Dahoove's World

No I’m not going to stop my occasional blogging about my average life. I’m just moving over to a new blogging system and I don’t think I can import this database into the new system. I’ll keep this site up for archiving purposes, and the new site will have a link to this one. From this point on please change your bookmarks, shortcuts or what ever you use to get to my blog to the following.

http://www.dahoove.com

Unless you leave in a cave you probably heard about the whole Conficker virus hype yesterday. Now if your pc is infected you are not able to go to Microsoft update site or go to most anti-virus websites. I took al the precautions to prevent this virus from infecting any pc  on my network. knowing this I come in yesterday and jump on a server and go to www.microsoft.com and the web page doesn’t come up. Start getting a sinking feeling and as I try to access my personal website and that works. I try going to a couple different anti-virus vendors website and they work. I then try Microsoft.com on a couple different machines and it does work on them either. Getting a little more concerned I called an IT friend and asked them if they could get into Microsoft from their work and she could. Now I’m getting pissed as I have all the patches applied and just switch over to a new anti-virus software package a few months ago and I’m thinking something isn’t working and all my computers are infected. I remote into a server of a different company that has a different ISP than what I use at my work and am able to get into Microsoft. So I run a anti-virus scan on my computers and call my ISP just to see if they are blocking Microsoft as some cruel April Fools joke. I find out they are having an issue routing to Microsoft and some customers where unable to reach it. Of course it had to the same day that an over hyped virus is suppose to the same thing, What a pain in ass way to start the day.

I have been running new wires in the
shop at one of the plants I work for. I had maintanence run some
conduit through the shop and ran the new cable through that to a
wiring cabinet I had installed. All I had to do at work yesterday was
move one switch that was sitting in the shop and place it in a wiring
cabinet, cap about 12 new cable, and plug them in to the new switch
and machines. This had to be done in one day so the machines would be
online on Saturday. I just disconnected the switch and placed it in
the wiring closet and was cutting out some of the old wires. I get a
call on my cellphone from one of the maintenance guys saying he some
how reconfigured the bios on a pc that runs a machine. I tell him I'd
be there in a little bit. I go back to finishing up the removing the
old cables and get another call from a different company we own
saying that some users can not get into their ERP system and that the
users that are in are running slow. I tell them I would remote in and
look at. I cut and remove the last old cable and run over to to fix
the bios on the pc which wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to
be. He actually just disabled all the sata drives. As I'm leaving the
plant to get back to my office I get a call saying the shop pc's at
the plant I'm doing the switch move aren

t working. The stuff I was doing
shouldn't of caused the pc to go out, so I figured I cut the main
cable run to other switch in that closet by mistake. I run to my
office to see what's up with ERP system to find out that people are
streaming Pandora and other music crap causing the issue. I
disconnect the users and tell the owner and verify that the ERP
system is fine which it was. So then I go back to the wiring project
and confirm that I cut the main cable feeding the switches. This
wasn't a big deal as I was going to do it anyway, I just didn't have
the cable completely run to the server room. I get maintenance to
help me get the cable through the walls. In the process of doing that
we nicked a fiber patch cable that connects the main plant to are
other plant where my bosses office is taking them offline. I scramble
to find someone who can either fix or replace fiber cables as this
was a specially made one. Get a hold of someone and he says he will
come out in 30 min's. No more than 5 min's after getting off the
phone with the repair guy I get a call from company #4 saying they
can't connect to company #3 which they need to do in order to connect
to their erp system. I start looking into that and it seems when you
buy a static ip from at&t it doesn't always stay same. Not sure
what static means to at&t but it's not the same as my definition.
I change the vpn config so both ends of the pipe are pointing to the
correct ip address. Another problem fix. The repair guy gets there
and we get the fiber cable fixed and everything is back to where it
was before the 1^st phone call 4 hours prior. I decide to
meet the wife for lunch at our favorite little Chinese place called
Chin's. We get there and they are closed for good. We find a
different place to eat and I head beck to work. It's around 5:30 and
I'm almost done, and the cell phone rings again. It's the owner of
company # 3 saying he is leaving for England on Monday and needs his
laptop set up for the vpn access. Love those lat minute calls. I tell
him to drive over and I would set it up. Long story longer I get done
around 6:30 and drive home. Get on the free way of course accident
that has everything at a complete stop

The day ended with multiple beers.

