Attic

This weekend has been spent ripping out old insulation and installing new insulation. I now have effective R58 to R98 in the baby's room and over the lights- and I've also shut down the air intrusion that would happen around them because of the way the old insulation has sagged.

Seth cut, I imitated Darth Vader, and the insulation just fuzzed apart. Very long, very tiring, very itchy work.

It's mostly done except for some spots around the bathroom fans- I'm going to add a cellulose insulation there to keep air intrusion down and then toss on a few more pieces. Then I'll put up a shelving unit around the outside that should hold a couple dozen crates (next to see what will fit up the attic).

Joys :)

Baby Room and Wine Progress-

All the joints have had at least one coat of mud put on them in the baby's room. Now it's a dry / apply / wait game.

I spent all day on Saturday prepping the wine for bottling and starting next years batches. I don't think I'm going to have time to clean and prepare all the bottles I need for this years batches- I'm almost out- so I'm very screwed and pretty annoyed, but that's the risk I took while waiting. This year may only be 36 gallons of Riesling wine (the 45 gallons of Chardonnay from last year is still sitting in the tanks).

Unless I can get some free time or slave labour there won't be any 2008 Chardonnay. Sigh. I do have some smaller carboys- perhaps I should just do a couple of gallons in those... ?

Hot Pepper Hell

We borrowed a food dehydrator from a friend yesterday and Liz started to dehydrate her peppers.

The house started to smell of hot peppers- that tangy, green burning hell known as spice.

At 6am when I got up the house reeked of peppers- she was happy, I was eager to leave. They dried in about 10 hours.

Next up- basil and sage and tons of hops....

Beer: Barley Island, Noblesville IN

Barley Island

A dated post to be sure- but while attending my Grandfather's funeral we ran across a brewery in Noblesville , IN, named Barley Island. Mind you the entire clan had gathered for a 'tea party' and the males were in desperate need of reclaiming their masculinity.

So it was in search of a bit of refreshment that we found ourselves entering Barley Island. I should note that Indiana has not banned smoking in bars or breweries- so unfortunately I wasn't enjoying myself as much as I'd like.

While there they had several beers on tap and a cask conditioned ale- all delicious and well priced. Sampler cost was picked up by my Uncle but I believe it was around $7.50.


Belgium - Strong belgium (duhhh) characteristics- was as good as a beer overseas. Not much aroma (but was that due to the smoking? I don't know)- 1/6/6

IPA Cask Conditioned Ale- Great hops, some off taste due to the cask- good room temperature. A little while later as it sat out and I made my way through the rest of the beers I tasted it again- and it was even better! 2/8/8

The Brown Ale- They said they added more hops in this batch but (I felt) it was wasted. There also was not much malt character- 2/5/7

The Pale Ale- Great Hops, great floral and bittering- 2/8/9

Wheat- Once again, I'm not a wheat fan, but this was very good. Practically no aroma to speak of, 1/7/7

I'd recommend stopping in for a pint- I was sorely disappointed by the lack of stouts (new production coming online after losing a boiler) but I'll get that the next time I'm around Indy.

Home Again

Back home, from Indiana DC, and time to cut the grass.

Un-pissing off a friend-

So how do you un-piss off a friend that got so angry at you he storms out of a bar, screaming obscenities at you- after a night of bashing every other group out there. I don't know how to fix it.

Fixing the microwave

A few days ago the microwave broke. This isn't your normal broke- kick to the curb short circuit but instead a simple design flaw- the handle broke off. Given the relative strength of plastics I'm very surprised that such a thing could happen- that is, until I tried to line up the broken pieces and realized the bottom half of the two part handle was compressed very tightly- so that repeated cookings under the grill must have stressed it to the point it broke.

Googling "spacesaver GE microwave broken handle" returned millions of hits, all bitching about how expensive the replacement part was- 60$+, and that if you needed to replace the front half of the door (plastic holding in the glass) you were looking at nearly the cost of a new microwave.

Great Fix, GE- I'll contribute to the comments by saying your microwave design is a POS and that, with thousands of customers pissed off at your crappy design, you'd think you could come up with a better design. May I suggest

1) An addition screw access hole to the front of the microwave.
2) Anchoring the handle to the metal internal frame instead of the cheap plastic front
3) reducing the 2 piece handle to a 1 piece handle with
4) ribbed / textured grip underneath that can expand/contract better
5) picking a better plastic to use that is less sensitive to heat
6) swapping out the handle with metal.
I chose to take a piece of spalted maple I had planed in the garage back when I was tearing about wood pallets and feeding them into my thickness planar / jointer / table saw. I had a nice piece about the right thickness to take a screw and be strong, and if worse came to worse I could always put a finishing screw on the outside, go thru the metal frame and washer / lock washer / locktight / nut the inside. Either way it would look good, be functional, and I wouldn't have to buy another bloody damn microwave at this point.

And it won't be a GE either.

Baby Shower

Today is the baby shower- I'm staying as FAR AWAY as possible from my inlaws house. They've loaded up on presents and items and they're excited- so I'm here.

I figure there's enough work to do with house repair that I don't need to go there... and that means I can eat pork here too :)

Long Long Days

Home repairs haven't been happening and prep work for the baby's room has fallen very far behind due to a number of reasons, most of which have to do with my exhaustion.

My mother's cell phone died which she has chosen to not deal with in a constructive manner, especially with my grandfather's death. Bad times all around.

I also received a very weird call from work. A caller knew quite a bit about someone I know. Very scary.- Did I mention this wasn't on a public line?

Pork Smoking Goodness-

15 lbs of pork in the smoker... since 9am today... and I don't think it'll be done in time for dinner. The Travesty!

Kicked in the head!

