The best little BBQ joint in Ocala, FL

 Big Rascal BBQ & Grill

Why I love Big Rascal's

    3 words. Jalapeno Mac-n-Cheese. Not overly spicy, just enough kick to tell you this is NOT your momma's mac-n-cheese.

Jalapeno Mac-n-Cheese on a bed of sliced pork

    I have been eating at Big Rascal's since 2008 and I have never had a bad plate of food. I may very well have tried every single dish over the years, but one of my favorites is brisket. Big Rascal cuts it nicely & it basically melts in your mouth. If you aren't a brisket fan, their sliced pork or smoked chicken 1/4 is also very tasty. I've never had a dry plate. Ever. It's all juicy! 

Brisket, sausage, green beans & mac-n-cheese plate

About Big Rascal BBQ

Charlie (owner/operator & chief BBQ master) is a really great guy & works alongside his wife in the restaurant every day. Family-owned and operated, Charlie took over the restaurant from his father several years ago and has kept feeding the masses. They even have a food truck now for on-site catering, weddings, corporate events, and more!

Where to find them

Big Rascal's is located on the north side of Hwy 27 just east of I-75. They have 2 entrances; one for the west-bound lane of Hwy 27 and another on NW 35th Avenue Road. There is a traffic light at this intersection with a dedicated left-turn lane for those coming from the interstate or eastbound Hwy 27. The parking lot has a side "dirt lot" where a truck/trailer can turn around if needed.

You can call them at (352)732-0344 for carryout or catering. Curbside pickup is available as well. 

Their address is: 3437 NW Blitchton Rd, Ocala, Florida 34475

Taking College Classes Online & Trying to Make Friends

 The worst part of taking online classes

Studying Alone

I've been attending Rasmussen University since January of 2021. While most of my coursework and instructors have been great, I do have 1 complaint. I never got the opportunity to go to a campus, so making friends is hard. In many of my classes, no one introduces themselves to the class. Now, you are supposed to and there is a particular "chat" room within each course to introduce yourself. Nobody does it? Why is that?

Is it because we are nationwide and many students will never meet their classmates? Or is it that kids these days are so socially disconnected that they don't even know how to introduce themselves to a group?

I get that online classes are different than being in a classroom on campus, but how do you expect to make friends in your field of study if you don't talk to people? Why are people depriving themselves of making friends throughout their classes?

Now, I have never failed to introduce myself to the class. Not once. I always drop a post on the student collaboration page and I have only once, that's right ONCE in 8 months, gotten a response from a classmate about working on a project together. 

I don't know if this is contained to just the IT classes that I am in or not, but it seems like most of the other majors don't have such a problem. The nursing program has people talking to each other all the time. Not in IT. I have made a whopping 1 friend in the last 8 months. And he moved off to a different university to complete his master's degree. 

All of my instructors have said that connecting with classmates, instructors, and people in this field is the way to get the best opportunities....but HOW? How is that supposed to work when NO-ONE will reciprocate the desire to connect? This is the worst part for me so far about taking online schooling. There's no real connection with people. 

I'm not asking people to be my best friend, talk to me every day, or all that jazz, but I would like to connect with at least 1 person in my classes that is going into the same field. I am pretty picky about who I call a friend, but I like to have a lot of professional acquaintances and network connections. Online classes have not done me any favors in this area.

Now, I'm not one to just quit. I can do my classwork by myself. I am on the dean's list and I am due to complete my current program in September. I am just disgusted and disappointed in all of my classmates. I had high hopes for making some "college friends". I have given up on that hope & replaced it with hope in my own career path. I can do this all on my own & I will make new "friends" along the way as I gain experience in my career. 

The Best Mexican Restaurant in Ocala, FL

Best Mexican Restaurant North of the border! 

