Martin Pease

What was the first Linux I ever installed? Back in the mid to late 90's, I remember trying to get various distros up and running on whatever PC hardware I had lying around. It wasn't so much a problem getting enough working to run a terminal, it was setting up networking and getting my display adapter configured to get more than 800x600 resolution. Mostly, I just noodled around with it. I do recall once buying a boxed copy of Red Hat Linux, and putting the sticker on my Thinkpad and thinking how cool it was. I don't remember what version of Red Hat it was, but the box looked very similar to this one. This would have been 1999 or 2000. But mostly Linux as a desktop OS was a disappointment. The quality of software was pretty low, and drivers were a persistent problem, especially those tricky networking drivers. I believe I once got an early 802.11b wireless adapter working after much trial and error, but it was unreliable. Frankly, Windows 2000 was a superior client OS at...

Following up from my last post about the Anova sous vide machine, here's a recent steak I made. I experimented with a slightly higher temperature, 135°F instead of 130°F. This was a little too medium for my taste, but still tender and juicy. I bought this plastic tub, and it's a big improvement. The lid has a cutout specifically designed for the Anova to poke through. I also bought this rack which fits inside the tub and holds the food up in the middle of the water. You can adjust the spacing between the racks to fit different sized packages. Using my SearzAll gave the post-cook sear perfectly. The alternative way to get the proper sear on a steak is to take the steak out of the bag when it's done, pat it dry, and pop it into the fridge for about 10 minutes. (Helen Rennie talks about this at about 8:30 in the video above.)  Then, you can sear the steaks in a pan (with butter) without the steak losing all its liquid or overcooking. This method works great...

Sous vide cooking has been reaching public attention for about 10 years, with the rise of food bloggers and professional chefs broadcasting on YouTube. Immersion circulators have been used in restaurants for a long time before that. The idea is pretty simple: create a water bath that stays at a constant temperature, and you can cook food in it until the perfect done-ness is achieved. The sous vide part means "under vacuum" in French and refers to the fact that you generally seal the food in a vacuum bag before immersing in the water bath.  Recently, I purchased an Anova Sous Vide Precision Cooker , which is one of many sous vide circulator devices available to consumers. The price varies between from about $90 to well over $500. This model cost $150 at Best Buy, and is even cheaper on Amazon.  These mostly all work the same way: you fill a vessel with water, attach the circulator to the vessel with the heating element in the water, and set the temperature you w...

I once asked a young friend of mine if she enjoyed musicals. "I saw Wicked and I really liked it," she exclaimed. This took me aback, for a moment. To me, musicals are the classic American works like Guys and Dolls , Oklahoma! , and Singin' In The Rain . But of course, to most people today, musicals are those mega-productions like Wicked or Hamilton . If anyone is to take credit- or blame- for the modern musical, it must be Andrew Lloyd Webber. Composer and creator of hit shows such as Jesus Christ Superstar , Cats and Phantom of the Opera , Lloyd Webber is inarguably the most successful musical creator of all time. Unmasked: A Memoir is Andrew Lloyd Webber's account of his childhood and the beginnings of his career, up until the mid-1980s and the release of Phantom of the Opera . This book was a surprising gift from my wife, who knows I am no fan of Lloyd Webber's musicals. Reading reviews of the book, however, she thought I might find the behind-the-scenes s...

Behold! The Searzall® atop the mighty Bernzomatic™ TS8000! Atop a Coleman propane tank. One of those camping ones, right. Tremble before the face of Almighty Searification! He hears all, knows all, sears all! His anger must be satiated! Bring forth the victim. Lay him in the ceremonial skillet. We quake with fear and anticipation! The dread one shines his eldritch gaze on the offering. Offering accepted! Searzall's purifying fire cleanses the flesh of the victim, its pinkness being transformed into succulent, crispy brownness. The smell is intoxicating! The ritual is complete, and Searzall returns to his dreamless sleep. Now, brothers, we feast!

The first full-dress halftime show of the year happened on a perfect September evening. Warm but not too hot, clear skies. While the home team fell apart in the third quarter, even that did little to damper the spirits. The halftime show was only one part of the full performance they are working on this year, and I guess they cut it down due to time. They played well, but it was a little underwhelming seeing just part of the routine. My heart filled with pride to see my little boy, now so tall (and 15 years old!) executing a complicated maneuver while playing all the right notes. Son #2, as a member of a middle-school band, got join his big brother for the pregame show, along with other local Catholic middle-schoolers. Hundreds of kids, each wearing their school t-shirts, marched out under the setting sun with the big high school band and played three songs. Son #2, in part due to his shortness and in part because they put the flutes up front, was in the front line. The combined ...

I think I've mentioned this in passing before on this blog, and my friends and family have certainly heard me rant and rave about this. Survey culture is bad. The modern metric industry is driven largely by the business schools, who teach future executives that they can run any business- doesn't much matter what- so long as you have the data to make decisions. And so we are subjected to endless questions about how many stars you give any interaction with a customer service person, or how you liked the ordering process, or really anything the corporation feels it needs data about. All of this is to cover the lack of competent leadership. Data is not a substitute for wise leadership, skin in the game, personal responsibility, and clear understanding of the business itself. In theory, asking your customers for feedback is a good thing, for perhaps they don't like something you do but won't take the time to tell you. But the reality of most businesses is that this da...

