For quite a while now I've been thinking, "Hey, I need to update my blog." The rational, objective part of my mind reminds me, "You only update it when you're feeling down. Why update it anyway? There is no external benefit to it being updated."
Today I found someone else who started a blog with pretty much the same first post I did. They hate blogs but are ironically starting one anyway. Welcome to my world. The universe loves irony.
This is also the first day of June. June is an interesting month for me every year. The third week of this month I will again venture to New York state and visit the ever-lovely Rochester. Our annual business meeting with Kodak and Softworks Systems awaits. It's boring as all heck, but I don't really have a realistic choice if I want to keep my job and maintain relationships. Oh well: I get paid, am always treated to real Italian food by Kodak, and I like to fly. I suppose if nothing else I get a joy ride and authentic Italian food for free. I will be taking video during my trip with the Canon HF S100 HD camcorder I purchased last year around Thanksgiving.
The week after my business trip is my SkillsUSA VICA trip. Again this year I am to be a judge for the national-level Computer Maintenance Technology contest. Fun fun. It's a lot of work but always rewarding in its own right. The event also provides a convenient opportunity for me to visit my brothers in the Kansas City area. I fear what amount of money I am likely to spend at Microcenter.
Given these events, why am I always still so bored?
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
The Zombie Cleaver, My First and Only Sword
The tale of The Zombie Cleaver is sort of interesting to me. There are no epic journeys ending in a mountain because of an evil ring, but when it comes to real life one can't be too picky.
Instead, I've always been interested by pretty much any militaria. I like pistols, rifles, shotguns, bows, arrows, shields, kevlar, boron carbide rifle plates, chainmail, platemail, cannons, etc. Add to that list swords and you can see I pretty much enjoy anything in that vein to some extent. Some things I just appreciate, while others I'd like to own and/or use like a collector of any other type of item would.
Last Thursday, a long-awaited item finally arrived. What item is that? A sword. I'd been debating its purchase for nearly a year, keeping a tab for it open in my browser so that I didn't outright forget about it. Periodically I'd viewed the tab and considered it, but it was a low priority item when compared to more immediate needs like food, gas, and computer components.
Being a total novice, I didn't really know what to expect. Would I be able to utilize it effectively, or would I instead launch my target flying through the air virtually unscathed? Would I cut my own leg in half? I knew some very limited information based on what I have seen on the Internet. Some things are obvious but should be said to any beginner anyway: plan your cut and plan its termination for when the blade either misses or passes through the target, step into your cut, wear good shoes, keep well-balanced, make sure nobody and nothing you care about is in the path of the blade (or beyond in case of weapon failure or loss of grip), it's not a baseball bat, oil after every use, and rust will set in pretty much instantly. It wasn't much knowledge, but it was enough to ensure safety. That is substantially more important than achieving an effective or outright impressive cut.
My first opportunity to try a cut was Friday after work since Thursday night I had been occupied with a church group meeting. I had two water bottles that I'd drawn mean-looking faces on that simply had to be dispatched. The absolute lack of technique and experience showed. Despite the blade being a light 1.9 pounds, I had trouble gaining velocity. Controlling flight path was also less than perfect. The cuts were sloppy instead of smooth. I walked away unimpressed with both myself and the blade.
Blame lied solely at my feet. There was little sense in blaming the weapon for my own shortcomings, after all. Saturday after lunch I took another shot at cutting. Two more bottles were ready for slaughter--leftovers from the day before. I had a go at the skinnier bottle of the two, and *slice*...a clean diagonal cut. Quickly I found myself becoming more aware of the blade's position, enabling me to cut with it instead of simply swing it like a sharp-edged club. I cut a second time and just barely missed cutting through the entire bottle. Horizontally the blade had passed through the entire object without difficulty, but I hadn't cut "deep" enough to cleave the bottle in half. My error resulted in a cut that was about a quarter of an inch too shallow. Not bad for a novice, I thought. What a wonderful way to spend the first weekend of spring with good weather.
It is curious how rapidly high carbon steel begins to rust. It is essential for me to keep a cotton cloth in my pocket when cutting wet targets. Immediately following a cut, it's time for a wipe-down. Shortly after that, it's time for a coating of mineral oil.
Good stuff. Some times some hands-on time with a piece of the past can really broaden one's appreciation for mankind's history.
