May 2nd, 2010
Today we planted several things in the two raised bed. Yesterday, I added about 6.6 and 13.2 Cu Ft of cottonburs and 3 and 6 Cu Ft of composted cow manure to two raised beds and hoed up all the lamb’s quarters. The list of plantings is below.
Larger Raised Bed
~4 Petunias
2 Celosia
Small Raised Bed
1 clump of chives
~3 Petunias
2 Celosia
1 set of yellow granex onion
1 set of southern belle purple onion
We plan to put tomatoes and herbs in the smaller bed and beans in the larger bed. That still leaves various flowers, tomatillosm potatoes, shallots, scallions, etc. The raised hill will grow the squash; scallops(small bush) and zucchini type (yellow and green).
The drip lines to all three beds under the bedroom window have been laid out and adjusted. The two ground beds need to be setup.
One peach tree (larger) made it through the frost and is heavily loaded.
3 Black Simpson Seeded lettuce volunteered on their own around the yard and we are watering them a little to acclimatize and hopefully have more lettuce with no effort.
The parsley is taking over the ground beds and needs to be cut back heavily. Also rosemary, marjoram, and sage seem to survive the winters for a couple of years in a row and are continuing to grow around the yard.
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October 12th, 2009
Saturday was challenging. We took advantage of the cold to climb in the attic and run a whole bunch of Ethernet. My roof is really low. The high point is about 5ft and I’m 6ft. I’m really sore. In two hours, we ran 7 cables. The new computer room (closet) needs at least a wire for Internet. I took the opportunity to add a lot more wires. A wire to the kitchen for that AppleTV, which is on the other side of the living room. Two for one.
There were a few discoveries. Like the box of Ethernet cable I left up there from last time, plus wire cutter and a drill. We used up that 500ft box and another 50ft of additional cable. I drilled one hole for the computer to discover that the boards were 6-8″ thick. When we went to run the Kitchen cable there was already a hole drilled. That really saved a lot of energy at the end. It would have been difficult with all the air vents and chimney.
All the major locations have a run to the attic hole. Some locations have other runs. Like between the old and new computer rooms and the new computer room and the kitchen. Though that last one was a mistake. Measure before you cut. The attic hole is close to the house phone line, before it splits. I’m very excited to cut it and rewire the house phones through a DSL filter and put the DSL router closer to the telephone box. So, all the runs to the attic are for getting Internet from one spot. I’ll drop a battery backup up there and run the DSL router, wired Router/Firewall, and Pogoplug off it. I’m really excited at the prospect of faster Internet by cutting out all the interference from the house telephone wiring.
The wall wired Ethernet should make it easier to plug in most anything. At this point, the house is basically networked. Yay.
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October 9th, 2009
It can be challenging to find cover art for DVDs. Three sites seem to get just about everything for me.
Cdcovers.cc – Contains fan scanned DVD covers. Many are non-english and non-US and in a wide variety of resolutions.
Amazon.com – has small images and some have this zoom feature that makes them unobtainable and Flash-y.
Netflix – seems to have everything, but only in tiny 5 kb files. Last resort.
Just right click the image and save it. Don’t forget to crop it. Backsides from CDCovers and white edging from Amazon.com are annoying and unnecessary. Macs make this exceedingly easy with Preview.
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September 28th, 2009
So, Apple dropped the 40 gig AppleTV and dropped the price of the 160 gig version to that price a few weeks ago. It seems they waited till all the new 40’s had sold and there was nothing to put on clearance. I couldn’t resist picking up a refurb’ed 40 gig for $150. Of course, the plan is to put it in Dalton’s room or the living room. For now, I’ll take it to Jennifer’s house. You need an iTunes server to hold all the video for an AppleTV, which works great with fact that the old G4 Cube has been replaced by the nVidia Mini. Thanks to SuperSync for copying the iTunes library + meta data into the Mini.
The Cube by itself doesn’t have enough storage for the songs plus videos. That’s were the Drobo upgrades come in. Two new 1.5Ts in the big box put two 640gigs in the small box and two 500gigs came out without a home. These two can go in an external box and hold more than enough iTunes library to the Cube for the little AppleTV.
That means that videos aren’t limited to being played at my house. We can watch anything at Jennifer’s too. And it provides an offsite backup. Yay
It seems like my computers have sought to colonize every room in the house and to temporarily “go abroad”.
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September 28th, 2009
So, we moved a couple of cats Sunday. Dora had two kittens some time ago and the plan was to move all three. Daisy and Dora moved, but Bella never came into the house.
It makes me sad to remember raising Tiger, Dora, and Goldie. Only Tiger is left. Goldie ran away in March. Dora became quite wild while Tiger became docile. It seemed that we weren’t going to domesticate her or her kittens. Taking the to the pound seemed very cruel. However, as wild cats they knew how to catch food be afraid of people. It seemed better to take them out to a known cat colony in the country where they would at least have a chance. Hopefully Bella can be caught next weekend and moved.
I loved little Dora. Wish I could have saved her.
Tiger is a furry ball of purring love. He’s good with a few people and seems to get better all the time.
Mitten, my mom’s cat, still chases him and tries to rule the roost.