Just because I was poking the belly some more, laughing at the baby... I put my ear down to see if she liked it or not... and then promptly got kicked in the head.

Good aim :)

More den work coming as I reorganize everything in the corner to make room for all the stuff out of the bedroom.... and get rid of dangerous open wires.

Yard Wise Exercise

Mowing the yard in the heat of the day wasn't the smartest thing... but it had to get done. Tired, sweaty, and sick feeling.

A Weak of improvements

Yes, I know how to spell. Yes, it was done intentionally.

Once again not a whole lot was accomplished this week. I did finally manage to get a nice enough day Sunday to cut the hardwood floor transitions. My neighbors repeatedly asked why I did this- I pointed out the 'quality' ones you get at HD were 20$ for 3'11" of wood, that the finish wasn't high gloss, that I'd require 4x of these and there'd be a total of 5 seams, and that (frankly) I hated the way all of them looked.

So I cut my own.

It's a simple pattern- a 15-20 degree angle up to a little less than half, a small steep nub down on the other side, and a recessed channel for the carpeting under the nub. I then take runner boards and put them down on the floor, nail them in place, then nail thru the new transition into them. Add a bit of glue first for security (where possible) and these babies aren't going anywhere. I haven't decided if I'll use the Stainless Steel Screws on them or just nail them in place- not that anyone would know the proper view anyway. They are a bit thicker than usual but since I'm hiding the fact I ripped out a wall and I want it to look like a little nook to go work in front of a window, I figure they'll police a roller chair quite nicely.

The furniture in the babies room was evacuated to my inlaws, against my wishes. I thought I'd said repeatedly to leave it here as I really don't want to have to call anyone for measurements- in fact, I was going to put one of the dressers in our bedroom behind a door, but my wife surprised me after I told her 5x this week, including yesterday, by having one of my friends show up with his car to load the furniture up.

I'm also arranging an 'inspection' of the house by a number of my neighbors and friends that have had children. I'll give them each a clipboard and tell them to goto town, finding all of the problems they can see. I figure that'll give us a nice list to work from to go do improvements instead of sitting on the sofa watching movies. I mean, we are having a kid, right- no more free time; might as well get used to it now. That includes picking up every little piece of junk that drops to the ground.

I also made the mistake of showing my neighbors kids how to pop a wheelie on their bike- I was afraid they were doing it wrong and might hurt themselves (kept flipping the bike over). I'm now their new best friend- the one comes over and bangs the door, bangs the doorbell, opens the door.... ach, oh well. No harm.

Garage is slightly more re-organized now. I can get in and out- got rid of some more stuff, put a microwave off the floor and onto the generator- we're getting there. Still don't have the pulls for the drawers built- they're just sitting in there- and I haven't run any dust collection hose yet (growl). Need to get that built ASAP.

So much work...

RIP, Harvey William Stoll

Today my Grandfather, the man who taught me most about home improvements, wiring, woodworking (with my father), who built hoochie sticks, showed me scouting, took me on hikes, how to find blueberry bushes in the wild, to pick the cherries off of his trees in the back yard, how NOT to put rocks in the springs in the garage, passed away.

He was very ill and very much in pain. Now he's not.

Den & Panoramics

I finally managed to get the den carpeting cut up in order to install the new hardwood floor. There's still quite a bit of work to be done in order to get it ready but I think I'll have to delay that until later- I need to construct the floor transition pieces our of 3" hardwood and attach them. That means rounding wood ... which means somehow setting up the router. I spent most of the day cleaning up the garage in hopes that I could do this quickly and efficiently (everyone laugh now)

As for panoramics I've been knocking them out as I go. Having a bit of trouble with the tools- all the new ones 'disappear' as soon as edited- and without that thumbnail I've got to manually load them all.
Can you see the annoying curvature in the horizon? Sheesh. You'd think there'd be a simple tool to just click the parts you want 'flattened'.
Photo is an IR image from a modified 300D Canon Rebel and is 35 frames. The Rebel has a buffer of 4 shots and writes slower than a kid sending a thank you card. This was a LONG photo...

Finally Home

Flying has become such a pain in the ass now adays I don't know why I even bother. It's not for the per-diem. It's not for the exotic locations.

This trip involved pushing back from the gate and THEN being told there was a ground stop in SFA. That meant 1.5 hours with a warm plane, lots of water, and no air. Which meant the 1.75 hour connection now was 5 minutes long.

The second plane, same issues- late. 15 minutes to make a connection from C to F concourse in Chicago (about 1 mile if I know how long it took me to walk).

And when I arrived home my house was exactly as I'd left it- even the ties I left on the sofa were easily found.

Of course I spent most of today going off and throwing crap out because, frankly, if it's got to be cleaned it looks like I'm going to be the one who has to do it all. So my new solution is to simply throw everything out.

Want some crap?

Food in Reno: Day 3

Reno, NV. Lots of Breweries. Lots of beer. Lots of good food. Day 3.

Today we snuck out for lunch to B&J's Brewery- 13999 South Virginia, Reno NV (Summit Mall). Walking into the place was overwhelming- it was one of the nicest laid out restaurants I've been in. Everything practically gleamed- and looked brand new. I was told they'd been open for about 2 years so they must really take care of their equipment (or replace it monthly). Hardwood floors were in great shape, too- no obvious discolorations on the white wood (implying no spills ;P)

They offered a sampler of 7 beers for fairly cheap and would substitute, but today they were out of their cask conditioned ale. Included in the presentation was a handy dandy (see photos) chart with the beers and a great description of everything about them. Scores to follow.

I ordered the Melt- and it was delicious. Cooked to perfection the garlic and rosemary sourdough bread crust was crisp and dry as it hid the caramelized onion and two cheeses beneath it. I couldn't stop eating it- in between samples of beers- and snatched huge quarter cut french fries like there was no tomorrow.

