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Outer Banks, NC (OBX as they call it)
I’ve been to quite a few beaches in my time, several of which were on the coast of the Carolinas, but never had the opportunity to go to the Outer Banks before. The first thing I’ll say about traveling there is this: If you fly, fly into Norfolk, VA instead of Raleigh. I flew in to Raleigh only to realize that I still had another four hours of driving ahead of me. The traffic on Saturday is also bumper to bumper once you get onto the island, as everyone is checking in and out. My advice would be to arrive in the morning instead of the afternoon. Read more…
Advanced HTPC/NAS Instructions
For those of you that liked the HTPC/NAS article earlier, I have put together a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to how I set everything up from the beginning to end. I didn’t include this level of detail in the original post since it might be too much info for some people (either because they know what they’re doing or they don’t plan on doing it).
For those of you that want to dive in and set up the programs I discussed in the previous post, the complete software setup instructions are available HERE.
Enjoy 
So you want to start DJing?
I’ve been meaning to write about DJing on here too so when a friend asked me what he needed to buy to start DJing this morning, I figured that was a good enough place and reason to start. I usually get this question about once a year 
randomly so I’ve become accustomed to dishing out this rant in various forms. When I started DJing around 1999 you needed the following to be taken seriously anywhere: 2 Technics 1200SL turntables and a mixer. To do anything worth a damn you needed a serious mixer like the Pioneer DJM-500 (what I have) too. From there the next biggest expense was in records, they all cost $10 a piece and you needed a whole box of them to piece together a set. They were heavy and hard to find at that.
Today the world of electronic music is much different. Digital DJing is now the norm almost anywhere you go. Even the DJs that are using vinyl are just using it to control mp3s/wavs on software. The average club DJ is probably doing just that, and probably just because it looks cool. Unless you plan on doing heavy turntablism (scratching), this too is probably on its way out. Read more…
My goal behind building my HTPC/NAS device was to have a storage/TV solution that:
a) Didn’t need me to babysit it to get it to work and
b) Was easy enough to interface with that it would pass the WAF (wife acceptance factor)
Given those two points, the server needs to function more like an appliance and less like a project. Once complete it should do what it was built to do and not require me logging in every day to check on it.
I wanted a device that would be able to do the following regardless of whether or not I was around:
- Hold all of our media
- Collect media on it’s own
- Play it in 1080p over HDMI to our TV
- Be able to send the media to our cell phones
- Act as additional hard drive space for our laptops
- Hold all of our backed up data
- Enough redundancy to suffer a failed hard drive without any losses Read more…
Summer Ale
With a large stock of my last beer, the Belgian Ale still sitting around along with the remnants of my winter ale, I needed something lighter for summer consumption. I started with a recipe from Karl for his “haus blonde ale” and improvised a little bit using the hops I had available.
The base of the recipe was 7 lbs light dry malt extract. From there I steeped a pound of 20°L malt and a quarter pound of biscuit malt. From there I used the following hop schedule:
- 1/2oz cascade and 1/2oz willamette for 45 minutes
- 1/2oz willamette for 15 minutes
- 1/4oz willamette for 5 minutes
I pitched Nottingham yeast at 75°F and measured a starting gravity of 1.045. The beer aged for a week in primary and a week in secondary before being bottled at a final gravity of 1.02 and will be ready to consume mid August. Since this puts my total stock at 6 full cases of beer I’m going to be needing some reinforcements!
To Columbus and Back – A $400 sandwich
Now that I’m allowed to fly solo, the next step in the process is to take my first cross country flight. Flying gets a lot better from here since you actually get to go somewhere in particular instead of just flying around in circles. My two options were to either go down to Lexington and then come back up to Cincinnati, or to fly out to Columbus. I heard Bolton Field south of Columbus had some great BBQ, so the decision was made!
Instead of taking up the tiny BE-77 that I usually practice in, we took the nicer Piper Cherokee. With GPS navigation, leather seats, and a bit more horsepower, the extra $30/hour is easily worth it.
The flight was going well until the minor complication that I didn’t correctly predict the altitude where the clouds would be. Also, adjusting to a different plane made my reaction times slightly slower as I tried to figure out what I was doing. We ended up flying over the clouds instead of under them though, which made for one beautiful flight. Sorry but I was too busy flying to take any pictures…
The flight up there was extremely quick due to a 30 knot tail wind but we had that working against us on the way back. In the future I might just take the bus back since the traffic on I71 South was going about the same speed.
Anyways… It was a great experience all in all that left me plenty of things to learn from. Up next will be my local and cross country solo followed by some night and IFR flying. I can’t wait!
