Josh Davis

The Nerdery keeps a pretty cool list of videos for speakers and interviews and other multimedia at their place of work.  Recently, they had Josh Davis, an artist and technologist, speak.  I don't think I've ever heard anyone drop quite so many f-bombs during a technical, or at least semi-technical-presentation.  Which is great.  I think most code/tech needs to be described in terms used by the people developing it. Warning - almost 90 minutes long.

By the way...taking into account this video and the next one...I'd like to shame my company by stating that I heard - and this is grapevine until I confirm it tomorrow - that the ad hoc chess club at work was booted from playing at the cafeteria and had to move their activities off site to a local coffee house because chess/gaming isn't allowed in the cafeteria after a certain time. If that's true, I think I'll be dropping a comment on the CEO's blog to ask him exactly what sort of culture they're trying to cultivate at work and whether he has a place where a chess club could set up camp. Then again, maybe chess is better with fancy coffee.

Josh Davis at The Nerdery from The Nerdery on Vimeo.

And I wish this happened where I work:

Rebecca Black's Friday on Rock Band from The Nerdery on Vimeo.

Forgotten Grandma Photos

I don't think I posted this after the trip from Denver to Sidney, as Pooteewheet pilfered some of them for Facebook, and that can trick my brain into thinking I already said something about them.  But better late than never, particularly as my father can find them online and share them with her.

While we were getting grandma settled into the trailer, Eryn set up her sculpture garden for her.


The squirrel in the front is new.  When we were at the grocery store, Eryn picked out a new addition.  She had several choices, but felt the squirrel was best.  Grandma was exceedingly happy to get a new animal that Eryn picked out herself.


A different view.


Eryn also got a new sweatshirt.  I was worried that it was white.  And too big.  But she's always growing, so the size wasn't as big of an issue.  It looks really nice on her and she looks just like an official Sidney Eagle.


Grandma (Great Grandma) and Eryn right before Grandma drove us to Williston in the rain storm that later turned into several inches of snow.  I believe there's an 88 year difference between the two of them.  Pretty neat to have a great grandma who's still moving and can hang with you at that age.

My Little Serenity

A thank you to Jewel Staite (who runs the food-dedicated blog Happy Opu) for her Twitter about Nathan Fillion staring in "My Little Serenity", an amusing spoof on YouTube.

107 miles

Yesterday, I biked 107 miles. I've been telling Ming I wasn't tired at the end of our 60 mile MS ride and 63 miles into the second day of Bike the Border, but it was just talk. I couldn't prove it. So I figured I'd go out and make sure I wasn't lying to him or to myself. Additionally, I wanted to break the 100 mile mark, something I haven't done since I was 15 and biked to northern Wisconsin and northern Minnesota with classmates. So I got up and hit the road by 6:00 a.m. and aimed for the north shore of Lake Minnetonka, where there was a trail (Dakota Rail Trail) I wanted to try. My first stop was at The Depot in Hopkins for a depth charge and a piece of banana bread. Looking at the GPS, with the break, I was averaging only about 10.4 mile per hour. This was sort of expected. There are a lot of stops in the city, and I didn't have the GPS in front of me (the back for mounting on my bike didn't fit, part of my neverending odometer woes). So by the time I got to north Lake Minnetonka, I was looking for any way to force myself to go faster. The answer was two guys on road bikes who were spinning along at about 17 mph. I vowed to keep up with them, despite the embarrassment it would cause them being shadowed by a mountain bike. By the time I got to St. Bonifacius, I'd moved my average from 10.4 to 14.5.

That was part of the point.  To a.) use a mountain bike, not a road bike, as I'd always claimed I wasn't tired on the mountain bike, b.) to get a variety of terrain, hills and flats, c.) to get a variety of surfaces, dirt and tar, and d.) to average at least 11 mph.  I managed all of those, as Highway 7, which attached St. Bonifacius to Victoria was seriously hilly, the Minnetonka LRT was dirt (and mud...it was raining for my last 50 miles), I was on the mountain bike, and I averaged 11.4 mph, including a stop for breakfast at The Depot and lunch at Chipotle (13.3 average moving speed).