This place gets a 10/10 for service, food, and beer. Did I mention I learned about it by overhearing one of it's employees while at Great Sinkhole, errr Great Basin?

Blonde: 2/5/4. Just not a fan of Blondes...

Heff: 3/6/6. Fairly exploding with floral aroma the finish was great, for a heff, but again just not my beer.

Pirahnna Pale Ale: 3/9/9. Excellent Hops with a nice complex mixture (or at least no overwhelming one type). Flavor was excellent and bitterness was spot on. Could drink another one or 5.

Jeremiah's Red: 2/7/7. Nice soft malt finish with a good sense of floral hops. Bitterness could be a bit more, but don't let that distract you from this great beer.

Nutty Brewnette: 2/6/6. I wish it had had some bittering malt in it- but that's not the mark of a good nut brown. Was very well received by several members of the table.

Porter: 2/7/9. Great porter- excellent head (N2/CO2) and even better retention. This head slid down the glass the entire time I was sampling beres.

Stout: 2/8/7. The stout was excellent but the finish was weak- it should be lower but I just can't bring myself to nail it for finishing sweet. Drop the SG by another 1/4 point or so and it'll be perfect. Great head as well and excellent aroma.

Food in Reno: Day 2

Reno, NV. Lots of Breweries. Lots of beer. Lots of good food. Day 2.

Day 2 finds us at Great Basin Brewery, located at 846 Victorian Ave. The entire area is packed with food joints so Great Basin Brewery must have something special to attract attention.

It doesn't.

Now usually I can find a couple of great things to say about a place, so I will here too. There's free parking in the back in a garage, the beer is served cold and not over/under carbonated, and the lighting is great.

The food, on the other hand...

I had one of the more expensive items on the menu- a $17, 14oz (hah) "pepper encrusted rib eye". It was more along the lines of pepper dusted, and while I was very happy that it was cooked to perfection it quickly became a game of 'find the steak in the fat'. I don't get rib eye's from the supermarket with that much fat. This one was less than 3/4" thick- looking like it had been pounded to achieve that feat. The potatoes were excellent though.

My coworker had chicken shishkabobs. He remarked on their lack of ... ingenuity... when devising them. Chicken, green pepper, chicken, onion, repeat. Thats it. In a part of the country where practically EVERYTHING has colour, you can't do better than that? Can't even mix in some yellow/red peppers? How's about some mushrooms? Or onions bigger than 3 layers thick, sadly clinging to the chicken in a desperate attempt to flavour them.

Lastly, since this is a brewery, I should mention the beer. The beer was fairly good, if you didn't mind waiting over 25 minutes for the first waitress to come up to order one. Then to subsequently have to ARGUE with said waitress over the cost of a sampler pack (they don't do samplers, you can 'buy' 12 samplers for $12!!!!). When said samplers arrive you have to rely on the obviously busy waitress's memory to hope you get the right ones- they don't even provide a tearaway sheet for notes. I thought Silver Peak's was expensive from the night before- boy was I wrong.

The Icky (named after a fossil) was a strongly hoppy beer with an excellent finish- if you love cascade. There seemed to be quite a bit of that one particular hop in there with no other flavours- and if there were other hops they were simply overwhelmed. A score of 3/7/7

The Vienna Lager (At least thats what I think she brought me) was quite smoky and Delicious- it gets a 2/7/8 Score- very pleasant.

The Truckee Red had an excellently clean finish- could have used a bit more floral hops- and the malt wasn't overpowering at all. Score 2/8/7

Lastly she delivered a 'Boont Amber' guest beer from ?Anderson Valley?. Note the question marks and the quotes- I have no idea what I really was given and even though I asked her to repeat it 3x I still don't know. Score of 2/6/8

Overall the price for the meal was cheap but so was everything else. Good outdoor seating, lots of space, but just skip it unless you're coming in on "Tightwad" Tuesdays where beer is 2.50$ a pint.

On an aside, I overheard a conversation about another brewery south of town called "BJ's". Think I'm going to hit that in the next two days before I leave.

Beer Ratings

Since I'm going to talk about beer alot I ought to post a ratings.

There are 3 numbers- I stole this from my wine courses.

The first number: Aroma. How much I like, how much I can sense, the 'nose' of the beer. Score is 0-3. Even water can get a 1.... so if you see a 0 there must be a problem.

The second number: Taste. This is the 'mouth feel' of the beer. How does it sit- does it burn, is it pleasurable, does it hit the right nerves- literally how delicious is it? Score is 0-10.

The third number: Finish. How does the beer go down? Is it floral? Hoppy? Metallic (over hopped with Cascade can cause this). Do the little beer bubbles make themselves known as the beer disappears down your gullet? Can you continue to drink this beer? Score is 0-10.

All important questions that must be known. And yes, I get mocked for writing down numbers.. .but it's worth it.

Food in Reno: Day 1

Reno, NV- Lots of beer, lots of food- and all I have is a camera with 3 days to find out whats good and not.

A year ago we visited a restaurant called Silver Peak. Met the head brewer there- Trent- and he spent some time sitting down with us talking about his beers. I told him I was in love with the Porter they had by far- turned out it was his particular beer that he made his way. When you've got a good one, everyone beats a path to your keg...

This time we went to the original Silver Peak Brewery, located at 124 Wonder Street, Reno NV.

