Not So Famous…

I asked Kim for tickets to this show for Valentine’s Day, and she wasn’t in the best “concert-friendly” mood, so she initially said she didn’t want to go.  After having time to muse on it, she decided it would be ok, and told me to go ahead and get tickets.

I tried to get tickets on Sunday morning, when I remembered that she said that, but the Gallo Center was reporting that they were sold out, which was kind of a bummer.

Today, I went to the Gallo center website to see what else was going to be happening there, and there was a “Buy” link on the Leahy event date, so I clicked it.  Much to my surprise, it popped up 2 $25 tickets in the Orchestra pit! I quickly purchased them, and am happy to say we’ll be at that show this Thursday!  :)

Not only will we be at the show, but check this out: (click the pic for a bigger version)

See that little yellow square down there in the front row?  That’s our seats!  WOOOOOOO!!!!

Now, I don’t need to be lectured on the theories of acoustics.  I know that these seats are not the most acoustically perfect seats in the house.  However, check out this video and tell me you wouldn’t want to be in the front-center area to see that footwork:

Needless to say…..I am excited.  :)

This is the only design I feel comfortable posting at the moment, though I hope to have more in the future.  (You know…in all my spare time.)  lol.

Interested to know what anyone thinks.  :)

This is a branching design.  Traditional knotwork uses one or more strands to create an intricate pattern.  However, when space for the knotwork is constrained by something, license is given to do non-traditional things.  In this case, the knotwork for the heart is created by branching the otherwise singular strand.  The result is something of a mitred corner effect.  :)

Hope you enjoy.

Yesterday was a little rough.  Let’s face it, it was a completely horrible day.  Nearly everything went wrong, no matter what I tried.  (I say nearly everything because I ate my burritos without choking.)

So why am I at work?  A couple weeks ago, we had a major problem at work where one of my servers was reporting an issue with the storage controller.  I’ll not go into details, but it was scary.  Turns out, however, that the problem was really that I had outdated firmware on my storage controller.  The firmware was reporting an error that didn’t exist.  Installed new firmware on the fly, and it all worked just fine.  This helped me realize something that had been bugging me since I started at this company; namely, that I needed to schedule some time on the weekend to update LOTS of stuff on my servers.  It’s a scary experience, and it could take quite a bit of time.  But it’s necessary.

How about these tax rebates, huh?  Pretty darn cool.  Give me more money, and I’ll help stimulate the economy!  One thing I’m a little concerned about though…how is it that someone who didn’t pay any taxes still manages to get a TAX REBATE?!?!?!!?

Listen, it’s not a rebate if you didn’t pay anything to begin with.  It’s free money!  …which I do not support.

I have a better idea than tax rebates, though.  It’s a really cool idea.  LOWER MY TAXES IN THE FIRST FREAKIN’ PLACE!  Then you won’t have to go through the hassle of giving it back!!!!

I’ve been pondering entering some of my brews into homebrew competitions, just to see how they’d do.  I like drinking them, which is all that really matters, but I’ve often wondered how they’d stand up against offerings from other homebrewers. I’m about to unofficially find out!

The reason I say unofficially is…well, I’m getting ahead of myself.

The event I’m entering it into is called Hops and Bangers, and it’s a Rotary-sponsored event put on in Gustine, CA. It’s $35 for a ticket, but that ticket gets you all you can eat sausages and all you can drink beer. The sausages aren’t just ANY sausages, either. It’s sausages from Wolfsen’s Sausages in Gustine, which are just stellar eats!  And there’s a great deal of random beers, most of which aren’t just the fizzy yellow stuff. It’s a fun event, and contained within is a homebrew competition.

I say the competition is unofficial, because I think anyone can be a judge.  You don’t have to be skilled in judging beer styles to judge.  What this will tell me is whether average people enjoy drinking my beer.  I’ll be happy with a win, but I won’t be too crestfallen with a lose.  :)  A good attitude, I guess.  At the very least, it means that I will get into the event for free.  I was looking forward to this event before I entered myself…even more so now!

I’m entering my Scotch Ale.  Gabe and I cracked it open last weekend, and it was REALLY good.  I used a lot of peated malt for this batch, which seemed to me to be a very authentic malt to use.  After all, the predominant heating fuel in Scotland was peat.  They would have dried their malt over a peat fire.  The result is a wonderful, malty, slightly smoky, and nicely alcoholic brew.  I am more pleased with this beer than I’ve been with any beer I’ve ever created, and I’m interested to know what others think.

