Nice little VBScript trick

To go from a path like this
D:\_pdf\a\b\c\foo.bar

to a path like this
D:\a\b\c\foo.bar

you can do this
sFile = "D:\_pdf\a\b\c\foo.bar"
sResult = Join(Split(sFile, "_pdf\",-1,1),"")

I just thought I'd share.

A half baked idea

I'm not talking about brownies in this case, though in many cases that's all the more cooking brownies need sometimes.

If I we're going to have some say in the design of a new amateur radio transceiver, I think I would do a few things that none of the manufacturers seem to be doing.
1) flash memory - I have a micro SD card from my GPS receiver that holds 2GB of data and cost under $30. 100 memory slots? I think not... how about a 1000 memory slots and memory to, say, record the last hour or so of communications...
2) XML based configuration - It doesn't take much computing power to parse or create an XML, so why not have the whole radio's configuration stored as an XML file. Watchguard firewalls use an XML based configuration, and they have at least as much to store, and arguable much complex combinations of data to store in the XML file
3) USB - Serial ports? Really? I don't disagree that there aren't reasons for a serial port on a radio, but why must we bound to a serial port for configuration.
4) Keypads - most radios these days have dtmf keypads, why not make them available for text input, for labeling the memory slots.

I doubt anyone is going to read this and a tiny fraction of those folks will be HAM radio operators, but if you are and you have a clue as to what I am talking about, leave a comment!

73

Where do they get these guys from, anyway?

My wife and I had just finished dinner and were doing a little channel surfing the other night when we came across the new "game" show "Amnesia", a game show take on "This is your Life". The first contestant was a guy named Chris, we missed the opening of the show so we didn't catch his last name. Almost instantly I felt I had seen him somewhere else. At first I wrote it off to simply remembering him from the promos for the show, but as the show went on I became convinced that we had seen him on the fourth episode of Feasting on Asphalt with Alton Brown. We popped in the DVD and sure enough! Detective Chris Cognac. We don't have cable so we don't get to watch FoodTV very often, so I had no idea that Chris has been a judge on Iron Chef America, has his own show on FoodTV, and is a food columnist for a small newspaper in Los Angeles.

So all this brings up the question, is Amnesia going to be a game show for celebrities, or did they just get Chris for the first show because they could count on him for being a good showman?

Cider Update

Shame on me, I didn't post about the second batch of Cider I put up this fall. In addition to 5 gallons of fresh cider, I added 1 pound of crushed (squished is more like it) raisins and two pounds of Brown sugar. While the sugar impacted the OG reading, the raisins added a quantity of sugar that wasn't really measurable from the onset. However it bacame clear that the raisins added sugar because the must fermented vigorously for nearly two months. It has only just recently settled down and I will be racking it over to a secondary shortly. I will take a gravity reading on it again at that time, but expect that it will be at or below 1.000. I'll be tasting it too!

Big Moves

You've heard the old saying "big things come in little packages". I'd have hardly guessed how much stuff we could have managed to get into our little old house over the course of 7 years. It's just as well we only went a mile when we moved, as it was it took a 26 foot truck, two mini vans, two trailers (well one trailer twice), two cars and a 10x15 foot storage locker.

"Maybe you should get rid of some stuff!" I hear you say... Believe me, we had a pretty good purge before the move. In only just a couple of weeks, though, we've managed to fill 5 moving boxes full of stuff for the spring garage sale.

Gotta start thinking about how we accumulate "stuff"

Cider 2007 - Day 1

This year's batch(es) of hard cider start today.

The first five gallons were purchased today at the Minneapolis Farmer's Market from Fireside Orchards. The fresh cider has a Specific Gravity of 1.051. It's a pretty simple process... I simply pour the cider into a carboy with a vial of Whilte Labs' #775 English Cider yeast, and stop it up with an airlock.

The plan is to let this go in the primary for about 4 weeks. Then when it is racked over to the secondary, and the yeast is all wiped out, I'll make up the difference of what is lost to sediment with some fresh, pasteurized apple cider. The cider has some of its own yeast, so it is pasteurized so the fermentation process doesn't take off again. All of the sugar in apple juice (cider) is fermentable, so we want to add some back to sweeten the end product.

I'll be back with updates!

Photos from the Boundary Waters

Boundary Waters Memorial Day 2007

The photos were taken over the Memorial Day Weekend 2007 in the Boundary Waters.

A couple of Great Teachers

I went to two different schools the year I was in 6th grade. The first half of the I was in the North Olmsted Public School District. I two memorable teachers there, Mr. Seith, and Ms Raub. Bill Seith was my classroom teacher. Ms. Raub was our art teacher. Both teachers were great at motivating us, and they were both a lot of fun. Seith had attended Ohio State and would talk about the Buckeye football team on Mondays after games. He could get really wound up and was known to jump up on desks and flail his arms when he was trying to get a point across.

Ms Raub was a fun art teacher. Her most memorable art project was to make a product (with a twist). Her example a was a can of "Campbells cream of child" soup. It was the age of the atari 2600, so I decided to make a game cartridge for the Atari. It was the very popular AstroSeiths, with little Bill Seith heads being targeted by a spaceship. Mr. Seith got a huge kick out of it.

I moved away from North Olmsted just before Christmas and remember Mr Seith saying that he would really miss me in his classroom.

I've had a lot great teachers since then, but they were a couple of the most memorable.