Building AWS Route53 Resolver Outbound Endpoints with Terraform
At work, we are moving out of an legacy data center to AWS. Our initial stab at that has been to stand up a staging environment that clients can use to veri...
Posts by Year
- 2023 3
- 2022 3
- 2021 20
- 2020 12
- 2019 6
- 2018 10
- 2017 10
- 2016 7
- 2015 22
- 2014 53
- 2013 20
- 2012 31
- 2011 40
- 2010 1
2023
Migrating From Wordpress to Jekyll
I have been a Wordpress user for about as long as I have been writing online. I have blog posts going back at least to 2005. I have always enjoyed Wordpres...
Thoughts from Rivercliff, Lakeview AR
This was supposed to be the annual fishing trip with Dad. Every year, for the past 20 or so, we’ve taken a trip to Arkansas to trout fish and play golf, oft...
2022
Lightsail, Bitnami and SSH
This blog runs in Lightsail on WordPress with a Certified by Bitnami instance. Lately, I’ve run into the following when trying to ssh in from the Lightsail c...
The Sovereignty of Good - Book Review
Iris Murdoch’s The Sovereignty of Good is perhaps her best known philosophical book. It consists of three essays focused on moral philosophy and her belief i...
On Happiness – Epicurus, Seneca, and Augustine
This is part of a stop and start series summarizing the writings in Happiness – Classic and Contemporary Readings in Philosophy. You can read other parts of ...
2021
Old Sabine WMA Deer Hunt
Finding myself with time to spare lately, I did my first standby hunt through the Texas Parks & Wildlife system this past week at Old Sabine WMA near Lin...
On Happiness – Plato Edition
This is the second in a series of posts on readings from Happiness: Classic and Contemporary Readings in Philosophy. The series start is here along with an i...
On Zeno’s Migration and Tech Leadership
Zeno’s Migration Jean Yang, founder of Akit...
On Happiness – A Blog Post Series, Maybe
This is a series on readings on happiness. This is the first post. An index of other posts is below.
On Change
Cross posted from OT Engineering Blog and added here for when someone deletes that blog
Sunday Musings On Nihilism and Bitcoin
 I ran across this reply last night in this...
On Stewardship
Texas Parks and Wildlife has a program called Lone Star Land Steward Awards. It is designed to recognize landowners who institute a program of restoration an...
Gulf Shores 2021
Our yearly trip to Gulf Shores happened this month after taking a year off for Covid precautions. That area was hit almost directly by Hurricane Sally last y...
Still Amusing Ourselves To Death
Several months ago, a friend recommended a book (all my friends seem to recommend books to me, I assume as a form of torture) in a group Slack channel that w...
Hallelujah Anyway
I have been on an Anne Lamott kick lately. I’m reading her book on writing, Bird by Bird and I have checked out both Almost Everything and Hallelujah Anyway ...
On Individual and Departmental Goals
It’s that time of year again whereupon three months into the year, organizations everywhere begin the exciting task of examining the tabula rasa of a new yea...
On Being Present
It occurred to me early this morning (I can only assume this happened because we watched Kung Fu Panda last night and Master Oogway’s words had an impact) th...
Change Requires System Change
“Getting started begins with the simple, self-evident premise that every system is perfectly designed to deliver the results it produces.” Paul Batalde...
Mondays The Day After Funday
You know it’s a solid Monday when the last thing you get to do before bed is clean up the projectile vomit of your 15 year old bulimic cat. Which is apparent...
Restricting Choice
I’m in a book club at work and the current book we’re reading is Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt. It is an examination of strategy mostly as it...
On Being Still
``` Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to be still.
Managing Inertia
In Simon Wardley’s business strategy methodology, Wardley Maps, there are a class of behaviors you can take in all contexts to improve your ability to act st...
Deflation or Reflation
If you follow FinTwit (financial twitter for my readers who are less hip or who have other things to do with their lives than follow economic tweets on Twitt...
On The Realm Of Shadows
I recently finished reading this book which was the final major philosophical work of Henri Lefebvre, a French philosopher in the 20th century who is best kn...
On Emily Dickinson and Beginner’s Mind
``` "Exultation Is The Going" - Emily Dickinson Exultation is the going Of an inland soul to sea, Past the houses, past the headlands Into deep Eternity
2020
Year In Review: 2020
Such a lofty title for an essay/post that I have started several times with no real forward progress. I do not feel like much can be said at an individual le...
White Oak Creek WMA Hunt Notes
I drew for the second White Oak Creek WMA gun deer hunt this year which happened Nov 18-20th. We took the RV and stayed at Daingerfield State Park which is o...
