On 38

4:30am – at the office – working – pretty standard.

Looking back on 38…

Finally have a job I like.

Finally have a newish car (first for me).

Finally got diagnosed with diabetes (inevitable given my lifestyle).

Finally got my brain working a bit closer to normal.

Finally moved back onto a boat.

Finally took a summer off.

Finally starting to feel older. When “they” (radio, tv, most people) say “when I was a kid” they’re refering to the 80’s, not the 70’s most of the time. I’ve been the oldest guy at work for a while now. The Prez is only a few years older than me. I’m starting to think of 30 as young and just totally don’t get what 20 year olds view point is. I’m woefully out of touch with pop culture.

38 was hard, really hard, but, it turned out well towards the end.

Best sharpener ever

I’ve had at least a dozen knife sharpeners over the years. Electric ones, various gadget ones, and several old school wet stones. I got the MinoSharp Water Knife Sharpener after reading several good reviews of it on Global Chef’s Knife pages.

I tried it out last night on a fairly old Global Chef’s Knife and was amazed. In under a minute it’d put a near razor edge on the knife.

Global knives are traditional Japanese blades meaning they don’t have a symmetrical bevel like European blades do. The MinoSharp claims it will work on European blades (like Henkels) but that it will take a bit longer. In any case – if you own Japanese blades this sharpener is amazing, cheap, easy and fast.

Blended Broccoli in a f’ing Box

Kat, in an apparent suicide attempt thought Blended Broccoli in a f’ing Box might go well with paninis. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

From the makers of V8 (which is only even passable as an ingredient in bloody maries) comes Broccoli for people on feeding tubes! Yippy!

This stuff is wrong on so many levels…

• The most obvious – it’s blended broccoli in a f’ing box
• Creme of Broccoli soup isn’t that bad… this ISN’T creme of broccoli soup
• I’m pretty sure “No Artificial Flavors” was meant as a warning
• It’s healthy (couldn’t possibly be good)
• It’s “charming” (click no the image below to go to the site to read the description). I’m sorry, I’ve done my fair share of drugs and blended broccoli in a f’ing box doesn’t even come close to charming.
• It’s got 50% of your daily salt and is still disgusting
• It apparently helps you climb rainbow food pyramids
• The product shot appears to have broccoli leaves in the soup… dude – broccoli leaves aren’t very edible (but better than the soup)

10 Signs you should have made a New Years resolution

This is unfortunately completely original…

10) You’re in the top 5% of world wide income and people are still dropping change in your coffee cup and mistaking you for a homeless dude.

9) You’re wishing the rain would come back because the snow is worse.

Jack Daniels – it’s not just for lunch anymore, goes well with rice for breakfast.

7) Working hunched over sitting cross legged in your v-berth finally seems normal.

6) You can’t even manage to keep the 10 square feet of living space on your 28 foot boat organized

5) You feel personally responsible for Amazon beating it’s projections in 2008.

4) You were building/installing a Wordpress server at half your normal rate at 4am on Christmas morning.

3) You are prepacked rice for christmas eve dinner.

2) Working Christmas Eve and morning, New Years Eve and morning was one of the better Christmas’ you’ve had in a while.

1) You received a hat and scarf for your Jack bottle.

Setting up a mod_rails box on SliceHost.com

mod_raills is easily 1,000 times easier to setup then the traditional stacks. For slice host the tutorials are pretty good but, missing a few things. Here what I had to do to get it up and running. Thanks to Jame H for some help on this late Saturday night.

Process for setting up a mod_rails box on http://slicehost.com

Tutorials:

• apache: http://articles.slicehost.com/2008/4/25/ubuntu-hardy-installing-apache-and-php5
• rails: http://articles.slicehost.com/2008/4/30/ubuntu-hardy-ruby-on-rails
• mod_rails: http://articles.slicehost.com/2008/5/1/ubuntu-hardy-mod_rails-installation
• rails app: http://articles.slicehost.com/2008/5/1/ubuntu-hardy-using-mod_rails-to-serve-your-application

Process:

1. create a Ubuntu Hardy slice
2. ssh in
3. sudo apt-get update
4. sudo apt-get install build-essential
5. follow the apache tutorial (skip php steps)
6. follow the rails tutorial but tack on “–no-rdoc –no-ri” to any gem install – to save space and time
7. follow the mod_rails tutorial
8. follow the rails app tutorial except:
   • instead of creating a rails app just do a svn co of whatever you’ve been working on
   • add this to the bottom of /etc/apaches/apache2.conf (change the IP obviously)
     ServerName 209.20.83.50

     LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.5/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
     PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.5
     PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby1.8

     NameVirtualHost *:80

     <IfModule mod_ssl.c>
     NameVirtualHost *:443
     </IfModule>

   • your sites-available file should look something like this

     <VirtualHost *:80>

     ServerName 209.20.83.50

     DocumentRoot /home/nietzche/public_html/pas/public

     </VirtualHost>

   • reload apache: sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload
   • restart mod_rails: touch /home/demo/public_html/testapp/tmp/restart.txt

On the slice you’re ssh’d into create update.sh and put this in it (change paths, etc. as needed):

cd ~/pas

svn up

cd ..

touch /home/nietzche/public_html/pas/tmp/restart.txt

Do a chmod 755 on update.sh

In your rails app you can create something like this to deploy

1. create file script/deploy
2. put this in it
   
   #!/usr/bin/env ruby
   
   %x[ssh root@209.20.83.50 ./update.sh]
3. chmod 755 script/deploy

You just need to install mysql at this point:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server

Then set up the DB

mysql -u root -p
> create database mysite_production;
>\q

You database.yml for production will look like this:
production:
adapter: mysql
database: mysite_production
username: root
password: somepassword
socket: /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock

Some useful extras…

• sudo apt-get install slocate – gets you the locate command

Aaron at work

I have to say – working with the Deuces Cracked guys is one of the best office gigs I’ve had. Really fun group to work with. Here’s Aaron trying out his new swim goggles in our very cool death trap of a historical brick office building (which is filled with cool art and, except for us, a lot of architects).

Economic Power

What is the role of the U.S. in the disposition of the world’s economic and environmental resources? How are financial markets best defended from economic shock? Does liberalization ensure prosperity?

Happy Christmas Shopping

Found the always wonderful Best Documentaries blog.

Seen in Wallingford yesterday

New Job

I finally had to get a job… but it was nice not working much this summer. I’m working at http://www.deucescracked.com/ doing Rails work on their site. Fun group of guys and the office is in Ballard so I can ride/walk to work, which is very nice.

Here’s the office… while shooting the About page videos (not up yet).

Gotta love Seattle – CEO’s wear hoodies and drum t-shirts.