Kerner.net

Finally in New Orleans

Going to grab a quick bite to eat and then try to get some work done on the costume before tonight's festivities. Hoping tomorrow won't be too rough on me given the party tonight.

Rob has posted great commentary on Bayona. It's one of the places I'd like to try and eat while I'm here. Unfortunately there's not enough time to eat everywhere.

SGF Wifi & TSA Searches

I'm currently enjoying the free wifi network at the Springfield-Branson airport. I've got to say this is a much better experience that going flying out of a bigger airport (and a nicer airport than Columbia).

Most people seem to be sailing from check-in to the gate in about five minutes. I was unlucky enough to be one of the "randomly" selected people for full checks. Possibly because I'm not checking any bags?

So the TSA needs a bit of a wake up call when it comes to people with orthopedic implants. I've got four screws and two plates in my spine from breaking my back about 10 years ago. They don't set off the standard metal detectors, but the hand wands sure go crazy over my back. The search I was subjected to was one step shy of a strip search.

I'm glad this didn't happen in a major airport and I think I may check my bags on the way back.

All that aside I'm about 30 minutes from my flight to Dallas and then 4.5 hours from New Orleans. I've got several hours of television on the tibook and a bunch of candy to make the trip more enjoyable.

Next post, NEW ORLEANS!

Leaving for MAX

I'm leaving this morning for MAX. Should be to NOLA by about 2:30! A group of the MMUG managers are getting together this evening in costume for some Halloween festivities. If you feel like joining us post a comment here and I'll get you the details.

Injured Dog

Our dachshund, Lucy, was diagnosed yesterday with Intervertebral Disk Disease. It's fairly common in dachshunds, around one in four dachshunds develop it. Lucy has calcified disc material between her 10th, 11th, and 12th vertebrae.

She's very lucky though. The only sign of a problem is that she decided she didn't really want to get onto furniture like she normally would. She doesn't really have any lack of coordination or mobility, just pain. She'll be taking an anti-inflammatory and be confined to her kennel for the next four to six weeks. She'll hopefully recover fine.

Bread Baking

I find baking bread very cathartic. Most people probably think that this is related to the kneading of the dough. It's not. I use a mixer. I think it is mainly related to how easy it is to bake bread and how much I enjoy the results of something so simple.

Bread baking takes very little effort for me these days. The yeast blooms, everything goes in the mixer, gets kneaded with the dough hook for a few minutes, gets put into an oiled bowl, covered, and left to rest. This whole process is easily completed in 5-10 minutes as I make myself lunch (one of the many joys of working from home). Sometime a few hours later I'll take a break and spend 5 minutes shaping the bread and preheating the oven, an hour or so after that the baking starts and soon I have crusty, warm, fresh bread.

This week I've baked bread twice already, I imagine I'll bake at least once more before I leave for New Orleans on Halloween. Sunday afternoon I made white bread in a braid. Yesterday I baked a swirled loaf of white/wheat bread. I think I'll do a traditional baguette later in the week.

One of my complaints about baking bread is that I become addicted to it and want fresh bread every day. I used to bake every day reserving a bit of the previous day's dough as a leavener. This technique, while dependable, isn't really practical. This time around I'm experimenting with freezing the dough for later use. I have two goals: first to have bread any time I want it from larger weekend baking projects, and second to make the bread easy for Thanksgiving.

So far I've just frozen rolls from this week's baking, breadstick like from the white bread and white/wheat sandwich rolls. I haven't done a test thaw/bake yet, but will probably thaw something later this week.

My standard bread recipe is as follows:

• 1 cup of warm water (sometimes partially milk)
• 2 tsp active dry yeast
• 320 g flour (about 2.5 cups) -- mostly bread flour, but mix and match -- I use 25% wheat for wheat bread
• 1 Tbs sugar
• pinch of salt

Put yeast in water for a few minutes then put all ingredients into mixer bowl. Knead for 4-5 minutes until dough pulls cleanly away from sides of bowl. You may need slightly more water or flour depending on your ingredients. Place in an covered, oiled bowl to rise until doubled. Punch down, round, shape. Preheat oven (425 for freeform, baguettes, rolls or 375 for loaf pans). Let rise for another hour then bake. Depending on the size of your bread and temperature this will vary. I usually test something with an instant read thermometer (finished bread will be 200° internally).

MAX 2004 Food

Rob Brooks-Bilson has posted a great list of places to eat in New Orleans. I've already started my list of food to consume during the week of MAX 2004.

Since so many people will be blogging the technology related portions of the conference, I'll be blogging about the food. I'm hoping to get in a couple of beer tasting trays like last year as well. Anybody care to join me?

I was planning on doing a tasting menu at Commander's Palace with some of the User Group managers on Sunday night, but it looks like there may not be a very big group (and it is a bit costly), so I'm still looking for other great sampling opportunities.

Scaled Composites Wins X Prize!

So I've not been posting because I wanted to keep my quest for a free ipod at the top of my blog, but I'll be returning to regular posting with this post.

I'm a huge fan of manned space flight. I think it's sad that NASA has basically abandoned manned space exploration. At the same time I'm amazingly happy that there is now a truly private space industry.

This morning Brian Binnie became the second private astronaut as he piloted SpaceShipOne and successfully completed the second Scaled Composites and Mojave Aerospace Ventures to win the $10 million X Prize. In order to win the X Prize a group has to complete two flights to an altitude of 100km with the pilot and two passengers (or ballast equal to two passangers). Mojave Aerospace has completed both flights within one week.

This is about the coolest thing that has happened in my lifetime. We've had the capability to increase our activity in space for decades and have not done it. Hopefully the next spaceflight prize will involve putting people into orbit. This also opens up the opportunity for private companies to fund exploration. Could a manned return to the moon be possible outside of government funding? I certainly believe that it is reasonable. Does that make Mars out of the question?

I believe that within my lifetime we will see space travel become as common as air travel is today. There is certainly a desire to travel in space. Scaled has proven that it's possible without huge government budgets and beauracracy. It's important to note that the same craft has flown into space THREE times within the past six months with approximatly $20 million in budget for the entire program. I'm very curious to see what the cost per launch is for SpaceShipOne. I don't imagine that it is very high.

Onward space travellers!