Pulled Pork Adobo Notes
I made this recipe for Pulled Pork Adobo last night and it turned out great. I thought a few notes on it might help in the future. For the adobo sauce, I use...
A Year of Meditation
Today marks the one year anniversary of my experiment with Insight Timer. I don’t recall why I chose it over others like Headspace. I had used Headspace befo...
Camping In Palo Duro Canyon
Mara and I camped in Palo Duro Canyon on July 24th for one night, our first camping trip since Wobbles was born and first night with Wobbles staying with gra...
On Not Being A Bug
Levquist went on, ‘I am close to death. That is no scandal, old age is a well-known phenomenon. But now the difference is that everyone is close to death....
(Re)Learning Elixir
I’m writing a small app in Elixir and Phoenix to better organize data from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Draw Hunt system. In theory, this will allow me to bu...
DIY Printer Table
Last week, Wobbles and the wife headed for Arkansas and a week away from work. Left to my own devices and a printer that had been sitting on the floor for ab...
Western Road Trip 2017 Part 4 – The Final Installment
I make no promises that this will in fact be the final installment but as I mentioned in Part 3, I’m not sure what kind of person keeps brochures and receipt...
Cabin Camping New Years 2019
We camped at Cooper Lake State Park South Sulphur Unit in Cabin #1 for New Years 2019. We stayed 3 nights, 12/29-1/1. It was a pretty weekend though cold at ...
More Postgres
In my long suffering, ongoing battle with Postgres running locally on the Mac installed via Homebrew, I fired it up a couple of weeks ago to start on a new p...
2019 Christmas Travel Log Days 2-6
We didn’t actually travel for four of the days but no point in being a stickler with details. Monday morning was spent waiting for a certain toddler’s bowels...
2019
2019 Christmas Travel Log Day 1
We left at 10:05 on Sunday morning which given the target time of between 9 and 10 was a success. However a trip to Walgreens set us back 45 minutes, for tra...
Linux System Info
If you ever need information your Linux system(s), screenFetch is awesome. Courtesy of my friend Shayne
On Action
We cannot spend the day in explanation. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Western Roadtrip 2017 Part 3
 Why does one do something like keep a stack of brochures and a sheaf of receipts around for...
On Culture And Rumors
In the absence of information, rumors will be born because humans are narrative beings who need some level of coherence as a way of explaining the facts of t...
A Year In Review 2018
The blank page, like the New Year, always seems so promising, full of possibility and goals and mental assurances that THIS will be the year one definitely l...
2018
TP&WD Tyler County Ranch Hunt Review
For those not in the know (where the know is poor Texas hunters with no lease and no family land that’s been around for generations), Texas Parks & Wildl...
Notes On A Sermon – The Right Time
Then I felt too that I might take this opportunity to tie up a few loose ends, only of course loose ends can never be properly tied, one is always produci...
Turks And Caicos Trip 2018
My employer’s semi-occasional trip to the Caribbean was this past weekend when we whisked off to Turks and Caicos for four days. This year, Harper had aged o...
Western Roadtrip 2017 Part 2
This is the second installment of a multipart effort detailing last year’s two week road trip through the Western US. You can read the first one here.
On A Two Week Roadtrip
This is going to be a multipart effort designed to catalogue last year’s road trip. Also, I need to throw away the sack of brochures I have been keeping arou...
What Will It Take
What does one do about gun violence in America? What does one do? As Dr. Brian Williams says in the production of Babel, if 20 dead white kids in Sandy Hook ...
On Reading Deprivation
For years now, approximately 4 at least, I have been trying half and quarter heartedly to work through The Artist’s Way. Just this year, I have tried three t...
On Free Lemon Bundt Cake
First, a little history. The house across the street has sat empty for approximately twelve months, perhaps fifteen. An old man and his second wife built it ...
All The Pretty Horsies
From time immemorial, I have struggled with procrastination. Here it is, the night before our first window is open and I am just sitting down to write All Th...
On A Life Well Played
I recently finished Arnold Palmer’s autobiography A Life Well Played and it was a wonderful reminder of the man’s class, dignity and personality. In it, he r...
2017
Screaming Bloody Murder
This morning when I dropped Wobbles off at daycare, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Wobbles has not been to daycare in over two weeks and in th...
On Silence
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. — Dylan Thomas
All The Pretty Horsies
Every year, I wrote a small novella on as many horses in the Derby as I can muster. With a tumbler of Fortuna in hand, I embark on what is a yearly exercise ...
Thought For The Day On Healthcare
Thinking about healthcare and its providence this morning. Historically, this country has been driven by entrepreneurship and small business growth. Since 19...
