The Best BBQ Chicken in the World

The best BBQ chicken in the world is “beer in the butt” chicken. I heard about this way of cooking chicken on a grill many years ago, tried it and was hooked. Apparently, I am not the only one. I did a Google search and found more than 16,000,000 entries for beer in the butt chicken on the web.

Top Shelf Astronomy 201 Courses

Looking for an astronomy class a little beyond the basics, but not requiring a PhD and taught by the experts? Here are four recommendations that are “out of this world.”

 

Life Is Too Short To Drink Cheap Wine

For 35 years, I’ve occasionally drunk wine. For most of this time, I didn’t have much of a discriminating pallet, even with a few casual wine tasting classes and visits to wineries.

And then I had a chance to sample a glass of Silver Oak Cabernet. This was a $70 bottle of wine. After this glass, I realized there was a qualitative difference in a $70 bottle of wine from the usual $7.99 wine I used to drink. Sometimes paying extra for a great bottle of wine is worth it.

Since then, I’ve tried to pay attention to wine and taken the opportunity to keep track of the ones I like. It’s all about price range and quality.

For under $10, my favorites are:

• Chardonnay: Chateau St. Michelle
• Pinot Noir: Gallo Reserve
• Shiraz: Yellow Tail

For ~$25:

• Cabernet: Simi
• Pinot Noir: Castle Rock Russian River Reserve
• Chardonel: Reserve, Stonehill

And then when I really want to splurge, for $50-$70 its

Cabernet: Silver Oak

Merlot: Grgrich

As a special note, Grgrich is the winery that put California Chardonay’s on the map. The 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay, crafted by Mike Grgich, took first place at the famed “Paris Tasting” in 1976, beating France’s best white Burgundies.

The entertaining fictional movie Bottle Shock, was based on this earth shaking event.

With these price points and favorites in mind, I like to compare new wines, always looking for ones that beat my current favorites. That’s often the fun part of visiting wineries to taste their offerings- the possibility of discovering a new favorite.

If you have a recommendation, let me know!

Hacking a Cat Box to Last Two Weeks Between Emptying

We have three cats. Two of them, 9 year old males, are at least 15 pounds and the third, a 2 year old female, that weights only 8 pounds, eats (and poops) like she is 15 pounds.

That’s a lot of cat litter each day that needs disposal. Ideally, I want an automatic cat box that I don’t have to clean out for weeks at a time, doesn’t make a mess, never needs maintenance and the cats can use effortlessly. I accept the fact that I will have to add kitty litter every so often.

iPhone Favorite Apps: AT&T Navigator

Whenever I’ve rented a car in the past 8 years, I’ve always gotten a gps navigator. I’ve become dependent on it as an essential tool to get around in a new city.

Four years ago, when Verizon came out with VZ Navigator, I thought this was great. It was exactly the same turn by turn voice navigation as the dedicated navigators, like from Garmin, but you carried it around with you.

When I switched to the iPhone, I tried out a number of the navigator features and found the AT&T Navigator to be the best. It uses real time information feeds, so does require 3G network access. However, it also gives traffic update reports and, of course, allows local search for facilities nearby.

I use it locally to find the nearest Starbuck, and to check out new restaurants when I am looking for inspiration.

The turn by turn voice directions are as good or better than other navigators and I like the posting of the ETA to my destination. This is a “First Screen” app for me.

Three Microsoft Windows Products I Actually Like

The first computer I bought with my own money was a Mac. It was love at first sight. I became a “pod” person. Back in 1985, it was like all of us Mac fans shared this secret. We knew how “insanely great” the Mac was, but those not part of our secret society didn’t have a clue.

When I met a stranger in my travels who had a Mac with them, we would exchange a smile and know exactly what it meant.

Screen Capture for an iPhone

There is a simple way of taking a snap shot picture of whatever is currently displayed on the iPhone screen. It is described in the iPhone help files under the camera.

To record the screen, press the top off-on button at the same time as the home button, the round depression at the bottom center of the iPhone.

A copy of whatever is on the screen at the time is then sent to the camera roll collection of photos which can be viewed with the photo tool or downloaded from the iPhone like any photo.

This means that if I am viewing a map, or directions, or a note, or even a recorded lecture and want to take a snapshot, it’s a simple matter of clicking the two buttons simultaneously and I have an instant record.

Fixing a Reset Problem with my Celestron SCT C6 Telescope Hand Controller

I’ve had a recurring problem with my Celestron SCT C6 telescope since I received it in Feb, 2008. Every now and then, especially when I am slewing the scope, and more often in cold weather, the scope stops working and the hand controller resets to the power up state.

This means I have to re-align the scope to its initial position and re-initialize the hand controller. This problem even happened while just tracking in RA (right ascension). There have been times when this happened so often I could not get any observing in.

I found two root causes to this problem. It’s a combination of a poor fitting power plug into the telescope and an undersized power supply.

When the motion of the telescope jostled the cold and stiff power cable, it would cause an intermittent to the power feed and the hand controller would reset. After this loose plug problem was fixed, I found that under some slew conditions, the hand controller would still reset.

By using a power brick that could supply more current, this problem was completely eliminated.

Here is the complete story…

Fix for some Windows 7 compatibility problems

I hated Vista and actually downgraded two computers from Vista to XP. Windows 7 is a huge improvement, and I am in the process of migrating all my computers to this new operating system.

As I reinstall old programs, especially those I use for astronomy and astrophotography, I find that some of them do not install correctly under Windows 7. I learned a simple fix that sometimes works. It was from discussion with the folks at Starry Night Education, who create a really wonderful planetarium software tool that I use to control my telescope.

Here’s the trick that sometimes works. If a software tool does not install correctly in Windows 7, then:

Book Review: The Alchemy of the Heavens by Ken Croswell

Astrophysicists sometimes use familiar words, but in a very different way than we are used to. Take for example the term metal. To an astrophysicist, a metal is any element with an atomic mass greater than Helium’s.

That’s because only hydrogen and helium were created during the big bang and all higher atomic mass nuclei had to have been created in some stellar process. This story of nucleosynthesis and what it tells us about the structure of the universe, the origins of our galaxy and stellar evolution is detailed in Ken Croswell’s book, The Alchemy of the Heavens, published by Doubleday, 1995.

Life Long Learning at Your Fingertips

I’ve never given up my thirst for learning more about what interests me in the world. I went to school in Cambridge, MA, where there are 30 large universities in the area, each with weekly talks and seminars. I used to hop from seminar  to seminar, eating the free cookies and cakes and listening to the distinguished visitors from around the world.

With the web and my iPod, I can access the same quality speakers who are expert on almost any subject imaginable, but with the convenience of my schedule. I’ve found three important sources for incredibly great learning.