Graphological Legerdemain

Bourbon mac and cheese

2015-12-28T00:00:00-05:00

Our family-by-choice holds a Thanksgiving celebration every year with a theme that shapes everyone’s recipe choices. This year’s theme was boozy food. My real goal with this recipe was to figure out a way to incorporate booze into a comfort-food dish without a lot of painful machinations or shitty booze.¹

Bourbon mac and cheese

Ingredients

1 lb dried macaroni pasta (about 4 cups uncooked)
6 quarts of water
1 lb thick-cut peppered bacon, chopped
1 lb leeks, white and light green parts only, chopped
5 tablespoons butter, divided
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika, plus a little for sprinkling
1/2 teaspoon smoked sea salt
pinch of cayenne pepper
1 lb smoked cooked chicken, shredded and chopped
1/4 cup good quality bourbon whiskey
3 tablespoons unbleached, all-purpose flour
2 cups half and half
1 bay leaf
4 cups mixed, shredded cheese, divided

Instructions

Cook the pasta.

Cook the dried pasta in a large pot until al dente, then drain it and set it aside in a large bowl while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Fry the bacon and then soften the leeks in the grease.

In a large frying pan, cook the chopped bacon over medium-low heat until browned but not crisp.
Using a slotted, spoon, remove the bacon from the pan and set it aside.
Add two tablespoons of the butter to the pan and continue to heat over medium-low until melted.
Add the leeks to the pan and cook until completely soft.

Add the spices and chicken, then deglaze the pan with the bourbon.

Increase the heat to medium. Add the paprika, sea salt, and cayenne and stir to coat the leeks evenly with them.
Add the smoked chicken and heat through, then re-add the bacon.
Pour in the bourbon, scraping up the browned bits that have stuck to the pan during cooking.
Take the meat mixture off the heat and add it to the bowl of cooked pasta, tossing to combine. Set aside.

Make the cheese sauce.

In a sauce pan, melt the butter over medium-low heat.
Whisk in the flour and continue to stir for three minutes.
Gradually whisk in the half and half to the flour mixture.
Add the bay leaf and then simmer the milk mixture gently for about 15 minutes, stirring often, until thickened and bubbly.
Remove from heat, remove the bay leaf, and stir in 3 cups of shredded cheese until melted.

Combine all ingredients and bake them until done.

Preheat the oven to 350F.
Lightly grease a large glass or ceramic baking dish (big enough to hold about 3 quarts), then add the meat and pasta mixture.
Pour the cheese mixture over the meat mixture and and toss to combine with and thoroughly coat the pasta.
Distribute the remaining shredded cheese over the top of the casserole then sprinkle lightly with a little paprika for color.
Bake for about 30 minutes, until everything is bubbly and lightly browning around the edges.
Let stand for about 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

Ingredients notes

Bacon. The bacon we keep around the house most of the time comes from John Henry’s Meats, who have a vendor’s stall at our local farmer’s market. We choose their thick-cut bacon because it doesn’t scorch as quickly if you don’t have as much control over your pan heat as you need. I usually use the peppercorn bacon in this recipe because I love the heat it imparts in the richness of all the cheese. If you don’t have access to a good, peppered bacon like this one, add a healthy teaspoon to the leeks when you’re softening them.

Leeks. Leeks weren’t my first choice for this recipe but I had run out of onions around the time I was making this recipe when I was prepping for the holidays. The leeks worked surprisingly well, but I think I’d like to try caramelized onions the next time I make this. When I do, what I’ll probably do is decrease the heat of the pan when the onions go in and cook them a little slower than the leeks to soften them up completely first. Then I’ll turn up the heat a bit more to caramelize them over time. I’m sure a sweet onion like a Vidalia would work here, but the normal white or yellow onions from my usual vendor at the market are sweet enough that I think they’ll be just fine in this recipe.

Smoked chicken. For a long time we would get our smoked chicken from Otto’s Chicken, who also have a vendor’s stall at our local farmer’s market. They don’t sell this particular product at present because they’re looking for someone new to smoke the meat. The variety they sold for a long time was a nice, smooth smoke flavor that didn’t beat up your taste buds. If you smoke chicken on your own, I suggest you use a wood like a sugar maple because of the sweet smoke, though a standard hickory or something like an apple wood will both work well.

Whiskey. I don’t recommend using scotch in this recipe because the flavors typically overpower everything else (especially if you like your scotch peaty). I use bourbon because of its inherent sweetness. When I originally made this recipe, I used Beer Barrel Bourbon, from New Holland Brewing (based in Holland, Michigan). You could also consider using an American rye but it won’t be as sweet.² ³

Cheese. The cheese mix here is a bit of a tricky beast. I’ve seen people choose classic pizza cheeses, but I don’t think that works well for this recipe because they typically get too greasy when they cook up, even though they melt well. If you prefer mild cheese flavors, a Colby or sharp cheddar will work just fine for the sauce. I prefer cheeses that hold up well to all the smokiness in the casserole. I usually go for something more complex like a mix of Gruyere, Emmentaler, and Surchoix Appenzeller, much like a classic fondue mix.

