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What I’m Up To

It’s been crazy busy lately, getting used to the new job (I’m a Case Manager), getting the harvest in, and cleaning up the house a little. Bit by bit this place is becoming the place I want to live forever. We’ll get there yet.

Tonight I’m going to the Jackalope to see my brother in law Layne play drums with Brett Estep . If you’re not doing anything else, come check it out.

In the meantime, check out the wicked feature I just added; a box in the sidebar that tells you what music I’m listening to on iTunes. Now, even when I’m neglecting the blog in terms of posting items, you can at least see what I’m up to musically. Disclaimer; there is no accounting for taste.

This is my second try,…

This is my second try, I’m trying to come up with the right word here, phoning in the blog post with the jott system. It’s an interesting system, I make a phone call and what I say into the phone presumably, becomes a post on the blog. Right now I’m walking towards the bus on a beautiful Friday afternoon in Eugene(?), 85 degrees out, the Olympic trials are just beginning around town and there are people from all over the country who are ….. just getting settled. In all, it’s a lovely day.listen

Powered by Jott

I’m now testing the…

I’m now testing the Jott system, by which I blog by voice. listen

Powered by Jott

Go Forth and Vote!

To All,
Erin Ely’s “YEAR ROUND HOME FOR THE LANE COUNTY FARMERS MARKET”
idea at IdeaBlob is behind by a hundred votes! Thanks to you who have already voted. But if you haven’t voted, we need you. The competition will go down to
the wire and you still have until Midnight Saturday to vote.

One important thing to remember. You must register at
http://www.ideablob.com first. But you can’t vote until you receive
email confirmation of your registration. And that can come in two
minutes-or sometimes in two days!!! So register now and be patient.
When you get the email, vote-but not before you receive that
confirmation. Many thanks. You will be repaid by access to great
fresh produce from local farmers.

PS. It’s fun to check the tallies every morning at http://www.ideablob.com
.
PSS. Please pass this on. We are right on the cusp

$$Funding for Farmers’ Market Envisioning and Design Process
Erin ’s idea is titled: Year Round Home for the Lane County Farmers Market.
That’s the idea to vote for. (click on the above and vote now!)

Greetings to all who are interested in seeing Lane County Farmers
have a year round indoor-outdoor market in Eugene. The year-round
farmers market has been in and out of popular discussion for several
years now, but has
lacked focus and sustained energy. The Willamette Farm and Food
Coalition has decided to host a series of facilitated discussions to
move the conversation forward with the purpose of drafting designs
and creating a business plan.
The Lane County Farmers’ Market is happy to have the Willamette Farm
and Food Coalition taking the lead and plans to participate in the discussions.

Local citizen activist Erin Ely is trying to help us with our effort
by using the Internet. Advanta Corporation sponsors an online “idea”
competition at their www.ideablob.com website. The best idea of the
month, determined by the votes of website visitors, wins $10,000.
Erin Ely entered this competition two months ago with the idea for a
permanent Farmers’ Market for Eugene. She lost the contest by a mere
20 votes! She’s entered again and is now in the finals!!!

If Erin wins, she will donate the $10,000 to Willamette Farm and Food
Coalition to facilitate public discussion of farmers’ market options,
and to draft a preliminary presentation of 2 or 3 designs as well as
a business plan. So we want you to help us help her win!

Apple Care Update

They sent me a replacement part, free of charge, because the machine was under Apple Care. The guy said that while this problem happens for a lot of people, the Apple engineers insist that it isn’t a design flaw. He said “it’s just part of the physics of having two wires in such close proximity.”

Okay, I’m glad they replaced the part (and would have been furious if they’d refused) but come on. A properly engineered power cord has enough insulation to keep the wires from rubbing together under normal usage conditions.

The service guy said that they will replace one or two for people.

Apple Care

I usually try not to use this web journal as a place for random gripes about things that bug me, but this is too much.

I called Apple Care with a service issue about my computer, namely that the power adapter basically almost caught itself on fire the other day. The cord seems to have gotten a short and blown out, causing a nasty electrical smoke to come out and stink up my living room.

The computer is under an Apple Care warranty, so it should be no problem to get it fixed. I set myself a time when I knew I had almost an hour to spare (having called Apple Care before and gotten stuck on hold for an insanely long time). And lo, here it went again. I spent almost 15 minutes holding for the noob* tech support guy. I talked to him for less than 5 minutes, and he put me back on hold for the l33t* tech support guy*. At the moment, I have been holding for another 20 minutes and expect to hold for another ten at least.

This, mind you, is to get Apple to replace the power adapter that almost set my house on fire. Something is not right here.

But there is also an object lesson in balance between the extremes of ideology to be learned here which is why I filed this post under politics and government.

Apple computers ‘just work’. This is because Apple are fascists and keep their technology to themselves. It means that everything is seamlessly integrated. It also, unfortunately, means that when there is a problem like the one I’m having (a known issue for Macbooks, by the way) you have no choice but to deal with Apple on their terms to get the problem fixed.

On the other hand, Microsoft is populist (at least in terms of hardware). Their products are shoddy, they don’t work, but someone with a little bit of knowledge can hack the crap out of them and Windows would run on a toaster oven if it had a CPU.

