Words On Wednesday

Hard Mountain Dew is a thing, and while it isn’t available in South Carolina, I finally got my hands on some. As best I can tell, Hard Mountain Dew originally became available in some states in February 2022 (The Boston Beer Company, 2022). When I learned about it, I was immediately interested in trying it. I love some Mountain Dew, and I frequently mix it with varying distilled spirits. Hard Mountain Dew in a can would save me the effort of mixing it with anything. Since South Carolina wasn’t one of the original launch states, I would have to go somewhere else to buy it. No big deal, we cross state lines at least once every few weeks. I would just have to keep an eye out any time we traveled. That, or hope that they hurry up and bring it to SC (Spoiler: they still haven’t). Several months later, I had basically forgotten about looking for Hard Mountain Dew. We weren’t traveling much, and I still had the option to mix white rum in my regular Mountain Dew, so it wasn’t a pressing concer

I wrote about Plex on December 16, 2020 and again on December 15, 2021 . Therefore, the third Wednesday in December is Plex day from now on. I stubbed out a post for 2022, but I was at a weird point in my life then and never got around to writing it. Fortunately, I just finished school and now I have a little bit of free time again. Hence, Plex Day 2023. At the end of 2020, I was just getting started with Plex. I suffered through the issues with getting my music collection organized into a folder structure that plays well with Plex Media Server. At that time, it wasn’t that I was passionate about Plex as a platform, I was just looking for something to replace Google Play Music (Pour one out for the homies). By December 2021, I was a little more sold on Plex. In fact, I had purchased the lifetime Plex Pass in August 2021, I was just really ahead on writing posts and that post didn’t publish until December. In either case, I was making a gamble. If I bought a lifetime Plex Pass and ende

I feel like autobiographies can be hit or miss and depend on a lot of factors; how interesting the person is or was, how well they wrote, and whether they narrated the audiobook themselves all play a huge role in how much I enjoy the book. Alex Trebek knocked it out of the park. I grew up watching Jeopardy! off and on. I was never one of those viewers that had it on every evening, but if I was channel surfing and noticed it, that was definitely one of the shows that I would gravitate to. Jeopardy! was nice because it didn’t have the lowest-common-denominator crowd work that a lot of game shows thrived on. The simple and straightforward delivery of interesting questions from Trebek, with contestants that generally seemed to know their stuff really appealed to my logos fixation. When Trebek was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and later died as a result of the disease, I was disappointed. In general, I don’t really get attached to celebrities or mourn their deaths. I didn’t know these pe

  Information Technology and the Capstone My experience with the capstone class and Information Technology program as a whole has been enlightening and reflects observable personal and professional growth. When I began working toward this degree in 2017, I was far less confident in my ability to engineer software solutions and I lacked the experience to properly market myself. After pausing my education temporarily and enduring a job layoff with several subsequent career changes, I found a position that I like with an ambitious company and resumed classes to completion. Although it took me six years to finish a program that was intended to take two years, the experiences along the way have helped me grow and develop, and encouraged me to take on challenges that I would never have considered before. I have gained enormous confidence in my skill as an IT professional, and I now know how to market myself with my storied background and natural talent. The Information Technology program

“Only the strong survive.” Or at least that’s what the bottle tells us. But personally, I’ve tried other spirits that required a substantially stronger stomach. The proof is a little high, but I wouldn’t really call 100 proof notably strong. I suppose it’s some vapid appeal to rugged masculinity, but hey, whatever your schtick is. As for the actual drinking of Yukon Jack Honey, it’s… fine. The initial experience is sweet. As that fades out, you get more sweet. It is an intense sweetness, for sure. The tail end is akin to a mediocre whiskey. It isn’t really good or bad, just whiskey. For the most direct comparison that anyone is likely to have reference for, imagine Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey but higher proof. I picked this up because it was on the discount shelf at the liquor store near work. The normal price there is $17.99, but the sale price was $12 for a fifth. At that price point, it’s cheap enough that the quality bar is set extremely low. It doesn’t really have to be great to

