Old Blog; New Content

Returning after an extended hiatus, the Top O' The Morning blog is back, but will no longer focus on current events in the news.

Beginning next month, May 2020, the Top O' The Morning blog will start featuring some of the unique technology-related hacks, fixes, solutions, and creations that I have worked on over the past couple decades.

As a sneak preview, this content will be covering topics such as: cryogenically freezing hard drives to resuscitate them, bootable RedHat Kickstart servers, automating inventory with Perl, using Google Sheets to scrape websites, and monitoring beer fermentation with an Arduino.

Buckle your seat-belts, folks, as I take you on a ride down memory lane!

New Orleans: In Review, the Food

Much like I needed my well-overdue vacation from work, it seems I likewise needed a vacation from this blog.  One of the great things about getting away is that once you are away, the pressures and deadlines that you face on a daily basis get to take a backseat to the wonder and excitement of the day ahead of you.  Fortunately, there was plenty of wonder and excitement to be had during the week spent in New Orleans.

The Food

Hands-down the best part of the trip was the amazing variety of local dishes that the rest of the country tries (mostly in vain) to mimic.  Here were some of the favorites:

• Felix's Restaurant and Oyster Bar - Our most-visited place during the trip not only for the copious amounts of raw oysters that we consumed but also for their red beans and rice with andouille.  The guys at the bar gave us plenty of attention and we were never left waiting for food or drink.  Though this place doesn't receive the attention of others like Acme or Bourbon House, we'd skip those again to go back here any day.  (As a side note, we ended up walking out of Bourbon House without ordering due to lack of attention from the bartender - another point for Felix's)
• GW Fins - One of the two extravagant meals during our trip was had here, specifically to partake in a beer dinner they were offering in conjunction with NOLA brewing, to show off the new NOLA Funk line of sour-style beers.  The beers were paired with dishes specially crafted by GW Fins' master chef to complement the sour qualities of the beer.  The five course meal was composed of: yellowfin tuna sashimi, crispy pork belly with watermelon, "Scalibut" a creation of the chef's which is a layering of seared scallops on top of a halibut filet, BBQ swordfish ribs which were another chef creation, and for dessert a peach and blackberry tart which could be served upside-down or to-go upon request
• Napoleon House - The muffaletta here was absolutely delicious.  I wasn't especially hungry when we arrived, so I decided to eat light and only order half of one with a side of jamalaya.  What I did not realize was that ordering a half meant I was asking for half of a bun that was roughly a foot in diameter.  My plate arrives with my massive sandwich and a generous portion of jambalaya.  How do you know when something is good?  When you forget that you weren't hungry and nearly eat the entire meal.  Whoops.
• Arnauds - The other extravagant meal on our trip was as much about the experience as it was about the food, which did not disappoint.  We ordered an appetizer of baked oysters which included Oysters Rockafeller with spinach and bacon, Oysters Bienville with shrimp and mushroom, Oysters Katheryn with artichokes and garlic, and Oysters Ohan with eggplant and andouille.  We could have eaten those all night.  For entrees, we both got variations of the same thing - Gulf Fish Ponchatrain which was gulf grouper topped with crab meat, and Pompano Duarte which was gulf grouper topped with shrimp.  Everything was succulent and cooked perfectly.

A Trip to New Orleans - Planning

This blog will be updated throughout the process of planning for, traveling to, visiting, and returning from New Orleans.  

The first entry in this multi-part series is all about the vacation planning.  The WikiTravel guide to New Orleans has good advice for the first time traveler:

http://wikitravel.org/en/New_Orleans

We happened to have timed this trip to coincide with the Louisiana Craft Beer Week, with events happening throughout the week at local establishments:

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/louisiana-craft-brewers-week/Content?oid=2756188

The following, incredibly thorough and helpful list, was provided by a friend of my wife's:

Where to EAT!