The most important things I learned on the trip were, 1.) there's a restaurant called Maggie's in Wayzata that's 30 miles from my house, perfect for meeting Kyle and open at 7:00 a.m., 2.) there's a bike/coffee shop in Wayzata,  3.) seriously hot joggers average one every 33 miles in the further burbs, 4.) there's a bistro to try in St. Bonifacius, 5.) the Dakota Trail doesn't stop at Waconia, as it does on my map, but continues to County Road 25 in Mayer, MN, and will eventually continue until it joins with the Luce, 6.) 107 miles is rough and makes you feel like you're getting a spanking the next day when you bike to ice cream with your daughter.

A memorable point of the ride was when I called Pooteewheet at the 75 mile mark to tell her I'd be home sometime around 4:00 p.m.  For a moment, while lying on a bench south of Lake Minnetonka, I felt like I was passing out because there were so many spots in front of my eyes.  Then one landed on me and I realized it was a gnat, and I felt much better.

Given the trend, I shouldn't have to do the next 100 miler until I'm 69.

What I'm Listening To Lately

The Decemberists, Rox in the Box


Arcade Fire, We Used to Wait


Seether, Country Song


Mumford and Sons, The Cave

Minot

Ming and I biked the Bike the Border ride last weekend.  140 miles - 38 the first day, 68 the second day, 32 the last day.  The ride went from Glenburn, ND, to Berthold, to Mohall, and back to Glenburn, in a big circle north of Minot.  The 9 hour drive each way was definitely a pain in the a**, but good company, so there was lots to talk about.

I apologize in advance for the quality of the pictures.  My camera white compensation has died and in any lighting, it now takes pictures with a greenish tint.  Replacing it is a goal for the week.  I'm not sure if it's related to loaning it to three eight year olds, but I have my suspicions based on the timing of the issue.

Me in Glenburn, imitating a hula tree art project.  They didn't put this together just for us.  The guy had several pieces of art in his yard of a similar sort, many involving beer bottles.  There were only about 68 people on the ride - 150 was the limit for the ride - because of the weather and flooding.  There was water everywhere.  The fields were saturated. The roads and parking lots were buckling.  The hills were sliding loose.  Ducks were EVERYWHERE because everywhere was comprised of giant lakes of water in fields that wouldn't go away because the ground was already saturated.  What I remember about the area when I was a kid was how dry it was - not this year.  Because of the water in the fields and the mosquitoes, they let us sleep in the local schools each night.  Ming and I never so much as cracked a tent pole or sank a stake.  There was even air conditioning.  The only impediments to a good night's sleep were wooden basketball floors and Neil the Canadian PM snoring after drinking too much.


Ming took this picture in Mohall.  It's Chiveworthy.  I may have to ask him if I can submit it.  Mohall was weird.  Their school had cages for the lockers and equipment.  Not like lockers.  More like prison cages with locks on them that sealed off areas.  And there were no stall walls.  Which sucks if you need to relieve yourself.

The best thing about the second day was that it was beautiful out.  70s and sunny the whole 68 miles.  A definite difference from the previous day where the last 6+ miles were uphill into the wind while it was raining.  Of course, that made the 38 challenging, so there you go.  The nice thing about ending up in Berthold after the first day was the principal at the Berthold school was super nice.  She actually drove people around in the bus to avoid the rain, and did a smores cook out on the front lawn.  I was happy to spend money in her town, even if, as we heard, the local restaurant shut down an hour early because the owner couldn't handle the (68) bicyclists coming in for dinner.  Ming seemed to like the second day fine until we got to the hill at about the 63 mile mark.  Big hill.  Very big hill.  I think between the hill and running out of water, he was ready to be done.  But he still wasn't ready to enter Dad's Back Door.

We ate at the Paragon Cafe in Mohall.  I strongly recommend against it.  It wasn't bad.  But the waitress was brusque.  Exceedingly so.  I thought it was just Ming and me, but later, in the gym, we heard the story making the rounds about how crabby she seemed to be toward everyone.  For dinner we ate at the burger joint instead.  They looked overwhelmed by the cyclists, but put in the effort to make sure food was moving and still be pleasant.


This is from Minot, after the ride, at the bookstore.  Ming looked for a book to read throughout the ride.  Several Cenexes and three towns, and he couldn't find so much as a good magazine.  He borrowed my copy of Zombie, Ohio, and enjoyed it.  Maybe people are afraid to go in the bookstores because they're furry porn shops?