On Attention
In a wide ranging, often insightful, occasionally politically passive aggressive article, Craig Mod writes about how he got his attention back. It’s long and...
Infants and Humor
As our little midget grows into a laughing, funny little creature, it’s interesting to know and read about how early infants understand humor.
Friday Morning Ramblings
For Christmas, I received Desert Solitaire which is a tale of one man in the American West, specifically the desert region of southern Utah around Moab and t...
Grapefruits
Of all the most humbling tasks in the world, peeling a grapefruit ranks in the top 3.
Navel Gazing 2016 Edition
Whereupon I write stuff about the year that was 2016 and try to figure out what to do in 2017. Warning: this is fourteen year old girl level introspection st...
2016
Brett’s Drunken Tech Ramblings
Steve Yegge once wrote an internal blog at Amazon that later became a public blog not at Amazon called Stevey’s Drunken Blog Rants™. Anything I do here is a ...
Weekend Activities
We are now T-minus 11 days and counting until mini-me makes an appearance. We know this because yesterday we picked a delivery date which is a little like pi...
Software Gambles
Bear with me, this isn’t going to sound like a software essay for a little bit. But trust me, I’ll get there.
On Disconnection and Isolation
Last week, at 11:17 PM on Tuesday night, our front door bell rang. For most people, this would result in a slight apprehension before answering the door to f...
On Populism
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. – John F. Kennedy
On Achieving Goals
Ah the tabula rasa of the New Year where so many of us decide how much better we’re going to make ourselves in the next 365 days. We decide to lose weight or...
2015
The Year in Review And Beyond
Inspired by David Collum’s epic Year in Review post (and it is epic in both senses of the word and I highly recommend you read it), here is my year in review...
Ruby Arrays of Objects and Unions
I’m working through the Advent of Code and needed to union two Ruby arrays of objects together based on some properties on said objects. I wasn’t having much...
Shelby Joins The Band
The rest of Sunday and all of Monday flew by in a blur. All I could think about was the pit in my stomach and the ball of desire in my throat for that woman....
Setting Up My Development Machine
Two weeks ago, my laptop started crashing randomly. Without going into all the gory details, I took it to the Apple store and they wiped the drive to try and...
On Fences
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a p...
How To Get On The Dallas “Do Not Spray” List
If you live in Dallas, you probably know that the city goes around in the summer spraying blanket pesticides to “control” West Nile Virus. I’m pretty sure th...
On Regularity and Bill Simmons
It’s been over two months since I’ve written anything in this space which is exactly NOT how to begin an essay but hopefully you’ll bear with me for a bit. A...
Upgrading A Reasonably Big Ruby Site Part 1 (of at least 1)
I’m in the process of upgrading The Sports Pool Hub to Rails 4.2 loosely following this advice As part of this, I’m upgrading all gems in my bundle file. Rsp...
Google Apps Email Aliases
This is mostly a reminder for myself in six months when I need to do this again. Mara has an email on cryhavoctheater.org domain that is managed in Google Ap...
Waffles And Clotted Cream – An Epilogue
Editor’s note: Four months ago, I wrote an article about inflation couched in terms I thought anyone could understand. My good friend Jim E. has written an e...
The Wilderness Warrior
I recently finished reading Theodore Roosevelt’s biography, The Wilderness Warrior written by Douglas Brinkley. The book is focused on the conservation crusa...
On Naming A Cat
With deference to Eliot And that Mister Mistoffelees Can you choose to name your cat A sobriquet like Socrates? Or maybe since there is a cat Already in t...
Friday Night Pizza
While we were in Savannah in October for our wedding, I bought Animal, Vegetable, Miracle from E Shaver Books It’s a story about one family’s attempt to gain...
Hosting A Site At Heroku With Email at Site5 (or any other mail provider probably)
My wife’s non-profit theater website, Cry Havoc Theater was created by moi after we had a temporary dalliance with WordPress. We bought a really nice templat...
On A Longer Fast
As I mentioned in my Lenten 2015 post, I kicked things off with a 48 hour fast, my longest one yet. I had previously done a 24 and a 36 hour fast but most of...
Lent 2015
I don’t have a lot of traditions but Lent seems to be a consistent one that I uphold. For me it’s a journey of both sacrifice and growth. I give something up...
Update Notes from RVM
I figure these might come in handy and then I’d have no idea how to find them.
On Exporting Deflation
Returning to our characters of a few weeks ago, we remember that Bob and his country had increased the supply of waffles thus making the export of Bob’s orga...
What I’ve Been Reading
Part of my morning commute usually involves catching up on Twitter and most recently the financial information coming out of Zero Hedge along with a couple o...
