Read on as we explore the cities of Asheville, Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis.

So, Molly and I decided to pack up and move to the Bay Area. Since our movers were going to take about 10 days to get there, we decided to make it a bit of a trip and see the Mid South. Read on for a list of our travails!

Mark: I need to come up with a sysop test.
...
Me: ask them to write a short script that, say, counts the number of lines in a file with the word "[ERROR:]"
Mark: haha
Mark: you fucker
Mark: throwing in those []

I've promised Thai iced tea tricks for a few people, so here we go. It doesn't take much searching around to find recipes, but here's my preferred one. When I first started making thai iced tea, I didn't have a strainer available. I figured everything would be OK since the tea was already in tea bags. I was WRONG big time. There is a reason you need the strainer. This tea is strong! It's really, really easy to over-brew and make horrible tasting tea.

That being said, here's my recipe:

I've written a library for the Arduino that lets you emulate the $19.99 (USD) Apple Remote. All it requires is a standard IR LED - you can pick those up from Radio Shack for basically nothing. It's released under the GPL. Enjoy!

Download!

Alternatively, you can get the latest revision from Git:

git clone http://www.code.caseyc.net/AppleRemoteSender/.git

Went to BarCamp Boston this past weekend. It was a really compelling proof that the UnConference format works, and works well. Things I learned about that I never thought I would:

• How to make a wireless antenna with a vegetable steamer
• Why JQuery is awesome, from the author of JQuery
• How to manage a distributed team
• What an Arduino is and how to hack it
• Why voting is so darned interesting

When the conference started, there was literally nothing pre-scheduled. The rule was, you had to propose your talk that day. Nobody had any idea what to really expect. Since there were tons of timeslots and rooms available, almost anyone with something to talk about had the chance.

BarCamps operate on the 'two feet' rule. Specifically, if you're not learning or teaching, then you owe it to yourself to use your own two feet and change that state. There are such a diversity of ideas being presented at any one time that there is almost always something interesting being presented. Plus, there were any number of interesting folks hanging out in the break room ready to kick back with some Halo or just chat.

I can't wait to attend HOPE 2008

It seems that friends of mine with names early in the alphabet are more susceptible to getting sick these days:

Has anyone else used http://www.tripit.com? I've used it for a couple trips, and I think it's fantastic. Basically, you forward your booking email to plans@tripit.com, then it parses as much information as possible and presents it to you in a unified format. It doesn't seem like rocket science - and it really isn't. But nobody has bothered to create such a simple interface like this before, and TripIt has been duly rewarded with some heavy investment.

So, as I try to create this site using my somewhat limited Drupal knowlede, I find myself asking this one question over and over:

WHY doesn't Drupal 6 have the "panels" module??

From an informal survey of Drupal admins (2, including myself) I've heard that Panels basically define their entire site. The Blocks configuration page is just not useful enough to create an *actually flexible* front page. So, I'm waiting on that before I produce a really useful layout. But, something is better than nothing, I suppose.

I finally have a reasonable site up and running! Woohoo!