Blog of Berg (Neil)

Orange belt

2012-01-11T20:24:00.001-05:00

It was the fastest and most straight-forwardly done test ever. Yay for Anne!

Notes in kindergarten

2012-01-09T18:06:00.001-05:00

The kindergarten ladies are tag-teaming for Joel's attention. No, this isn't the first heart-filled drawing.
(They are eating ice cream).

What a big guy!

2011-12-17T08:50:00.001-05:00

It is our first baby tooth loss. It was a happy process! He is really excited!

Tooth?

2011-12-04T11:24:00.001-05:00

Why is Joel's front tooth loose?
He noticed that "it feels like there is a shell in my mouth."

We found some hippos.

2011-11-19T17:04:00.001-05:00

Suddenly feel like a month went by and I didn't notice it

2011-11-04T07:55:00.001-04:00

We have December planned out and we have our first hand turkey of the year.

Spider in our yard

2011-09-21T08:13:00.001-04:00

This is either a labyrinth orb weaver or a variable orb weaver. There are two of them in our yard. They look awesome. Both have retreat lines like labyrinth orb weavers but they look and are sized like variable orb weavers. They are on our laundry line.

Soccer

2011-09-17T09:35:00.000-04:00

Wow, these kids sort of look like they know what they are doing now! Joel is one of the "blue eagles."

At zoo

2011-09-05T11:38:00.001-04:00

We are having a great time at the zoo.

Casino construction progress

2011-08-23T10:57:00.001-04:00

It is nice to see (on right, just past the cement trucks) structure frames! There must be 25 pieces of heavy machinery out there with 3 large cranes in use at the same time. They make bees look lazy.

Ninja shoes

2011-08-14T13:34:00.001-04:00

We got new shoes!

Casino work outside my window

2011-07-11T11:37:00.001-04:00

The crane holds an I beam that is smashed into the ground by a huge piston. It shakes the whole building. It's much faster and more impressive than digging.

Dissecting at breakfast

2011-06-23T08:06:00.001-04:00

Owl pellets are awesome.
Joel is really into it (Asher too, but he is also into lego police motorcycles). Our owl liked eating voles.

Our pets

2011-06-18T08:20:00.001-04:00

I swore we would never get pets, but we got Asher a bunch of them for his birthday. All 14 ants are still alive and happy in their anthill-style antfarm.

Starling works harder than casino developers

2011-05-18T10:53:00.001-04:00

This is a picture from my office window. This starling brings up a few worms to its nest every 5 minutes or so. It has to come to a rest on my window sill first though.
The casino development hasn't been touched for a weekand a half now. I hope they resume work soon. I need the fascination of watching excavators when I look out the window. Dirt is boring!

A good day off

2011-05-12T14:20:00.000-04:00

After a great weekend in Columbus, we are now enjoying the 90 degree heat at a local park (after accompanying Joel on his school field trip).

Class of 2024

2011-05-06T12:09:00.000-04:00

Kindergarten orientation day went really well!

Dragon costume

2011-04-29T08:49:00.001-04:00

We found Joel's old dragon costume from several Halloweens ago.
Asher looked adorable in it.
He has breathed fire on everything this morning.

View from window of my new office

2011-04-18T11:28:00.001-04:00

Wow. This is a great view. (I hope I can be productive with a 6th floor view of the casino construction site! )

Lowes really was fun

2011-04-09T11:56:00.001-04:00

The kids really liked hammering these projects together!

What in the....?

2011-03-17T12:10:00.001-04:00

An unfortunate name tag at Joel's school. The one on the right invoked a "For real?" moment.

St Patrick's day parade

2011-03-12T12:53:00.001-05:00

Downtown Cinci. Quite fun. Wow. It's a huge parade.

Like father, like Joel.

2011-02-20T12:50:00.001-05:00

Joel and I relived a little bit of my childhood--this was my set when I was a kid.

Joel, the new orange belt in Tae Kwon Do

2011-01-12T22:16:00.005-05:00

Joel and I passed the orange belt test this evening. He is really proud of it.
Here is a picture of him breaking the board with his step-behind sidekick!

The video link is below. It is just our part of the test (no one else from class). It is 7 minutes long. He kicks the board around 5:00.

