So I've had my head buried in some code at work for that past couple of weeks, barely escaping pulling my hair out and looking like Kojak.

Let's step in the wayback machine. A few years ago I was tasked with implementing ITIL, at least in terms of Change Management and Incident Management. We had been using a web based app written by the medical center to manage changes, but were unsuccessful in getting them to make any modifications to the software, because they wanted us to migrate over to HP Service Desk with them. They wouldn't even give us the source to let us host it ourselves. The basic idea was that we would eventually get tired of using a bad tool and migrate to what they perceived was a great tool. The only problem is that we could recognize the web app for what it was - something that had flaws, but that we could mold to our own use. The new tool was a fat client app that couldn't be touched via API unless we went through the medical center's support groups and competed for time on their calendar along with all of the well funded doctors. I'm sure it's not much of a stretch for you to realize that we preferred to stick with the old system.

Now step back to the present. The medical center is tired of maintaining really old hardware running a really old version of IIS. They sent us the source and told us to get it hosted locally ASAP so that they could retire the old server. Yay! Er, wait. We don't want to run IIS 5.0 and interface to an Access DB backend! The first thing that I tried was to migrate to SQL server, which was a step in the right direction, but ASP recordset code doesn't quite work in an ASP.NET environment. I kept getting odd, inconsistent results back from queries.

I had to make a choice - convert all of the ASP to ASP.NET, or rewrite the entire thing in PHP. Since I don't really know ASP.NET that well and don't want to, either, I chose to rewrite the entire thing in PHP. I built class libraries around all of the database objects and built methods for everything but rendering HTML. Yesterday we rolled out the new system into production and the most common thing I keep hearing is, "It's so much faster now!" I've also managed to integrate two other tools that I had hosted locally for Change Management into one seamless interface, and get rid of all of the libcurl web scraping routines that I had been using. Yeah, the only way I was able to automate some tasks was to go back to the old school ways of screen scraping. Fortunately now, however, it's just a class method away.

Woot. I used to have the domain phpimp.com. Too bad I don't anymore. heh.

I started the batch of Apfelwein for PhreakNIC on Wednesday night, so it should be just hitting the right maturity by the first or second week of October.

The recipe is the standard Apfelwein recipe with no changes on the front end. When I move it to secondary I will probably add some vanilla and cinnamon, but I have 45 days to think about it.

I will also be making a batch of Pumpkin Ale for PhreakNIC and another batch of something else that I haven't decided on yet.

Limelight

Recipe:
Brewer's Best American Light Ale
(Sorry, I threw out the directions before getting the exact ingredients)
6 fresh limes (purchase 1 week after you brew!)

Brew Date: 15 Jun 2008
Secondary Date: 22 Jun 2008
Keg Date: 29 Jun 2008

Starting Gravity: 1.039
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.009
Estimate ABV: 3.91%
Estimated Calories/Pint : 175

I decided to make a "lawnmower beer" for summer - something light and low in alcohol content so that I can drink a few while mowing the lawn, or sitting outside watching the grass grow. I decided to go a little south of the border, though, and make a lime flavored beer.

After only 1 week in the primary fermentation stage, I took 6 fresh limes and scraped the zest off of them into the secondary fermenter. I then cut each lime in half, squeezed out as much juice into the secondary as possible, then dropped the lime halves into there as well. Once I had all of the limes, zest and juice in there, I siphoned the wort from the primary to the secondary. This allowed the yeast to wake back up as I started getting bubble on the airlock around every 20-30 seconds.

I think the video clip speaks for itself.

This weekend I took 2.0 out to the Adventure Science Museum (formerly known as the Cumberland Science Museum when I was growing up) since we had a boys' day out. They have a lot of neat stuff there and one section is called Bodyquest. You get to explore the different areas of the body and see how many of the organs work. Part of the experience is to follow food from entry to exit, so you first toss some balls at an open mouth to feed it. Next you have to squeeze the food down the esophagus and it makes lot of neat, fun, disgusting and gross noises. If you push the wrong way it makes an upchuck sound, if you push the right way it makes a gulping sound. Anyway, the next part it to churn the food in the stomach and then finally you wind your way through the small intestine. Both 2.0 and I rode down the slide at the exit, which is basically the Poop Chute. There is a sensor at the end that triggers a fart/poop like sound to play when you get to it. It was enough to make any mother have a nightmare and any child or male laugh out loud.

