David’s Neighborhood

OK - today was the day before the convention actually starts.  I flew into Dallas this morning.  I remember part of the beverage service and the landing.  I guess I needed sleep.  I purposely took the seat next to the engine so that:

A) The white noise from the engine would be soothing.
B) The noise from the engine would prevent people from talking.

Both worked.  At one point the noise got annoying so I put in my earbuds and listened to music.  I made it half-way through the second song before I was asleep again.  That helped me be slightly more alert.

The directions from Yahoo had me using the toll road when there was a perfectly good non-toll road alternative.   Luckily I knew this from previous trips.  So I made it to the hotel with very little fuss.

My buddy got here Tuesday so we met up at the hot tub for some catch-up and some relaxation.  Make a note of this - pools in Texas generally aren't heated.  This can be quite a surprise after sitting in a hot tub for a while.  We found it easier to use the ladder into the deep end instead of the stairs at the shallow end.  The stairs gave us too much of a chance to chicken out.

It started to rain a bit while we were in the pool but no storm so we just waited it out.  It worked.  A couple of rounds of hot tub - pool really relaxed the muscles kinked up from days of prep, hauling around heavy luggage and sleeping in an airplane.

Reaper is nice enough to do a "meet and greet" with food for all the early arrivals.  They also gave us our convention packets so we don't have to clog up the official registration tomorrow.  There were some really fun things in the packets this year.  Two of the reformulated Pro Paints, some CAV cards, some other surprises.  The new Casketworks is not in color which seems like a throwback to the early days but it makes sense.  Only a few pages were in color.  Most of the catalog was black and white anyway.  Doesn't help the color swatches they used to have tho.

Most everyone had left by around 10:00 or so.  Getting back to the hotel I changed into my comfy clothes, poured a margarita (darn these small hotel cups) and set about fixing the pieces that broke off the Hirst Arts piece I brought as a gift.  ReaperClark kindly provided me a tube of two part epoxy so I didn't have to hunt around for a store this late at night.  Unfortunately as I fixed it all back up I noticed a missing brick at the join of one of the sections.  A completely missing brick.  Argh.  I'll have to give it to the person this way and send them the missing brick and that annoys me.  But it should also teach me to leave things until last minute.

I stopped at the package store to get my contribution to ShinerCon later this weekend.  For those not informed a 'package store' is a liquor store and ShinerCon is one night when we all meet in someone's hotel room and indulge in Shiner beer.  Shiner is a local brand of beer.  There's a secret handshake and some of us attach Shiner bottle caps to our badges the next day.  It's all part of ReaperCon.

The convention officially opens at noon on Thursday.  That lets me sleep in a little and hopefully hit that hot tub again.  I won't have time after that because I'm going to be at Reaper from 9:00am until around 11:00pm if last year is any indication.  And Sunday I'll be going directly from Reaper to visit my dad.  And don't think I won't be hitting the hot tub once I get to that hotel.  But I get ahead of myself.

Tomorrow I have one class on painting army highlights.  The rest of the day is mine.  There's games to play, people to chat with, painting to do, shopping to do, and otherwise just hang out.

I'll report back on Official Day One tomorrow.  I would add pictures but I can't get them from the camera to the computer I'm using here.  I could probably have used one of the adapters from home but the one that would have been easiest is USB 2.0 and this is an older computer that doesn't support it.  Ditto on the media player - I can charge it using the computer but not transfer files.

Margarita number three is almost gone so it's time to toddle off to sleep.

Grab your helmet, check the air in your tires, and hop on your bike because in many U.S. cities, May 12 - 16 is Bike to Work Week! Six Apart has a lot of biking enthusiasts, so we're very excited to support this event by encouraging all of our employees to bike to work this week. San Francisco's Bike to Work Day is tomorrow, Thursday, May 15th, and New York's is Friday, May 16th.

Bike to Work Week

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Six Apart is helping out its employees by providing maps (shaded according to steepness - a must in SF!) to help everyone plan out his/her route, as well as finding first-time riders buddies to commute with. We're also supporting ALL SF riders who pass the front of our office by handing out coffee, juice and snacks from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. If you're in our neighborhood, look for the sign that says "Six Apart Supports Bike to Work Day" and stop by to say hi and get energized!

Improve your health, financial status, productivity, and happiness by joining thousands - maybe even millions - of commuters around the country who are hopping on their bikes to get to work. Visit the Bike to Work Week website to find out more about events in your area.

Support the two-wheeled way of life with the "Passing Left" theme found in "Photo-Based" in the Design Area. Planning on cycling to work this week? Let us know in the comments!

