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  • 2009
    • December
      • Bottle Shortage
        12/13/09
        I went to bottle up my latest batch (English Brown Ale) thinking that I had plenty of bottles - I have 11 of the 1L flip top bottles that I bought from NotLarry, plus I had a case of 12 22 oz. bottles from before, and then another 12 of the 1L flip top bottles in a box. Well, as it turns out I'

    • November
      • Batch #14 - English Brown Ale
        11/21/09
        Name : English Brown Ale
        Recipe:
        3.3 lbs. Plain Amber Malt Extract
        2 Lbs. Plain Amber Dry Malt Extract
        8 oz. Crushed Crystal Malt 60L
        1 oz. Willamette Hops (Bittering, 60 min)
        1/2 oz. Willamette Hops (Finishing, 5 min)
        11g Nottingham Yeast
        (Above ingredients

    • October
      • Single Income
        10/21/09
        Well in just one more week our household will be down to a single income. My wife and I thought long and hard about it, but the cost of daycare is just too much, so we decided to have her stay home with the kids.

        Well, that's what we decided, but then our son's daycare had a sp

    • March
      • Batch #13 - Blackberry Solstice Cider
        03/04/09
        So I decided to try out one of the techniques listed in the brew recipe book that my sister bought me for Christmas this past year. Instead of just letting my Apfelwein mature in the normal fashion I decided to give is a blackberry flavor. Here's how to do it:

        1. Make your Apfelwe

      • Batch #14 - Red Ink Ale
        03/04/09
        This is just a place holder to keep track of how many batches I've made. I lost the piece of paper I made my notes on. :(

        However, it was a standard batch of Brewer's Best Red Ale. I kegged it up on 21 Feb 2009 and it came out really well, though a bit darker in color than I a

  • 2008
    • December
      • Using PHP and Curl to login to OWA
        12/30/08
        We run OWA here at work and needed a way to check the status of it through Nagios. If you simply scrape the OWA address, you're only checking that the front end is up - unless you log in you will never actually check the back end to do a full end-to-end service check. Here is some code to log

      • MythTV Upgrade
        12/29/08
        So now that we have the U-Verse service installed (it's quite nice, 25 Mbps downstream with 3 Mbps dedicated for internetz and the rest for video) I want to be able to capture HD output from the set top box and view it in MythTV. The only way to do that currently is through the Hauppauge HD PV

      • Chrimmas Prezentz!
        12/22/08
        So I heard on the radio this morning that AT&T was finally taking orders for U-Verse in Middle Tennessee beginning today. I had noticed them installing a new SLC at the bottom of the hill for my subdivision back in November, so there was a good chance that I'd be eligible for service. Sur

      • Batch #13 - Solstice Cider
        12/21/08
        I have been meaning to make another batch of cider and another of beer since PhreakNIC, but simply haven't had the time to gather up all of the required ingredients and then to make them. I finally decided to go ahead and do the cider by itself, but since it was already too late to have any by

    • October
      • Children of the Corn
        10/04/08
        We (the family) went back out to Walden Farm in Rutherford County, TN, this year. I got some fun video of my son running through the corn maze, among other things.

    • September
      • Batch #12 - PhreakNIC Pumpkin Sice Ale
        09/25/08
        Name : pn0x0bian Pumpkin Ale
        Recipe:
        3.3 lbs. Plain Amber Malt Extract
        2 Lbs. Plain Amber Dry Malt Extract
        8 oz. Crushed Crystal Malt 60L
        1 oz. Willamette Hops (Bittering, 60 min)
        1/2 oz. Willamette Hops (Finishing, 5 min)
        11g Nottingham Yeast
        (Above ingredien

    • August
      • Big PHPimpin'
        08/26/08
        So I've had my head buried in some code at work for that past couple of weeks, barely escaping pulling my hair out and looking like Kojak.

        Let's step in the wayback machine. A few years ago I was tasked with implementing ITIL, at least in terms of Change Management and Incident

      • Batch #11 - PhreakNIC Apfelwein
        08/15/08
        I started the batch of Apfelwein for PhreakNIC on Wednesday night, so it should be just hitting the right maturity by the first or second week of October.

        The recipe is the standard Apfelwein recipe with no changes on the front end. When I move it to secondary I will probably add some va

    • June
      • Batch #10 - Limelight
        06/23/08
        Limelight

        Recipe:
        Brewer's Best American Light Ale
        (Sorry, I threw out the directions before getting the exact ingredients)
        6 fresh limes (purchase 1 week after you brew!)

