...what "racking" beer means

Pete has just finished a gorgeous IPA. It has finally completed its dry hopping and is ready for consumption. However, looking at the beer in the carboy, there's a TON of crap on the bottom, primarily yeast and hops. I asked Pete if he was going to filter the beer before putting it in the keg.

The answer was absolutely not (apparently filtering beer is something you try to avoid in the craft brewing industry). He's going to rack the beer, which basically means making sure all that stuff you don't want is settled at the bottom of the carboy, then siphoning the good beer from the carboy into the keg, leaving an inch or two of beer left. That way, you leave all the crap in the carboy, lose very little beer, and don't lose flavor through any filtering process.

Now I know! :)

...how to make Pete's jambalaya

Pete and I cooked together this afternoon and he taught me how to make his fabulous jambalaya. Mmmmm.... so good! Here's what I remember:

• 1 package of Andouille sausage, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1/2 lb. of bacon, cut into small pieces
• 3 carrots
• 3 celery stalks
• 2 red peppers
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 2 onions
• some spices, like Cajun seasoning, Old Bay, Lawry's seasoning salt, and some other stuff to make it nice and spicy
• 3 cups of rice
• 6 cups of water

We let the meat sautee in our big pot first for a little while, as we chopped up all the veggies. Then we added the veggies and let those sautee a bit. Then we added the rice and water, brought it to a boil, let it boil for the appropriate amount of time for the rice to cook, and voila! So very, very good!

I don't really enjoy chopping vegetables, but it was fun to spend time in the kitchen with Pete.

...there's going to be a virtual exhibit hall during the ASUG Virtual Education Summit

ASUG is going to be hosting an online SAP educational event on September 9 - 10 this year, most likely in response to the big crunch on travel that all companies are going through. This event is totally free to ASUG members and is going to offer approximately 150 educational sessions all through webcasts and live Q&A.

I was pretty stoked about that, and then I learned they're even going to have a virtual exhibit hall!

That's the cherry on the sundae, lol! This rules. I love technology.

...how to create a small Gantt chart in Excel

MS Excel is no MS Project, but it works for little mini-Gantt charts when you need a picture to go with a small written timeline.

If you want your horizontal axis to be a little more meaningful however (i.e. Q1, Q2, etc.), I found you have to do a little manipulating. Setting the horizontal axis major tick marks manually is usually required, along with hiding the number values altogether and fudging it by putting text boxes with your own values by the tick marks. But it works beautifully for small timeline illustrations, when the tasks aren't in MS Project.

Read more about it...

...Super Mario Galaxy is way easier with 2 people

I knew that Super Mario Galaxy had 2-player simultaneous play before I received it from Pete for Christmas. I knew the second player could help collect Star Bits, which I of course assumed was a good thing for 1-UPs and other points. However, I had no clue that the second player could make my galactic life so much easier! Pete can not only hold enemies in place so I can pound them, he can stop rolling boulders, flying cannonballs, fireballs, all kinds of stuff that desperately want to kill me. It's awesome!

Unfortunately for Pete, it means that I ask him to play Super Mario Galaxy with me quite frequently. But he doesn't seem to be sick of it quite yet.

...Nintendo is releasing a new 4-player Mario game for Wii

Awesome! It's in the classic 2D style and up to four people can play at once:

"The number four is the key to Nintendo's next surprise," [Cammie Dunaway] said, unveiling a new Super Mario Bros. for Wii. The 2D game supports one to four players, and item boxes give one item for each player so you can all be on equal footing. The game looks like New Super Mario Bros, which means it looks great. Bill Trinen showed some of the interaction: you can pick up and carry other players; you can play cooperatively, competitively, or minute-to-minute, as players jump in and out. The big reveal is the propeller suit, which allows gamers to fly up and then float softly back down to Earth. The game is set to launch in time for the 2009 holiday season.
Read more...

Excitement!

...SAP put their Collaboration Portal plans on hold

Apparently SAP's trial run of their Collaboration Portal (with Sharepoint-like functionality) didn't get very well received with their pilot customers. So we're still stuck with Collaboration Rooms. Too bad... this time period was probably SAP's last chance to get their foot in the collaboration door at [insert my employer here].