Passing Left

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From Southernfood.about.com

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup cake flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick (4 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
• 3/4 cup half and half

PREPARATION:

Roll the dough to about 3/4-inch thickness on a floured surface. Cut out biscuits with a 3-inch round cutter. Gather up dough scraps, reroll, and repeat the procedure until dough is used up. Place biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet.

Bake biscuits in center of a 400° oven until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Serve biscuits hot, with butter.
Makes about 12 biscuits.

Notes: I found the dough particularly sticky, no doubt as a result of the amount of cake flour vs. regular flour.  You may want to adjust the proportions.

As we mentioned last week, we had to postpone the maintenance that was due to occur on Thursday, May 8th.

We have rescheduled the maintenance for tonight, Tuesday, May 13th, starting at 6:00 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time (that's 1:00 A.M. UTC/GMT). We'll be taking Vox offline for a bit in order to move the service to a brand new home in some bright, shiny new server racks. We don't expect to be offline for more than an hour or two, but we apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.

Again, thank you for your patience as we continue to invest in Vox's infrastructure!

Well after many years of not keeping fish, I've decided to try my hand at it again. The last time I kept fish I was into large live food eating fish. Easy way to put that experience is my tanks and filters weren't large enough to handle that type of fish keeping, so it wasn't enjoyable.

This time around I've done alot of research into what I might like to keep and I've turned to a buddy that's big into his fish. I've decided to keep african cichlids, which my buddy had kept for a time and then got fed up with how nasty they are, he kept and all male tank. I on the other hand always have to try my hand at breeding be it reptiles, bugs and now fish, it's what keeps me interested in the animals in my care.

Overall of tank

This is that tank so far, it's a 55 gallon with and Aquaclear 110 and a Tertra Whisper for filter, a marineland powerhead that's rated for moving 300 gph, a aquaclear powerhead rated for 270 gph and the standard 48" lighting which I plan on upgrading.

Right now I have 3 goldfish and 1 koi that I rescued from the pond next door to me. The house was foreclosed on and these poor guys were left behind. They'll be going to my girlfriend's parents pond in the next week or two.

 I plan on keeping Pseudotropheus saulosi and Metriaclima estherae (Red Zebra). Pseudotropheus saulosi  the males are a nice blue with striping and the females yellow.  The Metriaclima estherae 

I'm planning on getting the males are a powder blue and the female are a bright red/orange. The powder blue males are proving hard to find around here. When this species was brought into the pet trade an orange male variant were the first males brought into the pet trade so being line bred that's what I'm finding is orange males and I want the blue males. 

Left side of tank

Right side of tank

Well, after 2 days of work on the bathroom I have alot done. Please note: My bathroom is really small. So small that 6 sheets of 4' x 8' drywall 'should' cover it. As of noon today, I have two walls completely torn down and replaced with greenboard, one wall 3/4 down and that same amount covered in greenboard, and the bathroom fan put on it's own switch finally. All the main walls are up for the bathtub surround, but we are considering buying another surround to help protect the wood behind the windows.

On the job note, I still have not heard anything. I sit in limbo still Ah well.

Got the second unit finished.

orcwarband2

They're on the right (the first is on the left.  Now that they are done, I'm working on my Arrer Boyz next.  I'm going to take a quick break to read my new book--it has got me thinking about some things that I may mull around here.

Too much to do and not enough time!  How many times (hah!) have you heard that?

I leave for ReaperCon next week and pretty much immediately after I return we go on our first camping trip of the season.  We haven't really dredged out the camper for this year, I only have half the linens washed, the icebox needs to be scrubbed, etc.  We don't have a way to hook up power to the camper where it is so I can only work during daylight hours.  And there's no way I'm getting the last two curtains made before the first trip but that's less of an issue since they're replacement curtains.

Our weekend is half-booked so I'm really hoping I can use the other half.  Reeeeally hoping.

I need to finish painting and landscaping a piece I'm bringing to ReaperCon as a gift so that's also going to have to get done this weekend so it has time to dry before being packed.

So, if anyone can toss a day my way it would be greatly appreciated.

PS - the dandylions have won this round.  I will resort to chemicals to win the battle.

Tonight, starting at 6:00 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time (that's 1:00 A.M. UTC/GMT), we'll be taking Vox offline for a bit in order to move the service to a brand new home in some bright, shiny new server racks. We don't expect to be offline for more than an hour or two, but we apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.

Thank you for your patience as we continue to invest in Vox's infrastructure!

Update: we've postponed tonight's maintenance, and will let you know when we reschedule.  Thanks for your patience!