        Brew Date: 15 Jun 2008
        Secondary Date: 22 Jun 2008
        Keg Date: 29 Jun 2008
    • May
    • April
      • Nashville 2600 Hiking Trip
        04/13/08
        Yesterday several of us got together for a great hiking trip at Burgess Falls State Park near Cookeville, TN. The hike is a very easy one - more like a short walk until you get to the main waterfall - and is considered to be one of the most rewarding hikes per step walked because there is so much f

    • February
      • Fun Weekend in February
        02/29/08
        Last weekend we had a fun little outing. We started off at Chick-Fil-A where my son decided that playing in the indoor playground was much more interesting than eating chicken. We did eventually get him to come around and eat something, though.



        Later that afternoon I decided

      • Trunk Monkey
        02/25/08
        I need one of these...

      • It's Alive!
        02/19/08
        (From Jan 12)

        For Christmas I got a kit to convert my beer fridge into a kegerator. This weekend while I had the house to myself I ran to Lowe's for a 2.5" hole saw, got out the power drill and went to it. It didn't take long at all to do - about 1 hour - and looks as goo

      • Batch #9 - Apfelwein Me Dine Me
        02/09/08
        Batch #9 - Apfelwein Me Dine Me

        I decided to give another try to Ed Wort's Apfelwein recipe, but with the correct amount of sugar this time (2 lbs). I did make some other alterations, though, which are the addition of:

        2 tablespoons vanilla extract
        2 tablespoons grou

      • Yay for Free HDTV
        02/04/08
        I've had OTA (over the air) HDTV for a while at my house, but whenever the smallest amount of cloud or rain activity came in I would lose the NBC station. I also had issues with picking up what used to be the UPN station at times. I'd been trying to coordinate with Mirage for months to m

    • January
      • Batch #8 - American Nut Brown Ale
        01/13/08
        Name : Brewer's Best Kit - American Nut Brown Ale
        Recipe:
        6.6 lbs. Plain Amber Malt Extract
        2 Lbs. Plain Amber Dry Malt Extract
        4 oz. Crushed Crystal Malt 60L
        4 oz. Crushed Chocolate
        1 oz. Crushed Black Patent
        1 oz. Willamette Hops (Bittering, 55 min)
        1 o

  • 2007
    • December
      • Mystery Shopping
        12/20/07
        There's one thing that I think everybody can agree on when it comes to strategies for paying off debt - you stop going out to eat.

        I think there's one thing that everybody employing that strategy can agree on - they miss going out to eat.

        So, I started scheming and pl

    • November
      • Batch #7 - Spiced Pumpkin Ale
        11/11/07
        Name : pn0x0bian Pumpkin Ale
        Recipe:
        3.3 lbs. Plain Amber Malt Extract
        2 Lbs. Plain Amber Dry Malt Extract
        8 oz. Crushed Crystal Malt 60L
        1 oz. Willamette Hops (Bittering, 60 min)
        1/2 oz. Willamette Hops (Finishing, 5 min)
        2 Tbsp. Pumpkin Pie Spice
        2.5 Tbsp. I

    • October
      • Batch #6 - Sweet Brown Ale
        10/27/07
        Name : Brewer's Best English Brown Ale
        Boil Time : 60 minutes
        Variation : Added 1 lb. light brown pure cane sugar at the beginning of the boil.

        Brewing Date : October 27, 2007
        Starting Gravity : 1.052
        Final Gravity : 1.011
        Alcohol By Volume : 5.5%
        Keggin

      • Batch #5 - pn0x0bian Pumpkin Ale
        10/04/07
        Name : pn0x0bian Pumpkin Ale
        Recipe:
        3.3 lbs. Plain Amber Malt Extract
        2 Lbs. Plain Amber Dry Malt Extract
        1 lb. Light Brown Cane Sugar
        8 oz. Crushed Crystal Malt 60L
        1 oz. Willamette Hops (Bittering, 60 min)
        1/2 oz. Willamette Hops (Finishing, 5 min)
        2 Tbsp.

