C and 10x10

Welcome to my 100th blog post celebration! Help yourself to some virtual cake and ice cream!!

To commemorate this event, I'm going to take everyone a bit deeper into the Secret Underground Lair, share a few speeds and feeds, post some Top Ten lists (10, to be precise), and hopefully have a little bit of fun.

Well, I started with the Secret Underground Lair, so we might as well go there first. In case you were wondering, yes, it really is underground. We currently have a roster of nine PCs which more or less permanently reside in the SUL with us. Of these, one is an ancient laptop, two are Raspberry Pi's, one is a much more recent laptop, and the remainder are desktops. The Pi's and two of the desktops run Linux; the others run Win7. I have a laptop which I occasionally use down here, and there are another 6+ PCs in various states of repair. We've got one functional inkjet printer hooked up, and a few other printers with questionable functionality. The SUL is also our NOC (network operations center), which includes our router and a couple of wired gigabit switches. It should be noted that although the SUL as a rule does not utilize wireless (with the exception of my cell phone and occasionally my laptop), on any given day most of the rest of the Hovel may access our internet service wirelessly. In case you were wondering, the Hovel is our home- our humble abode. The SUL is also home to some of our video collection, my Lego collection, and a good part of my technical (I.T.) library, our music collection, and various and sundry other references and some fiction. It has be noted that the SUL is pretty small; we don't have room for a fuβball table, but we do have the Lego Soccer Championship Challenge set (#3409). Speaking of Lego Soccer, here's the first list- my Top Ten toys: 1. Lego 2. Wooden blocks (including dominoes) 3. Teddy bears (and plush animals in general) 4. cardboard boxes 5. Electric trains 6. Your Dad's tools 7. Walkie-talkies 8.Flashlights 9. Rubber bands/string/rope 10. Magnifying glass

Other SUL highlights... the lair is rectangular and fairly cat-proofed, in that cats cannot enter at will. Also, as Schwarz is a typical Bombay, the primary egress point has a cat bell for his use. Mr. T and I sit at opposite ends of the SUL and we both have a telephone with intercom. When the Zombie Apocalypse happens, we'll know about it. If I had only one word to describe the SUL, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the word would be "cluttered". Second list: Top Ten things found in the SUL: 1. Legos 2. Music CDs 3. VHS movies 4. Books 5. Software 6. Playstation/PS2 games 7. computer components 8. Shelves and racks 9. Cat5 cabling 10. a shredder

The Dungeon is another story. Adjacent to the SUL, it is where our workout equipment resides, as well as being a holding place for the SUL's overflow. The main attractions of the Dungeon are a weight bench and an elliptical. There are also three rectangular lidded clear plastic storage boxes in front of the weight bench right now; these contain primarily I.T.-related books which used to be stacked in the SUL. Third list (no- not the contents of the Dungeon!): speaking of I.T. stuff, my Top Ten websites: 1. Google+ 2. LinkedIn 3. Twitter 4.Facebook 5. Portal.pixelfederation.com/Trainstation 6. Steam 7. Tech Republic 8. How To Geek 9. Wikipedia 10. IMDB.com

In all honesty, I was a bit concerned when I first came up with the idea of ten Top Ten lists- after all, ten lists can be rather boring, and I don't work all that much with the formatting or HTML on blogger to make some neat, bulleted lists. I tried the segue+bolding at the end of a paragraph, and I think it works- if anyone has any thoughts, please post a comment! And now for something completely random, Ten Vehicles we have owned: 1.'03 Chevy S10 pickup 2. '99 Ford Escort 3. '94 Chevy S10 Blazer 4. '89 Honda Civic 5. Ford Crown Victoria 7. Chevy Suburban 8. Opel Ascona 9. Honda Civic hatchback 10. Plymouth Volare wagon. The funny thing about the Volare is that we're not sure if we ever even legally owned it...we sold it to a scrapyard for $50 bucks.  I also did not include the He-Man Beemer.

Well, back to the Dungeon, I suppose. The Dungeon is our workout/training area when we cannot get to the gym- theoretically. Apart from the elliptical, most of the equipment is inaccessible, save for some kettlebells, dumbbells and medicine balls.

We also have something of a pantry next to the Dungeon. This area does not have a name, but it does have a Top Ten list (#5) of things you'll find: 1. Ramen 2. Noodle mixes 3. Noodles 4. Cereal 5. Vitamins 6. Chocolate 7. Coffee 8. Tea 9. Toilet paper 10. Facial tissue.

List #6 is my current Top Ten list of albums- the only list presented in order of popularity (so far!): 1. Beatles For Sale 2. The Blues Brothers soundtrack 3. Help! (The Beatles) 4.Revolver (The Beatles) 5. Rubber Soul (The Beatles) 6. Different Light (Bangles) 7. The Transformers Movie soundtrack (the original cartoon) 8. Songs (Rich Mullins) 9. A Hard Day's Night (The Beatles) 10. A Maze Of Grace (Avalon). The interesting thing about this last list is that while it is the most accurate (it actualy comes out of a database), it is also fairly inaccurate because the data is incomplete! However, for the thirty-four albums currently represented  in the database, it is accurate.

List #7 is thematically related to List #4 in that both are automotive. #7 is ten of my favorite vehicles: 1. '71 Chevelle SS 396 2. '69 American Motors AMX 3. Mercedes Unimog 4. '77 Chevy Blazer 5. SDKFZ7 6. SDKFZ250 7. '70 Plymouth Roadrunner 8. Subaru Impreza WRX STi  8. '67 Mustang Shelby Cobra 9. Porsche 928 10. Volvo 940GL wagon. Now, that's an eclectic list of vehicles!

List #8 is my Top Ten list of board games. 1. France 1940 2. Risk 3. Monopoly 4. Chess 5. Checkers 6. Panzer Blitz 7. Squad Leader 8. Trivial Pursuit 9. Othello 10. Axis and Allies.

List #9 is a bit quirky. I have a backpack I take to work every day, and it has some work things in it and some zombie apocalypse-type things as well. So, here are ten things that are in my work backpack on any given day: 1. Logitech Marble Mouse 2. 2x .5L bottles of water 3. small Leatherman-type tool 4. Bluetooth enabled speaker 5. iPod 6. Triangular extruded aluminium ruler 7. Plastic ruler with magnifier 8. Wind up flashlight 9. HP 11c programmable RPN calculator 10. elastic wrap

List Ten is probably THE list  It is the list of my Top Ten blogs. I suppose that isn't too impressive when the blog count is only 100, but I never really thought I'd hit 100 posts when I started this... and for it to have an international following amazes me even further.And with that, here are the Top Ten blogs, in order of reader popularity:

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/05/why-2k.html

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-free-night.html

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-final-frontier.html

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/01/who-does-that-anyway.html

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2012/12/december-31-2012-state-of-blog.html

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-official-end-of-winter.html

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2012/12/an-it-christmas-whole-lotta-cliches-in.html

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/06/spinning-wheel.html

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/01/like-data-we-are-in-it-sense-fully.html

http://hochspeyer.blogspot.com/2013/02/normal-is-town-in-illinois.html I think I've written enough for now. I hope some of it, at least, has been enjoyable. Happy 100th! As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.