Ben Benner’s Blog

It seemed like only yesterday, that I was roused out of bed with shouts about how I needed to grab a camera and run down to the dock, that was two years ago (almost to the day). My Father-in-Law had caught himself a 40-inch Muskie, with the record on the lake being 42-inches.

Well, unless someone managed to catch something bigger than a 44-inch Muskie in the last two years, my Father-in-Law, Tom Coscarelli has broken the record with his 44-inch Muskie catch that happened this morning. I was already awake and was making myself some toast.

And with almost the same level of excitement it was proclaimed that my wife, Gina needed to bring her camera down to the beach immediately as her father was coming back with the fish that had his lure. A few days back, Tom lost a lure (antique I was told) and he had been searching the lake everyday since.

I was really, really impressed that he managed to hook the same fish that had stolen his lure a few days before.

However, it turns out that the fish in question, did not have the lost lure. Tom explained that the fish in question was hooked really well and that he had called asking for Charles (Gina’s brother) to come on the wave-runner to come help with the removal of the lure (which apparently is a smaller version of the lost lure).

Tom is pretty certain that he did not lose the antique lure to a fish, as the smaller version of the lure had prevented the 44-inch Muskie from diving.

Regardless, it is an impressive catch. The previous Muskie was too small to keep, but this was is above the 42-inch required size. Tom was planning to release this monster of a fish back into the water, but upon first release into the open water, the beast went belly up.

Not a good sign for the fish, so Tom began to use all the tricks he knows to try and revive a stunned/shocked fish. Moving it back in forth in the water as to move the water through it’s gills to allow it to breathe. However, after about an hour and a half, and Charles’ (soon-to-be) Father-in-Law attempting to aid Tom in reviving the fish, they called it quits and began to determine who would clean the fish, as later today we will be having fish steaks (or possibly in the morning, either way, I will let you know if Muskie is good eating).

I need to get back to coding.

bdbenner vacation fishing, lake, muskie, up north, vacation

Just a quick update.

The 4th of the July part over at the Wights (which was also a surprise 40th birthday part for Tim “Timmy” Wight) was really great. They had a keg of Labatt’s tons of good food, including this buffalo chicken dip that my father-in-law created. I will have to snag the recipe from him, but let me just not that it includes one whole bottle of Frank’s Red Hot sauce (12oz size I think).

I fell asleep on the couch watching The Soprano’s and when I awoke to the 4am infomercials I decided it was time to crawl into bed. I managed not to wake Gina.

While I slept, Gina and her parents made a run into one of the nearby cities, Gaylord, there they hit Meijer’s and Wal-Mart. I sort of remembered telling Gina to pick up some flour and what not but overall I didn’t remember too much of the conversation that we had.

As soon as they got back it was time for breakfast, Tom (my father-in-law) started cooking bacon, eggs and hashbrowns. My mother-in-law, Brenda’s laptop needed the drivers for the Belkin wireless adapter that is part of the DIY wi-fi extender kit that I have left up here. I booted up my laptop, which I must not have shut-off properly as the battery was completely drained, and downloaded the drivers.

I transferred the drivers to her laptop via my handy Jaduka branded USB memstick. After getting her online, I sat down and scarfed up breakfast.

I don’t remember how much time went by, but I mentioned to Gina that I needed a couple more things. A few minutes later we were in the Vibe and heading to Gaylord. Gina took the backroads and got us there much quicker than the 52 minutes that Google Maps had predicted.

We did the bulk of our shopping at Wal-Mart, given that Gina had already scoped out both Meijers and Wal-Mart earlier that day. However, Wal-Mart did not have my PBR, Pabst Blue Ribbon. I know it is an old-man beer, but I just really like the taste it gives the chicken that I marinate in it. Furthermore, I have started to like the taste.

It was a little weird having to pay ‘deposit’ again, so the 30 pack of beer cost an extra $3.00, the nice part of that though is you get back $0.10/can.

A batch of caraway-rye is sitting there rising, at least another hour before it can go into the fridge. I needed to boot up the laptop to figure out how much chicken broth goes into the dog treats, I promised Curly and Killer I would make a batch while I am here. Therefore, I figured i would do a quick blog post before turning the machine off.

Time to make the dog treats.

Laterz

bdbenner baking, vacation baking, beer, Dogs, shopping, vacation

I could have sworn that I left the blue sweater up here, but I cannot find it. It likely is back in Tejas.

Curly is loving it up here already. He has already marked just about every tree in the yard, drank from the lake, run on the dock and played with Killer (my In-law’s dog).

We got in early, early this morning about 1:30 (am) local time. I brought in the luggage and left the coolers out in the car. We brushed our teeth and went to bed.

The morning came early, we were up and about around 9:30 am. My mother-in-law was already starting to work on her macaroni salad for the party later today. My father-in-law has brought some new dock pieces in the trailer.

