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What's Not So New2008.12.01: Recipes for Sonja Henie cookies and Christmas salad (the molded frozen cranberry thing) have been added. 2008.07.24: Today was one of the hardest days of prepping for Saturday's BBQ - taste-testing all of the kegs to make sure they were still OK. At the tasting, most were warm and uncarbonated (unless infected, in which case they were carbonated up the wazoo.) It looks like the beer list is currently: American Pale Ale 5 - 4.7 gallons - tastes similar to APAs 1 and 3; easy-going intro to decent beer for the Miller/Coors/AB crowd Oatmeal Stout - 2.3 gallons - mildly carbonated, very roasty Irish Red 2 - 1.9 gallons - I believe this was the all-grain St. Patty's batch from a couple of years ago. Warm and fairly uncarbonated, it's OK, but nothing special. Hopefully, it will improve with cooling and carbonation. I dumped the Irish Red 1, which I believe was the extract batch done at the same time as the Irish Red 2. It tasted of cardboard and cheese, and was most incredibly nasty. The keg is undergoing an extreme cleaning process. Sour & Bitter - 1.6 gallons - was APA4 last year, which definitely treaded in IPA territory. Somewhere along the line, it got infected and soured up. I've a number of fruity and nutty syrups that make it quite palatable. Rye Stout - 1.5 gallons - an incredibly smooth whiskenator. Goes down easy, kicks you in the head. Go easy on this one. Bumblebee Bourbon - .7 gallons - a little sour, a little sweet, a lot of whiskey. Aside from the beers, there will be about 4 gallons each of Rum Slush Punch and Birch Root Beer. 2008.07.09: I finally brewed an American Pale Ale this past Sunday (7/6). It's bubbling away nicely, so it's still on schedule for the upcoming BBQ. I also was a stiltwalker in the Evanston parade. The costume was rather warm, and I sweated it up a bit. Having wet fabric run against your legs for an hour or two is not a good idea, and I've got the torn up skin to prove it. Ouch! 2008.05.19: I'm now the proud owner of a Wii! Unfortunately, I've been too busy to set it up. 2008.04.21: Neverwhere: A Circus Underground starts this weekend! It will be running every Friday (evening), Saturday (afternoon and evening), and Sunday (afternoon) through June 1st. For tickets, please visit Brown Paper Tickets, or call 1-800-838-3006. 2008.04.11: Another session of Circus Arts ended on March 26th, and since Romeo and his videocamera weren't in class this time around, I tried out my digicam's video capabilities. After monkeying around a bit, I've finally got my lyra video up on YouTube, as well as videos of a few others in the class. I hope to have everyone's videos up by the middle of next week. 2008.02.11: If anyone wondered why I seemed to drop off the face of the earth last week, it's because I was cruising the Caribbean with the family. I got back yesterday, and I've got to say that the temperature shift is a bit disconcerting. 2007.11.15: If you've been here anytime within the past year and noticed my weekly list of events and goings-on on the side, you may have noticed that I've been taking classes in circus arts. Last week, we had to create a routine and perform it for the class, and one of the students videotaped me and put the video on the web for your amazement and/or amusement. So, without further ado, here's My Spanish Web Act. 2007.07.25: The Annual BBQ last weekend was great! The first non-familial guest arrived around 1 pm, and the last ones left around 3 am. At last count, there were 72 people that stopped by throughout the day. We had at least 20 types of beer (12 5-gallon kegs, 6 types in bottles (4 homebrewed by the club over at Rich's, and two were Miller and Blue Moon), plus a couple in 2-Liter bottles.) There was an overabundance of food (as is usual) and I believe that a good time was had by all. 2007.06.25: I brewed the Oatmeal Stout yesterday, but it still hasn't started bubbling. I think I'll need to stop by BevArt and pick up some more yeast. 2007.06.16: It's brewing season! It's been almost a year since I last brewed, but the BBQ is coming up, so it's time to get back into it! I'm starting off with American Pale Ale 4. Someday, I'm may actually use the same ingredients as a previous batch. The major change this time is in the hops. Instead of a pure Cascade brew, this time I used Simcoe and Amarillo as well. Next week, I plan on brewing an oatmeal stout. 