Chad Things

Last week I got back from Coachella, a 3-day music festival in Southern California.  It was my 4th time going, the other years being 2001, 2002, and 2006.  This year, like previous years, was awesome – good friends, good drinks, pimpin’ house and pool, and tons of cool bands and DJs to rock out to.  Here are noteworthy moments followed by details from the whole weekend

• Groove Armada doing superstylin for like 20 minutes, including a few mins of daft punk in the middle.  After “Around the World” they unloaded the superstylin’ drop that totally electrified the crowd.  This was my favorite moment this year – 3rd favorite coachella moment of all time, after daft punk in 2006 and my personal fav squarepusher in 2001.
• The Do Lab giving off a great burningman vibe, sick music, interesting art and decorations, water hose, and central location. My favorite spot. Video. Big UP to Jupiter, Random Rab, Beats Antique, Lucent Dossier, and many more.
• The Dome was another sound location in addition to the Do Lab and the 5 official ones – they provided sound as you entered and left, going till 5am for those in camp city.  LA Riots played sunday night.
• Naked Hippie getting tasered.  3 fat cops using a taser on a dude out of his mind. article.
• Contact solution containers are very useful.
• The Ting Tings singing “Whats my name” (my fav song of 2008)
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs rocking it – love that gold costume, Karen O. video.
• Girl Talk really knows how to rock a party, short-attentions span style. milkshake.
• MIA was good, but Blackstar (her Coachella DJ) went a little crazy with that air horn – could barely hear the songs. Lame.
• Public Enemy doing the entire album of “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back”
• The Black Keys got Soul, damnit.  a video.
• Leonard Cohen rocking it at age 74.
• Morrisey left the stage early cuz he smelled burning flesh.  Sigh. Pass the Bacon.
• The Cure did almost 3 hours – including 2 songs after they cut the sound and lights (only saw first hour, tho).
• I heard Paul McCartney, would have been really impressed if i still loved him.
• Wish I saw Etienne De Crecy. Awesome video.
• Wish I saw MSTRKRFT, saw them in 2008.
• Wish I saw Roni Size, The Kills, Atmosphere, M Ward, Crystal Castles, the Orb, etc.
• Out of 166,000 people attending coachella, I ran into my boy Zac (chicago) twice. I ran into tons of other people from California as well. Attendence was second only to 186k in 2007 (src).

It all began with my arrival Thursday night, along with checkoway and kerry, crashing at my friend Rob’s place in Ontario. Friday morning our new best friend Jason picked us up in his super 80’s Van – Our Carpoolchella.  The rumor was that one lucky crew with “Carpoolchella” written on their car/van would win lifetime vip tix to coachella.  No, wed were not that lucky crew.  Anyways, we drove 80 miles to Palm Springs, got supplies, checked into our house for the weekend, and met up with Isabel (not Babs), Jess, and Brian.  We got our drinks on and headed to coachella friday, coming home around 1 or 2 and staying up till 5 in the morning.  2 hours later I’m up for some reason and ready to go.

Saturday started with more drinking, a surprise arrival by Ding Dong, Cake-Oh, and Katheeee.  Yay.  After some pool shenanigans we left the house for the iMeem party – more pool, free-drinks, DJs (A-Trak was there but did not spin), and great people watching.  It ended up being pretty fun, till the Asahi ran dry.  We made it inside the coachellas around 5 or 6 and lasted till about midnight,  then home and more drinks and late nite grilling by Chef Checkoway. Sunday was more of the same, morning cocktails, donger made eggs, pool chillin, a few visitors, and music at coachella from 6 to midnight.  I was planning on leaving sunday night but I aborted that plan due to lack of sleep and desire not to get sick.

Monday we cleaned up and left the house by noon, made it to LA where most of us did more pool side chilling at the roosevelt in hollywood.  Around 6pm everybody left but me and checkoway – he was in LA for biz and my flight didn’t leave for chicago till 6am the next morning.  Lee Williams showed up, instigating round 7, and with the help of Katie Curry we were out drinking till the bars closed.  After some post-bar pizza I took checkoway back to the hotel where i crashed from 3:30am till 4:30am (thats 1 whole hour of sleep for you kids at home), got up and taxied to LAX.  Needless to say i slept the entire plane ride home.

