Where I'm blogging about technology...Simplicity²

So I started a new blog related to technology and simplifying your life and work. It's called Simplicity² and the idea is that things are never simple enough, and more often than not it's that little extra that makes the simplicity exponentially better. It's what we in I.T. should be striving for.

Please check it out (and comment like crazy) at www.simplicitysquared.com

Thanks.

Are we turning to go home or are we going to do something fun?

Sweet words, and arguably what you don't want to here when you are out on a jog and your kids are on their bicycles. But a good reminder that while in theory jogging with your kids is a good idea, and represents some "bonding", if they are just following along it's somewhat less-so...

So I didn't turn home, although it was one of my first runs with my new running shoes and my legs were sore (not to mention I haven't really run in a long, long time). We instead went to the park where there is a ramp that they like to go up and down on their bikes. I sprinted across the field, beating them, and then they went up and down a few times. All-in-all a nice way to spend 30 minutes. And at least I got some real exercise....

This blog is switching to a different theme...

Wow it's been a long time.

And I never finished updating my Peru trip log. Suffice to say it was a great, great trip. I still have some photos to go through; that's that paradox of going digital...you are less discretionary with the number of pictures you take. So you have more to process after the fact. I think it's because:

1. It's easy to just hold the button down.

2. You "feel" more professional when you shoot a few in a row

3. You turn on bracketing arbitrarily so then you must take lots of shots. You justify it by saying you want to HDR everything, but you don't.

4. You are fearful of not getting that perfect smile or having somebody's eyes closed on your shot.

So you take too many shots, which means there are more to go through and edit or delete. And you haven't started deleting photographs until recently because you have pack-rat syndrome. There's a pattern here.

In any case, I'm working towards real-time management of my photos (of everything in my life frankly), but I'm starting to digress. Those thoughts are for another blog (coming soon).

Which is the whole point of this posting. I've hesitated to post certain things because I didn't want to co-mingle tech with productivity with fatherhood, so everything has suffered.

So this blog is going to focus exclusively on parenthood and its [mostly] joys. That way I'll have a safe place to capture everything (and safe means strictly technical, I know enough to know that there is really no "safe" place on the Internet). I will add one or two more postings here to point to a company I've started and consequently some new blogs...

Onwards...

At 4910 meters above sea level

That's 16,109 feet, higher than any mountain in the contiguous 48 states (the highest is Mt. Whitney at 14,494). It's also the highest point on our tour, and since it's late and I haven't had any connectivity for a few days, I'll do a quick catch-up now and then when I get some time (which may be after the trip), I'll post some more.

Quick highlights: Sand surfing; Pisco tasting and winery tour; Watching a world cup match in a country that is *really* into soccer. How into it? TVs are set up on the street with speakers blaring the match. Nearly everything just stops. OK, continuing...flying over the Nazca Lines. That was amazing and I'll post the pictures that the natives used to communicate with the aliens; Touring the cemetary of the Nazca indians, who used to strap blocks on to the heads of children to shape their skulls so they were elongated; An overnight bus-ride with wifi on the bus (I would have posted something, but actually just checked e-mail and went to sleep); My 4 Soles haircut (Which is about $1.41, and the haircut looks like it, but it'll grow back); Visiting Colca Canyon (our tour guide said "If you are a vegetarian, welcome to the hell", but it wasn't actually so bad); Staying at La Casa Mamayacchi; Hiking at 4100m; Petting llamas and alpacas; Drinking coco tea; visiting the condor sanctuary (great pictures coming soon); horseback riding at the same altitude and actually being pretty good at handling the horse...and, believe it or not, managing through some very long bus rides (several ~7-hour rides or longer). My iPad is coming in very, very handy for this trip.

Cities visited: Lima, Paracas, Arequipa, Chivay (Colca Canyon); and now in Puno, on the coast of Lake Titicaca. I may have forgotten a city; I'll update later.

Seriously? The Parque del Amor - The Love Park

What more is there to say? A giant sculpture of two people making out in a park. This was part of our bike tour, and apparently (obviously?) this is the place where Peruvians go to do just that. Or to take pictures of the statue, like us.