Christmas haul of strange food

2010-12-31T13:07:00.001-05:00

Every year, anne and the kids get me the strangest food they can find. This was a great year. 3 odd beers, Australian Mustard, pickled garlic, pickled peppers, Dutch crispy onions, chiles, red pepper mousse, chestnut puree, figs, piccalilli vegetables in sauce, green curry, sirloin Haggis, elk jerky, dried galanga, olive spread, and chips flavored like prawn, roast chicken, and beefy onion. The best, though, was a jar of pickled cockles (British clam-like animals).
What a great year!

Joel's first electrical circuit

2010-12-25T09:43:00.001-05:00

Snap circuits are like legos, but with electrical circuits.

Sledding is fun!

2010-12-19T14:56:00.001-05:00

They love it.

How we spent our snowday

2010-12-16T10:30:00.001-05:00

While I was working in the basement, the boys made some awesome disguises.

Joel putting up his new costume hook

2010-11-27T19:55:00.001-05:00

Joel, Asher, and I had a good time making this hook hanger. We learned about miter sawing, drilling, stud findering, using a level, and got lots of practice with a screwdriver. Thank goodness everyone is over the flu and feeling fine!

Merry 70 degree day!

2010-11-21T15:10:00.001-05:00

What a great zoo day.

Asher has a big boy bed

2010-11-06T16:38:00.001-04:00

He is excited and adorable!

What happens by my work window

2010-11-01T11:39:00.001-04:00

Foreground: guys dancing in the street.
Background: a city fire truck, ambulance, police car, motorcycle, and horse all responding to something about 2 feet in front of the fire station.

He thought of the hat himself

2010-10-28T20:06:00.001-04:00

Who wouldn't want pajamas like that?

Halloween costumes!

2010-10-16T15:57:00.000-04:00

Super Joel and a ghost!

High-end supermarket hot dog taste test

2010-10-10T19:52:00.000-04:00

Pseudo experiment. Hotdog taste test. Oscar Meyer all beef vs Hebrew national vs Nathans. Anne and I as judges.

Nathan's was the winner, perhaps because it was the most sausage-like of the three. Nathans' were far juicier and more flavorful than the other two brands. Oscar Meyer and Hebrew National were close to a tie but we liked the Oscar Meyer more in comparison but agreed that it had some off flavors that the Hebrew Nationals didn't. I feel bad saying it, but we liked them in their order of saltiness (i.e., Nathans had more salt than Oscar Meyer which had more salt than Hebrew National.

We also had some Kroger "value" dogs that tasted like sawdust.

I hope this helps you purchase high-end hotdogs better than you would have otherwise.

Awesome day with kids

2010-10-10T19:41:00.001-04:00

Joel jacked up the Corolla then drew the planets in order (including asteroid belt which looked like a pants belt at first). Then we were all traced many times on the ground with chalk. The sunshine was great.

Wonderful Sunday morning

2010-10-10T09:38:00.001-04:00

The kids are playing pumpkin patch. The patch was moving to South America via wagon. Wow, they love this game!

Joel and the remote control boat

2010-10-06T19:06:00.001-04:00

This is all Joel has thought about since he found it in the garage 3 days ago. What a smile now that he has it on the pond!

Pumpkins down the road

2010-09-26T11:04:00.001-04:00

We bought our first pumpkin of the year. This was processes through a poloroid-emulating filter.

At Pfeiffer park- pine needles

2010-09-26T10:27:00.001-04:00

They thought that putting all of the pine needles into a pile was hilarious. Asher now says "pine."

Joel at the car show

2010-09-11T20:40:00.000-04:00

Montgomery car show!

At dulle park

2010-09-11T15:33:00.001-04:00

We were helping the water flow better. I love that we finally have fallen leaves! In other news, we made the season's first apple sauce today too.

Yup. We definitely live in cincinnati!

2010-09-04T18:18:00.001-04:00

At the park

2010-09-03T17:58:00.001-04:00

Thank goodness the heat is letting up!

Assassin bug

2010-08-29T14:17:00.001-04:00

Oops. Had I known how awful the stings were, I wouldn't have let it crawl all over my arms and hands. Taken at glenwood gardens.

Asher in gift shop

2010-08-29T14:15:00.001-04:00

He lines up cars a lot. Even gift shops are not spared.

Phone junk

2010-08-27T22:45:00.004-04:00

This is a post about mobile/cell phones. I hope someone new to Android finds it useful.