On Maintenance And Repair
When I was a kid, not so many years ago geologically speaking, I found a .22 rifle in the barn at my grandparents farm. It didn’t really work and it was hard...
On Defining Goals
I recently read an article in Garden & Gun (an excellent magazine if you love the culture of the South) on three women who returned to their family farm ...
On Understanding Currency Wars
Imagine if you will the following scenario: Nigel lives in the Land of People with Below Average Dental Hygiene (LOPWBADH). Bob lives in a neighboring countr...
2014
Easy Summer Breakfast
It’s the height of tomato season around here and we’re overwhelmed with tomatoes. I may or may not have overplanted this year but I just picked a pound of ye...
Mavericks Upgrade and Postgres Pain
Just like the last time I upgraded my OS a mere 3 months ago (though after this week, it feels like a lifetime), when I upgraded to Mavericks last weekend so...
On Technical Interviewing
Bob was a stall mucker, a damned good one by all accounts of his peers. Now maybe Bob didn’t think so but he went about his job in a conscientious manner whi...
The Blood Moon and Inflation
Last night at around 3 AM I watched the blood moon eclipse from the backyard. It was a fascinating experience that felt primal as if I were living 400 years ...
Trying Clojure Again
I first started trying Clojure 4 or 5 years ago with only moderate success and not much dedication. Recently, I purchased the 2nd edition of Programming Cloj...
Consistency Is Hard
One thing I’ve learned from trying to write every day for 40 odd days is that it’s very hard to do. Even if you aren’t particularly worried about quality (an...
Falling Out of Rhythm
The days seem to be getting shorter and I don’t find time to write. Today there was plenty of time but I chose to spend it watching the Masters. I’m ok with ...
On Garage Sales
I find the intersection of human behavior and garage sales fascinating. I mention this only because I just had one this weekend where I made a whole $46 doll...
Rain
Today it rained all day which for this time of year shouldn’t be that out of the ordinary but we’ve been so dry for so long that it’s a welcome change. Won’t...
I’ve Got Nothing
It’s been one of those weeks that involves 55 hour work weeks, a possessions purge that will involve most of Saturday and 5 days of allergy related misery. T...
CrossFit Open Recap
Back in January, I signed up for the CrossFit Open. I wasn’t too sure I was going to be able to perform all the exercises after coming up against a snatch la...
Overtime Haiku
Working twelve hour days Leaves little time to reflect on Lenten challenge
The Cryptic Facebook Cliffhanger
I think some people treat Facebook like it’s a prayer chain. Maybe Facebook is the modern day incarnation of a prayer chain but some people seem to have the ...
Randomness
Trying to think up a title to a blog post before it is written is exactly backwards. Oftentimes, I have no idea what a post is going to be about. I find that...
My Diners, Drive-Ins And Dives Addiction
It’s 11 PM on a long Friday and I can’t stop watching this show. For one thing, it makes me want to get in a car and drive to 30 or 40 cities trying all this...
Fighting Through
I’ve been staring at a blank page for the better part of an hour. Perhaps the focus is in the wrong place. The Blerch is strong this week for some reason and...
Day 22
Today is 22 days in a row of writing a blog post a day. Common wisdom, rarely right, says it takes 21 days for form a new habit but things aren’t that easy. ...
Some Initial Thoughts On Corporate Personhood
The Supreme Court heard arguments today on a case brought by the owners of Hobby Lobby related to that business having to provide family planning contracepti...
Random
One of those nights with nothing much to say. I suppose over the course of months of writing, that’s not unexpected but I’d prefer it didn’t happen too often...
Rails, Homebrew, Postgres And The Apocalypse
Ok, it’s not the apocalypse but still. On the off chance someone ends up being in the Venn Diagram overlapping section between “broken rails environment beca...
Not Enough Time (or Energy) In The Day
Suddenly, it’s 9:30 and you’re not really sure what happened with the day even though you got to mark 5-7 things off an ever increasing todo list. That’s wha...
On Expectation
Tonight was a pretty good night. The penultimate workout of the 2014 CrossFit Open was tonight and I surpassed my goal of 165 reps in 14 minutes. This is the...
Copping out
14.4 was announced tonight and it’s the first workout of the Open that I’m pretty sure I won’t finish. I posted on Twitter today hoping there weren’t any mus...
Time Spent Reading About Nutrition Is Wasted
Except of course things I write about nutrition. That is not wasted time and may save your life. I jest. Only slightly. In an informative blog post at the NY...
Improved Engineering
Once upon a time in another life, I built a vegetable garden. The big bed was 5×20 which is pretty sizable for a raised bed. But as you can see from the phot...
On Habit
Doing something, anything, 13 days in a row begins to make that thing easier and easier. We are creatures of habit. Unfortunately, we are also creatures of l...
