I logged on this fine afternoon to see that I had comments that needed to be moderated. On 6/9/09. Forgive me.

Other than that... the news!

I brewed my first batch of mead today. 5 gallons made from 12lbs of Oregon Raspberry honey. In 2 long weeks I will be racking it to a carboy and reporting again.

I don't have pics of my setup due to Sandy not having a charger for her camera, and my reluctance to purchase a phone of my own.

All in all, mead is surprisingly easy to make. I took about 1.25hrs to sanitize my equipment, sanitize the must, and get everything into a 5 gallon fermenter. I have another couple carboys going to waste now that I realize it... Perhaps I'll make a Pinot Noir next weekend.

Now what I need from your RSS junkies: Bottles. Please hang onto any bottles you have. I have 5 bottles that I can use. It's going to be fun to serve wine out of jagermeister bottles. Haha! 5 gallons makes about 24 bottles, so I need some help.

Stay tuned.

Weed Whackin'

So, as some of you know, I successfully killed all of my blackberries at the end of the summer last year. I estimate I had about 250 sq/ft of dead brambles left to clean up. The summer ran out, the cold started, motivation ended, and I left them out there during the winter. Snow packed everything down and it never sprung back up. To say the least, it's a total eyesore - and we hate it.

Sunday morning I picked up a Ryobi BC-30 Brush Cutter @ Home Depot. The nice thing about this one is that it easily converts into a string trimmer.

While it was recommended to me that I pick up a 1hp model, this .8hp design does the trick. I was able to plow through wet and dry brambles for as many hours as my out-of-shape arms could take. I believe you can get away with less horsepower now days with a straight shaft, as more of the power makes it to the business end of the trimmer.

Of course, I now have a displaced pile of dead brambles sitting next to the house, as my yard debris container is full of what /was/ my front yard; and I'm only done with about 50 sq/ft of the vines.

$429 Macintosh Mini

Step 1: Get a Dell Inspiron 910 (AKA Mini) w/ 16gb SSD & Ubuntu
Step 2: Buy OSX
Step 3: Google the right bootloader for your OSX version, and follow the directions.

Result: A kickass little machine. Wooot!!

Been a while.....

Hey all. Sorry I've been so absent for the last few months. I've been suffering from a slight lack of employment. I quit my job @ Kaiser for several reasons. Mainly because I wasn't happy with myself, and felt I was making too many sacrifices to be there.

I've since started working at Centerstance with my friend Eddie. I'm on a relatively short contract with the possibility of becoming an FTE when it's over. Cross your fingers for me.

Turning 30 in a week too. :)

Thanks TOOL

Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will.
I sure could use a vacation from this
Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of
Freaks
Here in this hopeless f**king hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
Any f**king time. Any f**king day.
Learn to swim, I'll see you down in Arizona bay.

Fret for your figure and
Fret for your latte and
Fret for your lawsuit and
Fret for your hairpiece and
Fret for your prozac and
Fret for your pilot and
Fret for your contract and
Fret for your car.
It's a
Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of
Freaks
Here in this hopeless f**king hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away.
Any f**king time. Any f**king day.
Learn to swim, I'll see you down in Arizona bay.

Some say a comet will fall from the sky.
Followed by meteor showers and tidal waves.
Followed by faultlines that cannot sit still.
Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits.
Some say the end is near.
Some say we'll see armageddon soon.
I certainly hope we will.
I sure could use a vacation from this
Stupid shit, silly shit, stupid shit.
One great big festering neon distraction,
I've a suggestion to keep you all occupied.
Learn to swim x3.
Mom's gonna fix it all soon.
Mom's comin' round to put it back the way it ought to be.

Learn to swim x8.
F**k L Ron Hubbard and
F**k all his clones.
F**k all those gun-toting
Hip gangster wannabes.
Learn to swim x8.
F**k retro anything.
F**k your tattoos.
F**k all you junkies and
F**k your short memory.
Learn to swim x7.
F**k smiley glad-hands
With hidden agendas.
F**k these dysfunctional,
Insecure actresses.
Learn to swim x8.

'cause I'm praying for rain
And I'm praying for tidal waves
I wanna see the ground give way.
I wanna watch it all go down.
Mom please flush it all away.
I wanna see it go right in and down.
I wanna watch it go right in.
Watch you flush it all away.

Time to bring it down again.
Don't just call me pessimist.
Try and read between the lines.
I can't imagine why you wouldn't
Welcome any change, my friend.
I wanna see it all come down.
put it down.
suck it down.
flush it down.

