starting a new job

On Oct 19th, I'll be starting a new job! I will be going to work for Edge Technologies based in Fairfax, VA. I will be working in a bit of a hybrid role - part consultant and part developer.

I've known several of the folks at Edge for around six years - having worked with them at Micromuse. I've always had a great deal of respect for them and enjoyed working with them.

I am really looking forward to getting started in the new job. I'll get to work with some of my favorite technology and learn some new things. Having worked on the same thing for the past three years, a change is certainly welcome.

Macy's solo

This is a solo that Macy played recently with the home school stage band on "Fly Me to the Moon". It was her first time to solo in from of a pretty large audience. As you can imagine, Kendre and I are very proud of her.

cloud pics

I took these one evening while tending chickens.

random Blackberry photos

not something you expect to see way out in the country....


my friend Dexter's MINI with the bus


Mathias doing tricks with his eyes


the oatmeal raisin cookies I made


Lathen's interpretation of cowboy


cows through bus windshield


chicken greeting


sunset - again through bus windshield

fried catfish extraordinaire

Last Friday evening, on our now regular date night, Kendre and I met her sister Kim & brother-in-law Danny for dinner at Steak and Catfish Barn restaurant near I-35 and Waterloo.



It's the kind of hole-in-the-wall place that I love. They have excellent catfish (and some of the best hush puppies and tartar sauce I've had) and great service. And as you can see from the pics, an interesting decor! :-)

Baking school

I've decided lately that I need to learn something about baking lately. I dug out one of my favorite cooking geek references - this book:



So far I've made cherry scones and biscuits:



They were both pretty good! Oatmeal raisin cookies are up next...

my new favorite tea

For Christmas, Kendre got me some Gong Fu Dian Hong Yunnan province black tea.

Since then, I've bought two more 100gm bags and it is my primary tea now. It has an almost chocolaty taste. I would recommend it to any fan of Chinese black teas.

Gun stuff

Here's some things I need to catch up on...

I had posted previously about the Swiss K31 rifle. Back in middle of November, I was able to order one along with my buddy Dexter. Here's mine:



It was built in 1937 and is in great shape considering its age. The metal all looks like it came from a modern machining process - it's like clockwork. Dexter and I took them to the range but that's the only time I've shot it so far. It's fun to shoot and appears to live up to all of its reputation. I am very pleased with it so far.

In January I took the prerequisite class for an Oklahoma conceal carry license. As with trying to buy guns or ammo at the moment, the new administration has inspired a deluge of applications for CCL and the processing (which isn't normally fast) is backlogged. My application went in almost three weeks ago, but I expect it to take at least the "minimum" 90 days if not longer.

At the CCL class, the instructors tried to add some more real-world value by giving help with pistol techniques. I've been working on those and I am seeing a real improvement on my groups with both of my pistols.

Speaking of our new president, his plans to revive the failed policies of the past (to use one of his favorite phrases) in the form of the Brady weapons ban has served as quite the unintended stimulus package in the part of the economy related to guns and ammunition. I've decided to start my own AR-15 build project and have begun collecting parts before they are (unconstitutionally) banned again. It's amazing how difficult it is to find them now.

The cool thing about the AR-15/M-16 is that it's a modular system, so you can mix and match parts to build the gun however you like or need. There are literally unlimited variations possible. I'll post about that more later.

Finally, I started taking the kids to the range near our house to learn to shoot my .22 rifle. We spent some time learning the Four Rules of Gun Safety and practicing them. We set up a spinning steel target which makes it rewarding to hit.

Here are some pics from the range:


We had a lot of fun and will be going more often in the future.

rejoined the NRA

Well, this seems like a really good time to rejoin the NRA. I had let my membership lapse years ago, but with the new Obama administration having at least 2 years of strong legislative support ahead, it was time to rejoin.

Obama lied routinely during the campaign about his stance on the Second Amendment. You can read a summary of his actual voting record and see that he is actually a much bigger threat than he claimed to be. Hopefully he will overreach and trigger a large backlash but we can't count on that.


The NRA has a promotion running now to join for $25/year ($10 off). You can find it here.

office update

I re-arranged the furniture in the office to this now:


So far, I really like it - it feels more homey and makes the office feel wider and more open. I had promised an update to the bookshelf story. Here's a current photo of the bookshelves:

overrun with ladybugs

Today I am painting in my office and have the window open for ventilation. We are in the middle of our annual ladybug bloom and there are now 50+ of them wandering around my ceiling and walls....


They are kinda cute but cuteness starts to run thin past past 10 or so...

international respect

It would be funnier if it weren't so scary...



The video was produced by Our Country Deserves Better. Be sure to have a look at their Why We Oppose Obama page.

(thanks to Gateway Pundit - one of may favorite blogs)

modeling my office in SketchUp

I mentioned that I'd gotten new bookshelves in a previous post. I've got the bookshelves done and I've been cleaning up lots of other stuff as well. I had boxes of computer parts also stacked in the office since moving into it. I got big plastic tubs to move that into (culling out useless bits) that will keep spiders and the like from it in the garage.

I'm also thinking about rearranging the office to make better use of the space. I decided to start with some house drawings I'd done before and add detail to the office so I could play with placing the furniture in 3d. This allows me to try things without unplugging the multitude of wires, etc. And it lets me try out potential future furniture before buying it.