I’ll let you know the results!

My only question now is if I should ask my friends at the Redeemed forum to pray for my entry.  :-D

This weekend was one of those weekends, to some extent.  I’m not going to go into details, as many of them are a bit on the personal side, but suffice to say that by the end of the weekend, I was more down than I was when I went into it.

Friday night was dinner with my in-laws and my brother in law.  That was fun, as always.  I enjoyed it immensely.

Saturday was sort of a busy day around the house.  I didn’t do a whole lot outside of it…we went to a Robert Burns dinner in the evening that was exceedingly enjoyable.

Sunday was stressful, and it’s Sunday about which I’ll have to be a bit vague.  The morning was stressful, the day didn’t go nearly as planned, and the evening was way stressful.  Over all, it wasn’t the day of rest that I think the Lord had envisioned.  It was stressful of necessity, though.  Monday was a little less so, but I still had errands to run.

I don’t want to sound like the whole weekend was a bust, though…it wasn’t.  Friday night, I got to play Cranium with family, and we had a lot of fun.  Stayed up a bit late, but it was fun.

Saturday, I got to try some of my Scotch Ale, which I’ll be entering into a homebrewing competition early next month, and that was tasty!  (More on that in a different blog post, I think.) Saturday night, we went to the Robbie Burns dinner, and had a really good time.

Sunday, I got to see my grandmother, and we all went out to dinner with her.  Later that day, I got to watch Ocean’s 13, which was very enjoyable.  Great movie, that.

Monday, I got to see National Treasure: The Book of Secrets in the theater near my house, which was a cool movie.

Throughout the whole weekend, I got to spend time with my lovely wife, which is never time wasted, to be sure.  So it was a good weekend in many respects.  But you know how these things are; nothing ends up going the way you planned…and a couple small things can bring it all down…

Just the way things are sometimes.  I’m hoping to get some relaxation in the evenings this week. Hope all your weekends went well!

I quite enjoyed taking this Serenity Character Quiz thing.

Your results:
You are Wash (Ship Pilot)

Wash (Ship Pilot) 85% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 75% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 60% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 60% Alliance 55% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 50% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 50% Inara Serra (Companion) 40% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 35% River (Stowaway) 35% A Reaver (Cannibal) 10%

You are a pilot with a good if not silly sense of humor. You take pride in your collection of toys. You love your significant other.

Click here to take the Serenity Firefly Personality Test

I’m always on the lookout for ways I can improve my brewing process, while spending the least amount of money possible.  One of the things that I have been severely annoyed at of late is the fact that I can only boil 7 gallons or so at a time…because I have an 8 gallon kettle.  Well, I’m about to remedy that.

Off-the-shelf brew kettles are anywhere from $280 to $700.  This is a little cost-prohibitive, and really is only good for brewing large batches of beer.  We’ve never found ourselves in need of a 15 gallon pot for anything else, really.  So I’d be spending a lot of money on something that only has 1 practical use.  Well, the guy whose video card I recently worked on told me that if I ever found a 15.5 gallon keg, he’d help me turn it into a big 15 gallon brewing kettle.

This last week, I found a place online that would let me buy used kegs for whatever purpose.  http://www.chicompany.net.  I bought a keg from them, and it’s supposed to show up tomorrow or Wednesday!  WOOO! And the keg was only $65.  That beats the cost for a major kettle, any day.  Even if the parts cost $30, which they won’t, I’m still up!

Then I need to get with Mark and work with him to get this bad boy converted into an infinitely usable brew kettle!  YAY ME!!!  I’ll have pictures as soon as the keg gets to the house!

In other news: Today, we purchased our tickets for the Nightwish concert May 22nd in Orangevale, which ought to be a total blast! We’re stopping by the Squeeze Inn in Sacramento for some killer CHEESEburgers. Check this out:
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/oAgWlgoFCCvSKT4bERplSQ?select=guucg8YXAKbQMnMG-Fru1w

Yeah, that is a BUNCH of cheese on that thing.  Saw this diner on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, and we’re really looking forward to this food and the show.  If you’re interested, you can get your tickets here:
http://www.enterthevault.com/moreInfo.php?id=1463

Finally, we also have our tickets to the Symphony X show in San Francisco on April 18th!  For that show, we’re going to eat dinner at Gordon Biersch before the show….gonna be AWESOME!

