Year: 2008

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Cal Poly Graduation : “Be Coul, dude ! “

President Warren Baker of Cal poly in full regalia!Cal Poly’s administration is fraught with troubles. Terrible troubles, indeed! The fact is that a massive wave of ‘coulrophobia’ has surged over the campus, sending faculty to their drawing tables!

The dictum has come down from on high: “NO MORE CLOWNS!”

However, from what I hear, a celebratory ‘t-shirt’ is being produced to reduce the coulrophobes anxiety through what Psychologists refer to as ‘flooding!’ I can only imagine what it might look like… maybe something like what is pictured here, allegedly of our Cal Poly campus President and otherwise great guy, Warren Baker.

Obviously, there are more issues than a ‘fear of clowns’ pervading the administration tower. There is a fear of not connecting their link firmly enough with that bastion of human rights Saudi Arabia. We give them advanced engineering technology… and they give us?

Meanwhile in clown central, the current Dean of Engineering has singled me out for special consideration in a memo sent wide and far to his “leadership team”. As readers of my blog know, I do not work at Cal Poly, so this special recognition is a great honor…. Indeed!

So when I received a copy of the memo that Dean Mohammad Noori sent to the world of Cal Poly Engineering… I looked with anticipation to see if it mentioned my name? Ahhhh… and here are parts of it…

Is this BIG Givernment McCathyism or what?
Obviously, I wrote him back and said that I said no such thing… I really didn’t … although I brushed it off thinking that Mohammad seemed distraught, overwrought and in dire need of a ‘clown suit’ to cheer himself up!

Although I found the memo darkly amusing, the concept of a state entity potentially unleashing the troops against a private citizen is disturbing. This resembles concept of ‘McCarthyism’ which has been characterized by many as an abuse of governmental authority over private citizens… so did Mohammad step over the line by mentioning me in such a derogatory way to his ‘colleagues’ in an official Cal Poly memo? What was he really asking them to do?

Makes you think…. because I have been here before.
Roger Freberg

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YOUR space & MySpace

Rogers MySpace

Okay, I finally put up a MySpace page for no other reason than to show the next generation of family members that I could do it too!

Here it is!

I think it has some value for folks that already have web sites of their own because it is a venue by which one generation searches for their friends… add to this Facebook and a young professional’s site is complete. My daughter Karen has links to both of her sites to sites on Facebook and Myspace.

Interestingly enough, MySpace asks you several times what you want your ‘myspace url’ to be … and warns you that it can not be changed! Hopefully this prevents naming a site that one might be a bit embarrassed about later on.

The Internet is staying interesting

Roger Freberg

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the Art of Russian Cuisine

Classic Russian Cooking!

Here is a great cookbook that not everyone is familiar ….”Classic Russian Cooking” by Elena Molokhovet … A gift to young housewives. Originally published around 1861, this book was held as ‘decadent’ and viewed as a curiosity during much of the Soviet regime where the variety of foodstuffs were limited and seasonings nearly non existent.

Today this book stands out as one of the truly marvelous additions to modern cooking , providing wonderful glimpses into an age gone by where time, effort and quality made a difference in cuisine!

Obviously, before I dived into the cookbook, I thumbed my way to find:

Beef Stroganoff with Mustanrd (Govjadina po-strogaonovski, s gorchiseju ) which contained the central themes of every Stroganoff …although much simpler… with ‘allspice”, sour cream and “Sareptskaja” mustard! This type of mustard is also known as Indian Mustard or Brown Mustard (Brassica Juncea) and can be found growing in the United States and considered , interestingly enough , a ‘weed.’

This is certainly a cookbook that won’t break the bank as you can probably pick it up for 20 – 30 dollars on Amazon.

One common criticism of Elena’s recipes was that they ‘contained too many ingredients and required too much time in preparation.” However, I did not find this the case, unless you unfortunately prefer one of those 30 meals in 30 minute books.

This is for someone who enjoys exploring another time…

Roger Freberg

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Beef Stroganoff is more than you think!

Is it Stroganoff or Rogeroff... you decide!

One of the favorite meals in our family is beef Stroganoff.

The recipe isn’t the easy 1950’s one that most people think of… however, it is well worth the time and trouble to make something special as we did again today!

Here’s our own ancient recipe for Beef Stroganoff!

The reason most people don’t think about Russian Cuisine is that it was simply ‘asleep’ for about 80 years until ingredients and basic raw materials became more readily available.

Elena Molokhovet and her classic Russian Cookbook from 1891 was for many years in Soviet Russia little more than an interesting book with wonderful ideas on cooking. In fact, the very first Stroganoff traces itself back to this early cookbook given to young wives starting out.

I have this cookbook and you can too with a little looking, but as they warn you… it is time consuming and requires many ingredients.

Ah… for me this is always what I really want to hear!

Roger

Много очень вкусный русских рецептов еды!

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Who’s REALLY embarrassing Cal Poly?

Warren Baker, who is REALLY embarrassing Cal Poly?

Who’s Really embarrassing Cal Poly?

Recently, a member of the engineering faculty was called into what appeared to be a administrative ‘disciplinary meeting’ but ended as a rant by the engineering dean and the provost regarding how certain disgruntled folks were ‘embarrassing the university.’ Little did they know, it aint one guy!

Well, the only advice I can give Cal Poly is ‘don’t do anything embarrassing.’ Unfortunately, according to one expose’, Cal Poly has a lot of things that might be called ‘embarrassing’; here are a few select quotes:

1) “Declining morale and a high level of turnovers also plague the college. During the past three years, staff turnovers have exceeded 50 percent. In addition, six chairs have stepped down and numerous faculty and staff have voiced dissatisfaction.”

2) “… this year’s anticipated $1.3 million shortfall.”

3) “Noori also is the guiding force behind a controversial effort by Cal Poly officials to provide College of Engineering expertise and personnel to help start a similar institution in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. Critics of the plan contend women, Jews and other minorities will be excluded.”

4) It appears as though both Dean Mohammad Noori and Provost Bill Durgan worked at the same small college years ago which may explain why:

Cal Poly Professor Mike Cirovic said, “Durgin wanted to quell rumors that would not help, and in fact, would harm the college.”

5) Yet, Mohammad is “the highest paid dean, adding salary and perks, in the California State University system”…. And in spite of faculty objections has been rewarded by higher administrators by having his: “salary has increased 11 percent over the past two years; his $900 monthly housing allowance is additional to his $213,000 annual salary.”

6) One can only wonder why Cal Poly even entertained employing Mohammad Noori after comments like this were made by North Carolina State University:

“He is an incredible bully who doesn’t respect his faculty,” said Larry Silverberg, Professor and Associate Head of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at NCSU. “This place shut down while we waited for his contract to run out.”

In any event, the one thing I have learned about Cal Poly is that everything starts at the top. Nothing, from my observation, happens without Cal Poly President’s Warren Baker’s tacit or expressed approval.

So, who is really embarrassing Cal Poly? Don’t be surprised after all this; Warren gets a 21% raise.

Roger

For the complete story on the recent Cal Poly Follies!