© James Martin/CNET

Being a Trekie, I was stoked that Star Trek: The Exhibition was coming to town, specifically to The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California. So after a bit of prodding Andrea, we made plans to go see it on Halloween, Saturday, October 31.The cool thing is that the Tech Museum of Innovation temporarily redid their 15,000 square-foot layout to accommodate all the Star Trek props, models, and information spanning five television series and eleven movies, essentially a geek’s wet dream. I didn’t bring my camera, as the website specifically said “NO PHOTOGRAPHY” of any kind, but upon arrival, a number of people had brought in their point-and-shoot cameras and no one stopped them, although I think my professional dSLR would certainly have drawn much more unwanted attention, so instead, I will link to photos taken by James Martin for CNET.

You start out in the lobby, where you pay $25 (!) per person (!) to get in, so the initial cost was $50 for Andrea and I to get in. Afterwards, you go down a hallway and enter the exhibit, which is self-guided with no audio tour option. You start out in the first area seeing display cases of the Star Trek: The Original Series (ST: TOS) uniforms and a huge U.S.S. Enterprise-A in the middle of the room. In addition, spread throughout the room are various other props such as communicators, tricorders, phasers, etc. Above the uniforms display are monitors with more information about the uniform or a famous character who wore that specific type of uniform.

The next stop takes you to a life-size recreation of the original Enterprise’s bridge complete with the Captain’s chair; sadly, from what I can tell, the control buttons only light up, as I was unable to raise shields or hail anyone. You can also get your photo taken sitting in the Captain’s chair.

From there you move into a corridor that has wall hangings detailing various information such as “Warp” and tidbits about the meaning and creation. You also can read character bios, as these hangings are strung throughout with the next area brings you to more movie props and uniforms and also a. As you continue walking, suddenly you are in one of the hallways of the starship Enterprise-D with a recreation of the transporter room where you can actually be “beamed” from one part to another and also get a picture taken.

After you continue down the hallways, you’re led out to the largest and final room of the Star Trek: The Exhibition where there are large size models of a Vor’Cha Klingon battle cruiser next to the Excellisor starship. There is also a scale model of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D, various shuttle crafts, and a huge display detailing the entire Star Trek universe time-line and how each television series and movie fit in.

After you finishing, there is an exit out to mini Star Trek gift shop, in addition to two ride simulators which you have to pay an extra $5. We opted not to go on it because Andrea is pregnant. I should also mention that for an extra $8 per person you can watch the Star Trek movie on the Tech Museum’s IMAX theater.

All-in-all, being a Trekie, I was actually underwhelmed and unimpressed. For $25 a person and a leisurely diversion of about an hour and a half, I was expecting a bit more, perhaps a theater production on the bridge or a at-the-end shuttle simulator as you get at Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas, which sadly, is no longer operating. It was OK, not great, not bad, but could have been better in my opinion. Live long and prosper.

Years later as I started getting back into this past-time and having had a number of cigar brands, I was beginning to understand and develop what I liked in terms of taste so I figured it was time to take a whack at the Opus X. I stopped into a semi-local B&M store at Valley Faire Mall in San Jose that I knew would have some in stock and ended up picking up the Opus X Reserve de Chateau, a churchill length cigar and it stayed in my humidor for a measly thirteen days before I decided it was time to try this baby out.

Fuente Fuente Opus X Reserve de Chateau

Appearance & Construction

First glance at the Opus X Reserve de Chateau and you can’t help but marvel at how beautifully constructed this vitola is: very few veins, very solidly built, no imperfections, with a great looking triple cap reminiscent of a Cuban cigar. In short, it’s a Dominican Republic cigar with the beauty of a Cuban.

The Opus X cigar band has to be one of the most beautiful cigar bands I’ve ever seen. Bold colors such as gold and red adorn the intricately designed band definitely letting you know this is no ordinary cigar, but a premium cigar. No detail was left out here.

I was able to get an inch and a quarter of nice white ash, a testament to the build quality, before it broke off when I accidentally placed it down a little too rough on my ashtray to take a picture.

Flavor & Smoke

After snipping off a bit of the cap and lighting the Churchill, the initial draw is very smooth. It is very easy to get a lot of smoke with this cigar given it’s length and easy draw. I would classify this cigar as a medium bodied smoke with the main taste being coffee beans with a touch of earthy taste, which lasted throughout. Just as a note, my beverage of choice was Diet Coke (usually is whether I’m smoking cigars or not).

