Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

I am sitting here in the DFW (Dallas) airport waiting to board the plane. As usual I had to do the old 'search for power' thing, as my laptop has almost no battery capacity (45 minutes on avg when using wifi).

The next laptop will definitely have a like 12 cell battery. I have thought about asking for a battery upgrade on this one. However, I believe that it is probably not a good idea to upgrade the battery for this one as the laptop is about 3.5 years old. Not that it is failing, but with the price of new laptops these days it makes it seem like a bad investment.

Anyway, I am ready to be on vacation. I hope we don't get stuck on the tarmac for too long as it appears to have started raining fairly hard here at the airport. Dallas has more or less been getting daily biblical rain showers.

I am thinking that I need to shutdown and head over to the food-court area and get Gina and I a lunch-time snack for the flight.

In hopefully about 4 hours (give or take) Gina and I will be in Detroit. We are going to stay in Lansing overnight, then we are headed up to the cottage. Where I will promptly change into swim trunks, crack a beer and sit on the beach. (Even if it is raining out!)

Time to shutdown.

Laterz

I park in about the same spot in the garage almost everyday. And a lot of the time, I park next to this blue Honda sedan (I think it is a Honda) that has the license plate "GLOBBY". I have often wondered what "GLOBBY" stood for.

Today, I got my answer.

"'Glow Baby', except Texas only allows six letters."

While I was getting my stuff out of the car, the owner of the blue sedan was getting her stuff out of her trunk. I seized the opportunity to quench the idle curiosity that has been smoldering in the back of my mind for about the last year or so that we have been in this office building.

Mind you I didn't ask what "Glow Baby" stood for. That I guess will smolder in the back of my mind until I run into the owner of the blue sedan again. Which, could be forever, but I'm getting ahead of the story a little bit.

After answering my question about her license plate, the lady asked me "So are you're a Spartan fan, did you go to MSU?"

I told her that I attended MSU for a little bit then came down here to Texas. She informed me that she grew up in Ann Arbor, I told her that I grew up in Lansing. She told me that I didn't have to worry about a University of Michigan rivalry, that she went to Notre Dame. To which, I of course brought out the fact that MSU had trounced Notre Dame for quite a while. We did have a pretty good winning streak there for a bit.

She has been in Texas for 8 years, oddly enough she didn't think she was going to be in the Lone Star state for this long. I remember that I originally thought I was only going to be down here for 6-12 months.

On the way into the building, we briefly chatted about the fact that Michigan has no real software industry and that neither of us have or want anything to do with the car industry.

The reason that I may never know what "Glow Baby" means, apparently whatever firm she works for (I am guessing Convio, as she got off on the 2nd floor), is moving to the Dominion office space, which has just opened up a bunch of offices. She said that they have been growing so fast that they have just filled up the office space here in the building.

It was an interesting chance meeting that satisfied some idle curiosity and at the same tame further reinforced that Michigan's greatest export is People.

Back to the grind.

Laterz

Over the years I've spent a good deal of time with headphones piping music into my cranium or with the radio on in the background.

I normally use the music as an additional stimulant, something to get the blood pumping, even if I am just sitting at the computer typing. However, I remember listening to Green Day and Stone Temple Pilots while mowing the lawn back at my mom's house in Michigan. (Notably on a 'walkman' (portable personal cassette player to anyone too young to remember.)

Last night I spent some time searching for a song that might not even exist. I did a lyric search and what came back was a song by Garbage on their Garbage 2.0 album. I have that album and I don't think it is the song that I was thinking about, I need to find it and listen to it to make sure.

But I digress, the point is I spent time listening to samples of various tracks from the 80s, 90s and 2000s. There were songs that got my blood pumping, even from the 30 second sample. I bought a few of them, I don't remember which ones but I can look them up and post them after I get home later today.

However, as I was listening to some of the samples I sort of remembered the first time I heard them. It made me sort of feel like I was reliving my youth. Sitting up in the journalism room on the 3rd floor after hours doing the desktop publishing for the theatre's programs for the various plays and musicals I assisted (and performed) in over those 4 years.

I remembered, mowing the lawn, jogging or being down in Mexico for that summer before high school. My taste in music is best termed as eclectic. The word eclectic is usually reserved for folks that tend to collect taxidermy fruit or other such general weirdness.

Growing up I listened to pretty much whatever my mom liked, which meant lots of MoTown. However, at some point Bill Joel got inserted into the mix. I am not sure what made me like it, I think it is the piano. But I managed to kill two cassette tapes of his greatest hits. (I have since bought the CD set, which came with about 5 new songs.)

Sometime in 1995 I started driving, this meant that I had control of the radio. I listened almost exclusively to 92.1 the Edge, alternative rock, previously I listened to FM95 (i think that was the name) it ran a Top 40 line up. Sometime in 1995 I got my own CD player, so moving beyond just listening to Alternative on the radio I start buying CDs. (Here in Austin, I listen almost exclusively to 101X, alternative rock.)

