Tag: blogging

Getting my cook on

Taylor BurianLeave a comment

What’s your favorite thing to cook?

First off, I’m not a recipe blogger, so I apologize in advance for not giving you all my life story centered around a favorite dish before actually getting to the point.

Recently I’ve taken to cooking something akin to Beef and Broccoli (or is it Beef with Broccoli?)

I found a simple enough recipe for the sauce not too long ago and started making my own version without measuring ingredients, or even having all of them to begin with, and got it down so it’s easy to throw together.

  • 1 or 2 cups Beef stock (I had chicken, which seemed to work just fine)
  • 1 Tbsp Soy sauce
  • 1 or 2 tsp Oyster sauce
  • Cornstarch slurry for thickening

I’m sure I’m missing one or two things but that’s the base of the sauce. Toss all of it except the slurry in a sauce pan, bring to boil, add slurry, simmer until thickened. Easy! Typically I only use a couple spoonfuls of the sauce each time I cook, otherwise everything would end up swimming.

The beef part I’ve been lazy with and just used ground beef. However, in an effort to be ever so slightly healthier, I’m not using any cooking oils for the broccoli and other veggies I decide to throw in the pan. Instead, I happened to have some less lean/kinda fatty ground beef so I just fried up the beef and used the fat that renders out. I was just cooking it as a patty and setting it aside so that I didn’t have to go through the hassle of draining.

For the veggies I was using some combination of onion, potato, and zucchini. The potato, being a starch, was thrown in there so I didn’t need to cook rice. The onion and zucchini were for flavor and to drive a healthier balance to the fatty meat. I just chopped up all three and fried them, adding a pinch of salt.

See? Rather simple recipe, and it’s been something I’ve been able to quickly throw together at home either for lunch or dinner.

Bloganuary 30th: Add another to the complaint box

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Bloganuary writing prompt
What do you complain about the most?
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This information might be out of date since I last worked at a fast food burger chain about 16 years ago, but one of things I learned (when getting ServSafe Certified and taking corporate training exams) was the disparity between bad service and good service. When a customer has a bad experience somewhere they typically share that experience with seven or more family/friends/acquaintances as opposed to a person who had an exceptionally good experience sharing with an average of just three people. Not even just a regular good experience where you get exactly the kind of service you expect, but the kind of service that went above and beyond expectations! Again, these numbers might not be completely accurate anymore, but the point stands. Bad experiences yield more complaints.

So with that in mind I’d like to take a moment to say that I generally don’t complain, and I don’t go out of my way to complain about poor service unless it was REALLY BAD. The reason for this is because I’ve been in that situation. Sometimes the stars just line up for a cosmically shitty day of work. I can take a step back and think about the little details that add up to cause that experience. This is something a lot of people don’t seem to do, and that extends beyond the customer service experience to the thing I really wanted to address in today’s post. Critical thinking.

The thing I seem to complain about most is the lack of critical thinking that seems to happen more and more these days. People making snap judgements and instantly being harsh. People who fall for misinformation and help spread it further. Like those stupid memes of math problems that lead to people fighting over the answer because some of them forgot how to utilize order of operations. In those moments, when something seems off and people are bickering back and forth over what is right, that is the time to step back and apply a little more critical thinking. Why are we fighting over a silly and irrelevant math problem on social media? How are some people arriving at a different answer? Which all leads into the next thing that I complain about most.

People lack the ability to stuff their ego and pride and admit when they are wrong. Seriously, when faced with overwhelming proof and easily verifiable/testable logic, why double down on being wrong? I don’t want to dig into that too much, because I don’t want to try and research the psychology behind people refusing to admit their wrongness.

I also don’t want to keep ranting about this because it will just irritate me for the rest of the day.