They have a sampler there which, for the cost of 8.75, can be yours. The one we received had Red Roadster, XXX Blonde Ale, Baileywheat Hefeweizen, Sierra Amber Ale, Peavine Porter, Silver Peak India Pale Ale, and three specialties- Sunset Raspberry, Honey Ale, and Kolsch Ale.
The samplers weren't over filled so they didn't spill or contaminate (you'd be surprised) and were served in a stainless tray with accompanying documentation. Of course, a pair of ours were out of order but it's fairly easy to recognize the differences between a Pale Ale and a Porter :)

Red Roaster: Excellent hops but too much malt/unfermented sugars. Far too sweet to drink more than a sip- 2/8/10 (based on a sip. Based on an entire glass that 10 falls to a 2/8/4)

XXX Blond Ale: Not a fan, but that's me. 1/4/5
BaileyWheat Hefeweizen: A good Hef, if only I drank it more. Got very spoiled in Germany... so the low scores: 1/5/7

Sierra Amber Ale: Excellent taste with mild malts and good hops to finish. 2/5/7

Peavine Porter. When I had this last I don't remember it being so ... limp. Maybe it was a bad pour from the bottom of a keg, maybe it was just a low pressure day, but this beer needed more head than it was served in. 2/7/4 - and I LOVED it the last time I had it. Great coffee and bitterness to round out everything.

Silver PEak India Pale Ale: Extra hoppy but not overwhelming with a massive burst of one type of 'alpha acid rules' hops. Great nose- and even better finish. I wish I'd ordered a pint of this over the roadster- 3/8/9

Sunset Raspberry- Specialty beer. Skip it- you'll burn your taste buds. In fact, cut it with the Hef or the Blond, but served as it is it'll strip the flavour centers of your brain to their bare wires. I didn't even score it.

Honey Ale: Great flavor, not overpowered by the honey. Little more hops to give it some bite and it would be perfect, IMHO. 2/6/4 (for finish was lacking aroma hops)

Kolsch Ale: Great tasting all the way. Can't get much better than this in the US I'd imagine. 2/8/8
As for the food- Delicious. I had Rosemary flatbread with roasted garlic + brie. The brie I wish had been spread out a bit but that would have ruined the aesthetics of the dish, I'm sure. the main meal was the Brewers burger- undercooked slightly (I ordered medium, got medium rare) but they hit my double cheese with no problems.





Wait staff was attentive and quick on responses. Can't go wrong there.
This was the original Silver Peak and it's quality is excellent- Thanks for a great evening!

Weddings and Washers

Yesterday was a friend of Liz's wedding- Sean. Sean and I had met once or twice but we really had nothing in common so I never went out of my way to see if there were updates in his life.

Well, a wedding counts as a major update, and so we went to theirs yesterday. The ceremony started 30 minutes late but was very fast- and then it was drinks and food. Alot of drinks. And alot of new people I'd never met (obviously).

Well, one thing leads to another and we're all out on the dance floor feeding the bride and groom drinks- and somehow I got the nickname of 'hazer' from her. Oh well, it was worth it. Sean was bombed by the end of the night- he has got to be hurting today (as well as I do). I stuck to Chard for most of the evening.... which leads us to....

Washing machines. Liz comes up this morning to tell me that she did a load of delicate last week and forgot about it- I immediately envision a rusted pitted tank. She just says it won't spin.

That sounds suspiciously like the LAST time the damn washer stopped working- the switch went. Getting the f-ing washer apart is a pain in the ass and I don't know why I even wanted to do it again, but again I must because the switch shows no electrical conductivity. I'm going to put it back together without a switch so she can do laundry, or I might just leave it apart- don't know yet given how bloody difficult it is to work on.

We'll see if the OEM will give me a new switch for free- 1.5 years on an item is a bit on the short side, ya know?

A few more days after a baby girl announcement

Every conversation has become gender- specific now. The baby girl. My baby girl. Our baby girl. It's cute. All pronouns, amateur as they are, are now feminine case.

Even so it's still not real- even as I see the swelling belly. I guess feeling the child kick will do it- maybe- before the girl shows up.

I've already decided to buy a new house- something much larger- and I can start the refinishing. I don't really want to support two mortgages and a kid at the same time but I know no other way of doing it. Best deals are in the summer- we're out- so unless I get lucky soon....

More remodeling. I've thrown the cabinets that were taking up so much space in the garage outside until my neighbor takes them (or I toss them to the street and burn them). That opened alot of space. I want to repair Liz's bike so she can go riding with me but I still don't have enough space to do so.

Upcoming: a review of my wireless radio slaves. If I clean out the den maybe I can put the studio here...

Gender No Longer Neutral Description of the baby

There's been two schools of thought on our child. One is that Mom's cravings of fresh fruit (Where did the 2 lbs of strawberries go, Honey?) would imply a girl. The other, Karma implied I need someone more stubborn than me.

Strawberries won. We're having a little girl.

I thought so initially when there was a brief moment and I noticed a lack of hardware as they scanned past the baby's legs. Given how stubborn this kid was being towards being imaged it took almost 40 minutes to get into a position that the sonogram could show something.

Therefore, most likely, it's a girl.

No bigger brother to knock down the barriers for her first- this will be a new experience for both of us as we're both from families where the son was born first.

Great States Reel Mower

Today I bought a push mower. This is different from my radial, gas powered push mower by the simple fact that there is no engine.

At first it was a little odd getting used to- the handles are much shorter than someone that's 6'2" tall can call comfortable, but once I got past the cramping in the hands I was able to bang thru the yard with very little difficulty. Grass flew off the back of it as if I were watching a cartoon- literally cascading in a parabolic arc off the cutting surfaces.

Maybe I chomped it a bit short.

The mower cost me 40$, it retails for 90$. The gentleman I bought it from advertised it as "I bought this, pushed it 10 feet, and realized I was too lazy to use it". It looks in great shape with some very minor rust spots. There's a significant amount of rubbing on the bar but I'll download the manual and see what that takes. Contrary to expectations it isn't 'quiet' but loud enough to hear and would probably not make phone conversation easy- if you could get past the pantings.

