Today is St. Patrick’s day, my name day (meaning the day we commemorate the Saint whose name we took when we were baptized). Read more about him and his life. It’s not all about green beer and corned beef.
St. Patrick of Ireland
Author Archives: Pat
Some Winch Fun
So I went up to Collins Brothers Jeeps after work today to exchange the receiver hitch mounting plate for a TJ specific plate. Rose was kind enough to help me out, but I found out that the 8000 lb. roller fairlead that I’ve got won’t work with the TJ mounting plate. It’ll work with the receiver hitch, CJ, and YJ mounts, but the TJ mount is just different enough to require the 10000 lb. model. They’re going to swap it out for me when I bring it in, so that’s another trip out to Wylie after work tomorrow.
Gods and Generals
I just finished watching Gods and Generals, the prequel to Gettysburg. It’s incredible. Not just a Civil War movie, it does a fantastic job of showing the human side of people on both the North and the South. Now I’ve got three more books that will be going into my to read stack. Gods and Generals, The Killer Angels, and The Last Full Measure.
The Great Lent Begins
Today’s the first day of the Orthodox Lenten fast. We do things a little differently than the western Lent. Here are some informative links:
OCA’s Lent Page
On Lenten Fasting
Some vegetarian recipes
Some more Lenten recipes
JR Ultimate
I forgot to put this in this weekend. On the way back from Gilmer I tried out one of the JR Ultimate cigars that Tiger Bob gave me. This was a nice smoke, the draw was pretty easy and the flavors were great. The only down side was that I think this one was a little too loose, because about 2/3 of the way down it got really hot and I had to give up on it. I’ve got another and will be testing that one. Look for updates…
Black Mountain Winch
Another byproduct of this weekend’s wheeling outing was that I came home with an 8000 pound winch for the Jeep. I’ve got to get out to Collins Brothers Jeeps, who were so kind as to donate the winch, roller fairlead, and mounting plate, to swap out the universal plate for a TJ specific one. Then the fun starts!
LSJC Club Run
Today was the club run to Barnwell Mountain for the officers election. This was my first run with the lift and tires and I had a blast! We ran Spider Ravine, Clydes Ravine, Venom Loop, Sunday Drive, and after lunch, Chaos Canyon. I was wiped out and headed home after that, but the Jeep performed well. Even if I did pick a bad line on Clydes Ravine and ended up doing a pretty good squirrel impersonation. I think I freaked out the Rubicon behind me since he got on the CB and declared that he was taking the bypass.
The next thing I’ve got to do to the Jeep is to install a locker on at least the front axle. I got myself into a little trouble that I would have walked out of if I’d been locked.
Here’s a link to the pictures.
On A Pale Horse
Let me start off by saying that I’m not really a Piers Anthony fan. It’s not like I’ve got a seething dislike for his work, it’s just that they’ve never really held my attention. I’ve always thought the Xanth books were written for a younger audience.
That being said, this book was not written like one of the Xanth books. Sure, there’s still a recognizable literary style there, but the themes and subject matter in this book are much more mature.
I’m not going to bore you with retyping the dust jacket or back cover, so if you’re intrigued, click the link
Database Concepts
I’ve started my next class, Database Concepts, today. This is going to be fun because databases are definitely my weak suit. It’s been nice to see a few classmates from my last class. So here’s to an interesting 5 weeks.
More Photo Printing
I went to Staples today to pick up some more photo paper so that I could print up some of the pictures I took this past weekend. I picked up a pack each of the 4″x6″ Canon Photo Paper Pro and the 8.5″x11″ Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy papers. I already knew what the performance of the Photo Paper Pro would be, so that was the safe bet. But, the 8.5″x11″ was a gamble because I wasn’t sure how well the prints would turn out due to the fact that I wasn’t sure how well a 6.3 megapixel JPEG would look when blown up to that size. All I can say is that I’m blown away. I printed this picture and you can see pieces of lint on Reese’s jacket and individual hairs on his face, never mind his head. Wow!