Of course, there’s rarely a recipe I read that survives in its original form when I decide to make it. So in going back to write this up so late after I originally created it, I honestly have no idea which recipe I started with. Everything looks vaguely familiar and I have a browser history of visited pages to fall back on but no one recipe sticks out in my mind as “the one that started this all.” ↩
In general, when cooking with booze I suggest you choose one that you genuinely enjoy drinking. Don’t cook with bourbon you’re not willing to drink. ↩
I’m also lucky enough to have access to Motor City Gas, a distillery very local to me that produces some excellent quality booze. I plan to try their bourbon the next time I have a chance to make this recipe. ↩

Bourbon mac and cheese was originally published by Gaylin Walli at Graphological Legerdemain on December 28, 2015.

Lamb stew with fig and lemon

2015-12-22T00:00:00-05:00

A couple of years ago, MrMr and I were lucky enough to find a local farmer with spring lambs available and we had the chance to sit down and talk to the farmer, Cecil. What had started out as a short trip to the farm turned into a long afternoon discussing farm life and comfort foods that had us back home far more hours later than we had originally intended.

One of the things I promised Cecil while we were chatting was that I would start working on a lamb stew recipe that differed quite a bit from the very traditional beef stew (or venison stew) served by midwestern farmers in the US. Most seem to rely heavily on the very traditional ingredients of carrots, onions, and potatoes. All are certainly plentiful as root storage crops in Michigan at that time of the year, but I wanted something a little different. Thus, the birth of this recipe.

I haven’t come close to finishing this recipe yet, so check out the ingredients notes and the notes on things I might play with to find out what I’m thinking about changing.

Working recipe: Lamb stew with fig and lemons

Ingredients

2 1/2 lbs lamb meat cut into 1-1.5” chunks
salt and pepper to taste
2+ tablespoons regular olive oil
1 lb white onions, sliced thinly
1 small, salt-preserved lemon (about the size of a ping pong ball), sliced very thinly
4 cloves of garlic, minced or grated
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 3/4 cups diced tomatoes with their juices (or about 14.5 ounces or 1 can if you buy them)
1 cup dried figs, stems removed, finely chopped (about 4 ounces)
2 1/2 cups flavorful vegetable, lamb, or chicken broth

Instructions

Brown the meat and set it aside.

Sprinkle the lamb chunks with salt and pepper to taste.
In a large, heavy pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat until it shimmers lightly.
Working in small batches, brown the lamb chunks, adding more oil as necessary. Each batch should take about 5 minutes to brown on all sides.
Transfer the browned lamb to a container and set aside.
Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of fat from the pot and reduce the heat to medium.

Soften the onion, add the spices, then add the rest of the ingredients.

Add the thinly sliced onions to the pot and sprinkle with more salt and pepper.
Sauté the onions until they’re just beginning to brown, typically about 5 minutes.
Add the lemon, garlic, ginger, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper and stir with the onions for about 1 minute until everything is evenly distributed.
Add the tomatoes with their juices and scrape up the browned bits that have stuck to the bottom of the pan by now.
Add the figs, then add the lamb you set aside being sure to pour in any lamb juices that have pooled while the meat was resting.
Add the broth.
Give everything a good stir to mix it up in the pot.

Let the stew cook for 1.5 hours, stirring occasionally.

Bring stew to boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and cover it, leaving the lid slightly ajar.
Simmer everything for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.
If the stew looks too dry at any point, add a bit more broth (no more than 1/4 cup at a time).
Check the seasonings and adjust with more salt or pepper as necessary.
Serve it forth.

Ingredients notes

Lamb. Choosing a cut of meat is always one of the toughest. Most people will go for standard lamb stew meat when they make this recipe. It works well, it’s fairly easy to get at the grocery store or butcher, and you don’t usually have to do much cutting. While I’ll make the stew with the standard lamb chunks you get as a byproduct of lamb processing, I prefer to portion my own most of the time. That usually means I end up sacrificing some of the shoulder chops into stew meat instead.¹

Oil. Regular olive oil is a staple in our house. We don’t typically stock extra virgin in our house because we prefer more flavor from our oil. If we want something lighter, we’ll use safflower most often. But for this stew, the olive oil works well.

Figs. The figs we grow in our yard are Brown Turkey figs.² Fresh figs don’t work well with this recipe, however because the flavor isn’t concentrated enough. I end up drying the figs a while and storing them away in a jar for later use. When I use them in this recipe, I finely chop them because I don’t like to get a giant mouthful of fig with my lamb. I prefer the lamb to stay in the forefront.

Lemons. When we have a surfeit of lemons, we typically have a few days where we go crazy with cocktails. However, to keep our livers happy and safe, we preserve them. Most of the time I end up candying them for gifts during the holidays. But every so often I’ll salt preserve them for recipes like this one. If you’re not fortunate to be able to preserve these yourself, I’ve had great luck finding preserved lemons in just about every grocery store near me in the foreign foods section (though I’m lucky to have a vibrant community of other cultures with niche grocery stores all over as well that sell these).

Onions. Normally I don’t use purple onions for stews because they have a tendency to look gray once the final cooking is complete. I used them in this recipe because I happened to have them on hand and when all was said and done, they had effectively melted into the stew because of how I sliced them. I liked that aspect of the stew a lot. Big chunks of onions would have been distracting. Even little bursts of onion would have been annoying. This shaped made the onions more part of the gravy than anything else.

