markthetrigeek.falconportal.com

Yeah it’s been a while since I buckled down and wrote something in this here blog so let’s get writing.

To begin, there will be no song by the end of this year. I hit a brick, sounds like total garbage, wall when it comes to recording the actual instruments. I had created some drum tracks in Hydrogen which of course sounded great and wanted to add some guitar to it. That’ when it became rather obvious I didn’t have the equipment to pull this song thing off. The first issue was repeatability. I love my little practice amp when it’s raining out. It’s has a nice crunch to it when you light up the over-drive but when things dry out, the sound changes too much for my liking. Then I attempted to record some keyboard and that failed pretty bad as well. No matter how I positioned the headphone mic it still sounded like I was in some tunnel with the instrument way, way away from me. Out of desperation I even tried to record in one of my bathrooms but that meant I had to use one of my laptops and that added some unwanted noise. The final nail in the coffin came when I tried to record my acoustic guitar. Simply put you really need a pickup in the sound hole for two reasons. 1. To get the proper resonance/sound. 2. So it’s out of the way and you can actually strum. So the soung is officially shelved until I either win the lottery and can buy some gear, or someone loans me their recording studio for free. Needless to say I’m not holding my breath for either of those options.

Moving on to the training front, the shoulder, same one my oldest fell one while I was rough housing with him, is doing better. I’m upping the weight with each workout so that’s good. Also, if you believe those virtual max bench sites, the ones that ask for a weight and how many times you can do it, I’m sitting around a 148lbs max bench. Speaking of weight lifting I’ve been asked a few times via twitter and a few times via this site how I work out. I pondered taking pictures and writing something up but I’m just not narcissistic enough so here is the cliff note version. Seriously other then those of who asked for it, no one really cares what I do.

I bought a bench with a leg machine about 12-15yrs ago. I then bought some used plates, dumbells, a Olympic straight bar (name??) and a curl bar. The long bar came with cheapo squeeze clamps (name again??) but I rarely use them. About 5-10 years ago I bought some cheapo (notice a trend developing here?) kids mats. You know the ones that interlock and come in cute kiddie colors? Once my kids didn’t need a playpen, I stole the mats and put them in my cellar under the bench. That was a major step up in luxery because now I could do crunches off the cement floor. I also have a long broom handle that I do twists with. So here is how I workout.

Most bench stuff is pretty straight forward. I either use dumbells or the bars and the bench allows for decline, incline and flat bench presses. I like the curl bar because doing curls with a straight bar tweaks my wrists and I kinda need those.  I’m not a crosfit person and that’s a good thing because my ceiling is too low. I like doing standing Presses but I have to choose my weight plates carefully or I’ll nail my ceiling at the top of my press. I’ve seen youtube vids that show people converting their garages into workout areas which gives them alot more overhead clearance and that’s cool if you don’t want to park your actual car in the garage. I kinda like the idea of having my car in the garage so the cellar it is.

As for weight belt, some cheapo Gold’s Gym thing from Walmart.  I also notice that alot of crosfit people drop their weights after finishing their reps. Since my foam mats are cheap, I can’t do that. I’m also too cheap to pay for the rubber coated weights. The leg machine allows for leg ext, and leg curls, and the stairs into the cellar allow for calf raises. There is no heat in the cellar and to be perfectly honest I like love it that way. There are no mirrors and there is only one poster on the wall. This one. For me lifting is a solitary event and that means no music, fancy clothing, vidoes, cell phones, tvs, nothing. Just me against gravity. To use a now trendy word, lifting is primal and all that other marketing stuff just gets in the way. To end, I like the Bench Press and Standing Press because they are easy to do and they hit so many muscle groups. My least favorite exercise has to be the plank.  For me it’s more mental then physical and I like to move which the Plank doesn’t want you to do.  That pretty covers it.