2007.04.15: I was wrong. Official Tax Day was not 4/15 this year, but was instead moved to 4/17. However, I didn't realize that until I got to the e-file step while doing my taxes. So, I finished my taxes two days early! Now, I am just waiting for the refund that will be spent on a shiny new Xbox. 2007.03.05: During my free time, I've restarted my attempt to comply with the XHTML Strict standards put forth by the W3C. It's been a while since I did anything with CSS, so if the site looks funky, um, that would be me. 2007.02.23: The Byz2 and Byz3 Ring Quantity Calculators (RQCs) have been updated. The Euro 4-1 RQC still needs to get done. 2007.02.20: Something seems to be up with Comcast and my external CSS file, so formatting appears to be a little off. 2007.02.19: The RQCs for Jens Pind's Linkage and Box chain now handle both inches and mm. I hope to have the rest of the RQCs converted over by the end of the week. If anyone has any problems, praises or criticisms, please shoot me an email. Thanks. 2006.11.28: It's been nearly five months since it was brewed, but Willis & I finally bottled up his Raspberry Stout. Now we just need to wait for it to carbonate. 2006.10.23: I've been having a blast in my Circus Arts class, so I will be taking it again. For those that are wondering why "again" instead of progressing to Circus Arts 2, here's the skinny: We meet for only 1.5 hours a week. Warmup, stretching and basic tumbling take up the first half hour. We then work on a juggling or balancing activity for half an hour, and an aerial activity for half an hour. Overall, we only get about an hour's worth of practice total on any specific activity. Seeing as it took me about 16 hours to learn to unicycle without falling, I figure it may be a while before I can progress to the next level. 2006.09.29: I'm back from a Mailler's Gathering in Michigan. While there, I took the Prolong Knot and Turk's Head ring classes from Loren of Golden-Knots.com. I've also been taking the Circus Arts 1 class over at Actors Gymnasium. So far, we've briefly worked on juggling, static trapeze, rolling globe, Spanish web, unicycling and tumbling. This past week we did stilts and lyra. 2006.08.02: Welding class is over until somewhere around October, should I choose to take the second class in the series. 2006.06.06: I finally received a notice that the phone number transfer to Vonage was complete. I called Verizon to cancel and it was not nearly as bad as I expected. Cancelling was only 2 levels deep on the phone menus, and the person I spoke with was courteous (even though I wasn't - 7 weeks for a number transfer is ridiculous) and sounded like she came from the Midwest - no noticable accent to my Midwestern ears. 2006.05.15: Still waiting for the number to transfer over. Verizon appears to be dragging their heels. Because Vonage is not officially a phone company, but is instead a repurposer of the internet, there is no legislation in place mandating that a phone number transfer takes place in a timely manner. I cannot quit Verizon until the transfer is complete, or else I will lose my number. What a PITA! Also, Ruth pointed out that though my party countdown was in place, I didn't have the date listed. Now it is. 2006.04.20: I am able to call out on Vonage and your caller ID will show my regular phone number, but if you return the call, I'll receive the call on my Verizon Wireless phone. I'm eagerly waiting for the number to finish transferring over. 2006.04.17: I am in the midst of switching phone service from Verizon Wireless to a combo of Vonage and Virgin Mobile. My regular number will be moving to Vonage, and I will be using call forwarding to the mobile when I'm out and about. The number transfer is estimated to take 10 to 14 days, so I may or may not be accessible by phone for the next couple of weeks. 2006.02.22: My Jens Pind's Linkage page is now #1 on Google for the term "Jens Pind's Linkage"! I don't know how long it will stay there, but for now... Woohoo!
