Renuncln.com/blog

My linux box

renuncln — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 12:28:39 +0000

I have been working on getting my Linux box up and running again. This was mainly due to the fact that I have not used it in a while. Since I am getting divorced it is one of the possessions that I am getting. I decided to hook it back up and start working on it again. One of the main problems it has is that it overheats like crazy. I am sure I could put some new heatsink compound on it and that would probably help. I have to fairly regularly blow all the dust out of it to keep it from overheating. I used to use it as my main computer and it was my primary computer pretty much until the drive died one day and I had to put a new one in. It does have a smaller drive that is the Windows XP drive. I run Ubuntu on the Linux drive, which is also the primary boot. I am aware that some people slam Ubuntu for being too friendly to new users of Linux. However, I have found that it also “just works” and reduces the amount of time I have to spend screwing with the system.

I am working on setting up the Linux box as my development machine again. I have mentioned that I wrote a program called CBViewer a while back, somehow it has become popular and it has gotten about 26,000 downloads or so from the sourceforge repositories. This is very good news to me. However I have yet to see a single penny for donations. I don’t mind one bit, because I gave CBViewer to the community as a way of giving back for all the free software that I have used over the years. I would like to see a community created comic book archive for it, I would gladly host the downloads for such an archive. I am sure that this would be a great way for the upcoming comic artists and writers to get there work out there. I could see each comic being released under a CC license of some sort. Before I do that though I am going to make a few changes to CBViewer and post a new version for download since I believe it has been over a year since the last one was released.

A simple brewing mistake…

renuncln — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:10:14 +0000

So, a couple of weekends ago we tried to brew our first lager… Having brewed several ales at this point I think we may have been slightly overconfident. Everything was going just fine, the boil looked great, the beer cooled down fairly fast (thanks to slightly cold weather that day) and the yeast looked fine when we rehydrated it. However, if you read the directions for lagering, it is suggested that you should start the lager at normal ale temperatures and then move it to a cooler spot for lagering. We didn’t read this part so although we did get some pressure in the airlock we did not get the rapid bubbling that we are used to with the ales. When I visited Brian on Thursday morning he told me that the Oktoberfest we had brewed wasn’t fermenting properly. We looked at it, had a small discussion and decided to throw some dry ale yeast on the top of the wort and see what happened. When I visited on Saturday afternoon, before our trip to the brew store (more on that in a few), Brian told me the wort had already bubbled through the airlock and he had to replace it. He had come down to the basement to put wood in the stove and could smell the fermentation. He put the new airlock on and when I visited it was bubbling like crazy, it finally slowed down on Sunday morning. Hopefully this beer turns out alright. I will definitely keep updates on it.

The other mistake we had was that we had planned a trip to Jasper’s in Nashua since it is the closest brewing supply store to us and while we get great service from Midwest Brewing Supply, we still have to pay shipping fees. Nashua is about 45-60 minutes from the Keene area. So we figured we could swing over on a Saturday and spend some cash, maybe walk out with a couple of new carboys and some grains for brewing. We got all the way out there, only to find that they were closed that Saturday due to the holiday weekend. So we stopped at Burger King and picked up a burger instead.

Life and Everything in it

renuncln — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 08:25:13 +0000

Not that anyone really reads this blog, but I am putting this out there. I am in the process of becoming divorced. I won’t get into the details, but the end result has been major upheavals in my life. Ending a relationship of 10 years is not easy. Especially when you have kids involved. Since I was about the same age as my youngest son when my own parents got divorced, I have been taking great pains to try to make this process as easy for the boys as for my ex and I.

I have been fairly busy trying to straighten my life out again and have ignored my small efforts here. I plan to change that. I have picked up a new hobby which I truly love, brewing beer. It is easily one of the most fun and captivating things I have ever done. I plan to commit as much space in this blog as I can to beer brewing. I hope that everyone can bear with me. I will still post any game and or life related announcements here as well. However, I will be changing the focus of this blog to brewing beer. Expect a post this weekend regarding our upcoming trip to the brew supply store and what we are currently brewing.

That is all for now. I’ll write more later.

Party Wipe

renuncln — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:24:41 +0000

I missed the game this week, because my wife had surgery. Apparently there was a party wipe and now we are switching DMs and going to be playing in the Forgotten Realms. I really don’t know much about the realms, so I hope the game is good. I am going with my tried and true Rogue. I may try for a slightly different variant than my usual Sven style rogue this time. I will post any interesting tidbits as I create the character.

Doctor Who: The Invasion

renuncln — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:32:33 +0000

Currently I am watching Doctor Who: The Invasion. It is a Doctor Who story with Patrick Troughton as the Doctor. Apparently episodes 1 & 4 were lost and the BBC only had audio tracks for those 2 episodes. What they did was to animate the episodes and used the original audio for a sound track. I think they should redo some of the previous lost episodes this way as well. Either way I think the Cybermen kick ass and I can’t wait for more episodes with Cybermen in them.

The storyline in this episode progresses somewhat slowly, the Cybermen are not revealed until the end of episode 4. However it is a U.N.I.T. story and that helps improve the storyline somewhat. I also am partial to Troughton’s interpretation of the Doctor. Overall I give this story a 4 out of 5 rating. The only detracting point for me is the slow pace of the first four episodes.

Tuesday Night Game Cancellations

renuncln — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 15:17:21 +0000

The last couple of weeks there has been no Tuesday Night D&D Game. Hopefully next week we game, I have leveled my Cleric up to second level now and I can’t wait to play again.

Funny Picture of Captain Kirk

renuncln — Sun, 27 May 2007 00:02:05 +0000

A few summers ago I was watching Star Trek: TOS and got up to get something to drink. When I came back I had paused on the following screen. I think this shows a side of Captain Kirk that we haven’t seen before.

Weekly D&D Game

renuncln — Tue, 22 May 2007 02:02:12 +0000

I have been playing D&D in some form or other for something like 18 years now. It has not lost my interest. I made the jump from the Red Box Set to AD&D to AD&D 2nd Edition to D&D 3E and I think I will soon be taking the plunge from 3E to 3.5 since my new gaming group is playing with 3.5 rules (except for myself and the DM).

Usually I play a rogue typically named Sven or some variant of it. Usually my rogues are self-centered and completely full of themselves. They also have a tendency to be very cowardly most of the time. A typical example of a Sven move is the time that the party was being attacked by undead monsters of some sort and Sven stood in the corner and drank a potion of Invisibility to Undead. However since I am now playing in a new campaign, with a new group (mostly the same but slightly different), I decided to try a new class. I am playing a Dwarven Cleric, with a Lawful Good alignment. This is actually a challenge for me. I have never played a character with a LG alignment.

The game is now 2 weeks in. I missed the first session due to a concert that I had tickets for. I played last week and I loved it. I hadn’t played any D&D in over a year, I might have been having some withdrawal symptoms. My cleric is now almost at second level and he has already established himself as a key member of the group.

I will be posting more here, probably on wednesdays regarding the weekly game. Stay Tuned….

Renuncln.com/blog is now online

renuncln — Tue, 22 May 2007 01:19:55 +0000

This is my first post to this blog. I will make it short and sweet. Renuncln.com/blog is where I will be posting my thoughts and comments on my various hobbies and projects that I am working on.