MS has announced that by this time next year XP will no longer be supported. I’m kinda looking forward to that day because that’s when I’ll update the XP laptop to what ever linux distro works best with my Compaq. That will leave only one Win machine in the house running XP. I technically have the same XP lic running in a VM on my desktop running Xubuntu so I guess if something absolutely demands it I can pull that up and move forward. But beyond that, FOSS all the way.

Well that’s enough writing for today. I hope the Easter Season was a joyous time and that the rest of the year only gets better. Till next time, God Bless.

Sometimes you have to stick to your guns independent of what others are saying.  Sometimes you have to wait a long time before those people come around to your opinion. To be honest sometimes it never happens or when it does those folks are not big enough to admit they were wrong. It should be said though, when they do admit it, I respect those people greatly. So what am I going on and on about?

Blocking pieces and parts of websites with browser plug-ins to prevent malicious attacks and protect ones privacy. I had people in person telling me I was stealing if I ran certain plug-ins. I had people online telling me the same thing. I stuck to my guns though because some of the loudest and most vocal people where in fact the once’s running websites. Heck a local acquaintance once told me in person, “If you run AdBlock or NoScript you are no better then an street criminal who shoplifts.”  To be honest I never actually took the guy serious because I thought it was an emotional response that lacked very little logic.Well guess who I bumped into the other day? Yup, the same guy.

So we get talking and of course the subject of kids come up and out comes the laptop so he can show me some pictures. (to answer the question before you ask, his phone needed charging) His kids were like ever young child in the world. Smiling, full of life and beaming with joy.  Then he does the one thing I didn’t think would happen. “hey, let me show you my FB page because the pictures are newer.” That’s when the browser popped up, and there for everyone to see, three little letters; ABP. And right next to it, a nice blue “S”. That’s right, Mr. Your Stealing, was now running the same plug-ins he berated me for. So I asked him about it and to a man he fessed up, “Yeah, I’ve come around on that, now that I have a wife and kids and all. It’s kinda scary some of the things these websites are doing.  Now that my little girl is online I’m constantly checking fixtracking.com to make sure I block as much stuff as possible. ”

I never said another word on the subject and we both went back to talking about how wonderful it was to be a family man. And when I say man, I mean Man.  For in the end, a logical examination of the facts led this father to the correct conclusion. Surfing the web without a good set of browser plugs-ins is taking a massive chance with your family’s privacy and with your computers. Oh, and by the way, it wasn’t me who first suggested such measures. While working in the PC industry I spoke with many security people and their voice was overwhelming; protect yourself or else.

So where does that leave us? Well it leaves us exactly where I have been for years, running many different browser plug-ins in an effort to limit my exposure. If nothing else, I can at least say, “I’m not contributing to the FB nightmare.”

Thank you PrivacyFix.

Last year I only finished 5 of the 10 things I put on my list so lets see if I can do any better this year. Could I put more thought in this? Oh sure but I’m just too lazy to really try to work through tons of life data when in reality I don’t have a clue what’s going to happen. So without wasting any more of your time, my To-Do list for 2013…in no particular order.

1. Read More. I use to read alot but reading isn’t very social. So instead of reading I’d just watch something on TV with my wife. Mind you our TV viewing hours barely gets above 8hrs a week and that usually means my wife and I got to see a movie on Sat night after the kids were in bed. But I think it would be nice to read a bit more and if I do it next to my wife as she does some work remotely, we all win.

2. Buy a Yixing Pot. A what? A Yixing Pot to be used for brewing only green tea. I’ll let Wiki explain it. I’ve noticed a difference between my Chatsford pot and my Gaiwan when brewing Oolong and everyone says once you get a yixing for green and such you’ll love it, So I’m going for it.

3. This one is going to be so out there it’s not going to make any sense. Making it even weirder is I don’t even know if I can already do it. So what is “IT”? Find out how much I can bench press and see if I can do my own body weight. Yeah I’ve been hitting the weights again and having fun doing so. I have no idea if I’ll stick with this or not but I’ll through it out there. And yes I know, getting a good max press doesn’t help my triathlon results one bit.

4. Make relish. Seriously I never had a chance given the weather so I’m putting it on my list again hopes the second time is the charm.

5. Build a smaller Sifter that fits perfectly over my raised beds. The challenge will be to make it fit all the boxes since ..I …er .. um… may have not been the most accurate person the day I built the boxes.

6. Build my own tomato cages since I’m getting sick of the trellis results. Organic Gardening mag showed how to get to make your own and I gotta say, it looks rather straight forward.

7. Build a better Pea cage set up thingy. I don’t need a full-on trellis system since the peas don’t climb that high but the ones I’ve tried haven’t really worked all that well.

8. Try to finish last years half finished song.

9. Ride 2000 miles. I think I was off by around 400 miles this past yr so why not add this to my list. Back in the day before children, wife, house, cutting grass, etc etc 3000 was pretty much the norm. Not so much any more. So like I said, lets see if we can hit 2000.

10. See if I can give up making dumb lists.

It has been at least 2 months since my last real post here and boy have things been crazy. So before I set up next years To-Do list I thought I’d take a look back and see how this year went.   BTW, if you didn’t get to read it the first time, here is my 2012 To-Do List.

1. The first thing on my list was Cold Frames. I am happy to report that not only did I get one built but I now have two. Just before I got started a co-worker who is also into winter garden took an interest in helping and before I knew it, we had one built. Then behind my back he turned around and used the remaining supplies, along with other things he found, built me a second cold frame. For all the video proof, I give you my vimeo page: Mark The Organic Gardener.

2. Release a Song. So here is the deal, I had started working on it, created a theme, drum lines, chord structure and some background noises and such. I even convinced my wife to play on it. Then my Professional Development class started and the whole thing was shelved. I just didn’t have the time. So given what I have completed I will probably move this to next years todo list.

3. Get my HAM radio lic. See the above for the reason why this didn’t happen. Sorry but I wasn’t going to study for two different things at the same time. Would not have been fair to my family. I’m still interested but I have to start over with the study guide.

4. Run a 20 something 5K again. Didn’t happen. I’m running again but the body is still resisting any form of up tempo running. So I have to continue in a very slow manner and hopefully someday get back there. I also have to be aware that, as the expression goes, I’m not getting any younger so I need to set more short term goals instead of shooting for the moon.

5. Build a Sifter. Done and working great. Only need to reinforce it so it can handle more volume. May even build a second to fit perfectly onto my garden boxes.

6. Set up SSH tunnel for secure web surfing. Given how much monitoring is now prevalent on the net, I shall refrain from any further discussion to avoid overly zealous monitors.

7. Grow my own tea. Grew it, picked it, brewed it, drank it, done.

8. Make my own relish. This years cucumber crop was not good. Many people in my area complained of the same yellowish skins so I decided against trying this. Maybe next season.

9. Make my own Mustard. For whatever reason I never planted anything so I didn’t even try.

10. Try Canning. Not enough of anything to even try it. People were eating the veggies as fast as I could pick them. Will keep in mind but for now, this is on hold.

A few other topics.

The fruit trees did not produce anywhere near what I was expecting. But after talking with some local professional growers, our lack of a proper (read cold) winter left the trees in a bad state. I’m hoping we get some serious cold spells to help kill off many of the insects who hope to make it through the winter on my trees and allow the trees to be pruned the right way.

During this past/current year I was going back and forth on the whole Ubuntu Unity thing. I initially hated it, but decided to give it another try to be fair. After using it a bit more I found myself not hating it so much. Then I saw what XFCE was doing and how I could tailor it to my needs and I uninstalled Ubuntu with Unity immediately. I then installed Xubuntu 12.04 LTS and have been quite happy ever since.

There ya have it, my not so complete wrap up for the year of 2012. If I don’t talk to you before then, please have a safe and happy New Year. See ya next year.