Is it already Memorial Day Weekend?

Yes.

The last few weeks have flown by. One of the downsides to not teaching classes is that every day feels exactly the same as the previous day, and it's harder to have a feeling of progress. But I did hit my first project milestone, which is the completion of the grading rubric for the remedial mathematics program. It's not a big milestone, but it's done.

I got an upgrade in my workstation at school, which is fun. I now have a two-monitor setup, where one of the monitors is a touch screen. The second screen is nice, though at a certain level is just feels excessive. My brain and eyes can't track information across both screens simultaneously, and so most of the time one of the monitors is basically unused. It's nice to be able to "spread out" my stuff, but it's kind of like having a lot of horizontal surfaces at home. Stuff just finds a way of filling the available space. Unfortunately, I don't think that the work I'm doing really gains much from the touch screen, so I feel like it's going to be an underutilized resource. Hopefully over time, I'll find reasons to cover the screen with fingerprints.

I've also got a pen/tablet drawing pad. This is actually the more functional upgrade, as I'm supposed to make math videos this summer, and this will allow me to do it in my office instead of trying to hunt down empty classrooms to use the Sympodium devices that we have. I've also started to play with Camtasia, which is a video editing/production software program. It's pretty easy to use, and it probably does a lot more than what I'm making it do right now. But one step at a time. I first need to get used to talking to myself in my office. It's surprising how self-conscious I am when I'm "teaching" to nobody. When I have an audience, my mind is focused on communicating ideas. When I don't have an audience, my mind is focused on listening to myself talk. I hear every inflection and every phrase that I rush or slur together, and I feel like I should go back and fix it immediately (by stopping mid-sentence, and backtracking to the previous sentence). With a little practice, I think I'll get over it. I'll need to, because otherwise it will take forever to make these videos.

I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but I've finally finished dealing with the debt collection agency and the credit report. Next time, I'll start the process by threatening to sue the collection agency. It seems to be a pretty effective tactic.

Our new senior pastor arrives for good this weekend. And I'm glad. I got an email today that announces his opening sermon series: "Vital Signs of a Healthy Church." This is the sort of strong vision-casting from the pulpit that I've been hoping to see. That, and I'm simply tired of listening to terrible sermons. The guy that was filling the pulpit was not good at all. I walked out on a sermon a couple weeks ago when the preacher spent the first 10 minutes reading the wrong passage without realizing it. It took someone from the congregation to call out to the pastor to tell him he was in the wrong passage before he stopped. How can you not know what passage you're preaching from? Even if it's a sermon series that you're using from the past, surely you've spent the time to review it before going on stage, right? But it's over, and I'm glad.

I'm doing some landscaping in the backyard. And by "some," I really mean "some." I'm actually pulling out more plants than I'm putting in. I spent about an hour today digging up one of the bushes. I had already hacked off most of the branches, and so it was all digging to get underneath it so I can pull it up. There's something oddly satisfying about destroying a plant that I don't think will be matched by maintenance and upkeep of plants. The landscaper who did the front yard a couple years ago told me that the oleanders only need to be pruned once a year. They don't appear to be very expensive plants, so if I end up killing them, it's not a big deal. (I'm mostly concerned about what will happen in the fall when I have my first pruning experience.)

I'm going to call him back by early next week and give him the okay to do his thing. He's going to pull out the old irrigation system and put in a new one (for the two oleanders he's planting, with the idea that I might do something more in the future). He's also going to pull out a few unwanted plants and a lot of unwanted weeds, and do some general cleanup. He's only charging me $250, so I'm pretty happy with that. (I was thinking it would cost somewhere between $300 and $400.)

The last thing I would need to do is buy backyard furniture. Then maybe I'd actually spend some time back there, but not until the end of summer. Sitting outside in June, July, and August is not something that I think I want to do.

Another semester in the books (almost)

All the grading is done for the semester. I just need to upload the final grades to the registrar and I'm officially done with this semester. And then in one week, the summer session begins. I'm not teaching this time, but I will be doing a lot of curriculum revision and course oversight for the summer, which should keep me pretty busy.

My summer projects this year include the creation of short lectures for all six modules (around 80 lectures), the creation of a grading rubric for all of our tests, and a revision of the Math 093 textbook that we've been using. If I have the time, I'm also going to start the creation of a Math 095 textbook and a Math 096 textbook. The target date for those is Fall 2013, but that feels ambitiously close. We'll see what I'm actually able to do in that span of time.