I figure I'll have to cut the grass 2x a week now with this, but I won't be using any gas in the lawnmower- about 2-3 yards = 1 tank of gas, 6 tanks per fillup, meaning I'll save about 1.50$ per time I cut my grass.

You may find this hard to believe but a single TWIG can jam the blades- which means come fall and leaf season the lawnmower is coming out again to mulch mulch mulch.

One thing I especially like about this is all the grass cuttings are neatly distributed across the yard instead of compacted under the right wheel as in my mulching lawnmower. Overall a great product.

Great States Reel Mower, Deluxe 18" version

Love the Neighbors

Today, while my wife was away, the neighbors all came over to give the downstairs a 'once over'. Mind you I spent most of the morning trying to track and exterminate a *#)($#8$# chipmunk that had somehow gotten into the house. And boy did they (the neighbors) lay in to all the things that had to go.

What stunk was I *KNOW* all this. I can't, however, do it myself. Usually it involves pitching craploads of stuff and junk- we have 3 shelves of cookbooks. What do we eat each week? Same thing. 'Nuff said.

Anyway They simply reiterated what I already knew: that pretty much everything downstairs has to go. That there was never going to be any more time to do anything. I acknowledge that and understand it, intellectually, from watching one of them 'ride herd' on the kids. That I can handle. I think.

And go it shall. I'm not going to lose my baby because a bloody bookrack fell on it... or it choked on some yarn... or it found a needle or coaster or frankly anything.

(Oh yeah, I hate dusting).

Hooray for the Fourth of July

We went to watch fireworks with the neighbors last night- had a blast, no pun intended. Lots of photos were taken of the air bursting shells. Music was rather poor but you can only have so many speakers I suppose. Greece does a pretty good job for that but a very poor job for crowd control.

WD10EAVS 1tb Western Digital "Green Power" Hard Drive

Yes, I know this reads like an advertisement but in a sense it is. I bought (back when it was a great deal) a 750gb WD Green power drive for 135$. A *steal* at that price.
Then suddenly 2 months later Buy.com offered a 25$ off coupon and a 1 tb green power drive (WD10EACS) for 187-25 + free shipping. A *STEAL* at that price. Since the green power drives spin so slow (5400 RPM) and are ultra quiet they make perfect HTPC drives. Now a couple of hundred movies later and things start to get interesting and you need more space, so you start looking for a new drive...
Which brings us to the WD10EAVS. This drive doesn't officially exist on Western Digital's website and, prior to my purchase, I had no idea what its specs would be. I had seen them listed on a few pages talking about MyBook external USB/Firewire devices, but for the most part these drives were just a big unknown. And so at 179.99, free shipping and a 35% rebate (Thanks Microsoft!) a 1tb drive could be had for 117$- a tremendous steal. Lots of stealing going on.
Unfortunately when the drive arrived it had NO WD warranty - I've contacted the ebay seller about that little tidbit- so this might become a very expensive lesson.
Fortunately I was able to plop the drive into my C2D system and run a quick pair of benchmarks on it- the sustained bandwidth transfer is incredible for this drive- starts at well over 100mb/sec and drops to a paltry 40mb/sec- but in either case this is STILL fast enough to record video with. I'm in LOVE. A little history- I currently capture on a pair of Maxtor 320gb HDs in RAID-0 running on a dedicated hardware raid card, PCIE-4x. The new C2D board I bought didn't have a dedicated 4X slot like the AMD 760 chipset I came from, so I had to settle for significantly degraded video performance. That meant disabling my 16x PCIE graphics card (passive cooled for noise) and castrating it- by telling the system that it should run both PCIE 16x slots as 2x 8x slots. Very annoying. Even then the RAID-0 is capable of capturing at 140mb/sec all the way out to 50%, and even then it only falls to 80mb/sec at the very end. MORE than fast enough to capture standard and HD video (for now).
The RAID-5 (dedicated card) is a bit slower, as you'd expect, and is built upon 4x WD5000AAKS system. These drives were pretty expensive at the time but, again, worth it. I was moving upwards from 4x 200gb Seagate RAID 5 system and I needed to expand. Digital photography and digital video consume tremendous amounts of space. I think at this point I may replace all 4 drives with 1tb as soon as the price comes down and continue to rotate them in and out for backup purposes, which leads me to dispose of my 200gb PATA drives for something other than a pittance.
Now, back to the real reason I bought the 1tb WD10EAVS drive- I needed to add more space to the media box that my gorgeous wife likes to watch. I found a live-cd called 'clonezilla' - and it was everything they said it was. Not only did it clone the 3.2gb partition of the main boot disk (I was running an old 7200 RPM WD drive that sounded like a muffled screeching vacuum) but it repaired GRUB and modified LILO/bootloader to work correctly. And it did it in less than 20 minutes- all I had to do was type 'yes' 2x for every question. Talk about working correctly... this baby is DEFINITELY going into my emergency supply kit. So what's all this got to do with a baby and being a new daddy? Well, I put the first disk on there- Baby Einstein. Heh :) That and a few hundred hours of music....

Partying with the Neighbors

Today, being the Fourth of July, is our neighborhood get-together. It's more closely related to someone buys beer, someone else drinks said beer while grilling, other people buy cheese platters, and we all pile into cars to go watch fireworks.

Most of this morning was spent outside watching kids run around and play.

The neighbors little 4 year old asked why I had a bike in my shed instead of the garage. I told him it was because I broke it. Since he was being a turd (parents words, not mine) I went on with "In fact, I ran over a little kid with it and it broke. A little kid just about your size, with black hair".

His response? "You should have slowed down".