Web Hosting Fun
This was going to be a post about how I had a productive weekend while not doing anything from the todo list. That was until I tried to upload an image, cont...
Broken Internet Haiku
The Internet broke Like an ice covered oak limb Making this post short
CrossFit Open Update
This one is going to be short and sweet. I had intentions to continue the story from last night but it’s 11:11 (always one of my favorite times) and frankly,...
Why Am I Wearing An Astronaut Suit
The first thing I notice is the total silence that enshrouds me. The next thing I’m aware of is that I seem to have lost the sense of touch. I’m laying flat ...
Random Update
You would think that after several days of writing, it would become easier. I have been writing quite a bit of late, not just for Lent and yet, I stare at an...
Do Not Procrastinate
Nothing like working on work until after 10 PM and still needing to write a blog post. This has been one of those Sword of Damocles and it just took until 8:...
A Window
The first time I made this trip, my kid sister was graduating from Tulane in the winter of 1988. The Virginia hills were covered in snow like powdered sugar ...
On Writing
I’m finding it increasingly difficult to write blog posts at night. I have a few ideas but the energy required to put those ideas into coherent words seems t...
Exhausted
After three days in a row of really hard workouts, some poor quality sleep and a sketchy diet, I was looking forward to a rest day today. As it turns out, my...
Playing With The Hand You’re Dealt
“Poker is a combination of luck and skill. People think mastering the skill part is hard, but they’re wrong. The trick to poker is mastering the luck.”
The Dumbing Down of Our Politics
It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important ...
How Not To Run An Internet Contest
Little background for people who aren’t in my Twitter feed: for years now, I’ve been doing Word of the Day tweets. Dictionary.com sends out a “Word of the Da...
Lent 2014
I’ve had several things on my mind for Lent this year. As I mentioned in my 2012 Lenten explanation, I don’t have a lot to give up this year. I’ve quit drink...
CrossFit Open 14.1
My first thought on Thursday night when they announced the workout was “Hey I can do that”. As it turns out, that was only partially the case. The workout wa...
Installing Django
This is just a page for me to remember what I did while installing Django so that when something breaks in six months, I have a point of reference.
Holiday
Kids play in the street on a Sunday at eight No school in the morning they all can sleep late
Going Without
Yesterday, I did a 24 hour fast as a first step into Intermittent Fasting (IF). For the uninitiated, IF is a eating pattern where you do not eat for certain ...
Random Amalgamation Of Thoughts
That’s a fun post title, no? I’m ten hours into a 24 hour fast and while not hungry, I woke up thinking about food. It’s interesting what your body and mind ...
CrossFit Games Prep Minus 29 Days
Five and a half years ago on August 25th, 2008, I started on this crazy CrossFit journey with a workout called Murph. I started CrossFit in the same way I st...
CrossFit Games Prep Minus 30 Days
I privately thought it might be a little ambitious to both workout and write something about said workout for each day up until the Games start. I took a few...
CrossFit Game Prep Day Minus 37
Today wasn’t intended to be a strength day but at 5:15 when the alarm went off, The Blerch won out and I worked on trying to figure out why my photoblog is s...
CrossFit Open Prep Day Minus 38
It’s funny how fast days seem to go when you’re counting them down towards something. Already four days into this journey and feels like it’s only a month aw...
CrossFit Open Prep Day Minus 39
Today is shaping up to be a rest day other than a dog walk and that’s probably a good thing. I may do some stretching and skill work later this evening but t...
CrossFit Open Prep Day Minus 40
I did not get the fastest start in the world this morning but I suppose that’s what weekends are for a little bit. In the garage at 7:45 planning to do some ...
CrossFit Open Prep Day Minus 41
So I’ve signed up for the 2014 CrossFit Open. Two years ago, I did a couple of the workouts but apparently not enough to show up in the results. Last year, a...
On Antifragility
Une maison est une machine-à-habiter. A house is a machine for living in.” Le Corbusier in Vers une architecture (1923)
On The Caloric Content of a Snickers
We recently returned from four days in Savannah, GA, a trip largely defined by extended stops at places of refreshment and gastronomy lightly interspersed wi...
2013
On Learning A New Language
Que sais-je? (What do I know?) – Montaigne
Camping at Cooper Lake South Sulfur Unit
Last weekend, we took our first camping trip of the fall. We initially were going to go to Doctors Creek on the north side of Cooper lake but ended up switch...
Notes On From Dawn To Decadence
Notes from my train ride in while reading From Dawn To Decadence:
You Are The Schefflera Of My Dreams
Even before you came into my life that day at Home Depot when you called to me from the clearance aisle, a lonely and abandoned look about your stalks, I kne...
