Posted by Brian Fending on July 21st, 2008 — Posted in Brewing, Personal
This was one action-packed weekend, with excitement ranging from geeky to terrified-parent and back to geekdom all before 12:30pm.
Wireless NAS
I picked up a network attached storage (NAS) device this week, and implemented it Friday night into Saturday morning. The revolutionary part (for me, anyway), is that it’s only physically attached to my wireless router… by an ethernet cable. What this means is that I have an energy-efficient device (using “green” 500GB drives in each drive enclosure bay) for storing all of our music, movies, and pictures, along with automated backups of our laptops.
Baby Eye Glue
Around the time that my iTunes library was finishing its migration, I was cleaning up in the kitchen and getting ready to take Norah (age: 19 months) for a little toddler walk around the block. The phone rang, so I answered while Norah tooled around and watched some of the construction across the street from the couch at the front window. The coffee table next to the couch was, apparently, too close. She slipped on a pillow, I’m pretty sure, and toppled face first. In short, the proclamation of “TRACTOR!” followed by “<BIFF>” was then followed by a trip to the ER at Childrens’ Hospital in Buffalo.
Did you know that not only prize fighters use glue these days? As opposed to stitches on her left eyelid (yes: eyelid… 1/2in across and 1/8in spread), a medical-grade adhesive was used. The details of its application much to Norah’s terror and fast emotional recovery will be family lore for ages.
Sitting in the last treatment room in the hallway right next to the ambulance arrival door, we felt lucky to have gotten off so easily. A couple of hours after arriving, we strolled out of there making promises of ice cream, and quickly (though not as quickly as we’d gone in the other direction - Rachel is now a Double-0-certified emergency driver) went home for nap time.
Hefeweizen
As nap time expired without a lot of sleeping, Yvonne & Gene arrived for the brewing of a Hefeweizen, currently fermenting in a large, sealed food-grade bucket at my house. It was one long process. The longest brew time I’ve ever done, and everybody pitched in A LOT to make it happen. I’ll do a dedicated post on the subject soon with all of the steps taken and problems encountered, but probably only after we’ve done the bottling and are waiting a few long weeks for the results. Needless to say, it’s nice to brew with another hack who is into doing variations on a theme to produce a truly unique product. (Thanks, Gene!)
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Posted by Brian Fending on July 17th, 2008 — Posted in Music, Rails, Social Media, Technology
I don’t subscribe to many podcasts, but definitely give RailsEnvy a listen when I find the synopsis to be of interest. They recently did something quite interesting and set up a voicemail box to get feedback. Another of their listeners, frustrated that he only uses console to build applications (as I do), left a voicemail that the RailsEnvy people have aptly labeled, “We ain’t got no RSpec - Best Voicemail Ever“. Check it out - and definitely listen to the original voicemail before consuming the “remix”. It is a testament to their creativity as product evangelists and marketers.
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Posted by Brian Fending on July 14th, 2008 — Posted in Music, Personal
Rachel and I attended a wedding at bar this weekend. Not the usual kind of bar wedding we attend - no hogs parked outside or tequila drinking contests involving the bride - but a rather nice affair. There were cab rides home at the end of the night stemming from the in-house microbrews and generous Sapphire & tonics, and nobody’s car was stolen while sleeping off the festivities. The food was quite possibly the best buffet ever spread at a wedding, and I can honestly say that I had good friends old and new to talk to all night. It was awesome on many levels.
But this, my friends, is not the primary reason for today’s entry. Scheduled for 9pm that evening was a Karaoke Hour. The news spread far and wide and my closest friends first thought of me and tales of the LAST wedding karaoke at which I stepped up, belting out - respectably, I might add - Ring of Fire. I was notified, I made preparations. I had committed to singing this song. It was my tribute to the happily married couple, the song of course being the June Carter ballad that Cash (with Carter Family Singers) took to new mariachi heights.
DJ to crowd: “Okay, Karaoke time is appraching. I’ll need about 21 people to fill the hour… at least 15…” (I didn’t understand this part.)
Me to bar-neighbor: “Well, time to finish this and go sign…”
DJ: “You know… Johnny Cash wouldn’t be appropriate, but anything else…”
Me: “[sigh]“
Was this a coincidence? Had the excited communications about Ring of Fire made their way to somebody in charge of such things as Karaoke Hour??? To my discredit (or not), I did not pursue. This was a wedding, after all, and the new couple deserved whatever time they wished to have. But damn.
After that, some arrangements for a minivan-cab were being made, and we had a timeframe to work within. Drinks were finished, belonging were found, goodbyes were said… The song playing the last time I walked past the Karaoke Hour stage? Jay-Z’s 99 Problems. If “I got 99 problem but a bitch ain’t one…” is an appropriate tribute, but “Love is a burnin’ thing… It makes a firey ring…” isn’t, then I give up. I may as have been intending to sing Cocaine Blues.
In any case, World, you are on notice: Expect a Ring of Fire when this Wedding Karaoke concept is revisited. It is, after all, the only song that celebrates my limited vocal range.
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Posted by Brian Fending on July 9th, 2008 — Posted in Personal
One of my favorite parts of summer is sitting on the deck next to the lilly garden next to our deck that usually blooms on (but this year right before) my birthday. It’s fantastic fun to dead-head them with a glass of hefeweizen or Fulkerson Vincent in hand all summer long. With help from Rachel, Norah has discovered the fun.
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Posted by Brian Fending on July 3rd, 2008 — Posted in Code, MVC, PHP, Technology
I was at a PHP User Group meeting earlier this week where the presenter was extolling the virtues of the great Symfony MVC framework for PHP, which he started using last month. I’ve been experimenting with it for a few months longer and shared some of the same reactions when I first started a few experiments. I had to leave about thirty minutes in, and no doubt I missed some really hot PHP action, but there’s another MVC I’ve been toying with recently, CodeIgnitor. Couple this with the javascript framework Prototype, and the possibilities are not just endless… they’re really *^%&%$# fast.
That’s my major complaint with untweaked Symfony projects - speed. CodeIgnitor, while it requires you to CODE a bit more (than in Symfony) to accomplish your (same) goals, is blazing. What Prototype gives you is a means by which you can get fast responses on the page (AJAX functionality). This, when you think about making on-screen updating of information *even faster* than conventional PHP, is an amazing concept.
Anyway, I’m working on something that I hope to Beta in a few weeks using this dynamic duo. It’ll be a Web app that works well in mobile browsers, including BlackBerry devices complying with the RIM cHTML constraints. And it’ll be smokin’ fast.
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