Why so quiet
I’ve been incredibly slack over the last nine months or so. One reason is that I’ve been fairly flat-out on a contract to a company in town during that period and so my available ruminating time has been quite limited. But perhaps the real reason is that I feel like I get more from life when I spend more time listening than opining and being busy is a convenient excuse to say less.
So anyway, here’s a quick summary of what I’ve been up to lately:
In June last year I took up a position as a contractor for a fairly well-known New Zealand ISP and web-hosting company tasked with the job of implementing a content management system for six websites running in a LAMP environment but with occasional SOAP web service integration into Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We ended up going with Drupal which we wrote a couple of our own modules for and re-themed for each site. It’s a pretty nice system once you get to know it but I’m not sure I’d choose it over my own mini-framework when it comes to day-to-day rapid application development, especially given that my other clients rarely need multi-site, multi-user content management systems.
I’m finishing up there at the end of this week but will probably occasionally be called in from time to time over the next few months. From here I’m back to looking after my other, neglected clients who I’m in danger of losing if I neglect them any longer. Looking forward to the variety once again but will miss the security and profitability of this latest job.
Back in September of last year I became afflicted with a terrible addiction. It is commonly called ‘home brewing’. I started with a couple of batches of kitset beer straight from a can with a bit of water and yeast and quickly moved to boiling plain extract with additions of hops, proper yeasts and resulting in much cleaner, more flavoursome beers. I’ve even done partial mashes of grain to augment the flavour and complexity of my brews but I’ve yet to slide completely into the abyss by going all-grain mash and leaving the happiness and safety of malt extract behind. Be warned of lots of upcoming posts that will be of absolutely no interest whatsoever to many of the past visitors here.
I’ve been reading some pretty good books too. One that is of particular interest to me is Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter which was recommended to me by a commenter called Simon last year. He’s quite right, it really is ‘insanely mindblowing’.
Meals on Wheels continues in a fairly non-eventful way and my weekly catch up with my Big Buddy little buddy is going really well. He’s 9 now and really coming out of his shell which is infinitely rewarding. If you are an average bloke in Auckland and have the time to spend three hours a week with a boy kicking a ball around or doing other things that you are supposed to have officially grown out of, then get into contact with them. There are a lot of boys who are growing up out there without really getting to see how ordinary adult males deal with life.
My wife continues to be lovely and we manage to get out of town frequently which keeps us both pretty happy. We’re lucky to be living in this time and in this country.
That’s really about it. Non-controversial. Not particularly interesting. But that’s life eh?
I’ve been quiet on my blog for a long while too, and for pretty much the same reason: I’ve been incredibly busy with back-to-back projects. I’m not complaining! It’s a really good thing given the weak economy! But the fact is, it does make it hard to find time for other interests.
I was once addicted to home brewing but I’ve been clean for several years now. I just take it one day at a time. I know that just one batch could put me over the edge.
Actually, I still have all the equipment – some I bought and some I made. It’s another one of those things I love to do that I just haven’t had time for. I’m still hopeful I can return to it at some point. I’ve never brewed from a kit. I started right out brewing all-grain recipes – before I found out it was “hard”. If you haven’t tried it yet – I HIGHLY recommend it. It really isn’t as hard as it sounds! It does take a few more steps and few more hours, and it can be a little messy (if it boils over). But an all-grain beer is truly yours where as a kit beer is someone else’s recipe.
I’m emailing you an all-grain Brew Recipe “calculator” that I put together back in 1991. It’s a spreadsheet that takes beer parameters like the amount of residual sugar (“finish gravity”), alcohol content, and color (darkness in “lovibond”), and produces an all-grain recipe for a beer with those parameters. I put it together just for personal use so the usability isn’t great – but I think good enough to muddle through. I’d love to create a website to replace the spreadsheet but, you guessed it, I just can’t find the time.
Ha! Dude, you’re a legend! I can’t imagine how much work must have gone into creating that calculator. I’ve been using a pretty cool website for my recipes but they could well have copied your equations directly for all I know. Kudos for doing that in 1991 in a spreadsheet. Nice.
Yea – I know people who weren’t even born yet when I wrote that thing. Thanks for that link!! Now I can cross “turn that old brew recipe spreadsheet into a website” off my list!
Godel, Esher, Back all the way!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry, Bach