Reflections on the semester... I'm graduating my first big batch of students this year. I think there are 6-7 students graduating for whom I've been the primary upper division math instructor. I think I did a pretty good job of connecting with them, and helping them through their struggles (with the material and with other things). There's a bit of sentimentality that goes with that. I'm looking forward to a graduation ceremony this year where I have just a couple students who I've had for one or two classes walking.

It's slowly dawning on me that in the span of 5 years, I've gone from 4th of 4 math instructors (by seniority) to 1st of 2 instructors (where the second is brand new). For a campus of 3000 students, it seems absurd. Actually, I think it's not just that it seems absurd, but that it really is absurd. There's going to be at least a couple years of building back all that we've lost, and it's not going to be easy. I have a meeting with the (currently) most senior math instructor, who has been at NSC since the very beginning, and she's going to fill me in on things that need to be worked on in next couple years for the mid-level classes (precalculus and calculus). That will then put me in the position of (at least temporarily) being responsible for oversight of all the math levels at the same time. I'll hopefully be able to pass the mid-level stuff onto the new faculty, but he's going to need some time to transition.

Aside from this, there are just a bunch of little things going on. I had some family roll through town a couple weeks ago, I spent a day in Phoenix at a remediation conference, I'm trying to get back to reading a couple books that I started a while ago, and the person taking measurements at the last workplace wellness thing did it wrong (38 inch hips?).

In binary, my age is now 6 digits long

I guess that counts as an age milestone.

And since I'm on the topic, I'll start with birthday stuff. This has been a good birthday week. It started off with Easter, which is traditionally symbolic of new life and new beginnings. It was also the first time in quite a while that church felt like a normal church again. The room was full, there was a good energy, and the new pastor preached a strong, enjoyable, and relevant sermon! (More on that later.)

On my birthday, some of my upper division students decorated my office while I was teaching another class. I've already posted that picture on Facebook. That evening, I went out to Lucille's for dinner with Daniel and his parents. Tuesday night was small group, and I brought food. Since I get off work at around 5:15 (or later) and small group starts at 7:00, I had to cook everything in advance and reheat it that night. Yes, it was really a meal of leftovers. I made a potato-garlic-leek soup (I'm surprised at how tasty it was for how little effort went into it), wild rice (came out a little gummy), roasted chicken thighs (a little short on seasoning), and turnip greens (I've never made deep greens before). It was good, though I think I could have done better. Finally, we went out for all you can eat sushi last night. The last time I had all you can eat sushi was two years ago, for my birthday.

Now onto church things. I really like our new senior pastor. I don't think there was a single answer he gave or statement he has made that has caused me to hesitate. He has a good sense of what leadership looks like, and has a vision for how he's going to try to get there. I also really appreciated his Easter sermon. He spent a lot of time talking about the fullness of life, but placing it in the present tense. I also came across a quote sometime that weekend, which led me to an article by NT Wright:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=80880

The end of the article resonates well with the sermon:

It is not, "Jesus is raised, therefore look up into the sky and keep looking because one day you will be going there with him." Many hymns, prayers, and Christian sermons have tried to pull the Easter story in that direction, but the line of thought within the Gospels themselves is, "Jesus is raised, therefore God's new world has begun, and therefore we, you, and everybody else are invited to be not only beneficiaries of that new world but participants in making it happen."

I look forward to seeing the vision that the pastor helps to develop, and the practical ways that he will begin to bring about the types of changes (cultural and structural) that have been needed at this church for a while. He will be starting in 6-8 weeks, and I have a feeling that he wants to hit the ground running.

Tomorrow is a church picnic. We haven't done this sort of thing in a long time. I made a cold pasta salad for it. We're coming off a windy/rainy weekend (0.01 inches of rain is still rain!), but the weather tomorrow should be nice. Soon, these nice weather days will be gone.

We started our study of the Celebration of Discipline in small group. I don't know how far we'll get, since the new pastor wants to have a unified small group curriculum. But that's okay. We're just going to go as far as we can until he implements it. The next month will be on the inward disciplines (meditation, prayer, fasting, and study). It's a very different thing for our small group, and I'm looking forward to seeing how we adjust to the new format and new ideas.

