scott's ravings

Happy Veterans Day

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:55:00 PST

Happy Veterans Day, y'all, and thanks to all the folks who've served. This of course includes my father, grandfathers, my father-in-law, and several of my friends.

But I especially want to thank my friend, Kevin, who has just started his 15 month tour of duty in Kabul, Afghanistan. Be safe, Kevin, and come home soon!

Mini Swim Meet

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:37:00 PST

Last Friday, we had a mini swim meet at practice. Usually, real meets last all weekend, and are all-day affairs, during which, a swimmer will swim four or five events.

I say that because in this mini meet, we swam seven events in 90 minutes. It was crazy! So my times are a little... well, let's just say there's lots of room for improvement!

Event	Time
200 Free	2:36.38
100 Back	1:36.43
100 Breast	1:32.25
200 Breast	3:20.75
50 Free	0:33.37
100 Free	1:12.60
200 Back	3:39.13

Update: It's good to have goals, so here are what my near term goals would be for these events, hopefully achievable in a one year time frame. I've reached these times before, so this would just be getting me back to my best times.

Event	GOAL
200 Free	2:15
100 Back	1:20
100 Breast	1:20
200 Breast	3:00
50 Free	0:30
100 Free	1:05
200 Back	3:10

End of Soccer Season

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:29:00 PST

Luke's team, the Huskies, ended with a very strong win yesterday. We were down in the first half of the game, 0-2. The boys were playing sluggishly, like they didn't care. Finally, in the third quarter, they started to turn things around, and ended the third with a 2-2 tie. Then, in the fourth, two beautiful goals took us ahead, the first a "hang the goalie" looper by Matthew right over the head (and hands) of the other team's goalkeeper. The second was a nice sneak between the legs by Lucas. It was a wonderful end to a great season.

The boys had so much fun this year, and they really gelled as a team. I really hope we see these same boys again next year. Coach Max was amazing, and made the whole season a ton of fun. As we were leaving the field from Saturday's game, Luke told me, "I'm definitely signing up for soccer in the spring!" Sweet.

Here are some photos from the end of season party at Coach Max's house.

Congratulations, Eddie!!

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:49:00 PST

Today we learned that Eddie was selected to be in the Loudoun District Chorus!! This was a chorus that he had to try out for, and be selected to be in from among 6, 7, and 8th graders from all over the district.

The District Event will be held February 12-13, at Stone Hill MS and Park View HS. Come one, come all. We'll stack you like cordwood in the basement and guest bedroom.

Luke as James Madison

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:32:00 PST

Luke will be in a school play shortly. He's playing as James Madison, one of the "heros" of Virginia.

Becky made the costume. Everybody knows she's the real hero of our family. He looks outstanding!

Heritage Hall Visit

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:35:00 PST

Today was Luke's first day with St. Pete's Pets. We headed over to Heritage Hall for our monthly visit with the residents, this time with Luke as Frank's handler. Eddie, of course, is an old pro by now, so he hung with Chris and Annie, while Colleen and Bits came along with us.

The highlight of the day was visiting with dear old Mrs. Hankins, who is always so energetic and loves to see the boys. As we were bidding her adieu, she held out her hand to shake ours goodbye. Then she proceeded to kiss each of our hands with great formality. But with Luke, after kissing his hand, she suddenly yanked him in tight and hugged him. It was very sweet.

It's always nice to visit with the folks at Heritage Hall. I'm glad the boys enjoy it as much as the residents enjoy seeing them.

Happy HALLOWEEN!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:43:00 PDT

It was an ominous Halloween night. The air was hot and thick, and the dark clouds rolled across the sky threatening rain. But the rain never came, and it turned out to be a pretty nice evening.

This year, the boys came up with costumes on their own. Eddie went as Harry Potter, and a very convincing Harry Potter he was. The only problem was that Eddie's hair is naturally neat, and Harry's is the opposite. Every time we'd ruffle it up, it would lay neatly back into position. We had to mousse Eddie's hair to get it to stick up in all directions. But after that, he was quite a good Harry Potter.

Luke, on the other hand, went as Sam Witwicky, the Shia LaBeouf character from the Transformers movie. This costume meant that he basically looks like a normal kid--just a kid in jeans and a t-shirt. However, Sam does have some pretty slicked-back hair, so we used about a whole tube of hair gel to get Luke's hair to stay put. After the gel dried, his hair was plasticky, just Shia's acting.

The kids had fun, and got a ton of candy. Our little candy thief even showed up to steal a treat or two.

Kothe Still Photo

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:18:00 PDT

This is distiller's pornography. A beautiful Kothe still.

