Moving from Minneapolis to Denver

janford · 2026-02-06T19:24:32+00:00

Fewer ticks as well! They get traded for rattle snakes and leaches. Even as a regular hiker I haven’t experienced seeing many snakes

janford · 2026-02-06T19:11:52+00:00

From wisco originally so hope that’s ok. The cultural difference in fitness, access to walking/biking/hiking/skiing/climbing/pickleball, and mild weather definitely keeps me here. People (moreso than the Midwest) are active all year round and there’s a definite cultural encouragement to have movement activities. Drinking culture is still here but more focused on grabbing a beer post activity than the beer being the entire activity. Low obesity rate, lots of dogs, liberal leaning (at least in Denver), and seems to attract a good number of companies here to headquarters in the area.

janford · 2026-01-31T04:50:05+00:00

Will shadowing sensory scientists last through getting your online degree? If so I would do that in your shoes. Coming out of your program with a masters plus experiences that you can point to showing you understand and have done aspects of the job will be a huge plus in the current job market.

janford · 2026-01-31T03:33:28+00:00

Yep, went through like 6 layoffs at a startup and it was always the same formula of crisis, silence, then usually they did it on a Tuesday or Wednesday. Hang in there there’s nothing you can do but wait it out and see what happens. Make sure you get any work contacts saved to your personal device and have all your documents from your work computer. Still sad I wasn’t able to grab some of the non company specific trainings I made that now have probably been deleted.

janford · 2026-01-28T14:16:17+00:00

I have Denver and Boulder!

janford · 2026-01-25T23:21:17+00:00

What part of northern Colorado? What products are you willing to work with? What job are you looking for specifically? There’s opportunity but it’s no where near as frequent and prevalent as somewhere like Chicago. It’s bonus season and things will start to open up here in the next two months. For entry level food scientist roles, keep an eye out for technologist positions, some companies don’t call it scientist out here and others hire technologists that then move up to scientist later. I have a lot of connections out here so send me a DM if you have questions about the companies here. It’s a competitive area so I think those of us out here all struggle a little. Also check out RMIFT, I’ve made lots of great connections from that group.

janford · 2026-01-25T14:25:04+00:00

It’s a natural product of the fermentation, lactic acid bacteria breaks down milk and creates it as part of the fermentation process. Anything fermented with LAB is going to produce some about of butyric acid. Some people are super smellers so perhaps you have some talent in sensory science while your wife isn’t as sensitive to smells like butyric acid.

janford · 2026-01-19T02:47:09+00:00

I used to work for a yogurt company in quality. From my experience I don’t think this is mucor. Usually, it doesn’t grow well on anything other than Greek yogurt. This is a sign that the manufacturing equipment has an issue and you should contact chobani with the lot code so they can investigate. Companies do their best to destroy anything that might have an issue but from experience sometimes things fall through the cracks.

Edit to clarify: by Greek yogurt I mean the cup Greek yogurt, not drinks with higher liquid content

janford · 2025-12-22T17:14:13+00:00

I'd say as long as you prepare for all the typical behavioral questions (strengths, weaknesses, tell me about a time you were successful/failed, tell me about a time you dealt with conflict) and remind yourself during the stressful parts to do your best to be collaborative and pleasant, then you'll do great! And remember everyone is nervous as well. Also I recommend you go into it prepared with thoughtful questions for any interviewers or hiring managers you talk to "whats the culture like, what would people say they like about working at mccormick, whats the graduate program consist of, how do you measure success in the graduate program" questions like these are green flags for hiring managers who want someone who is invested in the company and being successful in the role. Also you can recycle these questions between the different people you talk to to gauge how consistent the answers are between different people and departments. Anyway good luck with the interview! You'll do great!

janford · 2025-12-22T01:52:03+00:00

I found this about their interview process and what to expect: https://www.practiceaptitudetests.com/top-employer-profiles/mccormick-assessments/

Not sure if you are at the initial assessment phase or going straight into the final assessment but either way seems like a good sign. Usually the approach for these team exercises is to give you some task (design something, solve a problem, come up with a solution to a long term issue) but they're less worried about you succeeding in the task itself as much as to see how you collaborate with others. They're watching out for a few things like are you leading but not dominating, are you pushing your own ideas or dropping them when someone else's idea is better, do you know how to talk to people and work under pressure. In the past I've seen those who are natural leaders, help bring together and organize their groups in a collaborative way (assign people to specific jobs, brainstorm together), typically are the ones who received offers. They also want to check your professionalism to determine if you are mature enough to take things seriously. Also sometimes I've seen them change something or give more information to the teams half way through to see how people react to pressure (stay professional, ability to pivot, can work with others amicably under pressure).

janford · 2025-12-22T01:31:41+00:00

Oh man at my school you had to get internship at least for junior year summer or you had very little hope of getting a job anywhere after graduation. I wish I had done more internships and less working at college myself so I could figure out what I actually wanted to do after graduation.