I didn't really listen to 80s rock growing up, so when I hear it on the flashback lunch breaks I still occasionally hear a new song. I really like some of it, but not all of it. I bought some 80s alternative rock last night. My reason for mentioning that is because when it came to buying music for the next 10 years or so, I only bought stuff that I had been listening to since 1995. There are a few albums in my collection that date prior to 1995 (ie Billy Joel, and some artists that I liked enough to buy their older stuff).

Back to the title of this post 'Music as a stimulant?'.

As I was saying, I normally listen to music to keep myself motivated. I remember back in the early days of being down here in Texas, Gene used to listen to Metallica all the time. Then as the techno music movement made it's way through Austin, many of the programmers got really into techno music. (Notably some were there before and after the movement.)

I think everyone has music that gets their blood pumping. I think there are a lot of people that listen to music to calm down too.

As they say 'Music soothes the savage beast.'

I know that there are artists that calm me down. Almost all classical music for instance puts me to sleep. I mean that literally, and mean no offense to those that enjoy, compose, or play classical music. I find classical music to be quite relaxing and will normally get relaxed enough to just nod off while listening to it. Particularly if it has cello. I played cell back in middle school and was told at one point during that time 'The cello has the closet equivalent range to the female voice.'

I think this might be true, given that most of the artists that make me relax are women, who tend to have prominent solos or ensemble vocal pieces.

Anyway, I forget entirely why I thought this would be interesting to write about. But I do remember that yesterday my boss told me that I sounded tired. (which I am.)

It has been raining here for the last few days (nice and sunny at the moment). As I have stated in the past 'i am solar powered', so the rain makes me sleepy. He said 'Wow, you must have been really tired back in Michigan.'

I don't remember it raining constantly there, I remember it raining regularly then dissipating. However, I replied 'maybe that is why I formed my caffeine habit, because I was tired all the time in Michigan.'

Which later as I was listening to the various samples last night, maybe that is also why I got hooked on music too.

I think I am addicted to Music (and caffeine).

Back to the grind.

Laterz

If I was a person who thrived on the night life and going to the clubs on a Friday night. I might get a little bummed about having to drive back to Austin on Friday nights. For those that don't know it already, I spend a wee-bit of time in Dallas on a monthly basis.

I would say that on a to-date cycle that it has been an avg of probably every other week I am in Dallas. As there were months upon months that I did not leave Austin. However, of the course of the last year it has been consistently every other week, and lately it has been almost every week.

I usually only spend 2 days or so. Normally I prefer to spend be in Austin on Monday. Tuesday night I would drive up to Dallas. Spend Wednesday in Dallas. Thursday around 5 or so packup and head back to Austin. Friday all day in Austin.

Starting and ending the work week in your home city seems to be a bit more comfortable to me. Ending the week in another city makes the weekend seem a little shorter. I think it seems shorter because of the fact that I just spent 3 hours in a car and it is usually around 9 or 9:30 when I get home.

Now, I know this may sound like I'm whining about traveling for work. I am not, I am quite used to it by now, so no worries. I will say that I find it personally ironic that I drive so much now adays, since I HATED driving before.

I also find it personally ironic that I now know as much about the city of Dallas as I do. On some level I almost feel like I know Dallas better than Austin. Mainly because of the fact that I don't spend a lot of time in downtown Austin. As a matter of fact, I don't spend much time in Austin south of 183 and Burnet. I go to the office and I go home.

We shop along that route, CostCo is on the northbound side of the 183 near Great Hills Trail. There are two Home Depots near 183. There are four movie theatres, my favorite being The Alamo Drafthouse. One major mall off of 183, only about 2.5 miles from the house.

All of this means that we don't have to go across town to shop for the house or for ourselves. So it is nice to live in the suburbs.

Growing up in Lansing things were different. There were only two malls, the Lansing and the Merridian mall. The Lansing mall was the ghetto mall. They have managed to fix up the Lansing mall pretty well. The Merridian mall has always been the fancy mall and still is.

Well the Merridian mall is out in East Lansing (technically I think it is in Okemos right near the Haslett border.) And the Lansing mall is on the west side of Lansing.

There were several small cities surrounding Lansing. Nothing like the cities that sprawl around Austin, all of which pale in comparison to the cities that surround Dallas.

In Lansing you have East Lansing, Okemos, Haslett, Dewitt, Diamondale, Holt and Grand Ledge.

In Austin you have Cedar Park, Lakeway, Westlake, Round Rock, Pfluegerville, Dripping Springs, Manor (and a few others).

In Dallas I know of Frisco, Plano, Richardson, Garland, The Colony, Addison, Carrollton and many more.

What does all of this mean?