2005.09.30: I am trying to get IE to join the rest of the browser gang (FireFox, Opera, Amaya) in allowing the user to change the text size. Unfortunately, IE isn't playing nice so I'm running into some problems. I apologize if the site font sizes are acting wacky. I hope to get it figured out soon. 2005.08.29: JavaScript is a pain in the neck. At least, debugging it is. I've got a second calculator up, this time for Jens Pind's Linkage. As with the previous calculator, this one does not yet do any error-checking. Critiques and suggestions are still welcome. 2005.08.27: A new batch of Hershey's Chocolate Porter was brewed this morning, in preparation for this year's Oktoberfest. 2005.08.19: I've started to learn JavaScript so that I can get some ring-count calculators for various chainmaille jewelry chains. The first calculator is for 2-connector Byzantine. The calculator does not yet do any error-checking, so be nice. Critiques and suggestions are welcome. 2005.07.02: Hooray! The dumpster has been removed. (I'm remodelling, and the dumpster that was supposed to be picked up on June 20th has just been sitting in front the house.) 2005.06.24: Got the yeast starter going for the American Pale Ale, in preparation for tomorrow's brewday. The APA should be ready in time for the BBQ. 2005.04.13: IGP v0.6.0.3 is now available on the IGP Downloads page. I was a little overzealous with my changes, and it crashed on some images. Also, when drawing on screen, it would not render the changes until a new pattern was selected. This fixed version is a little slower; it builds the patterned images about 3.6 times faster than v0.6.0.1 and earlier. 2005.04.12: IGP v0.6.0.2 is now available on the IGP Downloads page. It builds the patterned images about 4 times faster than the previous versions. Other than that, there are no changes. 2005.01.22: I found a validator for web accessibility guidelines, so I'm starting to run my pages through that. There are a lot of problems that look like they may be fixed by shifting from XHTML Transitional to XHTML Strict, so I probably should hit that before too long. 2005.01.06: Zlosk.com has begun the transition from HTML 4.01 to XHTML 1.0. 2005.01.05: The scene creation subroutine of the IGP2POV utility has been rewritten to make it easier to modify the POV-Ray scene file. The updated version is available on the IGP Downloads page. 2004.12.25: The IGP2POV utility has been released. This utility will create a POV-Ray scene file from an IGP data file, or any other bitmap in BMP, GIF or PNG formats. It's available on the IGP Downloads page. 2004.12.06: According to the web stats, most people are either looking to download IGP or the aspect ratio table. More permanent links to those two pages will be added to the Home page (this page). 2004.05.08: As expected, I'm back on the internet. 2004.05.06: Yesterday my land-line phone was officially shut off. I am now completely mobile, but no longer have home internet access. I should be hooked up again in 2 days. 2004.04.26: 2 weeks have passed since getting the mobile phone. The phone number still hasn't transferred over. 2004.04.20: Comcast cable high-speed internet access has been ordered. Land-line phone number still hasn't been switched over to mobile phone yet. 2004.04.19: Some flashing was ripped off of the roof during the high winds on Saturday. Repairs have been completed. 2004.04.17: I finally got a haircut. Chadwick von Hasselhoff is no more. 2004.04.13: I have finally caught up with the present and gotten a mobile phone. I'm getting rid of my land line but keeping my number. I don't know when the switch is actually going to occur, but the Verizon guy said it normally takes 2-4 weeks (as opposed to 2-4 days for a mobile switch). This also means I'll soon be looking for a new internet provider, as Earthlink does not have any other option besides dial-up at my location. 2004.01.22: I started a class on Advanced Visual Basic. Maybe I'll start working on IGP again and see if I can get it officially out of Beta mode. 2003.12.31: Thanks to Dunedon, a color counter has been added to the IGP. 2003.10.29: A Scale pattern (based on Lorenzo's scales) has been added to the IGP. 2003.08.03: As requested, the recipe for dirt pudding is now up. 2003.07.21: As requested, the recipe for chocolate eclairs is now up. 2003.06.19: Due to a clerical error, the BBQ info (link on the menu to the left) was actually from last year. It has now been updated with the correct information. 2003.04.08: The Irregular Grid Painter Beta is now available! The page is accessible from the Maille->Inlays page or the Programming page. 2003.03.17: Happy St. Pat's! For those of you that inquired about it at the parade yesterday, here's my recipe for Irish Cream. 2003.02.23: Brewed a batch of Irish Brown Ale for St. Pat's. 2003.02.18: Returned from trip to Colorado sore but uninjured from snowboarding. Ed currently has possession of board and boots. 2003.02.01: Received my passport. 