Naquada

There is a good post on Jeremy Zawodny’s blog about how blogging can help smart people get jobs..

People build a reputation by writing for a magazine, trade publication, or even books, meaning people began to see them as thought leaders in their field.

Now not everyone can get to write an article or a book, but almost anyone can write a blog. Jeremy talks about Russell Beattie getting his job at Yahoo! through blogging. Blogs make it easy to establish connections, a reputation, and do both with nearly infinite reach compared to the traditional approaches.

Brendon Connelly over at slacker manager has an interesting follow up thought on the pro’s and con’s of this.. Both very good reads…

Well last weekend was my birthday and I got me tickets to the BBC Good Food Show, So tomorrow I’m off to the NEC Birmingham for a day of cooking, food and wine. I will also be seeing James Martin One of my favorite chef’s. To me this is just a much fun as being looked in a room of the latest gadgets.

Well I can’t really believe it’s almost six day’s since I posted. It’s basically been such a manic week with work that I just haven’t had time to post. I have been thinking during this break though, and if I could get my blackberry interfacing will this blog you would have read them…

…they are in the queue and will post through in the next few days

So I’ve thought I’d start posting some of my cooking on here as well as general ‘randomness’.

Tonight was a Potato Gratin, now the secret these is LOTS of cream and garlic..

Take a few potatoes, you’ll start to learn that ‘a few’, ‘a bit’ and ‘lots’ are standard measures in my cooking, as a recipe is there as guideance NOT as a rule..

You’ll need..

2 Cloves of Garlic
a ‘few’ potatoes (maris pipers are best)
‘lots’ of cream (double is also the best here, but a single works just as well)
Pepper, Salt
Butter

Preheat your oven to gas mark 6 (I believe about 200 degrees)

So.. a few potatoes, you’ll need enough when sliced to fill a dish of your choosing.. Rub that dish round with butter (dont skimp!) and crushed garlic.

Chop the remaining garlic cloves up into small chunks.

Now cut the potatoes into thin slices, and start to layer them into the dish, seasoning with salt and pepper after each layer, and sprinkle over some of the garlic as you go.

Once the dish is full, pour over the cream so it covers all the potatoes. Pop into the oven for about 40 – 45 minutes.

Meanwhile you should have been chilling a Concha y Toro Winemaker`s Lot 230 Cabernet Sauvignon, its a screwtop wine, but hey.. its good!

Check the potatoes are soft, and once they are serve with a fresh salad drizzled with some aged balsamic vinegar..

Enjoy..

Snow has fallen.. Winters here.. Chilly evenings.. frosty morns..

So winters finally here.. we had a second lot of snow fall today, although it didnt settle this time.. I’m sure there is more to come..

Well I’ve just been so busy since the last week.. havent had time to even think about posting..

Really loving my blackberry, although it seems easier to make myself more work.. like the filling in an RFI on the train coming back from norwich today via email..

I do feel a little guilty in that I have a blackberry (ok so I brought my own) and the other SE’s dont have their yet..

My payback will be that I’ve worked out all the little ‘gotcha’s’ on it (the BlackBerry OS), having built up a nice little list of shortcuts and more undocumented features..

I’ll try and post more tomorrow from london.. I still havent managed to interface my BlackBerry to my blog yet.. I’ve had a few pretty close attempts but I have a feeling Vodafone block the bloggerAPI calls through their content control..

Well its exactly 6 weeks to the day from today until christmas day.. I know this because its my birthday today, and every year since I was born, its 6 weeks exactly from my birthday to christmas day..

Sobering thought really isnt it??

Well.. Tomorrow is my birthday.. I’m 32, which is good as I miscalculated my age last year and was under the assumption i was going to be 33 this birthday!!

Well, I’m planning on having a very large.. very filling curry.. As I think I mentioned before, the best thing (Apparently) to drink with a hot curry is a good champagne, and I think I will put this to the test tomorrow night..

Otherwise I’ve had a very good experience of following a bottle of Muscadet de S

Well.. kinda a tough week.. in sweden all week on a parallel SAP BW load excercise..

Had a great dinner with the customer at BERNS in stockholm, very recommended if you want a classy, nice, modern night out..

Just recovering from the work load of the week and the huge amounts of brain taxing!!

Well another 4am start, sat waiting for my flight to sweden again..

The flight will at least give me a chance to sleep, but also think about all the stupid things I do..

The worrying about things I don’t need to.. the constant running round trying to make sure nobody knocks over my ‘house of playing cards’ life, by that I imagine my life is so fragile that it could fall down with the slightest knock..

In fact I think that its not, its steady strong and secure.. I just need to believe it!!