07.19.08
Posted in Rural Tech, Rant, Rural at 2:15 pm by Randy
So we’ve been building a goat barn, right? Well, unfortunately (for me), it’s not done.
The story goes that this goat barn was supposed to be completed before the rains came in 2007. Then we ran out of funds, and the barn was (at best) a covered shelter that kept the rain off the herd (after a fashion). Then it got cold. Then the sheep were lambing; none of the lambs made it. Then the goats were kidding; none of the kids made it (no kidding).
And so it goes. Now it’s summer in 2008. The barn is still unfinished, we now have child #3 literally just about to show up (we’ve bookmarked the name Sebastian Maxwell — “Baby Max”), but at least the herd’s shrinking instead of growing.
The Boss has finally learned the hard lesson that raising livestock is not a simple, uncomplicated process. It’s hard, unforgiving and only occasionally rewarding (this coming from the guy that watches her and says, “it’s your herd, not mine!”)
Where was I? Oh yes.
The barn is the merest framework of a building. Ten uprights holding a corrugated metal roof, as well as subfloor on a split-level layout. The ramp leading into it is cobbled together. There’s a sheet of plywood on one side, masquerading as a wall. Mr. Handy was kind and tied on several huge tarps to attempt (and largely fail) to keep the weather out of the “barn” footprint.
Now, The Boss is a bit more realistic. With still no funds to really finish it the way it needs to be finished, I will ultimately put in some basic framing, then nail on some plywood siding. Windows will be roughed in, and hinged shutters will be used in the meantime to allow for ventilation (until we can actually get some windows to put in).
There’s supposedly room for a second floor that can be hung on the posts. I figure we’ll get that roughed in in the most basic way as well.
All in all, it’s a plan that doesn’t please anyone, but keeps the animals protected in the winter months to come.
Now all I have to do is make it happen.
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03.28.08
Posted in Broadband, Rural Tech at 4:42 pm by Randy
…we still don’t have “real” Internet up here.
However, we have gotten better with the fake Internet than I think we could’ve possibly imagined. It all began with replacing the P.O.S. (code for “ultimately inadequate”) Kyocera KR-1 router with (of all things) a Mac Mini running OS X 10.5 (”Leopard”). Our uptimes went from minutes between reboots to literally days and days between network disconnects. Add in that the Mini doesn’t need to be restarted pretty much ever, and it’s the best $600 I’ve ever spent.
It cleared up all the difficulties I had with VPN into work, it’s perceptibly faster than with the KR-1, and it damn near never disconnects, no matter how hard I pound the connection. Suddenly, YouTube was not a ridiculous notion. I even managed to download a rental movie from iTunes over the connection. I won’t say that I’m thrilled with the throughput. But hey, the fact that I can run BitTorrent fills my heart with peace, such that I feel no desire to run BitTorrent.
Sometimes, just being able to do something allows you to let go of the desire to do it. Other times, you probably go ahead and binge on downloading DVD sized ISO images.
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10.06.07
Posted in Hilarity at 6:23 pm by Randy
“Vi, what have you done with your diaper?”
The Boss, uttered just before hanging up the phone with me while I was returning from the lumber yard this afternoon.
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10.05.07
Posted in Rural at 12:58 pm by Randy
So, The Boss is about to have a kid.
No, not that kind of kid. One of her Nigerian Dwarf goats is pregnant and about to give birth. So, The Boss is hustling because we just can’t seem to keep Mr. Handy engaged in building the goat barn.
Oh, see, there I go again, getting ahead of myself.
Let’s recap: seven goats (soon to be eight), six sheep, a baker’s dozen of chickens (even though our Siberian dispatched another hen and The Boss sold off four roosters for $14 — trust me, I’d rather have the $14), two rabbits, two guardian dogs (welcome to the family Loki), two cats, and two dogs as pets.
It certainly looks like a ranch. Kinda smells like one too.
As part of this, The Boss has been on me since the beginning of the year to get a goat barn put up. Of course, here we are in October, the goat barn is about 15% complete, and it’s getting tougher to keep Mr. Handy engaged on it, for whatever reason. Of course, it’s built to withstand the ages (i.e. it’s overbuilt), hence it takes longer, involves a fair bit of timber framing (okay, post-and-beam, but who’s really checking) and is now expected to be twelve feet tall.