The Ultimate Vim Distribution and Local Bundles
I’ve been using The Ultimate Vim Distribution for over a year now and I love it. Because I use it mostly as configured out of the box, I struggle any time I ...
Planting
ON the first real fall feeling day of the year, I planted another round of turnips, beets, collards, lettuce and radishes. The first planting of the fall has...
On Hunting
When I was a kid, I liked to hunt. I got a BB gun when I was probably 7 or 8 and I used it to shoot sparrows, pigeons, rabbits and innumerable Coke cans. Gra...
More Planting
Today, cabbage, collards, mustard, Chinese cabbage and kale went in the ground. The transplants started last weekend are starting to make progress though the...
Fall Gardening
Last week, the north keyhole garden got filled with compost and peat moss, strings were laid out and a square foot garden was created. Lots of terminology th...
Fall Planting
Pulled up the cucumbers and most of the cowpeas today though several more rows of Texas pinkeye cowpeas got planted on the north side of the house. The cucum...
On Consequence
Webster defines consequence as “something produced by a cause or necessarily following from a set of conditions”, e.g. the economic consequences of war. We o...
Hi
I love Mara Richards.
Friday Night Listening
Verlon Thompson is playing Poor David’s Pub tomorrow. I think we’ll go see him.
Thinking About Dressing Up While Planting Basil
Basil the plant, not Basil Exposition or Basil Rathbone, both worthy of mention but not of planting. It’s near the end of May and the early fall garden had g...
Memorial Day 2013
“The dead soldier’s silence sings our national anthem.” – Aaron Kilbourn
Upgrading To Mountain Lion, PostgreSQL and Rails
I’m probably late to the party on this since Mountain Lion has been out for an internet eternity but if I ever have to do it again or if someone is a worse p...
An Experiment in Permaculture
So in my travels through the internet and gardening websites and forums, I stumbled across Permies. From there, I learned about Hugelkultur which is a way to...
Garden Update
Weekend event: Heard Museum plant sale, first weekend of the McKinney Farmer’s Market
Herbs
But not that kind of herb, the NSA is out in force these days making sure the good citizens of America aren’t partaking in anything particularly fun to offse...
Early Spring Garden
February 10th, we set out the early garden for the spring. The weather here has been mild to say the least with the exception of a week long cold snap in Jan...
2012
Travels In New Orleans
“It was apparently not known that desire must be dammed up to be self-renewing.” Jacques Barzun
On Adventure And Detachment
Dark spruce forest frowned on either side of the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they ...
Installing PostgreSQL via Homebrew
This is mostly for my edification only with little potential value for any one other than the Google overlords but maybe it will come in handy in the future.
Bamboo CI and Git Branches
On the off chance that Google even indexes my blog anymore, I thought I’d write a short post about an issue we resolved with Bamboo and Git branches last wee...
A Significant Place
I stand beside a gravelly, sand packed road. I kneel down and touch the ground with my hand. The sun threatens to pound me into the ground, its blazing rays ...
On Fundraising
Last weekend, I took part in CrossFit for Hope, a fundraising event by CrossFit to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The goal across all...
Please Don’t Learn To Speak French
This essay is a parody of this essay. You should read it as such. It will be of little interest to the great majority of my readers but there was no point in...
Garden Update
When the house was built, the builder saw fit to put in five elaeagnus bushes in the front beds. These plants make great hedge rows but terrible bushes for t...
Bringing In The Fava Beans
The problem with working is that it doesn’t leave much time for writing though certain people in the audience might think that’s actually a blessing. Life ha...
The Negative Impacts Of Positive Laws
When I took my concealed carry license course here in Dallas, my class was made up of 30-40 mostly well intentioned, attentive folks. Demographically, it ran...
Meditations On Meaning
“I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. ...
Fast Paleo Goulash
I came across this great looking recipe for Hungarian goulash last week. I’m going to try it soon but since I only had 45 minutes today for lunch, I made a f...
Thinking About What We Think About When We Think About Food
At the risk of sliding down an exceptionally slippery meta-cognition slope, I’ve been thinking about food and thinking about thinking about food a lot lately...
In Defense of Innocence
“Sed nec de suspicionibus debere aliquem damnari diuus Traianus Adsidio Seuero rescripsit: satius enim esse impunitum relinqui facinus nocentis quam innoc...
Testing A Rails and Backbone App with Jasmine – Part 1 (of possibly 1 parts so far)
I’ve been playing around with Backbone.js in my Rails work but I haven’t gotten around to testing the Backbone code until today. There are quite a few tutori...