1) I had an iphone 3g which worked but my contract was up so I wanted new phones. We got iPhone4s which dropped about 50-70% of our calls (even with cases)--data dropped a lot too. AT&T was expensive and incompetent at every turn. They were returned.

2) AT&T retentions encouraged me to give them one last chance with a Samsung Captivate (Galaxy S family of phones). They have a 30 day policy, so I figured I would use it. Call and data drops are less frequent, but still happen. They will be returned. We will move to the Sprint Epic 4g next week.

Here is my experience moving from iPhones to Android.
iPhone pros/cons: iPhones were far easier to set up and have better basic email functions (except connectivity). They had tons of cheap accessories. When jailbroken, they could do a lot, but many system functions were still not accessible (e.g., cannot change the notification noise). I find iTunes to be horrible and convoluted (e.g., no simple file access to move data on and off of the phone, would delete data during syncs without warnings).

Android pros/cons: Android was difficult to set up. It needs a hack or configuration for nearly everything. I found that its versatility makes up for the fact it took lots of time to figure out what and how to set it up. The breadth and quality of capabilities is astounding. It lacks the "locked down" feeling. The hacks and configurations on the Galaxy S are the main purpose of this post.

Things to do when I take back my Captivate and get the Epic 4g (aka "list of the best Android apps"):

- Set the lock pattern as a screen lock
- Switch to default Android keyboard (or Swype) from the awful default one)
- Configure mail accounts, including separate Yahoo mail app
- Put new ringtones in by downloading drivers from Samsung and mounting as USB mass storage. Put stuff in these directories:
\sdcard\Media\audio\Notifications
\sdcard\Media\audio\Ringtones
\sdcard\Media\audio\Video
\sdcard\Music
- Make shortcuts to most common calls (family), add widgets

FREE APPS to download from the Android Marketplace
(* indicates that I use them a lot and have them on my home screen)

UTILITIES/SYSTEM STUFF
*fring (uses all IM clients and does video calling)
advanced task killer (uncheck fring and those that auto-restart)
image shrink lite (send picture here THEN to email)
astro filemanager (better than the default one)
battery indicator (add % number to toolbar, change to F from C)
doubletwist (better than stock media player)
rockplayer (plays most DivX files)
tts service extended (it talks to you...needed for Google maps)

GOOGLE APPS (all have a prefix of "Google"):
*listen (like itunes app for podcasts) Pro: subscriptions Con: lacks 2x speed feature
*maps (this is a reason for getting Android in itself!)
finance
earth
sky map (awesome - hold up the phone, see a dynamic starmap)
translate
*latitude (my wife and I use it to see where we are...it works!)
buzz widget (just for a home screen)
gesture search (fun and useful way of searching everything on the phone)
voice (use this for voicemail, it is fantastic--does international calling cheaply too)
*gmail
*calendar
*marketplace
goggles (it interprets pictures in entertaining/insightful ways and displays related results)

USUAL APPS:
*facebook
yahoo mail
myversion bible (web 2.0 bible)
dropbox (easy file transfers--device independent)
twitter
opera mini (one always needs an alternative browser)
*the weather channel
pandora
epocrates

APPS I FIND VALUABLE
gstrings (Excellent musical tuner. It may be the best one I have ever used)
publicradiolive
random number (who uses dice anymore?)

PREINSTALLED APPS
*gallery
*camera (well-made)
*messaging (blah program, but it works)
allshare (This allows you to stream to from any DLNA device)

NOT SURE ABOUT THESE:
Layar (Superimposes wikipedia-like geo-coded info on top of a video stream from camera. Fun, but not sure if it is useful.)
Photobucket (it has the option of automatically uploading when a picture is taken)
Qik (like fring, but appears to not work as well)
GV Call Free (call using GV only)
picasatool (easy pic uploads to picasaweb)
craigsnotifica (yes, that is the name--notifies with new CL terms come up)
wordup (like boggle, but more settings)

This my most popular YouTube video ever. It was a REALLY difficult battery cover to figure out how to get off, until you figure out the trick.

I hope this is useful to more people than just me. I wish I would have had this list when starting to configure the Captivate. It would have saved a bunch of time.

Caterpillar on our tomatoes

2010-08-22T12:29:00.001-04:00

This bugger ate the whole plant and was so full that she nested there too. Insects have eaten a lot of our plants in our backyard garden. I hate to think of how many tomatoes we are out because of these!