    • September
      • The Etymology of Schwag
        09/26/07
        Let's take a look at a couple of words/acronyms, shall we? I'm talking about the difference between SWAG, and Schwag. SWAG stands for "Scientific Wild Assed Guess," but some people also use it as "Stuff We All Get." Both are relevant to the geek community, especially

      • How Dry I Am
        09/13/07
        I've been checking in on my apfelwein carboy about every other day since I got back from vacation, and I hadn't seen a single bubble in the airlock that entire time, so I decided to go ahead and keg it. When I made it, I only had 1.5 lbs. of corn sugar while the recipe calls for 2 lbs., s

      • Robin da Hoods
        09/06/07
        So my wife, son and I have been up in Gatlinburg since Friday. Knowing how horribly busy everything would be during the holiday weekend (Labor Day), we decided that we may as well milk some money and tickets out of the timeshare sales folks. After all, my wife is the master of saying "no"

    • August
      • Sword Master
        08/29/07
        Heroes fans! Check out the following:

        Yamagato Fellowship

        This is a website set up for the charitable organization that Hiro Nakamura's father runs. There's some neat back story on Takezo Kensei that will be relevant to Season 2.

        (oops, corrected the URL)

      • Batch #4
        08/20/07
        Name : Brewer's Best English Brown Ale
        Boil Time : 60 minutes
        Variation : Used White Labs WLP002 yeast instead of the included dry yeast.

        Brewing Date : August 19, 2007
        Secondary Fermentation Date : August 25, 2007
        Starting Gravity : 1.049
        Secondary Fermentat

      • Batch #3
        08/18/07
        Recipe: Ed Wort's Apfelwein
        Variations: Only had about 1.75 pounds of corn sugar, so that's what I used


        Fermentation Date : 18 Aug 2007
        Kegging Date : 12 Sep 2007
        Drinking Date : 18 Oct 2007 (PhreakNIC!)

        I picked up a 6 gallon glass carboy, a han

      • Cider Notation
        08/17/07
        I'm going to go buy a carboy this afternoon and an extra bubbler, along with another batch of English Brown Ale extract. I plan on brewing up another batch of the brown ale this weekend, and to make a batch of Apfelwein in the carboy. It'll take at least a month for the Apfelwein, but th

      • That's no lady, that's my... er...
        08/13/07
        So I gave out some samples of my home brew batch #2 last week and have gotten some of the results back from the independent taste tests.

        Mirage didn't like it, but he's weird, anyway.

        Alan from work emailed me to say that he *really* liked the porter. Oops, it's

    • July
      • World Series of Videogames 2007 - World of Warcraft Arena segment
        07/30/07
        Ok, it still boggles my mind that CBS actually covered this during daylight hours. For those who didn't catch it and are interested, here's the link for the segment that I uploaded to Google Video.

        WoW Arena at WSVG2007

      • Bye Bye Comcrap
        07/29/07
        Yesterday I had DISHnetwork installed at the house, and I think I was close to making the installer's head explode. He had a hard time understanding why I ordered a 4 room setup and put them all in the same room. Let's see if I can explain it well enough - there are two receivers (R1 and

      • Batch #2
        07/27/07
        Name : Brewer's Best English Pale Ale
        Boil Time : 60 minutes
        Variation : Used White Labs WLP002 yeast instead of the included dry yeast.

        Brewing Date : July 15, 2007
        Secondary Fermentation Date : July 23, 2007
        Starting Gravity : 1.032 (Lower than it should be)
      • Batch #1
        07/19/07
        Name : Mr. Beer American Pale Ale (included in Mr. Beer package)
        Boil Time : Mr. Beer is a "no boil" kit
        Variations : Instead of tap water, I used spring water. Instead of table sugar, I used corn sugar. Instead of plastic bottles, I used 5L mini kegs.

        Brew Date : Ju

      • Seeing Red
        07/07/07
        I passed my Tang Soo Do test for 3rd Gup (red belt)!

        Now to go take a nap. They wore me out!

        :HAPPY:

      • And God spake, "Let There Be Beer"
        07/06/07
        So I haven't even finished my first batch of home brew yet - it's still in the fermenting process - and I'm already buying more equipment for home brewing. Yes, I realize that this is a "sparkly shiny" for me, but I'm not quite ADD. I just really like beer, and I enjo

      • Break It Up
        07/06/07
        Only one more day until I test for my red belt (3rd Gup)... last night in class I asked if we could do practice breaks because it had been 17 years since I'd broken a board without it being part of a demolition/construction project. The instructors polled the class and there certainly was int

      • Brewmeister Helper
        07/05/07
        Tuesday my Mr. Beer Home Brewing Kit came in the mail, so obviously I had to go ahead and brew my first ever batch of beer on Tuesday night. While waiting for it to arrive, though, I read and watched as much as I could - from online how-to resources to the Good Eats episode "Amber Waves",

    • June
      • Triumph at the Tony's
        06/15/07
        Triumph the Comic Insult Dog covered the Tony Awards this past Sunday night. You know, those awards for Broadway shows that people outside of New York City haven't ever heard about. It's absolutely hilarious, and I guess technically safe for work, since it aired on the Conan O'Brien

