Matthew Kocsis

Frequency Friday: September

mkocsis — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 23:33:00 +0000

www.djrfbt.com

Downpipe

mkocsis — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:29:33 +0000

To the music of falling water
and I don’t mean rain

Don’t give me that pain
don’t corner me with that poetry thing

I’m sitting on a rock
at the edge of the world
the red earth and ocean are below me
locked in a distance of erosion
put a rock on me to stop me blowing away

I’m gonna make you shake
I’m gonna make your hand shake

It’s a new day it’s a new day
and my face vibrates with anticipation

I’m gonna make you shake
I’m gonna make your hand shake

And the sky comes down to the ground
letting go with love
and a cell phone rings, rings, rings

Las Vegas in my head
tattoo on my mind
black break black break walls slide
past your, past your tired eyes
I’m on a short fuse
I’m on a good day, but
I’m on a short fuse,
I’m sure that you who guess see me
woman with a small vise saying
shall we have a coffee
somewhere sometime somehow
when you come, come, come, come with me
sounds like I, sounds like I
found my mistake

I’m gonna make you shake
I’m gonna make your hand shake

-D. Ramirez, Mark Knight, Underworld

How to get as far from roads as you can

mkocsis — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:10:22 +0000

In planning a backpacking trip, my friend Brian came across some information that there’s a location in the south part of Yellowstone National Park that is farther from a road than any other point in the lower 48. This of course intrigued me, so I looked into it further. This is what I’ve found:

The USGS recently created a dataset called NORM-ED (http://rmgsc.cr.usgs.gov/trip/data/) that calculates the distance in meters from any location in the US to the closest road. Of course the definition of road might be debatable, but for now let’s assume they picked a good one.

Loading the dataset in ArcMap shows us something that looks like this:

Adding some extra geo-data to identify what we’re looking at (and changing Colors):

Zooming in quite a bit, and changing colors again shows this:

Zooming up on the “high” data points gives us this (note the shapes of the mountains):

Plotting these coordinates on google maps gives us something a bit easier to look at:

The google maps pin puts the spot at 44.146862802512736, -110.07588386535645, however this is a reasonably rough estimate, however I expect it to be accurate within several hundred feet. (NORM-ED Data is only calculated every 30 meters). The value from the NORM-ED data is roughly 34941 meters.

Well, looks like I have a destination to go find!

Google Maps Link

The Bucket List

mkocsis — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:20:58 +0000

Learn to tie a bow tie
go sky diving
go scuba diving
have a conversion with a local in a foreign language
drive a jeep with the top and doors off
fly an airplane (solo)
save someone’s life
see a bear in the wild – Accomplished, Saturday July 18, 2009 on Big Game Ridge, Yellowstone.
hike part of the Appalachian Trail
climb a 14,000 ft mountain
play a song on a radio broadcast station (AM, FM)
meet a head of state (former or current)
travel to the entire “This is not Miami” list
touch a big cat (wild or captivity)
cycle “Ride the Rockies”
run a marathon
go sailing
be quoted in something published
apply for a patent
write/make a song of any genre (must be original)
visit every state in the United States
visit every inhabited continent (Antarctica not included)
experience 24 hours of darkness (outside)
experience 24 hours of daylight (outside)
see a VC-25 (or replacement)
attend Sensation White
visit the Vatican
see Mount Everest
touch an Egyptian pyramid
get an advanced degree
walk through “the wave”
bench press 150% of my weight
go up in a hot air balloon
solo water-ski (one ski)

It started as an Imperial Pilsner…

mkocsis — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 03:44:39 +0000

I started today trying to make a clone of Rogue’s Morimoto’s Imperial Pilsner, however things didn’t go exactly as planned. I somehow ordered brewmart pilsner malt, and when Scott and I tasted it before pouring it in the boiling water it tasted a bit bitter… After reading the ingredients I found that it was “hopped malt”. It didn’t say that anywhere, and when I ordered it that wasn’t marked. So we gave up on the clone and just made a hoppy pilsner (we added everything from the hop schedule from 15 minutes on). I also think we made a mistake with the malt amount, the clone recipe called for 10lbs of LME, however after using the 8lbs of the hopped malt the OG was 1.045 (reading more on the back of the can shows that this was expected). Looks like the imperial pilsner will need something on the order of 15lbs. Here’s the recipe:

5.5 Gallons Water
7.92lbs Czech Pisner malt (pre-hopped). Boil @ 45 minutes
Saaz pellet hops, 4.4% @ 15 minutes
Hallertauer flower hops, 5.8% @ 15 minutes
Saaz pellet hops, 2.6% @ 1 minute
Tettnang pellet hops, 4.4% @ 1 minute
Wyeast Czech Pilsner yeast

OG 1.045 @ 85F

We were able to cool the wort down well using a mound of snow on my patio. I also used the turkey fryer to bring the water up to boiling before bringing it inside and adding malt/hops, which saved us an hour.