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September 28th, 2009
Of course, you know I would have to make a blog for anything significant. The wedding blog is at http://stephensite.net/thewedding/
Posted in Computers, Links, Technology | No Comments »
September 21st, 2009
I keep track of a number of things on the blog; Macs and storage space for example. And I was rather surprised to note that my capacity is doubled from last year; 3T to 6T. Most of it is on 2 RAID5 Drobos. Seems like a lot in one year. It’s also interesting the the largest drive capacity they sell has also double in that time form 1T to 2T.
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September 9th, 2009
iTunes 9 looks exciting for a couple of reasons. One is the ability to share libraries across computers. This has become a major annoyance, because I have a few computers to act as servers and the current iTunes views other computers’ libraries as if all the content were songs in one long list. The other day we played an episode of a TV show and after it finished the next “track” played and we got random music. This was really a silly constraint. Other computers now show the nice clean delineated Movies, Music, TV, etc. that see on every iTunes. Maybe this signals something about the AppleTV. Certainly, adds to a shared media server type home environment. I wish the really big, old, G4 file server, which runs 10.3 could run this version. But maybe it can.
The other interesting item is the expanded Genius functionality. Not sure how well it will work, but it seems they have acquired a massive amount of data on people’s songs (54 billion).
Some stuff is kind of dumb. The LP functionality. Really? I’m supposed to want text and graphics that record labels stopped making 25+ years ago when we moved to tape. Uh, yeah, I’ve so been missing album covers and I would never have thought of going to the internet to look for that kind of stuff, because I’m so stupid.
And the sync by genre and artist functionality. What the? I thought Apple got it with the Genius feature. Show me music I like. Who cares who wrote it, sung it, or how it was arbitrarily classified. Most of my songs are ripped from a Windows machine anyway. There is no genre info on a lot of them and many are just wrong. Sync by playlist was fine. The rest just adds more complexity.
Posted in Computers, Rambling | No Comments »
September 3rd, 2009
We’re looking for a web based calendar program that would integrate with Outlook, Apple iCal, iPhone, and iPod Touch. These links make it seem like Google Calendar would work well.
http://lifehacker.com/5048189/five-best-calendar-applications
http://lifehacker.com/399407/how-to-sync-any-desktop-calendar-with-google-calendar
Posted in Computers, Links, Technology | 1 Comment »
September 3rd, 2009
LLano Winery from Lubbock makes a good one of this. Not an everyday wine, but a good, different white wine.
From Professional Friends of Wine
Gewürztraminer is one of the most pungent wine varietals, easy for even the beginning taster to recognize by its heady, aromatic scent. While the French have achieved the greatest success with this grape and its name may be German, the history of Gewürztraminer began in Italy’s Tyrollean Alps, near the village of Termeno (Tramin) in Alto Adige.
…
Like pinot noir, however, traminer vines do have a propensity to mutate. One of these mutations, a few centuries ago, resulted in a vine that produces dark pinkish-brown, spotted berries and makes very distinctive and heady wine.
…
While the gewürztraminer vine is prized for its wine, it can be despised for its viticultural difficulty. It buds early in the Spring, so it is particularly susceptible to damage from frost. Gewürztraminer also has weak defenses against viral vine infections. Even healthy vines are not very productive, with small clusters, so there is a great temptation for growers to over-crop, which results in dilute, lightweight wine.
The berries, with their thick and tough skins, can attain high sugar levels of amazing concentration. Alcohol levels, therefore, can get quite high in dry versions. Conversely, low acidity and high pH in Gewürztraminer are problematic. Close monitoring and precise harvest timing are critical. Early picking retains acid, but without long “hang time” distinctive varietal character fails to develop. Pleasant results are nearly impossible in warm climates.
…
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August 27th, 2009
It is damn frustrating to use the code below to get to the label name of a specific Universe object. It just loops over and over again looking for a specific object id in a specific class. The object id is unique across all classes. So, the class part is redundant. There is inexplicably no function to obtain the object by giving the unique id. So, we loop and hope the desired object id is near the top.
Set oDesignerClass = m_oUniverse.Classes.FindClass(sClassName)
For nIndex = 1 To oDesignerClass.Objects.Count
Set oDesignerObject = oDesignerClass.Objects(nIndex)
If oDesignerObject.id = nBIObjectID Then
sLabel = m_oUniverse.Classes.FindClass(sClassName).Objects.Item(nIndex).Name
Exit For
End If
Next
When we know everything about the object that we want and could just get it with one line of code that doesn’t need to execute uselessly and repeatedly.
m_oUniverse.Classes.FindClass(sClassName).Objects.(Name).Name = sLabel
Or better yet, by ObjectID (SHOCK!!! I know)
m_oUniverse.(nBIObjectID).Name = sLabel
If someone knows who the idiots are that thought this was a good idea let me know their address. I would have no problems sending the team a book from Amazon on the binary search algorithm were learned in Computer Science 101.
Posted in My Story, Programming, Rambling | No Comments »
August 27th, 2009
I’m very excited about the changes to the computers in the house recently. The wires are moving off the floor and computers are going in and out of the computer room.