Tomatoes. You can easily use fresh tomatoes for this recipe if they’re in season. Remember to cut them on a surface where you can save the juices if they’re really fresh. The stew will benefit from them. If you use canned tomatoes, find some that are lower in salt. You’ll have enough from the seasonings as they are. If you can’t find lower salt tomatoes, consider reducing the amount of salt you add overall, keeping in mind that your broth is likely to have a considerable amount of salt in it as well unless you make that yourself as well.

Broth. Ah, vegetable broth. This is a tough choice. There aren’t many good ones out on the market, in my opinion, but I’m notoriously picky. Most are flat or weak in flavor, so I usually make mine and and freeze it. But every so often, I run out so I keep emergency instant broth on hand. I like Better Than Bouillon because it comes in a container that takes up less room in my cupboard and fridge.

Things I might play with

Cutting the richness. Even with the addition of the salted lemon, the dish is very rich. I like it, but I think it needs to be cut just a bit. A little shot of lemon juice itself might be something to try. Vinegar would work. A little garnish of something acidic might be an option as well, perhaps a creme fresh or a nice whole milk yogurt.

Adding saffron. I’ve had a few people suggest that I add saffron to the dish. Frankly I can’t see myself doing this because of the expense. I don’t have enough experience cooking with the ingredient other than as a color enhancer for rice and when I have used it, I’ve not been impressed with the metallic undertones the spice seems to impart. We’ll see though. Enough people have suggested it that I can’t discount it entirely.

Adding some other spices. The spicing is actually very good for this dish but I’m wondering if I should add a couple of more. Some common choices would be cumin and coriander as a nod to the Middle Eastern roots of the recipe. I haven’t played with this aspect much, so I have some experimentation to do.

We’re not big meat eaters in our household, to be honest, preferring to eat mostly plants. I like to refer to it as economic vegetarianism. When we do eat meat, however, we have a few preferences. We want the animal to come from a source we know personally if we can’t hunt it ourselves. We’d love to be able to visit the farm where it was raised to check out the conditions. And if at all possible, we’d like to talk to the farmers themselves to find out their philosophy on feeding and harvesting or butchering. ↩
Fig trees don’t normally survive through the winter outside in Michigan. Brown turkey fig trees specifically can survive down to 17F for periods of time above ground. What we usually end up doing is placing the entire tree on a rolling cart and overwintering it in our garage. The older Italian families in southeast Michigan go one step further and do what’s called “graving” where they bury the plant in a shallow grave for the winter and cover it with brush or old shingles. Look for yards with an oddly placed 5 gallon white bucket, held down by a brick. ↩

Lamb stew with fig and lemon was originally published by Gaylin Walli at Graphological Legerdemain on December 22, 2015.

On working with smart people

2015-12-06T00:00:00-05:00

After having worked for my company as the sole writer and arbiter of all things documentation, I find myself in a unique position of having to explain myself. A lot. Like…a lot a lot.

I’ve recently taken on a leadership role for my team of writers at work. I specifically recommended hiring these people because they were smart. But more importantly I recognized in their interviews that they were kindred spirits with their ability to seek out chunks of technically complex information from disparate sources and weave them together with little understanding of a proper order for everything save for the general sense of “I know this is roughly right.”¹

And therein lies one of the biggest problems with having smart people working with you. My team of writers weave together information that they’ve found, scrounged, and otherwise managed to wheedle out of even the most reluctant developer. Data spelunking and interrogation if you will. They don’t always understand what that information refers to. Vaguely, yes. And sometimes a little more than that. But on the whole they don’t and yet, desptie this they’ve usually they’ve done a great job. I’m inordinately proud of what they’ve ferreted out. They have worked hard to convince themselves that the pattern they’ve woven is right because it’s what makes the most sense.

Except when I know that it’s not right. Or mostly right but not quite. And convincing them of it requires a great deal of effort. Rarely, if ever, can my answer be as simple as “No, it’s not working.” I’m not suggesting here that there aren’t times when “No” isn’t wholly appropriate as a response. But saying it that way doesn’t help. No one learns, everyone gets frustrated, and poof, I’ve stifled pretty much every bit of ninja level creativity and coolio problem solving I’ve hired my team members for in the first place.

For a growing team, I think the key to successful critique is being able to answer “No” and follow it immediately with “Here’s why” even if the why is short.²

…except then I run into my own problem: there’s usually no easy and quick way to say why. I too am going with my gut because I’m one of them. I’m a writer and data spelunker and weaver of information too. And I don’t always completely understand the tech either.³ So the net result is that I have to into great detail about why the pattern isn’t working because I have to teach them beyond what they’ve already taught themselves about the topic using the scant information they’ve scrounged up.

So now I’m having to follow a pretty specific path to stretch my own skills as a team leader if I want the team to grow properly:

Figure out what my fellow writer did.
Figure out where the info came from specifically in context.
Figure out how I’d do it differently if at all.
Figure out when it wouldn’t matter which of our ways it was done in.
Figure out what the customers really need.
Explain that all to the writer so they do better next round and do it themselves to me when I flip spots with them.