I watched a documentary today on childhood hunger (Hunger Hits Home on Food Network). This is the second documentary I watched that they've produced. (The first was The Big Waste). It started to mess with my head a bit, and it probably didn't help that I had all you could eat sushi the night before. (I also blame reading Celebration of Discipline.) Knowing what this region has gone through, I know that this is a real issue here. According to Three Square (local food bank), 55% of students in the school district qualify for free/reduced lunches. And CCSD is a gigantic school district. I don't know whether this is going to go anywhere or lead to anything, but it's certainly going to be another thing bouncing around my head for a while.

School stuff is slowly winding down. The students have reached the point where they're starting to crack. This is the time of year that I worry about whether they'll have anything left in the tank for their final exams. There are only two weeks of lecture left, and then final exams.

I'm heading out to Phoenix for another one day Complete College America Remediation conference. Thankfully, Phoenix is not Chicago, so it won't be quite as insane. Some of the content will be the same, and some will be new. It's been two months since my last travel for a conference. It seems like such a long time.

I've been looking at some online course content to supplement our math program. I have to admit that it looks a lot better than it did a couple years ago. I'm currently waiting to gain full access to the materials to begin seeing about whether to try to implement them as supplementary materials. I'm not completely sold on the idea, but I do have to say that I'm more interested than I've been before.

There are a few other random things going on. We had 20 students petition us to open a section of Calculus 2 for the fall. I've been helping put together a $300K grant built off of the modular math program that I've developed. If that goes well, we could possibly get up to $5M. Over the next couple weeks, I'll sit down and finalize my summer projects.

Six weeks to go...

This felt like a grand revelation when it drifted through my mind today. I'm not sure why. Things are going well, though I've got a little bit of fatigue kicking in. Yes, I know that I had spring break last week. Just for fun, I looked back at my previous posts to see my spring break comments:

2008: My spring break has been more work-ful than I had hoped, but going in three days is better than five.
2009: I'm hoping to get all my notes together for the rest of the semester.
2010: I'm feeling that end-of-year slump coming on. Yes, last week was Spring break, but it doesn't matter.
2011: Things continue to be busy, but I did get to relax a little bit this week. I worked four half-days on campus and another half-day at home.

This is a 2010-ish spring break feeling. Things are going well, but I can feel things dragging.

The math search came to a close this week, and we made our offer to the candidate. This is good for me, as it will be nice to have a math colleague floating around the building again. I know that he's going to need some time to transition, but that's okay. My responsibilities are going to change (again) as I'm going to have to take more of a mentoring position than I've done in the past. But I'm looking forward to it.

A couple other projects got pushed through recently. We're re-numbering our remedial math classes so that we fail fewer students without changing the modular delivery. Instead of awarding two "A"s (at the end of module 3 and 6), we'll be awarding three "A"s (at the end of modules 2, 4, and 6). We've also got an incentive program set up where students who move all the way through all three classes in 6 modules gets the equivalent of a free class plus some bookstore vouchers. This will hopefully add to the number of things driving students forward.

I'm starting to look ahead at summer projects this week. The chief among these is my tenure application. There is a slightly ominous feel to the words in the promotion and tenure document: "All full time tenure track faculty must apply for tenure no later than the beginning of their sixth academic year." It seems like it's hitting me a little harder than it should. This might be because I'm in that slump and it feels like it's "another thing" that just landed on my plate... or it might be because I'm about to condense the last five years of my professional life into a single document that will have a significant impact the rest of my professional life.

There's a sense in which I feel very comfortable that I should get through this without too much difficulty. I've worked hard at what I believe and have been told are all the right things, and have accomplished the goals that were laid out in front of me by myself and others at the institution. But this is still a high stakes event. If I do not receive tenure, I will have one more year at NSC, and then I'll need to find a job somewhere else. It sounds harsh, but that's how the academic world works. This is also a long and slow process. I file my papers by August 15 this year, and then I don't find out until sometime in the Spring.

As for my other summer projects, I've got three different things, all related to remediation. One project is a behind-the-scenes move, as I need to create a full rubric for all of the tests. This will help promote uniformity of grading and fairness. The second is to create short lecture videos for the classes. The idea behind this is that we want to extend the learning opportunities to beyond just the classroom setting. The third is to go through the process of revising my current textbook and extending it to cover the entire remediation. This is because it bothers me that the elementary/intermediate algebra textbook costs about $175. This last project has Fall 2013 as its target.

