I've taken up beekeeping as some of you know. And I'm realy enjoying it. The gotcha is that you're not supposed to mess with the bees very often. I find myself going out there and opening up the hive nearly every day which is a big no no (because it really disturbs them apparently) but what kind of hobby is one that you only go out there every few weeks? I've tried to get into cars a bit. Ever since I got my Jaguar S-Type R, I've started appreciating cars more. But it's hard to find a dece...

The cottage isn't done yet but it's getting close. Here's some recent pictures. From the beech looking back. From the deck (you can see the lake in the background). Fancy bathtub. (faucets not on yet) Stone chimney

The cottage isn't done yet but it's getting close. Here's some recent pictures. From the beech looking back. From the deck (you can see the lake in the background). Fancy bathtub. (faucets not on yet) Stone chimney

You're walking in the woods or a field and there's a damn biting fly buzzing around your head. It keeps trying to land on your head and you know if you let it, you'll feel a painful chomp.  Those flies are almost malicious in the way they'll follow you around as you're walking. They're evil . These flies are known as deer flies. You've seen them before when you occasionally managed to catch one as its biting you. It turns out, it's not easy to get rid of them. You can't just put...

As the company has grown, I have had to spend more time at the office.  I used to work 4 days at the office and then 1 day at home every week.  In fact, sometimes I'd work 3 days at the office and 2 days at home if there were particularly important things going on. Working from home isn't for most people.  For many people, working from home results in a loss of productivity because of communication issues, lack of resources, etc.  But in my particular case, working from ho...

Here's a map of the United States but with state names changed to countries that have a similar GDP (gross domestic product) to that state.  Kind of gives a whole new perspective on things.

Lindsay Lohan's bodyguard speaks! Adventures in Global Warming The "tax the rich" mantra Ten Conservative Principles

It's time for another update for Galactic Civilizations II and this time we've put our energy into not just adding new features, fixing various reported issues, and tweaking game balance. This time we integrated in a new graphics engine for the ship rendering that should result in a performance boost of 10X to 15X depending on your setup and what is happening on the screen. This update should be available via Stardock Central by around 5PM EST on June 7, 2007. Here's a complete list of wha...

Peggy Noonan, one of my heroes, has an outstanding column in today's Wallstreet Journal about George W. Bush and how he has torn the Republican party asunder. It has always amazed me to see Bush haters trying to paint Bush as a "typical" Republican or "typical" conservative. He is neither. His out of control spending, his preference for loyalty over competency, his incompotent handling of Iraq, his left-of center views on federal education, immigration, and even welfare make him not a Repu...

TownHall.com has a great article outlining just how bad this current Immigration bill in the senate would be for the United States. The most detrimental point of it is that it would immediately legalize the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens in the country by giving them "Z-Visas".  As someone who has spent thousands of dollars trying to get a handful of visas for skilled labor, it's quite an outrage to see the government about to hand out free visas to people who broke our laws. It's s...

Raymond E. Feist is the greatest living fantasy author. The author of Magician and the subsequent books, Feist has created a vivid world full of interesting, wonderful characters that are a joy to read. His latest work, Into a Dark Realm, is book two of a new series. It still exists in the world that has been created by the preceding books but begins a fresh epic.  And boy it is an epic. In the previous book, readers are given a glimpse into the world of the Dasati, a world in wh...

With the immigration bill fiasco looming (does he understand what he would be signing?) one has to wonder, does anyone support Bush? Democrats already loathe the man.  Conservatives have no use for him and his incompotence.  So I'm genuinely curious, is anyone here actually approve of the job Bush is currently doing and if so, why?

Michigan isn't a bad state unless you're trying to run a business. Then it pretty much blows. For years, we had the stupid "single business tax". But on top of that we have horrible roads, Detroit, and apparently brain-dead politicians in the state capital. Last month, the Michigan house of representatives proposed providing every child an MP3 player for "educational" purposes.  Mind you, we have a $1 billion deficit.  So how to pay for this? Higher taxes.  Unbelieveable. ...

My son and I did our first inspection of our two new hives.  Hive 1 looks pretty good with lots of capped brood and we found a healthy queen running around.  Hive 2, on the other hand, seems a lot less populated and we couldn't find the queen.  Only 3 of the frames in Hive 2 are drawn with comb (about 5 are drawn in hive 1). Hive 2 was so tame that I was able to work with it without smoking the bees or a head net on. Hive 2 has some drone cells, couldn't find the queen...

It's a beautiful day today, perfect weather for "working with the bees".  Today is the day I do my first inspection of the hive to make sure it's coming along nicely. Odds are, I'm going to get stung (not a prospect I'm looking forward to).  But with any luck, the two hives I have will be in good shape.