I have had devastating hard drive failures in the past. That makes me very sensitive to keeping back-ups of my data. I was hoping that Mozy.com would be a wonderful option for keeping my data offsite in the cloud somewhere. Unfortunately it didn't work well. After several iterations with support I decided that they couldn't get their Mac client to work right. Plus the hassle that I got from my IT department who was telling me I was using too much bandwidth just made it all a pain.

From a technical standpoint, JungleDisk is much better. It is looks like an infinitely large disk on your computer. It accomplishes this by backing files to Amazon's cloud storage. Unfortunately Amazon limits file sizes to 5GB. So until that is fixed I can't use Jungle Disk for offsite cloud back up either.

My best solution right now then is to use the awesome program SuperDuper and back up to a network attached storage device which is RAID'd and in my office. I wish I didn't have to manage it, but for now that's my best option. I could use Apple's Time Machine offerings - that would act a lot like my NAS, but I already had the NAS when Time Machine came out.

For everyone that walks up to me and asks "Did you read my email?", the answer is no.

Well even though the sunrise isn't getting earlier yet, (See the previous entry on sunrises for a discussion of why) the days *are* getting longer and the sunrise is moving north again. Out my window it happens to reach it's furthest south point on the little hill shown. Then it starts to march North again, till it is almost not visible from my patio. Spring is coming!

The kids harvested some of our carrots last night. These were the "winners" our monster carrots. Since it doesn't often freeze around here, the carrots can stay in the ground longer than usual. Needless to say they taste great.

Last night I made the second cheese. This was again a simple soft cheese like chevre, but this time it *was* made with goat milk. Not only that, but I found a local dairy to get the milk from! Summer Hill Dairy in Chino. Now I just have to raise a crop of cardoon and I am well on my way to authentic local cheese production. I've decided that when I actually get the cheese figured out I'm going to call it "Antigone" for various inside joke reasons.

I'm happy to report success with my first cheese. Shown on the left is a delicious "lemon cheese". It is the easiest of all cheeses to make. I coated it with fresh herbs from our garden. It is like a chevre cheese, but made with cow's milk instead of goat milk.

My goal is to make a wheel of parmesan. But that is going to take a while to work up to it. In the meantime, my next target is a wheel of cheddar. I will pursue that during Spring Break. Hurray!

Using rigorous scientific methods I have produced the above graph detailing the beard preferences by gender. Shame on you if you do not know who Grizzly Adams is.

I started the day convinced that the Winter Solstice was merely a myth invented by pagans and picked up by atheists in an attempt to make themselves feel better during the darkest days of the year. A crutch to give them something to celebrate in the face of overwhelming hopelessness.

The source of this conviction was the data I have been collecting regarding sunrise out my kitchen window. The data is plotted on the left. As you can clearly see sunrise is continuing to get later and later well past the alleged "winter solstice" of 12/21.

My position now, later in the day, is that the winter solstice is, in fact, a real event, but much more complicated than a simple pagan could possibly comprehend (not withstanding Stongehenge). Or perhaps more than I can possibly comprehend. All the tools online agree that the 12/21 is the shortest day in the year, and they also agree with the data that I have collected which indicates that although 12/21 is the shortest day of the year, sunrise will continue to get later until sometime in mid-January. It's just that sunset stopped getting earlier on 12/21 and started to get later faster than sunrise was getting later. (It's kind of like a payment-option mortgage back in the good times)

So right now I don't quite understand why the sunrise and sunset don't increase and decrease symmetrically. Why doesn't the sunrise get earlier when the sunset gets later? Is it because I'm not in the middle of the timezone? Lazy internet, wikipedia has failed me, what do you say?

Crash Proof: In which I learn that the perfect storm has come to the U.S.

And... Home Cheese Making: In which I learn that to survive the economic collapse I must learn how to make artisanal cheeses in a cave which I dig out of the hillside in University Hills.

O Holy Night, The whiteboard is brightly shining....

Beaker is so awesome! Ode to Joy performed by the muppet's number 2 geek.

Oh my gosh! The poor lethargic masses! Which amorphous slab of flesh is so desperately in need of energy that they would consume a 15-oz. can of chocolate, espresso, guarana, ginseng, and b vitamins? What is in this? Did they squeeze the essence out of a kindergarten class and can it?

Dear My-Dental-Office,

I know that you think about teeth 24 hours a day. I know that any redness or swelling is the death knell of gingivitis. I know you make your money on extra services. But can I please be clear: I do not care if I have "celebrity white teeeth" or not. Please stop trying to bring me into your world. I don't want my teeth whitened.

Sincerely, Dr. Mr.-off-white-teeth

We've been having fun at home playing an amazing game called World of Goo. It's a physics simulation based game, but done with really great graphics and music. I convince myself that it is okay for my kids to play this with me because I'm *really* teaching them about engineering in the process. The game feels like an interactive Dr. Suess world.

Download my report

Ok. Another update on my ATS profile. I went through my 19 pages of super-sekret information and self-censored my credit card information, and dates of birth. I left phone numbers and addresses in there because they are all mostly wrong now. The black censored stuff is what the Department of Homeland Security did for me. I put pink post it notes over the things that I censored and then wrote in red what I was censoring. Unfortunately my scanner didn't pick up the pink post-it notes and all that remained was a blank spot and some red writing where I censored things.

Oh lazy internet, I invoke thee, take a look at my report on the left and see if you can find anything interesting or concerning.

My race is in there as are email addresses and IP addresses. Some information on whether I was cooperative during security screens. What else?