Did I mention that I usually have to do this in a very short time? Like less than a day? Even if they’ve had weeks?

I love my job so very much but sometimes it makes my brain hurt.

It’s a terribly difficult skill to teach in any way other than by experience. It’s like this weird combination of pattern matching and information structure, with a bit of sacrificial chickens and swearing thrown in for good measure. ↩
I should caveat here that in my team it’s always implied that you can seek out more information when the time is more appropriate. ↩
I sometimes call this the idiot-savant method of writing. I’m sure this amuses my former professors at University to no end. ↩

On working with smart people was originally published by Gaylin Walli at Graphological Legerdemain on December 06, 2015.

To the dad in the pub with his daughters on Halloween

2015-11-01T00:00:00-04:00

Dear Dad in the Pub on Halloween:

Sir, I owe you an apology.

You see, when I was in the pub this afternoon, I saw you guide your daughters to where we were sitting and my first thought was “Good lord, he didn’t even try to get them dressed.”

The first thing I saw were your two daughters dressed in this incredible mishmash of stripes and pink and sequins and glitter with absolutely nothing matchy matchy on at all. They were bouncing around like little jumping beans. Generally crazy as kids are at times, and because I was stupid and tired (not that it’s an excuse), I debated eating quickly and getting the hell out of the pub.

And then I saw this:

A simple Hot Wheels car.

But there was more. You didn’t cringe when their cry went up that no-we-don’t-want-the-regular-straws-we-want-the-cocktail-straws (honestly I like those better too). You asked them what they wanted to eat. Didn’t say no when one of the answers was the (rather awesome but still messy) pepperoni pizza. And you didn’t flinch when plain pasta and that pizza were eaten with bare hands. You ate it with them, in fact.

And when your youngest begged you to ask the bartender, who was dressed as Michael Myers, to put on his mask and let her see the knife that completed his costume, you called him over without hesitation. You did it even though you knew perfectly well she might scream bloody murder. I heard you describe the movie to her while you waited for him to sneak up on her.

But it was that little Hot Wheels car that opened my eyes. It wasn’t until saw it that realized how incredibly stupid I was to to have ever thought “Wow, he didn’t brush their hair at all, did he?”. As I watched your family, it dawned on me that you’d managed to give your little girls two of the best gifts any child could get in this day and age: freedom and attention. And as I sat next to you in the pub with this dawning sense of shame, I realized how truly judge-y I was.

It’s not about their hair, dammit. Nor their shoes. Or anything else they were wearing that did or didn’t match to my adult eyes. You played with your daughters in the pub. With this little Hot Wheels car. Their fingernails were painted. It looked like yours were too.

Sir, I judged you at a glance without thinking what a lovely family you had, based solely on what your daughters were wearing and I am ashamed of myself. I should have immediately looked to the smiles on their faces instead, listened to the joyous laughter they were sharing with everyone, and paid closer attention to the fact that they clearly and most sincerely loved you to pieces. And that you loved them back just as much.

Forgive me. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I’ll do better from now on.

Much love,

Gaylin

To the dad in the pub with his daughters on Halloween was originally published by Gaylin Walli at Graphological Legerdemain on November 01, 2015.

At my age

2015-07-19T00:00:00-04:00

Through my shoulder surgery recovery and during the recent funeral unpleasantness, one fact has become increasingly clear: my perception of age and ability differs greatly from almost anyone else.¹ I’ve made no secret that I’m frequently much older than my coworkers. And to their credit, absolutely none of them has ever mentioned anything about my age at all, save for the few shocked “I thought we were the same age” utterances every so often, after which point its largely forgotten.

But then there are the vast majority of other people I interact with who insist on saying inane things like “Well, you know you’re of an age.” What the ever loving fuck does that mean, anyway? Is there some milestone chart that magically comes in to play at some point where you start ticking off items on it like “Yep, broke my X bone” or “Gosh, had to go on meds for Y”? Because if there is, could someone please share it with me so I can debunk it?

This bullshit of “well, you know you’re of this age” doesn’t sit well with me. Not at all. It especially doesn’t sit well with me when I mention that I’m trying something new or different. If I want to cut my hair into a punk style and dye it rainbow colors, your response should be “Awesome, send me pics when it’s finished,” not “what would your coworkers think.”² If I want to start learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu³, your response should be “That sounds right up your alley,” not “What are you thinking starting that AT YOUR AGE.”

At my age. Feh.

I’ll tell you what I can start at my age. I can be an erotic fiction author. I can be a gourmet chef. I can be an illuminator. I can be a seamstress. I can learn the major Shaolin weapon forms. I can drive a race car. I can do 100 sit-ups every day for 100 days. I can do so many things AND MORE because I’ve done all those things. At my age.

I can do anything. My age shouldn’t matter. What should matter is that I’m happy. And I am. Try it some time. You’ll live longer.