    One of my all-time favorite restaurants in Ocala is El Toreo. It's a Mexican-style restaurant in town with several locations, one on each side of Ocala as well as 2 locations in Valdosta, Georgia. These guys really know their stuff! I mainly started going there because others raved about their fresh chips and salsa, served to every table & free with any purchase. After the first time there, I was hooked! Their homemade salsa and warm chips hit the table within seconds of being seated. I have been known to get just the chips & salsa (about $5 if you don't order anything besides water). Totally worth it! They also offer a cheese dip that on occasion I add chorizo to (chorizo is a Mexican sausage, very salty). Between the warm chips, melty cheese, and not-too-hot salsa I can get my fill. Sharing with those at your table is encouraged, but not required, they will bring as many bowls of salsa and chips as you can eat.

Nachos with beef & cheese

    I am a huge fan of the nacho plates. These can be customized with just cheese, beef, chicken, & even fajita toppings. While I generally order this as my meal, it's technically on the appetizers menu and can be shared if so desired. I like to pour the salsa directly on top of the nachos as well. This makes for a pretty heavy meal. If you leave El Toreo hungry, it's your own fault. 

    Situated on Silver Spring Blvd., just east of NE 36th Avenue, the north location is my favorite. I always get excellent service here and the staff is always friendly. 

Sopas with hot sauce

    My husband and I have tried almost every dish on the menu over the years, and there really isn't anything that we don't like. While we both have our preferences and sometimes just order the same thing over and over, there's nothing on the menu that isn't good. 

    With the traditional mariachi music playing lightly over the speakers, it's not so loud that you can't carry on a conversation. There are also several TVs playing various sporting events dotted around the walls, there's something for everyone to watch if you are dining alone or aren't interested in talking to your companions during a meal.

    The 2-for1 margaritas have always been a go-to for us as well. With several different flavor options and sizes, there's a drink for everyone. They even have a shareable "Monster Margarita" that includes 2 Coronas dumped in it if you like that sort of thing. They also have a decent beer and wine selection along with non-alcoholic options.

You can check out their full menu here.

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Head Problems: Tinnitus and Phantosmia

    I quite often hear and smell things that aren't actually there. Do I think that I'm odd or broken? Yes. Absolutely. While I have battled with Tinnitus for over 2 decades, I didn't know that there was a connection between tinnitus, double hearing, and phantosmia. Turns out, some of the same things that can cause tinnitus (like head trauma) can also cause phantosmia. 

    Phantosmia, also called olfactory hallucination, is a condition that makes you detect smells that aren't really there. These smells can vary from person to person and can be nice or nasty. One or both nostrils may be affected and these phantom smells may seem to always be there or they may come and go. 

    Most recently, I've been suffering from random phantosmia throughout my day. And it is not a pleasant smell. No, I work in a diesel engine shop, there's always something that smells burnt, but this is worse. I have been smelling (or thinking that I smell) dog poo. That's right, I've been checking my shoes for the source of the smell every-singe-time. It wasn't until I was doing some research on the cause and effects of certain decibels on tinnitus did I run across the term phantosmia. Even I had to look it up (references from my search are at the bottom).

    Thankfully, the majority of my condition is bearable. The tinnitus does bother me sometimes, especially at night or when in a building with a lot of mechanical sounds, like electronics and appliances. The simple and nearly silent computer hard drive cooling fan can bother me more than a running diesel engine. I manage though. Sometimes a shake of my head or jiggling my ear can help reduce the irritation.

I am an odd duck, that's for sure!

https://www.healthyhearing.com/report/51055-Understanding-diplacusis 

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/temporal-lobe-seizure/expert-answers/phantosmia/faq-20058131 

Losing a member of the Crew

   Monday, August 2nd

    My work crew (aka parts group) got thrown for a loop Monday. Our boss came in and put in his 2-weeks notice. Now, while I’m not overly surprised, it was definitely a shock. Now, let me tell you, I have a fantastic boss. He’s kind, attentive and protective over our crew. There are only 4 of us including him and we are a tight-knit group. We work together like a well-oiled machine. None of us get in trouble very often because we know how to do our jobs & our boss lets us do our jobs without micro-managing us. We all have our own personalities and work styles, and yet each one of us compliments the other. Every morning, as my boss comes through the door and past the parts counter, he says "Good morning kids". This is because we are a family here and he's been the figurative "father" as the manager of our crew.