Good times, Good times.

I loved hostmonster.com ever since I signed up with them in September 2007.  They are a dirt cheap web hosting with pretty much unlimited storage, lots of easy to install applications, and ssh access.  SSH is very important for developers like me – I can get in there and do my business cmd-line style, as all hardcore developers like to do it.

But then after 19 months the abuse department gets all up in my business.  Basically they suspended all my sites and removed ssh access without any notification whatsoever.  After several unanswered emails and form submissions, I call and finally get a hold of somebody.   Initially he was cool – he gave me back my ssh access so at least i could get to my files.  But when I tried to get out of him what I needed to do end my account suspension, he kept it vague, telling me I was not allowed to store stuff online.

• First we ended up arguing for almost 20 minutes over the fact that I had 4 versions of my resume on there (all publicly addressable) .. he claimed that was storage.
• Then it became an issue of any file not linked to by my website was storage – what, i can’t put stuff on my site and email a link to it to my friends? I have to publicly link to it from my blog or something?  what type of policy is that?
• The last issue revolved around .tar, .tgz, and .zip files.  First he said they were allowed if it was “software release or something similar”, which makes sense.  But how does that really differ from having my resumes as a .tar file?  Ok, now that i question the policy changes – he refines his statement and says those files are never allowed.  sigh. Again, WTF?
• Over and over I asked the same 2 questions – what do i have to do to remove suspension and what is hostmonster policy.  The answer was always the same subjective “no online storage allowed”.

Sure, they are legally allowed to do that – their Terms Of Service (TOS) state they are not to be used as online storage and can suspend users without notification for violating this rule.  Online storage is a pretty broad term, legally they could suspend any one of their users since its pretty hard NOT to store anything on your website.  But the way they handled me was incredibly rude and disrespectful.  In the back of my mind I wonder if they just wanted to get me to leave since I used so much storage – several GB’s of jpgs (all 35,000+ are now on flickr).

The guy I spoke to was the acting manager of the abuse department the day I called, April 8.  He was childish, immature, and seemed to be on a power trip.  I attempted to get a hold of anyone else in management thru various form submissions, emails, and phone calls, but 36 hours later (almost 3 days since initial suspension) I gave in and signed up with mediatemple.net and started moving my domains over.  The next day I got a voicemail from the real manager of the abuse department, but by then I was behind in work and already moved to mediatemple, so why sink any more time in this?   This post is to just warn people – hostmonster.com sux.

So if you noticed some hiccups a couple weeks ago, this is why.  For that I apologize.

I’ve always loved maps, and when google maps came out they raised the bar.  After they released their maps API and the mashups began.  The first cool one I remember was a craigslist mashup that listed all apartments for rent on a map – that’s huge when you’re new to a city, and invaluable in renting-competitive cities like NY and SF.  Now there are tons of mashups out there, and here’s a few that I’ve found recently.

Random mashups (coolest ones first)

• Craigslist Housing/Rentals Maps – awesome new padmapper.com (iphone) plus mapskreig.com and original housingmaps.com (stale data) (compete)
• Wikimapia.org (10+ Million entries) like wikipedia, but for maps. See My Seward St Slides entry.
• Fastfoodmaps.com shows fast food joints, updates map when you zoom in/out,
• Walkjogrun.net shows good search bar, nice overlays when looking at a route.
• Taxiwiz.com calculates taxi fares between points in major cities. I like how they add points in google maps
• tmeet.me auto-fill a tweet with current time & coordinates
• SeeClickFix identify local issues (pot hole, sign broken), submit, and watch for fix ..
• Dualmaps combines bird’s eye view with street view and maps
• Pizzashare maps meets pizza meets crowdsourcing (seems buggy, but cool idea)
• Beerhunter.ca find places to get beer in Toronto – right now!
• Diaroogle.com find a clean toilet in NYC
• chicago crimes. lots of interesting data from everyblock, including homegrown maps.
• findbyclick – change maps, results not updated, data is 2007, blog seems current
• Performance/Scaling – spacial databox – great if you have millions of data points

