After much work and the help of a great mixing engineer, Mr. Rich Wielgosz, I've completed, and released the first track to my Album, "Apathetic".
It's called "Gun Slinger" and was inspired by listening to popular rock tunes about the wild west and thinking, "most of these guys grew up on the coast and have never, ever, ridden a horse, I on the other hand have actually worked as a wrangler!" So, I sat down and hammered out a song over the top of a riff I'd been messing with. The track ended up with a few guitar parts with a touch of mandolin, some tasty slide guitar, and a little tambourine.
You can hear and purchase the tune at http://danielworth.bandcamp.com, player at bottom, with more options to come.
I'm using the money raised from my songs to help fund my "500 Year Farm".
Thanks to everyone for supporting me.
Friday, February 1, 2013
500 Year Farm
In my post about my 500 year plan I talked a little at how I arrived at my dream but I didn't really spell out what that plan is. This post is to clarify what I want to do.
Step 1: Buy land in Colorado.
The ideal would be 80 acres but anything over 20 acres would fit my plan just not on the scale I was hoping for. I would prefer to have some water rights that would allow me to build ponds but that can be difficult in Colorado, though not impossible. I don't really care if the land has existing infrastructure other than it needs to have relatively close electrical hook up and be within a 30-45 minute drive of the Denver Metro area as that's a large part of my business plan. Something with some texture to the land would be best, e.g.:A bit of rock, a bit of hill, some valley, some elevation. Some existing forest or woodlot would be awesome. The most important part would be the ability to pay cash for the land so the cheaper the better $50,000 - $70,000 would be ideal and $100,000 as the top of my budget.
Step 2: Housing
Establish low cost short term housing on the land. The most likely candidate right now would be a single wide trailer. The important parts being enough room for the family to live for 2-5 years comfortably, low cost, and as little set up labor as possible. Again this housing would need to be paid for in cash. If I don't get banks involved, it takes the pressure off being profitable in the first year. I just need to break even and provide food for the family as I build up things on the farm to provide the stable income. This is important in eliminating the monthly rent we are currently paying to free that up to pay for farming projects as soon as possible.
Step 3: Complete earthworks
A large part of what I want to achieve will require shaping the land to maximize it's water usage and topsoil creation. Terracing, Hugelkulture, ponds and swales, as well as key-line plowing will turn the land into a carbon capturing, soil building machine that will outlast many generations. This is something that only has to be done once.
Step 4: Short term food production
Using the Hugelkulture beds and possibly a small greenhouse to begin growing enough annual and perennial food grown in poly-culture as possible for immediate use by my family with a hope of enough surplus to sell and begin building a client base.
Step 5: Begin Building a Food Forrest
This will happen alongside step 4. Using small herds and flocks of chickens, goats, and pigs to start building the land. Chicken are my tillers, pigs my plows and goats my brush hogs. I will be following their work with cover cropping and then planting what will become the over story of a food forest.
Step 6: Food Truck
This is where I plan on providing the majority of income for the farm and why I want to be close to Denver Metro. I want to change the world by knocking down the barrier between people and their food. I believe availability of local in season food isn't the only thing standing in the way of the "Eat Local" food movement. People go to a farmers market, buy a bunch of veggies, get them home, don't know how to prepare them and they rot in the fridge while they eat fast food. I think people are so separated from their food now that unless it's on their plate it doesn't matter how good it is for the planet or their health, or how tasty it is. People have forgotten how to eat anything other than boneless skinless chicken breast in a prepackaged and pre-seasoned microwave pouches with a side of macaroni and cheese. I want to not only produce amazing food, but I want to deliver food experiences for people that changes the way they look at their food. I don't want to mimic what a grocery store has and try to compete just on quality. I want people to get back to eating whats growing right now, right here and wasting as little of an animal as possible. I want to use the food truck to provide lunches, produce, and meat to places around Denver. Meals that show how to eat seasonal, from a local farm that produces food that benefits the earth, the farmer, and the consumer. Guilt free food that tastes amazing. The food truck gives me a certified commercial kitchen letting me turn everything the farm produces into a salable product that blows away anything else you can get. With modern technology I can reach out to customers using Facebook and Twitter, process credit/debit cards on site, update people on what's ready that day and get it to them in the most convenient way possible.