Asher in garage

2010-08-21T14:46:00.001-04:00

Asher, looking adorable

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Morning ride

2010-08-21T11:49:00.001-04:00

You can never be too careful on a tricycle. Demo derby on wheels!

Hamilton county fair

2010-08-11T17:58:00.000-04:00

It is no wood county fair, but we'll take it. Demo derby is tonight!

Swinging

2010-08-08T10:30:00.000-04:00

I will never tire of looking at the back of this head. Nisbett park
in Loveland is really cute, by the way.

Scuba suit with wings

2010-08-03T08:56:00.000-04:00

Wetsuit= clothes
Tank= backpack
Swimming vest= swimming vest
Wings(the blue things)= they help you swim but you cannot fly when you
are done scuba diving

Exploration of the day

2010-08-02T14:18:00.000-04:00

Cincinnati used books. Really big. Really old. Really hopeless and
deserted. Anyone want old encyclopedias? 5 floors of old books.

Swimming at the pond

2010-07-31T16:53:00.000-04:00

These kids love water. This is at aunt nanci's pond in pburg.

Joel is a knight

2010-07-30T08:05:00.000-04:00

Helmet, shield, sword. That is what real knights use.

Pioneer park

2010-07-16T20:46:00.001-04:00

This park is great and it is only a few blocks away from our house.
We got lost in the forest and explored trails.
Summer life is very good!

Duplo city

2010-06-27T15:19:00.002-04:00

Adults and children rose to the occasion. Yes, we used every piece.

Joel is now competent on two wheels

2010-06-06T17:05:00.001-04:00

He goes and goes.
He does figure 8s.
He turns both ways.
He can stop and dismount gracefully and without falling.
He can ALMOST start on his own.
I think it is time to move from 12" to 14" tires. This is amazing for
us to watch. Joel is as happy as he has ever been.

Joel at zoo - I offered him lettuce

2010-05-30T15:06:00.000-04:00

All turtles like lettuce, right?

Strawberry picking

2010-05-24T17:31:00.001-04:00

You should see how sad this kid gets when he is not out having fun
picking strawberries!
No, really, it was fun. We were at Blooms and Berries in Loveland.

Berg May 2010 Big Island of Hawaii Vacation

2010-05-23T23:29:00.019-04:00

Our trip to the Big Island of Hawaii (Google map) was divided into three chunks: A condo in Kona (largest city on the west side of the island), a cottage near Hilo (the largest city on the east side) and a single night at a resort in Kona.
On the map below, you get a rough idea by us flying into the western airport, staying south of it in Kona then driving north (great drive) around the island to Hilo (near the other airport. We stayed south of this airport, near Kea'au. We then drove the southern route (duller drive) back to Kona, where we left via their airport after one day in Kona.

We left on May 10th and got back at 4am on the 23rd. We had a travel day each way which was spent visiting Anne's brother in Phoenix. This made travel much easier than it would have been otherwise.

Due to having a 4.5-year-old and 23-month-old, we had to take things fairly easy. For the most part, each day had two parts that were divided by a nap (or would have been, had we been lucky enough for the kids to have slept).

There is a 6 hour time difference between EDT and Hawaii time. This meant that we woke early at the beginning of the trip but that we were so messed up, time-wise, by the end of the trip that nothing made sense at all. Anyway, it was not a huge deal. People are up early in Kona so there were things open at 6am (but not at 3:30, as we would have liked for the first morning there).

Part 1: Kona (May 11-15)
We stayed at a condo in Kona Shores. (Anne used VRBO.com to find this as well as the place near Hilo.) It was a residential-type of place. I would guess that 75% of the units were full-time residents. The pool was a bit small, but it was ok. The condo itself was unremarkable, but the location was decent.

11th- Got in late, went to condo pool, got situated a little--had an early bedtime because we were jet-lagged mainlanders.

12th- Got up at 3:30am, explored downtown Kona

then went to Hapuna Beach, the most beautiful one on the island (according to the tourism books).

13th-Mauka Meadows/UCC
These pictures are all from Mauka Meadows. It was the finest garden we saw the whole time. It had a few of every great fruit tree that grows on the Big Island. It is owned and maintained by a huge Japanese coffee company. As far as we could make sense of it, this is a public service to get investors to love their beans. These beans go for upwards of $50 a lb in Japan. Anyway, we wandered through their awesome grounds/trees and came to the largest fountain I have ever seen at the end of the trail.

