The new car.

Front 3/4
Originally uploaded by dcoder5069.

Okay, here's a picture of the new car I got a couple weeks ago. It's been a joy to drive and I'm getting phenomenal (non-hybrid) gas mileage. Especially since I'm enjoying driving it!.

The car is a Scion tC 5-speed with a 160 hp, 4 cylinder, 2.4 liter engine.

This is 2529 of 2600 from the special "Release Series 2.0" that Scion produces for each of their lines. The blue paint, grill, stereo and other bits and pieces are part of the only way to configure a "package", since all the configuration options are basically a-la cart.

Book burn^H^Hying...

I love Half-Price Books.

Today, the fam took a trip to Half-Price and I loaded up on some new books. Yes, I'm a little behind the times, but I'm looking forward to reading them:

1. The Cluetrain Manifesto; Levine, Locke, Searls, Weinberger. Perseus Books.
2. Blink; Gladwell. Little, Brown.
3. The Creative Priority, Hirshberg. Harper Perennial

Of course, I haven't finished reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon yet, but I should finish it up in the next few days.


Technorati Tags: malcom gladwell, rick levine, jerry hirshberg, cluetrain, blink, nissan, books

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Bwah-ha-hah!

Kinko's Manager Hopes Child Stays Missing A Little Longer | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

As an avid reader of The Onion, and somebody who's spent hours and hours and hours and hours and hours in copy shops, I find this disturbing (and funny!).

technorati tags:copies, kinkos, xerox

Blogged with Flock

Is fraud a major feature of "Web 2.0"?

I have to say that I mirror Eric's frustration... Recently, my Mail program's spam filter has been recording about 200 spam messages every three-to-four days. And virtually every time I bid on something or attempt to sell something on Ebay, I get at least one fraud attempt.

Designing domain models.

Riding Rails: Remember CRC Cards?

I had originally planned on titling this article "Designing software", but this title is more accurate, I think....

When Apple first launched OS X, I was devouring this new (to me) programming environment of theirs. Objective-C, or Cocoa as Apple referred to it had been around for a while and was the foundation of OpenStep (OS X's parentage). Well, there was slim pickin's on the commercial bookshelf when trying to find information on Cocoa... but I came across this book in the bargain bin called OpenStep for Enterprises by Nancy Craighill. the gist of the book is a fairly complete, and not overly simplistic, soup-to-nuts software design project using Cocoa's ancestor, OpenStep.

The interesting bit is that a part of the book is devoted to CRC cards. As in, the design project is actually building a CRC card analysis tool.

Even more interesting is that as I was reading OpenStep for Enterprises I was struck by an interesting familiarity. I am not classically trained as a software engineer. I spent years at Texas A&M getting a degree in Environmental Design (think "architecture"). In my third-year design studio, the required text for the class was Problem Seeking, An Architectural Programming Primer. Betwixt it's covers you will find words like user requirements and design goals. Both are terms that also come up quite frequently in software engineering as well.

And much like CRC cards, this design book outlined the use of "Analysis Cards" to capture program requirements during the design of a structure. The book has been an excellent teacher and it's name is apt -- problem seeking is the act of identifying the nature of a design. In architectural practice this is (coincidentally) known as programming. Its purpose is "to provide a broad spectrum of analyses leading to client decision-making and problem definition". That last bit is the key -- problem definition is (IMHO) the holy grail. It's too bad that in software, that's frequently a moving target.

Anyway, I've just been rambling. I don't have much of a point, other than to demonstrate the myriad correlations between architecture and software (at least in the abstract).

technorati tags:architecture, problem seeking, programming, CRC, class, responsibility, collaboration, analysis, design

Blogged with Flock

Crap!

Student Loan Company Loses Borrower Data

Guess who had a student loan in the early 90's? Guess who the guarantor was?

What I really want to know is:

1. Why did a contractor have access to the private data in the first place?
2. Why was the data not cleansed the moment it came out of the production environment?
3. How did the hardware come to be missing?
4. What sort of punishment is the contractor facing?
5. What steps is TG and/or Hummingbird going to take to ensure this doesn't happen again in the future?
6. What reparation will be made to me or the other 1.3 million people who may fall victim to identity theft?
7. Is there any real recourse against an institution who has a lapse in security such as this one?
8. As a financial institution, I assume that TG had passed a SAS70 audit. Were they?

Oh well. What a load.

technorati tags:identity theft, TG, Hummingbird, SAS70, security

Blogged with Flock

Eek.