Moving away from school stuff, we've got the Senior Pastor candidate coming through this week at church. I'm excited to meet him, and I'm looking forward to what he's going to do. I'm mostly hopeful that he will be able to establish a clear vision and a sense of leadership. From what I've heard, I like the types of things he's bringing, such as aligning small group curriculum with the sermons (a novel concept!). But I really see his primary work being a teaching/mentoring process for the elders. He's got more or less a blank slate of people looking for a leader to follow, and I hope he can give them a structure that will help them be successful as leaders.

In the meantime, our small group is going to continue on our own path of studies. We're starting "Celebration of Discipline" by Richard Foster. This will be a good change of pace. I remember reading it (or at least parts of it) in grad school at some point. I've gotten through about 3/4 of it, and I should hopefully finish this weekend. Then I get to go back and lead our small group through it with the help of the study guide that the Foster put together.

EOS CCA FTC / NSC ABC / IRS / PSC

Another couple weeks have floated by. I feel like I've been slightly adrift over the last month or so as I came off the busy period into a resting period, and the pendulum is starting to swing back towards being busy. Strangely (or perhaps not), I feel better when I'm busier. I just don't like the level of busy to go overboard to the point where I'm fatigued. Hopefully, the rest of the semester will find the right balance.

My year-long credit battle rolls on. I thought that it would have been cleared up by this point, but it's not. I've gone through another round of calling the initial creditor and confirming it was fraud and then contacting the credit bureau and discovering that nothing has changed. It appears that the broken link is the collection agency EOS CCA. I confirmed this by calling them and finding that they are still considering the debt to be in active collections.

So I filed a report with the FTC, and we'll see where things go from here. In the meantime, AT&T is sending me another copy of the letter than they sent out over a year ago, and I'm going to forward this (along with the previous two letters from AT&T) to Experian with a letter explaining the situation and the fact that I've filed a complaint with the FTC. I'm not sure if their processes allow them to remove the report (as I believe that they are limited to contact with the collection agency), but it's worth a shot. It's not like things could get "worse" somehow from sending them another letter.

I've got a couple new projects going on at NSC. The first is a student math project. It starts with a simple logic puzzle:

Three different numbers are chosen at random, and one is written on each of three slips of paper. The slips are then placed face down on the table. The objective is to choose the slip upon which is written the largest number. Here are the rules: You can turn over any slip of paper and look at the amount written on it. If for any reason you think this is the largest, you're done; you keep it. Otherwise you discard it and turn over a second slip. Again, if you think this is the one with the biggest number, you keep that one and the game is over. If you don't, you discard that one too. And then you're stuck with the third. The chance of getting the highest number is one in three. Or is it? Is there a strategy by which you can improve the odds?


Once this problem is solved, it opens the door for all sorts of interesting problems. What if you knew that the slips of paper must contain an integer between 1 and 10? Or what if you get four slips of paper instead of three? I've got a few of my students playing around with variations of this, and with a little luck I might be able to get them out to the Joint Meetings in San Diego next year.

Another project that I've got going on right now is the development of a web-based program to encourage students to practice their basic arithmetic. I might have talked about the "Arithmetic Boot Camp" application that I was working on a while ago (as in, two or three years ago). If I didn't, it's basically just a timed test program designed to bring out the competitive nature of students, so that they would race against each other and try to have the best times.

I'm actually not doing any of the programming this time. We actually got some money from Verizon (yes, the phone company) to pay someone to do the programming for us. We actually got a total of $11,000 from them. The money will be split between the programming project and a general expense fund for things related to the math remediation program.

It's still in the development stage, but it's good enough for people to be playing around with it. Here's the link: decasoft.com. If you're so inclined, you can register yourself with just an ID and a password and play around. (Don't use a password that you use for important things! This is internet safety 101. Low level programs get low level passwords.) I know it's poorly organized and a little buggy, so just stick to the addition level 1 program for now. The aim is to get the fastest time possible. Good luck!

My taxes are filed for the year. I'm getting a refund similar to last year's, which is nice. I also got to claim my first royalty checks for the math textbook that I wrote last year. I'm actually in the process of reorganizing the textbook and expanding it so that it fits better with the modules that we've established. Also, I really want to get away from that crazy $175 textbook. The in-house textbook only costs the students about $25-30. I've got a stack of projects to get rolling this summer, and reworking the textbook is one of them.

