Now.
Again.
Every time.
It mocks me.
The deadline, always looming near.
I find myself against the wall of time.
Distractions aplenty to keep me from completing my end goal yet again.
Why do I continue to fight, to be my own worst enemy, to drag myself to that place where I’m stuck.

I like the distractions, the fault sits on none but me, yet again.
Again, here I stand, staring at the clock.
Quickly ticking down.
Time escaping.
Tick.
Tick.

Are you familiar with Fibonacci numbers? They are a sequence of numbers where the next number of the sequence is simply the combined value of the two previous numbers (i.e. 0, 1, 1, 3, 5 ….). Here, rather than read an entire Wikipedia entry on the subject, check out this awesome video that explains not only what it is but why it is such an important sequence:

But that’s not what this post is about – today on our company’s unofficial social network someone put up a challenge to write a two stanza poem using the Fibonacci sequence from 1-21 and back to 1.  In other words, the first sequence should have lines of 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, and 21 words.  The second sequence should have 13, 8, 5, 3, 2, 1, and finally 1.  That was the only rule … today, being a big day to deliver a phase-ending document to my project team, seemed an appropriate day to distract myself with a distraction about distractions.  Hence – Time Escaping. Tick. Tick. - my poem written in Fibonacci stanzas.

While you’re at it, check out this video showing the band Tool using the Fibonacci sequence in their song, Lateralus:

To fix this I have joined a virtual study group – we meet weekly and utilize a “train-the-trainer” approach to teach each other everything we can in attempt to ready ourselves to take, and hopefully pass, the PMP certification – yes, hopefully I will be able to add myself to the long list of those who have initials at the end of my name (John M Leask III, sadly, does not mean I am certified in some clever alliterative esoteric standard; it simply means I’m the third of my name – in case you were wondering).

Schedule mistakes aside, this week I set out to create my training aids so I could teach the study group about the Perform Quality Assurance process – part of the Project Quality Management Knowledge  Area within the Executing Process Group.  I could rebuild the entire presentation in a blog post here, but I think it is easier to simply supply direct access to it:

Slides 2 and 8 rely on heavy animations so you can skip them as the full content of those slides is displayed, without animations, in the following slides.

While working on this presentation I think the number one thing I struggled with was Quality Assurance versus Quality Control. After doing some research and really thinking about it I compared them in slide 4 – I assume I’m not the only one who has struggled with the differences.  Quality Assurance is a meta process – in other words it is a process to review the process to ensure quality standards can be met.  Quality Control, on the other hand, is something you perform on the product itself to make sure it meets said quality standards.  I found the following description by the admin user on PMZilla.com which helped to solidify my understanding – you can see this explained on slide 4:

Suppose you are manufacturing Coke. QA would ensure that you have all the right processes in place to manufacture and test the quality of the coke. Like the machines , people, recording mechanism etc. QC is doing the actual testing on finished product. So when the coke bottle is out you do a sample test and it would either pass or fail the Q standards.

So QC is to do with testing and verification after the deliverable is done and QA is before the deliverable is made. Like giving trainings to people, Auditing the process, ensuring everyone understands the process etc are all QA activities.

Please feel free to provide comments regarding the presentation – I will keep the most updated version on my SlideShare account.

First, Kalyn’s Kitchen blog is setup great and the recipe is a fantastic base to go with – lots of pictures, great descriptions, everything. Definitely check her site out before deciding exactly how to proceed.  Here’s what I did today for ours:

• 12 oz can strained black-eyed peas
• 8 tbsp tahini
• 2 tbsp chopped garlic
• 1/2 cup olive oil (estimated)
• 4 tbsp black-eyed peas juice (estimated)
• 1/2 cup feta cheese
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 1 tsp sumac
• Salt & Pepper to taste

The instructions are simple – put all of the ingredients in your food processor and turn it on – don’t stop until you have a nice blend with very little chunks.  Note that I have the black-eyed peas juice and olive oil both as estimated – I do not measure them out, but instead add a bit of each at a time until I am satisfied with the consistency, focusing on olive oil first, of course.

My recipe has more garlic than Kalyn’s does.  Also, I used the juice from the can instead of water.  Lastly, I added pepper and feta cheese.  I appreciated the suggestion of sumac, I don’t use it enough and my wife, who doesn’t normally like the spice really enjoyed this batch of hummus – I’d say that’s a win right there!

Let me know if you have any thoughts – I really enjoyed this break from our typical spicy hummus and thought it was a great way to honor my Greek heritage while keeping up with newer traditions!

My goal for 2012?  To enjoy life, and tell you about it here. As the title of the blog suggests, much of the content will focus on my business focus: collaboration; the latest buzz-word, of course, being “social business”.  I’m not a social media guy, I use Facebook & Twitter, but that’s not my focus.  My focus is building private/semi-private networks for employees, customers, and partners using SAAS or in-house software platforms and integrating them with-in the corporate network in a holistic approach: security, file storage, customer databases, project management, internal communications; the list goes on.  Of course, with enjoying life comes the occasional personal post – hockey, my wife, my family, travel, food, the state of common sense, the idiot who cut me off that morning.

I make no promises on how often I’ll create posts, but I’ll try to keep things interesting – feel free to kick me every-so-often if just to make sure my heart is still pumping!

Cheers,
–j

This is a commitment meal; while cooking I dirtied a saute pan, a big past boiling pot, and my Le Creuset roaster over the period of about 4 hours. The result, before you add pasta, is a creamy marinara sauce and some darn good chicken.

