analog_kidd

Hoo Boy! I just checked on the wine and we are in full blown fermentation mode! The grape and apple are going nuts. The lemonade, not so much. I'm pretty sure the goopy stuff that was forming is just a bunch of foam, but there is barely any fermentation going on. We'll see what happens in a few days. Last time I made some wine, one batch went; crazy right away then fizzled out after a week or two. The other recipe started slow, but kept going for 6 or 7 weeks.

It looks like they just change the DNS setting on your computer. If that's the case, all you have to do to fix it is to check the box in the network setup that says " Obtain DNS Settings automatically". This will set your DNS to whatever is being advertised from your router, which is probably picked up by the router from your Internet Provider. One thing I always do is to modify my hosts file. When looking up an internet address, your computer always checks the hosts file first, then if it can't find the address there it checks with the DNS Server. I look for pre-configured hosts file on the Internet, Google HPHosts for example. The files will contain a list of site names, like www.acme.com and then the IP address of that site. Typically your hosts file will have one or two lines in it. These pre-configured files will be full of addresses that are either malicious, or annoying, like ads. What these hosts files do is point the address to nothing, so when a bad web page that is in the hosts file is attempted to be opened, instead of going to the page, you simply get a page not found error. For ads, you'll just see an empty box where the ad would have been. The ad blocking benefit is great. It will speed up your web browsing, and makes the pages less annoying. I always am startled when I go to someones else's PC and browse a site that I am familiar with. The page looks completely different on their PC. Mine is less cluttered, and loads quick. By the way, modifying the hosts file is a common technique used by malware. They will moidify it so that your antivirus updates page goes to nowhere, so you can never get updates. Or they will redirect you to another site. One way to combat this is to set the file to read-only, or set restrictive permissions on the file. If you find out the IP address of one site, you can fake out your computer to think the friendly name of one site goes to the IP of the different site. I do this for friends that don't want their kid on facebook any more. I edit the hosts file and point the facebook page to the IP address of some other page, like news, or Sessame street, or just blank so they get a page not found error. When fixing someones computer, the hosts file is one of the first things I look at to see if it has been modified.

I started a few more batches this weekend. I'm making a red grape, an apple, and a lemonade wine, all recipes from the .pdf that dralarms sent me. All of them use frozen juice concentrate.I mixed them up Saturday afternoon, and they are just now starting to ferment. The lemonade wine has this large mass of cloudy stuff forming in the top of the jug. It kind of looks like a big glob of wax. It may just be foam, I don't know. One of the recipes called for acid blend, which I didn't have. My book says that you can substitute lemon juice for it, so I tried that. I put it in the grape, which called for it, and I added it to the apple, which didn't call for it. I left it out of the lemonade, (duh). The apple recipe called for two containers of apple concentrate and one container of white grape juice. The store was out of white, so I bought a red instead. As I was mixing it up it occurred to me why the red was a bad idea. It's going to come out looking like red wine. Oh well, It should taste OK regardless. I did crack open a bottle from the batch I made last Fall. As expected, it tasted horrible. There was a very strong flavor of yeast in it, which is what I experienced when I bottled it. Not sure what I did wrong, or how to fix it this time. I did sweeten a glass of it with a teaspoon of sugar and endured it all. I must say it had a bit of a punch to it. I have another bottle from a different recipe I made at the same time last Fall that I plan on opening today. We'll see how that one goes. It also had a pungent odor when I bottled it, but not as bad as this first bottle. I'm taking better notes this time around. Last time I kind of lost track of which recipe I was using in each bottle.I'm starting a Word file with each recipe, adding my notes to it, tracking dates, and I labeled each bottle with the type of wine it is. I'm thinking about going and getting some better supplies from the wine store. I need some of the actual ingredients that are called for, like the acid blend, and yeast starter. I need something to stir it with that's better than the handle of a wooden spoon. I need some more bungs and airlocks. I got a nice collection of 1 gallon bottles. I don't want to try a 5 gallon batch until I get the process worked out.

My favorite line was the one about Raylan "disarming Quarrels". I'm still laughing about that.

What's on the other side of that wall? If there is an outlet there, you can tap into that and just put a new outlet box on the side we can see in the picture. Just find the studs the existing outlet is in between, find the same studs on this side of the wall and put a box in a little to one side or the other of the existing outlet.

Back when we had Comcast I think my IP remained the same nearly the whole time. But the free no-ip route would guarantee you can connect back to the house.

Where can a non-benefactor place a giveaway ad now?

The service you are looking for is called Dynamic DNS (or DDNS). no-ip,org is one, and they look pretty good as far as I can tell in the two minutes I spent on their site. Some home routers have a feature built into them to talk to a DDNS service so you don't have to have a computer doing the checking in. You might look in your routers config to see if it has this ability.

That reminds me of when my son bought his house, there was an outlet in one of the bedrooms that would intermittently not work. We plugged a light in to the outlet and started troubleshooting it. After checking and retwisting the splices and connections and making sure everything looked good, it all worked fine. Then it stopped again. After scratching our heads for a while, the light came back on. That's when I realized that his wife was doing laundry on the other side of the house. I shouted for her to turn on the light in the laundry room, and what do you know, the light came on in the bedroom! Someone had tapped into the laundry room circuit to power the bedroom outlet, but they tapped into a switched leg.

Fox news this morning had Huckabee on, and was throwing his name around as a possible choice. When asked if he would run with him, he said something about "not buying the corsage before you get a prom date" but he was smiling like it would be something he would certainly consider.