Step 7: Building Long Term Housing
Once the farm is profitable, I want to build an earth friendly, high efficiency house that can be handed down for generations without draining the planet of endless resources. Other structures should be constructed too. I'd love to have small cottages on the farm for people to stay in as well as some meeting areas for various events.
Step 8: Refine and Enjoy
Once the major projects are finished the rest is making year after year improvements to get more diversity and better output. The great thing about permaculture is that it strives to let nature do as much of the work as possible and overtime just enjoying the farms outputs. It's never going to be easy, but it shouldn't be slave labor either.
So, is this exactly what's going to happen, probably not. I've left out all the hard work, money, and time that will be required as well as the luck aspect. The thing about planning is being flexible, like a reed in the wind, bending but not breaking. This is how I see things now, it could change tomorrow, in a week, a month, a year, 20 years, or 500 years. But I have a plan and I'm laser focused on it now.
Step 1: Buy land in Colorado.
The ideal would be 80 acres but anything over 20 acres would fit my plan just not on the scale I was hoping for. I would prefer to have some water rights that would allow me to build ponds but that can be difficult in Colorado, though not impossible. I don't really care if the land has existing infrastructure other than it needs to have relatively close electrical hook up and be within a 30-45 minute drive of the Denver Metro area as that's a large part of my business plan. Something with some texture to the land would be best, e.g.:A bit of rock, a bit of hill, some valley, some elevation. Some existing forest or woodlot would be awesome. The most important part would be the ability to pay cash for the land so the cheaper the better $50,000 - $70,000 would be ideal and $100,000 as the top of my budget.
Step 2: Housing
Establish low cost short term housing on the land. The most likely candidate right now would be a single wide trailer. The important parts being enough room for the family to live for 2-5 years comfortably, low cost, and as little set up labor as possible. Again this housing would need to be paid for in cash. If I don't get banks involved, it takes the pressure off being profitable in the first year. I just need to break even and provide food for the family as I build up things on the farm to provide the stable income. This is important in eliminating the monthly rent we are currently paying to free that up to pay for farming projects as soon as possible.
Step 3: Complete earthworks
A large part of what I want to achieve will require shaping the land to maximize it's water usage and topsoil creation. Terracing, Hugelkulture, ponds and swales, as well as key-line plowing will turn the land into a carbon capturing, soil building machine that will outlast many generations. This is something that only has to be done once.
Step 4: Short term food production
Using the Hugelkulture beds and possibly a small greenhouse to begin growing enough annual and perennial food grown in poly-culture as possible for immediate use by my family with a hope of enough surplus to sell and begin building a client base.
Step 5: Begin Building a Food Forrest
This will happen alongside step 4. Using small herds and flocks of chickens, goats, and pigs to start building the land. Chicken are my tillers, pigs my plows and goats my brush hogs. I will be following their work with cover cropping and then planting what will become the over story of a food forest.
Step 6: Food Truck
This is where I plan on providing the majority of income for the farm and why I want to be close to Denver Metro. I want to change the world by knocking down the barrier between people and their food. I believe availability of local in season food isn't the only thing standing in the way of the "Eat Local" food movement. People go to a farmers market, buy a bunch of veggies, get them home, don't know how to prepare them and they rot in the fridge while they eat fast food. I think people are so separated from their food now that unless it's on their plate it doesn't matter how good it is for the planet or their health, or how tasty it is. People have forgotten how to eat anything other than boneless skinless chicken breast in a prepackaged and pre-seasoned microwave pouches with a side of macaroni and cheese. I want to not only produce amazing food, but I want to deliver food experiences for people that changes the way they look at their food. I don't want to mimic what a grocery store has and try to compete just on quality. I want people to get back to eating whats growing right now, right here and wasting as little of an animal as possible. I want to use the food truck to provide lunches, produce, and meat to places around Denver. Meals that show how to eat seasonal, from a local farm that produces food that benefits the earth, the farmer, and the consumer. Guilt free food that tastes amazing. The food truck gives me a certified commercial kitchen letting me turn everything the farm produces into a salable product that blows away anything else you can get. With modern technology I can reach out to customers using Facebook and Twitter, process credit/debit cards on site, update people on what's ready that day and get it to them in the most convenient way possible.
