Reading 9-2-2010

Recently picked up the book Bearers Of The Black Staff, by Terry Brooks.  I've read all the Terry Brooks books, and this one is another plank into the deck of the Shannara universe.  Brooks weaves a good tale, and his books have a great balance of interesting details and developing characters.  This book continues to fill out the grand story of his series, in his characteristic style of writing.

Island Rototiller

I'm looking into planting some grapevines on our island.  I have been reading several books from the library on how to go about doing that.  One book, Vines to Wines seems especially knowledgeable and helpful.  Part of the process is choosing a location and preparing the soil: so I am going to take some soil samples, and till up the dirt in preparation for next year's planting.  In order to do this, I bought a rototiller off of craigslist.

Reading - August 2010

I've been reading through a few different books of late.  One is The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, the Cameo Classics edition, by Rudolf Erich Raspe.  This old book houses the surrealistic and absurd tales of Baron Munchausen, which were later made into a movie.
Another interesting book to read has been From Vines to Wines, by Jeff Cox.  This books details the process of planting grapevines all the way to making your own wine.  Definitely an interesting read, and possibly related to an upcoming project.

Move from Drupal to Blogger.com

I've been mulling over moving off of Drupal and onto a free hosted blogging platform.  I've been looking around for a while (and used livejournal for quite some time), and decided to go with blogspot/blogger.  It's part of the google platform, and I've just changed over the website (along with my 250 previous posts).

Costa Rica

Recently returned from two weeks in Costa Rica.  I went down with my work, MAFLT.  I was doing survey work, and looking for ways to support our Latin America team.  Melissa went with me, and we had a great time experiencing the culture of Costa Rica, and also of South American influences.  We visited the volcano Arenal.  We also stayed a few days at Playa del Coco.  And took lots of photos.

Touring Old Boise

The North end of Boise features an array of old houses.  Many of the houses have interesting architecture and entertaining facades.  Melissa and I have a plan to walk or ride around the neighborhoods of North Boise to look at the various old architectures.  Yesterday, we started our touring with a short walk starting from Memorial park.

Ye Ole Homestead

 Last weekend I took a trip out to Buck Flat in the middle of nowhere, Owyhee Country, Idaho.  I went out with my parents to look at the area that my Great-grandparents homesteaded in the 1920s.
  I had previously traveled down to the Owyhee country courthouse and looked up the deed, so that we could match up where the homestead is actually at.  We suffered two flat tires in the trip, but were amply prepared and made it back to Mountain Home.  It was a fun trip to go out to the middle of nowhere to see the old homestead.

Sharles I - Underwater ROV

I've been working on an ROV for the last month or two.  It's based on an Arduino mega with web control (at this point).  It's been a fun project so far, and I will post some video and photos once it hits the water.

Space Shuttle Time Lapse

Here is a video of the Space Shuttle being readied for launch.  Very impressive, especially the Vehicle Assembly Building.  See it here at Air and Space.

Team Fortress 2, Fortrix, and Starcraft 2

Recently been enjoying the game Fortrix.  Fortix is kindof a remix of the game Qix. A fun throwaway game that has a nice retro feel.
I've also been playing alot of Team Fortress 2 in the last few months.  A fun FPS that allows the play to have different roles.  It's very similar to the original Team Fortress, excepting a new game engine, and cartoony fun graphics.
I'm also super excited for Starcraft 2 to come out, which Blizzard has stated that should happen in the first half of 2010.  What that really means it as good as anything with Blizzard's record of delaying and canceling games.  The good news is that it is in Beta, however.