Archive of 2010 | PolarLava::Blog

December 2010

Doctor Dealer

Doctor Dealer: The Rise and Fall of an All-American Boy and His Multimillion-Dollar Cocaine Empire by Mark Bowden. This is the story of Larry Lavin, a guy from a working-class family who won a scholarship to a prestigious Philadelphia boarding school, went on to earn Ivy League college and dental degrees. A boy who became a man and was destined to enjoy a comfortable life and all that goes with it. But in true American fashion, greed and bravado wiped it all away. …more

Permanent link to “Doctor Dealer”
Permanent link to “Erdinger Weissbier Dunkel”
Permanent link to “Great Divide Claymore Scotch Ale”
Permanent link to “Keegan Mothers Milk Stout”
Permanent link to “Duvel Maredsous 6 - Blonde”
Permanent link to “Tröegs Nugget Nectar”
Permanent link to “Great Lakes Conway's Irish Ale”
Permanent link to “North Coast Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout”
Permanent link to “Genesee Bock”
Permanent link to “Ithaca Apricot Wheat”
Permanent link to “Ithaca Cold Front”
Permanent link to “Köstritzer Schwarzbier”
Permanent link to “Eisenbahn Escura (Dunkel)”
Permanent link to “Het Anker Gouden Carolus Tripel”
Permanent link to “Oskar Blues Old Chub - Scottish Style Ale”
Permanent link to “Weyerbacher Blithering Idiot”
Permanent link to “Wolaver's Alta Gracia Coffee Porter”
Permanent link to “Lancaster Milk Stout”
Permanent link to “Sierra Nevada Glissade Golden Bock”
Permanent link to “Lancaster Hop Hog India Pale Ale”
Permanent link to “Dogfish Head Chicory Stout”

November 2010

Permanent link to “Graffiti PSA”

September 2010

Permanent link to “Saranac Imperial IPA”
Permanent link to “Lancaster Amish Four Grain Pale Ale”
Permanent link to “Custom Brewcrafters Double Dark Cream Porter”
Permanent link to “Mark Kopenski Winter Ale”
Permanent link to “Trappistes Rochefort 10”
Permanent link to “Belhaven Scottish Ale”
Permanent link to “Anderson Valley Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout”
Permanent link to “Grilled Lobster”
Permanent link to “Anchor Old Foghorn”
Permanent link to “Anchor Bock Beer”
Permanent link to “Anthony Mirabella Smoked Porter”
Permanent link to “Magic Hat Odd Notion (Winter 09)”
Permanent link to “Anchor Porter”
Permanent link to “St. Bernardus Witbier”
Permanent link to “Dogfish Head ApriHop”
Permanent link to “Unibroue La Fin Du Monde”
Permanent link to “Unibroue Maudite”
Permanent link to “Blue Point Winter Ale”
Permanent link to “Kona Longboard Island Lager”
Permanent link to “Redhook Winterhook Winter Ale”
Permanent link to “Middle Ages Wizard's Winter Ale”
Five Years of My…

Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo by Murat Kurnaz is a story of a man born, raised and living in Germany although he is Turkish. (Unlike the U.S. being born in Germany doesn't make you a citizen. There you go Tea Baggers, run with it. But I digress.) Anyhow, Murat was somewhat an average guy growing up as a German Turk. In his teen and young adult life he was busy having fun and running around. But once he met the girl whom he wanted to marry, he decided to reconnect with his Islamic faith and become a good Muslim. Knowing his family would not approve, he and a friend planned and then left to study Islam in Pakistan. Ordinarily that wouldn't have been a problem except they went in October of 2001, just as the U.S. began it's invasion of Afghanistan… …more

Permanent link to “Five Years of My Life”
Permanent link to “Redhook Slim Chance Light Ale”
Permanent link to “Harpoon Winter Warmer”
Permanent link to “Blue Moon Full Moon Winter Ale”