Charlie's, where we ate breakfast after the ride.  Apparently a favorite of anyone over about 70 in Minot.  That's a good sign if you're a breakfast person.


Ming and the ape.  Two women brought the ape along as they travel with it everywhere.  We met the ape, some local teachers, two women who were married to guys working at Minot Air Force Base, a guy who works at the base, Erin the teenager and her dad (I pointed this out to Eryn, insinuating she should go on a ride with me), Neil the Canadian PM, Archie the old guy (who laughs when he pees - sorry if you're reading this Archie, but it's true), the organizers of the ride, and a variety of other folks including a postmaster from closer to Williston and Bob from Minot.  We met a group of women aged late 30s to early 40s as well.  I joked that Ming should take his ring off, at which point he admitted it was already off because his wife didn't want him to lose it on the ride.  Maybe she'll rethink that next time.


The pump at Donnybrook.  I used to pump water here into large cans to haul up to the farm for Grandpa Harry.


Me at the Donnybrook sign.  Ming said I was disrespectful because I farted in the field.  I pointed out I was just leaving a bit of myself in Donnybrook.


Ming reading Zombie, Ohio.  This was our regular sleeping quarters.


Mohall was home of the bombers.  I thought this was amusing because there's that saying "build schools not bombers".  I bet they don't use that saying in Mohall.


All the bikes in a hallway.  No one wants a wet seat.  No one wants wet feet either, which is why I bought shoe covers.  Then put on a brand new pair of sneakers, not realizing they were much bigger than the sneakers I used to try the rain covers.  Doh.


From our trip up and back.  A Nazi Native American.


Ming in Glenburn, readying his bike.


Jamestown, home of the giant buffalo.  I took Ming there just to check it out.  I learned the other day that Audrey, from work, is from Jamestown.


In Jamestown, the slippery slope has slidden.  Ducks and alligators openly kiss.


The last day was short, but windy.  Erin's dad told us the wind would pick up later in the morning until it was at 10-20 mph, and earlier was better.  So most riders set out about 5:30 a.m.  It was a good choice, because the last three miles were some serious pedaling for not much speed.

I mentioned it was wet.  This is what many of the hills looked like.

Another picture of hills:

And Audrey sent me this picture of Canada.  This is the same river that flows through Minot.  When we were in Minot, it looked just like the picture on the left.  I can't imagine it looking like the picture on the right.

And finally, a nice video of our drive into Minot.  We had Pooteewheet's new car.  Hope she doesn't mind that we drove it through a river.

Zombie, Ohio and Mieville's Kraken

I took Scott Kenemore's book (yes, book, not eBook) Zombie, Ohio, along on the Bike the Border ride Ming and I went on last weekend around Minot, ND.  Ming grabbed it to read as I was also reading China Mieville's Kraken and he hadn't brought anything.  Which turned out to be a wise decision as nowhere within 30 miles of Minot, ND, was there a book to be purchased.  Most of the towns we were in a.) didn't have a bookstore, b.) didn't have a gas station that had books, unless they were Christian, and c.) didn't have a gas station that had a magazine.  Seriously, several Cenex's and not a magazine between them.  Everyone in North Dakota obviously uses an eReader and purchases their books in digital format or has them delivered directly to the front door via Amazon.com.  I strongly recommend Zombie, Ohio.  A very solid book in the Zombie genre.  At times it's like The Road.  At other times it's like The Postman.  And in places it's sort of a mystery novel and love story.  Without ruining it, the plot revolves around a zombie who finds that he's not your average dumb, slow zombie, but a one in a million/billion smart zombie who can talk, reason, plan, and emote.  You can do the math from there.  What does he do about his penchant for eating brains?  Is he a good zombie, a bad zombie, or both?  Definitely a clever twist.

Which is more than I could say about Kraken.  I really liked Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and even Iron Council, which was a bit more ponderous than the other two.  King Rat, which was sort of same genre of urban magic, although sans giant squid, was thoroughly enjoyable, particularly if you'd read any Gaiman or Emma Bull (you can read my lengthy post about King Rat and War for the Oaks here).  Kraken was not. It sort of hopped all over the place.  And at times, Mieville came back to the thread of the story with references to things that had happened that he hadn't covered in text.  Which was damn strange given Kraken was over 500 pages.  He could have written the same story, with just as much depth, in 200-300 pages.  The last 40 or so had the most interesting aspects of the story and I shouldn't have had to breathe deep and utter, "Finally."  I'll channel one of the folks on Amazon who sums it up well, although I'd push the % down to about 30%, "The characters are flat. 75% of the way through the novel I realized I really did not care what happened to these characters and I only finished to see how the mystery was resolved."