Don’t roll your eyes at me for bringing this up again. It’s not an issue for me. It’s clearly an issue for other people, so I’m gonna just hit it straight on and nip this in the bud because I’m tired of people mentioning it all the time. ↩
They’d cheer me on, you daft bastard. Hell, they practically threw a party when I dyed my hair bright purple. ↩
I mean, it is taught at my dojo. I’m seriously thinking of taking advantage of it. And my grappling skills suck right now, so it would be a great way to learn. It’s really just a matter of finding the time. ↩

At my age was originally published by Gaylin Walli at Graphological Legerdemain on July 19, 2015.

To sleep, perchance to dream

2015-06-23T00:00:00-04:00

My mother and my step-father moved to Texas as I left high school. I dutifully called them on every holiday, but there was one call I would make every year that was more special. From the time I entered university, I regularly called my mom on the first day I watched the snow fly.

Truth be told, that first snowfall call had been made because mom had once told me about how she had run barefoot out into the snow the first time she’d ever seen it. She’d been my age and in her first year of university herself and had called her parents to marvel over it. So I repeated history for her despite having played in the snows of Michigan since childhood. Even after leaving university, I continued the tradition of the annual snowfall call over the intervening years.

In Michigan’s Upper Penninsula, snow flies much earlier than other areas of the Midwest. I once called my mother on the Fourth of July because a freak snow storm had popped up despite the otherwise balmly temps for that time of year. Mom and I decided together to count that instance as an anomaly and continue with our regularly scheduled snowfall phone call in the fall.

I like to think we had both come to view the first snowfall call as a slowly strengthening bond that signaled a fragile peace between us. Privately I hoped it would eventually soothe the lingering pains of my tumultuous childhood.

Over the many years of the snowfall call, subtle changes occurred in our conversations. A slow progression of forgotten words and missed birthdays were easy to forgive but should have offered me clues that something was wrong. More troubling, in retrospect, were the hurried “maybe you’d like to talk to your father” comments that had entered our conversations moments after I’d called. And yet they rang no warning bells. Alzheimer’s was the ultimate diagnosis, but everything happened so slowly that it was simply easier to believe that her age had finally started to show.

Then one snowfall she didn’t known why I had called or why it was important. On Christmas Day year before last, mom hadn’t known who I was.

My mother’s funeral was last week.

As I return from settling her estate after the funeral and launch myself immediately into work, I realize that I have yet to truly grieve for this loss I’ve experienced. I’ve been running from one thing to the next, dealing with this crisis, solving that problem, and general making sure that everyone has been taken care of. At some point, I’ll need to take care of me. Likely not until after I return home from this business trip I’m on, though.

Until then, my dreams will be filled with visions of slowly falling flakes, puffy and white, that come with that first rush of true cold for the season. I can feel the cold now, even in the heat of summer.

Goodbye mom. I love you. I miss you.

To sleep, perchance to dream was originally published by Gaylin Walli at Graphological Legerdemain on June 23, 2015.

I've found my tribe

2015-06-07T00:00:00-04:00

Consistent blogging has never been a problem for me, until now apparently. This past month has been…festive to say the least. MrMr¹ and I went to Vegas, and while I’d like to say it was full of anniversary celebratory canoodling, it was, sadly, just an excuse to not be apart from each other while he was attending IBM Edge 2015.² It was a nice enough stay for what it was, I suppose, what with me being trapped in the hotel room the vast majority of the time working remote…remotely. At least I can say I had some great convos with the cleaning crew.³

Then I spent a bit of time freezing because I got the bright idea that “Hey, a medieval camping event is something I always love and it just so happens that my dear friend Landinn⁴ will be nearby and attending and since I haven’t seen her in forever and have been trying to for 10 years maybe now is my only chance. In fact, just to make it extra special, I’ll wear the second lightest medieval clothes I have. In the mountains. In an area of the country WHERE IT RAINS ALL THE DAMNED TIME.” Now, that said, it really was quite temperate the entire time until the sun went down and I froze my ass off. Never in my life have I been so ill-prepared for a camping event. I’m the planner extraordinaire when it comes to these things and this time, this one damned time, I brought nothing with me but the wrong clothes and the right jewelry.

Oh, but wait there’s more!

After narrowly escaping hypothermia (twice), I wisely moved on to more comfortable climes in lovely downtown Portland, promptly did the tourist thing by walking the craft fair, visiting the Keep Portland Weird sign⁵, avoiding Voodoo Donuts⁶, and falling face-first into Book Nerd Mecca(TM)⁷.

Still more you say? Why yes there is!

The overarching point of all of this travel during the course of two weeks, believe it or not, was not just to gad about and work in weird spots around the globe.⁸ It was really so that I could finally give my talk on martial arts philosopy and writing at Write the Docs NA 2015. I also met some awesome people (EDIT: shout out to Matt, Mike, and Becky especially). And, of course, I checked off some tech writing nerd bucket list items like meeting Marcia Riefer Johnston, Karen Ronning-Hall, and Ward Cunningham (insert fan girl squee here).

