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A rainy Mother’s Day Sunday mixed with some NBA basketball

Sunday, May 13, 2012 at 3:30 PM
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Joni picked up dinner yesterday from the best Thai restaurant in Colorado Springs — Arharn Thai located near North Carefree and Constitution. We mixed it up a little bit by ordering the Pad Prig Prow instead of the drunken noodles or Phad Thai. Overall we had:

  • 3 Egg Rolls
  • Crab cheese wontons
  • Pad Prig Prow with beef (hot)
  • Panang curry with beef (Thai hot)
  • Bangkok fried rice with tofu (medium)

This year most NBA games were broadcast on cable networks. Fortunately, the America Broadcast Corporation (ABC) executives via ESPN talent have been broadcasting two NBA playoff games a week on Sundays. LeBron James may have just received a 3rd NBA MVP trophy this year, but the Miami Heat team is still lacking a true center to anchor the backcourt. I cannot decide if I want to pop some movie theater butter popcorn or heat up the leftover Bangkok fried rice. The eclectic mix Indiana Pacers players have been able to create some interesting matchup problems for the all-star players on the Miami Heat.

Other notes:

  • In terms of technology related news, I’m quietly working on a review of my new Nikon D3200 digital SLR camera.
  • Will the HTC EVO 4G LTE be an awesome phone? I get to upgrade my Sprint phone or change carriers on June 1, 2012.
  • I watched episode 5 of “On the Verge” on my TiVo. The Verge editor Paul Miller has taken a vow of internet silence. I am predicting that Paul will fail miserably. Why would a tech journalist attempt to successfully go without the internet for an entire year? Perhaps Paul has been ordered by a judge to stop using the internet…

My website is now available in China (That’s a big audience)

Sunday, May 13, 2012 at 8:35 AM
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Last week 20.17% of my web traffic came from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Apparently, the authorities in control of the PRC and the great firewall of China have allowed the people access to my principle domain. Any website allowed past the great firewall has a potential audience of 718 million Chinese people who have internet access.

I checked my great firewall status

I checked my great firewall status

Weekend of code Saturday planning mixed with a Costco run

Saturday, May 12, 2012 at 8:21 AM
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John Paul seems to be enjoying the morning and since John Paul is all smiles when visiting Costco everything should work out. In Colorado Springs, Costco opens at 9:30 AM mountain time on Saturday mornings. Costco sells a variety of things in bulk quantities and a few things in single serving size. Today just might be the day that John Paul and I grab a few items for Joni in preparation for the big celebration tomorrow. Outside of considering traveling plans I have been stuck on why the Fox executives cancelled two promising if not rather low production budget shows “Breaking In” and “The Finder” in preparation for new fall shows. What franchise reboot or derivative crime drama are they planning on debuting?

Lemon Walnut Pesto Recipe

Sunday, May 6, 2012 at 5:48 PM
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The basil growing in the kitchen

The basil growing in the kitchen

Joni and I allow basil plants to grow in the kitchen. We are therefore pretty much required to make pesto. Consider for a moment that store bought basil (especially the organic kind) is more expensive per ounce than gasoline or cheap Scotch whiskey.  I thought that now would be as good a time as any other to share the current test kitchen version of my lemon walnut pesto which includes:

2 cups of fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup walnuts without shells
1/8 cup EVOO
1/4 cup lemon juice
5 cloves of garlic or 1 1/2 tablespoons
salt and pepper based on personal preference

1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Theoretical preparation directions provided for educational purposes only:

1. Use a food processor with at least two cups capacity to chop up the walnuts then add the garlic
2. After processing the walnuts and garlic in the food processor add the EVOO, lemon juice, salt & pepper, and then the basil leaves
3. Store in an airtight container or plastic bag (additional lemon juice can be added for storage)

If you come up with any alternations, then please feel free to let me know via the comment section of this post.

Today would be the day to revisit the ongoing Sunday coding project

Sunday, May 6, 2012 at 10:46 AM
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Have you heard the weight of our present situation call out, “Now would be the time…” or maybe it could have been my imagination? If you have been paying attention, then you probably have already guessed that coding is probably going to happen every weekend throughout the entire summer. This summer really is going to be my summer of code. I’m pretty sure that I am going to have to replace the beta version of Windows 8 on my Asus Eee netbook with Fedora 16. More or less you could probably say that this will be the summer of big data coding. I’m going to designate my netbook “The Coder.”

Summer of Code Project Update: The project is currently 25% complete. Module one is now complete and running within my production environment. This marks the first significant update I have made to my basic web crawler/spider since the winter of 2007/2008.

My coding project has gotten off to a slow start this weekend

Saturday, May 5, 2012 at 11:20 AM
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This is my first weekend flying solo with John Paul. My request to hire weekend help was denied by Joni a couple of weeks ago. Consider for a moment, at the age of 31 I held a baby for the first time. Learning how to be a parent is really about the science of muddling through — it’s a process. John Paul mostly seems to sleep, play, and eat. I’m supposed to be coding, but all I can think about is whether or not I should go get tacos or if I should just warm up some soup. After a few days of trying to code using my Asus Eee netbook I gave up in favor of using my old Dell Studio 1535 laptop. Beyond my coding efforts: for the first time in years, I started looking around at freelance coding services this weekend.

Weekend of code updates and some whiteboard nonsense

Sunday, April 29, 2012 at 9:25 AM
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Now is the time to make it happen… code development at the NPL Research Group is now in full swing. All kidding aside building a new piece of software is all about seizing the day and the night (carpe diem carpe noctem). The basement has been transformed into a fully functionally workplace. My desk area is clean and the bookshelf is fully covered with a 4×6 whiteboard. Both the Microsoft wireless elite keyboard and the explorer mouse have new batteries.

I was able to complete all of my project scoping. Completing project scoping marked the realization of a major milestone. I almost ran upstairs and yelled, “Carpe vinum!” Instead of grabbing the wine bottle I decided to grab a Five Hour Energy and get back to work. I’m handling all of the coding myself I had to full scope the project and then break the project into manageable chunks. Fortunately, in the coding work a large software project can sometimes be divided into modules. It should take me about 4 weekends to complete the principle development. Building one major module a week is an aggressive goal with a development team of one, but I think it is possible.

While I am working I would like to be able to watch some Blu-ray movies on my second screen. However, it does not look like that is going to happen anytime soon. I’m still a little pretty mad about Cyberlink’s PowerDVD not being able to function properly when installed on a Windows 8 computer. Who designs security restrictions that render software unusable when the operating system is upgrade? Apparently, the software engineers over at Cyberlink are more interested in locking down features than in providing battle tested ready for anything code.

The integrity of CyberLink PowerDVD is under threat

The integrity of CyberLink PowerDVD is under threat

Some of Cyberlink’s code developers are apparently working to correct this issue, but a solution has not been announced or even foreshadowed. Let’s talk about something that works for a few minutes…

I’m a big fan of the new Amazon Prime PlayStation 3 (PS3) software interface. For those of you playing along at home, last week’s pan-ultimate-uber Amazon Prime video picks of the week were “The Man with One Red Shoe” and “Mr. Baseball.” This week’s Amazon Prime video picks of the week are “Short Circuit” and “Spies Like Us.” Over the next two months I’ll be building a top ten list of watchable movie classics that are available via Amazon Prime streaming.

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