Dear QSchroe,

Remember when you used to blog?  I do. Those were good days.  Good days.

More later.  Love,
Nate

PS – That goes for you, too, JMS107!  (And you’ve got a few more weeks before I get serious, but watch it, Pinolera…)

Justin and I got back today from a whirlwind trip to Chicago – left early Thursday morning to the Grandparent’s house, hung out for a bit with them and my parents, and then headed to Laurel’s show.  It was awesome to see her on stage again, one of the last things I can remember seeing her in was Stop Kiss back at Bas Bleu in Colorado.  Stop Kiss is such a different show it’s hard to compare the two, but it really seems like she’s taken a big step with her acting in terms of being more real in the moment on stage — not that she wasn’t before!  Just that it’s one thing I think I notice is better now.  A really fun show overall, I think everyone had a good time.

Friday I slept in a bit, ate Grandpa’s waffles for breakfast, then we all sort of puttered around the house getting yardwork done – mowing, window washing, and trying to get Grandpa’s old car running.  I know Rick took pictures so I hope he writes that up, it was fun to get to play with an engine that’s about as straightforward as it gets.

That night after dinner I went to meet up with the Chicago boys and Laurel, it was good to see everyone even if just for a night.  Noah, if you’re brave enough to click that picture, is ironing a crease in his pants — while wearing them.  I believe he put a book in there first to help shield the heat, and Rick V.T. was kind enough to offer the tip of waiting for the zipper to cool before removing the book.  Ah, I miss those boys…  :)

Justin and I left at 5 this morning to get him back for a noon meeting.  Whew.  It was fun driving with him, some good time to chat, but man am I tired!

Dear beer lovers everywhere,

I write to you today with almost unbearably bad news: the much beloved Kegenator (V1.0) is in distress.  It is unable to keep its precious cargo of beer at a deliciously cool temperature, and isn’t showing any signs of improving.  In fact, only about one quarter of the previous cooling area seems to be working at all.  I’ve made inquiry online as to its prognosis, but honestly I have a bad feeling about this…

The question I put before you today is this: should I scour Craigslist for a cheap replacement and face this same disappointment in a few years time?  Or should I buy a new, modern, and highly efficient replacement?  It already seems unlikely I’ll be able to match the dimensions exactly, which means constructing a new collar…

Wah,
Nate

Even if I had been able to call up the weatherman and order a perfect day to kick off the grilling season I don’t know if I could have done better than yesterday.  Just gorgeous, it was reading 73 degrees when we went out back to light the charcoal.

After last year‘s Hawaiian cake, this year Karen returned to her natural instincts: chocolate, and a lot of it.    She made a triple layer chocolate stout cake using my homebrewed bourbon oak barrel Imperial Stout…  and it was Truly.  A.  Mazing.  You can see me flexing to hold the thing up.

I also found a recipe for wild rice veggie burgers, which ended up being a big hit.  I need to refine my technique for grilling them, I had to pre-cook them a bit indoors so they would stay intact, but I think there might be a better way.  We also used some natural lump charcoal last night which I’m still getting used to — it burns hotter and faster and is much more responsive to airflow.  But less carcinogens!  I also want one of those chimney things to help light them, I don’t want to keep using lighter fluid…

After eating and drinking for a while, I busted open a sweet present from Scott and Shannon.  The pictures speak for themselves — you’ll notice we’re both out of nerf darts in our guns but still desperately pulling the trigger.  (And safety glasses on tight, natch).

Lastly, I got some Stranahan’s — and can happily report it’s as awesome as I hoped!  And for a grand finale, Karen got the siblings to go in on a long-overdue pint club membership at Town Hall!!!  That means $1 off every beer I buy there, and free drinks from 4-5 on Saturday!!!  Say goodbye to Saturday afternoons, my friends…  Nate’s going to Town Hall (with Karen – she got one too).  Yay!

Like an enormous python, I’m still digesting the cake I ate last night… Yum.  Happy birthday to me!

