chriskelley.org

Made a trade yesterday to pick up my newest shootin’ iron: A stainless steel Ruger Vaquero (the original ones that can shoot ‘em as hot as you can make ‘em) in 357 Magnum.

The plan is to pickup a cheapy 12 gauge side by side shotgun, a nice lever action (Henry) in the same caliber, some shootin’ leathers (that would be a belt and holster) and then try out some cowboy action shooting.  Looks like great fun and where else can I combine all my favorite hobbies!  Now I just need to join SASS and pick out my alias – all suggestions welcome

No, it’s not Bacon (that’s second).  It’s Goetta.  Growing up in Northern Kentucky / Greater Cincinnati I can remember almost every breakfast we had with Goetta.  And its not because it was a special treat only rolled out at Christmas or New Years.  We ate Goetta  a lot.  Its because its sooo good.  All throughout my childhood the mythology of Goetta was piled high.  I was told it would fend off colds.  It had a secret blend of spices that only 3 people in the world new.  And most of all I was told that it was a German food.  The first two were pretty quickyl dismissed, but the last I had held on to until very recently.

Having a chance to work with many native born Germans from all over Germany (mostly Franconia, but not exclusively) now that I am part of Siemens one of the consistent topics when I meet someone new is Goetta.  To date I have not found a single German that has ever heard of it!  But I am not giving up.  Rather than going one to one in trying to find someone born and raised in Germany that has ever heard of Goetta, I have decided to use the power of interwebs to reach all of Germany at once.  Below is a short photo essay on Goetta.  Hopefully one of the pictures, words or links down below will trigger a childhood memory of someone out there and I can hold on to at least one piece of the Goetta legend of my youth.  While I will no doubt not be able to match the great photography or descriptions of some of my favorite food blogs, I will give it my best shot.

Goetta is made from equal parts pork and beef roasts that are cooked first and then shredded or finely ground.  The meat cooled and then mixed with pin oats (this tells me it must be a peasant food since this a common technique the world over to stretch a limited amount of meat) and spices and then formed into loaves or put into a casing.  If you want to try to make some yourself, this is a pretty good recipe.

Goetta around here comes from Gliers or you make it yourself.  I’ve had both kinds and like them equally as well.  This morning’s breakfast started out with a tube of Gliers.

You peel the plastic and then slice it about a half to three quarters inch thick:

You place it in a pan (cast iron all the way) and crank up the heat.  This is where most first time Goetta makers screw things up.  If you didn’t know any better you would cook it like sausage.  However this would leave you deficient in two key areas: you have to cook the crap out of it when compared to sausauge.  I’m talking 20 mins on medium high heat.  If you don’t you’ll end up with warm goo.  Second, unlike sausage, you want to flatten your Goetta out as it cooks, letting it get really thin (and crispy from the long cook time).  I guess a third thing is to leave it alone.  Put it in the pan, squish it flat, let it cook, flip it once, let it cook and eat it.  The more you flip it before its done, the more likely you will end up with Goetta hash.

As it goes into the pan

After 20 minutes of good cook time

What comes out of the pan can only be described as heavenly.  And unlike bacon, there’s actually some whole grain and fiber, so it has to be good for you…right?

Serve it up along side some pancakes or french toast (if you want a European style breakfast – and don’t go tellin’ me they don’t eat bread dipped in eggs and milk and then pan fried all over France) and you have the perfect breakfast.

Been rather quiet again here lately.  Not sure if I am loosing interest in blogging or it is loosing interest in me.  One standard excuse for letting your blog go to weeds is that you’ve been to busy with other things.  The last half of the year, that was certainly true.  I was coaching 2 different volleyball teams (one came in runner up in their tournament), getting ready for the holidays (we hosted Christmas this year for the family – I think it went great), brewing beer, canning things from the garden and generally enjoying the time I got to spend with my family and not on the road traveling for work.  In retrospect I am glad I took the time when I had it available, because January 1st, everything changed (when it comes to ‘free’ time anyway).

A little over a year ago, I was given an opportunity to make a major career path change and I took it.  I had been working with software partners for more than 5 years and I was in a rut.  My boss gave me a shot at running a new dedicated online marketing team and after thinking about it for a while (OK, about 1.5 seconds) I took him up on it.  Fifteen wonderful months later and I am presented with another opportunity: do it all again, this time for the division.

A short lesson on the structure of Siemens: first there was Siemens Corp which begat three sectors: Industry, Medical and Energy.  Industry then begat 6 divisions: Industry Automation, Drive Technologies, Building Technologies, Mobility, Industry Solutions and OSRAM (known as Sylvania here in the US).  With such a large litter there was bound to be some complications and indeed Industry Automation and Drive Technologies came out as conjoined twins.  This was to be expected as they had originally been one group in the prior Siemens Structure, the venerable Siemens Automation and Drives.  As the surgeons have tried to separate the twins, departments that had once been singular for the twin were now doubled for the new children.  In all of this Industry Automation had the time to begat a few business units, including the one that I was in until recently, Siemens PLM Software.

