Month: October 2023

What’s on the horizon

Taylor BurianLeave a comment

What have you been working on?

I started my blog in late 2018 because I wanted to get serious about my desire to write. I’ve worked on a variety of things over the years, and been through my share of ups and downs with motivation and trying to accomplish things. I started small, and tried to build up the habits for consistency. I was streaming on Twitch for a while so I tried to tie them together. Asking viewers to submit prompts helped for a time but I got overwhelmed so I put it on hiatus to try and focus on other things. More specifically, one of those things was that I ultimately wanted to write a novel and get it published!

I haven’t gotten there yet, but in the last 8 years with the help of friends and just consuming lots of media and I’ve built up plenty of ideas and materials. So in addition to that, I’m trying to get back into a habit of consistency. Which I’m going to need if I want to actually accomplish my goals. That’s what I’m working on these days.

There was an attempt: Pizza

Taylor BurianLeave a comment

For the last, I don’t know, several months I’ve been watching FoodTube. I love watching Kenji, Babish, and Joshua Weissman. Who doesn’t?

Well, after a couple weeks of watching videos from the latter of the three, I decided to try one of his pizza recipes.

I didn’t think to take any pictures last night when I was making the dough, so you’ll have to use your imagination. I followed the recipe for the Roman Dough on Joshua’s website. I measured everything out accordingly since I have a food scale (which all of them say you need for baking) and started following the directions. It did not go as I had hoped.

When I started to mix the wet and dry ingredients I didn’t fully know what to expect having only ever watched the videos (typically on my phone) so I didn’t recognize right away that something was wrong. The dough was too sticky. I pushed on anyway, thinking “maybe this is what he meant in the recipe?” I kept following the recipe as best I could. Mix, rest, slap and fold, rest, slap and fold again. Each time the dough was still too sticky, so I decided to let it rest a third time and rewatch Josh’s video on the Neapolitan vs roman pizza. Surely it was something minute that I overlooked. Nope, nothing.

So at the end of the night, after I had put my little dough baby in the fridge, I checked the recipe again. Being the usually vigilant and detail oriented person I am I did eventually notice something was off and wondered how I had missed this all important detail. Like, so important that everyone on FoodTube making dough calls it out EVERY TIME.

The measurements were wrong. I did some cross checking with other unrelated sites to confirm my suspicion as I did the math.

What Josh had in his recipe was 600g of bread flour and 432g of water (for 64% hydration). This was huge. So I took this information and submitted a message on his website to let him know. 432g would actually be 72% hydration… No wonder it was too sticky all the way through the process! If I had truly wanted to hit the 64% mark I would have ACTUALLY needed 384g of water.

So like I said, I submitted a message on the site. We’ll see if I get a response. In the meantime, if you come across this post and you’re having the same issue, know that you’re not alone.

Jack of all trades

Taylor BurianLeave a comment

What’s something most people don’t know about you?

This really depends on who’s asking! Over the years I’ve been at my current job, multiple times I’ve surprised people when a conversation steers itself into my territory of random knowledge and experiences. After some of those conversations I have even had coworkers come to me privately to ask for some advice relating to whatever topic was just discussed! After a while, most of them caught on that I really am just a “jack of all trades” type. (Someone even referenced Red Green once.)

Things that I can do that have surprised my coworkers:

  • Cook and bake
  • Home maintenance/repair
  • Automotive
  • Car audio
  • Motorcycles and small engines
  • Horse care
  • Computer building
  • Coding/scripting (this is relatively new for me)
  • Streaming/broadcasting
  • Video games (this is definitely a hobby but I’ve had coworkers ask for advice for their kids sake)
  • Writing

I think that covers the knowledge and skills that have been most prevalent over the years. I’m sure there’s more I can pull up from the dusty recesses of memories but they’re probably more just travel related experiences of things I’ve done, just not consistently.

Anything catch your attention?

Taking those lazy days when I can

Taylor BurianLeave a comment

Do lazy days make you feel rested or unproductive?

I go back and forth on this idea. Whenever I take a “lazy” day it depends on what I feel like doing, or not doing, at that time.

Do I want to be a total slob? Cool, I can feel rested but also feel unproductive.

Do I just want to tune out everything connected to the Internet? Rested and probably at least a little productive because then I get some little things done around the house.

Do I want to sit at my computer all day and feel like everything I would normally want to do has its own form of “writer’s block”? Not so rested and definitely unproductive.