Drinking Problem?

I exercised for a while tonight solely so I didn't have to feel bad about drinking a glass of Bulleit bourbon (wikipedia) while blogging. I had no similar compunction to make up for the pizza I ate at lunch.  I admit to having wanted a glass all day...  How could you not?  Look at it.  It's golden.  Wikipedia describes it as "russet". It's beautiful.  Even the bottle is beautiful, with its raised lettering, old-style label, and cork stopper.  The bourbon glass in this picture is very nice.  I'm drinking mine out of a sort of pear-shaped scotch glass Kyle gave me as a gift.  I prefer the scotch glass because my nose fits over it almost perfectly, so I can breath bourbon instead of oxygen if I like, which suits me just fine.

I'd offer you a glass, but it's gone.  I'll let you ponder whether I drank it or inhaled it.

I probably should have taken a picture...

There was a quote on a white board in the hallway at work today that said something to the effect of "The hardest thing in the world is a blank sheet of paper. And the easiest thing in the world is a blank sheet of paper." I added a note that a piece of paper wasn't as hard as a hammer, and then taped up a sheet of paper with a bunch of holes in it and the title, "see?"

I also received a nice picture of one of my leads sitting in the "high chair" I brought up from the lower level to escalate "chair wars" while he was out of town. Apparently he sat in it for two hours, pondering whether he should call facilities to see if they changed his chair, before he realized it might be traceable to me. One of his friends was nice enough to snap a photo of him with his knees above his keyboard.

I also left a jar in Ron's cube with a picture of salsa on it and the caption "Ron's Salsa Fund: 59 cents buys him a cup of salsa". He was annoyed several weeks ago that a small cup of salsa was 59 cents in the corporate cafe. I don't think the Canadian pennies I seeded his fund with will get him particularly closer a free blended tomato, but then again, many of our largest stock holders are Canadian, so perhaps he can make a case for equality of currency within the confines of the corporation.

Mean Mr. Mustard sent me this amusing link from Digital Cuttlefish about a guy who was ticketed for going outside the bicycle lane.  He was offended, so he made a video to prove his point. You shouldn't get ticketed for doing what's safe and what makes sense. The weekend before last, a woman stopped in the middle of the road, no stop sign, talking on her cell phone, and tried to wave me across an intersection. I wouldn't go. So she waved harder, all the while talking. I wouldn't go. So she gestured at me to go, and I shook my head "no". It's drivers, and cyclists, doing what's unexpected, like stopping in the middle of the road and not paying attention, that ends up getting you killed by the person who rear ends them and pushes them over you, or goes around them without looking for why they're stopped. I don't encourage that sort of behavior.

Books 2010

I realized I never posted my books from 2010.  I frequently go back to them when I need information, so it would be remiss not to get them out here, even if 2010 was my worst year of reading since 2000.  I blame becoming a manager.  It's not conducive to fun reading.  You'll note I have a 5, a 3, and a 0 so even with as few books as I had, there were some clunkers.  I wonder if Mac will notice I gave him a 6.  I noticed he fixed all the typos with an editor after I read it, and that was one of my biggest complaints.  So I stand by my number because of the version I had.  It's not just about plot, it's about consistently of editing so I know who's who. The best grown-up book I read all year was The Magicians, which I can thank Mean Mr. Mustard for recommending.  I hope I made up for it in 2011 by recommending The Gone-Away World which Kevin had keyed me to.