Bloganuary 27th: The dreaded reading backlog

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Bloganuary writing prompt
What books do you want to read?
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So many books to read, so little time! I have a decent list of books to read that I’ve picked up in the last couple of years, and I actually put that list into a personal OneNote so I could track purchases. Below is the list of most recent books that I’ve purchased and added to my backlog. There are 33 books in the list, and I’ve grouped some based on series. Are any of them on your list?

  • Mistborn Era 1
    • The Final Empire (Read)
    • The Well of Ascension
    • The Hero of Ages
  • Mistborn Era 2
    • The Alloy of Law
    • Shadows of Self
    • The Bands of Mourning
    • The Lost Metal
  • Elantris
  • Warbreaker
  • The Stormlight Archive
    • The Way of Kings
    • Words of Radiance
    • Oathbringer
    • Rhythm of War
    • Wind and Truth
  • Brandon Sanderson Secret Projects
    • Tress of the Emerald Sea
    • The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England
    • Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
    • The Sunlit Man
  • J.W. Wells & Co.
    • The Portable Door
    • In Your Dreams
    • Earth, Air, Fire, and Custard
    • You Don’t Have to Be Evil to Work Here, But It Helps
    • The Better Mousetrap
    • May Contain Traces of Magic
    • Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sausages
    • The Eight Reindeer of the Apocalypse
  • Defenders of Lore
    • God of Neverland
    • Queens of Wonderland
  • The Flanders Panel
  • Death by Cliché
  • Obsidian
  • The Beholden
  • Starter Villain (Reading)

Bloganuary 25th: my leisure time

Taylor BurianLeave a comment

What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?

I’ll probably have to rank my activities/hobbies of choice for this prompt because although I currently have one in particular that dominates the top of the list, I have others that would take its place under different circumstances.

First and foremost is video games. I spend a lot of time playing a variety of games both with and without my family and friends. Puzzle and Room Escape games by myself help me stretch my brain a bit, and Survival Crafting games with friends to learn, problem solve, and manage things while exploring strange new environments. These days the family games are typically Fortnite, but occasionally we dabble in other games as we find common interests in the many different genres.

After that, if I had the time and capacity to, I would play Magic: The Gathering with friends for more than just a few hours every couple of weeks or so. If we could play a couple of times a week then I would definitely be playing video games less. Also, since I’ve recently managed to get my two brothers and a nephew into Magic, I’d hopefully play with them more frequently as well. Especially considering my nephew is still very new to the game and there is so much to learn.

I would most likely then spend a lot of time reading if I didn’t feel so drawn to spending time with friends near and far for the above activities. Sadly, my back log of books keeps growing. I’ll probably have to commit to reading through a few soon just so I can keep adding to it and not feel too guilty.

I’ll stop at the top three there for how I would prefer to spend my leisure time, otherwise I could just keep going on and on.

Bloganuary 24th: Fun close to home

Taylor BurianLeave a comment
Bloganuary writing prompt
Name an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting.
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I’ve now lived in South Dakota for about 19 years, and there are still so many things I haven’t done. Maybe it’s because of my lifestyle or just lack of interest in general, I’m not entirely sure, but there are some that I really should go do and visit.

If you’re familiar with South Dakota, then you probably know that it is the Mount Rushmore State. I still haven’t visited Mount Rushmore. I’ve been nearby in that part of the state but was either working or passing through, and it isn’t an “attraction” that is top of my list. I’ll also include in the list some non-South Dakota places that are popular around my area.

Among the list of attractions or towns that I have NOT visited:

  • The Black Hills
  • Wall Drug
  • Des Moines, Iowa
  • Le Mars, Iowa (The Ice Cream Capital of the World – home to Blue Bunny Ice Cream)
  • Valleyfair (amusement park just outside Minneapolis, Minnesota)

If I wanted to get REALLY specific, I could do some that are actually close to home, but I’d rather not. If I didn’t visit them, they weren’t that popular to me or my lifestyle so they aren’t worth remembering or mentioning, but I’m sure there are more that people would get mad at me for not including. Oh well, such is life!