In Lansing you might have lived in the one of the burbs, but you probably shop and go out to eat in Lansing (or East Lansing) and you probably work in Lansing.

In Austin you can live in one of the burbs and maybe you shop in Austin, but you probably go out to eat in Austin and your probably work in Austin.

In Dallas, you can live in the burbs, shop in the burbs, eat in the burbs and work in the burbs.

I have found myself describing Dallas lately as a textbook definition of "urban sprawl". There are parts of the greater Dallas area that you can drive through and wonder to yourself why is there this big open field here? Why isn't the burb like 5 miles closer to town?

Why is it that there is a ten to twelve story office building out here in what looks like the middle of nowhere, when compared to downtown Dallas?

Anyway, I have to say that I like the city of Dallas. However, I don't know if I would every truly want to live there. It has it's advantages in the fact that there are WAY more cool places to eat and the downtown area feels like it has more culture. Of course Austin has a ton of culture too, maybe Dallas' culture seems like more because it is different than Austin.

Either way, I like Austin and Dallas way more than Lansing. And for those of you who are still in Lansing, sorry about that. I don't like Lansing it feels burned out, especially since they are demolishing the GM plants now.

I still like Michigan, especially norther Michigan up near the Coscarelli Cottage. That whole area is great.

I brought with me a small bag of Mesquite chips with me on vacation. This meant just one thing, smoking bbq.

The plan was to use my father-in-law's big charcoal grill, build the fire to one side and put the meat on the other, add mesquite once in a while for flavor and serve it all with some Rudy's BBQ sauce.

The plan went pretty well, all except for the brisket. Before we left I had thought about buying a brisket and putting it on some dry ice for the drive up. However, we didn't have the space. Well, the only brisket cut I could find @ Meijer was a corned beef brisket. I should have just left it there, it tasted like smoked corn beef. But we threw a little Rudy's on it and it was edible.

I started the fire about 7:30, originally I had planned for 6:30am. The menu consisted of the following.

Corned Beef Brisket
I put together a rub made from salt, black pepper, garlic powder, chili powder, and cumin. I put the rub on it and let it sit overnight. Smoked it for about 4.5 hours then wrapped it in tin foil. Total cooking time was around 11 hours.

Pulled Pork (Pork Shoulder aka Boston Butt)
I brined it overnight, which means it marinated in a salt water mixture with some additional spices. I then smoked it for about 2.5 hours, at which point I wrapped it in tin foil and set it to the side to finish cooking. Total cooking time was about 5.5 hours.

Beer Can Chicken sans the Can
I normally marinate my chicken in Pabst Blue Ribbon, but this time around it was Michelob Lite. We had thighs and chicken breasts, I marinated them overnight as well. They smoked for about an hour, and then I wrapped them in tin foil. Total cooking time was about 4 hours.

Spare & Baby Back Ribs
I brined these in a similar mixture to the pork shoulder. I then applied a rub that was made of salt, garlic powder, sugar, and black pepper. They smoked for about 1.5 hours then into the tin foil. Total cooking time was about 3 hours.

Sausage
I wasn't able to find any sausage that could hold a flame to Meyer's so I did some bratworst. They cooked for about 45 minutes.

My thoughts on how it all turned out... (Scale 1 - 10)

Brisket: 4
Chicken: 9 (PBR has better flavor)
Suasage: 8
Ribs: 8.5 (little salty)
Pulled Pork: 9.5 (best one yet)

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I made some coleslaw. A few years back I had bought a book on bbq for Gina's dad. It had a recipe for coleslaw in it, the coleslaw is basically the same as the one @ Salt Lick. The first batch was good, but I used a little too much olive oil. The second batch was excellent, used about 1/2 the oil. Oh yeah, the coleslaw doesn't use mayo, just olive oil and white vinegar with spices.

Here are some pictures from the BBQ.

We made it home last night about 9:00 on the dot, give or take a minute.

We made a quick run to HEB for some dinner along with food for the weekend.

Gina and I will be spending some quality time in Dallas next week together. She is going to be receiving training for her new job with NetworkIP and I will be spending time there in some PrivateTel related meetings. So no point in buying groceries for the whole week.

Gina is going to do her signature oven roasted chicken on Sunday night. I will be grilling a couple of pork loins tonight.

Well, I have to go tame the lawn and I best get to it before the temperature raises too much out there.

Also, in case you guys haven't heard.

Google has come to Michigan. They are building some sort of tech center there. I believe the primary purpose relates to Google's plans to digitize all the books in the world. I will have to find the article, but I remember something about Google and the University of Michigan have teamed up for that.

However, they are also hiring for some adWord positions, so some sort of regional sales account management office is being formed as well. Here is some more info: (article)

So i'm sitting here at SBC (Short's Brewing Company) enjoying the recommended dark beer, Bellaire Brown.

