Green Smoothie - Day 15

I found that using Limeade and Orange Juice was very convenient, it added zing and liquid all at the same time.  The down side was the sugar.  So I decided to ditch the limeade and use an actual lime.  I also changed to Organic apples to skip the waxy feeling left in my mouth after eating/drinking the apple.  I've added carrots to the mix, and I love adding blueberries.  The fun got punched up a notch by freezing the blueberries which makes it much easier to deal with and makes it more smoothie like because of the cold.

All said, I think removing limeade was a big fail!  This was the most gross smoothie I have made yet!

The other down side to all this is it is taking me twice as long as usual to prep my "food" as it did when making oatmeal.  That means instead of 10mins for cooking, eating, and cleaning up my oatmeal it now takes me 20mins to wash, blend, and cleanup... then I drink it in the car on the way to work.  Maybe if I got a bigger blender (BlendTec) it would be faster.

For the time being, I will be moving back to limeade and embracing the sugar!

Green Smoothie - Day 8

The pounds are just melting off... no, not really.  In fact, there has been no change to my waist line.  I do feel better all around though!  Both Heather and Connor got sick and I was left relatively unscathed so that's something too.  I'm not sure if I will begin to see weight loss since I might be eating more at other times to "make up" for eating lawn trimmings.

I've tracked my nutrition and am surprised at the results.  By the time I eat my peanut butter oatmeal lunch I will have 50% or more of my RDI of most nutrients!  I'm still way light on some items like B12.  Sardines seem to be a good source of B12, but yard clippings, oatmeal, peanut butter, and sardines hardly sounds appetizing.  Don't get me wrong, I like sardines when prepared like tuna, otherwise, crunching through bones and guts are not a great prospect.  And no, I will not be adding sardines to my blender!

Most people I've talked to have asked why I don't just take a multi vitamin or eat some nice cooked veggies... I don't like to take pills and I don't like all the chewing required for veggies.  I guess it doesn't make sense to some, but the best part is, it doesn't have to make sense!  I am increasing my nutrition and thats not a bad thing!  Now, where are those sardines...

Green Smoothie - Day 2

Day two of Yard Clipping breakfast has turned out well. I still have a bit of a headache but I think it might be unrelated... or its all the free radical toxins leaving my body*

I upped the kale by an additional stalk and added berries:

5 stalks of kale

4oz of Limeade

4oz Orange Juice

1 Gala Apple

~ 1 Cup of Blueberries

I'm thinking I might invest in a BlendTec (http://www.willitblend.com/) but I'm not sure if I really wanna spend $400 on a blender that will probably wake up the neighbors let alone my family.  I was thinking of dedicating a cupboard to the blender, but in a kitchen that is smaller than most prison cells I'm not sure the wife will be on board... unless the blender can guarantee me washboard abs, I think she would be fine with that.

---- notes ----
*Like Cartman, "I hate hippies! I mean, the way they always talk about "protectin' the earth" and then drive around in cars that get poor gas mileage and wear those stupid bracelets - I hate 'em! I wanna kick 'em in the nuts!"

Green Smoothie - Day 1

Last night I made my first "green smoothie" consisting of four stalks of kale, two apples, some limeade, and ice. It looked like vomit and smelled like lawn clippings. It taste okay but had a sandy texture since there was so much fiber. It seemed healthy though, and I was hopping it would keep me feeling full... It sorta did.

About three hours later I found myself in the restroom cursing them what thought up green smoothies! It was powering trough me with the force of nutrients and the biting pain of fiber. I fully expected to see my actual stomach.

After some forty-five minutes or so I felt like I might as well just go to sleep since this was probably gonna get worse before it got better. It is now the morning (four hours after I got to sleep again) and I am committed to eating another one of these gut busting yard waste soups. The up shot is I didn't have to buy anything but the "edibles" since my lovely wife has an awesome mixer.

As I choke down another slurry of green slop I repeat to myself a often missed phrase from an Pink's music video "Stupid Girls"; "[vomit sound] I wanna be skinny" (http://youtu.be/BR4yQFZK9YM?t=2m12s)

Hate the person, Love the Righteous Intent.

A friend of mine posted something about too many crying babies at church.  Some comments that followed took the thread to a totally different place.  I didn't see the pivotal post because it had been deleted by the time I got around to it.  It did bring up an opinion I have about people at church that I would like to share in case it can help someone else.

