Author: SA Otey

Software Engineer

Beginners guide to vaping?

~ SA Otey

I have nothing against vaping or people who vape until they start building their own cumulonimbus around a no-smoking sign at a child’s sporting event or amusement park. I wonder when they will invent a vape helmet so that you can contentiously enjoy your emissions?

Most people set a New years resolution to stop smoking. I think this year I will start smoking. I can start with the lowest level nicotine pouch so I can build up a tolerance.  Next, I’ll start chewing the cigarette-flavored gum. Hopefully, I can then graduate to vaping so that I can billow clouds of smoke to attract attention to myself. I guess my final step in the journey is to smoke regular cigarettes once vaping becomes too costly. It’s either that or putting my mouth on the smoke holes on the restaurant’s outdoor ashtrays.

Happy Boxing Day

~ SA Otey
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I never understood what Boxing Day was until I made some friends from the Great White North. I thought it was a day when we remembered the greats like Cassius Clay or Mike Tyson punching people in the face. It’s either that or a day when we box up all of our gifts that we didn’t like and take them back to the stores in which they came.

Probably the most ungrateful I’ve ever been for a gift was when I was a small child. I received a bean bag chair from my grandmother for Christmas. I loudly exclaimed in tears, “You don’t get furniture for Christmas”.  My childish mind thought that only toys were permitted. I remember her running up to the closest gas station that was open and buying me a green “suckerman”. At least I had a toy, my temper tantrum worked!

Christmas Day Checklist

~ SA Otey
  • Wake up way too early because the kids didn’t sleep at all
  • Open presents, either from Santa or hard-working parents who paid for them
  • Eat breakfast – We make a sausage egg and cheese casserole.
  • Jump in the car, take off (drive about 2 hours with no traffic)
  • Arrive at the first stop
  • Open presents
  • Eat lunch
  • Jump in the car, take off (30-minute drive)
  • Arrive at the second stop
  • Open presents
  • Eat dinner
  • Collapse in exhaustion
  • Wonder how the kids are still going strong.
shallow focus photography of religious figurines
Photo by Jessica Lewis on Pexels.com

This is the shortlist, it used to be much longer and covered a much longer distance. Between the food, fun, family, and yes sometimes fighting, don’t forget about Jesus during this time. It’s the whole point of it all.

Christmas Eve Traditions

~ SA Otey

My Christmas Eve traditions have evolved over the years. Long story, bear with me.

Grandparent Traditions

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We used to wait for my Dad to get off work and ride to my paternal Grandparents’ house. We would usually be one of the last to arrive since my father worked for Federal Express helping Santa’s sleigh finish its route. Upon entering their home, you would be greeted by the warmth of the floor furnace. It was an open grate that continuously pumped heat. I’m not sure how that was safe and that we didn’t get roasted as children. I swear you could smell your shoes melting.

There was plenty of food and it all tasted fantastic. However, you couldn’t smell any of it. All the adults smoked cigarettes which built a nicotine barrier that food aromas couldn’t break through. Christmas Eve always felt like the longest evening. We would stare at the mountain of presents under a 3-foot-tall tall already decorated tree that was erected before the evening and taken down the next day. The grown-ups wanted to sing by the piano but we wanted to see what was under all those wrappings. Once we started opening presents (after a few 10-minute delays) it didn’t take long before the night was over and we were on our way home.

Starting our Own

We live just far enough where we have to do our own thing for Christmas Eve. Otherwise, we would have to spend Christmas morning at someone else’s place. I wanted my kids to wake up in their own house on Christmas morning. We keep it pretty simple. We watch Christmas movies and bake treats. We have a nice steak dinner and then attend a Christmas Eve service at our Church. We then drive around and look at Christmas lights. We come home, open one gift, and then hit the sack. We then watch a few more Christmas movies while we wrap the final gifts.

It’s important to start and keep traditions, but also remain flexible. Someone in your family is always going to be unhappy, don’t let it be you.

Welcome to Cheat Week?

~ SA Otey

Most diets will let you have a cheat day, but the days following Christmas to New Year’s are declared cheat week. If you know you will be going back on your diet, why not try to gain as much weight as possible to skew those top numbers so it will look like you accomplished more? Who are you kidding? You haven’t been on a diet since Thanksgiving and have been enjoying a cheat month.

One time at work, they had a competition of who could maintain their weight during the holidays. If you stayed within a few pounds, then you would get a gift card or something. I had a co-worker who actually lost weight during the challenge. Here’s how he did it. On the day of the weigh-in, he had on a big sweater with an undershirt, canvas cargo pants, and boots. When he was weighed after the holiday,s it was unseasonably warm and he was only wearing a Dri-fit polo shirt, some light khaki pants, and loafers. He lost 4 lbs over the holidays! Talk about a real cheat month!

