Hearing this first thing this morning just made my day. Enjoy!

At the heart of the system is a Stoker from Rock’s BBQ. This guy lives in my basement, near the rest of my network equipment. It has several ports for sensors/fans and an ethernet port, through which you can gain access to the data and control the unit via a simple API. The Stoker uses 1-wire type sensors which means that several devices can be on the same bus and be queried and controlled individually by the controller. Because of this, I only need to run one cable (the Stoker uses standard stereo .25″ phone plugs for all of its connections – so I just got a few ends from Radio Shack and some three-conductor wire from Home Depot and made myself a nice long cable) from the Stoker itself outside to my smoker.

Moving outside, here’s what the smoker itself looks like. It’s a Weber Smokey Mountain, and it’s 100% pure awesome. It’s a charcoal smoker (the only way to go), so it takes a bit more tending than a propane/electric smoker would. The product is *much* better, though. The thing is built really tight and as such, a load of charcoal can last 12 hours or more, depending on how hot I’m running the smoker.

The shiny thing on the bottom of the smoker is the blower (which is one of the three devices connected to the Stoker). I have it covered with foil to try and guard it from snow or moisture. I believe this is a 5 cfm model. Here’s a closeup of the blower:

In one of the above pics, you can also see the two thermometer leads entering the smoker. One of those is for the “pit” temperature and one is for a probe thermometer that gets put into whatever beast you’re cooking. Here you can see the business end of each of the thermometers.

Here are all the connections outside. I try to keep them in a ziploc as much as possible to minimize shorts caused by moisture.

For a minimalist, that’s all you’d need to get automatic temp control. One can use the Stoker’s web interface (very spartan, but functional) to set your target temperatures and monitor the temp progress of your meat. I like to take it a bit further, though, so I use a program called StokerLog. StokerLog is, more or less, just a nice “skin” on top of the Stoker’s core functionality. It allows one to remotely control the temp set points of the Stoker and it also queries the Stoker periodically. With the temp data, it can do cool things like generate graphs, send email alerts, Twitter progress updates, etc.

And that’s about it! Though I use the smoker fairly frequently, I really only pull out the Stoker system when I’m going to be doing a really long cook. This weekend, I fired up the smoker at around noon on Saturday and it’ll be running for about 27 hours straight. Needless to say, it’s very nice to have the auto temp control when I’m doing an overnight smoke. It’s also very nice to be able to check on the status of things (via Tweetie on the iTouch) without leaving my bed in the middle of the night.

• Speaking of Faith
• Lullabot
• The Moth
• NPR: Car Talk
• NPR: Intelligence Squared
• NPR: Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!
• This American Life
• Radio Lab
• Woodland Hills Sermon podcast

I posted this list back in 2008 as well…looks like not much has changed! :)

Any suggestions to what else I should check out?

In a little less than two weeks, my tenure at Logic will come to a close. After a couple of weeks off, I’ll be starting a new position in Linux administration at my Alma mater, Bethel University.

This is a very bittersweet change for me – Logic has been an absolutely incredible blessing to both me and my family. I have had the chance to learn and grow in ways I could not have ever imagined. I have had the chance to work with (and for) so many incredibly talented people. Like all good things, though, it became clear to Meghan and I that it was time for my tenure at Logic to come to an end.

Since graduating from Bethel eight years ago, I’ve always thought it would be greatly enjoyable to return as an employee. I am very excited for the challenges and opportunities that are waiting for me at Bethel. It will no doubt be a dramatic culture change going from the corporate world to academia, but I am excited for that.

Thank you all for your prayers and support through this transition.

When car engines are going through the design phase, most engineers, knowing that an oil filter needs to get replaced frequently, will try very hard to put it in an easily-accessible place. The Honda engineers must have been having an off-day when they placed the ’01 CR-V oil filter, cause it’s a *pain*. Here are the things they did wrong:

1. The filter is tucked away halfway up the rear-facing side of the engine.
2. The filter is horizontally-oriented.
3. The filter is placed directly above the exhaust manifold.