One Mac Mini was moved into the bedroom to make video files from TiVo and VCR tapes. It’s a new one and unfortunately they only work with digital TVs (none of mine) and I had to resort to dragging in a computer monitor to put on the floor. This really bugs me. Now though, I have run coax cable from the bedroom to the kitchen and computer room and move the computer. The new Mac OS 10.6 should arrive on Friday and this little gem is the only box to get the upgrade. It’s been working great at transcode DVDs to AppleTV and iPhone formats. The VCRs can move with the Mac Mini too. Clears up a lot of clutter.
The cable used to run along the floor and stop in the guest bathroom. Now it goes through the walls and runs down the hallway (still visible) to the kitchen TV. We’ve been using the AppleTV a lot and it only spits out digital, which is very expensive to move around the house. VCR, DVD, and TV all work fine over the coax. The new wire cleans up the signal a lot and we want AppleTV in the kitchen without spending $200 to do it.
So, I checked an older Mac Mini that I wasn’t sure of, one that can output analog composite video, and discovered that it works fine. Better than fine since it can play on any of my TVs. With the proper cable that is. Which will come in on Friday too. This Mini was 10.4 and is upgraded to 10.5. It’s flakiness came from a possible botched upgrade from 512 meg to 2 gig. Seems like the upgrade was successful. This little gem will go in the kitchen TV. I need to run an Ethernet wire to this spot, but the wireless is ok.
Running the wires along the wall is annoying, but the attic is just too hot, cramped, and awful it’s worth it. The drop in the kitchen works for both the kitchen and living room. That’s very handy. This wires most of the house; kitchen, living room, master bedroom, and one bedroom (computer room). Though I still need coax and Ethernet to the bathrooms and a bedroom. And the “server closet” in one bedroom might need to move to the garage or hall closet.
I’m really hoping for new Macs in September or October. Not so much to get a new one, but to get a current one on clearance for $200-400 less. Maybe, a 24″ with 4 gig and a dedicated video card. The Minis are fine and I love my overheating upgraded Cube, but I would really would like to have transcoding take 1/3 of the time and to have at least one powerful machine. For a long time I wanted a Mac tower, but I just don’t have enough work to make up the $2200+ price tag. This box would replace the Cube as the desktop machine and I could use it as a spare web browser. It will output S Video to a TV, a very handy ability.
A little separate note on cutting off the cable..
The antenna works well and money spent on cable has gone to buying cheap movies and TV series at Walmart. The AppleTV has been a gem, but only because we rip the DVDs we buy and transcode them for it. All the shows are in one enormous list. Purchasing though Apple is ok, but they have not obtained new episodes and shows for everything and rental fees and terms are outrageous compared to Hastings, and downloads take hours or days through standard DSL. There are cheaper boxes that do the same thing, but without iTunes, and I would have chosen one of those if I were doing this again. The Mini going in the kitchen is saving transcoding time and space and $200+ worth of hardware. It’s outrageous how expensive it is to push a component video signal 50′ vs coax.
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August 15th, 2009
These are the links to the tiny versions of the vacation photos with movie files.
Thursday
Friday
Swim with the Dolphins
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Canopy Tour
Tuesday
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August 15th, 2009
We set out Thursday morning with passports in hand and bags full of 6 days worth of clothes headed to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Jennifer found a really great deal for an a package that included flight, hotel, and food for 6 days and 5 nights. It was in the off season or rather the rainy season. When the weather is nearly 100F and the humidity seems somehow to reach beyond 100%.
This was to be the first airplane flight for her son, Dalton, a very large nearly 13 year old boy. The plan was to fly down and then book 3-4 tour items like dolphins, a show, snorkeling, etc. Neither of us had been to PV before and all that we knew was from Jennifer’s two previous Mexican trips and the internet. The hotel looked workable, though a bit far from the airport on the south side of the bay, where PV is in the center. It was in a little town, Mismaloya on the Mismaloya river right on the beach. Two months ago we had applied for passports when booked the tickets and the whole thing seemed a lot more academic. Now passports in hand, we got ready to leave the country.
The flight was routine down to Houston Intercontinental and to Mexico. As soon as we landed in PV the plane was warm and going through the entrance proceeds was muggy. The air pressure is sea level combined with heat and humidity it was like a persistent pressure on everything; skin, lungs, chest, face,.. Within minutes we were sweating or rather dripping. Everything drips in PV often for no apparent reason. Maybe you can point to condensation as the cause sometimes.
Entry was a bit of a joke. The passport checking official looked bored and sleepy repeatedly writing, scanning, and tearing bits of paper. Once our luggage was restored to use it was X-Rayed again in Mexico for illegal substances. Then, unbeknownst to us we were through. There is a significant lack of signage at the small PV airport, which has a larger terminal than Amarillo, but a much smaller airstrip.
Going through the foreign airport in a throng of people from the 737 we came upon this big room with desk along each side featuring tropical floral pictures and men with standard airport security badges around their neck. A man in the middle of the floor called out hotel names and directed people to various counter, which oddly did not have any names as you might expect of say rental car companies sharing counter space; Avis, National, Hertz.
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