After smoking the Opus X Reserve de Chateau for two hours, I finally decided to put it down despite having at least another 30-45 minutes left. The two main reasons for this was 1) it kept going out and the final time it went out, I was tired of having to re-light it, and 2) the predominantly coffee bean taste became boring to me. I can now appreciate cigars of the Churchill and Coronas Grande size such as the Cohiba Siglo III I had awhile back, changes taste midway keeping the smoke interesting and lively.

Value

At about $36 USD a stick, I found this cigar to be overpriced and this specific stick over-hyped, read the next section to see why I think so.

Conclusion

I was very excited when I purchased this Opus X Churchill given all the great things many have to say about the Opus X line, but sadly I was disappointed. For $36, you get a beautifully looking vitola with an equally beautiful band, but most cigar aficionados care more about the taste than looks.

One of the most annoying problems I was having with the Opus X was keeping it lit. It went out a total of no less than four times requiring constant re-light. I would take a deep draw every few seconds and had set it down twice for a mere ten seconds at most, take another draw and found that it was starting to go out. In one case, I was a able to save it and not have to re-light, but in the other four cases, I was left with a cold tobacco taste you get when a cigar has gone out and you take a deep draw. Granted it was a bit cold out (59 degrees Fahrenheit), but not windy. In the other cases it went out, I was holding it in my hand as I was watching video on my laptop. When it would stay lit, I had to spend quite a bit of time correcting the burn as one side would occasionally burn a bit faster than the other, couldn’t figure out why.

I’m willing to believe that quite possibly the Opus X I purchased might have been a fluke or I didn’t let it age long enough in my humidor, but I don’t think I will be trying the Reserve de Chateau anytime soon again, but rather I might try the Opus X robusto, since I’ve started becoming a fan of the Robusto size cigars.

Either the Opus X Reserve de Chateau is a rare cigar, or many do not prefer this Churchill as I’m not able to find many online reviews, but you can read the two I did find:

• Cigar Monkey
• Cigar Friendly

Easy: it is a Maduro cigar and I don’t like those full-bodied cigar, until I tried it today. I figured this cigar might have been a bit too strong in taste for my liking, but I’m glad I took the plunge and tried my very first full bodied Maduro cigar. Goes to show you that you really can judge a book by it’s cover. I also apologize for the lack of my own pictures, I was expecting to be disappointed with this cigar and didn’t bring my camera out. Instead enjoy some of Tom’s great pics of the CAO MX2 on his blog.

CAO MX2

Appearance & Construction

First two things you quickly notice with the CAO MX2 Toro is that it’s a BIG cigar (52 ring by 6 inches). Then it has a gorgeous dark chocolate wrapper that for the last two years have been intimidating for me as I prefer the mild to medium body taste. The CAO is beautifully constructed with a decent amount of veins in the wrapper, but nicely rolled with no visible defects. The cap is nicely applied. Squeezing about, there aren’t any soft spots and it feels nicely packed with tobacco.

One of the neat features of CAO’s MX2 line is that the outer wrapper is a Connecticut Maduro wrapper with a Brazilian Maduro binder which is the significance of “MX2″ or “Maduro times 2″ (Tom’s Cigar).

Flavor & Smoke

I lit the Toro with my dual flame Blazer butane and it lit nicely without any problems. One of the first things I noticed was the heavy gray smoke that appeared, no mistaking this for a mild or medium flavored cigar. The initial draw surprised me: it was full bodied but not overpowering taste of pepper and coffee with some slight dark chocolate. As I continued to take more puffs, I was surprised at how creamy, rich, and satisfying the taste was, the aftertaste was very similar to what you would get after having a piece of dark chocolate. Prior to this, I never fully understood what other cigar aficionados meant when they described a cigar with “complex flavors” and now I know. The pepper, coffee bean, and dark chocolate taste continued consistently until halfway the dark chocolate taste started becoming a bit stronger, certainly not a bad thing.

The CAO MX2 continued to burn fairly evenly requiring very few burn adjustments, most likely caused by the windy weather of the day. The ash produced was mostly white and it was strong enough to stay for about an inch at a time before breaking off, also most likely caused by the slight windiness.

The draw was quite smooth and it’s very easy to draw in a large amount of smoke. The MX2 didn’t go out once as I occasional have happen with the H.Upmann Magnum 46 Cuban cigars.

