Truck woes

So my 2003 Explorer Sport Trac is getting a little long in the tooth, and yesterday was a stressful day. Truck sat in the baking sun all day, and then I had to go get little Mr, and when I got him in and going, the heat appears to have soaked the battery because it wouldn't crank with the AC on. Then I was stuck in traffic and it started to rev much harder than usual: idle is about 500rpm, and it was heading north to 1000rpm. When I got to the off-ramp near my house, the oil pressure gauge started to flutter. That's usual given the heat and the fact that the overheated oil is having a tough time

Dubstep and your brain

It seems that dubstep has taken over my brain now. I have been addicted to Doctor P and Flux Pavilion for almost 3 months now, it being my go to music when I need to focus and do something involving deep thought. Occasional drops into deadmau5 territory, and a slight detour into Daft Punk from time to time, but there's just something about the beat in dubstep that matches with how my brain works.

One slight quibble though: I had occasion to listen to the Beastie Boys "Super Disco Breakin'" and basically saw the dubstep future right in that track.

June 30, 2013

After feeling entirely too cruddy for the last couple of days, courtesy of back/neck problems, I woke up feeling pretty OK. I threw balls for the dog for 20 minutes or so this morning: having a retrieving dog is a such a joy. Little Master was talked into heading to the Lego Discovery Center down at Crown Center for a couple of hours, and then I was sentenced to yard duty after that, and then rounded off the day with breakfast for dinner, and then rousting Little Master to bed.

Did try out a nomorerack 2600mAh battery recharger. My Samsung Galaxy S3 was down to about 50% battery, so connected it up and had a full charge in an hour or so. Not the greatest in terms of speed or capacity, but definitely something to keep in the backpack for an emergency.

Trialing a K400 keyboard+mouse for home use and potentially the office; tired of having tension in my neck after a day in the office.

It's one step away from Soylent Green

The BK Rib Sandwich. It's a McRib in a burger like form and with no onions. I mean really, how far away can liquidizing "protein" in the form of humans can we be if we're willing to eat this kind of "food".

In progress

https://wiki.debian.org/OpenStackHowto/Essex

Straight forward so far, but needs more explanatory notes.

Back from Las Vegas

Made it back from Vegas with less trouble than getting there.  HP Discover was a blast and it helped clarify a lot of my thinking around automation, process automation and DevOps. Suffice it to say that if I get the invite to Barcelona, or indeed back to Vegas in 2014, I will have done a whole lot more and will have much more to offer in an update.

Spent a lot of time with Little Mr. We found a home for his (now too small to be used) playhouse with a great-nephew, and so he and I transported it to it's new home. There might also have been Legos involved during the day.

Working on standing up OpenStack now.

Paying attention to music

It occurred to me as I was browsing through my MP3 collection that a not insignificant chunk of it has come from me happening to notice the background music playing in something I'm watching.  The biggest offender, of course, is Top Gear (UK). Their sound team is extraordinary in getting the absolute right piece of music behind the talent driving around in cars. The two that stick out for me is London->Oslo, and Colleen's "Ritournelle" that plays behind Jeremy Clarkson; and Hot Hatches in Italy, where Holy Fuck's "The Pulse" is played for a snippet behind the little hatches zipping their way around a windy mountain road.

This is, of course, the latest incarnation of this. My obsession with The Orb came from a 30 second snippet in "Dancing In the Streets: Episode 10 - Planet Rock" (aka "The Perfect Beat" in the USA). THAT has be singularly responsible for me hitting up The Orb, Orbital (though that also has links to "The Saint"), Prodigy, Aphex Twin, Itch-E and Scratch-E and a myriad of other artists that have ingrained themselves into my memory.

If you don't have it, Shazam is a wonderous piece of technology that makes it so much easier to find the artist behind the snippet, and don't be afraid to follow that rabbit of music: you'll end up somewhere that you end up liking a lot.