October - December 2009 Blog Archives
My Compost Project
Posted by: Greg on October 1st, 2009
I live on 2 acres of land and the majority of the trees on my land are oaks trees, such as Live and Red oaks. I have a lot of trees on my property and there are quite a few large oak trees surrounding my house which keeps my house very well shaded and cool during the hot summer months. One advantage of having all these trees is that my electric bill stays reasonable during the summer due to the shade that these trees provide.
The disadvantage of having all these trees comes during the winter months, when they shed their leaves and they drop a lot of leaves. From November to January, I spend a lot of time on the back of riding lawnmower cutting up the leaves and burning them. There are certain areas on my property that I cannot use my lawnmower, so I have to rake them by hand and burn them.
Well this year, I'm going to turn the disadvantage into an advantage and make compost. I converted an old chicken coop that was on property into a compost bin. For years my wife has been nagging me to tear down the old coop, so in a way, she did get her wish! The compost bin measures 6 ft wide by 18 ft long. I used the galvinized tin that was taken from the roof of old coop to form the walls of the bin. I have extra tin just in case I need to add to the height of the walls.
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I'm not quite finished with the compost bin yet, I have to provide more ventilation by drilling holes in the tin. The bin seems a bit large but I think it will serve my situation well. All the compost that we produce will be used in the spring when my wife and I start to plant grape vines for our winemaking.
Removing A Cork From The Inside Of A Wine Bottle
Posted by: Greg on October 1st, 2009
This trick should come in handy for those of us that collect used wine bottles to be reused later.
Adobe Photoshop Stuck On Hand Tool Icon Problem
Posted by: Greg on October 4th, 2009
Recently I was editing some images for this site using Adobe Photoshop CS2 but when I clicked on the zoom tool to zoom in on the image, the "hand tool icon" appeared instead of the zoom icon. At first I thought I might have clicked on the wrong tool, so I tried clicking on the zoom tool again but the little hand wouldn't go away. No matter what tool I selected, I would always have the hand tool icon. Not a single tool would work other than the locked hand tool.
Not knowing what else I could do to resolve the problem, I searched the net using Google in an effort to find a solution. Here is what I found that worked for me....
- Simply press the Space Bar. (This worked for me)
- Restart Adobe Photoshop. Many other sources claim it is a memory problem.
- Try clearing the menus and settings in your windows menu.
- If #3 fails go for a full system reboot.
Some sources claim that the problem exist with a corrupted preferences file and rebooting Photoshop should correct the problem, but it didn't for me.
Other sources claim it is a memory problem and if you do a full system reboot, the problem will clear up. Again, this didn't help me! The only thing that corrected the problem for me was to press the space bar. That instantly cleared up the problem.
Medieval/Renaissance Hydrometer
Posted by: Greg on November 1st, 2009
Long before Antoine Baumé invented the hydrometer in 1768, winemakers used a fresh egg to measure the SG in a must. The method dates back to at least pre-1600s Europe as there are documented recipes from that time period that use an egg as a measuring device. Below is an excerpt taken from the book "The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened", 1st Ed., London, 1669 in which the author mentions the technique of using an egg as a mesuring device.
To Make Metheglin
Take four Gallons of running water, and boil it a quarter of an hour, and put it in an earthen vessel, and let it stand all night. The next day take only the water, and leave the settling at the bottom: so put the honey in a thin bag and work it in the water, till all the honey is dissolved. Take to four Gallons of water, one Gallon of Honey: Then put in an Egg, if it be strong enough of the honey, the Egg will part of it appear on the top of the liquor: if it do not, put more honey to it, till it do. Then take out the Egg, and let the Liquor stand till next morning. Then take two Ounces of Ginger, and slice it and pare it: Some Rose-mary washed and stripped from the stalk: dry it very well. The next day put the Rose-mary and Ginger into the drink, and so set it on the fire: when it is all most ready to boil, take the whites of three Eggs well beaten with the shells, and put all into the Liquor: and stir it about, and skim it well till it be clear. Be sure you skim not off the Rose-mary and Ginger: then take it off the fire, and let it run through a hair sieve: and when you have strained it, pick out the Rose-mary and Ginger out of the strainer, and put it into the drink, and throw away the Eggshells, and so let stand all night. The next day Tun it up in a barrel: Be sure the barrel be not too big: then take a little flower and little bran, and the white of an Egg, and beat them well together, and put them into the barrel on the top of the Metheglin, after it is tunned up, and so let it stand till it hath done working: then stop it up as close as is possible: and so let it stand six or seven weeks: then draw it out and bottle it. You must tye down the Corks, and set the bottles in snad five or six weeks, and then drink it.
