August 2007 Archives

My first rack of ribs on my new gas grill came out fantastic!

I cooked the ribs on my new Charbroil Dual Gas Grill stainless steel grill model 463268007 that's hooked to my natural gas line I had installed in my new home as an option.

I also tried some new spices and a nice dry rub rib mix of spices I blended for half the rack. I used the same spices for my wet half of the rib rack as well.

The combination of my new gas grill and my new blend of spices was ridiculously tasty!

My previous gas grills flared a bit sometimes even with two separate zones made for indirect cooking a bit dicey with the rocks they provided.

With this grills flare guards over all 4 separate burners the flare ups were virtually non-existent.

Indirect grilling is great with this grill since I could separate the two halves of the rib racks to different areas of the grill because the sizes were different and I needed to control the heat and flames on each individually.

I was able to thoroughly cook the ribs and yet had the meat coming off the bone just the way I like with good flavor.

Let me go back and clarify this was my first pork rack of ribs. I have earlier done some boneless beef ribs.

When I first got the grill about a month ago I also did some rib eye steaks and they were damned near perfect my friend brought some nice vegetables and we really enjoyed that meal. She cannot stop talking about how good those steaks turned out. Actually the chicken I cooked that day was pretty tender and tasty too.

I then had someone help me rototill my backyard and cooked some nice inch and a half thick porterhouse steaks that turned out very nice with a little indirect cooking every once in a while.

I cannot forget the salmon fillets I threw on the grill and with that and use of the side burner I have tested the grill fully and have become very familiar with the hot spots and how I need to cook each type of food I grill including vegetables!

I now feel I have the hot spots indirect cooking and timing, flame control how the grill cools and heats as well as proper cleaning methods down and I'm ready to really rock!

I had to finally move back to my 7 foot 19 inch rack for my systems from my 3.5 foot 19 inch rack system. I needed to regain some needed floor space and the shorter rack took up more floor space and didn’t allow me to have organization of my routers and switches.

The smaller rack was longer by 13 inches (39 inches front to back) and 3 inches wider. That length was cutting off my room too much and my network and power cabling were harder to follow when trouble shooting and nearly impossible too keep organized.

I was going to buy a relay rack to sit over the smaller rack with some modifications. Good thing I decided to look at my previous rack that was in storage first. After taking measurements I determined it was what I was looking for and weighed a lot less as well. That small rack is built like a tank!

Well I still have to get the wires straight and a few other items and then I will update the content on my sites!

Short Rack

Tall Rack

I am back on my former ISP Surewest.com with 20mbps upload and download capabilities. Since I host my own website and Internet radio station at home (http://www.dhoytt.com/snake-ice-radio-blog/ ) it is extremely important to have not only a good download speed but a good upload speed for my site visitors.

My radio station has been choked off the last few months while I was with the other ISP. Why in this computer/telephony driven world would an ISP who has fiber to homes only offer .786mbps upload & 6 mbps download over fiber at higher prices is beyond me.

Upload speeds have become very important for even the casual user as they place images on photo sharing sites or send them to friends and families around the Internet. There is the proliferation of chat and online classes at work and schools that need better upload speeds.

People are streaming video and playing games that require more two way communications so a decent upload as well as download need to be used to judge ISP speeds and usability.

My continuous lobbying of my Home Owners Association paid off and we now have a nice alternative in our community that I had previously been with since their initial inception when they were called Winfirst telecommunications. I had Winfirst/Surewest in my former residence and the last few months without them have really made me appreciate them. Surewest is not perfect but they try to give the best service they can which is far superior to other ISP’s.

Surewest’s prices are substantially less for a lot more product. Having Surewest is like buying Internet bandwidth wholesale, not to mention they have video on demand for their TV product and their phone service is just as good if not better. Their support, installers and field personnel are customer friendly and know what they are doing. They don’t charge you every time you switch your service either. Like I said not perfect but this is what we call old fashioned good service.

In the Sacramento/Roseville, California area people actually mark their calendars for the day when Surewest will be coming to their neighborhood! People in areas without Surewest fiber service actually have committed to memory the date Surewest will begin fiber connectivity construction in their neighborhood. Even my super technology challenged parents query me about when Surewest will be in their area.

No I don’t work or have any other affiliation with Surewest or anyone at Surewest but I like their model and hope they keep it up and wish that other Telco’s would follow their lead.

I’m actually seriously contemplating moving but the ISP issues in other parts of the country concern me and with my involvement in technology that is a serious concern. Not many ISP’s have fiber to the home and even if they do they offer copper bandwidth at outrageous prices compared to what I have.

Bottom line I’m glad I have my 20mbps service back and I will soon be making other serious changes to my site to take advantage of this bandwidth.