My car and I got into a wreck on Friday. I've had worse collisions in an amusement park, but Blue Lightning is going to be at the body shop for a little while. Let's hope that this isn't the start of a trend...
July 2006 Archives
I just realized that the end of last month was the 3rd anniversary of the first post in this blog. Don't bother going back to read it, this blog isn't that interesting. There has been only one real high point of this blog, one that has escaped the notice of all of my friends, no doubt, because it is in fact a comment that was made long after the entry.
Most such comments are spam, and indeed I just deleted over 200 spam comments. But this one is gold.
Look at this post right here. Then read the comment. That sound you are now hearing is Eric screaming "NOOOOOOOOO!" as he realizes that an editor at Modern Bride Magazine found my website.
I didn't know whether to put this one here, or wait 17 days until their anniversary, but I figure I should come up with something positive, upbeat, and not at all homicidally inspiring for the happy couple.
(Two posts in such close proximity, scary isn't it?)
Other quick news I forgot in the last post.
I sprained my left thumb a month ago, it still hasn't regained all of it's range of motion.
My hair is getting long. Jen said something about a Musketeer, while Kat is making pirate references. I think I might just be lazy and enjoying my hair while I still have it.
That is all.
I'm not dead, I just haven't updated my blog in 3 or 4 months. Mostly because my life is fairly boring these days. I see the same thing happening with all of my friends that got real jobs. In any case, my most recent adventures include a trip to Chicago with Kat, a new brew, and the continuation of both work and slack.
Chicago was a good trip, though contrary to all good sense I drove to the city and in the city rather than taking a train there and then going everywhere by the good graces of the CTA. However, as our major targets were on Lake Shore Dr, easily reachable from 55, all was well with the world. On Friday we went to the Museum of Science and Industry, which, to be completely honest, was not that cool. There were two exhibits there that are definitely worth mentioning however. The first is the computing and networks exhibit. They did a great job making this accessable. The second exhibit was the U-505, a captured German U-boat from WWII. There was a da Vinci exhibit there, but I was fairly unimpressed overall. The production values were very high, but it didn't do anything for me.
After this, we bushwhacked our way to Fogo de Chao. Still the best restaurant I've ever been in, still worth every penny. We met up with some folks from Chicago that we had met via my favored time wasting device and had a good old time.
The next day we went to the Field Museum of Natural History. This was awesome. The evolution exhibit was great, the wildlife exhibits were great, and the cultural exhibits were great. They had some kind of King Tut thing going on, but I wasn't particularly interested in that. I can't say enough good things about the Field Museum. It was awesome.
Brewing wise, after we got back from Chicago, I threw together what I hope will become a quite tasty vanilla mead, the recipe for which I shall relate below.
Work goes, I like my work, and it likes me, so that's pretty much that.
Slack is generally playing video games, with the occasional foray into fishing, and the much more common foray into cooking. I need to work on making working out part of my slack time.
On the other hand, at the moment my chest really hurts if I cough, breath deeply, or stretch. As these could be interpreted as signs of Pleurisy, and I haven't been working out in any way that would cause me to be sore, I shall have to get that checked out tomorrow. Don't you just love the internet? It's made such wonderful hypochondriacs out of us!
Vanilla Mead (to receive a catchy name upon bottling and labelling)
Start date: 7.2.06
15 lbs clover honey
12 lbs ice
3 gallons water
1 cup vanilla extract
1 tsp acid blend
1.5 tsp yeast energizer
1 vial White Labs Sweet Mead/Wind Yeast (#WLP720)
Sanitize it all, you know the drill.
Heat two gallons of water in a large pot over the stove and add the honey.
Bring the honey mixture to ~160*F for a half an hour to pasteurize.
Add the ice to cool the mixture and add volume.
You should now have 3.5 gallons of liquid, plus the volume of your honey (~1.25 gallons)
Stir in the acid blend, yeast energizer, and vanilla extract.
Pour into primary fermenter.
When the temperature is OK, pitch the yeast and add however much of the last gallon of water you need to make it to the amount you want in your fermenter. Should reach about 5 gallons.
It will be one week since starting tomorrow, and I plan on racking it off to get it off it's sediment, tasting, and perhaps adding a bit more yeast nutrient if it's too sweet.