14th-Kahalu'u beach twice (great snorkeling and good sand/sealife), Kanaka Kava dinner
This is a Kava bar that was frequented by locals. They were great to talk to. Kava (a bitter root that liquified and mixed with water) supposedly has "mellowing" effects on those who drink it, but all it did to me was numb our tongues. The food (we had ahi and pork) was awesome.

Part 2: Hilo (May 15th-20th)
We stayed at Deep Hawaii, a collection of 4 cottages that bills itself as being on a working fruit farm. It was a bit underwhelming, fruit-wise. Nearly everything was not pickable at that time and the fruit-farming portion of the property was not exactly appropriate for strolling around (it was organic/overgrown, nothing was labeled, and there were a lot of mosquitoes). We enjoyed the grounds around the cottage, but it they were nothing compared to the fully-manicured gardens that we saw during the day. The biggest surprises of our cottage were:
1. Mosquitoes--Kona had few, Hilo had many.
2. No A/C (it was 72 at night and 82 during the day with high humidity--every day has the same forecast). Two of our nights were pretty sticky and naps were definitely sticky.
3. Coqui frogs (a LOUD invasive pest brought in from Puerto Rico) were in abundance and sang to us from sunset to nearly sunrise. They sound just like whistling.

Caught a Coqui (got them from near our window 3 nights in a row to stop the noise)

Our cottage in Deep Hawaii Fruit Farm near Hilo

15th-checked out, drove to Kamakua Coast in Hilo

Hilo Farmers market (spring rolls, tamales, listened to a local big band, went to shoreline in Paradise Park.

16th - Onekahakaha beach in Hilo

17th-Volcanoes National Park

Mauna Loa Macadamia factory (awesome inflatable can of nuts, eh)

Not Mauna Loa, but it shows the manual labor that goes into macadamia nut production (why macadamias are so expensive).

Fun driving around:

18th-Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo, Onekahakaha beach, L&L Hawaiian BBQ (Hawaiian BBQ is similar to chinese food but with with the meat cut into sheets instead of chunks)

19th-Drove through scenic routes near tropical gardens, Akaka falls, Rainbow Falls, Pe'e pee'e falls, stayed in and relaxed.
Ice cold young coconut

Falls

All animals have turned black to blend in with the lava rocks, even worms.

Lava Tree Park, where lava formed a cast around wet trees 200ish years ago.

20th-left Hilo, Hilo Coffee Mill, Volcanoes National Park again

Punalu'u black sand beach (turtles)

Southernmost bakery in the USA, Macadamia nut factory, Greenwell coffee farm

Part 3: Big Resort/Hanging Around Kona (20-21st)
Anne got a great deal online and we really needed to burn a day in Kona to wait for our flight. I had never been to a resort and I likely will not go to one again. It was odd to see how they worked: People get an expensive hotel room (which were good, but not really luxurious) so they can start adding really expensive items to their room tabs. From designer clothes and jewelry through any kind of alcoholic beverage you can think of, prices were 33% to 100% higher than they were just a few blocks away. I don't know how these things could work without credit. It was a consumptive buffet of overpayment and people lined up for it. They dinged us only for parking, which seemed odd given that they were the most expensive lodging around and we otherwise did not pay for parking on the island.
Maybe this sort of resort makes sense in third-world countries (where the resort is the oasis from poverty), but Hawaii had less apparent poverty than Cincinnati (and none of it was as severe), so no oasis was needed. The public beaches in Hawaii are GREAT. Furthermore, the resort did not even have a beach (it only had a rocky shore and an extravagant pool).
From our philosophical discussion about why resorts exist:
The Bergs vacation so that we get a break from our life by experiencing the lives of others. Resorts are for people who want to break from their lives by experiencing nothing at all.
Instead of actively engaging with a new place, resorts are for disengagement.
Instead of welcoming the awkwardness/challenge of learning about a new place, they require nothing other credit and for you to be willing to be served. You stand little chance of being challenged socially at a resort.

