Author: Tom Kern

A message….

Not directed at anyone person in particular… mostly… don’t think these messages are for you? Print out this blog post and write in your name, instant personal message from Tom!

Hey ___________ I picked up the new TOOL DVD today… I basically paid $10 for a 8 minute video and a 45 minute documentary. Yet I don’t feel ripped off! You should pick it up or borrow it next time your in my neck of the woods.

Hey ___________ I heard this line and thought of you…. “finally I get to save the earth with deadly lasers instead of deadly slide shows” (al gore)

Hey ___________ They hypnotoad commercials aren’t nearly as good as the hypnotoad show… all hail hypnotoad!

Why only three? Well if you read more often you would know that now wouldn’t you.

Ok just so you don’t feel left out you big baby…

Hey ____________ Catch this movie trailer before it’s taken down from the site it’s posted to!

What was that scar? Situated from afar….

So I upgraded to Leopard the day it came out on my Mac. Yeah I know I’m adventurous I also downgraded to Vista on the same day. In the almost 7 weeks and change I’ve been very happy with Leopard as compared to Vista. I have had one gripe though, the performance is not what I was expecting Leopard has been kind of chunky at times for me. I chalked this up to the fact that I did a upgrade instead of a clean install.

Why on earth did I do that? Simple, every piece of literature I read on upgrading MAC OS X said you could do a straight upgrade and not have to worry about a clean install. I bought it because I had done several upgrades on Linux boxes rather then do straight reinstalls.

So I broke down the other night and popped the Leopard disk in the drive and did a clean install. Holy crap talk about the easiest install I have ever done. 4 clicks of the mouse to get it kicked off. Three more clicks to start the restore process from my Time Machine disk. Total time the old “Aluminum Falcon” was out of commission? One hour forty five minutes. And when I was done everything was back in place and worked just like it had before. Programs, Play lists, Pictures, Passwords in both Safari and Firefox everything worked perfectly!

This joy was tempered by the experince earlier in the week of talking to a vendor support person for a application at work. While we were chatting and waiting for things to happen on the machine at work I mentioned in passing I was thinking of buying a MAC (I do this to gauge how friendly people are to the idea of other operating systems and ideologies other then windows). I got a 10 minute talk on why Windows was better. And honestly most of it was the same crap that I’ve heard for years. Sad and she sounded kind of hot too.

Yes I just completely rejected a woman based on attitude to a Mac.

And just to make sure the universe did right it self at some point Cody and Eve (aka Mr. & Mrs. Content) have pegged my envy meter yet again by a new and redesigned death-by-blog.com blog…

Can’t drill the bottom…

OK so I planned on this post being all about how I got a freezer hooked up a thermo regulator, drilled a few holes and bam! Had a insta kegarator, well my plans got foiled in a few resepects.

I had planned on going through the compressor compartment… which was to tight for a drill bit and I couldn’t gurantee that I wouldn’t hit the compressor and not break something when I broke through. And on top of that how do you explain to lowes the 4 or 5 holes in a freezer when you bring it back?

Exactly….

So for the time being in true do it yourself fashion, I’ve duct taped the thermo lead to the inside of the freezer and put the CO2 tank and keg in there.

When I actually get around to doing holes I will take pictures…

Where I begin to question…

My sanity or the sanity of my coworkers….

This was the first email I opened at work this morning…..

—————————-
From: Nathan
To: Andrea; Brad; Sherpa; Greg; Jim; John; Scott; Tom
CC: Victoria
Subject: I got elfed
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:35:42 -0700

Hey, I just made a total elf of myself. Check it out by clicking the link below.
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1157868405
———————————————

Some days it just doesn’t pay to get a second cup of coffee…

Results of Batch #1 of Obispo Brewery…


Kegging is done and the beer has been under CO2 pressure for 4 days. While it still needs to be under pressure for another 7 days before it’s really done the beer is finally at a point that it’s either going to be good or it’s not.

But before we get to that point I wanted to talk briefly about kegging. The soda keg for the beer is one of the better decisions I made for this entire process. Aside from not having to screw with 48 some odd bottles and caps I also don’t have to screw with a secondary fermentation vessel or additional adjuncts to my beer. As you can see in my picture I’m currently keeping my whole keg setup in a fridge…. this is a less then ideal setup since I lose my fridge for storing food (kind of a issue for me) and the cold humidity is screwing with the regulator… That part is what is causing more pain and misery then anything else right now. So for the weekend I will keep the beer in the fridge but will be purchasing a small freezer and doing some work on it to make it more suitable for beer kegs. More on that once I actually do it.

Now for the part that you have been waiting for… Results of the first beer tasting.

IT’S GOOD!!