Yesterday several of us got together for a great hiking trip at Burgess Falls State Park near Cookeville, TN. The hike is a very easy one - more like a short walk until you get to the main waterfall - and is considered to be one of the most rewarding hikes per step walked because there is so much for such a short trail. There were 11 of us hiking together and 3 more joined up later (Ob1Shinobi and his family were running late). Jeff Wee-Eng represented the 865 area code for us and Ob1 was there for the 931s. The rest of us were local to the Nashville metro area.

SkyDog even tried a new smoking cessation program with ware. Here you can see SkyDog applying the penalty for ware lighting up (which is now illegal in all TN State Parks, by the way).



After we hiked we went to Mamma Rosa's Italian restaurant in Cookeville and enjoyed an excellent meal. The stromboli there beats anything else in the entire Southeast region, and trust me, I've tried to find another as good. However, even after eating a giant stromboli, Jeff Wee-Eng ordered a sausage foot-long sub... to eat right then. Once the waitress got over the shock and brought him the sub, he ate it all up. When she came back to see if we needed anything else, he ordered a piece of chocolate layer cake. I think this boy can give Tim Ball a run for his money in eating contests.

Here is a short video of the waterfall and our resident ecotaku, Jeff Wee-Eng walking along the rocks at the bottom.

Last weekend we had a fun little outing. We started off at Chick-Fil-A where my son decided that playing in the indoor playground was much more interesting than eating chicken. We did eventually get him to come around and eat something, though.



Later that afternoon I decided that we should go bowling. We had a party at the bowling alley for his birthday back in November and he had a blast, and since the weather wasn't too hospitable, that seemed like a good indoor activity to burn off some of his energy. Here's the score after the first frame. It's amazing how hard it is to bowl your own frame when your son keeps trying to take the ball out of your hand.



He loved using the ramp to bowl with, but the 6 pound ball that they gave him to use was simply too light. He's got the strength to pick up my 16 pounder and the 6 pound one just doesn't have enough weight to build up much momentum. I think next time we'll get him something in the 10 pound range.



All was well until the end of the night when I tried to pick him up and carry him to the car. He wanted my wife to carry him, but she hurt her neck/back and couldn't lift him. When I went to pick him up he jumped right into my chin and made me bite a nice chunk out of my lip. We were both in pain after that, but everything up to that point was a great Saturday.

I need one of these...

(From Jan 12)

For Christmas I got a kit to convert my beer fridge into a kegerator. This weekend while I had the house to myself I ran to Lowe's for a 2.5" hole saw, got out the power drill and went to it. It didn't take long at all to do - about 1 hour - and looks as good as a pre-made kegerator. The only drawback is that as I was moving the kegs out of the fridge I noticed how close I am to being out of beer! Fortunately I realized that about 30 minutes before the home brew store in Murfreesboro closed and was able to make it down there in time to pick up one kit. I'll be making an American Nut Brown Ale tomorrow morning, apparently.

(Finally uploaded a picture on Feb 19)

Batch #9 - Apfelwein Me Dine Me

I decided to give another try to Ed Wort's Apfelwein recipe, but with the correct amount of sugar this time (2 lbs). I did make some other alterations, though, which are the addition of:

2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

As with the Pumpkin Ale, the cinnamon tended to clump up and stick to the sides, so that is why I have such a high amount in it. My sampling before adding the yeast yielded a very tasty, yet very stout (in terms of sugar) cider. If that taste can hang on through the two months of living in the fermenter then we'll have a tasty batch indeed.

Mixing Date: 9 Feb 2008
Kegging Date: 29 March 2008
Starting Gravity: 1.065
Estimated Final Gravity: 0.992
ABV: 9.57%
Calories/Pint: 283

Final Notes : Since I left this one in the fermenter for so long it really kicked up the ABV. I took both the original and final gravity measurements three times each just to make sure that I was accurate on them. You can really smell the alcohol content when around the stuff, so it's truly that stout. Taste of the batch is very much like a wine, which makes sense because I used Montrachet yeast. There's a very slight taste of apple to it, mainly because so much of the sugars were converted to alcohol. You can also taste a hint of the cinnamon, but I can't detect any of the vanilla. However, it's a very nice batch all around.