bacon-free?

just because this was a tax-free weekend doesn’t mean it has to be a bacon-free weekend.  saturday morning started with some bacon, pancakes, eggs, bacon, juice, coffee, and bacon.


  mmm, bacon


  full plate

good sleep is cherry

i read in a health guide that cherries contain melatonin and help with sleep.  someone had given me a bag of them, so i decided to try it out.  it was the soundest sleep i experienced in a long time.  so, i went out last night to stock back up on cherries to see how well i could sleep last night.  i wasn’t tired or fatigued when i got home, but i tossed a couple of handfuls in my mouth.  less than an hour later, i was starting to nod off.  i slept soundly another night.

i had mentioned this to a friend of mine who did a little research on the web about this fact and found that there is a big deal about cherries and melatonin.  a simple google search gave me a site with this quote (source choosecherries.com):

Cherries are one of the few known food sources of melatonin, a potent antioxidant produced naturally by the body’s pineal gland that helps regulate biorhythm and natural sleep patterns.  Scientists have found melatonin-rich tart cherries (commonly enjoyed as dried, frozen, juice or concentrate) contain more of this powerful antioxidant than what is normally produced by the body.  Eating cherries can be a natural way to boost your body’s melatonin levels to hasten sleep and ease jet lag.

i’ll have to give this a try when i fly across time zones next time.  another article at msnbc.com says the same thing.  follow this link for the nutrition four-one-one:  www.nutritiondata.com/facts/.

as for regular sleep patterns, i am planning on trying this out for a while to see how my body adjusts.

lock your machine

if you’ve worked in the tech field for any amount of time, you learn the importance of locking your screen when you are away.  my current company policy requires this action, but not all follow.  i learned at my previous employer to be wary of my colleagues when it comes to this principle.  even the most disciplined will give into the temptation to pull shenanigans on an open system.

the other day, i gave into the desire to post this tweet on @ryanberg’s open twitter account.  my hijinks are shown in the image to the right.  (for those not used to a twitter client, read from the bottom up.)  i almost got away with it but was quickly ratted out by his fellow designers.

i heard he was furious at this.  his reply tweet employing some cursing and assessment doesn’t quite communicate the level debauchery he felt this was.

and i can understand how he felt.  i’d be mad if someone invaded my computer like this.  indeed, i felt a little bad about it…until the next day when i walked into his area and saw his account left wide open again.  dude had not learned any lesson about security.  i no longer felt any remorse.  what’s the old saying?  “fool me once, shame on you.  fool me twice, shame on me.”  shame on him, right?

even though my regret had been (mostly) purged, someone else felt no inhibition to taking advantage of this situation.  so, sitting down at his workstation, he pulled up tweetie’s post box and typed the following under the guise of mr. berg:


ryan hacked again

LOL!  that’s pretty funny.  and what makes this worse is when someone else retweets your invasion.  you cannot remove that post since you do not own it.  @ericmoritz, at the suggestion of a couple of others,  ran with this:


ryan hacked again – retweeted

the beautiful thing about this retweeting with hash tags is that more people will see it who keep up with groups, such as #drupal and #django.

he isn’t the only person to suffer from this.  felicia day’s twitter was taken over by her own brother.  read about that at mspixel.com.

i don’t believe @ryanberg saw this last hijacking.  nevertheless, i walked into his area again today to see his computer wide open still.  i didn’t feel the need to mess with it again as he has vowed revenge upon me, but my conclusion is this:  how can you justify your disappointment when you take no steps to correct a problem?

coffee/donut friday

it’s coffee friday, or for those of you on twitter, #coffeefriday.  every couple of weeks, will “gonzo” hortman grabs some java and brings it in.  at first, he tried some starbucks.  then he moved to a local old city java for the bean brew.

as this tradition grew, i started bringing donuts.  krispy kreme, of course.  then with the addition of old city java came other goodies like bacon chocolate chip cookies and carrot cakes.  this has turned into something i look forward to.  right now, i’m sitting here enjoying the moment.  but come monday, the countdown to coffee friday will commence again.

here are a few vids of my acquisition of the donuts:



donut friday – the ordering from mark mcintyre on Vimeo.



donut friday – the receiving from mark mcintyre on Vimeo.



donut friday – the transportation from mark mcintyre on Vimeo.

fedora eleven

yesterday was the official launch of fedora 11.  tonight was when i upgraded a laptop to the new os.  i’ll save upgrading my work laptop until i have a few assurances first from my home lappy that things will be fine.  the main consideration is the open source nvidia driver set, nouveau, which comes with f11.  if that works with my work laptop video chipset, i might be happier than i have been in a while.

a few other features that are of interest to me:

• another big bonus i’m looking forward to is the twenty second boot time.


• how about individual volume controls for different apps?  yes, please.


• gnome 2.26 is the default desktop.  kde 4.2 is available for those who need bigger buttons and more of a windows vista/7 feel.


• and ext4 allowing for up to 16TB file sizes.  just in case, you know.

i have to say the artwork is looking pretty good too, good quality.

in all my dealings with fedora, i’ve had to content with several technologies a bit behind the release date, such as the 3-d effects.  everything i had installed worked out of the gate for this install.  were i to do an upgrade, it would have been practically seemless.  the team did a good job with this release.

ocean sunrise

as i’m a sucker for a good sky shot, i forced myself up one morning while in florida to capture the sun coming around as the earth rotated.  as you might suspect, timing was of the essence.

ksc – day 2

the next day i watched three imax movies.  the first called “magnificent desolation” was about the mission to the moon, what it was like, what it took.  it was amazing to see the history of what it took to get men there.  it was fascinating to see footage (in 3-d) of activities on the moon.  the movie also postulated what might happen if there had been problems on a moon mission.  intentions to return to the moon in the coming years was communicated as a goal that nasa has.

the second movie (”space station 3-d”) was about the construction of the international space station.  from the beginning pieces constructed to the second crew who lived on the station, we heard from the astronauts about their experiences of living on the space station.  the movie is not current as many more pieces have been added in the past ten years.

next, i got to experience what it was like to be in the shuttle on a launch.  with the absence of the g-forces, it was exactly like a launch.  well, no, i don’t know that for certain as i’ve never been in a real shuttle launch.  they rotate you until you are sitting on your back facing upwards.  when you launch, they simulate the shaking and rumbling of the cabin.  it was a fun experience, even the last bit that leaves you feeling weightless.

i also visited a museum of the early years of the work to achieve the goal of putting man on the moon.  the mercury and gemini programs were the testing grounds for the aapollo missions.  each mission was progress toward the ultimate goal of what the apollo 7 mission finally reached.

i walked through the rocket garden of the titan rockets.

the final imax movie i saw on imax was the latest star trek movie.  it seemed so appropriate to see that movie at ksc.  that was the best conclusion i could have to three days of a space related vacation this has been.