    There has been a lot going on in my company the past 2 years and while I don’t agree with a lot of it, the worst part was last year, during the height of the pandemic, they told us to do more with less. Then they cut our hours, just the hourly employees though, not salaried people like managers. This resulted in a lot of the locations losing people who really couldn’t live on 32 hours a week. This being said, the business never slowed down. As an “essential” business, we never got any downtime. No days closed. No outbreaks of that stupid virus. Nada. Just fewer hours, less in our paychecks, and still having to show up 5 days a week. 

    My boss did his best to shield us from a lot of the junk coming at us from corporate, but there’s only so much he could do. I am going to miss my boss. He’s been a good mentor and manager.

    About once every couple of months, we would meet outside of work to have a drink, discuss work, and just relax while we talk about life. Sometimes these meetings were just us complaining and airing out our grievances about work. Sometimes we didn't even talk about work. 

Not the best pic of all of us, but it's all I've got!

    While our team won't ever be the same now that he's gone. He will never be forgotten. As a boss, he killed it. It would be hard to ask for more from someone and it'll be dang hard to replace him with someone half a good.

Processing It All

I can run the emotional gambit pretty quickly when it comes to processing grief.

Shock.

Denial.

Anger.

Acceptance.

Guilt.

Reflection & Depression.

    Monday, was all about shock. I was shocked that J decided to leave us, as well as I felt some guilt thrown in there for harboring bad feelings towards him for not talking to us about it first instead of turning in his notice & then telling us. I mean, I get why he did it that way, but I'm still irate about it. I don't hate him. That's not who I am, but I was shocked and a little hurt. This is normal.

Tuesday, August 3rd

    Tuesday, I am just angry. I'm angry about the way this happened. I'm angry at the company for enacting such stupid rules. I'm angry at everybody. I'm just angry.

    Walking into work on Tuesday morning, I could already tell that it's going to be a rough day. The GM looks grumpy, my cohort D is grumbling at his screen....this is what we deal with on a daily basis. No-one is really happy about any of the changes that the company is going through. This is mostly to blame on the corporate big-wigs. There's such low communication from them on what is coming, what to expect, what is going to be expected of us. They just throw new rules and policies at us, expect us to have time to read and understand it all, and then gripe at us if we ask any questions or push back on the "stupid". I call this stuff stupid because some of it really doesn't make any sense. It adds steps to processes that don't need micro-managing. These have been the biggest offenses lately. They are also adding KPIs (Key Point Indicators). Basically, these are reports that they are going to be looking at to see if we are selling as many parts as we should. Not gross profit or gross margins, lines per hour. Yep, that's right, they are measuring us like they do the cashiers at Wal-Mart. So basically, I can get a better score if I sell the 4 parts needed for a small generator service twice an hour than if I sell 1 overhaul a day, despite the MASSIVE profit difference. This pisses me off.

Wednesday, August 4th

    Wednesday I was still angry. A little more so, since management basically said to my boss "no need to work out your notice". I presume it was something like that anyway, I can't be sure. After that, the rest of our crew (all 3 of us) were called into a meeting with our GM, DM & RM. They sang us a line & did a pony dance about being here for us as we transition. That's a bunch of malarky, but whatever. We already know how to do our jobs, lucky for them.

    While we make this transition to working without a direct supervisor, I can't help but think about some of the other branches that have gone through similar changes in the last 18+ months. My heart goes out to them, just as it does to my boss & his wife. Change is hard sometimes, especially when it's not wanted. 

Can you hear me now?