A purple drink that isn't grape

Ahhhh, a new country, a new cuisine, and a yearning to not have diarrhea. I hope I don't jinx it, but so far so good. The spinach quiche you may recognize, but the drink is something entirely new, called Chicha Morada, which is prepared from purple corn. It's served cold, and was really quite refreshing.

Today started with a taxi ride to our new hotel, then a quick walkabout through the city. We did what you're never supposed to do, which is eat from a street vendor. It was only sliced pineapple, and it was worth it. And, as I write this days later, it didn't disagree with me at all.

We then took the top-rated tourist attraction on tripadvisor, which was a bicycle tour of Lima, led by Franco. Imagine riding a bicycle in a city where stop signs are regularly ignored and then going AGAINST TRAFFIC in a traffic circle. It was, in a word, perilous, but at the end of it we seemed no worse for wear, got a bit of exercise, and saw some pretty parts of Lima. The day ended with a briefing from our tour leader, Daniel, for all of us on the tour. Two Americans (Paul-Marcel and myself), 3 Irish, 2 Danes, 1 French. A few of us then went out for dinner, and then back to the hotel to get some sleep before the next day's activities...

Bienvenidos a Peru! (Did I spell that right?)

The water bottles are enormous here! And of course, in a daze, I used the tap water to brush my teeth this morning. So I'll know later today just what an effect it has on me.

Flew from Phoenix to Houston to Lima. Quick taxi ride to the Manhatten Inn Hotel. A simple place close to the airport. The thinking was to arrive and get to sleep so we could start today.

The front desk advised against drinking the water, and sold us the colossal 2.5L bottle on the left, which was bigger than the television in the room. The wake up call, which I am sure I successfully negotiated in Spanish, never came, so we're the last people in the breakfast room, which is perfectly fine for Day 1 after a very late arrival.

Breakfast did the trick, OJ, rolls, some huevos and jam (of course made with sugar and not HFCS). Off to freshen up and hit a bike tour...

-David

What is this "Save" icon?

My children don't know what this is.

It is, of course, the Save icon from Google Docs, one of my favorite products. And my children, the oldest of whom is almost 9, have learned that this is Save, only because Daddy said so.

Why? Because until recently they never actually saw a 3.5" floppy disk. And why should they have? They save everything either in the cloud, or on their computer. I opened a box of 5.25" disks to show them, and have an 8" disk around to show them, and still a bunch of 3.5" disks, but I don't own any of the disk drives to read the aforementioned sizes. Maybe I have a USB 3.5" drive in a drawer somewhere, but haven't taken it out in years.

Anyway, point being, is it time for a new icon? Microsoft Word has the same icons. My kids have seen a USB stick, and some camera media. What is the graphical representation for "save this in the cloud". Do we need it? Isn't Google Docs autosaving all of the time anyway? :)

Bronchitis

I'm sick as a dog.

And on my fourth antibiotic

Started with a Z-Pak, that was wimpy.

Then moved to Avelox, didn't do the trick.

Then got an unnamed shot in my behind, I don't know if that helped.

Now I'm on Levaquin, which seems to be helping.

Added to that I'm on a steroid - Methypresdnisolone, and using an Advair Diskus, with a Ventolin inhaler as needed, not to mention the Promethazine w/codeine syrup. Plus I'm supposed to use the nebulizer with Albuterol.

Either I'll be better soon, or dead.

Broken left-turn arrow

Sometimes life stares you in the face like a broken left-turn arrow.

You have a green light. But not necessarily an arrow.

This makes you think that oncoming traffic also has a green light, but they aren't going.

So you wait.

For how long?

Then it occurs to you. Maybe my left-turn green is broken. The light's out. Not my blinker, of course, but the one on the traffic light.

And you look at oncoming traffic again. They aren't moving, but you aren't sure if they are waiting for you to go first so they might hit you.

So I went.

And the oncoming traffic didn't move.

And I went through the intersection successfully.

It was, dare I say, slightly surreal, like the rest of the world was in slow-motion or something.

And maybe my green arrow wasn't in fact broken, but the people across the intersection were too busy checking their e-mail or texting or simply not paying attention...

It doesn't matter though.