Build your own map: (sorted by compete monthly usage 2/2008-2/2009 more)

• Weddingmapper.com – (130K) great UI for novice (ex)
• Platial.com (120k) slick UI, tons of features, not all work (ex, ex2) (faq) iphone (blog)
• Frappr.com (100k) similar to platial.com, more like myspace for maps
• Communitywalk.com (100k) lots of users/examples, issues on firefox 3 (comments at bottom)
• Zeemaps.com (40k) pretty cool (chicago, sf parks)
• YourGmap.com (20k) easiest setup, good for people who’ve never used google maps (ex)
• Mapbuilder.net (20k) easy setup, can control html for each marker (img, links) (ex)
• Tagzania.com (20k) too much non-map stuff on the page
• Wayfaring.com (15k) clean and slick UI, little data (copyright 2007) (ex)
• My Atlas – clean, but not easy for novices (ex)

Find more maps (reference)

• programmableweb.com
• googlemapsmania blog lists many cool maps
• keirclarke.googlepages.com s

What’s your favorite map?

In today’s global competitive economy, how can companies stay ahead and make profit?  I’ll tell you how – by constantly changing their billing statements and providing customer support lines that are time consuming and full of untrained people.

Confusing Billing Statements:

My AT&T flickr set has the details of the first 6 bills, focusing on the AT&T – DISH Network (satellite TV) section.  To be fair, AT&T bills me, but DISH Network is the one who comes up with all these crazy line-items. Not one of them is the same.

2008-09-13: Total -$8.51 (credit)
2008-10-13: Total $95.98
2008-11-13: Total $54.99
2008-12-13: Total $89.99
2009-01-13: Total $60.97
2009-02-13: Total $72.99
2009-03-13: Total $36.57

Untrained Customer Support:

Oh, you think there might be an error on your bill?  No problem – Just call our Support line.  Hello, that’s half the problem. As mentioned in my previous post on Chicago Internet, I spent many hours on the phone trying to sort out initial billing confusion.  But I still have had to call several times to sort things out.   Part of the problem is the unusual relationship between DISH and AT&T.  They sometimes like to transfer you to the other.  Also they like to put you on hold for a moment and then after 10 minutes the line hangs up and you must start over.

Direct line to DISH Support- 866-266-1292

Best to start a Billing Chat Session with DISH Customer Support (transcript below)

The first billing confusion was based on the fact that I was told that I get free outgoing calls within 15 miles.  A manager at AT&T Customer Service assures me there is no such thing, and tried to sell me an outgoing call package deal.  No Thank You, Ma’am. Secondly, DISH is all sorts of messed up .. took 3 calls to sort of straighten it out.  See this picture with details on DISH Bill.  Basically they give you lots of credit on first bill to cover first and second bill, and the third bill should look normal. Did you look at that Bill?  what’s so hard about saying “TOP 200?, “Local HD”, “HD Silver” ???  One thing nobody mentioned is that they charge you $5/month if you don’t connect your DISH receiver to phone or wifi – “ADDL RECEIVER ACCESS FEE”.  What?   .

In any case, my most recent bill in march seems to have no errors.  Wow.  We’ll see how long that lasts. And here’s the transcript from my chat session with the DISH billing support.

