Archive for the 'off-topic' Category

Common Culinarian is moving

Published by Hal on November 14, 2008 in off-topic. 0 Comments

Just a heads up,

commonculinarian.com will be expiring in less than a week! Point your browsers to halbieky.wordpress.com. There’s even a new feed.

A word of caution–there is likely to be less food themed posting going on over there, so I hope you don’t mind seeing some personal stuff, too. Like pictures of my dog. And any other random rantings I choose to share :)

Learning my way around

Published by Hal on February 21, 2008 in off-topic. 2 Comments

I’m slowly, but surely, learning my way around this crazy mac.

I gave up on Quicken for Mac–I have four years of financial data in my file, and the conversion did not work so pretty for me. I don’t have time to fix all that mess, so I reverted back to my old Quicken 2006 on VMWare Fusion…

…Only to discover that Intuit has decided that Quicken 2006 can no longer update from banks’ servers.

So, after spending $80 so I wouldn’t have to shell out money for an updated version of Quicken, I had to shell out another $45 so I could have access to the features I love about Quicken–namely, online bank connections.

Pissed, I am.

But, at the same time, happy, because now my financial data is in a familiar place, and I don’t have to work so hard to make it pretty or keep it up to date (in the two versions since my old one, Intuit has added support for some of my banks that didn’t have support before–yay!).

I don’t think I like iPhoto. Personally, I liked Picasa a lot, and I learned how to use it pretty well. I’m not sure I want to learn how to use another program, especially since I think Google has Picasa for Mac, now. So, another good Mac program (iPhoto) out the window (even if I have Windows installed on my machine ;) ).

So, I’m still learning how to use this machine… Which also means that I may not post my fish tomorrow–but perhaps the next day. Stay tuned!

Edit: I’ve since learned that Picasa only has an album uploader for Mac–so I may yet revert to Picasa on the Windows VM. iPhoto is great, but Picasa just feels more natural. I’m just glad I’ll still have the choice even though I’ve switched platforms.

Seven Things You’ll Wish You Never Knew About Me

Published by Hal on January 14, 2008 in about me and off-topic. 1 Comment

A food post, later. For now, I’ll participate in this meme. Art Dinkin at Moment on Money tagged me to participate in this meme, and I’ll happily oblige. Some of you may know things about me because of our relationship outside of this blog. Others are probably curious about the man behind the curtain. So, here it goes: seven things you’ll wish you never knew about me…

The rules are these:

  • Link to the person(s) that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
  • Share 7 random and/or weird things about yourself.
  • Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

My things:

  1. I have a day job very different from what I write about on this blog: I’m a finance professional, though not of the same vein as Art. I’m a CPA, and I work in the tax department of a large school.
  2. I have a hobby that is very different from both my job and my blog: I sing. I’ve been involved in music for as long as I can remember, and I’ve been singing since 2002. I even had the opportunity this past fall to sing in a local choir for the Dalai Lama.
  3. I’m not fluent in any language (other than English, of course), but I pick them up very easily. I’ve taken French and German, and based on these two I can read a fair amount of Spanish and Latin.
  4. Despite this blog, I’ve (clearly, based on number 1) not been professionally trained as cooking. So, everything you read here is based on my own experiences and trails/errors.
  5. I once lost 90 pounds. Unfortunately, I’ve gained 70 of them back because I deal horribly with things I can’t control (see why number 1 is such a good fit!).
  6. I was an atypical college student: never changed my major once I started, graduated in  4 1/2 years, went right to grad school, and never looked back.
  7. I never cared about college sports when I was in school (even though the other 249,999 people who lived in my city were beyond fanatical). Interestingly enough, now that I work at a rival school, I’m all about it, and at work I’m becoming “that guy.” And, I don’t mind :)

Now, the tag…

  1. Stacie @ Buried the Lead
  2. Jaden @ Steamy Kitchen
  3. Trent @ Simple Dollar
  4. The Gastronomist @ … The Gastronomist!
  5. Andre @ Wine For Newbies
  6. Kevin @ The Breakfast Bowl (maybe it’ll get you posting again!)
  7. Robert @ Web Marketing How To

Wow, this exercise is making me realize that I need to expand my network so that the blogs I read know who I am.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful…

Published by Hal on December 14, 2007 in off-topic. 2 Comments

We’re on the verge of our first winter storm for the season. Our dog has made herself comfortable:

I hope you enjoyed the minor diversion :)