I was requested to boot up the laptop and begin searching for a recipe as there was a scare that a page was missing from the recipe book.

I made a couple of new wi-fi extenders (metal colanders with holes cut in them), I was hoping to garner another bar of signal with the different designs that these have in them. However, there has been no signal boost. There however is an upside to having more than one wi-fi extender, I also happen to have an extra USB wi-fi adapter, meaning that Gina and I could use the wi-fi at the same time.

I need to get an additional USB extender cable before we can use both of them at once. I will keep an eye out for one when we hit up Meijer in Traverse City.

The lake looks absolutely beautiful. This is a shot from the dock looking out into the water about 10ft out. The water is so clear you can easily see the bottom and then the darker area is the ‘drop-off’.

A shot of from the dock, looking out across the lake. You can see the transition between the bottom and the ‘drop-off’.

I should probably shut down and get ready, Gina has talked about going into town and getting some stuff. I need to grab some PBR and some flour, going to be baking some bread while I am up here.

Laterz

bdbenner vacation intermediate lake, lake, up north, vacation

My wife has recently become addicted to technology, one might go so far as to call her a TechnoSnob. I just got off the phone with Gina a few minutes ago, she is in Florida for the next few days on vacation with her mom and a few of her cousins. They are all in town for Bubba’s wedding, one of her cousins from Lansing who has since moved to the Florida (somewhere in the Ormond Beach Area).

Well, apparently there is no Wi-Fi in the vicinity of their hotel. Gina told me that she was not able to find any available networks when she booted up her macbook earlier.

NO INTERWEBS!!!!

Whatever is she to do?

Apparently, the correct course of action is to text me and ask for locations that are nearby that have wifi access. I found a couple of places, the one that actually looks pretty neat is 15 miles north. I didn’t bother to send her the link for the BeachHouse Beanery. Maybe if she gets online and reads this post, she might think about heading 15 miles north for some wifi and coffee on the beach.

The only time that I have ever really been without access to hi-speed Internet access was up at the cottage and well I kind of found a way around that as well.

Back to the grind.

Laterz

UPDATE: I was looking over the hotel website and it says “We also offer our guests a lobby business center with complimentary high speed internet access.” I read this as them offering wi-fi in the lobby, it could just mean they offer a computer that is hooked to the Internet. I have yet to hear from Gina as to what form the “complimentary high speed Internet access” comes as.

bdbenner Technology, gina, travel, vacation florida, gina, travel, vacation, wifi

As I type this, Gina is winging her way to Florida.

Her flight left Austin just about an hour ago. 6AM doesn’t seem like too bad a time to fly out, right?

The thing is though, the airport is like 45 minutes (the way I drive, closer to 30 the when Gina drives). Factor in that you are supposed to be there an hour before your flight, means that Gina was supposed to be there at 5AM.

She was there at about 5:10AM, she says you really only need to be there 40 minutes before your flight. So I guess she made it with a few minutes to spare, after you figure the line for check-in, etc.

Of course, one should not just roll out of bed and into the car. Figure another hour to get all cleaned up and what not.

That means that my today started at about 4:00, give or take a few minutes. (Though, the alarm went off at 3:30AM.)

After dropping Gina off at the airport, I needed to get some breakfast and caffeine. I wanted to hit up HEB, get a donut, maybe some fruit. No such luck, the HEB in the arboretum doesn’t appear to open again until 8am. It certainly isn’t open at 5:30AM or whatever time it was when I pulled into the parking lot.

The Randall’s across the street was also closed. Luckily though the Starbucks attached to the Randall’s opens at 5:30.  I grabbed a Venti Soy Mocha at 140 (degrees) and an apple fritter and headed to the office.

After catching up on some email, I figured I would write a quick post. I have to admit, I am finding it hard to concentrate, I am hoping that doesn’t last all day. I’m fairly certain a bit more caffeine will help with that.

I am going to try and finish up a blog post I started the other day.

Laterz.

bdbenner travel airport, caffeine, morning, starbucks

I am not sure exactly why, but I felt like using that quote to make the announcement that Gina and I are going to hit up Seattle this year for a real vacation.

We are not sure exactly when, but we want to hit Seattle before July, because well we go home to Michigan in July to lounge on the edge of the lake. We have talked a little bit here and there over the last couple of years about taking a “Real” vacation, a cruise or something. I believe it was on New Years day that I looked at her and said that we should take a real vacation in 2009.

We discussed where we might want to go for a trip, places that we have been wanting to go to. Florida, California, New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Seattle and Alaska were all part of the first round of discussion. We widdled down the list to just three, New York City, Seattle and Chicago.

I have been to Chicago briefly (not including the O’Hare airport) and have never really done anything touristy there, Gina on the other hand has and wanted to go back. I would not mind going there, but in the end Chi-Town didn’t win the race.

