Monthly Report for September 2013

Monday, Oct 21, 2013

The routines that I started going through in August slipped a little in September. With tasks piling up and projects getting late, with no end in sight.

Two projects saw significant and definitive progress: I cleaned up our accounts data and inventory items, and with the aid of OpenRefine (previously Google Refine), managed to get them in shape to be imported into the new ERP. I also started playing with DocPad, a static website generation tool, and I got a good looking prototype of the website, which would be easier to maintain than the current Drupal site.

I completed some non-routine tasks: Paid my taxes, went to Cali for our Board Meeting, had my lenses changed.

And we completed some recent routines several times: monday night reading, pizza nights, sunday night cooking and walk.

I also took care not to let my relationships slip: I emailed my close friends with updates, and got to see my in-laws and my sister-in-law’s family, with whom there’s always interesting conversations.

Cooking

We cooked some notable dishes in September, including these great kebabs (with veal instead of lamb), with garlic-roasted pistachios. The picadillo we made on the pressure cooker was fantastic, full of flavor and a little spicy; we froze half of it to put inside empanadas, but it would also work great with baked pasta, smashed potatoes, or plain white rice. The pancakes recipe will probably be our definitive method for making pancakes; they turned out thick and airy.

Finished Reading

Got a lot of reading done; all of them short, but very enjoyable novels.

  • Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis
  • Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
  • Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
  • Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Music

Went back to my classics, listening to Counting Crows and REM for our pizza nights.