The biggest concerns were spoilage because I for got to clean something or something was not quite right…. I’m happy to say that I had no problems in that department and have good beer!

Overall the beer is defintly a ale, a touch hoppier then what I’m used to in Ales, but no where near the level of a traditional IPA. The alcohol content is also a bit on the heavy side as I had a single 16oz serving and was feeling a little to good. A empty stomach may also have had something to do with that. Overall I’m very pleased with the results of this first batch.

In the next series of entries I show I get my fridge back and begin prep for my next batch.

Until next time kiddies.

A trip down analytical lane….

Back when I did this blog on Geocities while using Frontpage I would from time to talk about various stats regarding the blog… As I go back and read those entries I pretty much deride the one or two “dirty mac users” out there and was pleading with them to change operating systems.

My how times change.

I stopped doing that kind of entry because I lacked a tool in blogger to measure traffic. That is until Cody told me about Google analytics. You people have no idea how hard it has been for me to not talk about what and who comes here on a regular basis. Tonight your no longer that lucky.

Ok here is the setup… I’m looking at data for the last 30 days, so basically since I got from vacation to now. I’ve had 256 visits total…. these stats are pulled from those 256 visits.

Top browser OS/Combo — IE/Windows (It should be noted I do not use windows at home… so for all I know this site looks like crap in windows)

Mac accounts for ~16% of all visits with the overwhelmening majority using Firefox

1 person is using Linux… and since it’s only person I’m willing to bet I dialed up this page while looking at something on one of my Linux boxes.

And now for something completely different… I can now see what networks visitors are coming from… The top two are “Frontier Communications of America” and “Cablevision of Kingman” which means my parents and brother have hit this site way more then any else… actually of the 256 hits… 96 are directly from Kingman, seriously get a life. (Average time on site 13 seconds)

#3 is Comcast cable at 35 and when I do a map overlay of who comes from where I see I get 35 hits from Colorado… So Eve and Cody are keeping up with me (Hi Guys!) (Average time on site 6 seconds)

#4 is cox communications with 34 hits…. That is folks down here… average time on site 1 minute 59 seconds… Is their porn posted on this site I don’t know about?

among some of the more interesting network locations that have viewed my site or whatever reason in the last month….
bay area rapid transit district (bart)
hampton inn oklahoma city (I have no clue on this one maybe a GE field engineer?)
state of nebraska / office of the cio (is their something the state of nebraska wants to tell me?)

Ok that’s enough…. next time I do this I will find some othe wierd and unusal facts… in the mean time I’m going to go try and figure out why people are spending minutes at a time on my site.

Many times I’ve wondered how much there is to know…

In France the “Full Time” work week is 32 hours…. that means that the average French man has a 3 day weekend every week.

When one is spolied like that I think they may lose sight of just how great a 3 day weekend truly is. I’m pretty sure that is why we Americans like to pick on the French so much. All I know is I get 3 guranteed 3 day weekends a year. I may take a day off on my birthday and other then that I’m not really one for taking much time off. So when I take a 3 day weekend for no reason other then I worked a Saturday and I’m taking the time that is due me from work it is a glorious weekend indeed.

This weekend has been made all the sweeter by the following items…

1. Super Mario Galaxy; when your old 8 bit friends come back afte a 10 year hiatus…. it’s been a good year for us old school Nintendo gamers; Link, Samus, and now Mario (strangely Luigi is hinted at but is not to be found as of yet)

2. What can only be desctibed as one of the best Saturday’s ever…. 5 gallons of beer in the fermenter, a exceptionally good time at Rula Bula, and perfect weather for both events.

3. The Cardinals hitting 5-5 on the season and the playoffs being more then just a distant dream (hell at this point a winning-ish or .500 season would be good).

Oh yeah a good Nascar race to end the season and Elk for dinner.

Yep our French breatheren may get a 3 day weekend most every weekend, but we americans truly appreciate it.

Obispo Brewery batch #1

First brew is in the Carboy and fermenting… turns out on my dry run I had closer to 4 gallons of water and not the 5 I had estimated to begin with.

All told it was 3.5 hours to from start to finish (finish being the carboy in a water bath).

At this point the only thing I’m worried about is the carboy water bath. The bath has been holding steady at ~78F unless I add ice to the bath then it drops to ~70F which is good. This particular ale doesn’t like to ferment above 80F. The plan for the moment is to let the wort/beer ferment until Monday night and then transfer to a keg. I don’t need to do a secondary fermentation since I’m going to be using a keg to infuse the CO2, however I still do question that particular move.

More on the kegging and CO2 process when I actually do it. Which reminds me I need to find a industrial gas supply company and get my CO2 tank either filled or swapped.

Pictures are up on Flickr… blogspot is to much of a pain in the ass to load pictures.