I feel like if I really want to make the most of these situations I would ideally need more than a couple in a row, but that doesn’t happen unless I take time off work. Then I could probably choose to be lazy/rested or lazy/unproductive.

On Success and role models

Taylor Burian

When you think of the word “successful,” who’s the first person that comes to mind and why?

Every time this kind of question comes up I go through two mental processes. Who did I think about last time? Has that changed since?

Usually, I think about the last ten or so years of my life, and the people I’ve met in that time. Almost always I come back to two different people. My brother, and my father.

My Dad has led an eventful life. Many years of military service, corporate office job/life of the 90’s, and lots of education. In those areas he’s accomplished so much and when I look back on how I saw him during the years of each of those stages, I see a different man who is somehow still the same. Maybe it’s just that I got to see different sides of him and the way his core values and habits have been applied. Diligence, perseverance, and drive. Fairness, empathy, compassion, and love. All these things have been part of his success in life, and I see it in my brother.

My brother has been the one who has lived up to the image of our father the most. Although he’s the youngest of four kids, he’s managed to pull off most of the old “American Dream” better than the rest of us. A married, kids of his own, a car, and a home. He didn’t go into the military, our Dad forbid it and always said “I did the time so you wouldn’t have to,” but he’s followed a similar career path otherwise. Maybe not to the heights of Dad, but it was enough to get to where he’s at today. When I look at these two, I like to remind myself that they’re closer in reality to the success we should all strive for and not movie stars, celebrities, and corporate big wigs. Those kinds of people had a combination of luck and gaming the system. My family has busted their asses to get to where they are today. They are the ones I think about when I think “successful.”

Office life and how much time we actually devote to work

Taylor Burian

Digging through my drafts, I found a post I had started working on almost three years ago (oops…) and it stuck out to me as something I really wanted to talk about again. That post was about how many hours people actually devote to work in a day.

The premise behind that post came from a team meeting at work. At the time that I had started drafting that post there was an external non-profit type of organization that independently hosted monthly sessions for business professionals and leaders. Several people from my department would attend regularly and bring back notes to share during team and department meetings so that way even those who couldn’t attend weren’t totally missing out. At this point I’d like to remind you that 2020 was a bad year. COVID controlled our lives for most of that year, and I was “lucky” to be working remote, which I’ll circle back to shortly. Anyways, going out of the house and attending events was not encouraged but by November of that year things had loosened up here.

Anyways, I never attended any of those sessions. So I had to take what I could get from my coworkers. Over Teams and WebEx meetings. It was a great time.

So, with the background handled, circling back to the original topic. How many hours DO you devote to work? On the daily? Weekly?

The talking points and discussion materials provided at that session covered things that I knew in the back of my mind and I had previously brought up in personal discussions with friends and family. The subject wasn’t just about time in the office or at your desk. They covered things like travel time/commutes, morning and evening routines, meal prepping for lunches (if that’s your thing.)

When they talked about all of this, it brought to mind that people working a full time job will actually devote more time than they think they do simply because there are things that happen outside of work hours that we do for the purpose of supporting our work-life balance. We devote more time to work at the cost of time devoted to our personal lives.

Now, as to why I wanted to come back to this drafted topic. That’s because three years ago when I first started that draft, everyone at work was required to go remote and temporarily reduce hours by 40%. Starting back then, my work-life balance was shot. I spent so much time at home that the days blurred together. I didn’t, and to this day still don’t, have a separate space for me to work from when I have to work from home. It felt like I was devoted to work so much more, even though there were times I did so much less even if not by choice. I could get away with condensing my usual activities and routines because I wasn’t commuting. I was steps away from the kitchen and could cook lunch. I could take five minutes to go start a load of laundry.

Things have changed since then, and I’m more less back to the usual work routines I had pre-COVID. No more blurred lines. Work-life balance mostly restored. I have the option to work remote should I need or choose to, but I have otherwise gone back to the office full time because for me it provides a nice separation of work and my personal life.

The way things should be. At least, that’s how it is for me. What about you?

Am I a good neighbor?

Taylor Burian

What makes a good neighbor?

I’d like to think I’m a good neighbor, but I guess it’s kind of subjective. What’s the dynamic of the neighborhood? Is the neighborhood filled with close-knit people who have lived there for multiple years? Who have block parties and barbecues? Or does everyone seem to just keep to themselves?

My current neighborhood is the former. Older couples with adult children who come and go, and retired couples, although a couple homes have recently been purchased by younger folks. All that said, they do some block parties and a few of them throw barbecues. I’m not usually the socializing type so I’ve only ever gone to one of these block parties despite being invited each time. I don’t think that makes me a BAD neighbor, but it probably doesn’t leave a great impression on everyone else. Not that I mind.