9/9/2010	Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Science and Sex	Roach, Mary	9.00
8/15/2010	Haze	Modesitt, Jr., L.E.	7.00
8/14/2010	Pygmy	Palahniuk, Chuck	7.25
8/1/2010	Snuff	Palahniuk, Chuck	5.75
7/22/2010	Stormchaser: The Edge Chronicles (II)	Stewart, Paul & Chris Riddell	7.75
7/15/2010	Under the Dome	King, Stephen	7.00
6/14/2010	Night Watch	Pratchett, Terry	8.00
6/11/2010	Beyond the Deepwoods: The Edge Chronicles (I)	Stewart, Paul & Chris Riddell	7.75
6/11/2010	World Inside, The	Silverberg, The	7.75
6/7/2010	Automatic Detective, The	Martinez, A. Lee	9.00
6/1/2010	God Engines, The	Scalzi, John	9.50
5/14/2010	Phantom: Going Beyond the Scare	Tremblay, Paul and Sean Wallace, Editors	3.00
5/1/2010	Devil's Alphabet, The	Gregory, Daryl	6.50
4/14/2010	George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt	Hawking, Lucy and Stephen	8.75
4/6/2010	Plan, The	Noland, Mac	6.00
3/14/2010	George's Secret Key to the Universe	Hawking, Lucy and Stephen	8.75
3/7/2010	Monster	Martinez, A. Lee	7.50
3/1/2010	Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking	Gladwell, Malcolm	7.50
2/20/2010	Dracula, The Un-Dead	Stoker, Dacre (and Ian Holt)	0.00
2/10/2010	Magicians, The	Grossman, Lev	9.50
2/10/2010	Phantom Tollbooth, The	Juster, Norton	9.75
1/20/2010	SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance	Levitt, Steven (and Stephen Dubner)	9.00
1/15/2010	Metatropolis	Scalzi, John (and Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Elizabeth Bear and Karl Schroeder)	5.00
1/7/2010	Invasion of the Road Weenies	Lubar, David	8.25

Object Oriented...

Last night I had a dream about how a serial killer was stalking local picnics and killing families of picnickers.  More of a nightmare, because it was sort of gruesome.  Mean Mr. Mustard and Erik the Hairy Swede showed up to discuss how best to combat the killer, and we all had an argument about the best method.  I said we should put a weapon in each picnic basket.  Mean Mr. Mustard said that was dumb, and we should give each individual a weapon.  Erik said we should treat each outing separately and the weapon should be associated with the picnicking event, not the basket or a person.  At which point I woke up and realized my dream was not about picnicking or about serial killers, but about appropriate object oriented programming.

Software Links IV (and a few others)

• Not a software link, but Alex Carnevale's short piece on "In Which We Consider the Macabre Unpleasantness of Roald Dahl".  He's still one of my favorite authors.  I adored him as a kid, precisely because he treated children as real people.  But I've never read a biography of him, so this was illuminating.  Reminds me of my mother's story about how my grandmother wouldn't let her read or see The Wizard of Oz because Frank Baum was an anti-Native American a-hole.
• Richard Dawkins interviews a creationist via Thoughts From a Godless Heathen (about an hour if you watch all the parts).  Dawkins' patience is amazing.  And Wendy Wright is nuts.
• Eagan Market Fest is live and you can earn free food if you bike there.
• On to actual software links: A quick comparison of Joomla!, Drupal, and Wordpress.  I agree about the ease of Wordpress for blogging compared to the other CMS platforms.  Joomla! can be a bit of a bear to modify if you're using a third party blog.
• I saw a quote by Alan Cooper, "Software is not built with 'resources', nor is it built with 'money'. It is built by intelligent, non-fungible people."  Absolutely true, although it screws up my idea to use underground, mushroom people as our next outsourcing pool.
• I'd like to read this book on Business Model Generation by Alex Osterwalder (and others), it looks very interesting.  Amazon seems to bear out that it's worth reading.
• Expression Engine - an interesting CMS Erik pointed me at.
• Touch and Gesture events, also from Erik.  A working example.
• Drupal, Wordpress, and Joomla! market shares in Europe.  Even there Wordpress outnumbers the others installs combined.
• Lullabot on The Art of Estimation: " I would advise breaking the project down into existing Drupal solutions. What are the content types, the views, the taxonomy requirements, the menus, the blocks, etc.? Will you require Panels or Context modules for help with blocks or layout? Knowing the tool ahead of time is a huge advantage when it comes to making estimates. When you've already used solutions like Panels, or Services, or SOLR, or Migrate, or Features to solve problems in the past, there are fewer unknowns, and you can estimate off of past experience."  They provide a Numbers spreadsheet for doing some of the Drupal breakdown.
• Have you considered SaaS before choosing your CMS tool: it is possible to choose a CMS hosted in the cloud.