Just Because You Can Kill Someone With It Does Not Make It Insecure
This weekend, Github had what an impartial, understated observer might call a small dustup related to how the Rails web framework functions “out of the box”....
Lent 2012 Day 10
We’re ten days into the Lenten Experiment and overall, I have to say it hasn’t been as hard as I would have expected. First some stats. In the first 10 days,...
Buffett On Gold – And Why He’s Wrong
Warren Buffett recently released the annual report for his company, Berkshire Hathaway. You can read that report in its entirety here. In it, Buffett gives u...
Lent And The Associated Non-Religious Giving Up or Taking On That I Might Do
It’s that time of year again. No, not the collective day we designate to celebrate all Presidents not important enough to be named Washington which essential...
Eat Real And Other Non-Related Items
Not that anyone has been complaining but it seems like eight days is too long between posts. I haven’t felt particularly writerly of late on any front which ...
Meditations On Gardening
Many of the most prominent memories from my childhood revolve around the gardens of my grandparents. Both sets, paternal and maternal, had gardens in their b...
With These Kinds of Friends, Who Needs Enemies?
I recently started receiving Kiplinger’s magazine, a Christmas gift from my dad. I was working through the first issue I received when on page 9, I ran into ...
Intangibles
If you walked down the street and ran into Wes Welker, you likely wouldn’t have any idea that he’s one of the premier receivers in the National Football Leag...
Friday Night At The Experiment
Feeling melancholy with the north wind blowing…
Punishing the Many To Capture The Few
Imagine if you will a society where the following is possible. You take your hard earned dollars to a bank. You deposit your checks, write checks to your cre...
Some People Are Just Baby Tossers
In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand portrayed a society where the best and the brightest people essentially picked up their proverbial basketball and went home, leav...
Meditations On Being A Bad Meditator
The line between being a meditator and a mediator is a fine one. I am not a mediator other than in disputes of which cat threw up on the couch and and intern...
Why I’m Not A Football Christian
Does God know particulars? Before you answer that, take a moment to consider the ramifications of the answer, both pro and con. Like answering the question “...
Girl On A Postcard
A girl, possibly 15 or 18 or 21, it is hard to tell because her face is covered in thick, dark greasepaint, stands in the right track of a two track dirt roa...
Dreaming
Have you ever wondered what dogs dream about as they lay in their fluffy 40×50 beds bought at Tractor Supply on sale for $20? I’ve always assumed my dog is d...
2011 In Review
This is one of those fascinating posts (to me) where I navel gaze for approximately ninety minutes on what the past year has done to me or for me or what my ...
2011
2011 Road Trip Day 14 – Vicksburg to Wylie
Roads: I-20 to US-80 to US-69 to State Highway 78 Miles: 367 Time: 6 hours
2011 Road Trip Day 13 – Pensacola to Vicksburg
Roads: I-10 to I-110 to US-98 to US-49 to I-20 Miles: 338 Time: 6 hours
2011 Road Trip Days 11 and 12 – Charleston to Pensacola
Roads: US-17/I-95/US-1/I-10 Miles: 634 Time: 12 hours
2011 Road Trip Day 10 – Fayetteville to Charleston
Roads: I-95 to I-26 Miles: 227 Time: 4 hours
2011 Road Trip Days 8 and 9 – DC to Fayetteville, NC
Roads: I-95 Miles: 324 Time: 5 hours
2011 Road Trip Days 6 and 7 – Charlottesville to D.C.
Roads: US 250 to VA-22 to US-15 to VA-20/Constitution Highway to VA-3 to I-95 Miles: 130 Time: 3.5 hours
2011 Road Trip Day 5 – Asheville to Charlottesville
Roads: US-19 North to I-26/US-23 N to I-81 N to I-64 E to US-29 North Miles: 362 Time: 5.5 hours
2011 Road Trip Day 4 – Knoxville to Asheville
Roads: I-40 Miles: 150 Time: 3 hours
2011 Road Trip Day 3 – Bumming around Knoxville
The front I outran on Sunday in Louisiana finally caught up to me in Knoxville and the weather turned rainy. Thankfully, it hadn’t gotten cold yet so walking...
2011 Road Trip Day 2 – Birmingham to Knoxville
Roads: Interstate 59 N – Interstate 75 N Miles: 265 Time: 4 hours
2011 Road Trip Day 1 – Wylie To Birmingham
Roads: Texas highway 205-Interstate 20 Miles: 652 Time: 10 hours Stayed: The Redmont Hotel
Why the MF Global Bankruptcy Is Important To You
The privileged have regularly invited their own destruction with their greed. — John Kenneth Galbraith
A Bedtime Story To Haunt Your Sleep
Imagine if you will a friend–perhaps imaginary, perhaps not–who spends money as if it grew on trees. He buys things constantly, upgrading to the latest and g...