This is not our actual still, but one very much like it. Ours is actually a little bigger than this one, and will differ in a few subtle ways. This still is being built for a fellow I met at the workshop last summer. The fellow is starting a distillery in Portland. He was in front of us on the production schedule, so his is almost complete. Ours is up next.

Dear Pen Pal

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:29:00 PDT

Eddie's letter to the Bromley School for Girls in Liberia. He read this at church today. I really wanted to share this, because he's reached an age where he's taking on these kinds of efforts all by himself, without my involvement or prodding. I think it's super.

Dear Pen Pal,

My name is Eddie Harris. I am 12 years old and I go to ------ Middle School and I'm in 6th grade. I have one younger brother named Luke and he's in 4th grade. I have a bunch of friends but I can't name them all. I sing in my churches and choir, we're singing today. I collect airplane models. I have 20. In my spare time I read or play music. I love the series Harry Potter. I want to have a TV show that I write music for when I grow up. I've traveled to Germany, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland and many other places.

Also, I love to talk. What do you do in your spare time? What do you collect?

Sincerely,

Eddie Harris
St. Peter's Episcopal Church

VirtualBox for Linux -- A Review

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:57:00 PDT

I had been toying with the idea of whether or not to buy a new laptop for the new distillery business. Sure, laptops are pretty cheap, but I really don't need a new one. All the stuff I need is on my current Dell laptop. Plus, if I buy another Dell, it's like upwards of $700 for anything decent. And a Mac? I mean, they're pretty sweet, but you can't touch anything nice for less than $2500.

The problem is that I wanted to maintain my strict boycott of all things Windows, but several factors were pushing me to get a Windows machine. The first was that we will need accounting software, and I mean business-level accounting software. Moneydance is a great cross-platform tool for personal finances. I mean, I REALLY like it a lot. But it has no capability to perform cash flow analysis, balance sheets, and profit and loss statements. What I needed was something like QuickBooks or Peachtree Accounting. However, neither of these two run in Linux!

Further, our bank authorized us to perform wire transfers. This required us to use the bank's online cash management software, which requires Internet Explorer version 6 (Egad!) and Windows XP.

I had to buckle down and accept the fact that there would still be Windows machines in my life. Ugh!

I had been using the PC in the basement for Windows tasks (like Flight Simulator and Visio), but it really was so terribly slow, and it was like prison down there in the basement working on Windows tasks all by myself. So I decided to finally test out some OS virtualization software.

Quickly, OS virtualization means firing up a complete version of another OS (like Windows) inside your existing OS (say, Ubuntu Linux). Truly, the hosted OS is just an application, but with the speed of today's machines, and the elegance of mapping the IO devices in and out of the hosted OS, the virtualized machine runs just like another computer on your network. It's really cool.

At work, we use VMware, the king of commercial virtual machine software, to set up test and simulation versions of our software. VMware works great for these, as you can fire up instances of the software, do crazy and destructive things to it, and restore it back to where it was with a few file copies. Yes, VMware is the king. However, it's good to be the king, and he'll set you back $2000 or more, depending on what you want. It's cheaper to buy the Dell.

Fortunately for me, the open source VM software, called VirtualBox, is quite good! I was leery at first, but it was really painless! First I did the install at the command line:

sudo apt-get install virtualbox

The installation documentation on Ubuntu suggests turning on PAE support for optimum performance. After this, installing using an old Windows XP SP1 CDROM that I had lying around was pretty easy. It took me a while to find the registration code (stuck to the side of one of my old Dells which has been running Linux for years now). So it's even legit.

Once Windows was installed, it took me a while to set up all the crap that Windows needs: antivirus software, firewalls, Windows updates--all the stuff that slows Windows down to a g-l-a-c-i-a-l c-r-a-w-l.

The VM version of Windows, however, is pretty slick. I've managed to isolate it to a safe little sandbox, such that if anything nasty happens (viruses, worms, etc.), I can just blow away the VM and reinstall it. Nothing can escape the VM, and yet all my actions in the VM are pretty speedy. I'm quite surprised with how well it works. Even the sound and networking support are solid. You can even map drives to your Samba shares.

So, if I must use Windows, which it appears I must, at least I can isolate it in a VM and avoid being sequestered in the basement working on an ancient and slow machine. And, I've saved us another few hundred to a few thousand dollars not buying a new laptop or commercial VM software.

Ka-ching! Money in the bank!

Distillery Set-Up Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:40:00 PDT

It has been a while since I posted on the blog. Things have been so swamped with the business, that obviously, my priorities are elsewhere for the time being.

The boys and I spent a very wet weekend (45 degrees and a constant drizzle) in the distillery working. All day Saturday, we worked placing quick-release connectors on the new high-capacity carbon water filter. Then, after checking it for leaks, we moved on to getting the barrels cleaned out and placed on some support timbers.