Instead, I've always been interested by pretty much any militaria. I like pistols, rifles, shotguns, bows, arrows, shields, kevlar, boron carbide rifle plates, chainmail, platemail, cannons, etc. Add to that list swords and you can see I pretty much enjoy anything in that vein to some extent. Some things I just appreciate, while others I'd like to own and/or use like a collector of any other type of item would.
Last Thursday, a long-awaited item finally arrived. What item is that? A sword. I'd been debating its purchase for nearly a year, keeping a tab for it open in my browser so that I didn't outright forget about it. Periodically I'd viewed the tab and considered it, but it was a low priority item when compared to more immediate needs like food, gas, and computer components.
Being a total novice, I didn't really know what to expect. Would I be able to utilize it effectively, or would I instead launch my target flying through the air virtually unscathed? Would I cut my own leg in half? I knew some very limited information based on what I have seen on the Internet. Some things are obvious but should be said to any beginner anyway: plan your cut and plan its termination for when the blade either misses or passes through the target, step into your cut, wear good shoes, keep well-balanced, make sure nobody and nothing you care about is in the path of the blade (or beyond in case of weapon failure or loss of grip), it's not a baseball bat, oil after every use, and rust will set in pretty much instantly. It wasn't much knowledge, but it was enough to ensure safety. That is substantially more important than achieving an effective or outright impressive cut.
My first opportunity to try a cut was Friday after work since Thursday night I had been occupied with a church group meeting. I had two water bottles that I'd drawn mean-looking faces on that simply had to be dispatched. The absolute lack of technique and experience showed. Despite the blade being a light 1.9 pounds, I had trouble gaining velocity. Controlling flight path was also less than perfect. The cuts were sloppy instead of smooth. I walked away unimpressed with both myself and the blade.
Blame lied solely at my feet. There was little sense in blaming the weapon for my own shortcomings, after all. Saturday after lunch I took another shot at cutting. Two more bottles were ready for slaughter--leftovers from the day before. I had a go at the skinnier bottle of the two, and *slice*...a clean diagonal cut. Quickly I found myself becoming more aware of the blade's position, enabling me to cut with it instead of simply swing it like a sharp-edged club. I cut a second time and just barely missed cutting through the entire bottle. Horizontally the blade had passed through the entire object without difficulty, but I hadn't cut "deep" enough to cleave the bottle in half. My error resulted in a cut that was about a quarter of an inch too shallow. Not bad for a novice, I thought. What a wonderful way to spend the first weekend of spring with good weather.
It is curious how rapidly high carbon steel begins to rust. It is essential for me to keep a cotton cloth in my pocket when cutting wet targets. Immediately following a cut, it's time for a wipe-down. Shortly after that, it's time for a coating of mineral oil.
Good stuff. Some times some hands-on time with a piece of the past can really broaden one's appreciation for mankind's history.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Tuscan Night
I've seen Subway advertising the Tuscan chicken sandwich for quite some time now. There hasn't been a driving reason to try the thing as far as I can tell.
That changed with Tuesday's trip to Subway. Seeing as how I tend to be lazy and thus eat out there a couple times a week, the employees have become familiar with me. They treat me more as a friend than as a customer, which is kind of nice. All that is required of me for an order is a bread type and a meat. From there they know it will have cheddar cheese, be toasted, have all available vegetables, and no dressing of any kind. Furthermore, they know to ring it up with a bag of chips and no drink.
During this last trip, we started discussing which sandwiches we like. They find it kind of strange that I order pretty much the same thing every time (either chicken or roast beef on honey oat or Italian herb), but I explained that I just never get tired of it and also do like virtually everything there.
One of them regards the Tuscan chicken sandwich as something really special, so I've decided to give it a try. With any luck it will be something special for me as well.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Long Time, Nice Hat
I haven't posted in a while. No, I'm not dead. Tomorrow marks the day that I will receive four more Fujitsu 15K hard drives. Yes, this is a nerd post. =) I'll have eight MBA3147RCs working together in RAID-5 for my boot and application partitions. That ought to be interesting, though I'm pretty sure this PERC5/i is maxed in terms of throughput and latency. R5 with four drives already raises my average random access time from 5.2ms to 6.5ms.
Oh well. At least it's bigger. It's not just bigger, it's 1TB of 15K space. It's absurdo.
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