Please wait while we find a representative to assist you…
You have been connected to (03) Rachel S..
(03) Rachel S.: Thank you for choosing Dish Network the leader in DVR and HD. I will be happy to assist you today. Please give me 2-3 minutes to access your account and review the information you have already provided.
(03) Rachel S.: Your patience is greatly appreciated.
(03) Rachel S.: I see that your Dish Network account is bundled with one of our Alliance partners.
(03) Rachel S.: We are sorry, we don’t have access to bundled accounts. However, we have a specialized department in Dish Network that takes care of bundled accounts.
(03) Rachel S.: Let me go ahead and transfer your chat to that department.
(03) Rachel S. has left the session.
Please wait while we find an agent from the (12) Partner internal department to assist you.
You have been connected to (23-12-3) TJ P..
(23-12-3) TJ P.: Thank you for choosing Dish Network, the leader in HD and DVR services. This is TJ, Operator ID ZAH. I’d be happy to help you with any questions or concerns today. Can I please have the name and zip code on your account?
Chad Norwood: chad norwood 60647
(23-12-3) TJ P.: I see you are inquiring about billing errors. I’m sorry to hear that. I’d be happy to assist you with this today.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: What in particular is the issue?
Chad Norwood: My bill dated Jan 13 is incorrect
(23-12-3) TJ P.: I’m sorry about that sir.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: What is incorrect on it?
Chad Norwood: 2 items, both labeled “2 premium package”, one for $9.02, one for $20
(23-12-3) TJ P.: I do see both of those on there.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: I also see credits towards those of $13.53 and $18.04.
Chad Norwood: thats for “3 premium package” and “4 premium package”
(23-12-3) TJ P.: Then I see one more additional charge for $13.53 towards the premium as well.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: Yes sir, it’s due to removing movie channels.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: Those are the partial charges and credits that applied due to that change.
Chad Norwood: “3 premium package” has a charge and credit, so it cancels itself out
(23-12-3) TJ P.: Yes that is correct.
Chad Norwood: the “4 premium package” credit of $18 goes towards me canceling $40 in december
(23-12-3) TJ P.: You still have the SilverHD and PlatinumHD packages on your account which is the 2 premium package.
Chad Norwood: Ok
Chad Norwood: I did sign up for Top 200 and silver HD in september 2008
(23-12-3) TJ P.: That billing cycle ended on January 12th. Since you removed those channels in the middle of that, it did credit you back for the time you didn’t have the 4 premium package.
Chad Norwood: so i suppose $10 is OK, but not platinum
(23-12-3) TJ P.: I can remove the PlatinumHD right now for you sir.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: I see PlatinumHD was signed up for for 3 months free on October 30th.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: There is normally a $5 fee for removing programming, but I will waive that for you today.
Chad Norwood: I never wanted the platinum
(23-12-3) TJ P.: I’m sorry about that sir. I can credit the difference back to your account.
Chad Norwood: I never wanted anything but Top 200 and silver .. so anything that was “free” that has a charge on it, isn’t really free, now is it?
(23-12-3) TJ P.: IT was free for 3 months sir, so yes it was free.
Chad Norwood: I appreciate you taking care of this, tho.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: After the three months, no, it is no longer free.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: You’re welcome sir.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: Just a moment to apply that credit.
Chad Norwood: I also have questions about Feb 13 bill
(23-12-3) TJ P.: Sure sir.
Chad Norwood: First – you can take off platinum hd, right?
(23-12-3) TJ P.: Yes sir.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: I already have that removed and there is a $20 credit on your account covering two months of that.
Chad Norwood: second, my $49.99 Top 200 turned into $57.99 classic silver 200
(23-12-3) TJ P.: Yes sir, we did have a rearranging of fees and a price increase on February 1st.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: The price increase itself raised your package $3 only.
Chad Norwood: i got a notice saying name change and price to $52.99
(23-12-3) TJ P.: Yes sir, if you notice, you are no longer being charged $5 for the Additional Receiver Access Fee.
Chad Norwood: so price is off by $5
Chad Norwood: $49.99 is on Jan 13 bill
(23-12-3) TJ P.: That is now included in your DVR Advantage pack, bundled with the price, instead of showing separate.
Chad Norwood: what is that additional receiver fee for ?? I only have one reciever
(23-12-3) TJ P.: So your monthly rate did only increase $3. The $5 you were paying before as a separate fee is no longer on the bill and the price of the package rose $5. So those offset each other created no increase there.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: Excuse me, that should say: Those offset each other creating no increase.
Chad Norwood: I understand the math
(23-12-3) TJ P.: Alright, sir.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: From removing the Platinum HD, you will see a partial credit on your next bill for that programming as well.
Chad Norwood: But what does that name mean – additional reciever – since i have only one reciever
Chad Norwood: is that right?
(23-12-3) TJ P.: It’s for the second signal running into the receiver.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: It wasn’t aptly named, which is part of the reason the way it came out changed on February 1st.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: You have one receiver with two tuners in it. Two tuners allows you to run a second television if you’d like, but even without one it allows you to record or watch two live things at the same time.
Chad Norwood: Thank you
(23-12-3) TJ P.: You’re welcome sir.
Chad Norwood: I understand
(23-12-3) TJ P.: Is there anything else I could assist you with?
Chad Norwood: After several phone calls to DISH today, including 2 where i was hung up on, I”m glad to finally get a hold of somebody who knows what they are doing.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: I’m definitely sorry to hear you had such trouble sir.
Chad Norwood: That is all.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: I’m glad I could be of assistance however.
(23-12-3) TJ P.: Thank you for being a Dish Network customer. Have a wonderful day!
Chad Norwood: You too
(23-12-3) TJ P.: Thank you.
Chad Norwood: Keep up the good work !!!
(23-12-3) TJ P.: I appreciate it!
Thank you for visiting Dish Network. You may now close this window.
Your session has ended. You may now close this window.