You can get tickets for the Symphony X show here:
http://www.slimstickets.com/evinfo.php?eventid=20601&sid=

I suppose I’m understating it somewhat.  I’ve been down enough for a co-worker to notice.  Granted, I wear my emotions on my sleeve, but this one seems to be particularly noticeable.

At any rate, I know what’s getting me down for the most part, and I’ll not really talk about it here.  Too many people read this blog, and who knows what unintended consequences will come of being too specific.

Things will get better; they always do. I would appreciate general prayer, of course.

But in times like this we should always remember that contrary to Joel Osteen’s “theology”, God’s supreme purpose is not in trying to make sure you never feel down….He is not supremely concerned with your happiness. (Or my happiness…or anyone’s happiness, for that matter.)  He never promises we won’t go through tough times. He doesn’t promise to keep us from all depressing situations, circumstances that are not pleasant, or anything that doesn’t give us pleasure. Our culture is focused on minimizing the down times, garnering pleasure for one’s self.  Our culture wants us to focus on ourselves…serving our own lusts.  It’s a perspective born from the thought that there isn’t really anything else past this life. If we believe that there is no “hereafter”, then we’ll naturally focus our efforts on getting the most out of the only life we think we have.  As Christians, we ought not have this only-pleasure, self-seeking philosophy of life.  We have an afterlife that will be completely free of all pain, sadness, and tears, where we’ll have the privilege of worshipping the Living God for all of eternity.  Compared to that, this life of sadness and loss is but a heartbeat; the blink of an eye.

May we always remember to seek an eternal perspective on these things.

Allow me to be specific…I love their games.  Part of me now wishes I didn’t, but the Guitar Hero series is spectacular.  However, in a recent blog post, I detailed that my friend’s GH 3 game just stopped working after less than 24 hours of opening the box.  Seriously…the game just stopped working.  We played it on my Wii, he played it on his Wii, and then not a day later, it stopped working on anyone’s system.  What, it couldn’t take exposure to the harsh beams of incandescent light?  I know, we’re just SO rough on our games.

In their defense, this stuff happens, I know.  But my friend sent his game back to Red Octane after a couple fruitless hours trying to set up a warranty replacement with them.  Originally, they wanted to make him pay $25 to fix it.  Excuse me???  He’s paying to fix your crappy mistake?  I think not.

Once he finally set up the replacement, he sent it in.  That was almost 4 weeks ago.  According to UPS, the package was delivered no less than ***3 WEEKS AGO***.  It’s not hard.  They just need to send him a replacement.  If they didn’t think ahead to have warranty replacement stock on hand, I really can’t feel sorry for them.  It’s not like this is their first title.

Today, he got an e-mail saying that they had received his game.  YOU DON’T SAY!!!!  Stick it in a Wii.  It doesn’t work.  Send him a new one!!!  No, it’s not that simple.  It’ll take another 2-3 weeks from today to get it back to him.

So yeah…I apparently bought this for him for next Christmas.  I’ll think twice about ever purchasing another Red Octane game.

I’ll start the year off by saying that I don’t really like the whole new year’s resolution thing. I think if there’s something you need to do, you should do it now, whenever “now” is. I don’t think waiting until the new year comes around makes you more likely to keep your resolutions, or anything of the sort.  Maybe it’s just tradition, I don’t know.  I don’t like tradition for tradition’s sake, personally.

Anyway, my New Year’s Eve was a nice, calm one.  Calm, that is, until someone decided it would be a good idea to shoot off a freakin’ CANNON next door.  I have no idea what was blown up, or how far away, but it woke Kim out of a dead sleep, and caused me to reach for my gun.  It sounded like it was right outside our window.  I went out there, expecting to see a martian meteorite-sized crater, but saw nothing of the sort.  Also surprisingly, the house next to us was still standing.  It sounded like someone blew it up.

Anyway, aside from being a little tired, the New Year is starting out very agreeably!

I hope all of you are doing well.

Oh, I will make a new year’s resolution.  I will collect the $6 Shawn owes me……….  :)