Workplace Weirdness...

I should preface this by saying that nothing I'm ever up to causes nearly the sort of issues that the in house salsa/pepper eating contest involving ghost chilies seemed to cause.  I've heard descriptions of the event from several independent sources, including Jon who was personally involved, and they border on the verge of becoming some sort of in-house legend/lesson-learned.  So noted.  No chili eating contests.

For my part, I've taken up with a group that has a bad habit of playing the chair game, which involves resetting the adjustable chairs when no one is looking, resulting in arms that in the wrong place, or finding yourself about eyeball level with your keyboard.  I offered to find one of my leads a separate chair so he could appropriately adjust it and leave it in a hidden corner to avoid constant resets.  They also mumble about The Game, which I understand, but refuse to play.  And of course, I went planking.

Recently, and I trust Ming not to share this as I don't want to ruin the ad hoc enjoyment of a coworker, I discovered a sign on the vending machine not too far from my office commenting on the impact to productivity caused by the machine not working.  The next time I walked past, I contributed a piece of ad hoc art.  I told Pooteewheet about it, and she was extremely disappointed that I hadn't taken a picture.  So I was pleased this morning to kick it up for her as one of my coworkers had discovered it and posted it on Facebook, not knowing it was me.  I'm going to put "Draws evil snowmen and pugilistic unicorns" as a bullet on my resume.  It might weed out a few employers without a sense of humor.

Sun and Sand

Eryn was very disappointed that we weren't going to the beach yesterday (we went to X-men instead), so after school today I took her to Schultz Beach for a few hours to hang out.  Holy hannah was it hot.  The guy next to me managed to get a piece of shade from an umbrella, which was good, because he only had one arm.  And no legs.  I was worried he might roll out into the hot sand and cook like a piece of bacon.

I bought myself a copy of Your Shape for the Kinect, thinking it might be nice to get some non-bicycling exercise in so that I'm not all legs and nothing else, like the guy in The Triplets of Belleville.     Obviously, I'm not used to calisthenics.  The parts where you lift your knee up to an elbow at chest height over and over again makes my legs feel like jello.  It doesn't help that I went for two 27-28 mile rides over the weekend and gave myself a nice base-level exhaustion.  The ride on Sunday was up the high bridge in St. Paul, and then up Cherokee behind Tall Brad's house, which was just more up and up.  The scenery by the Bruce Vento overlook was nice.  Not that I checked out the overlook, there was just a very pneumatic, smiling, blonde jogging by the overlook as I bicycled past.  Then I went down, down, down, almost to the river, and then back up, up, up.  A little over 600' of climb, which doesn't seem like much, but is significant if you're pedaling around the cities.  I should be ready for Bike the Border regardless of what they throw at us (other than flood waters).  Ming talked me into taking the Thursday before the ride off for traveling, so we'll be able to take it easy and get a good night's sleep before we hit the pedals.

How to Win at Elder Scrolls Oblivion

I've been playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion by engaging for a short while every now and then on the XBox.  Yesterday, I found myself confronted with a Will o' the Wisp.  Apparently they're impervious to regular weapons and I had no irregular weapons: e.g. silver, Dwarven, obsidian, living vegetable matter, rainbow, whatever.  So I ran away.  And I got away.  But I couldn't find a silver weapon at the shop, and when I left town, I once again encountered the damned thing lurking near a horse.  Rather than attack the horse, it attacked me.  I died.  I reloaded, just like in real life.  And then ran away, just like in real life, with the thing following me through the trees, across water, and down well-trodden paths.  I ran past the person I was leading on my current quest and a nearby city guard.  Both of whom died, leaving me a message that my quest was no longer achievable.  I ran past a farmer.  Who was also killed.  Past another farmer and a dude at the stables - perhaps a groomer.  Both of those innocent bystanders also died.  I ran past a magician.  Who died.  Past another city guard, who died but seemed to be at least holding his own for a while.  Then the damn-ed thing perished.  I spent the next 30 minutes following my zig-zagging, over hill and dale, path backwards collecting armor, weapons, potions, yarn, silverware, vegetables, and farm implements.  Amongst the take was a silver sword.  Future will o' the wisp problems solved.  And I didn't even have to waste any gold.  Simply make your problem everyone else's problem, and things get easier.  There's a business lesson there, isn't there?