Step 7: Building Long Term Housing
Once the farm is profitable, I want to build an earth friendly, high efficiency house that can be handed down for generations without draining the planet of endless resources. Other structures should be constructed too. I'd love to have small cottages on the farm for people to stay in as well as some meeting areas for various events.
Step 8: Refine and Enjoy
Once the major projects are finished the rest is making year after year improvements to get more diversity and better output. The great thing about permaculture is that it strives to let nature do as much of the work as possible and overtime just enjoying the farms outputs. It's never going to be easy, but it shouldn't be slave labor either.
So, is this exactly what's going to happen, probably not. I've left out all the hard work, money, and time that will be required as well as the luck aspect. The thing about planning is being flexible, like a reed in the wind, bending but not breaking. This is how I see things now, it could change tomorrow, in a week, a month, a year, 20 years, or 500 years. But I have a plan and I'm laser focused on it now.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
My 500 year plan.
Life is funny. There is almost no way to know what you will want out it when you start down the path of life, sometimes you get most of the way down a path just to find a fork that takes you in a totally new direction. Even if you know the fork is ahead there is almost no way to know what it is you choose until you are looking down both paths. OK, enough soliloquy.
It's been more than two years now that I've been interested in something called Permaculture. When I fist heard about it I knew I felt right away like I had found a missing piece of my life.
Since I was little I have dreamed of self sufficiency. I have always been interested in doing things myself, how things work and how to make things better. I've been obsessed with researching "perfect solutions" and making things from "scratch" most of my life. If I had to pinpoint the first thing that awakened this for me it would be when I read The Cay at around age 9 or 10. It's a book about survival where a privileged young white kid and a black man survive a ship wreck and the kid overcomes his prejudice. Next was the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen where a boy survives on his own after a plane crash leaves him stranded in the wilderness.After these was a book my brother turned me on to called My Side of the Mountain where a boy runs away from his life to survive in the woods on his own. Added to this list has to be a book my mother got me that I was obsessed with called Diary of an Early American Boy that highlighted the many skills required to survive in America's earliest days. My Mother was involved heavily in the "Wheat Ridge Historical Society" and I fell in love with traditional life skills. On television I loved watching the PBS show "The Woodwright's Shop" that detailed traditional woodworking skills; my favorite episode being where he builds his own log cabin from scratch. PBS sparked another love for me of BBC comedies, one of my favorites being a show called "Good Neighbors" where a suburban English couple drop out of corporate life to turn their suburban home into a self sufficient homestead. As I got older more and more things added to this obsession such as the PBS documentary "Alone in the Wilderness" a true story of a man who builds his own log cabin in the backwoods of Alaska and lives in it with a minimum of resources. When survival programming went mainstream I idolized "Survivorman" Les Stroud and to a much less extent Bear Grylls and his show "Man vs. Wild".
Another thing that caught my imagination as a child was gardening, my dad built me a small garden plot next to my mom's rock garden in our back yard when I was about 7 or 8. My mom contributed to my project by buying me Kids Gardening: A Kid's Guide to Messing Around with Dirt, a book that came with seeds and a plastic trowel. I followed the directions and grew a very small crop of vegetables. When I was about 12 I started taking care of the lawn and gardens around the house. I went to the garden center every year and helped my mom pick out plants for the various gardens. I turned over the soil and planted annuals and tended perennials. I came home every day from school and hand watered the various plants around the house till the yard took on an amazonian quality.