All day Sunday, I worked on the federal DSP permit, which is nearly ready to submit. We just need a firm date for when the still will arrive to send it off. The federal permit is enormous--over 110 pages in our case, which we have to file in duplicate. I am amused that the first page of the federal permit extols the virtues of the Paperwork Reduction Act before instructing that all filings must be in duplicate.

Our filing contains the basic forms for permitting, background checks, surety bonds, environmental considerations, water quality considerations, plus supplemental information about our processes, the legal descriptions and plats of the land, the site plan, our security measures, our accounting procedures, five months of bank records, our lease, promissory note, articles of organization, operating agreement, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The application packet is a monster!

Fortunately, FedEx Office (formerly Kinkos) makes easy work of organizing and printing it all. They have a convenient online tool that allows you to upload PDF files, choose paper size, paper type, binding, sorting, folding, etc., and then preview it all online, and print it to your nearest FedEx Office location. Our order was ready the same day, within about three hours of my uploading it. What's more, it only cost about $30, which for 330 pages, is cheaper than I could have printed it at home.

The next step, after getting the still in place, will be to have a signing party between Becky and me, and then send all this stuff to Cincinnati before the holidays begin, when all federal activities slow to a crawl.

We are still hopeful to have an approved application before the year ends.

Pentatonic Lead Guitar

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:24:00 PDT

Luke's new guitar is really nice. It is so much bigger than his old guitar, and it has a really nice deep resonance. Luke says it plays easier too, since the strings and frets are farther apart. Here he is practicing his "Pentatonic Lead Guitar".

Panther Laser Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:40:00 PDT

Birthday Fondue and Tarts

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 05:27:00 PDT

Fondue is something that we don't do very often. This is mostly because of the effort involved in preparing it, but also because deep frying meat in hot peanut oil is not exactly living healthy.

However, once every five or ten years probably won't kill us, and the boys really enjoyed it! Luke chirped all through the meal about how wonderful fondue was. He ate a steak's worth of meat, a ton of garlic butter, and bread. This is a feast for Luke.

We had a nice spread. We did beef cubes, chicken cubes, shrimp and scallops. For dipping sauces, we prepared Green Goddess (onions, chives and cream cheese), garlic butter, curry sauce (mayo + Madras curry powder), and homemade shrimp cocktail sauce (tomato ketchup, tomato paste, horseradish, and a dash of Texas Pete's hot sauce). Becky's mom made some fingerling potatoes and a nice salad.

For dessert, since Luke doesn't like cake, we made him a birthday apple tart from the apples at Crooked Run. These are Becky's homemade tarts--hand rolled crust, sliced apples, cinnamon and sugar, and Judy's homemade fig preserves. Man, those babies were delicious!

Picking Apples at Crooked Run Orchard

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:49:00 PDT

When Shepherds Get Bored...

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 03:05:00 PDT

Britain is a dark and cold place in the winter months... best to find something to keep you busy!

Luke's Present Time

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:58:00 PDT

Luke had a nice birthday today. Before dinner, we opened his presents. He got a cool Green Day shirt from Eddie, and a nice hoody from Grandma and Grandpa, who happened to be here for his birthday. From Becky and I, he got a new ¾-size classical guitar. His old one was a ½-size, and now it looks so small compared to his new one. The sound from his new guitar is really rich and deep compared to the old one too.

Finally, from Nana and Grandpa, he got a really sweet electric bass guitar and amp. He's been asking for these for months now, and we figured that since he had been working hard in his lessons, it was time to reward him with this purchase. He really enjoys it, and hopefully, this will keep him interested in his lessons.

Happy Birthday, Lucas!!

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:45:00 PDT

This is a big year for Luke! Happy birthday, kiddo! Your mom and I are proud of you!

The Flying Wallendas

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:57:00 PDT

Have you ever had to construct a rain-fly over a tent? If you have, you'll know that you must get that first rope pretty high if you don't want to be stooping under the fly the whole time.

So, finding ourselves without a ladder, Luke and I came up with a rather brilliant innovation. Thanks to Leslie for the photo.

Weather Only a Frog Would Love

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:02:00 PDT

For some reason, we all thought it would be cool to go camping this weekend. This was particularly foolish, however, because just as we got the car packed up and were ready to set off, it started raining. It poured, and poured, and poured, all night long and on into morning. In fact, it was only once we were fully packed up again and ready to head home that the sun came back out.

The camp out started with my rather pathetic attempt at constructing a rain fly, which was only moderately successful in keeping rain out of the campsite, but was more successful at garroting small children.

The whole campground was soaking all night. After being splashed for the fiftieth time by little drips from the canvas shelter, Desi remarked sourly that this was just like Ireland. I don't think he meant it as a compliment.