I’m totally excited. Yesterday Apple announced the newest version of the iPhone OS, 3.0, to be available in June 2009 to both iPhones (original and 3G), and iPod Touch (1st and 2nd generation).  For those building iPhone apps, the beta version of 3.0 SDK is available now.  That means developers can actually start playing with 3.0 TODAY.

Here’s my favs from what’s new in 3.0

• Cut, Copy, and Paste (finally)
• Send photos, contacts, audio files, and location via MMS (iPhone 3G only)
• Push Notification Service
• In App Purchase Support
• Peer to Peer Support
• Maps API
• Audio and Video Enhancements

I’m glad to see cut’n’paste is gonna finally work.  So many times I want to copy a URL from a text or email to Safari, or copy an address to google maps.  However, I’m really pissed that MMS (send a picture message) is only for iPhone 3G.  Back in 2005 I was using my cell phone to send pictures AND VIDEO to my friends phones.  2 years later I bought the iPhone, and now I still can’t do it.  As a phone, iPhone kinda sux.  But as the most awesome portable touchscreen internet customizable high quality audio and video playback device, iPhone rules.

I like the “Push Notification Service” because it allows custom iPhone apps to do receive messages from the internet even if they are not running.  For example, when you get a SMS Text message, an alert pops up on the iPhone with the text message, which you can close or reply, launching the Text Messaging app.  Similarly, the new push service allows an alert to pop up for a custom app.   However, if user hits close the alert goes away and the app is not run.   That means that background processing is still not allowed.  Another way to view it is:  Internet –>  iphone –> Human –> iphone app.  I much prefer this view:  Internet –>  iphone –> iphone app.  Skip that human interactive component and let the app process a notification as it sees fit.   NOTE: originally I thought 3.0 would allow background processing, but 3.0 beta SDK corrected me.

If you want to make money, the “In App Purchase Support” is huge.  You can make an app cost $0.99 in iTunes, offering some basic functionality at a low price point for mass adoption.  Then offer premium services for an additional $1.99 (or whatever) right there in the app – it does not get easier.  Perfect for games (download the next 10 levels for $1.99) or for monthly services ($5.99 for next months premium financial or sports information).

Peer to Peer Support is cool because it makes it easier for iPhones to talk to each other (or other devices that support apple’s bonjour protocol).  Examples include games (just like online multiplayer playstation games), exchanging virtual business cards, or sharing documents.

Maps API has a lot of potential, especially since its closely intergrated with Google Maps API (terms).  Combined with location aware (GPS or cell tower triangulation) phones, this makes it much easier for apps to have custom annotations displayed near the user’s location.  You can also do some of this in safari, skipping the iPhone app and just makeing a website page specific for iPhones (the new safari in 3.0 allows javascript to know users location).