Homemade Chicken Nuggets - Part 2

This might be harder than I thought.  I bought a meat-grinding attachment for my KitchenAid so I could grind chicken into whatever is inside of chicken nuggets, which my son realized a long time ago was dead chickens.  Learnings today:

• Ground chicken breast is pretty flavorless.  I didn't add anything to the first batch, and my oldest son was unimpressed.  This may be a mixed blessing though; as if I add salt and "other things", he may still like it.  I added Montreal Chicken Seasoning to the second batch and it was better.  I still have to work on the spice mixture.
• I also have dark-meat ground chicken; will try that later.
• Frying makes a mess.  Baking doesn't cook the coating/breading.  Trade-offs are part of life, right?  
• I bought cookie cutters to shape the nuggets into things that my children would find entertaining.  I chose a heart, dog bone and triangle, primarily because they seemed easy to work with when using ground meat.  My sons wanted the dog bone.   When I showed my daughter the heart-shaped chicken nugget that I made for her "because I love you" she just nodded her head back and forth and said "no", several times.  That's OK, I can still bribe her with chocolate fudge.  
• Ground white meat chicken is also dense, no matter if fried or baked, breaded or not.  They must mix something else into it "down at the factory".  This could include a leavening agent, certainly spices, and who knows what else.  
• Ok, I had no idea just how true the above statement is.  The Kosher Chicken Nuggets "Of Tov" (which means Good Chicken) in my fridge include a lot of ingredients in just the nuggets, including chicken, water, bread crumbs, potato flakes, textured soy flour, soy protein concentrate, potato flour, isolated soy protein, salt, sodium phosphate, garlic, dextrose, hydrolyzed soy protein, spices, onion powder, celery powder.  This is before I even get to the breading and batter.  If I could get the ingredient list down to a few things, I'd be happy.  
• Maybe I'm being too ambitious?  No, I have to focus on the goal; vegetables in these nuggets.  
• Cleaning the grinder is only easy in the directions.
• The croutons actually were a little harder to work with; I either need to grind them more completely or use bread crumbs. I may have had the oil too hot in my first round of experiments.
• OK, that was a lot of work for today; next project is to work on the chicken mixture itself.

-Chef David

Homemade Chicken Nuggets - Part 1

My children don't eat vegetables, and it makes me crazy.

I shared this with my brother, sister and father the other night and they looked at me like I was nuts. "Gee, I wonder where they get that from?" my brother uttered with enough sarcasm to cause flashbacks to my own childhood.

I think he's right. I hated vegetables as a kid, and never ate them. But I also think, in general, our food supply was safer then than it is now. Fewer chemicals, preservatives, hydrogenated oils, etc., You get the point.

But that doesn't stop me from wanting to sneak some vegetables into my kids' food. I do have one chance; one of my sons loves smoothies, and I could stick some vegetables in there without him knowing.

But I wanted something bigger and bolder. I wanted to usurp their favorite food, chicken nuggets, and sneak some really healthy things into them.

So today's experiment was the breading. I tried three different types of breading, all basically using the same technique:

• Cut chicken into similar size pieces/strips (so they cook at the same rate)
• Coat with flour
• Dip in egg mixture
• Dredge in breading
• Deep-fry in vegetable oil

But what would the breading be? And what else did I learn? I tried three different types of breading: Traditional bread crumbs, crushed Cheerios, and crushed croutons. Why? Because my kids love Cheerios and they love croutons, and every recipe called for bread crumbs.

And the verdict? Lower the oil so it isn't too hot (you don't want to burn the coating) and CRUSHED CROUTONS were awesome. Specifically Edward & Sons Italian Herbs Organic Croutons. They didn't brown as darkly (which is good), and they tasted great. Granted, my palate is different than my kids, but I think these will appeal to them.

Today I used Kosher organic chicken breasts. I also have some dark meat to try, as well as a blend of the two, based on my ability to use a meat grinder. Then the fun part; sneaking in some vegetables and coloring them accordingly. I have no idea how I'm going to do that. Cauliflower is an easy option, but I really want some of the green vegetables.

Oh, and shapes. I'm going to go to the store later to get some cookie cutters that I can use for chicken nuggets. I think half of this battle will be in the presentation. I think once I put the meat through the grinder, I will be able to shape it well, although I might have to freeze it a little to retain the shape. We'll see. That'll be the update later or tomorrow...