A co-worker of mine told me how his grandfather used the same method when he was making homemade wine back in the day. I've also heard stories from other people how the method is still being used today by some home winemakers. I don't understand why anyone would rely upon such an outdated and inaccurate measuring method in this technological age, when they can easily purchase an hydrometer, which is relatively cheap in price from any winemaking supply website on the internet or a local winemaking supply business. Be that as it may, I wanted to see for myself just how the method worked, so I researched the subject and found a Gravity/Exposure chart that is used to calculate how much sugar is in a must when using an egg.
| Small Egg | Med/Lg Egg | X-Lg Egg | |||
| Gravity | Exposure | Gravity | Exposure | Gravity | Exposure |
| 1.070 | 1/4" | 1.070 | 0 | 1.060 | 0 |
| 1.084 | 1/2" | 1.084 | 3/4" | 1.070 | 3/4" |
| 1.105 | 3/4" | 1.105 | 7/8" | 1.084 | 7/8" |
| 1.140 | 1" | 1.122 | 1" | 1.105 | 1" |
| 1.140 | 1 1/8" | 1.140 | 1 1/4" | ||
According to the information I found, eggs start to float in a must with a specific gravity of about 1.070. To test the method, I found a clear glass cookie jar, made up a small amount of sugar water and used my hydrometer to adjust the SG to 1.070. The only eggs that I had in my refrigerator at the time was large Grade A, which was suitable for the experiment. As you can see from picture 1 below, the egg begin to float, but never got off the bottom of the jar. Its unclear to me how much the egg is suppose to float at this point and I really don't know anyone that uses method that I could ask, so I have to rely upon the information that I found to tell me. Technically, the egg did float!
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) Picture 1 |
) Picture 2 |
) Picture 3 |
I added more sugar water to bring the SG to 1.084 and this time the egg floated to the top, but according to the chart, the egg was suppose to show an exposure of 3/4". As you can see from Picture 3, the exposure fell short by a 1/4", but still that's not bad considering it is just an egg.
At this point, I ended the experiment satisfied with the results. I could have continued the experiment with a small or an extra large egg to further test the accuracy of the method, but no matter what results I would have found, an egg will never be as accurate and precise as an hydrometer.
SEO Spammer
Posted by: Greg on December 10th, 2009
This week, I discovered that spammers are using my contact form to send messages to my email in an effort to advertise their "Search Engine Optimization" services. I received three different messages from different people, but the IP's are very similiar. Without thinking I deleted 2 of the 3 messages. I should have saved all three messages so I could share them with all of you. Anyway, here is the last message I received....
Name: Neal stone
Email: xxxxxxxxx@gmail.com
Subject: SEO Services
Comments: We would like to get your website on first page of Google.
All of our processes use the most ethical "white hat" Search Engine Optimization techniques that will not get your website banned or penalized. Please reply and I would be happy to send you a proposal.
Below are the three IP addresses of the spammers:
122.162.143.171
122.160.100.120
122.173.229.99
This website has been up and running since 06-Apr-08 and occasionally I receive some spam, but its really nothing to lose sleep over. Anytime you have a contact form on your website, you are going to get some spam! I have a very low tolerance for spammers, I think they are lowest form of internet life, but I don't fret about it when I get spammed, I simply access C-panel, click on "IP Deny Manager" and ban the IP and then I go about my business.
Deer With Arrow Stuck In Head
Posted by: Greg on December 16th, 2009
Today, a co-worker of mine emailed me several pictures of a white-tailed doe that has an arrow stuck in the top of it's head. The pictures was taken by a tree mounted game camera on hunting club land in Holmes County, Mississippi.
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) Picture 1 |
) Picture 2 |
) Picture 3 |
At first look, it would appear that a bowhunter made a poor decision to shoot the doe in the head hoping to make a quick kill, but that might not be the case. The doe could have turned her head over her vitals just as the hunter released the arrow. I'm just speculating, because I really don't know.
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When I use to bowhunt, I can honestly say that I never aimed my bow at a deer's head, because the animal's head is always moving which makes it a very unstable and difficult target to hit. Any ethical bowhunter will always seek a quick, clean kill and will make every effort to place a precise shot in the vital organ area which is located just behind the shoulder of the deer. If the deer doesn't present a good clean shot, the ethical bowhunter will not take the shot! Of course not all bowhunters think about such things, they just take any shot they can and that is unfortunate, because it is inhumane to the deer.
What happens when a non-hunter sees a wounded deer with an arrow sticking out of it's head? The first thing that hits his/her mind is what idiot wounded Bambi!! Negative opinions are formed as result! Some non-hunters may take this information and slowly, gradually begin to think that hunting as a whole is unmoral. Bad publicity of the unethical "hunters" is what kills it for the ethical hunters eventually.
Hopefully, the owner of the game camera sees this deer and gets a chance to put her down or at least another hunter in the club. I'm not really sure what game laws apply to how many doe's a hunter can harvest in Mississippi, but I'm sure a game warden wouldn't raise too much fuss about a hunter putting down a deer that has an arrow sticking out of it's head.
PAGE UPDATED 01.30.2010