Bloganuary 22nd: Breaking through the pet language barrier

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Bloganuary writing prompt
If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be?
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This would be an amazing prompt if I had any pets of my own. I do, however, live with roommates that have pets and I visit family regularly who have several pets. Between the two groups there are five cats and five dogs.

One of my brother’s cats, named Paul, has picked me out as one of his favorite humans. I don’t typically have a problem with him, except when he finds it necessary to jump from the floor onto my shoulders.

He’s not the real focus of this post, but I wanted to share anyway.

No, the real focus would be on the dogs. My roommates two dogs are generally very chill, they sleep most of the day, play some, run around the yard, doing dog things. Including bark like maniacs when they see someone walking up to the door, even us, or if they here a vehicle door slam closed from one of the neighbors. In most cases, it’s alright because it makes for a good alarm system of sorts. They protect the house! If there is just ONE thing I could communicate to them it would definitely be something along the lines of “all clear” so they will stop barking their heads off after I’ve come to confirm that nothing is wrong.

Fairly simple thing, to me anyways.

Bloganuary 21st: Origin of a name – Taylor

Taylor BurianLeave a comment
Bloganuary writing prompt
Write about your first name: its meaning, significance, etymology, etc.
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My first name is fairly common, or at least very commonly known courtesy of Taylor Swift, but the etymological background might be lost on the current generations.

Per the website Find My Past:

What does the name Taylor mean?

“An Anglo-French occupational surname, Taylor is thought to have arrived through the Norman occupation, derived from the Old French ‘tailleur’ (cutter of cloth) or English ‘tailor’. The surname Taylor is common across the British Isles (fourth most common in the UK overall – fifth most common in England) and other countries traditionally colonised by the British, though far less common in Ireland (where it mostly exists only in Northern Ireland – potentially brought over by English and Scottish settlers). Taylor can sometimes be found as an anglicised version of the German word ‘Schneider’, a direct translation of the same term.”An Anglo-French occupational surname, Taylor is thought to have arrived through the Norman occupation, derived from the Old French ‘tailleur’ (cutter of cloth) or English ‘tailor’. The surname Taylor is common across the British Isles (fourth most common in the UK overall – fifth most common in England) and other countries traditionally colonised by the British, though far less common in Ireland (where it mostly exists only in Northern Ireland – potentially brought over by English and Scottish settlers). Taylor can sometimes be found as an anglicised version of the German word ‘Schneider’, a direct translation of the same term.”
– Findmypast.co.uk

All I was ever concerned with is that it was from the English occupation, but the fact that it has ties to the similar spelled/pronounced French occupation makes sense.

Unfortunately, I am not very ambitious with cloth, thread, and needle, so I don’t actually concern myself with the occupation. That doesn’t mean I’m averse to sewing, though, because as an adult I have very much needed to fix up some clothes when I didn’t have the money to buy new.

So there you have it, a quick and dirty post with little extra exposition from me because the information already exists elsewhere on the Internet for any and everyone to read if they were so curious.

Bloganuary 20th: Dreams of going pro as an author

Taylor Burian1 Comment
Bloganuary writing prompt
What’s your dream job?
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Super simple question for me today! I can get behind that when I’m getting sucked into playing the hottest new early access game.

My dream job has changed a couple of times between childhood and adulthood. Today, it is becoming a professional author and being able to support myself on that kind of income.

I’m working on bettering my daily habits to write consistently, like answering these daily prompts. I’m over 100 days in a row of writing every day, and I’m getting used to the idea that it is okay to put less important things aside to focus on writing if I hope to improve my habits and reach that goal. Hopefully, someday, I can publish something and be successful enough to quit my job and keep writing. Then my days would be wildly different! I’d have MORE time to do the things I want to do in tandem with writing, because I would end up substituting time spent working in an office with time spent writing.

I know I can do it if I stick with it, and I know I can keep up with writing demands if I look at the results of my NaNoWriMo 2023 daily word tracking. It is completely possible for me to write 300k+ words per year. I just have to dig in and go for it.