Well, it appears that the Flock website has been completely overwhelmed. There are some pretty hideous link bugs in their forums, which makes it virtually impossible to get help with their  software. I do like the program -- I hesitate to call it a browser because it's a lot more than that -- but I've had some glitches that I want to talk about on their forums. That's kinda hard when the site is fooked. And instead of taking the site completely off-line to get stuff fixed, everything sort of works until all of a sudden you find out it doesn't (like when you post a message to the forum that's not actually saved and you get taken to some random hub page that's got wacked formatting!)

But overall, I give their public beta product 3/5 stars, knowing that there's a lot of polish that just can't be added until the shakeout. However, I did find one MISSION CRITICAL bug in their OSX version that makes the product unusable in certain situations. I'm able to work around that if necessary for the time being.

NOW, as for their ability to plan for and deal with the unwashed hordes that clog their website - they missed that one completely and they're still having terrible problems with their forum and some icky display issues on various pages of their site. For that they get a shabby 1/5 stars.

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and once they get past this initial hurdle maybe things will be better. My only fear is the knowledge that the general public is hardly forgiving and they may have shot themselves in the foot with such public announcement of their public beta (I picked it up from TechCrunch - where did you see them?). They're going to have a long road to travel to get back lost ground from this setback, I expect.

Blogged with Flock

It's not just for xmas trees...

Flock is a new browser that has potential and promise. But at the moment, it's in public beta and the OSX version (0.7.0.17.1) does not appear to play nicely with CodeTek's Virtual Desktop Lite.

The UI is definitely pleasing, with a somewhat cleaner visual impression than Firefox.

I'm interested in its promise to be able to act as a single agent for blogging, news reading, photo journaling, etcetera, etcetera... As somebody who's written software for the Internet for well over 10 years, I think I'm a little behind the whole Web 2.0 "thing".

technorati tags:flock, web 2.0, browser

Blogged with Flock

My apologies...

I've been a little busy. I'll try to take some pics soon, though.

:-)

Hunka-hunka- burnin' meat.

Actually, there was no burning...

So, on Friday I prepared some spareribs to be grilled on Saturday.

Saturday was pretty hectic. Mer and the kids were out the door by 5:45 (AM!) to get to their swim meet. I joined them at just about 8 am and caught up with the kids right after their first swims -- they were very excited about their starts. Both kids swam fabulously and shaved time off every one of their events. In TWO CASES, Griffin had dramatic improvements of more than 8 seconds! She also swam the individual medley for the very first time, and although she had a technical DQ, she swam strong for the entire 100 yards.

But back to the ribs... I pulled the rubbed ribs out of the refrigerator at about 2 o'clock. Then we had a few errands to run and got back at 3:30, at which time I began preparing the grill to get the ribs on. I also did a little backyard work -- mostly filling a cooler of beer and putting up our 10x10 canopy and getting some righteous tunes going on the ol' iPod + onStage.

The ribs spent the next 4 hours on the grill in very low heat. My gas grill has two burners, one front and one back that both run the entire side-to-side distance of the grill. I only had the "front" burner on and it was all the way on low. The internal temperature of the grill averaged probably about 230 degrees (F) and ranged from about 170, when I'd open it to rotate the racks to an upper bound of about 260 at one point. Temperature management was pretty consistent and easily accomplished with a spacer wedged under the edge of the lid -- the further back, the more open the lid.

The rotation scheme was pretty complicated. Okay, not really, but it was time intensive and it requires me to pretty much hang out in the backyard for the duration (thus the beer and iPod).
Basically, every fifteen minutes I rotate the rack of ribs that's on the main grate up to the hanging basket/upper shelf and the rack that's up there comes down to the main grate. Oh, and the rack that goes up also gets flipped over.

During the last hour (at about 7 pm), I started basting the ribs with half of the sauce as I rotated them. This made them extra sticky and did a bit of carmelizing. For the last 20 minutes of the cooking, I cut each slab in half, mainly to facilitate situating them all on the main grate at the same time. I then turned on the back burner (keeping them both on low), but I closed the lid all the way and let the SAUSE carmelize even more.

Then the ribs all came off and got wrapped in foil for about 15 minutes. Ideally, I would let them stay wrapped for 30-45 minutes, but it was late and we were all hungry.

I sliced them individually and served them with the remaining sauce, which was reheated to "warmish". They were great and I highly recommend both the rub and the sauce, but the rub is quite spicy -- I was fine with it, but it was a little hot for the family. I think cutting the cayenne back to 1/4 teaspoon and the black pepper to about half-a-tablespoon would be perfect.