If #1 would have been the only mis-step with this filter placement, it wouldn’t be all the big of a deal. However, when combined with the other two issues, it gets quite annoying. Because the filter is crammed into this tiny space, the only good way to get the filter off is to reach your hand up in there. That can be somewhat, umm, interesting if the engine has been running recently due to the fact that you have to reach past the (now very warm) exhaust system. Once your arm is up there, you have to start loosening the filter. This is where the #2 point becomes a problem. As soon as you start loosening the filter, the residual oil pours out and proceeds to drip down not only your whole hand and forearm (thank goodness for Gojo), but also it drips directly onto the exhaust system. Try as I may to wipe the spilled oil off the exhaust, rest assured, I’ll be leaving a smokescreen behind me for a mile or two on my drive to work the next day.

That’s the end of my rant for today. I’ll leave you with a few pictures (click for higher-resolution versions) to better illustrate my frustrations.

Here, you’re looking at the filter as if you’d slid headfirst under the front end of the car. The thing you see on the right is the exhaust. For the non-gearheads, the filter is the black, cylindrical, domed device in the top-center of the photo.

Here, you’re looking front-to-back under the car. This is after I removed the old filter, and you can see the oil dripping all over the exhaust.

• Speaking of Faith – This is public radio’s “conversation about belief, meaning, ethics, and ideas”. In this podcast, Krista Tippett performs hour-long interviews with religious leaders, philosophers, and others.
• Geeks and God – Rob Feature and MF host a really great weekly podcast in which they talk about how we, as Christian geeks, can help our churches and ministries make better use of technology.
• Lightroom for Digital Photographers
• Lullabot – Lullabot is, perhaps, the current premier Drupal consulting shop. In this bi-weekly podcast, they discuss what’s currently happening in the Drupal world. Apart from the first 10 minutes or so (which usually consists of random chat), the podcast is very informative.
• The Moth – The Moth broadcasts short stories by various writers, performers, etc, told live, without notes. Without fail, they’re incredibly entertaining.
• Mustardseed Media Video Podcast – Bob Christenson, half of the Geeks and God crew, puts out a short Drupal videocast every few weeks. I’ve found them to be very helpful.
• Car Talk – What more needs to be said about Tom and Ray?
• Planet Money – In response to the ever-quickening rate of change in the current economy, NPR started producing this daily podcast, in which they discuss the day’s economy-related news.
• This American Life – IMHO, this show is *the* single most entertaining, most consistent, and most well-produced hour of audio one could listen to every week. For each episode, Ira Glass and crew pick a topic and bring us a variety of stories on that topic. Yes, it sounds dry and boring, but you *need* to give it a try. I implore you to listen. It’s that good.
• Radio Lab – I love Radio Lab. This is a more science-related podcast produced by the WNYC, the NYC NPR affiliate. It’s extremely well-produced (second only to TAL, in my opinion), and they do a great job of explaining some very complicated concepts in a way that non-science people can understand.
• Woodland Hills Sermon Podcats – I have a great respect for Woodland Hills church, and take a keen liking to the sermons from their senior pastor, Greg Boyd. I listen to this weekly, and it never ceases to challenge me on a very deep level.

So that’s my current list. What have you been listening to lately?

We’ve started learning how to entertain two kiddos at once:

We’ve been blessed by many visits from family:

We discovered that 1-week old babies can indeed accumulate toe jam:

We took a trip to the Coon Rapids Fire Department annual open house:

On this, the day after our seventh wedding anniversary, Meghan and I are overwhelmed by how lucky we are. The Lord has given us two beautiful children, an incredible marriage, and so many supportive friends and family. Thank you all so much.

(the rest of the photos from the last few weeks can be found here)

He was born at 10:48 on Sunday evening, September 21st, 2008. He weighs 10 pounds, 10 ounces, and is 22.5″ tall. He’s a big boy already! Both Toren and Meghan are doing perfectly. Thanks so much, friends, for your prayers.

Click on the picture below for a quick view into Toren’s first 12 hours.

For this batch, I also took another piece of advice from Limoncello Quest – I filtered the everclear through a Britta pitcher 4 times. From what I’ve read, that will take a significant amount of time off the “aging” process.

Like I did for my homebrew entries, I’m going to use this post as a place to keep records on each batch – dates, times, details, reviews, etc.

• 2008-08-13 – Filtered 2 bottles of Everclear (4 times), added one to jar and set one aside for later in this batch. Zested 15 lemons, added to jar.

Hi [name redacted] – I realize you’re not part of the eOpen team. As explained below, in writing to you, I’m hoping that you’ll be able to refer me to someone in the eOpen team as attempts to get support on this through the official channels have always been unproductive.