Ya can't win ;)

Addicted to WheresGeorge

I have more minions.

WheresGeorge.com is a website in which you can 'track' where a dollar spent ends up. It relies on users and regular people to enter a bill when they find it- usually with a bright stamp on it- and can calculate the locations based upon the zip code that the user provides.

Most bills end up locally- as you'd expect, and some show up in weird places (like Cape Town, South Africa).

Where do they go? They follow lines of commerce- I've found that 20$ bills go directly to the bank and almost inevitably show up in ATMs some place else (Ohio is popular from NY).

Interesting, no?

Delivery of the Glasses

Dropped off some glasses at a neighbors house- and then suddenly my pregnant wife wanted to leave. Turns out she was sickened by the smell of paint and kitty litter- things that had never bothered her before- and so we vamoosed shortly after I finished the free beer.

Ahhh, the ways of the pregnant woman. Fear her.

On the other hand I got my MP3 player and SATA drive converters. I'm looking forward to testing these babies up.

Now she wants access to my photos.... fear her!

Another Almost Victory!

Liz's softball team came close to winning today only to have it snatched by a few *cough* substitutions and injuries. Basically they grabbed whomever was female and tossed them into the game. Looked good though- couple great snags and some awesome plays. They're getting better.

More improvements on the home to come...

Assault of the Goody Two Shoes

I'm voting on plan B+ for restoration of wetlands. The petitioner wanted 60$- I pointed out we had a kid coming- didn't even phase him. I guess I should feel guilty for wanting to buy a new camera lense, but so be it... they'll never get that project in in time to save them, the damage is done. But its still worth doing.

He also seemed to think that quadrupling hyrdo power would be possible... I just wonder where the extra facilities would come from. Seems like they'd be iffy no matter what.

We're looking for a heart rate monitor for my lovely wife so she can go exercising more often. I wonder what I'll find.. I think I'll go hunt her down on my bike now :)

25 Year Anniversery

We made it to our friends 25 year anniversary today- it was a hectic drive complicated by the wrong start time and a lost invite. Either way it was a fast drive out there- and we made it with apparently plenty of time to spare since the guests of honor didn't show for another 30 minutes ;)

Weedkiller is down on the lawn- so keeping the pregnant wife off of the hammock is difficult. She insists on a piggy back ride to get her there...

Today we also found baby birdies in a nest. Pity I can't sneak a camera in there for some photos- I'd disturb them too much I bet- but it would be nice.

Atwater Wine Case Party

Atwater Winery http://www.atwatervineyards.com has once again had another outstanding case party. This one was a little iffy with the way the rain came pouring down, but in the end the storms stopped long enough for us to get some great tasting wine and even better food.

We collected loads of cool photos of everyone we love- Katie, Amy, well those two in particular. They helped me pull off the proposal and worked with me to carefully coordinate the timing. Maybe I'll go into that later....

Fathers Day

My first Father's Day, so everyone tells me. I don't count it, however, because I don't have a squalling sausage loaf in my hands yet. When that happens, when I'm deprived of sleep, when I can be even MORE obstinate about picking up hair ties on the floor before my baby chokes to death on them- then I'll feel like a father.

Until then I'm just a guy who's wife is pregnant and who's house isn't getting cleaned enough or safe enough for a hazardous inspector to come along.

Wish my Mom and Dad were closer though.

The Baby Strikes Back

Kid around all you want, but never poke a pregnant woman in the stomach. They can be vicious, even when you're playing around with them. They'll then claim the baby made them fight back and tearfully apologize as you're laying stunned on the ground in fetal position questioning whether or not any of your equipment will function again.

That didn't exactly happen, but it's close enough you'll get the point.

My wife is discovering that our culture expects to rub any pregnant woman's belly as a sign of good luck- it's funny so long as it's not happening to me. I can see her point- a total stranger (women mostly) want to come up and touch you on your baby sack and smile. I keep reminding her that they're paying her a compliment but it can get strained- even when her mother and sister do it. My family fortunately didn't do so so much... but then she came to volleyball and our friend Jeff rubbed the volleyball on her belly for 'baby luck'. Didn't help- he served it in to the back of my head (then again, remember what I said about the baby striking back???)

Mood Swings: Fear Them

Today marks another first: Mood swings. I laughed them off before but I simply had no idea what I was in for. All new fathers take note: Watch out for mood swings. She might look puffy and slow, but she'll strike like a cobra... and what man can stand before his woman while she cries? Not this one.

Belly is protruding. Photos soon I hope..

Softball League

My wife had to play in her softball league today- apparently one of the women players didn't show which resulted in (or would have, had she not stepped up) a DQ. Fortunately she was in the outfield but even then she was unable to run as quick as she could. Her team, I just found out, does *not* drink prior to the games. My suggestion that they do so didn't go over so well :)

She is starting to show just a bit- cute little baby belly bump. I think she likes being pregnant so far :)

The scary part of pregnancy

The wife has a 'cough'. That in and of itself isn't scary, but it hasn't gotten better and despite my suggestions she call her doctor she hasn't yet. Oh the frustration...

Today was the first time I've officially felt 'fear' during the pregnancy: She was about to take the risk test for Downs. Risk factors, certain weeks, etc- all add in, and in another two weeks she's back for another round of tests to give us a percentage chance that the baby will have downs. Personally, can't ya just pull a sample and screen it?
11 weeks and 1 day old, approximately, as measured by ultrasound.

Back again from ANOTHER trip

I think it's official: I hate traveling.

Nothing went wrong on this trip, other than the fact I did the work of 3 people. (Some of the work I do is brainless, but I do it very well.. wait a sec).