First day of #writethedocs starts with swag and breakfast. #awesome pic.twitter.com/5usW9qxzKC
— Gaylin Walli (@gwalli) May 18, 2015

I could talk about all the cool things I learned and the ideas that it all generated but they sunk in so fast that it would take a metric crapton of writing to get it all out again and articulate in more than just cave grunts and gestures. Let’s just say that the whole trip was completely worthwhile because it basically all culminated in me finding my tribe. And I don’t say that lightly. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been doing this for quite a while, this writing gig thing, but even when I was going to school and sharing in that camaraderie of misfortune thing during the snowstorms, I never really thought like I was part of the crowd.⁹

Now I do. Me. Crazy lone writer me. I’m not alone. There are other writers like me. We have the same problems and joys, the same trials and questions day-to-day. We worry about many of the same things. And that makes the fact that my hair is still on fire at work totally worthwhile.

#ilovemyjob

Who now has his own twitter account (which he’s trying to change the name of, btw, so if you’re from Twitter and wanna get rid of a squatter’s account hit me up). ↩
I’ve since dubbed this the “conference for older white guys” due to the paucity of people who identify as female (as best I can tell) and people of any color whatsoever. It was so largely populated by mid-40s guys in logo’d polos and khakis that ai nearly forbade MrMr from wearing the same because he would, quite firmly blend into the pack of other 40s-something white guys. HE’S SPECIAL, DAMMIT AND I WANTED EVERYONE TO KNOW. And now that I think on it, the people of color of any kind at the casino at this time were clearly there for the celebratory canoodloing of their own devising so maybe that’s not so bad. But I digress…. ↩
Hola, Maria! You were a joy to have in the room as company for all 20 minutes of it each day. Hope the baby is doing well! ↩
Of course it’s a pseudonym, silly. ↩
With my monkey. As one does. ↩
Tripled up around the block and side walk? Screw that long-assed line. In fact, screw donuts. Chips are my kyrptonite anyway. ↩
aka Powell’s, from whence I escaped narrowly with a single purchase, largely because I didn’t want to carry more on the plane than I already had in hand and I’m too damned cheap to ship things home even when people offer to do all the leg work. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. ↩
Though that would be awesome. I should plan that. ↩
I saved that for my sisters-by-choice, in my sorority. Yes, dammit, I was a sorority girl. Don’t judge me! ↩

I've found my tribe was originally published by Gaylin Walli at Graphological Legerdemain on June 07, 2015.

Live from the den of iniquity

2015-05-11T00:00:00-04:00

For all my sassy brash and bravado, I’m a pathetic sop when it comes to my anniversary. I leave these little heart-shaped post it notes around the house describing all the things I love about being married to MrMr. He swears it’s adorable. (And he still keeps the old notes, so he can’t be fibbing too hard on that.) Understandably then, the idea of being separated from MrMr on my anniversary was, shall we say, a bit distasteful. Doable, but less than ideal.

You see, MrMr’s company decided it might be a good idea to send him on a company business trip this week. It also happens to be the week of our wedding anniversary. If it were a separation of just a few days, I suppose, that wouldn’t be a big deal. We’d simply wait until the weekend to celebrate, have a grand time doing what married folk do on their anniversary, and poof. Another year pleasantly surprised that the other of us stuck around for so long given how hard we both think it is to live with our selves.

Except that this time, before MrMr would arrive home, I’d be on my way to Portland to attend Write the Docs 2015, which would mean that we’d be separated for yet another weekend and at least three quarters of a week more while we traded sides of the US. That clearly wasn’t going to work.

So this week, I find myself ensconced in The Venetian hotel in Las Vegas, which I’m sure makes nearly everyone think “OMG I wish I could work remotely from Las Vegas!” Yeah, no. This is really a working vacation.

I do get to see MrMr every night, but we don’t get to see each other during the day at all really. I’m still writing docs, he’s still working, and we go on with our day much the same as we would if we were at home. I’m just in a less comfy chair, and in a room with better air conditioning than my home office.

In fact, this is my view most of the day this week:

But tomorrow we’ll celebrate spending more than half of our lives living together, supporting each other, and generally being sappy old married folk together, even if it is amidst the noise and bustle and heat of this “den of iniquity” as my mother once called it

I love you, MrMr. I’m glad you’re in my life.

#twuwuv

Live from the den of iniquity was originally published by Gaylin Walli at Graphological Legerdemain on May 11, 2015.

More Write the Docs progress

2015-04-21T00:00:00-04:00

Just to keep things neat and tidy, I’ve started a repo specifically for my Write the Docs NA 2015 talk that I’m going to be giving. It’s currently got links to the abstract I submitted (in a fit of insomnia), some credits for images I’ve used to date, placeholders for things like the links to the actual slide presentation, and some notes.

I’m feelin’ all productive, y’all.

More Write the Docs progress was originally published by Gaylin Walli at Graphological Legerdemain on April 21, 2015.

Fear and loathing

2015-04-12T00:00:00-04:00

“There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.” ~ Raoul Duke, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Drug induced bravado and paranoia aside, what Raoul says represents the universal state I’d really like to find myself in at any given time while I’m working. When you’re surrounded by all these brilliantly technical people, however, there’s a certain amount of…I’ll call it trepidation. You might call it simple anxiety.

But I’m told by “people in the know”¹ that it’s really called imposter’s syndrome.² Which, when it comes right down to it is really just a fancy name for “fear.” Fear of being found out as a fake and knowing that everyone around you is somehow the real deal and you’re just playing at it. Or somehow you’ve just been incredibly lucky to get the things done that you’ve gotten done, either by being in the right place at the right time or simply “guessing” what the right response will be. I mean, it was a fluke, right? It couldn’t possibly happen again.