We’ll see how this one turns out, It’ll probably be much hoppier than planned, but what’s brewing without a little experimentation?

Next up: Saison!

Places I need to visit

mkocsis — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:20:59 +0000

At least once a day I have an urge to go west and see some mountains, and while looking at the Wyoming/Montana/Idaho/North Dakota area I found some astounding places that I absolutely have to see.

Fish Lake, Bitterroot / Nez Perce Narional Forests. Darby, Montana

St. Mary Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana

Cathedral Spires, Custer State Park, South Dakota. (Also, Little Devil’s Tower)

Angel’s Landing, Zion National Park, Utah. (Trail to Angel’s Landing, Additional Photo)

Yosemite Back Country, Yosemite National Park, California

Duo Lake, Yukon, Canada (Much farther away than Montana) See also June Lake

Noatak River, Gates of the Artic National Park, Alaska

Vote for Change

mkocsis — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 01:11:05 +0000

Tuesday November 4, 2008: Vote for Change. Vote Obama-Biden.

www.voteforchange.com

Linn County Iowa Precinct Information, Linn County Iowa Polling Locations

Toxic

mkocsis — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:44:38 +0000

Thanks to everyone who came out to Toxic Thursdays on the 11th and 18th. We’ll let you know when we’re planning our next events in the CR / IC area!

Toxic Thursdays

Thursdays at Farras (320 E Burlington St. Iowa City)
Club – Dance – House
Dj Lash & DJ Embe
9pm – 2am
$2 at the door (19+)

Thursday September 11, 2008 & Thursday September 18, 2008

www.dj-embe.com

A Needed 50

mkocsis — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 21:23:24 +0000

I’ve been pretty busy over the last few weeks but I was still surprised today when I realized that It has been 4 weeks since my last ride. Some friends had a 26 mile route planned, meeting in Hiawatha and going up the Cedar Valley Trail to Center point to get tenderloin sandwiches at Joensy’s (return the same way). I met up with the group, rode to Center Point on a trail that quickly became dirt, and had a good grilled sandwich. I knew I needed a few more miles so I did a jog up to Walker, Troy Mills, and then came back the way I usually start my trips through Alburnett. Total mileage was about 50.3. I was feeling pretty tired when I got back and I realized I hadn’t stopped the bike since leaving Center Point (mile 18). I think I’m going to do something around 85 next weekend and follow it up with my previously planned trip to Dyersville, since I’m going to need a bit more training before taking on the 120 miler.

My Route

Quasqueton!

mkocsis — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:08:12 +0000

I was going through my movies a few weeks ago and I saw Field of Dreams; I couldn’t help but watch a few favorite parts. Last year on RAGBRAI XXXV we camped in Dyersville, however we never made it up to the field, so I decided that I wanted to go this summer. Driving, however, wouldn’t cut it.

The trip to the field is about 55 miles from Marion, it will probably be closer to 60 once I take into account some backroads needed to stay alive on a bicycle. In the summer of 2005 I did 3 back to back weekends: 55 miles, 100 miles, and 158 miles, so I knew I could make the 110-120 mile trip, I just needed a little training.

Last Saturday I decided I’d like to see a little more of Iowa between Marion and US 20, so I set out on an 82 mile loop at about 10am (I needed to wait for storms to pass). It was a great day for biking, cool and almost rainy in the morning and then sunny but still in the 70s all afternoon. My route took me 6.5 hours (which is still slower than my 12h 36m finish of the 158 mile RAIN 2005), and even as it got hard at the end I was having a good time. I got attacked (physically) by two of those black and red birds this time, so I might have to grab a new helmet next year (one that isn’t back and red).

My Route: Marion – Alburnett – Central City – Coggon – Robinson – Monti – Quasqueton (halfway point) – Rowley – Urbana – Center Point – Robins – Marion. Unfortunately, Routes 13 (Central City to Coggon) and 150 (Rowley – Urbana) were busy 2-lane state routes, so I’ll have to avoid them next time.

Route

Next Saturday I plan on heading up to Dyersville via: Marion – Anamosa – Buck Creek – Delhi – Delaware – Earlville – Dyersville, and I’ll try to return: Dyersville – Earlville – Delaware – Buck Creek – Prarieburg – Central City – Alburnett – Marion. We’ll see if I have to call someone to rescue me.

Route There (65.6 Miles)

Route Back (63.9 Miles)

Also, while I was out on Saturday, my new GPS unit came. John recommended this unit to me, so I purchased a Qstarz BT-Q1000P GPS logger. It can act as an external unit for a PC or a Pocket PC, or just run in log mode and store data points (it’s not a navigation device). I tested it last night running around my neighborhood and it performed exceptionally. Plotting the coordinates on Google Earth, it even displayed me running on the correct side of the road. I’ll put it to use on this next bike trip to get some real statistics.