But seriously, why not just treat food with respect and enjoy food but don’t overindulge.

Happy Winter Solstice

~ SA Otey
Facebook Winter Wishes

If you still worship Saturn, then I hope you have a happy winter solstice. Many people are complaining that Christmas hijacked Saturnalia. Well, they are partially right. Christmas used to be celebrated in the springtime, but many were feeling left out by not participating in the drunken debauchery fest known as Saturnalia.

The church decided to move Christmas to December as a rival celebration. This would give Christians something else to do rather than eating and drinking until they vomited and other such merrymaking.  Just to be clear, Christmas is not pagan in origin, but some winter celebrations are full-blown pagan. If anything, paganism has crept back into Christmas.

Adventures in buying a microwave light bulb

~ SA Otey

I asked someone (mistake) there if there was an LED equivalent so that the light would outlive the microwave. The clerk gave me one even though I asked him about it saying “appliance”. Cut to the chase, it didn’t work, but that’s not the fun part of the adventure.

Lowe’s tried to lure me into their store with a free $10 gift card, and it worked. My microwave light burst during seven power surges in the neighborhood and those suckers cost $8 so I set forth on my adventure.

When I went to check out, the cashier had no idea how to use the gift card. It wouldn’t scan and when she tried manual entry the field didn’t allow for all the numbers on the card. Programming tip: nvarchar(max) on all the fields forever! Not really. So I paid full price and went to the customer service desk.

They refunded the bulb after about 5 minutes of fighting with the gift card, but then the computer froze, locking them out of the system. So we had to move to another cash register. Once it went through the light bulb had now been returned twice for the same transaction. That comes into play when I return to Lowe’s later, when I try to return the bulb that doesn’t work. So I get store credit. So I spent about 20 minutes and 3 gallons of gas to purchase a light bulb. The $10 gift card was pointless. Next time, I’ll just use Amazon.

How to avoid traffic light intersections

~ SA Otey

While we understand that everyone values their time, it’s important to emphasize that every driver should adhere to traffic rules and not assume special privileges. In our town, there are several shopping centers with suboptimal designs leading to traffic bottlenecks. Fortunately, there are restaurant parking lots and gas stations strategically located near these busy intersections. This allows drivers to make a quick stop for a snack at Hardee’s or grab a refreshing Mountain Dew Purple Thunder from Circle K. However, it’s crucial to plan ahead and avoid last-minute decisions to navigate through busy intersections safely.

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What is best way to cook steak?

~ SA Otey
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Weber Grill at the Weber Grill, Chicago

I’ve been eating steak since before I had teeth. Anyway, that’s what my hope is. My thought is my parents would put a freshly grilled steak in the blender and feed it to me in baby food form. However, in my adult form, I’ve adopted the reverse sear method of cooking a steak. It’s very easy and gives you consistently delicious results. Because of this method, my spouse will remind me to never order a steak if we go out to eat.

  1. Purchase a 1″ thick steak. Ribeye or New York Strip are my favorite cuts. I tried using ButcherBox for a few years. It’s expensive, but the quality and convenience are worth it.
  2. Get yourself a quarter sheet rack pan (allows airflow)
  3. Cover the entire steak in coarse kosher salt. This is a wet aging process to pull some of the moisture out of the steak.
  4. Place steak on pan and rack and refrigerate for 8 to 10 hours. (flip it about 4 hours in)
  5. Preheat the pellet grill to 200 degrees. I’ve been using the super smoke setting on my Traeger Grill for about 15-20 mins on a cold steak. The smoke flavor is unreal
  6. Smoker until the internal temperature reaches 115-120 degrees. This is at the blue rare stage. Pull it sooner if you want a rare steak.
  7. Rest for 10 minutes, you too, you’ve been working hard
  8. Lather on a layer of avocado oil and add more seasoning if you like, I suggest just Coarse Salt and Pepper. You need something to help build a crust.
  9. Heat a cast-iron skillet as hot as you can, but don’t touch it with your index finger. To know it’s ready, drop a few beads of water in the skillet; if they disappear immediately, then it’s ready.
  10. Sear on both sides for about 45 seconds to 1 minute. While adding a few spoonfuls of ghee to give it some extra juice.
  11. Rest for 10 more minutes.
  12. Eat your steak; it should be nice and medium-rare, with a nice crust on the outside.