Honestly, it looks like a tower over on the far side of the yard. Of course, there’s trees all around, so you almost can’t tell, but it’s still going to be tall enough that we will be able to put a loft up above (for hay and grain storage — yes, this is a real barn, I’m telling you).
But in order for it to minimally work for us, we need to have the roof up and floor put down. The walls can be tarps for now, until we’re able to get siding (or boards and battens, depending on how rustic we want this sucker to look) up on it.
Yup, The Boss has a plan, yessiree.
The other interesting thing was that the youngest goat, named Happy by our kids, is (or more pointedly, was) a buckling — a young male goat. Now, considering his genetics, or lack thereof, The Boss decided it was time to wether Happy. That is, considering Happy was going around molesting the lady goats with his little winky hanging out in the breeze, and he doesn’t particularly have any traits or qualities that are worth propagating, his <ahem> nuggets were no longer considered mandatory equipment.
So, Happy has now become Un-Happy (The Boss jokes that he — or “it” — is now Anti-Happy, but that implies a gender change, not the same as being emasculated). Of course, I find it deeply troubling that a fellow male, however genetically distant, suffers genital mutilation, even indirectly, according to The Boss’ whimsy.
Note to self: keep The Boss happy, lest I become Un-Happy.
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07.19.07
Posted in Wine, Local Issues, Geek at 5:37 am by Randy
I’ll be doing my friend’s radio show this next Monday, all by myself. Turns out he has a football mini-camp he’s leading (seeing as he’s a coach and all), and he wrote to me in a panic at the beginning of the week. The last time I stepped into a radio booth all alone was 1988 or ‘89. That’s quite a dry spell.
At any rate, my major concern is that I don’t totally suck or do something completely embarrasing with nobody else around to keep me in check. The biggest issue is that I’m not a winemaker or even in the wine industry (except that I’m married to a grape grower, and I’ve just finished my first class over at Napa Valley College having to do with wine).
This will definitely be interesting.
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07.13.07
Posted in Broadband, Local Issues, Rural at 1:28 pm by Randy
Time passes.
The Boss gets chickens.
My sister moves in.
The dogs “play” with the chickens (or at least all but one of them).
The fiber optic shows up.
The enclosure for the media converter shows up.
Things are starting to move again on the Quest for Broadband.
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06.27.07
Posted in Generic at 8:15 am by Randy
JD 450C crawler, right side
Originally uploaded by randy_hall
Oh man, what a sweet ride.
Or at least, what a hunk of heavy machinery. 14,000 pounds of steel, oil, diesel and hydraulic fluid.
The hydraulics leak like a sieve, the bushings at just about every pivot point are shot, the seat is completely ruined, the hour meter has never worked (at least that’s what the neighbor said when I asked him about it), and the front loader bucket is bent in the middle.
Isn’t it purdy though?
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06.26.07
Posted in Broadband, Geek, Rural at 4:41 pm by Randy
As I sit patiently and wait for my evening Summer class at Napa Valley College (Current Topics In Winemaking — cruel irony is that the “current topic” is “Historic Wineries”), I look out at miles and miles of hillsides in Napa Valley, covered in bright green canopies of grapes. Some Chardonnay, some Cabernet, some Syrah, not much Pinot; a wide expanse of agriculture, all wrapped up in the pretense of wine as some exclusive drink made for stodgy old men with seven-figure incomes. Trust me, nobody ever became truly wealthy by growing grapes.
However, I digress.
Subchapter Two, Continued:
We needed to dig a trench right down the middle of (part of) the road to the vineyard. It wasn’t going to be pretty, either. Just walking the road, you could see the surface of boulders and rocks, almost as if the road had been paved with cobblestones, albeit gigantic ones of all shapes and sizes. Nevertheless, our Solar God thus proclaimed, “get thee a ride-on trencher, and all will come to pass as I have foretold.” Apparently, the kung pao of the walk-behind trencher that Mr. Handy had been using was clearly not spicy enough for the task. So, after much delay (and at least two breakdowns of Mr. Handy’s truck), we had the ride-on trencher delivered.
