This afternoon I have another interview/call for the CFO position at OCCRP, this time with their Chief Technology Officer. She’s a British woman, probably around my age or a little older, and has been in her position for a couple of years. The call lasts about 45 minutes and seems to go well, with a candid discussion about the organisation’s opportunities and risks from her perspective. It also gives me some more insights OCCRP’s management culture and leadership. Again, no red flags, although I do think the CFO position would be a challenging job and a big “step up” for me. We’ll see where things go.
I get out for a walk later in the afternoon, just to St. Patrick’s Cathedral park and back, around 3,000 steps. It’s another warm day, mid to high 50s F / mid 10s C. A fair number of people are out with their dogs, children, or perhaps both. The park closes at 6:00pm as the sun descends behind the apartment buildings to the west. Back at home, I’m weighing dinner options… yesterday I had lots of comfort food, so I convince myself to try a healthy choice. There are some pork chops in the freezer I’ve been ignoring for awhile, and last week I ordered some frozen broccoli figuring I could use it as a side at some point. Enter the air fryer! I find a simple recipe, or rather more like a set of directions, for cooking pork chops in an air fryer… even from frozen! Just coat with a mix of spices (which I already had pre-made specifically for chops from a grocery store) and cook for 10-14 minutes at 375 F / 190 C, flipping once. The broccoli only needs a quick toss in some olive oil and garlic powder. My dedicated round air fryer, one of my early purchases after arriving to Dublin, even has a metal plate that can be inserted down the middle of the basket so that the pork chop and broccoli can cook separately. Both turn out near perfectly, the pork chop is cooked all the way through without drying out, while the broccoli is crispy yet still tender. Paired with a glass of Alsatian riesling, this may become a favourite quick and easy healthy meal!
The European Medicines Agency is supposed to issue its findings on AstraZeneca vaccine today, and when I was writing this section of post earlier on, the news breaks that it has ruled the vaccine “safe and effective.” In the meantime, the delivery schedule for AstraZeneca vaccine doses for the EU has been revised multiple times. The company is planning to deliver 40 million doses in the first quarter down from a planned 100 million.
Here’s a breakdown of the EU’s projected vaccine supplies:
Until vaccinations are more widespread, Ireland will be continuing to stick with its strict lockdown strategy. It’s somewhat of a head-scratcher as to why new daily cases in Ireland have stubbornly plateaued at around 500 per day (out of total population of 4.9 million)… the only explanation I’ve seen is “visits to other households to watch sports matches or for a cup of tea.” In combing over the statistics published online by the Irish government, I discover that the median/average age for new cases is 31/33, and it appears that 19-24 year olds are the “hottest” group whereas older groups are cooling down (surely due to vaccine rollouts in nursing homes, etc.). Here’s a week-by-week heat map of incident rates per 100,000 population by various age groups — notice that bottom row for the most recently ended week shows that only the 19-24 column is still yellow, more than double the national average:
Tonight is my weekly DBT group session, which is an hour earlier this week and next due to the Daylight savings time change in the U.S. — Europe won’t be setting its clocks back until March 28.
Until next time….