2003.01.15: Sent in my application for a passport today. Also added OHLS and OHLSvA to the Maille Instructions page. 2003.01.13: I'm adding some weave/wrap instructions to the Maille page. 2002.11.05: If you've been following the sidebar calendar, you may have noticed that I've been taking a stained glass class for a number of weeks now. I completed my first/second project (second project, but first completion). The panel was just a little too large for the scanner so, some of the border has been cut off. This is going to be a Christmas gift for my Mom, so the colors scheme was picked to match her furniture. Click on the thumbnail image below to see a larger image (not too large, only 25K).  2002.10.24: The hauberk is ready for Halloween! Definitely need to get some pics up. 2002.09.30: The Annual Grape Picking Trip at Lemon Creek vineyards in Michigan took place yesterday and I purchased around 70 lb each of Seyval Blanc and Chancellor grapes. Even though winemaking isn't brewing, that's the section of this website where my winemaking exploits will show up. 2002.09.16: I received 3rd place in the BBQ sauce competition at the BOSS (Brewers of South Suburbia) Annual Picnic. (The winner brought 2 entries, and I was his only competitor.) 2002.09.11: Bob pointed out that the larger pics of the whitewater rafting weren't viewable. I had them pointing to my local hard drive instead of the website image repository. They should be fixed now. 2002.09.09: I returned from another whitewater rafting trip in West Virginia; we rafted the Upper Gauley this time. A pic is up in the Photos section. Bob has the video. 2002.09.04: Updated the calendar. 2002.08.26: It was brought to my attention that although I updated the calendar last week, I never uploaded it to the web site. OOPS! This week's calendar is up, as are photos of Ed & Karen's wedding and Mark's 30th birthday party. 2002.08.21: Updated this week's calendar. 2002.08.16: I updated the Brewing page on August 6, but I forgot to update this page to say so. Well, now it's said. The chainmail (maille) shirt has finally hit Stage 2 completion; it is a full V-neck T-shirt. I'll need to get some pics taken. 2002.08.01: Sorry I haven't been keeping up the calendar, but it should be accurate now. Last week's BBQ went well, the heat wasn't too bad and the rains came before anyone was there. I brewed and racked a lot of stuff last week, so the Brewing page needs to be updated. Hopefully I'll get to it tomorrow. 2002.07.18: If you haven't noticed the sidebar, it's almost time for the 8th Annual Party & BBQPretty much, if you've found your way to this site and you know where I live, you're invited. (That includes you, Matt.) 2002.06.23: I went hang gliding for the first time. I enjoyed myself immensely and am looking forward to doing it again. I currently plan to take the class at www.hangglidechicago.com and get certified in late May/early June of 2003. 2002.05.24: Added the Upcoming Events list to the left Side of the Home Page. 2002.05.20: I went whitewater rafting this past weekend in New River Gorge, West Virginia. You can see a pic of our rafting group on the Photos page. As the rest of the group gets their pics up, I'll add links to their pictures as well. 2002.04.21: I took home a silver ribbon for my Seyval Blanc 2001 at an amateur winemaker competition. 2002.04.15: This past weekend I met some other maillers in the Chicagoland area, picked up some titanium and enameled copper, and learned how to properly fit a shirt. Eventually I'll get some pics posted showcasing the new materials. 2002.04.03: St. Pat's is long over, so it's time to shift the color scheme back to slate blue. 2002.03.21: Kaz's Teriyaki Chicken recipe has been added to the Recipes page. What better way to start St. Pat's than with a little Irish Cream? Sure, you could buy Bailey's, but why buy it when you can make it? Here's my recipe for Irish Cream. 2002.03.11: St. Pat's is coming up, so of course I had to jump on the Irish bandwagon and make the site green. Join me (& the Hops! brewclub) at the Annual Brew in front of Bev-Art Homebrew Supply during the South Side Irish Parade on March 17. Visit the Hops! website for more info. 2002.02.19: Since I needed to re-upload my site to the new ISP, I've made some modifications (mostly behind the scenes, directory structures and so forth). I think I have maintained integrity, but I'm not sure. If you notice anything broken, please email me at webguy@zlosk.com. Thanks! 2002.02.17: I HAVE MOVED! Since FlashNet was bought out by Prodigy, I have had several problems with my email. It finally got so bad that changing ISP's was my best remedy. Now I am with EarthLink. How long will I stay here? I don't know. How long will I hold on the www.zlosk.com domain? I'm figuring until 2076. So, if you want to send me an email, use the @zlosk.com address; it will last longer. 