Lastly, we're hopefully going to get the pastoral search committee's candidate in the next couple weeks. Apparently, he had some sort of health thing he wanted to deal with before deciding if he would come out here, and he got through that. I'm looking forward to things moving forward, as I'm getting quite annoyed with the game of sermon roulette that we play from week to week. The last guy actually scared me a little bit. He ended both sermons with a special message from God. It's the sort of thing that makes me shudder a little bit. Both times, it was awkward, and the second one was long and a little embarrassing. But soon (I hope), this will all be over and maybe the church can get back itself back on track. It's been a long time since I've had what feels like a "normal" church experience. The week to week inconsistencies and the general lack of vision and direction is really taking its toll.

Slowing things down

After a going through a hectic period, things are going to return back to normal. At least, that's the plan.

In the last couple weeks, I cranked out a paper that I've submitted for publication. This is the initial write-up for the remedial math program that we've developed. Now that we had our first semester data, I felt like I had enough to put together into a paper that would get published. I'm not really in math education, so I'm not that familiar with the journals that are out there. This meant that I had to spend some time looking for a journal that I felt would actually be interested in this. I settled on the PRIMUS math journal, but before writing everything up I emailed the editor to see whether she felt the topic was of interest to the journal. She responded affirmatively, and also offered up some advice which changed the direction I was going to take.

Apparently, they deny a lot of papers because the presentation gets bogged down in the data. I was also thinking of taking a point of view that was going to focus on analyzing the data, but instead took a perspective that was a bit more issue-focused. I submitted it on either Thursday or Friday, and I don't really expect to hear anything back for a while. So this means that there's no work to be done on that front.

Our first choice for the chemistry position took our offer, which is great. He seems like a very nice guy who shares a lot of the values the rest of us do, and I think he'll fit in well. The next search that has my attention is the math search. It sounds like we're finally settled on the dates they'll be out, and I'm excited to see how they will perform in their teaching demos. This year, we're trying something different with the teaching demo. In the last, we've asked them to give a lecture from precalculus. This time, we've asked them to give a general-level talk that connects to some upper division topic. It will be interesting to see if they're able to bridge the gap and draw in the interest of the non-math students.

I had some friends out here this weekend. It was good to hang out and get caught up a bit. I always learn a lot about slot machines when they're out here. There's a Lord of the Rings slot machine that allows you to save your "progress." As you play, you are randomly awarded "miles" which take you to different LoTR destinations, which have different types of bonuses. And just in case you are in Vegas at such a slot machine, try "aaronwing" (yes, aaronwing) as the log-in with "123456" as the password. And then report back to me whether it worked and how many miles you earned.

I think this is a really clever idea for a slot machine. I don't know whether it will be a successful idea, but it's definitely clever. By allowing you to "save" your progress, you create a sense of loyalty to the game. There is a reason for me to go back now, because there's a reward for playing more. It also creates a video game feeling with the game. I am not just playing to get lucky, but I'm playing to move towards a destination.

There are some other gimmicks that are interesting. You are awarded bonus spins at random, but you're not required to use them right away. You can save them up, and if you collect more they will give you a better return. They also have a large number of different bonus games, though I didn't get to see any of them. You can also earn trophies... that have no monetary value... I don't understand those at all.

But I think the main attraction this time around was the Hangover movie slot machine. There wasn't anything too clever about it, but it was highly entertaining. I think the bonus game was interesting and usually lasted quite a while, which was probably why it was fun. Or maybe it was the silliness with which my friends played the game. Either way, it was fun.

The recent Jeremy Lin thing has been exciting. I think it's interesting that I had a chance to try to meet him when he was out here a year or two ago. But it has been interesting to see his recent rise to stardom, especially knowing that he's an InterVarsity alumnus. I also think the recent complaint about the phrase "chink in the armor" has been amusing. I have to admit that I don't hear the word "chink" and become insulted or anything. I get that some people are very sensitive to that word, but I'm not. I actually had to think about it a little while before I could figure out why there was even an outrage.

I will say that the headline is not the same as the live commentators. The headline appeared to be a poorly crafted play on words. The phrase itself is used all over the place. It was intentional, but I doubt it was intentionally racist. I think it shows ignorance, but was not malicious. This does not stand as some sign that institutional racism exists at ESPN or anything like that. It was just stupid.