It took a day for it to break.
The rocks were so big and so tough that even the ride-on trencher was denied. It was so bad, the chain on the trencher came off, shearing two bolts on the arm that holds the chain in place. So, we were left with one option: backhoe. That’s right, time to bring in the heavy artillery. Unfortunately, as Mr. Handy frequently mentioned, using the backhoe meant that we would almost certainly be tearing out a lot of road, because any rocks or boulders that the backhoe lifts out would in most case be wider than the twelve-inch bucket that was on the backhoe.
In truth, I’m glad Mr. Handy was so up front about it. Honestly, I am. Because what my eyes beheld once the trench was dug down the road was nothing short of horrific. I actually thought to myself, however briefly, “oh crap, what have I gotten us into?”
It almost didn’t look like a road, there was so many rocks strewn about on either side of the trench. The trench itself averaged probably 15 inches wide, and it was deep enough that I was down past my knees when I walked in it. Yes, I walked inside the trench.
Happily, the chapter ends on an up note: the pipes and wires were laid into the trench, covered in sand then layered with rocks and road base as backfill. Then we were able to bring in additional road base to help level out the road a bit. In the end, the scar left behind from the trench was analogous to a scar you might see on someone who had been through open heart surgery. Yes, it looked ugly at first sight, but you quickly realize that it had looked much, much worse.
And the work is not done, not nearly. There is still getting all the fittings on the various pipes to join them together. There is ordering and having the fiber optic pulled from the vineyard gate down to the house. There’s burying the rest of the trench. There’s hooking up the electrical and fiber optic at both ends. Only then might we realize the glory of real broadband. I am now absolutely certain that it won’t be real for me until at least a week after the project is fully finished.
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Posted in Props, Wine, Rant at 8:56 am by Randy
I’m not usually given over to spending any time promoting other blogs and/or podcasts I like. Part of that is in my personality, a flaw I will likely carry to the grave. Also, I don’t particularly care for blogs and people who do spend tons of time promoting other sites. I usually get my fix from Digg [digg.com] and Del.icio.us [del.icio.us] (though less so of late because of the “popularity contest” that these sites end up being), but recently I’ve been using StumbleUpon (courtesy of Tech.Chick.Blog) to find interesting and innovative sites.
But this post is not about any of those sites up there, oh no. This post is about a man. A “shockingly handsome” man. A man who is dedicated to altering the reality of a very stodgy and calcified institution: the wine industry. This post is about Gary Vaynerchuk and his video podcast called Wine Library TV.
I first encountered WLTV some months ago (and I’m sure Gary will gripe that I haven’t given him the love he so richly deserves) while perusing several of the wine blogs I now frequent on an on-again, off-again basis. Originally, I thought that watching wine reviews was not something I was particularly interested in. After all, I’m keen on the growing of grapes (which The Boss and TBB are basically in the business of doing) and the making of wine, but not particularly in the tasting and reviewing aspect. At least, that’s how I used to feel.
That’s the power of Gary and his podcast. He is so charismatic and approachable that you find yourself wanting to believe in what he offers: that wine is fun and easy and uncomplicated. After having watched him for a few months, I have broken out of my red-wine rut and bought wines I would’ve scoffed at six months ago. Pink wines, white wines from all over, French wines, you name it. I’ve bought $20 wines that sucked (at which I shrugged my shoulders, told myself, “well, at least I know I don’t like that,” and moved on), and I’ve bought $11 bottles of wine that blew me away. Most important of all, it has led me to this epiphany:
I now have no fear of wine. It is not daunting to me, and I have Gary to thank for that.
So, thank you Gary, you have opened up a new realm of experience for me, and I will always appreciate that, and I will always appreciate you.
Go to Wine Library TV and get to know Gary yourself.