• 1 -8 ounce can of tomato paste
• 2 -12 ounce cans of diced tomatoes
• 12 ounces of water*
• 2 chicken bouillon cubes*
• 2 beef bouillon cubes*
• About 6 ounces of cream cheese

* I was out of chicken & beef stock, but if I had that I would have simply used a carton of that instead of the water and bullion cubes.

Start by carmelizing a large onion (diced nice and small) and a half dozen cloves of garlic – remember: slow heat, lots of butter and both of these ingredients will melt into your sauce – this took me about 30 minutes. Next brown, but don’t cook, a dozen or so chicken legs and thighs – your choice of meat here. Put all of the above ingridients in a stew pot including the chicken and cook for 2 to 3 hours.

At the end I made a pound of spaghetti. The pasta was partially cooked in water then strained. I put butter back in my stock pot, melted that down and put a bunch of the ragout into the pot – then I put the spaghetti back in and let it finish cooking in the sauce to soak in some fo the deliciousness.

Day two I deboned the legs and mixed the meat into the sauce … ZOMG it’s good. Next time I’ll probably skip the cream cheese, add some red wine, and mix in some beef or lamb shanks to the sauce while it cooks.

Lastly, I added the remaining contents of the salt marinade and an entire onion (cut into strips). 25 minutes in the oven at 325, mixed around, then another 25 minutes in the oven.

On a plate I put a cup of cooked white rice, a tbspn of butter, one set of short ribs to the side of the rice, and a few spoon fulls of the bean/onion/sauce mixture right on top of the rice (cover the butter so it melts in.

The result was a delicious mixture of beef, beans, onions, and creamy seasoning on a bed of rice all happy and ready to soak it all up. Just wow!

• 2lbs beef short ribs
• 1 large white onion (sweet or vidalia, your choice)
• 1 12oz can black beans (do not strain/clean)
• 3 cups white rice
• 1 bottle Lawry’s Salt Marinade

I’m sorry I didn’t take a picture – not just for you, but because I want it in my collection. I guess I’ll have to make it again!!

• 20oz can of chick peas with 1/3 of the juice, strain the rest into separate bowl
• 1/2 jar of Tahini paste, stir it really well first
• 1 tbspn of crushed garlic
• ~2 tbspn of garlic powder
• ~2 tbspn of onion powder
• ~2 cups of olive oil (I use extra virgin, but whatever you want)
• 2 tspn Thai Chili Paste
• ~3 shakes of ground cumin
• 1/2 cup feta cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded parmigiana cheese
• Crushed Black Pepper to taste
• Salt to taste

I think that was everything. Throw it all in the food processor for as long as you can stand – add more of the chickpeas juice if you need more moisture. Put it in a big bowl with a little Feta, Parm, Pepper, Salt (on top I used pink and red finishing sea salt for color), and Cumin on top for decoration with a nice drizzle of olive oil. Results attached – and yes I also put a criss-crossed pattern in the top!

FYI – this carries some serious heat. Not the really burning kind, but the kind that will stay in your mouth for 5 minutes after you’ve stopped eating it; unlike jalapeno hummus from Perfect Pita which is hot, but goes away very quickly.

Preface: I’m sorry I didn’t take any pictures … so very sorry. This was soooo good it should have been immortalized.

THE HEAT – I don’t have a smoker. I have a 26″ round off-brand kettle grill (think: webber, but big). We wanted to slow roast so we split the grill into 4 sections: each half had two levels. On the lower level we had charcoal on one half and a water pan on the other half. On the upper level we had an oak log above the charcoal (about 6 inches) and above the water we had a three pound pork shoulder.

THE SAUCE – We dry rubbed the shoulder with lots (all dry) things including: Peppered flavor bacon salt, black pepper, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, mustard powder, salt, cinnamon, and some generic brand “pork rub” as a base. This powder (of which we have enough for another three pound shoulder, which is in the freezer) was liberally rubbed all over the shoulder.

THE COOKING – With this setup we kept the heat low, the smoke high, and the meat on the “smoker for about 6 hours. The goal temperature was 225, but goals are not always met, are they?

THE PRODUCT – The meat shredded with ease and was amazing. Final product was mixed with some Sweet Baby Ray’s Hickory Smoked BBQ sauce and this was the most amazing mixed style pulled pork I’ve ever had – not to pat myself on the back or anything

OBSERVATIONS – Our oven thermometer blackened quickly, so I’ll have to come up with a better solution to track the temperature. Also, while this worked and was amazing, in order to control/add heat we had to lift the entire top off including the top level grate. There’s no telling how this effected the final product, but I imagine it limited potential output. I’ll keep that in mind for when I buy a proper smoker …

Again, sorry for not having any pictures to share. I’ll definitely photograph the process for next time.

Basting Sauce: 50% olive oil, 50% margarine or butter. A ton of oregano, salt to taste, a lot of black pepper, a LOT of crushed garlic, and the juice of a couple lemons.

Preparation: Fill the stomach cavity with a couple heads of garlic (whole), a couple of lemons (partially squeezed out for basting sauce), and fresh oregano. Cover the entirety of the lamb with the basting sauce including the stomach cavity.

Fire: Wood lump charcoal is best, but any will do. Build a big fire in the middle of the pit tray and get the coals very hot. Once they are ready to cook on separate them so they sit under the head and tail, but leave the spot under the rib cage empty – it cooks the fastest and will be fine cooking at the lower temperature. You can use this area to put smoking wood to add a nice smokey flavor – but watch that it doesn’t catch fire and only smolders.

Cooking: 6-8 hours for a 50 pound lamb. Baste every 20 minutes to build a nice crust and keep the insides moist. Make sure the spit motor never stops (except as you need to baste or cut). Add charcoal as necessary to keep the fire going and at a nice hot temperature (300-400 degrees). I usually add every couple hours.