So, when I came upon Permaculture and the community around it felt like I had found the culmination of many life long passions. Permaculture, for the uninitiated, is a design philosophy, that is applied to designing ecological systems. Breaking down the jargon, it's a way to plan out a garden, farm, ranch or anything that provides output for human use in a way that mimics natural ecosystems and creates something that, more than sustainable, is restorative to the environment.
This brings me to my 500 year plan. I've talked with my wife many times in our 15+ year relationship about legacy, that I've always wanted to build something for my family that lives on generation after generation. Until I found Permaculture I didn't know what that something was. Now I know what I want. My wife is finishing college, so right now it's all planning. After she finishes school we move into the saving phase, then onto the action phase. I want to create a farm that provides as diverse an output as possible with as much biodiversity as possible. I don't want rows of crops, I want to create a managed land that will output food and income for the next 500 years. Something that the word "Sustainable" doesn't ever get used to describe. I want something that every year makes the land better than the year before.
So, if anyone asks me how my plan is going, I'll simply reply, "ask me in 500 years!"
It's been more than two years now that I've been interested in something called Permaculture. When I fist heard about it I knew I felt right away like I had found a missing piece of my life.
Since I was little I have dreamed of self sufficiency. I have always been interested in doing things myself, how things work and how to make things better. I've been obsessed with researching "perfect solutions" and making things from "scratch" most of my life. If I had to pinpoint the first thing that awakened this for me it would be when I read The Cay at around age 9 or 10. It's a book about survival where a privileged young white kid and a black man survive a ship wreck and the kid overcomes his prejudice. Next was the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen where a boy survives on his own after a plane crash leaves him stranded in the wilderness.After these was a book my brother turned me on to called My Side of the Mountain where a boy runs away from his life to survive in the woods on his own. Added to this list has to be a book my mother got me that I was obsessed with called Diary of an Early American Boy that highlighted the many skills required to survive in America's earliest days. My Mother was involved heavily in the "Wheat Ridge Historical Society" and I fell in love with traditional life skills. On television I loved watching the PBS show "The Woodwright's Shop" that detailed traditional woodworking skills; my favorite episode being where he builds his own log cabin from scratch. PBS sparked another love for me of BBC comedies, one of my favorites being a show called "Good Neighbors" where a suburban English couple drop out of corporate life to turn their suburban home into a self sufficient homestead. As I got older more and more things added to this obsession such as the PBS documentary "Alone in the Wilderness" a true story of a man who builds his own log cabin in the backwoods of Alaska and lives in it with a minimum of resources. When survival programming went mainstream I idolized "Survivorman" Les Stroud and to a much less extent Bear Grylls and his show "Man vs. Wild".
Another thing that caught my imagination as a child was gardening, my dad built me a small garden plot next to my mom's rock garden in our back yard when I was about 7 or 8. My mom contributed to my project by buying me Kids Gardening: A Kid's Guide to Messing Around with Dirt, a book that came with seeds and a plastic trowel. I followed the directions and grew a very small crop of vegetables. When I was about 12 I started taking care of the lawn and gardens around the house. I went to the garden center every year and helped my mom pick out plants for the various gardens. I turned over the soil and planted annuals and tended perennials. I came home every day from school and hand watered the various plants around the house till the yard took on an amazonian quality.
So, when I came upon Permaculture and the community around it felt like I had found the culmination of many life long passions. Permaculture, for the uninitiated, is a design philosophy, that is applied to designing ecological systems. Breaking down the jargon, it's a way to plan out a garden, farm, ranch or anything that provides output for human use in a way that mimics natural ecosystems and creates something that, more than sustainable, is restorative to the environment.
This brings me to my 500 year plan. I've talked with my wife many times in our 15+ year relationship about legacy, that I've always wanted to build something for my family that lives on generation after generation. Until I found Permaculture I didn't know what that something was. Now I know what I want. My wife is finishing college, so right now it's all planning. After she finishes school we move into the saving phase, then onto the action phase. I want to create a farm that provides as diverse an output as possible with as much biodiversity as possible. I don't want rows of crops, I want to create a managed land that will output food and income for the next 500 years. Something that the word "Sustainable" doesn't ever get used to describe. I want something that every year makes the land better than the year before.