• Brunch-- The Ruby Slipper (Marigny)
• Brunch-- Cake Cafe & Bakery (Marigny)
• Brunch-- Booty's Street Food (Bywater)
• Brunch-- The Country Club (Bywater-- also a gay bar. Make reservations for brunch.)
• Brunch-- Suis Generis (Bywater)
• Felix's Restaurant (French Quarter. OYSTERS! Raw and char-grilled. Gets a little crowded but so good! Go a little before lunchtime or late afternoon before the dinner rush. They also have good po-boys & gumbo)
• K-Pauls Louisina Kitchen (French Quarter. Also gets crowded for lunch. Reservations recommended for dinner)
• Sylvain (French Quarter. NEED reservations! We tried this place the last time we visited and it was so good! Also Julia Stiles sat next to us, haha.)
• Yo Mama's Bar & Grill (French Quarter. Peanut butter burger. Just do it.)
• Cafe Amelie (French Quarter)
• Sukhothai (Marigny. My most favoritest Thai place ever.)
• Draggo's Seafood (Central Business District. A little bit of a tourist trap but i think it's yummy.)
• Mother's Restaurant (Central Business District. Fried Chicken. 'nuff said.)
• The Joint (Bywater. BBQ Yumminess.)
• Bacchanal (Bywater. Get a cab. Walking is too far. But it's a GREAT wine bar with great food. And you get to sit outside and they have live music. It's nothing fancy but great!)

Things to Drink:

• Erin Rose -- Frozen Irish Coffee
• Pat O'Brien's -- Hurricanes. Also a nice place to hang out and chill. Large outdoor seating and the bar inside is cute. Also the piano bar.
• Tropic Isle-- Hand grenades.... caution: Those are really sweet and give you WICKED hangovers.
• The Roosevelt Hotel -- Sazaracs (a drink that orginated in NOLA. Calls for absinthe so don't drink if you don't like licorice) at the hotel bar
• Lafiite's Blacksmith Shop -- One of the oldest bars in the country.
• Molly's on Toulouse -- This is a nothing-bar. We liked going there because it has good Dark and Stormies and it's never crowded.
  
• Other bars that aren't in the Quarter: Anything on Frenchman Street, Mimi's in the Marigny (also has good small plates), 

Live Music:

Basically any place on Frenchman Street. They ALWAYS have live music. What I did the last time was walk down the street and you can hear the music from the street. Then pick a place. Most places don't have a cover. I would skip the ones with covers.

There's also a bunch of bands playing on the streets... You'll stumble on to some when you walk around. Make sure to tip a dollar if you take any pics of them on the street. It's the etiquette :)

• d.b.a
• Three Muses
• The Spotted Cat Music Club
• Blue Nile

Other things to do/see:

• Cafe du Monde-- Tourist trap but you gotta go at least once. Gets REALLY crowded. Go either during the mornings or late night
• VooDoo Spiritual Temple (off N. Rampart Street-- Ask to see the temple in the back of the store, it's fascinating)
• French Market-- Local vendors selling a bunch of stuff. Mostly touristy things but sometimes you find something cool and unique. There's also food vendors there.
• Frenchman Art Market-- This place is fairly new but so awesome! Off of Frenchman Street, in between Royal & Charters Street. A ton of local artists selling their stuff.
• Walk the length of Royal Street. Tons of antique stores and art galleries. My favorite street.
• If you're interested in cemetery tours, I did a tour at of the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Search online for some companies to book.
• Reverend Zombie's House of VooDoo-- Tourist trap but I think it's fun. Buy yourself a voodoo doll and look around.
• Preservation Hall-- I don't know much about it but it's a famous music venue
• Walk along the river. It's nice.

Other stuff:

• Have cash. Most places don't split or they have a credit card minimum.
• Comfy shoes, duh.
• You'll be walking everywhere so be weather-prepared.
• Uber is an option instead of cabs if you plan on going somewhere farther

Don't Bite the Hand that Feeds You

In the latest case of a company with a fresh idea that becomes wildly successful to become the target of attackers, Uber is now facing perhaps the biggest attack of the company's relatively short history. In a recent ruling, a judge in San Francisco has granted the lawsuit brought forth by three former Uber drivers class-action status, which will cover the mass of 15,000 current and former drivers.

The primary claim of the lawsuit is that Uber drivers function more closely to employees of the company than they do as independent contractors.  Since it started, Uber has been able to avoid some serious expenditures by maintaining that the drivers are independent contractors and are compensated based on the cost per trip and any additional tips that passengers offer.  Essentially, every Uber driver is running a personal business, they just happen to be using the Uber app to advertise.  By doing so, the company does not have to provide compensation such as gas reimbursement, health benefits and workers compensation to any of their drivers.