Now, Gina has never been to New York City, I have been there several times for business and notably one time where I got to spend the weekend (doing non-business stuff). I love NYC, I wish I could afford to live (comfortably) there. As one might guess, NYC was the most expensive of the three and likely wouldn’t be some place we could visit and enjoy before July. Another one that we will have to hit in the years to come.

That left Seattle. Now, I have spent I believe a total of three days in Washington state. Back in 2001, I flew into Seattle with a couple of sales guys for a trip to the Douglas Country PUD, in Wenatchee, WA. Fun, Fun!

While the business relationship never panned out, that trip showed me some of the most majestically beautiful forest scenes that I can remember, if only the N95 had been around back then I would have some truly stellar pictures, vs the ones I took with my Mavica.

Gina has become quite the fan of Amazon.com lately, for those of you that don’t know she has become addicted to the Kindle E-Reader. She takes it everywhere and can be found reading it whenever she becomes bored (including while standing in line).

So we are going to try to get some sort of visit or tour of Amazon.com. And in a somewhat odd twist, she is excited about visiting the Microsoft campus. The reason this is odd, is that well she has recently become quite the Apple “FanGirl”, because of the brand-new 13.3 inc aluminum MacBook she bought a couple of months back.

I am sure that if we were going to San Francisco (which came up in conversation, as we loved it the last time around) we would be going to the Apple campus.

I want us to rent a car one day and drive out into the country, to try and find this one particular place that I took a picture of along the way. It is this old wooden bridge that when you cross it and look back at the road, it frames up perfectly with the mountain in the background.

That image was the background on my computer desktop for quite, quite a while indeed. Other than that, I want to see some museums, eat some great and extremely fresh seafood, and enjoy the local culture.

I will post updates on the travel plans as things move along.

Laterz.

bdbenner travel, vacation chicago, planning, seattle, vacation, washington state

Well technically day 3 for me, or 4 depending upon when you start the timer.

But it is day 2 of the conference.

I gave my first public presentation yesterday. I think it went pretty well, I had a couple of people ask for my contact information after I was done, so I am pretty sure that offsets the fact that a couple of people got up and left while I was talking.

I am not taking it personal, I think the conference session was a bit vague and they probably were expecting different information about Serena’s mashup exchange.

I also tried to keep the presentation from being a commercial for Jaduka. I had a slide in there that described Jaduka and NetworkIP, the regular sort of we do 15 billion phonecalls a year and have a database of over 780 860 Million user accounts, etc. I glossed over that and made a joke about how it was a slide that marketing required.

I glossed over the slide, because I overheard a few folks in the audience complaining about attending a couple of sessions that were commercials and did not contain useful information. In football terms, I believe that is called an ‘audible’. At the next Serena even I am pretty sure we will be able to give a detailed presentation of a Serena-Jaduka mashup.

I have been having an enjoyable time meeting and talking with the Serena executives, staff and various Serena Partners.

Back to the keynote.

Laterz

bdbenner travel, work conference, san jose, serena, travel, work

My flight leaves at 3pm this afternoon. I will be out in San Jose for most of the week attending and presenting at the <Tag> conference. I am looking forward to meeting the folks from Serena.

Back to packing and what not.

I have a couple of half finished posts that I will try to complete after I settle into the hotel.

Laterz

bdbenner travel, work san jose, serena, travel, work

I am going to be heading out to Dallas here shortly. However, this is just a quick day trip.

I will try to do a real post when I get back home tonight.

Laterz

bdbenner travel dallas, travel

And I don’t have any real plans.

I need to get the house straightened up, finish doing some laundry and what not.

I just got the call that my new glasses are ready, my prescription changed a little, like -.25 or something in each eye. I was almost talked into getting these black plastic frames with little skulls on the sides. However, I think that would only work if I was in a band or was back in college.

I am debating about what to do with my current glasses. I could keep them as a spare pair, or I could get new lenses (tinted) put in them for about $70. Because, I would really like to have a pair of sun glasses again, though I am quite used to being blinded when I go outside.

The Corolla needed an oil change so I dropped it off this morning. However, a couple of days ago the engine started to sound really LOUD, at first I thought maybe it was just because it needed an oil change, but the volume was significantly higher than just a rough idle.

I could smell just a wee bit of exhaust fume from when you open the hood, so after some searching on the Internet and Jeremy hearing it too, I am convinced it is something to do with the exhaust assembly in the engine area. I am really hoping that it is just something that has come loose. But more likely something has a hole in it.

Which makes me think that a 14 year old car back in Michigan would like be on at least it’s second muffler and likely it’s third one. I have never replaced a muffler on it and the car was only 4 years old when I bought it so it is unlikely that was replaced back then either.

I am awaiting the call from Brake Specialists to let me know how much it is going to cost.

In the meantime I am installing Asterisk 1.4 for a work project. Fun, Fun I love installing from source.

(I really mean that, btw)

Back to the grind.

Laterz

bdbenner Cars, corolla, travel, work Cars, gina, travel, work