Good News: the WCG administrators have advised me that Fred B has been out of town and is going to be in touch. Wheeewww (wiping brow); that's a relief because I seriously thought that maybe some tragedy had occurred. Fred has apparently advised them that he is going to activate the feature to enable members to contact him directly via email.

Bad News (sort of of): our team will be passed again tonight -- this time by the Prohardver Team, which definitely deserves it. That will drop us to #84. Another team is coming up very fast -- the MyChat@Taiwan team should pass us in about 13 days (just a day or two before our birthday/anniversary) ... and drop us to #85.

Other teams that are coming on strong are the China Grid Team, Combined Torrent Communities, and Minnesota Crunchers, but I believe we have enough of a lead that we might be able to make it to the end of the year before they catch us.

My goal is to try to keep us in the Top 100 as long as possible, but that is getting hard to do without more crunching. PLEASE try to recuit for us.

EDIT: Forgot to mention brewing; I'm getting ready to bottle three batches right now, but I'm still awaiting an order of base grain, so I can't brew yet.

Thanks.

Just quick note on points: I have been unable to get additional units at any other companies to participate in WCG (no one believes in it when their own computers are involved).

I will, however, be adding two personal machines over the next couple of months: A Core2 for which I need the CPU and board (and might just buy the Core2 Quad, as they're down under $285 for the top end), and an AMD FX64 x2 @6400+ for which I only need the CPU (as soon as they're 65 nm so they don't burn themselves out when running at 100% 24/7).

That should cause a couple of points to be added per day...

FB

Well, Bill, they actually aren't bad re drinking (and the cops don't mind if you stumble back to the hotel, as long as you don't drive...) and one of them (Chile) makes some of the finest wine in the world (nothing quite like a day in the vineyard...) Most of my time was spent inside ore processing plants at open pit mines (hard hats, boots, mud, chemicals...) and up in the Andes, or the Tetons (Idaho and Wyoming, brief stops in Utah). It was odd, though, coming up to the processing plant on the side of just one more mountain, thinking by now it's just a big hill with some white stuff on the top, and seeing this little square dot on the side of this big hill, and realizing that it's a building about 150 feet tall and 1/2 mile long. Yeah, it was time to come home.

If I could figure out how the *&#$(@ to insert a picture into this thing, I would.


Meanwhile, I've added a couple of old warhorse machines to BOINCing for this team (dual CPU Xeon p3 and an Athlon 2400+). I don't expect much more than wheezing out of them, but every wheeze helps.

For you US types, Newegg has a 500GB SATA 3.0 7200 rpm Seagate (St3500630NS I think, though my memory could be slipping, it's something close) for $119. It's got no information anywhere, and it's specs can't be found on Seagate's web site. It turns out to be an OEM only drive not for general public release. If you look at the similar "AS" series drives priced the same, they do not have "NCQ" or native command queuing. briefly, this is the same technology that has made SCSI drives to must better in servers than ATA (PATA or SATA), until now. The drive is able to 'queue up' several data requests at once, and figure out the optimal path to retrieval all of the data the fastest. Old drives were a "first come first served" system - OK in Windows 3.1 and 95, but "desktop" operating systems today are more complex than servers were in those days (Netware? LanTastic? Lan Manager? OK, enough nostalgia.. )

I got two drives today, along with an Intel board for Core2Quad processor. I got more megahertz, but less money for beer... I must be getting old Still and all, the team's stats should go up by whatever amount a 9.6GHz processor can handle.


Calabasitas Nachos
(football food comes to the dinner table)
Recipe by Fred B (made up about 4 hours ago...)
(C) Copyright only if you intend to make money on the recipe, otherwise, have at it!

1/2 lb ground beef
1 zucchini or Mexican Grey squash, cubed
1 summer squash (yellow), cubed
1/2 lb fire roasted corn
1/2 lb Monterey Jack, cubed
1 packet taco seasoning
1/2 onion, cut up
1/2 red bell pepper, cut up
1/2 tsp garlic
2 shakes ground cinnamon

salt & pepper as needed

In microwave proof bowl, cook onion, red bell pepper, garlic with 1/2 of the taco seasoning. About 2 minutes, until bell pepper is tender.

In medium low skillet, cook ground beef and squash with other 1/2 of taco seasoning. Add corn when beef is mostly cooked, then shake cinnamon and mix around.

Mix in microwaved items, allow to simmer (uncovered) to remove any excess liquids. Adjust salt/pepper.

At the last 30 seconds, add in Jack cheese, and mix in completely.

Serve over warmed tortilla chips.

An IPA I brewed in my own glassware (actually from a brewery in Michigan named Bell's Brewery -- convenient, wouldn't you say )

Hi, Peter, and welcome to our group. TWENTY-FIVE PLUS YEARS of brewing; that's great. I've brewed for only 10+ years ... or maybe it's 12 ... I can't really remember for certain, although it doesn't really matter.

I'm in the process of mashing a batch right now -- an ESB -- and will follow it with another batch which I haven't decided upon yet. I was just sitting down to use BeerToolsPro to find or design a recipe when I decided to check my emails and this thread.

I remember seeing your post that you had joined. Thank you.

Cheers.