My spinach salad smoothie

My wife and children think I'm disgusting. I think what I did was genius. Maybe I'll be the disgusting genius?

I took leftover spinach/strawberry salad, put it in the blender with some Naked Juice Blue Machine, watched it turn completely green (which caused my wife to comment on how disgusting it was), threw in a few ice cubes, and viola!  Salad through a straw.  And it tasted GREAT.  

I know people have been putting spinach, broccoli and other veggies in their smoothies for a while.  But this was the first time I took what was otherwise a perfectly fine salad (with some slivered almonds as well) and drank it.  

I'm inspired.  I love my Vita-mix, and for a long time wanted to try a full week of nothing but smoothies/juices and this may just be the kickoff that I need.  I think the next experiment is a full 1-pound bag of spinach with some berries.  

Mac Love with CD recovery

Our babysitter gave us a CD of pictures of our children, but the CD was scratched.  And our babysitter has shipped off to join the Navy, so realistically there is no way of getting another one burned until later this year.

So I tried some CD recovery.  Of course I Googled for it but the best result was for a product called AnyReader, which was Windows only.  I tried it, and it hung and got stuck and recovered only the first 5 files or so (which were easily read by the OS).

So after some more Googling, I found a way to do this on my Mac.  Here's what I did:

• Installed Darwinports from http://darwinports.com
  
• Installed ddrescue from http://ddrescue.darwinports.com/
  
• Identified the mount point of the cd with:  $ mount
• You can also find this information with: $ sudo dmesg
• Unmounted the CD with:  $ sudo umount /dev/disk5s0
• Ran ddrescue with: $ ddrescue -v -b 2048 /dev/disk5s0 diskimage.dmg logfile

Prior to getting it to work, I did have to kill the Finder copy going on, which was just kill -9 pid where pid was the process ID for the Finder process itself.  If you use top -u -s10 you can see the process, or I generally use ps -ax | grep Finder which shows the Finder process and your grep request

Then I went to sleep.  And I woke the next morning to find a mostly recovered CD.  I was very pleased with the results.

My Mac rocks!

Outlook efficiency

I'm back on Outlook at work, and yes, I really, really miss Gmail as my work e-mail, but that's a topic for a different day.  One thing that I find really productive about GMail is the single key to archive a message ('y' for those of you keeping score).

So how can I do this in Outlook 2007?   I'll give you the code, but you'll have to monkey with the Macro security settings (now that they are already set up, I can't reproduce the steps until I try this on somebody else's machine, which I will do shortly).

First, create a folder where you are going to move all of your mail.  I call mine "Archive".

Then go to "Tools > Macro > Visual Basic Editor"

Then type the following code in:

Option Explicit
Sub MoveItems()
Dim Messages As Selection
Dim Msg As Object ' Since we can't be sure what has been selected.
Dim NamSpace As NameSpace

    Set NamSpace = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI")

    Set Messages = ActiveExplorer.Selection

    If Messages.Count = 0 Then

        Exit Sub

    End If

    For Each Msg In Messages

      If (Msg.Class = olMail) Or _

      (Msg.Class = olMeetingRequest) Or _

      (Msg.Class = olMeetingResponseNegative) Or _

      (Msg.Class = olMeetingCancellation) Or _

      (Msg.Class = olMeetingResponsePositive) Then 

          Msg.Move NamSpace.Folders("Mailbox - David Pinkus").Folders("Archive")

      End If

    Next

End Sub

PLEASE Replace the "Mailbox - David Pinkus" above with your actual mailbox name.  It's usually pretty obvious from the folder structure.

Also, I only included a few other types above, you may get items that you also want to move.  I included the elaborate constant names for readability, in case I wanted to do something else with these objects.  

So you're almost done.   Save what you did and return to Outlook.

Then go to "Tools > Customize" and choose the "Commands" tab.   You should see your Macro listed.  Click and drag it to one of your toolbars where it will become a button.  

I rename mine to "Muuve" and put an ampersand in front of the first "u" so that the button becomes "Muuve".  Then  you can simply press Alt-U and move the message to your Archive folder.