An Exogenous Event
Last week, it appeared that something of a plan, however roughly sketched out, had been drawn up in the great European debt crisis. Markets around the world ...
What Occupy Wall Street Is Really About
The Republican response to the Occupy Wall Street movement is one of shallowness and misunderstanding. It’s hypocritical in nature. Instead of seizing on the...
Fall Tomatoes
I never get them planted early enough it seems and this year was no different. They need to be in the ground by June 30th and while I was two weeks earlier t...
Changing of the Seasons
I pulled up all the black-eyed peas today along with quite a few weeds and some Mexican Heather that was amazingly well rooted. I planted 41 cloves of garlic...
The Endgame
Here is a simple description of what is driving the markets. It is basically a counter party risk situation involving the biggest banks in the Western fin...
Free Will, Sharing and Facebook
Facebook has been in the news a great deal lately. Early this week, they made some changes to their site design. Yesterday, they announced Facebook Timelines...
Geithner Says Europe Will Follow Our Lessons, God Help Them If They Do
This week, Timothy Geithner made comments in the financial media regarding how he thought Europe would get out of the mess they are in.
Book Review – The Great Cholesterol Con
Let’s go on a little journey. Imagine if you will the following situation. A US pharmaceutical company, always on the outlook for ways to improve people’s li...
Trying
Do you remember the time we tried to save that little kitten we found in the alley? It was behind the dumpster, mewling softly. You looked for its mother, up...
The Right To Waste My Own Money
In one of my favorite Two and A Half Men episodes (of which there are many), Charlie takes Jake to the horse racing track instead of helping him with his boo...
A Tale of Two Tragedies
Anyone who doesn’t live under a rock has been bombarded by a media assault over the last few days regarding the acquittal of Casey Anthony. For weeks, news a...
The End of The Euro For Dummies
Let’s start with a story. You and I are friends. You discover that you’re going to come up a little bit short on the rent this month and ask to borrow $100 f...
Google+ Is What I Want Facebook To Be
While it’s still very early in the process for Google+, already I’m seeing things they are doing that I wish Facebook did. The primary difference for me is t...
Confusing The Perfect With Progress
One thing that I constantly suffer from is letting the concept of perfection keep me from making progress on something. This happens not only in my software ...
Sabbatical Week 1 Retrospective and Week 2 Planning
Last week was the first planned week of my working sabbatical. The following items were on the weekly sprint list:
Book Review – Roads by Larry McMurtry
I picked Roads – Driving America’s Great Highways up on a lark at the Wylie library on Tuesday and finished it Wednesday. Larry McMurtry is an excellent auth...
Web Deployment Cage Fight – 2002 versus 2011
When I first started doing web development with Visual Studio 2005, it was pretty painful work. Not only was the development itself difficult in many ways (i...
The Working Sabbatical
Well, it must be official, I’ve told my parents. I’m effectively on a sabbatical, the nature of which hasn’t completely been defined but the purpose of which...
Book Review – When The Cheering Stopped
I recently finished reading When The Cheering Stopped, an account of the last years of Woodrow Wilson. This is the hardcover edition, published in 1964. K fo...
Physicality
Busquemos la gran alegría del haber hecho (Let us seek the great happiness of having done) – from Juan Ramon Jimenez’s Maximus
Why I Don’t Hang Out With People Named David
As many of you know, I like to hang out with cool people. I go out of my way to search my iPhone phone book for cool people to hang out with. Sometimes, my m...
Becoming An Amateur Nurseryman
I’ve had a garden for a long time but this is the first year I’m growing my own plants transplants from seeds. At $2-3 a plant from the local nursery, I usua...
Changing System Variables in MySQL
Lots of fun today, dealing with what feels like the innards of MySQL but probably just barely scratches the epidermis. What I did learn today though was how ...
Dallas Finds New Ways To Screw Small Business Owners
The backstory: In March of last year, the City of Dallas passed an ordinance allowing cabs that are powered by natural gas to jump the line at Love Field. Th...
Learning Rails (and a little Ruby)
As with most of my endeavors, I suddenly decided last week out of the blue that I needed to write a web site in Rails. I don’t really recall the thought proc...
Word Wrap Kata in Python
Last month at Dallas Hack Club, we did the Word Wrap Kata from Uncle Bob Martin’s “Clean Coder”. I got there a touch late and rapidly figured out that we wer...
2010
Route Gotchas In Pylons
I’ve been working on a Pylons app quite a bit lately and occasionally I run across issues that warrant documentation on the interwebs. That happened today co...