Project Management Professional (PMP)

Yesterday, on Jan. 19th, 2012, I passed the PMP exam.  Wow, that was a challenging test!  It was 4 hours and 200 questions, mostly based on the PMBOK.  When applying to sit for the exam, I thought it wouldn't be too bad.  After trying some sample exams, I didn't feel so confident anymore.  I was able to pull a lot from all my varied experience and feel fortunate that I had that background.  Without that background, I'm not sure how anyone passes that exam.

I would like to thank all those involved in giving me the opportunities for such varied past professional experiences:

- Rohit, for the summer job on the assembly line at Sony
- Kragen Autoparts, for the brief retail stint
- Jim, for the fabulous first real job out of school
- Toastmasters International and all my fellow toastmasters
- Carla, Tony, and Jan - for mentoring me in a highly projectized environment for the past 16 years
- Edmond, for a personalized online UC Berkeley Extension class

Complete Streets by MTC

On Tuesday of this week I had the benefit of attending a seminar put on by MTC about Complete Streets.

It was great to hear about the legislation from the organization that will help communities fund these projects.  I also appreciated the more technical discussion by colleagues from the consulting world.

One takeaway I had, in contrast to some ideas presented at the recent local APWA Complete Streets seminar, was that the goal isn't necessarily to make all intersections operate at a LOS of D.  In fact, there are new LOS yardsticks for biking, pedestrians, etc... including the actual corridor.  By comparing these LOS's, you can identify where you want to make your trade-offs.  A specific related conundrum was gratefully brought to our attention by a transit service provider - most frequently, the effect of implementing a Complete Streets program, will reduce the LOS for transit.  Transit is supposed to be a benefactor of Complete Streets, but seems to often be forgotten or not considered as important as the other modes of transportation.  It's definitely worth considering this issue.

Scammin' - Dad's first novel

Thanks to the convenience of modern technology and marketing, and thanks to Amazon in particular, my dad's first novel is published!  I may be a bit biased, but I thought it was a great quick summer read with a good plot and great character development.  By the end, I wanted it to keep going.
You can download it to your iPad or Kindle from the Kindle store:


http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Scammin%27&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3AScammin%27&ajr=0

Brie r3 at 6 weeks

We tried another one of the little brie type cheeses at 6 weeks.  I thought it was tasty, even if it was still a hard cheese.  After reading some things, I think it may have too high a fat content to let the proteins get soft... along with the lack of humidity for the white mold.  I still have 2 left in the cave - one I'll let go for a long time to see if it's a good aged hard cheese, the other I've washed in chardonnay (which may cut the saltiness and add some complexity).

Brie Rev #3 - update

On wednesday, 4/6/11, my calendar told me that my smallest cheese might be ready to try.  I was a little apprehensive about the results since they all seemed so dried-out.  They did grow some white fuzzies, but they seemed to have died out before really taking over the cheese.

I decided to try the smallest sphere, which, as you can see by the cut picture with the knife, it is pretty darn small.  Just as I suspected, it was definitely not gooey and creamy like you would want and expect... BUT IT WAS REALLY TASTY!  I'm getting closer to my goals for this cheese.

Brie - revision #3

Now that I have a dedicated cheese cave that Santa so generously gave me this past Christmas, I took another chance with brie (or cambembert, or more generally a white mold rennetted cheese).  I made this on 3/16/11 with 1 gallon TJ's organic whole milk, 1 pint of TJ's organic heavy cream, flora danica (thanks to my aunt for christmas as well), CaCl, and rennet.  My molding process definitely could use some improved hardware, but I managed to create 3 small disks and two spheres.  They dried in their moulds, were salted, and sat for a bit more on the kitchen counter at room temp in a plastic box for about 4 days.  Now they reside in their cozy cheese cave (aka tiny wine cooler).

Here they are at 1 week old (temp at about 48* F and humidity too low at around 82%).

Since the humidity should be more like 90%, I put a star-san soaked paper towel on the bottom.  After a couple days, I didn't see the humidity rise, so I added more star-san to it, and added another wadded-up star-san soaked paper towel to the shelf with the spheres.  Hopefully that does the trick.  The white mold seems to be starting to grow, so maybe it's just fine... I just want to make sure the white mold gets happy and makes some creamy gooey brie!

We'll see how they turn out in 4 or 5 more weeks.  I figure the small sphere might be worth checking soon - have it on my calendar for April 6.  The others should probably go to April 20 or 27 - again, I put it in my calendar so I don't forget.

Homebrewing and Cheesemaking in the White House

Just a quick note to mention the White House food blog.  The White House is now homebrewing, homecheesemaking, and raising bees for honey...

http://obamafoodorama.blogspot.com/2011/03/obamas-make-history-with-homebrewed.html

Now that these hobbies are mainstream, I may have to think of something else!