I'm still getting a "Macro warning" the first time I run it during a session, but will eventually get around to fixing that...

Mirror Photography

Getting a decent shot in a mirror is always a struggle. The obvious culprit is the flash, so more often than not you just take the picture without the flash. But what if you have a point-and-shoot camera that does not have any manual controls? If you use the "No Flash" setting, you get shutter times that you can't really hand-hold; and if you use the flash setting, you get a huge reflection of light in the mirror, washing out your picture. The shot at the right was the best of about 7 attempts, some with no flash (too blurry), and others with an attempt to redirect/block the flash with varying degrees of success. Now I don't think having a glowing red finger is the best approach, but the light it throws back on my face, coupled with the relative balance of light throughout the rest of the picture, along with my daughter's expression, made this one my favorite.

My new Drobo

Wow, I just noticed how long it has been since I posted.  I have lots of things going on, but need to make a better effort of getting my thoughts up here.  The topic of the moment:  Storage.

For one, where are the 2TB drives?  We've had 1.5TB drives out now for quite a while.  I'm wondering if one of two things isn't about to happen:  A major leapfrog, like to a 3TB or 4TB drive, or they've hit a real problem with scaling out bigger storage.

I received my Drobo the other night.  Amazon had an amazing price, along with a $50 rebate.  I also picked up 3 1.5TB Seagate drives, so I have 4.5TB Raw and 3TB net, but of course we all know how we've been defrauded by the drive makers who decided that a kilobyte wasn't 1024 bytes, and a megabyte not 1024^2 bytes, etc.  So instead of a terabyte being 1024^3 bytes, it's 1000^3 bytes.  A difference of 73,741,824 bytes, or 70.325 Meg.  So instead of 3TB RAID, I have 2.79TB according to the operating system (actually less for some overhead).  No matter, it's plenty for now, and one more disk will give me another 1.4TB and the Drobo will magically acknowledge it.  

I hope.  It didn't like when I put drives in starting at the bottom; so I started with 2 at the top, then added a third, and things seem OK for now.

Of course the net of all this is that I want to reconfigure how my Mac drives are set up in the first place.  I have one 340, and 3 750's, and didn't like my original config of one boot drive, one Boot Camp (NTFS) disk for Windows, one Data disk, and one Time Machine disk.

I'm thinking of taking my 3 750's and setting up a RAID configuration, but have to research if I can boot into this.  I'm also insanely paranoid about my photographs, and almost want them on two separate RAID volumes, in addition to being backed up with Mozy.  I'm sure that's overkill, but even moving them to the Drobo is giving me a little angst.

So next steps are to figure out internal RAID on the Mac, including the boot drive.  Once I get a plan there, then probably use the Mac configuration for my Photographs (backed up with Mozy) and Virtual Machines, and use the Drobo for all Videos so that I can serve them throughout the house.  Music I'll probably keep local as well.  I'll stick all of my old other hard drives and PC files onto the Drobo for safe keeping, then do some major dupe detection with them.  I think I can probably shut down my PC and/or put it somewhere for the kids (although they also have a MacMini)...

OK, I'm rambling for now.  Next steps are to:

Move my Photos to the Drobo temporarily

Convert my Boot Camp VM to a non-boot-camp VM, stick it on the Drobo.

Convert my 3 disks into a single RAID array.

Then figure out if I can copy my boot disk onto that array and boot from it?

Alternative is to get an external time machine volume for my boot disk and just time machine that.

Reminds me, I need a time machine volume for my wife :)

OK, I'll do the Drobo Photo and Boot Camp migration now; that'll take time

"That's because she's not a boy"

This past weekend my children didn't listen when it was time to get off the Nintendo Wii. They had just gotten a new Star Wars Lego Wii game and were pretty engrossed in it. As my wife was getting upset about it, my 3-year old chimed in and asked if he could play with my iPod touch. My wife was a little frustrated and in an angry moment exclaimed (for the Nth time) "Ugh, I hate the Wii" (she really doesn't, she likes Wii Fit).

As she stepped away, I looked at my 7-year old and quietly commented "Mommy doesn't like videogames".

He immediately said, so matter-of-factly "That's because she's not a boy."