      • Pleased to meet you, Mr. Gore
        06/01/07
        I have been trying to get Al Gore to speak at PhreakNIC for the past several years, and have had conversations with his personal assistant, but could never make it past him. He was either busy with the book tours, or political campaigning, or out of town for a board meeting (since he's a board

    • May
      • Fences Make Good Neighbors
        05/21/07
        This weekend I helped Dad move bulky items from the house by the lake over to the new house. While I was doing that, Mom watched our son and my wife stayed home tending to a batch of home made spaghetti sauce and also got the motivation to tackle the disaster formerly known as our dining room. Now

      • House Sold!
        05/09/07
        So a few years ago my parents declared that they were going to sell their house in Sparta, TN (on Center Hill Lake) and move to Florida "full time". Knowing how infrequently my family actually gets together, I knew this meant that I'd probably see them once or twice a year at that po

      • Driving Lessons
        05/02/07
        I think my wife may have been giving my son driving lessons. This clip definitely reminds me of her. My son is in the black shirt.


      • I Survived!
        05/02/07
        It has been a while since I've posted anything - it has been a tough time at home. My wife had some health issues that became the number one priority for me.

        So, some 6+ weeks after the last time that I attended a Tang Soo Do class, I drove on over to the fitness center last night a

    • April
      • Vegas Was Great - Now I Need a Vacation!
        04/05/07
        I meant to cross post this at the same time, but here's my trip report from Las Vegas last week.

        I had the luck of being sent to Las Vegas for a convention the week of Mar 25-29, so my wife and I decided that I should take a couple of vacation days ahead of the convention and that s

    • March
      • Yay for flexible travel!
        03/22/07
        Well I got up early this morning to head to Vegas and got to my BNA->DFW flight with plenty of time. The flight took off on time and was uneventful - I had an aisle seat and was able to snooze a little bit. I had a 3.5 hour layover scheduled in DFW before moving on to LAS. The flight was delay

      • PHL is teh suck!
        03/19/07
        I had to go to Philadelphia last week for work. I packed on Tuesday night, checked the forecast, and saw a high of 55 F for Friday, so basically just a long sleeved shirt and I should be fine. I get up there on Wednesday afternoon and the weather is perfect. Over 70 F and I'm driving around

    • February
      • The Finish Line
        02/13/07
        Whew! Well it has been about 5 months so far, but as of this week I will be done with the IDCP Facilities Management course at Marist University. What the heck is that, you say? Well, it's pretty much the only certification offered in the industry of data center management. I already have a

    • January
      • UPS is teh slow!
        01/26/07
        I ordered a Bo Staff and some protective gear for Tang Soo Do last week and every day since then I've been tracking the package. For days and days it continued to say, "On time for scheduled delivery on 01/25/2007," which was yesterday. Alas, it did not arrive. Now it says that it

      • Pirate Memories for an Old Friend
        01/19/07
        When I lived in Atlanta (1995-1999) I had formed a lot of friendships through the internet - namely IRC. We hung out in EFNET on #atlanta or #atlantaga, depending on which channel had fallen to the latest skrypt kiddie exploits, as EFNET is so prone to doing. Anyway, I had a good friend who went b

      • Anybody know how to fix a plasma tv?
        01/15/07
        Right before I got married I made one of my last big "bachelor purchases" of a 42" plasma television. It was pretty. Very pretty. For some reason I went against my regular routine and actually bought the extended warranty. Good thing, because 1 year and 10 months later, I started

      • Oops
        01/12/07
        You know the best thing about cheap, yet wonderfully utilitarian parts? They're cheap and you get a lot of use out of them.

        You know the worst thing about cheap, yet wonderfully utilitarian parts? They're cheap and you tend to forget the importance of remembering where you put

      • Happiness is Approaching 1 TB of Storage
        01/08/07
        Machine information
        This machine's load average:

        * 1 Minute: 0.4
        * 5 Minutes: 0.33
        * 15 Minutes: 0.52

        Disk Usage:

        * Directory: mediaroom:/myth/tv
        o MythTV Drive #0
        o Total Space: 439,418 MB

      • Presentation on Practical PKI Online
        01/08/07
        I made some corrections to some problems that I found while giving my presentation on Friday and have posted the file online here.