So. now that the genealogy is straight, the simple part of the story is that my boss was asked to do everything he’s been doing for the Siemens PLM Software business unit for the Industry Automation Division.  And then he asked me to so the same (not what he had been doing for PL, what I had been doing for PL).  So now I find myself as the head of the online group for Industry Automation.  My small team of 10 in business unit has now grown to 26 to handle the needs of the division.  My small travel budget that would let me get to Plano once a quarter has grown to enough to let me get to Nuremberg every three weeks for the next I don’t know how long.  And my 250 ct. bottle of aspirin has magically transformed into the mega-lo-mart 1000 ct. jar.

The next weeks, months (and years) will be a journey no doubt.  I will learn more about myself and the people around me than I know now.  I will be part of some tremendous success…and some spectacular failures.  In the next few weeks it will be easy to become fearful for all that I don’t know and that’s lurking “out there to get me”.  But the more I scrape and dig and scratch the more bring to light and I find that there is a lot of greatness buried right under the surface.  And that’s good enough for now to let me know that there is great potential and possibilities.  Now to figure out what to do with them both.

Long break since last post, but since I am on vacation for the next few days I thought I would hammer this one out since its been rattling around in my head for the last few days.

I may be (really) late to the party, but I am starting to fully understand the duty all parents have to teach their children how to think.  This is a bit different than educating and certainly is not teaching them what to think.  Both our kids are deep into various parts of American history and its somewhat scary to me what they are being taught and what’s being omitted.  For example, evidently Christopher Columbus was a pretty bad man.  Never mind that he discovered America (or at least re-discovered it) and mapped the waterways of the Atlantic and Pacific.  He later became a governor of an island and was too mean: he actually punished people that stole things (by cutting of their hands…and sometimes their heads).

I am not trying to make a case for Mr. Columbus’ sainthood.  However, I am starting to see that history can often be used to support modern agendas, even in the very conservative Catholic school system that my kids go to.  So, what is a parent to do?  Of course I could try to tell a more balanced story about the good things that Columbus did.  The problem with that is that only fixes the immediate problem.  And it ignores tha hardest part of being a parent: you aren’t always going to be there.  This argument is normally applied to helping your kids say no to things that will obviously hurt them (drugs, sex, etc).  It’s harder to teach them to think critically and challenge their teachers.

The best I have been able to do is tell them that there are two sides (at least) to every story and that they should always try to understand as much as possible if they are trying to make a call about serious things like who’s right and who’s wrong.  I figure that approach has a double bonus: it will keep them from jumping to conclusions / believing everything they hear in school AND it will give them more motivation to dig into the things that really interest them, hopefully giving them a lifelong love of learning.

I’ve been on a journey for the last few years.  It’s not a journey that I expressly chose to start out on; it’s one that I just sort of fell into: a journey to get closer to what I and my family eat.  It started many years ago, before we moved out to our farm, when I planted a few tomato plants in the back yard in the subdivision.  Flash forward a few years and now we’re living on 22 acres.  I plant a 1/10th of an acre garden every year.  This past year I really went all out and tried new methods (raised beds really do work and growing starting plants from seed is just plain cool) and lots of new plants.

But I’ve done more than just expand my garden this past year. I started looking for more ways to use the vegetables I was producing.  This took me down various roads, from finding recipes that can use up a few cantaloupes (they all ripen at once) and some spare peaches (cantaloupe / peach conserve is awesome on English muffins!) to buying a vacuum sealer (blanching and freezing green beans is a great way to have ‘fresh’ beans all year) to going all the way and buying a pressure canner (I must have put up 50 quarts of beans, carrots, beef stew, pickles and various jams).  I even started a compost bin to find a use for the stuff that just went one day to long before I could find something to use it in or preserve it for later.

However its not all just vegetables, freezing and canning.  I’ve also gotten closer to our protein sources.  Last winter we joined a cow share co-op.  I own one share of a cow on a local farm (aout 1/6 of the cow) and as my dividend for owning that cow I get one gallon of milk per week (yes it’s raw milk.  yes I know what’s in it.  yes it tastes wonderful.  no I won’t ever drink anything but raw milk if I am given the choice.  no no one in my family has ever gotten sick from drinking it – in fact I think its made us better able to fend off some of the bugs that have gone around).