I heard that one of the options the Health Care proponents are hoping for if the Justices vote against the bill is that they overturn just portions of it. One of the justices this week said that is not their job, to sort through 2700 pages of a bill and find the pieces that are unconstitutional. If they find one little part that is unconstitutional, they'll send it all back. Looks like this is going to get very interesting!

I got my carry permit and I carry a gun so I can walk away from trouble, not walk towards it. In one respect I think what Bill says has some merit, but I don't think we should disarm everyone as a way to keep "well meaning" persons from looking for trouble.

Your challenge in splicing into an existing run will be getting enough slack to splice the two cut ends back together, and then tie the new line into it. You'll need at least a few inches of extra wire pulled from somewhere. Once you cut it, you might be able to pull some back and reroute it to cut a corner somewhere. Put all the splices into a junction box. Use wire nuts to connect them all together, and I like to wrap electrical tape around the wire nuts and wire, just to make sure they don't come loose. Make sure to get the cover for the box so everything stays put. In the wall you'll need to get what they call an "Old Work Box". It has little tabs that when you turn the screws attached to them, the tabs turn in behind the drywall and snug up. You can use a washer tied to string to fish a line down to the box. Like BKelm says, they make s tester that tells you when you are close to a live wire. Another test tool that is very handy is a little plug you stick in the outlet that tells you if the outlet is wired correctly. It has three lights on the front that light up differently for different conditions, such as no ground, or polarity backwards. They are fairly inexpensive. They can be used simply to tell if the outlet has power. No lights means no power. You can also pick up a multitester for about $10. Trust me, you'll find uses for one if you own it. You can use one to test for a live connection. Good luck and be safe.

Which Apple recipe are you using? I'm getting ready to start a new batch and was contemplating which recipe(s) to use. I've got a stash of about 6 1-gallon wine bottles I want to experiment with a few recipes. I've also got a 5-gallon carboy (from a plastic water bottle, less than perfect I know, but I'm going to try it) that I want to do a larger batch in. You sent me a pdf with recipes in it. Any recommendations from there?

When you buy one of those square nut things, buy a couple. Seems like I go through a bunch of them. I had an issue where the turret would not advance between pulls. I ended up replacing the sleeve and it started working again. I could not for the life of me see where the sleeve was messed up, but replacing it definitely fixed it.

I just bought Peterson's Edible Wild Plants book.Seems to be well laid out. There are a few pages of color photographs, but every other page that describes the plants has hand drawn black and white pictures. The descriptions are good, and they give good information on the plan't usage. There is also an index in the back of the book organized by use, so if you want to fix a salad, you can go to the greens section and it will list all plants that could be used in a salad. I'd love to do an outing in the woods and look for some of these plants. Anybody know of some plants that can be found in East TN that are edible that could get me started? The book covers eastern and central N. America, so there is a lot that I'm sure doesn't grow around here. There is so much in the book its almost too hard to get started.

I have a feeling that Raylan and Boyd will team up at the end and go after Quarrels. The opening credits show Raylan and Boyd together with guns blazing like they are after someone. I think the show will keep Duffy around, but I bet he betrays Quarrels just before Raylan and Boyd come. This is probably my favorite show on TV right now.

I grew up in Boynton Beach, just south of West Palm. We had "Bud's Chicken and Fish" which started out local and became a franchise. They had awesome hushpuppies. I always remember they had whole pieces of corn in them. That is how I always expect them to be now.

I was intrigued by the Countycomm Peanut Lighter and went and looked it up. I must have one! BTW, the Countycomm website is awesome. I'm a gadget freak and they have a bunch of them. I think some of my money is headed their way.

Wow, I totally skipped right over that paragraph. My bad. Reading is fundamental

I thought that property won at a tax lien sale did not officially become yours for one year after the sale. It remains the original owners, who have the right to pay you back with interest right up until just before the year is up. If there is a mortgage on the property, the bank that holds the mortgage often pays the bill. You might want to check it out, otherwise you might actually be trespassing.

One thing I always keep in mind when looking for a new knife is the orientation of the pocket clip. I like the hinge side to be facing down when it's in my pocket. I had one that went the other way once, and I could never get the hang of smoothly removing it from my pocket and opening it.

I think they should post a sign on his vehicle door that says "Drinking and driving prohibited". It works so well with gun crime.

In my earlier post, I was responding to the OP comment about state parks. I have never seen any bears, or evidence of any, in in state parks I've been backpacking in. I did a 3 day / 2 night trip last fall in the GSMNP, and while I personally did not see any bears, we met folks on the trail who had just crossed paths with a few. They all said the bears saw them and ran away. I have seen bears from my car while driving through the park. So, it would appear from my limited experience that the park has a fairly good population of bears. It may be due to the fact of the greater contiguous land mass, they have a better chance of reproducing and staying out of peoples way. I do carry a pistol when backpacking. I do also know that the GSMNP rangers take the bears very seriously, and don't like it when anyone else gets rid of them. I'd say if you actually used a gun to defend yourself from a bear, you would have a pretty good chance of spending some time in jail, or at the very least spending a lot of money on a lawyer. I still think the bear spray is the best option - for bears.

This is exactly how we do it too. I get my check, we take it to the bank and deposit it, and withdraw cash. My wife has it all figured out exactly how much and what bills. For instance, for a two week period, we each get a hundred bucks for gas and twenty for incidentals. I like mine in 50's and a 20, my wife likes hers in all 20's. She walks into the bank, hands them a list that says 7-$20, 2-$50, etc. When she gets home she puts the cash in envelopes for each of us.