New Rig

I received my shipment of parts last night from Newegg. They're so good.... but enough about them. Specs below:


Case: Coolermaster, 2x120mm Fans, Steel construction, and no stupid chrome or lights.
PS: PC Power & Cooling "Silencer" 750w Single Rail
Mobo: EVGA w/ nForce 790i chipset, supports 3-way SLI @ full 16x bandwidth (I am using 2-way)
Proc: Intel Core 2 Quad "Q9450" Yorkfield, 45nm @ 2.66ghz + 12mb cache
Memory: 2x2gb OCZ Reaper PC10666 @ 6-6-6-18 1T
Cooling: Zalman silly-big heatpipe thing...
Main HDD: WD VelociRaptor 10k
Work HDD: 3x120gb WD 120 SATA 3gbps in Stripe
Storage HDD: 300gb WD
Video: 2xNvidia 6800GT's
Main Display: ViewSonic 22" LCD
Addt'l Display: 2x ViewEra 17" LCDs

Despite all of the awful problems I've read about with this Mobo/Ram combo, my install went flawlessly with the spec' timings. This thing cuts through everything like butter..... it's great. :)

Multimedia message

Multimedia message

Domino R5 JDBC Driver

World,

Hello. I am looking for an antique piece of shit called JdbcDomino.jar. It has the JDBC class that I need to query a Domino R5 server. I found the ODBC version of the driver but it only works with R6+.

IBM pulled the file and I can't find anyone else hosting it.... if anyone was working on Domino/Web integration back in 2004, I could use some help.

Thanks!

Update..... this took some major Googlin'.

LDDJ Download

Thanks so much DominoDude, Tony Kelleran.

Ultimate Camping Drink

By the title you may have imagined a vote with "World's Best Drink for Camping" with things like Screwdriver, Red Bull Vodka, Mimosa, Pabst Blue Ribbon, etc. No. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the chimera of alcoholic beverages here. That's right! I'm looking to make the single best gallon-at-a-time camping drink. Not only is this intended to inebriate, but take care of all those sylvan oddities that come up while away from modern plumbing.

First off I'm going to suggest what I have in mind. From there I'm looking for suggestions in the form of blomments. That's a new word for blog comments that I just independently invented. For the record, I don't read the blogosphere, so I wouldn't have heard it elsewhere.

Here goes:

Base:
Red Bull (four normal cans)

Active Ingredient (inebriation):
Vodka (half gallon)

Active Ingredient (gut rot):
Bean-O (one full squirter)
Pepto Bismol (one normal container)
Fibersure (this will take some experimenting... Metamucil may have to do)
Gas-X (6-8 capsules, sans gel coat)

Filler:
Vitamin Water (not sure what flavor... suggestions? What goes well with Pepto?)
Ninja, Pirate, Alien, and Pirate blood (for color)

So there you have it. Let the games begin.

MGS4

It's not often I read a book, listen to music, or see a movie and afterwards feel that I have just witnessed a masterpiece. It's an amazing experience when it happens. It's the kind of thing that makes you feel fortunate to be alive, simply to have been present for the opportunity.

Even less frequently than with music, film, and literature - this kind of experience happens while playing a game. You may be laughing at me right now, but the medium is definitely becoming an art form along the lines of those previously mentioned. If you don't believe me, you need only check out Hideo Kojima's magnum opus - Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

On the surface the game raises the bar to the stratosphere. Developers will be hard pressed to build anything this polished in the next few years. Once you start peeling away the layers and embracing the story, you easily see that this is a passionate work or art, a work of love, and more than just a game.

For those of your with a PS3 at home, you finally have a reason besides Blu-ray to own it. :)

Lastly.... Raiden is straight up the coolest character ever. He may even give Hiro, Cloud, or Anakin a run for their money.

it is not for everone

johnnie walker blue. it is not for everyone. mainly because it is fouty dollars per shot.

Scotch on the Rock

Ordered from Cure in DC. Can you see the single rock? For the record this is Johnnie Walker Blue, and it is excellent.

I have arrived!

I showed up in DC at around 11:30 local time. It's 1:15 now. We were 'duped' at the Airport and hired a Limousine rather than a regular cab.... lucky for us it was the only thing that could take credit cards and I need to track expenses on this trip. It was not a bad deal.. 25 miles for 70 bucks, complimentary refreshments, and the m most comfortable seats I imagine a cab ever having. Good times.

When we showed up here at the Grand Washington they had no more 'King Rooms' left, so we're forced to take a Parlor room instead. It was given to us for half price, so I figure that makes up for the Limo ride from the airport. You're welcome Kaiser.

Our room is nothing more than a party room with a pull-out bed. We're being transferred to a real room tomorrow, but this is a pretty cool experience still.

By the way: I am here for CFUnited and I have a keynote to attend in 6 hours. We'll post up some pics tomorrow.

On a side now... I received word that Keith had mangled his ankle in another bike wreck today. It sounds like the pipe went through his boot and acted as a meat grinder. They're in the ER right now. Please, if everyone could give best wishes on his recovery, that'd be awesome.

Speaking of going down. I went down the other day too. The tires are awfully slick this year. My wreck was nothing more than pride working against me. Don't go knee down to the point that elbow, shoulder, and hard parts follow. You end up sliding for 15 feet. (Miraculously I got the tires back on the ground and finished the turn.)

Wish me luck geeking out professionally tomorrow. Wish Keith luck piloting a plane back to Newark in stitches too. :(