The journey continues...

Brian Bilbrey July 4, 2011

Garden Ka-boom

First things first: Happy Birthday, USA! * * * Okay, not *really* ka-boom in the Mythbusters C4 sense, but more like the garden is exploding with growth and veg. I took this shot right after harvesting out a bunch of cucumber, and before applying the weekly dose of Neem Oil to discourage bugs and disease. The output of the garden seems like it's going to be prodigious this year. Just look at two days worth of cucumber harvest, plus a couple of zucchini that did not make it into last night's supper: Now I've got more chores to do, and…

Brian Bilbrey July 3, 2011

In the style of Jepoardy

It is pumped from the ocean bottoms to the top of the spill mountains. * * * Zidane is dead. Today we (and by we I mean Greg) has finally had the plug pulled on the third (or second) iteration of a box that we (and by we, I mean both of us) hosted assorted sites for us and friends and associates. The take barely paid for the box, but overall it was both a worthy and worthwhile endeavor. I know I became a better system administrator through working on the system, and got a fair taste of the joys…

Brian Bilbrey July 1, 2011

Wild and Crazy Guy

Some of you may remember the Festrunk brothers, from the gilded age of Saturday Night Live. This is not my life. I've just spend my Friday evening leading into a three day weekend on What-If analysis and Pivot Tables in Excel. While I'm studying, Lexi spends a lot of time either watching the world or sleeping on the ottoman/storage bench I made for Lucy a few years back. But every once in a while I turn my head to find her sitting up and staring into a relatively blank corner of my office. I sure hope she doesn't see dead…

Brian Bilbrey June 30, 2011

Prior Art on Censorship

/. pointed me at Google Patents Censorship Of ‘Annoying’ Content I point at my email killfile as Prior Art. I point at my BIND configuration that has doubleclick and other fine purveyors of flickering content resolve to 127.0.0.1 as Prior Art. I can block annoying content. Blocking annoying content "with a computer" isn't patent-worthy, IMO.

Brian Bilbrey June 28, 2011

More bonanza from the back yard

Hey! We just got 6/100" of rain! It's been bloody dry around here - the only green grass is near the flower and garden beds. Isn't that a nice-looking bowl of potatoes? I sliced up one of those, a zucchini, some garlic, and a pepper out of the garden, sautéed all of that in olive oil, and called it supper. Yum! I also have already roasted a pound of some Kenyan coffee beans this evening. The roaster lives in a vent hood I built that exhausts out the basement window. The exhaust is mobile; It doesn't stay in the window.