So, if anyone asks me how my plan is going, I'll simply reply, "ask me in 500 years!"
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Running, the new hotness.
It's been a while since I've blogged, that is all I will say about that.
This blog post is about running, something I had convinced myself I was never going to be able to do or ever enjoy. Then, after trying it in a new way, I discovered not only can I do it, I can enjoy it.
My entire life I've had trouble running, I've never been much of an athlete, to be honest, let alone an endurance athlete. In school I struggled to finish most fitness tests but I NEVER finished a run in gym class, ever! I always got a cramp in my side, got winded and did that lonely walk of shame as more active kids lap me. I remember in junior high not even being able to complete the first lap of the run test, let alone the five that where supposed to follow. As I've gotten older and made numerous tries at getting into shape, usually the "look good naked" kind and not the "feel great" kind, I've tried running and always had problems. Usually, it was a problem of my knees hurting every time I ran. On top of that I would have the normal issues with not being able to pace myself, breathe and being super sore the next day.
So, what changed?!
Firstly, My brother brother started running, in part at the urging of his super athlete better half, using the coolrunning.com "Couch 2 5k" running program. Since he completed that run program he's kept it up and when I was at my heaviest, seeing his transformation is what inspired me to start trying to get in shape and be more healthy, including quiting smoking. Unfortunately, I tried this run program on my treadmill at the house and it just served to confirm that I didn't like running and it didn't like me. I sold the treadmill on Craigslist and gave up
Secondly, I had a friend who planted a seed in my brain by doing a podcast on barefoot running. I looked into it and thought it was interesting but never really seriously considered trying it.
Later, the fad of the Vibram FiveFinger shoe took hold and soon many of my friends, who also had never run in their lives, where walking around in these goofy looking toe shoes. Like most things that become popular with people that have no business buying them, I laughed at all the people succumbing to the mindless consumerism of something they perceive as "cool". These shoes serve a real purpose, after all, and where not intended to be worn into public bathrooms, something I have personally witnessed.
After getting into hiking and biking again I decided to try barefoot running as a way to diversify my workouts and spend some time with my wife who was also interested. I did a minimum of research, went outside without shoes on and ran the concrete path down to the road and back and....... it was bad, I got huge blisters on my big toes, the tops of my feet hurt and could hardly walk for a week. So back to the drawing board. This time I got a little more determined to give running a solid try, so I ordered a pair of huaraches from invisableshoe.com, basically a thin piece of car tire like material that you tie off to your ankle and are specifically designed for barefoot running. These protect your feet from surfaces and debris, like broken glass, but give you the full barefoot running feel. At the same time they allow me to keep my indie street cred by not giving in to wearing those mainstream toe shoes.
Next I needed a plan to get running, I turned back to the "Couch 2 5k" but with all it's run intervals and walking intervals I need a way to keep track of when I should be running and when I should be walking without staring at a watch and trying to do math the whole time. So, being the android geek I am, I searched the Google Play store for and application to help me out. What I found was a great app called RunDouble that had the option of buying the C25k run program. This app tracks the run and tells me, using text to speech, when I need to be running or walking, let's me share my results and check out all my stats. Also, it allows me to listen to podcasts, my one true love, while I run, pausing the audio when it needs to butt-in with some info.
The results, I'm one run away from finishing the 9 week run program, I've had no knee pain and a minimum of soreness, mostly calves. I can now run 30 minutes without stopping while breathing normally. I enjoy my early mornings running around the Lake and now that it's getting cold I've overcome my hatred of the treadmill. I should add that due to the fact most people wear shoes 100% of the time the joints on the tops of their feet fuse and when you first start running barefoot it takes a bit of time for these joints to free up and that part hurts. After the joints start working properly, for me it took about 3-4 runs, I didn't have any foot pain at all.
So, if you've ever wanted to get into running but didn't know where to start or if you've tried and not been able to overcome the knee pain. I hope you will learn from my journey and find a path for yourself. It's worth it!