Competitive Pokemon battling has been in video game news quite a bit lately for some disqualifications and I feel like the traditional Pokemon fan’s perspective has gone unrepresented thus far. To sum up the situation, a recent championship disqualified several players right before the tournament began for using Pokemon generated artificially with a hacking utility. This process is not new, and apparently many or most competitors use the tool to generate ideal Pokemon for their party. And before you automatically write it off as cheating and bad, “While some use it for nefarious means, it’s largely used to save time” (Middler, 2023). The argument is that it makes more sense for a competitive Pokemon player to spend more time planning and practicing, rather than building and training their team manually. Those opposed to the ban and in favor of allowing “generated” Pokemon suggest that it doesn’t make sense to require a competitor to build and train their entire team. Comparisons are ma

It’s been a while, I know, but this one is a cocktail that’s so versatile, I had to talk about it. Basically, it can be as simple or elaborate as you want, and it’s always a crowd-pleaser. Plus, ‘murica. The whole thing started from a TikTok or something that was really showy, but actually sounded super good. The recipe is very much like this one, but you gotta get the Smirnoff Berry Vodka. I’m sure regular vodka probably works, but I refuse to try it. Red, white, and blue or bust. So, the first few times I made this was during the summer we spent in the camper. Feels like a lifetime ago, but it was just last year. Either way, we would have friends over and I would make drinks. At the time, it was a big ordeal. Had to get the fresh squeezed (powdered) lemonade in the pitcher, and all the bottles, and of course you gotta throw the rocket pop in at the end for a big splash. It’s great for pool parties and fireworks. Problem is, there’s just a lot to it. And if somebody wanted one if I

It has occurred to me that despite participating in the beer cart for nearly two years now, I have yet to describe that in the most obvious place: Thirsty Thursday Eve at Words on Wednesday. Oh, the beer cart. During the phone interview that landed me here, the manager was explaining the benefits and mentioned how on Thursdays, they push around a stadium cart and everybody grabs a beer from it. That sounded awesome. My understanding was that you grab a beer from the cart, then you take it home to enjoy after work. Imagine my surprise when, instead of giving us a beer to take home, we got a beer to open and drink right there in the office. I was excited about the prospect of trying new drinks on someone else’s dime. I had no idea we would be drinking the beverage as soon as we picked it up. I’ve worked in offices where the Christmas Eve breakfast always involved someone sneaking in a bottle of alcohol and sharing it with a few coworkers. Never would I have guessed that it would be so re

After publishing my book report post last week on “ The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, ” I want to unpack that idea a little more and give some personal anecdote on what it means to me. First things first (see what I did there?), I need to be honest with both myself and my audience here. I have neglected a lot of maintenance-type obligations in my life. My health is not the best, as my eating habits are frankly awful, and I haven’t exercised in probably over a year now. My weight is the highest it’s been in even longer. I was supposed to have a yearly physical on the day that I started my current job. I’ve been here now a year and a half, and still haven’t gotten that well-check visit. Beyond my physical condition, I think my mental condition has also fallen by the wayside. I spend more time being acted upon, not consciously deciding to act. I don’t think I would call it depression, but it certainly feels like I’m not in control of my life and decisions. There is an element of ex

Because of some work initiatives, I’ve started digging into books on leadership. My manager recommended a few, and “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” (or just “7 Habits”) was the first available from the library. With little else to go on, I decided it was a reasonable place to start. My expectations were admittedly set very low. At a glance, “7 Habits” looks like just another book about self-improvement, with a bunch of buzzwords and very little actionable material. However, I wanted to give it a solid attempt before I panned the book as complete trash. The funny thing about the habits themselves is they aren’t exactly hidden; Covey has them listed and described in plain view on his site. I’ll even drop them right here, it isn’t a secret. These are not some ancient gnostic wisdom that get you into an occult club. It’s just a way of thinking about things. Habit 1: Be Proactive® Focus and act on what you can control and influence instead of what you can’t. Habit 2: Begin With the

I’ve read soooooooo many books since the last Words on Wednesday Book Report. Some are on Goodreads. Some, I just stopped recording. Quite a few have been from The Dresden Files. Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2b/Storm_Front.png In short, The Dresden Files is a series that follows Harry Dresden, a wizard detective in modern day Chicago. A friend at work recommended the series, and I decided to at least listen to the first of the series as an audiobook. What I expected was some Harry Potter-esque YA fiction. What I got was much darker and more engaging. I have currently read 8 of the 17 currently published books of the series, through “Proven Guilty.” Every single one of them is a deep dive in some wizarding lore, mixed with detective techniques, mixed with juicy drama. The second book was a little slow for me, but every other book in the series has just been fantastic. All of the recurring characters are interesting and fleshed out, and I personally can’t get enoug