You know, there’s more that I could list here, but again, what it really comes down to is fear. And you know what?

Fear is a filthy, damned liar.³

Listen up! Every time you find yourself on the wrong side of that fantastic universal sense of right and winning that Raoul talks about? You repeat that to yourself. “FEAR IS A FILTHY, DAMNED LIAR.” Shout it, if you need to. Do whatever the hell you possibly can to get away from that bastard.

Realize you’ve done some awesome things. You’re not just lucky. At some point, you’ve got to accept the fact that you really did something cool. And it started with when you accepted the job offer or made the decision to go to the technical training. It didn’t just happen. YOU made the choice. YOU were in charge and accepted the job offer. Go you!

And those people who hired you? They didn’t just scatter shot invites and hope for the best. They CHOSE you to work with them. We’re talking serious money, here, girlfriend. This is tech. They don’t just randomly throw it around. Remember that word “investment”? That’s you. You’re an investment. Startups don’t invest in idiots. Startups that do simply don’t last long. You’re here. You’re awesome.

Know that you’re you. You’re not them. Stop comparing yourself to the other dudes.⁴ It’s just too damned easy to fall into the trap, so just stop. You can’t live their life. They can’t live yours. Only you can live yours. And honestly, those “successful” people that you keep trying to compare yourself to? They’re successful because they got up and did something. They fell down and did something. They succeeded and failed ON THEIR OWN. But they did something.

Here’s a secret: You’ve already learned this lesson. Maybe it was by actually learning to walk as a child. You got up, you fell down. You probably broke the family table and squashed the dog in the process a few times too. But you picked yourself up and tried again because you didn’t care. You just wanted to try and walk, right? You didn’t think, “Oh gosh I should be careful” or “What if I hurt Fido?” No, you just got up and did it. So do it again.

You’re awesome, right here and right now. Will you fall down again? Heck yeah. Will you fail on occasion? God I hope so.

In fact, I hope I fall down and fail with you. I could use a buddy to laugh with as I’m climbing back up to try again. Let’s do this.

TOP MEN, dammit. ↩
Awh, thanks, Wikipedia. ↩
Fear is also the mind killer. Thanks Mr. Herbert. ↩
And I use the term “dudes” in as gender neutral a way as possible. You self-identify however best you need to. And let me know if there’s a better word or pronoun you want me to use around you. I’m a child of the 80s and “bro” ain’t gonna cut it here. ↩

Fear and loathing was originally published by Gaylin Walli at Graphological Legerdemain on April 12, 2015.

Writing the docs will happen, apparently

2015-03-28T00:00:00-04:00

So, a conference proposal I submitted in a late-night bout with insomnia got unexpectedly accepted. Happy, excited, and weirded out that people would want to listen to me talk about the synergies¹ between martial arts and writing and technology. Yeah, all those things describe me right about now.

Sure it’s not for the full 30 minutes². A 15 minute talk is still a great amount of time, right? More than a lightning talk, less than … well, less than the potential to bore someone stupid, I suppose.

It looks like this is really gonna happen. I gotta go meditate.

Oh god did I really use that word? Please don’t think I’m a douchebag. ↩
Good lord I had 45 minutes worth of material already trying to be cut down. I’m so screwed. ↩

Writing the docs will happen, apparently was originally published by Gaylin Walli at Graphological Legerdemain on March 28, 2015.

Because Mr. Eco was right

2015-03-14T00:00:00-04:00

This week seems to be my week for coding mistakes (in as much as I can call it coding, that is¹). I am still relying a great deal too much on the viewing format of something and not enough on what the code is telling me about how something will look.

I sat down this week and work and renamed in excess of 200 image files to a more consistent format. Sadly it wasn’t a case where I could beg one of my awesome cow-orkers to wave a magic scripting wand. The files really did require human eyes to look at the content of the image and say “Well obviously ‘screenshot01.png’ isn’t going to cut it here.” We were aiming for a loose BEM-style naming scheme².

Of course then I had to commit the changes. Everything looked great in the Markdown previewer I use with the Atom text editor. Except not so much on the accuracy upstream. When I got everything the way I thought it should look, I ran everything through our linter and … nada. No complaints. That alone made me suspicious. I mean, at the very least I make some boneheaded typo or forget to prepend a URL with a slash or something. But this time? Nothing. Not a peep.

After confessing to my work Wonder Twin, Uberfuzzy the Great and Powerful³, that I basically felt like I was rolling my face around on the keyboard, we set about fixing things⁴. Lots of things. Like extra spaces that needed adding, double-editing files that were renamed multiple times in different commits, unused files that weren’t removed. Sure there were the edge-casey typos that our linter seemed to usher on through with nary a complaint. But for the most part everything was fixable and avoidable if I HAD JUST PAID ATTENTION.

For all my self-professed love of pedantic little logic-y fiddly bits and bobs, I just don’t understand why these little details escape me right now. Am I avoiding them? Is my brain deliberately ignoring them? Am I simply rushing through hoping to complete things quickly? I have no idea. Probably a combination of all these reasons.

