Commitment to Running!

A few months back I decided to make a lifestyle change and commit to a year of fitness. I set my sights on getting into shape by mid summer so that I can ride in the annual Seattle to Portland bike ride. As will all things I do, I jumped in head first and immersed myself. To prepare, I signed up with a multi club membership to 24hr Fitness, so I can workout without an excuse to my physical location. I also set myself up with a new iPod Nano, new running shoes, and the Nike+. Having used the Nike+ for a couple months now, I’ve really grown to love it. It really helps you setup goals and track your progress. Since oversize goes hand-in-hand with diet, I downloaded the “Lose It!” iPhone app. This handy application does a fantastic job of helping you track your daily calorie intake. I used it for a couple weeks to track my normal daily eating habits, and then started to follow a low calorie diet. It’s amazing how poorly I’ve been eating before.

With a full arsenal of exercise and diet tools, I started off on my path. I’ve been averaging 3-4 workouts a week, walk/jog/run for an hour, and making about 4 miles each time. I’ve also made it a goal to do as many local running activities as possible. I participated in the “Nike+ Human Race 10k” and just recently the annual "Clark County Turkey Trot". Next on the list is the “Rooster Rock Polar Bare 5K Run & Plunge”.

So far I’ve been making good progress without any injuries or major setbacks. I hope I’m able to stick with this and make it a permanent life style change.

Cub World 2009

This past weekend I attended Cub World 2009 with my son and his Cub Scout troop. The camp offers three separate “sleeping villages” for the boys: Tee Pee Village, Box Cars, and The Fort. We were assigned to the fort, which was my son’s preference. We had an enjoyable weekend participating in many activities: archery, BB guns, slingshots, whittling, logging, blacksmithing, leather working, animal tacking, plant identification, cooking, various craft projects, singing camp songs, and watching/performing skits around the campfire. It brought back a flood of memories from camps I attended when I was young. It was a very hot weekend, and it was a challenge to keep all the boys hydrated and sun blocked. We were able to cool off by enjoying the dual lane 100ft+ slip ‘n slide called “The Log Run”.

Over all it was an enjoyable weekend. My son benefited from all the activities and made good growth improvements while we were there. As well as earning a dozen or more merit badges. I benefited from becoming more patient, and becoming a better leader. I look forward to next year when we attend Gilbert Ranch.

Home Audio + iTunes + iPhone = Kickass!

About a month back I decided it was finally time to reorganize my clutter mp3 collection. Since I’ve pulled this data from multiple machines and data sources, there was a big mess to be dealt with. Taking some tips from my friends at Life Hacker, I followed many of the steps outlined in their “Whip you MP3 library into shape” articles (I, II, III).

Here's the process I went through step by step:

• Organize Songs: I started off by bringing all my mp3 files into one directory, and then importing it into iTunes (making sure to allow iTunes to manage my media). iTunes created a new directory with all my audio pre-sorted by artist & album.
• Remove Duplicates: I then downloaded Duplicate Cleaner and used it to identify my duplicate songs. First by meta data, then by file name. This cleaned up 90% of my duplicate fils.
• Update Meta Data: I then downloaded Media Monkey and used it to update all my songs metadata, file names, and album artwork.
• Another Duplicate Removal: Now that all the meta data and file names are synced up, I ran through Duplicate Cleaner again to find any remaining duplicates.
• Re-Import into iTunes: I now had a very clean directory of music. I renamed this directory, cleared all my songs out of iTunes, and re-imported (making sure to allow iTunes to manage my media). This created a new iTunes managed directory with all the songs properly organized. I then let iTune sound level my tracks, download any missing album artwork, and run through genius.
• Cleanup and Thoughts: I obviously had to remove the two erroneous directories of music (the one from the start, and the old iTunes managed directory I renamed. At the end this cut my unorganized 160 GB of mp3 files down to a clean & tidy 90 GB's. This process is not for everyone, as it'll require rebuilding your iTunes library. For anyone who's invested a lot of time categorizing and rating their mp3's within iTunes, this will erase all that hard work. For me I just wanted to start over fresh, so it didn't matter.

Now that my music collection is organized, I needed to set it up to share across my network for usage at parties. For this I shared the managed iTunes audio directory on my network. I then fired up my laptop (which I will plug into my home audio receiver), and had its iTunes import all the tracks from this network share (FYI - This will take a long time to do over a network with the audio size I have). This will allow me to use these shared audio files from my laptop, however any ratings, categorization, or playlists I create on the laptop will be separate. As iTunes does not yet share its library across multiple machines.

Based on my friend's advice, I installed the iTunes remote application on my iPhone. This allows me to control the iTunes library running on my laptop (hooked to my home audio receiver) from anywhere in the house/property. I can sit out on my back deck and control iTunes playback via iTunes DJ Mode. I can add songs, skip songs, search my library, turn the volume up/down, pause, etc. And even better, when I have friends over for BBQ's or parties, then can co-control the iTunes audio experience by voting, ranking, suggesting songs for playback via their iPhone apps.

I'm very satisfied to have this project completed, only took a few days worth of work over a two week span. But it's totally worth it in the end. We now have a kickass audio system to enjoy. Now my buddies can stop complaining that there is no music in my billiards room :P

New Homebrewing System - Initial Run

After adding the new mash tun to my brewing equipment arsenal, I was finally ready to break it all in with a brewing session. I chose to brew an all grain version of the partial extract Full Sail Ale Clone I brewed recently. This will give me a good basis of comparison.

For this batch I decided I would make yeast starter for each of my five gallon batches. However 90% through the process I realized I did not have the appropriate size bungs for my one gallon jugs. Since I had already pitched the yeast into the starter, I had to think fast. I remembered hearing of a trick, using balloons as an airlock. I had a bag lying around so I washed, sanitized, and turned the balloons inside out and attached them to the top of the jugs. This worked pretty well and definitely did the job of preventing pressure explosion and preventing cross contamination. The next afternoon the balloons where very full, visually showing the yeast starter was a success.

On brew day, I enlisted the help of a couple of my brewing friends to assist me in the process. And I'm glad I did, definitely helped to have an extra set of hands helping haul the full brew pot and mash tun around. In the course of brewing I found that my cheap digital thermometer was inaccurate, off as much as +20°. Fortunately the thermometer on my brew pot was accurate.

I chose to batch sparge for my first all grain on this system, and it seemed to work out just fine. In the future I may try to fly sparge, but for that I think a rectangular mash tun would work better, so as not to upset the grain bed.

After boiling the bittering & aroma hops, and cooling the wort with an immersion coil, we leveled out the wort into two 6 gallon carboys. I lost more liquid in the process then I thought. Starting off with 7 gallons in the brew pot, adding 4 more for the mash, ended up with about 6 gallons of wort. I boiled more water and topped each carboy off at the 5 gallon mark. Even though one of my buddies tried to talk me into loading it all into 1 carboy and going imperial style.

In all a successful brewing day. I now have 10 gallons of Amber Ale in primary next to my recently brewed Mocha Java Stout. I found some bugs in my new all grain system that I'll quickly work out before I brew again.

DIY - Mash Tun

Upgrading my brewing setup from 5gal to 10gal batches requires that I also create a 10gal mash tun. Following the advice of one of my fellow home brewers, I followed these instructions to build mine. The project was very simple, requiring a quick trip to Home Depot and 10 minutes of assembly time. Can't wait to put this to good use on my next batch of homebrew!