This blog post is about running, something I had convinced myself I was never going to be able to do or ever enjoy. Then, after trying it in a new way, I discovered not only can I do it, I can enjoy it.
My entire life I've had trouble running, I've never been much of an athlete, to be honest, let alone an endurance athlete. In school I struggled to finish most fitness tests but I NEVER finished a run in gym class, ever! I always got a cramp in my side, got winded and did that lonely walk of shame as more active kids lap me. I remember in junior high not even being able to complete the first lap of the run test, let alone the five that where supposed to follow. As I've gotten older and made numerous tries at getting into shape, usually the "look good naked" kind and not the "feel great" kind, I've tried running and always had problems. Usually, it was a problem of my knees hurting every time I ran. On top of that I would have the normal issues with not being able to pace myself, breathe and being super sore the next day.
So, what changed?!
Firstly, My brother brother started running, in part at the urging of his super athlete better half, using the coolrunning.com "Couch 2 5k" running program. Since he completed that run program he's kept it up and when I was at my heaviest, seeing his transformation is what inspired me to start trying to get in shape and be more healthy, including quiting smoking. Unfortunately, I tried this run program on my treadmill at the house and it just served to confirm that I didn't like running and it didn't like me. I sold the treadmill on Craigslist and gave up
Secondly, I had a friend who planted a seed in my brain by doing a podcast on barefoot running. I looked into it and thought it was interesting but never really seriously considered trying it.
Later, the fad of the Vibram FiveFinger shoe took hold and soon many of my friends, who also had never run in their lives, where walking around in these goofy looking toe shoes. Like most things that become popular with people that have no business buying them, I laughed at all the people succumbing to the mindless consumerism of something they perceive as "cool". These shoes serve a real purpose, after all, and where not intended to be worn into public bathrooms, something I have personally witnessed.
After getting into hiking and biking again I decided to try barefoot running as a way to diversify my workouts and spend some time with my wife who was also interested. I did a minimum of research, went outside without shoes on and ran the concrete path down to the road and back and....... it was bad, I got huge blisters on my big toes, the tops of my feet hurt and could hardly walk for a week. So back to the drawing board. This time I got a little more determined to give running a solid try, so I ordered a pair of huaraches from invisableshoe.com, basically a thin piece of car tire like material that you tie off to your ankle and are specifically designed for barefoot running. These protect your feet from surfaces and debris, like broken glass, but give you the full barefoot running feel. At the same time they allow me to keep my indie street cred by not giving in to wearing those mainstream toe shoes.
Next I needed a plan to get running, I turned back to the "Couch 2 5k" but with all it's run intervals and walking intervals I need a way to keep track of when I should be running and when I should be walking without staring at a watch and trying to do math the whole time. So, being the android geek I am, I searched the Google Play store for and application to help me out. What I found was a great app called RunDouble that had the option of buying the C25k run program. This app tracks the run and tells me, using text to speech, when I need to be running or walking, let's me share my results and check out all my stats. Also, it allows me to listen to podcasts, my one true love, while I run, pausing the audio when it needs to butt-in with some info.
The results, I'm one run away from finishing the 9 week run program, I've had no knee pain and a minimum of soreness, mostly calves. I can now run 30 minutes without stopping while breathing normally. I enjoy my early mornings running around the Lake and now that it's getting cold I've overcome my hatred of the treadmill. I should add that due to the fact most people wear shoes 100% of the time the joints on the tops of their feet fuse and when you first start running barefoot it takes a bit of time for these joints to free up and that part hurts. After the joints start working properly, for me it took about 3-4 runs, I didn't have any foot pain at all.
So, if you've ever wanted to get into running but didn't know where to start or if you've tried and not been able to overcome the knee pain. I hope you will learn from my journey and find a path for yourself. It's worth it!