Some classic episodes of Gary’s that are not to be missed:
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06.23.07
Posted in Broadband, Rural Tech, Geek, Rural at 8:52 pm by Randy
“Let me explain… No, there is too much, let me sum up.” - Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride
I try my best not to go all meta-blog around here, presenting my excuses for how I’m too busy or that I’m just too damn lazy to update this site. But I leave you with the following thought: A man’s gotta have his priorities. Moving on.
Much has transpired in the intervening months, albeit the goal is still tantalizingly out of reach. Dear reader, allow me to catch you up.
- We own a construction crawler, vintage 1985. Hey, it’s got a backhoe, what can I say?
- A trench was dug from the antenna site to the house.
- Part of that trench was dug along the straight section of the road to the vineyard, effectively destroying it.
- The Solar God smiled upon us and did grace us with a divine visitation to bury electrical cables and conduits along said road section.
- We still do not have the wires connected to the power panel in the garage, nor do we have the electrical boxes installed up at the antenna site.
- The fiber optic that will pump those lovely ones and zeros isn’t even ordered.
- We expect that we won’t be up and running until the end of July at the earliest.
Subchapter One: The Crawler Of DOOM
The crawler has an interesting story. Our next-door (meaning about a mile downhill from us) neighbor (a uniquely crusty old Brit, who made his fortune through logging in Northern California) moved to a Central American country last month. As part of his departure, Crusty was selling his old John Deere 450C loader crawler. A crawler, as opposed to a backhoe) uses tracks instead of tires, making it better suited for the ranch and its hilly terrain. Even though it was seriously old and long in the tooth, he wanted ten large. In an uncharacteristic turn, I haggled him down to eight. Of course, I’m still wondering who got the better deal.
Crusty spent a fair bit of time describing all that was wrong with the machine: hour meter broken, seats basically destroyed by the elements, lights not working, switches missing, hydraulic seals leaking like sieves, bushings completely gone on just about every pivot point, yada yada yada. So, as long as we used it in the daytime, didn’t lift hugely heavy items using the front loader, and we kept 20 gallons of hydraulic fluid on hand to keep the reservoir filled, the sucker would do work for us. Never mind that your ass would be sitting on bare metal and we literally have no idea how long that the crawler has actually been used over the years, those really are just subordinate issues. The crawler has a backhoe and it was shown to me that it could dig.
Of course, The Boss and I salivated mightily. We still recognized that we will need to have an agricultural tractor, so this crawler wouldn’t be able to do every little thing that we need around the ranch and vineyard. But the siren song of the backhoe could not be denied, even The Boss was taken in by it.
Subchapter Two: The Trench of DOOM (drink)
The trench presented several significant challenges. Originally, the Wunderkind was going to dig along the uphill side of the road to the vineyard, through all the twisty turns and across several culverts to go down, down to the house. But Mr. Handy (who, bless his heart, should be called Mr. Overtime, since he never knows when to frigging quit working) and I walked an alternate and slightly more direct route, which would avoid most (if not all) of the culverts, and stay off the road almost completely, so that we wouldn’t need to be concerned with vineyard traffic (which, at this time of year is basically about every ten days so they can spray sulphur on the vines). It also shaved about 100 feet off the distance that the Wunderkind originally estimated.
When the time came to dig the trench, Mr. Handy dropped everything and walked behind the big-ass trencher through hill and dale, suffering poison oak, bug bites, and sunburn to bring the trench down the hill, skipping across one of the seasonal gullies (because it was way too deep to dig under, and way too far to go around). We got to the final stretch before the meadow above the ranch house and realized that it was a rock garden. Correction, a boulder garden, and most of them were above ground, with no telling how much worse it would be underneath. No trencher known to man would cut through that, so we figured we would lay the conduit above ground and call it a day.
Of course, it wasn’t until the Solar God gazed upon our plan that He shone His holy wisdom down upon us: laying the pipes and conduit above ground would only work up until the first forest fire; the pipes and conduit would quickly melt and our glorious pipeline would be destroyed (and yes, I realize that if a forest fire blows through the ranch, we’ll be worried about more than whether our Internet connection is working, but stay with me on this). So, our hopes rested on the one thing we didn’t want to do: dig a trench down (part of) the road to the vineyard.
But there’s more, oh so much more. Stay tuned.
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