Today's cover song is a cover of Gimme Shelter written by The Rolling Stones and performed by The Sisters of Mercy.

Not sure how to describe The Sisters of Mercy (SoM to their friends) to my American readers. They have a unique sound of their own. There's lots of goth and punk in there, but with a dab of electronica and a healthy portion of rock, all stirred together and served with sunglasses. An acquired taste to be sure, but one I happily acquired back in my black t-shirt wearing days. I was as likely to be listening to SoM as the Clash or Iron Maiden, so use that as your guide, but I do recommend giving them a try.

This is an experiment. My friend Justin and I have a shared love of hot sauces and have spoken on many occasions about starting a website or a blog where we can opine about such things. I just happened to receive this bottle of hot sauce from a member of my congregation when they returned from vacation to the Bahamas. I have a cheeky habit of asking people to bring me a bottle of the local hot sauce instead of a postcard, and I am very thankful that most people humor me and my requests.

This sauce is spicy, but not too hot. It has a nice mix of peppers, but nothing too strong like Habanero peppers. The ingredient list shows Pirate Pepper, Bird Pepper and Chili Pepper. It also has some carrot which is one of the magic ingredients that tame the heat in a hot sauce while preserving the flavor.

Excessive branching has long been a problem in the use of source code management systems. First, because branches were difficult and expensive (in effort) in Subversion and then because they had a tendency to proliferate in Git once they were made almost effortless.

There are a few situations where branches make sense, but generally they cause mini-silos that obscure more than they help. I stumbled upon this talk from Thierry de Pauw and I liked it so much, I had to share it here. Despite the click-bait title, he sticks to a comprehensive explanation of why trunk-based development makes sense and how it avoids the mini-silo problem of feature branching.

Taken with a 4MP Olympus C4040Z. This was the view that greeted me when I left Dodgeville Hospital the morning after the birth of our second child, Kate. She had been born the evening before. I'd taken lots of pictures and was scurrying home to upload pictures for my parents to see back in England. This was in 2002 and the layout of the hospital was different. The primary entrance for those going in or out of the maternity ward was at the back of the hospital and it overlooked a wonderful scene of rolling farmland. On this particular morning my timing was perfect and as I looked up after walking through the doors, I saw a most amazing sunrise. I had my camera in my hand, lifted it up, took a single picture and then continued on home to download pictures of Kate. It wasn't until later that I looked at the picture and loved it as soon as I saw it. Perhaps not the best composition I could have made, although looking at it now, I got most of the basics right, but certainly a picture with lots of meaning and memories for me.

A larger version is available

Taken with a 4MP Olympus C4040Z. This farm is on the outskirts of Burlington, WI, visible from Highway 11 (old Highway 11, since the bypass was built). I would see it every time I visited my wife back when we were courting and always thought it was a delightfully picturesque scene. One time when visiting my inlaws, we had a quiet day and I decided to go and see if I could get a good picture of it. I like how it turned out and my wife liked it so much that she asked me to get a large print made, matted and framed. It now hangs in our den and looks very nice.

A larger version is available