This is one of those touchy subjects. I get that this was a racial slur at some point, and that some people may still use it as a racial slur. But I also think that words like this only have as much power as we let it have. If I choose to get angry insulted by the use of that word, then I'll get angry and insulted. If I choose to view it as cultural ignorance or insensitivity, there's a better chance that anger won't be the emotion that wins the day. I mean, the outrage got some guy fired for that headline... Does that accomplish anything besides a sense of enacting revenge?

I just got a phone call from my Aunt. I guess she's in town and that I should wrap this up.

A good, relaxed Saturday

It been a hectic couple of weeks. I don't even remember if anything interesting happened last week.

This week was especially busy on campus. We had two chemistry candidates come through. I can't say anything in particular about them because the committee is still in the decision-making process, but I think we're moving towards the same conclusion. This took up much of my time on Tuesday and Thursday, which are the days that I usually do most of my non-teaching work. It would be okay if I had Friday to catch up.

But on Friday, I went to Reno to give a talk at TMCC at an assessment conference. This involves getting up at 4:45 AM to catch a 6:15 AM flight up to Reno. I thought the conference wasn't that good. Maybe it was fatigue, but the keynote speaker started to put me to sleep. It felt dry, slightly disorganized, and uninformative. The first workshop I attended was okay, I think. I don't remember much about it, though. It had something to do with developing a class where the students got involved in the community at large. During the next workshop period, I got on a computer and sent off some emails that needed to be sent. It felt like a better use of my time (plus I actually had a couple emails that needed to get taken care of). Then it was lunch, and I gave my talk to about 6-7 people. They were almost all math faculty who I've crossed paths with before. I hope they found it useful to see some of the data I had and how I was approaching the data in general.

I got back into Vegas at around 4:30 PM, and went straight to campus to pick up some tests to grade and do some other work. But when I got there, the network was acting up, and so I wasn't actually able to get the work done. So I just went home. I think I ended up falling asleep around 9:30... And woke up this morning at about 8.

I actually went to campus in the late morning to try to do some of the stuff I had wanted to do yesterday, but the network was still out. So I just graded papers in my office and went home. I took care of a couple other errands over the course of the day. I sent out a packet of papers to Experian that will hopefully take care of that credit thing I've been dealing with for the last year. I did some clean-up in the front yard, sweeping some pine needles off the roof and some leaves off of the walkway. There was some weed-killing, too. I saw a small trail of ants, and thought about breaking out the Terro again. I would have done it, except that I was feeling lazy.

Things at church are sort of in a waiting mode. The leadership class is now over, and a few more people have some basic training under their belts. However, the lack of a long term plan means that we're not able to create any other structures around this in order to start moving things forward. The good news is that the search committee has chosen a candidate, and I'm hoping that they'll tell us tomorrow when he's coming to candidate. From what I've heard so far, I'm optimistic. But right now, it's only hearsay. I'm looking forward to seeing the guy in person hopefully before the end of the month.

Small group is going well, though everyone else is very busy as well. It seems like we've all got stuff going on in our lives that's making us a little tired, or a little crazy, or a little something that's keeping us from being our normal selves. We're in the middle of a short study of some parables that I've been writing. It's been a fun set of studies so far. It's been a while since I've last written and led studies, and I've enjoyed being back in that saddle again. One thing I've tried to do with these studies is to make sure that the parables are not treated in complete isolation of each other, but rather as a longer conversation that Jesus is having with his audience. I hope that this has brought out some broader themes that might have otherwise been missed by taking the narrower view.

I was watching Essential Pepin, and he made a Puerto Rican pork and beans. It looked interesting. Here's a link to the recipe:

http://blogs.kqed.org/essentialpepin/2011/09/18/puerto-rican-pork-and-beans/

But I didn't really follow the recipe because I didn't bother to look it up before going food shopping, or cooking it. I just kind of did what I could recall watching, which wasn't too far off. I have too much bean and not enough onion. Other than that, I was actually pretty good. It's pretty tasty as I made it, and it reminds me of red beans and rice from New Orleans. That might actually make sense, since I think red beans and rice has its origins from the Caribbean. I actually think it's closer to that than my previous attempt at red beans and rice, which doesn't speak well of my ability to make red beans and rice.