August 2010

Shoot the Damn Dog

This was the book that started me off on my reading biographies kick. I didn't know it at the time, but I'd be back for many more… Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression by Sally Brampton. Sally worked in the fashion industry in the UK for many years before launching the highly successful Elle magazine in the U.K. in 1985. Most would probably consider this a fantastic life, and it was filled with many of the trappings of the high life that the very wealthy typically lead. But behind the successful and public persona was a woman living with severe depression, drug abuse and raging alcoholism. Few knew or even suspected there were problems. For this was still in the dark days of mental illness where the general public viewed metal illness as something that one brings on themselves and simply isn't dealing with. Sally struggles to maintain her public life as well as her marriage and raising her daughter all while the outside world sees nothing but tremendous success. But the…

Permanent link to “Shoot the Damn Dog”
Permanent link to “Summer's Fading”
Permanent link to “Red Mushroom”
Permanent link to “Pete's Wicked Ale”
Permanent link to “Anthony Mirabella Belgian Tripel”
Permanent link to “Southern Tier Old Man Winter Ale”
Permanent link to “Magic Hat Howl”
Permanent link to “Kona Wailua Wheat”
Permanent link to “North Coast Old No. 38 Stout”
Permanent link to “Anthony Mirabella Wit”
Permanent link to “Smuttynose S'muttonator”
Permanent link to “Rogue Mocha Porter”
The further decline…

I've been a fan of Magic Hat brewing for a number of years now and even visited the Artifactory and picked up some swag while on vacation in Vermont. But since their expansion and then acquisition of Pyramid Breweries I feel they've been in decline. I like Pyramid's beers as well, although I haven't had one in quite some time so I don't know if they've declined as well. And it gets grimmer yet… Earlier this week I heard they were being sold. So now with the news they are being acquired by a mega-brewer, one that churns out "quality" products —AKA swill, like Genesee and Dundee beers, might it all just be over? I always liked their quirkiness, but can't imagine this is going to be a positive move for beer drinkers. But I get it, if I were a stock holder —particularly from the early days, I would be stoked! It's an investment that seems it's about to payoff nicely. Welcome to the sad and backwards world of "Quantity over Quality." :(

Permanent link to “The further decline of Magic Hat”
Permanent link to “Thirsty Dog Old Leghumper”
Permanent link to “Spaten Dunkel”

July 2010

Permanent link to “Rogue Mocha Porter”
Permanent link to “Anthony Mirabella Rye IPA”
Permanent link to “Mark Kopenski Honey Brown Ale”
The Mythical Man…

Before going on my biography binge, the last technical book I read was The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition) by Frederick P Brooks. This is a must read for anyone who works in software engineering and/or management. I've worked in this field for nearly two decades, but sadly hadn't read this "must read". Discussing this one day with my Lead Engineer, Anthony, he was dumfounded that I hadn't read it. A couple of days later he showed up in my office with his copy. (Thank You Anthony!) I was reading something else at the time so this sat for a while at home before I finally got around to it. Those who don't work in the industry might not be familiar The Mythical Man-Month by name. But I'm guessing that if you've worked for very long you've witnessed it in some form. So what is? The basic idea is that "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later". This idea is known as Brooks's law. For a real…

Permanent link to “The Mythical Man-Month”
Child Custody…

Meet Dwayne Lamont Moten. Unfortunately you can't because he has a previous engagement with Charles Darwin. You see, Mr. Moten decided that Mr. Darwin should mediate his child custody dispute. So as you can see, the child custody issue has been resolved. Unfortunately for his rocket scientist friend, Jacob Wheeler he's got himself a new problem, a murder rap. And I say "new problem" because this makes that "unrelated aggravated robbery charge" seem reasonable.

Permanent link to “Child Custody, Darwin Style”

June 2010

Permanent link to “One Word: beach”
New Topic: Books

About a year or so back I actually started reading regularly. It's been something I've been wanting to do more and more as time goes by. I never used to be a big reader and when I did I generally read a lot very dry technical reading. But now I've been reading what I call "real books". I've really gotten into reading biographies so that's overwhelmingly what I've been reading. Anyhow, I thought I'd start a new blog topic to catalog what I've been reading. Don't expect much more than a capsule summary of the book, I'm not doing this to wax poetically in-depth about the books I'm reading. Just getting around to creating this topic has taken way longer than it should have!