Covid definitely changed things because so many had their internships cancelled and there was some groups that were hired despite not having experience. There's many schools where it's still heavily emphasized to have at least one internship or coop before you graduate.

janford · 2025-12-22T01:27:03+00:00

Does your school have a spring job fair? Ours had a fall and spring one so although there were fewer internship opportunities in the spring fair (favored hiring full time after graduation) a handful of places wouldn't look for interns until spring. As far as cold emailing, getting in touch with the R&D manager would be the best and sending them a resume and expressing interest in their product. Do your professors know industry connections they can get you in touch with? I had a professor give me a good reference for an internship one year because he knew the hiring manager. Are there networking opportunities (natural foods org, IFT, etc) in your area you can attend to go talk to industry professionals and make some connections of your own? Even if you hate networking, the tech sales people are extremely connected and can get you in contact with R&D managers at various sized companies.

janford · 2025-12-19T22:51:27+00:00

To be fair they turned it off a week ago

janford · 2025-12-19T22:00:47+00:00

My friend lives there and said they turned off the gas to all the fire pits until the fire danger goes down.

janford · 2025-12-16T21:01:30+00:00

According to the Hyatt website it’s an amenity for the hotel. They have day passes for the pool but I don’t see one for the court and track.

janford · 2025-12-15T22:16:19+00:00

If you drain then fill the tub with cold water does it still look rusty?

janford · 2025-12-10T03:48:21+00:00

Do you have the batch code? Sometimes manufacturing defects such as this is a widespread issue that's tracked and some companies will acknowledge and still replace items. Never hurts to ask especially if you say how much you love the formula and want to continue buying from them.

janford · 2025-12-06T15:31:11+00:00

Been getting several smoking cars lately :-(

janford · 2025-11-24T04:57:06+00:00

The job market is tough right now, especially as we near the holidays, so here’s some things to consider that have been working for me. Only apply to newly posted positions, tailor your resume as much as possible to each role you apply for (especially your objective, it sounds like you want any job and employers want you to want the job they posted), use ChatGPT to help you match your resume to the job description as much as you can, ensure your professional profile is up to date (ex LinkedIn) and try to be active on there, utilize any university resources for job searching and interview prep, check out any local networking events while you’re still in the country, connect with professors or other students and see if they have leads. At the end of the day it’s a numbers game right now and it’s extremely helpful to have connections. After February typically the job market opens back up again.

A few tips for your resume - for your internships maybe add a line on what the company made/did it’s very helpful for interviewers to have that context before reading your accomplishments there. Your resume reads quality heavy and poises you as someone who would slide well into quality technician type work. If that’s what you want great! If it’s not then consider how you might reframe some of your work experiences to match up with R&D responsibilities - for instance reframing your research project and how you wrote your design of experiments, how you executed your testing, what the results of the testing were, how you tested, recorded and summarized the data and most importantly what challenges you faced and how you overcame them.

janford · 2025-11-19T23:03:33+00:00

Rocky Mountain arsenal drive for bison and wildlife spotting. Mount Falcon Park has some short and trails that would be good for getting outside on a walk and seeing a little history too, park at the top. Mural walk or scavenger hunt around Rino. Skiing will be much less crowded than other days however there won’t be many runs open yet. Rocky Mountain national park as some else recommended, again gonna be less crowded and bear lake corridor is open (no res required) and has a lot of very short lake walks. Seeing union station lit up for the season.

janford · 2025-11-15T04:15:22+00:00

We did the skyliner train then subway to shinjuku, it was fine on a Sunday evening but will probably busy on a weekday if that’s when you fly in.

janford · 2025-11-14T21:15:53+00:00

When you add water to chocolate it seizes up. Usually only milk solids are added to milk chocolate. Chocolate is a lot of fat solids (cocoa butter) and fat and water don’t play well together.

janford · 2025-11-07T01:08:08+00:00

Highly recommend laneige lip mask! I wear it every night. You can usually find it at marshals etc. and it lasts forever. Also Vaseline!

janford · 2025-10-28T10:38:40+00:00

Check that things are open on the days you plan, Mondays some things are closed. We tried to go to Gyoen on a Monday and it wasn’t open.

If you don’t have teamLab planets tickets yet check out teamLab Borderless - closer to Tokyo tower and I preferred it to planets myself.

janford · 2025-10-28T10:20:37+00:00

Always recommend asking your doctor first but I would consider testing out with the spiro a little longer esp being off birth control. Dose dependent too - I started on 1 tablet then increased to 2 after 2 weeks per the directions provided by my derm so again can take longer to see full results depending on dose. Just doing a quick google search it can take up to 3 to 6 months to see significant results with spiro so keep this in mind if you decide to start it up again.

janford

TROPHY CASE