well, i finally upgraded my home server (shaken). it used to be an old Sun Fire V120 with a 650 Mhz UltraSparc IIe processor. now it's a tyan S2865 dual core 2.6 Ghz opteron system. man, does this baby scream. it was a PITA to move all my existing services over to a new server, but it's nice to finally have a fast and responsive system. it's also nice because i designed the new system to be extra quiet. the old v120 used to put out about 60 dBA, which means that you didn't ever want to be in the same room as the system. i designed the new server to be as quiet as possible and i think it worked out pretty well since when i started it up i couldn't hear it over the noise from the fridge.
Documenting (occasionally) the ramblings and ravings of Edward Pilatowicz since May 2004
April 30, 2006
April 23, 2006
makers fair
so today i went to the makers fair. it was pretty cool and there were lots and lots of cool creations to stare at, admire, and talk to their creators about. i also picked up a subscription to make magazine. (because, you know that i don't have enough existing magazine subscriptions or pending books to read.)
April 1, 2006
same, same, but different
welding class was canceled today so instead of wasting time melting random pieces of metal together i decided to do someting totally different. i brewed some beer. this time it was a wee heavy scotch ale. this is gonna be another beer that has to age for at least three months, so the beer pipeline is really filling up. this morning i also transfered my snowflake smoked porter into a secondary fermenter and i had a chance to taste it in the process. it's really good and the smoke flavor is really noticible. (this is good since i tried the wort pre-fermentation and the smoke flavor was undetectable under the overwelming sweetness of the malt.)
March 30, 2006
skiing... finally
well, i ditched work today and put in my first day of skiing for the season. a friend arranged a day trip up to kirkwood, so five of us piled into a car at 5:30 am and headed up to the mountains.
it was great spring skiing. actually the best spring skiing i've ever had in the sierras. it was snowing earlier in the week and had never warmed up after the snow fell so the conditions were excellent. even driving up to the mountain there was 6 foot walls of snow on the sides of the road. on the mountain there were a few groomed runs, but on the steeps, in the canyons, and off trail there was a lot of soft crud. near the end of the day it started to get a bit heavy, but it was still a really amazing conditions. the main drag of the day was that i'm not in any good shape so it constantly stopping to catch my breath. it's really hard work cutting all those turns and busting through the crud. (i also had to try to keep up with some of the excellent skier that i came up with.) regardelss i enjoyed every out of breath second.
it was great spring skiing. actually the best spring skiing i've ever had in the sierras. it was snowing earlier in the week and had never warmed up after the snow fell so the conditions were excellent. even driving up to the mountain there was 6 foot walls of snow on the sides of the road. on the mountain there were a few groomed runs, but on the steeps, in the canyons, and off trail there was a lot of soft crud. near the end of the day it started to get a bit heavy, but it was still a really amazing conditions. the main drag of the day was that i'm not in any good shape so it constantly stopping to catch my breath. it's really hard work cutting all those turns and busting through the crud. (i also had to try to keep up with some of the excellent skier that i came up with.) regardelss i enjoyed every out of breath second.
March 26, 2006
rauchbier
today i brewed a batch of Ray's Snowflake Smoked Porter", my first foray into brewing rauchbier. aka smoked beer. basically it's a normaly porter with a rauch malt added in for smoky flavor. rauch malt is simply normal malt that during kilning was dried with smoke. normally these beers have a pretty strong and distinct flavor. the two varieties of smoked beer that i've tried are schlenkerla and alaskan smoked porter, both or which are really good beers. i also picked up a book about smoked beer which funny enough is co-written by one of the founders of the alasken brewing company.
March 25, 2006
gypsy punks
tonight i went to slims to check out the gypsy punk revolution with gogol bordello. ronda was too tired from a day of hiking and horseback riding to enjoy the show, but i had a really good time and i have to give the man credit, he's an excellent performer.
March 22, 2006
whisky and beer explosion
so today after work i took the caltrain one stop south to palo alto to meet up with some friends for a compass box whiksy tasting. comapss box don't produce their own whiskies, but instead they take classic scottish whiskies (both grain and malt whiskies) and blend them. we tried six different whiskies and had a great time doing it. the session was hosted/narrated by john glasser, the founder of compass box, and he did a pretty good job of keeping us drinking, informed, and entertained. the whiskies were quite tasty, i learned quite a bit about whisky in general, and i had a really good time. i ended up taking the train back home at around 9pm.
once i got home i discovered that my latest batch of beer, the belgian dubble T2 had exploded. this is my first beer explosion. apparently the fermentation was quite vigorous and the krausen plugged up the bubbler on my fermenter. (my fermenter being a 6+ gallon heavy plastic bucket.) with no way to relieve preasure the krausen blew off the top of the bucket and splattered itself lightly over the wall and adjoining bookcase. next time i'll remember to use a blowoff tube. that said, the good news that that the beer may not be a lost cause. since the yeast was probably producing co2 very vigorously it's unlikely that the beer was oxidized or that any bacterial contaminants managed to fall into the beer. i'll cross my fingers and continue with the batch to see how it turns out.
once i got home i discovered that my latest batch of beer, the belgian dubble T2 had exploded. this is my first beer explosion. apparently the fermentation was quite vigorous and the krausen plugged up the bubbler on my fermenter. (my fermenter being a 6+ gallon heavy plastic bucket.) with no way to relieve preasure the krausen blew off the top of the bucket and splattered itself lightly over the wall and adjoining bookcase. next time i'll remember to use a blowoff tube. that said, the good news that that the beer may not be a lost cause. since the yeast was probably producing co2 very vigorously it's unlikely that the beer was oxidized or that any bacterial contaminants managed to fall into the beer. i'll cross my fingers and continue with the batch to see how it turns out.
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