Audio and Video have also been updated.  With iPod Library Access, an app can play any song on the phone. One example would be a game tied to a specific playlist, where each game event (begin, score, foul, goodbye) is mapped to a song, allowing users to customize the audio themselves.  Video Streaming is improved – now you can playback video streamed from a standard HTTP (Web) Server.  Expect more websites to have a feed made for mobile devices. Core Audio and Audio Recording got newer engines under the hood, including support for more codecs and software decoding.

The last week I’ve noticed lots of green in Chicago – People are getting siked for St. Paddy’s Day.  This year St. Patrick’s day falls on a Tuesday, and the parades are the weekend before.  That’s right, There are 2 parades in Chicago – the “official” one downtown (which moved from the south side in 1960) and the one in the south side (recreated in 1979). Here are the deets

• March 14, Saturday’s Parade:
  • Where: Downtown, Grant Park, On Columbus from Balbo to Monroe (src).
  • When: 10:45am River turns green, Noon: Parade Begins
• March 15, Sunday’s Parade
  • Where: South Chicago, on Western from 104th to 115th (src).
  • When: Noon Parade begins.
• March 17, Tuesday, St. Patrick’s Day
  • Lots of Bars – Timeout Chicago’s Info

Some say the southside one is where the party is at.  That’s good, cuz it will give me time saturday to prepare my leprechaun costume.  I’m still gonna check out the green river and parade saturday, tho.

UPDATE: Southside parade might be canceled due to drinking (54 arrests) (src)

More Info

• http://www.nbcchicago.com/around_town/the_scene/South-Side-Irish-Parade-Cancelled.html
• http://www.southsideirishparade.org/index.php?id=1
• http://www.chicagostpatsparade.com/parade.html
• http://www.saintpatricksdayparade.com/chicago/index.htm
• http://chicago.about.com/od/museumsattractions/p/StPatrickParade.htm
• http://chicago.metromix.com/events/community_event/54th-annual-chicago-st-grant-park-museums/889687/content
• http://www.timeout.com/chicago/events/comedy/50395/490045/downtown-st-patricks-day-parade

I just bought my ticket to San Francisco for SnowCamp weekend, flying out Thursday 4/2, returning Monday 4/6. Rejoice. I was on the fence about when to visit SF this spring/summer, and Snowcamp won. You really can’t beat it – the best crew of crazy fun loving trouble makers this side of the mississippi (which side are we talking about?), dressing up (this year’s theme is Fairy Tales) and enjoying delishous tahoe powder (if it doesn’t all melt by april). In addition, carrying on the spirit of Otto, funds will be raised to send girls from Hunter’s Point to summer camp. Deets on FB. Any suggestions as to which Fairy Tales thing I should dress up as?

And 2 weeks later I’m going to Coachella Music Festival, another Thurs-Monday adventure which I’m totally excited for. Check out the amazing lineup and our house for the weekend.

• Slow Cooker vs Dutch Oven
• Guinness Beef Stew
• Irish Brown Soda Bread

It’s cold in Chicago. Time to get my stew on. I really enjoyed the beef stew and bread combo from last year, but this time i wanted an easier to make bread.  I went with the a soda bread (quick to make) but one with whole wheat (more hearty).

The bread turned out awesome – the consistancy was more like cornbread, went great with stew or just butter and jam. The stew was incredibly hearty (almost too meaty, very little liquid), had good flavor, but the potatoes and carrots were a bit mushy (next time might throw them in only for the last half of cooking).

Slow Cooker vs Dutch Oven

Since I don’t have a slow cooker as the recipe calls for, I had to use my dutch oven (which works better than a slow cooker according to many chefs).  I found slight variations on how to convert between the two, so I did my own recipe modification. The details of what I did are included in the recipe below, [my notes bold and bracketed].  First, here’s a summary of what I found on the internets:

• Converting from Slow cooking to an oven would be about 175 degrees for low setting and high is 250 to 275. (src).
• Low on Slow Cooker is 200 degrees, high is 300.  Plus slow cookers need less liquid and less herbs (src).
• Low setting in a slow cooker takes about a quarter as long in a Dutch oven in a 325-degree oven. High setting takes about half as long. (src).