Monday, February 14, 2011
True Love
Well, it's Valentines Day and while I'm not a huge fan of the obligation to waste money on cards and flowers it doesn't mean that I don't have someone to show my love for. Since my wife and I have long had a tradition of not purchasing gifts for each other I will not be spending large amounts of money on marginally useful gifts for my wife.I don't think that love should be expressed by a corporation trying to tell us what love is. I'm going to skip temporary and commercial clichés and put pen to paper, or pixel to screen if we are being honest, and express my love for my wife publicly and fully.
For those of you who don't know, my wife and I where high school sweethearts. My wife was pregnant with our first child at the age of 17 and I dropped out of hight school to support my family. It's impossible to impress on someone who hasn't gone through a teen pregnancy how much is stacked against you. In many ways my wife would have been better off, in terms of assistance programs, if I had just ran away. We fought the odds and each other those first few years and many time it was a make or break situation. We've lived on almost nothing and made the best of it. Above all we've laughed as much as we've cried and loved exponentially more than we've fought.
What we've created is our own world together where we are honest, even to a fault, and not have it leveraged against us. We can laugh, even at each other's expense, and cry together, even if we don't fully understand the reasons. I'm pushed every day to be a better person than I ever though possible. We are fast approaching having spent more of our lives together than apart and I wouldn't change that for anything. It is one thing to say that you wake up every day feeling more in love with your partner and another to experience it year after year. I may have been young when I married my wife but I found the best one out there and there is no way in hell I'm letting go.
I'm not a talented writer, I'm not a poet, I'm not hopelessly romantic. I'm just a grateful husband who has loved his wife more than anyone can fathom.
Kacie, I love you.
For those of you who don't know, my wife and I where high school sweethearts. My wife was pregnant with our first child at the age of 17 and I dropped out of hight school to support my family. It's impossible to impress on someone who hasn't gone through a teen pregnancy how much is stacked against you. In many ways my wife would have been better off, in terms of assistance programs, if I had just ran away. We fought the odds and each other those first few years and many time it was a make or break situation. We've lived on almost nothing and made the best of it. Above all we've laughed as much as we've cried and loved exponentially more than we've fought.
What we've created is our own world together where we are honest, even to a fault, and not have it leveraged against us. We can laugh, even at each other's expense, and cry together, even if we don't fully understand the reasons. I'm pushed every day to be a better person than I ever though possible. We are fast approaching having spent more of our lives together than apart and I wouldn't change that for anything. It is one thing to say that you wake up every day feeling more in love with your partner and another to experience it year after year. I may have been young when I married my wife but I found the best one out there and there is no way in hell I'm letting go.
I'm not a talented writer, I'm not a poet, I'm not hopelessly romantic. I'm just a grateful husband who has loved his wife more than anyone can fathom.
Kacie, I love you.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Changing Things Around
I've meant to segregate my blog into different blogs for a while.
The main reasons are:
Thank you fair readers and update your RSS feeds appropriately.
The main reasons are:
- I want a place where I can blog about politics and as this feed aggregates on non-political sites I don't think these posts are what most people read my blog are looking for.
- Most of my family isn't interested in Linux and probably doesn't check my updates because most of the time it doesn't make sense to them.
- I wanted to grow the Open Source Musician community by creating a blog where multiple writers could publish.
Thank you fair readers and update your RSS feeds appropriately.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Why Netflix is still the best.
As a Linux user and Open Source advocate it would be easy to come down hard on Netflix because they don't support Linux. However in this post I would like to explore why Netflix is still the best option out there for streaming content.
First, I want to quickly cover the drawbacks of Netflix from a Linux Users perspective. Firstly, they picked Microsoft's Silverlight as a basis for their DRM platform and that DRM platform hasn't been ported to Linux. There for you can't watch the content on a Linux machine. That of course is a big non starter. Second they don't carry all the content that you want when you want it.
As a Linux advocate there is one big way to get over the "no Linux support" hump, namely Roku. I have had a Roku box for just over a year and wouldn't trade it for anything. The price is right, they support HD formats and serves content from a number of providers. The box runs Linux and decrypts DRM on chip. So there you go.
Ok, now let's dig into why they are better than other services.
