Codesmith

Life, Or Something Like It
2005-12-01 07:18:15 (UTC)

For Someone So Smart, You're Pretty Dumb

It's 1201, Thursday. 139am. 36 degrees Fahrenheit. It's
suppose to snow later today. But, then again, they also
said it was suppose to rain yesterday, too. It didn't.
Well, for a little bit.

First things first. It's finally December. Things are so
close now, and I can just ... almost feel it. If that
makes any sense. I'm not quite sure what I "feel" other
than perhaps the imaginary tactile feelings of Katie's
hands upon mine. Her fingers, entwined with mine.

I can't quite sleep. I've been awake for the past several
hours, laying there in bed staring at the ceiling while my
mind kept flashing through thought after random thought.
I'm awashed with a flood of thoughts and feelings.

I suppose it's partly my fault. Since, I fell asleep
around 700pm. It was suppose to be a nap of sorts, but I
ended up sleeping till 1000pm, and from then on I thought
I'd get properly ready for bed. So, I got up, brushed my
teeth and put away my contacts. Went to bed, and stayed
awake for several hours.

I had the most curious thoughts. From, imagining what
Katie and I talked about earlier this evening to how to
model data structures in the latest project due within a
week and a half.

I thought I would relate something humorous this entry.
It's been on my mind the past ... ten or so hours, I
guess. Well, whatever part of those ten hours I've been
conscious that is.

I can't remember exactly when this took place, but this
event happened while we were at Lisa's parent's place for
dinner one night. Of course, as per tradition, the topics
of conversation usually ranged from obscure Civil War
battles to random gossip about other people whom I have no
clue are.

On this particular occassion, though, the topic
of conversation happened to be how well the meal was
cooked that night. Namely, how tasty Lisa's mother's
cooking was. From then, it drifted towards everyone's
ability to cook, and naturally an analysis of my cooking
had to be explored by everyone.

This was all started by Lisa stating how bad my meatloaf
was. Namely, no matter how many times I made meatloaf I
could never seem to get the inside of the meatloaf fully
cooked. No matter what, it always took at least 4 or more
hours to bake a meatloaf. Even then, the meatloaf still
looked pink inside.

Of course, the unacceptable risk of possibly contracting
trichinosis prompted Lisa's mother to ask me at exactly
what temperature I set the oven towards while cooking the
meatloaf. I told her I usually set it at 375 degrees
Fahrenheit, which seemed to satisfy her.

While she pondered what could possibly be going wrong with
the meatloaf, Lisa's step father asked if I left tin foil
atop the meatloaf while it baked. I said yes, everytime.

Lisa's mother then asked how big of a meatloaf was I
preparing. I replied and said, "just one pound." To which,
Lisa's mother said a one pound meatloaf should be fully
cooked in an hour.

It was at that moment Lisa chimed in and said, "No, it's
because he leaves the oven on pre-heat." To which I
responded, "Well, I leave it on pre-heat because it makes
the oven hotter."

Naturally and perhaps, quite obviously, I had never in my
many years of existence pondered the wonders and mysteries
of the typical kitchen oven. For someone who was able to
solve all their computer related issues and woes, it
became dreadfully apparent that I had no goddamn clue how
an oven worked.

"Well, Charlie ..." Lisa's step father said,
diplomatically. "Pre-heat just gets the oven hotter so you
don't have to wait around for it to heat up. Once it
reaches a certain temperature, it switches off the heat in
the oven."

"Really ..." I replied, as the wheels in my head turned
and the dawn of understanding slowly became realized.

"So, if you keep the oven on pre-heat, if there is a drop
in temperature then the oven will rapidly heat back up to
maintain that temperature. But once it hits that
temperature it switches off the oven. So, in essence,
you've just been leaving the meatloaf in an oven that goes
on and off at will.

What's even worse is that you had tin foil on the meatloaf
too. Because the oven's only being turned on and off for
small amounts of time, the tin foil probably deflected the
heat AWAY from the meatloaf. So you were getting even LESS
heat with the tin foil on there.

So, in short, you were doing everything you can to keep
that one pound of meatloaf cold."

I don't know why, but that just struck me as the most
hilarious thing. I mean, I could just imagine it. Putting
in the meatloaf, and then leaving it on pre-heat,
expecting it to cook faster. Only to come back an hour
past the time it should be done, to find it was still pink
in the center. I remember all those countless times, I'd
scratch my head and trying to figure out why on earth this
was taking so long. Never realizing that I was trying to
bake a meatloaf using one minutes of bake time every ten
or so minutes.

It was just the funniest thing.

Oh man, I laughed so hard that night.

"It's just astounding that you know so much about
computers, but you don't know how the oven works."

Hah. Yea, that's me. Mm.




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