This is kind of scary. The government want the power to take over companies they feel are to important to fail. Sounds like a path to the dark side of the force. Only difference is Pelosi looks more like Emperor from Star Wars. Soon we will all need papers to walk the streets.

Goverment taking over companies.

Opened up my 1st Sprecher Mia Bock of the season and I was very disappointed. It seemed to me that there beers had been becoming more and more sub-standard, and the Mia bock is one of the poorest examples Sprecher has ever offered. It might be due to the hop shortage over the past couple hears, or they might have switched over to the hop extracts. Maybe I’ve just become such a beer snob that I can no longer enjoy beers from the company that started me down the path of craft brewed beers and home brewing. I really think the Sprechers slide began when they started shipping their beers more nation wide. I was told they started to pasteurize their beers for longer shelf life. Pasteurizing really beats the crap out of a beer, and should be outlawed.

Anyway the Mia bock has changed from a beer with a citrus, flowery aroma and flavor with a nice maltyness to it, to this harsh peppery, maybe medicinal flavor. The 1st bottle was almost left a soapy flavor in my mouth that overpowered any malt sweetness that should be there. The beer also coated my tongue with in the homebrew world would be considered diacetyl, which is totally unacceptable for a German beer. I let the 2nd bottle chill more in the fridge but it wasn’t much better. I didn’t get the soapy flavor but the hops were harsh and there was a hot alcohol burn on my tongue. Just not a Mia Bock I can enjoy, or expect from them.

Think my beer money will start going to other breweries. I still like Sprechers IPA2 but I can only drink a few of those, as high ho beers upset my stomach when I drink to many of them.

Hopefully things turn around for Sprecher.

We are curently in the Wisconsin Dells at a place called Chula Vista. It’s on the the north side of town really off the beaten path right along the Wisconsin River. The room is nice has a huge bathroom, fridge and microwave. The indoor pool area is a little small for the Dells but Sean has had fun today. For dinner we went to Moose Jaw Brew pub and the beers have greatly improved since the last time I was there. I had a 10 glass sampler platter and really enjoyed all the beers. The Scottish Ale, the bock and Irish Red were my favorites. They also had a really good hop ale which I’m guessing was wet hopped. I’m also guess that hop ale was towards the end of it’s season, but it still had a nice fresh hoppy tone to it. Bet it was really good when it was 1st brewed. I took a growler if the red back to the hotel, which I’m drinking right now as I type on the balcony.

Looking down from my 3rd floor view, I just saw the fatest raccoon ever. It sounded like a deer coming out of the woods.

Tomorrow we are planning on an early morning swim, then Tommy Bartlett’s robot world. After that we will play it bu ear.

Oh well back to my beer and enjoying the nice evening air.

Lived in Milwaukee for 38 years and have done every brewery tour (multiple times) except Miller. The wife and I were kidless yesterday and did our annual trek to the Sports show. After that we went to this Irish pub for lunch. We were fairly close to the brewery so I jokingly say let do the Miller tour. The wife said yes so we went over. The free tour starts with a cheesy video, then you walk to a bunch of different buildings. The 1st building was the packaging plant. and of course it was down for maintenance. The 2nd building was shipping and since packaging was down shipping had nothing to do. We then walked over to the brewery and can you guess what was happening there nothing. Would have been nice if they tell you that before walking up 6 flights of stairs. The last part of the tour was in the old lagering caves. This part was interesting, and had a lot of older equipment in it to look at. After the caves you go to the Miller in for three 10 oz samples. We had Lite, MGD and Leinie’s Amber.

Just found out Paul Harvey passed away today. Sad day for me. I always found Paul’s short interesting mainly because it reminded me of my dinners with my my grandfather. Since my grandfather lived 3 hours away it was always a big deal when I was at his house. My grandfather had this odd radio in the dinning room that always would be on when we ate and would always seem to be playing Paul Harvey’s the rest of the story. As I got older I would stumble upon radio station playing Paul Harvey and it would always take me back to those times around my grandfathers dinner table. I have to admit that I have always found all of Paul Harvey’s radio shorts interesting and will miss his calming voice on the radio.