To complete the political metaphor, Linux is made by anarchists. This statement is not entirely metaphorical.

This is just like in the real world. Fascists are the best at ‘making the trains run on time’. But they’re a pain to deal with.

Anyway, at 47 minutes from my initial call I’m about to get off the phone so I’ll leave you with that thought.

*For the less geeky among us, these are geek jokes. Noob is someone who is new and inexperienced. L33t (also spelled 1337 and other variations) is pronounced LEET and is a shortened version of elite. These are mostly used by hard corps video game enthusiasts, of which I want to make clear, I am not one.

Homebrew terms

Looking back at the last few posts, I notice that I’ve thrown around a lot of brewing terms that I’ve picked up without providing much background. Here is a good glossary of home brew terms.

Also, I thought a basic “what is beer made of” might be appropriate, if I’m going to start babbling about beer. So here’s the scoop:

Beer is what happens when yeast are released into a solution of Malt, Hops, and Water. What are these things, and what do they do, you might ask. And I’m glad you did, because I’m going to tell you.

Maltose is sugar that has been converted from the starch in grain. This conversion process is called “malting” or “mashing”. When making beer, malted barley is the most commonly used grain.

Hops are a vine plant that produces a highly aromatic, bitter green flower that looks kind of like a fir cone. These things are what give beer it’s bitter, beery flavor.

Water is a medium for everything to come together and do its stuff.

Most beginner homebrewers, including my self, use malt extract instead of mashing all the grain at home. Mashing is an elaborate process that requires multiple five gallon vessels, including one with lots of tiny holes in the bottom, and a good way to boil five gallons of liquid (want a fun afternoon? try to boil five gallons of liquid on your electric stove. It won’t happen).

Rather than go through this, we use malt extract which comes either as a power or a syrup. Our beer doesn’t taste as ‘authentic’ as all-grain brews, but it’s a lot less time consuming and complex to make.

So, the malt and the hops and the water all go into a kettle with a few gallons of nice, pure water. Then we boil the crap out of it for an hour or so. Once it’s boiled, we cool it and put it into a giant glass bottle called a carboy. We add yeast and let it do its thing for a week or so. The yeast eat the sugars in the malt, and crap out good old alcohol and carbon dioxide. At the top of the carboy is a device that lets the CO2 out without letting air and bacteria in. At the end, there is ale.

Of course, this is the simple, simple, simple version. I’m learning more and more every day about the many pitfalls and joys of home-brewing.

The Nasty Elf is in bottles on the counter waiting for labels. It will bottle condition for around a month before it’s good to drink. The first week of that time is when the yeast will eat some fermentable sugar that we added before bottling the beer. The carbon dioxide that is released won’t have anywhere to go, since the bottles are sealed up, and it will dissolve into the beer. This is carbonation. The next three weeks it will age and improve in flavor. Then we will refrigerate and drink the little suckers. I can hardly wait.

Nasty Elf

This is the label for the “Nasty Elf Ale”. It’s going into bottles tomorrow. From the flat warm sample I tried this afternoon when taking the gravity reading, I think it’ll be delicious.

Hypervelocity Rod Bundles (Rods from God)

Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen. From the Arms Control Today website;

“The Air Force has considered using weapons for prompt global force projection through space, such as the common aero vehicle and Hypervelocity Rod Bundles (often termed “rods from God”).[7] Such space-based global strike capability would allow the United States to target and strike any point on earth in less than 90 minutes with complete surprise and provide the capability for flexible strikes for different types of targets, such as hard and deeply buried targets or mobile targets.”

The English version is this; the military is spending on the order of Millions of dollars on a project to hang the equivalent of a very pointy Mack Truck from a satellite, and then drop it onto any point on the globe. By the time it hits the ground, it’s going so fast it penetrates to some inane depth. One minute, you’re minding your own business drinking tea. The next minute, there’s a massive hunk of metal hurtling through the ceiling. The ultimate slapstick, only at the end all that’s left of Laural and Hardy is a very flat stain. Compare this to, for example, the money we spend on needle exchange programs. Or head start. Or food stamps.

God [b]less America.

Existential Crisis Averted (I Think)

If you look back a few posts you will see a long winded, self obsessed rant about an existential crisis that I have been working through this term. I’m pretty sure that this is a standard crisis for people who are leaving the safe, theoretical environment of a University and wanting to make a positive difference in the dangerous, practical real world. I think I’ve pretty much worked things out for myself in the short term. If I can take work that lets me make society slightly better every day, I think that will do for now. At least I’m not throwing my energy into something that makes life worse, and people are really suffering now. The problem with changing the system in fundamental ways is that it’s a crap-shoot, and there are all manner of completely unpredictable consequences that you have to take into account. So, I think I’m coming down on the side of incrementalism, doing little things to make the whole slightly better in controllable ways rather than radical things to make the whole as close to ideal as possible all at once but with the possibility of unforeseen consequences blowing up in your face and making things worse in the long run. Maybe I’ll change my mind again one day, and I’m still in favor of some pretty sweeping changes to the way we do politics. What’s changed is that I can feel good in a job that isn’t directly aimed at radical change (which is good, because there aren’t a lot of those jobs out there). I can feel good in a job that makes a few people feel better and takes small steps toward a better world.

Am I a total sellout?