Game on.

Guinness Beef Stew

Irish Brown Soda Bread

(orig) Yields 1 loaf.   Published March 1, 1997.

Unlike the Classic Irish Soda Bread Dough, which is dry, this dough is extremely sticky.

Ingredients

Instructions

1. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Whisk flours, toasted wheat germ, sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt in large bowl. Work softened butter into dry ingredients with fork or fingertips until texture resembles coarse crumbs. [I did 1.5c AP flour, 1.5c Whole Wheat]
2. Add buttermilk and stir with a fork just until dough begins to come together. Turn out onto flour-coated work surface; knead until dough just becomes cohesive and bumpy, 12 to 14 turns. (Do not knead until dough is smooth, or bread will be tough.)
3. Pat dough into a round about 6 inches in diameter and 2 inches high; place on greased or parchment-lined baking sheet or in cast-iron pot, if using. Place the loaf on a cookie sheet and cut a cross shape into the top.
4. Bake until golden brown and a skewer inserted into center of loaf comes out clean or internal temperature reaches 190 degrees, 45 to 50 minutes. Remove from oven and brush with melted butter; cool to room temperature, 30 to 40 minutes.

Step-by-Step

Proper Handling for a Proper Irish Bread

1. Mix the dough with a fork until it just comes together.

2. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and knead just until loose flour gets incorporated; do not overknead.

3. Shape the dough into a six-inch round.

4. Place the loaf on a cookie sheet and cut a cross shape into the top.

5. For a golden crust that’s thin and crisp, with a bit of a chew, bake in a cast-iron pan.

I’ve made this delicious cornbread several times over the last of couple years.  I find it better than other recipes due to the jalapeno spice and flavorfull sharp cheddar.   Mmmmmmm…  Recipe from Cooks Illustrated

After almost 3 years, I’m back in the game.  I’m working with MidVentures.com, a startup company that does web solutions, community building, and incubation.  Small and young, there’s room for growth, further definition, and refinement, yet they already have had several successful projects and proven themselves in Chicago.  They focus on web 2.0 tech solutions, which is a great fit for my experience, but they have an eye for building out good ideas and working with the community (including many non-profits), which is great for where I want to go.  Technically I’m a contractor, working about 40 hours a week, but that may change in the future.

Since moving to Chicago last September I’ve looked into different career options before landing where I am now.  My job goal was to “gain experience in business roles while utilizing my internet, software engineering, and problem solving expertise” (according to my resume).  What that means is that I want to do new stuff, but not so new that I’m starting over with a bunch of recent college grads.  I wanted this new stuff to be related to one or more of the following interest areas: sustainability (help the world be a better place), business management (I want to own or run my own company one day), consulting (utilize the fact that my communication and social skills are above average compared to others with similar experience and skills), or any other area that is creative, challenging, and full of interesting people (my catch-all).  First I targeted a PM position at Google, but that didn’t work out.  I also considered getting an MBA, so I took the GMAT exam, which led me to train to be a Kaplan GMAT instructor (still in progress, stay tuned).  I also interviewed with trading firms (they attract a smart crowd), consulting firms (altho mostly use microsoft solutions in the midwest, which I don’t have experience with), and a few others.  I eventually came to realize I should work my strengths, bringing value, and then go from there.  That meant doing something internet and web related, so here I am.

I am very content with my accomplishments over the last couple years.  I traveled around the world, spent time with family and friends, improved my eating and exercise habits, ran a marathon, explored nature on many camping and backpacking trips, attended many music events and festivals, and spent time stress-free being happy.  I loved my time off, but without a full-time gig my brain felt like it was getting soft, so I am very excited to sink my teeth into work again.