Yesterday I had a user send me an email asking me to install some Eoffice app on his company Blackberry. Today I download the software give the website a quick scan to see what the app is about and then remote onto the user pc and call him. The user picks up and says I installed a trial version of the app on the phone already I just need you to show me how to use it. I tell him I never even heard of software until now how am I suppose to show you how to use it. The user was shocked that I didn’t know anything about the software.

Sorry that I don’t know everything about every little half assed application out on the market. I will forgo sleeping so I can spend more time surfing the internet to increase my useless app knowledge. Let not even get into the fact that your not suppose to install crap on your company phone.

Getting that postal feeling lately thought it was due to the weather but I’m starting to think it’s due to the people.

My email to all the users reads,

This Sunday I will be applying monthly window updates and installing new anti-virus software on all the servers. I plan on starting around 9 am, so please close all programs before leaving for the weekend.

A users replies back to me,

Do I need to leave my laptop in the office over the weekend.

Just found out that I took a bronze in the Upper Mississippi Mashout. The event had 820 entries, and I’m not sure how many where in the category I took 3rd in but still a good way to start the year. The beer was an Irish Red called Lucky Leprechaun and out of the 2 I sent I’m surprised that’s the one that took a medal. I really thought my Dortmunder Export was the better of the 2 beers.

This competition is one of the bigger ones in the midwest and usually has some of the best judges so I’m really anxious to get the score sheet back on these’s beers.

Saturday Jan 10 I start the journey of trying to become a certified BJCP beer judge. You may laugh at this but it is not as easy as it sounds. There are 8 three hour classes, and a ton of reading and memorizing to go along with the beer drinking. At the end you take a 3 hour exam that has 10 essay questions, 15 true/false, a couple of charts to fill out, judge 4 beers, and fill out a judging sheet on the perfect example of a style of beer. I almost forgot that you need to make up an all-grain recipe of a certain style of beer.

Some of the things you must know are the water profiles for certain cities like Dusseldorf, Trent Burton, and other famous places. You need to be able to troubleshoot a bad beer and write notes on how to fix the problem. I’m sure I’m missing a bunch of stuff, but this all that comes to my mind right now.

I will be posting things I learn and talk about beers that I have sampled. Figure posting stuff here will help me retain what I learned.

Wine snags a lot of credit for its heart-healthy effects; truth is, moderate consumption of beer provides the same benefits.
Research suggests that it’s the alcohol itself that lowers cardiovascular risk (by reducing inflammation, "thinning" the blood and improving insulin sensitivity).

Here are six more reasons to cheer for beer!

Scientists at the Research Institute of Brewing and Malting in Prague announced that they’ve created a new non-alcoholic beer that may reduce hot flashes in menopausal women. It’s long been known hops naturally contain low levels of the same plant estrogens found in soy; the Czech researchers used new technology to boost the concentration (to ten times that of some lagers).

Researchers at Oregon State University in Corvallis have reported that xanthohumol, an antioxidant in hops, may thwart the growth of prostate cancer by triggering the rampant cells to self-destruct. Unfortunately, the dose used in the study equals 17 beers (please don’t try that at home). Upshot: The findings may lead to the development of a hops-derived pharmaceutical treatment.

An Austrian study published earlier this year suggests that antioxidants in hops, called humulones, may help to soothe chronic inflammation that is the result of an immune system in overdrive. In recent years, scientists have linked inflammation with a variety of chronic ills, including cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s and arthritis.

Dark-colored beers don’t contain more antioxidants than light-colored brews. A deeper hue just means that the malt (sugars extracted from the grain) has been roasted longer.

In a Tufts University study of 2,900 men and women, people who drank a beer or two a day had higher bone-mineral densities than nondrinkers. Scientists say silicon, a mineral in beer that promotes healthy bones, may be to thank.

Twenty percent of people in a University of California, Davis, study said they knew that beer, like wine, contains antioxidants. It’s true. Beer also contains some B vitamins, and certain varieties even have a bit of soluble fiber, which has been linked with reduced cholesterol.

So…. Go have a beer and feel good about it!!

Title Should read "Screwed"