The conference is almost over, and I’m beat.  I’ve been blogging almost every session I’ve attended, which is fun but sometimes too much…  Hopefully a good record for us to look at after we’re back and go into a bit more depth on the interesting parts.  The laptap has been awesome.  :)

But it hasn’t all been work!  On Wednesday I took the afternoon to go to a local brewpub where I made best friends with the brewer and got hooked up with samples of a ton of their excellent beers.  My favorite was a blend of three beers – a robust porter that had been aged in bourbon barrels, a Belgian strong golden ale, and a brown ale for body.  The porter had been put on 50 pounds of raspberries and inoculated with Brettomyces, a wild Belgian yeast strain that gives a delicious sour funk, and the mix of these three together was simple amazing.  Yum.

Friday night there was a conference reception at the Exploratorium, officially my favorite place in the world.  I do love our local science museum, but this one is housed in an enormous warehouse built for a turn of the century World’s Fair — right next to these incredible columns at left.  The science exhibitions were extremely well done, engaging, and threated to take up my whole evening.  That’s me in some infrared trail room on the right.

Today I’ve been attending more session, blogging more, and then tonight we have one more reception before I leave bright and early.  Whew.  Looking forward to coming home.

Hello from San Francisco!  I’m out here for a conference, and so far so good – we had ouu workshop this morning and it went really well.  Ended up running out of time — 3.5 hours always sounds like so much so we pad things out, but last year I think we ran out too.  Which sucks for the last guy (not me ;) ’cause he had some great material that we sort of had to skip over.  Ah well.

Wrote the next bit earlier but am posting it here:

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I’m writing this while in-flight on my way to Museums and the Web 2007 in San Francisco. Jealous much??

Last Wednesday I got my first (ever!) laptop, a Darter from System76. They’re a pretty sweet company selling preinstalled Linux machines – Ubuntu, in this case. I’m still tweaking the settings to get it the way I want it and getting used to all the little differences – I work with Linux all the time at work, but really only from a remote command line. This is my first Linux desktop, and I gotta say I love it. The desktop (Gnome) is awesome, I’m still adjusting to the file browser, and the sheer number of FREE apps available is just awesome. And it’s way, way better than Windows, or even OSX.

The next real question is battery life – I’ve got the LCD brightness cranked waaaay down right now and it’s still usable, and that seems to really help the power usage. Looks like I’m averaging about 14 watts at the moment with other 2 hours left. Sweet. Maybe watch a movie on the next leg of the flight.

Like I said, jealous much?

Turns out — predictably — that the energy conserving plan to expand daylight saving time has fallen flat: power companies are reporting no measurable change in consumption.  It seems tempting to chalk this up to a "good try", but all signs point to congress knowing it wouldn’t conserve energy — Australia had tried a similar scheme and got no results — but passing it anyway for economic reasons.  Apparently sporting goods stores and convenience stores both benefit from lighter evenings, and via wikipedia I read "both Idaho senators voted to extend DST on the basis of fast-food restaurants selling more French fries made from Idaho potatoes."  Hmm.

Not only that, but personally this has been a big hassle for me: I had to hand patch all our servers at work so their internal clocks would get the correct time.  And I’m just one guy with a few servers – the total estimated cost of the change is $500 million up to $1 billion!!

Wow.  Way to save the daylight, guys.  There’s an energy crisis, look busy!

Dusted off the trusty bike last week for commuting to work – caught one warm day and then a chilly one, and today was back on its way down to chilly.  At least the rain stopped for the morning, and hopefully will stay away for the return ride.  I’ve been trying to work out my cold weather outfits so they are layered in a way I can easily remove layers while biking – I hate stopping.  So far it’s been mixed, but I’ll keep trying things.  It’s crazy how much heat you generate once you’re going, but also how cold the exposed parts can get…

We’re supposed to have a high of 32F on Wednesday.  Whoa.  If I’d biked all winter like I said I was going to, that wouldn’t be so bad, but since I didn’t it sounds pretty darn cold.  I’ll post an update then to let everyone know.

In other news, I really, really miss my family right now.  I wish I could have been out there this weekend.  Love you all…