Value

At Cigars Direct, the cost for a 5-pack is $35.00 and a box of 20 for $109.95 which, in my opinion, is a great value for a Maduro cigar that taste great, looks greats, and is a nice long smoke. I’ve heard from numerous online reviews that you can’t really go wrong with CAO cigars.

Conclusion

I didn’t get an opportunity to enjoy the CAO MX2 Toro for as long as I would like. This is definitely not a breakfast or lunch cigar (which was my mistake for trying), but rather for after dinner. I did not smoke the cigar down to the nub, rather choosing to stop about a quarter inch, if not less, from the band as I was running out of time and the flavor started getting stronger and I didn’t want to get sick. This is one of those cigars where when you feel it’s time to stop, it’s best to listen and stop. I made the mistake of ignoring that once and was rewarded with a good few hours of nausea and slight stomachache.

When I had stopped, the timer on my iPhone indicated it took me 48 minutes to get to that point; not surprising for a cigar of this size and heft. Your time may vary as it depends on how many and how long each draw you take. Obviously cigar smoking isn’t a race to the nub for me as it is something I do in enjoyment so I like to take my time with puffs.

Now that I’ve had this full bodied cigar from CAO and turned out to really like it, I certainly would have no problems recommending this to my cigar buddies and even picking up a box for my humidor, especially given the price. The flavors and length of time it takes to smoke the MX2 toro means this won’t necessarily be a daily smoke for me, but I would imagine reaching for it when I’m looking for something different or hanging out with friends. I’m starting to have an affinity for Robusto sized cigars and fortunately CAO MX2 has a Robusto offering which I may consider trying.

I’m now open to trying other full bodied cigars and speaking of which, I was recently given some Montecristo Edmundo Cuban cigars, which are medium-to-full bodied cigars I’m itching to try now. On the same note, from what I’ve read and experienced, Cuban cigars tend to be a bit stronger than the non-Cubans in the same taste. For example, the Hoyo de Monterrey Excalibur No. II cigars I occasionally smoke are mild-to-medium bodied as are the H.Upmann Magnum 46 Cubans, but the Magnum 46 has a stronger taste. So I’m expecting the Montecristo Edmundos to be as strong or stronger in taste than the CAO MX2.

You can read more expert reviews of the CAO MX2 Toro at:

• Tom’s Cigar
• Cigar Aficionado Forum
• Smokenspirits.com
• CigarObsession.com

What is the appeal of the Cuban cigar? Most non-cigar smokers would say it’s because they’re forbidden fruit as you can’t legally buy any Cuban cigars because of the 1962 U.S. Trade Embargo against Cuba, but that aside, many cigar hobbyist (such as myself) and aficionados would agree it’s more than that. From the way the Cuban cigars are hand-rolled to the specific tobacco leaves used, they are a treat unlike any other cigars, except a few non-Cuban brands such as Fuente (most notably, the Opus X) and Padron.

My favorite brand is Cohiba (not to be confused with General Cigar’s Cohiba brand), long a favorite to Fidel Castro as he had a hand in the brand’s development, you can read the story here. Now unless your name is Michael Jordan or Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cohiba cigars aren’t really for daily smokes, but rather special occasions such as anniversaries, weddings, and the birth of a child, as they are bit costly; and in some ways, they are actually overrated. Don’t get me wrong, they are an incredible smoke, but overrated in price because of brand recognition: think Nike. Fortunately there are a number of other Cuban brands that are equally as good such as Ramon Allones and H.Upmann. My favorite daily smoke (I actually only smoke a cigar once a week or once every two weeks unlike my abnormal addiction to Diet Coke) happens to be the H.Upmann Magnum 46, a mild to medium flavored cigar. Please note that by no means am I an expect in cigars and this review is merely my thoughts and opinions.

H.Upmann Magnum 46

Appearance & Construction

The H.Upmann Magnum 46 is a beautiful constructed Habana Coronas Gordas cigar with very small and few leaf veins meaning a very high quality tobacco leaf. It’s a 46 ring gauge that is 5.6 inches (143mm) long making it a great cigar to smoke with friends or after dinner. For me, this isn’t quite a lunch time smoke because average smoking time is 50-100 minutes. The Magnum 46 is packed nicely with a lot of tobacco and rolled just tight enough so that the draw is effortless smooth.