Permanent link to “New Topic: Books”
Hitching The Wrong…

So back in November I announced EOL: PolarBlog and my plans to migrate my blog to Chyrp. I don't have a lot of time available for playing around online these days, thus why it's been over 6-months and I still haven't moved. I had made progress, contributed a few module fixes back to the project and only had a minor data transfer issue to resolve. We're on the homestretch. Well, that was until a few weeks back when I found that

Permanent link to “Hitching The Wrong Horse”

May 2010

Permanent link to “Dogfish Head Festina Pêche”
Permanent link to “Great Divide Wild Raspberry Ale”
Permanent link to “Gritty McDuff's Pub Ale”
Permanent link to “Southern Tier 422 Pale Wheat Ale”
Isn't that always…

My wife and I bought a bird book —A Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern and Central North America a couple of years ago. My girls also liked to look at it and occasionally would wander off with it. Thus when it disappeared last Fall I presumed they had "put it somewhere" which had turned into "never to be found". One plausible explanation was that it wound up mixed with the recycling and went out with that months ago. We've talked of replacing it to which Mary Lou always replies "You know as soon as we buy one, we'll find the old one." Knowing she's missed having it, particularly in the Winter, I decided to buy her (OK, us) a new one for Mother's Day. Being slow to get around to ordering it, and being unwilling to spend $10 to have it shipped before last weekend —which she agrees with for the record, it came yesterday. Being the creative guy I am, I not only bought the replacement book, but I also bought The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern…

Permanent link to “Isn't that always the case?”
The Vending Machine…

Update below the vending machine… Are you a hearty soul? Are you capable of completing The Vending Machine Challenge!? Personally I can't imagine even trying it. But I've got $10 ($50 total) riding on a coworker that started an attempt at 9am this morning. So what do you have to do to win the bet? Eat one of each item, left to right, top to bottom (less the gum and hard-candy row at the bottom). This amounts to 35-items in 8-hours, thatâ€™s more than 1-item every 15-minutes. He's about 4 hours in and is currently eating a bag of Act II Butter Microwave Popcorn at the beginning of row 3. Basically he's got 4 more hours to eat 4 more rows. I've pegged him to give up at row 4, item 4 Jack Link's Beef Jerky. I'll update this with the outcome and some statistics tomorrow. Until then, here's what he's up against. :) So Eric started with a fury and did well with the first nine items. But then there was the Andy Capp Hot Fries. Those nearly proved to be his undoing shortly after…

Permanent link to “The Vending Machine Challenge!”

April 2010

Four Things for…

Found in an old export from my Palm III somewhere between 2001 and 2005. It was labeled "Colin" —my son, and as I recall it was from when he was struggling in school. OK, one of the many times he struggled in school…much like his father unfortunately ;) Discipline Dedication Diligence Responsibility Specifically this was in regard to his fairly regular inability to stay on top of doing a good job on his school work and turning it in…on time. He would have been 9 to 13 at the time, but I still think these are valid today not only for him, but for all of us.

Permanent link to “Four Things for Colin”

March 2010

Permanent link to “Atlas Brew Works 54-61 IPA”
Permanent link to “Anthony Mirabella Black and Huge Robust Porter”
Permanent link to “Abita Turbodog”
Permanent link to “North Coast Ruedrich's Red Seal Ale”
Permanent link to “Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine (2009)”
Permanent link to “Shipyard IPA”
Pluto is a Planet!

A while back at work one of our daily "Fact or Crap in Spaaaaaaaaace" questions, the question I believe was "How many planets are there?" I viewed this as a trick question —not terribly uncommon in FoC. I knew the answer was going to come back as "8", but I, as the curmudgeonly old man at work, answered "9" which is the correct answer…at least when I learned about the planets. But for FoC I was incorrect because it's answer is based on the current —and incorrect in my mind, definition of what is a "planet". So, who's right? Well, it depends who you ask. From February 18, 1930 until August 24, 2006 the answer was an equivocal "9". But after that, the answer became "8". What? Well, you see, back in 2006 the International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly voted on a number of resolutions including numbers 5A, 5B, 6A and 6B. The passage of these resolutions changed everything by formally defining what…

Permanent link to “Pluto is a Planet!”

January 2010

Permanent link to “2009 Darwin Award Winners!”