I give this recipe, combined with the ATK prep/cook method a definite thumbs up.

'Twas the night before...

So, it's about 10:22 pm on Friday night. There's a swim meet tomorrow morning at "the crack of dawn-minus 30 minutes" so everybody's asleep except for me and Katie. She'd like to be asleep but Mer has forbidden her from coming to bed before I turn the lights out. She (Katie) has a tendancy to pace the floor at the foot of the bed and near the bedroom door when somebody else is outside the bedroom. So, she hangs out with me -- and every time I walk around she wonders if it's time to go to bed and looks at me with expectation. Since I'm in my office, she's finally decided to crash in her favorite "Dad's in the office"-spot, which is at my door, on the cool tile. If it weren't for all my lumps and bumps and curves, I think I might join her sometime on that comfortable, cool tile.

But that's not why I'm writing.

I'm trying something new this evening. I'm a firm believer in America's Test Kitchen. I have watched the PBS show and bought several of the books and subscribed to Cook's Illustrated for several years. It might have something to do with my love of science, but I am fascinated by the techniques of cooking. AB's my man. I have the ATK Grilling book, which I believe to be somewhat of a bible (some would live by KJV or possibly Betty Crocker, but they're heretics).

Well, ATK is great on technique, but sometimes I find the actual recipes to be a little "high-brow" for me (Heck, I'm just a country boy from the uncivilized plains of West Texas). I absolutely swear by the ATK technique for fixin' pork ribs, but the dry bbq rub the from the ATK Grilling book is a little off (my 'pinion). And lately, I've had a hankerin' for Rudy's. The SAUSE is good and the brisket's moist. But a few weeks ago Mer brought in a slab of babyback ribs and dang if they weren't yumbly in my tumbly....

Well, the Folks are coming in tomorrow afternoon and I was wondering what we'd have for dinner. I've been over-burgered lately and that's probably technically only slightly more fun than grilled hotdogs (the grill-equivalent of mac-n-cheese). And ribs take 4-EVER on a slow, indirect-heat grill. That gives me an excellent reason to hang out in the back yard all afternoon tending to the grill. WHOOP!

Anyway, I decided on spareribs. Although not quite as tender as babyback ribs, they're way meatier and also (IMHO) a bit easier and more forgiving on the grill. Costco has fabulous, 2-slab packs of spareribs for just $2 a pound. Ten pounds in the cart and I'm thrilled!

Now, we're on to recipe. I've been wondering what to do... Like I said, Rudy's is fabulous and I've always done dry ribs, so I decided to spend a little time looking for a great dry rub. I like peppery and sweet and not too spicy. The kids deal well with pepper, but not chiles. I decided to hit Google -- I can't remember my exact search term, but I'm pretty sure it had words like sweet and peppery and best and rub in it. I came across a particularly interesting recipe. I read through the ingredient list and my curiosity was certainly piqued.

And it included a SAUSE recipe.

Interesting...

And the comments were beaming.

Interestingly, the recipe says it takes about 45 minutes of prep. When I finished mixing up the rub, I found it a little too spicy for the kids and Mer, so I took about half of it and cut it with about a half-cup of sugar and about another tablespoon of salt. And the 45 minutes doesn't take into consideration my insane ATK process, which includes actually rubbing the rub into the meat and then wrapping the meat in plastic wrap to seal in the spices for the night.

Then I decided to simmer the SAUSE for about an hour. I just finished reducing it by about a third and I have to say that the flavor is very deep. It doesn't have the peppery chunkiness of Rudy's, but it does have sweet, onion-and-pepper flavor (I chose to use a fine-ground pepper rather that course-ground).

Tomorrow I will get up about an hour before the crack of dawn to prep for the meet. Then, after the meet I will take the ribs out of the fridge and dust them once more with the rub and then get them on a super-low-indirect-heat grill for about 5 hours.

Oh, and I didn't mention that I don't think I've ever made my own barbeque sauce before. I'm excited by the prospect and I just decanted it and transfered it to the fridge and I have to say that it was delicious.

If you don't hear from me for a few days it's probably because I'm full and sitting on the couch with one hand tucked into my belt and a toothpick in the corner of my mouth (didn't I mention I was a redneck?).

Sunrise at Sendero

Last weekend was the first meet of the Brushy Creek Marlin's 2006 Season. The day started very early -- we had to be at the pool by 6am to get the kids signed in and start warming up.

Both kids had a great day and bettered their seed times in every event they swam.

Here's a picture of the staging area just as the sun was peeking up over the canopies: