I've been intending to get serious about starting an online blog/forum for some time now. I'm still not there yet, but I'm getting closer. It would be so much easier if I weren't on a shoestring (shoethread?) budget. I could just pay for web hosting, hire a developer, and set the darn thing up already. But instead I have to find the cheapest way I can.
That's why I ended up spending the better part of the morning today trying to figure out how to link up a blogspot blog with an existing domain of mine so that you can read the blog on the domain without ever leaving it. I finally figured it out. And it felt good.
The next phase, then, is to figure out how to take it the other direction and redirect my domain to the blogspot blog. It will hopefully be easier, actually. But the trick will then become how to build a reasonably good and flexible website using only blog architecture. A puzzlement!
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
New Writing Gig: Examiner.com
Examiner.com is a Clarity Media Group venture that leverages local writers in 60 major markets across the US to provide local, expert content. I've applied and been accepted as the Boise Business Strategies Examiner.
My debut article can be found here. Most Boiseans are familiar with Metro Express Car Wash by now, but I look a little deeper into how they use their electronic sign as an entry point to get people into their online marketing.
So take a look if you like. I should be posting something every few days.
My debut article can be found here. Most Boiseans are familiar with Metro Express Car Wash by now, but I look a little deeper into how they use their electronic sign as an entry point to get people into their online marketing.
So take a look if you like. I should be posting something every few days.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Top 10 Nerf Guns
Okay, this is technically not about making things, but then don't try and tell me that the designers who made these didn't have fun.
Just looking at these makes me want to buy a couple of these and have a gunfight with my sister. Yes, I said sister. I have an older sister who at first frowned upon such things until we convinced her to play Risk with us one day. That started her on a journey to the Dark Side, and within a few years she and I would be having some rip-roaring squirt gun and rubber-band fights through the house.
Hmmmm.... family reunion coming up this summer. I don't think I could get her to try airsoft (not sure I'd try it either, actually), but perhaps she'd go for some Nerf.
Just looking at these makes me want to buy a couple of these and have a gunfight with my sister. Yes, I said sister. I have an older sister who at first frowned upon such things until we convinced her to play Risk with us one day. That started her on a journey to the Dark Side, and within a few years she and I would be having some rip-roaring squirt gun and rubber-band fights through the house.
Hmmmm.... family reunion coming up this summer. I don't think I could get her to try airsoft (not sure I'd try it either, actually), but perhaps she'd go for some Nerf.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
The Lost Art of Canning
My parents both came from hearty farm stock, and so self-sufficiency was always a priority. Preserving (canning, we called it) fruits, vegetables, and jams was just part of the yearly cycle. Applesauce, tomatoes, pears, peaches, beans, corn, carrots, pickles, grape juice...we did it all at one point or another.
Fall usually meant canning season, and for weeks at a time Mom would be busy canning boxes and baskets of produce, bought in bulk or raised in our garden. My job was usually scalding the peaches or tomatoes so mom could peel them easier. I got pretty good at it, and it was certainly better than some jobs we could get stuck with. I also spent a decent amount of time sorting fruit, as I recall.
My favorite memory of canning is "jam scum". Whenever Mom made jam she'd have to boil the solution, which created foam on the top. She'd have to skim the foam off before she put the solution into the jars, and after a full batch she'd get a fairly good container of jam scum. We'd come along with bread and butter, and spread some scum across it and eat it. Delightful! Especially on those occasions when Mom made a batch of home made bread, warm from the oven.
Fresh bread, butter, and jam scum - that's comfort food, I tell you.
As for unpleasant memories, there was the time when for some reason I thought Mom had been canning fruit when she'd actually been canning vegetables. She'd left a container out full of what I thought was sugar. She'd also left a teaspoon next to it, so I came along, grabbed a spoonful of sugar and popped it in my mouth. Except it was salt. I nearly threw up right there, and spent the next few minutes retching over the sink, trying to rinse the taste out of my mouth.
Today I'd say "serves me right."
Now that I'm out on my own I've tried some canning. It's a little tough with young kids around, so we haven't dont much, but the pear-sauce we made once turned out pretty nice.
Anyway, someone I work with is starting a website devoted to the "ancient art" of canning. It's a good resource, both for how-to's and, for people like me, memories.
Check out www.countryhomecanning.com sometime. And tell 'em Thom sent ya'.
Fall usually meant canning season, and for weeks at a time Mom would be busy canning boxes and baskets of produce, bought in bulk or raised in our garden. My job was usually scalding the peaches or tomatoes so mom could peel them easier. I got pretty good at it, and it was certainly better than some jobs we could get stuck with. I also spent a decent amount of time sorting fruit, as I recall.
My favorite memory of canning is "jam scum". Whenever Mom made jam she'd have to boil the solution, which created foam on the top. She'd have to skim the foam off before she put the solution into the jars, and after a full batch she'd get a fairly good container of jam scum. We'd come along with bread and butter, and spread some scum across it and eat it. Delightful! Especially on those occasions when Mom made a batch of home made bread, warm from the oven.
Fresh bread, butter, and jam scum - that's comfort food, I tell you.
As for unpleasant memories, there was the time when for some reason I thought Mom had been canning fruit when she'd actually been canning vegetables. She'd left a container out full of what I thought was sugar. She'd also left a teaspoon next to it, so I came along, grabbed a spoonful of sugar and popped it in my mouth. Except it was salt. I nearly threw up right there, and spent the next few minutes retching over the sink, trying to rinse the taste out of my mouth.
Today I'd say "serves me right."
Now that I'm out on my own I've tried some canning. It's a little tough with young kids around, so we haven't dont much, but the pear-sauce we made once turned out pretty nice.
Anyway, someone I work with is starting a website devoted to the "ancient art" of canning. It's a good resource, both for how-to's and, for people like me, memories.
Check out www.countryhomecanning.com sometime. And tell 'em Thom sent ya'.
10,000 Hours
I'm not going to repeat my post from my other blog here. Just read that post and know that I'm drawing a line in the sand. I've made myself a commitment that I am going to spend the next five years building my most important creation yet: the me I want to be.
Details at 11:00.
Details at 11:00.
Friendly Enemies
How do you build a better Air Force? By enlisting your own pilots to try and kill your own pilots. It's called "wargames", but it's deadly serious stuff. Popular Mechanics has an article on the training going on to make our F-22 Raptor pilots the most lethal in the world. (via Instapundit)
From Lt. Col. D. Scott Brenton, who has flown F-16's for 20 years, including 750 hours of combat flight:
That doesn't mean it's a cake-walk for the F-22 pilots, though:
I'm grateful they're up there. And I'm grateful they're on our side.
From Lt. Col. D. Scott Brenton, who has flown F-16's for 20 years, including 750 hours of combat flight:
"We do everything we can to try and challenge them: We increase our total numbers, we regenerate, we electronically jam the environment. And we die," Brenton says. "We die wholesale. We are kill-removed repeatedly and then regenerated, and then we are killed again. The process would be demoralizing if we didn't maintain proper perspective. This is our job while we are here. What motivates us is the fact that we are training our brethren—and they are damn good at what they do."
That doesn't mean it's a cake-walk for the F-22 pilots, though:
Brenton says the fights are complex and dangerous. "I equate them to solving a 1000-mph, three-dimensional chess game where the loser dies," he says. "The radio chatter can become so confusing that it's like blaring rock music in your ears at full volume. You have to act fast, think continuously, pull upwards of 9 g's over and over, monitor your fuel state, track your weapons status, make adjustments to the jets' internal systems, avoid the ground, stay in formation with your wingmen, operate your fire-control radar, scan the airspace visually for threats, decipher your blaring radar-warning-receiver signals and ensure that you kill all the bad guys. Then you must dodge the SAMs, engage a ground target with live bombs successfully, turn around and fight your way back out through the regenerated Red Air (the pilots playing the enemy team) one more time before heading home."
I'm grateful they're up there. And I'm grateful they're on our side.
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