tech you must have

May 28th, 2008

I was chatting with a friend and heard about these cool little NAT routers. No, not the DSL/Cable model routers you all have (you have one right?) for security at your home. This is a similar device, but instead of an ethernet cable hooked to a cable/dsl modem it has a USB port that I plug my EVDO modem into it

The device then has a wireless router built in. So I can now broadcast a SSID over WiFii to any computers I want and they all share the same EVDO connection. Now I can be in a hotel and my laptop, my iphone and Angie’s ipod touch all can be online at the same time. No more back and forth with the computer to check email.

All of this in the footprint a little bigger than my wallet. Here is a link to the model I purchased:

http://www.cradlepoint.com/ctr350/ctr350.php

I purchased this model, because I already had a USB EVDO card.
I can also share my WiFii with other drivers on the road 😉

How cool is that?

updated last movie seen

May 27th, 2008

Caught Iron Man last week. This movie totally rocks and they didn’t change the original story that much so it was very true to the comic. I can’t wait to see how they will tie together the future comic movies to create the Avengers!

That’s one tasty loin…

May 26th, 2008

This saturday we had guests for dinner. I decided to try something new. I made a smoked pork loin. I did two things I have never done before; smoked it and brined it.

The brine I used was simple:

2 quarts of water
1 cup sugar
1 cup of kosher salt

I mixed it and poured this into a 1 gallon bag with the pork loin. I then let it sit over night.

In the morning, I put a new rub on the loin. I used the following items in the rub:

1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp cayenne pepper

I then put the loin into the smoker and let it cook at 200 degrees for about 6 hours. I also tried something new this time. I put some hickory chips in the bottom of the smoker then covered them with the charcoal. Even with the rain the smoker stayed pretty much at 200 degrees. Have I told you how much I love my smoker?

This weeks progress for PHRR.

May 26th, 2008

With the three day weekend, we embarked on trying to complete some major milestones on the Pond Haven Railroad project. Saturday morning I made a trip to Lowes hardware to pick up PVC and some top soil and mulch.

I was delayed starting because it started to rain. I worked on dinner (yea at 10-am in the morning). I decided to smoke a pork loin (details in another blog posting).

After a few hours the rain stopped and I was able to go out and start working. My first task was to plant the Alberta Spruce plants. I laid a layer of mulch covered by a layer of miracle grow top soil for trees. I noticed that some of the branches were starting to wilt, so I expect that they might go through transplant shock. I will keep an eye on them this week to make sure they don’t go into shock.

After completing the Spruce planting I laid a bag of potting soil along the side of the water fall so that I could plan the irish moss. I only had one bag so I could not complete the planting today.

I bagged a few bags of DG and ran an additional line for the sprinklers. By then, I had to stop to get ready for dinner guests.

Sunday was a day off

Monday I made another trip to Lowes and picked up more potting soil and amended top soil. I laid the potting soil along the hill next to the waterfall and finished planting the irish moss. I installed new drip irrigation for this side of the hill. I then filled the herb garden container with the amended top soil. I only purchased six bags because I had my car with me this morning. The six bags did a pretty good job of filling the area. I will still need about four more bags since it will compress down once I water it. I hope to finish this during the week and plant my herbs and vegetables.

After all the top soil was put down, I started finishing to bag the DG. Angie came and helped. We finished all 50 bags, and still have a little left in the drive way. I plan to use it all on the hill, but have not figured out where I want it yet. I will pick up another 25 bags at lunch tomorrow.

We took a break and went to Soup Plantation for lunch.

When we got back, I worked on finishing the sprinklers. I completed the main line and added three valves. I only needed two, but I installed an extra one in case of expansion. I finished running the line for the redwood trees and hooked up the line for the grass. The grass line still needs to be dug. I am looking for someone to help lay sod before I do this. I still need to hook the valves to the timer, but I want to re-do the entire wiring so I decided to wait until later this week.

You can check out the photos for the days work by clicking here.

Bike To Work ride

May 17th, 2008

You can check out my bim log I created for my bike to work day.