It is more of an amber than a DARK beer like Guiness. But it is mighty tasty, not to mention it boasts a 6% alcohol level.

For some reason I sort of expected this place to be a little darker, maybe a little more drab. But it is bright and open, they have Blind Melon playing on the sound system and there are a couple of families in here with their kids.

I am not sure why I thought it woudl be drab, maybe that is just my impression that the places in Austin have left on me. The places there tend to be tiny, dark, fire traps with speakers that are taller than me.

I have to say that I like this place. I forgot the camera, so I guess I will have to bring that next time I come up here. They look to have a pretty good menu so I will have to plan my next excursion back to civilization with Lunch in mind.

Patty & Sara made it up the cottage last night. They were able to stay for dinner, which was really nice. They talked about going further north that night. I haven't heard from them yet to find out where they stopped for the night, it was rumored they might stop in Petosky, MI.

I hope they get to come up and spend some more time, they were only here for a few hours. I told Jeremy to sail his boat over here, but apparently there was something about it taking too long to sail from Long Island, NY to Intermediate lake. Oh well, maybe next year. If they leave now, they might make it in time for the 4th.

I hit page 100 in the Synthetic Worlds book, that means that there are only about 180 pages left to go. I hope to cover another 40 or 50 pages before the end of tonight. The subject matter is just getting good, the book is an economists point of view of the virtual economies and the communities that growing them in games like EverQuest, World of Warcraft and what not.

I think this is the end of this blog post I need to try to figure out a few things about static pages on serendipity and call it a day here @ SBC. I think next time I will take the tiny table, this stool is a little unconformatable now.

Laterz,

The plan is to be out of here in 30 minutes.

However, the car isn't packed, I actually think I remember seeing a bag of 'Yesterday's News', liter for the rabbits in the trunk last night, that I haven't seen make it's way into the house yet.

My bag is backed, I need to clean some non-essentials out of the laptop bag, and I have narrowed down my cd selection to 15/20.

I will try to post again before we leave.

I would have posted during lunch yesterday, but it was pretty much "Friday is the last day before Ben disappears, what else can we cram in."

So I completed 3/5 tasks I had on my list on Friday. The last 2 are not time sensitive, and I think I am going to cheat a little and send them in next week (couple of documents need writing).

Well I best go finish up.

Oh yeah, just roughly calculating on a pocket atlas, I believe we will make it to St Louis before stopping. Not completely sure about that, but pretty close. We should hit Dallas around like 11:30 or noon. Then hit Springfield, MO around 9pm or so.

Then the question is, do we stop in St Louis, MO which is another 4 hours, so like around 12:30 or 1am. Or do we push on through to Springfield, IL which would be around like 3am.

I think that will depend mostly on the avg traveling speed and how far we get. I would prefer to stop around 11 or 12.

The following may not be our exact route, but this likely to be pretty darn close. (Map Details)



1,473 miles the distance they say it will take. 26 hours is how long they say we will be on the road.

I believe we have driven this about 7 times. I will have to confirm that with the wife. But I think it is 7 times. When we finally get back to Austin, that will bring the total to 9.

Historically we have been able to make the trip in approx 24 hours.

Avg speed of:
70 mph = 21.00 hours
65 mph = 22.66 hours
60 mph = 24.55 hours

Due to the fact that I can't sleep while Gina is driving, I force her to stop for the night along the way. Not to mention the fact that spending 24 hours in a car (with 4 dogs) is not at all my idea of fun.

This time around I hope to get her to let me stop and take photos at scenic points along the way. You know to say that we at least stopped for 5 minutes here and there along the way to take into perspective the cities and states that we go through. From my point of view stopping once in a while (for more than gas) on a trip that takes 24 hours of straight driving, doesn't hurt. Now if the trip was like 3-6 hours. Sure, stop for gas and that is it. But more than that and you need to try to enjoy the trip itself, cuz it isn't going to be over anytime soon.

Now who wants to take bets on how often we will have to stop.

Oldsmobile Achieva (specs)
15.2 Gallon fuel capacity
28 MPG (spec)

1,473 miles @ 28mpg = 52.6 gallons
52.6 gallons @ 15.2 = 3.46 times.

It has been too long for me to remember what the Achieva's LONG distance mpg is. But recent trips to Dallas definitely have it between 26 and 28.

The avg gas price right now is between $2.75 & $2.85. However, I fully expect that the avg price is to be about $2.99.

This means that it is going to cost between $144.65 to 157.27. (approx $300 round-trip).

If we had been able to take the Corolla (spec) we would get about 32 mpg.

Meaning:
1,473 @ 32 = 46.03 gallons
46.03 @ 10 = 4.63 stops

$126 to $137, approx $263. So only about $40 in savings. But in the summer that is some decent beer money.

Time to hit the sack. Got a long day tomorrow too.