As we awoke this morning, almost everything was moist. We had a river running through our tent, on the side by Luke. Scott and Leslie both reported water in theirs as well. Desi said his entire tent floor was wet, but since he had an air mattress, they just floated above it like a raft.

So, we got soaked, but it was fun. The kids got to explore and play in the woods, the food was excellent, and the temperature was nice for camping. Next time, though, I'm bringing a bigger tarp.

Weekend Campout

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:09:00 PDT

This Saturday, Luke and I attended the Webelos-o-Ree at Camp Snyder in Haymarket, Virginia. This is the same camp that Eddie and I attended last year, a well-run camp done by various Boy Scout troops in the Goose Creek district. The boys learned about first aid (which we call Readyman in Webelos), Outdoorsman (including survival skills, camp fires, and knot tying), BB shooting, and of course, the requisite Boy Scout skits at the evening campfire.

We had a great weekend, though I'm particularly looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight, having had quite enough of roughing it for the weekend!

Here are some of my favorite photos from the weekend. Warning on the last photo: Boys will be boys, and left to run the first aid station on their own, some of the older fellows really ramp up the fake gore.

Soccer Saturday

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 13:22:00 PDT

Aged Rye Chicago

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:01:00 PDT

My experiment to age Koval Rye Chicago is nearly complete. The first bottle is done, nicely aged in both flavor and color. I've got about half a bottle left in the barrel, which I intend to intentionally over-age, ruining it with tannins so I can learn to identify the flavor and aroma of an over-aged batch.

Because the barrels are very small (two liter barrels), the aging process was accomplished in only six weeks. In larger, standard sized barrels, the process would of course be much slower. This is because aging is largely affected by surface area. The more of the liquor touching wood, the quicker the aging will be.

This new rye whisky still retains much of its rye flavor and crispness from the original spirit, but it has now also added rich caramel and toffee tones and a broad citrus nose. Much of the original rye sweetness has dissolved away, replaced by deep woody flavor.

I like it very much!

And speaking of barrels, my three Bordeaux barrels arrived today from France! These are full-sized used wine barrels which will be employed for aging our brandy. The barrels are gorgeous, of tight white French oak, and nicely stained with red wine.

One sniff inside the barrel and you're in heaven!

Back to School

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:40:00 PDT

The boys headed back to school today. Luke is in fourth grade this year, and Eddie started his first day at Middle School! Middle School!! We cannot believe how quickly our big boy has grown up. You blink your eyes and they're suddenly almost teenagers.

Both boys seemed to enjoy the day, but were exhausted by the back-to-school routine.

Virginia Scottish Games 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:22:00 PDT

We had a spectacularly sunny day today for the Virginia Scottish Games. This year, the games moved east to Great Meadows in The Plains, Virginia. This proved a more accessible venue, being conveniently located just off I-66. There seemed to be more vendors and more selection of foods at the games, which is always a good thing.

We got in free this year by volunteering to help with the children's highland games. Not only was it fun to lead the kids in the bale toss, the brick toss, the caber toss, and the discus throw, but we only had to work an hour to get the entire day free.

Luke and Eddie enjoyed helping the littlest children by showing them what to do and passing out ribbons. I let Eddie do most of the photography during these events, and he did a great job capturing the events.

We also finally convinced Eddie to purchase a kilt of his own--the Royal Stuart tartan. I think the new tartan suits him very handsomely!

We had a great time this year! Here are a few photos and videos of our day.

Sizing up the caber before a toss.

Me and my boys.

One of Eddie's pictures, a caber, mid toss.

Instructing the wee lads and lassies.

Luke let's the littlest competitors choose their own ribbons.

At the sheep dog trials.

A tightly bunched herd.

A handsome highland laddie in his Royal Stuart tartan.

Enjoying the day at the games.

The British car show is also a big hit--especially the 1962 Aston Martin.

Each boy enjoyed a moment in the driver's seat.

Luke is ready to hit the road! (Over my dead body!)

As the day started, the pipe bands strutted out to Scotland the Brave. I just love the sound of the massive pipe bands.

The competitors will toss a heavy weight for distance. I've tried it, and it is impossibly hard. I couldn't even get the weight above my belt.

When it comes to tossing the caber, the object is to get the caber to toss once over and then to land straight. If you imagine a clock face, and the thrower is at the six o'clock position, the object is to get the caber at twelve o'clock--that's a perfect throw. Ninety percent of all throws never even flip over, and are thus unsuccessful or disqualifying throws. This is one of those unsuccessful throws.

Here is a very good caber toss. It successfully flips end over end and lands in the one thirty position, a pretty good throw. This could very easily have been the best throw of the day.

Luke tried his hand at the caber, and amazed me with a perfect toss! It lands perfectly at twelve o'clock. Very nicely done, indeed!