The potential impact of this lawsuit, should the drivers win, could require Uber not only to begin compensating the drivers for gas and other expenses, but also for Uber to back-pay all of the former drivers for uncompensated expenses they are owed.  It is likely too, that the affordable rates customers currently enjoy will have to increase to offset these additional costs.  However it would likely not be just the customers who feel the brunt of impacts.

It would not be surprising to Uber cap its drivers at 30 hours or less per week to avoid the costs of providing health benefits.  This could impact current drivers pretty severely, as they could go from working 40 hours or more per week to say, 28 hours.  In turn, Uber could then offer preferential treatment to drivers with more seniority for the hours that tend to be more lucrative and so the drivers who are just doing this for a little extra on the side to make ends meet could be forced out completely. In turn, if the rates suddenly go up, customers will not want to pay higher rates and still tip the same amount they were before - particularly if they were prone to tipping generously - so the revenue on a per trip or per hour basis for the drivers could decrease.

It is easy to look at this lawsuit on the surface and feel sympathy for the drivers, however with the economics at play here - regardless of how the lawsuit turns out - it is the company who will have the upper hand when it comes to obeying the laws set forth.  While it would definitely be a shame to see these sweeping customer-impacting changes occur if Uber loses the lawsuit, the drivers are likely to be the ones to ultimately lose out in the end.

The Dreadful Obsession of Running

I hate the physical act of running.

For as far back as I can remember, running was something I did only when I had to in school or when it was part of some other recreation.  I would run while playing football, basketball, or soccer.  I would not run for the sake of running.

I never realized my greatest objection to running until after I was diagnosed and treated for exercise-induced asthma.  Even while playing the aforementioned sports, the heavy breathing, gasping for air, and mucus-producing coughs were not enough to turn me off from playing those sports - in fact, at some level I think I fed off of those symptoms.  It was my competitive nature shining through - that despite the fact that I couldn't hardly breathe I was still out there giving it my all.  I used it as some sort of validation for not being able to keep up with the athletes due to my lack of natural athletic gifts.  I wasn't good, but I had heart.  But within the context of running for the sake of running, there was no competitive driving force to keep me out there pushing myself to my physical limits.  Running was a choice, and an easy one to avoid.

This all changed over the past few years.

At first, running became a means to an end.  I wanted to lose weight.  I entered into a competition at work to measure who could lose the most weight in the time available - roughly four months.  The competitor in me knew there were two changes I had to make to lose weight: change my diet and start exercising.  I researched all of the legitimate diets to find the one that would enable the most weight loss in the shortest amount of time (a Keto/Paleo hybrid) and decided that running would be my exercise.  For the first time, I committed to confronting my respiratory nemesis head-on.

I met my weight-loss goal of 40 pounds right on the mark.  The other goal I had set for myself was to run my first 5k - which in July of 2012, on probably the hottest day of the year, I ran and completed my first 5k.  The eye-opening part of this race was that though I had become a reasonably fit person, I was the only person hacking, coughing and gasping for air after the race.  Even the guys toting around 50% more mass were coasting into the finish well-ahead of me, or behind me, and were fine.  This was when it became clear that I had a problem.

I was tested (inconclusively) for asthma - because it only affects me when I exercise and they didn't make me exercise - but my doctor still treated me for the symptoms I described.  I could tell fairly soon after I started taking the medication that my breathing was improving, but falling out of routine in taking the medicine stunted my progress.

Fast forward a couple years, and now I have gotten to a very regular routine for taking the medicine.  This year, I decided once again that it was time to get back on the running bandwagon and try to lose some weight.  I registered for races and set goals for myself to ensure I keep up with it, but most importantly, I just ran.

As I stated in the opening of this post, I hate running - still do - but I have come to appreciate the competition of running.  Running is a mental competition between your mind and your body to see who is willing to give up first.  The major difference however, is that I have eliminated the major advantage that my body had over my mind - I can now breathe when I run.  Whereas before I would hear my body saying things like "I hurt and I can't breathe, just stop."  Now, I am able to argue back and say "I hurt, but not enough to stop" and so I go on.  That is the exhilaration that keeps me going: to do even better than I did before.  Medals and awards are nice if not surprising when they come.  But to be able to run for almost two hours straight and logging nine miles in the process, thinking the entire time that I am not even the slightest bit out of breath - that is what feeds my ambition to keep running.