Here's what I have so far - in the configuration that it currently is arranged:



It's obviously missing a lot of smaller clutter like computers, basses, etc but it's enough to begin playing with. I'll update more later as I have it...

fish or pole

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." -- Chinese proverb

Along the lines of a late-night rant I had on Sheena's blog recently, I like this graphic:


I think it gives a good quick point of comparison when evaluating a candidate. It comes from a great post on sociopolitical design.

random Blackberry photos

All aboard!


obligatory dog pic:


Keegan waits for the Tommy Emmanuel concert to start:


out for a bike ride (made my legs hurt!):


cool bus I saw this evening:


very distant shot of Macy and her wind ensemble with the homeschool choir tonight:


entertaining a restless and loud Lathen:

go Tommy go

Sunday night, Keegan and I went down to Norman to see a concert by the legendary Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel. I expected him to be good, but I didn't know what we were in for. He's not only one of the best guitarists you could see, but he's a great entertainer and comes across as an all around super nice guy.

Here's a sample of his original music:



And for a sample of his personality and humor (and a quick guitar lesson) watch this video (they disabled embedding for some reason).

I've decided that the thing that makes him such a great entertainer is his obvious love for playing guitar and his unpretentious desire to share it with people. If you get the chance to see him live - do it! (His next visit to Oklahoma will be March '09 in Tulsa).

one eyed Egyptians

Since we now have a daily surplus of eggs, I thought I should learn how to make more than just scrambled eggs. I've now learned to fry eggs "sunny side up" and "over easy" pretty well (surprise Mom - I love fried eggs!). Today, I decided to try something that Kendre's grandfather called "one eyed Egyptians". I've found that they are also called "toad in a hole", "hobo eggs", "eggs in a basket", "bird's nest", and more...

Basically you cut a hole in a piece of buttered bread and fry it with an egg placed in the hole. Naturally I decided to experiment, so I scrambled the eggs first so they would be a more kid-friendly uniform consistency. Also, for most of them, I flipped them over and put cheese on top to melt. Don't forget salt and pepper!



They turned out to be quite good! For the most part, they were a hit. I think for just me I will not scramble the eggs in the future - I like the runny "over easy" effect, but this was better for getting kids to try.

Also, I found that if you put the circle that you cut out on top of the egg (after toasting it) it's called "one eyed Jack". I have a theory that a dish with many different names (especially odd ones) is probably a good one!

ophiological update

Last week I posted about finding a rattlesnake. Now I think I need to update and correct that posting based on new information.

Today, Kendre found a large Black Rat Snake eating an egg in the chicken coop. She wasn't very happy about that so she called on me to deal with it.


(this is not my picture)

It was in the corner of the coop and close to the chicken door so I was concerned that if I opened the outer door and came in with a shovel, it would just make an exit through the chicken pen. So I got the .22 (in an effort to minimize collateral damage) and shot it through the window opening. After that I extracted it with the shovel and finished it off with many a "oooh!" and "yuck!" and "cool!" from the home school class that gathered to watch.

I was doing some reading about it and came across some information related to juveniles. Their coloring is akin to that of the massasauga rattlesnake and they will also "rattle" their tails when threatened (see the OKSnakes link). SO... I think that must be what I found last week and erroneously identified as a rattler. Perhaps today's snake was the mom I had wondered about...

Anyway, I hope this is the last snake related post for a while.

bookshelves

Since we moved to this house almost 6.5 yrs ago, most of my books have lived in boxes while they patiently awaited the arrival of bookshelves in my office. It was one of those projects where I had grand plans but no bookshelves were being built.

Finally, while off work recently, I broke down and decided I should just forget building them and buy some instead. I spent much a day wandering around town from store to store trying to find some that I liked and that would fit. You'd be surprised at the lack of imagination there is in the bookshelf industry!

I found some cool Asian looking ones that I liked but they would have taken a week to arrive and were expensive enough that I would have had to spread out the purchases over more time than I wanted.

But it was Kendre that came up with the winning idea. There were some ok shelves at Target that were almost the right size but they were 3" too tall to fit along the short walls of my office. She suggested cutting the legs off so they would fit. So that's what I did. They were cheaper so I was able to get four shelves all at once - maybe enough to hold all my books...

Now I've been going through my book boxes and sorting the books. It's a slow process since they all need a good vacuuming to be spider-free and also because it's been a long time since I've seen many of them!



Obviously, the process continues... I have more boxes in the garage to go through as well. I had forgotten how much I liked having my books around - I'm really going to enjoy having them back! I'll post better pics once I get them done.

another snake

[see an update to this post here]

Today, I found Drinian outside the front door barking sincerely at something on the ground by the house. I went for a shovel and out to see what he'd found.

It was a small (about 9") snake sporting a pattern like a rattler of some sort. It didn't have rattles yet, but when it shook its tail at me, I was convinced it wasn't something I was going to just relocate. Looking it up in my trusty "Field Guide to Reptiles of Oklahoma" it turned out to be a Western Massasauga Rattlesnake. This is the first time I've seen a rattlesnake here around the house. Now I'm wondering where its mom is....


(this is an adult massasauga - the one I found had similar markings, but was less photogenic once I was through with it...)