When I bring something they always want the recipe, and are flabbergasted that I can't tell them how many teaspoons or tablespoons, or whatever.

Heh. My brother is a big tall dude (6' 2"), and he has proportionately-sized hands. I am 5'6" and have little wee hands, probably not disproportionately small, but it seems like it sometimes.

So when I ask him for recipes, I don't expect exact measurements, but I learned the hard way that when he says "a handful," one of his handfuls equals 2 of mine.

Baking, however, requires precision.

Man, baking does NOT fuck around. (Also learned the hard way.)

When will I ever learn to brown sufficiently? Same mistake, over and over. Food's cooked, but I want it to look crispy and brown, dammit.

Wow. I have to say, I seem to be drinking a lot more with the Sodastream so far. I'm refizzing those bottles all the time.

And as soon as I find where I put my other juice jug (I know Burrell has one of them, but I always have two of shit, just so I can hand stuff out) I will make up half-strength pineapple juice, and be happy forever!

Yeah, and don`t, under any conditions, rub your eyes while you`re doing it.

Also, wash your hands before going to the bathroom. Seriously. (Wasn't me, was a male colleague who did this one. I think he also had to learn the hard way about frying bacon shirtless.)

Baking does not fuck around.

(Looks at sad pan of not-nearly-good-enough brownies.)

This mistake led to me putting yogurt up my nose in an attempt to soothe the pain.

Heh.

So I was just watching the NFL channel's Top Ten Gutsiest Calls in NFL history and I'm struck by how much the underlying narrative in football is so different than in baseball. Not in the game itself (though those are also different) but in how fans and analysts perceive the game.

Because in the NFL five of the top ten gutsiest plays were incredibly stupid. Yet they are celebrated. Going from the gut, taking wild chances, disregarding the odds - these are the things that make America great! Ta da!

And even some of the gutsy plays that worked were still kind of stupid, notably Sean Payton's decision to open the second half of the Super Bowl with an onside kick. It worked. But it was pretty fucking reckless. If that was a surgeon making an equivalent decision in the OR, I'd consider it malpractice.

Whereas in baseball there's still lots of old school narrative where basically The Game Reveals Character. Clutchiness is the classic old narrative in baseball. Also, Doing the Little Things, and Gritty Gamers. But the stats revolution in baseball has created a counter narrative about making the right decisions based on process. So nobody gets lauded for lucking into a good result from a bad, poorly considered process.

Which brings me back to the odd tyranny of narratives which often drive business and workplaces. The fetishization of Excellence (when competence is really more likely and frankly all you need from say, a file clerk), the Workplace as Family (Teppy suffers from this job); My Way or the Highway (manager as military commander with lives at stake). All those business books which are selling a storyline that you can hang your business practices on.

But I've worked at so many places which did not even understand the basics of the business decisions they made. I vividly remember sitting in on endless hiring committee meetings from partners at our law firm deciding which of the summer clerks were going to get offers. And...they don't know shit.

They were experts at their narrow practice of law, but their decision-making process was so ungrounded, and kind of bullshitty. They were all smart attorneys and successful, but they really didn't have a great sense of how to make a good hire. The stuff they said in the meetings was roughly equivalent to people calling into sports radio talk shows, blathering on with theories they pulled out of their ass.

My old HR director boss at my first law firm job did have a brutally cold way of looking at a resume. I remember her looking through our summer applicants and saying bluntly, "If they haven't distinguished themselves by the time they've finished college then they don't have enough drive to make it here as a partner. Look at this person who interned at The Hague in the International Court when they were a junior, and captained a champion Rugby team, and edited the school paper. That's what you're looking for."

I'm not saying her standard was the only valuable one, but it was thought out, considered and tested against a fair amount of experience. And that firm stuck with its strategy, the bios for their Partners were vastly tilted towards Ivy or Ivy Equivalent (Stanford, U of Chicago, OxBridge) and top tier law schools. They recruited very heavily at Harvard, and barely looked at something decent and local like San Jose State.

Why are you thinking about getting one?

I'm doing the food logging thing fairly successfully via Dr. Oz's crew.

What I really need is the motivation to finish those 10,000 steps (or whatever goal). I'm eating decently, but I have not been able to get excited about moving my bum.

Since spring is coming, I'm hoping to leverage more energy into more activity.

I used to use a nike+ when I was training for the marathon and got seriously caught up in speed. That ended up being an injurious error, so now, I'm looking for volume and hope a pedometer will give me something to reach for.

I'm curious about the sleep aspect, but it isn't critical. Though, like you, it might help me to hit the sack earlier if I knew I wasn't getting enough.

I made pasta fagiole with spinach and quinoa pasta. Pretty good, but not great. I think it could maybe use some basil?

What I really need is the motivation to finish those 10,000 steps (or whatever goal).

I've definitely found myself getting up and moving more now that I have the data in front of me. I'm getting an idea of what my baseline activity is, and now I'm trying to figure out how to increase it. The tracking website gives you information on yourself, and also how you rank against everyone using a device. It lets you compete against yourself and invisible people on the internet!

I'm curious about the sleep aspect, but it isn't critical.

I start it when I go to bed and stop it when I get out of bed, and based on movement (I guess?) it tells you how long it takes you to fall asleep, how many times you wake up in the night, the amount of time you were in bed for vs. actual sleep time, and a sleep efficiency score.

I start it when I go to bed and stop it when I get out of bed, and based on movement (I guess?) it tells you how long it takes you to fall asleep, how many times you wake up in the night, the amount of time you were in bed for vs. actual sleep time, and a sleep efficiency score.

What? Fitbits? What is this and how much does it cost? I don't care about the exercise bit, because I don't, but I'd love to be able to quantify my shitty lack of sleep and see if I could tie numbers to anything else I'm doing.

I don't think I'd ever be able to sleep knowing that I was being measured and scored.

Sounds like a more comfortable sleep study device.

I fought the dust and the dust won. The living room is basically rearranged, but I'm taking a break to breathe.