At some point, the novelty of breathing may wear off, but the amazement of being able to see the progress I have made over the years never will.

Sometimes Sleep is the Best Medicine

The term "sleep it off" can be used for numerous purposes from "sleeping off a hangover" to "sleeping off a bad day".  Well, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have found one more use for the term: sleep off infection.

It turns out that the human body has natural immunizing powers that work particularly well when people are affording themselves at least seven hours of sleep a night.  The researchers tested this hypothesis by monitoring subjects and their sleep patterns in order to define their control groups. The subjects wore sleep trackers for a week to establish baseline patterns, and then after that week the scientists sprayed live cultures of the cold virus directly into the nostrils of the participants.

While of course some of the participants were infected, there was a distinct pattern amongst the subjects.  People who logged fewer than seven hours of sleep per night became sick four times more often than the people who slept for at least seven hours a night.  Going further, the numbers at fewer than six hours were actually pretty staggering: 39 percent of subjects who averaged less than six hours of sleep became infected.

Because the study was more focused on the sleep patterns and the outcomes of different sleep variables, there was no exact explanation provided for the physiology of why the participants who got more sleep became sick less often.  However, a previous study that measured the affects of fatigue in respect to the chances of becoming infected corroborated the results.  The correlation being, if you get more sleep, you will be less fatigued - and fatigue weakens the body's immune system.

Certainly other factors beyond hours of sleep will play a role in whether or not people will become infected, but if you want to at least improve your chances of not getting sick this fall and winter: get some sleep!

Link to original story: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/09/01/436385137/aim-for-at-least-7-hours-of-sleep-nightly-to-fend-off-a-cold

Your Tax Dollars at Work

An article in the Washington Post this morning titled, "Denali or McKinley? How a 19th century political ‘joke’ turned into a 119-year-long debate," discusses what has apparently been an ongoing issue with Congress regarding the name of the highest mountain in North America.

Mount McKinley is likely a familiar name to most.  While people may not know that it resides in Denali National Park in Alaska, or that it is the tallest mountain In both the U.S. and across the North American continent at over 20,000 feet, when it comes to names of mountains it is probably at least one that comes to mind.  I know that I have wondered previously why it was named after William McKinley, the 25th president, but not enough to actually type "Mount McKinley" into a Google search to then click on the Wikipedia article.Apparently if I had succumbed to investigating this curiosity, I would have found that the name "McKinley" is rather unsettling for a portion of our government.

Though the government officially recognized the name of the mountain as being "McKinley" nearly a century ago - making official the name that had been proposed in 1896 by a gold prospector who was a supporter of McKinley's - numerous people were unhappy with that name and thought that it should remain the name that was given by the native Alaskans: Denali.  Well, those people can finally enjoy a good-night's rest, because President Obama, in one of his more ruthless and courageous actions as President, has made an Executive Order to rename "Mount McKinley" to "Mount Denali".

That's a relief.

Clearly there is an angle to this - why else would the government use its powers to settle this issue?  Let's consider the financial affects that will cascade down from this decision:

• Every geography book published before August 31st, 2015 is now wrong
• Who wins: textbook manufacturers and book sellers who will now stand to reap windfalls as all geography books used in educational systems across the country will now have to be replaced
• Every "Mount McKinley" branded pin, magnet, collectible spoon, and other merchandise just became outdated
• Who wins: antique and historical collectors whose "Mount McKinley" collection just jumped in value
• Every tour group and tourist trap that marketed themselves as "McKinley" will have to change their names
• Who wins: tour groups that are now marketing: "be the first to scale Mount Denali"

Near as I can tell, President Obama must have a sizable collection of Mount McKinley merchandise, have ownership in some portion of the textbook industry, and/or have a travel business in and around Denali National Park, because why else would taxpayer money go towards funding the decision to settle a century-old debate that no one even knew about until today?

Here is a link to the original article from the Washington Post: 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/08/31/denali-or-mckinley-how-a-19th-century-political-joke-turned-into-a-119-year-long-debate/