We just dropped out of the Top Half Percent ... ... but at least we're still in the Top 100, at least for awhile longer.

Teams I'm tracking:
http://tinyurl.com/27zlfc
http://tinyurl.com/yrh8wm
http://tinyurl.com/29z9v6
http://tinyurl.com/2a9ucc

Cheers.

Hi, Dave, ... and Fred and everyone else. Thanks for posting, and I'm sorry it's taken so long to reply. Glad to hear that you're still plugging away for us.

Not much going on around here anymore, chat wise. Looks like we will drop to #95 tonight ... and 100 is getting mighty close. However, I still have some GREAT news. our team has been doing fantastic for the past ten days, and did especially well yesterday and Friday. This is just what we've been needing. I've been hoping that we can pass "IBM 26RA LoveTeam" before we drop below a hundred to help keep us in the Top 100 just a little bit longer, and although we're getting very close to 100, we are actually going to do it. ... and we might even be able to catch Team "Leadmar ( Russia )" before slipping below a hundred.

Yesterday we scored 94,728 points -- the highest since 3/12/2007 over 11 months ago -- which actually ranked us #100 for points yesterday. Our average for the past ten days is 84,890 and for the last three days it's 89,750. Let's keep up the GREAT work!!!

At a less conservative rate of 80,000 points per day, we will pass "IBM 26RA LoveTeam" in exactly three weeks -- the first time to pass a team in quite a while. It will feel good. "Leadmar ( Russia )" is going to take a bit longer -- about 75 days if they hold their rate and we maintain 80k ... but a lot quicker if we keep us this new head of steam -- maybe even within 60 days. Looking behind us, I'm happy to predict that this should keep us in the Top 100 until at least our birthday in November and possibly even until sometime next year ... if we can sustain this production rate and other teams we're watching don't raise it up much -- and there are no comets coming in from outer space at several hundred thousand points per day. They are real killers ... but GREAT for the WCG and humanity, of course.

The teams that I'm keeping an eye on are as follows:
http://tinyurl.com/27zlfc
http://tinyurl.com/396bty
http://tinyurl.com/2ovcnv
http://tinyurl.com/2od4uz

On the brewing end, I didn't get to brew this weekend like I hoped; too many other things going on ... but I did manage to do some bottling. I'm going to try to make a pizza-flavored beer next time I brew -- maybe next Saturday. Have been engaged in some discussion; look here for some idea of what I mean: http://www.mammamiapizzabeer.com

I'd also like to mention that my 'Grow-Hops' Yahoo Group now has 1,029 members, and we're still less than 9 months old. I sure wish I could recruit for our team the way I've recruited for http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Grow-Hops -- but I can't put a scare into them like this hops shortage.

Thanks again to everyone on our team.

Cheers.

Hi Sarge! Thanks for stopping in. Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you, I have been trying to finish getting all my receipts scanned and entered for last year's taxes (I keep electronic records now, for two reasons. First, they're smaller and more fireproof, and second, since I am working on an encrypted file server build using OpenBSD Unix, they will be thief-proof also).

I have finally finished that, and thought I would check in before skipping off again for a few weeks due to a systems data conversion the second week of March.


To answer your second question first, yes I brew meads, ciders, cysers, all of that "wierd" stuff that doesn't involve grain or hops. Strange as it may sound, Arizona grows some pretty good apples (given enough ground water pumped up) and I may make more cider before it gets too hot. Mostly these days, I don't brew, primarily because I just don't drink alcohol any more (lost my taste for it !?) Only maybe once a month or so do I have a glass of wine.

Otherwise, here's the system. It uses a case with both a push and a pull 120mm fans, 450w PSU.

"Fire N Ice" system build
Intel Core2quad 2.4 GHz
BIOSTAR TForce TF7150U-M7 NVIDIA GeForce 7150 HDMI Micro ATX
2x1G Corsair XMS2 Model TWIN2X2048-6400C4
2x500G Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 32MB 7200 RPM SATA 3 in RAID 0
SONY/NEC OptiArc DVD R/RW dual layer

The name "Fire N Ice" comes from the two red LEDs on the motherboard and the purple/UV CCFL I installed in the case (3 window mostly transparent case) to light up the entry from the cars into the kitchen. It's not just a computer, it's a night light, too. My original board didn't have any LEDs on it, so the inside of the case was a nice blue-purple. Unfortunately, the original ICH9 chipset didn't work with XP in RAID, so I swapped the board for this Biostar model with two very bright red LEDs.


Cheers,
FB

Not only has 'ESL' sustained that rate, but they have consistenly increased their speed each and every day since my post, and yesterday they generated almost four MILLION points, making them #124 with a total of 32,423,629. At that rate they will now easily pass us in just four days, and given their progressive rate of growth, I actually expect them to post more than four million points tonight. No other team is close enough or fast enough to pass us before 'ESL' does, and we won't catch 'IBM 26RA LoveTeam' before then, either, so it looks like we'll drop to #96 in four more days. We should, however, recapture #95 a few days later -- in seven or eight days from now -- when we finally pass 'IBM 26RA LoveTeam'.

Here are the updated lists of teams to watch, although some have fallen by the wayside (slowed down) but I haven't removed them in case this is just a temporary lull:
http://tinyurl.com/2cwfqg
http://tinyurl.com/ytvkk2
http://tinyurl.com/2f2pl6
http://tinyurl.com/2x9yde

Thanks once again to everyone; please keep on crunching.

By the way, on the topic of homebrewing and the related field of hop-growing, my 'Grow-Hops ' group has now reached an astounding membership of 1,381 and we're not even ten months old yet.

Cheers.

Happy St. Patrick's Day