(While the below stated issues are separate from what [name redacted] wrote you about yesterday, both issues are indicative of the problems that are endemic with the eOpen website)

We ([company name redacted]) started using the eOpen webpage for licensing and product downloads about a year ago. Ever since then, 90% of the time I visit the site, either the licensing section is down, the product downloads section is down, or both. In most cases, these downtime episodes last for 12 hours or more. Needless to say, this is *incredibly* frustrating. Due to the way the “online licensing” scheme works, we tend only to visit the site when we’re in need of licensing information/product downloads. Because the service is down so often and for such extended periods of time, many of our internal projects have gotten delayed due to us being unable to get licensing information from you. As you could expect, these delays don’t go over well with management. It also goes without saying that, when management hears of the reason for the delay, it gives them pause as to whether or not it’s a good decision to go with a Microsoft solution in the future.

In the past when there has been downtime, I have made attempts to contact the MVLS tech support desk. From what I can tell, the only way to contact them is via email (or at least that’s the only way published on the eOpen site). In each case, they took long enough to get back to me (usually 36 to 48 hours) that the outage had resolved itself, rendering useless whatever troubleshooting tips support had recommended.

I certainly understand the desire for Microsoft to use the web to disseminate licensing and product downloads. I’m also of the mindset that, in most cases, online license management is preferable to the customer as well – *if* and only if it’s implemented in a stable and reliable fashion. That is not the case with the current eOpen website.

Try doing a google search for “Microsoft eOpen down”. You’ll see that there are many, many people around the world that are experiencing the exact same frustrations as we have been. Many of the complaints go back two and three years. This tells me that Microsoft has done nothing (or very little) during this time to improve the service. That’s unacceptable.

I fully realize that [company name redacted] is a small customer of Microsoft and that in and of ourselves, we don�t have a whole lot of “pull” to get things changed within your organization. In this case, I see myself as speaking for the larger community of IT professionals that have to use eOpen on a frequent basis. I just desire to be put in contact with a clueful eOpen team member that can respond in a coherent fashion to some of these concerns and who can also provide information as to what Microsoft is doing to resolve the issues and when we can expect them to be resolved. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Thanks [name redacted] – please let me know if you’d like more information about this.

-Erik Anderson

Update: 2008-08-06, 12:26pm:
I received an out-of-office response from the MS contact. She’s going to be out of the office until August 11th. Fortunately she gave an alternate contact in her autoreply. I’ve forwarded the original message to this alternate contact.

Update: 2008-08-06, 7:00pm:
The downloads section of the eOpen site has officially been down for 36 hours now. I still haven’t heard anything back from the MS contacts I emailed. I decided also to send an email to my Dell sales rep, in the hopes that he’d be able to put me in touch with their MS licensing rep.

Update: 2008-08-07, 11:45am:
Just got off the phone with MS MVLS support. They’re aware of the eOpen downloads problem. Supposedly it has been down due to “maintenance” since last Thursday. That’s one week of downtime. Nice, huh. Anyway, due to the downtime, they were able to dispatch a physical media kit to me. I asked for it to be overnighted, which they weren’t willing to do unless I provided our own UPS account number. I’m guessing that I would have been able to get them to foot the overnight shipping bill if I kept pressing them on it, but at this point, I was frustrated enough I just didn’t want to deal with that. So…if you’re in the same situation, call MVLS support at 866-230-0560 or email them at eopensup@microsoft.com. They’ll hook you up with a media kit.

For some reason, I don’t mind getting colds in the winter all that much – it’s cool enough that you can drink hot tea (or hot Tang. Yes, hot Tang – try it sometime. It’s awesome) to your heart’s content to soothe the throat and ease achey bones. Not so much in the summer. I drank one cup of hot Tang today and it heated me up so much that I started sweating profusely halfway through. No fun.

Today was the second day of the cold – I worked from home. Hopefully day three, after a good night’s sleep, will prove to be better.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/andersonfam

Theoretically you should be automatically redirected from the old feed to the new, but if that doesn’t happen for some reason, you may need to manually change over to the new feed location.

To All,
During discussions with building management today I was notified that the building has recently suffered a rash of broken toilet handles in the men�s bathrooms. This has occurred on all floors. In addition to leaving an already limited resource even more scarce, these handles cost time and money to replace.
Flushing the toilet is a socially encouraged behavior; but please do so without damaging the toilet.

That last sentence is pure gold.

The rest are here if you’re interested.

Enjoy.