (district 3) still includes Des Moines (good for a Democrat) but every other county in the district is very Republican.  He's not a good campaigner and always underperforms (which means he gets less votes than other Democrats - that's OK if you are in a very Democratic district but he won't be.)

*****
For the first time in my lifetime my home of Benton county will be in the same district as Linn county (Cedar Rapids).  It's been weird for 40 years to have Iowa's second largest city right next door but in a different congressional district.

OK, weird for me.  99% of the rest of the people probably couldn't care less.

*****
Tomorrow I will be doing back-to-back training sessions followed by 2 classes.  Teaching/training is like performing on stage;  it takes a lot of energy to be "on"... and I will be on from 8 am to 5 pm tomorrow.  I didn't even schedule time for lunch.  I have nobody to blame.  I actually proposed the back-to-back trainings.

Martin Luther King’s final speech

43 years on this date I was six months from being born and MLK gave his final speech:

Only the first 2:30 are from the speech.  To know this was his last speech is simply incredible.  In the speech he seems to predict he is going to die – and soon. 

The not-so Magnificent March

I had hopes for March - I'd lose weight, work-out, use moisturizers - and well none of those plans worked out so well.  The number of workouts in the month:  2.  The number of times I used a moisturizer:  3  The pounds lost for the month:  5

In the world of goal setting I had a spectacular crash and burn.

And it also affected the blog...

I can't blog when I can't type

This ranks pretty high on the list of dumb things I've done:  Towards the end of February I realized I needed to clip my nails.  I thought, "Let's see what life is like if I don't all the way until the end of March."

For the past two weeks they have made me miserable.  It seems like they catch on everything I open or pick up.  I nearly drew blood one day when I went to scratch my arm.  I had to trim my index nails; taking out contacts became too scary.

I did find myself pretending to be Mr. Burns and saying, "Exxxcellent..."

The worst problem was typing.  With long nails I made 3 errors for every 5 characters.  I basically had to give up writing.  

It was a dumb experiment.  Yes, I learned something, but it was still pretty dumb.  It's something I can't see trying again unless I need to find ways to pass the time in a nursing home someday.