The crash All my neighbors said it sounded like a clap of thunder, real close. Not to me, as I was sitting on my deck around 11pm enjoying a cigar and glass of Scotch. I could tell immediately- from the tire squealing to the bang to the sound of rolling, crunching metal- that someone had just had an accident, half a block away. I grabbed my flashlight and dashed up the street. My first thought was someone had hit a garbage can, since it was garbage day and plenty of bins were still out at the street. It was dark, I couldn't tell what had happened. My flashlight exposed a black shape, and I realized that it was a car, upside down, leaning against the streetlight. That is why it was so dark. All of the bodywork around the engine had blown apart. The man who lives in the house where the accident happened walked outside as I ran up; he was in shorts and a t-shirt. His wife had already called 911. There was debris everywhere in his yard- concrete, metal, glass. From the rear ...

Son #1 requested steak for his birthday dinner, so I picked up the best looking ribeye steaks from Costco and grilled them up. The results were fabulous, in my top 10 best home cooked steaks.

Butter cow Goat vacuuming  Tuckered out baby sleeping Piggies Assistant for science demonstration Best view of the Fair Butter tractor Annual corndog

And now, the First Annual Iowa State Fair Kickoff Parade Royalty Ranking! Runner-up: Governor Don Pfeiffer of the Iowa District Optimists Club 5. The State Center Rose Festival 2018 Rose Queen 4. The entire fleet of Soybean Princesses hauled in by the Soybean Growers Association 3 tractors pulling a gaggle of princesses. Seriously! 3. Miss Metro 2018 by the Miss Greater Des Moines association 2. Last Year's Princess Kay of the Milky Way by the Dairy Association 1. The Bacon Queen by B-Bop's Burgers Congratulations, Bacon Queen! Your dedication to bacon really won us over.

... With all these considerations, and armed with a good topological map, you should be able to find the perfect spot. Chapter 3 : Hiking In and Site Preparations Having covered basic preparations in Chapters 1, and choosing your site in Chapter 2, now we get to the fun stuff- hitting the trail and prepping your site. Most of your load will be securely fastened in your sled, but remember that you should always carry water, bug spray, bear spray (if in bear country), flashlight, and rain gear on your person. Firmly grasping the ropes of the sled, start your journey on the trail. To distribute the weight evenly between your arms, cross them over your chest, and lean slightly forward. You've got a lot to carry, but keep in mind, it'll be a breeze hiking back out. Take a deep breath of that fresh air- you've never felt so alive! After half a kilometer or so, throw the first of your distraction bags as far off the trail as you can. It doesn't matter which side you c...

The taco you regret least is the one you didn't eat last night.

I've been on a Classics kick lately. After working through the magnificent Landmark Julius Caesar , I read Emily Wilson's newest translation of the Odyssey (also highly recommended). My wonderful wife, always attentive to my bibliotic needs (not a real word, until now ) purchased me a copy of Sarah Ruden's translation of Apuleius' The Golden Ass . Since the latter is by far the dirtiest major work from this time period I've read, this is the one I will review! Every day (I say this for effect only), someone says to me, "Those old books are too daunting to me. I don't think I'd understand them. I know nothing about ancient Greece or Rome." To these people I always (again for effect) say, "You don't know what you're missing, but probably you don't care." Because we (not you and I, dear reader, but other people) are so glutted with young adult fiction and newspapers written for a 3rd grade reading level, that seriously enga...

So the MRI results came back, and I definitely have a brain. Long a matter of discussion in my family and circle of acquaintance, I have a piece of paper from a real radiologist that confirms the residence of a brain in my cranium. Suck it, haters! The other good news is that my real, existing brain is operating normally. I recently had a couple of episodes where I had some tingling on the left side of my face, and in my left arm. 40 year old cigar smoker, expert drinker, and general bon vivant? We've heard this tune before, and it plays in the key of "heart attack" or "stroke". Happily, both the CT scan and MRI ruled out both of these possibilities. We're now considering something mundane, such as the fact that I sleep on my left side and perhaps irritated or pinched a nerve. The experience of getting the MRI done was interesting. In theory, there's nothing to it- you lie on a table and slide into a tube, and magnets unleash the power of Gre...

Over the weekend I sat down to watch Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey with my wife, who was seeing it for the first time.  Depending on which critic you read, the movie is either a masterpiece of deep philosophical questioning, or a vastly overrated mishmash of half-baked ideas that runs much too long. In my opinion, the movie falls someplace between these extremes. Most people vaguely remember a few discrete scenes, such as the apes at the beginning, or The Blue Danube playing as the space shuttle docks with the station, or "Open the pod bay doors, HAL." But the small details really impressed me with this latest viewing- all of the costume designs, the color palette, how the visual effects still look good. Mostly, one can't help marveling at the absolute perfection of Kubrick's execution of all the audio and visual elements into a complete sensory experience. And yet, for all the brilliance on display, the plot ultimately fails to hold up unde...