Late Night Thinking

by Thomas L. Kula

Quinoa, Wheatberry and Pea Salad

Borne out of boredom and looking in my pantry. Take a cup of wheatberries, soak overnight. Take a cup of quinoa, soak overnight. The next day, drain the wheatberries, and drain and rince the quinoa (especially well if they aren't pre-rinced). Throw in a pot, add twice the amount of water, and bring to a boil. Put on simmer, cover, and let sit for 25 minutes. While that is happening: dice up some peeled tomatoes (I used a can of whole peeled tomatoes I happened to have around, fresh should work as well).

My General Method for making Ginger Beer

At the prompting of Rex Roof I thought I'd post the general method I've been using for making ginger beer. I'm now on my fourth batch, and already the method has varied quiet a bit from something roughly based on the ginger episode of Good Eats to something roughly based on the ginger beer recipe in Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katx. This method makes four two-liter bottles of ginger beer.

Ginger Beer Batch 3

Last week hanging out with some friends, Phill asked me if I'd brew up a batch of ginger beer and bring it to his and Brandy's housewarming party later this week. I've been wanting to brew a new batch anyways, since I think I finally figured out the proper ginger-to-everything-else ratio, but I haven't been able to because of being sick and then being in Chicago. This is the first batch where I played around with adding more than the basic ginger, sugar, lemon juice and water to the mix.

Federal Funds for the Ypsilanti Freighthouse Restoration

10 April 2009: The restoration of the Ypsilanti Freighthouse, a landmark in Depot Town, got a major boost today with the delivery of $500,000 in Federal stimulus money. This compliments a $100,000 grant recieved through Hamburger Helper (of all places) to do major work necessary to re-open the bulk of the Freighthouse, which had been used as a community center in the past. The news is particularly complimentary to the plans for the Ann Arbor - Detroit Communter Rail (see here for more details), as the Freighthouse can be used as a cafe and visitor center for the stop in Ypsilanti.

If AFS were in the movies....

"Good, bad, I'm the guy with the KeyFile." "Quorum? Where we're going, we don't need quorum." "We're on a mission from Aklog." "Ray, the next time someone asks if you're the sync site, you say YES!" "Double secret rxkad." "Admiral! There be cache here!" "Let's do the vos move agaaaaainnnn!" "That bosserver really tied the room together." "You just fell victim to the classic blunder! The first of which is always rxdebug a dying fileserver!

Essential Necromancy for System Administrators

This is probably also the result of reading a large amount of Pratchett in the fever of my recent illness, but at work today I was talking to co-worker C and the phrase "Two-chicken problem" came up, in the context of "It will take a sacrifice of two chickens to solve this problem" (IBM tape library and lin_tape control paths, if you are curious). Then the thought occured to me: there needs to be a practical guide to the occult arts for system administrators.

Ann Arbor - Detroit Regional Rail Project Meeting

The Ypsilanti City Planning commission held a meeting tonight where some presentations were made about the proposed Ann Arbor - Detroit Regional Commuter Rail, which has on it a stop in Ypsilanti. The following are my raw notes --- I may flesh them out more later, but I'm also a lazy bum and we know how that works. Ann Arbor - Detroit Regional Rail Project Meeting Ypsilanti City Hall 18 March 2009 Part of the Plannng Commission meeting Next city council meeting re.

Bike Polo

What a wonderful thing it is after a winter of cold to be outside on a day when it feels like spring is finally here to stay. Today was the first day it was warm enough for us to play bike polo outside. Now, it was nice that during the winter we were down in the Thunderdrome, so we could keep playing throughout the cold season, but, man, it felt good to be outside.

Using Remind

I heard of the calendaring utility remind a while back, and always kept wanting to get around to using it, because my system for remembering when to do things is some combination of scraps of paper, datebooks (used for a while until about March each year), notes taped to the back of the apartment door that I stare at when stumbling out to work each morning, random text files and relying on my leaky and sieve-like mind tends to work about as much as you would expect.

2009 Coffee House of Record Report

Ever since May of 2005 I've had the habit of designating a local coffeeshop as my "Coffeeshop of Record" — it's the place I always hang out at, and my favorite local caffeine establishment. Or, as I sometimes put it, "my drug dealers". Because I'm also that kind of person, I keep statistics of how much I spend there. Shortly after moving to Ypsilanti I designated the Ugly Mug Cafe as my CHoR.