Cable/Satellite:
Netflix competes heavily with these services on cost. An $80 service vs an $8 service can make up for not having as much content pretty quickly. I've used Netflix for years and their content gets better and better and the price has stayed dead steady. Right now I watch more of Netflix's content than any other provider and I don't see that changing in the negative any time soon. In fact it would take very little added content for me to dump my satellite service all together.
Hulu:
I was ecstatic when Hulu launched and I got in on the private beta. It seemed they got everything right. Well, at least most of it right. As time has worn on, however, they haven't panned out to be as good as I would have hoped. They launched their Hulu+ service at $12 a month which only offers full season of current show and doesn't get you out of adds. When Hulu+ showed up on the Roku, Hulu dropped the price to $8 a month and I signed up immediately and promptly canceled after encountering the fact that certain content, such as "The Simpsons", isn't available on hardware streaming devices. You are still saddled with commercials which have now gone from a single 30 second add to multiple adds per break. Also, Hulu+ still doesn't support Android for streaming. Also, Netflix and Hulu+ are now the same price and I see very little advantage to Hulu+ over Netflix. Netflix over all still has substantially more streaming content that I want to watch over Hulu.
The rest of the web:
What does Netflix have that the rest of the web doesn't? For starters they have most of your favorite movies, legal and available right now. You don't have to mess with illegal downloads or wait for the show to download to get it. If you like following shows the second they come out then the a lot of content providers offer it on their website to watch over the web. However, sitting in front of my computer screen for hours at a time is a PITA and I would rather sit at my TV and watch my shows. This is really more of a plug for Roku than Netflix but I think they go hand in hand nicely.
I would love to hear feedback from people so feel free to comment and let me know what you agree or disagree with.
First, I want to quickly cover the drawbacks of Netflix from a Linux Users perspective. Firstly, they picked Microsoft's Silverlight as a basis for their DRM platform and that DRM platform hasn't been ported to Linux. There for you can't watch the content on a Linux machine. That of course is a big non starter. Second they don't carry all the content that you want when you want it.
As a Linux advocate there is one big way to get over the "no Linux support" hump, namely Roku. I have had a Roku box for just over a year and wouldn't trade it for anything. The price is right, they support HD formats and serves content from a number of providers. The box runs Linux and decrypts DRM on chip. So there you go.
Ok, now let's dig into why they are better than other services.
Cable/Satellite:
Netflix competes heavily with these services on cost. An $80 service vs an $8 service can make up for not having as much content pretty quickly. I've used Netflix for years and their content gets better and better and the price has stayed dead steady. Right now I watch more of Netflix's content than any other provider and I don't see that changing in the negative any time soon. In fact it would take very little added content for me to dump my satellite service all together.
Hulu:
I was ecstatic when Hulu launched and I got in on the private beta. It seemed they got everything right. Well, at least most of it right. As time has worn on, however, they haven't panned out to be as good as I would have hoped. They launched their Hulu+ service at $12 a month which only offers full season of current show and doesn't get you out of adds. When Hulu+ showed up on the Roku, Hulu dropped the price to $8 a month and I signed up immediately and promptly canceled after encountering the fact that certain content, such as "The Simpsons", isn't available on hardware streaming devices. You are still saddled with commercials which have now gone from a single 30 second add to multiple adds per break. Also, Hulu+ still doesn't support Android for streaming. Also, Netflix and Hulu+ are now the same price and I see very little advantage to Hulu+ over Netflix. Netflix over all still has substantially more streaming content that I want to watch over Hulu.
The rest of the web:
What does Netflix have that the rest of the web doesn't? For starters they have most of your favorite movies, legal and available right now. You don't have to mess with illegal downloads or wait for the show to download to get it. If you like following shows the second they come out then the a lot of content providers offer it on their website to watch over the web. However, sitting in front of my computer screen for hours at a time is a PITA and I would rather sit at my TV and watch my shows. This is really more of a plug for Roku than Netflix but I think they go hand in hand nicely.
I would love to hear feedback from people so feel free to comment and let me know what you agree or disagree with.
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