In the spring, I built a chicken house, put in a small yard and acquired 6 pullets (young female chickens).  I got another older ‘pretty chicken’ at my wife’s request a few weeks later.  One escape and subsequent demise via fox and a few ‘free chickens that lay strange colored eggs’ from my father in law later and the flock stands at 8 today.  We have been enjoying fresh eggs since September at a rate of about 2 dozen a week.  We don’t always eat that many, so there’s some to share with the neighbors.

Its not all ‘no-kill’ protein either.  In May, we went in with our neighbors to purchase a slaughtered hog.  We each ended up with about 200 lbs of various pork products (Ham, bacon, sausage, pork chops, shoulder, ribs, etc) for about $1/lb.  It has been some of the best sausage and bacon I have ever had.  And while we didn’t actually meet ‘our pig’ before the deed was done, I did feel some responsibility for its death since I placed the order (queue the Godfather Waltz in the background).

A couple weeks ago I made good on a promise made last year to one of my wife’s long time friends from High School.  She raises beef cattle, but always sells them early in their lives to be raised and processed by someone else.  She offered to split the proceeds from one of her steers that had kept if we would ‘take care of getting him to the point he was wrapped in white paper’.  So two weeks ago I hitched the horse trailer to the truck, headed out to her farm and picked up our beef (I learned that’s what you call them when they are headed for white paper…a little more detached than cow or steer).  The ‘beef’ was at our house for a couple days and then off to the slaughter house.  Let me say this: everyone who makes a conscious decision to eat meat should visit a slaughter house at least once in their lives.  I am convinced there will be one of two outcomes: you will either reconsider your choice or you will know that you have made the right one and that there something natural about man’s desire to eat meat.  Getting your meat in nice cuts wrapped in plastic with blood sponges underneath from the grocery is a dis-service to the animal that died to feed you and isolates you from an experience that makes you more grateful for what you have.  Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t an experience I particularly enjoyed – but it was something I am glad I did.  Yesterday, the beef came home in little white packages and now I have a freezer full (even half a beef is nearly 300 lbs) of t-bones, sirloins, roasts and hamburger.

So what’s next on this journey?  I am giving serious thought to giving a go at turkey and deer hunting this season.  The first turkey season in Kentucky started over the weekend and runs through Friday.  If I get up the nerve, I will buy a license and give it a shot (literally) on Friday morning before I go to work.  Deer season starts soon (for rifle anyway…black powder is already over) and I may try my hand at that as well, although I don’t really have a suitable deer rifle (unless the deer comes wearing urban camo with ninja swords and hand grenades ) so I may have to pass this time around (or try it with a shotgun and slugs…or buy a new rifle ).

I want to stress this hasn’t been an intentional thing. But like some of the other most rewarding things in life I have ended up hear through a series of seemingly unrelated choices, opportunities and circumstances.  And think about this the next time you sit down to eat a quick snack, a simple lunch or a big dinner: do you know where your food came from?

I seem to have fallen out of my blogging rhythm again.  This happens to me now and again and I really don’t know why.  Sure, I have been busy, but in some ways that give me more to talk about.  Since my last post there have been countless volley ball games, practices and tryouts.  There have been many adventures and mis-adventures on the farm – big trail rides, block parties, new chickens.  And there has been lots of interesting stuff going on at work.  So maybe its the double whammy of being busy: less time to sit down and write about / reflect on what’s happening and more stuff happening at the same time, so I just think I am so far behind I will never catch up.  Maybe the weeks that go by are my way of hitting the reset button and declaring ‘blogging bankruptcy’, clearing the decks with a post like this and then setting off in a new direction talking about whatever has my fleeting attention for the next few months.

I still love my blog.  Just need to remember to visit it more often.

This is one of those half baked ideas that I hope gets more fully baked by writing about it.

In the past few weeks I have been involved in a few discussions about strategies for rolling out social media inside large companies. I am starting to think that its not possible to do well. Its a problem of too many constraints.

To be able to engage in social media well there are two basic fundamentals that have to be in place: you have to (1) know what it is that the products your company sells actually do and (2) be passionate about whatever it is that they actually do. Why is this hard for employees at large companies to do? By definition, large companies almost always have a large portfolios of products. Large companies also almost always have a few designated spokespeople that are allowed to engage in public conversation, whether traditional or increasingly social channels. This means that a few people have to have a very wide product knowledge AND be passionate about those products. This is where is starts to break down: people that are allowed to engage AND actually know what the products do AND are passionate about that are extremely rare.

So what are the possible remedies? The obvious is to open the flood gates and let everyone who has knowledge and passion have a voice. This may be obvious, but it is hard to implement inside alot of companies. Another may be to change to job of the social media people: make them responsible for finding people with knowledge and passion and acting a a conduit for them to get their story out to market. Now that I think about it, this is how a few of the proto-bloggers (Scoble comes to mind) got their start – giving others a way to tell their stories.