        :RASPBERRY:

      • Presentation on Public Key Infrastructure - Friday 5 Jan 2007
        01/03/07
        I have decided that we need more technical content during the Nashville 2600 Organization meetings - rather than just the social gathering and the logistical meetings for PhreakNIC. So, in putting my money where my mouth is, I'm starting off with the first one. This Friday I'll be giving

      • Back to the Waking World I Go
        01/03/07
        Yeah, yeah, I know... I haven't bothered to update this in a while, but now that the holidays are over I no longer have an excuse of being too involved in preparations for them.

        I had a great "Craftsman Christmas", if you know what I mean. I loves me some tools from Sears

  • 2006
    • November
      • Happy First Birthday!
        11/28/06


        Last week my son turned one year old, so we had to have a party. I'm pretty sure that the look on his face is similar to a crack head after getting his fix.

        :HAPPY:

      • The Internet is For Business?
        11/15/06
        I'm simply gobsmacked by this notion:

        A confidential analysis of Internet search queries and a random sample of Web pages taken from Google and Micrsoft's giant Internet indexes showed that only about 1 percent of all Web pages contain sexually explicit material.
        San Jose M

      • I Dream'eo of Jeannie
        11/09/06
        My Dream'eo PVP E320 combination portable media player / GPS device arrived today, so of course I had to immediately grab it when I got home and go play with it. My initial review? It cost $199, so it would have to go really wrong for me to say that it sucks. Just like with any device, thoug

      • I Feel Like Nicole Richie
        11/08/06
        Day care. Ah, the wonders of having someone to take care of your child while you go off to earn a living, allowing you to provide the best of things for your family. The joy of knowing that your child will learn vital social skills so that he or she can interact with society in a rational manner.

      • Mack Truck
        11/03/06
        I went to Tang Soo Do class last night and today I feel like I was run over by a Mack truck. We worked a bit on take-downs and some sparring, but did I get matched up with someone else of similar skill? No, I got to spar with the highest ranking instructor in the dojang. Actually, I usually prett

    • October
      • Recovery Complete
        10/27/06
        PhreakNIC 10 was this past weekend and it has taken me most of the week to recover. That's not entirely due to PhreakNIC, as I spent most of what should be "sleep time" this week dealing with a sick baby that wanted the entire house to be awake between the hours of 1AM and 3AM. He&#

      • Beefaroni
        10/24/06
        My son is making his transition from being fed to feeding himself. I'm not sure how much more I can add to this discussion.

      • Richard Tator, if you please
        10/16/06
        I have three more days to go to work this week, then I will be running practically non-stop for another three days. PhreakNIC setup at the hotel will begin on Thursday night and there will be something going on at every hour of the day until we close up early Sunday morning. It's hard to beli

      • Pumpkin Patch
        10/15/06
        This morning my wife and I took our son to the Walden Pumpkin Farm. It's a pretty nice setup - they have corn mazes, hay rides, a little petting zoo area and, of course, lots of pumpkins.



        The thing that surprised me the most was that in this day and age of trying to sque

      • Bo Staffus
        10/11/06
        The Tang Soo Do classes are going really well. I'm now up to going twice a week and if I could ever get to the point of not having so much to do on the weekends I'd probably go on Saturdays, too. Last night the instructor gave me a bit of an honor by having me line up with the green belt

      • Wood + Gasoline = Bonfire
        10/08/06
        Last night was the housewarming party over at SkyDog's and it was a good time indeed. He's got a nice little house with a decent yard (made me jealous) that makes for really good outdoor parties. Inside parties, not so much, just because of the size of the house, but our group seems like

      • Last Meeting Before PhreakNIC
        10/06/06
        Tonight is the last Nashville 2600 meeting before PhreakNIC. It's hard to believe that this is the 5th one that I've run, despite my attempt to bow out earlier in the year.

        Mirage and I went to the printers to pick up the schwag today. Even after having emptied out my truck be

      • Sweat Shop
        10/05/06
        About 7 weeks ago I decided to finally start going to exercise classes. In the past I've joined the gym, gone for about 3 weeks and then stopped; all the while paying the contract out for the rest of the 6 or 12 month term. Fitness clubs loved me because I paid and didn't end up crowding

      • Lunch with Steve Prentice from Gartner
        10/05/06
        One of the perks of working for a large university is that you often times get opportunities that you wouldn't when working for a smaller company. I just finished having lunch with Steve Prentice of the Gartner Group, which to many may not seem like that big of a deal, but the benefit of it wa

      • No, Luke, I am your father!
        10/05/06
        So back in the first part of summmer, my wife asked me to go to the sleep clinic to see if they could do anything about my snoring. The first thing that they ask you when you go to a sleep clinic is, "What kind of problems do you have with your sleep?" My answer to this, of course, is th