It features the well known triple-cap that you would expect from an authentic Cuban with very little to no flaws in it’s construction. It has a nice, slightly natural oily wrapper (as good to great cigars should meaning that the cigar’s wrapper leaf isn’t dried out). The wrapper is a nice consistent shade of milk chocolate brown; I should note that with all Cuban cigars, the wrapper should be a consistent color all around, any discoloration can suggest a fake Cuban cigar.

Squeezing the cigar at various points, there is a nice solid, firm (but not too firm) feel. The Magnum 46 features a double band, one being the H.Upmman logo band, applied nicely and looks gorgeous. Underneath it is another band indicating that the cigar is a Magnum 46.

Flavor

I’ve always been more of a mild-flavor cigar smoker, but have started become more drawn to the mild-medium, medium, and even medium-full body flavor as of recent as they’re aren’t really any mild-body flavor Cubans. Most other cigar sites say that the Magnum 46 has a creamy, little spicy, coffee bean, with a hint of chocolate taste, to which I must concur. The taste is consistent until the last 1/3 of the cigar when it starts picking up a bit more taste. If you smoke the Magnum 46 until about the nub, be prepared for a slight nicotine buzz that gives you that nice relaxed and overall happy feeling.

Value

As Cuban cigars are illegal to purchase, I can’t really say much for price. But from what I’ve heard, it’s quite affordable for Cuban cigars. The price ranges I’ve heard are $10 USD for a single stick to about ~$7 USD per stick for a box of 25. That compared to a similar type Cohiba, the Siglo IV that cost ~$13.40 USD per stick or ~$11.40 USD per stick for a box of 25!

Conclusion

There really isn’t bad to say about the H.Upmann Magnum 46. As I mentioned, this is my daily smoke cigar whereas I reserve the Cohiba for special occasions. I haven’t met anyone or read anything negative about the Magnum 46. One thing I have noticed, and has been reported, there has been some issues with Cuban quality control. The box of 25 I was given had 2 cigars that were slightly “bent” because the ribbon was tied a bit too tight, but they smoked fine without any issues. Obviously if they were a Cohiba box of 25, I would certainly be much more irritated given the cost. Also, the Magnum 46 box of 25 comes in a SLB (slide lid box) that is very nicely constructed with all the Habana stickers of authenticity.

I have no qualms on recommending these to my friends or anyone who is legally able to purchase the H.Upmann Magnum 46.

You can also read these other reviews by cigar aficionados who are certainly more expert than me: Cigar Inspector, HumiBlog.com, and Friends of Habanos.

H.Upmann Magnum 46 Pictures

This took a bit for me to figure out, had me banging my head for a little awhile. I’m on Media Temple (dv) Dedicated Virtual hosting and have two installations of WordPress Multi-User (MU) each pointing to a different IP address. One day, I was trying to upload a file via FireZilla FTP to my /wp-contents/blogs.dir/[blog.id]/ folder and it said permission denied. I thought that was odd, but stupidly did a CHOWN on the entire httpdocs folder (this is Media Temple’s public_html folder) to set it to the account user. Problem solved. Unfortunately then the WordPress Media uploader stopped function and I was getting the message: “The uploaded file could not be moved to the upload folder.”

So did a Google search and found a few informative forum threads discussing the problem and possible solutions:

• CHMOD the wp-content folder to 777, which is a HUGE security risk. I don’t recommend you do this, but it works for some people.
• CHMOD the wp-content folder to 755, doesn’t really work
• CHOWN the blogs.dir folder to nobody, BINGO!

So the answer turns out to be that the blogs.dir folder’s ownership has to be set to nobody or essentially the server. If the ownership is set to the user account, you are able to upload content to the blogs.dir folder, but WordPress Media Uploader can no longer. So to solve the problem, I SSH into the server and browsed to the wp-content folder and:

chown apache blogs.dir -R

Afterwards, the WordPress Media Uploader was able to upload files once again. It’s funny because WPMU version 2.8.1 and prior never had an issue like this, so not sure what was changed.

But my sister got it and Andrea and I didn’t have any other movie choices to choose from, so what the hell, it can’t be that bad right?The premise of the Yes Man seems quite stupid and unimaginative: a guy who says yes to everything. Well turns out time after time I haven’t yet learned not to judge a book by it’s cover; turns out Yes Man is actually funny and fun. I don’t think any other actor but Jim Carey could play the title character who works as a loan processor at who has a boss (Rhys Darby) who could best be described as Austin Powers, both in look, speech, and quirkiness.