    This is the communication age with multiple social media platforms, but how often do you actually connect with people? Sure, you might be connected online, but have you talked to any of those connections? Or did you just jab a "like" on a post and scroll on by? In this age of social media connection without actually connecting to each other, how connected are we really?

    In my experience this year with online schooling, people aren't actually willing to connect with each other and have a conversation. What's that all about? Is everyone so vain that they just want those likes and shares?

    Where is all of this vanity and lack of physical connection coming from? It is stemming from lots of places, but most commonly, I hear people say that their parents let them spend too much time online, watching TV, playing video games, etc. Most of these people don't even realize that this is what has caused such a disconnect in their lives. What they do say is actually very little. I've asked dozens of 18-30 y/o's and they all did say that their parents both worked all the time. They spent hours alone before and after school. Many had parents that worked more than 1 job, meaning they were alone as kids/teens on the weekends too. With no one at home to teach them how to interact with others, this younger generation has been crippled into being so independent that they won't even look up from their phones to talk to each other. This solidarity and "hermit"-like behavior is not good for people, nor the overall economy.

    On top of over-worked parents, how many parents do you know that willingly, and often, hand an iPad or phone to a child (sometimes as young as 2 years old) just to keep them quiet? This has become so commonplace, to placate your child until they are quiet, instead of taking the time to interact with them. Sitting them down in front of a TV, video game, or iPad just so that you can have some quiet time. Once in a while isn't so bad, it's the everyday occurrences of this that are the root cause of the problem.

For example:

     I conducted a social media experiment using my own profile on the book-of-faces. I went into all of the groups that I am a part of and posed a question to the entire group. Some of the groups I got answers to my questions, some got no answers at all. Of the posts that got no answers, I had at minimum 50+ "likes" or "following" comments on each of my posts, but no actual answer or attempted answer to my question.

    In the group posts that did receive answers, almost all of the substantial answers came from users that range in age from 35-75 y/o. These answers not only provided exact names of products they were recommending but also links to those items. Most importantly they were answers that included information about why that particular user likes that particular product. There were a few short answers to those questions from the under 35 crowd, but there was no substance to those answers.

    To expand on the lack of substantial information: One of my questions was "Does anyone have a recommendation on a daily planner with moveable pages?". The few answers I got from the under 35 age group were quite literally just a link to an Amazon sold product with no information about the product in their own words. 4 of those links were within the top 10 when you search on Amazon for "customizable day planner".

    The younger generation's lack of ability to communicate with others face to face is astounding. I'm not saying that the entire generation is handicapped, but there are far more people under 30 that don't know how to conduct themselves in an interview, much less how to properly speak. How do you kids expect to get a job if you can't even use the most basic communication skill? And it's not just speech either, there's body language, facial expressions, and your perceived presence.

Growth Despite the Odds

    At my job, on the south side of the building, there is a plant growing out of the top of the gutter. I have watched this plant thrive despite being in the full sun and exposed to all the elements that Florida weather can throw at it. Now, to some, this may not seem extraordinary, but to me, it shows just how resilient a thing can be, despite not having the most basic of life-inducing elements. Soil is where most plants grow, whether it is in the ground, a planter, or box, most plants require the nutrients from soil to survive.  

    Last year, I saw the first part of its growth popping over the top of the roof and thought that it was on the roof. At first, I thought that there was no way that a plant could survive for long up there. The sheer force of the water flowing down the gutter would most certainly wash it away with the next big storm. This little guy stands about 4 feet tall now. 

Plant growing out of a gutter atop a 40ft tall building.

    Through a cold winter and a blazing hot summer, this plant has not only survived but thrived. It has grown, despite not having a food source besides the sun and rain. It has flourished and flowered. Where did it get its strength? Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Way up there!

    Maybe its sole purpose is to remind me that I am stronger than I think. That, despite the challenges, I too can flourish with what looks and feels like very little nutrient. You can too.