On this trip I calibrated monitors. Originally I moved a laptop to each screen, plugged it in, ran diagnostics, verified, calibrated, and repeated. There were no power plugs to be seen anywhere along the wall, so I had to run power cords everywhere. Since calibrations are done in the dark, that meant trip hazards. And I was in a main walkway.

I calibrated a display, picked it up, moved it to it's station, stickered it, attached/ detached it, managed to eat, drink, hit the bathroom- every 12 minutes. I think that's a record. And there is no way in hell I could do it again.

Also- soon to see three breweries, three days. Coming soon: Rock Bottom, Sonora, and 4 peak brewing company.

Second set of parents told

My sister got her wedding invitation today- we had written it down as '2.25 guests attending'. She called and left messages ALL day trying to get ahold of me- and I'm on the west coast and inside an area that doesn't allow cell phones. Poor girl.

Wife calls her that night and tells her and she gets all misty eyed on the phone. I love my Sis.

Right afterwards I called my father and the wife called my mother. I tried to get them both to put us on speaker phone- that took a few minutes of frustration- and eventually when we did we both announced we were pregnant. It was the best we could do given the circumstances.

I called my grandfather the next morning to let him know before I went into work- he was very happy.

Abbotts Frozen Custard

Abbott's Frozen Custard. A delicious, creamy product that implies 'unsafe' and 'unpasteurized'. See their website here: http://www.abbottscustard.com/

I feel SO much safer when a food manufacturer answers several questions with one word: "yes". The question :"Are your frozen custard products pasteurized? Are they safe for pregnant women?"

See, here was a great opportunity to say "Yes, our products are 100% pasteurized. All products are made from pasteurized eggs and milk and we regularly clean the production equipment in order to assure a clean environment. In fact we will be adding this question to our FAQ so that others can receive similar information".

Which is a better answer?

When I make custard I make it from egg yolks, cream, sugar, vanilla bean. It's cooked but it certainly isn't cooked to temperature- because if it was I'd have scrambled eggs and cream- and then I ladle on sugar up top and blowtorch it until it's nice and crystalized/melted.

The two of us raked the yard yesterday; neighbor's kid asked us where our kids were. He's 3. We told him we didn't have any... so he asked if they were at school or 'grandma's. Heh. Liz didn't want to confuse him by saying in her belly :)

Our neighbors don't know yet... yet....

1 set of parents told...

We had dinner with a set of parents last night and in the course of the conversation their neighbors came over (we insisted- they're fun). Eventually the talk turned to 'baby' that my brother in law is having... so they began detailing who, how many, and when. Liz was practically bouncing in her chair to say something but I had insisted on waiting a week.

But really, who can say no to that gorgeous face when she wants to say something.

Her delivery could use a little work- "Jason and I have some important news. We're pregnant". Not nearly as dramatic as I'd thought but they all started cheering and shouting "Oh My!" etc. It was fun... quite a bit of happiness around that evening.

My sister's invitation should be arriving soon- and with 2.25 guests I'm wondering how long it'll take her to figure out, call Mom, and ask if she knows whats going on. Then I can tell them! :)

Travel Everywhere but Here

It's been a long week. Last week I was in Dayton, OH for work followed up by being bumped off a flight (Thanks US Airways!). Upon returning home at midnight I only managed to get a few hours of sleep due to the cold I've been fighting... and up 5 hours later to drive to Boston for a wedding.

So much for 'rest, relaxation, and fluids' to get healthy.

I'm back.... and more humour is coming right your way...

Recovering from the Mud

Mudding the old rooms always makes me nervous- you never know what grew in that mud before you scraped it off and started anew. I guess it should be no surprise then that when I saw the little black spots on the strip of old tape I ripped off I'd be in for it.

Z-Pack it is. 6 hours later and I'm already feeling better.

Poor wife though- she's had to stay away from me... and I her. And she's not even irritable yet ;)

Dodging the Flu Bug

I had to abandon my bed at 230am: I think I have the flu, or at least I have something nasty that's pretty much no fun all the way around. Cough, nose, throat, aches, pains, etc. Have I mentioned how much I hate water?

My wife, on the other hand, insists I stay in bed. I don't want to get her sick- she can't take anything except tylenol when she's with child and I don't want to have her go thru this. So the argument will never be won...

Anyways- free networking crap for whomever that wants it. And computer crap. And dvds. And CDs. I have to get the rooms cleaned out!

-Side note. My sister in law called today and was giving my wife grief about me not having cleaned out the den- that if I were to move I still wouldn't want a kid because then I'd always be working on the new house. At first I was annoyed at my wife, but then I realized: SIL didn't KNOW that we were expecting. SIL is a twin, and my comment back to her is and always will be "When you get knocked up"....

It'll be interesting when she finds out, that's for sure, but for now some of her comments about "You've gotta have sex to have a kid" get a bit annoying....

The solution to Morning Sickness

Apparently I've stumbled upon the solution to morning sickness. I wake up at 4am, wander down to the kitchen, pick up a cracker and a can of ginger ale, wake my comatose wife up, feed it to her, and then go back to bed. She doesn't get sick in the morning.

Now if I could only remember doing it.

... anyone want some spare cables? I've got only about 40 extra power cords, network cords, USB serial ata firewire... time to clean out the den!

Did you just call my baby a Rodent?!?!

Whoops. So I thought I was being funny. I called the baby a rodent- she had stolen ALL of the blankets from the downstairs and up stairs and made a little nest on the sofa. SO, being the sensitive guy I am I pointed out certain habits of mice that invade the shed.

All future fathers, please take my advice: Do not call your unborn child a rodent. Women Do Not find it nearly as funny as you might.

Still mudding. Had friends over the night before - 1/2 knew, the other half suspected but we didn't confirm. Kinda hard to ignore when everyone knows a woman that isn't drinking is knocked up or trying to get knocked up. Especially when they make their own beer...