He's so right. :)

Hotel learnings, Pt. 1

This is what I've learned after two days of getting hotels on the road, coupled with a lot of other knowledge along the way.

Hotwire is good. They get great deals on unused inventory. We stayed at the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark. Hiltons though, in general, are over-rated. This was considered a four-star hotel, but the room was decidedly two to three-star at best. The only four-star feature of the hotel was the doorman and the lobby bar. I knew when Hotwire said they had a four-star property downtown for $59 it was going to be a Hilton. A quick visit to the Hilton site, showed a $199 rate, so I feel pretty vindicated. My biggest issue with Hilton is they nickle-and-dime you for everything. Internet is $9.99 / day. Parking was $16/day, or $24 for valet. I couldn't leave my car for 10 minutes to unload, and had to drive to the parking garage and then schlep my stuff across the street.

I had considered using my Starwood or other points, but $59 for a 4-star hotel seemed like a better cash exchange.

Tonight we're staying in a Baymont Inn, and honestly the room is just as nice as the Hilton. Perhaps the bedding is of a lesser grade, or the mattress not as high-end, but the room has everything, AS WELL AS a fridge, which the Hilton did not. You can't possibly expect to get 4-stars and not have a minibar, in my humble opinion. Oh, and this hotel has free internet and free parking, right outside my window, for $69. And my children are just as happen. I booked this hotel on the travel site from my company using my corporate discount (we are allowed to use this discount for personal travel). Its the same rate as a AAA rate, but I don't have my card and didn't want to be asked for it. Add the free breakfast tomorrow, and I think its overall a better deal than the Hilton, and my kids like this one just fine (I asked them and they didn't have a strong opinion).

Now I'm also setting a precedent with $60 and $70 (+tax, license, dock-fee and registration) hotels, versus $40 hotels, but I've seen those, and I've stayed in those, and they are scary. I don't need to save $20 or $30 and be in a dump.

Kayak.com, Expedia, and Travelocity are also excellent, as is word-of-mouth. I'll add more details as I know them. Oh, and all things considered, the Hilton was barely worth it at $59 a night.

OK, we'll see what happens with Oklahoma City or perhaps Amarillo tomorrow night (or Elk City or Clinton), depending on what time we get out of here, health of my kids, and bathroom stops.

Update from the middle of America

Literally. We're in Rolla, Missouri. Take a look at a map of the US and you'll see it's pretty close to the center.

It's also very close to where we stayed last night, St. Louis.

Now that might be fine, if, for example, we had a ton of activities in St. Louis, and then maybe did some other ones along the way. But that's not what happened. My oldest son got sick; like a flu with a high fever. So we were just able to get out of the hotel this morning by noon. Then we did the following routein:

1. Drove for a while.
2. Stop to go to the bathroom.
3. Repeat.

He was really feeling sick, so at the last stop, a Steak and Shake (I've never actually been to one before) in Rolla, MO, I asked him if he wanted to keep going or get a hotel and sleep. He said "hotel", so I asked the waitress for a recommendation and she actually knew of a great one that was safe, nice, and reasonably priced. A few validations on the Internet and I wound up booking it through our corporate travel department for $69, and it's actually very comfortable. It's the Baymont Inn & Suites in Rolla, and includes free breakfast, which I learned this morning saves a minimum of $10 since you aren't even tempted to go to the Starbucks in the lobby, even if you have a room full of food. It probably saves more if you have no food in your room. Ah, that reminds me of a post I need to do about saving money on hotels on the road.

So we are 416 miles from our start, with 1396 more miles to go. If my oldest son is healthier tomorrow, we can hit the road reasonably early and go for a long day, since there's nothing major along the route. Regretfully we've abandoned the route I was hoping to take, which was through Memphis and then Arkansas. I'll have to visit Memphis another time. For now we're taking the most direct route, albeit with some diversions on to the old Route 66.

OK, the kids are eating pizza (delivered from Imo's and its surprisingly good). My oldest son is feeling better, so I think we're going to brave a quick Walmart trip after pizza. Then I'm going to put them to sleep, do some photo processing, charge my camera gear, and plan tomorrow's route... But first some hotel guidance... (next post)