The Chris Phelan Chronicle

Google Base Profile

I tried to put my profile in Wikipedia the other day. Wikipedia is showing up in the top search results frequently so I thought I would try and improve my standing with Google by inputting my own profile. The Wikipedia editors deleted it because it was a "vanity profile." I guess unless someone other than you puts your profile in and unless you are an interesting person (I am I swear) then Wikipedia is not interested in your profile. That makes sense since they are supposed to be an encyclopedia. Anyway, I decided that the Internet is in dire need of a Chris Phelan Profile so I put one in Google Base . I think their profile section is targeting the dating scene, it has one field that asks for your sexual orientation for example. I put my professional profile in anyway and a photo named chris_phelan.jpg in the hopes that it will show up in the images section of Google. Take a look at the profile here.

DAJ Annual Holiday Party at the Pink Cow

The Democrates Japan held their annual holiday party. I showed up for the first time this year. It was held at the Pink Cow which is a great place to eat here in Tokyo. While we were there a young US soldier came over to our area and introduced himself. We bought him a couple of drinks and thanked him for serving our country then went on to tell him what issues we have with George Bush. He shared many of them and is leaning Democrat now!

More photos in the photo album.

Typepad Outage

Typepad had a pretty big outage on Friday late afternoon. They were down until Saturday and even then some photo files were not restored until Sunday. That tells me that Typepad does not have a fully redundant hot failover system in place. They have the data backed up but it requires a lot of manual processes to failover and restore full functionality.  This is pretty typical of a lot of Internet companies. They skimp on complete redundancy and just keep their fingers crossed hoping that they do not suffer a catestrophic systems failure. I am sure that Typepad's management and technical people will be huddled in a meeting room on Monday morning with management demanding to know how this happened and the tech team saying they have been trying to escalate this for months.  Now they will have to buck up and pay to have their systems upgraded after severly damaging their brand and pissing off their customers. Bet they wish they had not been so cheap and had paid for real redundancy earlier, it would have saved them a lot of money.

GOL & Exodus Reunion!

A bunch of GOL and Exodus employees and former employees got together for a bit of a reunion party at the Maple Leaf in Shibuya. It was good to catch up with everyone. Former employees have branched out across the IT industry and are working in all kinds of exciting companies. Its great to see everyone is doing so well. Lots more photos in the photo album on the left.

Softbank IDC Construction

Softbank IDC are doing a lot of construction on their Internet Data Center in Shinjuku Gyoen Mae. I hear that they are going to be doing a lot of upgrades such as adding new power redundancy and back up generators. This data center has had some power and air conditioning limitations since it was refitted by Exodus Communications back in the bubble days. It is a great Data Center though. Vanten hosts its servers here. More photos in the side bar.

Chris Phelan's Irish Stew

I just uploaded this recipe to Google Base last Friday.

Description
This is a delicious recipe for Irish Stew. There are so many variations of Irish Stew.
Some include cabbage and some don't. Some use mutton, other use lamb.
This is my favorite way to prepare Irish Stew.

1 Kilo of Lamb shoulder (2.2 pounds)
6 Potatos, medium sized
3 Large carrots
1/2 Cabbage
Salt
Pepper
3 Table spoons of soy sauce
I Bay Leaf

Trim any fat from the lamb shoulder and cut into 4 pieces.
Peel the six potatos and cut in halves.
Peel the carrots and cut in to round pieces.
Cut half of a cabbage into quarters.
Cut one large onion in half.
Arrange all of the ingredients in a large sturdy pot or dutch oven.
Add Salt and Pepper.
Cover the ingredients with cold water. Heat the ingredients to the point
where the water is just below boiling temperature. Let the stew cook
for one and half hours. About 5 minutes before you are ready to serve
the stew, put the bay leaf in the pot and add the soy sauce. This adds
a bit of a fresh flavor just before you serve the stew.
Serves 4 or 5 adults.

Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License

Vanten at LEISURE & SERVICE INDUSTRY EXHIBITION 2005

Vanten is providing a Digital Signage Solution to a company called JumpZone. They have a really cool bungie trampoline which lets people bounce around in what looks like a giant baby bouncer. Vanten's Digital Signage is in the middle of this photo. The 3 D Asahi Beer signs were produced by Generation Create, a partner of Vanten's. Take a look at some more photos from the show in the "Photo  Albums" section on the left side of this page.

Google Base

I have been experimenting with a new Google service called Google Base. It is still in beta but will probably be a huge success after it officially launches. What you can do is put any kind of information into Google Base and it hosts it and makes it searchable online. I have done a bit of experimenting with it and have added a few of my original recipes. If you go to Google Base and search for any of the following recipes you will learn the secrets of my incredible culinary masterpieces.

Chris Phelan's Lamb Shoulder Tomato Stew

Chris Phelan's Chinese Chicken Wings

Chris Phelan's Oyster Sauce Bacon Spinach

I have put my name  in the titles of all of my recipes so that searching for  "Chris Phelan"  will return all of my recipes on one search results page.  That makes it easier for family and friends to find out what I am up to in the kitchen.

I have posted all of these recipes under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. That means that people are free to copy and reproduce my recipes