high time for pie

There's only so much job searching you can do. And while gaining employment is pretty much number one on my priority list right now, there are way more hours in the day than there are job sites and resources. So sometimes it's necessary to find other things to add to that to do list.Such as, buy some pie pumpkins and try to make a pie. Seasonal-appropriate but maybe not the easiest way to fill a couple of the morning hours. Exactly what I was looking for in a project.

First step, buy some pie pumpkins. Not only does finding them in the neighborhood take time, but prepping them is also way more labor intensive than opening a can. Plus, this makes for a much better pie.

Clean it.

Cut it.

Gut it. This was a lot easier than carving a normal pumpkin. Used an ice cream scoop, it took about 30 seconds.

According to the internet there are a lot of different ways to get the parts you want to make a pie out of ready, but microwaving it for 15 minutes just sounds gross to me. Today I steamed mine, cutting the halves again and putting them over a steamer tray for about 25 minutes.

After they came out of the pot, the guts were soft enough to slide right off the skin and into the food processor. This was about when the dog started to realize I was messing with food, even though it didn't smell too edible and it wasn't like I was going to offer her some steamed pumpkin guts.

Hopefully it's alright if things are still a little stringy. Not having had the pie yet I have to admit I don't know. That was another plus for the project though; not knowing how to do something like this makes me flex some different muscles and plus, my mom made the best pies ever when I was a kid and I'd love to be able to make them myself. On that front, I didn't want to mush things up too much, b/c the pies I had as a kid always had some chunks of pumpkin in the pie that soak up spice and really give the pie good texture.

Into the mixer with all the spices, eggs, and sugar. This looked way runnier than I expected but seems to have baked up well. Surprisingly (again, and this is why I don't really bake) there was a lot of mix left over after filling the crust up too. Again, I just kind of shrugged and threw it in the oven.

Before

After

Judging by the after, things might have worked out pretty well. The good thing about spending a morning like this, on top of hopefully having a delicious pie, is that all the baking gave me plenty of time to do the usual morning job searches and send some apps out. Now I just have to keep trying to forget another awful weekend of football. Outstanding.

Current beer-scale: 4.9

Ow my ass.

Back on the bike this morning, after almost a two week break with weather and running and just not feeling like getting on the bike. 12 mile round trip, north then back.

Then back to the pc and the job search, writing new cover letters and hoping against hope to use my phone for something other than looking up numbers for old offices that I should have memorized by now.

Do I need to get out and wifi a job search for a while? Probably. Can I be bothered to actually leave and get some of that "different scenery" people giving me advice seem to be so fond of? Absolutely not. You can't nap at Starbucks. And off I go!

Current beer-scale: 7.1

Heads up!

When you see the freight train coming, it's best to get out of the way.

Current beer-scale: 5.1

It takes 4-6 weeks for a broken finger to mend and to start getting motion back pain-free. I can't complain about something I didn't go to the hospital for and probably should have, but damn is my finger throbbing in colder weather since getting doored. The motion range isn't too bad, but it aches like hell after wearing gloves on a cold bike or run.

Oh well. I can still type cover letters, and it hasn't interfered with my Beatles Rockband playing at all the last two days. Which comes in handy when there don't seem to be any letters to write.

Current beer-scale: 6.3

decisions decisions

It's only day 3, technically, but unemployment seems to present some interesting dilemmas through the course of a day.

Which job site do I check first? Do I bother to shower first, or could I go for a ride first then job search? If I went for a ride, do I do north or south? Could I do both? Sure, why not.

South:

North:

Doing both seemed sensible. There's only so many times you can check NPO.net, and if you're checking by 9:30 AM you're not seeing anything you didn't see checking the night before. Actually this morning I had already lined up an interview for next week so accompanied by the unfamiliar sense of accomplishment, it was time to take the bike out. Even though the dog and I have been running this week, the bike's been getting neglected. So out I went, hoping I was well-enough layered.

Things weren't that bad actually. There have been an ungodly amount of bikers out when we're running in the morning, but that seemed to have tapered off by the time I was out today. Down to Navy Pier, then back up to Foster and home. Nothing too fancy, but long enough and cold enough to feel like I'd accomplished something for the second time today. The hardest part was just trying to ride and not think about hitting the PC back at home.

The search hasn't been too bad lately. Hearing back in the negative about all my interviews wasn't great last week, but I'm back on the horse this week. I have to keep writing so I don't lose my rhythm, but I don't think I can bring myself to jot down failure notes each day. I also can't bring myself to be the guy bringing his laptop to starbucks to write in social settings. That entails wearing pants, and that's not gonna happen. Again, no pictures of that though.

After running 3 out of the last 5 days, she was happy to stay at home while I got some extra miles in. Smart dog.

Current beer-scale: 5.2 and finally starting to recuperate.

Woof.

Two pieces of advice for halloween survival:

One, if you're wearing a wig be sure to get as short a haircut as you're comfortable with the day before.

Two, keep said wig away from curious pets.

The rest is up to you. Here's to a fun night and renewing the job search.

Current beer-scale: inconceivably low.