So many people feel they need to walk around "on egg shells" so they do not offend others at church.  This is something that never made sense to me.  I've heard of people leaving the church because someone didn't return a Tupperware dish or similarly lame thing.  I've also heard of the more understandable scenario of "the bishop punished me more harshly than someone else who did the same thing I did".  I am NOT saying that the people who leave the church are not totally and utterly offended by the actions of ward members or leaders.  I am also NOT saying that people who are offended are some lesser person than I am (I've left for other reasons).  I AM saying that you should not leave the church, or more accurately, allow your salvation to be impacted negatively by anyone!

I left, then came back to the church after thinking the rules were so restrictive and the clergy were such pompous A-Holes, I wanted to go at life my own way.  Upon my return I had to deal with some disciplinary actions that were relatively "light" but at the counsel of those people I still identified as selfish A-Holes.  It took many years of up and down attendance before I made worse choices which ended in disfellowshipment (not quite an excommunication so I can't speak to that level of feeling) again, at the hands of some people that I hated.

Throughout the times I had to deal with council from those I hated I could not doubt my own testimony, nor the new found testimony that these people, although pompous and sometimes unintelligent, were indeed in touch with the same spirit that was strengthening me.  I would think to myself, "how does this terrible person, so cocky and pompous, know exactly what topic needs to be discussed" (their words were still their own but the topic and reason they brought the subject up was inspired).

It was during these years that I formulated the opinion that we are all different and that is a good thing.  I might hate you personally, your way of communicating, your attitude, your face, and you might hate me for the same reasons, however, we can both move toward the shared divine goal or task set before us.  Much like "hate the sin not the sinner" I decided to "love the progression and not the person."
If someone offends you and you are thinking "that person is a leader in the church and so if they are full of 'it then the church must be too" then I implore you to hit your knees and talk to the Lord about it.  This might be what was meant by "pray for your enemy" but whatever you do, don't get frustrated and leave because some A-Hole said or did something stupid... those other people are not worth your eternal salvation!

*Feel free to share your comments, I hope this can help someone.  Also, if I've offended you with what I have said, I am sorry.  You are entitled to your own opinion, as am I.  You did not live my life just like I did not live yours and we have arrived at our own respective places based on our experiences.  If I offended you then please try and take my advice and do not let what I've said negatively impact you at all.

-- Ivan Eugene Lawrence II

Nerd Stuff I always forget:

I always seem to be forgetting stuff.  My Sister uses recall as her benchmark of how our aging mother is "doing" brain wise.  When hearing some of the stuff she expects Mom to remember I think I must be loosing it too, and I'm 45yrs younger than my Mom!

>Rsync

rsync is a cool little app that has been around for ages, it allows you to copy stuff from one system to another using ssh.

rsync -avhPn --del -e 'ssh -p xxxxx' --exclude 'Dir_of_BigFiles' ~/Personal/ user@remote_host:Personal/

the -n means "dry-run" so it pretends to copy stuff but doesn't. -a means archive (most likely what you want for files like personal photos), -v for verbose incase something goes wrong, -h for human readable sizes, -P for progress, and --del for delete stuff on the destination that is not on the source (so be careful with paths, hence -n).

I run this on my work laptop to sync the personal files (mostly pictures of my kid) from there to my home server.  My home server is allowing ssh incoming on a high port (to keep the script kiddies away) and I keep forgetting the syntax to rsync over ssh on a non standard port.  Oh, I also exclude the directory with big files (movies) since my bandwidth at home is kinda limited.

>SSH tricks

ssh is one of the best nerd tools around!  I use it for connecting to my home when on the road and as a poor mans vpn to my home for web browsing:

ssh -DN 8080 user@host -p xxxxx

The -D dynamically links the local port 8080 (this is on my laptop) through ssh to the host (my home server).  The I configure my browser to use a SOCKS proxy on 8080 and BLAM, I'm on my local network surfing the internet or any other web based service I have at my home (XBMC, DD-WRT, development web pages, etc)
The -N means don't bother giving me an interactive shell, meaning, the terminal prompt on my laptop can't use the ssh connection through the terminal (ie, although I have an ssh connection open I can't do normal ssh stuff through this window) which is nice because it keeps the tunnel from closing because of a time-out.

This also works for connecting any to any TCP port within the network of the host (home) so if I want to use VNC I can

ssh user@host -NL 5900:additional_host:5900

The -L is for linking a single port, this passes traffic from my laptop port 5900 through "host" into "additional_host" port 5900 allowing my laptop to VNC to localhost 5900 (screen 0) and see the remote system behind the network accessible via "host".