Bloganuary 19th: Good Leaders

Taylor BurianLeave a comment
Bloganuary writing prompt
What makes a good leader?
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Leading isn’t for everyone. If it was, we would constantly run into the issue of “too many cooks in the kitchen”. What makes a good leader can also be a bit subjective, but I’m sure if I did some digging (beyond my fuzzy memory of professional symposiums and conventions) I would be able to point out specific traits that have been identified through extensive study.

Additionally, there is a BIG difference between being a manager and a leader.

Being a leader, in my opinion, requires empathy. Lots of it. Without it you can’t understand the needs of the people following you. Being a GOOD leader requires self-control with that empathy, because otherwise it’s possible to be swept up in the emotion and problems of everyone else. Leaders need to look out for the good of the group, and not allow themselves to be consumed by the needs of one person.

Leaders also participate in the work being done. They work alongside everyone, not lording above them, to accomplish their goals. Understanding the work and the needs of the people doing it is a necessity.

The final thing I’ll say about what I think makes a good leader is centered around accountability. Accountability for themselves AND their people. They know when to own a mistake and not just shift blame. They understand that sometimes there are consequences and they’re responsible for making sure things are taken care for the good of the group, such as if someone else were to make a mistake they would provide some measure of corrective action and guidance for improvement. It’s not all bad, though. A good leader, when thinking about accountability, also knows how to celebrate the successes of others and raise them up for due recognition because that provides a positive example to others of what it means to be accountable for the work being done.

I mentioned before about there being a difference between being a manager and a leader. Take all of the examples above and reverse them. Managers simply tell people what to do but they don’t always understand the work being done. They can lack empathy and simply see people as means to an end. They punish others by shifting blame away from themselves when they make a mistake, and they don’t often celebrate the successes of others unless it celebrates themselves.

Granted, there are exceptions to what I’ve stated above about managers, but if you find someone with the title of “Manager” and they’re doing all the right things that make a good leader then they’re not a manager. They are a leader who may be unduly recognized for their skills. If that sounds like your own “Manager” and you have a good team around you then I’d wager that not only are they a good leader, but also the reason people stick around.

Bloganuary 6th: Billboards?

Taylor BurianLeave a comment
Daily writing prompt
If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?
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With all of the prompts I’ve been answering the last few months, I can definitely say I had not been expecting this one. Not that it’s a wildly different or shocking prompt, comparatively, but just not something I was completely expecting at this point with the general trend of all the previous prompts.

Driving around my city, going to work, maybe going shopping or just getting something to eat, I’ve seen a wide variety of billboards. Some of them are the old style where it is one massive picture and it could be up there for months or even years, but I’ve seen more and more of the digital ones being put up or replacing the old ones. This is a big deal to me when thinking about today’s prompt because duration could play a part in what I would like to have plastered on a massive wall of pure advertisement for the world to see. Since the question is about a freeway billboard, I imagine the duration would be limited to months unless I had a special contract, so I’ll operate under that pretense. Just a couple months of ad space hanging where tens of thousands of people can see it regularly. But what to put on it?

So many choices! I could make it serious, or funny. I could try to just spread a good message to brighten someone’s day, or call out something important that I think the world should be know. Or I could just make it a shameless plug for my content, although that carries some risks. I could plug my Twitch channel (that I rarely use anymore but might return to someday), but then I have to be cautious of people recognizing my face in public or at work. HR might have a field day. The same could be said for if I were to get a novel published and I wanted to use billboard space as part of an ad campaign. I’d have to be ready for the potential consequences. Maybe I should just opt for something funny or inspiring. Oh! I had an idea. Something to really mess with people.

What if my billboard was one of those “Find X differences” images that I used to see on social media, but instead of putting up two nearly identical images with minor changes they’re just both the same image? I wonder how many people would get pissed off.