I think that in spite of what I’ve mentioned above, I’m an okay neighbor. I have on occasion talked with my immediate neighbors a few times, and I’ve offered help whenever I see an opportunity. Granted being a homebody and staying indoors almost all day makes it difficult to see those opportunities, I still make the offers. I also try to stay vigilant of what goes on in the area since we’ve had lots of cars broken into across the city this year, and one neighbor actually had their car stolen several months back.

So, maybe boiling it down, my idea of what makes a good neighbor is just being helpful. No matter who it is, or what their situation is, just being helpful.

Getting back to it

Taylor Burian

If you’re reading this, then I hope you’ve read my last few entries and noticed I’m trying to get back into the routine of writing. I’ve been using those daily prompts that show up in the Jetpack app (which is how I keep track of my blog while on the go) and that has been a helpful start.

Right now, the goal is to follow those prompts whenever I see one that interests me, or maybe refer to a previous one in the list, and try to build the habit of just writing out whatever comes to mind. Eventually I’d like to get back into a near daily habit of writing out these posts, so we’ll see how it goes. I think I’ll also dig into the drafts I somehow still have and see what I find.

Wish me luck!

Something exhilarating

Taylor Burian

What could you try for the first time?

I’ve always wanted to try skydiving. That’s the first thing that comes to mind for something I would want to try for the first time. The sensation of air rushing passed you as your hurtle towards the ground. Watching videos of people doing this and similar activities I always wonder if they are feeling like they are both moving slow and incredibly fast. Those videos always make it seem like the ground below them is approaching slowly, but the sound and feel of the air rushing must make it seem confusing.

Some of my friends would vehemently disagree with the idea going so far as to say “why jump out of a perfectly good airplane?” For the thrill and excitement, duh!

A life without music would suck

Taylor Burian

What would your life be like without music?

This is an older prompt that I had originally started typing out my answer to before I got distracted at work.

I had given it a fair amount of thought (maybe a couple minutes worth) because it just caught me off guard and I knew exactly how I would try to answer.

Do you ever watch a movie or tv show and notice the colors are either washed out or in a sort of grayscale? Maybe a day or two before this question came up I had watched the first episode of the anime “Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead”. When I read this prompt, that first episode was immediately what came to mind. If you haven’t seen it and are planning to watch it soon then you might stop reading here to avoid those juicy episode one spoilers.

Still with me? Cool.

When I read this prompt I had an immediate reaction and knew exactly how to portray my answer purely because of the aforementioned anime. In the first episode you watch the protagonist remember the events of their life leading up to the present. They got an office job in the city and were following their dream. They had a great first day at work and everyone in the office was jovial and welcoming. After work they all got together for dinner and drinks to celebrate. Great start! Then shit drops. You realize with horror that it was all a facade but the protagonist is trying to maintain a positive outlook and work hard. Years go by at this job filled with verbal abuse, gaslighting, and manipulation. Friendships seemingly fall apart, every day is filled with overtime to the point that everyone in the office is basically pulling all nighters all the time (with two people bragging and one upping each other for putting in 100+ hours a previous week) and it becomes quickly apparent the protagonist’s life is devoid of happiness and pleasure. Always chasing the clock, burning out to the point that one day you see them struggling to wake up in their apartment while surrounded with bags of trash that they haven’t taken to the time to take out because they’re always working. If you weren’t noticing it right away you might have missed it but at some point the world around the protagonist lost color.

Nearing the later part of this episode is when we learn about the world going to shit outside the apartment, with zombies and death and destruction. The protagonist is leaving their apartment, resigned to their fate to go to work and they encounter their first zombie. Over the next minute or so realization slowly dawns on the protagonist that they’re free. No more work. No more deadlines. No more boss yelling and belittling them. As they’re running and their memories are flashing before them they eventually see color again for the first time in years! This is when the visual aesthetic explodes with color and pushes out the grayscale reality they had been living in for so long. This moment is what came to mind so vividly when I first read the prompt “what would life be like without music” because it left such a strong impression on my mind and I had been noticing a similar feeling whenever I would put on music at work.

So, maybe not to the same explosive degree as in Zom 100, because work for me isn’t anywhere near that suffocating or all consuming, but whenever I put on music the world around me seems brighter and clearer. Perhaps that’s just me, but that’s what I think of when I think about a life without music.