Maybe I need a giant sticky note on the side of my monitor that says “HEY DUMMY!” and lists out the things I need to review manually that the linter simply won’t find. At least until the review steps become second nature like editing text. I think it may save my life⁵. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like that idea a lot.

“We like lists because we don’t want to die.” ~ Umberto Eco⁶

Because really, when it comes right down to it, it’s formatting. ↩
Sort of like “Bob’s Rules of Order” instead of “Robert’s Rules of Order” in a way. ↩
Whenever I talk about my ever-patient cow-orkers, he heads the list. Always. ↩
Read: He fixed it all and I just sat there twiddling my thumbs. ↩
I’m not sure how long Uberfuzzy’s patience is going to hold before he gets really stabby about these things. I think I owe him more than one bottle of his favorite umbrella drink booze in thanks for all the assists. ↩
Beyer, Susan, and Lothar Gorris. “SPIEGEL Interview with Umberto Eco: ‘We Like Lists Because We Don’t Want to Die’” Spiegel Online. November 11, 2009. Accessed March 14, 2015. ↩

Because Mr. Eco was right was originally published by Gaylin Walli at Graphological Legerdemain on March 14, 2015.

Channeling Princess Leia

2015-03-08T00:00:00-05:00

MrMr wonders sometimes, I’m sure, why I get up before dawn. For a long time it was simply that I hated driving in rush-hour traffic so much that going in to work early was the only way to keep my sanity. At this point, now that I work exclusively out of my home office, I really have no other excuse than habit.¹ Even on the weekends, which probably bakes his noodle more than any other time.²

So here I sit on a Sunday morning, awake at the blindingly late hour of 9am³ and I have to make a confession: I suck at this code manipulation thing worse than I thought. But I’ve figured out why.

I’ve exclusively used GUI tools to do my job for so long that when someone says “Move the fooberhoozits out for now” or “Fix the merge conflicts”, I panic. Wait, what? How do I undo the thing? There’s no button for that. Conflict? It didn’t tell me there was a problem, dammit! How can I fix it?

So when something goes wrong, or worse goes horribly wrong, I’m usually left with either sobbing and rocking slowly in the corner until someone takes pity on me or screaming help at the top of my lungs. Neither are pretty. Certainly not Princess-Leia-begging-for-help pretty anyway. Fortunately I have awesome cow-orkers who save me each and every time.

But I can’t continue relying on them like this forever. I need to strap on my own damned light saber and learn some of this crap that’s stymied me for so long. So, I’ve enrolled myself in Code School⁴. Even told my boss about it. He’s all for it, of course. But it’s this new thing. This big fat scary thing. This thing that completely exposes my lack of working knowledge of underlying systems.

Why I’m confessing it here I have no idea. Perhaps to make sure that someone in my shoes knows they’re not alone. To encourage someone who’s been in the industry for decades like I have that maybe, just maybe, there’s hope.⁵

We did discover, however, that actually having real curtains instead of a Scooby Do sheet tacked over the window does wonders for keeping out the dawn light. Who knew? ↩
He’s a champion napper and 14 hours at a go isn’t uncommon sleep time for him if he can manage it. Me on the other hand? Five to seven. If I get eight or more I start to wonder if I’m coming down with something. ↩
Spring forward in the Eastern time zone. Stupid time change bullshit. ↩
The “Git Real” course for now, but there’s a lot more available that I could benefit from. ↩
I did toy with the idea of it being a “last, best hope of earth” kind of post to sound all erudite and smart, but I realized it was more like a “last, best hope for peace” kind of post. Honestly though, Princess Leia is still more my generation, so her gif was the one that made it. ↩

Channeling Princess Leia was originally published by Gaylin Walli at Graphological Legerdemain on March 08, 2015.

And so it begins

2015-03-01T00:00:00-05:00

I’m not old. I certainly don’t feel it. But the simple fact is that the majority of my cow-orkers¹ were born after MrMr² and I tied the knot. I try not to point it out but I’m at that age where I can’t help but think “Oh for fuck’s sake. What do you mean you don’t know who <insert 80s band name> is?”. I’ve been in this career path for longer.

So, per my “Hello World” commit on the home page (at least until I rip that puppy off there for something more festive and beeyooteous), I’m doing this because:

…I got this bright idea that maybe I should expand myself out beyond the idiot-savant knowledge I have of stuff for my job. Sure, I publish docs every day. Sometimes I even manipulate how they look. But mostly I just provide content, with minor style tweaks the same way. Basically stuff any schlub with knowledge of Markdown or HTML might be able to do.

But I’m aiming for something more. It might take a while. I might be slow at it. And I’m sure I’ll make a lot of whacked mistakes. Try to be kind. I’m new at this.

Welcome to my playground.

Forgive my mistakes, my friends. And my polluted change histories, reversions, piteous cries for help, and complete lack of filter when it comes to editing out swearing. I know not what I do.

Yet.

It’s a holdover from back in the mainframe days, folks. I can’t help myself. ↩
Names have been obfuscated to protect the innocent. Or not embarrass him too much. ↩

And so it begins was originally published by Gaylin Walli at Graphological Legerdemain on March 01, 2015.