Another common use is to remotely connect and use screen for continued administration/development

ssh -t user@host -p xxxxx screen -dR Ivan

This tells ssh to make a connection to the host system (home) as "user" (me) on port xxxxxx and launch screen connecting to or creating a session called Ivan.  The -t forces the creation of a "terminal" which means, if you do not have -t having ssh launch some applications fail.  Lots of awesome tricks with ssh, I'll put more in the future.
If you are in need of sending command substitution variables to get the remote system to add the current time to the name of a file that you are creating so need to put an escape character  before the $ or you will get the command substitution of the local system.  [ex: ssh root@ "zip -r /path/to/dir/\$(date +%F-%H_%M)-\$(hostname | grep -i something | awk '{print \$2;}')-logs.zip /path/to/things/to/zip"] [hint: notice the \ in front of all the $'s]

>GNU Screen

GNU screen gives a server admin the ability to connect to a multi-user terminal/shell or just a persistent shell session that can be disconnected from and re connected to later without interrupting the commands being run.  Lets say I am going to parse a bunch of files looking for duplicates and I'm working on bonding a few NICs together for additional functionality, and I have a little loop running to monitor uptime on a switch, etc, etc, all within a network I access through a ssh server.  I connect and launch screen session and use a bunch of screen windows (or multiple session) to manage all those tasks... then, when I'm heading home and want to pick it all up once I'm there, I disconnect before I leave and reconnect to that same screen session(s) later as if I never left!

Of course screen is all configurable with options for making life a little easier:

   #All single lines

   #shutoff the start up message
startup_message off
   #allow a big scroll back buffer so you don't "loose" anything
defscrollback 5000
   #allows screen redraw for some apps like VIM or LESS
altscreen on
   #give me my normal prompt
shell -/bin/bash
   #give me some "tabs" at the bottom of the screen to help me visualize where I am
caption splitonly "%{= wK}%-w%?%F%{= bw}%:%{= Wk}%? %n %t %{-}%+w %-= "
   #same but not just when split

hardstatus alwayslastline "%{= B}%H (ctl-a) %{= r}[ %{= d}%Y-%m-%d %c:%s %{= r}]%{= d} - %{= wk}%-Lw%{= Bw} %n$f*  %t %{-}%+Lw %-= :)"
   #pre-launch screen windows with different options#
   #ssh to my home and launch screen there
screen -t ssh-home 0 ssh -t -D 8080 user@host -p xxxxxx screen -dR Ivan
   #ssh to a VM on my laptop
screen -t ssh-VM 1 ssh -t user@192.168.10.101 screen -dR Ivan
   #ssh to a work system in the lab as a comon host but use my .screenrc config
screen -t ssh-lab 2 ssh -t user@host screen -dR Ivan -c .screenrc.Ivan
   #ssh to a freelance location to work on their systems
screen -t freelance 4 ssh -t user@host screen -dR Service
   #give me a normal shell prompt
screen -t bash 5

So I can just launch screen and let it connect to all the places I "usually" go via ssh.  It could also be running scripts or other apps so learn about the .screenrc file.

>Read a text file in a zip without extracting

use less to read a text file in a zip:

unzip -p [archive.zip] [inner/zip/path/to/file.txt] | less

unzip -c [archive.zip] [inner/zip/path/to/file.txt] | less

I think this is a good nerd start!  I'm gonna try and keep this up to date to concatenate all the useful nerd info I find out there.

Back from Vacation

     I was just on vacation with my wife's family in Idaho/Montana/Wyoming (Yellowstone, etc).  Upon reflection of the trip I have to admit (and I hope this doesn't hurt anyones feelings) what I enjoyed most was the constant company of my little boy Connor and relaxing with my lovely wife!

     I spent a week getting to follow/chase my little 1.5yr old around nature!  He and I saw new bugs he has not ever seen before, we found new stuff to jump from and climb, and he reminded me that just about anything can be wildly entertaining!  We through rocks into the creek and at nothing, we found flowers and plants, we were covered in dirt, and basically had an awesome time being boys... I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the company of all the other people there, I'm just so glad I had so much time to spend with my Connor.  And to you stay at home parents, although you have the most difficult job, you should count yourselves lucky to spend so much time with your kids, they are a gift!

     Also, another treat was seeing Heather playing with Connor!  Usually, by the time I get home from work all of us are tired and cranky, and Sat/Sun are usually packed with activities so having time to play while we're all rested with no agenda... priceless!

     Oh, and sorry to my family, I did not think of taking many pictures, we were mostly just playing.