I cooked Aussome Burgers on the barbie last night.  Burger plus cheese, bacon, bbq sauce, fried egg, and pineapple ring.

Best. Burgers. Ever.

AP’s latest Appendix is out now. It’s a fun collection of 8 songs, plus you get a whole bunch of “enhanced” content (chord charts, movies, old journal entries, etc.) when you put the CD in your computer.

This, like Appendix A is amazingly imperfect. It reminds me of Andrew. (I guess that means Andrew is amazingly imperfect.) Let me explain. It’s an album with lots of good stuff; it’s an album that’s fun to hang out with and get to know. It’s fun, serious, encouraging, honest - and imperfect - all at once. Andrew is a lot like that.

Appendix M, much like Appendix A, may not be for the casual listener. Casual listeners will want to hear the studio perfected awesomeness on “Behold the Lamb of God” and “The Far Country” rather than mastered bootlegs and sometimes shaky videos. But the folks who have gotten to know Andy or his music will want to hear this one. It’s a deeper look at his art. After spending time with Appendix M, you’ll feel like you spent a whole day just hanging out with Andrew. You’ll know him better, and you’ll love his music even more.
Some of my initial thoughts about Appendix M:

• “Over My Head” was recorded by me at New City Cafe in Knoxville. I thought that was cool.
• I’m glad the original version of “No More Faith” made the cut. I lobbied for it to be on Appendix A, but it didn’t happen.
• The instruments on the other “No More Faith” are absolutely beautiful.
• “Sun on the Moon” - can we get AP, Jamie, and Gabe back together to play this? I wish I had been able to see it.
• “Long, Long Ago” - Ben Shive is awesome. I wonder if he’ll ever finish his own CD.
• “All the Way Home” - hearing Jill Phillips sing this was like hearing it again for the first time.
• Enhanced Content - it’ll take me a while to fully digest all that’s in the enhanced content on the CD. I’ve seen the movies and read some of the old journals. It’s nice getting a view of the past several years from Andrew’s point of view.

If you want to pick it up, you can grab it at AP’s site. If you’re new to his music, go ahead and get it, but get a full studio release, too.

Today I learned that if you are running qmail with the SMTP Authentication patch through tcpserver, you have to invoke qmail-smtpd with 3 parameters:  hostname, check program, and subprogram.  If you don’t invoke it with those 3 arguments, it will successfully authenticate any user/pass combination.

I realize that this post means nothing to 99.5% of the people who read this blog, but I figured I’d throw it in a post just in case it ends up in search engines and helps somebody out of a tough spot.  Here is my source on this.

Maybe you’ve seen him. Maybe you’ve only heard about him. He’s not easily spotted in the middle of a crowd, since he is typically dressed in Buller Sports rental gear. On the slopes, however, he’s nearly impossible to miss.

Fighting gravity all the way down Mt. Buller, he has been spotted making some of the most magnificent falls man have ever seen. While snowboarding amateurs may fall over or crash into ski lift poles, The Legend carefully maneuvers his way around obstacles has he tumbles toward the bottom of the mountain.

He has even been known to draw applause from skiers on the lifts above him as he breaks into his magnificent wipeouts. Some estimate he can travel up to 30 meters on one fall. A skill set to match The Legend has not, nor will it ever, been found on Mt. Buller.

On my recent trip to Mt. Buller, I happened to get a chance to meet The Legend. He was a man of few words, but he was kind enough to pose for a picture. Look into those eyes. Yes, those are the eyes of a legend.

Sunday night we drove up to Mt. Buller, a popular ski resort in this part of Australia.  They tell me that this is nothing like skiing in Colorado, but I had never skied, so I wouldn’t know the difference anyway.

Yesterday morning, we got up and went to the ski shop to rent some gear.  (Yes, they even have sizes to fit me.)  We grabbed some breakfast, and then Shane and I headed up the mountain for our lesson on how to not kill yourself on a snowboard.

Shane made it down the mountain (barely) once before trading his snowboard in for some skis.  I almost made the switch, but I was getting the hang of the snowboard a little bit, so I kept it.

After the lesson, I was exhausted, but we rode the lift up the mountain to meet Matt and Lisa.  On the way down, I fell over a few times, once really hard.  I got up slow, but I got up.  We made it the rest of the way down and grabbed some lunch.

After lunch, we went back up the mountain.  I was actually doing really well, except for when some stupid amateur skier got in my way.  I pushed myself a little too hard, and the last run down the mountain was sloppy, painful, and very slow.

We all met back here at the apartment and got a shower before going out for dinner.  I could barely move.  We ate and came back to watch a little TV before crashing into bed.

This morning, we’re still sore.  Shane and I are barely awake, but Matt and Lisa have been up for some time.  They’re at breakfast now, and we’re attempting to move around the apartment.

We’re going back out on the slopes in a little while.  I’ll probably not overextend myself like I did yesterday.  It’s time to go get dressed for the day.  I’ll post some pictures of this place later.

I’ve been working some long hours this week.  Tuesday was about 13-14 hours and Wednesday was only 10 (but they were a long 10 hours).  Now, nearly a week after my arrival down under, I can finally say that the sun never sets on my network.  that’s a cool feeling.  I’m not sure that even Penrod the Cisco god can say that.  (His network is WAY bigger than mine, for what it’s worth.  Mine is just more spread out.)

Today we stopped at a ski shop to prepare for the ski trip we’re taking on Sunday.  I’ve never been, so this should be an interesting outing.  I bought a pair of gloves, but I’ll hire (rent) the rest of the stuff I need once we’re at the snow.

Tuesday night after we were finally done working, we went for a bit to eat, and then I passed out on the couch watching Arrested Development.  Shane tried to wake me, but he gave up when he realized his efforts were in vain.  Last night I nearly fell asleep on the couch after dinner.  Today I’m not really sleepy because of the excitement that finally this Australia network stuff is coming together.

I’ve got 2 more servers to bring online, and then most of the remaining configuration can be done from the apartment.  There are some small things that need doing up here, but I should be able to tackle them quickly once the configuration on the servers is done.

Well, I’ve been typing this during reboots, and now I’ve got to go work on them some more.  Cheers.