The story goes as such, Carl Allen (Jim Carey) is a reclusive divorcee who works as a loan processor at a bank and avoids any kind of social life and neglects his friends until his best friend, Peter (Bradley Cooper) manages to drag Carl to a bar, where Peter announces he and his girlfriend are engaged. There he runs into his ex-wife, Stephanie (Molly Sims) who is there with her boyfriend and having a great time. This further depresses Carl and makes him more reclusive until one day, while taking a break in front of his bank, he runs into an old friend Nick (John Michael Higgins) who tells Carl about his life has changed because of this seminar he attended. Carl brushes this off and think no more about it. Eventually things continue to get worse for Carl and he decides to see what this Yes! seminar is all about and meets motivation Yes! guru Terrence Bundley (Terence Stamp) who convinces Carl that he should stop being a “No Man” and become a Yes! Man. From there the movie continues to take interesting twists that include happy ending with an elderly woman, speaking Korean, Iranian mail-order bride, Harry Potter, singing, and so much more that had Andrea and I laughing at times unexpectedly. I don’t want to give away any more as it’s a worthwhile movie to see.

I had forgotten how good Jim Carey really is. There is a certain everyday guy quality to Jim Carey that makes him come off as genuinely funny and not Seinfeld scripted funny. There are lots of nuances about his acting that are improvised in the movie that makes him fun to watch.

So if you’re looking for a lighthearted comedy/love-story movie to watch with the misses on the couch, I certainly recommend renting Yes Man as you’ll be in for a laugh riot treat with a nice love story.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There are some rare cases that I do need to have more than 1 FTP account and while you can’t do anything about it with Plesk, fortunately by SSHing into your (dv), you can create multiple FTP accounts. I found these directions on Marc Grabanski’s website who found the directions on Parallels’ knowledge base and I’m going to reproduce the directions here on my website for my reference (and others). And in case it isn’t obvious, you replace USER_NAME with the actual user name you wish to use.

ssh domain.tld -l root
/usr/sbin/useradd -d /your_domain/some/location -s /bin/false USER_NAME
/usr/sbin/usermod -G psacln USER_NAME
chmod 755 $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/some/location
chown USER_NAME:psacln $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/some/location
chmod 751 $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/httpdocs
passwd USER_NAME

Also one user, Dan, noted that if you don’t set the user password first, it chowns it to the user without a password and won’t allow you to connect, so he recommends this:

ssh domain.tld -l root
/usr/sbin/useradd -d /your_domain/some/location -s /bin/false USER_NAME
passwd USER_NAME
/usr/sbin/usermod -G psacln USER_NAME
chmod 755 $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/some/location
chown USER_NAME:psacln $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/some/location
chmod 751 $HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/your_domain/httpdocs

Barry has a number of great posts on his blog that might be helpful for the WordPress developer such as:

• How to make a more stylish search widget
• Hacking KSES
• How To: WordPress 2.3 upgrade via SVN on Media Temple Grid Server
• Snippet of the day: Selective code loading for plugins

So if you get a chance, check out Barry’s blog at http://blog.clearskys.net and be sure to bookmark it for future reference, I did.

With a little Google magic, I stumbled upon this post by Perishable Press which details how you can use WordPress built-in function, wp_rss(), which negates the need for another plugin. On their site, they show you how you can do it in three ways: the easy way, the advanced way, and a way with SimplePie. I chose the advanced method and this is what I used, copied verbatim from Perishable Press’ post, that worked great for my needs:

<?php
include_once(ABSPATH.WPINC.'/rss.php'); // path to include script
$feed = fetch_rss('http://domain.tld/your-feed/'); // specify feed url
$items = array_slice($feed->items, 0, 7); // specify first and last item
?>

<?php if (!empty($items)) : ?>
<?php foreach ($items as $item) : ?>

<h2><a href="<?php echo $item['link']; ?>"><?php echo $item['title']; ?></a></h2>
<p><?php echo $item['description']; ?></p>

<?php endforeach; ?>
<?php endif; ?>

I changed the $feed to match my website’s feed. I also changed the $items to 0, 3 because I only wanted the latest 3 posts. I removed the <?php echo $item['description']; ?> because I only wanted the titles to show. With that, I had the latest three posts coming into my front page which is a WordPress page designated as the home page and uses a custom page template. I definitely recommend visiting Perishable Press’s post to see all the different ways you can call a post using the wp_rss() function.

You can also try this solution by Corvid Works which is meant for non-WordPress pages.