Philosophy aside, the resort was a great single-day break for us--the kids loved being in the huge pool (artificial pebbley beach in the pool, two waterslides, and plenty of shallow water). Best of all, they had A/C and we all slept soundly.
Resort shoreline (Joel and I walked all over this a'a lava in the morning), resort poolside (it was like 3 or 4 pools in one, but you might pick up the ambience from this one picture ).

dinner at Kanaka Kava again

21st-Swam and climbed on a'a lava rocks until 2pm then drove around until getting to the airport at 8 pm. We went to markets and ended up talking with a coffee farmer at the Kona International Market.

22nd Airplanes, Saw Scott in Phoenix, but we were all very tired so we slept for a lot of this time.
23rd - we got into Columbus around 1:30am, and were in bed in Cincinnati at 4am.

Kids building with lava rocks

2010-05-21T02:39:00.000-04:00

How will we live without lava rocks? This was just outside an outdoor
cafe where we could let the kids entertain themselves while we watched.

Asher plus turtles on black sand beach

2010-05-20T17:48:00.000-04:00

Punaluu beach!

What are these large Japanese-looking trees?

2010-05-19T19:56:00.000-04:00

Taken at lava tree park, where everything is 10x as large as you think
they should be.

Spam flavored macademia nuts

2010-05-18T00:31:00.000-04:00

They taste ok, but they are not spam-like enough.

Kilauea!

2010-05-17T17:09:00.000-04:00

Joel finally got to the volcano!

Lava lake

2010-05-17T15:54:00.000-04:00

Whoa, it's big!

Thomas the plane

2010-04-05T09:04:00.002-04:00

Joel is taking his love for airplanes to the next level.
This was a great weekend for family time: kites, ice skating, learning
to stick handle (with Joel's first real hockey stick), Easter stuff,
seeing neighbors, a grill-out, and we even had time for a movie (first
one in a month or two). We were in the back yard for hours and got sunburned a little. We found a termite colony and Joel and I looked at how colonies work and how termites work.

Happy Resurrection Day!

2010-04-04T10:25:00.001-04:00

The Easter ninjas (because no one saw them) came and spread plastic
eggs all over our front yard.

New hockey stick

2010-04-03T18:47:00.000-04:00

Joel and I went to the least-attended public skating session ever--it
was great and he is doing very well skating and has a great time.
Afterward, we found the perfect street stick for him. I have a
feeling he may be so excited about it that he will carry it with
himself everywhere for the next few days.

Asher driving and talking

2010-03-29T10:03:00.003-04:00

At least he can't text yet.

Neighbors are cool

2010-03-24T19:06:00.000-04:00

Our neighbor has one of the sweetest 7 year olds ever. He was playing
with Asher and we walked in on this awesome scene--Asher surrounded by
stuffed animals.

Airplanes

2010-03-21T20:07:00.001-04:00

We went to the national air force museum in Dayton yesterday. It was
great. Joel made this airplane out of legos today. He even made a
place for the gunman. I am not sure if I should be happy that he
remembered that feature.

Asher and daffodil

2010-03-20T18:48:00.001-04:00

In our backyard! Wow, what a great day.

Ball hockey

2010-03-15T18:51:00.000-04:00

Soccer for Asher, hockey for Joel.

Last day of snow

2010-03-07T17:26:00.001-05:00

It is fun being warm AND playing in snow.

Joel, looking good

2010-02-27T22:51:00.001-05:00

He had to wear the dad hat and mom glasses. I am beginning to think
that Joel is incapable of forming a normal smile when a camera is
pointed at him. Regardless, the facial expressions are awesome.

Coffee Roaster

2010-02-27T22:35:00.002-05:00

I have been roasting coffee for about 3 years. I have used pans, cookie sheets and I even used a grill once. By far, the easiest method/the method that yielded the best results has been the hot air roaster. I have been using a WestBend "Poppery" popcorn popper from the 80s for about ten years. This is the roaster on the far left of the above picture (the other one was new and less reliable--it only lasted a few roasts). I modified the Poppery a little and it works really well now. These roasters have a cult-like following among coffee roasters.

The first thing I had to do was raise the thermostat temperature by backing the thermostat screw out a bit. It did not get nearly hot enough for a good roast. Then I split the power into two parts: fan motor and heat coil. Each is on one plug, but that is because it was the fast and easy things to do. The heat coil is hooked through the Poppery switch into the wall. The fan is hooked in through an X10 lamp dimmer module, so I can control the fan speed. This adds a ton of control to the roasting process versus how it was unmodified.