On Friday I pulled the trigger on my newest ride: a classic yellow convertible from the 50′s:

Yep, you’re looking at a 1956 (sort of) CJ3a (sort of) Willy’s Overland Jeep (completely!).  Its sort of a 56 since that’s what the tub plate says.  Its also only sort of a CJ3A since the tub plate also says its a DJ3a, which was a 2 wheel drive version made for the postal service and other delivery trucks.  However, my best guess is that someone replaced the original tub with the one it has now, since this does have 4WD. It also has locking front hubs, which seems to be rare (also maybe a later addition though).  It also has one of the easiest engines to work on in the world – a flat head in line 4 cylinder.  I’ve read that’s its possible to overhaul the whole thing without taking it out of the jeep – hopefully it won’t come to that though .

It runs and I’ve had it up to about 45 (scary) and it cruises great at 30.  I plan to drive it around until it gets too cold then pull it into the barn for the winter and fix it up a bit.  First up is an engine tune up (already replaced the spark plugs yesterday) including a carburetor rebuild and a removal of the head to see what’s going on in the pistons.  After that, I’ll start adding on some parts, including a roll bar (any tips on where to get one is most appreciated), a rear seat and cushions, getting the turn signals working, a simple surrey style top, a spare tire holder, tire and wheel, a rear bumper with a hitch (so I can move my trailers around) and finally new tires when its ready to roll in the spring again.

After that who know – I’ve seen it written that old Jeeps are like lego blocks.  You can get rear PTOs and three point hitches to turn it into a tractor.  You can lift it an turn it into a rock climber.  Some guy even built a buzz saw attached to the back of his!  Any ideas of what else I should do.

A few more pics:

Need I say more:

(That’s a penny in the foreground for scale…for those of you that still can’t get it, that tater weighs about 6 lbs! I feel like a flash back to Gilligans Island).

OK, that has got to be the best post title I’ve had since starting this blog – it’s a well known saying, its on the topic of the post AND it works in the name of the company that provided the impetus for this post: The news coming out last Friday that the European commission will likely clear the last hurdle for Oracle’s acquisition of Sun.  This got me to thinking about the state of the software and technology market today as compared to almost 15 years ago when I first got out of school and landed a job as a tech support engineer in a small software company outside of Detroit.

“Back then” netscape was just finding its way out of the NAISC, most businesses did not have internet connectivity and you could purchase IT infrastructure for the enterprise from an array of vendors (which didn’t include Dell).  The picture seems much different today: the IT market seems to be consolidating.  Whether its HP buying Compaq, SAP gobbling up Business Objects, the acquisition of UGS (the company I worked for) by Siemens, or the regular cadence of IBM buying something every 6 months – the market seems to be getting rolled up.

Its sort of like what happened to the US auto industry between the 20s and the 50s.  According to Automotive History online:

There were over 1800 automobile manufacturers in the United States from 1896 to 1930. Very few survived and only a few new ones were started after that period.

1800 car companies!  Can you imagine?  I grew up in the era of the big 3…which eventually became the Detroit 3…and now with Fiat owning Chrysler, I’m not sure what to call them.  But flashing back to the 50s, there were still more than 30 independent car manufacturers. You could still get a Checker (even if you weren’t a cab company), a Packard or a Continental.  So from the 30s to the 50s we went from 1800 to 30 (a choice reduction of 98%) and then from the 50s to the 00s we went from 30 to 2 (a measly 93% reduction in choice).  So clearly the diversity of choice was greatly reduced in the past 80 years in the US auto industry (don’t even get me started on badge engineering), but was there any good that came form this consolidation?

I would say overall, the reliability bar was raised.  Sure, there are plenty of stories about problems with certain vehicles and how “nothing ran like a Tucker”.  But the overall reliability of the average vehicle was better  the mid -60s than it was in the mid-40s.  The average level of technology in the average vehicle also increased.  It was only through the massive scale of the Big three than things like anit-lock disc brakes and airbags became standard features on even the most basic vehicles at basic vehicle prices.  Did the consumer overall win or lose?  I’ll leave that to smarter people than I…but I sure wish I could still buy a Sunbeam!

Back to the IT market.  Will the same things happen here?  Are we on the verge or even in the middle of a massive rollup that will only leave 2 or 3 players?  Briefly the answer is no.  To expand on that a bit, there is one major difference between the auto industry and the IT industry: we didn’t stop having new companies enter the market 20 years ago.  There is a new IT company born at least every day (probably way more than that).  It’s true that the fate of majority of them is the trash heap, and most of the rest will be eaten up by the existing big players before (or sometimes after) their peak.  However, even if just a small few catch on and evade capture by the established players, the IT market will be able to continue to renew itself.  That’s why although I’ll always be a car guy, I think I’ll stay with IT as the way to pay for them.