Day 5: The Stomach Strikes Back

Things that don't cure morning sickness: Spicy Jalapeño Cheese eaten at 930pm the night before.

Pregnancy and Drinking in College seem to be related. To comfort in either rub her back, hold her hair, and try to tune out the puking sounds as she hugs the toilet. What a way to wake up in the morning.

Drywall mud is officially dried, now to repair the corner again. I' m afraid it will always crack due to the poor job they did while laying drywall (1/4" seam!).

Closet remodeling is almost finished being drawn- I should model it in a package first though just to make sure I'm going to like how it looks.

Day 4: Return of the Dinner

The burps started again. If I feel helpless now I can't wait until she's screaming expletives at me and telling me it's my fault she's in this much pain. I'm thinking I need to learn some sort of pressure point techniques, preferably one that puts the subject out cold. I wonder if that's possible.

Sponged down the bedroom nail pops and the ceiling seam. Realized I would probably prefer to use concrete instead of joint compound- it would look better. Used the sand stones on a few seams to make sure they were tight; will compound the rest of them tomorrow night.

We have a friend coming over to bottle his wine on Wed; this will mess with my work schedules but so be it...

Day 3: Never tell a pregnant woman to just do it.

Morning sickness. We've all heard the jokes, snickered at the thoughts. I wondered when ours would start and if I'd have to listen to her getting up and running out all the time. Well this morning answered that question...

You've heard that 'sick' burp, right? You know the one- the one that sounds like someone is going to be ill but is doing their damnedest to not be. Well I heard it. Again. And again. And then some more. And I had to wonder... is this going to be a daily recurrence for the next three months? If so... it was going to be a long three months. Harbor freight better run ear plugs on sale again.

But it passed and all was happy.

Tomorrow I start sponging the ceiling- I'll make a test pass and check how a few of them hold up. I really don't want to sand and get all the dust in the air but if thats what it takes...

Day 2: The Mudding Continues

I wondered when I woke up this morning if I'd feel any different. Turns out, I did: My arms were killing me.

All the work on the ceiling had taken it's toll, and today it was time to check out what new pops popped when the temperature changed. I enjoy listening to the ceiling crackle in the morning as it heats up- but this morning there were only a few pops, which meant that most of the work was done.

I mudded everything that needed to be (3rd coat going on just now), then will give it a full day to dry and re-evaluate. Since this is the bedroom I may forgo the sanding in favour of the sponge-bath. Sponging the drywall makes for a little more work but also polishes the surface. I haven't heard one way or the other which is better but I know sponge-bath certainly makes less of a mess. Besides, I don't want a pregnant woman snorting drywall dust.

The final reorganization of all the rooms has been somewhat decided upon. The futon goes to the Den, a 2nd bookshelf goes to the Den, an empty bookshelf goes to the bedroom, the tables in the bedroom get moved or trashed. I wish I had a space expert available to take a look at the layout.

The closet gets gutted and the racks for shirts gets moved around enough to put to rows on the right. I want to get her stuff in there too, freeing up the baby's room for more important things (like diapers). Next house I want a dumb waiter in it ;)

No photos yet of the belly- I need to start this sequence ASAP. My goal is a 360 shot every day. We'll see if I make it.

Day 1: The Day After Day Z-Day

Z-Day. We talked about it forever. Worked at it hard. Spent countless hours here, there, doing this and that. Upgraded the soundproofing in the windows. *(Soundproofing -whaaat?)

You know what Z-day is- every man that has ever walked into the bathroom and seen his wife holding a little white thingy with a big cup of apple juice knows instinctively what Z-Day is.

Z-Day is the day you find out you're going to be a father. That the woman you're looking at is going to be a mother. And that the two of you have created something that, should all go well, come kicking and screaming and disrupting everything you know in about 9 months.

My Z-Day was yesterday morning at 5:30am.

I knew she had the test- had had it for a week. I wanted to test earlier, but she insisted on waiting (hilarious because usually it was the other way around). We had been disappointed each time that caution served as a buffer for fears. I smiled and said we'd try again... and she'd put on a brave face and look like she wanted to cry.

I have had a list of home improvements that had to get finished- I even had it spec'd out as to their order, their approximate cost (based upon early improvements and adjusted for inflation), and the order that they had to be worked in. It also included how much time each would take.

Guess what hasn't been worked upon for a few months? Guess what got started this morning at 1020 am?

Step 1: The bedroom ceiling has been sagging slightly more each year- and the nail pops were becoming visible. Since the bedroom was the first room to be done in my new house I took a few shortcuts- I only repaired the nailpops I could see instead of the entire ceiling and I did a crappy job about it- all to save a few days of effort and get my bedroom in order.

So today I spent screwing, punching, and screwing some more until the entire ceiling would have been easier to have been replaced with new drywall (just kidding). I also have to rip out the tape in one corner- the ceiling must have fallen by about 5mm- which means feathering it in at half the distance in the room.

Step 2: Re-organize all the wall positions of all the furniture. This has yet to be accomplished because, frankly, I don't want to try and navigate a huge bookshelf while I'm trying to paint. There's a futon in the spare bedroom (soon to be the nursery!) that needs to be moved to the Den, and the den needs to be completely cleaned up to the point that one can put a baby puppy in it and not have anything lead based sucked up. Since the Den is my techno-haven that means lots and lots of spare equipment has to go out to new homes.... good computers in need of good lovin ;)

I've watched young parents with their little children- smiled profusely when one little girl (Z-Day -1) kept shaking her head 'no' when someone would offer her a balloon. It was cute.

Cute. Aren't all kids cute? I don't know. But I'm going to find out.