You need a lot of air at the beginning of the roast when the beans are dense...and the beans need time to dry out before the temperature gets really high. Toward the end of the roast the beans get large and light (having expanded and lost their moisture) and they sometimes need to be exposed to a higher temperature than at the beginning. So decreasing the fan speed once the beans are mid-roast can give the beans the zing of heat they need to get certain types of roasts. Independent control of the fan and heat allows one to have a nice amount of control.

Good-looking kid!

2010-02-27T22:28:00.000-05:00

Asher and Joel enjoy dressing like their goofy parents. Asher wears
this hat more than I do.

Joel's signed art

2010-02-03T17:52:00.001-05:00

Joel now can sign his art work! (The art is on the other side.)

Asher wall climbing

2010-01-28T19:16:00.001-05:00

Run, jump, and play is a neat indoor playground near our house. All
playgrounds have rock climbing walls now and they are awesome.

Asher the fireman

2010-01-10T12:09:00.000-05:00

This fireman outfit has been getting lots of use. The pirate ship
(sectional couches pushed together) in the basement has too.

Joel's first ice skating lesson

2009-12-30T14:13:00.000-05:00

He is doing really well (even though he is on figure skates).

New car

2009-12-28T16:29:00.001-05:00

A 2010 Versa S hatchback just rolled into our garage!
We are both really happy with it. It is small on the outside and big
on the inside. Wooohoo.
I get the old Corolla, of course.

Deep-fried post-xmas

2009-12-27T12:24:00.001-05:00

Deep-fried mars bar, homemade chocolate cake, and shortbread. Oh, how
I love my wife.

Bacon yogurt

2009-12-20T08:05:00.001-05:00

"Meat on bottom" was created by joel and declared by Joel to be a
success.

Happy firefighters' day

2009-12-15T08:21:00.000-05:00

Our "obscure holiday" calendar would like to remind you that it is
national firefighters' day. Asher was celebrating this morning.

Xmas tree already?

2009-12-03T18:50:00.001-05:00

Wow, it sure is cute.

Working outside

2009-11-01T12:13:00.000-05:00

Joel trimming the weeds and picking up some sunshine while Asher picks
and eats our lettuce (yes, it is still going).

The beaver lodge got knocked down

2009-10-15T20:02:00.001-04:00

We learned about beavers, so we had to build a lodge.

Cyclones

2009-10-09T20:30:00.001-04:00

Joel and I are watching the cinci cyclones play the Toledo walleye.
Thanks for the tickets, Chris and Cindy! These seats are almost in
the cyclones bench!

Middletown midfest

2009-10-03T20:03:00.000-04:00

We saw the lindemans. It was a really fun festival. They had a bunch
of Balinese gamelan, sitar, klesmer, and balalaika. We had a
fantastic time listening to and learning about music!
The kids are really tired now.

Cinci Zoo

2009-09-27T15:17:00.001-04:00

Have I mentioned how great the zoo here us? The manatees had a
demonstration that started right as we got there! The kids loved it.

In other news, I understand why certain cultures hate insurance. I
was hit by a semi on i75 and about 5 feet away from an oncoming
traffic due to the skid he put me into. I seriously expect for his
insurance to make things right with my car--but so far they are just
horsing around (at least give me bluebook value--not 40% of it,
seriously!).

Joel on his first day of nursery school

2009-09-11T09:25:00.000-04:00

He sure was excited!

Sweet Joel

2009-08-25T20:08:00.001-04:00

And Asher is sweet too. Asher is waking up to the world--making
noises for animals and responding to commands. They are really
giggley and fun. It is hard to believe that they look this peaceful
at times given their usual activity level!

Swinging in the backyard

2009-08-14T22:34:00.001-04:00

We love this new place!
Also, see:
www.YouTube.com/neildberg

Joel's new school playground

2009-07-29T18:58:00.001-04:00

Joel's new school is at the united Methodist church that is about a
block from our new house. We are all moved in and quite happy with it!

Kids on a swing

2009-07-17T19:17:00.000-04:00

Asher loved it. Joel is a great pusher.

Fossils

2009-07-11T21:08:00.000-04:00

We went out fossil hunting at a local park that is made specifically
for it. We got brachiopods and some other old sealife.
In bigger news, we have an accepted offer on our house in pburg and we
move into a new rental here in two weeks.