2002.02.01: By popular demand, Kaz's Kugelis recipe is now up. I apologize for taking so long to post the recipe. 2002.01.25: Four new games have been added to the DreamCast library: NBA2K, Tony Hawk 2, Sega Rally 2 and Super Runabout San Francisco Edition. 2002.01.21: Though I've been updating parts of the site semi-regularly, I haven't been updating this area to tell about the new stuff, so here goes. In "Brewing", there is now a link to the HOPS! mirror website that I maintain (in about as timely a fashion as this page). In "Chainmail", a side menu has been added, samples of jewelry weaves have been added, and there are VRML models of some of weaves. In the "Photo Gallery", a link to Bill & Ellen's Wedding pictures is up. There are also a few new recipes on the "Recipes" page. (I haven't forgotten the Christmas cookie recipes, Suz, they'll be there by next Christmas.) I think that's it. 2001.11.02: Fixed hyperlinks so "Zlosk's Home Page" doesn't show in title bar after jumping off site. 2001.10.31: A pic of my progress on the maille hauberk is on the 'Chain Mail' page 2001.10.02: The Search box on the side can now be accessed using the {Alt + S} key combo. 2001.09.24: Well, this isn't really new, but the home-made Irish Cream went over well at the Hops! Oktoberfest on September 22, so I just wanted to include a link on the home page to make it easier to get to the recipe. 2001.09.20: The opacity table and equations for 4-in-1 mail are available on the Chain Mail section of the site. 2001.08.28: Oktoberfest is coming! My homebrew club, Hops!, is having its 4th Annual Oktoberfest on September 22, 2001. More info can be found on the Hops! website. 2001.08.24: I am testing out various cascading style sheets & html tag combos, trying to determine how to make pages work for IE, Netscape, Opera, and Amaya. I am doing this for work, but I don't want to subject Kastalon's web pages to my fiddling & testing. I'm too likely to mess something up and not realize it for a while. So, if something isn't quite right on this site, now you know why. 2001.08.15: I managed to contract a virus - computer virus, that is. Actually, it's a worm, but that's not the point. It's an insidious little bugger called SirCam32. More info can be found at Symantec's Security Response for the W32.Sircam.Worm. SARC has created a program to remove the SirCam32 worm. 2001.08.07: I'm slowly changing my construction method for this site from hand coding and custom VB apps to Adobe GoLive. This should result in a more consistent look among browsers, and hopefully will catch the hand coding errors that IE let slide. 2001.07.09: Started move of pages from root to subdirectories. Added a couple new recipes. 2001.07.06: The official Zlosk Web Site is launched. The Image Table Creator program works and has been used to update the old wedding pics and the Arizona camping picture pages. It's close to imagestation.com, but I still need to work on a few things. There's now something on every page (instead of the "Stuff should go here." that's been posted), so the website is officially on. 2001.06.25: Changed the side menu area from 150 wide to 180 to maintain consistency with the recipes that had pictures. 2001.06.25: Added lines above & below the page header. 2001.06.22: Added Google Search. 2001.06.21: Added Links for 3D and Chain Mail. Added a few brew recipes. 2001.06.19: Brewing section has some info on current batch. The main pages (across the top navigation menu) are being auto-generated by home-built VB program. The HTML generator needs a lot of work to be truly useful. 2001.06.18: Added Videogames (VG's) to list of interests. All links now go somewhere, but none are really useful. 2001.06.11: Played with frames. Still trying to decide whether to use frames or tables. 2001.06.08: Home page is updated to this hunk o' crap. This page is under construction. It is far, far away from where it should be. I am still trying to design the site's appearance. It will be my home portal page, with links to stuff in which I am interested, and I will post photos and junk that I think my friends may want. Eventually I hope to post something useful, but I just want to get the site working first. 2001.06.07: www.zlosk.com becomes a physically working web site. Questions or comments? Email me at webguy@zlosk.com.
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